00:00:08 ◼ ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 256, and today's show is brought to you by Pingdom,
00:00:14 ◼ ► SaneBox, and Texas Bandit. My name is Myke Hurley, and I, as always, have the pleasure of being joined
00:00:19 ◼ ► by the man behind Six Colors, Mr. Jason Sal. That was a very long introduction, Myke. Hello. I thought
00:00:25 ◼ ► about making it a little bit longer, but I bailed, because nobody cares about long introductions.
00:00:30 ◼ ► #snotalkquestion comes from AJ. AJ wants to know, "Do you use spaces in your file names?"
00:00:37 ◼ ► I do sometimes. A lot of the things that I do are things I'm posting on like a server somewhere as a
00:00:49 ◼ ► file name, like on a podcast download, and I don't in there. Right, because that can get a bit wonky,
00:00:54 ◼ ► right? Yeah, because you got to escape out the file names and stuff like that. Percent 20 and things,
00:00:59 ◼ ► it's just not worth it. I do have spaces in many file names. I have like folders that are
00:01:07 ◼ ► of projects, and I have spaces in them, and it's just fine. The little stories folder that I have,
00:01:14 ◼ ► that where I have my stories, those are often, it's my active thing that I'm writing stories
00:01:23 ◼ ► about, those often don't have spaces, but that's, I don't know, again, it's partially because I
00:01:28 ◼ ► think I'm concerned about where they're sinking to and if I'm going to end up with trouble,
00:01:35 ◼ ► but that's mostly just a habit, I think, that comes out of the olden days when I worked at a
00:01:41 ◼ ► magazine and there was a workflow where you had to name things a specific way. But I do,
00:01:51 ◼ ► it's going followed by a dash followed by what the story is about, so there's no space there.
00:01:57 ◼ ► But yeah, I use them in other places, so a little bit of both. I name my files like a human being,
00:02:08 ◼ ► I understand the idea of either stuff not working in some places or it's just like a thing that
00:02:14 ◼ ► you've always done because it wasn't always possible to have computers understand spaces.
00:02:25 ◼ ► The Mac always has that, right? The Mac always has had spaces and it's never been a problem.
00:02:32 ◼ ► So yeah, I encourage people to use spaces and punctuation and whatever else they want in their
00:02:38 ◼ ► file names. And when I don't do it, it's mostly out of a concern that this is a thing that's going
00:02:43 ◼ ► to end up on a web server somewhere and I'm going to need to, you know, and then it's just not worth
00:02:49 ◼ ► it. But I do a lot of the time. Thank you to AJ for this #SnellTalk question. If you'd like to
00:02:55 ◼ ► submit a question for us to open the show in the future, just send out a tweet with the #SnellTalk
00:03:00 ◼ ► and it may be considered for opening the show in a future episode. We have some billion dollar
00:03:05 ◼ ► follow-up. This might be the most expensive follow-up we've ever had on the show before.
00:03:13 ◼ ► we want to talk about today. Apple have acquired Intel's modem division. Apple have paid a billion
00:03:19 ◼ ► dollars, or at least this acquisition is valued at a billion dollars, provided that it all gets
00:03:24 ◼ ► approved by all the regulatory bodies. Apple will be getting themselves a ton of patents.
00:03:30 ◼ ► That's patents. We call those patents. Otherwise you might think that they're just getting a lot of
00:03:40 ◼ ► It's the Intel colors though, which is weird. I don't know what they're going to do about that.
00:03:44 ◼ ► But they're going to be getting a lot of patents and 2,200 employees, which is a lot of people,
00:03:54 ◼ ► This is really interesting because this is like a weird piece of follow-up from episode 242 of
00:04:01 ◼ ► Upgrade back in April, where if you may remember that Apple struck a deal with Qualcomm for
00:04:14 ◼ ► modem chips for their phones whilst they were in court with them, which was a very peculiar story.
00:04:20 ◼ ► It became even more peculiar when Intel later that day announced that they were getting out
00:04:28 ◼ ► They're still in the other, they're still in the modem business for other devices. It's just for
00:04:38 ◼ ► So yeah, this is kind of where we are. I mean, it seems pretty obvious, right? Apple just want
00:04:42 ◼ ► to make their own chips. They don't actually want to be working with Qualcomm forever. So they are
00:04:48 ◼ ► buying up the intellectual property that they need, buying up the people that they want,
00:04:53 ◼ ► and they will move forward with their own project to kind of push them into the future.
00:05:15 ◼ ► it's the classic lines about Apple wanting control. Apple's talked about how they repeatedly,
00:05:22 ◼ ► about how they need to have control of key parts of their technology, right? That is the,
00:05:30 ◼ ► it's a thing that Steve Jobs learned really early on and has imparted to everybody else
00:05:37 ◼ ► who works at Apple. And that is what motivates this. It's Mark Gurman actually had the line
00:05:50 ◼ ► Jobs said, "I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do."
00:05:59 ◼ ► behind the products that we make." So it's the old primary technology thing. And I wrote a whole
00:06:03 ◼ ► thing at Tom's Guide about this because you can trace this back to things like the Mac got beat up
00:06:09 ◼ ► because its web browsers were too slow, but the web browser was Internet Explorer. And so they
00:06:13 ◼ ► did Safari because they wanted to take control of that thing. They were getting beaten up about a
00:06:17 ◼ ► thing that they did not control because Microsoft had a bad web browser on the Mac. And so they took
00:06:22 ◼ ► control of it. You go back to when Steve Jobs stood on stage and said there was going to be a
00:06:26 ◼ ► G5 with a 3 GHz processor because IBM had told him there would be and there wasn't. And they were
00:06:32 ◼ ► getting beat up for PowerPC not being as fast as Intel and they switched to Intel. This goes back
00:06:39 ◼ ► a whole long way. Apple wants to control it. Apple wants to invent it if they can. And since they
00:06:45 ◼ ► bought PA Semi in 2008, they have ended up being a spectacularly good chip development company,
00:06:55 ◼ ► which is simply not something that usually happens for the maker of computers or smartphones or
00:07:02 ◼ ► whatever. But Apple said, "No, no, no. If we want to do this, we need to own this and we need to
00:07:08 ◼ ► control this." And as a result, they've got these advantages in their chips over the competition.
00:07:14 ◼ ► And the competition can't use their chips because they're only for Apple. So the modem thing,
00:07:21 ◼ ► they got stuck. Intel was not delivering and Qualcomm had terms for their patents and terms
00:07:31 ◼ ► for their licensing that Apple found unacceptable. So they had that whole lawsuit for that period of
00:07:35 ◼ ► time. And it was very clearly another one of those cases where an illustrative moment of
00:07:42 ◼ ► why you need to control this stuff because now here you are and you've got these two vendors
00:07:47 ◼ ► and one of them you hate and the other one is doing a bad job. And what do you do then?
00:07:52 ◼ ► And so this is the last part of that. I said on Twitter, this is the dog bites man story,
00:07:58 ◼ ► which is the obvious story. Everybody's talking about man bites dog. The whole idea there is that
00:08:03 ◼ ► that's a story. Man bites dog. What a table turning thing. But dog bites man, it's literally,
00:08:20 ◼ ► figured this was the most likely scenario and here it is. And there still won't be an Apple
00:08:24 ◼ ► design modem for a few years yet. This is a long lead time kind of thing. But I do wonder in the
00:08:29 ◼ ► long run if it might mean Apple being even more aggressive in kind of integrating cellular
00:08:34 ◼ ► connectivity in more products. This is my just wild speculation portion. But you talk about custom
00:08:40 ◼ ► designed cellular connectivity now from Apple where they don't have to take a piece off of
00:08:46 ◼ ► somebody's price list. Are they gonna, you know, in glasses, if they're still gonna make AR glasses
00:08:53 ◼ ► in AirPods? In on-base Macs? And in laptops, yeah, right, which they haven't done up to now for
00:08:59 ◼ ► various reasons, I think. But once they control and design all that and put it all together in
00:09:04 ◼ ► one place, I think it's much more likely now because it's their stuff and they're not gonna
00:09:10 ◼ ► have to pay a licensing fee. And they might have to pay, depending on Qualcomm, they might have to
00:09:14 ◼ ► pay some patent licenses. But by picking up Intel's licenses, that is, I think, going to be at least
00:09:21 ◼ ► somewhat defensive where, you know, they're not, I don't know the nature of Qualcomm's patents versus
00:09:27 ◼ ► Intel's patents, but it helps in that kind of jousting, I think, for intellectual property of
00:09:40 ◼ ► I mean, you would naturally assume that Intel were doing things slightly different to the way
00:09:43 ◼ ► that Qualcomm does them so they didn't interfere with each other. That just seems like the logical
00:09:47 ◼ ► thing. But as I say, we have literally no idea what the difference is between them. But if Apple
00:09:53 ◼ ► was still gonna be paying the same amount of money to Qualcomm after buying Intel, I can't imagine
00:09:58 ◼ ► they would have done it. Like, this definitely feels like a play to assist them in having,
00:10:04 ◼ ► in making this stuff on their own. >> I don't know. I mean, they already, they were working
00:10:08 ◼ ► with Intel. Intel's got the business. It's not just the patents. It is these 2,000 employees,
00:10:13 ◼ ► right? So, it's a huge kind of influx of chip design talent and modem design talent coming to
00:10:20 ◼ ► Apple. So, it gets them-- >> I'm sure you could buy the people and the technology without the
00:10:27 ◼ ► intellectual property, right? Like, they wanted all of it, you would assume, for a reason like that.
00:10:37 ◼ ► I feel like there's value in both of these things. >> Sure. Oh, there is. >> In the intellectual
00:10:41 ◼ ► property and in the people. And they're kind of a package deal here from Intel, which is good for
00:10:47 ◼ ► Apple. And, you know, in the end, it may just be literally that Apple still pays Qualcomm some sort
00:10:54 ◼ ► of fee, but they're no longer buying chips from them. And the fee is on very specific things,
00:11:00 ◼ ► and it's less than they're doing now. >> And who knows? Maybe Qualcomm start paying Apple a fee
00:11:04 ◼ ► as well, right? >> Maybe. Well, I mean, you negotiate a--but what it does mean is that in
00:11:09 ◼ ► the end, Apple is going to be able to make a modem chip itself on its own standards, on its own time.
00:11:15 ◼ ► >> With their own features, all the things that they want, not the things that Qualcomm wants.
00:11:27 ◼ ► the Q3 results, which are going to be out on the 30th of July. So, that's tomorrow as we record
00:11:33 ◼ ► this episode. This is the third fiscal quarter, which as Jason has written in the notes is
00:11:38 ◼ ► typically the quiet one. >> Yeah, it's the smallest quarter that Apple has every year. So, it will
00:11:43 ◼ ► probably not be super interesting, but you never know. >> Well, my perspective is at this point in
00:11:48 ◼ ► time, there is no boring quarter because Apple's in so much change. So, I'm really intrigued to see
00:11:53 ◼ ► what this quarter looks like, right? Will iPhone sales still be down, right? This is stuff that I
00:11:59 ◼ ► want to see. So, I mean, I am very intrigued. You know I like the results. I can't tell you why. I
00:12:06 ◼ ► don't know why, but I enjoy it. I like looking at the charts like a weirdo. But I'm intrigued. I'm
00:12:14 ◼ ► going to keep my eye on this tomorrow. So, I'm excited about it. So, we'll talk about it next
00:12:19 ◼ ► week for sure. >> Yep. >> All right. We've got some upstream news. We're going to tag team this one
00:12:23 ◼ ► this week. Do you want to tell me about Amazon? >> Sure. So, there's a lot going on right now in
00:12:28 ◼ ► LA. The television critics associations having their summer press tour, which goes on for like
00:12:34 ◼ ► three weeks. It's what my podcast pal Tim Goodman has referred to as the death march with cocktails.
00:12:40 ◼ ► Lots of cocktail parties, lots of shaking hands, lots of presentations, and it goes on for a very
00:12:48 ◼ ► long time. Amazon did their presentation. This is a chance for Amazon to talk about what they're up
00:12:56 ◼ ► to. They did make a lot of news as a part of it. Not everybody makes news. Sometimes it's sort of
00:13:07 ◼ ► they talked to Jennifer Salke who runs Prime Video now. For upstream purposes, I thought an
00:13:15 ◼ ► interesting thing that she said because she says she knows that Prime Video is a different kind of
00:13:20 ◼ ► service, different kind of product than maybe some of their competitors because it's a part of the
00:13:25 ◼ ► larger Amazon Prime product. She said, "We have a very unique business in the sense that our entire
00:13:30 ◼ ► North Star is to entertain and delight Prime customers all over the world. We're not in the
00:13:35 ◼ ► volume business. We're in the curated business." That is setting them off from Netflix a little
00:13:41 ◼ ► bit. But I do think that there is something to this. This is the argument all along about how do
00:13:46 ◼ ► you analyze Prime Video. Their charter, at least as Jennifer Salke views it, is to entertain
00:13:54 ◼ ► Prime customers. So, what they do is not as tied to the total number of Prime subscriptions that
00:14:03 ◼ ► Amazon has as Netflix's is to the total number of Netflix subscriptions because with Netflix,
00:14:10 ◼ ► the programming is everything and with Prime Video, the programming is one of the things
00:14:15 ◼ ► that ties you to Prime. Because most people that are watching any Prime Video content are watching
00:14:21 ◼ ► it because it's just a bonus that they have. Yeah, I mean, would I pay for Prime Video as a standalone
00:14:28 ◼ ► service? I don't know. I might. There's a bunch of stuff on there that I like. But my point is
00:14:34 ◼ ► I've never considered that, right? Because it's wrapped up in Prime, which I do pay for
00:14:49 ◼ ► But I've never really considered like, "What's my value in Prime Video as a standalone?" No,
00:14:55 ◼ ► because it's not. It's not a standalone service. It's a thing I get with shows on it that I like
00:15:01 ◼ ► and that I might consider as a streaming service in some other context, but I literally never have.
00:15:08 ◼ ► And I think that she's right that they're playing a different game. She's not saying that they're
00:15:13 ◼ ► lesser or greater than Netflix or any of their other competitors, but she's absolutely right
00:15:17 ◼ ► in that the game they're playing is different because of what the product is. And when Jeff Bezos
00:15:36 ◼ ► the entertainment and delight of Prime members. They did announce some stuff. So they're selling
00:15:54 ◼ ► they announced first look deals. So they bring them projects and Amazon gets the right of first
00:16:00 ◼ ► acceptance for those projects. They unveiled the Lord of the Rings creative team. We heard some of
00:16:07 ◼ ► the names and it's nobody you've ever heard of. It's people, it's the writers and the producers
00:16:12 ◼ ► for the most part. Interesting tidbit in the Lord of the Rings series information. The Hollywood
00:16:18 ◼ ► reporter said, "Commitment is believed to be for five seasons plus a potential spinoff. Once
00:16:26 ◼ ► production budgets, casting, writers, producers, and visual effects are factored in, the total for
00:16:30 ◼ ► the Lord of the Rings series could hit a billion dollars." Yes, a billion dollars for a TV show.
00:16:36 ◼ ► I feel like it has to be though, right? Yeah. If you really want to do this, like Amazon,
00:16:47 ◼ ► very expensive here. If you want to make it what it's going to be, you've got to put the money in.
00:16:52 ◼ ► And this is Jeff Bezos again saying, "Basically, I want the next Game of Thrones. I want that."
00:16:58 ◼ ► Right. And if you want the next Game of Thrones, you know you get it? Money. You put a lot of money
00:17:01 ◼ ► in. That's what you need to do. Well, you put in the money and then you take your chances. That's
00:17:06 ◼ ► the trick, right? I know that doesn't guarantee it. But I mean, to create something like, you know,
00:17:11 ◼ ► like to come out of the gate and be like, "You know how Game of Thrones ended. We want to be
00:17:15 ◼ ► like that from the beginning." That's going to cost a lot of money. And then it's like irrespective
00:17:20 ◼ ► of how good it is, you still got to put the money in because this show will be a very strong visual
00:17:26 ◼ ► show. And that costs money. I think there's an interesting question and discussion for another
00:17:32 ◼ ► time about whether, about how big budget TV is going to happen on streaming services. And are we
00:17:44 ◼ ► going to see a similar sort of thing as we've seen in the movie industry? Where in the movie industry,
00:17:50 ◼ ► the big budget stuff has kind of crowded out everything else, but a lot of that stuff has gone
00:17:54 ◼ ► to streaming. And I think at some point we're thinking about what does it mean for TV that
00:18:00 ◼ ► there's a billion dollar TV show that's being made? Like is that money going to crowd out the
00:18:07 ◼ ► smaller stuff or is the smaller stuff? I feel like streaming is a perfect place for the smaller stuff.
00:18:13 ◼ ► But I do wonder about that sometimes if there's almost a natural drive in the entertainment
00:18:17 ◼ ► industry, if you're looking for a big hit to push some of the cheaper stuff to the side.
00:18:22 ◼ ► Because how many mid-budget dramas and comedies could be made for what they're making one
00:18:29 ◼ ► Lord of the Rings out of? Well this is the amount of money that Apple put in to start their entire
00:18:34 ◼ ► service. And we know that there was more money spent than this, but that's the same amount of
00:18:39 ◼ ► money. So that's a lot of money. Yeah, so that's the question. And I get the reason is sort of like
00:18:45 ◼ ► you can make ten different Patriots, Sad Spies, which officially is not coming back by the way.
00:18:53 ◼ ► Which is so disappointing. Even Sadder because that's such a great show. Don't let the name
00:18:58 ◼ ► fool you. Patriot is a great, great, great, great show about a sad man in a suit. But they can make
00:19:03 ◼ ► 50 of them and nobody's going to watch them, right? Or they can make Lord of the Rings. So I
00:19:08 ◼ ► think it's an interesting just business question about shooting for the huge hit which Amazon is
00:19:15 ◼ ► definitely doing. And which Apple may be doing too with some of the things that they're trying
00:19:20 ◼ ► to produce. And versus flooding the zone with lots and lots of content which is what Netflix does.
00:19:28 ◼ ► Netflix is looking for big hits too, but Netflix is also doing a lot of volume and touching a bunch
00:19:34 ◼ ► of different areas. They did another interesting thing about Amazon and I don't know, you know,
00:19:39 ◼ ► we talk about Netflix having all of their data and all their statistics and using that to judge
00:19:44 ◼ ► that there was that one report that said that within two weeks of a show being dropped on
00:19:48 ◼ ► Netflix, Netflix basically knows its entire lifespan. It knows it can take the analytics
00:19:56 ◼ ► of the first couple of weeks and say with a high degree of accuracy, how many plays it's going to
00:20:01 ◼ ► get for the rest of time. Now, yeah, occasionally something will kind of like bob up later and people
00:20:05 ◼ ► discover it and it'll be a surprise, but very rarely is that the case. And they use this data
00:20:10 ◼ ► to decide whether they want to invest more money in it, what it means for them. I think it's
00:20:14 ◼ ► interesting that Amazon in some contrast to that has announced that they just renewed two shows
00:20:23 ◼ ► whose first Amazon produced seasons haven't aired because what is that based on? And I think partially
00:20:32 ◼ ► it may be based on that they're delaying some stuff being released and they need to make
00:20:36 ◼ ► contractual decisions to renew the show or not. It may be that, but I think it may also be just
00:20:41 ◼ ► a purely creative thing, which is they like how it's looking and they want to just give them a
00:20:46 ◼ ► shot in the arm right now and say, yes, we like these. So "Carnival Row," which is a show that
00:20:50 ◼ ► has not even premiered yet has been renewed for a second season on Amazon. And "The Expanse,"
00:20:54 ◼ ► which was saved off of the Sci-Fi channel by Amazon for a fourth season, which will premiere
00:21:00 ◼ ► in December has already been renewed for a fifth season. So I don't know what they're doing over
00:21:04 ◼ ► there, but they're canceling shows I like, they're renewing shows that haven't aired yet. They're
00:21:09 ◼ ► definitely playing a different game at Amazon. - Marvel showed up a bunch of stuff as part of
00:21:15 ◼ ► Comic-Con. And so if you've been ever been paying attention to the way that Marvel has been running
00:21:21 ◼ ► the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they talk about the movies in phases. So like all of the different
00:21:26 ◼ ► movies fall into different phases and we're about to move into phase four, right? So what came after
00:21:32 ◼ ► "Avengers Endgame?" And this includes a couple of sequels, a couple of new movies, right? We could
00:21:36 ◼ ► finally get in a "Black Widow" movie. There's going to be a sequel to "Doctor Strange." There's going
00:21:43 ◼ ► to be a "Thor" movie and amazingly Natalie Portman's coming back and she's going to be female
00:21:49 ◼ ► Thor, which is awesome. I'm very excited to see what they do with that. That was a big surprise.
00:21:53 ◼ ► But if you want to know about what Disney is thinking these days, you want to take a look at
00:21:59 ◼ ► this because the phase four includes a bunch of Disney+ content, which is very, very interesting.
00:22:05 ◼ ► - This is a huge... For me, that slide, it tells the whole story, which is when they unveiled phase
00:22:12 ◼ ► three, they put up a slide with... And when they do this, it's hilarious because in the moment,
00:22:17 ◼ ► you're like, "Oh my God, that's so far away. That's like four years from now." And then you look up
00:22:22 ◼ ► and it's like, "Oh, they've released every movie that was on that slide now. Oh, that's interesting.
00:22:27 ◼ ► Four years have passed." But they do it and you're like, "Oh, here's all the Marvel movies. It's two
00:22:32 ◼ ► or three movies a year for the next five years or four years." And this time, there's five Disney+
00:22:44 ◼ ► - There are more movies that they haven't announced yet, which is another thing. They've given dates
00:22:49 ◼ ► for four movies, but they haven't said what they are. And that's just a thing. And you'd expect
00:22:55 ◼ ► Guardians of the Galaxy. - Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Black Panther sequel is in there too.
00:22:58 ◼ ► I don't think they've dated it, but we know that they're happening. But the Disney+ thing. So
00:23:03 ◼ ► a lot of people still have this misunderstanding. It's like a little different version of the...
00:23:10 ◼ ► It's the same people who brought you Planet of the Apps who are doing Apple's TV service,
00:23:14 ◼ ► where it's like, "No, that's not true at all." People are like, "Oh, but Marvel's been making TV
00:23:20 ◼ ► shows forever. This isn't new. They're the people who did Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil on Netflix
00:23:27 ◼ ► and all that." And so the really short version of it is that Marvel TV is operated by the same
00:23:36 ◼ ► division of Marvel that does Marvel Comics, which is a guy named Ike Perlmutter, who is famously
00:23:41 ◼ ► like a cheapskate. And they have a studio that has a bunch of people who are making TV shows.
00:23:50 ◼ ► And Kevin Feige, who does all the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, used to report to Ike Perlmutter.
00:23:57 ◼ ► And after he made billions and billions of dollars from Disney, Kevin Feige basically went to Disney
00:24:02 ◼ ► and said, "I don't want to work for this guy anymore." And they said, "Well, thank you for
00:24:06 ◼ ► your billions and billions of dollars. You can work for the Disney studio chief instead of
00:24:10 ◼ ► Ike Perlmutter." So for years now, Marvel's movies have been run from a completely separate part of
00:24:18 ◼ ► Disney, completely different fiefdom than Marvel TV. What's relevant about these shows, which is
00:24:24 ◼ ► The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision, which has got the Scarlet Witch in it, the What If
00:24:29 ◼ ► animated series, a Loki series with Tom Hiddleston, a Hawkeye series with Jeremy Renner, those are not
00:24:35 ◼ ► just actors from the movies that you've seen before now on TV playing those same characters,
00:24:41 ◼ ► but it's all being produced by Kevin Feige out of his group, not out of Ike Perlmutter's group,
00:24:48 ◼ ► at Marvel TV. And so this is sort of what we were promised with things like Agents of Shield
00:24:53 ◼ ► and Daredevil and Luke Cage and Jessica Jones and Never Really Got, which is those were supposed to
00:25:00 ◼ ► be integrated into the Marvel universe, but kind of weren't in the end because it was different
00:25:04 ◼ ► people doing them. And these are on the slide for phase four. So how it will actually play out in
00:25:14 ◼ ► terms of integration, I don't know, because it is actually really hard to integrate all of these
00:25:19 ◼ ► products together, although Marvel has done a great job, but it certainly speaks to how important
00:25:24 ◼ ► Disney's streaming service is. Yeah. Yeah. That's like, "Oh, you want to see what Captain America's
00:25:35 ◼ ► All of these shows will be rolling out from 2020 to 2021, then not all coming at the same time.
00:25:46 ◼ ► No, no, that'll be the Star Wars series will be ready there, but the Marvel stuff's not going to
00:25:50 ◼ ► be ready for another year after it launches. And all of the, pretty much all of them, except
00:25:55 ◼ ► for What If. What If is like this animated show where they're using all of the voice actors that
00:26:00 ◼ ► are like the actual movie stars, but it's like an animated show where they take a scenario and change
00:26:07 ◼ ► the results. So like, what if somebody died or didn't die on that kind of thing? Right. So they're
00:26:12 ◼ ► going to be able to go back. If you think about Avengers End Game, here's a very, very mild spoiler
00:26:16 ◼ ► for Avengers End Game. There is within the plot of Avengers End Game, the idea of what if things went
00:26:22 ◼ ► differently in movies you've already watched. That's, I'll just leave it there. That's what the
00:26:26 ◼ ► What If show is. It's animated, but it's going to have those act, the same actors as the voices. And
00:26:30 ◼ ► it's going to be basically like playing off of things that happened in the movies, which is a fun,
00:26:37 ◼ ► it was a comic that I used to love actually as a kid where they did this with what if this event
00:26:41 ◼ ► of this comic book changed and they're going to do it for the movie. So that could be fun.
00:26:45 ◼ ► Hawkeye, which is one of the best, believe it or not, Hawkeye, one of the best Marvel comics of the
00:26:50 ◼ ► last decade, Matt Fraction's Hawkeye. I'm wondering how that will influence this Hawkeye TV series
00:26:57 ◼ ► because the idea of a TV series featuring Jeremy Renner seems really boring. But it's going to have
00:27:03 ◼ ► Kate Bishop, who is the young, also Hawkeye, is going to be introduced in that show. Using the
00:27:08 ◼ ► logo of the comic as well. I know, right? They are. They are. So if they can, if they integrate
00:27:15 ◼ ► some of the Matt Fraction Hawkeye DNA into that show, that'll be great. I can't wait to see a
00:27:19 ◼ ► bunch of Russian mobsters in tracksuits saying bro in fall 2021. I really liked a, there was like a
00:27:30 ◼ ► quote from Jeremy Renner on stage and he's like, it's going to be great to watch somebody
00:27:34 ◼ ► without superpowers teach somebody else how to be a superhero. Like I really like that line. It's
00:27:39 ◼ ► like accepting who Hawkeye is and because he's going to be training like the next Hawkeye,
00:27:44 ◼ ► Kate Bishop. And it's just like a funny thing for him to say, but it's totally true. So yeah,
00:27:50 ◼ ► I'm actually quite excited about that if they'd go down the route that we want them to. All right,
00:27:54 ◼ ► there's a couple last things before we move on. NBC has announced that their streaming service
00:27:59 ◼ ► will be launching in April, 2020. There's no real details, but that's when it's coming.
00:28:08 ◼ ► well, we'll see about that. Although I did mention what last week that, that I think I mentioned that
00:28:15 ◼ ► here anyway, a show that I like AP bio got picked up. Yeah, I mentioned that here because it was the
00:28:22 ◼ ► after being canceled by NBC because they don't talk to each other. So that's essentially an
00:28:27 ◼ ► original. Although, you know, maybe is this the fate of the NBC streaming service is that shows
00:28:33 ◼ ► that they cancel on broadcast get saved for streaming. So it's like the leftover channel.
00:28:36 ◼ ► I don't know. But they are doing some of that and they're going to have, of course, all their,
00:28:41 ◼ ► their catalog content there, because they are owned by the cable company. A lot of the plan is
00:28:46 ◼ ► that if you've got a cable subscription, I think you get access to the free tier of this with
00:28:51 ◼ ► commercials. So they're kind of viewing it as sort of a, not a cord cutter paradise as much as kind of
00:28:57 ◼ ► like an add on thing. It's, it's like we said about Amazon having a different model. NBC universal
00:29:02 ◼ ► seems to be trying a different model because they're owned by the cable company. So we'll see
00:29:07 ◼ ► how that goes. I'm unclear. I imagine like Hulu, they'll have a, or like CBS, it's the same thing.
00:29:12 ◼ ► They'll have a tier where you pay them money and don't see ads, but that the base level will be an
00:29:17 ◼ ► ad service that cable subscribers will get for cheap or free. And I made the mistake on Twitter
00:29:28 ◼ ► service could, should be called Peacock Plus. And he ran with it and actually mentioned it in
00:29:33 ◼ ► a piece in the Hollywood reporter. So I think that means NBC executives now have seen our stupid joke
00:29:40 ◼ ► about calling it Peacock Plus. I don't know why you think this is a bad thing. I think this is a
00:29:43 ◼ ► fantastic thing. If it's called Peacock Plus in the end, I guess I'm going to do a victory lap,
00:29:49 ◼ ► or maybe they'll give me a free with advertising subscription to NBC's Peacock Plus. I don't know.
00:29:54 ◼ ► - Today's episode is brought to you by Pingdom from our friends at SolarWinds. It is summertime,
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00:31:07 ◼ ► right now. Pingdom.com/000. Our thanks to Pingdom for their continued support of this show and all
00:31:12 ◼ ► of RelayFN. We have some frustrating stories to talk about today. So we are going to have a very
00:31:22 ◼ ► fun... Summer of fun! Summer of frustration. We are going to have a very fun Ask upgrade at the end of
00:31:27 ◼ ► the show today. So don't worry, things will pick up. There was a report from Alex Hern in The
00:31:33 ◼ ► Guardian stating that Apple hires contractors to review Siri requests to grade their accuracy and
00:31:40 ◼ ► effectiveness. This is something that a little while ago Amazon got really heavily criticized
00:31:47 ◼ ► for from a Bloomberg report, right? That they were having people listen in to Amazon Echo requests
00:31:55 ◼ ► and then kind of reviewing them so they could test and kind of mark how well the service was doing.
00:32:00 ◼ ► So that's kind of like to set the stage. I want to talk a little bit more about this and then we're
00:32:05 ◼ ► going to dive into it together. So it isn't completely clear in Apple's policies that the
00:32:10 ◼ ► requests will be heard by humans. So like I checked, I took a look at some of the privacy
00:32:15 ◼ ► policy stuff and what Apple says is the things that you say in Dictate will be recorded and sent
00:32:19 ◼ ► to Apple to process your requests. Now I'm sure a lawyer could tell me that it means that people
00:32:25 ◼ ► could be listening to it but I don't think that that is clear enough considering how clear the
00:32:29 ◼ ► rest of their privacy policy is around this. The rest of it's written in pretty understandable
00:32:33 ◼ ► English but they do not state explicitly that a human being can listen to what you say to Siri.
00:32:39 ◼ ► And I don't think that most people would ever assume that a human being is ever listening to
00:32:45 ◼ ► what is said to Siri. Apple responded to the Guardian by saying that these requests are not
00:32:49 ◼ ► associated to any user information and less than one percent are being reviewed. So they confirm
00:32:54 ◼ ► that this is the thing that they do but they say that you know people can't be tracked. However,
00:32:59 ◼ ► the whistleblower who talked to the Guardian says that they very frequently heard extremely private
00:33:05 ◼ ► information like medical things, criminal activity and even sexual encounters and they say that the
00:33:10 ◼ ► requests they receive include location data, contact details and app data which is a strange
00:33:16 ◼ ► thing. Like I don't 100% know what that entails. Apple say that it's not possible to link back to
00:33:21 ◼ ► the user from this information but the whistleblower says that they feel like they get enough that they
00:33:25 ◼ ► could actually try and find people if they wanted to. So I don't know what to believe with that but
00:33:30 ◼ ► it does seem interesting. And here's a quote from the individual who spoke to the Guardian.
00:33:36 ◼ ► "Apple is subcontracting out. There is a high turnover. It's not like people are being encouraged
00:33:41 ◼ ► to have consideration for people's privacy or even consider it. If there was someone with
00:33:45 ◼ ► nefarious intentions it wouldn't be too hard to identify the people on the recordings."
00:33:50 ◼ ► So Apple tends to talk a very good game when it comes to user privacy but they overstepped the
00:33:54 ◼ ► line. Yeah and famously they did that billboard which was what happens when the iPhone stays on
00:34:06 ◼ ► like three times already. Yeah when you boast about something you are calling, basically
00:34:13 ◼ ► inviting people to investigate you. So our colleague Renee Ritchie pointed out that the
00:34:22 ◼ ► Bloomberg story actually says we talked to Apple and they said they do this too. The Bloomberg
00:34:28 ◼ ► story about Amazon. That's funny. So that was back in April. And Renee's question was is it that you
00:34:35 ◼ ► know the Guardian wrote a good headline and they lead with the fact that people have heard drug
00:34:39 ◼ ► deals and sexual situations. Is that why people are talking about this? I think my answer is I
00:34:45 ◼ ► think they're talking about it now because the Guardian got somebody who works on processing
00:34:51 ◼ ► Siri requests to talk about it on the record with details about the human beings. Yes I think the
00:34:57 ◼ ► thing that I don't like about this is that quote that I read right that like this individual feels
00:35:03 ◼ ► like Apple is not doing a good enough job in educating on privacy. Like yeah that's the thing
00:35:09 ◼ ► that upsets me the most. Subcontracting is a thing that makes me... I'm uncomfortable about the whole
00:35:13 ◼ ► contracting relationship in Silicon Valley in general where big expensive tech companies that
00:35:18 ◼ ► have lots and lots and lots of money say this part of our business isn't important enough for
00:35:23 ◼ ► actual employees that we hire. We're gonna just pawn this off to some subcontractor somewhere.
00:35:28 ◼ ► And this is like you know you see it in Facebook using subcontractors to do content moderation.
00:35:33 ◼ ► But like Apple does this. Apple's like our social media I mean just to use a non-specific example
00:35:40 ◼ ► here but like our social media or our documentation or whatever like that part of it is not as
00:35:46 ◼ ► important. You don't have to be an Apple employee and those people then don't get the benefits of
00:35:49 ◼ ► being an Apple employee. They don't get paid as well. They're like all of these things because
00:35:54 ◼ ► they're using a subcontractor for something like private user data audio from inside people's homes
00:36:00 ◼ ► to have that be to a subcontractor. Like I look at that and I say you're sending a message that this
00:36:07 ◼ ► isn't as important because you got people kind of drifting in on the transom. They're hired by
00:36:11 ◼ ► the contractor. They drift in. They listen to people's private conversations. They drift out
00:36:16 ◼ ► again. Like it feels to me like it sends a message that this is less important to Apple by doing that.
00:36:22 ◼ ► So that bothers me. I know I've heard from a lot of people since the story broke who say well of
00:36:26 ◼ ► course you need humans. It's part of the process to train machine learning. And I would say I'm
00:36:34 ◼ ► sure that there is an aspect of this process that is greatly benefited by human training to say what
00:36:40 ◼ ► actually happened here and what went wrong and you can classify that interaction and you can use that
00:36:46 ◼ ► to build a model that or improve the model. But a few things. First off I think always transparency
00:36:56 ◼ ► and ideally giving users options is important. So for example when you set up an iPhone it says
00:37:03 ◼ ► can Apple get your data for improving apps and the quality of the system and you do that at startup
00:37:10 ◼ ► and you say yes or no. And if you say no nothing happens except you don't transmit the data.
00:37:14 ◼ ► And it says can third-party developers see the data and you can say yes or no and nothing happens
00:37:19 ◼ ► concerning the data. As far as I know that's not how Siri works. As far as I know the way you opt
00:37:23 ◼ ► out is by turning off Siri or turning off the Siri request. And this is one of those things where I
00:37:31 ◼ ► would have a lot less of a problem with this if Apple said you know what we may use audio clips
00:37:37 ◼ ► that we'll try to anonymize to improve the service. Are you okay with that? And if I say no
00:37:42 ◼ ► then it doesn't send them. But that's not what's happening right now and that bothers me
00:37:47 ◼ ► a lot. So that's part of this. The other part of it is in the grand scheme of things what is it that
00:37:57 ◼ ► we want these devices that are translating commands to the cloud to do. And for me I feel like the goal
00:38:06 ◼ ► here should be like Apple talks a lot now about doing things on device right like we don't send
00:38:11 ◼ ► your things in the cloud we don't send you know we're processing your photos on device and coming
00:38:16 ◼ ► up with the keywords and doing all the machine analysis like all of these things we do we're
00:38:19 ◼ ► doing on device so that you have complete control over it. Okay well you know what would be great is
00:38:27 ◼ ► if I spoke words into one of your devices that on device that got translated into text and sent to a
00:38:35 ◼ ► server without my audio. But and I appreciate that that might not be as effective in some ways but
00:38:44 ◼ ► we need to go there as well because I don't want my audio sent out of my house. I don't.
00:38:50 ◼ ► You know bottom line I don't and that is something that Apple needs to deal with and I'm disappointed
00:38:58 ◼ ► in Apple here because and maybe there are cultural reasons like I've heard some people say that this
00:39:04 ◼ ► may be something that was a part of Siri all along and so it's just sort of allowed to continue to
00:39:09 ◼ ► happen but like I look at this and say you got to be better than this and the argument that well of
00:39:15 ◼ ► course Apple needs humans to listen to audio even if we accept that to be true okay be transparent
00:39:21 ◼ ► about it and legalese is not transparent and let me opt out without a penalty to me or ideally
00:39:30 ◼ ► let users opt in to improve the service because they don't care but none of that seems to be
00:39:35 ◼ ► happening right now. Yeah and one of the things that the report hinges on a lot is like accidental
00:39:41 ◼ ► activations and the fact that you know the problem and I actually think this is the bigger problem
00:39:48 ◼ ► I don't care if people are reviewing the questions I asked to Siri. What I care about is when Siri is
00:39:57 ◼ ► listening to me and I didn't ask and that data goes to depending on your settings all of these
00:40:04 ◼ ► things if they get triggered they get triggered silently and you don't know that it's listening
00:40:09 ◼ ► to you until you get like a chime or a I don't know what you said or I don't understand yeah
00:40:16 ◼ ► and at that point that audio is is gone it's gone like that's it it's it's it's out of your house
00:40:22 ◼ ► and that so you make a good point that one way to one way to do it would be to frame it around
00:40:28 ◼ ► accidental activations and saying I don't I want to opt out of sending that information to improve
00:40:33 ◼ ► the service because I'm not comfortable with 30 seconds of random room noise from my house being
00:40:39 ◼ ► sent to Apple to be processed by a subcontractor who's going to listen to whatever happened in my
00:40:46 ◼ ► house and then tell their friends about it because they don't care about the privacy or the
00:40:49 ◼ ► confidentiality agreements they signed because it was just a temporary job and etc etc etc. It's like
00:40:54 ◼ ► it's too much. It's like you know we are in this world now where like this is this is what's
00:41:00 ◼ ► happening to us right and it's kind of like it can be awkward you know and and I talk about a lot of
00:41:05 ◼ ► these things of like trade-offs right like privacy is a trade-off in 2019 you know like if you want
00:41:11 ◼ ► to use certain products you have to kind of accept a level of you're going to give up your privacy
00:41:16 ◼ ► but I never really felt like I had to do that with Apple you know like I felt like that's how I feel
00:41:21 ◼ ► with Google that's how I feel with Amazon and I've always kind of felt like there are there are
00:41:27 ◼ ► naturally things that they do that people aren't going to like but we just don't know what they are
00:41:31 ◼ ► right like I'm talking about Apple like this is one of them right that like there's only they are
00:41:37 ◼ ► still going to be doing things that we criticize other companies for because sometimes there are
00:41:41 ◼ ► there's only one way to do it and I think it can be a problem for us to just assume that Apple does
00:41:49 ◼ ► everything perfectly when it comes to privacy and we shouldn't assume that we will get 100
00:41:57 ◼ ► privacy from them just because they act to be better and I think that this is an example of
00:42:03 ◼ ► that like this is not a grab your pitchforks go down to Cupertino and start going wild moment
00:42:08 ◼ ► right that's not what I'm attempting to say here it's more a case of just like don't assume that
00:42:14 ◼ ► Apple are completely perfect at this stuff everybody put your pitchforks down please because
00:42:20 ◼ ► they just like they are doing the same things that other companies that you apparently don't like
00:42:26 ◼ ► their privacy for do as well because sometimes it's the only way something can be done now there's
00:42:31 ◼ ► an argument to be made that well you know Google and Amazon do this and why are why are you holding
00:42:37 ◼ ► Apple to a higher standard then this is just how it works with these things and to that I would say
00:42:43 ◼ ► this is kind of on Apple I hold them to the standard that they set themselves to me publicly
00:42:48 ◼ ► exactly Apple holds itself above its competitors especially Google and Amazon when it comes to
00:42:56 ◼ ► privacy period and do they have to do that no they don't have to do that if Apple would like to back
00:43:01 ◼ ► down on privacy I guess they could go ahead and do that but if they're not going to do that then
00:43:09 ◼ ► this is part of what that entails which is they've got to do better than Amazon and Google not just
00:43:17 ◼ ► act at their level if they're going to hold themselves above the competition they gotta
00:43:21 ◼ ► they gotta behave like it they've gotta change how they do it and that means for something like Siri
00:43:26 ◼ ► they have to say oh boy this is gonna cause problems here and we're gonna have to change
00:43:31 ◼ ► this and we're gonna have to do this you have to do it you have to do it if you're gonna if you're
00:43:35 ◼ ► gonna if you're gonna put that billboard up if you're gonna say in an ad campaign that privacy
00:43:42 ◼ ► is the most important thing on Apple products then you have to when when something like this
00:43:47 ◼ ► comes out you have to look at it long and hard and say you're right you know this is not to our
00:43:53 ◼ ► standards and Apple's response which was on a Friday afternoon it's perfect timing for Apple
00:43:58 ◼ ► right it's like this is when news gets buried and that's when the Guardian posted the story and it
00:44:02 ◼ ► got passed around but like Apple needs to do better with their response than what they did
00:44:06 ◼ ► which was well you know yeah it happens but we don't we don't link the Apple ID so you can't
00:44:12 ◼ ► email the person that you're hearing which is not a great response. All right today's episode is
00:44:20 ◼ ► brought to you by SaneBox. I am sure listening you out there upgrading and listening to this show has
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00:46:43 ◼ ► email inbox under control. Jason I want to talk to you about something that I've seen you tweeting
00:46:52 ◼ ► about something that I've seen you very upset about in our Slack which is the security changes
00:47:00 ◼ ► in macOS Catalina. Can you give me a breakdown of what is going on from a perspective of what is
00:47:07 ◼ ► Apple trying to do and what is the actual result here? Well so I installed the story is that I
00:47:16 ◼ ► installed Catalina last week on my main my main drive. I have a duplicate of it as Mojave on an
00:47:31 ◼ ► external SSD that's where I am right now but I write about this stuff and I need to live on it
00:47:38 ◼ ► because there's a difference between using a pristine beta that's empty of Catalina or any
00:47:45 ◼ ► other beta and using it with the apps you use. You won't get the results right you won't actually
00:47:50 ◼ ► understand how it works unless you're really properly properly using it. Right exactly so I
00:47:58 ◼ ► so this is the idea is is I use that and I learn things about how how Catalina works with my real
00:48:13 ◼ ► apps and my real data great. Within you know minutes of doing this what I discovered is
00:48:28 ◼ ► at WWDC and there's a bunch of new stuff in Catalina for Mac security. They changed a lot
00:48:37 ◼ ► of things. The you know new Mac developer certificates need notarization to pass through
00:48:46 ◼ ► Gatekeeper which is the app that or the piece of the system software that checks to see whether
00:48:51 ◼ ► you're allowed to launch an app. All new software requires notarization. Notarization is the system
00:48:56 ◼ ► where even if you're outside of the Mac App Store you have to send your app to an Apple server and
00:49:00 ◼ ► have them scan it and then approve it and then they cryptographically sign it and send it back
00:49:05 ◼ ► to you and the idea there is that it's been approved by Apple in an automated way. Apple
00:49:10 ◼ ► systems and is tamper proof now if people make changes to it the signature breaks and therefore
00:49:18 ◼ ► it's tamper proof. All existing software before June 1st basically that was built will pass but
00:49:25 ◼ ► anything built after June 1st has to pass has to be notarized to pass Gatekeeper and then there's
00:49:32 ◼ ► a bunch of specific things that also happen. Gatekeeper is scanning everything regardless
00:49:37 ◼ ► of whether it was quarantined or loaded all the malicious stuff can be spotted that way so they
00:49:42 ◼ ► cranked everything up on this and they've also added more user consent requests and you may
00:49:50 ◼ ► remember some of these from Mojave where like you're you want to use automation or you wanted to
00:49:57 ◼ ► use the microphone and you get a thing saying this app needs to use this. It's very iOS like
00:50:02 ◼ ► kind of thing. In Catalina screen recording keyboard input monitoring file access to the
00:50:12 ◼ ► desktop to documents to iCloud drive to cloud storage to removable volumes to network volumes
00:50:19 ◼ ► all of those now require user consent not if the user opens the open dialog box and chooses
00:50:27 ◼ ► something because that is implied user consent but if the app wants to scan your desktop folder to see
00:50:33 ◼ ► what's there at some point without asking you it now in Catalina it has to ask you. So there's a
00:50:40 ◼ ► lot going on here. The motivation is good which is they want to they want to take a system that's
00:50:47 ◼ ► open not like iOS and make it safer because they feel like it's a really scary vector for bad
00:50:54 ◼ ► software and spyware to get on a Mac if it's not something where more permissions are requested
00:51:02 ◼ ► from the user. They want to put up more barriers so that your average Mac user out of the box
00:51:20 ◼ ► in in those scenarios the out-of-box experience of a Catalina upgrade is at least based on what I see
00:51:27 ◼ ► in the beta which I will grant you is a beta it could change and the software that I'm using is
00:51:33 ◼ ► largely not updated for Catalina yet and may be modified to not trigger this stuff as much
00:51:39 ◼ ► but with all of that preamble I install Catalina and every time I turn around I've got like
00:51:48 ◼ ► five dialogue boxes popping up saying can I look at the desktop can I look at documents can I
00:51:54 ◼ ► show you notifications I can't launch this app because it might contain malware can I open the
00:52:01 ◼ ► desktop can I open the documents and it to me it crosses a line where it feels like my Mac is now
00:52:10 ◼ ► actively trying to get in my way and prevent me and judging me and preventing me from doing things
00:52:15 ◼ ► I want it to do and the fact that Apple has a dialogue box in the Catalina beta that says
00:52:23 ◼ ► basically if something isn't notarized uses the word malicious yeah Apple can't scan this thing
00:52:30 ◼ ► for malicious intent and that you have to go to system preferences and and click the lock and put
00:52:35 ◼ ► in your password and then click a box that appears to run software that doesn't get Apple's approval
00:52:42 ◼ ► is aggressive but that route of going to system preferences to say I want to open this app is not
00:52:48 ◼ ► actually shown to the user in any way either you have to work it out on your own yeah well for the
00:52:53 ◼ ► for the malicious software warning yes it's you it doesn't tell you where to go because what it
00:52:57 ◼ ► wants to do is prevent you this is apps that aren't notarized right like this yeah this is what that
00:53:02 ◼ ► is okay yeah so this is a hard challenge they want the Mac to be more secure especially by default
00:53:10 ◼ ► and I get it I so I appreciate their security motivations here I feel like they need to be
00:53:19 ◼ ► better this isn't me telling Apple it needs to be better again I guess that's a trend today
00:53:23 ◼ ► there's Apple needs to be better at how this is presented to the user and when I was complaining
00:53:28 ◼ ► about this on Twitter I saw a bunch of suggestions I don't know I mean my gut feeling is that is that
00:53:33 ◼ ► the security people are on it for Catalina and maybe they are so on it that the people who are
00:53:46 ◼ ► your improvement of the security experience on the Mac is degrading the user experience on the Mac
00:53:52 ◼ ► it seems to me at least in these betas that that the the balance is way over on the security side
00:53:58 ◼ ► and that the bat the user experience is degraded because of it so people on Twitter suggested I saw
00:54:04 ◼ ► one suggestion that was very clever that was could you do like a per app permission thing where you
00:54:08 ◼ ► could say you know what I trust this app just let it do what it needs to do that that John Gruber
00:54:16 ◼ ► mentioned the idea and it's something that I wrote about a little while ago of like a developer mode
00:54:20 ◼ ► essentially where as a power user I can go in somewhere and say just let this stuff have access
00:54:27 ◼ ► right like I don't care I want I don't want you throwing dialogues up in my face I try lots of
00:54:33 ◼ ► stuff that you're not going to like computer let me do it because it's you're my computer let me do
00:54:39 ◼ ► it and you know like when I first had a Chromebook I found out very quickly there's a developer mode
00:54:46 ◼ ► that turns off a bunch of stuff but like Apple has removed the just let me do whatever option from
00:54:52 ◼ ► the security system preferences it's not there anymore it's sort of like Mac App Store only or
00:54:57 ◼ ► Mac App Store and verified and that's been the case for I think I think it's in Mojave it might
00:55:02 ◼ ► have been even a version before so I can't say no no no I'm cool let me do whatever I also think some
00:55:08 ◼ ► of the security um just some of the security measures that they've got here seem a little
00:55:15 ◼ ► too much to me um and I get what they want to do here which is say you know what an app shouldn't
00:55:22 ◼ ► be able to rifle through your files without you knowing that's what they're saying here when they
00:55:27 ◼ ► ask for desktop and documents and iCloud and cloud storage is software shouldn't be able to look at
00:55:33 ◼ ► your files without you either giving permission or you picking a file for it I get it and yet as
00:55:42 ◼ ► a Mac user for 20 years I kind of feel like if it's apps I installed and apps I ran and it's
00:55:52 ◼ ► looking at the desktop or the documents folder that I could not be more clear with what I allow
00:56:03 ◼ ► which is if it's my app and that's my desktop I'm okay with it because that's what the desktop is
00:56:10 ◼ ► for now I get you know again I get the motivation here but there's a part of me that just thinks
00:56:19 ◼ ► get out of my way that the system needs to get out of my way and and if you are really concerned
00:56:24 ◼ ► about apps doing bad things by reading the contents of your desktop folder then we need
00:56:31 ◼ ► to find another way to to secure a Mac user without making your Mac fight you be and I feel
00:56:37 ◼ ► like what Apple has done at least in the beta is they've moved over into what is essentially
00:56:41 ◼ ► like a dark pattern where when when they throw up a dialogue box with scare words and don't tell you
00:56:48 ◼ ► where you where to go next they say throw out this file they literally it's like you tried to launch
00:56:52 ◼ ► an app that's not notarized what we'll tell you is it could be mal malicious and we won't tell you
00:56:58 ◼ ► where to go and you should probably throw it in the trash that's it that is an attempt by Apple
00:57:04 ◼ ► to degrade the user experience to the point where you give up and just do what they say and for me
00:57:12 ◼ ► while I appreciate that maybe as a default behavior that's okay and maybe even a good idea
00:57:18 ◼ ► for people who are not advanced computer users to not install malware on their computer and realize
00:57:23 ◼ ► what they're doing for me it's unacceptable behavior and then let's go to the other part
00:57:30 ◼ ► of this which is okay what about those regular people well if they're getting pummeled with
00:57:33 ◼ ► dialog boxes Microsoft learned this lesson with Vista if they're getting pummeled with requests
00:57:38 ◼ ► to approve this and approve that and approve this you know what happens they just always say yes
00:57:44 ◼ ► so what is the situation if you're a Mac App Store app you're great you're a Mac App Store app I
00:57:57 ◼ ► think I think you may have to ask permission for certain entitlements anyway but it's a lot easier
00:58:03 ◼ ► because you've been approved and checked and and and the App Store apps are a cut above but they
00:58:10 ◼ ► may still have to ask for those same permissions it's the idea of like granting full disk access
00:58:15 ◼ ► and things like that where and and what seems to be happening here is like desktop and documents
00:58:22 ◼ ► are like more granular versions of full disk access that aren't as scary because they don't
00:58:27 ◼ ► need the full disk but you know but the goal here is really Apple wants to bring all of the
00:58:33 ◼ ► as much of the App Store experience to out of the App Store as possible because they know the Mac
00:58:40 ◼ ► App Store is not the only game in town on the Mac unlike on iOS and they said somebody from Apple
00:58:48 ◼ ► stood on stage at WWDC and said we're not going to prevent Mac users from launching the software
00:58:53 ◼ ► that they want to launch you know so what what what I read that it was like oh well that's good
00:58:59 ◼ ► you're not going to like make it impossible for me to launch software that I want to launch
00:59:06 ◼ ► but you can do it but it's not it's not going to be easy we're going to get in your way we're going
00:59:12 ◼ ► to shame you we're going to make you guess where you need to go to make it work and then eventually
00:59:16 ◼ ► we'll make it work and so as a result you know if for all those rebels who don't want to be in
00:59:22 ◼ ► the App Store or or can't be in the App Store because their apps don't fit the guidelines
00:59:26 ◼ ► essentially and this is one of these kind of not widely discussed stories essentially if you want
00:59:32 ◼ ► to distribute Mac software at this point you have to have a Mac developer account and you have to
00:59:38 ◼ ► submit your binary when you're when you do a build and it has to get notarized which means it's being
00:59:43 ◼ ► scanned by Apple and if Apple doesn't like it for some reason you know it doesn't get notarized then
00:59:50 ◼ ► and that's uh really bad. I think my biggest problem here is that like people will upgrade
00:59:56 ◼ ► to Catalina and they will think a bunch of their software is broken. Yes. And and that that's the
01:00:01 ◼ ► thing that I think is difficult here. Yeah because the developers are gonna this is one of the
01:00:05 ◼ ► reasons I think Mac developers are gonna have to rush to support a lot of this stuff is because
01:00:14 ◼ ► really bad but and and again the counter argument here is your if your app is kind of lazy
01:00:23 ◼ ► and you know scans the desktop and or scans the documents folder and triggers that warning
01:00:36 ◼ ► giving without checking and the answer may be a very good answer and this is my problem with it
01:00:41 ◼ ► is it also from Apple's perspective um they're they're the mal worrying about malware is meaning
01:00:48 ◼ ► that apps that are trying to improve the user's experience by scanning their disk now are
01:00:52 ◼ ► triggering a security warning. I don't like that either and I don't like the fact that when you
01:00:58 ◼ ► open a non-notarized app not only does it say it could be malicious it throws the developer under
01:01:05 ◼ ► the bus and says you should contact the developer there's something wrong with them basically is
01:01:10 ◼ ► what it says it says you talk to them it's their problem it's not our problem it's it's their
01:01:14 ◼ ► problem and I don't like that either because that means that people are going to be complaining
01:01:18 ◼ ► and let's pile on one more thing what if you say no what if you say no when it asks for permission
01:01:24 ◼ ► to access something guess what that app is going to break in in all likelihood in some spectacularly
01:01:31 ◼ ► weird way and that's going to lead to more communications with support for that software
01:01:38 ◼ ► developer and now they're going to have to walk you through how to go into system preferences
01:01:42 ◼ ► and find the right pain in order to grant access again so that it does work yeah I'm not nobody
01:01:49 ◼ ► said this was easy and I appreciate that Apple security people are really trying to make the
01:01:53 ◼ ► Mac more secure in a world where the old way of doing computers is being exploited by bad people
01:02:01 ◼ ► that's the bottom line is the old computers used to be really really open and it makes it really
01:02:06 ◼ ► easy for bad people to exploit them in a way that a mobile device is a lot harder but at the same time
01:02:14 ◼ ► the Mac still exists because it's the Mac and it's the old style device and those of us who use it
01:02:21 ◼ ► you know otherwise why do we still have the Mac so there's a limit to that there's a limit to that
01:02:26 ◼ ► and your computer that you own and that you you should not be aggressively getting in your way
01:02:32 ◼ ► and shaming you into not using software you want to use there have and that's that's why I feel like
01:02:40 ◼ ► I understand the motivations of Apple security people but whatever is going on in Catalina right
01:02:46 ◼ ► now it's not good enough it's and and I hope that by the time Catalina reaches us in the fall
01:02:59 ◼ ► nobody wants a repeat of Windows Vista and if you look at what happened to Microsoft they
01:03:03 ◼ ► had to do a whole rethink after Vista because it was too much and it frustrated users and it led
01:03:09 ◼ ► to terrible security because users just gave up and approved everything let's uh let's switch
01:03:14 ◼ ► gears a little bit talk about the never-ending story of the 16-inch MacBook Pro oh did it get
01:03:20 ◼ ► announced okay economic daily news says it is coming in October and it will start at three
01:03:27 ◼ ► thousand dollars digitime says in set that it will be launching in September and it will be a bigger
01:03:32 ◼ ► screen in the same size as the 15-inch body right they'll put a 16-inch screen into the same size
01:03:37 ◼ ► body as the 15 and Ming-chi Roger Kuo is sticking to his guns partly saying that the 16-inch with
01:03:43 ◼ ► the new keyboard is still coming in the fall likely October but he has now adjusted uh his
01:03:48 ◼ ► prediction about the MacBook Air and the Pro with the keyboard saying that this will be in 2020 that
01:03:54 ◼ ► they will get the new keyboard now not this year um but it seems like ever there there's a lot of
01:04:01 ◼ ► smoke to suggest that we will still see the 16-inch MacBook Pro this year all the facts of these
01:04:07 ◼ ► reports are kind of converging and part of me when I see Ming-chi Kuo say okay maybe not maybe it'll
01:04:15 ◼ ► be 2020 for this other stuff um I worry a little bit that it's it's echo chambery where um everybody
01:04:22 ◼ ► looked at all the reports and said oh this doesn't make sense and now they're trying to make sense of
01:04:25 ◼ ► it I hope that it is refined based on on facts on the ground that this is actually what's happening
01:04:31 ◼ ► because it does seem to be converging on the idea that this fall there will be this 16-inch MacBook
01:04:36 ◼ ► Pro that's the you know like what happened with the iPad um when you reduce the bezels you can
01:04:42 ◼ ► make the screen bigger so it won't be a bigger computer but it'll be a bigger screen and the
01:04:47 ◼ ► 15-inch what we think of now is the 15-inch size um for for three grand which is I believe the
01:04:55 ◼ ► highest sale price for a base model of a of a Mac laptop ever. So what does it say about that?
01:05:04 ◼ ► Well I think and I did I wrote about this last week at Macworld um and it took me down an
01:05:11 ◼ ► interesting rabbit hole that led to a great conspiracy theory but. Love a conspiracy theory
01:05:15 ◼ ► you know I love them. I think Apple really believes that if Pro is on the label it's a it should be a
01:05:22 ◼ ► product for professionals and professionals will pay a lot of money for the product that they want
01:05:27 ◼ ► and that they need and that that's good for Apple because it allows them to create these amazing
01:05:31 ◼ ► cutting-edge products that have lots of expensive components in them and the people who are in those
01:05:36 ◼ ► markets where they absolutely need that professional level gear are happy to pay it it's just like the
01:05:40 ◼ ► people who are going to be happy to buy that Pro Display XDR because they don't view it as
01:05:46 ◼ ► a ridiculously overpriced monitor they view it as a ridiculously underpriced studio monitor which is
01:05:54 ◼ ► different perspective right different different industries have different things and what the
01:05:58 ◼ ► Apple's approach to the Mac Pro has taught me anyway is there was a time when Power Macs
01:06:05 ◼ ► which were the Pro Mac desktop were used by all sorts of people power users not just pros and the
01:06:12 ◼ ► iMac was a toy for consumers and that's not true anymore right like if you look at it today the
01:06:18 ◼ ► Mac Pro has been redefined as this incredibly high-end system that is for these people who will
01:06:23 ◼ ► pay for the super high end and I've got an iMac in front of me I have an iMac Pro but like even
01:06:28 ◼ ► the regular iMac is a very very powerful computer most people don't need a pro desktop from Apple
01:06:48 ◼ ► it's going to cost you it's it's three thousand dollars now I imagine it'll come down in price a
01:06:53 ◼ ► little bit over time and that there will be a corresponding 14 inch model presumably to replace
01:06:59 ◼ ► the 13 inch and that'll happen next year and that'll be cheaper still and there'll be a like
01:07:03 ◼ ► a base model of that or maybe that that low-end 13 inch will stick around for a while and eventually
01:07:08 ◼ ► be replaced and eventually you won't have three thousand to get into the the MacBook Pro just
01:07:13 ◼ ► you know high two thousands to get into the 16 inch MacBook Pro that and that's I think what
01:07:22 ◼ ► Apple I'm not trying to make a value judgment here I think that's what Apple wants Apple wants its
01:07:25 ◼ ► pro line to really mean it and they're okay if if people who like the idea of using a pro Mac but
01:07:32 ◼ ► don't actually need it and aren't really willing to pay the high price for that kind of a product
01:07:39 ◼ ► I think they're okay with those those people being turned off a little bit by it the problem is where
01:07:47 ◼ ► do they go and that's the other part of this there's like well okay what other laptops are
01:07:53 ◼ ► there there's the MacBook Air like literally the consumer laptop if those are pro laptops
01:07:57 ◼ ► the consumer laptop is the MacBook Air one model and that yeah so that that's that's weird I feel
01:08:07 ◼ ► like they can do this they can play this game again at the high end with the pro but where is
01:08:11 ◼ ► that mainstream iMac essentially of consumer laptops and is it the MacBook Air if so the
01:08:18 ◼ ► MacBook Air probably needs a little more variety than it has now one model for everybody else and
01:08:23 ◼ ► this is where the conspiracy theory comes in I had a moment while I was thinking about this where I
01:08:27 ◼ ► thought oh this is where arm happens this is consumer laptops using ARM processors from Apple
01:08:36 ◼ ► and that in the long run that may be the definition of what a pro versus a non-pro laptop
01:08:43 ◼ ► from Apple is is we've got our light long battery life not super powerful but powerful enough I mean
01:08:50 ◼ ► you know the the power that's in the iPad pro is already whatever they said 90 percent of laptops
01:08:56 ◼ ► sold last year or something like that it's like it's already pretty good and then if you need
01:09:00 ◼ ► more pro we have the Intel pro processors over here for you folks so I can see what they're doing
01:09:08 ◼ ► here now there's lots of judgments we can make about like a three thousand dollar laptop and
01:09:12 ◼ ► it is this our developers who are the one of the primary pro user groups in the Mac world going to
01:09:20 ◼ ► like this I think there's a lot to be debated there but once I thought of it in the context
01:09:26 ◼ ► of how Apple treats pro products I had that moment where I'm like oh yeah that's what they're doing
01:09:30 ◼ ► here I can subscribe to this conspiracy theory I think I can jump on board of you all right welcome
01:09:36 ◼ ► welcome to the conspiracy bandwagon I get it right like I think that Apple have recently realized
01:09:42 ◼ ► that they can print money with the pro name and they're doing that now and it's a slice of the
01:09:48 ◼ ► market that's willing to pay for the highest end cutting edge most awesome thing with the high
01:09:54 ◼ ► profit margins and why make a product why handicap if I'm Apple my argument is why handicap my
01:10:01 ◼ ► product why limit my product by making it hit a price point that's lower so that my kind of
01:10:08 ◼ ► mid-range customers can buy one when now I'm losing out on having a higher end product that's
01:10:15 ◼ ► more profitable and then I can put I can put more high-end expensive stuff into as well and on the
01:10:22 ◼ ► desktop that's worked pretty well for them all right today's show is also brought to you by our
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01:12:14 ◼ ► show and all of relay FM so we had some summer of fun #askupgradequestions today because we wanted to
01:12:23 ◼ ► end on a lighter note after what has been an upsetting episode for everybody so our first
01:12:28 ◼ ► question comes from Kate and Kate wants to know Myke what was driving Jeremy's boat like now this
01:12:35 ◼ ► is a this is a deep cut here so I'll put a link in the show notes to some Instagram posts from friend
01:12:41 ◼ ► of the show Jeremy Burge who is the chief emoji officer at Emojipedia and the creator of world
01:12:50 ◼ ► emoji day I usually introduce Jeremy to people that I know as the creator of emoji which frustrates
01:12:59 ◼ ► him immensely because that's what people think he actually is a lot of the time I think it's hilarious
01:13:05 ◼ ► Jeremy did not create emoji but we all know Jeremy Burge right Emojipedia but anyway Jeremy lives on
01:13:11 ◼ ► a narrow boat now and sails the canals in the UK and over the weekend me and my wife Idina we went
01:13:19 ◼ ► and we spent some time on the boat and we I drove the boat and it was wonderful Jason boat life is
01:13:24 ◼ ► quite a thing it looked great I love those I love the little little boats and the little canals and
01:13:31 ◼ ► stuff in England and there's a whole like English boating culture where you just kind of move your
01:13:36 ◼ ► boat and then you sleep on your boat and then you go to the pub and you go back to the boat and move
01:13:40 ◼ ► the boat again yeah well summary live what a way to live that's part of my summer of fun Casey wants
01:13:46 ◼ ► to know do you have any summer music recommendations I don't know do you well I really like the new
01:13:55 ◼ ► Taiko album Taiko album Taiko I don't know but it's very chill you know like if you're looking
01:14:00 ◼ ► for some chill on your on your summer playlists I recommend that immensely I don't think I have
01:14:08 ◼ ► anything that I'm that I'm going to put up for this summer I'd spent a lot of time with Apple
01:14:14 ◼ ► music playlists so and I like the alternative genre there's an alternative chill playlist
01:14:22 ◼ ► there's a there's the a-list alternative playlist the alt pop playlist is nice for those kind of
01:14:27 ◼ ► poppy songs of the summer there's a lot of good stuff in there so I just I just use the Apple
01:14:32 ◼ ► music playlist they're great Thomas wants to know what is your favorite beach activity frisbee
01:14:37 ◼ ► volleyball surfing something else Jason what's your favorite beach activity reading that's
01:14:44 ◼ ► perfectly fine for me my friend and then and then you walk into the water and let the let the the
01:14:50 ◼ ► water go on your on your feet and maybe more of your body and you cool off and then you go back
01:14:54 ◼ ► out I do often bring a frisbee to the beach I have done that and that's fun too to throw a frisbee
01:15:02 ◼ ► around or a nerf football it's another thing it's a American football brain ball American nerf
01:15:08 ◼ ► you could use a brain ball but it would get sandy and I'm hoarding the brain balls my favorite beach
01:15:15 ◼ ► activity is getting in the ocean I like getting in the ocean yeah it's great if it's my favorite
01:15:19 ◼ ► as long as you're at the ocean with that beach Zach wants to know what is your pool side or by
01:15:25 ◼ ► the beach beverage of choice oh that's a good question well I would I used to say beer but
01:15:33 ◼ ► I can't drink most beer now so that is sad so I'm gonna I have a I'm really liking there's a cider
01:15:41 ◼ ► from a place in Oregon that I really like that's a pineapple flavored apple cider pineapple apple
01:15:51 ◼ ► cider that's very good it's all about the pineapple mic so that's a that's a good one for me and my
01:15:57 ◼ ► classic poolside beverage of choice which I can still do with gluten-free beer is a version of the
01:16:05 ◼ ► old British classic the lager top oh lovely where beer and lemonade beer and lemonade but not
01:16:12 ◼ ► lemonade like American lemonade like Sprite yes although you know what American lemonade works
01:16:19 ◼ ► great too okay okay cool this was this one a funny thing for me the first time one of the first times
01:16:24 ◼ ► I came to America when I was of drinking age and I asked for a vodka and lemonade and was very just
01:16:29 ◼ ► very confused bartender just very very confused I had no idea that it would be such a problem but it
01:16:34 ◼ ► was um I I don't have a specific drink that I like but I like to peruse a cocktail menu if such a
01:16:41 ◼ ► thing is available to me at the poolside nice area that I'm at Benjamin wants to know as fellow glasses
01:16:47 ◼ ► boys I like that we're all glasses boys how do you enjoy the ocean without losing your frames
01:16:52 ◼ ► I take them off I take them off that's right or you lose them that's that both of those things
01:16:58 ◼ ► have happened to my vision is not so bad that I can't see without my glasses I can still see with
01:17:03 ◼ ► my glasses I can't see very well at all without my glasses but I can I can see well enough to know
01:17:11 ◼ ► where I am and which degree the shore is or which direction the shore is I can do that um and so
01:17:18 ◼ ► that uh that has to be it I when I have tried to go into the surf with my glasses on you know what
01:17:24 ◼ ► happens they the surf comes over my head and knocks my glasses off and then we have to walk around and
01:17:29 ◼ ► find my glasses floating in the water all they get like super dirty and you can't see anymore right
01:17:34 ◼ ► because the salt exactly water it's so I was actually thinking after our our recent trip to
01:17:39 ◼ ► Hawaii that I may actually see about getting some prescription goggles that's a good call
01:17:47 ◼ ► so that I can just put those on and go out there and I can still see and also not have my glasses
01:17:58 ◼ ► Two Towns Cider House is the name of the company that makes Pacific pineapple so check that out
01:18:04 ◼ ► cider people follow-on question from Leafy when it gets really sunny do you rock the shades over
01:18:09 ◼ ► glasses look or the shades on contacts look or do you just bear the sun with only glasses
01:18:14 ◼ ► Leafy has left out what I think is the best situation it's just to get prescription sunglasses
01:18:19 ◼ ► which is what I do I have prescription sunglasses and I have uh sunglass clips that clip on
01:18:26 ◼ ► clip ons and therefore I don't need to carry around two pairs of glasses I just have a little
01:18:32 ◼ ► little clips I think I've seen the Jason Snell clip on if you've been outside with me in the
01:18:37 ◼ ► sun you have I believe I've seen that Brian asked if you could make any piece of tech beach proof
01:18:43 ◼ ► what would it be so I took this to be quite literal right like beach proof for me would
01:18:50 ◼ ► mean that it is impervious to everything that I would maybe have a problem with at the beach so
01:18:56 ◼ ► for example I want to be my iPhone I would want to not get greasy from sun cream and I want to still
01:19:01 ◼ ► be able to see it in the sun that's good I feel like we've come a long way with beach proof tech
01:19:07 ◼ ► like the Kindle now being on top of everything else it's waterproof so it's basically completely
01:19:14 ◼ ► beach proof now and that's great the iPhone water resistant also good but you're right it could be
01:19:20 ◼ ► a little bit better and then I had I was in the water with my Apple watch and that was really
01:19:26 ◼ ► great because it is fine in the water now so I'm not sure I've got anything air pods maybe I don't
01:19:36 ◼ ► know that's about all like I feel like the beach tech situation is pretty decent now all right we
01:19:43 ◼ ► have a question from Elizabeth lake or ocean oh ocean ocean right for sure for sure I mean John
01:19:51 ◼ ► Syracuse I can make his comments about mud beaches on mud lakes and you know what a mountain lake can
01:19:56 ◼ ► be delightful but but the ocean is the best especially if you get a protected like inlet or
01:20:05 ◼ ► something but yeah the ocean is is the way to go and we have a question from stay how do you pick
01:20:12 ◼ ► the type of vacation that you go on next wow well for for us it is a function of what time of year
01:20:20 ◼ ► it is and our you know where have we been recently and do we have a plan and do we have a budget and
01:20:26 ◼ ► all of those things so it's a it's a very complicated process and then for me additionally
01:20:31 ◼ ► it's how long has it been since we've been to Hawaii because if it's been too long then I just
01:20:35 ◼ ► want to go back to Hawaii because that's my favorite place but you know so we'll right now
01:20:42 ◼ ► we're doing a bunch of stuff where I'm going to Oregon like six times in five months because
01:20:47 ◼ ► my daughter is going to the University of Oregon so we're doing a lot of trips to Oregon and so
01:20:52 ◼ ► that's taking up a lot of our travel time and then there are family things Lauren's family especially
01:20:57 ◼ ► they often will do family get-togethers and so that's why I was in Idaho in the winter because
01:21:02 ◼ ► they did a thing for my father-in-law's birthday I'm hoping to do a big milestone kind of vacation
01:21:10 ◼ ► next year so we're talking about that and where that might be and I have a big milestone wedding
01:21:15 ◼ ► anniversary coming up in a few weeks and we're trying to figure that one out too so it really is
01:21:19 ◼ ► it's an art and not a science and there's a lot of variables so I don't have a method beyond
01:21:25 ◼ ► you know you just kind of got to go with it you place and also how long has it been since I've
01:21:34 ◼ ► feel like doing like they say art not a science there was a there was a period where a lot of our
01:21:40 ◼ ► vacations got dragged around by events and this I know happens to you too where you you do travel
01:21:45 ◼ ► and then you're like oh well if we're gonna go there then I guess that's that's a big thing for
01:21:49 ◼ ► us yeah and that can be good it can also get frustrating so like we did those macworld cruises
01:21:54 ◼ ► for a bunch of years and it was really great because it was a a cheap cruise because like I
01:22:01 ◼ ► was covered because I was speaking on it and all that and that was great the problem was that after
01:22:05 ◼ ► a few years of that literally every vacation we took was just determined by where the cruise
01:22:09 ◼ ► itinerary was and it was a cruise and you know even for a cheap cruise after you do like four
01:22:16 ◼ ► or five of them in a row you think I need to not do this anymore so I prefer having more control
01:22:23 ◼ ► over my vacation life but sometimes that happens where like we why did we spend a week in Europe
01:22:30 ◼ ► last year or week and a half in Europe last year it was because we were coming to your wedding
01:22:35 ◼ ► and so we're like okay well we've got a trip that we're going to let's build a vacation around it
01:22:39 ◼ ► and sometimes that happens too which is great last question comes from Noah and Noah asked a
01:22:45 ◼ ► wonderful question I'm so pleased somebody asked Jason how is your outside Ikea furniture pillows
01:22:52 ◼ ► serving you this summer people may remember Frozone Quest for episode 213 of Upgrade how are
01:22:59 ◼ ► they doing they're doing great they're outside right now you can sit on them they provide a
01:23:06 ◼ ► cushion and they're they're lovely and when we have have people over we can entertain them and
01:23:13 ◼ ► they can sit on the cushions and it's nice I need to buy a couple more and it's one of those things
01:23:19 ◼ ► where one of these days I'll go over to Ikea and see if they are selling them but I'm not ordering
01:23:23 ◼ ► them online thank you to everybody who sent in a summer of fun hashtag ask upgrade question if you
01:23:30 ◼ ► would like to send in and ask an upgrade question which is more regular for next week's episode feel
01:23:35 ◼ ► free to do that with the hashtag ask upgrade on twitter and they go into a list for us to pick
01:23:40 ◼ ► up on thank you for everybody who sent one in today and who sends them in all the time we really
01:23:44 ◼ ► really appreciate it don't forget we're back next week but on Tuesday and we'll be talking about the
01:23:50 ◼ ► apple results among many other things let's see if we can make the apple results a summer of fun
01:23:54 ◼ ► topic Jason what about that I don't know how we're going to do that yet but maybe I'll think about it
01:24:12 ◼ ► again that is Pingdom, SaneBox and TextExpander for their support of this episode don't forget
01:24:18 ◼ ► in case you have forgotten and you want to rectify that we're going to be doing a live show in San
01:24:24 ◼ ► Francisco on August 22nd big relay fm live show I'll be there Jason will be there we're working
01:24:30 ◼ ► on some stuff we've got some really exciting things going on for that so still got a few
01:24:34 ◼ ► tickets left tickets are going to sell out for this we are moving towards it being sold out so