Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 152.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Eroting and Encapsula.

00:00:16 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by my wonderful co-host, Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hello, my wonderful co-host, Mr. Myke Hurley.

00:00:22 ◼   ► How are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► Very well.

00:00:23 ◼   ► This is a co-host appreciation episode.

00:00:26 ◼   ► That's right.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Traditionally, the 152nd episode is the co-host appreciation episode.

00:00:31 ◼   ► But Jason, nobody cares about how wonderful we are.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Hashtag Snail Talk this week comes from Eric.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Eric wants to know, "How does Jason's working setup and schedule change during the summer

00:00:44 ◼   ► when the kids are out of school?"

00:00:46 ◼   ► Oh boy.

00:00:48 ◼   ► It changes in every possible way.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Oh boy, yeah.

00:00:53 ◼   ► um there's people in my in in the place that is usually not does not have people in it and that

00:00:59 ◼   ► that that uh so schedule wise um so my wife works her work starts a little bit late i think she

00:01:07 ◼   ► starts work at uh 9 30 usually i think is when is when she starts but um that doesn't uh that

00:01:18 ◼   ► that doesn't happen, that's after the kids are off to school.

00:01:22 ◼   ► So the school is the thing that gets us up in the morning.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Things are happening in the morning

00:01:26 ◼   ► because the kids are out the door by like 7.45.

00:01:29 ◼   ► So everything happens more slowly in the summertime,

00:01:35 ◼   ► which is nice, I guess, but it's also frustrating

00:01:39 ◼   ► because like I like being gotten up

00:01:43 ◼   ► by the activity in the house.

00:01:44 ◼   ► And instead I sort of have to start the activity

00:01:47 ◼   ► in the house because everybody else is slow in getting up.

00:01:52 ◼   ► So that's a challenge.

00:01:54 ◼   ► It's nice in the sense that I don't have to run my kids

00:01:59 ◼   ► around to different activities after school,

00:02:01 ◼   ► which I sometimes have to do.

00:02:03 ◼   ► And that can be a time waster and a distraction

00:02:05 ◼   ► for my afternoon work.

00:02:07 ◼   ► And I'd say, but I'd say the biggest thing to me is that

00:02:11 ◼   ► I really am, like I said, when I started,

00:02:14 ◼   ► I am accustomed to working, I can work with the door open to the rest of the house. I

00:02:19 ◼   ► can move my, I can like set up my iPad and a keyboard on the counter in the kitchen on

00:02:24 ◼   ► the bar top and get a little change of scenery. I can, there are lots of things I can do and

00:02:31 ◼   ► the house is silent other than like the presence of the cat and the dog. And when the kids

00:02:37 ◼   ► are home for the summer, I got to close the door there. I can hear them like shouting

00:02:42 ◼   ► and playing video games and doing stuff in the rest of the house. And I feel a little

00:02:49 ◼   ► more isolated in that way, where I have to hunker down and do work when everybody's having

00:02:54 ◼   ► fun on the other side of the wall. So it's different psychologically. And as nice as

00:03:01 ◼   ► it is to have summer vacation and have flexibility for trips and things like that, the fact is

00:03:06 ◼   ► that when the kids go back to school, the professional working part of me will be incredibly

00:03:12 ◼   ► relieved because I get to go back to sort of my default state where when I'm in the

00:03:17 ◼   ► core of my workday, nobody's here. And that is, it's less distracting that way. There

00:03:25 ◼   ► are fewer distractions in that scenario. So, you know, but like there are positives, like

00:03:29 ◼   ► I said, but I think that in the end it knocks me out of my normal working rhythm and some

00:03:36 ◼   ► are so scattershot that there's never, there's not like a summer pace either. It's like,

00:03:40 ◼   ► Sometimes the kids are here, sometimes one of them has gone to a camp or to a friend's

00:03:44 ◼   ► house and it's all just much more erratic and that's not great if you're trying to get

00:03:48 ◼   ► into a groove.

00:03:49 ◼   ► So the nice thing about it is that even if they're camped out in the house, if it's a

00:03:54 ◼   ► nice warm day, I can just go out in the backyard under the tree with a chair and with my iPad

00:04:00 ◼   ► and get work done and that's pretty great.

00:04:02 ◼   ► If you're interested in hearing more about this type of thing, I recommend Free Agents

00:04:07 ◼   ► on Relay FM which is a show that Jason hosts with David Sparks.

00:04:10 ◼   ► episode number four, location, location, location. I think the two of you went into depth about

00:04:14 ◼   ► like what would it maybe take to work out of the home and stuff like that so people

00:04:17 ◼   ► can get more color there if they want to. But as always, thank you Eric for submitting

00:04:22 ◼   ► your Snell Talk question. If you want to have a question that opens the show, just send

00:04:27 ◼   ► a tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk. I collect them up and pick the ones that I find super

00:04:31 ◼   ► interesting. I have a nice backlog, Jason. I've got a great, great spreadsheet building

00:04:36 ◼   ► up.

00:04:37 ◼   ► - If you tweet them at me, I don't wanna see 'em.

00:04:39 ◼   ► I don't wanna see 'em until right before the show

00:04:41 ◼   ► or right when Myke asks me.

00:04:43 ◼   ► I don't wanna, I'll be tempted to answer them directly

00:04:46 ◼   ► on Twitter and that's no good.

00:04:48 ◼   ► - Either tweet them at me or just send them out into ether.

00:04:51 ◼   ► I will see them all, don't worry.

00:04:52 ◼   ► As long as you use the hashtag SnellTalk, I see them all.

00:04:54 ◼   ► - Myke sees all, knows all.

00:04:55 ◼   ► - Talking about seeing them all, Jason,

00:04:57 ◼   ► I feel like in the past week,

00:04:58 ◼   ► we've seen every Mac Mini user currently around.

00:05:01 ◼   ► - Yep, all the Mac Mini users wrote to us

00:05:05 ◼   ► and we appreciate it.

00:05:06 ◼   ► We, last week's show was funny because I was,

00:05:11 ◼   ► I mean, we're talking about a product that doesn't,

00:05:13 ◼   ► I mean, it currently exists in Apple's price list, right?

00:05:16 ◼   ► It's still a current product.

00:05:16 ◼   ► - It's Schrodinger's computer, right?

00:05:18 ◼   ► Like it even does and doesn't exist.

00:05:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, we know Apple have reassured us that,

00:05:22 ◼   ► in that thing, that it is a product that exists.

00:05:25 ◼   ► Great, that was the most minimum of reassurance.

00:05:28 ◼   ► But, so our conversation was me saying,

00:05:32 ◼   ► I like the Mac Mini and I use it

00:05:33 ◼   ► and I think it needs to be around,

00:05:35 ◼   ► but it's never getting refreshed.

00:05:37 ◼   ► It's obviously a low priority.

00:05:39 ◼   ► And being intrigued by like what I saw

00:05:41 ◼   ► with that Intel next unit computing thing,

00:05:44 ◼   ► the NUC that is like a mini Mac mini

00:05:47 ◼   ► and how I look at that and think,

00:05:49 ◼   ► say Apple could make a really interesting next gen Mac mini

00:05:52 ◼   ► if it wanted to, where it was even smaller

00:05:55 ◼   ► because it doesn't, you know,

00:05:57 ◼   ► it's only gonna have an SSD in it.

00:06:00 ◼   ► And so they can be that much smaller

00:06:03 ◼   ► and just like keep making it smaller and smaller.

00:06:06 ◼   ► And you took a devil's advocate position

00:06:09 ◼   ► for the purposes of like a conversation,

00:06:12 ◼   ► I think about like, well, do they really need it?

00:06:14 ◼   ► And I think what we heard as a result,

00:06:17 ◼   ► what we heard from many people was not,

00:06:19 ◼   ► yay, hooray, thank you for defending it.

00:06:21 ◼   ► And was not boo, you are mean,

00:06:23 ◼   ► you shouldn't have said bad things about it.

00:06:25 ◼   ► They're like, oh, they really just kind of talked about it

00:06:28 ◼   ► back and forth.

00:06:29 ◼   ► So what instead what we got was lots of descriptions

00:06:32 ◼   ► how people use the Mac Mini. And what I took from that was very much what we said in the

00:06:37 ◼   ► show last week, which was that Mac Mini doesn't have one use. It kind of is that, like I said,

00:06:45 ◼   ► like the spackle, the caulk, it just fills in a whole bunch of parts of the Mac market

00:06:51 ◼   ► that other Macs don't reach. So we heard from people who say they've got it in racks as

00:06:56 ◼   ► like as musicians, in installations for art,

00:07:01 ◼   ► for a lot of people pointed out that at $500,

00:07:05 ◼   ► it is way cheaper to get into the Mac with a Mac Mini

00:07:08 ◼   ► than any other device.

00:07:09 ◼   ► Like there are lots of examples,

00:07:11 ◼   ► and I feel like we covered those last week,

00:07:13 ◼   ► but it was good to hear from Mac Mini people

00:07:15 ◼   ► to basically say, yes, yes,

00:07:17 ◼   ► there are all the things you said,

00:07:19 ◼   ► and all these things that you didn't say

00:07:20 ◼   ► are reasons why we're enthusiastic about it.

00:07:23 ◼   ► And I think that's why it still exists, quite frankly,

00:07:26 ◼   ► is that there is a market of assorted parts,

00:07:30 ◼   ► but it's kind of like a junk drawer.

00:07:32 ◼   ► And I mean that in the nicest sense,

00:07:34 ◼   ► which is, you know, you're like, whoa, this drawer is full.

00:07:36 ◼   ► Yes, it is full, but it's full of like all sorts

00:07:38 ◼   ► of assorted little things.

00:07:39 ◼   ► That's kind of the Mac mini, which is, it's just,

00:07:43 ◼   ► it's a tool that can be applied to lots of different,

00:07:46 ◼   ► lots of different things.

00:07:47 ◼   ► So it was great to get that feedback

00:07:48 ◼   ► 'cause I think it proved the point,

00:07:50 ◼   ► which is people really love it

00:07:53 ◼   ► and they're using it for a huge diverse set of tasks

00:07:58 ◼   ► that are, it's not like it's big in X.

00:08:01 ◼   ► Like it's no, it's just kind of scattered around everywhere.

00:08:03 ◼   ► People use it for when they want a Mac in a certain place

00:08:06 ◼   ► and it's the best one that fits.

00:08:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I feel like from the feedback that we got,

00:08:10 ◼   ► what I've taken away is that this is maybe

00:08:13 ◼   ► the most versatile computer that Apple currently sells

00:08:16 ◼   ► from just how people use it, not how they make it, right?

00:08:20 ◼   ► Like if you think about versatility,

00:08:22 ◼   ► I think we typically think of all the modular Mac Pro that's coming in the future is very

00:08:27 ◼   ► versatile but really that's going to have one or two main uses, right? Like people that

00:08:31 ◼   ► want to play games and people that want to do high-end production.

00:08:34 ◼   ► It'll be an amazingly versatile piece of hardware but in the end it will probably be, because

00:08:40 ◼   ► of the price, it will probably be concentrated in some very specific markets.

00:08:44 ◼   ► But like the Mac Mini, people like, they repurpose it for lots and lots and lots of weird and

00:08:50 ◼   ► wonderful things because you can because it's small it's all in this one little

00:08:55 ◼   ► box it doesn't you know you can run it headless like it's it's an interesting

00:09:00 ◼   ► machine and I think the way that I came out of it I wouldn't say that I'm was

00:09:05 ◼   ► particularly down on the Mac Mini I kind of just apathetic but now I do feel a

00:09:10 ◼   ► little bit more of a sense of like I hope it sticks around just because I

00:09:15 ◼   ► don't know like I feel like there's all these people that seem to continue to be

00:09:18 ◼   ► super excited about a machine that's just not very good anymore. And so I would really

00:09:22 ◼   ► like to see it get updated now.

00:09:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's, I mean, that was sort of my goal when I am prompted by seeing that

00:09:29 ◼   ► Intel Nook and talking to Russell about his experience buying one of those, that I just

00:09:36 ◼   ► had that thought of like, oh, this is something that makes me excited about the Mac Mini,

00:09:43 ◼   ► and I feel like that would be good, like to have a Mac Mini that excites people. And again,

00:09:47 ◼   ► I kind of expect that even if Mac were to do,

00:09:50 ◼   ► or Apple were to do an update on the Mac mini,

00:09:52 ◼   ► even if all they did was turn over the processors,

00:09:56 ◼   ► but let's say they do make a mini Mac mini,

00:09:58 ◼   ► an even more mini that's a little bit smaller,

00:10:02 ◼   ► that's kind of, might not be as small as an Intel NUC,

00:10:05 ◼   ► but something like that.

00:10:06 ◼   ► You know, they wouldn't update it again for three years.

00:10:08 ◼   ► And I think that would be okay.

00:10:10 ◼   ► Like, I think that's what that product is gonna be.

00:10:12 ◼   ► It's never gonna be cutting edge.

00:10:13 ◼   ► They're not gonna be putting in the effort

00:10:14 ◼   ► to turn it over every year.

00:10:16 ◼   ► Maybe they could, it would be nice if they did,

00:10:19 ◼   ► but they don't have to.

00:10:20 ◼   ► But I do think continuing to like kind of nudge it along

00:10:24 ◼   ► every so often, keep that plate spinning is a good thing

00:10:28 ◼   ► because there are uses for that.

00:10:32 ◼   ► And it makes the Mac as a whole, a better platform

00:10:36 ◼   ► and a better environment for people,

00:10:39 ◼   ► even if it's isolated value is not particularly great.

00:10:46 ◼   ► because that way you're keeping people in the platform, in the ecosystem, by giving

00:10:51 ◼   ► them that outlet at $500 or $700 or whatever they want to price it at.

00:10:57 ◼   ► So last week you had a Game of Thrones hangover, I think is the right way to put it.

00:11:03 ◼   ► Oh man.

00:11:04 ◼   ► The show had just come back like week two or something like that.

00:11:07 ◼   ► Week one, week two, I don't know how many.

00:11:09 ◼   ► I don't watch Game of Thrones.

00:11:10 ◼   ► But you had a bit of a Game of Thrones hangover last week.

00:11:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:14 ◼   ► I do a podcast about it right after it's on, so I have to watch it and take notes, and

00:11:17 ◼   ► then we do a podcast, and sometimes it's late, and then I gotta edit it and post it and all

00:11:22 ◼   ► of those things.

00:11:24 ◼   ► And this happened last year when it was on, then I get up the next morning and do Upgrade,

00:11:28 ◼   ► and sometimes I'm very sleepy.

00:11:29 ◼   ► In fact, today I tried to get up early and have more tea, and also I tried to be done

00:11:37 ◼   ► earlier last night so that I would be awake for Upgrade because I didn't want the Game

00:11:43 ◼   ► Thrones hangover again because last week and you know the and we didn't get

00:11:49 ◼   ► nearly as much feedback about this as I thought we would which is because

00:11:54 ◼   ► everybody was too busy telling us about their Mac minis I guess you know what it

00:11:56 ◼   ► is Jason I think people just believed it because you said it in the same way that

00:12:00 ◼   ► I believed it because you said it to the point that I then repeated these facts

00:12:04 ◼   ► unconnected yeah you know so here's so here's what happened is I was parts of

00:12:10 ◼   ► my brain were asleep and what I said was that the MacBook was weighed a pound, which of

00:12:15 ◼   ► course it weighs two pounds.

00:12:17 ◼   ► And that the MacBook Pro was twice as heavy, but it isn't. It's like three pounds.

00:12:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it's 50% as heavy. And why did I say that? Because quite honestly, I don't know,

00:12:27 ◼   ► my brain was not working right and when you're on a podcast you just say stuff and then you're

00:12:32 ◼   ► like okay. And the thing of it is, my brain at that point when I said it and we were talking

00:12:37 ◼   ► about was like, "Really? One pound? That seems kind of light. Maybe you mean two pounds."

00:12:42 ◼   ► And I was like, "Whatever." No one in the chat room got us. We just kept rolling with

00:12:48 ◼   ► it and then I believed it for an extra two days.

00:12:51 ◼   ► My inner fact checker was like, "I think that might not be right. I think that might not

00:12:54 ◼   ► be right." But again, parts of my brain just were asleep. So I apologize for... It's a

00:13:02 ◼   ► podcast. Sometimes we say things that are wrong and that was one of them. It's a two

00:13:06 ◼   ► - Two pound product, somebody pointed out,

00:13:08 ◼   ► boy, I'd love a one pound MacBook.

00:13:09 ◼   ► I'm like, yeah, that would be pretty great.

00:13:10 ◼   ► 'Cause that would be the weight of the 9.7 inch

00:13:12 ◼   ► or the 10.5 inch iPad Pro, right?

00:13:15 ◼   ► That would be really great, but no,

00:13:16 ◼   ► that's gonna be a long time coming.

00:13:18 ◼   ► But two pounds, which is still very light for a lifetime.

00:13:23 ◼   ► All, the other thing, Myke, is all my arguments about it

00:13:26 ◼   ► were right, it's just the numbers were wrong.

00:13:28 ◼   ► Like one of them is smaller and one of them is bigger

00:13:30 ◼   ► and one of them is, you know, all that.

00:13:33 ◼   ► Another thing that I think is interesting,

00:13:35 ◼   ► although again, I would say it kind of doesn't

00:13:38 ◼   ► quite change the argument, it just changes the terms,

00:13:42 ◼   ► is that our friend Marco Arment wrote in to point out that

00:13:46 ◼   ► although the build to order, the processors in the Macbook

00:13:50 ◼   ► are now called i5s and i7s,

00:13:53 ◼   ► it's basically a marketing change.

00:13:56 ◼   ► They are still the same product line as the M5 and M7

00:14:00 ◼   ► in the previous generation.

00:14:02 ◼   ► And this is one of those sneaky things

00:14:04 ◼   ► where now they can say, look, it's got an i5 processor in it.

00:14:07 ◼   ► But as Marco points out,

00:14:09 ◼   ► it's still that same five watt product line,

00:14:12 ◼   ► barely faster than the ones they had before,

00:14:15 ◼   ► very little variation between the lowest

00:14:16 ◼   ► and the highest end CPUs.

00:14:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is on the 12 inch MacBook,

00:14:20 ◼   ► just for double double clarification,

00:14:22 ◼   ► just so we don't get it wrong again.

00:14:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:14:25 ◼   ► So although we can now say, look,

00:14:27 ◼   ► you can get an i7 in a MacBook, isn't that awesome?

00:14:29 ◼   ► But yes, they call it an i7,

00:14:32 ◼   ► but it's really the same as what they used to call the M7.

00:14:36 ◼   ► And that's true.

00:14:38 ◼   ► It's not going to blow away the processor and the MacBook Pro

00:14:43 ◼   ► without Touch Bar.

00:14:44 ◼   ► It's not going to blow it away at all.

00:14:47 ◼   ► It is a much less powerful CPU.

00:14:49 ◼   ► However, the overall argument still

00:14:51 ◼   ► remains the same, which is for almost everything, it's fine.

00:14:56 ◼   ► That's the bottom line of that.

00:14:57 ◼   ► But it is a good point and another point

00:15:00 ◼   ► that my sleeping brain spaced on,

00:15:03 ◼   ► which is it's a marketing change

00:15:06 ◼   ► and not really a hardware change substantially.

00:15:10 ◼   ► And keep that in mind that this is one of those things

00:15:15 ◼   ► where like, oh, people are turned off by this M5 branding

00:15:18 ◼   ► because they're so used to the I5 branding.

00:15:22 ◼   ► Like, okay, we'll call it that then.

00:15:23 ◼   ► All right, I guess you could do that.

00:15:26 ◼   ► Yeah, brilliant. - It's an upgrade.

00:15:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's right.

00:15:29 ◼   ► developer of Carrot Weather wrote in, Brian Mueller,

00:15:33 ◼   ► and he got in touch to say,

00:15:34 ◼   ► 'cause we were talking about Carrot Weather last week,

00:15:35 ◼   ► that it is actually possible to force Carrot Weather

00:15:38 ◼   ► to use a specific weather station,

00:15:39 ◼   ► which is something that you were looking for.

00:15:42 ◼   ► - Yes, it is, this is very exciting.

00:15:43 ◼   ► I actually just did this the other day after Brian's advice.

00:15:46 ◼   ► You go into a location,

00:15:47 ◼   ► which I hadn't really thought about,

00:15:49 ◼   ► like saving my location and saying,

00:15:51 ◼   ► basically you go to the current location

00:15:53 ◼   ► and you tap the kind of more button,

00:15:54 ◼   ► and it says,

00:15:57 ◼   ► In this location, you can choose,

00:16:00 ◼   ► if you've got weather underground as your source,

00:16:01 ◼   ► you can choose a weather station.

00:16:03 ◼   ► And basically, so when I'm in Mill Valley,

00:16:06 ◼   ► I have set my watch and phone app of Carrot Weather

00:16:11 ◼   ► to use my weather station,

00:16:13 ◼   ► which is awesome because the current temperature then

00:16:16 ◼   ► is the actual current temperature in my backyard

00:16:19 ◼   ► because there's a lot of variation where I live,

00:16:21 ◼   ► a lot of microclimates.

00:16:22 ◼   ► What's funny about this is that now

00:16:25 ◼   ► that data is intermingled with the forecast data,

00:16:29 ◼   ► which is still what I said before, problematic,

00:16:32 ◼   ► because if you're using a forecast for the town below me

00:16:36 ◼   ► or the town above me, it could be a huge temperature range.

00:16:40 ◼   ► So like it was a very,

00:16:41 ◼   ► it's been very foggy here the last couple of days,

00:16:44 ◼   ► even though there's been heat in other parts of the Bay Area,

00:16:46 ◼   ► it's been very foggy here right by the water.

00:16:49 ◼   ► And so the little chart in carrot weather shows

00:16:52 ◼   ► like the current temperature is 62.

00:16:56 ◼   ► And then it's got, and that's based on my weather station.

00:16:58 ◼   ► The rest of it is based on a forecast

00:17:00 ◼   ► from a data source, right?

00:17:02 ◼   ► And those are all like 74, 76, 78.

00:17:05 ◼   ► So there's like what it actually is

00:17:08 ◼   ► and then the dream of what the forecast is.

00:17:10 ◼   ► And they still don't match, but that's fine

00:17:13 ◼   ► 'cause it's a forecast and it actually is useful

00:17:15 ◼   ► 'cause I can see their forecast is way too optimistic

00:17:19 ◼   ► for how warm it's gonna get today.

00:17:20 ◼   ► But bottom line is, yeah, I can look at Carrot Weather now

00:17:23 ◼   ► and see the actual temperature at my house,

00:17:27 ◼   ► which is awesome.

00:17:28 ◼   ► - And it's such a good app.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Have you played with the watch app?

00:17:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely. - It's fantastic, right?

00:17:34 ◼   ► And the complication is, I love it.

00:17:36 ◼   ► And so just another huge thumbs up.

00:17:38 ◼   ► So just a second recommendation for the app.

00:17:41 ◼   ► - It's the first, 'cause Weather Underground

00:17:43 ◼   ► makes a watch app with a weird complication,

00:17:45 ◼   ► but they haven't updated it in a while,

00:17:47 ◼   ► and so it's sort of the old tech.

00:17:49 ◼   ► This is the first watch app where I've been able to put

00:17:52 ◼   ► weather complication on my watch

00:17:54 ◼   ► that is the current temperature at my house

00:17:57 ◼   ► and is actually right and updated.

00:18:01 ◼   ► And I love it, it's fantastic.

00:18:03 ◼   ► That's exactly what I wanted is I wanna be able to look down

00:18:05 ◼   ► at my watch and see what's the temperature outside.

00:18:07 ◼   ► And now I can.

00:18:08 ◼   ► - Jason, you wanna take the same piece of follow up?

00:18:11 ◼   ► - Sure, yes.

00:18:14 ◼   ► So those who are people who are relay members

00:18:18 ◼   ► may remember last summer, we did a,

00:18:23 ◼   ► what's called a parsley adventure.

00:18:26 ◼   ► There's a guy named Jared Sorenson who has created a series

00:18:29 ◼   ► of, they're like text adventures for, as a party game.

00:18:34 ◼   ► So basically you get a group together

00:18:37 ◼   ► and somebody is the parser and they have the map.

00:18:40 ◼   ► They have the rules and they accept your commands

00:18:45 ◼   ► in the style of an old text adventure.

00:18:47 ◼   ► So go north, get the gun, go south, shoot the gun.

00:18:52 ◼   ► And they're a lot of fun.

00:18:55 ◼   ► We played three of them so far on the Incomparable Game Show

00:18:58 ◼   ► and there's another one coming this week.

00:19:00 ◼   ► And last summer you and CGP Grey played a game

00:19:05 ◼   ► called Six Gun Showdown from this Parsley collection

00:19:10 ◼   ► with me as the parser.

00:19:11 ◼   ► And that was our upgrade Cortex crossover special

00:19:14 ◼   ► for members.

00:19:15 ◼   ► and it's still available if you become a member and you've not heard it, you can become a

00:19:19 ◼   ► relay member and get it.

00:19:20 ◼   ► It's fantastic, you should do it, like, it was so much fun.

00:19:24 ◼   ► Yeah, and we should tease that this, the membership season for relay is coming up later this summer,

00:19:33 ◼   ► and yes, there is a new Myke and Gray play a text adventure with the Snellatron 5000

00:19:40 ◼   ► coming. So if you're, if you are thinking of being a Relay member, uh, there's another

00:19:46 ◼   ► inducement, and if you're already a Relay member, get excited, we're gonna do another

00:19:50 ◼   ► one, it's gonna be hilarious.

00:19:51 ◼   ► Yep. We have a--

00:19:52 ◼   ► Um, Myke is hard at work on it.

00:19:55 ◼   ► It's done. It's basically done, and it's brilliant. We had so much fun with it, and if you remember,

00:19:59 ◼   ► you're gonna love it. So, go to relay.fm/membership, support any show, and you'll get all of the

00:20:04 ◼   ► benefits, you'll get all of the perks, and you'll be hearing a lot more about this in

00:20:08 ◼   ► few weeks as our membership season kicks off at relay FM.

00:20:11 ◼   ► Right. But the reason we're mentioning it now is there's a Kickstarter going on for

00:20:16 ◼   ► the next, as we record this, 11 days. That is by Jared Sorensen, the creator of Parsley

00:20:22 ◼   ► Games including Action Castle and Six Gun Showdown. And you can get, if you back it,

00:20:28 ◼   ► you can get a PDF of the entire collection of the Parsley Games and you can get a book

00:20:33 ◼   ► the entire collection. And I would say it is really fun as a party game. One person

00:20:39 ◼   ► is the parser, everybody else just plays along. Ideally the way you do it, which is not how

00:20:43 ◼   ► Gray and Myke chose to do it, is everybody is forced to take turns and not collaborate,

00:20:48 ◼   ► which means you end up sort of like arguing in your commands to the parser, which is funny.

00:20:54 ◼   ► Yeah, it's, so I recommend people go to Kickstarter, we'll put a link in the show notes, and back

00:20:58 ◼   ► this. I backed it, I want to get the hardcover, I think it's a lot of fun, there's a lot of

00:21:01 ◼   ► neat art that is focused on each of the games. He commissions original art for each of the games,

00:21:06 ◼   ► and then there's extra stuff that's in the Kickstarter that will be in the new book.

00:21:14 ◼   ► So it's a lot of fun. So check it out. We're gonna do a new one. We've already got one that's

00:21:19 ◼   ► available for members, and then the Incomparable Game Show's got some that you can check out too,

00:21:23 ◼   ► starting with Action Castle and a new one this week there. So it's just a lot of fun. So people

00:21:28 ◼   ► people should check out Jared Sorenson's Parsley Games Kickstarter.

00:21:32 ◼   ► Yeah, so go back and I back the hardcover. They're so much fun.

00:21:36 ◼   ► So you should go check them out and we'll put a link on the show notes for that.

00:21:40 ◼   ► Alright, today's show is brought to you in part by our friends over at Ting.

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00:23:24 ◼   ► We thank Ting for their support of this show.

00:23:29 ◼   ► So last week Jason in Ask Upgrade we answered the question of whether we thought that there

00:23:34 ◼   ► was going to be a new Apple Watch this year and you didn't think so but I thought so.

00:23:38 ◼   ► There's been a report from MacRumors this week who are saying that one of Apple's manufacturing

00:23:43 ◼   ► partners for the watch, I think they've been responsible for building all of the watches

00:23:47 ◼   ► so far, or at least a vast majority of them, a company called Quanta. They are indicating

00:23:52 ◼   ► that they are going to enjoy a strong second half of 2017, in part due to a third generation

00:23:59 ◼   ► Apple Watch. And previous rumors indicate that there will be no major visual design

00:24:05 ◼   ► change, but we're going to see a soul radio in series 3, and that was just kind of reiterated

00:24:09 ◼   ► by MacRumors. So what do you think? Do you think that that sounds compelling?

00:24:16 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, I think the next generation Apple Watch,

00:24:19 ◼   ► or at least, well, I shouldn't say that, right?

00:24:21 ◼   ► I think the next big step for the Apple Watch

00:24:23 ◼   ► is cellular connectivity, right?

00:24:25 ◼   ► Because one of the challenges right now is

00:24:27 ◼   ► you have to bring your phone with you.

00:24:30 ◼   ► If you want to get a text message, get a call,

00:24:33 ◼   ► anything like that, you need to bring your phone with you.

00:24:35 ◼   ► And I face this every time that I go out

00:24:38 ◼   ► running or bike riding with my,

00:24:41 ◼   ► I got an Apple Watch, I got AirPods,

00:24:43 ◼   ► And when I ride my bike, I bring my phone

00:24:47 ◼   ► and I stick it in the bag underneath the seat, right?

00:24:49 ◼   ► So it's not in my pocket, but it's still with me.

00:24:52 ◼   ► And when I'm running, it's in my pocket

00:24:54 ◼   ► and wiggling around out there.

00:24:56 ◼   ► And it's not great, but I need to do it.

00:24:58 ◼   ► So the next step is leave your phone at home.

00:25:00 ◼   ► It doesn't matter.

00:25:00 ◼   ► You're still out there.

00:25:01 ◼   ► If there's an emergency, you can still call.

00:25:03 ◼   ► If somebody calls you or texts you, you can see it.

00:25:06 ◼   ► That's clearly where the Apple Watch needs to go.

00:25:08 ◼   ► And I know people are like, yeah, I

00:25:09 ◼   ► don't care about that so much.

00:25:11 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, but it will be so much more useful

00:25:13 ◼   ► when it can reliably and the apps on it will be more useful when they can

00:25:16 ◼   ► reliably update over a connection and all of the carriers now are offering

00:25:21 ◼   ► you know little monthly upgrades that attached to your constellation of

00:25:25 ◼   ► devices and put it on your plan and I think that's where clearly where this is

00:25:30 ◼   ► going the question is this is a rumor that's like okay a manufacturer says

00:25:34 ◼   ► they expect to do better and the cited like previous reports is like a supply

00:25:40 ◼   ► chain analyst in March said that it would have this so it's like I'd say

00:25:47 ◼   ► these are not the strongest rumors it doesn't mean they're not true no it's

00:25:52 ◼   ► not like blockbuster these are not mark Gurman says that this is happening these

00:25:58 ◼   ► are more like you know a guy who is an analyst says that he thinks it might

00:26:04 ◼   ► happen and a company that has been known to make products for Apple thinks that it will

00:26:12 ◼   ► be nice later. It's like it's a very weird kind of hazy thing. So I'd say this pushes

00:26:18 ◼   ► it a little more into the likelihood percentage, you know, a little bit more than last week.

00:26:25 ◼   ► But and I don't think it's an unreasonable rumor, right? I think I think it's highly

00:26:30 ◼   ► unlikely that Apple is going to completely radically change the Apple watch design, right?

00:26:34 ◼   ► I think it's kind of iconic at this point,

00:26:38 ◼   ► like, you know it's an Apple Watch.

00:26:40 ◼   ► It keeps compatibility with all of these bands

00:26:44 ◼   ► that they've sold.

00:26:45 ◼   ► They're not gonna be able to make it radically smaller.

00:26:49 ◼   ► That's not gonna happen.

00:26:50 ◼   ► If they change the screen,

00:26:52 ◼   ► everybody would have to redo their apps,

00:26:54 ◼   ► which I think nobody wants to do.

00:26:56 ◼   ► So yeah, keeping the same design

00:27:00 ◼   ► and adding some other connectivity

00:27:02 ◼   ► is totally what the next step would probably be

00:27:04 ◼   ► unless they can't get there yet

00:27:06 ◼   ► and they're gonna do another like little half step

00:27:08 ◼   ► where, well, it's a little faster

00:27:09 ◼   ► and it's got one new feature.

00:27:11 ◼   ► But I think the question is, will it be this fall or not?

00:27:15 ◼   ► I really don't know.

00:27:16 ◼   ► Like it could be, it totally could be.

00:27:18 ◼   ► And I think I said that when we talked about this,

00:27:20 ◼   ► it's like, yeah, sure, it could be, or it could be a year.

00:27:23 ◼   ► We don't really understand what Apple's approach

00:27:26 ◼   ► with the Apple Watch is,

00:27:27 ◼   ► but now that they've got the different series

00:27:30 ◼   ► that might actually free them up to make a series three with cellular connectivity and

00:27:34 ◼   ► get rid of the series one, keep the series two around and allow the series three to have

00:27:37 ◼   ► a higher price because it's got the cellular connectivity for people who want it. That

00:27:42 ◼   ► could totally be what they do this fall. And I would welcome it because I think the Apple

00:27:45 ◼   ► Watch with cellular is going to be a way better product, like vastly better product. They

00:27:50 ◼   ► need to get there. I can't wait for that day where I can leave the phone at home and still

00:27:55 ◼   ► be connected and get everything that I need to do. But, you know, will it be this fall?

00:28:00 ◼   ► I don't know. That's a lot of stuff to cram into that Apple watch, right? I mean, are

00:28:06 ◼   ► they at that point now where they can do that? Maybe a lot of the other smart watches have

00:28:09 ◼   ► cellular connectivity, so maybe they can.

00:28:11 ◼   ► I think it makes sense, like I've been thinking about this, like, to do it now, do it before

00:28:15 ◼   ► you make a visual change, right? Because the hardware case is the same size, I think it

00:28:21 ◼   ► like slightly thicker so they're getting used to like making things smaller and potentially

00:28:26 ◼   ► making some space right like if I if I the little I understand about this stuff right

00:28:31 ◼   ► like miniaturization continues and you're able to be more efficient well you want to

00:28:36 ◼   ► make sure you have a ton of battery and if you're going to put a cell radio in there

00:28:39 ◼   ► and considering how good the battery life is in the series 2 you can keep that make

00:28:43 ◼   ► it a little bit better even and then throw a cell chip in like that makes the most sense

00:28:47 ◼   ► to me before you make it thinner maybe which I assume is going to happen at some point

00:28:51 ◼   ► where they will do a big visual change. It might make sense to try and get the cell radio

00:28:56 ◼   ► in before that but we'll see, we'll see. I would welcome either of those things, either

00:29:00 ◼   ► a big visual change to make it a lot thinner or a cell radio, I'll be equally happy.

00:29:03 ◼   ► So let's talk about some uh some leaks which are significantly more credible um than than what we

00:29:14 ◼   ► we saw today overnight last night as we record this. Steve Trout and Smith, notable code

00:29:22 ◼   ► miner, has once again been digging into some code from Apple to find some details about

00:29:29 ◼   ► future product releases. There's quite a few little tidbits here so we're going to try

00:29:33 ◼   ► and go through them piece by piece. So this time all of this stuff was found on a HomePod

00:29:42 ◼   ► firmware release, which was located on Apple's servers. I actually want to start with just

00:29:49 ◼   ► talking about that as a thing that happened before we actually talk about what was in

00:29:56 ◼   ► there. Like, this is so weird to me. Like, why did this ever exist in the public? It

00:30:04 ◼   ► must have been a mistake, right?

00:30:09 ◼   ► - It's gotta be, right?

00:30:09 ◼   ► I mean, why, I mean, I suppose you need to test

00:30:14 ◼   ► the HomePod firmware update and things like that,

00:30:17 ◼   ► and they've probably seeded units to people at Apple

00:30:20 ◼   ► and they wanna push out the firmware updates,

00:30:23 ◼   ► but to have it on a public website

00:30:28 ◼   ► where Steve Trout and Smith is watching,

00:30:31 ◼   ► that shouldn't happen.

00:30:34 ◼   ► - And many others, right?

00:30:34 ◼   ► Like it's not just something that he snuck into,

00:30:37 ◼   ► Like this is a thing that people can access.

00:30:39 ◼   ► Like there were a bunch of people that saw this,

00:30:42 ◼   ► there were a bunch of people that dug into it,

00:30:43 ◼   ► but there are people that just see it

00:30:44 ◼   ► and just kind of ignore it.

00:30:46 ◼   ► But like this is a thing that was just available

00:30:48 ◼   ► for the public to dig into essentially.

00:30:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's a page where you can see

00:30:53 ◼   ► the firmware downloads and there's this device

00:30:58 ◼   ► that is not a previously known device

00:31:00 ◼   ► in terms of its identifier.

00:31:01 ◼   ► I wonder if there's a disconnect about like,

00:31:04 ◼   ► well, it shouldn't be a problem

00:31:05 ◼   ► because we already announced the HomePod,

00:31:07 ◼   ► so this shouldn't be an issue,

00:31:08 ◼   ► but the problem is that the software is assuming a world

00:31:11 ◼   ► at the end of the year

00:31:12 ◼   ► where all the new iPhones have come out.

00:31:15 ◼   ► And so they contain, they're building it for that world.

00:31:19 ◼   ► They're not gonna release it before then, right?

00:31:21 ◼   ► So you don't have the software

00:31:24 ◼   ► that you're working on in beta in July

00:31:27 ◼   ► for a product that's gonna ship in December.

00:31:30 ◼   ► You don't have it not know about the next iPhone,

00:31:33 ◼   ► because why would you do that?

00:31:35 ◼   ► Why would you have to add that late in the game?

00:31:38 ◼   ► You're building for December.

00:31:41 ◼   ► You're pretending essentially that it is December

00:31:43 ◼   ► when you're building this product

00:31:45 ◼   ► because you don't need to release it before then.

00:31:48 ◼   ► And I wonder if there was a disconnect

00:31:51 ◼   ► where somebody said,

00:31:53 ◼   ► "Well, it's already announced product.

00:31:54 ◼   ► "We can just put it up and it's not a big deal.

00:31:56 ◼   ► "Nobody's got one."

00:31:57 ◼   ► But inside it,

00:32:00 ◼   ► and this is not the first time this has happened,

00:32:02 ◼   ► but inside it there are lots of details that can be gleaned about what's in the HomePod

00:32:12 ◼   ► and the HomePod makes references to stuff that's in the new iPhones.

00:32:17 ◼   ► Which is even more delectable. Like I've seen screenshots of people posting where there

00:32:22 ◼   ► are files and strings and stuff like that that have the word "hide" in them. As in,

00:32:29 ◼   ► Things are supposed to be hidden, which is beautiful, right?

00:32:32 ◼   ► Like, it's a thing that I think it's hilarious.

00:32:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not good, right?

00:32:40 ◼   ► Like, either that stuff should have been trimmed

00:32:43 ◼   ► or this should have been put in an alternate stream.

00:32:45 ◼   ► And it's, you know, this stuff is complicated

00:32:47 ◼   ► and somebody appears to have really screwed it up.

00:32:50 ◼   ► - So let's talk about what some of the details were,

00:32:56 ◼   ► what some of the details were of the release.

00:32:58 ◼   ► So the firmware has included data that refers to a few different things which can be attributed

00:33:07 ◼   ► to some rumors about the upcoming iPhone that I don't actually think that we've really covered

00:33:12 ◼   ► at all on this show about like the facial detection and stuff like that.

00:33:16 ◼   ► So the firmware includes references to something called face detect, infrared capture and pearl

00:33:22 ◼   ► ID.

00:33:23 ◼   ► And I've seen people tweeting that apparently "Pearl ID" is an internal code name for a

00:33:29 ◼   ► face detection system.

00:33:32 ◼   ► So this seems like pretty solid evidence that the next iPhone is going to have some kind

00:33:39 ◼   ► of face detection system.

00:33:41 ◼   ► Right like they are referencing it.

00:33:43 ◼   ► The code is clearly referencing that Apple is building some kind of face detection.

00:33:49 ◼   ► Right?

00:33:50 ◼   ► what this is.

00:33:51 ◼   ► It sure looks like it, right?

00:33:55 ◼   ► I mean, it's kind of hard to argue with this, that this is an infrared camera on the front

00:33:59 ◼   ► of the device so that it can see you even in darkness, and it will detect your face,

00:34:05 ◼   ► and there are strings in there about like too many faces or can't detect a face, and

00:34:11 ◼   ► so it looks very much like this is an iPhone that is, you know, doing biometric verification

00:34:18 ◼   ► via face detection.

00:34:19 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:34:20 ◼   ► - What do you think about this, Jason?

00:34:23 ◼   ► How do you feel?

00:34:23 ◼   ► I mean, we've not spoken about it.

00:34:25 ◼   ► Like, what are your feelings when you hear

00:34:29 ◼   ► Touch ID goes away replaced by face detection?

00:34:31 ◼   ► - Well, so my initial thoughts were that

00:34:37 ◼   ► this sounds real complicated, right?

00:34:39 ◼   ► And I remember you guys talked about this unconnected.

00:34:41 ◼   ► Like, Touch ID is everywhere, right?

00:34:44 ◼   ► And having a biometric approval system

00:34:47 ◼   ► is vital to what Apple does.

00:34:50 ◼   ► So you can't not have a biometric approval system.

00:34:54 ◼   ► But yet there were these rumors about this.

00:34:59 ◼   ► So the next question is, okay, let's assume this is true.

00:35:04 ◼   ► What does that mean?

00:35:06 ◼   ► And I gotta say, I don't think Apple would,

00:35:11 ◼   ► if you think back to other things

00:35:12 ◼   ► that we've been skeptical about,

00:35:13 ◼   ► like I don't think Apple would release

00:35:15 ◼   ► face scanning as their biometric replacement for Touch ID,

00:35:20 ◼   ► if they didn't feel like they had it down, right?

00:35:28 ◼   ► I feel like we're imagining, this does happen sometimes,

00:35:31 ◼   ► and they may blow it, I mean, it's entirely possible,

00:35:34 ◼   ► but sometimes what we do is we imagine

00:35:38 ◼   ► a bad implementation of something

00:35:40 ◼   ► because it seems so hard and unlikely

00:35:42 ◼   ► and we think of all the challenges that are involved.

00:35:44 ◼   ► And then Apple comes out with it,

00:35:45 ◼   ► like the fingerprint scanning, honestly.

00:35:47 ◼   ► And everybody goes, "Oh, Apple did a good job.

00:35:51 ◼   ► "They implemented it properly."

00:35:52 ◼   ► That's gotta be what's going on here, right?

00:35:54 ◼   ► Like, if they, I really believe this,

00:35:57 ◼   ► that if they don't have the face recognition stuff working,

00:36:01 ◼   ► they wouldn't ship the phone.

00:36:03 ◼   ► Like seriously, I think it's that simple,

00:36:05 ◼   ► that there's no way that Apple is going to ship

00:36:08 ◼   ► a brand new flagship iPhone

00:36:10 ◼   ► with a biometric identification system that doesn't work.

00:36:14 ◼   ► Like I just, I can't see that happening.

00:36:17 ◼   ► That is not what Apple does.

00:36:19 ◼   ► That would be the most un-Apple thing imaginable.

00:36:22 ◼   ► So I've got to start thinking,

00:36:25 ◼   ► what would this be like if it totally did what it said?

00:36:28 ◼   ► Like literally I pick up my phone and it knows it's me

00:36:32 ◼   ► and it works and it's unlocked

00:36:35 ◼   ► or at least I can unlock it easily at that point.

00:36:39 ◼   ► There are a lot of questions, right?

00:36:40 ◼   ► About what that means in terms of,

00:36:43 ◼   ► could somebody else hold your phone up to your face

00:36:46 ◼   ► while you're tied in a chair being held hostage

00:36:48 ◼   ► and use your phone?

00:36:49 ◼   ► Yeah, but they could probably jame your finger

00:36:51 ◼   ► on the touch ID button too.

00:36:53 ◼   ► So I don't know, I feel like we have to start conceiving

00:36:56 ◼   ► of how this could be good,

00:36:57 ◼   ► good enough for Apple to actually implement it

00:37:01 ◼   ► because I don't think I believe that Apple would put,

00:37:05 ◼   ► like Apple Pay and all of their security stuff

00:37:10 ◼   ► in the hands of technology that they weren't supremely

00:37:13 ◼   ► confident would work.

00:37:14 ◼   ► - I am completely of the opinion.

00:37:18 ◼   ► I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, right?

00:37:19 ◼   ► You know, the rumors have been around

00:37:20 ◼   ► for like a month or so now.

00:37:22 ◼   ► My feeling is just, well, I am confident

00:37:26 ◼   ► that it's gonna be great, right?

00:37:28 ◼   ► That's how I feel about it.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Like right now I'm like, well,

00:37:32 ◼   ► I'm sure that it's gonna be awesome

00:37:34 ◼   ► because why else would they do this?

00:37:35 ◼   ► Right?

00:37:36 ◼   ► Like I of this exact same mindset that you're in.

00:37:39 ◼   ► This isn't just like the next iPhone.

00:37:42 ◼   ► This is like the next iPhone that we're expecting is going to be a mega

00:37:46 ◼   ► expensive iPhone and that they would be like, Oh, Hey everyone,

00:37:51 ◼   ► you're buying this new phone.

00:37:52 ◼   ► And like to unlock it, like just sucks.

00:37:55 ◼   ► Do I think that it will be as completely reliable as touch ID?

00:38:01 ◼   ► No, probably not.

00:38:02 ◼   ► Like, I reckon it will probably get close, but every now and then it might get a bit

00:38:07 ◼   ► confused.

00:38:08 ◼   ► But like, I'm okay with that as long as the margin of error is slim within that kind of

00:38:13 ◼   ► realm, right?

00:38:14 ◼   ► Like that it's almost as good or as good for me to accept it because it's like, I expect

00:38:20 ◼   ► it to be really cool, right?

00:38:23 ◼   ► Like, I'm willing to take a small, like small, I mean small, hit on reliability if it is

00:38:30 ◼   ► significantly cooler than Touch ID, right? Because you can kind of let it go, right?

00:38:35 ◼   ► Like, it was like when Touch ID came around, every now and then it wouldn't work. Now,

00:38:39 ◼   ► I could always put my passcode in correctly, but that's nowhere near as cool as using your

00:38:42 ◼   ► fingerprint. So I'm expecting there to be an increase in the call factor. And if that

00:38:47 ◼   ► is met, and they do just a good enough job at trying to get it close, then I would be

00:38:52 ◼   ► happy personally.

00:38:53 ◼   ► There's coolness, and there's, I would say speed is another thing. Like, there's reliability,

00:38:59 ◼   ► and you're right, it might be less reliable,

00:39:00 ◼   ► but I think speed is an issue.

00:39:02 ◼   ► Like you want it to unlock like fast.

00:39:04 ◼   ► And people, the fact that people talk

00:39:05 ◼   ► about second generation touch ID is kind of ridiculous.

00:39:10 ◼   ► Why did they do that?

00:39:11 ◼   ► They talk about it because it's faster.

00:39:13 ◼   ► Like that matters to people.

00:39:14 ◼   ► Like it unlocked my phone faster.

00:39:16 ◼   ► I just had it where I was doing something in the kitchen

00:39:19 ◼   ► and then I tried to unlock my phone

00:39:20 ◼   ► and my fingers felt dry and the phone felt dry.

00:39:23 ◼   ► And yet obviously there was a little bit of moisture there

00:39:26 ◼   ► and it's a second generation touch ID sensor,

00:39:28 ◼   ► didn't matter was like, nope, you can't unlock your phone,

00:39:30 ◼   ► put in your password.

00:39:31 ◼   ► And it's like, ah, like it does happen.

00:39:33 ◼   ► It does happen now, even with second generation touch ID,

00:39:36 ◼   ► but yeah, you want it to be fast.

00:39:39 ◼   ► You want it to be pretty reliable

00:39:40 ◼   ► and having it be cool is great.

00:39:42 ◼   ► I think the other thing I would say is the difference

00:39:46 ◼   ► between this and something like the dual camera thing,

00:39:51 ◼   ► like that was a, with a depth mode, right?

00:39:55 ◼   ► That is not a core feature.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Like that could be in beta and kind of work

00:40:02 ◼   ► and not be turned on originally and still be fine, right?

00:40:07 ◼   ► Because it was not a core feature of the phone.

00:40:10 ◼   ► You could still do all the things you would expect to do

00:40:12 ◼   ► on an iPhone, even if that didn't work right

00:40:14 ◼   ► or was not turned on or was in beta, right?

00:40:17 ◼   ► This is not that, right?

00:40:18 ◼   ► Biometric authentication, which up to now

00:40:21 ◼   ► we've kind of called touch ID,

00:40:23 ◼   ► but it also includes face ID or whatever they call it.

00:40:28 ◼   ► That's a core feature.

00:40:34 ◼   ► I also wonder about the Apple Watch.

00:40:35 ◼   ► I have this other thought,

00:40:37 ◼   ► which is could they use the Apple Watch to authenticate

00:40:40 ◼   ► as well if you have an Apple Watch

00:40:42 ◼   ► and it hasn't left your wrist and you're close,

00:40:45 ◼   ► would it let you go the other direction

00:40:47 ◼   ► where it'd be like, oh, Apple Watch is still on, it's fine.

00:40:49 ◼   ► I don't know if they would do that or not, but.

00:40:51 ◼   ► - 'Cause they do it the other way around, right?

00:40:53 ◼   ► Like you can put your watch on, unlock your phone.

00:40:56 ◼   ► Just in case people don't notice,

00:40:57 ◼   ► you could have missed this.

00:40:58 ◼   ► If you have your watch on and you unlock your phone,

00:41:00 ◼   ► your watch unlocks and you don't need the code,

00:41:03 ◼   ► which is just a nice little thing.

00:41:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it stays unlocked the entire time

00:41:06 ◼   ► it stays on your wrist

00:41:07 ◼   ► because there's a proximity detector on it.

00:41:09 ◼   ► And you can use your watch to unlock your Mac.

00:41:13 ◼   ► So could you use your watch to unlock your phone

00:41:15 ◼   ► and could that be a second way of doing it?

00:41:16 ◼   ► I mean, maybe, maybe not.

00:41:18 ◼   ► Maybe it's not worth doing

00:41:19 ◼   ► because this infrared thing is so amazing.

00:41:21 ◼   ► The point is that biometric authentication,

00:41:23 ◼   ► by whatever means, is a core feature of the system now.

00:41:26 ◼   ► Like you can't half-ass that, you can't.

00:41:30 ◼   ► So I think we have to assume that if this is real,

00:41:34 ◼   ► that Apple feels supremely confident

00:41:36 ◼   ► that this infrared camera and face detection

00:41:40 ◼   ► and whatever else they're doing to get that face profile

00:41:44 ◼   ► actually works like solidly,

00:41:46 ◼   ► because this is not an experimental feature.

00:41:49 ◼   ► this is a core part of the iPhone experience now.

00:41:52 ◼   ► - But this wasn't all.

00:41:55 ◼   ► But I did just, why is this even in the HomePod stuff

00:42:00 ◼   ► do you think?

00:42:01 ◼   ► Like why, why is this showing up?

00:42:04 ◼   ► - I don't know, I mean.

00:42:06 ◼   ► - I was thinking maybe some kind of like

00:42:07 ◼   ► remote authorization for something,

00:42:10 ◼   ► but like I can't even work out what that would be.

00:42:12 ◼   ► Maybe some of the Siri commands,

00:42:14 ◼   ► 'cause it has to be tied to your phone, right?

00:42:16 ◼   ► Like if you ask it to read you a message,

00:42:18 ◼   ► the phone needs to be unlocked.

00:42:19 ◼   ► So maybe like the HomePod needs to confirm that.

00:42:23 ◼   ► And so like it's in the firmware.

00:42:24 ◼   ► Like it's just strange to see all this stuff

00:42:26 ◼   ► popping up in there, right?

00:42:28 ◼   ► - It could be a mistake, like just it shouldn't be in there,

00:42:31 ◼   ► but it got in there because of something in their process.

00:42:33 ◼   ► This is a, you know, HomePod is an iOS device basically,

00:42:36 ◼   ► or, you know, a variant, but it's basically another one,

00:42:39 ◼   ► another ARM processor running code that's derived from iOS.

00:42:43 ◼   ► So it could be that it's just kind of in there.

00:42:46 ◼   ► It could be that there's some thing of like authenticating

00:42:49 ◼   ► in order to change features of the HomePod.

00:42:53 ◼   ► I don't know, but yeah, it looks sloppy to me

00:42:57 ◼   ► on a few levels, right?

00:42:58 ◼   ► It's sloppy that it's in there maybe,

00:43:01 ◼   ► sloppy that it got out.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Lot of sloppy stuff here.

00:43:05 ◼   ► And yes, I would not wanna be in the hallway,

00:43:09 ◼   ► well, maybe I would,

00:43:10 ◼   ► but in the hallway between the people working on the HomePod

00:43:13 ◼   ► and the people working on the new iPhone.

00:43:16 ◼   ► like that would be to be a fly on the wall there as angry people marched down the hallway.

00:43:22 ◼   ► You ruined our product launch!

00:43:24 ◼   ► Well maybe there's no hallway, Jason, maybe they all work in one big open plan area.

00:43:29 ◼   ► Big, yeah, and they're just throwing stuff across the room at them, yeah, mhm, maybe.

00:43:34 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:43:35 ◼   ► But again.

00:43:36 ◼   ► Tomatoes, tin cans, yeah.

00:43:38 ◼   ► There's so much stuff we've already spoken about, but there's more.

00:43:41 ◼   ► So apparently Steve Trouton Smith discovered that there is code relating to the HomePod

00:43:49 ◼   ► that indicates that the top of the HomePod is some kind of LED matrix display.

00:43:55 ◼   ► So it's pretty rudimentary, it's not like a display you would get in a phone, but it's

00:44:01 ◼   ► like a grid of LEDs that could show shapes and symbols and stuff like that.

00:44:05 ◼   ► So basically the tale of what is that top part continues to just like change and change

00:44:12 ◼   ► and change.

00:44:13 ◼   ► Nobody like is 100% sure what's going to be shown on that little display on the top of

00:44:18 ◼   ► the HomePod, but the technology seems to at least indicate that it's an LED matrix display.

00:44:22 ◼   ► So there is animations, there is stuff that it can show.

00:44:24 ◼   ► Yeah, it sounds like it's a 32 by 32 grid of LEDs.

00:44:29 ◼   ► It's not, and this again, it's not really a display in the way we think of it.

00:44:35 ◼   ► - It's like a grid of dots.

00:44:37 ◼   ► - It's a bunch of colored lights, right?

00:44:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, it allows them to do Siri animations

00:44:42 ◼   ► and stuff like that,

00:44:44 ◼   ► but they could theoretically put other indicators up there.

00:44:49 ◼   ► So if they wanted to, I think it's not built for that

00:44:54 ◼   ► and it's probably not what they want.

00:44:55 ◼   ► They probably just wanna do it

00:44:56 ◼   ► so they can do a little sort of Siri animations

00:44:58 ◼   ► and things like that.

00:44:59 ◼   ► But who knows?

00:45:02 ◼   ► It's interesting.

00:45:02 ◼   ► put symbols up there if they wanted to or, you know, but they're not, it's not going

00:45:08 ◼   ► to be like displaying the name of the currently playing track or anything like that because

00:45:11 ◼   ► it's a very small little grid of dots.

00:45:14 ◼   ► >> Unless it just shows you one letter at a time. Just slip really slowly. That would

00:45:20 ◼   ► be kind of funny. But there is more. We have some iPhone stuff, some more iPhone stuff.

00:45:28 ◼   ► firmware this stuff that was found also included an outline icon of I we're

00:45:35 ◼   ► assuming what the next iPhone is gonna look like and it's what we expected it

00:45:39 ◼   ► is a version of an iPhone with thin bezels that has that little notch taken

00:45:44 ◼   ► out of the top of the screen right the little forehead that houses the cameras

00:45:48 ◼   ► and sensors I feel like yes this is confirmed now that's what the next

00:45:52 ◼   ► iPhone is gonna look like you know all of this these mock-ups that we've seen

00:45:55 ◼   ► there's potential hardware, there seems to be a lot of like confusion about what's in

00:46:00 ◼   ► there this this explains it and and yeah so no home button buttons on the side notch out

00:46:07 ◼   ► the top. Yeah and with a notch it looks like what they're what they're probably going to

00:46:11 ◼   ► do there is have the battery status and the cellular status appear up there by the cameras

00:46:21 ◼   ► and all that and that moves out of what we currently think of as the status bar. Those

00:46:27 ◼   ► things get tucked in in the side. Maybe the time too, I don't know, but like basically

00:46:33 ◼   ► there are, there's just enough space on either side of those sensors for some basic status

00:46:38 ◼   ► information when you're holding the phone in portrait orientation.

00:46:43 ◼   ► So while still like there isn't a ton, tons of sound on that, like that was the most interesting

00:46:48 ◼   ► thing to me, like, that's what the next iPhone's gonna look like. This leak came from Apple,

00:46:52 ◼   ► right? And I know it's like super basic, right? Like, just an outline, but for this phone,

00:46:58 ◼   ► that tells so many stories, right? Like, an outline of an iPhone before this, not interesting.

00:47:04 ◼   ► The outline of this iPhone, very interesting, right? Like, it's the worst possible one for

00:47:09 ◼   ► them to see.

00:47:10 ◼   ► Yeah, 'cause it's not—I could see the argument, like, well, it's not really a picture of the

00:47:15 ◼   ► next iPhone. It's just sort of a platonic ideal of the iPhone, but like it's got no

00:47:19 ◼   ► home button and it's got cutouts. Like this is not a shape of any existing iPhone and

00:47:25 ◼   ► it corresponds exactly to the rumors of what the iPhone is. So it's very hard not to look

00:47:31 ◼   ► at this unless this is a prank, you know, unless it's like, oh, put that, put that in

00:47:35 ◼   ► the HomePod stuff and see what they think. It's a, it totally doesn't look like that,

00:47:39 ◼   ► but let's do that. But unless it's a really ridiculous prank that Apple is pulling on

00:47:43 ◼   ► Like this is just reaffirmation of the fact that the rumors were right.

00:47:48 ◼   ► We're really building up now, right? A couple of months away.

00:47:52 ◼   ► I know it's July 31st as we record this, but this is an August conversation, is it not?

00:47:57 ◼   ► This is the, like, they turn the burner up all the way on iPhone rumors as we get through August into September.

00:48:04 ◼   ► This is what August is like. It is the, you know, things start to really build toward that launch event.

00:48:12 ◼   ► events so maybe you know it was July on the calendar but this is this feels very

00:48:18 ◼   ► August to me this is the this is the height of iPhone silly season yeah this

00:48:22 ◼   ► is an August state of mind this is yeah this very really kind of just

00:48:27 ◼   ► fascinating all of these little tidbits just to come out as one piece of fun

00:48:31 ◼   ► where I do wonder like at a certain point can't Apple just offer like an

00:48:35 ◼   ► insane amount of money to Steve Trouton Smith and just hire him just stop him

00:48:39 ◼   ► Just stop him. I know there are other people that find this stuff as well, but I think

00:48:45 ◼   ► he's high profile enough at a point that when he posts this, every website runs with it

00:48:51 ◼   ► because he has just great skills and track record of finding this stuff. Just offer the

00:48:57 ◼   ► guy a bajillion dollars and stop him. Maybe make him work on the other side of it. He

00:49:04 ◼   ► hide the things. So people like you can't find them. Super interesting. And some people

00:49:10 ◼   ► have had a really really bad Monday. Really bad. Just really bad.

00:49:15 ◼   ► I think so. When you go to so much effort to double down on privacy or on security and

00:49:21 ◼   ► secrecy. And this is just stupid, right? Like this is

00:49:23 ◼   ► just a silly mistake. Well, and it's, you know, yeah, and it's

00:49:27 ◼   ► leaking inadvertently from people who didn't understand what they were doing probably or

00:49:33 ◼   ► or didn't take proper care or weren't properly trained on it.

00:49:37 ◼   ► That's tough when it's an accident and not--

00:49:40 ◼   ► they do all of that work to tell people don't leak things,

00:49:43 ◼   ► keep it a secret.

00:49:45 ◼   ► And it's all about intentional leaking, right?

00:49:49 ◼   ► And then this is just an accidental disclosure

00:49:52 ◼   ► that generates this.

00:49:54 ◼   ► I mean, you've got to learn from it, right, and say, oh, that is

00:49:56 ◼   ► part of our process that we didn't really think about.

00:49:58 ◼   ► Or whether it's we didn't think about putting it up,

00:50:02 ◼   ► that Steve Trouton Smith exists.

00:50:03 ◼   ► I did have that moment where I thought,

00:50:05 ◼   ► can't Apple just hire Steve Trouton Smith?

00:50:07 ◼   ► Like he's kind of brilliant,

00:50:09 ◼   ► even if they didn't use him for anything,

00:50:11 ◼   ► like that guy, he causes you trouble.

00:50:14 ◼   ► He has this great understanding of what's going on.

00:50:17 ◼   ► Have him find your leaks and just tell you about it.

00:50:21 ◼   ► - Just put him in a room and just like stop him,

00:50:24 ◼   ► make him secure the officer, like whatever it takes.

00:50:27 ◼   ► - Just pay him to read books and eat ice cream all day,

00:50:31 ◼   ► if you want to, go ahead.

00:50:32 ◼   ► 'Cause he's incredibly valuable.

00:50:34 ◼   ► 'Cause he's the guy who takes the stuff apart

00:50:37 ◼   ► and looks at it and has discovered all sorts

00:50:40 ◼   ► of interesting things about it.

00:50:41 ◼   ► I should mention, by the way, he has a Patreon.

00:50:43 ◼   ► If people really like all these disclosures

00:50:46 ◼   ► that are coming from Steve,

00:50:48 ◼   ► maybe you wanna throw him a few bucks

00:50:49 ◼   ► because he does this all kind of

00:50:52 ◼   ► out of his own inquisitiveness,

00:50:54 ◼   ► but he does have a Patreon for people

00:50:56 ◼   ► who wanna support him.

00:50:57 ◼   ► But I did have that same thought,

00:50:59 ◼   ► which is like, maybe Apple should take him off the board

00:51:02 ◼   ► in some way, because like, yeah, anyway,

00:51:05 ◼   ► they'll figure out like what part of their process

00:51:07 ◼   ► broke down because it's not Steve's fault.

00:51:09 ◼   ► Like people found this, it was on a public website.

00:51:11 ◼   ► So why was it there?

00:51:12 ◼   ► Why was the stuff that was in it in it?

00:51:14 ◼   ► And either they didn't realize that that was visible

00:51:19 ◼   ► or somebody didn't do the right thing and made a mistake.

00:51:22 ◼   ► And either they were just being human

00:51:24 ◼   ► or they didn't get trained properly, but whatever it is,

00:51:27 ◼   ► I'm sure they will redouble their efforts,

00:51:29 ◼   ► but it's super embarrassing

00:51:31 ◼   ► and gotta be frustrating for Apple.

00:51:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, as I said, I think what makes it so much worse

00:51:35 ◼   ► is there was all this code about hiding it,

00:51:38 ◼   ► which was visible.

00:51:41 ◼   ► Rather, there's all these words like hide

00:51:43 ◼   ► and stuff like that, but they hadn't hidden them.

00:51:46 ◼   ► It's like, oh, gosh.

00:51:47 ◼   ► It's so glaring when you see it all just right there.

00:51:51 ◼   ► Fascinating.

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00:52:47 ◼   ► includes a new Thread Radio which lets you connect to low power devices such as locks,

00:52:52 ◼   ► doorbells, other sensors and more. The Eero beacons are half the size but even more powerful

00:52:59 ◼   ► than the first gen Eero that they are coming in to replace. You just plug the beacons into

00:53:04 ◼   ► a wall and it helps expand coverage to any room. You can add as many Eero beacons as

00:53:09 ◼   ► you want so long as you have one of the Eero devices. So you have one Eero device and then

00:53:14 ◼   ► beacons all over your house. And the beacons even include a built-in LED nightlight with

00:53:19 ◼   ► an ambient light sensor in them as well, so they can light your hallways at night if you

00:53:23 ◼   ► need them. With Eero, you can install an enterprise-grade Wi-Fi system in your home in just a few minutes.

00:53:28 ◼   ► You can manage the network from the palm of your hand and easily create and share a guest

00:53:32 ◼   ► network too. Now Jason, I understand that you have installed the Eero Wi-Fi blanket

00:53:38 ◼   ► in your home.

00:53:39 ◼   ► I have and I just added some aero beacons and it was very easy. You just plug them into the wall.

00:53:45 ◼   ► So I one of the things that I like about it is I've got some areas where I don't have wired Ethernet

00:53:52 ◼   ► But you don't need it with the beacons

00:53:54 ◼   ► I mean you don't didn't need it before but now this opens up the the aero base station

00:53:59 ◼   ► Right is like a little box with a with a plug

00:54:01 ◼   ► The aero beacons are like the original Airport Express. They are

00:54:07 ◼   ► little boxes that have a plug on them and you just stick them into an outlet somewhere and they do act as a nightlight if

00:54:14 ◼   ► You want you can also turn those features off if you don't want them, but it's got a little light sensor

00:54:17 ◼   ► It'll light up in in the dark and you can set how you want that to work

00:54:21 ◼   ► And when you want that light to come on

00:54:23 ◼   ► but what it means is that I was able to just kind of stick one in a plug in the

00:54:26 ◼   ► dining area of my house, which is

00:54:29 ◼   ► Geographically like a good place for a Wi-Fi base station, but there's no wiring there for Ethernet

00:54:36 ◼   ► And so I just plugged it in.

00:54:39 ◼   ► And now there's a little nightlight there

00:54:40 ◼   ► and it's a wifi beacon.

00:54:42 ◼   ► I use the app to add it to the network.

00:54:45 ◼   ► It wasn't a problem.

00:54:46 ◼   ► I took one of my other Eros and decommissioned it

00:54:49 ◼   ► by removing it from my network and unplugging it.

00:54:51 ◼   ► The network stayed up the whole time.

00:54:53 ◼   ► It was pretty cool.

00:54:55 ◼   ► So yeah, I now have some Ero beacons in my house

00:55:00 ◼   ► that are in my son's bedroom in the closet there.

00:55:04 ◼   ► That used to be like the server closet

00:55:06 ◼   ► before it was his bedroom.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And there's still like some tech junk in there.

00:55:10 ◼   ► And I had my old Airport Express

00:55:13 ◼   ► or Airport Extreme was in there back before I did a Euro

00:55:16 ◼   ► stuff and I replaced the first gen Euro in there

00:55:19 ◼   ► with a beacon.

00:55:20 ◼   ► And it's great 'cause I got to pull out all

00:55:22 ◼   ► of the ethernet cables, all of the long kind

00:55:24 ◼   ► of like power adapter cords and stuff.

00:55:26 ◼   ► And instead there's just a little nightlight sticking

00:55:29 ◼   ► into the outlet that's in there.

00:55:33 ◼   ► And that's it.

00:55:34 ◼   ► more tech stuff hanging around in there and the beacon doesn't even need to be wired,

00:55:39 ◼   ► it just is repeating the signal that it's getting from the other Eros. So yeah, it's

00:55:44 ◼   ► pretty super simple and allows me to put those, extend my coverage much less obtrusively than

00:55:52 ◼   ► before.

00:55:53 ◼   ► The new Eros system starts at $399 for one second gen Eros and two beacons which is everything

00:55:59 ◼   ► you need to get started. And of course you can add more if you want to. Listeners of

00:56:03 ◼   ► this show can get free overnight shipping when they go to ero.com and use the promo

00:56:09 ◼   ► code upgrade. We thank Eero for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:56:18 ◼   ► So Jason, we talk about new products but we must also talk about the end of old products.

00:56:24 ◼   ► Earlier this week, Apple removed the iPod Nano and the iPod Shuffle from sale.

00:56:33 ◼   ► just quietly, apple.com/iPod now redirects to apple.com/iPodTouch.

00:56:39 ◼   ► I'll include a link in the show notes to noted Apple historian Stephen Hackett.

00:56:43 ◼   ► He put together a lovely post and a little YouTube video to lament the end

00:56:49 ◼   ► of some of the more traditional iPods in the line.

00:56:52 ◼   ► The iPod Touch remains on sale.

00:56:56 ◼   ► It's $199 now and it has double the capacity than before.

00:56:59 ◼   ► I was wondering, Jason, before we talk about the iPod and what's gone away, how long do

00:57:05 ◼   ► you think the iPod Touch has left in its life?

00:57:10 ◼   ► Well I think the question is, is the iPod Touch the Mac Mini of iOS?

00:57:14 ◼   ► Ha!

00:57:15 ◼   ► Yes, it probably is, right?

00:57:17 ◼   ► It hasn't been significantly updated in a while, and I mean they're putting new storage

00:57:22 ◼   ► in it, but I think that's just to kind of keep it up to date so it can maybe handle

00:57:27 ◼   ► some of the more recent updates, but it's old now.

00:57:31 ◼   ► What is it, like an A8 and an iPhone 5 screen or something?

00:57:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's old, but it's $199, and it's little,

00:57:37 ◼   ► and there are probably uses for it in education

00:57:41 ◼   ► and training and all--

00:57:43 ◼   ► - Families?

00:57:44 ◼   ► - Families with little kids who don't want an iPad,

00:57:46 ◼   ► but they wanna give them something.

00:57:47 ◼   ► There are uses for it, but they're scattered,

00:57:50 ◼   ► and there's no, I think it's harder to point,

00:57:53 ◼   ► like with the Mac Mini, at the iPod Touch and say,

00:57:55 ◼   ► "Here is the market for the iPod Touch."

00:57:57 ◼   ► "Well, no, kind of not."

00:58:00 ◼   ► But there are lots of different uses for it,

00:58:01 ◼   ► and it probably sells well enough for them

00:58:03 ◼   ► to keep it around like the Mac Mini,

00:58:05 ◼   ► but not well enough for them to spend

00:58:07 ◼   ► a lot of time upgrading it.

00:58:09 ◼   ► So again, maybe the iPod Touch dies,

00:58:12 ◼   ► maybe the iPod Touch gets an update at some point

00:58:16 ◼   ► that is really minor,

00:58:18 ◼   ► and then doesn't get updated again for another three years.

00:58:22 ◼   ► That could totally happen.

00:58:23 ◼   ► So I don't know, I kind of feel like it's useful

00:58:27 ◼   ► for them to have a small iOS device that's not a phone,

00:58:32 ◼   ► but yeah, I mean, you could flip a coin on it,

00:58:37 ◼   ► but it depends on how much they really sell.

00:58:39 ◼   ► Do they know how much they really sell?

00:58:41 ◼   ► But I do hear from people who say that these things happen

00:58:45 ◼   ► in camps and schools and other places.

00:58:48 ◼   ► Now, the iPad is the real question,

00:58:50 ◼   ► 'cause there's now a fairly low cost iPad,

00:58:53 ◼   ► and that is much more successful in schools

00:58:56 ◼   ► and other places that used to sort of use iPod Touches,

00:58:58 ◼   ► now they tend to use iPads.

00:59:00 ◼   ► So you could maybe argue that Apple would rather

00:59:02 ◼   ► they buy iPads than the iPod Touch, but I don't know.

00:59:06 ◼   ► I mean, if it sells well enough to keep it around, why not?

00:59:09 ◼   ► The challenge is that it's,

00:59:11 ◼   ► advantages it's using iPhone parts, right?

00:59:14 ◼   ► So that makes it pretty easy,

00:59:16 ◼   ► but it doesn't have the cellular stuff.

00:59:17 ◼   ► So Apple's got the parts,

00:59:20 ◼   ► Apple knows how to build something this small.

00:59:22 ◼   ► They can make it smaller

00:59:23 ◼   ► because it doesn't have any of the cellular stuff

00:59:24 ◼   ► and make it cheaper.

00:59:25 ◼   ► but do they want to?

00:59:28 ◼   ► I really don't know.

00:59:28 ◼   ► I think it's a coin flip.

00:59:30 ◼   ► It really depends on does it sell well enough?

00:59:32 ◼   ► Does it fill enough of the iOS market?

00:59:34 ◼   ► And unlike the Mac mini,

00:59:36 ◼   ► which I feel like is very clearly filling that market,

00:59:39 ◼   ► I'm not convinced that Apple is convinced

00:59:42 ◼   ► that the iPod touch is required when the iPad exists.

00:59:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, for me, it's just, it's weird to see.

00:59:50 ◼   ► Like, you know, I'm not incredibly nostalgic

00:59:52 ◼   ► for a lot of this stuff,

00:59:53 ◼   ► But the iPod as a music player going away, there's something a little bit sad about that.

01:00:01 ◼   ► Like I have a really great history with that.

01:00:03 ◼   ► You know, I'm of the the people that kind of are interested in this stuff.

01:00:10 ◼   ► I'm the iPod generation.

01:00:11 ◼   ► You know, the iPod got me into the Apple ecosystem.

01:00:15 ◼   ► I had an iPod mini, a pink iPod mini was my first Apple product.

01:00:20 ◼   ► and it opened the door for me to want to get a Mac.

01:00:24 ◼   ► You know, and then I got like all of the iPods

01:00:27 ◼   ► that I wanted after that, right?

01:00:28 ◼   ► Like I had the Nano, the iPod Nano,

01:00:31 ◼   ► the original iPod Nano is still, I think,

01:00:32 ◼   ► one of the most impressive products Apple ever shipped.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Just the jump in what they made going from the iPod Mini,

01:00:40 ◼   ► which is small but this big chunky thing, you know,

01:00:42 ◼   ► maybe the size of like a pack of cigarettes

01:00:45 ◼   ► or something like that, right?

01:00:46 ◼   ► down to something that was, you know, like a packet of,

01:00:51 ◼   ► I know the shuffle was like this packet of gum,

01:00:54 ◼   ► but like the Nano was like this thin thing,

01:00:56 ◼   ► like almost like a stick of gum, right?

01:00:58 ◼   ► Like a few sticks of gum stacked on top of each other,

01:01:00 ◼   ► like this impossibly small product,

01:01:03 ◼   ► like how did they go from that to that, right?

01:01:05 ◼   ► Like it was really fascinating.

01:01:07 ◼   ► And also like the iPod mini was selling so well for them,

01:01:10 ◼   ► but they cut it off and made this new thing.

01:01:11 ◼   ► And you know, then kind of like going to like the iPod video,

01:01:15 ◼   ► Like I have these vivid memories of like putting TV shows onto my iPod video and when it was

01:01:22 ◼   ► like I was supposed to be going to sleep for school the next day I would be watching TV

01:01:25 ◼   ► shows under the covers on my iPod video.

01:01:28 ◼   ► The iPod was a very important product to me and it's a shame, you know.

01:01:34 ◼   ► It is a shame to see the Nano and the Shuffle go like the Classic did because really what's

01:01:40 ◼   ► left it isn't like an iPod right like the iPod touch is not an iPod it's an

01:01:48 ◼   ► iPhone without a cell radio yeah it's an iPod name only because it's basically an

01:01:52 ◼   ► iPhone yeah no you're absolutely right I would say in fact the Apple product most

01:01:56 ◼   ► like the iPod now the Apple watch small yeah it's with you you can load music

01:02:01 ◼   ► onto it you can sync music onto it it'll play the music back over Bluetooth you

01:02:05 ◼   ► You know, it's the iPod Nano of today, is the Apple Watch.

01:02:12 ◼   ► As weird as that is to say, it kind of is.

01:02:15 ◼   ► In fact, I had a moment when this announcement happened where I thought to myself, you know,

01:02:20 ◼   ► I don't think Apple wants to do this, but if Apple wanted to make a next generation

01:02:24 ◼   ► iPod, it could just take the Apple Watch tech.

01:02:27 ◼   ► Like literally, it could take the Apple Watch technology and use that to make something

01:02:31 ◼   ► that's kind of like an Apple Watch and kind of like an iPod Nano or shuffle with like

01:02:34 ◼   ► a clip on it and just say, here's the new iPod.

01:02:37 ◼   ► It does Apple music and it's got wifi

01:02:39 ◼   ► and it runs little apps and it's basically the Apple watch.

01:02:42 ◼   ► But I don't think they will

01:02:43 ◼   ► because I think they want you to buy an Apple watch

01:02:45 ◼   ► to do that.

01:02:46 ◼   ► But it's not that far off, right?

01:02:47 ◼   ► Like it's got a touch interface that isn't,

01:02:50 ◼   ► unlike the recent Nano that just got discontinued

01:02:53 ◼   ► where it was like a sham of an iOS interface

01:02:57 ◼   ► 'cause it's not actually running iOS.

01:02:59 ◼   ► The iPod or the Apple watch has a real interface

01:03:03 ◼   ► that actually is built for it.

01:03:05 ◼   ► And it's got, you know, music sync

01:03:07 ◼   ► and very much like the iPod,

01:03:08 ◼   ► it's reliant on a parent device to sync its music.

01:03:12 ◼   ► It doesn't, it can't do it itself.

01:03:15 ◼   ► And so it's very iPod-y in that way.

01:03:17 ◼   ► And you can walk around without your phone or anything

01:03:19 ◼   ► and listen to music on it.

01:03:20 ◼   ► So I don't know, it just, it hit me.

01:03:24 ◼   ► I don't think it's ever gonna be more than that,

01:03:26 ◼   ► but it did strike me that the,

01:03:29 ◼   ► Today's iPod Nano or iPod Shuffle is an Apple watch.

01:03:34 ◼   ► - Hey, what if they made it into the AirPods?

01:03:38 ◼   ► Right, you just put music in the case and you know?

01:03:41 ◼   ► - I think a long term thing for the AirPods

01:03:45 ◼   ► is probably like what you can't, why not?

01:03:49 ◼   ► Like in the long, I'm not making a rumor here

01:03:51 ◼   ► for this fall or something, I'm saying in the long term

01:03:53 ◼   ► like at some point, couldn't your AirPods

01:03:56 ◼   ► be that intelligent, couldn't they sync music

01:03:58 ◼   ► and store it locally, like, yeah.

01:04:00 ◼   ► I think at some point you might not need anything

01:04:03 ◼   ► more than that to go out for a run.

01:04:05 ◼   ► And if you get a call, your AirPods are on your cellular plan.

01:04:09 ◼   ► Now there's some issues with having devices

01:04:11 ◼   ► that have radios that are that close to your head

01:04:14 ◼   ► for things like cellular connectivity.

01:04:17 ◼   ► That might not be the best idea,

01:04:19 ◼   ► but having it on your wrist is not that bad.

01:04:23 ◼   ► - Just build it into the case, right?

01:04:24 ◼   ► This case is always gonna be there.

01:04:25 ◼   ► - You just have to carry your case around with you, yeah.

01:04:28 ◼   ► I suppose so.

01:04:28 ◼   ► So, you know, it's just, it's funny.

01:04:30 ◼   ► This is where we've come is that like, we've, we've left the world where the

01:04:34 ◼   ► iPod is there because you want to have a, and again, some people still want them

01:04:40 ◼   ► and need them and use them and great.

01:04:41 ◼   ► But for most people, like that is the old tech and the new tech is these smaller

01:04:46 ◼   ► devices that we wear that have this stuff built in and, uh, and that's why I feel

01:04:51 ◼   ► like the Apple watch has this kind of like, Interesting affinity with the, the

01:04:56 ◼   ► iPod like it's kind of doing what the iPod did but in a modern context.

01:05:05 ◼   ► So the Wall Street Journal had a profile of Johnny Ive and Apple Park showing us some

01:05:13 ◼   ► details some pictures we haven't seen of the newly open building and you know you can tell

01:05:19 ◼   ► me if you have any of a feeling on this but I think it seems that the majority of discussion

01:05:26 ◼   ► that has come out of this profile for whatever was in there

01:05:28 ◼   ► is mainly talking about kind of like the open office nature

01:05:33 ◼   ► that the Apple Park seems to have.

01:05:35 ◼   ► But we've seen some photos in this

01:05:38 ◼   ► which show these kind of stark, open areas,

01:05:43 ◼   ► like these vast, open areas, these working areas

01:05:46 ◼   ► that we've heard about, right?

01:05:47 ◼   ► Like we've heard in previous profiles

01:05:50 ◼   ► that Apple Park would contain this stuff,

01:05:53 ◼   ► but this is the first time that we've seen anything of it.

01:05:57 ◼   ► Right?

01:05:58 ◼   ► - Right.

01:06:00 ◼   ► - And I think that that is the thing that has sparked

01:06:02 ◼   ► the majority of conversation is like,

01:06:05 ◼   ► what does this look like?

01:06:06 ◼   ► How is this gonna work?

01:06:08 ◼   ► So I wanted to talk a little bit about open offices,

01:06:12 ◼   ► because I think we both have some experience with those.

01:06:16 ◼   ► It seems like there are engineers

01:06:19 ◼   ► who work inside of Apple reportedly,

01:06:22 ◼   ► and commentators are very upset.

01:06:23 ◼   ► So it seems like there is a,

01:06:26 ◼   ► coming from the Wall Street Journal article,

01:06:27 ◼   ► it seems like people are upset

01:06:29 ◼   ► and I've seen lots of people tweeting about this,

01:06:30 ◼   ► about the idea of potentially loud,

01:06:33 ◼   ► disruptive working environments

01:06:34 ◼   ► and the idea that the whiteboards

01:06:36 ◼   ► are now being replaced by sliding glass doors,

01:06:38 ◼   ► which I actually think sounds super cool.

01:06:41 ◼   ► Like I think of House, right?

01:06:42 ◼   ► Like House used to write on the glass, it was awesome.

01:06:44 ◼   ► But this is a trend, right?

01:06:48 ◼   ► Like this isn't something that Johnny Ive has created,

01:06:51 ◼   ► hasn't created the open office. Open offices are a real thing. And I think it seems like

01:06:59 ◼   ► you mention open offices to people and people hate them. You mention the term open office

01:07:04 ◼   ► and everyone's like, "Oh, I hate open offices." But companies keep installing them and moving

01:07:11 ◼   ► in that direction. So I've been thinking about this. There has to be a reason. If they were

01:07:16 ◼   ► were as bad, if open offices are as bad as people fear or think, why do they keep getting

01:07:25 ◼   ► put in? Like if open offices really destroy all productivity, wouldn't somebody have worked

01:07:29 ◼   ► that out by now?

01:07:32 ◼   ► Well, I don't know about like what studies have been done. Have there been studies done

01:07:40 ◼   ► about this?

01:07:41 ◼   ► Someone's done them, right? Like somebody has.

01:07:43 ◼   ► - Well, I don't know anything about that.

01:07:45 ◼   ► I also don't know anything about,

01:07:47 ◼   ► work is not like we tested workers

01:07:51 ◼   ► and found that they were more productive

01:07:53 ◼   ► because everybody's work is different.

01:07:55 ◼   ► I'm not sure you can boil this down.

01:07:58 ◼   ► If you can then great,

01:07:59 ◼   ► but you would have to work very hard

01:08:01 ◼   ► in terms of like we had two different scenarios

01:08:04 ◼   ► where people's workplaces were essentially identical

01:08:07 ◼   ► in every other way, but not in this way

01:08:10 ◼   ► because everybody's workloads are different

01:08:12 ◼   ► and different groups work differently.

01:08:16 ◼   ► And it's funny 'cause when I wrote my comment

01:08:19 ◼   ► on this Wall Street Journal piece,

01:08:22 ◼   ► what I said was basically,

01:08:24 ◼   ► some people aren't gonna like it

01:08:27 ◼   ► because I've experienced that.

01:08:28 ◼   ► We moved to an open plan

01:08:29 ◼   ► and we also moved to a cube based office at one point

01:08:32 ◼   ► when a lot of people had offices

01:08:33 ◼   ► and they got kicked out into cubicles

01:08:35 ◼   ► when I worked at Mac user.

01:08:36 ◼   ► And then at Macworld, we ended up at IDG

01:08:39 ◼   ► doing an open plan, like a severe open plan,

01:08:42 ◼   ► no cube walls kind of thing.

01:08:44 ◼   ► And I saw it, like some people were okay with it

01:08:49 ◼   ► and some people were not.

01:08:50 ◼   ► And then the other thing that I observed is,

01:08:53 ◼   ► and this comes from not just this Wall Street Journal story,

01:08:55 ◼   ► but my own personal experience.

01:08:57 ◼   ► What I observed is,

01:08:59 ◼   ► sometimes the people who are designing and rolling out

01:09:04 ◼   ► and approving open plan spaces,

01:09:10 ◼   ► I think sometimes their motivations are flawed

01:09:14 ◼   ► and sometimes they, and again, not all the time,

01:09:17 ◼   ► and sometimes they lose some perspective

01:09:19 ◼   ► because they don't know how the people

01:09:22 ◼   ► who are gonna be in the space actually work.

01:09:24 ◼   ► And sometimes the managers who are vouching for them

01:09:27 ◼   ► do not understand how they actually get work done.

01:09:30 ◼   ► And there's often a lot of corporate talk about productivity

01:09:33 ◼   ► and collaboration and things like that that goes into this.

01:09:38 ◼   ► So I guess what I would say is sometimes offices get built

01:09:41 ◼   ► and they're not really looking at studies

01:09:43 ◼   ► and they're not looking at evidence

01:09:45 ◼   ► and they're not looking,

01:09:47 ◼   ► ideally they would talk to their people

01:09:48 ◼   ► about what they want.

01:09:49 ◼   ► Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't.

01:09:51 ◼   ► Sometimes you talk to the people

01:09:53 ◼   ► and then you don't give them what they want.

01:09:56 ◼   ► Trust me, I've seen it happen.

01:09:58 ◼   ► - Sure.

01:09:59 ◼   ► - So, you know, so I look at this and I think,

01:10:02 ◼   ► okay, I'm not a big fan of open plan.

01:10:07 ◼   ► But one of the things that bothers me about it is that

01:10:10 ◼   ► it seems to often be inflicted on workers

01:10:14 ◼   ► by people who think that it's great,

01:10:17 ◼   ► but aren't doing the job that they're doing.

01:10:19 ◼   ► Now, I've heard, since I wrote that,

01:10:21 ◼   ► I've heard from people who are programmers who say,

01:10:23 ◼   ► I love OpenPlan because collaboration

01:10:25 ◼   ► is an incredibly important part of what I do.

01:10:27 ◼   ► But I also heard from lots of programmers who say,

01:10:31 ◼   ► it's terrible because it's distracting and I need to focus.

01:10:35 ◼   ► And like Joel Spolsky wrote a piece about how,

01:10:38 ◼   ► you know, developers need to be in flow, right?

01:10:41 ◼   ► Where they get in a groove and they are really working

01:10:44 ◼   ► on that and that's when they're at their most productive.

01:10:46 ◼   ► And you've got audio and visual clutter in an open plan

01:10:50 ◼   ► that distracts you and gets you out of flow.

01:10:53 ◼   ► And his suggestion was,

01:10:54 ◼   ► programmers are at their most productive

01:10:56 ◼   ► when they are in a space they can control.

01:10:58 ◼   ► And that means like cube walls or an office.

01:11:00 ◼   ► Now, not every developer is gonna be like that.

01:11:03 ◼   ► Our friend Casey has always worked in cubicles, right?

01:11:06 ◼   ► And some people are fine with that.

01:11:07 ◼   ► Although cubicles aren't open plan.

01:11:09 ◼   ► I'll point that out.

01:11:10 ◼   ► Like open plan is you have a table

01:11:12 ◼   ► and you can look around and see everybody else

01:11:15 ◼   ► working in the room, like everybody.

01:11:17 ◼   ► There's no, you don't have any privacy at all.

01:11:19 ◼   ► You are completely exposed.

01:11:21 ◼   ► That's what open plan is.

01:11:23 ◼   ► And that's what Apple is doing.

01:11:24 ◼   ► So, you know, again, it's an adaptation.

01:11:28 ◼   ► It's gonna be a productivity hit for Apple.

01:11:29 ◼   ► Some of the people are gonna hate it.

01:11:31 ◼   ► And what I found at IDG is people can come up with ways to deal with open plan.

01:11:37 ◼   ► They face the wall, they put on headphones, they do things to, um, they work from home,

01:11:44 ◼   ► like they do things to try to override the open plan because they need to do their work.

01:11:50 ◼   ► And collaboration is something, collaboration is important, right? But I think it's importance

01:11:56 ◼   ► gets overstated. And, you know, in my workplace, like, there was always, there were always

01:12:04 ◼   ► times where we needed to collaborate. We wanted to stand up, we talk, we go into a room and

01:12:09 ◼   ► have a conversation and draw things on a whiteboard. That's totally important. It does happen.

01:12:14 ◼   ► I do think it gets overstated. Then there's the part where you have to go back to your

01:12:18 ◼   ► desk and work. And very rarely is somebody's work, especially in, if you're a writer, if

01:12:24 ◼   ► a programmer, something where literally the work you're doing is happening with someone

01:12:29 ◼   ► there, unless you're doing like pair programming or something like that. Like you are sitting

01:12:32 ◼   ► down by yourself and focusing. And if you're in a workspace that is not conducive to focus,

01:12:37 ◼   ► then you're not going to be able to do your job very well. And I think that's the challenge

01:12:41 ◼   ► that Apple has here. And I don't know, like, I don't know how much Apple talked to its

01:12:45 ◼   ► people. I don't know how much this was driven by design. I don't know. I've not seen the

01:12:50 ◼   ► space like in use. That's one of the things I'm kind of fascinated by is, will we see

01:12:53 ◼   ► a picture of a workspace at Apple Park at some point when people are moved in and there's

01:12:58 ◼   ► clutter and there are humans and what does that look like and how is it working. But

01:13:04 ◼   ► I am a little bit skeptical that this is a design-driven project that the developers

01:13:11 ◼   ► who work on this stuff are going to have to do some serious adaptation and are going to

01:13:17 ◼   ► be frustrated and are going to push back and some of that is a fear of change but some

01:13:21 ◼   ► of that may be legitimate resistance to a distracting work environment. Because as much

01:13:28 ◼   ► as people say, "Oh no, collaboration is great," who among us would argue that collaboration

01:13:32 ◼   ► isn't important? But at the end of the day, when I'm writing an article, like, I'm not

01:13:36 ◼   ► writing an article while talking to somebody. I am focused. I'm not collaborating at that

01:13:42 ◼   ► point. And, you know, even in a Google Doc where somebody else is in there, like, making

01:13:47 ◼   ► changes while I'm working, that's distracting. Having people walking around and standing

01:13:52 ◼   ► by my desk and things like that, super distracting. So again, not for everybody. Some people will

01:13:58 ◼   ► like it, some people will hate it, but I do, I think I gotta call out the suggestion that,

01:14:06 ◼   ► "Well, this is just how it works now, and it's great because collaboration." Because

01:14:10 ◼   ► it strikes me that this is more like, it looks great, you can see everybody if you're a manager,

01:14:15 ◼   ► and you can see what they're doing, they can't hide from you, and it's cheaper, not in Apple's

01:14:19 ◼   ► case, but in general because you don't have to pay for those cube walls or those offices,

01:14:23 ◼   ► you can just have a completely reconfigurable space where everybody's out in the open.

01:14:28 ◼   ► So I worked for like three years in an open plan office and it definitely had its downsides.

01:14:33 ◼   ► One of the biggest problems for me was if there were people that got on your nerves,

01:14:37 ◼   ► you couldn't hide from them, like they were there every day, like frustrating you and

01:14:40 ◼   ► you keep hearing them or whatever, just doing their thing, right? We're all human. We don't

01:14:45 ◼   ► have to like everybody. There are people that can just frustrate you, right? And there were

01:14:50 ◼   ► people like that. But it can be distracting, yeah, for sure. But there were definitely

01:14:57 ◼   ► benefits to it. I honestly felt like collaboration was aided with my coworkers. We could all

01:15:05 ◼   ► frequently jump in to help each other out with problems, right? Someone would say something

01:15:09 ◼   ► to the table, there's like 13 of us sharing this desk, there would be like 6 on one side,

01:15:14 ◼   ► 6, 7 on the other side. Everybody's kind of just around this huge table, this long table.

01:15:20 ◼   ► And there were upsets to it, right? Like we could help each other out, we could solve

01:15:24 ◼   ► problems, it was a thing that was useful in some situations. Of course it could be difficult

01:15:29 ◼   ► in others but this is why everybody had headphones, right? Like this was the thing, when you didn't

01:15:34 ◼   ► want to be bothered you put the headphones on. But it was really easy to get somebody's

01:15:38 ◼   ► attention if you needed and wanted to ask them a question. Like, there are benefits

01:15:41 ◼   ► to it, but of course it shouldn't and doesn't work for everyone, but also in the same way

01:15:47 ◼   ► that private offices won't work for everyone either.

01:15:49 ◼   ► Totally. Totally. Now, I agree, but this—and this is one of my questions is, for Apple

01:15:54 ◼   ► Park, is like, who decided—and did they talk to the developers? Who decided that developers

01:16:01 ◼   ► love being out in the open versus in little rooms? Because I think everybody having their

01:16:06 ◼   ► own office is pretty extreme, right? That's pretty extreme. And then you have to make

01:16:10 ◼   ► a real effort to get people out of their offices. At the same time, and maybe it's generational

01:16:16 ◼   ► where younger programmers have no problem just sitting out at a table where they can

01:16:20 ◼   ► see everybody in their office and all that. I get what you're saying about being able

01:16:28 ◼   ► to have a conversation with somebody, although when you described that table, I thought,

01:16:31 ◼   ► "Well, that sounds like hell to me. I would have to put on headphones." At which point,

01:16:35 ◼   ► can't say "Hey Jason" instead they have to wave at me and then am I now worried

01:16:39 ◼   ► that I need to look around to see if somebody's waving at me in order to get

01:16:43 ◼   ► my attention so that I can take my headphones out and pause my music?

01:16:46 ◼   ► We used to IM each other to get attention. Okay, so why not just use IM?

01:16:51 ◼   ► Why not go to a collaboration space? It's way better to be able to talk to

01:16:55 ◼   ► someone who's across the desk from you than have an IM thing and also like

01:16:59 ◼   ► here's the thing like saying... But why not get up and go to a collaborative, a more

01:17:02 ◼   ► collaborative space. I mean, we had... Right, because there was no space, right?

01:17:06 ◼   ► That gets back to the whole reason they're doing this, I'm sure.

01:17:09 ◼   ► Space is a premium. Because it's cheaper.

01:17:12 ◼   ► But like, it's not even about cheaper. It's like, how big can you make your building?

01:17:16 ◼   ► Right? Like, Apple Park is huge. And they still can't fit everyone in it. Right?

01:17:22 ◼   ► Like, I've been to a bunch of big technology companies now. I've been to their offices

01:17:27 ◼   ► and every single one of them is open plan. Like, and they have offices that people can

01:17:31 ◼   ► go into for meetings and stuff like that.

01:17:32 ◼   ► But these companies are so huge, they have so many people,

01:17:36 ◼   ► what else are you gonna do?

01:17:37 ◼   ► - Right, well, and that's my point, actually.

01:17:40 ◼   ► You just made my point, which is,

01:17:41 ◼   ► the reason this happens is because

01:17:44 ◼   ► configuring offices is expensive.

01:17:46 ◼   ► You have to put in a drywall,

01:17:48 ◼   ► you have to build the offices in there.

01:17:51 ◼   ► And then if you reconfigure because you leave

01:17:54 ◼   ► and the next company comes in,

01:17:55 ◼   ► 'cause you've grown and you've outgrown the space,

01:17:57 ◼   ► then they wanna reconfigure and they tear the offices out

01:18:00 ◼   ► and they put in new offices.

01:18:00 ◼   ► and that's really expensive.

01:18:02 ◼   ► It's way cheaper to just have an empty room

01:18:04 ◼   ► that you stick tables in, or maybe low walls,

01:18:08 ◼   ► or maybe you make like rows with higher walls

01:18:11 ◼   ► and then everything else is a low wall

01:18:12 ◼   ► because you're just in an empty box.

01:18:14 ◼   ► There are lots of really good reasons financially

01:18:18 ◼   ► to do open plan, lots of them.

01:18:21 ◼   ► None of them has to do with the productivity of your workers.

01:18:23 ◼   ► None of them has to do with them feeling like

01:18:25 ◼   ► they can focus on their job.

01:18:27 ◼   ► It's all about the managers and the budget.

01:18:30 ◼   ► And that's the facts, right?

01:18:32 ◼   ► Like it would be almost impossible to create a space

01:18:36 ◼   ► with all offices and you wouldn't want to

01:18:38 ◼   ► because that would be oppressive.

01:18:40 ◼   ► But at the same time, I don't buy the argument

01:18:45 ◼   ► that I think they're selling us and they're selling workers,

01:18:49 ◼   ► which is no, no, OpenPlan is great for you too.

01:18:52 ◼   ► It's not just because it's cheaper for us.

01:18:54 ◼   ► It's not just because it's our budget.

01:18:56 ◼   ► It's great for you because it's so collaborative.

01:18:58 ◼   ► It's like, okay, there are jobs where collaboration

01:19:00 ◼   ► is important at various levels.

01:19:02 ◼   ► There are jobs where you really need to focus.

01:19:05 ◼   ► And some people maybe can be masters of focus.

01:19:08 ◼   ► I don't think I could survive doing what I do.

01:19:12 ◼   ► And I mean, podcasts aside, 'cause that doesn't work,

01:19:13 ◼   ► but like being a writer and an editor,

01:19:15 ◼   ► doing what I've done for my career.

01:19:17 ◼   ► If I was sitting at a table with no barriers

01:19:19 ◼   ► with 10 other people, even if I had my headphones in,

01:19:23 ◼   ► because I think it would be very hard for me to focus,

01:19:26 ◼   ► especially if I knew that some of them

01:19:28 ◼   ► might want to talk to me at some point. I think that would be a very difficult way to

01:19:31 ◼   ► adapt. Now maybe if you're 22 and you're just starting out, you totally deal with the distractions

01:19:38 ◼   ► differently and you're able to do it. There may be some generational things happening

01:19:42 ◼   ► here, but what sours me on this is I feel like OpenPlan is used way too often as an

01:19:49 ◼   ► excuse to tell the workers to shut up and take it because it's actually good for them,

01:19:56 ◼   ► collaboration. And at Apple, like, I hope Apple's better than this. I said this on

01:20:01 ◼   ► Twitter when people were asking me about it. It's like, I hope Apple's better than

01:20:04 ◼   ► this. I hope Apple knows exactly who their people are and how they do their

01:20:07 ◼   ► job and that they've configured the workspaces in this incredible next

01:20:11 ◼   ► generation building to get the most out of their workers. My fear is that this is

01:20:18 ◼   ► a design project, first and foremost, and Johnny Ive and all of his collaborators

01:20:24 ◼   ► want it to look like this, and then reality will intrude, and then the question will be

01:20:29 ◼   ► like, "Oh my god, the engineers are freaking out." It's like, okay, well, it's a period

01:20:33 ◼   ► of adaptation, let's give them six months. But in six months or a year, does somebody

01:20:37 ◼   ► go, "Yeah, we're gonna need to put up some cube walls. We're gonna need to put up some

01:20:41 ◼   ► offices. We're gonna need to change this." Because I think this is one of those cases

01:20:47 ◼   ► where the battle plan doesn't stay the same once it meets the enemy. I think that when

01:20:51 ◼   ► when Apple Park is opened, you're going to find that a lot of the people who build the

01:20:55 ◼   ► software especially that Apple relies on are going to have some serious problems adapting

01:21:03 ◼   ► to the work environment. And hopefully most of those go away after six months. But I wouldn't

01:21:09 ◼   ► count on it.

01:21:10 ◼   ► I don't know. I feel like it's a maybe. I don't think it's possible to make a statement

01:21:15 ◼   ► like that, to just be like, it's not going to work. And I'm not saying that you're necessarily

01:21:20 ◼   ► making that statement but like I've seen a lot of people just saying, as I just said,

01:21:24 ◼   ► I've seen a lot of people saying like, oh it's not gonna work, like engineers can't

01:21:29 ◼   ► work that way, right? And I don't think that it's possible to make those kinds of claims.

01:21:32 ◼   ► Look, for every person who said to me, um, it's fine, right? Like I've gotten some people

01:21:38 ◼   ► are like, I have an open plan and it's fine. Works for me, right? It's like, okay, well,

01:21:44 ◼   ► great. It works for you. You have you proven anything by telling me it works for you. You've

01:21:47 ◼   ► You've proven that it's not terrible for 100% of the people.

01:21:51 ◼   ► For every one of those, I've gotten one or two people

01:21:54 ◼   ► who said, "It won't work.

01:21:55 ◼   ► "It's terrible.

01:21:56 ◼   ► "Programmers can't work like that."

01:21:58 ◼   ► Those statements are wrong, right?

01:22:00 ◼   ► Some people can work like this.

01:22:02 ◼   ► The question is gonna be, again, what's in the middle?

01:22:04 ◼   ► And again, I wanna say change.

01:22:09 ◼   ► Of course people are gonna be resistant to change.

01:22:11 ◼   ► Of course that's gonna happen.

01:22:13 ◼   ► The people who are used to another working environment

01:22:15 ◼   ► are gonna come into this space and be like, "Oh boy."

01:22:17 ◼   ► We got our big, beautiful, brand new space at IDG,

01:22:20 ◼   ► and it was big and beautiful and new

01:22:23 ◼   ► and so much more modern than the old thing,

01:22:25 ◼   ► which was like out of a magazine,

01:22:28 ◼   ► movie about a magazine in the 1980s.

01:22:30 ◼   ► Like it was super old and dark and terrible.

01:22:32 ◼   ► And the new space was none of those things.

01:22:34 ◼   ► And yet, once we all got settled in,

01:22:37 ◼   ► it was like, I don't know, like it was not great.

01:22:40 ◼   ► And that's resistance to change.

01:22:41 ◼   ► You got to adapt.

01:22:42 ◼   ► It's gonna happen.

01:22:44 ◼   ► But yeah, in the long run, who's gonna bend?

01:22:49 ◼   ► Are the employees gonna adapt?

01:22:51 ◼   ► Are some of them not gonna be able to adapt?

01:22:53 ◼   ► Is the company gonna be able to adapt?

01:22:55 ◼   ► Once this building is not a grand opening anymore,

01:22:58 ◼   ► but an ongoing concern,

01:22:59 ◼   ► are managers going to,

01:23:01 ◼   ► and the people running the facility, going to adapt?

01:23:04 ◼   ► Are they gonna say, look,

01:23:06 ◼   ► look, it's always gonna be this way

01:23:07 ◼   ► and leave Apple if you don't like it, or get on board?

01:23:10 ◼   ► Or are they gonna be like, you know, this is bad.

01:23:12 ◼   ► We need to fix this

01:23:13 ◼   ► because we are distracted and we're losing people

01:23:16 ◼   ► or they're great engineers that we don't wanna lose

01:23:18 ◼   ► and we need to change it.

01:23:19 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:23:20 ◼   ► I don't know how it's gonna go.

01:23:21 ◼   ► I just had my little spider sense going off

01:23:23 ◼   ► that I've seen this happen before.

01:23:27 ◼   ► And it just, in my environment,

01:23:30 ◼   ► and IDG is not Apple by a long shot,

01:23:32 ◼   ► but in my environment,

01:23:34 ◼   ► it was not the most productive workplace after all.

01:23:39 ◼   ► And it was less open than Apple's is actually,

01:23:42 ◼   ► 'cause we did have rows with higher walls.

01:23:44 ◼   ► The Apple photos, there's like your wall next to you

01:23:47 ◼   ► is actually a glass panel with a conference room behind it.

01:23:51 ◼   ► So there'll be meetings going on while you're sitting there

01:23:54 ◼   ► and they can see you and you can see them.

01:23:56 ◼   ► And I don't know.

01:23:57 ◼   ► Well, it looks beautiful.

01:23:59 ◼   ► This is the thing, it looks beautiful.

01:24:01 ◼   ► How does it work?

01:24:01 ◼   ► Because as Steve Jobs told us,

01:24:04 ◼   ► design isn't how it looks, design is how it works.

01:24:07 ◼   ► And so I hope Apple has made good design decisions

01:24:10 ◼   ► for Apple Park about the people who work there being able to get their work done productively

01:24:15 ◼   ► because if it's a beautiful building that people hate to work in and are not productive

01:24:20 ◼   ► in, it's a failure. So it needs to be a success and that means the people need to

01:24:24 ◼   ► be productive and happy when they work there.

01:24:27 ◼   ► Just before we move on, I just want to state for the record, like, I'm not saying this

01:24:34 ◼   ► is good. I'm not saying it's bad, right? Like, I feel like sometimes, you know, I'm

01:24:39 ◼   ► my best to argue with you, right? For conversation. I don't always like...

01:24:46 ◼   ► You don't hate the Mac Mini. No, I don't always necessarily believe like 100% of what I say.

01:24:52 ◼   ► Like a lot of the time I'm playing devil's advocate to draw out the conversation.

01:24:57 ◼   ► You know, my feeling on this, like if I was to summarize it, it's just like

01:25:01 ◼   ► when I look at something like this, I'm like, well, I assume the reason they're doing this

01:25:08 ◼   ► is the reason they have to do it. And it may purely be like, look, at the end of the day,

01:25:14 ◼   ► we only have so much space and it's like you can either work here or you can go back to Koopa

01:25:20 ◼   ► Teen, you can go back to Infinite Loop, right? Like it's, we can only fit so many people in

01:25:24 ◼   ► and we're just gonna see how it goes. Like I see that as being like a real potential here

01:25:28 ◼   ► and it's not necessarily saying that like anybody believes it's good or bad or better or worse,

01:25:33 ◼   ► but it's like we want to try and get as many people as we can into Apple Park and the only

01:25:38 ◼   ► only way we can do that is to put you all in this room together, right?

01:25:43 ◼   ► But, that is, again, where the rubber meets the road is, like, does it work as a workplace?

01:25:51 ◼   ► Like I get, like, we wanna, they could pack them in, they could pack them in even tighter,

01:25:55 ◼   ► like fill every space in Apple Park until it's like a sweatshop. They could do that,

01:25:59 ◼   ► but they won't do that because that would be a terrible place to work. The question

01:26:03 ◼   ► is like where does that line get drawn and over time does it change? And we don't know

01:26:07 ◼   ► No, Apple, look, right now, Apple is justifiably proud of their space and they're showing it

01:26:12 ◼   ► off. It is a beautiful brand new building. It is the dream of Steve Jobs. It is billions

01:26:17 ◼   ► of dollars. I want to see it. It looks amazing. And that's all great. It's just that when

01:26:23 ◼   ► the Wall Street Journal specifically calls out like trepidation about these spaces, I'm

01:26:29 ◼   ► like, yeah, I can see that. I went through it. And it will all come down to how people

01:26:35 ◼   ► how managers work with their staff, how the staff reacts,

01:26:39 ◼   ► how flexible the facility is to make adjustments

01:26:44 ◼   ► based on how people work.

01:26:46 ◼   ► Again, if you're somebody who says,

01:26:47 ◼   ► "Look, I can't work without a private office,

01:26:49 ◼   ► give that to me or I'm out of here,"

01:26:50 ◼   ► I doubt Apple Park is going to be able to please them, right?

01:26:53 ◼   ► They're going to be like, "Sorry, that's not going to happen."

01:26:55 ◼   ► You know, at IDG, it was the same thing.

01:26:56 ◼   ► It's like we had two offices

01:26:57 ◼   ► in the entire side of the building I was on.

01:26:59 ◼   ► And I was in one of them, and I was actually kind of miserable

01:27:01 ◼   ► because the office was terrible too.

01:27:03 ◼   ► I almost I think I would have rather been out in the cubes

01:27:06 ◼   ► in fact, if I hadn't left I probably would have moved out into a cube because

01:27:09 ◼   ► It was a tiny dark interior office. That was soul-sucking

01:27:13 ◼   ► So, you know, we'll see how it goes we'll see we'll see how the adaptation happens it's gonna take time

01:27:21 ◼   ► There are gonna be stories about angry people at Apple who hate Apple Park. They're gonna be stories about

01:27:28 ◼   ► Tech failures at Apple Park. Oh this elevator didn't work or oh it leaked when it rained

01:27:33 ◼   ► Or it got a little too cold and everybody had to bring jackets or Apple had to buy jackets for everybody

01:27:37 ◼   ► we're gonna get those stories because it's a new facility and it's gonna shake down and

01:27:41 ◼   ► Every everything that Apple does is reported with high drama

01:27:43 ◼   ► My question is just like for Apple's ongoing productivity and the happiness of the people who work there

01:27:49 ◼   ► What is that workspace like in a year and is it something where it's kind of like nope

01:27:54 ◼   ► We decided it's gonna be like this

01:27:55 ◼   ► you guys are all going to have to deal. Or is it going to be, "Oh, this group doesn't

01:27:59 ◼   ► work like that. We should make some changes." And I hope it's the latter, because that's

01:28:04 ◼   ► how a good company deals with this. And this is not a—unlike so many of these companies

01:28:09 ◼   ► where they rent office space and they're in there for a few years and then they move,

01:28:12 ◼   ► right? Where you can't make big structural changes because it's not worth the investment

01:28:18 ◼   ► because you're not going to be there very long. You've got a small lease. This is Apple's

01:28:21 ◼   ► building for essentially the rest of Apple's existence as a company. Like, they need to

01:28:26 ◼   ► get this right, not just for now, but for the long term. So, we'll see. We'll see. But

01:28:32 ◼   ► I hope they're continuing to listen to their employees about what makes a conducive workspace.

01:28:41 ◼   ► Today's show is also brought to you by our friends over at Encapsula. They have website

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01:30:16 ◼   ► Jason it is time for Ask Upgrade.

01:30:20 ◼   ► Already?

01:30:21 ◼   ► Already.

01:30:22 ◼   ► Jimmy asked, do you think that at some point Apple may make matte black or jet black iPad

01:30:29 ◼   ► Pros?

01:30:30 ◼   ► Wow.

01:30:31 ◼   ► I think it's possible depending on how the colour line shakes out into the future because

01:30:35 ◼   ► we can get gold ones, right?

01:30:36 ◼   ► Like you can get gold now.

01:30:39 ◼   ► I don't think you can get rose gold, but you can get gold.

01:30:41 ◼   ► So if matte black and jet black

01:30:43 ◼   ► just becomes standard colors over the years,

01:30:47 ◼   ► seems possible, right?

01:30:48 ◼   ► Like maybe the space gray gets replaced

01:30:50 ◼   ► with matte black or something?

01:30:52 ◼   ► - I think there's a materials issue,

01:30:53 ◼   ► which is these are larger devices.

01:30:57 ◼   ► So like fingerprints on them are different.

01:31:00 ◼   ► Physically making them is different.

01:31:03 ◼   ► And that's my gut feeling about like a Jet Black iPad

01:31:07 ◼   ► is can they really make that and how would it hold up

01:31:11 ◼   ► and how expensive would it be for them to manufacture that

01:31:13 ◼   ► and would that eat into their profit margin?

01:31:15 ◼   ► I think it's possible.

01:31:16 ◼   ► The matte black is very fingerprinty.

01:31:20 ◼   ► The Jet Black is kind of fingerprinty too.

01:31:23 ◼   ► I think on large devices,

01:31:24 ◼   ► I would say think about the iPad Pro

01:31:26 ◼   ► and think about the MacBook and the MacBook Pro the same way

01:31:28 ◼   ► which is like they want those to be,

01:31:30 ◼   ► they have been really conservative with those

01:31:32 ◼   ► and making something that isn't

01:31:33 ◼   ► in that anodized aluminum thing,

01:31:37 ◼   ► I think is something they're willing to do

01:31:39 ◼   ► on an Apple Watch or an iPhone,

01:31:42 ◼   ► but not on a bigger device.

01:31:43 ◼   ► So I doubt it, but we'll see.

01:31:48 ◼   ► I think it's more likely that they would do,

01:31:51 ◼   ► yeah, they would have another color variation

01:31:54 ◼   ► like they have on,

01:31:57 ◼   ► like how those iPod Touches have colors, right?

01:32:00 ◼   ► or there's the red iPhone.

01:32:02 ◼   ► I think it's more likely that we might see a new kind of very subtle color variation

01:32:07 ◼   ► that rolls across the line eventually than something that is like super shiny like a

01:32:14 ◼   ► jet black.

01:32:17 ◼   ► So next up today from James, do you think there's any chance that there might be an

01:32:21 ◼   ► iPhone SE update this fall considering how popular the product was when it launched and

01:32:26 ◼   ► kind of took Apple by surprise?

01:32:28 ◼   ► there's always a chance, although I kind of, I mean, maybe, although, I mean, the

01:32:34 ◼   ► question is, what's the easiest for Apple? Like, is it easier for Apple to

01:32:38 ◼   ► slipstream the iPhone SE when they announce new iPhones in the fall, or is

01:32:42 ◼   ► it easy for them to do it, like, later, when they're not busy with other things,

01:32:45 ◼   ► and have that drop in the spring, like they did when they originally announced

01:32:49 ◼   ► the iPhone SE? I don't know. My gut feeling is that it would be easier for

01:32:52 ◼   ► them to release that design later, rather than say, "Well, here's a new iPhone 8 and

01:32:58 ◼   ► and an iPhone 7S and an iPhone SE, right?

01:33:03 ◼   ► Like would it be easier for them to just say,

01:33:06 ◼   ► you know, the SE is not about the latest and greatest.

01:33:08 ◼   ► We will update it next spring

01:33:11 ◼   ► with the innards of an iPhone 7 or something or a 7S.

01:33:15 ◼   ► So yeah, it's possible,

01:33:19 ◼   ► remains to be seen whether it's gonna join the iPhone line

01:33:22 ◼   ► for updates, whether it'll get updated sort of off axis

01:33:25 ◼   ► every other year in the spring

01:33:27 ◼   ► or whether it won't get updated at all.

01:33:29 ◼   ► I think that's also a question.

01:33:30 ◼   ► I hope it does though.

01:33:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I feel that this is one

01:33:33 ◼   ► that I really haven't got a solid feeling on.

01:33:35 ◼   ► - I mean, they only did it once.

01:33:37 ◼   ► So we're guessing now.

01:33:39 ◼   ► I don't think it's gonna go away.

01:33:41 ◼   ► I think that there is a great value in that size.

01:33:44 ◼   ► I was one of those people who was plugging them,

01:33:46 ◼   ► not giving away that size from the beginning.

01:33:49 ◼   ► And now that it exists,

01:33:50 ◼   ► I'm on board with the, yes, it needs to get updated.

01:33:53 ◼   ► I'm not sure it needs to get updated with everything else.

01:33:55 ◼   ► In fact, if they're trying to kind of like ramp up

01:33:58 ◼   ► those big iPhones and get that up and going

01:34:01 ◼   ► like they did with the iPhone SE,

01:34:03 ◼   ► where then later they came in and said,

01:34:05 ◼   ► oh yeah, and this has last year's,

01:34:06 ◼   ► last fall's tech in this thing too.

01:34:08 ◼   ► You know, that might be a more fitting place in its lineup,

01:34:12 ◼   ► but we just don't know because we only have

01:34:14 ◼   ► the one data point, which is when they release the SE.

01:34:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, and also my feeling is assuming

01:34:18 ◼   ► that it's gonna be an SE isn't necessarily

01:34:21 ◼   ► the right thing to think about, right?

01:34:22 ◼   ► like the 5C was kind of this as well, right?

01:34:25 ◼   ► Like a new phone with all parts inside.

01:34:30 ◼   ► Like there is a possibility of just like a different thing,

01:34:34 ◼   ► you know, maybe more like the 5C

01:34:36 ◼   ► where it's got some kind of new case.

01:34:37 ◼   ► Like I feel like the idea of Apple releasing a new,

01:34:41 ◼   ► inverted commas, iPhone with old parts is like,

01:34:45 ◼   ► that's not a new idea and they could continue to do that.

01:34:49 ◼   ► And I think will continue to do that,

01:34:50 ◼   ► but I have no real good sense of what I think it's going to look like the next time they

01:34:55 ◼   ► do it or even when.

01:34:57 ◼   ► Sorry.

01:34:58 ◼   ► Considering, this is from Michael, not from me, Michael is considering a new MacBook Pro

01:35:02 ◼   ► purchase but doesn't like the Touch Bar.

01:35:05 ◼   ► Do we think that the Touch Bar is here to stay and that he should just get used to it

01:35:09 ◼   ► and buy the MacBook Pro?

01:35:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:35:12 ◼   ► I feel like it's going to at least last another generation.

01:35:16 ◼   ► Even if Apple decide they don't like it, I don't think they'd can it that quick.

01:35:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean that's probably right.

01:35:24 ◼   ► If you're getting a 13, you could just get it without the touch bar and that's a pretty

01:35:29 ◼   ► good computer.

01:35:30 ◼   ► But if you want a 15 or you want more power, then you could get it with a touch bar.

01:35:37 ◼   ► I don't love the touch bar.

01:35:39 ◼   ► I think it's got a lot of potential, but I am not seeing the Touch Bar meeting its potential.

01:35:47 ◼   ► High Sierra doesn't really have anything to speak of about Touch Bar in it, which is really

01:35:51 ◼   ► disappointing.

01:35:52 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:35:56 ◼   ► You could get used to it.

01:35:57 ◼   ► I'm not convinced it's here to stay because it doesn't seem like a hit.

01:36:00 ◼   ► It seems like something Apple is still trying to make it happen.

01:36:04 ◼   ► And I don't find people loving it as a group.

01:36:08 ◼   ► seems like it's present. So, I don't know. I don't have a good answer here other than

01:36:15 ◼   ► if you don't like the touch bar and you can buy a MacBook Pro that pleases you that doesn't

01:36:19 ◼   ► have it, which is that 13-inch model, maybe that's what you should do and just not worry

01:36:23 ◼   ► about the touch bar and wait for later to see if the touch bar evolves into something

01:36:27 ◼   ► you like. Or goes away.

01:36:31 ◼   ► Corey wants to know, "In the new Files app in iOS 11, can you be signed into two different

01:36:35 ◼   ► Dropbox accounts. I think about this for a minute. I was like, why?

01:36:38 ◼   ► Why would you need that?

01:36:40 ◼   ► Like, I can't I don't think there's any way you can currently do that, like on

01:36:44 ◼   ► any device. Right. Like, I don't think.

01:36:46 ◼   ► Yeah, you can't do that anywhere.

01:36:47 ◼   ► Right. You can't do it on the Mac.

01:36:49 ◼   ► I don't think you definitely can't do it in the Dropbox app.

01:36:51 ◼   ► But I was thinking about this. Right.

01:36:53 ◼   ► And I was like, you know, there might be a way around this in files in the files

01:36:58 ◼   ► app. So, OK, so let me back up a second right now.

01:37:01 ◼   ► No, but Dropbox hasn't been updated, of course.

01:37:03 ◼   ► right so it's it's in the files app currently but it's just the old document provider right like it

01:37:08 ◼   ► just opens a window eventually it's going to get updated and it's going to appear in files it's

01:37:12 ◼   ► going to be amazing and we're all going to be so happy but i still don't think that you're going

01:37:15 ◼   ► to be able to have the dropbox letting you sign into two accounts because i just it's such a niche

01:37:21 ◼   ► thing i just don't think you're going to have to do that but i think you could spoof it because

01:37:25 ◼   ► you could use another app something maybe like documents by readall to sign into the second

01:37:30 ◼   ► Dropbox account, then that will show up in files, and effectively you'll have access

01:37:34 ◼   ► to two different Dropbox accounts within the Files app, right? Like that seems like that

01:37:38 ◼   ► would work, right?

01:37:39 ◼   ► - Maybe, as long as those apps aren't doing, I mean, that's the thing. Like, if those apps

01:37:46 ◼   ► are using the new files method, which they're all gonna get updated to do, then it's not

01:37:51 ◼   ► gonna happen. But if they're using an older method that is separately isolated, logging

01:37:55 ◼   ► into Dropbox, then maybe so. I use GoodReader sometimes to do this, but I think Dropbox

01:38:02 ◼   ► very much wants you to have one Dropbox account, I think. I wonder if this is like a personal

01:38:06 ◼   ► one and a work one or something like that, that have a different set of files on them.

01:38:11 ◼   ► I don't know. I don't think the intent is to do this, but we don't know. So I think,

01:38:17 ◼   ► yeah, the second app workaround is maybe not terrible, but it's not going to provide the

01:38:21 ◼   ► files experience then. It's going to be in another app.

01:38:24 ◼   ► Well no, but you could... I'm assuming that documents will be a file provider.

01:38:28 ◼   ► Right, like it will have all the stuff, so you'll be able to get...

01:38:32 ◼   ► Because it is currently! So...

01:38:34 ◼   ► Yeah, but then there... are they syncing... I don't know. That's... that... maybe? Maybe not.

01:38:39 ◼   ► Well I have to see, like I... my conception of this says it could work in some strange way,

01:38:45 ◼   ► but I don't know, right? But like, when I was thinking about this, I was like, "Hmm,

01:38:51 ◼   ► Maybe that will work, but we don't know.

01:38:53 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:38:55 ◼   ► Travis wants to know, "Does photos on iOS 11, Jason, support smart albums?"

01:39:02 ◼   ► I don't think so.

01:39:03 ◼   ► I mean, there's nothing more to say.

01:39:06 ◼   ► As far as I can tell, smart albums are still not supported.

01:39:08 ◼   ► They don't work.

01:39:10 ◼   ► You can't see them.

01:39:11 ◼   ► They...

01:39:12 ◼   ► The last time I checked, I haven't checked in recent betas,

01:39:15 ◼   ► but when I talked to Apple about it, that was not a thing that came up.

01:39:20 ◼   ► So it seems like not.

01:39:21 ◼   ► Ido Ido asked, "Do you primarily use your iPad in portrait or landscape?"

01:39:28 ◼   ► What about you Jason?

01:39:30 ◼   ► JASON LEWKOWICZ Landscape.

01:39:31 ◼   ► MATT PORTER Me in landscape.

01:39:32 ◼   ► JASON LEWKOWICZ Almost exclusively.

01:39:35 ◼   ► I will use it in portrait for reading comics, sometimes for reading articles because depending

01:39:41 ◼   ► on the app, like I use the New York Times app, I often will read that, not always, but

01:39:45 ◼   ► often will read that in portrait because the column width is too wide in landscape, but

01:39:52 ◼   ► sometimes I read it in landscape most, I would say most of the time, like 95% of the time,

01:39:58 ◼   ► my iPad is in landscape.

01:40:01 ◼   ► I'm mostly in landscape as well because I have the keyboard attached, but like I will

01:40:05 ◼   ► sometimes turn it into portrait, like if I'm reading Twitter for a while or something,

01:40:08 ◼   ► you know, it's nicer in landscape, in portrait.

01:40:10 ◼   ► I mean, I think I've complained about this before,

01:40:13 ◼   ► but I am frustrated by Apple's insistence

01:40:17 ◼   ► that in its industrial design,

01:40:18 ◼   ► that the iPad is a portrait device,

01:40:20 ◼   ► 'cause I just don't think it is.

01:40:21 ◼   ► I think it's a landscape device.

01:40:22 ◼   ► And the fact that the home button

01:40:24 ◼   ► is on the bottom in portrait.

01:40:28 ◼   ► And so you've got,

01:40:29 ◼   ► when you're using it in the landscape all the time,

01:40:31 ◼   ► you just got one side's got a button on it.

01:40:32 ◼   ► Which side is it?

01:40:33 ◼   ► 'Cause you could use it either way.

01:40:34 ◼   ► And so I find that kind of ridiculous.

01:40:38 ◼   ► And when you start it up,

01:40:41 ◼   ► the Apple logo is there in portrait orientation.

01:40:45 ◼   ► And of course on the back,

01:40:46 ◼   ► the Apple logo is in portrait orientation.

01:40:48 ◼   ► And that makes it just like every other iOS device,

01:40:50 ◼   ► but I never use my iPhone in landscape mode,

01:40:55 ◼   ► unless I'm watching a video or playing a game,

01:40:57 ◼   ► but my iPad is always in landscape orientation, always,

01:41:00 ◼   ► with very few exceptions.

01:41:02 ◼   ► So I think that's a little bit silly that Apple,

01:41:05 ◼   ► maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm an outlier,

01:41:06 ◼   ► but I feel like the iPad is a landscape device

01:41:09 ◼   ► more often than portrait.

01:41:11 ◼   ► - If you would like to send in questions for Ask Upgrade,

01:41:14 ◼   ► you can tweet at us with the hashtag #AskUpgrade.

01:41:18 ◼   ► You can also, don't forget to send in

01:41:19 ◼   ► your Snell Talk questions if you want to be

01:41:21 ◼   ► at the start of the show, #SnellTalk, we'll send those in.

01:41:24 ◼   ► Want to find our show notes today,

01:41:25 ◼   ► head on over to relay.fm/upgrade/152.

01:41:30 ◼   ► Want to find JSON online, it's at sixcolors.com

01:41:32 ◼   ► and @Jsnell on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L.

01:41:35 ◼   ► I am @imike. Thanks to Eero, Ting and Encapsular for supporting the show. And as always, thank

01:41:44 ◼   ► you for listening. We'll be back next time and I'm going to be in the United States of

01:41:50 ◼   ► America. Until then, Mr Jason Snell, say goodbye.

01:41:53 ◼   ► Bye everybody.

01:41:54 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:41:57 ◼   ► [ Music ]