Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode number 84. Today's show is brought to you by Casper,

00:00:16 ◼   ► ITProTV, and FreshBooks. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Jason Snell. Live from Arizona.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Hi, Jason. How are you? Well, hello from the desert, where it rained yesterday. I don't know

00:00:27 ◼   ► know what's going on.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Oh, does it rain in the desert? What happens when it rains in the desert?

00:00:34 ◼   ► Things flood because they're incapable of dealing with rain.

00:00:37 ◼   ► No drainage, I assume.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Well, they have emergency storm drainage because things do flood. So, like, where my mom lives,

00:00:44 ◼   ► there's a golf course nearby, and there are a few places that are suspiciously low-lying

00:00:50 ◼   ► in the golf course, and that's because if there's too much rain, they will flood with

00:00:54 ◼   ► water purposefully in order to protect it. But we were just driving back yesterday and

00:00:58 ◼   ► there was just huge puddles of water on the sides of all the streets and there were a

00:01:03 ◼   ► few little flooded intersections and they don't know how to handle it. Because it does

00:01:07 ◼   ► it so infrequently here.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Like when it snows in London?

00:01:11 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:01:12 ◼   ► Or it gets too hot in London.

00:01:14 ◼   ► Exactly. You build your infrastructure for the most common occurrences and not the least

00:01:19 ◼   ► common occurrences. And this is why people from the northeast of the US made fun of the

00:01:24 ◼   ► people in like Atlanta when they had a blizzard and it was only like two inches of snow and

00:01:28 ◼   ► it shut down the city. But you know, they didn't have any equipment to deal with it

00:01:32 ◼   ► because it doesn't usually do that there. And that's sort of like rain in the desert.

00:01:35 ◼   ► There's no point in, you know, they just don't deal with it. The people don't deal with it.

00:01:40 ◼   ► So they don't even know what it looks like.

00:01:43 ◼   ► So a couple of weeks ago, we did the first ever CarCast. And this week we are doing something

00:01:49 ◼   ► not as ambitious but different. What are you doing this week as we're recording?

00:01:54 ◼   ► Well, I am in Arizona. My kids are on spring break. We decided to come down and visit my

00:01:59 ◼   ► mom for a few days. My family hadn't been down here in quite a while actually. Listeners

00:02:03 ◼   ► know that I occasionally am down here visiting my mom but my family hadn't been down here.

00:02:08 ◼   ► She's visited us but we hadn't flown everybody down here for about a year and a half. So

00:02:16 ◼   ► I decided I wanted to travel light, we're here for like three and a half days, and I

00:02:21 ◼   ► had that moment where I realized I was going to have to bring a laptop just to record a

00:02:26 ◼   ► podcast, just to record this podcast and also clockwise this week.

00:02:31 ◼   ► And I thought, that's silly, I think I can make this all work without a laptop, let's

00:02:36 ◼   ► give it a try.

00:02:37 ◼   ► So I brought my microphone and I brought my USB audio interface and I brought my USB light

00:02:45 ◼   ► lightning adapter and I am talking to you via Skype on my iPad while recording

00:02:51 ◼   ► my audio via my iPhone. And you're using the wonderful Ferrite to make that happen.

00:02:58 ◼   ► I am using Ferrite recording studio to record although I could have used any

00:03:01 ◼   ► many fine recording devices are available for iOS but I'm using Ferrite

00:03:08 ◼   ► because I have it and I know it but yeah the idea is this is the this is where we

00:03:14 ◼   ► are with iOS stuff. I know Fraser does this when he records his podcasts to Fraser Spears.

00:03:20 ◼   ► It's two devices I can't hear. There's no, for people who don't do a lot of podcasting,

00:03:27 ◼   ► ideally you hear your own voice reflected back into your earphones as you're speaking

00:03:34 ◼   ► so that instead of it being like super muffled, you can actually hear and you can hear if

00:03:39 ◼   ► you're too loud and you can hear if you're too close to the microphone and I can't do

00:03:42 ◼   ► that today because I'm using two separate devices so it's a little bit weird for me

00:03:47 ◼   ► but it gets me to not travel with that third device on this trip which is what I wanted

00:03:55 ◼   ► to do and so here we are.

00:03:57 ◼   ► Yeah, that is a shame. I'm going to be going to Atlanta in a couple of days for the first

00:04:04 ◼   ► ever RelayCon and the second ever live PanAddict and I am in that situation too where I know

00:04:12 ◼   ► that I'm gonna have to take my MacBook Pro because I have to do some podcast editing,

00:04:17 ◼   ► most likely, on the trip. There is potential that I won't be, and if that's the case then

00:04:22 ◼   ► I'll be leaving it at home, but I'm about 70% sure that I will be taking it with me

00:04:26 ◼   ► and it's frustrating. And that's mainly because, whilst I know apps like Ferrite exist, the

00:04:30 ◼   ► projects that I'll be working on will have been started on my Mac, and I don't even want

00:04:35 ◼   ► to think about what horrific nonsense might occur if I try.

00:04:39 ◼   ► You could do some contortions to get those to move, like bouncing things in place and

00:04:43 ◼   ► pulling out the files and all, but it's basically once you start in one place you should just

00:04:48 ◼   ► edit the rest of them in that place too.

00:04:50 ◼   ► Yeah, that's true.

00:04:52 ◼   ► And I haven't done the tests with Ferrite yet that you have and I'm not going to start

00:04:56 ◼   ► doing episodes for production, you know, just solely on that.

00:05:02 ◼   ► This is a little experimental for us, but I think the car cast was the most wacky thing

00:05:07 ◼   ► that we've done in a long time, so this is slightly less weird than that.

00:05:11 ◼   ► To get a peek behind the curtain, Jason sent me a message a couple of days ago and was

00:05:14 ◼   ► like, "I have something that I want to try, like I just want to tell you, and you tell

00:05:18 ◼   ► me what you think, and explain the situation, not when to bring his Mac." And he was like,

00:05:21 ◼   ► "Would you mind if we recorded it on iOS?" And I was like, "After the car cast, like,

00:05:25 ◼   ► nothing can shock or surprise me anymore." We went to the ultimate limit for production

00:05:32 ◼   ► that we were ever going to have to worry about, so I'm down with it.

00:05:35 ◼   ► I just was worried, you know, I wanted to make sure that you were going to be okay before

00:05:41 ◼   ► we did this because I know that this is a little bit outside of your comfort zone.

00:05:46 ◼   ► But yeah, we went all the way outside the comfort zone with the car cast.

00:05:50 ◼   ► We drove through it.

00:05:52 ◼   ► We did.

00:05:53 ◼   ► We drove through the rain.

00:05:55 ◼   ► I've been busy today, Jason.

00:05:57 ◼   ► How so?

00:05:59 ◼   ► So over the last few weeks especially I've had more and more people asking me if I have

00:06:07 ◼   ► any suggestions for the Apple Pencil and some of the things that I do with it and I've been

00:06:12 ◼   ► thinking about finding a way to put some of this stuff together because I feel like I'm

00:06:16 ◼   ► sending lots of tweets with links to various things so I think this is more because more

00:06:22 ◼   ► people are starting to get the pencil now that the 9.7 inch iPad is available.

00:06:27 ◼   ► So over the time that I've had my Apple Pencil there have been a few things that I have,

00:06:32 ◼   ► I guess customised might be the right word, my Apple Pencil with and I wanted to share

00:06:38 ◼   ► some of those in a little blog post which I did over at MykeWasRight.com.

00:06:42 ◼   ► Best...

00:06:43 ◼   ► Shameless.

00:06:44 ◼   ► The best, the best URL.

00:06:47 ◼   ► So there's, I'm going to put a link in the show notes to that and basically it's three

00:06:50 ◼   ► things. It's the Fisher Space Pen clip and I added the clip because I wanted to stop

00:06:57 ◼   ► the apple pencil from rolling around. It doesn't actually do a great job of clipping to things

00:07:02 ◼   ► because it's not incredibly tight around the pencil so I don't recommend clipping. You

00:07:07 ◼   ► can, you've just got to be aware that it might not, one day you might lose your pencil if

00:07:11 ◼   ► you're not careful. But I use that main to stop it rolling. I use a pen loop by a company

00:07:17 ◼   ► called Leuchtturm 1917 which I stick the pen loop to the back of my iPad and then I'm able

00:07:23 ◼   ► to put the Apple Pencil through the loop and it's always where I want it to be. And I covered

00:07:29 ◼   ► my Apple Pencil in a skin by a company called dbrand and it makes it look like a HP pencil.

00:07:36 ◼   ► So there's just three things I've done. I'm thinking about at some point, I've been meaning

00:07:40 ◼   ► to do this for some time but never got round to it, of talking about some of the software

00:07:43 ◼   ► I use

00:08:07 ◼   ► and we'll put them both in the show notes if you want to go and check them out.

00:08:10 ◼   ► But yeah, so that's there.

00:08:12 ◼   ► I took some pictures as well, which are making some people cry out in horror, and some people

00:08:20 ◼   ► think that it's amazing.

00:08:21 ◼   ► And I prefer the people to think it's amazing.

00:08:24 ◼   ► So I have some follow-up.

00:08:27 ◼   ► First is, why the choice, other than that perhaps that it was there and so it was an

00:08:32 ◼   ► opportunity for you to do it.

00:08:34 ◼   ► Why make the pencil look like a traditional pencil and not perhaps like a pen since you

00:08:40 ◼   ► love pens so much?

00:08:42 ◼   ► The skin from dbrand, this is the only one they do.

00:08:47 ◼   ► I would ideally want to make it like a pen but the thing is there isn't an iconic pen

00:08:52 ◼   ► design, right?

00:08:54 ◼   ► So really all I'd be doing is just changing the color.

00:08:57 ◼   ► whilst the old school HB pencil skin I like because the thing is called the Apple Pencil

00:09:04 ◼   ► and too it's like you see it and you know exactly what it is, right? Like what it's

00:09:09 ◼   ► meant to be pretending to be. And I think that it's so much fun. And obviously, you

00:09:14 ◼   ► can tell from my photos, people notice about me, I love stickers. And this sticker is great.

00:09:19 ◼   ► And also it actually does provide a little bit of additional grip on the Apple Pencil.

00:09:23 ◼   ► I find it a little bit slippery for me. Not so much that it's frustrating, but the fact

00:09:27 ◼   ► that this thing adds a little grip I like a lot.

00:09:31 ◼   ► So next question. The clip, so you said it doesn't clip well but it stops the pencil

00:09:39 ◼   ► from rolling around. I have to ask about this because the pencil doesn't roll around. It's

00:09:45 ◼   ► weighted, it doesn't roll around very far and clipping it to things might be useful

00:09:51 ◼   ► but instead you're stopping, you're solving a problem that isn't really there and then

00:09:55 ◼   ► the clip could solve another problem and doesn't.

00:09:59 ◼   ► I need more here.

00:10:00 ◼   ► - Couple of points here.

00:10:00 ◼   ► What you can do, see I don't recommend this

00:10:03 ◼   ► 'cause I don't wanna be,

00:10:04 ◼   ► I don't wanna get someone in trouble for this.

00:10:08 ◼   ► You can use like a pair of pliers

00:10:11 ◼   ► and before you put that clip on the pencil,

00:10:15 ◼   ► you can kind of pull the two edges of the clip together

00:10:20 ◼   ► to make it tighter and then force it on

00:10:22 ◼   ► and it's more likely to be more secure, right?

00:10:25 ◼   ► you can do that you can tighten it up. You can clip it on and I have done but if you

00:10:31 ◼   ► clip it on forcefully that clip could just pop off the end because it's not fixed into

00:10:36 ◼   ► it. I would recommend if you really want to clip it to put some glue on the inside of

00:10:41 ◼   ► this thing and try and stick it on that way. Now saying about the rolling, I totally understand

00:10:48 ◼   ► what you're saying as someone who doesn't use the apple pencil or any type of pen or

00:10:52 ◼   ► pencil very much. They did weight it and it does keep it in place but it there's

00:10:57 ◼   ► a couple of things when I put pens and pencils down I have clips on them which

00:11:01 ◼   ► most of mine do they don't move at all right they don't move because the clip

00:11:05 ◼   ► weights them keeps them from moving the Apple pencil does roll a little bit it

00:11:09 ◼   ► doesn't stop dead where you put it and also if you put it down with any force

00:11:13 ◼   ► oh yeah I have one here I'm looking I can hear you rolling it around like if

00:11:17 ◼   ► you put it down with any force which I've done like once you use this thing

00:11:21 ◼   ► enough you'll like pick it up you'll drop it as I do like not like throw it

00:11:24 ◼   ► but just like drop it on the desk and the weights inside of the pencil if you

00:11:29 ◼   ► drop it from at speed or an angle can actually propel the thing forward oh

00:11:34 ◼   ► yeah I see that okay good point good point so you're you're physically

00:11:37 ◼   ► stopping it it can't do a rotation with it with the clip yeah it won't do it it

00:11:41 ◼   ► will only go it will only go like one turn at most and I understand why you

00:11:46 ◼   ► would think this and it's why the reason Apple did it and it's why most people

00:11:49 ◼   ► never come across this problem because they don't use it in the same way that I do, and

00:11:53 ◼   ► it's mainly because I have an expectation for how these products and products of this

00:11:57 ◼   ► ilk would work. And this is why I don't have any pens that I use with frequency that don't

00:12:05 ◼   ► have something to stop them rolling, whether they're flat on one side or they have a clip

00:12:09 ◼   ► on them. I have pens that don't have clips, but they don't get used by me very much because

00:12:13 ◼   ► of that.

00:12:14 ◼   ► Okay.

00:12:15 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:12:18 ◼   ► I'm impressed with your level of detail and enthusiasm,

00:12:22 ◼   ► but not surprised.

00:12:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is something that means a lot to me.

00:12:26 ◼   ► - I know, I know that about you.

00:12:28 ◼   ► - There is probably another little bit of follow up

00:12:30 ◼   ► that I should mention.

00:12:31 ◼   ► There's an additional iPad in the photos

00:12:34 ◼   ► as from last week, right?

00:12:36 ◼   ► There is a gold 9.7 inch iPad Pro.

00:12:41 ◼   ► I'm gonna talk a little bit more

00:12:42 ◼   ► about this later on in the show.

00:12:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think you should.

00:12:48 ◼   ► I think you need to. I think I have to, right? The other thing is something that I've been

00:12:52 ◼   ► working on with you for a little bit. I'm working on a new podcast. It's called The

00:12:57 ◼   ► Ring Post and it is about professional wrestling, which is the last of the things that I enjoy

00:13:03 ◼   ► that I don't have a podcast about. And it's going to be on the incomparable. Yes. Which

00:13:09 ◼   ► I'm very excited about. We have some amazing artwork done. I've set up a landing page.

00:13:14 ◼   ► I'm trying to do some different things of this show.

00:13:18 ◼   ► I'm trying to do some things that we don't usually do,

00:13:20 ◼   ► or that I don't usually do when launching shows

00:13:23 ◼   ► or working on shows.

00:13:23 ◼   ► And one of those is I've set up a website,

00:13:26 ◼   ► so currently, which is at ringpost.fm,

00:13:28 ◼   ► which will eventually forward to where the show lives.

00:13:31 ◼   ► But right now there's a landing page there

00:13:33 ◼   ► and there's a newsletter link,

00:13:35 ◼   ► so you can sign up to a newsletter

00:13:37 ◼   ► to find out when the show launches.

00:13:38 ◼   ► And there's also a link to a Twitter account,

00:13:42 ◼   ► which is Ringpost.fm,

00:13:44 ◼   ► where I'm also gonna be, again another thing that I don't do,

00:13:47 ◼   ► I'm gonna be just tweeting from that account

00:13:49 ◼   ► thoughts and opinions about wrestling.

00:13:53 ◼   ► Which I usually also don't do from podcast accounts.

00:13:55 ◼   ► So I'm trying some different things

00:13:56 ◼   ► and this is because I have something that I like

00:13:59 ◼   ► that I have an outlet for that the majority of people

00:14:01 ◼   ► that follow me on Twitter don't care about.

00:14:03 ◼   ► So I'm gonna tweet all that stuff over on that account.

00:14:06 ◼   ► And so this is something that I like

00:14:08 ◼   ► and we were talking about this

00:14:10 ◼   ► and I've been thinking about this for a while

00:14:12 ◼   ► And it just popped into my head one day with some prodding from Adina to talk to you to see if you would want it on the incomparable

00:14:19 ◼   ► Because I feel like it fits better with the themes of the incomparable than the themes of the relay I think.

00:14:26 ◼   ► I think.

00:14:27 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, I think so. It's it's an I mean

00:14:29 ◼   ► Somebody in the chat room just asked the question about why it isn't on relay

00:14:33 ◼   ► And I'm sure you'll hear that a lot and I would say it's the same reason that upgrade and clockwise aren't on the incomparable

00:14:38 ◼   ► I had my own podcast network and I didn't think that doing tech podcasts was a good

00:14:43 ◼   ► fit for the incomparable because the incomparable is about cultural stuff.

00:14:47 ◼   ► It's about entertainment that we like and this fits perfectly in there.

00:14:52 ◼   ► If I were to do a sports podcast at some point, it would go on the incomparable but if I were

00:14:58 ◼   ► to do something that was more about technology and leaning more that direction, I feel like

00:15:04 ◼   ► I would take that to relay.

00:15:06 ◼   ► And so Ring Post makes a lot of sense to be incomparable, where we've got all sorts of

00:15:10 ◼   ► different shows about broad topics and also very specific enthusiasms.

00:15:15 ◼   ► Like I mean, two Relay hosts, Micah and Christina, do their podcast about cartoons, and that's

00:15:21 ◼   ► on the incomparable.

00:15:22 ◼   ► Yeah, so there is a real cross-pollination between the two networks.

00:15:27 ◼   ► We are cousins.

00:15:29 ◼   ► There's a poison pill, Myke, you can't take us over.

00:15:32 ◼   ► If you really try to take over the incomparable, a kitten dies.

00:15:38 ◼   ► So just stay where you are.

00:15:41 ◼   ► Alright, I'll do what I can.

00:15:43 ◼   ► No promises.

00:15:44 ◼   ► But also because I wanted to do some things that were a little bit different to how I

00:15:49 ◼   ► usually do them, it was fun for me to try them out in a different place.

00:15:54 ◼   ► Just make a fresh perspective.

00:15:57 ◼   ► You don't have to tell me about experimentation and the value of it, right?

00:16:00 ◼   ► I mean, this is what I love about seeing you do this, is this gives you an opportunity

00:16:03 ◼   ► to do some stuff that you're not doing all the time, in terms of subject matter, but

00:16:09 ◼   ► also in terms of your approach to doing a podcast.

00:16:11 ◼   ► So I would imagine that the podcast itself will also be a place for you to try out some

00:16:18 ◼   ► new ways of doing things.

00:16:19 ◼   ► And I mean, this is why I do all the stupid podcasts that I do.

00:16:23 ◼   ► It's because I want to try different stuff out.

00:16:26 ◼   ► And they're all, you know, all of them tend to be because there's something or other that

00:16:30 ◼   ► I want to do that's like, "Oh, well that would be funny.

00:16:31 ◼   ► Why don't we do a podcast where we ask if something is a robot or not?"

00:16:35 ◼   ► You know, it's a terrible idea, but it could be funny.

00:16:39 ◼   ► And so, I love that you're doing this.

00:16:41 ◼   ► Like, for example, talking about things that are a little bit different, the first episode

00:16:45 ◼   ► will most likely be just me.

00:16:48 ◼   ► Cool.

00:16:49 ◼   ► Which I don't usually do.

00:16:51 ◼   ► Right.

00:16:52 ◼   ► So, you know, that's just another thing.

00:16:54 ◼   ► I don't have a show where I'm the only one talking, I have no guest.

00:16:58 ◼   ► I'm gonna have guests and I have a selection of people that I think will be really fun

00:17:02 ◼   ► to bring on the show.

00:17:04 ◼   ► But I'm not gonna have a fixed co-host and there might be some episodes or some segments

00:17:08 ◼   ► where it's just me monologuing.

00:17:10 ◼   ► So there you go, I'm trying out some different stuff.

00:17:13 ◼   ► That's enough of the mic update for today, we do have some other follow up but I want

00:17:17 ◼   ► to take our first break, Jason.

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00:19:34 ◼   ► Alright, Mr Snell.

00:19:37 ◼   ► Yes sir, Mr Hurley.

00:19:39 ◼   ► Your favorite topics? New Kindles.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Rumors are flying as we record this, probably very soon after we finish recording this and

00:19:49 ◼   ► post it, they'll announce a new Kindle, Jeff Bezos said it was coming, but we don't know

00:19:53 ◼   ► a lot more.

00:19:54 ◼   ► There are rumors next week, I'm sure we'll talk about it.

00:19:57 ◼   ► There's a rumor that it's called the Oasis, and after all, you're my Wonderwall.

00:20:04 ◼   ► And the, also, so Federico will get one.

00:20:08 ◼   ► And that it may be waterproof and that it has a weird shape that it's thicker on one

00:20:15 ◼   ► side than the other and that it's sort of meant to be grippable in that way.

00:20:20 ◼   ► I'm kind of skeptical that it's got an accelerometer, gasp, that will automatically rotate the screen.

00:20:26 ◼   ► Gasp.

00:20:27 ◼   ► Imagine.

00:20:28 ◼   ► And that it has an attached, you can get a battery case for it that will let it run for

00:20:36 ◼   ► weeks, they say.

00:20:38 ◼   ► The pictures look weird. I don't know what I think, but you know, the problem with the

00:20:42 ◼   ► rumors is you get some of the details and not all of the details and you go and get

00:20:46 ◼   ► to hear sort of the whole big story around the plot product. So I'm curious and we'll

00:20:51 ◼   ► try to talk about it next week. You're not here next week because you're going to be

00:20:55 ◼   ► traveling because of your pen show duties. So we'll see what happens there.

00:21:03 ◼   ► You can probably find someone who's more interested in reading than I am.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Probably, probably. So we'll see. I'd love to talk to Scott McNulty about it if I can

00:21:12 ◼   ► find time in his schedule to do it because he is a very smart guy and a Kindle addict.

00:21:18 ◼   ► We could--note to self, new show, Kindle addict. Nothing but Kindles. So we'll see, we'll follow

00:21:28 ◼   ► up on this. I'm intrigued. We had a good discussion about it on Clockwise last week actually because

00:21:33 ◼   ► there's this question about is there anything left in this product category? What do you

00:21:37 ◼   ► do to innovate in this category that sort of, it's a niche product, people love it,

00:21:43 ◼   ► who buy them and other people don't see the need for them, but they've sort of perfected

00:21:47 ◼   ► a lot of aspects of the Kindle, so where do you go from here? And you know, the concern

00:21:52 ◼   ► is that you get really weird is where you go from here.

00:21:54 ◼   ► I really don't know if battery life is the thing that needs to be considered for this

00:21:59 ◼   ► product.

00:22:00 ◼   ► Yeah, the waterproof rumor is interesting because famously Jeff Bezos is, you know,

00:22:05 ◼   ► supposedly reads in the bathtub with his Kindle in a plastic bag.

00:22:10 ◼   ► Waterproof is perfect for this device.

00:22:11 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's a good one.

00:22:14 ◼   ► The uneven back where there's one side that's thicker than the other, that could be problematic

00:22:20 ◼   ► ergonomically, although presumably they've thought of that, but it's Amazon, so you never

00:22:24 ◼   ► know.

00:22:25 ◼   ► Sometimes their products are just super weird.

00:22:28 ◼   ► So we'll see, but I'm always intrigued with that product category. It's kind of fun to

00:22:33 ◼   ► see what they do there. And the nice thing is that they can't take my current Kindle

00:22:37 ◼   ► away from me. So if I don't like it, I'll be okay.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Cool. Yeah.

00:22:43 ◼   ► Alright, well, we'll see. I mean, I think that the one-handed grip type thing is cool.

00:22:51 ◼   ► You know, I've used that with smart covers in the past and iPads, and I think it's nice.

00:22:55 ◼   ► It's all down to the details. Yeah, it could be good. It could be well done. You won't

00:23:02 ◼   ► really be able to tell until it's in hand. But yeah, it's intriguing. And waterproofing

00:23:06 ◼   ► would be great on it because this is also presumably the high-end Kindle. For most people,

00:23:13 ◼   ► if you want an e-reader, the Paperwhite is the best one to get. And no, it's not as nice

00:23:17 ◼   ► as the Voyage, but the Voyage isn't better enough to make it worth it for most people.

00:23:25 ◼   ► And this is the same thing. I think this is going to be, once again, it's the platinum

00:23:30 ◼   ► Kindle for the people who love, love, love, love their Kindles and want it to be more

00:23:35 ◼   ► than just sort of a disposable reader.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. How much do you think this is going to go for? Do you think it will be like

00:23:44 ◼   ► still in the... How much does the voyage cost?

00:23:49 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:23:51 ◼   ► An amount of money, I guess.

00:23:53 ◼   ► hundred dollars. No, it's a lot. You're asking me to look things up on an iPad.

00:23:59 ◼   ► I'm doing it as we speak.

00:24:00 ◼   ► A couple hundred bucks.

00:24:03 ◼   ► The Kindle Voyage is $199.99.

00:24:05 ◼   ► Yep. Yep.

00:24:08 ◼   ► They have a $220 one as well.

00:24:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:12 ◼   ► Ah, because the $200 one is with special offers.

00:24:14 ◼   ► Special offers.

00:24:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:17 ◼   ► All right, well, we'll see. I know that this is something that you're excited about. I'm

00:24:18 ◼   ► sure you reckon you'll buy it. You'll probably buy it anyway, right?

00:24:20 ◼   ► It's quite possible, yeah.

00:24:21 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah.

00:24:22 ◼   ► And Scott certainly will buy it, so.

00:24:25 ◼   ► But you don't have to, next week we'll talk about it and you don't have to listen.

00:24:28 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:24:29 ◼   ► That's how you like it.

00:24:32 ◼   ► Alright, and you put a link in here to a Neiman Lab post that I've not read because I just

00:24:40 ◼   ► can't some of these things.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Yeah, this is, well the key quote in this post, which is, the headline is audible, long

00:24:46 ◼   ► known only for audiobooks, is branching out into podcasts and news.

00:24:50 ◼   ► They have this new thing called channels.

00:24:52 ◼   ► It looks to me, it's unclear because it's in beta, the way that it's described it seems

00:24:57 ◼   ► like this is like if you're an Audible member you get access to these things which makes

00:25:01 ◼   ► it sort of like some of the other things like Howl from Earwolf that are, you know you pay

00:25:07 ◼   ► a subscription fee and you get access to podcasts that are behind a paywall basically and you

00:25:13 ◼   ► use their app.

00:25:16 ◼   ► The quote in the Neiman Lab story was "podcasts are shifting into verticalized, producer-specific,

00:25:22 ◼   ► specific experiences, because there is nothing I love more than a verticalized experience.

00:25:30 ◼   ► And I would say Neiman Lab, while writing very interesting things about media and journalism,

00:25:36 ◼   ► should not be using industry buzzwords like that, because that's really awful.

00:25:41 ◼   ► But this is what they mean, is like, "Oh, podcasts are going to be things that are behind

00:25:44 ◼   ► pay walls where you have to use a specific app to listen to that producer's podcasts,"

00:25:48 ◼   ► to which I would say, "That's not a podcast.

00:25:52 ◼   ► something else, but if it's premium, paywalled, only available in certain platforms, it's

00:25:58 ◼   ► not a podcast anymore. It's paid audio content that isn't necessarily an audiobook. And,

00:26:07 ◼   ► you know, that's fine. But several people, I tweeted about this, several people suggested

00:26:12 ◼   ► that this needs to create the verticals vertical for us. Just bring it all the way back around.

00:26:19 ◼   ► Now I agree with you, in the same way that audiobooks are not podcasts, you know, like

00:26:24 ◼   ► this isn't a podcast either. This is fine, this is like an extension of that, but I don't

00:26:31 ◼   ► think that they're podcasts in the way that we think of them, and I think personally that

00:26:37 ◼   ► a better name should be applied to this type of content.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Yeah, I think this is, I mean this is also trying, people feel like, oh podcasts are

00:26:44 ◼   ► hot now. So people are going to use the phrase podcast as a way to sell a new product that

00:26:51 ◼   ► is not really a podcast or it is, I mean I don't know what bugs me more, the idea that

00:26:56 ◼   ► podcasts are going to turn into this or that there are some offerings where it seems like

00:27:02 ◼   ► they want to charge you a monthly fee for access behind a paywall to things that are

00:27:08 ◼   ► really just podcasts that they paid somebody a lot of money for but are just, it's just

00:27:12 ◼   ► another podcast. I think, you know, as we have the relay support system, I think having

00:27:17 ◼   ► people support podcasts and trying to find business models for podcasts is all good,

00:27:21 ◼   ► but once you've got a verticalized experience, I'm not sure that's a podcast anymore.

00:27:28 ◼   ► I don't know what it is, but it's another way to sell, it's like, "Oh, you like

00:27:33 ◼   ► audio content on your mobile devices. Well, what if we gave you some that you paid us

00:27:37 ◼   ► for directly?" And that's not a bad question to ask, but it reminds me of the early days

00:27:44 ◼   ► of the web, as a lot of podcasting stuff does, where big companies come in and they create

00:27:49 ◼   ► like the portal strategy, which is, "We're going to be the one place that is your gateway

00:27:53 ◼   ► to everything on the web." And in the end, although there are lots of huge players on

00:27:59 ◼   ► the web, the web is bigger than that. It's got lots of players at lots of different levels

00:28:03 ◼   ► and lots of uses that are not kind of behind a paywall.

00:28:09 ◼   ► And I think podcasting is going to be resilient like that too.

00:28:12 ◼   ► I think there's room for premium stuff, but I think it'll be interesting to see how people

00:28:19 ◼   ► react to that because I'm skeptical about how many people are going to want to spend

00:28:23 ◼   ► $10 or $15 a month for a small collection of premium podcasts on a particular network.

00:28:31 ◼   ► I'd much rather donate to MaxFun for the flophouse, frankly, than do something like that. But

00:28:37 ◼   ► it's an HBO strategy and if their content is HBO-like, then it'll be worth it. I'm skeptical

00:28:42 ◼   ► about whether that's the case.

00:28:43 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. All right, so moving on, let's talk about the True Tone display a little bit.

00:28:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:50 ◼   ► So you posted your iPad Pro review late last week, I think. It was late last week.

00:28:57 ◼   ► I did.

00:28:59 ◼   ► And so you've kind of come to the point now where you've reviewed this product, right?

00:29:03 ◼   ► So you've felt like you've had enough time with it, you've kind of thought about it,

00:29:07 ◼   ► you've played around with it.

00:29:09 ◼   ► What's the kind of high level feeling about this?

00:29:12 ◼   ► I know we spoke about it a bit last week, but kind of my takeaway from the review was

00:29:16 ◼   ► this is a really great iPad but it's not my iPad.

00:29:20 ◼   ► Is that fair to say?

00:29:21 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I mean from my perspective that was basically it is this is the iPad most people

00:29:26 ◼   ► are going to want, I think. This is the mainstream iPad. It's a great product. I'm happy with

00:29:34 ◼   ► my bigger iPad, but I am used to being an edge case because I also love the 11-inch

00:29:39 ◼   ► MacBook Air, and I've always been somebody who's kind of liked a lot of the edge cases

00:29:45 ◼   ► in terms of mobile devices, and that's fine. But it's great. And if the big iPad Pro didn't

00:29:54 ◼   ► I would buy it in a heartbeat.

00:29:58 ◼   ► It's just for me, I really have taken to the features

00:30:02 ◼   ► that are available on the bigger model.

00:30:03 ◼   ► I like the larger screen and I'm not willing to go back.

00:30:07 ◼   ► The True Tone display is really interesting

00:30:11 ◼   ► and I'm interested in what you think about it too.

00:30:13 ◼   ► I mean, what I said in the review is that this is

00:30:16 ◼   ► about as Apple a feature as there is, right?

00:30:20 ◼   ► I mean, this is the hardware of the display,

00:30:23 ◼   ► the hardware of the sensors, and then the software that does the calibration.

00:30:29 ◼   ► And that's all working together, and it's all been built to solve a problem nobody really

00:30:34 ◼   ► knew that they had.

00:30:37 ◼   ► Nobody was like, "When will somebody finally automatically adjust the white point on my

00:30:41 ◼   ► displays based on my surroundings?"

00:30:43 ◼   ► I'm sure somebody said that somewhere, but it was not a clamor for this feature.

00:30:49 ◼   ► at Apple, people at Apple said, "You know what would be great that nobody's doing,

00:30:54 ◼   ► is adapting to the color in your room and changing the white point." And so this is

00:31:03 ◼   ► what they did. And I think that's just very Apple, to build all this in and work with

00:31:09 ◼   ► the hardware and the software and solve a problem that we didn't even know we had.

00:31:14 ◼   ► So, after recording Cortex of Gray and him talking about his multiple iPad solution,

00:31:21 ◼   ► and then I recorded with you and we spoke about the iPad, I decided I wanted to try

00:31:26 ◼   ► out the 9.7, so I headed to the App Store on Tuesday and purchased one.

00:31:32 ◼   ► I've given some of my thinking about this on connected, we're going to talk about it

00:31:36 ◼   ► on Cortex again, but kind of like the real high level is, right now I'm thinking that

00:31:42 ◼   ► the amount I'm enjoying using iOS, is there a world in which I could have multiple iPads

00:31:48 ◼   ► in the same way that I've had multiple Macs for many years? I've had a desktop Mac and

00:31:52 ◼   ► I've had a laptop Mac and I've used them for different things. Or I have my laptop and

00:31:57 ◼   ► my iPad and I use them for different things. In all honesty I feel like I'm developing

00:32:03 ◼   ► a system where I am doing that, where I am using the 9.7 inch iPad for when I am consuming

00:32:10 ◼   ► content like I'm reading or I'm looking at Twitter or something like that and then I'm

00:32:16 ◼   ► using 12.9 when I'm doing work, when I'm preparing for shows, when I'm invoicing and that kind

00:32:21 ◼   ► of stuff.

00:32:22 ◼   ► And mainly it's because the multitasking on the larger iPad is so superior to the multitasking

00:32:27 ◼   ► on the smaller iPad Pro.

00:32:30 ◼   ► For me the multitasking on the 9.7 is like it's nice that it's there and you use it in

00:32:35 ◼   ► in a pinch, but I tend to have one app on the screen at a time. But on the larger iPad

00:32:41 ◼   ► Pro I tend to have multiple apps on the screen at one time because why not? But one of the

00:32:47 ◼   ► things that I'm finding interesting is the more I use each iPad the more I love the other

00:32:51 ◼   ► one. So I enjoy them both whilst I use them, but when I'm using the big iPad and I go to

00:33:02 ◼   ► to

00:33:15 ◼   ► a kind of a balance in trying to do my work across these two devices. And I know it's

00:33:20 ◼   ► ridiculous but my main thing is I'm trying to think about what my future of computing

00:33:27 ◼   ► is and I think it's more like this than what I've had before. And nobody ever, I'm having

00:33:33 ◼   ► people tell me it's ridiculous having two iPads but I never had anybody tell me it was

00:33:36 ◼   ► ridiculous for having a Mac and a MacBook Pro, like an iMac and a MacBook Pro. Nobody

00:33:40 ◼   ► ever said to me that was ridiculous. So, you know, I'm just trying to find the balance

00:33:45 ◼   ► that makes sense to me. But anyway, park that for another time. I want to talk about True

00:33:49 ◼   ► Tone. So...

00:33:50 ◼   ► Okay, we'll park that. That was interesting. I'm going to ponder your...

00:33:57 ◼   ► I still have to talk through this a bunch more. Like, that was kind of just a "I've

00:34:02 ◼   ► had this for a few days, blah." Right? And also I feel like I have to try and defend

00:34:08 ◼   ► myself a little bit. Anyway the True Tone I think makes this the most comfortable device

00:34:15 ◼   ► that I've ever read text on. It's got all of the great stuff that iOS devices have had

00:34:22 ◼   ► forever. Night shift makes it even nicer but there's something about this screen. I look

00:34:29 ◼   ► at this screen and I'm like this screen is incredible and the only thing that I feel

00:34:34 ◼   ► that must be the difference here is true tone because it's the only thing that's changed

00:34:39 ◼   ► it. So it is much easier on my eyes. I love the feature and the colors feel more vibrant

00:34:46 ◼   ► to me than on other iOS devices. They are. When I look, of course they are, when I look

00:34:53 ◼   ► at, I've forgotten that yes, they are more vibrant. That's like a whole other feature.

00:34:57 ◼   ► I keep forgetting that they put that in there. Like when I look at my home screen, it's like

00:35:01 ◼   ► and my app icons have never looked like this before.

00:35:04 ◼   ► And I'm looking at it, I'm like this thing is amazing.

00:35:08 ◼   ► And so when I read with this,

00:35:10 ◼   ► or when I, you know, like looking at it

00:35:12 ◼   ► for long periods of time, like I read articles,

00:35:15 ◼   ► I was reading stuff for this show today on it,

00:35:17 ◼   ► I'm like this is really nice,

00:35:19 ◼   ► and it's also not the size of a tea tray.

00:35:21 ◼   ► So that balance I think is making this a really nice,

00:35:26 ◼   ► I have my consumption iPad and my creation iPad,

00:35:30 ◼   ► That's where I am in my life right now.

00:35:32 ◼   ► But I'm liking the True Tone display a lot for that.

00:35:35 ◼   ► And genuinely, I think that I would miss it a lot

00:35:38 ◼   ► if I didn't have a device that had it.

00:35:40 ◼   ► - Color means less to me than it does to many people.

00:35:44 ◼   ► - I wanted to ask you that question

00:35:46 ◼   ► without trying to offend you.

00:35:48 ◼   ► And-- - How dare you, sir?

00:35:50 ◼   ► - Exactly, and I just wonder if maybe,

00:35:53 ◼   ► maybe there is a possibility

00:35:55 ◼   ► that you're not getting the benefit that I'm getting.

00:35:59 ◼   ► - It's entirely possible.

00:36:00 ◼   ► I mean, I can see colors.

00:36:02 ◼   ► - I know you can.

00:36:03 ◼   ► So that's why I don't wanna make it sound like to be offensive.

00:36:06 ◼   ► - In certain ranges of especially reds and greens,

00:36:10 ◼   ► my differentiation skills are low, right?

00:36:13 ◼   ► My sensors are not calibrated for that

00:36:15 ◼   ► to use totally nerd terms.

00:36:17 ◼   ► So yeah, I mean, this is a lot of products

00:36:21 ◼   ► that when it's about the colors on them, I just punt.

00:36:25 ◼   ► I just say, yeah, they say that it's like this.

00:36:28 ◼   ► I can't judge this, I'll let other people judge it.

00:36:32 ◼   ► So it's definitely a better display.

00:36:34 ◼   ► I mean the displays on the 2015 iMacs are the same color gamut, they're brighter, this

00:36:41 ◼   ► is the new generation of display tech from Apple.

00:36:45 ◼   ► And so I don't have this on my big iPad Pro, nor do I have it on my 5K iMac, because I

00:36:51 ◼   ► have the 2014 5K iMac.

00:36:55 ◼   ► So yeah, it's a beautiful display.

00:37:00 ◼   ► What can you say about it?

00:37:01 ◼   ► And there are lots of colors that cannot be properly displayed on other devices because

00:37:08 ◼   ► they're outside the color space.

00:37:11 ◼   ► Apple has a whole list.

00:37:12 ◼   ► They will tell you all about all the different colors that can't be displayed.

00:37:15 ◼   ► The one I laughed at was the uniform of the Denver Broncos is an orange that is outside

00:37:22 ◼   ► the color space, the standard color space, but it's in the color space of this device

00:37:27 ◼   ► and the two iMac displays.

00:37:30 ◼   ► This is what, if we see a Retina external display from Apple, it'll also, I mean this

00:37:35 ◼   ► is this color gamut, this style of display, this is the new generation, they haven't given

00:37:40 ◼   ► it a name, True Tone isn't really the name of it because that's more to do with the white

00:37:47 ◼   ► point setting, but this display tech that's in here and those two iMacs, this is Apple's

00:37:52 ◼   ► new generation display tech. So my guess is that the next iPad,

00:37:56 ◼   ► a big iPad pro will also have this display tech because that's, you know,

00:38:01 ◼   ► it'll be like the 5k iMac. The first one doesn't have it. The second one does.

00:38:04 ◼   ► Right. So, you know,

00:38:07 ◼   ► I do feel that this screen is vastly superior and we had somebody write to us

00:38:12 ◼   ► about, and you know, one of these kind of unintentional benefits, I think,

00:38:18 ◼   ► but ended up being great for some people.

00:38:19 ◼   ► So Benjamin wrote in to say that the combination of True Tone and Night Shift is helping him

00:38:24 ◼   ► use his iPad better than he's used any device before.

00:38:28 ◼   ► Benjamin suffers from a couple of conditions.

00:38:31 ◼   ► He has dyslexia and a syndrome called Erlin's syndrome which basically means that reading

00:38:37 ◼   ► bright displays can be really difficult.

00:38:40 ◼   ► So the reductions in bright blue light and bright light that come from the combination.

00:38:46 ◼   ► So he said that night shift was helping him out, but then when he tried out the True Tone,

00:38:50 ◼   ► it was like, now I can sit and use this device for hours and I've never been able to do that

00:38:54 ◼   ► before.

00:38:55 ◼   ► And I think that's really cool.

00:38:57 ◼   ► Like it's one of those things where it's like this guy can now use his iPad and can now

00:39:01 ◼   ► use an iPad better than he's been able to use any device because they're continuing

00:39:05 ◼   ► to advance the complexities of what these displays can do.

00:39:10 ◼   ► Yeah, and I hadn't considered that, but it's a cool thing that this is...

00:39:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, Night Shift thrown in here too.

00:39:20 ◼   ► I wonder too if the reason that Night Shift was sort of floating out there as a feature

00:39:24 ◼   ► and then Apple finally added it at this point, we were wondering what was going on with Apple

00:39:29 ◼   ► and this blue light bandwagon, if it was all connected to the True Tone stuff, where they're

00:39:34 ◼   ► like, "No, no, no, no, no.

00:39:35 ◼   ► We don't want to do that until the True Tone is ready, because that's where we're going

00:39:38 ◼   ► to drop all these features because they are similar. Night shift is not related to a sensor

00:39:43 ◼   ► but they're similar features and so I do wonder about that.

00:39:46 ◼   ► Yeah, as I say, this display is just nicer. It feels nicer on my eyes to read and it just

00:39:52 ◼   ► feels like when I look at it, it's just way more comfortable and you know, playing around

00:39:56 ◼   ► in the settings and turning the true tone on and off, it's like, yeah, okay, this is

00:40:00 ◼   ► a good looking screen here. So I like it. I like it a lot and you know, I don't know

00:40:05 ◼   ► I don't know what colour purists say about this sort of stuff.

00:40:08 ◼   ► I'm sure they love the gamut but I don't know what they think about the fact that it changes

00:40:12 ◼   ► the colour but I think it's awesome that it does it for me anyway.

00:40:17 ◼   ► Great.

00:40:18 ◼   ► Should we take a break?

00:40:20 ◼   ► I think that's a good idea.

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00:42:36 ◼   ► 3D Touch, Jason. Yes.

00:42:39 ◼   ► You went and wrote a little article the other day over at Macworld about what you call the

00:42:43 ◼   ► trouble with 3D Touch. What is said trouble? So I was at Apple, you know, for that event

00:42:50 ◼   ► the other week and I was talking to Gruber and he and I were just talking about stuff,

00:42:59 ◼   ► catching up a little bit. And we got on the subject of 3D Touch and I asked him because

00:43:07 ◼   ► the iPhone SE doesn't have it and I asked him if he used it because I said I basically

00:43:12 ◼   ► never use it and he said no I never use it either. And we were talking about what the

00:43:16 ◼   ► issues are. And I thought, you know, I should write something about this because you write

00:43:23 ◼   ► about products in theory, you know, when you're using them after, you know, a week and you

00:43:28 ◼   ► write your review, it's like, well, I tried this feature out, I think it's very clever

00:43:32 ◼   ► and I do think it's a very clever feature, I think it's got some things that are implemented

00:43:35 ◼   ► really well. I think the feature itself is brilliant, that it senses your finger pressure

00:43:43 ◼   ► and triggers at more or less the right time, and the Taptic Engine physical feedback is

00:43:50 ◼   ► good.

00:43:52 ◼   ► I think the problem, and I worried about this at the time, but over the course of the last

00:43:56 ◼   ► six months I find that it is, I've sort of stopped looking for it and I've kind of forgotten

00:44:04 ◼   ► it exists.

00:44:05 ◼   ► And one of the reasons is because while some of the features are really great, switching

00:44:09 ◼   ► apps using sort of the force 3d touch on the edge of the screen the the trackpad

00:44:17 ◼   ► initiation by pressing down on the keyboard is a good one

00:44:20 ◼   ► I think I think the problem with 3d touch in a lot of places is that on the

00:44:29 ◼   ► icon app icons they're not customizable enough and don't have access to as far

00:44:35 ◼   ► as far as I can tell, enough live data to make them more than, for most apps, just super

00:44:41 ◼   ► basic shortcuts. And my biggest issue is that things like Peek and Pop I find not particularly

00:44:47 ◼   ► useful. And you know, some people find them useful. I've heard from a lot of people, like,

00:44:50 ◼   ► "Well, I use 3D Touch, so you're wrong." It's like, "Okay, well, I didn't say people didn't

00:44:54 ◼   ► use it." In fact, I think what I said in my article is, "People who use 3D Touch are not

00:44:58 ◼   ► monsters."

00:44:59 ◼   ► say that and I had a chuckle when I read it.

00:45:02 ◼   ► But I think I've also talked to a lot of people who don't use 3D touch very much or if they

00:45:08 ◼   ► say they use it they say well I use it but I really am only using it to move the cursor

00:45:12 ◼   ► around and switch apps. I don't like Peek and Pop because I feel like in most cases

00:45:19 ◼   ► it's a waste of time. There are very few cases where I want to peek at something where I

00:45:25 ◼   ► don't just want to see it and tapping on a link and seeing it and then going back

00:45:30 ◼   ► in most of the time is less fussy then pushing a little bit till it peaks but

00:45:37 ◼   ► not so much that it pops and then seeing what it is and then deciding to let go

00:45:40 ◼   ► or push it down or or swipe so I don't I don't love the peak and pop thing I

00:45:47 ◼   ► don't use it a lot I don't I don't think that it saves a lot of time but my

00:45:51 ◼   ► overarching point is that I feel like just as with the force click on the Mac

00:45:59 ◼   ► there are we're suffering from the fact that this is not available on all

00:46:05 ◼   ► devices and so nobody wants to do anything important with this gesture

00:46:11 ◼   ► because you only can get it on a couple of devices and and so you can't count on

00:46:19 ◼   ► it so you can't do anything super critical on it you have to put your super critical

00:46:24 ◼   ► interface stuff somewhere else and have this more for niceties and that's why on the Mac

00:46:30 ◼   ► when you force click on something you get this weird it's the equivalent of like the

00:46:34 ◼   ► old three finger click three finger tap thing where you like define terms and stuff and

00:46:41 ◼   ► logically in a world where force calibration existed from the beginning it would probably

00:46:45 ◼   ► be the alternate click, it would be the control click.

00:46:48 ◼   ► But it's not.

00:46:50 ◼   ► And similarly on iOS, I feel like, and Grouper and I were talking about this, that something

00:46:56 ◼   ► like a tap and hold, if we said, "okay, tap and hold is the equivalent of a control click,

00:47:01 ◼   ► it provides extra context, and with 3D touch you don't have to hold, you just do the 3D

00:47:07 ◼   ► touch and it instantly brings you the context," would be a better convention.

00:47:12 ◼   ► But because it came in late to the party, it's just sort of, I feel like it's less

00:47:19 ◼   ► useful than it should be that this technology is being let down by the fact that everybody

00:47:23 ◼   ► is afraid to make it central because only the 6 and 6S have it.

00:47:29 ◼   ► And that if you embraced a universal equivalent for non-3D touch devices, then it could be

00:47:37 ◼   ► much more useful.

00:47:39 ◼   ► And if you imagine something like tapping and holding on an iPad and getting the equivalent

00:47:44 ◼   ► of what happens with a 3D Touch on an iPhone, I feel like then people who've got the 3D

00:47:51 ◼   ► Touch devices are going to be more happy.

00:47:53 ◼   ► They're going to be able to do that much more readily because they don't have to wait.

00:47:58 ◼   ► And there are going to be more uses of it and that will be better.

00:48:01 ◼   ► And I'm concerned it's going to be years before 3D Touch can be assumed on devices

00:48:07 ◼   ► because devices survive and there are devices being sold today like the SE, brand new device

00:48:13 ◼   ► that doesn't support it and all the iPads don't support it.

00:48:18 ◼   ► And so I feel like 3D Touch is in this weird quandary where it's available but for such

00:48:24 ◼   ► a narrow group of people just like the Force Touch trackpads on the Mac that it can't live

00:48:31 ◼   ► up to its potential.

00:48:32 ◼   ► I would argue that the Force Touch trackpads are more available than the 3D Touch capability,

00:48:41 ◼   ► right? There are more devices that have that ability to have that trackpad than there are

00:48:46 ◼   ► iOS devices. Just a point, but the problem still remains.

00:48:51 ◼   ► You can't count on it, right? Exactly.

00:48:52 ◼   ► I mean, if you've got an older Mac, but you can't count on it to the point where you'd

00:48:58 ◼   ► say, "This is a feature only available by a Force Touch," right? You can't. You can't

00:49:03 ◼   ► do it.

00:49:04 ◼   ► No. So, I do use Peek and Pop quite a bit, actually, in a couple of different instances.

00:49:12 ◼   ► One of them is when people send me links via iMessage. I will very, practically every single

00:49:18 ◼   ► time I will Peek and Pop the link, if I don't know what I'm going to, right? Like, if I've

00:49:23 ◼   ► not been asked for something or I'm not expecting something, somebody sends me a link to something,

00:49:27 ◼   ► I will typically just use the Peek and Pop because I don't leave the app, right? I'm

00:49:31 ◼   ► still in Messages. I'm usually just checking something. So typically I'm going to be, I

00:49:37 ◼   ► know the next thing I'll be doing after looking at that link is sending another iMessage.

00:49:42 ◼   ► So I never leave. But I actually think that Apple fail with their implementation of Peek

00:49:48 ◼   ► and Pop in Messages. And I will use Tweetbot as an example, which is another app that I

00:49:53 ◼   ► use Peek and Pop in quite a lot. Like somebody will tweet a link to something and I want

00:49:57 ◼   ► to see what it is before I actually go ahead and open it and read it or check it out.

00:50:02 ◼   ► Because sometimes it's like, "Oh, what is this that they're linking to?"

00:50:05 ◼   ► So I'll give the scenario a Tweetbot and then go back to why I think it's better than messages.

00:50:10 ◼   ► So when I peek a link in Tweetbot, it will start to load the page.

00:50:16 ◼   ► And then if I decide that I want to check it out, you push it in and you pop it into

00:50:19 ◼   ► view and the content is there.

00:50:21 ◼   ► It's there from the initial loading.

00:50:22 ◼   ► And this is because they're using Safari View Controller for the whole scenario.

00:50:26 ◼   ► But when I do this in Messages, once you pop, it then opens Safari and the page loads again.

00:50:33 ◼   ► So it makes that interaction feel slower in Messages and therefore less useful than if

00:50:37 ◼   ► I just click the link.

00:50:39 ◼   ► So if Apple could either use Safari View Controller or somehow find a way to pass the data from

00:50:44 ◼   ► that initial load in Messages over to Safari, I think that this would really help more people

00:50:50 ◼   ► use it because I can see someone using it and then pressing the pop action and then

00:50:56 ◼   ► it just opens Safari and it loads again.

00:50:58 ◼   ► I don't feel like you've helped me at all here, but applications that use Safari View

00:51:02 ◼   ► Controller actually have a much better experience because the data is being shared between the

00:51:07 ◼   ► initial peak and pop.

00:51:09 ◼   ► So I think it could be done a lot better.

00:51:11 ◼   ► Yeah, makes sense.

00:51:13 ◼   ► That is one of my complaints for sure is that I have this feeling I stopped doing it a lot

00:51:17 ◼   ► on links because I felt like, why am I calibrating the level of my press on this link so that

00:51:26 ◼   ► I peek it but don't pop it and then looking at the link and deciding, oh I do want to

00:51:33 ◼   ► read this and then pressing harder and having it open in Safari when I could just tap the

00:51:37 ◼   ► link and look at it in Safari and then tap the back link and go back.

00:51:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, see that could be a lot more seamless.

00:51:44 ◼   ► But like for me, I like it because it allows me

00:51:49 ◼   ► to kind of vet something, right,

00:51:52 ◼   ► before I go ahead and spend the time on it.

00:51:54 ◼   ► I think that's why it exists and that's why I like it.

00:51:58 ◼   ► Other interactions with 3D Touch that I enjoy,

00:52:00 ◼   ► I do the cursor moving multiple times a day.

00:52:05 ◼   ► - That's a great feature.

00:52:05 ◼   ► - Love that feature.

00:52:07 ◼   ► I hardly ever use the multitasking

00:52:09 ◼   ► because I wear a case on my phone.

00:52:11 ◼   ► So it's super difficult to make that interaction occur,

00:52:15 ◼   ► in my opinion.

00:52:16 ◼   ► I never use the App Icon Actions.

00:52:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was, I mean, like I said earlier,

00:52:22 ◼   ► I was excited about the App Icon Actions,

00:52:24 ◼   ► but they're so limited,

00:52:26 ◼   ► and most apps are doing a very basic job.

00:52:29 ◼   ► There are apps that do a great job.

00:52:31 ◼   ► Somebody sent me a fitness app,

00:52:32 ◼   ► and now I can't forget,

00:52:34 ◼   ► or I can't remember which one it was, I did forget,

00:52:37 ◼   ► that actually shows you your steps and other fitness data,

00:52:40 ◼   ► that it's doing some extra work to update its quick shortcut list, quick menu, quick

00:52:47 ◼   ► view, whatever it's called.

00:52:49 ◼   ► But most don't, most are really simple and not very useful and some of that probably

00:52:53 ◼   ► has to do with the limitations Apple puts on it.

00:52:55 ◼   ► It could be more useful and part of it is that I think the developers are just not that

00:52:59 ◼   ► into it.

00:53:00 ◼   ► And is that because they looked and people don't use that feature or is it that they

00:53:04 ◼   ► don't, they're worried about other things and it's a feature that only iPhone 6s can

00:53:09 ◼   ► use so they're not going to bother. I don't know, it's maybe a combination of all those

00:53:13 ◼   ► things but I wish it was more useful because it's a really cool idea. Plus, even Apple

00:53:18 ◼   ► has failed to do it like on Control Center. You can't 3D touch on any of the icons in

00:53:24 ◼   ► Control Center which seems dumb because the camera icon is there. And the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

00:53:30 ◼   ► icons are there where you can quickly connect to a Bluetooth device or something like that

00:53:35 ◼   ► but nope, there's no support for it at all.

00:53:37 ◼   ► Like what I would like to be able to do is to customize those shortcuts more.

00:53:43 ◼   ► For example, the Slack one I would love to be able to just basically make it all of the

00:53:48 ◼   ► Slacks that I'm a part of.

00:53:49 ◼   ► Right.

00:53:50 ◼   ► But yeah, as you say, some apps that you customize, some apps kind of feel like they're assuming.

00:53:56 ◼   ► The messages one is the most baffling to me.

00:53:59 ◼   ► The people that are whenever I've 3D touched the messages icon and never the people I would

00:54:03 ◼   ► expect to be there.

00:54:04 ◼   ► I don't know how that's chosen.

00:54:06 ◼   ► I've got to say overall that I do miss 3D touch on my iPads because the two finger trackpad

00:54:15 ◼   ► is nowhere near as reliable for me. I feel like I'm always just typing characters and

00:54:20 ◼   ► can never get it to do anything. And I do, and I say I use Peek and Pop enough that I

00:54:24 ◼   ► wish it was it was there. I want to talk about the long press idea that you propose. I think

00:54:34 ◼   ► I think I can see why Apple might not want to do this.

00:54:37 ◼   ► Oh sure. So I think that the 3D touch, they want to

00:54:42 ◼   ► be, they want the 3D touch actions to only be on 3D touch devices because it's a new

00:54:47 ◼   ► feature for new devices. You know all of this, I know you do, I'm just saying.

00:54:51 ◼   ► I think they want 3D touch to be special, right, so they want to tie those things together.

00:54:58 ◼   ► But I agree with you that if they don't do something and it takes three years for all

00:55:03 ◼   ► iOS devices to get this, right?

00:55:05 ◼   ► Like if you imagine it just shuffling down the line, I think it's going to be too late

00:55:09 ◼   ► and everyone's going to forget about this feature.

00:55:11 ◼   ► Well, yeah, that's the problem is I think it's dumb if the reasoning is, "Well, no,

00:55:17 ◼   ► no, no, we want it to be things you can only do on a 3D touch device," then it's not

00:55:23 ◼   ► as useful.

00:55:24 ◼   ► And that's my feeling about Force Touch on the Mac.

00:55:27 ◼   ► it's the same thing.

00:55:29 ◼   ► Bring it into the family.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Pick something that makes it, you know, it's still going to have advantages because it's

00:55:34 ◼   ► hardware, it's better, it feels better to use it.

00:55:38 ◼   ► And there can still be features that don't exist, like I'm not saying a long press on

00:55:42 ◼   ► a non-3D touch iPhone has to move the cursor or something like that.

00:55:48 ◼   ► I'm thinking more like, can we define what the secondary touch is, the secondary click,

00:55:54 ◼   ► like a control click on the Mac.

00:55:56 ◼   ► Can we define that and say that the convention is that is the secondary action and on devices

00:56:04 ◼   ► with 3D touch that will kick it off instantaneously and on devices without it, it will, you'll

00:56:12 ◼   ► tap and wait, let's say, and it will finally kick it off after a second or whatever it

00:56:17 ◼   ► is.

00:56:19 ◼   ► Like it is now in some places.

00:56:21 ◼   ► so that you've got that common frame of reference that will make people use this feature more.

00:56:30 ◼   ► The flip side of this too is that the little quick menus thing on icons on the iPhone,

00:56:37 ◼   ► I have those moments where I wish I had those on my iPad and I don't.

00:56:41 ◼   ► I have this feeling of like, "Wait, I just bought this high-end iPad Pro and this is

00:56:45 ◼   ► a feature that's in the OS, but because they are not providing me any alternative to it,

00:56:51 ◼   ► I just don't get that feature.

00:56:54 ◼   ► It makes you feel inconsistent and saying well you know we're limiting that to this

00:56:59 ◼   ► one piece of hardware for an interface convention seems kind of messed up.

00:57:05 ◼   ► So I just feel like it's not good enough and I got some push back from people who are like

00:57:10 ◼   ► what do you mean the problem with 3D touch?

00:57:12 ◼   ► I use 3D touch.

00:57:13 ◼   ► It's like yeah okay people do use 3D touch.

00:57:15 ◼   ► I'm not saying they're bad people right?

00:57:17 ◼   ► I'm saying, I think this is amazing technology that I find myself not using very often, and

00:57:25 ◼   ► why is that?

00:57:26 ◼   ► And the answer is, I don't think it's good enough, I think that Apple needs to make a

00:57:30 ◼   ► bigger effort to make 3D Touch something that anybody who's got a 3D Touch capable device

00:57:38 ◼   ► wants to use all the time.

00:57:40 ◼   ► And I feel like now there are a lot of people, and I'm including myself in this but I've

00:57:45 ◼   ► to other people like this who after the initial novelty war is off just kind of don't bother

00:57:51 ◼   ► because it's not that useful or they only use it for a couple of things. So that's

00:57:57 ◼   ► really my feeling is like they did some really great engineering to make this feature but

00:58:03 ◼   ► I think just hoarding it on a couple of devices and having it be this like third click kind

00:58:09 ◼   ► of thing is selling it short.

00:58:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I was thinking that maybe one thing they could do would be to, for the iPad Pros,

00:58:22 ◼   ► have this long press, right? Because I feel like we're such a long way away from Force

00:58:27 ◼   ► Touch or 3D Touch on an iPad screen because of the sizes of them, it might be a good thing

00:58:34 ◼   ► to say, you know, WWDC and iOS 10. I think iOS 10 is going to see a lot of advancements

00:58:39 ◼   ► 3D Touch honestly. That would be great. And I think it would be nice if they said, "Oh,

00:58:44 ◼   ► and on the iPad Pro you can now long press." But you see, this is the challenge, right?

00:58:49 ◼   ► The iPad Pros now are being sold these new top of the line iOS devices that don't have

00:58:54 ◼   ► it. So you're never going to be able as an app developer to rely on 3D Touch for your

00:59:01 ◼   ► apps, right? Because it's only on people who have, and yeah, the number of people with

00:59:05 ◼   ► devices will grow, but the iPads don't have it, the iPhone SE doesn't have it, and that's

00:59:13 ◼   ► the problem with saying, "Oh, this is an exclusive feature that does some very special

00:59:16 ◼   ► things only on these devices," is you will never put your important features on that

00:59:22 ◼   ► feature because only some devices have it.

00:59:26 ◼   ► So it becomes a place that you dump odd features.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Like seriously, I know some people use this, but is force touch in my Magic Trackpad so

00:59:39 ◼   ► that, essentially solely so that I can define words I don't recognize in Safari?

00:59:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I have to say I never ever use force touch on my Magic Trackpad.

00:59:52 ◼   ► I can't even remember what I would use it for, right?

00:59:56 ◼   ► I still do the three finger tap for defining words.

01:00:01 ◼   ► It just doesn't, the use isn't the same.

01:00:06 ◼   ► 3D touch makes sense to me because I'm touching the screen,

01:00:10 ◼   ► like I'm touching the elements.

01:00:12 ◼   ► That's where it makes sense to me.

01:00:14 ◼   ► It's like I'm pushing them.

01:00:16 ◼   ► I don't feel like, there is a disconnect in my brain

01:00:20 ◼   ► between the hand and the cursor on the screen.

01:00:23 ◼   ► I think it's one of the things why I love iOS

01:00:25 ◼   ► because I'm actually, I feel like I'm working with my hands.

01:00:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're directly interacting

01:00:32 ◼   ► with what's on the screen.

01:00:33 ◼   ► That's how I feel when I edit podcasts in Ferrite

01:00:35 ◼   ► is that I feel like I'm,

01:00:37 ◼   ► I mean, I've joked about artisanal handcrafted podcasts,

01:00:40 ◼   ► but it feels like that when I'm editing that.

01:00:41 ◼   ► I am making this podcast with my hands,

01:00:45 ◼   ► and that's not the same

01:00:46 ◼   ► when I'm using a mouse and a keyboard.

01:00:47 ◼   ► You remove that abstraction,

01:00:49 ◼   ► and that's one of the reasons, yeah,

01:00:54 ◼   ► that iOS is great on iPad and iPhone is that you're interacting directly.

01:00:58 ◼   ► I think in the end it comes down to the fact that this is technology that's added to

01:01:02 ◼   ► an operating system after all of the interactions have already been defined.

01:01:06 ◼   ► And so if they had Force Touch from the very beginning, or 3D Touch from the very beginning

01:01:11 ◼   ► on the Mac and iOS, it would be different because they would be like, "Well, how do

01:01:15 ◼   ► we…" and "On all devices, how would we do this?

01:01:18 ◼   ► How would we define it?"

01:01:19 ◼   ► And I think it would be… it's a perfect alternate click, alternate tap.

01:01:23 ◼   ► But instead it's only on some devices and it was added after the fact and it's this

01:01:28 ◼   ► and that was really my biggest point is I think this is amazing clever interaction technology

01:01:35 ◼   ► that's kind of being let down by the vision of the people who are building the operating

01:01:43 ◼   ► system that there's a disconnect between the invention of this stuff and the implementation

01:01:51 ◼   ► and it bugs me because I do like the technology.

01:01:55 ◼   ► And I'm not saying that the long press is the right answer,

01:01:58 ◼   ► it's an answer that I came up with

01:02:01 ◼   ► and that Gruber and I were both talking about.

01:02:05 ◼   ► I wanna give him credit, he really did spark this in me

01:02:08 ◼   ► when we had that conversation.

01:02:09 ◼   ► But it might not be the right answer.

01:02:13 ◼   ► There are lots of complicated things about,

01:02:15 ◼   ► oh, what happened to the existing long presses

01:02:17 ◼   ► and how do you deal with those?

01:02:18 ◼   ► like moving and deleting apps in the home screen is one of them. There's a lot of issues

01:02:24 ◼   ► there. There might be a better solution. I don't know. I'm not trying to prescribe one

01:02:27 ◼   ► particular answer and say that I've got it. But I do feel like this technology needs to

01:02:32 ◼   ► be more central and it's not. And it's sort of sad. And that's the trouble with 3D Touch.

01:02:42 ◼   ► I think one of the things that makes the 3D Touch thing different to other hardware editions,

01:02:47 ◼   ► because there are always hardware additions that affect the software and developers have

01:02:50 ◼   ► to do things for, is that usually you see them. Right? So when they make the screens

01:02:56 ◼   ► bigger, you see the changes, you know, "Oh, this change is great, I'm happy this developer

01:03:00 ◼   ► implemented it because now it just looks fantastic." But this is actually something that's hidden,

01:03:05 ◼   ► really, until you do something to it. You have to kind of know it's there to know to

01:03:09 ◼   ► take advantage of it.

01:03:10 ◼   ► And discoverability is a huge issue too. This is something that came up on Twitter while

01:03:13 ◼   ► we were talking about this, just back and forth with a bunch of people, and Grouper

01:03:19 ◼   ► was involved, and so there were a bunch of people who followed Grouper and followed me,

01:03:23 ◼   ► and therefore a whole bunch of people saw our conversation about this and jumped in.

01:03:27 ◼   ► And one of the things that struck me is that somebody said, "Oh my god, I had no idea

01:03:34 ◼   ► you could move the cursor around using 3D Touch."

01:03:39 ◼   ► Because it's not discoverable, right?

01:03:41 ◼   ► I mean, this is an invisible feature, and that's another--I didn't even get into that

01:03:45 ◼   ► in my story on Macworld, but the other problem with 3D Touch is how do you teach people how

01:03:50 ◼   ► to use it?

01:03:52 ◼   ► Because you won't, you know, you could never chance on it, chance upon it, right?

01:03:58 ◼   ► So that's a challenge too, is how do you make this something that gets into your user's

01:04:02 ◼   ► vocabulary?

01:04:03 ◼   ► >> I don't know.

01:04:05 ◼   ► >> I don't know.

01:04:07 ◼   ► why they pay the geniuses at Apple to figure this stuff out, right? I mean, this is, I

01:04:12 ◼   ► should say again, one of the things about us talking about these issues is we're not

01:04:19 ◼   ► saying that we have all the answers here, and we're not saying this is an easy solution.

01:04:23 ◼   ► I think it's not. I think if it was an easy solution, Apple would have solved it, right?

01:04:29 ◼   ► But I do think it's not good enough, and I think it's worth pointing out that it needs

01:04:34 ◼   ► to be better and I hope that it will be better. But it's not that it's an easy problem to

01:04:39 ◼   ► solve. I think it's a hard problem to solve but I do think it still needs solving. I don't

01:04:42 ◼   ► think it's done. I don't think Apple can look at the way 3D Touch works today on iOS and

01:04:47 ◼   ► say, "Solid. We're done here. Let's just put it on the devices gradually and everything

01:04:52 ◼   ► will be fine." Because I just don't think it's good enough.

01:04:54 ◼   ► Do you know what is good enough? Is it one of our friends?

01:05:00 ◼   ► Well, I was going to say Ask Upgrade and then I was going to say, "Do you know what's even

01:05:03 ◼   ► more good enough and that's FreshBooks.

01:05:05 ◼   ► Ah, well I totally ruined that for you then. But FreshBooks is good. It's more than good

01:05:09 ◼   ► enough, Myke.

01:05:10 ◼   ► That's correct. Let me tell you why. Because FreshBooks are on a mission to help small

01:05:13 ◼   ► business owners save time and avoid the stress that comes with running their businesses.

01:05:18 ◼   ► I cannot say how much I love FreshBooks. Like it is not possible for me to express how easy

01:05:26 ◼   ► this makes a complicated and kind of not fun part of my job,

01:05:31 ◼   ► which is sending out invoices.

01:05:33 ◼   ► Last week, we sent our 500th invoice at Relay FM

01:05:37 ◼   ► through FreshBooks.

01:05:38 ◼   ► And this is because they have created a super intuitive tool

01:05:42 ◼   ► that makes creating and sending these invoices simple.

01:05:45 ◼   ► I sit down on a Friday, send out a bunch of invoices,

01:05:48 ◼   ► and it's a breeze because it takes just 30 seconds

01:05:51 ◼   ► to create and send one.

01:05:52 ◼   ► You can give your clients tons of ways to pay you

01:05:55 ◼   ► and that's just all built in.

01:05:56 ◼   ► You set it up once and it's just attached

01:05:58 ◼   ► to all of the invoices that you want it attached to, right?

01:06:00 ◼   ► And you can say you want to get paid by PayPal,

01:06:03 ◼   ► you want to get paid by card payment,

01:06:06 ◼   ► and you can give your clients all of the information

01:06:09 ◼   ► to pay you by check and to pay you by bank transfer.

01:06:12 ◼   ► That's all in there, and this means

01:06:14 ◼   ► because it's right up front and you can give people

01:06:16 ◼   ► online ways to pay, we integrate with Stripe, for example,

01:06:19 ◼   ► FreshBooks lets you do all of that,

01:06:21 ◼   ► that you will get paid five days faster.

01:06:24 ◼   ► This is something that FreshBooks have found.

01:06:26 ◼   ► Their customers get paid five days faster

01:06:28 ◼   ► because it's so easy for your clients to pay their invoices.

01:06:32 ◼   ► You can see if somebody's looked at an invoice,

01:06:34 ◼   ► you can set up automatic late payment reminders.

01:06:37 ◼   ► This takes a lot of distress and worry

01:06:39 ◼   ► out of people not paying you.

01:06:41 ◼   ► And also just, you know, in case they've forgotten,

01:06:43 ◼   ► which happens so often, that your invoice just hits an inbox

01:06:46 ◼   ► that gets another thousand emails every day.

01:06:49 ◼   ► It's just make sure that it's at the front of mind

01:06:51 ◼   ► of the person you're sending your invoice to.

01:06:53 ◼   ► You can track all of your expenses, you can scan them using the FreshBooks app on your

01:06:59 ◼   ► iPhone for example, it makes it super easy to organise them for later.

01:07:03 ◼   ► They have time tracking if that's something you need to do and support is amazing at FreshBooks.

01:07:07 ◼   ► It's at the core of their business, they really believe in it.

01:07:09 ◼   ► If you call FreshBooks, there's no phone tree, you call and someone will pick up.

01:07:13 ◼   ► And if their support team is busy, every phone in the FreshBooks office will ring until somebody

01:07:19 ◼   ► picks it up and helps you out.

01:07:20 ◼   ► This is how much they believe in it.

01:07:22 ◼   ► You could be talking to anyone, the VP of Marketing for example.

01:07:26 ◼   ► They will pick up the phone if there's nobody available and they will help you out with

01:07:30 ◼   ► what you need.

01:07:31 ◼   ► That's how much they believe in it.

01:07:33 ◼   ► Getting started with FreshBooks is simple.

01:07:35 ◼   ► You don't need to be a numbers person.

01:07:36 ◼   ► There's one number you need to know and that's 30 because that's how many days you're going

01:07:40 ◼   ► to get a free trial of because you listen to this show.

01:07:43 ◼   ► There's no credit card required to do this.

01:07:45 ◼   ► To claim your 30 days of unrestricted use go to FreshBooks.com/upgrade and please enter

01:07:50 ◼   ► upgrade in the "How you heard about us" section so FreshBooks knows you came from this show.

01:07:55 ◼   ► Thank you so much to FreshBooks for their continued support of Upgrade and Relay FM.

01:08:00 ◼   ► I love FreshBooks, Jason.

01:08:03 ◼   ► I am one of those people who pays their invoices much faster when I get something from FreshBooks.

01:08:08 ◼   ► Bingo.

01:08:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:10 ◼   ► There you go.

01:08:11 ◼   ► If you ever send a--if you need to send an invoice to Jason, use FreshBooks.

01:08:15 ◼   ► Jim Metzendorf knows what I'm talking about.

01:08:17 ◼   ► He gets it!

01:08:18 ◼   ► He knows.

01:08:19 ◼   ► knows. Alright, so, first question this week comes in from Myke. Myke asks, "Why does the

01:08:25 ◼   ► App Store show iPhone screenshots on the iPad Pro and not iPad screenshots?" I don't know

01:08:30 ◼   ► why Myke, and it's incredibly frustrating that this hasn't been fixed yet.

01:08:34 ◼   ► Yep. I don't know how this bug still exists.

01:08:38 ◼   ► Yeah. There's no good reason. There's no good answer. It's dumb.

01:08:43 ◼   ► Yeah. It just shouldn't be the case. The iPad Pro couldn't be further away from the iPhone

01:08:49 ◼   ► in screen size but yet somehow their screenshots gets mixed up in the app store. It's been

01:08:53 ◼   ► like this since day one on the iPad Pro. Shouldn't be the case. I don't have an answer for you

01:08:58 ◼   ► Myke except for it's a silly bug. Wes wants to know, "What is the process that you go

01:09:04 ◼   ► through when naming a new show?" I've just done that with the ring post. So I kind of

01:09:10 ◼   ► will basically just keep working on it until I find something that feels right. So this

01:09:16 ◼   ► can be brainstorming, talking to people, until I find the name that works. And then there's

01:09:21 ◼   ► usually a process of once you've got the name, checking that it's available in certain places,

01:09:25 ◼   ► right? Like I had the idea of the ring post and then found I could get the ringpost.com.

01:09:29 ◼   ► And I was like, once I can get that domain, I'm good to rock and roll. And that's not

01:09:34 ◼   ► the domain I'm using, it forwards, but I like ringpost.fm more because it just fits with

01:09:39 ◼   ► what I like. But I found a name that I really liked. I could imagine me saying it, I could

01:09:45 ◼   ► see how the artwork could look and once I've kind of got that feel for it, that's when

01:09:50 ◼   ► it starts to become a thing.

01:09:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree. Sometimes you end up looking... sometimes you get something that feels right

01:09:56 ◼   ► and then you do some searches and realize that it has meanings that you didn't anticipate

01:10:03 ◼   ► and so you can't use it or yeah, or all the domains are taken or there's a very popular

01:10:07 ◼   ► podcast already with that name. I feel like sometimes there's like, oh, there was a...

01:10:10 ◼   ► somebody had a podcast with that name that hasn't posted a new episode in three years

01:10:15 ◼   ► was about a different subject and I'm just not going to worry about it because it's not

01:10:20 ◼   ► quite like there can only be one of anything. But with The Incomparable, we were talking

01:10:28 ◼   ► about names for The Incomparable back in the day. And The Incomparable has its name because

01:10:33 ◼   ► Greg Noss had the incomparable.com and I thought that was kind of a funny name and it was cool

01:10:38 ◼   ► that it was a dot com domain. Literally that was it. But we threw around a bunch of other

01:10:43 ◼   ► names and one of them ones, because we were talking a lot about, in the early episodes

01:10:47 ◼   ► especially, about zeppelins, right? And there's a zeppelin on the Uncomparable logo. And we

01:10:53 ◼   ► were joking at one point that maybe we were going to call the podcast Zeppelin Enthusiast.

01:10:58 ◼   ► The problem is Led Zeppelin, right? A zeppelin enthusiast loves Led Zeppelin. And we were

01:11:04 ◼   ► not a Led Zeppelin podcast, and we needed to not put the word Zeppelin in our name.

01:11:09 ◼   ► not only is it difficult for some people to spell, but it has one context really that

01:11:14 ◼   ► is way outside of rigid airships from the early part of the 20th century, and so never

01:11:21 ◼   ► mind. So sometimes it comes up like that too, where you're like, "Oh, well this would

01:11:24 ◼   ► have been a good idea." And then other times we were talking about a bunch of names for

01:11:28 ◼   ► Total Party Kill, but Total Party Kill seemed right and there wasn't anything with that

01:11:32 ◼   ► name and we thought it was funny because the suggestion there is failure. Total Party Kill,

01:11:37 ◼   ► for those who don't know, in Dungeons and Dragons is where everybody dies. And it means

01:11:42 ◼   ► you've completely failed at what you were doing. Although we've only had one of those

01:11:48 ◼   ► in our entire run of Total Party Kill and it was the very first session, since then

01:11:54 ◼   ► we haven't had that but it's just a funny name and I think our logo even had for a while

01:11:59 ◼   ► a 20 sided die with a 1 on it which is bad. So that's it. I was trying to remember Upgrade

01:12:06 ◼   ► and I did find one email that we went back and forth, but we'd already come down to

01:12:12 ◼   ► a couple of names at that point. But my recollection is that we ended up with sort of, and Liftoff

01:12:19 ◼   ► was like this too, we ended up with like a Google Doc and we all put some names in it.

01:12:22 ◼   ► In the end we had sort of five or six that we felt okay about and there were a couple

01:12:28 ◼   ► that we all liked. And then I did find an email where you said, "Okay, here are these

01:12:33 ◼   ► two names that I think are the best based on our discussions. And I slightly prefer

01:12:41 ◼   ► this one to this one, but I could really go either way. And I have some concerns about

01:12:47 ◼   ► upgrade. You told me I have some concerns about upgrade because it doesn't sound like

01:12:50 ◼   ► -- because this is fresh off of me leaving IDG -- does it sound like you are making an

01:12:55 ◼   ► upgrade by leaving Macworld? And my response to you was, "I don't mind that connotation

01:13:03 ◼   ► at all. I think my concern was I didn't want to look disrespectful but as soon as you said

01:13:08 ◼   ► you liked it that was the winner for me. Yeah. Right? As soon as you, because I hoped that

01:13:13 ◼   ► it would be an upgrade of your life. Exactly. Then that ended up being part of the thinking

01:13:19 ◼   ► behind the show's name. We just wanted a technology sounding name. Exactly. And that's kind of

01:13:25 ◼   ► what we came out of and then as is usual Frank develops an incredible brand around the show

01:13:31 ◼   ► and then once we see that artwork, the names never, they're just locked in because they

01:13:36 ◼   ► look at your works.

01:13:38 ◼   ► The first artwork you sent me, because I also saw this today when I was looking this up,

01:13:41 ◼   ► the first artwork you sent me, I just said that's it, yes, right? The clockwise artwork

01:13:46 ◼   ► we went back and forth about five times.

01:13:48 ◼   ► Because it already existed. That's part of the problem. When it's brand new, that's where

01:13:55 ◼   ► our amazing designer, he just takes it and creates something. But when there's a pre-existing

01:14:02 ◼   ► thing, there usually is a bit more tweaking because you have more of a view in your mind

01:14:06 ◼   ► as to how you want it to look, right? Like it can be a bit more tricky.

01:14:08 ◼   ► We'd already done whatever 70 episodes of it and had an idea of what the podcast was

01:14:14 ◼   ► and so that had to fit, so that was trickier. But with Upgrade, you know, it was the red

01:14:18 ◼   ► circle with the white symbol and I was like, "Yep, great."

01:14:24 ◼   ► With the ring post, I did something with Frank that I've never done before, which was I sent

01:14:29 ◼   ► him a crudely drawn sketch as to how I wanted it to look. Because I know wrestling and he

01:14:37 ◼   ► doesn't, right? That was part of it. For me, I felt like it had a real thing, right? For

01:14:47 ◼   ► me, as soon as I thought of the name, I knew exactly how the artwork needed to look. So

01:14:51 ◼   ► So I sent that to him and as usual we did an incredible job.

01:14:54 ◼   ► Yeah, he did.

01:14:55 ◼   ► Knocked it out of the park as always.

01:14:57 ◼   ► Okay Lando would like to know, and Lando is actually the second person to ask this week,

01:15:01 ◼   ► what is mailbagging?

01:15:02 ◼   ► Now we've dealt with this before.

01:15:05 ◼   ► Yep, so I pulled this straight back out of a previous show and it's going to go back

01:15:08 ◼   ► into the show notes today which is an explanation for what mailbagging is.

01:15:12 ◼   ► I don't know why two people asked in the last seven days but that happens.

01:15:16 ◼   ► So for Lando, basically this is what mailbagging is.

01:15:21 ◼   ► When your email server is unavailable, MailBagging stores the emails sent to your MailExchange

01:15:25 ◼   ► server and sends them to you when your system is back online.

01:15:33 ◼   ► The reason this is the thing, Jason said MailBagging and the first time we did the MailRoute ad

01:15:37 ◼   ► and I couldn't stop laughing.

01:15:40 ◼   ► And now I just love the way it sounds and say it.

01:15:44 ◼   ► MailRoute when they updated their ad with us this year, they didn't have the MailBagging

01:15:47 ◼   ► thing in there.

01:15:48 ◼   ► it back in because I couldn't imagine us talking about mail route and not talking about mail

01:15:55 ◼   ► bagging.

01:15:56 ◼   ► All right, Tom would like to know what type of stand do you use for your iPad Pro? So

01:16:02 ◼   ► I don't use anything other than the smart cover. I don't think you do either. I use

01:16:06 ◼   ► the smart keyboard, but I don't use any stands. I know you mentioned something that is in

01:16:11 ◼   ► beta that you're looking at, which is kind of a stand.

01:16:15 ◼   ► Yeah, so I've got the old Origami workstation, which I still have been using, which is a

01:16:24 ◼   ► stand and a keyboard holder in one for the old Apple wireless keyboard.

01:16:27 ◼   ► There's a beta stand that I can't talk about, but that hopefully will be a real product

01:16:35 ◼   ► soon that is for the Magic Keyboard that does the same thing as the Origami, basically.

01:16:42 ◼   ► a case and then you unfold it and you can you can use it as a stand. At home I've also got this

01:16:49 ◼   ► wooden stand that I got at Macworld Expo that is sort of a kitchen stand but I will sometimes use

01:16:54 ◼   ► that too. You can slot your iPad in there and but you know a lot of the time yeah it's just the

01:17:00 ◼   ► the smart cover. Yeah I've been I've wanted to try and find some stands I'm thinking now like I would

01:17:09 ◼   ► like to maybe have a stand of some description. I would love to know if anybody is using a

01:17:13 ◼   ► stand with their iPad Pro, what they're using. I would be very interested in seeing what

01:17:20 ◼   ► they are.

01:17:22 ◼   ► Yeah, and Gray posted a picture of his iPad workstation. And I thought that was great

01:17:32 ◼   ► because I thought about that too, about creating the equivalent of my iMac workstation for

01:17:38 ◼   ► for an iPad Pro, but mostly that's in my kitchen.

01:17:42 ◼   ► Mostly I will just go during the day over to the bar

01:17:45 ◼   ► in my kitchen and put the iPad on a stand there,

01:17:47 ◼   ► and that's my sort of standing iPad workstation,

01:17:50 ◼   ► and then I'll go back to my desk, but yeah.

01:17:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, Gray has kind of a standing desk iPad setup,

01:17:57 ◼   ► but even he doesn't like the stand that he's using,

01:17:59 ◼   ► but it's the only one that he's found

01:18:01 ◼   ► that will work with the iPad Pro in the way that he wants.

01:18:03 ◼   ► - Right.

01:18:04 ◼   ► - But yeah, so I would love to know

01:18:05 ◼   ► anybody who's using anything like this would be great.

01:18:11 ◼   ► Okay so next up we have from Nathan and Nathan asks "Will the need to differentiate iPad

01:18:18 ◼   ► Pro and non-Pro lines, as you know that's happening now as we need to try and split

01:18:23 ◼   ► them apart a bit, do you think we might see 5C like plastic iPads at some point in the

01:18:29 ◼   ► future? Maybe the iPad mini or something?"

01:18:32 ◼   ► I don't. I don't. For the same reason the 5c went away. If the 5c stuck around, then

01:18:41 ◼   ► yes I do think we would see those. Because the 5c isn't around anymore, I don't think

01:18:46 ◼   ► we'll see them. Will we see colors like the iPod touch? I think that is more likely. But

01:18:51 ◼   ► just colored aluminium instead of plastic. Yeah, I mean the 5c didn't stick around which

01:19:00 ◼   ► suggests to me that it didn't meet Apple's expectations. I think the

01:19:03 ◼   ► the conventional wisdom is that perhaps it was perceived as cheap and even on

01:19:09 ◼   ► the lower cost iPad I would think that Apple doesn't want it to be perceived as

01:19:14 ◼   ► cheap and that they feel like their identity right now is the you know that

01:19:18 ◼   ► that aluminum back is part of the value of these Apple products so I think it's

01:19:27 ◼   ► not likely. Same thing as you, Myke. If the 5C design language had stuck around, I would

01:19:34 ◼   ► feel different about it. But yeah, hey, anodized aluminum colors on those things, maybe that's

01:19:40 ◼   ► the approach. That might be fun.

01:19:44 ◼   ► And lastly, Brian, do you think that extra features of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro indicate

01:19:50 ◼   ► an upgrade this year for the 12.9, or will it stick to a potential two-year cycle that

01:19:55 ◼   ► we've been talking about.

01:19:58 ◼   ► My gut feeling is that it will be upgraded to match the 9 7 in terms of the screen and

01:20:07 ◼   ► stuff like that in a year maybe?

01:20:12 ◼   ► That seems like not a bad cycle.

01:20:13 ◼   ► I would love to see those two get in sync.

01:20:18 ◼   ► But off the top of my head that's the thing that struck me is that maybe we'll see a new

01:20:23 ◼   ► new 12.9 inch next spring, sort of a year out from the 9.7 inch being introduced.

01:20:31 ◼   ► I think that what we'll see is next spring an update for both of them.

01:20:37 ◼   ► So the 12.9 ends up being about 18 months old or something by that point.

01:20:42 ◼   ► I think they have to do it that way for it to make sense going forward.

01:20:46 ◼   ► I think releasing these two products out of sync by six months is crazy.

01:20:53 ◼   ► making. Just wait and then release them both and I think that they will go

01:20:58 ◼   ► like many iPads have recently they will have a one year and then it will go to

01:21:03 ◼   ► two years in renewal. I think that I genuinely think that's what we're gonna

01:21:06 ◼   ► see for the iPads line going forward. I just don't think there's enough going on

01:21:12 ◼   ► in the iPad line to say that you need an update every year in all honesty I just

01:21:16 ◼   ► don't see it. Yeah it's possible with the pros it might be a little bit different

01:21:20 ◼   ► if they've got other stuff that they want to load in there on a yearly basis.

01:21:23 ◼   ► But I do think we will see an update to that 12.9 that will bring it, you know,

01:21:31 ◼   ► the features that it doesn't have that the 9.7 has. And then perhaps the 9.7 will also be updated at

01:21:36 ◼   ► that point and they'll be in parity. They'll be the same more or less with the exception of their screen.

01:21:44 ◼   ► So that's it, Jason?

01:21:46 ◼   ► Yeah, we've reached the end.

01:21:48 ◼   ► Yep, from as we speak currently the iPad recording worked. You will know listening to this episode

01:21:56 ◼   ► if it did. Right? We don't know.

01:21:59 ◼   ► I sound great. Although in a different room than usual.

01:22:02 ◼   ► Exactly. If you want to find our show notes for this week head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/84

01:22:07 ◼   ► but they should be in your fantastic app of choice. If you'd like to find Jason head on

01:22:14 ◼   ► on over to SixColors.com where you can find his great writing. Obviously he does more

01:22:19 ◼   ► shows over at TheIncomparableWar.com too. And Jason is @JasonL on Twitter. JSNELL. I

01:22:26 ◼   ► am @imikeyke and I do some stuff occasionally over at MykeWasRight.com. As we mentioned

01:22:34 ◼   ► a couple of times during the show, I'm not here next week. I'm going to be in Atlanta.

01:22:37 ◼   ► But Jason will be bringing on another super special, extra special guest to join him as

01:22:43 ◼   ► of yet unannounced guest. But there will be someone super special. Maybe more special

01:22:49 ◼   ► than me even if you can imagine such a thing. Thank you so much to Casper, ITProTV and Freshbooks

01:22:57 ◼   ► for helping make this show possible and we'll be back, well I'll be back in another time

01:23:02 ◼   ► Jason we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye Mr Snell.

01:23:07 ◼   ► Have a good time in the USA Myke. What is it ROCK in the USA?

01:23:12 ◼   ► That's it. That's what I'm gonna be doing.

01:23:14 ◼   ► USA. USA. USA.

01:23:16 ◼   ► PEN in the USA is what I'm...

01:23:18 ◼   ► say is well I'm...

01:23:20 ◼   ► [ Music ]

01:23:26 ◼   ► [ Silence ]