Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade Episode 275. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN, Eero, and ID Tech.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hello, Jason Snell.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hello, Myke Hurley, how are you?

00:00:22 ◼   ► I'm very well, my friend. I have a #SnellTalk question for you.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Okay, let's do it.

00:00:27 ◼   ► This is from Arthoma, who wants to know, when Jason reads books on his Kindle, does he use page turning or infinite scrolling?

00:00:34 ◼   ► So, yeah, is this, is this Art-Homa, I think, maybe? I don't know.

00:00:38 ◼   ► I don't know. I went with Arthoma.

00:00:40 ◼   ► Arthoma, sure.

00:00:41 ◼   ► It could be Arthoma, Arthom A, I don't know, but that was just one of them.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Yeah, sure. All right, the answer is, this is a trick question, because while infinite scrolling is a feature that's available on the Kindle app for iOS,

00:00:53 ◼   ► where you just keep scrolling like it's a very long webpage, on hardware Kindles, you just turn the page.

00:00:59 ◼   ► I don't think there's anything, the screen doesn't refresh at any rate that would allow you to do that, but that's fine, because I don't like it.

00:01:07 ◼   ► The whole idea is that I keep turning the pages. I'm not interested in scrolling.

00:01:12 ◼   ► And so, when I am reading a Kindle book on my iPhone, which I do occasionally if I'm out somewhere and I've got time where I just have to wait, and I'll read my book,

00:01:23 ◼   ► I use page turning on that too, because I find the infinite scrolling, I end up scrolling up and down, and can I scroll it a little bit and all that, and I just don't like that.

00:01:30 ◼   ► I like the idea of I just turn the page to the next page.

00:01:34 ◼   ► But on the hardware Kindle, there's no infinite scrolling, you just turn the page.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Can I ask you a question with your Kindle?

00:01:40 ◼   ► Sure.

00:01:41 ◼   ► Do you do the thing where it refreshes the page every time, or once every few times?

00:01:45 ◼   ► Because the E Ink can refresh less now, right?

00:01:49 ◼   ► I think I have it set to refresh every few times.

00:01:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:52 ◼   ► Just because it makes it, the page turns generally faster, but every now and then it needs to blank the screen.

00:01:59 ◼   ► But I don't even notice.

00:02:00 ◼   ► Whatever my setting is, I don't even notice.

00:02:01 ◼   ► I've been reading on an E Ink reader so long now that every now and then somebody will say, "Oh, you know, it does that flash," or whatever.

00:02:09 ◼   ► And I guess, yeah, I don't know.

00:02:12 ◼   ► I don't notice it anymore.

00:02:14 ◼   ► I'm used to it now.

00:02:16 ◼   ► That's how books work.

00:02:19 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Art Homer for the #SnailTalk question.

00:02:24 ◼   ► If you would like to have a question answered to start an episode of Upgrade, just send out a tweet with the #SnailTalk.

00:02:31 ◼   ► And we'll move into some follow-up.

00:02:33 ◼   ► We've got lots of Apple Arcade recommendations.

00:02:35 ◼   ► I selected five that we received multiple nominations for the games that we should be trying out.

00:02:42 ◼   ► I've yet to play any of them, but they are now all downloaded.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Neocab, Sneaky Sasquatch, Tint, Inmost, and Mosaic.

00:02:52 ◼   ► They were the games that people recommended trying out, and I had only heard of two of them.

00:02:58 ◼   ► So it kind of bears the point that there are games in that library that you may have missed.

00:03:03 ◼   ► So there's a selection of them.

00:03:05 ◼   ► People recommended some other games, but they were like the big ones like Oceanhorn, which we didn't mention.

00:03:11 ◼   ► But you couldn't have been on Apple Arcade and not seen Oceanhorn 2 in there.

00:03:15 ◼   ► It was one of the most popular games, so one of the ones that Apple's really promoting.

00:03:20 ◼   ► So I wanted to recommend some from Upgradient that maybe had gone under the radar a little bit.

00:03:24 ◼   ► Yeah, and I have played Tint, and it does have colorblind controls.

00:03:29 ◼   ► We talked about it a while ago, and I think it's pretty good, although I found that it's...

00:03:35 ◼   ► I got confused about what its rules were when it started adding new rules.

00:03:40 ◼   ► I started to realize I don't really understand some of the principles behind the rule changes.

00:03:46 ◼   ► The other thing as I've been playing some of these games that have been recommended,

00:03:50 ◼   ► that I've realized about myself is I don't think I have fully analyzed

00:03:56 ◼   ► what it is that I'm looking for in a game.

00:04:00 ◼   ► Like, I know it when I see it, but I don't think...

00:04:04 ◼   ► And I think this is actually what would help me find more games, is if I had a better idea

00:04:08 ◼   ► of what iPad games, essentially, I want, I would be better at shopping for them.

00:04:16 ◼   ► Because right now, I think I just kind of like...

00:04:18 ◼   ► Maybe I think I know what I want, but I don't really, and I download things, and I try them.

00:04:22 ◼   ► And there's a certain level of commitment that I want to have, and there's a certain level of focus,

00:04:29 ◼   ► and maybe things that are more puzzling, things that are not kind of longer-term commitments.

00:04:34 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:04:35 ◼   ► I haven't figured it out quite yet, but it hit me while I was playing Sneaky Sasquatch,

00:04:40 ◼   ► which is adorable and kind of interesting.

00:04:45 ◼   ► And I played it for about five minutes or 10 minutes, and I thought,

00:04:48 ◼   ► "I don't think I want to play this anymore."

00:04:50 ◼   ► Not that it is a bad game, but I don't think it's what I'm looking for, where I have to

00:04:56 ◼   ► be super focused on moving this guy around and solving levels, and not for me.

00:05:04 ◼   ► And I don't know why, so I need to dwell on that a little bit more.

00:05:07 ◼   ► What makes a game work for me and what doesn't, because I think that's part of my problem.

00:05:13 ◼   ► Well, your favorite games are the Altos games and Mini Metro.

00:05:16 ◼   ► So I would suggest that there is something about being able to pick up and play whenever you want,

00:05:25 ◼   ► because you can dip in and out of those games really easily.

00:05:27 ◼   ► They are both games that feel inherently level-based and endurance-focused.

00:05:33 ◼   ► So I think that there is a link there.

00:05:35 ◼   ► Yeah, there are other games that I also like, though, but you're right.

00:05:39 ◼   ► There is some commonality going on here.

00:05:42 ◼   ► I honestly think that the biggest one is that I don't want to play a game that feels like

00:05:49 ◼   ► it needs to dominate my time, that I need to invest a lot of time,

00:05:55 ◼   ► and I need to sit down for a lengthy stretch in order to go through a level.

00:06:00 ◼   ► Hop in, hop out.

00:06:02 ◼   ► It's the best thing about smartphone games, really.

00:06:04 ◼   ► Because even when I'm sitting at home on my iPad and I want to play a game,

00:06:09 ◼   ► I don't want to play it for a long time.

00:06:11 ◼   ► I certainly don't want to feel like I have to commit to playing it for a long time,

00:06:17 ◼   ► because if I end up loving it and I play it for a long time, that's great.

00:06:21 ◼   ► But what I don't want to do is not tap the icon because I think,

00:06:24 ◼   ► "Do I really want to spend 15 minutes on this?"

00:06:26 ◼   ► Because guess what?

00:06:27 ◼   ► I don't.

00:06:28 ◼   ► I don't.

00:06:30 ◼   ► So keep sending in suggestions if you come across them on Apple Arcade.

00:06:33 ◼   ► We'd love to hear them.

00:06:34 ◼   ► Jason, you remember on last week's episode, I mentioned that we were talking about the HomePod

00:06:39 ◼   ► and I was saying I was having an issue with YouTube and the audio not playing from YouTube

00:06:44 ◼   ► through to the HomePod.

00:06:45 ◼   ► I had a few Upgradients reach out and say, "Is possible."

00:06:48 ◼   ► But what you have to do is you open the YouTube app,

00:06:51 ◼   ► then you long press the TV button to bring up the Control Center.

00:06:58 ◼   ► Go into the audio settings, turn the HomePod, uncheck the HomePod and check it again,

00:07:04 ◼   ► and then you will be able to use the HomePod with the YouTube app and the YouTube video audio

00:07:10 ◼   ► will play through the HomePod.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Totally works, but it's still super buggy.

00:07:14 ◼   ► But at least I know a way to make it work now.

00:07:16 ◼   ► You had some follow out, right?

00:07:18 ◼   ► I do.

00:07:19 ◼   ► I do to a podcast you may be familiar with.

00:07:21 ◼   ► Connected last week.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Great discussion specifically about the awards that Apple gave out

00:07:31 ◼   ► in their award thing that they did and the apps that they chose.

00:07:36 ◼   ► And it's a really good discussion because Federico especially knows so much about the app world.

00:07:42 ◼   ► It's one of his things that he and his site focus on.

00:07:46 ◼   ► It's like all the different apps.

00:07:47 ◼   ► They cover all of these apps.

00:07:49 ◼   ► And then you see the awards and he was frankly baffled by a lot of the choices,

00:07:57 ◼   ► by a lot of the decisions about like highlighting, you know, this is a great iPad game that's just

00:08:02 ◼   ► a port from another platform instead of a game that's more native to the iPad.

00:08:07 ◼   ► And the decisions about like, why would you do one game in this category,

00:08:13 ◼   ► but why not these other games?

00:08:14 ◼   ► Or why would you take this incredibly popular watch app, but not have a watch category

00:08:21 ◼   ► or an Apple TV app category?

00:08:23 ◼   ► Like he knows too much about it.

00:08:27 ◼   ► And so he looks at the, I mean, this is the truth of it.

00:08:32 ◼   ► This, I think he's right in his theory that this was, I mean, I think he said came through

00:08:38 ◼   ► at the last minute.

00:08:39 ◼   ► I'm not sure if that's true, but the idea that it didn't get the amount of consideration

00:08:44 ◼   ► and time that it deserved, I think he's right in some way or another because he's looking

00:08:51 ◼   ► at it and saying-

00:08:52 ◼   ► - We're talking about Apple's best of the year apps and games, by the way.

00:08:56 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:08:57 ◼   ► So he's not, he doesn't think they make sense because he knows so much about the category

00:09:04 ◼   ► that he looks at it and goes, why would you choose that?

00:09:07 ◼   ► That's not a good example of it.

00:09:09 ◼   ► Why did you not choose in this category?

00:09:11 ◼   ► And of course this isn't the Oscars.

00:09:12 ◼   ► They can make up awards like we did at the Eddy Awards for years.

00:09:16 ◼   ► She's like, just make up.

00:09:17 ◼   ► You just say who you wanna honor and then you honor them.

00:09:20 ◼   ► It's Apple's award thing.

00:09:21 ◼   ► They could make up categories as they want, but they, so Federico says, why did you not

00:09:26 ◼   ► honor this and why did you want this weird choice?

00:09:28 ◼   ► But the one thing that I think went a little unsaid in the conversation that I wanted to

00:09:33 ◼   ► add is the difference between editorial and marketing awards.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Because Federico especially, but all three of you guys, you're editorially driven.

00:09:47 ◼   ► You are looking through the lens of somebody who is an independent observer and saying

00:09:54 ◼   ► in this example, what are the best apps?

00:09:56 ◼   ► What's the most worthy app or game this year?

00:09:59 ◼   ► What is the best representation of the platform and is a real iPad app or whatever your judgment

00:10:06 ◼   ► is and there are different ways to define it that you can choose, but you're really choosing.

00:10:10 ◼   ► When Federico expresses frustration, I think a lot of it is he's looking at this and being

00:10:15 ◼   ► like, well, but this doesn't make any sense because he's thinking what's worthy of an

00:10:20 ◼   ► award, what's the best?

00:10:21 ◼   ► And the truth is that although Apple styles these things as awards, the fact is it's a

00:10:26 ◼   ► marketing exercise.

00:10:28 ◼   ► This is promotion for Apple's platforms.

00:10:30 ◼   ► It is a developer relations promotion to get developers excited because some developers

00:10:35 ◼   ► got honored, but it is also to show off how amazing their platform is and say, look how

00:10:39 ◼   ► great we are, look at these great apps.

00:10:42 ◼   ► Isn't the Apple's ecosystem great?

00:10:44 ◼   ► And although Apple employs in the App Store group editorial people, quote-unquote editorial

00:10:49 ◼   ► people, the fact is that those people, and I know some of those people, it's marketing.

00:10:55 ◼   ► It's a marketing job.

00:10:56 ◼   ► They are marketing apps.

00:10:57 ◼   ► Now, they can do it in a good way.

00:11:00 ◼   ► There's a lot of marketing content that can be useful whether it's how-tos or highlighting

00:11:05 ◼   ► apps that you might not have heard of that are worth looking at, but it's marketing,

00:11:12 ◼   ► and marketing decisions have to do with the face that Apple wants to put forward.

00:11:16 ◼   ► So they're making decisions based on how they want to market themselves, not based on what

00:11:22 ◼   ► the best app is.

00:11:23 ◼   ► And I feel like there are stark differences there, and that was the source.

00:11:28 ◼   ► It made me chuckle.

00:11:29 ◼   ► That was the source of Federico's frustration, but I think it comes from a legitimate place,

00:11:33 ◼   ► which is, let's not forget, Apple is not picking awards because this thing is the best.

00:11:40 ◼   ► They're picking awards based on a more complicated formula that involves things being good, involves

00:11:45 ◼   ► developers that they have relationships with.

00:11:49 ◼   ► I don't know for a fact whether Apple promises awards to developers as part of their deal.

00:11:55 ◼   ► I would guess not, but it could, because this is not some sort of sacrosanct process.

00:12:00 ◼   ► And at the end of it, they're going to pick ones that make Apple look good.

00:12:04 ◼   ► This is not like Apple has gone and found an independent panel to choose awards.

00:12:08 ◼   ► That's not what's going on.

00:12:09 ◼   ► It's a marketing exercise.

00:12:10 ◼   ► So...

00:12:11 ◼   ► I think one of the things that really perplexed Federico was that the Moleskine app Flow,

00:12:15 ◼   ► I think it's called, won an ADA and an app of the year award, which seems a little bit

00:12:21 ◼   ► redundant considering how many apps are available.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Yeah, and I mean, I've seen this from another perspective too, which is like I've gotten

00:12:29 ◼   ► a lot of app marketing over the years and I've always found it to be one of the most

00:12:33 ◼   ► perplexing parts of Apple's PR strategy.

00:12:37 ◼   ► And maybe I'm not sure if they're sending me things anymore.

00:12:40 ◼   ► Maybe they don't like, they know that I don't write about them anymore, but Apple has always

00:12:44 ◼   ► been for a long time anyway, been good at the kind of like, oh, here's a collection

00:12:49 ◼   ► of apps for this holiday.

00:12:50 ◼   ► Maybe you could write about them.

00:12:52 ◼   ► And it's literally, there's no news there.

00:12:54 ◼   ► It's literally, hey, the 4th of July is coming up.

00:12:57 ◼   ► Here are some apps related to the 4th of July.

00:13:00 ◼   ► And this is like that.

00:13:02 ◼   ► This is like that.

00:13:04 ◼   ► It's all about creating a conversation about stuff that's in Apple's ecosystem.

00:13:09 ◼   ► It reflects well on Apple.

00:13:10 ◼   ► It does benefit those developers.

00:13:12 ◼   ► I'm unclear on exactly what the relationship is.

00:13:16 ◼   ► Like the Moleskine stuff, like they also pushed Moleskine stuff at the keynote.

00:13:20 ◼   ► And I saw the Moleskine stuff later and it doesn't mean that it's not good.

00:13:25 ◼   ► It's just that it's also part of a marketing push.

00:13:27 ◼   ► Apple has decided that it's useful for it to be marketed.

00:13:31 ◼   ► So it's just, it was a really good conversation because I thought it perfectly elaborated

00:13:38 ◼   ► like the tension between Apple's goals with this thing as a marketing vehicle that is

00:13:47 ◼   ► dressed in award clothing like a panel or some other kind of independent body made choices.

00:13:56 ◼   ► And that's because it's not, it's marketing.

00:13:58 ◼   ► And Federico looks at it and says, well, these are awards.

00:14:00 ◼   ► They don't make any sense.

00:14:02 ◼   ► And Apple looks at it as not that, I think.

00:14:05 ◼   ► So it was a good conversation and I liked it.

00:14:08 ◼   ► And I really liked, I get excited when I hear somebody who's very knowledgeable kind of

00:14:13 ◼   ► show off about something that doesn't make sense because they know all the details.

00:14:19 ◼   ► And then they look at this thing and they go that I don't, what is happening here?

00:14:22 ◼   ► And that was Federico to a T and that conversation, it was great.

00:14:26 ◼   ► I think it's this week, Max Stories are publishing their selects, which is their awards of the

00:14:31 ◼   ► year.

00:14:32 ◼   ► I think that's coming up this week.

00:14:34 ◼   ► So thinking all of this stuff had been particularly in Federico's mind about thinking about what

00:14:38 ◼   ► the best apps of the year are.

00:14:40 ◼   ► And I'm expecting that none of the apps that Apple wanted be on his list.

00:14:46 ◼   ► This is, I don't know what his list is, but that's my assumption is just like, this doesn't

00:14:50 ◼   ► make any sense to me.

00:14:53 ◼   ► I think it actually might not be this week.

00:14:54 ◼   ► It's sometime over the next couple of weeks that they're doing their Max Story selects.

00:14:59 ◼   ► So I just thought it was funny to hear him talk about that.

00:15:02 ◼   ► And as I said to him on the show, I look forward to critiquing his award selections.

00:15:09 ◼   ► We'll see, we'll see.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Talking about awards, the best awards of the year are upcoming, the upgradees.

00:15:14 ◼   ► You can go to upgradees.vote to cast your nominations for the upgradees who you would

00:15:19 ◼   ► like to win in each category.

00:15:20 ◼   ► I have a piece of information.

00:15:22 ◼   ► I've decided on a closing date, Jason, for nominations this year.

00:15:25 ◼   ► It's going to be December 24th.

00:15:27 ◼   ► That is when the nominations will close for the upgradees this year for the 2019 upgradees.

00:15:32 ◼   ► So go to upgradees.vote and you can make your nominations.

00:15:36 ◼   ► You don't have to make a nomination for every category, none of the questions are required.

00:15:41 ◼   ► So you can just make votes for whatever categories you have answers for.

00:15:46 ◼   ► One of the reasons we ask for your nominations is because me and Jason don't necessarily

00:15:49 ◼   ► have nominations for every category.

00:15:51 ◼   ► So it always helps.

00:15:52 ◼   ► If you want to get some inspiration, if you want to see who's won in the past, you can

00:15:56 ◼   ► go to upgradees.com where we have by year and by category, a list of every winner of

00:16:02 ◼   ► an upgrade award and the runners up in each category for each year as well.

00:16:06 ◼   ► So you can go there and see all of that.

00:16:08 ◼   ► Should we do some upstream news?

00:16:10 ◼   ► Yeah, we should.

00:16:11 ◼   ► It's been quiet in the upstream world lately, but we've got a little bit.

00:16:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I want to wrap up a few things because there just hasn't been a lot of like huge

00:16:22 ◼   ► stuff that I wanted to talk about, either of us wanted to talk about, but there is some

00:16:26 ◼   ► small headlines around Apple TV Plus in general.

00:16:28 ◼   ► Two new shows have launched in the last couple of weeks.

00:16:31 ◼   ► There is Servant, which is the M Night Shyamalan thriller show.

00:16:36 ◼   ► Like it's a thriller horror, I think about a couple who have lost a child and they have

00:16:43 ◼   ► a kind of like a service, like doll.

00:16:47 ◼   ► And I assume creepy things happen.

00:16:49 ◼   ► And then Truth Be Told, which is the podcast, which premise I thought was hilarious, but

00:16:54 ◼   ► then when I watched the trailer, it looked really interesting, which is a, it is a show

00:17:00 ◼   ► about a true crime podcast.

00:17:03 ◼   ► My friend, Aaron Bernhard, who is a TV critic.

00:17:07 ◼   ► He he's been really negative about the Apple TV Plus shows and he thinks that Truth Be

00:17:13 ◼   ► Told is the best one they've done.

00:17:16 ◼   ► I think he phrased it as the first good Apple TV Plus show, which is really mean and I don't

00:17:21 ◼   ► agree with, but I am intrigued.

00:17:23 ◼   ► I am intrigued by that and I'm interested in watching it because yeah, it's a, it's

00:17:28 ◼   ► an anthology show, so every season would be about a different story, but it is, it is

00:17:32 ◼   ► essentially crime story told through lens of true crime podcast.

00:17:36 ◼   ► And apparently it's very good.

00:17:38 ◼   ► So I'm going to look at that maybe over the holiday break.

00:17:41 ◼   ► It features Octavia Spencer, Aaron Paul is in it as well.

00:17:46 ◼   ► Lizzie Kaplan, Octavia Spencer, who plays the podcaster is maybe the only podcaster

00:17:52 ◼   ► ever that uses Beats headphones when they record.

00:17:55 ◼   ► I guess unless you sit down with Apple in the interview spaces, then I'm sure you use

00:17:59 ◼   ► Beats headphones as well.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Apple have also bought the rights to a Billie Eilish documentary.

00:18:05 ◼   ► So Billie Eilish, the musical artist who picked up basically all of Apple's Apple Music Awards.

00:18:11 ◼   ► They have now, they have now picked up a documentary that's been made about her, which will be

00:18:17 ◼   ► showing on TV Plus at some point.

00:18:21 ◼   ► There is a new Oprah Winfrey project announced.

00:18:23 ◼   ► So if you remember, Oprah Winfrey's project spanned far and wide with Apple TV Plus in

00:18:28 ◼   ► the overall deal.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And one of the projects is a documentary about sexual assault in the music industry.

00:18:33 ◼   ► So that's currently begun work.

00:18:36 ◼   ► And Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston and the morning show itself received Apple's

00:18:40 ◼   ► first Golden Globes nominations.

00:18:43 ◼   ► So luckily for them, they got some.

00:18:44 ◼   ► I mean, they needed really to have at least something and they did.

00:18:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:49 ◼   ► Well, and you, you couple this with the fact that they are one of their Oscar bait things

00:18:52 ◼   ► was this, this movie that they delayed, which I'm not sure if we talked about that or not.

00:18:57 ◼   ► You didn't talk about this, The Banker, right?

00:18:59 ◼   ► The Banker and it got delayed very weirdly handled because what happened was the week

00:19:04 ◼   ► before the movie was to come out in theaters so that they could screen it in theaters so

00:19:09 ◼   ► that they could potentially get Oscar nominations.

00:19:12 ◼   ► Very, very strange story because it's like the daughter of, it's the granddaughter of

00:19:19 ◼   ► the main character in the book, I think, and in the movie.

00:19:22 ◼   ► And she was, she said that one of the sons who is a character in the movie, but like,

00:19:27 ◼   ► it's not, my understanding is it's not about that.

00:19:30 ◼   ► There was a story in, I think the Washington Post that was like, here's why Apple pulled

00:19:34 ◼   ► the release of this movie.

00:19:35 ◼   ► And the story did not answer the question because it sounds to me like this woman complained

00:19:43 ◼   ► saying that one of the sons of the character in the movie sexually assaulted her, I think,

00:19:51 ◼   ► some form of sexual misconduct and that she is offended that they're telling this story

00:19:57 ◼   ► about her family and that I think there's a complaint about her not being involved and

00:20:03 ◼   ► that they should be able to control their story.

00:20:06 ◼   ► And what's weird about it is I'm unclear if there are any complaints about the content.

00:20:12 ◼   ► No, no.

00:20:13 ◼   ► From my understanding from reading as you have is that the person who's come forward

00:20:18 ◼   ► who is a family member, right, like sexual assault was all in the family and they're

00:20:23 ◼   ► saying that they should not be telling these stories.

00:20:26 ◼   ► It's also based on the overall telling of the family's history.

00:20:31 ◼   ► Right.

00:20:32 ◼   ► And so this is the weird point is it sounds like this person is upset about the fact that

00:20:42 ◼   ► Apple made a deal with a portion of the family to tell this story and that they don't like

00:20:47 ◼   ► that person who made the deal, but it's not really about the story.

00:20:52 ◼   ► There are also some accusations of inaccuracy, but the sexual abuse stuff is the main thing.

00:20:56 ◼   ► This is from Cynthia Garrett, who is Garrett Jr.'s half-sibling.

00:21:01 ◼   ► So this is my feeling about it.

00:21:04 ◼   ► If the movie's inaccurate, then maybe worth taking a pause and dealing with it.

00:21:11 ◼   ► But the first stories about this made it sound like, "Oh, turns out that dumb old Apple,

00:21:18 ◼   ► they bought a movie," because they bought this at a film festival, "they bought a movie

00:21:21 ◼   ► where the main character is now accused of sexual assault.

00:21:25 ◼   ► And so this movie is a disaster and they've lionized this guy."

00:21:28 ◼   ► And he's like, "Well, no, actually that's not true.

00:21:31 ◼   ► It's his son and it's not what the movie's about and it's kind of over here on the side.

00:21:37 ◼   ► So it's a muddy kind of water for this whole thing.

00:21:41 ◼   ► And there are some...

00:21:43 ◼   ► I've seen different takes in various Hollywood industry websites saying things like...

00:21:51 ◼   ► There was a piece, I'm not sure if it was a Hollywood Reporter or Variety, but it was

00:21:53 ◼   ► a piece that said basically some people in Hollywood are like, "Yeah, you got to pull

00:21:59 ◼   ► it.

00:22:00 ◼   ► They should have done better due diligence."

00:22:01 ◼   ► And then there are other people who are like, "Look, stuff like this comes up all the time.

00:22:04 ◼   ► It doesn't directly impact the content of the movie.

00:22:06 ◼   ► You just got to soldier on, otherwise you'll never release anything."

00:22:09 ◼   ► And I think the bigger story here is not who's right there.

00:22:13 ◼   ► I think the bigger story is Apple has not had to deal with this stuff before and is

00:22:18 ◼   ► figuring it out.

00:22:19 ◼   ► - And this stuff is more difficult for Apple.

00:22:22 ◼   ► Because people are always wanting to write stories about this kind of...

00:22:27 ◼   ► Like about Apple doing wrong.

00:22:29 ◼   ► And so they're always going to struggle with this more than maybe some other companies

00:22:33 ◼   ► would.

00:22:34 ◼   ► And the way that they handle these things is going to be very important for them going

00:22:37 ◼   ► forward.

00:22:38 ◼   ► - Right.

00:22:39 ◼   ► So I'm not entirely convinced that they did the right thing here.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Although I think taking a pause and trying to figure out what's going on is probably

00:22:44 ◼   ► not a bad idea.

00:22:45 ◼   ► - I think halting and just waiting was the right thing to do.

00:22:49 ◼   ► That they now have to look into it and deal with it however they want to.

00:22:53 ◼   ► Forging ahead would have been a mistake.

00:22:55 ◼   ► - What they've lost is their Oscar timing, which is what they really wanted to do, is

00:22:58 ◼   ► they wanted to release this in December in theaters so that it would be Oscar-nominate-able

00:23:03 ◼   ► because we've talked about the Golden Globes and that's why I brought it up.

00:23:06 ◼   ► This was supposed to be their Oscar bait.

00:23:09 ◼   ► And they are going to have to wait.

00:23:13 ◼   ► They're going to miss because they're not going to be able to do that.

00:23:16 ◼   ► But it's an interesting story.

00:23:18 ◼   ► It's complicated.

00:23:20 ◼   ► And we didn't report on it here other than sort of like a brief glancing mention of it.

00:23:28 ◼   ► But what I would say is everything I've read about it suggests that this is a complex story

00:23:36 ◼   ► that I think most people have heard of in passing and don't understand.

00:23:40 ◼   ► Just that it's not a very simple, "Oh, look at Apple.

00:23:43 ◼   ► They really screwed this one up."

00:23:44 ◼   ► It's like, "Mm."

00:23:45 ◼   ► You know, first off, they didn't make the movie.

00:23:47 ◼   ► They bought it.

00:23:48 ◼   ► And second off, the accusations are very specific and not necessarily what you think they are.

00:23:55 ◼   ► And that, yeah, maybe Apple is right to have paused it or maybe they overreacted and there

00:24:01 ◼   ► are differing opinions about that.

00:24:03 ◼   ► But regardless, it's something that Apple has to deal with now because they're in this

00:24:06 ◼   ► business that they weren't in before.

00:24:08 ◼   ► David: Yeah.

00:24:09 ◼   ► It's like I don't even know if vetting of this story would have necessarily brought

00:24:16 ◼   ► this out.

00:24:17 ◼   ► It could have been...

00:24:18 ◼   ► You know, I don't know.

00:24:19 ◼   ► It seems like a very difficult thing to try and work out.

00:24:21 ◼   ► NatHAN: This particular controversy seemed to come out very specifically the week before the movie came out.

00:24:26 ◼   ► So were they now...

00:24:28 ◼   ► And I don't know if I've seen anything like were they desperately trying to reach the

00:24:32 ◼   ► producers and reach Apple and warn them and say, "You're making a mistake here," or did

00:24:36 ◼   ► they just lie back until they could sort of maximize the impact of their announcement?

00:24:41 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:24:42 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:24:43 ◼   ► But the bigger...

00:24:44 ◼   ► And again, we're not here to actually render those judgments now, but we are here to say,

00:24:47 ◼   ► "Here's an example of Apple having to navigate something they didn't use to have to navigate

00:24:51 ◼   ► because they're in this business now."

00:24:53 ◼   ► David Tompa Swiss television service Salt haven't launched

00:24:57 ◼   ► an alternative Apple TV remote.

00:24:59 ◼   ► Salt is one of the companies that switched...

00:25:01 ◼   ► It's a cable company, a cable TV provider.

00:25:03 ◼   ► I don't think they have fiber, but it doesn't matter.

00:25:05 ◼   ► That they have switched to issuing Apple TV 4K boxes instead of their own cable boxes.

00:25:09 ◼   ► There's a bunch of companies in Europe that are doing this.

00:25:12 ◼   ► But after an increasing amount of customer complaints about the remote, they have worked

00:25:17 ◼   ► with Apple to create a new remote that has actual buttons on it.

00:25:21 ◼   ► It doesn't require any pairing.

00:25:23 ◼   ► It just works straight out of the box, and it costs around $20, but you can only get

00:25:28 ◼   ► it if you're a customer of Salt in Switzerland.

00:25:32 ◼   ► Tim Cynova And no Siri button because they don't have

00:25:35 ◼   ► Siri.

00:25:36 ◼   ► David Tompa There's no Siri for Apple TV in Switzerland.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Tim Cynova In Switzerland.

00:25:41 ◼   ► Imagine being told by your partner that they're happy to standardize on Apple TV for their

00:25:49 ◼   ► cable box, but you've got to do something about your remote control.

00:25:54 ◼   ► Imagine that.

00:25:55 ◼   ► David Tompa Well, you know, this is the thing I found funny.

00:25:57 ◼   ► If that had come up before the deal, the deal probably never would have been done.

00:26:00 ◼   ► But now it's too late.

00:26:02 ◼   ► Salt got into bird of an apple and then it came back to bite them, so now they have to

00:26:04 ◼   ► make a new remote.

00:26:05 ◼   ► Tim Cynova Yeah, it's kind of fascinating.

00:26:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:26:09 ◼   ► I got an Apple or not an Apple TV 4K.

00:26:12 ◼   ► I got a Amazon Fire TV stick 4K version this weekend because it was $25, and I have a 4K

00:26:22 ◼   ► TV that doesn't have an Apple TV attached to it.

00:26:25 ◼   ► My old 4K TV, which is now a video game TV.

00:26:30 ◼   ► Non HDR.

00:26:31 ◼   ► It's got some weird things.

00:26:32 ◼   ► Anyway, it's good for video games.

00:26:33 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:26:36 ◼   ► And that's in my daughter's bedroom, and so when she's home for a break and all of that,

00:26:40 ◼   ► like when she was home at Thanksgiving, she was like, "Can I watch Disney Plus on here?

00:26:43 ◼   ► Can I watch Apple TV on here?"

00:26:45 ◼   ► And I said, "No, I don't have.

00:26:46 ◼   ► I only have like, you could launch the Xbox and download an app there."

00:26:50 ◼   ► And it's like, that wasn't going to happen.

00:26:52 ◼   ► And so $25 put this on there.

00:26:55 ◼   ► And what I was struck by is, yeah, it's got a regular remote with buttons and stuff.

00:27:01 ◼   ► And I've gotten used to the Apple TV remote, but I think the challenge is that it is so

00:27:05 ◼   ► different.

00:27:06 ◼   ► And even if it was good, like it's so different that there's a learning curve there that's

00:27:10 ◼   ► going to bug people.

00:27:11 ◼   ► But we have so many people have been clicking buttons on remotes for so long now that I

00:27:16 ◼   ► think we have to chalk the Apple TV remote up to being another one of these.

00:27:21 ◼   ► It doesn't come up as much as it should, but it's like in this mid 2010s era Apple design

00:27:26 ◼   ► where they decided that they were going to push design forward and drag customers with

00:27:31 ◼   ► them.

00:27:33 ◼   ► And the customers resisted.

00:27:34 ◼   ► So, yeah, I still get frustrated by it.

00:27:37 ◼   ► I know exactly how to use my Apple TV remote and I still get frustrated by it.

00:27:42 ◼   ► Missed accidental swipes, getting the orientation upside down.

00:27:48 ◼   ► And then also apps behaving differently.

00:27:50 ◼   ► Like if I do the hold down on the, you know, move the thumb to the side and then click

00:27:54 ◼   ► to go forward or on the left side to back up.

00:27:58 ◼   ► Some apps honor that in ways others don't.

00:28:01 ◼   ► And apps, when you touch the touch surface will bring up information, but some of them

00:28:07 ◼   ► auto dismiss it.

00:28:08 ◼   ► Some of them don't auto dismiss it and you have to press a button or tap the trackpad

00:28:13 ◼   ► space again to make them go away.

00:28:15 ◼   ► And until you learn what that app does, you're doing things wrong.

00:28:21 ◼   ► Like oh, can I press the menu button to get out of here?

00:28:24 ◼   ► Nope, that just closed the app.

00:28:25 ◼   ► Oh, okay, that's not what I needed to do.

00:28:26 ◼   ► Do I tap?

00:28:27 ◼   ► Do I tap again?

00:28:28 ◼   ► How do I get the Amazon X-ray stuff off the screen?

00:28:31 ◼   ► Like it's just, it's not great is what I'm saying.

00:28:35 ◼   ► Because breaking news, the Apple TV remote, not good.

00:28:40 ◼   ► The CBS Viacom merger is closed.

00:28:43 ◼   ► Yay.

00:28:44 ◼   ► Yay.

00:28:45 ◼   ► Not a lot to say here because this was long in the planning, but CBS and Viacom are now

00:28:50 ◼   ► back to being one company again, which they were, and then they were split apart, but

00:28:54 ◼   ► now they've been put back together.

00:28:55 ◼   ► And so that means your MTV Comedy Central Paramount Pictures kind of wing of Viacom

00:29:03 ◼   ► and CBS and Showtime and the publisher Simon & Schuster, they're all pushed back together

00:29:09 ◼   ► now in one place.

00:29:10 ◼   ► So they'll have the CBS All Access stuff will presumably pick up a bunch of Viacom content

00:29:15 ◼   ► and we'll see what their strategy is going forward.

00:29:17 ◼   ► They got a lot, 2020 is going to be a big year.

00:29:19 ◼   ► They've got a lot of shows.

00:29:21 ◼   ► They've got, I think they're going to have three, two or three Star Trek shows next year

00:29:26 ◼   ► on CBS All Access.

00:29:28 ◼   ► There's a lot going on there.

00:29:29 ◼   ► So we'll keep our eye on it, but it's one company again.

00:29:33 ◼   ► So they're a little bit bigger.

00:29:34 ◼   ► There's still a small fry in the, amid these gigantic conglomerates, but they are bigger

00:29:39 ◼   ► than they used to be.

00:29:40 ◼   ► Let's talk about podcasts.

00:29:42 ◼   ► So there have been more and more podcasts becoming Spotify exclusives or being created

00:29:48 ◼   ► by Spotify.

00:29:49 ◼   ► So this has been a thing that's been going on for a while, but there has been a recent

00:29:54 ◼   ► one which is near and dear to my heart, which is making me very sad.

00:29:58 ◼   ► There is a video game show, was previously, well, it was a Polygon show, which had Justin

00:30:06 ◼   ► McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Chris Plant and Russ Frushstick.

00:30:10 ◼   ► So they all worked at Polygon together before the McElroy brothers left Polygon.

00:30:15 ◼   ► But before that, this was like a show that they did every week.

00:30:18 ◼   ► It was called, it's called The Besties and it was just four best friends talking about

00:30:21 ◼   ► video games.

00:30:22 ◼   ► It's great.

00:30:23 ◼   ► Loved it.

00:30:24 ◼   ► And then they stopped doing the show, but would bring it back every year to do a Game

00:30:27 ◼   ► of the Year episode.

00:30:30 ◼   ► Then a couple of days ago, I was very excited to see the show pop up again as a notification

00:30:35 ◼   ► overcast.

00:30:36 ◼   ► Three episodes were published with new artwork.

00:30:38 ◼   ► I was like, yes, The Besties is back.

00:30:41 ◼   ► Turns out Besties is back, but from January 3rd, not only will it be a weekly show again,

00:30:45 ◼   ► very excited, but it's going to be a Spotify exclusive.

00:30:49 ◼   ► So I'm really upset about this because I'm now not going to listen to the show because

00:30:54 ◼   ► it's not, and this isn't out of a like, uh, how dare you, I would never type thing, but

00:31:01 ◼   ► I don't listen to my podcasts in Spotify, so I'm never going to remember to watch it

00:31:07 ◼   ► and to listen to it.

00:31:08 ◼   ► Yeah, this is, you and I talked about this, um, cause I brought this up in the context

00:31:12 ◼   ► of The Athletic, which is a subscription sports, uh, site and they do a bunch of podcasts and

00:31:19 ◼   ► they have, since we talked, by the way, they have brought some of them out of the, uh,

00:31:24 ◼   ► behind the paywall.

00:31:25 ◼   ► Although it's a weird thing where it's not all of them, including not the one I listened

00:31:28 ◼   ► to.

00:31:30 ◼   ► And it's, uh, some weird thing where they're doing like, I think every other episode is

00:31:34 ◼   ► running outside the paywall.

00:31:35 ◼   ► The point is I pay for it and I don't listen to them even though I want to because they're

00:31:40 ◼   ► not in my podcast app and I'm not going to keep switching apps to listen to different

00:31:44 ◼   ► things in different places.

00:31:45 ◼   ► My podcasts all live in overcast and that's just how it is.

00:31:49 ◼   ► And I know that this is Spotify trying to give leverage, you know, to like, no, no,

00:31:52 ◼   ► move all your podcasts inside, but I'm not going to do that.

00:31:56 ◼   ► Even if I pay for Spotify, I'm not going to move all my podcasts into Spotify.

00:32:00 ◼   ► So some people will, but, um, I saw somebody else was telling me how there's another, um,

00:32:07 ◼   ► another podcast that they liked that was picked up and put inside the paywall.

00:32:12 ◼   ► So this is, this is starting to happen where Spotify is making deals where they are pulling

00:32:16 ◼   ► podcasts.

00:32:17 ◼   ► In, in the case of the besties, it sounds like maybe the reason it's coming back and

00:32:22 ◼   ► going weekly is because they got paid by Spotify.

00:32:25 ◼   ► Right?

00:32:26 ◼   ► So it's a little bit different.

00:32:27 ◼   ► I actually can't tell, and I don't think it is related to Polygon anymore.

00:32:32 ◼   ► It's a video game website owned by Vox because it has none of their branding anywhere and

00:32:37 ◼   ► it was apparently by Spotify studios.

00:32:40 ◼   ► So I expect what's happened here is, well, considering only 50% of these people are employed

00:32:45 ◼   ► by Polygon anymore, that Spotify has offered them a bunch of money and they're doing the

00:32:50 ◼   ► show.

00:32:51 ◼   ► I mean, we've spoken about this in the past.

00:32:52 ◼   ► I don't know that's the case, but I can't find anything that would suggest that this

00:32:56 ◼   ► was a Vox media product anymore.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Their branding is not on it in any way.

00:33:01 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:33:02 ◼   ► So a deal was made here.

00:33:03 ◼   ► So I think it's an important thing to mention that this isn't quite the same as a popular

00:33:08 ◼   ► podcast being taken behind the paywall because it's sort of a dead podcast that is being

00:33:12 ◼   ► revived behind a paywall.

00:33:14 ◼   ► But it's like the middle ground, isn't it?

00:33:16 ◼   ► Yeah, but I have heard of popular podcasts being pulled behind the paywall and, you know,

00:33:22 ◼   ► we talked about it here a while ago.

00:33:23 ◼   ► It's just an interesting thing to ponder is like the business decision of doing that because

00:33:29 ◼   ► what you're going to do is you're going to lose a huge number of your audience, even

00:33:34 ◼   ► if Spotify is huge, which it is, like some percentage of your audience is not going to

00:33:38 ◼   ► follow you behind the paywall.

00:33:39 ◼   ► It's just not going to happen.

00:33:40 ◼   ► Well, this is it, right?

00:33:42 ◼   ► You've got to hope that the deal that you've done is worth more than any advertising that

00:33:47 ◼   ► you may not be able to get now because your audience could potentially be smaller because

00:33:51 ◼   ► you've got to convince people to switch their podcast app, which is difficult.

00:33:55 ◼   ► And if that's a trade that you're willing to make, then you can make it, but it's a

00:33:59 ◼   ► danger and you're also closing yourself off from discovery because, I mean, you can get

00:34:05 ◼   ► Spotify discovery, but the broader world of podcast discovery you're losing out.

00:34:10 ◼   ► So it's a, and if, what percentage of your money is from things like live shows because

00:34:16 ◼   ► live shows are going to not have as much of an audience either because you've lost part

00:34:20 ◼   ► of your audience.

00:34:21 ◼   ► So it's this whole complicated calculation.

00:34:23 ◼   ► I think it's a little bit easier to make it if you're the McElroy's and you look at besties

00:34:27 ◼   ► and you say to yourself, well, you know, we just can't do this.

00:34:31 ◼   ► It's not worth it.

00:34:32 ◼   ► The economics don't work.

00:34:33 ◼   ► And then Spotify says, we'll write you a check and you say, oh, now the economics work, right?

00:34:37 ◼   ► That's easier.

00:34:38 ◼   ► It's more complicated in other situations, but it's also, yeah, it's just, it's unfortunate

00:34:43 ◼   ► you and I agree on this point and it's unfortunate not because we think Spotify is evil.

00:34:48 ◼   ► All that the podcasters are doing bad, get your pay back, right?

00:34:51 ◼   ► Like if it's coming to you, take it.

00:34:53 ◼   ► For sure.

00:34:54 ◼   ► It's unfortunate because it's siloing and from a user experience standpoint, siloing

00:34:58 ◼   ► stinks and you're, you're going, this is the equivalent of saying, Hey everybody, I know

00:35:03 ◼   ► you liked my website, but, um, my website's no longer going to be available.

00:35:08 ◼   ► You need to download an app to read what I write.

00:35:11 ◼   ► That's what this essentially is.

00:35:12 ◼   ► It's I'm taking you out of the open world and putting you in my silo.

00:35:17 ◼   ► And it's the only way, cause like as a, as a newspaper subscriber or the athletic, I

00:35:22 ◼   ► can read that on the web.

00:35:23 ◼   ► I can read that in their app.

00:35:24 ◼   ► But for podcasting, you're saying I'm going to take you out of podcasts and put you in

00:35:27 ◼   ► my little app.

00:35:29 ◼   ► And that's the only way you're going to be able to get it.

00:35:31 ◼   ► It kind of stinks.

00:35:32 ◼   ► It would stink less if Spotify said, Oh, if you use overcast, you just put in your Spotify

00:35:38 ◼   ► username and password and subscribe to it and overcast, but they're not going to do

00:35:41 ◼   ► that because they want you to, they want to force you to use their app.

00:35:45 ◼   ► Spotify and not looking to make money out of podcast advertising.

00:35:48 ◼   ► They are looking to be able to produce content so you will pay for a Spotify subscription.

00:35:53 ◼   ► That's the difference.

00:35:54 ◼   ► Yep.

00:35:55 ◼   ► So, you know, maybe every now and then if there's a game I particularly am interested

00:35:59 ◼   ► in hearing their thoughts on, I will think to myself, Oh, I should go and check out,

00:36:02 ◼   ► see if they spoke about it on besties.

00:36:03 ◼   ► But you know, I just, I don't think it's just a shame, you know, but it is what it is.

00:36:10 ◼   ► All right.

00:36:11 ◼   ► Let's take a break and thank our first sponsor.

00:36:13 ◼   ► That is Express VPN.

00:36:15 ◼   ► We all know how a VPN can protect your privacy and security online, but they can also take

00:36:19 ◼   ► your TV watching to the next level by unlocking content and shows that are available in other

00:36:25 ◼   ► countries.

00:36:26 ◼   ► So for example, you might be able to use Express VPN to go onto Netflix and you could watch

00:36:31 ◼   ► Dr Who and Star Trek in the, from the UK Netflix.

00:36:34 ◼   ► If you're somewhere else in the world, you just fire up the app, change your location

00:36:37 ◼   ► to the UK, refresh your Netflix, and that is it.

00:36:41 ◼   ► Express VPN hides your IP address so you can control where you want sites to think you'll

00:36:44 ◼   ► located and you can choose from almost 100 different countries.

00:36:48 ◼   ► So think about all of the Netflix libraries you could go through.

00:36:51 ◼   ► If you love anime, you could use Express VPN to access Japanese Netflix, but it's not just

00:36:55 ◼   ► Netflix Express VPN can work of any streaming service like Hulu, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, whatever

00:37:00 ◼   ► you want.

00:37:01 ◼   ► There are hundreds of VPNs out there.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Express VPN is ridiculously fast though.

00:37:05 ◼   ► So when you're watching shows, there's not going to be any buffering or lag and you can

00:37:08 ◼   ► stream in HD and Express VPN is compatible with all your devices, phones and media consoles,

00:37:14 ◼   ► TV's and more.

00:37:15 ◼   ► So you can watch what you want wherever you want.

00:37:18 ◼   ► So I am a big fan of me and my wife, a big fan of the Japanese TV show Terrace House

00:37:24 ◼   ► and it's a Netflix show.

00:37:26 ◼   ► In Japan, they put new episodes of Terrace House up weekly, but outside of Japan, they

00:37:31 ◼   ► put them up in like big batches every few months.

00:37:34 ◼   ► And there's the new batches coming out on December 24th.

00:37:38 ◼   ► And but I thought to myself, oh, I could just use this.

00:37:40 ◼   ► And now if we want to, we can watch Terrace House on a weekly basis with English subtitles

00:37:45 ◼   ► by using Japanese Netflix, but using Express VPN.

00:37:48 ◼   ► That is really awesome.

00:37:49 ◼   ► So if you go to expressvpn.com/upgrade right now, you can get three extra months free with

00:37:55 ◼   ► a one year package.

00:37:57 ◼   ► Support this show, watch what you want and protect yourself now at expressvpn.com/upgrade.

00:38:02 ◼   ► Our thanks to Express VPN for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:38:07 ◼   ► So there was a rumor from Ming-Chi Kuo reporting that Apple will launch an iPhone without a

00:38:12 ◼   ► lightning connector in 2021, saying it will be a quote, "completely wireless experience,"

00:38:18 ◼   ► suggesting that they will skip USB-C on the iPhone completely.

00:38:24 ◼   ► Now this feels like something which has been inevitable.

00:38:27 ◼   ► I think we've always assumed that like it just seems like the most Apple slash Johnny

00:38:31 ◼   ► eye thing ever to just take a phone and remove all of the holes on it.

00:38:37 ◼   ► Right?

00:38:38 ◼   ► That just feels like something we've been expecting for a while that eventually they

00:38:41 ◼   ► would just remove everything.

00:38:42 ◼   ► I think the headphone jack was probably when it really seemed like and then the inclusion

00:38:46 ◼   ► of Qi charging.

00:38:48 ◼   ► But this seems aggressive.

00:38:50 ◼   ► 2021?

00:38:51 ◼   ► That feels aggressive to me.

00:38:53 ◼   ► Maybe I'm just not ready because I haven't embraced the Qi lifestyle.

00:38:58 ◼   ► There are a lot of issues here.

00:38:59 ◼   ► I think that's one of the fascinating things about this story.

00:39:01 ◼   ► If it's true, we have to sort of take it on its face and evaluate it for what it is.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Ming-Chi Kuo's track record's pretty good.

00:39:07 ◼   ► Not perfect, but good.

00:39:10 ◼   ► So my first question is, why?

00:39:16 ◼   ► Like I know it seems obvious, but like let's ask that question.

00:39:20 ◼   ► Why do you do this?

00:39:22 ◼   ► Do you do this because ports or as you said holes, eliminate all the holes.

00:39:27 ◼   ► Holes are inherently evil and must be removed as many places as possible.

00:39:31 ◼   ► Donuts are no longer being sold in the Apple cafeteria.

00:39:34 ◼   ► Holes must go.

00:39:35 ◼   ► Okay.

00:39:36 ◼   ► So that's weird and very design driven and not thinking of the consumer experience.

00:39:41 ◼   ► And Johnny Ive doesn't work at the company anymore, by the way.

00:39:45 ◼   ► So I don't think that people would rather have it would be in the end in everybody's

00:39:51 ◼   ► best interest if there were no ports on an iPhone.

00:39:54 ◼   ► That port's really tiny.

00:39:55 ◼   ► It doesn't really matter.

00:39:56 ◼   ► Like I don't think that's sufficient.

00:39:59 ◼   ► So the best I've been able to come up with, and I'd be interested if you've got any ideas

00:40:04 ◼   ► too, the best I've been able to come up with is Apple has been pushing for a while on dust

00:40:10 ◼   ► and water resistance.

00:40:12 ◼   ► And yet, as we know, even though they talk about that IP rating that the phone has, if

00:40:19 ◼   ► you submerge your phone in the water and it dies because of a failure to something in

00:40:26 ◼   ► the internals that allows water to leak in and you take it to the Apple store and say,

00:40:30 ◼   ► "Hey, your waterproof phone died."

00:40:32 ◼   ► They'll say, "Water resistant and water damage isn't covered."

00:40:37 ◼   ► It's not a guarantee.

00:40:40 ◼   ► Maybe the drive toward taking a port off is because as iPhone designers have been pushed

00:40:47 ◼   ► to get more resilient, more rugged, more water resistance in the phone, that what they said

00:40:55 ◼   ► is, "Look, if you want this to happen, that port has to go."

00:40:59 ◼   ► Because the port is the biggest ingress location on the device.

00:41:05 ◼   ► So that at least seems like a plausible reason why they do this rather than just sort of

00:41:12 ◼   ► like the politics of, "We believe there should not be ports."

00:41:16 ◼   ► I don't know if that's enough.

00:41:17 ◼   ► I don't know if that's sufficient for this.

00:41:19 ◼   ► But that's the best I think I've come up with so far is what if this is a truly waterproof

00:41:24 ◼   ► phone that they can stand behind and say, "You can drop this in the toilet or the ocean

00:41:30 ◼   ► or whatever and it's fine."

00:41:31 ◼   ► And we stand by that.

00:41:33 ◼   ► Is complete waterproofing that important that you remove the ability to charge the phone

00:41:39 ◼   ► with a cable?

00:41:40 ◼   ► I mean, a lot of people...

00:41:41 ◼   ► I think there's a question about like how many people have to replace their phones now

00:41:45 ◼   ► versus when they drop them in a puddle or a toilet or whatever versus five years ago.

00:41:51 ◼   ► And how dramatically less is that number than it used to be?

00:41:56 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:41:57 ◼   ► I'm just I'm trying to come up with a reason that is practical for why they would do this.

00:42:02 ◼   ► Do you think you have any other ideas?

00:42:03 ◼   ► No, I don't have a practical reason.

00:42:05 ◼   ► I think the reason that they would do it if they would do it would be, "Look how beautiful

00:42:10 ◼   ► it is."

00:42:11 ◼   ► That's the pure aesthetic argument.

00:42:12 ◼   ► That's the Johnny Ive argument.

00:42:13 ◼   ► Or there is a possibility that by removing other things that don't quote unquote "need

00:42:18 ◼   ► to be there," it gives them more space inside of the phone to do other stuff, right?

00:42:23 ◼   ► Which is the reason they got rid of their headphone jack, which is just so that they

00:42:26 ◼   ► could do whatever it...

00:42:27 ◼   ► Well, is the potential reason they got rid of their headphone jack is so they could use

00:42:31 ◼   ► that space in other places.

00:42:33 ◼   ► And that this would allow them again to do that.

00:42:37 ◼   ► Plus, because it isn't even a thing about proprietary anymore because Qi is not proprietary,

00:42:44 ◼   ► right?

00:42:45 ◼   ► And that's all that would be left would just be Qi charging.

00:42:47 ◼   ► Well, not necessarily.

00:42:48 ◼   ► Okay, so let's talk about charging.

00:42:49 ◼   ► I want to talk about data too, but let's talk about charging.

00:42:54 ◼   ► So charging, everybody's like, "Oh, well, if they do this, there's the Qi chargers."

00:42:58 ◼   ► Okay, a few things.

00:43:00 ◼   ► First off, battery cases and external batteries are...

00:43:07 ◼   ► And people using phones in places where a Qi charging service doesn't make sense.

00:43:14 ◼   ► How do you handle that?

00:43:15 ◼   ► Well, my thing, I always go to planes.

00:43:17 ◼   ► I always think about planes, right?

00:43:20 ◼   ► How do you charge your phone on a plane if there's no cable anymore?

00:43:23 ◼   ► And how do you charge a phone on a plane or anywhere else where you need to charge and

00:43:28 ◼   ► keep using your phone if you have to lay it down on a mat?

00:43:32 ◼   ► Or do you bring a little one of those little angled ones and set it up somewhere?

00:43:37 ◼   ► It doesn't track.

00:43:39 ◼   ► So unless there is a breakthrough in inductive charging, that means that you can now inductively

00:43:47 ◼   ► charge from external batteries and battery packs and when you're sitting on a plane without

00:43:54 ◼   ► any trouble, I think this is going to be an issue.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Now, that is one of my theories, if we're stepping through all the points here to evaluate

00:44:01 ◼   ► this thing.

00:44:02 ◼   ► One of my theories is, what if Apple is not just doing Qi charging on a phone like this?

00:44:09 ◼   ► What if there is another proprietary inductive charging technology, something that's more

00:44:14 ◼   ► like a MagSafe connector?

00:44:17 ◼   ► Or the Apple Watch charger?

00:44:19 ◼   ► Or the Apple Watch charger, where they can be a little bit less... it's more efficient

00:44:26 ◼   ► and therefore makes more sense, because you can plug an Apple Watch charger into a battery

00:44:29 ◼   ► pack and then just snap it on and it'll charge the Apple Watch.

00:44:33 ◼   ► I don't think it solves all of these issues, but something that's more MagSafe-like, where

00:44:37 ◼   ► it's essentially just like a little thing that attaches and it's like a cable, because

00:44:41 ◼   ► it is a cable, it's just an inductive charge kind of thing, or it's a direct connect, but

00:44:47 ◼   ► it's not a port.

00:44:49 ◼   ► You can toss that around a little bit and say, "Okay, well maybe."

00:44:53 ◼   ► But it is a roadblock for something like this, because if all it does is Qi charging, the

00:44:58 ◼   ► technology is just not very good.

00:45:00 ◼   ► Plus, the thing that happens to me all the time, I have Qi chargers at home, and every

00:45:04 ◼   ► now and then I look at my phone and I'm like, "Uh oh, my phone's down at 10% and I'm about

00:45:07 ◼   ► to leave the house."

00:45:09 ◼   ► And plugging it into a cable, it's going to charge way faster than the Qi charging, so

00:45:14 ◼   ► I will charge it that way in order to get it back up in terms of battery before I go.

00:45:20 ◼   ► I haven't even mentioned that when I get in the car, I could also charge it there, because

00:45:23 ◼   ► I have USB in the car, but what if I can't do that?

00:45:26 ◼   ► I also have CarPlay in the car, and my CarPlay is USB only.

00:45:31 ◼   ► So would they go to the point of invalidating all CarPlay models before like a year or two

00:45:38 ◼   ► ago with new iPhones by doing this?

00:45:41 ◼   ► Because that would be another thing, most CarPlay still requires a wire.

00:45:46 ◼   ► Like, what would you put in the box?

00:45:51 ◼   ► What goes in the box to charge your phone?

00:45:52 ◼   ► I mean, maybe one thing that could go, if there is a magnetic thing that is not a Qi

00:45:58 ◼   ► charger, or maybe it is, but let's say it's not, let's say it's a MagSafe connector of

00:46:02 ◼   ► some kind or something like that, that would be what would be in the box, right?

00:46:06 ◼   ► Is there be like a MagSafe to USB-C?

00:46:08 ◼   ► Something like that?

00:46:10 ◼   ► And you just bring the dongle with you everywhere?

00:46:14 ◼   ► Again, not that it couldn't be done, but you start to think about what would be required

00:46:19 ◼   ► to get to that point, and it just starts to get ugly, like really fast.

00:46:25 ◼   ► I feel like this is going to be, because I remember these questions for the removal of

00:46:30 ◼   ► the headphone jack, right?

00:46:32 ◼   ► And there was never a good reason.

00:46:34 ◼   ► It's just something that they did.

00:46:37 ◼   ► Apple had their reasons, but they didn't communicate those with people, like why they did it when

00:46:42 ◼   ► they did, and all that kind of stuff.

00:46:44 ◼   ► And the reason that they did it when they did was because they needed it to be gone

00:46:47 ◼   ► so they could fit the screen in the X.

00:46:50 ◼   ► That is my feeling, right?

00:46:52 ◼   ► The way that they needed space in the iPhone X, so they had to stretch the screen around

00:46:57 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:46:58 ◼   ► So they ditched the headphone jack in the phone before it, so therefore the story of

00:47:03 ◼   ► the iPhone X wasn't they removed the headphone jack.

00:47:06 ◼   ► There was no reason to remove the headphone jack in the iPhone 7 or whatever one it was.

00:47:11 ◼   ► There was no reason, right?

00:47:13 ◼   ► They just did it then.

00:47:15 ◼   ► It was the sacrificial iPhone.

00:47:18 ◼   ► So they could steer the headlines away from what they needed, which is the next year to

00:47:23 ◼   ► have a big bang phone.

00:47:25 ◼   ► And so I'm thinking, is it something like this?

00:47:27 ◼   ► Would they do it in 2021 because there's something in 2022?

00:47:31 ◼   ► But I can't wrap my head around the benefit.

00:47:35 ◼   ► Because you could say, you could make the cynical argument of like, oh, they just want

00:47:38 ◼   ► to charge you more money.

00:47:39 ◼   ► But Apple don't have a cheap charging solution, as we all well know, right?

00:47:44 ◼   ► Air power doesn't exist.

00:47:46 ◼   ► But also they would actually be moving from a closed ecosystem to a open ecosystem if wireless

00:47:54 ◼   ► charging was the primary way that you would charge this phone.

00:47:59 ◼   ► I would expect that even if they included something like a MagSafe connector, there

00:48:04 ◼   ► would probably still be pushing people to use wireless charging because you're not really

00:48:10 ◼   ► making it seem much sexier.

00:48:11 ◼   ► We just always just a different type of connector now that you can plug it into.

00:48:15 ◼   ► But are they going to put a wireless connector like charger in the box?

00:48:19 ◼   ► Or are they going to put a magnetic, you know, we've been calling it MagSafe.

00:48:23 ◼   ► It's probably more accurate.

00:48:25 ◼   ► And this goes to the data part of it too.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Probably more accurate to call this smart connector.

00:48:29 ◼   ► Yes.

00:48:30 ◼   ► V3.

00:48:31 ◼   ► Mm hmm.

00:48:32 ◼   ► And this is the thing, it's like smart connectors pins, you know, it's magnetic connectors.

00:48:39 ◼   ► You're not, it's not a wireless technology, right?

00:48:43 ◼   ► It's just a portless technology because you're making that connection metal to metal and

00:48:48 ◼   ► magnets are being used to guide it.

00:48:51 ◼   ► And that is something they could do.

00:48:53 ◼   ► Like they could have, look at our new smart connector.

00:48:56 ◼   ► It does power, it does data.

00:48:57 ◼   ► And in the box, they've got a smart connector charger that goes to USB-C and they don't

00:49:03 ◼   ► have to put a Qi charger in the box.

00:49:05 ◼   ► And they could do that.

00:49:07 ◼   ► And that would solve potentially another problem, which is why I keep coming back to the idea

00:49:12 ◼   ► that if they did this, they would have to do a smart connector is survivability of a

00:49:20 ◼   ► bricked phone.

00:49:21 ◼   ► Because that's the other piece of the puzzle here, right?

00:49:23 ◼   ► Because one of the ways, I mean, I don't transfer data over USB anymore.

00:49:28 ◼   ► I just use airdrop, but I used to because it was so much faster, but it's close enough

00:49:32 ◼   ► and it's easy.

00:49:33 ◼   ► But like if you have a dead phone that you can bring it back to life by doing an unbrick

00:49:40 ◼   ► that phone by attaching it to a Mac and just completely wiping it and reinstalling the

00:49:47 ◼   ► software.

00:49:48 ◼   ► That's good for betas, especially, right?

00:49:50 ◼   ► Like we do betas and like Apple Watch betas are much more dangerous than other betas because

00:49:54 ◼   ► the Apple Watch can't be attached to a computer and fixed if it dies.

00:50:00 ◼   ► So if you had a data connection over that thing, that would be a way that you could

00:50:06 ◼   ► do it because you got to have something, right?

00:50:07 ◼   ► You got to have something in the iPhone.

00:50:08 ◼   ► You can't just shrug and say, if the iPhone bricks take it to an Apple store.

00:50:13 ◼   ► There are other ways they could maybe do it using wireless technology, but you're opening

00:50:17 ◼   ► even more.

00:50:18 ◼   ► So there'll be security issues, let's put it that way because they would need some way

00:50:22 ◼   ► to put it in a mode where it starts up independent of whatever is causing it to brick and it's

00:50:28 ◼   ► looking for the right kind of wireless connection and then it's doing things.

00:50:31 ◼   ► It's like, okay, now that's a whole new class of things you need to secure.

00:50:35 ◼   ► Seems less likely.

00:50:37 ◼   ► The point is not that Apple couldn't do this because I feel like we need to say that.

00:50:42 ◼   ► Apple could do this.

00:50:43 ◼   ► We're also not saying that Apple will do this.

00:50:45 ◼   ► We're just trying to process this report from a fairly reliable source.

00:50:49 ◼   ► I think though, walking through it, you have to start looking at all of the compromises

00:50:54 ◼   ► that might need to be made and all the work that would need to be done to do it.

00:51:00 ◼   ► And then once again, ask the question, is it worth it?

00:51:05 ◼   ► What is the benefit of this?

00:51:08 ◼   ► And I can't see it.

00:51:11 ◼   ► I don't see what the benefit is.

00:51:13 ◼   ► I don't see it.

00:51:16 ◼   ► If completely waterproofing is it, I just don't think that is enough for most people,

00:51:22 ◼   ► like a completely waterproof phone.

00:51:25 ◼   ► I think the people that need their phones to be completely waterproof already found

00:51:30 ◼   ► other options.

00:51:32 ◼   ► You get a case that does it or whatever.

00:51:35 ◼   ► I don't see it.

00:51:38 ◼   ► How much do we really need that?

00:51:39 ◼   ► I don't think it's that much.

00:51:41 ◼   ► They might have the numbers about it, but you're right.

00:51:44 ◼   ► There is a question, which is, is the pursuit of waterproofing as pointless as the pursuit

00:51:51 ◼   ► of design perfection by not having any holes?

00:51:56 ◼   ► Does this really serve somebody or is it just a goal that you set for yourself?

00:52:01 ◼   ► I think more waterproofing is better.

00:52:05 ◼   ► One of my big criticisms of Apple, and they brought this on themselves, is they boast

00:52:09 ◼   ► about that dust and water ingress protection, but they won't stand by it.

00:52:14 ◼   ► Because again, if your phone gets wet because it got dunked, it's your fault and you have

00:52:20 ◼   ► to pay for it.

00:52:22 ◼   ► Apple won't stand by it.

00:52:24 ◼   ► And so I can see Apple saying, "Look, we need to get to the point where if somebody drops

00:52:27 ◼   ► their phone, we can stand by it.

00:52:29 ◼   ► It needs to be that rugged because phone ruggedness is top priority for Apple."

00:52:36 ◼   ► And I can see that argument, like having it, what would be better than a phone that you

00:52:41 ◼   ► could drop and it wouldn't be hurt, and that you could drop in the water and it wouldn't

00:52:45 ◼   ► be hurt?

00:52:46 ◼   ► I don't think those are admirable, but yeah, if all of us have to pay this price where

00:52:52 ◼   ► we're using even more kind of dongles and adapters for things just to do it, is that

00:52:59 ◼   ► a price worth paying?

00:53:01 ◼   ► That said, most of what we'd use an iPhone for is wireless, right?

00:53:06 ◼   ► We're talking about more edge cases, although plugging into a battery or plugging into CarPlay

00:53:11 ◼   ► is not quite an edge case.

00:53:15 ◼   ► That's like the headphone jack, or actually worse than the headphone jack because a lot

00:53:20 ◼   ► of us have batteries on planes or are charging from a USB port, whether it's safe or not.

00:53:28 ◼   ► And that would all be like, "Nope, this needs a dongle now."

00:53:32 ◼   ► That would be, it would be a big step and what do we get out of it?

00:53:38 ◼   ► I don't think that wireless charging has been around for long enough or is prevalent enough

00:53:45 ◼   ► to switch to this like they did when they went to Bluetooth for headphones.

00:53:51 ◼   ► Bluetooth for headphones, and there were good options for that for a long time before we

00:53:55 ◼   ► moved to this charger thing.

00:53:57 ◼   ► For me personally, again presuming that this does happen, I do not think that the possibility

00:54:03 ◼   ► for me to have my phone covered under a warranty for water damage, right, is enough for me

00:54:10 ◼   ► to every single day have a more frustrating experience about how to charge my phone.

00:54:16 ◼   ► Because for me it is more frustrating, right, because like for various reasons it's much

00:54:21 ◼   ► more comfortable for me to use a pop socket when I use my phone.

00:54:25 ◼   ► That means I cannot use wireless charging without removing the pop socket every day,

00:54:31 ◼   ► which is very frustrating.

00:54:33 ◼   ► So I plug my phone in and I'm very happy to plug my phone in.

00:54:35 ◼   ► I have docks, I have a, my home is full of cables that work with plugging my phone in.

00:54:41 ◼   ► And great, it works great for me.

00:54:42 ◼   ► I don't feel like I need to make the change but anyway.

00:54:46 ◼   ► Minchi Kuo's report also says that 2021 will see a follow up to the iPhone SE after all,

00:54:52 ◼   ► a full screen but no face ID.

00:54:53 ◼   ► There will be touch ID built into the power button.

00:54:57 ◼   ► This also follows along with some other reports that Apple may be moving to releasing phones

00:55:01 ◼   ► at two intervals in the year, cheaper phones in H1 and pro phones in H2.

00:55:09 ◼   ► Which would be interesting, right, like as a model.

00:55:12 ◼   ► I think that some of the rumours would suggest that like there would even like the iPhone,

00:55:17 ◼   ► what would be the iPhone 11, would come out in the first half of the year and then the

00:55:22 ◼   ► more expensive phones come out in the second half of the year.

00:55:25 ◼   ► And this could start as early as 2020 or 2021.

00:55:30 ◼   ► I like the idea of a new SE.

00:55:34 ◼   ► I think it's the full screen thing is interesting because that means it is not a drop, you know,

00:55:42 ◼   ► like a perfect match for the eight.

00:55:46 ◼   ► Right.

00:55:48 ◼   ► It's it's more interesting than that.

00:55:51 ◼   ► I guess it would have no notch either.

00:55:53 ◼   ► Right.

00:55:54 ◼   ► Or would it would have a fake notch but no face ID?

00:55:57 ◼   ► I think it would have a notch because it would have the earpiece and the camera in it might

00:56:00 ◼   ► be smaller but I think it would have a notch.

00:56:02 ◼   ► Yeah, no, you might be right.

00:56:03 ◼   ► And then and then touch ID in a different place.

00:56:07 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:56:08 ◼   ► This is a it's an interesting idea.

00:56:09 ◼   ► Changing the cadence is an interesting idea.

00:56:11 ◼   ► Getting the having two phone releases a year, two marketing events, two different places,

00:56:18 ◼   ► opportunities to market your phone like their competitors do that Samsung doesn't drop all

00:56:23 ◼   ► of the galaxies at once right and Apple is great at marketing itself and drawing attention

00:56:29 ◼   ► to itself.

00:56:30 ◼   ► So the the challenge is just to make it that the phones feel new right like if the iPhone

00:56:37 ◼   ► 11 came out before the iPhone 11 Pro.

00:56:43 ◼   ► Would it you know, are you losing something by having them, you know separated where it's

00:56:50 ◼   ► you get two bumps but neither of them is as big as the bump you get if you put them out

00:56:54 ◼   ► together.

00:56:55 ◼   ► I've is interesting marketing question for Apple how they want to do it, but I will say

00:56:59 ◼   ► that they're they're competition has managed to do pretty well separating their product

00:57:06 ◼   ► release leases for phones.

00:57:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:10 ◼   ► All right, this episode is also brought to you by ID Tech.

00:57:15 ◼   ► If your child has an okay tech learning experience, it might feel like homework to them, but if

00:57:20 ◼   ► they get a great experience, they might just find a passion that stays with them for the

00:57:24 ◼   ► rest of their life and igniting that fire is what ID Tech can do whether they're interested

00:57:29 ◼   ► in coding video in development robotics or video production ID Tech can guide your child

00:57:34 ◼   ► from casual Tech Explorer to college bound Pro.

00:57:37 ◼   ► They have awesome instructions instructors who transform a love of apps and video games

00:57:42 ◼   ► like Fortnite into a foundation for college internships and dream careers and companies

00:57:46 ◼   ► like Google and Disney ID Tech was founded in Silicon Valley.

00:57:50 ◼   ► Now they have programs at 150 prestigious campus destinations worldwide from Caltech

00:57:55 ◼   ► and NYU to Cambridge and the University of Hong Kong.

00:57:59 ◼   ► Chances are you can find location within driving distance.

00:58:03 ◼   ► Just in the state.

00:58:04 ◼   ► Campus destinations include Arizona, California, Indiana, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Texas, and

00:58:09 ◼   ► many, many more.

00:58:10 ◼   ► Your kids will have so much fun exploring their interests and building the STEM skills

00:58:16 ◼   ► employers are desperate for.

00:58:18 ◼   ► There are courses for all skill levels from beginners and to advanced students.

00:58:22 ◼   ► Everybody has a place to be challenged and grow with ID Tech.

00:58:26 ◼   ► When you invest in your child today, tomorrow takes care of itself.

00:58:28 ◼   ► So nurture their interest right now with help from ID Tech.

00:58:31 ◼   ► Go to idtech.com/upgrade today to reserve your child's spot and receive $75 off.

00:58:39 ◼   ► It's a great gift for the holidays.

00:58:40 ◼   ► Now could be the time to do it.

00:58:41 ◼   ► Go to idtech.com/upgrade for $75 off.

00:58:45 ◼   ► Once again, that is idtech.com/upgrade.

00:58:48 ◼   ► Our thanks to ID Tech for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:58:52 ◼   ► So Apple have announced via an email the orders for the Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR will be

00:58:57 ◼   ► available on December 10th.

00:58:59 ◼   ► I struggle with XDR.

00:59:01 ◼   ► I keep wanting to say 10DR, which is hilarious, but Apple did this to me.

00:59:05 ◼   ► The Pro Display XDR will be available starting December 10th.

00:59:08 ◼   ► So I would probably expect we'll see reviews this week because the product can be purchased

00:59:15 ◼   ► this week.

00:59:16 ◼   ► So if—

00:59:17 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll see what the reviews are, right?

00:59:18 ◼   ► Because if the iMac Pro is any indication, and this is a higher-end product even than

00:59:24 ◼   ► the iMac Pro, that Apple will not be doing its usual review program because what Apple

00:59:32 ◼   ► learned—and this actually ties into the article I wrote on Mac Pro last week—what Apple

00:59:37 ◼   ► wants to do is make it clear that a product that is for high-end Pros is not mismarketed

00:59:43 ◼   ► and misunderstood by people who don't live in that world.

00:59:48 ◼   ► Like with the iMac Pro, that was definitely the message was, "We don't want regular

00:59:52 ◼   ► reviewers to look at this because this is not a regular computer.

00:59:55 ◼   ► We only want people who really get the needs of the high-end Pros to even touch this thing."

01:00:03 ◼   ► And so, you know, they ceded the iMac Pro to YouTubers.

01:00:08 ◼   ► They also put it in a lot of like Pro workflows and then used like had quotes or did interviews

01:00:13 ◼   ► with you know or set up media interviews with the people who had been using it for a month

01:00:19 ◼   ► in the background in secret like to edit a project or to compose something or whatever

01:00:23 ◼   ► it was.

01:00:24 ◼   ► And they did a very different game plan on how to market that.

01:00:28 ◼   ► I would imagine that's going to happen again.

01:00:29 ◼   ► So will there be reviews this week?

01:00:33 ◼   ► Yeah, but I would not be surprised if it's a lot of like a video editor's blog where

01:00:40 ◼   ► he reviews his time with it and stuff like that with maybe some very hand-picked people

01:00:51 ◼   ► who Apple thinks are trustworthy and understand what the high-end kind of Pro market is.

01:00:57 ◼   ► But I think it's going to be a really different kind of release and I can say that just based

01:01:02 ◼   ► on the iMac Pro.

01:01:04 ◼   ► Like I reviewed the iMac Pro and for Macworld and you know, Phil Schiller tweeted it out,

01:01:12 ◼   ► which was cool.

01:01:13 ◼   ► I think that was the first time I got one of those.

01:01:16 ◼   ► Like Apple didn't give me an iMac Pro.

01:01:17 ◼   ► I bought an iMac Pro because I wanted it and then I reviewed it.

01:01:20 ◼   ► But like they didn't give me one.

01:01:22 ◼   ► They're like, nope, there was no, no, not interested because you know, I'm not a high-end

01:01:27 ◼   ► enough user, which I would argue because of all the audio stuff I do.

01:01:31 ◼   ► It's going to be like that.

01:01:32 ◼   ► So it's going to be an interesting week, but I think it's here.

01:01:34 ◼   ► I think whoever is updating that is at Mac Pro Day yet.

01:01:37 ◼   ► Website, I think it's time, right?

01:01:40 ◼   ► I guess we know now that tomorrow is Mac Pro Day.

01:01:44 ◼   ► - So you wrote an article that you referenced on Macworld urging people to seriously consider

01:01:50 ◼   ► making, no, not making these purchases.

01:01:54 ◼   ► They seriously consider before they buy if they actually should be buying a Mac Pro.

01:02:01 ◼   ► Was this like a public service that you felt like you needed to provide?

01:02:06 ◼   ► - Look, I have to write 52 columns a year for Mac Pro.

01:02:09 ◼   ► - No one knew you were going to say that.

01:02:11 ◼   ► - And I'm like, what?

01:02:13 ◼   ► And then it hit me.

01:02:14 ◼   ► It's like, okay, the Mac Pro is coming out.

01:02:17 ◼   ► Let's have the conversation that is essentially the conversation that I just described Apple

01:02:23 ◼   ► having in its PR planning, which is, they really don't want to target this at regular

01:02:30 ◼   ► people because it's not for them.

01:02:33 ◼   ► And it doesn't do them a service because people will point and laugh at the $100,000 configuration.

01:02:39 ◼   ► People will point and laugh at the $1,000 monitor stand on the $6,000, $5,000 monitor.

01:02:45 ◼   ► It can't be judged in that way because it just looks bad.

01:02:48 ◼   ► It's not for them.

01:02:50 ◼   ► It's an incredibly niche, high-end product.

01:02:53 ◼   ► - Which makes it pointless to give to you.

01:02:57 ◼   ► If the message they want to get out is to like, it's a very specific message that they

01:03:00 ◼   ► want to get out, giving it to you maybe isn't the right choice, right?

01:03:04 ◼   ► - I mean, for me personally, I feel like I'm more qualified than a lot of reviewers to

01:03:09 ◼   ► do it because I do the audio stuff and some video stuff.

01:03:12 ◼   ► And so I actually do max out my eight cores of my iMac Pro, but it still would be overkill.

01:03:18 ◼   ► But at least I have, my writing about computers is not the part of my job that would require

01:03:25 ◼   ► it.

01:03:26 ◼   ► - The vast majority of reviews that we see are by YouTubers, but video professionals,

01:03:30 ◼   ► because they are more in need of it.

01:03:33 ◼   ► - So my point with the article I ended up writing was I hear a lot of Mac Pro desire,

01:03:44 ◼   ► let's say, from people who don't need it, but they want it.

01:03:50 ◼   ► And I don't want to say, and I hope it didn't come across this way because my goal here

01:03:54 ◼   ► is not to say, even if you want it, you shouldn't buy it.

01:03:58 ◼   ► Because what it says in the article is, look, if you want it, get it.

01:04:02 ◼   ► But my point is, don't fool yourself and say you need this for your work because you don't.

01:04:09 ◼   ► You don't.

01:04:10 ◼   ► Like if you need, there was a time when the Apple's high-end tower was for a huge chunk

01:04:18 ◼   ► of the Mac market, that the consumer stuff was really low powered.

01:04:21 ◼   ► Like an iMac was for, it was like a toy.

01:04:24 ◼   ► And everybody else used a power Mac.

01:04:27 ◼   ► And then that became the Mac Pro.

01:04:29 ◼   ► But those days are over.

01:04:30 ◼   ► Like the iMac is incredibly powerful.

01:04:34 ◼   ► The Mac mini can be configured to be quite powerful.

01:04:37 ◼   ► There is an iMac Pro.

01:04:39 ◼   ► There are so many other options there that will get you something for a better price

01:04:43 ◼   ► with better features that will get you what you want.

01:04:47 ◼   ► And so I end up with this idea of like, there's people who want it because it's like it used

01:04:53 ◼   ► to be, it's almost like nostalgia.

01:04:55 ◼   ► Like back in the day, I bought a tower and an external monitor and I don't want to buy

01:04:59 ◼   ► an iMac because it's got its own monitor.

01:05:01 ◼   ► I want an external monitor.

01:05:02 ◼   ► It's like, what monitor are you going to buy for it?

01:05:04 ◼   ► The iMac display is so good.

01:05:06 ◼   ► Like I don't, I wouldn't want to give up my iMac monitor.

01:05:11 ◼   ► And Apple is not making an external monitor that's like the iMac 5K monitor.

01:05:16 ◼   ► They're not.

01:05:17 ◼   ► So like then I'm getting a third party monitor.

01:05:19 ◼   ► It's like, you know, the iMac is a better deal.

01:05:22 ◼   ► I get it, like maybe you absolutely can't have an iMac.

01:05:25 ◼   ► Okay.

01:05:26 ◼   ► But I see a lot of excuses that are like, well, this is like it used to be and I want

01:05:30 ◼   ► to do it again.

01:05:31 ◼   ► And again, if you are buying a beautiful art object, you just want a beautiful Mac and

01:05:36 ◼   ► money is no object and you're never going to use even a fraction of the power of it,

01:05:41 ◼   ► but it's worth it to you because it looks great and it fits your lifestyle.

01:05:45 ◼   ► That's great.

01:05:46 ◼   ► It's like buying a luxury car.

01:05:47 ◼   ► You don't need to buy a luxury car.

01:05:49 ◼   ► Be clear that you don't need it.

01:05:51 ◼   ► You just want it.

01:05:52 ◼   ► And that's the difference.

01:05:53 ◼   ► And I was happy because I was sort of thinking of John Syracuse while I was writing some

01:05:57 ◼   ► of this.

01:05:58 ◼   ► Sort of thinking.

01:05:59 ◼   ► Come on.

01:06:00 ◼   ► I mean, I was, I was thinking of other people too, not just John Syracuse.

01:06:03 ◼   ► But you know, he said on ATP last week, he said, I don't need it.

01:06:06 ◼   ► I don't need it.

01:06:07 ◼   ► I want it.

01:06:08 ◼   ► And it's like, yes, that is the right answer.

01:06:11 ◼   ► Right?

01:06:12 ◼   ► Like just be clear.

01:06:13 ◼   ► And so I thought it was, I thought it was interesting and worth writing about this whole

01:06:16 ◼   ► thing that even Apple is steering this away from most people because it's not for most

01:06:21 ◼   ► people and that, um, that people should give it a, give it a think because you don't want

01:06:28 ◼   ► this.

01:06:29 ◼   ► Like, uh, I, of course there are always exceptions.

01:06:31 ◼   ► And when you say you shouldn't buy it, somebody said, well, actually I need it because I had

01:06:34 ◼   ► a guy who said, I need it because I need to have, I need to attach like 30 USB-C devices

01:06:42 ◼   ► at once and I need card slots to do that because their hubs don't exist.

01:06:46 ◼   ► I'm like, okay, yes, you need to spend $6,000 and then buy a whole bunch of cards that give

01:06:52 ◼   ► you USB-C ports.

01:06:54 ◼   ► Um, that is an edge case.

01:06:56 ◼   ► But yes, I give you, I, I made the hand signs.

01:06:59 ◼   ► I give you the special dispensation.

01:07:00 ◼   ► Go forth and buy a Mac Pro.

01:07:02 ◼   ► You have been granted.

01:07:03 ◼   ► Yes.

01:07:04 ◼   ► Go forth and buy a Mac Pro with my blessings.

01:07:07 ◼   ► But you know, mostly it's silly.

01:07:09 ◼   ► Like this is overkill.

01:07:10 ◼   ► It's just overkill.

01:07:11 ◼   ► And if you want overkill, great, go buy it.

01:07:14 ◼   ► It's your money.

01:07:16 ◼   ► But um, you know, let's just be clear.

01:07:19 ◼   ► This product is not meant, it's not meant for almost anybody and that's not failing

01:07:24 ◼   ► of it.

01:07:25 ◼   ► It's designed that way.

01:07:26 ◼   ► It is the halo car as John Siracusa keeps calling it.

01:07:30 ◼   ► Like it is, it is an important symbol.

01:07:34 ◼   ► This is my larger point in the article.

01:07:36 ◼   ► The Mac Pro is very important because it's a symbol of Apple's commitment to pros of Apple's

01:07:39 ◼   ► commitment to the Mac.

01:07:42 ◼   ► It's I think a symbol of Apple's re-engagement with the Mac after it kind of lost that engagement.

01:07:48 ◼   ► It's this reestablishing of ties.

01:07:50 ◼   ► I think that's all great.

01:07:52 ◼   ► You know, but the symbol, don't buy the symbol, right?

01:07:56 ◼   ► Like you, you, the halo car, you're like, wow, the company X makes a great halo car.

01:08:01 ◼   ► I'm going to buy the cheap sedan that company X makes because I'm not going to buy that.

01:08:05 ◼   ► I'm going to buy this.

01:08:06 ◼   ► Like most people, you can get excited about it because what it means about Apple's commitment

01:08:10 ◼   ► to the Mac is great, but don't buy it.

01:08:13 ◼   ► Like it's not for you.

01:08:14 ◼   ► It's not for you and save your money unless you don't care because you just want it because

01:08:20 ◼   ► it's cool.

01:08:21 ◼   ► And that's fine.

01:08:22 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:08:23 ◼   ► I'm not going to, I'm not, I'm not trying to judge somebody who wants a cool car because

01:08:26 ◼   ► it's cool.

01:08:27 ◼   ► There's nothing wrong with that.

01:08:28 ◼   ► I have seen a little bit of a streak among people of like, well, no, no, I need it.

01:08:32 ◼   ► I need it.

01:08:33 ◼   ► I need the expandability.

01:08:34 ◼   ► Do you?

01:08:35 ◼   ► Most people don't.

01:08:36 ◼   ► Maybe you do.

01:08:37 ◼   ► Maybe you're the guy with the 30 USB-C ports, but most people don't need expandability.

01:08:42 ◼   ► You can expand outside of the case of the computer.

01:08:44 ◼   ► It's not a problem.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Like you can do it.

01:08:46 ◼   ► It's like, it's fine.

01:08:47 ◼   ► And that goes to the nostalgia part of it, which is I do absolutely sense that there

01:08:49 ◼   ► is a group of people who are like, I don't want external.

01:08:52 ◼   ► I want everything in internal.

01:08:54 ◼   ► And John Sirkus is a little bit like this too, where it's like, no, no, external is

01:08:57 ◼   ► bad and internal is the only way to go.

01:08:59 ◼   ► Nobody really like expandability exists on the outside now and on modern computers.

01:09:04 ◼   ► That's just what it is.

01:09:05 ◼   ► And again, there are going to be very specific reasons where putting in a card or something

01:09:10 ◼   ► like that is a better choice.

01:09:11 ◼   ► Absolutely.

01:09:12 ◼   ► There are always going to be exceptions to the rule, but I get a little tired of people

01:09:16 ◼   ► who their argument seems to be, well, we didn't do it in the old days.

01:09:21 ◼   ► So the old ways are best.

01:09:22 ◼   ► It's like, man, the world changed.

01:09:24 ◼   ► The world moved on.

01:09:25 ◼   ► Do you think that there is an element of that in amongst a lot of people who have it, like

01:09:30 ◼   ► they're just used to conditioned in their mind that they need or want to have the most

01:09:36 ◼   ► powerful machine.

01:09:37 ◼   ► So they would always get the Mac Pro, even though now these days, the most powerful machine

01:09:43 ◼   ► that Apple makes is more power than most people will need because the iMac Pro exists.

01:09:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:51 ◼   ► The root of the whole thing is it used to be that you bought the high end Mac because

01:09:58 ◼   ► you needed that power because the lower end Macs didn't have it.

01:10:03 ◼   ► And we left that era a long time ago.

01:10:06 ◼   ► Like it's not new.

01:10:07 ◼   ► The Mac Pro back when it was a cheese grater the first time was constantly being pushed

01:10:13 ◼   ► upward and upward and upward in terms of specs and price to a narrower and narrower band

01:10:19 ◼   ► of high end users.

01:10:20 ◼   ► That was, this is not new.

01:10:22 ◼   ► This has been going on this whole century, basically.

01:10:28 ◼   ► It, that push upward and with it has come the capability of laptops and iMacs to handle

01:10:37 ◼   ► the load for even pros like iMac Pro, but honestly even the regular iMac is powerful

01:10:43 ◼   ► enough for most people and the MacBook Pro for sure.

01:10:47 ◼   ► So yeah, so I just, I think it's fascinating.

01:10:50 ◼   ► I don't think I'm going to change anybody's minds, but I did.

01:10:52 ◼   ► I did want to kind of snap out of it kind of moment of like, you know what?

01:10:58 ◼   ► You don't need it.

01:10:59 ◼   ► If you want it, that's fine, but you really don't need it.

01:11:02 ◼   ► And somebody who's seriously considering like, should I get the Mac Pro because I can use

01:11:07 ◼   ► that power?

01:11:08 ◼   ► It's like, no.

01:11:10 ◼   ► Like almost certainly no.

01:11:12 ◼   ► The people who are going to buy it know why they're going to buy it.

01:11:15 ◼   ► And for everybody else, it's like save your money unless you really just want it because

01:11:18 ◼   ► it's cool because it is.

01:11:19 ◼   ► It's got stainless steel frame and aluminum skin and it is awesome looking and you can

01:11:26 ◼   ► put wheels on it and roll it around.

01:11:28 ◼   ► You can ride it around, put a small animal on it and push it around the house.

01:11:33 ◼   ► You can do that, but this is a Mac for what would you say?

01:11:40 ◼   ► 0.01% of the market, if that.

01:11:44 ◼   ► To quote Kanye West, and I apologize for the single gendering in this quote, "No one man

01:11:49 ◼   ► should have all that power."

01:11:50 ◼   ► It's too much.

01:11:51 ◼   ► It's too much.

01:11:52 ◼   ► That's right.

01:11:53 ◼   ► So Stephen Hackett will get one of these.

01:11:58 ◼   ► He will, I guarantee it.

01:11:59 ◼   ► Oh, I'm convinced he will.

01:12:02 ◼   ► Hopefully not until about 2025.

01:12:04 ◼   ► I don't think he'll be able to win.

01:12:06 ◼   ► Add it to his old Mac collection.

01:12:10 ◼   ► I think this is the perfect thing to talk about today before Mac Pro Hysteria sits in

01:12:15 ◼   ► tomorrow.

01:12:16 ◼   ► I'm pleased that we were able to get the show out before the Mac Pro is like completely

01:12:21 ◼   ► unveiled to the world.

01:12:22 ◼   ► We got to get in first and be like, please, everyone just think about it.

01:12:27 ◼   ► I mean, we're talking about the Mac Pro here, but even amongst Mac Pro buyers, don't buy

01:12:32 ◼   ► the display.

01:12:33 ◼   ► Yeah, well that's, that is also true, right?

01:12:36 ◼   ► I understand it, but that is so much for most people.

01:12:40 ◼   ► I think even if you talk to Apple about it, I think if you talk to Apple people behind

01:12:46 ◼   ► the scenes, they would probably tell you, yeah.

01:12:50 ◼   ► The display is even less applicable than the Mac Pro.

01:12:58 ◼   ► Because the Mac Pro itself, if you do have very specific needs that can be served by

01:13:03 ◼   ► it, you can configure it and build it to be the machine that you want it to be to meet

01:13:08 ◼   ► your needs.

01:13:09 ◼   ► The Pro Display XDR.

01:13:11 ◼   ► Nobody should buy that display.

01:13:12 ◼   ► The shame of it is people are going to buy it because it looks like it.

01:13:16 ◼   ► That's the problem.

01:13:17 ◼   ► It is built to do what it is supposed to do, which is to compete with these incredibly

01:13:22 ◼   ► expensive displays.

01:13:23 ◼   ► It is a $40,000 monitor for $6,000, but you know what?

01:13:27 ◼   ► You don't need a $40,000 monitor.

01:13:30 ◼   ► I know it's not fun.

01:13:31 ◼   ► Like again, if it brings you joy and you have the money, great.

01:13:36 ◼   ► But I, yeah, but it's just, it's a whole lot that's not, I don't know what the last thing

01:13:44 ◼   ► I wrote in the Mac world piece is.

01:13:48 ◼   ► It's a symbol, but it's also a status symbol.

01:13:51 ◼   ► And if you want to buy a status symbol, if it makes you happy to have an expensive computer,

01:13:55 ◼   ► do it.

01:13:56 ◼   ► I'm not saying don't do it, but I am saying, I think it's healthier to just admit that

01:14:03 ◼   ► you're doing it because it's cool and that you don't need it.

01:14:06 ◼   ► And that just let go of the fantasy that you actually need it because you know, nobody

01:14:11 ◼   ► does.

01:14:12 ◼   ► - I can extend this to myself.

01:14:13 ◼   ► I don't need an iMac Pro, like really on a daily basis.

01:14:17 ◼   ► I could be fine with a regular iMac.

01:14:18 ◼   ► I wanted the iMac Pro.

01:14:20 ◼   ► That was what I wanted.

01:14:21 ◼   ► That was the decision that I made to spend more money than I needed to, to get the computer

01:14:24 ◼   ► that I desired rather than the computer that I needed.

01:14:28 ◼   ► But I wanted it, but I don't want it.

01:14:32 ◼   ► Like 15,000 pounds want it, which is what I would probably be in to get myself a Mac

01:14:37 ◼   ► Pro and a display, you know?

01:14:39 ◼   ► Don't want it that much.

01:14:42 ◼   ► So just think about it.

01:14:47 ◼   ► And if anybody buys one in Europe, I want to know where it says it was made.

01:14:55 ◼   ► So I will say to the upgradians out there, if you're not in America and you buy one of

01:14:59 ◼   ► these, take a picture of where it says it's assembled.

01:15:04 ◼   ► 'Cause I am convinced that they're not assembled in America.

01:15:06 ◼   ► And I just want to know if that's the answer.

01:15:09 ◼   ► So if any upgradian out there does this and can show me, I will very happily, very happily

01:15:16 ◼   ► do that.

01:15:17 ◼   ► I'm very happy to receive that.

01:15:18 ◼   ► I'm sure I can come up with some kind of bounty, but I just need to know that information.

01:15:24 ◼   ► Myke needs to know.

01:15:25 ◼   ► So see there, now you need it for your work.

01:15:27 ◼   ► Oh, so I have to buy one now 'cause I need it for follow up.

01:15:30 ◼   ► No, somebody else can buy it 'cause they need to help Myke.

01:15:34 ◼   ► It's the most expensive way to get yourself mentioned on upgrade ever.

01:15:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:39 ◼   ► I guess so.

01:15:40 ◼   ► All right, today's show is also brought to you by Eero.

01:15:44 ◼   ► If you're binge watching your favorite shows from anywhere of your house and want to do

01:15:47 ◼   ► it without interruption, you need Eero.

01:15:50 ◼   ► Eero blankets your whole home in fast, reliable wifi, eliminating poor coverage, dead spots,

01:15:55 ◼   ► buffering, so you can consistently have the best signal wherever you need it.

01:16:01 ◼   ► Eero is the wifi that your home deserves.

01:16:03 ◼   ► There is an all new Eero starting at just $99.

01:16:06 ◼   ► It sets up in minutes.

01:16:07 ◼   ► You plug it straight into your modem or router box and you're ready to go.

01:16:10 ◼   ► You can manage it from a super simple app, which lets you do cool stuff like pause the

01:16:14 ◼   ► wifi while you're all eating dinner, getting alerts if your device, any device tries to

01:16:18 ◼   ► join your network, so you know.

01:16:20 ◼   ► Eero can fix all of your wifi problems.

01:16:22 ◼   ► Jason, did it fix yours?

01:16:24 ◼   ► Of course it did.

01:16:26 ◼   ► I spread them out throughout my house and now I've gone from having weird dead spots

01:16:30 ◼   ► and places where they drop.

01:16:31 ◼   ► I can sit in the backyard.

01:16:32 ◼   ► I can have a camera in the front of the house and I can have my irrigation controller on

01:16:38 ◼   ► the side of the house that's far away from all networking and they're all on the wifi

01:16:42 ◼   ► now and I don't even think about it anymore.

01:16:44 ◼   ► You can get your wifi fix as soon as tomorrow by going to Eero.com/ahoy and using the code

01:16:49 ◼   ► AHOY at checkout to get free overnight shipping with your order.

01:16:53 ◼   ► That's Eero.com/ahoy.

01:16:56 ◼   ► Code AHOY to get your Eero delivered for free overnight shipping.

01:17:00 ◼   ► You must use this URL, so I'll give it to you one last time.

01:17:02 ◼   ► Eero.com/ahoy.

01:17:03 ◼   ► Code AHOY.

01:17:04 ◼   ► A-H-O-Y.

01:17:05 ◼   ► Our thanks to Eero for their support of this show and all of Relay FM.

01:17:11 ◼   ► So now we will do some #AskUpgrade questions.

01:17:16 ◼   ► And the first one today comes from Kevin.

01:17:18 ◼   ► The two of you have mentioned that you have stereo home pod setups.

01:17:21 ◼   ► What is their positioning?

01:17:22 ◼   ► Are they arranged near each other or are they on the other sides of the room?

01:17:28 ◼   ► Well, for me, it is on opposite, so my living room/dining room/kitchen is a single long

01:17:37 ◼   ► room.

01:17:38 ◼   ► So I have the speakers sort of in the middle of it on opposite sides of the narrow width.

01:17:44 ◼   ► So there's one on top of the piano and there's one on an end table.

01:17:49 ◼   ► So there's separation, but they're across from each other, which does mean that if you're

01:17:54 ◼   ► on one side of the room, the stereo effect is backward, you're behind the music.

01:18:00 ◼   ► And if you're on the other side, then left is right and right is right.

01:18:04 ◼   ► Left is right and right is left.

01:18:05 ◼   ► The other one left is left and right is right.

01:18:07 ◼   ► So whatever, but I like it.

01:18:08 ◼   ► It's good to fill the room.

01:18:10 ◼   ► But it's fine.

01:18:11 ◼   ► So mine, I have it set up to be like peak positioning for television watching.

01:18:17 ◼   ► So we have our TV in front of us and we have our sofa and I have the home pod set on either

01:18:23 ◼   ► side of the sofa.

01:18:24 ◼   ► We have quite a large sofa and I have them set on either side.

01:18:28 ◼   ► So when we're watching television shows, we get the stereo and we totally do.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Like I was watching the show, I was watching a show last night, I was watching The Crown

01:18:35 ◼   ► and one of the characters called out and it only came out on the left home pod and I turned

01:18:39 ◼   ► around and looked at it.

01:18:40 ◼   ► I was like, oh, so it works.

01:18:42 ◼   ► It's great.

01:18:43 ◼   ► And we love it for that.

01:18:45 ◼   ► Holly Zard asks, how do you quote unquote correctly open and pull out each AirPod from its AirPro

01:18:52 ◼   ► Pro case?

01:18:53 ◼   ► So you want to open the lid, but then do you pull out from the ear tip side, so the little

01:18:58 ◼   ► silicone part or from the plastic bulge opposite of the ear tip?

01:19:04 ◼   ► Well we already determined one at a time and from the bulge.

01:19:08 ◼   ► Yeah, it's from the plastic part.

01:19:10 ◼   ► That's how I go to.

01:19:11 ◼   ► I don't pull out from the silicone part.

01:19:13 ◼   ► That seems way more difficult.

01:19:14 ◼   ► Don't do that.

01:19:15 ◼   ► Don't do that.

01:19:16 ◼   ► Don't do that.

01:19:17 ◼   ► I feel like you should touch that part as little as possible anyway.

01:19:20 ◼   ► I feel like.

01:19:21 ◼   ► I don't know if it's like a crazy jams thing, but just don't touch it.

01:19:24 ◼   ► Jim asks, how do you use Instagram on your iPad Pro?

01:19:28 ◼   ► Because of course there is no app.

01:19:30 ◼   ► I added it to my home screen using because you can Instagram has a pretty good web app

01:19:36 ◼   ► that if you try to you know, when you do that thing, the sweet solution thing where you

01:19:41 ◼   ► can add a web site to your home screen.

01:19:45 ◼   ► Right.

01:19:46 ◼   ► And it will create a little icon.

01:19:47 ◼   ► You can do that.

01:19:48 ◼   ► And with some advances made in iOS 12, it makes those look like apps.

01:19:53 ◼   ► So if you save a web page to your home screen, when you open it, it doesn't have any of the

01:19:58 ◼   ► Safari controls anymore.

01:19:59 ◼   ► So it kind of looks like an app.

01:20:01 ◼   ► But Jim is having problems refreshing the content.

01:20:05 ◼   ► I have noticed this myself.

01:20:06 ◼   ► There are two things you can do.

01:20:07 ◼   ► So if you do use this, this is the way to use Instagram on the iPad, by the way, because

01:20:11 ◼   ► yeah, don't use the iPhone app because it's horrible.

01:20:13 ◼   ► Command R if using a keyboard will refresh the page.

01:20:17 ◼   ► Other than that, just try tapping the Instagram logo, like as if it's like a website.

01:20:23 ◼   ► Other than that, force quitting it should kick it back into into use again.

01:20:27 ◼   ► But I have had this happen to me and I don't understand why that is.

01:20:30 ◼   ► But if you're using a keyboard, Command R will do it for you.

01:20:34 ◼   ► Okay.

01:20:35 ◼   ► Marlin asks, I feel like I'm the only person that I know that dislikes dark mode.

01:20:39 ◼   ► It's difficult for my eyes to adjust and they feel more strained than just using True Tone.

01:20:44 ◼   ► What is the hype?

01:20:45 ◼   ► My question will be more, do you use dark mode, Jason?

01:20:48 ◼   ► Do you like it?

01:20:49 ◼   ► If not, why not?

01:20:50 ◼   ► I use it on iOS and I think I have it set to turn on in in dark conditions.

01:20:58 ◼   ► Okay.

01:20:59 ◼   ► And that's mostly because I think when things are when things are dark and it's nighttime,

01:21:05 ◼   ► it is nicer to have the the black background and the white.

01:21:12 ◼   ► I suspect one of Marlin's reactions here is because, you know, it's not black on white,

01:21:17 ◼   ► right?

01:21:18 ◼   ► Like dark mode is mostly kind of gray on dark gray on light gray.

01:21:24 ◼   ► And I don't love it because I think that the contrast is sometimes not enough and that

01:21:30 ◼   ► the black on white is much higher contrast tends to be than the other way around.

01:21:35 ◼   ► And low contrast is not great, depending on the color choices.

01:21:38 ◼   ► And I think a lot of stuff isn't contrasty enough.

01:21:40 ◼   ► But I do like it.

01:21:41 ◼   ► I have moments where it's a particularly dark morning and I'm looking at an app and there's

01:21:48 ◼   ► not a lot of light in the house yet.

01:21:50 ◼   ► And but it's sunrise.

01:21:52 ◼   ► And so it flips it over into light mode.

01:21:54 ◼   ► And I don't like it.

01:21:56 ◼   ► Like I had that moment where I'm like, ah, it's it's too much because it's still pretty

01:22:00 ◼   ► dark out.

01:22:01 ◼   ► So.

01:22:02 ◼   ► So, yeah, I use it a little bit, but I don't I don't love it.

01:22:04 ◼   ► I am on the Mac.

01:22:05 ◼   ► I don't use it at all.

01:22:07 ◼   ► All dark mode all the time on it.

01:22:09 ◼   ► Oh, boy.

01:22:10 ◼   ► Wow.

01:22:11 ◼   ► I even use my Mac.

01:22:12 ◼   ► Do you need it for your work or is it just a symbol?

01:22:14 ◼   ► It's personal preference.

01:22:15 ◼   ► I just prefer applications with dark modes anyway.

01:22:18 ◼   ► I have for a long time.

01:22:20 ◼   ► And when iOS gave it's like all apps that do it automatically will set it for me.

01:22:25 ◼   ► If I have set it myself, I'll set it myself.

01:22:27 ◼   ► I just prefer dark UI.

01:22:29 ◼   ► I don't I couldn't tell you why it is.

01:22:31 ◼   ► It's not an OLED thing because I do it on my iPad, too.

01:22:34 ◼   ► I do it on my iMac as well.

01:22:36 ◼   ► I just prefer dark UI to bright UI.

01:22:41 ◼   ► I've been and I've been this way for a long time, like from when applications first started

01:22:44 ◼   ► doing dark modes like Twitter applications like Tweetbot and stuff.

01:22:47 ◼   ► I always went to the dark mode.

01:22:49 ◼   ► I just prefer dark with light text than light with dark text.

01:22:53 ◼   ► That's just my personal preference.

01:22:54 ◼   ► All right.

01:22:55 ◼   ► And finally today, Andy asks, Jason, do you have a favorite cookie recipe?

01:23:00 ◼   ► I do.

01:23:01 ◼   ► I will put a link in the show notes to the ginger molasses cookies that I've made the

01:23:05 ◼   ► last few years, which are basically out of a blue bottle of coffee and they are great.

01:23:14 ◼   ► They have a huge amount of ginger in them.

01:23:16 ◼   ► They are definitely better after they've sat for a day.

01:23:19 ◼   ► I'd say for the flavors to kind of fully permeate permeate and for them to cool off entirely.

01:23:28 ◼   ► They are I can't eat them anymore because they use they use flour and I don't get to

01:23:36 ◼   ► have wheat anymore in my life.

01:23:38 ◼   ► I am currently planning on a bottle of ingredients actually workshopping some new ginger cookies

01:23:44 ◼   ► because I love ginger and I love ginger cookies.

01:23:46 ◼   ► But for those of you who can still eat glutenous things, check out the ginger molasses cookies.

01:23:53 ◼   ► They are great.

01:23:55 ◼   ► They're very serious, very serious.

01:23:57 ◼   ► One of the reasons I included this because we've spoken about this cookie before we have

01:24:00 ◼   ► a joint love for this cookie because I love the blue bottle cookie.

01:24:05 ◼   ► They do not make it anymore.

01:24:07 ◼   ► Oh, interesting.

01:24:08 ◼   ► So I think out of respect to you when you went gluten free, they stopped serving your

01:24:14 ◼   ► favorite cookie in blue bottle.

01:24:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I've never actually had it in blue bottle.

01:24:17 ◼   ► I just make it myself.

01:24:18 ◼   ► But yes, but now they don't.

01:24:20 ◼   ► They replaced it with something else, which I don't.

01:24:22 ◼   ► I think it's a chocolate cookie, which is not as good.

01:24:24 ◼   ► It's just not as good.

01:24:25 ◼   ► You will need a lot of ginger.

01:24:27 ◼   ► It is a spectacular amount of grated fresh ginger that goes into these things, but it's

01:24:32 ◼   ► so good.

01:24:33 ◼   ► So good.

01:24:34 ◼   ► I miss them.

01:24:36 ◼   ► If you'd like to, I hope you can work out something for, for, for, for, I'll find a

01:24:40 ◼   ► replacement.

01:24:41 ◼   ► I've got some, I've got some things that I'm going to try.

01:24:43 ◼   ► The ginger is the key thing, right?

01:24:45 ◼   ► Just like, just put a bunch of ginger in something and have that instead, whatever.

01:24:48 ◼   ► It's just the ginger, frankly, stuff it into some gluten free bread.

01:24:51 ◼   ► Oh, that sounds terrible.

01:24:55 ◼   ► If you want to send in a question to finish out the show, you have a question answered,

01:24:59 ◼   ► you need some help.

01:25:00 ◼   ► Maybe you want to get our favorite recipes, hashtag ask upgrade.

01:25:03 ◼   ► You just send out a tweet with that hashtag and it will be included.

01:25:07 ◼   ► Don't forget to submit your nominations for the 2019 upgrade ease by going to upgrade ease

01:25:12 ◼   ► dot vote and filling out the form there.

01:25:14 ◼   ► If you want to find Jason online, six colors.com.

01:25:18 ◼   ► He's at J snell J S N E double L on Twitter.

01:25:21 ◼   ► I am at I Myke I M Y K E.

01:25:24 ◼   ► Thanks again to our sponsors this week.

01:25:26 ◼   ► Eero, ID tech and express VPN, and we'll be back next week until then say goodbye Jason

01:25:32 ◼   ► snow.

01:25:33 ◼   ► Goodbye everybody.

01:25:33 ◼   ► [inaudible]

01:25:38 ◼   ► [Music]

01:25:40 ◼   ► [ Silence ]