Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Real AFM, this is Upgrade episode 125.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Encapsula, Smile, and Squarespace.

00:00:16 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley.

00:00:17 ◼   ► I am joined by Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Good morning, Mr. Hurley.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Good morning, Jason Snell.

00:00:22 ◼   ► How are you today?

00:00:23 ◼   ► Hello to everybody out there in podcast land where it may be night, morning, daytime.

00:00:28 ◼   ► The dead of night, I don't know.

00:00:29 ◼   ► - It could be anything. - I'm doing well.

00:00:31 ◼   ► For us, it's Monday.

00:00:32 ◼   ► And for me, it's Monday morning.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - For me, it's Monday evening,

00:00:36 ◼   ► but for you, it could be anything.

00:00:38 ◼   ► - This is how we start our week.

00:00:39 ◼   ► - So we have some pretty huge follow-outs

00:00:40 ◼   ► to start off this week's show.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - We do.

00:00:43 ◼   ► People don't realize if you were not listening to live

00:00:48 ◼   ► that we actually did about a two plus hour show last week.

00:00:51 ◼   ► And we decided it was too long.

00:00:54 ◼   ► And so we cut the Ask Upgrade segment last week.

00:00:59 ◼   ► But there was a debate about whether we should cut that segment or our discussion of Chris

00:01:03 ◼   ► Lattner leaving Apple. And we decided to keep Chris Lattner's segment because we thought

00:01:11 ◼   ► that that was worth talking about and it was very timely and we could replay some of those

00:01:15 ◼   ► Ask Upgrade questions later. And in it, we really referred to strongly that people should

00:01:22 ◼   ► listen to ATP, episode 204, where they talked in detail about Chris Latner and LLVM and

00:01:29 ◼   ► Swift and what this all, you know, what it all means from a developer perspective. So

00:01:32 ◼   ► we were like, yes, it's very nice of us to refer to ATP. And then like the next day they

00:01:37 ◼   ► dropped their next episode, which includes a complete show wall-to-wall interview with

00:01:44 ◼   ► Chris Latner.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:01:46 ◼   ► Yeah, as Seth pointed out, they use the weight of their 3P upgradey win to pull in a star

00:01:55 ◼   ► like Chris.

00:01:56 ◼   ► They're an award-winning podcast.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Free time.

00:01:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:00 ◼   ► So yeah, it's a really great episode.

00:02:02 ◼   ► If you for any reason have not listened to it, you should.

00:02:05 ◼   ► I will give a disclaimer that it is very, very developer heavy.

00:02:10 ◼   ► Like the show starts off and they were like trying to dumb things down and explain it

00:02:15 ◼   ► it to everyone, but that didn't last very long. And then they got super in the weeds.

00:02:20 ◼   ► But I don't understand what they were talking about. But I really enjoyed listening to it

00:02:24 ◼   ► is it was, you know, it's the idea of like, they're speaking very passionately about things

00:02:27 ◼   ► and every now and then I can kind of grok what they're talking about. But yeah, I really

00:02:31 ◼   ► recommend it. It was a it was a fun episode. As you can imagine, like that there isn't

00:02:35 ◼   ► like a lot of like behind the curtain stuff. But I think you can kind of get an idea from

00:02:41 ◼   ► I'm listening to Chris, like kind of his motivations

00:02:44 ◼   ► for wanting to move on.

00:02:45 ◼   ► Like he clearly sounds like someone

00:02:47 ◼   ► who needs to have new challenges

00:02:49 ◼   ► and this just sounded like a big new challenge.

00:02:52 ◼   ► - But it also is that, you know, he was, yes, he was at Apple

00:02:55 ◼   ► but he's also at working on open source projects, right?

00:02:59 ◼   ► So I kept thinking about, well, you know, wow,

00:03:01 ◼   ► he's going into a lot of detail here,

00:03:03 ◼   ► but as he pointed out himself,

00:03:06 ◼   ► the, a lot of what Apple does on those projects

00:03:10 ◼   ► is wide open, right?

00:03:11 ◼   ► I mean, those are open source projects.

00:03:14 ◼   ► So they're not the super secret part of Apple

00:03:17 ◼   ► that Chris Latner was working on.

00:03:19 ◼   ► And he did, yes, he did very carefully steer around

00:03:21 ◼   ► a couple of, I think, levels of detail

00:03:24 ◼   ► that would have been inappropriate.

00:03:27 ◼   ► Also taking full advantage of the fact

00:03:30 ◼   ► that he currently has no employer.

00:03:32 ◼   ► It's like the perfect time to do something like this.

00:03:34 ◼   ► Sort of he's decloaked, he's about to re-cloak again,

00:03:37 ◼   ► but here he is.

00:03:38 ◼   ► And again, though, the cloak isn't the same

00:03:40 ◼   ► because it's open source stuff.

00:03:42 ◼   ► So that's the beauty of these open source projects

00:03:45 ◼   ► is that they are done out in the open

00:03:47 ◼   ► and you can communicate about them.

00:03:49 ◼   ► And a lot of conversation goes on about these.

00:03:51 ◼   ► I mean, John Syracuse has been on that Swift mailing list

00:03:54 ◼   ► since the beginning.

00:03:55 ◼   ► And so he was able to say, you know,

00:03:57 ◼   ► people argue about this and what do you think about that

00:03:59 ◼   ► and all that because that conversation's happening

00:04:02 ◼   ► out in the open.

00:04:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, Latner was in like a weird position,

00:04:05 ◼   ► like a unique position at Apple anyway, right?

00:04:09 ◼   ► But yeah, it was a surprise to hear him on the show

00:04:11 ◼   ► because even then it's like, oh, wow.

00:04:13 ◼   ► He's like in between these two jobs

00:04:15 ◼   ► and they probably both don't want him talking about too much

00:04:17 ◼   ► but like Uppy Pops.

00:04:19 ◼   ► It was a great episode.

00:04:20 ◼   ► You go check it out, episode 205 of the Action Intersect

00:04:22 ◼   ► podcast and I have some follow up suggested by a listener,

00:04:25 ◼   ► Michael, which is related to ATP

00:04:29 ◼   ► and their three time upgradey win.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Michael suggests that ATP become the lifetime achievement

00:04:36 ◼   ► award winner of the tech podcast for the upgrade is as it goes forward because they've had

00:04:41 ◼   ► three wins now they could potentially continue winning the award forever so to let other

00:04:46 ◼   ► people maybe try and claim it I think that ATP could become the lifetime achievement

00:04:49 ◼   ► award and you know think if they want to you know they could maybe present the award to

00:04:55 ◼   ► the the later winning tech podcast what do you think of that just like a micro suggestion

00:04:59 ◼   ► yeah I think this is exactly right I had been thinking this myself so I appreciate Michael

00:05:03 ◼   ► suggesting it and I think we'll put ATP in the in the upgradey Hall of Fame the

00:05:09 ◼   ► first entrant into the upgradey Hall of Fame yes and we'll retire it and let

00:05:14 ◼   ► somebody else have a chance at winning next year but this year ended this year

00:05:17 ◼   ► 2017 2017 fourth annual this year yeah wow that's correct that's crazy to think

00:05:27 ◼   ► about a bit of follow-up regarding Netflix and Apple TV we spoke about this

00:05:31 ◼   ► this

00:05:50 ◼   ► gives Netflix results now and it will play these results in the TV app as

00:05:55 ◼   ► opposed to jumping you out. I think it maybe gave the results before but you

00:05:58 ◼   ► click them and it will take you to the Netflix app. Now it will play that

00:06:01 ◼   ► content within the TV app so you don't leave it and you're not jumping around

00:06:04 ◼   ► from application to application. However Netflix titles will not appear in the

00:06:09 ◼   ► recommended shows list and you cannot queue up Netflix programming either.

00:06:14 ◼   ► So what this says to me is that like Netflix do not want to be having their

00:06:23 ◼   ► recommendation system like kind of usurped by apples. They believe in

00:06:29 ◼   ► their system and they want their system to remain but I do wonder how they think

00:06:36 ◼   ► this is going to help them if people were leaving their application because

00:06:40 ◼   ► then people are not going to see the recommended content. So this is kind of confusing.

00:06:43 ◼   ► getting the data and I think they're feeling like if you want to get more, you'll go...

00:06:49 ◼   ► It's an interesting decision. I think they must feel like the upside of having this key

00:06:53 ◼   ► app that is... Apple's trying to place at the center of the Apple TV experience that

00:06:59 ◼   ► making their offerings there. So if you're looking for Luke Cage or something, you're

00:07:04 ◼   ► gonna find it and not be frustrated that it's not in the main TV interface. So I think that's

00:07:11 ◼   ► okay. But yeah, from their perspective, what they don't want is people to never use the

00:07:20 ◼   ► Netflix app and never see--because Netflix recommendations are entirely geared toward

00:07:24 ◼   ► watching things on Netflix and promoting their own material, their own originals and all

00:07:29 ◼   ► of that. The TV app, the way Apple has designed it, is to be promoting material across all

00:07:36 ◼   ► of the things you subscribe to. And so that gives you the opportunity to see something

00:07:41 ◼   ► on HBO Go or Hulu instead of, just as examples, instead of Netflix. And if that's the case,

00:07:49 ◼   ► then, you know, this is the trade-off for all of these companies is they want complete

00:07:53 ◼   ► control. And this is the case where Apple ironically is in the state of being, trying

00:07:59 ◼   ► to be the place where everything comes together and synthesizes all the different catalogs,

00:08:05 ◼   ► But everybody else really would rather live in a universe where they're the only competitor.

00:08:12 ◼   ► There is no competitor, right?

00:08:14 ◼   ► Once you're in the Netflix app, they have you, and everything you see is on Netflix.

00:08:19 ◼   ► And hey, that's a great place to be if you can get them there.

00:08:22 ◼   ► I think that the challenge here for any provider like Netflix seems to me to be that if there's

00:08:30 ◼   ► enough critical mass, enough momentum behind the TV app, if it becomes useful enough that

00:08:36 ◼   ► iOS users and Apple TV users really start to see it as the place where they find their

00:08:42 ◼   ► content and watch their TV, then it becomes a problem for Netflix, because then Netflix

00:08:49 ◼   ► is trying to, you know, is not being considered, it's not being shown, and then their promotion

00:08:56 ◼   ► is nonexistent and that's bad for them. But is that really going to happen with the TV

00:09:02 ◼   ► app? I'm kind of skeptical. I mean, they're going to need enough providers who are willing

00:09:07 ◼   ► to take the chance at competing in kind of an open market. And that's the shame of this,

00:09:13 ◼   ► really, is that I mean, frankly, first off, I have this on Mytivo now. Mytivo does this.

00:09:21 ◼   ► TiVo integrates Netflix content, and I can add Netflix shows to my season pass, and they

00:09:29 ◼   ► show up, and it keeps track of what I've watched and what I haven't, and when I choose an episode,

00:09:35 ◼   ► it goes to the Netflix app. Now, what doesn't happen is if I play the next episode, I think

00:09:40 ◼   ► it doesn't keep track of that because it's in the Netflix app and not the TiVo app anymore.

00:09:44 ◼   ► So there's still some complexity here, but I will tell you, it's great. But yeah, if

00:09:49 ◼   ► you're Netflix and you think you're number one and everybody should just live in the

00:09:53 ◼   ► Netflix universe, I could see why you don't want to have to compete with whatever is on

00:09:58 ◼   ► HBO and Hulu and Amazon Video. But, so it's a, it's like I see both sides of this. I think

00:10:03 ◼   ► for consumers, clearly, it's better if everybody's in the TV app, even if we can complain a little

00:10:09 ◼   ► bit about what the TV app's premise is and how it works and all of that. The idea that

00:10:12 ◼   ► all of, all of the internet video that you pay for is in one place and you can manage

00:10:17 ◼   ► it in one place is a good one for users, but I see why Netflix would not like the idea.

00:10:26 ◼   ► And of course Amazon's not there on the Apple TV at all, so yeah.

00:10:30 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. At this point, do you think that we're gonna see Amazon video? Like, I've

00:10:39 ◼   ► given up hope.

00:10:40 ◼   ► I don't--well, I can't make a prediction because I don't see why it hasn't happened,

00:10:45 ◼   ► There is an iOS app. There is literally no reason why they couldn't do it. They have

00:10:51 ◼   ► the wherewithal to do it. I know it's not as simple as saying, "Well, let's turn this

00:10:54 ◼   ► into an Apple TV app," but they have the will to put it on iOS. So clearly, Amazon Video

00:11:01 ◼   ► wants to be present on iOS because there are so many iPhones out there especially. That's

00:11:05 ◼   ► like their number one reason for doing it. I get it. And there aren't that many Apple

00:11:08 ◼   ► TVs out there, and they make a device that is much better suited to consuming Amazon

00:11:14 ◼   ► video than the Apple TV, which is the Fire TV, right? Which is theirs, and it's totally

00:11:20 ◼   ► built around that, even though Amazon, you know, Netflix is on there, right? It's just

00:11:24 ◼   ► iTunes that isn't on there. So, technically there's no reason for them not to be there,

00:11:30 ◼   ► and in fact you can airplay to an Apple TV, it's just less convenient. So at this point

00:11:35 ◼   ► I don't really know, because it's all about politics. Because I'm on the record on this

00:11:40 ◼   ► show is saying, "I thought that they would be there last year sometime. I thought they

00:11:44 ◼   ► would finally do it." Because in the end, what should matter most to Amazon is having

00:11:51 ◼   ► as many people as possible have access to their content and not selling Fire TV sticks,

00:11:59 ◼   ► right? In the end. But I think you could argue that this is the same thing we were just talking

00:12:04 ◼   ► about, which is Amazon would much rather you have a Fire TV stick where they control all

00:12:10 ◼   ► the recommendations in the UI and can show you their stuff than an Apple TV where you

00:12:16 ◼   ► have to go through Apple's recommendation engine and like go away from it to the Amazon

00:12:22 ◼   ► app and then see it, right? They would much rather you be there. I get that, but at the

00:12:27 ◼   ► same time, I don't know if that's enough reason not to have it on an Apple TV too,

00:12:35 ◼   ► just to get more of your customers watching your stuff.

00:12:39 ◼   ► Yeah, it really feels like you're putting the money into the content, just give it to

00:12:42 ◼   ► people wherever they want it. I feel like Netflix, the company that really understands

00:12:46 ◼   ► that, the Netflix app is built into everything. Yeah, exactly. Netflix knows, Netflix doesn't

00:12:55 ◼   ► have a box. Although I was talking to somebody about this the other week that Roku when it

00:12:59 ◼   ► started was kind of the Netflix box. That was its first iteration was it played Netflix

00:13:05 ◼   ► and it was the and it was kind of the official Netflix player box.

00:13:09 ◼   ► They have the kind of did they have a button or this was it something else that they had

00:13:13 ◼   ► on the Roku remote set a button for a service that maybe went away or something.

00:13:17 ◼   ► Yeah. Oh yeah. The current ones do that. They have they have services that are that are

00:13:20 ◼   ► dead that are on their on their remote controls that of new ones that they're still selling.

00:13:24 ◼   ► The original Netflix, original Roku,

00:13:26 ◼   ► which I guess they would call a Roku one right now

00:13:29 ◼   ► was actually called the Roku Netflix player.

00:13:32 ◼   ► That's what it was called.

00:13:34 ◼   ► It was so, but Netflix basically doesn't have hardware.

00:13:38 ◼   ► They don't care.

00:13:39 ◼   ► They're not trying to sell you hardware.

00:13:40 ◼   ► They just want to be everywhere

00:13:42 ◼   ► because they think Netflix is where you want to be, right?

00:13:45 ◼   ► That's what they believe.

00:13:47 ◼   ► And they're willing to share space with competitors

00:13:50 ◼   ► on the app level,

00:13:51 ◼   ► but not like integrate their recommendations and stuff

00:13:54 ◼   ► into and data into somebody's shared area.

00:13:59 ◼   ► And Amazon has taken a different approach, right?

00:14:03 ◼   ► Because Amazon's making its own hardware.

00:14:04 ◼   ► It's funny, I mean, Apple is the same way,

00:14:07 ◼   ► sort of in the sense that Apple is limiting its services

00:14:09 ◼   ► to its own hardware, which Amazon's not doing,

00:14:12 ◼   ► but that's what Apple's doing.

00:14:13 ◼   ► Apple doesn't want you to be able to watch iTunes movies

00:14:17 ◼   ► from any device but the Apple TV.

00:14:20 ◼   ► and that's just been, you know, that's just the way they've chosen to do it.

00:14:26 ◼   ► Kevin asked why you were so down on Bluetooth in cars that you didn't bother to use it in

00:14:32 ◼   ► Hawaii.

00:14:33 ◼   ► Yeah, this was a good question. The, I'm not down on Bluetooth in cars, I mean, I don't

00:14:41 ◼   ► love Bluetooth in cars, I have a Bluetooth radio in my car that I use to listen to music

00:14:46 ◼   ► podcast when I'm driving my car and it's finicky but it works. Sometimes I have to wait like

00:14:53 ◼   ► 20 seconds for it to finally kind of lock on and start playing the audio but it does

00:14:59 ◼   ► work and that's what I use. On a rental car, two reasons, one is it's weird because you

00:15:08 ◼   ► don't know where that car has been, right? It's like who has paired to that car? I don't

00:15:15 ◼   ► know of any stories of things other than the short of people having like address book syncing

00:15:19 ◼   ► and things like that, but the idea that your phone is now connecting to this device, that

00:15:24 ◼   ► makes me feel kind of weird, but honestly the reason I don't even consider pairing to

00:15:29 ◼   ► Bluetooth and rental cars is that I find the car setup experience so strange in different

00:15:36 ◼   ► cars and it's just hard to figure out, it's different in different cars, and then you

00:15:42 ◼   ► end up with this kind of finicky Bluetooth situation anyway. So I should probably consider

00:15:47 ◼   ► doing that, but when I've done that in the past, I've gotten frustrated. Some cars also

00:15:52 ◼   ► you start going to your destination and then, like my wife's driving and I'm there setting

00:15:55 ◼   ► up the technology and all that for us to get, I'm navigating and I'm plugging things in

00:15:59 ◼   ► and getting chargers in and all that, and then I try to pair the Bluetooth and it says,

00:16:05 ◼   ► "Oh no, you can only pair Bluetooth when a car is stopped." That's a frequent one. Because

00:16:11 ◼   ► 'Cause they don't want drivers pairing their Bluetooth

00:16:13 ◼   ► while they're driving, which is fine.

00:16:15 ◼   ► Although, I mean, I would question that scenario,

00:16:18 ◼   ► but people are dumb and they do dumb things

00:16:20 ◼   ► like pair Bluetooth when they're driving.

00:16:22 ◼   ► But at that point you're out of luck.

00:16:24 ◼   ► That's happened to me too.

00:16:25 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:16:26 ◼   ► It's probably a good reminder that I should

00:16:28 ◼   ► at least consider that as an option.

00:16:29 ◼   ► And I might have, if my phone was completely out of battery

00:16:34 ◼   ► and I wanted to, you know, I wanted to still listen to music

00:16:38 ◼   ► I might've, I would have obviously had to use

00:16:40 ◼   ► the lightning port to charge my iPhone and then I might have considered, well, I could

00:16:45 ◼   ► go through Bluetooth but the aux port is way easier, right? You plug it in and it works.

00:16:52 ◼   ► And so that's usually my number one choice.

00:16:54 ◼   ► Okay. I mean, yeah, it's the analog way of doing things. Sometimes a little bit nicer.

00:17:01 ◼   ► And Steven wrote in to say that on his iPhone, using, I assume, mail and the calendar app,

00:17:09 ◼   ► What's up tickets and flights, etc.

00:17:11 ◼   ► On his calendar he doesn't need to use Google Calendar, which is something you mentioned

00:17:13 ◼   ► last week about how Google services put sort of stuff in automatically for you.

00:17:17 ◼   ► So I guess we should have expanded on it a little bit more that yes iCloud can do this.

00:17:22 ◼   ► This was introduced in iOS 9 I believe, where there's some AI smarts happening there where

00:17:28 ◼   ► mail/calendar can recognize some booking receipts and things like that and suggest these things

00:17:35 ◼   ► to go in your calendar.

00:17:36 ◼   ► also suggests names and addresses and phone numbers for contacts. Sometimes you'll get

00:17:42 ◼   ► a call from someone and it will say, "Hey, this could be this person because they recognize

00:17:46 ◼   ► it from your email," which is good stuff. But in my experience, it doesn't recognize

00:17:52 ◼   ► a lot of these. There are some companies that it works with and some that it doesn't that

00:17:56 ◼   ► I've found. British Airways booking information always works, but Virgin Atlantic stuff isn't

00:18:02 ◼   ► recognized. I've found Expedia bookings, sometimes, like if it's flights it will get booked in,

00:18:08 ◼   ► but if it's hotels it doesn't, but then some third party, like some direct hotel bookings,

00:18:14 ◼   ► like when I book my San Francisco hotel, it recognizes that. Basically I've found that

00:18:19 ◼   ► it works but not 100% reliably, and at least from what I've heard from people like you

00:18:24 ◼   ► and from Federico with Google stuff, it seems to always work.

00:18:29 ◼   ► Yeah, one of the challenges here, and this is what we were trying to talk about, is that

00:18:34 ◼   ► Google has access to more data because more data is unencrypted and able to be processed

00:18:38 ◼   ► by Google servers and Apple doesn't do that. So, this, I think one of the questions here

00:18:45 ◼   ► that I have is, I think this is working in mail, where mail is seeing these events in

00:18:52 ◼   ► your mailbox. Yeah, and then it's, when you have the email open, it recommends it at the

00:18:57 ◼   ► the top like above the subject and it's like hey you could add this to a calendar or if

00:19:02 ◼   ► you go to the calendar app and you have those emails in your inbox still it recognizes them

00:19:06 ◼   ► in like a little thing called the calendar inbox which is nice and confusing.

00:19:11 ◼   ► What I don't know is if Apple's doing any processing on mail that's on the iCloud you

00:19:16 ◼   ► know iCloud mail you know mac.com, me.com, iCloud.com email addresses there's a doc we'll

00:19:24 ◼   ► put in the show notes that Apple has that says what's encrypted on Apple servers and

00:19:28 ◼   ► what's not and your mail is not because it's IMAP basically and that means that Apple could

00:19:32 ◼   ► actually be reading your mail and doing what Google does which is read the mail, identify

00:19:38 ◼   ► it as a flight reservation and pop it on your iCloud calendar and maybe they're even doing

00:19:43 ◼   ► that.

00:19:44 ◼   ► I do believe this is happening on device.

00:19:45 ◼   ► Yeah, my guess is that it's doing what everything Apple does is doing which is on the device,

00:19:51 ◼   ► you know, Apple mail knows that it's there and creates an invitation essentially on your

00:19:57 ◼   ► calendar, which is what Google does. But what Google does is on the server it does it. And

00:20:02 ◼   ► that does have the advantage of happening whether you're checking your mail or not.

00:20:07 ◼   ► So one thing I've found of trying to do this, because I like it, because otherwise I'm entering

00:20:11 ◼   ► this stuff manually because I use Apple services for these right now. Like I use iCloud email

00:20:16 ◼   ► I'm

00:20:34 ◼   ► I'm not going to go into the details of the process, but I'm going to go into the

00:20:41 ◼   ► details of the process.

00:20:42 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:43 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:44 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:45 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:46 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:47 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:48 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:49 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:50 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:51 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:52 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:53 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:54 ◼   ► I'm going to go into the details of the process.

00:20:55 ◼   ► having it all happen server-side like Google can provide some a little bit more magic in

00:21:02 ◼   ► the whole process honestly.

00:21:03 ◼   ► Right.

00:21:04 ◼   ► It's just happening without you doing anything explicit.

00:21:06 ◼   ► And our goal is not to sort of say that, "Boy, Apple is dumb and Google is great."

00:21:12 ◼   ► I think the point, the larger point here is one of the issues that happens with these

00:21:17 ◼   ► two strategies is they have to build their stuff differently.

00:21:22 ◼   ► with Google because, and everybody can say, "Well, this is why Google has liabilities,"

00:21:27 ◼   ► right? Because Google knows, its servers know what's on my calendar. They can look at that.

00:21:33 ◼   ► And they can look at what's in my email because I am on Gmail and I have a Google calendar.

00:21:39 ◼   ► But what it gives them is the ability to scan messages as they pop in my inbox, even if

00:21:43 ◼   ► my devices are all off and I am in the woods somewhere, right? It will go, "Oh, that is

00:21:48 ◼   ► a... although how I made the reservation in the woods is a question for later.

00:21:52 ◼   ► But...

00:21:53 ◼   ► The bear did it for me.

00:21:59 ◼   ► The calendar will just get that as a... I think they do it as a meeting invitation.

00:22:03 ◼   ► So you can say no or yes or whatever, but it will pop it in there and say, you know,

00:22:08 ◼   ► this is Southwest Airlines reservations and we'll pop it in there.

00:22:11 ◼   ► Apple doesn't... although Apple does have access if you're using iCloud mail to your

00:22:17 ◼   ► I don't think it's actually doing anything with it, but it at least has access. It doesn't

00:22:21 ◼   ► have access to your calendar data because it's all encrypted because that's Apple's

00:22:24 ◼   ► whole thing, right? And so everything Apple tries to do is device side, and it's just

00:22:29 ◼   ► different and there are challenges with that.

00:22:31 ◼   ► You just choose what your comfort level is really, I think.

00:22:34 ◼   ► Yeah, but I do, it is great and it's great that Apple does have some of that in there

00:22:38 ◼   ► now and it should keep working on that because that is, when we're talking about intelligent

00:22:43 ◼   ► assistance. I mean, this is one of those areas that is such a natural that, you know, your

00:22:48 ◼   ► device or cloud service, depending on how you've set it up, should be smart enough to

00:22:53 ◼   ► start doing things like looking at your mail. And I know people will be like, "I don't want

00:22:57 ◼   ► anybody looking at my mail." It's like, well, yeah, but if it's your device and it's doing

00:23:00 ◼   ► the work for you, that's, to me, an easy trade-off, because that's not even Google's things in

00:23:06 ◼   ► the cloud looking at my stuff. That is my iPhone on my iPhone looking at the stuff that's

00:23:11 ◼   ► on my iPhone, but to have it be able to see what's coming in in mail and realize that

00:23:17 ◼   ► I bought movie tickets or a plane reservation or whatever and knows what to do and puts

00:23:24 ◼   ► it on my calendar so that when I go to my calendar to put it in there, it's already

00:23:28 ◼   ► there, that's pretty great. That's pretty great. That you could theoretically buy a

00:23:32 ◼   ► ticket to a movie, let's say, and not ever look at the email. Maybe the email doesn't

00:23:39 ◼   ► even, well it gets filed or something, but you know, it comes to you but you don't look

00:23:42 ◼   ► at it, and you forget about it, and then on the day you look at your calendar and it says

00:23:47 ◼   ► you've got movie tickets tonight. It should be able to do that, and that's cool. So, Apple

00:23:52 ◼   ► just has to do all that stuff sort of processing on the devices, and there are challenges there

00:23:56 ◼   ► because you've got multiple devices, so which device does the processing, do they all work

00:24:01 ◼   ► the same, do they all check the calendar to see that an event has already been created,

00:24:06 ◼   ► right? There's way more challenges to the way Apple does it, but this is the choice

00:24:10 ◼   ► Apple has made to make it encrypted so that only your devices know about it.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends at Smile, and today I want

00:24:20 ◼   ► to talk to you about the PDFPen family of applications. With this suite of awesome apps,

00:24:25 ◼   ► you'll be able to edit PDFs like a pro on all of your devices. PDFPen is available for

00:24:30 ◼   ► Mac OS and iOS where on iOS it also joins the PDF Pen Scan+ application as well.

00:24:36 ◼   ► PDF Pen for Mac OS is the ultimate PDF editing tool, your Swiss army knife for tackling PDFs

00:24:43 ◼   ► if you will. It also now includes Touch Bar support for all you fancy people rocking your

00:24:48 ◼   ► super special MacBook Pros. And the PDF Pen for iPad and iPhone gives you the control

00:24:53 ◼   ► of PDF editing on your mobile devices as well. With these awesome tools at your disposal,

00:24:58 ◼   ► you'll be able to break the cycle of scanning, printing, signing and faxing.

00:25:03 ◼   ► You can embrace that paperless lifestyle and do away with this tediousness.

00:25:06 ◼   ► I can't imagine now actually getting an email like, hey, can you sign this contract?

00:25:11 ◼   ► And then I have to go and get like these two devices and like print.

00:25:15 ◼   ► And then I can't even imagine now because I've been using PDF pen for so long and

00:25:20 ◼   ► PDF pens so smart that it can deal with a lot of different file formats.

00:25:24 ◼   ► Like every now and then someone will send me a Microsoft Word document and they're

00:25:28 ◼   ► like can you sign this? And then I'm able to use PDF pen to import the Microsoft Word

00:25:33 ◼   ► document, sign it and then export it back as a Microsoft Word document if that person

00:25:37 ◼   ► needs as well. It's really really powerful stuff. You can add text, graphics or signatures

00:25:42 ◼   ► to your PDFs, even make corrections, they've got everything you need. And PDF pen scan

00:25:46 ◼   ► plus for iOS gives you the power of OCR when you're away from your desk and scanner. So

00:25:50 ◼   ► I use this when I buy things from my business account. I'll take scans of the receipts,

00:25:55 ◼   ► it

00:26:15 ◼   ► Upgrade, thank you so much to Smile for their support of this show and RelayFN.

00:26:21 ◼   ► So yesterday evening as we recorded this Samsung held a press conference to finally unveil

00:26:29 ◼   ► and to expose I guess the reasons for their exploding Galaxy Note 7s.

00:26:36 ◼   ► So I'll put a link in the show notes to Recode, Recode has a bigger explanation along with

00:26:40 ◼   ► some diagrams that Samsung published but I'll give you kind of the cliff notes of it.

00:26:44 ◼   ► Samsung had 700 of their own team members testing 200,000 phones and an additional 30,000

00:26:51 ◼   ► batteries on top of that. They also brought in three outside companies to conduct tests

00:26:56 ◼   ► and investigate along with them and Samsung are saying that these findings were validated

00:27:00 ◼   ► by these investigators. As we record, no journalists have been able to get these investigators

00:27:05 ◼   ► to give quotes. Samsung is saying that there were two separate

00:27:14 ◼   ► faults that occurred with the batteries. The first fault in the first batch of phones was

00:27:20 ◼   ► caused by a design flaw in the battery that made electrons prone to bend which in some

00:27:26 ◼   ► cases led to a short circuit. I have condensed that. There is a lot more of a scientific

00:27:31 ◼   ► reason as to why that happened. Basically these batteries weren't designed very well.

00:27:41 ◼   ► was an issue with one of the corners of them and they made them in some instances short

00:27:46 ◼   ► circuit and catch fire. These were the batteries that were involved in the first recall. So

00:27:53 ◼   ► when Samsung said stop using these we're bringing them back. Then there was a second fault.

00:27:59 ◼   ► So then the ones that happened after that, like that one that happened on the plane,

00:28:02 ◼   ► you know the three or four more that happened after they did the recall. These were caused

00:28:07 ◼   ► by a welding defect that also led to short circuiting from a second battery supplier.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Samsung believes that this issue was caused because of the tight timelines they put on

00:28:18 ◼   ► the battery manufacturer due to them needing to replace the recalled devices quickly. Samsung

00:28:23 ◼   ► also said that if they wouldn't have put these tight timelines on, they believed that these

00:28:31 ◼   ► batteries would have been fine and that they would have been able to continue selling this

00:28:36 ◼   ► device.

00:28:37 ◼   ► But that seems like a moot point really.

00:28:42 ◼   ► Samsung stresses that the design for the Note 7 that they created was not the issue but

00:28:49 ◼   ► it was due to the batteries they sourced.

00:28:52 ◼   ► Samsung now has an 8 step battery testing process that has been beefed up in the wake

00:28:57 ◼   ► of this.

00:28:58 ◼   ► I saw a tweet from somebody who was retweeted a couple of times by some journalists that I follow

00:29:02 ◼   ► by someone by the name of Avi Greengart who kind of summed it up quite nicely.

00:29:06 ◼   ► So is Samsung the unluckiest OEM ever or is there something in its process that pushed multiple

00:29:13 ◼   ► suppliers to deliver flawed components? I think this perfectly sums things up.

00:29:18 ◼   ► When I read this, I mean I've been I was seeing some skepticism online about this report.

00:29:24 ◼   ► I believe that Samsung are being truthful with their findings.

00:29:28 ◼   ► I don't think they're trying to cover anything up at this point.

00:29:31 ◼   ► I think that would be a really stupid idea, right, to like have found something out that

00:29:36 ◼   ► they're not talking about.

00:29:38 ◼   ► But I do feel like there is an underlying cause to these issues that an eight-step battery

00:29:44 ◼   ► testing process will solve, but at the wrong end.

00:29:48 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, that's the, it's great that Samsung did all of this disclosure, but I think what

00:29:56 ◼   ► has made some people uneasy is the fact that what they said is, "Great news everybody,

00:30:06 ◼   ► it turns out it's the battery's fault, and the first battery, there was this mistake

00:30:11 ◼   ► that caused it to do this, and the second battery, there was this mistake that caused

00:30:15 ◼   ► it to do this, but it was totally the battery's fault and not us. Which may be true, but everybody

00:30:22 ◼   ► kind of looks at that and says, "Well, boy, that's really unlucky, right, that you had

00:30:29 ◼   ► this problem both times." Now, I think Samsung admitted that the second one, right, like

00:30:35 ◼   ► you said, the second one, the reason that it failed is that they tried to ramp up production

00:30:42 ◼   ► dramatically in order to get back, get the Galaxy Note 7 back in action. And so it's

00:30:49 ◼   ► not so much of a coincidence. It's actually, it was a result of rushing to try and solve

00:30:54 ◼   ► the problem that caused the second problem.

00:30:56 ◼   ► Yeah, Samsung Electronics in America said basically that if they would have had more

00:31:01 ◼   ► time, you know, like if they wouldn't have rushed, if they would have always gone with

00:31:05 ◼   ► battery supplier B, they feel that the Note 7 wouldn't have had this problem.

00:31:11 ◼   ► Well I mean it's an easy thing to say because they were still blowing up but like I get

00:31:16 ◼   ► the point which is like they believe that these batteries were good and would have been

00:31:20 ◼   ► good but they rushed the production of them and basically like there was just some abnormalities

00:31:27 ◼   ► in them some of them didn't have correct insulation tape in them like they were they were really

00:31:33 ◼   ► really rushed and there was a welding issue in them.

00:31:36 ◼   ► Which is which is it's weird because I mean I don't think Samsung I didn't see the press

00:31:40 ◼   ► conference. I don't think what Samsung is saying here is it's totally not our fault,

00:31:45 ◼   ► but it is somebody's fault, right, that these batteries, after there had been a battery

00:31:53 ◼   ► problem, new batteries were rushed into manufacturing and they were rushed so quickly that they

00:32:01 ◼   ► had manufacturing defects, multiple kinds of manufacturing defects that caused some

00:32:07 ◼   ► percentage of them to fail. What struck me, I think the larger issue here is about trust,

00:32:14 ◼   ► right? Because the Galaxy Note 7, it's over, right? It's done. It's done. It's all over,

00:32:20 ◼   ► but the announcements at airports, those continue, but it's done. The problem is what comes next?

00:32:27 ◼   ► What happens with the Galaxy Note 8? They say they're going to, you know, keep on keeping

00:32:31 ◼   ► on. They're not getting rid of the name. They're just going to do Galaxy Note 8. And I was

00:32:35 ◼   ► struck by a reaction, there was a piece in the Wall Street Journal by Jeffrey Fowler

00:32:40 ◼   ► and Joanna Stern about this, and what they said was, "Its explanation sometimes left

00:32:48 ◼   ► us scratching our heads. We don't have a clear sense on whether these tests will raise the

00:32:53 ◼   ► bar for safety or just catch Samsung up to other smartphone makers. What Samsung is still

00:32:59 ◼   ► missing is its Tylenol moment," and that's a reference to the Tylenol cyanide poisoning

00:33:05 ◼   ► incident in the 80s and what happened is Johnson & Johnson changed pill packaging, made sealed

00:33:13 ◼   ► pill containers, and basically create through kind of marketing and product design some

00:33:21 ◼   ► reassurance that this product was going to be safe. What's the equivalent of that for

00:33:27 ◼   ► Samsung? I don't know, but what strikes me about that is that this is Samsung coming

00:33:33 ◼   ► clean saying we got all figured out and then when two fairly tech savvy people, right,

00:33:37 ◼   ► I mean, when Joanna Stern who is as tech savvy as they come says, "I kind of give them a

00:33:41 ◼   ► grade of a C on this." It's like, you know what that's about? That's about not trusting

00:33:46 ◼   ► Samsung, about looking at their explanations and looking at what led to the decisions that

00:33:51 ◼   ► led to both of these failures, especially the second one honestly where they rushed

00:33:56 ◼   ► basically like, "Let's make more batteries as fast as we can and not be as concerned

00:34:01 ◼   ► about if they fail, which caused them to fail again. And extend that to consumers, right?

00:34:07 ◼   ► I think that is the number one challenge for Samsung right now, is how do you communicate

00:34:12 ◼   ► to people that you have addressed this? And if all they do is come out with a Note 8 and

00:34:18 ◼   ► say, "It's great," and don't do a more clear job of communicating what they've done and

00:34:25 ◼   ► kind of communicate that we know that the last one was a problem, which is tough, right,

00:34:29 ◼   ► have part of your marketing message for a product be an apology for the previous product.

00:34:34 ◼   ► Nobody wants to do that. But if you're so proud that you just don't acknowledge it,

00:34:38 ◼   ► I think you risk everything because I think people don't forget something like that. And

00:34:44 ◼   ► so that's a challenge. And let's be honest, Samsung's marketing, at least I can say in

00:34:49 ◼   ► the US, you know, Samsung's never been good at nuanced marketing. Their marketing has

00:34:56 ◼   ► always been kind of weird and I don't know whether that's just a cultural thing of precepts

00:35:02 ◼   ► of marketing in South Korea not translating to the US market or whether it's just that

00:35:07 ◼   ► Samsung's weird and they do weird stuff, but their marketing in the US has always been

00:35:13 ◼   ► a little bit strange and sometimes quite tone-deaf and this is a case where they really need

00:35:19 ◼   ► to do this right or they're going to do, you know, even, well, permanent damage has been

00:35:26 ◼   ► done but I do think, like, they will kill their products if they don't do this right

00:35:32 ◼   ► because they, this is not enough. And how do you make people feel like they can trust

00:35:38 ◼   ► Samsung and that it's learned its lesson and that the new phones are safe? You, you know,

00:35:43 ◼   ► there are lots of ways they could try to do that including having a commitment, which

00:35:45 ◼   ► is I think what the Wall Street Journal wanted, a commitment from Samsung to being basically

00:35:50 ◼   ► the safest smartphone in existence. But what the journal came away with is thinking, um,

00:35:58 ◼   ► maybe what they ve done is raise their standards to everyone else s, which is not, not, not

00:36:03 ◼   ► great. So Samsung were due to unveil the S8 at Mobile World Congress in February? They

00:36:13 ◼   ► They did confirm to the Wall Street Journal that they will delay this until after.

00:36:19 ◼   ► The Wall Street Journal is expecting it to be maybe March/April time.

00:36:24 ◼   ► So the test is coming soon.

00:36:27 ◼   ► It's a different line.

00:36:30 ◼   ► It's the regular line rather than the big note line.

00:36:33 ◼   ► But it's a new Samsung phone and we will see within the next couple of months how Samsung

00:36:40 ◼   ► is going to pitch its marketing because the whole Samsung brand has been damaged here.

00:36:45 ◼   ► And I'm interested to see what the S8, how the S8 is pitched. And it seems like from

00:36:51 ◼   ► what they're kind of hinting at that one of the reasons that they're delaying it is to

00:36:54 ◼   ► do more safety checks on this phone.

00:36:57 ◼   ► So it's good. It's again, especially on an Apple centric podcast, it's very easy to read

00:37:04 ◼   ► all of this discussion as Samsung bashing, but that's not, I think as we've done for

00:37:08 ◼   ► the last year when we've been talking about this, I think it's more about like what do

00:37:12 ◼   ► you do? It's an interesting problem to solve and to see how they're going to approach it

00:37:15 ◼   ► because they are one of the giants of the tech industry and they have very successful

00:37:21 ◼   ► product line and when you have something this spectacularly bad happen to you, the question

00:37:26 ◼   ► is how do you get past it? And this is another step along the way, but I think the way that

00:37:32 ◼   ► I read it, the reactions to it is sort of people feeling like they better not think

00:37:37 ◼   ► that this is the last step because it's not good enough. Not yet.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Dan Provost, host of Thoroughly Considered on this very network and one of the guys behind

00:37:49 ◼   ► Studio Neat published an interesting article which goes along with some of the rumors that

00:37:55 ◼   ► we've been seeing and that we've been discussing at length on Connected recently about a 10.5

00:38:01 ◼   ► and

00:38:20 ◼   ► sat down and did some math. When Apple introduced the 12.9" iPad Pro, Phil Schiller pointed

00:38:34 ◼   ► out that the width of the 12.9" iPad Pro is the height of two 9.7" iPads stacked side

00:38:40 ◼   ► by side. So what was that that time? The iPad Air. If you took two iPad Airs, put them next

00:38:44 ◼   ► to each other, that's basically the width of the 12.9" iPad Pro. A 12.9" iPad Pro can

00:38:50 ◼   ► and therefore run two full-sized iPad applications side by side in portrait mode.

00:38:55 ◼   ► So the screen is basically a 2 for 1 of the 9.7" iPad.

00:38:59 ◼   ► So you take two regular iPads, put them side by side in portrait mode,

00:39:02 ◼   ► you get a 12.9" iPad Pro.

00:39:04 ◼   ► So if you take that leap, imagine them doing the same exercise but with the iPad Mini instead.

00:39:11 ◼   ► It's got the same number of pixels as the full-size iPad, they're just packed into a smaller display.

00:39:16 ◼   ► So if you made an iPad Pro that could run two iPad apps side by side at the iPad Mini's

00:39:22 ◼   ► resolution instead of the Air's resolution, you get 10.5 inches diagonally.

00:39:29 ◼   ► So depending on how small the bezels were around the display, a 10.5 inch iPad Pro could

00:39:35 ◼   ► have roughly the same physical dimensions as the 9.7 but would have the same number

00:39:40 ◼   ► of pixels, 2732 by 2048, as the 12.9 inch.

00:39:44 ◼   ► So you would be taking a 12.9 inch iPad Pro and effectively shrinking it down to fit inside

00:39:51 ◼   ► of a 10.5 inch screen, which is also in the inverse taking two iPad minis, putting them

00:39:56 ◼   ► side by side and stretching them up.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Yeah, so the idea here is if you think of the iPad Air or iPad Pro 9.7 and the mini,

00:40:06 ◼   ► they have the same number of pixels that crammed into a smaller space.

00:40:11 ◼   ► So if you did that with the 12.9, the mini version of the 12.9 would be a 10.5, 10.48

00:40:20 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:40:21 ◼   ► And Dan did the math, bless him for that.

00:40:23 ◼   ► Thank you for reading my article, which is much more, I think, I did the math last week.

00:40:29 ◼   ► Let's not, right.

00:40:30 ◼   ► Let's not revisit it.

00:40:31 ◼   ► We did it.

00:40:32 ◼   ► That's, that's what it is.

00:40:33 ◼   ► So the idea is it actually kind of works, right?

00:40:35 ◼   ► It kind of makes sense, this rumor that we've had for a while that I think it was a 10 to

00:40:40 ◼   ► 10.5 inch, like very vague, but with Dan's math it's at 10.47 or whatever it is. It's

00:40:47 ◼   ► very close to 10.5 but not quite there. And it's just the same pixels as the iPad Pro

00:40:55 ◼   ► 12.9 in a smaller area. And that leads to, so I wrote this piece where I was trying to

00:41:05 ◼   ► think what else would happen here, and like Dan says, Dan cut out, it's great, he cut

00:41:09 ◼   ► out a piece of paper that's that size and laid it on the existing iPad Pro 9.7 and it

00:41:18 ◼   ► fits with very little bezel. And so like they could really shrink the bezels and have it

00:41:25 ◼   ► be the same size. I think it's more likely that it would physically be a little bit bigger

00:41:30 ◼   ► than the 9.7. But I think it's I'm intrigued by this for a few reasons. One is I love my

00:41:38 ◼   ► 12.9-inch iPad Pro, but it is big and heavy. And if I could get... but when I use

00:41:44 ◼   ► the 9.7, I just think the screen's not big enough, right? I just keep thinking to

00:41:48 ◼   ► myself, I go into split-screen mode especially, I'm like, "No, no, forget it, no."

00:41:53 ◼   ► But a somewhat bigger screen, a little bit bigger, and all the pixels of the

00:42:00 ◼   ► big iPad Pro might be a really nice combination. The screen being a little

00:42:05 ◼   ► bit bigger also means that something like the, although the keyboard might not be quite

00:42:09 ◼   ► the size of a full-size keyboard, the software keyboard would be bigger than on the existing

00:42:16 ◼   ► 9.7-inch iPad Pro. And then the other thing I thought was accessories. One of the problems

00:42:24 ◼   ► with the 12.9 iPad Pro is that it's hard to do accessories for it because it's so huge,

00:42:30 ◼   ► and then you clip on a thing that's the same size as a keyboard or something, and it's

00:42:34 ◼   ► And you can do a full-size keyboard that doesn't have to be the length of the

00:42:39 ◼   ► iPad Pro 12.9. There's extra space on it. And I started to think, I wonder if you

00:42:45 ◼   ► had a 10.5-inch iPad Pro that was a little bit longer than the 9.7, if you

00:42:50 ◼   ► could make a full-size keyboard that would be sort of exactly the size, and

00:42:56 ◼   ► and that would be great. That would be-- I would buy that. So I just I started to

00:43:02 ◼   ► to play it all around in my mind based on Dan's math because that is the best explanation

00:43:10 ◼   ► I've heard yet about why there would be a product in between. It's a little bit like

00:43:14 ◼   ► astronomy like finding like discovering something new because there's something weird in the

00:43:20 ◼   ► data and you're like why would that be there and then you start to think about come up

00:43:24 ◼   ► with a hypothesis about why it would be there. The 10.5 iPad Pro was always kind of like

00:43:28 ◼   ► that of like, why is this here?

00:43:30 ◼   ► This is a strange result.

00:43:31 ◼   ► And then Dan comes in and goes, here's my, here's my hypothesis.

00:43:34 ◼   ► It's the best hypothesis I've seen.

00:43:36 ◼   ► So it's interesting to me.

00:43:39 ◼   ► I mean, I really want this device, right?

00:43:41 ◼   ► Like I, I really want a different version of the nine seven.

00:43:47 ◼   ► Cause I love that.

00:43:48 ◼   ► It's my favorite of the iPads, but I really get kind of cramped

00:43:52 ◼   ► with the software sometimes.

00:43:53 ◼   ► Like I want to full size apps side by side.

00:43:55 ◼   ► I don't want one iPad app, one iPhone app, which happens a lot of the

00:43:58 ◼   ► time right when you're using the multi-phase game. I really love that I can have like on

00:44:02 ◼   ► the big one these two apps side by side. Right that's the whole idea is it's two full-size

00:44:06 ◼   ► iPad apps side by side. That's what unlocks like the real power. Right and so this would

00:44:11 ◼   ► be two full-sized apps on two iPad minis side by side essentially right. So it still works

00:44:18 ◼   ► but everything is just smaller. Now I would really really like that but I want it to stay

00:44:24 ◼   ► the same physical size and hopefully weight.

00:44:27 ◼   ► That's the 9.7.

00:44:28 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the 9.7, but you seem to want it that little bit bigger.

00:44:31 ◼   ► Well, so I'm of two thoughts here.

00:44:34 ◼   ► One is, I think if I'm Apple, well, part of it is, if I'm still selling the 9.7, it's

00:44:39 ◼   ► a little bit weird to have two iPads of exactly the same size physically, but one has a screen

00:44:46 ◼   ► that's bigger.

00:44:47 ◼   ► Ah, see, I think it sounds weird unless you look at Apple's current product line.

00:44:51 ◼   ► Well, hold on though, because the other thing they could do is do a new 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch

00:44:57 ◼   ► model that have much smaller bezels. So the 10.5 could be the size of the current 9.7,

00:45:06 ◼   ► but the new 9.7 could be smaller.

00:45:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I think--oh. Oh.

00:45:10 ◼   ► Right? So that's possible. My reasoning--and I cop to it in the piece. I cop to it in the

00:45:16 ◼   ► piece. My reasoning for this is literally if it was a little bit bigger, that smart

00:45:20 ◼   ► keyboard the keys could be basically full size and accessories because you can't, as

00:45:26 ◼   ► we've seen with the existing 9.7, you can't make a keyboard that is quite full sized on

00:45:34 ◼   ► the 9.7 but if you had it just a little bit wider you could do it. I don't know if that's

00:45:38 ◼   ► enough of a reason to do it. I really don't want three iPads, like three new iPads in

00:45:43 ◼   ► the Pro line. I know and yet this is this is where we are it's possible that the

00:45:49 ◼   ► 10.5 is the new model that the 9.7 goes away or is just sold for cheaper and

00:45:57 ◼   ► I think it's cheap and deprecated and it's basically like we've taken the same

00:46:01 ◼   ► iPad size and put a much larger more high-resolution display now the iPad Pro

00:46:09 ◼   ► has the same resolution on either model and then the iPad Air or the old 9.7" Pro kind

00:46:19 ◼   ► of continues along. That would make, yes, I agree with you, three new iPad Pros does

00:46:24 ◼   ► seem kind of redundant and it does make me wonder if another thing that's happening here

00:46:29 ◼   ► is these reports of a new version of the 9.7 are wrong because it's really like an iPad

00:46:33 ◼   ► Air revision or something like that where it's getting some of the features of the

00:46:39 ◼   ► the iPad Pro, but they're just going to call it the iPad Air and because there's a new

00:46:44 ◼   ► iPad Pro at that size and it's got the bigger screen, it's got the 10.5 screen.

00:46:48 ◼   ► Yeah, one of the things that makes me hesitant to think that they would make it a bigger

00:46:52 ◼   ► iPad is because the iPad's always been this size, right? Like I feel like that there is

00:46:58 ◼   ► like this story around it like being the perfect size physically, but now they've made the

00:47:04 ◼   ► screen bigger. Right. Right, and also, you know, I think, I keep saying this, but I think

00:47:11 ◼   ► the hope is that they show this design off as a way to show that there will be a new

00:47:15 ◼   ► iPhone whenever that comes. Oh sure, this is the hint that, if this scenario plays out,

00:47:21 ◼   ► this is the hint that the, you know, reduced or no bezel iPhone is also coming. Yeah, I

00:47:26 ◼   ► think so. That would be the argument here. And the side bezel has already been getting

00:47:31 ◼   ► smaller mostly I mean and they've got some some you know touch screen rejection stuff

00:47:37 ◼   ► that they work on if you do need to grab it by the sides although I think generally the

00:47:40 ◼   ► idea is you grab it by the larger bezels that are at the top and the bottom which is why

00:47:46 ◼   ► I thought that it's possible that it gets no wider but a little bit taller or however

00:47:52 ◼   ► you want I mean it depends on how you orient the directions but you get me that the bezels

00:47:55 ◼   ► on the sides that are the narrow bezels might get smaller but the bezels that are on the

00:48:00 ◼   ► the top and bottom, like where the home button is, might actually get a little bigger, but

00:48:06 ◼   ► they could also just keep it exactly the same dimensions as the classic 9.7 if they wanted

00:48:11 ◼   ► to. Again, if they can get that technology to work, I don't know how hard that -- the

00:48:15 ◼   ► smaller the bezel is, the harder it is to fit everything in there and fit the screen

00:48:18 ◼   ► on there. But I don't know, my piece last week about this was very much that I'm kind

00:48:23 ◼   ► of warming to this as an idea. Dan doing the math made me feel like, okay, finally something

00:48:29 ◼   ► makes sense here about why this would exist. But yeah, I agree, there's a question of what

00:48:35 ◼   ► happens to the 9 7, and I have a hard time seeing it get updated and remaining exactly

00:48:39 ◼   ► the same if there's a 10.5. It's more likely that it either gets updated and smaller, that

00:48:45 ◼   ► they do the bezel reduction on it too, or that it goes away and there's just sort of

00:48:51 ◼   ► a new iPad Air that is that size and that's the differentiator between the Air and the

00:48:57 ◼   ► and the pro is this pro resolution that they've got or that 10.5 has to be bigger than the

00:49:03 ◼   ► 9.7 I don't think I don't think they can all be true yeah I wonder if the iPad pro goes

00:49:08 ◼   ► the way of what iPad was it that was called the new iPad well remember when they went

00:49:13 ◼   ► was it like the iPad 4 that was the iPad 3 3 and then it kind of just like they just

00:49:18 ◼   ► kind of got rid of it and it was not wasn't that the iPad 3 and it was the retina iPad

00:49:21 ◼   ► that they just said it was the new iPad yeah and then third generation it had didn't have

00:49:25 ◼   ► the dock, the 30 pin and then it got replaced by the fourth generation which had which was

00:49:32 ◼   ► called what I think was maybe called the air or something I don't know but yeah there was

00:49:35 ◼   ► like that weirdness. No that was the iPad fourth generation. Yeah I don't think it was

00:49:40 ◼   ► even numbered that was a weird time for the iPad. The new iPad. Yeah it's the new iPad.

00:49:47 ◼   ► Well that's fine I mean they could they could do that it was just yeah it was weird. That

00:49:51 ◼   ► a weird time. I remember that because I was in—that was when I went to Mobile World

00:49:55 ◼   ► Congress so I remember being in Barcelona thinking about the third generation new iPad.

00:50:02 ◼   ► That was the retina iPad.

00:50:05 ◼   ► Yeah, so I have my fingers crossed for this. I would be very excited about an iPad that

00:50:10 ◼   ► looked and acted this way. That would make me very, very happy.

00:50:13 ◼   ► Yeah, well, as somebody who—I look at the—I mean, we were talking about this when we were

00:50:17 ◼   ► both in Memphis and you were showing off your 9.7 inch with the keyboard and all that and

00:50:21 ◼   ► It's like, it's great 'cause it's light

00:50:26 ◼   ► and my big iPad Pro is big and heavy,

00:50:30 ◼   ► but I have never been convinced to use the 9.7.

00:50:35 ◼   ► Like I just, it's not for the reasons

00:50:38 ◼   ► that we've cited here.

00:50:39 ◼   ► It's just not gonna do it.

00:50:41 ◼   ► Something like this, I would give very serious consideration

00:50:45 ◼   ► as my next iPad, absolutely.

00:50:48 ◼   ► Today's episode is also brought to you by Squarespace.

00:50:51 ◼   ► Enter the offer code upgrade at checkout to get 10% of your first purchase.

00:50:54 ◼   ► Make your next move with Squarespace.

00:50:57 ◼   ► They let you easily create that website for that new idea, that next idea,

00:51:02 ◼   ► the idea that's been rattling around in your brain with a unique domain.

00:51:05 ◼   ► Award winning templates are more.

00:51:08 ◼   ► They have the whole thing, the whole package.

00:51:09 ◼   ► Maybe you're looking to create

00:51:11 ◼   ► a blog to talk about your rumours for the new iPad.

00:51:15 ◼   ► Maybe you want to create an online store to sell accessories

00:51:18 ◼   ► you've been working on, and maybe you want to create a portfolio of the artwork

00:51:20 ◼   ► that you create upon it.

00:51:22 ◼   ► Squarespace is the all in one platform that could let you do any or all of that.

00:51:26 ◼   ► There's nothing to install, no patches to worry about, no upgrades needed.

00:51:30 ◼   ► You don't have to worry about any of that stuff because Squarespace

00:51:33 ◼   ► have got you covered.

00:51:34 ◼   ► They have an award winning 24/7 customer support team.

00:51:37 ◼   ► If you need any help, they let you quickly and easily grab a unique domain name

00:51:41 ◼   ► and all of the award winning templates that I mentioned are beautifully designed

00:51:45 ◼   ► to let you show off your great ideas on any device, they're all responsive right out of

00:51:49 ◼   ► the box. Squarespace plans start at just $12 a month, but you can start a free trial today

00:51:54 ◼   ► with no credit card required by going to squarespace.com. When you decide to sign up, use the offer

00:51:59 ◼   ► code UPGRADE at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for this

00:52:04 ◼   ► show. Thank you to Squarespace for their continued support of Upgrade and Relay FM. Squarespace,

00:52:10 ◼   ► make your next move, make your next website.

00:52:13 ◼   ► So last week Apple updated their audio production applications. More specifically they updated

00:52:23 ◼   ► Logic on the Mac and GarageBand on iOS received some heavy updates as well. So Logic got a

00:52:33 ◼   ► new flatter user interface but I guess more importantly it gained Touch Bar support. So

00:52:40 ◼   ► There are timeline overviews and customizable shortcut buttons.

00:52:45 ◼   ► What I like the sound of, there are different banks of buttons.

00:52:47 ◼   ► So if you hold the Alt key or the Option key, who has a Microsoft keyboard?

00:52:54 ◼   ► I do!

00:52:55 ◼   ► Or the Command key, you'll get different shortcuts.

00:52:59 ◼   ► I use the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic keyboard, so I look down at my keyboard and it says

00:53:05 ◼   ► Alt.

00:53:06 ◼   ► I apologize.

00:53:07 ◼   ► here is it is, um, this is the thing that I kind of wanted to see and, and I'm glad

00:53:12 ◼   ► they did it. Yeah. There's a timeline view where you can see a little mini version of

00:53:15 ◼   ► your timeline and where you're zoomed into and you can slide it around and all that on

00:53:19 ◼   ► the touch bar. But the, the shortcut buttons view, you can customize all of them. You can

00:53:25 ◼   ► say, I want this, you know, I want when I don't have a, a, a modifier key put down,

00:53:31 ◼   ► I want it to look exactly like this and you can have it be, um, you can choose what commands

00:53:36 ◼   ► go where, what the commands are, what the color of the button is. You can put in text

00:53:42 ◼   ► of what you want the button to say, and you can do that for all of the different versions

00:53:49 ◼   ► of modifier keys and all of that. So if you really want to go to town and reprogram it,

00:53:54 ◼   ► it comes with buttons program, but you can reprogram everything.

00:53:58 ◼   ► I tell you, man, this makes me want one so bad.

00:54:01 ◼   ► I did, I programmed in so to drop a marker,

00:54:04 ◼   ► I put that in on a red button with the,

00:54:09 ◼   ► because it's an inside joke with a German flag

00:54:11 ◼   ► on the button. - Oh, Jason.

00:54:13 ◼   ► - So I can go boom, chapter marker,

00:54:17 ◼   ► and it just shows up, which is great.

00:54:20 ◼   ► And I put, I had something else too,

00:54:22 ◼   ► strip silence, I think, and it had, was that it?

00:54:25 ◼   ► It was something where the description,

00:54:26 ◼   ► the text that it was using for the button,

00:54:28 ◼   ► 'cause some of them come with an icon that you can use

00:54:30 ◼   ► and some of them just come with text

00:54:32 ◼   ► and they didn't make sense to me.

00:54:33 ◼   ► So I just edited it and put in my own text

00:54:36 ◼   ► that made more sense,

00:54:36 ◼   ► 'cause you can fit a few letters on each button.

00:54:40 ◼   ► And that was, when I saw the touch bar for the first time,

00:54:42 ◼   ► that was my thought was, this would be really great

00:54:44 ◼   ► if you can really customize it in a complicated app

00:54:47 ◼   ► like Logic or Final Cut.

00:54:48 ◼   ► That's what I think people are gonna want

00:54:51 ◼   ► is to be able to make it their own

00:54:52 ◼   ► and take their top features and put them out there.

00:54:55 ◼   ► Now, the UI for assigning these commands,

00:54:58 ◼   ► like the UI for assigning any keyboard shortcut

00:55:00 ◼   ► or menu item in Logic, which it has to its credit,

00:55:05 ◼   ► is, you know, it's not my favorite,

00:55:07 ◼   ► but it does the job, you know, it does do the job,

00:55:13 ◼   ► and I appreciate that, so it's a nice example.

00:55:16 ◼   ► - Here's a question for you.

00:55:17 ◼   ► Can you, with the keyboard shortcuts,

00:55:19 ◼   ► only set one keyboard shortcut,

00:55:22 ◼   ► or can you set like multiple keyboard shortcuts per button?

00:55:24 ◼   ► - Per touch bar button?

00:55:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, so like for example, could I put on one button

00:55:29 ◼   ► above shortcuts like command F, command I or something.

00:55:34 ◼   ► Or is it just like each button is one shortcut?

00:55:37 ◼   ► You seeing what I'm saying?

00:55:38 ◼   ► - No.

00:55:39 ◼   ► - Okay, so let's say I wanted one button

00:55:41 ◼   ► to perform two actions, which are usually triggered

00:55:43 ◼   ► by two different keyboard shortcuts.

00:55:45 ◼   ► - I don't think you have the ability to run macros,

00:55:47 ◼   ► which is basically what that is from the buttons.

00:55:50 ◼   ► I didn't try that, but I don't think so.

00:55:52 ◼   ► And the way it works is not, you know,

00:55:55 ◼   ► it's not doing it by keyboard shortcut,

00:55:56 ◼   ► it's doing it by command in logic.

00:55:58 ◼   ► so you actually have to find the name of the command.

00:56:01 ◼   ► And, which it's got a search function, right?

00:56:04 ◼   ► But you're, 'cause the keyboard shortcuts

00:56:07 ◼   ► are also defined in that same interface.

00:56:11 ◼   ► So.

00:56:12 ◼   ► - I mean, I know the shortcuts of things.

00:56:14 ◼   ► I don't know what Apple calls them,

00:56:16 ◼   ► you know, like a lot of the time.

00:56:18 ◼   ► - That was exactly my thought too.

00:56:20 ◼   ► And actually, as cool as it was

00:56:22 ◼   ► to see those keyboard shortcuts,

00:56:24 ◼   ► I feel like I have learned enough about logic

00:56:27 ◼   ► that I don't need them.

00:56:30 ◼   ► 'Cause like I already wired strip silence to command

00:56:33 ◼   ► or to control X, I think,

00:56:35 ◼   ► or maybe it was even already wired to that.

00:56:37 ◼   ► And I just do that now.

00:56:38 ◼   ► And I don't need to put that on a button.

00:56:40 ◼   ► I think the value of this stuff is going to be

00:56:42 ◼   ► for people who are learning

00:56:44 ◼   ► that they're going to be able to provide

00:56:45 ◼   ► those keys in context.

00:56:48 ◼   ► But if you're somebody who uses a lot of commands

00:56:52 ◼   ► in these apps and you can't remember

00:56:55 ◼   ► the keyboard shortcuts for them,

00:56:56 ◼   ► that's what these buttons are going to be good at.

00:56:59 ◼   ► - So I disagree to a point,

00:57:01 ◼   ► which is from my own experience,

00:57:03 ◼   ► 'cause I moved to a Wacom, right?

00:57:06 ◼   ► And my Wacom tablet has six buttons on it

00:57:08 ◼   ► that can be programmed.

00:57:10 ◼   ► And I have programmed those six buttons

00:57:12 ◼   ► to perform different actions in Logic.

00:57:14 ◼   ► Now, I know what the keyboard shortcuts are

00:57:16 ◼   ► for all of those things, but it's way quicker,

00:57:19 ◼   ► like I have them programmed in such a way

00:57:21 ◼   ► that I will very frequently hit button one,

00:57:23 ◼   ► button two, button three, like in succession, and it will do something that I frequently

00:57:28 ◼   ► do. So like for example, it might do select all, cut, select all forward. So they are

00:57:35 ◼   ► three different buttons that I have assigned and I do those actions when I'm editing very,

00:57:39 ◼   ► very frequently. So like having all of those things just like one, two, three is really

00:57:44 ◼   ► nice. So even on the touch bar, you could set it up. So those three keyboard shortcuts,

00:57:49 ◼   ► the keyboard shortcuts that you trigger in succession very often are right next to each

00:57:52 ◼   ► other. Again, it's like I know what they are, but it's way nicer to just go boom, boom,

00:57:58 ◼   ► boom, and they're all done. I like that. And it's worked for me very nicely. I can do all

00:58:03 ◼   ► these things on the keyboard. I do when I'm on my MacBook Pro or my MacBook, but it's

00:58:08 ◼   ► way nicer for me to have them all kind of lined up and ready to go. So I'm excited about

00:58:13 ◼   ► that. I wish I could do it. There are virtual instruments. A lot more virtual instruments

00:58:19 ◼   ► have been added to Logic. So you can, this is on the touch bar, so the idea is there's

00:58:24 ◼   ► a piano on the touch bar that you can have or a drum kit that you can have on the touch

00:58:29 ◼   ► bar. Crazy in a good way. Play the piano, instead of the keyboard typing feature which

00:58:36 ◼   ► they have had, now there's also a touch bar keyboard basically or drum kit. GarageBand

00:58:42 ◼   ► for iOS has received updates which are interesting, targeted for people that use Logic but they

00:58:48 ◼   ► They wanna use it on the go?

00:58:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is, the way they described it to me,

00:58:52 ◼   ► 'cause I did talk to some people at Apple about this,

00:58:54 ◼   ► is they used the example of the guy from "Fallout Boy"

00:58:56 ◼   ► who apparently was taking the tracks

00:58:59 ◼   ► that they were recording for their album,

00:59:01 ◼   ► and then on his iPhone or iPad,

00:59:03 ◼   ► he was singing the vocals that I believe there are,

00:59:06 ◼   ► I think what they said is there are some vocals

00:59:08 ◼   ► on the "Fallout Boy" latest album

00:59:10 ◼   ► that are from an iPad or an iPhone, which is kind of funny.

00:59:15 ◼   ► But the idea, the larger point there

00:59:17 ◼   ► is that a lot of musicians, yeah, they are moving around,

00:59:20 ◼   ► they've got, you know, maybe they're on tour or whatever,

00:59:23 ◼   ► and inspiration strikes and they wanna work on it.

00:59:25 ◼   ► So they wanted to, and GarageBand is it for Apple on iOS.

00:59:30 ◼   ► This is their high-end audio product

00:59:32 ◼   ► 'cause there is no logic for iOS.

00:59:34 ◼   ► So they put in pro features in this release too,

00:59:38 ◼   ► 'cause Apple said the goal of both of these releases,

00:59:41 ◼   ► they try to sort of theme their releases,

00:59:42 ◼   ► like what are we gonna focus on for this wave?

00:59:44 ◼   ► And this was sort of high-end audio production.

00:59:46 ◼   ► So even GarageBand for iOS has sort of high-end audio production features, which, you know,

00:59:52 ◼   ► if you're just using it to noodle around, it might seem dumb, but they have some compelling

00:59:57 ◼   ► stories that they've got professional customers who use GarageBand for iOS all the time.

01:00:03 ◼   ► So GarageBand for iOS has 12 new mixing effects, a visual equalizer, a professional grade compressor,

01:00:09 ◼   ► and also has gained something called the Alchemy Synth Synthesizer from Logic, which is this

01:00:14 ◼   ► very cool synthesizer.

01:00:16 ◼   ► that has been added to iOS too. But the thing that is kind of mind-blowing to me is that

01:00:21 ◼   ► you can now mix down a version of a logic project and sync it via iCloud to become a

01:00:26 ◼   ► GarageBand project, GarageBand project, to use on iOS and then anything added to the

01:00:32 ◼   ► GarageBand file will then sync back to logic via iCloud. That is really cool.

01:00:37 ◼   ► Yeah, so what you can't do is go to, you know, take your iPhone out with your logic project

01:00:44 ◼   ► and edit the drum track,

01:00:45 ◼   ► because that's not what it's doing.

01:00:46 ◼   ► It is doing a bounce down,

01:00:49 ◼   ► a flattened version of what you've got in Logic.

01:00:51 ◼   ► But what you can do is add to it.

01:00:53 ◼   ► So that's the example of the singer wants to take the track

01:00:58 ◼   ► and do vocals on it on the go.

01:01:01 ◼   ► They can do that.

01:01:02 ◼   ► And if they wanna add like an instrument track

01:01:05 ◼   ► and put something in there,

01:01:07 ◼   ► like I'm gonna try a few different things with this bassline

01:01:10 ◼   ► to see what I can do with it,

01:01:11 ◼   ► 'cause there's no base on the recording or whatever,

01:01:14 ◼   ► they can do that.

01:01:15 ◼   ► And then that all syncs via iCloud.

01:01:17 ◼   ► So when you go back to that Logic project on the Mac,

01:01:19 ◼   ► back at home base,

01:01:21 ◼   ► those new tracks that you've created

01:01:23 ◼   ► are added to the existing project,

01:01:25 ◼   ► the existing multi-track project.

01:01:27 ◼   ► Really cool.

01:01:29 ◼   ► - So there's some stuff there,

01:01:30 ◼   ► like I'm happy to see Apple continuing

01:01:33 ◼   ► to push these applications forward.

01:01:34 ◼   ► - Logic, since it went to version 10 on the Mac,

01:01:37 ◼   ► has released, they said 15 updates.

01:01:41 ◼   ► So, here's something, we were kind of knocking Apple

01:01:46 ◼   ► when we were talking about the report card,

01:01:49 ◼   ► about people's concerns about the first party software,

01:01:53 ◼   ► not the OS, but like Apple's apps.

01:01:55 ◼   ► And this is an example where they are putting effort

01:01:59 ◼   ► into the audio apps.

01:02:00 ◼   ► And GarageBand is based on the logic code base.

01:02:03 ◼   ► It's all part of one big base.

01:02:08 ◼   ► So the people who are working on these things,

01:02:10 ◼   ► it's all interrelated, which is how they can do stuff like this.

01:02:14 ◼   ► But, um,

01:02:15 ◼   ► here's an example of a place where Apple is still investing in updates to their,

01:02:20 ◼   ► uh, their own professional apps.

01:02:23 ◼   ► So the big thing about Logic, right,

01:02:25 ◼   ► is all of the stuff that they're doing with the touch bar,

01:02:27 ◼   ► like that is like the big marquee feature here.

01:02:30 ◼   ► So it seems that Apple is continuing to invest time

01:02:36 ◼   ► and people into working on making the touch bar better, you know,

01:02:39 ◼   ► like with their own applications,

01:02:41 ◼   ► by making the software better,

01:02:42 ◼   ► they make the touch bar better.

01:02:43 ◼   ► So how long is it gonna be

01:02:47 ◼   ► until the touch bar breaks out of the MacBook Pro?

01:02:50 ◼   ► Like if this is a tool aimed at professionals, right?

01:02:53 ◼   ► It's debuted with the Pro for a reason,

01:02:56 ◼   ► doesn't it make sense to make a version

01:02:59 ◼   ► that desktop professionals could use as well?

01:03:02 ◼   ► So you wrote a piece on Macworld about this,

01:03:06 ◼   ► and a quote from you was that,

01:03:07 ◼   ► "I'd argue that for the touch bars

01:03:08 ◼   ► to be taken seriously as a core part of the Mac experience.

01:03:11 ◼   ► It needs to be on more Macs than just the MacBook Pro.

01:03:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's the challenge here is

01:03:18 ◼   ► the MacBook Pro is a great product for professionals.

01:03:22 ◼   ► Two thirds of Apple's or three quarters somewhere in there

01:03:25 ◼   ► of Apple's Mac sales are laptops,

01:03:28 ◼   ► but a lot of those are gonna be MacBook Airs and MacBooks.

01:03:30 ◼   ► So you've got the MacBook Pro that has the touch bar.

01:03:32 ◼   ► I feel like for this to in the long run be a touch bar,

01:03:37 ◼   ► run be a feature that people focus on, you need to at least give them the option of having

01:03:45 ◼   ► it work on the desktop. And you saw it even at the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar event, you

01:03:50 ◼   ► could see it because they like to stage these areas sort of like showing you all the great

01:03:55 ◼   ► features of these products. And the area that was running Final Cut on two 5K monitors or

01:04:02 ◼   ► maybe three 5k monitors. It was trying to show off those, you know, the ability

01:04:06 ◼   ► to do high-resolution video out. So they have these big monitors and the

01:04:12 ◼   ► MacBook Pro in a video workstation setup. But they still have the MacBook Pro

01:04:15 ◼   ► laptop sitting on a table with its lid open, and the idea was you would use the

01:04:20 ◼   ► trackpad and the keyboard and the touch bar on the open laptop to drive those

01:04:26 ◼   ► huge screens as well as the little laptop screen. And I'm sure people work

01:04:30 ◼   ► like that, but I looked at that and thought, "Huh, that's weird." Like, what you're saying

01:04:35 ◼   ► is we love the Touch Bar, but the only way you can get the Touch Bar is when the laptop

01:04:40 ◼   ► is open. So even though you can connect your laptop to these enormous screens, you need

01:04:44 ◼   ► to leave your laptop open and at the level where your hands are so that you can use the

01:04:50 ◼   ► Touch Bar. I don't know. I'm sure, like I said, I'm sure some people do that, but there

01:04:57 ◼   ► a lot of people who have who who are working on an iMac or maybe a Mac Pro someday again

01:05:05 ◼   ► or they're using a MacBook Pro or MacBook or something like that docked and ergonomically

01:05:12 ◼   ► I think having the laptop open is not necessarily the best experience for you so you maybe close

01:05:19 ◼   ► the laptop but if you close the laptop you lose the touch bar so you know in the end

01:05:23 ◼   ► I think the Touch Bar would be given a bit of a shot in the arm if Apple had some solution

01:05:31 ◼   ► for people to use the Touch Bar who are not sitting in front of a MacBook Pro that is

01:05:36 ◼   ► open.

01:05:37 ◼   ► Again, from your piece, the most logical product for Apple to roll out is the Magic Keyboard

01:05:41 ◼   ► 2 featuring the Boss to Fly mechanism keyboard design used in the MacBook Pro topped by a

01:05:46 ◼   ► Touch Bar.

01:05:47 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the most logical.

01:05:50 ◼   ► I was, I had a good Twitter discussion with somebody who was doing the, they were running

01:05:55 ◼   ► the math about the battery use on the Apple Watch, which has a processor and an OLED screen,

01:06:03 ◼   ► and they're trying to get sort of like how much battery does the touch bar use. I think

01:06:07 ◼   ► the touch bar screen is bigger than the Apple Watch display, and so I'm not entirely sure

01:06:13 ◼   ► that I want to, I want to map those things out, but his argument was that if Apple can

01:06:18 ◼   ► get a day of battery life out of the Apple Watch, then if you put a touch bar in a Magic

01:06:25 ◼   ► Keyboard, you could get a day or two. I would like to believe that they want to shoot for

01:06:30 ◼   ► more than a day's charge on a keyboard, but they might think that that was enough, that

01:06:36 ◼   ► as we've seen, Apple makes those decisions sometimes, which is, you know, yeah, it's

01:06:40 ◼   ► great if your keyboard lasts a week, but really, you could plug it in once a day at the end

01:06:44 ◼   ► of the day, and then it would work fine the next day. So this does seem logical. And with

01:06:51 ◼   ► the new keyboard, I'm afraid, even though I love the Magic Keyboard, it certainly seems

01:06:58 ◼   ► that Apple feels that they've nailed it with the MacBook Pro keyboard. And so it would

01:07:05 ◼   ► seem most likely to me that that would be what a Magic Keyboard 2 would be. It would

01:07:09 ◼   ► be essentially like sawing off that portion of the MacBook Pro, like that keyboard, that

01:07:16 ◼   ► touch bar, and then, you know, and the internals necessary to run the touch bar, and a battery

01:07:23 ◼   ► so that it can run for at least a day.

01:07:26 ◼   ► It's what made me sad, you know, as I copped to earlier, I use a Microsoft keyboard, right?

01:07:33 ◼   ► Like I use the Sculpt ergonomic keyboard for ergonomic reasons.

01:07:38 ◼   ► And it would be sad to me if this product existed attached to a keyboard because I would

01:07:43 ◼   ► really like a touch bar. But my hope would be, you know, I would even be happy to have

01:07:50 ◼   ► the thing plugged in all the time, you know, so I got the battery. But I struggle to imagine

01:07:54 ◼   ► Apple doing that.

01:07:56 ◼   ► You literally want to buy a touch bar.

01:07:58 ◼   ► That's all I want, just a touch bar.

01:08:00 ◼   ► And you can put it wherever you want.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Yeah, anywhere.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah, I, there are some ergonomic problems with that because the heights of the tops

01:08:07 ◼   ► of keyboards vary widely, right?

01:08:10 ◼   ► So there's some issues with like,

01:08:12 ◼   ► how tall would they make that thing?

01:08:14 ◼   ► And if it's flat, if it's fairly flat,

01:08:17 ◼   ► then do you need like a riser behind your keyboard?

01:08:20 ◼   ► And there's lots of issues there,

01:08:21 ◼   ► but I think you're right.

01:08:22 ◼   ► I think the number one reason that that's not a product

01:08:24 ◼   ► is that it just doesn't feel like an Apple product to say,

01:08:27 ◼   ► here's an add-on widget, right?

01:08:29 ◼   ► It's much more likely they'll say,

01:08:31 ◼   ► we have this totally integrated thing and here it is.

01:08:36 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:08:38 ◼   ► But you also posed the idea of what if it was integrated into a Magic Trackpad.

01:08:44 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a wacky idea, but what I keep thinking is I already have a multi-touch surface from Apple on my keyboard tray.

01:08:54 ◼   ► I already have one. It's the Magic Trackpad 2, right? I already have it. It's right there.

01:09:00 ◼   ► And I think it's highly unlikely

01:09:02 ◼   ► that this will happen anytime soon,

01:09:05 ◼   ► but I just keep thinking like,

01:09:07 ◼   ► if I'm an Apple and I'm thinking about interesting ways

01:09:09 ◼   ► to do multi-touch as an input device on the Mac,

01:09:12 ◼   ► what if the multi-touch device

01:09:16 ◼   ► that they already sell for the Mac externally, wirelessly,

01:09:20 ◼   ► you know, what if some of it or all of it was a display

01:09:25 ◼   ► or optionally a display,

01:09:27 ◼   ► or sometimes had a display that was visible,

01:09:30 ◼   ► like on the Touch Bar but on the Magic Trackpad.

01:09:32 ◼   ► There are lots of issues 'cause the Magic Trackpad

01:09:34 ◼   ► is way narrower than the Magic Keyboard,

01:09:37 ◼   ► or the Touch Bar.

01:09:40 ◼   ► So you couldn't have that long Touch Bar interface on it.

01:09:44 ◼   ► So then now all of a sudden if you did something like that,

01:09:47 ◼   ► do you have two different layouts for the Touch Bar?

01:09:50 ◼   ► It gets weird.

01:09:51 ◼   ► How would you design something like that?

01:09:54 ◼   ► I don't think there's reasonably a product here,

01:09:56 ◼   ► and yet something in my mind just keeps turning over like,

01:09:59 ◼   ► yes, but it is a multi-touch surface, right?

01:10:02 ◼   ► It is the most logical place for something

01:10:06 ◼   ► like the touch bar. - I would love it there.

01:10:06 ◼   ► It'd make way more sense for a touch bar

01:10:08 ◼   ► to be integrated into the track pad

01:10:10 ◼   ► because that hand is doing tapping and poking and,

01:10:13 ◼   ► you know, that's where I would want it to be.

01:10:16 ◼   ► But I agree, it would be hard to put it there.

01:10:20 ◼   ► But, you know, I could imagine it being easier that way.

01:10:24 ◼   ► I expect more people probably say that. At least it would be easier, I think, to get

01:10:29 ◼   ► people to go trackpad than to change their keyboard. I feel like people are maybe more

01:10:35 ◼   ► picky over their keyboard than they are their input mechanism.

01:10:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, and everybody varies. Some people are picky about the input device, the pointer,

01:10:45 ◼   ► and some people are more picky about the keyboard. But that's just, you know, again, the most

01:10:52 ◼   ► thing to do with the least overhead is to make a Magic Keyboard with a touch bar at

01:10:57 ◼   ► the top of it. But again, and that fits with the use case where you've got one hand on

01:11:03 ◼   ► the trackpad on the MacBook Pro and one hand on the touch bar, which they showed on stage,

01:11:09 ◼   ► which is different than like one hand on the keyboard and one hand on the touch bar, although

01:11:12 ◼   ► you could do that too on the MacBook Pro. But I just, you know, my way I use my Mac

01:11:17 ◼   ► is I've got my left hand on the keyboard and my right hand is either on the keyboard or

01:11:22 ◼   ► it is right next to the keyboard on that trackpad where I've got multi-touch gestures and all

01:11:26 ◼   ► of that. You know, the other problem with a lot of this is that the track or the touch

01:11:31 ◼   ► bar works in a part because it's not very far from the screen and in a desktop the screen

01:11:38 ◼   ► and the control surfaces move apart, right? Your screen goes up, especially if you're

01:11:44 ◼   ► following good ergonomics, because laptops aren't great with the ergonomics, surprise.

01:11:49 ◼   ► Your screen should go up, because it should be at your eye level, and your keyboard should

01:11:53 ◼   ► go down at, you know, right angle of your elbow, right? At which point they are further

01:12:01 ◼   ► apart, which means your eyeline is that much split, so when you're looking down at your

01:12:04 ◼   ► keys and your touch bar, you're now looking way further down. But at the same time, you

01:12:11 ◼   ► know, I think you would argue that if you need to look at your keyboard now, you're

01:12:14 ◼   ► still looking down at it and then back up at the screen. So the act of keyboard

01:12:18 ◼   ► looking is still there, and if Apple's whole premise with the touch bar is "I put

01:12:24 ◼   ► a screen on your keyboard," then keyboard looking is required. So even though it

01:12:29 ◼   ► might be a little bit harder and a little bit further apart, I'm not sure

01:12:33 ◼   ► it's a deal-breaker. It might be less good or it might be

01:12:36 ◼   ► different but I still think people would rather have it than not. So

01:12:42 ◼   ► whether there's a Magic Keyboard 2 with Touch Bar and they keep selling the

01:12:47 ◼   ► other Magic Keyboard or whether it's a separate standalone Touch Bar, you know, I

01:12:51 ◼   ► hope they do something so it isn't just the MacBook Pro that gets this,

01:12:54 ◼   ► especially since it unlocks everything in all scenarios, all their desktop

01:12:59 ◼   ► systems, all their laptop systems that have a, you know, that might run on an

01:13:04 ◼   ► external monitor basically everything can get the touch bar if you buy the

01:13:08 ◼   ► external touch bar but still in the back of my mind I keep thinking I'm not sure

01:13:12 ◼   ► the keyboard is the right place for it. Cards on the table will we see this in

01:13:17 ◼   ► 2017? Will the touch bar break outside of the MacBook Pro? I think so. I think

01:13:22 ◼   ► that some part of the new iMac and maybe other desktops who knows will be

01:13:28 ◼   ► something like this. Do Apple make over desktops? They did they might again

01:13:33 ◼   ► We'll see. We'll see. But it's just, it would... Is it a must-have? No, absolutely.

01:13:39 ◼   ► If I had to put money on it, yeah, I think maybe I would say more likely than not, only

01:13:43 ◼   ► because they put all this effort into the Touch Bar to have it only be on the MacBook

01:13:48 ◼   ► Pro. I don't... Like, I would be shocked if a new MacBook had a Touch Bar, right? I mean,

01:13:54 ◼   ► maybe it would, but that's a lot to pack into that MacBook.

01:13:57 ◼   ► I feel like pros first, so like it comes with the next professional machines, you know,

01:14:02 ◼   ► alongside. So whether the next professional machine is a Mac Pro or

01:14:07 ◼   ► it's just an iMac, regardless, having it for that seems to make sense to me. I

01:14:12 ◼   ► would say my wacky idea about a screen magic trackpad, although that feels like

01:14:18 ◼   ► a very Apple product to me, I feel like that's not gonna happen anytime soon if

01:14:23 ◼   ► ever. It's so beautiful, right? Like it would be all black and then that, you know, maybe

01:14:27 ◼   ► the little, they would like light up when you, "Oh, that would be so good." You know, but

01:14:30 ◼   ► The number one reason I think it won't happen is,

01:14:32 ◼   ► if they were gonna do that,

01:14:35 ◼   ► wouldn't they have engineered the MacBook Pro

01:14:38 ◼   ► to have the touch bar be in the track pad?

01:14:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, they probably would have.

01:14:44 ◼   ► - And they didn't.

01:14:45 ◼   ► So this is where we are.

01:14:48 ◼   ► And it would give them parallelism, right?

01:14:51 ◼   ► It would give them the same thing,

01:14:52 ◼   ► which is it's part of the keyboard.

01:14:53 ◼   ► It's in the function row.

01:14:55 ◼   ► And, you know.

01:14:56 ◼   ► - The thing is though,

01:14:57 ◼   ► that it was easier space-wise

01:14:59 ◼   ► to have it replace the keys.

01:15:01 ◼   ► You know, but like with a Magic Trackpad,

01:15:04 ◼   ► it can be as big as you want it to be.

01:15:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, and there are lots of challenges

01:15:08 ◼   ► in getting the screen, you know,

01:15:11 ◼   ► I'm not saying just because it's a multi-touch surface,

01:15:13 ◼   ► it doesn't necessarily mean it's the same kind

01:15:14 ◼   ► of engineering that has to go into it

01:15:16 ◼   ► versus something like the Touch Bar.

01:15:17 ◼   ► But still, it is, you know,

01:15:20 ◼   ► the Touch Bar has a similar texture to the Magic Trackpad.

01:15:25 ◼   ► I mean, they're cousins, right?

01:15:28 ◼   ► And so I do wonder about that.

01:15:30 ◼   ► I will say, I think I like the idea of a touch ID sensor

01:15:35 ◼   ► on an external device.

01:15:38 ◼   ► I think that's far more likely than a touch bar.

01:15:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, they've done it.

01:15:42 ◼   ► You know, like the iPhone can authenticate things

01:15:45 ◼   ► on the Mac, like they've worked out how to transmit that.

01:15:48 ◼   ► - Exactly, so I think a touch ID sensor,

01:15:51 ◼   ► maybe even on a Magic Trackpad,

01:15:53 ◼   ► is the most likely scenario there.

01:15:57 ◼   ► So, I'm with you, I think 2017 we see the touch bar break out somehow.

01:16:04 ◼   ► I'm just not sure what that implementation is yet.

01:16:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:16:08 ◼   ► Alright, we should move into Ask Upgrade.

01:16:10 ◼   ► We didn't do any last week so we must do it this week.

01:16:12 ◼   ► And Ask Upgrade this week is brought to you by our friends at Encapsula, the cloud service

01:16:16 ◼   ► that makes your website faster and safer.

01:16:19 ◼   ► Encapsula have a worldwide network that inspects every packet that comes and goes from your

01:16:23 ◼   ► website blocking attacks against your site whilst delivering your content to your customers faster.

01:16:29 ◼   ► Every single day websites of all shapes and sizes are attacked. Criminals use giant botnets to

01:16:35 ◼   ► scrape website content. They try to break into databaters and bring down sites with denial of

01:16:41 ◼   ► service attacks. On the performance side, your visitors want your website to load quickly and

01:16:45 ◼   ► reliably. They don't want to have things get in their way. They just want to come to your website

01:16:50 ◼   ► and get things done. If your site goes down or is unavailable, people are going to go

01:16:54 ◼   ► somewhere else. Put simply, Encapsula prevents and solves this. They employ a powerful global

01:16:59 ◼   ► network to filter out and block all the bad stuff leaving your website and your customers

01:17:03 ◼   ► unaffected. As a listener of this show, you can get one

01:17:06 ◼   ► whole month of service for free. All you need to do is go to Encapsula.com/upgrade. This

01:17:15 ◼   ► This is where you can find out more and try your free month.

01:17:19 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Encapsula for their support of this show and relay FM.

01:17:24 ◼   ► Luke wrote in with a conundrum.

01:17:27 ◼   ► It will cost Luke $1000 AUD which is about $750 USD to replace the video card in a dead

01:17:34 ◼   ► but specced out mid 2011 iMac 27" iMac.

01:17:40 ◼   ► Should Luke do this or upgrade to a new iMac?

01:17:44 ◼   ► Now this is an interesting question right, this is a machine that has maybe gotten about

01:17:49 ◼   ► 5-6 years use out of. My feeling on this would be if you can afford it without it causing

01:17:57 ◼   ► too much financial trouble, I would go new. This is a machine that has served a good life

01:18:04 ◼   ► but my feeling is it's failed you now, I would be concerned it would fail again in some other

01:18:11 ◼   ► way. That's just my look on these things. You know, I would be concerned that I'd spend

01:18:16 ◼   ► $1,000 now, but then in six months, something else goes wrong and I need to pay again to

01:18:22 ◼   ► have it replaced in some way. So if you can afford it, Luke, I would say to maybe to start

01:18:28 ◼   ► to upgrade.

01:18:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, that's the name of the show, right? I agree. That's a lot of money to spend

01:18:34 ◼   ► on a five to six year old iMac.

01:18:39 ◼   ► And the iMacs, you know, the new iMacs are priced

01:18:47 ◼   ► pretty well, I mean, you can get a,

01:18:50 ◼   ► if you wanted another 27, that's gonna be a 5K iMac now,

01:18:54 ◼   ► right, and that is, that's pretty good, that's pretty good.

01:18:59 ◼   ► So I guess you, you know, you got it,

01:19:03 ◼   ► you got it exactly right, which is,

01:19:05 ◼   ► if you can afford to go without for a little while

01:19:09 ◼   ► or just replace it now,

01:19:10 ◼   ► I think throwing another $755

01:19:13 ◼   ► at a six-year-old machine is not ideal.

01:19:21 ◼   ► - I mean, look, you're gonna be spending

01:19:27 ◼   ► about two grand for a new iMac

01:19:29 ◼   ► because you wanna at least have the Fusion Drive in it,

01:19:33 ◼   ► right? You really shouldn't get the one that has just the hard drive, which continues to

01:19:36 ◼   ► be a joke that exists.

01:19:38 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I would say you'd be better off spending that money and a little bit more

01:19:42 ◼   ► on a, or maybe just that money on a 20, you know, on a, on a 25th, what, 2014 5k iMac

01:19:51 ◼   ► that might be used or, yeah, I mean there, there are, or, or, or that somebody is a,

01:19:56 ◼   ► when the new iMacs come out, maybe somebody buys a new one and their two year old, two

01:19:59 ◼   ► two and a half year old one goes for sale or even a a pre-retina like a 2014 like I

01:20:05 ◼   ► think you'd be better off spending that money on something else if at all possible even

01:20:10 ◼   ► if it's a used system that is more recent than that because it's already pretty old

01:20:17 ◼   ► and it's just gonna keep aging and it hurts to think of spending $750 and yeah and parts

01:20:22 ◼   ► may still keep failing too. So yeah. Brent asked, "As a casual gamer, am I crazy

01:20:30 ◼   ► for thinking the Nintendo Switch is the most innovative console I've seen in a long time?"

01:20:35 ◼   ► So Brent, I will say, whilst they're also good dogs, you're not crazy. Weird joke.

01:20:44 ◼   ► I love that meme, the good dogs meme. It's fantastic. If you don't know what I'm talking

01:20:48 ◼   ► about just Google Good Logs meme you'll find it. I don't think you're crazy. I think that

01:20:53 ◼   ► the Switch is very innovative but you have to be open to that type of innovation. If

01:20:58 ◼   ► you're looking for Nintendo to create a PlayStation 4 competitor this is not that. But if you

01:21:05 ◼   ► have had the dream like I and Federico have had of same console everywhere like I've had

01:21:11 ◼   ► this dream for as long as I've played video games then this is the innovation you're looking

01:21:15 ◼   ► for. Basically, the Nintendo Switch is a super powerful handheld console that you can plug

01:21:20 ◼   ► into the TV. That's what it's not the other I read a great piece on the Guardian about

01:21:25 ◼   ► this that I'm going to find and put in the show notes. That explains it that way, which

01:21:30 ◼   ► I really loved. It's like people are thinking of it as a home console you can take on the

01:21:34 ◼   ► go. It's more the other way around it is a handheld console. It was a piece written by

01:21:40 ◼   ► Kate Gray, it's in the show notes. It is more like a handheld console that you can plug

01:21:44 ◼   ► into the TV and continue your experience there. Like, it doesn't have great battery life,

01:21:49 ◼   ► it can get anywhere between three to six hours, but it's USB-C. And when it's on the go, you

01:21:54 ◼   ► can plug in external battery packs, any USB-C cable will go with it. Like, that is a new

01:21:59 ◼   ► Nintendo, like for years Nintendo had their own weird proprietary ones.

01:22:04 ◼   ► I just bought my son a DS last year and I had to find a DS charging cable.

01:22:08 ◼   ► Doesn't come in the box.

01:22:09 ◼   ► And the right... It's ridiculous.

01:22:11 ◼   ► But they're really changing some of the ways that they work.

01:22:15 ◼   ► And it's got these controllers that you can snap off and you can have two people play

01:22:19 ◼   ► with just the controls that it comes with.

01:22:21 ◼   ► It is doing a lot of really innovative stuff, but you've got to be open to that.

01:22:25 ◼   ► If you want a new Xbox One or a PlayStation 4, but it's made by Nintendo, this is not

01:22:31 ◼   ► that.

01:22:32 ◼   ► And honestly, I don't think they're ever going to make that.

01:22:33 ◼   ► I think that's right.

01:22:35 ◼   ► This is never going to be that.

01:22:37 ◼   ► In fact, you could argue, I mean, the last two Nintendo consoles have been a generation

01:22:41 ◼   ► behind their competition as a console, and that will probably continue.

01:22:48 ◼   ► The difference is that this is not just a console, and they're merging their handheld

01:22:55 ◼   ► and console into one.

01:22:57 ◼   ► It is no surprise that the people I know who are really, really into console gaming were

01:23:00 ◼   ► not impressed by the switch and that's fine because again it is not a ps4

01:23:06 ◼   ► competitor it's it reminds me a little bit about people complaining about

01:23:10 ◼   ► things Apple does because they're not following the rules of Windows PC makers

01:23:15 ◼   ► which always happened and now it happens a little bit with smartphones too it's

01:23:18 ◼   ► like I can't believe that they're not just being like Dell was a classic right

01:23:22 ◼   ► and it's like well Apple's not even remotely like Dell so why would they be

01:23:25 ◼   ► that it's a little bit like that where it's like it's Nintendo they're gonna

01:23:29 ◼   ► to be Nintendo and what they're trying to do, I mean, that Nintendo Switch announcement

01:23:35 ◼   ► reminded me of Apple so much in the sense that Nintendo is relentlessly making these

01:23:40 ◼   ► decisions that are like not what the industry decisions are. And some of them will flop

01:23:45 ◼   ► and some of them will succeed, but that's what they do, right? And the Switch is like

01:23:49 ◼   ► that. It's a weird product, but I think it's got a lot of potential, especially the idea

01:23:56 ◼   ► that you have one system and you can play it around the house. Like, my son does this

01:24:02 ◼   ► all the time where he's playing the Xbox One and I want to watch a TV show and I'm like,

01:24:05 ◼   ► "I gotta kick you off, sorry." Right? It's like, with this, again, it's not an Xbox One,

01:24:10 ◼   ► but if he's playing something on the Nintendo Switch, he just picks it up out of the dock

01:24:15 ◼   ► and keeps playing it. And you can take it to a vacation or to a friend's house or whatever

01:24:19 ◼   ► and it's your Nintendo that comes with you. Plus, there's the, anybody who brought computers

01:24:26 ◼   ► over for a LAN party in the olden days will know this, that like, plus now you're your

01:24:31 ◼   ► Nintendo Switch and your friend's Nintendo Switch and all of a sudden you've got like

01:24:36 ◼   ► multiple controllers and they will network with each other and you can have a bunch of

01:24:41 ◼   ► people playing games together. And that is actually a thing that I think will happen

01:24:45 ◼   ► with it. So I think there's a lot that's cool about it as long as you're not, like you said

01:24:48 ◼   ► Myke you're not judging it by the ps4 and the Xbox one because it's not playing that game and I think yeah

01:24:54 ◼   ► I think Nintendo is not gonna ever play that game

01:24:56 ◼   ► Matt asked blue snowball versus blue yeti

01:25:01 ◼   ► So Matt's asking for a microphone recommendation here out of the two. I would say yeti

01:25:06 ◼   ► But I know Jason's gonna say do neither and buy something else

01:25:10 ◼   ► Yeah, that's that's it. Which is the yeti is by far the better microphone than the snowball. I don't recommend the snowball

01:25:16 ◼   ► I started with a snowball, but don't don't buy it

01:25:18 ◼   ► I think the best value if you're in the US especially because I know it's harder to get

01:25:23 ◼   ► overseas.

01:25:24 ◼   ► The best value is the Audio-Technica ATR2100 USB, which sounds really good.

01:25:29 ◼   ► It's really cheap.

01:25:31 ◼   ► It's a USB microphone by a mic stand.

01:25:33 ◼   ► I wrote an article on six colors about how you can get in a whole podcast studio for

01:25:37 ◼   ► less than $100.

01:25:39 ◼   ► That's what I recommend.

01:25:40 ◼   ► The Yeti is great.

01:25:41 ◼   ► The problem with the Yeti is it's big.

01:25:44 ◼   ► And that makes it not only is it heavy and big, but it's less compatible with mic stands

01:25:51 ◼   ► and pop filters and things like that.

01:25:54 ◼   ► And, you know, I loved I used a Yeti for like three years and it's it's great, but I think

01:25:59 ◼   ► it's been surpassed.

01:26:00 ◼   ► Something I've noticed recently.

01:26:04 ◼   ► I've been sending the link that, you know, Marco's big microphone mega review to a bunch

01:26:09 ◼   ► of people.

01:26:10 ◼   ► Like I'm getting asked these questions a lot like what microphone should I buy?

01:26:14 ◼   ► What microphone should I buy? And I really don't have a good

01:26:16 ◼   ► recommendation. But you know I send Marco's review to people because he reviewed a bunch of them and

01:26:22 ◼   ► you also get all the sound clips and stuff. It is it's just interesting to me that I'm getting

01:26:27 ◼   ► a lot more of those questions. It seems like people people want to start podcasts.

01:26:31 ◼   ► [Joe] The ATR2100 is the cheapest microphone in Marco's top five basically.

01:26:38 ◼   ► - And it's in the top five.

01:26:40 ◼   ► - I mean, I guess it's not, it's number four,

01:26:44 ◼   ► and it's the cheapest in the top four.

01:26:46 ◼   ► The mic at number five is cheaper,

01:26:47 ◼   ► but you've got to add a $100 XLR interface.

01:26:49 ◼   ► And the ATR2100 does XLR if you want, but it is a USB mic,

01:26:54 ◼   ► so you just plug it in to your computer with a USB cable.

01:26:57 ◼   ► And like Marco says, amazing value for the money.

01:27:01 ◼   ► So that's the one that I am now recommending.

01:27:06 ◼   ► And Brent also asked a couple of questions, kind of podcast related.

01:27:10 ◼   ► One, how often do you monitor download statistics?

01:27:13 ◼   ► And two, why do you rarely, if ever, ask for iTunes reviews?

01:27:16 ◼   ► So I make a note of my statistics or our statistics, all of Relay FM's download

01:27:23 ◼   ► numbers monthly, so I have a graph to track our shows and kind of see how they go

01:27:27 ◼   ► over the year. So that's one time where I always do it.

01:27:30 ◼   ► Sometimes an advertiser will ask and I'll get the numbers that way.

01:27:33 ◼   ► so I see them or other times like when I'm uploading a show to the host, I might just

01:27:38 ◼   ► check how the download numbers are but I used to be like obsessed with checking those numbers

01:27:43 ◼   ► but I'm not so much anymore honestly.

01:27:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't look except when I need to. When somebody like when my ad network asks

01:27:53 ◼   ► for the stats, I will look the stats up and put them in their little form that says here's

01:27:58 ◼   ► how many downloads we had but I don't look and I don't look at iTunes reviews either.

01:28:02 ◼   ► I mean, I just don't look because I know what I wanna make,

01:28:06 ◼   ► I know what I wanna do.

01:28:07 ◼   ► I was like this at IDG too.

01:28:11 ◼   ► People would expect me to like know,

01:28:12 ◼   ► how many page views did PC World have last month?

01:28:14 ◼   ► I'm just like, I don't know, I could look it up for you.

01:28:16 ◼   ► They're like, you don't know?

01:28:18 ◼   ► Yeah, you know what?

01:28:19 ◼   ► I don't obsess about that.

01:28:20 ◼   ► Like we used some stats, like some live stats,

01:28:25 ◼   ► like Chartbeat of sort of like what stories were trending

01:28:29 ◼   ► and for a news site that was useful

01:28:31 ◼   ► finding out like what people really cared about and what what people were reading at a time. But

01:28:37 ◼   ► like the big, you know, daily, weekly, monthly stats, I felt like that was much more likely to

01:28:41 ◼   ► distract me and confuse me than to inform me because you can just start chasing flukes and

01:28:49 ◼   ► you can start changing chasing sort of like bad stuff if you do that and you know I kind of know

01:28:55 ◼   ► I kind of know what I want to do and and those numbers get magnified right you we do an episode

01:28:59 ◼   ► that does 10,000 more than any of the episodes around there.

01:29:02 ◼   ► And we might be like, oh, what did we talk about

01:29:03 ◼   ► in that episode?

01:29:04 ◼   ► We should totally do that.

01:29:05 ◼   ► But it turns out that, you know,

01:29:07 ◼   ► it almost certainly had nothing to do with the content

01:29:09 ◼   ► of that episode, especially since the downloads happened

01:29:11 ◼   ► before people listen, but it had to do

01:29:12 ◼   ► with somebody mentioning us or somebody linking to us,

01:29:15 ◼   ► or there was a hiccup in the network.

01:29:18 ◼   ► And so people had, their clients had to redownload the file.

01:29:21 ◼   ► I mean, there's so many reasons and you can get steered

01:29:23 ◼   ► so far off course, if you look at it that closely.

01:29:26 ◼   ► So, you know, I try to look at it like ten steps back and with a lot of perspective and

01:29:32 ◼   ► So I don't look very often

01:29:35 ◼   ► And then why don't we ask for iTunes reviews? I think it's mainly because most of the shows that we do

01:29:41 ◼   ► iTunes tends to be one of the smaller

01:29:44 ◼   ► Traffic sources. Yeah, it can be hard to tell exactly

01:29:49 ◼   ► But I would estimate that we have somewhere between 10 to 15 percent of our listeners that listen through iTunes

01:29:56 ◼   ► And honestly with the kind of the focus of iTunes these days that the shows that they tend to focus on

01:30:01 ◼   ► I don't think that

01:30:03 ◼   ► Reviews are gonna help us get the visibility that used to it used to be like having good reviews in iTunes

01:30:08 ◼   ► was good for getting features and promotions, but the podcasting market and the landscape is very different now and

01:30:14 ◼   ► The types of shows that tend to get featured on iTunes tend to be the more mass-market shows, which is fine

01:30:20 ◼   ► Honestly, it doesn't it doesn't really concern or affect us in a big way

01:30:26 ◼   ► Because the the tools the shows that our shows a lot of our tech focus shows

01:30:30 ◼   ► People listen in the apps that they like to listen in and there isn't a consistent way to rate or review

01:30:37 ◼   ► You know to make sense in those applications, you know, like we could say that you know

01:30:41 ◼   ► Marco has the starring thing you could star us on overcast you could leave a review in iTunes

01:30:45 ◼   ► But really the thing that we would love the most if you ever want to do anything

01:30:49 ◼   ► This is tweet about the show tell friends about the show

01:30:52 ◼   ► recommend the show to people something that they might want to listen to that's probably

01:30:55 ◼   ► going to have a bigger effect than any of like you know leaving these reviews in these

01:30:59 ◼   ► buckets within different applications so if you do like enjoy the show tell people about

01:31:04 ◼   ► it because that's cool yep and if you want to find our show notes for this week head

01:31:10 ◼   ► on over to relay.fm/upgrade/125 Jason is online he is at sixcolors.com and the incomparable.com

01:31:17 ◼   ► and you can find Jason here @jsnell on Twitter, JSNEELL.

01:31:21 ◼   ► I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:31:24 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening, as always,

01:31:25 ◼   ► and we'll be back next time.

01:31:26 ◼   ► Thanks again to our sponsors,

01:31:28 ◼   ► the fine folk over in Capster, Smile, and Squarespace.

01:31:31 ◼   ► Say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:31:32 ◼   ► - Bye, everybody.

01:31:33 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:31:35 ◼   ► [ Music ]

01:31:39 ◼   ► [ Silence ]