00:00:08 ◼ ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 290. Upgrade today is brought to you by Indeed.
00:00:20 ◼ ► Hello Myke Hurley, how are you? I'm very well, very well indeed. Today's sponsors are Pingdom, ExpressVPN, TextExpander and Ooni.
00:00:27 ◼ ► Jason, I have a #SnellTalk question to begin today's episode that has come from myself because every now and then...
00:00:38 ◼ ► ...and just ask it on my own. And I want to know, because I think this is going to be important for today's episode,
00:00:56 ◼ ► and I got to... I got a trackball in my powerbook when I... when the first powerbooks came out,
00:01:10 ◼ ► there was an editor there who had a Kensington trackball and I really liked that. And when she
00:01:16 ◼ ► left, she left the trackball behind. I was like, "I want that, I want that." And that was my trackball.
00:01:21 ◼ ► And I used a trackball after that. I really liked the control and the kind of big arm gestures and
00:01:28 ◼ ► not the fine, like, tense movements of gripping a mouse that I was just kind of like rolling the
00:01:33 ◼ ► ball around on the screen. And then the trackpads happened and the magic trackpad happened. And that
00:01:40 ◼ ► was basically converted me to using a trackpad because it gave me a lot of the same kind of feel
00:01:44 ◼ ► as the trackball did. And trackballs were not as good, they got weirder and worse over time.
00:01:50 ◼ ► The last one I had had like a bunch of buttons and I had a weird like wheel on it separately for a
00:01:56 ◼ ► scroll wheel because the concept of a scroll wheel didn't really work with a trackball. And then I
00:02:01 ◼ ► made the switch. And so I've been using magic trackpads since the first magic trackpad came out
00:02:06 ◼ ► and I use the magic trackpad too today. So I'm all in on those. I've never... I've not regularly
00:02:12 ◼ ► used a mouse since like 19... since the early 90s let's say. A long, a very long time since
00:02:21 ◼ ► I've used a mouse. It was a trackball and then a trackpad. Interesting. Obviously, I mean,
00:02:27 ◼ ► I rotate quite a lot with my devices but my absolute favorite is a Wacom tablet. So I use
00:02:33 ◼ ► the Wacom Intuos Pro. For similar things that you were saying about like big arm movements,
00:02:39 ◼ ► less fine motor control is one of the reasons I really like using a Wacom. RSI aside, like
00:02:47 ◼ ► and there is RSI, but aside from that I found the mouse, you know, that gripping that mouse,
00:02:55 ◼ ► and maybe it's the way I did it, but like gripping that mouse and doing fine movements and all of
00:02:59 ◼ ► that was really fatiguing. Even as a teenager or somebody in my early 20s it was fatigue. It'd be
00:03:06 ◼ ► devastating now as somebody who's in my 40s, but back at the time it was still fatiguing to just
00:03:13 ◼ ► tense those muscles and I felt like, yeah, like it was something about like bigger movements and
00:03:25 ◼ ► So if you would like to send in a question to help us open an episode of Upgrade just send out
00:03:31 ◼ ► a tweet with the hashtag #snotalk and it will be included. And if Myke doesn't have a question
00:03:35 ◼ ► that he wants to ask me he might ask your question. It's typically the other way around,
00:03:40 ◼ ► but I take your point. Obviously we have a lot of new Apple products to talk about today and a lot
00:03:44 ◼ ► of new interesting things happening with Apple products, but we should talk about Coronavirus
00:03:52 ◼ ► because you can't get away from it. COVID-19 is affecting the entire planet right now. We hope
00:03:57 ◼ ► that you out there, listener, are staying away from people and washing your hands. They are the
00:04:03 ◼ ► two pieces of advice we will give you. So do that as much as absolutely possible. Remain indoors.
00:04:07 ◼ ► Remain indoors if you can. And we're sure that we have many of our listeners working from home.
00:04:14 ◼ ► So again, if you want to get any tips from us when working at home, if you've got any questions,
00:04:22 ◼ ► things that I want to talk about in regards to COVID-19 today. So we had mentioned on our last
00:04:27 ◼ ► episode that Apple was closing its retail stores until the end of March. This has now been updated
00:04:33 ◼ ► to "until further notice", which makes sense. So they don't have to issue another note at the end
00:04:39 ◼ ► of March because it's not going to be okay by next week. I think we can all agree on that. So they
00:04:46 ◼ ► have now closed their stores until further notice. Google I/O is now completely cancelled. So Google
00:05:01 ◼ ► now announced that they will be doing no Google I/O of any kind. This includes online, there will
00:05:07 ◼ ► be no keynotes, there will be nothing. This is because Google are saying that they're not able
00:05:14 ◼ ► to produce this content because people are staying at home and instead they're going to be making all
00:05:20 ◼ ► of their announcements separately via Google's blogs, PR channels and in their forums. I guess
00:05:27 ◼ ► really the question here when again looking towards WWDC is how do you make good quality
00:05:32 ◼ ► videos if nobody is supposed to be together in offices? How do you make session videos? How do
00:05:37 ◼ ► you make presentation keynote videos? How are you supposed to do them? I think Google has decided
00:05:43 ◼ ► that they think the best route for them is to probably just present everything via text.
00:05:49 ◼ ► So, yeah, I wonder about Apple's presentations here and there was definitely speculation about
00:06:00 ◼ ► talk show hosts actually, which is the technology exists to do this stuff and do it pretty well,
00:06:09 ◼ ► even though it's not what you're used to. So when I see Stephen Colbert, who is a late night talk
00:06:14 ◼ ► show host here in the United States, do a monologue with AirPods in his ears sitting on his deck, I
00:06:22 ◼ ► think surely there is somebody somewhere who has access to a microphone or something that they
00:06:30 ◼ ► could ship to him and leave it outside his door and then he could remove it and wash his hands and
00:06:37 ◼ ► all those things. But the equipment exists. So my first thought was for Apple sessions,
00:06:44 ◼ ► you could just put microphones, like send them microphones. And if that fails, maybe what you do
00:06:49 ◼ ► is you create like a studio space and have them bring in their laptop and you disinfect it and
00:06:55 ◼ ► it's just that one person in there and they come in and record it. There are ways to do it, but
00:06:59 ◼ ► like I feel like you could do those presentations, especially if you're not doing video and it's just
00:07:04 ◼ ► their slides and audio, you can do that fairly easily. I also think that people will accept
00:07:10 ◼ ► at least a little bit degraded quality given that we all know what the context is of all of this.
00:07:15 ◼ ► Apple did some video stuff last week about product releases that we're going to get into here in a
00:07:22 ◼ ► minute and it was a little bit different, right? Like some of the stuff was different, but we all
00:07:28 ◼ ► know why and it's fine. So I do think that it's an open question. How do you do WWDC content if
00:07:38 ◼ ► you're Apple? What does it look like? What does it sound like? We're all figuring this out and
00:07:47 ◼ ► I would imagine they're figuring it out too, but they do have resources and there is equipment
00:07:52 ◼ ► that will make it better for people who are working at home. So I feel like it's a problem
00:07:58 ◼ ► that can be solved. - Yeah, we are doing what we are doing right now from our homes. It is possible
00:08:08 ◼ ► to do. It can be difficult to do for some people if you're not aware of what you're doing, of course.
00:08:13 ◼ ► - Yeah, if you're starting from nothing. This is our livelihood and already was. And so that is one
00:08:18 ◼ ► of the great ironies of this. And I know that we have a, I think we have a question coming at the
00:08:22 ◼ ► end of Ask Upgrade about this maybe even, but one of the funny things about this is that there are
00:08:29 ◼ ► professionals who are used to working in studios who now are trying to do what we do. And it's
00:08:35 ◼ ► interesting to see them struggling with it because they didn't have to do this before. They would go
00:08:40 ◼ ► into the office and then there was a studio there. - It was set up for them. - Yeah, exactly. And we
00:08:46 ◼ ► have built this stuff. So I've answered questions from some people about this because podcasters had
00:08:53 ◼ ► to figure this out and now a lot of these professional people have to figure it out too.
00:09:05 ◼ ► recording studio is in his car with like blankets and stuff. It's bananas, but again, you got to do
00:09:11 ◼ ► what you got to do. So the technology exists. People will figure it out. And Apple certainly,
00:09:18 ◼ ► yeah, has the resources to make this work if they wanted to. - And finally, Bloomberg is stating
00:09:26 ◼ ► that the 2020 iPhone is still on schedule. This is partly because production is not expected to
00:09:32 ◼ ► start until May. So it's still a big question. But I think this is going to be an interesting story to
00:09:39 ◼ ► just keep track of like what is going to happen with the iPhone. Clearly Apple believe products
00:09:43 ◼ ► can be made because they are releasing new ones. But it's going to be interesting to see how things
00:09:51 ◼ ► continue to unfold as the year goes on. - Right, right. Yeah, we'll keep an eye on it because
00:09:56 ◼ ► nobody knows, right? We're in uncharted territory here. - Yep. If we look at some interesting news
00:10:03 ◼ ► in parallel in the streaming industry, Disney have put their new Pixar movie Onward out for
00:10:10 ◼ ► sale early. So it's out for sale, I think now and is going to be on Disney+ next weekend.
00:10:15 ◼ ► - And keep in mind this movie was in the theaters like a few weeks ago and would still be.
00:10:20 ◼ ► And it didn't do well for I think some obvious reasons. And they have decided to cut their
00:10:26 ◼ ► losses essentially. And they think that there is, I think rightly so, a greater demand for things
00:10:32 ◼ ► at home right now. So maybe we could just flip that switch and they'll see what happens. Now,
00:10:37 ◼ ► they did it in a curious way where they said it would be on Disney+ and then put it on for
00:10:42 ◼ ► sale, which is a funny way. It's like a different version of the rental window. So if you want to
00:10:48 ◼ ► buy it, you can buy it now for $20. But if you wait a couple of weeks, it'll just be on Disney+.
00:10:52 ◼ ► And if you're a Disney+ subscriber, you can just watch it there. But I think it's an opportunity
00:10:57 ◼ ► for them to experiment with something that they're making the best. They're making lemonade at this
00:11:02 ◼ ► point. That's all they can do. - Disney+ is launching in more countries this week. So we're
00:11:07 ◼ ► going to have it in the UK. But there's going to be reduced streaming quality in the UK and Europe.
00:11:12 ◼ ► Disney+ is joining a large selection of countries that have been asked by the European Union to
00:11:18 ◼ ► degrade their streaming quality to ease the stress on infrastructure, online infrastructure.
00:11:28 ◼ ► - I haven't seen them. - They've come and gone, but there were a couple of days where the internet
00:11:33 ◼ ► got really slow for me. And then it's sort of been, it's sprung back up. I wonder if they're
00:11:39 ◼ ► doing some network management things because they're presumably the network traffic is greater
00:11:50 ◼ ► keep bandwidth available in the internet and in Europe makes a lot of sense. And then the big
00:11:57 ◼ ► thing that you and I have talked about, I think here and there for a while, which is, what would
00:12:02 ◼ ► you do if you're taking a movie that's in theaters and putting it at home too, Universal out of,
00:12:09 ◼ ► basically they've been forced to do this, has done this with a bunch of movies that they had
00:12:14 ◼ ► in theaters or were about to be in theaters. They took, I think it's four movies, including Emma,
00:12:21 ◼ ► which just came out, and they're putting them on as $20 rentals, which if you think about it,
00:12:26 ◼ ► is about the cost of two people going out to see a movie. So they can recoup more of the cost than
00:12:31 ◼ ► they would from like a $5 rental and they're gonna try it. And, again, it's interesting,
00:12:38 ◼ ► it's because of extreme circumstances, but I wonder, sometimes these things really work
00:12:49 ◼ ► attempt by Universal to kind of say, well, the theatrical exhibitions aren't happening. So we're
00:12:57 ◼ ► gonna try to do at home new releases where you pay $20 and your whole family can sit there,
00:13:04 ◼ ► where you've been sitting all day and watch a movie. But a lot of the movies are just being
00:13:10 ◼ ► outright delayed because there are big budgets and they haven't spent their marketing budget
00:13:15 ◼ ► and they're not... The "Fast and Furious" movie got delayed a year and the "Marvel" delayed their
00:13:21 ◼ ► movie. And all the big movies are not just going to a $20 rental yet at this point. They're all
00:13:28 ◼ ► just kind of being pushed into the future instead. Yeah. And I guess if you're a company like
00:13:32 ◼ ► Universal, you're just like, well, we can't push everything. So let's try and make the best of what
00:13:39 ◼ ► we can. And a movie like "Trolls," now "Trolls" would have done big money in cinemas, but they
00:13:46 ◼ ► have made, I think, the right decision in that, well, it's probably gonna do big money on home
00:13:51 ◼ ► rental or buying as well. Well, "World Tour" is coming out as one of these $20 rentals. And I
00:13:57 ◼ ► think, yeah, the idea there is that parents and kids are home and this is a new movie. And instead
00:14:03 ◼ ► of taking them to the theater, they'll pay 20 bucks and they'll all sit there and watch it.
00:14:07 ◼ ► It's a 48-hour rental for 20 bucks. But again, if you think about how much that family, a family of
00:14:12 ◼ ► four would pay, let's say, to go to see that movie in the theater, it's a lot more than 20 bucks.
00:14:25 ◼ ► So, but it's a good, from a consumer angle, like it seems like the $20 rental is expensive until
00:14:32 ◼ ► you think about how much you spend going out and then you realize it's actually not unless you're
00:14:36 ◼ ► just there alone. But even with one other person, you're in the ballpark. And if it's a family film,
00:14:41 ◼ ► like Trolls World Tour, it's even more so. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. I'm not saying
00:14:46 ◼ ► that this is going to destroy the movie theaters, although it might and the virus might. But it's
00:14:54 ◼ ► going to give people more data points, both consumers about like, how do I feel paying for
00:14:59 ◼ ► a new release that costs $20 instead of a rental that comes later for six. And from the studio's
00:15:05 ◼ ► perspective, like how did this work and what did we learn? And did some movies work better than
00:15:09 ◼ ► others? And I don't know how it's going to shake out, but I think the one thing I will make a bet
00:15:21 ◼ ► when and where and how, when we come back from all of this, it's going to be different. I don't know
00:15:25 ◼ ► how it's going to be different, but it's going to be different. Yes. Especially over the next few
00:15:30 ◼ ► years, as all of these companies continue to see the benefits of owning their own platforms.
00:15:35 ◼ ► Right. I think that there's going to be different decisions made about what is quote unquote,
00:15:39 ◼ ► direct to video and what isn't. Well, and, and what, what do people want to go to a movie theater
00:15:45 ◼ ► for? Let's, let's assume that this whole thing ends, but still everybody will have gone through
00:15:51 ◼ ► this and through social distancing and all of that. People, some people are going to not want
00:15:56 ◼ ► to be in crowds. So that's going to hurt theatrical. Are there certain kinds of movies that play well
00:16:03 ◼ ► in movie theaters? Are some movie theaters going to go under because they realize they just can't
00:16:06 ◼ ► make it in the new world? We don't know any of that dynamic yet, but you got to think that just
00:16:14 ◼ ► by, by doing this and trying this and people being at home that something will change, whether it's
00:16:22 ◼ ► the behavior of consumers or whether it's the assumptions that corporations were happy to make
00:16:28 ◼ ► in normal times that when forced to make a different decision, they discover interesting
00:16:34 ◼ ► results, right? That shake them out of their complacency. Something will change. Will be
00:16:38 ◼ ► interesting to see exactly what and exactly how. But I, again, I will note that the big budget
00:16:48 ◼ ► Those aren't coming out on home video right now. Those are just getting delayed. Like, please, no,
00:16:53 ◼ ► fast and furious. See you next year, right? Like just, we're not going to do it. So, um,
00:16:59 ◼ ► it's more like movies that are, that are already out or their marketing budget was already spent
00:17:03 ◼ ► and this is the best time, uh, or they're just cutting their losses. Those are the ones that
00:17:07 ◼ ► we're seeing right now. All right. Today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at
00:17:13 ◼ ► smile and text expander. You can save time typing and boost your productivity with text expander.
00:17:19 ◼ ► Text expander lets you instantly insert snippets of texts as you type using a quick search or
00:17:24 ◼ ► abbreviation. You can create snippets for anything that you type frequently. They can be simple,
00:17:29 ◼ ► like your phone number or something more complex, like customizable long forms with fill in fields
00:17:34 ◼ ► and automatically calculated dates. That sounds complicated, but with text expander is super easy
00:17:40 ◼ ► to set up and even easier to trigger. And I love text expander for stuff like this. Text expander
00:17:45 ◼ ► will work wherever you type without special plugins. You can use it in email, word processors,
00:17:50 ◼ ► spreadsheets, web apps, services, everywhere. Businesses like yours are using text expander
00:17:56 ◼ ► every day. Businesses like mine, like my actual business also does this. We manage and share
00:18:00 ◼ ► snippets amongst everybody here at relay FM. So when we're emailing companies, we're able to use
00:18:05 ◼ ► similar language. When if somebody needs to take over from somebody else for a task, they've already
00:18:10 ◼ ► set up their text expander snippets. So when we're emailing stuff out or more entering stuff into
00:18:14 ◼ ► forms, it's super easy for us all to have access to the exact same information. If you want to learn
00:18:20 ◼ ► more about text expander, you can sign up for one of their free webinars, including power tools for
00:18:24 ◼ ► customer support professionals with help scout throughout March, along with text expand a
00:18:28 ◼ ► beginner advanced and team webinars too. You can sign up for those webinars now at textexpander.com.
00:18:34 ◼ ► Text expander is available for Mac OS, Windows, Chrome, iPhone, and iPad, and upgrade listeners
00:18:39 ◼ ► can get 20% off their first year. Just go to textexpander.com/podcast to learn more about
00:18:45 ◼ ► text expander right now. That is textexpander.com/podcast. If you've been meaning to check it
00:18:51 ◼ ► out, now is the time because you can get that 20% off your first year at textexpander.com/podcast.
00:18:57 ◼ ► Our thanks to text expand for their support of this show and relay FM. The 2020 iPad pro.
00:19:08 ◼ ► Yeah. Instead of Monday. I can admit that I have it right in front of me right now. It's here.
00:19:13 ◼ ► I don't think there's a ton to talk about here, but we wanted to talk about it with the knowledge
00:19:18 ◼ ► and when we could talk about it with somebody who has one rather than just reading spec pages,
00:19:22 ◼ ► because I guess it's even more difficult to understand with just spec pages how this thing
00:19:27 ◼ ► works. But I guess one of the key things here is power differences. There are some. They're not
00:19:33 ◼ ► huge, but they're there, right? It's okay. Now, are they there? Basically not. So here's the thing.
00:19:41 ◼ ► The new processor in this is the A12Z. So it goes from A to Z. The old, the 2018 model had the A12X.
00:19:53 ◼ ► And you know, Apple, what Apple has told me is limited. I have asked, but the thing is like,
00:20:01 ◼ ► it's an eight core processor, just like the old one. It's got four high speed cores and
00:20:12 ◼ ► cores instead of seven. And Apple says that the thermals are better on this, that they did some
00:20:19 ◼ ► changing to the thermals. And the idea there is that it dissipates heat a little bit better than
00:20:23 ◼ ► the older iPad. And that means it can run a little bit hotter, which means that for extended work at
00:20:28 ◼ ► high performance, it won't have to throttle down as quickly. So that is potentially good,
00:20:32 ◼ ► harder to test. I did run the usual Geekbench series of benchmarks on it, and it looks exactly
00:20:40 ◼ ► like what I just said, which is it's basically the same. Like single core and multi-core, basically
00:20:46 ◼ ► the same, and graphics, slightly better. So if you want a faster iPad, you didn't get one. So that's
00:20:55 ◼ ► not a reason to buy this if you've got a 2018, is the faster. The big differences are the one terabyte
00:21:02 ◼ ► model on the old 2018 had six gigs of RAM, and the other ones had four. It's not something Apple
00:21:08 ◼ ► talks about, but it was widely known. And my understanding is that all of these have six gigs
00:21:13 ◼ ► of RAM. And I believe all of the 2020 iPads have the U1 chip in them, although Apple didn't talk
00:21:18 ◼ ► about that either, but that seems to be the case. So if there are, you know, other ultra wide band
00:21:24 ◼ ► features that happen, and in the meantime the smart AirDrop, I think that this device will get those.
00:21:31 ◼ ► And there's like Wi-Fi 6 support if you have a brand new Wi-Fi something, which nobody has.
00:21:36 ◼ ► So it's minor stuff. Like this is the really the thing that changed in the hardware is the camera.
00:21:45 ◼ ► Like the camera is different. Before we talk about camera, can we do wild conspiracy theory time with
00:21:51 ◼ ► Myke and Jason? Okay, sure. The six gigabyte of RAM everywhere is weird, right? Like that's just
00:21:57 ◼ ► strange. Like why did they do that without really changing anything else? I mean, it might just be a
00:22:02 ◼ ► price thing, but you're going to say there's a wild conspiracy behind it. So let's talk about it.
00:22:07 ◼ ► Which is, you know, like we remember, everyone remembers the good old iPad Air 2, the way too
00:22:14 ◼ ► powerful iPad for when it was released. But one of the reasons is because iPad multitasking needed it
00:22:22 ◼ ► when they, but they iPad multitasking didn't exist yet. So I'm wondering if the six gigabytes of RAM
00:22:28 ◼ ► is needed for something coming at WWDC, potentially that thing is the ARM device that we've been
00:22:37 ◼ ► wondering, right? Like, oh, like if this can boot Mac OS for ARM for developers. Yeah. I don't know.
00:22:44 ◼ ► I don't know either, but I just like, you know, I just see that it's like, that's weird that they
00:22:48 ◼ ► put that in there. I think they saw the difference in performance between the four and the six and
00:22:51 ◼ ► they could afford to put the six in this time since they're keeping the price the same, but it's
00:22:56 ◼ ► all the components are presumably cheaper 18 months later. But this is, this is the most,
00:23:01 ◼ ► sorry, sorry for people who are excited about this, the most minor of speed bumps. Like this
00:23:06 ◼ ► is not, it's not even a speed bump. It is a camera bump and literally the camera bump bumped out.
00:23:11 ◼ ► And that's the story. Like they're, they say that they are, they changed the architecture of the
00:23:23 ◼ ► but they say now it's using the architecture that the 16 inch MacBook pro has. It might sound better.
00:23:29 ◼ ► It doesn't sound any different to me. Okay. So that I, you know, if, if it sounds better, like
00:23:35 ◼ ► I looked, I compared the reviewers guide that Apple gives you as a product reviewer from the
00:23:41 ◼ ► 2018 one to the current one. It's like almost nothing is different. It's basically the same iPad.
00:23:52 ◼ ► And then even when we talk about the accessories, which we're very excited about, and we'll talk
00:23:55 ◼ ► about in a little bit, those also work on the 2018 models. So, you know, it's, it's, it's minor.
00:24:02 ◼ ► It's a, this is a really minor update. It's great. I love the iPad. And if you, you know,
00:24:12 ◼ ► let's talk about the camera. Okay. So we have a 12 megapixel main camera. It's seems the same camera
00:24:18 ◼ ► that was in the 2018, as far as I can tell, but it gains the ultra wide from the iPhone 11. Like,
00:24:23 ◼ ► this is actually the iPhone 11 system ish, not the iPhone 11 pro it is. It's a 10 megapixel ultra
00:24:30 ◼ ► wide. And I think the 11 is a 12 megapixel ultra wide. So it's actually a little bit less, but yeah,
00:24:35 ◼ ► it's the same idea. It's got a second camera. It's an ultra wide, like on the 11. It's not a
00:24:40 ◼ ► telephoto like on the earlier iPhones. It's like the iPhone 11. It's got an ultra wide. So if you
00:24:45 ◼ ► want to take further, further back shots, which I think on an iPad is actually a pretty good use case,
00:24:51 ◼ ► you can do that. And then they have this LIDAR sensor, which is a pretty wild thing. It is
00:24:58 ◼ ► basically doing light based range finding of objects in order to build a better depth map
00:25:06 ◼ ► of the scene so that it can do augmented reality. And how much of a difference does the LIDAR make
00:25:13 ◼ ► over the current system? So here's the thing, and I don't know whether this is related to
00:25:17 ◼ ► everybody scrambling because we're working out of our homes now and people at Apple are scrambling
00:25:21 ◼ ► as well. Usually there are examples and they have some demos in like their, in their promo videos
00:25:28 ◼ ► and stuff, but like I haven't been able to test this thing with anything, any app that's out there
00:25:35 ◼ ► that explicitly supports it, but it does sound like the system in general is, is in the background,
00:25:41 ◼ ► just using the LIDAR to build a better depth map. And it is better. The example I can give you is
00:25:48 ◼ ► when I opened, so I use Safari because Safari is built into the system and Apple has a bunch of AR
00:25:54 ◼ ► models on their website. So that's what I used to try this feature out. You open the, open up the
00:26:00 ◼ ► iPad Pro 2018 model and you go to an AR model and it says, wave the iPad around, basically. It needs
00:26:07 ◼ ► to like look around and try to build a depth map based on your movements and the parallax and all
00:26:13 ◼ ► of these things that are going on. On the 2020 model, it just knows. It's impressive. Like,
00:26:22 ◼ ► it knows the composition of the scene. And if you drag that model off the floor and onto a desk,
00:26:28 ◼ ► it just hops up onto the desk and it gets it right. And I was, I was impressed at that because
00:26:35 ◼ ► that is, that is what is supposed to happen is it now just knows the depth. And you can see how
00:26:41 ◼ ► all the rumors are that this will be on the new iPhones this fall as well, how it's much better
00:26:45 ◼ ► for AR because you're building a much more comprehensive depth map. What I find weird is
00:26:50 ◼ ► that it's not using the two cameras or the LIDAR to do a portrait mode. Portrait mode is still only
00:26:57 ◼ ► on the forward facing camera. I'm a little surprised that they don't offer a portrait mode
00:27:04 ◼ ► So maybe that'll be a software update down the road, but it is again, is this a feature you're
00:27:10 ◼ ► going to buy unless you're an AR developer? Are you going to buy this new iPad because the LIDAR?
00:27:14 ◼ ► I don't think so. And that gets us to the real crux of this, which is who is this for? Who is the
00:27:20 ◼ ► 2020 iPad for? And the answer is it's actually kind of like when we talk about iPhones and we say,
00:27:25 ◼ ► you're probably not going to upgrade from last year's iPhone to this year's iPhone. You're
00:27:29 ◼ ► probably upgrading from two or three years ago's iPhone to this one. That's who the 2020 iPad
00:27:34 ◼ ► is for. It's for the people who didn't buy the 2018 iPad Pro. It's for everybody who's back on
00:27:39 ◼ ► an earlier iPad Pro or doesn't have an iPad Pro and is thinking of going because maybe they're
00:27:44 ◼ ► tempted by some of the accessories that we'll talk about in a minute, but that's who it's for.
00:27:48 ◼ ► If you have a 2018 iPad Pro, I don't, I mean, again, unless you're like an AR developer or
00:27:55 ◼ ► really, really, really into high performance of augmented reality, like there's no real reason.
00:28:01 ◼ ► It is basically the same iPad as it was before. And the A12Z, like, I think that says it all.
00:28:16 ◼ ► you want to get conspiratorial. I do wonder, there are some rumors about like 5G iPads in the fall.
00:28:22 ◼ ► I have a hard time believing they would release a new iPad six months after releasing an iPad. I
00:28:29 ◼ ► feel like it's going to be another 18 months, but I do wonder about the 5G and wonder if they might
00:28:33 ◼ ► have a new processor at that point. But my guess is that they figure the iPad Pro, talk about that
00:28:38 ◼ ► iPad Air being way too powerful. When the iPad Pro came out in 2018, it was way too powerful, like
00:28:44 ◼ ► way more power than the iPad could really use. And I would argue that's still the case. And so I don't
00:28:50 ◼ ► think I was feeling like the iPad Pro was getting slow and needed a speed boost, not even remotely.
00:28:56 ◼ ► So that's good because it didn't. It's the bottom line here. It didn't. The excitement about this
00:29:02 ◼ ► product is that they pushed it forward in a couple of areas. It's basically just a refresh,
00:29:15 ◼ ► those are by far the most exciting part of this. Unfortunately, the most exciting accessory
00:29:20 ◼ ► is not going to be available until May. So in the meantime, we have the iPad Pro, which is great.
00:29:27 ◼ ► I love the iPad Pro. You love the iPad Pro. These are great. However, if you already have a 2018,
00:29:33 ◼ ► you would be hard-pressed to tell the difference. I do think that there is a potential for iOS 14
00:29:39 ◼ ► to maybe have some doubling down on AR stuff, right? That like maybe they then want to have
00:29:46 ◼ ► LIDAR available in all their products. And if you think about LIDAR and Ultra Wideband,
00:29:51 ◼ ► this is another example where like, what about these AirTags? We had all these rumors that Apple
00:29:56 ◼ ► is going to do these smart tags so that if you lose something, you can find it. The U1 chip does
00:30:00 ◼ ► nothing. Right now it does nothing. It doesn't make sense. So if that product comes out, that
00:30:05 ◼ ► makes this iPad Pro more interesting, right? Because it would support that presumably at that
00:30:10 ◼ ► level of precision, just like the iPhone 11s would, and the 2018 iPad Pros wouldn't. But right now,
00:30:16 ◼ ► it does nothing other than like smart AirDrop pointer thing, which is not even a feature.
00:30:25 ◼ ► So again, that might be a thing that becomes something, but right now it seems like it's
00:30:30 ◼ ► nothing. So there's, it's, again, it's nice that they updated it a little bit, but it's really
00:30:53 ◼ ► definitely not doing the thing where the iPad is almost exactly the same, but you have to buy it
00:30:57 ◼ ► again because it's shaped slightly differently so that you can get the hot new accessory. They
00:31:01 ◼ ► didn't do that. They refrained. I think maybe for good reason. I think so. It would have been a bit
00:31:06 ◼ ► spiteful considering the fact that the iPad did not get meaningful upgrades to it. Yeah, right.
00:31:11 ◼ ► So this is fine. I'm not disappointed by it because I didn't feel like desperate for updates that
00:31:17 ◼ ► didn't happen. The iPad 2018 is very capable and remains way ahead of the competition in so many
00:31:25 ◼ ► different ways. But it is not a must. If you love the 2018 iPad Pro, you have to update to the 2020
00:31:33 ◼ ► iPad Pro. That's not the case at all. So maybe even more exciting, I think definitely more exciting
00:31:40 ◼ ► than our friend, the 2020 iPad Pro is the Magic Keyboard. Oh boy, the Magic Keyboard. Jason Snell,
00:31:48 ◼ ► it came down from high to us. I am so excited about this. It was cantilevered down, cantilevered
00:31:56 ◼ ► slowly lowered, keeping its weight forward until it reached us here standing on the number row of our
00:32:04 ◼ ► giant keyboard. So you've probably seen the Magic Keyboard by now. It's coming in May. You know,
00:32:11 ◼ ► I've seen a lot of people say and I understand that like potentially coronavirus has delayed
00:32:15 ◼ ► things, but I think it's worth remembering that the Smart Keyboard and the Apple Pencil,
00:32:20 ◼ ► when they were both debuted, they came really late and supply constrained. So there is a history to
00:32:24 ◼ ► iPad Pro peripherals coming late. I actually don't really think it's anything to do with coronavirus
00:32:31 ◼ ► at all. No, probably not. I mean, it might be a factor, but it is interesting that they're
00:32:36 ◼ ► announcing this product. So they announced the iPad Pro and they announced the new Magic Keyboard
00:32:41 ◼ ► for the iPad Pro and, you know, see you in May, right? Two months out, the iPad Pro this week,
00:32:50 ◼ ► the keyboard, May, like, and probably hard to get in May, but they, you know, they want to tell that
00:32:58 ◼ ► story together, even though this new keyboard with Trackpad, it's kind of even hard to believe it,
00:33:05 ◼ ► will work with the 2018 iPad Pro. It will work with that model. So it's backward compatible.
00:33:17 ◼ ► No, I have not. Only the bizarre augmented reality version that Apple has on their website. But no,
00:33:27 ◼ ► this is not a thing that anybody has right now, it seems. I have it on good authority that there are a
00:33:42 ◼ ► You know, these things are probably starting to be made now, right? Like, that might be a thing.
00:33:52 ◼ ► we're going to get into this, but I think there's lots of potential reasons why this product isn't
00:33:56 ◼ ► for sale right now. But I think one of them might have purely been not wanting to tip their hat
00:34:01 ◼ ► earlier than, because this was a big surprise. Like, not just this product, which is absolutely
00:34:09 ◼ ► fascinating and bizarre, but also that we have cursor support, which we're going to talk about
00:34:14 ◼ ► separately in a little bit. But those were big things, and maybe they didn't want to necessarily
00:34:23 ◼ ► but I think you mean tip their hand, which is like a poker metaphor. Tip their hat would be like,
00:34:35 ◼ ► Myke. It makes total sense now. We salute you. Game recognize game. Yeah, so here we are with
00:34:50 ◼ ► a while a few weeks ago talking about would they do one or both, and they did the both thing in a
00:34:57 ◼ ► really unexpected way where they're keeping the smart keyboard. And I feel like we did call that
00:35:02 ◼ ► a little bit, that you keep the smart keyboard and then you make an even more expensive, smarter
00:35:06 ◼ ► keyboard, and that's what we have here. This is not cheap. We're talking about $300-plus
00:35:15 ◼ ► you know, we've been talking a lot about what we imagined our best-case scenario would be.
00:35:23 ◼ ► we knew it would be an expensive thing for Apple to do in the way that Apple would want to do it.
00:35:30 ◼ ► Like, you can make a cheap version of this product, but it's not going to have a cantilevered hinge,
00:35:56 ◼ ► actually Dr. Drang, our friend who is an engineer, actually posted a thing on his blog that we can
00:36:01 ◼ ► link to that is about the weight and how it gets distributed, which I think is very clever. But
00:36:10 ◼ ► it's all about putting the weight in the right place, because you don't want it too far in the
00:36:16 ◼ ► back because it'll flip over backward. Now, I suspect that this case is heavy. Maybe not as
00:36:23 ◼ ► heavy as a bridge keyboard, but I suspect it's heavy. I'll also note that nowhere does Apple
00:36:29 ◼ ► talk about what they weigh. Like, nowhere. It is not announced. I'm sure they know what it weighs.
00:36:39 ◼ ► - Otherwise it would flip over backward. Although, the clever thing about it is, with this design,
00:36:44 ◼ ► so there's a hinge down at the base behind the keyboard, and that's got a USB-C charging port in
00:36:51 ◼ ► it. It's kind of bananas. So that's there. And then up from that comes a folding part of the back.
00:36:58 ◼ ► And then at an angle back behind that is the larger part of the back that's attached via the magnets
00:37:05 ◼ ► on the back, and it's attached to the smart connector. And so you end up, by doing that
00:37:10 ◼ ► and having that fold and the hinge, you end up being able to apply enough pressure that it's
00:37:15 ◼ ► kind of floating over the back part of the case, which moves its center of gravity forward a little
00:37:22 ◼ ► bit, which is good for stability. So, yeah, this is surprising because I think nobody imagined a
00:37:31 ◼ ► floating iPad above a keyboard with a big hinge. - Because it seems too complex. It seems too...
00:37:38 ◼ ► - Complex, thick, potentially heavy, potentially and expensive. And I think what we've seen is,
00:37:45 ◼ ► Apple didn't care about those. Apple wanted to make this thing happen. The instruction here seems
00:37:52 ◼ ► to have been, we wanna make a smart keyboard essentially, or a magic keyboard for an iPad with
00:37:57 ◼ ► a track pad. How do we get that to work and not have it look like the bridge keyboard or have to
00:38:03 ◼ ► build a kickstand on the back of the iPad, like the Surface? And this is what they came up with.
00:38:08 ◼ ► And it seems really inspired. I mean, nobody's actually seen it. We don't know how wobbly it is.
00:38:13 ◼ ► We don't know how solid it is. It's a bit of a mystery. But if it works like we hope it does,
00:38:19 ◼ ► this is, albeit expensive, like pretty amazing bit of engineering. - It is kind of, I mean, honestly,
00:38:30 ◼ ► like I'm blown away by it. Like I'm so excited about it because it is so bizarre and it is so
00:38:45 ◼ ► Jason. - You love to see it. As people who clip on big heavy keyboards onto our iPads from time
00:38:51 ◼ ► to time, it's also to see Apple say, "Yes, not only are we gonna give you cursor support,
00:38:57 ◼ ► which we have to talk about, but we're gonna give you cursor support and a device for an iPad that
00:39:04 ◼ ► has a keyboard and a track pad built into it. Like we are gonna go to the trouble. We think this is
00:39:09 ◼ ► not so strange a thing that we're gonna leave it to third parties. We are gonna build one of these
00:39:15 ◼ ► ourselves." And that's quite a stamp, right? 'Cause that's Apple saying, "This is not a third-party
00:39:22 ◼ ► opportunity," which is code for Apple doesn't care 'cause nobody cares about this except you
00:39:26 ◼ ► weirdos out there. This is, "No, people want to buy this. People are gonna wanna use it this way.
00:39:31 ◼ ► People are gonna wanna use a cursor on their iPad, so we're gonna build one with a track pad on it."
00:39:41 ◼ ► the cursor on an iPad is going to be so mainstream that there needs to be a track pad keyboard
00:39:56 ◼ ► is that the smart keyboard, the keyboard was kind of solved, right? You can be super thin,
00:40:06 ◼ ► you can have butterfly switches, and you just cover them with fabric. We can call it done.
00:40:11 ◼ ► And I mean, I don't know about you, but when I was imagining what Apple was going to do,
00:40:18 ◼ ► I figured that they would find a way to build on that keyboard. Like even when knowing about
00:40:31 ◼ ► that will allow the light to come through." But to actually put what seems to be essentially the
00:40:39 ◼ ► same keyboard that you can find on Apple's laptops, the Magic Keyboard with the inverted
00:40:45 ◼ ► T arrows and the whole shebang, that's amazing, right? Again, it's like an additional step
00:40:52 ◼ ► making me as a professional user using the iPad feel like my needs are being catered to.
00:40:59 ◼ ► - Yeah. And what they're saying is, "We realize that you are willing to trade some weight and
00:41:09 ◼ ► some thickness for better keys." Like, because the smart keyboard, and I like the smart keyboard,
00:41:15 ◼ ► I think the smart keyboard, Folio or whatever version it is, the fabric keyboard, I think it's
00:41:20 ◼ ► good. I think it's actually kind of a pleasant typing experience, but it is also a solution to
00:41:28 ◼ ► the problem of how do we make this thing as thin and light as possible? And with this keyboard,
00:41:33 ◼ ► it's Apple saying, "Okay, we get it. You want a better keyboard and it doesn't need to be as thin
00:41:39 ◼ ► and light in order to do this for you. So we're gonna make that." And then on top of that, there's,
00:41:44 ◼ ► we also need to move the keyboard up because keep in mind on the smart keyboard, the bottom row of
00:41:49 ◼ ► keys is at the bottom of the device and they have to slide it all up, which is why that thing has to
00:41:54 ◼ ► hang over the keyboard a little bit in this design so that we can put a trackpad. Now, it's not like
00:42:00 ◼ ► a magic trackpad or even a MacBook trackpad-sized thing. It's gonna be much smaller than what modern
00:42:06 ◼ ► Mac users are used to for a trackpad, but they are doing a multi-touch trackpad there. And so that,
00:42:16 ◼ ► - I would argue that trackpads have maybe gotten too big. And like, I'm not saying that, like,
00:42:21 ◼ ► we should all go to small trackpads, but I have a magic trackpad here. It's much bigger than I need
00:42:27 ◼ ► that's what I was gonna say is you don't need it to be big. The value of it being big is that you
00:42:31 ◼ ► don't have to be precise, right? You can put your fingers anywhere on it and just gesture and it
00:42:35 ◼ ► works. Whereas in a small one, the target is smaller and you've got to be more precise and
00:42:40 ◼ ► you've got to fit it inside the boundaries of it. But they don't have that room on this. So they did
00:42:50 ◼ ► I obviously am very excited about this product and I imagine it becoming something that we use a lot,
00:42:55 ◼ ► but it's probably still not going to be the primary way that I use input on my 12.9-inch
00:43:03 ◼ ► iPad Pro. Like, it will be for when I'm not at my desk because it's still a laptop, right? Like,
00:43:09 ◼ ► in that form factor. I'm not going to put a laptop form factor down on my desk and it'd be permanent,
00:43:14 ◼ ► you know? Like, it will be when I would, in theory, be using a laptop, right? So, like,
00:43:20 ◼ ► in different working environments, maybe in different places in the home or the office,
00:43:25 ◼ ► but not like at my permanent desk, which is why I am so happy that they are continuing to expand
00:43:32 ◼ ► the iPad to support so many different input methods because it allows for that flexibility.
00:43:37 ◼ ► - Yeah, this is the thing about the iPad that really is its greatest strength is that it's
00:43:42 ◼ ► what you want when you want it. So if you want a tablet, just a touchscreen tablet with nothing
00:43:47 ◼ ► attached to it, it is that. That's its bare center. That's what it is. It's the naked robotic core,
00:43:54 ◼ ► as John Syracuse would say. And then, like, you want a pencil? Great. You want to attach
00:43:59 ◼ ► a Bluetooth keyboard? Fine. You want to put it in a stand with a keyboard and a trackpad or a mouse?
00:44:03 ◼ ► Yeah, you can do that. You want to make it laptop-y with a keyboard? We got one of those. You want to
00:44:08 ◼ ► make it laptop-y with a keyboard and a trackpad? We got one of those, right? Like, it could be.
00:44:12 ◼ ► So, of course, you aren't going to use it unless you're in a laptop sort of shaped context. But the
00:44:19 ◼ ► beauty of it being not a laptop is that then you move to a different context and it becomes a
00:44:24 ◼ ► different device at that point. You just pull it off the keyboard and now it's something different.
00:44:30 ◼ ► And that's one of the things I love about the iPad is that it is so flexible to be able to do that.
00:44:35 ◼ ► And this just changes that. And yes, it is the classic Apple story, right, which is they make
00:44:40 ◼ ► a first-party accessory that requires software updates to enable something like a cursor.
00:44:46 ◼ ► And it has this side benefit of finally blessing that interaction type for everything else. So,
00:45:03 ◼ ► we can use—and we'll talk about this more in a little bit—but, like, the cursor stuff is there
00:45:08 ◼ ► in beta already and shortly this week, you know, as a final 13.4 iOS release. Like, it's just there.
00:45:17 ◼ ► We don't have to wait till May to use the cursor. It's there now. And everybody who's got a pointing
00:45:23 ◼ ► device they want to attach to their iPad can benefit from that today. And then Apple will have
00:45:28 ◼ ► its hardware in May. - I know we're both dying to talk about the cursor support, so let's just round
00:45:33 ◼ ► up the final thoughts on the Magic Keyboard. A nice touch is that it has the horizontal Apple logo,
00:45:38 ◼ ► which is great. - And the Smart Keyboard Folio, too. The idea that if you're using this iPad
00:45:44 ◼ ► in that configuration, those cases didn't have logos on them before, but they put—they've
00:45:48 ◼ ► a little embossed, like, a little logo on it, and it's in horizontal, which, yes, I had a moment of,
00:45:55 ◼ ► like, I almost took a victory lap around my living room when I saw that, because how long have we
00:46:01 ◼ ► talked about how Apple's branding on the iPad still considers it a portrait device when we tend
00:46:08 ◼ ► to use it, you know, and not everybody does, but I certainly tend to use it almost all the time in
00:46:13 ◼ ► landscape, and you put it in a keyboard case and you're using it in landscape, and then you, you
00:46:17 ◼ ► know, but you turn it on and the Apple is still portrait. Well, a crack in Apple's view of the
00:46:25 ◼ ► iPad is that both of these cases have an Apple logo on the back, and it's pointing the right
00:46:31 ◼ ► direction. It's great. - Yeah, I mean, other stuff is the same, right? Like, the Apple logo on the
00:46:37 ◼ ► iPad itself is still in portrait, but, you know, when it's in those keyboard situations, it's
00:46:44 ◼ ► considered landscape. - Oh, and I should mention, while we're on the accessory front, a complaint
00:46:51 ◼ ► that I've had, it's been on my wish list for a while, the case, the without keyboard smart case,
00:46:59 ◼ ► smart cover, whatever it is, whatever they call it, smart folio, I don't even know what they call
00:47:03 ◼ ► it, the folio case for the iPad Pro, the one that has nothing, it's just magnets on the back,
00:47:08 ◼ ► covers your case in the front, comes in colors. It had one color before, it was like, you know,
00:47:14 ◼ ► remember, originally it was sort of like you could get it in gray or white, and now you can get it in,
00:47:20 ◼ ► like, black or pink or blue or green. Like, there was a long period where Apple seemed to think that
00:47:29 ◼ ► the iPad Pro should never have color on it and it should be as boring as possible, and it was,
00:47:34 ◼ ► a lot of their accessories were super boring, and the keyboard cases are still kind of boring,
00:47:40 ◼ ► although they're a darker gray than they used to be, which I think is good, but there are color
00:47:46 ◼ ► options now that weren't there before. So I, like, immediately went out and ordered a blue case
00:47:50 ◼ ► because I'm very happy to have something that is not boring. - I never use those cases. - I use them
00:48:09 ◼ ► I'm, we've already mentioned this, but I want to just, before we move on, like, completely, like,
00:48:17 ◼ ► underscore this point, that this product is available for the 2018 iPad Pro, both sizes,
00:48:26 ◼ ► as well as the 2020 iPad Pro, which is really great if you have a 2018 iPad Pro, because there
00:48:32 ◼ ► may not be that much reason for you to upgrade to a 2020, but I also think it's very clever on
00:48:37 ◼ ► Apple's part, because lots of people are going to buy this that wouldn't have necessarily bought
00:48:43 ◼ ► a new iPad, so they are creating a pretty much $400 device that can be purchased as an upgrade
00:48:52 ◼ ► to a product. Now, that is one of the interesting things you can focus on with iPads as compared to
00:49:02 ◼ ► MacBooks. You can sell people additional things, new things, to attach to their product.
00:49:09 ◼ ► You can't really do that so much with a MacBook Air. - If you're, I mean, and you can do the math
00:49:14 ◼ ► of, like, how many people would update from the 2018 to the 2020 iPad Pro, and again, my gut
00:49:21 ◼ ► feeling is maybe not as many as you would think. It's not that big a change, but you are going to
00:49:28 ◼ ► be able to generate more revenue out of all of those iPad Pro buyers from 2018 and 2019
00:49:34 ◼ ► who are interested in one of these cases, and all of them are compatible with all of the iPad Pros
00:49:40 ◼ ► of this generation, the third and fourth, the second, the one, like, 2018 and 2020. All of them
00:49:46 ◼ ► are. It's just, you know, it's magnets connecting. There's going to be a little more open space
00:49:50 ◼ ► because the camera cutout is bigger, right? So it's not, you can't take your 2018 case to 2020
00:49:55 ◼ ► because it won't fit on the camera bump, but you can go the other direction. And, yeah, they will
00:50:01 ◼ ► be generating more revenue, in the case of a 12.9, you know, a lot more revenue from somebody
00:50:09 ◼ ► without them actually buying a new iPad. - It is the price of a regular iPad. - Yeah, yeah. - And I'm,
00:50:15 ◼ ► look, do not get me wrong. I am not complaining about that. There are options. You don't have to
00:50:20 ◼ ► buy this. Like, you do not need this to use an iPad. Like, I'm happy there are options,
00:50:26 ◼ ► and I want this product. Yes, it's expensive, but it's something that I want in its exact
00:50:32 ◼ ► configuration. If I wanted less, I could go to the smart keyboard, or I could go to Bridge,
00:50:38 ◼ ► or I could go to any company making a keyboard, or I could just not get one at all and just connect
00:50:44 ◼ ► a Magic Keyboard via Bluetooth and use that, right? Like, there are tons of options. - Or a USB
00:50:50 ◼ ► keyboard. - Yeah, and I do. - There are so many options, yes. - I do, right? Like, I connect my
00:50:56 ◼ ► Digma Raise split ergonomic mechanical keyboard via USB. Like, that is what I am typically doing,
00:51:03 ◼ ► because I don't have it in a stand, and I use the keyboard that I want to use. There are many
00:51:08 ◼ ► options available to you, and I am happy that this option is now available. This is a professional
00:51:14 ◼ ► product for a professional user, and I am very excited about that. - Just to be clear, because I
00:51:22 ◼ ► know there was a conversation, there was one you guys had on Connected last week about the room for
00:51:26 ◼ ► third parties here. It's so often that Apple comes out with a product and everybody says, "Well,
00:51:30 ◼ ► all the third parties are dead." And that generally is not the case, because the third parties can
00:51:34 ◼ ► differentiate from Apple and reach the edges, and yes, they're reaching the edge cases instead of
00:51:41 ◼ ► being the primary. So, like, Bridge, with its keyboards, is no longer kind of the primary
00:51:47 ◼ ► purveyor of a laptop-like keyboard for the iPad, because it's going to be Apple for these two
00:51:54 ◼ ► models. But just as a point of reference, they're still going to differentiate. They're a more
00:52:00 ◼ ► expensive keyboard with Trackpad that Bridge is shipping next month, they say. 120 bucks cheaper
00:52:08 ◼ ► for the 12.9. - And, I mean, I have spent some time thinking about this, because at first I was
00:52:13 ◼ ► like, "Oh, they're done, and I'm going to cancel my order." But I have spent more time thinking
00:52:17 ◼ ► about this since, and I feel like I overreacted to that on Connected for that reason. But also,
00:52:22 ◼ ► this is a very different form factor, what Bridge are making compared to what Apple are making,
00:52:34 ◼ ► The magic keyboard for iPad, I don't know how it's going to work in every situation yet,
00:52:45 ◼ ► differences in how they work versus something like the Bridge, which makes it into a more traditional
00:52:49 ◼ ► laptop shape, and we just, we don't know what it weighs, we don't know how stable it is, who knows?
00:52:59 ◼ ► I actually have, I'm keeping my order of my Bridge Pro Plus, because I want to be able to compare
00:53:06 ◼ ► them to inform our listeners about such things. - Right, yeah, we'll find out what the differences
00:53:11 ◼ ► are as these products roll out, but I do think there's going to be a place for third-party stuff.
00:53:14 ◼ ► Plus, keep in mind, there's also a lot of iPads that don't work with this keyboard. It's only for
00:53:21 ◼ ► these iPad Pros in 2018 and 2020, and we saw that Apple and Logitech made an announcement about a
00:53:27 ◼ ► case for other iPads, but the door is open for all iPads to have keyboard and trackpad support.
00:53:35 ◼ ► The keyboard support's been there, but now there's cursor support. So there are lots of different
00:53:39 ◼ ► options that are going to be out there. Apple is going to be the most commonly chosen one,
00:53:44 ◼ ► because it's right there, but there's going to be some other stuff going on that is at the edges
00:53:50 ◼ ► that is not what Apple is doing. And price is a great example. Like, seriously, people look at
00:53:55 ◼ ► that Bridge keyboard and they think, "Wow, that must be really expensive," but it's always been
00:53:59 ◼ ► cheaper than the smart keyboard. And this one, the Pro Plus with the trackpad, is going to be
00:54:05 ◼ ► 100-plus dollars cheaper than Apple's keyboard with trackpad. So I'm sure it'll be heavier and
00:54:11 ◼ ► thicker too, but it's cheaper. So, you know, there's room, and we'll see what the market does,
00:54:18 ◼ ► but there's room. Sometimes when Apple swoops in with a new product and that's bad for third
00:54:22 ◼ ► parties, but they're also blessing that concept, right, if that makes any sense. So, like,
00:54:27 ◼ ► it's bad that Apple's making a keyboard and trackpad for the iPad for Bridge, because they
00:54:32 ◼ ► were making it, and they were probably the most recommended one, and now Apple's going to take a
00:54:37 ◼ ► lot of the oxygen out of the room with their product. However, Bridge no longer has to make
00:54:42 ◼ ► the case that it makes sense to have a trackpad and a keyboard on an iPad, because Apple has
00:54:47 ◼ ► basically made that case. Apple has blessed the concept, and that makes a difference. So that's
00:54:54 ◼ ► good for them. So it's a little bit of both. Today's episode of Upgrade is brought to you
00:54:59 ◼ ► by Ooni, the world's number one pizza oven company. Ooni makes surprisingly small ovens that are
00:55:06 ◼ ► powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal, or gas, letting you make restaurant-quality pizza
00:55:12 ◼ ► in your own backyard. They're super easy to use and incredibly portable. You have to go see it for
00:55:17 ◼ ► yourself. These ovens will fit in any outside space. They can reach temperatures of up to 900
00:55:23 ◼ ► Fahrenheit, 500 degrees Celsius, which enables you to cook restaurant-quality pizza in as little as
00:55:29 ◼ ► 60 seconds. It's that high temperature that separates average pizzas that you make in a
00:55:34 ◼ ► home oven from the quality that you get from Ooni pizza ovens. It's at least twice the heat. Now,
00:55:39 ◼ ► Ooni have been a sponsor on Relay FM quite a while ago, and the first time that we had them,
00:55:46 ◼ ► I went to Ooni's founder's home, or partner team, and I had an Ooni pizza. It was amazing.
00:55:57 ◼ ► called me today on FaceTime and showed me the new Ooni Koda 16 oven, which is their gas-powered
00:56:02 ◼ ► oven. And I can confirm that the pineapple pepperoni pizza that he made, Jason, was cooked
00:56:08 ◼ ► in 60 seconds. It was incredible how fast it was done. The Koda 16 is their gas-powered oven,
00:56:14 ◼ ► which can cook up to 16-inch pizzas in 60 seconds and has an innovative L-shaped burner at the back
00:56:21 ◼ ► that gives you even heat distribution. Ooni's ovens start from just $199 of free shipping to
00:56:27 ◼ ► the US, UK, and the EU. And two of their coolest models, they have the Ooni Koda 16 that I
00:56:32 ◼ ► mentioned, but they also have a model called the Ooni Karu, which can use wood, charcoal, or gas.
00:56:38 ◼ ► You can have basically any type of fire that you want. Different flavors and different effects,
00:56:43 ◼ ► that kind of thing that comes from the many different methods there, but that one definitely
00:56:47 ◼ ► gives you a lot of flexibility. Now listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an
00:56:54 ◼ ► Ooni pizza oven, which on the Koda 16 is up to $50 saving. Just go to ooni.com, ooni.com, and use
00:57:02 ◼ ► the code upgrade at checkout. Ooni also makes a great range of accessories from peels to cutters
00:57:08 ◼ ► to oven tables. Americans buy 3 billion pizzas a year and consume 350 slices of pizza every second,
00:57:15 ◼ ► hopefully not one person, that's spread out a little bit. So why not make some of these yourself
00:57:20 ◼ ► at home? Once you try it, you're not going to go back. Ooni is the best way to bring restaurant
00:57:25 ◼ ► quality pizza to your own backyard. So go to ooni.com, ooni.com, and use the code upgrade
00:57:31 ◼ ► at checkout for 10% off. Our thanks to Ooni for their support of this show and Relay FM. I'm so
00:57:37 ◼ ► excited to have Ooni back as a sponsor, Jason. I'll order a billion pizzas. That sounds good to me.
00:57:50 ◼ ► I'm never going to get that name right. But you can get cursor support with probably products,
00:57:56 ◼ ► existing things that you already own, shipping this week. Probably by the time you're hearing
00:58:01 ◼ ► this, you will be able to update to iOS 13.4. I downloaded the developer beta and updated.
00:58:08 ◼ ► So I was able to check that out. And so I've been playing with it for best part of four or five
00:58:16 ◼ ► days. The best support for this cursor mode is in the Magic Trackpad 2. Any mouse will work great.
00:58:23 ◼ ► We could talk about that a little bit more. But the Magic Trackpad 2, the original Magic Trackpad,
00:58:34 ◼ ► tons of gestures. There was a demo video from Craig Federighi at Apple Park, which I've seen
00:58:41 ◼ ► put on the Six Colors YouTube channel, which has seen great success in viewer numbers, Jason. I'm
00:58:46 ◼ ► sure you're very excited about that. Yeah, well, they didn't post it on their YouTube channel. I
00:58:50 ◼ ► don't know why. And then everybody was like, "Oh, hey, The Verge has this exclusive video with Craig
00:58:54 ◼ ► Federighi." And I'm like, "That's in the press kit. That's not exclusive." And so I just posted
00:58:58 ◼ ► it on YouTube and put it in my story. And yeah, whatever. People are like, "Why is this on this
00:59:05 ◼ ► random YouTube channel?" It's like, "Ask Apple. I don't know. They just gave me the video. So I
00:59:09 ◼ ► posted it." Thank you, 800,000 viewers. Yeah. I mean, and this is clearly a video that is ripped
00:59:17 ◼ ► from a presentation that would have been given. Yeah, it's his on-stage demo. Yeah. And I really
00:59:24 ◼ ► do. So leading up to these potential products being announced, there was a lot of conversation,
00:59:30 ◼ ► right, about are they going to have an event? Is there enough to have an event? I really do think
00:59:35 ◼ ► that the Magic Keyboard was event-worthy, as well as the trackpad and cursor support in general. But
00:59:41 ◼ ► this whole thing, I think, would have been a very, very big story to tell about the continued
00:59:46 ◼ ► advancement of the iPad Pro. But you do get to see the gestures in this video. You also get glimpses
00:59:52 ◼ ► of the Magic Keyboard. Jason, will you allow me a few minutes to talk about how excited I am about
00:59:57 ◼ ► the cursor support having used it now for a few days? Yes, I will allow it. Go ahead. So we have
01:00:02 ◼ ► spent a lot of time talking about this. And I think what Apple have given us is the literal
01:00:11 ◼ ► will we maybe just get support for editing text, but down the line, we'll get everything."
01:00:23 ◼ ► out of nowhere, Apple dropped in 13.4 an absolute complete overhaul of the cursor support and beefing
01:00:32 ◼ ► it up to places that I don't think we could have imagined. So the cursor is now a tiny little
01:00:38 ◼ ► semi-transparent circle, which is really, really cool. Much smaller than the Assistive Touch circle.
01:00:45 ◼ ► Way smaller. Way smaller. I don't know what you think, but it's just the size of a cursor,
01:00:53 ◼ ► No, we're going to talk about this a lot, but I will say it is... What they did, there were the
01:01:01 ◼ ► rumors about like, "Oh, they're going to have an arrow cursor and a watch cursor or whatever."
01:01:11 ◼ ► reconception of what a cursor should behave like. This is a new take on a cursor that Apple is doing
01:01:17 ◼ ► here. It starts with the circle and it goes from there. I will mention my favorite feature of the
01:01:22 ◼ ► circle, if you haven't tried this yet, is you get this semi-transparent circle, you get this thing.
01:01:27 ◼ ► It's like, "Okay, well, I've got this darkish circle and then I move over a dark area. Do I
01:01:32 ◼ ► lose it? Do I lose track of it?" Sometimes that even happens on the Mac is that you lose track of
01:01:35 ◼ ► it. That's why the arrow has the white around it, the white outline. That's not what they do.
01:01:42 ◼ ► The system detects when you're over dark things and makes the cursor light. When they're over
01:01:57 ◼ ► There are a bunch of animations when it changes to different things. The level of detail
01:02:05 ◼ ► that went into creating this cursor is bananas. They sweated some cursor details that they
01:02:15 ◼ ► probably didn't need to sweat. As a Mac user, of course, you move the pointer over text and it just
01:02:29 ◼ ► On iOS, every cursor change that I could see is animated. There are in-between states. It animates
01:02:41 ◼ ► But it's beautiful. But it's so great. I agree. If you were creating a cursor from scratch today,
01:02:48 ◼ ► this is what you would end up with. Something like this. Where you're not using these what
01:02:54 ◼ ► are now decades-old interpretations of how these things should look. They don't need to look like
01:03:01 ◼ ► that. It doesn't need to be a pointing arrow. It's just not necessary. It can be whatever you want it
01:03:07 ◼ ► to be. What Apple's done is it adapts in different scenarios. As you are scrolling across, scroll the
01:03:15 ◼ ► cursor across an app icon, it snaps to it a little bit and will let you easily click the app icon.
01:03:21 ◼ ► It's got this behavior that's interesting that is taken from tvOS, where when the cursor is over
01:03:28 ◼ ► something, a button, an app icon, whatever, the cursor disappears, but the whole item lifts up.
01:03:36 ◼ ► And then as you move your pointing device, it gets that parallax effect like you're moving it.
01:03:48 ◼ ► Which some people are like, "Well, I'm really confused by that." I actually think most people
01:03:58 ◼ ► There is actually a setting where you can just say, "Always show me the cursor," even when I'm
01:04:02 ◼ ► highlighting an item. So for people who are distracted by that, but it's such a nice touch
01:04:11 ◼ ► >> And it also will attach itself to buttons inside of applications, which is nice. So if you,
01:04:20 ◼ ► for example, got a plus button to open a new tab in Safari, as you hover over it, it attaches to it,
01:04:26 ◼ ► so you can click it really easily. But it also does this for system things. So the little pill,
01:04:36 ◼ ► It will attach to the home indicator. What I like about this kind of magnetic attaching of the cursor
01:04:42 ◼ ► is it doesn't require as much precision. You can kind of just be in the area and you'll get what
01:04:53 ◼ ► >> The way that text selection works has changed. And I almost at this point can see why Apple made
01:05:02 ◼ ► so many changes to text selection in iOS 13, which on the whole made it way harder to deal
01:05:09 ◼ ► with text selection on the iPad by touch, but has made it way nicer now for the for trackpad stuff.
01:05:18 ◼ ► >> Yeah, they just need to watch it, right? They need to make sure that you shouldn't sacrifice
01:05:23 ◼ ► touch usability for pointer usability, right? So I think that's something that they need to watch and
01:05:28 ◼ ► revisit how it works. >> For sure. In iOS 14. But this basically what happens is you hover over
01:05:36 ◼ ► text, it just turns into a little I-beam and you can just click and select the text. And I love it.
01:05:41 ◼ ► And it's at the moment is a very inconsistent experience on iOS. This is one that, you know,
01:05:47 ◼ ► they say like the cursor stuff works pretty much everywhere. But we have a lot of applications
01:05:53 ◼ ► that text selection is going to need to be tweaked and adopted by developers. Like for example, in
01:05:59 ◼ ► Google Docs, it does not work. And I will give you a tip right now. If you are not finding that
01:06:05 ◼ ► the cursor is changing here, think of your cursor as your finger. So double click on a word and then
01:06:11 ◼ ► you can drag the little typical blue highlighter. >> Yeah, it's not great. It's actually very
01:06:17 ◼ ► similar to the experience was that I hated using a system touch to edit text where you get a cursor
01:06:22 ◼ ► that's not, you want the text editing behavior and the text editing cursor. And it does seem to
01:06:27 ◼ ► be like the more custom your text editor is on iOS, the less it will be supported by this. So like,
01:06:36 ◼ ► I use one writer, it has pretty standard text editing support. It works fine. Pages has to be
01:06:42 ◼ ► updated. And, you know, it's nice because the pages developers presumably knew that this was coming.
01:06:48 ◼ ► Whereas if you're the developer of a different text editor that you're going to have to scramble
01:06:52 ◼ ► to try and get it, do an update to support this cursor. But a lot of apps will pick it up
01:06:59 ◼ ► just automatically. >> There are lots of swiping gestures throughout the system now. So you can
01:07:06 ◼ ► swipe up to go home. You can swipe up further to enter app expose. You can swipe left and right
01:07:14 ◼ ► between apps as well. >> Yeah. And if you're using the Magic Trackpad too, it's just completely
01:07:21 ◼ ► natural. Like all of the multi-touch gestures and including the iPad version of them, like you said,
01:07:27 ◼ ► where it's sort of like you start up, if you flip up, it goes to the home screen. If you slowly go
01:07:32 ◼ ► up, it will pop into multitasking view just as if your finger was on the iPad doing that same
01:07:37 ◼ ► gesture. It's just, they really did a good idea or did a good job. And then swiping back and forth
01:07:42 ◼ ► between apps is a really natural gesture. Again, a gesture I make on the screen all the time that I
01:07:48 ◼ ► can make on the trackpad and it does the same thing. So with Assistive Touch and MICE support,
01:07:53 ◼ ► you were able to kind of assign buttons to do different actions, you know, like maybe to open
01:08:01 ◼ ► the multitasking or to bring up the dock. This is not a function in the new iOS 13.4 kind of top
01:08:09 ◼ ► level trackpad and mouse options. But you can actually go back into accessibility and turn on
01:08:16 ◼ ► Assistive Touch and assign these buttons to MICE as you would have before and doesn't change anything.
01:08:22 ◼ ► You don't then get an Assistive Touch cursor. It just keeps the mouse cursor as it was. So
01:08:27 ◼ ► if you're deciding, if you want to use a mouse with this and want to be able to, for example,
01:08:32 ◼ ► I don't know, click in the scroll wheel and go home, you can still turn those buttons on and
01:08:36 ◼ ► it doesn't actually change your experience in any way, which I really like. You can also then,
01:08:41 ◼ ► there's another thing like throwing the cursor, the screen edges will do things. So you can kind
01:08:46 ◼ ► of like throw it down to the bottom to bring up the dock, throw it up to the top and get notification
01:08:51 ◼ ► center, top right for control center and the right-hand side for slide over. And there's a
01:08:55 ◼ ► very particular behavior here that I really like, which is this idea of pushing further. So what
01:09:01 ◼ ► they don't want to have happen is that if you move your cursor to the right side of the screen,
01:09:08 ◼ ► you know, you slide it over there and slide over pops out. You're like, no, no, no, I don't want
01:09:13 ◼ ► to do that. I just wanted to move, click on something over on the right side of the screen.
01:09:16 ◼ ► So it's trying to sense what your intent is. And one way you express your intent that you want to
01:09:23 ◼ ► bring up control center or notification center or the dock or slide over is you move your cursor
01:09:27 ◼ ► to that side or that corner, and then you push through, right? So you move it over there and then
01:09:33 ◼ ► you push further out. It's like almost like a second gesture and it does exactly what you would
01:09:41 ◼ ► expect it to do. Now, in some instances, you're also highlighting an item like the home indicator
01:09:46 ◼ ► or items up in the status bar that you can just click on that will bring those things down.
01:09:53 ◼ ► But you can also just kind of push further, push your cursor out beyond the edge of the screen.
01:10:00 ◼ ► And that functions as a gesture. And one of my personal favorite things here, Jason, is that you
01:10:05 ◼ ► can have multiple pointing devices paired to an iPad and use them both. So I can and have been,
01:10:13 ◼ ► which I love, I can use a mouse in my right hand, trackpad on my left hand, and you can use them
01:10:18 ◼ ► both at the exact same time. Yeah, I'm not a dual wielder like that, but it's a big deal for you.
01:10:25 ◼ ► And it's great that you can do that. So I'm very, very excited about being able to do that because
01:10:30 ◼ ► it helps with my with my RSI to be able to rotate things quickly and not like, you know, to be able
01:10:37 ◼ ► to like, I don't know, I can do the swiping with my left hand and the point of control my right hand.
01:10:42 ◼ ► And it's been a great help for me with my Mac over the years. Right now I have a Wacom tablet,
01:10:47 ◼ ► a trackpad and a mouse where I'm sitting here at my iPad Pro. And now when I my iMac Pro, I should
01:10:54 ◼ ► say, and then when I go to my iPad Pro, now I have another trackpad and another mouse. And that works
01:10:58 ◼ ► great for me. And I'm really happy that I have that flexibility again with one of my, if not my
01:11:03 ◼ ► most important computer. So this whole thing is absolutely fantastic. I am so excited about it.
01:11:12 ◼ ► It is completely changing the way that I use my iPad all over again. And I am so enthused by this.
01:11:18 ◼ ► I'm so happy that Apple have done it. Like, my heart goes out to the people behind this
01:11:25 ◼ ► project at Apple because I cannot imagine that it was an easy one to get to fruition. And
01:11:32 ◼ ► I am so thankful for it. Because, you know, I consider myself a big professional user of the
01:11:40 ◼ ► iPad, right? Like I am on the thin end of the wedge here. And this is something I want. And
01:11:47 ◼ ► it seems like lots of people now who use the iPad to the level that I use it, right, you and Federico
01:11:54 ◼ ► and many more want that flexibility of being able to have an iPad at a desk. Because once you get
01:11:59 ◼ ► used to a thing, you want to be able to use it more and more with all of the tools that you want
01:12:04 ◼ ► at your disposal. And adding this into the system is going to be a big kick. And like, it's such a
01:12:10 ◼ ► good reason to have iPad OS exist in the first place. And I'm so pleased that they've not waited
01:12:16 ◼ ► until iOS 14 for this. Like they had it, they were ready, they were done, they shipped it. And I think
01:12:22 ◼ ► it's awesome. I'm so happy. Yep, same. And this could maybe open up some different use cases for
01:12:29 ◼ ► iPad OS apps in general. Like I'm really keen to see if or what changes could come of iOS 14 and
01:12:37 ◼ ► how it could maybe change development, like what it could mean for the future of the iPad in general.
01:12:43 ◼ ► And talking to some developers about this, you know, there are going to be new APIs that aren't
01:12:49 ◼ ► out yet, which is annoying because the OS is going to ship. But like, when you've got a cursor,
01:12:55 ◼ ► you can have what's called a hover state, which is that software knows that there's a cursor hanging
01:12:59 ◼ ► over it. And you don't have that with a finger, right? The finger is either touching the screen
01:13:02 ◼ ► or it's not. And you see it in places like Safari with its desktop browsing. Like web pages often
01:13:11 ◼ ► have a mouseover state or a hover state. Well, you could support that now when a cursor is present.
01:13:17 ◼ ► Apps can do that too. So they can put up like little tool tips and stuff. They can behave
01:13:23 ◼ ► differently. And my understanding is that some of the same stuff that you would do to make a
01:13:27 ◼ ► catalyst app on the Mac will be able to be used by this in cursor mode on an iPad. So it's all kind
01:13:34 ◼ ► of like coming together. So apps can be a lot smarter about this in this mode. Again, the base
01:13:40 ◼ ► mode of an iPad is that it's a touch tablet. So that should not, you should never download an app
01:13:45 ◼ ► and have it say, "You really need a keyboard and a mouse for this app on an iPad." Like that should
01:13:51 ◼ ► not happen. And those apps should be rejected from the app store probably, unless there's a very good
01:13:56 ◼ ► use case that requires them. But I'm even more excited about what this means for hardware, right?
01:14:02 ◼ ► Like this is potentially like Federico uses an external monitor for his iPad. And iPadOS 13.4
01:14:14 ◼ ► does not change external monitor support on the iPad. He's using a mirrored view of his iPad
01:14:21 ◼ ► screen. But you can see how you don't need to do that anymore, right? Like how an iPad could now
01:14:28 ◼ ► have either run in lid closed mode or have a second display with apps on it. Because when
01:14:35 ◼ ► you're driving with a keyboard and a mouse, you don't need a touch screen. You don't need anything.
01:14:39 ◼ ► It also means that Apple could make a Surface Studio-like device. It means Apple could make a
01:14:44 ◼ ► laptop or a big iPad of some kind. And you've got options now in how you build those things
01:14:51 ◼ ► running iPadOS. - You know, I don't like to say the future of computing, but I'm just going to
01:14:57 ◼ ► invoke it here for this period. Like this feels more to me like a future computer because it can
01:15:05 ◼ ► be so many different things. - Yeah, and I would say because Apple's trying to do things differently
01:15:11 ◼ ► still, like the give up would have been just to put the old Mac Aero cursor on it, right? But
01:15:16 ◼ ► they spent the time to reconceive of what a cursor would be like on a device like this.
01:15:21 ◼ ► - Or to make a keyboard that had, you know, one side of it was a case and you just slot your iPad
01:15:28 ◼ ► into the case and now it's a laptop, right? That was the easy way to make the Magic Keyboard,
01:15:33 ◼ ► but they didn't do that. They tried to do something different. - Yeah, so it is exciting and,
01:15:39 ◼ ► you know, we'll see where it goes from here. I've talked about this before, but I just want to
01:15:44 ◼ ► mention one of the things that happened in a bunch of stories that I saw when this happened was
01:15:48 ◼ ► Apple admits, the headlines go, that Microsoft was right and the Surface was right and the iPad was
01:15:54 ◼ ► wrong. And like some of those stories, The Verge has a story like that that's by Tom Warren that's
01:15:59 ◼ ► actually really good. The headline is kind of click-baity garbage. The story is actually quite
01:16:04 ◼ ► good. Talking about the different challenges that Apple and Microsoft have had trying to get to these
01:16:09 ◼ ► new devices. And like, of course, Surface was all about you need to have a keyboard and a mouse
01:16:21 ◼ ► And they were trying to build a next generation touch tablet computer from a position of strength
01:16:27 ◼ ► in traditional non-touch, non-tablet computers. Apple, because of its success with the iPhone,
01:16:35 ◼ ► came at it from the other perspective, which was, we have a thing we designed to be little and have
01:16:39 ◼ ► touch and not have any computer things at all. And now we've got a bigger one and it probably
01:16:44 ◼ ► should be more PC-like, but it has nothing to do that. So we're going to have to sort of
01:16:50 ◼ ► start from way over here on the touch tablet side and try to push back in terms of functionality to
01:16:56 ◼ ► something that, like more PC power. Microsoft has been struggling with the other direction,
01:17:01 ◼ ► which is they've got some good hardware and they've got the PC side, but how do you make
01:17:09 ◼ ► the Surface a good touch first tablet? And the truth is that they have tried again and again
01:17:15 ◼ ► and again because their user base just wants to use a PC. They're like, I use Microsoft stuff
01:17:21 ◼ ► because I have PC apps and I want a keyboard and a mouse, and it's been hard. So they're both
01:17:26 ◼ ► — I think Microsoft and Apple are both trying to reach this promised land and they're both
01:17:30 ◼ ► handicapped by their success, if that makes any sense. They are limited by the thing that makes
01:17:36 ◼ ► them strong because it prevents them from moving as quickly to the center. And they're both headed
01:17:44 ◼ ► for the same place, I would argue. I think where it's right in saying Microsoft was ahead of Apple
01:17:50 ◼ ► in knowing where it wanted to go, I think there's some truth in the sense that I think Apple got
01:17:55 ◼ ► caught up in its propaganda maybe a little bit in a cultural thing about what the iPad was not.
01:18:04 ◼ ► And like, oh, we shouldn't do X on the iPad, files on the iPad, because we've decided that we're
01:18:10 ◼ ► elevated. We shouldn't do external USB storage on the iPad because we've evolved to not need files
01:18:18 ◼ ► anymore and not need USB keychain drives anymore. It's just like, it wasn't true. And they had to
01:18:22 ◼ ► get past a lot of that, and I think they gave up years of lead over Microsoft by getting caught
01:18:29 ◼ ► up in that. But that said, and if you read Tom Warren's story in The Verge, he basically makes
01:18:35 ◼ ► the same point, that said, Apple's still the one to beat here because Apple is getting momentum
01:18:41 ◼ ► on the iPad now, and it is coming from a purer, clearer place because they started with the next
01:18:49 ◼ ► generation device and are now adding functionality to it. And Microsoft has shown repeatedly over
01:18:55 ◼ ► more than a decade that although the people at Microsoft who build this stuff know exactly what
01:19:00 ◼ ► they want to do and have done some really great work, the challenge is that their customers
01:19:08 ◼ ► don't want to go with them. And it's happened time and again, and so that's a real challenge for them.
01:19:15 ◼ ► So, I think it's way more complicated than just, oh well, once you see a pencil, then Surface was
01:19:21 ◼ ► right. Once you see a mouse, Surface was right. It's not quite right. Of course, Surface wanted
01:19:28 ◼ ► to do those things. That was their strength. Apple was coming from a totally different world where
01:19:33 ◼ ► there were no files or devices or anything. It was a big iPhone world, and they've been struggling,
01:19:39 ◼ ► and anyone who uses the iPad knows they've been struggling for years. And I think somebody tweeted
01:19:45 ◼ ► to me this week, they're like, "Do you think Apple finally has realized what the iPad is?"
01:19:48 ◼ ► And it's like, well, I think they realized it a while ago because we've seen the smart keyboard
01:19:52 ◼ ► and the Apple Pencil and files app and all of these things. We're seeing it. There was that
01:20:06 ◼ ► And I also think that, like, you know, it's like in the same way that you wouldn't have said just
01:20:11 ◼ ► because the Surface existed that Apple were right, you know, just because Microsoft decided to make
01:20:18 ◼ ► another tablet product. I mean, they've been doing tablet PC for longer, right? - For years. Yeah,
01:20:40 ◼ ► This MKBHD did a tweet this last week that was dead on, which is like, "Okay, great, Apple.
01:20:46 ◼ ► Where's Final Cut for the iPad?" It's like, this is a Pro iPad. It's like, you can buy,
01:20:58 ◼ ► faster than most PCs, most mobile PCs. And where are the apps? Like, I think it's just,
01:21:05 ◼ ► there's the question. Where is Xcode? Where's Final Cut? Where is logic? If this is a Pro system,
01:21:12 ◼ ► why is Apple's own Pro software support non-existent? You know, I think we just got a name
01:21:18 ◼ ► and shame every now and then when they do something like this. It's like, it's great. You know, one
01:21:22 ◼ ► major Pro software vendor that isn't supporting the iPad? It's Apple. There's no excuse.
01:21:28 ◼ ► No. All right, this episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pingdom. Pingdom help you make
01:21:34 ◼ ► sure that your website is running perfectly well. If you listen, when you listen to this show,
01:21:38 ◼ ► how would you know if your website had gone down? Would you have to wait for your customers to
01:21:42 ◼ ► inform you that they couldn't click that Buy Now button or read your latest post? You don't want
01:21:47 ◼ ► that. You need a system. You need something to tell you when everything's running smoothly on
01:21:51 ◼ ► your site and when it isn't. This is what Pingdom will do. Pingdom detect over 400,000 outages online
01:21:57 ◼ ► every single day and Pingdom help keep the sites that you love online. It doesn't matter if you're
01:22:03 ◼ ► a startup or a Fortune 500 company. You need alerts about critical website issues so you can
01:22:09 ◼ ► act quickly to fix what might be going wrong. They're going to let you also customize how
01:22:13 ◼ ► you're alerted depending on the severity of the outage. Pingdom will track and analyze your
01:22:22 ◼ ► just whether something's up or down. If something's running slowly, they can also help you with that.
01:22:26 ◼ ► If you have a site of any size, you need Pingdom. They have a no-fuss approach to get started. All
01:22:31 ◼ ► they need is the URL that you want to monitor and they'll take care of everything else. Go to
01:22:36 ◼ ► pingdom.com/relayfm right now for a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. Then when you
01:22:42 ◼ ► sign up, use the code UPGRADE at checkout to get a huge 30% off your first invoice. Our thanks to
01:22:48 ◼ ► Pingdom from Soloins for their support of this show and Relay FM. So you spent some time with
01:22:54 ◼ ► the brand new MacBook Air. I did. I did. I've got one right here and I wrote a review and everything.
01:23:00 ◼ ► I think that your headline to the review "No news is good news" tells a really good story of what's
01:23:06 ◼ ► going on here because you know everything was great about the 2018 Air except for you know
01:23:12 ◼ ► there could have been it could have been a bit cheaper should have had a different keyboard
01:23:16 ◼ ► maybe could have had more options for expanding it and they did all of that in 2020 right?
01:23:22 ◼ ► Steve McLaughlin Yeah I mean I titled my review "No news is good news" and that's basically
01:23:26 ◼ ► it which is "Hey you know that old MacBook Air? Hey you know that keyboard from the 2016 MacBook
01:23:31 ◼ ► Pro?" Well there you go. The MacBook Air was already the laptop that I recommended to people
01:23:38 ◼ ► who wanted a Mac laptop. It was already like this is the Mac everybody should get and Apple said
01:23:41 ◼ ► it's the best-selling Mac model. It's issues where it's price and it's keyboard and now it starts at
01:23:50 ◼ ► $999 and it's got the magic keyboard and then in addition to that it remember it only had the one
01:23:56 ◼ ► processor and they've changed to offer three different processors and you can get them in
01:24:00 ◼ ► any configuration you don't have to like buy the high-end one with lots and lots of SSD in order
01:24:05 ◼ ► to get the expensive processor. It's all to play for. You can get any with any configuration.
01:24:11 ◼ ► But they have a an i3 that's a dual core and that's the base model and so you could argue that
01:24:17 ◼ ► the hundred dollar price cut is basically a lower speed processor. It's an i3 dual core
01:24:24 ◼ ► so they've sort of made a tier below the 1099 which is fine. That's how Microsoft got theirs
01:24:31 ◼ ► under their MacBook Air equivalent under a thousand was that it was really underpowered
01:24:35 ◼ ► and under understoraged and that's actually kind of funny because the MacBook Air now starts at $256
01:24:41 ◼ ► instead of $128 which is great. It's much more usable at $256 in terms of storage but add on
01:24:47 ◼ ► another hundred bucks and you get a quad core the first time quad core i5 in the MacBook Air and then
01:24:55 ◼ ► you can if you add on $250 you get a quad core i7 and both of the quad core processors also have more
01:25:04 ◼ ► graphics. I forget what they call it's like graphics units or something like that so the
01:25:07 ◼ ► graphics performance is also improved on those models not just the CPU performance. So it's I
01:25:13 ◼ ► mean they're all Intel on board graphics they're not going to be spectacular but they're okay.
01:25:16 ◼ ► And so yeah I mean like really it on the outside it looks almost no different it's it's so thin
01:25:24 ◼ ► it's thicker in a way that you cannot tell and it's heavier in a way that you cannot feel.
01:25:29 ◼ ► So it's essentially exactly the same. But you would never notice them in daily use right?
01:25:35 ◼ ► It's it's it's minute minute and the battery quote of battery life is actually down a little bit
01:25:39 ◼ ► but again I think they are trading for power and it's a is it exciting? No I mean the excitement
01:25:49 ◼ ► was when they did the MacBook Air in 2018 18 months ago same time they did those iPad pros
01:25:53 ◼ ► they did the MacBook Air and it was that Brooklyn event and that was exciting because that new
01:25:58 ◼ ► product existed. This is just a bump but in a lot of good ways like it fixes you know it addresses
01:26:06 ◼ ► all the issues and then some with that older model. So now I would unequivocally recommend this
01:26:13 ◼ ► laptop as the Mac that people should buy if they're looking for a Mac to buy. We have two
01:26:17 ◼ ► of the old one in the house right now but like and I like it but all of its issues have basically
01:26:24 ◼ ► been fixed with this that I think are relevant. We can you know plenty of other podcasts can debate
01:26:29 ◼ ► whether laptops should have SD card slots or not. I'm not going to do that I think two USB-C ports
01:26:34 ◼ ► is is good enough for a 999 laptop and it's a nice laptop I like it a lot. Happy with I mean
01:26:42 ◼ ► the keyboard it's the same keyboard does it I assume it feels just the same as it does on a 16
01:26:48 ◼ ► inch? Yeah yeah it's doesn't have as much travel as on the old MacBook Air non-retina MacBook Airs
01:26:52 ◼ ► and I still have one of those and that feels a little bit better but it's good it's good it's
01:26:56 ◼ ► just like the 16 inch MacBook Pro it's a real keyboard with a millimeter of travel and after
01:27:02 ◼ ► the butterfly keyboard you know and some people don't care I asked my wife to try them both
01:27:06 ◼ ► because she uses the butterfly keyboard on there and she's like well whatever like some people do
01:27:10 ◼ ► not care but if you do care the point is some people do care and yeah what you want to do is
01:27:15 ◼ ► make something that everybody kind of like is fine with on your Apple laptops and they seem to have
01:27:20 ◼ ► done that. But I guess the important part I think is even if you don't care reliability improvements
01:27:29 ◼ ► if they are there and they are significant and I think at this point it seems like the 16 inch
01:27:35 ◼ ► MacBook Pro keyboard has been an improvement there on reliability. Whether you notice or not the
01:27:42 ◼ ► difference in your keyboard the absence of requiring to take it back into the Apple store
01:27:49 ◼ ► every six months will be a much better feeling overall right like you don't know that your
01:27:54 ◼ ► keyboard is more reliable if you're not paying attention but you'll really know if it isn't right
01:28:00 ◼ ► and and so I think that there's a good thing in that where it's like well you go back to that
01:28:04 ◼ ► keyboard so then people can have the reliability that they were used to and I think that's a big
01:28:09 ◼ ► win for everybody right? Yeah for sure. Now the yeah we said 999 is the start it also starts with
01:28:19 ◼ ► double the storage 256 gigabytes you can get it for 899 in education and you can go all the way
01:28:24 ◼ ► up to a two terabyte SSD and four core CPU stuff as you said now. I think all that's really great
01:28:28 ◼ ► it's still not as powerful as the iPad Pro and Geekbench scores which is funny. It continues to
01:28:34 ◼ ► be promising for a potential ARM future and so I think that's interesting and you already mentioned
01:28:40 ◼ ► right like this is an easy recommendation to people now as a machine right like this is easily
01:28:47 ◼ ► slot back in there as like there isn't a caveat now it's just like yeah you should get that one.
01:28:53 ◼ ► Yeah it's this is the one to get I mean it's that simple like I no longer have to say well you know
01:28:59 ◼ ► does the keyboard bother you or maybe there'll be a new keyboard it's like no this is the one get
01:29:02 ◼ ► this one it's gonna please everybody well not everybody maybe not everybody out there listening
01:29:07 ◼ ► but it's it's a crowd pleaser this is a this is the center of the Mac world even more than it was
01:29:12 ◼ ► last time. Are you surprised that this came before the 14-inch MacBook Pro? So my feeling on this to
01:29:24 ◼ ► answer the question I asked is yes but in hindsight no. Yeah well it is the most popular Mac right so
01:29:30 ◼ ► getting it turned over makes sense but we were all worried that Apple was gonna be like shady
01:29:34 ◼ ► and do something weird like you know oh no you have to wait MacBook Air you just you get the cheap
01:29:39 ◼ ► lousy keyboard and everybody in the MacBook Pro gets the expensive nice keyboard and that didn't
01:29:44 ◼ ► happen. Exactly right like we were all expecting the 14-inch MacBook Pro or a different MacBook
01:29:50 ◼ ► Pro because the 16 was already done so we're like oh obviously that's next but it does make more
01:29:56 ◼ ► sense for many reasons to to make the to improve the Air first because it is the most selling and
01:30:04 ◼ ► for all we know the 13-inch MacBook Pro actually sells less than the other two we I mean we don't
01:30:09 ◼ ► know and we assume Apple's putting its resources behind the decisions that makes the most sense.
01:30:15 ◼ ► I still expect we will see it an update to that MacBook Pro I don't know when now like I really
01:30:21 ◼ ► can't put my money on when I would expect that to be because a window has closed now but I'm happy
01:30:29 ◼ ► to see the MacBook Air get this treatment because it has now reasserted itself as the easy
01:30:35 ◼ ► recommendation for a laptop where you know like it was it's been a while right without caveats
01:30:42 ◼ ► like the MacBook Air was amazing and then it became old then it got refreshed but it was too
01:30:47 ◼ ► expensive and was lacking some updates that it still required but now it has slotted itself back
01:30:52 ◼ ► into the price that it should be at with all of the features that you want and has made it just
01:30:57 ◼ ► like a very very cool machine and so yeah I expect at least one of those will find its way into our
01:31:04 ◼ ► home before the end of the year for sure. Speaking of laptops though Jason I have been using a 16-inch
01:31:12 ◼ ► MacBook Pro for a little bit because Apple lent me to try out and I wanted to talk about my
01:31:18 ◼ ► experiences having used that machine for a while because I think I may have some opinions about
01:31:26 ◼ ► this computer that most people would not have and I thought it might be interesting to share.
01:31:31 ◼ ► Yeah go ahead. So it's massive uh of which you know I have not used a laptop of this size in a
01:31:38 ◼ ► while if ever I don't think I've ever owned no I've never owned a 15 I've always been 13 so
01:31:43 ◼ ► it's a very very big machine the screen is huge and great and honestly like I feel like ergonomics
01:31:50 ◼ ► aside a 16-inch laptop screen I could use that as my only computer like it's enough right like
01:31:58 ◼ ► it definitely isn't if things are more cramped but like I could get by with that like it's
01:32:03 ◼ ► I think kind of at the point where it's usable as your only screen so all of that's great
01:32:10 ◼ ► keyboards great speakers are amazing they do produce a really rich sound I think if you
01:32:16 ◼ ► have me walk into a room with my eyes closed and told me it was a home pod I would believe you
01:32:35 ◼ ► but the main thing that I wanted to talk about Jason was my feeling about the touch bar so
01:32:43 ◼ ► this is the first time I've ever used the touch bar outside of just seeing somebody else's or
01:32:50 ◼ ► going to an apple store and I kind of had some some feelings about it that and some things I
01:32:57 ◼ ► noticed on it that I didn't expect and I wanted to share them for people that also may have never
01:33:01 ◼ ► used one so there were things that the touch bar was doing that I hadn't expected it to do so like
01:33:06 ◼ ► for example when you get a dialogue box pop up with like you know like okay or cancel the buttons
01:33:12 ◼ ► the okay and cancel buttons show on the touch bar right and I actually kind of liked this because
01:33:20 ◼ ► my hands are on the keyboard they're there I could just hit those buttons rather than use the track
01:33:24 ◼ ► pad for that like that felt kind of natural to me and as an iPad user I'm kind of always reaching
01:33:33 ◼ ► up for a screen at times and this was like a nice thing where like you know like maybe if I'm using
01:33:38 ◼ ► the track pad my I could kind of just hit the button with my other hand like that kind of worked
01:33:44 ◼ ► quite nicely for me I like the the shortcut buttons that you see in apps like notes you know
01:33:50 ◼ ► like the the shortcut buttons that I'm used to seeing on the quick type bar right like the bold
01:33:56 ◼ ► and italics and stuff like that like all of those were there and I could use them the same as having
01:34:00 ◼ ► an emoji picker was really useful you recommended better touch tool to me uh-huh as as something to
01:34:07 ◼ ► to be able to really tinker around with to make the uh the the touch bar even better and oh boys
01:34:15 ◼ ► there are a lot of interesting stuff in there like I was able to replicate all of my doc in there and
01:34:20 ◼ ► set up a bunch of macros and stuff that I could trigger so like I have one for like recording
01:34:26 ◼ ► which would open a bunch of applications press record an audio hijack right and you could just
01:34:30 ◼ ► have that button permanently there for me to tap whenever I want I was like oh that's really
01:34:36 ◼ ► interesting right like you can do some some very very powerful things with the touch bar by using
01:34:42 ◼ ► an app like the touch tool and and I really like that I thought that was really cool yeah my
01:34:47 ◼ ► question remains why apple hasn't done more with it but it is nice that something like better touch
01:34:51 ◼ ► tool is there to make it much better um I really liked audio scrubbing that was nice to have I
01:34:58 ◼ ► scrub audio a lot and being able to use the touch bar for that felt much more natural than trying to
01:35:04 ◼ ► like hover a cursor over a a button and then use a trackpad like it felt much more natural for me
01:35:11 ◼ ► to be able to just scrub the audio with my finger but it wasn't perf it was not a perfect experience
01:35:17 ◼ ► by any stretch of the imagination I found myself accidentally triggering notification center a lot
01:35:23 ◼ ► because it was on the top right and I found out that in what I was doing very frequently instead
01:35:28 ◼ ► of pressing delete I was hitting that area and it would just swipe the notification center in
01:35:37 ◼ ► and I did also have the key control strip area become completely unresponsive like the top right
01:35:43 ◼ ► area where you kind of have your brightness or your volume and I had to google and use terminal
01:35:50 ◼ ► commands to to kind of reboot it which was not great that's not very user-friendly by any stretch
01:35:57 ◼ ► of the imagination but I would say overall like I really enjoyed having this feature on a laptop
01:36:06 ◼ ► now if I was buying a laptop to use as a laptop and I'll get into why I say that in a moment
01:36:14 ◼ ► I think I would want a MacBook Pro over a MacBook Air for the touch bar like huh I for me
01:36:22 ◼ ► it definitely had frustrations but it adds way more than it took away like I was able to have
01:36:30 ◼ ► more functionality available to me like even just something like the emoji picker and audio scrubbing
01:36:37 ◼ ► and being able to hit the occasional confirm dialogue button I really liked those things like
01:36:43 ◼ ► they were not taking away they were adding to my experience I did not find myself getting
01:36:48 ◼ ► distracted by it like I know some people do because I am not a touch typist I look at the
01:36:55 ◼ ► keyboard when I type and so for me it wasn't taking like wasn't like in my peripheral vision
01:37:01 ◼ ► like if I but like if I was going to be buying a laptop to use on a desk or to use around like I
01:37:07 ◼ ► would definitely consider buying a MacBook Pro for this feature now the problem is my next laptop
01:37:24 ◼ ► like for editing and for recording but also to power my editing area my editing desk and
01:37:30 ◼ ► workstation in my new studio and then to have my iMac Pro on a separate desk which doesn't have all
01:37:37 ◼ ► of the sound like the extreme sound isolation that I am working on around the recording desk and then
01:37:42 ◼ ► I will edit on my iMac Pro using all of its power but I don't need that much power or flexibility on
01:37:49 ◼ ► a recording area so it's on a laptop so this machine will actually be elevated in an evasive
01:37:56 ◼ ► stand like it's not going to be on the desk with me so that at least that's the plan so it's like
01:38:02 ◼ ► well maybe I but I don't need the touch bar in that instance so I haven't completely decided
01:38:06 ◼ ► where I'll go yet but I just wanted to kind of say that I was super surprised about how much I
01:38:13 ◼ ► enjoyed the touch bar like it made the MacBook Pro a more pleasant device to use for me because of its
01:38:20 ◼ ► because of its existence which is not what I would have expected because everybody that I know
01:38:25 ◼ ► doesn't like it but I really did like it so I wanted to kind of share that because it's different
01:38:33 ◼ ► and it's you know these things are different strokes for different folks and for me like
01:38:37 ◼ ► just the base functionality of that was really nice I also have used Catalina for the first time Jason
01:38:43 ◼ ► uh-huh there's lots of dialogue boxes in Catalina didn't like it did not like it things weird things
01:38:50 ◼ ► are happening like I got a prompt in 1Password for 1Password wants to record my screen which I'm
01:38:55 ◼ ► sure it doesn't but like what did it actually want to do it does want to record your screen because
01:39:00 ◼ ► it wants to be able to put that little thing over a barcode on the screen to record a one two-step
01:39:05 ◼ ► uh two-step authorization thing but like this is the thing I would love more information in those
01:39:12 ◼ ► dialogue boxes because that dialogue box didn't tell me anything just that it wanted to record my
01:39:18 ◼ ► screen and I think a developer should be able to customize the text to say why like why do you want
01:39:24 ◼ ► to do that um yeah I wasn't did not like all of that stuff like setting up a new app is so much
01:39:30 ◼ ► well complicated now um but I did like having catalyst apps being able to have a twitter app
01:39:37 ◼ ► rather than using tweetbot it was nice or using the website like I like that but so that is my
01:39:43 ◼ ► complete review of Catalina it's just like I don't really have much to say about it I found it more
01:39:48 ◼ ► annoying but I liked having more applications that I don't typically have so I'm going to be
01:39:54 ◼ ► continuing to use this MacBook Pro for a bit so I might have more to say on it but that was kind of
01:39:58 ◼ ► just what I wanted to wanted to talk about today all right should we do some hashtag ask upgrade
01:40:03 ◼ ► to wrap up today sounds like a good idea all right first let me thank ExpressVPN for the support of
01:40:09 ◼ ► this show you might think that nobody wants your data maybe nobody wants to snoop on you but when
01:40:14 ◼ ► you browse the web without anything to protect your privacy you could risk hackers ad companies
01:40:20 ◼ ► collecting your information this sort of stuff can happen to all of us which is why I use ExpressVPN
01:40:25 ◼ ► and recommend that you check it out too ExpressVPN can run in the background of your computer or your
01:40:30 ◼ ► phone or your tablet and it will encrypt your data and hide your public IP address you just download
01:40:35 ◼ ► the app click to connect and you're protected ExpressVPN is rated the number one VPN service
01:40:40 ◼ ► by TechRadar it uses new cutting edge technology called trusted server to make sure there are no
01:40:44 ◼ ► logs of what you're doing online and it costs less than seven dollars a month and comes with a 30-day
01:40:49 ◼ ► money-back guarantee ExpressVPN is super easy to install it's super easy to turn on it keeps
01:40:55 ◼ ► my speed fast like it doesn't slow my internet down I've used it countless times now and have
01:41:00 ◼ ► great experiences every time you can protect your online activity today and find out how you can get
01:41:05 ◼ ► three months for free at expressvpn.com upgrade that's expressvpn.com upgrade for three months
01:41:13 ◼ ► free of a one-year package you can take back your online privacy today expressvpn.com upgrade our
01:41:19 ◼ ► thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and all of RelayFN. So let's do some #AskUpgrade
01:41:27 ◼ ► questions the first comes from Neat Freak Geek and they say are there any Apple services that you do
01:41:34 ◼ ► not subscribe to do you consider them a business expense the ones that you do subscribe to since
01:41:39 ◼ ► you cover Apple if you didn't cover Apple professionally would it be any different for you?
01:41:47 ◼ ► I definitely don't subscribe to Apple News because I didn't find it valuable although I did for
01:41:53 ◼ ► you know I used the trial and I will sometimes go on and off of Apple services in order to
01:41:57 ◼ ► try them like that's a good example of like every now and then I'm going to need to look at Apple
01:42:02 ◼ ► News again but it's not worth paying for I'm on most of their services some of them I do actually
01:42:09 ◼ ► consider a business expense because or at least a portion of them because I write about them and
01:42:14 ◼ ► I need to have them and that's true of some other services too like streaming services and all where
01:42:19 ◼ ► I consider it part of my job to write about those so there's some amount of that that that goes to
01:42:24 ◼ ► there but you know that's that's Apple News I suppose is the biggest example Apple Care
01:42:31 ◼ ► I don't do any I'm not on the iPhone program I don't know that's about it yeah I didn't even
01:42:38 ◼ ► think about the upgrade program but yeah I also don't subscribe to Apple News because I just have
01:42:42 ◼ ► no interest in it but I would pay for all of the subscriptions that I do pay for regardless of
01:42:48 ◼ ► whether I was covering Apple and actually all of them I pay for myself they're not business
01:42:52 ◼ ► expenses it would be too difficult for me to try and split all that up and decouple it like
01:42:57 ◼ ► everything that I buy digitally through Apple I just pay for myself like then I don't pay for
01:43:02 ◼ ► my business but like TV+ and Apple Arcade Apple Care the uh I pay for additional iCloud I just
01:43:12 ◼ ► want all of those things um I'm sure that there could be something in the future that Apple launch
01:43:18 ◼ ► that I would just pay for to check out so I could talk about it and then cancel it but Apple and
01:43:23 ◼ ► Apple News could have been that thing but Apple News wasn't exciting or interesting enough to
01:43:27 ◼ ► really cover in detail about the content anyway so I didn't bother. Chris asks why are podcasters
01:43:34 ◼ ► from major news organizations who are now working from home instead of in their fancy recording
01:43:39 ◼ ► studios telling us how they are recording from under blankets is that really necessary?
01:43:43 ◼ ► Well they have high standards because they used to work in studios and now they're trying to get
01:43:47 ◼ ► that same audio quality in their homes and they're not getting it and that's because they haven't
01:43:52 ◼ ► needed to record from home before and they haven't created a home report recording studio and houses
01:43:56 ◼ ► are noisy and there are big glass windows and and bare walls and other things like that that
01:44:02 ◼ ► reflect audio and make it everything really echoey or there's street noise or there's noise from other
01:44:07 ◼ ► rooms because everybody else in their family is also home and so they try to like Leo LaPorte
01:44:12 ◼ ► tells a story about how he did a bunch of ad reads from a hotel in New York City and he basically just
01:44:16 ◼ ► went into the closet and did his ad reads in the closet and then they sounded perfect. I have
01:44:21 ◼ ► recorded from inside of closets when we were in San Francisco in the summer. I recorded I think
01:44:27 ◼ ► an episode of analog and connected from inside of a closet because it was we were in like a just a
01:44:33 ◼ ► our hotel room which didn't have a desk in it and it anyway but it was just like a big box so I
01:44:39 ◼ ► set up the ironing board in the closet as a desk and recorded in there it was great like it did
01:44:46 ◼ ► the job perfectly. Yeah so why are they telling you? I don't know I mean because they think it's
01:44:50 ◼ ► interesting or they're sharing or they're apologizing for how weird it sounds. The telling
01:44:56 ◼ ► you is not necessary. The audio quality like it is distracting if the audio quality dramatically
01:45:02 ◼ ► drops you're listening to a radio station and you're used to it sounding a certain way and now
01:45:11 ◼ ► these poor people are used to having a studio to go to and they haven't had years like we have to
01:45:17 ◼ ► make our home our studio and you'll find the people who have home studios they sound fine.
01:45:22 ◼ ► It's the people who don't who have to scramble to try and figure out what we all had to figure out
01:45:27 ◼ ► when we started doing podcasting so I feel for them and it is hard and yes you can depending
01:45:33 ◼ ► on your equipment and your location it can sound really terrible and you try to make it sound
01:45:37 ◼ ► better so hiding under blankets in closets is actually a way to do it and it may be your best
01:45:43 ◼ ► bet or as I mentioned earlier the guy Steve Baker from KCBS in San Francisco who has been doing his
01:45:50 ◼ ► sports reports from the car. There is something kind of kind of funny about like some podcasters
01:45:56 ◼ ► realizing podcasts can't be recorded at home and but I do wonder about this like if we're
01:46:02 ◼ ► going to spend the next six months to a year with a lot of people doing this kind of stuff potentially
01:46:15 ◼ ► really good sounding podcasts from home with just the right equipment. You don't need a soundproofed
01:46:21 ◼ ► booth. Yeah that's how I feel about like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon and people like that too
01:46:26 ◼ ► is that I get that this whole caught everybody by surprise but surely your network can send you some
01:46:33 ◼ ► stuff and you and like facetime call with somebody who will tell you how to set it up at home
01:46:38 ◼ ► and then you will have a setup that is pretty good. Our tech for mobile video and audio it's
01:46:43 ◼ ► pretty good it's actually pretty good and I know that everybody was caught flat-footed by this but
01:46:47 ◼ ► like you figure it out you can figure it out and and people will. Like as a technology podcast that
01:46:54 ◼ ► I really love I will not name names they would stay record in person and they were like hopefully
01:47:01 ◼ ► we can find out a way to do this. It's like you can. Yeah it has been done. Technology podcasts
01:47:08 ◼ ► right like look at your contemporaries like you're going to be fine like it's very easy it's actually
01:47:15 ◼ ► much easier to do this way but it is it's just like a funny thing I get it like I sympathize
01:47:22 ◼ ► with people trust me I am I've been trying to soundproof a big room for a while right like it
01:47:28 ◼ ► can be very difficult to do but it's definitely possible and luckily like audio it is much easier
01:47:42 ◼ ► one thing we have going for us. Astro Phoenix asks if the Apple pencil has any additional
01:47:49 ◼ ► functionality in iOS 13.4 like can you use it to control any of the system stuff right can you
01:47:59 ◼ ► bring down control center with a notification center can you bring up the dock no the Apple
01:48:03 ◼ ► pencil is not considered a cursor or pointing device nothing has changed there unfortunately.
01:48:09 ◼ ► You use it the way you use it now. There's no change and finally today Andrew asks are there
01:48:14 ◼ ► any good family-friendly board games that can be played across the internet so families that can't
01:48:20 ◼ ► get together can still have a game night. There are a few Dan wrote a piece at Six Colors about
01:48:25 ◼ ► streaming some games with your friends which you can do depending I mean he's describing a very
01:48:29 ◼ ► particular situation but there are ways to screen share if you want to do a jackbox game where only
01:48:35 ◼ ► one person has to buy the game and then everybody else just logs into jackbox.tv and plays and
01:48:40 ◼ ► if you can if you can share your jackbox game using skype or whatever you're using you could
01:48:45 ◼ ► do that there are online games I'll put a link in there's you go to horsepaste.com and it's a
01:48:50 ◼ ► it's a game code names which you can play on the web which is fun for D&D we use Roll 20 which is
01:48:57 ◼ ► basically a common game board so you could play with that though that's about all I've got is
01:49:03 ◼ ► like the text adventures Jason. Sure anything that anything that just requires audio you could you
01:49:11 ◼ ► could absolutely do just using you know facetime or any other voice over IP kind of thing you can
01:49:16 ◼ ► do but if you can screen share or you can see a common game board or something it gets more
01:49:22 ◼ ► interesting. And I wanted to say like upgradients if you have suggestions for good games that can
01:49:27 ◼ ► be played online you know maybe iOS games, Mac games, games that you know like that you're playing
01:49:32 ◼ ► with family and friends send them in to us you can tweet them at us and we can record we can kind of
01:49:38 ◼ ► suggest some on a future episode. Sounds good. Big show today if you want to find show notes you can
01:49:44 ◼ ► go to relay.fm/upgrades/290 or you can find them in your app of choice you can find Jason
01:49:52 ◼ ► online and all this coverage over these new products at sixcolors.com. Jason is @jsnew I am
01:50:00 ◼ ► @imike thanks to all of our sponsors this week the Five Folk Express VPN, Pingdom, Uni and Smile and
01:50:09 ◼ ► I would also like to thank Indeed for supporting this episode and if you want to tune in live don't
01:50:18 ◼ ► forget we record the show live if you working from home and you want to hear us every week instead of
01:50:24 ◼ ► waiting for the show to come out you can do that we record live at 9am pacific time every week on
01:50:30 ◼ ► monday over at relay.fm/live and you can also find a schedule there for any of shows that you
01:50:37 ◼ ► want to listen to. Thank you for continuing to listen to the show under any circumstance that you
01:50:43 ◼ ► might find yourself in right now don't forget wash your hands and stay away from people stay inside
01:50:51 ◼ ► that's and then we're all going to get through this together take care of yourself find ways to