Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode number 66.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Braintree, Audible, and Casper.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined as always by the lovely Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Hi Myke, how's it going?

00:00:23 ◼   ► I'm very well, sir. How are you? I'm back.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Yeah, welcome back.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Welcome back. We had Merlin Mann to replace you last week.

00:00:30 ◼   ► It was very nice of him.

00:00:31 ◼   ► - What a great guest.

00:00:32 ◼   ► What a great co-host, I should say.

00:00:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, he was great.

00:00:35 ◼   ► It was, that was a lot of fun.

00:00:37 ◼   ► It is, I miss you when you're gone,

00:00:39 ◼   ► but it is also fun to replace you with wacky,

00:00:43 ◼   ► unexpected people who drop in for a week.

00:00:46 ◼   ► It was a lot of fun to talk about.

00:00:47 ◼   ► I don't talk to Merlin about that stuff.

00:00:48 ◼   ► I hear him talking about stuff,

00:00:50 ◼   ► and we talk on "Incomparable" sometimes about,

00:00:52 ◼   ► you know, about movies and stuff,

00:00:55 ◼   ► but we don't do the tech breakdown kind of thing.

00:00:59 ◼   ► So that was a lot of fun.

00:01:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's always nice to him and talk about tech.

00:01:02 ◼   ► He has the down report report now

00:01:05 ◼   ► where he talks about that stuff more frequently.

00:01:07 ◼   ► - Right.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - But it's always nice.

00:01:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, it was a lot of fun to get him.

00:01:13 ◼   ► He just has a very different perspective

00:01:14 ◼   ► and we had a moment where it's like,

00:01:17 ◼   ► let's not be negative,

00:01:19 ◼   ► which I thought it was actually a good moment

00:01:21 ◼   ► 'cause we've gotten that feedback too

00:01:22 ◼   ► about sometimes that were negative on the show and the idea is that we're critical about

00:01:27 ◼   ► things. And we don't want it to be unrelentingly bleak and awful and all of that, but we do

00:01:31 ◼   ► want to view things kind of critically and that means sometimes saying that we're disappointed

00:01:35 ◼   ► with something. And I like Merlin's approach to that, which I think is the same for all

00:01:41 ◼   ► of us, but doesn't always go, it's not always stated and Merlin stated it, which is, look,

00:01:47 ◼   ► we do love this stuff in general and we care about it. And the reason we complain about

00:01:51 ◼   ► it is because we care about it and because we like it and because we're going to use

00:01:55 ◼   ► it and that is, you know, I've been using Apple products since I was in eighth grade

00:02:01 ◼   ► and that was for me a long time ago and that I'm going to keep using Apple products. That's

00:02:07 ◼   ► not, it's just not going to, they would have to do a lot for me to leave, but since I'm

00:02:11 ◼   ► committed that makes me care even more about what Apple and related subjects do and if

00:02:18 ◼   ► If I see something that I don't like, I do feel the need to talk about it.

00:02:21 ◼   ► But that was really great that Merlin framed it in that way, because it's absolutely true,

00:02:25 ◼   ► and that was a lot of fun.

00:02:26 ◼   ► And we talked for like two hours, which I apologize for the length of last week's episode,

00:02:31 ◼   ► but I just, you know, I couldn't stop, and he couldn't stop, and so we just kept going.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I had to catch up.

00:02:39 ◼   ► It's always funny whenever I travel, because I end up with the amount of shows to listen

00:02:44 ◼   ► to that everybody else does.

00:02:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:47 ◼   ► seems like a lot, so I appreciate people listening every week.

00:02:50 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of podcasts out there, a lot of choices, so we appreciate

00:02:54 ◼   ► you making Upgrade one of your podcast choices.

00:02:57 ◼   ► Talking about choices and great podcasts, as of today, Relay FM now has a membership

00:03:03 ◼   ► program. And we've been thinking about doing something like this for a while, mainly because

00:03:09 ◼   ► since we began, really, just over a year ago, we've always had people saying to us, "We

00:03:15 ◼   ► to give you money we want to give you money and this is some people because

00:03:18 ◼   ► they have already bought all of their websites and domains and mattresses and

00:03:23 ◼   ► there are just some people that just want to give us that little bit more

00:03:26 ◼   ► because they love what we do so we now have a membership program you can I'll

00:03:29 ◼   ► put a link in the show notes you can go to relay.fm/membership we have

00:03:33 ◼   ► three tiers on the membership we have two monthly tiers silver and gold silver

00:03:37 ◼   ► is $5 a month gold is $10 a month then we have an annual tier for $100 a year

00:03:42 ◼   ► year. Now with that all of those plans come with the same perks so on our

00:03:47 ◼   ► anniversary week in August every year there'll be bonus episodes of every show

00:03:51 ◼   ► we'll be doing some fun stuff and there'll be some episodes that will be

00:03:54 ◼   ► exclusive for members. We're going to be doing a monthly behind-the-scenes

00:03:57 ◼   ► newsletter that Steven is going to be taking care of and at our store the

00:04:01 ◼   ► Relay FM store you can get 15% off anything so this is t-shirts we're going to

00:04:05 ◼   ► have some new t-shirts coming soon a 2016 design we also have some buttons

00:04:09 ◼   ► and stickers you can get 15% off anything they're just for members and

00:04:12 ◼   ► We're going to be adding more perks as the membership grows and as time goes on and we

00:04:16 ◼   ► think of other really cool things that we want to do.

00:04:19 ◼   ► Now we've got this broken down in a couple of different ways.

00:04:22 ◼   ► If you want to, if you love all of the great shows, you can donate to all of the great

00:04:26 ◼   ► shows.

00:04:27 ◼   ► You can become a member of all of them and give your money for those.

00:04:30 ◼   ► But you can also give to your favorite shows.

00:04:34 ◼   ► When you go to the page you'll see every show is there and of course on all the show pages,

00:04:38 ◼   ► So if you go to relay.fm/upgrade,

00:04:40 ◼   ► you'll see the buttons there as well

00:04:42 ◼   ► for you to be able to donate to your favorite shows.

00:04:44 ◼   ► And all of the money goes to the hosts, right,

00:04:47 ◼   ► outside of fees.

00:04:48 ◼   ► So we wanna give as much money to the hosts as possible

00:04:51 ◼   ► with all of the shows.

00:04:52 ◼   ► So if you really love certain shows,

00:04:54 ◼   ► you know, if there's a couple

00:04:55 ◼   ► or one show that you really love,

00:04:57 ◼   ► I would urge you to give money to that show

00:04:59 ◼   ► because then the hosts of that show get more money.

00:05:02 ◼   ► Because if you donate to all of the shows,

00:05:05 ◼   ► it gets split amongst all of the hosts, obviously.

00:05:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's super diluted then,

00:05:09 ◼   ► 'cause it's every host on every show on the network,

00:05:12 ◼   ► and that they're a lot.

00:05:14 ◼   ► - And that's why we wanted to do this.

00:05:16 ◼   ► I mean, it would have been really easy,

00:05:17 ◼   ► and many other people do it this way,

00:05:19 ◼   ► many other networks and stuff in the past has done it

00:05:22 ◼   ► this way that you just give to everything.

00:05:24 ◼   ► But we wanted to have it that you could also give

00:05:26 ◼   ► to each show because the primary concern here for us

00:05:30 ◼   ► as a business is to get more money to our hosts

00:05:33 ◼   ► and for you to be able to support the shows

00:05:35 ◼   ► that you really, really love.

00:05:37 ◼   ► This isn't changing our business

00:05:38 ◼   ► in a massively significant way.

00:05:40 ◼   ► Like we're still advertising supported.

00:05:43 ◼   ► I expect that not to change, at least for a long time.

00:05:46 ◼   ► But this is just another way for some of our hosts

00:05:51 ◼   ► and me and you who are self-employed

00:05:53 ◼   ► to kind of diversify their income a little bit.

00:05:56 ◼   ► And also lets you directly support the stuff

00:05:58 ◼   ► that you really love.

00:05:59 ◼   ► We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, right?

00:06:02 ◼   ► That you're doing it now.

00:06:03 ◼   ► I think this is something that you're gonna get used to seeing a lot more of.

00:06:08 ◼   ► And you don't have to pay for everything, right?

00:06:09 ◼   ► Pick the things that you love the most and pay for them.

00:06:12 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:06:13 ◼   ► But I think that over the next couple of years, this is going to become a way that people

00:06:17 ◼   ► interact with stuff that they like, they give it money.

00:06:20 ◼   ► Yeah, and the places will, I think everybody's going to expect that it's going to be the

00:06:26 ◼   ► most enthusiastic people who give the money.

00:06:28 ◼   ► So it's going to be the top whatever 5%, 2% that are going to be the ones.

00:06:33 ◼   ► And that's fine. I think that's why these sorts of things exist. It's not, you know,

00:06:38 ◼   ► you get all the episodes of Upgrade, whether you pay us or not. We'll do a bonus episode

00:06:42 ◼   ► in August that will be for the people who support the show. But otherwise, it's not

00:06:49 ◼   ► changing the show. It's just another way, with Six Colors, I had the same thing. It's

00:06:53 ◼   ► like, I want to support what you're doing so that you can keep doing it. How do I do

00:06:57 ◼   ► that? Because I'm not going to ever be a sponsor. And when you have a medium that is entirely

00:07:01 ◼   ► ad supported, free with ad support, you don't have that other mechanism. Back in the day

00:07:06 ◼   ► with magazines and things, right, they had ads but you also paid. And the web totally

00:07:11 ◼   ► uncoupled that and paywalls don't really work, so that's not a way to solve this issue.

00:07:18 ◼   ► So instead we have this, which is optional support. And what I like, so you and Stephen

00:07:23 ◼   ► Hackett and I talked about this a lot in Indianapolis when we were there. We had a little relay

00:07:28 ◼   ► meeting which was really exciting because I don't get to go to meetings anymore. I used

00:07:31 ◼   ► to hate meetings because I had a job and I had lots of meetings, and now I don't get

00:07:35 ◼   ► to have those meetings very often. But we had a great meeting in Indianapolis, and we

00:07:39 ◼   ► talked about this a lot. And one of the things that was very clear to me was the way you

00:07:42 ◼   ► guys approached this was, this is about supporting the hosts of the shows. And that's why people

00:07:47 ◼   ► can support a specific show. So if you really love Upgrade, and Upgrade is one of those

00:07:50 ◼   ► podcasts you listen to every week, and you feel like this is the one, this is the one

00:07:55 ◼   ► you want to support, you can do that and your support will come to me and Myke. And if you

00:07:59 ◼   ► love another show on Relay, you can support that show instead or in addition, and it will

00:08:05 ◼   ► go to the host. It's not one of these things where it's all just sort of being absorbed

00:08:09 ◼   ► by Relay as a company. The idea here is to directly support the host. So it's just another

00:08:14 ◼   ► route. And if you don't, if you like us but you don't have the money, you don't have the

00:08:19 ◼   ► time, you prioritize other things, you need to pay your mortgage, that's fine. We'll still

00:08:25 ◼   ► be here and other people will chip in on the support side and we've got the advertising

00:08:30 ◼   ► on that side and it's all good. So it's just another option for people and I like that

00:08:35 ◼   ► about it.

00:08:36 ◼   ► So yeah, go check it out, relay.fm/membership or just go to the show page of any of your

00:08:43 ◼   ► favorite shows and you can find all the buttons you're gonna need there and we'll be talking

00:08:46 ◼   ► about this more I'm sure as time goes on so you'll be able to find out more information.

00:08:53 ◼   ► that time of year again, Jason.

00:08:55 ◼   ► - Time where we ask for money?

00:08:57 ◼   ► No.

00:08:57 ◼   ► - No.

00:08:58 ◼   ► - It is that time too, but no, it is.

00:09:00 ◼   ► So last year I gave you a hard time

00:09:02 ◼   ► because you were very excited

00:09:03 ◼   ► about the first annual Upgradies,

00:09:05 ◼   ► our awards for our favorite things of the year.

00:09:09 ◼   ► And I pointed out that nothing can be a first annual.

00:09:12 ◼   ► It's only annual when you do it for a second straight year.

00:09:15 ◼   ► So I'm pleased to announce

00:09:18 ◼   ► that we're going to do the second annual Upgradies.

00:09:20 ◼   ► Woo!

00:09:21 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:09:22 ◼   ► And that'll be our episode of December 28th.

00:09:26 ◼   ► - Yes, so it's gonna be the last episode of the year.

00:09:29 ◼   ► We will be doing the second annual Upgrading Awards.

00:09:33 ◼   ► I'm so excited.

00:09:34 ◼   ► And we wanna have you guys get involved.

00:09:37 ◼   ► So we did this last year a little bit,

00:09:39 ◼   ► but now everybody kind of has an understanding

00:09:42 ◼   ► for what the Upgrading is.

00:09:44 ◼   ► And if you haven't heard it,

00:09:45 ◼   ► I will put a link in the show notes

00:09:46 ◼   ► so you can go and listen to last year's Upgrading Awards.

00:09:49 ◼   ► we would like your suggestions for categories.

00:09:53 ◼   ► Now, I don't wanna restrict this in any way,

00:09:56 ◼   ► suggest whatever you like.

00:09:58 ◼   ► Whatever you think should be given an award to by me

00:10:01 ◼   ► or Jason, then you should send out a tweet.

00:10:04 ◼   ► - We had silly award categories

00:10:05 ◼   ► and serious award categories, it's all good.

00:10:07 ◼   ► - Exactly, you wanna send a tweet in the usual way,

00:10:10 ◼   ► put the hashtag #askupgrade, we will see them

00:10:12 ◼   ► and we will collect them all up

00:10:14 ◼   ► and we will be able to create some fantastically fun

00:10:17 ◼   ► categories for the Upgradies as suggested by you and that's going to be in a few weeks time and we're hoping to extend the Upgradies

00:10:25 ◼   ► In an exciting and new way this year as well. Yeah, I'm hoping we'll get some other relay hosts involved in some way

00:10:31 ◼   ► What I'd really like to do is have the Upgradies

00:10:33 ◼   ► just like steal all the awards brain power from relay FM and

00:10:39 ◼   ► Concentrated and upgrade so that my so that my show has all the power and then it becomes immortal. I don't know

00:10:46 ◼   ► That's a real lofty goal you've got there buddy.

00:10:50 ◼   ► Yeah sure.

00:10:51 ◼   ► Well because what I'm, what I was thinking about why we should maybe try and get some

00:10:54 ◼   ► of the people involved is some of the categories probably our opinions may not have changed

00:10:58 ◼   ► in so I want to get some extra voices in them.

00:11:00 ◼   ► I think that is the more practical reason is it would be fun to get some other people

00:11:04 ◼   ► involved because it may be you and me going yeah it's fine you know same thing same same

00:11:10 ◼   ► and that's not you know hello internet flophouse yep all right moving on.

00:11:15 ◼   ► I think the Flop House would make a return, winner of the year, I think.

00:11:19 ◼   ► It's possible. We'll have some Ask Upgrade about that later, I think.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Oh, excellent.

00:11:24 ◼   ► I wanted to mention a fantastic piece of...

00:11:27 ◼   ► I don't even know what this type of follow would be,

00:11:29 ◼   ► up, out, in, or shake it all about or something.

00:11:33 ◼   ► But we have from Unai, and Unai has created the follow chart,

00:11:38 ◼   ► in which he has attempted to diagram the different uses of follow up, follow in, follow out,

00:11:45 ◼   ► "Follow By" which is a new one coined by Merlin. So this, if you have been confused about what

00:11:51 ◼   ► we're talking about here, Unai has created an incredibly useful chart which I will put

00:11:57 ◼   ► in the show notes. That will confuse you further. Maybe.

00:12:02 ◼   ► The earlier version of this chart had referred, made me laugh out loud because it said

00:12:12 ◼   ► not ever used for "follow forward" or "follow away" or whatever, but now it's actually been

00:12:21 ◼   ► used.

00:12:22 ◼   ► So...

00:12:23 ◼   ► >> Excellent.

00:12:24 ◼   ► >> It is confusing.

00:12:25 ◼   ► "Follow out," "follow in," "follow by."

00:12:26 ◼   ► Yeah, "follow by."

00:12:27 ◼   ► It's like a drive-by.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Lots of other words out there in the English language to put after "follow," so stay tuned.

00:12:37 ◼   ► >> You have a piece of follow-up here about scrubbing on the Apple TV.

00:12:40 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, Marlin and I were talking about,

00:12:42 ◼   ► and this is one of those things where you record it

00:12:44 ◼   ► for a podcast and you know everybody's gonna tell you

00:12:46 ◼   ► the answer and you're reluctant to even mention it,

00:12:49 ◼   ► but you do.

00:12:49 ◼   ► And then in this case, I was saying about how

00:12:53 ◼   ► one of the problems with the Apple TV interface is that

00:12:55 ◼   ► when you accidentally touch or you pick up the remote

00:13:00 ◼   ► and you touch the track pad and it tries to scrub

00:13:03 ◼   ► in the video and now you've got the scrubber interface

00:13:06 ◼   ► up there and I had that moment where I'm like

00:13:07 ◼   ► suddenly trying to scrub back to where I was

00:13:09 ◼   ► match it up so I can let go and like, and I said I know that there's a way to do this

00:13:15 ◼   ► where you can just say no no no I didn't mean to do that and everybody told me after I had

00:13:20 ◼   ► already actually that night I immediately when we were done I went in and tried it,

00:13:23 ◼   ► if you just press the menu button the scrubber interface goes away and then you're okay.

00:13:28 ◼   ► So it's still annoying that it is bringing up the interface and kind of intruding on

00:13:32 ◼   ► your video watching because you accidentally touched the trackpad but all you have to do

00:13:37 ◼   ► is press the menu button and it all just backs away.

00:13:40 ◼   ► It doesn't matter where you scrubbed to,

00:13:41 ◼   ► it just sort of like backs you out

00:13:42 ◼   ► because the scrubbing act doesn't change where you are

00:13:46 ◼   ► until you click.

00:13:48 ◼   ► So scrubber follow-up.

00:13:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've been getting more and more frustrated

00:13:56 ◼   ► with that as a thing.

00:13:58 ◼   ► That with the fact that you pick it up

00:14:00 ◼   ► and like, oh, I've scrubbed 10 minutes across.

00:14:03 ◼   ► - I'm confused.

00:14:04 ◼   ► I mean, this is, we have to get Joe Steele back.

00:14:07 ◼   ► That's just what people want to hear because they'll be mad again.

00:14:11 ◼   ► A lot of the Apple TV interaction is inconsistent and I'm getting frustrated with it.

00:14:16 ◼   ► And I think again they'll put it all together, but like in the music playing,

00:14:21 ◼   ► I can't figure out how to set an album or how to set a playlist to shuffle.

00:14:27 ◼   ► I can't for the life of me figure that one out.

00:14:30 ◼   ► In video playback, sometimes I feel like I can swipe down and get a bunch of controls at the top of the screen.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Other times I can't. When I'm in the music playback, I think, well, can I swipe down

00:14:40 ◼   ► to get more information like I can when I'm watching some videos? But I can't because

00:14:44 ◼   ► the UI is different. These are apps from Apple. So I keep looking for some more consistency.

00:14:51 ◼   ► I think it's not surprising that in a brand new product with this brand new app platform

00:14:54 ◼   ► that maybe there's a lack of consistency, although it's a little disappointing when

00:14:58 ◼   ► it's from Apple. But I'm hoping that a language and a kind of common understanding

00:15:03 ◼   ► of what certain gestures will do and where things will be kept in an app will build up

00:15:08 ◼   ► over time because, um, and then yeah, the accidental trackpad swipes aren't my favorite.

00:15:14 ◼   ► But I mean, you know, I'm using it more and more. Um, I've watched Masters of, Master

00:15:21 ◼   ► of None. Oh yeah. We watched the whole series on the Apple TV on the Netflix app. You know,

00:15:26 ◼   ► it's pretty good. And I like that when I press the TV button, it turns my TV on. I'm in the

00:15:31 ◼   ► lucky few where that actually happens because we've actually hooked it up to the big TV

00:15:35 ◼   ► downstairs now.

00:15:38 ◼   ► And I'm using it more for actually watching TV but now I'm not playing any games on it

00:15:42 ◼   ► and I don't know.

00:15:46 ◼   ► But we spent a lot of time on my trip last week at Marco and Tiff's house and we were

00:15:52 ◼   ► playing a bunch of games on the Apple TV there so I can see how different people use it differently.

00:16:00 ◼   ► I don't know, I just don't really know where I stand.

00:16:03 ◼   ► My opinion is to keep changing a bunch.

00:16:06 ◼   ► And now, all of the things that I was originally annoyed about, I'm not annoyed about so much

00:16:09 ◼   ► anymore, but now I'm becoming annoyed about different things because I'm using it more.

00:16:13 ◼   ► Well, the setup, you know, again, the pain of setup fades away after a while.

00:16:19 ◼   ► I'll tell you one place where I'm using it a lot is with the music app.

00:16:24 ◼   ► I was doing it on the weekend.

00:16:25 ◼   ► I was doing some work downstairs and I opened up the music app and I put on Jonathan Cautner

00:16:30 ◼   ► and John Warwick's Christmas album.

00:16:32 ◼   ► It's the only way I can play Apple Music stuff on my speakers in my house because my existing

00:16:41 ◼   ► digital music system doesn't support Apple Music.

00:16:45 ◼   ► So I find myself turning on Apple TV just to play music, which is weird but it's fine

00:16:53 ◼   ► and it works great other than like I get confused about

00:16:56 ◼   ► can I shuffle this playlist and I'm not sure if I can.

00:16:59 ◼   ► And the music app is a little more rudimentary

00:17:01 ◼   ► I think than some of the other apps

00:17:02 ◼   ► and I don't think it has Siri support yet.

00:17:04 ◼   ► You know, one funny thing that people have mentioned

00:17:05 ◼   ► that I would like to note is that the Siri search index

00:17:08 ◼   ► on Apple TV is slow.

00:17:10 ◼   ► And whether it's on the device or it's maybe up on the server

00:17:13 ◼   ► but what I've noticed is TV shows get out added to iTunes

00:17:17 ◼   ► and to the store and they're not in the index.

00:17:20 ◼   ► So like they posted the Expanse,

00:17:23 ◼   ► this new sci-fi series that's coming out next week.

00:17:25 ◼   ► They posted the pilot for free on iTunes

00:17:28 ◼   ► and I went on the Apple TV to go download it

00:17:30 ◼   ► and I couldn't find it.

00:17:31 ◼   ► And I ended up finding it in a featured icon in the TV app,

00:17:38 ◼   ► but Siri couldn't find it, even though it was there.

00:17:42 ◼   ► And it recognized the name I was searching for

00:17:44 ◼   ► and it wouldn't, it said, I don't know what that is.

00:17:46 ◼   ► And then I went and navigated to it and it was there.

00:17:48 ◼   ► And I think I've seen that with a couple other

00:17:51 ◼   ► types of content too, where it seems like there's lag,

00:17:53 ◼   ► like a day of lag where Siri doesn't know new stuff

00:17:57 ◼   ► that's in the store.

00:17:58 ◼   ► And that's weird and not a great experience.

00:18:01 ◼   ► So it's a work in progress, but I do like things about it.

00:18:03 ◼   ► And having access to the Apple Music stuff

00:18:06 ◼   ► in my living room is nice because I am using that more.

00:18:09 ◼   ► And the stuff that I listen to that's only on Apple Music

00:18:13 ◼   ► and that I don't own is not accessible on my Squeeze box.

00:18:16 ◼   ► So I have to use the Apple TV for that.

00:18:18 ◼   ► - Squeeze box.

00:18:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, really nice technology

00:18:22 ◼   ► that will never be updated again

00:18:23 ◼   ► because it's been discontinued.

00:18:27 ◼   ► One of these days I'm gonna have to commit to Sonos, I guess,

00:18:30 ◼   ► which is very expensive, but good.

00:18:33 ◼   ► - When I get my own house, I'm gonna get a Sonos.

00:18:36 ◼   ► I know a few people that have them and they're awesome.

00:18:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I like them.

00:18:42 ◼   ► I think they've solved some of their UI problems

00:18:44 ◼   ► they used to be sort of featureless like one button boxes and they've got a

00:18:47 ◼   ► little more complexity on the you can like pause and increase the volume and

00:18:52 ◼   ► stuff on the on the hardware now they're pricey but it's gotten it's gotten a lot

00:18:58 ◼   ► better in a lot of ways and they are out adding Apple T or Apple music support so

00:19:02 ◼   ► that's gonna be a big a big win and that's well that will probably push me

00:19:06 ◼   ► over to the edge to at least buy the one that can go in my stereo and play

00:19:09 ◼   ► through my big speakers because then I will have access to that in the living

00:19:15 ◼   ► room and that would be nice. Last piece of follow-up this week you and Merlin

00:19:20 ◼   ► mentioned mailbox. Oh man. Unfortunately today... Why do bad things happen to good

00:19:27 ◼   ► people Myke? Unfortunately today Dropbox announced and they actually said this in

00:19:34 ◼   ► their tweet that they are sunsetting carousel and mailbox. Carousel, like I don't even know

00:19:40 ◼   ► why they began it in the first place, but mailbox was a good app, it's a good product,

00:19:45 ◼   ► but they're killing it and they're killing it like dead dead. It's not even like...

00:19:50 ◼   ► It was a good app until they killed it, right? I mean, and then they killed it. They bought

00:19:54 ◼   ► it and killed it. I mean, but it still works fine, right? Like, if you take it as it is

00:19:58 ◼   ► right now like on an iPhone for example it works flawlessly by the most you know.

00:20:05 ◼   ► Right they did a Mac version that was so promising and never got out of beta.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Yeah and I use the Mac version every day I mean and it works right I mean like all

00:20:13 ◼   ► it works it's fine it has problems but I use it on a daily basis like it does

00:20:18 ◼   ► work but a lot of these sort of things what happens is you know they get killed

00:20:24 ◼   ► or they get bought and then killed and then the apps kind of just fade away

00:20:31 ◼   ► slowly over time right they just get old yeah this seems to just be that they

00:20:36 ◼   ► made a mistake Dropbox just made a mistake they shouldn't have bought

00:20:39 ◼   ► mailbox and they bought it and they ruined it yeah like what was what I

00:20:43 ◼   ► mean you know it's not so much about that but like they're actually killing a

00:20:46 ◼   ► lot of the good functionality on in February so like all of the snoozing and

00:20:51 ◼   ► stuff like that, that's just gonna stop working.

00:20:54 ◼   ► And I read it on the FAQ,

00:20:58 ◼   ► if you have anything snoozed at a certain date in February,

00:21:00 ◼   ► it's all just gonna arrive in your inbox.

00:21:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:21:03 ◼   ► Because all of that stuff is server side.

00:21:06 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:21:07 ◼   ► - Right, so they're killing it.

00:21:08 ◼   ► They're just, on February 26th,

00:21:09 ◼   ► it's all just gonna fart into your mailbox basically.

00:21:14 ◼   ► I don't really know how else to say it.

00:21:15 ◼   ► So like they're killing it.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Like it's just, and then it's all done.

00:21:19 ◼   ► And so I'm reevaluating and I'm still working out what I want to do.

00:21:26 ◼   ► Oh well.

00:21:28 ◼   ► This is the story.

00:21:30 ◼   ► This happens.

00:21:31 ◼   ► This happens.

00:21:32 ◼   ► Companies buy apps and they think that they're going to do something with them and it turns

00:21:34 ◼   ► out that for better focus on their core business they should then get rid of them or integrate

00:21:39 ◼   ► them into their existing product.

00:21:40 ◼   ► And it's too bad because mailbox was a really great product and with another owner or independent

00:21:45 ◼   ► maybe it could have been something better.

00:21:49 ◼   ► Google inbox is similar and there are apps like Spark that are good at doing similar

00:21:58 ◼   ► things.

00:22:00 ◼   ► What mailbox sort of suggested as a method of dealing with email I think is something

00:22:05 ◼   ► that is spreading, but the big problem is until there's a standard by which all of the

00:22:13 ◼   ► kind of scheduling and deferring and things could happen, the problem is that you really

00:22:18 ◼   ► need to use the same system everywhere you look at email and that's my problem with it

00:22:22 ◼   ► is mailbox at least they had a Mac app and they had the iOS app but a lot of this stuff

00:22:30 ◼   ► I mean I guess I could use Google inbox because I've got Gmail on my desktop just in a in

00:22:35 ◼   ► a browser window but that's the problem is you know you can't say well I'll use this

00:22:39 ◼   ► neat app on my iPhone but in on the desktop I'll just use Apple mail or something it's

00:22:43 ◼   ► just not not not ideal so oh well RIP mailbox. Let me take a quick break and

00:22:51 ◼   ► there's one other thing I want to touch on in regards to this mailbox thing

00:22:53 ◼   ► actually there's from a question in the chat room which is very interesting this

00:22:57 ◼   ► episode of upgrade is brought to you by Braintree code for easy online payments

00:23:03 ◼   ► if you're a mobile app developer you should be checking out Braintree do you

00:23:06 ◼   ► want to know why it's because Braintree is the payment solution used by

00:23:10 ◼   ► companies like Uber, Airbnb, Hotel Tonight, Living Social and Muntree and so many more.

00:23:15 ◼   ► These are huge apps that deal with tons of money going through their system and they

00:23:20 ◼   ► all use Braintree as their payment solution.

00:23:22 ◼   ► This is because Braintree has made the payment experiences in all of these apps seamless

00:23:26 ◼   ► and magical and now you'll be able to add a similar experience to your own app as well

00:23:31 ◼   ► by using Braintree.

00:23:32 ◼   ► With excellent customer service and simple integration, Braintree gets you ready to receive

00:23:36 ◼   ► payments quickly.

00:23:37 ◼   ► Braintree's continuous support plus fast payouts means you'll be prepared as your company grows

00:23:42 ◼   ► from your first dollar to your billionth dollar.

00:23:44 ◼   ► Braintree is also helping to solve the problem of mobile cart abandonment by offering a best

00:23:49 ◼   ► in class mobile checkout experience.

00:23:52 ◼   ► They make all of these payment experiences, all of this stuff, all of the mobile cart

00:23:55 ◼   ► stuff so simple and they make it so seamless for customers and for you to add to your own

00:24:01 ◼   ► app as well.

00:24:02 ◼   ► Braintree is a full stack payment solution.

00:24:04 ◼   ► They have support for all payment types that your customers might be wanting like PayPal,

00:24:08 ◼   ► Apple Pay, Bitcoin, Venmo, Cards and way more all with just one single integration you can

00:24:15 ◼   ► have access to all of these different payment methods.

00:24:18 ◼   ► It will be with you and your customers across all platforms with superior for protection,

00:24:22 ◼   ► their fantastic customer service and those important fast payouts.

00:24:26 ◼   ► To learn more and for your first $50,000 in transactions fee free go to Braintreepayments.com/upgrade

00:24:34 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Braintree for their support of this show.

00:24:41 ◼   ► So Jonathan in the chat room asked the question, "Do you guys think Dropbox might be secretly

00:24:46 ◼   ► starting to go under?"

00:24:48 ◼   ► Or, you know, to stretch this out a little bit more, are things like this, are they worrying?

00:24:57 ◼   ► Like, do you know, Jason, do you look at this stuff and think, "Oh, maybe Dropbox is in

00:25:01 ◼   ► trouble here."

00:25:02 ◼   ► I don't, I actually look at this and think

00:25:05 ◼   ► it shows some discipline that they lacked before.

00:25:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I completely agree.

00:25:09 ◼   ► I think what this shows is Dropbox for Business

00:25:13 ◼   ► has taken off.

00:25:13 ◼   ► Like that's what I look at this and be like,

00:25:15 ◼   ► that's the other thing that they're doing.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Then you look at the other thing

00:25:18 ◼   ► that they've done recently, Paper,

00:25:20 ◼   ► which is a collaboration work tool, right?

00:25:23 ◼   ► Which that suggests to me that they are going

00:25:26 ◼   ► all in on business stuff,

00:25:28 ◼   ► which is where the money is, right?

00:25:29 ◼   ► The enterprise. - That's right.

00:25:31 ◼   ► And consumer facing tools like photo services and email clients, the money isn't there.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Well, this is, it is about focus, it is about asking what every business should, and possibly

00:25:43 ◼   ► every person should ask themselves, which is what do I do better than anyone else? What

00:25:47 ◼   ► is my thing that I do well? And businesses especially need to say, what are we about?

00:25:52 ◼   ► What do we do better than anything else? That's what you should focus on. And when businesses

00:25:55 ◼   ► get in trouble, it's because they lose track of that, or they try to spread out into areas

00:25:59 ◼   ► where they're not as good and they don't do as good a job. And those are very difficult

00:26:03 ◼   ► areas to succeed in because there are other people out there who do it better. So Dropbox

00:26:06 ◼   ► is saying, "What we do really well is connect people who are working together and make their

00:26:13 ◼   ► files available." And yes, that includes maybe people who are working at home and people

00:26:18 ◼   ► who are spending for the personal version of Dropbox. I think that is part of what they

00:26:22 ◼   ► do. It's like connecting files and things that you're working on and potentially with

00:26:28 ◼   ► co-workers or friends and collaboration. And, you know, I'm sure they've got their concept

00:26:34 ◼   ► down to a sentence or two. But I think when they made these acquisitions, they maybe thought

00:26:40 ◼   ► they were either they thought they were someone else, or they thought this was what they were

00:26:45 ◼   ► about and then realized that it was too far afield from what they were about. And so,

00:26:50 ◼   ► you know, I see this as being disciplined. I'd be much more worried about a company

00:26:55 ◼   ► that just started snapping up things that were totally unrelated to its core business

00:26:59 ◼   ► and you went, "Huh, why did they do that?" Because that's what happened when Mailbox

00:27:03 ◼   ► got bought by Dropbox is everybody went, "I guess." You know, it was not super clear about

00:27:09 ◼   ► what the direct fit was. So I'd say that all those, this really stinks from a standpoint

00:27:13 ◼   ► of somebody who liked Mailbox. I think it's a sign of discipline and Mailbox knowing what

00:27:19 ◼   ► it wants to be and focusing on that. I think that's good for Dropbox.

00:27:23 ◼   ► you never really know, right?

00:27:25 ◼   ► But I kind of look at it and be like, well,

00:27:26 ◼   ► Dropbox's key service is the thing that they charge you for,

00:27:31 ◼   ► which is the space, right?

00:27:33 ◼   ► And I can see why they went down the photos and email route,

00:27:37 ◼   ► 'cause it's another thing to put in the space

00:27:39 ◼   ► that you pay for.

00:27:41 ◼   ► But I think ultimately that will have made them some money,

00:27:44 ◼   ► but not as much money as the business solutions

00:27:47 ◼   ► could have made.

00:27:47 ◼   ► And I agree, like if this isn't working for them now,

00:27:51 ◼   ► I prefer them to just do it now and focus their business so Dropbox doesn't struggle

00:27:56 ◼   ► and go away in the future.

00:27:59 ◼   ► Because I need Dropbox more than I need Mailbox.

00:28:03 ◼   ► I agree.

00:28:04 ◼   ► I agree with that.

00:28:06 ◼   ► And there, well the fact is there are other companies that are doing things like Mailbox

00:28:09 ◼   ► and probably doing it better than Dropbox.

00:28:11 ◼   ► So is that, you know, if you're Dropbox, do you look at this and say, "Look, Google is

00:28:16 ◼   ► doing Inbox.

00:28:17 ◼   ► Why are we even trying this?"

00:28:19 ◼   ► because Google is going to be able to tie directly in with Gmail and all of its server

00:28:24 ◼   ► stuff. And some of this stuff is now in Outlook on iOS, right? I mean, it's just, do we really

00:28:31 ◼   ► need to be here? So I think that's all good. If you look at what Slack has done, and I

00:28:37 ◼   ► saw somebody complaining on Twitter about this the other day that like, I wanted to,

00:28:41 ◼   ► they said I wanted to pay for Slack and then I realized there's no way I'm going to pay

00:28:43 ◼   ► for Slack because it's too expensive. Slack decided that it didn't even want an interim

00:28:48 ◼   ► It was going to be very—Slack decided to be very generous with its free tier.

00:28:53 ◼   ► And beyond that, it doesn't really want you to pay unless you're a big business.

00:28:57 ◼   ► And if you're a big business, if you're a business with a budget who wants to pay

00:29:00 ◼   ► for all the features that are of interest to business that they're building, then

00:29:06 ◼   ► they want your money.

00:29:07 ◼   ► But they don't want your money if you're going to be paying them $15 a month or $20

00:29:12 ◼   ► a month because they don't want to maintain that audience, and it doesn't make them

00:29:18 ◼   ► enough money, they would rather give it away for free, get it in places where people can

00:29:23 ◼   ► have their minds blown by how great it is, and then go to the CFO and say, "We need

00:29:27 ◼   ► this for our business, and we need these other features," or the IT person to say, "We

00:29:31 ◼   ► really should have this be official. Let's do that." And that's their strategy. And

00:29:34 ◼   ► I think it's probably a good one. In fact, I think if you were running Dropbox today,

00:29:37 ◼   ► you might argue that what they should do is make the free tier much larger than it is

00:29:43 ◼   ► now, and then have business. And, you know, as somebody who pays $100 a year or whatever

00:29:51 ◼   ► for Dropbox, that would make me sad, and I don't think they're actually going to do

00:29:54 ◼   ► this. But you could make the argument that they'd be better off doing that, which is

00:29:59 ◼   ► what Slack does, which is, you know, make it super great for almost everybody to use

00:30:04 ◼   ► your service and rely on it, and then if any business wants to use it, they pay you.

00:30:09 ◼   ► With Slack, when I first started using Slack, when we first started using it for Relay,

00:30:14 ◼   ► we looked at the prices and we were like, "We're never going to pay for this.

00:30:18 ◼   ► It's too expensive."

00:30:19 ◼   ► You know, looking at, for example, how much our hosting costs or whatever, you know.

00:30:23 ◼   ► We pay nearly as much in hosting for one show, for upgrade, for example, a month, as it costs

00:30:29 ◼   ► to pay for one person in Slack for a month.

00:30:33 ◼   ► The prices are very similar, actually, with what we pay for at Libsyn.

00:30:37 ◼   ► And then it got to the point where we were like, "Ah, Slack is so important to us now,

00:30:42 ◼   ► there's a few features that we really need, okay, we're just going to have to do it."

00:30:46 ◼   ► And by that time, our business had grown in people that we needed in Slack by like five

00:30:50 ◼   ► times.

00:30:51 ◼   ► So that's how you grow a business like them.

00:30:53 ◼   ► Like, you know, it's genius.

00:30:55 ◼   ► Like get people in the door, make them not be able to live without it, and then they'll

00:30:58 ◼   ► start to pay you.

00:31:01 ◼   ► So the short version of this is I think it's a good sign, which is not to say that it's

00:31:05 ◼   ► a guarantee that Dropbox will be successful, but I think this isn't a company that is cutting

00:31:10 ◼   ► costs and that's why it's going away. This is a company that's focusing. This is showing

00:31:15 ◼   ► some discipline. I think it's a good sign.

00:31:16 ◼   ► It's probably an engineering limit.

00:31:19 ◼   ► Certainly.

00:31:21 ◼   ► That's what I would look at this mostly, I think, as being. They have limited engineering

00:31:26 ◼   ► resource.

00:31:27 ◼   ► It's focus. I mean, even if you say with somebody like Apple, it's not just about the resources.

00:31:31 ◼   ► about the focus is, is do we really want to have engineers and work with engineers who

00:31:36 ◼   ► are working on this product that has nothing to do with who we are or what we do? Now,

00:31:40 ◼   ► they could have chosen to spin it off to, you know, make it a make it a wholly owned

00:31:46 ◼   ► subsidiary or something like that. But my imagination, I mean, my guess is that it's

00:31:51 ◼   ► that the people aren't even don't even want to work on it. You don't you don't come to

00:31:55 ◼   ► Dropbox and work on this app that's off in the corner, right? You don't want to go work

00:32:00 ◼   ► at the app that's in the corner at Dropbox.

00:32:02 ◼   ► So it makes -- yeah. I get it.

00:32:06 ◼   ► It's just sad, but I get it. -Yep.

00:32:09 ◼   ► All right. Let's talk about Sketch and the Mac App Store.

00:32:14 ◼   ► So this happened late last week, right?

00:32:18 ◼   ► Sometime last week. It was on December 1st.

00:32:20 ◼   ► So on Tuesday of last week.

00:32:23 ◼   ► Sketch posted a blog post on their site

00:32:27 ◼   ► just basically saying that they were leaving the Mac App Store.

00:32:30 ◼   ► Now, I had the pleasure and you had the pleasure of seeing Peter Onvely,

00:32:35 ◼   ► who's the guy behind Sketch, one of the guys behind Sketch,

00:32:38 ◼   ► at Release Notes.

00:32:39 ◼   ► And he had a real great talk at Release Notes about how he runs his business

00:32:43 ◼   ► and stuff like that. It was absolutely fantastic.

00:32:46 ◼   ► And he spoke very briefly about the Mac App Store

00:32:49 ◼   ► and some of the challenges of it.

00:32:51 ◼   ► And when I saw this post come out,

00:32:54 ◼   ► I was surprised that they were actually still

00:32:57 ◼   ► on the Mac App Store.

00:32:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, after seeing Peter's talk at release notes,

00:33:04 ◼   ► it was very clear to me that this is where they were going.

00:33:08 ◼   ► And you're right, I had that same moment, which is wow, wow.

00:33:11 ◼   ► So they were on the Mac App Store, interesting.

00:33:13 ◼   ► 'Cause he gave all sorts of reasons why he didn't wanna be,

00:33:16 ◼   ► wanna do like an iPad version of Sketch

00:33:20 ◼   ► and what all the problems were with the App Store.

00:33:22 ◼   ► So clearly this was his thought process that was leading to this.

00:33:26 ◼   ► It just, you know, it just, the announcement wasn't in the presentation.

00:33:29 ◼   ► I was also very surprised, um, to, to, to find out that they were Mac app store

00:33:35 ◼   ► only previously, which is really, um, interesting for a tool like this, like,

00:33:41 ◼   ► it's a big professional tool.

00:33:43 ◼   ► Um, and they've obviously spotted that this is a problem in their business.

00:33:46 ◼   ► Somebody, you know, like a company that's not them have too much control.

00:33:49 ◼   ► Right.

00:33:50 ◼   ► So they've decided that they want out.

00:33:52 ◼   ► So, I mean, one of the things that's really interesting about this to me is the importance

00:34:06 ◼   ► that Apple have put on Sketch in the side of this happening.

00:34:12 ◼   ► Like not only are they an ADA winner, when the Apple Watch stuff came out and the designs,

00:34:18 ◼   ► the guidelines and came out for it.

00:34:20 ◼   ► They included assets for Photoshop and for Sketch, right?

00:34:23 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:34:24 ◼   ► - And that shows me that I would assume, looking at that,

00:34:29 ◼   ► that the guys and girls over at Sketch

00:34:32 ◼   ► have the ear of Apple.

00:34:34 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:34:36 ◼   ► - At least-- - Or at least

00:34:36 ◼   ► some part of Apple.

00:34:37 ◼   ► - At least some part of Apple.

00:34:39 ◼   ► But high up enough, I would assume,

00:34:42 ◼   ► that they could let all of these thoughts

00:34:44 ◼   ► be known in advance.

00:34:47 ◼   ► could have a conversation with someone because I'm sure they've had some things that were

00:34:51 ◼   ► frustrating to them that they have let out, right? That would be my assumption in just looking at

00:35:00 ◼   ► this as a thing. And this has still happened, which really does suggest to me that the majority

00:35:09 ◼   ► of things that they are looking for are not around the corner. Right. Yeah, I think

00:35:17 ◼   ► I think so. I'll put a link in the show notes. I put it into our notes about Michael Tsai

00:35:23 ◼   ► did a sort of a roundup with links to a lot of different pieces. John Gruber mentioned

00:35:31 ◼   ► in his piece, he used the phrase, "The Mac App Store is rotting," which I have to say,

00:35:40 ◼   ► you're right.

00:35:41 ◼   ► It's a real good tone of phrase for it. It really is a good tone of phrase.

00:35:45 ◼   ► Because it feels like nothing has happened and they're not paying attention and they're

00:35:51 ◼   ► not listening and nobody seems to care.

00:35:54 ◼   ► And it's like why should anybody else care if Apple doesn't seem to care about the Mac

00:35:57 ◼   ► App Store?

00:35:58 ◼   ► For maybe for anything but like games maybe?

00:36:02 ◼   ► And OS updates.

00:36:04 ◼   ► Yeah because bare bones, Rich Siegel spoke at Singleton last October and talked about

00:36:08 ◼   ► why they were pulling BB out of the store.

00:36:11 ◼   ► doesn't seem like there's anything, I mean the lack of attention, Michael Tsai says that

00:36:17 ◼   ► one of his El Capitan bug fix updates has been in review for 59 days. I've heard from

00:36:23 ◼   ► a lot of other developers who've said that they put in these updates, and I mean even

00:36:27 ◼   ► iOS App Store updates often have long wait times, but the Mac App Store it feels sometimes

00:36:33 ◼   ► like there's just nobody there, literally like nobody minding the store. You know, so

00:36:39 ◼   ► many people have dropped in on this.

00:36:41 ◼   ► Manton Reese wrote a piece about it that was short, but pretty good, and makes a point

00:36:49 ◼   ► that I've felt for a long time, which is what Manton says is, "All this time, Apple could

00:36:53 ◼   ► have been iterating on the Mac App Store, improving sandboxing entitlements, improving

00:36:57 ◼   ► review times, customer interaction, yet they have not." And that is the rotting that John

00:37:01 ◼   ► Gruber is referring to. It's sort of like, I kind of feel like Apple thought that, why

00:37:07 ◼   ► not bring this to the Mac, it would be just as successful as iOS, and whether that was

00:37:14 ◼   ► faulty because the Mac's not as big a platform and Mac apps are different or more complicated

00:37:20 ◼   ► or something, or whether it's them not having any follow-up or a little bit of both. I think

00:37:26 ◼   ► it's more of the latter, or more of the former, but a little bit of the latter too, that it

00:37:31 ◼   ► hasn't helped that Apple has not really—the people who did jump into the Mac App Store

00:37:35 ◼   ► have seen that Apple's not really paying very close attention to it. So it's a, I mean,

00:37:40 ◼   ► the funny thing here is the solution is just don't use the Mac App Store. And because unlike

00:37:45 ◼   ► iOS, the Mac App Store, you can just leave it and you can still sell apps. And that seems

00:37:52 ◼   ► to be what's happening at this point is, it makes me wonder if Apple's basically thinking

00:37:57 ◼   ► to itself, look, this is all it's ever going to be. And if you don't want to follow the

00:38:02 ◼   ► rules just leave. If we're okay with that, just go. Because how else to explain that

00:38:09 ◼   ► they're not... Either that or they feel like they can't make changes to it that wouldn't

00:38:13 ◼   ► impact the iOS app store, and that's the important one. So if they're going to make a policy,

00:38:18 ◼   ► they want to make it universal, and they're making the right decisions maybe for the iOS

00:38:22 ◼   ► app store, so the Mac app store gets to deal with it. I don't know. It's not good. It's

00:38:27 ◼   ► not good.

00:38:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, so as a Mac user, right,

00:38:33 ◼   ► you are a primarily a Mac user,

00:38:36 ◼   ► that is the platform that you are most attracted to.

00:38:39 ◼   ► How often do you use the Mac App Store?

00:38:41 ◼   ► - Not that often.

00:38:47 ◼   ► I do use it, sometimes I use it where it's,

00:38:51 ◼   ► I'm looking for an app that does something very specific,

00:38:58 ◼   ► a little utility and I'll think to myself, well why don't I just go on the Mac App Store

00:39:03 ◼   ► and search for a stopwatch? What stopwatch does the Mac App Store have?

00:39:07 ◼   ► Because you just figured that's a real easy place to find this stuff because Googling

00:39:11 ◼   ► could be a nightmare. Yeah, it's a small utility, it's probably

00:39:14 ◼   ► in the Mac App Store, I don't see why it wouldn't be in the Mac App Store, let's just search.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Oh there are five of them. One of them's free, let's download that. Oh it's terrible. This

00:39:21 ◼   ► one's $2, it looks pretty good, I'll buy that, $2 is fine, done. Okay yes, I'm going to use

00:39:25 ◼   ► the stopwatch now, stuff like that.

00:39:28 ◼   ► And there's some stuff that has to be in the Mac App Store

00:39:31 ◼   ► for various reasons, like photos extensions

00:39:36 ◼   ► have to be in the Mac App Store, but mostly not.

00:39:41 ◼   ► If somebody recommends something

00:39:45 ◼   ► and it's only in the Mac App Store,

00:39:46 ◼   ► I go to their website and they say,

00:39:47 ◼   ► buy it in the Mac App Store, then I'll do that.

00:39:49 ◼   ► But the App Store app, my most common app

00:39:54 ◼   ► tab is updates. Right? It's updates. I leave it in updates all the time. Not featured,

00:40:02 ◼   ► not charts, not categories. Sometimes purchased if I want to go back and look and see, "Did

00:40:06 ◼   ► I buy that?" But that's it. It's just not, yeah.

00:40:10 ◼   ► I like the idea of a lot of the app store, right? Because, for example, I like that you

00:40:20 ◼   ► just go back in when you get a new Mac and everything's there.

00:40:24 ◼   ► Oh I agree.

00:40:25 ◼   ► As opposed to having to search through like did I was I smart enough to save this license

00:40:30 ◼   ► key and 1 password or do I have to look through email for it right like and all that kind

00:40:35 ◼   ► of stuff and then having to just go to all the different websites and remember what you

00:40:38 ◼   ► want to download rather than just going to one lovely list and just clicking all those

00:40:42 ◼   ► things.

00:40:44 ◼   ► I like that you know one purchase gets you multiple licenses across multiple machines.

00:40:48 ◼   ► It's just nice to have that sort of stuff which makes it easy, right?

00:40:51 ◼   ► Then having to think about like, will I need to buy a multi-user license for this piece

00:40:56 ◼   ► of software?

00:40:57 ◼   ► Hmm, I'm not sure.

00:40:58 ◼   ► Could I, you know, like I just find all of that frustrating.

00:41:03 ◼   ► And also not having to enter in my card information into a bunch of different websites and systems

00:41:08 ◼   ► that I don't know or I don't really know who's managing them.

00:41:13 ◼   ► Having it all in Apple and iTunes in my iTunes account, it's just nice and like I just like

00:41:17 ◼   ► having it all there is easy to deal with.

00:41:22 ◼   ► But then on the other side, when I'm buying things as a business, it makes it really difficult

00:41:26 ◼   ► because I can't use my business card or my iTunes account and I don't want to have multiple

00:41:30 ◼   ► iTunes accounts.

00:41:31 ◼   ► So there's other little bits of that on the flip side.

00:41:34 ◼   ► But all of this is moot as long as Apple continues to not do anything with the App Store.

00:41:42 ◼   ► It seems like nothing's happening.

00:41:43 ◼   ► Nothing has happened.

00:41:44 ◼   ► basically untouched since it was introduced and I'm wondering like if you

00:41:50 ◼   ► think back to iOS 8 right WWDC for iOS 8 there was a ton of stuff that was like

00:41:58 ◼   ► oh you're just you know you're doing all these amazing things and developers are

00:42:01 ◼   ► so happy you've done all these incredible things for iOS and I wonder

00:42:06 ◼   ► like is there a potential that they may do this stuff for the Mac App Store like

00:42:12 ◼   ► Like, could they introduce something like trials or changes to app review or sandboxing

00:42:19 ◼   ► stuff?

00:42:20 ◼   ► Could they say, "Oh, we've been listening to you and done all of this," and then they

00:42:23 ◼   ► get like rounds of applause?

00:42:25 ◼   ► >> They could.

00:42:26 ◼   ► >> Do you think they will, though?

00:42:28 ◼   ► >> The question is, is it worth the amount of energy they're putting out for OS X?

00:42:33 ◼   ► Is it worth it for them in terms of what they think that the platform will benefit?

00:42:39 ◼   ► And at some point you have to ask yourself, like, why even have Apple involved? You've

00:42:45 ◼   ► detailed some of the reasons why there's a user convenience there, but I can see it from

00:42:49 ◼   ► Apple's perspective. Like, why would we... People who want to sell outside the App Store

00:42:52 ◼   ► can already do it, so why should we even worry about it? Why should we even prioritize that?

00:42:56 ◼   ► Whereas iOS is where we make our money on the App Store. I think one of the problems

00:42:59 ◼   ► here is that it's using the same infrastructure. So they don't have Mac App Store engineers,

00:43:03 ◼   ► as far as I can tell. They have App Store engineers. And they may have some people who

00:43:07 ◼   ► who are doing things about like app submissions

00:43:09 ◼   ► on the Mac and all that, but it seems to be the same,

00:43:12 ◼   ► exact same infrastructure for all of this stuff.

00:43:15 ◼   ► So that's a challenge, right?

00:43:16 ◼   ► Do you prioritize Mac App Store development

00:43:18 ◼   ► over iOS App Store development?

00:43:20 ◼   ► I wouldn't.

00:43:21 ◼   ► You know, do you have the discipline to say

00:43:23 ◼   ► certain amount of the stuff that we do

00:43:25 ◼   ► is going to be on the Mac

00:43:26 ◼   ► 'cause it's important for the Mac as a platform

00:43:28 ◼   ► that we have this here?

00:43:30 ◼   ► And if you really take out a bunch of these things

00:43:33 ◼   ► on the Mac App Store, it would make it better,

00:43:37 ◼   ► but is Apple gonna accept that?

00:43:39 ◼   ► Because yeah, I could see a WWDC announcement

00:43:41 ◼   ► where they say, look,

00:43:42 ◼   ► let's tell you about the next version of macOS.

00:43:44 ◼   ► And it is called macOS,

00:43:45 ◼   ► just like iOS and tvOS and watchOS, it's macOS.

00:43:49 ◼   ► Version 11, here it is.

00:43:51 ◼   ► New Mac App Store, here's how it works.

00:43:53 ◼   ► You have trials, you have, you know,

00:43:56 ◼   ► you can do trials, you can do upgrade pricing.

00:43:58 ◼   ► There are no sandbox limitations.

00:44:00 ◼   ► App review is gone.

00:44:02 ◼   ► All we're going to ask is that you submit a signed binary

00:44:06 ◼   ► so that if your app turns into malware, we can turn it off.

00:44:11 ◼   ► But otherwise, and we're gonna take 30%

00:44:13 ◼   ► because we're sitting in the middle.

00:44:15 ◼   ► Otherwise, just go to town, knock yourselves out.

00:44:18 ◼   ► Okay, would they do that?

00:44:21 ◼   ► Hard to see, maybe, but they're giving up a lot of control.

00:44:25 ◼   ► Maybe they'll do a little bit less than that.

00:44:27 ◼   ► And then would people do it?

00:44:28 ◼   ► At that point, I guess you have the advantage

00:44:31 ◼   ► of being in the storefront,

00:44:33 ◼   ► but I don't think we've seen a lot of evidence

00:44:36 ◼   ► that the storefront drives massive sales of Mac apps.

00:44:39 ◼   ► And maybe that's the story of the Mac App Store,

00:44:41 ◼   ► ultimately, is the Mac App Store is for the kinds of things

00:44:45 ◼   ► that people who only shop in the Mac App Store would buy.

00:44:48 ◼   ► Maybe that's the story,

00:44:50 ◼   ► that if you are somebody who is a super novice user,

00:44:55 ◼   ► and all you want is to find a calculator,

00:44:57 ◼   ► or a calendar, or a stopwatch,

00:45:01 ◼   ► that you will go there and search and you'll find it,

00:45:03 ◼   ► or you're just looking for games or for your kid, whatever,

00:45:07 ◼   ► then it's fine for that

00:45:08 ◼   ► because then these limitations don't matter.

00:45:10 ◼   ► And that anything else that Mac developers,

00:45:13 ◼   ► any Mac developers got really excited about,

00:45:15 ◼   ► like, "Oh, I can put my backup utility in there.

00:45:17 ◼   ► Oh, no, I can't."

00:45:18 ◼   ► It's like Mac App Store is just not for that stuff.

00:45:21 ◼   ► It's not for anything with any complexity at all.

00:45:23 ◼   ► That certainly seems to be where we are, right?

00:45:25 ◼   ► That seems to be the solution to this.

00:45:27 ◼   ► And maybe that's okay.

00:45:29 ◼   ► Maybe that's just how it has to be,

00:45:31 ◼   ► that the App Store that we thought would be this thing

00:45:34 ◼   ► that would bring iOS level excitement

00:45:37 ◼   ► to app sales on the Mac is just not that.

00:45:40 ◼   ► It like something like, what is it, Launchpad?

00:45:45 ◼   ► That feature where all the giant apps

00:45:47 ◼   ► are on a screen on your Mac.

00:45:49 ◼   ► Maybe it's this relic of a time

00:45:51 ◼   ► when the people in charge of macOS

00:45:54 ◼   ► thought that it just needed to be iOS in all ways.

00:45:57 ◼   ► It needed to have a simple launcher,

00:45:59 ◼   ► It needed to have a simple app store.

00:46:01 ◼   ► And that would be my vote.

00:46:05 ◼   ► My vote would be that all of these features came

00:46:08 ◼   ► from a time when Apple thought the Mac was gonna be more

00:46:10 ◼   ► and more and more like iOS

00:46:11 ◼   ► and that that was the right direction for the Mac.

00:46:13 ◼   ► And I'm not sure they feel that way anymore.

00:46:15 ◼   ► And I think maybe it shows.

00:46:17 ◼   ► And 'cause like launch pad.

00:46:19 ◼   ► That is just a waste.

00:46:21 ◼   ► It was a waste.

00:46:23 ◼   ► My apologies to somebody out there who uses launch pad.

00:46:25 ◼   ► Maybe there's somebody out there who uses launch pad.

00:46:27 ◼   ► but to me, it seems like a waste of time.

00:46:29 ◼   ► Who's it for?

00:46:30 ◼   ► Is anybody really using it?

00:46:33 ◼   ► It's a waste, but it sort of looks like an iPad home screen.

00:46:36 ◼   ► So it's got that going for it.

00:46:38 ◼   ► And Mac App Store, maybe it's the same thing.

00:46:40 ◼   ► Maybe Apple regrets the whole thing.

00:46:42 ◼   ► Maybe they're like Dropbox buying mailbox, like oops.

00:46:45 ◼   ► But they put their whole software update infrastructure

00:46:48 ◼   ► into it now.

00:46:49 ◼   ► So what you gonna do?

00:46:51 ◼   ► - When you said what you're gonna do, just for some reason,

00:46:54 ◼   ► the word Ghostbusters popped into my head.

00:46:57 ◼   ► how it works. And I don't know, that's not how that works, but that's all I got. That's

00:47:01 ◼   ► right, then maybe Apple should call the Ghostbusters if the only thing left... It feels like it

00:47:06 ◼   ► though, right? Like there's just old stuff, abandoned things. Tumbleweed busters! Yeah,

00:47:12 ◼   ► yeah. No, that's my, I like that theory, I'm gonna go with that. That this is a relic of

00:47:17 ◼   ► an earlier time when, and we all remember it, when it seemed like the Mac was getting

00:47:23 ◼   ► pushed closer and closer in so many ways to iOS. And that stopped roughly when Scott Forstall

00:47:31 ◼   ► got fired. And they've made, you know, then they made statements that, "No, the Mac needs

00:47:36 ◼   ► to be its own thing. That's the strategy." But we got the Mac App Store and Launchpad

00:47:43 ◼   ► out of it.

00:47:45 ◼   ► I think that there isn't going to be a big announcement at WWDC in all honesty, because

00:47:52 ◼   ► Can you imagine that they would put trials or change sandbox limitations or upgrade pricing

00:47:57 ◼   ► or app review changes on iOS?

00:48:00 ◼   ► No way.

00:48:01 ◼   ► And they're not going to do it on the Mac, right?

00:48:03 ◼   ► If they're not going to, you know, they're not going to do it on iOS, they're not going

00:48:05 ◼   ► to do it on the Mac, they're not going to mix those two things together because if they

00:48:09 ◼   ► do it on one, they'll have to do it on the other.

00:48:12 ◼   ► So this is the solution, right?

00:48:13 ◼   ► They're also not going to shut down the Mac App Store.

00:48:15 ◼   ► It seems unlikely because they have their whole infrastructure in there.

00:48:18 ◼   ► It seems like they're not going to shut down the Mac App Store.

00:48:20 ◼   ► So what'll happen is it'll just go like this.

00:48:22 ◼   ► And that's what it will end up being a thing

00:48:23 ◼   ► for super simple apps and Apple stuff.

00:48:26 ◼   ► And that's it.

00:48:27 ◼   ► I think that's the most likely solution.

00:48:29 ◼   ► I kind of like them to just shut it down, but hey,

00:48:31 ◼   ► if it works for some apps and it works for some people

00:48:34 ◼   ► and it's working for Apple,

00:48:35 ◼   ► then just you can just keep it around,

00:48:38 ◼   ► but let's all stop pretending that anybody's gonna use it

00:48:41 ◼   ► for anything beyond the most basic software.

00:48:44 ◼   ► - Yep, I agree.

00:48:46 ◼   ► - So the continued rotting of the Mac app store

00:48:49 ◼   ► seems to be the most likely scenario here I gotta say.

00:48:53 ◼   ► This week's episode is also brought to you by audible.com.

00:48:57 ◼   ► Audible includes more than 180,000 audio programs from the leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters,

00:49:05 ◼   ► entertainers, general publishers and more.

00:49:08 ◼   ► And audible is offering a 30 day free trial membership to listeners of Upgrade.

00:49:12 ◼   ► Just go to audible.com/upgrade to take a look at their fantastic selection of audio programs.

00:49:18 ◼   ► They also have an app that you can grab if you want to listen on the go.

00:49:21 ◼   ► I have the Audible app on my iPhone and I have for many years.

00:49:25 ◼   ► I have a bunch of audio books in there and I wanted to recommend one that I love.

00:49:30 ◼   ► And this is an audio book that I've probably listened to like three or four

00:49:34 ◼   ► times and it's called The Second Coming of Steve Jobs.

00:49:37 ◼   ► Um, it's written by Alan Deutschman and it's narrated by a guy called Charles

00:49:41 ◼   ► Stransky, who does a fantastic job.

00:49:43 ◼   ► This is my favorite Steve Jobs book.

00:49:45 ◼   ► Um, it was released in, uh, 2000 in the year 2000.

00:49:51 ◼   ► So the story that it tells is the one that a lot of books skip over. It talks

00:49:58 ◼   ► primarily about Steve's kind of early days and the Mac and it talks about him

00:50:04 ◼   ► being ousted and it talks about Next and Pixar in a lot of detail. Then he returns

00:50:10 ◼   ► to Apple and the story ends and all of the really incredible things, the iPhone,

00:50:15 ◼   ► the iPad, none of that is in this book because it wasn't done when the book was

00:50:20 ◼   ► written. It's just under eight hours down a bridge version and I love it. It talks

00:50:26 ◼   ► so much about Pixar. There's just great stories about like Toy Story and things

00:50:31 ◼   ► like that in here and it really goes into a lot of detail in those because

00:50:34 ◼   ► that's all the book has to talk about and I really like it. Have you ever read

00:50:38 ◼   ► this book? I haven't. I really recommend this one. I came across this not too long

00:50:46 ◼   ► after it came out I think really it was in the early 2000s and I listened to a

00:50:50 ◼   ► bunch of Steve Jobs books that were available at the time and this one was

00:50:54 ◼   ► by far and away my favorite as I say I've listened to it a few times and I

00:50:57 ◼   ► really really recommend it because it kind of focuses on the man and in a

00:51:01 ◼   ► slightly different way especially if you've if you've read the the Isaacson

00:51:05 ◼   ► book and the the newer one what was that called the Schrenger book

00:51:11 ◼   ► Oh. Becoming Steve Jobs? Was that it? Yeah, Becoming

00:51:15 ◼   ► Steve Jobs. There it is. I've lost completely. There's so many Steve

00:51:21 ◼   ► Jobs book books now. It's like one formed into one giant tome of Steve Jobs.

00:51:27 ◼   ► And looking on Audible right now, like if you do want Steve Jobs books, they have them

00:51:31 ◼   ► all, right? Like they're all here. Like there is the Becoming Steve Jobs book that is on

00:51:35 ◼   ► there as well. I actually listened to that as an audiobook as well. And the audiobook

00:51:39 ◼   ► is very good, the Becoming Steve Jobs book, but I like The Second Coming of Steve Jobs,

00:51:44 ◼   ► so I recommend that. And you had a book you want to recommend as well, Jason?

00:51:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I've been... There are a lot of books, because I read a lot of books, a lot of books

00:51:51 ◼   ► that I could recommend here, but I'm going to, for timely reasons, recommend... I mentioned

00:51:56 ◼   ► the TV series The Expanse, which is coming from the Sci-Fi next week, and I highly recommend

00:52:04 ◼   ► that book series. It is probably the best book series that I've read in the last five

00:52:08 ◼   ► years. There are five books that, unlike your George R. R. Martins who, you know, reappear

00:52:14 ◼   ► with a new book every four or five years, these guys, super disciplined, it's two guys

00:52:18 ◼   ► who write it under a pen name, super disciplined, they've got a new novel every June, I think,

00:52:24 ◼   ► so there's a new one every year. That also means that there are five to choose from now

00:52:28 ◼   ► and read, and the first one is what the first season at least, if not more, of the expanse

00:52:35 ◼   ► is going to be based on. It's called Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey, and it is available

00:52:41 ◼   ► on Abridged on Audible, and it is a huge amount of fun. It's set in the future in the solar

00:52:47 ◼   ► system and there are people on Earth and Mars and people in the asteroid belt and the outer

00:52:51 ◼   ► planets and it is an interesting combination of sort of sci-fi adventure with a kind of

00:52:57 ◼   ► noir detective story and some surprising almost horror-esque elements that come on later in

00:53:05 ◼   ► the story that when they come in it is quite a fun change in tone of the plot. So there's

00:53:13 ◼   ► a lot of good stuff in there. It's just it's great and the other books are also great.

00:53:16 ◼   ► So highly recommended and if you are thinking of watching that show I would say try the

00:53:22 ◼   ► audio book. It's a great book Leviathan Wakes.

00:53:24 ◼   ► So you these are just some suggestions you can select any book any audio books at all

00:53:30 ◼   ► when you start your trial but these are just some suggestions that me and Jason have enjoyed.

00:53:34 ◼   ► So go to audible.com/upgrade to get started with your 30 day free trial and check out

00:53:40 ◼   ► some books from audible.

00:53:41 ◼   ► Thank you so much to audible.com for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:53:47 ◼   ► So Jason we're going to go back to my favorite topic right now which is the iPad Pro.

00:53:54 ◼   ► Because I read a little post that you wrote in your Macworld column and I assume this

00:53:59 ◼   ► is you coming to the end of your time with your review unit.

00:54:01 ◼   ► I'm going to assume and you wrote a post on Macworld

00:54:05 ◼   ► of a wishlist.

00:54:06 ◼   ► So would I be right in thinking that you kind of coming

00:54:08 ◼   ► to the end of your time with the unit you have?

00:54:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I need to check when I was supposed to send it back.

00:54:14 ◼   ► Probably I was supposed to send it back.

00:54:16 ◼   ► So I'm gonna have to do that.

00:54:19 ◼   ► I'm gonna have to pack it up and mail it back to Apple.

00:54:21 ◼   ► But I'm getting very close to deciding

00:54:25 ◼   ► I'm gonna buy an iPad Pro.

00:54:26 ◼   ► I really do like it.

00:54:29 ◼   ► - Look at that, I didn't expect that.

00:54:31 ◼   ► I feel like when we first spoke about this a few weeks ago,

00:54:35 ◼   ► that that wasn't necessarily your take on this.

00:54:39 ◼   ► - So you're right.

00:54:40 ◼   ► - I mean, we can get to your wishlist in a moment,

00:54:42 ◼   ► but now this revelation, this bomb has been dropped.

00:54:46 ◼   ► So I want you to tell me what's happened.

00:54:49 ◼   ► Bigger is better is my assumption.

00:54:51 ◼   ► - I'm just, Myke was right.

00:54:53 ◼   ► You know, everything I've said still goes.

00:54:58 ◼   ► I think it's more awkward in some situations

00:55:01 ◼   ► and spectacularly great in others.

00:55:02 ◼   ► And I think after using it for three plus weeks

00:55:05 ◼   ► that I've decided I would rather it be awkward

00:55:08 ◼   ► in those situations and have me manage it

00:55:10 ◼   ► in order to get the greatness of it in the other situations

00:55:14 ◼   ► rather than go back to the smaller.

00:55:16 ◼   ► It is true, the iPad Air feels like an iPad mini now.

00:55:19 ◼   ► It is so, it feels so small compared to the Pro.

00:55:23 ◼   ► So I'm going to be, if I buy one of these,

00:55:28 ◼   ► I'm gonna be one of those people

00:55:29 ◼   ► who doesn't buy either the pencil or the smart keyboard

00:55:33 ◼   ► 'cause I have no desire to have either of those products.

00:55:38 ◼   ► I have no need for the one and no desire for the other.

00:55:40 ◼   ► I would rather use an external,

00:55:42 ◼   ► a Bluetooth keyboard that's better than that.

00:55:46 ◼   ► I don't see, I'm not one of those people

00:55:47 ◼   ► who needs to carry my keyboard around with me all the time.

00:55:50 ◼   ► I can throw a keyboard in a bag when I'm traveling

00:55:53 ◼   ► and pull the keyboard out when I want to type something.

00:55:56 ◼   ► That works for me, I don't need more than that.

00:55:58 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, that's the bottom line

00:56:00 ◼   ► is I feel like it is worth it to have that big screen

00:56:04 ◼   ► and I can deal with the fact that it's awkward

00:56:10 ◼   ► in some places.

00:56:10 ◼   ► That said, I did do some thumb typing on the iPad Air 2

00:56:14 ◼   ► the other day and I thought,

00:56:15 ◼   ► oh, I can actually type while I'm holding this thing,

00:56:17 ◼   ► which the iPad Pro doesn't do.

00:56:19 ◼   ► So there's still a chance that I will not.

00:56:22 ◼   ► I think what's gonna happen

00:56:22 ◼   ► is I'm gonna send the Apple One back

00:56:24 ◼   ► and then I'm gonna see how I feel.

00:56:26 ◼   ► And if after a couple of weeks,

00:56:27 ◼   ► I realize that I'm really missing it, then I'll buy one.

00:56:30 ◼   ► - The thumb typing thing is one of the trade-offs for me.

00:56:34 ◼   ► - Yeah. - It's like,

00:56:35 ◼   ► I like to be able to do that,

00:56:36 ◼   ► but now I just adjust the way that I use this thing

00:56:39 ◼   ► and the way that I hold this thing

00:56:40 ◼   ► and how I type with this thing.

00:56:42 ◼   ► And if I need to be walking or moving

00:56:45 ◼   ► or standing up and typing,

00:56:46 ◼   ► well, I'm gonna type slowly, holding it,

00:56:48 ◼   ► and typing with one finger.

00:56:50 ◼   ► I just have to accept that any message I want to send

00:56:53 ◼   ► when walking around with my iPad Pro

00:56:55 ◼   ► will be shorter and type more slowly.

00:56:58 ◼   ► Because I love this thing completely.

00:57:02 ◼   ► I love my iPad Pro.

00:57:03 ◼   ► It is by far my favorite computing device right now.

00:57:06 ◼   ► It's fantastic.

00:57:09 ◼   ► I was doing some work over the weekend.

00:57:12 ◼   ► But actually it was setting up the membership stuff.

00:57:14 ◼   ► So we use Membrful, which is a great platform,

00:57:18 ◼   ► and it's the platform you use.

00:57:20 ◼   ► We were creating all of the plans in Membrful,

00:57:22 ◼   ► and each one creates a URL.

00:57:24 ◼   ► we had to drop all of the URLs into our CMS to create the pages.

00:57:31 ◼   ► So it was like 20 odd shows with three URLs each.

00:57:36 ◼   ► And so I was doing that.

00:57:37 ◼   ► And if I would have done that on my Mac, it would have been nice and simple,

00:57:41 ◼   ► like copy and paste the text. But I had Safari on one side,

00:57:45 ◼   ► I had Chrome on the other, and it was so easy. I had the pencil in my hand.

00:57:50 ◼   ► I would just, with my, I would have my thumb on the right side,

00:57:54 ◼   ► like press down on URL, copy,

00:57:56 ◼   ► then go click with a pencil on the other one,

00:57:57 ◼   ► tap in the box, click the paste button.

00:57:59 ◼   ► And I was just rattling through that so quickly.

00:58:02 ◼   ► And for me, that was faster

00:58:04 ◼   ► than I would have done it on the Mac.

00:58:06 ◼   ► Like just flat out, it was faster.

00:58:08 ◼   ► And I'm sure that you would do it faster on the Mac

00:58:11 ◼   ► than I did it on the iPad.

00:58:12 ◼   ► But just like the way that I was doing it,

00:58:13 ◼   ► I just got into this rhythm.

00:58:15 ◼   ► And I'm at the point now, after using this thing,

00:58:18 ◼   ► where I really like, and it sounds so,

00:58:21 ◼   ► I already hate myself as I'm saying this

00:58:23 ◼   ► because of what the phrase actually means.

00:58:25 ◼   ► I really like working with my hands in this way.

00:58:29 ◼   ► My hands are on the screen.

00:58:32 ◼   ► It's kind of what they originally spoke about

00:58:34 ◼   ► with the iPad, right?

00:58:35 ◼   ► Like you manipulating the web and stuff like that.

00:58:38 ◼   ► But it feels way more with this device.

00:58:43 ◼   ► And just the pen input stuff,

00:58:45 ◼   ► I love using the Apple Pencil as pen input.

00:58:49 ◼   ► So I use it so much on the UI of the device.

00:58:52 ◼   ► I use it to tap things, I use it to select things.

00:58:55 ◼   ► It really works for me in a way that other iPads haven't.

00:59:00 ◼   ► And I don't know why that is.

00:59:02 ◼   ► Obviously I'm a person that feels very, very comfortable

00:59:05 ◼   ► with a pen in my hand.

00:59:08 ◼   ► So maybe that helps me feel like it's more natural.

00:59:13 ◼   ► I don't know what it is,

00:59:13 ◼   ► but I really love using it that way.

00:59:17 ◼   ► So I mean, I'm very happy with it.

00:59:20 ◼   ► And I'm pleased that you are as well.

00:59:22 ◼   ► so much that you're thinking of getting a new one.

00:59:26 ◼   ► But this isn't a perfect product, right?

00:59:28 ◼   ► So to kind of wrap up and kind of round up your wishes here,

00:59:33 ◼   ► you asked for more cases, which I completely agree with.

00:59:38 ◼   ► There aren't many cases.

00:59:39 ◼   ► And I am also sad that I have a black smart cover

00:59:42 ◼   ► and not like a green one.

00:59:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're in like dark gray and white.

00:59:48 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:59:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, so there's the smart covers have no color options

00:59:56 ◼   ► to speak of.

00:59:57 ◼   ► There are, there need to be more cases in general,

01:00:00 ◼   ► which it's gonna just take time for that to happen.

01:00:03 ◼   ► I want a keyboard thing like the old Origami

01:00:07 ◼   ► where I want a thing where I can put a Bluetooth keyboard

01:00:09 ◼   ► and have like a little, I mean, again,

01:00:11 ◼   ► the smart cover will sort of do this,

01:00:12 ◼   ► but have like a little stand for the iPad Pro

01:00:15 ◼   ► that with a Bluetooth keyboard in front of it,

01:00:18 ◼   ► because I don't really wanna use the smart keyboard.

01:00:21 ◼   ► and I don't need to, so why not?

01:00:23 ◼   ► But I don't want it to be a case like the Logitech Create.

01:00:27 ◼   ► I want it to be a thing where you can set your iPad in it

01:00:30 ◼   ► and use it and then pick up the iPad and walk away.

01:00:32 ◼   ► - I actually just today was able to order a smart keyboard.

01:00:37 ◼   ► And it's not from Apple,

01:00:40 ◼   ► it's from a company here called Currys.

01:00:43 ◼   ► It's very much like a Best Buy.

01:00:45 ◼   ► And it will be arriving tomorrow.

01:00:47 ◼   ► - Oh, that's exciting.

01:00:49 ◼   ► - And I just wanna try this.

01:00:51 ◼   ► I probably think I will return this.

01:00:53 ◼   ► - I think so too.

01:00:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna like it,

01:00:57 ◼   ► but I wanna give it a shot because I do want to use

01:01:00 ◼   ► a keyboard with it in some instances,

01:01:02 ◼   ► and I've been using this Logitech One,

01:01:05 ◼   ► and I keep meaning to get my magic keyboard

01:01:07 ◼   ► out of the iMac box because I figure I don't use that.

01:01:12 ◼   ► It actually might work really well for me to use that here

01:01:14 ◼   ► because I always have a cable to charge that keyboard

01:01:20 ◼   ► wherever I am.

01:01:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Also, if you try it

01:01:27 ◼   ► and you like the key feel,

01:01:29 ◼   ► then

01:01:31 ◼   ► you can return it and when they come out with a UK keyboard you could get that one.

01:01:36 ◼   ► Because I think you're not going to want the US keyboard anyway. But I have a US software

01:01:39 ◼   ► keyboard layout anyway.

01:01:41 ◼   ► Alright. Like it's the UK keys but they're shaped incorrectly. But I'm

01:01:46 ◼   ► hoping that they'll fix that too at some point, but maybe, maybe not.

01:01:50 ◼   ► Yeah, from my understanding of this though, it seems like they're gonna fix the software

01:01:54 ◼   ► stuff but it doesn't seem like they're gonna fix the hardware keyboard, I don't think.

01:01:59 ◼   ► No, the hardware keyboard, they said they're gonna do international keyboard layouts, yeah.

01:02:03 ◼   ► Oh, good.

01:02:04 ◼   ► There will be international smart keyboards down the road, they said.

01:02:08 ◼   ► Okay.

01:02:09 ◼   ► So we'll see. I mean, again, it's a sort of peculiar rollout, that they only have the

01:02:14 ◼   ► one.

01:02:15 ◼   ► it's why don't they have any of the accessories in their stores right it's the other thing right right

01:02:19 ◼   ► the you know a lot of my complaints i've written other articles about about uh multitasking like

01:02:27 ◼   ► i want more apps to do picture in picture there's still a bunch of my apps my video apps that don't

01:02:31 ◼   ► that don't do it yeah why is that is it like a drm thing like so you know because so many

01:02:36 ◼   ► different services implemented their own video players for like whatever dumb reasons like drm

01:02:42 ◼   ► why they didn't want AirPlay or whatever. It's possible, although I would think that you could

01:02:47 ◼   ► still do it, but I don't know. I mean, I don't know the technical details. It's just, bottom line,

01:02:53 ◼   ► as a user, it frustrates me that I can't put Netflix in a little video box, and I can't put--my

01:02:58 ◼   ► cable company has an app that has all the live channels that I've authenticated to be able to see

01:03:04 ◼   ► and stuff that's on demand, and it doesn't work with it. But ESPN does, and Hulu does.

01:03:11 ◼   ► So go figure. So more picture-in-picture apps.

01:03:15 ◼   ► We've talked about it before, the better split view app picker thing,

01:03:19 ◼   ► so I can more easily

01:03:23 ◼   ► choose which app I want to have in slide over or split view.

01:03:27 ◼   ► The stuff that I talked about, about being able to sort of like

01:03:31 ◼   ► pair up apps so that instead of

01:03:35 ◼   ► having to launch a new app and then changing the app that's in the

01:03:39 ◼   ► the split view I could just have a way to set those so that it knows that when

01:03:43 ◼   ► I use this app I want this to be in the split view. Just more software

01:03:47 ◼   ► development stuff, more keyboard shortcuts, that just sort of system-wide

01:03:54 ◼   ► the ability like I said to be able to search for an app and actually select it

01:03:58 ◼   ► instead of having to reach up and touch the screen. And then third-party

01:04:01 ◼   ► developers are a part of this too. There's still way too many apps that are

01:04:05 ◼   ► scaled up for the iPad Pro because they haven't been updated to take advantage

01:04:08 ◼   ► of the screen size. They've got the weird keyboard because it's a scaled up iPad Air

01:04:12 ◼   ► keyboard that you're seeing. And then also they don't have as good keyboard support as

01:04:18 ◼   ► they should and multitasking support as they should. So, you know, it's little stuff but

01:04:24 ◼   ► it's important stuff.

01:04:25 ◼   ► So, you know, to echo some of those things in regards to cases, I want a case that holds

01:04:30 ◼   ► the pencil neatly and I've seen a few sleeves that hold it but that doesn't work for me.

01:04:38 ◼   ► I have actually purchased a pen loop and have stuck that pen loop onto my iPad.

01:04:47 ◼   ► Like with a sticker?

01:04:50 ◼   ► It is a sticker.

01:04:52 ◼   ► Like it is a it's got a sticky back.

01:04:54 ◼   ► I mean I'm putting stickers on it anyway right?

01:04:57 ◼   ► Alright on my iPad so like I don't really care so much.

01:05:01 ◼   ► I'm not 100% convinced in it yet because it definitely works and it works pretty well

01:05:08 ◼   ► But there are a couple of drawbacks, like for example, when I now put the smart cover

01:05:16 ◼   ► around on the back, the magnets don't fit together as strongly because there is something

01:05:22 ◼   ► obstructing the case from touching the back of the iPad so easily.

01:05:28 ◼   ► But it holds it mostly but not completely.

01:05:30 ◼   ► And also the stickiness is not holding on one edge.

01:05:34 ◼   ► The rest of it is so incredibly glued down that I think it might be okay

01:05:38 ◼   ► but what it is doing which I love is now my

01:05:41 ◼   ► Pencil is affixed to my iPad at all times

01:05:45 ◼   ► So like it's really easy for me to just grab it and store it somewhere. That's nice

01:05:50 ◼   ► So I got one of those and I've stuck it on it's by a company called Leuchtturm 1917

01:05:56 ◼   ► Which is a pen and paper manufacturer that I'm familiar with

01:06:02 ◼   ► And it's just a little pen loop and I bought a couple of them and I've stuck it on the back of my iPad

01:06:08 ◼   ► So when I was at twit yesterday

01:06:10 ◼   ► Leo was complaining about there's no place to stick the pencil on the iPad Pro because I brought the iPad Pro with me instead of

01:06:16 ◼   ► a laptop

01:06:17 ◼   ► sidebar

01:06:19 ◼   ► There are no

01:06:21 ◼   ► IRC clients for iOS that support multitasking which is such a shame. I realize the

01:06:27 ◼   ► IRC is not a super popular format for most, but boy, all the chat rooms for all the podcasts

01:06:33 ◼   ► that I'm on use it. So I would like that, that would have helped. But anyway, he was

01:06:37 ◼   ► saying, "Oh, you know, I've got the pen here for the Surface Book," because he has a Surface

01:06:41 ◼   ► Book, and it just, you know, you just lay it on the side and it attaches magnetically,

01:06:46 ◼   ► and see, this is so much better. And then over the course of showing me this and right

01:06:51 ◼   ► after, he must have knocked that pen off by touching it and having it fall off, like,

01:06:57 ◼   ► times. Oh yeah, a magnet on the side is not storage, it is placement. Yeah, yeah, and

01:07:02 ◼   ► I had that moment where I thought, I thought, this is why Apple didn't do that. Yeah. It's

01:07:07 ◼   ► because your pencil's just gonna keep on getting knocked off and falling on the ground and

01:07:10 ◼   ► breaking. And it's not, it's not, don't do that. No. So they didn't. Anybody that thinks

01:07:15 ◼   ► that that is storage, like I was actually watching Twit and saw him do that and was

01:07:19 ◼   ► like, like say, oh, it fixes to the side with a magnet, like, no it doesn't. Like, it does,

01:07:24 ◼   ► It stays there but you put that in and out of any bag or move it around that thing is

01:07:29 ◼   ► just flying off all over the place.

01:07:31 ◼   ► This is what I want a case that it goes in that I slide it into.

01:07:35 ◼   ► I've seen these like sleeves by a couple of different companies and I don't want a sleeve.

01:07:40 ◼   ► I'll put links in the show notes to the sleeves that I've seen as well in case people ask

01:07:44 ◼   ► for them.

01:07:45 ◼   ► I want a case that is like a smart cover that has a pen loop.

01:07:49 ◼   ► I want it to have the magnets, I want it to be a stand, I want all of that.

01:07:54 ◼   ► And I haven't seen any of that as of yet so I'm looking forward to seeing some of that

01:07:58 ◼   ► sort of stuff because I'm confident that there will be some people that make these things.

01:08:05 ◼   ► The market's not going to be massive massive for them but for a lot of these types of companies

01:08:09 ◼   ► big enough.

01:08:11 ◼   ► So I've been looking on Amazon and there's some stuff that exists but it's not things

01:08:17 ◼   ► that I'm interested in.

01:08:18 ◼   ► Like I've seen a couple of products on Amazon like if you just search for iPad Pro case

01:08:21 ◼   ► Pencil on Amazon you'll see like these leather cases that have all of the stuff that I'm asking for

01:08:26 ◼   ► But I just don't like the design of them

01:08:28 ◼   ► Whilst I do love the designs of both of these sleeves

01:08:33 ◼   ► I'm not I don't think I want a sleeve

01:08:36 ◼   ► I want to I want a case or you know a smart cover type thing to put this in I

01:08:44 ◼   ► Also have real-time follow-up

01:08:47 ◼   ► Our good friend Doug Beal in the chat room said that the colloquy, which I was using

01:08:53 ◼   ► yesterday actually does support split screen, and it does.

01:08:56 ◼   ► I have it working right here.

01:08:57 ◼   ► So how did you miss that?

01:08:59 ◼   ► Well, you know why I missed it?

01:09:01 ◼   ► It's because I was trying to run it in picture-in-picture, and I didn't see it when I scrolled through

01:09:05 ◼   ► the low-density list of things that were available, or not picture-in-picture, in slide-over.

01:09:11 ◼   ► I didn't see it in the list there, because that list is not organized in any reasonable

01:09:14 ◼   ► way.

01:09:15 ◼   ► But yeah, there it is.

01:09:16 ◼   ► Well, Colloquy, thumbs up.

01:09:21 ◼   ► Man, their website, the Colloquy website, is showing iOS 6 screenshots.

01:09:27 ◼   ► Yeah. I'm assuming it doesn't look like that anymore.

01:09:30 ◼   ► It doesn't look great, but it works. But it's not got an iOS 6 keyboard.

01:09:36 ◼   ► Well, probably not. No, I mean that's what it's showing on their website.

01:09:41 ◼   ► I hope that's not the case. Yeah, so that's what, you know, that's my main thing.

01:09:45 ◼   ► And one other thing I'd like to see in the future,

01:09:48 ◼   ► I wanna be able to do more with that home screen.

01:09:51 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

01:09:52 ◼   ► - Like I don't think I want widgets.

01:09:55 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

01:09:56 ◼   ► Maybe if they can be done right.

01:10:00 ◼   ► But like I saw somebody mock up a view of like,

01:10:04 ◼   ► somewhere on Twitter, I saw this within the last week or so.

01:10:07 ◼   ► I saw people mock up a kind of iOS home screen

01:10:13 ◼   ► with the notification center widgets on the home screen and it looked really

01:10:17 ◼   ► unattractive but I feel like I just want there to be more on that space because

01:10:22 ◼   ► it's kind of unused space and I think they could do

01:10:26 ◼   ► more there and I do genuinely believe in my heart of hearts

01:10:31 ◼   ► that iOS 10 will bring a new look to the home screen in general.

01:10:37 ◼   ► I agree. It feels like if you're ever gonna do it

01:10:41 ◼   ► 10's the one to do it.

01:10:43 ◼   ► - I suppose.

01:10:44 ◼   ► I figured they might do it.

01:10:46 ◼   ► Well, I figured they might do it for nine,

01:10:47 ◼   ► but as I've talked about before,

01:10:50 ◼   ► they had so much they had to do,

01:10:54 ◼   ► especially for productivity features,

01:10:55 ◼   ► that I can see why they maybe prioritized split view,

01:10:58 ◼   ► picture in picture, keyboard stuff,

01:11:01 ◼   ► and just said, look, we'll get to the home screen next time.

01:11:05 ◼   ► - I figured they were gonna do it every time

01:11:06 ◼   ► for the last few releases, right?

01:11:08 ◼   ► Like even on iPhone. - Yeah, me too.

01:11:09 ◼   ► - But now I'm thinking like,

01:11:11 ◼   ► if I'm Apple and like it comes to iOS 8 and they're like, oh,

01:11:15 ◼   ► let's plan out our roadmap. And they're like, oh,

01:11:16 ◼   ► we want to do this new thing to the home screen. I, if I was in that scenario,

01:11:21 ◼   ► I'd be like, let's wait until 10.

01:11:22 ◼   ► Like that is a number 10 massive feature,

01:11:26 ◼   ► re-changing everything you know, like if you're going to do it, do it now.

01:11:30 ◼   ► So I hope they are going to do it now. So I don't look like a fool.

01:11:33 ◼   ► Maybe this can be another one of those Myke was right scenarios,

01:11:35 ◼   ► which is a cute holding onto this one until June. Maybe, maybe.

01:11:40 ◼   ► So that's my feeling, I mean I love the iPad Pro, I'm very happy to hear that you will be buying one.

01:11:44 ◼   ► Probably.

01:11:46 ◼   ► The fact that you're speaking about it the way that you are, whether you know it or not,

01:11:50 ◼   ► yet you're going to be getting one. I'm very confident about that fact.

01:11:53 ◼   ► Should we take our final break and do some Ask Upgrade?

01:11:55 ◼   ► That's a good idea.

01:11:57 ◼   ► This week's Ask Upgrade is brought to you by Casper, an online retailer of premium mattresses

01:12:02 ◼   ► that you can get for yourself for a fraction of the price of what you'll be used to finding in stores.

01:12:08 ◼   ► Buying a mattress has previously been an expensive and kind of weird thing you go into a showroom

01:12:13 ◼   ► You sit on a mattress for a few minutes

01:12:15 ◼   ► And then you decide that that's the mattress you want to sleep on for the next 10 years and then you pay a ton of money

01:12:19 ◼   ► To the people in the mattress showroom or the furniture store to get this sent to you at home

01:12:25 ◼   ► This is kind of strange when you think about it, right?

01:12:28 ◼   ► Like just sitting on a bed for a few minutes and being like I will sleep on you every night

01:12:32 ◼   ► You're the mattress I want all of that is kind of weird and that is what Casper is here to fix

01:12:37 ◼   ► Casper make fantastic mattresses all made in America they're premium

01:12:42 ◼   ► mattresses and it's a new mattress that Casper developed themselves it is a

01:12:46 ◼   ► hybrid mattress that combines premium latex firm with memory firm it provides

01:12:51 ◼   ► resilience and long-lasting supportive comfort these two different technologies

01:12:55 ◼   ► come together for better nights and brighter days it's just the right sink

01:12:59 ◼   ► just the right bounce and the prices are great too so mattresses can often cost

01:13:03 ◼   ► well over $1500 but Casper mattresses will cost between $500 for a twin size mattress,

01:13:10 ◼   ► $750 for a full size, $850 for a queen and $950 for a king.

01:13:16 ◼   ► And I was talking a moment ago about this idea of going to showrooms right? Casper understands

01:13:21 ◼   ► that buying a mattress online is also kind of peculiar as well as going to showrooms

01:13:25 ◼   ► is kind of peculiar. So they make this whole process even better by making it risk free.

01:13:30 ◼   ► Casper offers free delivery and free returns within a 100 day period. You choose the mattress

01:13:36 ◼   ► that you want, it gets shipped to you in a box, you open the box, you get the mattress

01:13:41 ◼   ► out, you let it rest, you sleep on it for 100 days and if you're not happy you can return

01:13:46 ◼   ► it for free. It's completely risk free, it is kind of awesome and really crazy. I love

01:13:51 ◼   ► that they do this, it's such a new way of doing things because you don't have to go

01:13:56 ◼   ► to the store, get it shipped to you, test it out in real conditions in your own pyjamas

01:14:02 ◼   ► and everything and then you'll be confident that it's the mattress for you. Absolutely

01:14:06 ◼   ► risk free, super awesome and listeners of this show can get $50 towards any mattress

01:14:10 ◼   ► purchase by going to casper.com/upgrade and using the code upgrade at checkout. Terms

01:14:15 ◼   ► and conditions apply, please see the site for details. Thank you so much to Casper for

01:14:19 ◼   ► supporting this show and all of Relay FM.

01:14:24 ◼   ► >> It's upgrade time.

01:14:27 ◼   ► >> Lasers, lasers.

01:14:28 ◼   ► I'm just, I'm going to just say the word lasers now, not even make the sound.

01:14:31 ◼   ► >> Look at that.

01:14:32 ◼   ► Upgrading Diane would like to know, Jason, you mentioned last week that you use Outlook

01:14:37 ◼   ► for iOS.

01:14:38 ◼   ► Are there any reasons you don't use Outlook on your Mac?

01:14:43 ◼   ► >> Hi to Diane.

01:14:44 ◼   ► The Outlook for iOS is totally different.

01:14:47 ◼   ► Outlook for Mac is based on the-- >> Outlook for Mac.

01:14:51 ◼   ► It was based on the Entourage code base.

01:14:54 ◼   ► I mean, it feels honestly, it's gotten better,

01:14:57 ◼   ► but it is this big app.

01:14:59 ◼   ► It feels really heavy.

01:15:01 ◼   ► It's hard for me to explain it.

01:15:02 ◼   ► It feels kind of old because I think there's a lot of stuff

01:15:05 ◼   ► that has been in there since the Entourage days.

01:15:08 ◼   ► It's doing everything that Microsoft feels it must do

01:15:13 ◼   ► to provide desktop support for its monolithic services

01:15:17 ◼   ► and whatever.

01:15:18 ◼   ► And Outlook for iOS is like a totally new take on it.

01:15:21 ◼   ► And it's a, so yeah, I have no desire

01:15:24 ◼   ► to use Outlook on the Mac.

01:15:25 ◼   ► I've looked at it, I don't like it, I don't wanna use it.

01:15:28 ◼   ► But on iOS, it's pretty good.

01:15:32 ◼   ► So for now I'm using it there.

01:15:33 ◼   ► But it's just, they're very different.

01:15:35 ◼   ► They have the same name, but they're totally different.

01:15:37 ◼   ► - 'Cause in case you don't, in case anyone doesn't know,

01:15:39 ◼   ► Microsoft bought an app called a company on iOS,

01:15:43 ◼   ► rebranded it, have done actually some of their own work

01:15:45 ◼   ► to make the app better.

01:15:46 ◼   ► but the code base is nowhere near the same.

01:15:49 ◼   ► They were different things originally.

01:15:51 ◼   ► And I hope that they are working on building

01:15:53 ◼   ► a different Mac app,

01:15:55 ◼   ► but I'm not seeing any signs of that occurring.

01:15:58 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:15:59 ◼   ► - Gerard wrote in and said that he's beginning to love

01:16:02 ◼   ► the UpThere home beta and says it syncs really fast.

01:16:06 ◼   ► Any thoughts on its future?

01:16:08 ◼   ► Jason, could you explain to people what this is

01:16:09 ◼   ► in case they haven't seen it before?

01:16:11 ◼   ► - UpThere is a startup from a whole bunch of people

01:16:16 ◼   ► who used to work at Apple, including Bertrand Cerlet,

01:16:18 ◼   ► who was in charge of Apple software development

01:16:21 ◼   ► for many years, OS development.

01:16:22 ◼   ► He's the guy who would come on in the first session

01:16:25 ◼   ► at WWDC after the keynote with his French accent

01:16:28 ◼   ► and introduce what the details of the new features

01:16:30 ◼   ► of OS X and iOS were.

01:16:32 ◼   ► A whole bunch of other people there,

01:16:36 ◼   ► including James Dempsey, if you have heard of James Dempsey

01:16:39 ◼   ► and the Breakpoints, the nerd rock band.

01:16:43 ◼   ► Chris Burton, who was at Apple for a long time,

01:16:46 ◼   ► a bunch of people.

01:16:47 ◼   ► And they are at this startup called UpThere,

01:16:49 ◼   ► which is a cloud, they call it the cloud computer,

01:16:53 ◼   ► but they've got two apps that they released.

01:16:56 ◼   ► And one of them is basically storage.

01:16:58 ◼   ► And one of them is basically photo management.

01:17:01 ◼   ► And it's all cloud syncing and they're in beta now.

01:17:04 ◼   ► And you can sign up at, what is it?

01:17:06 ◼   ► Upthere.com.

01:17:08 ◼   ► And I don't have any opinion about it though, Gerard.

01:17:12 ◼   ► I think it's an interesting thing from interesting people. Who knows? Who knows? It's a startup.

01:17:19 ◼   ► It's new. You know, I am hesitant to trust any startup for the long haul. Are they going

01:17:23 ◼   ► to get bought? Are they going to stay independent? Are they going to make it? Are they going

01:17:28 ◼   ► to fail? I have no idea. And to be honest, I've downloaded the stuff, but I haven't even

01:17:32 ◼   ► had a chance to use it yet. So I want to try it for myself and see. I think I used it maybe

01:17:36 ◼   ► briefly and then I haven't gone back to it. So I need to look into it. But it's a startup.

01:17:42 ◼   ► know, don't put all your stuff there and count on it lasting for 20 years because you never

01:17:46 ◼   ► know. But a lot of smart people at that company, a lot of smart ex-Apple people there. Maybe

01:17:52 ◼   ► their plan is to build good cloud services and then, you know, have Apple come to them

01:17:58 ◼   ► and buy them out because Apple needs good cloud services people. Maybe that's the plan.

01:18:02 ◼   ► It's like Next all over again. Yeah. Rajeev would like to know, "Will the iPads eventually

01:18:08 ◼   ► get low power mode like iPhones?" What do you think, Jason? Do you think that's something

01:18:11 ◼   ► that Apple would do? I feel like maybe not because just the usage of an iPad and an iPhone

01:18:19 ◼   ► is different. But I could see the value in getting to 20% or 10% battery and having it

01:18:24 ◼   ► say, "Hey, can I slow this down a little bit in order to keep you going?" I think the idea

01:18:31 ◼   ► there is that your iPad is less likely to be far away from a power outlet, but it totally

01:18:35 ◼   ► happens if you let it run down that way. When I was at Twit yesterday, I was at 1% when

01:18:40 ◼   ► the show ended. So I would have probably gone along with that. There may be some issues

01:18:46 ◼   ► there in terms of multitasking and things like that. Like does it turn off multitasking?

01:18:50 ◼   ► On the iPhone it doesn't have to worry about that stuff, but on the iPad it would have

01:18:53 ◼   ► to. I don't know. I think since that feature exists in iOS, I think it might very well

01:18:59 ◼   ► come to iPad eventually, but I'm not sure Apple is falling over themselves, obviously,

01:19:04 ◼   ► because it's not in there now to add that feature. But I could see how it would have

01:19:07 ◼   ► some use ultimately. But yeah, I don't know. I'm going to say yes eventually on an infinite

01:19:14 ◼   ► time scale.

01:19:15 ◼   ► >> It's just the greatest get out.

01:19:17 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

01:19:18 ◼   ► >> It really is fantastic.

01:19:20 ◼   ► >> Well, he did say eventually. I mean, that gives me latitude.

01:19:25 ◼   ► >> With the next question comes from Ivan. Do you think the iPad Pro will ever get Xcode

01:19:30 ◼   ► or will Xcode ever come to the App Store?

01:19:34 ◼   ► - I, again, if we say ever,

01:19:37 ◼   ► yes, I think something that will let you build apps

01:19:42 ◼   ► will come to the iPad, iPad, iPad Pro, whatever.

01:19:46 ◼   ► I do think that will happen.

01:19:47 ◼   ► It may be limited in scope, especially at first.

01:19:51 ◼   ► My guess is it won't have all the things

01:19:54 ◼   ► that we know of in Xcode.

01:19:55 ◼   ► Even if they call it Xcode, I think it'll be different.

01:19:57 ◼   ► But yeah, I think at some point in the next year or two,

01:20:01 ◼   ► Apple will build something that is enough that you could develop software for the iPad

01:20:09 ◼   ► on the iPad. I do think that will happen. I mean, I'm just—I have no information here,

01:20:15 ◼   ► but I think—I feel like we're at the point where it will happen. The existence of the

01:20:18 ◼   ► iPad Pro makes me believe it will happen. Maybe it'll only support Swift. You know,

01:20:23 ◼   ► I don't know. I mean, maybe it'll only support certain kinds of apps, certain kinds of features

01:20:30 ◼   ► at first at least, but yeah, I feel like it's gonna happen.

01:20:34 ◼   ► Ben would like to know, "What podcasts do you listen to that aren't part of the great

01:20:38 ◼   ► Relay FM network?" And I wanted to extend this and say all the incomparable.

01:20:42 ◼   ► Oh, fine. Right. And not letting you sneak in there with

01:20:46 ◼   ► your promotion. Although, you know, people should listen to incomparable shows. I wanted

01:20:50 ◼   ► to get a few others. So do you want to start? Or I have a small list.

01:20:53 ◼   ► Yeah, why don't you give me your list first. All right, so I just selected a few shows

01:20:58 ◼   ► either a new or just absolute favorites of mine.

01:21:01 ◼   ► One of them is Control, Wart, Delete,

01:21:04 ◼   ► which is a new show from The Verge.

01:21:06 ◼   ► It's Neil Patel and Wart Mossberg.

01:21:08 ◼   ► And I really like this show because it's basically The Verge

01:21:14 ◼   ► doing this type of show, which they haven't previously done.

01:21:17 ◼   ► They either do stuff that's really heavily produced

01:21:20 ◼   ► or they're like big panel shows, but have a different feel to them

01:21:23 ◼   ► to the types of shows that we have here.

01:21:25 ◼   ► but control-warp-delete is neilight and waltz and they just talk and it feels just like this show feels

01:21:31 ◼   ► So I really like it because it's two people that I really respect

01:21:35 ◼   ► And enjoy the opinions of in a format that I love so that is a big recommendation

01:21:41 ◼   ► I've got to say flophouse and hello internet obviously love those shows will do forever my two favorite podcasts and

01:21:49 ◼   ► I also wanted to mention

01:21:52 ◼   ► Tomorrow with Joshua Topolsky. I don't listen to every episode

01:21:55 ◼   ► I kind of pick and choose based on guests, but every time I do listen to it. I always enjoy it

01:22:01 ◼   ► So there are a couple of shows I wanted to mention to my absolute two favorites and two that maybe

01:22:06 ◼   ► You're not listening to that. I think you would enjoy

01:22:09 ◼   ► Very nice. I listen to a bunch of nerdy TV podcasts

01:22:14 ◼   ► Chip Sutter does the two-minute time Lord, which is a very short Doctor Who podcast

01:22:20 ◼   ► which I really like. And of course there's Verity and Radio Free Skaro, which are longer

01:22:25 ◼   ► panel podcasts that are very good. And I also listened to the Audio Guide to Babylon 5,

01:22:29 ◼   ► one of my favorite sci-fi TV series from the 90s. And they're watching every episode from

01:22:32 ◼   ► the beginning once every two weeks. It's a lot of fun. And that's Chip and Erica, who

01:22:36 ◼   ► I do podcasts with on The Incomparable. The other ones I wanted to mention, yeah, The

01:22:44 ◼   ► The Flophouse is still my number one.

01:22:46 ◼   ► That's my favorite.

01:22:50 ◼   ► My must-play is--ATP is a must-play every week.

01:22:55 ◼   ► Beyond that, I would throw out--I've mentioned it before, I think the Pozcast, which is an

01:23:00 ◼   ► irregular podcast with Joe Poznanski, which is why it's P-O-S-C-A-S-T, and Myke Schurr,

01:23:06 ◼   ► it's a sports writer--it's basically about sports, but it's a sports writer, Joe Poznanski,

01:23:11 ◼   ► And Myke Schur is the creator of, or co-creator and co-executive producer of Parks and Recreation

01:23:19 ◼   ► and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and he's an executive producer on Master of None.

01:23:25 ◼   ► And he used to do the great sports blog Fire Joe Morgan.

01:23:28 ◼   ► And on that show they talk about sports and then they draft arbitrary things, so that's

01:23:31 ◼   ► why I love it.

01:23:32 ◼   ► They draft things.

01:23:33 ◼   ► Drafts are great.

01:23:35 ◼   ► And then beyond that, I don't know, there's a bunch of podcasts I've gotten here in Overcast

01:23:39 ◼   ► with like one episode of that I've listened to. I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but

01:23:44 ◼   ► honestly the two, you know, I will listen to the talk show, but it's, it's, they're

01:23:48 ◼   ► so long and I don't have very much podcast listening time that I pick and choose the

01:23:51 ◼   ► guests. That's just how I have to do it. And yeah, so ATP and Flophouse are sort of my

01:24:00 ◼   ► two not affiliated with either network must-listens every week.

01:24:06 ◼   ► I agree with ATP obviously. And I've got Hello Internet which I listen to now that you introduced

01:24:12 ◼   ► me to it but again I can't listen to every episode because I just there are just too

01:24:17 ◼   ► many podcasts so I pick and choose there. I've got their flag special queued up on my

01:24:24 ◼   ► playlist. Right next up we have last question today from Fasten. I'm not good at live photos

01:24:34 ◼   ► Is there a place to get other photos to use as my 3D touch wallpaper?

01:24:39 ◼   ► I haven't seen this anywhere.

01:24:41 ◼   ► Like a place you could download examples of 3D touch wallpapers,

01:24:46 ◼   ► but I feel like it should exist.

01:24:49 ◼   ► You're right. How would you get them in there? I don't know.

01:24:57 ◼   ► Because you can send them to people, right?

01:25:02 ◼   ► Yeah. Like I don't know if you know this, but if you send a live photo to somebody without

01:25:09 ◼   ► a 3D touch device, they can still view the live photo, they just long press on it.

01:25:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:14 ◼   ► Um, but I haven't seen like a way you could download them from anything. But I would like

01:25:22 ◼   ► that.

01:25:23 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a nice idea.

01:25:24 ◼   ► But yeah, I haven't seen it either.

01:25:26 ◼   ► Maybe there's some app out there that will take an animated GIF and turn it into a, save

01:25:31 ◼   ► it to the camera roll as a live photo or something like that.

01:25:33 ◼   ► I don't know if it can go the other way around.

01:25:35 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:25:36 ◼   ► I don't know. I tell you what though, after a big trip to somewhere like New York, boy

01:25:42 ◼   ► do I love live photos.

01:25:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I still treasure that live photo I have where the flash went off and you were blinded

01:25:48 ◼   ► in Indianapolis. That was pretty funny.

01:25:51 ◼   ► I don't know if I have the actual live photo of that.

01:25:53 ◼   ► Oh, I should send you that. I'll send you that. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't joking last week

01:25:57 ◼   ► when I said that you were you know you were taking headphones from Marco Arment

01:26:03 ◼   ► because you did visit them at their house so oh yeah in case anybody's

01:26:07 ◼   ► noticed my audio sounds different I spent a few days of Marco and I have now

01:26:12 ◼   ► bought new headphones a new headphone amp a new microphone and I have a new

01:26:16 ◼   ► boom arm on the way oh Myke this is one of the most common you should have

01:26:24 ◼   ► learned your lesson like don't spend too much time with Marco it's a very

01:26:27 ◼   ► expensive. Oh no I prepared for it financially. I put a little bit of money away inside.

01:26:34 ◼   ► Because I knew this was gonna happen. He's gonna show you things. He's gonna play things

01:26:40 ◼   ► through headphones and you'll hear voices from microphones and you'll be forever changed.

01:26:45 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure one of the first things that happened when we arrived at their house was

01:26:48 ◼   ► he sat me down and put headphones on my head. Of course. I would expect nothing less. So

01:26:54 ◼   ► So in case anybody's wondering, I'm using a microphone now called the Neumann KMS 105

01:27:03 ◼   ► or something like that it's called.

01:27:05 ◼   ► Again, I will put a link to that in the show notes in case anybody is interested.

01:27:10 ◼   ► Or I will link to Marco's review, his big podcast review, podcast microphone review,

01:27:17 ◼   ► and I'll put a link to the microphone that I'm now using because it's all his fault,

01:27:23 ◼   ► really.

01:27:24 ◼   ► And that wraps up this week's episode. Again, we'd really appreciate it if you loved this

01:27:29 ◼   ► show that you would consider becoming a Relay FM member and choosing Upgrade as your show.

01:27:36 ◼   ► Or if you love any show at Relay FM, feel free to support that show. It would mean a

01:27:40 ◼   ► lot to the host of any show that you do support. If you want to find us online, you can go

01:27:45 ◼   ► to our show notes and get all the stuff we've spoken about today over at relay.fm/upgrades/66.

01:27:51 ◼   ► is over at SixColors.com and he is @JSnell on Twitter, JSNELL. I am @IMykeIMYKE. Thanks

01:27:59 ◼   ► again to our sponsors this week, the great people over at Audible.com, Casper and Braintree.

01:28:05 ◼   ► And thank you most of all for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye

01:28:09 ◼   ► Jason Snell.

01:28:10 ◼   ► Goodbye everybody.

01:28:12 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:28:15 ◼   ► [ Music ]