00:00:08 ◼ ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 257. Today's show is brought to you by Warby Parker, Squarespace, and Lumen5.
00:00:21 ◼ ► I am very well, Jason Snell. #SnellTalk. To start the show comes from the son of Michael, Upgrading Michael.
00:00:29 ◼ ► Michael asks, "When a podcast comes to an end, do you unsubscribe from the feed or do you keep it around in your subscription list?"
00:00:37 ◼ ► Oh, this is a great question. I have heard from a lot of people that when a podcast ends they keep it around sort of...nostalgically?
00:00:47 ◼ ► The nice thing about most podcasts is when they end it's not like the feed goes away, it's all still there.
00:00:54 ◼ ► And so I generally don't, if I've listened to it all, I generally don't keep it in my subscriptions list because I know it's going to go back there if I want to go back, I can resubscribe to it.
00:01:07 ◼ ► But I generally will do a ceremonial deletion of the podcast after a brief, tasteful period where we honor it and we thank it and then we do a ceremonial consigning of that podcast to the depths of space.
00:01:21 ◼ ► I don't do it because there have been too many instances where some of my favorite shows have just like ended and then multiple years later an episode appears.
00:01:35 ◼ ► And so I'm too scared in case I'm going to miss it. So there's a couple of shows, one of my very, very favorite podcasts of all time is a video game show called The Besties.
00:01:46 ◼ ► And it's basically a bunch of now mostly ex-writers from Polygon. It was like Polygon's official podcast for a while, many, many years ago or at least one of them.
00:01:58 ◼ ► And it's like four or five and it's like five best friends talk about video games, right? It's just like I love that kind of thing.
00:02:04 ◼ ► And it's got a couple of the McElroys on it. And they stopped doing the show and then they randomly started it again and then they stopped it again.
00:02:12 ◼ ► And then every year they publish a Game of the Year episode, but they never told anyone they were going to do any of this.
00:02:17 ◼ ► So like, you got to keep it around or You Look Nice Today. Remember when You Look Nice Today came back for a little bit?
00:02:22 ◼ ► Like, yeah, you got to keep these things around because you never know these wild podcasters might just throw something in the feeds.
00:02:29 ◼ ► I will. I've got two things. One is download. I did. I have been tempted a couple of times to drop a fuzzy puppy update in the download feed.
00:02:39 ◼ ► Just because. And a bigger issue, and this is my counter argument, is a podcast that I listened to and really liked this summer that just ended.
00:02:50 ◼ ► Actually, there are two of them that I found in the last six months. They end and then like three months later there's an episode in the feed and the episode is,
00:02:58 ◼ ► "We have other podcasts you can listen to." Where it's very much like, "Oh, this podcast has a lot of subscribers, but we're done with it. What can we do?"
00:03:07 ◼ ► "Well, why don't we put an ad in the feed at the end to say you should subscribe to other podcasts we're doing?"
00:03:17 ◼ ► Yeah, that feels to me like I feel like I don't listen to a lot of shows that I think would do something like that.
00:03:24 ◼ ► Like that feels like a thing that would happen on a show that is made by a large company.
00:03:34 ◼ ► You know? Like a large media agency or whatever, and I don't really listen to a lot of those types of shows.
00:03:44 ◼ ► Well, yeah. And when you say those wacky podcasters, you never know what they're going to do. I think that's the difference.
00:03:49 ◼ ► Although I will say that one of those shows was done by a very large media corporation and the other one was done by a kind of like small media corporation.
00:03:57 ◼ ► And it really had the whiff of desperation about it. Like, boy, no other podcast we do is...
00:04:06 ◼ ► And to be fair to this podcast, which I'm not going to name, it was by the same producers on a different subject,
00:04:14 ◼ ► but it was very much like our new project that follows this project is now out and you can listen to it.
00:04:19 ◼ ► And so I understand it, but on another level, I'm like, "No, I don't like this." I get why they do it, but it is just kind of desperate.
00:04:28 ◼ ► So anyway, I see both sides of it, but for me, upgrading Michael, I generally just dump them.
00:04:33 ◼ ► Although I suppose you're right, host Myke, that if it was a... I don't know if I didn't trust them.
00:04:42 ◼ ► I'm like, "Yeah, you say it's over, but I'm not sure I believe you." I would keep it around, for sure.
00:04:51 ◼ ► You can send in a question to start an episode of Upgrade just by sending a tweet with the hashtag #snelltalk.
00:05:01 ◼ ► Now we have some follow-up from, as Jason has listed, former intern Blair. I don't know what that means.
00:05:07 ◼ ► Yes, he was our Macworld intern, former intern Blair. Former intern Blair has written into the TV Talk Machine a few times.
00:05:19 ◼ ► And this is regarding... We were talking about Catalina and security warnings last time.
00:05:24 ◼ ► I'm going to read the feedback and then I believe you have some rebuttals and some points to make.
00:05:31 ◼ ► "After listening to your conversation last week, I wanted to push back a bit on the idea that Apple's solution to the aggressive warnings in Catalina
00:05:37 ◼ ► should be to provide pro users of a switch that says 'Don't bother me about this app' or 'Don't bother me at all'.
00:05:43 ◼ ► I'd argue that pro users are going out and installing all manner of software that requires deeper access.
00:05:49 ◼ ► And Catalina's default behaviour should be to pay even closer attention since we've seen several attackers attempt to commandeer personal data
00:06:00 ◼ ► Those people who are most likely to say 'Don't bother me about this app' are, I would argue, at the greatest risk for an attack in that way.
00:06:08 ◼ ► Now, that being said, I do agree with you that the avalanche of dialogue boxes isn't the right way to address this on first startup after the upgrade.
00:06:18 ◼ ► Hey, this user has provided me with this access for the past umpteen years so don't bug them about it.
00:06:23 ◼ ► But personally, given the very real threat to end users, I think that a rocky post-upgrade experience is arguably better than leaving people open to attack.
00:06:32 ◼ ► I do like this follow-up, by the way. I think it is very well written and I appreciate a point like this.
00:06:36 ◼ ► It's why former intern Blair is very good. I don't entirely agree. I think he makes some very good points.
00:06:43 ◼ ► One of the things I will say is I'm not sure targeting pro Mac users is ever going to be a particularly strong malware vector because it's a fraction of a fraction of an audience.
00:07:00 ◼ ► But we have seen like transmission is a good example. That's not a pro app, right? It's a bit-torn app.
00:07:05 ◼ ► But it's an app that you can only get in kind of murky areas of the internet because it is of murky legality.
00:07:13 ◼ ► It is legal. There are legal uses of bit-torn. There are lots of not legal uses of bit-torn.
00:07:25 ◼ ► But I get what he's saying here for me. So the key security issue Blair is talking about is when apps want to do things we don't expect that are sort of notably dangerous.
00:07:39 ◼ ► And I think that is an important aspect of security. That's why I would prefer I would prefer not to have a switch that shuts off all protections on my Mac, right?
00:07:49 ◼ ► I would rather it be a little more granular than that. But at the same time, I don't want the death by a thousand cuts every time I want to do something.
00:07:56 ◼ ► By the way, parenthetically, there is a terminal command. I believe in Mojave there is a terminal command.
00:08:01 ◼ ► I hope it will be there or is there in Catalina. I haven't tried it because I want to experience the official Catalina experience.
00:08:12 ◼ ► But it's even though it's been taken out of the UI and I heard from several people about that and it's true.
00:08:17 ◼ ► I just have chosen not to do that because I think most people, you know, I want to have that real experience.
00:08:22 ◼ ► I could shut it off later if it's really driving me crazy. But I'm trying to write about the core Catalina experience and not sort of a what happens after you've issued this secret terminal command.
00:08:31 ◼ ► I will say as well, like I don't think, I get what Blair is saying, but I don't think that the way that Apple is approaching this would actually solve it for pro users.
00:08:41 ◼ ► So let's use transmission as an example. If the system was bothering you about whether to use it or not, you'd still say yes, right?
00:08:58 ◼ ► And really the notarization and the ability for Apple to be able to cut off an app on their side, that's the part that is more important.
00:09:07 ◼ ► In fact, transmission, the story behind transmission, which if for those who don't know, a legitimate app that had somebody hacked it's, I think the server that it's update was on and took the app file off and put stuff in it.
00:09:24 ◼ ► And then put it back up and it basically sort of like inserted a hacked version of the app on the update server.
00:09:32 ◼ ► And so a hacked version went out for people who downloaded that update and that's actually why the notarization process exists is stuff like that because of the notarization changes to the app bundle break the cryptographic signature.
00:09:57 ◼ ► It's and that's part of the challenge of talking about this is there's a lot of different stuff going on and for a lot of different reasons.
00:10:03 ◼ ► And I don't, let me give you an example of something like I don't be, when I talk about like dangerous, notably dangerous things that we don't expect.
00:10:13 ◼ ► Like, I don't mind being warned about using my camera and microphone because those are basically like very privileged surveillance hardware devices that are inside my Mac.
00:10:22 ◼ ► And if some random apps suddenly once, and this is true on iOS, but it's also true on my Mac suddenly once microphone access, it's like, I want to be able to say, no, why would you want to use my microphone?
00:10:36 ◼ ► I wonder where you draw the line for notably dangerous versus stuff that's assumed to be just part of using a computer.
00:10:43 ◼ ► And I know this is what Apple and their security people are probably struggling with because like personally an app I install and run accessing files in my desktop folder is business, right?
00:11:05 ◼ ► I expect my desktop folder and probably my documents folder to be pretty much open fair game for apps I install and run on my computer.
00:11:15 ◼ ► And so to have every app that wants to access that without my explicit permission to have to be granted access to me, it feels too far.
00:11:26 ◼ ► And, and it also makes me question, like, did anybody consider that the per request feature for, for some of this stuff is, is a bridge too far and that the right thing to do is something like letting the user say, you know, desktop and documents folders are okay.
00:11:43 ◼ ► Just blanket, not per app, but like those folders are not privileged for me and maybe they are by default.
00:11:49 ◼ ► And you have to say, yes, I actually am okay with my apps looking at my files on my hard drive on my Mac.
00:12:00 ◼ ► And I think, I think that's part of this bigger issue, which is, you know, the system gets in the way, gets in your way when you know what you're trying to do.
00:12:08 ◼ ► And at some point there is another line that has to get crossed, which is people have to take responsibility for their own actions.
00:12:43 ◼ ► And what I would say is that in Catalina, it feels to me like that line is not being drawn in the right place.
00:12:49 ◼ ► That they're, they're like a little overprotective of getting in the way of people doing the right thing, doing the wrong thing, because they want to.
00:13:00 ◼ ► I totally get you want to create a system that informs users and raises those initial barriers in the right places to get the users to think twice before they do something.
00:13:09 ◼ ► But at some point you have to just say, as Apple, I'm no longer responsible for the dumb things you do.
00:13:17 ◼ ► Because the, the counter argument is here in here is always going to be, but if you let users choose, they will install malware, their privacy will be violated.
00:13:29 ◼ ► And my answer to that is yeah, at some point that's true, but it's you, you it's, that's their problem.
00:13:39 ◼ ► You can put as many safety features into a car as you possibly can as a car manufacturer.
00:13:44 ◼ ► But at some point, if somebody wants to get into a car and smash it up for various irresponsible reasons, whatever they might be, that's there, you know, that that's just, they don't attach a breathalyzer to every car.
00:14:08 ◼ ► Like beyond a certain point of product being used responsibly is the responsibility of the person who bought the product.
00:14:15 ◼ ► And it's not the responsibility of Apple, you know, to make it that it's impossible for them to be harmed by installing bad software.
00:14:36 ◼ ► I think that the Mac and the PC, Mac OS and windows were envisioned in an environment that was not as dangerous as the environment we exist in now.
00:14:52 ◼ ► I just think in the Catalina betas, I don't think the user friendliness of it and some of the assumptions about how people use their computers were taken into account.
00:15:15 ◼ ► This is, this is the, the challenge here is you do want to protect users to a certain point.
00:15:23 ◼ ► The danger is that one single button that you click that turns off all security is bad.
00:15:28 ◼ ► So is a thousand buttons that you have to click to remain security because everybody will just stop clicking them.
00:15:33 ◼ ► Uh, with, you know, other than just blindly just like click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click.
00:15:42 ◼ ► So, you know, it's a hard problem and I hope they, I hope Apple is continuing to work on it.
00:15:49 ◼ ► So we're going to be doing a live show on August 22nd, as we've mentioned before in San Francisco, and, uh, we need the help of Relay FM listeners.
00:16:07 ◼ ► The way that this game works is that the competitors of the game have to answer a series of questions with the objective of to try and guess the most popular answer as given in a survey.
00:16:24 ◼ ► So for example, if the question given by the Quizmaster was name and operating system, the competitors would have to guess which operating system would be the most frequently answered by Relay FM listeners.
00:16:36 ◼ ► So we need your help. There is a survey in the show notes, fill the survey out, give your answers to the questions, and it will go towards helping us build the questions out for the game itself.
00:16:49 ◼ ► This will be posted in the connected feed on a couple of days after we do the live show.
00:17:02 ◼ ► A lot. There's going to be four individual teams playing this game. It's a whole big thing.
00:17:14 ◼ ► And so we need your help because the way that Family Food works is we need answers to a series of questions.
00:17:30 ◼ ► You can find a link in the show notes to the Relay FM, Fifth anniversary Family Feud survey.
00:17:47 ◼ ► This is a thriller which was originally broadcast in Hebrew and focuses on a story of five people who find themselves implicated in the kidnapping of an Iranian defense minister.
00:17:57 ◼ ► It's actually an anthology show. This is the first season and there will be future seasons with the original creator where they're going to be looking at different situations like this.
00:18:07 ◼ ► This show was successful enough that it was eventually aired internationally with subtitles.
00:18:15 ◼ ► And it got enough fanfare and enough interest that Apple has bought the rights and they're going to be remaking it to air on Apple TV+.
00:18:22 ◼ ► This is actually the second project that Apple has ordered from this particular production company that are called Keshet.
00:18:27 ◼ ► The first is a remake of another series called "Nevelot" that will star Richard Gere, which I'd forgotten about until I read the synopsis and then remembered, "Oh yeah, that sounds really weird."
00:18:38 ◼ ► The synopsis of this show is two elderly Vietnam vets and their best friends who find their monotonous lives upended when a woman they both loved 50 years ago is killed by a car.
00:18:49 ◼ ► Their lifelong regrets and secrets collide with their resentment of today's self-absorbed millennials and an act of self-defense snowballs into a series of tragic events.
00:18:57 ◼ ► I didn't remember Richard Gere, but I remember that description because that sounds like a very weird TV show.
00:19:04 ◼ ► So I'm intrigued to see what comes of those. But yeah, so that's another TV show for Apple TV+.
00:19:12 ◼ ► And also Hulu's SVP of originals, Craig Erwich, has announced at the Television Critics Association at their event that Disney+ will be available as an add-on to Hulu.
00:19:26 ◼ ► It's unknown what this bundle pricing will look like, but you would assume it would be cheaper than the $5.99 a month Disney+ will cost standalone.
00:19:33 ◼ ► I'd actually be surprised if they didn't also sell you ESPN+ within Hulu. Use the Disney bundle by building add-ons inside Hulu for these other features.
00:19:52 ◼ ► A little related about this guy, because this is the guy who's in charge of originals at Hulu. Now that Disney owns Hulu, they also did something last week that was kind of interesting in that they--
00:20:04 ◼ ► He now reports to the head of Disney TV, ABC and Disney TV Entertainment Studio, which is I think probably a good move because Hulu's original development has been kind of a mess.
00:20:15 ◼ ► And this is basically Disney saying, "We're in charge of this." Like, "You're still the guy at Hulu, but you report to our development person and we're in charge of you."
00:20:27 ◼ ► What I'm surprised by is that John Landgraf, who's in charge of the FX networks that they bought as part of the Fox deal and who is very well thought of and the content from FX has been really successful,
00:20:40 ◼ ► they are not-- He's not involved in Hulu. So I'm not quite sure what their strategy is there. Maybe their strategy is just going to be to let him continue programming the FX linear networks
00:20:53 ◼ ► and just know that John Landgraf's content that's good, it's all going to go on Hulu, but it is not an original because it starts on the linear program channels and then moves to Hulu.
00:21:05 ◼ ► So maybe that's going to be the distinction there, but I think it's a little bit weird because they've got this very smart, powerful executive.
00:21:14 ◼ ► Then again, maybe he doesn't want to be given Hulu. Like, "No, no, no. Keep it away. I don't know."
00:21:20 ◼ ► I don't know. Yeah, maybe. Maybe so. Anyway, it's going to be a fascinating kind of year plus for Disney because they still have to deal--
00:21:31 ◼ ► When we talk about Apple buying Intel Motor Business and getting 2,000 new employees, that's going to take years to settle down because that's just that kind of an influx of people.
00:21:42 ◼ ► It's going to be a mess and there's going to be a lot of turmoil and there'll be people leaving and there'll be new jobs and new people in charge and new directions that the old Intel people are not used to.
00:21:54 ◼ ► I've been through combinations of org charts many times like that and it's really complicated.
00:22:03 ◼ ► Well, that's even at a far greater scale what's going on with Disney and Fox and will continue to as they try to shake out their strategy.
00:22:14 ◼ ► As we recorded today as well, it's also Disney's quarterly earnings call later on, so I expect there will be more Disney Plus news to talk about next week on Upstream.
00:22:23 ◼ ► Yeah, and I think they have-- Do they not have their Disney-- They have an event too that they do that they sometimes do.
00:22:28 ◼ ► They've become masters of rolling out little tidbits about all their stuff very slowly, so maybe we'll get some more about their strategy.
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00:23:54 ◼ ► Being able to actually try on frames and show them to your friends and family at home is so nice and they make it so easy with the return shipping label.
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00:24:52 ◼ ► Because it was about a week from when quarterly earnings came out, I'm not going to do my usual number breakdown.
00:25:01 ◼ ► What I will say is Apple did meet their revenue guidance, which is something that I was hoping would be the case,
00:25:11 ◼ ► And Wall Street really cares about two things, right? Did you meet your guidance and what's the next guidance?
00:25:16 ◼ ► Because they all have, you know, everything in investing is guessing about what's going to happen next
00:25:22 ◼ ► and making your purchases, making your bets because of that. So they want to know what's next.
00:25:33 ◼ ► It should be very well, right? Like you should say your guidance, you should get it right.
00:25:41 ◼ ► So they met the guidance and the guidance that they set for Q4 is effectively flat year over year.
00:25:59 ◼ ► So probably the biggest one, the one that I've seen the most headlines about is that the iPhone dipped to under 50% of Apple's overall revenue.
00:26:08 ◼ ► So if you imagine all of the revenue, all the money that Apple makes for the first time in seven years, the iPhone made up less than half of that.
00:26:20 ◼ ► If you, I love this from your Mac world column because I hadn't seen this anywhere else.
00:26:25 ◼ ► If you take the iPhone out of Apple's revenue and just look at everything else they make, it is up 17% year over year.
00:26:32 ◼ ► But then with the iPhone's decline, it brings it down to about flat year over year, which is where they are.
00:26:40 ◼ ► iPhone sales were down 12%, which is, as Apple like to point out, a better decline than the last quarter.
00:26:56 ◼ ► So what does this mean to you? Like the fact that the iPhone now only equates to 50% of the revenue.
00:27:05 ◼ ► Well, I think the truth is that everybody who writes about this stuff, especially if they want to generate excitement, they talk about it in dramatic terms.
00:27:15 ◼ ► So when the iPhone was two-thirds of Apple's revenue, there are people who are like, "Oh, look at the iPhone."
00:27:21 ◼ ► Or they would say, "Oh, look how dependent Apple is on the iPhone. That's really dangerous."
00:27:28 ◼ ► And then it goes under 50% and there are a bunch of people who are like, "Oh, look how dangerous this is for Apple that it's under 50%."
00:27:38 ◼ ► But I'm going to give you probably a more boring response, which is, what's the deal here?
00:27:42 ◼ ► The deal is that they have two product categories that are rapidly growing and one that is down a little.
00:27:53 ◼ ► And percentage is going to be, it's not just where did the revenue trend happen, where it was down 12%,
00:27:59 ◼ ► but it's like overall, if every part of Apple's business dropped at the same amount, the iPhone's percentage would stay the same.
00:28:06 ◼ ► But what's happening is wearables and services continue to trend way up and iPhone trending down a little bit.
00:28:19 ◼ ► Personally, I feel like Apple will be a healthier company if the iPhone is not two-thirds of its revenue.
00:28:33 ◼ ► It distorts how we view Apple as a business because you lose all of the other businesses that they do that are very profitable and very successful
00:28:42 ◼ ► because the iPhone is so huge that it just sort of casts a shadow on all the rest of it.
00:28:47 ◼ ► It also potentially distorts Apple's decision-making because Apple starts making decisions that are just to favor the iPhone
00:28:53 ◼ ► because it's such a huge part of their business that it would be malpractice for them not to favor the iPhone.
00:29:06 ◼ ► really because all the iOS features were about propping up the iPhone and making it better and keeping it in a great state opposite Android
00:29:19 ◼ ► But you look at their business and you say, "Well, I mean, it's 70% of their revenue. How could they not do that?"
00:29:24 ◼ ► So I think in the long run, I do think that a more healthy Apple would have a bunch of other stuff that would contribute to the bottom line
00:29:41 ◼ ► It means that the success or failure of any particular iPhone or iPhone buying trend cannot make people lose sight of the rest of Apple's business
00:29:54 ◼ ► In that way, I think it's good, but the truth is that this is just all about wearables and services coming up and the phone trending down a little bit.
00:30:09 ◼ ► We usually talk every quarter about services being the big mover, and it was up 13% year over year, massive.
00:30:21 ◼ ► 48% year over year revenue growth after 10 straight quarters of double-digit growth anyway.
00:30:28 ◼ ► It's been steadily rising for years, but this quarter has exploded, probably AirPods, probably.
00:30:41 ◼ ► Yeah. I'm sure it just feels like the AirPods are part of the zeitgeist in a way that the Apple Watch isn't.
00:30:48 ◼ ► Considering we don't actually know the numbers, I assume AirPods have helped a lot, but who knows?
00:31:23 ◼ ► The services revenue is up, and we've talked about that a lot, but wearables, it just keeps going up.
00:31:32 ◼ ► The last few quarters of wearables revenue growth, almost, well, let's say one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
00:31:55 ◼ ► So, they have been on a tear in transforming this category that used to be called "Other."
00:32:04 ◼ ► I think we all feel, and Apple definitely wants us to feel, that the wearables business, especially Apple Watch and AirPods, are the drivers here.
00:32:33 ◼ ► Right? And it's like, if you think about the wearable stuff, it doesn't get as much attention as the Mac.
00:32:43 ◼ ► And do you really feel like it's getting what would be the same percentage, like when you look at the iPhone, if the iPhone is half of the business,
00:32:59 ◼ ► Like, I think that it is a very interesting situation when you look at their balance sheet now, to see, like, from a revenue perspective,
00:33:08 ◼ ► And considering Apple does care about this stuff, they care about the revenue reports, right?
00:33:25 ◼ ► I feel like we saw and have seen that the probably accidental, mostly, growth in services has driven Apple to become a different company.
00:33:38 ◼ ► So, you would assume that, like, the original growth in services, which is, we have so many iPhones,
00:33:43 ◼ ► that we're going to have a lot of people sign up for iCloud and give us a little bit of money.
00:33:54 ◼ ► Oh, look how many customers we can just accidentally get purely because it's already installed.
00:34:03 ◼ ► Don't forget one that I think doesn't get talked about as much as maybe it should, which is AppleCare shows enormous growth.
00:34:10 ◼ ► And that, I would phrase that as, oh, we raised the prices on all of our, the average prices on all of our models of all of our products.
00:34:23 ◼ ► Our phones are so complicated now that it has become extremely expensive to replace the glass on them.
00:34:29 ◼ ► Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this is my point, is that an untold part of the average iPhone costing, you know, nearly $1,000,
00:34:39 ◼ ► or, you know, in the high hundreds, is the more expensive those phones are and the more expensive they are to replace and repair,
00:34:50 ◼ ► So that's part of the services line. We don't talk about it a lot, but they called it out on the analyst call that AppleCare growth is also really large.
00:34:58 ◼ ► So that's a big part of what's going on in services. I would say that, and this may be a little counterintuitive,
00:35:04 ◼ ► but I would say that the way that analysts view Apple is, not all analysts, there are a lot of dumb analysts out there,
00:35:11 ◼ ► but I think in general, the way Apple is viewed is not that far off, which is it's a company that has a primary product,
00:35:19 ◼ ► which is the iPhone. It has a growing services business that's tied into people who use their products.
00:35:26 ◼ ► And then it has a collection of other products that do pretty well, but are not at the scale of the iPhone.
00:35:32 ◼ ► And right now, that's exactly what the pie chart shows, right? It shows iPhone 48%, services at 21%,
00:35:44 ◼ ► So I think, doesn't that pretty much align with how we think of Apple? The iPhone is the most important product,
00:35:53 ◼ ► there's a lot of services, and it's super important for them, and then they've got these other businesses that are pretty good,
00:35:57 ◼ ► but are not a massive portion of Apple's revenue. Put together, they're a third of Apple's revenue.
00:36:02 ◼ ► My thinking is just like, where does it push them? Did I see that, okay, maybe we should be pursuing the AR glasses,
00:36:17 ◼ ► Yes, I think you are right that the moment they changed "other" to be wearables home accessories, that indicated something about Apple's feeling about this category.
00:36:34 ◼ ► First off, they didn't want everybody saying, "Wow, "other" is going great for Apple right now, that's no good."
00:36:39 ◼ ► So they call it wearables home accessories and they emphasize the wearables, which makes it sound cooler.
00:36:43 ◼ ► But I do think that internally, they've got to be looking at the Apple Watch, and they talk about it, the Apple Watch and AirPods,
00:36:51 ◼ ► as being these big successes that, although a lot of people in the larger world don't think of them as, like the Apple Watch is a great example,
00:37:02 ◼ ► the Apple Watch has been an incredible success, but if you ask people about it, they're like, "Eh, the Apple Watch, whatever."
00:37:06 ◼ ► It's actually within its category, so many other, Tim Cook actually threw shade at other competitors on the analyst call,
00:37:14 ◼ ► by pointing out that many of their competitors in the wearables category have given up and shuttered their smartwatch businesses,
00:37:22 ◼ ► because they just didn't make it, whereas Apple has been number one and is number one and is doing very well at it.
00:37:29 ◼ ► It's a little unfair, but I get his point. No one could compete with them anyway, just by inertia, but yes, it's correct what he's saying.
00:37:39 ◼ ► Android Wear, there was a scenario when the Apple Watch was introduced five years ago where we could imagine,
00:37:44 ◼ ► well, there will be in five years, because it's coming up five years since the Apple Watch was announced, not shipped, but announced,
00:37:51 ◼ ► where you'd say, "Oh well, there'll be a competitor platform from Google and there'll be Android and Samsung watches,
00:37:58 ◼ ► and probably by five years from now, there'll be 70% of the market of smartwatches and Apple will be 30% because that's what happens."
00:38:06 ◼ ► That has not happened. That has not happened. It's not like there aren't Android Wear watches out there that sell,
00:38:20 ◼ ► In fact, you could really argue that the only product that is really strong in the face of the Apple Watch are Fitbits,
00:38:29 ◼ ► because Fitbit has really upped its game. They had an existing market and they have done it well.
00:38:34 ◼ ► I know a bunch of people who choose Fitbit over Apple Watch, and they have done really well and have weathered that storm,
00:38:43 ◼ ► but it is surprising. I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, I think Apple is looking at the numbers and saying,
00:38:50 ◼ ► "Yes, wearables is a huge push forward for us," and that given all of their miniaturization skills that they have from building the iPhone,
00:39:00 ◼ ► it benefits them there. They can build little processors and put in little batteries and do everything else they need to do.
00:39:07 ◼ ► Does that mean the AR glasses are a sure thing? It doesn't, but I think it makes them realize what the potential is for something like AR glasses,
00:39:19 ◼ ► I don't think it necessarily makes anything a surefire thing they should do, as you say,
00:39:25 ◼ ► but I think that it definitely, when they're sitting around the table and they're looking at their pies,
00:39:37 ◼ ► So when they're looking at these are all the projects that we have, looking at our track record,
00:39:42 ◼ ► what our customers seem to be interested in from the stuff that we make, what could we do to help us pick up the iPhones falling?
00:39:51 ◼ ► And clearly, services and wearables are two areas that they have not had to do much to, and they're seeing incredible growth.
00:40:00 ◼ ► Arguably, they work a lot harder on the Mac and the iPad, and they are not seeing that growth.
00:40:16 ◼ ► They should be a company that can handle the scope. They should be a company that can handle all of it.
00:40:24 ◼ ► I know that sometimes they don't necessarily show that, but they, more than any company in the world, should be able to handle everything because they have all the money.
00:40:33 ◼ ► So I would expect to see continued push in those areas whilst also continuing to handle everything else.
00:40:43 ◼ ► But yeah, it was an interesting, I think I said this a few quarters ago, right, that I know revenue stuff could be dry,
00:40:51 ◼ ► but I think the next couple of years are going to continue to have these little interesting, "we haven't seen these before" stories,
00:41:05 ◼ ► Well, when I talk about the distortion of the iPhone when it's enormous, I think the reverse is also true,
00:41:19 ◼ ► Apple's always looking for growth, and I think Apple is, in a different way maybe a little bit than what Wall Street wants,
00:41:29 ◼ ► Like AirPods and Apple Watch are not products that had to exist, but Apple pushed in those areas and have gotten success out of it.
00:41:40 ◼ ► I would say especially AirPods. The Watch seemed like an inevitable product, right, that there would be a smart watch risk computer.
00:41:48 ◼ ► It felt like an inevitable thing that they would try, but little wireless headphones that have no cable on them,
00:41:59 ◼ ► But the idea that you have to create those product categories, and Apple always has to be looking for those product categories,
00:42:05 ◼ ► I think there's truth in that, and then you get into this nice cycle where you're like, "Okay, now we got the hits,
00:42:12 ◼ ► we're going to grow this thing," and now they're growing that thing and giving it more attention, and they should give it more attention.
00:42:17 ◼ ► Services is a similar thing where they realized, "Wow, there's a huge opportunity here in terms of subscriptions and services,
00:42:30 ◼ ► And then in the background, they are doing R&D for whatever the next thing is because they know that services and wearables are also going to slow their...
00:42:39 ◼ ► That wearables category is doing great, but it's probably not sustainable because it's never sustainable to do 30% growth year over year forever.
00:42:47 ◼ ► It's just not possible. Because they will exhaust that category and they will go down a little bit and they'll go flat.
00:42:56 ◼ ► And it'll be very profitable, right, but it'll be flat, and flat isn't bad except if you're looking for growth.
00:43:04 ◼ ► And as well, it's like, in theory, the iPhone, its cap was the amount of people on the planet, but services and wearables, its cap is the existing amount of iPhone users.
00:43:22 ◼ ► Just go forever selling new services to people who already have it. But you're right, they are generally limited within Apple.
00:43:29 ◼ ► They both have saturation points that are iPhone customer size, where the iPhone in theory, they could have just kept selling it to everyone in the world in theory.
00:43:38 ◼ ► I am really intrigued for the next quarter because Q4, well, should have the first few weeks of iPhone sales.
00:43:44 ◼ ► And I don't know about you, but I feel like all of the, you know, information is leaking out about the next iPhone and the general rhetoric is not good.
00:43:57 ◼ ► People seem to be not excited. All of the general kind of technology, press, and the mainstream media are saying not good.
00:44:07 ◼ ► You know, being a person who's interested in technology, people like to tell you their thoughts.
00:44:12 ◼ ► And all of the thoughts that I'm getting from people in the wider world, which is admittedly a small sample size, is like, "Oh, you've got to skip the iPhone 11, right?"
00:44:25 ◼ ► Yeah, because it feels very much like this is going to be the iPhone 7, which is the third step in an existing product cycle.
00:44:34 ◼ ► It's the second for the XR, but like for the X concept, the third year of iteration of that product.
00:44:43 ◼ ► And while they will still make a lot of money and they'll still sell a lot of iPhones, it's not going to drive, if it's like these other things we've seen in the iPhone buying cycle,
00:45:03 ◼ ► I don't know. So that's why I'm really interested about what Q4 is going to look like for them.
00:45:09 ◼ ► Like how they're actually going to get where they think they're going to go. We'll see.
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00:47:16 ◼ ► So you may remember last time we spoke at length about Apple and Siri and subcontractors and listening in to our conversations as reported originally by The Guardian.
00:47:31 ◼ ► So after the very lackluster initial response that Apple gave that we spoke about last week where they were kind of just like trying to wait this away, like, yeah, sure, it's all fine.
00:47:42 ◼ ► They have now spoken to Matthew Pazirino at TechCrunch and have told him that they are going to be ending the program.
00:47:49 ◼ ► They're going to review their process and add an opt out for having your Siri requests reviewed in a future software update.
00:48:04 ◼ ► I saw Neil A. Patel say, and I actually kind of agree with him, that like it feels like a very Facebook way to announce something like this.
00:48:11 ◼ ► Like, just I don't really know why Apple's being so they were so strange about their initial response.
00:48:20 ◼ ► It's all a bit weird to me, but they have at least done what we consider to be the right thing here, which is to do this properly, to stand up and own up for the type of stuff that they usually beat and drums about and making this a more privacy focused process.
00:48:37 ◼ ► Yeah, it's it's a much better response than the initial response, but you know what they say is we're going to conduct a thorough review and we are suspending this globally.
00:49:09 ◼ ► Are they suspending the one thing that got reported in the Guardian, but not other things that we don't really know about?
00:49:15 ◼ ► Because that's not they didn't say until we review our policies and figure out a way to go forward.
00:49:33 ◼ ► It's often reported and you mentioned it that people will be given a chance to opt out.
00:49:37 ◼ ► What they said was as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading, which could be an opt in rather than an opt out, which I think is the right thing to do.
00:49:52 ◼ ► When you're asked, do you want to give analytics and when you set up Siri, they'll probably ask you that then, which is fine.
00:50:11 ◼ ► I would have no problem and have no problem with any of these companies reviewing things that seem to have gone right or wrong, but there was a conversation.
00:50:32 ◼ ► I feel like we spoke about that last time, but I wanted to reiterate and make very clear my issue with this.
00:50:39 ◼ ► If there was a way for me to choose between those, like you can say you can review my successful requests or requests where I got frustrated, but there was a conversation between me and the device, I would say, yeah, that's fine because that's going to make it better.
00:50:52 ◼ ► I'm not keen for review whatever the heck I'm talking about when you thought I called you.
00:51:03 ◼ ► Because I don't know about you, but in our house, if somebody's talking to one of the assistants, the other person doesn't say anything.
00:51:14 ◼ ► I think it's purely like, it's not like we're freaking out, but it's just like, oh, there's something happening.
00:51:25 ◼ ► So I don't like the idea of these devices being able to hear me whenever it feels like they want to, which is sometimes accidentally.
00:51:42 ◼ ► In many ways, I'm not concerned with these agents not understanding a command I give them.
00:51:50 ◼ ► I think that's a great example where I would like to improve the quality of the service.
00:51:55 ◼ ► I think for me, the challenge is when there's a mistaken activation where we're not aware because there's no chime the moment that they get the wake word.
00:52:04 ◼ ► And so there's a mistaken activation from the TV, from conversation going on in the room, who knows what.
00:52:10 ◼ ► And at that point, you've got a 30-second window where something is recording your audio at home and sending it to who knows who.
00:52:17 ◼ ► And that is, to me, a completely different level because that's accidental activation leading to accidental surveillance that's then being passed to a random person.
00:52:33 ◼ ► Maybe they could say, we want to understand commands or we want to understand accidental activations.
00:52:42 ◼ ► Maybe they can't do that. But the accidental activations are the one that is just, I can't approve that.
00:52:49 ◼ ► Yeah, I completely agree. And we have a lot of problems with Siri with the HomePod setting off. It's an almost daily occurrence.
00:53:01 ◼ ► I have it all the time, which is why when the story came out, I finally just decided, what if we went back to touch and hold to give a command to the HomePod?
00:53:09 ◼ ► Because quite frankly, I was fed up with the HomePod accidentally triggering all the time anyway.
00:53:15 ◼ ► So I'm pleased that Apple have at least, they're going to do what they should have done.
00:53:20 ◼ ► This should have been the initial response that they gave to the Guardian, in my opinion, which I find a little bit disappointing from them.
00:53:26 ◼ ► This feels like another company that gave this response, right? It doesn't really make sense to me.
00:53:33 ◼ ► So we'll wait and see what they do with it afterwards. But this whole thing has been kind of frustrating, I think.
00:53:41 ◼ ► And also now the Apple card is available. Jason Snell, are you excited? Credit cards, come on, credit cards.
00:53:49 ◼ ► I'm sorry, I guess I'm contractually obligated to say money, money, money, money again.
00:53:54 ◼ ► Yeah, I mean, this is, so they announced this back in June and we should talk about it because I think everybody was focused on all the other things that they announced back in June.
00:54:04 ◼ ► Because you may not remember, I didn't remember this, it was during WWDC. I was like, what?
00:54:09 ◼ ► Like, it was very confusing for me now to think that this was part of the developer conference, but it was.
00:54:16 ◼ ► I'm interested in this because more than anything else, I would say I'm not generally one of those people who is always like chasing the best credit card thing where it's like, I'm going to have this card and I'm going to use it on these purchases.
00:54:29 ◼ ► And for these kinds of purchases, I'll use this card because I'm maximizing my rewards because it seems like a lot of work.
00:54:37 ◼ ► And the interesting thing about the Apple card is that it's potentially a really good deal for people who don't, who pay off their, you know, again, pay off your credit card every month if you can.
00:54:47 ◼ ► And, uh, who are buying Apple stuff, it's potentially in general, a good deal for people who are not going to actively be chasing.
00:54:56 ◼ ► Like there are better deals out there to be had, but you have to, you have to work at it a little bit more.
00:55:01 ◼ ► So I think that is, uh, cause this, this card is all about being super convenient for people who have iPhones basically.
00:55:10 ◼ ► There was also some more details given today about kind of how Apple and Goldman Sachs are working together.
00:55:15 ◼ ► Goldman Sachs is the company providing Apple with the underlying technology and all of the agreements and all the card, like just allowing them to create a credit card in the first place because you need licenses for that kind of stuff.
00:55:30 ◼ ► So people could sign up to say they were interested and they're going to be notifying a random selection of people, uh, to say, yeah, you can do it.
00:55:37 ◼ ► And then with wider availability across the U S by the end of the month, the way that approval works, you just sign up in iOS and then it takes a few minutes.
00:55:46 ◼ ► And then the card immediately shows up in your Apple wallet. If you are accepted, they then send you the titanium card.
00:55:54 ◼ ► It sends you that in the mail and just like a cute little feature, the envelope that they send you has an NFC tag inside.
00:56:04 ◼ ► Which is just, it's just nice. That's just like nice. Right. So you don't have to call anyone.
00:56:12 ◼ ► Um, so another little tidbit, you have three card numbers attached to the credit card account.
00:56:18 ◼ ► You have the digital one that goes in Apple wallet that you use for contact with stuff.
00:56:23 ◼ ► The physical card has its own number. And then also the, you have a virtual number and the virtual number is what you use online.
00:56:32 ◼ ► So when you're buying things online and you can, so this is like when it pops up to pay by Apple pay, it uses a different number.
00:56:43 ◼ ► This is useful because then when your card information is compromised by a big supermarket chain because they didn't have enough security,
00:56:57 ◼ ► And you did not, you don't have to like wait for a new card or anything like that because it's separate.
00:57:05 ◼ ► So if your card number is compromised because somebody wasn't looking after their protection stuff,
00:57:20 ◼ ► But Apple have a, they have said that they have a special agreement with Goldman Sachs.
00:57:29 ◼ ► So Goldman get the data, but they can't really do anything with it, which is interesting.
00:57:34 ◼ ► It reminds me of the A&T relationship, right? Like Apple got a bunch of special deals with Singular to launch the iPhone that were against a lot of the way that the industry was working at that time.
00:57:51 ◼ ► Like they must really want this business for some reason because it seems like they're giving up a lot of what a credit card company typically gets value in, which is the data that they can get about you.
00:58:02 ◼ ► My guess is that this is like the Singular deal for the original iPhone, which is, you know what?
00:58:11 ◼ ► And even if we give up a lot of our traditional things, we're going to get this huge influx just based on it being with Apple.
00:58:20 ◼ ► And that's worth the trade off that some partner, I think, when Apple, it doesn't always happen, right?
00:58:25 ◼ ► But when generally when Apple comes into a group of potential partners and says, we want to do things a little bit differently, somebody in there is going to go, all right, let's try it.
00:58:35 ◼ ► Like, we'll give up. We'll give up the things we usually do because it's Apple and we need that business.
00:58:44 ◼ ► And even though it's a business where we're not going to make what we usually make, it's still a business that we want to be in and that if we don't do it, someone else will.
00:58:52 ◼ ► So all of the stuff that Apple spoke about earliest that applies is like no fees on it. You get the immediate cash back, which is what you were referencing earlier, right?
00:59:00 ◼ ► So, like, they don't do airport lounge stuff. They don't do points that you can do for other stuff.
00:59:09 ◼ ► I think Matthew Panzorino at TechCrunch described it as, you know, if you just want cash to buy things as opposed to like turning in points for, you know, bottles of champagne at airports.
00:59:21 ◼ ► Which is, I thought that was funny. But there is some truth in that. Like, you know, we've got cards where you've got to ask for a redemption thing and then you get a certificate.
00:59:31 ◼ ► Then you can go to certain stores and cash and like there are lots of different cards with lots of different approaches.
00:59:38 ◼ ► And like I said, some of them are good and are going to be a way better deal than the Apple card.
00:59:44 ◼ ► But you're going to have to work for it. Whereas Apple literally just puts money on an Apple Pay Cash card for you to spend somewhere else.
00:59:57 ◼ ► And Apple Pay Cash, putting it on an Apple Pay Cash card is brilliant because that means the money that you get back, you're once again spending using Apple's system.
01:00:05 ◼ ► But it's also immediately available, which is something that you don't get anywhere else, right? Like you just get the cash immediately.
01:00:15 ◼ ► This is something that was like really contested afterwards when people were digging into it.
01:00:19 ◼ ► So the APR rate starts at twelve point nine nine percent and goes up to twenty four point four percent.
01:00:32 ◼ ► But the thing that Apple are actually doing is interesting and I can kind of see what they were getting at.
01:00:38 ◼ ► They are saying that their goal is to be among the lowest possible rates that you can qualify for.
01:00:44 ◼ ► It's a very important distinction. It's the cheapest for you, not necessarily the cheapest.
01:00:49 ◼ ► So based on your credit score, they want to try and give you the lowest rate that you would be able to get from any credit card company.
01:00:57 ◼ ► So like. They're doing something. It's not giving you a four percent APR, which I think was like a lot of people were hoping.
01:01:05 ◼ ► It's like, oh, cheapest around is going to be a great deal. No, they're just trying to give you the best deal they can possibly give you based on your credit history.
01:01:17 ◼ ► Apple also said that they're working with Goldman Sachs to support team to provide an Apple like experience,
01:01:22 ◼ ► because when you need to contact someone, you're talking to Goldman Sachs people, you know, talking to Apple.
01:01:27 ◼ ► And they're doing training and wording and all this kind of stuff to make it more Apple like.
01:01:32 ◼ ► So maybe they make you wait behind a tree for a while when you call up on Goldman Sachs.
01:01:37 ◼ ► That's probably a big virtual AR tree pops up and you stand behind that. But yeah, so that that's that is everything we now know about Apple card.
01:01:47 ◼ ► Yeah, so we'll learn more. I mean, there are the some people in the press and some other people being seated with it.
01:01:53 ◼ ► And I think it's an interesting thing. And for me, since you asked at the top of this and I didn't really give you an answer.
01:02:01 ◼ ► I'm going to try it because I feel like I have to try it. I'm not sure whether I will keep it, but I like the idea.
01:02:08 ◼ ► I feel like there may be some other cards. I've been thinking about switching what card we use to something that that has a particular set of cash back things or points back that that would would really benefit my family.
01:02:22 ◼ ► And so the Apple card may not be the best. There may be another one. I may put that limited amount of effort into it to choose another one.
01:02:30 ◼ ► But I will definitely try it out. And it may be that it's just such a nice experience that it stays as some of my other cards get canceled.
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01:03:46 ◼ ► And I thought it was a wonderful way to be able to do this type of stuff because I thought about doing these things before and figured,
01:03:55 ◼ ► But that's what these tools are available for. And when I looked at it, I was like, aha, that's how it's done.
01:04:10 ◼ ► Go to Lumen5.com/upgrade and you will get 50% off your first month as L-U-M-E-N and the number five dot com slash upgrade for 50% off.
01:04:33 ◼ ► Tyler wants to know, how do you deal with acoustic conditions when you're recording on the road?
01:04:49 ◼ ► Like I once did a podcast where somebody invited me to use their office instead of doing it in other spaces.
01:04:55 ◼ ► And then I discovered his office was completely glass walled and it was the most echoey space I'd ever been in.
01:05:01 ◼ ► I know people who record on the road by going into a closet and under a blanket in order to just eliminate all echo.
01:05:16 ◼ ► Although that could be, they can both be removed by software, but it's a lot of effort.
01:05:23 ◼ ► That was one of the things we experienced at WWDC is there was music playing in the background and there were people outside.
01:05:32 ◼ ► So, you know, some of it is luck. Hotel rooms are often pretty soft and full of drapes and things.
01:05:40 ◼ ► Close the drapes and you're typically good. There's lots of soft things in hotel rooms which help remove the echo.
01:05:47 ◼ ► But that also means like, if you say you could throw a blanket over your head if you wanted to and get very hot and sweaty.
01:06:01 ◼ ► These things tend to be more expensive, but finding a good microphone that, you know, like what is the type of microphone called?
01:06:29 ◼ ► And there are other people should just read Marco's microphone review thing, which is old, but you know, microphones don't change that much.
01:06:37 ◼ ► And yes, microphones, we people like me and Myke, we carry microphones these days that are better at suppressing room noise.
01:06:51 ◼ ► And that's great because then if you have a weird noise that's happening off to your left in the hotel room, guess what?
01:07:10 ◼ ► ATR 2100 because I travel with an iPad and I just record that straight into my iPad or it'll even work with an iPhone.
01:07:18 ◼ ► And because it's got an XLR, I can actually record on an external recorder as well as use it by USB, which is very convenient.
01:07:26 ◼ ► I also have used some Shure microphones, the Shure Beta, what is it? 58A and there's the knockoff.
01:07:44 ◼ ► The Pyle PDMic 58, which is super cheap and I suspect is made at the same factory as the Shure Beta 58A.
01:07:54 ◼ ► And they just, in the middle of the night, they switch over and they make these and sell them for, sell $150 microphone for $15.
01:08:03 ◼ ► But they're really good. So they're a bunch. At home I use a different microphone, but it's a home studio mic and I wouldn't recommend it and I don't travel with it.
01:08:20 ◼ ► Yeah. But I now travel with the microphone I use at home, which is the Neumann KMS 105.
01:08:28 ◼ ► It's a very expensive microphone, but this microphone sounds to me as I sound in real life and that's why I love it so dearly.
01:08:35 ◼ ► It's like you're bringing your voice with you, but I agree. The Beta 58A and those Pyle knockoffs, I think I have four or five of the 58As and a couple of the Pyle knockoffs.
01:08:45 ◼ ► They sound great. I would say if you've got a USB interface that you're using and you're thinking of getting a new microphone, you should buy one of those $15 Pyle mics on Amazon because it may be all you need and they're super cheap.
01:09:08 ◼ ► Jason Not Snell asks, "I just got my first MacBook. What do you recommend as some apps that you cannot do without?"
01:09:18 ◼ ► I thought we very rarely get a question like this, so I thought it was fun. So I'm going to go over a few.
01:09:25 ◼ ► Alfred is like a launching application, so I just press command and space and instead of spotlight, I get Alfred come up. I think Alfred is faster. It remembers my preferences and reorders them in a way that I really like.
01:09:38 ◼ ► But it also has a bunch of additional features. I use its clipboard history. It has a bunch of stuff that I'm not even nearly going near, but I like it a lot.
01:09:45 ◼ ► TextExpander, they are a sponsor of the show, but I use it constantly. 1Password for my passwords. Dropbox, I know people tend not to like Dropbox at the moment. I have no problems with Dropbox. I'm not seeing any of the issues that Marco and Casey are seeing.
01:10:01 ◼ ► Dropbox for me just works like Dropbox always has. There's no weirdo app. It's just the menu bar thing. I don't know what people are complaining about, Jason, because I am not seeing it. I don't know why this is.
01:10:12 ◼ ► And also as well, Dropbox can do whatever they want. I don't care. It works. And I'm not moving away from that. And I use Hazel as well. Hazel is a utility that you can have. Look at files and folders and do things.
01:10:26 ◼ ► And I, for example, I have a lot of audio files that accumulate on my computer and every few weeks or whatever, Hazel gets rid of a bunch of them. So they're some of the apps that I use as a professional Mac user.
01:10:39 ◼ ► Oh yes. Oh yes. So for me, LaunchBar, which is the equivalent to your choice of Alfred, I feel like just not at home until I have LaunchBar installed. And it's similarly thing. It's going to index all of my apps and key files on my Google docs.
01:10:55 ◼ ► That's how I get to the upgrade document is I use LaunchBar and I type upgrade and I don't even need to get to the end of the word upgrade and I can hit return and the upgrade document opens.
01:11:05 ◼ ► So I use LaunchBar to get around my Mac. I use 1Password. So likewise, Myke. I use Dropbox. Yes. Likewise, Myke. And I'll throw in BB edit, which is the text editor that I use to write most of my stuff on the Mac.
01:11:19 ◼ ► And you can use it for free with most of the features functional. And then there's a bunch of features that are only enabled when you pay, but you can use it for free too.
01:11:29 ◼ ► And that's when I get set up on a new Mac, cause I will do that when I'm like reviewing a Mac or something like that. These are the first like four things that I put on my Mac.
01:11:38 ◼ ► I believe that those Dropbox things are happening by the way, but I'm just, I don't know what it is, but I'm not, I'm not seeing any of it.
01:11:46 ◼ ► Well, they rolled it out by accident, but it did turn out what I found heartening in that everybody else is like, Oh, they did this thing by accident. So how can we trust them?
01:11:53 ◼ ► It's like, all right, well, that's an opinion you can have. Uh, I think sometimes accidents happen. Uh, I was, I was encouraged by the fact that it seems what they haven't done is built this whole giant app that runs.
01:12:06 ◼ ► That everybody has to use. It seems like what they've done is built a helper app that embeds Google docs and all of that stuff in it.
01:12:14 ◼ ► And it is not running unless you want to run it. And if that's the way they implement it, that's great. Cause I'm never going to run it and then I never have to see it.
01:12:23 ◼ ► So, yeah, but they, anyway, they unrolled it out to most people and, uh, which is, which is smart. They're like, whoops, Nope, Nope.
01:12:31 ◼ ► You weren't supposed to see that. Look away, look away. But, um, I'm okay with Dropbox right now. I, I, my frustrations with Dropbox are that they, their eye is not on the ball, the ball being my kind of workflow and that their, their eyes are not on the ball.
01:12:43 ◼ ► And that their, their eyes now on, you know, cushy enterprise money. And if they can manage to pay, pay attention to both kinds of users, then we'll be fine. And if they're too focused on the enterprise business and you know, but it still works for me for now.
01:12:55 ◼ ► So I don't have a problem with it, uh, today. And I would say as long as they continue doing things like updating to support the new features of the new OSS, because like Catalina actually in, um, as a bunch of stuff, so that companies like Dropbox can, um, more directly access
01:13:14 ◼ ► what they need to access without doing really hacky things in the system. I actually think that that will solve a lot of complaints that people have about Dropbox on the Mac, but they have to do it.
01:13:24 ◼ ► And, uh, likewise on iOS, there's a whole new set of things that they can do to be a better citizen in iOS 13, but they have to do it. So we'll see if they do it. I will, I will be very happy if they do. And if they don't, uh, that will be another nail in their coffin for me.
01:13:39 ◼ ► Then we can start asking some questions, right? Yeah. Because then it's like, Oh, so you are purposefully skirting around these security measures then.
01:13:48 ◼ ► Yeah, exactly. Cause, cause essentially what Apple has done is they built features into their operating systems to get Dropbox to stop hacking their system. And they've been doing it for a while. Cause like the badges used to be hacked and they're, they're like, okay, we'll, we'll give you an API to put badges on files. Okay. Stop doing that.
01:14:05 ◼ ► And so now they're, they're, they're adding new features in Mac iOS and iOS that are definitely for cloud storage providers, which is great because they could not do that and make it all just iCloud drive. And they haven't, they've said, no, if you're OneDrive box, Google drive, Dropbox, use these features.
01:14:23 ◼ ► And now it's in their court and Dropbox is history supporting this stuff. It's not been great. We'll see. They're slow and some stuff they don't want to do, but they do eventually do it. So I hope they do that.
01:14:38 ◼ ► Sam has asked, Myke, how do you charge store and use your Apple pencil while using the clear look stand for your iPad? So the clear look stand is a stand that I talk about all the time because it's my favorite stand. But one of the things that it does when you, when you put the iPad and it grips it on the long sides. Right? So if you have an Apple pencil, I take it off and I put the Apple pencil on the little foot of the stand and that's it. Like I, I don't ever use my iPad in the stand for so long that the Apple pencils battery dies.
01:15:05 ◼ ► My Apple pencils battery has never died. And the second one where the first one used to be dead all the time. So because it's when it's off, it's not connected. It's fine. Now I put it back on again and it will recharge again. And that works perfectly fine for me. Uh, so then whenever I take the iPad out, I just put the Apple pencil back on it. It's easy.
01:15:22 ◼ ► So I, I used the clear look stand the other, the other day and you know, you, you kind of like pull it up and it goes up nice and high and I put my iPad in it and then about 15 minutes later I noticed that it was a lot lower. I'm upset now. I think it's like not.
01:15:36 ◼ ► Yeah, I would say, um, I've had products that have done that to me from the stands that I've used my original clinic stand that is not happening. So your has a fault and maybe I'm just lucky and have a unicorn one, but I've used my concern with it because it doesn't have like a thing you clip to lock it in place.
01:15:56 ◼ ► It's just tension. And I thought, really it's going to stay up with tension and not just kind of sag. And now it's a, it's sagging, so it's letting me down. And by that, I mean it's literally lowering down my iPad pro.
01:16:08 ◼ ► Yeah. I haven't had that happen to mine, but I do agree. Eventually it's going to happen because it's just tension and attention will weaken. But if I got a couple of years or even like a year out of it, it'd be fine. Cause the thing is like what? $27 and I use it every single day.
01:16:22 ◼ ► Yeah. I wish they just made a little bit larger. Um, I think they might now I need to actually ask them of the Vias on Stan that I have. Cause I really, I prefer how solid the Vias on stand feels to the clear look Stan, but you're right. The clear look Stan just goes up higher and it's more ergonomic because of that.
01:16:38 ◼ ► Mm hmm. I'm not sure if I'm going to be using these stands forever though. Cause I might just plug my iPhone and my iPad into a screen now. Because if I'm using a mouse and I'm using an external keyboard, I've not decided.
01:17:01 ◼ ► It is, it is. But, but yeah. Uh, Logan wants to know, have you ever engraved an Apple device?
01:17:07 ◼ ► Well, have you? Well, I, yes, my Apple pencil is engraved with Michael's right on it, which was inspired by Marco doing it. So I did it too, because I felt like if Marco is going to have one, I should have it.
01:17:18 ◼ ► Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I got, I don't usually do this because the devices get handed down, they get moved around. I also have a lot of Apple devices that they come into my life because it's an Apple review unit and then they go out of my life.
01:17:30 ◼ ► So those are never engraved. Um, I did try it out one time and I think it was the fat iPod nano, um, that I got with, uh, with my wife's name and our phone number on it. And it's in a drawer behind me now. Cause I wanted to, I wanted to go through that experience and she was going to use it.
01:17:47 ◼ ► Um, and so I put her name and our phone number on it and, uh, you know, it was, it was engraved. That was, that was great. But as a general rule, I don't do it because I, the, you know, these tech products get handed around. And so any engraving kind of means you can't get rid of it.
01:18:04 ◼ ► Really. Or you get rid of it and your name's on it, which is also super weird. So yeah, it does ruin resale value. Yeah. Maybe you should put like a, like a redirect URL on it.
01:18:15 ◼ ► And then if you sell it, you can give that redirect URL to the new owner and then they can change it. So it's always going to whoever owns it. Huh. Or a domain name, register a weird domain name. And then when they, when, when you sell it, you say this comes with a domain name.
01:18:35 ◼ ► And the last great question today is a brain teaser. This is this one from over. Do you think we're closer in calendar time to the first iPhone or the last iPhone? By that I mean the brand name iPhone.
01:18:58 ◼ ► Okay. So do we think Apple will still be making a product called iPhone in 2031? What do you, what, what is your call on this one?
01:19:17 ◼ ► Oh yeah. We just have to figure out how many, uh, what, what episode will that be? Anyway, why, why do you think that that it won't be there anymore?
01:19:24 ◼ ► Uh, I, I just think that there will be a different brand that comes to them at some point, right? Like let's, let's imagine my favorite foldable phones.
01:19:35 ◼ ► What if they just give that a brand new product name and then over five years that just becomes what everybody has and then it becomes something else.
01:19:43 ◼ ► Like, like let's imagine just like for simplicity sake that they call it like the Apple something rather than the i something and they give it like a different name. Right.
01:19:53 ◼ ► And then over that period of time that just becomes the, the product, right? Like that just is like, Oh, this is now the product everybody buys and it's a completely different form factor.
01:20:04 ◼ ► You just imagine that over the next 12 years, Apple will have enough time to consider its branding of products and, and either decide or hit upon something that allows them to kind of fade the iPhone name out because everybody will still know what it is.
01:20:28 ◼ ► Well, that's true. That that's true. And yet iMac and iPhone are, and iPad are still around because they are lines that they can't.
01:20:39 ◼ ► Why would you, why would you, why would you call a product that looks like the iPhone something else that doesn't make any sense?
01:20:44 ◼ ► But if you replace it with something, which I think eventually will happen with all of this stuff eventually.
01:20:53 ◼ ► Well, so I guess what I would say is I feel like the term phone has become, uh, you know, in, in 2007 it basically started getting hijacked by smartphone.
01:21:03 ◼ ► And now we think of phones and phones don't mean what they used to mean. We have literally changed the definition of what a phone is.
01:21:12 ◼ ► Yeah, it is. It is. I mean, a phone means a computer now, a phone means a computer in your pocket. That's what a phone is, which is just strange, but that's how language works and that's how the world works.
01:21:21 ◼ ► And that's how technology distorts the world. And that's great. But what I'm saying is the iPhone is such a powerful product and it's such a powerful brand and that the phone as a concept, I feel like in 12 years is not going to have left us completely.
01:21:35 ◼ ► It's not going to be like when the iPod went away and the iPod lasted a lot longer than you would have expected to. I think the idea of a phone has so much strength and the idea of the iPhone as a brand has so much strength that it will be hard for Apple to shrug it off in 12 years.
01:21:52 ◼ ► So my gut feeling is Apple will make a lot of other things, but there will still probably be something we call a phone because otherwise what we're saying is in 12 years technology will advance to the point where you no longer need to have a thing that you carry with you that has a screen.
01:22:08 ◼ ► And this is the thing is I can believe you will no longer have to have a thing that you carry with you that has an internet connection because you'll be wearing something with an internet connection.
01:22:18 ◼ ► The thing that makes me unsure is, is everybody going to go to some kind of smart glasses, smart contact lenses, display system that does not require them to carry a display in their pocket that they look at?
01:22:35 ◼ ► And I don't think that in 12 years technology will have advanced enough so that everybody will not need a screen in their pocket because of the human body because it's so hard to get a heads up display in front of everybody's face because of the people needing glasses and people who can't take contacts and people who don't want things in front of their face.
01:22:57 ◼ ► I think it's going to be hard. So I think that it may be a niche at some point because most people will say, why aren't you wearing glasses? Everybody wears glasses now because that's how you see the world and augmented reality.
01:23:09 ◼ ► But I feel like there will still be a product in 12 years. And if you disagree with me, Myke and I will settle this bet on upgrade episode 900.
01:23:18 ◼ ► I do want to say, like I will say hearing you say that is shaken my feeling, but I do want to say though, I didn't say they wouldn't call it phone.
01:23:28 ◼ ► No, I just mean that because people will think of a class of device as a phone and the iPhone is such a strong brand, there will be, there will be, if phones are still a thing and Apple still has the name iPhone, I feel like they will just stick with that name.
01:23:42 ◼ ► As long as it's a thing that is considered a phone, why would you change from the name iPhone?
01:23:53 ◼ ► I hear you and I think that if they were naming it today, that's what they'd call it, but that it's called the iPhone and everybody calls it that. And so now it's like, that's what that is, is the iPhone.
01:24:16 ◼ ► Yeah, episode 900. I mean, we're nearly episode 300. It doesn't feel like it's impossible thing to get to. We'll find out.
01:24:28 ◼ ► Oh, I like it. We've wrapped it all the way around. So if we cancel upgrade, just keep it in the feed and then maybe there'll be an episode in 2031.
01:24:36 ◼ ► Well, I guess it will be like January 31st, 2031, right? We'll set, we'll come back and settle the bet.
01:24:42 ◼ ► Yeah. Somebody needs to put that in their calendar and they can remind us later on. Someone's now done this.
01:24:48 ◼ ► So that's fine. I think December 31st, 2031, right? You got to wait till the end of the year.
01:24:52 ◼ ► That was what I meant. No matter what I said, I meant December. I don't know right now. I don't know what month I said, but I meant December.
01:25:04 ◼ ► Thank you so much for everybody that sent in a hashtag ask, operate question. You can send in questions for us to close the show by sending out a tweet with the hashtag ask upgrade.
01:25:12 ◼ ► If you want to find Jason online, you can go to sixcolors.com and the incomparable.com.
01:25:18 ◼ ► Jason is @jsnell on Twitter. J S N E double L. I am @imike. I M Y K E. And both me and Jason host many shows here at Relay FM.
01:25:26 ◼ ► You can find your next favorite podcast at relay.fm/shows. Go and pick something new from there. And I actually met a, I was at a wedding over the weekend and met a Liftoff listener, Jason.
01:25:36 ◼ ► So there's something that's happening. Right. So that was nice. It's like, oh, Relay FM. I like Liftoff.
01:25:42 ◼ ► That was the thing. That was the thing that actually happened to me over the weekend. So that's amazing. Space.