Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 161. Today's show is brought to you by

00:00:15 ◼   ► Squarespace, Away, and Timing. My name is Myke Hurley, I am joined by the wonderful Mr. Jason

00:00:21 ◼   ► Snell. Ciao, Jason Snell.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Hello, wonderful Myke Hurley. How are you?

00:00:26 ◼   ► I'm very well, how are you?

00:00:28 ◼   ► Pretty good, pretty good, you know, it's getting toward fall and that brings my thoughts to

00:00:35 ◼   ► things like Thanksgiving and turkeys and dinners and other things that'll have to be made.

00:00:40 ◼   ► Well this is good, because whilst nobody cares about that, well maybe some people do, but

00:00:45 ◼   ► I don't want to cast aspersions upon people's feelings of Thanksgiving, so you really set

00:00:49 ◼   ► me up for it.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Usually you team me up for a really good one, but today I couldn't be so excited because

00:00:54 ◼   ► I didn't want to say that nobody cared about a big American holiday.

00:00:56 ◼   ► But we have #SnellTalk and today's SnellTalk question comes from Gary and Gary's question

00:01:03 ◼   ► is kind of related.

00:01:05 ◼   ► Gary wants to know, "What is the best gravy flavor, Jason?"

00:01:13 ◼   ► Why did you pick this question, Myke?

00:01:17 ◼   ► I wondered what the best gravy flavor would be, you know?

00:01:21 ◼   ► Gravy flavor.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Gravy flavor.

00:01:23 ◼   ► Gravy flavor.

00:01:24 ◼   ► It's fun to say.

00:01:25 ◼   ► The answer, you want to know my answer? Like my legitimate answer when I saw this? I squinted

00:01:32 ◼   ► at the screen and I went, gravy.

00:01:34 ◼   ► Perfect. Well, I mean there's onion gravy, there's sausage gravy, you know?

00:01:39 ◼   ► I suppose.

00:01:40 ◼   ► So what is gravy to you? What's gravy to you, Jason?

00:01:45 ◼   ► I don't want to turn this into robot or not now. I don't know, gravy is kind of a thick

00:01:52 ◼   ► brown kind of liquid that is put on mashed potatoes or biscuits or other things that's

00:02:00 ◼   ► hearty and it's made from flour and maybe some sort of meat juices of some kind but

00:02:06 ◼   ► not necessarily. But I don't know, I mean, yeah, my mom used to make a ham gravy that

00:02:11 ◼   ► was sort of sweeter. There were turkey gravies and all that. I don't know. I don't, I think

00:02:17 ◼   ► Gary the answer is that I don't have an opinion about gravy flavor, gravy flavor, gravy flavor.

00:02:22 ◼   ► It's just gravy.

00:02:24 ◼   ► I like sausage gravy and onion gravy.

00:02:26 ◼   ► They're my favorite gravies.

00:02:28 ◼   ► I don't know if I've had onion gravy.

00:02:30 ◼   ► Isn't that just gravy with onions in?

00:02:33 ◼   ► Well, it's a gravy that you make using on--

00:02:35 ◼   ► this is-- we're not a cooking show,

00:02:39 ◼   ► but there's many flavors.

00:02:40 ◼   ► Thank goodness for that.

00:02:41 ◼   ► There's many gravy flavors.

00:02:43 ◼   ► Sorry, Gary, for the--

00:02:45 ◼   ► Sorry, Gary, gravy flavor.

00:02:47 ◼   ► If you want to send in a #SnailTalk question

00:02:50 ◼   ► to maybe get a better answer than what poor Gary did. Just send us a tweet with the hashtag

00:02:56 ◼   ► SnellTalk and it will go into a big list that I can pick from. Sometimes I pick questions

00:03:00 ◼   ► that Jason doesn't want to answer. Sorry, Gary. Today's follow-up section begins with

00:03:06 ◼   ► just a note about a watch app. Shazam. You familiar with Shazam? This is the application.

00:03:13 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure everybody knows by now. It identifies music. You can have your phone

00:03:19 ◼   ► or whatever device you have Shazam on, listen and it will listen to the song and identify

00:03:24 ◼   ► the song for you. It's really cool. Siri can do this too but Shazam I have found in my

00:03:29 ◼   ► tests to be better at picking this stuff out. They have redesigned their Apple Watch app

00:03:34 ◼   ► so now it no longer needs the phone. What it would do before would be like trigger a

00:03:38 ◼   ► background process on the phone which would help identify the song. It doesn't need that

00:03:44 ◼   ► anymore because the Shazam app is fully independent. So now you can open the watch app, you ask

00:03:51 ◼   ► it to listen, you can even put your arm down and it will give you a haptic when the song

00:03:55 ◼   ► has been identified. Because previously as well, like with a lot of watch apps, for it

00:03:58 ◼   ► to be running you had to have the screen on but now you don't necessarily need to do that

00:04:02 ◼   ► and the Shazam app has done this. The reason I bring in all this up is because the Shazam

00:04:06 ◼   ► app, now that it's fully independent, works over LTE. So we were talking about this last

00:04:12 ◼   ► week about applications that can be updated, what can they do? Well, Shazam has done that.

00:04:17 ◼   ► So now you can use the Shazam app whether you have a connection or not. And this is

00:04:22 ◼   ► just an example I guess of a big application moving to support all of the stuff that has

00:04:28 ◼   ► been available in watchOS for a while but nobody's really taken advantage of because

00:04:31 ◼   ► there wasn't much of a reason to. But now the LTE watch is here and it doesn't need

00:04:35 ◼   ► to be attached to the phone, you can get these benefits. So I thought that was really cool,

00:04:39 ◼   ► This is an example of a good watch app supporting LTE stuff.

00:04:43 ◼   ► Yeah, it's important.

00:04:45 ◼   ► We had a couple people write in about how their concern is like they rely on a feature

00:04:54 ◼   ► that is basically like a synced notification, you know, a linked notification from the phone.

00:05:01 ◼   ► And this is definitely one of these areas where the Apple Watch is needing to evolve

00:05:07 ◼   ► because what you need with a cellular Apple Watch

00:05:10 ◼   ► is independence.

00:05:11 ◼   ► You need the apps on it to work independently.

00:05:15 ◼   ► Although I did have a thought,

00:05:16 ◼   ► which is Apple could use iCloud

00:05:19 ◼   ► to distribute notifications across all devices,

00:05:22 ◼   ► in fact, 'cause you do get your notifications

00:05:24 ◼   ► on other devices.

00:05:24 ◼   ► So some of your notifications from your iPhone

00:05:27 ◼   ► could also go to your Apple Watch

00:05:28 ◼   ► even when they're not together,

00:05:29 ◼   ► because that is the case when your phone

00:05:31 ◼   ► and your iPad are not together.

00:05:34 ◼   ► They can get the same notifications.

00:05:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I feel like I'd be in a weird middle state

00:05:37 ◼   ► with that though.

00:05:38 ◼   ► Like I would maybe wanna do something and can't,

00:05:41 ◼   ► you know, et cetera, et cetera.

00:05:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly right.

00:05:45 ◼   ► But it's just, it shows you the adolescence of this.

00:05:47 ◼   ► It goes back to what we said last week,

00:05:48 ◼   ► which is Apple Watch hardware has outpaced the software

00:05:52 ◼   ► and now the software has to catch up.

00:05:53 ◼   ► And that's not just the third party apps,

00:05:56 ◼   ► because as we know from hearing from some app developers

00:05:58 ◼   ► and listening to Marco Arment talk about his issues

00:06:00 ◼   ► with Overcast, that there are places where watchOS

00:06:04 ◼   ► just doesn't really provide a lot of power

00:06:06 ◼   ► that they're accustomed to from iPhone development.

00:06:09 ◼   ► And so this is a case where Apple's hardware people

00:06:11 ◼   ► have really pushed the hardware with the Apple Watch,

00:06:14 ◼   ► which is great, but the software is now needing to catch up.

00:06:17 ◼   ► And hopefully, I think we'll see more apps take advantage

00:06:21 ◼   ► of this as much as they possibly can this year,

00:06:23 ◼   ► but it also sounds like that there's gonna need

00:06:27 ◼   ► to be some advancements in watchOS

00:06:28 ◼   ► to really enable the app developers to take it even further.

00:06:32 ◼   ► And that unfortunately will probably be next year.

00:06:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I went swimming a couple of days ago

00:06:40 ◼   ► and it was nice to have my watch on to track my swimming.

00:06:44 ◼   ► I love that, one of my favorite features

00:06:45 ◼   ► that came with the previous watch

00:06:47 ◼   ► that it can do swimming tracking.

00:06:49 ◼   ► But it was nice because I was in the pool

00:06:51 ◼   ► and my phone was locked away

00:06:52 ◼   ► and I was still getting like iMessage stuff.

00:06:54 ◼   ► And if I take a break from swimming for a few minutes,

00:06:56 ◼   ► I could respond to some messages by speaking into my watch.

00:06:58 ◼   ► It was pretty good.

00:06:59 ◼   ► Like I liked it a lot

00:07:01 ◼   ► and I hope that more and more and more stuff happens

00:07:03 ◼   ► with this, so yeah.

00:07:05 ◼   ► I'm seeing in the chat room people saying

00:07:07 ◼   ► that the Siri integration, you know,

00:07:09 ◼   ► when you say, "Hey Siri, what is this?"

00:07:11 ◼   ► They're apparently using Shazam servers.

00:07:13 ◼   ► That's great, but you know,

00:07:15 ◼   ► I don't know if the watch can do it,

00:07:17 ◼   ► I don't know how well the watch does it,

00:07:18 ◼   ► and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:07:20 ◼   ► - I've never gotten that feature to work reliably.

00:07:23 ◼   ► - There you go, so what are you gonna do?

00:07:24 ◼   ► - So through Siri, yeah.

00:07:27 ◼   ► - I've heard this as well, I mean,

00:07:28 ◼   ► I don't try it a bunch myself,

00:07:30 ◼   ► but I've heard people say that the Siri integration

00:07:32 ◼   ► isn't as good, even though it's using Shazam's information

00:07:34 ◼   ► somewhere, it maybe isn't as optimized.

00:07:36 ◼   ► - We have a really quick bit of follow up.

00:07:39 ◼   ► We were talking about cases and Qi charging,

00:07:44 ◼   ► and there was, I think, an ask upgrade about old cases

00:07:48 ◼   ► and charging and things like that.

00:07:50 ◼   ► And we heard from a few people,

00:07:51 ◼   ► it sounds like we heard from a few people

00:07:52 ◼   ► who actually work in Apple stores,

00:07:54 ◼   ► who said, as far as they know,

00:07:56 ◼   ► the old cases work just fine.

00:07:58 ◼   ► we had somebody who has an old case and put it on their iPhone 8 and was able to charge

00:08:04 ◼   ► just fine through the case. So I think, you know, we don't want to say it absolutely will

00:08:08 ◼   ► in all circumstances that all of your iPhone 7 or 6 cases will work if you lay it on a

00:08:15 ◼   ► Qi charger, but I think it was worth mentioning because we had somebody who said that, who

00:08:20 ◼   ► reported that they were told that they wouldn't work and that seems to not necessarily be

00:08:25 ◼   ► Last week I mentioned during the Myke at the Movies segment that there was some stand-alone

00:08:31 ◼   ► Myke at the Movies planned for the rest of this year and yesterday we released one of

00:08:35 ◼   ► those. Me and John Siracusa watched both Kill Bill volume 1 and volume 2 and discussed those.

00:08:42 ◼   ► So you can find that at the incomparable.com/mike but of course there will be a link in the show

00:08:48 ◼   ► notes. As we said there are some stand-alone Myke at the Movies and this is one of them so you can

00:08:53 ◼   ► and go and take a listen to that if you want.

00:08:56 ◼   ► No spoilers for how I felt about the movies

00:08:58 ◼   ► or why they were picked,

00:09:00 ◼   ► but I think it's worth listening to

00:09:01 ◼   ► just to hear the rules that I had from John,

00:09:05 ◼   ► which were fantastic.

00:09:06 ◼   ► Actually really great, like he gave me some guidelines

00:09:08 ◼   ► about how I should watch and when and why,

00:09:09 ◼   ► et cetera, et cetera.

00:09:11 ◼   ► And I actually really, really enjoyed our discussion

00:09:13 ◼   ► about these movies.

00:09:15 ◼   ► We had a, I think it came out really well,

00:09:16 ◼   ► so you can go check that out.

00:09:18 ◼   ► And in case you're wondering,

00:09:19 ◼   ► no, it's not longer than the two movies combined.

00:09:21 ◼   ► It's like an hour long.

00:09:22 ◼   ► So we didn't hit the John Siracusa trait of longer than the movie because I wasn't going

00:09:27 ◼   ► to allow that to happen because we're not going to talk for six hours.

00:09:30 ◼   ► >> BRIAN KARDELL being instructed on how to consume particular kind of media.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Welcome to my, by John Siracusa.

00:09:35 ◼   ► >> MATT PORTER Oh, really?

00:09:36 ◼   ► Does he do this for you too?

00:09:38 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:09:39 ◼   ► >> BRIAN KARDELL Oh, whenever we do, whenever we do, like,

00:09:42 ◼   ► anime or miyazaki or like things where Professor Siracusa is assigning us the work, he will

00:09:50 ◼   ► instruct us on what we, how we need to watch those things or at least give a strong opinion.

00:09:55 ◼   ► So...

00:09:56 ◼   ► Geoff - Now I followed the rules. I followed the Sir Gucci rules and I think they enhanced

00:09:59 ◼   ► the experience.

00:10:00 ◼   ► Myke - As you should.

00:10:01 ◼   ► Geoff - Yeah, I recommend going to listen to this. It was a great discussion. And so,

00:10:05 ◼   ► yeah, go check it out. I'll put a link in the show notes.

00:10:08 ◼   ► Myke - Yeah, that's great. And that feed is fun for if you don't regularly listen or you

00:10:12 ◼   ► don't always have time for the segments that we do here and that you do with Casey on analog.

00:10:16 ◼   ► That's a fun feed too because it just collects them all. So when you're in the mood to listen

00:10:19 ◼   ► to Myke talking about movies and TV shows and things. It's all in one place. That's

00:10:23 ◼   ► why it exists.

00:10:25 ◼   ► So Jason, can you tell me some defining features of Twitter?

00:10:33 ◼   ► Well let's see, so you have each post is 140 characters.

00:10:39 ◼   ► Wrong! As of a few days ago, Twitter doubled the character limit for tweets to 280 characters

00:10:48 ◼   ► in a bunch of regions depending on the language. One of these languages that they have adapted

00:10:54 ◼   ► this for is English. So if you're in the United States or the United Kingdom or any other

00:11:00 ◼   ► English speaking country and you have your language set to English on Twitter, you may

00:11:05 ◼   ► be part of a potential test/roll out/I think it's actually happening but they're calling

00:11:10 ◼   ► it a test for some reason and be enabled for 280 characters available to tweet. Now I still

00:11:17 ◼   ► have 140 characters, which is weird because I don't want 280 characters, but I also don't

00:11:24 ◼   ► want to be the guy who doesn't have it, right? I'm in this kind of weird sense right now

00:11:29 ◼   ► where like I don't necessarily want to have 280 characters at my disposal, but I don't

00:11:35 ◼   ► have it and I'm like, "Well, why don't I have it? I feel like I should have it. Everybody

00:11:38 ◼   ► else is getting it." But that's kind of where I am.

00:11:41 ◼   ► Yeah, it's that moment where you see a long tweet and you're like, "What, that jerk has

00:11:44 ◼   ► 280 characters and I don't?"

00:11:46 ◼   ► - Not me.

00:11:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:11:49 ◼   ► I assume you only have 140 characters.

00:11:51 ◼   ► - Why don't I have 280 characters?

00:11:53 ◼   ► What's wrong with me?

00:11:55 ◼   ► Why didn't they want me?

00:11:58 ◼   ► - So are you still in the 140 Club?

00:12:01 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:12:02 ◼   ► - This is weird.

00:12:04 ◼   ► - #140Club.

00:12:05 ◼   ► - #140Club, 140 forever baby.

00:12:07 ◼   ► I'm seeing these tweets in my timeline.

00:12:11 ◼   ► I used Tweetbot, I assume you're seeing them the same.

00:12:14 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:12:15 ◼   ► It looks weird, right? Like it looks really peculiar to see these tweets.

00:12:20 ◼   ► Yeah, they're very long. They're so long. It seems wrong.

00:12:25 ◼   ► I know what Twitter is saying. Like I've read their blog posts. You can go and read the

00:12:29 ◼   ► blog post. And you know, it's the idea of like people want to be able to express themselves

00:12:34 ◼   ► and I'm sure they're trying to curb some of the tweet storming type stuff and/or the screen

00:12:39 ◼   ► shotting, right? People posting screenshots. Like I think Twitter want that to be text.

00:12:43 ◼   ► want it to be there.

00:12:44 ◼   ► Right, those 30 tweet long threads will now be 15 tweets long instead I guess?

00:12:50 ◼   ► I would assume that they've done some data analysis and have worked out that by increasing

00:12:56 ◼   ► it to 280 there will curb a lot of what's required.

00:12:59 ◼   ► People instead of posting three tweets might post one now because they can get it all in

00:13:04 ◼   ► if they just squeeze it into what would be 280 characters.

00:13:07 ◼   ► You catch one, you catch two, maybe three, and maybe it stops people from doing that,

00:13:13 ◼   ► and/or stops people from having to post these screenshots of the notep.

00:13:17 ◼   ► >> I think that's a good one.

00:13:18 ◼   ► The argument, and Gruber made it again this week, we've had this discussion before about

00:13:22 ◼   ► that Twitter could just create a text attachment type, where you can just, your 140-character

00:13:28 ◼   ► tweet introduces it, and then you have a text attachment that's readable, and it's accessible

00:13:32 ◼   ► in a way that a screenshot isn't.

00:13:35 ◼   ► they chose not to do that. But we see this, I actually wrote a piece about it, like how

00:13:39 ◼   ► everybody takes a screenshot of the Notes app with text in it and posts that to Twitter

00:13:43 ◼   ► or Instagram or Facebook because they don't have enough text in Twitter in order to get

00:13:49 ◼   ► it out there. So this is better, and maybe it will cut down on using the Notes app, but

00:13:56 ◼   ► it's still in this interim place where it's not like unlimited nor is it super limited.

00:14:03 ◼   ► just a little bit less limited, which is kind of strange. I mean, I think it's okay. I think

00:14:10 ◼   ► a lot of the criticism I've seen has been more meta Twitter criticism, which is Twitter

00:14:15 ◼   ► has lots of problems with harassment on their platform and with awful people and also bots

00:14:20 ◼   ► that are trying to manipulate public opinion on their platform. And so when they announce

00:14:26 ◼   ► this, everybody says, "Why are you rolling out a new feature that is not addressing the

00:14:31 ◼   ► the problems on your platform and their answer is well we're also addressing

00:14:34 ◼   ► those and people don't believe them and they get angry and I think maybe

00:14:37 ◼   ► rightfully so but if they are doing stuff for that they definitely don't

00:14:41 ◼   ► make as big a song or dance about it as they did this right like if they're

00:14:44 ◼   ► doing things they don't talk about them that's because this is easy I mean this

00:14:49 ◼   ► is this is something that Twitter just needs to want to change the other stuff

00:14:54 ◼   ► is hard so they of course they make a press release about this and a blog post

00:14:59 ◼   ► and all of that. But yeah, it has the potential to change the platform and not necessarily

00:15:04 ◼   ► for the better, not necessarily for the worse, but I do think that some level of outrage

00:15:09 ◼   ► about this was inevitable because it's changed and that's just, people are going to be outraged

00:15:13 ◼   ► about it. In the end, I would wager that most tweets are not going to break the 140 barrier

00:15:20 ◼   ► because most of them probably don't get close now, but that it will cut down on threads,

00:15:25 ◼   ► which I think are annoying. Now we could argue again that Twitter could do a better job with

00:15:32 ◼   ► addressing the need that people have by making these giant Twitter threads, that they could

00:15:36 ◼   ► do something else because again, a 10-tweet thread does not get solved by going to 280

00:15:43 ◼   ► characters. It doesn't. It makes it a 5-tweet thread, maybe. But that's it.

00:15:47 ◼   ► So I would say I am definitely in the camp of, I don't want text attachments to tweets.

00:15:54 ◼   ► I don't want it because then it becomes like a recess reader.

00:15:58 ◼   ► It's a blogging platform at that point.

00:16:01 ◼   ► Because the thing is with threading and with threads which I also do find frustrating sometimes

00:16:06 ◼   ► because of the way Twitter works.

00:16:08 ◼   ► I'm reading this conversation, it's like it's upside down.

00:16:13 ◼   ► I'd rather have a feature that addresses threads, right?

00:16:16 ◼   ► That let's somebody make 20 Twitter posts that are all interlinked and that are collapsed

00:16:21 ◼   ► by default to a single one and then the API and the web interface and all that lets you

00:16:27 ◼   ► open it up and see all of those and some threads in some clients, in some instances, on some

00:16:35 ◼   ► platforms you can do that now. The problem is that if you're following somebody who's

00:16:39 ◼   ► doing a tweet thread you don't see tweet one and a click to see the whole thread. You see

00:16:44 ◼   ► all the tweets and it fills your timeline.

00:16:47 ◼   ► even with doing that, you're still gonna be back into square one of making it a blogging platform, right?

00:16:53 ◼   ► Like as soon as you take away the thing from someone of like, "hmm, maybe I shouldn't spam a timeline," right?

00:16:59 ◼   ► Then people try and cut it down, I think?

00:17:01 ◼   ► Maybe so, I mean, I think the challenge though is what do the users want?

00:17:05 ◼   ► Obviously the users want to post this stuff, and they're going to find a way to do it.

00:17:08 ◼   ► And if you're the platform owner, you don't want to distort what your platform is,

00:17:12 ◼   ► but at the same time you don't want to, ideally you want to address the motivation behind

00:17:17 ◼   ► why users have behaved this way. The thread thing is still out there because I don't think

00:17:23 ◼   ► 280 makes much of a difference for it.

00:17:25 ◼   ► >> No, I mean I will say for my own personal usage, 280 will be beneficial for some things

00:17:31 ◼   ► that I do. I find that very frequently I'm either perfectly fine or I need two tweets.

00:17:38 ◼   ► whatever it is I need it's either one or two that's all I ever need but this

00:17:43 ◼   ► happens to me a lot like if I'm announcing a new thing or like we've got

00:17:47 ◼   ► a big episode or something I want to promote it's always like 150 is the

00:17:53 ◼   ► exact minimum that I can post and it's always so frustrating so being able to

00:17:57 ◼   ► go to 280 will help me a lot in that but I don't want to become more verbose and

00:18:04 ◼   ► and I don't necessarily feel that everybody else needs to because I'll be frank, most

00:18:10 ◼   ► of the tweets that I've seen that are 280 characters don't need to be. But people now

00:18:14 ◼   ► have the space to do it. Part of the reason that has made this platform great is that

00:18:19 ◼   ► it's short and it's quippy. And of course, yes, it's getting broken by the fact that

00:18:24 ◼   ► people are posting just like 60 tweets in a row to talk about a thing. Basically that

00:18:30 ◼   ► content just shouldn't be there but it's what people want to do. That content should

00:18:34 ◼   ► exist in the place that content should exist which is on a blog like that's where that should be but

00:18:39 ◼   ► people don't want to do that and if people don't want to do that you can't stop them

00:18:41 ◼   ► but i don't i don't i mean i can see the situation that twitter are in is like how do you fix this

00:18:47 ◼   ► for some reason they've done this i don't know if they needed to do that i don't know if this

00:18:51 ◼   ► is going to help them as you said because all it does is just half it but like it still is going

00:18:54 ◼   ► to occupy the exact same amount of space on a screen but this is the the route that they've

00:18:59 ◼   ► chosen to go down and it just looks weird it just looks weird and i don't know if this is

00:19:04 ◼   ► is gonna help the platform in any meaningful way, right?

00:19:08 ◼   ► I can't imagine that people are gonna be like,

00:19:10 ◼   ► "Well, now I'll sign up."

00:19:12 ◼   ► Like, you know, it's a strange, it's a strange thing.

00:19:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is weird.

00:19:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I have the same thing as you,

00:19:19 ◼   ► which is I have accounts, like I find this more relevant

00:19:22 ◼   ► for something like my, for the incomparable Twitter account,

00:19:26 ◼   ► where I like to list, I like to mention everybody

00:19:28 ◼   ► who's in an episode and I have panels of many people.

00:19:31 ◼   ► And once you do that, you've run out of space

00:19:34 ◼   ► to describe what the episode's about.

00:19:36 ◼   ► It's like new with these people, link, and then you're done.

00:19:40 ◼   ► And then I'll have a little more time to like,

00:19:42 ◼   ► a little more space to explain that a little bit further.

00:19:45 ◼   ► That'll be fine when that happens,

00:19:46 ◼   ► when I get 280 on that account.

00:19:49 ◼   ► But, you know, I don't know.

00:19:51 ◼   ► It does seem weird.

00:19:53 ◼   ► I don't think it's fundamentally good or bad.

00:19:57 ◼   ► And I think that it could just be fine.

00:19:59 ◼   ► The problem that I have with it is very much the problem.

00:20:02 ◼   ► It's some of the stuff you've mentioned

00:20:04 ◼   ► and that I mentioned earlier,

00:20:05 ◼   ► which is it has a little bit

00:20:07 ◼   ► of a rearranging deck chairs feel about it.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Like of all the things happening on the platform of Twitter,

00:20:13 ◼   ► this is what you choose to do.

00:20:17 ◼   ► And I know maybe that you choose to do it because it's easy,

00:20:21 ◼   ► but this seems like not where your focus should be

00:20:26 ◼   ► when you've got challenges of reaching new audiences

00:20:29 ◼   ► and challenges of harassment and potentially counter, you know, anti-cultural attacks by

00:20:39 ◼   ► bots run by governments trying to stir up unrest in other countries. There are lots

00:20:50 ◼   ► of things going on that are not the length of a tweet. So that's my issue with it. I

00:20:58 ◼   ► I think fundamentally it's not necessarily a bad move, it's just like, seems like a beside

00:21:04 ◼   ► the point move.

00:21:05 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like Twitter, if you want to implement a feature that people might like, edits.

00:21:09 ◼   ► This is, you know, whether you want that or not, I think there is a more of a user desire

00:21:15 ◼   ► for tweet editing than double the length tweets.

00:21:20 ◼   ► Sure.

00:21:21 ◼   ► It can work, I'm sure that's a very difficult thing to try and work out, but that would

00:21:25 ◼   ► maybe be met with a little bit more praise from your users than doubling.

00:21:30 ◼   ► There are issues with edits, like you'd need to show the edit trail and you'd need

00:21:33 ◼   ► to limit when the edits happen.

00:21:35 ◼   ► It's a hard problem, yeah. But that would, you know, work that out. Do a basic version

00:21:39 ◼   ► of that. Whatever it would be, that's going to be met with, if you want good PR for this

00:21:45 ◼   ► stuff on a wider scale, that's going to be met with more hurrahs. I mean, yes, of course,

00:21:50 ◼   ► way to make the incredibly difficult problem of the harassment stuff better.

00:21:55 ◼   ► Right, like I don't know I don't know how you do that, right, like I have no answers

00:21:58 ◼   ► for you. There are lots of people that have lots of great ideas. Listen to those

00:22:02 ◼   ► people, right, there are things you can do but you know I'm sure the reason that a

00:22:06 ◼   ► lot of that stuff doesn't get done is because there are accounts that are active

00:22:09 ◼   ► but this is a whole big issue for another time maybe. Yeah. Want to get rid of those

00:22:14 ◼   ► monthly active users, Jason? No, no. I don't want to do that. No, why would you want to do that?

00:22:20 ◼   ► Exactly. Today's show is brought to you by our friends at Away. Away are a team of really

00:22:26 ◼   ► bright folk. They are thinkers, they are seekers, they are designers and that's why they've

00:22:30 ◼   ► been able to make smart premium suitcases for under $300. So your luggage doesn't have

00:22:35 ◼   ► to cost more than your plane ticket. That's what Away are all about and they give you

00:22:39 ◼   ► really smart features like a battery. I know that's something that I need when I travel.

00:22:44 ◼   ► I always need more battery power and that's why both of Away's carry-ons feature a battery

00:22:49 ◼   ► inside. They feature USB ports you can just plug your devices straight in. You can charge

00:22:54 ◼   ► your phone up to 5 times from a single charge of the battery inside the Away carry on case.

00:22:59 ◼   ► Go to awaytravel.com/upgradepodcast and you will be able to browse their suitcases. They

00:23:04 ◼   ► are all made with premium German polycarbonate which is unrivalled in strength and impact

00:23:08 ◼   ► resistance whilst remaining lightweight. They have the carry on, the bigger carry on, the

00:23:12 ◼   ► medium and the large size with 9 great colours for you to choose from at their great presses.

00:23:17 ◼   ► All other ways suitcases feature four 360 degree spinner wheels which I find great when

00:23:22 ◼   ► moving through an airport.

00:23:23 ◼   ► I love to be able to push rather than pull.

00:23:26 ◼   ► I love the flexibility that the four wheels gives me because I can choose to maneuver

00:23:30 ◼   ► my case in whatever way I want depending on how heavy it is.

00:23:33 ◼   ► They also have a patent pending compression system inside which is great if you're an

00:23:36 ◼   ► over packer and a removable washable laundry bag so you can separate your clean clothes

00:23:41 ◼   ► from your worn ones which is genius.

00:23:43 ◼   ► I absolutely love this feature as well.

00:23:45 ◼   ► Just so when you get to a hotel, you just take out the little bag.

00:23:48 ◼   ► That's where all the dirty clothes go.

00:23:50 ◼   ► And then you just put it in the suitcase, all zipped up when you're done, take it home,

00:23:53 ◼   ► empty it into the washing basket.

00:23:54 ◼   ► Job done.

00:23:55 ◼   ► Love it.

00:23:56 ◼   ► They're all of their carry-ons are compliant with major US airline sizes and they have TSA

00:24:01 ◼   ► combination locks built right in.

00:24:03 ◼   ► Travel smarter with the suitcase that charges your phone.

00:24:06 ◼   ► To find out more about Away, go to awaytravel.com/upgradepodcast and use the code

00:24:12 ◼   ► Upgrade Podcast, one word, at checkout and you'll get $20 off their suitcases.

00:24:17 ◼   ► Any of them in fact.

00:24:18 ◼   ► Go to awaytravel.com/upgradepodcastcode, Upgrade Podcast for $20 off.

00:24:23 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Away for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:24:27 ◼   ► I'll be packing my Away suitcase later today.

00:24:32 ◼   ► Apple have published a white paper for Face ID.

00:24:35 ◼   ► I think this is something that they promised to do on stage, I believe, or at least during

00:24:39 ◼   ► the introduction stuff, they said that they would have a security white paper out, which

00:24:42 ◼   ► is out. And it also came alongside a revamped privacy page that Apple put together at apple.com/privacy,

00:24:50 ◼   ► which talks about the way that Apple feel about privacy. I want to talk about some tidbits,

00:24:54 ◼   ► some little pieces of information about Face ID that could be pulled out of this white

00:24:58 ◼   ► paper. One of them, this is something that we'd heard about, but like just an implicit

00:25:03 ◼   ► confirmation from Apple that developers don't have to make any changes to their apps to

00:25:08 ◼   ► use face ID where touch ID was used. If you use touch ID then it was fine, right?

00:25:14 ◼   ► But then if you now you can open an application and instead of a touch ID

00:25:19 ◼   ► thing you're shown a face ID thing. So you can show your face.

00:25:22 ◼   ► That's standard security. It's nice because this is the idea of planning

00:25:27 ◼   ► ahead and saying look we're gonna have a biometric authentication system and you

00:25:31 ◼   ► hook into it this way and then you as an app walk away and let the system verify

00:25:36 ◼   ► and then it'll come back and say, "Yep, that is that person."

00:25:40 ◼   ► And so if you're 1Password, you know,

00:25:42 ◼   ► and you're unlocking your vault with a thumbprint,

00:25:46 ◼   ► now guess what?

00:25:48 ◼   ► It'll unlock with a face ID, and it's all the same to you,

00:25:51 ◼   ► 'cause it's just biometric validation.

00:25:53 ◼   ► That's very cool.

00:25:54 ◼   ► - So it's a great thing for developers

00:25:56 ◼   ► that they don't have to do anything, right?

00:25:57 ◼   ► Like you already did the hard work.

00:25:59 ◼   ► - Isn't that the best?

00:26:00 ◼   ► Because that suggests that everything that's underlying,

00:26:03 ◼   ► When something is really built with a good foundation,

00:26:07 ◼   ► Apple can change parts of the underlying system

00:26:13 ◼   ► and apps just work right with the new whatever it is

00:26:16 ◼   ► that's changed, new hardware of some sort,

00:26:19 ◼   ► new approach to software, like that's always the best, right?

00:26:24 ◼   ► If the developers don't have to do anything

00:26:27 ◼   ► and it just works, that doesn't always happen,

00:26:30 ◼   ► but this is an instance where Apple should be able

00:26:32 ◼   ► to literally just swap in face ID for touch ID and nobody should be the wiser in terms

00:26:38 ◼   ► of software development.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Every time you unlock an iPhone X, face ID takes data of the face in front of it. Now,

00:26:47 ◼   ► this is either a face ID scan, so it's accurately identified via face ID scan, or if you try

00:26:54 ◼   ► and scan and it doesn't work, or if you unlock and then you unlock your phone with a pin,

00:26:58 ◼   ► it will take that information because it will believe at that point that if you have unlocked

00:27:04 ◼   ► it and it looks at your face and has a particular rate that it believes it might not be you

00:27:09 ◼   ► but isn't like enough for them to unlock it, right, like it's hitting within some certain

00:27:13 ◼   ► parameters, it will take that data and update the profile it has of you and it does that

00:27:17 ◼   ► every time the phone is unlocked. And this is how Apple builds the way that your face

00:27:22 ◼   ► changes over time.

00:27:24 ◼   ► - Right, it's clever too because they're doing it

00:27:26 ◼   ► within a range where like if I have,

00:27:29 ◼   ► so my wife and I have our own like passwords

00:27:32 ◼   ► for each other's phones and stuff, right?

00:27:34 ◼   ► And 'cause occasionally you need to unlock

00:27:36 ◼   ► the other person's phone and do something,

00:27:37 ◼   ► they're busy or whatever.

00:27:39 ◼   ► And so what you don't wanna have happen is

00:27:42 ◼   ► Lauren unlocks my phone with a password

00:27:46 ◼   ► and it scans her face and goes, oh, that's who Jason is now.

00:27:50 ◼   ► - Jason had an operation today

00:27:52 ◼   ► and now this is what he looks like.

00:27:54 ◼   ► - He looks very, very different.

00:27:56 ◼   ► And then I come back to my phone and they're like,

00:27:59 ◼   ► "Nope, I don't know who you are

00:28:01 ◼   ► because that lady unlocked your phone."

00:28:03 ◼   ► And so that's who I belong to now, right?

00:28:06 ◼   ► Like it's, I don't even remember who you are.

00:28:10 ◼   ► I'm with the new person now, goodbye.

00:28:12 ◼   ► - Who your face has belonged to us.

00:28:14 ◼   ► - It doesn't do that.

00:28:15 ◼   ► Ideally what you've got is it looks

00:28:17 ◼   ► and it's looking for a high enough percentage

00:28:22 ◼   ► that it thinks, yeah, that probably was you,

00:28:24 ◼   ► but I wasn't sure enough to auto unlock.

00:28:27 ◼   ► And then it uses that as a hint, it learns from that,

00:28:30 ◼   ► and it kinda like puts that into the context that it uses.

00:28:35 ◼   ► And they describe this as being the method

00:28:38 ◼   ► by which they can track differences in facial hair

00:28:41 ◼   ► and makeup for dramatic, I think they said differences

00:28:46 ◼   ► in facial hair and makeup,

00:28:47 ◼   ► and still know what's the same person is.

00:28:49 ◼   ► So if you are, you change your look,

00:28:52 ◼   ► but are still obviously you and you unlock your phone

00:28:55 ◼   ► because it doesn't recognize you with your changed look,

00:28:57 ◼   ► it actually uses that as a cue to update its training

00:29:01 ◼   ► because it knows you look different now.

00:29:03 ◼   ► And that the next time it should actually recognize you,

00:29:06 ◼   ► which is, yeah, this is a nice feature

00:29:09 ◼   ► and it shows you the level of steps and the complexity here

00:29:12 ◼   ► that Apple is going through in terms of

00:29:14 ◼   ► trying to get a user experience that works,

00:29:16 ◼   ► but also have a secure system

00:29:19 ◼   ► because the way that the data is collected is secure.

00:29:24 ◼   ► You didn't mention the infrared dot mapping thing.

00:29:29 ◼   ► The dot pattern is different based on the hardware.

00:29:33 ◼   ► Every phone's dot pattern is different,

00:29:34 ◼   ► so you can't take a dot pattern,

00:29:37 ◼   ► take an infrared camera and measure a dot pattern

00:29:39 ◼   ► on somebody's face from one iPhone

00:29:41 ◼   ► and then use that to spoof another iPhone

00:29:43 ◼   ► because the patterns won't match,

00:29:45 ◼   ► which is really interesting.

00:29:46 ◼   ► And then like the encryption, how they take the data

00:29:49 ◼   ► and it's like, you know, it's signed and encrypted

00:29:53 ◼   ► and then it is thrown away in certain circumstances

00:29:56 ◼   ► after time or on a restart.

00:29:58 ◼   ► And then you have to re-enable it.

00:30:00 ◼   ► Like there's a lot going on here in terms of the details

00:30:03 ◼   ► of how they're securing this data.

00:30:06 ◼   ► And of course the basic misconception

00:30:08 ◼   ► that a bunch of people had when this was announced,

00:30:10 ◼   ► which is, you know, it doesn't leave the phone.

00:30:12 ◼   ► And in fact, it's reduced to a mathematical equation.

00:30:15 ◼   ► It's not even the dots anymore.

00:30:18 ◼   ► It's just a mathematical equation that is,

00:30:23 ◼   ► I think it's very much like cryptography.

00:30:25 ◼   ► It is representing what the measurement was

00:30:28 ◼   ► so that if you take a new measurement,

00:30:30 ◼   ► you can say that it matches,

00:30:31 ◼   ► but it's not the same as having

00:30:33 ◼   ► the original measurements still around.

00:30:35 ◼   ► There's a lot going on here.

00:30:37 ◼   ► - So like there's even an enhancement to ARKit,

00:30:40 ◼   ► which includes facial recognition and mapping onto a face.

00:30:43 ◼   ► You know, like they demoed the Snapchat stuff

00:30:45 ◼   ► and how Animoji does it as well.

00:30:47 ◼   ► But third party applications that use this part of ARKit,

00:30:51 ◼   ► they don't actually get the face data.

00:30:53 ◼   ► Like they don't get it.

00:30:54 ◼   ► So it's all, you know, so even then, right?

00:30:57 ◼   ► So it's not just not Apple, nobody.

00:31:00 ◼   ► Nobody gets that information,

00:31:01 ◼   ► which is again, very cool, very clever.

00:31:04 ◼   ► A big question that a lot of people ask is like,

00:31:06 ◼   ► how will payment authorization work?

00:31:07 ◼   ► Like, do I just look at my phone and the money leaves?

00:31:10 ◼   ► Well, to authorize payments via Apple Pay,

00:31:12 ◼   ► you double click the side button first,

00:31:14 ◼   ► then look at the phone.

00:31:16 ◼   ► So it's a slight change.

00:31:17 ◼   ► So like even if you hold it to a reader,

00:31:19 ◼   ► you still have to do the double click things.

00:31:21 ◼   ► There is a slight change here.

00:31:23 ◼   ► I will say that personally,

00:31:25 ◼   ► I never with Apple Pay hold the device, then authorize.

00:31:28 ◼   ► I always pre-authorize.

00:31:30 ◼   ► Like I double click the home button,

00:31:32 ◼   ► hold my touch ID and then it's ready.

00:31:34 ◼   ► So I'm not going to do it in the line.

00:31:35 ◼   ► And then I just hold the device, right?

00:31:37 ◼   ► Like I never do the waiting thing

00:31:38 ◼   ► 'cause I find that takes too long for me.

00:31:40 ◼   ► It's frustrating. Plus I know I'm going to do the Apple Pay thing. So I do that.

00:31:43 ◼   ► It also seems like, no, they talk about making payments in apps. Now I'm assuming, my read on

00:31:50 ◼   ► this is this applies to both Apple Pay inside of apps and in-app purchases. This is how I read this.

00:31:55 ◼   ► That to make payments in applications, you confirm intent by also doing the double click

00:32:01 ◼   ► of the side button and then the face scan. So all payments are done with a double click and

00:32:06 ◼   ► and a face scan. That's how it works.

00:32:07 ◼   ► This is probably why the side button is so large

00:32:11 ◼   ► on the new device.

00:32:12 ◼   ► It's to make it easier for you to get to

00:32:14 ◼   ► because you're going to be clicking it more, right?

00:32:16 ◼   ► Like, yeah.

00:32:18 ◼   ► - And anybody who's used an Apple Watch

00:32:19 ◼   ► already knows that this is a gesture

00:32:21 ◼   ► that Apple has been using for Apple Pay

00:32:23 ◼   ► because that's how the Apple Watch payment flow goes

00:32:27 ◼   ► is you double tap on the side button and then scan,

00:32:30 ◼   ► you know, and then tap your Apple.

00:32:32 ◼   ► - So it's actually going to feel really natural for me

00:32:34 ◼   ► because I would say 90, 95% of the times that I use Apple Pay,

00:32:39 ◼   ► I use my watch, I don't use my phone.

00:32:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, well, I mean,

00:32:42 ◼   ► and what I was gonna say is to be honest,

00:32:44 ◼   ► this is really interesting, but I'm not sure how much more

00:32:46 ◼   ► I'm going to really use Apple Pay on the device.

00:32:48 ◼   ► Most of the time I'm using Apple Pay on my watch,

00:32:50 ◼   ► but for people who don't have an Apple Watch,

00:32:52 ◼   ► this is the way that you'll pay.

00:32:54 ◼   ► - I care more personally about like,

00:32:56 ◼   ► how do I authorize an App Store purchase, right?

00:32:59 ◼   ► Like how does that work?

00:32:59 ◼   ► And it seems like it's the same thing.

00:33:01 ◼   ► It does the face ID scanning instead of touch ID

00:33:04 ◼   ► for like the confirmation, but to confirm the intent,

00:33:06 ◼   ► you do the double click, which makes sense.

00:33:08 ◼   ► I mean, there are facial gestures they could do,

00:33:11 ◼   ► but I don't wanna do any of those, you know,

00:33:13 ◼   ► like I wanna do the double clicking.

00:33:14 ◼   ► You know, I've heard people say like,

00:33:16 ◼   ► well, if you winked at the phone, I don't wanna do that.

00:33:18 ◼   ► I don't wanna wink at my iPhone.

00:33:20 ◼   ► That's not a thing that I wanna do

00:33:22 ◼   ► to confirm a payment to be made or to be unlocked.

00:33:25 ◼   ► Like I have no desire to do that kind of stuff.

00:33:28 ◼   ► - What if you get something in your eye

00:33:29 ◼   ► and you accidentally, then it's a Seinfeld episode, right?

00:33:32 ◼   ► like I'm just yeah I'm not I'm not willing to do that double click is like a it is a

00:33:36 ◼   ► thing it makes sense to me it is a second level it's like a two-factor right like it's

00:33:41 ◼   ► my face and my thumb doing the job and they do it together.

00:33:44 ◼   ► Isn't that a Seinfeld episode where George gets something in his eye and he everybody

00:33:48 ◼   ► thinks he's winking?

00:33:49 ◼   ► Yep yep but I can't remember the payoff but yeah.

00:33:52 ◼   ► Horrible horrible misconceptions happen because of that yeah so you know you would last thing

00:33:56 ◼   ► you want to do is to do that.

00:33:57 ◼   ► If you're under the age of 13, your facial features may not be distinct enough for FaceID

00:34:03 ◼   ► to work.

00:34:04 ◼   ► Is that interesting?

00:34:05 ◼   ► You're just a… if you're not a teenager, the iPhone just thinks you're an undifferentiated

00:34:10 ◼   ► blob.

00:34:11 ◼   ► Just a blob.

00:34:12 ◼   ► Just a human blob.

00:34:13 ◼   ► Whatever.

00:34:14 ◼   ► Human.

00:34:15 ◼   ► Maybe human.

00:34:16 ◼   ► Maybe even not.

00:34:17 ◼   ► I don't want to speak to the way that people live their lives, but I don't think at this

00:34:21 ◼   ► point a 13-year-old should have one of these phones.

00:34:24 ◼   ► Like I just…

00:34:25 ◼   ► I mean, I'm sure there are going to be many, right?

00:34:27 ◼   ► many, many 13-year-olds in the world that will have an iPhone X.

00:34:30 ◼   ► And in two or three years, even more of them will have them when they're handed down.

00:34:35 ◼   ► So my hope would be, honestly, that Apple can make it better. I mean, I don't know if

00:34:39 ◼   ► it's just a limitation of the technology or they just haven't gotten good enough yet or

00:34:43 ◼   ► if it's purely a 13-year-old or a 12-year-old or an 11-year-old, their face can never be

00:34:48 ◼   ► detected but we'll see about that. My hope would be that they would make it better if

00:34:52 ◼   ► they want to roll it out because it's not like a 9-year-old, "Oh, your fingerprint

00:34:56 ◼   ► isn't distinct enough yet. I'm sure there are going to be many 13 year olds in the world

00:35:07 ◼   ► that are going to be upset when the face ID doesn't work for them.

00:35:18 ◼   ► The one thing I am frustrated about is one face per device. You mentioned this, you and

00:35:23 ◼   ► Lauren share passwords. Me and Adina, we have our thumbs registered on each other's phones.

00:35:28 ◼   ► Your mileage may vary with this, right? Like personally, but that works for me and her. Like,

00:35:33 ◼   ► this is just a thing. We're totally cool with that. I don't have my phone locked because I

00:35:38 ◼   ► don't want her to see it. I have my phone locked in case I drop it on the bus. And again, like,

00:35:42 ◼   ► people's privacy. I'm not saying you're doing something wrong because that's not how it is.

00:35:46 ◼   ► People are private about their stuff in their own way. You know, no judgment, right? This is

00:35:51 ◼   ► a judgment-free zone. But I am frustrated about that, like, that she's gonna need to

00:35:56 ◼   ► put the pin in or whatever, so I'm gonna have to tell her my pin, she's gonna have to remember

00:35:58 ◼   ► the pin, and it's like, ahh. It was way easier when we could just touch ID on the devices.

00:36:04 ◼   ► I've gotta think that at some point this will change, but I wonder if this is a hardware

00:36:09 ◼   ► limitation, like, not the camera, but like, what all they're storing, if it's just too

00:36:15 ◼   ► complex for more faces to be stored or whether it's something that they could update with

00:36:22 ◼   ► software down the road. Because yeah, it would be nice if there were a couple of distinct

00:36:26 ◼   ► faces.

00:36:27 ◼   ► That chip can only take one and then maybe it needs like two chips to add more so they

00:36:31 ◼   ► may never do it, right? Like it may always be now like it's one face per device. It

00:36:37 ◼   ► may be the way it is but I would hope that they're able to change that over time. I

00:36:41 ◼   ► I guess unless you're a twin,

00:36:43 ◼   ► then you could have multiple faces per device, I guess.

00:36:45 ◼   ► Is that how that works?

00:36:47 ◼   ► That's the only way you get more than one face per device,

00:36:49 ◼   ► I guess, is have somebody who has the exact same face as you.

00:36:53 ◼   ► I guess, maybe, I don't know.

00:36:54 ◼   ► But there you go.

00:36:55 ◼   ► That's the Face ID white paper.

00:36:57 ◼   ► Again, this is still on the long road ahead

00:37:01 ◼   ► that we have for this.

00:37:02 ◼   ► We're a month away, month and a bit away,

00:37:04 ◼   ► month and change from the phones being in people's hands,

00:37:06 ◼   ► possibly, if you can get one.

00:37:09 ◼   ► So yeah, we're on the long road to the iPhone X.

00:37:12 ◼   ► I'm excited for it,

00:37:13 ◼   ► like I cannot wait to get one of these things.

00:37:16 ◼   ► I'm pumped, I'm very excited, very excited.

00:37:18 ◼   ► Talking about new hardware, Apple TV 4K.

00:37:22 ◼   ► We didn't get to it over the last week or two.

00:37:25 ◼   ► - It's true, there's so many things to talk about

00:37:27 ◼   ► and write about and you can't get to it all.

00:37:30 ◼   ► - And unfortunately, the poor baby of the Apple TV 4K

00:37:34 ◼   ► fell at the bottom of the list

00:37:35 ◼   ► of the things that were deemed the most important.

00:37:38 ◼   ► But I wanted to just talk about a couple of things,

00:37:40 ◼   ► about my setup and my experience.

00:37:42 ◼   ► You have one too, right?

00:37:44 ◼   ► So I guess we can go, we can chip in together on this.

00:37:47 ◼   ► You do have one. - Yeah, absolutely.

00:37:49 ◼   ► I know, in fact, let me tell you my story

00:37:50 ◼   ► 'cause it's really funny.

00:37:51 ◼   ► I pre-ordered the day after the orders went up.

00:37:55 ◼   ► I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna get up at midnight.

00:37:57 ◼   ► And then I was like, yeah, well, I'll get a 4K Apple TV

00:37:59 ◼   ► and I'm probably not gonna get a review unit

00:38:00 ◼   ► to test anyway, so I'll get one.

00:38:02 ◼   ► So I placed an order and they said,

00:38:03 ◼   ► well, you'll get that probably about October 8th.

00:38:06 ◼   ► It's like, all right, well, that's dumb, but okay.

00:38:08 ◼   ► And then I thought, a few days later, I had this thought,

00:38:11 ◼   ► which was, I wonder if they're in stock

00:38:14 ◼   ► at my local Apple store.

00:38:16 ◼   ► Yeah, they were in stock there.

00:38:18 ◼   ► And which made me think to myself,

00:38:20 ◼   ► why, I think Apple needs a better system, right?

00:38:23 ◼   ► I think Apple needs a system where they can say,

00:38:25 ◼   ► hey, I know you are waiting two weeks to get an Apple TV,

00:38:30 ◼   ► but if you like, we could shift this

00:38:33 ◼   ► to be a pickup order at your local Apple store.

00:38:36 ◼   ► I think they don't do that because what they want is

00:38:38 ◼   ► they want to allow people who don't think about buying

00:38:41 ◼   ► online to wander in, to drift into an Apple store

00:38:43 ◼   ► and get one, like they don't wanna cross the streams there.

00:38:46 ◼   ► - They have to have store stock, they have to have it.

00:38:49 ◼   ► - Right?

00:38:50 ◼   ► - You can't ship, I mean, I understand,

00:38:51 ◼   ► you can't just ship the online orders,

00:38:53 ◼   ► you have to have store stock as well.

00:38:55 ◼   ► - You have to have some store stock, yeah.

00:38:56 ◼   ► So I understand it and yet at the same time as a customer,

00:39:00 ◼   ► I was told to wait three weeks for something

00:39:02 ◼   ► that I could drive.

00:39:03 ◼   ► five minutes to pick up, right?

00:39:06 ◼   ► And I finally just, that's what I did,

00:39:09 ◼   ► is I went and I got one.

00:39:10 ◼   ► - I feel like they should tell you, right?

00:39:11 ◼   ► Like, you know, you place an order and send you an email

00:39:13 ◼   ► and they're like, "Oh, hey, buy the way."

00:39:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think, and they might,

00:39:17 ◼   ► there might be something to that because of course,

00:39:19 ◼   ► I ordered it, I think before it was in stores.

00:39:22 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:39:23 ◼   ► - And so they're like, "All right, well,

00:39:24 ◼   ► it's gonna be three weeks."

00:39:25 ◼   ► And if I had ordered it when it was in stores,

00:39:28 ◼   ► it might've said, "This is available for pickup

00:39:30 ◼   ► at Corta Madera."

00:39:31 ◼   ► - It does do that.

00:39:32 ◼   ► It does do that.

00:39:32 ◼   ► If you're buying after pre-order time, it shows you both options.

00:39:36 ◼   ► It shows, hey, available to pick up today.

00:39:38 ◼   ► But it would be nice if they could do it retroactively.

00:39:40 ◼   ► So they could say to you, oh, by the way, right now there is stock in store today.

00:39:46 ◼   ► We don't know what it will be like when you get there, but check.

00:39:49 ◼   ► Yeah, the problem is that that ruins their store stock because then you're diverting

00:39:55 ◼   ► all of your, or at least some of your pre-orders to store stock.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Yeah, that is frustrating.

00:40:01 ◼   ► But when it's out three weeks and it's in stock at your local store, that's pretty dumb.

00:40:05 ◼   ► Anyway, so I did cancel my online order and place an order for pickup and one hour later

00:40:12 ◼   ► I had the Apple TV 4K.

00:40:14 ◼   ► So I did get it in the end.

00:40:16 ◼   ► So I found Setup Simple, not as simple as the Apple Watch, but simple, right?

00:40:20 ◼   ► You just hold the phone near the device and it transfers over like Wi-Fi information and

00:40:24 ◼   ► account information.

00:40:25 ◼   ► I still had to enter my iTunes password once and I had to re-authenticate Netflix and YouTube.

00:40:30 ◼   ► and stuff like that, but they're actually,

00:40:33 ◼   ► YouTube is really simple to do.

00:40:35 ◼   ► I love the way that YouTube does their activation thing,

00:40:38 ◼   ► where it just shows an eight digit code,

00:40:40 ◼   ► and it says just go to youtube.com/activate on the device,

00:40:43 ◼   ► type this code in, and it's done.

00:40:45 ◼   ► So you don't have to sit and put in passwords, I love that.

00:40:47 ◼   ► - Lots of apps, lots of apps do that.

00:40:49 ◼   ► I have that for a lot of the different video apps,

00:40:53 ◼   ► where they want me to authenticate

00:40:55 ◼   ► either with my cable provider,

00:40:59 ◼   ► or with my just my login.

00:41:02 ◼   ► And those are my favorite ones when they work

00:41:04 ◼   ► because then I do need a separate device

00:41:07 ◼   ► but I also am not laboriously entering in a passcode.

00:41:10 ◼   ► - So I will say to Apple's credit, right?

00:41:12 ◼   ► Like Netflix doesn't do this.

00:41:13 ◼   ► Netflix wants my username and password.

00:41:15 ◼   ► But when I go to that, they get to that screen

00:41:18 ◼   ► a notification pops up for me to enter in text.

00:41:21 ◼   ► And I was able to go to another application

00:41:24 ◼   ► and went to one password, got my password

00:41:26 ◼   ► and the notification just remained persistent

00:41:28 ◼   ► in the notification center.

00:41:30 ◼   ► So I just hit it and paste it in the password.

00:41:32 ◼   ► So it's like, yeah, you thought of this, right?

00:41:35 ◼   ► Like I'm feeling now, like especially with this Apple TV,

00:41:38 ◼   ► that Apple's gotten to a point where like they're showing

00:41:40 ◼   ► that a lot more thought has gone into this product

00:41:43 ◼   ► than when it was initially introduced, right?

00:41:45 ◼   ► Like it is way more put together as a thing

00:41:48 ◼   ► than it was initially.

00:41:49 ◼   ► And there were many rumors about that,

00:41:51 ◼   ► about like the idea of like it sat on the shelf for a while,

00:41:54 ◼   ► it wasn't touched and it was a ship of old software,

00:41:56 ◼   ► which is why like Apple music wasn't on it, et cetera, et cetera.

00:41:59 ◼   ► But now it does feel better. Um,

00:42:01 ◼   ► I have a 4k HDI TV and I could instantly see a change

00:42:06 ◼   ► in the menus, crisper, richer color.

00:42:08 ◼   ► And the thing I was most excited for totally paid off.

00:42:11 ◼   ► The screen savers are amazing. They look so good.

00:42:17 ◼   ► They do. They do. They look really good.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Really frustrating for me that you cannot watch 4k YouTube videos.

00:42:25 ◼   ► This is really annoying.

00:42:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, and this is Apple's decision to not support,

00:42:32 ◼   ► Google is pushing the VP9 codec and saying,

00:42:35 ◼   ► 4K is only, they're not gonna bother doing H.265 encoding

00:42:40 ◼   ► of 4K videos, they're only gonna do VP9.

00:42:44 ◼   ► And Apple's like, well, we're not gonna support VP9.

00:42:46 ◼   ► And it's this little passive aggressive game they're playing.

00:42:49 ◼   ► This is the same reason why you can't watch

00:42:51 ◼   ► 4K YouTube videos in Safari on a Mac, but you can in Chrome because it supports the

00:42:59 ◼   ► codec. So this is a little adversarial thing between Apple and Google, but it makes Apple's

00:43:10 ◼   ► product worse in this case.

00:43:13 ◼   ► Apple need to give in on this one in my opinion. I like something that Daring, Mr. Daring,

00:43:19 ◼   ► John Gruber said during Fireball, "unlike the iPhone and iPad, Apple TV doesn't have

00:43:28 ◼   ► enough market share to force Google's hand. I think Google can stick to its VP9 guns and

00:43:33 ◼   ► it will be Apple that pays the price." Completely agree, and I would say, I think Apple needs

00:43:37 ◼   ► to say for the Apple TV 4K, they will support this codec. They don't need to do it anywhere

00:43:41 ◼   ► else. But this is a TV device that has 4K HDR support and one of the biggest video sources

00:43:48 ◼   ► in the world, probably with the most 4K content, they don't support.

00:43:55 ◼   ► I watch videos constantly from YouTubers that publish in 4K.

00:44:01 ◼   ► My TV can do it.

00:44:04 ◼   ► So my TV has smart apps, and it has 4K support in the YouTube app.

00:44:10 ◼   ► So if I want to get that content, I still have to go back to the TV app, which is one

00:44:15 ◼   ► of the things I was hoping from getting this device and then eventually there being Amazon

00:44:19 ◼   ► is that I only ever had to use this now. But if I do for whatever reason want to watch

00:44:23 ◼   ► a video in 4K, I then still have to go to the clunky smart app on my TV.

00:44:28 ◼   ► Well look, I mean Google, I think that Google is being jerky here by not also embracing

00:44:34 ◼   ► H.265 or HEVC because that is also a standard. But Google has their own thing that they're

00:44:42 ◼   ► pushing which is VP9 and it's this format war kind of thing that's happening and it's

00:44:47 ◼   ► dumb I will admit it is burdensome to YouTube to have to encode 4k videos in both of those

00:44:56 ◼   ► formats for compatibility reasons but you know it's one of those things where we could

00:45:01 ◼   ► argue that the right thing to do ultimately is for YouTube to offer 4k video in whatever

00:45:07 ◼   ► formats people are consuming them in, but the reality of the situation is Apple is making

00:45:13 ◼   ► a 4K TV box that can't play 4K YouTube videos, and we can say, "Well, YouTube should just

00:45:19 ◼   ► change," but it's Apple's product and Apple can control whether it's better by including

00:45:25 ◼   ► that support, and they have chosen not to do it. And I think, you know, to John Gruber's

00:45:31 ◼   ► point and your point, Apple TV probably needs 4K YouTube videos more than YouTube needs

00:45:38 ◼   ► Apple TV to play videos in 4K.

00:45:40 ◼   ► Yeah, because you know what will? Chromecast.

00:45:44 ◼   ► Everything else will.

00:45:45 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, so it's like, you know, and we're going to talk about Amazon stuff later, but

00:45:50 ◼   ► the Amazon Fire TV 4K, that'll do it. And you know what? That thing costs $70 now. 4K

00:45:57 ◼   ► 4K and HDR support for $100 less than Apple's.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Yeah. But I do really love my Apple TV.

00:46:05 ◼   ► The Siri remote, right? It should be better.

00:46:09 ◼   ► They didn't really do a lot. They added that ring around the menu button.

00:46:13 ◼   ► Honestly, for me, that has made it better. It's not a better remote

00:46:17 ◼   ► but it's better than it was. Because now I can pick it up

00:46:21 ◼   ► and I know what way it is and I know what button I'm touching.

00:46:25 ◼   ► because I can do it in proximity to the little ring. It's like touch typing on a keyboard,

00:46:29 ◼   ► right? You look for the little notches on the keys. It feels like that to me. Not that

00:46:33 ◼   ► I know how to touch type, but I understand what that means. But, you know, it's like

00:46:36 ◼   ► it's not a... The remote is still bad, but it is better bad than the bad it was before.

00:46:43 ◼   ► Like, it has been improved, it should be better, but if this is what they were going to do,

00:46:49 ◼   ► then fine.

00:46:50 ◼   ► wasn't wasn't it was I think maybe Marco Arment who said it's literally the least they could do if

00:46:56 ◼   ► it wasn't him it was somebody I heard say it's like literally the least they could do was put a

00:47:00 ◼   ► white ring around the menu button um yeah I think the trackpad is still just a problematic interface

00:47:09 ◼   ► and I use it a lot and I still get in situations where I'm like no don't don't go there don't do

00:47:16 ◼   ► that or where they put some clever sort of like flick up to get more things and I flick

00:47:21 ◼   ► up and it's like nope that didn't work, that didn't work, you gotta get the right gesture.

00:47:25 ◼   ► And you push exactly right and you push it a little too hard now you've clicked and now

00:47:29 ◼   ► it's gone away somewhere, you accidentally clicked. Yeah it's still not, it's one of

00:47:34 ◼   ► these things that Apple is trying to reinvent the remote and doing, you know, it's a mediocre

00:47:41 ◼   ► job that maybe there is a reason remotes are the way they are. But, you know, yeah. This

00:47:47 ◼   ► is the whole story with the Apple TV is like there are parts of it that are pretty good.

00:47:51 ◼   ► In isolation, I actually think it's a pretty great product. It's got issues, but for video

00:47:59 ◼   ► watching, like the apps that I use are all pretty good. There are some exceptions, but

00:48:04 ◼   ► I think they are not Apple's fault so much as the provider's fault. It can do some good

00:48:09 ◼   ► The challenge is that there are areas where Apple has made the product less, like not supporting VP9, so not supporting 4K from YouTube.

00:48:19 ◼   ► And there is the competition, right? All of us know that there are other devices that do this for $100 less.

00:48:28 ◼   ► And the challenge is, is Apple providing an experience $100 greater than Amazon's 4K Fire TV?

00:48:37 ◼   ► And, you know, well, what are they doing that the Amazon box isn't?

00:48:42 ◼   ► And it is, well, AirPlay, you know, screen mirroring and access to iTunes content.

00:48:49 ◼   ► And that's about it.

00:48:51 ◼   ► I mean, is it, is it, is that enough for the, the, the difference?

00:48:56 ◼   ► And, you know, part of me thinks that Apple is, is not too concerned because

00:49:01 ◼   ► they just don't think that it is an important enough market, um, for it to

00:49:06 ◼   ► matter, especially since 4K HDR TVs are kind of expensive, and so I think they may figure,

00:49:12 ◼   ► "Look, if you can afford a 4K HDR TV, you can afford a $170 box to get access to Apple's

00:49:17 ◼   ► stuff," and maybe they're right about that, but that's part of my frustration, is like,

00:49:24 ◼   ► it's an okay video streamer, it's just way more expensive than the competition, and it's

00:49:29 ◼   ► disappointing that it isn't better, and some of that is not Apple's fault. Well, some of

00:49:33 ◼   ► that is sort of Apple's fault in the sense that Apple

00:49:35 ◼   ► and the content providers have had issues

00:49:39 ◼   ► and Apple doesn't wanna roll over on them,

00:49:41 ◼   ► but the content providers also don't wanna get taken

00:49:43 ◼   ► by Apple and so you end up with breakdowns

00:49:46 ◼   ► and things single sign-on not being fully supported

00:49:48 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:49:50 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't mind using it, I enjoy it

00:49:55 ◼   ► and in fact, I like it better than the Amazon Fire TV

00:49:57 ◼   ► I've got which has its own interface issues

00:50:00 ◼   ► and I like it better than the interface on my television

00:50:02 ◼   ► which the TV apps are not particularly great.

00:50:05 ◼   ► They're really generic and weird.

00:50:07 ◼   ► But all that said, it could be better,

00:50:11 ◼   ► and I wish it was cheaper to get into the Apple TV line.

00:50:15 ◼   ► And that's something we talked about a couple of weeks ago,

00:50:18 ◼   ► which is I'm surprised that the base model Apple TV

00:50:21 ◼   ► isn't under a hundred now,

00:50:23 ◼   ► now that they've got this 4K model.

00:50:25 ◼   ► But it's not--

00:50:26 ◼   ► - What are they selling?

00:50:27 ◼   ► Are they selling the Razer or are they selling the Bladez?

00:50:29 ◼   ► What is the point of this product?

00:50:32 ◼   ► Do they want people to be buying content or do they want people to be buying the boxes?

00:50:37 ◼   ► I would argue that surely it's the content, right?

00:50:40 ◼   ► They want people buying TV shows and movies.

00:50:42 ◼   ► And locking them into the ecosystem too, right?

00:50:45 ◼   ► That's part of it.

00:50:46 ◼   ► It's not, yes, locking them into the ecosystem sells a more expensive box, but also buying

00:50:51 ◼   ► the more expensive box and making it easy to buy more movies locks you further into

00:50:55 ◼   ► the ecosystem.

00:50:56 ◼   ► It goes both ways.

00:50:57 ◼   ► and it's a weird, yeah, I wonder what the strategy is here

00:51:02 ◼   ► or if they're just kind of like groping around in the dark

00:51:05 ◼   ► and maybe some of it is this video strategy,

00:51:08 ◼   ► like what are they gonna do?

00:51:10 ◼   ► There's a whole other topic that we've talked about

00:51:13 ◼   ► on my podcast that I do with Tim Goodman

00:51:15 ◼   ► from the Hollywood Reporter TV Talk Machine,

00:51:17 ◼   ► you can get it at the incomparable.com/TVTM.

00:51:20 ◼   ► We talk about it a lot there

00:51:21 ◼   ► and we're gonna talk about it more, I think this week,

00:51:24 ◼   ► which is what is Apple strategy

00:51:27 ◼   ► for how it rolls out its video service?

00:51:29 ◼   ► It's got high profile video or TV executives now

00:51:33 ◼   ► talking to the creative people in Hollywood,

00:51:37 ◼   ► and it's got a big checkbook.

00:51:39 ◼   ► But what it doesn't have is a story about

00:51:42 ◼   ► where their shows are going.

00:51:44 ◼   ► Like what is that service?

00:51:47 ◼   ► Is it available everywhere?

00:51:48 ◼   ► Is it only on Apple TV?

00:51:50 ◼   ► Is it just,

00:51:53 ◼   ► just gonna keep throwing things on Apple music? Are they gonna have a clearly

00:51:55 ◼   ► defined video service on top of it? And the problem with signing a big name and

00:52:00 ◼   ► having and and saying you know yeah we're gonna throw you a lot of money and

00:52:03 ◼   ► creative control to do this thing that you want to create. That big name one of

00:52:08 ◼   ► the things they know is like if they go to Amazon or Netflix they know where

00:52:12 ◼   ► their show is gonna be seen and who's gonna see it. And with Apple it's like

00:52:16 ◼   ► they're not like we don't have an answer there yet. So I wonder sometimes if that

00:52:22 ◼   ► is part of this kind of like what is the role of the Apple TV is like Apple

00:52:26 ◼   ► hasn't decided what the role of the Apple TV is because Apple hasn't decided

00:52:30 ◼   ► exactly what it's going to do with his video service like is it is it available

00:52:34 ◼   ► everywhere is it only available on this box if it's only on this box do they

00:52:37 ◼   ► raise the price or they keep this high price of the box in order to drive

00:52:40 ◼   ► hardware sales or do they lower the price in order to drive subscribers to

00:52:44 ◼   ► make it easy for people to get access to their stuff I don't know it's a hard

00:52:48 ◼   ► question there are lots of different ways they could go and they seem to have

00:52:51 ◼   ► like not committed to any of them right now so I don't know.

00:52:59 ◼   ► All right so Apple TV 4K it's got some frustrations to it which is exactly what I expected but

00:53:06 ◼   ► it's the upgrade that I guess I was looking for mostly.

00:53:09 ◼   ► Yeah 4K looks good I have a 4K TV that doesn't do HDR but I will get one at some point here

00:53:19 ◼   ► but 4K looks can look good. The screensaver is as funny as it is to talk about, "Oh, the

00:53:25 ◼   ► screensaver is just so great." But like those screensavers are so detailed that they really

00:53:29 ◼   ► do show off the 4K like they are impossibly detailed.

00:53:33 ◼   ► And I find them entertaining to watch. I like watching them. Like, you know, they're on

00:53:37 ◼   ► in the house.

00:53:38 ◼   ► Watch the little cars, cars going around and all of that. And yeah, like when is that,

00:53:43 ◼   ► is that, is that car going to go off that exit in Dubai or is it going to stay on the

00:53:47 ◼   ► road? We don't know. You have to watch and find out.

00:53:49 ◼   ► That's right. Is the sun going to set behind London or not? We don't know.

00:53:53 ◼   ► We have to wait and see if there will be a cloud or if we'll see the sunset.

00:53:57 ◼   ► And the Netflix 4K stuff is great. I'm looking forward to the Amazon app because they've got a lot of 4K stuff.

00:54:04 ◼   ► And I currently have to watch Amazon--I currently have to watch all the 4K stuff through my TV.

00:54:10 ◼   ► Now I can watch Netflix 4K on the Apple TV instead of through the dumb TV app.

00:54:14 ◼   ► I'm looking forward to getting Amazon out of the TV app and just using Apple TV instead

00:54:20 ◼   ► because it's a lot easier to navigate to. And now what I'm finding, and this is kind

00:54:27 ◼   ► of funny, is I'm like a 4K, like a seeker of 4K now, 4K in HDR, where it's like, "What

00:54:36 ◼   ► do you got?" Like, I've got some movies that do 4K now. That's fun. Some of my movies got

00:54:40 ◼   ► upgraded so I can watch like the later Star Trek movies in 4K and there's some other movies

00:54:46 ◼   ► in 4K. It's great. But I look at like HBO Go and I think, "Come on, HBO. You got 4K

00:54:54 ◼   ► versions of your shows, right? You should roll that out." And CBS All Access, I had

00:55:00 ◼   ► that because the new Star Trek show started last week and it's on streaming and it's on

00:55:06 ◼   ► Netflix in the rest of the world, but in the US it's on CBS All Access and it's like it's

00:55:10 ◼   ► provided in 1080 and it's provided with in stereo or like it's not even in 5.1

00:55:15 ◼   ► it's like get your act together guys give us a 5.1 audio track and if you've

00:55:20 ◼   ► got a 4k version of the show I want to see it

00:55:23 ◼   ► I don't know if the version on Netflix around the world is 4k or if it's just

00:55:27 ◼   ► 1080 but I am finding myself doing that thing of like is this a 4k no it's not

00:55:31 ◼   ► for all all these apps so obviously every video provider is being pushed to

00:55:37 ◼   ► provide 4K shows and movies. So it's gonna happen. And HDR. And, you know, making your

00:55:45 ◼   ► videos look better is a good thing. It's not the—you know, most people probably on a

00:55:48 ◼   ► smaller HDTV cannot tell the difference between 4K and 1080 HD, but HDR is more noticeable,

00:55:56 ◼   ► and people will get that on iPad Pro now, and yeah, it's all good, but it's just I find

00:56:00 ◼   ► it funny, like, the moment that I get the Apple TV 4K attached to my TV, I start looking

00:56:04 ◼   ► for 4k stuff like and being disappointed when it's not.

00:56:08 ◼   ► Exactly, exactly like I'm looking for that content now more and more.

00:56:13 ◼   ► Oh I also switched it to 24 frames per second

00:56:16 ◼   ► to test that out and I am happy to report that I think my

00:56:22 ◼   ► TV does a pretty good job of the pull down thing where it

00:56:25 ◼   ► tries to do the right thing to make the film content not look

00:56:31 ◼   ► juddery, but I think at 24 frames a second on the Apple TV it did look better. It does

00:56:39 ◼   ► take my TV about a second to change between those formats, which is the reason that Apple

00:56:43 ◼   ► doesn't do it on the fly, because Apple doesn't like that it blinks out for an undetermined

00:56:48 ◼   ► amount of time while your TV changes its settings. But it did look good. The problem is that

00:56:54 ◼   ► the user interface looks ridiculous at 24 frames per second. It looks like you've gone

00:56:59 ◼   ► to the old, like you're using an old-timey Apple TV that can barely draw

00:57:03 ◼   ► on the screen if you do it at 24 frames per second. So this is that idea that

00:57:08 ◼   ► John, it's the John Syracuse feature right, which is to be able to say look

00:57:12 ◼   ► give me output to the TV in the proper format for the video that you're

00:57:17 ◼   ► presenting. So if it's not HDR, don't present it in HDR because apparently

00:57:22 ◼   ► that doesn't look very good. If it's not 4k, don't present it in 4k, present it in

00:57:28 ◼   ► 1080 or 720, and if it's 24 frames a second, present it at 24 frames a second, not at 60

00:57:36 ◼   ► frames a second. And Apple has chosen to this point not to do that. You can set it to lots

00:57:41 ◼   ► of these different video settings, but you can't do what my TiVo, I think, actually has

00:57:47 ◼   ► this setting, which is pass-through, which is basically like, just do the native of whatever

00:57:52 ◼   ► the content is and switch on the fly. And you get a lot more of those kind of blank

00:57:56 ◼   ► moments where your TV blinks and then comes back in, but it's always in the preferred

00:58:02 ◼   ► format for the content. I have some hope that Apple will just make that a setting for people

00:58:08 ◼   ► who care and nobody else will use it and it'll be fine.

00:58:13 ◼   ► Today's episode is also brought to you in part by a new sponsor and that is Timing,

00:58:19 ◼   ► the automatic time tracking app for Mac. Time tracking, I know that many people find it

00:58:24 ◼   ► Hey, I have a show where we talk about time tracking quite a bit. I know that some people

00:58:28 ◼   ► find it boring. You have to start and stop timers, it can interrupt your work, and sometimes

00:58:33 ◼   ► quite a lot of the time if you're me you forget to do it. But why should you do all of that

00:58:37 ◼   ► work? Timing for the Mac automatically tracks how much time you spend on each app, document

00:58:44 ◼   ► and website. This means that you never have to worry about starting or stopping a timer

00:58:48 ◼   ► I love the idea of documents and websites, I don't have that kind of granularity in

00:58:55 ◼   ► manual tracking.

00:59:02 ◼   ► Because timing collects more data than a regular time tracker, its use extends far beyond billing

00:59:07 ◼   ► hours.

00:59:09 ◼   ► It shows you exactly when you were using which Apple website, maybe when you were taking

00:59:15 ◼   ► a break and how productive you have been so you know how to improve your productivity

00:59:20 ◼   ► going forward. But your work doesn't just happen on your Mac, right? And that's why

00:59:23 ◼   ► Timing's timeline automatically makes suggestions for filling gaps in your timeline and can

00:59:28 ◼   ► ask you what you did offline every time you return to the Mac. This way you'll never forget

00:59:33 ◼   ► to enter a meeting again. I installed Timing on my MacBook Pro whilst I was travelling

00:59:38 ◼   ► over the summer and the fact that it was logging things automatically for me was amazing. I

00:59:44 ◼   ► I am pretty bad at doing manual tracking, especially when I'm outside of my usual environment,

00:59:49 ◼   ► so it's perfect for me on my Mac Pro.

00:59:52 ◼   ► When I'm doing other things, I just completely forget to do any type of time tracking.

00:59:56 ◼   ► Yup, it's like time tracking amnesia or something, where it's like you get out of context and

01:00:02 ◼   ► it's gone, it's lost.

01:00:03 ◼   ► I'm not in my office, so that means that I don't do this anymore.

01:00:07 ◼   ► So what I love about timing is that it just does it for me.

01:00:10 ◼   ► So all of that stuff is just entered in automatically, it's fantastic.

01:00:13 ◼   ► You can try it out for yourself by downloading a 14 day trial today, it's a completely free

01:00:17 ◼   ► trial of the app, by going to timingapp.com/upgrade.

01:00:22 ◼   ► So it's a 14 day free trial at timingapp.com/upgrade and you'll save 10% when you purchase as well.

01:00:28 ◼   ► Timing.

01:00:30 ◼   ► Stop worrying about time and focus on doing your best work instead.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Thank you to Timing for their support of this show.

01:00:38 ◼   ► It's funny that you, you're talking about time tracking and stuff.

01:00:42 ◼   ► talked about this before on this show which is my concern that you go too far deep down

01:00:46 ◼   ► into something like this and you're wasting more time than you're saving because you you

01:00:51 ◼   ► become kind of obsessed with the mechanics of time tracking and I know you and gray have

01:00:55 ◼   ► talked about this stuff too and that's one of the for me that's like the best feature

01:01:01 ◼   ► in timing is that it you can do that if you want you can obsess if you want but it's got

01:01:06 ◼   ► enough intelligence to try and like intuit what and based on rules you can set up and

01:01:11 ◼   ► then because I've been using it for a while now and that's what I like about it is that

01:01:16 ◼   ► I don't fuss over it I don't I don't I'm not my hobby is not time tracking right it's just

01:01:22 ◼   ► happening it's better.

01:01:26 ◼   ► Sure is all right so out of nowhere last week Amazon had a surprise press event where they

01:01:32 ◼   ► They unveiled a large selection of new Echo devices.

01:01:36 ◼   ► Surprise!

01:01:37 ◼   ► They embargoed the existence of the event.

01:01:41 ◼   ► What?

01:01:42 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:01:44 ◼   ► It's just whatever.

01:01:46 ◼   ► Tell your family you're going to Seattle to see a friend.

01:01:50 ◼   ► The friend is Jeff Bezos.

01:01:52 ◼   ► He's your friend now.

01:01:53 ◼   ► He's your family.

01:01:54 ◼   ► You loved him.

01:01:55 ◼   ► Anyway, but a couple of days before that, there was some news that was interesting.

01:01:58 ◼   ► I just wanted to touch on real quick that Google have pulled YouTube off of the Echo

01:02:04 ◼   ► Show.

01:02:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I can't watch YouTube videos on my Echo Show anymore.

01:02:08 ◼   ► And there are two statements from The Verge, one from Amazon, one from Google/YouTube.

01:02:13 ◼   ► Amazon say, "Google has chosen to no longer make YouTube available on Echo Show without

01:02:18 ◼   ► explanation and without notification to customers."

01:02:21 ◼   ► Google have said, "We've been in negotiations with Amazon for a long time.

01:02:26 ◼   ► Jason's implementation of YouTube on the Echo Show violates our terms of service, creates

01:02:30 ◼   ► a broken user experience. We hope to be able to reach an agreement and resolve these issues

01:02:36 ◼   ► soon. I don't think that this is coming on to the device for a while, it sounds like.

01:02:41 ◼   ► That is really frustrating. Like if you are somebody who bought that device, hello Jason,

01:02:45 ◼   ► one thing that you're supposed to be able to do on it is watch videos.

01:02:48 ◼   ► Watch YouTube videos.

01:02:49 ◼   ► Where are all the videos?

01:02:50 ◼   ► - Cooking videos while you're cooking.

01:02:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:53 ◼   ► It, on one level, I think a lot of these statements

01:02:56 ◼   ► from both these companies is accurate, right?

01:02:58 ◼   ► Like, although without explanation is interesting

01:03:01 ◼   ► because that's like, so were they in negotiations?

01:03:05 ◼   ► And then Amazon made some sort of response

01:03:09 ◼   ► and YouTube was like, okay, we're out of here.

01:03:11 ◼   ► We're just, we're going.

01:03:13 ◼   ► - If you were in negotiations,

01:03:14 ◼   ► someone's explained to you why at some point, right?

01:03:17 ◼   ► - Exactly. - You must be aware.

01:03:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, so without explanation seems a little bit weird,

01:03:21 ◼   ► but I would say Amazon's implementation of YouTube

01:03:24 ◼   ► on the Echo Show violates our terms of service,

01:03:27 ◼   ► creating a broken user experience.

01:03:29 ◼   ► We're gonna have to analyze this,

01:03:31 ◼   ► and unfortunately now I can't launch YouTube

01:03:33 ◼   ► on the Echo Show and see what they're talking about

01:03:35 ◼   ► because it's gone,

01:03:36 ◼   ► but there's a lot of speculation about this.

01:03:39 ◼   ► You know, this is similar to some of the problems

01:03:42 ◼   ► that Apple has had with video providers,

01:03:44 ◼   ► including Amazon, ironically,

01:03:46 ◼   ► because it has to do with who owns the data,

01:03:49 ◼   ► what's the user experience that you're defining in your app.

01:03:53 ◼   ► Like Google has an idea of what its user experience is

01:03:56 ◼   ► across all its apps.

01:03:57 ◼   ► And I've complained about that from time to time

01:03:59 ◼   ► that sometimes a Google app on iOS

01:04:01 ◼   ► doesn't behave like an iOS app should.

01:04:04 ◼   ► And it's like, guys, I know you're Google

01:04:06 ◼   ► and you want all your apps to look the same.

01:04:07 ◼   ► But when you're making, like at one point they'd share,

01:04:10 ◼   ► there was all the Android share icons.

01:04:12 ◼   ► And it's like, I don't even know what that is.

01:04:13 ◼   ► like every other share icon on iOS looks this way

01:04:17 ◼   ► and you have it look a different way.

01:04:19 ◼   ► It's confusing to me, right?

01:04:20 ◼   ► And they've made progress there.

01:04:22 ◼   ► And I like the Google unified interface in a lot of ways.

01:04:25 ◼   ► It's very nice.

01:04:26 ◼   ► But here, like what is Google saying?

01:04:29 ◼   ► They're probably saying like,

01:04:30 ◼   ► we want you to respect our autoplay.

01:04:34 ◼   ► We want you to display our overlays.

01:04:37 ◼   ► Like all of these things that are,

01:04:39 ◼   ► that and I wanna be clear here

01:04:41 ◼   ► that YouTube considers part of the YouTube user experience.

01:04:46 ◼   ► And I have to phrase it that way, right?

01:04:48 ◼   ► Because I mean, you do a podcast with a YouTuber.

01:04:50 ◼   ► Sometimes the YouTube experience is not what the customer

01:04:56 ◼   ► or the video creators want the experience to be.

01:05:00 ◼   ► So it may be that what Amazon's saying is,

01:05:02 ◼   ► "Well, we just want you to play the video you want,

01:05:04 ◼   ► and then we're done,

01:05:07 ◼   ► and then you can instruct us about where we go next."

01:05:09 ◼   ► and YouTube's take is no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:05:13 ◼   ► We always are pushing somebody to the next video

01:05:16 ◼   ► and doing all these things 'cause that's what we do.

01:05:19 ◼   ► And Amazon is put in a position

01:05:21 ◼   ► where they're potentially like Apple in saying,

01:05:22 ◼   ► we don't actually think that's a good user experience

01:05:24 ◼   ► for our customers, we don't wanna do that.

01:05:26 ◼   ► And you're now in this push and pull where it's like,

01:05:28 ◼   ► but they're our customers, but they're our customers.

01:05:30 ◼   ► No, they're our customers 'cause they're YouTube users.

01:05:32 ◼   ► Like no, but they're really Echo Show users

01:05:34 ◼   ► viewing a video on YouTube.

01:05:37 ◼   ► And this is when the negotiations break down.

01:05:41 ◼   ► I feel like that is what's going on here.

01:05:44 ◼   ► And it's too bad because you could argue

01:05:46 ◼   ► that the Echo Show is, the reason it exists

01:05:50 ◼   ► is for things like YouTube videos.

01:05:51 ◼   ► In fact, the thing that I am most disappointed by so far

01:05:54 ◼   ► in having the Echo Show is that it should be

01:05:57 ◼   ► way more video-centric than it is.

01:05:59 ◼   ► It should be super easy.

01:06:00 ◼   ► Like, they need Netflix on there.

01:06:02 ◼   ► They need, you know, they need everything on there.

01:06:04 ◼   ► And I know they wanna push Amazon Prime Video.

01:06:06 ◼   ► I'm a Prime user, I've got Prime Video,

01:06:08 ◼   ► but there are shows that aren't on Prime Video.

01:06:11 ◼   ► And then I find myself putting my iPad in the kitchen

01:06:13 ◼   ► while I'm making dinner, showing a Netflix show,

01:06:15 ◼   ► and I'm looking at that Amazon Echo Show screen

01:06:18 ◼   ► and thinking, that would be a perfect place

01:06:21 ◼   ► to play this Netflix video.

01:06:23 ◼   ► So with YouTube being gone,

01:06:25 ◼   ► it's like pushing that product in the wrong direction.

01:06:27 ◼   ► And that may also be part of this, is Google saying,

01:06:30 ◼   ► look, we are creating a huge amount of value

01:06:33 ◼   ► for your piece of hardware by being on your product

01:06:37 ◼   ► and you need to do what we say.

01:06:38 ◼   ► So it's the giants, they're wrestling, they're angry.

01:06:42 ◼   ► - So they had an event and I'm gonna run through real quick

01:06:48 ◼   ► these devices 'cause there were a lot of them.

01:06:49 ◼   ► There is the new Amazon Echo.

01:06:51 ◼   ► So this device replaces the current standard Echo.

01:06:55 ◼   ► It's smaller, comes in a variety of finishes and colors.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Amazon says it has better audio with Dolby processing.

01:07:02 ◼   ► It is unclear if there are any big advancements at all

01:07:05 ◼   ► with the audio hardware inside of the new Amazon Echo.

01:07:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, great deal of skepticism about whether it's

01:07:12 ◼   ► actually better audio hardware

01:07:13 ◼   ► or if it just sounds better. - Sounds different.

01:07:16 ◼   ► Yeah, it's hard to tell.

01:07:18 ◼   ► Amazon is pushing the multi-room audio with this product.

01:07:22 ◼   ► They give you a $50 discount if you buy three of them,

01:07:24 ◼   ► but that's still really expensive.

01:07:25 ◼   ► It's like $280, something like that.

01:07:29 ◼   ► - It's cheaper than Sonos,

01:07:30 ◼   ► So it's like a cheap way to do multi-room audio.

01:07:33 ◼   ► - But Sonos has really good audio hardware, right?

01:07:35 ◼   ► So it's like, who knows?

01:07:36 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:07:37 ◼   ► - You can attach speakers to this one though,

01:07:39 ◼   ► via the inclusion of a 3.5 millimeter jack

01:07:41 ◼   ► in the back of the Echo.

01:07:42 ◼   ► Previously only the Echo Dot had that.

01:07:44 ◼   ► Now the Echo has it.

01:07:46 ◼   ► The new Amazon Echo is kind of like

01:07:49 ◼   ► a mix between the old Echo and the Dot,

01:07:52 ◼   ► because it has all the buttons on top.

01:07:55 ◼   ► Like it has the volume up and down buttons,

01:07:57 ◼   ► which the original Echo doesn't,

01:07:59 ◼   ► but the Dot has and it has the 3.5 millimeter audio jack

01:08:02 ◼   ► which the Dot has been.

01:08:03 ◼   ► - Because Amazon is based in Seattle,

01:08:04 ◼   ► I'd like to put it this way,

01:08:05 ◼   ► which is the original Echo was a Venti

01:08:09 ◼   ► and the Dot was a tall

01:08:11 ◼   ► and the new Echo is a Grande.

01:08:14 ◼   ► It's in the middle.

01:08:15 ◼   ► - Sure is.

01:08:16 ◼   ► - It also looks a lot like the Google Home, doesn't it?

01:08:19 ◼   ► - It does 'cause it's got the cloth covering on it.

01:08:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And it's that mid-size, that squat size.

01:08:25 ◼   ► - This is $99 though.

01:08:28 ◼   ► $99. The previous echo was 149, 179, something like that. So yeah, it's much cheaper. I ordered

01:08:35 ◼   ► one of these for home. We're going to replace the one in the kitchen. So we ordered the

01:08:40 ◼   ► one with the metal finish, because the cloth finish probably doesn't feel right for the

01:08:46 ◼   ► kitchen. I feel like it might get a bit not good over time. So we went with one of the

01:08:51 ◼   ► metal finishes and I don't like the wood finishes. So then we're going to do some house shuffling.

01:08:56 ◼   ► I'm going to put the big echo in here and then we're going to put the dot in the bedroom

01:08:59 ◼   ► and then we got them everywhere then.

01:09:02 ◼   ► Echo Connect, $35 device, it plugs into a phone line to let US based customers make

01:09:07 ◼   ► phone calls through their echo speakers and the calls are tied to the owner's phone number.

01:09:12 ◼   ► This is a device I think to try and get the echo line of products into the home of older

01:09:20 ◼   ► people.

01:09:21 ◼   ► I can't really get my head around this one so much.

01:09:24 ◼   ► a phone, it's a loudspeaker that has the assistant built into it. I don't really get this one

01:09:32 ◼   ► so much, Jason, but it's only $35, so great. Yeah, it's a phone connection kit thing. You're

01:09:42 ◼   ► right, this is for people, I mean, what's funny about it is it's basically a landline

01:09:47 ◼   ► utility, which is of limited use, but you're right, I think some of this is, I want to

01:09:53 ◼   ► to talk with grandma on Echo and this way we can just call her or something like that.

01:10:02 ◼   ► I don't know because you could also use the internet to do it. It's interesting. This

01:10:07 ◼   ► seems like a really weird niche product but it gives your, it gives, also you could do

01:10:12 ◼   ► it via IP right? You could just do it on a virtual line but instead it's like connecting

01:10:17 ◼   ► to your actual phone line. I don't know. It's strange. What a strange product. We'll see.

01:10:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it just looks like it's you that's calling.

01:10:24 ◼   ► Does it have, all right, okay, I wanna just say this now.

01:10:28 ◼   ► We're going into a real big Amazon segment.

01:10:31 ◼   ► We're gonna say the name.

01:10:32 ◼   ► We're gonna say it, all right?

01:10:35 ◼   ► So if you have an Echo nearby, go ahead and press the button

01:10:39 ◼   ► 'cause this is gonna be too much work otherwise.

01:10:42 ◼   ► Does this thing have Alexa built in?

01:10:44 ◼   ► I think it does, but I can't find out

01:10:47 ◼   ► a definite yes or no on that.

01:10:48 ◼   ► - I don't think it does.

01:10:51 ◼   ► I don't think it does. I think this is an accessory to connect to your internet and

01:10:58 ◼   ► your phone line and then your Echo is the thing you talk to and listen to.

01:11:04 ◼   ► So this is an accessory.

01:11:07 ◼   ► With Echo Connect and a compatible Echo device, you can ask Alexa to call anyone using your

01:11:12 ◼   ► phone landline at home.

01:11:14 ◼   ► Okay.

01:11:15 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:11:16 ◼   ► Weird. This is a weird, weird product.

01:11:18 ◼   ► It is a weird product.

01:11:20 ◼   ► Because I do not have a phone landline in my home.

01:11:24 ◼   ► I don't have one.

01:11:25 ◼   ► So it's, you know, I don't need that.

01:11:28 ◼   ► But I know I'm sure the chat room is pointing out.

01:11:30 ◼   ► It does.

01:11:31 ◼   ► It does work over VoIP too.

01:11:33 ◼   ► But I think the idea here is that you're attaching it to a bridge.

01:11:38 ◼   ► So you get both, right?

01:11:39 ◼   ► Because the Echo can already do these Echo to Echo calls and they can make some VoIP or

01:11:43 ◼   ► whatever.

01:11:44 ◼   ► But like this is so you get both.

01:11:45 ◼   ► you plug your phone jack into it,

01:11:48 ◼   ► and then you can receive calls as normal.

01:11:50 ◼   ► And when you make calls, it looks like the phone number.

01:11:52 ◼   ► Like it's like a bridge between the two worlds.

01:11:56 ◼   ► The Echo Plus, this is,

01:11:58 ◼   ► it's weird to say this is the bigger Echo

01:12:01 ◼   ► because it's the same size as the one

01:12:03 ◼   ► that was on sale before.

01:12:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's the weird thing is they've redefined

01:12:06 ◼   ► the old Echo style as the plus style now.

01:12:10 ◼   ► It's become a plus size.

01:12:12 ◼   ► Like I would have, again, to use the Starbucks metaphor,

01:12:14 ◼   ► I used to think it was a Grande,

01:12:16 ◼   ► but it turns out it's a Venti.

01:12:17 ◼   ► It's bigger than, it's now the big Echo.

01:12:20 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, no, it goes tall Grande Venti,

01:12:22 ◼   ► which is mind bending.

01:12:24 ◼   ► Okay, so bear with me on this one.

01:12:27 ◼   ► It took me a long time to understand what this product did.

01:12:31 ◼   ► Like, I'm kidding, I'm not kidding,

01:12:34 ◼   ► like 45 minutes of trying to work out

01:12:36 ◼   ► exactly what this product does.

01:12:38 ◼   ► The Echo Plus looks like the current tall Echo

01:12:40 ◼   ► and is much and much exactly the same.

01:12:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it has better microphones in it, but there's like a second gen

01:12:48 ◼   ► microphone system or whatever, but it's much much the same.

01:12:50 ◼   ► It features more powerful smart home integration and it's intended to be a

01:12:56 ◼   ► smart home hub. And I already hear you say, Myke, what are you talking about?

01:13:00 ◼   ► My current Echo is a smart home hub.

01:13:02 ◼   ► Well, yes and no.

01:13:04 ◼   ► Okay, so the Echo Plus features what's called a Zigbee radio in it, which is a

01:13:10 ◼   ► low power wireless protocol that's used in a lot of smart home devices. Not all, but

01:13:18 ◼   ► lots. I think over 100 right now that Zigbee supports. So what this means is you do not

01:13:24 ◼   ► need a bridge device and you don't need to install any skills or apps to support a variety

01:13:30 ◼   ► of products for smart home. So when you plug in the Echo Plus, you just say "Alexa, search

01:13:38 ◼   ► for devices and it will connect to whatever it can find. Now this includes Hue lights.

01:13:44 ◼   ► Now to me to get Hue lights to work with everything in my home I have to have this little box

01:13:48 ◼   ► that's plugged in to my router. You don't need that with this. And to go one step further

01:13:55 ◼   ► in the brilliant way that Amazon does this stuff, each Echo Plus comes with a Philips

01:14:01 ◼   ► Hue bulb in the box. Genius. Because then you get to see the benefit of these devices,

01:14:08 ◼   ► Right? Like, first hand, if you buy one of these, you just screw it in and you can then control that light.

01:14:14 ◼   ► And you're like, oh, OK.

01:14:15 ◼   ► Like, and then you start to like get get your idea around it.

01:14:17 ◼   ► So the device, I think that this device, it signals something about what Amazon is trying to do here.

01:14:25 ◼   ► I mean, like previously, it's been like, you know, we want to have everyone and write the skills.

01:14:30 ◼   ► And I don't think they're going to stop that.

01:14:32 ◼   ► Right. Because it's just this one device right now.

01:14:35 ◼   ► But I think what it signals is that maybe they are trying to do what Apple has done

01:14:42 ◼   ► and what Google has done, and they're like maybe trying to not necessarily build a

01:14:47 ◼   ► platform, but be a more seamless experience like HomeKit is, right, where it's just like

01:14:52 ◼   ► it finds the stuff.

01:14:53 ◼   ► Or like when you have these bridges, they just find the devices.

01:14:56 ◼   ► It's a weakness of the Echo ecosystem where you have the, you have to deal with these

01:15:02 ◼   ► skills and all of that. And regardless of the devices having a built-in hub, I feel

01:15:07 ◼   ► like there's two issues here. There is the built-in hub stuff where it's like, now you

01:15:10 ◼   ► don't need to buy that $40 thing that you put on your Ethernet network and plug into

01:15:15 ◼   ► a wall and just leave it under a table somewhere and all it does is talk to your light bulbs.

01:15:19 ◼   ► Like that's kind of dumb, right? But they have to do it because they have to have some

01:15:22 ◼   ► piece of hardware that acts as a bridge. Well, the Echo Plus does that now. So that's good.

01:15:27 ◼   ► That's a direction I think that a lot of these products need to lead, like go in. If there

01:15:31 ◼   ► there's a challenge with the different standards and all that, but like that

01:15:34 ◼   ► would be a good thing for the HomePod to do and for the Apple TV to do as well is

01:15:39 ◼   ► say, "Well, what if I don't even need one of those things because I can talk to it

01:15:44 ◼   ► directly?" So that's good. And then there's the software side, which is, are these

01:15:47 ◼   ► devices smart enough on their own to talk to this stuff or is there a more

01:15:53 ◼   ► complicated kind of procedure that you have to go through? Because that's

01:15:56 ◼   ► how I feel about my smart home stuff on the Echo now is that the simplest stuff is pretty

01:16:03 ◼   ► doable and then you get up above a certain level and you're like, I don't even like I've

01:16:07 ◼   ► got I should be able to I should rephrase this. I know I can set my Echo up so that

01:16:14 ◼   ► I can tell it to do something and have it dim the lights in my living room and turn

01:16:18 ◼   ► on the television and open up Netflix and you know I know I can do that but for the

01:16:27 ◼   ► life of me I don't know how and that's a challenge with this stuff it all needs to get better

01:16:32 ◼   ► in terms of what they can control. They did announce as part of all of this that coming

01:16:36 ◼   ► soon is the ability for like for developers for scenes and also to have like multi-step

01:16:42 ◼   ► things so like they're improving everything right and something that we should mention

01:16:47 ◼   ► now is something that I have complained about and Dan Morin has complained about, I know

01:16:50 ◼   ► on Six Colors a lot, which is, guess what? For the first time, Alexa skills can now generate

01:17:00 ◼   ► notifications. So you have to opt in, you have to opt in, but that one of my complaints,

01:17:07 ◼   ► and again, I don't want to be bugged by my lady in a canister, but like, if I choose

01:17:12 ◼   ► an app and say, "Hey, app, let me know when the baseball game is starting." You can't

01:17:19 ◼   ► do it. Like in the current conceptions, like it doesn't go that direction. It doesn't come

01:17:23 ◼   ► from the internet into your device, right? And the first time they did anything like

01:17:27 ◼   ► this was with the calls, right? Where all of a sudden your Echo is lighting up and saying,

01:17:31 ◼   ► "You've got a call from Steven Hackett." And it's like, "What is happening?" Right? Well,

01:17:34 ◼   ► now with this new generation of skills, the skills can do that. So the skills can actually

01:17:40 ◼   ► ping you and say that thing that you, you know, that gum you wanted is back in style

01:17:45 ◼   ► or whatever, they can do that for you. The baseball game is about to start. And that's

01:17:49 ◼   ► a big step forward for them too. So they are making a bunch of other announcements here.

01:17:54 ◼   ► It's just the skill stuff, I don't know, I mean you've got, you've got echoes too. The

01:17:57 ◼   ► skill stuff is so squishy, it's like, it's, because it's a voice device, like there's

01:18:02 ◼   ► no, there's no real good way to access it on the device and then you're in the Echo

01:18:08 ◼   ► app or the Alexa app and it's not very good in terms of skills like this is one of those

01:18:12 ◼   ► cases where like I look at the App Store and I'm like oh yeah the App Store is better at

01:18:17 ◼   ► this than Amazon is at getting this stuff together because I feel like it should be

01:18:21 ◼   ► way more discoverable and easy to enable this stuff and instead most of the Amazon Echo

01:18:30 ◼   ► skills that I enable are coming from the other direction where like any list sends me an

01:18:35 ◼   ► an email that says, "Oh, we now support the shopping list on the Echo and click here

01:18:41 ◼   ► to turn that on."

01:18:43 ◼   ► Because their store is a junk design. It's like, just junk. It's like, Amazon, fix

01:18:49 ◼   ► that. Right? Like, it looks terrible.

01:18:51 ◼   ► Yeah, right? Because that needs to be better.

01:18:53 ◼   ► It's so user hostile. It's a nightmare to use. I was just looking around at them

01:18:57 ◼   ► while you were talking and it's like, this is just like a horrible design.

01:19:01 ◼   ► - No, it reads like a lot of stuff that is early on

01:19:04 ◼   ► in the smart home world where somebody slaps something

01:19:07 ◼   ► together and put it up and it's like they designed it

01:19:10 ◼   ► when there were only 20 of them and they were mostly garbage

01:19:12 ◼   ► done by hobbyists and a couple of different hardware

01:19:14 ◼   ► partners and it was like it's good enough to ship it.

01:19:16 ◼   ► But now you've got a lot of these devices out there

01:19:19 ◼   ► and you've got a lot of these kind of skills

01:19:21 ◼   ► and they're coming from different locations

01:19:23 ◼   ► and it's like the experience needs to be a lot better

01:19:26 ◼   ► than it is right now.

01:19:27 ◼   ► - All right, two last things.

01:19:30 ◼   ► Echo Spot, it's like an echo alarm clock, it's a small device of a 2.5mm screen, it

01:19:36 ◼   ► also features a speaker and a camera, it's like the bedroom version of the Echo Show.

01:19:39 ◼   ► 2.5 inch screen, it's bigger than that 2.5mm screen would be very small.

01:19:43 ◼   ► Wow, 2.5mm, where did that come from?

01:19:46 ◼   ► Yeah, 2.5 inch screen.

01:19:48 ◼   ► It's a little like a little round blob that you're supposed to put on your nightstand.

01:19:52 ◼   ► 2.5mm screen!

01:19:53 ◼   ► It's a light, basically, a light, that's what you described.

01:19:57 ◼   ► That you can barely see.

01:19:58 ◼   ► It also features a speaker and a camera. It is like a bedroom version of the Echo Show.

01:20:02 ◼   ► $130 shipping in December in the US. It's an interesting product. Like, I would maybe

01:20:09 ◼   ► consider one of these. It's got little information that shows on the screen for you. This feels

01:20:14 ◼   ► like a more sensible use of a touchscreen for me than the show. I just feel like it

01:20:20 ◼   ► makes more sense for me personally. When they come to the UK, I'll consider it.

01:20:24 ◼   ► I like the ambient nature of this.

01:20:25 ◼   ► I mean, it's 130 bucks, it's not cheap,

01:20:28 ◼   ► but I like the ambient nature.

01:20:29 ◼   ► I've mentioned on the show before

01:20:30 ◼   ► that one of the things that I have repurposed

01:20:33 ◼   ► my old SqueezeBox music players to do

01:20:35 ◼   ► is show the time and temperature

01:20:38 ◼   ► and put those in a few places in my house

01:20:41 ◼   ► because it's nice to have the time and temperature visible.

01:20:44 ◼   ► And I've got the weather station,

01:20:45 ◼   ► so the temperature is readily available.

01:20:47 ◼   ► And this is one of those examples where

01:20:49 ◼   ► like having ambient information from the internet around

01:20:53 ◼   ► is nice, like just ambient, like it's just a screen.

01:20:57 ◼   ► And surprisingly hard, like surprisingly hard to get that.

01:21:00 ◼   ► So I look at the Echo Spot and I'm like,

01:21:02 ◼   ► oh, that's really nice 'cause it's not cheap,

01:21:04 ◼   ► but you could put one of those somewhere

01:21:06 ◼   ► where people are looking from time to, or know to look,

01:21:10 ◼   ► whether it's in bedroom, living room, wherever.

01:21:12 ◼   ► And you can, at a glance, you could see, you know,

01:21:14 ◼   ► time and temperature or news headlines

01:21:16 ◼   ► or whatever you would put on there.

01:21:18 ◼   ► I would say that knowing what I know about the Echo Show,

01:21:21 ◼   ► I have some skepticism about what's gonna be

01:21:23 ◼   ► on the screen of the Echo Spot because the home screen of the Echo Show is very

01:21:27 ◼   ► limited in what it's able to be customized to be and it needs to be

01:21:31 ◼   ► better at that. It's kind of a hodgepodge right now and it needs to be

01:21:35 ◼   ► better and the Echo Spot with the limited screen real estate of that thing

01:21:40 ◼   ► it needs to be that much better in terms of letting you choose what you need to

01:21:45 ◼   ► see on it but it's an interesting product. And the last thing which is not

01:21:50 ◼   ► important thing but it's a weird thing. Echo buttons which is the first of what they're

01:21:54 ◼   ► calling Alexa gadgets which is a $20 set of buttons that you can use to play trivia games

01:21:59 ◼   ► with and the Echo will answer questions and then people can press their buttons and then answer

01:22:04 ◼   ► back. It seems like a fun little game to play. I feel like this would be a great stocking stuffer

01:22:10 ◼   ► when you buy your grandma her first Echo for Christmas, right? Then the whole family can

01:22:15 ◼   ► sit around the Echo and play a trivia game? Fine. So there are so many devices here and

01:22:22 ◼   ► I guess that what Amazon is doing is trying to just fill every need which is, I don't

01:22:30 ◼   ► know if this is good or bad, it is a strategy though, right? Like it is a strategy.

01:22:34 ◼   ► It is Amazon realising that the Echo has some traction and that it needs to go all in on

01:22:44 ◼   ► this. And not all of these products are going to work. I mean, I'd imagine that they've

01:22:48 ◼   ► got a lot of, there's no company with an access to more rich, like consumer data analysis

01:22:56 ◼   ► than Amazon, right? Just because of their sheer scale of what they sell and how many

01:23:00 ◼   ► people they sell to. So they've made some guesses about, informed guesses about use

01:23:06 ◼   ► cases for this stuff, but it's also the case where they are shipping a bunch of stuff and

01:23:11 ◼   ► seeing what happens. And while part of me thinks maybe fewer devices that are more focused

01:23:18 ◼   ► would be better, the fact is they have a new, what we thought of as the main Echo, they

01:23:24 ◼   ► have a new one that does a whole lot more, and they have a cheaper one that is now the

01:23:28 ◼   ► new main Echo, and it does more and has some different looks. And they've still got the

01:23:34 ◼   ► small one, and they've got the video one, and they've got the bedside, like small screen

01:23:39 ◼   ► So, you know, it's really interesting.

01:23:44 ◼   ► And in the end, we'll see where people want

01:23:47 ◼   ► to integrate this stuff and where they don't.

01:23:48 ◼   ► But it's very clear that Amazon is not going to let Apple

01:23:53 ◼   ► and Google slide on in here and take over leadership

01:23:57 ◼   ► in this without a fight.

01:24:00 ◼   ► And this is Amazon fighting.

01:24:02 ◼   ► And full credit to them.

01:24:04 ◼   ► I think their challenge is that they don't have parts

01:24:07 ◼   ► of the ecosystem that Apple and Google have,

01:24:10 ◼   ► that they have shopping and they have some video content,

01:24:14 ◼   ► but with the YouTube thing, we can see that they are reliant

01:24:17 ◼   ► on companies that have been more partners than competitors,

01:24:22 ◼   ► and now are kind of competitors.

01:24:24 ◼   ► So that's one of their challenges.

01:24:27 ◼   ► But the Echo was a hit, right?

01:24:30 ◼   ► And they're going in, they're leaning in on the Echo.

01:24:35 ◼   ► And I think that's great.

01:24:36 ◼   ► I think some of these products may flop, and that's okay.

01:24:39 ◼   ► I think if they flop, they'll just walk away

01:24:41 ◼   ► and try something new.

01:24:42 ◼   ► I think that's true.

01:24:43 ◼   ► - Amazon is not shameless about that.

01:24:45 ◼   ► They've had many failed products, right?

01:24:47 ◼   ► Like they don't, you know, not that they don't care,

01:24:49 ◼   ► but like they don't cower when they fail, right?

01:24:53 ◼   ► Like they'll just keep going.

01:24:54 ◼   ► - They seem very much one of these fail fast kind of places

01:24:57 ◼   ► where that's what Ed Catmull said that about Pixar.

01:25:01 ◼   ► Like if you're gonna fail, fail fast.

01:25:03 ◼   ► Just get it over with and move on.

01:25:05 ◼   ► And so like the Echo Connect doesn't work.

01:25:07 ◼   ► Like obviously the Fire Phone failed

01:25:09 ◼   ► and they're like, all right, that's it.

01:25:10 ◼   ► And it was gone and that was it.

01:25:12 ◼   ► Echo Connect, who knows if there's any market for that.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Echo Spot will people like that.

01:25:16 ◼   ► The Echo, that the one that they already have,

01:25:20 ◼   ► that's the Echo Look, is that it?

01:25:21 ◼   ► Which is supposed to be your like fashion companion.

01:25:24 ◼   ► We haven't even mentioned that,

01:25:26 ◼   ► but that's a weird product that may or may not make it.

01:25:28 ◼   ► But they're trying. - They didn't do anything

01:25:30 ◼   ► with that one, right?

01:25:31 ◼   ► That just stayed as it was.

01:25:32 ◼   ► And we mentioned the Fire TV, right?

01:25:34 ◼   ► got the new Fire TV with the new features it has and it's $70 compared to Apple's

01:25:38 ◼   ► 170. The Echo is $99 and the HomePod will be $399. Now, your mileage may vary as to

01:25:45 ◼   ► what you consider to be a better product, but how is it going to be four times as good?

01:25:52 ◼   ► It might be twice as good, it may be three times as good. Will the HomePod be four times

01:25:57 ◼   ► as good as the Echo? I don't know that question.

01:26:00 ◼   ► - And we'll see what Sonos,

01:26:01 ◼   ► Sonos I think is doing an announcement this week

01:26:03 ◼   ► and we'll see what that is because that may be in,

01:26:07 ◼   ► it's possible that there's some echo integration

01:26:10 ◼   ► in a Sonos level kind of set of speakers

01:26:12 ◼   ► and if that's the case,

01:26:14 ◼   ► then that will be an interesting comparison with HomePod

01:26:17 ◼   ► because HomePod is justified by its sound

01:26:21 ◼   ► as being the higher price

01:26:24 ◼   ► and that'll be interesting to see how,

01:26:28 ◼   ► where Sonos is in that space,

01:26:30 ◼   ► because it may be that Amazon is pricing

01:26:33 ◼   ► for the mass market,

01:26:34 ◼   ► and then Sonos is gonna have Amazon or Alexa integration,

01:26:39 ◼   ► but it's going to be priced for their market,

01:26:42 ◼   ► which is people who care much more about audio quality.

01:26:45 ◼   ► And none of these echoes is going to be threatening Sonos

01:26:50 ◼   ► or probably HomePod, right, in terms of audio quality.

01:26:54 ◼   ► So that'll be interesting to see where that fits in,

01:26:57 ◼   ► because you're right there's a there's a real question about that $300

01:27:02 ◼   ► difference in price like I'm sure that the home pod will sound way better than

01:27:07 ◼   ► that than any of these echo sound but what if nobody hears it because nobody's

01:27:14 ◼   ► going to spend or very few people will spend $400 on that home pod and they'll

01:27:18 ◼   ► buy an echo for $99 and play music on it and say it's fine because for a lot of

01:27:23 ◼   ► people it may just be fine and that's the I think that's a big risk Apple takes

01:27:27 ◼   ► with a HomePod at 400 bucks is what if they have built a product that people don't actually

01:27:36 ◼   ► find value in, right? Because there's—Apple can charge more because people perceive a

01:27:41 ◼   ► value in their products and in the quality of their products, and that's going to be

01:27:47 ◼   ► the question with HomePod is what is that perceived value? How does Apple get that out

01:27:50 ◼   ► there? Because a lot of people—I mean, Sonos has felt this too, I'm sure—a lot of people

01:27:55 ◼   ► get one of these $100, $150 Amazon boxes with "bad sound" and love playing music on it and

01:28:05 ◼   ► don't really care how it sounds.

01:28:06 ◼   ► Hello, I'm one of those people.

01:28:08 ◼   ► Right?

01:28:09 ◼   ► And that makes it a lot harder for you to justify charging three times as much for better

01:28:12 ◼   ► sound if the sound is fine.

01:28:15 ◼   ► And right?

01:28:16 ◼   ► Because then for them, your differentiator doesn't matter.

01:28:18 ◼   ► And that's yeah, we'll see.

01:28:20 ◼   ► Because it really is like, I don't care too much.

01:28:23 ◼   ► We don't play music in the house so much that I need the best.

01:28:26 ◼   ► We just have it play as a usability.

01:28:31 ◼   ► If I really want to have great audio, I'll come in here and use my multiple $100 setup

01:28:36 ◼   ► that I have with an audio amp and incredible headphones and all that stuff.

01:28:40 ◼   ► The Echo's facility is to just play music loudly.

01:28:43 ◼   ► That's what it's to do.

01:28:44 ◼   ► I don't really need anything else to do.

01:28:45 ◼   ► Yeah, while I'm making dinner or something, yeah.

01:28:48 ◼   ► And so really like I don't know how great the home pods gonna be for that.

01:28:52 ◼   ► Like just so I like I'm not really interested in that product.

01:28:56 ◼   ► But Amazon, they're firing on all cylinders.

01:28:58 ◼   ► Whether you Yeah, it might be too many cylinders, but they're firing on all of them.

01:29:02 ◼   ► But some of those cylinders, they're just gonna throw away like, yeah, it's gonna pop

01:29:04 ◼   ► out the engine.

01:29:05 ◼   ► Today's show is also brought to you by Squarespace enter the offer code upgrade at checkout and

01:29:09 ◼   ► you'll get 10% of your first purchase.

01:29:11 ◼   ► Make your next move for Squarespace.

01:29:13 ◼   ► They let you easily create a website for your next idea with a unique domain name, award

01:29:17 ◼   ► winning templates and more, you have everything that you need to put online what you want

01:29:22 ◼   ► to make, whether it's a store, a portfolio, a blog, a site for your restaurant, band,

01:29:27 ◼   ► no matter what it is, Squarespace has the ability to let you do it. There's nothing

01:29:32 ◼   ► to install, no patches to worry about, no upgrades needed, they're an all in one platform,

01:29:36 ◼   ► you don't have to worry about any of this stuff. Squarespace have got you covered. And

01:29:40 ◼   ► they also have you covered with award winning 24/7 customer support. Squarespace has everything.

01:29:45 ◼   ► They're great for if you know what you're doing or if you don't.

01:29:47 ◼   ► There are many reasons to use Squarespace.

01:29:49 ◼   ► It can be either like me, you don't know how to code a website, so Squarespace allows you

01:29:54 ◼   ► to put online the projects that you want to make because otherwise they might just sit

01:29:57 ◼   ► in the ether forever with no website.

01:30:00 ◼   ► Or it can be great for if you don't want to have to worry about the hassle, you don't

01:30:04 ◼   ► want to have to worry about security upgrades, or maybe you want to be able to set up a friend

01:30:08 ◼   ► or family member or whatever or club with a website that they can be supported on and

01:30:13 ◼   ► that they can just deal with on their own. That's what Squarespace is great for.

01:30:17 ◼   ► Their plans start at just $12 a month. You can start a trial today with no credit card

01:30:20 ◼   ► required just by going to squarespace.com. Then use the code UPGRADE when you sign up

01:30:25 ◼   ► to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for this show. We'd like to

01:30:29 ◼   ► thank Squarespace for their continued support of the upgrade podcast, Squarespace. Make

01:30:33 ◼   ► your next move, make your next website.

01:30:36 ◼   ► Should we do some mask upgrade?

01:30:40 ◼   ► Yeah, let's do it.

01:30:41 ◼   ► So first one today comes from Ayan, and Ayan asked what 4K TVs we own and if they have

01:30:47 ◼   ► HDR.

01:30:48 ◼   ► So you already mentioned earlier on in the show that yours doesn't have HDR.

01:30:53 ◼   ► My TV has both 4K and HDR and is a Panasonic TV.

01:30:59 ◼   ► I'm going to put a link in the show notes to an Amazon page for this because TVs have

01:31:03 ◼   ► the worst names.

01:31:06 ◼   ► You can find it on your own.

01:31:07 ◼   ► So for example mine is the TX-50DX700B, although actually I think mine is a 42 inch which it

01:31:14 ◼   ► doesn't look like it's available on Amazon anymore so it's probably a different thing.

01:31:17 ◼   ► I think there is a newer model of this TV now.

01:31:20 ◼   ► So I'm just going to give you, just for comparison's sake, that's the TV that I own.

01:31:24 ◼   ► I really like it.

01:31:25 ◼   ► It's not too big and it has 4K and HDR.

01:31:28 ◼   ► Do you know what your TV is?

01:31:30 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a Vizio, I think it's a 2015 4K model, 50 inches, and 4K but not HDR.

01:31:43 ◼   ► Maybe it's the P-series, I'm not sure, but it's like literally the 4K...

01:31:51 ◼   ► Yeah, our TV broke a couple years ago, it just died, and we went to Costco and I bought a TV,

01:31:58 ◼   ► and this is the one I bought. And it's fine. It's not great, but it's fine. And it does

01:32:02 ◼   ► 4K, which is kind of more of an oddity, but it does do it. So one of these days I'll get

01:32:06 ◼   ► a bigger TV, but what's holding me back is that the reasonably priced good HDR 4K TV

01:32:13 ◼   ► is a 55-inch model, which would be five inches diagonal, bigger than the one that I've got.

01:32:19 ◼   ► But I feel like if I'm going to buy a new TV, I might want a bigger TV than that. I

01:32:23 ◼   ► might want to go like up into the 60s and put it on the wall and have it be properly

01:32:28 ◼   ► and those are more expensive so it's making me hesitate we'll see.

01:32:34 ◼   ► Adam asks a great question how will the later release of the iPhone 10 affect upgrade

01:32:39 ◼   ► program holders in 2019 because of the payment requirements right so you'll be

01:32:44 ◼   ► getting this phone in November what about when September comes around it's

01:32:47 ◼   ► not been a year so I've done some digging on this there are a couple of

01:32:51 ◼   ► things one you only need to make 11 payments right so it's 12 months but 11

01:32:54 ◼   ► payments or you know kind of whatever. When you trade your phone back in you

01:32:59 ◼   ► can get credit upgrade credit which can knock off some of that money but you can

01:33:02 ◼   ► also end the plan at any point just by paying the remaining months. So you can

01:33:07 ◼   ► upgrade early you just have to just pay what's left for the finance portion of

01:33:10 ◼   ► the phone but you can also get trading credit when you take your phone in to

01:33:15 ◼   ► upgrade it to the next one so then you can work it out that way. So it's totally

01:33:18 ◼   ► possible there are many routes around this if you go on the upgrade program

01:33:21 ◼   ► you won't have to wait until November. You can and then you know it might be

01:33:25 ◼   ► easier but you don't have to you can end it early so simple to do. There you go.

01:33:31 ◼   ► Good to know. Nice and easy. Aviv asked will the watch series 2 work with Qi

01:33:37 ◼   ► charges or only apples? Series 2 isn't gonna work with Qi charging at all.

01:33:44 ◼   ► Does Aviv mean series 3? But I don't know about series 3 doesn't work

01:33:50 ◼   ► of Qi charging. So none of them do. Yeah, so series 012 don't work with anything but

01:33:55 ◼   ► the Apple inductive charger that comes with it. Series 3 will work with the AirPower thing

01:34:02 ◼   ► that Apple's going to come out with. So it may work in the future with other kind of

01:34:05 ◼   ► extensions of Qi that involve the larger kind of thing that Apple's trying to do with the

01:34:12 ◼   ► AirPower stuff. But even that won't work with a standard Qi charger. Oh, so that was interesting

01:34:16 ◼   ► because I figured that all of the watches would work with the AirPower, Matt. I didn't

01:34:22 ◼   ► necessarily think that it was just the Series 3.

01:34:24 ◼   ► Matt: Well, okay, I don't know that 100%, but I think that's the case. I think it's

01:34:28 ◼   ► just the Series 3 that has been changed, that that's one of the things. If, I mean, AirPower

01:34:35 ◼   ► doesn't exist yet, right? So who knows, maybe, but that was my read on it was that it wasn't

01:34:40 ◼   ► going to work with the other ones. But, you know, they're all inductive charging, right?

01:34:44 ◼   ► So they all theoretically could.

01:34:47 ◼   ► - So here's what it says on Apple's website.

01:34:49 ◼   ► Just lay up to three compatible devices

01:34:51 ◼   ► like the latest iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods

01:34:54 ◼   ► anywhere on the surface to charge them.

01:34:57 ◼   ► So it may be that it needs the latest.

01:34:59 ◼   ► - Of course, that's the AirPods in the new case

01:35:01 ◼   ► that you're gonna have to get that works with it.

01:35:04 ◼   ► - We'll have to wait to see definite confirmation

01:35:06 ◼   ► of which is which, right?

01:35:08 ◼   ► But it just says requires iPhone, Apple Watch, or AirPods.

01:35:14 ◼   ► and then it says AirPods with wireless charging capabilities to come in 2018.

01:35:18 ◼   ► That's in like the small print.

01:35:19 ◼   ► So we're gonna have to wait and see what watches exactly will work with this,

01:35:23 ◼   ► but it may be safe to assume that it's Series 3 only.

01:35:27 ◼   ► I think so.

01:35:28 ◼   ► Rajeev asked, "Which platform has a more vibrant and active App Store?

01:35:31 ◼   ► TV OS or watchOS?"

01:35:33 ◼   ► Woof.

01:35:35 ◼   ► I'm gonna say TV OS because watchOS—

01:35:37 ◼   ► does watchOS really have an App Store?

01:35:39 ◼   ► WatchOS just feeds apps from your iPhone apps.

01:35:41 ◼   ► No, there's an App Store. It's in the Watch app.

01:35:43 ◼   ► - I always forget that. - Yeah, but it's not,

01:35:45 ◼   ► but it's just a filter on the iOS app store.

01:35:47 ◼   ► There's no like watch apps that don't have iOS apps, right?

01:35:52 ◼   ► - That's true.

01:35:54 ◼   ► Yes, there has to be both.

01:35:56 ◼   ► - So I say tvOS because tvOS,

01:35:58 ◼   ► you can just have an app that's an app,

01:36:00 ◼   ► that's a tvOS app and watchOS is all like,

01:36:04 ◼   ► well, I mean, you could say it either way, right?

01:36:05 ◼   ► You could say the watchOS app store

01:36:07 ◼   ► is way more vibrant and active

01:36:08 ◼   ► because it just kind of piggybacks on the vibrancy

01:36:11 ◼   ► and activity of the iOS app store,

01:36:13 ◼   ► whereas tvOS is off on the side.

01:36:15 ◼   ► I think a better question would be tvOS or Mac App Store.

01:36:19 ◼   ► Which one is more vibrant and active?

01:36:21 ◼   ► I'm not sure I have an answer for that one either.

01:36:23 ◼   ► Do I have to choose?

01:36:24 ◼   ► - No. - Can I choose none?

01:36:25 ◼   ► - You can choose none.

01:36:26 ◼   ► The answer is C, none.

01:36:28 ◼   ► The story so far in the chat room

01:36:29 ◼   ► has given us a link to a MacRumors page

01:36:31 ◼   ► which has like a breakdown as tech specs

01:36:33 ◼   ► and series three Apple watches have supports

01:36:36 ◼   ► air power mat in the technical specs.

01:36:39 ◼   ► The series one doesn't.

01:36:40 ◼   ► I'm gonna assume the series two and the series one

01:36:42 ◼   ► are in the same boat on this.

01:36:44 ◼   ► - I assume so.

01:36:45 ◼   ► - And finally today, Josh asked,

01:36:48 ◼   ► is there a method to convert my existing

01:36:51 ◼   ► massive photos library to Heath?

01:36:54 ◼   ► I could do with the extra space.

01:36:55 ◼   ► Do you know, is there a way to do this?

01:36:57 ◼   ► - Well, if there isn't, there will be at some point

01:37:02 ◼   ► because with Heath encoding built into modern hardware,

01:37:06 ◼   ► somebody, you know, if the fat cat software people

01:37:09 ◼   ► who do power photos haven't already done this, they will,

01:37:12 ◼   ► You might be able to do an export, although even there,

01:37:15 ◼   ► I think Apple, look, Apple doesn't want you to do this.

01:37:19 ◼   ► And the reason is it's lossy.

01:37:23 ◼   ► You are losing your original and replacing it with a,

01:37:28 ◼   ► you know, a changed copy.

01:37:33 ◼   ► And they're both lossy formats.

01:37:37 ◼   ► So you're double-lossing your original photo.

01:37:40 ◼   ► you're gonna lose information on your original photo

01:37:43 ◼   ► by doing it.

01:37:44 ◼   ► So Apple is not, I think, going to support this.

01:37:48 ◼   ► And if you're syncing with iCOD photo library,

01:37:51 ◼   ► it's even more complex, right?

01:37:52 ◼   ► Because you would have to like export them and convert them

01:37:56 ◼   ► and then delete them from the photo library

01:37:58 ◼   ► and then re-upload them.

01:37:59 ◼   ► So I'm sure there will be a third party tool

01:38:05 ◼   ► that will look at your photos library

01:38:07 ◼   ► and convert them all and delete the originals.

01:38:10 ◼   ► but I don't recommend it because your photo originals are important.

01:38:16 ◼   ► And the JPEG is the closest you can get to reading off the sensor, right?

01:38:21 ◼   ► It's the device when it took the picture, it encoded the JPEG,

01:38:25 ◼   ► and that's what you've got.

01:38:26 ◼   ► And if you encode it as a heaf, you are now double encoding it,

01:38:31 ◼   ► and you're going to lose information along with saving some storage space.

01:38:37 ◼   ► So I don't recommend it either.

01:38:39 ◼   ► but I'm sure there will be a third party that will do it,

01:38:41 ◼   ► but I don't know of one right now.

01:38:42 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:38:43 ◼   ► So yeah, I mean, it seems like a risky thing too.

01:38:50 ◼   ► Like, I don't know if I would want to put everything through.

01:38:52 ◼   ► I guess you could convert like a second batch,

01:38:55 ◼   ► but then like, you're going to check them all.

01:38:56 ◼   ► I don't know, like it feels like a tricky thing to do.

01:39:00 ◼   ► And I guess if you're going to do it, wait,

01:39:03 ◼   ► like just wait a little bit, I think would be,

01:39:06 ◼   ► would be my advice to you.

01:39:08 ◼   ► Okay if you want to get our show notes for this week head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/161

01:39:14 ◼   ► I want to take a moment to thank again our fine sponsors this week Squarespace, Away

01:39:18 ◼   ► and Timing. Please go check them out and support the show. If you want to find Jason's work

01:39:23 ◼   ► online you can go to sixcolors.com and the incomparable.com and Jason is @jsnell on Twitter

01:39:28 ◼   ► we're in the #140club. I am also in the 140 club and I am iMac, I M Y K E. Most of all

01:39:35 ◼   ► as always thank you for listening if you want to participate in the show a couple

01:39:39 ◼   ► of ways you can do that you can send in a question for us to open the show with

01:39:42 ◼   ► the hashtag #snowtalk or you can send in questions for us to close the show with

01:39:46 ◼   ► the hashtag #askupgrade and I'm sure that you as an intrepid listener know

01:39:50 ◼   ► the difference between the two types of questions and everyone does a pretty

01:39:53 ◼   ► good job with that I think on the whole people don't tend to get those two

01:39:56 ◼   ► things mixed up which I'm very proud of our listeners because I know there's

01:40:00 ◼   ► lots of tweets and lots of hashtags and we're happy that you and also I love

01:40:05 ◼   ► people send this stuff in as well like thank you for participating and sending these questions in

01:40:09 ◼   ► to us. It is really really useful and we're very I'm very happy that every time I open the document

01:40:15 ◼   ► there's always more stuff than I can use so it's great so thank you very much as always.

01:40:19 ◼   ► And we'll be back next week until then Mr. Jase is now say goodbye. Goodbye everybody.

01:40:27 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:40:30 ◼   ► [ Music ]

01:40:32 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]