PodSearch

Upgrade

186: Black Market Crayons

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 186.

00:00:12   Today's show is brought to you by Anchor, Mac Weldon, and Simple Contacts.

00:00:17   My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined live and on location by Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:22   Hi, Jason Snell.

00:00:23   Hello from Chicago, Myke Hurley.

00:00:26   We're gonna get to all of this in a moment,

00:00:29   including the special location that you're in.

00:00:31   But I have a Snail Talk question for you, Jason.

00:00:34   And we're going completely off reservation today

00:00:37   with a question from Corey.

00:00:38   And Corey wants to know, Jason, The Office or Parks and Rec?

00:00:42   - I'm gonna say that one's actually pretty easy

00:00:46   'cause Parks and Rec, because I find The Office makes me,

00:00:50   I like The Office, makes me a little uncomfortable.

00:00:53   It's my daughter's favorite TV show.

00:00:54   But for me, I would choose Parks and Rec

00:00:56   because it's a little less cringy and painful.

00:01:00   And I never had a boss like Leslie Knope,

00:01:03   but I did have a boss who was kind of like Michael Scott.

00:01:06   So Parks and Rec.

00:01:07   - That is interesting to me because I love Parks and Rec,

00:01:12   but The Office wins for me.

00:01:14   I'm a huge fan of The Office.

00:01:15   And I actually wanted to provide a piece of follow out

00:01:17   here, Jason, to a new show on The Incomparable

00:01:20   that features Micah Sargent and Tiff Ahman.

00:01:23   It's called Somehow I Manage.

00:01:24   And it's all about The Office.

00:01:26   They're doing a rewatch of the entire show and it's adorable and wonderful.

00:01:30   And I think everyone should go and listen to it because it's great.

00:01:32   And now I'm now slowly rewatching the office along with them.

00:01:35   Yes, I agree.

00:01:36   I think people should check it out.

00:01:38   Without further ado, we should probably get into today's proceedings.

00:01:42   You are calling in from Chicago.

00:01:45   You are in the Dubai Friday slash Robo ism slash cards against humanity studio.

00:01:50   Yes, the magic tavern.

00:01:52   Indeed.

00:01:52   Indeed.

00:01:53   And we have a producer today, which is a wonderful thing.

00:01:57   We're so professional now.

00:01:58   - Finally.

00:01:59   - Hi, producer Alex Cox.

00:02:01   - Hello.

00:02:02   - This is a thing, this is quite a thing.

00:02:04   I feel like we've ascended to the big leagues now

00:02:06   that we have a producer for an episode.

00:02:09   - Yeah, there's like a big glass window

00:02:12   with somebody sitting behind it who's listening

00:02:14   and occasionally laughing, but you can't hear it

00:02:16   because it's soundproof.

00:02:18   And then they can press a button and they talk.

00:02:20   - At any moment.

00:02:21   And it makes me feel like I'm on a TV show about radio. Like Frasier, that's, "Hello,

00:02:28   Seattle. I'm listening." Except we're in Chicago.

00:02:32   You are in Chicago.

00:02:33   And I'm not listening.

00:02:34   Because today you attended Apple's Education Event, and listeners of our previous episode

00:02:42   will know that we took a draft, as we always do, for our predictions of the event. And

00:02:47   I guess we should run through how we did. And it was a disaster. I think it was ugly.

00:02:55   The best way to put it. I feel like we may have in the past scored similarly, but not

00:03:04   so badly because there were so many of these picks that weren't even close. And sometimes

00:03:11   what happens is we score, you know, we get about half of the picks right, but kind of

00:03:17   we're in the ballpark with some things, right, but we just missed the exact answers. But

00:03:23   for this draft, about two thirds of the things that were on our list were just not even close.

00:03:30   No, in fact, I am at some point late in the event when they were showing a video, I flipped

00:03:38   over to my Apple draft scorecard and I looked at the ones I didn't go back and

00:03:45   forth I just looked at mine first and I thought oh my god I got destroyed I only

00:03:50   got four right now I looked at your side

00:03:55   it's like this is the I am going to wear the crown for this draft but it is a

00:04:00   crown of shame. I kind of scored it at like 4-2? Yeah it's arguably 4-3 and it

00:04:10   doesn't really matter because I got four but Stephen Hackett our adjudicator you

00:04:15   know the rules the Constitution the bylaws of the upgrade draft say one

00:04:20   Stephen Hackett will make all decisions and that were we can't agree and two no

00:04:25   half points mm-hmm yeah because even give give a half point for one of your

00:04:29   That's not how it works. It turns out our adjudicator doesn't know the rules.

00:04:34   So the things that I kind of scored you was correct. New Apple Classroom features, Apple

00:04:39   Pencil support on non-Pro iPads, Class Kit, and a new Apple-created iOS app. That's what

00:04:45   I scored your four on. I had a question mark on the lower base price for the iPad, but

00:04:52   I don't think that we can count the education price, really.

00:04:55   No, it already existed. That price was already the education price.

00:04:59   - Oh, look at that, I didn't know that.

00:05:00   - Yeah, so that's definitely not it.

00:05:01   No, at least I prioritized my picks right.

00:05:03   My first four picks are right,

00:05:05   and then there were the four I threw away at the end.

00:05:07   - Yeah, that's actually pretty good skill from you there.

00:05:10   I got new basic iPad.

00:05:13   - First pick, good pick.

00:05:14   - And iWork updates, which if I remember rightly,

00:05:16   you thought was never gonna happen, which is hilarious.

00:05:18   - I was very impressed when they announced that.

00:05:20   I was just thinking, it was like a picture of Myke

00:05:22   appeared above the screen, and angels sang,

00:05:25   like, ♪ iWork updates ♪

00:05:28   - I was pretty happy with that.

00:05:29   When I saw that, I was like, oh, I'm gonna clean up.

00:05:31   (laughing)

00:05:34   So yeah, the other one that was a question for me

00:05:37   was an iBooks update, but that didn't really happen,

00:05:40   which is a surprise, 'cause that was the one

00:05:42   that literally everyone thought was a lock, right?

00:05:44   Like everybody thought it was a lock.

00:05:47   - And the only reason it was a potential half point

00:05:49   is that they did basically, it seems like,

00:05:52   kill iBooks author and roll it back,

00:05:54   'cause it actually was an adapted version of pages

00:05:56   back into Pages on Mac and now on iOS

00:06:00   for book creation inside Pages.

00:06:02   But that's not actually an update to iBooks.

00:06:05   And if one of us had picked iBooks Author,

00:06:08   which was actually on our list and didn't get picked,

00:06:11   that would have been the one that would have gotten,

00:06:13   I think, credited.

00:06:14   So I think in the end it's four to two, I would say.

00:06:18   - Yeah, I still think that like 11.3

00:06:20   is still gonna change the name,

00:06:21   but that nothing was even mentioned close to that on stage.

00:06:25   So you take away the first win of the year,

00:06:29   which is a strong point to have, right?

00:06:32   Because you're going into WWDC with a point in your pocket.

00:06:35   So you could potentially take the entire year at WWDC.

00:06:40   - Yeah, I could basically just pick Spinal Tap

00:06:43   for all my picks and still be okay,

00:06:45   as long as I do well in the fall.

00:06:46   - I feel like you've misunderstood my point,

00:06:48   but like, sure, you can do that if you want to.

00:06:49   Do you know what, Jason?

00:06:50   Do it.

00:06:51   I would like you to go for that

00:06:53   because there is literally any chance of there ever being

00:06:56   Spinal Tap has now passed, right?

00:06:59   Because like 11 has come up and they did a jet black phone.

00:07:02   - That's what they want you to think.

00:07:04   And that's when they get you.

00:07:04   That's when Apple truly surprises you.

00:07:06   - Mm-hmm, that is what they do when on stage,

00:07:10   true surprises.

00:07:11   All right, we should talk about the whole event

00:07:14   then some of the announcements from today.

00:07:16   But before we do that, let me thank our first sponsor.

00:07:19   And today that is Simple Contacts.

00:07:21   It's amazing when an app can take a tiresome task, a thing that is a frustration in your

00:07:27   life and make it completely fuss free. That's what Simple Contacts does, by being the easy

00:07:33   way to renew your contact lens prescription. You'll be able to reorder your contacts

00:07:37   from anywhere in just minutes and all you need to do is complete their online self-guided

00:07:42   vision test which takes less than 5 minutes and you can do it from wherever you are right

00:07:46   now. There are no more need for doctors offices or waiting rooms. You can order your favourite

00:07:51   contacts right from the SimpleContacts website or app. They offer all the lens brands that

00:07:56   you love with options for astigmatism, multifocal lenses, color lenses and more. And you'll

00:08:01   be able to order exactly what you need right from the palm of your hand whenever you want,

00:08:05   whenever is convenient for you. The vision test is just $20 which for comparison, if

00:08:10   you wanted to get an appointment without insurance, you could be looking at over $200. SimpleContacts

00:08:15   can save you money and time.

00:08:17   But I do want to let you know, and I have to,

00:08:19   this is not a replacement for your periodic

00:08:21   full eye health exam.

00:08:23   This is just so you can get the contacts that you need.

00:08:26   Now Jason, I understand you have downloaded

00:08:28   the Simple Contacts app and taken the vision test,

00:08:31   and I kind of just wanted to know

00:08:32   what that experience was like.

00:08:34   - Yeah, it was very easy.

00:08:35   You set it up and it takes pictures of your face,

00:08:38   of your eyes, and it's trying to make sure

00:08:40   that you can read.

00:08:42   Basically it wants your,

00:08:43   to make sure your prescription hasn't drifted

00:08:45   because this is not a replacement for that eye test.

00:08:47   And they wanna make sure everything's okay.

00:08:49   And then at that point, you're done with that.

00:08:52   And then you just go on and put in what the contact brand

00:08:55   is that you use, which mine is,

00:08:57   I have a really obscure prescription

00:08:59   with a astigmatism correction and all this stuff.

00:09:01   And they had it.

00:09:02   It was right there.

00:09:03   It was not a problem.

00:09:04   It showed up first thing, they had it.

00:09:06   Which I was not convinced was gonna be the case,

00:09:08   but it was there. - Look at that.

00:09:09   They surprised you.

00:09:10   As a listener of this show,

00:09:11   you can get $30 off your contact lenses.

00:09:13   Just go to simplecontacts.com/ahoy or you can enter the code AHOY at checkout.

00:09:21   That is simplecontacts.com/ahoy or simply use code AHOY at checkout for $30 off.

00:09:27   Our thanks to Simple Contacts for their support of this show.

00:09:31   So today I was following live blogs like it was 2009.

00:09:36   There was no video of the event.

00:09:39   I had Twitter up, I had the live blog up, I had the Verges live blog up and I was following

00:09:44   along and the Six Colors Live Events Twitter account.

00:09:48   And was kind of just tune in and see what was going on.

00:09:51   It was really weird for me to kind of know that stuff was happening but all I could do

00:09:57   was wait for things to refresh.

00:09:58   Like every time I saw, "Oh it's a video now!"

00:10:01   It's like, "Okay well I'll wait for a minute shall I?"

00:10:04   It was very strange.

00:10:05   But I have to say, I did enjoy the nostalgia because I would say overall the event was

00:10:12   a whelming event, like there wasn't a ton to it, it wasn't a lot of excitement, kind

00:10:16   of got a bunch of stuff that I was expecting that you were expecting.

00:10:20   So I don't know, to have there be some kind of nostalgia to it gave me something.

00:10:25   Having been in the environment, having seen the event Jason, because you were there in

00:10:29   person today in Chicago at Lane Tech High. Do you think that there was more of a reason

00:10:35   to not have the live video than just a technical one? Do you think they were handling expectations?

00:10:41   Why do you think that there was no live video today?

00:10:45   It's a good question. I think my number one theory is that it's a new place with new equipment

00:10:50   that they've never been before and that they were reluctant to do it because it could not

00:10:55   work and then they would have people complaining and there'd be a stream

00:10:59   failure and you know it is a minor event on their calendar so perhaps investing

00:11:05   money in and frustration and potentially in getting it to go live when they could

00:11:12   just make it live an hour or two later maybe wasn't worth it for them so that's

00:11:16   my number one is just it was that they didn't not that they couldn't do it but

00:11:19   that they couldn't do it and feel like they wouldn't run into trouble and

00:11:23   and didn't want to spend the effort to double and triple protect so that it worked right

00:11:30   the first time and this is the only time they're probably ever going to do an event here, so

00:11:34   do they really want to do that?

00:11:35   That's my number one.

00:11:36   Number two would be, I suppose yes, since it's a minor event, doesn't matter as much.

00:11:40   I guess, though, it's an Apple Media event.

00:11:43   People are going to pay attention regardless.

00:11:45   I think any Apple event is going to get attention, so if they could stream it live, I don't think

00:11:51   they would be like, "Eh, people aren't going to be happy about it."

00:11:53   I don't think that's the case. I think they want people to see it.

00:11:55   That's why they call the event.

00:11:57   My third wildcard theory is that there may actually be something specific and I

00:12:01   don't know what this would be exactly, but it is a Chicago public school.

00:12:05   And I don't know if there potentially is some weird regulation about,

00:12:10   uh, about live, you know, performances or on the internet or something.

00:12:15   I honestly don't know, but my guess is it's the first one max. Max says no,

00:12:19   by the way, mass friends of friend of the show,

00:12:21   Max Temkin has just emerged from a secret location behind producer Alex Cox to shake

00:12:27   his head. So I think it's just they didn't want to screw it up. I think literally I think

00:12:31   the simplest explanation, the Occam's Razor explanation is they couldn't guarantee with

00:12:38   the level of precision they can do for the venues that they're familiar with that they

00:12:42   would be able to make it work live. So they just decided not to worry about it.

00:12:46   And it wasn't as an important enough event that they felt like they had to like control

00:12:50   100% of what was being said about it, right?

00:12:53   Like, you know, they weren't unveiling anything here

00:12:56   that was gonna like, shatter headlines around the world.

00:12:59   - No, it's not an iPhone announcement.

00:13:01   And the iPhone announcement is the big one

00:13:03   and it wasn't that.

00:13:04   And they'll be sure to do that one live everywhere.

00:13:06   I have to say, while we were walking in,

00:13:07   I had several people say to me,

00:13:10   like, this is like the old days, right?

00:13:12   I'm like, yeah, it's pretty funny

00:13:13   that we're back doing this.

00:13:15   And I was reminded, I said, I remember when we were told,

00:13:19   as we were walking into an Apple event,

00:13:20   and I think town hall,

00:13:22   although it might've been at Moscone,

00:13:24   no live blogging, no blogging, no blogging.

00:13:27   (laughing)

00:13:28   That was actually a thing.

00:13:29   And I said, "Oh, I'm not gonna do any live blogging."

00:13:31   And instead what I had is I had an iChat window open

00:13:34   to Peter Cohen, our news writer back at the office.

00:13:38   And I would just give him the play-by-play,

00:13:40   and then Cohen would turn it into a news story

00:13:42   with quotes and paragraphs and stuff.

00:13:45   And we weren't live blogging,

00:13:46   we were doing a continuously updated news story.

00:13:49   Totally different.

00:13:50   Anyway, they got over it.

00:13:51   Yeah, they got over it because they realized

00:13:55   that the live blogging was actually good.

00:13:56   And then they did get to that moment

00:13:58   where they started doing it live.

00:13:59   And then all of us live bloggers were like,

00:14:02   why do we exist anymore?

00:14:03   And I actually think that the live commentary stuff

00:14:06   is better.

00:14:08   I actually kind of like,

00:14:09   I prefer when we're there to give analysis

00:14:12   to what we're seeing on stage beyond like the,

00:14:15   you know, 'cause there's probably,

00:14:17   in terms of news breaking at any of these events,

00:14:19   even the most laden with information events,

00:14:22   there's probably a good, what, eight tweets in that,

00:14:26   if we're live tweeting an event,

00:14:28   and the rest of it is all quotes and details

00:14:30   and things like that that I think it's kinda nice

00:14:33   to stop having to do that, 'cause people can watch live,

00:14:36   and the people who really want the breaking news

00:14:38   can get that, and then you can also add this other layer,

00:14:41   which is I'm no longer transcribing

00:14:43   what Greg Joswiak is saying on stage.

00:14:47   Now I'm saying, here's why that's an interesting point.

00:14:50   Here's their, you know, referencing Google there,

00:14:52   that's interesting because of this and all of that.

00:14:54   And I think I actually kind of like it better that way

00:14:57   now that everybody can see most of these events live.

00:14:59   But this was a throwback and that was fine.

00:15:02   - So I wanna ask you like kind of an overarching meta

00:15:08   question for this entire event.

00:15:10   having seen it all and being in the environment,

00:15:14   why did this event exist?

00:15:16   Why did Apple not do this stuff with press releases?

00:15:20   Like what was happening that really required

00:15:24   bringing all of these people together today?

00:15:27   - Apple wants to tell, wanted to tell

00:15:32   a story about education.

00:15:34   Bottom line, they wanna talk about how awesome

00:15:36   their products are in the education market,

00:15:38   especially the iPad.

00:15:39   They really wanna push further the idea of iPads in schools.

00:15:43   And the fact is there is a narrative out there

00:15:49   that is about the success of Chromebooks in schools.

00:15:52   Chromebooks have, I think they have more than half

00:15:54   the market now in education.

00:15:57   It has been a huge success for Google

00:15:59   and its hardware partners.

00:16:00   For Chromebooks, these cheap laptops

00:16:03   that don't run any operating system,

00:16:05   which also means that they need much less maintenance

00:16:07   because they're just Chromebooks.

00:16:08   They're basically browser tabs.

00:16:10   They all get updated automatically.

00:16:12   They can be very easily controlled by administrators.

00:16:15   And so put the ease of control

00:16:20   and the limit to what you can do with them

00:16:22   to screw them up together with a low price.

00:16:25   And you can see why those would be successful in schools.

00:16:28   So Apple is fighting against that perception

00:16:32   and wants to tell a story about why they're,

00:16:36   Again, people who were expecting Apple to,

00:16:39   I kind of hoped they would cut the price a little bit,

00:16:41   but expected Apple to compete on price

00:16:43   down at the level of a Chromebook.

00:16:45   I think that was unrealistic.

00:16:47   In fact, if you look, the first Chrome OS tablet

00:16:50   just was announced, and I think it costs

00:16:53   what the iPad costs. (laughs)

00:16:56   I think it's a 329 or maybe it's a 349.

00:16:58   It's not an unreasonable for a product with these specs

00:17:01   to have this price.

00:17:03   I think what Apple wants to tell is not the,

00:17:04   we're gonna be your low price leader,

00:17:05   we're gonna compete with this cheap, crappy,

00:17:08   but cheap laptop.

00:17:10   And you get what you pay for,

00:17:12   but the advantage is it's cheap,

00:17:14   a cheap Chromebook laptop, right?

00:17:17   What Apple wants to do is tell the story

00:17:18   of why you pay more for Apple, because you get more.

00:17:21   And you get more because you get these apps

00:17:23   and you get the pencil now,

00:17:26   and you get these apps, again, these apps,

00:17:29   you get AR, you get,

00:17:31   like they're trying to tell that story about why,

00:17:35   even though the Apple stuff is more expensive,

00:17:38   it's better as a way to get some segment of the market

00:17:43   to be willing to spend that money to get the better thing

00:17:46   or to feel good about it or to give ammunition

00:17:49   to the people who are arguing that this should be

00:17:52   what we buy instead of the Chromebooks.

00:17:54   And so by adding the new iPad with the pencil

00:17:57   and all of that and the AR apps and the improvements

00:18:01   to their software, including the expansion

00:18:05   of the iCloud storage space, which is a big thing today,

00:18:08   they're able to tell that story.

00:18:10   And that's why this event exists, is essentially,

00:18:12   instead of just rolling out the iPad with a press release

00:18:15   and saying, we also have a couple of changes

00:18:17   to our education stuff, like,

00:18:18   most people don't even know that.

00:18:20   They mentioned the multi-user login stuff today for iPads.

00:18:25   And I will guarantee you that somebody wrote that up

00:18:27   as a brand new feature.

00:18:28   And I think it's existed for two years now.

00:18:30   but people don't know about it

00:18:32   because people aren't really attuned to the education market.

00:18:34   So this was a chance for Apple to devote some time

00:18:38   and show some love for education.

00:18:40   And I think also saying we care about education

00:18:43   and we love teachers and all of these things

00:18:45   makes people who are in the education world

00:18:47   feel better about Apple too.

00:18:48   So I think that's part of it,

00:18:49   is Apple selling itself to education.

00:18:52   So it's about all of that.

00:18:55   - And they seem to bring a lot of teachers in

00:18:57   And if I'm correct, in kind of following along from home,

00:19:01   it was all female, all the teachers.

00:19:02   - All women, yeah.

00:19:03   - Which was great, right?

00:19:05   There was, I think, just Joss and Tim Cook

00:19:09   were the only guys on stage,

00:19:10   and it was all women from there, I think.

00:19:12   - Yeah, the teachers and also the Apple,

00:19:14   some Apple people, yeah.

00:19:15   - And I just wanted to shout out,

00:19:17   it was great to see AppCamp for Girls

00:19:19   get a mention on stage as well, which is a--

00:19:21   - Yeah, that was exciting.

00:19:22   That was Tim Cook just saying, you know,

00:19:24   here is AppCab for Girls is using Swift to teach girls how to code in Red Apps.

00:19:27   - Oh, he actually said it? That's amazing, because we don't get it.

00:19:30   I saw the logo on a slide, but he actually spoke about it?

00:19:35   - Oh, no, Tim Cook said AppCab for Girls out loud, yes.

00:19:38   - Wonderful.

00:19:39   - I'm sure when the video comes up, then they'll be even more excited.

00:19:42   But yeah, it was an example in how different education groups are teaching

00:19:48   people how to code.

00:19:49   - That is amazing. I'm really pleased about that.

00:19:51   - It was pretty cool. They did a great job with the whole

00:19:53   highlighting education stuff.

00:19:55   And we all, especially in the media,

00:19:59   have to look at it with that layer of remove,

00:20:02   which is what is Apple selling here?

00:20:04   And why are they doing what they're doing?

00:20:06   But on the base level of how they showcased education

00:20:11   and how technology is being used in education,

00:20:13   they did a great job of showing that.

00:20:15   And then people can criticize that and say that it was,

00:20:17   you know, they can say it was cynical

00:20:18   or that it's not realistic.

00:20:20   There are lots of things that I think your experts

00:20:22   who are educators, who are people like Fraser Spears

00:20:26   and Bradley Chambers and people like that

00:20:28   who talk about this and write about this a lot

00:20:30   will have their takes on it.

00:20:33   But I did think Apple did a great job of expressing

00:20:38   a love of teachers and students and a pride in the fact

00:20:43   that like the everyone can code stuff

00:20:45   has been so embraced in a lot of places.

00:20:50   - So you had a whole day at school today, turns out.

00:20:53   - Yeah, I went to school, had to get there,

00:20:56   you know, got there a little before 8.30,

00:20:59   got a, had to wait in line to be locked in the door,

00:21:01   which is unusual, I think, for school,

00:21:02   but then we were in this huge,

00:21:05   it's a huge building with these long halls

00:21:07   and there's lockers and there's an auditorium

00:21:10   and there are classrooms, and so we, you know,

00:21:12   we started in a, in kind of a holding area,

00:21:15   which was in this big, sort of a wide spot in the hallway,

00:21:19   quite frankly, but it was in the middle of a hallway,

00:21:21   right by the teachers' bathrooms.

00:21:24   I went in the teachers' bathroom at one point, Myke.

00:21:26   It was very exciting.

00:21:27   I kept waiting for a teacher to come in and say,

00:21:29   "Hey, you don't belong in here.

00:21:31   "Get back to class."

00:21:32   But it didn't happen, 'cause it was spring break,

00:21:35   so there were no teachers there.

00:21:36   There were students,

00:21:37   there probably were some teachers there,

00:21:38   but there were a bunch of Lane Tech students were there.

00:21:41   They had to get a permission slip signed,

00:21:43   'cause I actually heard somebody say,

00:21:44   "If you're a student, bring your permission slip,

00:21:46   "sign, and we'll let you in." - Incredible, incredible.

00:21:49   and they got to see the event, which was cool.

00:21:50   And they were running around, at one point there were a bunch of them running

00:21:52   down the stairs from upstairs where we weren't allowed to go.

00:21:54   And, um, one of the people who was there, cause the Apple stashed these things

00:21:59   incredibly, like hundreds of people there lining the hallways saying,

00:22:02   do you need any help? Where would you like to go? And they said to the, the,

00:22:06   there was like five girls coming down the stairs. Do you need any help?

00:22:09   And one of them just says, no, we go here,

00:22:12   we know where everything is and they left. It was pretty great. But they were,

00:22:15   they were at the event, which was pretty cool. So after all of that, um,

00:22:18   sort of like the preview stuff where we get there

00:22:21   and they serve coffee and they've got breakfast

00:22:23   and stuff like that.

00:22:25   And you know, journalists are never gonna turn down

00:22:27   free food, so that's very popular.

00:22:29   Then they lead us into the auditorium,

00:22:31   we have the presentation which was about an hour.

00:22:33   And then actually as we were checking in,

00:22:36   we were told check your email,

00:22:37   you just received your class schedule.

00:22:39   And we all got this little thing that said,

00:22:42   here's where you're going, you're going,

00:22:44   you know, you're going here for orientation,

00:22:46   which was the breakfast basically,

00:22:47   then there's the presentation.

00:22:48   And then you're gonna go, there's a classroom

00:22:50   and there's a hands-on lab.

00:22:51   And there were multiple rooms,

00:22:53   so they were kind of scheduling different people

00:22:54   to different places.

00:22:56   But after the event, that's what we ended up doing

00:22:59   is walking down many of these very long hallways

00:23:01   into these classrooms, these amazing classrooms.

00:23:04   There's like an arts section in one classroom

00:23:07   and there's like a science section in another classroom

00:23:09   where the people are like using Swift Playgrounds

00:23:13   to fly drones and to roll around little Sphero balls.

00:23:17   A lot of really cool stuff.

00:23:19   And then also like a classroom demo and an iPad cart demo

00:23:24   and administrative and IT for that stuff.

00:23:27   So they had multiple classrooms and then these four,

00:23:31   no, three big hands-on areas with people showing off apps

00:23:35   and different technologies.

00:23:37   So they put a lot of effort into getting

00:23:40   just a huge amount of samples of what people are doing

00:23:43   with educational apps and also like maintenance

00:23:47   and rollout of these devices.

00:23:48   So there was an awful lot of other stuff in this huge venue.

00:23:53   They took over many, many classrooms.

00:23:56   - It seemed like that they really leaned into the theme.

00:23:59   - Right.

00:24:00   - That they, you know, these were hands-on areas,

00:24:02   but they gave them a fun flair, right?

00:24:04   And I think that's kind of cool.

00:24:05   - Yeah, yeah.

00:24:06   And I think they want to leave the impression

00:24:09   with everybody involved that Apple is serious

00:24:11   about education, which I think they did successfully.

00:24:15   And I think there's a point of pride here too,

00:24:18   which is Apple feels that they are really innovating

00:24:22   in education stuff and that when people write about,

00:24:26   I think maybe they wanna change the narrative

00:24:27   from Chromebooks are selling well to be,

00:24:32   well, Chromebooks are selling well,

00:24:33   but look at all the amazing things Apple is doing.

00:24:36   'Cause honestly, that's what they wanna do.

00:24:38   They wanna be the people who,

00:24:41   they wanna be the company that is viewed

00:24:45   as being the better answer.

00:24:48   They're not gonna be the cheaper answer,

00:24:51   but they wanna be viewed as the better answer.

00:24:53   And so by setting all this up and telling the story

00:24:55   and showing the richness of it,

00:24:56   and then relaying this event,

00:24:59   and all the other work they're gonna do,

00:25:00   every other conversation they have

00:25:01   with somebody in education now,

00:25:02   they're gonna point at this and say,

00:25:03   "See, did you see our event?

00:25:05   "Did you see how many things?

00:25:06   "Did you see the story that came out of it?"

00:25:08   all of that is going to factor in.

00:25:10   But isn't there like a weird kind of duality

00:25:13   to this type of thing?

00:25:14   Like Apple are on stage talking about like all of the tools

00:25:18   that they have and how amazing it is

00:25:20   and how it helps kids learn.

00:25:22   But it is priced at a point where many, many, maybe

00:25:26   most schools can't afford it.

00:25:28   Isn't there like a weird thing to that,

00:25:31   where they're like, oh, our tools are better,

00:25:32   but not for all kids?

00:25:33   I mean, it's awkward, right?

00:25:38   It's kind of an awkward thing to say,

00:25:41   like to stand on stage and say like,

00:25:43   how much better your tools are

00:25:45   and how much more they can help kids learn.

00:25:47   But then it's priced at a point which they choose

00:25:52   and that point that they choose,

00:25:54   whether it's through what they want their margins to be

00:25:57   or what they want their hardware to look like,

00:26:00   but it prices schools out of the equation.

00:26:04   - Yeah, I think that's the underlying tension

00:26:07   in any conversation about Apple and education.

00:26:10   And I see a lot of criticism of Apple for it,

00:26:13   and I think some of it is justified,

00:26:15   which is Apple is trying to do both.

00:26:18   It's trying to be what it's always been,

00:26:20   which is this kind of luxury brand.

00:26:23   We always talk about how it's never the low price leader.

00:26:26   Apple's never gonna make a $400 laptop, right?

00:26:28   They're just not gonna do it

00:26:29   because Apple's not gonna play in that market.

00:26:32   Apple's gonna always be in the mid to high end,

00:26:35   and you get what you pay for.

00:26:37   You get quality and they're not making

00:26:41   a completely de-specced device

00:26:44   so that they can sell it for $300

00:26:46   and you've got a lousy experience and it doesn't last

00:26:48   and it feels flimsy.

00:26:49   They're just not gonna play in those areas

00:26:51   and that's been their game for a long time

00:26:53   and they're very successful with it

00:26:54   'cause they're playing in areas where the margins are better.

00:26:57   Same on phones, same on computers.

00:26:59   The problem is that schools are not,

00:27:05   a lot of schools anyway, and certainly public schools,

00:27:07   are not places where, you know,

00:27:10   purchasing luxury products are particularly common,

00:27:13   even if it's affordable luxury products.

00:27:16   It doesn't really fit with Apple,

00:27:18   that part of Apple's brand,

00:27:20   because schools, especially public schools,

00:27:22   have very small budgets.

00:27:24   They need to get stuff that's cheap,

00:27:25   and they need it to last, which is very hard.

00:27:28   So if you're Apple, you know, you have a choice to make.

00:27:32   you can forego margins on education products.

00:27:37   And I believe that back in the day, they did more of that.

00:27:41   Back in the day, the education prices for Apple stuff

00:27:44   was a lot lower than the regular price.

00:27:46   And they don't seem to do as much of that anymore.

00:27:49   And I don't think Apple has cut its margins

00:27:51   that much to regular people.

00:27:53   I think it's just reduced the margin cuts

00:27:56   that it offers to education.

00:27:57   And that's just something that they've decided

00:27:59   is that they're not willing to sacrifice margin

00:28:02   in order to increase their market share in education.

00:28:05   And as a result, you end up in this situation

00:28:07   where Apple is making the case saying,

00:28:10   yeah, our stuff's more expensive, but it's better.

00:28:12   And if you can afford it and it's better

00:28:17   and it lasts longer and the apps are great,

00:28:19   and it will be an overall better buy for you.

00:28:22   The funny thing is the complaints I hear from educators,

00:28:25   talk to Fraser Spears about who does out of school

00:28:29   with Bradley Chambers, right? They do a podcast about education tech.

00:28:32   - Did, it ended last week, but yes. - Oh, they did, well.

00:28:35   - Yeah, it came to an end last week, but there's still a lot of information there if you want

00:28:39   it. - That's true, that's true, but it was a bad

00:28:42   timing, I would say. They need to bring it back for one more episode now. It's complete

00:28:48   now, you can listen to the whole thing and not worry about it. So, Fraser's complaints

00:28:54   about this, about Apple's presentation in schools.

00:28:58   Like he's not complaining about the hardware.

00:29:01   He's not complaining about the prices.

00:29:03   He's complaining about the software and the cloud services

00:29:07   and all sorts of, and the administrative overhead

00:29:10   and managing Apple IDs and things like that.

00:29:12   So again, yes, it's true.

00:29:16   Apple has chosen not to build the low cost,

00:29:21   the low-cost technology solution

00:29:26   that will get them to maximize

00:29:29   their market share and education.

00:29:31   But their argument is very similar to the argument

00:29:33   in the rest of the market, which is,

00:29:35   no, we're not gonna give you a $150 iPad,

00:29:39   but when you buy our stuff, you get what you pay for.

00:29:42   You get value that you're not gonna get.

00:29:44   And as long as that's true, I think it's okay.

00:29:46   The challenge is if somebody looks at a Chromebook

00:29:49   and looks at an iPad and says,

00:29:51   this costs half of what the iPad does,

00:29:54   and it basically does everything I need.

00:29:57   And this other AR and the pencil and all of that,

00:30:00   that's great, but I can't afford it,

00:30:02   and would we really use it?

00:30:05   And it's nice to have, but it's not in my budget,

00:30:07   and I'm not gonna prioritize it and forget it.

00:30:10   And that's where the rubber meets the road

00:30:12   for Apple and education, is can they do enough

00:30:17   so that people see the value in what they're doing.

00:30:21   Do they have that value there to make that argument

00:30:24   that you get what you pay for

00:30:25   and even though it's more expensive,

00:30:26   there's a whole lot of advantage to using the Apple stuff.

00:30:30   And you talk to people in education

00:30:32   and some of them say that's true

00:30:34   and some of them say it's not true.

00:30:35   And I think that's behind the rise in Chromebooks.

00:30:38   And I'm not convinced that this is gonna be enough

00:30:40   on its own, but if the rise in Chromebooks

00:30:42   has lit a fire under Apple in terms of education

00:30:45   and this is the first real sign of it, then great.

00:30:50   If Apple walks away and says, "We've done enough now,"

00:30:52   and the market says, "Forget it, you have not,"

00:30:55   then they'll feel it.

00:30:56   - Yeah, I definitely can't detach myself

00:31:00   from the weirdness that I feel with some of it.

00:31:04   I know where I went to school,

00:31:06   and I know my school wouldn't have been able to afford this,

00:31:10   where I grew up in London,

00:31:11   and I know that they still wouldn't be able to now.

00:31:14   And so it is awkward.

00:31:17   I find it an awkward thing at times.

00:31:19   You know, like you look at that school

00:31:21   that they picked out today,

00:31:22   it seemed like that that is a very, very well

00:31:25   put together school that they chose,

00:31:27   like from a financial perspective.

00:31:29   You know, and I think that it is awkward

00:31:32   to kind of be like we're enabling this amazing stuff

00:31:34   for the future, you know, the future of today,

00:31:37   but like only in areas that can afford it.

00:31:40   And I don't know, there is an awkwardness to that to me,

00:31:43   but we don't need to belabor the point anymore.

00:31:45   - No, I think it may be worth talking about at some point.

00:31:48   This is a criticism that our friend Andy Anico,

00:31:52   late of the Chicago Sun-Times, but no longer.

00:31:55   By the way, if you are somebody who wants to hire

00:31:58   a great tech writer, Andy is available,

00:32:00   and you should talk to him.

00:32:02   I saw him today, he's great.

00:32:04   He brings up this point a lot, which is,

00:32:06   there is a debate to be had about whether Apple,

00:32:10   if its goal is to make the world better,

00:32:13   should be saying, "Well, we want to make the world better, but only for people who can afford

00:32:18   the lowest level to which we're willing to stoop." And that if you can't afford a laptop that costs

00:32:26   more than $7.99 or $6.99, if you can't afford an iPhone that costs whatever the base price of the

00:32:35   cheapest iPhone is, sorry, you can't afford us. And I think there's an argument to be made that

00:32:41   that Apple has standards and that they don't want their brand connected with products that

00:32:45   they don't think are good enough. But I have heard and I can understand the other argument,

00:32:49   which is it is Apple saying basically our stuff is for schools that have money and then

00:32:57   if you don't have money find a lesser product to use instead. That's the dark way of painting

00:33:03   that.

00:33:04   All right. There were a bunch of announcements today and there is a bunch of interesting

00:33:09   stuff in that. So why don't we put a pin in this topic. We'll move on to that. But first,

00:33:14   we'll take our second break and thank Anchor for their support of this show. Anchor is

00:33:18   the easiest way for anyone to make a podcast. If you've seen this event today and you're

00:33:23   like, I have some stuff to say, well, just go download the Anchor app from the App Store

00:33:28   and that's all you need. You can just talk into your phone like you're talking on the

00:33:32   phone and then Anchor takes care of the rest. They have a bunch of great tools where you

00:33:36   You can add in music, transitions, multiple clips over a space of time, people can call

00:33:41   into your station and add that in.

00:33:43   It's really cool.

00:33:44   Anchor has some fantastic tools.

00:33:46   And they've taken it a step further by adding a bunch of new features on the web as well.

00:33:51   They have a full web system now at anchor.fm so you can upload your files directly to them.

00:33:56   You can produce them in the same way that we produce this show.

00:33:59   You get analytics now as well so you can see how many people are listening to your show.

00:34:03   There are no fees for their podcast hosting and Anchor will help you distribute your shows

00:34:07   to a variety of platforms.

00:34:10   There's a great way to find out more about Anchor.

00:34:12   Go to anchor.fm/relayfm.

00:34:14   You'll find out more information about our new show there which is called Subnet which

00:34:18   is a tech news flash briefing show hosted by Relay FM co-founder Stephen Hackett.

00:34:23   It gives you the latest headlines on technology to help keep you informed.

00:34:26   We chose Anchor because they have fantastic tools for this stuff.

00:34:29   They were able to get us onto Amazon Echo and Google Home really easily because that's

00:34:33   something that's really difficult to do. Anchor's distribution is great and they give you an

00:34:39   RSS feed and all that kind of stuff and also give you a place on the web for your shows

00:34:43   to live. If you have something you want to say, if you have a podcast you want to start,

00:34:47   there's nothing stopping you because Anchor makes it so easy. Go to anchor.fm/relayfm

00:34:53   to check out more about what Anchor has to offer and also to subscribe to and check out

00:34:57   Our thanks to Anker for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:35:03   The iPad was the big news of the day in general.

00:35:07   I want to ask you some questions about the lack of the Mac in this event a little bit

00:35:12   later on.

00:35:14   But the iPad was what we expected, the iPad was what was focused on.

00:35:18   We got the new 9.7 inch iPad.

00:35:22   Well is it?

00:35:23   Is my question to you Jason.

00:35:25   What is this device?

00:35:26   Is this an update to the 9.7 inch or is this just a slightly hobbled iPad Pro?

00:35:33   What is this device?

00:35:36   It's the sixth generation iPad, Myke.

00:35:39   I mean it is a 9.7, it's got the updated processor, it's got the A10, you know, Touch ID, all

00:35:47   those things, and it's got the really the thing that is different is that it's got Apple

00:35:52   pencil support, which, you know, is a no-brainer. I think that's why we all talked about it

00:35:57   last week. Like, that is such a great thing to offer to education to have a pencil support.

00:36:03   Just you can think of it like students using the Apple Pencil to write and draw and take

00:36:08   notes and do all of those things. Like, yes, they need to do that. So they added that in,

00:36:13   which means that they had to upgrade the digitizer and, you know, do all the magic that they

00:36:16   need to do to get the Apple Pencil to work on it. But otherwise, it's just a step forward

00:36:20   for that base model 6th generation 9.7 inch iPad.

00:36:25   So it really is better to think of this as a 9.7 inch with a pencil, right?

00:36:30   Because it has no smart connector, it doesn't have ProMotion or TrueTone or anything like

00:36:34   that, right?

00:36:35   Exactly.

00:36:36   It's just…

00:36:37   And is the processor… is that an update, the A10 processor, is that an update to this

00:36:41   line?

00:36:42   Yeah, I think so.

00:36:43   Okay, so it's… but again, like it doesn't have the A10X like our current iPad Pros do.

00:36:50   talk about the Apple Pencil. Because really, that's what's going on here. You can get it

00:36:55   in a gold, that lovely gold colour now, which is like the gold that you get on the iPhone

00:36:59   8. But really this is just an iPad at the same price point, but it's got Apple Pencil

00:37:05   support. So why now? Apple Pencil support is now clearly not seen to be a pro thing

00:37:12   anymore. This is what we were speculating on, but Apple have made that the case, right?

00:37:17   pencil support doesn't mean that your iPad is a pro iPad anymore.

00:37:22   Yeah, I would say, and we talked about this last week, the iPad Pro doesn't mean what

00:37:28   it meant when the Apple Pencil came out. Like iPad Pro used to mean it has a smart connector,

00:37:34   well first it meant it's 12.9 inches, right? And then the 9.7 came out, iPad Pro, and we're

00:37:40   like, oh, well what they've got in common is they've got the, with the 9.7 it was, they've

00:37:47   got the white color gamut and they've got the pencil and they've got the smart connector.

00:37:53   That's what it is.

00:37:54   That's really what separates them.

00:37:56   But in the intervening year, the 9.7 got turned into a 10.5 and then they also updated the

00:38:06   12.9 to bring it into spec.

00:38:08   So they're both with bigger screens and better specs.

00:38:13   there's enough room in there for them to push the pencil down and say the pencil

00:38:17   is not what makes an iPad Pro an iPad Pro now, which would have been harder, a

00:38:22   harder case to make when they introduced the iPad Pro, but I think that was the

00:38:26   right call. I think if you look at this, if there's if there's one thing to do,

00:38:29   it's to bring down the it's to bring down the the pencil to this because this

00:38:35   is such a great market for it in education. That's probably the core of

00:38:39   of why this event happened.

00:38:41   That's probably the little seed at the center

00:38:44   that said, okay, what story can we tell around this

00:38:46   'cause we wanna bring the pencil to the low end iPad

00:38:49   because it's gonna be great in education.

00:38:51   And then from that, they built an entire education event.

00:38:55   - Yeah, 'cause it really did feel

00:38:58   like the pencil was the star of the show.

00:39:00   It appeared to be that every slide was drawn

00:39:03   with an Apple Pencil, right?

00:39:05   It looked like that.

00:39:06   And all of the marketing on Apple's website

00:39:08   is very focused around handwriting. So like the Apple Pencil is right there. It's like

00:39:14   right front and center in all of this.

00:39:18   Yeah, that's the story.

00:39:21   But there was no new Apple Pencil. It is the Apple Pencil that we know and love, right?

00:39:25   It's the same one that there's always been.

00:39:28   Yeah, it's no different. There's an $89 education price, which I assume was there before, but

00:39:34   now it's more relevant. But it's just the Apple Pencil. Nothing new. That was a draft

00:39:40   pick. It didn't go.

00:39:42   Do you think that adding an Apple Pencil to a regular iPad makes it an easier purchase

00:39:47   for people? Do you think we're going to see even more sales of this $329 iPad, which is

00:39:54   what it's priced at for consumers, because it now supports the Apple Pencil?

00:39:58   Yeah, I think it makes a better product in general. I think that's true. I don't know

00:40:03   how much, you know, how niche is the pencil? Like, is it the product that, like so many

00:40:14   people, I just want to draw things on my iPad. I don't know. I don't know. But I'm sure it

00:40:18   will sell more of them. I think Apple is confident enough that any lost sales to somebody who

00:40:25   was going to buy an iPad Pro just for the pencil will be made up by the fact that they

00:40:30   are going to sell a lot more iPads and there are plenty of other reasons to buy an iPad

00:40:34   Pro.

00:40:35   Yeah, I do think it's interesting though.

00:40:38   I definitely believe that this year the iPad Pro takes more steps into its future, like

00:40:44   what makes it a Pro device.

00:40:46   We spoke about that, the way we think it's going to look.

00:40:48   And it is interesting to me that they haven't got that to show now, but they have brought

00:40:53   this, the lower end iPad closer to it.

00:40:57   So they've made the iPad Pro less competitive, right, at this point right now.

00:41:03   So, you know, obviously our assumption would be that they really believe that this is going

00:41:08   to be a net positive thing for the iPad line to add the Apple Pencil to the lower end iPad

00:41:14   now, potentially at the detriment of the iPad Pro, which is a much more expensive device.

00:41:19   I guess it depends on how much you love the Apple Pencil because as somebody who loves

00:41:24   the Apple Pencil, you may feel very strongly that it's a huge asset for the iPad Pro.

00:41:29   I don't, as somebody who doesn't use the Apple Pencil, I think it's there, but I

00:41:35   think it can survive without it. I don't think it's that big a deal.

00:41:37   I do think that Apple believe it though. You know, like they put a lot of marketing weight

00:41:42   into this at least. Well sure, but I think Apple believes that

00:41:46   it's not, the Pencil support is no longer required to drive people to the iPad Pro.

00:41:51   there are plenty of other reasons to get an iPad Pro and presumably there will be a new

00:41:55   iPad Pro probably, you know, later this year that will make it even more of a stark difference

00:42:00   between them and that's enough.

00:42:02   But what do you think is more important though, Apple Pencil or Smart Keyboard? Two schools.

00:42:09   Ah, good question. Now the Smart Keyboard is not cheap. I'm a little surprised. I wondered

00:42:16   about that. I think the smart connector is not great. I think maybe it's not as much

00:42:25   of a driver as we thought it might be. I wonder what research Apple did about the like the

00:42:32   smart keyboard in schools and whether they would buy smart keyboards if those were available

00:42:37   versus the pencil and realized the pencil is cheaper and the potential applications

00:42:43   for the pencil are so strong that it's more important to get that on there than the smart

00:42:48   keyboard.

00:42:49   I'm still a little surprised that they didn't have like, well, we've added the smart connector

00:42:52   to this thing and there's this fancy Logitech case.

00:42:54   I also heard from some people who said that in some schools for certain tests, a wired

00:43:00   keyboard is required.

00:43:02   Like they don't trust wireless keyboards, which is kind of wacky, but that would be

00:43:05   an application for the smart connector.

00:43:08   So I don't know.

00:43:09   I mean, I think the answer is probably that if you look at the cost of the Logitech case

00:43:15   they mentioned when they rolled this out, that there's a new Logitech, like, rugged

00:43:21   case for it, that the whole goal there was kind of to optimize for price.

00:43:28   And building in a smart connector does not do that.

00:43:32   So I think it's an arguable thing for the future that bringing a keyboard down for schools

00:43:39   is going to be also a use case. But as we found out, it's not the end of the world

00:43:44   to use a Bluetooth keyboard. You know, that's what I use.

00:43:46   Most of the time.

00:43:47   Or to type on the screen.

00:43:48   Right.

00:43:49   Or to type on the screen.

00:43:50   Again, I feel like it cannot be.

00:43:51   Yeah.

00:43:52   I know that there are some schools and some school districts that require keyboards in

00:43:54   the US, which I know is why it's an important thing, and maybe for some older students.

00:43:59   But unless that is a requirement, I really, really just feel like we have to remember

00:44:05   that kids are used to glass. Like this is...

00:44:08   - Yeah, that's right.

00:44:09   - This is what we do now, right?

00:44:11   - They may not have any problem with the,

00:44:13   I'm still not convinced that there are schools out there

00:44:16   that are saying write a whole essay on your iPad's keyboard,

00:44:19   but it's less of an issue over time.

00:44:23   - So we mentioned it, but I'll reiterate it.

00:44:27   This iPad is at $329 for consumers and $299 for schools.

00:44:32   Is this the pricing you would have wanted to see?

00:44:35   Would you have liked to have seen,

00:44:36   I mean, everyone would have liked to have seen this be less,

00:44:39   of course, like why not?

00:44:40   Make it $50, you know what I'm saying, right?

00:44:43   Everyone would like it to be less,

00:44:45   but was this what you was expecting?

00:44:47   Did you think Apple were gonna try and price this

00:44:49   more aggressively than they did?

00:44:51   - I will refer back to what we talked about

00:44:55   a little while ago, which is,

00:44:57   I would like to have seen them be a little more aggressive.

00:45:00   Yes, I think from Apple's perspective,

00:45:02   maybe what they did was say,

00:45:04   okay, we're not gonna lower the price,

00:45:05   but we're gonna add pencil,

00:45:07   and we're gonna do it that way.

00:45:08   Like, which would you prefer?

00:45:10   A, an iPad that was $40 cheaper,

00:45:13   or an iPad with pencil,

00:45:15   because I don't know how much the pencil support

00:45:17   adds to the cost,

00:45:18   but it definitely adds to the cost of the hardware.

00:45:21   You could also argue though,

00:45:22   that you could, you could afford a lower price

00:45:25   if you're selling a certain number of $89 pencils

00:45:29   along with those iPads.

00:45:32   So, yes, I would love Apple

00:45:35   to be cheaper because I want schools to have the option

00:45:40   more easily to buy iPads.

00:45:42   I think that would be great because as you said earlier,

00:45:45   it opens up more schools to this product,

00:45:49   but Apple's got its pricing philosophy.

00:45:54   And as we've said many times on this show,

00:45:57   if you have an imaginary price that you would love

00:46:00   for an Apple product, it will be higher than that.

00:46:03   It's just, that's Apple.

00:46:05   - $329 for this iPad for consumers is pretty good though.

00:46:11   Like--

00:46:13   - It's a great price.

00:46:13   It was a great price last year and it's still a great price

00:46:15   and that's why, the funny thing,

00:46:17   when we talk about quarterly results for Apple,

00:46:20   one of the funny things that comes up

00:46:22   is they've had quarters that show the iPad Pro strategy.

00:46:25   Now that they've bifurcated the line

00:46:27   and there's iPad Pros and iPad,

00:46:29   and the iPad's cheaper and the iPad Pros are more powerful,

00:46:33   What has happened is that sometimes we get results that say,

00:46:38   "Oh, the iPad Pro is really selling well."

00:46:41   And other times we get results that say,

00:46:43   "Oh, that low cost iPad is really selling well."

00:46:46   Which I take away to mean the iPad's doing well.

00:46:51   They split those things in two

00:46:53   and they're both successful at what they're trying to be.

00:46:57   One is the very expensive cutting edge tech iPad Pro

00:47:02   and the other is enough iPad for most people for $329,

00:47:06   which is down from what it used to be.

00:47:09   And if you look at the tablet market,

00:47:10   there's nobody in the tablet market anymore.

00:47:12   That new Chromebook tablet, Chrome OS tablet,

00:47:16   is basically the price of the iPad.

00:47:18   - It's the same price as $329.

00:47:21   - And then there's Amazon with their cheap tablets,

00:47:23   and that's basically it.

00:47:25   That market has just died.

00:47:26   Google has abandoned it for Android.

00:47:30   And there's just not a lot of,

00:47:33   I mean the iPad does incredibly well in all the segments

00:47:35   that it plays in in the tablet market.

00:47:37   So by pushing it down to 329,

00:47:40   Apple has already opened the door there.

00:47:41   And it's great.

00:47:42   Again, I keep thinking to myself,

00:47:44   if it was 299 for everybody and 279 for schools,

00:47:47   would that make the iPad even more successful?

00:47:51   But at the same time,

00:47:52   I get that Apple has the cost of building these things

00:47:54   and they have a profit margin they wanna hit

00:47:56   and they may feel like they came down enough

00:47:59   to go all the way down to 329 for them.

00:48:01   - So let's move into some software related stuff.

00:48:04   So iWork received some updates

00:48:07   to give it more pencil features.

00:48:09   One of these things, two things.

00:48:11   There's like a reports feature where you can annotate on it

00:48:14   and there's a feature coming for teachers

00:48:16   called smart annotation.

00:48:17   Did you have any chance to play with either of these?

00:48:20   - I didn't get to play them, I got to see them,

00:48:21   but I didn't get to actually use them.

00:48:24   Smart annotation is clever because what it does

00:48:26   is it attaches your pen marks to the text on the document.

00:48:31   So if you circle a word and say, remove this

00:48:37   or cross it out or whatever,

00:48:39   and then they're inputting changes into the document

00:48:41   in pages and the paragraph rewraps,

00:48:45   the pen overlay moves with the word that it was over,

00:48:49   which I'm sure there are gonna be interesting issues there,

00:48:52   it'll be interesting to see how it works in practice,

00:48:54   but it's a clever idea because that's a real thing

00:48:56   that happens where somebody gives you a file

00:48:58   and what you have to do is sort of have the file over here

00:49:00   and make the changes over there and track like,

00:49:03   oh, now this is different, so where's that comment again

00:49:05   and all of that and the idea here is that it all just

00:49:07   is happening live and it moves with you.

00:49:09   So it certainly demos well, we'll see how it works

00:49:12   in practice but I thought that was pretty clever.

00:49:14   - Feels like nice additions, right?

00:49:16   And being able to like create reports of numbers

00:49:20   and keynote and write and scribble and that kind of stuff.

00:49:23   - Feels like just good additions.

00:49:24   - In general saying, look, iWork's gonna be better

00:49:27   with the pencil, that we're gonna make iWork

00:49:30   a stronger citizen in terms of the Apple Pencil,

00:49:34   I think is a good move.

00:49:36   - And it was funny to me where I was like,

00:49:38   oh, they didn't have stuff like this before.

00:49:41   (laughing)

00:49:41   It's like, oh, interesting.

00:49:43   - Yeah, giving you more reasons to use iWork.

00:49:45   I think that's, I mean, that was one,

00:49:47   that was part of this story, right?

00:49:49   During that iWork section, I kept thinking to myself,

00:49:51   well, they've got this software,

00:49:53   they oughta leverage it to do whatever they want.

00:49:56   And so they said, we're gonna leverage it

00:49:57   for pen markup in schools, and we're gonna leverage it

00:50:00   to use iWork to build books.

00:50:04   And it's like, we've got this software

00:50:07   that we own and control and can build

00:50:10   to our latest and greatest hardware.

00:50:12   That's kinda why it exists, so let's do it.

00:50:14   And it's funny that they're doing that now

00:50:18   and that they didn't necessarily do that so much

00:50:22   when the pencil came out originally,

00:50:23   but it's good that it's there now.

00:50:25   - So pages has now seemed to have swallowed up iBooks Author

00:50:29   and you can create digital books right in pages.

00:50:32   I don't know this, I don't know if you know this,

00:50:34   is iBooks Author dead?

00:50:37   Is it done with?

00:50:38   - I think it is, I don't know that.

00:50:41   I assume it is, I'll put it that way.

00:50:43   And one of the reasons I assume that is

00:50:45   for people who haven't used iBooks Author,

00:50:47   iBooks Author was based on pages.

00:50:49   It was based on an old version of pages.

00:50:51   And so it was always this weird thing where it was kind of

00:50:53   like this is kind of pages, but kind of not.

00:50:56   But I'm sure people like David Sparks

00:50:58   and Serenity Caldwell are gonna be investigating

00:51:01   quite what has changed, people who have spent a lot of time

00:51:03   using iBooks Author.

00:51:05   But my guess is that this is iBooks Author

00:51:08   getting pulled back into pages,

00:51:10   which is gonna be good 'cause iBooks Author

00:51:12   didn't get a lot of love.

00:51:14   And if those features are just nice book creation features

00:51:18   inside a core iWork app,

00:51:20   it probably bodes well for the product because iBooks Author would sort of like

00:51:25   sit out there and not get any updates and, you know, and get old and creaky while iWork

00:51:31   was moving ahead. And so if it's all just back inside pages, that's probably all for the best.

00:51:35   Okay, that makes sense then. And also, I guess it does have some extra features though,

00:51:41   like you can collaborate, right? Like there is collaboration of sorts built into pages, so

00:51:47   multiple people can work on a book at the same time, which is not something that can

00:51:50   occur with the current crop of tools, right?

00:51:54   Sure.

00:51:55   Yeah.

00:51:56   iBooks Author, yeah, doesn't do a lot.

00:51:58   I have a question for you on this, though.

00:51:59   I was thinking about this.

00:52:03   Does taking iBooks Author away, like removing a standalone product and making it a feature

00:52:07   of pages, does that emphasize or de-emphasize the feature?

00:52:12   Does it make it more important because it's part of pages, or does it make it less important

00:52:16   because it doesn't have its own app anymore.

00:52:20   I think in the long run I think it makes it more important because it's part of the core

00:52:25   functionality and not a strange side project that gets less love.

00:52:30   And then let's not forget the major thing that's happening here is this is on iOS and

00:52:34   Mac, whereas iBooks Author was Mac only.

00:52:38   So that's a big step forward that you can do book creation on iOS, you don't need to

00:52:42   go to the Mac for it.

00:52:44   And what you did mention there about being in the core product, it means it forces them

00:52:49   to update it because if they put something whiz-bang into pages that you can't export

00:52:53   as a book, well that's a problem, isn't it?

00:52:56   So it locks the team into making sure that the digital book creation tools, as Apple

00:53:03   called them, are updated with all of the new stuff, which is a good point.

00:53:11   I'm expecting that you will be happy anytime

00:53:13   that iCloud storage limits are updated

00:53:16   and they've increased it from students

00:53:19   from five gigabytes to 200 gigabytes for free

00:53:22   for all students as part of the school, which is great.

00:53:25   - Can we get that for everybody?

00:53:27   But they were like, just for students.

00:53:28   (laughing)

00:53:31   Everybody else like, can we, does that mean I get free?

00:53:34   - No, not for you. - You don't get 200 free.

00:53:37   Regular people just get five, but for students, 200.

00:53:40   which is that is a case where Apple is forgoing

00:53:43   profit margin in order to tell a better story for education.

00:53:47   That's a case because that was a huge complaint in education

00:53:50   for this five gigabyte iCloud storage per Apple ID.

00:53:54   And so to take that to 200 gigs,

00:53:56   that is a place where they're being aggressive and saying,

00:53:58   you know, we don't need to,

00:54:00   this is not a place where we need to squeeze profits

00:54:03   out of this and we can make this a much better experience

00:54:06   for education.

00:54:08   I wish they do that for all their customers,

00:54:10   but for education it's a very good move.

00:54:12   - Just a more sort of light breaking news

00:54:14   sent to us by Steven Hackett.

00:54:15   iWork updates are out on iOS now

00:54:19   and they have a feature to collaborate in real time

00:54:22   on documents stored in Box.

00:54:24   I don't know whether these applications--

00:54:27   - Cloud Storage. - Cloud Storage.

00:54:29   So if you have documents in Box,

00:54:32   you can collaborate in real time on those documents.

00:54:34   - So that's basically a business enterprise kind of feature.

00:54:38   which is cool.

00:54:40   I wonder if it's any different.

00:54:41   - For all those enterprises that are using pages, but.

00:54:44   - Yeah, well, yeah, but if you use Box though,

00:54:47   and you maybe now have a really good application for it,

00:54:50   like it's gonna require testing, right?

00:54:51   Like how real time is real time?

00:54:53   Is it more real time than the iCloud stuff?

00:54:56   And if that's the case,

00:54:57   that could be a really good reason to use it,

00:55:00   which could be cool.

00:55:01   You know, I think that could be cool.

00:55:03   Apple Classroom, which is an administrative tool

00:55:06   for teachers and administrators that are managing lots of devices is coming to the Mac now in

00:55:15   June. Now a friend of the show, Guillermo Rambo, pointed out, which I thought was very

00:55:20   interesting that this is an existing iOS only application that's coming to the Mac in June.

00:55:26   And he says, "Hmm."

00:55:29   Thinking emoji.

00:55:30   Yeah.

00:55:31   Yeah.

00:55:32   here is this a hint of some of these cross-platform Marzipan tools? We don't know, possibly,

00:55:40   potentially, but it is interesting that this stuff is coming later. There's a lot of

00:55:44   things actually that are coming in June with 11.4, which they mentioned and is mentioned

00:55:50   on some kind of asterisks on Apple's website today.

00:55:53   Yeah, I think Marzipan, if it even happens, there's a question of like, will apps be

00:55:59   be able to be built back for older versions

00:56:02   or will this be for new versions that come out this fall?

00:56:05   But of course it's Apple,

00:56:06   so they could build something using it as a test case even.

00:56:09   And then have it be compatible with current versions

00:56:13   even though other people's apps might not be, I don't know.

00:56:16   It's interesting, my semi snarky take on this is like,

00:56:21   oh look, an iOS app coming to the Mac,

00:56:23   why would they do that in education?

00:56:25   And the answer is it's the app for teachers

00:56:28   'cause teachers are olds,

00:56:30   and they like computers instead of iPads.

00:56:33   And the fact is, it's true,

00:56:35   teachers are older than students, right?

00:56:37   And people who are older are more likely

00:56:40   to be comfortable with personal computers

00:56:42   than they are with iPads and with a touch interface.

00:56:45   And I've seen it in my kids' schools that,

00:56:47   in my son's middle school, they've got iPad one-to-one

00:56:50   and the teachers have laptops,

00:56:52   they have Mac laptops on their desks

00:56:54   and they're comfortable with the laptops.

00:56:56   So this is smart because this shows

00:56:58   that they're hearing the feedback

00:57:01   that teachers would like this on the Mac.

00:57:05   But it is a little intriguing, I will admit,

00:57:07   that an iOS app being brought back to the Mac,

00:57:10   what's happening there?

00:57:11   How is that happening?

00:57:12   But it's not as if, like you could argue that iWork

00:57:16   and iMovie in their latest Mac iterations are the same

00:57:21   in a way where they re-architected those programs

00:57:25   and basically rewrote them so that they would work

00:57:27   across iOS and Mac OS,

00:57:30   and that they were doing some of that work.

00:57:32   So it's not unprecedented,

00:57:33   but it is worth a thinking face emoji.

00:57:36   - I have more real-time follow-up from Steven.

00:57:39   Pages-- - Does he wanna be on the show?

00:57:41   Should we just dial him in here?

00:57:43   We've just got so much to say. - Pages does not open

00:57:44   any existing iBooks author files,

00:57:47   and you cannot export from Pages

00:57:49   to the iBooks author format.

00:57:51   You can only export to EPUB,

00:57:53   but I believe it is to a newer version of EPUB,

00:57:55   which allows for a lot of these digital things in it.

00:57:58   - So this may be the ultimate,

00:58:00   like the deprecation of iBooks author as a concept,

00:58:04   and instead just kind of getting on

00:58:06   the more elaborate EPUB train,

00:58:09   which is the right thing to do.

00:58:10   - I think it's EPUB caught up, right?

00:58:11   It kind of seemed a bit pointless for Apple

00:58:13   to maintain their own file format,

00:58:15   but I bet that that's gonna take away

00:58:18   all of those weird restrictions

00:58:20   about not being able to sell an iBooks

00:58:22   author file outside of iBooks, right?

00:58:26   So now people could make these files in pages

00:58:29   and in theory sell them because they're not locked down

00:58:33   to Apple's file format and potentially,

00:58:35   I mean I haven't looked to what the legal say,

00:58:37   but it may change the situation a little bit.

00:58:39   So I could-- - I don't know,

00:58:40   I mean in the vast array of non-Apple EPUB eBooks,

00:58:45   readers and stores that are out there,

00:58:47   I mean there's not, that's the thing,

00:58:50   is great but kind of irrelevant

00:58:54   'cause the big book juggernaut here is Amazon,

00:58:59   which doesn't even support EPUB.

00:59:01   - Yeah, for sure.

00:59:03   There was a new app announced,

00:59:04   which is an iOS app and a cloud service called Schoolwork.

00:59:07   What is Schoolwork?

00:59:08   - Schoolwork is,

00:59:12   it's kind of like an aspect of Google Classroom.

00:59:15   It's like lets teachers manage,

00:59:19   What is it?

00:59:20   They let teachers manage--

00:59:21   - It's like handouts and homework and stuff.

00:59:23   - Handouts and homework and track progress and also apps.

00:59:27   - Yeah, you can assign specific things in applications,

00:59:30   right, like this week you have to do this

00:59:31   and it's from a third party app.

00:59:33   - And it uses the new class kit framework.

00:59:35   So you have the ability to say,

00:59:37   you know, do this segment of this app,

00:59:39   this coursework, and then it'll actually send back data

00:59:44   of the student's progress, which the teacher gets to look at

00:59:48   and say they completed it, they're halfway through it,

00:59:50   whatever, they did this well on it,

00:59:52   they did this poorly on it.

00:59:53   So it's more tools for teachers to communicate with students

00:59:57   in Apple's administered environment,

01:00:00   which is one of the places where Apple is really fighting

01:00:02   against Google because Google Classroom stuff

01:00:04   is available on iOS.

01:00:06   And like I said, my son's iPad one-to-one program

01:00:10   at the middle school uses Google Classroom to administer it.

01:00:14   And that's a challenge for Apple

01:00:17   because Apple would like to control that and not have Google control that.

01:00:22   The last piece of Apple's puzzle is providing resources to teachers. They do this and they

01:00:30   highlight something called Apple Teacher, which is not a new thing, but it is an online

01:00:34   learning suite of tools to help teachers understand how they can integrate apps and devices and

01:00:41   services into their classes, into their classwork.

01:00:45   But Apple also creates curriculum and they have a new curriculum set called Everyone

01:00:50   Can Create, which focuses on music, photography, video and drawing and has a bunch of

01:00:55   like lesson plans and stuff like that that teachers can use for creating new, I don't

01:01:04   know, classes. I don't know.

01:01:06   I don't really know how to describe it, but you may probably know better than me.

01:01:10   - Yeah, I think for the company that's at the intersection

01:01:15   of technology and the liberal arts,

01:01:18   doing everyone can create alongside everyone can code

01:01:22   is a nice idea because it's the other,

01:01:25   I don't know whether it's the other half of the brain,

01:01:27   but it is a different set of things

01:01:29   that are great for education, music and art

01:01:33   and stuff like that, that they're doing

01:01:35   with that curriculum.

01:01:36   So it's not just Apple would like a new generation

01:01:39   of app developers to develop for its platform, thank you very much. Yes, also perhaps you

01:01:45   could be learning about music and drawing and painting and stuff like that. Video making.

01:01:54   So basically everything that we've spoken about, the hardware, basically all of the

01:02:00   software, all of the videos that you saw, all of the slides, very heavily focused on

01:02:06   the iPad and on iOS. Before the event you tweeted, and I will read this tweet to our

01:02:13   audience here, "As an iPad fan, I am always hoping for iPad news and I think we'll get

01:02:17   some, but I do hope the Mac gets a little time too. If it doesn't, I think that will

01:02:21   be telling about the Mac's place in the Apple landscape."

01:02:26   My feeling was that when you wrote that you were at least a little bit hopeful that you

01:02:30   were going to see some Mac stuff and there kind of wasn't really anything. What does

01:02:35   - What does that tell you?

01:02:36   - I can tell you the two places

01:02:38   where the Mac really played in this presentation.

01:02:40   One is, they had a picture of a Mac

01:02:43   and announced, "Oh, and now you can do this on iOS."

01:02:49   And the Mac swiped away to be replaced by an iPad.

01:02:52   And I thought, okay.

01:02:54   'Cause the Mac was up there and I was like,

01:02:56   "Ooh, look, they're using a Mac as an explanation of,

01:02:58   oh no, get that thing out,

01:03:00   get that smelly thing out of here."

01:03:02   And the other one was what I said earlier,

01:03:04   which is, yeah, we're bringing this app from iOS to the Mac

01:03:07   'cause teachers are old people who use computers

01:03:09   instead of iPads and fine teachers, fine, you're fossils,

01:03:14   you're old, but yeah, we'll give it to you on the Mac.

01:03:16   And those were the two places that the Mac appeared in this.

01:03:19   So I think that says, like I said,

01:03:21   I think that tells you what Apple feels

01:03:24   the Mac's place is in education,

01:03:26   which is it's not their area of emphasis,

01:03:29   especially in K through 12,

01:03:31   which is really what this was about, not higher ed.

01:03:33   I think higher ed is a different story entirely.

01:03:36   And that, but they're viewing this as being a place

01:03:38   that's mostly, it's funny also, because I have to say,

01:03:42   in one of the areas where we were doing after the event,

01:03:45   where we were doing these, you know, hands on and demo areas,

01:03:49   one of those rooms on the second level,

01:03:52   it had like a little kind of mezzanine

01:03:53   above the main lab area.

01:03:56   There were, you know, a couple dozen IMAX all in a row.

01:04:01   And I imagine that they're doing like video editing

01:04:04   or audio stuff up there was in the kind of creative space.

01:04:08   And I sat there and I thought, you know,

01:04:10   well, there are the Macs in this school,

01:04:11   there are lots of them and they're using them,

01:04:14   but not part of this conversation.

01:04:16   So for whatever reason,

01:04:18   and we can come up with lots of reasons,

01:04:20   but like this is, if you're taking the temperature

01:04:22   of what Apple's really pushing in education,

01:04:25   that's the answer is that it's iPad and it's not the Mac.

01:04:29   The Mac is not part of the story.

01:04:30   Macs there and people who want the Mac for various things and for some stuff

01:04:33   like video editing right now at least until you know Final Cut comes to iOS

01:04:38   and Logic comes to iOS you know for now they've got some reasons why you would

01:04:44   still have Macs in school but you get the distinct feeling that once Apple can

01:04:48   get those reasons out and into the iPad they'll do they'll do that too. So that's

01:04:53   it does I think I stand by my statement that it is telling that how exactly how

01:04:59   the Mac played into this, which is almost not at all once for old teachers and once

01:05:05   as a before shot in a before and after.

01:05:08   Like, I'm not trying to lead the witness here, but does this fill you with any negative feelings?

01:05:15   Do you feel any unease or may I even say dread at this?

01:05:20   If you made me choose between would the iPad be all there was or would it be Mac and iPad,

01:05:28   I would probably have chosen iPad would be all there is.

01:05:31   I think it was clear the iPad was going to be the bulk of it

01:05:35   and it was really about like, will the Mac get mentioned?

01:05:38   And the answer is no.

01:05:39   Basically no, it didn't get mentioned.

01:05:43   So it's what I expected.

01:05:46   And I think I love the Mac and I think the Mac has its place

01:05:50   but I totally see why Apple, first off,

01:05:52   the Mac starts at 999 and the iPad starts at 329.

01:05:58   You wanna talk about price,

01:05:59   like the Mac's not even in the conversation.

01:06:02   iPad for this market especially, like that's the product.

01:06:06   That is Apple's lowest cost, straight up,

01:06:10   let's leave phones and subsidies like aside.

01:06:13   Like that is Apple's entry into computing

01:06:15   is the iPad for through 29.

01:06:17   That's it.

01:06:18   The Mac's way up there, forget about the Mac.

01:06:20   And I think that's why the story is what it is.

01:06:23   The Mac still has its uses,

01:06:24   but this is part of that, you know,

01:06:26   truckification of the Mac as for very specific jobs

01:06:31   and very specific plays.

01:06:33   And it's not like it doesn't have its uses.

01:06:35   Like I said, I bought my daughter a MacBook

01:06:38   for her birthday and she's a high school student

01:06:42   and she'll presumably take that MacBook to college.

01:06:44   And I think it's the right decision for a lot of reasons.

01:06:47   But I also understand exactly why my son's school

01:06:50   has iPads for all the students.

01:06:52   and I'm pretty supportive of that.

01:06:54   I think that they have good reasons for doing that.

01:06:58   And if I'm Apple and I'm building a foundation

01:07:00   for a long-term future in education, price aside,

01:07:05   of course, every long-term future decision Apple's making

01:07:09   has to be rooted in iOS and not the Mac

01:07:11   because it's their newer platform,

01:07:13   it's their more popular platform,

01:07:15   and it's the one that is more positioned

01:07:19   to move forward into the future,

01:07:21   whether it gets new features or it kind of like leads the way into a, you know,

01:07:26   a new Apple platform down the road. So it all makes sense to me. It's,

01:07:29   am I a little wistful about it? You know,

01:07:32   I think I'm over that too just because like I said,

01:07:35   when you can get a Mac book air that's old tech for nine 99 or you can get a

01:07:39   brand new iPad for three 29 that I'll grant you is not the latest and greatest

01:07:43   processor, but it's way more latest and greatest than the Mac book air is. Um,

01:07:48   I think the writing's on the wall there.

01:07:50   I'm just going to say, like, at this point, I do not believe we're going to see that cheap

01:07:54   current MacBook Air. I don't think that's going to happen. I feel like if it wasn't

01:07:57   happening today, it's not happening. I think what we will see is a cheaper current version

01:08:02   of the Retina MacBook as the next product in that line.

01:08:06   Given Mark Gurman's report and the fact that it didn't get mentioned or announced today,

01:08:10   even in a press release, it makes me think that the report of a cheaper MacBook is a

01:08:16   weird misunderstanding of what German's reporting,

01:08:19   of a cheaper MacBook Air,

01:08:21   is it's a misunderstanding of what German's reporting,

01:08:24   the fact that there's gonna be a cheaper MacBook,

01:08:26   that Apple's gonna try to take the MacBook

01:08:28   and push it down in price

01:08:29   so that they can replace the MacBook Air.

01:08:32   And they may not push it down to 999,

01:08:34   they might push it down to 1099 or 1199,

01:08:37   but it would still be down,

01:08:38   and they may keep the MacBook Air around for a little while,

01:08:41   but yes, I'm with you,

01:08:43   I think this makes that story seem less likely,

01:08:46   because why wouldn't they have done it if the whole reason that product exists is to

01:08:50   reach people in education and other places that just are not going to spend more than

01:08:55   a thousand dollars on a computer, then they would have talked about it today.

01:09:01   Like with all big events, we have lots of questions from the Upgradians, so we should

01:09:07   move to #askupgrade.

01:09:10   But before we do, let me thank our final sponsor for this week, and that is Mack Weldon, who

01:09:15   make the most comfortable underwear, socks, shirts, undershirts, hoodies and sweatpants

01:09:20   that you are ever going to wear. MacWilden is better than whatever you're wearing right

01:09:24   now and they are so confident of this, they have a no questions asked return policy. Whatever

01:09:28   you buy at MacWilden is going to be amazing because they use premium fabrics, use premium

01:09:33   cotton with natural fibres, they make stuff, they make their undershirts that stay tucked

01:09:37   in, they make their stocks that stay rolled up and their waistbands that don't roll down.

01:09:42   They are so confident of all of this amazing stuff that they are going to be able to send

01:09:46   you that if you are not amazingly comfortable in whatever you buy for any reason, if you

01:09:51   don't like it, just send it back to them and they will refund you, no questions asked.

01:09:56   This is because Mack Wilder know that they are making great stuff.

01:09:59   They have a line of silver underwear and shirts that are naturally anti-microbial which means

01:10:03   that they eliminate odour which is some really cool science stuff.

01:10:06   But you can take it from me as over time I have slowly replaced all of my underwear and

01:10:12   all of my flying attire, and also all of my gym wear as well with Macworld and stuff.

01:10:23   And I have been doing this with my own money. This isn't just because they're sending it

01:10:26   to me. Every time I come out to the States, I buy like a big package of Macworld and stuff

01:10:31   and get it sent to me because I really genuinely find this stuff to be extremely comfortable

01:10:36   and my favourite stuff to wear.

01:10:39   as

01:10:55   C K W E L D O N dot com. Just use the code upgrade and you will get that 20% off. Our

01:11:01   thanks to Macworld and for their continued support of this show and Relay FM.

01:11:06   So we move into #AskUpgrade and our first question comes from Victor. Victor asks, "Now that

01:11:12   the base 9.7 inch iPad has pencil support, who is the target audience of the 10.5 inch

01:11:17   iPad Pro? It's nearly double the price and almost no significant features above the base

01:11:22   model except the display. Do you think that there are still people in this segment that

01:11:30   this product is targeted at before there's an update? Do you think that there are people

01:11:35   that this product is really made for? Do you think it's keyboard people? Do you think it's

01:11:38   people who just want the latest and greatest and best? Or do you think that basically everybody

01:11:43   could be served by this 9.7 now?

01:11:45   Yeah, it's bigger screen smaller bezels. It's faster. It's thinner

01:11:49   It's got the keyboard support. It's got the display and it hasn't even had its update this year

01:11:57   So that's my answer. I agree with you

01:12:01   I think that like, you know, I understand why people are like it's double the price but really like you are thinking of the iPad

01:12:08   Pro is just only having a pencil like that's kind of like if that's the way that you look at it

01:12:15   That's like all you think the iPad Pro has,

01:12:17   but it is more than that.

01:12:18   It's all of those things you mentioned, right?

01:12:20   The promotions-- - It goes back

01:12:21   to what we said earlier, which is, you know,

01:12:24   if the only reason you can think for buying an iPad Pro

01:12:27   over this iPad was the pencil, then yeah, sure.

01:12:32   But I don't think that, and I would imagine

01:12:34   that it's a fairly small group of people.

01:12:37   I will grant that this brings it closer,

01:12:39   but keep in mind, this is now the 2018 iPad

01:12:43   and the 2017 iPad Pro.

01:12:46   And what's gonna happen later this year,

01:12:48   maybe in June, maybe in September, maybe in October,

01:12:51   is those iPad Pros are gonna get updated.

01:12:54   They're gonna get Face ID probably.

01:12:55   They're gonna lose the bezel even more.

01:12:57   They're gonna get the latest and greatest processor.

01:13:00   They're gonna have other whizzy new features.

01:13:03   So they've gotten a little closer today.

01:13:07   They're gonna spread back apart.

01:13:09   And that is the way it works.

01:13:12   So, Stae asked, "Today's event seemed pretty heavy on the creative side.

01:13:18   Were there any updates or hints of updates to apps like GarageBand, iMovie, or other

01:13:23   consumer-level creative apps other than iWork?"

01:13:26   There's a GarageBand update that's got like education wacky stuff, wacky sound packs

01:13:35   and stuff like that in there.

01:13:37   There was a clips update.

01:13:38   And there's a clips update too, yeah.

01:13:40   But I did want to note that something that wasn't mentioned on stage, I don't believe,

01:13:45   or I didn't see it until the release notes. GarageBand on the iPhone 10 uses the TrueDepth

01:13:51   camera to allow you to control instrument effects with your facial expressions. Like

01:13:58   synth parameters and wah pedals and stuff like that. You can make a face and make, like

01:14:05   if you open your mouth, like with a step tap thing.

01:14:08   Sir Alex has doubled over with laughter in the booth at this point.

01:14:12   Alex, what is your opinion of these TrueDepth instrument effects? Are you on board with

01:14:19   this idea? I mean, I'm sure that I'm going to have a

01:14:21   lot of fun with it for about 15 minutes. It's going to be great with Animoji and similarly

01:14:28   used probably. Hey, try stuff out. See what happens. Maybe that's great. You're DJing,

01:14:34   you're playing stuff and then you stub your toe and you grimace and it's like, "Oh, that

01:14:37   was a pretty good sound. And then that makes you smile and then the sound goes away because

01:14:41   you're not grimacing anymore, you're smiling. Just imagine the possibilities there.

01:14:44   The better your music is, the better it will sound, right? If you're happy with how your

01:14:48   music's sounding, then it's going to sound better. I think that's what they're trying

01:14:51   to do. All right, so basically I'm going to have

01:14:54   a GarageBand project and I'll be like, "Okay, I've got to smile while I'm exporting this

01:14:57   or it'll sound bad." So going back to the new iPad, Matthias asked,

01:15:02   Does the iPad, the new iPad, have the laminated screen from the iPad Pros, or is there like

01:15:08   that gap like there is on the previous iPad?

01:15:12   I think it is like on the previous iPad.

01:15:15   I think that's the deal.

01:15:17   Yeah, the tech specs do not say fully laminated display as it does on some of the other products,

01:15:25   including, which is hilarious to me, the iPad Mini has it, but the 9.7" iPad Pro has it,

01:15:32   - Does not.

01:15:34   - So iPad Mini is still a product.

01:15:36   - Still a product.

01:15:37   - In Apple's product line.

01:15:38   - Still more expensive, it's still there,

01:15:39   still kind of doing whatever it is it's doing.

01:15:42   - Whatever that is.

01:15:43   Did they make too many of those

01:15:44   and they've got them sitting in a factory somewhere?

01:15:46   - Most definitely did they.

01:15:48   Woo, boy howdy.

01:15:50   Lee wants to know if we have any more information

01:15:53   on the Logitech Crayon.

01:15:54   And I have some information here, Jason.

01:15:57   - I don't because I went to the event

01:15:59   and didn't get that information.

01:16:01   - You just didn't bother to look for it

01:16:02   'cause you probably weren't that excited about it.

01:16:04   - Yeah, that's also probably true.

01:16:05   I was intrigued.

01:16:06   The question for me, so you can tell me this.

01:16:09   The question for me is, does it use some secret sauce

01:16:13   that the Apple Pencil uses,

01:16:15   or is it just yet another Bluetooth stylus?

01:16:17   - Yes and no.

01:16:19   So the Logitech Crayon is a $49 education only stylus,

01:16:24   but it uses the same technology as the Apple Pencil.

01:16:30   So it has the same latency, you can tilt and it will make the lines grow thicker and thinner,

01:16:36   but it has no pressure sensitivity.

01:16:39   So that's the thing that it lacks.

01:16:40   It has basically all of the technology that the Apple Pencil has, but no pressure sensitivity.

01:16:46   It connects directly to the iPad via a single frequency, it's not Bluetooth, I don't really

01:16:52   know what that actually means, but fine.

01:16:56   It has eight hours of battery, but with a lightning plug in.

01:16:59   It doesn't have a lightning port built into it, you plug a lightning cable into it.

01:17:05   So that's very different.

01:17:06   It's available this summer, sold directly to educators for $49.

01:17:10   So it is, it has a lot of what the Apple Pencil has, it doesn't have everything which is why

01:17:16   it's cheaper.

01:17:18   It does have a little LED status light so you know when it's connected and it blinks

01:17:21   red when the battery's running low.

01:17:24   So it has some additional things, it's a lot cheaper, it doesn't have all of the features,

01:17:29   But it has the most important features, in my opinion, which is the low latency and the

01:17:34   tilt sensitivity of the Apple Pencil, with, I'm assuming, easy connection as well.

01:17:40   So yeah, I think that's really cool.

01:17:42   I like that this product exists.

01:17:43   I really like that Apple works with Logitech on these features for education.

01:17:49   I think it's great.

01:17:50   Like, let Logitech make stuff if Apple don't want to make it.

01:17:54   Brian wants to know, can the shared iPad functionality in schools be used without using education

01:18:01   tools? What is the shared iPad functionality?

01:18:03   >> You imagine you get an iPad and it's got a picture of various users on it and you tap

01:18:09   on one and it loads that user's documents and it's their iPad and then they can basically

01:18:14   log out.

01:18:15   >> And this is existed for a while, right?

01:18:16   >> Two years, I think.

01:18:17   >> It's like 10-3?

01:18:18   >> Yeah.

01:18:19   >> Okay.

01:18:20   >> And the answer is no, it's an education-only feature.

01:18:21   >> Great.

01:18:22   >> And our last question today comes from Michael.

01:18:24   Michael simply asks, are you underwhelmed,

01:18:26   whelmed or overwhelmed at today's event?

01:18:29   - I think whelmed, you said it before

01:18:34   and I think that is about right.

01:18:35   This was a focused Apple event to launch a new iPad

01:18:40   at the low end and some stuff around it

01:18:45   and tell about its education strategy.

01:18:48   And it pretty much delivered that and only that.

01:18:52   So whelmed, I would say is about right.

01:18:55   - It met my basic expectations

01:18:57   for what an acceptable event could be today, really.

01:18:59   Like it did that, it ticked those boxes.

01:19:02   - And no more, but no less.

01:19:04   - Producer Alex, are you underwhelmed,

01:19:06   whelmed or overwhelmed?

01:19:07   - I'd say I agree, I am whelmed.

01:19:12   You know, I'm actually really disappointed about one thing

01:19:16   and I'm gonna say if you wanna leave this in

01:19:20   and you are, if there are any upgrade-ians

01:19:23   who work in the education market,

01:19:25   and I could possibly pay you to get a few

01:19:28   of those Logitech crayons, @AlexCoxx on Twitter.

01:19:32   All right, goodbye.

01:19:33   - There you go, @AlexCoxx on Twitter.

01:19:34   Alex really wants some Logitech crayons.

01:19:37   If someone can hook her up with that,

01:19:39   we would appreciate it. - Black market crayons.

01:19:42   - It's orange and it tells you when it's dying.

01:19:45   It's perfect.

01:19:46   - I am really keen to try one of those out personally,

01:19:49   just like to see what it's like.

01:19:51   - But it's also not coming out until like June, right?

01:19:55   - June, yep.

01:19:56   - Yeah.

01:19:56   - I did see something, like a few people,

01:19:58   so I think it's pretty funny.

01:20:00   Like so many of these features are coming out June,

01:20:02   like in June, like three months before the school year ends.

01:20:04   Like it's like, okay.

01:20:05   - Well, I mean, that's the point is that

01:20:08   it's not for the school year,

01:20:10   it's for the buying for next school year.

01:20:12   The buying cycle for the school starts

01:20:13   at the end of the previous school year,

01:20:16   because they're planning for the summer

01:20:18   to roll things out and have them in the schools for the fall.

01:20:21   So this is actually a good time for something like this.

01:20:24   - So that is it for this week's episode.

01:20:27   Jason, congratulations on your draft victory.

01:20:31   - Oh, thank you, thank you.

01:20:32   I'd forgotten all about that, but thank you for reminding me.

01:20:34   Yes, it was not my best effort,

01:20:37   but we did just enough to win.

01:20:38   - I want to extend our thanks to Alex Cox

01:20:43   for being the producer of this episode

01:20:45   and also providing Jason with an incredible environment in which he could record this

01:20:50   episode. Thank you, Alex.

01:20:51   Of course, always.

01:20:53   You can find Alex at DubaiFriday.com and at Relay.fm/Roboism.

01:20:58   They are two of Alex's wonderful podcasts that you should go and listen to both of them

01:21:02   because they're both great in equal ways, but different ways.

01:21:06   And I love both of those shows dearly.

01:21:07   So you should go and check those out.

01:21:08   And Alex is Alex Cox, A-L-E-X-C-O-X on Twitter.

01:21:13   if you need to get her some of those crayons that she so desperately needs. I think Alex

01:21:19   is willing to do a bulk purchase order requisition, if that's something that you need for your

01:21:25   school. I believe that she's willing to take a thousand, was what I heard of those, right?

01:21:29   About that amount, yeah.

01:21:30   Okay, about a thousand. You could just back up a truck to her apartment and she'll just

01:21:35   scoop them all in. If you want to find our show notes for today's episode, you can go

01:21:39   to relay.fm/upgrades/186. Don't forget that Relay FM is going to be doing a live show

01:21:46   at AUGQH-CONF on June the 6th as part of WWDC. You can go to augqh-conf.com to get tickets

01:21:53   right now. These are selling out pretty quickly. I know that a lot of people will now know

01:21:59   they're going to be in WWDC because the lottery winners and results have been announced. It's

01:22:06   It's so hilarious and winners of the ability to pay $1500 to go to a conference.

01:22:12   But if you are going to be at WWDC and you don't yet have a ticket to our show or to

01:22:17   ATP, you need to go and get one of those because they're selling out and we want to see you

01:22:23   there.

01:22:24   I will be there, Jason will be there, many relay FM hosts will be there to entertain

01:22:28   you for an afternoon and evening.

01:22:31   Jason writes at 6colors.com. I'm sure you'll be able to find a lot more post-event analysis

01:22:37   over at 6colors.com. Jason is also @JSNEL, J-S-N-E-double L on Twitter. I am @IMyke, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:22:44   Thanks again to Anchor, Mac Wilden, and Simple Contacts for their support of this show,

01:22:49   and we'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.

01:22:53   Goodbye, everybody.

01:22:57   [ Music ]

01:23:03   [ Silence ]