Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 126. Today's show is brought to you by Encapsula,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Freshbooks, and Blue Apron. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hello, Myke Hurley, how are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► I am very well, sir. How are you?

00:00:25 ◼   ► - Very good.

00:00:26 ◼   ► You know, good to have a weekend,

00:00:28 ◼   ► played some board games with the family,

00:00:32 ◼   ► saw a live podcast.

00:00:33 ◼   ► Just exciting to, you know, podcasts sometimes

00:00:36 ◼   ► are presented live before an audience.

00:00:39 ◼   ► - I know, I'm taking one on tour.

00:00:41 ◼   ► - I saw that, I heard about that.

00:00:44 ◼   ► I heard about that.

00:00:46 ◼   ► I went to the Hello from the Magic Tavern,

00:00:48 ◼   ► they were at the San Francisco Sketchfest.

00:00:50 ◼   ► And I saw them in Anaheim,

00:00:53 ◼   ► but it was fun.

00:00:55 ◼   ► So we went and saw them again.

00:00:57 ◼   ► It was just driving to the city,

00:00:58 ◼   ► watch a podcast for an hour.

00:01:00 ◼   ► And coming out, there was an ATP shirt.

00:01:02 ◼   ► The guy was walking out with an ATP shirt

00:01:04 ◼   ► and I told my wife, "Look, it's an ATP shirt.

00:01:06 ◼   ► "He's one of us."

00:01:08 ◼   ► And as I'm saying this, I turn around

00:01:10 ◼   ► and the guy is standing there looking at me and he says,

00:01:12 ◼   ► "I just wanted to say I'm a really big fan

00:01:14 ◼   ► "and I like what you do."

00:01:15 ◼   ► - Hello that person if you're out there.

00:01:17 ◼   ► - And I said, and I had this moment

00:01:20 ◼   ► and my wife just starts laughing by the way, Lauren,

00:01:22 ◼   ► and she just starts laughing at me, basically.

00:01:24 ◼   ► And I say to him, "Are you serious?

00:01:29 ◼   ► Or do you say that to people and see if they react?"

00:01:31 ◼   ► Because it would be very easy for somebody to be like,

00:01:33 ◼   ► "Oh, yes, of course, my things that I do.

00:01:36 ◼   ► Thank you."

00:01:37 ◼   ► He's like, "No, no, Six Colors, I know--"

00:01:38 ◼   ► I was like, "All right, well, thank you very much then."

00:01:40 ◼   ► But it was just a funny moment of like,

00:01:42 ◼   ► I did have that thought that that would be a thing you

00:01:44 ◼   ► could do to people.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Am I being punked right now?

00:01:46 ◼   ► It's just walk right up to them and say, "I love what you do."

00:01:51 ◼   ► and see what they say.

00:01:52 ◼   ► - It's like, oh, thanks so much.

00:01:53 ◼   ► - Congratulations.

00:01:55 ◼   ► - I'm an insurance salesman.

00:01:56 ◼   ► I love your insurance.

00:01:58 ◼   ► You sell the best insurance.

00:01:59 ◼   ► - Congratulations on what?

00:02:00 ◼   ► I don't even know, but yes, thank you.

00:02:02 ◼   ► I'm very excited about it myself.

00:02:04 ◼   ► Oh, great.

00:02:05 ◼   ► Yeah, anyway, but anyway,

00:02:08 ◼   ► Lauren was laughing the whole way home.

00:02:10 ◼   ► I was spotted.

00:02:12 ◼   ► - I can imagine that being Lauren's reaction actually

00:02:15 ◼   ► to just laugh at you.

00:02:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:02:17 ◼   ► It was kind of hilarious.

00:02:20 ◼   ► It is a busy week for you this week and that is because there is an Apple earnings call

00:02:24 ◼   ► on the horizon.

00:02:25 ◼   ► It's tomorrow as we record this, right?

00:02:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it's Tuesday, the 31st at, well, so the results come out at about 1.30pm Pacific

00:02:34 ◼   ► time and 1930 GMT.

00:02:38 ◼   ► And how about that?

00:02:39 ◼   ► I can add 8 to things.

00:02:41 ◼   ► I appreciate it.

00:02:42 ◼   ► No, I did it wrong.

00:02:44 ◼   ► 21.30 GMT, that's it.

00:02:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Oh, you couldn't add 8 to things then it turns out.

00:02:49 ◼   ► You gotta add, no, you gotta add eight to,

00:02:53 ◼   ► you gotta add two and then, or 12 and then eight,

00:02:55 ◼   ► and it's a disaster.

00:02:56 ◼   ► I don't know how people you live,

00:02:58 ◼   ► Greenwich Mean Time, it's a disaster.

00:03:00 ◼   ► 1.30 p.m. at the only proper time,

00:03:02 ◼   ► which is Pacific Cupertino time.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - We've lost Jason, everyone.

00:03:06 ◼   ► That's it for you.

00:03:09 ◼   ► You're gone now.

00:03:10 ◼   ► You're gone to the confusion of time.

00:03:12 ◼   ► - And two o'clock is when the,

00:03:15 ◼   ► what I'm saying is 2 p.m. standard Cupertino time

00:03:18 ◼   ► is when the actual phone call starts.

00:03:22 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, because they release

00:03:23 ◼   ► with a press release first, right?

00:03:27 ◼   ► Something like that, like a user?

00:03:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, they do it.

00:03:29 ◼   ► At 1.30, the release comes out and sort of trickles out

00:03:33 ◼   ► and it often is on finance sites

00:03:35 ◼   ► before it's actually on Apple's own investor website,

00:03:38 ◼   ► which is annoying.

00:03:39 ◼   ► And then everybody updates their charts, including me,

00:03:42 ◼   ► and then at 2.00, they have the call.

00:03:44 ◼   ► And then people, analysts try to do like Jedi mind tricks

00:03:49 ◼   ► on Tim Cook to get him to announce future products

00:03:51 ◼   ► and it fails as always.

00:03:53 ◼   ► And usually there are a few interesting things there.

00:03:57 ◼   ► So that's a busy afternoon only because it's a rare chance

00:04:01 ◼   ► for us to peer inside of Apple's inner workings

00:04:06 ◼   ► and what we get as a combination of what's mandated legally

00:04:10 ◼   ► and what they are choosing to say in order to explain what they're doing and where they're

00:04:21 ◼   ► going to specifically to the financial industry but also just to the world as a whole.

00:04:27 ◼   ► So what are we looking out for with this? I mean the forecasts that Apple gave for the

00:04:33 ◼   ► Q3 call, because this is the Q4 call where they report on the fourth quarter of 2016.

00:04:40 ◼   ► Yeah, the holiday quarter.

00:04:41 ◼   ► The forecast that they gave suggested a return

00:04:46 ◼   ► to year-over-year growth, right?

00:04:48 ◼   ► So they would be basically starting the calendar year 2017

00:04:52 ◼   ► in a better position to how they started calendar year 2016.

00:04:56 ◼   ► Yeah, their forecast is literally,

00:05:00 ◼   ► and they do the forecast the previous quarter,

00:05:02 ◼   ► they say, "Here's what we think will happen next quarter."

00:05:04 ◼   ► Their forecast was for the biggest single quarter

00:05:07 ◼   ► in Apple history.

00:05:09 ◼   ► because it was 76 to 78 billion. - It's not a bad start

00:05:10 ◼   ► for the year, isn't it?

00:05:11 ◼   ► - And that's year over year growth.

00:05:12 ◼   ► And then keep in mind, last year,

00:05:15 ◼   ► last year Apple's results were hammered year over year wise

00:05:18 ◼   ► because they had such a great 2015

00:05:20 ◼   ► and 2016 didn't measure up.

00:05:22 ◼   ► This year, they get to reap that a little bit

00:05:25 ◼   ► in that their year over year comparison is 2016

00:05:29 ◼   ► and not 2015.

00:05:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I guess we will learn on this call

00:05:33 ◼   ► if 2015 really was the anomaly year in full, right?

00:05:36 ◼   ► like when they give their forecasts for the next quarter,

00:05:39 ◼   ► if they are up, then we can at that point say

00:05:42 ◼   ► that what was referred to by you and many others

00:05:45 ◼   ► as that anomaly year.

00:05:47 ◼   ► So like, you know, when you did the graph

00:05:48 ◼   ► and you'd see that if 2015 didn't happen,

00:05:50 ◼   ► it always would have continued just going up.

00:05:52 ◼   ► We will know for sure if that's the case, right?

00:05:54 ◼   ► Well, at least we'll have a much better idea

00:05:56 ◼   ► because we'll know that Q4 was good

00:05:58 ◼   ► and then Q1 2017 will be good as well

00:06:02 ◼   ► 'cause they'll give a forecast on that.

00:06:03 ◼   ► And history has always kind of,

00:06:05 ◼   ► Well, recent history has shown that Apple is always

00:06:08 ◼   ► to their forecasts.

00:06:09 ◼   ► They are never less than the forecast.

00:06:12 ◼   ► - It would be shocking if they didn't make it,

00:06:14 ◼   ► which isn't to say they might not, they might miss.

00:06:16 ◼   ► It's always possible, but I would be surprised

00:06:19 ◼   ► because they've never,

00:06:20 ◼   ► they've always been very good at forecasting.

00:06:24 ◼   ► So we'll see what they do,

00:06:26 ◼   ► but something I'll remind people who don't think

00:06:29 ◼   ► like stock market people, which is fine

00:06:32 ◼   ► because reality kind of,

00:06:35 ◼   ► It's a little like quantum physics.

00:06:36 ◼   ► It's like common sense doesn't apply.

00:06:39 ◼   ► People get very upset when Apple announces,

00:06:43 ◼   ► let's say, record quarter, biggest quarter they've ever had,

00:06:46 ◼   ► and the stock price maybe doesn't go up or goes down.

00:06:48 ◼   ► People will be like, "What do you mean?"

00:06:51 ◼   ► And you've got to think of it, again, it's counterintuitive,

00:06:53 ◼   ► but you've got to think of it this way.

00:06:55 ◼   ► Apple's stock price today is based on the fact

00:06:58 ◼   ► that three months ago they said they would have

00:07:00 ◼   ► a record quarter this quarter.

00:07:03 ◼   ► So it's already built in.

00:07:05 ◼   ► So Apple reporting a record quarter will not have an appreciable impact on the stock price

00:07:09 ◼   ► because Apple said they would.

00:07:11 ◼   ► If they fail, or if they dramatically exceed, it might.

00:07:14 ◼   ► But if it's in the 76 to 78 billion range, well, that's what they said it would be, that's

00:07:18 ◼   ► why the stock is priced the way it is.

00:07:21 ◼   ► But what will happen, and this often is the source of Apple's stock price moving around,

00:07:25 ◼   ► and I don't own any Apple stock, and I, you know, people who do, it's great.

00:07:30 ◼   ► I don't care about the Apple stock price.

00:07:32 ◼   ► That's not why I write about Apple. But their forecast for the next quarter, the first fiscal

00:07:39 ◼   ► quarter of 2017 in their case, will be that, which is what do we do next? What do we do

00:07:50 ◼   ► next?

00:07:51 ◼   ► And also there are details that can move stuff around, right? Like the profit might be one

00:07:57 ◼   ► thing, but if one product or another is not what was expected, it can move stuff around,

00:08:01 ◼   ► Right, like the stock price took a real big hit

00:08:05 ◼   ► when it was kind of hinted at the fact

00:08:07 ◼   ► that the iPhone wasn't growing anymore.

00:08:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, they said sales for iPhone were gonna be static

00:08:11 ◼   ► in the next quarter and everybody freaked out about that.

00:08:13 ◼   ► I should say also because the quarter thing lines up

00:08:15 ◼   ► and I just misstated something.

00:08:17 ◼   ► What we're going to hear is

00:08:20 ◼   ► the calendar fourth quarter earnings.

00:08:23 ◼   ► It's actually Apple's first fiscal 2017 quarter.

00:08:27 ◼   ► So they're going to be doing guidance

00:08:30 ◼   ► on what happens in the first calendar quarter of 2017, it's actually their Q2 2017 quarter

00:08:37 ◼   ► coming up.

00:08:38 ◼   ► Very confusing.

00:08:39 ◼   ► Right, calendars, how do they work?

00:08:41 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:08:42 ◼   ► It's even more confusing than adding time to GMT.

00:08:44 ◼   ► Yeah, thank you for that clarification.

00:08:47 ◼   ► So a couple of other things to, I guess, we'll be keeping our eye on, right, as well as kind

00:08:52 ◼   ► of the guidance and whether that's going to hint that we'll be back to year over year

00:08:55 ◼   ► growth is then when we break down in the product stuff.

00:08:57 ◼   ► I guess two things more critically

00:09:00 ◼   ► that we'll be looking out for

00:09:01 ◼   ► because I think we'll probably be pretty sure

00:09:03 ◼   ► if the money's good, it means the iPhone's good.

00:09:07 ◼   ► But outside of that, iPad and MacBook Pro,

00:09:11 ◼   ► what difference can we see in the charts

00:09:15 ◼   ► that may have come from there?

00:09:16 ◼   ► So with the iPad, the hope that it stopped going down,

00:09:20 ◼   ► and in the Mac line, if we see growth in the Mac line

00:09:25 ◼   ► from a revenue perspective,

00:09:26 ◼   ► Could that be the MacBook Pro?

00:09:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, iPad, it has been sort of coasting down

00:09:34 ◼   ► and everybody's been waiting for a quarter

00:09:37 ◼   ► where it pops back up.

00:09:38 ◼   ► So there's that question is like, okay,

00:09:40 ◼   ► it's a holiday quarter.

00:09:42 ◼   ► They have to beat the holiday quarter

00:09:43 ◼   ► from the previous year.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Can they do that?

00:09:45 ◼   ► Can they show an increase, a growth in either sales

00:09:48 ◼   ► or revenue from iPad for the quarter?

00:09:50 ◼   ► Because that would be the first time,

00:09:52 ◼   ► and I did the calculation, I forgot what it is,

00:09:53 ◼   ► like three years, three plus years

00:09:56 ◼   ► that they've had a growth quarter for the iPad.

00:09:59 ◼   ► And yeah, the Mac numbers, which again,

00:10:01 ◼   ► they don't break them out by model, so you have to guess,

00:10:05 ◼   ► although they will probably make a statement about it.

00:10:07 ◼   ► My guess is if the Mac numbers are up,

00:10:09 ◼   ► one of the things they'll say is,

00:10:10 ◼   ► powered by some superlative, right?

00:10:13 ◼   ► By record numbers or our customers love it

00:10:17 ◼   ► and it's the best, they'll find some way probably

00:10:22 ◼   ► to quantify without actually quantifying the sales number,

00:10:27 ◼   ► they will try to characterize the sales in some way.

00:10:30 ◼   ► And we'll look at the pure Mac number

00:10:32 ◼   ► and see if the Mac number moved

00:10:34 ◼   ► and is that attributable to the new MacBook Pro,

00:10:37 ◼   ► which was the only, you know,

00:10:38 ◼   ► the new MacBook Pros was the only new thing in the quarter.

00:10:40 ◼   ► So we'll see.

00:10:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it would be interesting to kind of see that.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I guess, you know, if we see ASP and the Mac line go up,

00:10:50 ◼   ► or I can probably say it's the MacBook Pro

00:10:52 ◼   ► because it was more expensive.

00:10:55 ◼   ► So that might be something.

00:10:57 ◼   ► - Sure, there are ways to analyze it.

00:10:59 ◼   ► But my guess is that if there's good news there,

00:11:01 ◼   ► well, I mean, even if there's not good news there,

00:11:03 ◼   ► they will try to characterize the MacBook Pro sales.

00:11:05 ◼   ► And it's always interesting to hear the way they phrase it

00:11:08 ◼   ► because that goes beyond kind of the mandatory.

00:11:12 ◼   ► That's their kind of spinning the numbers,

00:11:14 ◼   ► explaining what is happening, adding more color,

00:11:17 ◼   ► like analysts like to have more color.

00:11:20 ◼   ► So we'll see what they say.

00:11:22 ◼   ► And they may be questioned about that as well by analysts

00:11:26 ◼   ► and respond that way, which is sometimes,

00:11:28 ◼   ► I wanna say that it's a little more off the cuff.

00:11:30 ◼   ► I don't think that's, I mean,

00:11:32 ◼   ► it is a little more off the cuff,

00:11:33 ◼   ► but even then when they're answering analysts,

00:11:36 ◼   ► they're basically sticking, if not to a script,

00:11:39 ◼   ► to specific lines that they,

00:11:42 ◼   ► and facts that they've agreed

00:11:44 ◼   ► that they were willing to talk about.

00:11:46 ◼   ► It is pretty locked down.

00:11:48 ◼   ► I mean, this is Apple, they're disciplined

00:11:51 ◼   ► and it's a call as part of a governmental mandate

00:11:55 ◼   ► as a public company.

00:11:56 ◼   ► So there's a lot of regulations and, you know,

00:12:00 ◼   ► a misstep can have an effect on the stock price.

00:12:03 ◼   ► So, you know, they reveal,

00:12:05 ◼   ► the stuff they're revealing even in the Q&A

00:12:07 ◼   ► is stuff that they're willing to reveal

00:12:09 ◼   ► and they've planned to reveal,

00:12:10 ◼   ► but it still can come,

00:12:12 ◼   ► bring things to light in an interesting way.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Alright we're going to shift gears a little bit here and I want to touch on a couple of

00:12:20 ◼   ► stories that are in reflection of the current situation politically in the United States

00:12:27 ◼   ► of America. If for whatever reason you do not want to listen to that, whether it is

00:12:34 ◼   ► upsetting to you or whatever, you can skip ahead via chapters. So there will be chapters

00:12:39 ◼   ► in the show you can skip ahead. We're not going to do anything else on follow up this

00:12:42 ◼   ► this week and we'll be jumping into our topics right after this.

00:12:48 ◼   ► Obviously the situation in the US right now is a complicated one. It is obviously something

00:12:53 ◼   ► that I do not agree with in regards to immigration. And so it's, the political stuff is a lot

00:13:00 ◼   ► more complex than I can really explain. But I wanted to kind of just touch on both Apple

00:13:06 ◼   ► and Google's responses to this because they're very different responses and they're interesting.

00:13:11 ◼   ► So Tim Cook wrote an internal memo kind of regarding his stance on President Trump's

00:13:18 ◼   ► executive order on banning immigration from selected Muslim countries.

00:13:23 ◼   ► And as we said in the past, I think any time there is an internal memo to the entire company

00:13:30 ◼   ► about something like this, my expectation is Apple are also treating this as a way to

00:13:36 ◼   ► get the message out wide without making a PR statement.

00:13:39 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:13:40 ◼   ► And Tim basically says, you know, in a nutshell, this is not a policy we support.

00:13:44 ◼   ► And Apple is providing HR and legal support to any affected employees.

00:13:50 ◼   ► Like there are Apple employees that may be on trips right now and can't get home.

00:13:54 ◼   ► Or there are Apple employees, you know, like there are anyone, you know,

00:13:58 ◼   ► obviously isn't just distinct to Apple, but it's just while we're talking about this.

00:14:02 ◼   ► But, you know, they will have people

00:14:04 ◼   ► like any big company right now that having to cancel business trips.

00:14:07 ◼   ► I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in England and a co-worker of his is meant

00:14:13 ◼   ► to be traveling out to the US and the company's cancelled the trip because they can't guarantee

00:14:17 ◼   ► he'll get out of the airport.

00:14:19 ◼   ► Yeah, the Apple has the deal. It's not just the people at Apple. I mean, Apple's an international

00:14:25 ◼   ► company. It's got people all over the world and it's got people from all over the world.

00:14:29 ◼   ► And it's not just the people outside the world. It's also anticipating what happens with their

00:14:33 ◼   ► people who are in the U.S., if there is any need for them to travel internationally, that

00:14:40 ◼   ► is all kind of, you know, been brought open to question with the fact that the executive

00:14:46 ◼   ► order seems to have, although there may be backpedaling on this, it seems to have affected

00:14:51 ◼   ► people with green cards, so people who are legal permanent residents allowed to work

00:14:55 ◼   ► in the United States, I mean, those are people who work at Apple, and there's some questions

00:15:00 ◼   ► about like, it's not just can they come home, but if you've got them in working in Cupertino,

00:15:07 ◼   ► can you send them outside the US? Will they be allowed back in? And that's, so it has

00:15:14 ◼   ► a huge impact on Apple and other Silicon Valley companies because they do have an international

00:15:19 ◼   ► workforce. Silicon Valley has so many workers and founders and key people who are not from

00:15:27 ◼   ► the United States, but have come to the United States for their education and to build businesses.

00:15:33 ◼   ► And you know, my take on that is, that's one of the great things about America, is that

00:15:37 ◼   ► it's a nation of immigrants and that people from all over the world come here to learn

00:15:42 ◼   ► and to build businesses, and they stay and build great businesses. And Silicon Valley

00:15:46 ◼   ► is a great example of that. So this is a huge problem for Silicon Valley, both in the specifics

00:15:53 ◼   ► of employees and what is going to happen, and their families and what's going to happen

00:15:58 ◼   ► to their lives. But also I would say to the heart of what powers Silicon Valley and, I

00:16:03 ◼   ► mean, and more broadly the United States, but certainly Silicon Valley is a shining

00:16:07 ◼   ► example of that promise and what it has done to make the United States the center of the

00:16:14 ◼   ► technology, you know, advancement in the late 20th and early 21st century.

00:16:20 ◼   ► Google had done a similar thing as well. They had issued an internal memo to their people.

00:16:27 ◼   ► But today, via the Associated Press, it has been reported that Google have launched a

00:16:35 ◼   ► fund where they're aiming to raise $4 million to donate to four immigrants' rights organizations.

00:16:41 ◼   ► $2 million is coming from Google, the company, and they are encouraging their employees to

00:16:47 ◼   ► to match this so they can build this $4 million fund.

00:16:51 ◼   ► And they've also said that company executives

00:16:53 ◼   ► are donating separately from this fund.

00:16:58 ◼   ► So the matching is not coming

00:17:01 ◼   ► from the top tier executives, right?

00:17:03 ◼   ► They're not gonna be putting in this money.

00:17:04 ◼   ► They'll be putting in their own money,

00:17:06 ◼   ► which I'm sure they'll be doing privately.

00:17:09 ◼   ► But yeah, I'm pleased to see,

00:17:10 ◼   ► as well as it just being a war of words,

00:17:16 ◼   ► Google is also putting their money where their mouth is.

00:17:18 ◼   ► I hope to see all big companies, including Apple,

00:17:20 ◼   ► do something like this as well,

00:17:22 ◼   ► because there are a lot of charities and organizations

00:17:26 ◼   ► that are trying to help people.

00:17:29 ◼   ► And I urge listeners, if it affects them, to seek out some.

00:17:33 ◼   ► I have seen the ACLU as one that is said to be the place

00:17:38 ◼   ► where most people seem to be donating money to,

00:17:41 ◼   ► which I think is the American Civil Liberties Union.

00:17:44 ◼   ► Is that what it-- - Yeah.

00:17:46 ◼   ► - So they kind of stand up for civil rights.

00:17:48 ◼   ► And I've been seeing that the ACLU has mentioned

00:17:50 ◼   ► as a charity to donate for a lot of the things

00:17:54 ◼   ► that people have been protesting over in recent weeks.

00:17:59 ◼   ► So, you know, for me,

00:18:01 ◼   ► I am obviously outside of a lot of this,

00:18:05 ◼   ► but it affects me to see it, you know.

00:18:09 ◼   ► I have often considered myself as a one-day,

00:18:13 ◼   ► potentially an immigrant to the United States.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Like that might be something that happens in my lifetime.

00:18:18 ◼   ► So I'm happy to see that when things like this,

00:18:23 ◼   ► which are just morally wrong and reprehensible, occurring,

00:18:28 ◼   ► I'm happy to see the American people standing up

00:18:31 ◼   ► and saying something about it and doing something.

00:18:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, you mentioned Google.

00:18:35 ◼   ► One thing I will mention that I thought was interesting

00:18:37 ◼   ► is Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, was,

00:18:41 ◼   ► who-- and an immigrant who built a company in the United States--

00:18:44 ◼   ► actually was, as a private citizen,

00:18:46 ◼   ► was at the protest at the terminal at San Francisco

00:18:51 ◼   ► International Airport when the executive order came down

00:18:54 ◼   ► and people were being detained.

00:18:55 ◼   ► I thought that was an interesting just tidbit

00:18:57 ◼   ► of his thought process about this, that he went there

00:19:00 ◼   ► and stood with those people.

00:19:05 ◼   ► And again, he was born in the Soviet Union

00:19:09 ◼   ► and has built an enormous international,

00:19:12 ◼   ► based in the US, business.

00:19:14 ◼   ► So yeah, we'll see what happens.

00:19:17 ◼   ► There are rumors that there are other changes coming

00:19:21 ◼   ► that more directly address the visas that are often

00:19:24 ◼   ► used by Silicon Valley companies to attract

00:19:27 ◼   ► top talent from overseas to live and work in the US.

00:19:32 ◼   ► So this may be the beginning of a much bigger story,

00:19:39 ◼   ► as well.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Big sigh, heavy sigh from Myke.

00:19:46 ◼   ► It's hard not to, really.

00:19:48 ◼   ► Yep.

00:19:49 ◼   ► Alright.

00:19:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:51 ◼   ► But let's get back to what people come here for.

00:19:52 ◼   ► Happy place.

00:19:53 ◼   ► Let's get back to what people come here for.

00:19:54 ◼   ► Let's take a break.

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00:20:59 ◼   ► betas betas betas mr. Jason Snell betas betas betas betas you get a beta and you get a beta

00:21:07 ◼   ► and you get a beta I was trying to think of a line of like something along the lines of

00:21:13 ◼   ► betas betas everywhere but nothing for the iPad to drink but I couldn't really look into

00:21:20 ◼   ► that no clearly there was nothing so ten dot three dot one came out I guess one of the

00:21:28 ◼   ► the biggest user facing features of 10.3.1.

00:21:33 ◼   ► - So it's iOS 10.3 beta one.

00:21:36 ◼   ► - Yes, good point.

00:21:38 ◼   ► Find My AirPods, I guess, is the biggest feature

00:21:41 ◼   ► for iOS devices, even though really that's kind of more

00:21:46 ◼   ► of an iPhone thing.

00:21:49 ◼   ► But that was there, I mean that is a thing,

00:21:51 ◼   ► Find My AirPods, I tried it out,

00:21:53 ◼   ► it just makes a super loud noise through your AirPods.

00:21:57 ◼   ► and/or does some geolocation stuff to try and work out where it is?

00:22:01 ◼   ► I think the most clever thing that it does, and this, it reminds me of the, um,

00:22:05 ◼   ► also, I believe, Bluetooth-based, uh, where it drops a pin, basically,

00:22:09 ◼   ► where your car is, and it does that when you park your car.

00:22:13 ◼   ► It does that because it just notes when the Bluetooth signal from the car

00:22:17 ◼   ► audio device, uh, went away.

00:22:21 ◼   ► And it says, "Where did that happen?" It happened there, and it says, "That's where your car is." Because obviously

00:22:25 ◼   ► where you parked your car and turned off your car is where your car is located. I think

00:22:29 ◼   ► it's doing that, yeah, it's right where you left it, stupid! So I think that's also what

00:22:36 ◼   ► it's doing with Find My AirPods, or My AirPods, is it's trying to remember the last place

00:22:43 ◼   ► it saw your AirPods and you don't remember, but it remembers. It remembers the geolocation

00:22:48 ◼   ► where it lost signal from the AirPods. And so not only can it, like, if it's connected,

00:22:55 ◼   ► can make a loud noise but it actually remembers where it last saw them which is cool that's

00:23:00 ◼   ► smart that's smart stuff yeah I'm happy about that I tried it out it's fine you know it

00:23:06 ◼   ► does the job basically so I'm pleased that that's there in the last week I have dropped

00:23:10 ◼   ► one of my AirPods three times in the street oh in the street oh my I I just had another

00:23:17 ◼   ► I have also learned they are incredibly resilient yeah I just had another you know sort of like

00:23:23 ◼   ► first time, it was the first time in like weeks that I, one of them fell out of my ears

00:23:28 ◼   ► accidentally and it's the same move and I just, I just have to pay attention to it,

00:23:32 ◼   ► which is if I put on a hoodie and the hood kind of like comes, flips up, you know, as

00:23:39 ◼   ► I put it on it sort of flips up toward the back of my head and I pull it back off, that

00:23:43 ◼   ► move will pop an air, an air pod out and that's, that's what gets me is the, the hood snags

00:23:50 ◼   ► on the AirPod. So I just got…

00:23:51 ◼   ► >> Mine is more that I just keep dropping them when I'm taking them from the case

00:23:56 ◼   ► to put in my ears or put in the back.

00:23:59 ◼   ► >> That totally happens. I think that is a challenge, right, is just in that dangerous

00:24:05 ◼   ► moment between case and ear where, you know, they might get out of your hands. The other

00:24:10 ◼   ► thing that I've noticed is that if I don't bring the case with me, there's that sort

00:24:16 ◼   ► of like, "Where do I put it?" Okay, now I'm talking to somebody, so I've taken

00:24:18 ◼   ► went out of my ears and where do I put it? Do I put it in a pocket? Because then you're

00:24:22 ◼   ► risking like washing your pants and losing, you know, washing the AirPod. But I've also

00:24:28 ◼   ► noticed that if I sit there and I kind of fiddle with it in my hand, if my hand goes

00:24:32 ◼   ► over the proximity sensor...

00:24:35 ◼   ► Oh yeah, it starts playing.

00:24:36 ◼   ► The audience starts playing.

00:24:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I've done that too.

00:24:39 ◼   ► Because it's in my hand and it's like, "Look, hey, I'm backing in here." And it's like, "No,

00:24:42 ◼   ► that's not." So, you know, there are little quirks, little quirks.

00:24:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I've noticed that like, as the winter has been getting stronger here, coats with

00:24:53 ◼   ► hoods, with collars, sorry, have been a problem for me because the collar kind of can like

00:24:59 ◼   ► brush against the AirPod. It's not knocked it out yet, but I'm just very aware of it.

00:25:06 ◼   ► I do wish that, and I hope that a future version could be this way, that Apple maybe made these

00:25:13 ◼   ► out of a more grippy plastic, you know, whether it's like a soft touch or they could somehow

00:25:20 ◼   ► give it something more akin to like the jet black. You know, obviously not that insane

00:25:27 ◼   ► amount of production but just something wherein the things are less likely to slip out of

00:25:31 ◼   ► my hands like tiny thin bars of soap. Because that's my problem is I take them out and then

00:25:37 ◼   ► they just go straight out of my hands and then onto the ground and skid along the ground

00:25:41 ◼   ► So yeah, very resilient, I will say that.

00:25:44 ◼   ► They haven't broken on me yet.

00:25:45 ◼   ► Some other things that we got.

00:25:48 ◼   ► Night shift on the Mac with the Sierra beta,

00:25:51 ◼   ► so 10.12.4 beta one brought night shift to the Mac,

00:25:56 ◼   ► which is, I'm surprised it took them this amount of time.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Honestly.

00:26:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think getting it on iOS was a priority,

00:26:03 ◼   ► and also they realized that you could run software

00:26:06 ◼   ► to do that on the Mac, and so, you know,

00:26:09 ◼   ► I think that was the right prioritization,

00:26:11 ◼   ► but it makes sense to have that feature everywhere

00:26:13 ◼   ► if they think it's a valuable feature.

00:26:14 ◼   ► So it's good that they've got it.

00:26:17 ◼   ► I haven't tried it out because I have not put a beta

00:26:18 ◼   ► on my Mac, so I haven't tried it out.

00:26:20 ◼   ► - I do say though, it does seem interesting to me

00:26:23 ◼   ► to release a low-hanging fruit on the Mac

00:26:28 ◼   ► in what will be a point release.

00:26:32 ◼   ► They maybe should keep this for the next full version,

00:26:34 ◼   ► I don't know, like, you know.

00:26:36 ◼   ► I don't know how many things are left for the Mac,

00:26:39 ◼   ► and this is like if you didn't put it in in Sierra,

00:26:41 ◼   ► maybe wait to the next release and then it can be like,

00:26:44 ◼   ► oh, we're bringing that shift to the Mac.

00:26:45 ◼   ► Like, you know, I don't know.

00:26:48 ◼   ► Yeah, it just seems like a funny thing to me

00:26:50 ◼   ► where it's like, how many features do you have left?

00:26:53 ◼   ► Like actual real achievable things

00:26:55 ◼   ► that we already know about,

00:26:57 ◼   ► like that could possibly be done.

00:26:58 ◼   ► I don't think there are that many left.

00:26:59 ◼   ► - Well, I like to think that maybe it suggests

00:27:02 ◼   ► that they're trying to be a little more iterative

00:27:05 ◼   ► with their development and roll features out

00:27:07 ◼   ► across the year instead of just dumping a big load

00:27:09 ◼   ► of features once.

00:27:11 ◼   ► It's also, I think, entirely possible that this is just

00:27:15 ◼   ► 10/12 feature that got bumped

00:27:20 ◼   ► because they couldn't implement it.

00:27:22 ◼   ► And so it's still on the 10/12 roadmap

00:27:25 ◼   ► and they're trying to clear off all of the 10/12 stuff

00:27:28 ◼   ► before they move on to proper, you know,

00:27:30 ◼   ► deep 10/13 development rather than kicking it

00:27:33 ◼   ► all the way to 10/13.

00:27:35 ◼   ► By the way, if we're truly doing 10.13 and not,

00:27:39 ◼   ► now that we're on macOS, can we just,

00:27:41 ◼   ► can next, the next one be 11.0?

00:27:43 ◼   ► Can we do that?

00:27:45 ◼   ► Can we move on?

00:27:46 ◼   ► It's ridiculous.

00:27:46 ◼   ► And then in fact, this could be the year, right?

00:27:50 ◼   ► Because we're at iOS 10.

00:27:52 ◼   ► So it's possible that this fall,

00:27:55 ◼   ► I can't believe I'm talking about this now.

00:27:56 ◼   ► There's, we're gonna be talking about this.

00:27:58 ◼   ► This is one of my ridiculous name theories that I have.

00:28:00 ◼   ► You know, it's me, I do this.

00:28:02 ◼   ► but you could do iOS 11 and Mac OS 11 this fall.

00:28:07 ◼   ► You could sync up the version numbers.

00:28:11 ◼   ► Maybe- - I would be surprised

00:28:13 ◼   ► if they didn't.

00:28:15 ◼   ► - 10.13 just seems dumb, but you know, that's where we are.

00:28:20 ◼   ► Version 10 forever, I guess,

00:28:22 ◼   ► even though it's not in the name anymore.

00:28:24 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:28:25 ◼   ► - Something you seem pretty excited about

00:28:26 ◼   ► is that Safari looks like it might be getting

00:28:29 ◼   ► real-time communication features.

00:28:31 ◼   ► What is this?

00:28:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, so a friend of mine that I've known for 25 years,

00:28:36 ◼   ► Dan Applequist is a web standards guy

00:28:40 ◼   ► and he retweeted something that I hadn't seen covered,

00:28:44 ◼   ► which was that there was a massive check-in by Apple

00:28:48 ◼   ► to the WebKit code base.

00:28:51 ◼   ► And it's one of these open source, like Swift stuff, right?

00:28:56 ◼   ► It's like Apple working in open source

00:28:58 ◼   ► is a little bit different.

00:28:59 ◼   ► Like, we can see in because it's open source,

00:29:03 ◼   ► and WebKit drives Safari on iOS and macOS.

00:29:07 ◼   ► And they have WebKit developers,

00:29:09 ◼   ► and they check in stuff, and they have a roadmap,

00:29:11 ◼   ► and they talk about it,

00:29:12 ◼   ► and they talked about for a while

00:29:13 ◼   ► that they were working on a bunch of new things,

00:29:15 ◼   ► including real-time communication features.

00:29:18 ◼   ► So what happened is code got checked in

00:29:21 ◼   ► for support for WebRTC, which is the standard.

00:29:24 ◼   ► It's in Chrome, it's in Firefox,

00:29:27 ◼   ► that allows browsers to do audio and video features

00:29:31 ◼   ► without plugins.

00:29:32 ◼   ► So it enables the browser to do all sorts

00:29:35 ◼   ► of multimedia stuff without requiring you to, you know,

00:29:39 ◼   ► use Flash or install the Google Chat plugin

00:29:43 ◼   ► or anything like that.

00:29:44 ◼   ► And what is interesting about this is that

00:29:49 ◼   ► the web-based podcasting stuff like Cast and Zencastr

00:29:54 ◼   ► that are these tools that basically

00:29:55 ◼   ► you give everybody a web link.

00:29:57 ◼   ► Instead of doing what we do, which is everybody gets on Skype and they've got recording software

00:30:03 ◼   ► that they are also running because we want them to record their microphone locally and

00:30:06 ◼   ► then send it in so it sounds like, you know, like for people who are listening to this

00:30:09 ◼   ► podcast if they don't know, we are talking via Skype but nobody hears Skype. Skype is

00:30:14 ◼   ► actually not what you hear. You hear me recording in California my voice and Myke recording

00:30:20 ◼   ► his voice in London and then Myke assembles that together and it sounds like we're in

00:30:24 ◼   ► the same room even though we're not. It sounds better than we're in the same

00:30:27 ◼   ► room because we're isolated but it sounds full quality. So to do that you've

00:30:32 ◼   ► got to record. So it's like, okay, we'll connect via Skype and that's how we'll

00:30:36 ◼   ► hear each other but we'll also run a recorder and we'll do that and then

00:30:39 ◼   ► we'll put it together and you get somebody who's new at this and you

00:30:43 ◼   ► try to tell them about this stuff and especially if they're not big computer

00:30:48 ◼   ► people it gets really complicated. So Cast and Zencastr are these websites

00:30:52 ◼   ► where you sign up as a podcast host and pay them a little bit of money,

00:30:55 ◼   ► and you give them a link, you give your guests a link, and they just show up.

00:30:59 ◼   ► And in the webpage, it has voice communication, you can hear each other.

00:31:04 ◼   ► And in the background, the web browser is doing the recording of their voice,

00:31:09 ◼   ► the local recording, and uploading it to the server.

00:31:12 ◼   ► So you literally get to the end of the podcast and you press a button saying "We're done."

00:31:16 ◼   ► And you wait for the browser and it takes, you know, between a few seconds and a few minutes,

00:31:21 ◼   ► it says "I'm uploading your file now," and then the file gets uploaded and you're

00:31:25 ◼   ► done. It is dead simple. I use it for one of the podcasts I do because it's

00:31:30 ◼   ► with somebody who's a little less technical and it makes it sound really

00:31:33 ◼   ► good. So adding WebRTC to Safari means that it will probably be able to support

00:31:39 ◼   ► those tools down the road, and while that's less interesting on the Mac

00:31:44 ◼   ► because we do have all of these different tools for stuff like this,

00:31:49 ◼   ► Since Safari and WebKit are the basis for web browsing on iOS as well, it opens up the

00:31:55 ◼   ► possibility that you could use those apps to record podcasts with people on every platform

00:32:03 ◼   ► imaginable basically, if it's running Chrome or Safari, including iOS, which would mean

00:32:07 ◼   ► I could do podcasts with local recordings on my iPhone or my iPad, wherever I was if

00:32:13 ◼   ► I had a microphone.

00:32:14 ◼   ► And that's exciting because as we've talked about before,

00:32:18 ◼   ► Apple doesn't really, has not done a good job

00:32:22 ◼   ► of prioritizing, I guess I would say, some sound features.

00:32:24 ◼   ► Like you can't like run a sound recorder

00:32:27 ◼   ► like Audio Hijack while running Skype on the iPhone.

00:32:29 ◼   ► You can't do it.

00:32:31 ◼   ► It doesn't work because of OS limitations.

00:32:34 ◼   ► And maybe one day they'll fix those things.

00:32:36 ◼   ► But if they build all of the multimedia features

00:32:38 ◼   ► into WebKit and it's in Safari for iOS,

00:32:41 ◼   ► then you kind of don't need them

00:32:42 ◼   ► because you can do this all in one approach

00:32:45 ◼   ► that gets you to record and talk

00:32:48 ◼   ► at the same time in the browser.

00:32:49 ◼   ► So we'll see whether that's even an iOS 11 feature.

00:32:53 ◼   ► It may not be, I don't know how long it takes

00:32:56 ◼   ► and I don't know what state that code is in,

00:32:59 ◼   ► but the fact that there was a code check-in

00:33:01 ◼   ► plus a lot of other stuff,

00:33:02 ◼   ► if you remember the Safari is the new IE discussion

00:33:05 ◼   ► that the guy Nolan Lawson kind of kicked off everywhere.

00:33:09 ◼   ► A lot of the stuff that he complained about

00:33:11 ◼   ► has been checked in as well.

00:33:13 ◼   ► And Safari, some of that stuff is supported

00:33:16 ◼   ► in shipping Safari, and then a lot of it is supported

00:33:19 ◼   ► in the developer preview Safari stream

00:33:23 ◼   ► that is now available.

00:33:24 ◼   ► So Safari work proceeds a pace,

00:33:28 ◼   ► and they are doing a lot of stuff,

00:33:30 ◼   ► including these web standards that have been implemented

00:33:35 ◼   ► on other platforms and in other browsers,

00:33:37 ◼   ► but haven't been in Safari yet.

00:33:38 ◼   ► And again, you can choose an alternative browser on the Mac,

00:33:42 ◼   ► but on iOS, even Chrome on iOS uses the WebKit renderer

00:33:46 ◼   ► because that's the law on iOS.

00:33:48 ◼   ► So this stuff coming to Safari is a big deal,

00:33:51 ◼   ► especially for compatibility on iOS devices.

00:33:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would be,

00:33:57 ◼   ► I'm keen to see how it would be implemented on iOS devices

00:34:00 ◼   ► because it would be more than just giving this ability,

00:34:05 ◼   ► right?

00:34:06 ◼   ► iOS starves web browsers for RAM, and quite frequently you'll open up a web browser and

00:34:14 ◼   ► all of my tabs have been refreshed.

00:34:16 ◼   ► So stuff like that they would need to also put time into if they care about more than

00:34:21 ◼   ► just the other things that real-time communication could enable.

00:34:26 ◼   ► It's hard to imagine that they would build in RTC and have it be that you could be having

00:34:30 ◼   ► a VoIP conversation over a web page and then just close the web page because you're somewhere

00:34:36 ◼   ► else. I think that seems dumb, right? That seems counter to the entire point. So I think

00:34:41 ◼   ► they will probably solve for that and prioritize that over other things if there's still audio

00:34:47 ◼   ► or video going on there. But we'll see. I should say real-time follow-up. Cal-Seth Gray

00:34:54 ◼   ► in the chat room says, "Browser crashing could be catastrophic if you're recording a podcast."

00:34:58 ◼   ► Actually, one of the things these apps do that's very clever is that they stream your

00:35:04 ◼   ► self audio in the background up to the server.

00:35:06 ◼   ► So I've had browser crashes using Cast before,

00:35:10 ◼   ► and it saves the audio.

00:35:12 ◼   ► It doesn't get all of it.

00:35:13 ◼   ► You might miss a few seconds,

00:35:16 ◼   ► but it does a pretty good job of keeping caught up.

00:35:18 ◼   ► If you have somebody on a very slow connection,

00:35:20 ◼   ► it will prioritize your ability to hear them

00:35:22 ◼   ► over the upload and do the upload later.

00:35:24 ◼   ► But in most cases, it's actually pretty safe.

00:35:26 ◼   ► So it's a cool, again, I would much rather just have apps

00:35:29 ◼   ► I could run on my iPad like I run them on my Mac.

00:35:32 ◼   ► But the web-based stuff has a lot of advantages

00:35:35 ◼   ► in that it might actually happen earlier on iOS.

00:35:39 ◼   ► And for people who are not tech savvy

00:35:41 ◼   ► who do interviews or podcasts, it's actually way better

00:35:44 ◼   ► because I don't have to walk somebody through recording

00:35:47 ◼   ► their own microphone.

00:35:49 ◼   ► And that's a beautiful thing.

00:35:50 ◼   ► - Thank you for addressing that RTC, RTFU.

00:35:53 ◼   ► That was really good.

00:35:55 ◼   ► WatchOS Theater Mode.

00:35:59 ◼   ► This will be a mode that will be coming to WatchOS.

00:36:01 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:36:02 ◼   ► Where it projects a big screen onto the wall and- nope.

00:36:07 ◼   ► It lets users quickly mute all of their sounds on their Apple Watch and it disables waking

00:36:11 ◼   ► the screen on raising of the wrist.

00:36:14 ◼   ► I'm actually happy about this, I was in a movie theatre a couple of weeks ago seeing

00:36:17 ◼   ► La La Land which I enjoyed immensely, I know it seems to get mixed reviews from people

00:36:22 ◼   ► that I know, I love La La Land.

00:36:25 ◼   ► And every time I would move my arm my watch face would come on.

00:36:28 ◼   ► I know.

00:36:29 ◼   ► is embarrassing because it's difficult to get it to stop. And I know there's a thing

00:36:33 ◼   ► about putting your hand over it, but sometimes all that does is just open an app and then

00:36:37 ◼   ► you're back to square one again. You will still get haptic notifications, you still

00:36:41 ◼   ► get notifications just to tap you, but you need to tap the screen or press the crown

00:36:45 ◼   ► to see them. Great.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Yeah, that's I agree. I have those exact same feelings about when you're in the theater

00:36:53 ◼   ► and I think anybody, you know, anybody who's had their Apple Watch in the theater has done

00:36:56 ◼   ► that where you get a notification and suddenly your wrist lights up or you just move your

00:37:01 ◼   ► wrist and the screen turns on. So that's good.

00:37:06 ◼   ► I guess the biggest story here is the developer changes that seem to be coming. I don't

00:37:18 ◼   ► think necessarily because, well some of the review changes are not necessarily because

00:37:24 ◼   ► of 10.3 I don't think but like they're happening with 10.3 and there are kind of two strands

00:37:30 ◼   ► here there is changes to the way that customers can review your applications and if you're

00:37:37 ◼   ► a developer and a way that developers can respond to written reviews of customers so

00:37:45 ◼   ► the first off will be the way that customers can review apps so there will be a new iOS

00:37:51 ◼   ► API to let developers ask for reviews inside of an application. So you're using an app

00:37:57 ◼   ► and it will pop up and say, "Hey, would you like to review this app?" Now there are many

00:38:01 ◼   ► apps that do this currently, but the way that this happens is it will then launch the App

00:38:06 ◼   ► Store for you then to go and leave that review. But what this does is it will, it is something

00:38:12 ◼   ► is a model dialogue that Apple will pop up to put this in place. So you will be asked

00:38:19 ◼   ► to review the app, you can just leave the star rating,

00:38:21 ◼   ► press, you know, rate this and you're done, and it's done.

00:38:24 ◼   ► You don't get taken out of the app or anything like that.

00:38:27 ◼   ► And developers are able to define which parts

00:38:30 ◼   ► of their application that this could occur in.

00:38:33 ◼   ► So for example, you won't be alerted halfway through

00:38:36 ◼   ► the level of a game to rate the app, for example,

00:38:39 ◼   ► which is the thing that concerned me,

00:38:41 ◼   ► 'cause the way it was originally reported,

00:38:43 ◼   ► you know, just from what we knew,

00:38:44 ◼   ► is like it could just randomly just appear at any moment,

00:38:47 ◼   ► which is not the way that you want it to be.

00:38:50 ◼   ► This dialogue can be shown up to three times a year

00:38:53 ◼   ► per application.

00:38:55 ◼   ► If a customer has already rated an application,

00:38:57 ◼   ► they will not be prompted to see it again.

00:39:00 ◼   ► And there will be a master switch in iOS settings

00:39:02 ◼   ► to disable these prompts for all applications.

00:39:06 ◼   ► And according to some quotes that were given

00:39:09 ◼   ► to John Gruber at Daring Fireball,

00:39:12 ◼   ► apparently this new API will eventually become

00:39:15 ◼   ► the only allowed process for asking for reviews,

00:39:20 ◼   ► but this will not be an immediate change

00:39:23 ◼   ► that Apple will be mandating on developers.

00:39:27 ◼   ► - This is all, it's great classic carrot and stick

00:39:31 ◼   ► kind of things, right?

00:39:32 ◼   ► 'Cause like the ability to review an app

00:39:35 ◼   ► without leaving the app is a huge motivation

00:39:38 ◼   ► for people to adopt this.

00:39:39 ◼   ► But if you adopt it,

00:39:43 ◼   ► you also have this limitation on how much you can ask.

00:39:47 ◼   ► But you also get to know that if they reviewed your app,

00:39:51 ◼   ► it won't ever bug them again,

00:39:53 ◼   ► which is I think knowledge that they don't have right now.

00:39:56 ◼   ► So that's good.

00:39:57 ◼   ► And then hanging over all of it is the fact that

00:39:59 ◼   ► you're gonna need to implement this eventually

00:40:01 ◼   ► if you wanna keep asking,

00:40:02 ◼   ► because at some point Apple will start rejecting apps

00:40:05 ◼   ► if they are asking by some other means.

00:40:07 ◼   ► So, it makes sense.

00:40:09 ◼   ► I think it gives developers most of what they've asked for and complained about for the last

00:40:15 ◼   ► eight or nine years. And I think it's actually better for everybody, right? If you really

00:40:19 ◼   ► are allergic to these things, you can turn it off in your settings, but it's only going

00:40:21 ◼   ► to ask you a few times a year. And if you do give it a review, then you're done. And

00:40:26 ◼   ► I was listening to ATP last night from last week and they all made the point and I fully

00:40:31 ◼   ► agree with them, which is I too do not rate apps I love very often in the app store because

00:40:36 ◼   ► it is kind of a pain, you've got to leave the app. And quite honestly, when I get asked

00:40:40 ◼   ► in an app to rate an app, generally I'm not at the point where I want to do that, I want

00:40:45 ◼   ► to use the app. So being able to very quickly say, "Yeah, I like this, it's a five-star

00:40:51 ◼   ► app or whatever," and then move on with what I'm doing and never be asked again, I think

00:40:55 ◼   ► that's great from a user standpoint too. So I think this is a win all around. You know,

00:41:00 ◼   ► are there details to be worked out? Sure. Are there going to be things that are going

00:41:04 ◼   ► to come up that people are going to complain about? Of course, but this is like an A+ kind

00:41:10 ◼   ► of thing. This seems to so many of Apple's tweaks with the App Store, we go, "Well, this

00:41:16 ◼   ► really asks more questions than it answers, and what is it really going to mean?" And

00:41:20 ◼   ► then they have to come out with a clarifying statement or something, and that is not the

00:41:23 ◼   ► case with this one. This one seems pretty solid all the way around, really well thought

00:41:28 ◼   ► out.

00:41:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that this is even what they're providing here is better for customers and it is

00:41:36 ◼   ► for developers. Like not that it's bad for developers, but like the gains that you get as

00:41:40 ◼   ► a customer I think are greater than the gains that a developer gets. Just because it's like it is

00:41:46 ◼   ► making your apps better to use because you're not being frustrated by them. You know, it's like a

00:41:53 ◼   ► less frustrating thing. Because I hate those dialogues because typically it's like a multi-stage

00:41:59 ◼   ► dialogue because they want to like you know first ask you if you're happy and

00:42:04 ◼   ► then hey why don't you leave a review or tweet about us or if you're not happy

00:42:09 ◼   ► it's like well why don't you talk to our support team I don't want to do any of

00:42:11 ◼   ► this like you have asked you've popped this thing up and now I'm being asked

00:42:15 ◼   ► like in multiple different ways or like told how often do I want to be told

00:42:19 ◼   ► about this like I'm happy and will be happy to get this pop up I will be more

00:42:25 ◼   ► willing to leave reviews for applications if all I have to do is tap one extra button,

00:42:31 ◼   ► right? Because I'm either going to tap cancel or the review and the only other thing I have to do

00:42:36 ◼   ► is just tap the star rating. So it's two taps, right? Instead of one tap. So I will be happier

00:42:41 ◼   ► for that. And I mean, you know, and I get it from developers. It's like, if they release a new

00:42:45 ◼   ► version, they cannot give the ability for these things to come back up again, right? And this

00:42:50 ◼   ► years has changed and I think if somebody dismisses it three times, so say it pops up

00:42:56 ◼   ► three times in a year and you dismiss it every time, that person will not be asked again

00:43:02 ◼   ► for another full calendar year as well. So there's like this, where it's like three and

00:43:07 ◼   ► a year there's a couple of different things that mean that which is a little bit tricky

00:43:10 ◼   ► to grok. But I think that it's good. I think the thing that is better for developers than

00:43:16 ◼   ► it is for customers in that way is the fact that developers will be able to respond to

00:43:20 ◼   ► to

00:43:34 ◼   ► can do it correctly, you know, without trying to fight with your customers as a developer,

00:43:39 ◼   ► and are able to kind of keep you cool about it, especially when people are being maybe mean and

00:43:43 ◼   ► nasty to you for no reason sometimes. It can be a lot better for that individual customer,

00:43:50 ◼   ► but also for all prospective customers of your application. You know, if someone can take a look

00:43:56 ◼   ► at your reviews and they can see two things, they can see like one, that some of the stuff that's

00:44:02 ◼   ► that's maybe being said about it is wrong, you know,

00:44:04 ◼   ► like bad things about your application are said to be wrong.

00:44:07 ◼   ► And also that, you know, you can see immediately

00:44:11 ◼   ► when you're buying an application,

00:44:13 ◼   ► oh, this developer cares about their app

00:44:17 ◼   ► and cares about their customers,

00:44:19 ◼   ► that they take the time to hopefully respond to them.

00:44:23 ◼   ► You know, you can get a good feeling

00:44:24 ◼   ► about the application you're about to buy.

00:44:27 ◼   ► You know, and even a case of like, yeah,

00:44:29 ◼   ► like let's say that a piece of functionality is missing,

00:44:32 ◼   ► but you can see the developer say like,

00:44:34 ◼   ► I know this is missing right now, I'm working on it

00:44:36 ◼   ► and hope to have it out within the next couple of months.

00:44:39 ◼   ► You can be like, all right, like that's good.

00:44:41 ◼   ► Like I know now that like I'm not gonna get this thing

00:44:43 ◼   ► that I might want, but I can know it's coming

00:44:45 ◼   ► so I can feel good in checking

00:44:48 ◼   ► and going ahead and buying this.

00:44:50 ◼   ► Again, according to statements from Apple to Daring Fireball,

00:44:55 ◼   ► the replies that will be pushed,

00:44:57 ◼   ► like the replies in response to a review will be visually connected from developer to customer.

00:45:04 ◼   ► They're not going to be threaded, but visually connected, whatever that means. And that they

00:45:09 ◼   ► can also be edited once afterwards. So the customer can edit their review once and the

00:45:15 ◼   ► developer can edit their review once. And I guess that would be, and it's good that

00:45:19 ◼   ► they're doing this so the customer can go like, oh, the developer solved my thing and

00:45:24 ◼   ► and then the developer can go, thanks very much.

00:45:27 ◼   ► You know, like they've just would put a little line

00:45:29 ◼   ► in to edit them.

00:45:30 ◼   ► So yeah, I think that the customer review part

00:45:34 ◼   ► is maybe the one that's more interesting to me

00:45:36 ◼   ► 'cause I think it's something that's more needed

00:45:39 ◼   ► and has been needed for longer

00:45:42 ◼   ► than the review dialogue, honestly.

00:45:45 ◼   ► Like the review dialogue thing is Apple's response

00:45:48 ◼   ► to an ugly trend, but the ability for developers

00:45:53 ◼   ► to be able to reply to reviews

00:45:55 ◼   ► has been something the App Store has needed

00:45:57 ◼   ► for a desperately long time

00:46:00 ◼   ► that has been around on the Google Play Store

00:46:03 ◼   ► for a very long time.

00:46:05 ◼   ► Long enough that it's surprising

00:46:07 ◼   ► that they're doing it now.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Nothing's changed.

00:46:10 ◼   ► That means that they should do this now,

00:46:12 ◼   ► except for the fact that I guess

00:46:14 ◼   ► that leadership has changed at the App Store.

00:46:16 ◼   ► I feel like there was no pressure put on Apple

00:46:20 ◼   ► more than there has been in the past.

00:46:21 ◼   ► Like the most pressure that was put on them for this

00:46:24 ◼   ► was when Google implemented it, but they didn't do it then.

00:46:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think Apple's attitudes toward developers

00:46:32 ◼   ► are changing a little bit,

00:46:33 ◼   ► and I don't wanna make a too big a deal of it

00:46:36 ◼   ► because it's still Apple,

00:46:37 ◼   ► and the relationship is always going to be

00:46:40 ◼   ► Apple not prioritizing developers

00:46:42 ◼   ► because Apple will prioritize itself in customers

00:46:44 ◼   ► more than developers.

00:46:45 ◼   ► But I think there was,

00:46:49 ◼   ► I'm gonna say, I'm gonna try to be delicate about this.

00:46:51 ◼   ► I think in the pre-Jobs era, there was a huge structure about supporting developers.

00:47:00 ◼   ► And in the Jobs era, a lot of that was changed and a lot of the attitudes changed.

00:47:06 ◼   ► And I think my perception from the outside is that some of that got dismantled.

00:47:11 ◼   ► But I think the biggest change in the Jobs era was a little more disdainful attitude

00:47:19 ◼   ► toward developers. And if, again, armchair analyst from the outside, but I can tell you

00:47:27 ◼   ► with a few examples that I experienced and I saw people experience, that Steve Jobs had

00:47:36 ◼   ► an attitude that people who weren't Apple, who were making businesses and profits and

00:47:47 ◼   ► livings off of accessories and apps and add-ons and anything that was sort of

00:47:54 ◼   ► about Apple but weren't inside Apple were kind of distasteful because they

00:48:03 ◼   ► were they were making a living on Apple's greatness and I legitimately

00:48:12 ◼   ► believe that Steve always had a problem with third-party people, not that he didn't know

00:48:19 ◼   ► that they needed to exist, because they absolutely did, but that I never really thought that

00:48:24 ◼   ► he treated them with anything but kind of begrudging acceptance at best.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Yeah, like it was a shame that they had to exist.

00:48:33 ◼   ► Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, and then at worst it was with kind of repulsion and disdain and,

00:48:40 ◼   ► you know, the fact that you're, you know, and viewing them as parasites. And I think

00:48:44 ◼   ► that there were examples of both, I think. And you can see it in a lot of things like

00:48:48 ◼   ► the existence of the iPod Hi-Fi, which really existed out of spite because they thought

00:48:52 ◼   ► that Bose was making too much money with the SoundDock and they wanted to steal that money

00:48:56 ◼   ► away with their great Brilliant Apple product, which failed. And I think it goes to the App

00:49:02 ◼   ► Store philosophy over the course of whatever, eight or nine years, where I think that once

00:49:07 ◼   ► that prioritization and thought was in there, and I'm not saying that individual

00:49:13 ◼   ► people who worked in the App Store and Developer Relations felt this way, but

00:49:15 ◼   ► I'm feeling like from the top there was a culture of kind of not caring too much

00:49:23 ◼   ► about what the developers said they needed because one, they weren't inside

00:49:29 ◼   ► Apple and they should be grateful for what they've been given, and two, the App

00:49:33 ◼   ► Store was doing so well and the app developers were supposedly doing so well

00:49:37 ◼   ► well, there's so much money there that everybody should just kind of be quiet and accept it.

00:49:42 ◼   ► And as with a lot of things that, you know, Steve Jobs wasn't perfect. A lot of things

00:49:48 ◼   ► that I think he did were, he had some attitudes that were harmful or negative about things,

00:49:55 ◼   ► you know, blind spots that he had about Apple. I think getting into the whole lawsuit thing

00:49:57 ◼   ► with Samsung is another example of that. But I think this is one of those examples where

00:50:01 ◼   ► Steve's been gone long enough and the corporate culture has changed enough that it's, you

00:50:06 ◼   ► know, it's, I don't even want to say safe. It's okay for those precepts that were instilled

00:50:14 ◼   ► in the culture early on to kind of fade away. And honestly, I think that's what we're seeing.

00:50:21 ◼   ► I think that's what we've seen over the last year or two since Phil Schiller took over

00:50:23 ◼   ► the group is this is an example of like, they could have done this, they could have done

00:50:27 ◼   ► this eight years ago. They could have done this six years ago. They could have done a

00:50:30 ◼   ► version of this a long time ago, but I think culturally it was like, you know, not something

00:50:36 ◼   ► to do, like let's not do that. I don't know whether that was a specific directive or whether

00:50:40 ◼   ► it was just part of the cultural feeling about like this is how we, this is what developers

00:50:44 ◼   ► get and this is what they don't get. The only thing I would say that I feel like is still

00:50:49 ◼   ► there that is an open question, and this came up when there was a lawsuit, I think, about

00:50:54 ◼   ► the App Store and about Apple, how Apple treats App Store sales and Apple made a claim in,

00:51:01 ◼   ► I think not in a legal document, but maybe in a press statement, that app purchasers

00:51:06 ◼   ► are not Apple's customers, they're the customers of the developers and all Apple is doing is

00:51:12 ◼   ► providing a storefront. And I know that a lot of developers really rolled their eyes

00:51:17 ◼   ► hard at that one because app developers don't know who buys their apps on the App Store.

00:51:22 ◼   ► not given customer information. They're not given any way to contact those people. And

00:51:27 ◼   ► that's another example of this kind of approach to developers, which is, you know, you guys

00:51:32 ◼   ► should be lucky that you get money from us. You don't get to know who your customers are.

00:51:38 ◼   ► And will that change? I don't know. There are lots of issues about that, about privacy,

00:51:42 ◼   ► you know, providing access to those people and their information. They would have to

00:51:46 ◼   ► update the Apple privacy policy. But it's of a kind with some of this other stuff. So

00:51:50 ◼   ► So maybe it will change because I didn't think that developers would ever be given the opportunity

00:51:56 ◼   ► to respond to App Store reviews and look where we are.

00:52:02 ◼   ► So yeah, some big changes.

00:52:05 ◼   ► There was nothing in 10.3 for what we were really looking for, which was the iPad.

00:52:09 ◼   ► I'm not really sure what that says yet, but right now it doesn't tell us what we were

00:52:14 ◼   ► expecting.

00:52:15 ◼   ► Yep.

00:52:16 ◼   ► Never say never.

00:52:19 ◼   ► No, we've learned that lesson.

00:52:22 ◼   ► This week's episode of Upgrade is brought to you by FreshBooks.

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00:53:02 ◼   ► now, in the way that people like me and Jason can be self-employed doing these things rather than

00:53:07 ◼   ► needing to work at a broadcaster or a magazine even. The new FreshBooks has been redesigned from

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00:53:27 ◼   ► looking invoices in less than 30 seconds and build them all in a wizard wig interface so you

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00:53:58 ◼   ► you log in to FreshBooks you get an update on what's changed with your business and what

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00:54:07 ◼   ► invoices past, this client's usual paying time, you know, like their usual trends. Because

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00:54:32 ◼   ► Then why would I bother them the 30th day? I may as well bother them the 36th day because

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00:55:13 ◼   ► Thank you so much to FreshBooks for their support of Upgrade and Relay FM.

00:55:17 ◼   ► So you wrote a review of a new keyboard that you've been trying out for the iPad Pro.

00:55:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I bought in December,

00:55:27 ◼   ► I bought the Bridge keyboard, the Bridge 12.9.

00:55:31 ◼   ► - And Bridge is spelled with a Y,

00:55:33 ◼   ► just like all the cool names.

00:55:35 ◼   ► - Exactly right, all the cool names.

00:55:37 ◼   ► Bridge keyboard is,

00:55:41 ◼   ► they make a bunch of different keyboards for iPads

00:55:44 ◼   ► and Microsoft Surface as well.

00:55:46 ◼   ► And the way they do it is they build these keyboards

00:55:50 ◼   ► with metal clamps that are hinged.

00:55:55 ◼   ► And the idea there is you slide the tablet into the clamps.

00:56:00 ◼   ► They're padded, they're soft padded clamps,

00:56:04 ◼   ► and you just slide it in.

00:56:05 ◼   ► And at that point, it's a laptop,

00:56:08 ◼   ► like it's in laptop mode.

00:56:10 ◼   ► And like literally laptop, no kickstand

00:56:12 ◼   ► or anything like that.

00:56:13 ◼   ► You can put it on your lap and adjust it to whatever angle

00:56:16 ◼   ► and the screen, which is your tablet, just sits there.

00:56:19 ◼   ► And then the bottom part is a Bluetooth keyboard

00:56:22 ◼   ► with keyboard movement that is quite similar,

00:56:25 ◼   ► I would say to the, it's not exact,

00:56:28 ◼   ► but it's close to the, like the MacBook Air,

00:56:31 ◼   ► the kind of previous generation Apple keyboard.

00:56:35 ◼   ► - On those hinges, how do they react to like cases?

00:56:39 ◼   ► Like can you put, keep a smart cover on?

00:56:42 ◼   ► Nothing. - Nope, nothing.

00:56:44 ◼   ► - Okay. - Nothing.

00:56:45 ◼   ► You gotta have no case 'cause it is calibrated

00:56:48 ◼   ► for the thickness of the device.

00:56:51 ◼   ► And so it goes in snugly.

00:56:54 ◼   ► It doesn't mark them up or anything

00:56:55 ◼   ► because there are sort of rubber covered hinges,

00:56:58 ◼   ► but they are exactly the right size.

00:57:01 ◼   ► In fact, you have to kind of learn,

00:57:02 ◼   ► the first time I tried it,

00:57:03 ◼   ► I completely failed to get it in there,

00:57:05 ◼   ► but you kind of have to tilt it

00:57:08 ◼   ► and then the laptop or the iPad screen will,

00:57:11 ◼   ► if you tilt it right, it'll settle into the hinges

00:57:15 ◼   ► and then it's in.

00:57:17 ◼   ► And once you're trained, basically, on how to do it, it's super easy.

00:57:23 ◼   ► So you said in your review, "I think I found the best external keyboard for the 12.9" iPad.

00:57:30 ◼   ► It's the best one I've tried so far, and it's not perfect. There are issues, but it is the closest I've come.

00:57:36 ◼   ► Because one of the problems is so many of these iPad keyboard thingies are not usable as laptops.

00:57:46 ◼   ► they have a kickstand or something.

00:57:48 ◼   ► So like the, the, uh, razor one was like this,

00:57:51 ◼   ► which you can't like put it in your lap and use it. You really,

00:57:54 ◼   ► it's like a tabletop kind of scenario because the stability is lacking.

00:57:58 ◼   ► If you've got a kickstand coming out the back way,

00:58:00 ◼   ► it requires a lot more space.

00:58:02 ◼   ► And then you've got this kind of kickstand edge dropping down, you know,

00:58:05 ◼   ► back at your knees, let's say if you're using a laptop, it's not, and,

00:58:09 ◼   ► and so many of them are also a single, uh, angle.

00:58:13 ◼   ► So like the Logitech Create is a single angle,

00:58:17 ◼   ► and this one you can adjust just like you would a laptop.

00:58:19 ◼   ► The other thing that it has over the Logitech Create

00:58:22 ◼   ► is that the Logitech Create you have to sort of snap in.

00:58:27 ◼   ► And so I find that the Logitech Create is,

00:58:32 ◼   ► although it's a good product, it's bulky,

00:58:34 ◼   ► but you're committing to basically

00:58:37 ◼   ► having your iPad be a laptop.

00:58:39 ◼   ► And I don't like that.

00:58:41 ◼   ► Most of the time I use my iPad as an iPad.

00:58:44 ◼   ► I had a bunch of people when I wrote this review, they said,

00:58:46 ◼   ► "Why don't you just get a laptop?"

00:58:47 ◼   ► It's like, well, I have a laptop, but I don't use it.

00:58:51 ◼   ► I use my iPad because I mostly want to use my iPad as an iPad,

00:58:55 ◼   ► and occasionally I want to use it as a laptop.

00:58:58 ◼   ► Occasionally I want a keyboard with it.

00:59:00 ◼   ► And this is a really nice keyboard

00:59:03 ◼   ► that can transform my iPad for the time that I use it as that.

00:59:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, and also, like, that's not really, like,

00:59:09 ◼   ► I get why people make that argument, but it's not always a valid argument because you maybe

00:59:15 ◼   ► just want to use iOS, which you cannot get in laptop form.

00:59:18 ◼   ► I think it's rarely a good argument actually. I think it's a question that misunderstands

00:59:23 ◼   ► completely the reason that people buy products like this. I did have somebody from Apple

00:59:27 ◼   ► who said, "We make a 13-inch MacBook Air." And my response was something like...

00:59:34 ◼   ► Someone from Apple?

00:59:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, and my response was with retina and a touch screen.

00:59:39 ◼   ► No, oh no, yeah, I mean you use this--

00:59:44 ◼   ► - And with a thriving application ecosystem.

00:59:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, so iPad, it's using iOS and I like my iPad

00:59:51 ◼   ► and so when I went to Hawaii, I took this with me

00:59:54 ◼   ► and most of the time it was not being used, right?

00:59:58 ◼   ► It was just in my bag, but when I,

01:00:00 ◼   ► there was one afternoon where I needed to do

01:00:02 ◼   ► a little bit of work and I brought that out

01:00:04 ◼   ► and now I had a laptop essentially

01:00:06 ◼   ► that I had converted my iPad into.

01:00:08 ◼   ► And the reality is that there are not,

01:00:10 ◼   ► even on the PC side, there are not a lot of good options

01:00:13 ◼   ► for a laptop that's convertible into a tablet,

01:00:18 ◼   ► that's good as a tablet and should be primarily used

01:00:21 ◼   ► as a tablet and has a lot of battery life.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Generally, what you'll get are laptops

01:00:26 ◼   ► that can be put in a tablet-esque mode,

01:00:28 ◼   ► but they're heavy or they don't have good battery life.

01:00:32 ◼   ► It's not, you know, there aren't a lot of alternatives

01:00:36 ◼   ► to this that are really a laptop.

01:00:38 ◼   ► And again, I wanna use iOS and I wanna use my iPad.

01:00:41 ◼   ► That's the device I wanna use.

01:00:44 ◼   ► So this gets me there.

01:00:46 ◼   ► It gets me something that you can close it

01:00:50 ◼   ► and it looks like a laptop.

01:00:51 ◼   ► You can carry it around like a laptop.

01:00:53 ◼   ► But in the end, if I want it to be an iPad,

01:00:56 ◼   ► all I do is grab the top and pull it up and that's it.

01:00:59 ◼   ► And then I have my iPad back.

01:01:01 ◼   ► I don't have to unsnap it and slide it out of the plastic rails and stuff on the Logitech

01:01:05 ◼   ► Create.

01:01:06 ◼   ► And I should say, the other thing I like about it is it's an aluminum keyboard.

01:01:10 ◼   ► It's not made of plastic.

01:01:13 ◼   ► It looks good and matches the device, and I think that's good.

01:01:20 ◼   ► And it weighs about what the iPad Pro weighs.

01:01:22 ◼   ► So in the end, you end up with a whatever, three-pound laptop.

01:01:26 ◼   ► It's not super lightweight.

01:01:28 ◼   ► If you want to travel light, there are better options.

01:01:31 ◼   ► Just a magic keyboard and a canopy would be okay.

01:01:37 ◼   ► But again, not if you want to use it on your lap.

01:01:40 ◼   ► If you want to use it on a tabletop, those are better options.

01:01:44 ◼   ► How do you find the keys?

01:01:46 ◼   ► They're okay.

01:01:47 ◼   ► Is this something that's very important to you?

01:01:48 ◼   ► They're okay.

01:01:49 ◼   ► They're not as good as the keys on my MacBook Air, let's say, but they're close.

01:01:56 ◼   ► They're similar.

01:01:58 ◼   ► not quite the same, but they're close enough. And once I start using the keyboard, I kind

01:02:05 ◼   ► of forget about it. But they are more in that style. They're not like the new—they don't

01:02:10 ◼   ► feel like the new ones so much to me as the old, previous generation Apple laptop.

01:02:16 ◼   ► And I think you said you had some production problems on these, which I also believe Federico

01:02:21 ◼   ► did as well.

01:02:22 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, Federico did too. And I think that's my big red flag here, is that the

01:02:27 ◼   ► first one I got didn't work right. And their support was really great. And they sent me

01:02:36 ◼   ► another one and it had the exact same problem. And at that point I was like, "Well, forget

01:02:42 ◼   ► it." I said, "This is ridiculous." And their support was like, "I agree it's ridiculous.

01:02:47 ◼   ► That shouldn't have happened. I don't know what's going on." But the support person said,

01:02:51 ◼   ► We have a batch right here in our main office and I have gotten one and made sure that it works fine

01:02:58 ◼   ► and I'm going to send it to you now. Return the other one at your leisure.

01:03:02 ◼   ► It wasn't even like, "Wait." - That's amazing support. That is incredible.

01:03:05 ◼   ► - It wasn't even like, "We'll wait to receive yours and then send you out a new one because we've got to do this like a hostage transfer."

01:03:11 ◼   ► It was, "This is really bad. Take the keyboard."

01:03:17 ◼   ► two people meet in the upstairs of a car park and they just shift one over to the other.

01:03:23 ◼   ► So this is the one that I have now and that works fine and my guess is that they had a bad batch.

01:03:31 ◼   ► My guess is they had something wrong with a batch of theirs where the Bluetooth

01:03:35 ◼   ► was intermittent or something like that. But I gotta say, I found their support great and

01:03:41 ◼   ► And I ended up with a keyboard that works really well.

01:03:44 ◼   ► But if you're somebody who, for whom that is a red flag, or you don't want to deal with

01:03:48 ◼   ► it again, you know, they offered me a refund, they offered me a replacement, and I ended

01:03:53 ◼   ► up with what I wanted.

01:03:56 ◼   ► And so for some people will go into a warning like that and be like, "Oh, well, so if I

01:04:00 ◼   ► get a bad one, they'll just replace it."

01:04:02 ◼   ► And it's like, "Yeah, that was my experience."

01:04:03 ◼   ► Other people will be like, "Well, I don't even want to bother because that sounds like

01:04:07 ◼   ► they have production problems and I don't trust them."

01:04:10 ◼   ► And that's a personal decision.

01:04:12 ◼   ► I was pretty much ready to just write it off as, "I can't even try this product because

01:04:17 ◼   ► it doesn't work right."

01:04:19 ◼   ► But throughout the process, I have to give them credit.

01:04:22 ◼   ► Their support was spectacular and they did make it right in the end.

01:04:26 ◼   ► So I have to disclose that and I have to talk about that, that they didn't make it right.

01:04:31 ◼   ► I should also say, I bought this keyboard.

01:04:33 ◼   ► I didn't ask for a review unit and work with their PR people.

01:04:37 ◼   ► I bought it.

01:04:38 ◼   ► I never explained that I was going to write a review of it.

01:04:39 ◼   ► I just bought it. And if they knew that I was somebody who writes product reviews, they

01:04:44 ◼   ► certainly never let on. So I think it was a legitimate customer interaction. But, you

01:04:49 ◼   ► know, buyer beware. That said, if you're somebody who is intrigued by the idea of an aluminum,

01:04:56 ◼   ► adjustable, truly laptop-able keyboard for an iPad, a 12.9 iPad that you can get in and

01:05:03 ◼   ► out of the case very quickly, which are sort of my priorities, this is a winner.

01:05:09 ◼   ► Randy Caldwell was telling me that she, other than the fact that it doesn't use the smart

01:05:12 ◼   ► connector, she would be into it. And it's true, it uses Bluetooth, which means you need

01:05:15 ◼   ► to turn it on when you attach it. You need to press the power button on the keyboard

01:05:19 ◼   ► in order to get it to turn on. And I wish they had re-engineered it to use the smart

01:05:26 ◼   ► connector. They probably could have done that, but they didn't. And so that's one thing,

01:05:31 ◼   ► but you know, it's not enough of a deal breaker for me. And so that's, and the Logitech Create,

01:05:36 ◼   ► I have a Logitech Create and I never, I literally never use it because it requires you to snap it in

01:05:44 ◼   ► place on the 12.9. Snap it in place, there's all this kind of fiddly stuff in order to get this

01:05:49 ◼   ► enormous, you know, enormous shell around your iPad and I just don't like that because most of

01:05:56 ◼   ► the time I want my iPad to be an iPad. Yeah, I've held off from getting the Create for my big iPad

01:06:03 ◼   ► Pro and it's not so much the weight it's just the fact that it's not it doesn't really seem to be

01:06:09 ◼   ► versatile for what I like the iPad Pro for. Like if I'm going to be strapping this huge case thing

01:06:17 ◼   ► on that specific iPad I want it to be like adjustable and stuff like that and also you know

01:06:23 ◼   ► not being able to put the keyboard into what I kind of refer to as media mode very easily like

01:06:29 ◼   ► the smart keyboard you can like flip it around the back and stand it up you know like like

01:06:33 ◼   ► like how we've always known smart covers to be right where you can do that thing where you can

01:06:37 ◼   ► stand it and it can be kind of in like in movie watching kind of mode the the create 9 7 is is

01:06:44 ◼   ► really nice and you've got that you love it and i think it's very good but the 12 9 yeah i think

01:06:49 ◼   ► i think it's just not as good because of the many reasons but i did i did order one of these based

01:06:56 ◼   ► on your review because you described a couple of things that I would be interested in. So

01:07:01 ◼   ► I don't like the size and weight but basically my 12.9 inch iPad now doesn't really leave the house,

01:07:10 ◼   ► like it is my it is the main computer I use at home for doing serious work on. Like I use my

01:07:16 ◼   ► 9 7 more often but like when I'm sitting down like especially when I'm maybe like prepping for this

01:07:21 ◼   ► show I want to have a full window of Google Docs and a full window of Apple

01:07:26 ◼   ► Notes or a web browser so I like to use the 12.9 of that so I've got these two

01:07:30 ◼   ► apps fully side-by-side right so I thought it would be really nice to have

01:07:36 ◼   ► the ability to have my iPad at any viewing angle I think that would be a

01:07:41 ◼   ► really nice thing that I would be willing to try out for for what I

01:07:46 ◼   ► consider to be a pretty serious trade-off of it not having the smart

01:07:50 ◼   ► connector. The bluetooth and the recharging is just, I consider that to be a pain now

01:07:55 ◼   ► because it's not necessary anymore. You can do this with the smart connector because Logitech

01:08:02 ◼   ► do. It is possible. So I consider that a frustration but the fact that I can have the viewing angles

01:08:11 ◼   ► to be readjusted means that that's why I would choose this one over that one. And the other

01:08:15 ◼   ► being that it seems like from where you described it, it is easier to get this on and off than

01:08:20 ◼   ► the Logitech.

01:08:21 ◼   ► Oh god yes, yeah.

01:08:23 ◼   ► But it does still frustrate me that I would then need to then go and grab a smart cover.

01:08:32 ◼   ► That's exactly what I do, I take my smart cover off and slide it into the hinges. And

01:08:39 ◼   ► then when I'm done I pull it out and put the smart cover back on.

01:08:42 ◼   ► So like I consider it to be a frustration, but I'm willing to try it. I'm willing to

01:08:45 ◼   ► see if it's a trade off that I consider to be worth it. Um, and as a, just a customer

01:08:52 ◼   ► experience thing I think is good, which I always really appreciate. Um, they clearly

01:08:57 ◼   ► have a UK or European warehouse. So like, yeah, I ordered it yesterday and it will be

01:09:03 ◼   ► here tomorrow and I paid for it in dollars.

01:09:06 ◼   ► Their color availability is hilarious. I was looking at that. They're like, uh, space gray

01:09:11 ◼   ► is out of stock for US, Australia, and Hong Kong. You know, silver is back ordered for

01:09:16 ◼   ► US. It's very precise because they've got different availability in the different regions,

01:09:22 ◼   ► which is, it's funny. You know, the hinge thing is just very clever. That's seriously

01:09:25 ◼   ► what they're staking their claim to. All of these keyboards that they make have that hinge.

01:09:30 ◼   ► And you know, if that's what you want is drop it in quickly, and it's a laptop, and then

01:09:34 ◼   ► pull it right back out, and now it's not a laptop anymore. That's what it does. And then

01:09:38 ◼   ► Most of the, you know, most of the use I have ever had of a laptop is not with a

01:09:45 ◼   ► laptop on a table, it's actually really bad or economically it's in my lap,

01:09:50 ◼   ► sitting in a chair, sitting on a bed, something like that, that, that is how I

01:09:54 ◼   ► have always used laptops and most of the iPad keyboard things don't do that.

01:10:01 ◼   ► Just like how the Surface Pro with its kickstand, like doesn't do that.

01:10:05 ◼   ► And, you know, there's a lot of weight in that iPad,

01:10:08 ◼   ► and so you have to have weight and size

01:10:12 ◼   ► to counterbalance it.

01:10:13 ◼   ► And it is the exact size of the iPad

01:10:16 ◼   ► so that you can close it,

01:10:17 ◼   ► and it looks like, you know,

01:10:18 ◼   ► it looks like a 13-inch laptop

01:10:20 ◼   ► with a kind of a hinge thing running on the back,

01:10:23 ◼   ► but it looks like, and it's color matched too.

01:10:25 ◼   ► That's actually pretty great.

01:10:26 ◼   ► It's space gray, and I have a space gray iPad.

01:10:28 ◼   ► So a lot of things I like about it.

01:10:29 ◼   ► - I got space gray because I'm in the UK,

01:10:30 ◼   ► so it's not out of stock. (laughs)

01:10:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, see?

01:10:33 ◼   ► And it doesn't have an escape key.

01:10:34 ◼   ► That's the one that kills me.

01:10:35 ◼   ► 'Cause you actually can,

01:10:36 ◼   ► like if you start a spotlight search

01:10:38 ◼   ► and then you wanna get out,

01:10:39 ◼   ► you can hit escape and you can't

01:10:42 ◼   ► because there's no escape key on this keyboard,

01:10:44 ◼   ► which I think is a weird decision.

01:10:46 ◼   ► It is backlit, I should also say, which people like.

01:10:49 ◼   ► I think it hurts the battery life.

01:10:51 ◼   ► I've never run out of battery with it.

01:10:53 ◼   ► I occasionally will recharge it when I think,

01:10:55 ◼   ► oh, I should probably recharge that keyboard.

01:10:56 ◼   ► But, and they claim that it's got, I don't know, weeks.

01:10:59 ◼   ► If you've got the backlight turned off,

01:11:00 ◼   ► weeks and weeks of battery life.

01:11:02 ◼   ► So it's not that big a deal.

01:11:03 ◼   ► you do have to connect Bluetooth,

01:11:05 ◼   ► you have to turn it on so that it connects via Bluetooth.

01:11:08 ◼   ► - So I'll report back next time with my feelings.

01:11:12 ◼   ► - All right, maybe it's for you.

01:11:13 ◼   ► I mean, all of these things are so,

01:11:15 ◼   ► because they're all about ergonomics and use cases

01:11:17 ◼   ► and all of that, like that's the thing I've learned

01:11:19 ◼   ► in trying all these different keyboards is,

01:11:21 ◼   ► I can't definitively say that's the keyboard for you.

01:11:24 ◼   ► Like if I were writing a wire cutter article

01:11:25 ◼   ► about iPad keyboards, it would be really hard

01:11:27 ◼   ► because it's just like a keyboard article.

01:11:31 ◼   ► At Macworld, we struggled with this,

01:11:33 ◼   ► writing articles about economics.

01:11:34 ◼   ► There is no one answer.

01:11:35 ◼   ► Everybody's bodies are different.

01:11:37 ◼   ► Everybody's use cases are different.

01:11:39 ◼   ► What apps do you use on your iPad?

01:11:40 ◼   ► That's gonna make a difference.

01:11:42 ◼   ► How often do you use your iPad in keyboard mode versus not?

01:11:45 ◼   ► Do you always use a case?

01:11:46 ◼   ► All of these things are combined in this.

01:11:50 ◼   ► So for me and my uses, this is the best I've found so far,

01:11:55 ◼   ► but it's not gonna be for everybody.

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01:13:32 ◼   ► going to Blueapron.com/upgrade. You'll love how good it feels and tastes to create incredible

01:13:38 ◼   ► home cooked meals with Blue Apron, so don't wait. Go to Blueapron.com/upgrade and we'd

01:13:42 ◼   ► like to thank them for their support of this show and Relay FM. Blue Apron, a better way

01:13:46 ◼   ► to cook.

01:13:50 ◼   ► Just made Blue Apron last night.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Oh yeah, how was it?

01:13:53 ◼   ► - AirPods help.

01:13:55 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

01:13:56 ◼   ► - Listening to podcasts with the AirPods in

01:13:58 ◼   ► while I make the, that make me, it was fantastic.

01:14:01 ◼   ► It was great.

01:14:01 ◼   ► It was a panini sandwich with,

01:14:06 ◼   ► so it was melted mozzarella and roast cauliflower

01:14:11 ◼   ► and Parmesan cheese and red sauce.

01:14:15 ◼   ► So it was like a, it was like an eggplant Parmesan

01:14:17 ◼   ► except with a roasted cauliflower instead.

01:14:19 ◼   ► It was really good.

01:14:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, that does sound pretty good actually.

01:14:22 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. Blue Apron, man. Don't know what it's about.

01:14:26 ◼   ► It's time for some Ask Upgrade.

01:14:27 ◼   ► [imitates gun fire]

01:14:30 ◼   ► Chris would like a history lesson, Jason Sunell.

01:14:33 ◼   ► Can you explain the history of the Command Key?

01:14:37 ◼   ► Chris's boss calls it the Apple Key.

01:14:39 ◼   ► Was it Command or the Apple logo on the original Mac?

01:14:43 ◼   ► Do you know what that Command logo's all about?

01:14:45 ◼   ► So the Apple Key goes back before the Mac, the Apple,

01:14:51 ◼   ► I think I'm not sure if the Apple 2 Plus had one,

01:14:54 ◼   ► maybe it, yeah, maybe it did.

01:14:56 ◼   ► There was an Apple key that you could use

01:15:03 ◼   ► for certain functions.

01:15:05 ◼   ► Again, like a command kind of thing.

01:15:07 ◼   ► No, it was not on the Apple 2, it was on the Apple 2 Plus,

01:15:11 ◼   ► or the Apple 2e, which I had.

01:15:15 ◼   ► And there was an open Apple and a closed Apple key, in fact,

01:15:19 ◼   ► to give you even more options for weird keyboard shortcuts

01:15:24 ◼   ► and restarting the, I think it was like shift open Apple

01:15:29 ◼   ► reset is the reboot, where the reboot keys on the Apple 2e.

01:15:33 ◼   ► So it starts there as an Apple key.

01:15:35 ◼   ► And then on the Mac, they ultimately went,

01:15:37 ◼   ► and again, I don't know if this actually exists,

01:15:40 ◼   ► I've got an original Mac keyboard right over there,

01:15:42 ◼   ► I could go look, but it's something that Apple added in

01:15:47 ◼   ► as the equivalent of an alt.

01:15:50 ◼   ► They had a command and the option,

01:15:52 ◼   ► and the idea was they were menu bar shortcuts.

01:15:56 ◼   ► So that's the idea, and it's extended to this day

01:16:00 ◼   ► where now we've got command and option and control, so many.

01:16:03 ◼   ► The original Mac keyboard had option and command on it.

01:16:08 ◼   ► Just the spinny propeller-y guy.

01:16:12 ◼   ► The spinny propeller-y guy itself,

01:16:14 ◼   ► there is a history there. (laughing)

01:16:15 ◼   ► I can tell you about it.

01:16:17 ◼   ► basically is a thing that I think Susan Kher saw when she was in Scandinavia.

01:16:21 ◼   ► It's a symbol that's used that means like a place of interest. When I was in

01:16:25 ◼   ► Denmark, I want to say, I saw it on a sign somewhere, or maybe it was in Sweden, I saw it on a

01:16:30 ◼   ► sign somewhere in a park and I was like, "Ah, look, they're still using it!" And that

01:16:35 ◼   ► was the inspiration for it was that, and I don't know why it was the symbol for a

01:16:40 ◼   ► place of interest or anything like that, but that's the short version. I think

01:16:44 ◼   ► there have been whole articles written about it,

01:16:46 ◼   ► but that's the short version.

01:16:48 ◼   ► - Wikipedia says that it came into the project,

01:16:52 ◼   ► the Macintosh project, at a late stage.

01:16:54 ◼   ► Steve Jobs found it frustrating when Apple's filled up

01:16:57 ◼   ► the Mac's menus next to key commands

01:16:59 ◼   ► because he felt this was an overuse of the company's logos.

01:17:02 ◼   ► When you'd hit menu and you'd see,

01:17:04 ◼   ► instead of the keyboard shortcut,

01:17:05 ◼   ► you'd see Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple.

01:17:07 ◼   ► And do you know what, I can see that.

01:17:08 ◼   ► I don't think I would like that.

01:17:09 ◼   ► I think that would be, like if it was still like that now,

01:17:12 ◼   ► I don't think I would like the way that that looked because it's company logo overuse for

01:17:18 ◼   ► sure rather than just like a glyph.

01:17:23 ◼   ► Brent wants to know how often do we try to 3D touch our iPads?

01:17:28 ◼   ► I don't think I ever make this mistake.

01:17:32 ◼   ► Never.

01:17:33 ◼   ► Weird, but I never do.

01:17:36 ◼   ► I use 3D touch a fair bit, especially to preview things. That is my main use. So it's a way

01:17:45 ◼   ► to preview messages, it's a way to preview emails, that kind of stuff. And with iOS 10

01:17:50 ◼   ► I use a lot of notifications as well, right, because to get to a lot of useful stuff you

01:17:54 ◼   ► kind of have to. But yeah, I never seem to 3D touch my iPad and it's kind of strange

01:18:01 ◼   ► that I don't really.

01:18:03 ◼   ► And I don't use 3D touch very much on my phone

01:18:06 ◼   ► because I sort of trained myself out of it

01:18:08 ◼   ► because there weren't that many useful things.

01:18:10 ◼   ► There are more useful things now

01:18:11 ◼   ► and every now and then I discover something and go,

01:18:13 ◼   ► oh, I should probably do that more often.

01:18:15 ◼   ► I did that actually with the Slack app recently

01:18:18 ◼   ► and I realized the Slack app has 3D touch stuff

01:18:21 ◼   ► and it lets you switch to a different Slack group

01:18:24 ◼   ► and things like that.

01:18:25 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, I should probably use that more.

01:18:27 ◼   ► But it's not particularly discoverable.

01:18:30 ◼   ► You just have to try to push harder on things

01:18:32 ◼   ► and see what happens and I don't know.

01:18:35 ◼   ► But so my problem is the opposite,

01:18:37 ◼   ► which is I forget to 3D touch on my iPhone,

01:18:40 ◼   ► not that I try to do it on my iPad.

01:18:44 ◼   ► The only place where I even feel it

01:18:46 ◼   ► is on notification center notifications,

01:18:48 ◼   ► where the workflow is very simple on the iPhone,

01:18:50 ◼   ► where you can 3D touch on something

01:18:52 ◼   ► and on the iPad you have to like swipe and open and yeah.

01:18:57 ◼   ► - Also the clear or notification thing on the little X,

01:19:00 ◼   ► you force touch that on the iPhone

01:19:02 ◼   ► you can clear all your notifications. I wish the iPad had that.

01:19:04 ◼   ► Yep.

01:19:07 ◼   ► But yeah, I never, I never like trick myself, you know, like realize, oh, don't be silly.

01:19:14 ◼   ► Logan has written in. Logan is a writer and aspiring podcaster. Logan asks a question.

01:19:23 ◼   ► It always makes me smile when we get these questions that people want us to help them

01:19:26 ◼   ► them with their purchasing decisions.

01:19:28 ◼   ► Logan wants to know, did they get a MacBook Pro

01:19:33 ◼   ► or a 12.9 inch iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil

01:19:37 ◼   ► and also a Mac Mini which would be the same price

01:19:40 ◼   ► as a MacBook Pro?

01:19:42 ◼   ► Now, I tell you what Logan,

01:19:46 ◼   ► for me this is an easy answer

01:19:50 ◼   ► and it is iPad Pro and a Mac Mini.

01:19:53 ◼   ► because if you get the Mac Mini,

01:19:57 ◼   ► you will be able to do everything, right?

01:20:02 ◼   ► With also the benefit of having an iPad,

01:20:05 ◼   ► which for me, I know that your mileage may vary on this,

01:20:10 ◼   ► dear listener, for me, the iPad Pro

01:20:13 ◼   ► is the best mobile computing device available today.

01:20:17 ◼   ► For the way that I work and for the type of work I like to do

01:20:21 ◼   ► I prefer it to using a Mac laptop because of versatility, because of the apps, and because

01:20:27 ◼   ► I don't really bring years and years of Macintosh-based productivity.

01:20:34 ◼   ► So when I was building up my own personal workflows, I was doing them with very surface-level

01:20:40 ◼   ► things on both the Mac and on iOS, so I don't need the command line for things.

01:20:44 ◼   ► I wouldn't even know what to do if you told me to do something with the command line.

01:20:48 ◼   ► just not a thing that's in my vernacular. So with an iPad Pro you can get all of the

01:20:54 ◼   ► stuff that you want to get done for your basic work and stuff like that. There is power user

01:20:58 ◼   ► work you can do depending on what your bent is, like whatever you're interested in, especially

01:21:03 ◼   ► if you're a writer. I mean you can really do everything you need to do on an iPad. But

01:21:07 ◼   ► then you can use the Mac Mini for podcasting if you want to do that. I mean there are ways

01:21:11 ◼   ► to do this stuff on iOS but if you want to go with a more simple option there you can

01:21:15 ◼   ► do that.

01:21:16 ◼   ► And also with the Mac Mini you can leave it there and you can leave something like screens

01:21:21 ◼   ► like a VNC app and if you want to you can use that and go over to the Mac Mini and do

01:21:26 ◼   ► other things if you have a processor you want to run.

01:21:29 ◼   ► Personally I think this is a better more versatile solution because it unlocks you to everything.

01:21:35 ◼   ► I mean of course a Mac Mini is not that powerful these days but from the very basic information

01:21:41 ◼   ► you're giving me, as long as your Mac Mini has got an SSD in it, I think you're gonna be fine.

01:21:45 ◼   ► My reluctance here is about the podcasting thing because podcast stuff is just not all there on the

01:21:51 ◼   ► iPad and the prospect of recording and editing podcasts on a Mac Mini does not thrill me. And so

01:22:00 ◼   ► I'm kind of on the fence about this because there's much more you can do. I mean, what will the new

01:22:10 ◼   ► iPads be? Will there be changes to iOS that will make this more... this might be an easier

01:22:14 ◼   ► answer in a year, right, than it is now. I think it may still be a bit early. We don't

01:22:21 ◼   ► have a lot of information here. Like, I would hate to live life without having an iPad,

01:22:27 ◼   ► but if I literally had to choose Mac or iPad, I think I would have to choose Mac because

01:22:35 ◼   ► there's just a bunch of things that I have to do on the Mac.

01:22:37 ◼   ► - Well sure, but Logan can have best of,

01:22:40 ◼   ► well can have some of both worlds.

01:22:42 ◼   ► - He can have a good iPad and a really,

01:22:45 ◼   ► really compromised Mac.

01:22:46 ◼   ► Now if he's already got a monitor and keyboard

01:22:49 ◼   ► and everything for the Mac mini

01:22:50 ◼   ► and he could just like swap out an older Mac

01:22:52 ◼   ► with a Mac mini and use that there,

01:22:54 ◼   ► then that maybe changes the equation a little bit.

01:22:57 ◼   ► But I don't know, I mean, I don't know.

01:23:01 ◼   ► It depends, it's sort of like what I said

01:23:02 ◼   ► about the keyboards.

01:23:03 ◼   ► It really depends on what your use cases are.

01:23:06 ◼   ► I think the safest thing to do would be to get a MacBook Pro,

01:23:10 ◼   ► but my story would probably be different in a year.

01:23:15 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:23:18 ◼   ► - I mean, a Mac Mini is totally fine for a podcast,

01:23:21 ◼   ► like for recording and editing a show.

01:23:23 ◼   ► I mean, it's totally fine.

01:23:24 ◼   ► It's gonna be slow in places,

01:23:25 ◼   ► but you can really get it done on that.

01:23:27 ◼   ► Like you don't need a new MacBook Pro

01:23:30 ◼   ► if the main Mac thing you're doing

01:23:32 ◼   ► is recording and editing a podcast.

01:23:34 ◼   ► That's the answer, I think, in a nutshell,

01:23:37 ◼   ► is how much do you need, do you want an iPad

01:23:42 ◼   ► and how much do you want a Mac?

01:23:43 ◼   ► Because you can get a really fast Mac

01:23:46 ◼   ► or you can get a slow Mac, but it'll do the job and an iPad.

01:23:50 ◼   ► And that's way more flexible, I will grant you.

01:23:53 ◼   ► But I don't know, I don't know.

01:23:56 ◼   ► Or get a MacBook and an iPad.

01:24:01 ◼   ► even I'm not sure, peripherals.

01:24:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:24:05 ◼   ► - Your world will be full of peripherals

01:24:07 ◼   ► of those two devices.

01:24:08 ◼   ► - It's true.

01:24:09 ◼   ► Lucas wants to know what model of Wacom tablet I use.

01:24:13 ◼   ► I don't do any graphics work,

01:24:15 ◼   ► but I use a Wacom tablet as my input method

01:24:17 ◼   ► because it's more comfortable for me.

01:24:19 ◼   ► I use the Intuos Pro,

01:24:22 ◼   ► and there are a couple of different sizes for this.

01:24:25 ◼   ► I use the medium-sized model,

01:24:31 ◼   ► but there is a small and a large and basically it's you know you get a

01:24:35 ◼   ► obviously a bigger tablet size and you also

01:24:39 ◼   ► get more function buttons on the larger ones

01:24:43 ◼   ► so yeah, it's dependent on what you're looking for there, how much

01:24:48 ◼   ► desk space you have

01:24:49 ◼   ► obviously the bigger it is the more you will have to

01:24:53 ◼   ► move your arm around so

01:24:56 ◼   ► that's up to you but I really recommend it

01:25:00 ◼   ► and I will say to anyone if you've never used the Wacom for input before

01:25:06 ◼   ► and you're interested in trying it out

01:25:09 ◼   ► there are a couple of things that you need to know

01:25:12 ◼   ► Gray taught me this before I started using it

01:25:15 ◼   ► there is one setting that you really should follow which is

01:25:18 ◼   ► it seems strange at first but it will really make you feel better

01:25:22 ◼   ► in the mapping section you want to make it pen mode

01:25:27 ◼   ► because then what it does is it maps it one to one

01:25:30 ◼   ► So the top left of the tablet is the top left of your screen etc.

01:25:33 ◼   ► As opposed to mouse mode which follows kind of the way that a mouse would

01:25:37 ◼   ► where kind of wherever you put the tablet, like your pen over the tablet

01:25:40 ◼   ► the cursor starts from there and then you move it.

01:25:44 ◼   ► Like if you put your finger on the top right of your trackpad it doesn't take

01:25:48 ◼   ► the pointer to the top right of the screen.

01:25:50 ◼   ► The pointer just stays where it is and your movement starts from that point.

01:25:53 ◼   ► That's not really the best way to use a

01:25:56 ◼   ► a pen tablet, really you should be kind of mapping the screen. So if you do that, the

01:26:02 ◼   ► bigger the tablet the more you'll be moving your arm around. But whilst it feels weird

01:26:06 ◼   ► at first, it is totally the best way to use one of these devices. The other thing that

01:26:11 ◼   ► I will say is if you do want to do this and you don't like it at first, just try and live

01:26:15 ◼   ► with it for a couple of days because it really at first feels like something you don't enjoy.

01:26:21 ◼   ► But after you kind of live with it for a couple of days, you learn how to use the device,

01:26:25 ◼   ► I would never go back to a mouse now.

01:26:28 ◼   ► And I use a trackpad and a Wacom.

01:26:31 ◼   ► I use them for different things.

01:26:33 ◼   ► But for my general kind of just using a computer,

01:26:35 ◼   ► mousing around interface, I use a Wacom

01:26:38 ◼   ► because it's more comfortable for me.

01:26:40 ◼   ► Last up today, Jay has asked,

01:26:43 ◼   ► when we record our show via Skype,

01:26:46 ◼   ► as Jason mentioned earlier on in the show

01:26:48 ◼   ► that we record via Skype, do we do video or just audio?

01:26:53 ◼   ► We do just audio.

01:26:55 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:26:56 ◼   ► - And I am-- - That way you don't have

01:26:57 ◼   ► to see my pajamas. (laughs)

01:26:59 ◼   ► - Well, you and your pajamas is not,

01:27:02 ◼   ► I'm not too worried about that.

01:27:04 ◼   ► We've shared a room together.

01:27:05 ◼   ► I've seen you in pajamas.

01:27:07 ◼   ► - That's true.

01:27:08 ◼   ► - My main thing is if the show is intended

01:27:13 ◼   ► to be consumed as audio,

01:27:15 ◼   ► then we should just only hear each other is my thinking.

01:27:19 ◼   ► Because whenever there is video involved,

01:27:22 ◼   ► It is very easy for if I'm describing something to Jason,

01:27:26 ◼   ► for me to just show it to him.

01:27:28 ◼   ► And then I don't do a good enough job

01:27:30 ◼   ► of describing it for our audio listeners.

01:27:33 ◼   ► - Or use body language or facial expressions

01:27:35 ◼   ► to get it across.

01:27:36 ◼   ► It's a natural part of how humans communicate.

01:27:38 ◼   ► And if you can see other people,

01:27:39 ◼   ► you start trying to communicate in that way.

01:27:41 ◼   ► And it's very hard.

01:27:42 ◼   ► I mean, I think we've mentioned this before,

01:27:43 ◼   ► but like being on one of the Twitch shows,

01:27:46 ◼   ► you have that a lot where I think the bulk

01:27:48 ◼   ► of their listeners are still listeners and not viewers.

01:27:51 ◼   ► and even the people who are watching on video,

01:27:52 ◼   ► I suspect a lot of them are not avidly watching the screen.

01:27:55 ◼   ► They've got it on in a window or a corner or something,

01:27:58 ◼   ► but they're mostly listening.

01:27:59 ◼   ► And on those shows, you very quickly start to think

01:28:04 ◼   ► that everybody can see you

01:28:05 ◼   ► because there are monitors all around you

01:28:06 ◼   ► and people are producing it for video.

01:28:10 ◼   ► And it leads to things that I will say

01:28:12 ◼   ► and then I'll think to myself,

01:28:14 ◼   ► nobody listening is gonna understand what I just did

01:28:16 ◼   ► because they can't see me,

01:28:18 ◼   ► even though I know that there's a video version.

01:28:21 ◼   ► So it's dangerous to even people

01:28:24 ◼   ► who've been doing this a while

01:28:26 ◼   ► to start getting in that mode of visuals.

01:28:29 ◼   ► And even if we had a video version of this show,

01:28:31 ◼   ► which I would hate because I would have to get up early

01:28:35 ◼   ► on Monday morning and make myself presentable,

01:28:37 ◼   ► but it would be, even if we did it that way,

01:28:41 ◼   ► I think it would hurt the audio version

01:28:43 ◼   ► because we would start to make assumptions

01:28:45 ◼   ► about visuals that weren't accurate.

01:28:47 ◼   ► Alright, that wraps up this week's show. If you want to find out what I've shown

01:28:51 ◼   ► you today, go to relay.fm. Oh, Jason just turned his video on. He's now waving at

01:28:56 ◼   ► me, everybody. Hi! See, this is what happens when we do video.

01:29:00 ◼   ► Disaster! He's wearing an orange Giants t-shirt. Is

01:29:04 ◼   ► it a t-shirt? Not a jersey? No, not a jersey. Here's the interesting thing right now,

01:29:09 ◼   ► is I am looking into your eyes, but you can't see that, because I'm just looking at my

01:29:13 ◼   ► screen. No, I'm looking into your eyes too, but it's

01:29:15 ◼   ► just an icon. It's just your avatar.

01:29:17 ◼   ► I've turned my video on for you now so you don't feel alone in this.

01:29:20 ◼   ► Oh my god, this is a disaster. Look, this podcast is ruined now.

01:29:23 ◼   ► It's ruined forever.

01:29:24 ◼   ► Look, I see your Amazon box right there!

01:29:27 ◼   ► relay.fm/upgrades/126 for our show notes today.

01:29:32 ◼   ► Thanks again to our sponsors, the fine folk over at Encapsula, Blue Apron, and FreshBooks.

01:29:38 ◼   ► If you want to find Jason online, he's at sixcolors.com and theincorporable.com.

01:29:42 ◼   ► and he is @jsnell on twitter, J S N E double L.

01:29:46 ◼   ► And I am @imike, I M Y K E.

01:29:50 ◼   ► We'll be back next time.

01:29:51 ◼   ► Don't forget, #askupgrade if you have any questions

01:29:54 ◼   ► for us to answer on the show.

01:29:56 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye Mr. Snell.

01:29:58 ◼   ► - I'm waving goodbye.

01:29:59 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:30:03 ◼   ► [ Music ]

01:30:07 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]