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Upgrade

198: The Mac Is Dead, Long Live the Mac

 

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00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 198.

00:00:12   Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Pingdom, and Skillshare.

00:00:16   My name is Myke Hurley.

00:00:17   I am joined by Mr. Jason Snow.

00:00:19   Hi, Jason Snow.

00:00:21   >> Hello, Mr. Myke Hurley, how are you?

00:00:23   >> I am very well, sir, and I have a #snowtalk question for

00:00:25   you that comes from Daniel this week.

00:00:27   And Daniel wants to know,

00:00:28   But Jason, are you going to watch much or any of the World Cup?

00:00:32   Myke, do you know what the World Cup is?

00:00:35   Is the World Cup a football?

00:00:36   It's happening right now.

00:00:37   Yes.

00:00:38   Yes.

00:00:39   There are people playing what you call football.

00:00:42   The logical name for that sport.

00:00:44   It is.

00:00:45   Unfortunately, we use that word for something else in the United States.

00:00:48   So we have to call it soccer.

00:00:49   Soccer, which is short for association football.

00:00:52   So it's in there.

00:00:53   It's in there.

00:00:54   Daniel, yes, of course.

00:00:56   In fact, I have already watched the World Cup. The problem is, the Russia time zone

00:01:05   thing makes it harder on Americans than the Brazil time zones did. So there are matches

00:01:13   starting at like 2 a.m. And I'm not watching those. But there are a bunch of matches that

00:01:20   are at like 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and I've been watching those. I watch those all weekend.

00:01:25   I'm looking forward to watching those this week.

00:01:28   And then I'm going on a trip, then I'm going on a vacation, and ironically enough, the

00:01:34   Americans who didn't make it to the World Cup will be going to the Netherlands, which

00:01:39   didn't make it to the World Cup.

00:01:42   But we are going to England as England is playing its final group match, so I hope to

00:01:51   drink in a little bit of the excitement of being in, being with people who are cheering

00:01:56   on their country in the World Cup during a match at that moment. And then, and then,

00:02:02   yeah, there's, there's a couple, while we're, while we're traveling, there are a few rounds

00:02:06   of the World Cup going on, but we'll be home for the last couple of rounds. So I'm excited

00:02:10   about that. I really enjoy, I enjoy sports that happen in the morning, which European

00:02:13   sports are great for people on the West Coast of the United States, because it's really

00:02:17   cool to wake up and turn on the TV and there's sport going on and it's fun. And I do like

00:02:21   soccer. I follow the English Premier League a little bit and international soccer is a

00:02:26   lot of fun. Men's and women's World Cups, the Euro tournament, the CONCACAF tournament

00:02:31   is fun here in North America too. So yeah, so the answer is yes. I think the World Cup

00:02:37   is a lot of fun. And my mother was visiting this weekend and I had the soccer on and I

00:02:42   know that every time I turn the soccer on she will be perplexed because she doesn't

00:02:46   understand this strange, weird... Strange foreign sport.

00:02:51   ...foreign sport. Yeah, really. She doesn't get it. She doesn't get why anybody would

00:02:54   get it. But I enjoy it. You're getting it in 2026, aren't you? I think

00:02:59   I saw a new story about that the other day. Yeah, North America is getting it. It's primarily

00:03:03   the US, but Mexico is going to host, they're going to have three host cities.

00:03:07   And Canada too, I think. And Canada's going to have three host cities,

00:03:10   and then there are going to be ten, I think, in the US, and I think we're hoping that they

00:03:16   do the 49ers stadium in Santa Clara as one of the venues because then we would be able

00:03:21   to go to a World Cup match here which would be a lot of fun. They'll be in LA, they'll

00:03:25   be in New York of course but there are a bunch of other cities that they're going to put

00:03:28   in that list and they haven't decided yet. So that would be fun. That would be a great

00:03:32   time to see a random pool match between two random countries. It would still be a lot

00:03:39   of fun.

00:03:40   Thank you so much to Daniel for his question this week. If you would like to submit a Snail

00:03:46   Talk question for a future episode, just send out a tweet with the hashtag #SnailTalk and

00:03:50   it may be entered into a future episode. I would like to give a follow out to some merch

00:03:56   which I don't think we've ever done before. We're going into new and wonderful worlds

00:03:59   here. Last week's special guest, James Thompson, currently has a range of merchandise on sale.

00:04:05   It's all Peacock related merchandise, wonderful t-shirts and pins.

00:04:10   And also the profits of some select versions of these t-shirts and pins will be going to

00:04:14   support LGBTQ+ charities in the US and the UK because James is awesome like that.

00:04:21   And I bought myself a Peacock t-shirt and I'm very excited for it because I do love

00:04:25   the Me That logo.

00:04:26   So go check those out.

00:04:27   I'll put links in the show notes.

00:04:28   If you're a fan of calculators, if you're a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,

00:04:33   42 and some people will like that. And I will give you the shortest of plugs which is there

00:04:38   are a couple incomparable shirts, the robot and the full logo on sale for the next week

00:04:42   and a half at the incomparable.com/shirt. It's a cotton bureau but that's a nice shortcut

00:04:48   way of getting to those shirts, yeah.

00:04:50   - All right, Jason, I have a lot of upstream news this week.

00:04:54   - This was a mind-blowing week in terms of advances in digital media deals and stuff

00:05:01   like that, yeah, for sure.

00:05:02   Alright so first up I want to do a piece of upstream follow up. Today, just before we

00:05:06   started recording, YouTube Premium has launched in some countries outside the US, including

00:05:11   the UK. I immediately opened the iOS app and signed up. I may have made a mistake here

00:05:17   because apparently it is cheaper if you sign up on the website than if you sign up in the

00:05:23   iOS app. YouTube are adding an Apple tax onto that, which again is one of those things where

00:05:28   That is quite clearly against App Review guidelines, but what can Apple do?

00:05:33   It's YouTube.

00:05:34   What are you going to do?

00:05:36   I'm currently on a three-month free trial, which seems very aggressive as a trial period.

00:05:43   Three months?

00:05:44   But hey ho, that gives me enough time, I guess, to switch over to paying just YouTube directly

00:05:49   at some point, because maybe I've made a mistake using signing up via the App Store.

00:05:55   And YouTube really does seem to be pretty aggressive about the free trials because we

00:05:59   got that with Julian. Julian got a YouTube Red subscription last summer when we were

00:06:08   going to be traveling. We got him one which let him download a bunch of videos for when

00:06:13   we were not having internet. And that was also, I believe, a three-month trial. I'm

00:06:18   like, "Wow, that is really generous." But they just want to hook you. That's what they

00:06:22   want.

00:06:23   And YouTube Music has come with it. I've downloaded the YouTube Music app but haven't played around

00:06:28   with it at all yet. But I'm just really excited because there are some original shows that

00:06:32   I want to watch but more than anything the ability to download YouTube videos locally

00:06:37   to watch when I'm on the plane and stuff is going to be awesome.

00:06:40   Yeah and for the kids, for the kids, the other thing that Julian really liked was, and it's

00:06:46   ridiculous that this is a feature of premium feature but the background audio thing where

00:06:51   you can play it. If you're just listening to something on YouTube, you can start it

00:06:56   playing and then it can run in the background, which is a silly feature, but there it is.

00:07:01   Yeah, it's weird, but it makes sense for their business model, right? Because if you're not

00:07:05   getting ads anymore, they don't care about autoplay anymore, right? Like, the autoplaying

00:07:10   stuff just loads more ads through, but you obviously can't do autoplay in background,

00:07:15   I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture

00:07:22   in picture.

00:07:23   I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture

00:07:26   in picture.

00:07:27   I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture

00:07:30   in picture.

00:07:31   I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture

00:07:35   in picture.

00:07:36   I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture

00:07:39   in picture.

00:07:40   I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture

00:07:43   in picture.

00:07:44   I'm a happy paying YouTube subscriber honestly.

00:07:47   Like that however much I end up paying

00:07:48   with a 10 or 15 pounds a month or whatever.

00:07:51   So I think to myself, oh, that seems like 50,

00:07:52   like if I stuck with a 15 pounds or whatever,

00:07:54   just 'cause I'm just gonna keep it through the app store,

00:07:56   just say I do that.

00:07:58   So again, that's a lot of money.

00:07:59   That's as much as I pay for Netflix.

00:08:00   Then I realised I watch YouTube videos more

00:08:04   than I watch Netflix.

00:08:05   Like I would say by and large,

00:08:07   YouTube right now is my single largest source of content

00:08:11   that I consume more than podcasts, more than any TV.

00:08:14   I because I am a home worker, I watch a lot of YouTube videos, right?

00:08:19   Because if I'm sitting down for lunch, I'll just watch a YouTube video.

00:08:22   I might watch something in a day or something in the evening.

00:08:24   And I obviously still consume a lot of podcasts.

00:08:27   But YouTube is is at least where I'm going to more frequently,

00:08:31   because I guess my podcast consumption is like, you know, you listen to one in an

00:08:34   hour or whatever, two hours where I could probably watch like 10 YouTube videos or

00:08:39   something sure so I consume a ton of content for YouTube so I'm very happy to

00:08:44   pay for it if it helps support the creators and then I don't have to watch

00:08:48   ads anymore which is wonderful I guess because YouTube ads not very good for me

00:08:53   huge news in Apple's you know worst-kept secret they're adding more more people

00:09:00   more creators to their original programming lineup Oprah Winfrey has

00:09:06   signed a unique multi-year content partnership with Apple. There are no details on what this

00:09:13   is going to be. It may be more than just TV shows, it's not said, right? But it will include

00:09:18   content for Apple's TV show programming. We don't know how or if Oprah is going to be

00:09:24   involved, but what we do know is this content will be exclusive to Apple.

00:09:30   And for people who are like, "Oh, who cares about Oprah Winfrey?" I'll just say, "She's

00:09:33   huge."

00:09:34   The world. Everyone in the world.

00:09:36   huge. In fact, this is massive. This is absolutely massive. And it really again, you know, we've

00:09:40   questioned a lot like that that budget, that billion dollar budget or whatever it was.

00:09:45   I can't even what was the amount that was it a billion dollars was I think originally

00:09:49   that the report was that they were going to go spend a billion dollars and we were questioning

00:09:52   whether that was enough. We know now that they're spending more. There's no way they

00:09:56   could have signed everything they've signed and Oprah for a billion dollars like this.

00:10:01   There is no way in heck they've done that.

00:10:04   - All that and Oprah too.

00:10:07   Oprah's gonna apparently own the shows,

00:10:08   which I think is interesting.

00:10:09   And that's a question of like,

00:10:11   what's Apple's business model?

00:10:13   And is Apple gonna own most of these shows?

00:10:15   Like when Netflix started doing originals,

00:10:17   like House of Cards, Netflix doesn't own House of Cards.

00:10:20   - I didn't know that.

00:10:22   - Yeah, yeah, somebody else, media rights capital

00:10:24   or something owns them, somebody owns them.

00:10:25   Yeah, that's a production company.

00:10:27   And Netflix has changed the terms of its deals

00:10:30   because it really does want to control everything.

00:10:33   - Yeah, it's your position of strength changes, right?

00:10:35   And Apple's position of strength right now is not.

00:10:38   - Versus Oprah. - Because they don't even

00:10:39   have a service, and yeah, and it's Oprah.

00:10:41   - They're only the biggest, most valuable company

00:10:44   in the world, they're not Oprah.

00:10:46   So, yeah.

00:10:47   - Like, you know, it's like, yes, you know,

00:10:49   like that, I don't, I mean, you know, you can,

00:10:51   I would assume you'd agree, but like,

00:10:53   just because they're, you know,

00:10:54   they may be the biggest company in the world,

00:10:56   that doesn't translate to the TV stuff, right?

00:10:58   where Apple need people, right?

00:11:01   And Oprah doesn't need Apple, Oprah can go anywhere.

00:11:04   - I also thought it was interesting

00:11:05   when I passed this note on, what I said was,

00:11:10   this is a deal that seems kind of similar

00:11:14   to the Obama's deal.

00:11:16   And I feel like the Obama's deal with Netflix,

00:11:19   I got a real Oprah vibe from it.

00:11:21   Like we wanna be kind of,

00:11:24   we're gonna do all sorts of different content

00:11:26   and we're gonna improve people's lives and show interest.

00:11:30   It just had that kind of feel to it.

00:11:32   And then I see this deal and I'm like, oh, interesting.

00:11:35   Okay, game on, Obamas.

00:11:37   Here comes Oprah.

00:11:39   Yeah, 'cause I, and maybe they'll be very different,

00:11:42   but I just, given the context of the first deal,

00:11:46   I looked at this deal and I was like, oh, interesting.

00:11:48   It seems to me to be sort of a similar thing of like,

00:11:51   basically Apple's like, we wanna be in the Oprah business.

00:11:54   So let's make that happen.

00:11:55   just like Netflix wanted to be in the Obama business.

00:11:58   So we'll see.

00:11:59   Another interesting little bit from Apple.

00:12:04   I saw an article this weekend

00:12:05   that I popped into the show notes here,

00:12:07   which is that Apple is also,

00:12:10   according to Bloomberg, interesting that it's Bloomberg

00:12:13   and Mark Gurman's got a co-buy line on this story.

00:12:16   Apple is near a deal to make,

00:12:19   to buy an animated feature

00:12:23   from a company called Cartoon Saloon.

00:12:27   So this is another example of Apple extending beyond

00:12:30   just buying TV shows,

00:12:33   but also buying movies for their service.

00:12:37   So this is Cartoon Saloon did Secret of Kells,

00:12:40   which was an award-winning short, or award-winning film.

00:12:45   I think it was best animated feature nominee

00:12:48   for the Academy Awards too, and a bunch of other stuff.

00:12:51   And they've done TV shows too.

00:12:52   but this report is that they're gonna buy the rights

00:12:56   to this, an animated movie from this studio.

00:13:01   So another one on the pile.

00:13:02   - And yet one more.

00:13:04   Apple has ordered a mystery series

00:13:08   based on the life of Hilde Lizeyak.

00:13:11   Is that how you said the name?

00:13:12   - I don't know, something like that.

00:13:14   - It's a 10 episode series based on true events.

00:13:16   Lizeyak was a young investigative reporter

00:13:18   who was the first to expose a murder in her hometown

00:13:21   of Sellings Grove, PA, Pennsylvania,

00:13:24   breaking the news in her self-started newspaper,

00:13:26   The Orange Street News.

00:13:27   That is kind of the description of the show.

00:13:30   It's created and produced by Dana Fox and Dara Resnick.

00:13:34   So yet another show, but this is a drama

00:13:37   based on true events.

00:13:38   So it's like they're continuing to add more and more stuff,

00:13:42   more and more stuff, which is spreading out

00:13:45   the overall portfolio.

00:13:47   They're gonna have, I mean, who knows what,

00:13:49   when they're gonna launch or what they're gonna launch with,

00:13:51   But we know that Apple have a multi-year strategy

00:13:54   at this point, which is fascinating.

00:13:56   And again, I mentioned it a minute ago,

00:13:58   the worst kept secret.

00:13:59   One of the reasons this is so interesting to me and you is,

00:14:02   as people who follow Apple so closely,

00:14:05   this is all in reverse.

00:14:07   We're finding out all of the details about the content

00:14:10   before Apple has said a word about it.

00:14:13   But there's nothing they can do.

00:14:14   Because they are in an industry that they cannot control.

00:14:17   So by and large, they seem to be conforming

00:14:20   with the way that industry moves,

00:14:21   where the trade publications get the information.

00:14:23   And they're just giving that out there,

00:14:25   even though if you went and asked Apple today,

00:14:27   if you were able to get an interview with Phil Schiller

00:14:30   and asked him, are you doing a TV service,

00:14:32   he would just, you know, he'd be like,

00:14:34   I don't know what you're talking about, right?

00:14:36   It would be this kind of weird thing,

00:14:38   it's like we have nothing to say about that.

00:14:40   But even though it's very clear that they're doing it.

00:14:42   But yeah, it's really, it continues to be

00:14:44   very, very interesting.

00:14:46   And I'm assuming September that we find out

00:14:49   details about this.

00:14:50   I feel like they can't let it keep going on past the end of this year.

00:14:55   I think they can. I think this September would be a perfectly fine time to do it, but I think

00:15:01   they could do it next summer, too.

00:15:05   I guess it all depends on how long it takes to put stuff together, right?

00:15:08   Yeah. When we started talking about this, I think what I said was fall 2018, and we

00:15:12   might hear about it. But we'll see. I don't know how far along all of these things are.

00:15:20   But, um, because I would imagine, here's the thing, I would imagine that they won't announce

00:15:25   this until it's ready to go. Like, with content.

00:15:29   Yeah, this will be a thing that will appear basically immediately, would be my expectation

00:15:33   as well. Yeah, and there'll be shows and, you know,

00:15:36   they'll drop with a first collection of shows, um, and a free trial probably, and that'll

00:15:41   be, that'll be how they go out the door. Um, and, you know, I think the nuances of how

00:15:47   they roll it out are kind of fascinating. Do you put out the first seasons of a bunch

00:15:50   of these shows? Do you choose specific shows? Do you do just a half season or something

00:15:56   like that so you really kind of hook people and then make them want to keep paying? There's

00:16:00   a lot of questions about how they roll this out, and of course that's the part that is

00:16:06   still shrouded in mystery. We hear from people all the time, by the way, who say, "Oh, it's

00:16:09   just rumors." I had this every time I talk about TV and Apple, on Twitter especially,

00:16:16   are like, "Oh, it's just rumors and Carpool Karaoke's dumb."

00:16:18   - This isn't rumors, and yes, Carpool Karaoke was dumb,

00:16:21   but that's not the same thing.

00:16:22   - 'Cause in the entertainment business,

00:16:24   the leaks happen from a different supply chain, I guess,

00:16:28   and these are reputable sources.

00:16:31   I mean, this was Bloomberg,

00:16:31   and it was kind of a weird report.

00:16:32   - These don't even feel like leaks.

00:16:34   Ignore that Bloomberg thing,

00:16:35   but if our links are coming from the Hollywood Reporter

00:16:38   and Variety, they're done.

00:16:40   Like, the deal's done. - Yeah, they're done deals.

00:16:41   - Yeah. - Done deals.

00:16:42   - This isn't like 9to5Mac and MacRumors saying like,

00:16:45   "Oh, we think the iPhone's gonna have this or this."

00:16:47   This is a very different industry.

00:16:51   - Right, 'cause here's the thing.

00:16:51   If you think that there's such a thing

00:16:53   as a movie or a TV show that can suddenly be released

00:16:56   with a surprise like an Apple product,

00:16:58   no, it's not possible.

00:17:01   It can't happen.

00:17:02   Even when we talked about the Cloverfield paradox

00:17:04   and the Super Bowl,

00:17:06   everybody knew that that movie was being made.

00:17:08   The fact that it got that title

00:17:10   and was released the same day on the Super Bowl day,

00:17:14   that was a surprise.

00:17:16   - Well, that even got reported on 24 hours before,

00:17:19   like that wasn't a complete surprise.

00:17:20   - Right, but my point is that the existence of that film,

00:17:24   not a surprise, that film had been kicking around

00:17:28   for a while and everybody knew what it was

00:17:30   and what the deals were and who was making it

00:17:32   and who was in it and that is not a secret.

00:17:36   So, I mean, or think of something like Star Wars or Marvel,

00:17:40   where they will keep some secrets,

00:17:41   there's some secrets they can keep,

00:17:43   But like the existence of another Avengers movie next year is not a secret.

00:17:47   The title is a secret.

00:17:49   There, the existence of another star Wars movie next year, not a secret.

00:17:52   The title is a secret.

00:17:53   Plot details are a secret.

00:17:55   You know, maybe some of the casting is a secret.

00:17:57   Most of the casting isn't.

00:17:58   This is Hollywood.

00:17:59   So anyway, Apple's playing that game now.

00:18:01   So instead Apple's controlling what it can control, which is what is the service?

00:18:05   What does it cost?

00:18:06   How are they market it?

00:18:07   How are they going to roll it out?

00:18:08   All of that is still to play for and is a fascinating, but we're not there yet.

00:18:13   They're still making the deals.

00:18:14   In a quick update on what is happening with Fox, Comcast have made their deal public.

00:18:19   It is a 65 billion dollar all cash deal.

00:18:22   Disney's was 52.4 billion dollars.

00:18:25   We're still in stock.

00:18:27   Yes, not even in cash.

00:18:29   And it's arguable, right?

00:18:30   Which is more valuable.

00:18:32   There are arguments on both sides.

00:18:33   We'll now wait for that investor meeting in July to hopefully get some answers to what's going to happen to Fox.

00:18:40   Yeah, Fox is gonna have a shareholder meeting and try to decide what they're gonna do.

00:18:45   The board thinks the Disney deal is better because it's a better fit for the product

00:18:49   and Disney is a good company to be in business with and so getting Disney stock is a good

00:18:54   deal for the shareholders.

00:18:56   That said, Disney's probably gonna have to sweeten their offer because a $13 billion

00:19:03   gap in offer is not nothing.

00:19:09   But it is interesting, like, how will the shareholders react to that and how will Disney—will

00:19:16   Disney sweeten its offer?

00:19:17   Will Comcast step up further?

00:19:20   We'll see next month.

00:19:21   That's a stay tuned one there.

00:19:23   I'm looking forward to that one.

00:19:24   David: Amazon has secured the rights to 20 UK Premier League matches for three years

00:19:30   starting in 2019.

00:19:31   This is what you were talking about the other day about Amazon trying to get into the live

00:19:36   sports in the UK.

00:19:37   Yeah, and this I mean we would and we spoke about the rumor of this a long time ago. It was BT

00:19:43   We're trying to get it to

00:19:44   Ten of these games will be over public holiday periods like Boxing Day is gonna be one of them

00:19:50   This is a huge deal. So Amazon have got a small amount of the games, but they are picking very

00:19:57   Particular games. So like the Boxing Day football game is like an institution in this country, right? That is a thing

00:20:04   It's kind of like the football game on Thanksgiving or whatever, right? Like it's a big thing

00:20:10   And I think that having that game is really smart because people will buy fire TV sticks as Christmas gifts

00:20:16   So they can watch the game together like Amazon. I mean again though, I will note that

00:20:21   Football fans in the UK are furious about this because oh, yeah

00:20:27   It is a third service that they need to subscribe to if they want to get all the football

00:20:31   Yeah, if you have to pay for it, yeah.

00:20:33   Yeah, well, that's what always bothers me about

00:20:35   these exclusive media deals is that they just want you

00:20:38   to buy, oh, do you wanna watch this show?

00:20:40   You've gotta subscribe to this.

00:20:41   Then you wanna watch this, you have to subscribe to this.

00:20:43   And after a while, you do get kind of fatigued.

00:20:45   And we've had that in the US actually.

00:20:47   Major League Baseball made a deal with Facebook.

00:20:49   So there are certain baseball games

00:20:51   that are only available on Facebook.

00:20:53   I'm not kidding.

00:20:54   You have to watch them on Facebook.

00:20:55   - But I guess they're free though, right?

00:20:57   - They're free, but you have to sign up for Facebook.

00:21:00   (laughing)

00:21:01   And a lot of people are kind of angry about that and then watch them on your computer

00:21:05   or on an app or whatever, but and people are grumpy about that because fans, sports fans

00:21:10   are gonna be grumpy about anything that is deviating from the norm. But it is a point

00:21:15   of leverage for these companies to get new users and new subscribers and all of that.

00:21:22   And so how does it work on Boxing Day? Everybody, does everybody have their own box that they

00:21:26   they sit in or is there like a large box that a family gets in and then watches the football?

00:21:31   It's a really big box with a TV inside and we all just get in and close the lid and then

00:21:36   we come out when the game's over.

00:21:37   Oh, the TV's inside the box!

00:21:39   How else does the TV come in the box?

00:21:41   Yeah, it's a big box with a TV set.

00:21:42   I thought you peek over the edge.

00:21:43   I thought everybody is like lined up on the edge of the box staring out at the telly.

00:21:49   And more soccer news, football news, and we're talking about the World Cup so we can tailor

00:21:52   this back around.

00:21:53   is being broadcast in 4K HDR and many broadcasters worldwide. This is the first big test of this.

00:22:01   For example, in the UK, the BBC, they have limited amounts of people that can watch it,

00:22:07   so you have to get there quick and then it fills up because obviously this is a

00:22:10   pretty difficult thing to do from a technological perspective, especially because with the BBC,

00:22:16   it's all being streamed, it's not being traditionally broadcast. So it's a test for

00:22:21   all of them but a big sporting event like this is the perfect kind of event to show

00:22:26   off this type of technology. You've got a lot of eyes and you've got a lot of interesting

00:22:29   color and stuff going on. But yeah, it's happening all over the world now. This is the first,

00:22:34   I think, real big showing of Ultra HD as it's being branded in most places.

00:22:41   Yeah, it's, um, we talked about the challenges with 4K distribution and like the BBC stream

00:22:49   as an example of that. It's exciting. It reminds me, I bought an HDTV really early. I think

00:22:56   we had it in 2004. It was really early. And what was funny about that era is that there

00:23:03   was an extremely limited number of channels or ways to get HD content. And I had Satellite

00:23:12   Provider and they had a few channels. There was literally a channel called HDNet, which

00:23:15   is now called something else. But it was like, this is a channel that's in high definition.

00:23:18   Sky had Sky HD, which is just the one channel they showed all their HD content on.

00:23:24   My favorite thing about HDNET was that they had a show that literally was on the morning

00:23:29   and it would show you a sunrise.

00:23:31   Yep.

00:23:32   Yep.

00:23:33   Right?

00:23:34   And it would just go for like half an hour and it was literally just watch the sunrise

00:23:37   in HD.

00:23:39   Amazing.

00:23:40   And this 4K HDR era seems similar.

00:23:43   So Tom Warren wrote a story at the Fridge about this.

00:23:44   He was very excited about it.

00:23:46   In the US, it's fascinating.

00:23:47   The World Cup made a deal with Hisense, which is a TV manufacturer, to embed the Fox Sports,

00:23:54   because it's on Fox here in the US, Fox Sports World Cup app on their 4K HDR TVs.

00:24:00   So if you have one of their TVs, you get access to it.

00:24:03   And then there are a few other ways to do it.

00:24:06   The satellite provider, DirecTV, is making it available on most of the games available

00:24:12   on one of their channels.

00:24:14   I have Comcast Cable and their response to this is hilarious. They are making some games

00:24:21   available on demand the day after they're played.

00:24:24   Incredible. That's what you want.

00:24:25   If you've, if, and only if you've got their X1 DVR, which is their 4K DVR. You can't like

00:24:30   stream them or it's just, yeah. But we'll get there, right? Like in four years, I would

00:24:35   imagine we will have advanced to the point where you can get a 4K HDR stream or channel

00:24:41   or something of everything that you're, everything that you can get to. Like every service that

00:24:49   you can get to will offer that in some way or other. But this time, it's like, and actually

00:24:54   that happened in the Olympics in 2004 when we had that HDTV. There was an HD Olympic

00:24:58   channel which was awesome. It was events from the world feed, not from the local, from NBC

00:25:04   in the US and it was a day delayed. So, but I'll tell you, I watched that because that

00:25:11   was that moment where you watched the moment when swimming, Olympic swimming was in HD

00:25:16   for the first time. I still remember it because I remember thinking, "I can see them under

00:25:22   the water." It was like, "Whoa!" Because standard death swimming was just like, there's splashes

00:25:28   and whatever. But you could see them under the water. It was amazing. So the 4K HDR,

00:25:34   it's exciting. Tom Warren's piece, he mentions how interesting it is to see a live sporting

00:25:40   event in HDR, leaving the 4K aside, like the dynamic range makes it feel kind of different.

00:25:47   And that's kind of interesting too. And I think it's 60 frames per second, which is

00:25:51   also interesting, so a higher frame rate. I'm looking forward to seeing it, but I don't

00:25:56   get to see it this time because I don't have the Comcast DVR. So, oh well.

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00:27:28   So Jason, in our post WWDC episode, I think I remember saying that Project Sneak Peek

00:27:35   was exciting to me because I felt like it could finally end the contention of the iPad

00:27:43   versus the Mac and whether the Mac was going to die and all that kind of stuff. I was like

00:27:47   finally we're all good we can move away from this. This seems like a great thing that Apple's

00:27:51   doing. Then a couple of days later, you wrote an article, much to my surprise, titled "What

00:27:57   Will the Mac Be Like in 2020," where you had basically gone through, I think, a bit

00:28:02   of a rollercoaster of emotions over a couple of days. And then by the end of this article,

00:28:07   pronounced the Mac to be dead again, which I'm kind of surprised about.

00:28:13   Not quite. Not quite. But I think it's fair to say… So I actually am really positive

00:28:19   about this. I know that people are gonna be upset about it,

00:28:21   but I'm actually really positive about this.

00:28:23   I do think the story of how to get from here to there

00:28:27   is fascinating.

00:28:28   And I think when we get there, what I would say,

00:28:32   I can't wait to hear John Syracuse talk about this,

00:28:36   on ATP sometime, but I think it is fair to say

00:28:41   that the Mac is about to undergo the greatest amount

00:28:45   of change that it has experienced

00:28:47   since OS X was introduced.

00:28:49   I think that's what we're going to see.

00:28:51   So I think the question is,

00:28:54   is the Mac dead in five years?

00:28:59   No, I don't think so.

00:29:01   Is the Mac as we know it completely changed in five years?

00:29:06   I think maybe yes.

00:29:08   I think maybe that is the thing,

00:29:10   is that we're entering a period

00:29:12   that potentially is going to have dramatic change

00:29:14   for the Mac, maybe for iOS too.

00:29:17   because I think that's an untold part of this, especially the iPad.

00:29:22   Because when you look at the sneak peek stuff, or marzipan, or whatever you want to call it,

00:29:27   this ability to run iOS stuff on the Mac,

00:29:30   what's going to happen, and like Steve Trotton Smith, bless his heart, is already taking the stuff apart.

00:29:38   He's doing incredible work right now.

00:29:41   He's using the stuff that's in the first developer beta to take stock, it's simulator builds,

00:29:49   of other iOS apps and turn them into Mac apps, like, just to see what happens.

00:29:54   And keep in mind this is the first beta of a thing that is not actually going to be available

00:29:59   to developers for a year in beta, and a year and three months probably in final.

00:30:05   And so he's looking at the earliest days of this, which means if stuff doesn't work, it's

00:30:09   like this is beta and it's not for you and we got a year until the developer

00:30:14   beta so he's just trying to figure out what's there and how it works and he's

00:30:18   doing some amazing work I also want to reference we'll put it in the show notes

00:30:21   a nice piece by Becky Hansmeyer that is a it's technical but it's really good

00:30:27   about what is going on with iOS as well and the idea that perhaps we're in in

00:30:37   next time, iOS 13 and the next version of Mac OS, we may be in for kind of a visual

00:30:42   refresh, that would bring dark mode, there would be some other things that

00:30:46   would be potentially shared between the two operating systems in terms of design

00:30:51   functionality. I think she makes some very good points, it's a good piece.

00:30:55   And I look at these pieces and I start to think, okay well this is what

00:30:58   may be going on here, is that we're going to enter a period where we're going to

00:31:02   get an influx of apps for the Mac. But more than that, there's going to be an

00:31:06   influx of apps on the Mac and they're going to be modified like Apple has done

00:31:10   so that they also look different on the iPad. There's a possibility that as a

00:31:15   part of this process like how do you do multi window support for these apps

00:31:20   because the apps that Apple chose for this round don't really do that. They're

00:31:25   all sort of single window but there are some thoughts I think Steve has had

00:31:30   these thoughts and and I think Becky's piece touches on it too of the idea that

00:31:34   that what may be coming is kind of an overhaul that is like, let's iOS apps on the iPad have

00:31:42   multiple windows that are probably tabs and not floating windows.

00:31:48   So there'll be tabs on iOS, but there'll be windows on the Mac.

00:31:53   Right, they'd be able to instantiate that differently. They could be tabbed or windowed

00:31:56   on the Mac, and they'd be tabbed on iOS.

00:31:59   Like how Finder is, you know? Like you can tab Finder.

00:32:02   it look like. Or Safari is a great example. Safari I think is a good example on iOS as

00:32:07   well and then on the iPhone they wouldn't be that way they'd be in a stack probably

00:32:10   because that's how Safari on the iPhone does it. And so that's this is a case that you

00:32:14   and I've talked about where although you know we're talking about the future of the Mac

00:32:19   it's like the iPad kind of comes along for the ride because like if you've got this iOS

00:32:24   originated software but you want to make it good on the Mac we you and I both think like

00:32:28   Like there's a real opportunity here to also kind of extend that work and have it make

00:32:32   good iPad apps.

00:32:34   And Apple is the first example here where they've taken apps that weren't even, they

00:32:37   didn't even bother putting on the iPad and now they can put them there.

00:32:40   And if you extend that to having kind of the concept of windowing or tabbing, then it gets

00:32:46   even more kind of rich and interesting.

00:32:51   So I think that we are headed down a path where a lot of software is going to be coming

00:32:57   to the Mac using this approach. And the richer that approach gets, because I have a hard

00:33:03   time seeing Apple do this and having it be rudimentary, right? Like, "Well, you can bring

00:33:09   these apps to the Mac, but they're not very good and they don't look like Mac apps." That's

00:33:13   a possible scenario, but I don't believe that Apple would choose to do it that way. I believe

00:33:20   Apple wants this to be really good. And that's where my story took a turn a little bit, I

00:33:24   will admit where I'm like, well, if they're really good, then why make—if you're an

00:33:30   iOS developer, that's all the Mac apps you make will be like that. And it becomes sort

00:33:35   of like essentially two ways of building a Mac app. You can build it this way, which

00:33:40   is the unified UI kit way, or you can build a Mac-only app using AppKit. And over time,

00:33:48   there will all, I think, always be, or for a very long time, apps that are legacy apps

00:33:52   that use AppKit, or potentially apps that can only be done using AppKit, but there's

00:33:57   going to be a whole lot of stuff that just uses UIKit and can run potentially on iOS

00:34:02   as well as the Mac. And that changes the scenario of what the Mac is to be this kind of hybrid

00:34:10   of—it reminds me a lot of the early days of OS X where there was Cocoa and Carbon.

00:34:15   And Cocoa was not any more native on OS X than Carbon, technically. People always would

00:34:22   say oh it feels like a native app. It's like carbon was native too but like carbon was

00:34:25   older, you know, designed to be compatible for things that were that had a bunch of older

00:34:33   code from the Mac from the classic Mac era and then gradually over time the carbon stuff

00:34:38   just got deprecated and I don't know whether app kit would get deprecated over time compared

00:34:46   to like UI kit but it's not hard to imagine that happening because I think and this is

00:34:51   this is why I feel positive about a lot of this. I think Apple's ultimate goal is to

00:34:55   make things that are good on the platform, to make it, software developers be empowered

00:35:01   to build good software for their platforms, including the Mac. I don't think Apple's

00:35:05   goal is to make the Mac crappy and feel like a secondhand iOS device. Like, that's not

00:35:11   their goal. And if they continue to advance this technology, at some point, a lot of the

00:35:18   stuff that we consider only doable on the Mac may not be anymore. At which

00:35:22   point it's sort of like, is it a Mac anymore? Kind of. It's like iOS Plus, but

00:35:29   my feeling about that is as scary as that sounds from the perspective of

00:35:32   today, I think by the time we got there, like, if that device does everything you

00:35:36   want it to do and need it to do, we call it what you want, but it won't matter if

00:35:42   it's not a Mac anymore if it literally does everything that you can do on your

00:35:46   Mac today in the same kind of way. And I think that would be the ultimate end goal for Apple.

00:35:53   So that's a long way of saying that I think I'm pretty positive about it, but I do think

00:35:57   things are going to change an awful lot. And the more that people like Steve Trouton Smith

00:36:01   dig into this stuff, I think the clearer the ramifications are of where Apple's going,

00:36:07   even at this early stage.

00:36:09   So when a monarch dies in this country, I assume it's the same in other places too,

00:36:13   there's you know they say like all the king is dead long at the king right mm-hmm

00:36:18   this is kind of how I think about this where it's like the Mac is dead long of

00:36:21   the Mac like what we knew is gonna go away but there's gonna be something else

00:36:27   which is learned from the previous one and it's a continuation of the line and

00:36:31   that's kind of how I look into this I liked something that Steve trout and

00:36:35   Smith said a couple of days ago on Twitter very said the Mac is going to

00:36:39   become another iOS target in a different form factor it will keep everything that

00:36:42   makes it a Mac, but Apple's successful ecosystem is iOS and UIKit and it will dominate on the

00:36:47   desktop.

00:36:48   Is that a pronouncement you would agree with?

00:36:50   >> Yeah, I think that is a very likely scenario.

00:36:54   And it goes back to me saying, I have a hard time imagining Apple saying, we're going to

00:37:02   go this far but no further with UIKit on the Mac.

00:37:07   Beyond here, we're just not going to go there.

00:37:09   We're going to leave it here.

00:37:10   I have a hard time with Apple looking at some of its new and important technologies and

00:37:14   saying "Well, we're gonna limit it because we don't wanna make the old stuff uncomfortable."

00:37:25   And they've actually, I would argue, they've crossed that line already, right?

00:37:28   By doing this at all, the gate is open.

00:37:33   And again, I think you could look at this very positively.

00:37:37   is Apple saying that it's going to take its most important stuff from its

00:37:41   strongest platform, from its biggest community of developers, and give them a

00:37:45   whole bunch of tools because they really want them to be able to extend their

00:37:48   software to the Mac. And it's easy to look at it now and be like, "Oh, the Mac

00:37:53   App Store is really sleepy. Is anybody really going to even want to make Mac

00:37:56   apps?" It's like, okay, that's a fair question, but in the long run it's sort

00:38:00   of like, "Hey, iOS developers, you already target the iPhone and probably the iPad.

00:38:04   "What if your software also goes to the laptops or desktops?"

00:38:09   And you have even more audience for it.

00:38:11   Like, in the long run, think more about reaching people

00:38:15   on Apple's platforms instead of thinking about

00:38:19   like iOS versus Mac.

00:38:21   - So, what, you make reference to this,

00:38:28   Steve made reference to this in the quote

00:38:30   that I just mentioned, and I think this is even something

00:38:33   that Apple was talking about, like what makes a Mac a Mac and kind of keeping that intact.

00:38:39   So if it's not the apps then, right, like if we assume that the apps can change and

00:38:43   things will be mostly okay, what is it that makes a Mac a Mac?

00:38:48   Yeah, this is the big question and I think it's going to depend on… it's what we've

00:38:56   been talking about for a few years now, which is what does Apple see as the future of the

00:39:01   Mac. What does Apple want the Mac to be in five years? And there are a bunch of

00:39:07   options there. There's dead, and I don't think Apple wants that. There's a legacy

00:39:14   platform for people who've been buying computers for a long time who are, you

00:39:22   know, aging, but they've got work to do and they've got money and they've got

00:39:27   software that they count on that's been around for a decade or two decades and it's a flat

00:39:35   to declining product in a declining market. Although I will say I think that it's a mistake

00:39:42   to think that future workforces are just going to use smartphones or smartphones and tablets.

00:39:50   I think the death of the laptop is overstated that even, and I see it with my own kids,

00:39:57   They like laptops. I've got two teenagers, they like laptops. They do. They like other

00:40:01   devices too, but they also like laptops. So I don't think the laptop as a concept is

00:40:06   going to go away. So I think it would be a mistake for Apple to say, "Well, we do have

00:40:11   a laptop, but it's really for old people." Like, I think that's just a huge mistake.

00:40:17   And I don't think they believe that. So their other option is to say, "What we want

00:40:22   this to be in five years is a platform that has all the stuff that existing Mac users

00:40:30   do count on, but an infusion of capability from iOS that gives new energy to this platform,

00:40:39   gives new software to it, that makes it feel more like what that other audience that's

00:40:46   not the legacy Mac audience wants to get out of a device that's in the shape of a laptop

00:40:51   or a desktop. And to me, that's when some of their statements about not doing a touchscreen

00:40:58   break down, because the new generation of device users are touchscreen natives. I don't

00:41:07   think it needs to be only touchscreen, because that's ridiculous. My kids use laptops, that

00:41:13   means they use trackpads and keyboards, and it's great. But I do start to think that is

00:41:19   a place where potentially the Mac becomes something that's more like, well it's a Mac

00:41:25   but it's also an iOS device, kind of, and you can choose your interaction method. Now,

00:41:31   that's one of the places that it's really an open question because Apple right now says

00:41:35   "No, no, no, touch screens, why would we need to do them?" but they don't have them on the

00:41:39   Mac, so they're not going to say that they're going to do them until they do them. It's

00:41:42   Apple. They never talk about that stuff in advance for new hardware. It's always nothing

00:41:49   until it's something. But I'd like to believe that that is what Apple's committed to in

00:41:54   terms of the Mac, is how does Apple get from here, where they've got this one platform

00:42:00   that's new and thriving and growing and incredibly popular, and then they've got this other platform

00:42:06   that is good and has been around a long time, but is not able to tap into the advantages

00:42:15   of that other platform, where as you look at somebody like Microsoft, and because they

00:42:18   don't have a successful smartphone platform, they're just pushing ahead. They have no other

00:42:26   alternative but to create this single unified Windows with all of this stuff. Apple has

00:42:33   this trickier challenge. It's a good problem to have, to have iOS, but it's a trickier

00:42:36   challenge of how do they get these things to kind of like become more cohesive. Because

00:42:42   in the end, if I'm Apple, what I don't want is in 10 years' time for the MacBook to be

00:42:48   a computer for old people.

00:42:49   Why though? What if it just goes that way?

00:42:52   People die, Michael! People die! Well, no, here's the thing though. If you believe that

00:42:56   the laptop, that people like laptops, that young people like laptops, that the laptop

00:43:00   is a shape, that we're not going to go into an office in 15 years, and behind every desk

00:43:05   is just a person, if there are even desks. Offices don't even have desks anymore in this

00:43:09   scenario. They're just people in chairs drifting around an office building somewhere, and they

00:43:13   all just have smartphones, and that's the workplace. It's like, I kind of don't believe

00:43:17   that that's the case. I think it'll be different. I think that we make assumptions about work

00:43:21   that will change and we will be surprised in the next 10 or 15 years, 20 years. You

00:43:26   know, there are always going to be surprises. But what I don't believe is that all of a

00:43:31   sudden everybody's going to say laptops are pointless. We're just going to use tablets

00:43:37   in the workplace from now on. It's like, you know, people do, I just, I don't think, it

00:43:41   could happen. It could happen that everybody goes to AR glasses or VR or something like

00:43:46   that. And Apple's making different bets there. But as long as we're in the context of sort

00:43:50   of traditional computing, I feel like the laptop is a viable form. I guess you could

00:43:56   argue the other way to go is that why not just continue to make old Macs for old people

00:44:02   and make iOS laptops for young people? And they could do that, but it seems like maybe

00:44:06   they're not going to do that. I think this direction suggests that they're going to try

00:44:10   to infuse iOS into the Mac instead of having them be separate. And some of the statements

00:44:15   made at WWDC about how like, what is the Mac? Like the Mac is on a laptop. It's like, all

00:44:20   right, well, if iOS is not on a laptop, then how do you make a laptop that gets all the

00:44:24   goodness of iOS, but is still not, is still a Mac? And that seems to be the direction

00:44:30   they're heading. But I think ultimately, like, what you don't want at app, if you're Apple,

00:44:35   is to end up with this huge class of computing devices that you used to be really the, you

00:44:40   know, one of the best or the best at that you've basically written off, even though

00:44:44   they still exist and people use them. If you believe they're going to die, then you can

00:44:49   just write them off. But I don't think Apple believes that use of kind of traditional computer

00:44:54   shapes is going to die out completely. I think it's always going to be a part of the mix.

00:44:59   And if you're Apple, you want to be in there. You want to be part of the mix. If they're

00:45:03   still making and using laptops, if people are still buying laptops, Apple will want

00:45:09   to be there and I can't see it being in Apple's DNA to be the provider of old fuddy-duddy

00:45:17   legacy computing devices, right? Do they – that would be such a blow to their self-image to

00:45:23   be like Sears or JC Penney or something like that where it's like, "Well, for people

00:45:29   who are not comfortable with modern things, we provide this old stuff for you." I just

00:45:36   don't think Apple would do that.

00:45:37   So do you think that the Mac, so like the MacBook, the iMac, is just going to become

00:45:43   the name of a form factor, like the iPad is the name of a form factor for iOS?

00:45:47   Maybe. I mean these are the great mysteries, is like how does Apple steer this and how do

00:45:55   they market it? Because the thing is none of these companies get to stop selling products.

00:46:00   Because I should say there is a long period of time here, right? There's so many things that

00:46:04   have to happen. This is a far future, you know, even the element of like, how do you

00:46:08   build apps, right, because you're going to need the apps, you can't build apps on iOS

00:46:11   right now. So our assumption is that all of these things have happened, right, because

00:46:16   that seems like the logical flow.

00:46:18   And they have to stay in business, right, so it's the idea that you can build a bridge

00:46:23   a lot faster and a lot cheaper if you can just shut it down and tear it down and then

00:46:26   build a new bridge, but there's traffic every day, and the traffic has to go through, so

00:46:31   you can't do that. So it costs a lot more money and takes a lot more time because you

00:46:34   you need to keep the traffic going.

00:46:35   And that's the same thing here,

00:46:37   is that they need to still sell MacBooks.

00:46:39   Like Apple may have known for years

00:46:41   and still knows where they're going with the Mac

00:46:43   and that it's gonna be a very different product

00:46:45   in five years than it is today.

00:46:47   But the fact is, they need to sell your laptops today

00:46:49   and tomorrow and next year, right?

00:46:51   They need to keep doing that.

00:46:53   And so they're not going to,

00:46:54   they can't just shut it all down

00:46:56   and then bring in a new thing and figure it out.

00:46:58   They kind of have to build a transition in it

00:47:01   and it's harder.

00:47:03   So we're talking about hardware, right?

00:47:05   This is this is a conversation we're having right now.

00:47:08   And I think a lot of the current

00:47:10   issues that that

00:47:14   Mac fans have are based around the fact that

00:47:17   we seem to be slowing down on hardware again.

00:47:20   Like it seemed like things have gotten better, maybe, but they're slowing down again.

00:47:23   So my question is, where has all the hardware gone?

00:47:27   And we can talk about that after we take our next break.

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00:48:42   So Joe Steele in the chat room has cottoned on to me having "Where have all the cowboys

00:48:49   gone?" in my head for the last three days.

00:48:51   Because as soon as I wrote that line, "Where has all the hardware gone?" that's been in

00:48:56   in my head constantly.

00:48:57   But I liked it. I thought it was funny.

00:49:02   So that's what I'm going to ask you because there has been

00:49:07   there's been quite a bit of renewed angst

00:49:12   about Mac hardware over the last couple of weeks.

00:49:15   So I feel like after WWDC, for the days after WWDC,

00:49:20   I wasn't hearing anybody really talk about this.

00:49:23   The fact that they didn't do anything with the Mac.

00:49:25   They kind of, nobody that I was talking to seemed concerned about it.

00:49:29   Obviously we knew it didn't happen, right?

00:49:31   There was no bumps of any kind.

00:49:33   No one was expecting to get Mac Pro stuff.

00:49:35   The iMac Pro is good as it is.

00:49:37   Um, but I think a lot of people, we, it was a draft pick of ours, was expecting at

00:49:40   least some chip changes in the MacBook Pro, but nothing happened and it seemed

00:49:44   like it was quiet and then kind of last week, a lot of this, uh, it's a surface

00:49:50   again. And I think it started with a post from Quentin Carnecelli on the Rogue Amoeba

00:49:56   blog titled "On the sad state of Macintosh hardware" where Quentin goes through a bunch

00:50:02   of things. I got a quote that I wanted to read. I want to see if you feel the way, the

00:50:06   same way. Quentin says, "It's very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of

00:50:12   Macs to customers, and that's deeply worrisome to us as a Mac-based software company. Do

00:50:17   Do you feel the same way that right now it is difficult to recommend Max2People?

00:50:23   Let me tell you, I am being bombarded by parents asking me about laptops for their kids for

00:50:30   school in the fall.

00:50:32   Especially since we had a bunch of graduations and people sometimes will do that.

00:50:35   They'll buy a computer for their kid on their way when they graduate and it's to take to

00:50:40   college or whatever.

00:50:43   And it's been tough because my answer has basically been we don't know when the next

00:50:47   Apple laptops have come out. These are a year old. You know, you might want to wait if you

00:50:52   can. And that's a tough, it's a tough situation to be in. And of course we also have these

00:50:58   other issues like the Mac Mini being out there and being kind of untouched. And there's these

00:51:03   questions that a lot of us who follow this stuff closely have about like, are they going

00:51:08   to make adjustments to the keyboard? Are they going to make adjustments to the touch bar?

00:51:13   There was that rumor about a revision to the MacBook Air after all this time, but none

00:51:18   of it happened.

00:51:20   And so, like, if you want to buy a laptop now, it's this really weird position, or all

00:51:24   sorts of different Apple products, of sort of where are they?

00:51:27   Where are they?

00:51:30   And it brings to mind something that you and I talked about last year when Apple did update

00:51:36   the laptops because they did the MacBook Pro update like nine months, ten months after

00:51:43   they had released them initially. And at the time, you know, what we were talking about

00:51:49   is what is Apple's commitment to its users on the Mac, especially pro users, to keep

00:51:54   Macs refreshed at a decent pace with the Intel processor advances. And we talked about that

00:52:00   they had that big gap that felt like maybe they got stuck between Intel chip versions

00:52:06   They decided not to do a speed bump based on an Intel chip revision and wait for the next one.

00:52:11   And they made the wrong decision.

00:52:13   And they made the wrong decision.

00:52:15   So what we talked about last year was Apple is in, they've committed,

00:52:18   they've said they're committed and that they love Mac users and they care about their pro users,

00:52:23   but they need to walk the walk. They need to actually show that.

00:52:26   And they did that one update pretty fast in less than a year. And now it's been a year.

00:52:31   So I'm not surprised by this kind of response

00:52:35   because we are now in one of those little moments

00:52:39   where it's unclear whether there's an update

00:52:42   just around the corner

00:52:43   and that Apple is reaffirming its commitment

00:52:46   to update these things basically every year

00:52:49   or whether there's not an update around the corner.

00:52:52   And the problem is we have these products

00:52:55   that just never get updated that are out there.

00:52:58   And it's made every, and people know the history.

00:53:02   So it's made people a little gun-shy, a little,

00:53:07   they're looking for Apple to let them down again

00:53:09   because Apple let them down in the past

00:53:11   and continues to let them down in certain areas.

00:53:13   So I'm not surprised because this is the time

00:53:18   where we're in that like, that middle period

00:53:22   where we don't know, like Apple could release something

00:53:24   next week or in a month and it'll be fine.

00:53:27   in terms of like the laptops.

00:53:31   But who knows, will it be the fall?

00:53:33   Will it be the winter?

00:53:34   Will it not happen this year?

00:53:36   I saw somebody wrote something about,

00:53:38   I don't know a lot about like the ins and outs

00:53:41   of Intel chip releases and all of that.

00:53:42   But I have seen some people suggest that Intel does,

00:53:46   there are some processors that Apple is probably targeting

00:53:48   for new MacBook Pros that aren't out yet.

00:53:51   And that that may be, it may be in conjunction with those.

00:53:54   But if that's true, again, you could say,

00:53:57   well, maybe they should have picked up the last generation

00:54:00   and turned the product around a little bit faster

00:54:04   just to show it, but they didn't.

00:54:06   And now it's been a year.

00:54:07   - Yeah, 'cause I mean, I've seen some stuff like that too.

00:54:09   It's mostly been like tweets that I've seen flying by

00:54:12   where people were like, oh Intel's like again or whatever.

00:54:15   But the thing is, if that's the case,

00:54:16   Apple let that happen again then, didn't they?

00:54:19   Like-- - Right.

00:54:20   If it's a delay that's causing this

00:54:22   because they skipped a set of chips

00:54:25   to wait for the next one.

00:54:26   It's like waiting for a bus and the bus comes

00:54:30   and it's really packed and you're like,

00:54:31   I'll wait for the next one and then there is no next one.

00:54:33   You're like, oh, I should have squeezed on that bus.

00:54:36   So that's the, there's my bus metaphor for the day, Myke.

00:54:38   So the, but I think it's still out there, right?

00:54:43   Like I think, but this all plays into this overall narrative

00:54:46   of like people not really trusting Apple's commitment

00:54:47   to updating Mac hardware on a timely basis.

00:54:50   And they can prove it, as we said last year,

00:54:52   they prove it by shipping new products.

00:54:54   And they didn't do it at the time

00:54:56   when they did it last year.

00:54:58   It's now been a year when it was only nine or 10 months

00:55:00   the last time.

00:55:01   So of course people should be asking,

00:55:02   well, when are those happening?

00:55:04   Are they happening?

00:55:05   And we don't know.

00:55:07   And so, you know, in the end,

00:55:09   I feel like a lot of this could get resolved

00:55:10   in the next two, three months,

00:55:12   if Apple ships new laptops.

00:55:16   But if we go on track record,

00:55:19   everybody gets a little concerned

00:55:21   because Apple has not had a great record.

00:55:25   And there are a lot of stale computers

00:55:28   in the Mac product line right now.

00:55:30   - So there was another thing I wanted to ask you about

00:55:36   from Quentin's article.

00:55:38   Quentin says, "Apple's transparency in 2017

00:55:41   "regarding their miscalculation with the Mac Pro

00:55:42   "seemed encouraging, but over a year later,

00:55:45   "the company has utterly failed

00:55:46   "to produce anything tangible."

00:55:48   I wanted to just ask you about this,

00:55:51   to see what you think.

00:55:52   I mean, the iMac Pro though, right?

00:55:54   - Yeah, also shipping those new MacBook Pros

00:55:57   nine or 10 months after they shipped the previous one,

00:56:01   that was tangible.

00:56:03   That was, look, we updated these right away.

00:56:06   I know we just released these,

00:56:08   but we just put new chips in them and updated them now.

00:56:11   So look at us, we're paying attention.

00:56:13   That was tangible, but one is not enough.

00:56:15   - Like, I know that there's a lot,

00:56:18   like you look at that MacRumors thing

00:56:20   and you know, you've got the numbers that range from 182 with the iMac Pro was the last time it was,

00:56:25   you know, it was when it was released 182 days all the way up to Mac Mini with 1000, like 300 and odd days, right?

00:56:32   Like it's a large amount, right?

00:56:34   And you can see why I think people don't focus on what has happened.

00:56:40   They focus on what's not happened because there is a lot more that has not happened than happened, right?

00:56:46   Like the iMac Pro coming out was great,

00:56:49   but there's also a lot more old stuff

00:56:52   that's just not been touched, right, at all.

00:56:55   And it's, you know, the Mac Mini's still a product

00:56:58   in the lineup kind of thing.

00:57:00   I get why people get hung up on it

00:57:02   because the Mac Mini is like a symbol, right?

00:57:05   Like 1,400 days coming up to, you know, it's sat untouched.

00:57:10   And the Mac Mini, I think, is often trotted out

00:57:13   in this argument, a symbolic of the overall issues

00:57:15   the Mac line, right? This aging, dying product. You know, you can even argue that the trash

00:57:21   can Mac Pro, right, which they still sell, right? Like it is this, especially the Mac

00:57:25   Mini is this aging, like dying product, basically, because it hasn't been touched. The last one

00:57:29   that they released was less powerful than the one before. And I wanted to ask you a

00:57:33   question about the Mac Mini, because people bring it up a lot. Is it that important to

00:57:38   most of the people that are arguing the point?

00:57:40   No, no, it's not and that's why I say if Apple updates the laptops in the next few months

00:57:46   I think it'll be fine. And then the iMac again, the iMac hasn't been updated in a year as well

00:57:54   But that's in less need I think but yeah if but if the iMac gets updated this fall

00:58:00   It's fine. Like the Mac Mini is a pain point for some people who like the Mac Mini like me

00:58:07   and would like to buy a new Mac Mini,

00:58:09   and I'm not going to because there isn't one,

00:58:12   but that is a, that is a, and like the Mac Pro,

00:58:17   which we know there's a new one coming,

00:58:19   like it's a weird thing to use

00:58:22   as the monitoring of the health of the Mac.

00:58:24   The Mac Mini's always kind of been poorly treated by Apple

00:58:28   because it's a low priority product.

00:58:30   And it seems like the iMac Pro and the new Mac Pro

00:58:36   have kind of like diverted the rumors are, you know,

00:58:39   diverted people who are working on a new Mac mini

00:58:41   that there is a new Mac mini, but it's a low priority

00:58:44   and they keep on having other things

00:58:46   that are a higher priority.

00:58:47   And let's be honest, probably every other Mac

00:58:50   is a higher priority than the Mac mini.

00:58:52   I'd like to see the Mac mini shipped,

00:58:53   but there are every other Mac is.

00:58:55   And so, yes, yes.

00:58:56   - And every other product. - The Mac mini is a great

00:58:57   thing to point to if you wanna be angry.

00:58:58   - The Mac mini is probably the single lowest product

00:59:01   in Apple's totem pole of like things in active development.

00:59:04   Like the Apple TV is more important than the Mac Mini.

00:59:06   - Yeah, I was gonna say iPod touch,

00:59:08   but is it even being actively developed?

00:59:11   - No, that's why I use that, right?

00:59:12   'Cause they've got stuff, right?

00:59:13   They've got dongles, but like.

00:59:15   Here's a question for you.

00:59:18   You mentioned if the laptops get updated, everything's fine.

00:59:23   Is it though?

00:59:25   How much of an update needs to be done

00:59:27   for everything to be fine?

00:59:28   'Cause if they leave it to September,

00:59:33   - So they leave it to September, let's just say.

00:59:35   'Cause that's when we expect the next products

00:59:36   will come out, right?

00:59:37   We know there's gonna be products in September

00:59:39   and by and large, right now, it looks like potentially

00:59:41   that could be everything.

00:59:42   If they leave it until September

00:59:44   and the product line remains basically unchanged

00:59:46   except for new Intel chips and maybe some new

00:59:49   other internal configurations, is that gonna be fine?

00:59:53   - In the grand scheme of things, I think it's fine.

01:00:02   I think for people who are upset with the design of Apple's laptops, it won't be

01:00:09   fine if all they do is a speed bump.

01:00:11   There's also this other part of it which is like, well, you definitely didn't have

01:00:15   to wait until September just to put new chips in.

01:00:17   Like, could you not have done that at any point?

01:00:19   And then there's like this other question.

01:00:22   The argument will be that the chips that they wanted to put in weren't ready in volume

01:00:25   from Intel until then.

01:00:26   Right.

01:00:27   And it was just magically lined up with the September iPhone event.

01:00:30   Well, yeah, I mean, would they release it this September? I guess they could, but I

01:00:34   mean, they could, in the past we've seen them release Newmax in October as the, kind

01:00:39   of the echo after that. We've also seen new iPads at the October event. Could happen

01:00:45   again. Could happen this summer. There's nothing stopping them from, and they don't

01:00:49   need an event. Like, that's the thing, is they really don't need an event.

01:00:52   Anything, honestly. Like, even if they do redesign it, they don't need an event for

01:00:57   it like it's nice but like if they make some changes like I think this is a

01:01:00   product that you could put out with some really nice press coverage you know like

01:01:04   you got a bunch of people together in a room like you did the last you know with

01:01:08   the roundtable be like yeah the new MacBook Pro like and that would work

01:01:11   fine you know I don't know if they would do that but it would work fine yeah they

01:01:15   could also do a little event they own their event space they could do it yeah

01:01:18   they could do a little event although my guess is that they would do it after the

01:01:21   iPhone event and not this yeah only because before now like only because the

01:01:26   iPhone event is the most important thing for them and so having another event

01:01:30   distracting them between now and then but they have all sorts of new PR

01:01:33   strategies where they roll things out in all sorts of strange and weird ways and

01:01:36   it's entirely possible that they could just seed new laptops to a bunch of

01:01:40   people and under an embargo and have a new laptop announcement that drops with

01:01:47   you know 10 or 15 different stories and videos and stuff about using the new

01:01:51   laptop for a week. They do that now. They could totally do that. Yeah, they could totally

01:01:57   do that.

01:01:58   But there's another thing. Whilst all this is going on, Apple unveiled a new Mac focused

01:02:03   ad campaign. So, outside of the company, people feel that there's no love for the Mac, but

01:02:09   the marketing team doesn't feel that way because they've created a brand new brand strategy,

01:02:14   which is focusing on people that do creative work with the Mac and showing them how and

01:02:18   why they do it and currently there are three campaigns there's one with a

01:02:24   photographer Bruce Hall who's legally blind it's a really good video Peter

01:02:27   karaoke who is a developer and Grimes who's a musician and they're showing the

01:02:32   different ways that you use the Mac and there will be 12 total portraits they're

01:02:36   calling them that will appear on Apple's website I don't know if it is unknown

01:02:40   right now if and where they're gonna appear anywhere else like maybe they're

01:02:44   just going to be web campaigns.

01:02:45   But this is this type of thing, this like I'm creative on Apple's platforms, feels

01:02:54   like something that they've typically done with the iPad in recent times.

01:02:57   And this Mac campaign feels a little bit more old school.

01:03:01   Like it reminds me of some of like the switching campaigns and stuff, right, where

01:03:04   they take like one person and they focus on them.

01:03:07   So, you know, you know, companies do what companies do and they're always going to

01:03:12   sell their products, but a brand new campaign about the Mac, that must mean

01:03:18   something, right? Yeah, I mean, it could be as simple as wanting to counter

01:03:27   Microsoft's campaigns, which have been very much targeted at traditionally the

01:03:33   people who buy Macs, and so I think that there's some of that going on here.

01:03:41   But, you know, yeah, it's messaging and saying that don't forget about the Mac. One of their

01:03:46   challenges is the Mac losing relevance, especially if in the long run you think that the Mac

01:03:54   is viable and is going to grow market share and all those things like it's been doing

01:04:02   in the shrinking PC market, it's been growing market share. You don't want to rest on that.

01:04:08   you want to keep it in your product vision.

01:04:11   And if they do want to make changes to it

01:04:13   and really kind of expand its appeal

01:04:14   even further in the next few years,

01:04:17   you don't want to sort of go radio silent on it.

01:04:20   So it's an interesting idea.

01:04:22   It definitely feels old school, the idea

01:04:23   that it's sort of like using the Mac for creative stuff.

01:04:26   It seems like one part of Apple's current Mac strategy

01:04:31   is professional and creative professional.

01:04:36   And they talked about it with Mojave.

01:04:37   and they talked about it with the iMac Pro

01:04:39   and that they're doing the Mac Pro.

01:04:40   And it definitely seems like that is part of this story

01:04:44   that they're telling about the Mac.

01:04:46   Is it's this tool to get the serious work done

01:04:50   and look at all these creative people

01:04:53   who are using it that way.

01:04:54   It's a challenge for them though, right?

01:04:56   Because they've got other products

01:04:58   that they also kind of sell in similar ways, like the iPad.

01:05:01   And they, you know, those messages don't always align

01:05:07   because they kind of can't right now.

01:05:09   It's similar to when Apple stands on the stage and says,

01:05:13   putting a keyboard on a touch screen,

01:05:16   touching a screen in a keyboard orientation is no good

01:05:21   when they make a keyboard for the iPad.

01:05:23   - Like Josue said that during the talk show

01:05:26   and there was a part of me that just wanted

01:05:27   to jump on the stage and like--

01:05:29   - You lie.

01:05:30   - Like I don't understand why they're still touting

01:05:32   that line of like, that's really bad

01:05:34   and nobody wants to do that.

01:05:35   you sell a product that is made that way.

01:05:39   - I think the fact is that they are telling

01:05:42   two different stories that aren't aligned right now,

01:05:44   and that's the challenge.

01:05:45   And that's the challenge with marketing the Mac.

01:05:50   And I would say it goes back to what they may be doing

01:05:53   with the Mac, which is bringing it into alignment.

01:05:56   Like this is something that in a few years,

01:05:58   they're gonna be able to tell a more kind of clean story

01:06:01   about what you can do across all of its platforms.

01:06:03   But right now they've got two very different platforms and they kind of have to figure

01:06:07   out again they can't just shut it all down and come back in five years. They've got to

01:06:11   figure out a way to navigate between there and here.

01:06:16   So I mean overall it feels like that you're positive about where the Mac is going. I mean

01:06:26   I am, I think this is only good, but I am not as tied to a lot of the stuff that people

01:06:35   say makes the Mac a Mac, right?

01:06:37   I don't care about terminal, I don't care about, you know, it's just not stuff that

01:06:41   I use.

01:06:42   So what I'm excited about with Mars Japan is a consistency in the applications that

01:06:48   I'm using.

01:06:49   We were talking about the idea of your beloved Ferrite podcast studio app that you use to

01:06:55   to edit on iOS, if they, would you just bring that

01:06:59   to the Mac, I will then be tempted to dive in

01:07:02   because then I will finally have a consistent

01:07:04   editing experience across all platforms.

01:07:06   Like that is like a killer thing for me

01:07:08   and that's what I'm excited about because I don't care

01:07:12   about a lot of the stuff that people say makes a Mac a Mac.

01:07:15   Like I don't want them to get rid of it

01:07:17   because I know it would make people unhappy,

01:07:19   but for me personally, them moving away from stuff like that

01:07:23   and making all of their devices closer to iOS

01:07:26   and then making iOS more powerful.

01:07:27   It's like a dream, a dream scenario for me.

01:07:29   - I think, I think I agree with you as somebody

01:07:32   who has been for a very long time team both,

01:07:35   which is why it's always funny when people are like,

01:07:36   oh, well, you know, they mentioned me.

01:07:39   - This is one of those iPad guys.

01:07:41   - One of those iPad people.

01:07:42   - Like me in Federica.

01:07:43   - And it's true, I did stop,

01:07:44   largely stopped using my laptop and I just use my iPad,

01:07:47   but I also sit in front of an iMac Pro every day.

01:07:51   this $5,000 computer that I bought in December, and I have all sorts of things. I do use the

01:07:57   terminal, I do run shell scripts, I do all sorts of things that are computer-y things.

01:08:03   And I miss it on the iPad, some of that stuff. I do have to do things that are weird and

01:08:10   different in order to accomplish things that are fairly easy on the Mac, which is, by the

01:08:15   part of my thought process about why it's inevitable that iOS becomes more powerful

01:08:22   because I don't see a scenario where Apple is like, "Yeah, we could make iOS more powerful,

01:08:27   but we're not going to bother." I feel like inevitably they will. It'll take time, but

01:08:32   inevitably they will. But as a Mac user, I am excited about this. I think the fear—there's

01:08:37   always fear of change. Everybody has fear of change. It's a natural human thing. I could

01:08:43   get how somebody who doesn't particularly love iOS and just wants to use their Mac to

01:08:48   get their work done and has been using the Mac for a long time to do their work done,

01:08:53   to get their work done. I get how there's this trepidation of like, "It's changed, it's

01:08:58   scary, changing my Mac." And this happened when the OS X transition happened. It's like,

01:09:02   "You're changing my Mac, I don't like it, can I do the same stuff? Some stuff that I

01:09:07   do is going to go away, there better be a replacement. And even then, even if there's

01:09:14   a replacement that turns out being just as good, it's different, and that's a struggle.

01:09:18   So there's a lot of stuff that could happen here that could frustrate Mac users. But I

01:09:24   would say I'm encouraged—we're all just reading tea leaves here, right? Because Apple

01:09:30   is so close to the vest about this stuff. I'm encouraged by the fact that they're talking

01:09:35   about Pro uses. I'm encouraged by the fact that they built new features into Mojave and

01:09:41   talked about them on stage and mentioned basically finder service plugins and automator and shell

01:09:47   scripts because that's stuff that iOS doesn't do at all, that the Mac does and can actually,

01:09:53   it makes the Mac so much more flexible and powerful. And if Apple is mentioning that

01:09:58   stuff and building features that kind of build on top of that stuff in the Mac, in Mac OS,

01:10:05   encourages me that the way they're thinking about the Mac is that it is

01:10:10   going to bring along all that stuff that they currently can't do on iOS and maybe

01:10:16   won't do on iOS. Some of that may just be as simple as there's never going to

01:10:20   be a command line on iOS because we have to lock it down, because it should cause security.

01:10:24   I'd like to believe that in the long run if they could do a secure command line

01:10:30   on iOS that they would just they would do it, but maybe, maybe not. And maybe some

01:10:33   of this other stuff. There's never going to be the ability to...

01:10:36   I think the better argument is they just replace all the requirements for it, you know, as

01:10:41   opposed to what that is.

01:10:43   It's hard to imagine that, like, I want to do a shell script, and they're like, "Mmm,

01:10:49   sure."

01:10:50   You don't do shell scripts anymore, it's something else, right?

01:10:52   Right, so that's the challenge. But stick with me here. What I'm trying to say is, whatever

01:10:59   it is that maybe there's something that they're like, "Yeah, okay, I think the best example

01:11:04   being we're never gonna let you just download an app from somewhere on the internet and

01:11:10   run it on iOS." But the Mac can do that if you really want to. You might have to turn

01:11:15   off a bunch of security features, but maybe we'll let you do that. So there's always gonna

01:11:18   be—I feel like Apple's mindset is the Mac is gonna provide some extra stuff, as Joswiak

01:11:25   I think said, "plugging in a bunch of hard drives and sticking on a bunch of monitors."

01:11:32   Like, you know, the Mac can do that. Like, there's always going to be stuff. Like, okay,

01:11:39   that's going to be there, but everything else that we can possibly do to make it get the

01:11:44   benefits of all the iOS stuff, we're also going to do. And so there's change, and that's

01:11:49   scary, but I'm optimistic now that what Apple's not going to do is just sort of steamroll

01:11:55   the Mac until it's just iOS. I don't think that's what they're doing and

01:11:59   that's why when they say in 50-foot-high letters, "No, we're not

01:12:04   merging iOS and Mac," I think that's what they mean. I think what they mean is

01:12:09   they're gonna make the Mac a lot more like iOS and have software sourced from

01:12:14   iOS, but they want to preserve this extra layer of stuff that iOS is not

01:12:22   engineered to do. And by the way, and I think we mentioned this in one of the

01:12:27   last two shows, one of the really interesting things that they said at

01:12:30   WWDC is the idea that the underpinnings of both operating systems, which were

01:12:36   shared like, you know, in 2007 when they split the iOS, the iPhone software off

01:12:43   from Mac OS X, they took a bunch of stuff with them, they based it on OS X, but

01:12:47   then they kind of like, over time it's drift-- they've drifted. So even though we

01:12:53   often draw this idea of like, they're the same under the hood, they're actually not

01:12:58   so much the same under the hood, and one of the things that Apple is doing this

01:13:02   year and next year as a part of this marzipan thing is getting the under the

01:13:09   hood stuff realigned where it's the same on Mac and iOS. And that's part of this

01:13:15   story too, right? The idea that they want the two platforms to share as much as

01:13:21   possible, but I think the way they're talking, their intent is not to share so

01:13:29   much with the Mac that it's just iOS and there's no Mac left. It seems like their

01:13:35   strategy is the Mac will remain with its layer of Mac-iness on it, but it's gonna

01:13:41   to feel a lot more like other Apple products. Don't even think about it as iOS, it's going

01:13:45   to feel more like other Apple products in many, many, many, many ways. And although

01:13:51   that's scary and it may turn some people off, and long-time Mac users may not like the change,

01:13:56   and it remains to be seen how well Apple pulls this off, I'd like to believe that the end

01:14:02   goal is not to just squish the Mac out of existence. Unless Apple gets to the point

01:14:09   with iOS that it feels like literally everything that the Mac is providing that iOS isn't has

01:14:17   been checked off as being now being available in iOS. And I kind of think that Apple maybe

01:14:24   likes the idea of having this release valve of stuff that they just don't have to do on

01:14:28   iOS. Like that's a Mac thing. Just do get a Mac if you want to do that. We don't want

01:14:32   to we don't want to do a terminal. We don't want to build in shell scripting into the

01:14:36   the base level and give that level of access. We want to keep this stuff secure. The Mac

01:14:41   is going to be more secure than it is now, but it's going to be a little less secure

01:14:44   than iOS and we're okay with that. Go get a Mac for that. I think maybe they're comfortable

01:14:48   with that idea that that not only differentiates the Mac from iOS, but it also gives them that

01:14:52   outlet of "We do offer computers that do that. They're over there."

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01:16:28   So I have some #AskUpgrade questions sent in by the Upgradians out there and the first

01:16:33   one comes from Ry. Ry has said, "I've been getting a lot of spam phone calls to my cell

01:16:37   phone recently. They often use caller ID spoofing to look like numbers in my area. Can you recommend

01:16:42   any apps to help deal with this?"

01:16:45   No, I don't know if I can. One of the challenges is there are anti-spam services that you can

01:16:53   get but they have a hard time. The reason that they now spoof the caller ID to make

01:16:57   it look like it's coming from your prefix is specifically to make it hard for you, for

01:17:02   the blockers to block that stuff because they're basically they could be posing as real people

01:17:07   near you and that makes it hard. I haven't looked at the spam blocking software for phone

01:17:15   calls on iOS in a while now. I used BugMeNot for a while. Was it BugMeNot? I forget what

01:17:22   it was called. What was it called, Myke? Do you remember? I can't remember.

01:17:25   I don't know, man. I use something called Truecaller but I'm mostly unhappy with it

01:17:29   so I'm open to taking recommendations.

01:17:33   But yeah, that's one that I use.

01:17:34   But I've been seeing an increase here as well.

01:17:37   - Oh, Nomorobo.

01:17:38   Nomorobo is the one that I used.

01:17:42   But again, I think this is the challenge,

01:17:44   is that those bammers are wily.

01:17:49   And so I don't have a surefire recommendation for Wry.

01:17:53   I think it might be worth investigating those blocker apps.

01:17:58   I've just taken to blocking those numbers anyway, even though they might be local people.

01:18:01   I don't care.

01:18:02   I just want them to go away.

01:18:03   But the problem is they randomize it and they come back.

01:18:05   Yeah, I have a liberal use of the block contact feature or block caller feature in iOS, but

01:18:11   that's like a whack-a-mole situation, right?

01:18:14   You're only going to get rid of that one number, but they'll just use another number or it'll

01:18:17   be a different one.

01:18:19   So I'm open to taking any recommendations as well, but I have used Truecaller.

01:18:23   It's okay, but I don't really like it very much.

01:18:26   Steve has asked, "I heard Jason referenced Electron last week and I've heard a few other

01:18:30   podcasts do the same. What is Electron and what does it do?"

01:18:35   Electron is a framework that lets you write desktop apps using web technologies. So basically,

01:18:45   you're using something called Node, which is a JavaScript runtime for the back end of

01:18:50   the software, and you're using Chromium, which is basically the Chrome browser engine for

01:18:55   the front end. So there are lots of different apps that are written in this.

01:19:01   So basically you're writing apps in web technologies instead of

01:19:07   desktop app technologies. And the knock on electron is that it uses a

01:19:14   lot of memory and they're slow and they don't feel entirely native because

01:19:19   they're really just kind of web pages running in a browser or in an app window.

01:19:23   And other people say they're fine, right? I mean, definitely if you talk to a Mac app developer, they will probably say all the things that are bad about Electron apps on the Mac.

01:19:38   But that's a debate I don't want to get into right now, other than to say that it is a way to use web technologies to build something and then deploy it across platforms too, because the web technologies are cross-platform.

01:19:49   platform. So you build that Electron app and you can put it out on Windows, put it out

01:19:53   on Mac, and probably put it out on Chrome OS too because it's just web technologies.

01:20:00   My feeling on it is it might not be the best, but at least it means that the app can be

01:20:04   on the platform because otherwise it might not be.

01:20:06   Right, exactly.

01:20:07   I think a lot of the Electron apps that you use wouldn't exist on the platform that you

01:20:12   use it on if they couldn't make the Electron app. And so my hope, like many, is that a

01:20:19   of these companies will move to the UIKit versions of their apps because they're probably

01:20:23   going to run better than the Electron apps because UIKit will be native to the Mac as

01:20:28   well. So that's kind of why Electron keeps being brought up because people don't like

01:20:32   it and hopefully there is this UIKit future. Well, we know it's there, but hopefully companies

01:20:38   like Slack, for example, use their iPad app instead of an Electron Mac app when by and

01:20:43   large they look pretty much the same anyway, right? Like the iPad app and the Mac app,

01:20:47   they may as well be the same app. So I would like to see them move that stuff because why

01:20:52   not? Well the the Slack iOS app's not that great anyway but what do you expect? I mean

01:20:57   this is what happens when companies get so big their apps get bad. This is what happens.

01:21:03   Jimmy wants to know, do you think screen time will come to Mac OS?

01:21:10   I don't because no one's talking about laptop addiction. This product exists because smartphone

01:21:17   addiction is considered a problem and iOS, iPad gets it because it's iOS. I don't

01:21:24   imagine this feature coming to the Mac honestly. I just think it's a different,

01:21:28   considered mostly to be a different use case and I don't think that people

01:21:34   are concerned about how much they're spending time on Instagram in a web

01:21:37   browser. I don't think that that is what the focus is on. Luke has asked

01:21:42   "considering jumping into the Apple watch, is there any particular model or

01:21:45   band that you recommend. What do you think, Myke? I don't want to talk about this right

01:21:50   now. I'm going to leave it to you to recommend. Mmm. I think if you're buying right now, get

01:21:56   a Series 3. You probably don't need the cellular unless you do. You'll know if you have that

01:22:01   desire if you want to just go completely phone free and have access to your phone and stuff

01:22:05   and get the cellular model. I think if you've never owned an Apple Watch before, you don't

01:22:09   need the cellular version. Yeah, probably not. But you never know. I mean, depends on

01:22:12   it on what you want but the Series 3 and you can get it now there will be almost certainly

01:22:17   a new Apple Watch this fall so if you can wait you could do that and then you'll have

01:22:20   the latest and greatest but the Series 3 is pretty good so you could get that now. I think

01:22:25   band is absolutely well it'll come with a band so you have one band to try when you

01:22:30   buy it and it's a personal feeling like I know people who swear by the the what is it

01:22:37   the nylon sport band?

01:22:39   I love the sport loop. The sport loop is my favorite band. I like the sport loop a lot.

01:22:44   And I don't really like it. I don't like it. It feels kind of cheap and lousy to me. And

01:22:51   that's just a personal preference. I really like the sport bands. I'll point out that

01:22:55   the Nike versions of the Apple Watch are just the Apple Watch with a Nike band. There's

01:23:02   no other kind of functional difference between them.

01:23:04   Because do they even have the face anymore?

01:23:07   I think they do. But it doesn't matter. So what I would say is if you like the look of

01:23:15   the Nike sport bands, which have the little holes and stuff in them, you could get one

01:23:18   of those too. But I think the sport bands are good.

01:23:20   Yeah, they still have exclusive Nike watch faces. So if they speak to you, fine.

01:23:25   Yeah, but I think it's more about, for me it's more about the band. I think the band

01:23:29   looks fun. I like the sport bands. I think they're actually, much to my shock, they feel

01:23:37   a really good. I do have a leather band, it's fine. But I would start with the one that

01:23:44   comes with your watch, which will probably be the sport band. And if you're thinking

01:23:48   about a more expensive band, maybe start with maybe by the sport band with your watch and

01:23:52   then consider if you like it or if you want to maybe go buy a more expensive band after

01:23:57   that.

01:23:58   Ben: Yep. Sport loops do also come with the watches too. I recommend the sport loop. You

01:24:01   know what I actually think you should do as this goes for anyone? Apple still do the try-ons

01:24:05   in the store, just go to the store and try on the bands. I really think the Apple Watch

01:24:11   is a product that is best bought in an Apple store because you can go in and you can talk

01:24:16   to someone and they'll bring out the thing and you can try on all the different band

01:24:19   types and see the colours of the watch and that kind of stuff. Even the size, because

01:24:24   you might think you want the 42 but the 38 might be better on you, right? So I recommend

01:24:29   still going in. That was a really good experience when they were doing them before you could

01:24:34   buy them. Remember when it first came out you could go in and try them on and then you

01:24:38   could go in order. I'm really pleased that I did that because I had some very different

01:24:43   opinions than what I expected I would feel. I really liked the sport band and I thought

01:24:48   I wouldn't. So I would recommend still going in and taking advantage of the try on if that's

01:24:53   possible for you to do. If not, get the cheapest one you can with a band that you think look

01:24:58   cool and see if you like it and if you don't you probably understand what you do and don't

01:25:02   like and can look at their other bands and make some decisions. I don't necessarily recommend

01:25:06   going down the really expensive routes like the leathers and stuff because the cheaper

01:25:10   ones they have lots of great options like the sport band, the sport loop and the nylon

01:25:13   band they're all really good in different ways and I bet you'd find one of those three

01:25:17   that you'd be really happy with.

01:25:18   Yeah and it is a very much a personal preference thing because Myke's gonna like the band that

01:25:22   I don't like and that's just that's fine because everybody's got a different feel and you will

01:25:26   know like for me the sport loop I put it on I was like oh no like I just I just knew I

01:25:30   didn't like it.

01:25:31   out I did want to talk about it right now but I knew what you were angling towards and I wasn't

01:25:35   going to answer that question. You waited in there. JRN523 asks a final question today.

01:25:41   I have an aging 2012 15-inch MacBook Pro that still works but is becoming increasingly slower,

01:25:47   it often freezes and stuff like that. Buying a new computer is not in my budget right now

01:25:52   so I'm wondering do you have any suggestions on ways that I can improve its performance?

01:25:59   Oh boy, the first thing that comes to mind, well first off make sure that you, if you can put more

01:26:08   RAM in it that might not hurt, but the first thing that comes to mind is replacing the hard drive.

01:26:15   Yep, with an SSD right? Is what you're saying.

01:26:18   And ideally yeah with an SSD and that's some money but less money than a new computer.

01:26:24   And it's less money than it used to be, they're not as expensive anymore, it's not crazy crazy.

01:26:29   crazy. But the biggest pain on a lot of these computers is that the spinning hard drive

01:26:37   is slow. And as somebody who I did put an SSD in an old MacBook Pro and it made a huge

01:26:46   difference. So I think that's the thing you should look at is do you know what is required

01:26:51   to get into that computer and replace it. And either you get either do it yourself or

01:26:56   get a local Mac kind of technician to do that and install an SSD in there because I think

01:27:01   that would help a lot.

01:27:03   Yeah, I agree. I mean, also, you know, try some things about making sure you have a lot

01:27:07   -- you have enough disk space, that kind of stuff. Like, it might help a little bit, but

01:27:10   really, hardware is going to be your biggest jump. And you can make some decent changes

01:27:17   and make that thing feel like new. Like, if you have a spinning disk in there, like upgrading

01:27:21   to an SSD, you're going to put a lot of life back in that computer. Like, it's going to

01:27:24   I feel real good.

01:27:25   It's gonna feel real good.

01:27:27   All right, if you have any questions

01:27:28   you would like us to answer at the end of the show,

01:27:30   just send out a tweet with the hashtag #AskUpgrade

01:27:32   and you'll be picked for a later episode.

01:27:34   Thank you to all of our Upgradients who have done that

01:27:36   and we would love some more questions

01:27:37   so please send those in.

01:27:39   If you wanna find our show notes for this week,

01:27:40   relay.fm/upgrade/198 is the best place to do that.

01:27:45   You can find Jason's, or actually the best place

01:27:47   is in the app that you're currently listening to,

01:27:49   but another place to do that is on the web.

01:27:52   You can find Jason's work over at sixcolors.com and Jason is @jasonel on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L.

01:27:58   I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:28:00   Thanks again to Squarespace, Pingdom and Skillshare for their support of this show and we'll be

01:28:05   back next time.

01:28:06   Until then, say goodbye Jason Snell.

01:28:08   Goodbye everybody.

01:28:09   [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:28:12   [ Music ]