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Upgrade

132: Extra Lasers

 

00:00:00   [BEEP]

00:00:00   [MUSIC]

00:00:08   >> From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, Episode 132.

00:00:12   Today's show is brought to you by Freshbooks, Incapsula, and Squarespace.

00:00:18   My name is Myke Hurley.

00:00:19   I am joined by the one and only Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:22   >> Hi Myke.

00:00:23   >> Hey Snellzone.

00:00:24   >> How are you?

00:00:24   >> I'm very good, how are you?

00:00:26   >> Good, good, good, good.

00:00:28   Monday morning, time change, everybody up an hour early.

00:00:32   What could be better?

00:00:32   My kids are off from school today,

00:00:34   so they're still waking up, but I'm here.

00:00:37   Some of us have to work.

00:00:39   - This is the good time change for me.

00:00:43   - Really?

00:00:44   - Yes, I get two weeks of bliss here.

00:00:47   - Oh, well, yeah, you're in the two,

00:00:48   we're an hour closer for the next two.

00:00:50   - We're an hour closer.

00:00:51   So all of my shows are earlier in the day.

00:00:54   I am recording upgrade and the sun is still up.

00:00:57   that has not happened in a long time.

00:00:59   - Well, that's pretty great. - So I have that going on

00:01:01   for me, so I'm feeling good today.

00:01:03   I'm feeling good today.

00:01:05   - I'm glad, I'm glad.

00:01:07   This is the tough one in the sense that

00:01:09   we have to give an hour back,

00:01:12   like the weekend was an hour shorter.

00:01:14   But I gotta say,

00:01:17   beyond, again, getting my kids up to go to school tomorrow,

00:01:20   which is gonna be brutal,

00:01:21   beyond that, the light in the evenings is the best.

00:01:25   So that's, I'm loving it.

00:01:27   And we had a good weekend.

00:01:29   It was warm here over the weekend.

00:01:31   It was the first days over 70 degrees

00:01:35   since like November or October.

00:01:37   So that's really nice for us.

00:01:41   So that was great.

00:01:42   - Starting to get a little bit warmer here too.

00:01:44   - That's great.

00:01:44   - Which is also good.

00:01:45   - I'm still gonna have to bring my coat.

00:01:47   - Oh, most definitely you'll need a coat.

00:01:49   - Yeah.

00:01:50   - I would recommend that severely

00:01:51   when you come to this country, which is very soon.

00:01:54   We broke 20C for those international listeners out there.

00:01:57   We broke 20 degrees Celsius.

00:01:59   - Summertime.

00:02:00   - Yes, I'll be there in three weeks,

00:02:03   three and four weeks from now will be the upgrades

00:02:05   that are in person.

00:02:06   - The physical high five versions of upgrade.

00:02:10   - Happen every time you can't miss the high five.

00:02:13   - Bring the portable lasers, the whole thing.

00:02:15   - So you reviewed another keyboard.

00:02:19   - Yeah, I wanted to talk about this.

00:02:21   We debated whether we needed any follow up at all,

00:02:23   but I did review another keyboard.

00:02:26   These people contacted me with this product

00:02:28   called the Lo-free Bluetooth mechanical keyboard,

00:02:32   and it's adorable.

00:02:33   It's this-- - It's beautiful.

00:02:35   I want it just because it's so pretty.

00:02:37   - It is, and I've got it here.

00:02:40   It is really cool.

00:02:41   It is a mechanical keyboard.

00:02:43   It sounds like this.

00:02:44   - Good sound.

00:02:48   - But it is, so it's clicky.

00:02:49   It's very small.

00:02:51   it's actually narrower than my little mechanical keyboard is.

00:02:56   But the thing that I think is most notable about it is

00:02:58   it's a Bluetooth mechanical keyboard.

00:03:00   And there aren't, believe it or not,

00:03:01   there are not very many of those.

00:03:02   The people who are into mechanical keyboards will know

00:03:04   that most of them are USB keyboards.

00:03:06   They're not Bluetooth keyboards.

00:03:07   So this is compact, it's Bluetooth,

00:03:09   it's got Mac keys on it.

00:03:12   So it's got a Mac mode and a PC mode, so it's switchable.

00:03:16   But it's a Mac friendly keyboard,

00:03:18   which most of the keyboards, mechanical keyboards,

00:03:20   including mine are not.

00:03:22   I have an Alt and a Windows label on my key caps,

00:03:24   which makes me sad, but that's just how it is.

00:03:27   It's got a function row,

00:03:28   so it's actually more functional than my keyboard,

00:03:30   which does not have a function row.

00:03:32   So it's a little taller and it's in this,

00:03:35   and it comes in these, like,

00:03:36   it's got this plastic shell that's really adorable

00:03:38   and curvy and there's a white one and a red one

00:03:40   and a black one, I think.

00:03:42   - It's white, blue and black.

00:03:43   - White, blue and black.

00:03:45   No, there's a red one.

00:03:46   - Oh, it's not on their page.

00:03:48   - Oh, okay, I think there's a red one.

00:03:50   - They have a black one with a red key.

00:03:52   - No, there's one that's like a red shell,

00:03:55   at least the photos that they sent me.

00:03:57   - Cool. - So anyway,

00:03:58   there are a lot of things that are great about it.

00:04:00   It's got round key caps, which is a little weird,

00:04:02   but they wanna give it that typewriter feel.

00:04:04   - It also makes it look extra pretty.

00:04:07   - It does make it look pretty.

00:04:08   And the other thing that makes it look pretty

00:04:10   is that it's all, all the keys are basically,

00:04:15   well, the F keys are slightly oval,

00:04:17   but all the keys are perfect circles,

00:04:20   except for the space bar, the return key and the shift key,

00:04:24   which are kind of the space bar is a space bar

00:04:26   and the return and shift key are sort of two circles

00:04:28   kind of melted together to give them extra width.

00:04:31   And so it's a beautiful look.

00:04:35   It's also what makes it unusable for me

00:04:37   because all the modifier keys are one key width

00:04:42   instead of being wider,

00:04:43   like, you know, normally your command key is wider

00:04:45   and the right shift key is wider and the tab key is wider

00:04:48   and the backspace key is wider.

00:04:50   And on this keyboard, nope, they're not,

00:04:52   they're one key width.

00:04:53   And for me, that's like a deal breaker.

00:04:55   Like I could get used to the round key caps,

00:04:57   but the small modifier key is just, I can't,

00:05:01   I can't do that, I just can't.

00:05:03   So sadly, I'm not gonna use this keyboard,

00:05:06   but it's a neat, fun, pretty keyboard.

00:05:09   And I think they're doing a crowdfunding thing,

00:05:13   It's on Indiegogo, but they're already making them.

00:05:16   It's not one of these wait eight years

00:05:18   for it to ship kind of things.

00:05:20   And Indiegogo, there's a discount

00:05:22   and then they'll be for sale on Amazon eventually.

00:05:24   And there'll be like a hundred bucks.

00:05:26   And just put it in context,

00:05:27   like I spent 130 on my weird wired PC

00:05:31   formatted mechanical keyboard that I bought.

00:05:34   So it's a pretty good price.

00:05:37   You just have to deal with the fact

00:05:38   that it's kind of an unusual key layout,

00:05:40   which if you can get past that,

00:05:43   and the key switches are sort of like,

00:05:45   they're not cherry blue, they're like a Gateron blue,

00:05:48   which is like kind of the knockoff of the cherry switches,

00:05:52   but so it's super clicky.

00:05:54   So it's neat, not gonna replace mine.

00:05:57   I did, it did send me in a keyboard spiral though, Myke,

00:05:59   where I was looking at keyboards on the internet.

00:06:02   It happens from time to time, coveting other keyboards.

00:06:05   (laughing)

00:06:07   - I'm interested in this keyboard

00:06:08   'cause I think it's so beautiful.

00:06:11   - Yeah, it looks great.

00:06:12   I like the size of it too.

00:06:13   I don't like keyboards with like the number pad

00:06:17   or like extra width because I want my track pad

00:06:19   as close to my keyboard as possible.

00:06:21   And it's got that.

00:06:23   Lots of nice things about it.

00:06:24   It's just for me, the key layout doesn't do it.

00:06:27   By the way, my status report about keyboards,

00:06:29   'cause somebody asked on Twitter like,

00:06:31   was asking why does Jason keep changing his keyboard?

00:06:33   Which is not really true.

00:06:35   I've used the same keyboard style for a while

00:06:38   until about a year ago when I decided

00:06:39   to try a mechanical keyboard

00:06:41   and I bought like three or four different kinds

00:06:42   and mechanical keyboards over the last year.

00:06:44   And what I've settled with is this 10 keyless,

00:06:48   so the small keyboard, it doesn't have a function row,

00:06:51   it doesn't have any keypad, but it's still got arrow keys.

00:06:56   And you know, that's good 'cause I need the arrow keys.

00:06:59   They actually sell keyboards that don't have the arrow keys

00:07:01   and I can't even imagine what life would be like with that.

00:07:04   And it's using Cherry Brown switches,

00:07:06   which are more of a clack, clack, clack, clack

00:07:10   kind of sound instead of the click, click, click

00:07:12   kind of sound, I don't know.

00:07:14   They sound different, they feel a little different

00:07:15   and I like it better.

00:07:17   So that's what I'm using right now.

00:07:19   But you know, there's, I would be intrigued

00:07:24   about a small keyboard like the size of the Lofree

00:07:29   that was wireless and mechanical

00:07:33   and let me choose the brown switches.

00:07:34   I would be intrigued by that.

00:07:36   But it's a niche market and it's dominated

00:07:39   by gamers, so it's like us using Logic,

00:07:41   which is made for musicians, but podcasters can use it.

00:07:44   Keyboards are kind of like that,

00:07:45   where if you wanna use them for writing, you can,

00:07:48   but they're kind of marketed and designed for gamers.

00:07:50   So, you know. - Yeah, they're neon

00:07:52   and stuff. - I don't know.

00:07:53   Yeah, exactly.

00:07:54   So I'm pretty happy with the Leopold's weird keyboard

00:07:59   that I have, but it's not for everybody.

00:08:01   And neither is the Lofri, it's not for everybody,

00:08:03   but it's pretty.

00:08:05   I really want them to make a variation

00:08:08   that's a slightly more traditional layout

00:08:10   because I would totally buy that

00:08:12   because I love the size of it and the look of it.

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00:08:41   creating.

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00:09:56   Alright, should we talk about big iOS devices and Windows?

00:09:59   - Let's do it.

00:10:00   This is sort of a topic,

00:10:04   it's sort of follow up from

00:10:05   "Maximal Tech Podcast" last week.

00:10:07   I wrote two articles kind of touching on this on Mac world.

00:10:11   I wrote the imagining the next 10 iOS devices

00:10:16   or whatever it was where I was trying to,

00:10:18   that was a concept article,

00:10:20   when there's not a lot going on,

00:10:21   you start to write weird columns

00:10:23   because you need to write a column every week

00:10:25   so that they pay you to write the column.

00:10:28   And then I followed it up with the idea of

00:10:31   what interface improvements does iOS need to have

00:10:34   to make functionality on large screens better.

00:10:39   So when ATP was talking about it last week, I was like,

00:10:42   "Hey, I wrote 2000 words about that,

00:10:45   "3000 words about that last month too."

00:10:48   And I don't think we ever talked about it.

00:10:50   So I thought maybe that would be,

00:10:51   as a couple of people who do use iOS a lot,

00:10:54   I thought maybe we could talk about

00:10:56   sort of like places that iOS could go

00:10:59   and the shape like literally and figuratively

00:11:03   that that could take

00:11:04   'cause I think that's kind of an interesting subject.

00:11:06   And I was kind of, I wasn't mad, but I'm like,

00:11:08   hey, ATP is talking about that.

00:11:10   That should have been an upgrade topic.

00:11:12   So I'm making it an upgrade topic.

00:11:14   - Well, John decided he needed to follow up

00:11:16   on a two year old show, I think.

00:11:18   - Yeah, I was gonna say-

00:11:19   - It was a two year old episode of Cortex

00:11:20   he was following up on.

00:11:21   - For those who don't know,

00:11:22   John Syracuse has a very strict start

00:11:24   from the beginning policy

00:11:25   with all podcasts. You start from the beginning and you work through it. And I get that from

00:11:30   a continuity standpoint. Like nobody is going to be able to experience, I'm doing that with

00:11:34   Hello from the Magic Tavern, which really requires continuity, but Jon does that with

00:11:39   everything and it is, it can be a strong strategy in getting it sort of like as all the listeners

00:11:48   would have gotten it from the very beginning and getting those nuances over time. It does

00:11:53   have the disadvantage of if you've got a little bit of a soapbox to talk about what people

00:11:58   are talking about on a podcast and you begin commenting on the podcast when you're still

00:12:04   two years behind. That is a little bit of a problem. So he was complaining about past

00:12:09   Myke and past Gray and a past episode of Cortex. Oh well. You should do some follow up on Cortex

00:12:17   and then send it through a time machine back in time two years and post it as...

00:12:21   Ehh.

00:12:22   [laughter]

00:12:23   So, the big...

00:12:25   I mean, in my mind, there are two issues here.

00:12:28   One is, how does iOS need to change?

00:12:31   And the other is, where might Apple take iOS hardware?

00:12:34   I think those are...

00:12:35   If I had to put two buckets down, I think those would be the two buckets.

00:12:41   So I don't know.

00:12:42   What do you want to talk about first?

00:12:43   What do you think?

00:12:44   What intrigues you?

00:12:45   about like improving what we already have?

00:12:48   Like what do we wanna see basically

00:12:50   in a fictitious iOS 11, right?

00:12:53   - Yeah, I think that's a good place to start

00:12:56   because it's all about,

00:12:57   like iOS is on a path toward productivity

00:13:02   and we can talk about bigger iOS devices

00:13:05   and I'm including like the 12.9 is a bigger iOS device.

00:13:09   It's here, but it's still on the large side.

00:13:10   even the 9.7 is, you know, for now the second largest iOS device. And there are issues like

00:13:18   in our current screen sizes with how things are working. And, you know, Federico has written

00:13:23   about it a lot at Mac stories and we've talked about it some, but there's a whole category

00:13:27   of things that Apple needs to do. You know, iOS has a lot of work to be done to it in

00:13:33   order to make it something that can approach the Mac, honestly, in terms of some of its

00:13:40   functionality and some of its usability in these areas

00:13:43   and multitasking is we are still using

00:13:45   the first blush multitasking feature, right?

00:13:49   They didn't change it in iOS 10.

00:13:50   It's the same as when they introduced it in iOS 9.

00:13:53   We're all hoping there might be an update before this fall

00:13:57   that is a second draft of this.

00:13:59   But right now that's what we're dealing with.

00:14:02   And it's very clearly broken.

00:14:03   Like app picking is very hard.

00:14:07   Like how many times do you realize

00:14:10   you need to put an app in split screen, not remember how long it's been since you've used

00:14:14   it and just decide to hit the home button, search for it, launch it, then close it, then

00:14:18   go back to the app that you were using, then bring open the picker and now it's close because

00:14:24   you just launched it. I don't know, do you do that? I do that all the time.

00:14:28   Do you want to hear my hot tip for how to deal with this?

00:14:31   Yeah.

00:14:32   So let's say that you want to have two apps open. Let's say one of them is Air Mail and

00:14:37   One of them's Bear, right?

00:14:38   So you open Airmail and then you pull up the multitasking thing and you can't see Bear,

00:14:43   right?

00:14:44   Like you scroll and scroll and scroll and it could be a million miles away.

00:14:47   So what I do is I then will just hit Spotlight Search.

00:14:53   You Spotlight Search, yeah.

00:14:54   If you're using a keyboard, that's more straightforward, but yeah.

00:14:57   Yeah, I know.

00:14:58   Let's just assume that I've always got the keyboard because I always have the keyboard

00:15:02   attached, right?

00:15:03   All right.

00:15:04   So this is the way that I do it because I'm keyboard.

00:15:05   yes if you're touching then it's you would go to the home screen but what I

00:15:08   do is and I open bear the app I can't find to make it the most application

00:15:14   then when you pull in from multitasking is you the app that you're on previously

00:15:19   is usually the fourth one up I don't know why this is yes I know that's

00:15:23   that's totally infuriating too right it's not the first one there I think

00:15:28   those are recent I always know it's there so I tap the bottom of the UI

00:15:33   I? Right there, just a little bottom of the square and it just opens it up so I'll get

00:15:37   it done quick.

00:15:38   Yeah, so this is what I'm saying is that's ridiculous.

00:15:40   It's madness, it's madness. I should be able to pull down from the multitasking thing and

00:15:45   either have a fixed set of applications like my home screen or I should have Fave applications

00:15:52   or I should have a search box, preferably all three of them.

00:15:55   Yeah, that's it. That's exactly it.

00:15:57   So here's the thing, right? When they introduced this, it was great. It was perfect for what

00:16:02   what we needed at the time, but we outgrew it quickly.

00:16:06   I think iOS 9 was really the fork in the road

00:16:11   for when more people decided I can work on the iPad,

00:16:17   because it added so much to make it more possible,

00:16:23   especially multitasking.

00:16:25   Being able to have two apps open at the same time

00:16:27   was incredibly important.

00:16:29   So they made it, they put it out there,

00:16:31   and it worked for then, but it quickly became

00:16:35   a clunky system once more and more applications adopted it

00:16:39   and you started using it more and more.

00:16:41   Like when you only had a couple of apps that could do it,

00:16:44   it was fine, but as things started to get added

00:16:47   and added and added, it got really hard to kind of manage.

00:16:50   - Yeah, I mean, that's, I think your perception as a user,

00:16:53   as the apps came out, it was that way,

00:16:55   but in hindsight, it was not great ever.

00:16:58   - Of course.

00:16:59   we were glad to get it because we wanted multitasking and I think it was clear to

00:17:05   all of us maybe most of us that the moment we saw it that like well that

00:17:10   won't scale that's not gonna that's not gonna work over time and we balled I

00:17:15   mean it was very clear from the beginning it was just a compromise and

00:17:18   it still hasn't been fixed which is which is frustrating so that's a that's

00:17:23   a clear one drag-and-drop is the other one that keeps coming up which I feel

00:17:27   like is an obvious one that inter application data transfer,

00:17:31   if you've got two apps on screen to be able to select

00:17:34   something and move it to the other one,

00:17:36   or, and this is something that people maybe don't think

00:17:38   about as much, not even when you're in split screen,

00:17:40   but when you've got an app in slide over,

00:17:43   the idea that you could drag something to the side

00:17:45   of the screen and the app would slide out

00:17:47   and you could drop it.

00:17:49   I love that idea too, right?

00:17:50   Just ways of transferring, you could potentially change

00:17:53   that, use this gesture to switch to a different app

00:17:55   and drop it.

00:17:56   necessarily have to be all on screen at once, but that is the most clear and painful part

00:18:04   of this is I've got these two apps and they're running next to each other and they don't

00:18:07   know that they exist.

00:18:08   >> Like I'll tell you something I was doing today. I was preparing a contract. So I have

00:18:14   PDF pen open on the left and air mail open on the right. So I'd sign the contract, save

00:18:18   the contract to Dropbox, right? Because that's where I'll save it. Save it's my file system,

00:18:21   it goes there. So it's kept there, everyone can access it.

00:18:24   >> Yep.

00:18:25   email and I want to attach the document. I'm looking at the document, but I can't drag

00:18:31   the document from PDF pen. Right. That's all I want to do is like maybe go back a page.

00:18:36   So I see like a list of all my documents, press and hold and drag it onto air mail to

00:18:39   attach it instead. Whilst looking at the document on the left hand side, I had to hit air mails

00:18:45   attachments, go to Dropbox, go to the folder, go to the sub folder, go to the sub folder

00:18:51   and attach the document and I'm looking at it like I'm looking at the document.

00:18:56   So I will just take a moment to say, please,

00:19:00   whatever you do at this point in the show,

00:19:04   do not contact me to say to me how easy this is on the Mac.

00:19:09   Perfectly aware.

00:19:10   I was sitting on my sofa on my iPad the way that I like it with my two apps side

00:19:16   by side. I love iOS for the way that iOS works.

00:19:21   I find PDF pen and air mail to both be nicer apps to use on iOS than the Mac.

00:19:27   So I'm trading some ease of use for what I consider to be a nicer user experience.

00:19:34   It's, it's my, it's my preference.

00:19:36   I think we could say also that Apple solution to failings of iOS can't be,

00:19:43   Oh, for that, you should go back to the Mac in the long run, right?

00:19:46   In the long run, if we believe that iOS

00:19:50   is an important platform for Apple,

00:19:51   and it's their most popular platform, okay?

00:19:54   Because of the iPhone, it is the most popular platform.

00:19:56   And even just the iPad,

00:19:58   there are more iPads in service than Macs, right?

00:20:00   So it's a very important platform for Apple.

00:20:03   Criticism of iOS needs to not ever go to,

00:20:09   well, you should just fall back to the Mac, right?

00:20:11   If we're legitimately criticizing,

00:20:13   well, we can talk about like use cases

00:20:14   and would people really use it for this?

00:20:16   and we can argue that and debate that.

00:20:18   But in the end, if we're analyzing iOS

00:20:20   and trying to say what's wrong with it,

00:20:22   it works on the Mac is not a place you can go.

00:20:28   Like you're exactly right.

00:20:29   You're in a context where you wanna use iOS,

00:20:31   you're on your couch, your Mac is nowhere around.

00:20:34   Why does it work this way?

00:20:36   It needs to be better.

00:20:37   And yes, you could have a MacBook on your lap instead,

00:20:40   but you don't at that moment.

00:20:42   And you'd prefer not to because the experience is better.

00:20:44   and this is Apple's next generation operating system, presumably it should be better at

00:20:49   this. So I get that you will always get people saying, "You should just use a Mac for that."

00:20:54   But what you would say is yes, but the apps are not as good on the Mac as they are on

00:20:58   iOS.

00:20:59   And it's just not what I like. What I like is iOS. That's what I want to use. So I think

00:21:07   these are two good things to point out. I think that the iPad needs a lot of work to

00:21:12   it would be more productive. But two things that would make things a lot better and also

00:21:20   seem within reach are improvements to multitasking and drag and drop, right? Like they feel like

00:21:26   two things that adding them, I think, especially drag and drop, because it would be a new feature,

00:21:33   would make as big a change as the original multitasking did for people that use iOS.

00:21:38   Yeah, I'll throw in that I would really like Apple to add an API that lets

00:21:45   apps have access to clipboard in the background, only because that is, it turns

00:21:53   out that it snuck up on me because it's an extra feature thrown into

00:21:57   LaunchBar, but I use clipboard history all the time. Like having multiple items

00:22:05   on my clipboard, the current item, and then a list of past items is a huge productivity

00:22:10   booster for me on the Mac. And on iOS, there are apps, Federico has written about them,

00:22:17   there's some very nice apps about clipboard management, but all of them you have to explicitly

00:22:24   attach something to the clipboard and then go back and get it later. And it's again a

00:22:30   little thing, but it can happen in the background where Apple says, "Guess what? Now you can

00:22:35   ask permission to view the clipboard and store it as something you can do. I would

00:22:41   love to see that, I don't think it's going to happen, but I'd love to see that

00:22:43   because that actually is a huge productivity thing for me too, and

00:22:46   that's one of those cases where the Mac just lets you do it and iOS does not, and

00:22:52   it's one of those walls that you do end up hitting, but it's a little one. So I

00:22:58   wanted to mention, at least in passing, this idea of what, from that article I

00:23:02   wrote about about future iOS devices like there will be future iOS devices

00:23:07   there's a rumor about that iPad Pro that's got the screen of the you know

00:23:13   the pixels of the of the 12.9 in the body of the 9.7 with small bezels that's

00:23:19   out there but when we talk about like down the road for iOS like I fully

00:23:24   expect there to be more iOS devices in the future now maybe I'm wrong about

00:23:28   about that but I keep thinking there will be there might be a larger iPad

00:23:33   because there's probably a niche market for a 17-inch iPad maybe maybe not but I

00:23:39   feel like there will inevitably be a desktop iPad at some point something

00:23:44   that's larger and that's not intended to to you know carry around in a backpack

00:23:48   or even fit in a backpack something that's like an iMac of iPads now maybe

00:23:54   maybe not, but it's hard for me to see Apple continue, and this gets to the

00:24:01   future of the Mac, too, right? It's hard for me to see Apple continue this path

00:24:05   with the two operating systems forever. That it seems more likely to me that

00:24:09   they'll evolve iOS to be more Mac-like, since it's the newer operating system

00:24:13   and it's the most popular one, and let the Mac just sort of continue being what

00:24:17   it is, then evolve the Mac to meet iOS somewhere, and touch is what, for me,

00:24:23   touch is where it comes down to, which is I just don't see them adding lots of

00:24:27   touch stuff to the Mac, if any. And touch apps is what iOS is all

00:24:33   about, so I feel like they're inevitably going to need to make iOS devices that

00:24:38   fit these physical niches that are not being filled by iOS right now, and that's

00:24:43   like laptops or convertibles, something that's more explicitly a thing with a

00:24:48   keyboard than they currently offer, and desktops, which is a big touch screen.

00:24:53   a big beautiful multi-touch touchscreen running iOS and running those apps on it.

00:24:58   And what do you think? How positive are you about that as a future for iOS?

00:25:05   The fact that we have a 12.9-inch iPad tells me that it only feels like a matter of time

00:25:11   until we get like a 20-inch iPad that goes on a desk. I really see it as a possibility,

00:25:17   like a strong possibility because it feels like what next would you do?

00:25:22   - Well, and that Surface Studio, I think, points the way too, where it's like,

00:25:27   there is a product to be made that is a touchscreen desk thing that, and I don't think Apple's ever

00:25:35   gonna make that, if I look at the Surface Studio and say, what's the Apple version of this? It

00:25:39   doesn't run Mac OS because they would have to do, they would have to introduce touch and it would be

00:25:46   a huge project and the apps would have to support it and it would be this huge thing,

00:25:51   they've got a touch OS, right? So it's much more logical that that's an iOS device that

00:25:56   you can put on your desk and that you can put down in a touch orientation and you can

00:26:01   maybe pop it up and use a keyboard and maybe even a pointer and do work in a more traditional

00:26:06   way. And whether it's 20 inches or 24 inches or 27 inches or however they do it, a big

00:26:14   touch device yeah I mean I feel like they have to do it and I'm starting to

00:26:17   warm to the idea of a laptop or it might just be an iPad with a more fully formed

00:26:26   accessory if that makes any sense like a Windows have these convertibles right

00:26:33   which are like their tablets but they're also laptops and Apple doesn't make a

00:26:37   convertible they make a they make the tablet part and say you know good luck

00:26:41   accessory makers essentially or use the smart keyboard and I do feel like maybe

00:26:46   there's a product there too that's like an iPad that's more like a laptop I see

00:26:51   it as more like an iPad attachment that makes it more like a laptop right like

00:26:56   as opposed to like a device that they would like fix into a keyboard but like

00:27:01   you would buy this you know maybe aluminium body case or something or like

00:27:06   a nice plastic case with a good keyboard attached to it. I can see that.

00:27:13   They tend to build something on the iPad that makes it more dockable than it is now. The

00:27:17   smart connector might be the first step, but we've seen the limitations of that. Most of

00:27:22   the smart connector accessories, you've got to snap them into a shell, or the bridge keyboard,

00:27:27   you've got the big metal hinges that you have to stick it into, and it doesn't use the smart

00:27:32   at all because it's got a it's got a tilt on that so that it's like they might be getting

00:27:36   there I don't know whether you know I think you might be right that the answer may be

00:27:41   a super accessory that's built to work with the iPad to make it feel like a laptop that

00:27:47   comes from Apple because right now they're just not quite there yet but I do sometimes

00:27:52   I do wonder if like well yeah but what if they just did it what if they did a super

00:27:55   simple 9.7 inch laptop or 11 inch laptop that was an iOS laptop and it was different materials

00:28:04   and you know not what we expect and it's just a laptop. I don't know you'd still kind of

00:28:10   want to be able to turn the screen around or pop the screen off but maybe not maybe

00:28:13   I don't know but the desktop it just feels so so obvious to me that you would want a

00:28:20   big screen because I find myself wanting that now. I find myself imagining my 27 inch iMac

00:28:27   and thinking such a beautiful screen but it's not touch and then I've got my 12.9 inch iPad

00:28:33   and I'm like it's nice but I can't put it on my desktop because it's too small a screen

00:28:38   and so we're in between now.

00:28:40   Yes, yeah I imagine a world that like we're not at in many ways where I have a product

00:28:45   exactly like the Surface Studio that runs iOS and has a really good audio editor on

00:28:50   it. You know, because I currently use a Wacom tablet, like, I would prefer to be putting

00:28:56   that pen on the screen.

00:28:57   Right, you're already using touch on your desktop with a Wacom tablet. So, yeah. Yeah.

00:29:04   Yeah, I can see it.

00:29:06   So if we go down the route of a bigger iOS device, so that we, you know, me and you will

00:29:11   assume that that is a thing that exists then the software would need to continue changing

00:29:16   because a 20 inch iPad would not have two apps on the screen right? Like it would need

00:29:23   more than that. It could because I mean but I've run split screen on my Mac and granted

00:29:28   it's 27 it's much larger but it's like it's kind of full screen and split screen on the

00:29:32   27 inch. It could, it could. It's a joke. But I think we would very naturally assume

00:29:37   and it will put more on it.

00:29:38   I believe, honestly, that in the not too distant future,

00:29:42   the 12.9 inch iPad will be able to run three apps at once,

00:29:46   because that is definitely possible,

00:29:48   because it would be like how it is to run two apps

00:29:50   on the smaller iPad.

00:29:53   - And I feel like tiling breaks down above a certain size.

00:29:57   Like they're tiling now, it's like you can run two,

00:30:00   and they can be in a couple of different modes.

00:30:02   But in the long run, and this is sort of

00:30:04   what they were talking about on ATP,

00:30:05   And they were talking about, I've got multiple iPads,

00:30:10   they were joking about past Myke and past Gray,

00:30:12   and I've got multiple iPads doing different things.

00:30:14   And John, it's a classic John Syracuse rant, a classic,

00:30:18   people should go listen to it.

00:30:19   But there's sort of like, that's why we have Windows,

00:30:21   is we can have apps running in different sizes

00:30:24   and they're all in one thing

00:30:25   instead of having different devices.

00:30:26   And he's not wrong about that.

00:30:28   I was reminded of, there's a meme image of Captain Picard

00:30:35   from Star Trek The Next Generation working on his desk

00:30:38   and he's got like, on Star Trek they were called pads,

00:30:41   but they're basically iPads.

00:30:42   And he had like a big stack of them on his desk.

00:30:45   - I'm pretty sure this was exactly what we were talking

00:30:47   about on the episode of Cortex that Jon is referencing.

00:30:49   - See, so we come all the way back around, right?

00:30:52   Like I've got a bunch of different pads and we look now

00:30:55   and you're like, well, no, you just have your iPad

00:30:56   and they'd send you the file.

00:30:57   You wouldn't have like an ebook on each different pad.

00:31:00   You'd just have the one with the ebook reader in it.

00:31:02   but John's not wrong in that above a certain level,

00:31:06   the tiling doesn't make sense.

00:31:08   And you know what's good is windows.

00:31:10   And he's right, windowing above a certain level

00:31:13   is not a bad idea.

00:31:15   They were referencing the same thing that I was looking at,

00:31:17   which is Steve Trout and Smith's kind of mock-ups

00:31:21   that he did of sort of like windowing inside an app in iOS.

00:31:25   And the fact is iOS apps live at different shapes

00:31:29   and sizes already, right?

00:31:30   they have the five, they still, I mean a lot of them, you know, they support the

00:31:34   4 4s size, they've got the five size, they've got the six size, they've got the

00:31:38   six plus size, they've got the iPad 9.7 size, they've got the iPad 10.9 size, and

00:31:45   then they've got those fractional sizes for when they're running in slide over

00:31:48   or split screen with one-thirds, two-thirds, and then they've got the 50/50

00:31:52   size, and that means they also have the two-thirds size if they're the big app

00:31:56   in the little split screen view.

00:31:58   So in so many ways,

00:32:02   iOS apps already support multiple window sizes.

00:32:05   And I don't think that a windowing system on iOS

00:32:09   would necessarily do what the Mac does,

00:32:10   where you can set like an arbitrary window size,

00:32:13   could be like literally any size.

00:32:15   I could see it constraining it to a certain set of sizes

00:32:19   that the apps understand,

00:32:20   but the apps are drawing themselves dynamically.

00:32:23   It probably, you could probably do it if you wanted to,

00:32:25   but it just seems kind of logical, right?

00:32:27   That above a certain screen size,

00:32:28   what I really like to do is run my apps in little windows

00:32:32   and let them and put them where I want on screen.

00:32:35   - Okay, right.

00:32:37   I need you to explain to me in your mind

00:32:40   what that looks like.

00:32:41   Are these like free moving windows that can overlap?

00:32:44   - Yeah, well, so there's a couple.

00:32:46   I also wanna talk about my tabbed theory of apps,

00:32:48   which just, but that's more for small screens.

00:32:50   Yeah, if you look, we've got a link in the show notes.

00:32:52   If you look at Steve Trotton Smith's mock-up,

00:32:56   it's like little windows.

00:33:00   I mean, he's got them with a closed,

00:33:01   he's got Mac style windows, right?

00:33:03   But the idea that you could drag windows around

00:33:04   and you could dock them,

00:33:06   but you could also let them float.

00:33:09   And so if you imagine like an iPhone app sized app

00:33:13   on your iPad,

00:33:14   and instead of having it scale up

00:33:17   and run in the center of the screen

00:33:18   and look like a kind of a laughable,

00:33:21   like a weird mockery of an iPhone app

00:33:24   and you're in blown up iPad mode,

00:33:26   imagine it just runs in a window at iPhone size,

00:33:30   an iPhone size window and you put that on the right side.

00:33:32   I mean like when I use my Mac,

00:33:33   I've got Google docs on the left

00:33:35   and the chat room on the right right now.

00:33:38   And when I'm doing my normal work,

00:33:41   I'll have like Twitter on the right and Slack on the left

00:33:43   and my text editors in the center.

00:33:44   And like I'm doing window management there,

00:33:46   app management basically to get it

00:33:49   in the optimal location for me.

00:33:51   So, I think that-- - Yeah, see,

00:33:53   this is the thing.

00:33:54   This is the thing that like, it's funny to me,

00:33:56   because the way that I feel about this,

00:33:59   it seems to be very different from you and Jon.

00:34:01   I can't imagine anything worse than window management

00:34:04   for free-flowing windows on my iOS devices.

00:34:08   And it was funny to me, 'cause I wasn't necessarily

00:34:10   expecting for you to just be like,

00:34:12   well yeah, it makes perfect sense.

00:34:13   To me, it makes literally zero sense.

00:34:15   And it was funny to hear Jon make the argument of like,

00:34:19   Why would they use two iPads?

00:34:21   Like, obviously what they want is Windows, but no, me and Gray, or at least I will speak for myself,

00:34:26   I know what window management is look looks like because I'm doing it right now.

00:34:31   And I hate it because, for example, I have all my windows laid out

00:34:35   and some of them cannot be resized to the level that I want.

00:34:39   So they slide underneath each other, which is like, I hate that.

00:34:42   I want all of my windows to be in their exact positions.

00:34:45   So, what I like about Steve Trout and Smith's thing is that in some instances he shows snapping.

00:34:52   So like they take certain physical sizes. Now that, I don't really think of that as

00:34:58   windowing, that just feels like an advancement of iOS multitasking. The idea of overlapping

00:35:03   windows and free moving windows seems like hell to me on iOS.

00:35:06   I don't know about overlapping. So here's the thing, what I'm not saying is, here's

00:35:11   what Apple should do. They should replicate Mac windowing on iOS. I don't think that I

00:35:15   think every the reason you go with iOS with all this stuff is because you want to use

00:35:21   your next generation interface to take advantage of all the knowledge that has been built up

00:35:26   over the years to do it differently than it used to be done in a better way, right? And

00:35:32   so what Steve's showing where you can dock things and they snap I think is smart right

00:35:38   - And that's, I think Windows does some of that stuff too.

00:35:42   Windows the operating system, not Windows the concept.

00:35:45   Right? - Windows 10.

00:35:46   - And I think that's a good approach.

00:35:48   - Me too.

00:35:49   - So what I'm saying when I talk about tiling is,

00:35:52   on a large screen, what I don't wanna do is play

00:35:54   like one of those games where you keep like moving

00:35:56   the one tile around to try to get the picture to resolve,

00:35:59   one of those puzzle games.

00:36:00   Like that's what I hate about tiling above a certain level

00:36:03   is I wanna be able to arbitrarily say,

00:36:06   I want that to go over there and not have like,

00:36:08   "No, but it has to be half the screen" or "it has to be a third of the screen."

00:36:11   I want a little more flexibility about where I put something.

00:36:15   When you have a touchscreen with 10 finger multi-touch, you can very easily move things

00:36:22   around.

00:36:23   Right?

00:36:24   Like, if you want to drag one window up to the right-hand corner, then you just pull

00:36:28   the other thing and just drag it from underneath it.

00:36:30   Like, if you're using both hands on a 20-inch touchscreen, your ability to move stuff around

00:36:35   becomes greater.

00:36:36   when I think about tiling, I mean, and this is my issue is if I want a big text editor

00:36:41   window in the center of my screen, what I don't want to have to do is have it either

00:36:46   be full screen or I have to put like filler to the left and the right in order to get

00:36:51   it to live in the center, right? There should be some ability to position it arbitrarily.

00:36:56   That doesn't necessarily mean I want to float on top of something else or anything like

00:37:00   that. I just, I feel like you want some flexibility there because tiling implies to me that there's

00:37:06   content on the entire screen, and honestly, on a large screen, sometimes I don't want

00:37:11   content on the whole screen. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I just want my

00:37:15   main content in the middle. And in full screen, and this depends on the full screen implementation,

00:37:21   but a lot of times the full screen implementation is ridiculous because it stretches everything

00:37:25   to fill the screen, and I actually, on a big screen, I don't always want my attention focused

00:37:29   on the entire width of the screen. I want it on that little bit in the center. And then

00:37:33   and that gives me the freedom to call up an app on the right or to dismiss it and have

00:37:37   it have there be nothing. So this is I mean this is why this is a multi-year process if

00:37:43   you're developing this for iOS if you're Apple right because this is incredibly complex stuff.

00:37:48   I'm sure they've messed around with all of this internally right like oh my god what

00:37:51   are all the issues about how people use this but I would not advocate for replicating what

00:37:56   the Mac does. I would not replicate for that, advocate for that. But I do think the ability

00:38:04   to place apps in arbitrary blocks and move them around is generally a good idea for the

00:38:11   future of iOS. We can debate like, do they have to be, does, you know, does it have to

00:38:17   be, what are the rules of tiling and things like that? Because geography is a weird thing,

00:38:23   user interface geography. Like, I was talking to somebody about this a few months ago, the

00:38:28   idea that, you know, for me, Slack lives on the left and Twitter lives on the right. That's

00:38:31   a real thing for me most of the time. And when I move Slack to a different place on

00:38:36   my screen, on my big 27-inch screen, it feels weird. Like, you shouldn't be there. You should

00:38:40   be over there. And everybody has their own geography for their computers. And so the

00:38:47   challenge of a windowing system is to allow people to be productive and also take advantage

00:38:54   of our internal computer geography as a part of being more productive. And that's when

00:39:02   Siracusa talks about where he puts his finder windows and things like that. It's the same

00:39:05   kind of idea.

00:39:06   Yeah, but to me, a lot of the window management stuff that Jon cares so deeply about, it seems

00:39:14   like a relic of computing to me.

00:39:16   Well, some of it's got to be let go, right? Some of it absolutely has to be let go because

00:39:20   it needs to be simplified because most people don't want to fiddle around with windows and

00:39:25   move them a little bit and size them a little bit, and I'm on board with that, right? I'm

00:39:29   on board with that. I just want more control than playing this tile puzzle, which is currently,

00:39:38   and again, it's a small sample size because it's the iPad and it's two apps, right? But

00:39:44   But the idea that if you want to add a third app, what do you do?

00:39:47   Well, you add that third app and now you've got three apps on the screen in their little

00:39:51   places.

00:39:52   And okay, then what if I have a bigger screen and what if I have a fourth app?

00:39:57   And I feel like that gets complicated over time too, to the point where having them float

00:40:03   in their own little boxes in space at some point might actually be easier to use, to

00:40:09   a point.

00:40:10   But again, the question is what the rules are.

00:40:11   what I'm not saying is I want to arbitrarily move everything around and have it be any

00:40:15   size at once and oh look I've got a Mac again because I think that's too far.

00:40:20   There was one last thing I want to touch on. This all came from the fact that Steve Trouton

00:40:26   Smith had submitted this app that he's working on I guess it looks like there's files because

00:40:32   there's stuff moving around like it's either a demo or an app but he submitted it to Apple

00:40:38   And he had a test flight review on it.

00:40:41   And he was contacted by Apple and they kind of said to him,

00:40:46   "These are the things that you can and can't do on iOS."

00:40:48   And side-by-side Windows was fine within the application.

00:40:51   Being able to resize the Windows was fine,

00:40:53   but they didn't like overlapping Windows.

00:40:56   And this is kind of where the conversation begins on ATP.

00:40:59   And it's just really funny to me.

00:41:01   There were just a couple of things that John and the guys were talking about.

00:41:04   Like John kept talking about like that,

00:41:07   that this is innovation.

00:41:10   Like your Apple is stopping innovation.

00:41:13   And it felt so funny to me,

00:41:15   like with my mindset that John considers overlapping windows

00:41:20   to be innovative.

00:41:22   It's to me that is the absolute opposite of innovation.

00:41:26   Innovation is everything else that Steve had done.

00:41:31   So on iOS, these windows that are moving around

00:41:34   and resizing themselves based upon what is being dragged

00:41:38   on top of them, that is innovative for iOS.

00:41:41   - I agree.

00:41:42   - Overlapping windows is actually, for me,

00:41:44   I consider like a relic that would be brought in

00:41:48   and would make things messy.

00:41:49   Like, the idea of being on iOS and there being,

00:41:54   and I understand why Apple doesn't want this

00:41:56   because you cannot hide things behind each other.

00:41:59   - I know, right?

00:42:00   That's not how iOS works.

00:42:02   You don't ever hide something.

00:42:04   - I agree with you.

00:42:04   I think that this is one of those cases

00:42:06   where we have this assumption that we make about windows

00:42:10   from the classic Mac OS that looked through a lens of,

00:42:15   you know, 2017 or 2020 iOS, you'd say,

00:42:19   when you drag a window around or wanna resize it,

00:42:23   we will do the right thing about what happens there.

00:42:27   but if you try to drag that window over another window,

00:42:30   that's not a thing that we're gonna let you do.

00:42:33   We're going to either try to intuit and preview

00:42:35   that you're gonna dock it or it's gonna move

00:42:39   or something like that, right?

00:42:40   But the interface should be,

00:42:42   if they were designing windowing today,

00:42:43   would they design it so that you can literally lose a window

00:42:46   behind another window?

00:42:47   Probably not.

00:42:48   And if people love that,

00:42:50   because they like to have a thousand windows open

00:42:52   and then have to use the app switcher

00:42:54   to bring them to the front,

00:42:55   then I guess so be it.

00:42:56   This is why there's a strong argument

00:42:58   that Apple should keep the Mac the Mac

00:43:00   and not mess with it too much and just let it be there.

00:43:02   But for iOS, I would not replicate that.

00:43:06   Like, no, don't do that.

00:43:08   Do it in an iOS-like way,

00:43:10   but with enough flexibility to let you use that screen

00:43:14   and put your stuff where you want it to be.

00:43:17   Because once you've got a big screen,

00:43:19   there's room for you to not have everything

00:43:23   filling every pixel of the screen all the time.

00:43:25   So this knuckleheads made his point. Should we move on?

00:43:32   You knuckleheads.

00:43:35   I'm such a knucklehead.

00:43:37   Yeah, I had one last thing before we go which is just to say that the argument is to come back to the Mac again, right?

00:43:45   Is why not, if we're trying to make iOS into the Mac, why not just have the Mac?

00:43:50   And I really do believe that there are two user bases

00:43:55   for Apple, the Mac and iOS,

00:43:56   all those iPhone users and iPad users.

00:43:58   I don't think Mac and iOS are interchangeable parts.

00:44:01   I think they're very different platforms.

00:44:03   iOS is the modern one.

00:44:04   It's more popular than Mac, like I said.

00:44:06   And I have to ask what is Apple's long-term strategy

00:44:10   for devices with those shapes

00:44:13   that the iOS platform doesn't currently support?

00:44:16   I feel like all of those places

00:44:18   or places iOS will probably go

00:44:20   because I do think ultimately that iOS is the future computing platform of Apple

00:44:24   and that if Apple wants to have laptops and big desktop screens and all of that,

00:44:29   just saying we're going to have non-touch Macs out there is not likely.

00:44:33   And I don't think Apple's going to also, in addition to developing iOS,

00:44:38   retrofit the Mac to become very much more iOS-like because, I don't know,

00:44:44   it seems like they've said consistently for a long time they're not going to do that,

00:44:48   and they've got iOS, which is their modern operating system.

00:44:51   So yeah, I do think that ultimately,

00:44:53   iOS is the max replacement everywhere,

00:44:56   and that Apple believes that,

00:44:57   and that they will go into all of these places.

00:44:59   But in order to go,

00:45:00   and this was part of the point of the ATP conversation too,

00:45:02   in order to go to those places,

00:45:03   iOS has to do a whole lot more than it does now,

00:45:06   and that's on Apple.

00:45:07   And it includes all of this interface stuff

00:45:09   where once you break out of that 12-inch screen,

00:45:12   it becomes more and more complicated to do this.

00:45:15   So, I mean, so that's my take on it is that,

00:45:19   yeah, they could leave it to the Mac,

00:45:20   but I feel like the touch screen

00:45:22   ends up being the place where this all breaks down.

00:45:24   Like touch interfaces are great,

00:45:25   the Mac doesn't do touch interfaces.

00:45:27   Apple says the Mac doesn't want to do touch interfaces

00:45:29   because Mac users want to use a keyboard and a track pad.

00:45:32   Fair enough, but then what happens to people

00:45:35   who are in a desktop mode and want those iOS apps

00:45:38   and want to use touch?

00:45:40   They have to be served too,

00:45:42   And that's the, and so how do you serve them?

00:45:47   Do you, I don't, I just don't see them retrofitting the Mac

00:45:50   to turn it into another iOS when they've got iOS.

00:45:53   - You'd be going the wrong way.

00:45:54   You're better off putting the time into making iOS better

00:45:57   than trying to make the Mac more like iOS.

00:45:59   - Right, and the Mac users don't want that, right?

00:46:02   Mac users don't want the Mac to turn into iOS.

00:46:05   They already are grumpy about the fact

00:46:07   that most of the Mac innovation that happens

00:46:09   is just stuff that syncs with iOS.

00:46:11   So you leave the Mac as the Mac, you let it be what it is.

00:46:15   You keep updating it and let it kind of run

00:46:17   as long as there's a market for that sort of computer.

00:46:20   And you put all your energy into making iOS,

00:46:22   you know, its replacement so that Apple can stand on stage

00:46:25   at a future keynote sometime and say, you know,

00:46:28   we cannibalized the Mac, those are all iOS devices now.

00:46:31   So good for us.

00:46:33   And you know, that, I feel like that's where they're going.

00:46:36   Whether they succeed or fail remains to be seen.

00:46:38   They got a lot of work to do.

00:46:40   we can agree as iOS users and iPad users, we can really agree. They got a lot of work

00:46:44   to do on the iPad front to get to that world. And that's the challenge. I'd say that's Apple's

00:46:50   number one challenge right now is what do you do outside of the smartphone? Okay, you're

00:46:54   really good at the smartphone. What about bigger devices? What's your strategy there?

00:46:59   And if their strategy is very slowly to improve iOS to make iPads better and very slowly keep

00:47:05   the Mac around in sync with iOS, you know, they're kind of abandoning screen sizes above

00:47:12   the iPad or the iPhone 7 Plus, right? And that, that, I am not a believer in Apple abandoning

00:47:21   everything but the smartphone. I think that Apple wants to be everywhere, and that means

00:47:25   they have to have a strategy to get everywhere. And I don't think, I don't, you know, I don't

00:47:29   think the Mac shows it, and I don't think their iPad R&D that we've seen the results

00:47:34   of supports that either. So, but if I had to pick it's iOS.

00:47:38   My feeling about the iPad inside of Apple right now is they will keep working on it

00:47:43   because it's the only thing that they've got. It's the only future of computing PC replacement

00:47:49   device they have. Right? They have the Mac. The Mac is done mostly, right? Like it is

00:47:56   what it is. It's great as it is. And it needs to just be kind of just carried through to

00:48:02   future as opposed to mind-blowing innovation because big innovation to the Mac is most likely

00:48:09   just going to upset and alienate current Mac users because big innovation to the Mac will be changing

00:48:14   it in ways that might be uncomfortable right. ARM may be something that they could do without

00:48:20   completely destroying everything but you know we'll have to see what will go there but that's

00:48:25   that's kind of my feeling especially software like iOS has a lot further to go than the Mac does.

00:48:31   So considering the iPad is all that they have, I think that's why they continue to work on it and continue to put effort into it

00:48:38   because they have the iPhone, they have the smartphone, the smartphone is done.

00:48:41   They have the Mac, the Mac is done. They've got those. They are working as they are, they're great.

00:48:46   But they have nothing else in the middle. And that middle section right now is the iPad.

00:48:51   And that is like the, what is like the smartphone, because the smartphone is so popular, but is closer to the desktop.

00:48:59   Well, we have the iPad for that. Okay, the iPad isn't working. Let's keep working on it

00:49:03   and I think they'll keep working on it and keep improving it until

00:49:06   They come up with something else or the iPad turns a corner and breaks through

00:49:12   Yeah, and and just one final note which is nobody because we do hear from a lot of people who are like well

00:49:20   You know, but the Mac but the Mac and all this it's like nobody is more aware of the limitations of iOS than people who use iOS

00:49:28   especially to try to get a lot of work done. Like, I feel like a lot of the

00:49:32   criticism the people who use iOS to get work done receives is a criticism of, "But

00:49:38   iOS doesn't do that, but iOS doesn't do this, it has this failing, it's so

00:49:41   hard to use." It's like, you are talking to the people who are doing that. So they are

00:49:46   well aware of all the failings of iOS. When we talk about what iOS needs to do,

00:49:50   there is definitely a level of frustration there about the fact that,

00:49:54   that, for example, as we said earlier,

00:49:56   that they introduced a multitasking feature

00:49:59   and then with obvious flaws,

00:50:00   and a year later when they did the next update,

00:50:03   they didn't address a single one of the flaws.

00:50:05   Whoops.

00:50:06   So there's a lot of work for Apple to do.

00:50:08   In fact, another way to have cast this whole conversation,

00:50:11   and I didn't wanna go down that route,

00:50:12   but we'll see over time what Apple does,

00:50:15   and maybe they will need this criticism at a later date,

00:50:19   is if the future of every Apple device, essentially,

00:50:24   above the size of a phone is in,

00:50:27   is basically iPad software development stuff, where is it?

00:50:32   Because that to me is the big question is

00:50:35   why does Apple look like it's so asleep

00:50:37   when it comes to the iPad?

00:50:38   If they really believe that the Mac is not

00:50:40   gonna have a touchscreen or anything like that,

00:50:43   where's the future of iOS on larger devices

00:50:45   and are they giving that away?

00:50:46   'Cause right now they've got two options.

00:50:48   Microsoft only has one, Microsoft is building a toaster fridge, fair enough, but what Apple's

00:50:52   doing is building two products that are kind of like not getting any attention. So what's

00:50:57   their strategy above the seven-inch screen? What's their strategy?

00:51:01   >> I would also just like to state for the record that no matter what he says about the

00:51:05   way that I use my devices, I will always love John Sirkisso.

00:51:08   >> Yes, of course. Meat Space Windows is one of the funniest things I've heard in a long

00:51:14   time, to be honest.

00:51:15   >> Mm-hmm.

00:51:16   Knuckleheads.

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00:52:24   As a listener of this show, you'll get one whole month of service for free. Thank you

00:52:29   so much to encapsular for their support of this show and relay FM. So Mr Jason Snell,

00:52:35   In the absence of exciting news this week, I decided to turn to our listeners and ask

00:52:44   them to give us an avalanche of Ask Upgrade questions. So can you please give me extra

00:52:51   lasers, Mr. Jason Snow?

00:52:57   Mega Ask Upgrade!

00:52:58   Perfect. Wayne starts off today. Do you think that Apple might add remote controls to the

00:53:03   AirPods case as an alternative to try and squeeze them into the AirPods themselves.

00:53:08   No. No. No, I don't think that would help the situation because the AirPods case is

00:53:16   in my pocket like my phone is and it's harder to get to than my watch will be. And I don't

00:53:23   need to bring the case with me but I do need to bring a device that plays music or other

00:53:27   audio on them which means I have my phone or my watch with me and that is, that's enough.

00:53:33   like

00:53:54   "When Power in Your Homes went out unexpectedly, would you be able to keep up running your

00:53:59   businesses?"

00:54:00   And he said, he gave us the idea of two days.

00:54:02   Two days of no power.

00:54:04   Would we be able to continue running our businesses?

00:54:06   Ah, that's a good question.

00:54:08   I mean, I wouldn't be able to record, so somebody would have to stand in for me, but I think

00:54:13   that there would be enough people that could stand in for me.

00:54:15   Like I've been, you know, I've been sick and I couldn't record and couldn't work and people

00:54:21   could stand in for me.

00:54:23   know and it's something I think about a lot having having things in place for

00:54:27   something happened so I'm getting there I'm doing a lot of like that kind of

00:54:32   thinking and planning right now I think that we wouldn't the business and go

00:54:36   bust though if two days I think I'll be okay yeah and in terms of getting work

00:54:41   done I always charge my iPad Pro overnight and so I would have and my

00:54:49   iPhone, right? So I would have an iPhone and iPad Pro fully charged, so I would

00:54:55   have battery to work at least for one day, and assuming I could go somewhere

00:55:00   and recharge and/or work nearby, I could do that, and assuming there was cell

00:55:08   service I would also have some internet, and I could I could get by with that. My

00:55:12   laptop has a charge, so I could bring that out. I have a power supply, an

00:55:18   uninterruptible power supply. It doesn't have a big battery in it so it doesn't last very

00:55:21   long but it would potentially allow me to, you know, first off shut down my computer

00:55:26   but it would potentially allow me to start up my computer even with the power off and

00:55:32   get some files off of it. If I had like files I needed to transfer out I could do that too.

00:55:36   So I feel like it would be an inconvenience but it would be okay. I don't have like a

00:55:40   big battery that I keep around to recharge my iOS devices or my laptops if there was

00:55:47   is a huge power issue.

00:55:48   - Travel, travel is preparing me

00:55:51   for this inevitability at a point.

00:55:52   'Cause I have those big Anker batteries.

00:55:55   You know, like I have one I think

00:55:56   that will charge my phone five times.

00:55:57   - Do you leave it charged though?

00:55:59   - Yes.

00:56:00   - Are you sure it's got charged at all times?

00:56:01   Okay, well that's pretty good.

00:56:02   I have some smaller rechargeable,

00:56:04   you know, smaller batteries for travel.

00:56:06   And I'm not sure those would help too much.

00:56:10   - It's one of the first things I do

00:56:11   when I return from travel

00:56:12   is to charge up the batteries I've used.

00:56:14   So they're ready to go.

00:56:16   just like part of the unpacking, you know,

00:56:18   a part of my unpacking process.

00:56:21   I charge the Mophie or charge the Anker battery

00:56:23   or something.

00:56:24   So the next time I'm ready to travel, they're ready to go.

00:56:28   'Cause you know, I keep those in my bag

00:56:30   that I might take out with me,

00:56:31   like on a day trip or a weekend

00:56:33   and I still want those batteries to be ready to go

00:56:36   if I need them.

00:56:38   - Right, and as David in the chat room points out,

00:56:41   my UPS, if I don't drain it down

00:56:44   while getting files off of it onto my Mac,

00:56:48   my UPS would still have battery in it.

00:56:51   And I could plug in like an iOS charger to it

00:56:55   and charge off of that battery, even after the power's out.

00:56:58   That's absolutely true.

00:56:59   So there's some options.

00:57:01   - We'll run for fun.

00:57:03   It's like you have a car, right?

00:57:04   Charge it in there.

00:57:05   There are lots of batteries.

00:57:07   - That's true.

00:57:08   I got USB chargers in there

00:57:09   and that would be a possibility too.

00:57:11   So, I mean, the short version is, yeah,

00:57:13   I think we'd be able to keep running our businesses.

00:57:15   If I really had to,

00:57:16   I could probably even record podcasts

00:57:18   because I could do it over cellular and make it work.

00:57:23   It would not be great, but I could make it work.

00:57:25   So if my internet went out for days,

00:57:27   I could probably still figure it out.

00:57:29   And then if I could also drive somewhere

00:57:30   and where there was power and internet and stuff,

00:57:33   I could make it work too.

00:57:34   So I think it'd be okay.

00:57:35   But it's an interesting thought process

00:57:37   when people have weather issues,

00:57:39   especially that knock out power and internet

00:57:42   and things like that.

00:57:44   - Brent asked, "Do people get upset at the change

00:57:46   from MagSafe 1 to MagSafe 2?"

00:57:49   - Yeah, well, people get upset when Apple does anything.

00:57:55   But in that case, they were compatible with each other

00:57:59   via an adapter that Apple sold that was super cheap.

00:58:03   It was the cheapest thing you could buy.

00:58:05   I still have them around somewhere

00:58:06   'cause I think I still have one device in my house

00:58:09   that's a MagSafe 1 laptop.

00:58:11   And there's just, you know, you,

00:58:14   actually it's my son's laptop that he uses

00:58:17   as an old MacBook Air with the MagSafe 1

00:58:19   and the cord died on it.

00:58:21   And I had to go on eBay and buy a new cord

00:58:23   'cause it's a MagSafe 1.

00:58:24   And I don't have any MagSafe 1 cords around,

00:58:27   but the adapter lets you use a MagSafe 1 cord

00:58:30   with a MagSafe 2.

00:58:31   So people who had an investment in extra cables

00:58:34   could just buy this $6 adapter

00:58:36   and then they would still be able to use them.

00:58:39   And it really didn't get, it was a strong magnet.

00:58:41   It actually worked perfectly well and it was fine.

00:58:45   So it was not that big a deal,

00:58:47   but of course people were upset about it.

00:58:48   People are always upset.

00:58:50   - Also the change of a cable on an Apple laptop

00:58:53   is nothing like the change on an iOS device, right?

00:58:57   Like the amount of people it impacts,

00:58:58   the frustration that people cause.

00:59:00   - Well, it's not an accessory.

00:59:01   MagSafe's not an accessory.

00:59:02   - Yeah, exactly.

00:59:04   - The only thing you could possibly have bought

00:59:06   as a MagSafe accessory would have been other chargers,

00:59:09   all of which use that cable,

00:59:10   all of which would work with a little adapter.

00:59:13   So it's very different.

00:59:14   - Yeah, it's not as much of a thing,

00:59:15   I don't think, the MagSafe.

00:59:17   But good question, right?

00:59:19   It's like, what is the range of frustration

00:59:23   when Apple changes cables and connectors?

00:59:27   And I think MagSafe is probably at the bottom of that range.

00:59:30   Jeff asked, "If money and time were not a concern,

00:59:34   "what university level work would you undertake

00:59:36   "to support your creative work?"

00:59:38   Now for me, university level work,

00:59:41   what I'm taking from that is would I take a course, right?

00:59:45   I can't think of what else university level work

00:59:47   would be personally, like research, I don't know.

00:59:50   But I'm just gonna take this question as like,

00:59:53   if I could just go back to school, right?

00:59:55   What would I learn?

00:59:56   Well, I mean, I'll be going to school,

00:59:58   that kind of school for the first time

00:59:59   as I don't have a degree.

01:00:01   But right now, like if you said to me,

01:00:03   what would you wanna do?

01:00:04   I'd probably wanna take like a filmmaking course

01:00:07   for a couple of different reasons.

01:00:08   I mean, one, because I am interested in video,

01:00:11   but filmmaking, I'm sure, would also include

01:00:14   some element of storytelling, I would assume,

01:00:17   and I wouldn't mind to learn some of that too.

01:00:19   So something kind of focused around film

01:00:21   because it would touch on a couple of different areas

01:00:24   in my life from the practical

01:00:26   to also just understanding a little bit more

01:00:28   about telling great stories.

01:00:31   I think that's where I would go with that.

01:00:34   - Yeah, and for me, I mean,

01:00:35   funny and time-waring concerns is a funny one,

01:00:37   So I've got two answers. One is I thought about taking astronomy and other science courses,

01:00:46   which I suppose would support my creative work on the Liftoff podcast with Stephen Hackett.

01:00:51   And the other answer I have is there are a lot of university-level kind of writing programs

01:00:57   where you spend a few weeks doing intensive writing, usually fiction writing. And I would

01:01:07   love to do that sometime. I've thought about applying for some of those programs where

01:01:10   I would go for six weeks in the summer somewhere and do a super intensive creative writing

01:01:17   program. So those are the two. Those are my two answers.

01:01:20   Although I would say if money and time weren't a concern I wouldn't go back to school I'd

01:01:24   find something else to do. You know it's not for me I mean I just didn't do it anyway

01:01:32   so. Yeah I did school straight through from when

01:01:36   I was not quite five years old until I was 23. I went straight through. I went through

01:01:45   all the way from kindergarten to graduate school without a break. And when I was done

01:01:50   with that, I said, "That's it. I'm done." But the fact is, yeah, I mean, so what I end

01:01:55   up doing is like podcast courses of things. Like I've done several of those astronomy

01:02:00   courses as podcasts and iTunes U and things like that. And that's great. And that expands

01:02:05   my horizons and it doesn't cost money and time, I just have to fit it into my podcast

01:02:10   listing so that's probably the answer. When I think about money and time, the writing

01:02:14   stuff is the thing I really think is that I could probably benefit greatly and it would

01:02:18   be a wonderful experience to leave all of my other work aside for six weeks and just

01:02:23   focus on writing but who's got the ability to do that? Fortunately, Jeff has a magic

01:02:29   wand that makes money and time not a concern. Thanks Jeff.

01:02:32   Anytime you want to want to wave that over here, Jeff, we'll appreciate it.

01:02:35   Seth asked, "Is the Nest still the smart thermostat to buy or is Siri nice enough to consider the

01:02:43   Echo Bee 3?" Now, my feeling on this, uh, I don't have any of these products. I have no

01:02:49   experience of any of them. Okay, well, I reviewed them all for the wire cutter.

01:02:55   Brilliant. So I'm going to get to you in a moment, but here's my, my opinion on this.

01:02:58   All right, let's start with yours. Man who doesn't have them.

01:03:01   Exactly. So because mine is it's not about the quality of the product, right?

01:03:06   Yeah. My feeling is even if Jason says the Nest is still the best, I would not want to get a Nest

01:03:13   because they seem like a troubled company, maybe a company without focus. And I don't know whether

01:03:21   Google are really going to keep them around or not. Like it all seems a little bit up in the

01:03:25   the air right now to be honest. So I might look at some competitors whose business is

01:03:32   maybe more tied to being successful, right? Like they only stay in business if they do

01:03:38   good stuff, which I think maybe Nest doesn't have the same thing because it has a big company,

01:03:45   like kind of just protecting it until it's done. So I might look at something like Ecobee

01:03:50   or The Hive. I don't know if you're familiar with The Hive but I think it's British Gas

01:03:55   in the UK who's using them. I've heard good things about people that have them.

01:03:58   I will put a link in the show notes. Europe only. Okay so there you go. So yeah I've

01:04:03   heard a lot about Hive. People seem to like Hive but again I don't have any

01:04:07   personal experience of it. So there'll be two links in the show notes. I will

01:04:10   obviously put a link to Jason's Wirecard article in the link, in the show notes

01:04:14   sorry, and I'll also put in a link to John Voigt's Mac stories because he

01:04:18   reviewed the Ekka B3 so he gets some other opinions. So yeah as the man who's

01:04:24   tested them all. So, Ecobee3 has a new, has a relatively new version that

01:04:28   supports HomeKit, and Honeywell Lyric has a second-generation model that supports

01:04:34   HomeKit. Nest does not support HomeKit. So, if HomeKit support is important to you,

01:04:38   if you're, you know, which I think at this point I would say it's even important to

01:04:42   me because there's enough convenience and having that all integrated into

01:04:46   Apple stuff that I'd rather buy a product that had it than that didn't

01:04:49   have it, that was outside of it, and the Nest is outside of it. So, that's

01:04:53   unfortunate. I have a nest, I still have a first-generation nest on my wall. I

01:04:57   reviewed all of these. I think the nest is the most attractive of all of them,

01:05:00   the latest version of the nest. What I don't like about the Ecobee is

01:05:04   that it is a plastic slab.

01:05:08   It's got some glue based on entirely on the placement of windows in my house.

01:05:12   It's got some glare issues where it's like I find it harder to read than

01:05:16   either the nest or the Honeywell Lyric, which is another one that I tested

01:05:20   that's a very nice thermostat actually.

01:05:23   It also feels like, you know, it's like an app on your wall

01:05:30   and the Nest feels a little more like

01:05:33   it's trying to be an appliance.

01:05:35   Whereas the Ecobee is like a touch screen app interface

01:05:39   that stays open on your wall.

01:05:42   So there are things I don't like about it.

01:05:44   It works with HomeKit.

01:05:45   It's got a lot of features.

01:05:46   It's got remote sensors, which the Nest doesn't have.

01:05:48   There are a lot of things to like about it.

01:05:50   So I think the Ecobee3 is probably the best thing for people to look at for, um, for if

01:05:57   you're in the, uh, the Apple ecosystem. But I'd also throw in a note out for the Honeywell

01:06:02   lyric, which is, uh, a round, pretty, uh, it doesn't look quite like the nest, but I

01:06:08   think it looks more attractive and is more readable than the Ecobee. And Honeywell, um,

01:06:16   Honeywell makes a lot of heating and air conditioning units, so if you have a Honeywell set of heating

01:06:19   central heater this is a really good choice but it will work with just about

01:06:23   anything and it's it works with home kit now too so I would shop for those I'd

01:06:28   probably steer away I was buying one today I would probably steer away from

01:06:31   the nest just because of the home kit reason and because they do seem troubled

01:06:36   and have not really made a lot I mean the nest is not that much better than it

01:06:40   was when I bought it quite frankly even if I bought the new model now it would

01:06:43   not really be much better and although I love it it they don't seem to be making

01:06:48   lot of progress there. So I think I think it's worth looking at the ecobee and at

01:06:51   the Honeywell. I'll also say that if you're if you've got a system that

01:06:56   you've had installed in your house, one of the people I talked to, I talked to a

01:07:00   HVAC expert when I was writing that story for Wirecutter, he said if you've

01:07:07   got a system that was installed in your house that's from a particular

01:07:11   manufacturer, contact that manufacturer and see what they have because these are

01:07:16   all generic, they're meant to work with everything, and every manufacturer has

01:07:21   their own like special settings and knowledge about their equipment and so

01:07:26   the best, if you've got a relatively new system, the best replacement for your

01:07:32   thermostat would probably be something that is made by the manufacturer if they

01:07:38   offer a smart thermostat. So that's something to look at too if you've got a

01:07:42   very particular brand. The wire cutter still picks the Nest. It may still be my story.

01:07:47   I think they've updated it. They just took a look, they've updated it and they still

01:07:50   picked the Nest. Yeah, see, it's nice, it's really nice. I think the fact that it is a

01:07:55   troubled company and that it doesn't have home kit support are problems if you care

01:08:00   about home kit support especially. Oliver asked, "Could this next rumoured fancy iPhone

01:08:07   be the first one to lose the eye and be the first Apple phone? I mean I've said

01:08:12   this in the past that I believe one day Apple will go here. I don't think this

01:08:18   will be that but I do think that this third iPhone this unicorn iPhone would

01:08:24   be the first iPhone to get a new name that isn't just the number that it is. I

01:08:30   I mean, I'm currently leaning towards iPhone Pro,

01:08:34   but it could also get the X, I don't know.

01:08:40   But I don't think it will be called iPhone 8 personally.

01:08:44   - I will limit my reaction to Oliver's question

01:08:51   to be the specific questions he's asking and say, no,

01:08:56   I don't think, I think iPhone is too strong a brand,

01:08:59   But like Myke said, he's predicted that Apple phone is inevitable and I don't think that.

01:09:06   I think it will be iPhone.

01:09:08   We've got more Ask Upgrades after this break from our friends at FreshBooks.

01:09:14   I want to talk about them for a moment because they're helping support this show, but they

01:09:17   do so much more than that.

01:09:18   They don't only support the show, they support me because they help my life be a little bit

01:09:23   easier.

01:09:24   I run my own business.

01:09:26   FreshBooks is very important for that because I need to bill people, send them invoices

01:09:32   so we can get paid. So the business keeps turning. FreshBooks is the system that we

01:09:36   chose when we first started with Relay FM and it has continued to be the system that

01:09:41   we are incredibly happy with because they are always adding new features. They think

01:09:45   very clearly and it's obvious in the product that they want to make life as a freelancer,

01:09:50   life as a self-employed person easier. And this really comes across with their new design

01:09:55   that they've put forward recently. They worked tirelessly, Freshworks told me, to make this

01:10:01   new version of their cloud accounting software. They've redesigned it from the ground up.

01:10:05   It's very pretty, it's beautiful, and it's been custom built to work with people and

01:10:11   for people who work online. So for example, they have a new all new notification system,

01:10:18   which is like a personal assistant. Every time you log in to Freshworks, it tells you

01:10:22   exactly what's changed with your business since the last time you logged in. Maybe somebody's

01:10:26   late for payment, like later than usual, or somebody has paid something. So you can get

01:10:30   exactly what you need to know when you need it.

01:10:33   FreshBooks is focused on providing you with the answer to the question, "How is my business

01:10:38   doing?" All of their invoices that you will send out are beautiful. They're really easy

01:10:43   to put together. Super, super simple. You can get an invoice out in less than 30 seconds.

01:10:48   Your clients will be able to pay you in a myriad of ways. You can set up online payments.

01:10:51   They can pay you by card, you can integrate with Stripe, it's super simple.

01:10:55   And this is why FreshBooks customers get paid up to 4 days faster.

01:10:58   And then those invoices, you don't need to be chasing them with your client because you

01:11:02   can see if they've seen it, you can see if they've printed it.

01:11:06   You'll know what's going on with that invoice.

01:11:08   And you also get told like, this client usually pays in 35 days.

01:11:13   So you'll know when it is weird for them to have not paid you and then maybe you can send

01:11:17   them out a reminder which you can do from Freshbooks or you can have Freshbooks do it

01:11:21   automatically. Freshbooks is offering a 30 day unrestricted free trial to listeners of

01:11:28   this show. Just go to freshbooks.com/upgrade and enter upgrade in the how you heard about

01:11:33   us section so they will know that you came to them from this show. Thank you so much

01:11:37   to Freshbooks for their continued support of Upgrade and Relay FM.

01:11:42   All right, so we go back to Ask Upgrade and first off from Lucas, "Do you still use

01:11:48   Apple Watch apps, Jason?" Well sure, of course. In fact, I'm using them

01:11:55   a little bit more. Me too.

01:11:56   Because I use the new, I find I use the new Overcast app more. I have actually added Overcast

01:12:03   as a complication to my default watch face and number one reason for that is actually

01:12:10   Sometimes I've been playing music or I played a video or something and my iPhone no longer

01:12:17   remembers that I was listening in Overcast.

01:12:20   And so if I just press, you know, double tap on my AirPods or whatever, it doesn't do anything

01:12:27   because Overcast is no longer the most recent thing to have played and I tap on the Overcast

01:12:33   app and it allows me to explicitly press play on Overcast and start the playing going.

01:12:38   So I use that all the time.

01:12:39   I use the weather apps, I use the health app, I use the workout app, and I have a 5K trainer

01:12:49   app that I'm doing again, and I use that so that while I'm running I can see exactly where

01:12:54   I am in progress.

01:12:57   So yeah.

01:13:00   I have a problem with the Apple Watch at the moment in trying to get it to resume playback

01:13:05   or something, you know, you press play and just nothing happens, but like, because it's

01:13:08   is falling out of memory or whatever,

01:13:10   like that's frustrating to me.

01:13:11   That's just something I wanted to mention.

01:13:13   But yeah, I am still using apps.

01:13:14   I use the Workflow app,

01:13:16   like to stop and start my toggle timers.

01:13:18   It works great for that.

01:13:20   I still use Dew, Carrot Weather, Todoist, and Fantastical.

01:13:25   They're like the third party apps I use a lot.

01:13:27   And I use the Home app an awful lot now,

01:13:30   as well as like the Workout apps as well, and the timer.

01:13:34   So I'm still using quite a lot of stuff in my Apple Watch.

01:13:37   All that stuff that I just told you about is what's in my dock as well because they're

01:13:40   the amps that I use the most.

01:13:42   Yeah, makes sense.

01:13:44   Ryan said one thing that he's never heard us talk about is what our music listening

01:13:47   setup is like.

01:13:48   Speakers, stereo, vinyl, digital?

01:13:50   Those are the questions that Ryan asked.

01:13:52   So I will go through mine.

01:13:55   I have a record player.

01:13:56   I've had a record player for many years.

01:13:58   I have a selection of records that I enjoy.

01:14:01   Some of my favorite albums.

01:14:03   And it's a nice little thing to have in the home.

01:14:05   I think it's a nice collection to have your favorite music on these beautiful records

01:14:10   and sometimes if we're like hanging out around the house or whenever we have company that's

01:14:15   how we put music on in the front room I have some nice speakers and a nice record player

01:14:20   and we that's how we listen to some music and I know it's not the best way to get the

01:14:25   most high quality music but I like it I like it this this all started when I was like 18

01:14:32   I was starting to find what my music was a lot more and then I bought a record which

01:14:39   was signed from a favourite band of mine. Then I bought another one for similar reasons.

01:14:45   Then I started building a collection just for having a collection like you would collect

01:14:49   anything. Then I decided well I'm collecting these records maybe I should get something

01:14:53   to actually listen to the music on them and I did that. I love my collection of records

01:14:59   I don't add to it as much anymore, I do want to, there's just some of my favourite albums

01:15:03   of the last couple of years that I don't own, but that's a thing that I have. I don't listen

01:15:07   to a lot of music on my own at home, other than that record player, everything's digital

01:15:13   for me and it's all through Apple Music, that is my streaming service of choice. So typically,

01:15:19   whenever I do listen to music at home, it's on the device that I'm using, right, whether

01:15:24   it's on my Mac, the iPhone or the iPad, it tends to be through the speakers of the device,

01:15:28   unless I'm on the go and then that's right now the job of my AirPods. You got something to say, Snow?

01:15:35   I, uh, sure. I have, uh, so my, my TV is hooked up to a, it's a 5.1 audio system, so all speakers can

01:15:46   also be, I can play through, I have a Sonos bass and then, um, I have a Sonos Play One in my bathroom

01:15:53   that I listen to sometimes at my desk,

01:15:56   I have the classic iPod HiFi.

01:15:58   And actually I listened to probably most music through that

01:16:02   because it's hooked up to my Mac

01:16:05   and I sit on my Mac and write and play music.

01:16:07   - Trading size back to you right now, you know?

01:16:10   - Yeah, fair enough.

01:16:12   Yes, it's a speaker mic, amazing.

01:16:15   Most of my, many of my speakers are as old

01:16:17   as the iPod HiFi.

01:16:19   The dock connector is covered.

01:16:21   The, I use that though.

01:16:23   I play a lot and it's generally Apple music through iTunes

01:16:26   on my Mac playing through that speaker.

01:16:28   And yeah, that's it.

01:16:31   I mean, so I can listen in the living room.

01:16:34   My family actually listens a lot on the Amazon Echo

01:16:37   because they can just tell it to play things and it plays.

01:16:40   And that's pretty great.

01:16:41   So even though it doesn't sound great,

01:16:43   they listen to that a lot.

01:16:44   I'm hoping one day to have the Amazon Echo

01:16:47   be able to control a better speaker

01:16:49   than the one that's inside it.

01:16:50   But right now that's what we got.

01:16:53   Jeremy asked, what benefits have you seen from using devices such as the Wacom tablet

01:16:59   and then also maybe for you Jason something like the touch bar or other non-traditional

01:17:04   input devices?

01:17:05   So my use of the Wacom tablet for my Mac and the Apple pencil on my iOS devices and my

01:17:12   iPad, mainly I started using this as a way to hold off RSI problems.

01:17:21   Before I got the Wacom I was starting to suffer in my right hand from using a mouse and then

01:17:28   I got the Wacom tablet and because I am left handed I was able to rest my right hand for

01:17:33   a while and use the Wacom tablet as my input device.

01:17:37   And since then it's been pretty much fine.

01:17:40   I get flare ups every now and then, right, it tends to be my right hand that's the problem,

01:17:45   I might start to get some pain but it's very rare and overall is significantly better.

01:17:51   So the Wacom for me and the Apple Pencil really I use them as a way to try and keep my hands

01:17:57   healthy but ultimately I just find them to be for me more natural ways to use the devices.

01:18:09   One of the things for me with the Wacom tablet that just makes a lot of sense is that with

01:18:12   The way that I have it set up, so it's in pen mode, the screen is mapped to the size

01:18:18   of the tablet.

01:18:19   So when I hover the pen over the top right corner of the tablet, my mouse is in the top

01:18:27   right corner of the screen.

01:18:28   It's not like on a trackpad where you put your finger wherever it is, the mouse pointer

01:18:33   stays where it is and then you move from there.

01:18:35   To me now, this one-to-one kind of mapping makes a lot more sense to me.

01:18:43   And I think it's because, well, that's how it is on iOS as well, right?

01:18:47   It's one-to-one.

01:18:48   Wherever you put your finger is what's being manipulated.

01:18:52   You don't put your finger and then move it up to get to that point in the top right hand

01:18:55   corner, you're already there.

01:18:57   And that's one of the things that just makes a lot more sense to me is being a Wacom user.

01:19:03   For me, I mean, really the only thing I have to say here is that I like my Magic Trackpad

01:19:09   because I use gestures on it all the time.

01:19:11   Me too.

01:19:14   Not just the traditional kind of scrolling, but in, I think we mentioned this last week,

01:19:17   but like in Logic when I'm editing podcasts, I can't imagine what it would be like if I

01:19:21   had to zoom in and out on tracks and slide around in the timeline and all of that without

01:19:25   being able to just do the hand gestures on that.

01:19:29   It's great.

01:19:30   idea, you lose sight of it sometimes, that so many parts of our user interface

01:19:35   we used to interact with by literally moving our mouse and clicking and

01:19:40   dragging an interface element that we don't now. Like, so much of what we do,

01:19:45   even if you're just using the scroll feature, so much of what we do is not,

01:19:50   you know, clicking on UI elements to move other UI elements on the screen, but

01:19:56   but instead just physically doing a gesture

01:19:59   and having it move.

01:19:59   And I couldn't be as productive as I am without that.

01:20:03   I would never go back to something

01:20:06   that wasn't a multi-touch surface as my pointer on my Mac.

01:20:09   So that's, for me, that's the big one.

01:20:11   - So I also use a Magic Trackpad, right?

01:20:13   Like I use both devices.

01:20:15   So the Magic Trackpad is operated in my right hand

01:20:17   and I use my Wacom tablet in my left hand.

01:20:20   And so I use the gestures for moving around screen to screen

01:20:24   for using mission control, that kind of stuff, but also for logic, for like panning and zooming.

01:20:29   A couple of weeks ago when I was playing around with that Citrix mouse, I was seeing if I

01:20:33   could just edit an episode of the show on my iPad with the Citrix mouse. The problem

01:20:41   I quickly ran into was I had no idea how to zoom, because I never do it. I always do the

01:20:48   zooming on my Magic Trackpad, so I had no idea how to zoom in and out or move it around

01:20:54   without dragging around the little scroll bars and that was horrible. So yeah, thumbs

01:21:03   up for the Magitrap Pad 2. Daniel asks "I have an 11 inch MacBook Air and Thunderbolt

01:21:08   display. I need more RAM, hard drive space and speed when at my desk for Xcode. What

01:21:14   should I buy? A refurb iMac or a MacBook Pro? What do you think?"

01:21:18   Huh. Well, if you need more hard drive space when at your desk... Oh, I don't know, and it's a Thunderbolt display?

01:21:30   Man, I would say if you can get a Retina iMac, you know, as a deal somewhere, a used original 5K or a refurb or something like that.

01:21:42   I think that's what I do because then you get the you get the retina display instead of the Thunderbolt display

01:21:47   that's getting up there and

01:21:49   You will have a faster computer than your 11 MacBook Air and you'll still have all that MacBook Air for when you are not at

01:21:56   your desk

01:21:57   That's what I would say I'm going to because the if you would probably

01:22:02   Continue using the Thunderbolt display with the new MacBook Pro that you get and then you're not going to be getting the benefit of retina

01:22:07   So, provided that you're not really super-need portability, I would say get an iMac.

01:22:13   I'm sure you can get one of the versions of the Retina iMacs, right, for refurb.

01:22:18   You'd probably get it for a half-decent price, so that's the route that I would go down as well.

01:22:22   Yeah, and then you've still got your laptop for when you're not at your desk.

01:22:25   And the way this is phrased is, "I need this stuff when at my desk."

01:22:29   So, you know, maybe uncoupling is the right thing to do there, and keep that laptop around for travel.

01:22:34   but get an iMac for the desk.

01:22:37   - Robbie asked, my gray nylon watch band is dirty.

01:22:42   Any suggestions? - Can you clean it?

01:22:44   - As to how I get it back looking good as new.

01:22:47   Robbie, warm soapy water on a sponge.

01:22:50   That's all you gotta do.

01:22:51   Clean the thing, come on Robbie.

01:22:53   Why are you writing into me?

01:22:54   Clean it, come on Robbie.

01:22:56   Robbie, I would require follow up from you

01:22:58   as to whether you cleaned your watch band or not

01:23:00   by this time next week. - Ooh, before and after

01:23:02   picture, before and after pictures.

01:23:03   I want to see more an after picture.

01:23:05   Please, Robbie, come on, sort it out.

01:23:06   Chris asked, I have been convinced to try growing a beard.

01:23:11   I've never done this before.

01:23:12   Does Myke have any tips on what I should or should not do?

01:23:14   You should do it, is my opinion.

01:23:17   I think you should try it.

01:23:18   If you've never grown a beard before, you might like it.

01:23:21   You also have to get past the point where it's itchy.

01:23:25   So it's going to be itchy for a while, Chris.

01:23:27   You're going to get that. It's going to be itchy.

01:23:29   But if you really want to see what it's like,

01:23:31   You've got to just let it go past the itchy phase.

01:23:33   And then after that, look into some beard oil because you can keep it nice and soft

01:23:38   and then you'll get less itchy.

01:23:39   And maybe use some moisturiser whilst you are going through the itchy phase to try and

01:23:43   help with the itchiness.

01:23:44   But you've got to keep pushing it through.

01:23:46   Don't listen to Jason Snell.

01:23:48   Don't listen to his size.

01:23:50   Don't listen to anything he's going to say next.

01:23:52   Chris, if you want to try a beard or if people in your life that you care about want to

01:23:57   see you have a beard, give it a go.

01:23:59   What is the worst that could happen?

01:24:01   The worst that could happen is that you're gonna look

01:24:04   more handsome.

01:24:05   Andy asked, "What apps do you use for text editing

01:24:10   on iOS or the Mac, and how do you sync changes

01:24:13   across devices?"

01:24:14   I found out two things about myself today

01:24:17   when getting ready for this question, Jason Snow.

01:24:21   Thing number one is that I use lots of different

01:24:24   text editing apps for different purposes.

01:24:27   - Interesting.

01:24:28   Number two is that I use iCloud a lot more than I thought I was. So Apple Notes, right?

01:24:36   I consider that it's like it's the place where text begins for me in a lot of instances.

01:24:42   And that is all synced with iCloud. I use Bear, the application Bear on my iPhone, on

01:24:49   my iPad and my Mac. And I use that just for writing and formatting our sponsor copy. It's

01:24:55   like this whole little silo that's where all that writing happens and bear uses iCloud

01:24:59   syncing, like cloud kit stuff. I've recently got into using Ulysses for long form stuff

01:25:07   so I just did a YouTube video about the Nintendo switch and I wrote the script for that in

01:25:13   Ulysses because it helped me, it made sense for me because you have like these kind of

01:25:17   like folders like these sheets right is what they call it in Ulysses and I was able to

01:25:21   have like the script and production notes and like an outline I could add

01:25:25   them all kind of nicely pushed together I tried Scrivener and Scrivener just

01:25:30   didn't work for me. Scrivener's keyboard shortcuts are really peculiar.

01:25:34   You and the keyboard shortcuts?

01:25:36   Yeah well I use a keyboard all the time right?

01:25:38   Keyboard shortcuts on Scrivener are very very very weird I don't understand a lot

01:25:44   of the decisions that they made like for example if you would like to tab like

01:25:51   you want to make an indent or an outdent, you do not use the tab key. I believe it's

01:25:55   command and then left and right. That makes little to no sense to me. Me and Scrivener

01:26:04   did not get on. But Ulysses I like very much. On my Mac I use Byword sometimes as like a

01:26:11   little scratch pad type thing. I never used Byword on any of my other devices but it's

01:26:17   there. I prefer Bioword to TextEdit because if I'm writing a markdown I still see the

01:26:22   formatting and I've just had Bioword forever. It's just an app that I open if I need to

01:26:26   just jot something down real quick. For example one thing that I do when I'm editing a show

01:26:31   and maybe I'm working on chapters or title suggestions or something if I'm just listening

01:26:35   through I'll open Bioword and just put them in there.

01:26:38   And the last place that text goes for me is Google Docs or Quip and they're all for show

01:26:43   collaboration so basically it's all iCloud really which I was very surprised

01:26:49   about obviously except for Google Docs. I would say so so for me it's different I

01:26:58   do use Apple Notes for some things but on the Mac if I'm using Scrivener on Mac

01:27:05   and iOS it syncs to Dropbox and they talk to each other and that's how that

01:27:09   works and in terms of other writing I do in BB Edit on the Mac what I do is I

01:27:15   have a folder called stories on Dropbox and BB Edit's default save location is in

01:27:22   there and on iOS I'm still using one writer and it has its Dropbox sync is

01:27:30   set to that same stories folder so if I write something on one writer it pops up

01:27:36   up in, you know, I know where it is in the Stories folder in BBEdit and likewise if I'm

01:27:39   writing something in BBEdit and I save it in Stories and then I switch to my iPad, it's

01:27:43   there in Dropbox and it opens it up and it auto syncs back and forth and that is most

01:27:48   of what I do. And then yeah, show collaboration all happens in Google Docs and Google Sheets

01:27:51   and that's all there.

01:27:53   That folder in Dropbox is how it used to be for me and if you would have asked me just

01:27:58   off to, like to just say it off the top of my head about thinking about it, that's what

01:28:01   would have told you where everything was. It's like, "Oh, it's all in a Dropbox folder."

01:28:06   But funnily enough, it's not anymore. Because so many applications are using CloudKit syncing

01:28:11   now between them. And a lot of applications are offering more features if you do that.

01:28:16   Right? Like they're able to do more with it, like versions and stuff like that, more easily,

01:28:20   I believe. I believe that's one thing that they're able to do. But it's just becoming

01:28:24   more and more of a thing to use iCloud and CloudKit syncing. And it turns out that I'm

01:28:30   That's what I'm using right? Like I'm kind of just being like, okay application

01:28:34   that's what you want to do is I'll use that and because

01:28:37   Because most of the writing that I do most of the writing like a good 90% it's like it's not mega critical

01:28:45   It's not like you

01:28:47   right

01:28:49   So, yeah, I I'm I'm I'm finding it to be

01:28:52   To be a lot better like I'm finding it to just work for me

01:28:59   Interesting. So I think that's it for today.

01:29:02   All right. If you want to find our show notes for this week,

01:29:07   then go on over to relay.fm/upgrades/132. Jason is online at sixcolors.com and Jsnell on Twitter,

01:29:16   J-S-N-E-L-L. I am @imike. Thanks again to our lovely sponsors, the fine people over at

01:29:25   Squarespace, Encapsulate and Freshbooks. But most of all, thank you for listening and if you have

01:29:30   any questions for us to answer on the show just send a tweet to us or just out into the wild with

01:29:36   the hashtag #AskUpgrade and we will pick them up into a lovely google sheet which is powered by

01:29:43   Zapier now because it's great. So thank you so much for listening we'll be back next time. Until

01:29:49   Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:29:51   Bye, everybody!

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