Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade and this is episode 96. Today's show is brought to you by Pingdom,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Casper, and Igloo. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr. Jason Snell. Happy Independence Day

00:00:21 ◼   ► to you, Mr. Jason Snell. Thank you, sir. Not happy Independence Day to you because you don't--this

00:00:27 ◼   ► This is not a holiday for you UK type people.

00:00:30 ◼   ► It's not even a bank holiday, is it?

00:00:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, not too far away from our Independence Day though.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was gonna say,

00:00:38 ◼   ► "Hey, Myke, how do you feel about countries breaking away

00:00:41 ◼   ► "from other organizations that, yeah, let's not."

00:00:44 ◼   ► - How do I feel, huh?

00:00:46 ◼   ► - Let's not, let's not.

00:00:47 ◼   ► - But we are breaking the fourth wall a little bit.

00:00:50 ◼   ► We are recording this a few days earlier than usual.

00:00:54 ◼   ► Yeah, this is one of those quantum superpositional states

00:00:58 ◼   ► that happens with podcasts where, you know,

00:01:00 ◼   ► while you're listening to me do this now on a podcast,

00:01:03 ◼   ► I am simultaneously not at my desk

00:01:06 ◼   ► and I'm probably grilling something somewhere.

00:01:10 ◼   ► - But we figure as always,

00:01:11 ◼   ► because Upgrade is a majorly news focused show

00:01:16 ◼   ► that considering we do usually record

00:01:18 ◼   ► and publish on the same day,

00:01:20 ◼   ► whenever we don't,

00:01:21 ◼   ► I feel like it's always important to mention it

00:01:23 ◼   ► case anything breaks over the following days. Which is extremely unlikely over Independence

00:01:28 ◼   ► Day weekend unless you're trying to bury something. But sometimes that can be some of the most

00:01:32 ◼   ► interesting news to discuss.

00:01:34 ◼   ► That's true, it's true. Sometimes the news gets buried on a Friday afternoon before a

00:01:39 ◼   ► three day weekend, man, woo! That is prime news burial time. Yeah, that is the swamps

00:01:46 ◼   ► of New Jersey of the week.

00:01:48 ◼   ► That's my question for you now, actually, because I think that this stuff, you know,

00:01:52 ◼   ► the idea of burying news probably made a lot more sense before the internet. Is that still

00:01:58 ◼   ► the case? Can you still really bury something like this?

00:02:02 ◼   ► Well, I mean, it's... So in the old days it was like at the end of the week so that it

00:02:07 ◼   ► would be in the Saturday newspaper, which was the least read newspaper. That, obviously,

00:02:12 ◼   ► newspapers, how do they work? But I think it's still the case that nobody... People

00:02:17 ◼   ► are paying less attention on a Friday night or on a Saturday, and then by the time you

00:02:22 ◼   ► get to paying attention maybe on Sunday evening or Monday morning, it's not news anymore,

00:02:27 ◼   ► possibly. I mean, I think that still applies, that this is when you get bad news out because

00:02:33 ◼   ► it distracts people, is sometime on a Friday or over a holiday weekend. Like I said, Friday

00:02:40 ◼   ► going into a holiday weekend is great because people are extra distracted and it's even

00:02:44 ◼   ► longer before they come back and pay attention again.

00:02:46 ◼   ► - 'Cause I guess the benefit, well, I guess maybe part

00:02:49 ◼   ► of the reason you would do it is because people,

00:02:51 ◼   ► some people might only look at this stuff

00:02:52 ◼   ► when they're at work, right?

00:02:54 ◼   ► - Exactly. - And if they're not at work,

00:02:56 ◼   ► they're not online checking CNBC or something.

00:02:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're just hanging out with people

00:03:01 ◼   ► and they're not, or they're not looking as closely.

00:03:03 ◼   ► I think that's part of it.

00:03:04 ◼   ► So what we're saying here is probably something

00:03:07 ◼   ► really embarrassing happened and was announced

00:03:10 ◼   ► on Friday afternoon and we don't know about it

00:03:12 ◼   ► because we recorded this earlier on Friday.

00:03:15 ◼   ► - Yep. - Sorry.

00:03:16 ◼   ► We'll leave that one to the other podcasts.

00:03:18 ◼   ► - A very important piece of follow up.

00:03:21 ◼   ► The upgrade baby has turned one year old.

00:03:25 ◼   ► - I know, it's amazing.

00:03:26 ◼   ► - Context for anybody that has no idea.

00:03:29 ◼   ► Me and Jason didn't adopt a child.

00:03:31 ◼   ► - Myke and I made a baby, yeah.

00:03:33 ◼   ► We're not gonna explain how it happened, but yeah, no.

00:03:37 ◼   ► - Jim wrote in to us a year ago

00:03:39 ◼   ► with an Ask Upgrade question

00:03:41 ◼   ► for us to guess the sex of his upcoming child.

00:03:45 ◼   ► they were going to be having their baby on that very day.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Me and Jason correctly guessed girl.

00:03:52 ◼   ► And Jim has tweeted a picture to us of Mackenzie

00:03:56 ◼   ► in her one year old birthday outfit.

00:04:00 ◼   ► And she looks adorable.

00:04:02 ◼   ► So happy birthday to Mackenzie, the upgrade baby,

00:04:06 ◼   ► which is probably something she won't appreciate being called

00:04:09 ◼   ► throughout her life because I'm sure it won't really

00:04:12 ◼   ► mean anything to her.

00:04:13 ◼   ► but just so we know, she's very important to us.

00:04:16 ◼   ► - It's very important to us, exactly right.

00:04:18 ◼   ► And that's what matters, really.

00:04:19 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:04:20 ◼   ► - So happy birthday to Mackenzie.

00:04:22 ◼   ► And yes, that's, Myke, should our listeners

00:04:26 ◼   ► use the #AskUpgrade for other important

00:04:29 ◼   ► life decisions and events?

00:04:31 ◼   ► - I 100% believe that it is a very good idea

00:04:36 ◼   ► for people to use the #AskUpgrade.

00:04:41 ◼   ► as a way to get us to help them out in their lifetime.

00:04:46 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:04:47 ◼   ► - I think that that is good.

00:04:48 ◼   ► We can provide, I wanna name a baby now.

00:04:51 ◼   ► - Okay. (laughs)

00:04:52 ◼   ► Well, there's one really easy way to, well, easy as,

00:04:55 ◼   ► there's one way to do that, Myke,

00:04:57 ◼   ► that's the straightest line here.

00:04:59 ◼   ► - I'm not naming rights.

00:05:01 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:05:02 ◼   ► - You know, I follow the John Siracusa idea here.

00:05:05 ◼   ► I cannot remember where he discussed this.

00:05:07 ◼   ► It was probably reconcilable differences.

00:05:09 ◼   ► At some point, they spoke about baby names,

00:05:12 ◼   ► and he chose the name, I think it was October,

00:05:16 ◼   ► but was overruled.

00:05:18 ◼   ► And when we were talking about it,

00:05:22 ◼   ► I believe he said that he was allowing me

00:05:25 ◼   ► to try with that name.

00:05:26 ◼   ► You know, I could try the name October.

00:05:27 ◼   ► He was giving it to me, which is a very kind gift from Jon.

00:05:31 ◼   ► And I mentioned it to Alina, and she wasn't interested.

00:05:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's 'cause it's a month and not a name.

00:05:37 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:05:38 ◼   ► I think I've just found the episode of Reconsiderable Differences, episode 18.

00:05:44 ◼   ► Okay. Yeah.

00:05:47 ◼   ► But yeah, I liked it because you could use the name Toby, short for October,

00:05:52 ◼   ► and I quite liked that a lot. But Adina wasn't interested, so I might not get naming. But anyway,

00:05:57 ◼   ► Jon says that he believes the reason that he didn't get to name the name of that, and he

00:06:01 ◼   ► he believes that I have fully on board with this thinking is it would be my

00:06:06 ◼   ► partner's body. She has final say. Huh? The name. It's like,

00:06:11 ◼   ► totally get it. You're going through that. You get naming rights.

00:06:14 ◼   ► Should we talk about the headphone jack some more?

00:06:17 ◼   ► I'd rather honestly talk more about baby names, but yes, we probably should.

00:06:23 ◼   ► Because we, I think we both had some additional thoughts.

00:06:26 ◼   ► There's been a bunch of follow up.

00:06:27 ◼   ► You wrote a nice little article that you published. Um,

00:06:30 ◼   ► So I want to talk about that. First off, I just want to mention the talk show because

00:06:33 ◼   ► we'd both not gotten to it by the time we recorded the last episode. I have and I think

00:06:38 ◼   ► it's great. As expected, Marco went into a lot more technical detail than me or you would

00:06:44 ◼   ► ever go into, I think, because he is really focused on this stuff, like with his headphone

00:06:50 ◼   ► love and things like that. And they did a really good job. I really enjoyed every time

00:06:56 ◼   ► that Jon would give an argument and Marco would just like try and smash it down as hard

00:07:01 ◼   ► as he could. That was very funny to me. My number one favourite moment in the show is

00:07:07 ◼   ► where, this is pointless nitpicking words, but like where Jon slips up and calls the

00:07:13 ◼   ► removal of the headphone jack a feature. I really enjoyed that. It was just because Marco

00:07:17 ◼   ► was like, "That's not a feature!" I know exactly why Jon said it but I just thought

00:07:21 ◼   ► it was so funny.

00:07:22 ◼   ► Yeah, no, it's a good conversation. And if you don't want to listen to a two and a half

00:07:26 ◼   ► hour podcast, you can get to that conversation and just listen to that chunk. And it's kind

00:07:31 ◼   ► of a great podcast on its own.

00:07:33 ◼   ► Yep.

00:07:34 ◼   ► We got a piece of feedback from listener Phil that I thought was interesting. He said, "You

00:07:38 ◼   ► mentioned compatibility, but iOS headphones with inline controls and Android headphones

00:07:47 ◼   ► headphones with inline controls are not compatible generally because of different ways that they're

00:07:54 ◼   ► implemented. And I think it's a fair point, but I would say the larger point is you can

00:08:00 ◼   ► literally plug any headphones into any device and hear audio.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Yeah, it's just the buttons, the play/pause button and the volume buttons don't work,

00:08:08 ◼   ► but I don't consider this incompatibility. Like, if you get lightning headphones and

00:08:14 ◼   ► and try and plug them into a USB slot,

00:08:16 ◼   ► it just won't fit and nothing will happen.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Like it's maybe you don't get all of the features,

00:08:21 ◼   ► but it still works.

00:08:23 ◼   ► You just might have to just press a button on the phone

00:08:25 ◼   ► rather than on the headphones.

00:08:26 ◼   ► - You don't go to an AV setup somewhere

00:08:28 ◼   ► where you're going to be playing some music

00:08:30 ◼   ► or doing a presentation and get the headphone jack and go,

00:08:33 ◼   ► oh, this is an Android headphone jack, right?

00:08:35 ◼   ► It's just a headphone jack.

00:08:36 ◼   ► It's just every device will play through that.

00:08:40 ◼   ► - But like I get the point,

00:08:42 ◼   ► like it's not completely compatible,

00:08:43 ◼   ► but the fundamental use of the headphones

00:08:46 ◼   ► can still be performed.

00:08:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's what we were talking about.

00:08:50 ◼   ► - So I've been thinking a little bit more about this,

00:08:52 ◼   ► and I've been thinking about wireless ear pods,

00:08:56 ◼   ► and we'll mention your article in a minute

00:08:58 ◼   ► that you basically wrote this kind of thing out as well,

00:09:03 ◼   ► where I was thinking about an actual product

00:09:06 ◼   ► that Apple could make,

00:09:07 ◼   ► either wireless or with a lightning connector

00:09:10 ◼   ► or that kind of thing.

00:09:12 ◼   ► So let's say for example that Apple released

00:09:15 ◼   ► lightning ear pods that were on a cable.

00:09:18 ◼   ► That'd be fine, I guess you just live with it, right?

00:09:20 ◼   ► Like that's just what you would do.

00:09:22 ◼   ► They would come in the box and if you used ear pods

00:09:24 ◼   ► then you would kinda just deal with it and whatever.

00:09:26 ◼   ► Like that's just how it is.

00:09:28 ◼   ► As some, you know, if you use ear pods

00:09:31 ◼   ► and they're the headphones that you use,

00:09:33 ◼   ► they will still kinda work in the same kinda way.

00:09:36 ◼   ► You just can't really use them on any other device maybe.

00:09:38 ◼   ► And that kinda thing, you just kinda get on with it.

00:09:40 ◼   ► But that's not fantastic.

00:09:42 ◼   ► But if they were to make a product

00:09:45 ◼   ► which people are calling, I guess, AirPods,

00:09:47 ◼   ► and I think they have a trademark on that name.

00:09:49 ◼   ► - Right.

00:09:50 ◼   ► - Seems like the logical name, to be honest.

00:09:52 ◼   ► If you have something called AirPods,

00:09:53 ◼   ► that you would call them AirPods if they were wireless.

00:09:56 ◼   ► I think I would actually kind of like the product

00:10:00 ◼   ► that I think of in my brain for this.

00:10:02 ◼   ► So, you know, I imagine maybe it would be on a cable

00:10:06 ◼   ► like those Jaybird ones are.

00:10:08 ◼   ► I think you kind of have to have them on a cable

00:10:11 ◼   ► like that links to two things together because I imagine it would just be too easy to lose

00:10:16 ◼   ► individual like like little pods and I guess a little tiny battery go that kind of thing

00:10:21 ◼   ► I don't know. But imagine that you had this product and it had a male lightning pull on

00:10:28 ◼   ► it and you would plug it in to charge it or get a quick charge on it like you can with

00:10:33 ◼   ► a pencil. If Apple made something like this I would just want that like I would want that

00:10:38 ◼   ► product like it doesn't matter if they take the headphone jack away or not a little product

00:10:43 ◼   ► where it was able to draw some power from the phone to get a quick charge would be great

00:10:48 ◼   ► because the thing that I don't like about Bluetooth headphones and I have a pair is

00:10:53 ◼   ► the charge anxiety so whenever I if I'm going out for the day and I take my Bluetooth headphones

00:10:59 ◼   ► with me I still take ear pods and put them in my pocket because I like having the buttons

00:11:05 ◼   ► on the headphones that I have I have some Sennheiser ones I'll put a link in the show

00:11:08 ◼   ► notes to them. Um, but I s- I'm kind of of the sense that if I go out, I want to be able

00:11:16 ◼   ► to listen to musical podcasts like that, you know, when I'm out and about. And if I had

00:11:20 ◼   ► no headphones with me and my battery died, then I would be sad. But if I- if they then

00:11:24 ◼   ► died, but I could just plug them into my phone for a minute or two and get like another hours

00:11:29 ◼   ► of battery, you know, if that was how it worked like the Apple Pencil.

00:11:32 ◼   ► Yeah. That would be fantastic. And I don't mind

00:11:34 ◼   ► drawing a little bit of power from my phone in that scenario.

00:11:38 ◼   ► I agree I think that's a good scenario like the Apple Pencil. The Jaybird Blue Buds that

00:11:45 ◼   ► I've got, you know, they've got a cap on the end with a micro USB plug inside. I could

00:11:52 ◼   ► imagine something like this where there's a bigger cap like on the back of the pencil

00:11:56 ◼   ► actually and you flip it open and there's the male lightning and you plug it in and

00:12:02 ◼   ► charges right from the phone and then presumably at that point they do what they do with the

00:12:06 ◼   ► pencil which is ship a female to female adapter in the box that you could stick on the end

00:12:10 ◼   ► of any lightning cable and charge it by any other means. I had another thought that is

00:12:18 ◼   ► not about the theoretical Bluetooth headphones which could provide mitigation to removing

00:12:26 ◼   ► the headphone jack but as I was talking to Mark Orment about this after he was on a talk

00:12:32 ◼   ► show and and he said you know you could also release that product and keep the

00:12:36 ◼   ► headphone jack right I mean it's not required that the headphone jack has to

00:12:40 ◼   ► go away but I was thinking about the the inline an inline adapter so so and I

00:12:46 ◼   ► didn't write about this but follow me here the idea that one way maybe that

00:12:51 ◼   ► that Apple could ship something in the box that would be maybe a good way of

00:12:56 ◼   ► of handling this is existing AirPods.

00:13:00 ◼   ► But imagine that when they get to the end

00:13:02 ◼   ► and there's the headphone jack,

00:13:03 ◼   ► there's a very thin, basically in-line adapter,

00:13:08 ◼   ► like some headphones have where there's like an extension,

00:13:11 ◼   ► like they have short headphones

00:13:12 ◼   ► and then there's a long cable you can attach.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Anyway, an in-line adapter, still in white,

00:13:17 ◼   ► that plugs into the headphone jack

00:13:19 ◼   ► and then continues out with a little bit more cord

00:13:21 ◼   ► and then there's a lightning plug.

00:13:24 ◼   ► If you shipped that in the iPhone without the headphone jack,

00:13:28 ◼   ► the ear pods would be lightning,

00:13:31 ◼   ► but you could also pull the plug and use those ear pods

00:13:35 ◼   ► on all the other Apple devices you own

00:13:37 ◼   ► that do have a headphone jack,

00:13:39 ◼   ► or take the adapter and use it with other headphones.

00:13:43 ◼   ► And it would all be in one.

00:13:44 ◼   ► Now, I don't think that's gonna happen.

00:13:46 ◼   ► I think if they do this and there's an adapter,

00:13:48 ◼   ► it'll be $19, but- - Yeah, it will be.

00:13:51 ◼   ► But, well, but if what they do is change the lightning wiring in this theoretical iPhone

00:13:58 ◼   ► to pass through analog audio, to basically emulate a headphone jack, but with the lightning

00:14:03 ◼   ► port, then that adapter would be pretty cheap. And it would certainly, I think, change the

00:14:11 ◼   ► conversation if that's how they did it. Because then, because one of the things that's hard

00:14:15 ◼   ► to kind of get your head around is the idea that if lightning is the thing and there's

00:14:20 ◼   ► a lightning set of headphones in the box, then not only is there this incompatibility

00:14:26 ◼   ► with the headphone jack, but those headphones can't be used on other Apple devices, which

00:14:32 ◼   ► is also kind of annoying because I know people do that. People plug them into their laptops

00:14:36 ◼   ► and stuff like that, and that will be gone because they'll be lightning headphones. So

00:14:40 ◼   ► what if they're not lightning headphones? What if they're just standard headphones,

00:14:43 ◼   ► the ones that they've been making for ages, and the only difference is that now they ship

00:14:46 ◼   ► with a little inline adapter.

00:14:48 ◼   ► And I'm thinking of it as that simple,

00:14:50 ◼   ► like you almost couldn't tell when it's all plugged in.

00:14:52 ◼   ► It's just all the same color.

00:14:54 ◼   ► There's just kind of like a little bump at the end.

00:14:58 ◼   ► And then it continues to a lightning adapter.

00:15:01 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe, I'm just saying,

00:15:02 ◼   ► I think that would be a really nice way to do it.

00:15:05 ◼   ► But yeah, it's hard to see Apple not just.

00:15:07 ◼   ► - That would be kind of large, right?

00:15:08 ◼   ► The adapter would be--

00:15:10 ◼   ► - Not necessarily, if it doesn't have to have

00:15:12 ◼   ► a digital to analog converter in it,

00:15:14 ◼   ► because it's just passing through an analog audio signal

00:15:18 ◼   ► over the lightning port.

00:15:19 ◼   ► It wouldn't necessarily have to be very large at all.

00:15:22 ◼   ► 'Cause lightning's not very large.

00:15:26 ◼   ► You just, I mean, you would need a,

00:15:27 ◼   ► I've seen this, like Shure makes these headphones

00:15:30 ◼   ► that are short and then there's a long extension cord.

00:15:34 ◼   ► And the idea there is that you can sort of choose

00:15:35 ◼   ► what kind of cord you want

00:15:37 ◼   ► and whether it's a long cord or a short cord.

00:15:39 ◼   ► And that was, you know, it's larger than a wire,

00:15:43 ◼   ► but it's not a lot larger.

00:15:45 ◼   ► So maybe.

00:15:46 ◼   ► - David in the chat room is mentioning something

00:15:49 ◼   ► that many people have said,

00:15:50 ◼   ► which is if Apple drops the headphone jack,

00:15:52 ◼   ► it would be shocking if they didn't include an adapter

00:15:54 ◼   ► in the box.

00:15:55 ◼   ► They didn't do it when they changed

00:15:57 ◼   ► from 30 pin to lightning.

00:15:59 ◼   ► I don't think they would include an adapter

00:16:01 ◼   ► because, and it's why I think

00:16:02 ◼   ► whilst your product sounds nice,

00:16:04 ◼   ► I also don't think they'll do it.

00:16:05 ◼   ► Because anytime you include an adapter,

00:16:08 ◼   ► you are saying that the change that you've made

00:16:10 ◼   ► is not the benefit.

00:16:11 ◼   ► Like it's not beneficial

00:16:12 ◼   ► because it's like you're not willing to move along with us

00:16:16 ◼   ► in this story that we're telling

00:16:18 ◼   ► because we're allowing you to claw on.

00:16:20 ◼   ► I mean, I appreciate what you're saying makes sense,

00:16:22 ◼   ► but, and I know it's like,

00:16:24 ◼   ► 'cause then you could also use those headphones

00:16:25 ◼   ► with other devices,

00:16:27 ◼   ► but everybody already has headphones for other devices.

00:16:29 ◼   ► - And they wouldn't have to change the design

00:16:31 ◼   ► of the AirPods because, or the EarPods,

00:16:33 ◼   ► because they would just continue to be with a mini jack

00:16:37 ◼   ► and they would just ship it.

00:16:38 ◼   ► I don't know, it would be an interesting way

00:16:41 ◼   ► to approach that situation, but that would solve a lot of these different issues.

00:16:46 ◼   ► But I think it shines a spotlight on what you're doing, right? Like if you're like,

00:16:51 ◼   ► "Oh, okay, so we've made this change. We promise it's for the best, but here's this little

00:16:55 ◼   ► adapter that we're going to put in the box because maybe it's not as good as you would

00:17:00 ◼   ► want it to be." Like, I just feel like they wouldn't do it. If they didn't do it when

00:17:03 ◼   ► they were saying, "The cables you've been building up for years and years and years

00:17:06 ◼   ► were changing," I don't see them doing it with headphones either.

00:17:09 ◼   ► I think it's not a perfect analog. I think there's some differences, but we'll see. It

00:17:14 ◼   ► was a thought that occurred to me that it would be a way for them to super soft pedal

00:17:17 ◼   ► it by just saying, "And we've got a..." And of course, your EarPods come in the box. They

00:17:25 ◼   ► come with an adapter so you can unplug them and plug them into your Mac. You can plug

00:17:29 ◼   ► other headphones in. Just like, not a big deal. It's just one of the features we provide.

00:17:34 ◼   ► It's just a little thing in the box. It's like part of the EarPods. It's not a big deal.

00:17:38 ◼   ► I could see that as a way for them to kind of super downplay it, but this only works

00:17:42 ◼   ► if they can build a cheap inline adapter that doesn't have to have a digital analog converter

00:17:47 ◼   ► on it. And, you know, that's where we're so deep down in. This is one of the points I

00:17:52 ◼   ► make in that article I wrote on six colors is we can make all of the circumstances around

00:17:57 ◼   ► this be anything we want because it doesn't exist. We're all just making it up. There's

00:18:01 ◼   ► just one rumor and then everything else around it is speculation. So it's hard.

00:18:05 ◼   ► So I've put in the show notes of course the article that you wrote and I like

00:18:11 ◼   ► when I read things like this and I can see how our conversation and everything

00:18:15 ◼   ► else kind of leads into these articles. I love that type of stuff.

00:18:18 ◼   ► But there was just a line that I just wanted to quote that I really liked

00:18:22 ◼   ► where you were talking about some of the potential reasons for why they might

00:18:26 ◼   ► want to do this and effectively summing it up in what I think is a great one

00:18:30 ◼   ► liner. The root of any of these changes would be a decision to make the headphone

00:18:34 ◼   ► jack expendable. Like whatever Apple decide to do, they feel that doing that is good enough

00:18:42 ◼   ► to make the headphone jack ready to kill.

00:18:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I think even in the first hour after posting my article, I got a whole bunch of

00:18:54 ◼   ► tweets that were like, "But what about this? But what about this? But what about this?

00:18:57 ◼   ► But what about this?" which I expected because my whole article is about 11 "But what about?"

00:19:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:19:05 ◼   ► - And a lot of them can be answered by saying,

00:19:09 ◼   ► that's really more of an excuse than a reason, right?

00:19:13 ◼   ► Like the, 'cause the, I think I used that,

00:19:17 ◼   ► what you just quoted in the space argument,

00:19:19 ◼   ► like, oh, well, you could take out the headphone jack

00:19:21 ◼   ► and use that space for something else.

00:19:22 ◼   ► It's like, well, you could,

00:19:24 ◼   ► but they, Apple has been keeping the headphone jack

00:19:27 ◼   ► and finding other things to put in the iPhone for a while.

00:19:31 ◼   ► So what was it that made them say this time,

00:19:33 ◼   ► oh, this time it has to be the headphone jack.

00:19:36 ◼   ► And the answer is a concerted decision

00:19:39 ◼   ► to remove the headphone jack.

00:19:40 ◼   ► In the end, so many of the arguments come back to

00:19:45 ◼   ► Apple decided that it was expendable

00:19:47 ◼   ► because they de-prioritized it.

00:19:51 ◼   ► And that's, again, that could be fine

00:19:53 ◼   ► depending on what the benefit is.

00:19:54 ◼   ► It's just that I have yet to hear any benefit

00:19:56 ◼   ► that really seems to counterbalance it.

00:19:59 ◼   ► Because yeah, they can, so many of these things,

00:20:02 ◼   ► like, "Well, yes, they did this and they did that, but they could have done something else."

00:20:05 ◼   ► They decided to drop the headphone jack as a part of a redesign that added something

00:20:10 ◼   ► else. But I don't think I've seen an argument that says, "That headphone jack, without it

00:20:16 ◼   ► there, that's all that's required, and the only way to do this is to take that out,"

00:20:21 ◼   ► you know, because I don't think that exists. I think that in the end, Apple has to just

00:20:24 ◼   ► decide we're going to do this, we're going to make this trade. And, you know, my question

00:20:28 ◼   ► all along has been, "What are we trading it for?"

00:20:30 ◼   ► Okay, Jason, we're still not done. I have more things that I want to talk about with

00:20:37 ◼   ► this.

00:20:38 ◼   ► Okay.

00:20:39 ◼   ► But I want to take our first break first and thank Igloo for supporting this week's episode.

00:20:43 ◼   ► Look, work is no longer a single location. Teams can be together half a world away. Look

00:20:50 ◼   ► at me and Jason, right? We work together pretty much every day, but we are never in the same

00:20:56 ◼   ► place when we're doing this stuff except for like two or three times a year.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Igloo is a modern intranet designed to keep everyone on the same page. You can share files,

00:21:05 ◼   ► have real conversations in real time and do it all while still being able to use the apps

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00:21:14 ◼   ► Igloo brings everything together and creates a single destination that lets you focus on

00:21:19 ◼   ► your work. Put simply, Igloo is an intranet you'll actually like. Try it today at igloosoftware.com/upgrade.

00:21:26 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Igloo for their support of this show and relay FM.

00:21:32 ◼   ► I wanted to address the argument of Apple could do something that we haven't thought

00:21:36 ◼   ► of. This is another argument that I think I've seen a lot, right? Like, oh, we just

00:21:42 ◼   ► cannot conceive the magic that Apple might be able to create. There is history for this,

00:21:47 ◼   ► right? Like this is not a completely dumb argument, but it is used always. Whenever

00:21:53 ◼   ► anybody thinks Apple's gonna do something bad, this argument is brought out because

00:21:57 ◼   ► there is precedent but it's not always 100%. My belief is, whatever the reason Apple give,

00:22:03 ◼   ► we already have discussed it. It has been discussed. Probably in the article that you've

00:22:07 ◼   ► written, right? Like, it's gonna be one of those things.

00:22:10 ◼   ► Or a combination of them, right? I mean, I--

00:22:13 ◼   ► Yes, yes, yes.

00:22:14 ◼   ► I have heard that from some people too. It's like, "Ah, you're looking for one reason."

00:22:16 ◼   ► But it'll be all of the reasons. I'm like, "Okay, all of no good reasons is still not

00:22:21 ◼   ► a good reason." But okay, all right.

00:22:22 ◼   ► - If you multiply zero by four, it's still a zero.

00:22:26 ◼   ► Like you don't get anything out of it.

00:22:27 ◼   ► But I think now is just a case of the story,

00:22:31 ◼   ► how it is spun.

00:22:33 ◼   ► Do you agree with that?

00:22:34 ◼   ► - I think, well, I think it's possible.

00:22:37 ◼   ► I've seen it where Apple has brought something out

00:22:39 ◼   ► and it's like, oh, but look what we did.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Isn't this really clever?

00:22:42 ◼   ► And you're like, oh, oh, interesting.

00:22:44 ◼   ► Like it's possible.

00:22:46 ◼   ► I do think it's possible that there's something

00:22:47 ◼   ► that we haven't quite got yet.

00:22:49 ◼   ► That we just, whether it's in the details

00:22:51 ◼   ► of something that's related to something

00:22:52 ◼   ► we've been talking about,

00:22:53 ◼   ► but not quite what Apple's going to do,

00:22:55 ◼   ► that they've got a very clever approach

00:22:57 ◼   ► that we haven't anticipated.

00:22:58 ◼   ► A lot of really smart people at Apple

00:23:00 ◼   ► who gets paid a lot of money to spend

00:23:01 ◼   ► all of their brain power on this stuff, right, all the time.

00:23:05 ◼   ► So it's absolutely possible, but,

00:23:09 ◼   ► but I agree with you that a more likely scenario is

00:23:14 ◼   ► it's some collection of things that we've talked about

00:23:17 ◼   ► with a story spun around it

00:23:20 ◼   ► about like why this product is so great

00:23:23 ◼   ► and it does all of these things

00:23:25 ◼   ► and why this is no longer here because it's not necessary

00:23:28 ◼   ► because of all these great things that Apple did.

00:23:29 ◼   ► And that's sort of how my story

00:23:32 ◼   ► that I wrote on "Six Colors" ends, which is that,

00:23:35 ◼   ► which is, you know, ultimately we don't know

00:23:39 ◼   ► until Apple tries to tell us why they did this.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Then we'll know and be able to judge

00:23:43 ◼   ► whether we think it's a good decision or a bad decision.

00:23:45 ◼   ► But until that point, we're missing important,

00:23:49 ◼   ► maybe even the most important piece of the puzzle,

00:23:52 ◼   ► which is what's the story around this?

00:23:54 ◼   ► Like what's the explanation for this?

00:23:55 ◼   ► And how is Apple selling this as a move forward?

00:23:59 ◼   ► Because ultimately that's what I'm saying

00:24:01 ◼   ► is I'm not seeing the benefit to this.

00:24:05 ◼   ► Where's the trade off that adds this?

00:24:07 ◼   ► And they may tell us that.

00:24:10 ◼   ► And that may be a satisfying answer

00:24:12 ◼   ► or it may be not a satisfying answer.

00:24:14 ◼   ► I think my concern right now

00:24:15 ◼   ► is that I'm having a hard time

00:24:16 ◼   ► seeing how it will be a satisfying answer for me.

00:24:19 ◼   ► But I am also open to the idea that it might be.

00:24:24 ◼   ► You never know.

00:24:25 ◼   ► I mean, the piece I wrote in six colors finally lands.

00:24:28 ◼   ► I was trying to think of like scenarios

00:24:29 ◼   ► that I really understand and can accept as like,

00:24:31 ◼   ► okay, you know, where's the final acceptance here?

00:24:34 ◼   ► And my final acceptance ended up being

00:24:36 ◼   ► that two ports is one more port than one port.

00:24:40 ◼   ► And that ultimately this is what Apple does,

00:24:43 ◼   ► is simplify and take stuff away

00:24:46 ◼   ► and try to have most as many things as possible

00:24:50 ◼   ► go through as few channels as possible,

00:24:52 ◼   ► ideally of the same kind.

00:24:53 ◼   ► That's like a thing they do.

00:24:55 ◼   ► And the company that made the MacBook

00:24:58 ◼   ► is a company that would take a headphone jack off of a phone.

00:25:01 ◼   ► It's like the same company.

00:25:03 ◼   ► That does make sense to me.

00:25:04 ◼   ► The idea of, well, you only need one port.

00:25:07 ◼   ► Yes, I know you have peripherals.

00:25:08 ◼   ► Yes, I know you charge.

00:25:09 ◼   ► But most people don't do both of those at the same time.

00:25:11 ◼   ► Most people don't have peripherals at all.

00:25:13 ◼   ► Those people will buy adapters.

00:25:15 ◼   ► yeah, it'll be more complex for that situation,

00:25:18 ◼   ► but in all other situations, it'll be less complex,

00:25:20 ◼   ► and that's what we're going for here.

00:25:22 ◼   ► That's the argument for the MacBook.

00:25:23 ◼   ► And I think that probably would be the argument

00:25:26 ◼   ► for losing the headphone jack.

00:25:27 ◼   ► Is that simple?

00:25:28 ◼   ► Not we needed to do it because we wanted to make it easier

00:25:31 ◼   ► to waterproof, but more like headphone jack, don't need it.

00:25:35 ◼   ► Lightning's good enough.

00:25:36 ◼   ► Yeah, we know there's a little pain there,

00:25:39 ◼   ► but most people use ear pods, it'll be fine.

00:25:42 ◼   ► And I think maybe that's the most realistic scenario here

00:25:46 ◼   ► is that it's, that's it.

00:25:48 ◼   ► That there's no big like sales pitch about like,

00:25:51 ◼   ► well, we had to do this.

00:25:52 ◼   ► And it's really literally just,

00:25:54 ◼   ► hey, it's one fewer port.

00:25:55 ◼   ► You can still listen using your headphones with an adapter.

00:25:58 ◼   ► And now we only have to have the one port on the iPhone.

00:26:01 ◼   ► End.

00:26:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it's gonna,

00:26:05 ◼   ► I honestly think it's just gonna be like,

00:26:07 ◼   ► the times have changed and wireless is the best.

00:26:10 ◼   ► I think it's pretty much as good as we're gonna get.

00:26:12 ◼   ► And let me tell you, I would rather have Apple say that

00:26:15 ◼   ► than use some of these arguments that I've heard

00:26:18 ◼   ► that I think are kind of bogus.

00:26:20 ◼   ► Like I would much rather not,

00:26:22 ◼   ► I don't want Apple to stand up there and say,

00:26:23 ◼   ► "Oh, digital connection, better audio quality,"

00:26:26 ◼   ► and stuff like that, 'cause that's bogus.

00:26:27 ◼   ► That's all just BS.

00:26:29 ◼   ► So I would much rather Apple just be typical Apple and say,

00:26:33 ◼   ► removing the headphone jack makes it better

00:26:36 ◼   ► because it's simpler and there's an adapter if you need it,

00:26:39 ◼   ► but the future is wireless and isn't it awesome.

00:26:42 ◼   ► and there are great, look at these great Beats,

00:26:43 ◼   ► Bluetooth headphones that we've got,

00:26:45 ◼   ► and they sound fantastic,

00:26:47 ◼   ► and we're using the latest Bluetooth standards,

00:26:48 ◼   ► and they're awesome, and yay, and then they move on,

00:26:52 ◼   ► and just like leave it at that,

00:26:53 ◼   ► because we can still grumble about it,

00:26:55 ◼   ► but in some ways, no justification is better

00:26:59 ◼   ► than bad justification.

00:27:01 ◼   ► - So there have been some rumors over the last day or two,

00:27:04 ◼   ► which I believe has been mostly debunked by this point,

00:27:08 ◼   ► that Apple is looking to buy Jay-Z's title.

00:27:11 ◼   ► Yeah, there were reports that they were in preliminary talks and then I saw another report

00:27:16 ◼   ► that said they had a couple of sources who said that Apple is absolutely not going to

00:27:19 ◼   ► buy Tidal. You know, maybe something big happened over the weekend that we don't know about,

00:27:25 ◼   ► but I doubt this is going to happen, but it's worth us. This leads into another conversation

00:27:31 ◼   ► I think that you wanted to have.

00:27:32 ◼   ► Yeah, well, and I also too remember this exact same thing happening with Beats.

00:27:36 ◼   ► That's true.

00:27:37 ◼   ► This is ridiculous!

00:27:38 ◼   ► It's crazy. And then, you know, and then, hey, uh, the reason I wanted to mention this is because

00:27:45 ◼   ► Tidal's big thing, one of their big marketing points is high fidelity streaming music. Like they will stream lossless

00:27:51 ◼   ► Um, I tried to find some details about this in full on their website

00:27:57 ◼   ► They have a hilarious video that you should just go and watch where they try and illustrate what lossless is like

00:28:03 ◼   ► Where they basically just put more instruments into a song. It's kind of funny

00:28:07 ◼   ► But they do this, this is something that they do.

00:28:12 ◼   ► They have high quality streams and they have lossless streams.

00:28:15 ◼   ► So one thing I was thinking was, if Apple were to do this, and again, this decision

00:28:21 ◼   ► is probably too far down the pipe for this even to make any sense, but it did make me

00:28:24 ◼   ► think of something that they could at least try and couple this in and this could be an

00:28:28 ◼   ► upcoming feature to Apple Music, lossless streaming, is that a marketing reason for

00:28:33 ◼   ► removing the headphone jack is because they are also doing lossless streaming which they

00:28:38 ◼   ► say will be better with lightning headphones for high quality audio. Right so it's like

00:28:43 ◼   ► a lot of the crappy things that we've heard people talk about bundled together in one

00:28:50 ◼   ► right? We have high quality streams in Apple Music for the high fidelity headphones you

00:28:55 ◼   ► now have.

00:28:56 ◼   ► I would I would much rather Apple be its classic arrogant self of we know best you'll like it trust us

00:29:02 ◼   ► You'll you'll stop complaining and it won't matter

00:29:05 ◼   ► then to have them become like Neil Young and try to sell to sell snake oil to people about how how the

00:29:12 ◼   ► digital connection on lightning is somehow better than the

00:29:15 ◼   ► The analog connection from the headphone jack because it's not true

00:29:19 ◼   ► It's just not true. It's dumb, but it just did just it flicked a switch in my brain when I saw this rumor

00:29:26 ◼   ► - Well, I think the lossless audio and high quality audio

00:29:29 ◼   ► as a, 'cause some people can tell the difference

00:29:32 ◼   ► and there are lower quality streams

00:29:34 ◼   ► on when you're like listening via streaming, right?

00:29:39 ◼   ► They often, there's an option at least

00:29:41 ◼   ► to have a lower quality stream

00:29:43 ◼   ► because lossless also is really huge

00:29:44 ◼   ► and it'll eat up your cell phone data.

00:29:47 ◼   ► But I could see Apple going down that route

00:29:49 ◼   ► in terms of like marketing with Apple Music

00:29:51 ◼   ► to offering a plan that has higher quality streams

00:29:54 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:29:54 ◼   ► quite frankly the high quality streams are pretty great with Apple music so

00:29:59 ◼   ► You know, I don't know. I don't know it's it's a way to differentiate for title

00:30:05 ◼   ► But I'm not sure that it's something that anybody really wants or could value. Yeah

00:30:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I completely agree with you, but it did think I was thinking why would you do this?

00:30:14 ◼   ► Like what, you know, what would I would assume that whether they buy them or not?

00:30:18 ◼   ► They at least entertained it which is where the rumor came from

00:30:21 ◼   ► Because Tidal were probably looking for a way out at this point. I don't think they're doing very well

00:30:25 ◼   ► I think they have like three million subscribers or something

00:30:28 ◼   ► And a lot of people sign up for Tidal and quit Tidal just so they can get the exclusive album

00:30:34 ◼   ► I mean one of the things they could do this for is exclusives. They could be getting technology

00:30:39 ◼   ► They could be getting access to Jay-z, you know, any of these reasons could be important to them

00:30:44 ◼   ► But this seemed like one of them last point today

00:30:48 ◼   ► Today, I do say today on the headphone jack, I saw this linked on Daring Fireball that

00:30:56 ◼   ► one of Apple's suppliers, a company called Cirrus Logic, has released a kit for creating

00:31:02 ◼   ► lightning headphones.

00:31:04 ◼   ► The reason that this kit is interesting to me, and I assume the reason that John linked

00:31:09 ◼   ► to it, is because it is available via Apple's MFI programs.

00:31:14 ◼   ► you can get a reference design that they've created,

00:31:18 ◼   ► a reference iOS app for making adjustments to the headphones,

00:31:22 ◼   ► and also resources to help MFI licensees create

00:31:26 ◼   ► Lightning headphones.

00:31:28 ◼   ► So this is even more smoke for the fire, right?

00:31:30 ◼   ► Whether this means the headphone jack's going away or not

00:31:32 ◼   ► is a different thing, but they are

00:31:35 ◼   ► trying to provide more ability for people to create

00:31:39 ◼   ► these Lightning headphones.

00:31:42 ◼   ► - Yep, I mean, lightning headphones exist today.

00:31:45 ◼   ► This will allow people to make more of them.

00:31:47 ◼   ► I'm unclear, you know, as Jon said in his post,

00:31:52 ◼   ► it's unclear whether this means they know something

00:31:56 ◼   ► or they're just trying to be opportunistic

00:31:58 ◼   ► in case the headphone jack goes away.

00:32:02 ◼   ► Do they have inside information

00:32:03 ◼   ► or do they have the same information we all have

00:32:05 ◼   ► and are trying to get ahead of it?

00:32:07 ◼   ► 'Cause I'm reminded of all the iPhone part leaks

00:32:10 ◼   ► that end up being because case makers

00:32:12 ◼   ► are trying to make, are trying to get the exact specs

00:32:15 ◼   ► so that they can get their cases out on day and date

00:32:17 ◼   ► or as close to it as possible with the new iPhone.

00:32:20 ◼   ► And sometimes they're wrong

00:32:21 ◼   ► and they've got cases that they can't use,

00:32:23 ◼   ► but is it worth the risk in order to get the jump on sales?

00:32:27 ◼   ► And, you know, so that's the question here is,

00:32:30 ◼   ► are they, do they know something

00:32:31 ◼   ► or do they just know what we all know?

00:32:33 ◼   ► - I mean, whatever they know, Apple is distributing it.

00:32:36 ◼   ► So, I mean, that's a little bit more than a case leak, right?

00:32:39 ◼   ► Apple is distributing this guide that this company has created.

00:32:42 ◼   ► - Right, but Apple, you know,

00:32:43 ◼   ► Apple likes people to make lightning things, right?

00:32:45 ◼   ► So that it doesn't necessarily mean anything more than that.

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00:34:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:57 ◼   ► There was a report this week on ReCode that seems to indicate that Apple and Spotify are

00:35:02 ◼   ► at loggerheads right now. Spotify are claiming that this is because Apple doesn't want competition

00:35:10 ◼   ► for Apple Music. Apple is staying quiet. So the situation is that it all stems back to

00:35:17 ◼   ► the fact that Spotify are very unhappy that they have to give Apple a cut when they use

00:35:22 ◼   ► the in-app purchase subscription system. And over the years Spotify have tried to get around

00:35:30 ◼   ► this in many different ways. They've always tried to push people to sign up on their site

00:35:35 ◼   ► and they actually make it cheaper. So for example, I think it's $9.99 a month if you

00:35:41 ◼   ► sign up on the Spotify website or it's $12.99 a month if you sign up in the app. Previously,

00:35:48 ◼   ► they have run a 99 cents for three months deal to people that go and sign up online

00:35:55 ◼   ► and they've started doing this again recently.

00:35:58 ◼   ► Apple now apparently, as Spotify are claiming,

00:36:05 ◼   ► blocking an app update and threatening removal

00:36:08 ◼   ► if Spotify continues to do this.

00:36:11 ◼   ► Spotify says Apple are trying to hold them down now

00:36:14 ◼   ► because they don't want competition for Apple Music.

00:36:17 ◼   ► And I guess it is also worth noting for this discussion

00:36:20 ◼   ► that Apple have just recently cut subscription fee to 15%

00:36:24 ◼   ► for any of their customers that are one year or over, right?

00:36:27 ◼   ► Like with everybody.

00:36:29 ◼   ► So there's a lot to unpack here.

00:36:32 ◼   ► And I think one of the key parts to note

00:36:35 ◼   ► is that Spotify have broken Apple's subscription rules,

00:36:40 ◼   ► right?

00:36:41 ◼   ► You can't do, you're not supposed to be able to do

00:36:43 ◼   ► any of the stuff that Spotify is doing here, right?

00:36:46 ◼   ► It should be the same price everywhere as one of them.

00:36:48 ◼   ► You shouldn't be pushing people to your website

00:36:51 ◼   ► to go and sign up.

00:36:51 ◼   ► You're not supposed to do any of this.

00:36:53 ◼   ► Yeah, but Spotify does it.

00:36:55 ◼   ► Which begs the question, why has Spotify

00:36:57 ◼   ► been able to get away with it?

00:36:59 ◼   ► And now, why are Apple stopping them now?

00:37:03 ◼   ► So I think there are valid arguments on both sides of this.

00:37:07 ◼   ► Spotify should toe the line and do what the rules say,

00:37:10 ◼   ► if they want to be on the iPhone.

00:37:13 ◼   ► But you can understand maybe why Spotify

00:37:15 ◼   ► is getting more upset now, because all of a sudden, Apple

00:37:17 ◼   ► has a problem with it.

00:37:19 ◼   ► What do you think?

00:37:21 ◼   ► - I, it sounds to me from what I've read about this,

00:37:25 ◼   ► that this is Spotify trying to make trouble and complain.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Right?

00:37:31 ◼   ► That Spotify is doing things in their app update

00:37:35 ◼   ► that are pushing people out to the web

00:37:37 ◼   ► that Apple has decided goes too far.

00:37:41 ◼   ► Now, I think this is a dumb thing.

00:37:44 ◼   ► I actually, this is a place where I think

00:37:47 ◼   ► Apple's guidelines are bad, which is,

00:37:49 ◼   ► I'm okay with Apple saying, I don't love it,

00:37:51 ◼   ► but I'm okay with it.

00:37:53 ◼   ► And I understand it when Apple says,

00:37:54 ◼   ► "Look, if you use our payment procedures,

00:37:58 ◼   ► you need to pay us.

00:38:01 ◼   ► And we're not gonna let you integrate

00:38:04 ◼   ► an alternate method of payment directly inside your app.

00:38:09 ◼   ► Use ours.

00:38:10 ◼   ► Ours is there, we trust it, our users trust it, use that."

00:38:14 ◼   ► I don't like Apple saying,

00:38:16 ◼   ► Don't give people any indication

00:38:19 ◼   ► that there are other ways for you to buy things.

00:38:22 ◼   ► Because I think that that's user hostile.

00:38:25 ◼   ► People can buy, I buy comics from Comixology

00:38:28 ◼   ► and books from Amazon on my iPad all the time in Safari.

00:38:33 ◼   ► Right?

00:38:35 ◼   ► It's not that you can't do it.

00:38:37 ◼   ► It's that Apple doesn't wanna make,

00:38:39 ◼   ► one, it doesn't wanna make it easy for third parties

00:38:42 ◼   ► to send people through an app experience,

00:38:45 ◼   ► which is going to be less good,

00:38:48 ◼   ► although maybe they should allow it if they use Apple Pay.

00:38:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:38:54 ◼   ► But I think it goes too far.

00:38:56 ◼   ► That's my opinion is I feel like Amazon

00:38:58 ◼   ► should be able to say,

00:38:59 ◼   ► you can go to our web store if you wanna buy books,

00:39:03 ◼   ► and here's a link.

00:39:04 ◼   ► And Spotify should say,

00:39:05 ◼   ► you can go to our website to sign up.

00:39:09 ◼   ► But Spotify is really good at that.

00:39:15 ◼   ► is trying to make trouble because Apple's a competitor.

00:39:18 ◼   ► It is true, and this is true with Amazon and books too,

00:39:21 ◼   ► that by raising their prices by 30%,

00:39:24 ◼   ► they're less competitive than Apple Music

00:39:26 ◼   ► because they're more expensive than Apple Music,

00:39:28 ◼   ► or they have to take a bigger hit.

00:39:30 ◼   ► At the same time, they are allowed to sell

00:39:32 ◼   ► outside of the store, and the benefit inside

00:39:36 ◼   ► is that it's so easy to sign up

00:39:38 ◼   ► and use Apple's systems in order to do it.

00:39:40 ◼   ► And now Apple's changed the term so that after a year,

00:39:42 ◼   ► Spotify gets more of that money than they did in the past.

00:39:45 ◼   ► They get 85% of it instead of 70.

00:39:49 ◼   ► So, you know, Spotify wants what it can't have,

00:39:54 ◼   ► I guess is what I would say.

00:39:56 ◼   ► And I understand why they would want more.

00:39:58 ◼   ► And there are some issues that I think

00:40:00 ◼   ► they're probably in the right about

00:40:02 ◼   ► that Apple should probably change its policies.

00:40:04 ◼   ► But this seems like a very strange bit of a brinksmanship

00:40:09 ◼   ► to try and accomplish that.

00:40:12 ◼   ► What do you think about the idea that Apple is kind of putting their foot down now?

00:40:18 ◼   ► Because it seems like Spotify aren't necessarily doing anything they haven't already done before.

00:40:23 ◼   ► Do we know that?

00:40:24 ◼   ► Do we know that?

00:40:25 ◼   ► Or did Spotify put changes in their app that Apple has decided go too far and so they're

00:40:31 ◼   ► gonna say "No no no no, you don't get to do that."

00:40:33 ◼   ► So we don't know the exact details but we know they've broken the rules in public,

00:40:37 ◼   ► frequently in the past.

00:40:39 ◼   ► And Apple has not stopped them.

00:40:42 ◼   ► Do you think that they should be stopping them

00:40:44 ◼   ► if they're breaking the rules?

00:40:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, the rules are the rules, right?

00:40:50 ◼   ► Everybody else is gonna want to break the rules

00:40:55 ◼   ► if Apple lets Spotify do it, right?

00:40:59 ◼   ► So I think this hinges on,

00:41:02 ◼   ► did Spotify do something like stick a very clear message

00:41:06 ◼   ► message to potential customers that they should go to Spotify's website, which is

00:41:11 ◼   ► against the rules. And that's what made Apple reject it. Or is

00:41:16 ◼   ► this something that Spotify has been doing for a while now? It's also possible,

00:41:19 ◼   ► because, you know, the App Store, right? It's also possible that this was against

00:41:24 ◼   ► the rules and finally somebody noticed and then it escalated, which, you know,

00:41:29 ◼   ► you'd hate to see, because ideally people should be on top of this. This is a major

00:41:32 ◼   ► product from a major company but I think I for me that's one of the questions

00:41:37 ◼   ► here is is Spotify trying to do new stuff to get away from it in order to

00:41:40 ◼   ► cause this to be a controversy and I don't know but given that I mean this is

00:41:47 ◼   ► they're trying to get Apple to get bad PR in order to get Apple to cave it

00:41:53 ◼   ► seems like a really bad strategy to me especially since Apple just gave them

00:41:57 ◼   ► back 15% of their customers money after a year of subscriptions so it's actually

00:42:06 ◼   ► a better deal for Spotify but I don't know. So the recode piece cites that

00:42:12 ◼   ► Spotify tried to do this promotion again where they actively tell iPhone users to

00:42:17 ◼   ► sign up on the site. The biggest change here is that they have also turned off

00:42:21 ◼   ► this app store billing option which has led to the current dispute. So it seems

00:42:27 ◼   ► like now, like maybe Apple were happy with it when they had both, right? Like even though

00:42:32 ◼   ► they were breaking the rules. But now Spotify is like, they've turned off the ability to

00:42:36 ◼   ► sign up and now they're trying to push everyone away now that they're, now they're having

00:42:41 ◼   ► a big problem with it. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean this also then goes back to the, the

00:42:49 ◼   ► idea of who's worse off. Is Apple worse off if there's no Spotify or is Spotify worse

00:42:56 ◼   ► off if they don't have Apple. I don't know what the answer to that question is in all honesty.

00:43:00 ◼   ► Because I mean, you know, you could say that Apple will do fine elsewhere,

00:43:05 ◼   ► but Spotify is bigger than Apple Music. It's massive and continuing to grow.

00:43:11 ◼   ► And Apple ultimately sells hardware. Would they not want all of the big apps on their platform,

00:43:21 ◼   ► But then in the same vein, there are many, many iPhone users.

00:43:29 ◼   ► Arguably there are arguments to say that they are more likely to buy things than Android

00:43:34 ◼   ► users.

00:43:35 ◼   ► That has been a long argument.

00:43:36 ◼   ► I don't know the statistics of whether that's true or not.

00:43:39 ◼   ► I'm just going on the perceived understanding.

00:43:42 ◼   ► So is it more important for Spotify to be on iOS?

00:43:46 ◼   ► It's difficult to weigh these two things up.

00:43:48 ◼   ► I think they both kind of need each other, which is maybe why they've put up with each

00:43:53 ◼   ► other for as long as they have, but it seems like that now they're at an inflection point.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Spotify is just trying to squeeze more money out. I mean, that's the bottom line here.

00:44:03 ◼   ► And they're in a tough business. Streaming music is a tough business, and the margins

00:44:06 ◼   ► are bad, and nobody, you know, and the artists don't get paid well. And I mean, it's a mess

00:44:10 ◼   ► of a business anyway, except for consumers who love it. And they're trying to squeeze

00:44:15 ◼   ► more money out of Apple, which is funny because they are going to get more money out of Apple.

00:44:18 ◼   ► with this new thing, but they want to not compensate Apple.

00:44:22 ◼   ► And what Apple's saying is, "You're on our platform.

00:44:24 ◼   ► You are going to compensate us for making money

00:44:26 ◼   ► on our platform by using our payment system

00:44:30 ◼   ► as the easy way."

00:44:32 ◼   ► - Now that they're breaking the rules

00:44:34 ◼   ► and have removed Apple's payment system,

00:44:37 ◼   ► they're kind of like, "Yeah, no way, guys.

00:44:39 ◼   ► This has got to stop."

00:44:41 ◼   ► - You know, look, I think it would be perfect without,

00:44:43 ◼   ► this is what Amazon did,

00:44:44 ◼   ► and it leads to a bad user experience.

00:44:46 ◼   ► But if you really want to take your ball and go home,

00:44:48 ◼   ► you put a Spotify app on the store

00:44:50 ◼   ► that doesn't do anything unless you log in.

00:44:53 ◼   ► And so you download Spotify and it says,

00:44:58 ◼   ► log in to your Spotify account here,

00:45:01 ◼   ► but you can't sign up

00:45:03 ◼   ► and you have to go to Spotify's website to sign up.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Now that's really bad user behavior

00:45:07 ◼   ► and it will repel some users,

00:45:09 ◼   ► but it does essentially mean that 100% of your sales

00:45:12 ◼   ► are going to come through the payment processing system

00:45:17 ◼   ► that you control, which is exactly what Amazon does.

00:45:20 ◼   ► And you could do that, they could do that.

00:45:23 ◼   ► What they've chosen to do is use Apple's system

00:45:25 ◼   ► because it allows them to do it in the app

00:45:27 ◼   ► and it's super easy and Apple takes a cut of that.

00:45:30 ◼   ► And so, those are the rules Apple has set out.

00:45:32 ◼   ► And what Spotify is trying to do is say,

00:45:35 ◼   ► we want that system, we wanna have our cake and eat it too.

00:45:38 ◼   ► And I would prefer that Apple let them do web links

00:45:46 ◼   ► to their sign-in, but even then,

00:45:49 ◼   ► I think it's okay for Apple to say,

00:45:50 ◼   ► you can't offer in-app purchase

00:45:52 ◼   ► and then drive everybody to not use it, right?

00:45:55 ◼   ► That's a bad user experience too.

00:45:58 ◼   ► Like if you offer in-app purchase,

00:46:00 ◼   ► let people just sign up with in-app purchase.

00:46:03 ◼   ► Don't say, well, you really shouldn't.

00:46:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:46:08 ◼   ► - You should go there, but you can if you want dummy,

00:46:10 ◼   ► but you shouldn't, that's dumb.

00:46:12 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:46:13 ◼   ► - But it seems like Apple do find it worse

00:46:15 ◼   ► and I get why, when you then don't offer that option

00:46:20 ◼   ► and then try and tell people to go sign up.

00:46:23 ◼   ► I think that's too much rule breaking for them.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Because Amazon aren't allowed to do that,

00:46:28 ◼   ► Netflix weren't allowed to do that

00:46:30 ◼   ► before Netflix allowed you to sign up

00:46:31 ◼   ► with the in-app purchase stuff.

00:46:33 ◼   ► Where they were basically, you'd open the app

00:46:35 ◼   ► and it just said login and had nothing else.

00:46:39 ◼   ► And I think probably that's what it looks like at least,

00:46:41 ◼   ► Spotify were trying to go towards,

00:46:44 ◼   ► But I expect it said, go and sign up.

00:46:46 ◼   ► And they were like, no, we're not doing this.

00:46:48 ◼   ► And that's where they've ended up getting to this point

00:46:51 ◼   ► where they're like, we let you break the rules

00:46:52 ◼   ► because there were still some people

00:46:54 ◼   ► that were giving us money,

00:46:56 ◼   ► and you were also big enough that we didn't wanna kill you,

00:46:58 ◼   ► but now we've gone too far.

00:47:00 ◼   ► And again, I don't know how I feel about this.

00:47:04 ◼   ► Because I mean, I've said before,

00:47:05 ◼   ► I felt this way with the 30% thing,

00:47:08 ◼   ► I didn't think 30% should have to apply to everyone

00:47:11 ◼   ► 'cause I think that Apple needs Netflix and Amazon

00:47:15 ◼   ► and Spotify and others as much as the reverse.

00:47:19 ◼   ► But now with the 15% change,

00:47:21 ◼   ► I feel like maybe there's some steps being made

00:47:26 ◼   ► in the right direction.

00:47:27 ◼   ► And I do believe that the 15% change shows

00:47:31 ◼   ► that there is possibility for Apple to be doing secret deals

00:47:35 ◼   ► with some of these bigger companies.

00:47:36 ◼   ► Maybe they just say to them,

00:47:38 ◼   ► look it's 15% always for you guys right and I'm kind of okay with that personally uh because

00:47:44 ◼   ► it isn't a level playing field I'm sorry like that's just business right um I don't think

00:47:50 ◼   ► Apple are attempting to run like a socialist regime you know if they need something from

00:47:57 ◼   ► these companies need to give a little bit in return and that's how I believe the 15%

00:48:01 ◼   ► thing came around because they were giving it to TV people because they wanted their

00:48:05 ◼   ► apps on tv os and now it's kind of filtered down into ios as well with the subscription stuff

00:48:11 ◼   ► and i you know i hope that apple are saying to netflix it's 15 for you always because that will

00:48:16 ◼   ► continue to push netflix into doing things like picture in picture right that right it's it's a

00:48:23 ◼   ► give and take here you know um and maybe maybe they're not doing anything for amazon right they

00:48:29 ◼   ► because they're like screw you Amazon but I don't know I just hope that Apple

00:48:35 ◼   ► aren't being too stubborn about this which could make Spotify leave that

00:48:40 ◼   ► platform I think the platform is too big for them to leave I think I think

00:48:45 ◼   ► Spotify taking their ball and going home is Spotify taking all the IAP stuff out

00:48:53 ◼   ► of the app and the Apple's leverage there is that Spotify knows that people

00:48:57 ◼   ► want to sign up on the device and inside the app.

00:49:00 ◼   ► And Apple provides that.

00:49:02 ◼   ► And that's the price of being on the platform.

00:49:03 ◼   ► If you want that easy access to the customers,

00:49:06 ◼   ► you pay 30% for a year, which is basically your acquisition fee.

00:49:09 ◼   ► And then it's 15% after that.

00:49:10 ◼   ► It's not a terrible deal.

00:49:11 ◼   ► It's not great, I admit it.

00:49:12 ◼   ► But it's not a terrible deal, especially

00:49:14 ◼   ► for a subscription service.

00:49:15 ◼   ► It's much harder for Amazon, which

00:49:18 ◼   ► is selling books and comics and stuff like that,

00:49:21 ◼   ► where you're never going to get down to 15%

00:49:23 ◼   ► because it's not a subscription model.

00:49:24 ◼   ► It's just individual purchase.

00:49:25 ◼   ► but for Spotify, they'll get down there after a year.

00:49:28 ◼   ► And so, I think that's what would happen

00:49:32 ◼   ► is they would just rip out in-app purchase entirely

00:49:35 ◼   ► and just say, you have to sign up on the site

00:49:40 ◼   ► and maybe they'll head there, I don't know.

00:49:44 ◼   ► I think what Spotify is ultimately gonna do,

00:49:47 ◼   ► my guess would be that they'll blink

00:49:49 ◼   ► and they'll do what Apple wants

00:49:50 ◼   ► and they'll continue to agitate outside

00:49:53 ◼   ► to see if they can get,

00:49:54 ◼   ► Like they were trying very hard to get like politicians to say,

00:49:59 ◼   ► 'cause Elizabeth Warren came out and said,

00:50:01 ◼   ► "Oh, this is an Apple's using."

00:50:03 ◼   ► She was like, "Amazon and Google and Apple

00:50:06 ◼   ► are all doing monopolistic, terrible things."

00:50:08 ◼   ► And Spotify was her example for Apple of like,

00:50:12 ◼   ► "Oh, Apple Music and they're unfairly competing."

00:50:16 ◼   ► And I agree that to a certain point,

00:50:21 ◼   ► It is murky once Apple is the one competing with these people who are there demanding

00:50:27 ◼   ► a 30% markup from.

00:50:31 ◼   ► And that could be problematic for Apple, but so far it hasn't been.

00:50:35 ◼   ► Spotify, I know you're out there listening.

00:50:39 ◼   ► My advice to you is play by the rules and then maybe Apple will give you something in

00:50:44 ◼   ► return.

00:50:45 ◼   ► How about that?

00:50:46 ◼   ► Just play by the rules, guys.

00:50:47 ◼   ► You've been breaking them for far too long.

00:50:49 ◼   ► (mimics air horn)

00:50:51 ◼   ► This just in, Myke, this just in.

00:50:54 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:50:55 ◼   ► - That was the telegraph.

00:50:56 ◼   ► So this also breaking news from several days ago

00:50:59 ◼   ► for those who are listening on the podcast

00:51:01 ◼   ► and not listening live,

00:51:02 ◼   ► but Apple actually did respond to Spotify

00:51:05 ◼   ► and sent a letter and specified something

00:51:08 ◼   ► that we mentioned earlier, which is,

00:51:10 ◼   ► according to Apple, Spotify removed the in-app purchase

00:51:14 ◼   ► and added an account signup feature

00:51:16 ◼   ► intended to circumvent Apple's in-app purchase rules

00:51:19 ◼   ► and that's clearly a violation that's not allowed.

00:51:23 ◼   ► And then apparently they did that again.

00:51:25 ◼   ► They did that in May, they did that in June again,

00:51:28 ◼   ► where they had the signup feature,

00:51:31 ◼   ► which was like put in an email address

00:51:33 ◼   ► and then we will send you a link

00:51:35 ◼   ► and then you can go sign up on the web

00:51:36 ◼   ► and that was rejected 'cause that's again,

00:51:38 ◼   ► just trying to circumvent the rules.

00:51:40 ◼   ► So we've got that.

00:51:41 ◼   ► So it seems to me that this is just more information

00:51:45 ◼   ► about Spotify trying to precipitate a confrontation

00:51:50 ◼   ► with Apple about this and Apple saying, "Nope."

00:51:53 ◼   ► - Good work by us though, huh?

00:51:54 ◼   ► Like we got basically everything in our conversation.

00:51:58 ◼   ► But you know that like as the conversation starts,

00:52:01 ◼   ► again, let's break the fourth wall again.

00:52:03 ◼   ► Listen, I know you were screaming at us

00:52:05 ◼   ► 'cause you already knew this, but we didn't know this.

00:52:07 ◼   ► But now we do know this.

00:52:08 ◼   ► - We've come back in time.

00:52:10 ◼   ► - It's kind of the best and worst time

00:52:12 ◼   ► for the news to break.

00:52:14 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:52:14 ◼   ► (mimics beeping)

00:52:16 ◼   ► Anyway, the telegram, there it is.

00:52:18 ◼   ► Now we know.

00:52:18 ◼   ► - Very nice.

00:52:19 ◼   ► - Let's move on, again.

00:52:21 ◼   ► - It is Independence Day.

00:52:23 ◼   ► So, Jason, why don't we talk about

00:52:25 ◼   ► your independence a little bit?

00:52:27 ◼   ► We haven't spoken about this for a while.

00:52:29 ◼   ► I know when the show started out,

00:52:31 ◼   ► me and you spent quite a bit of time

00:52:33 ◼   ► talking about our new independent lives.

00:52:35 ◼   ► Your one was very fresh,

00:52:36 ◼   ► mine was pretty fresh at that point.

00:52:38 ◼   ► And we were going through that pretty much together

00:52:41 ◼   ► in those days, so--

00:52:44 ◼   ► - That's true.

00:52:45 ◼   ► - We haven't really visited for a while,

00:52:46 ◼   ► so I wanted to see how, you know,

00:52:48 ◼   ► I think, what, you're approaching two years nearly?

00:52:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's coming up two years.

00:52:53 ◼   ► - Yep, same for both of us, really.

00:52:54 ◼   ► And so I wondered, on the whole,

00:52:56 ◼   ► do you feel like you made the right move?

00:52:58 ◼   ► Are you running back to IDG anytime soon?

00:53:01 ◼   ► - No, you know, the truth is,

00:53:03 ◼   ► last night I had a nightmare where I was visiting IDG

00:53:08 ◼   ► and was told to come to a meeting

00:53:09 ◼   ► and they laid everybody off.

00:53:11 ◼   ► - Oh no!

00:53:12 ◼   ► - Everybody, everybody.

00:53:13 ◼   ► - Why did they ask you?

00:53:14 ◼   ► - Actually, no, actually, no, in the dream,

00:53:16 ◼   ► in the dream, they didn't lay everybody off.

00:53:19 ◼   ► They called everybody into a room and they said,

00:53:21 ◼   ► "Yeah, yeah, come along."

00:53:22 ◼   ► And then they called out like the names of three people

00:53:25 ◼   ► and said, "You, get out."

00:53:27 ◼   ► And then everybody else like, "Yes, you all lost your jobs."

00:53:29 ◼   ► And I'm like, "But I don't even work here anymore."

00:53:31 ◼   ► It was quite a moment.

00:53:33 ◼   ► It was, I woke up and I was like,

00:53:34 ◼   ► "Oh my God, that was terrible."

00:53:37 ◼   ► - They fired you from your own website.

00:53:39 ◼   ► - I know, what is happening?

00:53:41 ◼   ► I was like, "No, but I was there as me today.

00:53:43 ◼   ► I was like not, I was already gone and yet I was witnessing this, it was not good.

00:53:50 ◼   ► I'm sorry, because this is probably my fault, right?

00:53:53 ◼   ► Because you've read the document and you've gone to sleep.

00:53:56 ◼   ► It's possible, it's possible.

00:53:57 ◼   ► No, it was absolutely the right move.

00:53:58 ◼   ► I mean the reality is that, if looking at what's going on there, I think that if I had

00:54:05 ◼   ► wanted to stay, I would have stayed and I would have been allowed to stay.

00:54:12 ◼   ► that I was so unhappy with my job that, you know, the, I had to go, right? I had to leave.

00:54:19 ◼   ► There was no way that I could stay. It was not. It had weighed down on me for far too

00:54:23 ◼   ► long. I should have gone earlier. So I don't, I don't regret leaving at all. I probably

00:54:30 ◼   ► should have done it earlier, like a year earlier. When I sort of tried to, when I was building

00:54:35 ◼   ► my home office that I'm now sitting in and yeah, yeah, I should have. So absolutely the

00:54:41 ◼   ► the right move to do that.

00:54:43 ◼   ► And it's funny coming up on two years

00:54:46 ◼   ► that it's also been the right move for me to do this

00:54:49 ◼   ► and not like leave there and start applying

00:54:52 ◼   ► for other corporate media jobs,

00:54:54 ◼   ► which I don't want to do.

00:54:57 ◼   ► - Well, me and you had a conversation,

00:55:00 ◼   ► one of our, if not our first,

00:55:03 ◼   ► one of our first conversations in person,

00:55:05 ◼   ► at all, like in my first year in what, like 2013,

00:55:09 ◼   ► I'm gonna say, or 14.

00:55:11 ◼   ► where we both sat down and kind of spoke about this stuff.

00:55:14 ◼   ► And I know for me, it led me to decide to go off

00:55:18 ◼   ► and do my own thing.

00:55:19 ◼   ► Like that conversation was like a real turning point for me.

00:55:21 ◼   ► And it's funny to think like how long ago that was now.

00:55:25 ◼   ► And then even for both of us,

00:55:26 ◼   ► it was well over a year longer before we were able to do it.

00:55:29 ◼   ► And I kind of wanted to go through a couple of the key

00:55:33 ◼   ► things when looking back at this type of decision.

00:55:36 ◼   ► I want to talk about maybe some mistakes you've made.

00:55:39 ◼   ► Do you feel that you've done anything

00:55:41 ◼   ► over your last kind of 18 months

00:55:45 ◼   ► that you did was worthwhile doing,

00:55:47 ◼   ► but you've realized I don't wanna do that again.

00:55:50 ◼   ► - Nope, it's all been perfect, Myke.

00:55:51 ◼   ► Perfect, perfect, perfect.

00:55:52 ◼   ► - Good work.

00:55:53 ◼   ► - No, six I made,

00:55:56 ◼   ► well, a lot of the stuff that happened at the beginning,

00:55:59 ◼   ► I had good reasons for it.

00:56:01 ◼   ► So I'm not sure I regret it, but like.

00:56:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, no regrets.

00:56:06 ◼   ► Like I don't, anything that I've done is no regrets

00:56:08 ◼   ► 'cause I'm still in the learning phase, right?

00:56:10 ◼   ► Like if I'm still doing these things

00:56:11 ◼   ► in two or three years time, that's a mistake.

00:56:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, David Chob in the chat room says this,

00:56:18 ◼   ► incomparable superhero spectacular, yes.

00:56:20 ◼   ► - That was not a mistake.

00:56:21 ◼   ► I loved that entire series.

00:56:24 ◼   ► I think I'm the only person that did.

00:56:25 ◼   ► Everybody seems to-- - No, everybody loved it.

00:56:28 ◼   ► Except the people who were on it.

00:56:29 ◼   ► - Yeah. - 'Cause it went on forever.

00:56:31 ◼   ► So here's my story.

00:56:35 ◼   ► First mistake I made, like I said,

00:56:36 ◼   ► was allowing myself to be talked out of quitting

00:56:40 ◼   ► when I did, because I ended up with eight more months

00:56:44 ◼   ► of being really unhappy.

00:56:46 ◼   ► I wish I could have launched six colors

00:56:51 ◼   ► a month after I left IDG.

00:56:54 ◼   ► And the way it turned out is my last full day of work

00:57:00 ◼   ► at IDG was the day that the iPhone came out,

00:57:04 ◼   ► and the iPhone 6 and that the day the Apple watch

00:57:06 ◼   ► was announced.

00:57:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:57:08 ◼   ► - And that is the high season for Apple stuff.

00:57:12 ◼   ► I got a phone under embargo for the next week for Mac world

00:57:16 ◼   ► and it was my last day and I knew it was my last day.

00:57:20 ◼   ► And so I launched six colors on the 16th

00:57:25 ◼   ► when I came back from XOXO.

00:57:30 ◼   ► So I left Macworld, had a day,

00:57:35 ◼   ► had dinner with Scott McNulty, who was visiting.

00:57:41 ◼   ► And the next day I went to Portland

00:57:43 ◼   ► and was there for a long weekend,

00:57:47 ◼   ► flew back and then launched the site.

00:57:49 ◼   ► And so that is a regret, but I think it was necessary

00:57:53 ◼   ► 'cause it was the time to hit when people were listening,

00:57:57 ◼   ► people are watching and say, now is the time.

00:58:00 ◼   ► And we did, we launched upgrade then too,

00:58:01 ◼   ► the same time, same day.

00:58:02 ◼   ► - Whilst I was in Italy, I think.

00:58:05 ◼   ► - Right, but we prerecorded and released it.

00:58:08 ◼   ► So it's one of those things where I always envy people

00:58:11 ◼   ► who quit their jobs or leave their jobs or whatever.

00:58:13 ◼   ► And then they're like, oh, well, I'm gonna go,

00:58:15 ◼   ► I'm gonna go not work for a month.

00:58:16 ◼   ► And then I start my new job or two weeks or whatever.

00:58:18 ◼   ► And that just didn't happen.

00:58:20 ◼   ► So I kind of regret that, but it had to be done.

00:58:23 ◼   ► And then I took on some assignments that I didn't love.

00:58:25 ◼   ► And they paid me.

00:58:29 ◼   ► And that was fine, but those were instructional

00:58:33 ◼   ► in the sense that I learned what I liked to do

00:58:36 ◼   ► and don't like to do and was able to calibrate

00:58:39 ◼   ► sort of like assignments that I don't want.

00:58:41 ◼   ► But in the early days, I said yes to a lot of things

00:58:43 ◼   ► that I didn't really enjoy.

00:58:46 ◼   ► And it's one of those things where it's nice to know

00:58:50 ◼   ► that there are assignments out there like that.

00:58:52 ◼   ► It's nice to be in a position

00:58:53 ◼   ► where you can turn down assignments

00:58:55 ◼   ► and essentially turn down money.

00:58:56 ◼   ► But I realized there's certain kind of work

00:58:58 ◼   ► that I would prefer not to do if I can fill my time

00:59:00 ◼   ► with other kinds of work.

00:59:01 ◼   ► So I'd say that was a lesson learned.

00:59:04 ◼   ► Not sure I would say that was a mistake so much

00:59:07 ◼   ► as just that it was, yeah, it was something I had to learn

00:59:12 ◼   ► and that I wouldn't do again.

00:59:14 ◼   ► And then the other thing I would say that I look back on

00:59:17 ◼   ► is I wish I had, I was so reluctant to ask people for money

00:59:22 ◼   ► that I put off doing memberships on six colors

00:59:27 ◼   ► for a good like nine months.

00:59:31 ◼   ► When I could have launched it in the matter,

00:59:33 ◼   ► it only took me a couple of days to get it up and running.

00:59:36 ◼   ► But I put it off for nine months because--

00:59:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, I remember--

00:59:38 ◼   ► - I was really reluctant to do it.

00:59:40 ◼   ► - The fretting over that, basically.

00:59:43 ◼   ► Which was many conversations that me and you had,

00:59:45 ◼   ► you know, you really kind of took your time on that.

00:59:48 ◼   ► I mean, it meant you did it right,

00:59:49 ◼   ► but you could have done it sooner than you did, I think.

00:59:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, the stuff I did in whenever it was,

00:59:58 ◼   ► September or something, August, September,

01:00:00 ◼   ► when I launched it was no different

01:00:04 ◼   ► than what I would have done in January.

01:00:06 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:00:07 ◼   ► - I just didn't do it.

01:00:09 ◼   ► And it was really, I kept putting it off

01:00:10 ◼   ► because I didn't want to.

01:00:11 ◼   ► And the fact is it's made a huge difference.

01:00:15 ◼   ► The fact that we've got subscribers who support us,

01:00:18 ◼   ► it makes six colors much more viable.

01:00:23 ◼   ► It insulates it when there are times when there are no ads on the site.

01:00:27 ◼   ► It gives us other means for us to keep prioritizing it and doing it.

01:00:32 ◼   ► And so it's been another piece of the puzzle, and I wish I had done that sooner.

01:00:38 ◼   ► I think for me, when I think back over this time period as well, I don't think I've made

01:00:44 ◼   ► any catastrophic mistakes.

01:00:48 ◼   ► I've just learned how to operate some business relationships.

01:00:53 ◼   ► I now know the types of relationships that I like, the type that I don't, and how to

01:00:58 ◼   ► work better within those relationships and to put different constraints on them, ask

01:01:04 ◼   ► for different things.

01:01:05 ◼   ► I work with many companies, lots and lots of companies.

01:01:10 ◼   ► And there are big companies, there are companies that are go-betweens, I'm thinking about the

01:01:15 ◼   ► business stuff, the sponsorship stuff.

01:01:17 ◼   ► And I've just gotten better at dealing with that, understanding what those companies need.

01:01:22 ◼   ► And a lot of that, just in the understanding, it was just realizing that I can ask questions.

01:01:29 ◼   ► I think that was a big thing for me.

01:01:31 ◼   ► People would say terms and I'd be like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:01:33 ◼   ► No problem."

01:01:34 ◼   ► But I had no idea what they were talking about, right?

01:01:36 ◼   ► Because there is a jargon in the industry that I'm in, right?

01:01:40 ◼   ► In the advertising industry, I guess.

01:01:41 ◼   ► There is a jargon.

01:01:43 ◼   ► Everybody understands some accepted terms, but didn't make sense to me because I'd never

01:01:47 ◼   ► done it before. But learning that I was okay to ask questions to that stuff has been something

01:01:53 ◼   ► that I have learned a lot. But I wouldn't really say that I've had any big mistakes.

01:02:00 ◼   ► What do you think are some of the best opportunities that have come your way in your year of independence?

01:02:06 ◼   ► Um, oh, I don't know. The, I'd say podcasting, I would actually say when I set off on this,

01:02:17 ◼   ► I expected that I would have sort of like the Six Colors and Freelance Writing stream

01:02:24 ◼   ► and some podcasting opportunities too, but I didn't really know what to make of that

01:02:29 ◼   ► and you know, Incomparable has been good and we've launched a bunch of shows there and

01:02:37 ◼   ► then all the stuff on relay too.

01:02:39 ◼   ► Hello.

01:02:40 ◼   ► Hi.

01:02:41 ◼   ► How does it feel to be mainly solo though, right?

01:02:45 ◼   ► You don't have a team of people around you like you used to when you were at IDG.

01:02:51 ◼   ► How have you adjusted to that?

01:02:54 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a challenge, although I mean I think Slack has helped. I wrote about this

01:03:03 ◼   ► a little bit. I feel like I do have teams around me. There's the, you know, Dan who

01:03:09 ◼   ► does a lot of six color stuff with me, the relay team, the incomparable team, and so

01:03:15 ◼   ► I've got that. And I guess that's work in the 21st century, right? Is this idea that

01:03:19 ◼   ► you've got different projects with different people,

01:03:23 ◼   ► and that may be something that more and more people

01:03:26 ◼   ► experience is rather than having one project

01:03:28 ◼   ► with one group of coworkers,

01:03:30 ◼   ► they've got a bunch of different stuff going on

01:03:32 ◼   ► with different people,

01:03:33 ◼   ► and then those people have different projects going on

01:03:35 ◼   ► and so on and so on.

01:03:36 ◼   ► I feel like it's not quite the same

01:03:38 ◼   ► because I do feel the pressure with six colors of like,

01:03:41 ◼   ► in some cases, if I don't do it, it doesn't happen,

01:03:43 ◼   ► and so I need to do it.

01:03:44 ◼   ► I don't have somebody I can be like,

01:03:47 ◼   ► okay, you guys take care of this while I'm gone.

01:03:48 ◼   ► I do some of that like with Dan,

01:03:50 ◼   ► where he can pick up for me a little bit,

01:03:52 ◼   ► but it's not the same.

01:03:53 ◼   ► So that's the downside of it.

01:03:56 ◼   ► But I do feel like I'm not on my own

01:04:01 ◼   ► that I've got collaborators all over the place.

01:04:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think I mostly agree with that.

01:04:08 ◼   ► I am right now in like a post-conference slump

01:04:13 ◼   ► where like I was around everyone for a few days

01:04:17 ◼   ► and it's kind of sad to come back and there's nobody here,

01:04:20 ◼   ► right, or just like one or two people, if that.

01:04:24 ◼   ► And so that sort of stuff, it can be a bit like,

01:04:28 ◼   ► oh, this isn't as nice.

01:04:30 ◼   ► And that's kind of how I feel right now.

01:04:32 ◼   ► But on the whole, I do agree.

01:04:34 ◼   ► Like I don't need there to be an office.

01:04:37 ◼   ► I don't need everyone to be around all the time

01:04:39 ◼   ► because it actually kind of works, Slack stuff works.

01:04:43 ◼   ► And one of the big things for me

01:04:45 ◼   ► where I don't feel lonely is that I do stuff like this.

01:04:49 ◼   ► Like I talk to people all the time.

01:04:51 ◼   ► I talk to all my friends.

01:04:52 ◼   ► I talk to you more than I would if we lived in the same town

01:04:57 ◼   ► because we talk every week, right?

01:04:58 ◼   ► Like imagine there's no podcast.

01:04:59 ◼   ► Imagine we work in some company together

01:05:02 ◼   ► or we're just friends.

01:05:03 ◼   ► I definitely talk to you more

01:05:05 ◼   ► because we have this structured time

01:05:06 ◼   ► that we talk every week.

01:05:08 ◼   ► But it is a bit, you know, it can be a bit sad

01:05:11 ◼   ► when you're departed from everyone again

01:05:12 ◼   ► after being around each other for so long.

01:05:15 ◼   ► And that's independence, but that's how it is, right?

01:05:19 ◼   ► When you're independent in this way.

01:05:20 ◼   ► And I'm even more independent

01:05:21 ◼   ► 'cause I live on the other side of the world

01:05:23 ◼   ► to everybody else.

01:05:24 ◼   ► What are some of the things that you still want to do

01:05:29 ◼   ► in your self-employment

01:05:30 ◼   ► that you haven't had the chance to do yet?

01:05:33 ◼   ► - I wanna do videos.

01:05:39 ◼   ► I wanna do more videos

01:05:41 ◼   ► because I'm really intrigued by that medium

01:05:43 ◼   ► and it's just one of those things that I have not,

01:05:44 ◼   ► I have to find time to do it, and that's a challenge.

01:05:49 ◼   ► I need to finish rewriting my novel,

01:05:52 ◼   ► which I'm only partway through,

01:05:54 ◼   ► because I would like to finish the rewrite and publish it.

01:05:58 ◼   ► And I would like to do more,

01:06:03 ◼   ► I would say more books or another book project.

01:06:07 ◼   ► I wanna do a podcasting project, a book, video, something.

01:06:11 ◼   ► I'm not sure, but carving out the time for that is hard.

01:06:14 ◼   ► I'm also updating my photos book,

01:06:17 ◼   ► which is gonna take some time this summer,

01:06:19 ◼   ► 'cause there's a lot going on with photos now, it turns out.

01:06:21 ◼   ► But yeah, so there's a bunch of things I've got on my list.

01:06:26 ◼   ► And that's the challenge is always,

01:06:28 ◼   ► how do you balance your time and not, you know,

01:06:31 ◼   ► when do you put in the extra hours

01:06:34 ◼   ► and what projects do you put those in on

01:06:35 ◼   ► and what's the return in terms of sort of long-term growth

01:06:39 ◼   ► and short-term cash and things like that.

01:06:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, I get all of that, totally.

01:06:44 ◼   ► What are some things that you think

01:06:48 ◼   ► you're definitely gonna change in year three though?

01:06:50 ◼   ► Like, you know, there are things you still wanna do,

01:06:52 ◼   ► but are there any that are on the kind of

01:06:55 ◼   ► the near horizon to you that you think

01:06:57 ◼   ► will definitely be able to change?

01:06:59 ◼   ► - Who knows?

01:07:04 ◼   ► I mean, every day I'm thinking about it.

01:07:05 ◼   ► So I think that's the question is just finding balance,

01:07:09 ◼   ► finding a way to do the right number of projects

01:07:12 ◼   ► for the right benefit, whatever that benefit might be.

01:07:16 ◼   ► Because some of the projects I do,

01:07:17 ◼   ► I do because they're interesting or fun or new

01:07:20 ◼   ► or try something different.

01:07:21 ◼   ► And some of the projects I do because I think

01:07:23 ◼   ► this is gonna be a smart project

01:07:24 ◼   ► that is going to help me make my living.

01:07:27 ◼   ► And so different motivations for different kinds of projects

01:07:31 ◼   ► and I'm, but I'm always looking at that.

01:07:34 ◼   ► I think that's healthy.

01:07:35 ◼   ► I think you and Steven do that with Relay too.

01:07:37 ◼   ► It's like, you're always making those questions about like,

01:07:41 ◼   ► So I don't have a year three list or something,

01:07:45 ◼   ► nor do I have a, even go by calendar year.

01:07:48 ◼   ► I just don't do that, but I do,

01:07:49 ◼   ► I'm asking myself that question all the time.

01:07:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think about this stuff,

01:07:53 ◼   ► and I think about it in a relatively informal way.

01:07:56 ◼   ► I think we're gonna do it a little bit more formally

01:07:59 ◼   ► for year three of Relay FM.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Like me and Steven are gonna be together

01:08:04 ◼   ► for our anniversary week,

01:08:05 ◼   ► and that's one of the things we're gonna talk about.

01:08:06 ◼   ► I'm heading out to Memphis.

01:08:07 ◼   ► We're gonna do a bunch of stuff from Memphis.

01:08:10 ◼   ► So I think that's going to be something that we can look at a little bit more in a more

01:08:15 ◼   ► structured way.

01:08:16 ◼   ► I don't know if that is what works for us, but we're going to try it anyway, you know?

01:08:21 ◼   ► Because we haven't really.

01:08:22 ◼   ► I mean, at least I don't.

01:08:23 ◼   ► I think of things a little bit more informally.

01:08:26 ◼   ► And we thought about goals and stuff as a company, but maybe there is a better structure

01:08:31 ◼   ► for us than the one that we currently have.

01:08:35 ◼   ► Would you like to add anything more to your independence topic before we move into Ask

01:08:39 ◼   ► Upgrade?

01:08:40 ◼   ► - I don't think so.

01:08:42 ◼   ► Thank you for asking.

01:08:43 ◼   ► I think it's going pretty well.

01:08:44 ◼   ► I am very grateful that I was thinking about this

01:08:47 ◼   ► the other day that before I had the nightmare

01:08:50 ◼   ► that when I started this,

01:08:52 ◼   ► I really didn't know how it was gonna work,

01:08:55 ◼   ► how long it was gonna go.

01:08:57 ◼   ► Just sort of basic worries of like, can this work?

01:09:02 ◼   ► And right now I'm in a place

01:09:04 ◼   ► where I'm definitely not complacent.

01:09:06 ◼   ► I'm always concerned about it,

01:09:07 ◼   ► but I feel like this is what I do

01:09:11 ◼   ► and I've been able to do this and stay doing this.

01:09:14 ◼   ► And that makes me happy

01:09:16 ◼   ► because this is what I wanna do.

01:09:17 ◼   ► So I hope I can continue to do that.

01:09:19 ◼   ► There are always threats out there

01:09:21 ◼   ► and there are always gonna be opportunities and setbacks.

01:09:24 ◼   ► But the fact that I am here nearly two years later

01:09:29 ◼   ► still doing this is kind of amazing to me on one level

01:09:35 ◼   ► and I'm very grateful for it.

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01:11:44 ◼   ► It's time for Ask Upgrade Jason.

01:11:47 ◼   ► Yay pew pew pew Ask Upgrade.

01:11:50 ◼   ► Nice I'm gonna go with the pronunciation of Lachlan here because it sounds fancy enough

01:11:57 ◼   ► that it might be correct.

01:11:59 ◼   ► And they would like to know,

01:12:01 ◼   ► I think this is probably directed at me exclusively,

01:12:04 ◼   ► if there is any kind of time

01:12:06 ◼   ► when I use both of my iPads at once.

01:12:10 ◼   ► I am well known as being a multi iPad person.

01:12:14 ◼   ► There are definitely times where I use them both at once.

01:12:18 ◼   ► I very frequently use more than one iOS device.

01:12:22 ◼   ► It might be my iPhone and my iPad or both of my iPads.

01:12:25 ◼   ► and some of this stuff can come from me wanting to be able to see multiple applications in

01:12:34 ◼   ► full screen at once or it can be me getting around an application that doesn't use split

01:12:38 ◼   ► screen. So sometimes I will need to update some Google Sheets and we'll use one iPad

01:12:45 ◼   ► with the Google Sheet and the other one with some reference material that I need. Maybe

01:12:49 ◼   ► I'm filling out like a spreadsheet of download statistics or something. So I'm using my web

01:12:54 ◼   ► browser and Google sheets and I'm using two iPads that way. But there also can be times

01:12:59 ◼   ► where I am watching a video and maybe want to take notes on it and want to watch the

01:13:03 ◼   ► video in full screen so I can do that or I can prop up the video and take notes or maybe

01:13:09 ◼   ► you know I was using that talk show app recently and I had multiple things happening and once

01:13:15 ◼   ► I was doing that on one iPad because I wanted the full screen there and then I was also

01:13:19 ◼   ► have some notes running on another one. I know it can be kind of crazy to use both and

01:13:24 ◼   ► to be honest, that's not why I own both. It's not so I can use them both at the same time.

01:13:30 ◼   ► An iPad for every app. Every iPad has one app on it.

01:13:33 ◼   ► Exactly. It's more that I just believe that each iPad has different uses, but I do like

01:13:38 ◼   ► having the flexibility of having them both to use if I do want to do that. You know,

01:13:42 ◼   ► there might be some times where me and Adina will be watching a video in bed and I want

01:13:46 ◼   ► to just grab something to do some work or whatever and I have two iPads to do that with

01:13:49 ◼   ► and it's nice. But mostly it's just I like to use them both for their different things

01:13:54 ◼   ► that I use them with as opposed to having these devices so they can be used simultaneously.

01:13:59 ◼   ► Lachlan, did I have a second question?

01:14:03 ◼   ► Of course.

01:14:04 ◼   ► Which is what do you use the Apple Pencil for most and what apps take advantage of it

01:14:08 ◼   ► nicely? The most use I get out of the Apple Pencil is navigating UI. So scrolling and

01:14:15 ◼   ► interacting with things. And I do this a lot and I find it very comfortable. I am awake

01:14:19 ◼   ► I'm a

01:14:30 ◼   ► more precise touch target than I do with my chubby fingers. You know I'm able to hit inside

01:14:37 ◼   ► of cells and stuff very easily with the Apple Pencil and I like it for that. If I'm doing

01:14:43 ◼   ► something that requires lots of tapping then I will do that. Like if I'm sitting down to

01:14:48 ◼   ► do something like spreadsheet work. And I know I'm mentioning spreadsheets a lot. I

01:14:53 ◼   ► do work in a lot of spreadsheets which is probably why. And what apps take advantage

01:14:59 ◼   ► of it nicely. I mean, if you're thinking about like drawing apps and stuff like that, you

01:15:03 ◼   ► know, there are applications like Procreate and Paper that do a good job with this stuff.

01:15:09 ◼   ► I use two note taking applications, one called Notability and one called Good Notes. They're

01:15:16 ◼   ► really good for taking notes of stuff and dealing with documents. But the other thing

01:15:21 ◼   ► that I use my pencil for a lot is signing stuff and I use PDF pen to sign contracts

01:15:29 ◼   ► and things like that. I do that a lot with my Apple pencil because more than anything

01:15:34 ◼   ► I like to sign an actual document. I like it. I like signing stuff with an actual little

01:15:41 ◼   ► pencil where it's really signing it. I know it's kind of silly but I don't know it feels

01:15:45 ◼   ► more fancy to me.

01:15:48 ◼   ► Next up is from Will.

01:15:50 ◼   ► Will wants to know, and I'm gonna go to you first, Jason,

01:15:53 ◼   ► because I mean, I didn't even think it was worth

01:15:55 ◼   ► asking you about the Apple Pencil, to be honest.

01:15:57 ◼   ► - No.

01:15:58 ◼   ► - Do you name your computers or iPads or devices

01:16:02 ◼   ► in your home?

01:16:03 ◼   ► If so, can you give an example of some of the names

01:16:06 ◼   ► and what would be a good name for Will's Pixel C?

01:16:10 ◼   ► So Will is giving us an important life question to answer,

01:16:13 ◼   ► so we can come to that in a moment,

01:16:15 ◼   ► but do you name your devices?

01:16:17 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:16:18 ◼   ► - I do.

01:16:19 ◼   ► - Why do you do this?

01:16:20 ◼   ► - Why not?

01:16:23 ◼   ► - Exactly, you have the ability to, right?

01:16:25 ◼   ► Why not give them names?

01:16:26 ◼   ► - I can name them and also when in certain circumstances,

01:16:29 ◼   ► when you're on a network or you're looking at iTunes

01:16:31 ◼   ► to authorize or deauthorize devices,

01:16:34 ◼   ► having them say iPhone is not helpful, right?

01:16:38 ◼   ► It's better for them to have names.

01:16:39 ◼   ► My, generally my devices that I own

01:16:44 ◼   ► have monkey in the name because why not? Monkeys are great. And so like my iMac is iMonkey.

01:16:53 ◼   ► My phone is MonkeyPhone 6S. My iPad is, I believe my iPad Pro is MonkeyPad Pro. I like

01:17:00 ◼   ► that monkey can be either the i section or the other part section, right? So you have

01:17:06 ◼   ► iMonkey but then monkey phone and monkey pad. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. Monkey Mac. That's

01:17:14 ◼   ► no good monkey yes that's it and my for ancillary devices I will sometimes name

01:17:20 ◼   ► them after other apes or monkeys or other primates so my server my Mac mini

01:17:26 ◼   ► server right now is called Gibbon and I think I think it used to be gorilla and

01:17:31 ◼   ► now it's given when I redid it I gave it a new name or maybe gorilla gorilla

01:17:35 ◼   ► might even be the name of the hard drive the volume on which the Gibbon server

01:17:39 ◼   ► runs just to mix my apes. But I decided for a theme when, so Adam and Tanya Engst, who

01:17:46 ◼   ► do tidbits, they got on the internet very early, they had lots of different servers

01:17:50 ◼   ► in the tidbits.com domain, including all of the devices, and all of their devices at their

01:17:56 ◼   ► house had names, and they were all the names of penguins. And if you go back in time to

01:18:03 ◼   ► many different Unix labs, especially computer labs at universities in the early days of

01:18:08 ◼   ► internet they all had naming themes or many of them had naming themes where it would be

01:18:13 ◼   ► penguins or cats or whatever and so I took from that some inspiration to say okay monkey

01:18:20 ◼   ► monkeys are going to be and other apes and primates are going to be my thing.

01:18:24 ◼   ► I have named stuff in the past and it would go with a convention so I had Marvel superheroes

01:18:31 ◼   ► at one point and I would give an appropriate name to each of them you know depending on

01:18:37 ◼   ► maybe the size of the device or for some other thing like that.

01:18:39 ◼   ► Sure.

01:18:40 ◼   ► You know, so like the Mac would be the Hulk.

01:18:42 ◼   ► That's why my server with the big hard drive was Gorilla, you see.

01:18:47 ◼   ► And I've used Scott Pilgrim characters because that's a property I like a lot.

01:18:53 ◼   ► I don't have names for my devices right now except my phone which is called #Michael'sRight.

01:18:59 ◼   ► Can't help it.

01:19:02 ◼   ► So I would actually like some suggestions from the upgrade audience for a new naming

01:19:08 ◼   ► convention and I will then rename everything to fit within that convention.

01:19:13 ◼   ► So I would like a good convention going forward.

01:19:16 ◼   ► So I will petition for the upgrade audience to contact me via Twitter @imike.

01:19:24 ◼   ► Using the hashtag #askupgrade for this would be really good because then they'll go into

01:19:28 ◼   ► a spreadsheet and I definitely won't miss any.

01:19:31 ◼   ► So that's always a good to go with a double hitter.

01:19:33 ◼   ► So please help me there.

01:19:34 ◼   ► We do have names for lots of products in the home

01:19:37 ◼   ► because Adina really likes to name stuff.

01:19:39 ◼   ► And she likes to give her products names,

01:19:42 ◼   ► like regular names.

01:19:44 ◼   ► So like her phone is called Joffrey.

01:19:47 ◼   ► Mac is called Frank.

01:19:50 ◼   ► And I think her phone should be called Joffrey by the way,

01:19:53 ◼   ► but she's taking a Game of Thrones thing.

01:19:55 ◼   ► - Game of Thrones, yeah.

01:19:57 ◼   ► and

01:20:21 ◼   ► we suggest for Will's Pixel C then. I'm gonna go with Pico, P-I-C-O, Pico the

01:20:28 ◼   ► Pixel. I quite like that. Do you have a name? I do. I would say Will

01:20:33 ◼   ► should find something that is a fun, in the vein of me having monkey names,

01:20:38 ◼   ► find a favorite animal or TV show or movie or whatever that you

01:20:44 ◼   ► like and pick a fun name for that and then just continue on. Maybe

01:20:49 ◼   ► of something small and adorable like a Pixel C or like call it R2D2. R2C2. Oh yeah there

01:20:57 ◼   ► you go. P2C2. Or just C3PO. Oh less little and cute. That's true. That's true. But better.

01:21:10 ◼   ► Depends if you find your Pixel C to be insufferable and annoying maybe you'll go for C3PO. Have

01:21:15 ◼   ► - How about P3CO?

01:21:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, there you go.

01:21:18 ◼   ► We're all over this.

01:21:19 ◼   ► We're all over this.

01:21:20 ◼   ► - High five.

01:21:21 ◼   ► - I self high fived.

01:21:25 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:21:26 ◼   ► - If two people self high five whilst having a conversation,

01:21:29 ◼   ► does that think that counts as a high five?

01:21:31 ◼   ► - It's really just a really slow clap at that point.

01:21:33 ◼   ► But yeah.

01:21:34 ◼   ► - Rajeev asked, I'm concerned about shared clipboard

01:21:39 ◼   ► security in iOS 10.

01:21:42 ◼   ► Can it be disabled?

01:21:44 ◼   ► Jason?

01:21:44 ◼   ► - Yes, you can turn off shared clipboard.

01:21:48 ◼   ► It is proximity based, so you would have to have a device

01:21:51 ◼   ► that's very close to your Mac,

01:21:54 ◼   ► and then you would need to--

01:21:58 ◼   ► - It's also time limited as well,

01:21:59 ◼   ► which is another good thing.

01:22:00 ◼   ► - So it's two minutes, it's gotta be close to your Mac,

01:22:04 ◼   ► both devices have to be on the same iCloud account,

01:22:07 ◼   ► and then the data actually doesn't transfer until the paste.

01:22:12 ◼   ► But if that's still not enough security for you,

01:22:15 ◼   ► yes, you just turn it off and then it's off.

01:22:17 ◼   ► - I can imagine many family scenarios

01:22:19 ◼   ► where it wouldn't work, right?

01:22:20 ◼   ► Where people were sharing iCloud accounts.

01:22:22 ◼   ► Maybe they shouldn't be, but people do

01:22:24 ◼   ► because there was previously a time

01:22:25 ◼   ► where it was all you could do.

01:22:26 ◼   ► And we have a document, we have a topic in our document

01:22:30 ◼   ► which has been here for a very long time,

01:22:31 ◼   ► which is how bad family iCloud sharing is,

01:22:34 ◼   ► which is another reason why people might not be doing this.

01:22:36 ◼   ► But I can imagine, right, people in the same home

01:22:39 ◼   ► where someone could hit paste

01:22:41 ◼   ► and it could be the wrong thing.

01:22:42 ◼   ► Like I can see that occurring.

01:22:44 ◼   ► So the ability to turn it off is a good thing.

01:22:46 ◼   ► Max has asked, would you consider iPad multitasking

01:22:51 ◼   ► vital enough to warrant an upgrade

01:22:54 ◼   ► or just a nice to have feature?

01:22:55 ◼   ► I think it's vital.

01:22:58 ◼   ► And the reason I think this is because

01:23:01 ◼   ► it was iPad multitasking was what got me on the iPad track.

01:23:05 ◼   ► And I think you're probably in the same boat.

01:23:07 ◼   ► Yep.

01:23:08 ◼   ► So, I mean, we do work from our iPads.

01:23:11 ◼   ► If you have work that you want to do, and when I see the thing is my work is also sometimes

01:23:17 ◼   ► reading Twitter and talking in Slack, right?

01:23:19 ◼   ► Like, I do think of this as work sometimes, so there is also fun things to do with the

01:23:25 ◼   ► multitasking in these devices.

01:23:27 ◼   ► I really do think that it's worth it, and I'm trying to push Casey towards a 9.7-inch

01:23:34 ◼   ► iPad Pro, because the Mini, well, I think the Mini is one of the most ridiculous devices

01:23:40 ◼   ► that Apple makes now. The iPad mini it's barely even an iPad and it's it's all

01:23:47 ◼   ► for me now and I didn't feel this way before but the iPad mini is approaching

01:23:53 ◼   ► phablet territory and ridiculousness because it kind of has none of the

01:23:57 ◼   ► benefits of either a phone or a tablet and a lot of the downsides of being in

01:24:02 ◼   ► the middle. My son loves his and it is the same number of pixels as the iPad

01:24:06 ◼   ► air it's just smaller so I'm fine with it.

01:24:09 ◼   ► Yep and Adina loves the one that I gave her it's like she really really does love it.

01:24:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:14 ◼   ► But you know I just think it yeah it has the same pixels doesn't have the same features

01:24:18 ◼   ► you can't do the you can't do multi to split screen multitasking on it can you?

01:24:21 ◼   ► Or maybe you can on the most recent one?

01:24:24 ◼   ► On the mini 4 yeah.

01:24:25 ◼   ► Okay well she doesn't have a mini 4 but anyway I'm trying to push Casey towards the the 9.7

01:24:29 ◼   ► because it's awesome because it has all of the other great stuff in it I'm talking about

01:24:33 ◼   ► the Pro of course with the pencil and the keyboard because the keyboard is amazing.

01:24:38 ◼   ► Love it. Absolutely love it.

01:24:40 ◼   ► Mark asked, so Max, yes, I think it is vital. So if you're on the fence, I think you should

01:24:45 ◼   ► go for it because it's fantastic if you have an iPad that doesn't support it.

01:24:51 ◼   ► Mark has asked, do you believe or do you think that they will honor Steve on the new campus?

01:24:58 ◼   ► could be like a conference room or a garden path or something. Or a mark suggest, which

01:25:03 ◼   ► I think is kind of nice, is an office that is Steve's office that nobody uses. I think

01:25:07 ◼   ► that's nice, but maybe it would be better if they kept the old one as opposed to giving

01:25:11 ◼   ► him a new one because he never actually was in there anyway, so it doesn't mean the same.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Maybe if they're going to knock down the old campus, recreating his office. But like, you

01:25:20 ◼   ► know, if they ever do do that, taking Steve's office, as I assume it probably is untouched,

01:25:25 ◼   ► I expect, I don't know this.

01:25:27 ◼   ► - Yes, I think so.

01:25:28 ◼   ► - If they took it and moved it,

01:25:30 ◼   ► that would also be a nice touch.

01:25:32 ◼   ► But do you think, they definitely should,

01:25:34 ◼   ► do you think they will and what do you think they might do?

01:25:36 ◼   ► - So Pixar named their main building,

01:25:38 ◼   ► the Steve Jobs building after he passed away,

01:25:42 ◼   ► they dedicated it to him.

01:25:44 ◼   ► My guess is they will absolutely honor Steve

01:25:47 ◼   ► on the new campus.

01:25:49 ◼   ► I'm gonna say they're probably gonna name the new campus,

01:25:52 ◼   ► the Steve Jobs campus.

01:25:53 ◼   ► - I was just about to say that,

01:25:54 ◼   ► 'cause this thing, it doesn't have a name right now.

01:25:57 ◼   ► - No, it's the spaceship, right?

01:25:58 ◼   ► - Or Campus 2.

01:26:00 ◼   ► - Campus 2, right.

01:26:00 ◼   ► I think it's gonna be the Steve Jobs campus,

01:26:03 ◼   ► Apple's Steve Jobs campus.

01:26:05 ◼   ► Or they'll name-- - Or the Jobs building

01:26:06 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:26:07 ◼   ► - Or they'll name that the big auditorium complex

01:26:10 ◼   ► that they've got for events,

01:26:11 ◼   ► the Steve Jobs auditorium or something like that.

01:26:13 ◼   ► But I think it would be extremely prominent

01:26:15 ◼   ► and I would be actually a little surprised

01:26:17 ◼   ► if the name of the campus itself

01:26:19 ◼   ► is not the Steve Jobs campus.

01:26:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, if it gets a name

01:26:21 ◼   ► and it's not related to Steve Jobs in some way,

01:26:24 ◼   ► that would be really peculiar to me.

01:26:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not gonna happen.

01:26:28 ◼   ► - Because they already have the perfect name

01:26:29 ◼   ► for the campus in use, which is the Infinite Loop, right?

01:26:32 ◼   ► Like it's already a circle, right?

01:26:35 ◼   ► Like you're done.

01:26:36 ◼   ► You can't name it that 'cause you got the previous one.

01:26:39 ◼   ► So I figure they may as well,

01:26:40 ◼   ► and I think they should call it like the job building

01:26:43 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:26:43 ◼   ► But it'd be nice, that'd be very nice if they do.

01:26:45 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:26:46 ◼   ► And finally today, Jeff asked, "What is the best,

01:26:50 ◼   ► "oh what the hell, I'll give that a try,

01:26:51 ◼   ► "tech purchase that you've ever made?"

01:26:53 ◼   ► For me, it's the TiVo, the first-generation TiVo.

01:26:57 ◼   ► I bought that kind of on a lark.

01:26:59 ◼   ► My wife was very skeptical.

01:27:00 ◼   ► It's like, but it's a digital video recorder.

01:27:03 ◼   ► It records shows on a hard drive,

01:27:05 ◼   ► and then you can delete them and watch them at any point.

01:27:07 ◼   ► You can watch one while it's recording another.

01:27:09 ◼   ► You can play it back from earlier on

01:27:11 ◼   ► while it's recording later on.

01:27:13 ◼   ► She's like, "Yeah, this seems like it's really expensive

01:27:15 ◼   ► "and a bad idea."

01:27:17 ◼   ► And it turned out to be a fantastic idea,

01:27:19 ◼   ► and now everybody's got a DVR.

01:27:21 ◼   ► But I had that first-generation TiVo.

01:27:23 ◼   ► it was great, it was really great.

01:27:25 ◼   ► - So I will start off with a recent one,

01:27:27 ◼   ► and I'll say Mr. Buster that sits out there

01:27:29 ◼   ► and protects my home was definitely an impulse buy.

01:27:33 ◼   ► I was in an Apple store, I've been thinking about

01:27:35 ◼   ► something to get like this, but it was an impulse buy,

01:27:40 ◼   ► but the great thing about it is the Canary

01:27:42 ◼   ► gives you peace of mind, which is fantastic,

01:27:45 ◼   ► and I love it for that.

01:27:46 ◼   ► But probably the best impulse buy I ever made

01:27:49 ◼   ► was the iPod mini because it was fantastic,

01:27:53 ◼   ► but also set me on this path that I'm now here.

01:27:56 ◼   ► The iPod mini was what kind of got me

01:27:59 ◼   ► into the Apple ecosystem and really pushed me down that path.

01:28:02 ◼   ► And also, it was so cool.

01:28:05 ◼   ► Because mine, again, it was an impulse thing

01:28:07 ◼   ► because I bought a pink one.

01:28:09 ◼   ► And I didn't want a pink one, but it was

01:28:10 ◼   ► all they had in the store.

01:28:12 ◼   ► So I went with it and just kind of then began.

01:28:18 ◼   ► - Oh man, the mini was so cool.

01:28:20 ◼   ► I mean, I know we're talking about it with the IMAX,

01:28:22 ◼   ► but the colors, man, give me the colors.

01:28:23 ◼   ► - I know.

01:28:24 ◼   ► - I want the colors.

01:28:26 ◼   ► Give me the colors, Apple, come on.

01:28:28 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:28:29 ◼   ► All right, so that is it for this week's episode of Upgrade.

01:28:32 ◼   ► - USA, USA, USA.

01:28:35 ◼   ► Yeah, sorry.

01:28:36 ◼   ► - USA is A-OK by me.

01:28:38 ◼   ► That's what I say.

01:28:40 ◼   ► - Happy Independence Day to all the Americans listening.

01:28:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hope that you're all enjoying--

01:28:44 ◼   ► - While you're barbecuing.

01:28:45 ◼   ► - When I say I hope you're all enjoying your independence,

01:28:48 ◼   ► it is not a threat or like it's not me begrudgingly saying it. I really do hope you're enjoying

01:28:55 ◼   ► it because you know many people make many jokes to me on Independence Day. Independence

01:28:59 ◼   ► Day is one of my least favorite days of the year because people on the internet remind

01:29:04 ◼   ► me of something I just couldn't care less about which is the fact that America was once

01:29:10 ◼   ► part of the United Kingdom.

01:29:11 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah King George. I think the English didn't like King George a whole lot either

01:29:16 ◼   ► frankly.

01:29:17 ◼   ► I mean, like, really, I don't care.

01:29:20 ◼   ► And I'm very happy that America is its own little thing,

01:29:23 ◼   ► because I like America for what it is.

01:29:26 ◼   ► And, frankly, right now, I wish that America

01:29:30 ◼   ► will take my island nation and make it a state all of its own.

01:29:35 ◼   ► - 51st state. Come on over. - Please. Please.

01:29:37 ◼   ► - Just get the pontoons up and just drift across the Atlantic.

01:29:41 ◼   ► - Gosh, that would be amazing.

01:29:42 ◼   ► - We'll put you just south of Nova Scotia.

01:29:44 ◼   ► - I don't care if you move me or not.

01:29:46 ◼   ► it would be kind of beautiful.

01:29:49 ◼   ► I mean, you know, we own the, is it the Bermuda islands, I believe?

01:29:52 ◼   ► Yes, Bermuda.

01:29:53 ◼   ► You know?

01:29:54 ◼   ► So, you know, America could take us.

01:29:57 ◼   ► It would be real nice.

01:29:58 ◼   ► Want to find show notes for this week's episode?

01:30:02 ◼   ► Head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/96.

01:30:06 ◼   ► If you'd like to find Jason online, he is @jasonell on Twitter, J S N E double L.

01:30:11 ◼   ► And he's over at sixcolors.com and the incomparable.com.

01:30:15 ◼   ► and he is the host of a fine selection of shows at Relay.fm as well.

01:30:19 ◼   ► I am @imike on Twitter, I-M-Y-K-E, that is where you can suggest to me some names or

01:30:27 ◼   ► some naming conventions for my flock of devices that I own here.

01:30:33 ◼   ► Thanks again to our sponsors for this week, Casper, Pingdom, and Igloo, and we'll be back

01:30:38 ◼   ► next time.

01:30:39 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:30:41 ◼   ► Remember #AskUpgrade for all your important personal life moments.

01:30:46 ◼   ► Things are only your favorite podcast hosts can give you the real suggestions for.

01:30:52 ◼   ► Hmm...

01:30:53 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:30:56 ◼   ► [Music]

01:30:58 ◼   ► [ Silence ]