Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 149. Today's show is brought to you by

00:00:14 ◼   ► Squarespace, Away and Encapsula. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined

00:00:18 ◼   ► by Jason Snell. Hola, Jason Snell.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hola, Miguel Hurley.

00:00:23 ◼   ► That was a nice try on the surname there but uh I don't think you nailed it.

00:00:27 ◼   ► I don't know what it would be. I don't know what the Spanish version of Hurley would be, but I don't think it was that.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Or Leo?

00:00:34 ◼   ► We can workshop this later on. Michael would like to know for #snailtalk this week,

00:00:40 ◼   ► "As a 12.9 inch iPad Pro user, I sometimes think that the lunch tray comparison is an apt one, because the iPad is so large.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Jason, have you ever used your 12.9 inch iPad Pro to carry things around the house?"

00:00:54 ◼   ► Only in moments of necessity. Best example, I actually did this this morning, although I admit I did it after I read this, but I think I would have done it anyway,

00:01:06 ◼   ► which is I had a cup of tea and I had a plate with my breakfast on it, and I had my iPad because I was reading while the breakfast was finishing,

00:01:18 ◼   ► and I realized I needed to take these three objects

00:01:21 ◼   ► back to the bedroom.

00:01:22 ◼   ► And so I closed my smart cover

00:01:25 ◼   ► and put my plate on the iPad

00:01:28 ◼   ► and then picked up the mug of tea

00:01:30 ◼   ► and used it as a carrier for that.

00:01:32 ◼   ► But it was a little plate and it barely fit

00:01:34 ◼   ► 'cause it seems like a lunch tray,

00:01:37 ◼   ► but let me tell you, a lunch tray is larger.

00:01:40 ◼   ► So, but yes, sure, why not?

00:01:41 ◼   ► If I've only got two arms.

00:01:44 ◼   ► So if I need to carry three things

00:01:46 ◼   ► and one of them is the iPad, it's a flat surface,

00:01:48 ◼   ► you can do it.

00:01:49 ◼   ► By the way, my cat likes to sit on iPads.

00:01:52 ◼   ► It's strange, like on our bed, he will oftentimes sit

00:01:57 ◼   ► or lay down on my iPad or my wife's iPad.

00:02:01 ◼   ► - Other computers too, or just iPads?

00:02:04 ◼   ► - The laptops are very rarely any place

00:02:07 ◼   ► where the cat would be.

00:02:08 ◼   ► I don't know if he sits on laptops, I don't think so.

00:02:13 ◼   ► I don't think I've seen him sit,

00:02:14 ◼   ► My son and my daughter have laptops and I don't think I've seen him sitting on them.

00:02:19 ◼   ► But the iPad, I think it's like the leather case or something that's more comfortable than the metal of a...

00:02:25 ◼   ► Or stickers.

00:02:26 ◼   ► My daughter's laptop is covered with stickers, he must not like sitting on stickers.

00:02:29 ◼   ► You can't cover the wonderful artistry.

00:02:33 ◼   ► Oh yeah, good point. Good point.

00:02:36 ◼   ► So I have some follow-up about peanut butter.

00:02:39 ◼   ► Of course we do.

00:02:40 ◼   ► Snell Talk has erupted into follow-up.

00:02:42 ◼   ► This is Snell Talk follow-up, not regular follow-up.

00:02:44 ◼   ► It is actually.

00:02:45 ◼   ► This is in the chapter markers, Myke.

00:02:47 ◼   ► It's very important that we still remain in the Snell Talk chapter if people haven't seen

00:02:52 ◼   ► there's a chapter of Snell Talk, there's custom art.

00:02:54 ◼   ► We are still ensconced inside the Snell Talk set of parentheses for this follow-up.

00:03:00 ◼   ► Just want to be clear about that.

00:03:02 ◼   ► So the Snell Talk follow-up is around peanut butter.

00:03:05 ◼   ► So last week we were talking about the fact that you love peanut butter more than anything

00:03:12 ◼   ► else that you eat. And I reminded you…

00:03:15 ◼   ► Thank you for that qualifier.

00:03:17 ◼   ► I reminded you. I assume you like your family more than peanut butter. I figured it was

00:03:21 ◼   ► just important to mention that.

00:03:22 ◼   ► I do. Thank you. Well said.

00:03:23 ◼   ► I also reminded you and the rest of the world that I am allergic. And we had lots of upgrade

00:03:28 ◼   ► ends right in, Jason, to tell me about all of the peanut butter flavored things that

00:03:32 ◼   ► I could have that do not actually contain peanuts. So, Gannon and Rob suggested a product

00:03:38 ◼   ► called Sun Butter, which is all one word.

00:03:41 ◼   ► Ted suggested something which is kind of wonderfully named

00:03:44 ◼   ► Get Buzzing Wow Butter Bars,

00:03:46 ◼   ► the Get Buzzing Wow Butter Bars, as I like saying that.

00:03:50 ◼   ► And Phil, Andrew, and another Jason

00:03:52 ◼   ► all suggested something called just Wow Butter.

00:03:55 ◼   ► So I think Wow Butter seems to be the winner here

00:03:58 ◼   ► 'cause I assume that the Get Buzzing product

00:03:59 ◼   ► contains something called Wow Butter.

00:04:02 ◼   ► So I do have a thought about this though.

00:04:04 ◼   ► So I was looking at all these products

00:04:06 ◼   ► and thinking, oh, interesting.

00:04:07 ◼   ► I don't like the flavor of peanut butter because in my mind, if I ever eat peanuts or smell

00:04:15 ◼   ► peanuts, I get scared, right? So I appreciate all of this. I appreciate the feedback. But

00:04:24 ◼   ► as I started thinking about this and wondering if I should get some, I decided I didn't want

00:04:28 ◼   ► to do it because it would probably make me feel rather unwell to eat anything peanut

00:04:34 ◼   ► related.

00:04:35 ◼   ► I imagine you'd be like nervous, right?

00:04:38 ◼   ► Like it would set off something in you

00:04:42 ◼   ► because this is normally the taste of danger,

00:04:44 ◼   ► the taste of death and or potential death anyway.

00:04:48 ◼   ► And it's also what your sun butter is,

00:04:50 ◼   ► is sunflower seed butter, I believe.

00:04:53 ◼   ► So it's a replacement that doesn't use nuts

00:04:58 ◼   ► 'cause there's also like almond butter

00:04:59 ◼   ► and stuff like that and cashew butter.

00:05:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I get a bit funny with sunflower seeds as well

00:05:05 ◼   ► because they're a tongue tingly.

00:05:07 ◼   ► - Wow butter seems like it's a completely artificial

00:05:10 ◼   ► substance made to taste like peanut butter,

00:05:12 ◼   ► which is brilliant.

00:05:13 ◼   ► I mean, the label on it says it's safe for schools.

00:05:16 ◼   ► You know, there are a lot of schools have a no nut policy.

00:05:19 ◼   ► So if your kid really loves peanut butter

00:05:20 ◼   ► and jelly sandwiches and the schools have no peanuts

00:05:23 ◼   ► because they've got kids with peanut allergies,

00:05:26 ◼   ► then you buy Wow Butter and use it

00:05:27 ◼   ► and hopefully your kid doesn't know the difference.

00:05:29 ◼   ► I will say as somebody who does love peanut butter,

00:05:31 ◼   ► and I'm gonna bring in our pal Casey Liss,

00:05:34 ◼   ► loves Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to this conversation too. There are two sorts of flavors of peanut

00:05:40 ◼   ► butter. There's actual peanut butter and there's artificial-ish peanut butter-like flavor.

00:05:48 ◼   ► And I wonder which one Wow Butter is because Reese's Peanut Butter Cups taste like peanut

00:05:53 ◼   ► butter but kind of not. We just were traveling last weekend and weekend before last and the

00:06:00 ◼   ► small town we were staying in had a brand new like a fudge shop that opened

00:06:04 ◼   ► and the kids went in there and one of the fudges they bought was this peanut

00:06:08 ◼   ► butter fudge which I tasted and and because I because peanut butter and my

00:06:13 ◼   ► my reaction was oh this is like the filling that goes inside the Reese's

00:06:16 ◼   ► peanut butter cups it's not quite real it's real ish and even things like

00:06:22 ◼   ► frozen yogurt sometimes I went to a frozen yogurt place in Southern

00:06:26 ◼   ► California with my in-laws and they had two different peanut butter flavors on

00:06:31 ◼   ► the menu which was weird and I got tasters of both and one of them

00:06:35 ◼   ► tasted like peanut butter and the other tasted like Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Like it was not natural, it tasted kind of weird. So my long point here

00:06:47 ◼   ► is I wonder whether the artificial peanut butter tastes like peanut butter

00:06:51 ◼   ► or if it tastes like what we think peanut butter should taste like, if that makes any

00:06:56 ◼   ► sense. And I don't know, maybe if I see artificial peanut butter sometime, I will buy it and

00:07:01 ◼   ► try it and report back. How about that?

00:07:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like it's like how chocolate-flavored things never actually taste like chocolate.

00:07:08 ◼   ► They taste like the chocolate flavor.

00:07:10 ◼   ► Which is an approximation, and you can see where they're going with it, but it's not

00:07:13 ◼   ► the same as the actual flavor. That happens with a lot of artificial flavors, where they

00:07:17 ◼   ► They are like an analogue, sometimes closer to it, sometimes further away like the purple

00:07:24 ◼   ► flavour that you'll get in a popsicle or something.

00:07:27 ◼   ► Or even orange, right?

00:07:29 ◼   ► Like orange doesn't actually taste like orange.

00:07:32 ◼   ► But the purple flavour, which is supposed to be grape and it kind of is like grape juice

00:07:36 ◼   ► but it's not quite right, or the red flavour that is supposed to be cherry but is kind

00:07:41 ◼   ► of not.

00:07:44 ◼   ► There are degrees of how we can take artificial flavorings and get them close to what the

00:07:48 ◼   ► real flavor is and some of them are close and some of them are far away and I'm saying

00:07:52 ◼   ► with peanut butter I can kind of tell the difference but I'm curious about how good

00:07:57 ◼   ► an analog something like the Wow!

00:07:58 ◼   ► Butter is.

00:07:59 ◼   ► So yeah peanut butter talk here we are.

00:08:01 ◼   ► If you'd like to submit a question to Snell Talk which may later also be included in follow-up

00:08:06 ◼   ► you can tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk they go into a spreadsheet and we can pick

00:08:10 ◼   ► them out for later in the show.

00:08:12 ◼   ► you to Michael for suggesting the question and everybody this week who sent in peanut

00:08:16 ◼   ► butter replacements for me. I appreciate the work that you all did, but I will be sitting

00:08:22 ◼   ► this one out, I think.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Gracias, Miguel.

00:08:25 ◼   ► One of your favorite applications, I believe a previous upgradey award winner, Ferrite

00:08:31 ◼   ► Recording Studio for iOS, which is a podcast editing application. It is actually even on

00:08:38 ◼   ► Woujijous, who's the name of the developer, on their page right at the very bottom. This

00:08:41 ◼   ► is winner of best new iOS app for the upgrade is 2015. They have the badge.

00:08:46 ◼   ► >> Yes. >> One of the only companies that actually

00:08:48 ◼   ► displays the SASH proudly, which they all should. I wanted to mention this because Ferrite

00:08:54 ◼   ► 1.6 came out today. And I'll mention this for two reasons. One, it is a huge update.

00:08:59 ◼   ► So Ferrite now has the ability to encode into MP3 and export in MP3 and also add MP3 chapters.

00:09:07 ◼   ► and I'm assuming all of this is available because of those patents that just recently

00:09:10 ◼   ► expired on MP3.

00:09:11 ◼   ► Exactly right.

00:09:12 ◼   ► And also, customizable keyboard shortcuts is one of the new features, allowing you to

00:09:19 ◼   ► change any keyboard shortcut or to choose from templates, which are modeled on desktop

00:09:26 ◼   ► editing applications like Logic.

00:09:27 ◼   ► Now you said that this was a major stumbling block for you in editing, was your frustration

00:09:32 ◼   ► about like using it because you wanted to use this with a keyboard which I only used

00:09:37 ◼   ► when I started and I very rapidly stopped using it with a keyboard and you were frustrated

00:09:41 ◼   ► by the keyboard shortcuts.

00:09:42 ◼   ► Because they weren't the ones that I knew and the reason I wanted to mention this is

00:09:46 ◼   ► because Adam meet up in London, the developer of Ferrite was there and I begged and pleaded

00:09:53 ◼   ► him to add this and he did and I played around with it today and it's great.

00:09:58 ◼   ► I have some some further feedback I'm going to give him.

00:10:00 ◼   ► There's some keyboard commands that are kind of hidden in logic that I would really love.

00:10:06 ◼   ► Like for example, if you, I think it's shift I, again I have all these mapped to a Wacom

00:10:12 ◼   ► thing, it inverts your selection, which is really good.

00:10:15 ◼   ► I like that one a lot.

00:10:18 ◼   ► So there's some additional stuff that I, but like I'm really pleased, because the thing

00:10:22 ◼   ► is an application like this, I think it's really good to be able to, wherever you can,

00:10:27 ◼   ► people moving from other applications. Because I speak for myself, but I don't know the

00:10:34 ◼   ► actual... I mean if you say to me, "What is this action that you do all the time on

00:10:38 ◼   ► the keyboard? What is the actual keyboard command?" Sometimes I can't remember, but

00:10:42 ◼   ► I just do them. My hands know them, right? Like it's muscle memory. So when I sit down

00:10:46 ◼   ► an application, sometimes the idea of trimming something, in my mind, is mapped to the keyboard

00:10:52 ◼   ► command in which you use to trim something, right? So it's when you go somewhere else

00:10:56 ◼   ► and it has different keyboard shortcuts, it can be really disorientating. So I was really

00:11:02 ◼   ► pleased to see that they were able to do this for Ferrite because it's also really interesting

00:11:08 ◼   ► in that, because when we're talking I've never seen an application do this before, like where

00:11:12 ◼   ► you can literally just change the keyboard shortcuts and Apple and like, so when you

00:11:16 ◼   ► bring up, you know, you can hold down the command key on iOS if you have a keyboard

00:11:20 ◼   ► and it shows you that little sheet, like that, you know, that is populated by whatever keyboard

00:11:26 ◼   ► commands you've entered in, like it's really, really powerful.

00:11:29 ◼   ► And it is another example of just a really fantastic application, which is just continuing

00:11:35 ◼   ► to get more and more and more powerful over time.

00:11:37 ◼   ► So I just wanted to give them a shout out for this work.

00:11:40 ◼   ► I appreciate it.

00:11:41 ◼   ► I actually use this, I've been using this beta, obviously, because I'm on the beta list,

00:11:46 ◼   ► And somebody tweeted at me this weekend and said, "Oh, look, there's this update that

00:11:51 ◼   ► does MP3 encoding."

00:11:52 ◼   ► And I said, "Yeah, these three podcasts that I did last weekend were all exported using

00:11:56 ◼   ► the MP3 encoder in Fairlight," which is great because I used to have to export a WAV file

00:12:02 ◼   ► or an AIFF or a high bit rate MP4 and then re-encode that or encode that either on device

00:12:12 ◼   ► or on a web service somewhere.

00:12:14 ◼   ► And with this, I'm actually able to, I haven't done the chapter stuff yet, but exported as

00:12:19 ◼   ► an MP3, put the show art in, which I've got to give him some feedback about it because

00:12:25 ◼   ► I think one of my frustrations now is that with iOS in general is a lot of times apps

00:12:30 ◼   ► just assume that everything image related comes off the camera roll.

00:12:34 ◼   ► And that needs to stop because like the last thing I really want to do is go out to Dropbox,

00:12:39 ◼   ► find the right image, save it to my camera roll, then go back and add it from the camera

00:12:43 ◼   ► roll.

00:12:44 ◼   ► just pick an image from Dropbox and they're still using,

00:12:47 ◼   ► Ferrite still uses the camera roll for your podcast image.

00:12:50 ◼   ► It's like, no, no, I'm not taking a picture

00:12:53 ◼   ► of my podcast logo.

00:12:54 ◼   ► It's stored in a cloud service.

00:12:56 ◼   ► Let me get it from the files app or whatever.

00:12:58 ◼   ► And I'm sure he'll get there.

00:13:00 ◼   ► But I was able to output those directly.

00:13:04 ◼   ► And in fact, using the commands in Ferrite,

00:13:07 ◼   ► I was able to say basically,

00:13:08 ◼   ► export this and open the result in transmit the FTP app.

00:13:13 ◼   ► app and it bounced the file, which is to put all the tracks together, encode it as an MP3

00:13:21 ◼   ► and tagged it properly and all of that, and then just popped it into transmit, which allowed

00:13:26 ◼   ► me to transfer it up to where that file belonged for posting in basically one step.

00:13:35 ◼   ► It's great that like shaves...

00:13:38 ◼   ► This is what I was alluding to when I wrote that piece about how the MP3, long live the

00:13:42 ◼   ► MP3 now that the patents have expired. It's like one of the developers I knew wanted to

00:13:46 ◼   ► do this and couldn't because of the patents was the Ferrite developer. So, you know, here

00:13:51 ◼   ► we are where now Ferrite is like way more useful for podcasters because it goes direct

00:13:57 ◼   ► to the final file and that's because the patents expired.

00:14:00 ◼   ► So yeah, this is just great all around and I want to give Michelle a shout out because

00:14:05 ◼   ► continuing to add really really interesting stuff to the application.

00:14:09 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, no, and I love it. It's, um, if I, if I had to give up logic,

00:14:14 ◼   ► I would just start editing everything on fair, right on my iPad.

00:14:16 ◼   ► I would not find another Mac editor. I would,

00:14:20 ◼   ► because fair right does everything that logic does for me, essentially.

00:14:23 ◼   ► Wade wrote in Jason to ask your opinion on how the experience of reading comics

00:14:30 ◼   ► in apps like comics ology is, uh, on the 10.5 inch iPad pro.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Does the bigger screen make it better? Um, is, you know,

00:14:38 ◼   ► how does it stack up against the 12.9?

00:14:40 ◼   ► - That's a good question.

00:14:44 ◼   ► It's certainly one of the first things I looked at

00:14:46 ◼   ► when I picked it up.

00:14:47 ◼   ► Yes, the 10.5 screen has more pixels and it's larger

00:14:52 ◼   ► and so therefore it is better than the 9.7.

00:14:54 ◼   ► There's no doubt about it.

00:14:55 ◼   ► It is better.

00:14:56 ◼   ► It's not what I would call

00:14:58 ◼   ► like a full-sized comic reading experience.

00:15:01 ◼   ► Everything is a little bit too small for me.

00:15:04 ◼   ► I think depending on how great your eyesight is,

00:15:07 ◼   ► It might be doable, but like the 12.9 has really spoiled me because I can just read

00:15:14 ◼   ► the pages.

00:15:15 ◼   ► The comic page is full screen on the 12.9 and it's great.

00:15:18 ◼   ► It's the right size.

00:15:22 ◼   ► And it's the physical size.

00:15:23 ◼   ► Like there was a time, I think this isn't true anymore, but there was a time when the

00:15:29 ◼   ► comics apps on the iPad were largely just scaled up 9.7 apps on the 12.9.

00:15:34 ◼   ► So you weren't actually getting any more quality.

00:15:36 ◼   ► I think that's not true anymore, but it doesn't really matter.

00:15:39 ◼   ► The point is the size of it, just the ability to read the text in the panels.

00:15:46 ◼   ► And it's a little harder to do on the 10.5, but it's better than it was.

00:15:49 ◼   ► It's definitely a better comic reading experience than the 12.9.

00:15:52 ◼   ► But if you read a lot of comics on your iPad, 12.9 is always going to be better just because

00:15:56 ◼   ► it's bigger.

00:15:57 ◼   ► And the page format, you know, it's anticipating when they're doing it for print, it's anticipating

00:16:03 ◼   ► a screen size or not a screen size a paper size that is better emulated by the 12.9 than

00:16:09 ◼   ► the 10.5 but you know you can do it and it and it totally is better.

00:16:16 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you in part by our friends at away your luggage shouldn't

00:16:21 ◼   ► cost more than your plane ticket and that is why away makes smart premium suitcases

00:16:26 ◼   ► for under just $300 go to away travel.com slash upgrade podcast right now and you'll

00:16:32 ◼   ► be able to browse Away's collection of suitcases. They offer 4 sizes, the carry on, the bigger

00:16:37 ◼   ► carry on, the medium and the large. They have 9 great colours for you to choose from. They

00:16:41 ◼   ► are all made with premium German polycarbonate which is unrivalled in strength and impact

00:16:46 ◼   ► resistance whilst remaining lightweight. All of Away's suitcases have TSA combination

00:16:51 ◼   ► locks built right in. They have 4 360 degree spinner wheels. They are all compliant with

00:16:58 ◼   ► major US airlines while still maximising the amount that you can pack and they do that

00:17:02 ◼   ► with this fantastic compression system that they have which is patent pending. I really

00:17:07 ◼   ► like the compression system, it just, it's a way for you to be able to strap everything

00:17:10 ◼   ► down and pull it all in but it also has a pocket on it as well so you can still stuff

00:17:14 ◼   ► more in there which is really maximising it, I like that a lot. All Away cases have a removable

00:17:20 ◼   ► washable laundry bag so you can just pull that out when you get to your destination,

00:17:23 ◼   ► You put your unclean clothes in there, your worn clothes, you zip it all up and just pack

00:17:27 ◼   ► it and then when you get home you can just dump it straight in the wash.

00:17:30 ◼   ► It's fantastic so you can keep your clean and worn clothes separate.

00:17:33 ◼   ► The carry-ons feature a USB port which has a battery so you can charge your phone on

00:17:39 ◼   ► the go.

00:17:40 ◼   ► You can charge your phone with an away carry-on case up to five times.

00:17:44 ◼   ► You will never be without power again.

00:17:46 ◼   ► I love my away case, I've taken it on a bunch of trips with me to the point now where Adina

00:17:51 ◼   ► has to buy a new suitcase and there is only one place that she's gonna go and

00:17:54 ◼   ► I've keep seeing her like she's like keeps looking at the colors right now

00:17:58 ◼   ► away have a limited edition minion case which is just bright yellow and I think

00:18:05 ◼   ► that is the one that she's gonna buy it is awesome it's this bright yellow case

00:18:09 ◼   ► and it has a luggage tag which is an eye if you like the minions thing I don't

00:18:13 ◼   ► even think she really cares about the minion thing she just loves this

00:18:15 ◼   ► beautiful bright yellow case so that's probably one of the bigger carry-ons is

00:18:20 ◼   ► is going to make its way into my home very soon.

00:18:23 ◼   ► Away believe in the quality of their products.

00:18:25 ◼   ► They are for a lifetime guarantee.

00:18:27 ◼   ► If anything breaks, they'll fix it or replace it for life.

00:18:30 ◼   ► And they have a 100 day trial

00:18:31 ◼   ► with a no questions asked return policy.

00:18:34 ◼   ► So you can really try it out.

00:18:35 ◼   ► You can live with the suitcase, travel the suitcase,

00:18:37 ◼   ► make sure it's right for you.

00:18:39 ◼   ► They have free shipping on any order

00:18:40 ◼   ► within the lower 48 States of the US as well.

00:18:43 ◼   ► Travel smarter with the suitcase that charges your phone.

00:18:45 ◼   ► Go to awaytravel.com/upgradepodcast

00:18:49 ◼   ► and use the code UPGRADEPODCAST, all one word, at checkout, you'll get $20 off any of their

00:18:54 ◼   ► suitcases. Once again, that is awaytravel.com/upgradepodcast and the code UPGRADEPODCAST for $20 off. Of

00:19:01 ◼   ► course, all the information for that is in our show notes this week. Thank you so much

00:19:04 ◼   ► to Away for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:19:08 ◼   ► That yellow case, man. It's a real deal. It's a big old thing.

00:19:14 ◼   ► We'll be traveling with the blue and red cases this weekend, because I bought a second away

00:19:21 ◼   ► case that's red.

00:19:22 ◼   ► It is really, it's a cool color, the yellow.

00:19:25 ◼   ► It's not yellow.

00:19:26 ◼   ► No.

00:19:27 ◼   ► I mean, honestly, if the yellow was available and I got mine, I probably would have got

00:19:31 ◼   ► the yellow just for the funs of it.

00:19:33 ◼   ► It's a good color.

00:19:35 ◼   ► So Jason, I saw you over, I think over the weekend, going through a real, just a real

00:19:41 ◼   ► situation in regards to the Echo Show, which is Amazon's new Echo product which features

00:19:49 ◼   ► their new assistant.

00:19:50 ◼   ► Yeah, late last week.

00:19:51 ◼   ► So before we get into the situation that you were going through, I want to just talk to

00:19:56 ◼   ► you about the Echo Show a little bit and as a refresher for everybody who doesn't know,

00:20:00 ◼   ► the Echo Show is Amazon's new Echo product which has a screen on it.

00:20:03 ◼   ► So rather than it just being a cylinder that you can speak to, it also has a screen which

00:20:07 ◼   ► which enables some new functionality if you're so inclined, and we'll go through what some

00:20:11 ◼   ► of that is, but at its heart it still features the assistant that we're trying our best

00:20:16 ◼   ► not to name so it's not to set off people's devices. But I want to kind of, just before

00:20:21 ◼   ► we talk about some of the foibles that you ran into, I just want to talk about the Echo

00:20:27 ◼   ► Show with you a little bit, because I don't think we've really addressed it on this

00:20:29 ◼   ► show at all actually.

00:20:32 ◼   ► What made you want to get one of these? Was it just a work curiosity or was this a product

00:20:38 ◼   ► that you thought could fill a need that you had?

00:20:41 ◼   ► Uh, yeah, I mean, I like the Echo stuff. We've got one in our home, but the... what's made

00:20:54 ◼   ► me decide to pre-order one is that I felt I needed to know about it and probably would

00:21:00 ◼   ► need to write about it. I could have gotten away with not because Dan Morin likes the

00:21:03 ◼   ► stuff too and he buys the stuff too, but I decided that I like my Echo enough and was

00:21:09 ◼   ► curious enough about bringing in a screen and figuring that, you know, so it's a combination.

00:21:15 ◼   ► It's like everything else being equal, would I buy one? Almost certainly not. But was wanting

00:21:22 ◼   ► it because I like the echo part of the math. Sure, it was. If I hated these things and

00:21:30 ◼   ► never used them, but felt like I might want to get one to write about it, that I probably

00:21:36 ◼   ► would have not bothered because I know that Dan likes them and Dan was going to get one.

00:21:41 ◼   ► But it's a combination.

00:21:42 ◼   ► What do you think about the hardware?

00:21:46 ◼   ► I think it is not bad and that the photos don't do it justice because it make it look

00:21:51 ◼   ► like a giant television set and it's really quite small. It's a small molded piece of

00:21:57 ◼   ► plastic. The styling on it is kind of weird, but it's so small, especially the black one

00:22:03 ◼   ► which where it just kind of fades into the background. It's pretty unobtrusive. It doesn't

00:22:10 ◼   ► bother me. There's some issues with it in a sense that it has a direction now, and the

00:22:14 ◼   ► nice thing about the original Echo cylinder is that it doesn't have a direction. Being,

00:22:18 ◼   ► know, a cylinder, it's sort of facing all directions at once. And this one, because

00:22:23 ◼   ► of the screen and because the speakers seem to be firing forward, you need to, you know,

00:22:28 ◼   ► you're more aware of the position of the hardware. And that was inevitable, I guess, you know,

00:22:35 ◼   ► really when you put a screen on it, then the location is more relevant. And that's an issue.

00:22:42 ◼   ► But I think it gets knocked because of its looks. And I find the looks generally unobtrusive

00:22:48 ◼   ► and I do think it looks much less of a big deal in person than it does in a

00:22:53 ◼   ► photo

00:22:54 ◼   ► where you don't understand the size context and it seems like it's this

00:22:57 ◼   ► laughably large

00:22:58 ◼   ► old eighties kitchen television set kinda thing.

00:23:02 ◼   ► You're saying about the the direction of it. In our house we have

00:23:06 ◼   ► one of the regular echoes, one of the echo dots in another room

00:23:09 ◼   ► and kinda the way that we command

00:23:13 ◼   ► the echo to do things, we just say it wherever we are.

00:23:16 ◼   ► just walking around the house, you know, you just shout things out, whatever. But it doesn't

00:23:21 ◼   ► really, we don't really think about the placement of the device very often unless it's not listening

00:23:25 ◼   ► to us. Have you found that as a change for you? Do you feel like you're talking to the

00:23:29 ◼   ► Echo Show more than the cylinder, or is that not a thing? Like, you know, you say like

00:23:34 ◼   ► it, I think you're maybe more aware of its place in the home because you look at it more

00:23:39 ◼   ► often. Have you found that that's changed your relationship to the device in any way?

00:23:45 ◼   ► - It's still early days.

00:23:47 ◼   ► I think like my daughter just pointed out

00:23:52 ◼   ► how much she likes the lyrics feature.

00:23:55 ◼   ► Like that it'll just play the song lyrics

00:23:57 ◼   ► along with the music.

00:23:58 ◼   ► She loves that.

00:24:00 ◼   ► And I think Lauren already, my wife already

00:24:03 ◼   ► learned a lyric that she didn't, she had wrong.

00:24:07 ◼   ► 'Cause it plays along like line by line with the song.

00:24:12 ◼   ► It's great.

00:24:15 ◼   ► And so she, they both have liked that.

00:24:18 ◼   ► You know, the truth is that it's not all there yet.

00:24:22 ◼   ► I mean, that's the truth is that it's kind of,

00:24:25 ◼   ► when the original Echo shipped, it did a few things

00:24:33 ◼   ► and week by week it has gotten better.

00:24:35 ◼   ► Well, this has all of that ability, which is great,

00:24:38 ◼   ► but the screen is brand new and it's just not there.

00:24:42 ◼   ► It does some a few things and then the rest of it is just sort of potential.

00:24:47 ◼   ► And I guess that's my frustration with it is if you consider the screen kind of

00:24:52 ◼   ► an optional thing, I think, I think it's fine because now when I ask it for,

00:24:59 ◼   ► um, my, my morning briefing, I get a visual of the weather forecast and then

00:25:04 ◼   ► it shows me what audio it's playing.

00:25:06 ◼   ► Um, it, is that a big deal?

00:25:09 ◼   ► Not really.

00:25:10 ◼   ► I don't need to look, but it's there if I want.

00:25:12 ◼   ► When you're doing kitchen timers, it will actually show you the timers that are going

00:25:16 ◼   ► and how much time is left, which is kind of nice.

00:25:19 ◼   ► That's a feature I really want.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's all pretty rudimentary.

00:25:23 ◼   ► It's all, I think there's just way more potential here that is going to have to be unlocked

00:25:29 ◼   ► in the next year because it's just not all there.

00:25:33 ◼   ► You mentioned stuff like the timers and things like that, which is just, you know, enhancing

00:25:37 ◼   ► the functionality you had before.

00:25:39 ◼   ► If you found in your testing or in your, you know, what you can perceive you'd like to

00:25:45 ◼   ► do with a device that the Echo Show does anything for you now that the traditional Echo didn't.

00:25:50 ◼   ► I mean it does, there are, anybody who knows Siri knows that one of Apple's tricks with

00:25:58 ◼   ► Siri is punting to the screen when you can't do it with the voice anymore, right?

00:26:07 ◼   ► "Alright, maybe this will help." And they put something on the screen. And like, I always

00:26:12 ◼   ► consider that a failure, and I know it's not always a failure, but for me, when Siri kicks

00:26:18 ◼   ► something to the screen, it is basically saying, "No, you need your fingers and your eyes on

00:26:23 ◼   ► this. Voice is just not gonna cut it." And I feel like, ultimately, unless I'm asking

00:26:29 ◼   ► like "Show me a picture," like, it should be, the screen should be like annotating the

00:26:35 ◼   ► results not required. And so, and in that context it can be, it can be good to do that.

00:26:43 ◼   ► So I see that with the Echo show already that there are things that, maybe there's some

00:26:50 ◼   ► things that it's punting, but there are also ways where it just gets enhanced by having

00:26:54 ◼   ► that annotation. So like, playing music on the Echo original or the Dot is hit and miss,

00:27:01 ◼   ► I don't know, I assume you've tried this too.

00:27:03 ◼   ► It's like you say play this album and it says,

00:27:05 ◼   ► oh, I can't find that.

00:27:07 ◼   ► And it's 'cause you didn't say it quite right.

00:27:08 ◼   ► - One of the biggest struggles I have is if

00:27:11 ◼   ► there is an album where it also shares the name of a song

00:27:17 ◼   ► and trying to get it to play the album

00:27:19 ◼   ► is basically impossible.

00:27:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've had some success in saying play the album

00:27:24 ◼   ► so and so by so and so, but it's hard.

00:27:28 ◼   ► So here's an example that I like,

00:27:30 ◼   ► which is screen is there if you're in a position to interact with the screen you

00:27:33 ◼   ► can say

00:27:34 ◼   ► uh... hey lady

00:27:36 ◼   ► in the plastic box it looks like a t_v_

00:27:39 ◼   ► uh... because of the canister anymore

00:27:41 ◼   ► uh... show me

00:27:43 ◼   ► albums by radio head

00:27:45 ◼   ► uh... okay that's mostly serious and and and it will bring up a list of radio

00:27:49 ◼   ► head albums and you can literally

00:27:52 ◼   ► the from there

00:27:53 ◼   ► if you tap on ok computer

00:27:55 ◼   ► okay computer plays

00:27:57 ◼   ► okay that is where you can say

00:28:00 ◼   ► Hey lady, and it'll be like, they'll be numbered.

00:28:02 ◼   ► Like number one is okay computer.

00:28:03 ◼   ► Number two is the bends.

00:28:04 ◼   ► Number three is in rainbows.

00:28:07 ◼   ► And you can say, hey lady play number one.

00:28:10 ◼   ► And that will also work.

00:28:11 ◼   ► It's the equivalent of the finger tap.

00:28:12 ◼   ► You can do either one. - That is better.

00:28:14 ◼   ► That is better.

00:28:15 ◼   ► - Also you can play Jeopardy.

00:28:16 ◼   ► I should mention that 'cause my kids love it

00:28:18 ◼   ► that if you ask her to play Jeopardy,

00:28:19 ◼   ► Monday through Friday,

00:28:20 ◼   ► it will give you six trivia questions

00:28:22 ◼   ► that are from Jeopardy

00:28:23 ◼   ► with a little blue screen from the TV show Jeopardy.

00:28:25 ◼   ► And you have to answer in the form of a question

00:28:27 ◼   ► like you're playing on Jeopardy.

00:28:28 ◼   ► and occasionally you'll hear Alex Trebek,

00:28:30 ◼   ► the host of Jeopardy's Voice.

00:28:32 ◼   ► That's pretty funny.

00:28:32 ◼   ► There's some room for stuff like that.

00:28:35 ◼   ► It's a good demo

00:28:36 ◼   ► 'cause it's like an audio visual experience.

00:28:38 ◼   ► It makes it into something that's not quite a TV,

00:28:40 ◼   ► but not quite a disembodied voice.

00:28:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it has the look of something you know as well.

00:28:45 ◼   ► - Exactly, 'cause it puts up the familiar blue card

00:28:48 ◼   ► on the screen, so you feel like you're actually

00:28:50 ◼   ► sort of seeing the show.

00:28:51 ◼   ► So there's a lot of little fun stuff that it's doing.

00:28:54 ◼   ► And that's my point is, I think it's got huge potential,

00:28:57 ◼   ► But the problem is like there's not a lot there right now,

00:28:59 ◼   ► and there's not a lot of customizability right now.

00:29:02 ◼   ► And I can imagine over time,

00:29:05 ◼   ► like the home screen is the great example.

00:29:06 ◼   ► And I wrote about this because it drove me batty.

00:29:09 ◼   ► Like it's very limited what you can do

00:29:11 ◼   ► to customize the home screen.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Basically it's got, the screen is on

00:29:16 ◼   ► and it shows you some stuff

00:29:17 ◼   ► and it'll cycle through some different stuff.

00:29:19 ◼   ► But the amount of control you have over that

00:29:21 ◼   ► is very limited.

00:29:22 ◼   ► There is a setting for the home screen

00:29:25 ◼   ► that's only on the device.

00:29:26 ◼   ► all Amazon Echo users have been trained to do everything through the app on their phone,

00:29:33 ◼   ► right? Everything. You can't do it on the web, really. You have to use the app. And

00:29:36 ◼   ► I look at the app and it has no settings for customizing the home screen. And I write this

00:29:40 ◼   ► article and it's like, "Why can't I customize the home screen?" And somebody says, "Oh,

00:29:44 ◼   ► well there's a different settings menu on the device." What? And it's like, well, you

00:29:49 ◼   ► have to either tell it to show you the settings menu or you can swipe down on the touchscreen

00:29:53 ◼   ► from the top and a little menu comes down and you can tap the gear icon and go to settings

00:29:57 ◼   ► and there's a display options and there are some settings that are in common between the

00:30:01 ◼   ► app and the on-screen settings and then there's some that are different which is so terrible

00:30:07 ◼   ► in so many different ways like you trained us to do the app but now not everything is

00:30:13 ◼   ► in the app so why is everything not in the app still and if you've got a device on device

00:30:19 ◼   ► menu, why not tell people in the app that they need to go to the device to set

00:30:24 ◼   ► their settings, but instead

00:30:26 ◼   ► Amazon has split the difference. So if you go in there and you finally find it,

00:30:29 ◼   ► what you get is a couple switches. You get switches that say, "Do you want to show

00:30:32 ◼   ► calendar events?"

00:30:33 ◼   ► "Do you want to show tips or cues or something like that?"

00:30:38 ◼   ► And you can turn all of them off. Oh, and do you want to cycle through cards,

00:30:43 ◼   ► you know, different items on that screen, or do you want to just

00:30:47 ◼   ► play through them once and then and then stop because that could be distracting. So if you turn all of those off it doesn't really

00:30:54 ◼   ► there's no granularity you you can't as far as I can tell like install like a

00:31:00 ◼   ► skill that puts something cool on the screen and

00:31:05 ◼   ► with everything off it still has stuff on it that is annoying like

00:31:10 ◼   ► with everything off it still will put up it stops saying here's this interesting video of puppies

00:31:17 ◼   ► right, which it does, it's like totally wild car chase video, headlines just kind of appear

00:31:24 ◼   ► by default, it's really annoying, it's like-

00:31:25 ◼   ► So it's just clickbait in your kitchen, basically.

00:31:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like spam, yeah, clickbait in your kitchen, exactly right, they're spamming

00:31:30 ◼   ► your kitchen. But you turn all that stuff off and it still will have like, say, "Hey

00:31:37 ◼   ► lady, make me, you know, show me recipes for steak," or something like that. Like, it has

00:31:45 ◼   ► these little hints of like, here's a thing you could say, and they don't go away, and

00:31:48 ◼   ► you can't make them go away. And again, are they helpful? Maybe. If I don't want them,

00:31:54 ◼   ► I should be able to make that go away. I would really like that interface to be really calm

00:31:59 ◼   ► when I'm not using it. I want it to be, I think I want it to be literally the time and

00:32:03 ◼   ► the temperature, right? That's all I want on it. And that's my personal decision. And

00:32:07 ◼   ► I'm sure that at some point I'll be able to do that. But right now, I do not have that

00:32:11 ◼   ► level of control over that thing. I just don't. So you can turn off some of the

00:32:15 ◼   ► garbage but you can't turn it all off and this is an example of it's a brand

00:32:19 ◼   ► new platform it doesn't feel done the software doesn't feel done to me it

00:32:22 ◼   ► feels like Amazon has done what it's done with this product before which is

00:32:25 ◼   ► when the hardware is done they ship it and they say will you know we'll make it

00:32:30 ◼   ► better over time and to their credit the echo has gotten better basically week to

00:32:36 ◼   ► week since they released it it is constantly being updated it is not like

00:32:41 ◼   ► Apple's products that tend to get a revision maybe once a year. This is

00:32:46 ◼   ► kind of constant and that's not just through third-party stuff but the stuff

00:32:50 ◼   ► that Amazon is adding behind the scenes to the service that drives the device.

00:32:55 ◼   ► So this got me thinking right, this is a new type of thing you know for people to

00:33:04 ◼   ► allow a company to create a product that is a persistent screen that is on in

00:33:10 ◼   ► home. I can't think of anything consumer tech wise that is like this. We have these screens

00:33:17 ◼   ► that we have on, but we choose to turn them off. Our computers, our tablets, our phones,

00:33:22 ◼   ► our TVs, we can just turn them off when we don't want them. Or when we're done with them,

00:33:27 ◼   ► perform an action on them and then we stop using the thing. But the Echo Show is always there.

00:33:37 ◼   ► it's always able to show you something, right? The clue is in the name. So I'm wondering,

00:33:42 ◼   ► what level of control should we have of a screen that is always on? And I really feel like,

00:33:52 ◼   ► personally, there should be a million customization options for a product like this.

00:33:57 ◼   ► - I agree.

00:33:58 ◼   ► - Because if I, Amazon, I'm gonna let you come into my home and be on all the time,

00:34:04 ◼   ► This seems to be a two way street.

00:34:06 ◼   ► Like I am going to understand knowing you as a company that you're going to try

00:34:11 ◼   ► and sell me stuff for this screen and that stuff may appear randomly in the home.

00:34:15 ◼   ► Right. Like I get this right.

00:34:16 ◼   ► Like otherwise I wouldn't buy a product from Amazon if I did if you know if I

00:34:20 ◼   ► didn't want that to ever happen to me.

00:34:22 ◼   ► But in exchange I want to be able to be really granular about what is on that

00:34:28 ◼   ► screen. You know like what do I want to be there?

00:34:31 ◼   ► Do I want news or not?

00:34:32 ◼   ► Do I want my calendars or not?

00:34:33 ◼   ► What calendars do I want?

00:34:35 ◼   ► Do I want email to be on this?

00:34:36 ◼   ► I want temperature on there.

00:34:37 ◼   ► Where do I want the temperature to be?

00:34:39 ◼   ► Like I want a million settings for this device

00:34:42 ◼   ► that I can get to.

00:34:44 ◼   ► And again, you can nest them,

00:34:45 ◼   ► you know, you can make them advanced settings,

00:34:47 ◼   ► but I feel like that there should be a two way street.

00:34:50 ◼   ► If I'm gonna let you come in my home

00:34:52 ◼   ► and be a screen that is on 24/7,

00:34:55 ◼   ► then you need to show me what I always wanna see,

00:34:59 ◼   ► not what you think I might wanna see.

00:35:01 ◼   ► Like, this has to be an exchange that it doesn't sound like they're living up to.

00:35:06 ◼   ► There is a tremendous responsibility when you have that screen that's always on

00:35:13 ◼   ► somewhere in the house, I feel.

00:35:14 ◼   ► Tremendous responsibility.

00:35:16 ◼   ► And yes, Amazon does Kindles with special offers and stuff like that.

00:35:20 ◼   ► And I'd actually be okay if they said, well, you can get this for $20 less and

00:35:23 ◼   ► we get to show you things on the screen.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Um, I wouldn't love it, but I could, I, at least there would be a, a, a deal to be

00:35:31 ◼   ► made there and people who don't want to see that stuff could could pay to turn

00:35:35 ◼   ► it off but even then like bill I think billboards in your kitchen and having

00:35:40 ◼   ► this product be viewed as a spamming thing is a is a mistake for Amazon it's

00:35:45 ◼   ► missing the bigger picture because of that responsibility because as accepting

00:35:51 ◼   ► as I am of commerce in many other areas of life to have a device that my family

00:35:56 ◼   ► sees as useful, sitting in the kitchen suddenly be just kind of showing us

00:36:01 ◼   ► distracting garbage on the screen. It's like, I don't want that. And again, every

00:36:06 ◼   ► every family, every person is going to have a different a different take on it,

00:36:10 ◼   ► which is why you have to have that customizability. And hey, if you want to

00:36:13 ◼   ► set it with a certain set of defaults, great. If you want to make it really easy

00:36:17 ◼   ► for people to turn things on and off with voice commands or menus or whatever,

00:36:20 ◼   ► great. But in the end, yes, this product needs to be way more customizable than

00:36:25 ◼   ► it currently is because of the responsibility you have in a situation

00:36:30 ◼   ► like that. I'm happy that in that settings menu that's only available on

00:36:34 ◼   ► the device that I can turn off the the headlines, right, because that makes the

00:36:40 ◼   ► viral videos and clickbait headlines go away and that makes me happy because

00:36:44 ◼   ► those are the ones that really enraged me. In other areas it's like yeah I would

00:36:49 ◼   ► like to say show the weather forecast at all times I would like to say you know

00:36:55 ◼   ► there are things that need to be improved like the calendar support in there right now is really poor

00:36:58 ◼   ► it shows you your next event and if you have an all-day event it just shows you shows it shows

00:37:02 ◼   ► it to you as midnight um and it's it's meaningless and it's like one event it's like i have five

00:37:09 ◼   ► things tomorrow and it's showing me one and it's a thing that just says this is where my son is

00:37:14 ◼   ► going for camp tomorrow it's like because we use all-day events that's that's the thing we use it's

00:37:20 ◼   ► like that needs to be better they need to do a better job of expressing what is coming up uh

00:37:25 ◼   ► if there are multiple events and dealing with all day events better and things like that.

00:37:29 ◼   ► In a way that I really don't understand, like with all of the companies that are currently

00:37:33 ◼   ► making products like this, why they think there's only one person with one set of calendars.

00:37:37 ◼   ► You know, like, if we were going to have this in our home and we want our calendars to be

00:37:42 ◼   ► on it, well, I would want my calendars and Adina's calendars on it and for that to display

00:37:47 ◼   ► that in a clear way, right? And I feel like from what you're explaining to me, it can

00:37:53 ◼   ► can barely even show events correctly, let alone do something which is relatively complex,

00:37:58 ◼   ► you know, as that is to show these multiple people's calendars. But, like, I understand

00:38:02 ◼   ► that, like, families have a family calendar, but, you know, everybody also has their individual

00:38:07 ◼   ► calendars, and it might be nice to show those rather than, you know, just all of Jason's

00:38:11 ◼   ► calendars in the Snell household being the ones that everybody sees rather than their

00:38:15 ◼   ► own individual ones as well.

00:38:16 ◼   ► >> Yeah, we have a shared family calendar, and that's what's on that device. That's what

00:38:20 ◼   ► I have on there so it's not going to show me my stuff but it's going to show the shared

00:38:25 ◼   ► family stuff which seems appropriate so we've got a good calendar for it it just doesn't

00:38:28 ◼   ► display it right and this is again I'm not angry about it I just this is this is just

00:38:33 ◼   ► the facts is that is that this is a product that is you know when you ship the hardware

00:38:37 ◼   ► the hardware is final but the software is never final and the cloud services are never

00:38:41 ◼   ► final and Amazon has chosen to ship it get it out in the world and that's the way they

00:38:46 ◼   ► start building more. There's a basic level that's built in but they start

00:38:50 ◼   ► building more. The more of these they get out there, the early adopters are the

00:38:53 ◼   ► ones who are kind of riding this thing when it's kind of not all there yet and

00:38:58 ◼   ► we're going to figure it out, and their partners who are building the first

00:39:01 ◼   ► video-enabled skills for this, they're part of this journey. And I would

00:39:09 ◼   ► actually bet that in a year that this product is going to be way better than

00:39:13 ◼   ► it is now. But the end, and you know, again, I was just writing on Six Colors about my

00:39:18 ◼   ► frustration with the home screen and I had a bunch of people say, "Wow, here's a really

00:39:20 ◼   ► negative review." And it's like, it's not a review. Everybody thinks everything is a

00:39:23 ◼   ► review. But it's like, it's not a review. It's literally me griping about the home screen

00:39:27 ◼   ► being a mess. But at the end, I do say the home screen is such a mess that you probably

00:39:31 ◼   ► shouldn't buy it yet. Like, it's not going away. Amazon's not going out of business.

00:39:36 ◼   ► They'll keep selling this thing. But right now, be aware that just because the Echo has

00:39:42 ◼   ► become a more sophisticated platform for audio. The video stuff is not. The video

00:39:48 ◼   ► stuff is where the Echo was when it started, which is a few partners, a few

00:39:53 ◼   ► things they're trying, and they'll figure it out as they go. And if you want to

00:39:55 ◼   ► take that ride, great. I think it's kind of fun and interesting. This goes back to

00:40:00 ◼   ► like, I want the Echo in my kitchen because I love it. And then as a writer

00:40:05 ◼   ► and observer of technology, I want the Echo Show in my kitchen because I'm kind

00:40:08 ◼   ► of fascinated about what it does, what it doesn't do, and where their progress is

00:40:12 ◼   ► being made so that's why I am keeping it and am kind of happy to have it even

00:40:18 ◼   ► though it's weird and I don't think I would recommend that most people get one

00:40:24 ◼   ► unless they really are willing to take that journey I mean yeah you can watch

00:40:29 ◼   ► you can watch TV shows and stuff on it too that's the other funny thing through

00:40:33 ◼   ► it's attached to Amazon's video library so if you want to just like watch a TV

00:40:37 ◼   ► show while you're cooking, you could you can do that actually which is

00:40:41 ◼   ► interesting. I think it'll be more interesting when you'll be able to fairly

00:40:45 ◼   ► easily you know maybe tune into like if they if they did integration with your

00:40:50 ◼   ► cable company or something that could be really interesting to say play this

00:40:54 ◼   ► channel and have it just stream that channel in your house. I have Wi-Fi

00:40:58 ◼   ► access through Comcast on my iPad to all live TV in my house right I can stream

00:41:02 ◼   ► all of that when I'm it when I'm at home because Comcast knows I'm on their

00:41:06 ◼   ► network. Like, wouldn't that be interesting if the Echo show also turned into a TV set?

00:41:13 ◼   ► Like it literally is a kitchen TV set. So I could say, "Play this channel," and it would

00:41:17 ◼   ► just stream that live. They're not there yet. Maybe they'll get there sometime and that

00:41:21 ◼   ► would be really interesting, but we'll have to see because, you know, maybe Amazon's like,

00:41:25 ◼   ► "No, we don't want to be a TV. That's not what they want, but we do want you to watch

00:41:28 ◼   ► TV shows on it from Amazon's library." Okay. That would be something. I don't know.

00:41:34 ◼   ► Today's show is also brought to you by Squarespace.

00:41:36 ◼   ► Use the offer code upgrade at checkout and you'll get 10% off your first purchase.

00:41:41 ◼   ► Make your next move with Squarespace.

00:41:43 ◼   ► They let you easily create that website for your next idea, project

00:41:47 ◼   ► or even an occasion.

00:41:48 ◼   ► I'll get to that in a second.

00:41:49 ◼   ► With a unique domain name, the ability to utilize beautiful

00:41:52 ◼   ► award winning templates that are super easy to customize to your own feel.

00:41:56 ◼   ► And so much more.

00:41:57 ◼   ► Squarespace is going to be the perfect place for you.

00:42:00 ◼   ► They have award winning 24/7 customer support.

00:42:02 ◼   ► if you need any help with anything while setting up your site.

00:42:05 ◼   ► But no matter what it is that you're looking to build,

00:42:07 ◼   ► Squarespace can be the home for that.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Maybe you're looking to create an online store.

00:42:11 ◼   ► Well, Squarespace can help you.

00:42:13 ◼   ► Maybe you want to create a portfolio for your artwork.

00:42:15 ◼   ► They can help you.

00:42:17 ◼   ► Maybe you want to create a blog.

00:42:18 ◼   ► They have everything you need.

00:42:19 ◼   ► They're the all in one platform that lets you take care of all of this stuff.

00:42:22 ◼   ► And so much more.

00:42:24 ◼   ► There's nothing to install, no upgrades needed, no patches

00:42:26 ◼   ► that you have to worry about.

00:42:28 ◼   ► They've got it all covered.

00:42:30 ◼   ► I'm about a year away, a year or so away from getting married.

00:42:35 ◼   ► And I'm going to be setting up a Squarespace site for all the people that are coming to our wedding.

00:42:40 ◼   ► It's perfect for stuff like that.

00:42:42 ◼   ► They have templates for these things.

00:42:43 ◼   ► You can like password protect websites.

00:42:45 ◼   ► It's fantastic.

00:42:45 ◼   ► And I think that the tools that they have, like for stuff like this, I don't know why you'd go anywhere else.

00:42:53 ◼   ► I can set things up really easy.

00:42:54 ◼   ► I can integrate maps.

00:42:55 ◼   ► I could put music in.

00:42:56 ◼   ► I could put albums in if I want to.

00:42:57 ◼   ► We can put like contact form information.

00:43:00 ◼   ► everything can go there. It's all one little place. I can just have it for a year and then,

00:43:04 ◼   ► you know, whatever. It's fantastic. I'm going to use Squarespace. We've already been thinking

00:43:07 ◼   ► about how we're going to set that up. It's also been fun, like, looking through some

00:43:13 ◼   ► people's portfolios and stuff. We're looking for photographers and stuff right now. And

00:43:17 ◼   ► one of them sent me a link to something like a password protected area and I knew the password

00:43:23 ◼   ► kind of page was a Squarespace site. And I was like, "Ah, good work photographer. You

00:43:28 ◼   ► made the right choice. Squarespace plans start at just $12 a month. You can start a free

00:43:32 ◼   ► trial today with no credit card required by going to squarespace.com and then use the

00:43:37 ◼   ► offer code UPGRADE when you sign up. You'll get 10% off your first purchase when you do

00:43:41 ◼   ► this and show your support for this show. We thank Squarespace for supporting this show

00:43:44 ◼   ► and Relay FM. Squarespace. Make your next move, make your next website.

00:43:50 ◼   ► Jason Snow, I want to talk about expensive smartphones.

00:43:54 ◼   ► Okay, get your checkbook out, Myke.

00:43:57 ◼   ► I don't know, I think I've written three checks in my life.

00:44:02 ◼   ► - Hashtag Myke was right, expensive phones, right?

00:44:07 ◼   ► You always buy more expensive phone than I do.

00:44:09 ◼   ► - I do, I do and we'll see how that ends up shaping up

00:44:12 ◼   ► later this year.

00:44:13 ◼   ► So I wanna set the stage a little bit, Jason Snell,

00:44:15 ◼   ► with some news that had been buzzing around

00:44:17 ◼   ► towards the end of last week.

00:44:19 ◼   ► It's a company called RED, R-E-D, all capital letters.

00:44:23 ◼   ► They make high-end cameras

00:44:26 ◼   ► and they have been for a long time.

00:44:29 ◼   ► My memory of RED, they kind of came out of nowhere

00:44:31 ◼   ► with this product, which was like a HD video camera,

00:44:36 ◼   ► and blew everything else out of the water,

00:44:38 ◼   ► and have continued to do so since they came around.

00:44:41 ◼   ► They make incredible stuff that's used

00:44:44 ◼   ► all over the place now, movies,

00:44:45 ◼   ► technology YouTubers use RED cameras, right?

00:44:49 ◼   ► They are serious, serious hardware.

00:44:52 ◼   ► Well, they have announced out of nowhere

00:44:54 ◼   ► they are making a smartphone. It's an Android device and everything they're saying about this,

00:45:01 ◼   ► if this wasn't a company that had a good track record, I would be screaming vaporware

00:45:11 ◼   ► because it really feels like it. It feels like this is a product that is full of hyperbole

00:45:18 ◼   ► falsification and will never ship. But Red do have a track record of doing things that seem

00:45:28 ◼   ► outside of the realm of technology in the current state. At least that's my feel of them over time,

00:45:35 ◼   ► is that they have always been able to push the envelope past what you think is achievable in the

00:45:42 ◼   ► fields that they're working in, in camera technology. However, saying all of that,

00:45:47 ◼   ► Red are saying that their phone is going to, it's called the Hydrogen. It's going to feature

00:45:52 ◼   ► a 5.7 inch display that can somehow switch between 2D, 3D and what they're calling Holographic

00:45:59 ◼   ► Multi-View Content. It's going to be a modular phone, which is a huge red flag, not like,

00:46:06 ◼   ► this is like a warning flag, to say modular these days is not a good sign. Apparently this phone…

00:46:11 ◼   ► All capital letters red flag.

00:46:13 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I was trying to avoid. It's shipping in early 2018. They say it's starting at

00:46:19 ◼   ► $1,195 for an aluminium version and $1,595 for a titanium version. There is a ton of stuff about

00:46:28 ◼   ► this which is dubious, but there are people that are excited about it. I'm interested to see if

00:46:35 ◼   ► and what they're able to produce. But I only bring all of this up to set the scene of expensive

00:46:41 ◼   ► smartphones because that is an expensive smartphone. They're making two models and they're both

00:46:47 ◼   ► over $1000. So can Apple do this? Can Apple sell an iPhone that starts at $1000? So I

00:46:59 ◼   ► read a great article on Daring Fireball this week where John Gruber was kind of breaking

00:47:03 ◼   ► down the potential for what the price ranges could be and why they would be that way for

00:47:09 ◼   ► the next three iPhones. So I'm going to try and sum up John's assumptions.

00:47:16 ◼   ► The assumptions are that there will be three iPhones, a 7S, a 7S Plus and an iPhone Pro

00:47:22 ◼   ► we'll call it for the sake of this conversation that will be debuting in September. The iPhone

00:47:28 ◼   ► Pro will be supply constrained because it will be harder to make and the parts will

00:47:32 ◼   ► be more expensive and because of this Apple will charge a higher price for this phone

00:47:38 ◼   ► because they are able to reliably make less of them than usual. It's more expensive to

00:47:44 ◼   ► make, it's harder to make, they can't make as many of them, it's going to be supply constrained.

00:47:48 ◼   ► Charge more money for it. So let's imagine that the iPhone Pro comes in at a similar

00:47:54 ◼   ► price range to this Red phone. Like $1100 for the regular one and then $1300 for the

00:48:00 ◼   ► top of the line one, the iPhone Pro. If this is a price, so I wonder Jason, is this a price?

00:48:07 ◼   ► knowing everything that we think we might know, all the speculation about this phone,

00:48:11 ◼   ► everything we think this phone might have in it, this beautiful edge to edge display,

00:48:15 ◼   ► currently face scanning technology and all of the other bells and whistles, all of the

00:48:20 ◼   ► beautiful materials that an iPhone Pro may hold. Is this a price that you would be willing

00:48:26 ◼   ► to pay for an iPhone? $1100? Would you be willing to pay that?

00:48:32 ◼   ► That was not the question I thought you were going to ask.

00:48:39 ◼   ► I don't know. I mean, amortized over two years, that is $45 a month.

00:48:48 ◼   ► Over three years, that's $30 a month.

00:48:51 ◼   ► We are, although $1,100 for a phone seems ludicrous,

00:48:56 ◼   ► we are currently paying $700, $800 for phones, right?

00:49:01 ◼   ► yep these are these are not despite all of the misconceptions based on carrier subsidies

00:49:09 ◼   ► and contracts this is what phones cost so this is a higher end version of that phone

00:49:14 ◼   ► i would have to think about it again as with so many things that we cover

00:49:20 ◼   ► i would probably need to buy one because i would need to write about it but if i it's kind of hard

00:49:28 ◼   ► hard to imagine, but like if I had no need to do that and I was just a person, I would

00:49:33 ◼   ► consider it, depending on what the details were and how long I thought that I would use

00:49:37 ◼   ► it, two or three years, it might not be unreasonable. This is for a lot of people, as Gruber mentions

00:49:42 ◼   ► in his story, the most important device that they use, right? This is, your iPhone is your

00:49:48 ◼   ► most important device. So would you pay for the best one and then use it for two years?

00:49:54 ◼   ► know, I think it's not unreasonable and I think the fact is what this

00:49:59 ◼   ► conversation is not doing is saying that Apple's gonna make the next iPhone cost

00:50:03 ◼   ► $1,200 and so everybody's gonna have to buy a $1,200 iPhone because what this

00:50:08 ◼   ► seems to be suggesting is that Apple is intending on making an additional model

00:50:13 ◼   ► that is more, I mean, almost aspirational or if you want to put it

00:50:19 ◼   ► this way it's a cutting edge design

00:50:23 ◼   ► that Apple is capable of making,

00:50:27 ◼   ► but not capable of making at their standard price point.

00:50:32 ◼   ► - Or volume, they can't make 80 million of them.

00:50:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, well that too, and it's funny

00:50:39 ◼   ► 'cause we talked about that when we were talking

00:50:41 ◼   ► about one of these other devices, the, oh, what was it?

00:50:46 ◼   ► Oh, it was that Andy Rubin phone that still hasn't shipped.

00:50:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, the essential.

00:50:51 ◼   ► - That they admitted that there's no way

00:50:53 ◼   ► they could ship in volume, right?

00:50:56 ◼   ► They were trying to catch people's eyes with their specs

00:50:59 ◼   ► and their cutting edge design,

00:51:01 ◼   ► but all of that was rolled into a phone

00:51:04 ◼   ► that basically can't be made at scale

00:51:06 ◼   ► because it just can't.

00:51:08 ◼   ► And Apple's, one of the Apple's challenges

00:51:10 ◼   ► is everything they do, Gruber mentioned this,

00:51:13 ◼   ► everything they do has to be at scale, right?

00:51:15 ◼   ► This is the most popular single consumer product,

00:51:19 ◼   ► consumer electronics product in the world probably,

00:51:21 ◼   ► or among them, among a handful,

00:51:23 ◼   ► like lots of iPhones get sold every year,

00:51:25 ◼   ► lots and lots and lots.

00:51:27 ◼   ► And so some tech is really cool.

00:51:31 ◼   ► And Apple, I think Apple, there's so much here.

00:51:34 ◼   ► I think Apple's technical people and designers

00:51:38 ◼   ► sometimes get frustrated because they see other people

00:51:42 ◼   ► making cutting edge phone designs

00:51:46 ◼   ► and using cutting edge technology,

00:51:48 ◼   ► like Andy Rubin's phone, maybe like this red phone,

00:51:52 ◼   ► where Apple knows full well how to do all of that.

00:51:57 ◼   ► They've investigated all of that.

00:51:59 ◼   ► And if I'm an Apple,

00:52:00 ◼   ► one of the things that might frustrate me is,

00:52:03 ◼   ► yeah, we can do that too,

00:52:05 ◼   ► if all we wanna do is sell 10,000 of them.

00:52:08 ◼   ► But nothing we do sells 10,000.

00:52:11 ◼   ► Everything we do, if I'm an Apple designer

00:52:13 ◼   ► or a technical person, it's like everything we do,

00:52:15 ◼   ► it's great, everything we do sells millions and millions

00:52:18 ◼   ► and millions of units, but it also means that

00:52:20 ◼   ► we would need millions and millions and millions

00:52:22 ◼   ► of all the parts, which may not be possible.

00:52:25 ◼   ► And then we would need to put them together

00:52:28 ◼   ► at a speed at which we could sell them

00:52:30 ◼   ► as fast as they're being ordered, which is not possible.

00:52:33 ◼   ► So we can't make that.

00:52:35 ◼   ► And that leads to a dangerous perception

00:52:37 ◼   ► that Apple is behind.

00:52:38 ◼   ► And this is one of those like challenges

00:52:42 ◼   ► of being the big dog, is that Apple has to fulfill millions

00:52:47 ◼   ► millions and millions of orders and it's easier in some ways because they get to

00:52:54 ◼   ► buy in bulk, they get big contracts, there are lots of things that play to

00:52:57 ◼   ► their advantage, but if you have technology that is hard to manufacture,

00:53:02 ◼   ► hard to assemble, or not available in volume, and your Apple, it's basically

00:53:10 ◼   ► walled off to you. So I can see the argument that one of the reasons you do

00:53:15 ◼   ► this is because you want to make a phone that shows off what Apple's

00:53:22 ◼   ► capable of,

00:53:25 ◼   ► but it needs to not be the only thing out there because there's no way you can

00:53:29 ◼   ► make enough of them. And you raise the price because it's a premium, it's like

00:53:34 ◼   ► next year's iPhone today, and that cuts down on demand, but it shows you as

00:53:43 ◼   ► being a trailblazer, as being on the cutting edge, and maybe it teaches you

00:53:48 ◼   ► about that technology so that by the time you get to the following fall you

00:53:53 ◼   ► have the ability to sell it in greater volume. I can see that argument, you know,

00:53:59 ◼   ► and the key to it is that you still have regular iPhones at regular prices, right?

00:54:03 ◼   ► That, you know, this is not "let's raise the price on the iPhone $300 or $200 or

00:54:11 ◼   ► whatever this is what if we did this other unicorny kind of product so the

00:54:18 ◼   ► way that I've been thinking about this like what I'd be willing to spend the

00:54:21 ◼   ► money is I think about the last two iPhones that I spent $900 on yeah right

00:54:28 ◼   ► and that kind of weren't really adding much right like really in the grand

00:54:34 ◼   ► scheme of things not a ton you know better processes between that between

00:54:38 ◼   ► the 6 and the 6s and the 6s and the 7.

00:54:41 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:54:41 ◼   ► - There wasn't really a-- - You had an extra camera.

00:54:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, so this is the thing, right?

00:54:45 ◼   ► There are things, right, that are nice,

00:54:48 ◼   ► but they're not huge advancements.

00:54:50 ◼   ► They're not like massive leaps, right?

00:54:52 ◼   ► Like the second camera is really great,

00:54:55 ◼   ► but like I don't really use portrait mode that much.

00:54:57 ◼   ► I do use that second camera a lot,

00:54:59 ◼   ► but it's just a nice zoom lens,

00:55:01 ◼   ► but like it doesn't always work, right?

00:55:03 ◼   ► Like I don't actually know that the pictures

00:55:05 ◼   ► are always being taken from that camera

00:55:07 ◼   ► because it doesn't tell you, right?

00:55:09 ◼   ► Like is there enough lighting and all that sort of stuff?

00:55:11 ◼   ► So like it's nice, these are nice advancements,

00:55:15 ◼   ► but are they $900 worth of enhancements?

00:55:17 ◼   ► I don't think so, really, I mean really.

00:55:20 ◼   ► I mean I buy this stuff because I always want

00:55:22 ◼   ► the latest and greatest phone,

00:55:23 ◼   ► which is why I think for a lot of people

00:55:25 ◼   ► listening to this show, people that might be sitting there

00:55:27 ◼   ► saying I'm not gonna pay $1,100 for a phone,

00:55:29 ◼   ► like you know, if you've bought the last two,

00:55:32 ◼   ► then you probably just should,

00:55:35 ◼   ► because how much more of a difference is it?

00:55:37 ◼   ► I guess it depends what phone you're buying, right?

00:55:38 ◼   ► Like I'm buying pluses, so they're approaching a thousand,

00:55:43 ◼   ► if you do the conversion, my phone cost over $1,000, right?

00:55:45 ◼   ► Because I'm buying it in pounds, but like,

00:55:48 ◼   ► I'm already buying the model that's brushing up

00:55:50 ◼   ► against this price anyway.

00:55:52 ◼   ► But like, you know, I am thinking that if this really is

00:55:55 ◼   ► a huge jump forward, then maybe that makes it worth

00:55:59 ◼   ► the additional money.

00:56:00 ◼   ► So there is a thing about this though,

00:56:04 ◼   ► which Gruber points out, which I think is a good argument,

00:56:06 ◼   ► It's an interesting thought experiment.

00:56:09 ◼   ► If Apple do this, there are a lot of people who cannot buy this phone.

00:56:14 ◼   ► It's going to be outside the price range.

00:56:17 ◼   ► If you buy the small phone in the smallest configuration, you're looking at doubling

00:56:23 ◼   ► your price to get this new one.

00:56:27 ◼   ► If there are people that can't afford to buy the new one, would they upgrade to the 7S?

00:56:34 ◼   ► is if they can't buy the best iPhone, why buy a new iPhone at all? Why buy an old iPhone?

00:56:41 ◼   ► It's like, you know, I would imagine for a lot of people it's going to feel like, okay,

00:56:46 ◼   ► so they brought out the new phone, last year's phone got bumped down. That's how the 7S will

00:56:51 ◼   ► feel. It's going to feel like the old phone, even though it's new, because all of the marketing

00:56:56 ◼   ► will be for this new unicorn iPhone Pro. Is this going to be a risk for them? Like, could

00:57:02 ◼   ► Apple end up harming sales of the iPhone line overall because they have this aspirational

00:57:09 ◼   ► phone that some people can't get so they just don't upgrade? They wait until next year?

00:57:14 ◼   ► Do you think that that is a risk?

00:57:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean that is, consumer psychology, right, is sometimes more important than, alright,

00:57:24 ◼   ► okay, let me back up. Nerds like to believe, a lot of nerds, that it's all about specs

00:57:32 ◼   ► or it's all about price or it's all about some ratio that can be calculated.

00:57:36 ◼   ► I feel like a lot of people in our atmosphere in our area kind of make

00:57:41 ◼   ► comments like that but you know buying psychology is not always logical and it

00:57:46 ◼   ► had there are lots of unintended consequences of doing things like this

00:57:50 ◼   ► so just the existence of I mean there's so much here just the existence of a

00:57:56 ◼   ► high-end iPhone changes the game because, as Gruber himself has pointed out on many

00:58:04 ◼   ► occasions, the best, you know, everybody drinks the same can of Coke. The President of the

00:58:11 ◼   ► United States and a construction worker drink the same Coke. Everybody has the same iPhone.

00:58:19 ◼   ► You know, everybody gets, there's no Tiffany iPhone, everybody gets the same iPhone. So

00:58:24 ◼   ► So there's a danger in having a higher-end iPhone at all because it makes the other iPhones

00:58:30 ◼   ► seem less special, right?

00:58:34 ◼   ► Even if they're no different, even if the iPhone 7s and 7s Plus are exactly what would

00:58:40 ◼   ► have existed before and would have sold perfectly within expectations before, the existence

00:58:48 ◼   ► of anything above them changes our perception of them. Now they seem older, now they seem

00:58:55 ◼   ► less capable. So there's that. That is an issue. And then there's also this feeling

00:59:01 ◼   ► about the price, that it's like, you know, it's going to make people feel like this is

00:59:06 ◼   ► Apple and this is about perception, not necessarily reality, but it's Apple squeezing more money

00:59:14 ◼   ► out of buyers or it's Apple overpricing its products or it's Apple not caring about the

00:59:19 ◼   ► little guy and going like super premium. There's already this perception that Apple is not

00:59:24 ◼   ► a you know because Apple doesn't play the low-cost game that Apple is already an elitist

00:59:30 ◼   ► company it's it's not make it doesn't make affordable products it's not interested in

00:59:34 ◼   ► those markets and there are lots of reasons why but in the end like if you're somebody

00:59:39 ◼   ► who feels like Apple is kind of gross as a company because it doesn't care about people

00:59:44 ◼   ► who don't have enough money to buy Apple products and it's not interested in exploring those

00:59:49 ◼   ► markets so much, then this fits into that, right? I mean, we know people in our business

00:59:57 ◼   ► who can't let go the gold Apple watch, right? Who can't let go of that and continue to use

01:00:03 ◼   ► it as an example of Apple being out of touch and not making the world a better place. We

01:00:08 ◼   ► We know people who say stuff like that to this day, even though the golden apple watch

01:00:11 ◼   ► is kind of come and gone.

01:00:13 ◼   ► This feeds into that perception, so that's an issue.

01:00:17 ◼   ► So I do think that doing a product like this is risky and could really hurt the iPhone,

01:00:25 ◼   ► but it is a calculation about how you want Apple to be perceived because, like I said

01:00:30 ◼   ► before, on the other hand, you've got other companies making products that have features

01:00:37 ◼   ► that Apple probably wishes they could make but feel like they can't. Then again, that

01:00:41 ◼   ► is not a great excuse for like what Samsung is doing, right? Samsung is kind of advancing

01:00:48 ◼   ► the ball and Samsung has huge volume on their phones. So I don't want to overstep on the

01:00:56 ◼   ► volume thing because if Samsung can do an edge-to-edge OLED display, Apple probably

01:01:02 ◼   ► can too and make it available in high volume. So there is an element of this that is why

01:01:09 ◼   ► can't Apple just make that the new iPhone? Why do they have to make that this high-end

01:01:14 ◼   ► model? And there may be reasons, there may be things that Apple is not willing to do

01:01:19 ◼   ► that Samsung was willing to do in terms of compromise. Who knows? I don't know. We don't

01:01:24 ◼   ► know the details of these phones, but I think it's worth asking that question. What is special

01:01:28 ◼   ► about this phone. Is this phone, if it really does exist, only available at high

01:01:34 ◼   ► prices because of all the things we've detailed here or is it there because

01:01:40 ◼   ► Apple wants to squeeze another year of margin out of the iPhone 6 design family

01:01:48 ◼   ► and doesn't want to give that margin back, the profit margin back on this much

01:01:55 ◼   ► more expensive phone. I think that's a legitimate question. So there's a lot here. But I do

01:02:06 ◼   ► think the buying psychology, they risk devaluing their bread and butter by doing it this way.

01:02:12 ◼   ► So it's a risky move.

01:02:14 ◼   ► It definitely is. It could end up being a big problem for them. It is a gamble. 100%

01:02:19 ◼   ► this is a gamble because they cannot accurately predict the en masse feeling of people. Right?

01:02:25 ◼   ► you can't, you can assume, but like there's no way that they will be able to know what

01:02:29 ◼   ► this would do. But my feeling, my feeling on this, my take on this is that Apple is

01:02:34 ◼   ► trying to protect themselves against the inverse risk, the risk of looking left behind. So

01:02:40 ◼   ► I feel like in a perfect world, there would be two iPhone models and they would both be

01:02:49 ◼   ► next generation, edge to edge, OLED screens, all the bells and whistles, right?

01:02:54 ◼   ► For one, if it's a little bit bigger phone with a much bigger screen, they could even

01:02:59 ◼   ► get away with maybe doing the one and saying we don't even need the Plus anymore.

01:03:03 ◼   ► It's all in here.

01:03:04 ◼   ► I think they will in the future though.

01:03:05 ◼   ► I think that if we get this one model, I think in the future there will be a bigger one,

01:03:10 ◼   ► because then you could put a six inch screen in the size of the Plus.

01:03:14 ◼   ► So you could keep going.

01:03:16 ◼   ► Potentially.

01:03:17 ◼   ► I'm just saying you could extend that argument down to the ultimate simplification, which

01:03:19 ◼   ► is here's our new iPhone.

01:03:21 ◼   ► It's so great we don't even need two of them.

01:03:23 ◼   ► it is for sale. But my question would be, if you're Apple and I come in and say, "Here's

01:03:31 ◼   ► the reality of building this phone," and I'm not saying this is actually what's true, but

01:03:34 ◼   ► let's just do this as a hypothetical. "Here's the reality of what's with this phone." We

01:03:39 ◼   ► can't make it in volume to sell what we sell in the fall. We can't do it because of various

01:03:44 ◼   ► reasons. You can yell at me. I know we've had these conversations before, but, you know,

01:03:49 ◼   ► Mr. Cook, but we can't do it. You know this, it's because of the choice we made about this

01:03:54 ◼   ► screen and it's the choice we made about this sensor and whatever it is, we can't make them

01:03:58 ◼   ► in that volume. You know we can't. We'll get back ordered, they'll be sold out, you're

01:04:02 ◼   ► worried about the numbers being suppressed because people can't get iPhones and they'll

01:04:05 ◼   ► buy something else. So we can't do that. We also, here's how much it's going to cost to

01:04:11 ◼   ► make it, at least at first. And that means that we can't keep our margins and charge

01:04:16 ◼   ► what we charge for the last models or even 50 or $100 more. It has to be more than that

01:04:20 ◼   ► if we're going to do it. So what do we do? Do we not do it? Do we just put it off? We

01:04:25 ◼   ► can give it to you in a year. I know we've been trying for a year to do this phone already,

01:04:29 ◼   ► but we can do it for next year probably. Or we can release it now, but you're going to

01:04:34 ◼   ► have these huge issues. What do you do if you're Tim Cook? And that strikes me as being

01:04:38 ◼   ► the choice, right? Is do you sweep away the old models and release this thing and it's

01:04:46 ◼   ► just not available for a long time and the margins are bad. Do you not do anything and

01:04:52 ◼   ► just not release it and have us push the 7S out there? Or do you compromise and create

01:04:58 ◼   ► this kind of hybrid, which is the rumor that they will ship them both?

01:05:04 ◼   ► This is what I'm getting at, right? Like, this is what I think. Like, in this ideal

01:05:07 ◼   ► world, this is just the new iPhone, but they can't do it now. So what do they do? Do they

01:05:13 ◼   ► wait one more year, but if they do, when people go to the phone stores, you've got this iPhone

01:05:17 ◼   ► which is this way forever, and then around it, all of these Android phones are these

01:05:23 ◼   ► growing screens. And I understand the idea of people being tied to a brand and etc. etc.

01:05:30 ◼   ► But when you're selling 80 million of them, 10% of those people is a significant amount,

01:05:35 ◼   ► right? And if 10% of those people are willing to switch, that's not going to look good for

01:05:39 ◼   ► for the investors.

01:05:41 ◼   ► That's not gonna look good for a company

01:05:43 ◼   ► that's already struggling

01:05:44 ◼   ► because they can't keep their growth going.

01:05:46 ◼   ► You don't wanna start to see a decline

01:05:48 ◼   ► because it looks like the iPhone

01:05:50 ◼   ► is kind of being left in the dust.

01:05:52 ◼   ► So a way that you combat this,

01:05:54 ◼   ► which is the route that I think

01:05:55 ◼   ► that they're going down with this is,

01:05:56 ◼   ► well, we can't do it for everyone,

01:05:58 ◼   ► so let's make this phone that some people are gonna buy,

01:06:01 ◼   ► it's gonna increase our average selling price,

01:06:04 ◼   ► and hopefully we'll still sell

01:06:06 ◼   ► as many iPhones as we would have sold anyway,

01:06:08 ◼   ► and we then keep the perception

01:06:10 ◼   ► that we're doing things well,

01:06:11 ◼   ► we continue to make it for a year over that period of time,

01:06:13 ◼   ► we drive down the cost, and then in 2018,

01:06:16 ◼   ► all of the iPhones that we make can look like this.

01:06:19 ◼   ► This is why I think they're going with this.

01:06:21 ◼   ► I think that in an ideal world,

01:06:24 ◼   ► Apple just has one or two models of the next iPhone

01:06:28 ◼   ► and it's this only one, but they can't.

01:06:31 ◼   ► They just can't do it.

01:06:32 ◼   ► So instead of risking, so they're taking a gamble,

01:06:36 ◼   ► but I think it's the better gamble.

01:06:38 ◼   ► I think this is a better gamble to say,

01:06:41 ◼   ► you know, Apple is making a really expensive phone

01:06:45 ◼   ► is better than Apple can't innovate.

01:06:48 ◼   ► - If you're, I'm gonna agree with you here,

01:06:53 ◼   ► but let me, if this is one year in,

01:06:58 ◼   ► if this is when the six is out,

01:07:01 ◼   ► or if there's two years in and a 6S is out,

01:07:06 ◼   ► I can see the argument of putting it off and letting the existing stuff ride.

01:07:14 ◼   ► But I agree with you that what tilts this approach toward being the right one is this

01:07:22 ◼   ► perception that Apple has not done a whole lot.

01:07:27 ◼   ► Perception, but that it's a real perception exists.

01:07:31 ◼   ► Like perception is, oh, it doesn't look any different.

01:07:33 ◼   ► though we know that the insides get changed and all of those things. The perception that

01:07:36 ◼   ► Apple is going to for four years in a row release basically the same shape phone and

01:07:43 ◼   ► it'll just have some differences on the inside. Like, that is tough, right? And that that

01:07:50 ◼   ► puts on the pressure to show something different. And to get back to that Red phone or the Andy

01:07:55 ◼   ► Ruben phone. I think Apple from a point of pride and a point of

01:08:05 ◼   ► branding does not want to be perceived as making boring phones that because

01:08:12 ◼   ► part of Apple's brand and part of Apple's cache is that they are on the

01:08:15 ◼   ► cutting edge and I think that some of this is probably motivated by, you

01:08:23 ◼   ► know you can call it pride if you want to make it personal or you can call it

01:08:27 ◼   ► branding if you want to make it more technical and business-appropriate but

01:08:32 ◼   ► either way it's the idea that there's cool stuff out there that you can do

01:08:35 ◼   ► with phones and we're not allowed to do it because X because of our market

01:08:39 ◼   ► dominance because of the huge number that we sell which is great but it is

01:08:44 ◼   ► simultaneously eroding our perception in the market as being cool so how do we

01:08:49 ◼   ► make a cool phone and if we have to ship millions of them we can't do it. So what

01:08:54 ◼   ► do we do? And that's that moment where you say, "You know what? We have to make a

01:08:58 ◼   ► cool phone. We have to." Even if it hurts the perception of the other phones, we

01:09:03 ◼   ► have to make the cool phone because at some point they're gonna take...

01:09:06 ◼   ► everybody's just gonna think that Apple's phones are boring. And, you

01:09:10 ◼   ► know, the question is gonna be if it doesn't work everybody will be like, "Well,

01:09:17 ◼   ► why did you throw over your incredibly profitable business out of fear of

01:09:22 ◼   ► boredom but it does seem like it's a very Apple trait going back through you

01:09:27 ◼   ► know in the culture that Steve Jobs instilled in this company to throw out

01:09:31 ◼   ► to risk throwing out the old popular thing in order to do what is clearly the

01:09:37 ◼   ► future but it might be a rough ride if the market doesn't you know the the

01:09:42 ◼   ► buyers don't like the fact that it exists if we assume that this phone is

01:09:45 ◼   ► the future of the iPhone and that in a year or two all iPhones will be like this phone,

01:09:51 ◼   ► I think it's a stronger argument but it is totally a risk. And picking the right time

01:09:56 ◼   ► to do it, last year, this year, next year, that's why they pay the CEOs the big bucks.

01:10:02 ◼   ► There is an argument that you can make, that Apple can make, and they can write this for

01:10:06 ◼   ► one year. Like if they see a dip, you know, you can make the argument of, "We have to

01:10:12 ◼   ► to do this, we have to move forward the iPhone to the next 10 years. You can make that argument

01:10:18 ◼   ► that one time. If you're going to do it, the anniversary is the right time to do it because

01:10:23 ◼   ► you can use the company's history, the product's history, and you can do all of that stuff.

01:10:29 ◼   ► This is the, if you're going to do this, you do it now. I feel that they would potentially

01:10:34 ◼   ► be making the right decision if that's the route that they go through.

01:10:37 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, I mean that's you've got lots of fig leaves to use to explain why you're taking this gamble and potentially harming your key product.

01:10:45 ◼   ► But, and you say this is for the future. We have to do this now because we, this is Apple and we have to do this now.

01:10:52 ◼   ► But it's a tough one because they're saying that but they're still selling us, you know, if they're still selling a 7S then you're not really entirely embracing the future.

01:11:02 ◼   ► You're just sort of, you know, but that goes back to the problem is whatever design that they have

01:11:07 ◼   ► created here, apparently it's not something that they can they can ship in volume at the right

01:11:11 ◼   ► price. And that maybe, I don't want to take that as a given because I think it's worth saying this

01:11:19 ◼   ► could all be because of a colossal miscalculation on Apple's part in terms of the design.

01:11:23 ◼   ► They may have been, I don't want to say it's like this is just naturally, this is how it

01:11:28 ◼   ► had to happen, it's entirely possible that their reach just exceeded their grasp and

01:11:33 ◼   ► they designed this phone that they're now committed to, that this is the design they've

01:11:37 ◼   ► got for their next generation phone, and they can't ship it in volume. And I would argue

01:11:44 ◼   ► that when you go into a project like this, you're probably going in assuming it's going

01:11:47 ◼   ► to be the next iPhone and you're just going to swap it in for the existing iPhone. And

01:11:51 ◼   ► the fact that they might potentially have to do this third iPhone, we can tell the story

01:11:55 ◼   ► about how Apple wants to be cutting edge,

01:11:57 ◼   ► you could also turn it around and say,

01:11:59 ◼   ► this is because whoever designed this thing

01:12:02 ◼   ► made some decisions that led to it being not shippable.

01:12:07 ◼   ► So they have to make do with this.

01:12:10 ◼   ► And that may also be true.

01:12:12 ◼   ► It's hard to tell because that is incredibly esoteric stuff

01:12:15 ◼   ► that you have to be deep down inside of Apple

01:12:17 ◼   ► and the suppliers and everything else to understand.

01:12:20 ◼   ► But I think it's worth at least considering that,

01:12:22 ◼   ► that Apple would not choose, I think, to do it this way.

01:12:25 ◼   ► This may just be where they are with the hand

01:12:28 ◼   ► that they've been dealt.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Yes, but it's not random.

01:12:33 ◼   ► Like decisions were made to make that card in the hand

01:12:36 ◼   ► that they've been dealt.

01:12:37 ◼   ► And those decisions were made by the people building

01:12:41 ◼   ► the next generation iPhone.

01:12:42 ◼   ► - Today's show is also brought to you by our friends

01:12:46 ◼   ► at Encapsula, the multifunction content delivery network

01:12:50 ◼   ► that boosts the performance of your website,

01:12:51 ◼   ► protects it from denial of service attacks,

01:12:53 ◼   ► and secures it from bad guys whilst ensuring high availability.

01:12:58 ◼   ► Encapsula have a global network of 30 data centers with 3 terabits of bandwidth.

01:13:03 ◼   ► This network stops attack traffic and makes sure that denial of servers, attacks and bad

01:13:06 ◼   ► guys never hit your servers whilst also caching your content and optimising connections using

01:13:11 ◼   ► their powerful CDN.

01:13:14 ◼   ► All you have to do to take advantage of this network is change just a small DNS setting

01:13:20 ◼   ► and you can activate Encapsula for your site.

01:13:22 ◼   ► you don't need to install any hardware or software, it is ready to go when you are backed

01:13:27 ◼   ► up with a 24/7 operations team that are there when you need it. You get personal account

01:13:32 ◼   ► management and the best service level agreement in the business.

01:13:36 ◼   ► As a listener of this show, you can get one whole month of service for free. Just go to

01:13:40 ◼   ► Encapsular.com/upgrade. That's I-N-C-A-P-S-U-L-A.com/upgrade. You'll find out more about Encapsular.

01:13:47 ◼   ► Service here and claim your free month. Thank you so much to Encapsular for the continued

01:13:51 ◼   ► support of this show and Relay FM.

01:13:55 ◼   ► Ready for Ask Upgrade, Jason?

01:13:56 ◼   ► I am always ready for Ask Upgrade.

01:13:59 ◼   ► Today's first question comes from Benny.

01:14:01 ◼   ► Do you think that the iPad Pro will get improved next year, maybe with better screens, better

01:14:06 ◼   ► processors?

01:14:07 ◼   ► Do we think that in 2018 there will be new iPad Pros?

01:14:14 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:14:18 ◼   ► I'm kind of 50/50 on it.

01:14:19 ◼   ► I feel like there don't need to be I would like to see them because I would like to see

01:14:24 ◼   ► Apple say we love the iPad Pro and we're going to keep it updated but I think they could

01:14:32 ◼   ► go a year and a half if they needed to.

01:14:37 ◼   ► So I don't know I don't know I'd say I'm 50/50 on it like if they've got a next generation

01:14:43 ◼   ► iPad Pro that does other cool stuff that's great but like the problem with the iPad Pro

01:14:47 ◼   ► I feel like the hardware is great. I don't feel like in two years or certainly I don't

01:14:51 ◼   ► feel like in a year everybody's gonna be looking at the iPad Pro saying, "Oh boy, it's getting

01:14:57 ◼   ► old. It needs to be updated." I feel like the hardware is so good, in fact, are arguably

01:15:01 ◼   ► so far ahead of what is even needed on the platform right now that Apple's got other

01:15:06 ◼   ► fish to fry and they may be, you know, if it goes a year and a half or two years, I

01:15:09 ◼   ► think it's okay. So it doesn't mean they won't do an update on it, but I'm not sure they

01:15:14 ◼   ► need to.

01:15:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm tracing along that line as well. I think that the iPad Pro line will be a minimum

01:15:22 ◼   ► 18 month refresh going forward. Yeah. And I think that's totally fine. There may come

01:15:27 ◼   ► a time when we look at the iPad and go, wow, this iPad's getting slow, where's the new

01:15:31 ◼   ► iPad? But right now that's not the case. Like it's so much more powerful than almost anything

01:15:36 ◼   ► that the platform is actually being asked to do that I don't think it's necessary. I

01:15:41 ◼   ► it's more likely that there'll be some iOS innovation hopefully in the next you

01:15:45 ◼   ► know two years that really requires more RAM or more processor that makes them be

01:15:52 ◼   ► prompted to do an update so that will be the hardware that best runs iOS 12 or

01:15:57 ◼   ► something like that but I doubt that will happen next year.

01:16:02 ◼   ► Michael wants to know do you still give the trip mode app for Mac your

01:16:06 ◼   ► recommendation? Michael's going on the trip soon and may need to use tethering

01:16:11 ◼   ► quite a bit. Yes, two thumbs up indeed. They just came out with a new version,

01:16:16 ◼   ► it's great. I highly recommend it to anybody who's tethering on a Mac because

01:16:20 ◼   ► you can choose, you can toggle it on and choose app by app what gets data and

01:16:26 ◼   ► what does not get data and that is huge because the Mac doesn't really have a

01:16:31 ◼   ► conception of that and so it'll be doing like crazy high bandwidth things in the

01:16:37 ◼   ► background thinking it's on Wi-Fi when it's actually on Wi-Fi attached to a

01:16:41 ◼   ► cellular device. So trip mode lets you shut everything off and selectively

01:16:45 ◼   ► turn things on. You can see how much data everything is using and turn off

01:16:49 ◼   ► apps that are using too much data. Highly recommended. It's great.

01:16:53 ◼   ► And it's not that expensive either. I forget what it is but it's cheap. It's worth it.

01:16:57 ◼   ► There's a Windows version too. There is. I'm looking at the page right now.

01:17:03 ◼   ► Yeah, if that's what you do.

01:17:04 ◼   ► It's $799.

01:17:06 ◼   ► - And you don't need it on iOS

01:17:07 ◼   ► because iOS actually has it built into the operating system.

01:17:09 ◼   ► It knows the, iOS knows the difference

01:17:11 ◼   ► between cellular and Wi-Fi,

01:17:13 ◼   ► which unfortunately the Mac doesn't.

01:17:17 ◼   ► - Jay Mush asked, "Why aren't there a bunch

01:17:20 ◼   ► of uncertified smart connector accessories on eBay,

01:17:23 ◼   ► like how it was with Lightning?"

01:17:24 ◼   ► - Why aren't there, I turn this around and say,

01:17:28 ◼   ► "Why aren't there a lot of smart connector devices

01:17:30 ◼   ► in general?"

01:17:31 ◼   ► suspect they're related. So part of it is there aren't that many iPads out there.

01:17:35 ◼   ► There are iPads out there, but like compared to iPhones, the number of iPad

01:17:40 ◼   ► iPad Pros is small and only the iPad Pro has the smart connector. So it's a

01:17:46 ◼   ► limited market and then I think the reason that we haven't seen smart

01:17:51 ◼   ► connector accessories in general is probably because the smart connector has

01:17:54 ◼   ► some limited use. That it was largely designed for Apple for the smart

01:18:00 ◼   ► keyboard and it's a it's open I think in the sense that Apple maybe had an

01:18:07 ◼   ► argument about internally about other iPad keyboards and somebody agreed that

01:18:12 ◼   ► why not make it open why not work with Logitech to do a smart connector based

01:18:18 ◼   ► keyboard as well which they did they made the the create and so it feels to

01:18:25 ◼   ► me like a thing that was really designed for Apple and then to do keyboards and

01:18:29 ◼   ► and then kind of repurposed to be a little bit broader

01:18:34 ◼   ► but it's a very limited connector

01:18:37 ◼   ► and so I think that's the answer is it's limited in what it can do and it's got a

01:18:42 ◼   ► very limited market

01:18:43 ◼   ► and if you're gonna go to the trouble of making a keyboard that works with a

01:18:46 ◼   ► smart connector

01:18:47 ◼   ► you would want it to be legit

01:18:51 ◼   ► so what are you left with like maybe some weird charger

01:18:54 ◼   ► thing like a Apple pencil charger dongle

01:18:58 ◼   ► I don't know. It's just not worth it.

01:19:01 ◼   ► So I think this goes back to the smart connector being of incredibly narrow, limited use more than anything else.

01:19:07 ◼   ► Oliver asked, "I'm thinking about replacing my dead MacBook Pro with an iPad Pro.

01:19:12 ◼   ► Apart from iCloud Photo Library, what photo backup service would you recommend?"

01:19:17 ◼   ► There are many others. I mean, I use iCloud Photo Library.

01:19:20 ◼   ► You could use Google Photos. You could use Dropbox, which will let you do that.

01:19:24 ◼   ► which will let you do that.

01:19:25 ◼   ► You just have to pay, you know,

01:19:26 ◼   ► you have to pay for storage depending on what you wanna do,

01:19:29 ◼   ► but there are options.

01:19:30 ◼   ► The only, I think, challenge is that the, the iPad,

01:19:34 ◼   ► the iCloud photo library is gonna be the most reliable

01:19:37 ◼   ► because it's integrated into the system.

01:19:39 ◼   ► And sometimes you may need to like launch

01:19:42 ◼   ► the other third-party apps that do backups

01:19:44 ◼   ► so that they can work in packing up your photos.

01:19:47 ◼   ► But there are, from your Mac, I mean,

01:19:51 ◼   ► well, if your MacBook Pro is dead,

01:19:52 ◼   ► then where are your photos right now?

01:19:55 ◼   ► But if you got them off of them,

01:19:57 ◼   ► you could upload them sort of to any service.

01:19:59 ◼   ► And I mean, I don't have a comprehensive review

01:20:04 ◼   ► of all these services.

01:20:06 ◼   ► The Google, people seem to really like the Google service.

01:20:09 ◼   ► I know if you're a Dropbox user

01:20:10 ◼   ► and you've got a lot of Dropbox storage,

01:20:12 ◼   ► Dropbox really wants you to share your photos

01:20:14 ◼   ► and save your photos with them

01:20:16 ◼   ► because that ties you more to their service.

01:20:18 ◼   ► And then iCloud is, I find it very reliable

01:20:21 ◼   ► and the price is actually not bad.

01:20:22 ◼   ► So.

01:20:23 ◼   ► - Wiki asked, "We've heard nothing about the retin monitors

01:20:26 ◼   ► "to replace the cinema display.

01:20:27 ◼   ► "Do you still think they're coming?"

01:20:29 ◼   ► - Apple said they're coming

01:20:31 ◼   ► when they said that they were doing a Mac Pro.

01:20:34 ◼   ► - We won't hear anything about those

01:20:36 ◼   ► until the Mac Pro pops up.

01:20:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's exactly it,

01:20:39 ◼   ► is that that will be something that gets announced

01:20:41 ◼   ► when the Mac Pro gets announced,

01:20:42 ◼   ► because it probably was a decision

01:20:44 ◼   ► that was made alongside the decision to do the new Mac Pro.

01:20:48 ◼   ► And so I think, I don't think,

01:20:50 ◼   ► even though they could release it

01:20:51 ◼   ► and use it with a MacBook Pro or the iMac Pro

01:20:54 ◼   ► or the iMac even, my gut feeling is they won't.

01:20:58 ◼   ► I hope they do, but I do think they're still coming.

01:21:01 ◼   ► I think it's just not a priority

01:21:04 ◼   ► because it's really perceived at least

01:21:07 ◼   ► as being tied to that new Mac Pro.

01:21:08 ◼   ► So it's gonna be a while.

01:21:09 ◼   ► - Frank asked, what are the chances, do we believe,

01:21:14 ◼   ► of upgraded AirPod hardware this fall

01:21:17 ◼   ► trying to decide if it's worth buying a pair now?

01:21:20 ◼   ► I feel like we talked about this a while ago.

01:21:25 ◼   ► I think the chances are low

01:21:27 ◼   ► because I think the AirPods are fine.

01:21:30 ◼   ► And I think that it's a brand new product

01:21:32 ◼   ► which means they were ahead of their time.

01:21:36 ◼   ► They were kind of pushed into the market.

01:21:38 ◼   ► They're still kind of, I think, struggling to meet demand.

01:21:41 ◼   ► They're a cutting edge product.

01:21:42 ◼   ► So what you wanna do is let that product stay there

01:21:45 ◼   ► for a while and get good at making it

01:21:47 ◼   ► and improve your profit margins on everyone you sell.

01:21:51 ◼   ► It's got some upgradeable software in it.

01:21:54 ◼   ► So like even iOS 11 makes better use of them.

01:21:57 ◼   ► Also, I think it's possible that since it's such a brand new

01:22:01 ◼   ► cutting edge product that Apple may even be doing

01:22:04 ◼   ► hardware tweaks behind the scenes,

01:22:07 ◼   ► but won't disclose them and won't market them.

01:22:12 ◼   ► So it's entirely possible with a product like this

01:22:14 ◼   ► that Apple may make changes to what's in them

01:22:16 ◼   ► and how they work and not say anything

01:22:19 ◼   ► because from the customer's perspective,

01:22:20 ◼   ► they're exactly the same

01:22:22 ◼   ► and they could do a slipstream hardware change

01:22:24 ◼   ► and until somebody took them apart,

01:22:26 ◼   ► nobody would really,

01:22:27 ◼   ► or somebody at the Apple store squealed,

01:22:30 ◼   ► nobody would know the difference

01:22:31 ◼   ► because it wouldn't be about features,

01:22:32 ◼   ► it would just be about functionality.

01:22:35 ◼   ► Now, the hedge I'll put in here is,

01:22:38 ◼   ► I could see them maybe doing something with color,

01:22:43 ◼   ► but that would be it.

01:22:45 ◼   ► I doubt that the hardware is gonna change anytime soon.

01:22:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, if you have the ability to buy AirPods,

01:22:52 ◼   ► get them now.

01:22:53 ◼   ► I mean, really, aside from cosmetic,

01:22:57 ◼   ► I can't imagine there being any changes

01:22:59 ◼   ► that are really gonna make it so much better.

01:23:00 ◼   ► Like, okay, let's say battery life.

01:23:02 ◼   ► Battery is fantastic on these things.

01:23:04 ◼   ► Like, you're good.

01:23:06 ◼   ► Right, like I charge them every time

01:23:08 ◼   ► I think about charging them,

01:23:10 ◼   ► but I've never even hit a battery warning

01:23:11 ◼   ► and I use them all the time.

01:23:14 ◼   ► - Agreed.

01:23:15 ◼   ► You know, they could be smaller,

01:23:18 ◼   ► although the problem is physics, right?

01:23:21 ◼   ► You've gotta have room for the battery

01:23:22 ◼   ► and you've gotta have room to have enough antenna space

01:23:25 ◼   ► that you can receive.

01:23:26 ◼   ► - And to be able to hold them.

01:23:27 ◼   ► You gotta be able to take them out of your ears.

01:23:28 ◼   ► - Well, that's true.

01:23:29 ◼   ► The stems could be shorter, right?

01:23:32 ◼   ► They could be a little bit shorter.

01:23:33 ◼   ► But is that enough of a reason?

01:23:35 ◼   ► I just don't see it.

01:23:36 ◼   ► I feel like this is a product

01:23:38 ◼   ► that Apple's probably pretty happy with

01:23:39 ◼   ► and that nobody's thinking, "Oh, I don't know.

01:23:41 ◼   ► The AirPods are kinda long in the tooth.

01:23:42 ◼   ► I feel like the AirPods are good.

01:23:44 ◼   ► They're good for a while."

01:23:45 ◼   ► and color is the only thing that strikes me

01:23:47 ◼   ► as something they could do fairly easily, right?

01:23:49 ◼   ► Because that's just literally changing the plastic.

01:23:52 ◼   ► And that would be fun.

01:23:54 ◼   ► That would actually be a really fun refresh

01:23:56 ◼   ► for the holidays.

01:23:57 ◼   ► So I will put that out as a small possibility

01:24:01 ◼   ► that we'd get them in black

01:24:03 ◼   ► or maybe even get them in a few different colors

01:24:06 ◼   ► so that you could choose,

01:24:07 ◼   ► even though Apple lately is still pretty monochrome.

01:24:10 ◼   ► - Sounds like a draw off pick to me, Jason.

01:24:12 ◼   ► - I think that's, yeah, that's right.

01:24:14 ◼   ► we may be able to put that on the iPhone event draft.

01:24:17 ◼   ► I think colored AirPods is a good one for that

01:24:19 ◼   ► 'cause it might happen, but it might not.

01:24:22 ◼   ► - Finally today, Raphael asked,

01:24:23 ◼   ► "Does Mac OS High Sierra bring some changes

01:24:26 ◼   ► "to the Mac App Store like iOS 11

01:24:28 ◼   ► "has brought to the iPhone App Store?"

01:24:30 ◼   ► Jason, does the App Store look any different on High Sierra?

01:24:35 ◼   ► - I don't even remember.

01:24:38 ◼   ► I gotta be honest. - I'm gonna assume

01:24:39 ◼   ► it's a no, right?

01:24:40 ◼   ► 'Cause I feel like we maybe know about it.

01:24:42 ◼   ► Now I know that, I believe it was during the talk show event

01:24:46 ◼   ► that they mentioned that there would be stuff coming to,

01:24:51 ◼   ► like some of the new features would be coming to

01:24:53 ◼   ► the Mac App Store, but if it's going to happen,

01:24:58 ◼   ► I don't think we're seeing it right now.

01:25:01 ◼   ► - I think it's possible that the Mac App Store

01:25:04 ◼   ► will get a makeover, but I think it's less likely

01:25:08 ◼   ► that they're gonna have like expansive feature stories

01:25:12 ◼   ► on the Mac App Store.

01:25:13 ◼   ► It's possible, but it's not,

01:25:16 ◼   ► my guess is it's more like they're gonna roll that out

01:25:18 ◼   ► on iOS and then maybe someday they'll do it on the Mac too.

01:25:21 ◼   ► But I don't know for certain, I'm trying to picture it.

01:25:23 ◼   ► They are bringing that design to other things in macOS,

01:25:27 ◼   ► but I'm not sure it's coming to the Mac App Store or not.

01:25:30 ◼   ► I can't recall.

01:25:31 ◼   ► I haven't spent a lot of time in High Sierra

01:25:33 ◼   ► and especially in the App Store app in High Sierra lately,

01:25:36 ◼   ► although there's new betas.

01:25:38 ◼   ► So everybody can rush out and update to the new betas

01:25:40 ◼   ► and see what's changed.

01:25:41 ◼   ► because that always happens. There's new betas when we do an upgrade, Myke.

01:25:45 ◼   ► Is there new iOS betas?

01:25:47 ◼   ► Yeah, new betas.

01:25:49 ◼   ► Oh, I'm really happy because I've been having some weirdo stuff.

01:25:53 ◼   ► Well, we'll see if this will fix those weirdo things and cause some new weirdo things.

01:25:58 ◼   ► I'll introduce new ones. I like new weird things rather than the same weird things, you know?

01:26:02 ◼   ► It's great. New weird things are the best. Yeah, sure.

01:26:06 ◼   ► Yay, betas! Okay, so that's something to do when we're done today.

01:26:10 ◼   ► Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade.

01:26:13 ◼   ► I want to take a moment again to thank our fine sponsors, the folk over at Squarespace,

01:26:18 ◼   ► Encapsula and Away for supporting this week's episode.

01:26:22 ◼   ► Of course, as always, thank you for listening.

01:26:25 ◼   ► We could not do this show without your kind...

01:26:28 ◼   ► I can't think of...

01:26:30 ◼   ► Listenership?

01:26:31 ◼   ► Patronage isn't the right word.

01:26:33 ◼   ► Just support.

01:26:34 ◼   ► There we go.

01:26:35 ◼   ► We'll go for that.

01:26:36 ◼   ► Your support.

01:26:37 ◼   ► Without your support, this show wouldn't happen.

01:26:38 ◼   ► So thank you so much for listening.

01:26:39 ◼   ► If you enjoy the show, why don't you share it with a friend?

01:26:42 ◼   ► It actually really does make a difference.

01:26:44 ◼   ► If you have somebody in your life that you think might enjoy Upgrade, why don't you tell

01:26:47 ◼   ► them to go check it out because those Jason and Myke guys, they're really fun to listen

01:26:51 ◼   ► to.

01:26:52 ◼   ► If you want to find Jason's work online, he's over at the incomparable.com, sixcolors.com

01:26:56 ◼   ► and he is @jsnell, J S N E double L on Twitter.

01:27:00 ◼   ► I am @imike, I M Y K E. Maybe as well if you listen to Upgrade and don't listen to any

01:27:05 ◼   ► any other relay FM shows, just go to relay.fm/shows and pick something else.

01:27:09 ◼   ► There's going to be something else in there that is for you.

01:27:11 ◼   ► I am sure of it.

01:27:13 ◼   ► We'll be back next time.

01:27:14 ◼   ► Don't forget #AskUpgrade for your Ask Upgrade questions.

01:27:18 ◼   ► #SNELTalk for your SNEL Talk questions.

01:27:20 ◼   ► Until then, take a Bioness's now.

01:27:22 ◼   ► Adios Miguel.

01:27:23 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:27:26 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:27:30 ◼   ► [