Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:10 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade Episode 137, brought to you by Encapsula, Eero, and Mailroute.

00:00:18 ◼   ► I am Jason Snell, your host as always, though I don't usually read that part because Myke Hurley

00:00:23 ◼   ► does. Myke traveling back from a weekend away so he said to me, "Get a guest." And I said,

00:00:30 ◼   ► "Sir, yes sir." And I got a most excellent guest, Serenity Caldwell from iMore. Hello.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Hi Jason.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Welcome to Upgrade. You get to be one of the Upgraders speaking to the Upgradians this week.

00:00:45 ◼   ► The Upgradians. Do I-

00:00:46 ◼   ► Congratulations?

00:00:48 ◼   ► Congratulations, Horse. Do I have to speak in an English accent?

00:00:52 ◼   ► No.

00:00:53 ◼   ► Do I have to pretend to be Myke? No, no. Because I'm not sure I can do that very well.

00:00:56 ◼   ► No, you don't want to do that. It's not, I don't think anyone wants that. I think you need to be

00:01:02 ◼   ► yourself. I think that's the joy of having the guest spot that isn't Myke is that it's not Myke,

00:01:09 ◼   ► right? I am not exclamation point Myke. I am now pondering what it would be if I hired like a

00:01:15 ◼   ► Myke impersonator and gave them a script, but I think that would be bad. So, you know what?

00:01:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think we cross into the darkest timeline that way.

00:01:23 ◼   ► - Exactly, no, we want you to be you.

00:01:25 ◼   ► So it's upgrade with a little twist this time,

00:01:29 ◼   ► it's because it's a no mic episode.

00:01:31 ◼   ► This happens, so we did two in a row

00:01:33 ◼   ► where we were together in London

00:01:35 ◼   ► and then in Ireland, which is fun.

00:01:37 ◼   ► And so we're just gonna go off,

00:01:39 ◼   ► even further off the format this week with no mic.

00:01:43 ◼   ► But he'll be back next week, and I'll be back,

00:01:46 ◼   ► and we'll, you know, and you won't be back.

00:01:49 ◼   ► be free to go about your life instead of being on a podcast on a Monday. I'll do different things.

00:01:55 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. So we like to start with follow-up. I think I might be contractually mandated to place

00:02:01 ◼   ► a footnote here pointing out the John Syracuse invented follow-up, but there it is. So one thing

00:02:07 ◼   ► is I did mention Ireland. I was at Uhl again. I found the video of our radio theater performance

00:02:17 ◼   ► from two years ago, by the way.

00:02:18 ◼   ► - What?

00:02:19 ◼   ► Can I see it?

00:02:20 ◼   ► - A source provided, yeah, I'm working on doing some,

00:02:23 ◼   ► getting that available for people to see.

00:02:25 ◼   ► But that's exciting.

00:02:27 ◼   ► Anyway, I did, so two years ago, when you and I were there,

00:02:29 ◼   ► we did the incomparable radio theater and some other stuff.

00:02:31 ◼   ► The last two OOLs, I've done podcast interviews

00:02:34 ◼   ► with the people who are the presenters,

00:02:36 ◼   ► like whether they're speakers

00:02:37 ◼   ► or whether they got sort of feature presentations

00:02:39 ◼   ► that they do in different rooms around the venue.

00:02:41 ◼   ► And that's actually been a lot of fun.

00:02:43 ◼   ► And so I did 10, I think, this year.

00:02:45 ◼   ► I think this year, there's a podcast feed that's got all 17, 18, whatever it is, interviews

00:02:51 ◼   ► with people from this year and last year. We'll put a link in the show notes to it.

00:02:56 ◼   ► There's a Six Colors post that links to it. You can also search, if you search iTunes

00:03:00 ◼   ► for ULL Radio or Overcast or anything like that, you should be able to see it. It's just

00:03:06 ◼   ► a regular old podcast and they're really interesting interviews. So, full credit, I just did the

00:03:12 ◼   ► the full credit to the OOL organizers for picking such fascinating people that I just,

00:03:18 ◼   ► all I had to do was chat with them about sort of like the topics that they discussed. And

00:03:23 ◼   ► it's a fun way for people who were there to kind of get more and for people who weren't

00:03:27 ◼   ► there to get an idea of what these interesting people were like and what they were talking

00:03:31 ◼   ► about. So check, people should check it out. Check it out. It's a podcast. You listen to

00:03:35 ◼   ► podcasts, right? A hundred percent of the people listening right now...

00:03:37 ◼   ► Stephanie: Have a listen to at least one podcast.

00:03:40 ◼   ► are aware of podcasting. Yeah, exactly. Myke mentioned that he uses clear in the last week's

00:03:46 ◼   ► show for his packing lists when he goes on trips, including the one he's on right now,

00:03:53 ◼   ► just getting back from right now. And he was expressing fear. This is going around a lot

00:03:59 ◼   ► lately, fear that it hasn't been updated lately and maybe it's going to go away, that it got

00:04:03 ◼   ► acquired and all of those things. But Myke wanted this piece of follow-up that according to,

00:04:09 ◼   ► We saw a note on Twitter about this.

00:04:12 ◼   ► According to responses from developers to reviews, a new version is forthcoming.

00:04:18 ◼   ► So it looks like they are under development and doing other things.

00:04:22 ◼   ► And there's a tweet from Julian that he linked to that quotes, actually screenshots a review.

00:04:30 ◼   ► So that's good.

00:04:32 ◼   ► I am always concerned when an app I love seems to be put on a shelf somewhere that it's going to die.

00:04:39 ◼   ► and I'm gonna have to get something else. So, good news for people who use clear.

00:04:42 ◼   ► And, last but not least, a follow-up is

00:04:45 ◼   ► about, so we talked about Apple Pay without a card, that

00:04:49 ◼   ► Apple Pay is great and

00:04:52 ◼   ► and I use it a lot, and in some places you can really get by with

00:04:56 ◼   ► with just Apple Pay as I found out when I was in the UK that the contactless

00:05:00 ◼   ► infrastructure is so much better there

00:05:03 ◼   ► because they have contactless credit cards,

00:05:07 ◼   ► which we kind of had and don't really have now. Do you have any contactless credit cards?

00:05:13 ◼   ► I don't have a contactless credit card. I have a couple of chip credit cards, but they took away

00:05:18 ◼   ► the contactless payment. Yeah, I feel like they maybe cheaped out and said, "Okay, well, we won't

00:05:21 ◼   ► do contactless. We'll do the chip instead." But the contactless in the UK, it's amazing. Like most

00:05:26 ◼   ► places that take cards take contactless, not all, but almost everywhere I went. And for me,

00:05:34 ◼   ► it was unbelievable because I thought,

00:05:36 ◼   ► "Oh, well, basically they all do Apple Pay."

00:05:38 ◼   ► And so I bought lots of things with Apple Pay.

00:05:41 ◼   ► At one point last week, we had that moment

00:05:44 ◼   ► where my host, James Thompson,

00:05:47 ◼   ► who I was staying with in Glasgow,

00:05:49 ◼   ► we were buying some dinner takeaway,

00:05:51 ◼   ► and the person behind the table at the takeaway place

00:05:55 ◼   ► got out the little card reader,

00:05:57 ◼   ► and he was kind of getting into his wallet

00:05:59 ◼   ► to get a card out,

00:06:02 ◼   ► And I noticed that there was a contactless symbol on it.

00:06:05 ◼   ► And I did the quick draw thing, where I double tapped my Apple

00:06:07 ◼   ► Watch and stuck it out and went bing and paid for it

00:06:10 ◼   ► before he could even get his hand back out

00:06:11 ◼   ► of his pocket with his wallet.

00:06:14 ◼   ► And yeah, it was pretty awesome.

00:06:15 ◼   ► So I love that.

00:06:17 ◼   ► I hope that there's more contactless support and Apple

00:06:19 ◼   ► Pay support in the US over time, because it's really so great.

00:06:23 ◼   ► But we speculated about, could you have Apple Pay

00:06:27 ◼   ► without a credit card?

00:06:28 ◼   ► Like, do you need a credit card?

00:06:30 ◼   ► Or is there some way to just say, look, here's my bank.

00:06:33 ◼   ► Here's my watch.

00:06:35 ◼   ► I just want to buy things.

00:06:36 ◼   ► And we heard from a bunch of people

00:06:38 ◼   ► there are a bunch of options out there,

00:06:40 ◼   ► including Boon and Square Cash.

00:06:42 ◼   ► Actually, Square Cash lets you tie a virtual debit card

00:06:46 ◼   ► to Apple Pay.

00:06:48 ◼   ► And listeners Wayne and Andreas sent those in.

00:06:51 ◼   ► So there are some places that are offering

00:06:54 ◼   ► the sort of like next generation using the credit card

00:06:57 ◼   ► infrastructure, but it's a debit card.

00:06:59 ◼   ► And then it supports Apple Pay,

00:07:02 ◼   ► and then all of a sudden you've got no credit card

00:07:04 ◼   ► but the ability to buy things with Apple Pay,

00:07:06 ◼   ► which is cool.

00:07:08 ◼   ► - That is fascinating.

00:07:09 ◼   ► Like I knew that Square Cash had a virtual card option,

00:07:12 ◼   ► but I didn't even think about the fact that,

00:07:14 ◼   ► oh, this could be a good way for people

00:07:16 ◼   ► who don't have a credit or a debit card to make it happen.

00:07:19 ◼   ► - Right, you just connect enough of the dots,

00:07:21 ◼   ► and then all of a sudden I think it just kind of flows

00:07:23 ◼   ► from your bank account to Square,

00:07:25 ◼   ► and then from Square to Apple Pay,

00:07:28 ◼   ► and then you've got it, which is a cool idea.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Because I do hear from people who are like,

00:07:32 ◼   ► I don't have a credit card, I don't want a credit card.

00:07:36 ◼   ► I actually hear a lot from people in Europe

00:07:39 ◼   ► that there are-- because in the US,

00:07:41 ◼   ► they want to give you as many credit cards as possible.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Because that's how the business works here.

00:07:47 ◼   ► And you shouldn't live your life on credit.

00:07:50 ◼   ► That's absolutely true if you can avoid it.

00:07:52 ◼   ► So this is an interesting approach, which is it's debit.

00:07:56 ◼   ► And in Square's case, I think you move the money in

00:07:58 ◼   ► where maybe it kind of auto--

00:07:59 ◼   ► I forget exactly how that's set up.

00:08:02 ◼   ► But in the end, you don't have to have a credit card

00:08:04 ◼   ► account per se.

00:08:05 ◼   ► You're instead using Square, which is--

00:08:08 ◼   ► that's neat.

00:08:09 ◼   ► The magic of Square.

00:08:10 ◼   ► It keeps on being handy.

00:08:12 ◼   ► Do you use Apple Pay a lot?

00:08:14 ◼   ► I do.

00:08:15 ◼   ► I try and use Apple Pay anywhere I can.

00:08:17 ◼   ► Usually, I end up just using it to pay for groceries,

00:08:20 ◼   ► because my local Whole Foods, of course, accepts it.

00:08:24 ◼   ► And my local pharmacy accepts it.

00:08:28 ◼   ► But beyond that, it's really hard to find contactless

00:08:32 ◼   ► payments around here.

00:08:33 ◼   ► I end up using pseudo Apple Pay.

00:08:37 ◼   ► I will use Apple Pay via the web, via the Panera app,

00:08:41 ◼   ► to order Panera in advance.

00:08:45 ◼   ► Or I'll use the Starbucks refill option

00:08:48 ◼   ► to refill Starbucks with Apple Pay.

00:08:52 ◼   ► I just did that too.

00:08:52 ◼   ► I just ordered Chinese food the other day.

00:08:55 ◼   ► And I used Eat24, and I Apple-paid it.

00:09:00 ◼   ► So that literally sitting in bed,

00:09:02 ◼   ► I ordered Chinese food, paid for it, and then

00:09:04 ◼   ► half an hour later, there was a knock on the door with the food.

00:09:07 ◼   ► And that's not quite the same as the contactless Apple Pay,

00:09:10 ◼   ► but that's like using Apple Pay on the web

00:09:12 ◼   ► to get things that you can use in the real world, right?

00:09:16 ◼   ► It's very fun.

00:09:18 ◼   ► It feels very futuristic in a way

00:09:19 ◼   ► that a lot of this kind of--

00:09:23 ◼   ► not quite gimmicky technology feels,

00:09:24 ◼   ► But you know what I mean, right?

00:09:26 ◼   ► Where it's something that could be either really useful

00:09:29 ◼   ► or could just be something that you see and then never

00:09:33 ◼   ► use again.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Do you find yourself using it with the watch

00:09:37 ◼   ► or with the phone more?

00:09:38 ◼   ► I use it with watch all the time.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:09:41 ◼   ► I never Apple Pay with the phone.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Because the phone's in my pocket, and the watch is not.

00:09:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:48 ◼   ► OK, so I think that's the trick.

00:09:50 ◼   ► When I'm waiting in line for things, usually

00:09:52 ◼   ► at the grocery store, I usually have my phone out

00:09:55 ◼   ► because it's just me.

00:09:56 ◼   ► And so I'm just like, I'm looking at Twitter

00:09:58 ◼   ► or something while I'm waiting in line.

00:09:59 ◼   ► And I'm like, well, I already have the phone out.

00:10:02 ◼   ► I might as well use the phone.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Makes sense.

00:10:05 ◼   ► But yeah, I've used the watch a lot

00:10:07 ◼   ► for when I'm going through the drive-through of Starbucks

00:10:10 ◼   ► because it's like, it's right there.

00:10:11 ◼   ► It's right there.

00:10:11 ◼   ► My arm is on the right side.

00:10:13 ◼   ► Maybe not going to work for people in Europe.

00:10:17 ◼   ► But for me, it's great.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:10:20 ◼   ► I love the watch for Apple Pay.

00:10:23 ◼   ► I do that whenever I can.

00:10:25 ◼   ► It is funny.

00:10:26 ◼   ► I mean, you mentioned it.

00:10:27 ◼   ► They're the places that are the reliable ones.

00:10:29 ◼   ► I have built a map in my brain of the local merchants

00:10:34 ◼   ► that I know support it.

00:10:36 ◼   ► And I always use it with them.

00:10:38 ◼   ► And then I'm always keeping my eye out for the other ones

00:10:40 ◼   ► to see if I can add them to that list.

00:10:42 ◼   ► So I'm making a little--

00:10:43 ◼   ► like, I'm constructing a little list of where I want to use it.

00:10:47 ◼   ► Because I'd always prefer to use it, honestly.

00:10:49 ◼   ► So there's an ice cream shop, a couple of exits up the freeway in Larkspur that I know

00:10:55 ◼   ► has Apple Pay.

00:10:56 ◼   ► So if we go there after we see a movie or something like that with the kids, I know

00:10:59 ◼   ► I can Apple Pay there.

00:11:00 ◼   ► And there's a burger place downtown in Mill Valley that does Apple Pay.

00:11:05 ◼   ► And I love it.

00:11:06 ◼   ► It's great.

00:11:07 ◼   ► But then it's definitely a case where it's still, I know the places where you can do

00:11:12 ◼   ► it instead of assuming that you can do it everywhere and then marking off the places

00:11:17 ◼   ► you can't.

00:11:18 ◼   ► - You can't, yeah. - That's not.

00:11:19 ◼   ► I wish we were there, but we're not.

00:11:22 ◼   ► And the main grocery store we shop at

00:11:24 ◼   ► does not support anything like contactless,

00:11:27 ◼   ► although I think their terminals support it,

00:11:29 ◼   ► it's just not turned on, which is incredibly frustrating.

00:11:33 ◼   ► But maybe they'll get there.

00:11:34 ◼   ► I also realized the other day,

00:11:35 ◼   ► since we got an electric car,

00:11:37 ◼   ► which I mentioned on the show before,

00:11:38 ◼   ► we got a used Nissan Leaf,

00:11:39 ◼   ► what I've discovered is Whole Foods is really leaning into

00:11:45 ◼   ► the Whole Foods stereotype, because I've

00:11:49 ◼   ► discovered that in addition to Whole Foods supporting Apple Pay

00:11:51 ◼   ► everywhere, many-- not all, but many Whole Foods locations also

00:11:55 ◼   ► have--

00:11:57 ◼   ► Electric car chargers?

00:11:58 ◼   ► --have the level two electric car chargers out front,

00:12:01 ◼   ► because I was looking at a map of like,

00:12:02 ◼   ► where are the car chargers?

00:12:04 ◼   ► And there are a lot of Whole Foods parking lots

00:12:06 ◼   ► that have those car chargers too.

00:12:08 ◼   ► So yes, why not?

00:12:10 ◼   ► Just embrace it.

00:12:10 ◼   ► Embrace what you are.

00:12:12 ◼   ► Everybody already thinks that it's the people with electric cars and iPhones that are going

00:12:17 ◼   ► to Whole Foods to buy their granola, I guess.

00:12:21 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Home roasted granola, Jason.

00:12:25 ◼   ► Sure that's it.

00:12:26 ◼   ► And also their kale.

00:12:28 ◼   ► They buy some fresh kale there to do whatever it is one does with kale.

00:12:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I like to fry it in bacon grease.

00:12:38 ◼   ► Yeah, lots of butter to make it edible.

00:12:41 ◼   ► You know, Blue Apron does things with kale.

00:12:44 ◼   ► I have no idea how you cook kale in the real world, but with Blue Apron recipes, I can

00:12:48 ◼   ► kind of figure it out.

00:12:49 ◼   ► Yes.

00:12:50 ◼   ► If only they were a sponsor, that would be a perfect segue.

00:12:52 ◼   ► I know.

00:12:53 ◼   ► If only.

00:12:54 ◼   ► Not this soon.

00:12:55 ◼   ► Instead, let me tell you about one of our other sponsors this week.

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00:14:07 ◼   ► you to Encapsula for their support of all of Relay FM, but most importantly for their

00:14:11 ◼   ► support of Upgrade. So, one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about is iTunes.

00:14:19 ◼   ► Oh boy. Because last week, an interesting thing happened that might, you know, it might

00:14:27 ◼   ► not mean anything, but it feels to me like it means something. And I wrote about it on

00:14:33 ◼   ► 6 Colors, and I know a lot of people have thought about this, and I'm curious what you

00:14:36 ◼   ► think about the future of iTunes so last week what happened is that the the

00:14:42 ◼   ► iTunes podcast directory that's existed for more than a decade now or about a

00:14:48 ◼   ► decade I'm not sure if it's more but it's it's it's about a decade at least

00:14:52 ◼   ► if not a little bit longer I was I was actually at the D conference when they

00:14:57 ◼   ► announced this feature when Steve Jobs went on stage I think it was the same

00:15:00 ◼   ► year that he and Bill Gates were on stage together maybe I don't know sounds

00:15:05 ◼   ► right but five yeah five something like that yeah I don't know I didn't write

00:15:12 ◼   ► that part down for the show sorry everybody I don't email me I'm sure we

00:15:15 ◼   ► got it slightly wrong but in general it was a while ago and and it was actually

00:15:20 ◼   ► it predates one of the trivia things that I enjoy about this is it is so

00:15:24 ◼   ► Apple builds this whole music sales infrastructure and that's iTunes they

00:15:29 ◼   ► build the whole thing because they want to sell music for the iPod that was that

00:15:32 ◼   ► That was the whole idea.

00:15:34 ◼   ► But now that they've got this whole digital sales infrastructure and they're taking credit

00:15:37 ◼   ► cards, they start to think, "What else could we do with it?"

00:15:40 ◼   ► And one of the first things they do with it is they want to get on the podcast bandwagon,

00:15:45 ◼   ► because that was the period in 2005-ish where people thought podcasts were going to be big,

00:15:49 ◼   ► and it turned out that was maybe five, seven, eight years too soon.

00:15:55 ◼   ► So they applied the iTunes back end and made a podcast directory where people could submit

00:16:00 ◼   ► podcasts and podcasts would be there and they tied it into iTunes and it has remained kind

00:16:06 ◼   ► of the iTunes podcast directory ever since. Even though, you know, more famously a couple

00:16:11 ◼   ► years later they made the App Store out of iTunes and that was a real, a big win for

00:16:16 ◼   ► them that they already had that in place so all they had to do was sort of turn their

00:16:21 ◼   ► music sales product into an app sales product.

00:16:25 ◼   ► - Magically.

00:16:27 ◼   ► - It was, yeah, well, I mean, I do wonder sometimes

00:16:29 ◼   ► about how much longer they might have taken

00:16:31 ◼   ► to do the App Store if they had had to build it from scratch

00:16:35 ◼   ► but they had iTunes, so they just repurposed it.

00:16:38 ◼   ► So everything, this is one of the backstories about iTunes

00:16:40 ◼   ► is everything has been poured into iTunes

00:16:42 ◼   ► because it was there and it was convenient.

00:16:44 ◼   ► So last week they changed the branding on that.

00:16:47 ◼   ► They said, "We don't wanna call it

00:16:49 ◼   ► "the iTunes podcast anymore.

00:16:51 ◼   ► "Get this on iTunes," used to be like

00:16:52 ◼   ► the button they provided.

00:16:53 ◼   ► it's like, "Yay, iTunes!" Which is already a problem, right? Because the podcast app

00:16:58 ◼   ► is not iTunes on iOS. It's podcasts. It's already not using that branding. So, last

00:17:04 ◼   ► week it officially became Apple Podcasts and the iTunes brand was removed from an existing

00:17:09 ◼   ► Apple product, just replaced with this trend in Apple product naming, which is Apple followed

00:17:15 ◼   ► by this sort of generic name of what it is. So, the question is, outside of just the wisdom

00:17:23 ◼   ► of rebranding this as Apple Podcasts, which I think makes a lot of sense. If the majority

00:17:27 ◼   ► of your users are on iOS, which they are, they are using the Apple Podcasts app. They

00:17:33 ◼   ► never see iTunes. The iTunes app on iOS isn't for podcasts. It's for selling, it's for buying

00:17:38 ◼   ► music and other media. So, okay, that makes sense. But what does this mean for iTunes?

00:17:45 ◼   ► Is this step one in the demise of iTunes as we know it?

00:17:51 ◼   ► I actually think it's more like step five,

00:17:54 ◼   ► if I'm looking at this from a larger picture.

00:17:56 ◼   ► Because-- - I like it.

00:17:57 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:17:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:17:59 ◼   ► And let me tell you what--

00:18:01 ◼   ► - Back me up, I wanna hear, yeah.

00:18:03 ◼   ► - As you pointed out, a lot of people on iOS,

00:18:06 ◼   ► iTunes is not their first, their second,

00:18:08 ◼   ► or even really their third interaction source.

00:18:11 ◼   ► On iOS, you've got the podcasts app,

00:18:13 ◼   ► you've got the music app, you've got the videos app, right?

00:18:17 ◼   ► You've now got the TV app now.

00:18:19 ◼   ► - TV app, yeah. - Yeah.

00:18:20 ◼   ► You have all of these applications,

00:18:23 ◼   ► and App Store, of course, is its own separate thing.

00:18:25 ◼   ► iTunes is actually almost impossible to get to

00:18:29 ◼   ► from the music app, which I found when I was trying

00:18:32 ◼   ► to help somebody on Twitter where they're like,

00:18:34 ◼   ► hey, is there an easy way if I see an Apple music track

00:18:37 ◼   ► I like to buy it on iTunes?

00:18:39 ◼   ► And the answer is no, because Apple didn't actually

00:18:42 ◼   ► build in a functionality to be like, buy this song.

00:18:46 ◼   ► In fact, there's really no way to get to the iTunes store

00:18:50 ◼   ► from the music app and Apple Music.

00:18:53 ◼   ► So people coming into the iOS ecosystem

00:18:56 ◼   ► who don't know that iTunes is the place to buy,

00:19:00 ◼   ► like they just go into the music app, right?

00:19:02 ◼   ► And it's like Apple Music, subscription music.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Okay, let's do that.

00:19:06 ◼   ► They don't think about the fact

00:19:07 ◼   ► that there's this whole separate app here

00:19:09 ◼   ► that can actually have you buy songs or interact with it.

00:19:13 ◼   ► They're almost completely separate on this platform.

00:19:17 ◼   ► And almost the same with the TV app.

00:19:22 ◼   ► That's still a little bit of a bridge.

00:19:25 ◼   ► I'm trying to think about the most recent update to TV here.

00:19:28 ◼   ► Because you've got your Watch Now.

00:19:30 ◼   ► But yeah, you've got your Store button.

00:19:31 ◼   ► And the store will actually let you grab the apps.

00:19:36 ◼   ► And it will sort of let you look at new releases on iTunes.

00:19:39 ◼   ► I think you can-- yeah, you can buy movies

00:19:42 ◼   ► from inside the TV app.

00:19:44 ◼   ► So you don't actually even have to go into iTunes anymore

00:19:47 ◼   ► to get that stuff.

00:19:49 ◼   ► So really, the only time that you'd ever

00:19:51 ◼   ► be using iTunes on iOS is if you specifically

00:19:54 ◼   ► knew you wanted to buy a song or buy an album

00:19:57 ◼   ► and you went out of your way to go in there and find it.

00:20:01 ◼   ► It's not on the-- is it even on the front page anymore

00:20:05 ◼   ► of the default app, like the icons?

00:20:07 ◼   ► I don't actually know.

00:20:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:09 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:20:10 ◼   ► I mean, it's always been kind of an afterthought on iOS.

00:20:12 ◼   ► like, oh, there's an iTunes app, and what does it do?

00:20:15 ◼   ► Well, it's all cart music purchases

00:20:18 ◼   ► that you can do there, which you need to have if you're trying

00:20:21 ◼   ► to wean people away from syncing with a computer, which they are.

00:20:26 ◼   ► They absolutely are.

00:20:28 ◼   ► They don't want people to have to do that.

00:20:30 ◼   ► They want people to optionally do that.

00:20:33 ◼   ► So no, you're right.

00:20:34 ◼   ► You're exactly right.

00:20:35 ◼   ► The move away from iTunes has been

00:20:37 ◼   ► happening on iOS for a long time because we

00:20:40 ◼   ► We have these standalone apps that do what on the Mac and Windows, but I focus on the

00:20:47 ◼   ► Mac, so I think about the Mac and the Mac version is more important to Apple than the

00:20:51 ◼   ► Windows version probably.

00:20:54 ◼   ► It's still monolithic there, but when they made the decision on iOS to build this stuff,

00:20:58 ◼   ► they built it all in separate apps.

00:20:59 ◼   ► There's a music app, then a TV app, and an iTunes app that is just the store, iTunes

00:21:05 ◼   ► store app, really.

00:21:07 ◼   ► So that's step one.

00:21:09 ◼   ► So what's the, well let's say there are a bunch of issues here.

00:21:12 ◼   ► So many.

00:21:13 ◼   ► So overall, like iTunes brand, like iTunes as a brand, does it have value today or is

00:21:19 ◼   ► it just kind of old and you know reminiscent of the mid 2000s when downloading music to

00:21:27 ◼   ► your iPod was a thing?

00:21:28 ◼   ► Well let's think, I mean the iBrand in general, is there anything outside of iTunes and the

00:21:33 ◼   ► iMac that still has the iBrand?

00:21:35 ◼   ► Oh the iPhone.

00:21:36 ◼   ► iPhone.

00:21:37 ◼   ► Yeah that's true.

00:21:38 ◼   ► That's true.

00:21:39 ◼   ► It's like hardware.

00:21:40 ◼   ► Yeah, hardware.

00:21:41 ◼   ► Existing hardware that's popular.

00:21:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:43 ◼   ► But if you think about like, you have the Apple Watch and Apple TV, right?

00:21:51 ◼   ► And anything that they have branded since the late 2000s, they've really gone heavy

00:21:57 ◼   ► on let's brand with Apple as opposed to branding with i.

00:22:02 ◼   ► Or just keep the, take the Apple away from it entirely.

00:22:05 ◼   ► the TV app, the music app, because it's part of your iPhone.

00:22:11 ◼   ► It is interesting to me from a Mac perspective, as you said, because if you look at the difference

00:22:16 ◼   ► between the way that you manage your media and your various things on iPhone versus the

00:22:21 ◼   ► way that you manage it on the Mac, iTunes is and has been for about six years a big,

00:22:28 ◼   ► bloated, craptastic piece of software.

00:22:30 ◼   ► Yeah, at least six years.

00:22:33 ◼   ► It's probably in its best shape that it's ever been in.

00:22:36 ◼   ► But I'm looking at like I'm staring at iTunes right now while I'm on this call with you.

00:22:42 ◼   ► And the way-

00:22:43 ◼   ► Don't look directly into the face of iTunes.

00:22:44 ◼   ► No, you'll hurt yourself.

00:22:45 ◼   ► Oh, my eyes!

00:22:47 ◼   ► Yeah, like iTunes has, in lieu of having different apps, it just has this very long drop down

00:22:56 ◼   ► menu which if you ever press edit menu, you can actually see all of like the hidden ones.

00:23:01 ◼   ► So you've got music and movies and TV shows and podcasts and also iTunes U, which is still

00:23:05 ◼   ► a thing, and apps and audiobooks and ringtones, which I completely forgot that you could still

00:23:11 ◼   ► get on iTunes for the Mac, internet radio and shared libraries if you use home sharing

00:23:16 ◼   ► at all.

00:23:17 ◼   ► So you've got all of these things smashed into this program that's trying to be everything

00:23:22 ◼   ► for everybody.

00:23:23 ◼   ► And at its heart, iTunes is a music player.

00:23:26 ◼   ► Like that's what it was designed to be.

00:23:27 ◼   ► It was designed to be a place where you can easily manage your music library.

00:23:32 ◼   ► But it, over the years, has started, you know, basically being a holding facility for where

00:23:37 ◼   ► you put your music and your movies and your TV shows and your podcasts and your apps.

00:23:42 ◼   ► Although thankfully, fingers crossed, hopefully many fewer people are syncing manually to

00:23:48 ◼   ► iTunes with their phones.

00:23:49 ◼   ► They're all using iCloud at this point in time.

00:23:53 ◼   ► I have heard from people after I wrote about this last week.

00:23:57 ◼   ► I heard from some people, and there are definitely people who still sync, especially like their

00:24:02 ◼   ► music libraries. They've got a big music library, and they don't want to use iTunes, you know,

00:24:07 ◼   ► Match or iTunes in the cloud. Which you can do, right, you can do that and not do Apple

00:24:12 ◼   ► Music, and you can still pay Apple for the cloud syncing service, and it works fine most

00:24:18 ◼   ► of the time. Sometimes it breaks, but it's better than it's been in a while. I used it

00:24:22 ◼   ► for a long time and I still have a very large library that uses that functionality sort

00:24:28 ◼   ► of in parallel with Apple Music for stuff that isn't in the Apple Music library.

00:24:32 ◼   ► But I hear from those people, they're like, "No, we still use it."

00:24:35 ◼   ► It's like, I get that you still use it, but I think that kind of use is no longer mainstream.

00:24:47 ◼   ► And I think Apple really doesn't want it to be mainstream.

00:24:50 ◼   ► So one of the things I think it's hard to get over when we talk about maybe the end

00:24:54 ◼   ► or de-emphasizing of iTunes as an app on the Mac is this idea that just because Apple may—I

00:25:02 ◼   ► keep referring to QuickTime 7, I've been referring to QuickTime 7 a lot this last week,

00:25:06 ◼   ► which is like QuickTime 7 does things that the QuickTime Player X doesn't do.

00:25:10 ◼   ► And will never do.

00:25:12 ◼   ► And will never do, and it's more functional.

00:25:14 ◼   ► And as a result, it's still kicking around.

00:25:18 ◼   ► And I use it all the time, but it's just put in a little case somewhere by Apple that,

00:25:24 ◼   ► like, you need it, it's right there, but we don't care anymore.

00:25:29 ◼   ► And I feel like that is the most likely trajectory for iTunes if Apple decides to sort of do

00:25:35 ◼   ► on the Mac what Apple does right now on iOS, which is not to say to these people like Kirk

00:25:41 ◼   ► Mark McElhern, who has all his classical music collection,

00:25:43 ◼   ► he syncs it all through iTunes.

00:25:45 ◼   ► Like, not to say you can't do that anymore,

00:25:47 ◼   ► or you have to use iTunes Match,

00:25:48 ◼   ► but to say, you can still do that,

00:25:51 ◼   ► but it's over there in that case, right?

00:25:53 ◼   ► Like, with QuickTime 7.

00:25:54 ◼   ► It's over there, we're not gonna promote it,

00:25:56 ◼   ► we're not gonna really update it,

00:25:57 ◼   ► other than to make sure that it still works.

00:25:59 ◼   ► And if you really need to go down that path,

00:26:02 ◼   ► and sync, and maybe even like,

00:26:04 ◼   ► if you really need to sync anything via a cable

00:26:07 ◼   ► with your iPhone, it's there.

00:26:09 ◼   ► but we don't consider that the mainstream anymore.

00:26:11 ◼   ► And then-- and my feeling is that that's what they probably

00:26:16 ◼   ► should do.

00:26:18 ◼   ► And the only thing that gives me hesitation is it

00:26:21 ◼   ► seems like it's a lot of work.

00:26:23 ◼   ► Like, it's a lot--

00:26:24 ◼   ► it's a big project to take that stuff apart on the Mac

00:26:27 ◼   ► and do something new on the Mac.

00:26:29 ◼   ► And the podcast thing makes me think maybe they're

00:26:32 ◼   ► ready to do it, because it is a huge project.

00:26:35 ◼   ► And maybe that's the reason why iTunes has kind of lingered

00:26:38 ◼   ► its weird state for so long but maybe this is the beginning of the or as you

00:26:42 ◼   ► said the the next step in the transition away from this monolithic iTunes. The slow

00:26:48 ◼   ► dismantling of the iTunes Empire. Well yeah because they like it to be

00:26:52 ◼   ► parallel right just like address book is now contacts because they want this as

00:26:56 ◼   ► much stuff to be parallel between iOS and Mac as possible. And then there's

00:26:59 ◼   ► exactly and then there's the media stuff which is not remotely parallel. No and

00:27:05 ◼   ► And you make a really great point about trying to separate the various components of iTunes

00:27:12 ◼   ► is going to be a huge undertaking and probably has been a huge undertaking over the last

00:27:17 ◼   ► few years.

00:27:19 ◼   ► And I'm curious how they will do it because I do think that eventually music is going

00:27:24 ◼   ► to split into its own app and the TV app is going to like the TV app is inevitably going

00:27:29 ◼   ► to end up on the Mac because it is the only device save for the Apple Watch where it doesn't

00:27:34 ◼   ► exist right now.

00:27:35 ◼   ► I know, right?

00:27:36 ◼   ► I mean, it would be funny if that's the thing that pushes it over the edge, is we gotta

00:27:40 ◼   ► do this because we want that TV app to be everywhere.

00:27:43 ◼   ► Can you imagine if Apple launches their TV streaming service, if they're rumored TV streaming

00:27:48 ◼   ► service and they have to launch it through iTunes?

00:27:50 ◼   ► I can just imagine somebody like Phil Scheller just blowing a gasket and just being like,

00:27:56 ◼   ► "No!

00:27:57 ◼   ► This is happening now!

00:27:58 ◼   ► I refuse!"

00:27:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:00 ◼   ► it is not very strategic, right, to have one of their major platforms be so far behind

00:28:06 ◼   ► on this stuff. If they've got new initiatives, right, if it's just the old stuff, they can

00:28:10 ◼   ► kind of hand wave it. And with Apple Music, that's what they did, is they just sort of

00:28:15 ◼   ► retrofitted Apple Music into iTunes, which I use iTunes with Apple Music every day, and

00:28:21 ◼   ► I have come to terms with it. Like, I know how to get what I need out of it, but it's

00:28:27 ◼   ► super weird and like the fact that you

00:28:30 ◼   ► don't know if you've noticed this like

00:28:31 ◼   ► depending on where you are in the app

00:28:33 ◼   ► the search box searches different things

00:28:36 ◼   ► because if you're in a store context you

00:28:39 ◼   ► will search the store but if you're in a

00:28:41 ◼   ► music context outside of the store you

00:28:43 ◼   ► will search Apple music or your own

00:28:45 ◼   ► library like how weird is that and you

00:28:47 ◼   ► can't do like choose no no no I want to

00:28:50 ◼   ► search in Apple music if you're in a

00:28:51 ◼   ► place where it's searching the store

00:28:52 ◼   ► it's like Apple music has ceased to exist

00:28:55 ◼   ► It's so strange. Or if you're in your library. It's so frustrating. Yeah, so they drop it all in there and it's kind of a mess.

00:29:02 ◼   ► So, yeah, I, I, the name itself, right, is pointless. As we said, the icon is pointless. It's got musical notes.

00:29:13 ◼   ► It has not been about music or tunes in so long and I don't think, you know, there are a lot of things that have names that are not great fits.

00:29:22 ◼   ► You could even argue the iPhone is not a great fit.

00:29:24 ◼   ► We call all these things phones,

00:29:25 ◼   ► and that's not really what they are,

00:29:27 ◼   ► but you just kind of have come to accept it.

00:29:30 ◼   ► I've come to accept that MacBook is a fine product name,

00:29:32 ◼   ► even though I always hated it,

00:29:33 ◼   ► because I like the PowerBook so much.

00:29:35 ◼   ► - Of course.

00:29:36 ◼   ► - But it's just, you know,

00:29:38 ◼   ► it's sort of a mismatched brand.

00:29:40 ◼   ► It doesn't really mean anything,

00:29:42 ◼   ► except when it means everything.

00:29:43 ◼   ► So the hurdle to me has always been the desktop app,

00:29:47 ◼   ► and then we talked about that a few minutes ago,

00:29:50 ◼   ► the idea that there's stuff that that app needs to do. And the argument I get a lot

00:29:56 ◼   ► from people saying it's not going to happen is, "But they can't do it because on the Mac

00:30:00 ◼   ► and especially on Windows, they have this whole, you know, syncing system and all the

00:30:05 ◼   ► stuff that's built in and they're not going to put the effort in to build a new Windows

00:30:09 ◼   ► app and all of that." And I feel like some of that I can just go back to saying iTunes

00:30:15 ◼   ► will remain on a shelf really boring for and maybe that's what's on Windows too or maybe

00:30:21 ◼   ► not. But I feel like the existence of a few outliers is not enough for Apple to have its

00:30:30 ◼   ► strategy not come to the Mac that it puts everywhere else.

00:30:33 ◼   ► Well, yeah, and at a certain point, as you said, it's going to become a hindrance. It's

00:30:37 ◼   ► not something that they can do, you know, exponentially until the, you know, they can't

00:30:44 ◼   ► keep putting it off and being like, well, maybe this is the year that nobody will use

00:30:47 ◼   ► Macs anymore because that's not like that's not how this works. This is it's not how it

00:30:51 ◼   ► works. I you know, of like far out ideas, one of the ones that I kind of tossed in my

00:30:57 ◼   ► head is maybe they'll turn iTunes into a desktop iCloud application, kind of like what they

00:31:03 ◼   ► have with iCloud.com. But if they did that, they'd have to, you know, link in photos and

00:31:08 ◼   ► all of that. So what I really think is going to happen is that if they have to have the

00:31:12 ◼   ► the syncing component, if the syncing component has to stick around with the next iPhone.

00:31:17 ◼   ► And who knows, maybe the next iPhone has a technology where it can just, you know, we

00:31:21 ◼   ► already have Wi-Fi sync, maybe it will magically just can automatically connect to your Mac

00:31:26 ◼   ► via continuity and pull everything automatically, everything's in sync magic.

00:31:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:33 ◼   ► When I can dream.

00:31:34 ◼   ► Continuity, by the way, by the way, that's one of those great missing features of Handoff

00:31:38 ◼   ► is that you still can't hand off the music you're playing in the music app on iOS to

00:31:42 ◼   ► iTunes on the Mac or vice versa. Because of issues in iTunes. I'm gonna blame it on iTunes even if that's not true. It is totally iTunes's fault. Because that's the most natural thing in the world. I play music on my desktop and then I'm about to go for a run and I just want to keep the

00:31:56 ◼   ► playlist going and it's all Apple music and I can't do it. They're just

00:32:00 ◼   ► maddening. There was an app in 2010 named Seamless that did this. Yeah. And it was

00:32:07 ◼   ► beautiful. And for Pete's sake, like the first ever iPod commercial, basically not quite

00:32:14 ◼   ► advertised this, but was basically like, hey, wouldn't it be cool if you start listening on

00:32:18 ◼   ► your Mac and then you could pick it up on your on your iPod?

00:32:22 ◼   ► And obviously the wireless part wasn't in context, but people have been wanting to do this

00:32:27 ◼   ► to move their music from where they are to where they're going for for years.

00:32:32 ◼   ► So, yes, I share your frustration with that.

00:32:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:37 ◼   ► So-- go ahead.

00:32:38 ◼   ► No, I was just going to say, I think what will happen--

00:32:41 ◼   ► my prediction hat on here-- is that we get a drastically

00:32:46 ◼   ► simplified syncing app.

00:32:48 ◼   ► And maybe it's called iCloud.

00:32:50 ◼   ► Maybe it still stays as iTunes.

00:32:52 ◼   ► Maybe it's just Sync.

00:32:53 ◼   ► You know, do you remember Mobile Sync?

00:32:55 ◼   ► The late, great Mobile Sync?

00:32:58 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly, and iSync.

00:33:01 ◼   ► Yeah, Sync app.

00:33:02 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:02 ◼   ► A Sync app that syncs your data between your Mac.

00:33:04 ◼   ► I mean, at that point, I'm not even sure that's an app.

00:33:07 ◼   ► That's like a--

00:33:07 ◼   ► It's a utility almost.

00:33:08 ◼   ► --system preferences panel or something.

00:33:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:10 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I can see it being an app

00:33:12 ◼   ► because you need to have something pop up and just

00:33:14 ◼   ► be like, hi, you've connected your iPhone.

00:33:16 ◼   ► But--

00:33:16 ◼   ► That's true.

00:33:17 ◼   ► That's right.

00:33:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:18 ◼   ► Simple.

00:33:19 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:33:20 ◼   ► When you connect your iPhone to iTunes,

00:33:23 ◼   ► you already have hooks going into other programs via--

00:33:26 ◼   ► the Contacts app doesn't live in music,

00:33:30 ◼   ► and the Photos app doesn't live in iTunes.

00:33:32 ◼   ► So if they can hook into outside apps with those,

00:33:35 ◼   ► they should be able to hook into an inevitable music app,

00:33:39 ◼   ► podcast app, TV app.

00:33:40 ◼   ► It's just a matter of time and whether or not

00:33:42 ◼   ► they're actually willing to devote the resources to it.

00:33:45 ◼   ► But hopefully they will.

00:33:47 ◼   ► - One of my favorite things that iTunes does

00:33:48 ◼   ► that people don't know is,

00:33:50 ◼   ► if you're not using iCloud Photo Library

00:33:52 ◼   ► and you want your photos from Photos for Mac

00:33:56 ◼   ► to show on your Apple TV, how do you do that?

00:34:00 ◼   ► And the answer is, you have to go to iTunes and configure photo sharing in iTunes and

00:34:09 ◼   ► select what photos, albums you want to make available, and then those are made available

00:34:15 ◼   ► to the Apple TV, which is just bananas.

00:34:19 ◼   ► But that's how you do it because, again, somebody said the only—and I don't think

00:34:24 ◼   ► somebody said the best place to put this is iTunes.

00:34:26 ◼   ► I think somebody said the only way we can really do this is to just throw another thing

00:34:31 ◼   ► into iTunes. And that's the story of that whole app.

00:34:35 ◼   ► In terms of what's missing, you mentioned ringtones earlier. That's a good example

00:34:38 ◼   ► where I have a lot of custom ringtones, and they are only, I think to this point, still

00:34:43 ◼   ► only accessible by syncing from iTunes, which is ridiculous. And there are a couple of things

00:34:48 ◼   ► like this where I feel like the last missing pieces, unless they do the thing where they

00:34:53 ◼   ► point to iTunes on the shelf and say just if you need that feature go get the

00:34:56 ◼   ► old app and use it and good luck. But ringtones is one where it's like

00:35:01 ◼   ► shouldn't this be easier to send a file an audio file to your iPhone and say use

00:35:07 ◼   ► this as a ringtone from your Mac or or just add a file on your iPhone and say I

00:35:11 ◼   ► want to use this as a ringtone. And the other one is transferring large files

00:35:15 ◼   ► which I do when I edit podcasts I actually plug my iPad Pro into my Mac

00:35:20 ◼   ► and I take the big audio files off my Mac and you have to go it's a thing

00:35:24 ◼   ► people a lot of people don't even know about like you go into the apps section

00:35:28 ◼   ► of your device in iTunes and scroll down to the bottom and you can see every app

00:35:33 ◼   ► that's got a little its own little storage area and you can click on that

00:35:36 ◼   ► and then you can just drag files in from the finder and they transfer into that

00:35:40 ◼   ► app storage area which is great but it's a terrible interface but at least it

00:35:45 ◼   ► lets me do it and I had that thought of like maybe you just keep that in iTunes

00:35:49 ◼   ► but it would be really nice and hear me out here this I know this seems just

00:35:53 ◼   ► like a crazy idea to do this but imagine if you could attach an iOS device to a

00:35:58 ◼   ► Mac via a cable and the iOS device just showed up in the finder drag files into

00:36:04 ◼   ► it like imagine right no that sounds crazy doesn't sound like I mean yeah

00:36:11 ◼   ► right I mean iCloud drive is great but like I'm not gonna do iCloud Drive for

00:36:15 ◼   ► my giant media files because really all I want to do, I don't want to launder them

00:36:19 ◼   ► through the cloud. I just I have them here. I want to put them there and I

00:36:23 ◼   ► realize this is kind of an esoteric use but and we're going to talk about the

00:36:26 ◼   ► iPad Pro in a little bit but if you're going to use iOS devices for

00:36:31 ◼   ► professional purposes too, having the ability to drag and drop large files and

00:36:35 ◼   ► load up those devices before you leave the office is probably a feature you

00:36:39 ◼   ► want and it's there now but it's buried like five levels deep in iTunes so I do

00:36:44 ◼   ► I do wonder if part of the story is not just coming up with some new apps, but it's also

00:36:48 ◼   ► syncing some Mac and iOS things so that some of this stuff just doesn't need, like why

00:36:55 ◼   ► is that in iTunes?

00:36:56 ◼   ► It doesn't need to be in iTunes.

00:36:58 ◼   ► It's arbitrary file drag and drop.

00:37:00 ◼   ► It doesn't need to be synced.

00:37:01 ◼   ► It doesn't need to be managed.

00:37:03 ◼   ► You know, you literally are just dragging from point A to point B. Why not make it easier?

00:37:07 ◼   ► That's a great question.

00:37:08 ◼   ► And it's funny because Apple already does a variation of this.

00:37:12 ◼   ► anytime you connect your iPhone to your Mac, you can pull all of its media files, its photos

00:37:18 ◼   ► and videos that you shoot off via another, you know, long winded application of Apple's

00:37:23 ◼   ► that they don't really update, which is image capture. You know, if there was an image capture

00:37:27 ◼   ► type app just for the entire system of the iPhone where it's just like, hey, here's here's

00:37:33 ◼   ► all of your you know, your accessible stuff. Go at it, have at it, drag things to your

00:37:39 ◼   ► folders, be done.

00:37:41 ◼   ► Right. Well, maybe we'll see some of this, although I do feel like the reason I keep talking about the iTunes on the shelf, like the alpha on the shelf, iTunes on the shelf, oh god, we got iTunes again, where is it today, oh no, is that it frees Apple from some of this, right?

00:37:59 ◼   ► It allows Apple to say, "Hey Kirk, we love that you've got all that classical music

00:38:05 ◼   ► that you sync directly.

00:38:07 ◼   ► Keep doing that over there.

00:38:09 ◼   ► Take it over there."

00:38:10 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:38:11 ◼   ► We're not going to tell you not to do it anymore, but this music app that we're doing

00:38:14 ◼   ► is not going to do it because it's all about Apple Music and whatever you've synced

00:38:19 ◼   ► using iTunes Match.

00:38:22 ◼   ► Or maybe it's just Apple Music, right?

00:38:24 ◼   ► Although, I mean, on iOS it supports that.

00:38:27 ◼   ► Apple Music is, but the whole point of Apple Music is that it is your streaming library,

00:38:31 ◼   ► but also your home media library. The fact that you don't have to consider what is what or move

00:38:36 ◼   ► things certain places. I just had that moment where I thought like I'm in the position Apple's

00:38:41 ◼   ► in where you start talking about iTunes match and you think, okay, well, are we building iTunes

00:38:46 ◼   ► match into the music app on the Mac? Or are we going to point people at iTunes and say,

00:38:51 ◼   ► go over there, which is a bad experience. What you want to do is say, "Yeah, if you've

00:38:57 ◼   ► got MP3s on your hard drive, just point them to the app and we'll take care of it and we'll

00:39:02 ◼   ► match them or we'll upload them and then you'll be fine." I think that's ideal, right? Although

00:39:07 ◼   ► that's extra features that they could potentially say, "No, it's really just about Apple Music."

00:39:12 ◼   ► I don't know. I hope they don't do that. That's the challenge in building all these new apps

00:39:17 ◼   ► is that you do have to make these decisions because you don't want them to turn into iTunes

00:39:20 ◼   ► again.

00:39:21 ◼   ► to be too big. But I mean, that's another thing about iTunes Match is that iTunes Match is

00:39:27 ◼   ► technically just iCloud Music Library. And in fact, that moniker has taken over in quite a few

00:39:34 ◼   ► places where the idea of having all of your music that you've downloaded in one central place, just

00:39:40 ◼   ► like iCloud Photo Library is part of the Photos app. And the only differential between iTunes

00:39:47 ◼   ► Match and Apple Music's iCloud photo library is that one you get automatically with the

00:39:53 ◼   ► purchase of an Apple Music subscription and one you get if you don't have Apple Music

00:39:58 ◼   ► and you still want to sync your music.

00:40:00 ◼   ► But there's no… since Apple removed DRM files for iCloud Music library on Apple Music

00:40:08 ◼   ► subscriptions, there is literally no difference between an Apple Music iCloud Music library

00:40:14 ◼   ► subscription and an iTunes match iCloud music library subscription. It's the exact same

00:40:19 ◼   ► service. It's just one gets a little bit more things and you pay a little bit more for it

00:40:24 ◼   ► each month.

00:40:25 ◼   ► yep. And that's what I do. I used to have both and then I dropped one and now we're

00:40:31 ◼   ► in that point where that means what's in the cloud you can retrieve and take away and it's

00:40:36 ◼   ► still yours even if you, because the old approach, the fear was you got all your music, you upload

00:40:42 ◼   ► it using, while you're an Apple Music subscriber, you cancel Apple Music. In the meantime, you've

00:40:46 ◼   ► deleted your whole music library because it's in the cloud and you can't get it back.

00:40:50 ◼   ► Just don't do that. But that's not true anymore.

00:40:51 ◼   ► It is not true anymore. And you shouldn't do that, but it's not true

00:40:55 ◼   ► anymore. You can actually get it all because it's not DRM-ing it on the way back down to

00:41:02 ◼   ► you if it's matched it. I don't know. So what do you think, if you were told to predict,

00:41:08 ◼   ► You got that predicting hat?

00:41:09 ◼   ► Put it back on.

00:41:10 ◼   ► What do you think we'll see at WWDC, which is presumably this will be a feature of the

00:41:16 ◼   ► next version of Mac OS?

00:41:18 ◼   ► What do you think we will see?

00:41:20 ◼   ► Well, I 100% I think we're going to get a TV app, unless Apple just decides that no

00:41:27 ◼   ► one's allowed to watch anything on their Macs, which I think is probably a strong move from

00:41:33 ◼   ► them.

00:41:34 ◼   ► I think we're going to get a TV app, which means at the very least we're going to get

00:41:38 ◼   ► that those functionalities and those features separated from iTunes. I would like to say that

00:41:43 ◼   ► we're also going to get a music app that basically just chunks all of the new work they did and puts

00:41:50 ◼   ► it into like a redesigned library. As for what's going to happen with the syncing service, I don't

00:41:56 ◼   ► know, maybe what you say is true and that they carry on iTunes as kind of like a bedraggled

00:42:04 ◼   ► stepchild for a few years while they figure out things. But they might also just, you know, a lot

00:42:10 ◼   ► has been made of the fact that Google offers a lot more storage space for a lot less money. And

00:42:16 ◼   ► Amazon does now too. Apple might come out and also be like, "Hey, you know, iCloud, we're using more

00:42:24 ◼   ► and more stuff here. We've just slashed all of our prices. So now you can get a terabyte of storage

00:42:29 ◼   ► for like, blah, nothing, right?

00:42:32 ◼   ► And now everybody can sign up for Match

00:42:35 ◼   ► and it makes perfect sense because you're not like,

00:42:39 ◼   ► and your libraries aren't restricted, right?

00:42:41 ◼   ► Those are more pie in the sky

00:42:42 ◼   ► versus what is actually going to happen.

00:42:44 ◼   ► But I wouldn't be surprised if Apple found a way

00:42:48 ◼   ► to make iCloud more affordable

00:42:50 ◼   ► so as to make it more appealing for those people

00:42:54 ◼   ► who are still kind of harboring

00:42:55 ◼   ► on their regular old sync systems.

00:42:59 ◼   ► The more that Apple can move the iPhone away

00:43:02 ◼   ► from the plug-in cable aspect, the better it'll be.

00:43:06 ◼   ► Same thing with, oh, we've made wireless AirDrop

00:43:10 ◼   ► really, really simple for big files.

00:43:12 ◼   ► So if you wanna move this brand new,

00:43:16 ◼   ► this big project file that you were working on

00:43:18 ◼   ► in iMovie to iMovie on iPad,

00:43:21 ◼   ► you literally just pop open AirDrop

00:43:23 ◼   ► and it'll drop it in right in the iPad,

00:43:25 ◼   ► app and launch it for you automatically. Magic.

00:43:31 ◼   ► We can hope. I do, um, yeah, if they do a music app, I think for me the big question

00:43:36 ◼   ► is will it try to do a lot of the things that iTunes tries to do, including syncing? Or

00:43:45 ◼   ► is it, or is there a separate, you know, because one way to do it is to have that be, yeah,

00:43:50 ◼   ► sure, you just manage your music library and the music app and then the separate syncing

00:43:53 ◼   ► thing will kick in if you have an iPod Nano or an iPod Shuffle or you want to sync your

00:43:59 ◼   ► library directly to an iOS device, it'll do that. The alternative is the point at the

00:44:07 ◼   ► cabinet where the old software lives, which is not as, that's not the ideal solution,

00:44:13 ◼   ► right? I'm not saying that they should do that. I'm saying that they may do that because

00:44:16 ◼   ► it's expedient and because they don't think that sync by wire is really something that's

00:44:21 ◼   ► anything but a maintenance issue for old ways of approaching it. Wrapped into that is Apple's

00:44:28 ◼   ► view that is always pushing users forward. Because I understand it, it doesn't necessarily

00:44:37 ◼   ► mean that I agree with it. I don't believe that Apple should drop support for syncing

00:44:41 ◼   ► big libraries to iOS devices, but I can see how Apple would not prioritize it because

00:44:47 ◼   ► That is not what they want people to do.

00:44:49 ◼   ► They want to use the cloud to sync all that stuff.

00:44:52 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

00:44:53 ◼   ► All right, well, we will see.

00:44:56 ◼   ► My prediction is I'm going to just kind of go with you too, which is that I think we'll

00:45:02 ◼   ► see something because I think this podcast thing is a canary in the coal mine and that

00:45:06 ◼   ► we will see more even if it's, like you said, the TV app is kind of critical.

00:45:13 ◼   ► But I hope we see the whole story that this is the year that the Mac syncs up to iOS in

00:45:18 ◼   ► terms of media apps and that there's some pro things in there too.

00:45:23 ◼   ► Like I said, I want file transfers and things like that because that would be nice to have

00:45:27 ◼   ► a better interface for that.

00:45:28 ◼   ► All right, we will talk a little bit more about the iPad in a moment after I tell you

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00:48:07 ◼   ► show and all of Relay FM. So Myke put a thing in the document and we never talked about

00:48:13 ◼   ► it and I thought you would be a great person to talk about this with which is about the

00:48:16 ◼   ► iPad. A couple weeks ago Jean-Louis Gasset who used to work at Apple and then worked

00:48:22 ◼   ► at B for a while and was almost the new Mac OS X until they bought Next which was run

00:48:29 ◼   ► by this other guy, Steve Jobs, maybe you've heard of him. Anyway, Jean-Louis Gasset writes

00:48:34 ◼   ► a blog called Monday Note and he wrote a piece called "The iPad Turnaround is Coming" that

00:48:42 ◼   ► I think does a really interesting job of summarizing sort of where we are to the iPad, the initial

00:48:48 ◼   ► fast sales, the fall in sales, Tim Cook continuing to say that this is Apple's vision of the

00:48:55 ◼   ► future of personal computing. Jean-Louis Gesset cites specifically in this

00:49:01 ◼   ► piece which we'll put in the show notes how the iOS update that brought in the

00:49:05 ◼   ► new file system is a great example of how iOS is absolutely Apple's future

00:49:10 ◼   ► operating system and that it offers Apple an indisputable technical

00:49:14 ◼   ► advantage, he says, and in true Myke style, he put the quotes in, I'm going to

00:49:19 ◼   ► read them, "iOS, not macOS, will be the software engine of Apple's future. Mac

00:49:23 ◼   ► Mac fans, I'm one of them, might disagree with Apple's strategy, but here it is in plain

00:49:27 ◼   ► view.

00:49:28 ◼   ► This leads us to an easy guess for future iPad Pros.

00:49:31 ◼   ► We're likely to see linear hardware and software improvements, keyboard screens, stylus, more

00:49:35 ◼   ► independent Windows, plus others we can't think of immersed as we often are in derivative

00:49:40 ◼   ► thought.

00:49:41 ◼   ► All will make the Pros more pro, powerful enough to take business away from the Mac

00:49:45 ◼   ► and Windows PCs.

00:49:46 ◼   ► I like my MacBook, but I can see an iPad Pro on my lap and desk in a not too distant future.

00:49:52 ◼   ► Sunday ID probably. The iPad turnaround is coming he says. So Myke obviously is

00:49:58 ◼   ► excited about this and put in the document and wanted to talk about it. He doesn't get to but we do.

00:50:02 ◼   ► What do you think? What's your feeling right now about sort of where the

00:50:05 ◼   ► iPad and iPad Pro are going in particular? I have great hope about the

00:50:10 ◼   ► iPad and I mean I've been on that bandwagon since the iPad Pro and Apple

00:50:14 ◼   ► Pencil were released because it finally like again this is in my opinion a

00:50:19 ◼   ► justified you so finally. But you know, since 2010, I had been excited about the prospect of

00:50:25 ◼   ► the iPad as a, as an in between as a as a portable computer that really took advantage of the

00:50:31 ◼   ► multitouch interface. And up until the iPad Pro was released, I was like, you know, I like the

00:50:37 ◼   ► concept, but the execution is not so great. Like I didn't have apps that I was regularly using on the

00:50:44 ◼   ► iPad and the styluses, you know, I tried very many of them and none of them were to my liking,

00:50:50 ◼   ► either for virtual writing or for drawing. They just they just weren't good enough,

00:50:54 ◼   ► no matter how hard the stylist makers tried. So to have the iPad Pro come in and basically

00:50:59 ◼   ► completely change the game and just be like, "Hey, you know how Wacom's been developing

00:51:04 ◼   ► their drawing and writing technology for 20 years?" Here's our first attempt at this.

00:51:08 ◼   ► And our first attempt is pretty much on par with some of the best hardware technology and

00:51:14 ◼   ► software technology that's out there. So that indicated to me that Apple actually was putting

00:51:22 ◼   ► some serious thought behind the iPad Pro and not just throwing it away as like, "Here, you guys

00:51:27 ◼   ► wanted a stylus? Here's your stylus." You know, like, "Are you happy now?" Not that I think Apple

00:51:33 ◼   ► ever does that, that they ever throw out things half-assed. But there was a concern, especially

00:51:39 ◼   ► given as Gasset highlights in his piece, given the sort of meteoric fall of iPads when people

00:51:46 ◼   ► are like, "We all bought them and then we didn't know what to do with them." The pros are an iPad

00:51:54 ◼   ► that have a distinct audience in mind. And they didn't do the best job of selling that at first,

00:52:01 ◼   ► but I think the audience kind of like the people who knew that they wanted it, found it. And now

00:52:07 ◼   ► Apple, especially with this latest iPad announcement, I feel like Apple is really

00:52:13 ◼   ► taking a good hard look at iPad and saying, "Okay, we're re-gearing this so that we really

00:52:18 ◼   ► are focusing on the things that people care about." The low-end iPad is a great low-end

00:52:24 ◼   ► computer for a lot of people. A lot of people don't need the whiz-bang of a full Mac. In fact,

00:52:29 ◼   ► my mother uses her iPad, I would say, 75 to 90% of the time. My dad bought her a new touch bar

00:52:36 ◼   ► Mac, and she, I think, uses the laptop maybe one day a week, and she uses her iPad Pro,

00:52:44 ◼   ► the other, you know, six, and she uses it for her work, too.

00:52:48 ◼   ► She's a musician, and she has switched entirely to digital music, and she uses a Bluetooth

00:52:53 ◼   ► pedal to change pages while she plays.

00:52:59 ◼   ► It's a huge, huge, huge deal for my mother, who's in her 60s, who used to have to lug

00:53:04 ◼   ► around 40 pounds of music and now lugs around a 12.9 inch iPad Pro and an iPad Pencil. She

00:53:13 ◼   ► doesn't even use the keyboard. She doesn't need the keyboard. She uses the onscreen keyboard

00:53:16 ◼   ► when she wants to write emails. It's like little things like that. That's why I even

00:53:21 ◼   ► asked all those people about iPad Pro stories. I'm like, "How are people actually using

00:53:25 ◼   ► their iPads?" The responses I got were incredible. I wish I had time to put them all together.

00:53:33 ◼   ► I'm in the process of working on this, but I got 200 responses from people, you know, some people who are aviators and using them in the cockpit, which of course, we've heard about in various news stories. But I've also heard from lawyers who where it's almost completely replaced their like big hulking

00:53:47 ◼   ► dells that they used to drag around, or people who are studying ancient cuneiform who use

00:53:54 ◼   ► the iPad because it's much easier.

00:53:56 ◼   ► They can go to a site and use the rear camera to take a picture of the cuneiform and then

00:54:02 ◼   ► translate it on the fly with the pencil so they can trace shapes and figure out how it

00:54:07 ◼   ► – it's really crazy stuff, right?

00:54:10 ◼   ► I don't think Apple had any of that in mind when they're like, "Let's make an iPad

00:54:14 ◼   ► with a stylus."

00:54:16 ◼   ► So as these as these people are coming out of the woodwork and and as people are really

00:54:20 ◼   ► gravitating towards iPad on the pro end, Apple is also, I think, figured out what makes iPad

00:54:26 ◼   ► successful on the low end.

00:54:27 ◼   ► It's like they they wanted it.

00:54:29 ◼   ► I think in some cases, I almost think that the 2010 iPad was supposed to be the alternative

00:54:36 ◼   ► to a Chromebook, but it wasn't anywhere near where it needed to be.

00:54:40 ◼   ► Now it's ready to be a low end computer for people like now it is ready to be like the

00:54:45 ◼   ► the computer for everyone. And $329 is a computer for everyone. Like if, as I could afford that

00:54:53 ◼   ► as a teenager, I could have gotten myself an iPad as a, as a 13 year old. And then I

00:54:59 ◼   ► would have had a fully functioning computer. And that blows my mind like that, that shows

00:55:03 ◼   ► that Apple is actually paying attention to like, these are what the low end want and

00:55:08 ◼   ► then the high end, we're really going to focus. And I mean, we don't, we haven't seen the

00:55:11 ◼   ► next iPad Pro yet. So I could say all this and then Apple comes out with like a minor

00:55:15 ◼   ► rev. But but honestly, like looking at where everything has been going, looking at the

00:55:21 ◼   ► marketing and the the talk that they have put out specifically regarding the iPad Pro tells me that

00:55:29 ◼   ► they are now they now understand the market that they're in and they now understand like what the

00:55:36 ◼   ► pro users want and also what the general iPad population wants. And hopefully that will result

00:55:42 ◼   ► and really awesome software this June.

00:55:46 ◼   ► - Well, you pointed out something that I think

00:55:49 ◼   ► is the core to all of this, which is the split

00:55:52 ◼   ► in the product line, that the iPad is no longer a product.

00:55:55 ◼   ► It's like two product lines, and there's the one

00:55:58 ◼   ► that is the lower cost, we're not gonna push technology

00:56:01 ◼   ► on the cutting edge, we're going back to the iPad Air 1

00:56:04 ◼   ► design to get the price down for something

00:56:07 ◼   ► that is gonna be good for education or for people

00:56:09 ◼   ► who just want to do email and watch some videos and things like that. And then, they're not

00:56:15 ◼   ► going to do the Amazon, you know, six for a hundred dollars, low-end tablets, right?

00:56:21 ◼   ► But it's going to be in that mid-range, in that sort of like, I think maybe initial vision

00:56:26 ◼   ► of the iPad as like a utility computer for people who don't need a full-blown Mac or

00:56:32 ◼   ► a PC. And then they've got the Pro, and it lets the Pro be more expensive, have better

00:56:37 ◼   ► and in order to follow that up, they need to continue to add features to iOS and software,

00:56:45 ◼   ► not just to the iPad Pro hardware, to take advantage of that, which, you know, I know

00:56:50 ◼   ► you and I have both been beating that drum along with a lot of people we know for a while

00:56:54 ◼   ► now, and with iOS 9, we saw some of it. iOS 10 kind of didn't do anything. I think there

00:56:59 ◼   ► are a lot of hopes being pinned on. Originally, it was on an iOS 10.5 kind of update. Now,

00:57:04 ◼   ► it's, you know, WWDC is in two months, so it's probably an iOS 11 now at this point,

00:57:10 ◼   ► with more pro features. And I feel like it's going to happen, but Apple has to, it's on

00:57:16 ◼   ► Apple, like, it's really on Apple. This is not on the users. I think users are already

00:57:20 ◼   ► pushing the iPad Pro in a lot of places way further than anybody really anticipated, and

00:57:28 ◼   ► keep getting bumping up against the edges of the OS

00:57:31 ◼   ► because Apple has not done enough yet to unlock even more

00:57:36 ◼   ► professional uses of iOS.

00:57:37 ◼   ► And now I feel like it's safe for them

00:57:40 ◼   ► to do it now because they've got a story with the iPad Pro.

00:57:43 ◼   ► They say, we're doing this because our iPad Pro users

00:57:46 ◼   ► want it, which before it was like, eh,

00:57:50 ◼   ► Pro users on the iPad are weird.

00:57:52 ◼   ► And now it's like, no, we have a whole product line for them,

00:57:54 ◼   ► and we are going to serve them.

00:57:55 ◼   ► I hope we see that at WWDC because that's,

00:57:58 ◼   ► as somebody who uses an iPad Pro a whole lot,

00:58:01 ◼   ► that's what I wanna see.

00:58:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely.

00:58:03 ◼   ► And based on the various rumors and whispers I've heard

00:58:07 ◼   ► and other folks have heard coming out of Cupertino.

00:58:09 ◼   ► - Whispers. - Whispers, secrets.

00:58:12 ◼   ► No, I mean, I have a pretty high level of confidence

00:58:16 ◼   ► that those software features have been in the works

00:58:19 ◼   ► for a long time.

00:58:20 ◼   ► It's just been a matter of getting the resources

00:58:22 ◼   ► and the manpower to make them work effectively.

00:58:25 ◼   ► Because if you think about everything that would go into a really good, hardcore iPad

00:58:31 ◼   ► Pro software update, you don't want to just release one feature and then just call it

00:58:35 ◼   ► a day and be like, "See, pros!

00:58:37 ◼   ► We got your back!"

00:58:38 ◼   ► If they're going to say, "We have basically a pro level of our software," or, "We've

00:58:44 ◼   ► released these really awesome pro features," they want to bundle it into a couple different

00:58:48 ◼   ► features.

00:58:49 ◼   ► from what I understand, they only really had like one,

00:58:52 ◼   ► two features semi-ready for iOS 10.

00:58:56 ◼   ► And that was kind of, and that was like,

00:58:58 ◼   ► we don't wanna launch this half-assed.

00:59:00 ◼   ► Like if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it.

00:59:03 ◼   ► - I can see that point from the perspective

00:59:05 ◼   ► of the people building those features,

00:59:07 ◼   ► but you know, it's not like prioritization

00:59:09 ◼   ► is something that's an act of God.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Like some Apple, Apple as a company has to prioritize this

00:59:14 ◼   ► and not just say, well, we'd like to do it,

00:59:16 ◼   ► but we just decided not to.

00:59:18 ◼   ► And the fact that they did do a few features in iOS 9,

00:59:22 ◼   ► and then iOS 10 had almost nothing.

00:59:25 ◼   ► And so basically, it's back in Apple's court.

00:59:29 ◼   ► Like, you've got to put up here, or shut up, I suppose,

00:59:32 ◼   ► is the alternative.

00:59:33 ◼   ► Like, if iPad Pro is going to be pro, where are the pro features?

00:59:36 ◼   ► When are they going to come?

00:59:37 ◼   ► They didn't come in iOS 10.

00:59:39 ◼   ► Looks like it's too late for iOS 10

00:59:40 ◼   ► now, unless there's a big surprise in the offing.

00:59:44 ◼   ► Presumably, all of Apple's engineers

00:59:46 ◼   ► working on the next versions of iOS and Mac OS now so that they can do a

00:59:50 ◼   ► developer preview in two months at WWDC. So what will we see there? I think that's

00:59:55 ◼   ► the big question. Will they tell that story? I really hope they do because it

00:59:59 ◼   ► will have been, you know, two years since split-screen multitasking got introduced

01:00:04 ◼   ► and we need more there. I saw, so yesterday I saw the Windows

01:00:12 ◼   ► Surface Studio for the first time at

01:00:18 ◼   ► Twit. Leo has one on his table at

01:00:21 ◼   ► Twit. And it's funny because when I saw

01:00:25 ◼   ► it the first thing I thought was, "See,

01:00:27 ◼   ► that's what I want in a desktop iPad. I

01:00:31 ◼   ► want a 20-inch, 24-inch thing that's sort

01:00:34 ◼   ► of down lower with a keyboard." He has a

01:00:36 ◼   ► keyboard, you know, and in this case a

01:00:38 ◼   ► mouse and that weird circle thing that

01:00:41 ◼   ► you can stick on it. And I just looked at the ergonomics of it and I thought, I don't

01:00:46 ◼   ► know if the ergonomics would work or not in that down position, but the idea of kind of

01:00:49 ◼   ► like having the touchscreen down and having it be a true--I'm intrigued by that, but what

01:00:55 ◼   ► I didn't think is I want an iMac that does that. That's not what my thought was. My thought

01:00:59 ◼   ► was I want an iPad that does that. Maybe not as big as the Surface Studio, but something

01:01:03 ◼   ► like that. I want a big, honking iPad. Yeah, right? Because I don't always want a screen

01:01:09 ◼   ► that is in my lap. Like sometimes I kind of want to sit down at a table and have a little

01:01:13 ◼   ► more space to organize things. And so I tweeted just off the top of my head, I tweeted about

01:01:19 ◼   ► that. And Leo retweeted me, which is, that's always a problem, right? Because now it's

01:01:23 ◼   ► the tweet audience is going to see this tweet. And I got educated by a lot of people who

01:01:27 ◼   ► don't know who I am, I guess, and like about like what the state of the iPad is and why

01:01:32 ◼   ► iOS is a toy operating system and things like that. I'm like, thank you for teaching me

01:01:36 ◼   ► your strange computer ways. I didn't understand that before. Also the knives that are out

01:01:42 ◼   ► among techie, even Windows oriented techie audience for the Surface Studio, I was surprised

01:01:47 ◼   ► by that too, that there are a lot of people who think that it's kind of a stunt product

01:01:52 ◼   ► and it's not real, you know, a real PC and it's weird and all of the, there's a lot of

01:01:58 ◼   ► weird kind of hostility toward this product. And all I, literally all I meant to do was

01:02:03 ◼   ► kind of observe the fact that when I think about iOS productivity, I inevitably think that that's

01:02:10 ◼   ► what I want to see is a desktop iPad or whatever they would call it because, you know, I could use

01:02:16 ◼   ► that. That could be the replacement for my iMac potentially, but to the point of some of those

01:02:23 ◼   ► people who replied to me on Twitter, is iOS there today to do that? No, it's not. It's not, and

01:02:28 ◼   ► And that's on Apple. Apple has to go down further down that professional path, feature-wise,

01:02:34 ◼   ► on iOS for it to be a reality in the future, because it's not there yet.

01:02:37 ◼   ► No, it's not. And it's funny that you bring up the Surface Studio, because when I first

01:02:44 ◼   ► saw it announced, my jaw kind of dropped to the ground, and I was like, "This is perfect.

01:02:50 ◼   ► Why didn't Apple release it?" Which I'm pretty sure was many people on my Twitter feeds. Like,

01:02:54 ◼   ► Why? Why? Why? But actually, I went into a store pretty much as soon as I could to play around with it.

01:03:03 ◼   ► And like many of Windows's products, you know, Microsoft's products, I found myself being less than thrilled with the execution, which only honestly made me want an Apple version more.

01:03:17 ◼   ► But I completely agree with you with the concept of, no, instead of it being an iMac that also turns into a desktop drawing interface, I essentially, you know, that second screen Apple's talking about, that 5K screen they're going to make for their Mac Pro, I want an iPad Pro that can dock with my iMac and also be its own friggin' thing.

01:03:39 ◼   ► Like I would love a 15, 16 inch iPad Pro that could also use software like Astropad or something to now become a beautiful second screen.

01:03:52 ◼   ► And, you know, I've been testing, um, Elevation Lab has a new iPad standout that it basically tries to make your 12 inch, 12.9 inch iPad Pro into like a mini Cintiq.

01:04:02 ◼   ► It's designed to sit next to your iMac so that you can have a second screen.

01:04:07 ◼   ► And it's and it's quite good.

01:04:08 ◼   ► Like for for what it is, the stand construction is really well made. And the with the iPad Pro, it really does and something like Astropad or, or Air Display, you know, your your choice may vary.

01:04:21 ◼   ► It's really, you know, it really is quite functional, but it's not big enough.

01:04:27 ◼   ► Like it's I would want a little bit bigger for my for my like second screen or even just using the iPad at a desk.

01:04:34 ◼   ► The twelve point nine is like right on the edge of being too small.

01:04:38 ◼   ► I think a 15 inch version would be more preferable.

01:04:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I do think when I wrote a piece about this Mac world a little while ago, the future like the next I think the premise was like the next five iOS

01:04:51 ◼   ► products and and and that was my thought was we will see bigger iOS devices like

01:04:58 ◼   ► we will see bigger like lappable devices that are that are in that 15 17 kind of

01:05:04 ◼   ► category where it's like a tweener and then I do believe that ultimately they

01:05:08 ◼   ► are gonna have to do it and this this requires software support right because

01:05:11 ◼   ► even split split-screen multitasking at 24 inches is ridiculous so they're gonna

01:05:16 ◼   ► need like tiling or windowing or something that allows you to kind of

01:05:21 ◼   ► move things geographically on that big screen but but yeah I feel like that's

01:05:27 ◼   ► an inevitable direction which is not to say the Mac is going to go away but I

01:05:31 ◼   ► think Apple needs to build out build out pro features and build out sizes in iOS

01:05:37 ◼   ► too because people who once you're into iOS you're like okay this is great I

01:05:41 ◼   ► want my iOS there comes a point when all of us who are using the iPad Pro for

01:05:46 ◼   ► this stuff say, "Great, now I almost want one of these on my desktop. How do I make

01:05:51 ◼   ► the complete switch?" And can you do that? Right now you can't, but maybe down the road.

01:05:56 ◼   ► The only thing that gives me pause is that question of, like, what if Microsoft is right?

01:06:01 ◼   ► What if the product that people want is a computer with a touchscreen on their desk?

01:06:07 ◼   ► Now, I don't know if that's true or not, because mobile devices are really what everybody wants,

01:06:14 ◼   ► there's always going to be a certain work modes that require something larger

01:06:18 ◼   ► at least until maybe augmented reality gets to the point where it's so advanced

01:06:23 ◼   ► that you don't need a big screen anymore because you can just look at a virtual

01:06:26 ◼   ► big screen but we're a ways off from that and then there's virtual touch

01:06:30 ◼   ► issues there too like tactility of your hands on the screen is a part of it too

01:06:34 ◼   ► so are you going to have a virtual kind of surface that it's complicated it's

01:06:39 ◼   ► going to take a while so let's put that aside for a moment and just say you know

01:06:42 ◼   ► I think that if Microsoft is right in the sense that people are going to want desktop interfaces that are touch,

01:06:49 ◼   ► it's going to be iOS that provides that from Apple, because Apple is adamant that Mac OS is not going to be retrofitted as a touch interface,

01:06:59 ◼   ► because Apple already has a touch-based OS. Why would they do that?

01:07:03 ◼   ► But that makes it incumbent on Apple to then expand, to build out iOS to have those pro features too,

01:07:09 ◼   ► too because if all Apple's got is kind of not Pro feature touch OS and Pro featured

01:07:16 ◼   ► desktop OS and the future is Pro featured touch OS then Apple has fallen in a hole,

01:07:22 ◼   ► right? So that's the and that gets us back to what we were talking about earlier which

01:07:25 ◼   ► is this is why we need to see Pro features in iOS.

01:07:29 ◼   ► -ASAP and my -Yeah, like June.

01:07:32 ◼   ► -Yeah, my nightmare scenario is we don't see new iPads until the fall and I am praying

01:07:38 ◼   ► that they decide, you know, screw the screw the product line up in the tradition of let's release iPads in October, because if they really are marketing it as a pro device, right, and they're saying, all right, we're going to launch all of these pro features, a developer conference is the right place to do it. And be like, so not only are we releasing these brand new iPads, but, you know, come iOS 11, you'll have all of these cool features to play with.

01:08:06 ◼   ► And it wouldn't surprise me. This is the wild card of that conversation because yeah, there

01:08:11 ◼   ► is the pro conversation that happens because developers are pro users, right? Wouldn't

01:08:15 ◼   ► surprise me if there's some aspect of Swift playgrounds or something. It's not X code

01:08:20 ◼   ► per se for iOS, but if they made some sort of announcement that was like there are certain

01:08:26 ◼   ► kinds of apps that you can generate on the on on iOS in a development environment and

01:08:34 ◼   ► release or test or something. Maybe this year, maybe not, but I feel like Swift Playgrounds,

01:08:40 ◼   ► they're starting to head in that direction and complete Xcode on iOS is probably not

01:08:44 ◼   ► realistic anytime soon, but some sort of Swift development environment on iOS, like Swift

01:08:51 ◼   ► Playgrounds, but more. Supercharged. Goes into that story too. Again, they're not going

01:08:57 ◼   ► to solve everything. If our dream is they're going to solve everything in 2017, it's not

01:09:00 ◼   ► going to happen, but progress, right? Forward motion is really what is required.

01:09:05 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. And adding to that, my crazy idea is Xcode projects, where you can import an

01:09:13 ◼   ► Xcode project from your Mac, work on little bits and pieces. You're still going to have

01:09:17 ◼   ► to compile it on your Mac, but now you have a full-featured development environment on

01:09:22 ◼   ► your iPod, so you could go write code on the go.

01:09:25 ◼   ► That'd be a little like Scrivener, right?

01:09:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:28 ◼   ► I use Scrivener where it's syncing it all

01:09:30 ◼   ► and then I can work on my novel on my iPad and on my Mac

01:09:34 ◼   ► and they kind of, you take a project with you

01:09:36 ◼   ► and put it back.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Maybe, I mean, we'll see.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Well, yeah, that's it.

01:09:41 ◼   ► We will get a sense in June

01:09:44 ◼   ► of what the forward motion is or not

01:09:46 ◼   ► and then we can all, we'll just regroup

01:09:48 ◼   ► and get back here and talk about it again.

01:09:50 ◼   ► Let's take another break.

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01:11:40 ◼   ► for your ongoing support of Upgrade. Before we go, we have some Ask Upgrade, but I also

01:11:47 ◼   ► wanted to ask you, since I've got you here, and I know how much you love Star Wars, what

01:11:52 ◼   ► you thought of the Last Jedi teaser trailer. Stephanie asks, this is an Apple Pencil question,

01:12:00 ◼   ► maybe you've got an answer here, "Should I let my pencil die or recharge it all the time?

01:12:06 ◼   ► I only use it periodically. Which is better for battery health?"

01:12:10 ◼   ► Ooh, this is a great question, Stephanie, and one that I do, one that I encounter fairly

01:12:16 ◼   ► regularly. I am of the opinion that in general battery technology has gotten good enough

01:12:23 ◼   ► that you can pretty much use things incrementally for a while. I would encourage you probably

01:12:29 ◼   ► to let your pencil die and fully recharge it maybe once every other month or so just

01:12:36 ◼   ► to make sure that the battery is not constantly in a state of 15%. But overall, I think it's

01:12:44 ◼   ► not going to kill it if you're keeping it at middling under 50% for a month or two before

01:12:50 ◼   ► you do a complete recharge and discharge.

01:12:53 ◼   ► Yeah, it's not like the old days where you were told you've got to do these discharge

01:13:00 ◼   ► recharge every so often, but that's not the same.

01:13:02 ◼   ► Or else.

01:13:03 ◼   ► And I also say keep it around so that you can use it. There's nothing worse than if

01:13:08 ◼   ► it's totally dead, I've had that happen where then it takes a little while to get it back

01:13:12 ◼   ► kind of up and running so keeping it not totally dead is not a bad thing. Jeffrey asks, "Any

01:13:21 ◼   ► thoughts about what the heck is going on with AirPods manufacturing four months on and it's

01:13:26 ◼   ► still a six-week back order?" Do you have any perspective into this? I mean, my initial

01:13:31 ◼   ► thought was that it turns out that AirPods are hard to make.

01:13:34 ◼   ► Stephanie Hauschner Yeah, I kind of am on that bandwagon too.

01:13:38 ◼   ► And maybe demand is greater than they thought. I mean, that's the old story, right?

01:13:42 ◼   ► Well, and then...

01:13:44 ◼   ► Is we can't make them fast enough.

01:13:45 ◼   ► I think it's a combination of the two, right? Because if AirPod demand was so extraordinary,

01:13:51 ◼   ► Apple could probably rent some more time at their factories and just be like, "All right,

01:13:56 ◼   ► we're just going to expand manufacturing." But from what I understand, demand is pretty good,

01:14:02 ◼   ► but it's not Blockbuster iPhone demand. It's just really good demand.

01:14:06 ◼   ► And because the circuitry and the specifically the quality assurance for AirPods is so high,

01:14:14 ◼   ► because think about it this way, like, do you really want to go in and accidentally get a set

01:14:19 ◼   ► of AirPods that just doesn't like you've waited six weeks and then you get a set of AirPods and

01:14:24 ◼   ► like the left earpiece doesn't work or the right earpiece is tapping isn't working regularly.

01:14:30 ◼   ► I think they are very like with the pencil. Apple is very aware that a first generation product in a

01:14:37 ◼   ► completely new product category needs to kind of be flawless in some ways. So my perspective on this

01:14:44 ◼   ► is the same that I had when the AirPods were first released and had this huge delay, which is, hey,

01:14:49 ◼   ► I'd rather have the product right than have the product quickly, as much as it sucks to see your

01:14:55 ◼   ► friends all rocking AirPods and being like, "I really want one." Apple gets new shipments

01:15:02 ◼   ► to the retail stores on Thursdays, so if you show up really early on a Thursday to an Apple

01:15:08 ◼   ► store, chances are you can get a set of AirPods even with the six-week manufacturing delay

01:15:14 ◼   ► for pre-orders. So, fun tip.

01:15:16 ◼   ► JEAN-MICHELLE PICHARD, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER,

01:15:17 ◼   ► PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER,

01:15:18 ◼   ► We'll see, maybe they'll get better. It is a difficult to assemble product. It's made with very small things. It's got very tight tolerances.

01:15:24 ◼   ► I think that it is definitely a manufacturing bear for them. So that's probably part of what's going on too.

01:15:31 ◼   ► It's hard to make these things. But that's what makes them good. They've crammed so much in those little tiny plastic shells.

01:15:41 ◼   ► Johnny asks, "Hey, I just got a new 5K iMac. Can I connect the 5K LG monitor? If so, how?"

01:15:51 ◼   ► Johnny, you're not supposed to be able to. You can if you use a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter,

01:16:00 ◼   ► but you can't get a 5K resolution on it, I believe.

01:16:05 ◼   ► I think that's if you go into an Apple store and you see that what's attached to a Mac Pro right now.

01:16:10 ◼   ► I believe the Apple stores are attaching. We had a listener who wrote in about this.

01:16:14 ◼   ► They're attached to those LG monitors, but they can't do the full bandwidth.

01:16:19 ◼   ► So you'll be disappointed is basically what I'm saying. They're not they're not it's made for a Thunderbolt 3 connection and the bandwidth that's available in Thunderbolt 3.

01:16:28 ◼   ► 3 and my understanding is that Thunderbolt 2 you may be able to connect it with an adapter and get

01:16:34 ◼   ► a signal but it's not going to be what you're hoping which is full-on full frame rate full

01:16:41 ◼   ► resolution 5k yeah yeah unfortunately sadly the next the next round of iMacs that have

01:16:51 ◼   ► Thunderbolt 3 will be able to drive that monitor I'm sure but not the current round

01:16:57 ◼   ► Let's see, Jorge asks, "I'm going on a family trip to Europe this June. London, Paris, and Rome."

01:17:05 ◼   ► Very nice.

01:17:06 ◼   ► We're a multi-device family. "I have an unlocked iPhone 6S Plus and an LTE hotspot.

01:17:13 ◼   ► What's the best option for a carrier that will work in all areas? Can I buy a SIM before getting there?

01:17:18 ◼   ► And is there a good hotspot option?"

01:17:20 ◼   ► So, I just came back from Europe.

01:17:22 ◼   ► I would say that if it's just you, and you just want one device to be on the internet,

01:17:26 ◼   ► which is not what you're saying here. I had great luck in just buying a SIM in country.

01:17:31 ◼   ► In fact, if you're flying into Heathrow in London, at baggage claim, there are vending

01:17:36 ◼   ► machines with SIMs. I just did this last week. I got a 3, that's the name of the company,

01:17:42 ◼   ► 3 prepaid SIM. It's like, I think it was like 25 pounds, something like that, and it was

01:17:49 ◼   ► 12 gigabytes of prepaid data. And stick it in your unlocked phone, job is done. Now,

01:17:55 ◼   ► you want if you don't have an unlocked phone or you want to have sort of like more access for more

01:18:00 ◼   ► devices. I have never done this but I did a little very brief research. There are a few companies

01:18:07 ◼   ► that will rent you a hotspot and that's probably your best bet. I don't know what the details are

01:18:13 ◼   ► of what your LTE hotspot is and if you could get a sim for it and if it would work but there are

01:18:18 ◼   ► companies that will rent you a hotspot like I found one called keep go ke e p go and one

01:18:25 ◼   ► called sky roam it looks like the standard rate for these things is like $10 a day when

01:18:33 ◼   ► they're active and you're using them so not that expensive and for a vacation right and

01:18:40 ◼   ► then with their battery operated and you recharge them and then when you're out and about if

01:18:44 ◼   ► you've got multiple devices around or even if you're in the hotel room or wherever you

01:18:47 ◼   ► are, as long as they are on the cellular network, they'll put out a Wi-Fi signal.

01:18:52 ◼   ► It's a Wi-Fi hotspot. You connect and you're on the internet. So you've got

01:18:56 ◼   ► some options there, especially if you've got locked phones and iPads and you want

01:19:00 ◼   ► to use them. So I'd say look into that. Since you're not going till June and

01:19:04 ◼   ► it's now April, you have the opportunity, you have the luxury of time to order

01:19:09 ◼   ► this and get one and have it ready for your trip. So that's all I got

01:19:14 ◼   ► here. For me, I've got an unlocked iPhone and I get the prepaid SIM. Either at the

01:19:18 ◼   ► airport and if I'm going to London or in other places there's usually a store

01:19:23 ◼   ► like in Ireland when I go there first I go to a 3 store and say I want your

01:19:29 ◼   ► prepaid SIM and there are do some research about whatever country you're

01:19:32 ◼   ► starting your trip in. A lot of them 3 has roaming built in so I can I was

01:19:37 ◼   ► able to buy my sim in the UK and still use it in Ireland as part of the of the

01:19:41 ◼   ► of the trip. That's what I got. And last question is Angelo who asks, "Do you do

01:19:48 ◼   ► any audio processing in Audio Hijack, compression, noise gate, anything as you

01:19:53 ◼   ► record?" Podcasting question. "Or do you apply it all during editing?" This is an

01:19:56 ◼   ► easy one. I don't process anything in Audio Hijack, I just record. And the

01:20:01 ◼   ► reason is, if you have a problematic recording, you want to have the full

01:20:07 ◼   ► recording and it's easy to compress and noise gate and do other things later but

01:20:12 ◼   ► if you if you burn that into your recording you can't ever back up if

01:20:16 ◼   ► something isn't quite right and I I will give you an example which is I have a

01:20:19 ◼   ► friend who I sometimes do a podcast with and when he sends me his file it's been

01:20:24 ◼   ► pre noise gated and compressed and I once got a file from him where he was

01:20:30 ◼   ► his mic was a little quiet and it was unusable because he was over gated to

01:20:34 ◼   ► the point where like if he was sort of quiet his voice would just disappear and

01:20:39 ◼   ► we couldn't go back to the original because that was the original and it was

01:20:42 ◼   ► pre-processed so I say my recommendation if you're recording audio record it as

01:20:48 ◼   ► it happened process it later that's my podcast advice I agree hundred percent

01:20:55 ◼   ► all right endorsed yes excellent okay let's turn to Star Wars business we're

01:21:02 ◼   ► going to talk about the teaser trailer for The Last Jedi. For those who are

01:21:08 ◼   ► spoiler-averse, I guess what we should say is it's a pretty good trailer at

01:21:12 ◼   ► leaving everything open. Like literally it seems to be a trailer. It's like

01:21:19 ◼   ► there's some explosions and some vehicles and stuff, but it's basically

01:21:23 ◼   ► reminding you where the last movie left off, which is Rey finding Luke and then

01:21:28 ◼   ► what happens next and this trailer is like hey remember that what does happen

01:21:32 ◼   ► next and that's it so if your spoiler verse I would say you know John

01:21:36 ◼   ► Syracuse I watched it it's fine you don't want to watch the real trailer

01:21:40 ◼   ► maybe but the teaser trailer it's fine it gets us excited about Star Wars so

01:21:43 ◼   ► what did you think that's what I really like about this trailer is as you said

01:21:49 ◼   ► it doesn't really reveal too much it's not it's showing us you know new new

01:21:54 ◼   ► outfits for the characters, maybe. It gives us a little hint that BB-8's still gonna be around. Yay,

01:22:00 ◼   ► buddy! But overall, it continues the feel that the new trilogy is kind of developing. And what

01:22:10 ◼   ► I appreciated so much from this was that the second that I watched this trailer, two, three

01:22:18 ◼   ► seconds in, I immediately got chills because they just know how to frame everything and

01:22:24 ◼   ► time it perfectly.

01:22:27 ◼   ► And it's just, it is a perfect example of a trailer playing and preying on your emotions

01:22:33 ◼   ► in exactly the right way that a trailer should.

01:22:38 ◼   ► There was this sort of, I don't want to say false trailer comparison going around because

01:22:44 ◼   ► it wasn't made up shots, but someone was passing around a basically a comparison of promo shots

01:22:51 ◼   ► from The Force Awakens compared to the straight run through of this Last Jedi trailer or this teaser

01:22:58 ◼   ► trailer. And the shots in Force Awakens are not in order. They're not from any specific trailer.

01:23:04 ◼   ► They're all shots that were used as promo material at one point in time. And despite the fact that

01:23:12 ◼   ► JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson are very, very different directors. It was really interesting

01:23:18 ◼   ► for me to see those kind of side-by-side comparisons and framing in that there are

01:23:24 ◼   ► some very, very smart pacing choices and framing choices in terms of setting, again,

01:23:32 ◼   ► setting the stakes, making us excited, making us fearful or aware, otherwise anticipating

01:23:42 ◼   ► what's going to come next. And that's what I really appreciated from this. I appreciated that

01:23:46 ◼   ► it made me wish that it was December already, and it reminded me how much I really enjoyed

01:23:51 ◼   ► the first one. It was like, "Oh, hey, maybe I should go watch The Force Awakens again.

01:23:55 ◼   ► I really like these characters." Yeah, exactly right. I think one of the tests is,

01:24:01 ◼   ► are you excited to see Ray and Finn again? Like, do you look at that and say, "Yay!" Or Poe,

01:24:10 ◼   ► right? You go, "Yay! I saw those. It's my old friends and they're back," or not. And that's,

01:24:16 ◼   ► it's like a delayed test of The Force Awakens. And yes, I was excited to see Ray again and Finn,

01:24:24 ◼   ► briefly, and Poe and say, and BB-8. And so yes, we're excited to see them again, because

01:24:32 ◼   ► that's the trick, right? This needs to be not just a nostalgia trip, you need to care

01:24:35 ◼   ► about the new characters. And I was fascinated by the question that, you know, The Force

01:24:40 ◼   ► Awakens and The Last Jedi as titles also bring up, which is, what is the nature of the Force?

01:24:47 ◼   ► What do we really know about the Force and how it works from the previous, you know,

01:24:52 ◼   ► now seven movies. What do we think we know about how it works? How did the Jedi work?

01:24:57 ◼   ► How did the Sith Lords work? And what this trailer does is ask us if we really know what's

01:25:08 ◼   ► going on. And I find that really intriguing, the idea that what this movie may tell us

01:25:13 ◼   ► is a lot more about what's really going on with the Force. There's a great shot of an

01:25:21 ◼   ► old set of books in the trailer that's followed by a close-up of one open, like,

01:25:28 ◼   ► open page of an old book that's got this thing that looks like a, yeah, I mean, it's

01:25:33 ◼   ► really like a line with a star, but to me it's like, that's a lightsaber kind of

01:25:37 ◼   ► thing, representation there. And the implication here is there are ancient

01:25:41 ◼   ► secrets, which you get some of that from Rogue One, too, right, where they're on the

01:25:46 ◼   ► planet that was like the original Jedi Temple of Jedha. So I think that's exciting too because

01:25:55 ◼   ► it suggests a mystery about a world that we've been living in for our whole lives really

01:26:02 ◼   ► since 1977 and yet it's not something that we've necessarily given a lot of thought to

01:26:08 ◼   ► that may be important. Like a new way of looking at an old universe, which I think is, that's

01:26:13 ◼   ► the most you can really ask for a Star Wars trailer is to start making you rethink your

01:26:18 ◼   ► assumptions about Star Wars.

01:26:20 ◼   ► Yes. I also really, it intrigues me a lot to see, like those are, that's the old Jedi

01:26:28 ◼   ► Order symbol, the little, the lightning, the lightsaber. And the fact that they, there

01:26:39 ◼   ► was such, I want to say, a disservice to the mythology of the Force done in the prequels

01:26:44 ◼   ► where it starts making everything, "Oh, it's midi-chlorians." Everybody has their

01:26:48 ◼   ► own beef about midi-chlorians. But the thing I think that really kind of bummed out everybody

01:26:54 ◼   ► is it just took away the mysticism that's kind of present in that. Hokie religions and

01:27:02 ◼   ► ancient weapons, that kind of spirit that was so prominent in the original trilogy.

01:27:09 ◼   ► I really like the idea. We got a touch back at it with Maz and Jeddah in Rogue One. If

01:27:18 ◼   ► they continue doing that, I think there's a lot of potential interesting story there.

01:27:24 ◼   ► It also reminds me a little bit of the best parts of the movies of the 80s. Not just Star

01:27:31 ◼   ► Wars, but I think about Dark Crystal. I think about Never Ending Story and the mythos and

01:27:37 ◼   ► the fact that it's ever so slightly confusing and murky and you don't have all of the answers,

01:27:42 ◼   ► but we're just going to surround you in a cloud of mysticism. I'm kind of on board for

01:27:49 ◼   ► that. I think it would be neat. And then also, I'm really kind of excited. Everybody's like,

01:27:55 ◼   ► "No, the Jedi!" The ending line—and I don't know if this is too much of a spoiler—but

01:28:00 ◼   ► the ending line in this teaser is Luke Skywalker being like, "It's time for the Jedi to

01:28:06 ◼   ► end." And everybody's like, "What does that mean?" But honestly, following the line of

01:28:15 ◼   ► the prequels to the original trilogy, you can take away from that that the Jedi Order

01:28:20 ◼   ► and the battle between the Sith and the Jedi and even all the stuff that happened in Clone

01:28:24 ◼   ► Wars and Star Wars Rebels and the cartoons, the Jedi maybe weren't the best thing for

01:28:33 ◼   ► the galaxy. The Jedi maybe took this mystical force that existed in the galaxy and maybe didn't

01:28:42 ◼   ► use it the way that the Force intended it to be used. Maybe they made this all a little bit too

01:28:47 ◼   ► bureaucratic. Maybe there shouldn't have been a temple and an order and a giant library and

01:28:52 ◼   ► Jedi's being the peacekeepers of the universe. There could be something to be said about

01:28:59 ◼   ► rebalancing everything and taking a step back and looking at things as shades of grey instead of

01:29:04 ◼   ► all black and all white. And what happens when your hero looks at that as shades of grey? I

01:29:10 ◼   ► don't know. I'm just spitballing at this point, but I'm excited about it.

01:29:14 ◼   ► JAYLEE STARK I'll give you another theory, which is that

01:29:16 ◼   ► that scene where he says that line is when he's initially resisting training her.

01:29:20 ◼   ► JADE Yeah!

01:29:21 ◼   ► JAYLEE STARK And it's moved to the end to make it seem like

01:29:25 ◼   ► it's like a plan to eradicate the force from the galaxy when it's really just Luke at the beginning

01:29:30 ◼   ► going "no no no I already was betrayed by Kylo Ren and all the other people and it's very sad and

01:29:35 ◼   ► it's just let me die out here on my rock I'm done" and that we're meant to believe it's something

01:29:41 ◼   ► much more meaningful than that but I'd be okay with that too. They trick us. They do trick us.

01:29:47 ◼   ► Stupid trailers with shots not being in the real movies. Yeah well that's true I don't love that

01:29:52 ◼   ► but it is nice when trailers try to trick us and not just tell us the entire plot of the movie.

01:29:58 ◼   ► So there's that. Well, I want to thank all my sponsors for this week as we reach the end in

01:30:03 ◼   ► Capsule at Eero and Mail Route. I want to thank Myke for doing some follow-up remotely so that

01:30:10 ◼   ► I could put that in the document. And most of course, most importantly, I want to thank

01:30:14 ◼   ► Serenity Caldwell for being my guest on this special upgrade. Thank you for being here. I

01:30:19 ◼   ► I really appreciate it. It was nice to chat with you.

01:30:21 ◼   ► We used to chat all the time back in the old days, and now we don't do it so much.

01:30:25 ◼   ► So it was nice to get a little time to talk tech with you on upgrade.

01:30:29 ◼   ► It warms my heart that I could be not exclamation point Myke for you today.

01:30:34 ◼   ► Not Myke, yeah. You're American not Myke today.

01:30:38 ◼   ► Very much not Myke Hurley, but you know, do work it in us.

01:30:42 ◼   ► No, it's great. We can't all be Myke Hurley, thank goodness.

01:30:46 ◼   ► I don't think the world could handle more than one Myke Hurley.

01:30:50 ◼   ► One is enough. But Myke will be back next week.

01:30:53 ◼   ► Thanks to everybody out there for listening. We will see you next week. Goodbye!

01:30:56 ◼   ► [Music]