Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 199. Today's show is brought to you very kindly by

00:00:16 ◼   ► Hello, PDF Pen 10 from Smile, and Pingdom. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Jason Snow. Hi,

00:00:22 ◼   ► Jason Snow. Hi, Myke Hurley. It's good to be here. It is today that we say, uh, we say goodbye.

00:00:29 ◼   ► to the spring on this show. Yes, yes, we just entered into summer in terms of sort of astronomically

00:00:39 ◼   ► it's summer but we're also right on the verge of the summer of fun. Can you feel it? It's

00:00:46 ◼   ► gonna be here. It's gonna be here very, very soon. Next week. Next week and we'll give

00:00:51 ◼   ► you a little bit more details about the summer of fun a little later on today but we must

00:00:55 ◼   ► start as we always do with the #snowtalkquestion and today's comes from Mark. And Mark wants

00:01:00 ◼   ► to know, "Jason, can you name one of your favorite childhood toys?"

00:01:05 ◼   ► You phrased that sort of like it's a quiz. Are you able to?

00:01:08 ◼   ► Well, I can. You know why I actually rewrote it a little

00:01:11 ◼   ► bit to say that way? Because I don't know if I can really think of many.

00:01:16 ◼   ► Hmm, interesting. I can, and listeners to The Incomparable will not be surprised when

00:01:22 ◼   ► I say this, my favorite childhood toys were the Micronauts, which were a very, if you

00:01:29 ◼   ► were my age, they were an indelible part of your childhood. There's actually a moment

00:01:35 ◼   ► in the TV show Freaks and Geeks where the one character's dad says, "We bought all those

00:01:42 ◼   ► Micronauts for you," or something. I was like, "Oh boy, this is absolutely era-specific stuff."

00:01:47 ◼   ► The Micronauts were a line of toys. They were based on Japanese toys but they were rolled

00:01:52 ◼   ► out by a company named MeeGo in the US. And what was interesting about them is that they

00:01:57 ◼   ► were all kind of like interchangeable. They were all basically on the same scale. So there

00:02:02 ◼   ► were cheap ones that were made of plastic.

00:02:03 ◼   ► Tim: These are some weird looking toys. I'm looking at Google image search right now.

00:02:07 ◼   ► David Buehler Yeah. There were cheap ones. So there were

00:02:09 ◼   ► the guys, the small figures and there were ones that were made of plastic that were called

00:02:13 ◼   ► the time travelers and there were ones that were made of diecast metal. So some of them

00:02:16 ◼   ► were metal. They were super high quality, actually. But they were all the same scale.

00:02:21 ◼   ► They all had like, the hands could come off. They had vehicles, all the vehicles were the

00:02:26 ◼   ► right size. There were these little holes in the little circles, like ports in the backs

00:02:31 ◼   ► of the people that you could stick them on a seat in a vehicle or in a little hatch inside

00:02:36 ◼   ► a robot. They could fit in the robots. And then the robots also, which were bigger and

00:02:42 ◼   ► plastic, they could come apart and like there was a big red robot called Biotron and he

00:02:48 ◼   ► had treads on his back and it looked kind of cool but you could also like disassemble

00:02:52 ◼   ► him and turn him into a car because there were battery slots in his sides and the treads,

00:02:58 ◼   ► you could make him into a tank basically that one of the other micronauts could drive and

00:03:01 ◼   ► you flip the switch and the treads would roll. So there were all sorts of vehicles, all sorts

00:03:06 ◼   ► of characters, cool robots, I still have, I don't actually still have most of my Micronauts,

00:03:13 ◼   ► they all got thrown away or sold against my will, but I do have, eBay is a wonderful thing,

00:03:20 ◼   ► I do have a few that I've bought that were my favorites that I have on a shelf that are

00:03:26 ◼   ► awesome like the Biotron and the Microtron robots because they're kind of cool robots.

00:03:30 ◼   ► So that was my favorite toy and my friends and I like, I could tell you which vehicle

00:03:35 ◼   ► - I'm looking at the Biotron right here on Google images.

00:03:39 ◼   ► That's a pretty cool looking thing.

00:03:41 ◼   ► - It's a cool robot, right?

00:03:43 ◼   ► So, and yeah, and you could disassemble them

00:03:45 ◼   ► and turn them into a tank, which was also kind of cool.

00:03:47 ◼   ► So they were fun.

00:03:48 ◼   ► And the idea, which I always thought was great,

00:03:51 ◼   ► was that the core idea was that they were interchangeable

00:03:53 ◼   ► parts so that you could take the head off of one

00:03:56 ◼   ► and put it on another one and they all fit in the same,

00:03:59 ◼   ► different vehicles and the vehicles often would come apart

00:04:02 ◼   ► and could go back together.

00:04:04 ◼   ► it's overstating it to say they were like,

00:04:06 ◼   ► what if you made action figures and vehicles

00:04:08 ◼   ► that were like Lego in the sense that all of them

00:04:11 ◼   ► could kind of like be rebuilt in different ways?

00:04:13 ◼   ► It's probably overstating it, but it was kind of like that.

00:04:16 ◼   ► And that was like, when I was in first grade,

00:04:18 ◼   ► I will tell you that was the toy that everybody wanted

00:04:23 ◼   ► and it was pretty great.

00:04:25 ◼   ► - What did the Micronauts actually like do in,

00:04:27 ◼   ► was it a comic or like a TV show?

00:04:31 ◼   ► It became a comic after the toys became such a wild success.

00:04:38 ◼   ► They made a comic of it.

00:04:39 ◼   ► And the funny thing is then that the comic book

00:04:41 ◼   ► lasted longer than the toys lasted.

00:04:43 ◼   ► The comic book lasted way longer.

00:04:46 ◼   ► And they have since kind of rebooted the-- they've

00:04:49 ◼   ► done new versions of the comic.

00:04:50 ◼   ► It's Mico's intellectual properties now owned by Hasbro,

00:04:55 ◼   ► I think.

00:04:55 ◼   ► And so they're talking about making a movie based on it,

00:04:58 ◼   ► which will be terrible because it'll be in the Transformers

00:05:00 ◼   ► universe presumably and they've got they've rebooted different versions of the comics

00:05:06 ◼   ► but the original Marvel comic was my favorite comic book growing up and I did a whole episode

00:05:12 ◼   ► about Micronauts on Antony Johnston's unjustly maligned podcast so maybe we can put a link

00:05:17 ◼   ► to that in the show notes but yeah that was my favorite my favorite my favorite comic

00:05:22 ◼   ► book my favorite toys as a kid.

00:05:24 ◼   ► Wow that that was actually really interesting you know I've heard you mention the Micronauts

00:05:28 ◼   ► a bunch and I always thought it was just--

00:05:30 ◼   ► what they looked like. Well I always thought it was just a comic book. I don't know if

00:05:33 ◼   ► I ever recall you mentioning that they were toys like on The Incomparable. Like I have

00:05:38 ◼   ► always heard you mention them and then because they were on the, you always used to mention

00:05:41 ◼   ► it on The Incomparable, I assumed it was a TV show or a comic book, not a toy line that

00:05:46 ◼   ► then got turned into it. Because that's quite rare right? That it goes from toy to comic.

00:05:50 ◼   ► It's usually the other way around. Right. No this was, this was a, that was the era

00:05:57 ◼   ► of sort of merchandising tie-ins and all of that. So that's what they were trying to do

00:06:02 ◼   ► there is we have a popular toy line. And also, I mean, we have a popular space-themed toy

00:06:07 ◼   ► line. Star Wars is huge. Marvel Comics is looking for Star Wars-like properties to turn

00:06:13 ◼   ► into comics to tap into the market of kids who love Star Wars and, it turns out, kids

00:06:17 ◼   ► who love these space-themed, sci-fi-themed toys. It's perfect. And they got some very

00:06:25 ◼   ► good writers and artists to work on that and strangely it actually outlived the popularity

00:06:32 ◼   ► of the toys because it was a good comic too.

00:06:34 ◼   ► Well there you go. It's a great question from Mark. If you would like to send in a Snail

00:06:40 ◼   ► Talk question for the future just send out a tweet with the hashtag SnailTalk and it

00:06:43 ◼   ► goes into a sheet for us to pull from at a future date. Thank you Mark for that.

00:06:47 ◼   ► I have some follow up on spam calling apps. So in Ask Upgrade last week we were talking

00:06:52 ◼   ► about some apps to try and block those local spam calls, like local number spam calls.

00:06:58 ◼   ► And I just wanted to round up a few from Upgrading listeners who have gone out and they've done

00:07:05 ◼   ► the work for us. Like Jason, Ben recommended Nomorobo. So there's another, but I think

00:07:12 ◼   ► you said you'd stopped using it, Jason, is that right?

00:07:14 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah, I have used it occasionally. I think one of the problems with it is that

00:07:18 ◼   ► it struggles with the local exchange problem of like it looks like it's a local number.

00:07:24 ◼   ► It's not necessarily on a blacklist. So I but I haven't tried it in a little while.

00:07:29 ◼   ► I have it on my I actually have it on my landline that's that's through the cable company that

00:07:33 ◼   ► the phone that I've had for like 20 years. They bundle nomorobo with that. So it's it's

00:07:40 ◼   ► doing some it's actually pretty great because that's the phone number that has been collected

00:07:44 ◼   ► and is on every phone spam list. But I haven't tried it on my iPhone.

00:07:49 ◼   ► And then I've got a couple more. Alan and Brad both use something called Hia. H-I-Y-A.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Of course, all the links to these will be in the show notes. Ed uses an app called WideProtect.

00:08:00 ◼   ► And another Brad likes ExchangeBlocker as well. So there's a bunch of options there

00:08:05 ◼   ► for you if you want to go and try those out to see if you can get those spam calls under

00:08:10 ◼   ► control. Should we do some upstream? There's been

00:08:13 ◼   ► a lot happening. Yeah, let's do it. So we, in our ability to try and track what's going

00:08:21 ◼   ► to happen with Fox, Disney have upped their deal. Disney has now increased their deal

00:08:27 ◼   ► to $71.3 billion, so it's more than Fox. And they have an excuse for it. They said, "Well,

00:08:34 ◼   ► streaming is even more valuable now than it was six months ago, and so we're going to

00:08:37 ◼   ► increase our deal." It's like, "Yeah, okay, sure." And that's a--what's also interesting

00:08:40 ◼   ► is because one of the arguments for the Comcast deal is that it's a cash deal and Disney's

00:08:46 ◼   ► was a stock deal. So this new offer is half cash, half stock and basically if you're a

00:08:50 ◼   ► Fox shareholder up to 50% you basically get to choose do you want the cash or do you want

00:08:56 ◼   ► Disney stock.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Peter: And frankly like Fox are doing pretty good out of this now the fact that these two

00:09:02 ◼   ► companies are fighting over them and it's I think as far as we're aware it's still investors

00:09:07 ◼   ► choosing sometime in July what they're going to do.

00:09:10 ◼   ► Yeah. Ben, I mean, the board prefers the Disney offer and they still prefer the Disney offer.

00:09:15 ◼   ► Well, I'm sure they prefer even more now a bit.

00:09:18 ◼   ► Yeah, even more. But we'll see what the shareholders do. We'll see if Comcast responds.

00:09:23 ◼   ► Ben Thompson wrote an interesting piece in his Stratechery newsletter where he said,

00:09:28 ◼   ► you look different parts of Fox have different value to the two companies. And he kind of makes

00:09:38 ◼   ► makes the argument that he thinks maybe Comcast ultimately would find more value in Fox's

00:09:46 ◼   ► assets than Disney. Because basically what he said was, to super summarize it, is that

00:09:55 ◼   ► Comcast has limited options to expand what they want to do and this is a good fit for

00:10:02 ◼   ► them. Disney, if they didn't get this, has a bunch of other pieces of content that they

00:10:08 ◼   ► could they could pick up pieces other other other companies that have assets

00:10:12 ◼   ► similar to Fox so what he was saying was he thinks that it's possible Comcast

00:10:17 ◼   ► will overbid and outbid Disney because they have fewer options other than this

00:10:24 ◼   ► fewer alternatives and that Disney Disney has other things that they could

00:10:30 ◼   ► do but we'll see how it goes I mean I think the right now the key is that the

00:10:35 ◼   ► Fox board prefers the Disney offers and and they already have a done deal with

00:10:42 ◼   ► them and in fact they can't like divvy up the pieces because Disney already has

00:10:47 ◼   ► an agreement with Fox to buy them and so they would actually pay a penalty this

00:10:51 ◼   ► is that's part of the game that's going on here is the Disney has a deal with

00:10:55 ◼   ► Fox to buy them and if Comcast buys them out instead if they take that deal they

00:11:00 ◼   ► are breaking the deal with Disney they have to pay a penalty which is it's

00:11:03 ◼   ► nothing, it's like a billion dollars, but they consider it nothing when all this kind

00:11:08 ◼   ► of money is being thrown around. But that also precludes Disney and Comcast from like

00:11:14 ◼   ► negotiating a deal where they kind of divvy up the resources of Fox into, "You take this,

00:11:20 ◼   ► I'll take this." So it'll be fascinating to watch it and it will have huge ramifications

00:11:25 ◼   ► for the entertainment business regardless of who gets it.

00:11:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I understand the point that Ben Thompson's trying to make there, right? Like about who it benefits more.

00:11:35 ◼   ► But I will say that like, kind of my feeling on this would be that we don't necessarily know what Disney's reason is.

00:11:46 ◼   ► And if their reason is to acquire the characters that Fox owns, like that's worth a lot to Disney.

00:11:54 ◼   ► Disney know that now, right? Like, buying up popular characters or the rights for characters

00:12:00 ◼   ► has become Disney's M.O. And like, yeah, there are other characters, but Fox has really good

00:12:06 ◼   ► ones. Yeah, Fox has a lot. I mean, the intellectual property, it fits right into what Disney's

00:12:12 ◼   ► trying to do, which is convert into a streaming-based, direct-from-consumer entertainment company,

00:12:19 ◼   ► which absolutely makes sense. Like, if you have the entire back catalogue of The Simpsons

00:12:24 ◼   ► to put on your streaming service,

00:12:27 ◼   ► that's gonna do you pretty well, I think.

00:12:29 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah.

00:12:31 ◼   ► So we'll see what happens.

00:12:34 ◼   ► There's a lot going on.

00:12:35 ◼   ► - Talking of which, IGTV.

00:12:38 ◼   ► Instagram has launched a brand new app and service

00:12:42 ◼   ► called IGTV, Instagram Television is what that is short for,

00:12:46 ◼   ► but the brand is IGTV, that's what they're calling it.

00:12:49 ◼   ► It is focused on longer video content.

00:12:52 ◼   ► For most people right now,

00:12:53 ◼   ► These are videos up to 10 minutes in length,

00:12:56 ◼   ► but larger creators, more popular creators,

00:12:58 ◼   ► can post videos up to an hour.

00:12:59 ◼   ► All of the video is in portrait.

00:13:03 ◼   ► Currently there is no ads or monetization for creators,

00:13:06 ◼   ► but Instagram have confirmed they are working on all of this

00:13:10 ◼   ► and just right now they wanna build a base.

00:13:12 ◼   ► Basically the idea is we wanna get people

00:13:14 ◼   ► into the use of it so it's free

00:13:15 ◼   ► and we'll put the ads in later,

00:13:16 ◼   ► which is a perfectly fine business model, right,

00:13:18 ◼   ► for what they're trying to do.

00:13:20 ◼   ► Let's see if it works and then we can sell it.

00:13:22 ◼   ► You can see some of the IGTV content currently in the regular Instagram app.

00:13:26 ◼   ► And it's quite interesting because they seem to have basically built the UI of the IGTV

00:13:31 ◼   ► app inside of the Instagram app as well.

00:13:33 ◼   ► So you can get used to what the UI looks like.

00:13:35 ◼   ► But they're trying to push you out to this new application that they've built.

00:13:40 ◼   ► Instagram now has over a billion active users.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Now, last week, YouTube had their keynote from VidCon and they have 1.9.

00:13:54 ◼   ► Now, that's a lot.

00:13:56 ◼   ► I wouldn't have expected it was that close, which I find to be quite interesting.

00:14:01 ◼   ► So this is why this is making the news and why it is interesting,

00:14:08 ◼   ► because what I think Instagram is going for here is to try and move

00:14:15 ◼   ► the independent content creators away from YouTube.

00:14:18 ◼   ► And I think that they're trying to take the slice of people,

00:14:23 ◼   ► people like MKBHD, people like Hot Ones,

00:14:28 ◼   ► like these huge channels, but they're independent.

00:14:32 ◼   ► They're not Jimmy Kimmel.

00:14:33 ◼   ► They're not James Corden.

00:14:36 ◼   ► I assume they're trying to siphon off

00:14:38 ◼   ► the independent creators and bring them over.

00:14:40 ◼   ► To do this, they're gonna need to get monetization going,

00:14:42 ◼   ► and it needs to be a good offer, but it could work

00:14:45 ◼   ► because creators, independent creators these days

00:14:48 ◼   ► are very frustrated at YouTube, right?

00:14:51 ◼   ► And YouTube are trying to beat this with their,

00:14:54 ◼   ► because they've got these problems in demonetization,

00:14:56 ◼   ► but they announced that they're doing donations

00:14:59 ◼   ► and they're doing, they're basically doing features

00:15:02 ◼   ► that Patreon has and features that Twitch has, right?

00:15:04 ◼   ► They're now gonna offer these baked into the platform.

00:15:07 ◼   ► So there's a lot of movement right now

00:15:09 ◼   ► because clearly YouTube is worried, I think, in a way

00:15:13 ◼   ► that they haven't been in years.

00:15:16 ◼   ► And part of this is what Instagram is doing.

00:15:18 ◼   ► There's going to be some shifts now.

00:15:20 ◼   ► That's why competition is good.

00:15:22 ◼   ► I like competition.

00:15:23 ◼   ► There was a good conversation between Carolina Milanese

00:15:26 ◼   ► and Lisa Schmeiser about this on Download Last Week in episode

00:15:30 ◼   ► 60.

00:15:31 ◼   ► So people should check that out.

00:15:34 ◼   ► And they talked about things also

00:15:35 ◼   ► about lifestyle vloggers and using brands,

00:15:42 ◼   ► having brands capitalize on that.

00:15:44 ◼   ► In other words, having brands fund some of the videos

00:15:50 ◼   ► on Instagram, because there's already

00:15:51 ◼   ► a lot of brand advertising on Instagram.

00:15:53 ◼   ► So the idea that you would take a makeup blogger

00:15:55 ◼   ► and they would be funded by a particular brand of makeup,

00:15:58 ◼   ► and then their videos would be essentially sponsored by them,

00:16:02 ◼   ► and that that's a way to drive people

00:16:04 ◼   ► to be able to use Instagram and make money

00:16:07 ◼   ► and reach that audience.

00:16:08 ◼   ► And so there's a bunch of different angles

00:16:10 ◼   ► that it could take.

00:16:11 ◼   ► But bottom line is, yeah, YouTube's

00:16:13 ◼   ► not going to take it lying down.

00:16:14 ◼   ► But at the same time, YouTube has felt for a long time

00:16:18 ◼   ► that it's got its creators right where it wants them,

00:16:21 ◼   ► because where else are they going to go?

00:16:23 ◼   ► And so having a legitimate competitor

00:16:25 ◼   ► with the deep pockets of Facebook behind it is--

00:16:29 ◼   ► Yes, because that's who you've got to remember, right?

00:16:30 ◼   ► It's Facebook.

00:16:31 ◼   ► like we talk about Instagram, but it's Facebook.

00:16:34 ◼   ► But, you know, a lot of, you know,

00:16:36 ◼   ► if you are a popular YouTuber,

00:16:38 ◼   ► you have a popular Instagram account now too,

00:16:39 ◼   ► because it's a huge platform.

00:16:42 ◼   ► I have played around with IGTV.

00:16:45 ◼   ► A lot of the people that I follow

00:16:46 ◼   ► aren't posting much to it yet,

00:16:49 ◼   ► but I expect that to start to change

00:16:51 ◼   ► quite significantly over the next couple of weeks.

00:16:52 ◼   ► - We didn't mention the most,

00:16:54 ◼   ► the other most interesting part about it is Instagram,

00:16:56 ◼   ► IGTV, vertical video.

00:16:59 ◼   ► So it is vertical video.

00:17:01 ◼   ► is meant to be watched on a phone. Now a lot of YouTube stuff is watched on a phone too,

00:17:05 ◼   ► but YouTube is predominantly horizontal.

00:17:08 ◼   ► Yeah, it is interesting that, I mean, I understand why they're going the vertical video route,

00:17:14 ◼   ► but it's only on phones, this app. I mean, Instagram know their audience, right? And

00:17:19 ◼   ► obviously all of the users are on phones because it's all they offer. But TV, like long form

00:17:25 ◼   ► video content, maybe it would be good to put it on other platforms too, but I don't know

00:17:30 ◼   ► how they would make that work from a visual perspective. If what they want to do is vertical

00:17:34 ◼   ► video, I don't know how it translates to a TV app. I don't know if it ever does. But

00:17:39 ◼   ► I know that a lot of popular YouTubers, they have really significant desktop viewing audiences

00:17:45 ◼   ► because people watch these videos when they're at work. So I'm keen to see if and how Instagram

00:17:51 ◼   ► try and take that kind of stuff on or if they just think to themselves, "No, we're going

00:17:56 ◼   ► and

00:18:09 ◼   ► in

00:18:25 ◼   ► I also recommend going to watch that too to get a point of view from somebody who is deep

00:18:32 ◼   ► within this and has to make some decisions. But he's saying they're working on IGTV content

00:18:39 ◼   ► over at MKBHD headquarters, so I'm keen to see how it all shakes out.

00:18:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I was thinking about similarly with our friend CGP Grey, the idea that maybe it's

00:18:50 ◼   ► just a... It doesn't necessarily have to be either/or. Like maybe there's some content

00:18:55 ◼   ► that's more appropriate for IGTV. Maybe so. And that if you're somebody like MKBHD or

00:19:00 ◼   ► somebody like Gray, like he doesn't do one kind of content. Gray doesn't. He does all

00:19:05 ◼   ► sorts of kinds. He does his core videos, but he does vlogs and he does, you know, he's

00:19:10 ◼   ► streaming live when he's playing a video game and he does all sorts of other things. So

00:19:13 ◼   ► I could see, and he does two podcasts, right? So I could see somebody like him or who I

00:19:19 ◼   ► I know and somebody like MKBHD who I don't know. Thinking about that too, which is an

00:19:25 ◼   ► interesting question of like, what is this going to be good for? And what do I do? And

00:19:29 ◼   ► is there some of the stuff that I do or should start doing that fits better? And we'll see

00:19:33 ◼   ► how it plays out.

00:19:34 ◼   ► Yeah, it's going to take time for people to work out what works there. And I'm looking

00:19:41 ◼   ► forward to seeing that. All right, let's take our first break. And then we do actually have

00:19:44 ◼   ► a little bit more upstream stuff to do today. But I want to thank our first sponsor. It's

00:19:49 ◼   ► new sponsor for Upgrade Jason and it is Holo. Holo make insanely comfortable buckwheat pillows.

00:19:57 ◼   ► I don't know if you've ever tried a buckwheat pillow, you probably haven't. You have to be in

00:20:01 ◼   ► certain situations, places that specifically will have this stuff, but it's really different

00:20:07 ◼   ► to regular fluffy pillows. Holo pillows, buckwheat pillows support your head and neck and they don't

00:20:13 ◼   ► collapse under the weight of your head like a traditional pillow will. Holo stays cool and dry

00:20:17 ◼   ► compared to feather or foam pillows plus buckwheat tends to breathe better meaning it doesn't get warm and humid so you don't need to

00:20:25 ◼   ► Flip over to the cool side of the pillow anymore because it always stays cool

00:20:28 ◼   ► You can also remove or add the filling the buckwheat filling to suit your needs

00:20:33 ◼   ► So your pillow can be just the way that you like it as thin or as thick as you want

00:20:37 ◼   ► People there are people in the world

00:20:39 ◼   ► It's very there was a very popular in Japan where they've been using these types of pillows for years

00:20:44 ◼   ► And also that if you go to like a super fancy hotel and they have like a pillow menu

00:20:48 ◼   ► Which I've actually seen in some places

00:20:50 ◼   ► I don't know why this is a thing but it is buckwheat pillows are there as well

00:20:56 ◼   ► If you if if you want to maybe upgrade to sleep game now

00:20:59 ◼   ► I have one of these and I was really interested in holo because I've been having some neck problems recently and

00:21:07 ◼   ► I

00:21:10 ◼   ► Personally don't like soft pillows. I have typically either had firm pillows or I'll have like multiple soft pillows

00:21:17 ◼   ► I don't like my head sinking in and I've been using a hollow pillow for about three weeks and I

00:21:23 ◼   ► Really really like it now. I can't say to you that this is gonna make any aches or pains that you have go away

00:21:31 ◼   ► But my pains are not getting worse. I actually came back from a trip where I was

00:21:38 ◼   ► Actually when I was at WWDC the pillows were all soft. I came back

00:21:41 ◼   ► I was a wreck because it's not what I'm used to but I've changed to a new pillow my holo pillow and it's working great

00:21:46 ◼   ► For me. I also just really like

00:21:49 ◼   ► The sound that it makes I find it very calming because when you're moving it's like a like a bean baggie type sound

00:21:57 ◼   ► Yeah, and I actually really like that

00:22:00 ◼   ► I like that when I I also in the mornings

00:22:02 ◼   ► I kind of I get my pillow and I put it against my headboard and I sit up and it supports me

00:22:07 ◼   ► But with the hollow pillow it like really supports me because I can basically just like push myself into this thing and it doesn't move

00:22:15 ◼   ► And I really really like this pillow a lot. It's it's really nice

00:22:19 ◼   ► Hollow is made in the USA. They use quality construction and materials

00:22:24 ◼   ► They're certified cotton case is cut and sewn for durability and the buckwheat is grown and milled in the US as well

00:22:30 ◼   ► You're probably curious to try one of these things by now. You should be I

00:22:34 ◼   ► I really recommend giving it a go and you can because they have a sleep on it 60 night

00:22:40 ◼   ► trial.

00:22:41 ◼   ► So if holo isn't right for you, you get 60 days and you can just send it back for a refund.

00:22:45 ◼   ► Go to holopillow.com/upgrade and you can get your own buckwheat pillow and if you buy more

00:22:58 ◼   ► than one they have a special discount of up to $20 off depending on which size you opt

00:23:02 ◼   ► for.

00:23:03 ◼   ► free shipping with every order and 1% of all profits are donated to The Nature Conservancy.

00:23:08 ◼   ► Give it a try if you love it you can keep it if you don't just send it back go to

00:23:12 ◼   ► holopillow.com/upgrade right now and thanks to holo for their support of this show.

00:23:17 ◼   ► I really like it.

00:23:17 ◼   ► Because you see it's buckwheat hulls.

00:23:20 ◼   ► Yeah and that's where the the hull in holo.

00:23:23 ◼   ► Yep.

00:23:25 ◼   ► So we had a question from Joe Steele. Joe Steele says if you were structuring

00:23:30 ◼   ► Apple's secret streaming service. How would you do it?" And then he gave a couple of

00:23:35 ◼   ► little questions that we're gonna answer. So I will say, Jason wrote an article on MacWorld

00:23:43 ◼   ► like this past week, I think, where he actually spoke about some of this stuff in general,

00:23:48 ◼   ► like, which is all coming from our... It's basically a written version of some upstream

00:23:52 ◼   ► stuff, so you can go and read that if you want to.

00:23:54 ◼   ► - The cycle too was also, it was like upstream.

00:23:57 ◼   ► And then I saw John Gruber posted something about it

00:24:01 ◼   ► and tweeted about it.

00:24:04 ◼   ► And he made this statement that was specifically

00:24:07 ◼   ► about like one part of the pricing

00:24:09 ◼   ► and how he thought it would be priced.

00:24:11 ◼   ► And I thought, huh, I don't agree with that.

00:24:13 ◼   ► And I realized every time I've written about this,

00:24:16 ◼   ► I've, because it's tricky.

00:24:18 ◼   ► It's tricky because Apple has so many different options.

00:24:21 ◼   ► And as I say in the Mac world story,

00:24:23 ◼   ► Like, obviously, people have sat in rooms in Cupertino

00:24:27 ◼   ► and debated greatly all their different options.

00:24:30 ◼   ► They have so many different options

00:24:31 ◼   ► to come up with a rollout option

00:24:32 ◼   ► that is the one that they want to do.

00:24:34 ◼   ► But because there are so many options,

00:24:36 ◼   ► like every time I write about it,

00:24:38 ◼   ► I start like seeing all the different options.

00:24:40 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't know.

00:24:41 ◼   ► They got so many different ways that they could go.

00:24:42 ◼   ► So for this Mac world column,

00:24:44 ◼   ► what I set myself was the goal of, what do you think?

00:24:47 ◼   ► Like pick an answer, pick a final answer,

00:24:51 ◼   ► which means I'll probably be wrong.

00:24:53 ◼   ► had somebody tweeted at me and said, well, I don't agree

00:24:55 ◼   ► with what you said at all.

00:24:56 ◼   ► And I said, well, let me put it this way.

00:24:58 ◼   ► I think what I picked is the most likely thing to happen.

00:25:01 ◼   ► I also think it's way less than 50% likely to happen,

00:25:04 ◼   ► because there are so many different options.

00:25:05 ◼   ► That makes any sense?

00:25:06 ◼   ► Like, I think even the most likely option probably

00:25:09 ◼   ► only has like a 10% or 20% chance of happening,

00:25:12 ◼   ► because Apple has so many different choices to pick from.

00:25:14 ◼   ► And we don't know what specific strategy they're going to do.

00:25:19 ◼   ► But for this exercise, I made myself pick,

00:25:22 ◼   ► which is easy because if I make a mistake,

00:25:24 ◼   ► it isn't a billion dollars in content down the drain.

00:25:28 ◼   ► So it's easier for me than it is for the executives.

00:25:30 ◼   ► That's why they pay the executives the big money.

00:25:32 ◼   ► - And they can pay us the big money and we could,

00:25:34 ◼   ► we could at least give them.

00:25:35 ◼   ► - And we can make those decisions for them.

00:25:36 ◼   ► Yes, that's right.

00:25:37 ◼   ► No, we give them out.

00:25:38 ◼   ► No, we give the decisions for free.

00:25:39 ◼   ► - No.

00:25:40 ◼   ► All right, so here are our free decisions.

00:25:42 ◼   ► So first of Joe's questions, pricing.

00:25:45 ◼   ► What do you think the pricing is gonna be?

00:25:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, and this is where Gruber said

00:25:51 ◼   ► he thought that it was going to be bundled with Apple Music because he felt like there

00:25:57 ◼   ► wouldn't be enough content and that they might charge for it eventually, but they wouldn't

00:26:01 ◼   ► at first. And that's what prompted me to write the story because I looked at that and I was

00:26:03 ◼   ► like, "No, I don't agree with that at all." That's something I know. And again, I could

00:26:08 ◼   ► be wrong, but I feel very strongly like they're not spending a billion dollars just to pour

00:26:12 ◼   ► some TV shows into Apple Music. In the long run, the idea is that it's going to be a standalone

00:26:18 ◼   ► If the long run is you want to increase services revenue, bundling it into your streaming music

00:26:23 ◼   ► service is a problem because one, not everybody wants your streaming music service, and two,

00:26:29 ◼   ► not everyone who wants your streaming music service wants your video service.

00:26:32 ◼   ► So I think it's a mistake to do that, and so I wouldn't recommend that Apple do that.

00:26:37 ◼   ► So I'm going to predict that Apple's going to sell this as a standalone service.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Now I decided, and this is -- I realized that this goes against one of my key rules, which

00:26:46 ◼   ► is figure out what you think Apple is going to charge and then expect them to charge more.

00:26:50 ◼   ► I'm going to say that they're going to come out of the gate at $8 a month, which is what

00:26:53 ◼   ► the base Netflix subscription is, except Netflix ramps it up if you have more viewers and if

00:27:00 ◼   ► you have higher quality. And I'm saying $8 a month for the whole thing, like 4K, HDR,

00:27:08 ◼   ► all the people in your family. The reason I say $8 is they're not going to have a lot

00:27:12 ◼   ► of content at launch. So if they can be comparable to Netflix, if they're not coming-- I think

00:27:16 ◼   ► if they want to grow this service, it needs to at least start at a competitive price.

00:27:21 ◼   ► I mean, you could make an argument that they should price it even lower because it's going

00:27:24 ◼   ► to be a smaller amount, but I don't think-- I think there's going to be a limit to that.

00:27:28 ◼   ► I think they could go higher. I think they could go to a mid-tier Netflix subscription

00:27:32 ◼   ► price, but if I had to pick, I'm going to say, I think they're going to kind of undercut

00:27:36 ◼   ► Netflix a little bit, partially because they want to undercut Netflix and not be seen as--

00:27:41 ◼   ► be directly compared to Netflix because they aren't going to have the catalog Netflix does.

00:27:46 ◼   ► I also do think that it will be bundled with Apple Music. That Apple Music subscribers

00:27:50 ◼   ► can subscribe to both and save a little bit of money. I think that's the solution to the

00:27:55 ◼   ► "well what about people who are subscribing to Apple Music?" I think they'll do a bundle

00:27:59 ◼   ► where you get both and save a couple of bucks a month.

00:28:02 ◼   ► I think $10 or you can get it an Apple Music for $15. That's where I think they're gonna

00:28:10 ◼   ► go.

00:28:11 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's reasonable.

00:28:13 ◼   ► The way that I expect they get around the argument of they don't have it much at launch

00:28:17 ◼   ► is that you get the first three months for free and then on stage they'll say "oh we're

00:28:23 ◼   ► launching with these but by the time the trial's up you'll have all of these shows" and then

00:28:27 ◼   ► they'll be like extra ones.

00:28:29 ◼   ► And in my article what I said was I don't think there'll be a three month trial.

00:28:32 ◼   ► I decided to, I decided to envision the rollout in detail. So I decided there'll be a one-month trial.

00:28:37 ◼   ► And what they're going to do is, uh, and we'll get to this later in terms of rollout, but what

00:28:44 ◼   ► they're going to do is they're not going to post like whole seasons of their shows. The first

00:28:48 ◼   ► month they'll post like maybe a half season of some of their shows. And the idea there is I don't

00:28:53 ◼   ► envision them launching entire shows with all the episodes and giving it away for three months,

00:28:59 ◼   ► because they're basically giving away all of those shows and I think they want to hold,

00:29:02 ◼   ► again they could do that, I think they want to hold some of it back so that when your free trial

00:29:07 ◼   ► is up and you want to see more episodes, the episodes are coming sooner and if they have to

00:29:11 ◼   ► wait a year I think it's a little less likely but I you know I think yours is a reasonable scenario.

00:29:16 ◼   ► I just, oh the other thought I had was that for episode one is free of everything forever like on

00:29:21 ◼   ► iTunes and in the TV app like anybody can watch episode one for free. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll

00:29:27 ◼   ► open the app and you'll go to the page which is called Apple TV and you have a like a smorgasbord

00:29:32 ◼   ► of free options that you can just try before you buy. I think that's a really good point.

00:29:36 ◼   ► And we've talked about here but I'll just say it again, I've also put my stake in the ground

00:29:40 ◼   ► and said the service is going to be called Apple TV. Just it's and yes I know there's a box called

00:29:45 ◼   ► Apple TV and there's but there's also an app called TV and I feel like just call it Apple TV.

00:29:50 ◼   ► I think the Apple TV box yeah has Apple TV of course it does because it's the Apple TV box.

00:29:54 ◼   ► And yeah, I won't say what I'm going to say. We're killing these questions. Any live components?

00:30:00 ◼   ► I don't think, I mean, we haven't heard anything about that. I think there are lots of streaming

00:30:06 ◼   ► services that are experimenting with live stuff. I feel like that's a separate issue that if Apple

00:30:11 ◼   ► wanted to do like an over the top service that that would be probably a different feature. But

00:30:18 ◼   ► I don't know. So my guess is no. My guess is not at launch and maybe they'll make some deals for

00:30:22 ◼   ► live content like sports and things later on. It's not impossible that they would do

00:30:28 ◼   ► something crazy like say, "Well, it's going to be $12 a month and include all of our originals

00:30:33 ◼   ► and over-the-top channels from different sources." They could do that. I've heard no rumors to

00:30:40 ◼   ► that effect and I wouldn't guess that is the most likely scenario.

00:30:43 ◼   ► David Tingman I think exactly the same. I think one day

00:30:46 ◼   ► they will try and get some sports stuff because it's valuable, but I don't think they're going

00:30:51 ◼   ► to rush for it and I don't expect like news or anything.

00:30:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:30:57 ◼   ► So, yeah, I don't think there's gonna be, I think it's all gonna be TV shows for a while.

00:31:04 ◼   ► Weekly episodic releases or like dropping all of a season for Binging, what do you think

00:31:09 ◼   ► they're gonna do? You think half seasons, right?

00:31:12 ◼   ► I'm gonna go with half seasons as a compromise that I think might work and what you're seeing

00:31:17 ◼   ► is that Netflix is even doing this now, where Netflix and Amazon are both doing this, where

00:31:22 ◼   ► they're taking orders and they're cutting them in half. So like Arrested Development,

00:31:28 ◼   ► they only dropped half of the episodes, and the other half is dropping at a later time.

00:31:33 ◼   ► Amazon does this, The Tick dropped half the episodes, and then they did it. So there's

00:31:38 ◼   ► experimentation happening where they're not dropping a whole thing. Hulu, on the other

00:31:42 ◼   ► rolls everything out weekly, which is very old school. And you know what? I think it's

00:31:47 ◼   ► possible. I'd never really thought of it before last week when I was writing about this. It's

00:31:51 ◼   ► possible that Apple would just say, "You know what? We like the weekly conversation." I'm

00:31:55 ◼   ► a believer that the binge thing is actually really bad for PR and marketing for TV shows

00:32:01 ◼   ► because nobody talks about like Westworld and The Expanse and things like that. Nobody

00:32:08 ◼   ► the -- everybody's talking about like what happened this week. Whereas with a Netflix

00:32:12 ◼   ► show like Luke Cage drops and like there's an article about the season of Nick -- Nick

00:32:16 ◼   ► Cage. Now that would be a show. Marvel's Nicolas Cage. I don't want to see that show. But Luke

00:32:23 ◼   ► Cage -- they talk about the season of Luke Cage and then they're done and the conversation

00:32:28 ◼   ► moves on.

00:32:29 ◼   ► Matthew: But you can't talk about the water cooler if everybody's at different points

00:32:32 ◼   ► in the season.

00:32:33 ◼   ► David: Exactly right. Now Netflix has so much content that I think they just don't want

00:32:36 ◼   ► to have the complication of having like, well, the finale of Luke Cage is happening, and

00:32:42 ◼   ► this other thing is dropping, and this other show is in the middle. They just kind of want

00:32:45 ◼   ► to like drop it, promote it once, and move along. And I get that, but there's an argument

00:32:50 ◼   ► to be made that weekly release is actually a way better way to do it. And it also does,

00:32:56 ◼   ► especially if you don't have a huge catalog of content that you're, like Apple's going

00:33:00 ◼   ► to have, like, you know, maybe two dozen shows in production. Maybe they can launch with

00:33:04 ◼   ► ten, maybe less. Having them stream weekly instead of in a bunch is a big advantage because

00:33:11 ◼   ► it spreads it out and you gotta keep watching.

00:33:13 ◼   ► >> KEVIN - Keeps people coming out, opening the app, finding the new stuff, right? Like

00:33:16 ◼   ► there's a, yeah, and yeah, the paying part because if you want to watch episode seven,

00:33:21 ◼   ► you gotta keep paying because, you know, it's gonna be next month.

00:33:24 ◼   ► >> JEAN - That said, if I had to pick one, which is what I did for the column, I actually

00:33:28 ◼   ► picked the half season thing where they order ten episodes of Jennifer Aniston and Reese

00:33:33 ◼   ► Witherspoon show, they drop five of them or four of them or six of them and say the second

00:33:38 ◼   ► half is coming in five months or whatever and that gives them, basically they don't

00:33:43 ◼   ► have a lot of shows so it gives them another marketing point if every season gives them

00:33:48 ◼   ► two different times that they can promote it.

00:33:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I actually think it's going to be a mix. I hadn't thought about half seasons so

00:33:54 ◼   ► I'm going to take that and say that I think it will be a mix of half seasons and weekly

00:33:58 ◼   ► depending on the show. I think that they may do like half seasons for the stuff that they

00:34:03 ◼   ► think isn't like blockbuster, you know, so maybe like their animated stuff might come

00:34:08 ◼   ► out in half seasons or whatever, but the big shows, you know, like their big like that

00:34:12 ◼   ► some of the science fiction stuff that they're doing or the Steven Spielberg thing that might

00:34:17 ◼   ► go weekly as a way to build buzz. But they also have content so people can just go in

00:34:22 ◼   ► and just watch a bunch of stuff. That's kind of where I think it's gonna go. Will this

00:34:27 ◼   ► be on Apple platforms only?

00:34:32 ◼   ► I think yes. I think the only reason, I mean, the reason you do this if you're Apple is

00:34:37 ◼   ► that you want people on your platforms. Like Apple, I guess, you know, you could argue,

00:34:42 ◼   ► well, yeah, but don't you want to take money from people who are watching on Android devices?

00:34:45 ◼   ► It's like, no, we're Apple. No, we don't. And I know that they've got Apple Music on

00:34:50 ◼   ► Android kind of as a legacy of having Beats on Android, but I just, I don't think so.

00:34:56 ◼   ► it's possible, it's not impossible, but I think it'll be Apple only.

00:35:01 ◼   ► The only wrinkle that I put in in that Macworld column is I am interested in

00:35:07 ◼   ► the idea that as TVs, especially more expensive TVs, are all embedding in the

00:35:13 ◼   ► equivalent of an outside box like a Roku, which is in a lot of TVs now, I'm

00:35:20 ◼   ► intrigued by the idea of Apple having some, you know, high-end TV partners who

00:35:26 ◼   ► embed the guts of the Apple TV in their TV sets. And I had somebody on Twitter who thought

00:35:32 ◼   ► I meant they would just put the service on their TVs, and that's not what I'm saying.

00:35:37 ◼   ► What I'm saying is you will have a television that will come with Apple TV, and that means

00:35:44 ◼   ► literally the app platform, the app store, the TV app, all the other apps will be Apple

00:35:50 ◼   ► TV. Now, that's probably far off if it ever happens, but I want it to happen, so I threw

00:35:55 ◼   ► it in there as an extra. Like, I would like to see that happen and I think that would

00:35:58 ◼   ► actually be a cool strategic move for Apple because in the end, you know, it gets all

00:36:04 ◼   ► those TVs in their ecosystem and that's probably a good thing.

00:36:08 ◼   ► I'm inclined to say that it will be Apple OS only. I like the idea of the embedded TV

00:36:17 ◼   ► set thing but I'm not going to say that I necessarily think that's going to happen because

00:36:21 ◼   ► that to me, I know that you would think it's a stretch to imagine Apple doing that.

00:36:28 ◼   ► And yeah, there's no evidence of it yet. I feel like it's a logical place for them to

00:36:32 ◼   ► go once they've got a service up and running on top of everything else. And I'm reminded

00:36:37 ◼   ► of the fact that Hisense, the TV maker, has a World Cup deal where they're a World Cup

00:36:42 ◼   ► sponsor and if you buy one of their new 4K HDR TVs, there's an app on them that streams

00:36:48 ◼   ► the World Cup, and they're like literally using the World Cup to sell you a TV so you

00:36:52 ◼   ► can watch the World Cup in 4K. That's really interesting, and that's the kind of world

00:36:57 ◼   ► we live in now. So I think about that and I think, well, you know, making a deal with

00:37:01 ◼   ► a couple of good manufacturers of high-quality HD, you know, 4K HDR TVs to do, to kind of

00:37:07 ◼   ► Apple on board as one of the extra, you know, bonus features would be an interesting thing

00:37:12 ◼   ► for them to do, but I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. Bigger point

00:37:15 ◼   ► is no Android I think. No and I think that like it even comes into part of the branding

00:37:21 ◼   ► because I agree Apple TV, well how do you get the Apple TV? You buy the Apple TV. Buy

00:37:26 ◼   ► an Apple TV box or get an iPad or get an iPhone. Yeah. Will they screen films in theaters?

00:37:35 ◼   ► This is the do you want an Academy Award question and I say I like to thank the Academy. I think

00:37:43 ◼   ► probably will these the films that they're they're bankrolling if they're

00:37:47 ◼   ► bankrolling films I know there's at least an animated film I'd like to think

00:37:51 ◼   ► that if they if they have a film that they aspire to win awards that they will

00:37:56 ◼   ► screen it I would be surprised if they if they screen them if they release them

00:38:04 ◼   ► wide I would not be surprised if they release them in New York and LA for a

00:38:08 ◼   ► week for Academy Award consideration and that's it yeah I 100% Apple

00:38:13 ◼   ► believe that Apple will do anything that they can to win awards on their

00:38:16 ◼   ► programming. That feels like a thing that they would want, but I also at the same

00:38:21 ◼   ► time agree with you that they will do the bare minimum required to do that.

00:38:24 ◼   ► Like, they'll just do whatever it takes to get into qualification for

00:38:28 ◼   ► anything, right? Golden Globes, Oscars, whatever, but they will want they will

00:38:33 ◼   ► want those awards. So I agree. I think I think Apple, like anybody else, like sure,

00:38:40 ◼   ► who's gonna turn down an Academy Award.

00:38:42 ◼   ► - Nobody.

00:38:43 ◼   ► And finally, any back catalog stuff?

00:38:47 ◼   ► Do you think there's gonna be any back catalog shows

00:38:49 ◼   ► that Apple will buy in to put on the service?

00:38:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had a wacky idea here, which I put in,

00:38:57 ◼   ► 'cause originally I was gonna say no.

00:38:58 ◼   ► I just like, no, I don't think they're gonna do that.

00:39:01 ◼   ► They have connections, they have deals,

00:39:04 ◼   ► they could pick up some shows if they wanted to,

00:39:08 ◼   ► some catalogs, it's possible that they'll do that.

00:39:11 ◼   ► Although I was trying to think how they do that.

00:39:13 ◼   ► And it's unlikely that it would be exclusive.

00:39:16 ◼   ► So it's gonna be like, yeah,

00:39:17 ◼   ► we got a bunch of old reruns plus our new shows.

00:39:19 ◼   ► I can't see that.

00:39:20 ◼   ► I decided to split the difference though,

00:39:23 ◼   ► because it is really hard to launch

00:39:25 ◼   ► with just like five shows.

00:39:26 ◼   ► Although to be fair, I bought CBS All Access

00:39:29 ◼   ► just for Star Trek Discovery.

00:39:30 ◼   ► I know a lot of people who got Hulu

00:39:32 ◼   ► just for like The Handmaid's Tale

00:39:34 ◼   ► or HBO just for Game of Thrones.

00:39:36 ◼   ► So it happens.

00:39:37 ◼   ► It really does happen. I don't think it's unrealistic for people to pay for a streaming service for a show or two.

00:39:45 ◼   ► That said, my wacky idea was that they'll buy some targeted back catalog stuff that's tied into the shows that they're launching.

00:39:52 ◼   ► So my example would be like Ron Moore is doing that "What if the Space Race continued into the present day and beyond" show.

00:40:01 ◼   ► And I thought, OK, well, get Battlestar Galactica, which Ron Moore did.

00:40:06 ◼   ► get "From the Earth to the Moon," the old HBO miniseries about the space race, maybe

00:40:10 ◼   ► get "Ascension," which was a wacky sci-fi channel show that was essentially the same

00:40:14 ◼   ► premise and had Trisha Helfer from Battlestar Galactica in it. Like, you could curate a

00:40:19 ◼   ► handful of other things that were kind of like around your TV show. There's like, "Oh,

00:40:23 ◼   ► and while you're here, also watch these other things that we provided for you." I don't

00:40:26 ◼   ► think it's very likely to happen, but that was my clever way of trying to mix the two,

00:40:31 ◼   ► because otherwise I would just say no.

00:40:33 ◼   ► Now, my expectation is whilst we compare them a lot to Netflix, Apple want to be HBO.

00:40:39 ◼   ► And so this is just going to be their own stuff.

00:40:42 ◼   ► Well yeah, HBO has old stuff.

00:40:44 ◼   ► So here's the other possibility is HBO has catalog stuff.

00:40:47 ◼   ► They have catalog movies, not TV shows, movies.

00:40:51 ◼   ► They've got HBO's TV shows.

00:40:54 ◼   ► And they've got catalog movies.

00:40:55 ◼   ► And that's a possibility.

00:40:57 ◼   ► I have floated earlier, and it's not the one I picked for this article, the idea that they

00:41:01 ◼   ► would even say like it's the best of you know what the stuff that you you know

00:41:05 ◼   ► you watch on iTunes and now it's going to be included but what it really is is

00:41:09 ◼   ► just a subset of the movie library that they've purchased that gives you access

00:41:13 ◼   ► to a whole bunch of you know older movie releases that they made some deals about

00:41:18 ◼   ► because that's what the HBO catalog is like it's it's just it's just a

00:41:22 ◼   ► smattering of movies and they come on for a couple of months and they go off

00:41:25 ◼   ► and Netflix's movie catalog is kind of like that Amazon's catalog is kind of

00:41:29 ◼   ► like that. So they could do that and it wouldn't take the spotlight away from their original

00:41:33 ◼   ► series but it would let them have a catalog of a sort which is, you know, and they could

00:41:39 ◼   ► sell all these great movies that you'll love.

00:41:42 ◼   ► Will Barron There was one, so moving on from this, there

00:41:47 ◼   ► was one last thing on Apple that we didn't mention. Apple have teamed up with the Sesame

00:41:51 ◼   ► Workshop to help them work on a kid's TV show. So the Sesame Workshop are responsible for

00:41:56 ◼   ► Sesame Street. Apple are not getting Sesame Street.

00:41:59 ◼   ► JEAN-MICHELLE DOUBLEDO >> HBO has Sesame Street, which is also super

00:42:01 ◼   ► weird because they needed to get Sesame Street money, basically. And so they made the deal

00:42:09 ◼   ► with HBO and all the shows start on HBO, all the Sesame Street shows, and then I think

00:42:13 ◼   ► move to PBS later. But so this is another deal for them to do new programming for Apple.

00:42:20 ◼   ► So this is a quote from Variety, "under the multi-series order, Sesame Workshop, the non-profit

00:42:26 ◼   ► educational organization behind Sesame Street, will produce live-action and animated series

00:42:32 ◼   ► as well as develop a puppet series for Apple."

00:42:35 ◼   ► *clapping*

00:42:36 ◼   ► Puppet series!

00:42:37 ◼   ► Yes, of course.

00:42:38 ◼   ► What it feels like basically is Apple will like, "we're gonna need kids stuff, hey Sesame

00:42:43 ◼   ► Workshop, can you just do all of that for us?"

00:42:46 ◼   ► Right?

00:42:47 ◼   ► like maybe like at least three series coming from them for Apple.

00:42:52 ◼   ► Yeah I know isn't that interesting? Yeah. So and that is very much like here is

00:42:57 ◼   ► some money you are respected make some shows for us for kids.

00:43:03 ◼   ► Say hi to Oprah. Yes on the way out. She's on her way in. Like again we created a whole segment of this show

00:43:13 ◼   ► purely because Apple's doing this. But they're doing a lot of this. We said it last week

00:43:19 ◼   ► with Oprah. This is a lot of stuff. This is no joke.

00:43:26 ◼   ► Upgradients know what many other people who follow Apple do not understand, which is that

00:43:30 ◼   ► Apple is not just messing around here. Every now and then, somebody else brings up, "Oh,

00:43:35 ◼   ► well, Planet of the Apps wasn't very good. Hahaha." It's like, wow, okay, you've been

00:43:39 ◼   ► to sleep for a year now. Apple hired Van Amburg and Ehrlich a year ago now. They've spent

00:43:47 ◼   ► who knows how much, more than a billion dollars on all these deals. Lots and lots and lots

00:43:52 ◼   ► of money. They are dead serious about this. So those people will be very surprised when

00:43:56 ◼   ► Apple announces the service and they see just what's in it. But we know now. We know now

00:44:00 ◼   ► because we're paying attention.

00:44:02 ◼   ► David: It appears to me that Apple are more serious about Apple TV than they were about

00:44:07 ◼   ► Apple Music because for Apple Music they kind of just did what was to be done

00:44:11 ◼   ► right they just did the deals pushed it out but this is like a lot of very

00:44:16 ◼   ► targeted very important moves that they're making you know like Apple hasn't

00:44:21 ◼   ► done a ton with trying to secure exclusive albums they've dabbled in it

00:44:26 ◼   ► here and there but by the most part it seems like they kind of just let that go

00:44:30 ◼   ► and now you know Spotify doing it and I think Apple have gotten themselves into

00:44:34 ◼   ► the place of Apple Music now where they just assume everyone's gonna come to

00:44:36 ◼   ► them. But for the Apple TV stuff, it would have been very easy for them to buy Netflix

00:44:44 ◼   ► and just say "here you go, here's all Netflix's stuff, it's ours now" or just buy a bunch

00:44:49 ◼   ► of back catalogue stuff and just be like "here you go, we do what all these other companies

00:44:53 ◼   ► do" but instead they are starting ground up with a bunch of really important people, really

00:44:58 ◼   ► interesting creators and making a service that they are hoping can't be missed. This

00:45:05 ◼   ► This is the next chapter, everyone.

00:45:07 ◼   ► This is the next stage.

00:45:09 ◼   ► And as we say, "Upgradients know.

00:45:12 ◼   ► Upgradients are in the know."

00:45:13 ◼   ► And that's the service that we provide here on the Upgrade Podcast.

00:45:15 ◼   ► It's the service that we provide.

00:45:18 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by PDF/Pen from our friends at Smile.

00:45:22 ◼   ► The new PDF/Pen 10 is the ultimate tool for editing PDFs and going paperless.

00:45:26 ◼   ► This month, Smile celebrates 15 years of making productivity software that provides fast,

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00:45:58 ◼   ► up with a ton of different versions of the same document. That's a very good feature

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00:46:45 ◼   ► to join in the fun. They have a sticker giveaway too, you can go and check all of that out.

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00:47:02 ◼   ► We love you. I do, it's true. I love that company. They're the best.

00:47:07 ◼   ► So AirPower, late last week, Mark Gurman had a report. It was an article that contained

00:47:14 ◼   ► not a lot of information, but information that we haven't had from elsewhere. It's just

00:47:19 ◼   ► kind of in rumour and conjecture at this point. But Mark Gurman is reporting that there are

00:47:23 ◼   ► a couple of reasons why AirPower hasn't shipped. One of them is that the circuitry that Apple

00:47:28 ◼   ► is trying to build is very complex. And they're also, because of this complexity, they are

00:47:36 ◼   ► trying to make sure that it won't overheat. Because of this, Apple wants...

00:47:41 ◼   ► because of the way that Apple wants to have this AirPower mat work,

00:47:45 ◼   ► they want it to be that you can take any of the three devices, so the phone, the

00:47:50 ◼   ► updated AirPods case, and the watch, and you can just put them down anywhere on

00:47:55 ◼   ► the mat in any order and it will charge. That's what they want to be able to

00:47:59 ◼   ► do with this thing. That is incredibly difficult to do because you have to have

00:48:05 ◼   ► overlapping circuitry and all of these different like because they're doing

00:48:09 ◼   ► their Chi stuff but there's also some additional Apple based stuff

00:48:13 ◼   ► that's going in there and this is making it very hard for them to achieve a

00:48:17 ◼   ► stable product. The mat also includes a chip which has a stripped down version

00:48:22 ◼   ► of iOS to help with device power management. Gerwin is saying that the

00:48:27 ◼   ► plan currently is to have it on sale in September which will be one year after

00:48:32 ◼   ► it was announced. Now, I feel like over the last 10 years I've gotten a pretty

00:48:38 ◼   ► good handle to what Apple is all about. It really boggles my mind that they

00:48:44 ◼   ► didn't know this a year ago, that this was going to be a hard thing to build.

00:48:49 ◼   ► Well, I mean, similarly to the HomePod and AirPlay 2 story, I think, is this... it's a

00:48:58 ◼   ► story of Apple having more confidence in their ability to deliver a product than

00:49:02 ◼   ► that turned out to be the case,

00:49:04 ◼   ► which I think goes to why you shouldn't,

00:49:07 ◼   ► I mean, why does Apple generally not announce products

00:49:11 ◼   ► way in advance?

00:49:12 ◼   ► This is one reason, right?

00:49:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is a very good reason to do it.

00:49:15 ◼   ► - Is what if you can't, you thought you could,

00:49:19 ◼   ► but it turns out you can't.

00:49:20 ◼   ► You hit some roadblock somewhere.

00:49:23 ◼   ► That's what happened with AirPlay 2,

00:49:24 ◼   ► is that my understanding is that it didn't work

00:49:28 ◼   ► and they did it again.

00:49:30 ◼   ► they had to do it again in order to get it right and it delayed it a long way. This seems

00:49:36 ◼   ► similar and it s funny because this is like kind of a confirmation of that kind of like

00:49:43 ◼   ► third hand thing we heard at WWDC which was I think jokingly or at least half jokingly

00:49:49 ◼   ► described as they were catching on fire which I think is probably not entirely true.

00:49:54 ◼   ► David: I just want to say real quick, a couple of weeks ago on Cortex, me and Grey were talking

00:49:59 ◼   ► about this stuff. And I said, "I don't like Qi chargers because I get worried about them."

00:50:05 ◼   ► There is just a feeling to me that it just makes me a little uncomfortable about the

00:50:10 ◼   ► heat that could potentially be passing through. I'm just going to say, this is clearly a concern

00:50:17 ◼   ► by the companies that are building these things, so maybe I'm not completely wild in my fear

00:50:22 ◼   ► about Qi charging.

00:50:23 ◼   ► Yeah. And I'm not saying that I have any actual reports that they were catching on fire, but

00:50:27 ◼   ► trying to ensure it will not overheat suggests that it has been overheating and that does

00:50:34 ◼   ► not work.

00:50:35 ◼   ► And overheating is not a good thing.

00:50:38 ◼   ► It's just also the boldness of Apple saying, "Hey, here's a product category we've literally

00:50:42 ◼   ► never made before that other people have been working on for ages, but we're going to come

00:50:45 ◼   ► in and do something totally more complex and different that nobody else is even trying

00:50:50 ◼   ► to do now, but we're going to just kind of stroll on in here and solve this problem."

00:50:54 ◼   ► And that's great when you can do it, but in this case it seems like they went, "Oh, this

00:50:59 ◼   ► is hard. Oh, I see, I see." So, fair enough. I think my question was like, "What's this

00:51:07 ◼   ► thing gonna cost by the time it comes out?" Like, how much engineering is going into this?

00:51:13 ◼   ► - Oh, it's gonna be eye-watering. - And it's gonna have, like, software in it

00:51:18 ◼   ► for power management.

00:51:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, honestly, I'm thinking 199, something like that.

00:51:25 ◼   ► - It's just gonna be like, is it worth it?

00:51:27 ◼   ► Is it worth it?

00:51:28 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:51:29 ◼   ► I like the idea.

00:51:32 ◼   ► It's a fun idea.

00:51:33 ◼   ► Maybe it'll be great when it comes out,

00:51:35 ◼   ► but they're struggling with it and it's very interesting.

00:51:37 ◼   ► We have two Qi chargers at our house and I like them.

00:51:40 ◼   ► It turns out we do use them.

00:51:42 ◼   ► That's where our iPhones get set now.

00:51:45 ◼   ► And it's nice.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Yeah, Adini's it says every day, just very happy with it.

00:51:51 ◼   ► I mean, I would, I would consider one on my desk.

00:51:54 ◼   ► I just haven't found like one that stands up that I like the look of yet.

00:51:57 ◼   ► And so I just used the Studio Neat dock that I've been using for the last couple

00:52:01 ◼   ► of years. Like it was great. Um, I would consider it,

00:52:05 ◼   ► but I'm not, you know, air power,

00:52:08 ◼   ► air power was never that interesting to me anyway. Um, I don't,

00:52:13 ◼   ► I never liked the look of it and just didn't work out, you know,

00:52:16 ◼   ► based upon where I put my devices, where I even put one of those things.

00:52:19 ◼   ► It seemed like an interesting idea for travel, you know,

00:52:23 ◼   ► but then I'm still dealing with an iPad that I need to bring charges for.

00:52:26 ◼   ► So I may as well stick with the cable that currently charges

00:52:30 ◼   ► the three devices that I need, my AirPods, my iPhone and my iPad.

00:52:35 ◼   ► Like really, I only need to just bring one cable because it's very rare

00:52:38 ◼   ► that I'm charging my iPad and my iPhone at the same time while I'm traveling.

00:52:41 ◼   ► So that works just as well, really.

00:52:45 ◼   ► and so the AirPower mat doesn't necessarily solve my problems because it can't charge my iPad.

00:52:51 ◼   ► So it was just never a product to me that I was that interested in. I'm just really surprised

00:52:59 ◼   ► how long it has taken them to get it together. I mean, again, you mentioned stuff that's been

00:53:03 ◼   ► late, right? This could be a year? A product being announced twice at iPhone keynotes?

00:53:13 ◼   ► There's nothing like lapping yourself on a product announcement. That is the best.

00:53:17 ◼   ► I mean, with the HomePod, with AirPlay 2, they're like, "Uh, uh, uh, we announced it, uh, two weeks

00:53:22 ◼   ► before WWDC." I was like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I didn't get lapped. I didn't get lapped.

00:53:27 ◼   ► The winner was behind me by like five feet when I crossed the line. I wasn't lapped. I was just

00:53:33 ◼   ► very much at the back of the first lap." That's what that is. So yeah, maybe AirPower will be

00:53:40 ◼   ► be announced in late August.

00:53:49 ◼   ► Google have launched a standalone first-party podcast app. I would expect that there are

00:53:54 ◼   ► many of you listening right now who maybe aren't that familiar with Android that are

00:53:58 ◼   ► saying to yourself, "Huh? Wasn't there always one?" The answer is no. There was a long time

00:54:05 ◼   ► I'm

00:54:24 ◼   ► and podcasters had to submit their podcasts to be entered into the Google Podcasts directory,

00:54:29 ◼   ► which you could find inside of Google Play Music, their music streaming service.

00:54:34 ◼   ► Then a couple of months ago, or a month or two ago, there were some articles that came

00:54:39 ◼   ► out from Google where they were talking about their upcoming podcast app. It is now available.

00:54:45 ◼   ► It is now no longer a part of Play Music, it is called Google Podcasts and it launched

00:54:49 ◼   ► on Android last week. There are no plans for an iOS version, which makes sense, but it's

00:54:54 ◼   ► kind of surprising based upon Google's kind of MO, like, have it everywhere, but they're

00:54:59 ◼   ► just doing an Android app right now. The design of it is okay. You know, things look, well,

00:55:05 ◼   ► I would say the design of it is okay once you've added your first podcast. So I updated

00:55:10 ◼   ► my Android phone, I have one of the original pixels, and I downloaded Google Podcasts,

00:55:16 ◼   ► And I opened the app and was met with just a blank screen, just a white screen.

00:55:20 ◼   ► And it said Google podcast at the top and it had a magnifying glass in the left, the

00:55:24 ◼   ► top left corner.

00:55:25 ◼   ► Honestly, I thought something was broken.

00:55:27 ◼   ► That it was a terrible first launch experience in my opinion.

00:55:29 ◼   ► Like there should, it should be showing me some kind of directory.

00:55:32 ◼   ► It has nothing like that right now that I could find.

00:55:34 ◼   ► Although I know it's something that they're talking about.

00:55:36 ◼   ► So I don't really know why it didn't launch with that.

00:55:39 ◼   ► It's very bare bones, this app.

00:55:42 ◼   ► I could add shows.

00:55:43 ◼   ► it had no show notes, no chapters, nothing like that.

00:55:47 ◼   ► I mean, I know that show notes are maybe like a,

00:55:50 ◼   ► in some areas, like a niche thing,

00:55:53 ◼   ► but they're in the RSS feed.

00:55:54 ◼   ► Like it's not hard to support them, right?

00:55:57 ◼   ► And considering the fact that Google is a search company,

00:56:00 ◼   ► the search might be a little bit easier

00:56:02 ◼   ► if you can index the show notes as well.

00:56:03 ◼   ► Just saying, Google, you know,

00:56:04 ◼   ► just throwing that out there.

00:56:06 ◼   ► Google has spoken about some features that it will have.

00:56:12 ◼   ► It should make that they will be able to make recommendations to you based on machine learning.

00:56:16 ◼   ► It's integrated with Assistant to help you search for shows anywhere that you can access

00:56:20 ◼   ► Google Assistant.

00:56:22 ◼   ► They're also planning to add closed captions with the use of their Assistant technology.

00:56:27 ◼   ► And the reason they're saying this is so you could, if you're in a loud area, you'd be

00:56:31 ◼   ► able to read what's happening in the shows, so you're on the subway.

00:56:34 ◼   ► Or you could listen to a show in another language and get translated captions.

00:56:41 ◼   ► I don't know why you would do that, but like, okay, that's the thing you could do.

00:56:44 ◼   ► I don't know when I think about this because

00:56:49 ◼   ► trying to speech to text a podcast is very difficult

00:56:57 ◼   ► to do because I've taken a look at services that do it.

00:57:01 ◼   ► And every service I have ever seen or used always requires some level of human

00:57:06 ◼   ► intervention, because especially if you've got more than one person on a podcast,

00:57:10 ◼   ► it can be really difficult to understand who's talking, especially if people are talking

00:57:13 ◼   ► over each other. And just in general, trying to have a machine, an algorithm or whatever,

00:57:19 ◼   ► some kind of speech-to-text system, work out what's going on, it can be very difficult.

00:57:24 ◼   ► I'm sure if anyone can do this, Google can do this, but the proof's going to be in the

00:57:27 ◼   ► pudding because I haven't seen any transcription service that is automated that does a good

00:57:33 ◼   ► enough job, including YouTube's closed captions.

00:57:36 ◼   ► Yeah, and they they do have the engine that does this and it powers a lot of other transcription things that are also using humans

00:57:42 ◼   ► Maybe they've made an advance here or I'm sure they're always making advances the machine transcription stuff has come a long way

00:57:49 ◼   ► It's still pretty bad

00:57:50 ◼   ► Which is why when people I got really mad at WWDC because somebody was tweeting about

00:57:55 ◼   ► This article that that I complained about may actually change the wording of it, but the wording of the article was something like

00:58:00 ◼   ► transcripts are easy

00:58:03 ◼   ► for podcasts. And I was like, "Mmm, no, that's not true."

00:58:06 ◼   ► - They're easy to get. They're not easy to get good.

00:58:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. No, they take time or money or both

00:58:12 ◼   ► in order to be readable by people

00:58:13 ◼   ► because the raw transcripts are bad.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Now, maybe Google, Google's,

00:58:19 ◼   ► if anybody's gonna have the ability to make them better

00:58:22 ◼   ► and better and better, it is Google.

00:58:24 ◼   ► And so maybe as a part of this initiative,

00:58:26 ◼   ► that's gonna happen.

00:58:27 ◼   ► And I think that would be great

00:58:28 ◼   ► because the tech isn't quite good enough yet,

00:58:31 ◼   ► but I hope it comes, it's certainly better for searching.

00:58:34 ◼   ► David Smith, obviously, indexes a couple of the podcasts

00:58:39 ◼   ► that you and I listen to,

00:58:40 ◼   ► and that basically makes them searchable, which is great.

00:58:43 ◼   ► You can say like, when did they say that on ATP?

00:58:45 ◼   ► And you can get an answer.

00:58:46 ◼   ► And that's great.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Even though the transcript is not readable per se,

00:58:50 ◼   ► you can like use it to find timestamps and all of that.

00:58:52 ◼   ► And I think that's great.

00:58:53 ◼   ► And I want Google to do more of that.

00:58:55 ◼   ► And I want that available,

00:58:56 ◼   ► not just in their Android podcast app.

00:58:57 ◼   ► I want that available in like a search on the web.

00:59:00 ◼   ► the web.

00:59:01 ◼   ► So the search is really good, but they are promoting this as a readability thing, which

00:59:04 ◼   ► makes me raise an eyebrow.

00:59:06 ◼   ► So we'll see.

00:59:07 ◼   ► I mean, that's why it's not in there right now, along with show notes and chapter markers

00:59:10 ◼   ► and all sorts of other things.

00:59:11 ◼   ► And a directory.

00:59:12 ◼   ► Okay, so Google, I'll jump ahead a bit, because they're also talking about setting up an independent

00:59:17 ◼   ► advisory board to advance gender, racial, and geographic equality in podcasting, because

00:59:23 ◼   ► of the shows that they've looked at, they've found, you know, as you would expect, right,

00:59:27 ◼   ► minorities are underrepresented.

00:59:29 ◼   ► But they also talk about something which I don't see very much where outside of US metro

00:59:34 ◼   ► areas for production where shows are actually being made and they will offer extra promotion

00:59:39 ◼   ► to shows that are more diverse in these areas.

00:59:42 ◼   ► They have nothing more concrete to say about this right now like who is this independent

00:59:46 ◼   ► advisory board and what does more promotion mean?

00:59:49 ◼   ► And I would say especially because they have no directory.

00:59:52 ◼   ► Like there's no visible directory.

00:59:55 ◼   ► It's all search.

00:59:56 ◼   ► So how are they going to promote it?

00:59:57 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:59:58 ◼   ► - It seems like a work in progress

01:00:00 ◼   ► and given Google's previous attempts to embrace podcasting,

01:00:05 ◼   ► which were kind of half-hearted and failed,

01:00:09 ◼   ► I'll believe it when I see it in all of these cases,

01:00:14 ◼   ► but I hope they commit.

01:00:16 ◼   ► The podcasting group inside Apple is very small.

01:00:20 ◼   ► It's a very small group.

01:00:21 ◼   ► We think in the podcasting world,

01:00:23 ◼   ► we think of them as massive

01:00:26 ◼   ► because they are of massive importance

01:00:28 ◼   ► to the podcasting world. Apple's got the number one podcast player. The promotion on the pod,

01:00:33 ◼   ► the podcast app is a huge deal. Like it's super important, but within Apple, they're

01:00:39 ◼   ► a tiny group. Like from the perspective of people who are doing like Apple software and

01:00:46 ◼   ► iTunes, uh, you know, services planning, they're like a little tiny group, which is funny.

01:00:53 ◼   ► So but it's so much more than Google has provided up to now. And I hope this is not one of those

01:00:59 ◼   ► Apple versus Google things. I think as podcasters, I want Google to embrace podcasting. I want

01:01:06 ◼   ► Google to put at least as much effort into it as Apple does, if not more, because it's

01:01:12 ◼   ► good for podcasting to have more people listening to podcasts than listen now. And I'm just

01:01:17 ◼   ► gonna say it, it is mind boggling that the number one podcast app is Apple

01:01:24 ◼   ► podcasts, not because it's bad or anything. It's not. It's fine. It's

01:01:28 ◼   ► mind boggling because there are so many Android phones out there and yet

01:01:33 ◼   ► Android phones are a minority share of the podcast audience in terms of

01:01:37 ◼   ► platform. That's like and I'm not just saying among Apple nerd podcasts. I'm

01:01:43 ◼   ► saying in the entire podcast world, Apple has this outsized presence. And why is that?

01:01:49 ◼   ► It's because Apple has had a small group of people who care about podcasts working on

01:01:53 ◼   ► podcasts for more than 10 years. And Google has never gotten it together. And I hope they

01:01:58 ◼   ► do. The fact that they're, forgive me for ranting here for a moment, but the fact that

01:02:02 ◼   ► Google has made no effort to do what David Smith sort of did as an offhand project, which

01:02:06 ◼   ► which is text-to-speech, speech-to-text, index, audio on the web. If Google's goal is supposed

01:02:14 ◼   ► to be to make all the world's information searchable, it has made no attempt to make

01:02:20 ◼   ► the podcast world searchable. Now maybe it sort of sounds like maybe they're going to

01:02:24 ◼   ► do that.

01:02:25 ◼   ► They are saying that they are going to do this and that if you go to Google and search

01:02:29 ◼   ► for something you can actually subscribe to a podcast from inside of Google search now.

01:02:33 ◼   ► So like they're doing some stuff, but they, the point is they are saying it, they haven't

01:02:39 ◼   ► done it and they've launched their initiative.

01:02:41 ◼   ► Like I'm looking around online and I'm seeing screenshots that include like trending lists,

01:02:46 ◼   ► but I couldn't find them.

01:02:48 ◼   ► It's like I don't know if maybe they start to show up like once you start subscribing

01:02:52 ◼   ► to stuff, I don't know, but like, I don't know.

01:02:54 ◼   ► It seems it's basically it seems like they have the skeleton of something right now and

01:02:58 ◼   ► decided to launch it, which seems very strange to me.

01:03:02 ◼   ► Let's hope that this is the first step in a long process where Google is committed to

01:03:07 ◼   ► podcasting and is putting energy into here because I want—there is a huge audience

01:03:14 ◼   ► of people who aren't into podcasts now because it's too much effort to get podcasts on Android.

01:03:21 ◼   ► Not that there aren't great Android apps to do podcasting, because there are, but there

01:03:26 ◼   ► are great iOS apps that do podcasting, and yet by far the dominant one is the one that's

01:03:30 ◼   ► stock on the device.

01:03:32 ◼   ► And that's where Google needs to end up,

01:03:34 ◼   ► is with a good, doesn't even have to be great,

01:03:37 ◼   ► doesn't have to be best in class, leave some space.

01:03:40 ◼   ► Leave some space for Pocket Casts and other apps

01:03:44 ◼   ► to provide new features.

01:03:46 ◼   ► But something like what Apple does,

01:03:47 ◼   ► where there's a good podcast player that comes with Android.

01:03:51 ◼   ► So that if somebody says, "Hey, I was listening

01:03:53 ◼   ► "to a podcast," all they have to do is open,

01:03:56 ◼   ► is search for a podcast.

01:03:57 ◼   ► Oh, there's an app.

01:03:59 ◼   ► What's the name of that podcast?

01:04:00 ◼   ► type it in, and they're listening to a podcast.

01:04:02 ◼   ► That's what Android needs.

01:04:04 ◼   ► It will dramatically expand the number of people

01:04:06 ◼   ► who are listening to podcasts, and that's a good thing.

01:04:08 ◼   ► So I hope they stay committed.

01:04:10 ◼   ► My frustration is that I feel like we've been down this road

01:04:12 ◼   ► with Google before a couple of times,

01:04:14 ◼   ► and they never stayed committed to it.

01:04:15 ◼   ► I hope they stay committed this time.

01:04:18 ◼   ► - You can find Relay FM shows in Google Podcasts.

01:04:21 ◼   ► We've been in there for a while.

01:04:22 ◼   ► If that's your bag, they're there.

01:04:24 ◼   ► Please, while we're talking about this, actually,

01:04:27 ◼   ► let's talk about the other side.

01:04:28 ◼   ► Let's talk about podcast production.

01:04:30 ◼   ► So Anchor, which is a company that's been a sponsor in the past,

01:04:33 ◼   ► they're not a sponsor at the moment, they've released a new universal app

01:04:36 ◼   ► that focuses on podcast creation on the iPad.

01:04:39 ◼   ► So they've made an update to their iOS app

01:04:42 ◼   ► and it now includes some podcast creation tools.

01:04:44 ◼   ► The tools are simple, but they're actually pretty powerful.

01:04:48 ◼   ► So it has drag and drop.

01:04:50 ◼   ► And I like this.

01:04:50 ◼   ► You could drag and drop audio in from the files app,

01:04:53 ◼   ► which I think is really cool.

01:04:55 ◼   ► You can then trim it.

01:04:56 ◼   ► You can split it into multiple clips

01:04:58 ◼   ► and then drag the order of those clips around.

01:05:00 ◼   ► So they're very basic tools, right?

01:05:02 ◼   ► You can split clips in half and you can trim clips down,

01:05:05 ◼   ► but for the majority of people,

01:05:07 ◼   ► that's probably what they're looking to do.

01:05:09 ◼   ► And really this is, you know,

01:05:11 ◼   ► if you look at something like Ferrite,

01:05:13 ◼   ► like Ferrite is a very professional piece of software

01:05:18 ◼   ► for people that are very serious about creating podcasts.

01:05:22 ◼   ► And I mean, Anchor in general,

01:05:23 ◼   ► their tools are about like making it just easy to do.

01:05:27 ◼   ► And this is a nice step into something a little bit more complex.

01:05:32 ◼   ► So you could say record something, because you could plug in, it supports the camera

01:05:36 ◼   ► connection kit stuff, so you could plug in a microphone, record something with someone,

01:05:40 ◼   ► record something on your phone later on, and then put it all into one project, make it

01:05:43 ◼   ► into one show, and publish it on Anchor.

01:05:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I like the idea of democratizing podcasting.

01:05:48 ◼   ► This is the other side of it, right?

01:05:49 ◼   ► Which is, the fact is, you could do a podcast that's literally you talking to your phone,

01:05:54 ◼   ► that the medium is becoming, or genre or whatever you want to call it, is becoming more sophisticated,

01:06:00 ◼   ► still anybody can do a podcast. And so creating some tools that vary, that make it easy not

01:06:08 ◼   ► just to post a podcast but to make it sound a little bit better, to put in music, to take

01:06:11 ◼   ► out that part that you want to take out for regular people to do that is a good thing.

01:06:18 ◼   ► And that's what I like about this approach is that it's basically saying, "Look, you

01:06:22 ◼   ► can clean up, do some basic clean up without having to find a new workflow and find other

01:06:28 ◼   ► apps and all of that that Anchor will let you do it. I think it's a good move.

01:06:31 ◼   ► Yeah, and this is why I like them in general because then they like, they simplify product

01:06:34 ◼   ► like the posting. So you can post it, you get the RSS feed and then they put it into

01:06:39 ◼   ► iTunes and they can put it onto smart speakers and stuff for you.

01:06:41 ◼   ► Right.

01:06:42 ◼   ► But I really like this app. I've played around with it and it is a fun way to make simple

01:06:47 ◼   ► podcasts, right? Like a show like this one, I couldn't produce it inside of Anchor because

01:06:52 ◼   ► I edit way too heavily. But if you are making a show, like you're starting out, this is

01:06:58 ◼   ► a fantastic way to start out and learn some really simple basics about editing, just like

01:07:03 ◼   ► trimming and splitting. These are things that you need to kind of get your head around and

01:07:07 ◼   ► their tools actually make it easy to conceive of why you'd want to do these types of things.

01:07:11 ◼   ► So I give it a thumbs up. Again, if you're starting out, if you've never done this stuff

01:07:15 ◼   ► before, I recommend Anchor. And here's a little tease for you. If you enjoy hearing us talk

01:07:21 ◼   ► about podcast stuff. Oh boy, do we have a treat for you! Next week is episode 200. Episode

01:07:29 ◼   ► 200 is split into two parts. The first part of the show is me and Jason talking about

01:07:35 ◼   ► upgrade. We are using episode 200 as a way to reflect on the show, kind of talk about

01:07:40 ◼   ► where it came from, how it's evolved, and why we love doing it and why it's important

01:07:44 ◼   ► to us. The second half is for people that have asked us, "Oh hey, you've mentioned

01:07:50 ◼   ► and that you wanted to do podcast tips in the,

01:07:52 ◼   ► like, 'cause we spoke about that a while ago,

01:07:53 ◼   ► you wanna give us some more podcast advice.

01:07:55 ◼   ► I was holding onto it,

01:07:57 ◼   ► and you're gonna get a lot of it next week.

01:08:00 ◼   ► I've been holding onto,

01:08:01 ◼   ► we're going through the basics of everything,

01:08:04 ◼   ► hardware, software, production, posting,

01:08:08 ◼   ► some tips and tricks on things that we think are important,

01:08:11 ◼   ► stuff like what about podcast networks,

01:08:14 ◼   ► what about monetization, what about preparation?

01:08:16 ◼   ► We're doing all of it.

01:08:17 ◼   ► So next week's episode,

01:08:19 ◼   ► going to get me and Jason being touchy feely about our show and then as much as it can

01:08:26 ◼   ► be a podcast masterclass from the two of us. So this is also the beginning, in case you

01:08:31 ◼   ► hadn't guessed, of the summer of fun, starting with episode 200. So that's going to be next

01:08:36 ◼   ► week's episode of Upgrade. But we're not done with today's yet. We must finish as we always

01:08:41 ◼   ► do with #AskUpgrade. And today's Ask Upgrade questions are brought to you by Pingdom, the

01:08:47 ◼   ► The company offers uptime monitoring and web performance management.

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01:09:41 ◼   ► Go to pingdom.com/relayfm right now and you can get yourself a 14 day free trial with

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01:09:53 ◼   ► Once again that's pingdom.com/relayfm and the code 'upgrade' at checkout.

01:09:57 ◼   ► Our thanks to Pingdom for their support of this show and Relay FM.

01:10:02 ◼   ► So we're going to #askupgrade.

01:10:05 ◼   ► The question comes from Rybir to begin.

01:10:08 ◼   ► Is it safe to turn on iMessage in the cloud?

01:10:10 ◼   ► you had any issues with it? Have you turned it on? I have turned it on. And what do you think? I've

01:10:15 ◼   ► had no issues with it. I can get all my messages everywhere. I think it's good. Well I feel lucky

01:10:20 ◼   ► for you because it's been a bit of a dumpster for me so far. So... Isn't the dumpster on fire?

01:10:26 ◼   ► Yes it is. So am I getting my messages everywhere? I mean in theory yes I am, but um

01:10:36 ◼   ► at different times. So I have like two devices with me. Sometimes my iPhone gets a message

01:10:40 ◼   ► and my iPad will get it like 30 seconds to a minute later. I'm seeing problems and this is

01:10:45 ◼   ► before installing iOS 12 as well. I'm having the same problems on iOS 12. Some messages are taking

01:10:52 ◼   ► way longer to send now for a reason that I can't understand. I constantly see the message of like

01:11:00 ◼   ► either downloading stuff from the cloud or when it's not connected to wi-fi telling me that it

01:11:05 ◼   ► it will resume on Wi-Fi.

01:11:06 ◼   ► I don't know why he needs to tell me this all the time.

01:11:09 ◼   ► My Mac is just a disaster.

01:11:12 ◼   ► Everything's out of order.

01:11:14 ◼   ► So it's not, I mean, yes, I'm getting my messages,

01:11:18 ◼   ► but it's not solving problems for me.

01:11:20 ◼   ► In fact, it's actually, I think,

01:11:21 ◼   ► given me more problems than before.

01:11:24 ◼   ► But as with most of these types of cloud things,

01:11:27 ◼   ► I speak to many people like yourself, Jason,

01:11:29 ◼   ► who have no problems at all.

01:11:30 ◼   ► So my recommendation would be don't turn it on yet, because you probably don't need it.

01:11:37 ◼   ► I would just say to wait a little bit longer.

01:11:39 ◼   ► I would honestly personally wait until iOS 12.

01:11:42 ◼   ► If I could go back, that's what I would do.

01:11:44 ◼   ► I would wait until iOS 12 because I would figure they're going to do more work on it.

01:11:48 ◼   ► That would be my recommendation.

01:11:49 ◼   ► I think there's a reason Apple weren't turning it on on purpose.

01:11:54 ◼   ► So that actually brings me to a point, just something I wanted to mention.

01:11:57 ◼   ► So I'm on iOS 12 now.

01:11:59 ◼   ► And during the upgrade process, it says to you, "Do you want to keep your phone up to

01:12:03 ◼   ► date?"

01:12:04 ◼   ► And your options are either "continue" or "decide later."

01:12:09 ◼   ► If you click "continue," which is the obvious thing to do, it turns on automatic software

01:12:14 ◼   ► updates for your phone.

01:12:18 ◼   ► I don't know what I think about that.

01:12:20 ◼   ► I've turned it off.

01:12:24 ◼   ► I just don't trust it.

01:12:25 ◼   ► there's been enough problems in the past of bad updates, right?

01:12:30 ◼   ► And this isn't every time, but I think I'm good with my current process of like an iOS

01:12:36 ◼   ► update comes out and I wait at least an hour before I install it.

01:12:40 ◼   ► I think that this is a very bold thing to do because I know why they're doing it, they

01:12:43 ◼   ► want people to be on the most recent updates, but I really hope that those automatic updates

01:12:48 ◼   ► don't start happening immediately.

01:12:51 ◼   ► But I want to wait and see how that ends up shaking out.

01:12:53 ◼   ► But I just thought that was really interesting.

01:12:55 ◼   ► Do you have any thoughts on that?

01:12:56 ◼   ► - I like the idea of it,

01:12:58 ◼   ► because if you're comfortable with it,

01:13:01 ◼   ► then it doesn't get in your way.

01:13:03 ◼   ► And I think there's something to be said for that.

01:13:05 ◼   ► And there are gonna be people

01:13:06 ◼   ► who wanna take control of that situation.

01:13:08 ◼   ► And there are gonna be people

01:13:10 ◼   ► who don't wanna worry about it.

01:13:11 ◼   ► So I'm okay with the idea of letting people choose

01:13:15 ◼   ► what they wanna do there.

01:13:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that the way that they present the choice

01:13:19 ◼   ► isn't super clear, but hey.

01:13:22 ◼   ► Zach asked, do you see group FaceTime audio or video replacing Skype for your podcasting

01:13:28 ◼   ► calls?

01:13:29 ◼   ► I don't for the most part partially because having one workflow for everybody is great

01:13:37 ◼   ► and FaceTime is Apple only and believe it or not I podcast with people who don't use

01:13:43 ◼   ► Apple platforms and that's not going to stop. So also there's a question of like the recording

01:13:50 ◼   ► tools, working with it and being updated for it. I think we might try it out on some of

01:13:57 ◼   ► our all-Apple things just to see, but, you know, my bar for what I need in podcasting

01:14:06 ◼   ► is fairly high. Like, Skype isn't great, but for me, I want the replacement to be better

01:14:14 ◼   ► than Skype in lots of ways, lots of specific ways, and most of the things I've investigated

01:14:20 ◼   ► have been different, not better, just different. Now, the fact that Apple says they'll do 32,

01:14:26 ◼   ► I imagine Apple is doing some very interesting server-side stuff to make this work.

01:14:29 ◼   ► 32 people at once is not, you couldn't make 32 connections. So the server is obviously doing some

01:14:37 ◼   ► work to send you a stream that is stable and that has all those people in it. And that is

01:14:44 ◼   ► encouraging but again like I don't know it's it's not impossible that we would try it but I think

01:14:51 ◼   ► the bottom line is that because it's not um cross-platform it's never going to be something

01:14:56 ◼   ► that I standardize on. I would say it is more possible for me than it's ever been before.

01:15:01 ◼   ► I record with people in very stable environments I don't record with people that I don't record

01:15:07 ◼   ► with every week if that makes sense which I know that isn't the case for you and a lot of people

01:15:11 ◼   ► that I work with, but for me I record with stable people every week, they all use Macs,

01:15:18 ◼   ► they all use iPhones.

01:15:21 ◼   ► The only reason that I wasn't using FaceTime audio before now is because I was doing some

01:15:25 ◼   ► shows that have more than just two people on them and I'm not interested in using two

01:15:29 ◼   ► apps, I just want to use one.

01:15:31 ◼   ► So for me now it is more possible than before to use FaceTime audio for the shows that I

01:15:37 ◼   ► do, especially when the tools that I currently use to record my audio would work. So I use

01:15:44 ◼   ► Ecamm Core Recorder for Skype, there's an Ecamm Core Recorder for FaceTime, and Audio

01:15:48 ◼   ► Hydrax will work for FaceTime audio. So that would work fine for me. My feeling is I'm

01:15:54 ◼   ► just going to test it out and if I feel like it works, great. Because one of the problems

01:15:59 ◼   ► that I have is Skype as an audio tool is fantastic. Everything else about Skype is getting worse

01:16:06 ◼   ► all the time. Microsoft are making some very weird and very specific decisions about where

01:16:12 ◼   ► they are putting their focus on with Skype and the current UI methods that they have

01:16:17 ◼   ► on all of their platforms is a disaster, honestly. So I would like to be able to move away from

01:16:23 ◼   ► Skype before it kind of goes down the tubes in some way and I'm happy that at least now

01:16:30 ◼   ► I could use FaceTime audio as a potential replacement. So I'm going to keep my eye on

01:16:36 ◼   ► It is more possible than ever for me.

01:16:39 ◼   ► Nicholas asks, "Do you guys think that Marzipan or UIKit on the Mac could actually spell the

01:16:45 ◼   ► doom for iTunes?

01:16:47 ◼   ► With separate Apple Music and Podcast apps potentially coming to the Mac, are there any

01:16:51 ◼   ► legitimate reasons left for iTunes to exist in the long run?"

01:16:55 ◼   ► Well, as a selfish iTunes user on the Mac, the problem I have with the prospect of getting

01:17:03 ◼   ► a music app that's based on the iOS music app is, I don't, I mean I use it on iOS but

01:17:12 ◼   ► there are lots of things iTunes does that the music app doesn't do in terms of finding

01:17:16 ◼   ► in a large library, finding an artist really fast and zooming into an album and all that.

01:17:21 ◼   ► You can do it, it's just a little bit different. I do think it's inevitable though. I feel

01:17:25 ◼   ► like this is the reason that iTunes hasn't been revised.

01:17:27 ◼   ► We keep have been asking time and time again like why is it still around? Why is it still around?

01:17:32 ◼   ► Haha, because little did we know that the apps that Apple would replace it with which would be an Apple music app and a podcast app

01:17:38 ◼   ► They've needed marzipan

01:17:41 ◼   ► Yeah, so I I would fully expect actually that maybe even with next year's Mac OS release. We'll get

01:17:48 ◼   ► podcasts TV, yep music I

01:17:52 ◼   ► I would feel that's pretty much a lock because--

01:17:55 ◼   ► - And what about device management?

01:17:56 ◼   ► My guess is that there will be that iTunes,

01:17:58 ◼   ► I've said this for a while now,

01:17:59 ◼   ► my guess is that iTunes won't go away.

01:18:02 ◼   ► It's just gonna be like the old QuickTime player.

01:18:04 ◼   ► It's gonna get put--

01:18:04 ◼   ► - GarageBand 6, it gets its own little folder.

01:18:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's gonna get put in a folder somewhere--

01:18:09 ◼   ► - Oh, poor iTunes.

01:18:10 ◼   ► - Where you can use it to just do like media syncing

01:18:13 ◼   ► or other maintenance on iOS devices

01:18:16 ◼   ► that you attach via a wire.

01:18:18 ◼   ► but I don't expect them to release an iOS management app.

01:18:23 ◼   ► I think they'll just keep iTunes around and say,

01:18:24 ◼   ► "Yeah, you can use iTunes if you really want to."

01:18:26 ◼   ► - iTunes could live on Macs for as long as it's gonna need

01:18:30 ◼   ► people to plug their devices in, right?

01:18:33 ◼   ► I don't think that there's gonna be a huge,

01:18:34 ◼   ► huge change for a long time.

01:18:36 ◼   ► - I would rather, I would rather,

01:18:38 ◼   ► when I plug in an iOS device to a Mac,

01:18:40 ◼   ► that it show up in the Finder,

01:18:42 ◼   ► and if I double click on it, I can drag in files,

01:18:44 ◼   ► or I can click manage and manage it that way.

01:18:46 ◼   ► That'd be way better.

01:18:47 ◼   ► do I think Apple's gonna make any effort to do something like that? No, no, I think they'll

01:18:51 ◼   ► just keep iTunes around forever. But I think iTunes will be replaced as a media player

01:18:56 ◼   ► by new iOS-based apps that you use to interface with those things, and I think it's inevitable.

01:19:04 ◼   ► Michael has asked, "In iOS 12, is the control center on the iPad multi-touch as it is on

01:19:09 ◼   ► the iPhone? Because in iOS 11, you could, for example..." So you take, I'm gonna explain

01:19:14 ◼   ► this here. You could take your right thumb and pull down on control center, you could

01:19:20 ◼   ► use your left index finger to press a button and then just pull your right thumb up and

01:19:26 ◼   ► control center goes away. So you can hold it, adjust it and flick it away again. This

01:19:30 ◼   ► wasn't the case with the way that control center works on iOS 11 on the iPad. Now that

01:19:38 ◼   ► it has moved into iOS 12, control center is now in the top right hand corner, this does

01:19:42 ◼   ► work this way. So you could for example pull down on with your right hand and just hold it there,

01:19:47 ◼   ► change something like maybe increase the volume and then swipe up again with your right hand and

01:19:52 ◼   ► it goes away. So it is multi-touch in that instance. I had no idea that this is even a thing

01:19:57 ◼   ► but it works. I will mention on this the iPad on iOS 12 the time moved to the top left hand corner

01:20:05 ◼   ► which is hilarious. But you know what it got as well? The date! I missed this. I love that! I love

01:20:12 ◼   ► having the date there. It's so good. Yeah, it's actually really good.

01:20:16 ◼   ► Yes, I'm really happy to have that date there and yes, the time is now up there. Oh, I wonder

01:20:20 ◼   ► why that could be. And finally today, Amir asks, "Do you think that Apple will eventually

01:20:25 ◼   ► create APIs for Safari-like in-app split screen so we could have two notes, docs, etc. side

01:20:30 ◼   ► by side? Is this something that you care about?" I'm going to forward promote that we talk

01:20:37 ◼   ► about this in greater detail in a future episode.

01:20:40 ◼   ► Another Summer of Fun episode.

01:20:43 ◼   ► But you're just gonna tease that for now. But I do feel like this has got to be one

01:20:49 ◼   ► of those iOS 13 next fall features and I think it actually dovetails really well with the

01:20:55 ◼   ► Marzipan UI kit stuff where you're gonna want to have apps when they're on the Mac have

01:21:02 ◼   ► multiple documents open in multiple windows, and how do you display that on iOS? Probably

01:21:08 ◼   ► in tabs or split view on iPads, and then probably in a stack like in Safari on an iPhone. So

01:21:15 ◼   ► I do think it's coming. I think it has to come because of the Mac stuff, and it's another

01:21:22 ◼   ► case where the iPad benefits from that too, because yes, this happens all the time when

01:21:26 ◼   ► I want to have two documents open in the same app and on my iPad in split view, and I can't.

01:21:32 ◼   ► other than Safari. So I do think it will happen and I think it probably was one of those things

01:21:36 ◼   ► that they were thinking of for this year and that when they decided to kind of like put off a bunch

01:21:40 ◼   ► of features it went in next year. But Mark Gorman called it out in February in that article that he

01:21:44 ◼   ► wrote about like slowing things down. He mentioned that this was one of the things that was on the

01:21:48 ◼   ► deck but got pulled off for the time being. But when you think of UIKit stuff it actually makes

01:21:53 ◼   ► even more sense right because then they can build this thing in parallel so that you know you build

01:21:58 ◼   ► an app one way and you pick up these features on the iPad and it works this way on the Mac.

01:22:05 ◼   ► And I think that's good. I think that makes a lot of sense. So I fully expect that we'll

01:22:09 ◼   ► see this next year.

01:22:11 ◼   ► But yeah, to answer that second part, you can bet your bottom dollar that this is something

01:22:15 ◼   ► that me and Jason care about because that's going to be friggin' amazing.

01:22:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I have one writer in Split View with, like, notes sometimes just so I can have two

01:22:23 ◼   ► sets of text up at once. And that's really dumb, where I literally have pasted text into

01:22:28 ◼   ► notes from one writer because I want to have that up because I can't bring up two instances

01:22:34 ◼   ► of one writer. It's infuriating. So yes. Yes, it seems to happen.

01:22:36 ◼   ► And I will wait very impatiently for the six months it takes Google to adopt this in Sheets,

01:22:40 ◼   ► but I'll be really happy when they do it.

01:22:42 ◼   ► Yep, yep. So look at that. And that'll be January 2020 when that happens, but it'll

01:22:47 ◼   ► happen.

01:22:48 ◼   ► But it'll still be great when it happens. All right. So thank you for listening to this

01:22:50 ◼   ► week's episode of Upgrade. Our show notes are in your app of choice unless it's Google

01:22:54 ◼   ► podcasts or you can find them at relay.fm/upgrade/199. Next week, Summer of Fun begins. We have a

01:23:04 ◼   ► lot of really exciting and fun things as you can imagine because the clue's in the name

01:23:08 ◼   ► planned for the summer this year. We've been working very, very hard for about two months.

01:23:13 ◼   ► So the Summer of Fun is getting bigger and better than ever before starting next week

01:23:18 ◼   ► of Episode 200.

01:23:38 ◼   ► [MUSIC]