198: The Mac Is Dead, Long Live the Mac
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From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 198.
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Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Pingdom, and Skillshare.
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My name is Myke Hurley.
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I am joined by Mr. Jason Snow.
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Hi, Jason Snow.
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>> Hello, Mr. Myke Hurley, how are you?
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>> I am very well, sir, and I have a #snowtalk question for
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you that comes from Daniel this week.
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And Daniel wants to know,
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But Jason, are you going to watch much or any of the World Cup?
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Myke, do you know what the World Cup is?
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Is the World Cup a football?
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It's happening right now.
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There are people playing what you call football.
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The logical name for that sport.
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Unfortunately, we use that word for something else in the United States.
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So we have to call it soccer.
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Soccer, which is short for association football.
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So it's in there.
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It's in there.
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Daniel, yes, of course.
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In fact, I have already watched the World Cup. The problem is, the Russia time zone
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thing makes it harder on Americans than the Brazil time zones did. So there are matches
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starting at like 2 a.m. And I'm not watching those. But there are a bunch of matches that
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are at like 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and I've been watching those. I watch those all weekend.
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I'm looking forward to watching those this week.
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And then I'm going on a trip, then I'm going on a vacation, and ironically enough, the
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Americans who didn't make it to the World Cup will be going to the Netherlands, which
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didn't make it to the World Cup.
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But we are going to England as England is playing its final group match, so I hope to
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drink in a little bit of the excitement of being in, being with people who are cheering
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on their country in the World Cup during a match at that moment. And then, and then,
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yeah, there's, there's a couple, while we're, while we're traveling, there are a few rounds
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of the World Cup going on, but we'll be home for the last couple of rounds. So I'm excited
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about that. I really enjoy, I enjoy sports that happen in the morning, which European
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sports are great for people on the West Coast of the United States, because it's really
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cool to wake up and turn on the TV and there's sport going on and it's fun. And I do like
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soccer. I follow the English Premier League a little bit and international soccer is a
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lot of fun. Men's and women's World Cups, the Euro tournament, the CONCACAF tournament
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is fun here in North America too. So yeah, so the answer is yes. I think the World Cup
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is a lot of fun. And my mother was visiting this weekend and I had the soccer on and I
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know that every time I turn the soccer on she will be perplexed because she doesn't
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understand this strange, weird... Strange foreign sport.
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...foreign sport. Yeah, really. She doesn't get it. She doesn't get why anybody would
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get it. But I enjoy it. You're getting it in 2026, aren't you? I think
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I saw a new story about that the other day. Yeah, North America is getting it. It's primarily
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the US, but Mexico is going to host, they're going to have three host cities.
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And Canada too, I think. And Canada's going to have three host cities,
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and then there are going to be ten, I think, in the US, and I think we're hoping that they
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do the 49ers stadium in Santa Clara as one of the venues because then we would be able
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to go to a World Cup match here which would be a lot of fun. They'll be in LA, they'll
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be in New York of course but there are a bunch of other cities that they're going to put
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in that list and they haven't decided yet. So that would be fun. That would be a great
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time to see a random pool match between two random countries. It would still be a lot
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Thank you so much to Daniel for his question this week. If you would like to submit a Snail
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Talk question for a future episode, just send out a tweet with the hashtag #SnailTalk and
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it may be entered into a future episode. I would like to give a follow out to some merch
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which I don't think we've ever done before. We're going into new and wonderful worlds
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here. Last week's special guest, James Thompson, currently has a range of merchandise on sale.
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It's all Peacock related merchandise, wonderful t-shirts and pins.
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And also the profits of some select versions of these t-shirts and pins will be going to
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support LGBTQ+ charities in the US and the UK because James is awesome like that.
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And I bought myself a Peacock t-shirt and I'm very excited for it because I do love
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the Me That logo.
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So go check those out.
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I'll put links in the show notes.
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If you're a fan of calculators, if you're a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
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42 and some people will like that. And I will give you the shortest of plugs which is there
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are a couple incomparable shirts, the robot and the full logo on sale for the next week
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and a half at the incomparable.com/shirt. It's a cotton bureau but that's a nice shortcut
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way of getting to those shirts, yeah.
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- All right, Jason, I have a lot of upstream news this week.
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- This was a mind-blowing week in terms of advances in digital media deals and stuff
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like that, yeah, for sure.
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Alright so first up I want to do a piece of upstream follow up. Today, just before we
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started recording, YouTube Premium has launched in some countries outside the US, including
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the UK. I immediately opened the iOS app and signed up. I may have made a mistake here
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because apparently it is cheaper if you sign up on the website than if you sign up in the
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iOS app. YouTube are adding an Apple tax onto that, which again is one of those things where
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That is quite clearly against App Review guidelines, but what can Apple do?
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It's YouTube.
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What are you going to do?
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I'm currently on a three-month free trial, which seems very aggressive as a trial period.
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Three months?
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But hey ho, that gives me enough time, I guess, to switch over to paying just YouTube directly
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at some point, because maybe I've made a mistake using signing up via the App Store.
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And YouTube really does seem to be pretty aggressive about the free trials because we
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got that with Julian. Julian got a YouTube Red subscription last summer when we were
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going to be traveling. We got him one which let him download a bunch of videos for when
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we were not having internet. And that was also, I believe, a three-month trial. I'm
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like, "Wow, that is really generous." But they just want to hook you. That's what they
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And YouTube Music has come with it. I've downloaded the YouTube Music app but haven't played around
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with it at all yet. But I'm just really excited because there are some original shows that
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I want to watch but more than anything the ability to download YouTube videos locally
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to watch when I'm on the plane and stuff is going to be awesome.
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Yeah and for the kids, for the kids, the other thing that Julian really liked was, and it's
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ridiculous that this is a feature of premium feature but the background audio thing where
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you can play it. If you're just listening to something on YouTube, you can start it
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playing and then it can run in the background, which is a silly feature, but there it is.
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Yeah, it's weird, but it makes sense for their business model, right? Because if you're not
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getting ads anymore, they don't care about autoplay anymore, right? Like, the autoplaying
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stuff just loads more ads through, but you obviously can't do autoplay in background,
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I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture
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I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture
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I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture
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I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture
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I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture
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I'm going to be doing a video on YouTube Premium, which is a great way to get a picture
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I'm a happy paying YouTube subscriber honestly.
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Like that however much I end up paying
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with a 10 or 15 pounds a month or whatever.
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So I think to myself, oh, that seems like 50,
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like if I stuck with a 15 pounds or whatever,
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just 'cause I'm just gonna keep it through the app store,
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just say I do that.
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So again, that's a lot of money.
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That's as much as I pay for Netflix.
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Then I realised I watch YouTube videos more
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than I watch Netflix.
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Like I would say by and large,
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YouTube right now is my single largest source of content
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that I consume more than podcasts, more than any TV.
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I because I am a home worker, I watch a lot of YouTube videos, right?
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Because if I'm sitting down for lunch, I'll just watch a YouTube video.
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I might watch something in a day or something in the evening.
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And I obviously still consume a lot of podcasts.
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But YouTube is is at least where I'm going to more frequently,
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because I guess my podcast consumption is like, you know, you listen to one in an
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hour or whatever, two hours where I could probably watch like 10 YouTube videos or
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something sure so I consume a ton of content for YouTube so I'm very happy to
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pay for it if it helps support the creators and then I don't have to watch
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ads anymore which is wonderful I guess because YouTube ads not very good for me
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huge news in Apple's you know worst-kept secret they're adding more more people
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more creators to their original programming lineup Oprah Winfrey has
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signed a unique multi-year content partnership with Apple. There are no details on what this
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is going to be. It may be more than just TV shows, it's not said, right? But it will include
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content for Apple's TV show programming. We don't know how or if Oprah is going to be
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involved, but what we do know is this content will be exclusive to Apple.
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And for people who are like, "Oh, who cares about Oprah Winfrey?" I'll just say, "She's
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The world. Everyone in the world.
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huge. In fact, this is massive. This is absolutely massive. And it really again, you know, we've
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questioned a lot like that that budget, that billion dollar budget or whatever it was.
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I can't even what was the amount that was it a billion dollars was I think originally
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that the report was that they were going to go spend a billion dollars and we were questioning
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whether that was enough. We know now that they're spending more. There's no way they
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could have signed everything they've signed and Oprah for a billion dollars like this.
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There is no way in heck they've done that.
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- All that and Oprah too.
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Oprah's gonna apparently own the shows,
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which I think is interesting.
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And that's a question of like,
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what's Apple's business model?
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And is Apple gonna own most of these shows?
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Like when Netflix started doing originals,
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like House of Cards, Netflix doesn't own House of Cards.
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- I didn't know that.
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- Yeah, yeah, somebody else, media rights capital
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or something owns them, somebody owns them.
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Yeah, that's a production company.
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And Netflix has changed the terms of its deals
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because it really does want to control everything.
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- Yeah, it's your position of strength changes, right?
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And Apple's position of strength right now is not.
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- Versus Oprah. - Because they don't even
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have a service, and yeah, and it's Oprah.
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- They're only the biggest, most valuable company
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in the world, they're not Oprah.
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- Like, you know, it's like, yes, you know,
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like that, I don't, I mean, you know, you can,
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I would assume you'd agree, but like,
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just because they're, you know,
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they may be the biggest company in the world,
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that doesn't translate to the TV stuff, right?
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where Apple need people, right?
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And Oprah doesn't need Apple, Oprah can go anywhere.
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- I also thought it was interesting
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when I passed this note on, what I said was,
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this is a deal that seems kind of similar
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to the Obama's deal.
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And I feel like the Obama's deal with Netflix,
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I got a real Oprah vibe from it.
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Like we wanna be kind of,
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we're gonna do all sorts of different content
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and we're gonna improve people's lives and show interest.
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It just had that kind of feel to it.
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And then I see this deal and I'm like, oh, interesting.
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Okay, game on, Obamas.
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Here comes Oprah.
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Yeah, 'cause I, and maybe they'll be very different,
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but I just, given the context of the first deal,
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I looked at this deal and I was like, oh, interesting.
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It seems to me to be sort of a similar thing of like,
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basically Apple's like, we wanna be in the Oprah business.
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So let's make that happen.
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just like Netflix wanted to be in the Obama business.
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So we'll see.
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Another interesting little bit from Apple.
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I saw an article this weekend
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that I popped into the show notes here,
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which is that Apple is also,
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according to Bloomberg, interesting that it's Bloomberg
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and Mark Gurman's got a co-buy line on this story.
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Apple is near a deal to make,
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to buy an animated feature
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from a company called Cartoon Saloon.
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So this is another example of Apple extending beyond
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just buying TV shows,
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but also buying movies for their service.
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So this is Cartoon Saloon did Secret of Kells,
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which was an award-winning short, or award-winning film.
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I think it was best animated feature nominee
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for the Academy Awards too, and a bunch of other stuff.
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And they've done TV shows too.
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but this report is that they're gonna buy the rights
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to this, an animated movie from this studio.
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So another one on the pile.
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- And yet one more.
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Apple has ordered a mystery series
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based on the life of Hilde Lizeyak.
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Is that how you said the name?
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- I don't know, something like that.
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- It's a 10 episode series based on true events.
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Lizeyak was a young investigative reporter
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who was the first to expose a murder in her hometown
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of Sellings Grove, PA, Pennsylvania,
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breaking the news in her self-started newspaper,
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The Orange Street News.
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That is kind of the description of the show.
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It's created and produced by Dana Fox and Dara Resnick.
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So yet another show, but this is a drama
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based on true events.
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So it's like they're continuing to add more and more stuff,
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more and more stuff, which is spreading out
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the overall portfolio.
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They're gonna have, I mean, who knows what,
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when they're gonna launch or what they're gonna launch with,
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But we know that Apple have a multi-year strategy
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at this point, which is fascinating.
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And again, I mentioned it a minute ago,
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the worst kept secret.
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One of the reasons this is so interesting to me and you is,
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as people who follow Apple so closely,
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this is all in reverse.
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We're finding out all of the details about the content
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before Apple has said a word about it.
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But there's nothing they can do.
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Because they are in an industry that they cannot control.
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So by and large, they seem to be conforming
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with the way that industry moves,
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where the trade publications get the information.
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And they're just giving that out there,
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even though if you went and asked Apple today,
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if you were able to get an interview with Phil Schiller
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and asked him, are you doing a TV service,
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he would just, you know, he'd be like,
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I don't know what you're talking about, right?
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It would be this kind of weird thing,
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it's like we have nothing to say about that.
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But even though it's very clear that they're doing it.
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But yeah, it's really, it continues to be
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very, very interesting.
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And I'm assuming September that we find out
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details about this.
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I feel like they can't let it keep going on past the end of this year.
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I think they can. I think this September would be a perfectly fine time to do it, but I think
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they could do it next summer, too.
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I guess it all depends on how long it takes to put stuff together, right?
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Yeah. When we started talking about this, I think what I said was fall 2018, and we
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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.
00:21:01
◼
►
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.
00:23:34
◼
►
And it would just go for like half an hour and it was literally just watch the sunrise
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.
00:26:03
◼
►
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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
00:36:48
◼
►
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.
00:47:32
◼
►
So this episode is brought to you by Pingdom.
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00:48:42
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►
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.
01:00:27
◼
►
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
01:01:58
◼
►
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--
01:05:30
◼
►
- 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
01:06:42
◼
►
So what I'm excited about with Mars Japan is a consistency in the applications that
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,
01:10:50
◼
►
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."
01:14:58
◼
►
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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
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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
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that's just a personal preference. I really like the sport bands. I'll point out that
01:22:55
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the Nike versions of the Apple Watch are just the Apple Watch with a Nike band. There's
01:23:02
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no other kind of functional difference between them.
01:23:04
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Because do they even have the face anymore?
01:23:07
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I think they do. But it doesn't matter. So what I would say is if you like the look of
01:23:15
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the Nike sport bands, which have the little holes and stuff in them, you could get one
01:23:18
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of those too. But I think the sport bands are good.
01:23:20
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Yeah, they still have exclusive Nike watch faces. So if they speak to you, fine.
01:23:25
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Yeah, but I think it's more about, for me it's more about the band. I think the band
01:23:29
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looks fun. I like the sport bands. I think they're actually, much to my shock, they feel
01:23:37
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a really good. I do have a leather band, it's fine. But I would start with the one that
01:23:44
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comes with your watch, which will probably be the sport band. And if you're thinking
01:23:48
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about a more expensive band, maybe start with maybe by the sport band with your watch and
01:23:52
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then consider if you like it or if you want to maybe go buy a more expensive band after
01:23:58
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Ben: Yep. Sport loops do also come with the watches too. I recommend the sport loop. You
01:24:01
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know what I actually think you should do as this goes for anyone? Apple still do the try-ons
01:24:05
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in the store, just go to the store and try on the bands. I really think the Apple Watch
01:24:11
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is a product that is best bought in an Apple store because you can go in and you can talk
01:24:16
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to someone and they'll bring out the thing and you can try on all the different band
01:24:19
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types and see the colours of the watch and that kind of stuff. Even the size, because
01:24:24
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you might think you want the 42 but the 38 might be better on you, right? So I recommend
01:24:29
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still going in. That was a really good experience when they were doing them before you could
01:24:34
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buy them. Remember when it first came out you could go in and try them on and then you
01:24:38
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could go in order. I'm really pleased that I did that because I had some very different
01:24:43
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opinions than what I expected I would feel. I really liked the sport band and I thought
01:24:48
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I wouldn't. So I would recommend still going in and taking advantage of the try on if that's
01:24:53
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possible for you to do. If not, get the cheapest one you can with a band that you think look
01:24:58
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cool and see if you like it and if you don't you probably understand what you do and don't
01:25:02
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like and can look at their other bands and make some decisions. I don't necessarily recommend
01:25:06
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going down the really expensive routes like the leathers and stuff because the cheaper
01:25:10
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ones they have lots of great options like the sport band, the sport loop and the nylon
01:25:13
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band they're all really good in different ways and I bet you'd find one of those three
01:25:17
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that you'd be really happy with.
01:25:18
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Yeah and it is a very much a personal preference thing because Myke's gonna like the band that
01:25:22
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I don't like and that's just that's fine because everybody's got a different feel and you will
01:25:26
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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
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didn't like it.
01:25:31
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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
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going to answer that question. You waited in there. JRN523 asks a final question today.
01:25:41
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I have an aging 2012 15-inch MacBook Pro that still works but is becoming increasingly slower,
01:25:47
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it often freezes and stuff like that. Buying a new computer is not in my budget right now
01:25:52
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so I'm wondering do you have any suggestions on ways that I can improve its performance?
01:25:59
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Oh boy, the first thing that comes to mind, well first off make sure that you, if you can put more
01:26:08
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RAM in it that might not hurt, but the first thing that comes to mind is replacing the hard drive.
01:26:15
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Yep, with an SSD right? Is what you're saying.
01:26:18
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And ideally yeah with an SSD and that's some money but less money than a new computer.
01:26:24
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And it's less money than it used to be, they're not as expensive anymore, it's not crazy crazy.
01:26:29
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crazy. But the biggest pain on a lot of these computers is that the spinning hard drive
01:26:37
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is slow. And as somebody who I did put an SSD in an old MacBook Pro and it made a huge
01:26:46
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difference. So I think that's the thing you should look at is do you know what is required
01:26:51
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to get into that computer and replace it. And either you get either do it yourself or
01:26:56
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get a local Mac kind of technician to do that and install an SSD in there because I think
01:27:01
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that would help a lot.
01:27:03
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Yeah, I agree. I mean, also, you know, try some things about making sure you have a lot
01:27:07
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-- you have enough disk space, that kind of stuff. Like, it might help a little bit, but
01:27:10
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really, hardware is going to be your biggest jump. And you can make some decent changes
01:27:17
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and make that thing feel like new. Like, if you have a spinning disk in there, like upgrading
01:27:21
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to an SSD, you're going to put a lot of life back in that computer. Like, it's going to
01:27:24
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I feel real good.
01:27:25
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It's gonna feel real good.
01:27:27
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All right, if you have any questions
01:27:28
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you would like us to answer at the end of the show,
01:27:30
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►
just send out a tweet with the hashtag #AskUpgrade
01:27:32
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and you'll be picked for a later episode.
01:27:34
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Thank you to all of our Upgradients who have done that
01:27:36
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and we would love some more questions
01:27:37
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so please send those in.
01:27:39
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If you wanna find our show notes for this week,
01:27:40
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relay.fm/upgrade/198 is the best place to do that.
01:27:45
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You can find Jason's, or actually the best place
01:27:47
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is in the app that you're currently listening to,
01:27:49
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but another place to do that is on the web.
01:27:52
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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
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I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.
01:28:00
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Thanks again to Squarespace, Pingdom and Skillshare for their support of this show and we'll be
01:28:05
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back next time.
01:28:06
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Until then, say goodbye Jason Snell.
01:28:08
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Goodbye everybody.
01:28:09
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[MUSIC PLAYING]