Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:10 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, Episode 191.

00:00:14 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you very kindly by Pingdom, PDF Pen 10, and Simple Contacts.

00:00:20 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined across the oceans and airwaves by Jason Snell.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Hello, Myke Hurley.

00:00:26 ◼   ► We're an ocean and a large land mass apart, but the magic of technology puts us together.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Every week except when I'm not here.

00:00:35 ◼   ► We have a #snowtalk question today that comes from Matt, and Matt wants to know, "What

00:00:40 ◼   ► podcast, if any, will always jump to the top of your queue when released, and is there

00:00:45 ◼   ► any podcast that you will interrupt your currently playing podcast to begin?"

00:00:52 ◼   ► The Flop House, the Flop House, the Flop House, the Flop House.

00:00:56 ◼   ► If you're listening to, I don't know, ABC Technology Podcast, would you?

00:01:01 ◼   ► Yes, well, so I listened to a similar letter, alphabet-themed podcast called the--

00:01:09 ◼   ► The FNR.

00:01:10 ◼   ► The ATP.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Oh, that one, okay, yeah.

00:01:13 ◼   ► And I-- and that usually jumps to the top of my list when it pops in.

00:01:20 ◼   ► I was listening to that, and then on Saturday, the new Flop House episode came out, and the

00:01:25 ◼   ► flophouse episode gets priority and then I'll get back to the boys of the alphabet themed

00:01:30 ◼   ► podcast, ATP, alphabet themed podcast, when done with the flophouse. But the flophouse

00:01:38 ◼   ► is a higher priority. So I do have a higher priority for a couple of podcasts. Not too

00:01:42 ◼   ► many but a handful and the highest priority is the flophouse.

00:01:47 ◼   ► I don't have any show I think that I would interrupt for. Stuff will just go next. I

00:01:55 ◼   ► don't like to jump from show to show very often unless it's like I'm listening to something

00:02:01 ◼   ► that I don't enjoy particularly like I'm just listening to something because I have nothing

00:02:06 ◼   ► else to listen to or I'm listening to something for research or something like that, you know,

00:02:10 ◼   ► which I would do sometimes. If it's a show that is in my usual rotation I won't interrupt

00:02:16 ◼   ► it for anything. But I will answer this Snow Talk question today too. And for me it's two

00:02:22 ◼   ► shows either The Adventure Zone or My Brother, My Brother and Me. They will immediately go

00:02:28 ◼   ► next. Both of those shows will go straight to the top of my priority queue. Many shows

00:02:34 ◼   ► you know I'll move around you know maybe they'll go underneath the Mibimbam or whatever but

00:02:39 ◼   ► these two shows as soon as they come out they're immediately the next ones that I'll listen

00:02:43 ◼   ► to once I'm finished with whatever it is that I'm currently listening to because they are

00:02:48 ◼   ► my favorites.

00:02:49 ◼   ► So that was a good question. I like that one. I like talking about podcasts that I enjoy.

00:02:54 ◼   ► I'm sure that you do too. Spreadin' the love. These are all great shows, by the way, these

00:02:59 ◼   ► three shows that we've chosen. And it is kind of funny that they are all Max Fun shows.

00:03:05 ◼   ► So that's great. They make great stuff and it's all just nice stuff to listen to. So

00:03:10 ◼   ► you can go check those out. Put links in the show notes for those. But we should do some

00:03:13 ◼   ► follow up. I do want to thank Matt for sending in his #SnarlTalk question. You can do the

00:03:17 ◼   ► same to send out a tweet into the world with the #SnarlTalk and it will pop into a document.

00:03:23 ◼   ► I have one element of follow up for this week, Jason. Last week in #AskUpgrade, Noel wrote

00:03:31 ◼   ► in to ask for a replacement for iTunes that would be simpler just to play their music.

00:03:36 ◼   ► They didn't want to have all of the other cruft that comes with iTunes. And we actually

00:03:42 ◼   ► got quite a few suggestions and they vary from this looks like open source to this was

00:03:48 ◼   ► very nicely designed. That's kind of the variance of which these applications look like. So

00:03:55 ◼   ► we got Paul who recommended an app called Fubar 2000, Thomas recommended Vox Player

00:04:02 ◼   ► and John recommended Tiny Player and Swinzian. And I will have links to all of those in our

00:04:08 ◼   ► show notes which you can find in your podcast player or at relay.fm/upgrades/191. These

00:04:13 ◼   ► are actually all pretty decent looking applications. We had a few more suggestions than this but

00:04:18 ◼   ► I kind of whittled them down to what I thought looked worth recommending or actually had

00:04:25 ◼   ► what looked like actively developed Mac apps.

00:04:28 ◼   ► Don't use the word recommending.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Okay, let's say...

00:04:33 ◼   ► - I don't, I'll say I have not tried any of these apps.

00:04:37 ◼   ► Looking at the screenshots, I don't recommend any of them,

00:04:40 ◼   ► but if you are so hateful of iTunes

00:04:44 ◼   ► that you absolutely must replace it with something,

00:04:48 ◼   ► anything, anything, give them a try

00:04:50 ◼   ► and maybe one will work for you.

00:04:52 ◼   ► But I looked at them and I thought,

00:04:53 ◼   ► like one of them reminds me of what Sound Jam was

00:04:57 ◼   ► before they made it into iTunes

00:04:59 ◼   ► that looked about as functional as that.

00:05:01 ◼   ► - That's what I meant as open source.

00:05:03 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:05:05 ◼   ► - And another one that seems to be pretty proud

00:05:09 ◼   ► of its sophisticated design.

00:05:11 ◼   ► I looked at it and I thought, oh, who designed this?

00:05:16 ◼   ► But hey, you know what?

00:05:18 ◼   ► Everybody's got their priorities.

00:05:19 ◼   ► In fact, one of these apps points says

00:05:22 ◼   ► that one of its key features is that it is not iTunes.

00:05:26 ◼   ► So I think that says it all.

00:05:28 ◼   ► Like if you really are just trying to get a music player app

00:05:30 ◼   ► and you don't want to use iTunes anymore, give them a try. But I don't endorse any of

00:05:36 ◼   ► them. I haven't tried them. And in looking at them, I don't think I would like them.

00:05:40 ◼   ► But they're there if you need something. The problem is that iTunes, as I've said, I think

00:05:45 ◼   ► I said last week, iTunes just took the oxygen out of the room, right? Because it's so huge

00:05:50 ◼   ► that it's hard to build a business. So then it becomes like a labor of love for somebody

00:05:58 ◼   ► who really wants to do a music player that's not iTunes. And in a lot of cases then you've

00:06:03 ◼   ► got one person who they care a lot about it but you know it's still just one developer

00:06:07 ◼   ► with not much of a user base doing it out of love more than anything else and that's

00:06:13 ◼   ► tough that's tough situation to be in so. I would change my phrasing from recommended

00:06:19 ◼   ► to suggest I suggest like if you are looking for something like this. It was recommended

00:06:24 ◼   ► - That's fine.

00:06:25 ◼   ► - Recommended by listeners, listeners Paul, Thomas and John.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Paul, Thomas is very close,

00:06:31 ◼   ► we're very close to getting a Beatles ensemble here,

00:06:33 ◼   ► but that didn't happen today.

00:06:36 ◼   ► So yeah, I thank you to everybody that wrote in about that

00:06:39 ◼   ► and I hope, Noel, that that satisfies

00:06:43 ◼   ► what you're looking for.

00:06:44 ◼   ► Especially, they're not iTunes, we know that much.

00:06:47 ◼   ► So Jason, I have a small handful of upstream articles

00:06:51 ◼   ► for you this week.

00:06:52 ◼   ► Netflix is making a documentary series about BuzzFeed.

00:06:56 ◼   ► It's called Follow This, and each episode,

00:06:59 ◼   ► which will be around 15 minutes long,

00:07:01 ◼   ► will be following journalists as they uncover

00:07:03 ◼   ► and report on specific stories.

00:07:06 ◼   ► It's a 20 episode series debuting on July 9th.

00:07:10 ◼   ► This is, I think, from looking at some articles,

00:07:13 ◼   ► this 15 minute thing, this is new for Netflix,

00:07:17 ◼   ► to do something short form.

00:07:18 ◼   ► And so that, you know, that's gonna be something

00:07:21 ◼   ► to keep an eye out for. It's not necessarily, from what I can understand, it's not like

00:07:28 ◼   ► The Office or something, right? They are just, this documentary will be like following a

00:07:35 ◼   ► journalist as they explain a thing that they are writing about, right? So I don't think

00:07:41 ◼   ► that we're going to start to see, I don't know, drama between the journalists, right?

00:07:47 ◼   ► I don't think it's about that. It's just kind of like how a story is uncovered and how

00:07:52 ◼   ► it's developed and kind of what you learn at the end of it.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I was going to say it's like cops except for journalists.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess so.

00:08:02 ◼   ► It's a little like that.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Showing the job, you know, this is what happens.

00:08:05 ◼   ► Yeah, so you're, you know, thrilling in the watching a reporter reporting on a story.

00:08:13 ◼   ► And so it's also, I think, theoretically educating you about that story.

00:08:19 ◼   ► I think this is really interesting.

00:08:21 ◼   ► It's BuzzFeed trying to get you to--it's good PR for BuzzFeed, right?

00:08:25 ◼   ► Because it's trying to get you to think of BuzzFeed as a legitimate news outlet and not

00:08:29 ◼   ► just a place that makes lists.

00:08:31 ◼   ► It seems like they are becoming, right?

00:08:32 ◼   ► I mean, I've seen a lot of stuff about them where they are considered this now, and I

00:08:37 ◼   ► I think it's the individual that owns BuzzFeed is like really focused on news and uses the

00:08:43 ◼   ► kind of fun side to pay for the news side. Is that right? Like I think I've read stuff

00:08:49 ◼   ► like that before.

00:08:50 ◼   ► I think there's a lot of BuzzFeed that is the idea is they have a lot of volume from

00:08:56 ◼   ► a lot of silly things on BuzzFeed and then they also have a serious news operation.

00:09:01 ◼   ► Because BuzzFeed tech is no joke either, right?

00:09:03 ◼   ► No, absolutely.

00:09:04 ◼   ► Yeah, they get top tier access to big companies and they break good stories. It's just always

00:09:09 ◼   ► funny when you see any article on BuzzFeed because of what it's surrounded by. It's always

00:09:16 ◼   ► just a kind of weird experience sometimes and you go to read this good article and it's

00:09:20 ◼   ► like, "Take this quiz to find out which Saved by the Bell character you are."

00:09:25 ◼   ► Uh-huh. It's a little side by side.

00:09:28 ◼   ► As they should, I say, Jason. As they should.

00:09:32 ◼   ► Comcast is trying to buy Sky TV. A new challenger appears. We've spoken about this recently

00:09:39 ◼   ► in regards to Fox, because 21st Century Fox, before they're going to be bought by Disney,

00:09:45 ◼   ► are trying to buy Sky. And I can't work out what the idea behind this is. I think it seems

00:09:56 ◼   ► like now that the company that is trying to buy Sky will be the one that is left after

00:10:05 ◼   ► Disney buys 20, like the sale is complete with 21st Century Fox. You remember we spoke

00:10:11 ◼   ► about like there was like a news company that was going to remain afterwards? I think it's

00:10:16 ◼   ► that right that's trying to buy Sky. It's a little tricky because it's all up in the

00:10:21 ◼   ► air right now, right? And obviously Disney can't stake a claim to this thing until the

00:10:25 ◼   ► the sales actually, so who knows, but from what I can ascertain it seems like it is the

00:10:30 ◼   ► Rupert Murdoch owned 21st Century Fox that is trying to buy Sky. Rupert Murdoch owns

00:10:35 ◼   ► a large part of Sky as it is anyway, so I think he's just trying to secure himself a

00:10:40 ◼   ► business post-Disney. But now Comcast has come in and made a $31 billion offer. This

00:10:47 ◼   ► deal gives a 16% higher premium to shareholders than the offer from 21st Century Fox and they

00:10:53 ◼   ► are matching all of the claims that 21st Century Fox is matching, which is stuff about ensuring

00:10:59 ◼   ► Sky News will be fully funded for 10 years, stuff like that. So Comcast seem very serious.

00:11:08 ◼   ► As of now, Sky have not increased their offer. So who knows how this is going to go, but

00:11:14 ◼   ► if this is going to be purely on highest bidder, Comcast may be the one to snap up Sky TV.

00:11:23 ◼   ► And Amazon is raising the price of Prime for new subscribers from $99 to $119.

00:11:31 ◼   ► So obviously as we've spoken about recently that includes all of the other stuff that

00:11:36 ◼   ► you get with Prime TV or depending on how you look at it, it includes Prime TV along

00:11:40 ◼   ► with all the other stuff that you are buying.

00:11:43 ◼   ► But it is worth noting this because now if you want to get Amazon you've got to pay $119

00:11:51 ◼   ► year like that is a that is your barrier to entry now that is a price point increase if you want to

00:11:56 ◼   ► get the shows that are on prime tv right what's one of the good shows on prime tv right now

00:12:02 ◼   ► oh uh well they're they're coming up with new stuff because they've got their old stuff is

00:12:10 ◼   ► not commercially appealing enough like they want to what a golden globe for Mozart in the jungle

00:12:15 ◼   ► and i really like red oaks which is a comedy on there they have bosh which is sort of a

00:12:19 ◼   ► cop show procedural kind of thing. The Man in the High Castle.

00:12:23 ◼   ► The Man in the High Castle I think was their show that maybe broke into the mainstream the most, right?

00:12:30 ◼   ► And that was because they very aggressively marketed that show.

00:12:34 ◼   ► But yeah, I think all of their other stuff with Amazon,

00:12:38 ◼   ► it does tend to be a little bit more niche in some way than Netflix.

00:12:42 ◼   ► I feel like Netflix tends to make content which is a little bit more widely appealing

00:12:47 ◼   ► with their originals, but as you say, Amazon are looking to change that, right? They want

00:12:53 ◼   ► to go big now. They want to get bigger than that.

00:12:56 ◼   ► So if new subscribers starting May 11th will pay $119 a year and renewals starting June

00:13:03 ◼   ► 16th will pay the new fee.

00:13:06 ◼   ► Your current payment will not increase, but when you want to renew when your year is up,

00:13:10 ◼   ► it's going to cost you more. You're going to go up to $119 now.

00:13:14 ◼   ► is basically, you know, $10 a month. And what's funny is they currently offer a standalone

00:13:21 ◼   ► video option for $9 a month.

00:13:26 ◼   ► Oh, God. Why would you do that?

00:13:29 ◼   ► I mean, I, yeah. Well, they did it because they did it for people who wanted to, I think

00:13:35 ◼   ► it was a psychology experiment, basically. It's like, it's more money over the course

00:13:39 ◼   ► of a year, but it allows you to buy and only pay monthly instead of paying annually. And

00:13:44 ◼   ► it makes people feel like, "Oh, I don't want to be in Prime. I just want the videos." But

00:13:47 ◼   ► it was a weird kind of combination because you could save money by just buying a year.

00:13:53 ◼   ► But you have to pay that money upfront.

00:13:54 ◼   ► 9 dollars a month is way easier than a one-time payment of $119 for a lot of people. It's

00:14:01 ◼   ► way easier to be like, "Oh, I'll just give them 9 dollars a month. Then here's 119 dollars."

00:14:06 ◼   ► $119 is an amount of money you have to like, you have to put that side, right? You have

00:14:11 ◼   ► to think about that for a moment where like $9 is way easier.

00:14:14 ◼   ► - There's apparently also a monthly Prime option. It's the same thing. It's actually

00:14:18 ◼   ► more expensive than the annual Prime, but they make it available. So yeah, it'll be

00:14:24 ◼   ► interesting to see if they raise the video price. And there is a question of like, would

00:14:29 ◼   ► there come a time when Amazon would consider unbundling the video service from the rest

00:14:34 ◼   ► to Prime, I think not. I think that they want to just have, they want to own you, right?

00:14:39 ◼   ► They want you in their world. And this is, we talked about Apple having an ecosystem

00:14:43 ◼   ► that they try to get people inside. This is how Amazon does their ecosystem is they throw

00:14:50 ◼   ► everything into Prime and say, "You just need to pay us to do Prime." And honestly, you

00:14:56 ◼   ► know, there are these reports that this stuff costs way more. Prime is not a profit center

00:15:01 ◼   ► unto itself for Amazon. It is a way to open a door for the profit to come in on increased

00:15:09 ◼   ► orders and you know, increased, you know, we'll choose Amazon over other possibilities

00:15:14 ◼   ► because I've got Prime now and so the shipping is free and all of those things because they

00:15:18 ◼   ► do lose money on Prime when you look at shipping and all of that. But you are creating a loyal

00:15:26 ◼   ► customer and that's where you have your advantage. So, you know, this is that's the game that

00:15:32 ◼   ► they're playing here.

00:15:33 ◼   ► Philip in the chat room is pointing out something about Amazon, which we get pointed out to

00:15:38 ◼   ► every time we talk about Amazon, which is that one of the reasons or the reason that

00:15:44 ◼   ► Amazon offer video standalone is for countries that don't have Amazon in them, but I don't

00:15:49 ◼   ► think that's the reason.

00:15:50 ◼   ► No, that's not. No, they introduced standalone in the US. They didn't introduce it because

00:15:55 ◼   ► it's outside of the US.

00:15:56 ◼   ► Yes, they may have done it for other places, but they also offer it in places where they

00:16:01 ◼   ► do the shipping thing. So like, yes, you know, who knows? The reason that they may have initially

00:16:05 ◼   ► created it was for that, but they do offer it everywhere, even in places that don't have

00:16:11 ◼   ► Amazon proper, right?

00:16:13 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's not accurate. Amazon made a very specific decision to roll out a monthly

00:16:19 ◼   ► video-only option long after the fact in the US because they wanted to have this kind of

00:16:24 ◼   ► other, you know, don't commit to a year, try it out, don't feel like you're getting everything

00:16:28 ◼   ► on Amazon, because there's a psychology of like, "Well, I don't order things on Amazon,

00:16:32 ◼   ► but I want to watch this show." And they'll say, "Okay, we have a thing for you." Even

00:16:36 ◼   ► if it economically does not make a lot of sense, it psychologically can feel better

00:16:42 ◼   ► to be like, "I don't want to pay for the shipping thing. I'm not going to get the shipping thing."

00:16:45 ◼   ► It's like, "Fine, you pass more and you don't have to have it." Like, okay, that's weird.

00:16:51 ◼   ► But yes, of course, there are lots of places where Amazon doesn't offer Prime shipping.

00:16:55 ◼   ► And in those markets, they offer Prime as a standalone video service, essentially.

00:16:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I just wanted to mention it because every time we talk about this, we always get

00:17:03 ◼   ► it mentioned to us.

00:17:04 ◼   ► I know.

00:17:05 ◼   ► Literally every time we talk about Amazon Prime, people say, "Did you know that overseas,

00:17:08 ◼   ► outside the US and the UK and some other markets where Prime shipping exists, it's just a standalone

00:17:13 ◼   ► video service?"

00:17:14 ◼   ► And the answer is yes.

00:17:16 ◼   ► We just don't mention it every single time because…

00:17:18 ◼   ► It was the Grand Tour is what they did it for.

00:17:20 ◼   ► the Grand Tour was coming and like a week before it just popped up like all over the

00:17:25 ◼   ► place which made a lot of sense because I'm I would love to know how much money they pay

00:17:29 ◼   ► for that show because I bet it was a lot of money.

00:17:32 ◼   ► I'm sure it was but I bet I bet they got there I mean you make that decision thinking well

00:17:36 ◼   ► we have a we're gonna get this back and subscribers and visibility.

00:17:40 ◼   ► They probably did. I don't know what the Grand Tour is doing now but at least when it started

00:17:44 ◼   ► right like I bet they picked up a lot of people just for that first episode because nobody

00:17:49 ◼   ► know people didn't know what it was gonna be like. I didn't enjoy it is what I'm trying to say.

00:17:54 ◼   ► Like Sjurad again, I don't like the Grand Tour. I love Top Gear, I don't love the Grand Tour.

00:17:58 ◼   ► Should just mention Jason before we take our first break that at the end of the show today

00:18:04 ◼   ► we're going to be doing a special mic at the movies because a big movie came out.

00:18:07 ◼   ► They get it happen sometimes with no warning. We're going to be talking about Avengers

00:18:13 ◼   ► infinity war obviously uh at the end of this week's show it will be the very end of the show

00:18:20 ◼   ► after ask upgrade so if you want to avoid spoilers we'll make it very clear we're talking about it

00:18:26 ◼   ► nothing else will happen after that conversation so you won't miss anything so you can either jump

00:18:31 ◼   ► off or you can decide to like what you should do is pause the show leave it in your pocket

00:18:38 ◼   ► go see the movie when have you seen the movie come back listen to it that's that's what i think you

00:18:43 ◼   ► what I personally do with those types of things.

00:18:45 ◼   ► So at the end of the episode today, Special Myke at the Movies, Avengers Infinity War.

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00:20:26 ◼   ► you smile. You're the best. So Jason, the airport is dead and I don't mean the thing

00:20:33 ◼   ► that you need to fly.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Now that's it, there's no more airports. Apple has shut down all the airports.

00:20:38 ◼   ► Why did they do that? That seems so mean.

00:20:41 ◼   ► It's blimps, baby. There's going to be an eye blimp. The eye blimp is coming and that's

00:20:45 ◼   ► going to replace all airports. It's amazing they had that power. How did people give them

00:20:49 ◼   ► the power to shut down all the airports? I don't know.

00:20:51 ◼   ► It's when they let them do the mapping.

00:20:53 ◼   ► Yeah, it seems like a mistake in hindsight.

00:20:55 ◼   ► Yeah, but as well as that, because Apple got so wild with shutting down real airports,

00:21:02 ◼   ► they figured to themselves, "Why don't we just shut down our airport program, which

00:21:08 ◼   ► is Wi-Fi routers? They're gone away." And this is one of those things, this is really

00:21:13 ◼   ► funny. This shows how the example, like, people sometimes call, like, Apple news and rumors

00:21:21 ◼   ► and reporting like an echo chamber in the way that someone will mention something and

00:21:24 ◼   ► and a bunch of people talk about it, right? And that's a thing that happens quite a lot.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Talk about it, loads of opinions get thrown in there and all kinds of meshes together.

00:21:32 ◼   ► To the point that when this announcement was made, that Apple made via some news sources

00:21:37 ◼   ► that they were killing the airport, it led to many people saying, "I thought they already

00:21:41 ◼   ► did that." No. No, that's not true. In November...

00:21:45 ◼   ► It was a year and a half ago. Was it a year and a half ago?

00:21:48 ◼   ► Yeah. The... Germin's report was like in November of '16.

00:21:52 ◼   ► Whoa, I thought it was last November. Well, there you go. In November of 2016, Mark Gurman

00:21:58 ◼   ► wrote a report saying that Apple was getting out of the airport business, and now they

00:22:04 ◼   ► officially have. It is interesting to me to try and think about what happened in that

00:22:09 ◼   ► year and a half, right?

00:22:11 ◼   ► Well, I mean, Gurman's report is that they disbanded the teams a year and a half ago,

00:22:17 ◼   ► And they still had the products, right? So I think they must have just decided they're

00:22:24 ◼   ► going to disband the team, sell the products for a while, and then when there comes a time

00:22:27 ◼   ► when they would need to update them, they'll just let them fade away. Or when their metrics

00:22:33 ◼   ► show that they're not selling enough of them or they can't get the parts or whatever, they'll

00:22:37 ◼   ► make them fade away.

00:22:38 ◼   ► But they may also have played a game where they—sometimes this happens with tech companies—where

00:22:44 ◼   ► they'll disband a team and they'll say, "Well, if it turns out we need to do a new version

00:22:48 ◼   ► of this, we'll just reform a team in a year or two and do it then." And that didn't happen.

00:22:55 ◼   ► So they just decided to be out of the business. But it sounds like they decided to be out

00:22:59 ◼   ► of this business, yeah, a year and a half, two years ago. And it's just been selling

00:23:04 ◼   ► -- because some of the people that -- I mean, I get why people who rely on this stuff are

00:23:08 ◼   ► sad that it's not ever going to be updated again, that it's going away. I totally get

00:23:13 ◼   ► that, but the immediacy of it I thought was interesting because we know through the Germin

00:23:17 ◼   ► report that this was not, you know, it's not like the company has been actively updating

00:23:22 ◼   ► this product. It's been years since these products were updated, and quite frankly I

00:23:26 ◼   ► didn't love the last update, but it's been years since then, so there's been no movement,

00:23:31 ◼   ► but if you're somebody who thought, "Oh no no no, there'll be a new airport sometime,"

00:23:34 ◼   ► then it's sad because there will absolutely not.

00:23:37 ◼   ► And at least like even if you didn't think that you would buy a new one,

00:23:42 ◼   ► by Apple continuing to make them, you would consider that like the product

00:23:46 ◼   ► that you have would continue to get updated, right? And it's unknown what

00:23:51 ◼   ► would what will happen to the existing airports that live out there in the

00:23:55 ◼   ► world, right? How long will they work for? Will they receive any kinds of updates?

00:23:58 ◼   ► Like are there gonna be big security updates they're not gonna get? Like as it

00:24:02 ◼   ► stands right now, unless you can correct me, I don't think that we know anything

00:24:06 ◼   ► about that like what Apple's plans are to support the existing user base?

00:24:10 ◼   ► I imagine that like so many other products since they were selling it up

00:24:14 ◼   ► till now basically that they will support it for some length of time in

00:24:18 ◼   ► software a couple of years or whatever and at that point it will become a

00:24:21 ◼   ► vintage product and they call it legacy or something don't they this is stuff

00:24:25 ◼   ► that I learned from Stephen and he's k-based discussions that like there is a

00:24:28 ◼   ► specific phases document which Apple has somewhere which has like all of the

00:24:33 ◼   ► the products that are now considered legacy

00:24:35 ◼   ► and aren't supported anymore,

00:24:36 ◼   ► and they do this every now and then

00:24:37 ◼   ► where they throw more things into that bucket.

00:24:39 ◼   ► But it's a long period of time, right?

00:24:41 ◼   ► Again, one of the reasons that I think

00:24:43 ◼   ► I love Apple products, and I know a lot of people

00:24:45 ◼   ► love Apple products, is that they get support,

00:24:47 ◼   ► they get updates, they get taken care of for a while.

00:24:51 ◼   ► You can make the investment now.

00:24:52 ◼   ► Like if you buy an iPhone X today,

00:24:54 ◼   ► it will still be getting software updates

00:24:56 ◼   ► in like four or five years most likely,

00:24:58 ◼   ► which is not the same on Android, for example.

00:25:03 ◼   ► think that that is a is in the past I think been a thing which has long been

00:25:07 ◼   ► used as a jab like a joke towards Android but there is truth in it right

00:25:12 ◼   ► you know you can buy you could buy an Android phone today that doesn't have

00:25:15 ◼   ► the latest version of Android on it and it may never right like you never know

00:25:19 ◼   ► right because the way that carriers and everything work but anywho what was so

00:25:24 ◼   ► good about the airport line in the first place like why do people want these

00:25:28 ◼   ► products opposed to competitors products? Like what made the airport product a special

00:25:34 ◼   ► one?

00:25:35 ◼   ► Well, so one reason is it was the Apple product.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Right.

00:25:40 ◼   ► Okay.

00:25:41 ◼   ► There's some historic legacy there, right? Which is when Apple came out with the first

00:25:44 ◼   ► airport and the original iBook actually was when that happened. Wi-Fi was new and there

00:25:50 ◼   ► was no way that Apple was going to get it to be at their level of kind of compatibility

00:25:54 ◼   ► and quality if they didn't build the base station hardware themselves. So they did.

00:26:00 ◼   ► And that went for a while. And then it just kind of kept going. And over time, I think

00:26:05 ◼   ► some people felt like the Apple stuff was of a higher quality than the competition.

00:26:09 ◼   ► I think there were times when it was and times when it wasn't. I had some Apple hardware

00:26:14 ◼   ► that I thought was--I had a couple of airport expresses of the original variety, and they

00:26:19 ◼   ► ran hot and they burned out. And I had a base station at one point that I couldn't update

00:26:25 ◼   ► the firmware, so if I ever wanted to change my Wi-Fi passwords or settings or anything

00:26:29 ◼   ► or run a software update, it would just fail and go back to its previous state, which was,

00:26:33 ◼   ► you know, awkward. But there were other ones that I had that were rock solid and that worked

00:26:39 ◼   ► really well and they were compatible in a way that third-party routers weren't-- third-party

00:26:45 ◼   ► routers had weirdness sometimes with iOS devices or Mac OS devices that the

00:26:48 ◼   ► airport obviously being very carefully tested on those Apple devices worked

00:26:54 ◼   ► perfectly. Apple cared about ease of setup so that you know there was the

00:26:59 ◼   ► airport app that you could use to configure them whereas a lot of

00:27:02 ◼   ► third-party routers would use just kind of incomprehensible and bad web pages to

00:27:08 ◼   ► do the same thing. So you know a lot a lot of that and then we'll throw in that

00:27:13 ◼   ► that Apple would occasionally roll in a feature that was not that was basically

00:27:17 ◼   ► an Apple specific feature that was not available or not widely available

00:27:21 ◼   ► anywhere else and the two best examples of that I think are the airport express

00:27:25 ◼   ► having the mini jack audio out so that you could use it as an airplay receiver

00:27:30 ◼   ► essentially attached to some other audio device and the the what was the other

00:27:37 ◼   ► big one. Oh, Time Capsule? Yeah, yeah, that's it. It was network time machine backups

00:27:44 ◼   ► using Time Capsule, where you could just plug this thing in and point to it from

00:27:48 ◼   ► your Mac and the backups would happen and it was super easy. And those are

00:27:53 ◼   ► things that Apple built specifically for Mac users, you know, tied in to their

00:27:58 ◼   ► platforms and at the time that was the only way. There are alternatives to

00:28:03 ◼   ► those now, but at the time that was kind of the only way you could do that. And so

00:28:06 ◼   ► So for various reasons, and we talk about Apple cases for iPhones and things like that,

00:28:12 ◼   ► there is a great ease of use if you're an Apple purchaser to get the Apple Wi-Fi stuff,

00:28:19 ◼   ► because I just think that there is a feeling like I'm in the Apple store or I'm shopping

00:28:24 ◼   ► on Apple's website and I need a Wi-Fi base station and what's the brand I trust? I trust

00:28:29 ◼   ► Apple's brand so I'm going to buy their product, even if it was more expensive than the competition

00:28:33 ◼   ► and maybe wasn't any better, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't,

00:28:37 ◼   ► but it was Apple and you were in the Apple support system

00:28:40 ◼   ► and you were in the Apple store where they sold it

00:28:42 ◼   ► and all of that kind of went together.

00:28:44 ◼   ► So I think there's a lot of reasons why historical,

00:28:47 ◼   ► some features, some convenience that airport had a big,

00:28:51 ◼   ► a big role in a lot of people's home networking worlds.

00:28:55 ◼   ► - Now, my feeling would be that one of the reasons

00:29:00 ◼   ► that Apple probably got rid of this product

00:29:02 ◼   ► is that if they were going to bring out a new version, it would probably have to be

00:29:05 ◼   ► pretty significant, right? Like, I mean, I guess if they were going to make a new airport

00:29:09 ◼   ► line, it should have been a mesh network because that's what, that's what people make now,

00:29:14 ◼   ► right? You know?

00:29:15 ◼   ► Well, I think, I think that's exactly it. And disclaimer, we've had mesh networking

00:29:18 ◼   ► sponsors on this podcast.

00:29:19 ◼   ► Yeah, Eero is a sponsor of the show. In a moment, I'm going to ask Jason what the alternatives

00:29:23 ◼   ► are and Eero will probably come up, but they're not sponsoring this episode. Um, it doesn't

00:29:28 ◼   ► matter if they're a sponsor at all. Like we would talk about them as we would talk about

00:29:32 ◼   ► you know, like they are not paying for this discussion.

00:29:36 ◼   ► - Right, that's true.

00:29:39 ◼   ► So my understanding is that several of these companies,

00:29:42 ◼   ► including Eero, have some former Apple people at them

00:29:44 ◼   ► and it shows, certainly the influence of Apple shows

00:29:46 ◼   ► regardless in the software that they write

00:29:48 ◼   ► and in the way that their products are designed.

00:29:50 ◼   ► 'Cause I look at the wire cutters choice

00:29:52 ◼   ► for best wifi router and it's this black box

00:29:55 ◼   ► with six antennas sticking out at the top.

00:29:58 ◼   ► And I just think, no, I don't want that in my house.

00:30:00 ◼   ► I don't ever want to see that.

00:30:03 ◼   ► But that is, you know, that's sort of what the state

00:30:05 ◼   ► of affairs is for like your standard wifi router.

00:30:08 ◼   ► I think you're right.

00:30:09 ◼   ► If Apple kept this team together,

00:30:11 ◼   ► this is what they would be doing,

00:30:13 ◼   ► is they would be doing some sort of fancy mesh routing thing

00:30:16 ◼   ► where they've got base stations and repeaters,

00:30:19 ◼   ► and it's all just kind of working seamlessly

00:30:21 ◼   ► with their software.

00:30:22 ◼   ► I think that would have been the next evolution of this.

00:30:24 ◼   ► But if you're Apple, you look at it and you say,

00:30:27 ◼   ► we don't need to be in this business anymore.

00:30:29 ◼   ► We don't make a whole lot of money making these products.

00:30:31 ◼   ► We're using engineering talent that maybe we could put

00:30:33 ◼   ► to use better in other parts of our business.

00:30:36 ◼   ► And there are other companies out there

00:30:37 ◼   ► who live and die by this.

00:30:38 ◼   ► And I think that's a really important point.

00:30:41 ◼   ► There are lots of companies for whom building

00:30:44 ◼   ► networking hardware for the consumer market

00:30:46 ◼   ► and the business market are what they do.

00:30:48 ◼   ► That's their entire job.

00:30:49 ◼   ► That's all they care about.

00:30:51 ◼   ► And you think Apple is distracted by iOS

00:30:54 ◼   ► when it comes to the Mac.

00:30:56 ◼   ► How distracting is it?

00:30:57 ◼   ► How off center is it to be working

00:31:01 ◼   ► in the airport group at Apple?

00:31:04 ◼   ► And maybe there are some very special people

00:31:07 ◼   ► who just love it and they don't care that they're at that.

00:31:09 ◼   ► But I would argue there's a big difference

00:31:12 ◼   ► between working on a wifi router at Apple

00:31:15 ◼   ► and working on a wifi router at Netgear or Eero, right?

00:31:20 ◼   ► Or even some other company that is all about networking,

00:31:25 ◼   ► Because that's what the whole business is aligned toward.

00:31:28 ◼   ► That's what they want to do.

00:31:29 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause like Google have a product, Google Wi-Fi,

00:31:32 ◼   ► but like how long is that actually gonna be around?

00:31:35 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:31:36 ◼   ► Like you don't know Google if they're just gonna be like,

00:31:38 ◼   ► "No, this isn't working, we'll kill it."

00:31:40 ◼   ► Whereas you say, if you work at a company

00:31:42 ◼   ► like Netgear or Eero,

00:31:44 ◼   ► well they're not gonna kill the product

00:31:45 ◼   ► because like that's the business.

00:31:47 ◼   ► - That's the company. - Yeah.

00:31:48 ◼   ► - That's the whole company.

00:31:49 ◼   ► And if you're a router engineer,

00:31:54 ◼   ► aren't you gonna be more excited to go work

00:31:55 ◼   ► for one of those companies than Apple?

00:31:57 ◼   ► We're like, oh, but it's Apple.

00:31:58 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's a backwater within Apple.

00:32:00 ◼   ► It's not where Apple puts,

00:32:02 ◼   ► again, unless you're somebody who really loves it,

00:32:04 ◼   ► it's not where Apple puts their A number one talent,

00:32:08 ◼   ► or at least the people that Apple managers have said,

00:32:11 ◼   ► this person is going somewhere,

00:32:12 ◼   ► we need to have them on a key project.

00:32:14 ◼   ► And I'm not saying that that's fair,

00:32:15 ◼   ► but it's absolutely reality.

00:32:17 ◼   ► If you had a superstar developer who was coming up

00:32:20 ◼   ► building hardware for your wifi router and your Apple,

00:32:23 ◼   ► would you not say we need to get that person

00:32:26 ◼   ► on other hardware that's more important to our future

00:32:29 ◼   ► than our wifi router.

00:32:31 ◼   ► And that's just the nature of things.

00:32:32 ◼   ► So I think that that,

00:32:33 ◼   ► I do really believe that that's part of it is,

00:32:36 ◼   ► Apple got into this business because they had to.

00:32:40 ◼   ► They stayed in it because it was,

00:32:43 ◼   ► they had momentum and they were kind of advantages

00:32:46 ◼   ► to dropping some stuff in there

00:32:49 ◼   ► that was sort of Apple specific.

00:32:51 ◼   ► And I think they got to the point

00:32:52 ◼   ► where they surveyed the world outside and said,

00:32:54 ◼   ► "Why are we doing this?

00:32:58 ◼   ► "There's a thriving competitive market out there

00:33:03 ◼   ► "for this stuff."

00:33:04 ◼   ► There's also, I think, there's the argument like,

00:33:06 ◼   ► "It keeps moving ahead.

00:33:08 ◼   ► "There's new standards, there's all this new mesh stuff."

00:33:11 ◼   ► And there's a question of like,

00:33:11 ◼   ► "Well, if we're gonna do the Apple take on this,

00:33:14 ◼   ► "we're gonna need to make an investment here and do more."

00:33:17 ◼   ► And there is a moment where you need to decide,

00:33:19 ◼   ► "Are we gonna do more or are we not?"

00:33:21 ◼   ► And if we're not, we should probably wind it down

00:33:24 ◼   ► and let everybody else, because the next step is

00:33:27 ◼   ► that Apple makes a deal with, or is talking to,

00:33:30 ◼   ► some of these major Wi-Fi manufacturers

00:33:33 ◼   ► to get them to be friendly with Apple and Apple's products,

00:33:36 ◼   ► and in return get maybe showcased in the Apple stores,

00:33:40 ◼   ► right?

00:33:41 ◼   ► Like that is already probably gone on,

00:33:43 ◼   ► and will continue to go on.

00:33:45 ◼   ► And so they get probably what they want,

00:33:48 ◼   ► which is a way to get their users to an experience

00:33:52 ◼   ► that they consider acceptable

00:33:54 ◼   ► without having to have this project.

00:33:56 ◼   ► - So what is available out there

00:33:59 ◼   ► that people should be looking for

00:34:01 ◼   ► if they're currently a user of these products?

00:34:05 ◼   ► - Well, I think I recommend people go into the Wirecutter

00:34:08 ◼   ► and looking at their recommendations.

00:34:10 ◼   ► They have a Wi-Fi router recommendations

00:34:13 ◼   ► and mesh networking recommendations.

00:34:15 ◼   ► The Wi-Fi router, it's a single thing with lots of antennas

00:34:19 ◼   ► sticking out of it that you put somewhere.

00:34:22 ◼   ► Pretty good for coverage in a small space.

00:34:24 ◼   ► The mesh routers are obviously better

00:34:25 ◼   ► if you've got a larger space

00:34:29 ◼   ► that you're trying to cover with Wi-Fi.

00:34:31 ◼   ► I had issues unless I put my router, my single router,

00:34:35 ◼   ► in a very specific location in my house,

00:34:36 ◼   ► which is my son's closet.

00:34:38 ◼   ► Other than that, I couldn't get coverage

00:34:40 ◼   ► throughout my house.

00:34:41 ◼   ► And even then, it was pushing it,

00:34:42 ◼   ► and my house isn't that big.

00:34:43 ◼   ► So I switched to a mesh network,

00:34:45 ◼   ► and again, here's the Eero disclaimer.

00:34:47 ◼   ► Eero's a sponsor, they sent me some units,

00:34:49 ◼   ► and that's what I'm using now.

00:34:51 ◼   ► But that worked for me.

00:34:53 ◼   ► So Wirecutter is a good independent organization

00:34:57 ◼   ► that has looked at all of these things.

00:34:58 ◼   ► My only caveat about Wirecutter,

00:35:01 ◼   ► and I don't know their reviewer,

00:35:03 ◼   ► and I don't know who the editor is on that piece.

00:35:05 ◼   ► I've written some pieces for Wirecutter in the past.

00:35:07 ◼   ► I'm not currently working with them on anything.

00:35:09 ◼   ► But the one thing, I had a bad experience

00:35:12 ◼   ► with a previous generation of their Wi-Fi router recommendation list, where

00:35:16 ◼   ► they recommended a Netgear router that I bought, and I found that it had some

00:35:20 ◼   ► very weird quirks where it would occasionally just drop iOS devices from

00:35:25 ◼   ► the network. And it got really frustrating, and I ended up turning off

00:35:29 ◼   ► all the Wi-Fi routing on it, bringing my airport extreme back out of a drawer, and

00:35:34 ◼   ► using it for Wi-Fi while the Netgear stuff did the actual, like, traffic

00:35:40 ◼   ► routing, which is weird and dumb, but that's what I ended up doing because Apple's Wi-Fi

00:35:45 ◼   ► was way more solid. Now, I've heard from people who are Apple users who say that the latest

00:35:49 ◼   ► and greatest wire cutter picks work great with their devices. My caveat is basically,

00:35:57 ◼   ► it's unclear to me whether when somebody who's got a lot of experience writing about networking,

00:36:04 ◼   ► that's their experience understanding how consumers live their lives and also how people

00:36:10 ◼   ► who use Apple products use their products in the home. And that's always the caveat

00:36:15 ◼   ► with something that's written by somebody with a lot of technical background is the

00:36:18 ◼   ► technical background is fantastic. But do they get like, because I saw this in Mac world

00:36:24 ◼   ► and when I was also in charge of PC world, you would see that from time to time where

00:36:29 ◼   ► there's somebody who's got all the technical chops in the world, but their connection with

00:36:32 ◼   ► like the reality of how users use their products was a little tenuous. And I'm not saying the

00:36:37 ◼   ► current Wirecutter writer is that way, but I did have that moment where I thought, "Did

00:36:42 ◼   ► this person actually spend time with iOS devices on their network when they were testing this,

00:36:48 ◼   ► or did they just use PCs and not worry about it?" Because that was always the danger when

00:36:53 ◼   ► you're doing a story like this. And then when I see their reviews with the router bristling

00:36:59 ◼   ► with all those antennae, I realized that finding the best wireless networking product is not

00:37:05 ◼   ► a beauty contest. At the same time, I'm not kidding, I look at that and think "I'm

00:37:09 ◼   ► never gonna buy that thing." It is so horrendously, laughably ugly, I don't want that thing

00:37:15 ◼   ► in my life. Yeah. So, you know, for some people, like me, I don't really have a place where

00:37:20 ◼   ► I could put it. Like, my router is on show, right? Like, it will be in the public view

00:37:27 ◼   ► of my hallway and I just don't want this alien spacecraft sitting on an end table. I just

00:37:34 ◼   ► don't, I really don't want it. I want something that is simple enough. I mean we have these,

00:37:40 ◼   ► you know, I need to upgrade my system here quite a lot but I have this like, just this

00:37:46 ◼   ► net gear thing that plugs straight into the wall. It's not very good but it does me fine,

00:37:52 ◼   ► connection stable and stuff but it's not the best like for speed to take advantage

00:37:57 ◼   ► of the fast internet that I have but it will do for now right because to my

00:38:03 ◼   ► heartbreak I can't get aero in UK which is what I want but that's right I'll get

00:38:08 ◼   ► it and I've looked at the Google Wi-Fi thing but honestly like I don't I don't

00:38:12 ◼   ► have the feeling of like oh Google are gonna snoop on me I just I don't know

00:38:16 ◼   ► how long the product will last for that's that's my concern with like

00:38:20 ◼   ► buying the Google thing because they have their own like mesh network thing

00:38:23 ◼   ► and then the Netgear one is it Netgear or Orbi or something that the other

00:38:28 ◼   ► Orbi is from Netgear and that's the wire cutter pick for mesh networking

00:38:32 ◼   ► they're huge like they're massive these things and and I just like

00:38:37 ◼   ► Linksys has a has a large a large set of boxes mesh network - there's that there

00:38:42 ◼   ► are many different mesh networks out there but like that's what I like about

00:38:45 ◼   ► about Google and Eero that they're small, right? Like, they're not, like, huge, but

00:38:51 ◼   ► it seems that the other companies that I can buy the stuff of, it's just way too big. Like,

00:38:58 ◼   ► I don't want something that big. I want something several ways.

00:39:00 ◼   ► The Orbi is like the size of the last generation airports, in that it's tall.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Yeah, and that's too much. I don't want that.

00:39:07 ◼   ► And the Eeros are like an Apple TV, right? Just to give you some idea, like, there are

00:39:11 ◼   ► are ones that are small and there are ones that are huge. And some of that has to do

00:39:14 ◼   ► with antennas and radios and you know, just how they want to configure it because remember

00:39:19 ◼   ► these things do have to broadcast and receive signal in order to do what they do. It's not

00:39:24 ◼   ► magic. They've got to be built for certain specs. So it's a funny thing. Like that all

00:39:32 ◼   ► said, I would choose an Orbi over the regular Wi-Fi pick from Wirecutter and Heartbeat.

00:39:38 ◼   ► - Because it hasn't got like alien tendrils sticking out of his head, like for sure.

00:39:42 ◼   ► - Exactly, right.

00:39:43 ◼   ► - But I would prefer something that's small or one of these ones that plugs directly into

00:39:47 ◼   ► the wall or something, because it's just too much for me.

00:39:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, so anyway, there are lots of options out there. The other thing I wanted to mention

00:39:56 ◼   ► is if you're somebody who relies on a time capsule to do backup, first off, obligatory

00:40:03 ◼   ► cloud backup mention, which is you should do a cloud backup if you're not, because

00:40:08 ◼   ► if you're backing up at home to a time capsule that's in your house and something happens

00:40:13 ◼   ► to your house, you don't have a backup. That backup goes along with your house, which means

00:40:18 ◼   ► that you don't really have a backup in case of a flood or a fire or something like that.

00:40:23 ◼   ► Your primary data and your backup will be lost simultaneously. So a cloud backup is

00:40:28 ◼   ► super important, puts your data somewhere else. I would do a cloud backup honestly before

00:40:33 ◼   ► I would do a local backup if I had to choose for that reason, although there are lots of

00:40:37 ◼   ► advantages to local backups that can happen more frequently, they happen faster, you can

00:40:41 ◼   ► do more versioning and things like that.

00:40:42 ◼   ► So if you don't have the bandwidth.

00:40:44 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:40:45 ◼   ► Lots of reasons to do it, but you really should be backing up your most important stuff at

00:40:48 ◼   ► least over the network as well.

00:40:50 ◼   ► Then, you know, there are a bunch of other options.

00:40:54 ◼   ► You can get a drive that plugs into your computer and do Time Machine locally, and you may think

00:40:59 ◼   ► to yourself, "Boy, but I really don't want a big hard drive on my laptop."

00:41:02 ◼   ► I get that, although first off they make really small SSD external drives now that can be

00:41:08 ◼   ► large. Again, it's not cheap to do that, but you can get a big SSD backup drive and just

00:41:15 ◼   ► attach it to your laptop every now and then. It's not the end of the world. It's okay.

00:41:18 ◼   ► If you've got another Mac on your network, starting with High Sierra, and Dan wrote about

00:41:24 ◼   ► this at Six Colors this week, you can actually just turn on file sharing and time machine

00:41:28 ◼   ► and back up to that Mac, any drive attached to that Mac. It's built into Mac OS now, it's

00:41:33 ◼   ► not a Mac OS server feature, they can all very easily support Time Machine. You could

00:41:39 ◼   ► also buy a NAS, which is network attached storage. If you don't have a Mac that's running

00:41:43 ◼   ► on your network all the time, you can buy a NAS which is basically a server, it comes

00:41:49 ◼   ► with drives, it lets you save your files over your network. If you've got an SSD based Mac,

00:41:57 ◼   ► a NAS in your house is great because your drive isn't very big and these are, you know,

00:42:03 ◼   ► giants. It's a box with spinning hard drives in it that can have huge amounts of storage.

00:42:07 ◼   ► So it's a great place. I use one or I use a server, but it's the same thing. To offload

00:42:12 ◼   ► a bunch of stuff off of the relatively small SSD that comes in my Mac because it's got,

00:42:18 ◼   ► you know, like 10, 12 terabytes of storage that I can copy to. Well, I also do a time

00:42:22 ◼   ► machine backup to that and there are and many, in fact, Wirecutter has recommendations. Many

00:42:27 ◼   ► many of the NAS devices support Time Machine.

00:42:30 ◼   ► You can configure them and say,

00:42:31 ◼   ► "This is the volume I want for Time Machine.

00:42:34 ◼   ► "I want it to be this big."

00:42:35 ◼   ► You point Time Machine at it and it works.

00:42:37 ◼   ► Now they're not cheap, but that's another option.

00:42:39 ◼   ► So you have options.

00:42:39 ◼   ► It's not quite as easy as the buying a time capsule

00:42:43 ◼   ► and setting it up, but they can have other benefits too.

00:42:46 ◼   ► So that's an option.

00:42:47 ◼   ► And then the other one is for audio,

00:42:49 ◼   ► like people who are using Airport Expresses.

00:42:51 ◼   ► There seems to be no solution that's as simple

00:42:54 ◼   ► and as reliable as using an Airport Express.

00:42:56 ◼   ► There are some other options, whether it's an Apple TV

00:42:58 ◼   ► that's attached via HDMI or optical,

00:43:02 ◼   ► depending on what model you get.

00:43:04 ◼   ► To audio, there are a bunch of AirPlay adapters

00:43:08 ◼   ► that are sold by third parties

00:43:09 ◼   ► that I hear are not as reliable,

00:43:11 ◼   ► but again, they are available.

00:43:13 ◼   ► There are also Bluetooth adapters.

00:43:14 ◼   ► If you're close to a set of speakers

00:43:16 ◼   ► that you wanna broadcast to, you could just use Bluetooth.

00:43:19 ◼   ► And when AirPlay 2 comes out,

00:43:22 ◼   ► I wonder if we'll actually see a new round,

00:43:25 ◼   ► especially now that Airport Express is going away.

00:43:27 ◼   ► - If AirPlay 2 ever comes out.

00:43:28 ◼   ► - If well, AirPlay 2 will come out eventually.

00:43:30 ◼   ► That you might actually see a new set of adapters

00:43:33 ◼   ► designed to take advantage of AirPlay 2.

00:43:35 ◼   ► - I hope so.

00:43:36 ◼   ► - And attached to it.

00:43:37 ◼   ► So there are some options there.

00:43:39 ◼   ► It's not gonna be a perfect one-to-one,

00:43:41 ◼   ► but there are options if your airport device is gonna die.

00:43:45 ◼   ► - Jason, there was a report at CNET from Shara Tippken.

00:43:50 ◼   ► According to a source, CNET are reporting

00:43:53 ◼   ► that Apple is working on a headset capable of running AR and VR with plans for two 8K

00:44:00 ◼   ► displays, one for each eye. This project is codenamed T288 and is being slated for a 2020

00:44:08 ◼   ► release according to people familiar with the matter. The device would be connected

00:44:14 ◼   ► to what is being described as a "dedicated box" which would power everything. In its

00:44:20 ◼   ► current state, TIPKIN is saying that this box resembles a PC tower. Now, I have a lot

00:44:29 ◼   ► of questions based upon what we decide this is referencing, because the report goes on

00:44:35 ◼   ► to talk about the box itself featuring wireless technology. So it's not really clarified in

00:44:42 ◼   ► in the report as to whether this PC tower resembling thing is the prototype unit or

00:44:50 ◼   ► not, I think for the sake of conversation and discussion we should assume that it is

00:44:55 ◼   ► attached to a big box now because it's early in development and that by the time it comes

00:45:01 ◼   ► out the headset will be tethered to something you could maybe put in your pocket. Because

00:45:08 ◼   ► - Because otherwise, what's the point in this thing

00:45:09 ◼   ► being wireless if it's the size of a PC tower?

00:45:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think the, you gotta go back to like,

00:45:16 ◼   ► what is the source for this?

00:45:18 ◼   ► And this is a product that they're saying

00:45:20 ◼   ► maybe a 2020 kind of product.

00:45:22 ◼   ► So it's a ways out there.

00:45:25 ◼   ► Let's say it's at least two years out there

00:45:28 ◼   ► and maybe two and a half years out there,

00:45:30 ◼   ► or maybe it'll get delayed

00:45:31 ◼   ► and there'll be three or four years out there.

00:45:33 ◼   ► It's early and they're prototyping.

00:45:36 ◼   ► And one of the important things is that this needs to be wearable.

00:45:40 ◼   ► But they don't have the ability to have a wearable thing

00:45:44 ◼   ► that has enough processing power to run it.

00:45:47 ◼   ► So rather than have you put on like a lead vest or something full of computer parts,

00:45:52 ◼   ► or... - Or do what other people do, which is build it all into the headset,

00:45:55 ◼   ► which makes the headset really heavy and bulky.

00:45:57 ◼   ► - Right, well, I think that was what I was gonna say is,

00:46:00 ◼   ► is right now they don't wanna do that,

00:46:02 ◼   ► because they don't want that to be the end product.

00:46:03 ◼   ► That's not the goal here.

00:46:04 ◼   ► So for now you build the headset and you have the computing power offloaded because you're

00:46:11 ◼   ► still developing this product.

00:46:13 ◼   ► And right now it doesn't matter.

00:46:14 ◼   ► What you really want to do is model how it will ultimately work, which is a thing that

00:46:19 ◼   ► you wear on your face.

00:46:21 ◼   ► So maybe they've got a box now that's attached via cable or maybe it's attached wirelessly

00:46:25 ◼   ► and they've got this external box because that's how they're building this product.

00:46:30 ◼   ► It's not even how they're testing it.

00:46:31 ◼   ► testing it and building it, like making it exist and trying to figure out the right way

00:46:36 ◼   ► to do it. This is a product that's early in development, right? So that's where this report

00:46:42 ◼   ► is coming from, which is why I kind of can't really think that it tells us anything about

00:46:48 ◼   ► the end product other than, you know, the idea that there would be a dedicated box.

00:46:54 ◼   ► I laughed at the idea of the dedicated box because I thought, they say dedicated box

00:46:58 ◼   ► and wireless and I thought oh so it'll work with my iPhone then because that's a dedicated

00:47:03 ◼   ► box that's in my pocket.

00:47:05 ◼   ► So this thing is going to connect to something. I don't believe that this is going to be a

00:47:12 ◼   ► standalone unit right like in the way that your Apple watch connects to something and

00:47:17 ◼   ► it could be one of two things either it will be an iPhone or it is another thing which

00:47:21 ◼   ► I totally can see both happening. I expect it will probably be an iPhone but you don't

00:47:26 ◼   ► I mean, we don't know at this stage, but I think it's worth assuming it connects to something,

00:47:31 ◼   ► right?

00:47:32 ◼   ► Either wirelessly or tethered or whatever, but what it--

00:47:35 ◼   ► - It's also possible--

00:47:36 ◼   ► - It's all kind of intermingled in this report by making it seem like it will be a PC, which

00:47:42 ◼   ► I think is not necessarily made very clear.

00:47:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, it's all, 'cause they don't know, and they're just kind of speculating,

00:47:50 ◼   ► and it comes from somebody who probably, who was the source in this?

00:47:52 ◼   ► It's probably somebody who knows somebody who works on it

00:47:55 ◼   ► or like who has worked on it a while ago

00:47:58 ◼   ► and says, well, you know, this is what I got to see it

00:48:00 ◼   ► and they have a box, but you know,

00:48:02 ◼   ► but it's all kind of hazy.

00:48:04 ◼   ► I look at this and I think, yeah,

00:48:07 ◼   ► that first off the ultimate goal, first off, okay.

00:48:09 ◼   ► The ultimate goal is that it is all integrated in the device

00:48:12 ◼   ► so that when you put on a headset or glasses or whatever,

00:48:15 ◼   ► it's all the power is in there.

00:48:17 ◼   ► But that won't be a reasonable step.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Apple's got a very powerful computer in your pocket.

00:48:24 ◼   ► So that would be a way to drive it to a certain degree.

00:48:28 ◼   ► And I think when you talk about a box,

00:48:32 ◼   ► it's not unreasonable that they might say

00:48:34 ◼   ► when you're out and about,

00:48:36 ◼   ► you can use your phone to drive AR.

00:48:39 ◼   ► And when you're at home, it connects to this base thing,

00:48:44 ◼   ► that's definitely not an airport base station,

00:48:46 ◼   ► it's something completely different, this base,

00:48:48 ◼   ► and then it drives your VR experience.

00:48:50 ◼   ► And that thing has got a lot more computing power in it

00:48:53 ◼   ► than what you get from the AR side of it.

00:48:55 ◼   ► That's also a possibility, right?

00:48:57 ◼   ► - That's a really good point.

00:48:58 ◼   ► - That it comes with a home base

00:49:00 ◼   ► that does the VR stuff and is much more powerful.

00:49:05 ◼   ► - Like the Nintendo Switch.

00:49:06 ◼   ► - Right, but when you're roaming--

00:49:09 ◼   ► - It's just your iPhone.

00:49:10 ◼   ► Because AR and VR are so different, right?

00:49:12 ◼   ► And this is why I was thinking,

00:49:14 ◼   ► I wasn't willing to accept that this is a thing

00:49:16 ◼   ► that always needs to be connected to a large box,

00:49:18 ◼   ► because then AR is mostly pointless at that, you know,

00:49:22 ◼   ► because I think a lot of what makes AR useful

00:49:25 ◼   ► is being able to use it outside in the world, right?

00:49:29 ◼   ► Like that there are things that you can move around

00:49:32 ◼   ► and see and get information from,

00:49:35 ◼   ► but VR is immersive experiences.

00:49:37 ◼   ► Just you do that at home, right?

00:49:39 ◼   ► Like that's where that happens.

00:49:41 ◼   ► So I feel that there has to be an element of portability

00:49:44 ◼   ► with this thing that I'm interested to see. I mean, okay, so I feel like we put that part

00:49:50 ◼   ► to bed, right? We're just going to assume that like somehow this thing allows you to

00:49:54 ◼   ► walk around with it indoors and outdoors. My next question is how on earth do you make

00:50:00 ◼   ► one device that does both of these things? Because those two use cases are so different

00:50:06 ◼   ► because VR, it needs to close you off from the world and AR needs to leave you open to

00:50:12 ◼   ► the world. Now, there is a thing called mixed reality, which is in between, but mixed reality

00:50:18 ◼   ► doesn't do AR and VR, it's MR, right? Like, it is a different thing, which is closer to

00:50:26 ◼   ► augmented reality stuff than VR, but those two things, they are so very different.

00:50:32 ◼   ► I don't know. I think mixed reality and AR just, you know, depends on who's using what

00:50:35 ◼   ► buzzword at the time, but you're right. VR, you are not getting external input from the

00:50:40 ◼   ► VR, the entire world is defined by what you are being shown and what you're hearing.

00:50:46 ◼   ► So first off, I've got a question which is, just because they're testing AR and VR right

00:50:51 ◼   ► now, it doesn't necessarily mean that the intent is to have a product that does both.

00:50:55 ◼   ► I question that. Is that really what's happening here? And if it is, because the other thing

00:51:02 ◼   ► is the specs for AR are going to be a lot lower than VR in some ways because you don't

00:51:07 ◼   ► have to, you're painting over the world. I mean, they're different. In some ways, they're

00:51:11 ◼   ► harder because you've got to track reality in a way that you don't necessarily with VR.

00:51:16 ◼   ► But I guess it can be convertible, right? Like that they polarize the lenses or something

00:51:23 ◼   ► and so it shuts out the outside world or you have a blast shield, Star Wars style that

00:51:28 ◼   ► you've flipped down and now you can't see anything in the outside world and you're entirely

00:51:33 ◼   ► enmeshed in it or you know but there's it goes to things like audio like VR you want

00:51:38 ◼   ► immersive audio that shuts out the outside world AR you want audio overlay over being

00:51:44 ◼   ► able to hear the outside world.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Right that's that stuff you can do it's like you built into the arms and it like tickles

00:51:51 ◼   ► your bones in your ears so you can still hear stuff.

00:51:55 ◼   ► If I'm Apple and I'm developing this stuff I would say are we really going to have two

00:52:00 ◼   ► different products, the one that you use at home and the one you take out in the world,

00:52:04 ◼   ► or ultimately is the goal to have a single thing that can do both. Because I don't know

00:52:09 ◼   ► what stage of development they're in and this report comes to, but I think in the long run

00:52:15 ◼   ► you want it to be self-contained, capable of doing both. In the short run, that may

00:52:19 ◼   ► not be possible, and they may have to break down and say, "No, we're really just going

00:52:23 ◼   ► to do AR out of the gate, and we'll deal with the VR stuff later," or vice versa. But it's

00:52:30 ◼   ► that's the difference between like what is Apple ultimately want this product to

00:52:35 ◼   ► be and what is Apple capable of building and having a price manufacturing at a

00:52:41 ◼   ► price that they can sell it to consumers like that is there is often a large gap

00:52:45 ◼   ► between those two things because I mean I made this argument about the iPhone 10

00:52:49 ◼   ► that in some ways the iPhone 10 is probably what Johnny I've envisioned

00:52:54 ◼   ► when they started talking about the iPhone a buttonless slab right just a

00:52:58 ◼   ► slab of glass with a screen on it. And they couldn't get there. They couldn't get there

00:53:01 ◼   ► for a long time. But AR and VR are going to be similar. We know what this is supposed

00:53:07 ◼   ► to be. It's supposed to look like a pair of glasses or be completely invisible somehow

00:53:12 ◼   ► and have all of its computing power either built into it or attached via some sort of

00:53:17 ◼   ► network that is everywhere and pervasive and that you can get to and that provides high

00:53:22 ◼   ► speed interactions and stuff like that. You could sketch out what the ultimate AR/VR is

00:53:28 ◼   ► product should be, but they're not going to have that in 2020. So what are they

00:53:32 ◼   ► going to build and do they know or are they still just sort of trying stuff out

00:53:36 ◼   ► and figuring out what to throw overboard? Honestly I do not believe that Apple is

00:53:41 ◼   ► building anything for VR. I just don't, I don't see it. I think that they're going

00:53:46 ◼   ► for AR and I think that maybe people confuse the two a little bit. I really

00:53:53 ◼   ► just because VR is games right and Apple bless them yeah they try but they don't

00:54:04 ◼   ► that they're not big into games and the the power difference to make good VR

00:54:10 ◼   ► games compared to what Apple is used to providing developers to make stuff with

00:54:14 ◼   ► is dramatic and they would need to make a lot of really really different choices

00:54:19 ◼   ► is about the way that they handle game development than they have right now. I would be very

00:54:25 ◼   ► very surprised if Apple developed a VR platform until VR became a success. AR they can pioneer.

00:54:33 ◼   ► I don't think that Apple pioneering VR is a good idea. I think that they should wait

00:54:38 ◼   ► to see if it catches on any more than it currently already has before they move into it. That's

00:54:43 ◼   ► my personal feeling because now they've left it too late, right? Like I've always felt

00:54:48 ◼   ► that Apple should do something in VR before now. I think at this point they're not one

00:54:56 ◼   ► of the pioneers, they are not one of the companies that's at the forefront of it now like they

00:55:00 ◼   ► are in AR so I figure they should just double down and focus on that and definitely not

00:55:05 ◼   ► try and build one product for two things because this in theory needs to be something that

00:55:11 ◼   ► you would feel like not too much of a doofus walking around in the street, wooing your

00:55:17 ◼   ► and I honestly can't imagine how they would combine a product to do those two things

00:55:23 ◼   ► like it would just be really weird to me, like I just don't, I just don't imagine it

00:55:26 ◼   ► but in general, I do believe that they are working on this product

00:55:33 ◼   ► I do believe that they will release an AR glasses project at some point

00:55:38 ◼   ► like I think that that is the natural progression for what Tim Cook seems to be so excited about with AR

00:55:45 ◼   ► I feel like that is it. AR is only so useful when you still have to look at a phone screen.

00:55:52 ◼   ► It can only be so useful if you have to go to it to get it instead of that information

00:55:58 ◼   ► just being constantly provided to you. That's the dream of Google Glass.

00:56:05 ◼   ► That said, everything they're doing on the phone right now is research for that. All

00:56:11 ◼   ► the error kit stuff that exists now, that's Apple saying,

00:56:15 ◼   ► okay, developers, what can you do with this now?

00:56:19 ◼   ► Because that teaches them,

00:56:21 ◼   ► teaches Apple how to build AR stuff

00:56:23 ◼   ► and gives developers tools

00:56:27 ◼   ► to build interesting AR applications.

00:56:29 ◼   ► And I would say that if over the next year or two,

00:56:32 ◼   ► Apple looks at what is out there for AR,

00:56:34 ◼   ► there's a possibility, I don't think it's a huge one,

00:56:37 ◼   ► but there's a possibility that they'll be like,

00:56:38 ◼   ► oh, you know, there's really not a lot here.

00:56:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, like they pull a rip cord

00:56:42 ◼   ► and just jump straight out of it,

00:56:43 ◼   ► rather than be like, nope, nope, nope.

00:56:44 ◼   ► - It's possible.

00:56:45 ◼   ► But I think the idea is that at some,

00:56:48 ◼   ► when I try to imagine what happens after the phone

00:56:50 ◼   ► or after the computer,

00:56:52 ◼   ► this is what I keep thinking,

00:56:55 ◼   ► is the product after the phone or after the computer

00:56:59 ◼   ► is something like this, where it is your phone,

00:57:02 ◼   ► but instead of it being in your hand,

00:57:04 ◼   ► it's just in your field of vision.

00:57:06 ◼   ► And you interact with it with,

00:57:09 ◼   ► and maybe you have a device you can pull out and use,

00:57:13 ◼   ► or maybe the cameras will be able to look

00:57:15 ◼   ► at your hand gestures,

00:57:16 ◼   ► and you'll literally be able to tap things in midair

00:57:19 ◼   ► or like run your finger over the palm of your other hand

00:57:23 ◼   ► and be like, you know, I wanna scroll with these gestures

00:57:26 ◼   ► and have that work.

00:57:27 ◼   ► I think that's quite possible

00:57:28 ◼   ► because the idea in the long run is

00:57:31 ◼   ► that if I'm doing turn-by-turn directions,

00:57:34 ◼   ► it would be better if they just were a heads-up display

00:57:37 ◼   ► in my glasses that I could just wear while I'm driving.

00:57:41 ◼   ► And if I'm walking on a street

00:57:42 ◼   ► and I wanna know how to get to my destination

00:57:45 ◼   ► that it just is annotating the street that I'm walking down.

00:57:47 ◼   ► And if I have a message or notification,

00:57:50 ◼   ► it maybe tells me, maybe reads in my ear,

00:57:52 ◼   ► depends on my notifications.

00:57:53 ◼   ► But you could see that this device would start out

00:57:56 ◼   ► as a phone accessory and ultimately could replace the phone

00:58:00 ◼   ► because it's your interaction point for all that stuff.

00:58:02 ◼   ► And for computers and tablets and things like that,

00:58:05 ◼   ► I think that this is also a way that some of that stuff gets replaced because once you

00:58:11 ◼   ► have AR, you theoretically have a virtual screen. You theoretically have a screen that

00:58:16 ◼   ► is as big as you want it to be that you can take anywhere you want. And, you know, maybe

00:58:21 ◼   ► you're typing in midair or maybe you have a keyboard, but it means you maybe don't need

00:58:25 ◼   ► a monitor anymore because you've just got your glasses and the monitor is in your field

00:58:30 ◼   ► of view when you want it to be there. So, you know, in the long run of technology, when

00:58:35 ◼   ► I try to imagine what comes next after these whole categories that exist right now, it

00:58:41 ◼   ► does start to think like you get most of the hardware out of the way. You don't need a

00:58:46 ◼   ► screen anymore if you can see a screen in your field of view. Like that solves that

00:58:51 ◼   ► problem and you don't necessarily--and what is a smartphone? It is a screen. It is also

00:58:57 ◼   ► a gesture control device and some other things that are more questionable, like I just did,

00:59:05 ◼   ► like how do you do that interaction and that stuff to be figured out, but the screen aspect

00:59:09 ◼   ► of it could get just replaced and would be awfully convenient if you don't have to carry

00:59:13 ◼   ► a screen around and it could be any size and it could be in any part of your vision. And

00:59:17 ◼   ► that's a little more VR-y in the sense that it's blocking out parts of the world in order

00:59:21 ◼   ► to show you that, but it's also kind of AR-y in the sense that when I'm looking at my computer

00:59:25 ◼   ► screen, I can see the world around the edges of the screen. It's not entirely

00:59:29 ◼   ► blocked off, it's just, you know, my focus is just in the center. So, and this all,

00:59:35 ◼   ► like, on the big picture level, this is why Apple has to be spending R&D money

00:59:39 ◼   ► on this stuff, because it's probably the future of a lot of their product, the

00:59:44 ◼   ► successor to a lot of their product categories, and they can either lead the

00:59:49 ◼   ► way there or they can be left behind and be made slowly irrelevant. And, you know, I

00:59:54 ◼   ► I know which one they would prefer,

00:59:56 ◼   ► but that's a long run up.

00:59:57 ◼   ► And the short term, we end up slicing,

00:59:59 ◼   ► like you just did, I think really well,

01:00:01 ◼   ► which is what do we slice off of this thing

01:00:03 ◼   ► to make a first-generation product

01:00:05 ◼   ► that's sort of like,

01:00:06 ◼   ► we'll look back on 10 years later and be like,

01:00:08 ◼   ► "Oh, it was so primitive, but the time it's released,

01:00:10 ◼   ► it will blow everybody away."

01:00:11 ◼   ► What is that product?

01:00:12 ◼   ► How do they get that out in the market?

01:00:14 ◼   ► And they're not gonna do what Microsoft does,

01:00:16 ◼   ► which is say, "Oh, HoloLens, it's for developers,

01:00:17 ◼   ► it's sold into some industry."

01:00:20 ◼   ► What's it gonna be?

01:00:21 ◼   ► Apple's not gonna release a product like that.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Apple's gonna release a product that everybody wants to buy,

01:00:25 ◼   ► or at least millions and millions of people wanna buy.

01:00:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:29 ◼   ► - Today's show is brought to you by Simple Contacts.

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01:02:56 ◼   ► Breaking news, Myke. There's a, um, there's a report that is, uh, that I just saw at Apple

01:03:06 ◼   ► insider but it is a report from DigiTimes that just says that that much

01:03:12 ◼   ► rumored refresh of the MacBook Air that we've speculated about and wondered what

01:03:17 ◼   ► it might be or what it might mean has slipped and that supply chain

01:03:24 ◼   ► partners (that's who the source is) supply chain partners were recently informed

01:03:30 ◼   ► that it will be a second half product. So originally thought to maybe be coming

01:03:38 ◼   ► soon, this report says that that mysterious undead revived MacBook Air

01:03:44 ◼   ► thing won't happen until the second half of 2018. So nothing more than that and

01:03:52 ◼   ► it's worth munching on and considering over the next few days. But interesting

01:03:58 ◼   ► I have a shared photo album with my family where everyone can

01:04:28 ◼   ► upload their photos to. Do you know of a way that I can import all of the photos that are shared back

01:04:34 ◼   ► to my library without duplicating the ones that I have shared? I've seen this so many times, like

01:04:39 ◼   ► I'll go on trips with friends and stuff and we set up like an iCloud shared album thing and we all

01:04:46 ◼   ► throw photos in and then I have to go through individually one by one and save all the ones that

01:04:50 ◼   ► I want because like there isn't a way to just be like "give me the ones that aren't mine". Now I

01:04:56 ◼   ► I wanted to ask you because I figure everybody that I know

01:04:59 ◼   ► and I thought and Yoav has written into the right person,

01:05:02 ◼   ► you know photos inside and out,

01:05:04 ◼   ► you've written a book on it.

01:05:05 ◼   ► Is there a way to do this?

01:05:06 ◼   ► - I don't believe so.

01:05:10 ◼   ► I think maybe if you dragged everything back in,

01:05:13 ◼   ► if it's a photo shared photo album,

01:05:15 ◼   ► if you drag it back in, it might identify duplicates.

01:05:20 ◼   ► 'Cause there are some cases where photos does identify

01:05:25 ◼   ► duplicates in an importing process and lets you skip them.

01:05:29 ◼   ► But I don't know a hundred percent.

01:05:31 ◼   ► I don't have a good answer here.

01:05:33 ◼   ► I actually have a warning, which is shared photo albums

01:05:36 ◼   ► don't share at full resolution.

01:05:38 ◼   ► So if you want to put those photos from your trip

01:05:43 ◼   ► or your time with your family in your photos library,

01:05:48 ◼   ► I would recommend getting people to actually share

01:05:52 ◼   ► their full resolution photos with you,

01:05:54 ◼   ► because the ones that come across via iCloud

01:05:57 ◼   ► are not at full resolution.

01:05:59 ◼   ► - Okay, how does somebody make sure

01:06:01 ◼   ► that they're sharing a full res photo with you?

01:06:03 ◼   ► Like what is the way to do that?

01:06:06 ◼   ► - You export them from photos and say,

01:06:09 ◼   ► you know, export original basically.

01:06:11 ◼   ► - And then how do you then send them?

01:06:13 ◼   ► - I put them on Dropbox or something like that.

01:06:15 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:06:16 ◼   ► - Is there a way to do this on iOS to share a full res photo?

01:06:19 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, I mean, if you share it,

01:06:22 ◼   ► if you share like in an email or messages or something, I think that they don't change

01:06:28 ◼   ► the resolution. In some cases they might, yeah it is a pain, Google Photos might be

01:06:33 ◼   ► an option too. I think if you share photos in Google Photos, the ones that you share

01:06:39 ◼   ► I believe are full quality and you can download them.

01:06:41 ◼   ► I might just start using Google Photos for this stuff in the future because that's really

01:06:45 ◼   ► annoying. I didn't know that it wasn't sharing the, I mean and it's because I can't see it.

01:06:49 ◼   ► It should be full quality and Apple should let you say,

01:06:52 ◼   ► I want to import the photos that are coming from my friends

01:06:55 ◼   ► into my photo library and it's just, it's not there.

01:06:58 ◼   ► - Like it probably isn't a big issue for me right now

01:07:00 ◼   ► because you know, like it's when I'm looking at it

01:07:03 ◼   ► on my phone, it will be fine.

01:07:04 ◼   ► But like maybe five or 10 years in the future,

01:07:07 ◼   ► like I will need it at a better quality than I have,

01:07:11 ◼   ► you know, than what they've shared

01:07:12 ◼   ► because everything's just going to keep getting better

01:07:14 ◼   ► over time.

01:07:16 ◼   ► That's a frustration.

01:07:17 ◼   ► Nathan has written in, with Sonos announcing AirPlay 2 support for upcoming devices, I

01:07:22 ◼   ► started considering buying into the Sonos ecosystem. Jason, do you have any tips or

01:07:27 ◼   ► something that Nathan should be aware of before diving in?

01:07:31 ◼   ► I think you should be aware of the fact that although some of the new Sonos stuff like

01:07:38 ◼   ► the Sonos 1 supports voice control, it does not support Apple Music with voice control.

01:07:47 ◼   ► So if you're an Apple Music person,

01:07:49 ◼   ► the voice control won't work.

01:07:50 ◼   ► However, if you're an Apple Music person,

01:07:51 ◼   ► Sonos ecosystem supports Apple Music, which is great,

01:07:54 ◼   ► so that you can listen to it.

01:07:56 ◼   ► It's the only third party that supports Apple Music

01:07:58 ◼   ► streaming on their hardware.

01:08:00 ◼   ► So there's a lot to be said for that.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Beyond that, I don't really know.

01:08:06 ◼   ► The stuff sounds good.

01:08:06 ◼   ► They've got stuff that'll tie into a receiver

01:08:08 ◼   ► or that will power some speakers.

01:08:11 ◼   ► If you've got speakers that require an amplifier,

01:08:13 ◼   ► there's a product that will do that.

01:08:16 ◼   ► So there's lots of different options.

01:08:17 ◼   ► The Play 5 is a very large device

01:08:19 ◼   ► that puts out a lot of sound, but it's also really huge.

01:08:23 ◼   ► The Sonos One is nice and small and we'll do AirPlay 2.

01:08:26 ◼   ► Sadly, my Sonos or Play 1 that I have

01:08:30 ◼   ► will not support AirPlay 2.

01:08:31 ◼   ► Apparently it is not powerful enough in terms of the tech,

01:08:34 ◼   ► which is, you know, it's fine.

01:08:35 ◼   ► I've got a plugin that runs on my Mac

01:08:38 ◼   ► that is a bridge to Sonos that works with AirPlay 1

01:08:42 ◼   ► and that works fine.

01:08:43 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:08:44 ◼   ► I think just be aware of what music services it supports and what the features support because I think that's what will trip you up.

01:08:53 ◼   ► Assuming that Amazon Echo Assistant technology and support for Apple Music will allow those two things to come together, which they don't.

01:09:04 ◼   ► So just be aware. And they're pricey. That's the other thing. They're not cheap.

01:09:11 ◼   ► but they do sound pretty good.

01:09:13 ◼   ► And I loved my Logitech squeeze box stuff,

01:09:16 ◼   ► but that was a platform ruined

01:09:18 ◼   ► and made obsolete by Logitech.

01:09:22 ◼   ► So I switched to Sonos a while ago.

01:09:25 ◼   ► - Rajeev wants to know what Apple accessories

01:09:28 ◼   ► show up in the batteries widget for iOS 11.

01:09:31 ◼   ► So I like this little widget.

01:09:32 ◼   ► It's one of my favorites

01:09:34 ◼   ► because it shows me the battery life

01:09:36 ◼   ► of any Bluetooth connected device.

01:09:38 ◼   ► So for example,

01:09:39 ◼   ► as well as it showing the battery life on my iPhone, how much life I have left there,

01:09:43 ◼   ► it will show me my Apple Watch if it's connected, my AirPods including the individual AirPods

01:09:48 ◼   ► themselves and the case. If you use any of the Beats product with the W1 or W2 chips

01:09:54 ◼   ► in them it will show those as well, so like the Beats X and stuff like that will show

01:09:59 ◼   ► the battery life there and the Apple Pencil as well. So I really like this battery widget,

01:10:03 ◼   ► I find it very useful, I keep it turned on on all of my devices because quite frequently

01:10:07 ◼   ► I would like to know the battery life of one of those things.

01:10:14 ◼   ► Emanuals asks, "When the Apple video streaming service launches, do you think it will launch

01:10:19 ◼   ► with only Apple's original content, or will they license a back catalog of TV shows and

01:10:25 ◼   ► movies? If yes, what kind do you expect?"

01:10:29 ◼   ► - It's a good question.

01:10:32 ◼   ► It's entirely possible that they won't,

01:10:37 ◼   ► but it feels like a nice way to add

01:10:39 ◼   ► to the kind of like the value proposition of the services

01:10:41 ◼   ► to have some catalog stuff.

01:10:43 ◼   ► So there may be a lot of stuff that they can just license

01:10:47 ◼   ► that's non-exclusive,

01:10:48 ◼   ► that's on lots of different streaming services

01:10:50 ◼   ► that they'll be able to just grab.

01:10:52 ◼   ► Maybe some of the Sony stuff,

01:10:54 ◼   ► if Sony has rights to things,

01:10:55 ◼   ► since the executives in charge came from Sony,

01:10:58 ◼   ► maybe they will have some stuff that they know is available there.

01:11:01 ◼   ► I wonder if they will pair some of their existing content with things that they think are similar

01:11:09 ◼   ► to the stuff that they're doing originals of.

01:11:12 ◼   ► The usual argument or the usual option for all of these types of discussions with Apple

01:11:16 ◼   ► like over the last 10 years has been Disney, right?

01:11:19 ◼   ► Like it was like, "Oh, they have a great relationship with Disney.

01:11:22 ◼   ► They'll bring Disney."

01:11:23 ◼   ► But it doesn't seem like that's gonna happen.

01:11:24 ◼   ► Yeah, but they're a competitor of Disney because Disney's gonna have its streaming service.

01:11:27 ◼   ► But no, I think of something like if they've got a Ron Moore series, do they license Battlestar

01:11:33 ◼   ► Galactica or something like that.

01:11:36 ◼   ► And say, "Look, these are going to be like other things that we've got."

01:11:40 ◼   ► So that it gives the person who's coming for this show some shows that are similar.

01:11:44 ◼   ► - Do you think that Apple might struggle to make those deals with networks and studios

01:11:49 ◼   ► though?

01:11:50 ◼   ► - It depends on, I mean, everybody's competing with everybody now.

01:11:54 ◼   ► So the question is just going to be what the price is and what is their exclusivity or

01:12:00 ◼   ► not.

01:12:01 ◼   ► If there's no exclusivity and it's just extra money to put it on more services, I think

01:12:04 ◼   ► that the studios are going to be more than happy about that.

01:12:08 ◼   ► Because I always assume that the TV and movie industry has always been so scared that Apple

01:12:14 ◼   ► is going to do to them what they did to the music industry, right?

01:12:17 ◼   ► Which was change the industry from underneath them.

01:12:20 ◼   ► I feel like Apple is not the problem in this world, right? Like Netflix and everybody's

01:12:26 ◼   ► getting into it and Netflix is a giant and Amazon is a giant and Apple's not at that

01:12:30 ◼   ► point yet. So I think we're probably over that now.

01:12:35 ◼   ► But like Apple Music has gotten really big really fast and is growing at a quicker rate

01:12:39 ◼   ► than Spotify, right? And I think that was not what anybody expected. So, you know, they

01:12:44 ◼   ► could come in and like in five years be bigger than Netflix.

01:12:48 ◼   ► No, it's a different game though because everything's exclusive in video and nothing, you know, or

01:12:53 ◼   ► at least all these originals are exclusive and nothing's exclusive essentially in music.

01:12:58 ◼   ► There are brief timed exclusives, but that's it.

01:13:00 ◼   ► There is more of a drive towards making quality stuff where like Apple aren't actually commissioning

01:13:06 ◼   ► the music to be made.

01:13:07 ◼   ► I think that's one of the biggest differences, right?

01:13:10 ◼   ► Like they actually have to make good stuff as opposed to just have the stuff that's already

01:13:14 ◼   ► good on there.

01:13:15 ◼   ► If Apple were doing this to be Netflix like four years ago,

01:13:20 ◼   ► it's different, right?

01:13:21 ◼   ► Like if what they were trying to do was just collect up

01:13:24 ◼   ► all of the streaming, right?

01:13:26 ◼   ► To be what Netflix was, not what Netflix is becoming,

01:13:30 ◼   ► which is HBO, which is what they're all going for.

01:13:32 ◼   ► - So I, if I had to bet, I might bet that they won't have

01:13:38 ◼   ► much extra stuff at launch because they want this to be

01:13:42 ◼   ► a premium kind of thing.

01:13:44 ◼   ► That said, licensing some movies,

01:13:47 ◼   ► doing some deals to kind of compete with HBO

01:13:51 ◼   ► in getting some recent run movies

01:13:53 ◼   ► and some catalog movie titles

01:13:55 ◼   ► might be something they could do.

01:13:56 ◼   ► They could even say it's sort of like,

01:13:59 ◼   ► when you subscribe to this video service,

01:14:00 ◼   ► you get a bunch of stuff that's the best of iTunes.

01:14:03 ◼   ► If you think about what Amazon does,

01:14:04 ◼   ► where they sell and rent stuff,

01:14:06 ◼   ► but they also have free video,

01:14:08 ◼   ► that they may view it like that,

01:14:09 ◼   ► where it's like, you also get access to a bunch of movies

01:14:12 ◼   ► and maybe even some TV shows on iTunes for free.

01:14:15 ◼   ► And that's the way they kind of phrase it

01:14:17 ◼   ► is something like, it's part of our store,

01:14:19 ◼   ► but you don't, if you're a member of this service,

01:14:21 ◼   ► you don't have to pay to watch it.

01:14:24 ◼   ► It's just covered.

01:14:25 ◼   ► But what reality, reality what they're doing

01:14:27 ◼   ► is they're licensing a bunch of movies for streaming.

01:14:29 ◼   ► And that could, it could happen.

01:14:32 ◼   ► It could happen.

01:14:32 ◼   ► They don't have to do that,

01:14:34 ◼   ► but they need a really strong slate

01:14:36 ◼   ► if they go out without a back catalog.

01:14:38 ◼   ► The other possibility is that they will buy

01:14:40 ◼   ► a niche streaming service or two

01:14:41 ◼   ► and just integrate their content and their back catalog.

01:14:44 ◼   ► And that's something they could totally do.

01:14:46 ◼   ► They could pull in, you know, something,

01:14:48 ◼   ► there are a bunch of small services out there like Acorn,

01:14:52 ◼   ► which does British TV in the US that they could bring in.

01:14:56 ◼   ► There are options out there.

01:14:58 ◼   ► It would be interesting to see.

01:15:01 ◼   ► And I don't know what's available kind of like,

01:15:03 ◼   ► non-exclusively, but I think they'll give it a shot

01:15:06 ◼   ► because better to go out with more content than less,

01:15:08 ◼   ► but it might be more movies than TV shows.

01:15:10 ◼   ► That's entirely possible.

01:15:11 ◼   ► My bet is that it won't really matter too much because I think that the Apple video

01:15:16 ◼   ► service will be bundled with music. So you're kind of the value that you're getting is having

01:15:22 ◼   ► all of it, right? Like I don't think that Apple is going to sell this service separately personally.

01:15:28 ◼   ► I think that it is going to be primarily, you know, they might do what Amazon does,

01:15:32 ◼   ► right? Where you can get it for some silly deal, which isn't good because you might as well pay the

01:15:37 ◼   ► extra dollar and get all of it. That's what I think they're going to do. I think there's going

01:15:40 ◼   ► to be an entertainment bundle that they sell which includes video and music because I think

01:15:46 ◼   ► video is going to be a harder sell like it's going to be harder for them to sell that to people

01:15:52 ◼   ► because especially initially it's like give us money for stuff you've never seen stuff that

01:15:57 ◼   ► nobody's ever seen and a bunch of stuff that no one knows is going to be any good like we promise

01:16:03 ◼   ► it will be like I think it's it's trickier to sell it than it was to sell Apple Music which is why I

01:16:08 ◼   ► I think they're going to bundle it anyway. Do you think they're going to bundle it or

01:16:11 ◼   ► do you think it will be standalone?

01:16:13 ◼   ► Yeah, good question. I think ultimately, yeah, I don't know. It's a tough question. I think

01:16:21 ◼   ► they want to generate revenue, but they could generate it by bundling it. They could generate

01:16:25 ◼   ► it by building some sort of Apple Prime kind of thing.

01:16:29 ◼   ► Yeah, like one or two more dollars is more revenue, right? And like, you know.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's more likely that they would bundle the two services together and sell them separately

01:16:41 ◼   ► than say that everybody who has Apple Music gets the video service.

01:16:46 ◼   ► I think it's much more likely that the video service will have its own subscription fee,

01:16:50 ◼   ► but there'll be some sort of deal if you buy both of them together.

01:16:53 ◼   ► But again, I'm also holding out some hope that at some point Apple may actually come out with a more complex offering that is more like Prime,

01:17:00 ◼   ► where you get some, you know, a bunch of different unrelated or vaguely related stuff. And that's

01:17:06 ◼   ► the way that you get access to all of this is by giving Apple whatever $100 or $120 a

01:17:11 ◼   ► year.

01:17:12 ◼   ► I think, you know, we spoke about this a couple of weeks ago with the news thing, right? Like

01:17:15 ◼   ► last week, it feels like that they're pushing in enough directions now that they have a

01:17:19 ◼   ► comprehensive offering, including iCloud storage that they can give you. And our last question

01:17:24 ◼   ► today comes from Josh. Josh wants to know, what is the best method to creating templates

01:17:29 ◼   ► in pages using iCloud so that are accessible on the Mac in Pages and iOS in Pages. So the

01:17:35 ◼   ► My Templates feature that exists in Pages doesn't sync to iOS, it's only on the Mac.

01:17:43 ◼   ► So I have a weird hack around this, so if you basically want to have a template document

01:17:48 ◼   ► which you can save in iCloud Drive that you can open on the iOS on Mac, my suggestion

01:17:54 ◼   ► for this, what I would do is create that template document and every time I want to use it,

01:17:59 ◼   ► duplicate it in the files app or in finder and then use the duplicated file.

01:18:03 ◼   ► That's what I would do. Does that make sense?

01:18:05 ◼   ► So you're not actually using any template feature.

01:18:07 ◼   ► You're just copying a document every time.

01:18:09 ◼   ► You just got a template file file. That's just a regular file. Yeah.

01:18:14 ◼   ► That's what I recommend. Yeah. It's cause that's what I do. Right.

01:18:18 ◼   ► I've never even thought about looking for a templates in pages cause this just

01:18:21 ◼   ► always made sense to me as the way to do it. Create the file, save it in Dropbox.

01:18:25 ◼   ► So like a bunch of people can access it if necessary and then just duplicate it.

01:18:29 ◼   ► it every time you want to use it. That's really easy to do on iOS or the Mac. There's duplicate

01:18:33 ◼   ► commands in the file browser. So that's what I would suggest.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Okay so that is it for #AskUpgrade. So after this break we are going to be talking about

01:18:44 ◼   ► Avengers Infinity War. You have been warned. Today's show is brought to you by our friends

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01:20:14 ◼   ► Fire the spoiler horn Myke later in editing he will do and he's doing it right now so

01:20:19 ◼   ► here it goes.

01:20:21 ◼   ► Avengers Infinity War, Jason. I saw it on Saturday. You saw it, when did you see the

01:20:28 ◼   ► movie? Friday?

01:20:29 ◼   ► - I saw it Thursday night.

01:20:30 ◼   ► - Oh, look at you.

01:20:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, my daughter demanded that we see it on opening night. She had demanded it and

01:20:37 ◼   ► so we found a way to make it work because I was not going to turn down a teenager actually

01:20:42 ◼   ► wanting to, first off, wanting to watch a superhero movie. I'm gonna, I wanna, you know,

01:20:48 ◼   ► approve and encourage those sorts of feelings. And then, you know, presumably she would be

01:20:54 ◼   ► seeing it with her parents, which, again, I want to encourage or take advantage of any

01:20:59 ◼   ► time she's willing to be around us. So we did. We went on Thursday.

01:21:02 ◼   ► - Because that's only going to decline, unfortunately.

01:21:04 ◼   ► - Oh, it's already. Oh, man, it's already declined so much. So, yes, so we did. We did

01:21:09 ◼   ► go on Thursday evening and saw the movie.

01:21:14 ◼   ► - There is an incomparable flashcast, which went up last night, an incomparable episode

01:21:18 ◼   ► 404 which just makes me laugh every time I see it. I haven't listened to it because I

01:21:23 ◼   ► want the one on one Snell opinion so I wait until afterwards. I will mention before we

01:21:30 ◼   ► get into talking about our thoughts on the movie itself, it is breaking all records right

01:21:36 ◼   ► now. It had a 250 million dollar opening weekend in the US which beats The Force Awakens. I'm

01:21:45 ◼   ► expecting along with everybody else probably that it will beat force awakens in everything

01:21:50 ◼   ► and just become the best movie of all time in box office sales which makes sense right

01:21:57 ◼   ► like it feels like the last 10 years would tell you that yes this should be the case

01:22:02 ◼   ► right like marvel have built this empire which is in some ways culminating with this and

01:22:10 ◼   ► then the next movie which is coming out what is it in may like it's basically a year from

01:22:14 ◼   ► now it comes out in 2019 because it's kind of like a two-parter but not a two-parter

01:22:19 ◼   ► in a way right like the story continues I really like that no plot details even the

01:22:24 ◼   ► name is not out for that movie yet like Marvel are super committed to keeping the end of

01:22:31 ◼   ► infinity war secret and they're showing that right like they do not want people to know

01:22:37 ◼   ► what happens at the end of this movie to the point that they have a movie coming out in

01:22:40 ◼   ► in a year that they haven't even told us what the name is yet. Like, they're very serious

01:22:45 ◼   ► about this and I understand because if you spent 10 years working on something, like,

01:22:50 ◼   ► you know, I mean, they haven't worked on this movie for 10 years, but it's this overall

01:22:54 ◼   ► franchise, which after next year, apparently is going to change, right? Like in some ways,

01:23:01 ◼   ► my expectation is new actors for some roles, right? And they do, you know, or they're going

01:23:06 ◼   ► to retire some roles, right? They'll kill some people off and then they will continue

01:23:11 ◼   ► with a new set of heroes. At some point they will probably have to either bring in like

01:23:18 ◼   ► "here's the new whoever"

01:23:20 ◼   ► Which works though, right? Because it's like, unlike I think a lot of these types of things,

01:23:26 ◼   ► it makes so much sense in comic books, because that's what happens in comic books, right?

01:23:30 ◼   ► There becomes a new Thor, like it is a new person who becomes the superhero. So like

01:23:35 ◼   ► it's totally in canon for them to be like, "Oh, Tony Stark is dead, but he is Mary Sue.

01:23:42 ◼   ► She is the new Iron person." Right? Like, you know, they can do that.

01:23:46 ◼   ► In fact, they, yeah, they have not only do they have James Rhodes, who's War Machine,

01:23:51 ◼   ► who was sometimes Iron Man, but they have, what is it? Oh, her name is Riri something

01:23:56 ◼   ► or other and she's Ironheart, but she's basically a teenager who gets, who is like Tony Stark's

01:24:02 ◼   ► successor and takes you know and she's got her own flying suit and stuff. I like that.

01:24:07 ◼   ► Yeah. I like that. Yeah. I'm not. They got options. I'm not very up to date on what happens

01:24:12 ◼   ► like in comic books anymore. Maria Williams is her name. It's a relatively recent thing

01:24:16 ◼   ► that they did. Okay. That's probably why I don't know. She's an African-American from

01:24:20 ◼   ► a girl from Detroit I wanna say somewhere in the Midwest and designs her own suit and

01:24:28 ◼   ► gets like advice from Tony Stark's people and stuff and kind of becomes like a substitute

01:24:34 ◼   ► Iron person. So yeah, I think that they have lots of options and it's yeah and at some

01:24:39 ◼   ► point they'll you know they'll just kind of go away and then there'll be a you know a

01:24:43 ◼   ► future where they say well we're doing a new Iron Man movie with a new Iron Man but I think

01:24:47 ◼   ► that they got a long way to go before they get there.

01:24:50 ◼   ► So one of the big things one of the big questions around this movie was how on earth do you

01:24:55 ◼   ► deal with so many A-listers in one movie. And I think that on the whole, they did a

01:25:03 ◼   ► pretty good job. Now I saw it with Adina who has only very recently become interested in

01:25:08 ◼   ► these movies. So like, there are so many characters where she's like, "Who is that?" Right?

01:25:14 ◼   ► Because she has no idea, she had no idea of Benedict Cumberbatch was going to be in this

01:25:18 ◼   ► movie, right? Like, she has no idea who Doctor Strange is, right? Like she just doesn't know

01:25:24 ◼   ► that character but I think that they did a pretty decent job of giving you all you needed

01:25:31 ◼   ► to know about a specific character without a ton of exposition and one of the ways they

01:25:38 ◼   ► did this was like Tony Stark meets Doctor Strange for the first time right and it's

01:25:43 ◼   ► like well that is actually a very good way of dealing with that like Tony Stark doesn't

01:25:47 ◼   ► know who he is because I think maybe Doctor Strange isn't as popular right like I love

01:25:53 ◼   ► that movie but I don't think it was like what it definitely wasn't like Black

01:25:57 ◼   ► Panther right right you know like it I think it did it did pretty well but like

01:26:02 ◼   ► no one no I don't really think it was a huge success so I think in the places

01:26:06 ◼   ► that they needed to they filled in more information about either a superhero who

01:26:12 ◼   ► isn't so well known like they don't bother with spider-man right like you

01:26:17 ◼   ► get it like you don't need to have seen the movie you just know who that is but

01:26:22 ◼   ► and then like they didn't really bother with Black Panther because everybody saw that movie right like

01:26:27 ◼   ► we're good like everyone knows about that now so like I think that where they needed to they did

01:26:32 ◼   ► a good job and I think that on the whole they paired people up well and I think that they did

01:26:38 ◼   ► a they did a pretty good job of dealing with a mammoth cast do you agree yeah I agree I think

01:26:46 ◼   ► that um I remember when the Avengers came out and our thought was like how are they going to put

01:26:52 ◼   ► it's six different or whatever seven different superheroes in the same movie and have it

01:26:55 ◼   ► make sense. That's that's a that's asking too much to bring all these franchises together

01:27:01 ◼   ► with this movie that is meant to join them all and I remember walking out of the Avengers

01:27:07 ◼   ► thinking wow that was like way better than I that given given how hard it was because

01:27:14 ◼   ► they had the mandate of like you will bring all these characters together that they managed

01:27:18 ◼   ► find a way to have it work. Well, this is like ten times as difficult, and I think they did.

01:27:23 ◼   ► My reaction is the same, which is I think they found a way to do it where it's not nonsensical.

01:27:30 ◼   ► And in this case, what they did was they split the story up into little parts so it felt like a Game

01:27:36 ◼   ► of Thrones episode where you're just kind of cycling through four different storylines.

01:27:39 ◼   ► And they took a lot of characters and didn't give them a lot to do and sort of had them in the

01:27:44 ◼   ► the climax with a promise that they will appear because I read a couple

01:27:48 ◼   ► articles that say this that they were characters that you thought weren't in

01:27:51 ◼   ► this movie a lot

01:27:52 ◼   ► that's because they're actually going to be in the next one and they can like

01:27:55 ◼   ► balance it out because like yeah left

01:27:58 ◼   ► we're the ones who survived the end of the movie so so so that's that's one of

01:28:02 ◼   ► the little cheats is sort of like well yeah some of these characters really

01:28:05 ◼   ► kind of show up toward the end there in a scene before that or two scenes but

01:28:08 ◼   ► they show up at the end and they fight in the big fight and you can say that

01:28:11 ◼   ► they're there but then there are the ones that it spends a little more time

01:28:14 ◼   ► with and they're bouncing off of each other in unusual ways so you put Spider-Man and

01:28:18 ◼   ► Tony Stark and Doctor Strange together and that is fun and you put Thor with the Guardians

01:28:22 ◼   ► of the Galaxy and that is fun. Which was just great! Thor and Drax, it's funny how their

01:28:30 ◼   ► characters overlap in certain ways, that was really good and then just Star-Lord trying

01:28:36 ◼   ► to be Thor, I think that was my favourite part of the whole movie was when those two

01:28:41 ◼   ► entities met like when the Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor met like that whole scene

01:28:45 ◼   ► was hilarious like it was so good it was I think everything I liked about both of those

01:28:50 ◼   ► movies in that they are kind of silly like the characters are silly but not in a like

01:28:56 ◼   ► wacky way you know the way they talk is really funny and the way they interact it I really

01:29:00 ◼   ► enjoyed that I also liked the team-up of Thor and Rocket Raccoon like I thought that they

01:29:05 ◼   ► worked so really well together as well like there were a lot of those that were great

01:29:09 ◼   ► - Noble rabbit.

01:29:11 ◼   ► - Noble rabbit.

01:29:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was very, like in Groot,

01:29:14 ◼   ► like teenage Groot is hilarious, right?

01:29:16 ◼   ► Like I think that they did a good job with that.

01:29:19 ◼   ► Do you know why like Ant-Man wasn't in this movie?

01:29:24 ◼   ► Like they referenced the fact that he decided

01:29:28 ◼   ► that he didn't want to be involved post.

01:29:31 ◼   ► - Ant-Man's not in this movie

01:29:32 ◼   ► because there's an Ant-Man movie coming out this summer.

01:29:35 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:29:36 ◼   ► And I believe like the way that these movies were produced,

01:29:41 ◼   ► Ant-Man and Black Panther were both actually written

01:29:45 ◼   ► after this movie was written.

01:29:48 ◼   ► So there was some degree where with Ant-Man,

01:29:52 ◼   ► they basically said,

01:29:53 ◼   ► let's just leave our hands off of Ant-Man

01:29:55 ◼   ► because Ant-Man and the Wasp is coming out this summer.

01:29:58 ◼   ► And it's presumably set before this movie.

01:30:00 ◼   ► So the idea there is just like,

01:30:02 ◼   ► let's get him out of the way of this big story

01:30:04 ◼   ► because he's got a movie coming

01:30:06 ◼   ► and we don't want to confuse people with like, "Well, wait, what about Ant-Man in the last movie?"

01:30:10 ◼   ► They're like, "No, he's just not in that movie. Nobody's going to be confused. Everybody in this movie

01:30:15 ◼   ► is just in this movie and not in Avengers. It's just in Ant-Man." And then Captain Marvel is the

01:30:21 ◼   ► same way. There's one other movie between now and the next Avengers movie, the sequel to this one,

01:30:26 ◼   ► and that's Captain Marvel, and by all accounts, that's set in the 90s. So that's a flashback movie.

01:30:31 ◼   ► So that'll set up Captain Marvel, who presumably will appear in the next Avengers movie and will

01:30:36 ◼   ► know who she is because we will have met her. It's teased at the end of this movie.

01:30:40 ◼   ► Yes, okay. I just wanted to check that you knew that.

01:30:43 ◼   ► Yeah. But it's very carefully, very carefully, I think, structured where the next two Marvel

01:30:49 ◼   ► movies don't address what happens at the end of this movie so that this movie can then

01:30:56 ◼   ► conclude in next May. So like, we may see Ant-Man in the next Avengers

01:31:03 ◼   ► movie maybe. Maybe, maybe, and my-- or maybe not, and if not, then this is my theory. My

01:31:10 ◼   ► theory is that there will be a post-credits sequence in Ant-Man that addresses what happens

01:31:15 ◼   ► in this movie. So that you watch Ant-Man and you're like, "Oh, this happens before the

01:31:19 ◼   ► other movie, it's fine." And then at the end you'll be like, "Oh!" And there the other

01:31:22 ◼   ► movie happened, and now we wonder about the characters in the Ant-Man movie and what happened

01:31:27 ◼   ► to them too, which will again continue. And then presumably the Captain Marvel movie will

01:31:31 ◼   ► have an end credits tag where she gets the beeper from Nick Fury and then they'll go

01:31:37 ◼   ► into the next movie. So I think it's all been structured that way.

01:31:41 ◼   ► What do you think about Marvel's new strategy of two movies in two months?

01:31:47 ◼   ► I don't know, I mean, they want to do... it's interesting. I wonder about their releases.

01:31:53 ◼   ► Like Black Panther, they released so early. And then this movie they really released early.

01:31:57 ◼   ► This is, you know, it used to be these were in the deep in the summer and the summer just

01:32:01 ◼   ► keeps creeping forward to now it's in late April and Black Panther came out in February

01:32:06 ◼   ► and they still have Ant-Man and the Wasp to come and then nothing in the--

01:32:10 ◼   ► - 'Cause Captain Marvel is due for March and then the next Avengers movie is due for May,

01:32:14 ◼   ► right?

01:32:15 ◼   ► So it's like the same thing again.

01:32:18 ◼   ► - It depends, I don't know, I mean release dates have to do with what the competition

01:32:21 ◼   ► is and when they think they can make their money.

01:32:23 ◼   ► I think what Marvel's shown is they can make their money anytime.

01:32:26 ◼   ► So I don't even, I don't even, I mean, honestly, I think at this point it's just Disney pacing

01:32:32 ◼   ► themselves out, right?

01:32:33 ◼   ► That could be, that could be.

01:32:35 ◼   ► You know, they probably, I'm expecting that they brought the Avengers forward because

01:32:40 ◼   ► of Solo.

01:32:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I wanted a bit of space between those.

01:32:44 ◼   ► That may be, remember Solo was originally supposed to be later?

01:32:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:48 ◼   ► I think, or no, it moved, no, the last Star Wars movie moved later and Solo stayed put,

01:32:54 ◼   ► So it's this Star Wars movie that's not coming out at Christmas.

01:32:57 ◼   ► I'm a little surprised that they didn't slot the next Avengers movie to come out this winter,

01:33:03 ◼   ► because they shot it all together.

01:33:04 ◼   ► So I'm a little surprised that they're making us wait a year and that they didn't put out

01:33:08 ◼   ► like part two in November or something like that.

01:33:11 ◼   ► Or even like leave this one to December and keep the other one at May, right?

01:33:14 ◼   ► Like to make them shorter together.

01:33:16 ◼   ► Knowing it was a two-parter, I was surprised when I looked it up after the movie and was

01:33:20 ◼   ► like, "Oh, it's a year."

01:33:22 ◼   ► Like that was a surprise to me.

01:33:24 ◼   ► I thought that we were going to get made because I was thinking, well, there isn't a Star Wars

01:33:28 ◼   ► at Christmas, so I assumed that there would be the second Avengers movie at Christmas.

01:33:33 ◼   ► Harry Potter was about six or seven months between part one and part two of Deathly Hallows.

01:33:36 ◼   ► And like The Hunger Games, I think was pretty similar too.

01:33:39 ◼   ► I think a lot of the movies where they do them in these two-parters, they pull them

01:33:45 ◼   ► a little bit closer together.

01:33:47 ◼   ► What did you think of the story overall?

01:33:49 ◼   ► Did you find it simple to follow?

01:33:51 ◼   ► you kind of have a grasp of what everything was going on? Because it's a lot of intermingling

01:33:55 ◼   ► stories.

01:33:56 ◼   ► I think they kept it simple. The plot is relatively simple because they set people on these individual

01:34:02 ◼   ► paths and they all have kind of something they're trying to do and you follow them.

01:34:06 ◼   ► So I think that's easier to track. The joy of it is in the details, right? The dialogue.

01:34:11 ◼   ► There are a lot of really funny lines where characters are behaving in ways that are familiar

01:34:16 ◼   ► to us as people who've watched Marvel movies before. We know Guardians of the Galaxy and

01:34:21 ◼   ► they behave this way, and we know Thor, he behaves this way, we know how Spider-Man and

01:34:25 ◼   ► Iron Man work, and so that leads to a lot of funny dialogue, but they're also just fairly

01:34:31 ◼   ► straightforward in terms of Thor and Rocket are going to go find the forger of the great

01:34:36 ◼   ► weapons and Doctor Strange is being rescued by Iron Man and Spider-Man and then they sort

01:34:44 ◼   ► change their destination and you know the the rest of them are like let's meet

01:34:49 ◼   ► in Wakanda because they're trying to kill the vision and you've got your and

01:34:53 ◼   ► then the other obviously other guardians are going to find the gem that Thanos has

01:35:00 ◼   ► already taken and so you get your you get your little pieces of of what's

01:35:05 ◼   ► going on and I felt they were I as somebody watches Game of Thrones where

01:35:10 ◼   ► they take the four storylines and run them in parallel all the time that's

01:35:13 ◼   ► what episodes of Game of Thrones are like. It didn't bother me. I felt like this was...

01:35:19 ◼   ► Look, this is not a movie in some ways. It's something different. It is a continuation

01:35:24 ◼   ► of an ongoing storyline. It's two and a half hours long. In a different world with different

01:35:31 ◼   ► economics, potentially this is a TV show or it's a series of movies with the individual

01:35:38 ◼   ► storylines, but instead they just kind of have to tell this whole story in a load or

01:35:43 ◼   ► two loads, and so they just kind of jam it all in together. So I thought it was clear

01:35:47 ◼   ► enough that you could keep track of like, "Oh, these people are doing this, these people

01:35:51 ◼   ► are doing this, we can move between them fairly seamlessly," and I thought they handled that

01:35:56 ◼   ► well. I thought that in the end, like, Thanos is--his goals are simplified in some ways,

01:36:02 ◼   ► but you know what, he's a comic book supervillain. They do as much as they can to make him a

01:36:06 ◼   ► character you feel has some depth, especially in his feelings for Gamora, and that's useful,

01:36:14 ◼   ► but his overarching plan is really just, "I'm gonna get these stones, I'm gonna get the

01:36:19 ◼   ► McGuffin, and then I'm gonna kill everyone, or half of everyone." And he's got a speech

01:36:23 ◼   ► and you understand why he's motivated to do that, even though if you're all-powerful you

01:36:27 ◼   ► could also just make more food for everybody, you wouldn't necessarily have to kill people.

01:36:30 ◼   ► he's a death cultist, so Thanos is gonna Thanos. But it was clear enough. Again, I really appreciate

01:36:39 ◼   ► the thought that went into this story. There are a few places where they kind of like go,

01:36:43 ◼   ► "Look over there," right? Like there's something that's really expedient. But mostly,

01:36:47 ◼   ► they're very careful to get everybody on the same page, moving in the right direction, tell enough

01:36:54 ◼   ► of the villain so you understand his motivation, so that by the time you get to the end, you

01:37:00 ◼   ► understand what you're seeing and I think they did a pretty good job with all of that.

01:37:04 ◼   ► My only real complaint is that the, I thought the Wakanda fight scene was a little bit too

01:37:09 ◼   ► over the top in that they're like the space, we called them on the incomparable, we called

01:37:15 ◼   ► them like space orcs because it's basically a Lord of the Rings fight at that point. There's

01:37:19 ◼   ► just a giant horde of orcs that come through the force field and even though you've got,

01:37:23 ◼   ► you know, war machine capable of bombing them all, everybody sort of immediately goes to

01:37:28 ◼   ► hand-to-hand combat because that's what the movie wants you to see is cool fight scenes

01:37:33 ◼   ► involving these people on the ground. It felt a little too Star Wars Episode I to me. I

01:37:38 ◼   ► didn't really love that part of it. Even though there's some good stuff in there, it felt

01:37:42 ◼   ► like unnecessary to have it be on that scale at the end of the movie.

01:37:47 ◼   ► I think the problem was that if they were ever going to go to Wakanda, they needed an

01:37:51 ◼   ► army to fight because Wakanda has an army. You couldn't just have the two aliens arrive

01:37:57 ◼   ► because the Wakandan army would just overwhelm them like that.

01:38:00 ◼   ► Yeah, but I was kind of hoping that like the Wakandan army would defend against the

01:38:05 ◼   ► against the the space orcs or whatever while the super-powered children of Thanos like did their

01:38:11 ◼   ► direct assault on where they were keeping the vision and that's not really what we got you know

01:38:17 ◼   ► they they they you know they could have waved it away a little bit more it just felt to me like

01:38:21 ◼   ► something that they felt was obligatory like this is the obligatory giant climactic fight that's a

01:38:26 ◼   ► a spectacle that's got lots of different moving parts. It is their way of getting those characters

01:38:30 ◼   ► who did not get a lot of screen time to at least get their little fight moment or laugh

01:38:36 ◼   ► moment. There's a great the great moment where where Groot says I am Groot and Captain America

01:38:42 ◼   ► says I am Steve Rogers. It's like very nice. I'm pleased they took a break in the fighting

01:38:47 ◼   ► to give me that moment because I enjoyed it. It seemed completely unnecessary but I loved

01:38:51 ◼   ► it. But it was very funny yeah. This whole movie builds to the ending right like the

01:38:56 ◼   ► whole thing is based around this ending where all of a sudden half of the world's population,

01:39:01 ◼   ► I assume, but all we see is half of the superheroes disappear.

01:39:05 ◼   ► But it's half of the universe just dissolve. Yeah.

01:39:09 ◼   ► So I mean of course there are myriad ways that this could be reversed in the next movie.

01:39:17 ◼   ► Like that's what we all assume the next movie is about is like the way that you reverse

01:39:22 ◼   ► this because Spider-Man is dead and I really doubt Spider-Man won't come back.

01:39:28 ◼   ► Spider-Man, all the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Black Panther are all dead. That was the

01:39:34 ◼   ► moment I saw a piece today by the science fiction writer John Scalzi where he was complaining

01:39:37 ◼   ► that the movie's impact is undercut by the fact that we know commercially these characters

01:39:42 ◼   ► aren't going to stay dead. I think this was a deliberate attempt by the screenwriters

01:39:49 ◼   ► to show you, to make you know that they're not going to stay dead by choosing some of

01:39:55 ◼   ► the highest profile characters. And maybe that's me reading too much into it, but like

01:39:59 ◼   ► choosing the highest. When Spider-Man, like they could have kept Spider-Man around other

01:40:03 ◼   ► than the fact that they probably don't want him in the next movie. That's what the other

01:40:07 ◼   ► thing that's going on here, the people who get dissolved at the end of this movie, one

01:40:10 ◼   ► of the reasons is because those aren't characters they want in the next movie. You'll notice

01:40:15 ◼   ► all the original Avengers are alive because they want that last Avengers movie to really

01:40:19 ◼   ► be about the Avengers. Yeah, the Avengers saving the day. And maybe sacrificing themselves.

01:40:26 ◼   ► Yes, sacrificing themselves to bring them back. Right, but I read that Black Panther

01:40:31 ◼   ► and Spider-Man and all that is also the movie saying, because look, the key moment in this

01:40:35 ◼   ► movie is when Doctor Strange says, "Oh, I just went in time and looked at all the possible

01:40:39 ◼   ► futures and there's only one where we win." And then at some point he says to Tony, and

01:40:44 ◼   ► And he says, "And here Thanos, you can have the time gem."

01:40:46 ◼   ► And he says to Tony, "It had to be this way

01:40:49 ◼   ► before he dissolves."

01:40:50 ◼   ► That is the movie saying, this is all going,

01:40:53 ◼   ► Dr. Strange saw the way they win.

01:40:55 ◼   ► - He has a plan. - And he has steered them

01:40:57 ◼   ► to that reality and they are going to win.

01:41:01 ◼   ► The question is how, who will pay?

01:41:04 ◼   ► But it's very clear from that and the fact

01:41:07 ◼   ► that these are these high profile characters

01:41:08 ◼   ► that we've just gotten to know

01:41:10 ◼   ► that are not going to go out by dissolving.

01:41:13 ◼   ► So I was okay with it.

01:41:15 ◼   ► I get if you're somebody who is not thinking on that level

01:41:17 ◼   ► and you're just purely in that moment that it's super sad.

01:41:20 ◼   ► 'Cause like that scene where Spider-Man is telling Tony

01:41:23 ◼   ► that he doesn't wanna go, he's just a kid

01:41:25 ◼   ► under Tony's supervision and responsibility

01:41:29 ◼   ► and he dissolves, right?

01:41:31 ◼   ► It's a really tough scene, but at the same time,

01:41:34 ◼   ► and losing Black Panther, same way, losing T'Challa,

01:41:37 ◼   ► it's very sad, except that really it's like, yeah,

01:41:40 ◼   ► but in fact, I chuckled a little bit 'cause I was like,

01:41:42 ◼   ► "Oh, okay, you're not even gonna try to convince us

01:41:44 ◼   ► that these are permanent.

01:41:45 ◼   ► You're just gonna pick them all off."

01:41:47 ◼   ► And as a viewer who knows a little bit

01:41:49 ◼   ► about how successful these characters are,

01:41:51 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, all right, you know, you're not..."

01:41:53 ◼   ► I kind of tip my cap at that.

01:41:55 ◼   ► Like, I appreciate that you're not even trying

01:41:57 ◼   ► to convince us that like, "Oh no, no,

01:41:59 ◼   ► most of the Guardians of the Galaxy are dead."

01:42:00 ◼   ► Because once you kill off Black Panther and Spider-Man,

01:42:03 ◼   ► we know you're not serious.

01:42:05 ◼   ► - Were there any other emotional moments for you?

01:42:08 ◼   ► I would say for me, when Thanos stabs Tony Stark, that really got me, because I went

01:42:18 ◼   ► into this movie expecting Iron Man would die. That feels like real jeopardy. That feels

01:42:24 ◼   ► like real jeopardy there, and I think that there are a lot of things that happen before

01:42:28 ◼   ► Thanos snaps his fingers that will not be undone. I think there will be deaths that,

01:42:32 ◼   ► like Loki is a good example, where, in fact they hang a lantern on it where Thor says,

01:42:38 ◼   ► Um, you know, he's died before and come back, but I think it's different this time.

01:42:41 ◼   ► Yeah, Loki's gone.

01:42:42 ◼   ► Gamora maybe, although there's an argument to be made that she's in the Soul Gem, and

01:42:48 ◼   ► so that she could potentially be brought back out of that.

01:42:51 ◼   ► Oh, because it's like an exchange.

01:42:53 ◼   ► If they destroy the Soul Gem, she might come back, right?

01:42:57 ◼   ► Right, or somebody else goes in or who knows what it is.

01:42:59 ◼   ► In the comics, the Soul Gem is its own little world, but who knows what they'll do in the

01:43:03 ◼   ► movies.

01:43:04 ◼   ► I thought that they were writing her out because of Avatar.

01:43:06 ◼   ► She's in Avatar, right?

01:43:08 ◼   ► - Ah, she was in the, I don't know if she's in all the Avatar movies that they're making now.

01:43:13 ◼   ► It's possible, that would be a tough-- Guardians of the Galaxy will not be as good if Gamora's not in it, though.

01:43:18 ◼   ► - I agree with you. - Because that relationship with Peter Quill is important to that series.

01:43:23 ◼   ► So we'll see. I honestly don't know that one. But I have questions about those,

01:43:27 ◼   ► and I do believe that some people are going to sacrifice themselves in the next movie,

01:43:31 ◼   ► you know, permanent death kind of thing, in order to bring back the universe.

01:43:35 ◼   ► Those are what the stakes are. - It's more likely the people that we've seen

01:43:37 ◼   ► for the last 10 years, right? So we'll probably lose Tony Stark.

01:43:41 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:43:42 ◼   ► We'll probably lose Steve Rogers. I don't think it's going to be all of them though.

01:43:45 ◼   ► I think that would be really weird. I think a couple of those characters might stick around.

01:43:49 ◼   ► I don't think the Hulk is going away. But you know it's possible like the Black Widow

01:43:55 ◼   ► will go away. Hawkeye, everybody wants to kill Hawkeye because he's not that interesting.

01:43:58 ◼   ► Oh he wasn't even in the movie, right? Yeah, he was the other one.

01:44:02 ◼   ► Yeah at its core it's Steve, it's about Steve and Tony and those guys have been making these

01:44:05 ◼   ► movies a long time so probably they're gonna get some resolution of their stories one way

01:44:10 ◼   ► or another in this as sacrifices or they're gonna go off and you'll be like we've learned

01:44:16 ◼   ► all we need to know about that guy we're not gonna see that guy again.

01:44:19 ◼   ► I also believe that they're like playing in the press with this so that there is a term

01:44:23 ◼   ► in wrestling called kayfabe where you build a fake story in the real world to support

01:44:29 ◼   ► the stories that are happening on TV yeah and I think a lot of discussions everyone's

01:44:33 ◼   ► "Oh well, you know, I saw the interview with Chris... what's his name?"

01:44:38 ◼   ► - Evans. - Evans.

01:44:40 ◼   ► And he's like, "Oh, I'm not going to do these movies anymore."

01:44:42 ◼   ► I feel like you could quite easily say that,

01:44:44 ◼   ► even if you have a contract with Chase, otherwise, right?

01:44:47 ◼   ► Like, to build the idea of his character's going to die?

01:44:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm surprised that they don't have Chadwick Boseman out there saying,

01:44:53 ◼   ► "Yep, there will never be another Black Panther movie, because I'm dead now."

01:44:56 ◼   ► Single tear, like, it was so good for one movie.

01:44:59 ◼   ► - But it's not. It's too bad. - Unfortunately.

01:45:01 ◼   ► - I have no contract, Marvel hate me.

01:45:04 ◼   ► I upset them and it's like, "Gee."

01:45:05 ◼   ► - It's a shame.

01:45:06 ◼   ► They really regret it now, but they had to do it, right?

01:45:08 ◼   ► Let's like, no, that's not.

01:45:10 ◼   ► That's exactly right.

01:45:11 ◼   ► So I think that that is what's going on.

01:45:13 ◼   ► I think once enough time passes

01:45:17 ◼   ► that people know what happens in this movie,

01:45:20 ◼   ► 'cause right now we're still clearly in the spoiler zone,

01:45:22 ◼   ► that we will start to get that next ground swell of like,

01:45:27 ◼   ► "Well, what does happen next?

01:45:28 ◼   ► "And did you notice this?

01:45:29 ◼   ► "And what's gonna go on with this?"

01:45:31 ◼   ► and they will start that, but they're not at that point yet

01:45:33 ◼   ► because they want everybody to experience

01:45:35 ◼   ► this kind of shocking ending.

01:45:35 ◼   ► And it was very affecting, like Jamie was crying in the car.

01:45:39 ◼   ► She was crying in the theater and crying in the car

01:45:41 ◼   ► on the way home, was very upset.

01:45:42 ◼   ► And the next day she was still very upset

01:45:44 ◼   ► about everybody dying.

01:45:46 ◼   ► - I love that she feels that much about these characters.

01:45:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, isn't that great? - That's awesome.

01:45:48 ◼   ► I think that's really great.

01:45:50 ◼   ► I think that's awesome.

01:45:51 ◼   ► You did good there, Jason.

01:45:52 ◼   ► - And I don't think it's gonna be,

01:45:54 ◼   ► and people are like, oh, well it's a cheat

01:45:55 ◼   ► 'cause they can bring everyone back.

01:45:56 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, but the thing is, again,

01:45:58 ◼   ► I think it's clear that they're gonna have the ability

01:46:01 ◼   ► to bring people back.

01:46:02 ◼   ► This movie, as well as the "Doctor Strange" movie,

01:46:05 ◼   ► show that winding time backward is a thing that you can do.

01:46:08 ◼   ► This movie goes to the trouble of actually showing

01:46:10 ◼   ► that you can do that to remind you

01:46:12 ◼   ► that that's a thing in this universe.

01:46:13 ◼   ► So very clearly, they're gonna find a way to wind time back

01:46:16 ◼   ► and undo the very end of this movie.

01:46:19 ◼   ► The question is gonna be, at what cost?

01:46:21 ◼   ► And I think that's an interesting question.

01:46:23 ◼   ► And I think that will lead to more emotional moments

01:46:25 ◼   ► and more sacrifices and more death and sadness and goodbyes to characters that we know.

01:46:32 ◼   ► My expectation is that they wind it back to what we just saw. They go on a big quest to

01:46:39 ◼   ► find Thanos and somehow get the gauntlet from him or whatever. We've seen Thor can kill

01:46:47 ◼   ► him if he tries hard enough. Thor is the one. I really like that they chose that as well

01:46:51 ◼   ► because Thor is the only conceivable character at full power that has been built over this period of

01:46:58 ◼   ► time that could be in a position to do this. He's got the magic-enhanced, god-like kind of

01:47:06 ◼   ► capability. So it's like, of course, of course you can. The demo says you should have gone for the

01:47:12 ◼   ► head, so maybe it goes for the head next time. That's it, so I assume he will do that, but

01:47:16 ◼   ► that battle to get like the when they do they redo the battle right when when he comes in and

01:47:22 ◼   ► they're trying to get rid of vision the way that they fight that scene will result in the deaths

01:47:29 ◼   ► in combat of specific characters is the way that i expect it will happen i think it will be even

01:47:34 ◼   ► more kind of more than that i think there will be like prices to pay like the soul gem is a good

01:47:40 ◼   ► example where you have to make a sacrifice to get the soul gem right like that so the doctor

01:47:45 ◼   ► to Strange Mystical Land, right? Like someone makes... Like what is the character in Spider-Man?

01:47:50 ◼   ► Is it Mother M? Like in the... What is that zone that he goes to sometimes and he's like

01:47:57 ◼   ► hanging out in this like other reality?

01:48:00 ◼   ► Oh yeah, yeah. I know what you mean. Like the web world, yeah, kind of thing.

01:48:06 ◼   ► Yeah. Like, you know, they might start to dabble with stuff like that maybe. I don't

01:48:09 ◼   ► know, right? Like these characters go there, they make the sacrifice for the other characters

01:48:13 ◼   ► which allows them to do that right like yeah exactly and that's the and that's

01:48:17 ◼   ► the joy of this and that's why I thought that this was a great movie and I

01:48:20 ◼   ► thought that had a great ending like I like I like having the bad guy win one

01:48:26 ◼   ► time because you're like oh my god they we you went against our expectations

01:48:30 ◼   ► which is that you would the bad guy wins the last job is that the bad guy is

01:48:34 ◼   ► sitting down looking at the sunrise and smiling because he killed half the

01:48:38 ◼   ► universe happy ending like he asked for that earlier in the movie all I want is

01:48:43 ◼   ► is to sit and watch the sunrise knowing I've done my thing.

01:48:46 ◼   ► And he got that.

01:48:47 ◼   ► - And he gets it, right.

01:48:48 ◼   ► So the second movie, the question there is then,

01:48:51 ◼   ► the joy is in finding out how they undo what happened.

01:48:55 ◼   ► And that, of course, 'cause it's just like,

01:48:58 ◼   ► if you think it's a cheat, I mean, like,

01:49:01 ◼   ► a TV show where the lead character is put in jeopardy,

01:49:04 ◼   ► it's like, you know they're not gonna die, right?

01:49:06 ◼   ► You know they're not gonna die.

01:49:08 ◼   ► The fun, the entertainment is in how they get out of it.

01:49:11 ◼   ► Well, that's what the case is with this movie

01:49:14 ◼   ► and the next one is, how do they get out of this one?

01:49:17 ◼   ► And the sacrifices, I think the other good thing about it is

01:49:20 ◼   ► the scale is so huge.

01:49:21 ◼   ► It's half of the living creatures in the universe

01:49:23 ◼   ► have died, right?

01:49:24 ◼   ► That was what he did.

01:49:26 ◼   ► So your sacrifice is not just for your friends.

01:49:30 ◼   ► It's not like, well, you know,

01:49:31 ◼   ► I wanna bring Dr. Strange back.

01:49:33 ◼   ► I wanna bring Spider-Man back.

01:49:34 ◼   ► It is that, but it's also the whole universe, right?

01:49:38 ◼   ► Like, there is no question that you would do anything to undo the thing that just happened,

01:49:45 ◼   ► because it's on a scale never before seen.

01:49:47 ◼   ► And so, what decisions do you make, what interesting adventures do you have, how do you fight somebody

01:49:52 ◼   ► who has the power of a god or the gods, and they will figure that out, and that will be

01:50:00 ◼   ► an entertaining movie, and presumably at the end they will make the sacrifices necessary

01:50:05 ◼   ► to give us the big happy ending that we were denied this year, which I think is fun. I

01:50:10 ◼   ► think it's a bold move from them. I really appreciate that Marvel made a movie that has

01:50:13 ◼   ► a downer ending. That is, you know, they're risk takers and I love it. They did it with

01:50:20 ◼   ► their biggest franchise, which I think is pretty cool. And in the end, I think it will

01:50:24 ◼   ► make the satisfaction of the next movie that much more. People who are grumpy and grumpy

01:50:29 ◼   ► about now, that's right. But next year, you know, Thanos will get his comeuppance presumably.

01:50:35 ◼   ► It's way better they did this than like leave it on a cliffhanger

01:50:38 ◼   ► Right because the movie could have ended with him clicking his fingers, right?

01:50:42 ◼   ► Like that could have been the end of the movie exactly or it could have just been everybody lined up against Thanos and he's like

01:50:47 ◼   ► And standing between him and the vision he's like I want that that thing in the vision's head

01:50:52 ◼   ► They're like, oh you're gonna have to come through us dunk dunk to be continued next year. It's not what they did

01:50:58 ◼   ► Satisfying endings in their own right right like they you know, you'd like oh, I can't wait for the next one

01:51:03 ◼   ► right, doing its actual job, right? Like, if you see one of those two things we just posed,

01:51:08 ◼   ► you're going to be like, "Oh, I can't wait to see what happens!" in the kind of typical way.

01:51:12 ◼   ► But this is like, oh no, wait, you're going to watch half of your favourite characters turn into

01:51:19 ◼   ► dust slowly, right? Like, they didn't even all happen at once, right? Like, you were watching

01:51:24 ◼   ► the Guardians go one by one, right? Like, there's like a five-minute scene of you watching people

01:51:30 ◼   ► die, right? And the reactions of the people around them who are left. And that is incredibly

01:51:37 ◼   ► powerful, right? Like it was like I came out of the theater and I was like, I don't even

01:51:42 ◼   ► know if I like that movie. It's kind of how I felt initially. It was like, I don't know

01:51:47 ◼   ► how I feel because it was super sad. And I would say that like on reflection, this isn't

01:51:52 ◼   ► my favorite Marvel movie. It's probably in my top five. It's not my favorite Avengers movie,

01:51:56 ◼   ► the original Avengers I think I enjoyed more just because like that movie should never have happened

01:52:03 ◼   ► and like and if you were enjoying that stuff then it was like how you know like it was so impactful

01:52:09 ◼   ► but I really really like this movie a lot like a lot and it is going to rank very highly for me

01:52:16 ◼   ► in my kind of overall rankings of we should do a draft one day of Marvel movies but it's not

01:52:25 ◼   ► It's not like, I don't think it's top three for me.

01:52:29 ◼   ► But I did really, really like it.

01:52:31 ◼   ► It exceeded my expectations, I would say.

01:52:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know where to rank it either,

01:52:36 ◼   ► but I liked it a lot.

01:52:37 ◼   ► I feel like the Everybody Gets Together movies

01:52:39 ◼   ► are just, need to be judged separately.

01:52:41 ◼   ► So Avengers, Age of Ultron, Civil War, and this movie

01:52:45 ◼   ► are like, they're different movies

01:52:46 ◼   ► from all the other movies.

01:52:48 ◼   ► These are the coalescing, you know,

01:52:50 ◼   ► you really need to know who these characters are

01:52:52 ◼   ► from other movies for it to really work, I think.

01:52:55 ◼   ► They have a higher degree of difficulty to make them because you've got to keep track of all these characters

01:52:59 ◼   ► So they fit in there and and where it ranks in there. I don't know that's worth thinking about

01:53:04 ◼   ► I'm planning on revisiting all of these movies. This this is as good a place as any I guess to make a a

01:53:10 ◼   ► Minor announcement which is if you like listening people talk about Marvel movies

01:53:15 ◼   ► I am toying with it's not a hundred percent set in stone

01:53:19 ◼   ► but I am thinking seriously about having this summer's run of the incomparable be the summer of Marvel

01:53:26 ◼   ► where we we cover every Marvel movie that we have not yet covered on the show and there are a lot of them so it will

01:53:34 ◼   ► take all

01:53:35 ◼   ► Summer and as part of that. I also want to do some revisiting of the Avengers movies. I think she's do all of them

01:53:41 ◼   ► Like well, we've done we've done some of them already

01:53:45 ◼   ► different panels. So, well, I don't know. I mean, also, the summer isn't that long.

01:53:51 ◼   ► But there are some movies, like, I want to do Iron Man and Iron Man 2. I want to do Thor

01:53:55 ◼   ► and Thor 2. I don't like Thor 2. I want to talk about the first Captain America movie,

01:53:59 ◼   ► which we never did an episode about, which I love.

01:54:01 ◼   ► Okay, you've got a lot of really important ones to do.

01:54:03 ◼   ► Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Thor Ragnarok, haven't talked about any of those. So...

01:54:08 ◼   ► Maybe I could finally make my first incomparable appearance in one of these.

01:54:12 ◼   ► That would be nice.

01:54:13 ◼   ► Imagine that.

01:54:14 ◼   ► Maybe so.

01:54:15 ◼   ► I hope you do that. There's a lot in there. You don't need to revisit. You've got a lot

01:54:19 ◼   ► of really- I didn't even know you hadn't covered some of those like initial ones.

01:54:22 ◼   ► Oh yeah, see.

01:54:23 ◼   ► So there's a lot to go. You should totally do it. It'd be fun. It'd be fun. Chronologically,

01:54:26 ◼   ► it'd be great.

01:54:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so. Summer of Marvel.

01:54:29 ◼   ► Incomparable.com, that's where you can find all that stuff. Yeah, I think we've both really

01:54:33 ◼   ► liked this movie enough that I'm gonna see it again. I'm gonna see it again. I enjoyed

01:54:36 ◼   ► it.

01:54:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I am too. Hey, we should go see it together.

01:54:38 ◼   ► That would be great, wouldn't it?

01:54:39 ◼   ► Wouldn't it be-

01:54:40 ◼   ► If you want to find the show notes for this week's episode, go to relay.fm/upgrades/191.

01:54:47 ◼   ► I want to thank Pingdom, PDF-Pen10, and Simple Contacts for their support of this show.

01:54:51 ◼   ► If you want to find Jason online, go to @jasonel on Twitter and sixcolors.com.

01:54:57 ◼   ► I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:55:00 ◼   ► We'll be back next time.

01:55:01 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.

01:55:03 ◼   ► Goodbye, everybody.

01:55:04 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:55:07 ◼   ► [ Music ]