Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected episode 346.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It's made possible this week by our sponsors,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Pingdom, Squarespace, and Indeed.

00:00:18 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett

00:00:19 ◼   ► and I am joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - Hello, hi, how are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► - I'm good, how are you?

00:00:25 ◼   ► - I'm doing fantastic today, yes.

00:00:29 ◼   ► This is a very Federico heavy episode, I think.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Hmm. Okay. I like it.

00:00:33 ◼   ► I hope you got some ginger tea or something,

00:00:35 ◼   ► because you're really going to have to go for it today.

00:00:38 ◼   ► And the voice you heard is Myke Hurley.

00:00:40 ◼   ► All right, Governor.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Speaking before his official introduction.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Yet again.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Yet again.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Just doesn't respect the rules.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Myke waits for no man.

00:00:49 ◼   ► I just steam in. I don't care.

00:00:51 ◼   ► We ready for follow-up?

00:00:53 ◼   ► We are.

00:00:53 ◼   ► I sure am.

00:00:54 ◼   ► We got a bunch of feedback about

00:00:57 ◼   ► Big Sur and external displays, it just seems like it's really bad, really bad at waking up external displays.

00:01:05 ◼   ► I've noticed a little bit of difference in my system. I changed the setting so the computer stays awake, but the screen can go to sleep.

00:01:15 ◼   ► And that seems to have helped it a little bit, but basically it just seems that Big Sur really struggles,

00:01:23 ◼   ► especially if you're using a Thunderbolt dock on your system.

00:01:27 ◼   ► Now Myke, you came across a firmware update for yours, right?

00:01:31 ◼   ► Yeah, Jason was one of the people that wrote in to tell me that

00:01:35 ◼   ► they had had previous issues with their CalDigit TS3, which is what I have,

00:01:40 ◼   ► with the same problem that I was having. That basically you had to like unplug

00:01:45 ◼   ► and replug things a bunch of times to get the screen to come on.

00:01:48 ◼   ► But I was told that there are firmware updates for the CalDigit.

00:01:52 ◼   ► So I installed the software and it provided it performs the firmware update,

00:01:57 ◼   ► which I think is similar to how Mac OS updates the pro display.

00:02:02 ◼   ► So you get a little thing in the top right hand corner notification.

00:02:05 ◼   ► It says there is an update for your accessory.

00:02:07 ◼   ► I think I've seen people like you Steven post, uh, images like that, right?

00:02:11 ◼   ► That's what the pro display says. And so you just do it through Mac OS.

00:02:14 ◼   ► And since I did that, it has worked flawlessly.

00:02:17 ◼   ► Every time I plug the cable in, I can leave the laptop closed.

00:02:21 ◼   ► it immediately to like everything's connected the screen comes on perfect so if you have the

00:02:26 ◼   ► CalDigit TS3 and you have the issues that I was having with the monitors not being recognized

00:02:31 ◼   ► make sure that you update to the most recent firmware which is on CalDigit's website. I'll

00:02:36 ◼   ► put a link in the show notes to the CalDigit downloads page and thank you to Jason who

00:02:41 ◼   ► recommended that to me because it solved my issue and I love it. I'm really sad now because there's

00:02:47 ◼   ► no firmware download for the Belkin dock.

00:02:50 ◼   ► I should get a Calzit.

00:02:52 ◼   ► This is what they do.

00:02:55 ◼   ► I'm supposed to get like a test unit for the new OWC one at some point soon so maybe that'll

00:03:02 ◼   ► work better, I don't know.

00:03:06 ◼   ► Why doesn't Belkin have downloadable firmware files from their website?

00:03:11 ◼   ► Because maybe they don't have a firmware update at all, right?

00:03:15 ◼   ► Maybe that's the problem.

00:03:16 ◼   ► They just don't have one.

00:03:17 ◼   ► Well that's disappointing, isn't it?

00:03:20 ◼   ► It is.

00:03:21 ◼   ► I guess so.

00:03:22 ◼   ► OK.

00:03:23 ◼   ► CalDigit have something coming up, I think it's like, maybe they started shipping it,

00:03:26 ◼   ► but it's called the Element Hub, which is a Thunderbolt 4 hub, and that thing looks

00:03:31 ◼   ► awesome.

00:03:32 ◼   ► It can do tons of stuff.

00:03:33 ◼   ► So maybe just get one of those, Federico, put a pre-order in or something.

00:03:37 ◼   ► I'll check it out.

00:03:38 ◼   ► OK.

00:03:39 ◼   ► Yeah, meanwhile I'm just unplugging and re-plugging cables like a caveman, but sure.

00:03:44 ◼   ► Yeah, it's fine. TS3 is good though, can recommend. We also have follow-up about the Magic Keyboard

00:03:54 ◼   ► and the iPad Pro. We're going to obviously talk about Federico's M1 iPad Pro review, but I wanted

00:03:59 ◼   ► to pull this out here that you can use the old Magic Keyboard with the new 12.9 inch iPad Pro,

00:04:06 ◼   ► even though it's a hair thicker. It just seems like Apple totally dropped the ball on this

00:04:10 ◼   ► communication to me. Yeah, it's like it's totally fine. I tried it multiple times,

00:04:16 ◼   ► like I honestly don't understand where the problem is supposed to be. It closes

00:04:20 ◼   ► fine, there's no like weird pressure going on against the screen, there's no

00:04:26 ◼   ► gap that I can see, it just attaches fine. Again, it's fine. I don't know

00:04:34 ◼   ► what to say about it. Don't feel like you should buy a new

00:04:38 ◼   ► Magic Keyboard if you're getting the new iPad Pro. Now, I don't know if it's

00:04:43 ◼   ► different with the 11-inch iPad Pro, but I feel like most people are not gonna

00:04:46 ◼   ► get the 11-inch anyway. The 11-inch didn't get updated at all. Oh, see, there

00:04:50 ◼   ► you go, okay. Well, don't buy a new Magic Keyboard, unless you really want one in

00:04:56 ◼   ► white, which is a different color, which is a different discussion, but I know

00:05:01 ◼   ► that it's a different color than gray. Yes, black and white are different. Congratulations!

00:05:06 ◼   ► Look, there's people who cannot tell colors apart, although maybe I guess you can tell.

00:05:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know if black/white colorblind is a thing.

00:05:15 ◼   ► Here's a question. Black and white colorblindness doesn't exist, right?

00:05:20 ◼   ► I don't know. I don't know.

00:05:23 ◼   ► Well, now you're making me think about this. Does it exist, black and white colorblindness?

00:05:26 ◼   ► No, I don't think it does. Still, the old one works fine. I cannot tell what the problem is supposed to be.

00:05:33 ◼   ► I don't understand why Apple had such a confusing message around all of this.

00:05:40 ◼   ► So, I wish I could say the same about the Kensington Studio doc, though.

00:05:44 ◼   ► Just before we talk about that real quick, I just want to underscore the point that you both made.

00:05:48 ◼   ► Like, clearly they felt like they wanted to change it, right? Which is totally fine.

00:05:52 ◼   ► If Apple wanted to change it, they wanted to change it.

00:05:54 ◼   ► If they felt like the tolerances could be better, right?

00:05:56 ◼   ► That maybe they think over long, extended periods of use,

00:06:00 ◼   ► maybe it's better to have it fit just right or whatever.

00:06:02 ◼   ► They should have just clarified it faster.

00:06:06 ◼   ► It was days of stories of people saying it wouldn't fit.

00:06:10 ◼   ► And then they said, oh, it will fit.

00:06:12 ◼   ► And now it's been proven.

00:06:13 ◼   ► But like, I don't know why they just left it for days without saying,

00:06:18 ◼   ► yeah, it's I don't sometimes things I don't understand.

00:06:22 ◼   ► like it confuses me. I have no doubt that sites like The Verge or whatever contacted Apple to try

00:06:26 ◼   ► and get like a comment on it as well. It's like it's probably not like it blindsided them. I don't

00:06:31 ◼   ► know why they did that. But anyway, things aren't as rosy for Kensington. No, because the 0.5

00:06:36 ◼   ► millimeter difference between the old iPad Pro and the new one was enough to make the new iPad Pro

00:06:43 ◼   ► not compatible with the attachment panel that they have in the Studio Dock.

00:06:50 ◼   ► So I tested this by trying to plug the iPad Pro into the USB-C connector of the Kensington

00:06:57 ◼   ► Studio Dock, and the moment I saw that I was applying too much strength and the thing was

00:07:03 ◼   ► just not going in, I knew that I had to give up, otherwise I was going to destroy the review

00:07:09 ◼   ► unit.

00:07:10 ◼   ► It was like, "Nope, I'm going to stop here."

00:07:13 ◼   ► We talked about this last week. Should have Kensington designed this accessory with a

00:07:20 ◼   ► replaceable attachment part? Maybe. Especially if this is an accessory that you're going

00:07:26 ◼   ► to release two months before a new iPad Pro that everyone knows at this point is getting

00:07:34 ◼   ► a new display technology. And usually, when you hear "new display technology", you hear

00:07:39 ◼   ► oh, there may be some slight changes in how thick or thin the device is.

00:07:45 ◼   ► And you, Myke, you mentioned that accessory that you bought for Adina that very cleverly

00:07:51 ◼   ► has a replaceable unit so that if you change your iPad, you don't have to upgrade the whole

00:07:56 ◼   ► thing.

00:07:57 ◼   ► You just get that specific part changed.

00:08:00 ◼   ► So now if you have the Kensington Studio dock, you have effectively like a $400 paperweight

00:08:06 ◼   ► on your desk if you want to use the new iPad Pro.

00:08:09 ◼   ► I mean you've really got to hope that they weren't thinking, "Oh, if we just, you know,

00:08:14 ◼   ► we could design it differently, but if we design it this way maybe people will upgrade

00:08:18 ◼   ► every couple of years."

00:08:19 ◼   ► Like I've just got to hope that that wasn't the thinking, because that's stupid thinking.

00:08:24 ◼   ► If that was the case, they were like, "Oh, if we design it this way, it means people

00:08:30 ◼   ► can't..."

00:08:31 ◼   ► If they if so, maybe they would think right the thought process could go

00:08:36 ◼   ► Hey the way we've designed this means that if Apple changes the dimensions of the iPad Pro

00:08:40 ◼   ► You'd need to get a new one of these and then someone goes that's okay

00:08:45 ◼   ► We'll create a product where maybe every two to three years people will buy a new one. That's good for us, right?

00:08:52 ◼   ► You can see that thinking but that thinking

00:08:55 ◼   ► So bad because now

00:08:57 ◼   ► Who's gonna buy the product?

00:09:00 ◼   ► Right? I wouldn't I would not buy this product now

00:09:03 ◼   ► Because I would know if Apple were to change the iPad Pro again next year, which they could for all we know

00:09:10 ◼   ► I would now need to buy another thing every year and I'm just not gonna do that

00:09:14 ◼   ► I mean, I liked the Studio Doc, but

00:09:18 ◼   ► I'm not getting a new one because unless they make some like you mentioned unless they make some changes to

00:09:24 ◼   ► How it's supposed to work like I don't want to buy a new one every year, you know

00:09:29 ◼   ► So it's unfortunate.

00:09:31 ◼   ► No, if they made a future model where clearly you could, you know, and they were like, "Hey,

00:09:35 ◼   ► we now have replaceable brackets or whatever."

00:09:38 ◼   ► Be like, "Yeah, okay, fine.

00:09:39 ◼   ► Like, I can get on board with that."

00:09:41 ◼   ► Sure.

00:09:42 ◼   ► The M1 iMacs are out.

00:09:44 ◼   ► As you listen to this, they're on FedEx planes and UPS trucks making their way to people.

00:09:51 ◼   ► We've seen a bunch of reviews come out.

00:09:53 ◼   ► I definitely want to point people to Jason's over on Six Colors, as well as Upgrade 353,

00:09:59 ◼   ► Myke you and Jason spoke about the new machine. I'm really excited I've got one

00:10:04 ◼   ► coming this week and I can't wait to see it. I'm I'm really excited about a this

00:10:09 ◼   ► machine even though it's a it's a consumer iMac and the screen is smaller

00:10:14 ◼   ► than I'd want to use and all these things it's uh it's pretty awesome.

00:10:19 ◼   ► Is yours due Friday? It is due Friday by noon although it's been in

00:10:24 ◼   ► Memphis for like four days already just hanging out at FedEx apparently. Yeah

00:10:28 ◼   ► easy for you you could just drive down to the airport and pick it up. Yeah, hey hey like be at the

00:10:32 ◼   ► gate you have my computer can I have it? You just catch the person as they're coming out of the

00:10:38 ◼   ► that's right right in the morning be like I'll just take this from you yeah thanks Joe Joe I got my computer

00:10:45 ◼   ► Oh he's back everyone's favorite character's back do we have a name for that character or is it just you?

00:10:52 ◼   ► (laughter)

00:10:54 ◼   ► Because this person's always talking to Joe.

00:10:57 ◼   ► Southern Steven.

00:10:58 ◼   ► Southern Steven. Yeah.

00:11:00 ◼   ► Maybe with a V, right? It's a Steven with a V.

00:11:03 ◼   ► What else? Who is Joe?

00:11:04 ◼   ► I feel like Joe is the neighbor that I'm yelling at, like across the street.

00:11:07 ◼   ► Joe, the keyboard is ORANGE!

00:11:10 ◼   ► (laughter)

00:11:12 ◼   ► How did you say orange?

00:11:14 ◼   ► I think he said orange. It was just the sound, like orange.

00:11:18 ◼   ► Orange!

00:11:19 ◼   ► Orange.

00:11:21 ◼   ► It's got Touch ID!

00:11:26 ◼   ► I'm excited.

00:11:27 ◼   ► I wish they would just make one key with the Touch ID, right?

00:11:31 ◼   ► You just buy one key, that's it.

00:11:33 ◼   ► Right?

00:11:34 ◼   ► You don't need the keyboard.

00:11:35 ◼   ► You get whatever keyboard you want.

00:11:36 ◼   ► Just like one...

00:11:37 ◼   ► Like the Touch ID button.

00:11:40 ◼   ► Like, it's just that.

00:11:42 ◼   ► Just that's all it is.

00:11:43 ◼   ► It sounds like a guy who builds keyboards for fun.

00:11:45 ◼   ► Yes.

00:11:46 ◼   ► It's like one key, you keep it on your desk and you press it and it's just that.

00:11:50 ◼   ► And you press it and you authenticate.

00:11:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:52 ◼   ► I kind of like it.

00:11:53 ◼   ► Little thing, just one beep and it's done.

00:11:55 ◼   ► Because I could imagine I would have like the Touch ID keyboard just sits on the foot

00:12:02 ◼   ► of the iMac and all I use it for is just for Touch ID and then use my own keyboard.

00:12:06 ◼   ► I could imagine if I had one of these machines, it's probably what I would do.

00:12:09 ◼   ► I would just leave the Touch ID keyboard there and ding.

00:12:12 ◼   ► What I would like more, honestly, is Touch ID built into a trackpad.

00:12:16 ◼   ► That's what I would like to see them do.

00:12:18 ◼   ► I think that'd be super nice.

00:12:19 ◼   ► I hope they, I hope one day they would do that.

00:12:22 ◼   ► I don't know why they didn't.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Right.

00:12:24 ◼   ► And I'm sure that most people do just use the keyboard that comes out of

00:12:27 ◼   ► computer, especially when that keyboard is color matched to their computer.

00:12:31 ◼   ► I mean, more people are going to use their new iMac keyboards than they would

00:12:35 ◼   ► have otherwise, right?

00:12:36 ◼   ► Cause it's like, you now have the red keyboard for your red computer or whatever.

00:12:40 ◼   ► Like it's just like a fun little thing to do, but I do wish that they would

00:12:43 ◼   ► put it into track pads too.

00:12:44 ◼   ► So I could then just use the track pad.

00:12:46 ◼   ► So here's a question, like a serious question for you both.

00:12:50 ◼   ► Do you think that these iMacs are possible now?

00:12:55 ◼   ► With all these fun touches, right,

00:12:57 ◼   ► the color matched keyboard, the color itself,

00:13:00 ◼   ► and the screensaver with the cursive hello,

00:13:03 ◼   ► like all these sort of retro, fun personality touches,

00:13:08 ◼   ► do you feel like these are possible now

00:13:09 ◼   ► because Johnny is no longer in charge of design at Apple?

00:13:14 ◼   ► I don't like to play this game too much, right?

00:13:17 ◼   ► I feel like we've said this on the show before.

00:13:18 ◼   ► Sure. Every once in a while though.

00:13:20 ◼   ► Because, you know, people like to, I think people blame too,

00:13:24 ◼   ► or ascribe too much blame to Johnny Ive.

00:13:27 ◼   ► Like they just put everything that they don't like about Apple products on him.

00:13:30 ◼   ► But I 100% believe that this is the,

00:13:33 ◼   ► this is post Johnny Ive design.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Not that he necessarily wouldn't have done this.

00:13:39 ◼   ► Look, the guy could have fun.

00:13:41 ◼   ► I mean, we had a space gray MacBook.

00:13:44 ◼   ► and a silver MacBook and then a gold one. It was off the chain.

00:13:47 ◼   ► Oh yeah and then the rose gold one.

00:13:49 ◼   ► Oh woof!

00:13:50 ◼   ► But you know what I mean? Look I'm not saying that they wouldn't have done this if he was still there

00:13:55 ◼   ► but this is very clearly the first product that I... well one of the first products if not the

00:14:03 ◼   ► first product that Apple would have designed post Johnny completely right? Because you've got to

00:14:08 ◼   ► assume that the iPhones have been in development for way longer this is such

00:14:13 ◼   ► a huge change yeah I would believe that I would personally believe that

00:14:19 ◼   ► and again I don't know if it's because of him but I would say that it is the

00:14:23 ◼   ► first probably post Johnny design. There was also this little tidbit in a

00:14:27 ◼   ► Gurman report saying that Apple pulled off working on the bigger iMac to finish

00:14:33 ◼   ► this one which in my mind kind of leads to what you're saying of like this was

00:14:38 ◼   ► done very recently. I don't know what to think about that little part of that

00:14:43 ◼   ► report. That's weird right? That report itself is is really intriguing. We're not gonna get into it

00:14:46 ◼   ► today maybe we will on a future episode but that's just like I don't understand

00:14:51 ◼   ► like were they surprised by the 24 inch iMac? Like wow we forgot about it right?

00:14:56 ◼   ► Like I don't understand I don't get it right like why would people need to stop

00:15:01 ◼   ► working on one thing to... but look this stuff is big and complicated and I don't

00:15:04 ◼   ► understand it. It also gives you the idea that Apple has like six people

00:15:07 ◼   ► working on computers yeah which is also I mean maybe they do when it comes to

00:15:14 ◼   ► some parts like the design maybe maybe the design teams are really small how

00:15:18 ◼   ► many people do you need to make that to design a computer from a visual

00:15:22 ◼   ► perspective I don't know it's probably not a hundred people right just not

00:15:26 ◼   ► designed like from the initial design parts especially with the way that Apple

00:15:31 ◼   ► works in these like smaller teams where they can keep things more controlled it

00:15:35 ◼   ► It is a peculiar tidbit.

00:15:37 ◼   ► You know, I wonder if this is one of those things,

00:15:40 ◼   ► like, is this completely accurate

00:15:42 ◼   ► or is this something someone said

00:15:44 ◼   ► because that was their view, right?

00:15:46 ◼   ► Like, maybe this person, the person that spoke to Mark Gurman

00:15:50 ◼   ► got moved from one team to another.

00:15:52 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:15:53 ◼   ► I guess we'll find out and see how long it takes

00:15:55 ◼   ► for a bigger iMac to come around.

00:15:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:57 ◼   ► And if, like, it looks completely different,

00:16:00 ◼   ► like it was made by a different company,

00:16:01 ◼   ► he's like, "Ah, what happened there?"

00:16:04 ◼   ► It's like a Dell. It's got like leather on the back or something.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Hey, it'd be hot.

00:16:11 ◼   ► That's the Johnny Ive edition. Rich Corinthian leather on the back.

00:16:14 ◼   ► And then you get a felt one for Scott Forstel, it'd be amazing.

00:16:17 ◼   ► Man, imagine a display that is actually wrapped in leather.

00:16:20 ◼   ► I think HP did that.

00:16:21 ◼   ► They did a whole laptop like that.

00:16:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:16:25 ◼   ► What if they did a Mac that was like a real throwback?

00:16:29 ◼   ► I mean, we think the colors are throwback, but what if it's like beige and has a CRT?

00:16:34 ◼   ► I'd be a pro computer for someone.

00:16:37 ◼   ► You know that there's still folks who, non-ironically,

00:16:42 ◼   ► and I see these photos every once in a while in my Twitter timeline,

00:16:47 ◼   ► that still like to work, usually they're writers,

00:16:51 ◼   ► on like an original Macintosh. That's how Jason works.

00:16:55 ◼   ► But not that they just actually like write articles,

00:16:58 ◼   ► or essays, or whatever, or books on like, what was it called, MacWrite?

00:17:04 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I thought that we do this like as a, like as a, as an experiment, right? As

00:17:11 ◼   ► a, as a, not as a joke, but like as a thing that like every once in a while I may play a really

00:17:16 ◼   ► old game on, I don't know, a GameCube for example, but it's not like that's my main console, right?

00:17:22 ◼   ► But there's folks who actually work on old, like really old Macs, and I think that's fascinating.

00:17:32 ◼   ► I think people like the idea of having a machine that Twitter's not on.

00:17:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm sure that's part of that. But also, I feel like... I don't know, I struggle to imagine that.

00:17:44 ◼   ► And I also feel like it's possible with old computers and with old video game consoles,

00:17:51 ◼   ► because I feel like they're kind of similar from that point of view, that don't have internet access.

00:17:56 ◼   ► For example, I think if you tried to get your work done on, say, an iPad 4, it would be a nightmare.

00:18:05 ◼   ► It would be a nightmare because, like, you wouldn't be able to install apps, you wouldn't be able to

00:18:10 ◼   ► run software updates, right? Because that's an old machine, but it's not old, old, and there's

00:18:16 ◼   ► the internet that complicates things. But if you want to use an original Macintosh in 2021, sure,

00:18:23 ◼   ► that's, you know, provided it works, it's slow, but you can still work on it because it doesn't

00:18:30 ◼   ► have the internet. So maybe what I'm getting at is the internet has ruined everything, maybe. Like

00:18:36 ◼   ► it was a bad idea to connect all of us. This is deeper than I wanted to go. Can we like jump back

00:18:42 ◼   ► out now? I mean, who would want to be connected? Right? I want maximum connection. I want connected

00:18:48 ◼   ► pro. Myke, where can people find connected pro? The longer ad-free version of the show.

00:18:52 ◼   ► get connected pro.co then. What if we stop doing the podcast we just talk on the phone

00:18:57 ◼   ► and then we record we record the phone call and but yeah that would still be a podcast after all.

00:19:05 ◼   ► What if it's like just the three of us and then I start reading a pingdom ad? I feel like this is

00:19:09 ◼   ► like what the kids today will be doing right but like they won't they'll be they'll have like

00:19:14 ◼   ► private podcasts that are just telephone calls right and that's that's just where we're going.

00:19:21 ◼   ► I'm sure there's like a, there's a Silicon Valley startup somewhere that's trying to reinvent the

00:19:26 ◼   ► idea of a phone call by saying it's a private podcast with your friends.

00:19:30 ◼   ► Oh god.

00:19:31 ◼   ► Federico, if you tweeted that you would raise 20 million dollars in half an hour.

00:19:37 ◼   ► It's literally just a phone call.

00:19:40 ◼   ► Imagine a podcast that only you and your friends listen to.

00:19:46 ◼   ► We call it Phone Call.

00:19:49 ◼   ► Imagine if you didn't have to create an account anywhere.

00:19:54 ◼   ► And imagine if you could get an object

00:19:56 ◼   ► that was tied to transmitting your voice.

00:20:00 ◼   ► And we call that object a SIM card.

00:20:02 ◼   ► Oh.

00:20:04 ◼   ► Right? It's a physical token.

00:20:06 ◼   ► It's like an NFT, but in real life.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Okay?

00:20:10 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:20:12 ◼   ► Oh, we have so much to talk about today.

00:20:14 ◼   ► Can we move on?

00:20:17 ◼   ► Can we move on?

00:20:18 ◼   ► Come on, Steven, you're in control of this show.

00:20:20 ◼   ► You've let this get out of control now.

00:20:22 ◼   ► Have I?

00:20:22 ◼   ► You've got to rein us in.

00:20:24 ◼   ► This is what happens when you let us talk after I'm done with the big project.

00:20:29 ◼   ► This is what happens.

00:20:30 ◼   ► I know, loopy.

00:20:31 ◼   ► Please be the adult here and take care of this.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Okay, well, let's move on.

00:20:35 ◼   ► Let's move on.

00:20:36 ◼   ► This phone call is brought to you by Pingdom from SolarWinds.

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00:21:23 ◼   ► - Wow, did you do that math in your head?

00:21:25 ◼   ► - No, I did it in Alfred while I was talking.

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00:22:22 ◼   ► Our thanks to Pingdom from SolarWinds

00:22:24 ◼   ► for the support of the show and Relay FM.

00:22:26 ◼   ► - So Federico published a fantastic review

00:22:30 ◼   ► of the iPad Pro today.

00:22:32 ◼   ► So the 2021, you only got the 12.9, right?

00:22:36 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:22:37 ◼   ► - Really, I think it was,

00:22:39 ◼   ► I think maybe some I saw in some video reviews, like some people seem to have gotten both,

00:22:43 ◼   ► but nobody really spoke about the 11 because there really isn't.

00:22:47 ◼   ► It's just the things to talk about happening on the larger one and the 11 has everything

00:22:52 ◼   ► else right?

00:22:53 ◼   ► Like it's only missing features.

00:22:54 ◼   ► It's not it doesn't have anything extra special to it.

00:22:58 ◼   ► I read your review.

00:22:59 ◼   ► It was awesome.

00:23:00 ◼   ► I have a bunch of questions for you.

00:23:01 ◼   ► Okay, go for it.

00:23:02 ◼   ► All right.

00:23:03 ◼   ► So I'm ready.

00:23:04 ◼   ► The physical size of the device, right?

00:23:05 ◼   ► screen has remained 12.9 inches and all that kind of stuff and you know the dimensions

00:23:09 ◼   ► of it are the same but it got a little thicker and it got a little heavier. Now when you

00:23:13 ◼   ► look at these measurements what is it like 0.49 millimeters, it got half a millimeter

00:23:19 ◼   ► thicker and like a tiny amount heavier right? 643 grams is the 2020 model so it's 42 grams

00:23:26 ◼   ► heavier than that one at 685 and 0.5 millimeters thicker. These seem like imperceptible on

00:23:32 ◼   ► their own, right? Like half a millimeter, what's that? Can you barely even see it?

00:23:36 ◼   ► You know, or like could you even imagine how much 42 grams was? So when you take

00:23:40 ◼   ► these things out of context, they don't really seem like much of a difference.

00:23:43 ◼   ► Are they that much of a difference? You can feel it, especially if you're like

00:23:49 ◼   ► the kind of person who is really accustomed to like holding the iPad

00:23:53 ◼   ► every day and... Yeah, I always notice when the phones change weight, for example, no

00:23:58 ◼   ► matter how much. Yes, yes, exactly. And I, especially over the last few months,

00:24:02 ◼   ► since I've started using the iPad to like to read and to just browse around

00:24:07 ◼   ► at the end of the day like I'm using it as a tablet more I feel like I've

00:24:12 ◼   ► developed again like that sort of muscle memory like between like my my thumb and

00:24:17 ◼   ► my index finger when I'm holding the iPad that I'm really tuned to like the

00:24:21 ◼   ► physical thickness of the device and so as soon as I got the new one out of the

00:24:26 ◼   ► box I could tell that it was slightly heavier and just slightly thicker than

00:24:31 ◼   ► before, but it's not a big deal. Especially the thickness, it doesn't really matter. The

00:24:39 ◼   ► weight difference, you can feel it, and just to make sure that I was correct, I did a bunch

00:24:45 ◼   ► of blind tests with Silvia. I was like, "Hey, close your eyes and give me your hands. They're

00:24:52 ◼   ► going to give you one iPad and another iPad. Please don't drop them."

00:24:55 ◼   ► Things get wild in the Fotici household.

00:24:57 ◼   ► Yes, she was really helpful with this review.

00:25:01 ◼   ► A very kind person to help you out with all of this stuff.

00:25:04 ◼   ► And every single time she picked the new one as the heavier one or the lighter one as the

00:25:10 ◼   ► old one and vice versa.

00:25:11 ◼   ► So the blind tests confirm that you can feel it, but again, not a huge deal.

00:25:18 ◼   ► Also, I feel like how many people are going to use a 12.9-inch iPad Pro as a tablet that

00:25:26 ◼   ► frequently. Like, sure, there's enough people like me out there. I mean, I assume that some

00:25:33 ◼   ► folks reading Mac stories have kind of my same preferences, but this is mostly an iPad

00:25:38 ◼   ► that the majority of users are going to keep in a smart keyboard, in a Magic Keyboard,

00:25:43 ◼   ► right? So it doesn't really matter. But you can see it, you can feel it, it's okay.

00:25:48 ◼   ► The 12.9 really isn't designed to be held in the same way that other iPads are designed

00:25:54 ◼   ► to be held anyway. It's just big. I want to jump straight to the display. This is the

00:25:58 ◼   ► thing that has become the most intriguing to me. So I figured it's going to look really

00:26:05 ◼   ► nice right? I think we all thought that. It's going to look really nice. HDR is going to

00:26:09 ◼   ► look great. Wow it seems like it's going to be like a pro display. How cool does that

00:26:13 ◼   ► sound? And you just kind of think well that's just going to be better than what we currently

00:26:17 ◼   ► have. But the difference is in the black levels. So you show these images in like photos of

00:26:23 ◼   ► the iPads, both with a what is should be pure black background. And the new iPad shows it

00:26:31 ◼   ► black. The old iPad, it looks visibly blue. It looks like it's just a completely different

00:26:38 ◼   ► thing. When I saw these, I mean, I think we were all like this, right? You sent these

00:26:42 ◼   ► images to us. Nobody could really believe it because it seems to be so much better than

00:26:51 ◼   ► we would have imagined it to be from a difference. I actually kind of think Apple should have

00:26:56 ◼   ► done this. They should have shown this.

00:26:59 ◼   ► The issue there is that they don't want to say how bad the display on the 11 inch iPad

00:27:05 ◼   ► Pro, they're still selling this.

00:27:07 ◼   ► And every other display they make, except for the OLED iPhones. All the laptops, the

00:27:15 ◼   ► display XDR, nothing has the range this thing has, let alone the number of local dimming

00:27:21 ◼   ► zones. It's wild. Yeah, it's incredible. And seeing that, like, the first time I did that

00:27:27 ◼   ► in person, I thought that I was doing something wrong. But then I realized I'm not doing anything

00:27:34 ◼   ► wrong. I have a black JPEG in photos, and I'm zooming that to fill the screen. I have

00:27:41 ◼   ► maximum brightness, two iPads side by side, same settings, and one is dark grey/blueish

00:27:49 ◼   ► and the other is black. I'm not doing anything wrong here, this is just how good of a display

00:27:55 ◼   ► this is. And you see that initially I kind of struggled, like the first five minutes

00:28:01 ◼   ► I kind of struggled to understand what's the big deal with the XDR here, because I was

00:28:06 ◼   ► looking at settings and it's a white page. I was looking at mail and messages like "I

00:28:13 ◼   ► don't get it, what am I supposed to appreciate here?" But then when you get to photos, when

00:28:17 ◼   ► you get to watching a TV show or a movie, or just using dark mode, like using pure black

00:28:24 ◼   ► themes in apps that have that kind of option, it looks really nice.

00:28:29 ◼   ► Because my thinking was like, alright, video's gonna look great, right? HDR's gonna look

00:28:34 ◼   ► great whatever you know they're not what you know what I mean but it's like okay that's nice

00:28:38 ◼   ► but I only watch movies on my iPad when I don't have another screen right like I'm on a plane

00:28:46 ◼   ► and really do I need the best display possible I don't need it at that moment nice to have but I'm

00:28:52 ◼   ► not because then you know I would in theory just watch movies on my phone smaller but better

00:28:58 ◼   ► quality right like so I don't really feel like for me personally I am that sold on it just because

00:29:04 ◼   ► the HDR movies are gonna look good but I love dark mode. I was reading this review and I

00:29:11 ◼   ► did something I shouldn't have done. So I was reading this review and I had Google Docs

00:29:14 ◼   ► on the side right and I was making notes and I used Google Docs on my iPad in dark mode

00:29:18 ◼   ► and Google Docs in dark mode is like pure black right. I took my iPhone out and I opened

00:29:23 ◼   ► Google Docs on my iPhone and I put it next to my iPad and then I saw the difference and

00:29:29 ◼   ► it was like oh man I shouldn't have done that. That's basically what it looks like.

00:29:35 ◼   ► It's really incredible. It's incredible and so for me at that point when I was looking

00:29:41 ◼   ► at these images and stuff even though I you know I hadn't bought an iPad and I said I

00:29:45 ◼   ► didn't necessarily feel like I wanted to buy one even if they had the 11 inch with all

00:29:50 ◼   ► this stuff I probably wouldn't have jumped at it I would have just waited to see maybe

00:29:54 ◼   ► if WWDC would make it like I would really want it, right?

00:29:57 ◼   ► The 11 inch had the XCR display in it.

00:30:00 ◼   ► I would have ordered it immediately on seeing those images.

00:30:03 ◼   ► So similarly, like if I was using the larger iPad as my primary iPad,

00:30:08 ◼   ► but thought I would wait or skip it, that would have immediately made me buy it.

00:30:11 ◼   ► Now we have one on the way for it, you know, so I'm going to see it myself.

00:30:14 ◼   ► I wouldn't be surprised if it pushes me over the edge at some point to then just

00:30:19 ◼   ► be like, oh, forget my 11 inch iPad Pro.

00:30:21 ◼   ► I'm going to change it out for the 12.9, the screen's so good that I'll use the bigger one instead.

00:30:25 ◼   ► I don't know that, right?

00:30:27 ◼   ► But now just seeing how good that looks, it does feel like maybe one of those things that once I've seen how good an iPad can look with this kind of display, I might struggle to go back to my 11 inch.

00:30:39 ◼   ► You got to see it in real life.

00:30:41 ◼   ► It looks really great.

00:30:43 ◼   ► It's a beautiful display.

00:30:45 ◼   ► And obviously, like, OLED in some aspects is better.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Like, you actually have pure true black, right, on OLED.

00:30:56 ◼   ► But I never had such a good display at this size, right?

00:31:02 ◼   ► That's the thing.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Sure, I have an OLED TV, and that looks beautiful, too.

00:31:08 ◼   ► But in a portable computer, it's something

00:31:12 ◼   ► that is bigger than a phone, but that I also

00:31:15 ◼   ► hold closer to my eyes than a TV,

00:31:18 ◼   ► it's a really beautiful effect in real life.

00:31:22 ◼   ► And especially, like, it's making me reconsider using dark mode,

00:31:25 ◼   ► especially at night, in apps like Twitter,

00:31:28 ◼   ► like they have, Twitter has a pure black mode.

00:31:32 ◼   ► I use that.

00:31:33 ◼   ► So I'm using that there in Safari Reader.

00:31:36 ◼   ► Obviously Obsidian isn't an issue because it already has a dark mode.

00:31:41 ◼   ► That was my favorite surprise.

00:31:42 ◼   ► surprise. And it's like, as I wrote in the review, it's the kind of hardware change that,

00:31:48 ◼   ► in a way, it already makes sense today. Like, it's something that you can appreciate immediately.

00:31:55 ◼   ► Unlike, you know, Thunderbolt and the M1, sure, those are great, but the software isn't really

00:32:02 ◼   ► taking advantage of those. Whereas the better display, it's just there. And you load up an HDR

00:32:09 ◼   ► movie and you can see the difference right now today so yeah it's really

00:32:14 ◼   ► beautiful. I think the the common wisdom has been that the the reason this iPad

00:32:21 ◼   ► is thicker is the display but it also has a slightly bigger battery and I'm

00:32:27 ◼   ► wondering in your time with it how has that trade-off felt do you still feel

00:32:31 ◼   ► like you're getting the battery life you got before even with this incredible new

00:32:34 ◼   ► screen? Yeah, but so I avoided doing the battery related tests because I

00:32:46 ◼   ► prioritized writing about the display. I constantly kept it at full brightness

00:32:51 ◼   ► and I don't think I'm supposed to do that. Like it's not something that I

00:32:55 ◼   ► usually do with my iPad and because I kept it at full brightness all the time

00:33:00 ◼   ► I actually didn't get the usual battery life that I get from my regular, like

00:33:05 ◼   ► from the older iPad Pro where I have auto brightness turned on and it's never

00:33:10 ◼   ► at full brightness during the day. It blinds you, I mean even the old screen was bright.

00:33:15 ◼   ► So I really I cannot comment on the battery right now because I haven't used

00:33:20 ◼   ► it in my regular sort of conditions. I figured you know people really want to

00:33:25 ◼   ► really want to read about the XCR display. So let's see how it performs

00:33:30 ◼   ► when you let it give its best at full brightness. So actually I

00:33:37 ◼   ► had to charge the iPad Pro usually like at dinnertime. I had to plug it

00:33:43 ◼   ► in because when you keep it at full brightness and you're

00:33:46 ◼   ► working on it for like nine consecutive hours, you're gonna drain the battery

00:33:51 ◼   ► real fast. That's as long as the battery is supposed to last right? Yeah. Are the

00:33:56 ◼   ► battery tests done at 100% brightness or with auto brightness turned on though?

00:34:02 ◼   ► I never pay attention to battery tests because I don't feel like that they replicate my

00:34:06 ◼   ► own life usage. Like the only thing I ever pay attention to a battery tests is

00:34:11 ◼   ► up down same right like I don't care about the amount of hours right like we

00:34:16 ◼   ► did it at full brightness with Wi-Fi off watching videos you know what I never do

00:34:20 ◼   ► that so like I don't care what that result is I never use my devices that

00:34:24 ◼   ► way you know like I even if I have Wi-Fi off and I'm watching videos I don't have

00:34:29 ◼   ► my display at full brightness because I burn my eyes out like I don't you know

00:34:33 ◼   ► like I just so all I ever really care about is like doing this test compared

00:34:37 ◼   ► to last year's test does it give you the same result or a different result that's

00:34:41 ◼   ► my kind you know and it seems like people are saying it's basically the

00:34:46 ◼   ► same but just the battery is bigger.

00:34:50 ◼   ► You know, I bet you're right Stephen, I wouldn't be surprised if maybe the device is bigger

00:34:54 ◼   ► because they put a bigger battery in it, not necessarily because of the technology in the

00:34:58 ◼   ► screen.

00:34:59 ◼   ► It could be a bit of both but who knows.

00:35:01 ◼   ► I had a thought while reading your review of Federico, you can maybe correct me if I'm

00:35:05 ◼   ► wrong.

00:35:06 ◼   ► I found this intriguing, the screen, because it's a hardware change that I feel like is

00:35:09 ◼   ► is pretty rare in the iPad Pro's history,

00:35:12 ◼   ► where it benefits both of the quote unquote typical use cases of the iPad at the

00:35:18 ◼   ► same time. So like,

00:35:19 ◼   ► it's better for professionals doing video and photo work and also for people

00:35:24 ◼   ► that just watch movies on their iPad.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Absolutely. Yes, I agree.

00:35:28 ◼   ► And I found that kind of intriguing.

00:35:29 ◼   ► I don't think there's many examples of that, right?

00:35:32 ◼   ► Where it's better for consumption and real work. Yeah. Right.

00:35:37 ◼   ► But I think it's rare that this is a feature that they're touting as like,

00:35:42 ◼   ► "This is for our pro customers, they're going to get better color accuracy."

00:35:48 ◼   ► And that's certainly true, but hey, if you watch movies on your iPad,

00:35:51 ◼   ► you're also going to get a much better experience as well.

00:35:53 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree.

00:35:55 ◼   ► It's rare to have a new feature that is like the same feature

00:36:01 ◼   ► can be potentially useful for two kinds of people

00:36:05 ◼   ► in very different ways.

00:36:07 ◼   ► And obviously, for professionals,

00:36:09 ◼   ► this is a mini LED display with support for white color,

00:36:15 ◼   ► all those dimming zones, but it's still not a reference

00:36:19 ◼   ► monitor.

00:36:20 ◼   ► It's not like the Pro Display XDR

00:36:22 ◼   ► that you can manually calibrate, for example.

00:36:26 ◼   ► I actually looked into this because when

00:36:29 ◼   ► writing the display section and I was doing the comparisons between the black levels on the old

00:36:36 ◼   ► iPad and the new one, I looked into how can I actually like scientifically measure the light

00:36:42 ◼   ► that is coming out of the iPad display when I'm loading up a black image. And so I started,

00:36:48 ◼   ► I wasted like a couple of hours about five days ago, I think, like it was on Thursday or Friday,

00:36:56 ◼   ► looking into colorimeters and what are they called, like spectrometers, something like

00:37:02 ◼   ► that. Basically this fancy equipment that allows you to measure light emitting from

00:37:07 ◼   ► a display. And I quickly found out that the real professional stuff gets expensive real

00:37:12 ◼   ► fast. And I didn't want to spend like 2000 euros just to get a professional, you know,

00:37:19 ◼   ► professional grade colorimeter to measure. Like I just figured, you know what, I'm going

00:37:23 ◼   ► take a picture and show people what it looks like. At a certain point, do you even understand

00:37:29 ◼   ► what it would tell you? No, exactly. It's like, "Oh, look at these fancy graphs." Queen

00:37:35 ◼   ► did this recently on YouTube for the Apple TV calibration video, and he knows what he's

00:37:42 ◼   ► doing. All right? I have no idea what kind of equipment I was supposed to buy, and also

00:37:47 ◼   ► I couldn't reach out to people. This is one of the things that happen when you're testing

00:37:52 ◼   ► new Apple hardware, sometimes you have a question and you know exactly the kind of person that

00:37:57 ◼   ► you would ask a question to, but you cannot ask the question because you cannot tell them

00:38:03 ◼   ► that you're testing this new thing. So like, I really want to text Queen and say, "Hey,

00:38:08 ◼   ► I'm supposed to measure the black level of the XDR display. Can you tell me how to do

00:38:12 ◼   ► this?" But I couldn't. And so I just left that there and I just took the pictures. And

00:38:20 ◼   ► And yes, I watched in HDR because I don't know how to create HDR content, but I tested

00:38:29 ◼   ► by watching.

00:38:30 ◼   ► So I was a consumer of HDR content and it looks really incredible.

00:38:36 ◼   ► I watched for the fifth time, I think, The Greatest Showman, which is a movie I love,

00:38:43 ◼   ► really fantastic movie.

00:38:44 ◼   ► It looks beautiful in Dolby Vision.

00:38:47 ◼   ► And it also supports HDR10.

00:38:50 ◼   ► And what's the other one?

00:38:51 ◼   ► HLG.

00:38:52 ◼   ► Another standard.

00:38:54 ◼   ► I mostly have Dolby Vision movies in my library and they look beautiful.

00:38:58 ◼   ► I want to talk about the M1 chip.

00:39:01 ◼   ► So realistically, this iPad doesn't do anything that other iPads cannot.

00:39:06 ◼   ► It just does everything faster, right?

00:39:08 ◼   ► That's kind of how it is at the moment.

00:39:10 ◼   ► Do you ever imagine a time when Apple would actually make this the case?

00:39:14 ◼   ► A feature that only an M1 Mac or higher can do?

00:39:17 ◼   ► Because what I'm trying to work out is like if all we're ever going to do is just the same thing but faster.

00:39:22 ◼   ► Like is there going to be a line in the sand where it's like you need this type of iPad and then everything else will not be able to do it?

00:39:28 ◼   ► I would say yes but not in the near future maybe.

00:39:33 ◼   ► I think it... but then again I could see you know we joked about this when we did the Ricky's.

00:39:40 ◼   ► My flex is at things like virtualization, or driver kit.

00:39:46 ◼   ► And especially with the virtualization, all the work that Apple has done to redo the whole

00:39:53 ◼   ► thing for the M1 on the Mac, I could see some of that work come to iPad, and Apple say if you have

00:40:02 ◼   ► an M1 iPad you can virtualize things like Linux, for example. So I could see actually the M1

00:40:08 ◼   ► line getting some exclusive features.

00:40:11 ◼   ► I just think it would be kind of odd to do it right now this

00:40:17 ◼   ► close to the--

00:40:19 ◼   ► like, the iPad just came out, and it already

00:40:21 ◼   ► gets a bunch of exclusive features,

00:40:23 ◼   ► where there's a lot of other things

00:40:26 ◼   ► that iPadOS is supposed to gain before we get to that that

00:40:31 ◼   ► can benefit all iPad users.

00:40:34 ◼   ► So I also thought, like, a few years ago,

00:40:37 ◼   ► we had this discussion in 2018 with the iPads

00:40:42 ◼   ► with the extra RAM, right?

00:40:44 ◼   ► We talked about, like, are these iPads gonna get

00:40:48 ◼   ► exclusive features that are not available to other models?

00:40:51 ◼   ► And Apple didn't do that,

00:40:53 ◼   ► but that was just a RAM difference.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Here we're talking about the actual, like,

00:40:58 ◼   ► architecture of the computer itself.

00:41:00 ◼   ► So I will say maybe, but not right now.

00:41:05 ◼   ► Although I would be happy to be surprised,

00:41:07 ◼   ► I just think it's gonna,

00:41:09 ◼   ► if they do it right like next month,

00:41:12 ◼   ► it could be a little strange, you know?

00:41:13 ◼   ► There's folks who bought an iPad Pro last year,

00:41:16 ◼   ► and it's still totally capable.

00:41:19 ◼   ► Like if you have the iPad Pro with the A12Z,

00:41:22 ◼   ► never had a single time where I was using it

00:41:25 ◼   ► and thought, "Oh my God, this is so slow.

00:41:27 ◼   ► "iPadOS cannot keep up with it."

00:41:29 ◼   ► No, it never happened.

00:41:31 ◼   ► So I don't know, giving the new iPad Pro already

00:41:34 ◼   ► some exclusive stuff because it's got the M1? Sure, but maybe it's too soon.

00:41:40 ◼   ► I was thinking about storage and RAM. So 2TB of storage on an iPad is

00:41:46 ◼   ► bananas to me, like as a thought. It just seems like too much. I'm sure

00:41:50 ◼   ► some people could make use of it, but it really seems wild to me that they

00:41:54 ◼   ► offer that right now. And I was thinking, maybe that's why they have the 16GB

00:41:59 ◼   ► of RAM, for the 1TB and 2TB storage models.

00:42:04 ◼   ► they have 16GB of RAM and maybe they have that because there's something about like

00:42:08 ◼   ► storage controllers and RAM and all that kind of stuff. So I thought maybe there was a minimum.

00:42:13 ◼   ► So I thought I would go to see can I buy a Mac with 8GB of RAM and 1TB of storage? And

00:42:19 ◼   ► you can. So, because I was wondering like is it an M1 thing maybe? Like an M1 thing

00:42:26 ◼   ► where to have X amount of storage you need X amount of RAM but you can configure them

00:42:30 ◼   ► however you want when you're buying like a MacBook Pro or an iMac you can get 8 gigabytes

00:42:35 ◼   ► of ram 2 terabytes of storage and it will let you do that no problem because the reason I was doing

00:42:39 ◼   ► this is because I just you know I'm not saying anything we haven't already said or other people

00:42:44 ◼   ► of course are saying I just can't fathom why 16 gigabytes of ram in an iPad is a thing and also

00:42:51 ◼   ► why they're now telling us like those two things together just seem so peculiar yeah I don't really

00:42:57 ◼   ► have any it's not really necessary there's not a question there but like

00:43:00 ◼   ► it's more just like the thing I was thinking about it if you two had anything

00:43:03 ◼   ► to say about it. I mean this is speculation but it could be that in the

00:43:08 ◼   ► past they had to have the RAM for the storage that they were linked somehow

00:43:12 ◼   ► but now at the M1 they don't have to be but this is how they're doing the tiers

00:43:18 ◼   ► right and like a computer they're sort of good better best. But the one terabyte

00:43:24 ◼   ► iPad Pro, the old one, that didn't have 16 gigabytes of RAM, did it?

00:43:28 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's better than before, but I don't know, I mean there's definitely a story Apple's

00:43:32 ◼   ► got to tell here. I agree with Federico, I don't think it's three weeks from now at WWDC.

00:43:37 ◼   ► I don't think they can that quickly move the ball forward with a device that most people

00:43:43 ◼   ► can't even get until now mid-July, it looks like, some of the ship dates.

00:43:49 ◼   ► I gotta wonder about all this, especially the RAM, right?

00:43:53 ◼   ► There's virtually nothing on the App Store right now

00:43:57 ◼   ► that can use even eight gigabytes of RAM.

00:44:00 ◼   ► I don't think there's any app on the App Store

00:44:03 ◼   ► that is really bumping against that limitation,

00:44:07 ◼   ► let alone 16 gigs of RAM.

00:44:09 ◼   ► But I have to wonder, is this like the kind of feature

00:44:12 ◼   ► that you're adding to the iPad Pro

00:44:15 ◼   ► in preparation for what you're going to do in iPadOS 15 or 16.

00:44:22 ◼   ► So one of the things that I noticed

00:44:26 ◼   ► that I forgot to mention in my review is,

00:44:28 ◼   ► because of all this extra RAM, the iPad

00:44:32 ◼   ► can keep things in memory for longer than before.

00:44:35 ◼   ► So tabs in Safari and open apps in the app switcher,

00:44:41 ◼   ► you have more memory.

00:44:43 ◼   ► Therefore, when you switch back and forth

00:44:45 ◼   ► between apps or web pages that you closed even two days ago,

00:44:50 ◼   ► there's a good chance they're just going to be suspended

00:44:53 ◼   ► and you can pick right where you left off.

00:44:56 ◼   ► But I wonder-- and I mean, sure, that's a good demo.

00:44:59 ◼   ► It makes for a good demo, like you're switching to a Safari

00:45:01 ◼   ► tab that you opened on Tuesday and now it's Friday

00:45:04 ◼   ► and it's still in memory.

00:45:06 ◼   ► Great.

00:45:07 ◼   ► But is there a more practical application of this?

00:45:12 ◼   ► Like, maybe all this memory could be used if iPadOS were to gain some function, like

00:45:19 ◼   ► a feature that lets you save a workspace, right?

00:45:24 ◼   ► So you save a combination of apps as a favorite, right?

00:45:28 ◼   ► As a, you know, like a favorite split view, for example.

00:45:33 ◼   ► And when you reopen that, it's always in memory, right?

00:45:36 ◼   ► It's always suspended.

00:45:37 ◼   ► So I could see that, sort of all this new memory, all this new RAM, it doesn't make

00:45:42 ◼   ► a lot of sense right now, but it could potentially be necessary for new features down the road.

00:45:51 ◼   ► And that's basically the key angle that I chose for this review.

00:45:58 ◼   ► All this fancy hardware, great, but why is it here right now?

00:46:04 ◼   ► And what can it potentially lead to down the road?

00:46:10 ◼   ► That's kind of the story that this iPad tells at the moment, that it's this beautiful machine,

00:46:15 ◼   ► super fast, doesn't really have anywhere to go at the moment.

00:46:20 ◼   ► Center stage seems amazing.

00:46:22 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:46:24 ◼   ► I agree.

00:46:25 ◼   ► It's really fun.

00:46:26 ◼   ► So center stage is the new feature that primarily advertised for video calls.

00:46:32 ◼   ► It uses the new ultra-wide front-facing camera on the iPad Pro to follow you around as you

00:46:39 ◼   ► move during a video call and to make sure that it keeps your face front and center as

00:46:44 ◼   ► much as possible.

00:46:45 ◼   ► So the way that this works is really clever.

00:46:49 ◼   ► The ultra-wide scene is cropped dynamically and the iPadOS uses machine learning to follow

00:46:56 ◼   ► you around.

00:46:57 ◼   ► So the more you move, the more the OS keeps track of your face, and it dynamically crops

00:47:04 ◼   ► the image in real time to give you the illusion that it's physically zooming and panning to

00:47:10 ◼   ► follow you around.

00:47:11 ◼   ► Nothing is physically moving, of course.

00:47:13 ◼   ► The camera is not moving, there's nothing moving the camera.

00:47:15 ◼   ► It's just software that uses that kind of animation, that kind of transition, to follow

00:47:21 ◼   ► you around, to make it look like there's a camera that's following you.

00:47:25 ◼   ► really well done and it's a very good example of what machine learning can do in practice.

00:47:31 ◼   ► Now you see what it can do. It's all real time and it works really well.

00:47:35 ◼   ► I love that, by the way, as a way to talk about that feature. I hadn't considered that,

00:47:42 ◼   ► but it is really intriguing. This is a thing that you can see is really happening because

00:47:48 ◼   ► it's actually moving something, right? It's not just happening in the background and processing

00:47:54 ◼   ► something. And you see that power because it's immediate. It's in front of you. I also

00:47:59 ◼   ► just want to say, looking at the animations, I think they did it really smartly. They've

00:48:04 ◼   ► animated it in such a way that it looks like a physical lens is moving. There's like acceleration

00:48:11 ◼   ► to it, which I think is very well made. That whole feature is very well made. This is going

00:48:17 ◼   ► to be one of those things that I'm sure everyone's going to try and do just like this now, right?

00:48:22 ◼   ► system you're going to see. I really, I just think it's super cool. It's a very, very fun feature.

00:48:27 ◼   ► And so to test this in the review, I thought about it and I figured, you know, all these other

00:48:35 ◼   ► reviewers, every one of them is going to do the same thing. They're all going to see it in front

00:48:40 ◼   ► of FaceTime or WebEx because Apple, I believe they worked with WebEx to support this before launch.

00:48:47 ◼   ► Well, that's not surprising, is it?

00:48:50 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like they are going to do the same thing.

00:48:53 ◼   ► They're going to record like a FaceTime call and show how it works.

00:48:57 ◼   ► But because I'm a nerd and I care about this stuff,

00:49:01 ◼   ► I knew that there was a center stage API,

00:49:04 ◼   ► that there was already documentation on the Apple developer website about it.

00:49:08 ◼   ► And so I thought, you know, I talked to John, one true John,

00:49:12 ◼   ► and I asked him, "Do you think that the one true son, the other one,

00:49:16 ◼   ► not Finn, not Finn..."

00:49:18 ◼   ► The other true son?

00:49:19 ◼   ► Do you think that the other two son Owen, do you think Owen has the time to put together

00:49:24 ◼   ► like a custom center stage app for me for like tomorrow? He's like, "Sure, let me ask

00:49:31 ◼   ► Owen." And a few hours later, it's like, "Hey, Owen has a GitHub project that is shared with

00:49:38 ◼   ► you, and you can install it and run it." So I thought, wouldn't it be fun if instead

00:49:44 ◼   ► of doing what everybody else is doing, we gave that section, the center stage section

00:49:49 ◼   ► of the review, a bit of flavor, a bit of style. And so we used this custom test app to have

00:49:57 ◼   ► a full screen view of center stage in action. Instead of having to crop the tiny preview

00:50:02 ◼   ► window or having to record a FaceTime call, we put together this custom app that is just

00:50:08 ◼   ► a front facing camera view, and there's a single button that says "Enable Center Stage

00:50:13 ◼   ► or disable center stage, and it uses the new native API in iPadOS 14.5 for center stage.

00:50:20 ◼   ► And that allowed me to... Well, first of all, it was fun, because it allowed us to do those

00:50:26 ◼   ► silly videos and GIFs and all this.

00:50:29 ◼   ► So good. So good.

00:50:31 ◼   ► It was super fun to put those together, because I think I want to differentiate myself, you

00:50:38 ◼   ► you know? And it felt like, especially the GIF with the sunglasses, that felt like a

00:50:43 ◼   ► very meme-able thing to do, that would cause people to check out the review, and seems

00:50:50 ◼   ► to be working so far. But, technically speaking, it's also, like, it allowed me to understand

00:50:56 ◼   ► better how center stage works behind the scenes. And what's fascinating about it is, the funny

00:51:05 ◼   ► GIF with the sunglasses, that is actually like a teachable moment about how center stage works.

00:51:11 ◼   ► That GIF and that video begins with a shot of an empty wall. Nothing is going on, right? But,

00:51:19 ◼   ► the way center stage works is, even when the image is cropped, it's center stage, the camera is always

00:51:28 ◼   ► seen more of the scene, because it's an ultra-wide shot. It's just cropped. So as you can see, the

00:51:35 ◼   ► camera turns, put me in the frame, and that happens because... And you can see there's a video in the

00:51:44 ◼   ► story that shows what happened from another point of view. You can see that as soon as I took a step,

00:51:50 ◼   ► I kind of entered this invisible zone where center stage was active, and as soon as I entered that

00:51:57 ◼   ► zone, I wasn't shown on screen, but the camera saw me, and so the camera very quickly told the

00:52:03 ◼   ► system "hey, a face has entered the scene, you're supposed to turn", and the camera turns, and I do

00:52:09 ◼   ► the silly thing with the sunglasses. So, what I find is very fascinating, because it means the

00:52:14 ◼   ► computer is showing you one thing, but it's actually at all times seeing more and processing

00:52:21 ◼   ► more data for you. And I feel like, because I do this, like big picture, sort of thinking

00:52:29 ◼   ► long term, this is exactly what a wearable AR device will do. You will see one thing

00:52:38 ◼   ► with your eyes, but if you have cameras all around you and you have sensors all around

00:52:43 ◼   ► you, the computer will see more on your behalf. And it's like, I don't know, it's just a fascinating

00:52:49 ◼   ► theme of you, the user, see a limited amount of information, but it's the computer's job

00:52:57 ◼   ► to act on more information for you and to process more data. It's just a very good demo

00:53:03 ◼   ► of machine learning and AI, what it can do in practice. This is what it can do.

00:53:10 ◼   ► The title of the review, "Future on Standby." Beautiful. Nice way of putting it.

00:53:16 ◼   ► All reviews have some element in them of, "Gotta wait and see what Apple does in WWDC."

00:53:23 ◼   ► You've been around this block enough times.

00:53:25 ◼   ► Do you worry about putting too many hopes in Apple delivering on the software this year?

00:53:31 ◼   ► All the time, yes.

00:53:32 ◼   ► I do worry.

00:53:33 ◼   ► I'm very concerned.

00:53:35 ◼   ► Because I know that we're all asking for a series of things, and usually with Apple,

00:53:42 ◼   ► When you have 10 wishes, Apple is going to give you four.

00:53:47 ◼   ► You've got to basically cut the list in half and remove one from that number.

00:53:52 ◼   ► That's usually how it goes.

00:53:53 ◼   ► And so I have a long list of things.

00:53:55 ◼   ► I'm probably going to get a couple of those at WWDC.

00:53:59 ◼   ► But I think it's important that we talk about this because it's become so obvious that the

00:54:09 ◼   ► iPad hardware is going at one, like, it's going at a certain speed, and the software

00:54:19 ◼   ► is going the opposite direction at this point. It's not even struggling, it's not even trying,

00:54:25 ◼   ► really. You have an iPad with the M1, with Thunderbolt, with a really powerful neural

00:54:33 ◼   ► engine. And if you want to put two apps next to each other in split view, you still got

00:54:41 ◼   ► to do the weird dance of drag and drop. There's such a huge difference between the power of

00:54:48 ◼   ► the hardware and the limitations of the software that, yeah, I'm putting possibly too much

00:54:54 ◼   ► hope into HyperOS 15 and WWDC, but I cannot help it because it's so evident, it's so obvious

00:55:03 ◼   ► that there's a problem here. And I know that all my wishes are not going to be granted

00:55:11 ◼   ► in two weeks. I know it's going to happen. So maybe we'll get external display support,

00:55:17 ◼   ► but we will not get any Pro apps from Apple, you know? But something has to happen, right?

00:55:24 ◼   ► Because otherwise, this just doesn't make any sense at this point. You have a MacBook

00:55:31 ◼   ► pro-level machine that can be both a laptop and a tablet.

00:55:38 ◼   ► And the most pro thing you can do in multitasking

00:55:43 ◼   ► is two apps next to each other and a weird little thing

00:55:47 ◼   ► floating in slide over.

00:55:49 ◼   ► I mean, it's just kind of ridiculous, I think.

00:55:52 ◼   ► It's just not enough.

00:55:53 ◼   ► Some people say the fix to that is

00:55:55 ◼   ► to let it run Mac OS or Mac applications on top of iPad OS?

00:56:01 ◼   ► I assume you think that's not the way to go.

00:56:03 ◼   ► No.

00:56:05 ◼   ► That's really-- I mean, look, sure, it's a way to go.

00:56:10 ◼   ► But I think it's just really--

00:56:12 ◼   ► it lacks a lot of imagination.

00:56:16 ◼   ► I feel like, why would you invest

00:56:22 ◼   ► on making a separate platform called iPadOS.

00:56:26 ◼   ► If two years later you're just saying,

00:56:28 ◼   ► you know what, actually we were wrong, we're giving up,

00:56:31 ◼   ► we're putting macOS on this thing.

00:56:33 ◼   ► I feel like Apple has been saying over and over,

00:56:37 ◼   ► no, we don't wanna merge the two platforms.

00:56:41 ◼   ► And there's still a certain group of people

00:56:44 ◼   ► who are saying, no, actually what you mean

00:56:46 ◼   ► is you're secretly merging macOS and iPadOS.

00:56:50 ◼   ► And Apple is telling you, no, actually we're not doing that.

00:56:54 ◼   ► And when somebody tells you what their intentions are,

00:56:58 ◼   ► maybe you just gotta believe them, right?

00:57:00 ◼   ► I don't think they're putting Mac OS on iPad.

00:57:02 ◼   ► Like they've told us over and over.

00:57:04 ◼   ► - Putting Mac apps on the iPad

00:57:06 ◼   ► means you're merging the systems.

00:57:08 ◼   ► - Well, but-

00:57:09 ◼   ► - I'm not saying that that's the thing to do.

00:57:11 ◼   ► It is a thing to do, right?

00:57:13 ◼   ► Like if that's what you wanna do,

00:57:15 ◼   ► like it is a thing to do, I can see merit to it.

00:57:18 ◼   ► I don't know if it's the thing that's going to do what you want.

00:57:21 ◼   ► I don't think that's enough.

00:57:22 ◼   ► Like even if they did that, they were like, oh now Mac apps can run on the iPad.

00:57:26 ◼   ► It's not enough in my opinion because well then you can only, you can run these Mac apps,

00:57:31 ◼   ► but you can't even run them in one window at a time or like, you know, or these two

00:57:35 ◼   ► windows.

00:57:36 ◼   ► It's still not enough of a thing.

00:57:38 ◼   ► You need to do more to the actual operating system itself.

00:57:41 ◼   ► You know, but yeah, it's not, it's not the, I don't think it's the elegant solution, but

00:57:46 ◼   ► it is one, right?

00:57:47 ◼   ► iOS apps run on the Mac now, and they have merged the platforms, but it's also in Avigan.

00:57:53 ◼   ► I feel like what I would like to see is Apple take a lot of the elements that make macOS

00:58:02 ◼   ► great and rethink them for iPad. That's the ideal solution of you take the key concept

00:58:09 ◼   ► of like, hey, people really like to use more than two apps together, or people really like

00:58:15 ◼   ► to put stuff on an external display, or pro users, they like controlling multitasking

00:58:23 ◼   ► with the keyboard. Like, you take the key concept and then you say, "Okay, how can we

00:58:28 ◼   ► rethink this on a different platform?" That's usually what I would like to see Apple do.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Take the key idea, but then how the idea gets implemented or designed is exclusive to the

00:58:41 ◼   ► platform. Now I see a lot of folks actually saying "No, just let me run MacOS on iPad

00:58:48 ◼   ► Pro." And I just don't think that's the right approach.

00:58:53 ◼   ► No, just get a laptop. Just get a Mac.

00:58:56 ◼   ► Just get a Mac and it's fine.

00:59:00 ◼   ► If you want to run MacOS on an iPad, just get a Mac. It really will do you a bit, you'll

00:59:05 ◼   ► be happier that way. I'm almost convinced of it.

00:59:08 ◼   ► Yes, and also like the the iPad Pro is one type of iPad, but when they say Apple should

00:59:18 ◼   ► get rid of iPadOS and just use Mac OS, are they also implying that you're gonna run Mac

00:59:25 ◼   ► OS on an iPad Mini or an iPad Air? I don't think that would be a fun experience. And

00:59:32 ◼   ► And so, it's just kind of sad, right? To say, you know, the two trillion dollar company

00:59:40 ◼   ► couldn't figure out how to make a tablet OS, therefore they just took their desktop operating

00:59:46 ◼   ► system and they put it on an iPad.

00:59:49 ◼   ► There's so much stuff they can do, right? We're always talking about things they can

00:59:51 ◼   ► do. There are things they can do.

00:59:53 ◼   ► While I was reading this today, I was also just, because I was preparing for the episode,

00:59:58 ◼   ► I was in much more of like thinking about the iPad mode than I usually am.

01:00:02 ◼   ► Right. And I was kind of reminded of the true power of the iPad when things are

01:00:07 ◼   ► done right. Like I was reading the story,

01:00:10 ◼   ► like I was reading your article, I was holding it in my hands.

01:00:14 ◼   ► I was on the sofa and I was reading it. Right.

01:00:15 ◼   ► And then I came across something I wanted to note down.

01:00:18 ◼   ► So I brought the Google docs up and put it on the side and just made a couple of

01:00:22 ◼   ► notes and then quickly realized I was going to be making more notes.

01:00:26 ◼   ► So then I just grabbed the Magic Keyboard, attached it on and just started typing.

01:00:30 ◼   ► And like that, you know, this isn't this there was nothing new about that.

01:00:34 ◼   ► This is how the iPad has worked for years.

01:00:37 ◼   ► Even before the Magic Keyboard, we all had keyboards of different things, right?

01:00:40 ◼   ► You use a smart keyboard.

01:00:41 ◼   ► But there was just something about that moment where I was like, this isn't enough.

01:00:44 ◼   ► I need to add something on, add on, perfect.

01:00:47 ◼   ► And that idea, the modular computer idea that Federico talks about, it is what

01:00:53 ◼   ► makes it truly special. I would, but I want to see them do that same thing for the operating

01:01:03 ◼   ► system. You know, we started to see that, right? The Magic Keyboard makes the operating

01:01:08 ◼   ► system modular. It now adds a cursor, right? And so like that is something you don't otherwise

01:01:14 ◼   ► have. And when you put it on the Magic Keyboard, now it is this new thing you can do. Give

01:01:19 ◼   ► Give me more stuff like that.

01:01:21 ◼   ► Using the iPad in different circumstances allows me to do different things with the

01:01:24 ◼   ► iPad.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Like, that's what makes this device cool and special in the first place.

01:01:30 ◼   ► Lean into it.

01:01:31 ◼   ► Yeah, we mentioned before, I think last year, when I did the modular computer story, how

01:01:40 ◼   ► we would like the iPad Pro to be like the Kirby of computers.

01:01:45 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

01:01:47 ◼   ► Nintendo character that just transforms into whatever enemy it sucks in.

01:01:53 ◼   ► And that is sort of the idea with the iPad.

01:01:55 ◼   ► Depending on the accessory or the thing that you plug it into,

01:01:59 ◼   ► or that you pair it with, it becomes something else.

01:02:02 ◼   ► That's the idea.

01:02:04 ◼   ► And so, I just feel like saying Mac OS on an iPad is just kind of sad and boring.

01:02:12 ◼   ► And I'm not like that.

01:02:14 ◼   ► I'm, you know...

01:02:16 ◼   ► Passionate. I'm passionate, exactly. It lacks passion. That's the problem with that idea.

01:02:20 ◼   ► It's like the it's the haha business sort of guy making a prediction, you know

01:02:26 ◼   ► Like yeah Mac OS and I have an exciting. Okay, sure. You know what it makes me think of is

01:02:32 ◼   ► that time that the Mac was in

01:02:36 ◼   ► you know, maybe 2014 to last year where

01:02:43 ◼   ► Mac OS is moving forward, but the hardware was basically forgotten. It really felt like Apple had taken their eye off the ball

01:02:49 ◼   ► It kind of feels that way with iPad OS, but in the inverse like the hardware is better than ever

01:02:55 ◼   ► Yeah

01:02:56 ◼   ► But there's just not a focus on the software and I just I come I keep coming back to something that we said then is

01:03:02 ◼   ► Like does Apple have trouble doing more than a few things?

01:03:05 ◼   ► At once like why can't they move the ball forward on?

01:03:10 ◼   ► iPad OS now I understand they have a lot of factors to consider they have to strike a balance between someone using

01:03:17 ◼   ► You know the cheap iPad in a classroom all the way up to somebody like you who is running a business off of one

01:03:23 ◼   ► they have to

01:03:26 ◼   ► Reinvent things that are done on other platforms, but in this new way for this new

01:03:32 ◼   ► context of the iPad

01:03:35 ◼   ► but

01:03:36 ◼   ► You don't see them

01:03:38 ◼   ► Trying a lot of stuff. You don't see them really changing a lot of things even

01:03:43 ◼   ► Years into them being a problem right like we spoke about the files app last time

01:03:48 ◼   ► some of that stuff's been around for a long time and

01:03:51 ◼   ► Not

01:03:53 ◼   ► Doing anything about it

01:03:55 ◼   ► It feels it feels pretty bad, and it makes it difficult to get excited about the future of this

01:04:02 ◼   ► When you just feel like well if they don't care why should I I had to be a bummer

01:04:07 ◼   ► No, no, that's... that feels right. I know. But the problem there is you're putting too

01:04:17 ◼   ► much hope in, you know, "Oh, the next version is gonna fix everything." Where it's... at

01:04:23 ◼   ► some point you have to wonder, is this more of like an institutional problem going on

01:04:28 ◼   ► where they just don't get it and there needs to be like a round table sort of like intervention

01:04:34 ◼   ► moment where they need to say "okay, now we get it, we screwed up with pro users, we're

01:04:41 ◼   ► gonna do this and this and that, and we're gonna take care of this". Maybe we have approached

01:04:46 ◼   ► that moment with iPadOS, but it's also kind of very fascinating because I was also doing

01:04:52 ◼   ► some research before the review. Because usually I try not to complain too much about things

01:05:00 ◼   ► in my stories, not because I don't want to be objective, if that doesn't really exist,

01:05:07 ◼   ► but in the sense that I only write about things I like, right? I don't like to write a review

01:05:15 ◼   ► for something I'm not going to recommend, because it just feels like a waste of time.

01:05:20 ◼   ► And in this case, I found myself sort of being half and half with this product, in the sense

01:05:28 ◼   ► that this is the computer that I use every day. It's the OS that I like the most. And

01:05:34 ◼   ► because I like it so much, and I use it so much, I have a lot of complaints. Because

01:05:40 ◼   ► I use it, it's my operating system of choice, therefore I have a long list of comments and

01:05:49 ◼   ► criticisms about it. And as I was doing more research about this, I looked again into how

01:05:55 ◼   ► how other people sort of criticized the iPad before. And I came across this article by

01:06:04 ◼   ► John Gruber from last year, I think, or two years ago, when the iPad turned 10. He published

01:06:11 ◼   ► this story called "The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10". And I thought that was fascinating, because

01:06:19 ◼   ► initially I thought, "Oh, this is the article where John complains about iPadOS and how

01:06:25 ◼   ► it's not powerful enough for pro users. But actually, I found myself disagreeing with

01:06:32 ◼   ► Gruber's conclusion, where at the end—and it's not alone, and this is why iPadOS is such a

01:06:39 ◼   ► fascinating topic—it's actually wishing for iPadOS to return to what the iPad used to be.

01:06:46 ◼   ► Like, it's basically wishing for Apple to say, "Remove split view."

01:06:51 ◼   ► "LOL, JK, we didn't mean it, sorry."

01:06:54 ◼   ► let me go back to using one app at a time, sort of like the iPad was 10 years ago, sort of like

01:07:00 ◼   ► Steve Jobs using the iPad on a couch moment. And I'm like, no, no, please don't do that.

01:07:07 ◼   ► And so, iPadOS is fascinating because you have these users that tend to be primarily Mac users

01:07:15 ◼   ► saying, I already have the Mac, so I just want to use the iPad like a big iPhone. And then you have

01:07:21 ◼   ► have iPad users who use it as their main computer, saying, "No, actually, give me more, but find

01:07:27 ◼   ► a balance between Mac OS and iPad OS." And so when we talk about iPad OS, I think it's

01:07:33 ◼   ► important to contextualize what do you want from it, because it's easy to be confused

01:07:39 ◼   ► and say, "Oh, this person is complaining about iPad OS," but actually, they don't really

01:07:44 ◼   ► use iPad OS, and what they want to use it as is as a fancy book reader type product.

01:07:50 ◼   ► I wrote last year in my iOS and iPadOS 14 review how I think iPadOS is the most challenging

01:07:57 ◼   ► operating system for Apple to design for at the moment, because it's got that interesting

01:08:03 ◼   ► mix of people using it. There's folks who just want to relax with an iPad, there's folks

01:08:09 ◼   ► who want to work with it. And when you think about it, sure, people can relax with a Mac,

01:08:15 ◼   ► mostly you use it for work. And the iPhone, I mean, the iPhone is just the iPhone, right?

01:08:20 ◼   ► But the iPad needs to be a lot of things at the same time, and that makes it real challenging.

01:08:25 ◼   ► I actually think I can give you a comparison thing for the Mac, where if you imagine that

01:08:32 ◼   ► Macs are mostly done for work-focused things, you have people that use Macs and literally

01:08:37 ◼   ► everything they do is in a web browser, and then you have people that use Macs and they're

01:08:43 ◼   ► professional apps. I think that's the comparison of the two, right? So much work today is just

01:08:52 ◼   ► in Safari or Chrome, right? Or may as well be, right? Slack may as well just be Safari

01:08:58 ◼   ► or Chrome. You get the same experience by opening up a tab in a web browser. That is

01:09:02 ◼   ► how so much of work is done today. And a lot of people when they say they can't do their

01:09:07 ◼   ► work on iPad. What it is is just still there are, even though we have full like the better Safari

01:09:13 ◼   ► right, there's still stuff that doesn't work right and people just feel that they can't get their

01:09:17 ◼   ► work done because they can't open up a bunch of web browser windows and just move them wherever

01:09:22 ◼   ► they want right. I think they can't do the work on it. But then you also have the type of Mac user

01:09:27 ◼   ► who's opening Final Cut Pro and jamming them from 4k video for 26 hours right. Like it's,

01:09:32 ◼   ► I think they're the types of Mac users that they have. The iPad has the same thing. You have people

01:09:36 ◼   ► that use them just to read stuff and you have people that just want to do work on them but

01:09:40 ◼   ► they've but apple worked out how to make the mac work for all of those people they can make work

01:09:45 ◼   ► out how to make an ipad work for all of its potential customers they just need to add more

01:09:50 ◼   ► on the top end than what they've got currently wonderful review Federico thank you it was fun

01:09:55 ◼   ► it was really fun we've got some more to talk about but let's uh let's take our next break

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01:12:03 ◼   ► So we've been talking about it for the last couple of weeks, expecting it was going to

01:12:07 ◼   ► come and then out of nowhere, I don't even really know what to call this, Apple Music

01:12:14 ◼   ► Spatial Audio and Apple Music Lossless.

01:12:17 ◼   ► It doesn't have a brand because Apple is not doing what other companies are doing and creating

01:12:22 ◼   ► a separate tier.

01:12:23 ◼   ► So that hits Double Daily report saying it was $9.99 a month was right because nothing's

01:12:29 ◼   ► changed in the pricing. So Apple have added spatial audio based on Dolby Atmos and also

01:12:35 ◼   ► are going to be converting or enabling the ability for you to listen to their entire

01:12:40 ◼   ► catalog in lossless formats. Federico, I know you've spoken so much today, but like Jason

01:12:47 ◼   ► referred on upgrade referred to this episode as Federico mania. This is what it is today.

01:12:53 ◼   ► Because this is you, man. This is you, baby. There was something in your review that I

01:12:57 ◼   ► thought was kind of funny that you'll actually be able to listen to the

01:13:01 ◼   ► lossless music on your iPad because you have a DAC to power it all which is we

01:13:07 ◼   ► can get to that in a bit but let's start with special audio because ultimately

01:13:11 ◼   ► this is what 99% of people experiencing these changes will actually most likely

01:13:18 ◼   ► be able to appreciate at least with everything we know right now it seems

01:13:23 ◼   ► like you know unless you already have the gear for it you won't be listening

01:13:27 ◼   ► to lossless music if you use any kind of AirPods product it doesn't seem like

01:13:32 ◼   ► it's gonna support it. Spatial audio is rolling out more slowly it's starting

01:13:38 ◼   ► with a selection of thousands of tracks they'll add more over time and

01:13:43 ◼   ► then they're also gonna highlight Apple will be highlighting music I'm sure

01:13:47 ◼   ► they're gonna go to a bunch of popular artists either and help them like remix

01:13:54 ◼   ► stuff I'm assuming that people don't need to rerecord things to get this to

01:14:00 ◼   ► work but honestly I don't know how it's gonna work do you know? For spatial

01:14:04 ◼   ► audio? Yeah. I believe Apple has been asking a bunch of record labels to sell

01:14:10 ◼   ► them it's based on a different mix when you that you got to provide to the

01:14:16 ◼   ► streaming company. It's a different mix than the standard stereo mix. And this is why this

01:14:24 ◼   ► is such a big deal for Dolby. Dolby are the real winners here, because they previously

01:14:30 ◼   ► partnered with, I believe Amazon Music was already taking advantage of Dolby Atmos, but

01:14:35 ◼   ► here Apple said in their press release that Dolby and Apple are now working together to

01:14:41 ◼   ► basically grow the number of Dolby-enabled recording studios

01:14:48 ◼   ► around the world.

01:14:49 ◼   ► Because you've got to have specific equipment

01:14:51 ◼   ► to send in a Dolby Atmos mix.

01:14:55 ◼   ► And Apple has been asking record labels over the past few weeks

01:15:00 ◼   ► to send those mixes, those Atmos mixes, if they have them,

01:15:04 ◼   ► in exchange for being featured in the initial rollout

01:15:08 ◼   ► of albums and playlists that will be highlighted on Apple Music for spatial audio.

01:15:14 ◼   ► In theory, something recorded three years ago could be mixed in this if you had the

01:15:19 ◼   ► right equipment to our understanding.

01:15:22 ◼   ► I don't know the specifics of recording studios.

01:15:26 ◼   ► My understanding of how recording music for release works, if it's being done "right",

01:15:33 ◼   ► is you record everything separately and then lay it down together.

01:15:38 ◼   ► So if all you're doing is taking the, I guess at a basic level, if you're taking the instruments

01:15:44 ◼   ► and then separating them, you could do that in like I would assume a virtual soundstage.

01:15:48 ◼   ► But then there is probably a next level where you could set the studios up in a different

01:15:55 ◼   ► way with different type of equipment to record differently.

01:15:59 ◼   ► Like where you could have everyone in the room at the same time playing something and

01:16:03 ◼   ► also have it work with this spatial audio stuff.

01:16:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure there are plenty of tools, like in Pro Tools for example, to

01:16:14 ◼   ► take an existing recording and mix it in Dolby Atmos for example. I think that's how it works.

01:16:21 ◼   ► And it's been around for a while. Jason gave an example on Upgrade that you

01:16:25 ◼   ► may remember the Beatles album that was remixed for, so Jason's in the chat right now, 5.1

01:16:34 ◼   ► mixes from the early 2000s. From the early 2000s, the music from the 80s, you just need

01:16:40 ◼   ► to remix them and you just do it differently. And the Beatles love remix by Charles Martin.

01:16:45 ◼   ► So Beatles, there's Beatles music that is remixed in surround sound.

01:16:49 ◼   ► But you still gotta send in another mix.

01:16:52 ◼   ► Yeah, they have to do it. Apple's not going to do it for you.

01:16:55 ◼   ► Exactly, exactly. So it's not like Apple Music like automatically converts a song to Dolby

01:17:01 ◼   ► Atmos, you have to send in a Dolby Atmos mix. So yeah, Apple said they're working, they're

01:17:09 ◼   ► going to start with thousands of tracks and thousands compared to 75 million songs on

01:17:15 ◼   ► Apple Music, it's a very small number. We'll see how it works. And we talked last week,

01:17:23 ◼   ► said there's a very good chance that, yes, Apple is going to introduce lossless playback,

01:17:29 ◼   ► but really the key consumer feature is going to be spatial audio, and it's exactly what

01:17:34 ◼   ► they've done. So spatial audio will be supported on all headphones that have the H1 chip or

01:17:41 ◼   ► the W1 chip. You can use it on device speakers, so the speakers of an iPhone, iPad, or Mac,

01:17:50 ◼   ► And I believe it's also going to work with an Apple TV if you have compatible equipment

01:17:57 ◼   ► attached to the Apple TV, I think.

01:17:59 ◼   ► So this is the consumer feature, right?

01:18:01 ◼   ► And it's what's going to push the sales of AirPods.

01:18:05 ◼   ► You're going to be able to hear, in theory, instruments left and right, up and down, sort

01:18:10 ◼   ► of like having a virtual soundstage on your head.

01:18:13 ◼   ► That's the idea.

01:18:14 ◼   ► This is the big thing.

01:18:15 ◼   ► Going into the future is going to be the big thing.

01:18:17 ◼   ► Lossless is great and nice and fun for people that care but spatial audio music is...

01:18:24 ◼   ► If they're gonna do it the way that we assume they're gonna do it, it's gonna be something

01:18:28 ◼   ► that people really freak out about, like in a good way.

01:18:31 ◼   ► Like it's gonna be like wow this is...

01:18:33 ◼   ► Not exactly the same but I could imagine it almost similar to like the first time you

01:18:37 ◼   ► try VR where you're like whoa this is weird and amazing and I love it.

01:18:42 ◼   ► I can imagine it being similar for the spatial audio for music.

01:18:46 ◼   ► Because like spatial audio for TV stuff is fun, but really like most of the time

01:18:50 ◼   ► It's not making things fly all around your head

01:18:54 ◼   ► I was about to say that like it's fun when you first watch

01:18:58 ◼   ► Like if I have a living room with the full Dolby setup with the full surround setup

01:19:02 ◼   ► It's fun. Like you can hear the bullets like behind you and to the left for example, you know that kind of stuff

01:19:09 ◼   ► But I feel like it'll be the effect will be even more pronounced for music because you're wearing headphones

01:19:15 ◼   ► And you're like, you're listening to a song and you can hear those details, especially

01:19:21 ◼   ► for songs that you already know.

01:19:23 ◼   ► And so when Apple says in their marketing materials, you're going to discover a new

01:19:29 ◼   ► dimension for music.

01:19:30 ◼   ► That's basically the idea, right?

01:19:32 ◼   ► You're going to tell people, take this song that you already know, and now you can hear

01:19:39 ◼   ► instruments around you.

01:19:41 ◼   ► of like if you were like sitting in front of the artist and their band. That's the idea.

01:19:48 ◼   ► Should be fun. Should be fun and easy to explain to people.

01:19:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm really excited about this feature, currently.

01:19:53 ◼   ► Now lossless...

01:19:54 ◼   ► Oh, here we go. Settling, here we go.

01:19:58 ◼   ► Well, so I don't want to really get into this, like, at least too much. I don't want to get

01:20:03 ◼   ► too much into the specifics of this, especially the science of this, because I know that the

01:20:08 ◼   ► the audiophile community really likes their numbers and their scientific measurements,

01:20:14 ◼   ► and it's easy to get lost in the weeds here.

01:20:17 ◼   ► So for context, there's going to be both lossless and high-resolution lossless in Apple Music.

01:20:24 ◼   ► The entire catalog of Apple Music will be available in ALAC, which is the Apple Lossless

01:20:30 ◼   ► format. It's the Apple version of FLAC, basically. It's going to be free of charge, you don't

01:20:35 ◼   ► have to pay extra. So lossless, it starts at CD quality. CD quality would be 16 bit

01:20:43 ◼   ► at 44.1 kHz. And according to Apple it goes up to 24 bit at 48 kHz. This is the basic

01:20:52 ◼   ► lossless and it's playable, they say natively on all Apple devices. Which, okay. Then there's

01:21:00 ◼   ► the sort of the audio file mode, which is high resolution lossless.

01:21:04 ◼   ► so funny to me where it's like, the way they describe it, it's like how you just described

01:21:07 ◼   ► it. It starts here, goes to here, and then also goes an extra part. It's like, "I don't

01:21:12 ◼   ► understand!"

01:21:13 ◼   ► And I feel like Apple is sort of trying to navigate very carefully the vast mess that

01:21:22 ◼   ► is discussing whether high resolution audio is a scam or not, basically. So iREST Last

01:21:30 ◼   ► will be 24-bit at 192 kHz. And this will require using an external DAC with your Apple device.

01:21:41 ◼   ► Usually, you can just use a USB DAC that you can plug into your iPhone or your Mac or iPad,

01:21:48 ◼   ► and you plug in your fancy equipment, such as headphones, into the DAC itself.

01:21:54 ◼   ► Now, for context, I think it's important to remember that Apple is entering a crowded

01:22:00 ◼   ► field with lossless playback, because a lot of other companies have been doing this stuff

01:22:06 ◼   ► for a few years now.

01:22:07 ◼   ► Amazon Music HD has existed for the past couple of years, and actually this is kind of funny,

01:22:13 ◼   ► because just minutes before Apple made their big announcement, Amazon announced that they

01:22:20 ◼   ► were slashing the price of Amazon Music HD, and now actually Amazon Music HD is not an

01:22:28 ◼   ► extra anymore. It doesn't cost anything anymore. It's now part of your Amazon Music subscription,

01:22:33 ◼   ► which hey, this is what competition does. Fair play.

01:22:37 ◼   ► It forces other... Right.

01:22:38 ◼   ► Yeah. So Amazon Music HD is now also free. Now, it gets interesting for other companies.

01:22:45 ◼   ► Spotify announced a few months ago that Spotify HiFi is also coming. They're going to roll

01:22:51 ◼   ► this out soon. I actually saw the logo for Spotify HiFi in the iPhone app, but it doesn't

01:22:58 ◼   ► actually work. I saw this tweet. Yes, you can see the icon, you can see the logo, but

01:23:02 ◼   ► it disappears after a few seconds. Great. It's not clear. It's not clear. Hey, good

01:23:08 ◼   ► job Spotify. Server-side rollouts, right? That's how it works. It worked for Epic.

01:23:15 ◼   ► It really worked for them, but in a very different way.

01:23:18 ◼   ► It really did. It really did, man. It really did.

01:23:21 ◼   ► Now, Spotify HiFi, we don't know if it'll be like,

01:23:25 ◼   ► what's the pricing structure going to be.

01:23:27 ◼   ► I believe Spotify just said that we're going to do CD quality.

01:23:29 ◼   ► Did I have a choice now?

01:23:31 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:23:32 ◼   ► Which brings me to the other companies

01:23:34 ◼   ► that have been doing this.

01:23:35 ◼   ► Now, these other streaming companies,

01:23:38 ◼   ► they kind of specialized lossless playback

01:23:42 ◼   ► to the point where it kind of became the whole product, right?

01:23:45 ◼   ► So Tidal, for example.

01:23:48 ◼   ► Folks use Tidal because of Lossless playback.

01:23:52 ◼   ► And Tidal in particular uses their own version of Lossless,

01:23:56 ◼   ► which is MQA, which it's a whole other discussion

01:23:59 ◼   ► about that format.

01:24:01 ◼   ► There's Deezer HiFi.

01:24:03 ◼   ► Deezer is a popular streaming service,

01:24:06 ◼   ► and the HiFi tier was also like another way

01:24:08 ◼   ► the day, differentiated from Apple Music and Spotify and Amazon. And then there's Cobyus.

01:24:16 ◼   ► And Cobyus, which I believe it's a French company that is actually now available, the

01:24:21 ◼   ► streaming service is available everywhere, it is the de facto lossless streaming service.

01:24:29 ◼   ► And I have to wonder now, Apple's move was very aggressive in entering this field and

01:24:36 ◼   ► saying, "You know what? We're just going to take what for some companies is the entire

01:24:42 ◼   ► product and we're going to just make it a free feature of Apple Music." Amazon followed

01:24:48 ◼   ► immediately. I have to wonder what happens to these other companies now.

01:24:54 ◼   ► I mean, this is a particularly bold move considering what Spotify are accusing them of in Europe.

01:25:00 ◼   ► is that but worse right? They're forcing the pricing of their competitors down again and

01:25:07 ◼   ► these other companies they're just getting obliterated because of the price stuff right?

01:25:14 ◼   ► And this isn't just a competition-based thing, it's also because Apple wants to take 30% from

01:25:20 ◼   ► these companies as well right? That's what I have a problem with. I don't have so much a problem with

01:25:25 ◼   ► Apple being aggressive with their offering, they can be as aggressive as they want. It's

01:25:31 ◼   ► when they want to be aggressive and then also want to take 30% from these companies. That's

01:25:37 ◼   ► what I have a personal issue with.

01:25:40 ◼   ► It basically becomes impossible to compete in this field now.

01:25:44 ◼   ► You can't.

01:25:45 ◼   ► It's literally impossible. Like, the platform owner is competing with you for free, and

01:25:55 ◼   ► if you try to charge a price for it, it's also going to take 30% from you.

01:25:59 ◼   ► Yeah, they pre-install an application.

01:26:01 ◼   ► You know? I mean, it's kind of tough.

01:26:07 ◼   ► It's complicated.

01:26:08 ◼   ► So, it kind of explains, though, why these companies, in particular, Cobhuse, they've

01:26:14 ◼   ► been trying to diversify, they're offering... Another really good example, we mentioned

01:26:19 ◼   ► this one on App Stories a few weeks ago, there's this streaming service called Primephonic.

01:26:26 ◼   ► Primephonic is all about classical music, and they obviously support lossless playback,

01:26:32 ◼   ► because that's the kind of market that they're going after, but they've been trying to diversify

01:26:37 ◼   ► what they do with human curation, so playlists for composers and conductors, for example,

01:26:44 ◼   ► interviews with orchestra conductors or the owners of particular theaters and venues around the world.

01:26:54 ◼   ► And Kobus, on the other hand, they have a web store, so you can use Kobus for streaming, or

01:27:01 ◼   ► you can just buy the Lossless Audio, the Lossless Albums from the Kobyus store. And I think,

01:27:08 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure, they also have a subscription plan for like an actual music magazine.

01:27:15 ◼   ► It's like a membership program for like... It's got double down on what makes you different.

01:27:20 ◼   ► Make that your USP and then move forward from there.

01:27:22 ◼   ► Maybe they can survive in this niche with that kind of differentiation. Well, we'll see. Apple's

01:27:29 ◼   ► move is really aggressive, if not downright anti-competitive.

01:27:33 ◼   ► So, that is antitrust in a nutshell for you.

01:27:42 ◼   ► Now, lossless playback.

01:27:45 ◼   ► So we have to, again, very quickly cover the AirPods integration here.

01:27:53 ◼   ► So it appears that no AirPods model will support any kind of lossless playback.

01:28:00 ◼   ► Now for lossless playback, I also want to have a small parenthesis here.

01:28:05 ◼   ► I know that the consensus is that you never need anything higher than CD quality.

01:28:16 ◼   ► The idea is, you know, we've been throwing these terms around bits, like kilohertz. And

01:28:26 ◼   ► I mean, bits basically represent the range of a file, so like how quiet and how loud

01:28:33 ◼   ► it can go. In theory, for certain types of music, having a higher range matters, like

01:28:41 ◼   ► classical music, like it gets really loud or it can get real quiet. KHz, that would

01:28:46 ◼   ► be the sampling rate, so essentially like how frequently, when you're recording something,

01:28:52 ◼   ► a sample is taken in the recording studio. The thing is, again, the consensus is, CD

01:29:00 ◼   ► quality is all that you need, because that works out precisely where the limits of human

01:29:10 ◼   ► hearing are. The idea with CD quality is, and the reason why, years ago, a lot of people

01:29:17 ◼   ► made fun of SACD, which was sort of like the... SACD was like the high-resolution audio version

01:29:24 ◼   ► of compact discs, back in the day. The idea is, CD quality is all that humans can enjoy,

01:29:32 ◼   ► because at 44.1 kHz, it means every second there are 44,100 samples taken in the recording.

01:29:44 ◼   ► And now if you can... I know that this is gonna get real nerdy here, and I am sorry,

01:29:49 ◼   ► just put links in the show notes, and please don't correct me, because I'm trying to simplify

01:29:53 ◼   ► all of this, because this is a podcast, it's not a lecture.

01:29:57 ◼   ► Well, I mean, at the moment, a little bit above.

01:30:02 ◼   ► So there's something called the Nyquist equation.

01:30:04 ◼   ► Oh my gosh, alright, we're done.

01:30:07 ◼   ► Thanks for listening, everyone.

01:30:10 ◼   ► The idea is that the human hearing goes all the way up to 22 kHz.

01:30:18 ◼   ► 22 kHz is exactly half of 44 kHz, which is CD quality.

01:30:25 ◼   ► So humans can just need CD quality audio if they want to be able to hear everything that

01:30:31 ◼   ► is included in a song recorded in a... essentially.

01:30:37 ◼   ► Our human hearing is limited.

01:30:39 ◼   ► A lot of people say high resolution audio is snake oil, is a scam.

01:30:45 ◼   ► It's kind of true, but I still feel like high resolution lossless, so 24-bit, 192 kHz, it's

01:30:53 ◼   ► still important in the studio, so for recording purposes, for archival purposes,

01:30:59 ◼   ► and to make sure that you have the highest and the best possible version of

01:31:03 ◼   ► the recording if you work in this field, right? Because you are still going to

01:31:11 ◼   ► sample sounds every five microseconds. So for the recording studio itself, I think

01:31:19 ◼   ► it's important to have the high resolution lossless version of it. For humans and trying

01:31:25 ◼   ► to listen to lossless audio, it is kind of true that CD quality is all you need. So,

01:31:32 ◼   ► and again, I apologize if I simplified this and I used words that are not totally accurate,

01:31:41 ◼   ► but again, I'm trying my best here. You get the idea.

01:31:45 ◼   ► So now, AirPods. These are Bluetooth devices, right? They're Bluetooth-based devices. And

01:31:56 ◼   ► with Bluetooth, you have to compress data, because the bandwidth available to you is

01:32:02 ◼   ► limited, and these lossless files and high-resolution files can get real heavy. Like, for example,

01:32:11 ◼   ► see in my library right now I have a Bruno Mars song and a single song at 24

01:32:19 ◼   ► bit that would be 50 megabytes. So you have a single song that is 50

01:32:25 ◼   ► megabytes. These files can get heavy. The moment so you're saying okay I want to

01:32:31 ◼   ► listen to this over AirPods is that possible? Well the thing is you need to

01:32:36 ◼   ► compress data and when you compress data it's not lossless anymore because you're

01:32:41 ◼   ► very likely stripping information out of the file.

01:32:44 ◼   ► So over the years, a bunch of Bluetooth codecs appeared

01:32:49 ◼   ► that promised to achieve lossless

01:32:51 ◼   ► or Myke's favorite term, near lossless playback.

01:32:55 ◼   ► - Yo, I'll get out of town, I hate it.

01:32:58 ◼   ► Middleless.

01:32:59 ◼   ► - So anyway, there's companies like Qualcomm, for example,

01:33:05 ◼   ► they've been trying to achieve near lossless playback

01:33:08 ◼   ► using codecs like APTX HD. There's Sony, which has LDAC. LDAC is a Bluetooth codec that is

01:33:17 ◼   ► advertised as a high-resolution codec. It's got the official Hi-Res label from the high-resolution

01:33:23 ◼   ► audio... What's it called? Society? No, it's not called Society. It's called...

01:33:27 ◼   ► What is it called? The Secret Society of Audio Lovers.

01:33:31 ◼   ► It's called something. It's called something. And it's certified... What is it called? The

01:33:36 ◼   ► The high res society?

01:33:39 ◼   ► There's no point asking us this question Federico, we do not have the answer for you!

01:33:43 ◼   ► You are the only person of the three of us that can answer this question!

01:33:47 ◼   ► You could make it up, no one would know.

01:33:49 ◼   ► I'm gonna make call my club the high res society.

01:33:53 ◼   ► Anyway, this Bluetooth codecs, none of them can achieve real, reliable, consistent, lossless

01:34:03 ◼   ► playback because of the nature of Bluetooth itself. If you have a weak signal, the codec

01:34:09 ◼   ► is going to compress the data for you. And when you compress data, you remove information,

01:34:15 ◼   ► it's not the pure, original file anymore. So now the question is, what can Apple do?

01:34:22 ◼   ► Now just a few minutes ago, it appears that not friend of the show, but person who we

01:34:30 ◼   ► frequently mentioned, John Prosser, shared that Apple is likely going to roll out their

01:34:40 ◼   ► own Bluetooth codec for AirPods and lossless playback. Now, I kind of feel like if they

01:34:48 ◼   ► want to achieve real lossless playback on AirPods in the future, that is what they have

01:34:55 ◼   ► to do, right? They already have their own... This feels like the logical... It feels like

01:35:03 ◼   ► the most Apple thing to do. I don't really understand personally why people are questioning

01:35:11 ◼   ► this as a possibility. Like, why would they put all this time into lossless if they weren't

01:35:18 ◼   ► going to have devices that could play it? Maybe the headphone jack's coming back. Think

01:35:22 ◼   ► about that. But like that's the thing right? Like unless you're gonna do that,

01:35:25 ◼   ► which they're not gonna do, or they're gonna be like oh we've created this new

01:35:28 ◼   ► wonderful lightning cable that can do... like it does... like it's all great your

01:35:33 ◼   ► iPad can do it but like is that... people that listen to lossless music I

01:35:38 ◼   ► can't imagine that their desired listening experience is iPad Pro

01:35:44 ◼   ► speakers right? Like you want to have it in headphones surely right? Like if

01:35:49 ◼   ► you're going to that level.

01:35:50 ◼   ► I just feel like Apple wouldn't go through this work

01:35:55 ◼   ► and make such a big song and dance out of this if they weren't going to find a way

01:36:01 ◼   ► or not found a way to make it possible with their products.

01:36:05 ◼   ► And I'm very confident that this can't be done through pure Bluetooth.

01:36:10 ◼   ► But you know what?

01:36:12 ◼   ► AirPods do not work by pure Bluetooth, right?

01:36:15 ◼   ► They're doing other stuff.

01:36:18 ◼   ► They have it as a fallback option for Android users.

01:36:21 ◼   ► But yes, exactly.

01:36:22 ◼   ► Like on iPhone, on Apple devices,

01:36:26 ◼   ► it already is a custom thing that they have going.

01:36:30 ◼   ► And so it feels logical to me that Apple is,

01:36:34 ◼   ► if they want to achieve this,

01:36:37 ◼   ► they're going to do something that is more similar

01:36:39 ◼   ► to peer-to-peer Wi-Fi-based connections,

01:36:44 ◼   ► something like AirDrop, for example,

01:36:46 ◼   ► that allows you to exchange heavy files like photos and videos between Apple devices than

01:36:52 ◼   ► standard Bluetooth.

01:36:54 ◼   ► I think this is the most logical solution considering Apple's background.

01:37:01 ◼   ► They're gonna do a custom thing that can help them sell more AirPods, because AirPods will

01:37:07 ◼   ► be certified as these are real tiny, real portable, battery life is great, and they

01:37:13 ◼   ► also support lossless playback.

01:37:15 ◼   ► Now, will it sound great, you know, to listen to Pink Floyd remastered in lossless format

01:37:24 ◼   ► on a bunch of regular AirPods?

01:37:27 ◼   ► No, it's still gonna sound small and like you're listening to music.

01:37:31 ◼   ► In the same way that the spatial audio, like it's gonna be a scale.

01:37:35 ◼   ► If you use regular AirPods, it's not gonna sound as good.

01:37:38 ◼   ► It will get better when you get to AirPods Pro and the best is AirPods Max.

01:37:42 ◼   ► And it will be, I expect, the exact same sliding scale for the lossless stuff.

01:37:49 ◼   ► And I could even imagine them saying, like, this type of AirPods, you can have this lossless

01:37:54 ◼   ► settings because it comes to a certain point and it's pointless, right?

01:37:59 ◼   ► I wouldn't be surprised if they did that.

01:38:01 ◼   ► Kind of is, like, I've been seeing a lot of complaints this week on Twitter saying, why

01:38:08 ◼   ► Apple roll out lossless payback and it's not natively supported on the AirPods. I cannot

01:38:17 ◼   ► get the complaint when it comes to the AirPods Max. I do feel like the timing of this is

01:38:25 ◼   ► a bit strange. I understand why if the proprietary codec, whatever it is that Apple is doing,

01:38:33 ◼   ► doesn't exist yet, it just doesn't exist. Like if they're gonna roll this out next year

01:38:37 ◼   ► or in two years, like there's nothing we can do right now, and they just wanted to sell you

01:38:42 ◼   ► headphones and they just released them, I get it. But even in wired mode, by plugging in a lightning

01:38:49 ◼   ► cable, you know, these headphones, they came out a few months ago, they probably should have

01:38:55 ◼   ► supported this in wired mode. But then again, maybe the existing lightning cables, right,

01:39:02 ◼   ► they just don't have the kind of internal DAC that can support that kind of playback, so

01:39:07 ◼   ► So ultimately, I think, if you're an audiophile, it's very likely that you already have your

01:39:14 ◼   ► own personal music library.

01:39:16 ◼   ► And maybe you're going to do what I do, which is, you have your personal music collection,

01:39:21 ◼   ► and you're going to use a music streaming service as a test for albums that you want

01:39:26 ◼   ► to purchase.

01:39:27 ◼   ► That's how I've been using Amazon Music HD, so that I can test albums before I actually

01:39:32 ◼   ► buy them, in lossless format.

01:39:35 ◼   ► And I think if you're that kind of person, you will not use AirPods anyway. You're going

01:39:40 ◼   ► to use an external DAC. There's a discussion to be had about bringing the benefits of CD

01:39:47 ◼   ► quality to a lot of people using AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. And that, I think, is true.

01:39:54 ◼   ► That's a good argument. But for that, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is waiting to roll out

01:40:00 ◼   ► their own proprietary Wi-Fi based, I would say, technology for that kind of streaming.

01:40:08 ◼   ► Now the good news is that can potentially be done in software, I guess. I don't know

01:40:15 ◼   ► enough about the engineering of AirPods and how this works, but if I were to bet on this,

01:40:23 ◼   ► I would say they're gonna do their own thing. I mean, it's the XKCD strip all over again,

01:40:32 ◼   ► right? What was it like? Context. There are 14 competing standards, and later there are

01:40:39 ◼   ► now 15 competing standards, and that's gonna be the thing with Bluetooth codecs, right?

01:40:44 ◼   ► Everybody's doing its own, and now there's going to be the Apple one.

01:40:49 ◼   ► It makes USB 3 seem simple in comparison.

01:40:54 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yes, thank you Steven for pasting that

01:40:57 ◼   ► in the Discord.

01:40:58 ◼   ► And yes, so audio files will likely be happy

01:41:04 ◼   ► starting next month.

01:41:05 ◼   ► They will use their existing USB DACs

01:41:08 ◼   ► to listen to lossless music and Apple music.

01:41:11 ◼   ► Everybody else with AirPods Pro and AirPods Max

01:41:14 ◼   ► and especially the Max for CD quality,

01:41:17 ◼   ► because really that's what matters ultimately,

01:41:19 ◼   ► We'll see what Apple does.

01:41:21 ◼   ► Prosser is saying they will announce something soon.

01:41:26 ◼   ► We'll see. - So whatever do you see?

01:41:27 ◼   ► - But I think as a theory, it makes sense.

01:41:29 ◼   ► As a theory, it does make sense.

01:41:31 ◼   ► - But spatial audio is gonna be awesome

01:41:34 ◼   ► and I'm really excited about it.

01:41:35 ◼   ► - And spatial audio is gonna be awesome,

01:41:37 ◼   ► but I wanna see how extensive it is as a catalog.

01:41:41 ◼   ► Now, obviously, Apple getting into this field

01:41:44 ◼   ► is gonna convince a lot of studios

01:41:48 ◼   ► actually provide Dolby Atmos mixes, in theory, if this is successful, if it becomes a thing

01:41:54 ◼   ► that people expect from their streaming service. And again, Dolby are the real winners. They had

01:42:01 ◼   ► a deal with Amazon before, I believe they also worked with Tidal, and now they're going to work

01:42:07 ◼   ► with Apple. Good to be Dolby. Good to be Dolby right now, honestly, yes. This episode of Connected

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01:43:55 ◼   ► All right, so we're going to run out today's episode with our

01:43:59 ◼   ► recurring new segment as we move towards WWDC, one feature each.

01:44:04 ◼   ► Steven, would you like to go first?

01:44:06 ◼   ► What is one feature you would like to see come to Apple's platforms at WWDC this year?

01:44:10 ◼   ► You know, we've done all this talking about the iPad as a computer in the more traditional

01:44:17 ◼   ► sense of something like Mac OS or even Windows.

01:44:20 ◼   ► With the M1, that conversation has only accelerated.

01:44:24 ◼   ► But one area that I really feel like the iPhone, but the iPad in particular, really needs to

01:44:31 ◼   ► become more flexible is with backup options.

01:44:35 ◼   ► So if you pay and you have the space iCloud backup really is great.

01:44:38 ◼   ► I never have to worry about it.

01:44:40 ◼   ► It just works.

01:44:42 ◼   ► If my iPad gets dropped in the lake, then I can just replace it and move all my data

01:44:47 ◼   ► over by signing back into iCloud.

01:44:49 ◼   ► And if that's not for you, there's iTunes and finder integration.

01:44:53 ◼   ► That's a nice alternative.

01:44:54 ◼   ► You can do those encrypted full device backups there.

01:44:57 ◼   ► But both problems, but both solutions have the same problem is that they're all or nothing.

01:45:03 ◼   ► There's no way to restore data just within a single app or just certain settings from

01:45:08 ◼   ► a backup while leaving others alone.

01:45:11 ◼   ► On the Mac you can do this with Setup Assistant, where you sign into a new Mac and you say

01:45:17 ◼   ► hey I want to move data from my old Mac or this hard drive.

01:45:21 ◼   ► It gives you the options.

01:45:22 ◼   ► You can say hey you know what I want my desktop but I don't want my documents.

01:45:25 ◼   ► I want this and not that.

01:45:28 ◼   ► And I think that would be welcome, especially on the iPad as more and more people have

01:45:33 ◼   ► lots of data on them. Now I know it's inherently different because of the way

01:45:37 ◼   ► that iPadOS stores and most often doesn't store files locally but I would

01:45:45 ◼   ► like more control over that especially on on the restoration end of things.

01:45:51 ◼   ► It is an interesting one and it's a weird one and it's something that I think about

01:45:55 ◼   ► a lot especially when I hear Federico talking about all of the things he

01:45:59 ◼   ► has to do to make the manual backups of his articles, right? And it would be great if

01:46:04 ◼   ► there was some kind of thing that you knew was happening or an extra thing that you could

01:46:09 ◼   ► depend upon or rely upon. Like Time Machine, right? Time Machine is so great, it's just

01:46:13 ◼   ► there, and I can have it in addition to my online backup.

01:46:17 ◼   ► Right. I mean, you could say the flip side of this is iCloud backup for certain things

01:46:21 ◼   ► on your Mac, but yeah, and especially since we have a USB port, like, let me plug in a

01:46:26 ◼   ► hard drive every so often and backup data or settings or photos whatever it

01:46:32 ◼   ► is it's just I thought backup is great I think it solves the problem for like 95

01:46:37 ◼   ► percent of people but there are those people who who want that extra layer of

01:46:41 ◼   ► backup and security especially if the iPad is your only or your primary

01:46:45 ◼   ► computer Federico what have you got I just want to have rethought iPad

01:46:51 ◼   ► multitasking oh it's a little little thing there - they could throw that

01:46:56 ◼   ► Obviously the current system doesn't scale anymore. It's confusing and hard to explain to average users, and it's too limited for power users.

01:47:05 ◼   ► So I feel like there has to be something else. I don't know how, I don't know why I'm not a designer at Apple, but I can tell you from my perspective that a few things that I would really like to see.

01:47:17 ◼   ► to see. So keyboard integration. Right now the system is entirely touch-operated, right?

01:47:23 ◼   ► You need to drag and drop icons around to create spaces, to create split views and slide overs.

01:47:29 ◼   ► I just want to be able to do this from the keyboard without having to

01:47:33 ◼   ► finely maneuver these icons on screen. Have some kind of, in addition to keyboard commands,

01:47:39 ◼   ► have some kind of visible menu that lets me tile windows or group windows together.

01:47:46 ◼   ► you have something like this on the Mac, I think it can exist on the iPad as well.

01:47:51 ◼   ► And just, I just want to be able to do this faster, more quickly, you know?

01:47:56 ◼   ► I just feel like the entire system right now is so clunky where you gotta show an app,

01:48:01 ◼   ► then you gotta pick up the other one, drop it precisely where you want it,

01:48:06 ◼   ► because depending on where you drop it, it can be a split view, or it can be just...

01:48:11 ◼   ► Everything is so slow and tedious to do over and over.

01:48:15 ◼   ► Just let me fly through these windows and these apps quickly.

01:48:19 ◼   ► And some other additions, it would be cool to be able to do this from search.

01:48:23 ◼   ► This is actually something that Myke and Gray talked about years ago in an episode of Cortex.

01:48:29 ◼   ► It was literal years ago now.

01:48:31 ◼   ► And I always link it in my reviews because I still think it's a good idea

01:48:37 ◼   ► to just let me search for, say, Google Docs,

01:48:42 ◼   ► and as soon as I see the icon in Spotlight,

01:48:46 ◼   ► let me press a combination of keys

01:48:49 ◼   ► to instantly add that application

01:48:51 ◼   ► to the left or to the right, for example.

01:48:54 ◼   ► I mentioned before,

01:48:55 ◼   ► I would love to have my favorite combinations of apps.

01:48:59 ◼   ► So let me say, for example,

01:49:01 ◼   ► whenever I do research for Connected,

01:49:03 ◼   ► I have Notes and Google Docs open at the same time.

01:49:07 ◼   ► Let me save that as a workspace.

01:49:09 ◼   ► I believe the, what's it called?

01:49:11 ◼   ► The, Myke, you talk about other companies,

01:49:15 ◼   ► the Microsoft Duo.

01:49:16 ◼   ► - Oh, the Duo app pairs.

01:49:18 ◼   ► - They have that.

01:49:19 ◼   ► They have the app pairs.

01:49:20 ◼   ► Let me have that.

01:49:21 ◼   ► Let me save a workspace as a favorite.

01:49:24 ◼   ► - By the way, that device, such a failure.

01:49:26 ◼   ► They're selling it for $600 now.

01:49:27 ◼   ► It was a $2,000 device when it came out.

01:49:30 ◼   ► - I kind of wanted to buy it at one point.

01:49:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:49:34 ◼   ► - Thankfully I didn't. - Yeah, it's for a rough,

01:49:35 ◼   ► I feel for them.

01:49:36 ◼   ► such a cool thing but not going well.

01:49:39 ◼   ► - And lastly, I will say,

01:49:40 ◼   ► let me integrate all of this with shortcuts.

01:49:44 ◼   ► Shortcuts has no idea whatsoever

01:49:46 ◼   ► what iPad multitasking is at the moment.

01:49:49 ◼   ► Let me open and close windows, let me manage split views.

01:49:53 ◼   ► Let me speed this up using shortcuts.

01:49:56 ◼   ► - All right, mine is interactive widgets.

01:50:00 ◼   ► - Oh, yes. - We all love widgets.

01:50:02 ◼   ► Widgets are awesome.

01:50:03 ◼   ► And I've gotten by, like we all have

01:50:05 ◼   ► their limited interactivity. There was a thing that we were talking about before, we spoke about it

01:50:10 ◼   ► after. The new widgets and their design and the flexibility of them is so cool that I was willing

01:50:14 ◼   ► to take that one step back to go forward, right? And there are some apps that can do some stuff

01:50:20 ◼   ► to make it feel like it's a little bit interactive, you know, like you can tap on a certain area of a

01:50:25 ◼   ► widget and it opens apps to a different place than tapping on another area. And there are some apps

01:50:31 ◼   ► that have done some really silly hacky things to make it feel like they're working in the

01:50:35 ◼   ► background.

01:50:36 ◼   ► But I just want to be able to perform some quick actions that don't make me have to open

01:50:42 ◼   ► the application.

01:50:43 ◼   ► Basically I want to be able to do what I can do with the shortcuts widget of other applications.

01:50:48 ◼   ► And I'm happy to start slow here.

01:50:50 ◼   ► You know, like if the first thing was just stuff like starting and stopping timers, for

01:50:54 ◼   ► example.

01:50:55 ◼   ► Like super simple things, it would be really easy.

01:50:58 ◼   ► You know, like you've got something going on in an app, press a button and it changes

01:51:00 ◼   ► You know, like also play Paul's music, play Paul's a podcast.

01:51:04 ◼   ► Really easy stuff.

01:51:06 ◼   ► But if I was going to be able to get whatever I wanted, I would like applications to be

01:51:11 ◼   ► able to build their own Compact UIs.

01:51:14 ◼   ► So for example, I tap a button in the Fantastical widget and I get a custom Compact UI interface

01:51:20 ◼   ► for entering a new calendar event.

01:51:22 ◼   ► It'd be lovely, right?

01:51:24 ◼   ► Shortcuts does it.

01:51:25 ◼   ► Yeah, this is what made me think of it when I was writing it down today.

01:51:29 ◼   ► As soon as I wrote, "Oh, let me do what Shortcuts can do," I thought, "Well, Shortcuts also

01:51:32 ◼   ► lets me do Compact UI."

01:51:34 ◼   ► Oh, why can't other apps use that too?

01:51:37 ◼   ► I also want to see widgets updating more frequently.

01:51:40 ◼   ► That's just a little nitpick.

01:51:42 ◼   ► It's good, but sometimes can get a bit out of sync and I have to open the app to get

01:51:47 ◼   ► it to update.

01:51:48 ◼   ► I just want that to happen more often.

01:51:49 ◼   ► But more interactivity, I feel like it's got to happen.

01:51:52 ◼   ► I don't know if it's going to happen now.

01:51:54 ◼   ► I'm fine if they just take a step.

01:51:56 ◼   ► They don't have to give me everything.

01:51:57 ◼   ► I just want to see we're moving in that direction.

01:51:59 ◼   ► Surely this is going to be another big year for widgets.

01:52:02 ◼   ► I've just got to assume Apple would be bananas to leave this on the table for this year.

01:52:09 ◼   ► It's one of the only things they've introduced of this kind in years that's really taken

01:52:13 ◼   ► off the way that they would have dreamed.

01:52:16 ◼   ► You know, like, does anyone remember watch face sharing?

01:52:20 ◼   ► That didn't happen, did it?

01:52:22 ◼   ► But widgets did.

01:52:23 ◼   ► So I want to see them capitalize on this because it went bigger than they ever could have imagined

01:52:28 ◼   ► I think as a feature.

01:52:30 ◼   ► I mean look at what Google did, right?

01:52:32 ◼   ► With Android 12.

01:52:33 ◼   ► Android 12 looks bananas and amazing.

01:52:37 ◼   ► Material You, their new design language stuff, like really kind of fantastic.

01:52:44 ◼   ► That is like way more than Apple's going to do.

01:52:47 ◼   ► It's like full on device theming built into the operating system.

01:52:52 ◼   ► When they spoke about it on Google I/O, Matthias Duarte, he really kind of like embraced it.

01:52:58 ◼   ► He's like, look, as designers, it's going to be really uncomfortable to let people change

01:53:04 ◼   ► the designs of your apps.

01:53:06 ◼   ► But we think it's the right thing to do and we're creating some tools to let them do it

01:53:09 ◼   ► in a way that will be tasteful.

01:53:11 ◼   ► And I was just like, man, I appreciate how honest he was.

01:53:15 ◼   ► Yeah, well, that's true though.

01:53:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:53:20 ◼   ► So there we go.

01:53:21 ◼   ► more features. Well I think that about

01:53:24 ◼   ► does it for this week if you want to

01:53:27 ◼   ► check out the stories we spoke about and

01:53:28 ◼   ► definitely go read Federico's review if

01:53:31 ◼   ► you haven't already.

01:53:32 ◼   ► Those links are on the website at

01:53:33 ◼   ► relay.fm/connected/346

01:53:38 ◼   ► While you're on the relay website go

01:53:40 ◼   ► check out Clockwise it's a host by

01:53:43 ◼   ► friends Dan Morin and Micah Sargent. They

01:53:45 ◼   ► invite two guests every week from a

01:53:48 ◼   ► diverse pool of tech pros and they cover

01:53:50 ◼   ► four tech topics in 30 minutes. Head on over to relay.fm/clockwise or

01:53:56 ◼   ► search for clockwise wherever you get your podcasts. You can find all of us

01:54:00 ◼   ► online, you can find Myke on Twitter as @imyke and you can hear him on a bunch

01:54:07 ◼   ► of shows here on Relay FM and you can see him most Fridays at Myke.live

01:54:13 ◼   ► where he builds very colorful rainbow keyboards. I'm typing on one right now

01:54:17 ◼   ► Which is the most rainbow it's unbelievable. Is that the one in your picture from the tweet today? Yeah. Yeah

01:54:22 ◼   ► It's called the Stella 65. It's fantastic. It's just acrylic plastic. So the the RGB is just everywhere

01:54:29 ◼   ► It looks awesome. It's really fun. You can find Federico on Twitter of a teachy vit

01:54:35 ◼   ► ICC I he is of course the editor-in-chief of max stories net again. Congratulations on you. It's it's really good

01:54:43 ◼   ► Thank you. Thank you. You can find me on Twitter as ismh and I write 512 pixels dotnet

01:54:48 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week on connected. They are our friends at Pingdom Squarespace and indeed

01:54:55 ◼   ► Until next time gentlemen say goodbye. How do you that you cheerio? Bye y'all