62: I Am Nerd Face Guy
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from relay FM this is upgrade episode number 62 today's show is brought to you
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by lynda.com stamps.com and casper my name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Mr Jason Snell
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hi Myke hi Jason Snell how are you I'm doing uh I'm doing fine it rained here in California today
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so we don't know what to do with ourselves.
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- Oof, well I wonder what that's gonna do for the show today.
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- I don't know.
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It's not raining now,
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and the thunder and lightning have stopped
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because in my only semi-insulated garage,
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I have found that it's quite pleasant actually when it rains,
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but it's audible.
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So that would be interesting to do the rain podcast,
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but alas, I think it stopped raining now.
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- It has not rained here today,
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so we are in kind of bizarro land.
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- It is weird.
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The sun appears to be coming out right now
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because it is California. That's it, dry up all that rain. Get us back to the brown.
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I bet it's still like 25 degrees Celsius when it rains.
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It's uh it's 51 right now here. I don't know what that means.
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Uh that's 10. Okay that's that's similar to here probably. Let me see what my
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weatherman says. Um we have oh 16 degrees. Look at that.
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It's the weathercast. It's warmer there too. Yeah we're uh it's all messed up Myke.
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everything's ruined. Should we do some follow-up? Yeah I think I think some
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follow-up would be perfect. So I've come to a decision I think about my storage
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needs. Storage! Vertical! Vertical! And I think so I've had a few people suggest
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this but I had seen it but didn't really pay too much attention to it which is a
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product called the Drobo Mini. The Drobo Mini is as much smaller box and
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and it can connect by Thunderbolt and USB 3, I think.
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But what makes the Drobo Mini different
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is that the Drobo Mini can take two and a half inch SSDs.
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So this is probably the product I'm going to go for
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because I can attach it locally,
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which is what I want to do.
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And it's SSD, so it will be super fast, quiet,
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and everything else that I want.
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- Up to four laptop drives essentially,
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but that includes SSDs.
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So you could get up to four SSDs in an array.
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That's not quite a RAID because it's Drobo
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and Drobo is not quite a RAID, it's its own thing.
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That's interesting.
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That's an interesting,
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that will get you your fast silent storage, won't it?
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- It will, but there is one,
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there is two problems with this.
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SSDs are still relatively small.
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- And expensive.
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- And extremely expensive, that's problem too.
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So I found an Amazon,
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'cause I wanted to take a look at the prices of SSDs,
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what was available and what was kind of tested
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and approved by Drobo.
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And there are some SSDs that I found,
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I think it was Samsung, which are a terabyte,
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but they're 250 pounds each.
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And the enclosure is 500 pounds.
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- That's very heavy.
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That sounds much heavier than it should be.
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Oh, you mean money.
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That's still, that's actually very heavy for money.
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- Womp, womp, womp.
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- Womp, womp.
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Well, we converted Fahrenheit to Celsius earlier.
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It's only fair.
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That's, that's yeah, it's not cheap.
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- So I will be looking at four terabytes for 1,500 pounds.
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- Oh my God.
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That's like buying another, how much did your iMac cost?
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- That's half the price of my iMac.
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- So basically this is the solution
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that I am planning on going for,
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but now I need to get the money together to get it.
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And with the iPad Pro just around the corner,
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it might be a couple of months away.
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But this one feels like the right one for me.
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Again, four terabytes is a lot,
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but it's not as much as I could get in another solution.
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I understand that, but I have to kind of weigh up
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what I'm looking for.
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And I'm not looking to keep everything
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that I make forever,
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I'm just looking to keep a bunch of things for a long time.
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And four terabytes is probably more than enough to do that.
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By the time that I would need more,
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I'm sure I could get bigger SSDs for cheaper.
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I think I'm only using about two or three terabytes in my archive where I'm literally
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not throwing away anything on my Drobo, my big Drobo, and although some of that space
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will be used by Drobo because it does its thing where it's redundant, so if something
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dies something else lives and all that, and it depends on how you set it up.
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But yeah, that's that I mean that's a lot of space and silent, which is the other key
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thing instead of having... the thing that I hated about having the external hard drives
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was that I ended up with that stack. I ended up with like three one terabyte hard drives
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in their own enclosures and they were all noisy and they were all on the chain and you
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had to find a place for them. I just hated it. So something like this, it's a clever
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idea and the nice thing about it is that you don't have to fill it up, right? You could
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put two in and then buy another one later and slide that one in and it adds to your
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storage and then you know and then add a fourth and then at some point down the
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way down the road when the SSD prices are better take one of the smaller SSDs
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and replace it with a bigger one and it all just kind of keeps working so.
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I may get the enclosure and one SSD right one 1 terabyte SSD or maybe like
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two 500 or something like that and go from there I think that that might be a
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good place to start. Like I don't need to max it out immediately. So this is
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probably what I'm gonna go for. It seems to tick most of the boxes and I did kind
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of want something like a Drobo because I like the idea of the Drobo system right
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where it kind of you don't get you don't get four terabytes by putting four
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terabytes in it but what you get is data redundancy and that seems like a good
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thing for me considering the setup that I have you know I have limited bandwidth
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so I can't back up a lot of this stuff to an online backup.
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So it wants to be offline,
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so I like the idea of data redundancy
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in my offline backup system.
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If I get online and offline right way around,
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then I'll be in a much better stead for this conversation.
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But that's kind of what I'm thinking about doing.
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This seems like the right solution for me.
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So that's what I'm considering.
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And then maybe in a couple of years time,
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or maybe in a year or so, when we're in our own place,
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might be able to look at something that's network attached as well as this.
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So I have a big honking disc that is attached to this thing and then I could
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also back up everything to something like a Synology as well. Step one, Jason,
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step one. It's a good place to start. I'm very happy to have a big
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drive that is, you know, one and a big logical volume because that's the other
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problem about having those three drives is that they're three different volumes
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so you end up having to kind of manage what goes where
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and what's full and what's not.
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And I hate that, I hate that too.
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So it's nice having just a huge volume.
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I can check all my stuff in there and it's there.
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My problem has been, and I haven't mentioned this yet.
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So I've been using CrashPlan as my primary online backup
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for a while now and it works well.
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It's not the most beautiful thing to look at,
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but it works pretty well.
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but I discovered the other day that it was basically failing at backing up my entire
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server volume, which is this big volume, because it didn't have enough memory allocated to it,
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because it runs in Java and it needs memory allocation. And I'm still struggling with that.
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And I talked to a couple people on Twitter who said, "Yeah, that's why I ended up switching
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to backblaze was because my data set was too big." And it's a little bit infuriating because
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CrashPlan offers unlimited data, basically, but clearly their app by default cannot...
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Its idea of unlimited is pretty limited.
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And their support said, "Okay, well, why don't you add more memory to the memory allocation?
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You click here and you type something in."
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And I did that.
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And it's still kind of churning, but there are rumors that there is a CrashPlan native
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app coming that doesn't require Java. And that would be nice because this is... And
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I paid for like three years of crash plan. So I would really rather not just switch to
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another backup provider at this point. And also, this is what I paid for is it's a volume
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attached to a computer in my house and I'm paying for it to be backed up. And it was
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basically the most disturbing thing about it was that it thought it was backing everything
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up because it was sort of backing up everything that it could see before it sort of ran out
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of memory. And that's the worst thing is that it didn't say, "Hey, I can't back up all of
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that because there's not enough memory," and sort of alert me. Instead, it just sort of
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silently went about backing up not everything, and that was not cool. So this is an edge
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case, I will admit, because I'm asking it to back up a couple of terabytes of data,
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but that's why I've got the service is to do this. So I will report back. I'm in touch
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with their support people and I'll report back. But it's a little bit disappointing
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because I do have stuff on there that I want backed up, eventually backed up offline or
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backed up online somewhere and it can take its time and back up at night and you know
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slowly trickle out. But I thought it was doing that and it turns out that it's sort of not
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been doing that and that's frustrating.
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For me, that's like finding out that that happened, I don't think I could trust it anymore.
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Yeah, well, we'll see.
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We'll see where it goes.
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I've already paid for a couple more years of it, so I'm not going to...
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I'm not gonna...
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I'm going to see if I can either get it to work or get them to give me their forthcoming
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non-Java version if it truly exists or what, but yeah.
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But yeah, it's, hey, it reminded me of the days back
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when you had to allocate memory to Mac apps
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by selecting them and choosing get info in the classic days.
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And you know, that was like one big troubleshooting thing
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was that you would select an app and choose get info
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and then you'd change how much memory was allocated to it.
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There was like literally,
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I don't know if you remember this at all,
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there was literally a box that would say like 900K
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and you could put it at 1900K.
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- No, that's before my time, I'm afraid.
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Oh man, and this was exactly what I got with the Java thing.
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It was like, "Oh, I'll allocate more memory.
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"Click on the thing to bring up the console
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"and put in this command line command
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"and it will allocate more memory in Java for the app."
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And I thought, wow, feeling like 1998 all over again.
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- Yeah, they are a sponsor.
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I use Backblaze.
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I pay for Backblaze as well.
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And I have them running on my laptop,
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is connected to my home internet which is not... I don't have it running on my
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iMac because that's connected to the LTE hotspot that I pay for. So basically
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whenever the MacBook is on it sort of trickles data up to backblaze and a very
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very very slow internet connection that I have. But I like that it's there and it's
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just another place for me to... basically for me to back up my Dropbox right? So
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it's just like a secondary place that all of that stuff goes to. Which I kind
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like that I have that. But it doesn't cause me the issues and I really don't
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like the idea that it looks like it's backing up what you're having and but
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it's not that is a kind of like at that point it's kind of horrifying.
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It's basically not seeing everything when it sets the backup set for some reason
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because it runs out of memory or it times out or something like that and so
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and then rather than throwing an alert it just says okay I guess this is it I'll
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back it up. It's probably not good.
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Also, just before we recorded today, there was an update for the Apple TV.
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Apparently it's 9.0.1, which is what it relates to from the beta builds.
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It doesn't say that on the Apple TV, it just says there's a software update available,
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and there are no release notes, so there's no way of knowing what it does.
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But I mean, 9.0.1, you'd assume bug fixes.
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And no matter what it is, I'm happy to see the pace of release.
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It shows that there are at least some people working on it, right?
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That they had a 9.0.1 released basically a week after the product came out.
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So I think that's good.
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I think that's good to see.
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I wish it was...
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I'll let you provide some detail though, right?
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I mean, my feeling about it though, it's just going to say bug fixes.
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You know, it's just going to be one of those ones anyway.
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So there's kind of no...
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What it's showing, there's kind of no point in seeing it.
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But I'm just happy to see that something's going on there.
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Let's talk about Apple TV a little bit, but before we do that, we'll follow up from last
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All good stuff to say this week I think.
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Or at least less bad stuff.
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So it's been a week since we last spoke about the Apple TV so we both had a
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little bit more time to play with it and I was wondering if there's any changed
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opinions or just any kind of feelings or thoughts that you may have having spent
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a little bit more time with the product and gotten over the initial frustrations
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that we were finding last week?
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Well, yeah, I think one of the challenges is I haven't set it up again, right?
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So if the complaints are about getting on board, this is when we talked about the iPhone,
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it's the same thing, which is everybody complains about it and then they forget about it for
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a year and then they hope that it's better and it's not and then they complain about
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So I have no further complaints about setting it up because I haven't done that.
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I wrote a piece on Six Colors about my daughter's birthday party this weekend where they ended
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up basically playing music on the Apple TV and singing along for like an hour, loud.
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It was kind of amazing and impressive.
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And once I got it in the music app, just because they wanted to hear a particular song, then
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my daughter took the remote away and pretty much was able to drive the rest of the entertainment.
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But the one limitation was she kept navigating to the things she wanted and then pressing
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the menu button or the play/pause button.
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And she was like, "Daddy, what is happening?"
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And which is sweet because that's the sort of thing that she used to say all the time
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when she was seven and not so much when she's 14.
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And what ended up happening was she didn't realize you could physically click on the
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So she was moving with the trackpad and then figured she had to press a button.
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And so I said, "No, no, you can just click, just actually click."
00:16:18
◼
►
And she's like, "Oh, like real click?"
00:16:20
◼
►
And she went, "Click."
00:16:21
◼
►
And she was like, "Okay."
00:16:22
◼
►
And then that was it.
00:16:23
◼
►
They had a great time.
00:16:24
◼
►
And so that was a real world kind of experience where they were able to navigate without any
00:16:30
◼
►
problem and they were playing a lot of music on Apple Music Playlists and things and some
00:16:35
◼
►
music videos too that they watched and they, yeah, they had a great time.
00:16:38
◼
►
And then we did some--we took some pictures, we set up like a photo booth kind of thing
00:16:42
◼
►
in my garage office space, actually.
00:16:45
◼
►
I put up some lights and stuff, and I shared those over iCloud photo sharing, and then
00:16:51
◼
►
we watched those.
00:16:52
◼
►
That was sort of the last part of the party was that they were watching all the--they
00:16:55
◼
►
looked at all the photo booth pictures on the TV, and there was much laughter at the
00:17:00
◼
►
photo booth pictures.
00:17:01
◼
►
And we just kind of kept that running as a screensaver while people picked up their daughters
00:17:07
◼
►
at the end of the day from the party.
00:17:09
◼
►
So yeah, so that was, I would say a positive interaction
00:17:11
◼
►
with the Apple TV.
00:17:13
◼
►
And I've done a couple other things this week with it
00:17:17
◼
►
that let's see, we played "Crossy Road 2 Player"
00:17:21
◼
►
a little bit more and had a good time with that.
00:17:23
◼
►
And yeah, I have had pretty good experiences with it.
00:17:28
◼
►
There's some stuff that, you know,
00:17:31
◼
►
there are apps that I wish were on there
00:17:32
◼
►
that aren't there yet, on there yet.
00:17:34
◼
►
And I haven't used it as much as you would think
00:17:38
◼
►
just because like I said,
00:17:39
◼
►
I usually just watch Netflix through my TiVo at this point
00:17:43
◼
►
because it serves as that.
00:17:45
◼
►
And it runs Plex now too.
00:17:47
◼
►
So I don't really need to go to the Apple TV for that stuff.
00:17:51
◼
►
But yeah, I'd say it's been a perfectly fine experience.
00:17:54
◼
►
The one thing that I would say that,
00:17:56
◼
►
'cause we obviously got a lot of feedback
00:17:57
◼
►
about last week's episode.
00:17:59
◼
►
One of the things that people pointed out is
00:18:02
◼
►
The remote itself is not,
00:18:07
◼
►
how should I put this?
00:18:10
◼
►
It's the remote itself is a rectangle
00:18:12
◼
►
with buttons on it, right?
00:18:13
◼
►
And so it's hard to detect which end is up
00:18:16
◼
►
when you pick it up in the dark,
00:18:17
◼
►
which I think for a remote control,
00:18:19
◼
►
this is the same reason why a pure,
00:18:21
◼
►
like a touch screen interface,
00:18:24
◼
►
where you have to look at the screen
00:18:25
◼
►
is bad for a remote control,
00:18:26
◼
►
because nobody wants to take their eyes off the TV
00:18:30
◼
►
in order to control the remote.
00:18:31
◼
►
Well, the Apple TV doesn't have a screen, so that's good.
00:18:35
◼
►
But you can lose the orientation where it's not,
00:18:37
◼
►
it's not, it feels symmetric, symmetrical,
00:18:41
◼
►
but somebody pointed out, it's not,
00:18:44
◼
►
the buttons are not, right?
00:18:45
◼
►
There's the, the up-down buttons are connected,
00:18:49
◼
►
the what, the plus minus buttons are connected.
00:18:52
◼
►
And the Siri button is actually concave,
00:18:55
◼
►
a little tiny bit.
00:18:56
◼
►
The problem is this reminds me actually of,
00:19:00
◼
►
it's not quite as bad as the third generation iPod,
00:19:03
◼
►
but if you remember that one with the four buttons across
00:19:05
◼
►
that to orient, 'cause I used to listen to that
00:19:08
◼
►
when I was waiting in my room for my daughter
00:19:11
◼
►
to fall asleep, after I would read the story,
00:19:14
◼
►
she'd want me to stay there until she fell asleep.
00:19:16
◼
►
And I did that for a little while and it was really boring.
00:19:18
◼
►
So I'd have like one earbud in
00:19:20
◼
►
and I'd be sitting there listening to a audio book
00:19:22
◼
►
or music or something.
00:19:23
◼
►
And to orient with that,
00:19:25
◼
►
you had to like move your fingers on the iPod
00:19:28
◼
►
to try and figure out which button it was.
00:19:30
◼
►
but if you touch the button,
00:19:31
◼
►
which was the only way to orient,
00:19:32
◼
►
it would do whatever that button did.
00:19:35
◼
►
It's a really bad design.
00:19:35
◼
►
- Is that the one with the touch sensitive buttons?
00:19:39
◼
►
- Yeah, that's the problem, right?
00:19:40
◼
►
- Yeah, exactly.
00:19:41
◼
►
So I would say that that's the problem with this is yes,
00:19:44
◼
►
if you look at it, you can orient it properly,
00:19:46
◼
►
but by feel,
00:19:47
◼
►
you have to sort of move your fingers across the buttons.
00:19:50
◼
►
And if you accidentally press a button
00:19:52
◼
►
or if you accidentally move your finger across the trackpad,
00:19:55
◼
►
there's some input problems there.
00:19:56
◼
►
But it is true that you can,
00:19:59
◼
►
if you become savvy enough you can detect that really it's like your thumb if your thumb
00:20:04
◼
►
is oriented on the on the up and down button properly you're like okay I've got it in the
00:20:08
◼
►
right direction so it is there it's just really subtle maybe I guess if you were criticizing
00:20:13
◼
►
it you would say maybe a little more subtle than it should be but there is it's not you
00:20:18
◼
►
know it's not identical by feel.
00:20:22
◼
►
So one of my big differences from this time last week is I now have one of the game controllers.
00:20:31
◼
►
So I bought the Steel Nimbus controller.
00:20:35
◼
►
And I would say everybody that I've spoken to about this seems to have vastly different
00:20:39
◼
►
opinions about this controller.
00:20:42
◼
►
I think it's pretty good.
00:20:44
◼
►
The buttons are fine, the D-pad is fine, the analog sticks are a little too concave in
00:20:52
◼
►
the middle for my tastes they kind of they dip in way too much so they're not
00:20:58
◼
►
great to hold on to but the triggers are also really good that it weights pretty
00:21:02
◼
►
well and it gives you just another way to control the UI right the d-pad
00:21:05
◼
►
controls the entire UI of the Apple TV it's better than I expected for some
00:21:11
◼
►
games and it has improved every game I played with it except for Beat Sports
00:21:16
◼
►
because Beat Sports is excellent with the remote you played that yet no I
00:21:22
◼
►
haven't you really need to trust me like if you want a good gaming experience on
00:21:25
◼
►
this device that is it because it's built for the Apple TV remote where
00:21:29
◼
►
others haven't been right they've been ported mainly but the controller really
00:21:33
◼
►
does change the way so many games are played it's better for the four games
00:21:39
◼
►
like altos adventure way better for crossy road right having a d-pad I can
00:21:44
◼
►
click makes it just easy to play and I also found a game called evil Knievel
00:21:49
◼
►
which I had an amazing amount of fun with. You drive is Evil Knievel on motorbikes
00:21:55
◼
►
and jump things and do loops and I was playing it for hours on the Apple TV very
00:22:01
◼
►
happily. I also now have it on my iOS devices. It's a really great game except
00:22:04
◼
►
for one flaw in that it doesn't sync your progress across devices which is
00:22:10
◼
►
kind of weird because it's a universal app on three different devices but it
00:22:13
◼
►
doesn't do it doesn't sync your support. You're like you're saved but I mean
00:22:19
◼
►
it's fine because I enjoy the game enough that I actually don't mind
00:22:23
◼
►
replaying all the levels but it's a really fun game that works really really
00:22:27
◼
►
well and when they showed me the Apple TV remote instructions I was like this
00:22:31
◼
►
would be impossible to play but with the game controller you just use the
00:22:35
◼
►
shoulder buttons to make him flip left and right and to make him go backwards
00:22:38
◼
►
and forwards and I thought it was really good so if you are serious about this
00:22:42
◼
►
like about playing games on the Apple TV I actually think that it is
00:22:46
◼
►
beneficial for sure to pick up one of the remotes and the Steel Nimbus is the
00:22:52
◼
►
one that I have I think it's anyone that's currently available that is at
00:22:55
◼
►
least ordained by Cupertino but it does it does a good enough job I find it and
00:23:02
◼
►
it does make playing games a lot of games a lot better like also geometry
00:23:07
◼
►
wars which is a analog stick game it's a two stick game and I I haven't even
00:23:12
◼
►
tried to play this with the remotes I don't even know how you would do it like
00:23:16
◼
►
the game has been all about two sticks on multiple platforms for a long time
00:23:20
◼
►
and it plays really really well with this thing with the Nimbus
00:23:25
◼
►
controller so I would suggest it but I would also really suggest Evil Can Evil
00:23:30
◼
►
that is my top tip of this week's episode it is a fun fun game that I
00:23:34
◼
►
haven't seen much of elsewhere.
00:23:36
◼
►
Huh interesting yeah I haven't I haven't seen that either but
00:23:40
◼
►
but with a with a controller.
00:23:42
◼
►
Yeah or play it on the iOS devices it's really good
00:23:46
◼
►
on iOS devices. So yeah that's that's kind of where I am with the Apple TV. I
00:23:49
◼
►
haven't spent too much time with it otherwise and just to play some games
00:23:52
◼
►
here and there. Like this was funny so yesterday evening me and my girlfriend
00:23:57
◼
►
were going to watch, we're currently working our way through 30 Rock and
00:24:04
◼
►
we were laying in bed and I said you know I could just we could just watch
00:24:08
◼
►
this on the Apple TV because we're at the point now where we have to buy the
00:24:11
◼
►
seasons from iTunes because only the first three are on Amazon. I was like we
00:24:15
◼
►
can just watch it on the Apple TV." And she's like "Nah." I'm like "Yeah I know." Like it's
00:24:20
◼
►
just at the other side of the room but it's like well that's over there and
00:24:23
◼
►
we've got this we've got the laptop right in front of us like that is our
00:24:26
◼
►
way right that is just our way. And she said you know to me as I've said before
00:24:30
◼
►
like when we've got our own place like we all well it's kind of in the way that
00:24:34
◼
►
we want we'll put the Apple TV on our big TV in the front room and we'd watch
00:24:38
◼
►
it there but at the moment it just makes a lot of sense for us but it did make me
00:24:41
◼
►
think about the fact that the iPad Pro, right, is the same size as my Mac Pro, so
00:24:47
◼
►
maybe that will change in a couple of weeks with the device we're using to watch
00:24:50
◼
►
this stuff on. Yeah, well the iPad Pro is gonna be a, despite its name, it's going
00:24:57
◼
►
to be a great TV. Yes. And movie, and movie watcher, and they know it, which is
00:25:02
◼
►
why they put those four speakers in with the auto-detect, stereo, all of that is
00:25:07
◼
►
because they, you know, this is the story of Apple, we've talked about it before on
00:25:10
◼
►
this show, you make up, you got to learn the lesson that people are going to use your product
00:25:14
◼
►
in all sorts of ways that you didn't intend.
00:25:16
◼
►
And so that's why the selfie camera is better.
00:25:18
◼
►
And that's why the iPad camera is better.
00:25:20
◼
►
Because you know, you might not believe that anyone should take selfies or take pictures
00:25:24
◼
►
with their iPads, but people are going to do it.
00:25:26
◼
►
So you might as well give them a good experience.
00:25:29
◼
►
And this is an example of that where the iPad Pro, no, it's probably not a product that
00:25:34
◼
►
you should target at watching, you know, movie watchers.
00:25:38
◼
►
This is a big screen for watching movies, and yet it's going to be really good for that.
00:25:44
◼
►
And who are we to judge people who buy it just for that?
00:25:47
◼
►
But also keep in mind that pro users watch movies and TV shows too.
00:25:50
◼
►
So it makes... and why would you not watch it on that big beautiful screen if you're
00:25:55
◼
►
not preferring to watch it on a big TV somewhere?
00:25:58
◼
►
So it'll be interesting to see.
00:26:00
◼
►
I am laughing at the fact that you have spent... did you get the big or the small Apple TV?
00:26:06
◼
►
Okay, so you spent the equivalent of about $200 on this product that you were not interested
00:26:13
◼
►
Okay, because you bought the controller, the $50 controller.
00:26:15
◼
►
Yeah, well, I mean, because I'm more interested in it for games than TV, though, right?
00:26:20
◼
►
That's true.
00:26:21
◼
►
That's always been the way, like, I like to play iOS games at home, so this is a nice
00:26:26
◼
►
way to play iOS games at home.
00:26:27
◼
►
Yeah, that's true.
00:26:28
◼
►
That's a good point.
00:26:29
◼
►
But I still don't care about it enough.
00:26:30
◼
►
Like, I've bought this device so I can talk about it on this show, right?
00:26:35
◼
►
I'll be sitting here going,
00:26:36
◼
►
"Jason, what does the Apple TV do?"
00:26:38
◼
►
And it just doesn't feel, to me anyway,
00:26:42
◼
►
considering this is what I do for a living,
00:26:43
◼
►
that doesn't feel professional enough,
00:26:44
◼
►
which is why I put the money down on it.
00:26:46
◼
►
Which is why I'll also be putting
00:26:48
◼
►
an incredible amount of money down on an iPad Pro,
00:26:50
◼
►
because I think I want it, but I don't know if I want it.
00:26:53
◼
►
- And I might return it.
00:26:54
◼
►
We'll come back to that in a minute actually,
00:26:55
◼
►
'cause we finally had the pricing.
00:26:57
◼
►
But I just wanted to touch on this emoji article
00:26:59
◼
►
that you wrote.
00:27:00
◼
►
- Emoji vertical, woo!
00:27:02
◼
►
- I really like this, 'cause you kind of,
00:27:05
◼
►
- Indeed, you kind of surfaced a frustration that I had,
00:27:10
◼
►
but wasn't really 100% sure in how to kind of express it.
00:27:15
◼
►
So you wrote this piece for Macworld,
00:27:17
◼
►
and you're basically talking about how great emoji are,
00:27:20
◼
►
which they are, and all of the new emoji are fantastic.
00:27:23
◼
►
I love them, I love the little nerd face guy,
00:27:25
◼
►
because I had previously been using--
00:27:26
◼
►
- You use them a lot.
00:27:27
◼
►
- I use it all the time.
00:27:28
◼
►
I was previously using the sunglasses guy
00:27:31
◼
►
as a way to represent me,
00:27:33
◼
►
So I would use the little sunglasses guy
00:27:35
◼
►
because he wears glasses, but now I have the nerd face guy
00:27:37
◼
►
and his glasses look like my glasses.
00:27:39
◼
►
So it's like, that is me, I am nerd face guy.
00:27:42
◼
►
So I love all the new emoji,
00:27:44
◼
►
but you have highlighted a problem in this,
00:27:45
◼
►
is as they have added a ton more,
00:27:48
◼
►
they are becoming more and more difficult to find
00:27:51
◼
►
in the Apple list that they have.
00:27:54
◼
►
- Yeah, well, and it's a huge number.
00:27:56
◼
►
It's the 9/1 and 10/11/1 update
00:28:02
◼
►
added another 184 of these.
00:28:05
◼
►
It's funny, in Indianapolis, I spent some time
00:28:08
◼
►
at the release notes conference,
00:28:11
◼
►
the mingle thing afterward, after dinner,
00:28:14
◼
►
talking to Jeremy from Emojipedia.
00:28:16
◼
►
And that was cool because he knows everything about emojis.
00:28:21
◼
►
- You could say his knowledge is almost encyclopedic, right?
00:28:26
◼
►
- Encyclopedic, yes, 184 new symbols.
00:28:30
◼
►
And Apple is the first company to have this cover
00:28:32
◼
►
the whole Unicode standard for emoji, which is cool.
00:28:35
◼
►
And it's not as simple as you'd think.
00:28:37
◼
►
I mentioned this in the article, and I find it fascinating,
00:28:40
◼
►
even if nobody else may, which is emoji,
00:28:43
◼
►
we mentioned on the show, so Upgradients know all about it.
00:28:46
◼
►
Emoji fragmentation, the idea that there is no art
00:28:50
◼
►
that is given to somebody to support emoji.
00:28:53
◼
►
It doesn't work that way.
00:28:54
◼
►
So platform owners and website developers
00:28:58
◼
►
basically need to make their own emoji
00:29:00
◼
►
or rely on the platform of the users,
00:29:04
◼
►
but it'll come down to the platform user.
00:29:06
◼
►
There's no, like Unicode,
00:29:07
◼
►
the Unicode consortium doesn't have a budget
00:29:10
◼
►
and go out to an artist
00:29:12
◼
►
and have an artist come up with the official emoji
00:29:15
◼
►
and then give that away to everybody.
00:29:16
◼
►
None of that happens.
00:29:17
◼
►
In fact, my understanding is that
00:29:20
◼
►
that Emojipedia will sometimes help
00:29:23
◼
►
because Emojipedia likes to mock up
00:29:25
◼
►
potential future emoji.
00:29:26
◼
►
I think that since Jeremy from Emojipedia is on the Unicode emoji subcommittee, which
00:29:32
◼
►
is a great thing to say, the emoji subcommittee, bureaucracy crossed with emojis, what could
00:29:39
◼
►
And I think they actually, he's helping them out by having Emojipedia do some mock-ups
00:29:46
◼
►
because I think the Unicode consortium has no ability to do that.
00:29:49
◼
►
They have like little silhouettes of what the emoji are supposed to be, but basically
00:29:53
◼
►
it's incumbent on Apple and Google and Microsoft and Facebook and Twitter and anyone else who
00:29:58
◼
►
wants to do it for their custom for their websites to build this stuff. And so it's
00:30:04
◼
►
a lot of work and Apple has been dedicated. They are paying a designer to come up with
00:30:09
◼
►
this consistent emoji design across iOS and OS X, which is really great. But there are
00:30:16
◼
►
so many of them, and this was what my article was about, that on Mac you can bring up, I
00:30:22
◼
►
I think it's control, command, space.
00:30:25
◼
►
You can bring up a little floating emoji palette.
00:30:28
◼
►
And it's got, and if you scroll up, it's got a search box
00:30:30
◼
►
and you can put in smile
00:30:32
◼
►
and it'll bring up things that have smile in the name.
00:30:34
◼
►
And if you put in Germany,
00:30:36
◼
►
I believe it will show you the German flag
00:30:39
◼
►
and you can click on it so that you insert a German flag
00:30:42
◼
►
when you intend to and not a Belgian flag, which I did once.
00:30:45
◼
►
And this is what started this whole story
00:30:47
◼
►
because I was sleepy.
00:30:48
◼
►
And I realized that on iOS, you can't search for emoji.
00:30:52
◼
►
You've got all 184 new ones and the total number
00:30:56
◼
►
is some ridiculous number of how many?
00:30:59
◼
►
Sixteen, twenty total emoji characters possible?
00:31:04
◼
►
And you can't search for them on iOS.
00:31:05
◼
►
So I think, you know, yes,
00:31:07
◼
►
this is not an earth-shaking subject, it's a fun subject,
00:31:10
◼
►
but emoji are fun and they're easy to type sometimes
00:31:15
◼
►
and it would be nice if Apple,
00:31:18
◼
►
which has been so supportive of the display of them,
00:31:22
◼
►
maybe took a look at better ways to choose them
00:31:27
◼
►
because on iOS especially, it's kind of hard.
00:31:31
◼
►
You get to the flag segment and literally
00:31:32
◼
►
they are alphabetized by their country code.
00:31:35
◼
►
And you end up playing this game where you're like,
00:31:37
◼
►
let's see if there's a flag near the flag that I want
00:31:40
◼
►
that I recognize.
00:31:42
◼
►
And then from there, maybe I can orient
00:31:44
◼
►
and find out if it's alphabetically before or after that.
00:31:47
◼
►
And you have to know the country codes
00:31:48
◼
►
because if you're looking for the German flag,
00:31:50
◼
►
you have to know that that's DE.
00:31:52
◼
►
It's yeah, it could be better.
00:31:55
◼
►
And on the Mac, you know, the Mac one is okay,
00:31:57
◼
►
I ended up using Launch Bar,
00:31:59
◼
►
although there are other sort of text expansion utilities
00:32:02
◼
►
that offer this, but I use Launch Bar
00:32:04
◼
►
because Launch Bar has emoji built into it now.
00:32:06
◼
►
And since I already use Launch Bar,
00:32:09
◼
►
I can type emoji, you know, tab,
00:32:12
◼
►
and then the thing I'm looking for and it'll pop it up.
00:32:14
◼
►
But I feel like the best example of this right now is Slack.
00:32:18
◼
►
Slack does such a great job with emoji.
00:32:20
◼
►
Not only do they have a good picker,
00:32:22
◼
►
but they have a shortcut that searches the emoji dictionary.
00:32:25
◼
►
So if you type a colon and start typing something
00:32:28
◼
►
after the colon, it will auto-complete a bunch of options
00:32:32
◼
►
for other emojis that you could pick.
00:32:34
◼
►
And my gut feeling is that something like that
00:32:37
◼
►
might be the way for Apple to do it on iOS,
00:32:39
◼
►
is a button somewhere,
00:32:40
◼
►
not just switch to the emoji keyboard and good luck,
00:32:43
◼
►
but like an emoji button on the regular keyboard,
00:32:46
◼
►
or I don't know, I'm not a UX designer,
00:32:48
◼
►
but something that lets you very quickly go,
00:32:50
◼
►
I want a smiley here and it shows you smileys
00:32:53
◼
►
and you go to that one,
00:32:54
◼
►
or I want a flag here and it shows you flags,
00:32:56
◼
►
or I want the German flag.
00:32:58
◼
►
I know the code for that and it auto-completes to that.
00:33:00
◼
►
So I would like that part to be better.
00:33:02
◼
►
That's what the article's about.
00:33:04
◼
►
- Yeah, there's a few things about this.
00:33:06
◼
►
One, talking about Slack,
00:33:08
◼
►
never ever would I have imagined
00:33:10
◼
►
that the emoji reactions feature that they have
00:33:13
◼
►
would have actually caught on.
00:33:15
◼
►
I really love using that, which is where you can add an emoji to a line of text.
00:33:20
◼
►
So somebody says something and you can react by just adding an emoji to it.
00:33:25
◼
►
We use that a lot, right?
00:33:26
◼
►
We – yeah.
00:33:27
◼
►
Yeah, absolutely.
00:33:28
◼
►
I love that.
00:33:29
◼
►
That was a surprise to me.
00:33:30
◼
►
I wouldn't have necessarily considered that that would have actually been something that
00:33:33
◼
►
we continued to use, but it's fun.
00:33:37
◼
►
I think that – I believe that Apple will help surface the emoji via search or something
00:33:43
◼
►
on iOS in the future, but the reason they haven't yet is because this has only really
00:33:48
◼
►
become a problem with 9.1.
00:33:50
◼
►
Well, it does, it does, it certainly exacerbates the existing problem.
00:33:55
◼
►
Well they added so many in one time.
00:33:58
◼
►
Well 9.0 added a lot of them too, right?
00:34:01
◼
►
So this is, they've actually added a lot of emoji symbols very quickly in the last few
00:34:07
◼
►
By the way, Jeremy, since he's on the committee, pointed out to me that their goal is I think
00:34:11
◼
►
to only add about 60, only 60 a year. So this is only going to get worse, although they're
00:34:17
◼
►
not going to drop 180 at once like happened in 9.1. He says that the spec, they're shooting
00:34:24
◼
►
for about 60 a year.
00:34:26
◼
►
Right, okay. Well, we'll see. I mean, I expect that there will be some differences. I mean,
00:34:31
◼
►
you know, some different tools.
00:34:32
◼
►
Yeah, it's fun. On the Mac, there are lots of options. And on iOS, we should say, there
00:34:37
◼
►
are some custom keyboards. Actually, Apple's keyboard for Chinese input, I believe, auto-suggests
00:34:46
◼
►
emoji. And it may on some other keyboards, but somebody sent me a screenshot. The problem
00:34:50
◼
►
is you need to know the Chinese characters to get to that point. And there are custom
00:34:56
◼
►
keyboards that do a better job and have searchable emoji. And there's, in fact, Emojipedia, there's
00:35:03
◼
►
a link in our notes to this because you put it in there. Emojipedia makes an app that
00:35:06
◼
►
that I believe just shows you all the flags.
00:35:09
◼
►
- Yeah, they worked with Quartz, the news agency,
00:35:12
◼
►
to create an emoji flag search keyboard.
00:35:17
◼
►
- Yeah, so there's some options out there and they're good.
00:35:21
◼
►
And like I said, I'm using Launch Bar on the Mac.
00:35:23
◼
►
You could set up your favorite emoji in TextExpander,
00:35:26
◼
►
I mean, there's so many different ways you could do it,
00:35:28
◼
►
but it would be nice.
00:35:30
◼
►
I think this could be something,
00:35:33
◼
►
the delight, I'll put it this way,
00:35:34
◼
►
'Cause this isn't even, it's the positive show, right?
00:35:38
◼
►
This isn't even a criticism of where Apple is,
00:35:39
◼
►
so much as to say, I didn't realize how great it was
00:35:43
◼
►
to have easy access to emoji until I used Slack more.
00:35:48
◼
►
And I saw how Slack had said, you know what?
00:35:50
◼
►
Emoji is kind of part of the parlance
00:35:53
◼
►
of online conversation.
00:35:55
◼
►
And if we make it easy for people to use it,
00:35:57
◼
►
they'll use it more and that'll make
00:35:59
◼
►
the conversations richer.
00:36:00
◼
►
And I agree with that.
00:36:01
◼
►
I feel like that was a smart move on their part.
00:36:04
◼
►
I think they're right.
00:36:05
◼
►
As silly as emoji, I heard from somebody this week
00:36:08
◼
►
who said basically, what are you 12?
00:36:11
◼
►
No adults should use emoji.
00:36:12
◼
►
And it's like, well, I disagree.
00:36:15
◼
►
No adults should use emoticons.
00:36:16
◼
►
No adults should use LOL.
00:36:19
◼
►
You know, okay, you can say that.
00:36:21
◼
►
I will get off your lawn, sir.
00:36:22
◼
►
But I think it adds to the richness of the conversation
00:36:26
◼
►
and is fun to boot.
00:36:28
◼
►
And once I saw how Slack did it,
00:36:31
◼
►
where I was auto-completing into emoji
00:36:34
◼
►
and I was starting to think in terms of,
00:36:36
◼
►
well, if I want the German flag, that's flag DE.
00:36:39
◼
►
I know what to type to get it.
00:36:41
◼
►
Once that happened, or is there a snowman?
00:36:46
◼
►
And you do, you know, colon S-N-O-W and you realize,
00:36:49
◼
►
oh my God, there's a snowflake and there are two snowmen now.
00:36:52
◼
►
Oh, it's crazy.
00:36:53
◼
►
It opened up a lot of thinking
00:36:59
◼
►
what could be done with emoji input that I hadn't thought of before. And that's my point
00:37:03
◼
►
here is that having seen that, I look at that and I look at how it currently works on iOS
00:37:09
◼
►
and even on the Mac, and I think there's an opportunity there, especially on iOS, for
00:37:13
◼
►
better emoji input, and that would make everybody's online conversations a little more fun. So,
00:37:21
◼
►
you know, it's an area I think that Apple could add a lot of richness to iOS, especially
00:37:28
◼
►
if they if they put a little more emphasis on emoji input. It's silly. It is silly. It
00:37:34
◼
►
is not going to change the world but but Myke you know you have to admit I mean in the slack
00:37:39
◼
►
channel that we share and in the other slack channels that I'm into the emoji are like
00:37:44
◼
►
part of the they make everything funnier and better and and I think I think richer.
00:37:51
◼
►
>>Whether it's whether it's just in the conversations or those emoji reactions which are also hilarious.
00:37:55
◼
►
Merlin Mann does not agree, so if you would like to hear Merlin's view on this, listen
00:38:00
◼
►
to episode 13 of Reconcilable Differences.
00:38:03
◼
►
Of which whilst I was editing, I was shouting at Logic back at him.
00:38:09
◼
►
It's a fun episode, especially because John really kind of parades Merlin around in this
00:38:17
◼
►
episode to make him kind of the worst he can be.
00:38:20
◼
►
It's a fun one for us to do.
00:38:21
◼
►
I should also mention when talking about Slack
00:38:24
◼
►
that another feature that I like 11 Slack
00:38:26
◼
►
that is not applicable to this conversation,
00:38:29
◼
►
but I wanna mention it is Slack is also great
00:38:31
◼
►
because they let you make your own emoji.
00:38:34
◼
►
- And that makes that also fills me with delight.
00:38:37
◼
►
We have a, in the incomparable chat room,
00:38:38
◼
►
we have a Skeletor emoji.
00:38:40
◼
►
It is fantastic.
00:38:43
◼
►
And you know, it's fun stuff.
00:38:45
◼
►
It's no different than expressing yourself with,
00:38:49
◼
►
like I said, emoticons or animated GIFs
00:38:51
◼
►
or acronyms or any other kind of nerd code speak that's been going on since the beginning
00:38:57
◼
►
of the internet. This is just, it's pretty visual and fun and I like it.
00:39:04
◼
►
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So we found out today as we are recording, which is Monday the 9th of November 2015,
00:40:37
◼
►
the iPad Pro will go on sale on Wednesday the 11th.
00:40:42
◼
►
- Wednesday, yes.
00:40:43
◼
►
- Online and there will be stock in stores later this week.
00:40:47
◼
►
So right there probably-- - Later this week.
00:40:49
◼
►
I love that.
00:40:50
◼
►
That's like, might be Thursday, probably not.
00:40:51
◼
►
Might be Friday, probably.
00:40:53
◼
►
Some places if you don't get a Friday,
00:40:54
◼
►
Saturday is still part of the week.
00:40:56
◼
►
- I expect it's like,
00:40:57
◼
►
'cause it's just depending on the store, right?
00:40:59
◼
►
I bet some stores will have them on Wednesday.
00:41:01
◼
►
- Yeah, if I had to bet,
00:41:03
◼
►
I would say they'll have them Friday.
00:41:05
◼
►
and then some of them will get them Saturday.
00:41:08
◼
►
If I had to guess, that would be my guess,
00:41:10
◼
►
that they won't, that there'll be a gap there.
00:41:12
◼
►
But you're right, it could be.
00:41:14
◼
►
It could be that when they open sales on Wednesday,
00:41:16
◼
►
they're already in some stores, entirely possible.
00:41:19
◼
►
- So I will be logging on on Wednesday
00:41:23
◼
►
to see if I can try and maybe reserve one
00:41:25
◼
►
for an in-store pickup,
00:41:26
◼
►
because that's what I like to do these days.
00:41:29
◼
►
I hate waiting at home for these things.
00:41:30
◼
►
Otherwise, I'll just be popping down to a store
00:41:32
◼
►
later on in the week.
00:41:33
◼
►
I finally, as of today, have the pricing information
00:41:38
◼
►
that I've been waiting for.
00:41:39
◼
►
This is the first time that any pricing
00:41:42
◼
►
has been released outside of the US.
00:41:45
◼
►
So I will be able to get the 32 gigabyte model
00:41:50
◼
►
for 679 pounds, that is Wi-Fi,
00:41:54
◼
►
and it goes up to 899 for the Wi-Fi and cellular 128 gig.
00:41:59
◼
►
Doesn't have the pricing for the 128 Wi-Fi,
00:42:02
◼
►
But I can assume that that will probably be in the 700 pound range.
00:42:06
◼
►
It's whatever they usually add on for the cellular version, I would imagine.
00:42:10
◼
►
In the US, it's always whatever it is.
00:42:14
◼
►
So I can just see what that amount is and just reduce it from the 879, from the 899
00:42:20
◼
►
So it's probably around 750, 760, something like that.
00:42:23
◼
►
The Apple Pencil will be available for £79 and the Smart Keyboard available in charcoal
00:42:29
◼
►
grey for £139. It's gonna be an expensive week again. Well, so what did you say? The
00:42:39
◼
►
base model is £679? Mm-hmm. Wow. You are really getting it in the wallet there. That's
00:42:48
◼
►
a thousand dollars US. This is the usual pricing. For the £799 model. So that's two hundred
00:42:57
◼
►
26 equivalent dollars more than it is in the US. That's what the VAT would do to
00:43:05
◼
►
you. Wow. If you remember all of our sales tax is included in the price right?
00:43:10
◼
►
Oh well that's true. That's worth remembering. That's true because then
00:43:15
◼
►
then I will have to add it in but but $7.99 is is is $5.29. Yeah. And and you're
00:43:22
◼
►
paying a lot more than that. I have some friends who are visiting London they've
00:43:25
◼
►
been there this last week, I think they're going home soon, but one of them said, had
00:43:29
◼
►
a tweet who they said, "London is great, let's live here," looks at rental prices.
00:43:36
◼
►
Well, got to go back to work, back home in Canada, because yeah, things can be expensive
00:43:44
◼
►
But although you're right, you've got inclusive tax in the prices where we have the hidden
00:43:49
◼
►
secret surprise taxes that just appear, yay.
00:43:52
◼
►
So even though the products are more expensive here anyway, at least the tax is included
00:43:57
◼
►
which means we don't have like sticker shock at the checkout.
00:44:00
◼
►
Well also Apple is, and this has come up on past shows and I wrote about it at Six Colors
00:44:05
◼
►
too, Apple is also I think anticipating a strong dollar continuing and they want to
00:44:11
◼
►
have the stronger the dollar gets the smaller their margins get so I think that's part of
00:44:17
◼
►
it too is that they're pricing based on what they think the currency markets are going
00:44:22
◼
►
gonna do but still that's uh yeah that's pricey you're gonna you're gonna be
00:44:26
◼
►
spending a lot of money on are you gonna get the 32 are you gonna get the 128 or
00:44:30
◼
►
you're gonna go with 128 cellular I'm gonna have to go 128 because if I think
00:44:34
◼
►
I'm seriously gonna use this device 32 is ludicrous all right I will probably
00:44:40
◼
►
go Wi-Fi because I just tether you know I'm fine doing that with my current
00:44:49
◼
►
iPad. I always have my iPhone with me. I can just tether. So that's
00:44:53
◼
►
probably what I'll do. But I'll also be going in for the pencil and
00:44:58
◼
►
the keyboard because I want the full experience. So there's been
00:45:03
◼
►
some stuff today, some press today like Eddy Cue did a kind of half-hearted demo
00:45:08
◼
►
to CNN Money which there's just been a few little bits and bobs flying around
00:45:14
◼
►
today. It looks like the executives are in full PR force right now because I saw
00:45:20
◼
►
like Tim Cook is somewhere in London doing something and I think he was
00:45:24
◼
►
presenting to someone from the press as well today. So they're doing what
00:45:28
◼
►
seems to be the usual now for a product launch right? They're making themselves
00:45:31
◼
►
very visible around this period of time. So I wanted to just bring this up
00:45:36
◼
►
because it's a little bit of news but I wanted to kind of talk a little bit
00:45:39
◼
►
about the iPad and how we're both using them now because me and you both are
00:45:44
◼
►
upgraded to the Air 2 after WWDC right because we have to take advantage of all the iOS 9
00:45:49
◼
►
iPad related features. So are you still continuing to use the Air 2 if you switch back to the
00:45:55
◼
►
Mini like where are you currently on this spectrum? I am using the Air 2. I haven't
00:46:03
◼
►
gone back to the Mini. I still have my Mini 2 is still in a drawer and because I don't
00:46:09
◼
►
know I keep feeling like I'm going to go back and look at it and and consider it again.
00:46:13
◼
►
I'm actually working on a story that will probably not be out for a couple of weeks,
00:46:16
◼
►
which is sort of like a survey of all the iPad models for Macworld.
00:46:21
◼
►
They do this every year and now as a freelancer it's nice when they're like, "Hey, we'll pay
00:46:24
◼
►
you to do this story that you used to write for free in your spare time when you worked
00:46:30
◼
►
So I'm thinking about this a lot.
00:46:32
◼
►
The Air 2, or the Mini 2…
00:46:34
◼
►
When you say a survey, what does that mean?
00:46:36
◼
►
Oh, just like an overview.
00:46:39
◼
►
I'm going to write about every single available iPad and basically say sort of like which
00:46:42
◼
►
one is right for which person. Okay like a buyer's guide. It is a buyer's guide, exactly.
00:46:49
◼
►
So the mini, my mini 2, I love it when I pick it up I think oh it's so light and small and
00:46:55
◼
►
great but as I you know as I discovered in the last year I'm really feeling the fact
00:47:04
◼
►
that I am on the precipice of needing reading glasses at 45 years old and I fought it as
00:47:11
◼
►
as long as I could.
00:47:12
◼
►
- You got fought.
00:47:13
◼
►
- It's gonna, but it's gonna happen.
00:47:15
◼
►
I mean, I've got the long because I'm nearsighted.
00:47:18
◼
►
So I've got the, I've been wearing glasses since I was 18,
00:47:21
◼
►
but now I'm gonna have to do that.
00:47:25
◼
►
And the iPad Air 2 just has as many pixels as the mini does,
00:47:30
◼
►
but they're bigger and spread out over a larger distance.
00:47:35
◼
►
And when you're getting old and your eyes are going bad,
00:47:39
◼
►
it's nicer for it to be bigger.
00:47:41
◼
►
And I read, I do things like read comics on it.
00:47:43
◼
►
And I don't, so I'm fully kind of committed to the Air 2
00:47:48
◼
►
as much as I like the size of the Mini.
00:47:49
◼
►
And every time I pick it up, I think, oh, you're so nice.
00:47:52
◼
►
I just, I think the Air 2 is that big screen.
00:47:57
◼
►
And it is more powerful than the Mini 2,
00:48:00
◼
►
certainly let alone the Mini 4 that's out now.
00:48:03
◼
►
That one is more powerful,
00:48:05
◼
►
but it's still not as powerful as the Air 2,
00:48:07
◼
►
is my understanding.
00:48:08
◼
►
So, you know, it's, I love the Mini, it's really cool,
00:48:13
◼
►
and I would use it if, and love it,
00:48:16
◼
►
if I didn't have the Air 2,
00:48:17
◼
►
but the Air 2 is just that much more, you know, bigger.
00:48:21
◼
►
It's all about the screen size.
00:48:22
◼
►
- So, are you finding yourself in a situation
00:48:28
◼
►
where you're taking advantage of the multitasking features
00:48:31
◼
►
and stuff like that?
00:48:32
◼
►
Do you find them, like, do you use them seriously,
00:48:34
◼
►
or do you use them as like a novel thing?
00:48:37
◼
►
- Well, the way I use my iPad,
00:48:39
◼
►
the multitasking features don't get used very much.
00:48:42
◼
►
- I have those moments.
00:48:44
◼
►
One of the ways you fight,
00:48:46
◼
►
especially when you're writing,
00:48:49
◼
►
'cause doing podcast stuff you kind of need equipment for,
00:48:52
◼
►
but when you're writing,
00:48:54
◼
►
one of the ways you fight that kind of sluggish time
00:48:57
◼
►
when you fight the TDM of like,
00:49:00
◼
►
you're staring at the cursor
00:49:01
◼
►
and you know you need to write something,
00:49:02
◼
►
and I'm not gonna call it writer's block
00:49:04
◼
►
'cause I think writer's block is not a thing.
00:49:05
◼
►
I think there's lots of different things
00:49:07
◼
►
that make you not be able to write
00:49:08
◼
►
that get rolled up into writer's block
00:49:09
◼
►
and it becomes this legend.
00:49:11
◼
►
But it's more like you're just staring at the screen
00:49:12
◼
►
and like, I need to change what I'm doing here.
00:49:16
◼
►
Sometimes I will take, like in the summer,
00:49:17
◼
►
I'll take my laptop and I'll sit outside
00:49:20
◼
►
and I'll try to write outside
00:49:21
◼
►
because staring at the screen in the office isn't working.
00:49:23
◼
►
Let's try to change the location.
00:49:25
◼
►
And sometimes I'll do that with the iPad,
00:49:26
◼
►
either on the keyboard or I'll get out the Bluetooth keyboard
00:49:30
◼
►
and I'll go set it up at the dining room table
00:49:32
◼
►
and try that as a different kind of experience.
00:49:36
◼
►
and sometimes the iPad is a very nice focused experience.
00:49:39
◼
►
But most of the ways that I use the iPad day to day
00:49:43
◼
►
are not that, you know,
00:49:44
◼
►
and so I don't use the multitasking features very much.
00:49:46
◼
►
I don't even use slide over.
00:49:48
◼
►
I think I forget that slide over exists
00:49:50
◼
►
until I'm trying to go forward in Safari
00:49:54
◼
►
and I use that gesture to go forward
00:49:55
◼
►
that doesn't do that anymore
00:49:56
◼
►
because it's the slide over gesture
00:49:58
◼
►
and I need to press the forward button instead.
00:50:00
◼
►
So I don't use it that much.
00:50:03
◼
►
Mostly what I'm using is,
00:50:06
◼
►
Ideally, when I leave the office at the end of the day,
00:50:09
◼
►
or if I'm taking a lunch break or whatever,
00:50:12
◼
►
I have a big iMac here, it doesn't come with me.
00:50:14
◼
►
I have a laptop, but it just stays docked behind me
00:50:17
◼
►
most of the time.
00:50:19
◼
►
The iPad is what I'm using in the house.
00:50:23
◼
►
That's my thing, my connection to the internet
00:50:25
◼
►
is that iPad.
00:50:27
◼
►
That's how I use it.
00:50:28
◼
►
- You mean when you're not in the office?
00:50:30
◼
►
- When I'm not in the office.
00:50:31
◼
►
When I'm in the rest of the house.
00:50:34
◼
►
That's how I'm using it.
00:50:35
◼
►
And so for me, you know, there are moments where I'm like,
00:50:39
◼
►
oh, I should split screen this and use it.
00:50:42
◼
►
But most of the time I don't,
00:50:43
◼
►
'cause most of the time it's, especially on that screen,
00:50:45
◼
►
this is something I'm looking forward
00:50:46
◼
►
to trying in the iPad Pro.
00:50:48
◼
►
Even on the Air 2 screen, you know,
00:50:51
◼
►
a split view with two apps, it feels a little crowded.
00:50:54
◼
►
It feels a little cramped.
00:50:56
◼
►
I could put Slack on one side and Twitter on the other
00:50:59
◼
►
or something like that, and I have done that,
00:51:01
◼
►
but it feels kind of cramped
00:51:04
◼
►
and it's actually easier just to have both of them open
00:51:06
◼
►
and just swipe between them.
00:51:08
◼
►
So I usually just do that.
00:51:10
◼
►
So, you know, I'm not using those features a lot,
00:51:12
◼
►
but I do use my iPad all the time.
00:51:14
◼
►
And I love it because it is fulfilling
00:51:17
◼
►
the space that a laptop used to take in my life,
00:51:22
◼
►
where I would have a laptop on the dining,
00:51:24
◼
►
or in the like the living room, like the coffee table,
00:51:27
◼
►
just so that I could flip it open
00:51:28
◼
►
and look at something on the internet.
00:51:30
◼
►
And it's nice to not have to worry about that.
00:51:32
◼
►
and the iPad does that instead.
00:51:35
◼
►
- No, I definitely use the split view stuff all the time.
00:51:39
◼
►
It's the thing that makes the iPad
00:51:41
◼
►
a useful tool for me again, because--
00:51:42
◼
►
- So what are you pairing?
00:51:43
◼
►
What are you splitting?
00:51:45
◼
►
- So quite a lot of the time,
00:51:48
◼
►
I might be doing something
00:51:50
◼
►
and then maybe an email will come in or something like that
00:51:53
◼
►
and I will slide over Outlook and take a look at it.
00:51:58
◼
►
I may then turn it into a multi-pane view to look at something in Chrome and bring it
00:52:07
◼
►
Say for example somebody wants to buy some sponsorships, I can bring up our sponsorship
00:52:11
◼
►
calendar in Chrome and take a look at it there and compare to see what's available and then
00:52:16
◼
►
I can go flick back over and look into, well I can just tap into Outlook on the right side
00:52:22
◼
►
or whatever and reply to it.
00:52:24
◼
►
If I'm on Twitter, if I'm in Tweetbot, I usually will have something like Slack Open as well,
00:52:29
◼
►
just because they kind of just go together for me, because they're both just kind of
00:52:32
◼
►
like goofing off type stuff.
00:52:37
◼
►
There are still some apps that need Split View support for me, like the Google Drive
00:52:41
◼
►
apps, and when I have those as well, it will go to a whole other level, where I'll be combining
00:52:48
◼
►
Notes and Google Drive to do show preparation.
00:52:51
◼
►
currently do that but I'm like flicking over into the multitasking view and
00:52:55
◼
►
going back or I'm using notes in slide over and then I go back into drive and
00:52:59
◼
►
then I slide over notes again and go back into drive. So I see only for me a
00:53:05
◼
►
continuation of my use of this feature as time goes on in all honesty.
00:53:11
◼
►
I feel like it is after having used it for a while now I feel like the next
00:53:17
◼
►
logical step for it is a little less maintenance if that makes sense like one
00:53:22
◼
►
of the problems I have with it is it doesn't always do what I what I kind of
00:53:28
◼
►
I've realized I want it to do and again as a first iteration I think it's fine
00:53:33
◼
►
but you know obviously there are things like the list of multitasking available
00:53:37
◼
►
apps that that you you see in the slide over is not sustainable with a large
00:53:43
◼
►
number of apps on your device. That is an elegant view. Yeah, and then the other
00:53:47
◼
►
thing I would say is I kind of want and how you make this work with gestures and
00:53:53
◼
►
have it be something that regular users can understand I don't know but I find
00:53:57
◼
►
myself wanting pairs of apps to live together and so... I feel the same, yeah, so
00:54:03
◼
►
I press one icon and have two apps launch. Yeah, like if it knows that when I
00:54:07
◼
►
have a Tweetbot or Twitterrific open I want Slack to be with it or when I have
00:54:11
◼
►
Slack open, I want a Twitter client to be with it, whatever my choice is, that when
00:54:16
◼
►
I'm in the home screen and I tap on Slack, that it open in the split view with the app
00:54:22
◼
►
that goes with it.
00:54:23
◼
►
But if I have some other app, I have Safari open, it knows that, well, Safari is open
00:54:31
◼
►
And so I will open Safari with Notes.
00:54:33
◼
►
And right now it doesn't do that.
00:54:35
◼
►
It sort of like you set the sidebar item, whether it's slide over or split view, that
00:54:40
◼
►
the right hand side item, and that's the app that opens
00:54:43
◼
►
with whatever app you open.
00:54:46
◼
►
And again, makes sense for a first crack at it,
00:54:49
◼
►
but I find myself wanting context there.
00:54:51
◼
►
I find myself wanting these apps to know who their buddy is
00:54:55
◼
►
and bring the buddy along.
00:54:56
◼
►
Come on, buddy.
00:54:57
◼
►
It's time for us to open up.
00:54:58
◼
►
Both the apps are gonna open up
00:54:59
◼
►
and that doesn't happen right now.
00:55:01
◼
►
- Yeah, I think that would be nice.
00:55:03
◼
►
I think that is, you know,
00:55:06
◼
►
I would love to see an app like Workflow
00:55:08
◼
►
have the ability to do something like that, right?
00:55:10
◼
►
Like you create a custom icon that you hit
00:55:12
◼
►
and it opens the two apps together.
00:55:14
◼
►
- Oh yeah, that'd be nice.
00:55:15
◼
►
- But it can't, right?
00:55:16
◼
►
There's no way it could do that right now.
00:55:17
◼
►
- No, it's gonna have to be a system thing.
00:55:21
◼
►
The other thing I would say is,
00:55:23
◼
►
with the work that Apple's done on proactive stuff
00:55:26
◼
►
in iOS 9, especially, I think you see that on the iPhone,
00:55:30
◼
►
I would love to see a proactive list of suggestions
00:55:37
◼
►
of apps for the sidebar, right?
00:55:40
◼
►
So it could actually make a good guess
00:55:43
◼
►
about what app you probably want to load.
00:55:44
◼
►
- Yeah, as opposed to just time-based.
00:55:47
◼
►
Be like, oh, well, when you have this open,
00:55:49
◼
►
you usually want this open.
00:55:51
◼
►
- Yeah, and have it be,
00:55:53
◼
►
even if it doesn't select it for you automatically
00:55:55
◼
►
to have it be a suggestion at the very top,
00:55:57
◼
►
because those can work pretty well.
00:55:58
◼
►
I'm shocked when I switch to the proactive view and go,
00:56:01
◼
►
oh, there it is, that's the app I wanted.
00:56:04
◼
►
It doesn't always happen,
00:56:05
◼
►
but it happens more than I thought it would.
00:56:07
◼
►
So, you know, these are other directions,
00:56:10
◼
►
but for me, that I think it actually does limit my use
00:56:14
◼
►
of Split View because I feel like once I'm in Split View,
00:56:17
◼
►
I'm also committing that I have to do maintenance
00:56:19
◼
►
on Split View, I need to, then I load another app later
00:56:22
◼
►
and I'm like, oh, I still had Split View,
00:56:23
◼
►
I've got to close that out,
00:56:24
◼
►
or I need to change apps or something like that.
00:56:26
◼
►
And I'd like it to be, I'd like it to just be less work.
00:56:30
◼
►
I'd like it to sort of, again,
00:56:32
◼
►
how you do this is an open question
00:56:34
◼
►
and what encumbrance you add on top
00:56:36
◼
►
to get this stuff to be set up that way,
00:56:37
◼
►
I think is an open question.
00:56:39
◼
►
And it's a challenge for whoever is designing
00:56:42
◼
►
that feature at Apple.
00:56:42
◼
►
But wouldn't it be nice if I know that this app,
00:56:46
◼
►
I always wanna open full screen,
00:56:47
◼
►
but this app, I always wanna open
00:56:49
◼
►
with this other app next to it.
00:56:51
◼
►
That would be cool.
00:56:52
◼
►
- Let's see how the, or if the iPad Pro will change
00:56:55
◼
►
your opinion at least on the split view, right?
00:56:58
◼
►
The more real estate may help that.
00:57:00
◼
►
- Just more room.
00:57:01
◼
►
Oh, that's gonna be, more room will be huge.
00:57:04
◼
►
- So we'll see, I'm becoming more and more excited
00:57:07
◼
►
about the thought of it,
00:57:08
◼
►
just because of how much I'm using the Air,
00:57:11
◼
►
but I don't know how I would feel about the bigger device,
00:57:14
◼
►
right, the added weight, the added size,
00:57:16
◼
►
like all of those things,
00:57:17
◼
►
all of the unanswered questions that make me consider
00:57:21
◼
►
how good the potential functionality could be
00:57:24
◼
►
when compared to the adding on
00:57:27
◼
►
of the rest of the device, right?
00:57:29
◼
►
- Well, I can't wait.
00:57:30
◼
►
I mean, not only will we be able to get them this week,
00:57:32
◼
►
but presumably there's a whole set of embargo reviewers
00:57:36
◼
►
out there who are getting ready to drop
00:57:37
◼
►
their reviews this week.
00:57:38
◼
►
So there'll be a lot to read,
00:57:40
◼
►
there'll be lots of things to order and spend money on,
00:57:42
◼
►
and then there'll be products.
00:57:43
◼
►
So it's an exciting week.
00:57:44
◼
►
It's iPad, I think I did a post on Six Colors today
00:57:47
◼
►
that was basically, "Hey, it's iPad Pro week."
00:57:49
◼
►
It turns out, Apple released a press release that says,
00:57:51
◼
►
"iPad Pro, this is the week we are excited about it."
00:57:55
◼
►
So hopefully next week will be the week
00:57:56
◼
►
where we get to talk about it on upgrade.
00:57:58
◼
►
That should be a lot of fun.
00:58:00
◼
►
- Yeah, this is relentless, right?
00:58:03
◼
►
- This is the last one, I think,
00:58:05
◼
►
but it has been quite a,
00:58:07
◼
►
the fallout from that September 9th event,
00:58:09
◼
►
which is we've got a lot of products to show you
00:58:11
◼
►
and then we're gonna be dropping them
00:58:12
◼
►
over the course of the next two months,
00:58:14
◼
►
'cause it's two months today since that event.
00:58:17
◼
►
It's been busy, they've been busy,
00:58:21
◼
►
and so we've all been busy, and it's good.
00:58:24
◼
►
But I feel like this is probably the last one
00:58:26
◼
►
until next year.
00:58:28
◼
►
- Yeah, there's nothing else, right?
00:58:29
◼
►
- Yeah, there's nothing else from that event.
00:58:31
◼
►
- Nothing promised, no.
00:58:33
◼
►
I mean, they could call me up next week and say,
00:58:37
◼
►
"Hey, we got something new, come on down and visit us."
00:58:39
◼
►
But I think it's unlikely.
00:58:41
◼
►
- I hope so.
00:58:41
◼
►
- I think they've got some Christmas shopping to do
00:58:43
◼
►
and they're done.
00:58:45
◼
►
- This has been like a season
00:58:47
◼
►
that I don't think there's ever been before,
00:58:49
◼
►
like product release-wise.
00:58:50
◼
►
- Actually, okay, so I think it's the most,
00:58:53
◼
►
that's the most we've seen in a while.
00:58:55
◼
►
But there was a year, and I can't remember what year it was.
00:58:58
◼
►
And my colleagues at Macworld will back me up on this
00:59:01
◼
►
from back in the day.
00:59:02
◼
►
There was a year where the first, the Tuesday,
00:59:07
◼
►
every Tuesday there was an Apple product announcement
00:59:11
◼
►
for like 12 straight weeks, 15 straight weeks.
00:59:15
◼
►
Some of them were minor, some of them were major,
00:59:18
◼
►
but there was something.
00:59:19
◼
►
There would be like an iLife rollout
00:59:20
◼
►
and then there'd be a new iPod
00:59:22
◼
►
and then there'd be a new laptop
00:59:23
◼
►
and then there'd be an update to Final Cut Pro.
00:59:27
◼
►
And there was, there was, and I talked to Apple PR
00:59:29
◼
►
at the time about it, and they're like, yep, well,
00:59:31
◼
►
this is, somebody obviously said,
00:59:33
◼
►
what if we were just in the news forever?
00:59:34
◼
►
And everything we did, we just dripped it out
00:59:36
◼
►
one at a time.
00:59:37
◼
►
And that was exhausting.
00:59:39
◼
►
It was a lot of fun.
00:59:40
◼
►
And when you're doing a monthly magazine,
00:59:42
◼
►
I have always said to the people at Apple,
00:59:44
◼
►
at Apple PR, when I was at Macworld,
00:59:46
◼
►
I would always say to them, you know,
00:59:48
◼
►
one really awesome looking new Apple product
00:59:50
◼
►
every month works for us.
00:59:53
◼
►
It's like, that is great.
00:59:55
◼
►
'cause there's nothing better than putting a new Apple product
00:59:58
◼
►
on the cover of a computer magazine.
00:59:59
◼
►
It was always the best thing you could do.
01:00:02
◼
►
So they did that for a while, and then there was one Tuesday
01:00:04
◼
►
where it was like, "No PR?"
01:00:06
◼
►
And it's like, "Let's call Apple PR, see if they're okay."
01:00:08
◼
►
And they're like, "Yeah, that, it's done, it's over."
01:00:11
◼
►
But they did it.
01:00:12
◼
►
This is the biggest one I can remember since then
01:00:14
◼
►
where there's been a real march of products over time.
01:00:17
◼
►
But they did do that kind of masochistic
01:00:19
◼
►
product rollout one time, where it was like three months
01:00:21
◼
►
where there was something new every week.
01:00:23
◼
►
It was crazy.
01:00:25
◼
►
I would really love it if you could follow up on what that time was and what the products
01:00:32
◼
►
I'll look into it.
01:00:33
◼
►
I'll look at the Apple PR archive.
01:00:34
◼
►
I would really like to know that now.
01:00:35
◼
►
But it was a crazy time.
01:00:37
◼
►
We could maybe go back in time, right?
01:00:39
◼
►
And we could do each one.
01:00:41
◼
►
Little historical upgrade.
01:00:42
◼
►
Yeah, that sounds like fun.
01:00:44
◼
►
Alright, I think it's time for Ask Upgrade.
01:00:47
◼
►
Jason, could you please thank our Ask Upgrade sponsor for this week?
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Then you hand it to your letter carrier
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or drop it in a mailbox.
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No talking to people if you don't,
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well, I mean, if you hand it to your letter carrier,
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you should probably say hello.
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Be polite, please.
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it weighs whatever is sitting on the scale
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and for sponsoring Ask Upgrade.
01:02:41
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(imitates laser)
01:02:44
◼
►
- First question comes from Jimmy.
01:02:46
◼
►
- For Christmas I need real lasers.
01:02:48
◼
►
- We can look into that.
01:02:49
◼
►
- We saw, I'll give you some laser sound effects
01:02:52
◼
►
Christmas maybe. Jimmy had a question for me this week. Jimmy would like to know
01:02:57
◼
►
what case I use for my iPhone. So Jimmy let me tell you because Jimmy's just
01:03:04
◼
►
joined the plus Club the only the only good club to be a part of of course and
01:03:09
◼
►
#MykeWasRight. And the case that I use is just the Apple silicon case. I'm very happy with
01:03:15
◼
►
the Apple silicon case it does a good job. It's maybe a little bit bulkier than
01:03:19
◼
►
I would like at times but I like colors and I like the grip and it has the Apple
01:03:23
◼
►
logo on it which is nice so I think it does a really good job and it's the case
01:03:29
◼
►
that I like to use. Nice and simple. All right. Do you use a case? Good for you. I bet you don't, right?
01:03:36
◼
►
I have the leather, I have the Apple leather case it's the same one that I
01:03:41
◼
►
had on the 6 that I've just moved over to the 6s and it fits slightly more
01:03:47
◼
►
snuggly on it but it still fits and I like it because it adds that extra
01:03:51
◼
►
grippiness to it and so I've gotten used to it it's the first case that I have
01:03:54
◼
►
used in an extended way over my entire lifetime of iPhone ownership but I like
01:04:01
◼
►
it's just the black leather Apple case. Now Vic has a question for you.
01:04:06
◼
►
Vic wanted to clarify something from last week's episode and Vic asked "Did I
01:04:11
◼
►
hear correctly that you said that Apple would not intend to support the iOS
01:04:15
◼
►
remote app on the new Apple TV. That is a quote that you said you were told from
01:04:20
◼
►
the the mouth of Apple PR to your ears.
01:04:24
◼
►
Well, from a guy. So what happens at these Apple
01:04:27
◼
►
events is it's every device that's out there and there are lots of
01:04:32
◼
►
them that's being demoed, there's an Apple employee with it that's sort of
01:04:35
◼
►
its minder and those are Apple employees they can't all be Apple PR and marketing
01:04:40
◼
►
people because they don't have that many of them or maybe it's marketing people
01:04:45
◼
►
people, but it's not just the Apple PR team.
01:04:47
◼
►
It's a lot of other Apple employees.
01:04:48
◼
►
They are often not people you've met before.
01:04:51
◼
►
You don't know their names.
01:04:52
◼
►
They don't wear name tags.
01:04:53
◼
►
They don't identify who they are,
01:04:54
◼
►
but they've all been trained to say basically
01:04:57
◼
►
the same things, what to demo, what not to demo,
01:04:59
◼
►
what not, what to allow you to do,
01:05:01
◼
►
what to not allow you to do.
01:05:03
◼
►
It's all pretty well-trained.
01:05:04
◼
►
And my story is that when I asked him about the remote app,
01:05:07
◼
►
this guy who I didn't, I don't think I knew,
01:05:10
◼
►
if I'm recalling correctly, said that they weren't,
01:05:14
◼
►
I expected him to be non-committal about the remote app.
01:05:16
◼
►
And he said, when I said, you know,
01:05:18
◼
►
are you going to be able to use the remote app?
01:05:20
◼
►
The answer was no.
01:05:20
◼
►
And I was like, well, that's weird.
01:05:22
◼
►
And interestingly specific.
01:05:24
◼
►
And I just filed it away
01:05:25
◼
►
and didn't really think about it much more
01:05:27
◼
►
until the Apple TV shipped and it wasn't there.
01:05:30
◼
►
So I, that's a, they pronounce it from some guy
01:05:35
◼
►
who is an Apple person who was trained.
01:05:37
◼
►
It could very easily have been a misstatement.
01:05:39
◼
►
The fact is that remote app hasn't been updated.
01:05:42
◼
►
It doesn't mean that there isn't a new Apple TV app coming
01:05:45
◼
►
that is more fully functional than that remote app,
01:05:48
◼
►
which is, if I'm being honest, kind of showing its years.
01:05:51
◼
►
It was built to control iTunes on a Mac,
01:05:53
◼
►
basically, a long time ago.
01:05:55
◼
►
And it's, you know,
01:05:58
◼
►
they could probably build something new that's better,
01:06:01
◼
►
or they could retrofit it if they wanted to,
01:06:03
◼
►
but it wouldn't shock me if there was just an Apple TV app
01:06:05
◼
►
that came out at some point.
01:06:06
◼
►
I'm surprised that it's not out now,
01:06:08
◼
►
and that there isn't a way to more easily input
01:06:12
◼
►
things like text and maybe even use to emulate
01:06:15
◼
►
the Apple remote on the Apple TV.
01:06:19
◼
►
Also the Apple TV only supports one Apple remote right now,
01:06:22
◼
►
which I wonder about for game reasons and things like that.
01:06:26
◼
►
Maybe there's a software reason why it's not doing it yet.
01:06:28
◼
►
So there may be software updates
01:06:29
◼
►
for the Apple TV to come as well.
01:06:31
◼
►
But certainly it would be nice to have the ability
01:06:35
◼
►
to remote control that Apple TV from an iOS device.
01:06:38
◼
►
I can't believe that there isn't something in the works,
01:06:41
◼
►
but the person told me no, flatly, when I asked,
01:06:46
◼
►
and that has been borne out in the sense that
01:06:49
◼
►
we're a week out with this product now,
01:06:50
◼
►
and that app hasn't been updated since April.
01:06:53
◼
►
- Pascal has shared a wish,
01:06:55
◼
►
kind of from the Apple TV to iOS.
01:06:59
◼
►
How great it would be for universal search for content
01:07:02
◼
►
in the same way that you can use the Apple TV.
01:07:05
◼
►
So for example, "Hey Siri, play this song in Spotify."
01:07:08
◼
►
Or like, you know, "Hey Siri, play this song,"
01:07:11
◼
►
and it shows you the available places
01:07:12
◼
►
that you can grab it from.
01:07:14
◼
►
Do you think that this is something
01:07:15
◼
►
that you would be interested in?
01:07:17
◼
►
I guess Spotlight goes some of the way by indexing content,
01:07:21
◼
►
but it's a little bit different as like searching
01:07:23
◼
►
for something that you don't know that you have, right?
01:07:25
◼
►
And it's showing you, or you can watch it on Netflix
01:07:27
◼
►
or iTunes or Hulu or...
01:07:29
◼
►
Would you wanna see that on iOS?
01:07:31
◼
►
Yeah, I mean, this is all the stuff, I don't know, it's weird, the Siri stuff and the Spotlight
01:07:40
◼
►
stuff, it's all kind of mixed around, and you would like to see it all kind of intermingle,
01:07:46
◼
►
I think it would be great to have the books, I mean, apps can contribute to Spotlight on
01:07:55
◼
►
iOS though, right?
01:07:56
◼
►
They can do that now, they can contribute to the Index.
01:07:59
◼
►
I'm not sure whether Spotify is or an app like it is capable of say downloading the
01:08:05
◼
►
entire Spotify library of strings for all the songs and putting that in spotlight because
01:08:11
◼
►
it may make there may be limitations on that and it might make your phone explode.
01:08:17
◼
►
But yeah the more the more of this stuff the better it would be great to be able to ask
01:08:22
◼
►
Siri about a song or an album and have it say here you know here it is on Apple Music
01:08:27
◼
►
or you're not logged into Apple Music but Spotify has it or whatever and I think we'll
01:08:31
◼
►
probably get there.
01:08:34
◼
►
Next up we have a question from Rob.
01:08:36
◼
►
What apps are you hoping will come to the Apple TV?
01:08:40
◼
►
For me I really struggled with this question so I just thought about a couple of the things
01:08:44
◼
►
that I really like that I kind of wish were there already.
01:08:47
◼
►
One of them is 3s.
01:08:48
◼
►
I think 3s would work really really nicely on the Apple TV.
01:08:51
◼
►
Like the remote, like the touchpad on the remote is kind of built for a game like 3s
01:08:56
◼
►
And I would also like to see Overcast on the Apple TV as well.
01:09:02
◼
►
I'm gonna say Overcast, I agree with podcast apps in general.
01:09:06
◼
►
There's an opportunity there, Apple's podcast app isn't there.
01:09:11
◼
►
Amazon video.
01:09:12
◼
►
Yeah, I didn't even think of that one.
01:09:14
◼
►
I didn't want it there.
01:09:15
◼
►
I mean, but yeah, of course.
01:09:16
◼
►
I think I kind of just wrote it off in my brain.
01:09:22
◼
►
There isn't a Spotify app for Apple TV yet, is there?
01:09:24
◼
►
is Apple Music for my sins. So Jamie uses Spotify, my daughter uses Spotify, and at
01:09:34
◼
►
her birthday party that would have made it much easier because she's got her
01:09:36
◼
►
playlist and everything like that. And she insists on using Spotify even
01:09:40
◼
►
though it's the unpaid Spotify with ads and low quality, even though I
01:09:45
◼
►
have Apple Music, she has access to Apple Music. I don't understand it, but
01:09:50
◼
►
There's kids today. What are you gonna do?
01:09:52
◼
►
- Yeah, they really should. - Get off my lawn.
01:09:54
◼
►
My lawn is dead. There's no water.
01:09:56
◼
►
There's no lawn anymore.
01:09:57
◼
►
So something like status board and other stuff like that
01:10:02
◼
►
that turns your TV into kind of like an information hub,
01:10:04
◼
►
I think would be interesting.
01:10:06
◼
►
I'm not quite sure how you would architect
01:10:09
◼
►
some of that stuff, but I would like to see it.
01:10:11
◼
►
You know, their favorite games, you mentioned threes.
01:10:15
◼
►
I think that's a good example.
01:10:16
◼
►
Other fun games would be nice to see,
01:10:20
◼
►
but those are the two that I think of as, you know, something like a podcast
01:10:24
◼
►
app, something like Status Board from Panic, and yeah, other media stuff
01:10:30
◼
►
like Amazon and Spotify just to load that up with every media option that
01:10:34
◼
►
you could possibly imagine.
01:10:36
◼
►
Tristan has asked, "Any chance of Apple releasing an iPad Air 3
01:10:41
◼
►
within the next few months?" Tristan says, "I want an iPad Air, but I don't like that
01:10:46
◼
►
it's last-gen technology."
01:10:48
◼
►
The last gen technology thing is quite interesting because it's kind of not last gen.
01:10:55
◼
►
It was always extremely overpowered, the iPad Air 2.
01:10:59
◼
►
So it's kind of current gen.
01:11:02
◼
►
Yeah, well, the shipping of the iPad Pro will mean that the iPad Pro's got a processor that
01:11:08
◼
►
is much more powerful than what's in the Air 2.
01:11:14
◼
►
But you're right, the iPad Air 2 was way more powerful than what came before it.
01:11:18
◼
►
So like, when the iPad Air 3 comes out, there is the potential of an iPad Pro 2, which will
01:11:24
◼
►
have a faster processor in it again.
01:11:28
◼
►
Potentially.
01:11:30
◼
►
My answer to this question is the chances of Apple releasing an iPad Air 3 in the next
01:11:35
◼
►
three months are, let's say, what percentage do we want to ascribe to something that is
01:11:42
◼
►
Highly unlikely, but you never know because Apple continues to do things that are unexpected
01:11:48
◼
►
that are not in the playbook from the last five years, every now and then.
01:11:51
◼
►
- Yeah, I would say 5%.
01:11:54
◼
►
- It's not impossible, but I think it's highly unlikely that you'll see an iPad Air 3 before,
01:12:00
◼
►
you know, first week, second week of September next year, it'll get announced.
01:12:05
◼
►
And we'll do this all again, where that one will get what the iPad Pro has now, and the
01:12:09
◼
►
iPad mini won't get updated because it got updated last year and we'll just
01:12:12
◼
►
kind of take this little product cycle and do this for a while. Yeah I'm I still
01:12:17
◼
►
I do believe now my belief is that the each iPad line will get an update every
01:12:23
◼
►
two years. Yeah the pro may get updates faster than that because it's brand new
01:12:29
◼
►
and they want to make up make an impression with it but other than that
01:12:35
◼
►
that I here's what I would say to Tristan. I when I'm working on this Mac
01:12:39
◼
►
World story, spoiler alert, I think I'm going to recommend the iPad Air 2
01:12:45
◼
►
wholeheartedly as the most mainstream "If I need to get an iPad what should I get?"
01:12:50
◼
►
I have no hesitation to recommend that product even though it's the same
01:12:54
◼
►
product that they sold last year because it was so far ahead when it was released
01:12:59
◼
►
and it's still so impressive technically and it doesn't feel like a year-old
01:13:02
◼
►
product it feels like everybody got this year's product a year early. So
01:13:07
◼
►
that's what I would say is I think people shouldn't have fear of buying the
01:13:12
◼
►
iPad Air 2. I don't think it's gonna get replaced in the next few months and it's
01:13:17
◼
►
still an incredibly impressive piece of hardware. And then finally today we have
01:13:22
◼
►
a question from Scott who wanted to know what I thought of the iPad Pro keyboard
01:13:27
◼
►
being US layout only and he links to the UK page and it has a note right at the
01:13:32
◼
►
very top which says "smart keyboard for iPad Pro is available in US English
01:13:36
◼
►
keyboard layout" which is disappointing to me because it's not the keyboard that I
01:13:42
◼
►
use and... Right I know you use that funny keyboard with the pencil... We have the
01:13:49
◼
►
return key... The return boot... Which is I don't know it's very frustrating I don't
01:13:56
◼
►
know why Apple is releasing a keyboard in just one configuration especially when
01:14:03
◼
►
they know they're doing it because they own up to it it just seems like a
01:14:07
◼
►
peculiar choice to make I'll try it anyway I think I could probably get used
01:14:14
◼
►
to it but I'm not overjoyed at the fact that it will feel weird to me to type on
01:14:20
◼
►
this other than the fact that it just looks like a weird keyboard anyway right
01:14:26
◼
►
I don't know. Obviously it's complicated enough to make it that they are only
01:14:33
◼
►
currently making it one localization. I imagine that's the reason for it is not
01:14:38
◼
►
that they don't like other people but that they just don't have the
01:14:41
◼
►
wherewithal to make it in multiple configurations. They should have just chosen the UK layout
01:14:47
◼
►
because it's superior anyway. Oh I see. That's the one they should have chosen
01:14:51
◼
►
rather than the US one I think. It's the way they should have gone. It's a shame.
01:14:55
◼
►
They missed out. If you'd like to find the show notes for this week's episode head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/62
01:15:02
◼
►
If you want to find me and Jason online, there's a few places you can do that
01:15:05
◼
►
We're both on Twitter. Jason is @jsnell
01:15:08
◼
►
And I am @imike
01:15:11
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And you can read all of Jason's lovely work over at sixcolors.com
01:15:15
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Which is where you'll find original pieces and it's also a hub for everything else that Jason does on the internet
01:15:21
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Thanks again to our lovely sponsors this week great people over at Casper stamps calm and Linda calm and we'll be back next time
01:15:29
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Hopefully with iPad pros in our hands until then. Yeah, say goodbye to snow. Goodbye everybody
01:15:35
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[MUSIC PLAYING]