Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - From Relay FM, this is "Connected", episode 389.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Indeed,

00:00:13 ◼   ► Text Expander and Member Four.

00:00:16 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Federico Vittucci.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Hi Federico.

00:00:20 ◼   ► - Hello Myke Hurley, how are you?

00:00:22 ◼   ► - I'm very good.

00:00:23 ◼   ► It's just the two of us today.

00:00:24 ◼   ► And luckily connectedintro.com was right on the money

00:00:27 ◼   ► because the beginning for this episode

00:00:29 ◼   ► Myke introduces Federico. You're supposed to then introduce Steven but Steven's not here.

00:00:33 ◼   ► Steven's on vacation this week but luckily it worked out because otherwise we'd be lost.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Well I can introduce Steven. Hey Steven but then you know crickets.

00:00:42 ◼   ► Howdy y'all. iPhone.

00:00:46 ◼   ► You picked up a bit of an accent.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Oh it's in Memphis wasn't it you know so I picked it up. I must address a catastrophe once again.

00:00:58 ◼   ► We forgot to do the closing ceremonies again in the Ricky's.

00:01:02 ◼   ► We didn't do them.

00:01:03 ◼   ► So I don't know what to tell you.

00:01:05 ◼   ► I guess the good thing is this time,

00:01:07 ◼   ► there was nothing to change because you remained keynote chairman,

00:01:12 ◼   ► so you retain your place.

00:01:15 ◼   ► So we didn't need to move any of the things around.

00:01:18 ◼   ► Nobody had to move their Magtrickies around.

00:01:20 ◼   ► But I don't know, if you want to light a candle for yourself

00:01:23 ◼   ► and sing a little song like an anthem, you can do that.

00:01:26 ◼   ► But we apologize.

00:01:28 ◼   ► The whole connected podcast regrets

00:01:30 ◼   ► forgetting the closing ceremonies

00:01:32 ◼   ► for the second time in a row.

00:01:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, it's a shame.

00:01:37 ◼   ► - Today as we're recording,

00:01:42 ◼   ► Mac Studio and Apple Studio Display Reviews are dropping.

00:01:46 ◼   ► We had a whole episode planned before that,

00:01:50 ◼   ► which is quite a bit of it,

00:01:52 ◼   ► specifically non-Steven focused.

00:01:55 ◼   ► So I figure we'll just do these,

00:01:57 ◼   ► we'll talk about these next week.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Honestly as well, like I love you Federico,

00:02:01 ◼   ► but I would like to hear what Steven has to say

00:02:03 ◼   ► about these reviews. - I mean sure.

00:02:04 ◼   ► I mean you know. - You know?

00:02:06 ◼   ► So we're probably gonna talk about them next week.

00:02:08 ◼   ► 'Cause as well, like I don't think either of us

00:02:10 ◼   ► have had the chance to read all of them.

00:02:12 ◼   ► I've looked over some and there seems to be some upset

00:02:15 ◼   ► about the webcams on the studio display

00:02:18 ◼   ► and the Mac studio people seem very happy with.

00:02:21 ◼   ► Obviously I'm gonna talk to Jason about an upgrade next week

00:02:24 ◼   ► and then on connected next week we'll get into it as well.

00:02:26 ◼   ► I don't know if anyone will have them.

00:02:28 ◼   ► Is it too early?

00:02:29 ◼   ► When are they coming out?

00:02:30 ◼   ► Do you remember what the earliest date was?

00:02:31 ◼   ► - Tomorrow.

00:02:32 ◼   ► - Really? - Yeah, tomorrow.

00:02:34 ◼   ► On the 18th, isn't it?

00:02:36 ◼   ► - Wow, I didn't know that.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Is that when those things are coming out?

00:02:40 ◼   ► 'Cause my display is like, I'm not gonna get to April.

00:02:43 ◼   ► I ordered it immediately,

00:02:46 ◼   ► but I got the one with the arm, right?

00:02:48 ◼   ► And so they were already backdated,

00:02:50 ◼   ► I think at the moment that they weren't on sale.

00:02:52 ◼   ► So my estimated delivery date is the end of March to early April.

00:02:56 ◼   ► So I don't know, I know Steven's ordered a Mac Studio, I don't know what his date's like,

00:03:00 ◼   ► but maybe if we're even more lucky, he'll have it for next week so we can talk about his own thoughts.

00:03:04 ◼   ► But I don't remember what his delivery date was.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Although knowing him, he'll like go to an Apple store and just buy one and then return the other one.

00:03:15 ◼   ► You know what it's like. - I'm just gonna do that.

00:03:17 ◼   ► But so I hope that by next week we'll have more details on two things.

00:03:22 ◼   ► That like I was skimming the reviews I was reading.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I saw Jason's review, the one on The Verge.

00:03:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:29 ◼   ► There's one.

00:03:30 ◼   ► There are good reviews. There's another one, a really good one by Stu Maschwitz on their personal blog.

00:03:37 ◼   ► So two questions I have.

00:03:39 ◼   ► The first one is all the issues that The Verge and Joanna Stern at the Wall Street Journal.

00:03:45 ◼   ► these issues with the webcam in the studio display.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Both outlets reported and showed examples

00:03:54 ◼   ► of this kind of horrible camera quality

00:03:58 ◼   ► for the built-in camera on the studio display.

00:04:01 ◼   ► And Apple told them that something in the camera pipeline

00:04:05 ◼   ► isn't working right, and they will be working

00:04:07 ◼   ► on a software update to improve this.

00:04:09 ◼   ► I'm intrigued to see what they mean to improve this.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Like, can it look better than what those images look right now?

00:04:19 ◼   ► Is it because maybe the ISP isn't working right?

00:04:23 ◼   ► Is it because those images are supposed to be optimized more, be less grainy?

00:04:28 ◼   ► I don't know, we'll see, I guess.

00:04:30 ◼   ► And the second thing I am intrigued by is the GPU, sort of the GPU story of the M1 Ultra.

00:04:41 ◼   ► So Apple said at their event, they basically made the claim that the Ammon Ultra could

00:04:46 ◼   ► outperform something like an RTX 3090, right?

00:04:50 ◼   ► A graphics card from Nvidia, the latest gen 3090.

00:04:54 ◼   ► But in both, like, I was checking out benchmarks in Stu Maszczyk's story as well as on The Verge,

00:05:03 ◼   ► and The Verge just straight up said, "We don't know how Apple can make such claims."

00:05:07 ◼   ► - I saw Monica Chin's video, and she was just like,

00:05:10 ◼   ► I don't understand what they were testing for the GPU.

00:05:15 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't know that either.

00:05:17 ◼   ► - And here's an interesting tweet that a friend of the show,

00:05:21 ◼   ► Steve Townsmith, sent me that I'm gonna also

00:05:24 ◼   ► forward to you.

00:05:26 ◼   ► - Oh, I love a good tweet, so please forward it to me.

00:05:29 ◼   ► - So apparently the Geekbench 5 compute,

00:05:32 ◼   ► so the GPU benchmark is broken on Apple Silicon

00:05:35 ◼   ► according to AnandTech.

00:05:36 ◼   ► because basically there is a "the GPU compute is too short in bursts and the GPU isn't ramping up to peak frequencies."

00:05:44 ◼   ► Just ignore it.

00:05:46 ◼   ► So maybe the benchmark tool actually isn't optimized for Apple Silicon yet,

00:05:53 ◼   ► which may suggest why the M1 Ultra is not performing as well as Apple thinks and says it should be performing.

00:06:02 ◼   ► So this is an interesting story that I want to follow up on next week, because to make such bold claims,

00:06:08 ◼   ► you know, to say it's just as performative, not even more than the top-of-the-line graphics card

00:06:15 ◼   ► from the competition, and they always like to say this, but we know what they mean, and those numbers

00:06:20 ◼   ► don't actually add up, but if there may be a reason, and the reason being, well, it's actually

00:06:26 ◼   ► the benchmark tool that everybody's using that is broken, well, that's an intriguing story.

00:06:31 ◼   ► so we'll keep an eye on this I guess.

00:06:34 ◼   ► - Hmm, alright.

00:06:37 ◼   ► - Right?

00:06:38 ◼   ► That's strange.

00:06:40 ◼   ► - We'll see.

00:06:41 ◼   ► I mean I don't know, but it looks like a good machine.

00:06:43 ◼   ► I'm still excited about my display.

00:06:45 ◼   ► The webcam never works for me anyway,

00:06:47 ◼   ► I've explained that on the show.

00:06:48 ◼   ► I'm gonna do, honestly at this point maybe it's pointless

00:06:51 ◼   ► for me to make my big claim that I wanna make

00:06:54 ◼   ► about the webcam that will work,

00:06:55 ◼   ► and if the fact that the webcam looks terrible anyway,

00:06:57 ◼   ► so I don't wanna use a different one, we will see.

00:07:01 ◼   ► iOS 15.4 is out now.

00:07:04 ◼   ► Obviously this is not news to anyone,

00:07:07 ◼   ► but I now have installed 15.4,

00:07:10 ◼   ► and I love the mask unlock feature.

00:07:12 ◼   ► It's so good.

00:07:14 ◼   ► I feel like I've gone to not thinking about Face ID again,

00:07:17 ◼   ► which has not been the way for like two years.

00:07:20 ◼   ► You know, like at first,

00:07:22 ◼   ► when Touch ID was replaced by Face ID,

00:07:24 ◼   ► it was one of the great things we would say,

00:07:26 ◼   ► is like you don't even think about

00:07:27 ◼   ► unlocking your phone anymore, right?

00:07:28 ◼   ► or it just does it for you.

00:07:31 ◼   ► But then I had to start thinking about it again

00:07:33 ◼   ► because at first it just wasn't working

00:07:36 ◼   ► when I was wearing masks, right?

00:07:37 ◼   ► And then I started wearing the Apple Watch

00:07:39 ◼   ► and the Apple Watch won't let you forget, right?

00:07:42 ◼   ► 'Cause it taps you every single time.

00:07:44 ◼   ► So like you're aware of it,

00:07:45 ◼   ► like you're just really aware of it.

00:07:47 ◼   ► And now I don't have to think about it again

00:07:50 ◼   ► 'cause it just works.

00:07:51 ◼   ► And the thing that I really love about this

00:07:53 ◼   ► over the Apple Watch is that it works with Apple Pay,

00:07:56 ◼   ► it works with 1Password,

00:07:58 ◼   ► works with my banking apps, right? So really it's just true like face ID as it was intended,

00:08:04 ◼   ► and I'm really enjoying it. And I've seen people in the Discord, seen people on Twitter

00:08:07 ◼   ► like just in time for people to stop wearing masks. Not me though. I mean like you can

00:08:12 ◼   ► go and do what you want and like, you know, obviously I'm not obviously I'm wearing masks

00:08:16 ◼   ► less in certain places than I did before, but I'm still wearing them a lot of the time.

00:08:21 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like, you know. I see these people saying things like, oh, first time going to

00:08:26 ◼   ► the supermarket without a mask on.

00:08:28 ◼   ► And I'm like, what are you doing?

00:08:30 ◼   ► - Then make your own choices, you know,

00:08:31 ◼   ► if that's what you want to do.

00:08:32 ◼   ► Like I wouldn't, you know, and I don't.

00:08:35 ◼   ► - I wouldn't.

00:08:36 ◼   ► - But I, you know.

00:08:37 ◼   ► - This thing isn't over.

00:08:38 ◼   ► So, I mean, sure.

00:08:40 ◼   ► I would have loved to have this two years ago, you know,

00:08:44 ◼   ► like, but not because like now I'm, oh, I'm not,

00:08:47 ◼   ► I'm not masking up anymore.

00:08:49 ◼   ► No, because I've gone two years with face ID,

00:08:53 ◼   ► being incompatible with masks.

00:08:56 ◼   ► So it would have been nice to have it two years ago.

00:08:58 ◼   ► - And like what I said, look, you know,

00:09:00 ◼   ► in the UK now there are no more mask laws,

00:09:03 ◼   ► but people wear them all the time, not everyone.

00:09:05 ◼   ► But honestly, from my own experience,

00:09:09 ◼   ► I'm seeing as many people wearing masks now,

00:09:12 ◼   ► by and large as I was when we had mask rules,

00:09:14 ◼   ► 'cause it's like, there are people that won,

00:09:16 ◼   ► people that won, and I'm fine with it.

00:09:18 ◼   ► Like, you know, I've said this before,

00:09:19 ◼   ► and I mean it, like, airplane travel and stuff,

00:09:21 ◼   ► I'm always gonna wear masks now, like trains,

00:09:24 ◼   ► Like, it would be years before, as I said this,

00:09:28 ◼   ► I wish I could find a clip of me saying this,

00:09:31 ◼   ► but I was looking into these kinds of things before COVID,

00:09:35 ◼   ► because I would see some people wearing face masks

00:09:38 ◼   ► on planes, and I was like, that's a really good idea.

00:09:41 ◼   ► I want to do that, but I could never find them to buy.

00:09:45 ◼   ► - You talked about this on "Cortex."

00:09:47 ◼   ► - We probably did, it wouldn't surprise me.

00:09:49 ◼   ► Like, this is something I wanted to do

00:09:52 ◼   ► because I was getting a little bit, not paranoid,

00:09:55 ◼   ► I can't think of the word, but like over cautious

00:09:57 ◼   ► of this stuff, 'cause I wanted to try and find ways

00:10:02 ◼   ► to mitigate the amount of times that I would get sick

00:10:04 ◼   ► coming back from trips.

00:10:06 ◼   ► Right now I've got like some kind of cold like thing,

00:10:09 ◼   ► done a bunch of COVID tests, I'm good.

00:10:11 ◼   ► But like you just get it when you're traveling.

00:10:13 ◼   ► It's just a thing, right?

00:10:14 ◼   ► And so I ended up like I was using hand sanitizer more,

00:10:18 ◼   ► all that kind of stuff and it was going great for me

00:10:20 ◼   ► and I was like, ooh, face masks could be a thing.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Anyway, so I'm going to keep wearing them way more than I ever would have before.

00:10:26 ◼   ► And whenever I am wearing them, now I have my iPhone working the way that I want.

00:10:31 ◼   ► Something I thought was cool was the whole setup process.

00:10:33 ◼   ► There were two things I liked about it.

00:10:35 ◼   ► One I just thought was clever, where they were like, when it started the process, it

00:10:41 ◼   ► was like, you know, remove your mask if it's safe to do so.

00:10:44 ◼   ► I was like, well thought out, right?

00:10:45 ◼   ► Don't just tell people to remove their masks.

00:10:47 ◼   ► I did the face ID thing and now it's like, now take off your glasses.

00:10:50 ◼   ► I was like, oh, you're smart.

00:10:52 ◼   ► - You know.

00:10:53 ◼   ► - You're smart.

00:10:54 ◼   ► Like I just thought it was really incredible, right?

00:10:56 ◼   ► Like, because it could detect,

00:10:58 ◼   ► 'cause I know you can do the,

00:10:59 ◼   ► like the glasses and no glasses thing.

00:11:01 ◼   ► And I just left my glasses on

00:11:02 ◼   ► because I always wear my glasses, right?

00:11:04 ◼   ► It'd be, that's how I would naturally do it.

00:11:07 ◼   ► And it was like, take them off.

00:11:08 ◼   ► I was like, ah, it's so smart, it's so smart.

00:11:10 ◼   ► I love it.

00:11:11 ◼   ► I wanted to mention while we're talking about this,

00:11:15 ◼   ► and I know you've been talking about this,

00:11:16 ◼   ► everyone's talking about this,

00:11:17 ◼   ► that the EU COVID passes can be put into wallet.

00:11:20 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:11:21 ◼   ► - The UK ones work as well.

00:11:22 ◼   ► - Oh, nice.

00:11:23 ◼   ► - I haven't seen this reported in anywhere.

00:11:24 ◼   ► I don't know if this is a 15.4 thing,

00:11:27 ◼   ► but I scanned the QR code that I get from the NHS app.

00:11:30 ◼   ► You can get a wallet,

00:11:31 ◼   ► like just a standard wallet pass that expires.

00:11:33 ◼   ► I think you get like three months on them,

00:11:35 ◼   ► they're called travel passes,

00:11:36 ◼   ► and you get a new one every time.

00:11:38 ◼   ► I scanned that code that the wallet pass gives me,

00:11:41 ◼   ► and it, like going through the same process,

00:11:44 ◼   ► I don't remember off the top of my head,

00:11:45 ◼   ► but I think you outlined it in your review

00:11:47 ◼   ► linked to the support document for how to do it. I'm pretty sure, right? Did you? Yeah.

00:11:53 ◼   ► I think you linked to a support document because that was how I ended up finding it. Because

00:11:56 ◼   ► I looked at your review to be like, oh, did you mention if it was just the EU or not?

00:12:01 ◼   ► Because I think that was what Apple said. So I went through the same process that it

00:12:06 ◼   ► recommends and it worked for me and I've got the pink card and it says my doses and all

00:12:12 ◼   ► that kind of stuff. Like verified, what's it called, immunization something. Yeah, let

00:12:18 ◼   ► me look at it. I've got the pink one, it says vaccine dose two of two I put in there because

00:12:24 ◼   ► I wasn't sure if I should do the booster one. Because a lot of places just want the two

00:12:27 ◼   ► of two thing, I don't know why. And it says at the bottom EU DCC. I don't know what it

00:12:33 ◼   ► means but. Oh yeah, it's the digital COVID certificate or something like that. It's the

00:12:40 ◼   ► open standard that the EU is using so... Because I know that the EU recognises the

00:12:46 ◼   ► UK's system so maybe we're somehow squeezed in with all of that because even Apple is

00:12:52 ◼   ► saying it's the EU vaccine certificate. Well the NHS, the UK, we have our own right? Which

00:12:59 ◼   ► I mean we would have done that anyway because that's just what we like you know? But anyway

00:13:04 ◼   ► like if Brexit or no Brexit we would have done our own vaccine certificate thing I could

00:13:09 ◼   ► promise you that. And so we have that and it works great and it works just the way that

00:13:13 ◼   ► I would want it to and I got the little pink thing and now it's there. So I don't know

00:13:17 ◼   ► if it will expire because as I say like the ones that we get from the NHS app, they have

00:13:21 ◼   ► like a three month expiry and then you just refresh it again. I don't know why that's

00:13:25 ◼   ► the case but I'm sure there's some reason for it. But yeah now I've got the little pink

00:13:30 ◼   ► one too so it could be cool like all of you Europeans. It's amazing.

00:13:34 ◼   ► Nice.

00:13:35 ◼   ► I tried out Universal Control for the first time, and I thought, "This is cool, I'm never gonna use it."

00:13:40 ◼   ► Why is that?

00:13:42 ◼   ► I just don't... I just... What am I gonna use it? So you tell me, right?

00:13:45 ◼   ► 'Cause I know you... I read your iPad Air review, we're gonna talk about it in a bit.

00:13:49 ◼   ► What are you... How often are you finding yourself and why?

00:13:54 ◼   ► You know, users?

00:13:56 ◼   ► quite often usually just to like when I'm working on the Mac which is more

00:14:04 ◼   ► often these days I like just coming back well I'm more of a hybrid that's me

00:14:11 ◼   ► right I'm a hybrid too but I mean yeah work stuff is all Mac but then

00:14:15 ◼   ► entertainment and fun has happened on it's more that that I feel like I have

00:14:20 ◼   ► to and shortcuts for Mac was really you know the catalyst of this you know

00:14:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, well. - It's definitely around.

00:14:28 ◼   ► But yeah, it's that.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Anyway, it's useful for me mostly to keep either Discord

00:14:36 ◼   ► or Tweetbot, mostly Tweetbot, open on the side

00:14:39 ◼   ► so that I don't have to use Tweetbot on the Mac.

00:14:42 ◼   ► - Interesting, okay.

00:14:43 ◼   ► - It's the old version on the Mac.

00:14:46 ◼   ► And I also prefer like,

00:14:48 ◼   ► so it's mostly just either Tweetbot or iMessage.

00:14:53 ◼   ► And it's a way for me to reward myself,

00:14:56 ◼   ► basically every few minutes.

00:14:58 ◼   ► When I'm working in shortcuts

00:15:00 ◼   ► and I'm testing these complex shortcuts and stuff,

00:15:05 ◼   ► every few minutes it's like giving myself a little candy.

00:15:08 ◼   ► Like, here's your reward.

00:15:10 ◼   ► You can scroll Twitter for 30 seconds.

00:15:12 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:15:13 ◼   ► - And it's nice to do that.

00:15:15 ◼   ► - Does the iPad stay unlocked?

00:15:18 ◼   ► - Well, mine does.

00:15:20 ◼   ► - Did you leave it?

00:15:21 ◼   ► the auto lock I always set to never on my devices.

00:15:26 ◼   ► - Federico Vattucci used to be, I think,

00:15:29 ◼   ► auto lock never brightness 100%, right?

00:15:32 ◼   ► - Now the brightness I gave up.

00:15:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause you should.

00:15:35 ◼   ► - But the auto lock I didn't.

00:15:37 ◼   ► - All right.

00:15:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, the brightness is fine.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Sometimes I still disagree with the system

00:15:43 ◼   ► and so I manually raise the brightness in control center,

00:15:45 ◼   ► but then it goes down after a while automatically again.

00:15:49 ◼   ► So that I gave up though as a habit,

00:15:51 ◼   ► but the autolog said to never,

00:15:53 ◼   ► that's, you know, I am never gonna give that up.

00:15:57 ◼   ► So yeah, it's nice. (laughing)

00:15:58 ◼   ► So it's, I'm full of puns today, so it's a good job.

00:16:02 ◼   ► It's nice to keep it there on the side.

00:16:06 ◼   ► And it's also nice to, this is very specific to me,

00:16:10 ◼   ► but hey, you ask me.

00:16:12 ◼   ► It's nice when I wanna keep,

00:16:15 ◼   ► when I'm writing shortcuts

00:16:18 ◼   ► and I have, for example, one shortcut open on the Mac

00:16:21 ◼   ► and another for reference on the iPad,

00:16:24 ◼   ► that's usually very useful to have those two things

00:16:28 ◼   ► going on side by side,

00:16:30 ◼   ► because maybe I'm using the same technique

00:16:33 ◼   ► that I've used in another shortcut,

00:16:35 ◼   ► or something similar, basically.

00:16:38 ◼   ► I need to have that second monitor for reference

00:16:42 ◼   ► to check out things that I'm doing in shortcuts,

00:16:46 ◼   ► and now I can just move there with the same trackpad

00:16:48 ◼   ► that I'm using on the MacBook.

00:16:51 ◼   ► - That, all that stuff is really cool,

00:16:52 ◼   ► and I see these are legitimate uses for you.

00:16:55 ◼   ► Like I'm not like, "Ah, Federico's just making out,"

00:16:57 ◼   ► you know, but it's just for me, I just don't,

00:16:59 ◼   ► I'm not sure what I would use it for.

00:17:02 ◼   ► Maybe I need to give it more of a try, you know?

00:17:04 ◼   ► To be honest as well, the way my desk is set up

00:17:06 ◼   ► are just not really good for that right now.

00:17:09 ◼   ► Maybe I would need to think about that a little bit.

00:17:11 ◼   ► We'll see, but.

00:17:14 ◼   ► What I'm saying is it makes perfect sense for you.

00:17:16 ◼   ► I get it.

00:17:17 ◼   ► I can see why you would use it.

00:17:19 ◼   ► I just don't know if it fits for me, to be honest.

00:17:21 ◼   ► The main monitor that I use is really big.

00:17:24 ◼   ► Like I can just put everything on it.

00:17:26 ◼   ► Maybe I'll change my mind when I have to shrink it down a bit

00:17:28 ◼   ► to go to the Mac studio.

00:17:29 ◼   ► 'Cause I have a 32 inch display right now,

00:17:32 ◼   ► and I'll be going down to 27

00:17:33 ◼   ► and see how full about that.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Any other highlights in 15.4

00:17:38 ◼   ► that you wanted to mention before we move on?

00:17:40 ◼   ► - The one I wanna mention is they brought

00:17:42 ◼   ► the iPad mini sort of smart volume controls to all iPads.

00:17:47 ◼   ► - Love this.

00:17:49 ◼   ► - So now you can disable the fixed

00:17:52 ◼   ► volume button position setting.

00:17:55 ◼   ► If you go to settings, sounds,

00:17:57 ◼   ► you're gonna find this new option.

00:17:59 ◼   ► And if you turn it off,

00:18:02 ◼   ► now the volume buttons will follow

00:18:04 ◼   ► the orientation of your iPad.

00:18:07 ◼   ► So basically it works like on the iPad mini

00:18:10 ◼   ► where the button on the right always raises the volume

00:18:14 ◼   ► and the button on the left always lowers the volume,

00:18:18 ◼   ► basically following how the volume slider works in software.

00:18:23 ◼   ► This was a feature of the iPad Mini in September,

00:18:26 ◼   ► and now they made it optional for all iPad users.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And I disabled this setting so that now all my iPads,

00:18:34 ◼   ► they behave like the iPad Mini.

00:18:38 ◼   ► I think it's nice so that you just need to think about

00:18:41 ◼   ► left goes down, right goes up.

00:18:44 ◼   ► And I'm sure it's vice versa if you're using

00:18:46 ◼   ► a left to right language setting on your device.

00:18:49 ◼   ► - Super nice.

00:18:50 ◼   ► - Couple of shortcuts changes, we mentioned this before.

00:18:55 ◼   ► You can now tag reminders in the reminders actions

00:18:59 ◼   ► for shortcuts, but there's no action to get a list

00:19:03 ◼   ► of all your tags.

00:19:05 ◼   ► So that would be nice to have in the future.

00:19:08 ◼   ► And the other change is the new Notify when run toggle

00:19:13 ◼   ► in Personal Automations.

00:19:15 ◼   ► This toggle, you can now, well, it appears if you,

00:19:20 ◼   ► it's kind of complicated to explain.

00:19:21 ◼   ► So Personal Automations.

00:19:23 ◼   ► It was already possible before

00:19:25 ◼   ► to disable a toggle called Ask when running.

00:19:29 ◼   ► Basically, this toggle allowed you to say

00:19:34 ◼   ► there's an automation that is happening

00:19:36 ◼   ► because of a location trigger

00:19:38 ◼   ► or because of a schedule, whatever,

00:19:41 ◼   ► I don't need to manually confirm this automation anymore.

00:19:45 ◼   ► Great, that was already possible.

00:19:47 ◼   ► In 15.4, if you disable askWhenRunning,

00:19:52 ◼   ► a second toggle appears called notifyWhenRun.

00:19:58 ◼   ► That's, it's basically,

00:19:59 ◼   ► it depends on whether you disabled the first toggle, right?

00:20:02 ◼   ► So if the first setting is disabled--

00:20:04 ◼   ► - And you disable that.

00:20:04 ◼   ► And another toggle appears.

00:20:06 ◼   ► - Another toggle appeared.

00:20:07 ◼   ► Another random toggle appeared.

00:20:09 ◼   ► A wild toggle appears.

00:20:13 ◼   ► - That's good.

00:20:13 ◼   ► - And if you disable that,

00:20:15 ◼   ► you won't even be told that an automation

00:20:19 ◼   ► ran in the background.

00:20:21 ◼   ► So you will not get a notification

00:20:23 ◼   ► every time an automation runs.

00:20:25 ◼   ► This, however, doesn't mean that the system

00:20:31 ◼   ► tells you nothing at all,

00:20:33 ◼   ► because after a while, you may still get a summary

00:20:38 ◼   ► from iOS that tells you, hey, recently,

00:20:41 ◼   ► 15 automations ran in the background.

00:20:44 ◼   ► And you can long press that notification

00:20:46 ◼   ► to get a list of all those automations,

00:20:48 ◼   ► and you can disable them, you know, just to,

00:20:51 ◼   ► if you're like, hey, I don't want this to run anymore

00:20:53 ◼   ► in the background.

00:20:54 ◼   ► So you may, you can disable the individual alerts,

00:20:59 ◼   ► but there's no way to escape from the summary

00:21:02 ◼   ► that Apple is gonna send you at some point.

00:21:05 ◼   ► - Folsom the summary?

00:21:07 ◼   ► - It's fine.

00:21:09 ◼   ► I get it, like I get what they're doing.

00:21:13 ◼   ► I get the sense that they are extremely careful

00:21:18 ◼   ► about progressively opening up shortcuts to power users.

00:21:22 ◼   ► So I get what they're doing, this in steps.

00:21:27 ◼   ► I still think though that this notify when run option

00:21:32 ◼   ► should also be available for shortcuts

00:21:34 ◼   ► that you add to the home screen as icons.

00:21:37 ◼   ► In that case, you'll still get the alert

00:21:41 ◼   ► every time you tap an icon in 15.4.

00:21:44 ◼   ► And lastly, SharePlay has seen some improvements.

00:21:50 ◼   ► Apple is trying to make it easier

00:21:51 ◼   ► to go from not being in a SharePlay session

00:21:56 ◼   ► to be in a shared session with people over FaceTime.

00:22:00 ◼   ► And the way they're doing this is you're going to start seeing

00:22:04 ◼   ► SharePlay buttons inside apps that basically remove

00:22:09 ◼   ► a step from the process.

00:22:11 ◼   ► So before, it used to be you need

00:22:13 ◼   ► to start a FaceTime call on your own,

00:22:16 ◼   ► then you need to open an app, then

00:22:19 ◼   ► you need to share the content.

00:22:21 ◼   ► Now they are removing one step from this process, which

00:22:24 ◼   ► is you're in an app that is compatible with SharePlay.

00:22:27 ◼   ► You tap a SharePlay button.

00:22:29 ◼   ► you start the FaceTime call right there

00:22:31 ◼   ► and the SharePlay session is already activated.

00:22:34 ◼   ► So they're trying to remove some friction

00:22:37 ◼   ► from the starting a call

00:22:40 ◼   ► and starting a shared session thing.

00:22:43 ◼   ► - Great.

00:22:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:46 ◼   ► Never used it?

00:22:48 ◼   ► - Don't think I ever will.

00:22:50 ◼   ► Right?

00:22:52 ◼   ► I'm just not interested in SharePlay.

00:22:54 ◼   ► But hey, keep adding to it.

00:22:59 ◼   ► you know what I mean? Like if you think that there's like that one feature you added and

00:23:02 ◼   ► now everyone's gonna use it but I don't think that they've gotten there yet.

00:23:05 ◼   ► I think it's fine, I think I like, I get why this feature exists, I'm not gonna use it,

00:23:12 ◼   ► I think a lot of people, I think some people really care about it and you know it's better,

00:23:19 ◼   ► you never know how this pandemic is gonna go right? So I guess better to have this than not to have it.

00:23:24 ◼   ► I would like to know, connected listeners, passionate ones, send me a tweet, like if

00:23:28 ◼   ► If you use SharePlay, and this is a no-judgment,

00:23:32 ◼   ► this is a judgment-free zone, right?

00:23:34 ◼   ► I just wanna know, if you use SharePlay for something

00:23:37 ◼   ► and you really like it, send me a tweet,

00:23:39 ◼   ► I wanna know what it is, because I feel like

00:23:42 ◼   ► this is a feature that I don't understand, right?

00:23:44 ◼   ► Like, what it's for.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Obviously I understand what it's for,

00:23:49 ◼   ► but you know what, I don't know what the realistic use cases

00:23:53 ◼   ► that people are finding with SharePlay,

00:23:56 ◼   ► and so I would like to know.

00:23:57 ◼   ► If you're gonna text me,

00:24:00 ◼   ► if you're gonna tweet at me

00:24:01 ◼   ► and tell me you use Disney+ to stream,

00:24:03 ◼   ► no, it's not what I wanna know.

00:24:04 ◼   ► I wanna specifically share play.

00:24:06 ◼   ► I wanna know.

00:24:07 ◼   ► And Zach has sent one in, obviously tech support.

00:24:09 ◼   ► Don't send me about that one

00:24:11 ◼   ► 'cause that's the obvious one.

00:24:13 ◼   ► Really that's all it should be.

00:24:14 ◼   ► Tech support, fantastic.

00:24:16 ◼   ► I haven't had to do that yet,

00:24:17 ◼   ► but it sounds like a great use for it.

00:24:19 ◼   ► I'm talking about the things that Apple likes to say

00:24:22 ◼   ► that people are gonna do with it.

00:24:25 ◼   ► So I would love to know.

00:24:27 ◼   ► Anything else in 15.4 that you're excited about?

00:24:30 ◼   ► - I'm trying to think.

00:24:33 ◼   ► I think we mentioned all the big things that matter.

00:24:37 ◼   ► - Pretty chunky release, right?

00:24:39 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

00:24:40 ◼   ► It's the big like sort of miscellaneous release.

00:24:44 ◼   ► There's still a few things that they haven't shipped

00:24:47 ◼   ► that they announced last year.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Some, what was it with the wallet keys or something?

00:24:53 ◼   ► Like there was-- - Oh yeah, yeah.

00:24:55 ◼   ► - There's still some features

00:24:56 ◼   ► that still haven't made the cut in the 15 cycle,

00:24:59 ◼   ► but Mark Gurman said 15.5 is gonna happen

00:25:03 ◼   ► and it'll come out at WWDC.

00:25:05 ◼   ► Sort of like last year,

00:25:07 ◼   ► a version of 14 came out during WWDC

00:25:11 ◼   ► and it was the one that enabled lossless

00:25:14 ◼   ► and special audio in June 2021.

00:25:18 ◼   ► So it's not unusual to have one final release

00:25:21 ◼   ► in June at this point.

00:25:24 ◼   ► Federica, will you allow me to do a little bit of cross-promotion for a moment?

00:25:29 ◼   ► It's your network, man.

00:25:30 ◼   ► I guess I am running the show today, right?

00:25:32 ◼   ► So, who can stop me, you know?

00:25:34 ◼   ► If you tried to stop me, I could just edit you out.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Which would be interesting.

00:25:39 ◼   ► I have a new show here on Real AFM.

00:25:42 ◼   ► It's kind of like a repositioning of an old show.

00:25:45 ◼   ► So, I've been working with Austin Evans for the last couple of years

00:25:48 ◼   ► on a show called The Test Drivers.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Over time, really all me and Austin wanted to talk about is Formula One.

00:25:53 ◼   ► We love Formula One racing.

00:25:55 ◼   ► So we're starting a show called The Back Markers,

00:25:58 ◼   ► which is exactly that.

00:25:59 ◼   ► We're doing a couple of things that are a little bit different.

00:26:01 ◼   ► We're only going to record on race weekends.

00:26:04 ◼   ► So there are like 20 race weekends a year in Formula One.

00:26:06 ◼   ► That's like the whole season.

00:26:08 ◼   ► And we are going to be going live after every race,

00:26:12 ◼   ► giving our reactions to the race that we've just seen.

00:26:15 ◼   ► And it's going to be an audio podcast, but also,

00:26:19 ◼   ► and probably primarily, a video podcast.

00:26:22 ◼   ► We're going to be streaming live on YouTube after every race.

00:26:25 ◼   ► So we haven't worked out the exact timing,

00:26:28 ◼   ► but it's like probably within 15 to 30 minutes of each race

00:26:31 ◼   ► ending.

00:26:32 ◼   ► We will go live on our YouTube channel,

00:26:34 ◼   ► and you can come along and watch,

00:26:36 ◼   ► and you can hang out with us.

00:26:37 ◼   ► And we're going to be talking about what we've just seen.

00:26:40 ◼   ► And over time, we're working on some fun segments

00:26:42 ◼   ► to bring into the show too.

00:26:44 ◼   ► And of course, we will then release the video and audio

00:26:47 ◼   ► after the stream so people can check it out afterwards

00:26:50 ◼   ► as well.

00:26:51 ◼   ► So there is a YouTube channel and there is also a podcast feed on the Relay FM website

00:26:57 ◼   ► that you can go and check out.

00:26:58 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes to both but you know I love a good URL so you can

00:27:02 ◼   ► go to backmarkers.live and backmarkers.fm.

00:27:06 ◼   ► They're the video and the audio.

00:27:09 ◼   ► If you are interested in Formula One check it out.

00:27:12 ◼   ► If you're not interested in Formula One, watch Drive to Survive on Netflix then you'll be

00:27:16 ◼   ► interested in Formula 1 and then you can come and enjoy my and Austin's new show. So yeah,

00:27:23 ◼   ► it's going to be available in both of those places. Starting this Sunday is when the Formula

00:27:27 ◼   ► 1 season kicks off. And this is going to be an interesting season Federico because they've

00:27:32 ◼   ► changed the way that all the cars are designed so everything could be turned on its head.

00:27:36 ◼   ► So they've all had to make new cars and so there is a possibility that some of the teams

00:27:41 ◼   ► could be in a very different place. So it feels like a really good time to start the

00:27:44 ◼   ► show too because we're entering a new era of F1.

00:27:48 ◼   ► Very cool, very cool.

00:27:49 ◼   ► I'm really excited about this project because I get to do some video stuff too.

00:27:54 ◼   ► You know, we're going to be streaming, you know, it's really like an adaptation of the

00:27:58 ◼   ► keyboard streaming stuff that I've been doing, I've learned a bit more about how to do this.

00:28:02 ◼   ► And so, it's also fun to work with someone who really understands video in Austin and

00:28:07 ◼   ► how we're going to make this work, so I'm very excited about it.

00:28:10 ◼   ► Very nice.

00:28:11 ◼   ► Very nice. So go to backmarkers.fm related to fm/backmarkers and you can check it out and

00:28:16 ◼   ► I'll put some links in the show notes too. This episode is brought to you by Indeed.

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00:30:00 ◼   ► Federica Vatici, I sense a disturbance in the force.

00:30:04 ◼   ► I feel like you've made some ripples,

00:30:10 ◼   ► at least in my world, over the last 24 hours.

00:30:13 ◼   ► - Well, there we go, okay.

00:30:15 ◼   ► - Your iPad Air review.

00:30:18 ◼   ► I'm really intrigued about this.

00:30:19 ◼   ► Now, I wanna just talk about a few little things up top

00:30:22 ◼   ► and then we'll get into what I think is gonna be

00:30:23 ◼   ► a bit of a meatier topic.

00:30:26 ◼   ► So the first thing, which you had not mentioned to us

00:30:29 ◼   ► in our very popular group thread between the four of us,

00:30:33 ◼   ► which includes OTJ, of course,

00:30:36 ◼   ► is that you are not using your iPad Mini anymore

00:30:39 ◼   ► because of hand pain.

00:30:40 ◼   ► I'm really sorry to hear that.

00:30:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was like, it was the first warning signs.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Like it was nothing too terrible,

00:30:48 ◼   ► but I felt like, especially in my left hand,

00:30:52 ◼   ► which is the one that I was using to hold the iPad Mini,

00:30:55 ◼   ► I started to feel like I couldn't properly,

00:30:58 ◼   ► like it's so weird to describe,

00:31:01 ◼   ► I felt like my pinky finger and my ring finger,

00:31:05 ◼   ► like I couldn't move them anymore.

00:31:08 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:31:09 ◼   ► - And like the lower half of my left hand

00:31:14 ◼   ► was not as, I don't know, responsive as it,

00:31:18 ◼   ► like I was feeling some pain in the wrist area.

00:31:23 ◼   ► And I was like, "Hmm, that's not good."

00:31:26 ◼   ► Like I've seen Myke go through this before.

00:31:28 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:31:29 ◼   ► - I've seen Sylvia's mom go through this before.

00:31:32 ◼   ► That is not a good sign.

00:31:34 ◼   ► - No.

00:31:35 ◼   ► It seems like you are stressing,

00:31:37 ◼   ► have been stressing your hand.

00:31:38 ◼   ► I don't think I am,

00:31:41 ◼   ► I use my iPad mini in one hand as much as you were.

00:31:45 ◼   ► I can imagine from the way you've described it in the past

00:31:48 ◼   ► that you would basically just hold and scroll

00:31:50 ◼   ► with like one hand.

00:31:51 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:31:52 ◼   ► - I do still use it a lot as two handed,

00:31:54 ◼   ► like in that environment.

00:31:56 ◼   ► Like if I'm just reading something,

00:31:57 ◼   ► I'll just hold it, right?

00:31:58 ◼   ► But I'll typically scroll with the other hand.

00:32:00 ◼   ► I don't know why, it's just how I've done it.

00:32:02 ◼   ► And I think you, it sounds to me like

00:32:05 ◼   ► you put too much strain on that hand

00:32:08 ◼   ► by trying to manipulate it in that way.

00:32:12 ◼   ► So I'm sorry to hear that.

00:32:13 ◼   ► - Well, yeah.

00:32:16 ◼   ► So that happened.

00:32:19 ◼   ► - So you have a victory just saw from iPad mini club.

00:32:21 ◼   ► - And at the same time,

00:32:23 ◼   ► Like there was also the fact that Sylvia asked me like,

00:32:25 ◼   ► "Hey, do you think I could use the iPad mini?"

00:32:29 ◼   ► Because it's more pocketable and it fits in her purse

00:32:34 ◼   ► and it's easier to carry around.

00:32:36 ◼   ► And I was like, "You know what?

00:32:38 ◼   ► Sure."

00:32:39 ◼   ► And all of these things sort of happen at the same time.

00:32:43 ◼   ► And I thought maybe this could be a fun way

00:32:47 ◼   ► to test the iPad Air and could give me a nice angle

00:32:51 ◼   ► to try the iPad Air.

00:32:52 ◼   ► if I were to use it as a regular iPad for iPad things,

00:32:57 ◼   ► but also as my sort of secondary media consumption iPad

00:33:02 ◼   ► instead of the mini.

00:33:04 ◼   ► And that's how I approached the review.

00:33:09 ◼   ► - So I have a few hardware related things to ask you

00:33:11 ◼   ► and then I wanna get into this bigger topic.

00:33:14 ◼   ► So one, just as a note, this one's actually blue,

00:33:17 ◼   ► which is great, as opposed to the previous iPad Air blue,

00:33:22 ◼   ► which was silver.

00:33:23 ◼   ► - It's actually blue.

00:33:26 ◼   ► This one is actually blue.

00:33:27 ◼   ► And like the one before I got,

00:33:30 ◼   ► I saw some tweets from people saying,

00:33:33 ◼   ► oh no, it's not as bad as you say it is.

00:33:36 ◼   ► It's actually, I was able to saw,

00:33:39 ◼   ► I was able to see the capture,

00:33:42 ◼   ► the blue color of the old 2020 iPad Air.

00:33:45 ◼   ► And I mean, sure, I'm sure in certain lighting conditions,

00:33:49 ◼   ► you can see the blue tint,

00:33:51 ◼   ► But this one I'm telling you, you look at it,

00:33:53 ◼   ► no matter what lighting situation you have going on,

00:33:57 ◼   ► it's blue.

00:33:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, so like-- - It's just that.

00:34:00 ◼   ► - That previous one, it's like the same

00:34:01 ◼   ► with my purple iPad mini.

00:34:04 ◼   ► You can see that it has the color in it.

00:34:07 ◼   ► But this one is unmistakably the color.

00:34:11 ◼   ► - Yeah. - That's the difference, right?

00:34:13 ◼   ► - It's like, there's no way around it.

00:34:15 ◼   ► Just, it looks blue, it's blue.

00:34:16 ◼   ► It's not like electric blue, it's not too bright,

00:34:20 ◼   ► It's not too vibrant.

00:34:22 ◼   ► It's still like a subtle color,

00:34:24 ◼   ► but it's a real blue color.

00:34:28 ◼   ► And I assume that the other ones,

00:34:30 ◼   ► like the purple one will look exactly purple and so forth.

00:34:34 ◼   ► So I'm really happy about this because it's fun.

00:34:37 ◼   ► Like you look at it when you're using the iPad,

00:34:39 ◼   ► even when it's inside the Magic Keyboard,

00:34:41 ◼   ► and all you can see is the flat edge of the device,

00:34:46 ◼   ► and that is blue too.

00:34:47 ◼   ► So you can still see the color,

00:34:49 ◼   ► even if you're working with it on a magic keyboard.

00:34:52 ◼   ► And when you take it off, of course, the entire back is,

00:34:56 ◼   ► it's got this new blue color

00:34:57 ◼   ► that looks really lovely and fun.

00:34:59 ◼   ► So finally they did a real color.

00:35:01 ◼   ► Hopefully this will continue on other devices.

00:35:05 ◼   ► - And because of the way that iPad hardware and software

00:35:09 ◼   ► have moved along over the last few years,

00:35:12 ◼   ► an iPad is an iPad, right?

00:35:14 ◼   ► No matter which one you have,

00:35:16 ◼   ► it can do everything that the others can do, by and large.

00:35:19 ◼   ► So there are, but there are some,

00:35:21 ◼   ► so effectively like you can use this like it's any iPad

00:35:24 ◼   ► and it will work the same for you.

00:35:26 ◼   ► With the only real difference being screen size,

00:35:29 ◼   ► but it does have some hardware differences

00:35:31 ◼   ► that I wanted to just like see if you miss the features

00:35:34 ◼   ► compared to the Pro.

00:35:36 ◼   ► So it has a USB-C port instead of a Thunderbolt port.

00:35:41 ◼   ► Do you miss that practically at all?

00:35:46 ◼   ► Like the Thunderbolt support?

00:35:47 ◼   ► I will say, by the way,

00:35:48 ◼   ► your review is worth reading, if anything,

00:35:51 ◼   ► for your attempt to try and describe the pieces.

00:35:54 ◼   ► Don't try and do it here, it's too complicated.

00:35:56 ◼   ► I've read that paragraph three times

00:35:58 ◼   ► and I think I only kind of got it.

00:36:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, the different names for the same USB spec,

00:36:06 ◼   ► that's always fun to try and understand.

00:36:10 ◼   ► In practice, this means the iPad Pro supports

00:36:15 ◼   ► Thunderbolt and USB 4 and it transfers data up to 40 gigabit per second and

00:36:20 ◼   ► this one supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 or you can call it 3.2 Gen 2.

00:36:29 ◼   ► Anyway, it supports up to 10 so it's four times slower in 10 gigabits per second

00:36:35 ◼   ► instead of 40. In practice, for me personally, it doesn't really matter

00:36:41 ◼   ► because I have one Thunderbolt drive in my life and it's plugged into my Intel

00:36:48 ◼   ► NUC because it stores my music library. That Thunderbolt drive I never use with

00:36:55 ◼   ► the iPad or other devices. I have standard SSD/USB-C drives so for me personally it

00:37:05 ◼   ► doesn't matter. I could see how for some people who have really bought into the

00:37:11 ◼   ► Thunderbolt ecosystem of accessories this may be a problem because you plug

00:37:16 ◼   ► in a Thunderbolt accessory into the iPad Air and you just get an error message

00:37:20 ◼   ► saying this accessory is not supported on this iPad. So yeah, for me personally

00:37:26 ◼   ► no it's not a problem. The RAM changes. It has less RAM right in the Pro? Yeah well

00:37:34 ◼   ► Well, this is a fun question. Can you even objectively respond to this question on IP/OS?

00:37:46 ◼   ► So it used to be that most apps on IP/OS were always capped at 5GB of RAM, of usage, all

00:37:58 ◼   ► the time. And in iPadOS 15, so it was last year, Apple added this special entitlement

00:38:06 ◼   ► that some developers can make a request for, and some of them will get approved to go over

00:38:12 ◼   ► the limit of 5GB of RAM used by their application. Procreate, I know, can do this. I think Procreate

00:38:21 ◼   ► can do this. Again, I'm sure there will be a very specific niche of, I don't know,

00:38:30 ◼   ► a thousand people worldwide for whom this matters. Like, they are artists, they

00:38:37 ◼   ► work in Procreate, they really take advantage of 10, 12 gigabytes of RAM on

00:38:43 ◼   ► their iPad Pros. It was one of the reasons we upgraded Idina's iPad Pro, because she could

00:38:47 ◼   ► have more layers. Exactly. So I'm sure there will be people who actually say,

00:38:53 ◼   ► "You know, I need an iPad Pro because it lets me do 16 gigabytes of RAM because I

00:38:59 ◼   ► have this giant one or two gigabyte document in Pro Creator Photoshop and I

00:39:06 ◼   ► need the RAM to open it and to pan around, you know, hundreds of layers and

00:39:11 ◼   ► whatever." And I totally get it. Like, there's people who are gonna do that. It

00:39:14 ◼   ► It all comes down still to me personally.

00:39:17 ◼   ► I'm not an artist.

00:39:18 ◼   ► I don't use these kinds of apps.

00:39:22 ◼   ► For me, I use Safari shortcuts, Discord,

00:39:28 ◼   ► Tweetbot, Obsidian, it doesn't matter for me.

00:39:33 ◼   ► Now, it would be a different conversation

00:39:36 ◼   ► if only this RAM could be used by the system in other ways,

00:39:41 ◼   ► but I guess that's a segment of this topic

00:39:45 ◼   ► you wanna get to in a couple of minutes.

00:39:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'll ask two more of these.

00:39:51 ◼   ► Do you miss promotion?

00:39:53 ◼   ► - Kinda, I can see,

00:39:58 ◼   ► that's possibly the thing I'm missing the most.

00:40:01 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:40:02 ◼   ► - From the iPad Pro, I think the promotion display,

00:40:06 ◼   ► I can really appreciate on large displays,

00:40:10 ◼   ► I really appreciate it on the Mac.

00:40:12 ◼   ► I really appreciate it on the iPad,

00:40:14 ◼   ► more so than on the Mac,

00:40:15 ◼   ► because of how animations are designed on iPad.

00:40:19 ◼   ► You know, with the, how, like when you open apps on iPad,

00:40:24 ◼   ► they zoom in and they zoom out,

00:40:26 ◼   ► and you can really appreciate

00:40:27 ◼   ► the promotion refresh rate there.

00:40:30 ◼   ► On the iPhone, I can see the faster refresh rate.

00:40:34 ◼   ► I don't think it's a big deal as it is on the iPad.

00:40:37 ◼   ► So in going to the iPad Air,

00:40:39 ◼   ► the screen feels a little sluggish

00:40:41 ◼   ► and I can see the difference.

00:40:42 ◼   ► And when I was doing some sketches with the Apple Pencil

00:40:47 ◼   ► and I could see that the Apple Pencil was not,

00:40:49 ◼   ► the ink was not appearing as quickly on screen

00:40:52 ◼   ► as it does on the iPad Pro.

00:40:54 ◼   ► And that's because the display is polling for new data

00:40:58 ◼   ► twice as fast on the iPad Pro.

00:41:01 ◼   ► So I can see the difference

00:41:03 ◼   ► and that is the one thing I noticed the most.

00:41:07 ◼   ► I would also mention,

00:41:08 ◼   ► because we're talking about the display, the XDR quality of the 12.9, right?

00:41:14 ◼   ► -The media you did display. -Oh yeah, especially compared to the 12.9.

00:41:18 ◼   ► Exactly, especially if you compare it to that one and you're watching a movie at night

00:41:21 ◼   ► or you're playing a game that has dark colors at night,

00:41:25 ◼   ► and you can really tell the difference there.

00:41:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, it's next level, right?

00:41:30 ◼   ► I'm not even thinking about that, because I've not had that experience with an iPad myself, right?

00:41:36 ◼   ► because I never got that large one with the mini LED.

00:41:42 ◼   ► The last thing is Face ID.

00:41:43 ◼   ► Now, I'll say, like, obviously, I'm used to Face ID,

00:41:45 ◼   ► and we're all used to Touch ID on the iPad mini, right,

00:41:48 ◼   ► when we were using it.

00:41:49 ◼   ► It wasn't too much of a jump,

00:41:52 ◼   ► but I always think I'm fine with that

00:41:53 ◼   ► because it's always in my hands.

00:41:55 ◼   ► Now, with a bigger iPad,

00:41:56 ◼   ► and you do use it in a Magic Keyboard during the review,

00:42:00 ◼   ► and I'm sure you did during the review process,

00:42:03 ◼   ► Do you miss Face ID more when the iPad is in like a stand

00:42:08 ◼   ► and stuff than you do when it's in your hands?

00:42:10 ◼   ► - No, it's fine.

00:42:10 ◼   ► - Really?

00:42:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just touch the sensor one time

00:42:14 ◼   ► when I'm unlocking it and that's it.

00:42:16 ◼   ► It's okay.

00:42:18 ◼   ► Face ID is more convenient, sure,

00:42:20 ◼   ► but like if I were to pick the one thing

00:42:23 ◼   ► that annoys me the most in this list, it's promotion.

00:42:27 ◼   ► Face ID, sure, it's better, but also like,

00:42:29 ◼   ► I just need to reach out with my finger once and that's it.

00:42:33 ◼   ► So.

00:42:34 ◼   ► - So let's get into this bigger topic then.

00:42:38 ◼   ► So a couple of things,

00:42:39 ◼   ► I'll read a couple of little quotes from you

00:42:40 ◼   ► and then we can talk about this.

00:42:41 ◼   ► So one is what does Pro even stand for anymore is one.

00:42:46 ◼   ► Another is it's the most balanced iPad in Apple's lineup.

00:42:51 ◼   ► This is from your tweet about it.

00:42:52 ◼   ► Now with iPad Pro performance,

00:42:54 ◼   ► if iPad OS 16 doesn't bring any new Pro features,

00:42:57 ◼   ► I may switch to this.

00:42:58 ◼   ► And then the last one from your conclusion in the review.

00:43:01 ◼   ► If 2022 goes by about major changes for the iPad Pro,

00:43:05 ◼   ► no larger 15 inch version,

00:43:07 ◼   ► no major changes to iPadOS for productivity,

00:43:09 ◼   ► I may consider moving back to the iPad Air

00:43:12 ◼   ► as a more affordable compatible sidekick

00:43:14 ◼   ► to the 14 inch MacBook Pro.

00:43:16 ◼   ► Now the quiet part in this, right?

00:43:21 ◼   ► Is, and again, like I just,

00:43:24 ◼   ► I wonder if people picked it up in the same way.

00:43:26 ◼   ► - Sidekick 2.

00:43:28 ◼   ► Now what this suggests.

00:43:31 ◼   ► - You know how to read my stuff.

00:43:34 ◼   ► - What this suggests is that Federico Fatici,

00:43:37 ◼   ► the iPad guru,

00:43:40 ◼   ► is at the point of breaking with iPad OS.

00:43:46 ◼   ► 'Cause basically where I was like a year ago,

00:43:52 ◼   ► where it was just like, these Macs are really good

00:43:55 ◼   ► and I really like them and I can do everything I want on them.

00:43:58 ◼   ► And David Sparks put it so perfectly, right?

00:44:03 ◼   ► I keep referencing this in the Six Colors report card of like,

00:44:08 ◼   ► I came to the same--

00:44:09 ◼   ► he put it better.

00:44:10 ◼   ► It helped to understand what the realization was

00:44:12 ◼   ► that I'd had, which was that I've

00:44:15 ◼   ► got to stop trying to make the iPad something it clearly

00:44:20 ◼   ► doesn't want to be.

00:44:23 ◼   ► And also, it seems like what Apple doesn't want it to be.

00:44:26 ◼   ► And once I kind of accepted that, was happy to move,

00:44:30 ◼   ► sounds like you might be close to this.

00:44:34 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's a very loaded topic to unpack.

00:44:42 ◼   ► So the thing for me is I really don't want to do this.

00:44:44 ◼   ► I really would like--

00:44:47 ◼   ► I really would prefer to keep using iPad OS

00:44:51 ◼   ► as my primary computing platform.

00:44:55 ◼   ► For a bunch of reasons, the first one being,

00:45:00 ◼   ► what has always been the case for me,

00:45:02 ◼   ► which is I prefer the nature of the iPad

00:45:06 ◼   ► as a computer that can be a laptop,

00:45:08 ◼   ► can be a tablet, and has 5G built in.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Like the portability and the modularity,

00:45:13 ◼   ► I keep coming back to these two aspects of the iPad,

00:45:17 ◼   ► and the Mac doesn't have those same traits.

00:45:21 ◼   ► Like, that's why I would really hate

00:45:26 ◼   ► if it comes down to this,

00:45:29 ◼   ► that, you know, it's just better for you

00:45:32 ◼   ► if you just accept that iPadOS is not growing as quickly

00:45:36 ◼   ► or in the direction that you would like it to grow.

00:45:39 ◼   ► Because, again, I really would love to keep using the iPad,

00:45:45 ◼   ► and I don't want the iPad to become Mac OS.

00:45:48 ◼   ► But at the same time, I have to be realistic.

00:45:52 ◼   ► And that's the thing.

00:45:53 ◼   ► I have to be realistic for a few reasons.

00:45:57 ◼   ► Looking ahead, I would like to have in the future

00:46:03 ◼   ► a proper office space in my house for me.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Like real desk and real monitor

00:46:10 ◼   ► and something that is more comfortable

00:46:13 ◼   ► than having a small desk.

00:46:14 ◼   ► seen my desk, it's very small, or having to sit on the bed if I want to be more comfortable

00:46:20 ◼   ► when I'm working during the day because it never feels like I like I leave the bedroom,

00:46:25 ◼   ► you know. And obviously I would love to have a comfy chair and a big monitor in front of

00:46:32 ◼   ► me and, you know, have the proper ergonomics that don't hurt my neck and my shoulders.

00:46:39 ◼   ► And so there's that. You've got to have a real office, man, at some point.

00:46:45 ◼   ► And the other is, iPadOS, it feels like actual progress, like new features, not simplifications

00:47:02 ◼   ► of existing features, but actually new tools for pro users, it feels like they stopped

00:47:11 ◼   ► two years ago, when 13.4 and the Magic, it was not even iOS 14, it was 13.4, and the

00:47:19 ◼   ► Magic Keyboard came up with the pointer integration and all those features.

00:47:24 ◼   ► Now obviously, you know, I get it, there was a pandemic, but the pandemic didn't stop MacOS

00:47:30 ◼   ► from having a bit of a revolution with Apple Silicon and Monterey and shortcuts and all

00:47:36 ◼   ► these incredible things that Apple has done on Mac OS in the past two years.

00:47:41 ◼   ► And I think what it might be worth saying too is like you're saying that they stopped

00:47:46 ◼   ► adding new features like that hasn't been a stuff for a while and then I'm sure some

00:47:50 ◼   ► people say well yeah but they only really really seem to do things every two years.

00:47:54 ◼   ► All of this can be true. The problem was there's still been these like this feeling of not

00:47:59 ◼   ► doing enough has been the same for nearly 10 years. You know what I mean? This idea

00:48:04 ◼   ► of you could do a little bit more, you could go a little bit further, there is this you

00:48:09 ◼   ► could add, this you could add. There are all these things that are constantly, for people

00:48:13 ◼   ► that really want to use it to its full extent, would be able to point at and say, "Well,

00:48:18 ◼   ► why don't you just add this feature?" And they seem to begrudgingly add some of them

00:48:23 ◼   ► sometimes.

00:48:24 ◼   ► Yeah, and you know why ultimately it bothers me? It's

00:48:28 ◼   ► The people saying well, but it's all of this is normal. They do this every few years

00:48:34 ◼   ► but like what if maybe I'm not okay with it anymore and and the reason is

00:48:40 ◼   ► they are selling these devices as

00:48:44 ◼   ► Pro machines so all these things that we are saying they are not

00:48:49 ◼   ► theoretical

00:48:51 ◼   ► They are selling a device called the iPad Pro

00:48:53 ◼   ► it's in the name and they're charging for it, right? Like, it costs a lot of

00:49:01 ◼   ► money. But what does it have that is really pro in the software that runs on

00:49:09 ◼   ► it? And we're still here, you know, 11, 12 years later, still talking about proper

00:49:19 ◼   ► external display support and having some sort of background utilities or having

00:49:27 ◼   ► some sort of system-wide hotkeys for keyboard shortcuts that let you trigger

00:49:33 ◼   ► things system-wide. And there's this dissonance between the hardware that you

00:49:40 ◼   ► buy, that you pay good money for, the hardware that Apple sells you. So the

00:49:45 ◼   ► iPad Pro, big one, Magic Keyboard, you know, you have a permanent accessory that you can

00:49:51 ◼   ► use with your iPad Pro, there's a trackpad, there's all kinds of keyboard shortcuts, and

00:49:55 ◼   ► then the software really does... I don't want to say that it does nothing for it, because

00:49:59 ◼   ► then again, you can be a video maker, you can be a YouTuber, you can be an artist, you

00:50:04 ◼   ► can take advantage of it. But you compare what macOS can do on the same chip, right?

00:50:12 ◼   ► And that's the thing that gets me.

00:50:14 ◼   ► You can spend $1,000 and get a MacBook Air with the same config of an iPad Air, because

00:50:20 ◼   ► now the iPad Air also has the M1, and you have these two wildly different ends of possibilities

00:50:29 ◼   ► being offered to you.

00:50:31 ◼   ► And one feels like it stuck to many years ago.

00:50:38 ◼   ► And here's why this is so difficult for me right now, because I still so strongly believe

00:50:46 ◼   ► that the iPad is the computer for me.

00:50:48 ◼   ► The iPadOS is the computer for me.

00:50:51 ◼   ► But I also have a patience.

00:50:55 ◼   ► You know, I'm also like, at some point, I am not an iPad, you know, I'm not like, I

00:51:04 ◼   ► don't work for Apple.

00:51:05 ◼   ► It's not my job to defend the iPad, to cheer up the iPad team. I love the iPad, and I would

00:51:14 ◼   ► prefer to keep using it, but I also gotta be realistic, because I'm a busy person that

00:51:21 ◼   ► likes to do a lot of different things, and therefore I would require to have a computer

00:51:29 ◼   ► that empowers me to do those multiple things in less time. Ultimately, it just comes down

00:51:34 ◼   ► to that, right? And having been sort of getting used to this MacBook Pro that Apple sent to

00:51:46 ◼   ► me months ago and I was very clear to them and I told them, "Look, you know, it's gonna

00:51:50 ◼   ► take me a while to understand." Again, after so many years working on Mac OS, working on

00:51:56 ◼   ► a MacBook Pro, and coming up with an angle for a potential story, and I still feel like

00:52:02 ◼   ► I am unlearning so many things from the past decade, really, that I've used an iPad almost

00:52:09 ◼   ► exclusively.

00:52:10 ◼   ► But I see what I can do on the Mac.

00:52:13 ◼   ► And that's the other thing that I should mention, how my readers and listeners are

00:52:19 ◼   ► benefiting from the things that I'm doing on the Mac.

00:52:22 ◼   ► Because I get so many comments from people saying, "Thank you for optimizing this

00:52:26 ◼   ► shortcut on Mac OS" or "Thank you for writing about this Mac thing".

00:52:30 ◼   ► Like, you know, now I need to think about it, because if iPadOS is not growing at all,

00:52:39 ◼   ► then it becomes a question for me of what is the most... like, ultimately, what does

00:52:46 ◼   ► your work benefit from the most in the computer that you use?

00:52:52 ◼   ► And so an iPadOS 15 was a particularly annoying release for me. Annoying in the sense that

00:53:02 ◼   ► I understand why, for a lot of people, the work that Apple has done was actually great

00:53:10 ◼   ► work. And the simplification of multitasking, having the new way to trigger split view and

00:53:16 ◼   ► slide over, the shelf for Windows, the keyboard shortcuts menu. I get it. But those features

00:53:24 ◼   ► are not new features. Those are new, more intuitive ways to find, discover, and use

00:53:33 ◼   ► existing stuff. In terms of what is actually new, very little, if nothing. So an iPad S14

00:53:43 ◼   ► was mostly the same.

00:53:45 ◼   ► And at some point I get tired of waiting, you know?

00:53:49 ◼   ► That's all.

00:53:50 ◼   ► And now that the M1 is on this iPad Air,

00:53:54 ◼   ► it brought back all these questions

00:53:56 ◼   ► and it made me wonder, we had all these hopes last year.

00:54:01 ◼   ► Oh, you know, if Apple is bringing the M1 to the iPad Pro,

00:54:04 ◼   ► surely it means something.

00:54:06 ◼   ► Surely there's a bigger story.

00:54:08 ◼   ► There's the other shoe to drop,

00:54:10 ◼   ► which is this expression that people use.

00:54:12 ◼   ► and I know Myke, you love expressions.

00:54:14 ◼   ► - I love them, yeah.

00:54:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, so, but, you know, there ain't no shoe here.

00:54:20 ◼   ► There's nothing, really.

00:54:22 ◼   ► The M1 is now the baseline on the iPad Air as well,

00:54:25 ◼   ► and iPadOS does iPadOS things.

00:54:28 ◼   ► So, and I thought it's funny that Chris Lally on YouTube,

00:54:33 ◼   ► we had no communication between the two of us whatsoever.

00:54:39 ◼   ► Chris is a member of our Discord,

00:54:40 ◼   ► but I had a feeling that he was also working

00:54:44 ◼   ► on an iPad Air review,

00:54:46 ◼   ► but we didn't talk to each other or anything.

00:54:48 ◼   ► But he approached this with the exact angle

00:54:52 ◼   ► that I had in my story only in video form.

00:54:55 ◼   ► So it's like, if iPad OS 16 doesn't bring any changes here,

00:55:00 ◼   ► I'm probably gonna have to switch to the iPad Air

00:55:02 ◼   ► and it's gonna be fine.

00:55:03 ◼   ► - Do you have like, what is the lowest amount?

00:55:06 ◼   ► They're gonna do stuff, right?

00:55:08 ◼   ► Apple 2016 is going to have stuff, but what is the like, what do you need to see?

00:55:16 ◼   ► Do you even know?

00:55:17 ◼   ► Is it like I know it when I see it?

00:55:19 ◼   ► Well there's a, for sure there's a component of that, like you know it when you see it,

00:55:24 ◼   ► because maybe one common mistake that we make in our line of work as commentators and users

00:55:33 ◼   ► of Apple stuff is wishing for things that are known quantities to you. But the reason

00:55:42 ◼   ► we like Apple, or that maybe some of us used to like Apple, is to be surprised when they

00:55:48 ◼   ► give you something that you didn't know you needed and then suddenly becomes something

00:55:52 ◼   ► that you appreciate. Like, for example, Universal Control. Right? That could be an example of,

00:55:57 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess I did not imagine this,

00:55:59 ◼   ► but now that I have it, I kind of love it.

00:56:01 ◼   ► But at a bare minimum,

00:56:05 ◼   ► I need to be able to plug an iPad Pro,

00:56:10 ◼   ► like an iPad in general, into an external display

00:56:13 ◼   ► and have a proper extended display mode.

00:56:15 ◼   ► I call it extended home screen.

00:56:18 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:56:19 ◼   ► You have the chip that supports it.

00:56:21 ◼   ► You have the RAM for it.

00:56:23 ◼   ► You have USB-C.

00:56:25 ◼   ► you're making yourself a new display again,

00:56:29 ◼   ► you can do it, right?

00:56:31 ◼   ► I need to be able to take this thing,

00:56:35 ◼   ► use it as a tablet, use it as a laptop,

00:56:37 ◼   ► or put it on my desk and plug it into a monitor,

00:56:39 ◼   ► and it should work.

00:56:41 ◼   ► Multitasking, there have to be ways to do

00:56:47 ◼   ► more than just two apps at the same time, right?

00:56:53 ◼   ► especially on the 13-inch iPad Pro.

00:56:57 ◼   ► Let me do multiple columns.

00:57:00 ◼   ► Let me do three apps at the same time.

00:57:02 ◼   ► Let me do

00:57:03 ◼   ► new ways to create multiple

00:57:08 ◼   ► saved workspaces or whatever.

00:57:13 ◼   ► Just let me have some of the freedom

00:57:16 ◼   ► that you have on macOS, but in an iPad way.

00:57:20 ◼   ► Even, for example, in shortcuts right now,

00:57:23 ◼   ► I could create a shortcut to split two apps,

00:57:27 ◼   ► but it doesn't work with multiple windows.

00:57:30 ◼   ► And it's those kinds of things that like,

00:57:32 ◼   ► let me give me the tools to make multitasking

00:57:36 ◼   ► more of my own.

00:57:37 ◼   ► And I would also mention, you're selling a keyboard, right?

00:57:43 ◼   ► And you're really pushing a keyboard

00:57:45 ◼   ► with the Magic Keyboard at checkout.

00:57:47 ◼   ► Let me assign system-wide keyboard shortcuts

00:57:50 ◼   ► to anything I want,

00:57:52 ◼   ► whether it's apps or my own custom shortcuts, whatever,

00:57:56 ◼   ► let me do things from the keyboard system-wide.

00:58:01 ◼   ► And finally, with this chip and eight gigs of RAM

00:58:06 ◼   ► or even 16 gigs of RAM in some iPad Pros,

00:58:09 ◼   ► I feel like it's time to have

00:58:15 ◼   ► real background utilities on iPadOS.

00:58:20 ◼   ► clipboard managers, apps to manage background audio,

00:58:25 ◼   ► stuff that runs in the background.

00:58:27 ◼   ► Like you can have menu bar apps on macOS, for example.

00:58:31 ◼   ► Of course, it'll have to be done differently on iPad,

00:58:36 ◼   ► but it's getting exhausting to always work

00:58:42 ◼   ► with this mindset of, oh, the app you're using

00:58:47 ◼   ► must be in the foreground or at the very least very recently used. And that's, you know,

00:58:55 ◼   ► that was okay 10 years ago, now it's not okay anymore. Because then I don't, that's the

00:59:00 ◼   ► thing, I don't believe you anymore. Because I see the same chip and the same amount of

00:59:06 ◼   ► RAM being able to power completely different experiences on the other platform. So you

00:59:12 ◼   ► could have made that excuse 10 years ago, now I just don't believe you anymore.

00:59:15 ◼   ► I don't think you're going to get what you want.

00:59:18 ◼   ► I know.

00:59:19 ◼   ► I know.

00:59:20 ◼   ► But I go back to what I said a few minutes ago.

00:59:25 ◼   ► I would love to be surprised.

00:59:27 ◼   ► Maybe there are other things.

00:59:29 ◼   ► This is part of the reason why I like Apple stuff is sometimes they listen and they understand

00:59:37 ◼   ► the core of the idea of something that you want and they give that to you in a different

00:59:44 ◼   ► way. And a lot of times that's fine and that totally works. So maybe when they hear background

00:59:52 ◼   ► utilities they will come up with something else, like I don't know, control center extensions,

00:59:56 ◼   ► I don't know. You know, like they put a different spin on it. And that's why, again, why a lot

01:00:02 ◼   ► of us like Apple stuff. Because they have their own unique way to do things that you

01:00:07 ◼   ► thought you wanted. Then there's also another thing that I would like to point out is the

01:00:14 ◼   ► hardware aspect, which is, but I guess we're gonna get to this after the break,

01:00:19 ◼   ► I would love to get a bigger iPad Pro. Like, I think it's time to go above and

01:00:26 ◼   ► beyond 13 inches with the iPad Pro. 15, 16, I don't know, maybe even more.

01:00:31 ◼   ► Alright, we should just carry on having this conversation, just roll these

01:00:34 ◼   ► two topics into each other, but let me take our second break first and thank

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01:02:13 ◼   ► So let's roll right into this conversation I wanted to have with you about studio.

01:02:17 ◼   ► Because you really, you put like a little idea explosion in my brain last week about

01:02:24 ◼   ► just the word studio and then you posted a great tweet.

01:02:29 ◼   ► You said, "Okay, Apple people."

01:02:30 ◼   ► - Oh man, I didn't see the numbers on this tweet.

01:02:33 ◼   ► Wow, okay.

01:02:34 ◼   ► - Okay, Apple people, hear me out.

01:02:37 ◼   ► All right, you said iPad studio, big drawing canvas,

01:02:40 ◼   ► multi-column multitasking, iPod studio,

01:02:43 ◼   ► high-res player in deck, obviously, for Apple devices,

01:02:46 ◼   ► home pod studio, giant speaker, long live Hi-Fi.

01:02:50 ◼   ► 1,543 likes, people agree with you for sure,

01:02:54 ◼   ► 'cause it's a great tweet.

01:02:55 ◼   ► And it kind of got me thinking about studio

01:03:00 ◼   ► a little bit more.

01:03:02 ◼   ► Now in the PC space, there has been a lot of hardware

01:03:07 ◼   ► being made for creators recently.

01:03:12 ◼   ► Like loads of companies are making products

01:03:13 ◼   ► in the creator space.

01:03:15 ◼   ► And it feels like it's this new area for product marketing.

01:03:22 ◼   ► You know, we had consumer, we had pro,

01:03:26 ◼   ► there's a bit of prosumer was a thing for a while,

01:03:28 ◼   ► but then creators because content creation

01:03:30 ◼   ► is a type of work that requires quite specific stuff,

01:03:35 ◼   ► especially if you're doing it on your own.

01:03:37 ◼   ► It needs as much power as you can throw at it

01:03:39 ◼   ► while being light and portable where it can be.

01:03:42 ◼   ► If it's a laptop, so you can know people can move it around.

01:03:44 ◼   ► It could be maybe a bit more rugged, I don't know,

01:03:46 ◼   ► but also be attractive, like good looking

01:03:48 ◼   ► because a lot of this stuff is gonna be on camera.

01:03:50 ◼   ► This is good for people that need it.

01:03:52 ◼   ► And it's also really nice aspirationally, you know, like,

01:03:56 ◼   ► hey, I wanna be a content creator.

01:03:58 ◼   ► I'm gonna get the content creators computer.

01:04:00 ◼   ► So I think that's what the studio line,

01:04:03 ◼   ► that I think this is gonna be where Apple's gonna aim this.

01:04:07 ◼   ► They have regular, studio and pro,

01:04:10 ◼   ► and studio is gonna be part of their like,

01:04:13 ◼   ► for creators.

01:04:14 ◼   ► Now, obviously the Mac studio, very powerful,

01:04:19 ◼   ► but Apple was marketing it the same way that they always do

01:04:22 ◼   ► at video creators and audio creators.

01:04:24 ◼   ► And I think that they're going to continue

01:04:26 ◼   ► pushing that as a thing.

01:04:27 ◼   ► And I believe over time, that's where we're gonna end up.

01:04:30 ◼   ► Because don't forget, there's gonna be a Mac Pro

01:04:32 ◼   ► and it's gonna be bigger and more powerful

01:04:34 ◼   ► and more expensive.

01:04:35 ◼   ► So I think we're gonna end up with like regular Studio Pro.

01:04:39 ◼   ► And I think Studio will find its way

01:04:41 ◼   ► into lots of other products like you recommended.

01:04:44 ◼   ► You know, we were talking about AirPods Max,

01:04:46 ◼   ► they may have been called Studio,

01:04:47 ◼   ► that would make way more sense, right?

01:04:49 ◼   ► They were called Studio.

01:04:50 ◼   ► And I could imagine this becoming a thing that they use

01:04:53 ◼   ► in lots of places.

01:04:54 ◼   ► So going back to what we were just talking about,

01:04:56 ◼   ► you say like a bigger iPad,

01:04:58 ◼   ► you think that would be iPad Studio?

01:05:01 ◼   ► - Possibly, I think so.

01:05:02 ◼   ► Because I feel like if this is the angle

01:05:07 ◼   ► that they're going for for the studio branding,

01:05:09 ◼   ► and I think you're right.

01:05:10 ◼   ► I think the content creators,

01:05:13 ◼   ► as much as I really despise the expression,

01:05:17 ◼   ► I create content because everything is content,

01:05:19 ◼   ► It's sort of like, it's, you know, everything is.

01:05:21 ◼   ► - My life is content.

01:05:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, but like it's-

01:05:24 ◼   ► - There's kind of nothing I can do about it now.

01:05:26 ◼   ► - I know, I know, but it's like,

01:05:28 ◼   ► oh, I'm just churning out content.

01:05:30 ◼   ► - I am a content farm over here.

01:05:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, it sucks, but you know, you get the idea.

01:05:35 ◼   ► - It doesn't suck though, it's kind of great.

01:05:36 ◼   ► But yeah, I know what you're saying.

01:05:37 ◼   ► It's like that weird push and pull.

01:05:38 ◼   ► - It's not just the word.

01:05:40 ◼   ► I don't know. - The word, yeah.

01:05:42 ◼   ► Yeah, you know, I've come around to creator as a thing.

01:05:46 ◼   ► - Create, no, creator is great.

01:05:47 ◼   ► Creator is great.

01:05:48 ◼   ► - It's content. - Content.

01:05:49 ◼   ► - Everything I do is just, you know what it is?

01:05:51 ◼   ► It's content.

01:05:53 ◼   ► And it's, you know, it's articles.

01:05:55 ◼   ► - You know what?

01:05:56 ◼   ► I think you have like,

01:05:57 ◼   ► you're having bad connotations

01:05:59 ◼   ► back to content consumption device.

01:06:02 ◼   ► I think that's like ringing around in your brain.

01:06:05 ◼   ► - It could be, it could be.

01:06:06 ◼   ► But anyway, creator is great.

01:06:08 ◼   ► And you know, creativity, it's a great word,

01:06:10 ◼   ► which is why ultimately, like,

01:06:12 ◼   ► I use this expression as well,

01:06:13 ◼   ► because it gives you the idea and I love creators.

01:06:16 ◼   ► I'm a creator myself.

01:06:17 ◼   ► and we all are over here.

01:06:20 ◼   ► But I think you're right.

01:06:21 ◼   ► If Studio is for content creators,

01:06:25 ◼   ► an iPad Studio would be aimed at content creators

01:06:29 ◼   ► of different kinds for a few reasons.

01:06:32 ◼   ► It would be excellent for artists,

01:06:36 ◼   ► people who create content that they need to draw on the screen

01:06:40 ◼   ► with a pencil.

01:06:41 ◼   ► Imagine having this big, beautiful canvas

01:06:43 ◼   ► that you have a giant Procreate or a giant Photoshop,

01:06:47 ◼   ► and that would be excellent.

01:06:48 ◼   ► If they ever come around to doing a version of Final Cut

01:06:52 ◼   ► or Logic on iPadOS, that is not iMovie,

01:06:57 ◼   ► it would be great to have that on a big screen

01:07:02 ◼   ► and to have multi-touch controls for a timeline

01:07:06 ◼   ► or for multiple tracks on a bigger iPad Pro.

01:07:11 ◼   ► It would be excellent for academics

01:07:14 ◼   ► or for people like me, for writers,

01:07:15 ◼   ► do tons of research and you want to have Safari open and you want to have, you know,

01:07:19 ◼   ► Notes or Obsidian, you want to have your text editor, you want to have these multiple sources

01:07:24 ◼   ► and you're using Multitouch and you're moving things around, sort of Minority Report style,

01:07:28 ◼   ► but it's on iPadOS. And so Studio, as a way to justify "here's a giant iPad for you",

01:07:37 ◼   ► I think it would make a lot of sense. And it would also give Apple an excuse,

01:07:42 ◼   ► If I'm only listening, here's my pitch for you. This would be great for you, because it would fit

01:07:47 ◼   ► the studio branding that you appear to be doing with these two products that you've just announced.

01:07:54 ◼   ► You would be able to charge money for it, because a bigger iPad Pro would demand a much higher price.

01:08:00 ◼   ► But you would also be able to charge for a new line of accessories,

01:08:07 ◼   ► wildly expensive accessories, like a bigger Magic Keyboard,

01:08:11 ◼   ► maybe a desktop stand that lets you do things

01:08:14 ◼   ► like tilting back the iPad Pro,

01:08:17 ◼   ► sort of like Surface Studio style.

01:08:20 ◼   ► You could have maybe other drawing accessories,

01:08:23 ◼   ► joining Apple Pencil for artists.

01:08:27 ◼   ► The dial that Microsoft did for the Surface Studio

01:08:32 ◼   ► comes to mind.

01:08:33 ◼   ► You could do something along those lines,

01:08:34 ◼   ► like having a bigger screen, a bigger display that is actually an iPad studio,

01:08:40 ◼   ► you would be able to make money in a bunch of different ways.

01:08:44 ◼   ► Now, is there an audience for it?

01:08:46 ◼   ► I don't work at Apple, I cannot say, but I know that I would love to have one.

01:08:53 ◼   ► Like an iPad Pro, an iPad studio that is 16 inches or even, I don't know,

01:09:00 ◼   ► 24 inches seems to be asking for a lot.

01:09:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:09:06 ◼   ► - Hey, it turns out that studio display is actually an iPad.

01:09:09 ◼   ► - Exactly, but like a 16 inch iPad studio,

01:09:12 ◼   ► that's like the iPad of my dreams.

01:09:14 ◼   ► And yeah, I think it would be terrific

01:09:19 ◼   ► to see iPadOS grow into those dimensions,

01:09:23 ◼   ► to have a split view with four apps at a time,

01:09:27 ◼   ► to do picture in picture for all,

01:09:31 ◼   ► like picture in picture for apps, not just for videos.

01:09:34 ◼   ► Like there's so much opportunity here.

01:09:37 ◼   ► And this is why I'm so, I'm still optimistic.

01:09:42 ◼   ► I'm optimistic and sad at the same time.

01:09:46 ◼   ► Because like there's so much potential here.

01:09:49 ◼   ► Like Microsoft tried, but they don't have the ecosystem

01:09:53 ◼   ► of creative apps and developers

01:09:57 ◼   ► that you have with the App Store, right?

01:09:59 ◼   ► and to have an iPad, an iPad Studio of that size

01:10:04 ◼   ► with the App Store ecosystem that you have,

01:10:07 ◼   ► with shortcuts built in,

01:10:10 ◼   ► and with the incredible performance of the M1

01:10:13 ◼   ► and the M2, I suppose, in the future,

01:10:16 ◼   ► man, that would be an incredible device

01:10:19 ◼   ► if only they believed in it.

01:10:21 ◼   ► - Well, here's my challenge for you, right?

01:10:23 ◼   ► 'Cause you said earlier, like,

01:10:26 ◼   ► oh, if they released something like this,

01:10:28 ◼   ► read it from your review they would you would feel commit like there's a

01:10:31 ◼   ► commitment right yes that's all I want to see really but what if they just do

01:10:38 ◼   ► for this the same that they've done for the smaller iPad Pro like it's 16 inches

01:10:43 ◼   ► you can run two apps side by side and they are now like two full-sized 12.9

01:10:47 ◼   ► inch iPad apps side by side and you can do slide over but hey it's a big one

01:10:54 ◼   ► Because you can see that, right? Oh I could see that. And they're just like, it's bigger!

01:10:59 ◼   ► You can put more on it, it's bigger! But when they've done the two sizes of iPad

01:11:05 ◼   ► Pro, that's the difference between them. It's just like, you can just see more of

01:11:10 ◼   ► the app. Yeah, that would be a conversation that we would need to have.

01:11:17 ◼   ► You know, they're like, oh it's like two 12.9 in iPad apps side by side, if you put them in portrait mode.

01:11:23 ◼   ► What a wasted opportunity. But if that's what they do, that's not it, right? Just doing this.

01:11:30 ◼   ► Not completely, not completely. Because basically I can see this scenario incredibly easily.

01:11:38 ◼   ► Yeah, you're right. Right? But it's just like, it's the iPad experience you know now with an

01:11:45 ◼   ► even bigger screen. Yeah, that would be bad because that's one way to put it, yeah.

01:11:52 ◼   ► Yeah, the thing that I think Apple should understand here is

01:11:58 ◼   ► We're all pretty much in agreement that they have the hardware story pretty figured out at this point

01:12:07 ◼   ► Especially on the 12.9 inch iPad Pro. What an incredible piece of hardware. The thing is we

01:12:17 ◼   ► Steve Troutonsmith put it really well in a tweet yesterday where

01:12:22 ◼   ► Steve said the iPad evolves in fits and starts. Yes, and and that's really it like

01:12:29 ◼   ► Oh you get one year of updates and then nothing and then something else again and then nothing. It's like I

01:12:36 ◼   ► Think it would be better to have a constant

01:12:40 ◼   ► Constant progress, you know, all with maybe an apple has sort of this obsession for big

01:12:47 ◼   ► splashy releases, which look I totally get it.

01:12:51 ◼   ► People in Discord make fun of me because I like to do these big announcements and surprises and spring among people. So I

01:12:59 ◼   ► get

01:13:01 ◼   ► You know, I get it, you know, I'm that type of guy. No one likes a surprise like Federico, you know? Exactly, exactly

01:13:07 ◼   ► Exactly, like I get it, I get it.

01:13:11 ◼   ► But in this case, when you are the platform owner

01:13:16 ◼   ► and you have an established foundation,

01:13:20 ◼   ► maybe it's better to have a constant rollout of things.

01:13:25 ◼   ► Imagine if, you know, it kind of reminds me

01:13:30 ◼   ► in a way of when developers switch

01:13:33 ◼   ► to a subscription model for an app.

01:13:37 ◼   ► You don't expect the big splashy releases every six months

01:13:40 ◼   ► or every year, you expect constant progress, right?

01:13:44 ◼   ► Which I would like to see Apple do more and more.

01:13:49 ◼   ► And the thing that in this case is the problem

01:13:52 ◼   ► for the iPad is iPadOS and iPad hardware

01:13:57 ◼   ► need to go hand in hand a little more, a lot more.

01:14:02 ◼   ► Not a little, a lot more, a lot more.

01:14:06 ◼   ► So if they do a big iPad Pro, it's like, here you go.

01:14:09 ◼   ► It's 16 inches.

01:14:11 ◼   ► iPad Studio, great.

01:14:13 ◼   ► But you can only do two apps at a time.

01:14:17 ◼   ► That would be terrible, honestly.

01:14:21 ◼   ► But I don't wanna think about that.

01:14:22 ◼   ► I don't wanna think about that.

01:14:24 ◼   ► All this to say, if Studio is an excuse

01:14:30 ◼   ► to try new form factors, to try new software features,

01:14:35 ◼   ► Do it. Great. Do it. I really feel like there's a market for it. There's a lot of excitement

01:14:42 ◼   ► for Mac Studio. There's a lot of excitement for the Studio Display. And I feel like iPad,

01:14:48 ◼   ► I mean, in the tweet that you mentioned that I sent, obviously, iPod Studio and HomePod

01:14:54 ◼   ► Studio. HomePod Studio maybe a little less, but iPod Studio was a bit of a joke. They're

01:14:59 ◼   ► never gonna do an iPod studio. HomePod Studio I could sort of see but not really.

01:15:04 ◼   ► But iPad Studio like was the real one. That was the way I structured the

01:15:10 ◼   ► tweet. You get people in with a serious concept and then you slide in the jokes.

01:15:14 ◼   ► Which is also like the motto of connected I guess. I did have one

01:15:22 ◼   ► other thought about studio that it could also apply to software and I was thinking

01:15:27 ◼   ► of like Logic Studio and Final Cut Studio, which they should just be called that now

01:15:32 ◼   ► anyway because it makes more sense. And then I thought, "Oh, but what if these are the

01:15:35 ◼   ► iPadOS versions?"

01:15:37 ◼   ► Haha. I could see Final Cut when it comes to iPad being not called Final Cut Pro 10

01:15:44 ◼   ► or whatever, but be called Final Cut Studio.

01:15:47 ◼   ► It used to be called Final Cut Studio.

01:15:49 ◼   ► Right? It used to be called that.

01:15:51 ◼   ► When it was like a million dollars and you would get like a hundred things and it came

01:15:56 ◼   ► in a huge box and then they renamed it to Pro when they split it out I think

01:16:00 ◼   ► and put it on the App Store.

01:16:02 ◼   ► Yeah, so in conclusion before we move on to a fun,

01:16:07 ◼   ► unrelated topic. In conclusion I would really love to keep using the iPad.

01:16:14 ◼   ► I love the iPad, I love iPadOS. At this point I am invested into the iPad

01:16:21 ◼   ► platform because a lot of people have gotten to know me because of it.

01:16:25 ◼   ► Right.

01:16:26 ◼   ► I am.

01:16:28 ◼   ► I should be thankful to the iPad and I am because it allowed me to get work done

01:16:34 ◼   ► when I couldn't use a Mac and it allowed me to reach a ton of people.

01:16:38 ◼   ► And I want to keep using it.

01:16:40 ◼   ► But I'm also human and getting tired of

01:16:45 ◼   ► having these conversations over and over every single time.

01:16:51 ◼   ► And I would love to see...

01:16:56 ◼   ► Because I know that Apple cares about it,

01:16:58 ◼   ► but it cares about it in an inconsistent way, you know?

01:17:05 ◼   ► And especially the software team needs to be more...

01:17:11 ◼   ► I don't know, faster, more constant.

01:17:15 ◼   ► I don't really know what the problem is.

01:17:17 ◼   ► -Honestly, it could just be more enabled.

01:17:19 ◼   ► - Let them do more. - Maybe they're not allowed

01:17:22 ◼   ► to do all this, you know?

01:17:24 ◼   ► - Right, we don't know what the problem is.

01:17:25 ◼   ► We can't know what the problem is.

01:17:28 ◼   ► I'm sure there are internal discussions and tensions, right,

01:17:32 ◼   ► regarding like, well, if you do these things on iPadOS,

01:17:34 ◼   ► then will people buy MacBook Pros?

01:17:37 ◼   ► Like, I'm sure those conversations internally take place.

01:17:42 ◼   ► But at the end of the day, as iPad Pro users,

01:17:47 ◼   ► I feel like we deserve a little more.

01:17:49 ◼   ► Yeah, and I would say, like, I was thinking about this too,

01:17:53 ◼   ► over the last couple of days, I would never assume that hope or hope could be lost,

01:17:59 ◼   ► you know, because it really felt like that with the Mac.

01:18:03 ◼   ► Like, it felt like all hope was lost with the Mac, you know,

01:18:07 ◼   ► and then they very clearly and publicly restated, like, re-kind of stated their mission,

01:18:14 ◼   ► And then now, everything they're doing on the Mac right now is unbelievable, right?

01:18:19 ◼   ► - Yes. - Just like,

01:18:20 ◼   ► in ways we never could have imagined even like four years ago.

01:18:25 ◼   ► Like they're just knocking it out of the park time after time.

01:18:29 ◼   ► And it just seems like we're going to get like another year, two years of that, right?

01:18:33 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Like more new hardware,

01:18:35 ◼   ► stuff we've never seen before, like, you know, really wild stuff.

01:18:38 ◼   ► Like they just created a whole new product class for the Mac, right?

01:18:42 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Like who would have assumed

01:18:44 ◼   ► that they would ever make the Mythical Midrange Tower,

01:18:48 ◼   ► right, and they've done it in 2022?

01:18:50 ◼   ► Like, this is like 15 years after people

01:18:53 ◼   ► were wanting this product.

01:18:55 ◼   ► So like, I 100% believe that they have the ability

01:18:59 ◼   ► at any point to be like, okay, we're doing it over again.

01:19:02 ◼   ► Right, here we go, we're starting from the start,

01:19:05 ◼   ► this is how it's gonna go.

01:19:07 ◼   ► But I don't think it's yet.

01:19:11 ◼   ► And like, I, you know, if I were you,

01:19:13 ◼   ► I would be setting myself up for like,

01:19:15 ◼   ► all right, let's think about this differently.

01:19:17 ◼   ► Because it's not like you have to be like,

01:19:20 ◼   ► all right, well, I can't do any more work on the iPad now.

01:19:22 ◼   ► Like a friendship ended with iPad.

01:19:25 ◼   ► - No, it's not that. - Mac is best friend.

01:19:26 ◼   ► - It's not that.

01:19:27 ◼   ► - You can just mix it up a little bit more,

01:19:31 ◼   ► maybe not consider yourself primarily iPad or iPad first

01:19:35 ◼   ► and be more of a Myke Hurley or a Jason Snow in this.

01:19:39 ◼   ► But that for you would be a big change.

01:19:43 ◼   ► Yeah, that's really what I've been doing.

01:19:46 ◼   ► Like the past few months have been really months of change.

01:19:50 ◼   ► If I were to pick a yearly theme for Cortex,

01:19:53 ◼   ► it would be the year of change, really.

01:19:55 ◼   ► I'm changing a lot of things in my life,

01:19:59 ◼   ► which is why you can expect a lot of surprises from me.

01:20:02 ◼   ► Starting tomorrow, I have a big one dropping tomorrow.

01:20:06 ◼   ► Federico will just like, you know,

01:20:08 ◼   ► he will change his life completely

01:20:10 ◼   ► if it allows him to surprise you more, you know?

01:20:12 ◼   ► - Yes. - Just wants to surprise everyone.

01:20:14 ◼   ► - You do it all for the content, man.

01:20:16 ◼   ► - You are a content creator.

01:20:18 ◼   ► - You do it for the show.

01:20:19 ◼   ► But no, I have been dipping my toes into many waters recently

01:20:25 ◼   ► and I've been using the Mac more

01:20:27 ◼   ► and I've been learning a lot in the process.

01:20:30 ◼   ► And it's not about, oh,

01:20:34 ◼   ► by having this big announcements,

01:20:36 ◼   ► like I have stopped using the iPad.

01:20:38 ◼   ► No, it's not that, it's not that.

01:20:40 ◼   ► It's more of a-- - If you were a YouTuber,

01:20:41 ◼   ► you would definitely do that.

01:20:43 ◼   ► - With a shocked face in the thumbnail.

01:20:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, the iPad's broken in half.

01:20:48 ◼   ► - But as you said, it's more like,

01:20:54 ◼   ► I can balance it out by using the Mac more,

01:20:58 ◼   ► I mean, still using the iPad.

01:21:01 ◼   ► But then of course, I will love,

01:21:03 ◼   ► I should be honest and I should say this,

01:21:06 ◼   ► I would love to be swept away by a magical iPad studio

01:21:11 ◼   ► and an iPad OS 16 that has incredible power user features

01:21:15 ◼   ► and I will fall in love all over again.

01:21:19 ◼   ► And the romance would start anew with the iPad.

01:21:22 ◼   ► But we'll see, we'll see.

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01:23:44 ◼   ► So Federico Vittucci, what you got for me?

01:23:49 ◼   ► I got a steam deck!

01:23:50 ◼   ► Yeah you did, that's the thing with all the buttons right? What the nerds love these days?

01:23:55 ◼   ► That's the thing and you press it?

01:23:57 ◼   ► That's the stream deck?

01:23:59 ◼   ► No, no, it's the one you press it and the shortcut happens, right?

01:24:01 ◼   ► That's the Steam Deck?

01:24:02 ◼   ► Yes.

01:24:04 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:24:06 ◼   ► I got the foot pedal.

01:24:07 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:24:09 ◼   ► I got the Valve foot pedal.

01:24:11 ◼   ► I got the Valve foot pedal.

01:24:14 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:24:14 ◼   ► I got the Steam Deck console.

01:24:18 ◼   ► Portable console.

01:24:18 ◼   ► The video game console made by a lot of people.

01:24:21 ◼   ► Yes.

01:24:22 ◼   ► What do you want to know?

01:24:25 ◼   ► I got it a few--

01:24:26 ◼   ► So I should say, I got it a few days ago.

01:24:28 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:24:28 ◼   ► I haven't played a lot with it because I was finishing the iPad Air review, but I have

01:24:34 ◼   ► been tweaking stuff.

01:24:36 ◼   ► I played Elden Ring on it and I have tried a bunch of different things so I can talk

01:24:41 ◼   ► about it.

01:24:42 ◼   ► I have questions on hardware and questions on software.

01:24:44 ◼   ► So start with hardware.

01:24:46 ◼   ► How does it feel in the hand?

01:24:48 ◼   ► Because that thing, I remember when it was announced, it looked like an ergonomic nightmare

01:24:52 ◼   ► to me, honestly.

01:24:53 ◼   ► It's a big boy.

01:24:55 ◼   ► It's a big boy of a console.

01:24:57 ◼   ► So it's not as immediately comfortable

01:25:04 ◼   ► as a Nintendo Switch.

01:25:05 ◼   ► If you approach it as a Nintendo Switch,

01:25:08 ◼   ► you're gonna have a bad time because it's longer.

01:25:11 ◼   ► It's much longer than a Nintendo Switch

01:25:13 ◼   ► and it's heavier than a Nintendo Switch.

01:25:14 ◼   ► However, I'll say this. - And thicker too, right?

01:25:16 ◼   ► - It's thicker, but

01:25:18 ◼   ► they have done some really cool things

01:25:24 ◼   ► in terms of distributing the weight of the console, so that it's not heavy in the center

01:25:31 ◼   ► of the console.

01:25:32 ◼   ► And also, if you place it on a desk, the central area, so you get the controller on the left

01:25:43 ◼   ► and the controller on the right, but in the middle, it's raised from a desk, so that air

01:25:50 ◼   ► can flow underneath it.

01:25:52 ◼   ► And it's very cool, like, there's space underneath it when you place it on a desk.

01:25:59 ◼   ► And that's because, like, I think they have basically stuffed a lot of hardware at the

01:26:04 ◼   ► sides of the console.

01:26:06 ◼   ► So it's long, and it's a big boy, but it...

01:26:10 ◼   ► Like, I got used to it.

01:26:12 ◼   ► The things that I'm not so sure about is the placement of the D-pad, which is all the way

01:26:19 ◼   ► in the top left corner of the left side of the console, and these two virtual touchpads

01:26:29 ◼   ► that they have, I thought that those two square-shaped touchpads were supposed to show me like a

01:26:40 ◼   ► virtual cursor, like a virtual mouse, but instead they are touch surfaces, but they also act like a

01:26:50 ◼   ► directional pad, meaning that they have up, down, left and right presses. It's very hard to describe.

01:26:59 ◼   ► The other thing I didn't know, I didn't remember, there are additional triggers in the back of the

01:27:08 ◼   ► console. So on the right side you have R4 and R5 and on the left side you have L4 and L5.

01:27:16 ◼   ► This can be remapped to something else. I haven't remapped those buttons yet,

01:27:23 ◼   ► but only one of them is easy to access for my hands and the way that I trigger

01:27:32 ◼   ► these triggers in the back.

01:27:34 ◼   ► They're like actual...

01:27:36 ◼   ► Are they actual switches?

01:27:38 ◼   ► They're not bumpers.

01:27:41 ◼   ► Like they don't...

01:27:42 ◼   ► They're not like R2 and L2.

01:27:44 ◼   ► They're not like you need to press them to slide them down.

01:27:48 ◼   ► They're just buttons.

01:27:49 ◼   ► OK, but they're actual physical buttons, these ones.

01:27:52 ◼   ► Yeah, they are.

01:27:53 ◼   ► Because there's a lot of buttons on this thing.

01:27:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:56 ◼   ► And then you have...

01:27:58 ◼   ► So the other two things that...

01:28:00 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:28:00 ◼   ► The thing about the same--

01:28:04 ◼   ► - Grip buttons is what it says on their website

01:28:06 ◼   ► is what they are.

01:28:08 ◼   ► - What they're called?

01:28:09 ◼   ► - Grip buttons.

01:28:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's kind of like that

01:28:11 ◼   ► because you're gripping the two sides of the console

01:28:15 ◼   ► and you can feel them like with your binky finger

01:28:17 ◼   ► or your ring finger,

01:28:18 ◼   ► but only one of them is easy to access for me.

01:28:20 ◼   ► The other one, I need to move my hand in an awkward position

01:28:23 ◼   ► and I don't like it.

01:28:25 ◼   ► You have these two other front facing buttons

01:28:28 ◼   ► that I wanna talk about.

01:28:29 ◼   ► the Steam button on the left side and the Quick Settings button on the right side.

01:28:34 ◼   ► So the Steam button does a lot of things,

01:28:39 ◼   ► depending on whether you press it or you basically long

01:28:45 ◼   ► press it and hold. So if you hold,

01:28:48 ◼   ► it gives you a cheat sheet of all the combinations of

01:28:54 ◼   ► basically like shortcuts that you can use with,

01:28:58 ◼   ► It's basically like, imagine if the Steam button

01:29:00 ◼   ► is the command key on an Apple keyboard.

01:29:03 ◼   ► - Oh, okay. - It's a modifier.

01:29:05 ◼   ► So for example, you can do Steam plus R1,

01:29:09 ◼   ► and you take a screenshot.

01:29:10 ◼   ► Or you can do Steam and X, and you show the keyboard.

01:29:15 ◼   ► Like, there are dozens of keyboard shortcuts.

01:29:17 ◼   ► Like, I call them keyboard shortcuts,

01:29:19 ◼   ► they are Steam shortcuts that are based on pressing

01:29:22 ◼   ► the Steam button and something else.

01:29:24 ◼   ► - I like that.

01:29:25 ◼   ► It's cool, but for example, in Elden Ring,

01:29:29 ◼   ► when you take a screenshot and you do Steam R1,

01:29:32 ◼   ► the R1 button is still triggered.

01:29:36 ◼   ► So you take a screenshot, but then you also attack.

01:29:39 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:29:41 ◼   ► - Whoops.

01:29:43 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:29:44 ◼   ► There's that.

01:29:47 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:29:48 ◼   ► - And you know, maybe if you are in an area

01:29:49 ◼   ► and you are doing your stealth thing

01:29:52 ◼   ► and you don't wanna attack,

01:29:53 ◼   ► but you wanna take a screenshot,

01:29:55 ◼   ► well then now the enemies are gonna notice you.

01:29:58 ◼   ► So maybe I'm doing this wrong, I don't know.

01:30:00 ◼   ► But so all these shortcuts, I need to memorize them.

01:30:03 ◼   ► You can discover them by long pressing the Steam button.

01:30:08 ◼   ► If you just click it once, you get the Steam menu.

01:30:11 ◼   ► And this is what you use to navigate system-wide

01:30:15 ◼   ► between your library, the store, settings, your friends,

01:30:19 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:30:22 ◼   ► It's nice how easy it is to jump back into your library

01:30:27 ◼   ► or into the store view of Steam.

01:30:31 ◼   ► And when you go into the library,

01:30:34 ◼   ► they do a decent job at showing you like,

01:30:39 ◼   ► here's all the games that you own,

01:30:41 ◼   ► and here's the games that have been

01:30:43 ◼   ► specifically optimized for the deck.

01:30:47 ◼   ► And they show you this like subsection

01:30:51 ◼   ► called Great on Deck.

01:30:53 ◼   ► And for example, Elden Ring is included

01:30:56 ◼   ► as is Portal and I don't remember,

01:31:00 ◼   ► I have like of the 10 games that I own on Steam,

01:31:04 ◼   ► like four or five are optimized for the deck at the moment.

01:31:08 ◼   ► And the quick settings button I wanted to mention.

01:31:11 ◼   ► So the one on the right, it's the three dots.

01:31:13 ◼   ► That shows you, like it's like

01:31:16 ◼   ► the Steam Deck's version of Control Center, right?

01:31:20 ◼   ► It's quick settings for things like brightness, WiFi,

01:31:23 ◼   ► and the most important one, the performance area.

01:31:27 ◼   ► So in the performance area, you get,

01:31:31 ◼   ► you can, there's a basic view and there's an advanced view.

01:31:35 ◼   ► And the advanced view is where I've been spending

01:31:38 ◼   ► a lot of time to understand battery life and performance.

01:31:43 ◼   ► So the thing about the deck is,

01:31:47 ◼   ► If you try and play a game like Elden Ring

01:31:50 ◼   ► at full screen, you know, native resolution,

01:31:53 ◼   ► the deck is a 720p console.

01:31:55 ◼   ► If you play a 720p with high settings,

01:31:59 ◼   ► not maximum, but high settings,

01:32:01 ◼   ► you're gonna get about a hour and a half,

01:32:06 ◼   ► a hour and 40 minutes out of the deck on battery power,

01:32:09 ◼   ► right?

01:32:10 ◼   ► But you're playing a PC game at high settings.

01:32:15 ◼   ► You know, you're playing a full open world game

01:32:18 ◼   ► like Elden Ring at high graphical settings

01:32:21 ◼   ► on a portable thing.

01:32:23 ◼   ► And of course you can plug it in at any time

01:32:25 ◼   ► and you can use any USB-C adapter above 70 watt delivery,

01:32:30 ◼   ► I think, and it's gonna power your deck.

01:32:34 ◼   ► In the performance tab, you can choose a couple of things.

01:32:39 ◼   ► First of all, you can choose how many details

01:32:41 ◼   ► you wanna see.

01:32:43 ◼   ► there's a Steam Deck Performance Overlay.

01:32:46 ◼   ► So for those who are used to playing games on PC,

01:32:49 ◼   ► you may have seen also videos on YouTube,

01:32:52 ◼   ► you can enable all kinds of overlays

01:32:54 ◼   ► that show you additional information

01:32:57 ◼   ► about the game you're playing.

01:32:58 ◼   ► Things like frame rates, how much RAM is being used,

01:33:02 ◼   ► how much your GPU is being used at the moment,

01:33:05 ◼   ► CPU consumption and temperatures, right?

01:33:09 ◼   ► You wanna keep an eye on the temperatures

01:33:10 ◼   ► for your CPU and your GPU.

01:33:13 ◼   ► You can choose how much detail you wanna see

01:33:15 ◼   ► on the Steam Deck.

01:33:16 ◼   ► You can see nothing at all,

01:33:17 ◼   ► or you can just see the frame rates,

01:33:19 ◼   ► or you can see they have this slider

01:33:22 ◼   ► that lets you choose how much detail you wanna see.

01:33:24 ◼   ► And I keep it at two so that I can see,

01:33:27 ◼   ► I either keep it at one or two.

01:33:29 ◼   ► One is just frames per second.

01:33:32 ◼   ► Two shows me, and that's because I wanted

01:33:34 ◼   ► to get these details for connected,

01:33:37 ◼   ► It shows me internal resolution, GPU temperature,

01:33:42 ◼   ► and whether FSR is being used or not.

01:33:47 ◼   ► And this is the thing I wanted to get into.

01:33:49 ◼   ► So FSR, it's SU-AMD's super resolution.

01:33:54 ◼   ► It's basically upscaling, right?

01:33:56 ◼   ► It's based on like these fancy algorithms

01:33:58 ◼   ► and machine learning, and it's a technology

01:34:01 ◼   ► that lets you run a game at a lower resolution

01:34:06 ◼   ► resolution and the software is going to upscale the game for you. The idea is, and

01:34:13 ◼   ► NVIDIA has a version of this called DLSS, I believe, and

01:34:19 ◼   ► FSR, it's native to the Steam Deck, and all games can use it. And you do this by, it's kind of confusing.

01:34:27 ◼   ► You have to manually lower the resolution of a game. So for example, in Elden Ring

01:34:33 ◼   ► I had to manually go from 720p to 800x600.

01:34:40 ◼   ► When you do that, you go into the Performance menu,

01:34:44 ◼   ► and you say, "FSR," you slide it all the way to the top of the slider,

01:34:51 ◼   ► and you say you can choose the sharpening quality.

01:34:55 ◼   ► But at that point, the FSR feature kicks in.

01:34:58 ◼   ► And so even if you're playing a game technically at a lower resolution,

01:35:04 ◼   ► FSR is going to try to upscale the game and make it look better for you.

01:35:10 ◼   ► In practice, so I've done this...

01:35:13 ◼   ► AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution.

01:35:16 ◼   ► Thank you, that's the name.

01:35:18 ◼   ► In practice, I was able to upscale Elden Ring from the lowest possible resolution with FSR,

01:35:28 ◼   ► I gained something like 15, 20 minutes of battery, and I went from 30...

01:35:36 ◼   ► So Elden Ring, this is the other thing I want to get into, the performance.

01:35:39 ◼   ► Elden Ring on the Steam deck, it can run at a pretty solid 30 to 35 frames per second on high settings.

01:35:48 ◼   ► That's pretty good, you know.

01:35:49 ◼   ► It's pretty good.

01:35:50 ◼   ► That's pretty good.

01:35:52 ◼   ► It's not maximum settings, it's not 60 frames per second,

01:35:56 ◼   ► and you get a hour and a half of battery, hey, you're playing Elden Ring on high on a portable console.

01:36:02 ◼   ► With FSR, the image quality is, of course, you know, it's upscaling, it doesn't look as good as the native 720p.

01:36:12 ◼   ► But you gain a few minutes of extra gameplay, and the frame rate jumped from 30 to 35 to 40 to 45,

01:36:24 ◼   ► because the GPU is being tasked less, right?

01:36:28 ◼   ► Because the game is saying,

01:36:30 ◼   ► "Hey, I'm supposed to render this scene

01:36:32 ◼   ► "at this lower resolution,"

01:36:34 ◼   ► but the software kicks in and says,

01:36:36 ◼   ► "Well, I'm gonna upscale this for you

01:36:38 ◼   ► "using my fancy algorithms."

01:36:39 ◼   ► So that was cool to see.

01:36:41 ◼   ► I think, personally, I'm gonna take the performance hit

01:36:45 ◼   ► and still play with the native settings, right,

01:36:48 ◼   ► without FSR enabled.

01:36:50 ◼   ► And also, Elden Ring, it's a pretty demanding game.

01:36:54 ◼   ► It's got these huge open areas and very detailed scenes.

01:36:58 ◼   ► But something like Tunic, for example, or these indie games,

01:37:02 ◼   ► like "World of Myth" from Steam, for example,

01:37:06 ◼   ► those graphically easier games,

01:37:09 ◼   ► I think they're gonna be excellent to play on Steam Deck.

01:37:13 ◼   ► And I don't know, what other questions do you have?

01:37:18 ◼   ► - How are you playing?

01:37:20 ◼   ► Like, are you actually playing it handheld

01:37:23 ◼   ► When you are, are you resting on something?

01:37:26 ◼   ► Do you play it plugged in?

01:37:27 ◼   ► Like, I'm intrigued.

01:37:29 ◼   ► I played handheld without resting on anything.

01:37:34 ◼   ► After, when it was saying like 30%, 40% battery life,

01:37:40 ◼   ► I plugged in the USB-C cable.

01:37:42 ◼   ► I now have a USB cable by my nightstand

01:37:45 ◼   ► that I can use for a bunch of things,

01:37:48 ◼   ► charging my iPad, charging game controllers, and whatever.

01:37:51 ◼   ► I can plug the Steam Deck in and it charges while I play.

01:37:55 ◼   ► But yeah, I've been playing handheld and it's fine.

01:37:58 ◼   ► But is it comfortable though?

01:38:00 ◼   ► Because earlier you mentioned you can put it down when you're playing.

01:38:04 ◼   ► But are you actually playing it, like, holding in your hands for like two hours

01:38:08 ◼   ► and do you find that a comfortable experience?

01:38:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it was pretty much fine.

01:38:13 ◼   ► Like, I guess I rest my elbows on my lap

01:38:18 ◼   ► so that it's not like I'm holding the console

01:38:21 ◼   ► and I'm not resting my elbows on anything.

01:38:25 ◼   ► So it's easier to hold it that way, right?

01:38:29 ◼   ► So I'm holding the steam deck, I got my elbows on my lap,

01:38:32 ◼   ► and so I got a surface to place my arms, basically,

01:38:36 ◼   ► and it's easier that way.

01:38:37 ◼   ► And same on my desk.

01:38:38 ◼   ► Like now, for example, I'm sitting at my desk,

01:38:40 ◼   ► I got my elbows on my desk,

01:38:42 ◼   ► so that if I'm holding something,

01:38:44 ◼   ► like I'm holding this bottle of water right now,

01:38:46 ◼   ► I can feel the weight, but it's not terrible because my elbows are resting on the surface.

01:38:50 ◼   ► What else? I had some problems with Wi-Fi.

01:38:57 ◼   ► This is the one thing I will mention.

01:39:02 ◼   ► SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system.

01:39:08 ◼   ► And you can tell the underlying Linux nature of this thing if you go poke at places that reveal what's underneath.

01:39:23 ◼   ► In my case, I was googling around, like, my Steam Deck was constantly dropping WiFi.

01:39:30 ◼   ► And this is particularly problematic in Elden Ring, because when you play online

01:39:34 ◼   ► you're supposed to always have an active internet connection, so that

01:39:39 ◼   ► you can leave message to other players and there's some

01:39:42 ◼   ► web-based stuff going on in Elden Ring, and you need to always have an internet

01:39:48 ◼   ► connection. If you don't, the game kicks you out, and it's kind of terrible. So I

01:39:53 ◼   ► googled around and basically I needed to go into the settings of the

01:39:58 ◼   ► console, enabled Developer Mode, and once Developer Mode was enabled, I had to turn

01:40:05 ◼   ► off an option called the Wi-Fi Power Savings, which appears to be a setting

01:40:11 ◼   ► that Valve enabled by default to let the Steam Deck basically use less battery by

01:40:17 ◼   ► turning off Wi-Fi. But in doing that, my console was disconnecting from Wi-Fi too

01:40:24 ◼   ► often. And so, of course, there were people on Reddit with the same

01:40:28 ◼   ► problem, and that fixed it. Another thing I will mention. The first time I got

01:40:35 ◼   ► it, I logged in with my Steam account, and it downloaded a

01:40:40 ◼   ► bunch of updates from the Steam cloud. And it ran through those updates,

01:40:46 ◼   ► and everything was fine. Then I went into Settings, and it told me, "You have to

01:40:51 ◼   ► to perform an additional round of firmware updates.

01:40:56 ◼   ► And the console told me, like,

01:40:58 ◼   ► "You're gonna see, like, I believe it was like,

01:41:01 ◼   ► that was the literal language.

01:41:02 ◼   ► Like, you're gonna see a scary black screen.

01:41:05 ◼   ► Don't worry, that's normal.

01:41:07 ◼   ► We are updating the firmware."

01:41:09 ◼   ► And I sent you the pictures of what I saw.

01:41:14 ◼   ► It was a portrait message with this, like, terminal font.

01:41:19 ◼   ► font that said "please do not remove the AC power" and it was like current BIOS model

01:41:27 ◼   ► name, new BIOS model name.

01:41:30 ◼   ► Like it was like Chachani Van Gogh.

01:41:33 ◼   ► It was a Linux firmware update, like flash firmware tool that was super scary and I was

01:41:40 ◼   ► like I was staring at it and thinking Nintendo would never do this on a Nintendo Switch.

01:41:46 ◼   ► He would never see this kind of thing.

01:41:48 ◼   ► So this to say, the Steam Deck is at this point an enthusiast console, right?

01:41:55 ◼   ► It's for people who are really into Steam and really into PC gaming and would love to

01:42:01 ◼   ► have that experience on the go.

01:42:04 ◼   ► Oh, would you put Windows on it?

01:42:06 ◼   ► No, no.

01:42:07 ◼   ► I was watching the...

01:42:10 ◼   ► Linus was doing some...

01:42:12 ◼   ► Linus tech tips.

01:42:14 ◼   ► Yes, thank you.

01:42:16 ◼   ► Tech tips, yes.

01:42:17 ◼   ► I did a video, they've been doing some really excellent

01:42:21 ◼   ► Steam Deck coverage.

01:42:23 ◼   ► And they did a video about like not installing Windows

01:42:28 ◼   ► on the Steam Deck and it's like, yeah, I'm not gonna do that

01:42:31 ◼   ► because of all the like weird firmware stuff,

01:42:34 ◼   ► drivers that were not ready,

01:42:36 ◼   ► drivers that were not optimized for Steam Deck.

01:42:38 ◼   ► I believe Valve has since released a few updates,

01:42:42 ◼   ► But I feel like, and all of this will be clear more

01:42:47 ◼   ► in tomorrow's surprise episode of Unwind.

01:42:52 ◼   ► But I feel like at this point--

01:42:53 ◼   ► - Oh, I know what that is.

01:42:54 ◼   ► - You know, you are, you were, you were, I told Jon.

01:42:59 ◼   ► So we are literally gonna put out an episode

01:43:01 ◼   ► called Federico's Surprise.

01:43:03 ◼   ► And I told Jon on the show that you were the only person

01:43:07 ◼   ► who knew about this.

01:43:08 ◼   ► So more will be clear tomorrow.

01:43:11 ◼   ► but I am fine with leaving the default vanilla SteamOS

01:43:16 ◼   ► on the Steam Deck.

01:43:17 ◼   ► I don't need to put Windows on it.

01:43:19 ◼   ► I wanna see what it looks like by default for most people.

01:43:23 ◼   ► So you could put Windows on it, but I don't really want to.

01:43:27 ◼   ► I am gonna put emulators on it though.

01:43:28 ◼   ► I am gonna, because you can enter,

01:43:32 ◼   ► without having to install anything else,

01:43:35 ◼   ► you can enter a proper Linux UI,

01:43:38 ◼   ► And from there you can manually install packages.

01:43:42 ◼   ► And I wanna install Dolphin emulator on it.

01:43:45 ◼   ► - Of course.

01:43:46 ◼   ► - To see what it looks like on the Steam Deck.

01:43:48 ◼   ► - Well, I'm very keen to hear how this progresses,

01:43:52 ◼   ► your Steam Deck experiences.

01:43:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, me too. - We'll talk about it.

01:43:56 ◼   ► - Me too, and it's nice because everything syncs

01:44:01 ◼   ► with the cloud and with the Steam Cloud.

01:44:04 ◼   ► and Valve, they're trying to mimic the experience of a Nintendo Switch where you can suspend

01:44:14 ◼   ► the console at any time, but of course when you play something like Elden Ring and you

01:44:19 ◼   ► need to have a cloud save in your Steam account, they're trying to do things where they always

01:44:24 ◼   ► try to upload your latest save when you suspend the console.

01:44:30 ◼   ► And I don't feel safe doing it personally right now, so when I'm playing on the Steam

01:44:36 ◼   ► Deck I always save, manually quit the game, wait for the game to stop in the Steam UI,

01:44:44 ◼   ► make sure that it says "Cloud save updated" and then I turn off the...

01:44:49 ◼   ► I suspend the console and I put it to sleep.

01:44:51 ◼   ► That's a lot.

01:44:52 ◼   ► It's an early feature and it's the first take on this, so you know, gotta be careful.

01:44:59 ◼   ► All right, if you would like to hear Federico and I talk more about gaming stuff, if that's

01:45:04 ◼   ► your thing, you can go to getconnectedpro.co.

01:45:07 ◼   ► We spoke about some games in Connected Pro that were planned today.

01:45:10 ◼   ► Of course, we do host a video game podcast here on Relay FM, a monthly show with Shaheed

01:45:15 ◼   ► Ahmad about video games called Remaster.

01:45:20 ◼   ► You can check it out for yourself at relay.fm/remaster if that is your scene.

01:45:25 ◼   ► You may enjoy it.

01:45:26 ◼   ► connected pro.co and you can get longer ad free versions of every single episode of connected,

01:45:34 ◼   ► which is either $5 a month or $50 a year. Please go check it out. Thank you if you do.

01:45:38 ◼   ► And also thanks to our sponsors this week, indeed, tax expander and member for if you

01:45:43 ◼   ► want to find Federico online, you can go to max stories.net and he is at the TTVI TICCI

01:45:48 ◼   ► I'm at I Myke I M Y K E Stephen we're back next week. If you really miss him in the meantime,

01:45:54 ◼   ► 512pixels.net and @ismh on Twitter. Thank you very much for listening to this week's

01:46:01 ◼   ► episode of Connected. Until next time, say goodbye Federico.

01:46:05 ◼   ► Adios, adios, goodbye. Bye y'all, love y'all. See ya. Whatever he says. iPhone. iPhone.

01:46:14 ◼   ► iPhone.