00:00:45 ◼ ► I'm confident in our ability to create entertaining and exciting special episodes for the upgrade-ians.
00:00:50 ◼ ► Gregory has a #SnellTalk question for you, which says, "Jason, what is your favorite Star Wars
00:00:57 ◼ ► To give a flavor, Gregory's is the sail barge in Return of the Jedi, as it combines everything
00:01:07 ◼ ► Can you think of a favorite other than McClunky scene, which is your favorite Star Wars action sequence?
00:01:23 ◼ ► I think I'm going to say there's a-- the climactic space battle that is being intercut with the
00:01:32 ◼ ► battle down on the planet at the end of Rogue One, because it's a modern Star Wars movie
00:01:42 ◼ ► and I think it's actually very, very good, where they're up in space waiting for the shield to open,
00:01:47 ◼ ► and they're down on the planet trying to open the shield, and that's a really good sequence.
00:01:52 ◼ ► You know, in terms of classic Star Wars, sure, I mean, Luke and Vader's lightsaber battle
00:01:59 ◼ ► in Empire Strikes Back is probably high up on the list there too, but, you know, there are--
00:02:07 ◼ ► I don't know if I-- I have one that leaps out, but when I thought about this for a minute,
00:02:53 ◼ ► I think is the main reason why, and then all the movies are shot here, so there you go.
00:03:21 ◼ ► there's been lots of great podcast content, but I wanted to do some follow-up to episode 258 of
00:03:38 ◼ ► To resolve this bet, there may or may not be some spoilers for the past week's episode of ATP,
00:03:49 ◼ ► We and you had a bet on the episode of Upgrade about which ATP host would buy the Mac Pro and
00:04:14 ◼ ► there has at this time of recording been no evidence of Marco purchasing either a Mac Pro
00:04:21 ◼ ► it's not within two weeks yet, so I guess I still have a week before I'm completely invalidated.
00:04:25 ◼ ► Your guess and my guess are very, very similar because I think they have started arriving with
00:04:42 ◼ ► You said that John will buy a Mac Pro within the first three months, but not immediately,
00:05:01 ◼ ► I said John would not be buying a Mac Pro on day one, which I think I was wrong about, right?
00:05:44 ◼ ► personal brand at this point, but the show's ongoing storyline that I feel like it needs
00:05:49 ◼ ► to happen, right? Like, I've said in a few... This is not how it works, but I've said in a few
00:05:55 ◼ ► places that if ATP Incorporated existed, it should buy John a Mac Pro because it's, like,
00:06:10 ◼ ► The column browser's back in the music app. It's true. It's true. I updated my Catalina
00:06:16 ◼ ► on my iMac Pro last week to 10.15.2, and one of the features is the return of the column browser,
00:06:24 ◼ ► which I complained about over the summer with the public beta, and then I complained about
00:06:27 ◼ ► at slightly shorter length when the OS shipped because I figured old man yells at Cloud,
00:06:33 ◼ ► you know, it was enough. I had said my piece. Apple had decided to move on. It was a feature
00:06:38 ◼ ► I used all the time to create kind of arbitrary groupings and shuffles without having to build
00:06:42 ◼ ► playlists and stuff like that, and other existing features didn't really work. The column browser is
00:06:48 ◼ ► sort of the original iTunes interface, which is the sort of genre artist and album columns,
00:07:01 ◼ ► On iTunes in recent years and in the music app under Catalina, it's something that exists only
00:07:07 ◼ ► in the songs view. Stephen Hackett actually sent me a message last week, and he was like,
00:07:19 ◼ ► "How do I activate it?" It's grayed out in most places. In the songs view, which of course,
00:07:30 ◼ ► that's where it is. It's great. I don't know why it went away. I really don't know why it came back.
00:07:35 ◼ ► Perhaps they finally heard from people who, like me, were really unhappy that it went away. I don't
00:07:40 ◼ ► really see why it had to go away. It's off by default. You can just turn it on, but they brought
00:07:46 ◼ ► it back, and I'm happy about that. It has already changed my music listening back. There was a whole
00:07:53 ◼ ► kind of music listening I would do that was not playlist-based that I stopped doing when I switched
00:07:59 ◼ ► to Catalina because this feature went away, so I'm happy it's back. There have been lots of
00:08:03 ◼ ► upgradeions over the last week or so that have recognized what the chime is at the beginning of
00:08:08 ◼ ► this podcast. How about that? Before our music, there is a beep, and you may have thought to
00:08:12 ◼ ► yourself, "That's just a beep that begins before the music," but no, it is actually the startup
00:08:18 ◼ ► chime, the original startup chime from the original Macintosh. Yes. People have recognized
00:08:23 ◼ ► this because on the second episode of MKBHD's series "Retrotech," he takes a look at the original
00:08:29 ◼ ► Mac, and he starts it up, and you hear the beep, and it even did a thing to me. "Well, I know what
00:08:33 ◼ ► it is, but I heard it," and I was like, "Huh?" because I know that that means the beginning of
00:08:39 ◼ ► upgrade. So there you go, and you may have heard it in the past where we've changed the sound for
00:08:44 ◼ ► a little bit. They are just different Mac startup sounds that we've done. Yes, we have a little
00:08:48 ◼ ► library of Mac startup sounds. Occasionally, we'll vary it, especially when Myke is away,
00:08:52 ◼ ► and I get to play. I will sometimes vary it. When Apple TV launched, we used the cord that is at the
00:08:58 ◼ ► beginning of an Apple TV+ show, which is itself a reference to Mac startup chimes, right? But yes,
00:09:06 ◼ ► the one that starts out upgrade most weeks is the original Mac. It spent me a lot of time to get
00:09:12 ◼ ► that sound, and not one person commented on it. Well, yeah, but we were waiting for this moment,
00:09:24 ◼ ► - The upgradees, they're coming. Get your votes in, upgradees.vote, closing date, December 24th.
00:09:39 ◼ ► - We could do better. We could do better, and just keep in mind, for those who have not submitted
00:09:46 ◼ ► - Well, at least makes the spreadsheet work harder, but yes. upgradees.com, you can see
00:09:51 ◼ ► previous winners, but upgradees.vote is where you will go to cast your votes. You don't have to vote
00:09:58 ◼ ► in every category, none of them are required, so you can just send in the votes that you want,
00:10:07 ◼ ► I have some varied upstream news this week, there's a few different things. They fall into
00:10:11 ◼ ► the overall kind of sphere that I think Upstream covers. One of them, which is I find a little
00:10:17 ◼ ► oddity, this is interesting to me, Netflix are creating a new limited series that retails
00:10:27 ◼ ► - But I don't believe that Spotify are involved in this. Netflix have bought the rights to a book
00:10:44 ◼ ► - I guess, that is what I guess they're going to be doing, right? Like when I read the story,
00:10:51 ◼ ► I was like, oh, okay, it's gonna be like one of those biopics. Because originally I was like,
00:10:55 ◼ ► that's strange, like, is it a documentary? But it's not, it's like a fictional retelling kind
00:11:09 ◼ ► Apple have renewed the anthology show Little America. So this is the show created by Kumar
00:11:28 ◼ ► - But it's an anthology series and they ordered eight of them and they, and you're saying to
00:11:39 ◼ ► did I miss it? Is it on? It's like, no, it's not. It's not, it actually isn't coming back
00:11:49 ◼ ► I think is fine for an anthology series, right? Because there's no ongoing storyline you want
00:11:54 ◼ ► to sort of let people pick and choose. I think that's the right way to do it. And that's
00:11:58 ◼ ► different from what they've been doing. But as we've said before, because some other shows
00:12:03 ◼ ► have been picked up, you know, the morning show was bought for two years, so it didn't get picked
00:12:08 ◼ ► up, but like For All Mankind is a good example of this, where it got picked up for a second
00:12:13 ◼ ► season before it had premiered. A lot of times what this is, is this stuff got put into production
00:12:17 ◼ ► so early. My impression is that at some point you have to contractually choose to renew it
00:12:25 ◼ ► and keep the, in this case, the producers from moving on to other things by picking up their
00:12:32 ◼ ► contract. And also the stars too, I guess. Yeah, except here there are no stars, right? Because
00:12:37 ◼ ► this is an anthology series. But the same idea that Apple TV+ took so long to gestate that
00:12:45 ◼ ► they have these, I think this is what's going on, I don't know for sure, but they have these
00:12:50 ◼ ► make or break dates in their contracts and they got to say yes or no. And they've seen them,
00:12:55 ◼ ► obviously, at Apple and probably like them and decided that they're going to place the bet that
00:13:01 ◼ ► they want more of it, even if they're taking the risk because nobody's actually seen them
00:13:05 ◼ ► on the outside, that they like it enough because it's either this or they walk away from the project.
00:13:09 ◼ ► So yeah, Apple will be dropping all eight episodes at once and then they've renewed for more to go
00:13:17 ◼ ► on. Yeah, yeah. So this is just related to that, Apple TV+, we should mention their first round of
00:13:24 ◼ ► shows that we spent two years talking about are wrapping up. See had an eight episode season,
00:13:30 ◼ ► it's done. They dropped the last episode a week and a half ago. The Morning Show and For All
00:13:35 ◼ ► Mankind, I believe, dropped their season finales on Friday. And we've seen that there's that
00:13:53 ◼ ► show has launched. So we're in an interesting place now where the launch shows are going away
00:14:05 ◼ ► this Little America is going to be one of those, but that's something I think we should keep our
00:14:10 ◼ ► eyes on because there's the big splash launch, right? But then they're up and running and they
00:14:18 ◼ ► got to keep it rolling, right? So what's the rollout going to look like? And are they going
00:14:23 ◼ ► to drop things in batches? Is there going to be something new every week? Going to be interesting
00:14:29 ◼ ► to see how they do it. And we don't know for sure how they're going to roll it out. So that's
00:14:34 ◼ ► something to watch because we're kind of at the end of the launch of Apple TV+ right now.
00:14:39 ◼ ► Yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing where it's like, all right, so you started off with
00:14:44 ◼ ► three shows and they ran for about the same amount of time. I was interested in two of them. Now,
00:14:49 ◼ ► those shows are over and there's another two that are going week by week. And I'm only kind
00:14:53 ◼ ► of interested in one of them. So then what if by the time those shows are over, I'm interested in
00:14:58 ◼ ► none for two or three months? For me, there have been so many different shows on that we've been
00:15:06 ◼ ► watching for all mankind week by week, but we've been watching the morning show very slowly because
00:15:13 ◼ ► other shows get in the way of it, The Mandalorian and Watchmen and The Expanse and there's like
00:15:17 ◼ ► other shows that have gotten in the way of it. So we're only on episode four, I want to say,
00:15:22 ◼ ► of the morning show. So we got a lot more of that to go. So I'll go back to that as some of these
00:15:28 ◼ ► other shows wrap. But yeah, I think this is the ongoing question. And if you get it free for a
00:15:34 ◼ ► year, you're giving them a huge grace period, right? If you bought an Apple product and you
00:15:38 ◼ ► get it free for a year. But in the long run, it's a month to month thing where Apple TV+,
00:15:44 ◼ ► like any subscription service has to prove itself month to month. And if you at the end of the month
00:15:48 ◼ ► are like, this happened to me with Hulu not too long ago, where I had that moment where I thought,
00:15:57 ◼ ► That's not what you want if you're a streaming service, right? That's not what you want.
00:16:13 ◼ ► Now that first year is really crucial because you want to get to the end of the first year
00:16:17 ◼ ► and get that little email that says, hey, you were about to charge your card for Apple TV+ for a month
00:16:23 ◼ ► because your year is up. You want to be like, oh, no, I can't miss the rest of season two of
00:16:29 ◼ ► For All Mankind or whatever it is. I've enjoyed this too much. It has too much value. I want to
00:16:35 ◼ ► keep it. This year is their way to prove that. And they get a little bit of time to do a shakedown
00:16:40 ◼ ► cruise here. But by the time we get to the end of the year, it needs to have proven its value to that
00:16:45 ◼ ► initial annual subscriber base that they speculated. And basically, what would Tim call it? A gift?
00:16:57 ◼ ► So yeah, I think it's fascinating to watch. I think this will be really interesting to see
00:17:02 ◼ ► how they make this happen because this is part of the execution part. We spent two years talking
00:17:07 ◼ ► about how they were buying a really nice bicycle and putting a lot of cool, fancy parts on it,
00:17:12 ◼ ► but they hadn't ridden it yet. And now it's like, OK, then we watch them get on the bike and start
00:17:17 ◼ ► to ride it. Go with me here. But now it's like, well, now they need to ride the bike to a
00:17:21 ◼ ► destination. And like, how's that going to go? We don't know. It's interesting. So I'm happy that
00:17:29 ◼ ► And Apple News is going to be hosting an American presidential debate. This was announced by the
00:17:35 ◼ ► Democratic National Committee that Apple News will be partnering with ABC and WMUR TV to host the
00:17:41 ◼ ► eighth Democratic debate on February the 7th. This is part of an election coverage content alliance
00:17:51 ◼ ► it's not new in the sense that a bunch of other online kind of news services have been a part of
00:17:58 ◼ ► the presidential debate mix. But it is kind of funny that it's Apple News, right? Like,
00:18:02 ◼ ► it's weird. Insert your own Apple News joke here. But it's not surprising on one level,
00:18:30 ◼ ► - They're going to show it in Apple News. It's like this funny thing. So that will be video
00:18:38 ◼ ► "Oh, I want to read this debate on the web." And then it'll hijack your link and take you
00:18:51 ◼ ► the easy to use email marketing app designed exclusively for the Macintosh platform to help
00:18:57 ◼ ► you send and create great looking email newsletters. Email marketing is still an incredibly cost
00:19:02 ◼ ► effective way to reach your customers and grow your business. And for the past 15 years, Mac
00:19:06 ◼ ► users around the world have trusted the Direct Mail app to handle all of their email marketing needs.
00:19:12 ◼ ► It is designed just for the Mac, which means it's fast, it's easy to use, it looks great as well,
00:19:16 ◼ ► and will also work fantastically with the other apps and services you are already using
00:19:21 ◼ ► to get your work done. You can have email campaigns sent automatically without you lifting a finger,
00:19:27 ◼ ► get in-depth campaign reports to show you who's reading, clicking, and sharing your newsletters,
00:19:31 ◼ ► and you can save time by integrating with over 1,000 services that you're used to from the Mac,
00:19:37 ◼ ► the web, and more. They have real human live chat customer support available to answer your
00:19:47 ◼ ► with five star reviews everywhere. Go on, get app, app store, elsewhere. People love this application.
00:19:54 ◼ ► It is trusted by small businesses, nonprofits, schools, and Fortune 500 companies alike.
00:20:00 ◼ ► Direct Mail is free to download and get started and listeners to this show can get 10% off all
00:20:11 ◼ ► That is directmailmac.com/upgrade to get 10% off when you opt for a full feature plan. Our thanks
00:20:18 ◼ ► to Direct Mail for their support of this show and Relay FM. So I know that it's been about a week now
00:20:24 ◼ ► since the Mac Pro has been available, but let's talk a little bit about some of the aftermath,
00:20:32 ◼ ► if you will. You were on the talk show with Jon Gruber, and so there's a lot of initial
00:20:43 ◼ ► and impressions sitting over there. We also talk about Perl and movable type and emoji.
00:20:47 ◼ ► Sounds about right for you too. Yeah, lots sounds. We're on brand. No keyboard. Very little keyboard
00:20:53 ◼ ► talk and no baseball talk. I'll just say that. So two and a half hours, yeah. I would just like to,
00:20:58 ◼ ► on the show, thank Jon Gruber for his kind words about upgrade. It was very nice of him to say.
00:21:02 ◼ ► Yes. So thank you. Very nice. Very nice. I have an answer to my question about where the Mac Pro is
00:21:09 ◼ ► made if it's not an American product. So this has happened in a couple of ways. This morning,
00:21:20 ◼ ► they wrote in to us to say that they had heard from their readers that Mac Pros that they were
00:21:25 ◼ ► starting to receive in Europe were being shipped directly from China and were stating that they
00:21:30 ◼ ► were made in China, like assembled in China. I'd also heard this. It corroborates something that
00:21:36 ◼ ► I'd heard. Mac Generation wrote this up on their website, but it's all in French. So Mac Rumors did
00:21:42 ◼ ► a translation of this. I'll include both in the show notes, depending if you know French or not.
00:21:46 ◼ ► Go to Mac Generation, I guess. But you can see it. It says on the Mac Pro hardware itself assembled
00:21:53 ◼ ► in China. Why is this important? Because it proves a point that I think is important to prove,
00:21:59 ◼ ► that the whole Donald Trump, Tim Cook thing is as much of a dog and pony show as I expected it was.
00:22:11 ◼ ► They are assembled in China if you've ordered it in America. It does not mean that the Mac Pro,
00:22:16 ◼ ► as a computer, is manufactured or assembled there in the same way that like iPhones are assembled
00:22:24 ◼ ► in China. iPhones are assembled in China because that's where they're made, right? And they're
00:22:27 ◼ ► shipped all over the world. The Mac Pro is only being assembled in America as a political stunt,
00:22:33 ◼ ► right? The idea of the Mac Pro being an American product made in America, it doesn't mean anything.
00:22:39 ◼ ► BRIAN: Well, there are lots of different reasons to make computers in different places,
00:22:44 ◼ ► and some of them are for politics and some of them are for tax purposes. I mean, we talked about how
00:22:50 ◼ ► in, I think in Brazil and in India, Apple has experimented with making at least iPhones and
00:22:56 ◼ ► maybe other products in the local, assembling them there so that they can avoid certain kinds
00:23:03 ◼ ► of tariffs and taxes. WILLIAM: In the same way that we mentioned that some bill to order products
00:23:12 ◼ ► BRIAN Right, which these are not, which I think is an interesting quirk, right? Like that the,
00:23:16 ◼ ► it was possible at least that European Mac Pros could have been made in Ireland, but they're not.
00:23:31 ◼ ► configured in Ireland if you do that? I mean, there's more, there's a lot of complexity to
00:23:34 ◼ ► the supply chain here. Also, I suppose you could say that when you say for political reasons, like
00:23:39 ◼ ► avoiding taxes and tariffs are in some ways connected to political reasons, like that if
00:23:45 ◼ ► you don't make a big show about your assembling this product in the United States, that you'll get
00:23:50 ◼ ► tariffed and taxed. And if you do, then you won't even. So yeah, so I mean, this is the this is that
00:23:56 ◼ ► other data point. This is not a product that is being made in the USA for the world. It's being
00:24:02 ◼ ► made in the USA for the USA. It is a it's not symbolic, because it's real, but it is a gesture.
00:24:22 ◼ ► allow the US president to just say whatever he wants about it, right? Like, that's the thing
00:24:28 ◼ ► BRIAN Apple didn't say we are proud that we are making the Mac Pro in America for American
00:24:33 ◼ ► customers. Like, I don't believe they've said that. Like, they just let it be assumed if you
00:24:38 ◼ ► want to assume that the whole product line is being made there, but or assembled there,
00:24:43 ◼ ► but it's not. Now, the parts are presumably the same, right? Which means that still that
00:24:47 ◼ ► mixture of parts that are sourced from all sorts of places, including in the United States.
00:24:51 ◼ ► But as we've talked about on past shows, even with that, it's going to be way cheaper to
00:24:57 ◼ ► assemble those things in China and then ship them around the world. So that's what they're doing
00:25:03 ◼ ► outside of, you know, the US or maybe outside of North America, or there may be other regions that
00:25:09 ◼ ► we discover are getting the American sourced products. It may not just be the US. Canada
00:25:14 ◼ ► might get the American products, right? Mexico might even get them. But beyond that, it looks
00:25:24 ◼ ► MATT WILKES: It was just important to me to close the loop, because it was a thing that I
00:25:28 ◼ ► cared about and we have now. And I'm pleased that our hypothesis was correct, right? That
00:25:35 ◼ ► they were not, if you were buying one in Germany, it was not coming from Austin, Texas,
00:25:39 ◼ ► because that would have been wild. So we know the pricing configurations, we know how expensive
00:25:45 ◼ ► this computer can get. This is exactly the amount of money I thought it was going to go to, right?
00:25:49 ◼ ► Like 50 grand, right? Like it just seemed like, of course. I don't know how you feel about it,
00:25:54 ◼ ► but like, you know, I've seen this, there's rightly so I think for how symbolic this product
00:25:59 ◼ ► is and how important it is. There is a lot of hand wringing about pricing and who this is for
00:26:02 ◼ ► and who it's not for. I think that it's a, I consider it very positive that you can spec this
00:26:08 ◼ ► machine the way that you can, because it means that this is finally a Mac, which like for nearly
00:26:17 ◼ ► 10 years, right? We have not had the ability to create a Mac to go to wild purposes, right?
00:26:25 ◼ ► That like you could spec a Mac with internals that could be used in a vast, vast variety
00:26:33 ◼ ► of use cases. And 1.5 terabytes of RAM is a very extreme use case, but you can do it now.
00:26:42 ◼ ► And I think that that is great because if what you're looking for is an idea that Apple has
00:26:49 ◼ ► commitment to the Macintosh, this is it because there is for most business reasons, zero purpose
00:26:57 ◼ ► to sell that machine, right? Like I was wondering like how many machines are they going to have to
00:27:03 ◼ ► make to like recoup their R&D costs for this, considering this was a product that they were
00:27:10 ◼ ► never going to make in the first place. Right. Right. And I just think about the amount of money
00:27:14 ◼ ► that, because if you think about it, right, the iMac Pro doesn't need to exist in theory if the
00:27:21 ◼ ► Mac Pro is always going to be made. The iMac Pro exists because they were getting rid of the Mac
00:27:25 ◼ ► Pro. Exactly. And we know that there have been reports about that, that the iMac Pro was a
00:27:29 ◼ ► project that was made because they were killing the Mac Pro and then they decided not to kill the
00:27:35 ◼ ► Mac Pro. And there's an open question there about updating the iMac Pro, a product that I really
00:27:39 ◼ ► love, by the way, that we'll see, like, will they do that? Or is this the only iMac Pro that will
00:27:46 ◼ ► ever exist because they went in a different direction? I don't know. So then if you imagine
00:27:51 ◼ ► if somebody's trying to work out like what was the overall cost of this product, let's just imagine,
00:27:55 ◼ ► for example, that you took the iMac Pro into consideration, right? So like the amount of
00:27:58 ◼ ► money it cost to create and research and develop that product, the amount of money it's taken for
00:28:05 ◼ ► the Mac Pro, and then the whole thing together. People don't give that enough credit, right? Like
00:28:09 ◼ ► people think about the cost of the parts and all that, but it's so much harder to think, like,
00:28:14 ◼ ► this is time spent by Apple designers, Apple hardware engineers to build this thing. It's
00:28:20 ◼ ► time being diverted from other things. There's an opportunity cost here too because it's a computer
00:28:25 ◼ ► that's being designed instead of a different computer that could be designed. And, you know,
00:28:37 ◼ ► filmmaking potentially means that Apple stays in the good graces of some high-end workflows.
00:28:50 ◼ ► for various reasons. And you end up with not just selling iMac Pros, but you sell those monitors and
00:28:57 ◼ ► you sell MacBook Pros and you, I think it also can't be discounted. I mentioned this on the
00:29:03 ◼ ► talk show that there's also a, you know, good feeling, like an identity thing to say, look at
00:29:11 ◼ ► us, look at how we brush up against the fancy, you know, Hollywood folks and that that makes us look
00:29:19 ◼ ► good that we're, that they, you know, we can make this and that they can use it. Even if it, you
00:29:25 ◼ ► know, doesn't have a direct dollar benefit that, that it's, it's worth doing. But it's very clear
00:29:31 ◼ ► from the base price of this thing that like the conception all along was that Apple wants to build
00:29:37 ◼ ► something that can reach the stratosphere. And, as a result, like, cause if, if this was, if this
00:29:45 ◼ ► started at $2,000, there would, there could not be some of the stuff that's in it that is in it,
00:29:50 ◼ ► because they wanted to build it with the, at this very, you know, thing that could scale way,
00:29:55 ◼ ► way, way up. And as a result, the floor is way higher than I think a lot of people would like it
00:29:59 ◼ ► to be. You mentioned a very key word there, which was identity. I think that this Mac Pro is in the
00:30:08 ◼ ► identity of many people, right? Like you were mentioning it in the idea of Apple's identity,
00:30:12 ◼ ► who they want to be to the world, right? And they want to be, continue to be as they have
00:30:17 ◼ ► been for such a long time, the place that creative professionals go to. And the Mac Pro serves,
00:30:35 ◼ ► - Yep. Yeah. Including the group that we would say Apple itself has identified as its largest group
00:30:42 ◼ ► of pro users, which are developers. A lot of developers are very technical people and they
00:30:49 ◼ ► love computers. That's why they're developers. And they don't like the idea of using a system that is
00:30:57 ◼ ► enclosed, that is a consumer that works really well for consumers, but they're like, but I want
00:31:02 ◼ ► to tinker. I want it open. I'm a more technical person. And these are the kind of people who have
00:31:06 ◼ ► been buying towers from Apple for years. They had a Mac Pro cheese grater, or they had a
00:31:12 ◼ ► Power Mac G5. Maybe they skipped past the trashcan Mac, but they would like to have a tower.
00:31:22 ◼ ► And the fact is that this is, at its base model, this is overkill for them. And it's Apple's take
00:31:44 ◼ ► you should just get an iMac Pro or an iMac or a Mac Mini or a MacBook Pro and not this.
00:31:50 ◼ ► And the problem is that there's some people for whom it's not about the power of it. It's that
00:31:56 ◼ ► it's a box. It's an open box that they can swap out the storage and they can swap out the memory
00:32:03 ◼ ► and they can put in cards and they can do all of these things. And they want to do that. And
00:32:13 ◼ ► So I'll ask you, do you think that this configuration, this starting price, this $5,000
00:32:38 ◼ ► I feel for the people who want Apple to make a Mac that fits them. And I feel for the people who
00:32:46 ◼ ► are, especially developers, but people who, you know, we talk about pro machines and there was a
00:32:52 ◼ ► post that I linked to on Six Colors from Martin Pilkington that I think explains the argument very
00:32:59 ◼ ► clearly. And, you know, in the end, what he says is, is the Mac pro machine, undoubtedly,
00:33:08 ◼ ► there's no reason why anyone who is not a professional user should even consider buying
00:33:11 ◼ ► one, but is it a machine for pro users for the vast majority of us out there because he places
00:33:16 ◼ ► himself in that group? The answer is no. The answer is, unfortunately, he says no. And that's,
00:33:21 ◼ ► I think that's exactly right. Like the issue here is that there are a bunch of people who
00:33:30 ◼ ► I would argue that it's Apple, Apple makes a line of pro products and Apple doesn't believe
00:33:39 ◼ ► that the Mac Pro is for all pros, nor should it be. And they made those decisions. I think
00:33:49 ◼ ► is that there are a lot of pros who want to tower from Apple. And Apple has essentially said,
00:33:55 ◼ ► no, you should get something else. You should get a laptop. You should get an iMac. You should get
00:34:08 ◼ ► it is that I don't believe, and I think this has been true for a long time, I don't believe
00:34:15 ◼ ► most people who feel that they need an expansion full computer so that they can swap out parts and
00:34:24 ◼ ► plug in cards and do all of those things. I don't believe that most of them actually need it.
00:34:37 ◼ ► There has been a fallacy in computers for a very long time that people want to buy the upgradable
00:34:45 ◼ ► computer, whatever the upgrades are, because it makes them feel safe. It's like insurance,
00:34:51 ◼ ► it's future-proofing in a way. And I think if you look at, and I know Apple had research about this
00:35:00 ◼ ► back in the day, you look at how people use those computers, they never upgraded them. They never
00:35:05 ◼ ► did. They never did. And it's not to say that nobody did, but almost nobody did. And there's
00:35:09 ◼ ► a famous, maybe apocryphal, I don't know, story about Apple at some point realizing that they
00:35:14 ◼ ► could dramatically reduce the number of slots in their tower or in their Macs that had openable
00:35:20 ◼ ► boxes with slots in them, because they realized that although people said they wanted six slots,
00:35:24 ◼ ► nobody ever used more than two slots or three slots. And it gets overstated is what I'm saying.
00:35:31 ◼ ► I think in general, I would like Macs to have user removable and installable storage and RAM,
00:35:43 ◼ ► let's say. And Apple doesn't do that. Apple doesn't do that for some good reasons, which is
00:35:48 ◼ ► they engineer without that and their devices can be thinner and lighter and nicer in all sorts of
00:35:54 ◼ ► different ways. But I think there's an argument to be made there. But clearly that's not what Apple
00:35:59 ◼ ► believes. And my sympathy for Apple is at least exists in part because I do think that a lot of it
00:36:07 ◼ ► is more about an emotional desire to have control over your computer that is understandable, but not
00:36:19 ◼ ► necessarily logical or not necessarily something that actually gets put into practice. So, you know,
00:36:28 ◼ ► would it be great if Apple made a mid-range mini tower for people who are developers and not high
00:36:35 ◼ ► end video pros? Yes, of course. And that's been true since 2007 when we were running op-eds at
00:36:43 ◼ ► Macworld by Dan Frakes and Rob Griffiths about this very issue. Like it's been true for more than
00:36:49 ◼ ► a decade that Apple has been, back in the day, it was like, how about a thousand dollar tower? Now
00:36:53 ◼ ► it's like, we'll pay 3000 for a tower, please give us a tower that's not six grand. So I get all of
00:36:59 ◼ ► that. But I also understand Apple saying, look, we want to hit the high end here with this product.
00:37:11 ◼ ► they're so expandable that we just are not going to make another product. And we're not going to
00:37:17 ◼ ► hurt this product by bringing it down in scale because every product has a cost. Every new
00:37:22 ◼ ► product has a cost. So, you know, I understand the desire for it. I have some skepticism that that
00:37:28 ◼ ► would be a popular product. And I have a great deal of skepticism that that product would not just
00:37:33 ◼ ► cannibalize sales of other Apple products, which while not the problem of the consumers buying the
00:37:38 ◼ ► computer, it's a problem for Apple. Because, you know, if you go to Apple and say, well, okay,
00:37:43 ◼ ► we're going to make a $2,000 or $2,500 tower that is kind of like the Mac Pro, but way, way cheaper
00:37:50 ◼ ► and doesn't have the high end performance, but we're going to roll that out. And then I'm a bean
00:37:54 ◼ ► counter at Apple and I say, okay, what's the net increase in sales? And the answer is, well, no,
00:37:59 ◼ ► actually we're going to lose sales. Net increase is nothing or almost nothing. We'll lose some sales
00:38:04 ◼ ► of Mac Pros from people who are so desperate for a tower that they'd buy a Mac Pro. So we'll lose
00:38:09 ◼ ► those higher margin sales and we'll lose some iMac sales and some iMac Pro sales and some Mac Mini
00:38:13 ◼ ► sales. And maybe we'll have to kill the iMac Pro in order to do this. And I could see somebody at
00:38:19 ◼ ► Apple being like, that doesn't make sense. Why would we do that? Why would we spend time making
00:38:22 ◼ ► a product that is, and it's still going to be a niche product, right? It's still mostly not
00:38:26 ◼ ► going to sell, uh, like all these other pro products that are especially desktops. It's like,
00:38:31 ◼ ► yeah, that's true. So you can see why they would say no. Doesn't make it hurt any less.
00:38:36 ◼ ► If you're somebody who really wants that product and is frustrated that Apple won't give it to you.
00:38:40 ◼ ► Do you have any desire for the Mac Pro? Like forget cost for a minute. Cause I would love one,
00:38:49 ◼ ► right? I look at it and I'm like, that's super cool. Right? And the more videos I've seen on it,
00:38:55 ◼ ► the more I've heard about it. That's a cool computer. Like if you remember, I was waiting
00:39:04 ◼ ► like priced me out and I bought the iMac Pro, right? Cause it's just like, I don't want to
00:39:08 ◼ ► spend that amount of money for what will be a machine that will be lacking in the areas that I
00:39:13 ◼ ► need storage RAM. I could get what I actually need storage RAM processor and basic power cheaper than
00:39:20 ◼ ► I can on the Mac Pro, which is what I did. Right? Because it's not even, you know, monitor two,
00:39:26 ◼ ► which I didn't have. Right? So like the price goes up and up and up, but in a world where I could
00:39:31 ◼ ► get or could have gotten the Mac Pro and a monitor, a nice Apple monitor, right? That matches in some
00:39:37 ◼ ► way for around the price of the iMac Pro, I would have gone with the Mac Pro cause it, I think it
00:39:43 ◼ ► looks cooler than the iMac Pro. Cause it's a new design, right? Where like, yes, my iMac Pro is
00:39:48 ◼ ► space gray, but I've had three computers over the last like nine years that look just like this one.
00:39:59 ◼ ► Do I appreciate the idea of a shiny new Mac like this? Absolutely. And I used to have a five,
00:40:10 ◼ ► a G5, I had a G4, I had a G3. Like I had a whole, and I had a power computing clone before that. I
00:40:17 ◼ ► had four times, four years or not four years, four computers in a row that my desktop computer was a
00:40:23 ◼ ► Pro tower. So I get the appeal. I also kind of feel like I never really took advantage of the Pro
00:40:32 ◼ ► tower. And I kind of really love the idea that I've got my whole computer in this giant monitor
00:40:40 ◼ ► that's floating above my desk on an arm. And I don't have like a box on my floor somewhere
00:40:48 ◼ ► that's the real computer. Wheels, Jason, the wheels, you just move it around like you can
00:40:52 ◼ ► in the mixer arm, you know, just move it around. So the new shiny appeals to me. The fact that
00:40:59 ◼ ► there's no Apple monitor that is suitable because the Pro Display XDR is just a non-starter. It's a
00:41:05 ◼ ► waste of money to buy that if you are not a high-end color, video, whatever professional,
00:41:11 ◼ ► it's a waste of money. And if you want to get it because it's pretty and great, but you are wasting
00:41:16 ◼ ► your money, again, if it makes you feel happy, great, but like I'm never going to buy that
00:41:20 ◼ ► monitor. I buy the LG monitor. It's okay. It's not any better than what I've got because I think it's
00:41:28 ◼ ► the same panel as on the iMac Pro. So in the end, am I tempted only by the fact that it's new and
00:41:37 ◼ ► shiny and neat? And, you know, could I use more cores for some of the audio stuff that I do?
00:41:45 ◼ ► Probably. But first off, I wouldn't be tempted right now anyway because I have a two-year-old
00:41:52 ◼ ► iMac Pro that is great. In a few years, though, would I be tempted by a Mac Pro? Probably not,
00:41:59 ◼ ► but never say never. You know, I would need to buy a monitor and the computer and upgrade the storage
00:42:08 ◼ ► and all of these things like, and it's going to be a big ticket item. And the fact is my iMac Pro base
00:42:14 ◼ ► model is more money than I've ever spent on a computer before. And it's with the exception of
00:42:19 ◼ ► the audio stuff, it's more computer than I need already. So I think the answer is no. As cool as
00:42:25 ◼ ► it is, I would never buy one. Well, you mentioned about like the next time you need a computer. For
00:42:34 ◼ ► all you know, the iMac Pro might not be an option anymore. It's true. It's true. The next time I need
00:42:41 ◼ ► a computer, if we're still in an Intel world or if we're still in a partial Intel world where I need
00:42:45 ◼ ► to have an Intel system to run, you know, we don't know. That's the other thing is we've got this
00:42:50 ◼ ► transition coming up, but that's true. Like at that point, though, I would hope that if they don't do
00:42:58 ◼ ► another iMac Pro that they maybe take the lessons learned from the iMac Pro and put that in an iMac
00:43:03 ◼ ► so that we have a better, quieter fan's iMac, right? Yeah. I don't think we will have another
00:43:12 ◼ ► iMac Pro after this design that we're currently in. So what I mean, whenever Apple revised the
00:43:20 ◼ ► iMac in a significant way, so like they change its design, right, like as well as internals,
00:43:26 ◼ ► I think that they will just have lots of, you know, they will have a really powerful version
00:43:31 ◼ ► you can get, but it probably won't be the iMac Pro. Well, there's two paths forward for the iMacs,
00:43:35 ◼ ► right? There's a path forward where the iMac Pro kind of continues. Well, maybe there's
00:43:41 ◼ ► more than two paths, but I keep thinking of it this way. The iMac Pro is a rethought version of
00:43:45 ◼ ► the iMac with no spinning drive internals, right? So you could look at the iMac Pro design and say,
00:43:51 ◼ ► in the end, the iMac Pro design is an iMac design, a future iMac design, and they will drop the
00:43:55 ◼ ► spinning drives, maybe in the, you know, maybe it's just in the 27-inch, the 5K version, maybe
00:44:03 ◼ ► that version is the basis, and this design is the basis for future iMacs. And maybe because of the
00:44:09 ◼ ► existence of the Mac Pro, there isn't an iMac Pro per se, there's just an iMac. Maybe there's a 6K
00:44:16 ◼ ► iMac, which is bigger, more powerful. But with the cooling that's in the Mac Pro and no longer
00:44:21 ◼ ► supporting spinning disks, and, but using the desktop or laptop class of chips, the core,
00:44:28 ◼ ► Intel Core chips, instead of the Xeons. And it's, so it's got the power, because the power of the
00:44:35 ◼ ► iMac already is up against the bottom of the, it's like the fastest iMac you can buy is faster
00:44:41 ◼ ► than the base model iMac Pro already, for most uses, I believe. So you could do that and just
00:44:47 ◼ ► sort of the iMac Pro kind of quietly goes away, but a lot of its legacy lives on in the iMac line.
00:44:53 ◼ ► But there's another fork here, which is ARM, which is if Apple does an ARM transition, would it
00:44:59 ◼ ► take its consumer desktop, essentially, and turn it into a, an ARM computer that is like,
00:45:06 ◼ ► doesn't need as much cooling and is thinner and lighter again, and just because it's cool that
00:45:13 ◼ ► they can put it on a, you know, thinner or lighter stand. I don't even know where they would go with
00:45:17 ◼ ► an ARM iMac, but they could go down that path. And then just Pro means old at that point, right? They
00:45:24 ◼ ► keep the Pro around for the old chips. I think there is a strong, we've talked about this,
00:45:28 ◼ ► I think, I think there's a strong argument to be made that if Apple makes an ARM transition,
00:45:37 ◼ ► So like, so that's, that's an open question there. And then for me, as somebody who's doing this high
00:45:43 ◼ ► end audio work, and I've got a desktop computer that I use, that is a good question in two years,
00:45:51 ◼ ► three years, what do I buy? And is that an iMac or is that not an option for me? Do I buy a Mac mini
00:46:08 ◼ ► The challenge, I, I, my guess is it, it can't be because Apple has done this where they've said,
00:46:15 ◼ ► you know, we're not going to even start this until we get up to $6,000 that they, they have to make
00:46:29 ◼ ► by, by making the choice of starting at $6,000, they don't have that release valve to say,
00:46:33 ◼ ► Oh, well, you just buy a tower for two or three, three grand and then get on with your day.
00:46:37 ◼ ► They, you know, it's, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out, but there's a lot more
00:46:42 ◼ ► going on here. And there's a lot more to talk about. I want to come back to the iMac Pro,
00:46:46 ◼ ► but before we do, uh, let me thank our friends over at FreshBooks for the support of this show.
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00:48:41 ◼ ► show and Relay FM. Okay, so talking about the iMac Pro, one little piece of information which
00:48:55 ◼ ► is the Pro Display XDR on the technical specs page. It lists all of the devices that are
00:49:03 ◼ ► supported with the Pro Display XDR, including all the MacBook Pros and all that kind of stuff.
00:49:09 ◼ ► But one of the very clear omissions on this page is the iMac Pro. The iMac Pro is not listed as
00:49:19 ◼ ► being able to actually drive the Pro Display XDR. So this is interesting, right? And there's been a
00:49:25 ◼ ► lot of thought that maybe it has something to do with the chips, right? They haven't been able to
00:49:30 ◼ ► update the graphics or whatever it is. Always the chips. Always the chips, those darn chips,
00:49:35 ◼ ► those bags of sand inside of the computers messing up everything for us. But there's a slight
00:49:41 ◼ ► wrinkle in this, but I can understand what's happening. So this was confirmed by video editor
00:49:46 ◼ ► Thomas Grove Carter, who was on the most recent episode of Mac Power Users. Thomas has had an
00:49:50 ◼ ► Mac Pro for a few weeks, at least a period of time before it became available. Apple gave one
00:49:57 ◼ ► to Thomas to test out and to give feedback on. The Pro Display XDR does work with the iMac Pro,
00:50:04 ◼ ► but in 5K, not 6K. Apple doesn't state this anywhere. I guess it's for good reason in that
00:50:14 ◼ ► But it's interesting, right? It is a thing that will work, but they don't want to tell you that's
00:50:21 ◼ ► the case because I guess you're not going to get everything out of it that you should be.
00:50:26 ◼ ► Yeah, I mean, it's weird because it, yeah, you could probably, it's better for a tech note,
00:50:32 ◼ ► right, saying that it'll drive it, but it won't drive it at the full resolution. And that's,
00:50:36 ◼ ► yeah, I get it. It's a two-year-old computer and it's using an older chipset. And what it tells me
00:50:44 ◼ ► is that they really ought to update the iMac Pro. But as you and I just discussed, that's a good
00:50:50 ◼ ► question. Like, I hope they do. And this came up on ATP last week because we have the secret society
00:50:55 ◼ ► of iMac Pro users now. And it's like, I hope they do an update to the iMac Pro because it's great.
00:50:59 ◼ ► And I hope that if they don't update the iMac Pro, it's because they have a bigger plan on updating
00:51:06 ◼ ► the iMac to make it much more iMac Pro-like. But in the short term, if that's going to take a while,
00:51:13 ◼ ► like, I hope that they could do an update and put a new chipset in it and support that external
00:51:19 ◼ ► monitor and just keep it rolling down the road because, because if I, like Marco on ATP, if my
00:51:29 ◼ ► iMac Pro died tomorrow, I would get a new iMac Pro. I just would be very sad if it was literally
00:51:36 ◼ ► the same one that I had bought two years ago without any improvements. But I would, I would.
00:51:40 ◼ ► I'm very happy with it. Yeah, I find, you know, oh, it is worth noting, of course, that you can
00:51:48 ◼ ► put a Blackmagic eGPU in the middle and it will work. And it will work, right. So if you, if you're,
00:51:53 ◼ ► I mean, honestly, if you're buying a $6,000 monitor, then why not just buy an expensive eGPU
00:51:59 ◼ ► and like that'll get solved, problem solved. How much is the Blackmagic eGPU? It's £599
00:52:07 ◼ ► for the regular one. It's a bargain. £1200 for the regular one. I mean, honestly, at that point,
00:52:11 ◼ ► why not, right? You've gone that far. So it is compatible. It's just, it's less than the stand.
00:52:25 ◼ ► I just think it's super cool. There's like a lot more coolness to it. It is super cool.
00:52:31 ◼ ► A lot of people said they're going to test it. I haven't seen any, uh, any results yet of if it
00:52:38 ◼ ► will work in any way with the iPad Pro, just like purely out of interest, right? Like, um, but I'm
00:52:45 ◼ ► going to say no. Yeah. I expect no too, but I want to see somebody plug it in and see what happens.
00:52:51 ◼ ► I think it's a Thunderbolt. I think it's a Thunderbolt 3 display. And so the answer is no.
00:52:55 ◼ ► But hey, I still want to see someone try. Um, so overall, Jason, where we are right now,
00:53:01 ◼ ► do you think that there's any takeaways Apple should have? Like anything that they should have
00:53:06 ◼ ► learned from this whole experience? Like that people maybe want more choice? Should they get
00:53:11 ◼ ► that choice? Or do you think Apple's doing the right thing already with the way that they've
00:53:17 ◼ ► rolled these products out? Well, they changed stream, right? We don't know what Apple's
00:53:22 ◼ ► end state is for this stuff, right? Because as we said earlier, the Mac, the iMac Pro is, was
00:53:28 ◼ ► conceived as a replacement for the Mac Pro. They were going to kill the Mac Pro and the iMac Pro
00:53:33 ◼ ► was the replacement. And then there was obviously an argument internally. My guess is that the Pro
00:53:38 ◼ ► workflow group was, was formed around this point and that this was part of it. But there was this,
00:53:43 ◼ ► the strong argument that Apple was, or they heard from customers, perhaps in the video industry,
00:53:47 ◼ ► like an iMac is not going to do it for us, right? Like we can't just use an iMac. And they changed
00:53:54 ◼ ► direction and they made the Mac Pro. But that opens up the door of like, well, what is the strategy
00:54:00 ◼ ► with the iMac Pro? Is that an existing product? Like what is the strategy? Like they upgraded the
00:54:05 ◼ ► Mac mini and it's pretty powerful, but again, it's this tiny little thing. You and I joked,
00:54:09 ◼ ► and there actually, somebody is kickstartering this, joked that what you really need is just a,
00:54:13 ◼ ► a Mac mini in an enclosure with a Thunderbolt 3 attached to it and some slots. And you just say,
00:54:20 ◼ ► no, no, it is a mini tower, even though it's literally Mac mini tower. Don't look at that part.
00:54:27 ◼ ► That part is just a Mac mini. Don't, don't go there. So, you know, here's the question,
00:54:34 ◼ ► like what, uh, what does Apple want the end state of their pro Mac desktop line to be? Keep in mind
00:54:47 ◼ ► So pro desktops is a sliver of a fraction of a minute shade of a, like, it's a tiny thing.
00:54:55 ◼ ► And it's important in our, as a symbol, like I said last week, it's important to our, uh,
00:55:02 ◼ ► concerns about Apple's commitment to the Mac, but Apple, it's not going to get a lot of attention
00:55:09 ◼ ► from Apple in the long run. And, and I would say that among the people who are upset about the Mac
00:55:15 ◼ ► pro, like that it makes it seem their feelings are real, but it makes it seem more prevalent than it
00:55:26 ◼ ► actually is. Cause the truth is that most of the stuff that we're talking about here, most people
00:55:32 ◼ ► who buy Macs don't care about, right? We are, we're talking about a very specific set of, of users.
00:55:41 ◼ ► Right. But couldn't it be argued that that those same set of users, the discontent that they felt
00:55:46 ◼ ► about the trashcan and about other professional max is the whole reason this Mac pro exists anyway,
00:55:54 ◼ ► It's how you define it, right? Like this is, was that all, was that all about, uh, developers and
00:56:00 ◼ ► $3,000 towers? Obviously Apple doesn't think so because they didn't make that computer.
00:56:03 ◼ ► If you're a developer and you thought this meant that you were going to get the computer you wanted,
00:56:08 ◼ ► um, you are right to be disappointed because they don't think that, and it really stinks to be told,
00:56:15 ◼ ► you know, we don't, we're not going to fulfill your desire with a product. We think that we've
00:56:20 ◼ ► got it covered in other places and we're, we're just not going to go there. Could it be a mistake
00:56:23 ◼ ► on Apple's part? Sure. It could be. Um, I would argue that those people have already not been
00:56:30 ◼ ► served by Apple for a very long time, catered to by Apple for a very long time. And even longer,
00:56:35 ◼ ► if you consider that back when the Mac pro was $2,500, $3,000, uh, people like my friend,
00:56:42 ◼ ► Dan Frakes, um, were writing articles about how they needed to make a cheaper tower computer,
00:56:49 ◼ ► right? Like this is, this argument continues and continues and Apple is always reluctant to do it.
00:56:55 ◼ ► So, you know, is it the right move? I mean, maybe not. We'll see. But I do think that, uh,
00:57:02 ◼ ► that it over, it's such a small market that I think Apple is not risking a lot there. I mean,
00:57:12 ◼ ► like, let's be honest, Apple screwing up the laptops is a way bigger issue, right? The pro
00:57:19 ◼ ► laptops and the keyboards and people really being angry about the USB-C on the laptops and the touch
00:57:25 ◼ ► bar and the escape key and all those things, much bigger issue in terms of Apple's business. They
00:57:30 ◼ ► sell way more of those. They are way more likely to be the tool of choice for developers. Like
00:57:35 ◼ ► that is a huge issue. If Apple screws up the pro desktop, what happens? They lose some, they lose
00:57:43 ◼ ► some really high end customers, which they obviously have decided that they don't want to,
00:57:47 ◼ ► and they, they symbolically make it seem like the Mac is not a priority. Um, but you know, if,
00:57:53 ◼ ► if screwing up the Mac desktop was fatal for Apple, Apple would be dead now because they,
00:57:59 ◼ ► they did screw it up. So, and this is the, this is the fix and maybe this fix isn't great, but again,
00:58:05 ◼ ► you know, so, so I, you know, we can, we can, we can over talk this, but, you know, seriously,
00:58:11 ◼ ► um, I understand why people are upset about it. Uh, and it does matter, especially symbolically,
00:58:22 ◼ ► the most important Mac thing to happen in the last month and the most important pro thing to happen
00:58:28 ◼ ► in the last month was the 16 inch Mac book pro by a mile. Should we talk about Apple podcasts?
00:58:36 ◼ ► Are these podcasts by Apple? Not yet. Or from Apple? Maybe. Before Apple? Because Apple podcasts
00:58:57 ◼ ► um, and it will sync too. So if you're, if you're listening on the lady in the canister
00:59:01 ◼ ► and then you pause it and then you go to the podcast app on your iPhone, it should have the
00:59:06 ◼ ► play position synced. So it's using iCloud. Using Apple servers to sync that data, which is a key
00:59:13 ◼ ► thing, right? Because it's one thing to say, pick a random arbitrary episode of a podcast and play it.
00:59:18 ◼ ► And it's another thing to have it integrate with the database that they've got based on your, uh,
00:59:31 ◼ ► This is a thing with Amazon. They, they update their products internationally very, very slowly.
00:59:36 ◼ ► If you're, you know, you can all do this with Apple music. It took months, months for them to
00:59:41 ◼ ► have the Apple music support in the UK and Europe and elsewhere. Um, doesn't bother me cause I don't
00:59:47 ◼ ► use Apple podcasts, but it's just a thing. So the way that it knows your player position is because
00:59:52 ◼ ► you sign in with your Apple ID inside of the app, the Amazon echo app, it syncs all of the shows and
00:59:57 ◼ ► playback position. This is of course the first non Apple device to get this kind of integration.
01:00:08 ◼ ► So this wasn't this case of music because there was a music app for Android before, uh,
01:00:14 ◼ ► it rolled out to the Amazon echo. So holding off the obvious, which we've been speaking about for
01:00:20 ◼ ► a little bit, which we'll get to why have they done this? Like it's easier to understand why
01:00:26 ◼ ► Apple's paid services on competing hardware, right? Why Apple TV is on television sets made by Samsung
01:00:33 ◼ ► and LG, et cetera. It's makes more sense for Apple music to be on products that play music like the
01:00:39 ◼ ► Amazon echo stuff. Apple podcast is a client for an open platform of which Apple owns nothing,
01:00:46 ◼ ► right? Except a directory. What is the benefit of doing this? Well, I mean, the benefit,
01:00:58 ◼ ► so Apple wants you in its ecosystem and it wants you in its podcast ecosystem partially because it
01:01:05 ◼ ► doesn't want to, you know, it doesn't want to give that up to Spotify, let's say. And it's so much
01:01:12 ◼ ► more convenient if, as I said a moment ago, your, when you say play the next episode of this thing,
01:01:19 ◼ ► it knows what podcast that is and what episode you listen to it. If you resume an episode,
01:01:25 ◼ ► it knows where it was like, that's such a better thing that honestly it goes from being,
01:01:31 ◼ ► I'm never going to listen to a podcast on this speaker in my kitchen to, Oh, I can listen to
01:01:36 ◼ ► podcasts. Like it's, it's literally a, uh, a moment where you're converting from not using it to using
01:01:43 ◼ ► it because, uh, now you're, you know, you're not doing cause I've done that where it's like, Oh,
01:01:48 ◼ ► play this podcast. And then I go back later and I'm like, now I need to manually sync to it because
01:01:52 ◼ ► there's no conversation between these things. So I think it's just, you know, Apple wanting to have
01:01:57 ◼ ► its ecosystems be expanded further and further, and then realizing that, um, that people are going
01:02:02 ◼ ► to use stuff like other TVs and, and Amazon echoes and things like that. And what they really want is
01:02:08 ◼ ► to keep you in Apple podcasts. Um, so number one reason is, uh, fight against Spotify. Uh,
01:02:15 ◼ ► you want to be the default, um, not Spotify. You don't want people being like, Oh, well,
01:02:19 ◼ ► this will work. This works with Spotify, but it doesn't work with Apple. I'm just gonna use
01:02:22 ◼ ► Spotify. That's easier. And they're an important competitor here. Um, right. And it's worth that
01:02:28 ◼ ► asking the larger question, which is we've talked about it before is does Apple have designs here?
01:02:39 ◼ ► things that are exclusive to Apple podcasts, but it could just be, again, I think you could explain
01:02:44 ◼ ► it away largely the same way by saying Apple wants to not have other people hot taking the podcast
01:02:53 ◼ ► ecosystem and putting it inside their own proprietary thing. Like, I think that that can
01:02:58 ◼ ► be true too. Like, I do believe that it's possible that Apple will do some Apple podcasts only
01:03:04 ◼ ► podcasts. I think it's more likely that Apple will do podcasts and they'll just be podcasts and
01:03:09 ◼ ► they'll be in the podcast app and that Apple will say, we believe in an open open ecosystem. And
01:03:14 ◼ ► that's why we're the leading podcast player. That's an open ecosystem. I think that could be true
01:03:19 ◼ ► just as easily as Apple saying, aha, we just spent a lot of money on a podcast you could only get
01:03:31 ◼ ► potentially they're doing it the other way around that they have their other services, right? Where
01:03:35 ◼ ► they get the, the, the platform, the free thing available before they then switch over to that.
01:03:40 ◼ ► We're now offering this exclusive thing, this paid thing, but all signs are continuing to point
01:03:46 ◼ ► towards Apple making some kind of move in this area, whether it is some kind of paid podcast
01:03:51 ◼ ► service or just original content. We've spoken about it over the last few months of like,
01:03:56 ◼ ► first there being rumors, now Apple's making hires. Um, this could be a big part of that.
01:04:01 ◼ ► And having their podcasts available on other platforms is, or their podcasts app available
01:04:10 ◼ ► on other platforms is important if this is a route that they want to continue pursuing.
01:04:15 ◼ ► Right. They're laying the groundwork for something in the same way that they, I think got kind of a
01:04:21 ◼ ► little late to the game, but they got there in time for the Apple TV plus launch where they made
01:04:25 ◼ ► those deals about a year ago. Now we heard about those deals with the TV manufacturers and the TV
01:04:31 ◼ ► box manufacturers to get their, their stuff. And remember that, you know, there was a serious
01:04:37 ◼ ► debate a year ago, maybe two years ago about if Apple would ever let you watch movie, movie rentals
01:04:45 ◼ ► or TV shows you purchased or their new streaming service on anything that was not Apple hardware.
01:04:51 ◼ ► The answer was you absolutely can. Like it's everywhere. I bought an Amazon fire 4k stick
01:04:59 ◼ ► the other week for 25 bucks and plugged it into my, my 4k TV. Uh, that's in another room.
01:05:06 ◼ ► And, uh, and logged into Apple TV and now it's all there, right? Like it was that simple and I
01:05:14 ◼ ► didn't need to buy an Apple TV to do it. So this is like that. And maybe, you know, maybe this is
01:05:21 ◼ ► laying the groundwork for something, but it's doing it. It seems like they may be doing it a
01:05:24 ◼ ► little bit further in advance, which is a good thing. And like I said, their user benefits,
01:05:28 ◼ ► regardless of what their future strategy is, because it means you can use this. And, and as
01:05:32 ◼ ► people who know Marco Arment who does overcast, right? Like this has been something that he's
01:05:37 ◼ ► wrestled with for a while, which is like, do I want to do this or not? Cause it's, there's a
01:05:40 ◼ ► lot of effort that goes into it, but you know, this is the benefit of it is that now Apple's
01:05:45 ◼ ► podcast app has a feature. Uh, that's a leg up on him, right? That, that he can't do this right now.
01:05:52 ◼ ► And so that'll be a question for him. Like do, do, does it matter? Cause it's like a check box
01:05:57 ◼ ► on the side. And I think he would say that so few of his users would use something like this,
01:06:02 ◼ ► that maybe it's not worth it. And we have to keep in mind overcast is a single person. Like,
01:06:06 ◼ ► like pocket cast has a whole team and, and Castro now got sold and has a whole team. And obviously
01:06:14 ◼ ► Apple has a whole team and overcast is one guy, you know, him, it's Marco. And so he has to pick
01:06:21 ◼ ► and choose, uh, and, and he can't be like, Oh, well, Apple's got it. So I got to do it as a
01:06:25 ◼ ► response. Cause it's like, what does he give up if he doesn't go that direction? But you know,
01:06:31 ◼ ► it is a, it is a challenge because this is a legitimate feature. If you are in the echo,
01:06:35 ◼ ► uh, ecosystem, the ecosystem, and you love using this, uh, and you want to listen to podcasts and
01:06:43 ◼ ► have been frustrated about it. Like you'll, it's a good reason to switch to an app that sinks so
01:06:49 ◼ ► that you can, you know, move around and I'm an overcast user. And so I, I don't use this feature.
01:06:55 ◼ ► And if I really wanted to use my echo speakers for podcasts, I would, you know, seriously consider
01:07:01 ◼ ► switching because of it. So it's something that's, uh, that's interesting too. It's so, but, but my
01:07:05 ◼ ► point is it's got a user benefit. It's not just aha. This is part of our strategy to be everywhere
01:07:10 ◼ ► because we've got grand plans. It's also, you know, this keeps people in our ecosystem because
01:09:33 ◼ ► Noah has a question for me. What has Myke been doing with his custom built gaming PC? So I
01:09:37 ◼ ► bought a gaming PC, I don't know, a year or two ago now. Um, and I do what you would assume. I play
01:09:43 ◼ ► games on it. Uh, it is something that I use to some PC games. Um, I don't have an Xbox so I can
01:09:48 ◼ ► play a lot of windows or Xbox games on the PC. Cause that's like a thing that you can do. Uh,
01:09:53 ◼ ► I have a, uh, Oculus VR system and there, and there are games that I will play every now and then.
01:09:59 ◼ ► I'm looking forward to the Half Life, uh, Alex VR game, which I think is going to come out next year.
01:10:04 ◼ ► Uh, and also any video streaming, game streaming, that kind of stuff that I do, I use the PC for it
01:10:09 ◼ ► because it's way easier to do, uh, than I've found it to be on a Mac. And that was one of the reasons
01:10:15 ◼ ► that I did it as well. So I have a rig for that kind of stuff too. So it's very useful for that.
01:10:19 ◼ ► Adam asks, if podcasts keep going behind paywalls, so referring to the Spotify thing that we spoke
01:10:27 ◼ ► about last week, could third party apps add some sort of login feature to allow access to services
01:10:34 ◼ ► like Spotify for podcasts? Now I heard from somebody by the way, that the Spotify exclusive
01:10:41 ◼ ► podcasts aren't for premium, that you can listen to them without Spotify premium. So you can listen
01:10:48 ◼ ► to them for free, but just you have to use Spotify though, right? So they're not, they're not behind
01:10:53 ◼ ► a paywall. They're just locked into an ecosystem, right? They're locked into an app or into an
01:10:59 ◼ ► ecosystem. So it's not quite the same. Which is probably what Apple would do too. I think.
01:11:05 ◼ ► Yeah. If, if right. I agree. We talked about, uh, uh, I don't know a few months ago about all
01:11:11 ◼ ► the different options that Apple had. And I think that's the most likely, um, maybe, well, I don't
01:11:15 ◼ ► know. I think maybe the most likely is that they just do podcasts and they say we love it open,
01:11:22 ◼ ► but I think, um, it's also likely that they would not say we're going to create a service or this is
01:11:26 ◼ ► only for these subscribers and just say it's only in the app. It's only in podcast app. That's the
01:11:31 ◼ ► only place. But, um, for this, I mean, there, there are login features for apps for paywalls.
01:11:42 ◼ ► They there, there are lots of them. Authenticated feeds is one of them, right? Yeah. So you can,
01:11:52 ◼ ► end and, um, many, not all, but many podcast apps support that. So you can put in a username and a
01:11:59 ◼ ► password and get the feed. And then there are, um, other approaches like what I think Patreon does,
01:12:21 ◼ ► And, um, it has no username and password. So if you gave it to a friend, they could listen to,
01:12:28 ◼ ► but they're listening to your feed. And if you stop paying, it stops working. Um, and, and that's
01:12:36 ◼ ► what I think the Patreon approach is. Um, and then there's security through obscurity, which is what
01:12:41 ◼ ► relay does and what the incomparable does and what six colors does, which is you have to log into a
01:12:45 ◼ ► page and get a URL and just put that in. And that's it too, which is not that different from what
01:12:50 ◼ ► Patreon does, but it's not tied to the user and it doesn't get shut off when the user isn't paying
01:12:54 ◼ ► anymore. So there are a bunch of ways out there to do this. I wish there was a, uh, a better way
01:12:59 ◼ ► that everybody supported and everybody agreed on, and maybe we'll get there someday. But I,
01:13:04 ◼ ► my guess is that we won't because most of the organizations that want to do this want you to
01:13:15 ◼ ► there are other ways. I was like, that's the thing. Even if there was a new standard created
01:13:20 ◼ ► Spotify is not going to sign up for it. They don't care about creating a Spotify customer. They want
01:13:26 ◼ ► you using the Spotify app. They want you to be a customer in their application, not just a person
01:13:32 ◼ ► listening to the podcast that they are creating. Right. And a lot of those, the hash URLs, the
01:13:37 ◼ ► individual customized URLs won't work in certain apps. Like I think like Spotify, because Spotify
01:13:44 ◼ ► views podcasts as having a canonical feed that is for everyone. It's very centralized. And, um,
01:13:55 ◼ ► it's just for you and it doesn't sync anywhere. And it's, it's just your thing. And, and, and some
01:14:00 ◼ ► apps don't like that at all, but you know, I'm definitely looking into that for mine. I'm doing
01:14:05 ◼ ► the obscurity thing right now, but I'm trying to work in the background on coming up with,
01:14:09 ◼ ► uh, you know, using a plugin that does what the Patreon thing does, which is just, you know,
01:14:14 ◼ ► every, every individual subscriber gets their own custom feed URL. And as long as they're a
01:14:18 ◼ ► subscriber, it works. Yeah, because there are, it's not just about, um, like privacy, piracy is
01:14:26 ◼ ► a thing. It's also less work for you or for us because changing the feed every couple of years
01:14:33 ◼ ► or whatever, to kind of clear out people that aren't paying anymore is overhead and it's
01:14:38 ◼ ► complicated and it's a pain. It's a pain for the users too. Also, when I changed the last time for,
01:14:44 ◼ ► uh, incomparable, or it was actually the first time I changed for incomparable, I left it for
01:14:49 ◼ ► the first couple of years we were doing it. What we discovered is that there were a lot of people who
01:14:54 ◼ ► signed up, got their feeds, put them in and were very happy and didn't realize that their card
01:15:03 ◼ ► you know, didn't renew or whatever. And they, and contacted me when the feed changed because I put
01:15:09 ◼ ► an item in the feed that said, Hey, everybody, you're, you're getting this cause your feed
01:15:13 ◼ ► changed. You need to go log in. And then they log in and they wouldn't be a member. And then they'd
01:15:16 ◼ ► sign up and they'd email me and they'd say, I'm so sorry. I, I thought I was, was a member all
01:15:22 ◼ ► this time. Right? So if you have a feed that, that goes dormant when your subscription expires,
01:15:28 ◼ ► it also is a reminder. It's a nudge to people who want to subscribe that something went wrong.
01:15:34 ◼ ► And that's good. No, like, is it a reminder? Like, does anything happen? Does the feature
01:15:38 ◼ ► stop working? Cause if the features like with this Patreon thing, the feature stops working,
01:15:43 ◼ ► you may never know. Then you may never know. That's true. I always put when I, when I change
01:15:46 ◼ ► a feed, see, there's a feature. We can add this to our feature list when we design this
01:15:50 ◼ ► for ourselves and build it ourselves, which is what we're not going to do, but, uh, is you want
01:15:55 ◼ ► to have a, if a, if a feed gets deactivated, you want a deactivated item to appear as the,
01:16:01 ◼ ► as the most recent item in the feed that says this feed just got deactivated to reactivate it.
01:16:05 ◼ ► You need to resubscribe, but I don't think they do that. That's what we'd like when we changed,
01:16:13 ◼ ► if you're hearing this, you need to go and get a new feed. Uh, we're going to email it to you.
01:16:32 ◼ ► So we're going to use this. This is what we're going to get is what we've got, which is either
01:16:37 ◼ ► HTTP authentication for feeds or a hashed custom feeds or security through obscurity. And those
01:16:45 ◼ ► are the ways that it's going to work. And I will say also, uh, as a podcaster, um, there need to
01:16:52 ◼ ► be better tools for this. And I did find there's a company that I'm actually talking to this week
01:16:56 ◼ ► that, that, uh, is building like a membership platform for podcasts. The problem being that,
01:17:02 ◼ ► you know, we already have our platform, but I wish this, my point is I wish this technology
01:17:08 ◼ ► was better because it would be great if I could just pay some amount to some service and have
01:17:14 ◼ ► like, uh, uses the membership API for memberful and it generates these feeds and, uh, or generates
01:17:21 ◼ ► HTTP authentication or stuff like that. But as it is basically most of this stuff is just being
01:17:26 ◼ ► built by the companies that are doing it. They're building it themselves. It's very much like the
01:17:30 ◼ ► early days of the web where it's just not, there's just not enough critical mass here for people to
01:17:35 ◼ ► develop a system. So we use what we got. Well, you know, I guess if we're going into the weeds
01:17:39 ◼ ► and this one now, which we'd most definitely are. Oh yeah. We're in the weeds now. We're below the
01:17:44 ◼ ► weeds. We're in the, the, the swamp beneath the weeds. I, Myke, I get concerned about stacking
01:17:50 ◼ ► all these companies together because yes. Cause then, then if one of them breaks, they all break.
01:17:55 ◼ ► But then, then again, if you have one company that does it all and they break them, it all breaks too.
01:17:59 ◼ ► But yes, I, I agree with you. That is, uh, you know, but then you can build it yourself,
01:18:04 ◼ ► but that can be very expensive and then you're reinventing the wheel, but sometimes that's the
01:18:07 ◼ ► way to do it too. Yeah. Where we are right now and where a lot of the people that do what we do are,
01:18:23 ◼ ► I don't know what member for situation was, but they were a, seem to be a small company
01:18:27 ◼ ► now owned by a much larger company. Um, but that much larger company is a venture capital backed
01:18:34 ◼ ► company, which can who knows implode on themselves or bought by somebody who doesn't care about what
01:18:41 ◼ ► member for those. Yeah. Well, or, or to take it back to the Mac pro conversation, they could
01:18:46 ◼ ► decide that we are not their focus. Right. And that all of their efforts go towards something
01:18:51 ◼ ► else. And they're like, you guys have to go, right? Like we're not going to support your stuff
01:18:55 ◼ ► anymore. And that could happen, right? We were like, we don't make enough money from you. So
01:18:59 ◼ ► we're going to go over here and, uh, and yeah, that would be that, that I dread that, right? Because I,
01:19:14 ◼ ► but I would be really sad. That would be a rough and disruptive for everyone. So, um, yeah, it's,
01:19:26 ◼ ► couldn't take something off the shelf, even if I wanted to, because it's just not memberful has
01:19:31 ◼ ► made some strides here, but like, it's just, it's a complicated thing. And there's, I think there's
01:19:34 ◼ ► not enough yet, not enough podcasts wanting to do a kind of premium podcast feed, uh, to have made it
01:19:40 ◼ ► worth building those tools. I have some light breaking news, Jason snow. Okay. Breaking news.
01:19:48 ◼ ► The iPad pro does indeed drive the protest. Jonathan Morrison at TLD today as a, what a 4k?
01:20:12 ◼ ► Who knows what's going to happen now over in Rome. Wow. So it does work for some wild values of,
01:20:30 ◼ ► Can you, can you work with the monitoring portrait mode? Oh yeah. That's a good question.
01:21:22 ◼ ► is Google photos or iCloud photos, the best choice for backing up images. Is there a way
01:21:33 ◼ ► No, no, no, no. You gotta have a, you gotta have a Mac, uh, to back up the files locally.
01:21:44 ◼ ► Um, if your iPad entirely iPad only, I'd say it doesn't really matter. Google photos is
01:21:53 ◼ ► good and it's free, but it doesn't, you know, you have to keep it open and launch it occasionally
01:22:01 ◼ ► because it doesn't necessarily always back up in the background. Whereas iCloud will back up in
01:22:04 ◼ ► the background entirely. Um, I think iCloud is the right solution. If you're willing to spend the
01:22:10 ◼ ► money on it because it's the first party solution, the platform vendor runs it in it. They tweak it
01:22:16 ◼ ► all to work well. If you don't want to spend the money, Google photos is great because the price
01:22:21 ◼ ► can't be beat and it's a very good service. Um, but in terms of having a local physical backup,
01:22:27 ◼ ► um, guess what? If you're leading the iPad only lifestyle, you're not going to have that.
01:22:31 ◼ ► You're just not, you're, you're not going to have that. You'd be better off having a leading the
01:22:37 ◼ ► iPad only lifestyle with an old Mac, with a big hard drive attached to it, hidden somewhere in
01:22:41 ◼ ► your house with photos set to keep all on the drive. And then you've got your backup. But, um,
01:22:48 ◼ ► I think if it's strictly iPad only, you just have to give up on dreaming about having a local
01:22:53 ◼ ► physical backup. You can turn on sync only to your iPad, but that's not a backup. That's just,
01:22:57 ◼ ► it's a, I guess it's a physical backup on your iPad of what's in the cloud, but you need a really
01:23:03 ◼ ► big iPad for that. You can also use, I mean, if you just want another place to do some backups,
01:23:09 ◼ ► you could also use Dropbox. Like Dropbox has a camera uploader. Like you can do all of that
01:23:15 ◼ ► there using the app. Yeah, but then you're uploading photos a second time to a different
01:23:20 ◼ ► cloud service out of your camera roll. I'm not saying it's ideal. It's just like another thing
01:23:27 ◼ ► you could do maybe if you want to do. Well, I mean, if you're using iCloud photos, you can
01:23:32 ◼ ► use Google photos too, right? Yeah. But you're gonna, you're gonna use a lot of bandwidth to
01:23:37 ◼ ► do that and it's not necessarily a complete backup. So yeah. Yes. It's one of those things, but
01:23:43 ◼ ► I really think that if you choose iCloud photos and then maybe have another service that you
01:23:58 ◼ ► All right. If you'd like to send in a question for an episode of upgrade to send in a tweet with
01:24:04 ◼ ► a hashtag ask upgrade, we may or may not be doing any over the next couple of weeks. Who knows? We
01:24:10 ◼ ► have something special we're working on next week. And in the week after is the upgradees.
01:24:14 ◼ ► Don't forget to go to upgradees.vote to enter your nominations for the upgradees of this year.
01:24:39 ◼ ► Thanks to Pingdom and Freshbooks and direct mail for their support. Go to sixcolors.com. Find