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78: Rename Everything

 

00:00:00   [BEEP]

00:00:00   [♫ "The

00:00:29   It is. It is. This is how it begins.

00:00:33   This is how it begins.

00:00:36   The rumor has it that there's going to be an Apple event on a Monday again, and we had

00:00:42   to deal with that last year when there was an Apple event on a Monday, and we ended up

00:00:47   doing a little post-event upgrade, which was very exciting, so we might get a chance to

00:00:53   do that again in March, it sounds like.

00:00:55   Yeah, well, I mean, even if it's a Tuesday, we'll just move the show to Tuesday.

00:01:00   Yeah, usually I think that's the best. There's nothing worse. I did, well, I was on that

00:01:03   like two and a half hour long episode of the talk show with, that might be redundant, with

00:01:10   Grouper the day we recorded it, like three days before the Apple event, but then it got

00:01:17   edited, you know, and the editing took a little while. And so I think he dropped it like the

00:01:21   the morning of the Apple event. I'm like, people, if they listen now, they will barely

00:01:28   be able to get through the podcast before the Apple event starts, which was not ideal

00:01:33   timing. So it's not really great to put out an hour-long episode of a podcast even the

00:01:39   night before an Apple event because who's going to listen to it? And then they're just

00:01:42   going to skip over it because they want to hear, they already know what happened. There's

00:01:46   nothing worse than listening to speculation about what will happen during an Apple event

00:01:50   after it happened, right? Sure. I mean, I feel like with this event as well, if you're

00:01:54   gonna be at the events, which you've had a pretty good track record of being at the events,

00:01:59   we may as well just wait. Yeah, well, that's true. That's true. I'll just cross my fingers

00:02:04   to get a, to get an invite to this one. But, um, if, but regardless, right, I think regardless,

00:02:10   it's, it's better to talk about the event and its aftermath than to, to create, you

00:02:16   know, a show about speculation about what's going to happen, you know, less than a day

00:02:21   later. It's no point.

00:02:22   And what I've quite liked recently, and we've done this and now I'm trying to make more

00:02:27   of an effort of it, is this show will be the show reacting to the event, so recorded as

00:02:33   soon as possible after it has occurred. And then we do Connected a day or two later and

00:02:39   give some, like, more thought based on what has come out subsequently.

00:02:44   had time to reflect at that point.

00:02:48   You know, because Federico especially is obviously extremely busy that day too.

00:02:53   There's kind of not much point in

00:02:55   dragging both of you

00:02:57   out to do this.

00:02:59   So, there you go everybody, there's a look behind the curtain of how we do

00:03:03   Apple event coverage. So we'll see if the event is

00:03:06   actually announced, which it hasn't been. Everybody's talking about, "Oh, the date moved."

00:03:10   Well, there hasn't been a date announced, so it hasn't moved.

00:03:13   Um, and we'll see if I get invited and we'll see what they announce and then we'll talk

00:03:17   about it.

00:03:18   It might have moved.

00:03:20   That's how it works.

00:03:21   It might have moved.

00:03:23   I don't necessarily subscribe to that idea of just because Apple hasn't announced it

00:03:27   doesn't mean it's true.

00:03:28   Well, until they've announced it, I mean, there are lots of things.

00:03:32   That's like saying that, uh, uh, that the iPhone lost a feature that was rumored but

00:03:38   then isn't in the product.

00:03:39   It's like, until the product...

00:03:40   I sort of subscribe to the idea that I'm sure it's entirely possible that Apple changed

00:03:45   its mind about when it was scheduling this event and originally it was looking good for

00:03:51   this date and they decided to do a different date, but that is not quite the same as Apple

00:03:56   rescheduling the event since they've not ever made a public statement about the event or

00:04:01   even a hint about it.

00:04:03   It's like you got to give them...

00:04:05   They get take backs on that.

00:04:06   get a mulligan on that one because they didn't actually take their finger off the chess piece.

00:04:12   It must cost so much money if they do need to reschedule these events. It must just cost

00:04:17   a fortune. Yeah, well, they've got the money. Yeah, they can handle it, you know. It's not

00:04:23   like us moving an event of some description. This is a whole serious business. And we don't

00:04:28   even know, I think the rumour is Town Hall, but we don't actually even know where they're

00:04:32   gonna be. So... Yeah, if it's Town Hall, it's not that expensive for them, I'm sure.

00:04:37   It's not so bad. I don't know. The janitor of Town Hall is like, "guys, this is gonna

00:04:42   cost in the thousands." Yeah. I gotta bring in some overtime on this one, yeah?

00:04:46   Alright, so should we do some follow-up? Let's do it! So, a very quick note. I just wanted

00:04:52   to mention this. I was watching MKBHD's kind of thoughts about the Galaxy S7, and there

00:05:00   was just one thing that struck out to me, because you know we were talking about, and

00:05:03   you were kind of, I think, applauding them for looking at the product and bringing back

00:05:08   some of the features that they had left out. One of the things that I found quite interesting

00:05:14   was the Galaxy S7 is a millimeter thicker than the S6, and they did that because they

00:05:22   wanted to add a larger battery. And I just thought that that was interesting to bring

00:05:26   up.

00:05:27   Amazing. Can you imagine that?

00:05:28   Exactly. Imagine, imagine having a slightly thicker phone to add a larger battery.

00:05:34   Imagine a world in which that could exist. I didn't know phones could get thicker.

00:05:38   I thought they just got thinner over time. Until they disappeared, yeah.

00:05:43   And after talking about Android phones a bunch, and I've been meaning to do this for a while,

00:05:50   I bought a Nexus 6P this week, well this past week.

00:05:56   6P. Mm-hmm. The Nexus 6P. That's the fancy metal one. The fancy metal one, the screen,

00:06:04   I think it's like 5.7 or something, it's just ever so slightly larger than the Plus, and

00:06:10   it's got the fancy fingerprint reader on it and stuff. I've barely played with it so far,

00:06:15   like I'm still kind of in the setup basically, trying to get it set up the way that I like,

00:06:21   But this is by far the nicest Android phone I've ever owned.

00:06:24   And I've bought a few Nexus's over time.

00:06:27   And this is a very, very nice device.

00:06:29   And I'm looking forward to digging into it a little bit

00:06:31   more.

00:06:32   But yeah, it was talking about it so much,

00:06:34   seeing all these events.

00:06:36   I'm like, I want to try Android again.

00:06:39   And plus, with Google Play podcasts coming out,

00:06:41   I want to keep my eye on that and see

00:06:43   what's going on over there.

00:06:45   Yeah, well, I realized I didn't have a reference Android

00:06:48   device of any kind that was even remotely modern.

00:06:50   So I bought a 5x not too long ago and I've been meaning to spend more time using it but

00:06:56   one of the powerful things about the Apple Watch, if you like the Apple Watch, is it

00:07:00   makes it very hard for me to try out an Android phone because I have to basically leave my

00:07:03   watch off too.

00:07:06   Or carry two phones around which is stupid.

00:07:09   So yeah, but it's good to keep your eye on what's going on on the Android side I think.

00:07:17   So I would not have bought it to use it really, I bought it to have an Android device around

00:07:23   that I can try, which is fine.

00:07:26   And if that's what you're looking for, then access devices are always the best because

00:07:30   they are stock.

00:07:31   Yeah.

00:07:32   You'll get the updates quicker and all that good stuff, stuff that we're used to with

00:07:34   Apple I guess.

00:07:35   Exactly.

00:07:36   All right, so going back slightly to the FBI request hubbub, Andrew wrote in with a question

00:07:43   and we didn't address it, I thought it was quite interesting. He wanted to know, Jason,

00:07:48   what you thought about how Steve Jobs may have reacted to this request. Do you think

00:07:54   that it would have been different to how Tim Cook has and did react?

00:07:59   You know, it's so hard with these hypothetical Steve Jobs, what would he have done kind of

00:08:04   things. And I'm not sure. He was an interesting guy that was full of contradictions, right?

00:08:13   So part of me thinks he might have tried very hard to work behind the scenes and keep it

00:08:20   quiet and like do what they had to do just to make this issue go away, that it's a distraction.

00:08:28   I'm not sure that would have worked because it seems like Apple actually did kind of try

00:08:31   that like try to do some of this stuff behind the scenes with the FBI and then the FBI wanted

00:08:37   to make this a bigger issue in order to sort of force the question about whether they have

00:08:42   access to make Apple do this stuff for them. And so it may not have worked anyway, but

00:08:47   I do think that Jobs was kind of like that, where it's just like, I don't want to be bothered.

00:08:52   That said, when he got mad about something, he would do the Rathakon thing, where he's

00:08:58   like, "Oh, we're going to blow everything up, we're going to fire everything, like,

00:09:03   sue all the companies."

00:09:05   "Sue Samsung."

00:09:06   "Was it going nuclear?" was the phrase, right?

00:09:07   Yeah, exactly.

00:09:08   "To build Android?"

00:09:09   So, I think in the situation in Apple's and now, the big difference would be like, I was

00:09:16   hearing, I think at ATP, they were talking about that Tim Cook ABC News interview, which

00:09:20   they posted basically the B-roll of the interview, which is the raw 30 minutes where they keep

00:09:25   asking the same questions over and over again, and he keeps giving the same answers, which

00:09:30   shows you why they need to edit interviews, because it was not really much of an interview.

00:09:34   It was sort of five minutes of content and a 30-minute video.

00:09:37   But that was the moment where I thought Steve would probably not be as controlled. And I

00:09:45   think the ATP guys mentioned this too, and I felt the same thing. You get the sense that

00:09:50   Steve was not above giving out digs, right? So my guess is that he would have been throwing

00:09:55   some elbows and being a little—Tim seems a little more restrained in terms of saying,

00:10:02   "Look, this isn't about us picking a fight with the FBI." My guess would be that Steve

00:10:07   would have insulted the FBI more, right? Instead of being like, "Oh, we think we can't do this.

00:10:12   It's important for our customers." He might have gone down a different path of saying,

00:10:17   "Come on, you know, this is a ploy by the FBI. These guys don't know what they're doing.

00:10:23   You bring up some FBI scandals, maybe. They made up all this other evidence in these other

00:10:27   cases. Do you really trust these people?" My guess is that it would be a little more

00:10:31   toward the scorched earth approach, whereas Cook seems to be just very restrained about

00:10:37   it.

00:10:38   So maybe a little more emotional.

00:10:40   Yeah, I think so.

00:10:42   And if you look at Steve's tenure at Apple, I mean, he focused, he was a really idealistic

00:10:47   guy in general, but he focused on the stuff he cared about and he did not focus on anything

00:10:50   else.

00:10:51   And, you know, it's not like Apple built this great lobbying machine in Washington to do,

00:10:57   you know, to get on the good side.

00:10:58   is a problem that the tech companies have had all along, is that I think tech companies

00:11:02   being run by nerds who think that a logical argument will win out, and it has not served

00:11:09   them well in general. And it's not to say that there isn't lobbying going on from

00:11:13   the tech industry, but I feel like the tech industry has a long way to go to catch up

00:11:19   in terms of playing that game, and I think a lot of people in the tech industry feel

00:11:22   like, "Why should we have to play that game of basically greasing palms in Washington

00:11:28   elsewhere of politicians, and yet that is sort of how the world works. So I'm not sure

00:11:34   Steve Jobs would have done any different on that score because he didn't when he was in

00:11:39   charge.

00:11:40   But I think in the end, that would be the biggest thing about it, is that Tim Cook is

00:11:44   this very restrained, customer-focused statement that he's making about why it's important

00:11:48   for – and he's come across, you know, by making those public statements about equality

00:11:53   and about the principles of him and of Apple. He has gone down that path before, and so

00:11:59   it's consistent with him. Whereas Steve, I get the sense, you know, just didn't want

00:12:03   to talk about that stuff in large part and connected to Apple. And so we'll see. We'll

00:12:09   see what Tim does. We'll never know what Steve would do. But that's my guess is that we would

00:12:14   have gotten a lot of pretty funny insults about the FBI and the government that would

00:12:21   probably come back to haunt Apple later. That's my guess.

00:12:25   I, I feel like for as entertaining as it may have ended up being or not, Tim was probably

00:12:32   the right person to have to have this fight. It's almost as if if you're a person in

00:12:38   the public sphere, whether it's the CEO of a company or somebody running for office,

00:12:43   It's almost like saying entertaining things is not the same as making good judgments.

00:12:52   No idea what you might be talking about.

00:12:54   Interesting.

00:12:55   It's funny how things like that work.

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00:15:30   So in our recent trend we've been covering a bit of rumour stuff at the moment. Most

00:15:37   of it is coming from Germin. And I think we're both at the feeling that we will talk about

00:15:42   rumors if Mark Germin is the source of them.

00:15:45   Yeah.

00:15:46   Right?

00:15:47   So, yeah.

00:15:48   I don't really think we talk about too much stuff unless it's come from Mark, because

00:15:52   he knows what he's talking about.

00:15:54   Yeah, Mark Germin, John Pekowski, I would put in that camp.

00:15:57   Yeah.

00:15:58   There's a few, but there's not that many that actually provide a lot of information, and

00:16:02   it's reliable.

00:16:03   So when we see these I think that they add food for thought and one of those today is

00:16:10   that apparently with OS X 10.12, seriously, if that's what it's called, I was listening

00:16:18   to the secret subscriber podcast of Six Colors and listening to you and Dan talk about that

00:16:24   and I agree in a very brief recap of that you think it should just be Mac OS 11 or whatever

00:16:31   which I, we will talk about this at a later date I think, but completely agree with you,

00:16:35   10.12 just sounds silly at this point, but anyway, in 10.12...

00:16:38   That's, no I can't let that go because I have to say, if you become a subscriber to Six

00:16:43   Colors you get access to the Secret Subscriber podcast, which is mostly weekly and it's me

00:16:47   and Dan Morin talking about, you know, tech stuff, and occasionally other stuff, for about

00:16:51   half an hour. But there's my plug. That was my guerrilla marketing campaign for the Six

00:16:56   6 Color membership. There will of course be a link in the show notes if people want to

00:17:01   go and support you and Dan. And I must say, this is turning into a mini-ad now, I apologize

00:17:08   everyone. I really enjoy the subscriber podcast. I do.

00:17:13   So thank you to 6 Colors for sponsoring this episode of Upgrade.

00:17:18   I guess so.

00:17:19   I do, yeah. We should talk about macOS naming at some point again. I've beaten that drum

00:17:23   a lot. It does feel like, you know, let's just be done with 10.12, 10.13.

00:17:32   But with 10.12, which will probably come out in the fall, Siri is looking like it's going

00:17:38   to be added. Now, just to dispel any confusion, dictation has been in OS X for a number of

00:17:45   years now, which is of course powered by the Siri engine.

00:17:49   voice control of some sort has been in since the classic Mac OS, there have been things

00:17:54   that you could tell me a joke, and you could say like computer and then a command and it

00:18:02   would do some very rudimentary stuff. It's been in there for a very long time, but it's

00:18:07   not Siri and it hasn't, you know, and Siri has not come to OS X. So this rumor story

00:18:14   says that Siri is going to be one of the features, maybe even a banner feature, in what is now

00:18:20   at least 10.12.

00:18:24   What would you use Siri for on the Mac? Why? I don't understand. I can't think of a reason

00:18:31   to add Siri, so I would like to know if you can think of any reasons why you would put

00:18:39   Siri on OS X.

00:18:40   I mean, what Dan and I talked about in that podcast was very much like, I could see some

00:18:44   places where it might be useful in terms of kicking off automation.

00:18:48   My fear is that it's just going to be Siri in a box from iOS, and it's going to do what

00:18:54   Siri does in iOS, and nothing more, really.

00:18:57   And that's less compelling to me because I think having an agent that can kick off things

00:19:06   that are more Mac-like would be more interesting. And a lot of Macs come with microphones, not

00:19:12   all. I think, did we figure out the Mac Pro and Mac Mini don't have their own built-in

00:19:19   microphones, but like an iMac and all the laptops have built-in microphones. So you

00:19:23   can talk to it, and especially if it's on, you know, permanently plugged into power,

00:19:27   it can always be listening and you can give it commands, but is that practical? There

00:19:31   are a lot of situations. When I'm at my Mac, I tend to have my hands free to work on.

00:19:36   the Mac interface itself. So I can see value. I mean, for some people saying

00:19:41   saying, "Ahoy computer, put this on my

00:19:44   reminders list," or "remind me to do this later," or "make a new event,"

00:19:48   you know, "Tuesday at 4 p.m." is going to be something that could potentially be

00:19:53   useful because some people like to work that way

00:19:56   and other people don't. So,

00:19:59   you know, it turns your iMac into kind of an Amazon Echo sort of thing, maybe.

00:20:03   Why not, I guess is my point here, but...

00:20:07   Well, sure, I understand that feeling, but if it is a why not, why now?

00:20:14   Why has it taken this long, and why do it now?

00:20:17   So the only thing that I can think of is, we are out of features for OS X.

00:20:22   Yeah, well this is, we can put a link in the show notes to this blog post that somebody

00:20:27   actually sent in.

00:20:28   It's a much larger blog post, it's a WWDC wish list by Steve Trouton-Smith.

00:20:35   But I was struck by one phrase that he put in it, which was

00:20:39   "OS 10 is a dead platform."

00:20:42   And he said that in the context of wanting to see, basically, app development

00:20:47   from iOS coming to the Mac.

00:20:51   He wants a unified app platform that lets, just like on Apple TV,

00:20:57   lets you use sort of the UI kit stuff that developers use to build

00:21:02   iOS apps come to the Mac. And his point was not

00:21:05   just to make a whole bunch of Mac apps that look like iPhone apps run on the Mac,

00:21:09   but his point was there's not a lot going on in the Mac right now.

00:21:13   And it's funny because I actually wrote that last week too. I was a little more

00:21:16   charitable and didn't call OS X a dead platform. I think I said something like

00:21:19   the Mac market

00:21:20   for software is mature.

00:21:24   but I wrote this piece on Macworld about why I like using both the iPad and the Mac,

00:21:29   and I'm not an absolutist, and how I think that there are a lot of people who can use both tools,

00:21:35   and that you don't have to be in one camp or the other, you can use both,

00:21:41   but the fact is that the stuff that I use on the Mac is much more mature,

00:21:45   whereas the great thing about using the iPad is there are all these different apps coming out

00:21:49   and adding features and doing new things.

00:21:51   and you know, that kind of can't be denied.

00:21:54   And so when Steve Trout and Smith says OS X

00:21:56   is a dead platform, there's some hyperbole there,

00:21:59   but it is interesting if you watch what kind of features

00:22:03   Apple has added to the Mac, and it is mature, right?

00:22:06   It's got all these features that iOS lacks,

00:22:09   but when you see what they're adding to the Mac

00:22:11   and have been adding over the last few years,

00:22:14   a lot of those features are,

00:22:16   they're sold as being kind of like interoperability

00:22:19   and convergence, but the bottom line is

00:22:22   those are features from iOS that are being put,

00:22:24   we'll put that on the Mac too.

00:22:25   And this, depending on the implementation,

00:22:29   this might be more than Siri on an iPhone,

00:22:32   but it definitely feels like it's,

00:22:35   well, we've got the Siri thing,

00:22:37   we could put that on the Mac, what can we do?

00:22:39   What can we do on the Mac?

00:22:40   It's on Apple TV, it's on iPhones, it's on iPads,

00:22:44   let's put it on the Mac too, why not?

00:22:46   I feel like all of the new Mac software that I add to my machine now are companion apps

00:22:55   for my iOS apps.

00:22:57   Like I don't feel like anything new, for me at least, is happening that makes me want

00:23:04   to specifically get this Mac app that's out, you know?

00:23:08   I don't know.

00:23:09   There are some, I mean there are new services, like I use Slack on the Mac now all the time.

00:23:14   Right, yeah.

00:23:15   But for me though, in the way I'm looking at it, that is an iOS app that I've got on

00:23:19   my Mac because I want to do it on my Mac as well.

00:23:22   Right.

00:23:23   Well, and in fact I think I like the iOS implementation of it, which is funny.

00:23:29   And I like the iOS implementation of Twitter clients better than I like them on the Mac

00:23:33   too.

00:23:34   So I mean, I think there's a really good argument to be made.

00:23:37   I'm surprised it hasn't happened up till now, because I always thought there was a good

00:23:42   argument to be made that instead of something like dashboard back in the day

00:23:45   that you should just have a an iOS compatibility layer on the Mac so not

00:23:50   not like running turning the Mac into iOS or running iOS on the Mac but

00:23:55   running apps in little windows. I wouldn't be adverse to that if it could

00:24:01   be done right. Yes. I don't want a unified platform I that's not what I want I

00:24:07   I don't want that to be all that there is, but if it was as well,

00:24:12   you know, and I'm sure there's many technical things, you know,

00:24:15   that's not what I'm here to discuss, but I,

00:24:19   if it could be done and I could then have an app that I really like be on both

00:24:24   platforms because I might need it for something and it's easy for the developer

00:24:28   to do that, I would be very happy with that, you know, as,

00:24:32   as a solution for, for some of,

00:24:35   maybe for some smaller applications that I really love on iOS, but they don't have a

00:24:40   Mac app.

00:24:41   Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is…

00:24:45   Like an email app, for example.

00:24:47   Right, and whether it's something that just is sort of… I mean, ideally it would not

00:24:51   just be an iOS app in a box. It would be the developer of the iOS app would be able to

00:24:56   do some work, but not a huge amount of work and have it run on the Mac. And right now,

00:25:00   believe it or not, that's not the case. And that's what Steve Trudden Smith's

00:25:03   you know, that's one of his wish list things is how do you make that

00:25:07   easier? Like why is Icon Factory not doing Twitterific on the Mac and that

00:25:12   there's still this ancient version of Twitterific that runs on the Mac? And the

00:25:15   answer is it's non-trivial, like seriously non-trivial to bring that iOS stuff to

00:25:22   the Mac. And so they don't. And they're not alone. There's a lot of that

00:25:27   kind of going around that wouldn't it be nice if it was easier for the all that

00:25:30   effort that's put into iOS app development could be leveraged better to bring it to the

00:25:35   Mac. And you know, I understand the reasons to keep those things separately, but it's

00:25:39   hard to deny in general, whether it's OS features or whether it's the app story, that the Mac

00:25:45   is, you can, you could say dead or you could say mature, but either way, there's not, there's

00:25:50   not as much going on on the platform now. And that's true. That's true of desktop platforms

00:25:55   or traditional computer platforms in general, this is the case right now. All the heat,

00:26:00   all the excitement is on smartphone platforms. And I totally accept that and I think that's

00:26:06   fine but it does make you wonder what is the role of ongoing development of a desktop,

00:26:15   essentially a PC platform. And is it just to keep parity with your mobile platforms?

00:26:22   And if so, does that extend beyond things like bringing your mobile features to your

00:26:29   PC operating system, or does it mean, you know, extending the development that way?

00:26:36   Because Apple hasn't gone that down that path very far.

00:26:41   I don't know.

00:26:42   I don't know.

00:26:43   But I did have that same reaction to the Siri announcement.

00:26:44   It's like, okay, I can sort of see that.

00:26:46   It hasn't been on there before, but it is sort of like the new features in the Mac are

00:26:50   things that we already have on iOS and it's just sort of bringing them over. So it's not

00:26:54   really new, it's just new to you.

00:26:56   I, I, unless there's a reason I just can't see, I'm just really struggling, like why

00:27:01   you would do it now. I don't think they need to be adding new features to the Mac to make

00:27:05   Macs sell in the same way that they, that they do with I, with iOS for the iPhone. I

00:27:11   don't know. Maybe I'm missing something.

00:27:14   I don't know. I mean, all we have is a rumor that Siri's going to be there, right? So there's

00:27:18   probably a whole story about it and I feel like there are sort of two

00:27:21   answers here. One is there will be a developer story on the Mac that it

00:27:27   isn't so much there on iOS or Apple TV and that is ways you can hook into this

00:27:33   and do more and provide access to cloud stuff and what is happening on your iOS

00:27:40   devices and maybe even Apple TV devices from the Mac and sort of like

00:27:43   connecting all that stuff together. It's also possible that it will be a little

00:27:47   bit more like, "Hey, there's a Find My Friends widget in the notification center now," where

00:27:53   it's sort of like on an island, it's not in an app, you can't do anything else with it,

00:27:59   but you can look at it.

00:28:01   And that's the bare minimum of bringing a feature over from the other platform.

00:28:07   And it's a good question about which one of these stories it will be.

00:28:10   - Could use the Siri maybe be apps in the App Store thing only?

00:28:14   - Could be. Or it could be

00:28:18   access to... Yeah, I don't know.

00:28:22   I don't know, it's possible. They do that with a bunch of stuff. - Yeah. Because that might, you know,

00:28:26   that might help, right? That might be things like, "This is what makes the App Store awesome, there's more great

00:28:30   stuff over here." - But I don't think it will help. I think all it will do... I think all it'll

00:28:34   actually do is mean that people won't adopt Siri in their apps

00:28:38   they have to be in the App Store because we already played that game, right? And useful

00:28:43   apps are not going into the App Store, they're going out of the App Store.

00:28:48   >> I Cloud Sync is probably more important than Siri would be, right? And it hasn't helped.

00:28:53   >> Also, Apple has changed their approach here, right? I believe now they've changed

00:28:57   it so you can do I Cloud Sync out of the App Store if you're in the App Store. So they've

00:29:03   already sort of like loosened the restrictions there a little bit. Like if you've got an

00:29:07   that's both in and out of the App Store, you can do iCloud syncing on it in either version.

00:29:12   I think I saw that that had changed. So it may be that they changed the rules too. It

00:29:16   seems unlikely to me that they would try to use Siri as a battering ram to get people

00:29:21   to break down and move their apps to the Mac App Store. I feel like that is just not gonna

00:29:28   happen. The way they're gonna get more apps in the Mac App Store is to make it easier

00:29:33   for developers to qualify for the Mac App Store with useful apps, not to dangle kind

00:29:38   of iOS features that they don't have access to otherwise.

00:29:43   Okay, so moving on to our next rumor of the day. Jason, when is an iPad Pro not an iPad

00:29:50   Pro? I don't know, Myke. What's the answer to

00:29:53   this riddle? I haven't heard this one. We'll find out soon. So apparently, what

00:29:59   What we have been referring to as the iPad Air 3 could actually be iPad Pro Mini?

00:30:07   I don't know what they could...

00:30:09   We don't know the name.

00:30:10   The 10-inch iPad Pro.

00:30:11   The 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

00:30:15   This looks like...

00:30:16   This is where how it's being kind of reported so far in that the confirmation of what I

00:30:23   I believe it's been expected that the successor to the Air

00:30:28   will feature pencil support and potentially a keyboard

00:30:33   with the little smart connector.

00:30:35   - Yeah, fair enough. - But what it's looking like

00:30:37   now is that that device will also have the internals,

00:30:42   so the A9X processor and the RAM upgrades

00:30:45   that the iPad Pro received to make it beefy,

00:30:49   and that it may actually be falling into the pro line

00:30:54   as opposed to the current Air line.

00:30:57   - Yeah.

00:31:00   - So, there isn't a lot to talk about here

00:31:04   from a feature suspected that we haven't already discussed.

00:31:07   - No, you can imagine this product, right?

00:31:08   We can all imagine this product,

00:31:10   it's sort of like an iPad Pro,

00:31:11   but it's in the 9.7 inch size.

00:31:13   That's what it is, right?

00:31:15   And we've talked about that and that makes sense.

00:31:17   - So I wanna talk about one of my very favorite things

00:31:19   talk about no sarcasm is Apple product naming. Their marketing decisions are

00:31:25   always fascinating to me and this is one of them. So this is purely a marketing

00:31:33   thing now so why would Apple do this? Why make a smaller iPad Pro rather than the

00:31:39   next iPad Air? Why would you do that? Is this the only logical next step? Like are

00:31:47   there are no other routes that you can take the iPad that you have to kind of just give

00:31:53   it what the iPad Pro has. You see what, you're following what I'm saying? There isn't anything

00:31:58   else that could have given to the iPad, so like the only features that we have are the

00:32:02   ones on the Pro, we'll give it that one and call it a Pro.

00:32:06   Ah, yeah, well, where do you take the iPad Air 2? Right? Where does it go next?

00:32:15   nowhere exciting, that pops into my head, right? Like what do you do with it? You make

00:32:20   it faster, you put some more software stuff into it.

00:32:24   It's also, it's fine, right? It's also, even now, a very good tablet, because it was so

00:32:29   overpowered, so powerful when it was launched, that even now, a year and a half later, it's

00:32:36   perfectly good, which is one of the problems with the iPad product line in general, is

00:32:39   how do we sell more of these when these last and are good as they are? If you're Apple,

00:32:45   like, "well, what do we do?" So I'm a little baffled by this iPad Pro rumor because

00:32:50   this seems to me to be a mistake. I know the argument that Mark Gurman makes is

00:32:54   trying to, I think, encapsulate the thinking at Apple, not his argument

00:32:59   necessarily, is "well, you know, you've got a 13 and 15 inch MacBook Pro, so why not

00:33:05   have a 10 and 13 inch iPad Pro?" I don't love splitting product lines up like

00:33:13   that in the laptop sense in the laptop world it makes sense because they have

00:33:17   had two lines and the way that the processors work from Intel you know the

00:33:24   the MacBook has a core M processor it is so much slower than the MacBook Pro but

00:33:32   but it's got you know but it's thinner and and and lighter and all of those

00:33:36   things and over time we may end up at a place where it doesn't make sense for

00:33:40   there to be more than one line of MacBook, but right now it sort of makes sense. And

00:33:44   then there's the MacBook Air, which is obviously going to go away.

00:33:46   Yeah, we get in this place every few years, right? Two becomes three, until one of them

00:33:52   goes away becomes two again. Yeah, it's, it's, um, yeah, things come too

00:33:59   close together and then you've got to push them apart if you can differentiate them.

00:34:02   But the problem with the iPad line, and part of me thinks this is a little bit of rearranging

00:34:07   deck shares on the Titanic, where it's like, "You know what our problem is with the iPad?

00:34:11   It's the names. The names are confusing." I'm like, "I don't think that's the problem."

00:34:14   So we need to give them another name. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. I know. Let's just call

00:34:18   it the new iPad. They did that with the iPad 3, right? And yet, on one level, I thought

00:34:23   that was not a bad decision. It's the iPad. Just get the iPad. So I look at the iPad,

00:34:29   and I ask myself, "Is this a product line that really needs that much differentiation,

00:34:34   it needs two separate lines of iPad? Is that really... Is there enough differentiation?

00:34:40   We've had two separate lines for a few years, right? We've had the iPad and the iPad mini.

00:34:45   Right, but they've been differentiated on... the lines are differentiated on size. And

00:34:50   what this rumor is suggesting is that the lines are not going to be differentiated on

00:34:54   size. So what it will be is processor, pencil, and

00:34:58   keyboard, right? That would be the differentiators. Which are differentiators by

00:35:03   features which I guess is more like the laptops? I don't know this is this is

00:35:10   what confuses me about it is okay so you've got the iPad Pro that we have

00:35:13   today that's the 13 inch and then you've got this 10 inch iPad that might be an

00:35:19   iPad Pro instead of an iPad Air. What happens to the mini and does it exist

00:35:24   anymore or and does it just keep bubbling away as the iPad mini? What

00:35:28   happens to the iPad Air 2? Presumably it stays on the product line. What's the

00:35:33   long-term game is there only an iPad Pro or do you continue updating the iPad Air

00:35:39   kind of after the fact and make it cheaper and have the new have that's the

00:35:46   closest I can come to a concept here is that iPad what we think of as the iPad

00:35:50   now is really the iPad Pro that it's all Pro it could because it's all this high

00:35:54   end premium tablet stuff and when I look at this rumor the best I can come up

00:36:00   with is Apple's gonna go down market a little bit with the tablet because they

00:36:05   feel there's opportunity and there's a lot of pressure from cheap tablets and

00:36:08   that the iPad Pro is going to be what we think of as the latest and greatest

00:36:12   cutting-edge feature iPad Pro feature stuff pencil and smart device connector

00:36:20   and these multi-core processors and all of that and then I guess there's the

00:36:28   iPad, whether they call it Air and Mini or they just end up calling it iPad, that

00:36:33   is doesn't have those features and is a slower processor with fewer cores and is

00:36:38   cheaper. And that's not, that doesn't sound like a very Apple strategy to me

00:36:42   on one level, but at the same time on another level maybe this is where they

00:36:47   are with the iPad, is that they need to try something different and saying, you

00:36:52   know, the iPad we've been making all along is a pro and now we're also going

00:36:57   to have these other iPads kicking around down here that are not pro. But in the intervening

00:37:03   time we've got this confusion of mini and air and pro.

00:37:09   I have a wild theory that I want to float by you.

00:37:14   Oh, well I just floated my wild theory, so share, share please.

00:37:18   I want to come back to the downmarket thing in a moment. Why would be that we end up with

00:37:26   iPad and iPad Pro but iPad is the mini.

00:37:32   Could be. Could be.

00:37:33   I think that's going to happen in two weeks. It could do. But my feeling would be that

00:37:39   - let's go down this discussion of downmarket for a moment. I think that that is a - I think

00:37:46   that is very interesting as a point. You have a cheaper tablet that you're able to provide

00:37:51   to people to combat what Amazon just did where you could buy a six pack right and I don't think they

00:37:57   need to go to that level but I think they need to keep it below maybe 200 and I think the only way

00:38:04   that you can really do that sustainably is to do that with the mini I think because the mini is

00:38:10   obviously cheaper and the competition is at the seven inch size from a cheapness perspective.

00:38:19   I think the Mini sells pretty well. I would love to know. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if the

00:38:25   statistics were that the Mini was the top selling iPad. I would not be surprised. I don't think it

00:38:30   is. I don't think it is. I think everything that I've heard just in general, and maybe this is

00:38:38   conventional wisdom, but everything that I've heard is that the Mini is kind of not, is kind

00:38:42   lackluster because people want to opt for the larger thing.

00:38:47   But what if the...

00:38:52   So you've got the 8-inch basically Mini and the 10-inch Air and the 13-inch Pro.

00:38:59   But what if the Pro is what we currently think of as the iPad Pro, the iPad Air 3,

00:39:07   and even arguably the iPad Mini 4?

00:39:11   And what if the iPad is what we currently think of

00:39:15   as the iPad Mini 2, which is being sold and the iPad Air?

00:39:18   - Let's look at this under the,

00:39:23   let's confuse this even more.

00:39:24   - Okay, why not? - By looking at this

00:39:26   at how Apple breaks down the watch models.

00:39:29   (laughing)

00:39:33   Right?

00:39:33   where you have Apple Watch Sport, which would be the Mini,

00:39:37   then you have the Pro, which is the Edition,

00:39:41   and then the Watch, which is the iPad one, right?

00:39:44   And that one is, so the Apple Watch is

00:39:47   what Apple, I guess, would have assumed

00:39:49   to be the most popular, but it's nicer.

00:39:52   So the reason I brought that up is,

00:39:54   let's say that the term iPad is kept around,

00:39:59   and it is given to what is currently the Air model.

00:40:03   and it's a year or so behind. Would you want the name of your product, the actual name

00:40:10   of the product, to be attached to a older, kind of, caught behind version of that product?

00:40:19   Well, given that these are Apple's own processors and all that, and given that we've already

00:40:25   seen them do that with the Air 2, which is now a year behind, and the Mini 3 was, we

00:40:31   we didn't have a mini 4 for a while and we got it and it's a year behind what the

00:40:36   that that so the air 2 came out a year ago and the mini 4 came out a year later

00:40:41   but none of those are just called iPad right right but I I think the problem I

00:40:48   have is more about what their strategy is and how they would get there but is

00:40:54   it unreasonable that that Apple wants to get to a place where they say look

00:40:58   there's two kinds of iPads, the pros and the regular iPads.

00:41:02   And the pros are faster and they've got more features, and then there are the regular iPads.

00:41:05   And we have pro iPads in 13 and 10,

00:41:09   or 13, 10, and 7, or 8, whatever it is, yeah, 8.

00:41:12   And then we've also got the regular iPad and they come in 10 and...

00:41:18   10 and 8.

00:41:22   That isn't unreasonable, in fact,

00:41:25   in some ways it's simpler to say there's two lines of iPad and there's the one

00:41:29   with all these snazzy features and they're faster.

00:41:31   And then there are these ones that are cheaper that don't have all the snazzy features.

00:41:35   The problem is how do you unwind the iPad Air and make it into an iPad Pro and

00:41:40   just the iPad? And how do you unwind the iPad Mini?

00:41:43   And Apple's history of keeping these products around

00:41:46   with their same names for years

00:41:50   means that they're going to be clogging up the product list with these old names

00:41:53   for a while

00:41:53   unless they, you know, unless they do a renaming thing at some point here. So I

00:42:00   don't know, I mean this this news is so baffling that I'm just trying to find

00:42:03   patterns that make sense and that's that's the best that I can come up with

00:42:05   is very similar to what you said which is which is that. I don't think that's

00:42:09   unreasonable though to say look there's iPad and iPad Pro. The MacBook doesn't

00:42:13   make the MacBook Pro seem bad because the MacBook has a core-in processor and

00:42:19   and a weird keyboard. It makes the MacBook Pro seem better because it's Pro. It's got that and more.

00:42:27   So I think you could get there with the iPad. I just don't know what's the right strategy if

00:42:33   you're really going to go down this path. What's the right strategy of how you change the names

00:42:37   of the existing products or do you not and just sort of suck it up for a couple of years?

00:42:41   Yeah, because this is the problem, right? If they do want to change the product names,

00:42:47   then they have to kind of do something with the old stock. They either stop selling it or they

00:42:52   change that too which is very peculiar right because you can imagine they're still gonna sell

00:42:57   probably the Air 2 and maybe one of the old minis maybe. At least they'll keep the Air 2 around

00:43:04   and bump the price down if history would tell you that right and especially if you know going back

00:43:12   to the going-down-market thing, that's a really easy way to make that happen, is to have an

00:43:17   older model that you sell for cheaper.

00:43:19   And what do they call it?

00:43:21   Exactly.

00:43:22   They call it iPad 8?

00:43:26   Something like that.

00:43:27   Count up all the original iPad generations, there were four, right?

00:43:29   And then there was Air and Air 2, so is Air 3 iPad 7?

00:43:34   I think one of the easiest ways to do this is to rename everything and do it like you

00:43:41   do with the laptops that you ask for the iPad and then you choose your screen size like

00:43:47   you ask for a MacBook Pro and choose your screen size and we just refer to them as the

00:43:52   iPad 8 inch and the iPad 10 inch and then the iPad Pro 10 and the iPad Pro 13. I think

00:43:59   that is the easiest way to do this. Yeah and then it's just like laptops you're referring

00:44:04   to them like laptops there's the MacBook Air 11 and 13 there's the MacBook Pro 13 and 15.

00:44:10   And let's leave the MacBook aside because clearly that's the beginning of a new wave and the old wave will go away

00:44:17   But those laptops have been for ages

00:44:19   There are two lines and they've got sizes and I could see the people especially the people who who know the Mac very well

00:44:27   You're Phil Schillers and the like saying

00:44:29   let's

00:44:31   stop

00:44:33   Treating the iPad naming like the iPhone. It's already broken down

00:44:37   Let's if we're gonna if we're gonna really do this like laptops

00:44:40   let's commit to marketing these like laptops where there's a line and it's got different sizes and

00:44:46   that's how we do it and we take the name the numbers off of them and

00:44:50   We we market the lines and the sizes and this year's model, you know, yeah, the nerds will say it's this is the

00:44:58   2016 model iPad Pro

00:45:01   But regular people just be like I got a MacBook Pro

00:45:05   It doesn't bother them that they don't have the that it's not called the MacBook Pro 14 right met you mad MacBook Pro 22

00:45:12   whatever the the number is there's no number there is a

00:45:16   Generation although even there that we've sort of given up and it's based on when it was released

00:45:20   And you know what it works fine that way

00:45:22   so without a it's got a model number that nobody cares about because all you really need to know is that you've got a

00:45:29   5k iMac from 2014

00:45:33   That's all you need to know

00:45:35   So, I could really see them making that argument.

00:45:39   And it's going to take a move to get there that will be tricky.

00:45:43   But I could totally see that.

00:45:45   I think the question is, like you said, what happens to the traditional 10-inch that is

00:45:51   currently the iPad Air 2?

00:45:53   Is the iPad Air 2 the new 10-inch iPad?

00:45:56   And we just leave it there and it's the same product?

00:45:58   And then, you know, next year it gets a little bit better, but not a lot better?

00:46:02   If you look at iOS 9, it is to be said that Apple are willing to try new things with the

00:46:08   iPad and it seems like that's going to continue to go in that direction, we hope. That is

00:46:15   the case, I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of radical change and this could be radical

00:46:19   enough that you kind of outline in its name that the iPad is meant for professionals and

00:46:27   that there are two of them. It is a line of professional iPads for people that want to

00:46:33   get their work done. And then you have the people that just want a tablet, like they

00:46:37   might just want a laptop, and then they go with the iPad line. And then we just move

00:46:43   on from here. But Apple need to commit to it because they didn't commit to the new iPad.

00:46:48   They went back to a name and a number again after that one.

00:46:53   Joe Steele makes a good point in the chat room that I want to mention, which is Apple's

00:46:55   strategy with the iPad and the iPhone has been to keep old products around and make

00:47:02   them cheaper, and that's how you extend the product line. And I feel like if you go to

00:47:07   this strategy with the iPad, that has to stop. And instead, your cheaper product is the other

00:47:12   product line. So instead of it being iPad Mini 4 and iPad Mini 2 available, you've got

00:47:17   the iPad Pro and the iPad, and maybe the iPad Pro is available ultimately in an 8-inch configuration

00:47:24   that we would have called the iPad Mini four or five.

00:47:27   But we don't call it that anymore.

00:47:28   We call it the iPad Pro, and that's this year's model,

00:47:31   or last year's model, or whatever we're selling right now.

00:47:33   And if you want something cheaper

00:47:35   that's got less features,

00:47:36   go over there.

00:47:39   And it's not the iPad Mini 2, it's just the iPad,

00:47:43   the current iPad line eight inch thing.

00:47:47   And that could work.

00:47:49   And that's what they do with the laptops

00:47:51   and Macs in general.

00:47:52   And that's what I keep coming back to here

00:47:54   this sounds very much like they're trying to uncouple the iPad from entirely from the

00:47:59   phone naming and strategy and just kind of embrace it being more like a laptop. And maybe

00:48:04   that's good. Maybe that's a good idea because it probably is more like that.

00:48:09   I think that's how they have to do it.

00:48:11   Yeah. Well, we'll see.

00:48:12   Yeah, or they'll do it however they want to do it, but I think unless they're thinking

00:48:15   of something that we're not, any other way adds more confusion.

00:48:20   Yeah, I think so. I think it's actually less confusing and I actually think the product

00:48:24   would be more appealing. I would be much less inclined to buy an iPad Mini 2 knowing there's

00:48:33   an iPad Mini 4, right? Because that's kind of weird. It's like, "I'm buying this really

00:48:39   old thing." And instead, if it's just a product line that's not as powerful and it's got the

00:48:44   stuff that you put in your Pro line a year or two ago, but now it's finally made it to

00:48:48   to the non-pro line, it's a new product, right?

00:48:52   That new iPad 8-inch is a new product.

00:48:56   It's just using technology from a couple of years ago

00:48:59   that were in the pro line.

00:49:01   And that's different.

00:49:02   That's a different kind of story.

00:49:04   - And again, right, so this just all depends

00:49:06   on how Apple are looking at this.

00:49:07   Do they look at this like how they look at the iPhone,

00:49:10   or do they look at this like how they look on the Mac?

00:49:12   Because if they look at it like they do at the iPhone,

00:49:15   they have to keep these devices around for years, right?

00:49:18   for three or four years,

00:49:20   they keep pushing them down the chain,

00:49:21   give people the options to buy,

00:49:24   or you look at it like the Mac,

00:49:25   where when the new one comes out, the old one goes away.

00:49:29   Right, you don't continue to buy the last gen of MacBook Pro.

00:49:34   You don't do that, like that isn't a thing that happens.

00:49:37   So I think they need to make their choice.

00:49:39   - Yeah, so they sweep away this old approach

00:49:41   that's the iPhone approach, which works for the iPhone

00:49:43   and that's fine, but you sweep it away,

00:49:45   and instead you've got a new approach,

00:49:46   which is there are two lines, they're always up to date.

00:49:49   We might only update them every year or two,

00:49:50   but they're always up to date.

00:49:53   There's no like last year's model being sold

00:49:55   because instead the last year's tech

00:49:57   is going in this year's model of the cheaper product line.

00:50:00   - Exactly.

00:50:01   - I think that's probably where they're going.

00:50:03   See, this has been a good conversation.

00:50:04   I feel like I've learned a lot, Myke, thank you.

00:50:06   - Call us, Apple.

00:50:07   We've got this set for you.

00:50:10   - Don't call us.

00:50:11   - This week's episode is also brought to you

00:50:14   by our friends at Ministry of Supply.

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00:52:45   Alright, so we have a bumper Ask Upgrade this week.

00:52:50   Yeah, you were worried and so you shined the Ask upgrade lasers out into the world and

00:52:58   the listeners delivered.

00:53:00   They definitely did.

00:53:01   And first up is Lucas.

00:53:03   And Lucas wants to know, "Do we think that Netflix will ever enable picture-in-picture

00:53:07   on the iPad?"

00:53:08   I was very surprised a couple of days ago to discover the Amazon Prime Instant Video

00:53:13   app has picture-in-picture.

00:53:16   Do you think Netflix are ever going to do it?

00:53:19   at least in the near future? My only question is if there's a technical hangup or if they're

00:53:26   just going to get to it. I don't know. I would assume that everything is going to get picture

00:53:30   in picture on the iPad eventually. I assume that will happen. The only catch is are there

00:53:35   things that Netflix does with its DRM or I don't even know what, where the way that the

00:53:44   app is built it can't use Apple's picture-in-picture system and if that's

00:53:48   the case then it might take some time but I think in the long run all this

00:53:53   stuff is going to be picture-in-picture because the people and people are going

00:53:56   to demand it and Netflix would love for you to be watching a show while you're

00:54:00   doing something else on your iPad they would love that so I think I think

00:54:04   Netflix wants to go there I think there's a question of what if they

00:54:07   implemented their video player in such a way that they look at this and they're

00:54:10   like, "ah, I can't just do a couple of lines of code. It's gonna take us a change

00:54:15   to how we do this and we're either gonna need to ask Apple to make a change so

00:54:19   that we can enable this or we're gonna have to make a change with our app in

00:54:22   order to enable this." And I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt that

00:54:25   that's what's happening here. It's possible with customizable video players

00:54:29   or custom video players, like that is a fact because Amazon have their

00:54:34   own custom video player, right? Where you can tap the middle of the screen and it

00:54:38   pauses it and they have their x-ray information so they have a custom video

00:54:41   player that they've made but they've still been able to enable it so Netflix's

00:54:45   system might be different which maybe is why they're taking them longer but it's

00:54:49   not to say that if you don't use the system video player that you can't have

00:54:53   picture-in-picture because there are a few apps that do. You said that you think

00:54:57   that everyone will I don't think that YouTube ever will and and I think this

00:55:02   because of a difference in the model that these companies are made up on

00:55:07   on. Prime and Netflix, they don't care really what you're watching, they just want you to

00:55:11   keep giving that money to them every month. They don't care if you're watching however

00:55:15   many shows, but YouTube lives on you going to YouTube, watching a video in YouTube, and

00:55:21   then continuing to watch more in YouTube. That, so being outside of YouTube and a video

00:55:27   ending, that kind of goes against what they want you to be doing, I think.

00:55:30   Well, I feel like, um, it could be worked on though, right? I agree, but then there

00:55:35   are also like hour-long YouTube videos.

00:55:38   Yeah, but they don't want you watching those, though, really. They want you watching like

00:55:42   the couple of minute ones where they can throw up another ad because the next video starts.

00:55:46   I actually think the ad is the bigger problem. I'm not sure whether the ad pre-rules and

00:55:50   all of that really work with the picture-in-picture thing or if you need a single kind of video

00:55:54   stream. I don't know. I think YouTube might get it at some point, but I think that there

00:56:00   will have to be – that's a case where they may go to Apple and say, "Look, we can't

00:56:05   just we are videos are short right let's not even talk about the ads our videos

00:56:08   are short and so what when it ends we don't want our app to just go away we

00:56:12   want to be able to put up something that plays the next video or we want to

00:56:18   automatically play the next video in a in a recommendation or something like

00:56:22   that but they could totally they could totally come up with a way to do it

00:56:25   where after one video plays if you're in picture-in-picture mode it basically

00:56:28   picks another video for you and starts to play it I don't know if they can

00:56:32   technically do that with Apple's system, but that would be a way around the problem.

00:56:37   Joe Steele again has made another suggestion that they may do it for YouTube Red subscribers.

00:56:43   Oh, that's a great thought too. I think you could get there. I guess what I'm saying is

00:56:47   I think you could get there and I think it's to the benefit of all these video streaming

00:56:50   services, even YouTube, to allow picture-in-picture because a lot of people use YouTube as background.

00:56:57   My kids use YouTube as background all the time.

00:57:00   Youtube makes the most sense which is the one that makes it the worst because kids would

00:57:04   just be playing Minecraft watching Minecraft videos but I just think that there is a fundamental

00:57:09   difference in business model which might mean that it takes them longer to implement it

00:57:14   than some others like for example they've pushed out a big iPad Pro update and a big

00:57:19   iPad update they've gone native resolution now but picture in picture is not part of

00:57:24   that and I think that it would stay that way for Youtube for the foreseeable future at

00:57:29   at least, if ever.

00:57:31   - I don't know.

00:57:32   - Meher would like to know,

00:57:33   what is the ratio of landscape versus portrait use

00:57:37   on your iPad Pro?

00:57:38   I find myself using landscape 90% of the time.

00:57:41   I agree with that.

00:57:42   I do use my iPad Pro in portrait sometimes,

00:57:44   like if I'm reading a long document,

00:57:46   maybe if I'm reading Twitter, I might put it into portrait.

00:57:49   - Nope.

00:57:50   I'm with you there, although I don't think

00:57:54   I do that with Twitter.

00:57:55   I do with long articles or things,

00:57:57   because you can actually hold the iPad Pro,

00:58:00   especially if it's got the smart cover on it,

00:58:02   fold it back, you can kinda hold it in one hand

00:58:04   and read it a little more like a,

00:58:07   almost like a newspaper.

00:58:08   I'll do that occasionally, but I'm with you and Mihir.

00:58:11   90% of the time, I have it in landscape.

00:58:14   But that was true of all of my iPad use.

00:58:15   I have always been-- - Not the same for me.

00:58:17   I use my iPad Pro in landscape way more

00:58:21   than I used any other iPad in landscape.

00:58:24   And I think there are a few things for that.

00:58:26   the iPad Pro feels more natural to me in landscape, I have the keyboard attached to it quite a

00:58:32   lot obviously in landscape and the split screen looks way better and is more comfortable in

00:58:38   landscape so I think the combination of those factors has led me to be using my iPad more

00:58:44   in that rotation.

00:58:47   Robert Woodlawn wants to know, do you think it's possible in the future for Apple to make

00:58:51   iPhone encryption such that even Apple cannot crack?

00:58:54   I don't know the answer to this. I would say yes, maybe, but I don't know the answer.

00:59:00   I don't know enough about encryption. I really don't.

00:59:02   I think that Apple can make encryption that it can't… that's what it's trying to

00:59:07   do. Now, especially that it knows that it's going to get court orders demanding that it

00:59:13   hand over more and more information that it's capable of getting. I think Apple's strategy

00:59:17   is to make as much stuff encrypted as possible with Apple not having the key.

00:59:24   The problem is the more you do that, the fewer fallbacks you have.

00:59:28   Like right now, the reason Apple can provide the FBI with people's iCloud backups under

00:59:34   court order is because Apple keeps a key to your iCloud backups.

00:59:38   And why does it do that?

00:59:39   It's because if you forget your password and all your photos are in iCloud, if they don't

00:59:45   have that key, your stuff is gone forever.

00:59:50   And that's a bad user experience.

00:59:51   It's a bad customer experience.

00:59:53   they keep the key so they can bail you out of that particular instance. They can

00:59:59   bail you out if you forget your password. And that's a challenge, right? Because

01:00:05   they can lock this down but it's locked down in a way that makes it scary for

01:00:10   for what might happen, what bad things might happen to people. So I think that's

01:00:15   going to be Apple's challenge in the long run is how do you make this

01:00:19   acceptable for customers and what are option what things are optional and what

01:00:25   are not optional but I do think that Apple is going to try to make it and I

01:00:30   think it's certainly possible it's just a matter of how far down that road does

01:00:34   Apple want to go because most regular users are not going to want a

01:00:37   sophisticated security regimen with you know secret backup codes stored in on a

01:00:44   piece of paper that they keep in a safe at the bank or something like that which

01:00:49   you could do with Google, I think. I think I have that for Google where I've got backup

01:00:53   codes for my two-factor that are in a secret document. But, you know, that's kind of too

01:01:00   much for most regular people. So I think that's the problem here more than anything technical

01:01:05   is it can be a bad situation. It can be a bad user experience if there's no way to get

01:01:12   that. You see people all the time who are really furious about, "What do you mean I

01:01:15   I can't get that back just because I don't know my password. Isn't there any way you

01:01:19   can retrieve that from me? And in some cases the answer is no.

01:01:22   Alright, let's, I feel like we'll be talking about encryption forever. Mark wants to know,

01:01:29   do you ever feed your cables through the hole in the iMac stand? I do, I do. I don't think

01:01:36   everything but a lot of cables that I have going into the back of my iMac are fed through

01:01:41   the hole in the stand. My thinking is, the hole is there, why not use it?

01:01:46   Yeah, if you've got the hole, you might as well use the hole. I used to do that occasionally,

01:01:52   but now I have an iMac with no stand. So how is your cables managed on the management

01:01:59   of the cables? So I've got the arm, so I'm not running it

01:02:03   through the hole, but I've got, this is why I've got the Thunderbolt breakout box that

01:02:07   I got when my MacBook Air was my main system and I was attaching it, I was docking it every

01:02:12   day. And I've kept it because of the cable management thing. So I've got a bunch of cables

01:02:17   running into the Thunderbolt breakout box and then a single cable running up into my

01:02:22   Mac. And so those are tied off and just the Thunderbolt and power run off the back of

01:02:30   the desk.

01:02:31   That sounds very managed.

01:02:32   Yeah, it's more than is usual for me. I'm not one. I would guess that most of our listeners

01:02:39   are more finicky about stuff like that than I am. But I did decide, and yes, John Siracusa

01:02:45   did see my setup and shame me. That happens every four or five years. He sees where I

01:02:50   work in person and shakes his head and I feel bad. But I figured that was a cool use. I

01:02:57   like the idea that I've got that breakout box velcroed to the back of the base of my

01:03:01   desk basically so that's where the cables are but I don't see it

01:03:05   and I've got this and because my iMac's arm

01:03:08   is on an arm and hovers over the desk my desk is

01:03:12   is surprisingly clear which is pleasant

01:03:15   I like that. Brad would like to know what our biggest

01:03:20   technology letdowns have been in the past year and I tried to think about this

01:03:24   and I thought

01:03:25   you know we were upset about the iPhone setup processes we've been upset about

01:03:30   Apple TV stuff, about watch stuff. But your choice for this, I can't think of something

01:03:38   bigger than this. It's annoying me more right now and I think it's annoying me more than

01:03:43   those things annoy me. So what is your choice?

01:03:46   Tim Cynova Google apps on the iPad in general and the

01:03:51   iPad Pro in particular. That's the biggest letdown. And we've mentioned it and Federica

01:03:55   Vittucci mentions it every time that there's a new update for Google, the Google apps for

01:04:00   iPad Pro that doesn't make them work with the iPad Pro better. It's disappointing. They

01:04:06   are they were at one point impressive and they now feel not impressive when you compare

01:04:12   them to so many other productivity apps that like the Microsoft Office suite, for example,

01:04:17   that has been updated for iPad Pro and works great. And then and then we rely on Google

01:04:22   docs for so many things, Google spreadsheets and docs. And the iPad Pro, it's like whenever

01:04:28   I think I need to look in a, like for this show, I woke up this morning and I thought,

01:04:31   "Oh, I should look at the document and see if Myke's put some stuff in our document for

01:04:34   the show." And I thought, "Yeah, it's a Google doc. I'm just going to wait until I'm at my

01:04:38   Mac later." Because it's just not, I can't even bear it to use it. It's just, it's crappy.

01:04:44   So hopefully they'll do something with it. But that's, that's what I'm going to say is

01:04:47   my biggest letdown right now 2016 edition at least. Stuart has asked is there anything

01:04:54   Apple could announce for the MacBook on the 21st that would make you transition back from

01:04:59   an iPad Pro Jason? No not really I feel like they're very different devices I really enjoy

01:05:08   as I wrote in that Macworld story that I mentioned earlier I like using my iPad when I'm not

01:05:12   at my desk. I've got my Mac setting here where I'm working in my office and I've got this

01:05:19   setup and then when I am not here I prefer to use the iPad. It's a nice change of pace,

01:05:24   it handles everything that I really need when I'm not sitting at my desk and I like that

01:05:31   about it. But I will say that eventually I'm gonna need either the iPad will need to be

01:05:38   capable of doing recording podcasts or I will have to buy at some point a

01:05:42   replacement for this 11-inch Core i7 MacBook Air which is going to last me

01:05:47   it's already like way faster than the current MacBook is so it seems unlikely

01:05:52   that I will need a replacement for it anytime soon as the thing that I use

01:05:56   essentially I bring with me for this single task so it's the race is on I

01:06:00   guess about whether podcast recording support comes to iOS or I need a new

01:06:07   new laptop, but I don't think there's anything they could announce for the new MacBook that

01:06:10   would make me want one.

01:06:13   There's nothing that could come to the Mac now which would make me want to go back to

01:06:19   using the Mac as my primary computer for the majority of work that I do.

01:06:24   You know, I've said this before, with some exceptions where like, you know, maybe I'm

01:06:29   like starting for today, I've done most of my work on the Mac because I was recording

01:06:35   and then I had two hours or so and then we'll be recording again.

01:06:38   So I was like, I'm just going to sit here and do some editing and stuff and be at

01:06:41   my Mac and do some other tasks here today.

01:06:44   But the majority of my work that is not recording audio or editing audio is being

01:06:48   done on my iPad now.

01:06:49   And I don't think that there's anything that a new Mac could get that would make

01:06:54   me change that. Um, I just,

01:06:56   because I prefer iOS for a lot of that stuff now,

01:06:59   it's just how my brain is working. Um, but what I,

01:07:04   There is, I do have some hope actually for this,

01:07:06   for some new Mac announcements,

01:07:08   because I would really like to replace my MacBook Pro

01:07:12   with something thinner and lighter.

01:07:15   Solely because now, the only time that I ever use

01:07:19   a MacBook Pro is editing a podcast on a plane.

01:07:22   So I would like that device to be a thinner, lighter device,

01:07:28   so when I'm carrying it in my bag on my back

01:07:32   for multiple hours going through airports and wherever I might be traveling, I would

01:07:37   like that machine to be less noticeable and easier to get around. Because with the iPad

01:07:43   Pro and the MacBook Pro in my bag, that can start to add up a bit.

01:07:51   Yeah that makes sense. I don't view this as a kind of metronome thing where on the tick

01:08:00   I go to the iPad Pro and on the talk I go back to the to the the MacBook. I feel like at this point

01:08:06   I love I love my MacBook Air

01:08:09   I've always loved my MacBook Air, but I very rarely use it now because the iPad is a is

01:08:14   I think a better tool and a better fit for when I'm out of the context of being at my desk on this giant

01:08:21   iMac and

01:08:22   If I didn't have the iMac and I need to use the I would need to use a Mac

01:08:27   to do some of this stuff because I do prefer a lot of the stuff that I do on the Mac.

01:08:32   And that would change it, but having the desktop

01:08:35   makes me less

01:08:38   like I need to feel like I need to use the laptop.

01:08:40   So I'm pretty happy with the iPad and giant desktop computer lifestyle right now.

01:08:46   What is one company, this comes from Jeff, that you wish Apple would acquire that they probably never will?

01:08:52   Mine is Twitter and

01:08:57   Purely because I feel that if Apple bought Twitter, Apple would care less about trying

01:09:03   to make Twitter make money, which means that it would stay more and would be more likely

01:09:09   to stay the way that I like it.

01:09:13   I'm going to say a video service like HBO or Netflix.

01:09:17   Why is that?

01:09:18   I don't think that, well, because Apple's talking about spending, you know, well no,

01:09:23   Rumors are, and speculation is that Apple might start doing more beyond this Dr. Dre

01:09:30   show that they're doing for Apple Music.

01:09:31   They might use this as a way to grow their services revenue is by doing a video service.

01:09:35   And I thought, well, you could also just buy a video service.

01:09:38   And Netflix and HBO are interesting examples of that.

01:09:42   Yeah.

01:09:43   Because I guess as well, if they buy something, they get something all wrapped up and ready

01:09:46   to go for them, and they won't have to spend so much time and effort and energy and resource

01:09:52   in trying to set up their own, I guess.

01:09:55   Not that I can imagine integrating a pre-existing company

01:09:58   into your company is a very easy thing to do,

01:10:01   but they did it with Beats, so.

01:10:03   - Yeah, but they probably never will,

01:10:05   which was the question. - They probably will, yeah.

01:10:07   And finally today, this is a question directed to me

01:10:10   from John, and John starts off by saying,

01:10:12   "Jason talks about sports, Myke, but you never do.

01:10:16   "Did you want to be a footballer when you were a kid?

01:10:17   "Did you have a poster of David Beckham on your wall?"

01:10:20   I have and had and continue to have and probably always will have no interest in sports. I've

01:10:29   never been good at sport. I've had fleeting interests in things like I used to go to a

01:10:36   local basketball games as a kid. There are some sports that I don't mind watching when

01:10:41   they're on. I like to watch basketball. I like to watch the Super Bowl. But I have no

01:10:46   interest in real sports. I have a documented love of professional wrestling, but it's not

01:10:52   a sport. It's not. It's an entertainment show and they do athletic things, but it's not

01:10:59   a sport in the term of what people think of when they think of sports. It is a sporty-like

01:11:05   thing, but it is, you know, it's not a team sport, it's not an individual sport, it's

01:11:10   not tennis, it's not football. It's none of those things. So no, I don't have a love of

01:11:17   any traditional sport, and I can't imagine that ever changing. It just doesn't push my

01:11:23   buttons. Fair enough. I was never good at sports, but I love them. So I don't think

01:11:29   you have to be good at them in order to like them, but you were neither good at them nor

01:11:32   like them. Exactly. So, you know, it was kind of both, really. And I think they ended up

01:11:37   feeding each other as time went on. Yeah, understandable. There's a huge portion

01:11:43   of the audience, if I would imagine, this show that doesn't like sports and that's

01:11:50   always been interesting for me because I do and I've definitely gotten that "wait a

01:11:56   second, nerds aren't supposed to like sports, don't you know?" and I guess I missed that

01:11:59   memo because there are actually a lot of sports nerds out there too. I gotta break it to you.

01:12:03   They're pen nerds, they're sports nerds.

01:12:07   Just because there are jocks who beat you up.

01:12:09   [laughs]

01:12:10   >> There is.

01:12:11   It seems like there are not a lot of nerds that like baseball because there's a lot of

01:12:14   statistics in baseball.

01:12:16   >> Very, very much so.

01:12:17   Very much because it is--there are statistic nerds for every sport, but baseball has drawn

01:12:23   a lot of them because it is so quantified by statistics and you can capture a lot about

01:12:31   sport just from the statistics of it.

01:12:35   RL, no David Beckham posters for you.

01:12:38   Maybe a poster for a wrestler.

01:12:39   RL Yeah, probably when I was a kid.

01:12:41   Because it has been a thing that I've liked since I was a child.

01:12:44   So there I am.

01:12:46   That's me.

01:12:47   Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade.

01:12:51   I won't be here next week, but you have a special guest planned.

01:12:54   Yeah, next week we hopefully, if everything is aligned properly, we'll be joined by Mr.

01:13:01   John Siracusa to talk about who knows what.

01:13:04   But stay tuned for that because we're going to try to make that happen.

01:13:07   And I'll look forward to listening to that.

01:13:09   On my way back from a wedding in Dallas, I met Alexander of Relay FM.

01:13:14   He's not really of Relay FM.

01:13:17   He has a show with me that we do occasionally.

01:13:18   Most of the time he's just selling pants.

01:13:22   Exactly.

01:13:23   getting married so I'm going to be going out for that which I'm looking forward to.

01:13:27   Alright but if you want to catch our show notes, as you should obviously, head on over

01:13:30   to relay.fm/upgrades/78. Thanks again to our friends at Ministry of Supply and Fresh

01:13:36   Books for sponsoring this week's episode. If you want to find Jason online head on over

01:13:40   to sixcolors.com and he does some podcasts that have been comparable and a couple other

01:13:46   shows on the lovely Relay FM. If you want to find me online I'm over at mikewasright.com

01:13:52   for some stuff and I do many shows on Relay FM. We're both on Twitter. Jason is @jsnell,

01:13:57   J-S-N-E-L-L-L. I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E. And if you would like to follow the Upgrade FM

01:14:04   podcast account, it is @_upgrade-f-m. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back,

01:14:10   well, Jason will, next time. Until then, say goodbye, Mr. Snell.

01:14:15   Have fun in Dallas, Myke. Yeehaw. Woo-hoo!

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