PodSearch

Connected

251: The Worrier Warrior

 

00:00:00   (upbeat music)

00:00:02   - Hello and welcome to Connected episode 251.

00:00:11   It's made possible this week by our sponsors,

00:00:13   Pingdom, Astropad Studio, and ButcherBox.

00:00:16   My name is Stephen Hackett

00:00:17   and I am joined by Mr. Myke Hurley.

00:00:19   - Ah, he's back, baby.

00:00:21   - Hello.

00:00:22   - Hi, you're back.

00:00:23   - You didn't give me the excitement that I was expecting

00:00:26   for my triumph from return to the show.

00:00:27   - Well, I mean, I've already talked to you,

00:00:28   Like, we've already had that between us.

00:00:31   Right, but the listeners don't know.

00:00:33   Well, they do now.

00:00:34   For them, all they get is between episodes, right?

00:00:36   If everybody else thinks we haven't spoken for two weeks.

00:00:39   I don't think anyone thinks that.

00:00:40   Sure they do.

00:00:41   Sure they do.

00:00:42   We only live inside the show.

00:00:43   We own a business together.

00:00:45   No, but that's it.

00:00:46   It's just the show.

00:00:46   That's it.

00:00:47   Everything that happens happens in the show, nothing more.

00:00:49   We are also joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:52   Hello.

00:00:52   Hi.

00:00:53   How are you?

00:00:53   Hey!

00:00:54   Hey, Federico's here!

00:00:55   Yeah!

00:00:56   Hey, nice.

00:00:57   Thank you, Steven.

00:00:58   Thank you. I would like to at this point rearrange the document because it's important to me to rearrange the document right now

00:01:05   So you've been back for like three seconds and you're already causing havoc

00:01:08   Yeah, well, I feel like that my havoc status can only be explained by telling a story that I have to tell

00:01:14   Okay, tell the story please

00:01:16   Well, let it be known that the only thing we know about this is and to a note in the document that says

00:01:23   Myke has a story to tell

00:01:25   indentation

00:01:27   beverage

00:01:28   Yeah, yeah, the beverage is not so much part of the story. It's like the end of the story. Okay, so last week

00:01:35   I was away. I was on vacation at Fire Island at the Arment Beach House and

00:01:40   My vacation ended yesterday

00:01:44   It was supposed to I'm still in Fire Island right now. Blink once if markers change you to the radiator

00:01:50   Wait, so you're not in the UK? I'm not in the UK. I was supposed to be home yesterday

00:01:57   but I'm not because I had an accident. Well, I didn't really have an accident in so much

00:02:03   as I did something very stupid. So beaches have lifeguard chairs, right? Federico, have

00:02:08   you ever seen these? They're like really high lifeguard chairs, these huge chairs. They

00:02:12   look like the chairs of giants.

00:02:14   Drowning exists in Italy.

00:02:15   Yeah, so they're, well I don't know, like we watched the Baywatch, the rock Baywatch

00:02:20   movie and they have these little huts instead, which by the way, that is a fantastic movie.

00:02:25   It is absolutely hilarious. If you realize very early on that they are making fun of themselves in the movie, which they are, it's fantastic

00:02:32   I absolutely loved it. So you should watch the Rock Baywatch movie because also the rocks in it is amazing

00:02:36   so

00:02:38   In the evening these beaches the lifeguard chairs, they have no lifeguards in them and they say keep off

00:02:45   so I climbed one and

00:02:48   We all we all climbed the chairs to sit on the chairs because they're like really high

00:02:54   I don't know. They're like nine feet or something from the ground.

00:02:58   Did you fall off the chair?

00:02:59   No, I didn't fall off the chair.

00:03:01   The only way to really get there's two ways to get down from one of these chairs.

00:03:05   One is you can climb back down the way you got up or you can jump into the pile of sand.

00:03:10   Like this is like a big pile of sand that they put at the bottom.

00:03:13   So the lifeguards can jump down so they can go and save people. Right.

00:03:16   So like they're actually doing good things.

00:03:17   So I'm not great with heights, but I was there anyway.

00:03:21   I was feeling very relaxed.

00:03:23   I was in a very good mood, so I was on top of the chair.

00:03:27   And then Tiff jumped from the top and she landed.

00:03:31   She was perfectly fine.

00:03:33   So then Adina was going to jump, but she got nervous.

00:03:37   So I was like, all right, I'll do it first.

00:03:39   Now I jumped.

00:03:41   And I made two fatal errors in my jump.

00:03:46   Error number one was I remembered that on my honeymoon,

00:03:49   I really badly sprained my ankle.

00:03:50   Yes, we all remember that.

00:03:52   So I was trying to minimize the damage to my ankle.

00:03:56   That was point number one.

00:03:57   Point number two, which is I think the bigger problem was I decided to aim my

00:04:02   landing exactly where Tiff landed.

00:04:04   Now, what happens to sand when sand is compacted?

00:04:08   It gets hard.

00:04:09   It comes very, it gets very, it comes very hard.

00:04:10   Yes.

00:04:11   So I landed completely on that point.

00:04:15   Felt like concrete.

00:04:16   Uh, I have quite badly damaged my back.

00:04:19   So I am still in Fire Island because I couldn't face getting on a plane.

00:04:25   I have moved a plane flight for great expense.

00:04:28   And so here I am.

00:04:30   So I am still on an accidental vacation.

00:04:32   You are stuck on an island with Marco Arment because you tried to jump off of a lifeguard

00:04:38   chair.

00:04:39   Yes.

00:04:40   That is what happened.

00:04:42   Sounds like the setup for a joke.

00:04:45   So the reason that beverage is in is I am drinking coffee right now.

00:04:48   I'm drinking Mokowamut coffee, but I'm still on island living

00:04:52   So it has something in it called rum chata, which is like a rum based liqueur, which is really nice

00:04:57   So I'm feeling extra special today

00:05:00   I also need it so I can sit down and talk to you knuckleheads for 90 minutes because I

00:05:04   Can't sit down most of the time at the moment

00:05:07   So that's where I am in my life. Help me understand it at any point anybody suggests to you Myke

00:05:13   You should land where Tif just landed or no, that was my own decision

00:05:17   And so this is how my brain works, right?

00:05:20   She was okay.

00:05:21   It must be okay if I land in that exact spot.

00:05:23   That's how my brain works.

00:05:25   But that was stupid because I landed

00:05:28   and it made a bad noise.

00:05:30   - A bad noise.

00:05:32   - It made a bad noise.

00:05:33   It made a crunchy noise.

00:05:34   But I'm, you know, I can move around.

00:05:37   I'm just stretching a lot, you know.

00:05:38   I've spoken to a expert and I'm just stretching a lot.

00:05:42   So that's where I am and where I am right now

00:05:45   and I'm gonna be here for a few more days.

00:05:47   So I'm on an accidental vacation here.

00:05:50   Well, I think it's a painkillers and CBD moisturizing cream thing.

00:05:55   Put that on my back, try and mellow me out.

00:05:58   So I'm like, I'm really feeling it today, boys.

00:06:00   But here I am. Wow.

00:06:02   This is so much better than just beverage.

00:06:04   I'm sorry for you, though.

00:06:07   But also, here's the here's the other thing is his maybe the bigger thing.

00:06:10   I'm sitting in front of Mark Wammert's computer right now and I'm terrified of it.

00:06:14   Mm hmm. Welcome.

00:06:16   He has a very messy desktop.

00:06:17   Very messy. There's just stuff all over it.

00:06:21   Can you look at his documents?

00:06:23   I mean, I could. I don't want to, but I could.

00:06:25   There are like folders on this desktop that I'm very intrigued in the names of.

00:06:31   But I won't open them.

00:06:32   But I'm also just really scared because when I came up here,

00:06:35   he had like Xcode open and stuff, and I'm just terrified that like

00:06:38   I touch something and delete Overcast. That is that's my current feeling.

00:06:41   Can you maybe inject some malware into Overcast?

00:06:45   For me?

00:06:46   If I knew how to do it, in theory, yes, I could do it.

00:06:50   Just type "UI malware" something.

00:06:52   "UI malware, pseudo-" something.

00:06:55   You know, I have great respect for Marco's level of trust in me.

00:06:59   I mean, he listens to my shows, he knows how inept I am at computers, but yet, here I am.

00:07:03   I'm sitting in front of his iMac Pro right now.

00:07:05   I wouldn't have thought of you-

00:07:07   I can also touch all the dials.

00:07:09   Like he has lots of dials for his audio stuff.

00:07:10   No, don't touch the dials.

00:07:11   I can touch all of them.

00:07:12   I wouldn't have thought of you as the outlaw type of person, you know?

00:07:17   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:07:18   Jumping off of lifeguard chairs.

00:07:20   So here's here is my general problem with this stuff.

00:07:23   You know me, you know that I am a warrior typically, right?

00:07:26   Like I tend to worry about things. I'm quite a nervous person.

00:07:29   I thought you said a warrior.

00:07:31   I am a warrior at heart. No one can stop me.

00:07:34   I will fight you.

00:07:36   Anyone, anyone. Sand, I'll fight the sand with my butt at high speed.

00:07:41   Anyway, so I'm a warrior at heart, right? And when I'm on vacations, I relax a bit more

00:07:49   and I worry less. But then I do stupid things that then make me worry more the next time.

00:07:55   See, that is my general flow and it's a shame, really, that this is kind of where I am in

00:08:01   my life. But yeah, it's not a bad place to have a bad back, I'll tell you that.

00:08:04   What I'm hearing, though, is that next year's WWDC, we've got to have a beach day and try

00:08:11   and find the lifeguard chair and see if you get better.

00:08:13   I can show you how to do it, see if I can get better at it, right?

00:08:15   I can train. Yes.

00:08:18   I'm going to train. Yes. Well, I'm sorry for your accident, Myke.

00:08:23   That's okay. I mean, again, I've just extended my vacation. It's not the worst thing in the world,

00:08:27   but it is just more difficult than usual to move around and I am in a considerable amount of pain.

00:08:33   Speaking of putting you in considerable amounts of pain,

00:08:36   have you installed any public betas on your iPad?

00:08:41   No. I have installed none. I have installed no betas because I have been spending a week

00:08:46   with the individual who hates these betas more than anybody else on the living planet,

00:08:52   which is Marco.

00:08:53   He's poisoned. He's poisoned them for you.

00:08:54   You cannot spend time with Marco right now and be excited about running the betas because

00:08:58   he is very non-excited, not excited about them.

00:09:00   Well, yeah, I mean, he has a point. It's not, it's not, it's not good, especially if you

00:09:05   use iCloud. So I think last episode I mentioned everything's fine, seems fine so far. And

00:09:11   And of course it's the kind of statement that you spend a couple of days using the beta

00:09:15   and you realize, no, not everything's fine.

00:09:18   So to...

00:09:19   No, I'm not touching this one either.

00:09:21   Yeah.

00:09:22   It just feels like talking to you, right?

00:09:23   There are still problems.

00:09:24   I'm scared.

00:09:25   Yeah.

00:09:26   iCloud Drive, and this is, you know, Craig O'Kanberry has been talking about this, the

00:09:29   Ulysses folks, at a blog post a few days ago about this.

00:09:33   iCloud Drive, it's not clear what Apple is doing, but it's basically losing data or duplicating

00:09:40   documents. For example, I'm using my node and every few minutes it creates a

00:09:45   duplicate copy of my mind map for the iOS review. But why wouldn't you want that, though?

00:09:51   But get this! It creates a duplicate copy from yesterday, so it's like it's going

00:09:57   back in time and saving... I don't know. So yeah, you probably want to wait for beta

00:10:03   for at this point. Just wait for people to say that it's fine.

00:10:10   You're losing on some interest in betas from third-party developers going on now, but you can wait.

00:10:17   Yeah, but also, no one's asked me to test their applications.

00:10:21   Developers don't know that I'm running iOS 12. No one's asked me, no one cares.

00:10:24   So I'm just, you know... I typically don't get the amount of betas that you do.

00:10:28   Well, there are public betas now, especially with the test flight links.

00:10:32   Yeah, that's a good point. I think it's so much easier. Like I was thinking of a few

00:10:36   years ago when I used to struggle to find betas and now you can...

00:10:40   Do you remember? Do you remember what it was like to use like TestFlight and Hookey back

00:10:44   in the day? Oh my god.

00:10:45   If you had a new device, and they weren't manually removing devices from the... Oh my

00:10:52   god, that was terrible.

00:10:53   But today there are like Twitter accounts. You can search Twitter and you will find accounts

00:10:57   dedicated to sort of re-sharing links to public test flight links. And so you can find all

00:11:04   kinds of betas.

00:11:05   That kind of stuff is so useful for new developers, right? Developers that don't yet have relationships

00:11:10   with people like you, right? And they want to get smart people to look at their applications,

00:11:17   but they don't yet have an outlet at which to find testers. And being able to just be

00:11:23   be like, here's a link, try out my app.

00:11:26   That's such a useful thing, right?

00:11:28   And also, I mean, just in general,

00:11:29   for when people are sending out PR releases and stuff,

00:11:32   and they're just like, well, click this link

00:11:34   and go and test the app out,

00:11:35   rather than needing to go through this whole rigmarole.

00:11:37   It's awesome. - Yep, very true.

00:11:39   - We had a couple of items from the last episode

00:11:42   we wanted to touch base on, but first, let me tell you--

00:11:44   - It's called follow-up. - It is.

00:11:46   It's touching on items in the past.

00:11:50   Did you ring the bell?

00:11:51   - What was that? - I rang Marcus Bell, yeah.

00:11:52   - Yeah, that was the bar, I just decided to hit the bar.

00:11:55   - That's good, let's hear that a few more times.

00:11:56   (bell ringing)

00:11:58   That's good.

00:11:59   - I'm a troublemaker today.

00:11:59   - That's good.

00:12:01   This episode of Connected is brought to you by Pingdom,

00:12:04   the company that makes website performance monitoring

00:12:06   really easy and everyone loves a fast website.

00:12:10   Pingdom is helping keep your favorite sites online.

00:12:12   Sites like Netflix and Amazon, Spotify,

00:12:16   I don't know if Twitter is anyone's favorite website,

00:12:18   but Twitter, Buzzfeed, Slack, Relay FM,

00:12:20   these are just a few companies

00:12:22   that trust Pingdom to take care of their website monitoring.

00:12:25   Websites are complicated beasts now.

00:12:28   It's not just simple pages.

00:12:30   We have lots of site transactions,

00:12:32   stuff like user registrations,

00:12:34   logging in, checkouts, and much more.

00:12:36   And Pingdom cares about your users

00:12:38   having the smoothest experience possible when on your site,

00:12:42   so they are monitoring all of those different

00:12:44   types of transactions.

00:12:45   And if disaster strikes, you'll be the first to know.

00:12:49   It's super easy to get started.

00:12:50   all Pingdom needs is the URL and they take care of the rest.

00:12:54   That's it.

00:12:55   So go to pingdom.com/relayfm right now

00:12:58   for a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.

00:13:03   And when you sign up, use the code connected at checkout

00:13:06   to get a huge 30% off your first invoice.

00:13:10   My thanks to Pingdom for their support of this show

00:13:13   and Relay FM.

00:13:14   Okay, follow up.

00:13:15   Last week Federico, you and I spoke about iOS 13

00:13:20   audio sharing. So Federica, so how does this work? Is it just Apple music? Does it work

00:13:24   with podcast clients? Do you, are you faxing music to each other? What's going on? So I

00:13:29   have a confession. I forgot to test it with third party apps, but I did test it with third

00:13:36   party headphones. So it sort of, you know, it balances out, I think. So it's built right

00:13:42   into control center. So I think as long as you can, as long as an app uses the, even

00:13:48   the basic AirPlay streaming technology, not even AirPlay 2, I think it's going to work

00:13:52   because all you do is you literally just select multiple headphones in Control Center and

00:13:58   like you have checkboxes and it just goes off to multiple Bluetooth devices at once.

00:14:04   So we're not talking about AirPlay 2 speakers here, but like I tested with my AirPods and

00:14:09   with my Sony, you know, the headphones with the unspeakable name, the MX3 something, those

00:14:16   our standard 1000 MX3 dash. Why is wrong with Sony? Just come up with names for stuff.

00:14:22   I don't know. So I tested with my second generation AirPods and those Sony headphones.

00:14:27   And what I did was I put one AirPod in my left ear and I just sort of, of course I didn't put on

00:14:36   headphones, but I sort of just listened through the right ear cup of the headphones so that I

00:14:42   could hear the simultaneous audio streams going on at once, and sure enough, it works.

00:14:47   There was an extremely slight delay on the Sony headphones, like you could tell that the AirPods

00:14:54   were like a fraction of a second ahead of the Sony headphones, and I think it comes down to

00:15:00   the custom chip and the custom integration that Apple is using for the AirPods. But I did try with

00:15:06   music and podcasts, for sure. So, you know, listening to podcasts, to spoken content,

00:15:12   it was kind of weird because it created this… and of course nobody's actually going to

00:15:17   do this, but it created sort of this weird and very slight sort of echo effect. Like,

00:15:25   I was listening to automaters and I could hear… it was like I was listening to David

00:15:31   in a giant M2 room with some very slight echo because of the latency on the Sony headphones

00:15:38   and it was a very slight delay but I could tell the difference.

00:15:42   Now I don't know if this is going to get better in terms of future beta releases but it does

00:15:49   work in music and podcasts at least.

00:15:52   It works from Control Center and you can select any Bluetooth headphone that you may have

00:15:58   in addition to AirPods.

00:15:59   So if you happen to have, you know, AirPods for yourself and an extra pair of headphones

00:16:04   and you want to give those to a friend during a trip or something, I don't know, you can

00:16:08   share that audio to standard Bluetooth headphones.

00:16:13   And at least in music and podcasts it's gonna work.

00:16:16   I think it's gonna work everywhere.

00:16:17   I think this is such a cute feature.

00:16:19   This is so cool.

00:16:20   I like it.

00:16:21   I think it's gonna be really great.

00:16:22   Also never share your AirPods.

00:16:23   Please.

00:16:24   Never.

00:16:25   That's why.

00:16:26   Never.

00:16:27   Gross!

00:16:28   So gross.

00:16:29   I hate AirPods, they're so gross.

00:16:32   I love them, but they're gross.

00:16:35   We also spoke about the Eddy Cue interview in GQ and there was part of that talking about

00:16:39   iTunes music sales.

00:16:41   Cue had this comment of, you know, it was still just fine when we cut over to Apple

00:16:46   Music and we were curious about that.

00:16:48   So Federico, I think you did do some homework on this?

00:16:50   Yeah, I looked at a bunch of Nielsen reports for the state of the music industry and I

00:16:57   looked for 2016, 2017, 2018. Apple Music of course launched in 2015, so it only made sense

00:17:04   to start from 2016. And every time I looked, they mentioned that of course you gotta pay

00:17:09   if you wanna have the, or you gotta sign up if you wanna have the full report. So I just

00:17:13   looked at the free summary. But in the free summary they always mentioned, yeah, I don't

00:17:18   wanna give my email address to this kind of company, you know, those reports and yeah,

00:17:24   Anyway, they always mentioned a decline in digital downloads. And that was pretty clear

00:17:31   to me that, of course, standard music sales were going down. They also, this is something

00:17:36   that we should have mentioned, how all of these associations that report on music numbers,

00:17:42   they now use the expression of album equivalent, which I think is a way for the music industry

00:17:48   to describe playlists. Because of course, so they always use the album equivalent.

00:17:54   and as a consumption metric, as they say, because when streaming numbers got added to

00:18:02   the standard reporting for like Billboard and all these other companies, they also needed

00:18:09   to account for the fact that people now don't necessarily listen to an album, but perhaps

00:18:14   listen to a playlist for an artist. And so I think that it's very complicated, but I

00:18:18   think that's what the album equivalent means. But in any case, again, they always mention

00:18:23   how standard digital downloads were in decline, as opposed to, for example, vinyl sales that

00:18:30   were going up, or I think in the past, CD sales were going up, and even cassette tapes

00:18:36   somehow are going up because of it.

00:18:38   No, but it makes sense though, right? Because of like...

00:18:40   Because of Ipsers, yes.

00:18:41   People our age want vinyl, like me, the younger generation, they want what they missed, so

00:18:48   CDs and cassettes. It's the same thing, really, just because they're these interesting little

00:18:52   keepsakes that are something you might have some vague memory of from your childhood.

00:18:57   So I don't know what EdiQ was referring to, but digital album sales definitely not growing.

00:19:04   Before we move on, just another quick reminder that we are doing a live show in San Francisco

00:19:10   here in really just six weeks or so to mark Relay FM's fifth birthday. There's a link

00:19:16   in the show notes. There are some tickets left. We would love to see you in San Francisco.

00:19:20   Alright, Myke, our first tiny topic is labeled "Myke's foldable dreams may come true."

00:19:27   Well, I mean, they're going to come true at some point because foldable screen technology

00:19:31   is clearly the future, full of no road bumps.

00:19:34   There was a thing on MacRumors which was labeled as a "according to a sketchy rumor,"

00:19:39   so it's completely nonsense that there would apparently be a foldable screen iPad in 2020

00:19:44   and it will have 5G.

00:19:45   This is obviously not going to happen, but I did just want to touch on this idea a minute.

00:19:50   like it would be so cool to have a foldable iPad. That's kind of all I really wanted to say today.

00:19:54   I think that it would be great if I could have like multiple screen sizes, you know, so it could be

00:19:58   either a small iPad or a big iPad. And I still think, I mean, I just want to keep kind of

00:20:04   referencing this and touching in on it every now and then because it really does feel like the

00:20:09   logical future of personal technology is the ability to have these more adaptable devices

00:20:14   and the screen, foldable screen technology, clearly feels like the easiest way to get there,

00:20:20   except no one can do it right yet, but it does feel like it's incredibly difficult and we will

00:20:26   get there, but I think it's going to take some time still. I saw like an article of, I think,

00:20:31   somewhere over the last few days where like Samsung's CEO was like, "Yeah, we rushed it,

00:20:35   we shouldn't have done it. It was too soon." Foldable iPad though, seems good, right?

00:20:40   Sure. I mean, I don't think it's any surprise that Apple has played with this. I think the

00:20:46   timeline and the inclusion of 5G networking is the sketchy part. But of course, Apple's

00:20:50   experimenting with this, right? They experiment with all sorts of things. And it would be cool.

00:20:55   I mean, I think the idea of the foldable device is interesting. I think the concept has been marred

00:21:00   by these early attempts, but someone will get it right eventually. And I'm sure Apple is keeping

00:21:06   a close eye on that technology. Yeah, I mean, it seems logical that they are building these products,

00:21:11   right? Like, because it's like the big fun thing. If this ends up being the thing, then it will be

00:21:17   they will need to have some kind of entry into this market. And hopefully one day it will be.

00:21:21   Yeah, exactly. Maybe they'll, you know, sometimes Apple waits for a product category to kind of get

00:21:31   good and they move in, sometimes they jump in earlier, and I do wonder if this becomes

00:21:36   a thing how quickly they would have something there. I guess we'll see.

00:21:41   Would you be willing to put a 2020 foldable screen iPad in your predictions for next year?

00:21:45   Mmm.

00:21:46   No. Don't do it.

00:21:49   Is that a Ricky?

00:21:50   That is the Rickiest Ricky. You don't know, you never know though, let's see how the

00:21:54   rest of the year goes, right? Like, if multiple companies come out with products and they're

00:21:58   "Oh, all they needed to do was this and it's perfect." Then you never know, but seems

00:22:05   quite Ricky.

00:22:06   All right, up next we have Zoom, which is a VoIP application. I know, Myke, we use it

00:22:12   for phone calls with various people sometimes.

00:22:15   Yeah, it's a good conference calling thing. And I use it with Jason Snow. He uses it for

00:22:19   some incomparable stuff a lot because it's actually really good at group stuff because

00:22:23   it does a bunch of recordings automatically of other people's tracks and stuff that Skype

00:22:28   doesn't do so it is actually a pretty interesting way of dealing with this stuff.

00:22:32   They've been in some hot water this week where a couple things happened back to back.

00:22:37   A security researcher disclosed a feature in Zoom which is called Click to Join.

00:22:43   So basically you just get sent a link and it opens and you're in the call.

00:22:47   You know a lot of these conference call software, I'm sure we've all used them, like you open

00:22:50   the app you have to enter like a 15-digit code and it's all sort of messy.

00:22:53   Zoom tries to get rid of as much of that as possible.

00:22:57   actually very, it's very convenient. Problem was, it's too convenient, but it was very

00:23:01   convenient. Like you'd you'd click a link, maybe that was in a calendar invite, and it

00:23:05   would just open the zoom app. It's very useful.

00:23:06   Yeah, it was too convenient, because it turns out the security researcher found that on

00:23:11   the Mac, a video call could be occurring without the user's consent or knowledge, which is

00:23:18   it's not great.

00:23:20   That's an oopsie daisy, Steven. That's what that is a word for it. That's an oopsie daisy.

00:23:25   That's a problem.

00:23:27   And so they, you know, we're talking about that.

00:23:29   And so people kept digging and also came to light that that zoom is running a local web

00:23:34   server on your Mac.

00:23:37   And that does a couple things.

00:23:39   It makes it really easy just to like reinstall zoom, but they're doing it to get around a

00:23:44   security feature in Safari 12, which displays a confirmation to a user to launch zoom from

00:23:49   the browser.

00:23:51   And if you're running a local web server, apparently you can get around that.

00:23:53   So this is obviously terrible, very, very bad, but I love things like this because I

00:23:59   can see the conversation that happened, probably not in a conference room, probably in a conference

00:24:04   call, right? Because it's a conference calling company.

00:24:06   Oh, do you think they all work remote and just call each other?

00:24:09   No, I reckon they all get in the same room and they just have a conference call in the

00:24:12   same room. Everyone's got the computers in front of them. You've got a conference call.

00:24:17   And you can imagine it, right? Like what led to this, which is kind of like, oh, well,

00:24:22   we need to get around this thing because it's really annoying, what we could do is just

00:24:26   this, and someone's like "Yeah, okay, let's do it." And no one ever really stopped to

00:24:29   think about how dangerous it is.

00:24:33   Well, it's quite the path from "Oh, this button is annoying that I need to confirm

00:24:40   every time" to "Let's just run a local web server and not think about the consequences."

00:24:45   Hey, look, you've got to, you know, what is it, Occam's Razor? It was the simplest

00:24:50   solution to that problem. Let's just open everybody's computers up to the internet constantly

00:24:54   all the time for us to be able to press buttons on their behalf. Seems like the easiest way

00:24:59   to do it.

00:25:00   It's no good. No good at all. Zoom's had a bad week. They have an update that's out today,

00:25:05   if you have it on the Mac, that fixes the Click to Join bug and it removes the local

00:25:11   web server. I did see some tweets and I went to look for them before the show started and

00:25:15   I couldn't find them. But it seems like some other conference call software does similar

00:25:19   things and I assume that they will be, now that they've been called out for that, they'll

00:25:24   be addressing it.

00:25:26   But it's not a good look.

00:25:28   I agree with you, as far as conference call software goes, Zoom is actually pretty good,

00:25:33   but a real bad look on their part.

00:25:35   Yeah, I mean I see that stuff and it's like, I'm disappointed but I'm not mad.

00:25:41   I don't believe they were trying to do anything bad, they just made a stupid decision.

00:25:48   But this is one of those things where the reason they did it and the reasons it will

00:25:52   probably end up breaking in the future is like Apple's trying to make the devices more

00:25:56   secure because a lot of the times, especially with this kind of stuff, it's not the users

00:26:01   that are making the bad decisions, it's companies making bad decisions on our behalf.

00:26:08   We need to be saved from them and most regular users would never know.

00:26:12   None of us knew this was happening, right?

00:26:14   Like they took a real expert to find this and it's just like this is why we do need

00:26:22   – I mean it's funny really because like I spent some time thinking about this like

00:26:25   there aren't viruses on the Mac really, right?

00:26:27   Like it's not a problem but Apple seems to be doing more and more about locking down

00:26:31   the system and making it more secure and I was thinking about this recently like why

00:26:34   are they – why do Apple feel such a need to do it and this is why, right?

00:26:38   Like it's stuff like this.

00:26:39   it's protecting us against stupid product decisions sometimes,

00:26:43   as opposed to someone from a nefarious group trying to hack our information

00:26:49   and steal our bank account stuff.

00:26:50   It's also, I think, a good example of the argument

00:26:54   that Apple should open up iOS more, and specifically the iPad more.

00:26:58   Exactly.

00:26:59   You cannot-- it is possible for apps to open a local web

00:27:04   server on the iPad.

00:27:06   There's apps like Working Copy, for example,

00:27:08   that do it to let you preview a document in Safari.

00:27:11   There's apps that do it to let you transfer documents

00:27:14   wirelessly on the same local network.

00:27:17   But it's not as, you know, it doesn't get

00:27:20   the same background privileges that you get on the Mac.

00:27:23   It's not the kind of process that is always going on

00:27:25   that you need to manually kill and delete with the terminal.

00:27:29   It's a more sandboxed and constrained environment.

00:27:32   And so whenever we see these problems occur on the Mac,

00:27:35   whenever we hear these stories, I think of,

00:27:39   I kind of understand why Apple doesn't want to go down

00:27:42   the same route necessarily with features on iOS,

00:27:44   features on the iPad, because you've got these computers

00:27:47   in the hands of many more millions of people,

00:27:50   and suddenly you have these problems

00:27:52   on a much, much bigger scale.

00:27:54   And I also understand on the other hand,

00:27:56   why do you want to lock down the Mac

00:27:58   from a security standpoint?

00:28:00   Because like, you could argue that Zoom didn't intend

00:28:04   to act as a bad actor here.

00:28:06   They didn't do this maliciously,

00:28:08   but still the effect of their decision

00:28:11   is that it's potentially a vector for malicious attacks.

00:28:16   And so you have to wonder,

00:28:18   all the folks that do not update the Zoom client,

00:28:22   they could potentially be at risk.

00:28:24   Now I'm not saying that this is a security,

00:28:26   it's not a security apocalypse going on.

00:28:28   - But I guess this is an argument for the notarizing, right?

00:28:31   - Yes, yes.

00:28:33   because in this instance, if something got really bad,

00:28:36   Apple could just cut off the application.

00:28:38   - Just turn it off.

00:28:39   - Yeah, and I don't like the tone of zoom in the response.

00:28:44   When you get caught doing this kind of workaround and you--

00:28:49   - Even if you weren't trying to be bad,

00:28:51   you have to take it as you've upset people.

00:28:54   - To take it, you have to apologize and you have to fix it,

00:28:57   not act all defensive about it,

00:28:59   which I didn't like in their blog post.

00:29:02   Good times. Software. It seems complicated.

00:29:05   No, talking about good times, I saw a tweet from friends that showed Guillermo Rambo.

00:29:09   He was using Amiibo to activate shortcuts. Federico, this is like... if there was a wheelhouse

00:29:16   for yours, this would be it, right? This is like, couldn't be better for your Venn diagram.

00:29:23   Amiibo collection, shortcuts, right in the middle.

00:29:27   a lot comes down to the fact that shortcuts can read any type of NFC card. It doesn't matter,

00:29:33   to an extent, what kind of data is written onto the tag. The problem is, in this case, NFC chips

00:29:42   inside of Amiibo don't have the kind of data item that iOS will interpret immediately. For example,

00:29:50   if you try and scan an NFC tag that has a URL written into it, iOS will by default,

00:29:58   on an iPhone XS at least, I think also on an iPhone X, it will by default display a notification

00:30:05   and offering you to open the link. But in this case, NFC tags that are contained inside Amiibo,

00:30:15   And as well, Rambo also tweeted about NFC tags embedded in credit cards, especially

00:30:21   the ones that we have in Europe. I don't know if folks in the US also have contactless cards.

00:30:26   Those NFC chips have data that iOS will not automatically try to launch or open. And so,

00:30:35   it is totally possible to scan an NFC tag from shortcuts and use it as a trigger. Of course,

00:30:42   the only downside is that Amiibo have NFC tags built into the base of the figurine, so you will...

00:30:51   it's not exactly convenient. Yeah, really, you need a... it's like the opposite. You need to have like a

00:30:56   stationary iOS device and then you just tap the Amiibo onto it, right? Like it's the other way around.

00:31:01   But you also need to have the iPhone facing out because the... Yeah, this is... just the iPod touch

00:31:08   have the NFC kit? Probably not, right? Like, I'm thinking that you put, like, an old phone,

00:31:13   just leave it there all the time, right? And it just becomes, like, an NFC base that you

00:31:17   use?

00:31:18   Yeah, basically. But, you know, it's fun because, of course, you can now -- NFC works totally

00:31:24   in the background on the latest iPhone XS generation devices. I think also on the XR,

00:31:30   which shortcuts -- which is not an API the developers can use. Only shortcuts can read

00:31:35   and run code based on a successful NFC read in the background.

00:31:40   This is not possible for third-party developers.

00:31:42   I also think, I gotta look better into this,

00:31:45   because I'm gonna write about it later this summer,

00:31:48   that there's an API in iOS 13 for apps to write data onto NFC tags.

00:31:55   This used to be only possible if you had a smartphone on an Android device,

00:32:01   because iOS didn't have any write capabilities for NFC.

00:32:05   But in theory, it should be possible now for a developer

00:32:07   to build an app that can write data onto an NFC tag.

00:32:12   So in theory, if this is possible and somebody makes it,

00:32:17   don't do this, but you could override whatever

00:32:20   is written onto an amiibo.

00:32:23   So don't do it.

00:32:25   But also, another thing that you may want to consider

00:32:28   is I have a bunch of NFC tips here.

00:32:32   I was recently trying to attach an NFC sticker

00:32:37   onto my IKEA nightstand, which is made of metal.

00:32:41   But of course, basic NFC stickers conflict with metal.

00:32:46   If you place your phone on top of the sticker

00:32:48   and the sticker is on the metal surface, it will not work.

00:32:53   You can go to Amazon and search for anti-metal stickers.

00:32:57   And I bought a bunch of them, and they do work.

00:33:00   They have an extra layer of plastic

00:33:03   or whatever it is that allows them to produce

00:33:06   a successful scan, even if they're placed on top

00:33:09   of a metal desk or any metal surface.

00:33:12   Also, on Amazon-- and I'm not saying that you should do it,

00:33:18   but you can find--

00:33:20   or especially on eBay, I think, not on Amazon.

00:33:23   But you can find amiibo alternatives

00:33:27   that are not official Amiibo figurines, like custom cards, custom stickers,

00:33:32   that have the same data of an Amiibo, but in this case you can actually treat them

00:33:38   as colorful and fun triggers for shortcuts.

00:33:42   So like you can have a sticker that has Zelda on it or Super Mario

00:33:46   and be a trigger for a shortcut.

00:33:48   There's plenty of these figurines and stickers on Amazon and eBay.

00:33:52   Are you gonna like program each of your Amiibo to do a different thing?

00:33:55   Well, it's possible. It's a real possibility at this point.

00:33:58   I have like 20 Link amiibos to choose from.

00:34:01   You should have like all your different time tracking things set up.

00:34:06   You know, you've got like fighting Link for when you're ready to do something.

00:34:09   It's like sleeping Link for when it's bedtime.

00:34:11   What I what I considered was a system to sort of suspend

00:34:16   amiibo in midair in front of my desk

00:34:19   so that they could be easier to scan with my phone.

00:34:23   Like, hanging amiibo in front of me and each one could be like, like Ganondorf could be

00:34:28   like, I don't know, do email, you know, very bad things.

00:34:32   That is a very Ganondorf activity.

00:34:34   Yeah, but they need to be suspended so that the base is easier to scan with my phone.

00:34:40   So I like it.

00:34:41   I think Silvia's gonna love it.

00:34:44   Yeah, hopefully she's not listening to me while I'm saying this right now.

00:34:48   But yeah, my NFC situation is evolving as we speak.

00:34:54   I have a bunch of stickers on my desk, one on my nightstand, one in the car, so that

00:34:59   when I tap the sticker in my car, I get a menu in Shortcuts that asks me, "Do you

00:35:06   want to text Sylvia and tell her you're home, or do you want to play some media?"

00:35:12   And then if I choose Media, it lets me choose from Apple Music and Podcasts, so it's an

00:35:17   easy way for me to text Sylvia when I'm home or to start playing something. So I have one

00:35:24   in the car. Yeah, it's probably more. There will be more.

00:35:30   If someone wants to buy NFC stickers, is there some sort of specific thing they need? Do

00:35:35   you have some examples of ones that work well? Like if someone wants to get started.

00:35:40   If you just buy a 20 or 30 pack on Amazon, any NFC sticker will work.

00:35:47   Just be mindful of the kind of surface that you're sticking them to.

00:35:52   So if you have metal furniture or a metal desk or table, you gotta buy the specific

00:35:57   ones for those types of surfaces.

00:36:01   And otherwise, any NFC card or tag or sticker will work.

00:36:06   You can also find NFC tags that you can attach to your kitchen.

00:36:11   So they have the little kitchen loop thing.

00:36:14   Oh yeah, look at this.

00:36:15   Yeah, you can, you know, if you want to have something related to keys, for example, or

00:36:22   your car keys or whatever, you can have a tag.

00:36:25   It's a plastic tag, it's a little device that you can keep with your kitchen.

00:36:29   Yeah, and I guess if you go, if you really go down the rabbit hole, you could consider

00:36:35   embedding like sewing an NFC chip into like fitness gear or something that's also a possibility

00:36:46   you know like like try and embed a tag in a in a t-shirt or in a armband or something

00:36:56   I'm worried about the person that puts one in their skin that's what I'm worried about

00:37:01   I think somebody did that years ago.

00:37:03   People do it.

00:37:04   People do it.

00:37:05   It's a thing people do.

00:37:06   Yeah.

00:37:07   Well.

00:37:08   Can you imagine if you were stupid enough to put one in your hand and every time you

00:37:11   pick up your phone?

00:37:12   Just run something.

00:37:13   It triggers something just every single time?

00:37:16   That'd be fun though.

00:37:18   We have more to talk about today.

00:37:20   We have a lot of stuff left in this document.

00:37:24   First, let me tell you about our second sponsor.

00:37:28   That is our friends at AstroPad Studio.

00:37:31   Astropad Studio turns your iPad into a completely

00:37:34   customizable graphics tablet.

00:37:36   So you can combine the power of the Apple Pencil

00:37:39   with your favorite Mac apps right on your iPad.

00:37:42   The makers behind Astropad understand

00:37:44   that no two artists work alike,

00:37:46   and that's why they've packed Astropad

00:37:48   with opportunities to customize every aspect

00:37:50   of your workflow, with features like programmable gestures,

00:37:54   custom pressure curves, and unlimited per app shortcuts.

00:37:58   They designed Astropad from the ground up

00:38:00   for professional artists,

00:38:02   and they guarantee low latency performance

00:38:04   over wifi or USB,

00:38:06   so you can set up your workspace on the go.

00:38:09   It's a high performance tool

00:38:11   for the most demanding creative work,

00:38:12   and it's used by major animation studios

00:38:15   and product design firms across the globe.

00:38:17   So if you're ready to take your creative workflow

00:38:19   to the next level,

00:38:20   you can start a free 30 day trial of Astropad Studio today.

00:38:25   Just visit astropad.com to get started.

00:38:28   That's astropad.com to check it out

00:38:31   and try a free 30-day trial.

00:38:34   Our thanks to Astropad Studio for their support

00:38:36   of Connected and all of Relay FM.

00:38:38   - I'm standing now.

00:38:40   - Okay.

00:38:42   - Just letting you know.

00:38:43   Just some stretches where you were ruining the ad.

00:38:44   - Okay.

00:38:45   Do you need to call a hospital or something?

00:38:49   - No, no, they were good stretches.

00:38:50   They were the stretches recommended to me by an expert.

00:38:53   - Was this expert a YouTube video?

00:38:55   (laughing)

00:38:57   - No, no, no.

00:38:58   an actual health expert. So you found an expert on the island? No it was over a

00:39:05   Skype call. Over a Twitter DM. An expert from the internet. Yeah an internet expert.

00:39:10   Hmm okay. They exist in the real world too though. Yeah hmm. Some big news guys I

00:39:16   hope you're sitting down except for Myke who can't sit down. No I'm standing up

00:39:20   should I be sitting down? Because it hurts to sit down. I would say it's worth

00:39:24   this because Texas Hold'em has returned to the App Store. So Texas Hold'em is a

00:39:31   poker, right? I don't play cards. I don't either. No, I don't know how to

00:39:37   play it. It's some sort of poker game. It originally showed up on the iPod.

00:39:42   There's a link actually from MacStories, I think from last year, where I wrote

00:39:46   about some of like Apple's forgotten iOS apps and games. And this was an iPod game

00:39:51   on the clickable iPod and they brought it to the iPhone.

00:39:54   It is now back.

00:39:56   It supports new screen size resolutions.

00:40:00   And in the release notes, Apple says it is to mark

00:40:05   the 10 year anniversary of the App Store,

00:40:08   but here's the thing, they're a year late.

00:40:10   This summer is the 11th year of the App Store,

00:40:14   not the 10th, so something happened there.

00:40:17   But it's back and it's free.

00:40:19   It was $4.99, but because App Store is now free and you can go, you know, if you finished

00:40:25   Warren Buffett's Paper Wizard and you feel like you've really aced that and you're ready

00:40:28   to move up in the world, Texas Hold'em is waiting for you.

00:40:32   For craving that sweet, hot Apple gaming content.

00:40:36   Now you've got Texas Hold'em to play this summer.

00:40:39   Why are you doing this?

00:40:40   I just don't understand why I feel the required...

00:40:42   Because Apple is now, don't you know the hot take that Apple is now serious about gaming?

00:40:48   You know, they have quite the streak going.

00:40:52   Warren Buffett, people wizard, now Texas Hold'em.

00:40:55   What's next?

00:40:56   What is next?

00:40:57   I don't know.

00:40:58   Tim Cook's Marvelous spreadsheet or something, you know?

00:41:01   That could be a game.

00:41:03   It's like customer sat, but like Flappy Bird.

00:41:07   So you have to like keep the chart going.

00:41:10   Flappy sat?

00:41:11   Flappy sat.

00:41:12   You gotta get the chart through the roof.

00:41:15   in our big house and you just get to keep like it's like one of those games you control the chart

00:41:21   and the chart goes up until it's off but you've got to you've got to dodge the chart right so like

00:41:26   okay so all right okay let's go back to the drawing board on this one imagine you have you have like

00:41:31   a like a chart in front of you and you've got to get the customer sat to dodge things so you've got

00:41:36   like face id so you've got to go down underneath face id a little bit right because the customer

00:41:41   of sound went down. But then and then like then something good happens, which I can't

00:41:45   think about right now. And then it like goes up a bit and you got keyboards, you can like

00:41:48   jump right all the way down from keyboards. And then you'd be like bigger phones and it

00:41:52   goes up again and you got to keep like dodging the good things and the bad things until you

00:41:56   can get it right through the roof. Yes, this is flappy sat flappy sat coming to you soon

00:42:01   which will be on the App Store as a subscription. It's gonna be part of Apple Arcade. It's gonna

00:42:07   be an Apple Arcade. Very nice. Is it iPhone only?

00:42:11   No, there's going to be a really nice iPad version. And it has to be, because it's on

00:42:16   Apple TV as well.

00:42:18   It's on Apple Arcade, so it's going to be on Apple TV and the Mac.

00:42:21   And the Mac. Wow.

00:42:22   VappySat.

00:42:23   Wow. You should be a game designer.

00:42:25   Thank you, I know. Phil Schiller is still in Texas Hold'em, which is good news for everyone,

00:42:29   I suppose.

00:42:30   Yes.

00:42:31   Is it the same photo, Steven, of Phil?

00:42:33   Let's see. Let me look at my tweet.

00:42:35   It looks like it's the same photo.

00:42:37   He couldn't even be bothered to shoot a new photo.

00:42:40   Oh yeah, he's wearing the same shirt.

00:42:42   It's the same artwork.

00:42:43   So he either has the same shirt from 10 years ago.

00:42:46   Possible.

00:42:47   Or it's the same photo.

00:42:48   11 years ago.

00:42:49   Sorry, 11 years ago.

00:42:50   No, longer than that, because it showed up on the iPod.

00:42:53   So this was, it showed up on the iPod in 2006.

00:42:59   Maybe Phil is just very conservative about his clothing choices.

00:43:03   Not in that shirt.

00:43:05   Look at that thing.

00:43:06   It looks like the same image.

00:43:07   I think it is.

00:43:08   So that image is 13 years old.

00:43:10   And you know, Voorhees in his article on MacStories pointed out the artwork has expanded, and

00:43:16   I had a lot of questions about like, did they have vector art?

00:43:19   Like this was pre-retinide, or did they enter and have to recreate Texas Hold'em, and then

00:43:24   like, surely they didn't just update the build, like what?

00:43:27   Yeah, someone spent real time on this.

00:43:29   I mean, but that might be why it's a year late from the App Store.

00:43:32   The intern went back to college and then they came back and she finished it.

00:43:36   It's like, oh, I forgot about this.

00:43:38   This is it's so weird to use this app as a celebration of the App Store

00:43:42   when it existed on iPods.

00:43:44   It wasn't even like new for the App Store.

00:43:47   It predates the App Store, right?

00:43:50   It does. Yeah. I mean, it was on the iPod in 2006.

00:43:53   They should bring back cards.

00:43:56   Oh, yeah. Remember cards?

00:43:58   That was great, though.

00:43:58   The cards that you could get from that app, like the letterpress cards, they were really nice.

00:44:03   I used to get them for people for birthdays and Christmas and stuff.

00:44:05   I would like them to bring those back.

00:44:07   What else should they bring back?

00:44:09   Stephen, you're the historian here.

00:44:11   Old iOS apps from Apple.

00:44:14   Logic Remote?

00:44:16   Still, is it still a thing?

00:44:17   I think it still is.

00:44:19   I use Logic every day of the week and I've never installed Logic Remote.

00:44:23   Music Memos, I think, is still on the App Store.

00:44:26   Airport Express Utility.

00:44:27   Sure.

00:44:28   That could be one.

00:44:30   Don't bring back the airport, but just bring back the utility.

00:44:33   Still don't make it, but just keep updating the application.

00:44:36   It's still around.

00:44:37   They actually just had a firmware update for the airports like two weeks ago.

00:44:41   Someone is still there turning out updates.

00:44:43   Someone's just yet to be fired, is the situation.

00:44:45   They're just hiding.

00:44:46   They can't find that engineer.

00:44:47   Like in the move, I don't know what campus he's in, so they can't fire him.

00:44:51   They don't know where he is.

00:44:52   But he's like, "I'm just updating firmware."

00:44:54   There should be a story, like one of those Bloomberg, Mark Gurman stories, about the

00:45:02   folks at Apple who work on these projects on the very fringes of the company. Like,

00:45:08   here's the guy that updates airport utility, here's the guy that works on music.

00:45:13   Here's the person who is responsible for the stickers in clips. Here's the entire iMessage

00:45:21   App Store team. Two people. Go forth and and Texas Hold'em, I guess. That's very

00:45:31   strange, very strange story. It's also, it's number six in the casino section of

00:45:37   the App Store. There's a casino section? That's what it says on this

00:45:41   page. So can you bet real money with Texas Hold'em? No, I just think it's like, no. I

00:45:46   mean, you could, you could, because you want to bet on everything. Federico,

00:45:50   Federico, you can never go to Las Vegas. You know this, right? You're not, you cannot go there.

00:45:56   I have a passport. I have an ESTA. I can go if I want to.

00:45:59   I know like technically you can, but you should never.

00:46:01   But you shouldn't. You should never do it.

00:46:03   Look, I don't, so if I were to go to Vegas, keep this in mind about myself.

00:46:08   I don't know how to play any, any, literally any card game.

00:46:12   You don't, but there's not just card games.

00:46:14   The only thing I know about casinos is what I've seen in the movies.

00:46:19   So what I would do is I would play the thing with the other thing that spins and you say 23 black.

00:46:27   Yeah, you see, you already know enough to get yourself in trouble.

00:46:30   That I would do and also the thing when you need to push down on the...

00:46:35   What's it called?

00:46:37   The lever, the slot machines?

00:46:38   The lever, yes, the slot machine. That I would try.

00:46:41   So those two I know how to operate.

00:46:43   You already know too much for me to tell you to never go to Las Vegas.

00:46:48   I would bring some cash, you know, just like a small pile of cash and start betting on

00:46:56   everything. Including people. Like I would bet on other people's experiences.

00:47:02   They'll take a bet for anything in Vegas, so is this what I'm saying? It's bad for you,

00:47:06   you shouldn't go there. Let's see.

00:47:08   Here's something you could have made a bet on.

00:47:10   But I don't have a problem. MacBook updates.

00:47:12   Yeah, that's not fun. It's fun for some people.

00:47:16   I thought it was interesting news.

00:47:18   This is my week to shine on this connected podcast.

00:47:21   Yep. See you next week, Federico.

00:47:23   I'll be here. I have thoughts about Macbooks.

00:47:31   You know, I really don't.

00:47:35   I want to hear them after I tell people the news.

00:47:37   I have thoughts about the nicknames that are going away, but we'll talk about it later.

00:47:41   Okay. Okay. We will talk about that.

00:47:43   So yesterday Apple announced their annual back-to-school promotion

00:47:49   You know, usually you can get a MacBook discounted and you get some Beats headphones back in my day when I worked at the Apple store

00:47:57   You got a free printer on back to school

00:48:01   So you got to take a printer to your dorm room and be really cool

00:48:04   That feels that feels like a gift that is a burden

00:48:08   - It is, 'cause like, I mean, I lived in a dorm room,

00:48:12   I didn't have any room for a printer,

00:48:13   like, I didn't have money for ink, what are you doing?

00:48:16   Most schools have print labs, anyways,

00:48:18   so they got rid of that, now it's Beats headphones.

00:48:20   So that's a pretty normal thing we see in July,

00:48:23   but Apple also updated and sort of rearranged

00:48:27   the low end of their notebook line,

00:48:29   so the headlines here are the MacBook Air,

00:48:33   which was just released in the fall of 2018,

00:48:36   received an update, not even a spec bump,

00:48:39   all they added was true tone to the display,

00:48:42   which of course is Apple's color temperature matching

00:48:45   hardware and software.

00:48:47   The rest of the machine is still identical.

00:48:50   So if you own a MacBook Air, like don't feel bad,

00:48:52   your machine isn't out of date,

00:48:54   it's literally just this one feature.

00:48:56   They dropped the entry level price to $1,099 here

00:49:01   in the US.

00:49:03   I got some tweets from people saying,

00:49:04   it's higher other places.

00:49:05   understand that but that's what they're doing here. And it's 999

00:49:10   for students. They killed the you know, I'd forgot about this,

00:49:14   you could buy the old non retina MacBook Air still that was 999.

00:49:18   Yep, that's gone now. So every Mac notebook, in fact, every

00:49:22   single Mac with a display except the cheapest iMac is now retina.

00:49:26   So finally almost there. And I think it's great. You know, the

00:49:30   128 gigabyte SSD and the entry level model kind of stinks. But

00:49:34   It feels like the MacBook Air is at the right price now.

00:49:36   And I'm excited about that. - No, I don't think so.

00:49:38   I don't think it's at the right price.

00:49:39   I think it needs to be under 1,000 for everybody.

00:49:41   I think it needs to start at 999.

00:49:42   Like that's where that machine should be.

00:49:45   Then it's, I think then it's perfect.

00:49:47   Like I don't think it's great that a regular person

00:49:50   can't go into an Apple store and buy a MacBook

00:49:52   for under $1,000.

00:49:53   - It'd be nice, but I think this is as close

00:49:55   as we're gonna get for a while.

00:49:56   - Yeah, oh, it definitely is, right?

00:49:57   It definitely is. - I think they may be able

00:49:58   to get there eventually, but for now,

00:50:00   1099 is better than where it was.

00:50:02   I would say I think it's great that they've got it under a thousand for typically the

00:50:05   people that need it the most. And that was clearly why they've done this now, right?

00:50:10   Because we got a bunch of, we have some things to touch on later on as to like how strange

00:50:17   this seems depending on what we think we know about the next six months or whatever. But

00:50:22   this is the back to school promotion and they've got, they've made this machine a little bit

00:50:25   better, a little bit cheaper, and they've cleared up the line. So yeah, it's the right

00:50:31   time to do it. But it is curious at best. Okay, well, we'll come back to that. So that's

00:50:37   what's going on with the MacBook Air. The 13 inch MacBook Pro saw a lot of change. So

00:50:43   before this, there was the four port 13 inch MacBook Pro with touch bar and touch ID. And

00:50:49   then there was the two port, no touch bar, no touch ID, MacBook Pro that was nicknamed

00:50:56   the escape by the ATP chat room. I know this is where Federico complains about the nickname.

00:51:02   But the nickname was helpful because two port and four port was kind of a mouthful. Anyways,

00:51:08   that machine was not updated for the last couple of years. And it is now gone. And in

00:51:14   its place is a MacBook Pro with two Thunderbolt ports, but with touch bar and touch ID. And

00:51:24   starts at $12.99 or $11.99 for students. And so the the MacBook Pro now is consolidated,

00:51:33   they all have the touch bar, they all have touch ID, the cheaper models have two ports,

00:51:39   the nicer models have four ports, and they have resolved the issue a little bit that

00:51:45   the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air were basically like $100 a parts, there's a little more room

00:51:50   now between the two and I think yes I agree with you Myke it'd be nicer if it was $300

00:51:55   difference as opposed to $200 but they've sort of separated the Air and the MacBook

00:51:58   Pro a little bit which is good.

00:52:00   Yeah and pricing and functionality.

00:52:03   Yes.

00:52:04   Getting rid of the version that had physical function keys right like that's now separated

00:52:10   those devices a little bit so now you could the MacBook Pro only gets the touch bar so

00:52:14   I think what that shows is Apple's committed to the touch bar a long time right I think

00:52:19   was a question. Because they have now removed a model that didn't have it, right? So yeah,

00:52:24   two models actually, because I mean, in the MacBook Pro line, but yes, sure, sure. So

00:52:28   yeah, so the touch bars, if you have a MacBook Pro, you have a touch bar. And, of course,

00:52:33   both machines have the touch ID sensor. So touch ID is now on every notebook, which is

00:52:39   great. Also, the in the 13 is a little bit more, you have to pay a little bit more attention

00:52:44   to the ports, right?

00:52:45   Because you can still get a four-port version,

00:52:49   but it's the maximum configuration one.

00:52:51   Otherwise, you're getting two ports with a touch bar.

00:52:53   So it's just something to pay attention to, right?

00:52:56   They didn't add more USB-C ports or Thunderbolt 3 ports

00:53:00   to the machine that they added the touch bar to, effectively.

00:53:03   The surprise-- well, I think all this was a surprise.

00:53:06   But I think the biggest surprise to some people--

00:53:08   The biggest surprise, yeah.

00:53:09   --is that the 12-inch MacBook--

00:53:11   so the one-port USB-C, not Thunderbolt.

00:53:13   machine in 2015 introduced the butterfly keyboard that computer has been discontinued. It again was

00:53:20   last updated in 2017 just like the escape and it is gone. It's now the second time Apple has killed

00:53:27   the MacBook brand. They did that a while back and then brought this one back in 2015 and how it's

00:53:33   gone again. So the MacBook name seems to be cursed just transient. It comes and goes as Jeff Williams

00:53:42   please us. I get why people were sad about this. I was honestly surprised at how much feedback I

00:53:47   saw on Twitter that people, I think people who were into this machine were really into it.

00:53:51   Yeah. And those of us who weren't just don't care. I'm sad about it. Like, because I always felt like

00:53:56   this machine was going to get its MacBook Air moment, right? That it was like a fundamentally

00:54:01   flawed computer that all they had to do was this one thing to fix it. And then it was going to be

00:54:05   the perfect computer for everybody. Right. Which is what happened with the MacBook Air, right? The

00:54:09   the original MacBook Air was a little bit of a disaster. And then they made some updates

00:54:14   to it and it became like what is still considered by so many people, their favorite ever Mac,

00:54:19   right? Like at least Mac laptop. Like that 11 inch MacBook Air, an unbelievable machine.

00:54:26   And the MacBook never got that moment. It never had its jump that I think a lot of people

00:54:31   were hoping that it was going to have, including me, just because I thought that I owned one.

00:54:36   The form factor of that machine is exactly what I want out of a Mac, like out of a laptop.

00:54:42   Super small, super thin, looks great, came in some colors, like wonderful. But I think

00:54:48   where it is right now, because they couldn't seem to make a jump, they probably had to

00:54:52   get rid of it because it confused the lineup. I don't know why anyone would pick it, right?

00:54:56   Like the only people buying that machine were people that wanted that machine. Like you

00:55:01   would not go into an Apple store, I think, and pick that one out of what was offered

00:55:05   to you, especially when they updated the Air. Yeah, you don't stumble into the MacBook,

00:55:09   right? It's because you want as small and as light of a notebook as possible. And especially

00:55:14   now that the Air comes in colors, right, that you can get it in different finishes, makes

00:55:20   it even less of a reason. Because you might get some people like, "I want a gold computer,

00:55:23   that's what I want." But now the Air comes in that as well, so like it's even less reason

00:55:27   to have the MacBook. Plus it was a worse computer, it was more expensive, it's just like it was

00:55:32   over the place a difficult thing so it really does clear the lineup, it makes the lineup

00:55:38   much more clear to now remove it because you were bringing the price of the air down but

00:55:43   probably not the MacBook and I'm sure that there's like a bunch of other things just

00:55:48   from a technological standpoint that like still keeping that monitor around about true

00:55:51   time might have been like an expensive thing to do over time because all the rest of it,

00:55:55   they probably have economies of scale in the other monitor, in the panels, I don't know

00:55:59   But it was clearly not a device that they could find something to do.

00:56:04   I saw Jason Snell tweeting about thinking, which is kind of an interesting thought, that

00:56:08   there might have been a another thermal corner here.

00:56:11   They couldn't put a fan in it.

00:56:13   So they couldn't make it more powerful.

00:56:15   So they kind of designed themselves into a situation where they could never make it better.

00:56:18   I mean, I think that may be partially true.

00:56:20   So the the MacBook used the what was formerly known as the core M series very like five

00:56:26   watt TDP, very low power chips. And they did that so they'd be fanless. There are options

00:56:32   out there. There are other machines on the market using modern chips in that family without

00:56:38   a fan. They exist. Maybe Apple, maybe Apple's implementation made it difficult. But I think

00:56:44   they looked at I mean, that may have been part of it. I don't think that's the whole

00:56:46   reason. I think that looking at the line is the problem. We've spoken about this before.

00:56:51   Before all this, if you had 1200 dollars to go buy a notebook, you had three options.

00:56:55   had the Air, the Pro, and the MacBook at effectively the same price, about $100

00:56:59   between between them. And that was just really confusing. And now it is simpler.

00:57:04   You have the MacBook Air, and if you want more you have the MacBook Pro. And had

00:57:09   the MacBook been the cheapest of those, you know, if the MacBook had been $899 and

00:57:13   is like really the the entry level, that may have made more sense. Or if the

00:57:18   MacBook was really premium, right? So hey, you want thin and light, it comes with a

00:57:23   higher price tag and maybe that was $1499 or $1599. The MacBook may have made more

00:57:27   sense then as well but all of these notebooks in the same really tight like

00:57:33   price range just was confusing. When its thinness and lightness became

00:57:39   less unique to it, it made it less appealing. The 13-inch MacBook Pro

00:57:44   and 13-inch MacBook Air are very similar in size, which we'll talk about in a second.

00:57:47   Like the MacBook wasn't as big of an outlier as it was in 2015.

00:57:52   I remember in 2015, they were still using

00:57:54   the unibody style MacBook Pros,

00:57:56   like the really good 2015 models.

00:57:59   The MacBook looked like magic compared to those laptops.

00:58:02   And so now it's gone away.

00:58:06   I do think that in hindsight,

00:58:09   Apple's 2015, 2016 era notebook strategy was clearly flawed.

00:58:14   So you have this machine that,

00:58:18   I think they did it because they could,

00:58:20   and they sort of built the case

00:58:21   if you want something really thin and light, you have this.

00:58:24   But it never really took off,

00:58:26   and the people, again, the people who were into it

00:58:27   were into it, but it wasn't a big hit.

00:58:29   And then you look at the previous machine,

00:58:33   the MacBook Escape, two port, no touch bar.

00:58:36   In the 2016 keynote, when they announced that,

00:58:39   Phil Schiller's on stage and says,

00:58:40   "Look, we also sell the MacBook Air,

00:58:41   "and we're keeping the MacBook Air around."

00:58:43   They also, they killed the 11-inch Air this day, too,

00:58:45   but they're keeping the 13-inch Air around.

00:58:48   But we've built this version of the MacBook Pro,

00:58:50   And we think customers who like the MacBook Air

00:58:53   will just move to this.

00:58:55   And they just didn't do that.

00:58:56   People hung on to the MacBook Air

00:58:59   and the MacBook Air is a very beloved brand.

00:59:02   That's why they brought it back in 2018.

00:59:04   That's why that machine is tapered

00:59:06   and looks like the old MacBook Air.

00:59:07   You know, people on Twitter were asking yesterday,

00:59:10   several people asked me,

00:59:11   "Well, why don't they just rename the MacBook Air

00:59:12   the MacBooks?"

00:59:13   They have the MacBook and the MacBook Pro.

00:59:15   I don't think they can do that

00:59:16   'cause the MacBook Air is such a beloved brand

00:59:18   and now they have a good one again.

00:59:21   And the MacBook Pro without the touch bar

00:59:25   never caught on with those people.

00:59:26   And it really looks like that machine

00:59:29   was sort of a failed experiment.

00:59:30   Now, the entry level 13 inch MacBook Pro we have today,

00:59:33   those machines use less powerful CPUs

00:59:37   in the higher 13 inch.

00:59:38   Like the new entry level 13 inch MacBook Pro

00:59:41   effectively is the escape with a touch bar.

00:59:43   Like it's not a drastically different machine inside.

00:59:45   But from a branding perspective, there's a clearer line now.

00:59:50   And that middle machine that's like, it's not an error,

00:59:54   but it's not really a pro, I just

00:59:56   don't think people were into it.

00:59:57   And--

00:59:58   Well, whether they were or they weren't,

00:59:59   it was still too confusing.

01:00:01   It was too confusing.

01:00:02   And it wasn't getting touched.

01:00:03   It wasn't getting updated.

01:00:04   Right.

01:00:05   So it needed to go.

01:00:06   When it missed its second round of updates--

01:00:08   so it didn't get updated in 2018.

01:00:09   It didn't get updated in 2019 with these new machines.

01:00:12   Like, OK, something is happening with this model.

01:00:14   And there was a lot of debate about what that would be.

01:00:18   But I think it was pretty clear that they

01:00:20   needed to clear the lineup.

01:00:21   And I think they've done a really good job of it.

01:00:24   I think this is the first time since 2015

01:00:26   the entire Mac notebook line makes sense.

01:00:28   We can quibble about pricing and features

01:00:30   and the amount of solid state storage.

01:00:32   But I think from the big picture, where are the models?

01:00:35   How do they relate to each other?

01:00:37   I think finally it's clear again.

01:00:39   And I'm glad for her.

01:00:41   Can you just clear up something for me?

01:00:42   I just want to make sure I can confirm my understanding.

01:00:45   Sure.

01:00:45   Did Apple remove that computer or did they add a touch bar to the computer?

01:00:49   My understanding is they effectively added a touch bar to it.

01:00:52   So right.

01:00:53   Because what I mean is it's like they didn't

01:00:56   because they have three configurations you can get now, like the base configurations.

01:01:00   There wasn't four before.

01:01:01   They were the base. Right.

01:01:03   The base one is effectively what the MacBook Pro with no touch bar was.

01:01:08   But they've added a touch bar to that machine. Yes.

01:01:11   So now they're all okay, great. I just wanted to check that like, because it's it's not

01:01:15   that they got rid of what we call what was called the escape, right? They just removed

01:01:19   what made it right. Yeah, they added the touch bar and because the two port MacBook Pros

01:01:25   use a lower TDP processor than the four port. They're all eighth generation. But if you

01:01:31   look at the specs, they also both use the the less powerful Intel 645 graphics, where

01:01:37   the big one uses 655. There is a distinct difference between the two port and four port

01:01:44   machines. So you're right. It's a it's basically the escape of the touch bar slapped on it.

01:01:48   But from the outside, it's like, Oh, it's a new computer. I think it was the right thing

01:01:52   to do. I think so too. And I think it's I think it's a lot more clear. The last bit

01:01:56   of news is that the across the line Apple has reduced their pricing on SSD upgrades

01:02:02   on the Mac 100 terabyte or 100 terabytes 100 terabyte SSD would be amazing. A terabyte

01:02:07   SSD is about $200 less the two terabyte option is about $400 less that's across

01:02:13   the board it's you know up and down a little bit on the different models but

01:02:16   effectively it is much cheaper. This means that on the high end of like the

01:02:21   iMac Pro and MacBook Pro you can spend like you can save like over $1,000 on

01:02:25   the four terabyte SSD as opposed to a couple of days ago so I like this being

01:02:30   more aggressive I still wish the base models were bigger than 128 gigs but if

01:02:35   you're going to upgrade now, you will spend you will spend less. And if remember, when

01:02:40   we spoke about the MacBook Air, about my wife one, and it went from 512 to like one and

01:02:47   a half terabytes, and it was like $1200. And now the MacBook Air has a terabyte option

01:02:53   in the middle of that that's more reasonable. So adjusting those things, I think is, is

01:02:59   welcome. I'm gonna do the ad. So we're gonna talk a little bit about the new keyboard rumor.

01:03:04   I also want to talk about how to choose between the Map Care and the entry-level Map of Pro

01:03:08   because we have some questions about that.

01:03:09   Flip a coin.

01:03:10   You could flip a coin or you could do it with logic and reason, which is how I'm going to

01:03:15   walk my way through it.

01:03:16   You could ask Siri.

01:03:17   You could ask Siri.

01:03:18   Should we try?

01:03:19   We'll try.

01:03:20   We'll ask Siri.

01:03:21   We'll see what they say.

01:03:22   First, let me tell you about our third sponsor and that is ButcherBox.

01:03:25   ButcherBox delivers thoughtfully sourced meat directly to your door.

01:03:28   And right now they're offering free bacon for life.

01:03:32   So stick around to hear more about that.

01:03:34   ButcherBox makes it easy to get high quality meat

01:03:36   that you can trust.

01:03:37   Every month they will deliver 100% grass fed

01:03:40   and grass finished beef, free range organic chicken,

01:03:43   heritage breed pork and wild Alaskan salmon.

01:03:47   So here's how it works.

01:03:48   Each ButcherBox comes with at least nine to 11 pounds

01:03:52   of meat, which is enough for 24 individual meals.

01:03:55   And you can choose from five different box types,

01:03:58   including a custom box where you can choose

01:04:00   exactly how much you need.

01:04:02   Or say you don't want pork or something,

01:04:04   you can easily make those adjustments with ButcherBox.

01:04:08   And their meats come from humanely raised,

01:04:10   open pasture animals that are never fed antibiotics,

01:04:13   hormones, or fatty fillers.

01:04:14   So you can cook with peace of mind,

01:04:17   knowing that you are feeding your family

01:04:18   healthy, high quality meat.

01:04:20   And because ButcherBox purchases

01:04:22   from a collective of ranches,

01:04:23   they're able to cut out the grocery store middleman

01:04:26   and pass those savings to you.

01:04:29   My family has received several ButcherBox boxes

01:04:33   and the stuff is simply great.

01:04:35   It comes in a box, it's all frozen.

01:04:37   You don't have to worry about coming home

01:04:38   to some sort of disaster on your porch.

01:04:40   It's all very well organized and laid out in the box

01:04:43   and we've really enjoyed what we've gotten.

01:04:46   Just a couple of nights ago, we got some chicken

01:04:48   from ButcherBox out of the deep freezer

01:04:50   and thawed it out and we did a chicken salad with it

01:04:53   and it was awesome.

01:04:54   So to receive $20 off your first box

01:04:57   and get a package of free bacon in every box

01:05:00   for the life of your subscription,

01:05:02   go to butcherbox.com/connected

01:05:04   or enter the code connected at checkout.

01:05:07   So head over there now,

01:05:08   it is a limited time offer for free bacon for life.

01:05:12   That's butcherbox.com/connected

01:05:14   and the promo code connected at checkout.

01:05:17   Our thanks to ButcherBox for their support of this show

01:05:19   and all of Relay FM.

01:05:21   - What about this rumor?

01:05:23   So this came out, we spoke about it on upgrade,

01:05:25   we have Marco on upgrade and we spoke about the rumor from Ming-Chi Kuo about the 2019

01:05:32   MacBook Air receiving the new scissor keyboard. So moving from butterfly keyboards to a new scissor

01:05:39   keyboard, the keyboard that will also eventually be in the MacBook Pro but Kuo said 2020 for the

01:05:44   16-inch MacBook Pro. Ming-Chi Kuo said that at sometime this year, towards the end of this year,

01:05:51   that the MacBook Air would be updated with this new keyboard. But the current keyboard in the

01:05:57   MacBook Air that's just been revised is this revised materials keyboard tweak from the other

01:06:03   2019 MacBook Pros. You know when they said they came out a little while ago and said they've made

01:06:07   some tweaks and then it's funny these new computers are also in the repair program because they have

01:06:13   this keyboard, the bad keyboard. But what do we think about this now? Do we think that QoW got

01:06:19   this wrong. Are Apple going to update these computers again? I would be surprised if they

01:06:25   release another new MacBook Air this year, even though this was barely a bump, right? All they

01:06:30   did was True Tone, doing it three times in a year or a year, you know, 14 months or something.

01:06:35   That seems really aggressive. That's not bad though. But if and it's not bad, but here's the

01:06:41   other side of the coin. If there was a MacBook Air update coming, maybe a spec bump, but with a

01:06:46   a new keyboard. Why not save true tone for that. And then that release is bigger, you

01:06:53   could still drop the price by $100. Now, no one's complaining now the MacBook Air is old,

01:06:59   it's you know, less than a year old, you could drop the price now and have a new one in the

01:07:03   fall with all this stuff. And that update seems even bigger. So that is really the thing

01:07:08   that sticks in my mind. Like, why did this air get a new feature if there was another

01:07:12   the one just around the corner.

01:07:14   And you know, Ming-Chi Kuo has an excellent track record,

01:07:17   especially, and like this is their bread and butter,

01:07:21   like supply chain parts, you know, infrastructure type stuff

01:07:24   so I don't know if it's wrong or not,

01:07:26   but it sure seems unusual if there's going to be another air

01:07:30   with a truly new keyboard later this fall.

01:07:33   I mean, I think it'd be great,

01:07:34   but I would be surprised at this point if we see that.

01:07:37   You know, maybe this is now Q1 or Q2 2020.

01:07:40   I don't know, it's unusual.

01:07:43   - I still think we're gonna see it this year.

01:07:45   I just think that there is an interesting way

01:07:48   to kind of change the tide of public opinion

01:07:50   by continuing to update machines frequently

01:07:53   when they can, right?

01:07:55   And again, it's like I don't really understand enough

01:07:57   about how the screen technology is made,

01:07:59   but it may have just been more cost effective

01:08:01   to change to the new panel.

01:08:02   So they're just doing it now, right?

01:08:04   As opposed to waiting until everything's done

01:08:07   because they wanted to make a change to this machine anyway,

01:08:09   would assume, so they can make it the price that it needs to be for the back to school, right? That's

01:08:15   why they've done it now and they've kind of like cleared up the line a little bit, but then they

01:08:20   also have this new keyboard ready to go so they're just going to do it when it's ready as opposed to

01:08:24   waiting. That's my hope, but I don't... it is a very... it's a different kind of strategy but

01:08:29   you know maybe that's where they want to be with this. I don't know. We will find out, you know,

01:08:35   Apple has been more aggressive with Mac updates so maybe they're going to continue to crank that up.

01:08:39   I also saw another rumor, so it's come from 9to5Mac from Economic Daily News. These are

01:08:44   supply chain rumors, right? That there is a 10.2 inch iPad and a 16 inch MacBook Pro

01:08:51   coming in the fall and it's entering mass production in Q4. So do you remember this

01:08:56   10.2 inch iPad was rumored a while ago? Like this is the one to replace the 9.7 I guess?

01:09:04   Is that even available anymore?

01:09:06   But there was a rumor of like a

01:09:08   10.2 and a 10.5.

01:09:09   Do you remember that?

01:09:10   Yeah, the 10.5 is the iPad Air.

01:09:12   And that there would be in the iPad

01:09:14   would become 10.2 inches.

01:09:15   Like that was that was the rumor.

01:09:17   But this is like another supply

01:09:18   chain report of this 16

01:09:20   inch MacBook Pro coming

01:09:22   in the fall.

01:09:23   And it may be that like maybe

01:09:25   it comes really late in the year,

01:09:26   you know, like ships super late or

01:09:28   maybe it does ship in the fall and

01:09:29   like quos off a little bit.

01:09:30   But it's interesting, like Apple's

01:09:33   laptop stuff.

01:09:34   seems to be going through a real revival right now.

01:09:37   Like maybe this is the result of all of that stuff that happened when the Mac Pro

01:09:42   like exploded, right?

01:09:44   We're now seeing the fruits of that.

01:09:46   Like they're putting renewed interest into Mac hardware.

01:09:49   Maybe Jeff Williams loves the Mac.

01:09:51   I think the iPad rumor is interesting.

01:09:53   Especially if you consider how, you know, making the iPad bigger,

01:09:58   the base model makes sense considering what iPadOS is becoming.

01:10:04   It's worth having the biggest screens you can have now.

01:10:07   Exactly. So you have things like multi-window going on, you have the better home screen,

01:10:11   you have an increasing usage of slide-over and split-view throughout the system.

01:10:19   I think it makes sense to make the base iPad not like the Pro of course, but just a bit bigger,

01:10:26   which also, you know, I guess it differentiates, you know, it creates differentiation with the Mini

01:10:33   even more, because then you have a gap between the 7-something inches and 10.2.

01:10:39   Or maybe it allows the Mini to screen to get bigger.

01:10:41   That's also a possibility. I would like all iPads to get bigger, so the base one,

01:10:48   10.2 sounds great. In 2020 I want to see a 15-inch or 16-inch iPad Pro.

01:10:53   Well, we could put a mouse on it, you know, so why not put on a VESA arm?

01:10:58   Could be a Ricky, I don't know.

01:10:59   Could be a Ricky. That'd be pretty Ricky.

01:11:01   Big rapid pro, yeah. And that 16-inch MacBook Pro, it's not for me of course,

01:11:07   but I would consider it as an upgrade for Sylvia, honestly.

01:11:13   Well, you would assume that this is the... this will be Apple's proposed future for laptops, right?

01:11:18   Like that's...

01:11:18   Yeah.

01:11:19   So it should be pretty good, you would hope.

01:11:22   See, I'm a little hesitant, especially if they change the keyboard.

01:11:26   Like, I will definitely wait a few months to hear, is this keyboard gonna break or not?

01:11:31   Because Sylvie is experiencing some issues with the keyboard,

01:11:36   spacebar, you know, the usual spacebar getting stuck,

01:11:38   specific keys getting stuck and that kind of stuff.

01:11:42   Yeah, because it's like, all right, I know that scissor keyboards are, you know,

01:11:45   that's what they used to make is to be reliable with them,

01:11:47   but I don't trust Apple to not try and do something.

01:11:50   they're gonna say that this is a keyboard is made with such and such new process that they developed, right?

01:11:54   Like, they're not gonna do nothing. They're not gonna be like, oh, this is just the old one.

01:11:58   They're gonna fiddle around with something, right? To try and make it better.

01:12:03   And I know if I was dropping the kind of money on these machines,

01:12:06   I would want to give it just a little bit of time before doing it.

01:12:11   Yeah.

01:12:12   So Steven, I want to know how you choose between the MacBook Air and the 13-inch MacBook Pro,

01:12:17   but shall I ask Siri first?

01:12:18   Yes.

01:12:19   "Should I buy a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro?"

01:12:23   "That's hard for me to say, but you can compare Apple products at Apple.com."

01:12:28   What a coward.

01:12:29   Siri agrees with me. Siri sort of said, "Listen to Steven. He knows what he's talking about."

01:12:34   I was called a Mac expert yesterday in an article, so you can trust me.

01:12:37   Oh really?

01:12:38   Uh huh.

01:12:38   Wow, look at you. I mean, you should be by now.

01:12:41   Feels like it. I have enough of 'em.

01:12:44   Choosing between the MacBook Air and the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro.

01:12:48   This is, you know, connected we're really known for our timely consumer advice.

01:12:52   And this is just another long example of that in our history.

01:12:55   If you are buying a machine, and you're sort of in this range, the couple things to consider

01:13:00   obviously the price is a big one, the air is 1099, the pro is 1299.

01:13:05   And that's really what I'm comparing is entry level machines.

01:13:10   Both have touch ID, only the pro has the touch bar.

01:13:13   So that's really important to you have at it.

01:13:16   If you are starting with these and you want to upgrade to have more storage or more RAM,

01:13:22   both can go to 16 gigabytes of RAM, the air can go to a terabyte SSD.

01:13:25   Now the old 1.5 terabyte option is gone.

01:13:28   And the pro can go to two terabytes.

01:13:30   I will say this when you're looking at entry level max, and you're looking to upgrade components

01:13:35   of them when you order it.

01:13:37   Sometimes you can be in a situation where you would actually spend less or the same

01:13:41   amount by starting at the mid level machine and adding to that.

01:13:44   So always like have a couple browser tabs open and make sure you're not giving Apple

01:13:49   any more money than you already have to something to consider.

01:13:53   That is generally better than it used to be.

01:13:54   But there are still some occasional places where you would end up better off starting

01:13:59   with the mid range machine.

01:14:01   But looking at the the base, the base ones, the MacBook Air is slightly smaller and slightly

01:14:10   lighter than the MacBook Pro.

01:14:13   But they're both very, very small.

01:14:17   The weight on the MacBook Pro is 3 pounds.

01:14:21   The weight on the Air is 2.76.

01:14:24   You're not going to feel that difference in your backpack.

01:14:27   Isn't that crazy now that they're so close?

01:14:30   It makes the Air kind of like funny.

01:14:32   Like what makes it so Air now?

01:14:35   Really.

01:14:36   It's because it's wedge shaped.

01:14:37   It cuts through the air.

01:14:41   Thickness wise you know that the air does taper, but the the maximum thickness is very very close

01:14:47   They're effectively in a backpack the same size

01:14:50   The pro screen is a hundred and it's brighter at 500 nits, and it has wide color support so as that p3 gamut stuff

01:14:59   The air is 400 nits so a little less bright honestly like I said I have one of these errors in my household and

01:15:05   The brightness is not an issue. It's 400 nits is not as bright as 500

01:15:09   but it's still plenty bright for any use that we've had.

01:15:12   My expectation is if you do not run your machine at full brightness,

01:15:16   don't worry about this. And I don't, I don't run anything at full brightness.

01:15:21   I know Federico loves it. Like just to...

01:15:23   No.

01:15:24   Don't you run your iPhone at permanent full brightness?

01:15:26   No, no. I switched last year or a couple of years ago to,

01:15:31   I just, I just gave up. Uh, to,

01:15:34   I gave in and embraced the world of auto brightness and really it's been fine.

01:15:39   Yeah, I see now why people were trying to convince me to

01:15:44   write that too, right? I know, I know the the CPU is where

01:15:48   things get a little more interesting. The MacBook Air is

01:15:52   a dual core system, where the MacBook Pro is a quad core

01:15:55   system. So looking at your workload, if you have things

01:15:58   that would take advantage of more cores, then the MacBook

01:16:01   Pro is going to jump ahead here. The clock speeds are very

01:16:03   similar, the air is at 1.6 gigahertz. The pro is actually a

01:16:07   little bit slower at 1.4 gigahertz but again you have twice the number of cores

01:16:12   and the pro turbo is faster at 3.9 versus 3.6 for the air. All of that to say I

01:16:20   think the gap between the air and the pro performance wise for everyday people

01:16:25   is probably not massive. The pro will be faster under certain circumstances as

01:16:30   you would expect. It can do more in a multi-threaded environment. The turbo is

01:16:34   faster. And the MacBook Pro does run hotter with a higher TDP chip. So it should be able to turbo

01:16:42   and in theory, at least longer and higher than the air. I don't have one of these new 13 inch

01:16:48   MacBook Pros, I have the 15 inch. But my experience with the old quad core 13 inches that it could it

01:16:54   could run, you know, pretty aggressively for a while you hear the fan, but it would push it. So

01:17:00   If you have a lot of like CPU intensive stuff, the $200 may be worth it. But again, for most people

01:17:05   thinking about, you know, somebody just needs a computer for the home or the office or a student,

01:17:09   the MacBook Air is going to more than hold its own. Don't don't be afraid the MacBook Air is

01:17:13   going to be slow. Because it's just not the air has Yeah, it feels really good. You also get a

01:17:18   slightly more robust Intel GPU on the MacBook Pro, it has better support for external displays.

01:17:24   So you can read about this, we have links in the show notes. But basically the the MacBook Pro can

01:17:28   can push more external pixels. Most people aren't running to 4k external

01:17:33   displays so for most people it's not a problem. Again, you would know. Yeah, you

01:17:37   never never know the difference. Performance wise though, it's not a

01:17:41   night and day difference between these two GPUs really and again having a

01:17:45   MacBook Air in the household, having used it a good bit. My wife actually uses it

01:17:50   with an external 4k, the old LG Ultrafine 4k display and like it's great and runs

01:17:55   it extremely smoothly. Again, the Air is not a hobbled machine by any stretch of

01:18:00   the imagination, but if you need a little bit more power, the Pro is there for

01:18:05   you. But that power does come with a trade-off, and that is that the MacBook

01:18:09   Pro doesn't get as good as battery life. So these are Apple's numbers. Apple says

01:18:13   the MacBook Pro 13-inch gets 10 hours of on their wireless web test while the

01:18:19   Max-- which I don't know what wireless web means. It's not using Chrome, that's for sure.

01:18:25   Do you just mean using the computer now? Right? Like use it off the internet? Do you get better battery life?

01:18:29   I don't know. I guess so. The MacBook Air has a smaller battery, but has 12 hours on the wireless web test

01:18:35   I'm pretty sure there is a helicopter above this house right now. Is there?

01:18:39   You yeah, that was very intense. You could probably hear that. Maybe it's they're coming to fix your back

01:18:45   Maybe someone finally made the call. Thank you. Maybe it's the expert

01:18:52   They were looking for a sign of life from me, and they haven't got it. Yeah, we're not yeah

01:18:56   So the the air you will get better battery life in the pro again it that I think comes down to the processor that it's

01:19:02   dual core

01:19:04   Slightly less powerful GPU and again having an air in the household for a while the battery life seems really good

01:19:10   And I think if if your primary use is on the go

01:19:15   The air should probably win just on battery life alone, so it's all in all for 200 bucks

01:19:22   from the air to the pro, you would get a faster machine and multi core in particular, a better,

01:19:28   brighter display, but not hugely brighter, not hugely better. And you get a touch bar,

01:19:34   and slightly worse battery life like all of this, I think, confirms to me what we've said for a

01:19:40   while is that the MacBook Air, once again, as it was, you know, like 2012 2013 2014 is the default

01:19:48   Mac notebook. If you just need a Mac notebook for school or for work, the MacBook Air is

01:19:52   not going to let you down. And I think you only have to go to the Pro if you need more

01:19:59   ports or you really want the touch bar or you need a better GPU. And even then, you

01:20:04   don't get a lot of that stuff until you're $500 or $600 more expensive, $700 more expensive

01:20:11   than the MacBook Air. It's really cleaned up now. It is. It totally is. And so I think

01:20:16   they did a good job with this. I think the MacBook Air continues to be a really

01:20:20   good value for a lot of people and I think that if you're buying a machine

01:20:24   this you know for back to school I think the MacBook Air is probably the way to

01:20:27   go for just about everybody. Thank you for your service. You're welcome.

01:20:31   Federico do you have any questions about the MacBook Air GPU that are really

01:20:35   burning? Not today. I will follow up with you on my some technical details

01:20:43   Yeah, okay. Of the GPU.

01:20:45   Once you've got one in the lab, right?

01:20:47   Yeah, yeah. I will run all of my benchmarks.

01:20:51   Benchmarks, yes.

01:20:52   All the, you know, I actually have the Blackmagic app, but it's not for the GPU.

01:21:00   So, this write and read thing. I have that.

01:21:06   Cool. Are you ready to go?

01:21:07   I know what it does.

01:21:08   What you got that for?

01:21:09   He's an expert.

01:21:11   - I'm a expert.

01:21:11   - Sometimes I gotta pretend that I care.

01:21:15   - Like, aha, here's a gruff.

01:21:16   - If you want to read more about the stories

01:21:19   we talked about this week,

01:21:20   you can head over to the website,

01:21:21   relay.fm/connected/251.

01:21:24   Lots and lots of stuff there.

01:21:26   Those links are also in the podcast app

01:21:28   you're listening to, and you can learn more there.

01:21:31   If you're online, if you're using that wireless web

01:21:35   on your Mac or iPad or iPhone,

01:21:37   and you want to leave feedback or follow-up for us,

01:21:40   can send us an email from the connected web page or you can do that over on Twitter. You can find

01:21:46   Myke there as I Myke I m y k e. Myke is the host of a bunch of shows here at relay FM. So you can

01:21:53   check those out. You can find Federico on Twitter at the TTV it I CCI and he's the editor in chief

01:21:59   of Max stories.net which of course will be home to Federico's excellent iOS review, which I'm very

01:22:07   much looking forward to reading later this fall and so just keep an eye on that and you can find

01:22:12   me on twitter as ismh and i write over at 512 pixels dot net i thank our sponsors this week

01:22:19   pingdom astropad studio and butcher box until next week gentlemen say goodbye i'll do that you

01:22:27   you didn't wish me better which i just think is really mean feel better mike thank you so much

01:22:32   Federico, you gonna say it too? I hope in a swift recovery for you Michael. Alright, thank you. Bye

01:22:38   everybody! Adios! Adios! Goodbye! Cheerio! Ciao! See ya! Alright, let me now use this computer. Stop.