Upgrade

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.

00:08:17 ◼   ► - Today's episode is brought to you by Squarespace.

00:08:19 ◼   ► Use the offer code upgrade at checkout

00:08:21 ◼   ► and you'll get 10% off your first purchase.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Make your next move with Squarespace.

00:08:26 ◼   ► They'll let you easily create that website

00:08:28 ◼   ► for your next idea.

00:08:29 ◼   ► And with a unique domain, award-winning templates and more,

00:08:32 ◼   ► they are the home for your stuff on the web.

00:08:36 ◼   ► Maybe you want to create an online store to sell the digital wares that you have been

00:08:41 ◼   ► creating.

00:08:42 ◼   ► Maybe you want to create a portfolio to show off your artwork or maybe you want to make

00:08:45 ◼   ► a blog to talk about your favourite mechanical keyboards.

00:08:48 ◼   ► No matter what it is, Squarespace is the all in one platform that will let you do just

00:08:53 ◼   ► that.

00:08:54 ◼   ► There's nothing to install, no patches to worry about, no upgrades needed, you don't

00:08:57 ◼   ► have to worry about any of that stuff.

00:08:59 ◼   ► Squarespace have got you covered, including fantastic hosting, 24/7 support, the ability

00:09:04 ◼   ► to grab a unique domain name, all of that stuff is in the Squarespace platform. It's

00:09:09 ◼   ► just one thing you have to worry about. Plus, there are award-winning templates that are

00:09:17 ◼   ► beautifully designed, all feature responsive designs so you'll be able to show off your

00:09:21 ◼   ► great ideas to people no matter what device they're coming from.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Squarespace plans start at just $12 a month, but you can go and get a feel for it and play

00:09:30 ◼   ► Play around and tweak and push and poke Squarespace with a free trial.

00:09:35 ◼   ► There's no credit card required to do this.

00:09:36 ◼   ► Just go to squarespace.com, sign up and play around with it today and then when you decide

00:09:41 ◼   ► to sign up for a plan, make sure that you use the offer code UPGRADE to get 10% off

00:09:46 ◼   ► your first purchase and show your support for upgrade.

00:09:50 ◼   ► Thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this week's show.

00:09:53 ◼   ► Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website.

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.

00:51:18 ◼   ► Today's episode of Upgrade is brought to you by our friends over at Encapsula, the multifunction

00:51:25 ◼   ► content delivery network that not only boosts the performance of your website, but also

00:51:29 ◼   ► protects it from denial of service attacks, securing it from the bad guys whilst ensuring

00:51:34 ◼   ► high availability.

00:51:36 ◼   ► Over 100,000 organisations trust Encapsula every single day, from huge Fortune 500 companies

00:51:43 ◼   ► to one-person websites.

00:51:44 ◼   ► It doesn't matter who you are, Encapsula is there to help protect you.

00:51:49 ◼   ► They have all the resources you're ever going to need to help your website load quickly,

00:51:53 ◼   ► even if something bad is happening.

00:51:54 ◼   ► And with their 24/7 operations team, you have that additional help there if you need it.

00:51:59 ◼   ► You will get a personal account manager and the very best in service level agreement.

00:52:05 ◼   ► It is the best one in the business.

00:52:07 ◼   ► You can't find better anywhere else.

00:52:09 ◼   ► You don't have to worry, Encapsula have got you covered.

00:52:12 ◼   ► simply you're going to be well protected and your site will be lightning fast. Find out

00:52:16 ◼   ► more today by going to encapsular.com/upgrade. That's I N C A P S U L A dot com slash upgrade.

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!

01:29:52 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:29:55 ◼   ► [ Music ]