Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► From Relay FM, This is Connected,

00:00:10 ◼   ► episode 188 is brought to you this week

00:00:13 ◼   ► by Warby Parker, Casper, and Simple Contacts.

00:00:17 ◼   ► I'm your host, Stephen Hackett,

00:00:18 ◼   ► and I'm joined, as I am most weeks by my co-host,

00:00:21 ◼   ► Mr. Michael Hurley, how are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► - Very well, Federico.

00:00:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:27 ◼   ► - What?

00:00:28 ◼   ► That's what was coming out of my mouth. Hi Steven. Hi

00:00:33 ◼   ► Federico's here too. Hey!

00:00:36 ◼   ► I just wanted him to know. I felt like Federico was just really intrigued to know how I was feeling

00:00:42 ◼   ► So I just thought I would give him that information immediately

00:00:45 ◼   ► Do you often get Federico not confused in conversations? I sense man. Can't tell between them

00:00:50 ◼   ► They're just fancy to me. They do sound very similar. Yeah

00:00:55 ◼   ► So we have a bunch of topics this week in the keeping with how spring of 2018

00:01:01 ◼   ► Has has been it's been a very busy week

00:01:04 ◼   ► We have lots of stuff to talk about but first we need to talk about some follow-up and we're gonna start

00:01:09 ◼   ► With snapchat, which is an app that young people use not just pictures to each other

00:01:14 ◼   ► They'll use they use IG now. They don't use snapchat. I don't know. Can you I G that's what I know

00:01:20 ◼   ► Exactly, because I wanted to show how young and hip I am. IG, they all use IG for their

00:01:27 ◼   ► stories and the like, so you know, they don't use Snapchat anymore, but Snapchat has finally

00:01:34 ◼   ► released the TrueDepth related stuff that was shown on stage during the iPhone X.

00:01:42 ◼   ► In September.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Yeah, in September. So this includes, I think it's three different filters that map to your

00:01:49 ◼   ► face. It also does some portrait mode-y type stuff so it blurs out the background behind

00:01:54 ◼   ► you. It's pretty impressive stuff. I do wonder why it took so long for them to release it

00:01:58 ◼   ► though. But yeah, they're cool. Look at it this way. It took less time to do this than

00:02:04 ◼   ► it is for AirPower to ship. That's true. That's true. You heard it here first. Snapchat, more

00:02:10 ◼   ► effective company than Apple, according to Stephen Hackett. Don't quote me directly.

00:02:16 ◼   ► tweet length quotes right there. But I like them. There's one that's like a wrestling

00:02:27 ◼   ► thing, ultimate warrior. Looks cool, you know? I had nothing else to say on it. But you know,

00:02:32 ◼   ► there you go. They're there if you want them. There's news in the Amazon Echo universe,

00:02:38 ◼   ► a new service or new feature I guess called Intercom. So you can now ask your Echo to

00:02:44 ◼   ► to make announcements to all of the other devices

00:02:48 ◼   ► around the home, so I could be in my office, for instance,

00:02:51 ◼   ► and ask the Amazon assistant to intercom,

00:02:56 ◼   ► or I actually don't know what the command is,

00:02:58 ◼   ► but then I could basically--

00:02:59 ◼   ► - It's either tell everyone or broadcast,

00:03:02 ◼   ► you could say one of those two things.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - Okay, and then it's like ship-wide communication, right?

00:03:07 ◼   ► So I can just be like the voice of God in my house

00:03:10 ◼   ► to everyone inside with the other two echoes.

00:03:12 ◼   ► - Or you can also say announce, so you can say announce,

00:03:14 ◼   ► everyone or broadcast and it doesn't do what you would necessarily think that it would do,

00:03:19 ◼   ► like it doesn't send your voice to the other devices. It's the echoes speak. So if you say

00:03:28 ◼   ► like, "Hey Echo, announce that dinner is ready," then all of them will say, "Dinner is ready."

00:03:35 ◼   ► I want my voice to be booming throughout my house.

00:03:37 ◼   ► I don't know if you ever listened to, because I don't know if you could, if you knew, if I don't

00:03:43 ◼   ► know if people know you can do this, but in the Amazon Echo app, right, there is a section

00:03:50 ◼   ► where you can go through and it tells you what the device thinks that it heard, right?

00:03:55 ◼   ► You can actually listen to the audio. You can press play and actually hear yourself.

00:04:02 ◼   ► The microphone quality is no good, right? Like for human ears, obviously it's fine for

00:04:07 ◼   ► robots, but like it sounds terrible. I actually think this is a better way of doing it.

00:04:13 ◼   ► That feature, when you go back and listen to your recordings, it's almost like in

00:04:18 ◼   ► video games when you find those old tapes, like those audio recordings from other characters,

00:04:24 ◼   ► and you listen back and it's always such a crappy quality.

00:04:27 ◼   ► I hate those things.

00:04:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

00:04:30 ◼   ► Also there is something really weird about listening to the things that you say. It kind

00:04:37 ◼   ► And it feels a bit creepy.

00:04:38 ◼   ► It's sad, the podcaster.

00:04:39 ◼   ► It's what you do for a living.

00:04:41 ◼   ► No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay, I need to...

00:04:45 ◼   ► It sounds terrible to listen to my voice.

00:04:47 ◼   ► It's horrible, horrific thing.

00:04:48 ◼   ► No, but because it's like, when you're speaking to it, you're never expecting yourself to

00:04:55 ◼   ► be like really heard.

00:04:57 ◼   ► It kind of sounds weird to me, like when I listen to it, I don't know, it sounds strange.

00:05:01 ◼   ► It just sounds very strange.

00:05:02 ◼   ► Just, I don't know, try it out.

00:05:04 ◼   ► If you think it's not strange, then great.

00:05:05 ◼   ► Maybe I just don't like the sound of my own voice.

00:05:08 ◼   ► For some reason, this is only rolling out

00:05:10 ◼   ► to the US and Canada right now.

00:05:12 ◼   ► I don't know what is wrong with Amazon.

00:05:15 ◼   ► Like there are still features, like I can't get that.

00:05:18 ◼   ► What was that new feature that was announced

00:05:19 ◼   ► a couple of weeks ago,

00:05:21 ◼   ► where you could do the followup thing, right?

00:05:23 ◼   ► Where you can ask multiple things.

00:05:24 ◼   ► I still don't have that.

00:05:25 ◼   ► Like Amazon are creating this, they own the devices.

00:05:28 ◼   ► Why do they not roll out internationally?

00:05:32 ◼   ► I don't get it.

00:05:33 ◼   ► I really don't understand.

00:05:34 ◼   ► I had to wait like six months to get multiple timers.

00:05:37 ◼   ► I just don't understand what they're doing over there.

00:05:42 ◼   ► Come on Amazon, just sort it out.

00:05:44 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:05:45 ◼   ► So we're gonna wrap up follow up talking about Apple Music.

00:05:50 ◼   ► The service has officially hit 40 million users.

00:05:54 ◼   ► That number had been floated, I think last week,

00:05:57 ◼   ► as sort of a rumor, but it is sort of official now.

00:06:00 ◼   ► And Apple has announced the promotion of Oliver Shucher.

00:06:05 ◼   ► Shucher?

00:06:06 ◼   ► Shucher?

00:06:07 ◼   ► Shucher sounds fancy.

00:06:09 ◼   ► - Shusa.

00:06:10 ◼   ► Shusa.

00:06:11 ◼   ► I think it's just Shusa.

00:06:12 ◼   ► - Is leading Apple Music worldwide, always on.

00:06:15 ◼   ► And is the new Vice President of Apple Music

00:06:19 ◼   ► and International Content.

00:06:21 ◼   ► He's an Apple alum, he's worked on the App Store,

00:06:24 ◼   ► iBooks, and podcast teams.

00:06:26 ◼   ► And he's from some town called London.

00:06:29 ◼   ► I don't know anyone who lives there.

00:06:31 ◼   ► I think it's L'Andane, yeah it's French.

00:06:33 ◼   ► L'Andane, yeah.

00:06:35 ◼   ► They missed, in the copy and paste from this text document, it missed some of the accents.

00:06:39 ◼   ► There's an apostrophe after the L, so it's L'Andane.

00:06:44 ◼   ► L'Andane is island in French.

00:06:49 ◼   ► So it's, yeah it's good, that's what it says.

00:06:51 ◼   ► It's the little island is what it means, if you were to translate it.

00:06:56 ◼   ► So he's from the little island and he played a key role in the Shazam acquisition, which

00:07:03 ◼   ► isn't complete yet because #regulation but that's how he played a role in that.

00:07:08 ◼   ► 40 million users, there's a lot of users considering they're all paying.

00:07:12 ◼   ► There's a lot of people man.

00:07:15 ◼   ► That they're doing, I think they're doing a good job of like building that thing.

00:07:18 ◼   ► Like Apple Music, I mean it's one of those things where it surprises me every time I

00:07:22 ◼   ► see the number increasing because I wonder to myself how it's happening. Like why does

00:07:27 ◼   ► it continue to increase? I don't really feel like Apple are specifically doing stuff. I

00:07:33 ◼   ► guess it's just like maybe new people buying devices or just people opening the music app

00:07:38 ◼   ► at a random time and being like "Yeah okay I'll sign up for this." Because it feels like

00:07:42 ◼   ► that it's, I don't know maybe I'm missing it but I feel like it's not as heavily marketed

00:07:47 ◼   ► as Spotify but maybe I'm in the wrong market for it or something right to not see the ads.

00:07:51 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:07:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, and to compare Spotify,

00:07:54 ◼   ► so they just had their IPO last week,

00:07:58 ◼   ► and they're filing paperwork disclosed

00:07:59 ◼   ► that they had 71 million paying users at the end of 2017,

00:08:04 ◼   ► which was up from 48 million in 2016.

00:08:08 ◼   ► But remember, Spotify also has a free tier,

00:08:10 ◼   ► and the free tier has 160 million people on it.

00:08:13 ◼   ► So for Spotify--

00:08:15 ◼   ► - I think that's why it surprises me, right?

00:08:17 ◼   ► that Spotify have got 30 million more paying users,

00:08:22 ◼   ► but Apple doesn't have a free tier for people to try it.

00:08:27 ◼   ► So it's wild that they've gotten to 40 million so quickly.

00:08:30 ◼   ► - They do have the trial, which is what,

00:08:31 ◼   ► is it 30 days or is it still longer?

00:08:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I think a lot of people understand

00:08:38 ◼   ► that trials mean you're gonna get,

00:08:40 ◼   ► you're in the system, right?

00:08:42 ◼   ► Free is very different to trial, I think.

00:08:47 ◼   ► But I think it's pretty impressive that they've gotten to this point, especially with Taylor

00:08:52 ◼   ► Swift going back to Spotify.

00:08:55 ◼   ► And Federico.

00:08:56 ◼   ► Really, both of them.

00:08:58 ◼   ► Did you go back because Taylor Swift left?

00:09:00 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:09:03 ◼   ► Our management decided to go back to Spotify.

00:09:06 ◼   ► There's some bad blood there, maybe.

00:09:09 ◼   ► Is that a Taylor Swift quote from you?

00:09:12 ◼   ► I'm as shocked as anyone.

00:09:14 ◼   ► Wait!

00:09:15 ◼   ► That's a reference.

00:09:16 ◼   ► I just thought that was... wow. I mean, look at you!

00:09:21 ◼   ► Steven, that's uh... you know music. That's uh...

00:09:28 ◼   ► Not made by really sad bands from the early 2000s.

00:09:31 ◼   ► I just assumed that you only listened to the Beatles. Because, you know, old Apple.

00:09:37 ◼   ► Oh, no.

00:09:38 ◼   ► I'm surprised. Congratulations.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Thanks.

00:09:41 ◼   ► Myke, can we end this?

00:09:44 ◼   ► Yeah we most certainly can. Today's show is brought to you by Warby Parker, quality

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00:12:40 ◼   ► of this show.

00:12:41 ◼   ► So there is a new red iPhone rumored on Sunday. Came out Monday. There's a MKBHD unboxing

00:12:50 ◼   ► which you can go and watch which includes just some great sounds of plastic being peeled

00:12:55 ◼   ► off of phones which is one of just my favorite sounds in the world. You know that little

00:12:59 ◼   ► like sound that it makes. And so here we go, right? So this is, we've had this a few times

00:13:05 ◼   ► now, I think once before with the iPhone 7, they did a product red, so you know, money

00:13:11 ◼   ► goes for AIDS research from the sale of these products and people get to get a nice new

00:13:16 ◼   ► red iPhone, right? It's pretty cool.

00:13:19 ◼   ► It is pretty cool, yeah. I just, I just wonder why you don't do this earlier, like in September.

00:13:27 ◼   ► if you could choose between a black iPhone, gold iPhone, silver iPhone, and red iPhone.

00:13:33 ◼   ► I think a lot more people would buy the red ones.

00:13:35 ◼   ► I don't wanna, I almost don't wanna say this, but maybe that's exactly why Apple may not

00:13:43 ◼   ► want to do this because there would be a lot of money that goes to research. Which, I mean,

00:13:49 ◼   ► it's a noble effort and I applaud Apple for doing this. But if you really care about it,

00:13:55 ◼   ► then why not do it in the window of maximum exposure to new customers? And maybe that's

00:14:03 ◼   ► exactly the answer I'm looking for.

00:14:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it could be one of two things. One is the money that they don't want to give

00:14:10 ◼   ► away. They want to give away some money, but not all the money. And the other, that maybe

00:14:15 ◼   ► from a design perspective, they prefer their colors. Right? And they want people to have

00:14:21 ◼   ► the colours that they think are the best, rather than adding in red, which is maybe

00:14:25 ◼   ► not the colour Apple would necessarily think was the best for their products.

00:14:29 ◼   ► You know, like there's no iPhone X, right?

00:14:32 ◼   ► Which, and why is that?

00:14:33 ◼   ► Like maybe they think that it doesn't look as good, or maybe they don't, you know,

00:14:37 ◼   ► they want the X to remain this like premium thing, which can only be like silver and black

00:14:41 ◼   ► because it's fancy and premium and grown up, right?

00:14:44 ◼   ► Like I don't know, you know?

00:14:45 ◼   ► But there's definitely something weird about the fact that they do this, and they do it

00:14:50 ◼   ► Did they do it, is there like a World AIDS Day or something that they do it in conjunction

00:14:58 ◼   ► with?

00:14:59 ◼   ► It's in December.

00:15:00 ◼   ► I looked it up.

00:15:01 ◼   ► So yeah, it's not even related to that, right?

00:15:03 ◼   ► Like I would get it if that was the reason.

00:15:05 ◼   ► I think the answer is as cynical as it seems.

00:15:08 ◼   ► They want to prop up mid-cycle iPhone sales.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Like I don't know how many people have gotten to buy this.

00:15:12 ◼   ► I've only seen one red iPhone 7 out in the wild, but it is mid-cycle.

00:15:18 ◼   ► I think actually this week may even start the new quarter for Apple.

00:15:23 ◼   ► I'm not positive about that, but it's mid-cycle.

00:15:26 ◼   ► And if you can get some people in the door to buy a phone in a cycle that's generally

00:15:30 ◼   ► slower then that's not a bad thing from Apple's perspective.

00:15:34 ◼   ► I mean, that's cynical, but I kind of think that's what's going on.

00:15:37 ◼   ► You know, but that's like little column A, little column B, right?

00:15:40 ◼   ► Like it helps you business-wise and also helps the world.

00:15:43 ◼   ► Oh sure, yeah.

00:15:44 ◼   ► Whilst I agree that it's a cynical take, I know that you're not saying this, but it's

00:15:48 ◼   ► still a better thing than a no thing.

00:15:51 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:15:52 ◼   ► It's better that they do this and get something out of it than not do it at all.

00:15:55 ◼   ► So it's like little column A, little column B, right?

00:16:00 ◼   ► They could just give all their money to AIDS research, but that's not how it works, right?

00:16:04 ◼   ► That's not how these things work.

00:16:05 ◼   ► They partner with this company, they create a thing, it's like a limited edition, people

00:16:09 ◼   ► buy it.

00:16:10 ◼   ► Product Red has been around for like, wow, pretty much as long as I've been interested

00:16:15 ◼   ► in Apple products.

00:16:16 ◼   ► Like, all the iPod Nanos and stuff used to come in these colors.

00:16:20 ◼   ► So you know, it's a cool thing, but I do agree that I think this just comes down to the fact

00:16:25 ◼   ► of like, I would like more colors.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Right?

00:16:31 ◼   ► Just in general, I think that would be really nice.

00:16:35 ◼   ► I haven't, you know, I just don't have any real belief or hope that they're going to

00:16:43 ◼   ► branch outside of the colored aluminum that we have right now.

00:16:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, if you look at the like that, that video MKBHD did, the red looks incredible.

00:16:52 ◼   ► And I'm looking forward to going and seeing it in the store.

00:16:55 ◼   ► Like that would be so great to have that level of saturation in a green or a blue, you know,

00:17:01 ◼   ► know that I've got the 5c phones here and like they're beautiful but they're

00:17:06 ◼   ► sort of they're a little washed out they're not as vibrant as these are I

00:17:09 ◼   ► agree with you I wish Apple would do it because I think it would be it would be

00:17:13 ◼   ► a lot of fun however at the same time for me I always have a case so the color

00:17:18 ◼   ► of the phone doesn't really make a difference in the long run any that's

00:17:21 ◼   ► the huge like other side of this that most people by far have have a case on

00:17:27 ◼   ► their phone and Apple does keep those colors refreshed I feel like Apple would

00:17:30 ◼   ► have to make clear cases if they made colored phones.

00:17:36 ◼   ► Or punch holes in them. That would also be kind of cool.

00:17:39 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, that's how you do it. That's how you show off the color. Just put a bunch of

00:17:42 ◼   ► holes in a really awkward place. There'll be a link to my 5C video in the

00:17:45 ◼   ► show notes. Go watch it. Of course there will. Yeah, we can put that

00:17:49 ◼   ► in there too. But yeah, this red one, it's more bright. It's definitely more bright than

00:17:53 ◼   ► the last one because it's not the anodized aluminium, which is typically just darker

00:17:57 ◼   ► anyway because of the process. But it does it does look pretty nice, I've got to say.

00:18:01 ◼   ► It's pretty nice. Steven, do you want to break down some Mac Pro news?

00:18:06 ◼   ► I do. So this is at this point now like a week old. So the gist of it, I'm sure everyone's

00:18:12 ◼   ► heard is that Matt Pansarino over at TechCrunch got invited out to Apple's campus and sort

00:18:18 ◼   ► of like a part two of the Mac roundtable last year kind of got a status update on the Mac

00:18:24 ◼   ► Pro and the highlights here are it's a 2019 product that's a direct quote from

00:18:29 ◼   ► from Apple it's not going to be this year I think we had even said on this

00:18:33 ◼   ► show I kind of thought it would be previewed at WWDC and then at least at the

00:18:37 ◼   ► end of this year not true 2019 so that is what it is and I think they wanted to

00:18:43 ◼   ► clear that air for two reasons one you don't want people grumbling at WWDC given

00:18:47 ◼   ► the bad news now they're over it by June and they even addressed this directly in

00:18:51 ◼   ► a quote saying, we have a lot of customers who are debating buying an iMac Pro. And if

00:18:58 ◼   ► they should wait for a Mac Pro or not, and that's a clear signal to those users, if you

00:19:02 ◼   ► need something now, the iMac Pro is your only option for you know, at least at least until

00:19:08 ◼   ► sometime in 2019. So that's fair. I'm glad Apple communicated that because if, if this

00:19:14 ◼   ► keynote in June, came and went with no Mac Pro conversation, like lots of people would

00:19:21 ◼   ► be talking about that. And now we talk about it in April, and we don't talk about in June,

00:19:26 ◼   ► and we can talk about new stuff in June. So it makes lots of sense. The thing I want to talk to

00:19:31 ◼   ► you about is the is a like, why is this process takes so long? But be the the creation and then

00:19:40 ◼   ► the disclosure of what Apple is calling a pro workflow team. So we'll get to that in a second.

00:19:46 ◼   ► But why is this taking so long?

00:19:49 ◼   ► There's a lot of feeling on Twitter,

00:19:51 ◼   ► and including in our follow-up email,

00:19:54 ◼   ► why can't they just put Xeons in a box?

00:19:56 ◼   ► Take the iMac Pro, put it in a box, put some PCI slots in it,

00:20:01 ◼   ► and ship it.

00:20:02 ◼   ► You can build a PC very easily.

00:20:03 ◼   ► Why can't Apple just build a box that runs Mac OS?

00:20:07 ◼   ► I think that's a fair question, and I'm

00:20:09 ◼   ► curious what you all think about that.

00:20:12 ◼   ► Design.

00:20:14 ◼   ► Gotta be proud of the things you're putting out there and whilst I understand people want

00:20:20 ◼   ► Just raw power Apple are never gonna give you that in something that they haven't designed and made special in their own way

00:20:27 ◼   ► They're just not gonna do it right like and I understand that people might want it

00:20:31 ◼   ► But for now, they'll just tell you and I guess there's part of this is why they are telling if you want power by an I'm a pro

00:20:39 ◼   ► Because you got some time.

00:20:40 ◼   ► Right.

00:20:41 ◼   ► And I think, and I like that they came out and kind of said that, that they were thinking

00:20:45 ◼   ► they wanted to protect people that were trying to make purchase decisions.

00:20:48 ◼   ► But that's what they'll tell you until they have something that they're proud of to put

00:20:52 ◼   ► on a poster.

00:20:54 ◼   ► Like Apple is the biggest company in the world, right?

00:20:57 ◼   ► If they released a black box that had all the power in it, that'd be creamed in the

00:21:03 ◼   ► press, right?

00:21:05 ◼   ► For this ugly thing.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Like it doesn't matter who it's for.

00:21:07 ◼   ► It doesn't matter who it's for. Like everyone would find out about the fact that Apple's

00:21:12 ◼   ► not innovating anymore. They can't even make a desktop machine anymore. Like they can't

00:21:16 ◼   ► afford to do that because of the wider impact that I think like a really horrifically boring

00:21:22 ◼   ► looking product would have on them.

00:21:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's fair.

00:21:25 ◼   ► Yeah. So I read this story and I was listening to a few podcasts that covered the news of

00:21:32 ◼   ► this pro workflow team and I don't have any thoughts I don't I don't have any particular

00:21:40 ◼   ► opinion about the Mac Pro itself I did want to talk about the concept of the pro workflow

00:21:47 ◼   ► team and the idea that they called a bunch of people to work at Apple and these people

00:21:52 ◼   ► all use you know Mac computers too for advanced video editing and

00:22:01 ◼   ► you know, all these other tasks that Apple has identified as pro tasks. And in reading this

00:22:07 ◼   ► story on TechCrunch I felt this strange sort of dissonance in terms of marketing from the same

00:22:15 ◼   ► company that sells an iPad Pro to say our pro workflow team is all about macOS. And I'm gonna

00:22:23 ◼   ► be that guy, of course, who says you can also do pro things on iOS. So why is the pro workflow team

00:22:29 ◼   ► Mac only or Mac most of the time at least. It seems like it's not really a pro workflow team

00:22:39 ◼   ► but almost like a team of consultants that they hired to tell them what they should do for the

00:22:45 ◼   ► Mac Pro. But to call it like a pro workflow team, so this umbrella term that should include iOS,

00:22:53 ◼   ► should include, you know, the iPad Pro, which has "Pro" in the name, but seem to be mostly

00:22:59 ◼   ► focused on MacOS and this new computer. It should be called really the MacPro team at

00:23:05 ◼   ► this point, or the MacPro Consultant, you know?

00:23:08 ◼   ► A couple things. One, like, I don't... I would hope, and maybe we give them the benefit of

00:23:14 ◼   ► the doubt, maybe we don't, that Apple does have a group pushing the boundaries of iOS

00:23:20 ◼   ► in the way that this team is helping them with the Mac Pro.

00:23:23 ◼   ► But if you look at the type of tasks

00:23:25 ◼   ► that this computer is built for,

00:23:28 ◼   ► same thing that iMac Pro is built for,

00:23:29 ◼   ► audio production, video production,

00:23:31 ◼   ► rendering, 3D graphics, AR and VR development,

00:23:36 ◼   ► very little of that happens on iOS.

00:23:39 ◼   ► I'm not saying that it can't,

00:23:40 ◼   ► or I'm not saying that it won't in the future,

00:23:43 ◼   ► but if you're talking about people who buy

00:23:46 ◼   ► $10,000 computers to make movies on,

00:23:49 ◼   ► they're just not gonna use an iPad, at least at this point.

00:23:52 ◼   ► And I think that the consumer,

00:23:55 ◼   ► like the professional, excuse me,

00:23:58 ◼   ► the professional market that does still use Apple products

00:24:02 ◼   ► for this stuff, and Apple's lost ground there

00:24:03 ◼   ► over the last few years,

00:24:05 ◼   ► that the Mac is their tool of choice,

00:24:08 ◼   ► because as great as the iPad Pro is,

00:24:11 ◼   ► and as great as some apps on it are,

00:24:13 ◼   ► there's nothing even close to what you can do

00:24:15 ◼   ► in something like Adobe Premiere or Adobe After Effects.

00:24:19 ◼   ► That just doesn't exist on iOS.

00:24:21 ◼   ► And so if you need those tools,

00:24:23 ◼   ► you choose between a Mac and a PC.

00:24:26 ◼   ► And Apple only builds one of those.

00:24:28 ◼   ► So I think to a degree, you're complaining about something

00:24:32 ◼   ► that is sort of a fixed entity, at least now.

00:24:36 ◼   ► Now, will the iPad get there in the future?

00:24:38 ◼   ► I really think it will.

00:24:39 ◼   ► But at this point at least, if you are one of these

00:24:45 ◼   ► really high-end professionals, the Mac or PC is your only option because the iPad isn't

00:24:51 ◼   ► there yet.

00:24:52 ◼   ► It may be there for other types of professional work, and you are the king of that, but in

00:24:58 ◼   ► what they are talking about in this article and what this machine is really designed for,

00:25:02 ◼   ► the iPad is just not really an option.

00:25:06 ◼   ► Just feels strange to me, I suppose, that both platforms are called Pro, Mac Pro, iMac

00:25:13 ◼   ► Pro, and iPad Pro.

00:25:14 ◼   ► It's right there in the name.

00:25:15 ◼   ► I didn't choose the name, Apple did, but only one of them gets the special team.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Well I don't think this team would exist if they weren't building this computer, right?

00:25:25 ◼   ► It feels...

00:25:26 ◼   ► Exactly!

00:25:27 ◼   ► So it's a MacPro consultant team.

00:25:30 ◼   ► They have said that this team is also working on all lines of professional Macintosh, right?

00:25:35 ◼   ► So like the iMacPro and the MacBook Pro will also, like this team will feed into it.

00:25:41 ◼   ► I do have two potential counter points for you Federica.

00:25:45 ◼   ► I think point one is a problem that I can see and I know a lot of people have felt depending

00:25:51 ◼   ► on what type of work they do.

00:25:53 ◼   ► It is who Apple considers to be a creative professional and the type of work a creative

00:25:58 ◼   ► professional does is very constrained to the Mac.

00:26:03 ◼   ► So 3D animation, like all the things that you mentioned, like 3D animation, audio creation

00:26:09 ◼   ► like music, film editing and stuff like that. All of that stuff is better suited to the

00:26:14 ◼   ► Mac. There are a lot of creative professionals that Apple have not chosen to reference and/or

00:26:24 ◼   ► potentially hire to work with to get their opinions on this. You know, like, I know especially

00:26:29 ◼   ► in our community, a lot of developers are like, "Well, okay, like, I am a professional

00:26:33 ◼   ► who uses Macintosh. Do we not look at what my concerns are? Like, is it just people that

00:26:38 ◼   ► use Final Cut and not people that use Xcode. Right? So like, I think that one of the reasons

00:26:44 ◼   ► that this team seems to only be publicly working on stuff that's going to go for the Mac is

00:26:49 ◼   ► that the use cases Apple have chosen to focus on are typically Mac-focused use cases. My

00:26:55 ◼   ► other thought is Apple hired these people, I think, because they had to agree that they

00:27:03 ◼   ► they didn't know what they were doing. Right? Like they needed to hire these people because

00:27:08 ◼   ► they clearly felt like they had been doing wrong to the people using those machines because

00:27:13 ◼   ► everything they did was not making them happy. My thought is maybe they don't feel that way

00:27:20 ◼   ► with iOS. Like Apple feel like they've got that under control. Because like if you look,

00:27:27 ◼   ► everything that they've done for professional iPad users by and large over the last couple

00:27:32 ◼   ► of years has made that community more happy. So that would be my feeling is like they maybe

00:27:40 ◼   ► Apple felt like they'd lost their way for Mac professionals in a way that they haven't

00:27:43 ◼   ► for iOS professionals or at least they feel like they have a better roadmap for iOS professionals

00:27:48 ◼   ► on their own without needing external assistance. So they brought in the pro workflow team for

00:27:53 ◼   ► the Mac because they're just potentially a more complex area anyway trying to understand

00:27:59 ◼   ► how these people work and that maybe they just didn't have a clear enough roadmap

00:28:04 ◼   ► because everything they have been doing has been upsetting the professional community of the Mac.

00:28:09 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's either that they think they're doing okay in terms of addressing the pro

00:28:15 ◼   ► customer on iOS and so they need the extra help for the Mac or they call it an iPad Pro

00:28:24 ◼   ► but they don't really think it's a pro machine in the same way that the Mac can be, which

00:28:30 ◼   ► is true, but...

00:28:31 ◼   ► It's a different kind of professional, and I think that the type of professional on the

00:28:37 ◼   ► Mac is a more complex, have more complex needs.

00:28:41 ◼   ► You know, a professional iPad user, by and large, means someone who uses iOS to do work,

00:28:49 ◼   ► And that work is typically like email and spreadsheets and documents and that kind of

00:28:55 ◼   ► stuff, which is, I think by and large, pretty much taken care of and is getting stronger

00:29:03 ◼   ► in a way that maybe the Mac has not been recently.

00:29:08 ◼   ► You can see that difference in Apple's own tools, right?

00:29:11 ◼   ► So something like iMovie on the iPad is, it has a set of tools and if what you need to

00:29:18 ◼   ► build fits in those tools, that's great. But if you need something like Final Cut or Adobe Premiere,

00:29:24 ◼   ► you know, Apple hasn't brought Final Cut to the iPad yet. They still see a distinction between

00:29:31 ◼   ► what the devices are sort of geared toward what their strengths are, you know, something like

00:29:36 ◼   ► Final Cut benefits from having a big 27 inch display and a keyboard and a trackpad. And maybe

00:29:42 ◼   ► they haven't worked out a way to make that really work on the iPad. I don't know the specifics. But

00:29:47 ◼   ► I think even in the way Apple treats the pro products, they see a distinction in the type

00:29:52 ◼   ► of pro users that gravitate toward each one.

00:29:55 ◼   ► I don't think that means that you know, one is up and one is down in their view.

00:30:00 ◼   ► But I think Myke does have a point that I think they are fully aware at this point.

00:30:04 ◼   ► I think that's what led them to this roundtable a year ago, that their Mac, pro Mac professional

00:30:11 ◼   ► especially in the creative industries, were hurting.

00:30:15 ◼   ► And I have some frustration this machine is taking so long,

00:30:20 ◼   ► but in seeing that they have put this team together,

00:30:23 ◼   ► and that they're working on actual projects,

00:30:27 ◼   ► and producing actual content,

00:30:29 ◼   ► and seeing how it all fits together,

00:30:31 ◼   ► that I find encouraging, because Apple at least

00:30:34 ◼   ► is finally listening to what those users need.

00:30:39 ◼   ► - So we have no idea what teams exist inside of Apple.

00:30:42 ◼   ► Like, Matt Panzorino makes reference to the fact,

00:30:45 ◼   ► this fact in the article, right,

00:30:46 ◼   ► that this team has existed for quite a while now,

00:30:49 ◼   ► but now they're choosing to share it.

00:30:51 ◼   ► So this is just an example of like,

00:30:53 ◼   ► who knows what type of teams

00:30:56 ◼   ► are working on different platforms, right?

00:30:57 ◼   ► Like, there literally could be an iPad Pro workflow team

00:31:01 ◼   ► for all we know, but they just don't feel the need

00:31:03 ◼   ► to share it because it's not required.

00:31:05 ◼   ► - And they're trying to build a case right now

00:31:07 ◼   ► of, we are listening, they are trying to make it right, which is the whole reason they disclosed

00:31:11 ◼   ► it. So I don't think they're...

00:31:13 ◼   ► And honestly, like, if they do have some kind of professional iPad advancement team, now

00:31:18 ◼   ► is the wrong time to share that. Right? You share that information right now, and it's

00:31:23 ◼   ► like more fuel to the fire that they're just going to kill the bank. Which I think right

00:31:27 ◼   ► now is not, is not what Apple want to put out into the world, right? Like, I think that

00:31:33 ◼   ► right now they are laying the groundwork for everything we were talking about last week and

00:31:37 ◼   ► we'll continue talking about for the next couple of months right transitions and one of the best

00:31:42 ◼   ► ways to start this transition is to try and make sure that Mac customers are comfortable right like

00:31:50 ◼   ► because as soon as you start doing something where you're making the Mac more iOS-y it's gonna it's

00:31:57 ◼   ► gonna make a lot of people uncomfortable so laying the groundwork now to show that the Mac is being

00:32:03 ◼   ► is in good hands and being taken care of is a very important thing that Apple need to do.

00:32:07 ◼   ► So, you know, if I'm working there, it's like how much stuff can we do right now to make sure that

00:32:13 ◼   ► our Mac customers feel like they're being taken care of? And that's where stuff like this happens.

00:32:18 ◼   ► Because in a few months time, there might be some kind of software platform which,

00:32:23 ◼   ► in some people's minds, might like devalue Mac development a little bit,

00:32:29 ◼   ► right? And so I think that it is important right now to show that you're being taken care of,

00:32:38 ◼   ► right? And I think that they are, like I think that they can show what they're actually doing

00:32:43 ◼   ► and I think that Apple clearly is recommitted to the Macintosh in a way that they haven't been in

00:32:49 ◼   ► multiple years. So that's why they're proving it, right? They're bringing people in and walking

00:32:56 ◼   ► them around and proving it unless you're a Mac Mini customer. Oh man. That doesn't exist.

00:33:03 ◼   ► They have no pro team caring about those people. No, no. They have a mini team. Just a really tiny

00:33:11 ◼   ► team of people. One in turn. Yeah, this mini, mini, mini team. All right, should we take a

00:33:16 ◼   ► break? Yeah. Do you feel okay, Federico? I do. Yeah, you feel okay now? Yeah. If we helped make

00:33:24 ◼   ► you feel more comfortable. Yeah I mean I'm totally comfortable with my iPad Pro.

00:33:28 ◼   ► I just want to make sure, I just want to make sure that you know it gets some

00:33:34 ◼   ► love. That the pro efforts are not going to be exclusive to the Mac going forward. Maybe me and you should be the pro workflow team.

00:33:43 ◼   ► Yeah I mean do you want to work at Apple? No but like we could just send them a bunch of email about it. Or we can make our own team.

00:33:53 ◼   ► We're the pro workflow team but we don't work at Apple.

00:33:57 ◼   ► Who cares?

00:33:58 ◼   ► Yeah, we're independent and we just...

00:34:00 ◼   ► You know what?

00:34:01 ◼   ► I actually think we've been doing that for the last couple of years.

00:34:03 ◼   ► I think we've already been doing that.

00:34:04 ◼   ► It's like when you hear the news of random people establishing countries.

00:34:08 ◼   ► It's like, "Now I'm the king of..."

00:34:10 ◼   ► Ooh.

00:34:11 ◼   ► We are the independent pro workflow team of iPad.

00:34:16 ◼   ► Good luck with that, guys.

00:34:17 ◼   ► We have our own passports and everything.

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00:36:59 ◼   ► So we were speaking earlier about the fact that Apple were doing great things, you know

00:37:06 ◼   ► have a phone and it goes out and can help improve the world. But they're doing other

00:37:11 ◼   ► things to improve the world. In recycling, Apple has announced, well not recycling, clean

00:37:17 ◼   ► energy is what I'm thinking of. Apple have announced, just you do it. I don't want to

00:37:22 ◼   ► do it anymore. You do it.

00:37:23 ◼   ► Okay. Apple has announced that all of its facilities are now powered by 100% clean energy.

00:37:30 ◼   ► This came out in a press release and then it really, I found at least a very fascinating

00:37:34 ◼   ► article in fast company that kind of walks through like how it actually works is like,

00:37:39 ◼   ► it's not that every Apple store has a solar panel on like the roof of the local mall,

00:37:44 ◼   ► right? It's it's they are purchasing clean energy, they're putting energy back in the

00:37:48 ◼   ► grid and it it bounces out. So every store office data center, everything they said they

00:37:54 ◼   ► have like these little remote offices with like one team in them, even those like they're,

00:37:59 ◼   ► you know, in some other building, they are all accounted for with clean energy. And then

00:38:04 ◼   ► But in that Fast Company article, they talked to Lisa Jackson, who is the executive in charge

00:38:09 ◼   ► of all this at Apple.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And she says, you know, other companies like try to buy credit and like try to like fudge

00:38:15 ◼   ► the numbers and make this work.

00:38:16 ◼   ► And she actually said, you know, Apple, we have been at 96% for a while now.

00:38:21 ◼   ► And some companies would just round that up.

00:38:23 ◼   ► But Apple wants to say no, we are truly 100%.

00:38:28 ◼   ► But what I think is even more impressive, and that is impressive on its own, they're

00:38:31 ◼   ► building solar farms all over the place, all sorts of crazy stuff. But they are working

00:38:36 ◼   ► with their manufacturing partners to have them committed to going 100% clean as well.

00:38:42 ◼   ► So they have nine additional partners they've announced bringing up to a total of 23. So

00:38:48 ◼   ► these are companies that, for instance, you know, make components that go into an iPhone

00:38:54 ◼   ► or an iPad or, you know, the company that, you know, produces this one part of this one

00:38:59 ◼   ► chip or this one type of connector or something. So all these, you know, Apple's manufacturing

00:39:04 ◼   ► this huge web, right, of all these different companies all over the world, and they are

00:39:07 ◼   ► pushing further into that web to say, "Hey, you know, we do this from a corporate standpoint,

00:39:11 ◼   ► we want you to do it as well." And Apple's big enough, right, to say that to somebody,

00:39:15 ◼   ► like, "Hey, you know, it'd be a real shame if something happened to your factory here,

00:39:19 ◼   ► you should hook it up to some clean energy." That's basically, I think, what's happening.

00:39:22 ◼   ► You've hit a strong line with people making them offers they can't refuse.

00:39:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, so this is, like I said,

00:39:27 ◼   ► it's not a solar panel on the roof of every mall

00:39:30 ◼   ► that has an Apple store.

00:39:31 ◼   ► It's more complicated than that.

00:39:33 ◼   ► But it's very clear to me, reading this article,

00:39:35 ◼   ► that Apple takes it very, very seriously,

00:39:38 ◼   ► and that they are, like,

00:39:40 ◼   ► Apple's kind of an energy company, right?

00:39:41 ◼   ► They say that they're not, but they kind of are.

00:39:44 ◼   ► You know, like, you're dealing with all these things

00:39:46 ◼   ► on a massive scale.

00:39:47 ◼   ► We talk about Apple's employee numbers

00:39:49 ◼   ► and how those ranks have just swelled.

00:39:52 ◼   ► Thousands of people are working on this stuff, right?

00:39:53 ◼   ► they're going out into these communities

00:39:55 ◼   ► and talking with local energy companies

00:39:58 ◼   ► and building solar farms and managing wind farms

00:40:01 ◼   ► and all this stuff.

00:40:02 ◼   ► It's a massive effort and it's a real milestone

00:40:04 ◼   ► to hit 100%.

00:40:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think any, I mean this is a typical example

00:40:09 ◼   ► of like the weird problems that Apple faces

00:40:12 ◼   ► being the size that they are.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Like they're so large and they have so many customers

00:40:17 ◼   ► and so many employees that they find themselves

00:40:20 ◼   ► walking into all of these weird things.

00:40:22 ◼   ► Like they're also kind of a bank.

00:40:23 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:40:24 ◼   ► - Right, because they have Apple Pay

00:40:26 ◼   ► and then Apple Pay Cash where they have people's money

00:40:28 ◼   ► and that money can be spent inside of the Apple system.

00:40:31 ◼   ► But because they have so many people,

00:40:32 ◼   ► it kind of makes them like a bank.

00:40:34 ◼   ► And sometimes they have to make sure

00:40:36 ◼   ► that their buildings are powered,

00:40:39 ◼   ► so they have to create huge solar farms

00:40:42 ◼   ► and huge wind farms, as you say,

00:40:44 ◼   ► making them kind of like an electricity company.

00:40:46 ◼   ► 'Cause they do buy a lot of this stuff,

00:40:48 ◼   ► but in some instances, they are building it themselves.

00:40:51 ◼   ► They are building their own energy plants or whatever, which is just this really wild

00:40:57 ◼   ► idea to think of the fact that they're doing this.

00:41:02 ◼   ► This is one of those things where you're a company of Apple's size and money, you can

00:41:08 ◼   ► focus on stuff that you care about because you have the ability to do so.

00:41:12 ◼   ► You have the clout to do so.

00:41:13 ◼   ► And with the manufacturing partners, I'm sure it's one of these situations coming to contract

00:41:18 ◼   ► negotiation time and these companies really want to stick with Apple and they're like

00:41:22 ◼   ► "great, I'll tell you what you can do. We want 100% clean energy from you." And it's

00:41:27 ◼   ► like what are you going to do? You need that contract so you do it. So this is like Apple

00:41:31 ◼   ► using their power to do something that is good. You know like in this, so we're saying

00:41:38 ◼   ► there can be a cynical take on the red iPhone right? I feel like there's less of a cynical

00:41:43 ◼   ► take available here. They're not able to sell anything because of the fact that they're

00:41:47 ◼   ► on 100% renewable energy. This just really feels like a thing that you do that makes

00:41:54 ◼   ► this corporate good. That maybe makes some people think better about you, but you can

00:42:00 ◼   ► get away with saying you're 90% and most people will feel pretty much the same. But like they

00:42:05 ◼   ► push it to the final mark because they care about it and because they have the facility

00:42:09 ◼   ► to do it. This is something that they can afford to do. So they just do it.

00:42:13 ◼   ► - They're not done, right?

00:42:14 ◼   ► They are expanding and building more data centers in there.

00:42:18 ◼   ► They talk about their capacity at their data centers.

00:42:21 ◼   ► They expect it to go up, up and up and up

00:42:24 ◼   ► over the next few years as their services business

00:42:26 ◼   ► becomes more important.

00:42:27 ◼   ► So this isn't like, oh, we did it.

00:42:29 ◼   ► Now all these people have something else to do.

00:42:31 ◼   ► It is very much something that will be ongoing

00:42:35 ◼   ► as they build a new data center.

00:42:36 ◼   ► They want to be there on day one

00:42:38 ◼   ► or they lose that 100% mark.

00:42:39 ◼   ► - And additional campuses, additional offices, right?

00:42:43 ◼   ► Like they're building a huge presence here in London

00:42:45 ◼   ► in the converted Battersea power station.

00:42:48 ◼   ► They're apparently building a new big campus,

00:42:50 ◼   ► whatever that actually means, somewhere in the US, right?

00:42:53 ◼   ► So every time they do something like this,

00:42:56 ◼   ► they have to make sure they have the power for it.

00:42:57 ◼   ► Even just a big new stores, right?

00:42:59 ◼   ► Like everything, it becomes a big part.

00:43:01 ◼   ► I expect in the same way that like the device recyclability

00:43:06 ◼   ► became a thing for them, right?

00:43:08 ◼   ► Like when Greenpeace was on their back about the damage

00:43:12 ◼   ► that their devices do into the world,

00:43:13 ◼   ► and then Apple sought to fix it.

00:43:16 ◼   ► Now, like every device that they make,

00:43:17 ◼   ► they have to make considerations

00:43:19 ◼   ► about how recyclable the parts that we're putting into this.

00:43:21 ◼   ► And I expect that that's very similar

00:43:22 ◼   ► when it comes to building new offices.

00:43:24 ◼   ► - And there's still stuff to do there, right?

00:43:25 ◼   ► Like, I mean, I'm just gonna hold off the email

00:43:28 ◼   ► about repairability and that sort of thing,

00:43:29 ◼   ► 'cause that is an issue too,

00:43:31 ◼   ► but it's clear that Apple cares about this,

00:43:33 ◼   ► and there's still work to be done.

00:43:35 ◼   ► Like, the iPads are all still glued together.

00:43:36 ◼   ► It's still difficult to take 'em apart

00:43:39 ◼   ► unless you know what you're doing,

00:43:40 ◼   ► but clearly it's something that they are working toward in those other areas as well.

00:43:45 ◼   ► What was the name of the recycling robot?

00:43:47 ◼   ► Liam.

00:43:48 ◼   ► Liam.

00:43:49 ◼   ► I haven't heard about him for a while.

00:43:51 ◼   ► I want to know how he's doing.

00:43:53 ◼   ► All the great lenses.

00:43:55 ◼   ► Okay.

00:43:56 ◼   ► How many of them?

00:43:58 ◼   ► 17.

00:43:59 ◼   ► 17 lenses on the next iPhone.

00:44:01 ◼   ► Okay.

00:44:02 ◼   ► That's where we're going.

00:44:03 ◼   ► So what's this rumor from?

00:44:05 ◼   ► There was a rumor from the Taiwan Economic Daily News via MacRumors that the next iPhone,

00:44:11 ◼   ► the 2019 iPhone, is going to add a third lens to the camera.

00:44:16 ◼   ► A third 12 megapixel lens.

00:44:19 ◼   ► And this will add to the current two lenses that we have.

00:44:23 ◼   ► What could this do?

00:44:25 ◼   ► Why would you want to add another lens?

00:44:27 ◼   ► Well, something that could be done with another lens is five times zoom.

00:44:31 ◼   ► this would assumedly be from the rumor optical zoom because the iPhones can already do five

00:44:36 ◼   ► times digital zoom even the ten can do ten times. So you would want five times optical

00:44:43 ◼   ► zoom and that would be kind of incredible right? And you think to yourself why would

00:44:49 ◼   ► somebody put three lenses on a phone? Well Huawei just did it with the P20 which if you've

00:44:55 ◼   ► not seen the Huawei P20. That is a good looking cell phone in my opinion. It's got all the

00:45:02 ◼   ► tenants of a current you know like cell phone you'd expect right big screen, thin bezels,

00:45:07 ◼   ► all that kind of stuff. It's got a notch on it right which you can turn on and off which

00:45:13 ◼   ► is kind of hilarious. I love Android man. I freaking love Android because like that

00:45:19 ◼   ► is like maybe the most Android thing that has ever happened. They can turn off the notch

00:45:24 ◼   ► like freaking love that that is incredible like more power to you but

00:45:30 ◼   ► the the real design feature of the Huawei p20 is it has like a need for

00:45:35 ◼   ► speed paint job what is that called when it can yeah you can get two colors and

00:45:40 ◼   ► depending on the light it shows a different color like iridescent yeah

00:45:44 ◼   ► yeah it's like what they put on Fast and Furious cars yes you know yeah that's

00:45:49 ◼   ► what I'm talking about right it's that kind of paying job. This Huawei P20 it has a three

00:45:55 ◼   ► lens system all right. It has a 40 megapixel f1.8 primary lens, a 20 megapixel f1.6 monochrome

00:46:04 ◼   ► lens which I think is to help do a lot of the depth stuff so like they map them together

00:46:09 ◼   ► and then an 8 megapixel f2.4 telephoto lens of a three times optical zoom and I'm going

00:46:14 ◼   ► to put a link in the show notes to a review from The Verge. The photos from this phone

00:46:19 ◼   ► look incredible and it is reviewing very well, right? Like Vlad Savov, who is a great reviewer,

00:46:27 ◼   ► like I really trust the stuff that he's saying, is like, this is a iPhone 10/Samsung Galaxy

00:46:35 ◼   ► S9 competitor, right? Like this is up there. I mean, there are issues with Huawei right

00:46:41 ◼   ► now, Stephen. Am I correct? I've learned this from Subnet.

00:46:43 ◼   ► Yeah, parts of the US government basically want to ban them from the US. We'll see how

00:46:48 ◼   ► that goes.

00:46:49 ◼   ► Yeah, because they are a Chinese company, right? And there's some concern about that.

00:46:56 ◼   ► They're in tight with the Chinese government in ways that make some American politicians

00:47:00 ◼   ► uncomfortable.

00:47:01 ◼   ► No carriers were carrying the previous Huawei phone, so who knows if you can get it, but

00:47:07 ◼   ► does look really great. So I mean now that it exists in a phone you can see why you would

00:47:15 ◼   ► want it right like why it might exist. Like if I could get three or five times optical

00:47:21 ◼   ► zoom on my phone like I think I would very much like that feature even if it meant adding

00:47:27 ◼   ► a third camera to the phone. Especially if they tried to find a way to put it all in

00:47:31 ◼   ► one unit. I do think that the Huawei P20 looks really weird that it has the two camera unit

00:47:36 ◼   ► and then a third like solo lens.

00:47:39 ◼   ► - That's called, we want to look like the iPhone 10,

00:47:41 ◼   ► but we also want a third camera.

00:47:43 ◼   ► Solved it.

00:47:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:47:45 ◼   ► But like I don't know why they can't just put it all in one

00:47:48 ◼   ► three long line. - Yeah, they should have.

00:47:50 ◼   ► - 'Cause like it's not like the bump is still the same.

00:47:53 ◼   ► Like it's the same effect 'cause it's still the same like

00:47:56 ◼   ► row and I would expect that Apple would do that, right?

00:47:59 ◼   ► Like they would put it all in one line.

00:48:02 ◼   ► But like I always want my camera to get better

00:48:05 ◼   ► Even if it means doing weird stuff.

00:48:07 ◼   ► Like the band-aid was ripped off when they turned it into a bump.

00:48:11 ◼   ► At that point you can do whatever you want.

00:48:15 ◼   ► At what point is the entire back of the phone a lens?

00:48:18 ◼   ► Like the entire back is just the...

00:48:21 ◼   ► There's a product out there called the Light L16.

00:48:25 ◼   ► It is a camera.

00:48:27 ◼   ► It's one of the ugliest, just one of the very ugliest consumer products that exist in the

00:48:32 ◼   ► world.

00:48:33 ◼   ► $2,000 but it's about it's like a plus-size phone and it has basically 16 smartphone sensors

00:48:44 ◼   ► in it. The best part is they're all labeled on the back so like this one here is 70 millimeter

00:48:48 ◼   ► mid-range. It's pointless like why? Are you guys familiar with the term "tripophobia"?

00:48:55 ◼   ► Yes, and it triggers me. I don't like that. Yeah, it's basically fear of regular small

00:49:04 ◼   ► holes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me very uncomfortable. The L16 camera does that to me. Yeah. Yeah.

00:49:12 ◼   ► I don't like it. I don't like it a lot. I'm pleased that we share this. This weird. Yeah.

00:49:20 ◼   ► Yeah, it's, oh God, oh God, I'm Googling

00:49:23 ◼   ► to put it in the show notes to show any images.

00:49:25 ◼   ► - No, no.

00:49:26 ◼   ► - Ah!

00:49:27 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:49:28 ◼   ► - Don't do it, Myke.

00:49:30 ◼   ► - The camera is like, it's always a safe bet

00:49:34 ◼   ► to count on an improved camera in the new iPhone, right?

00:49:37 ◼   ► Like that's the safest draft pick of them all

00:49:40 ◼   ► when it comes to an iPhone event.

00:49:41 ◼   ► The thing that I have really been surprised by

00:49:44 ◼   ► is that I do use that 2X optical zoom kind of a lot.

00:49:49 ◼   ► Like especially on the 10.

00:49:49 ◼   ► - I use a lot.

00:49:50 ◼   ► - Where it's so good, like, I use it if my kids

00:49:53 ◼   ► are doing something or like, you know, something outside,

00:49:55 ◼   ► I wanna punch in a little bit.

00:49:56 ◼   ► So having some more range, I would be all for that.

00:50:00 ◼   ► I think that would really make it

00:50:01 ◼   ► an even more flexible platform.

00:50:04 ◼   ► One thing I think Apple should work on though

00:50:05 ◼   ► is making the trade-offs that come with those,

00:50:08 ◼   ► you know, those lenses a little better.

00:50:11 ◼   ► So, you know, if the f-stops could be the same,

00:50:15 ◼   ► that would be great.

00:50:16 ◼   ► If, you know, they're both optically image,

00:50:19 ◼   ► They're both optically stabilized in the iPhone X.

00:50:22 ◼   ► Having that on this third one would be great.

00:50:24 ◼   ► But I think it, you know, I don't think it's out

00:50:27 ◼   ► of the realm of possibility at all.

00:50:29 ◼   ► - I mean, it's one of those things where like,

00:50:32 ◼   ► if somebody else does it and the benefits are good,

00:50:37 ◼   ► it probably means Apple will do it, right?

00:50:39 ◼   ► So like, I'm thinking like, the notch, right?

00:50:41 ◼   ► Somebody did it before Apple, but for good reason.

00:50:46 ◼   ► So they did it too, right?

00:50:47 ◼   ► So like, I think even multiple lenses somebody did first,

00:50:51 ◼   ► I think, right?

00:50:52 ◼   ► Like having two cameras on a phone.

00:50:55 ◼   ► - I do want to be careful in the way that we phrase that,

00:50:56 ◼   ► because it's not like,

00:50:58 ◼   ► who put the first notch in the phone?

00:51:00 ◼   ► What's-- - Ascension.

00:51:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, they sold like eight of them.

00:51:03 ◼   ► It's not like Apple saw Andy Rubin's new phone,

00:51:06 ◼   ► like, we got it.

00:51:07 ◼   ► There's this idea of parallel development, right?

00:51:11 ◼   ► And people like to defend Apple with this

00:51:14 ◼   ► and not point at Samsung.

00:51:16 ◼   ► All companies do this, right?

00:51:17 ◼   ► we're not drawing lines in the sand.

00:51:19 ◼   ► - Simultaneous creation.

00:51:20 ◼   ► Like if an idea is good enough,

00:51:22 ◼   ► like the industry is all eventually moving towards it.

00:51:25 ◼   ► So like they'll get there together.

00:51:28 ◼   ► Right, like there is no way that like Samsung

00:51:31 ◼   ► can come out with the Infinity Display

00:51:33 ◼   ► and then Apple can come out with the iPhone 10

00:51:35 ◼   ► based upon them working across each other or doing.

00:51:38 ◼   ► Like everyone's moving towards that anyway

00:51:41 ◼   ► because they are the logical movements

00:51:43 ◼   ► of hardware development.

00:51:44 ◼   ► - I just wanted to get that out there.

00:51:45 ◼   ► Yeah, but you know, Huawei did it first probably,

00:51:50 ◼   ► I mean who knows, there's probably some phone somewhere

00:51:52 ◼   ► that might have done this as well,

00:51:53 ◼   ► but they've done it first effectively,

00:51:55 ◼   ► which means that if this is the best way

00:51:58 ◼   ► to do what is trying to be done,

00:51:59 ◼   ► most smartphones will probably do it.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Right, and you can think about the,

00:52:02 ◼   ► one of the things in the Galaxy S9 was the,

00:52:06 ◼   ► what does the lens do, what is it called?

00:52:08 ◼   ► Like where it physically moves?

00:52:10 ◼   ► - The...

00:52:11 ◼   ► - Like the aperture?

00:52:14 ◼   ► it has two apertures. Right, but it seems like all of the reviews people are going like it doesn't

00:52:22 ◼   ► really seem to make a difference. Like it like so probably nobody else would do that for now until

00:52:27 ◼   ► there can be significant difference to it. Like Samsung did it and it makes some difference but

00:52:33 ◼   ► it's really not very much like on a day-to-day basis so that might not be something we see catch

00:52:40 ◼   ► on to everybody else. But like adding more lenses is always going to make, well in theory,

00:52:45 ◼   ► can make things better.

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00:55:10 ◼   ► - So we're gonna wrap up this week talking about

00:55:13 ◼   ► this rumor about Spotify.

00:55:15 ◼   ► So like we said, they had their IPO and they're busy,

00:55:19 ◼   ► they have lots of people listening,

00:55:21 ◼   ► but they want even more people listening

00:55:23 ◼   ► 'cause that's what you have to do after an IPO.

00:55:25 ◼   ► And so they have an event coming up on April 24th

00:55:27 ◼   ► and it is rumored and it's actually backed up

00:55:30 ◼   ► by like some people like on Reddit and Twitter

00:55:33 ◼   ► saying they've actually like seen marketing materials with this it maybe

00:55:35 ◼   ► it leaked a little bit from Spotify but it seems that Spotify may be developing

00:55:41 ◼   ► an in-car streaming device so it kind of looks like a like a Chromecast you know

00:55:47 ◼   ► it's pretty small and you leave it you know in your car via Bluetooth and it

00:55:53 ◼   ► has voice control which Spotify has been working on where you could just talk to

00:55:57 ◼   ► the app or talk to this device and it would basically kind of more or less

00:56:02 ◼   ► less like hardwire or Bluetooth Spotify to your car stereo.

00:56:06 ◼   ► So you don't have to fiddle with your phone

00:56:08 ◼   ► while you're driving.

00:56:09 ◼   ► You just have this thing that's dedicated,

00:56:10 ◼   ► you know, just kind of lives somewhere

00:56:11 ◼   ► like clipped on the air vent or something.

00:56:13 ◼   ► And obviously uses LTE, so you're looking at,

00:56:16 ◼   ► you know, some sort of subscription,

00:56:18 ◼   ► maybe like $12.99 a month to cover the data.

00:56:20 ◼   ► But it's kind of cool.

00:56:24 ◼   ► I kind of really like this idea.

00:56:25 ◼   ► It's like a, it's kind of like a modern iPod in a way,

00:56:28 ◼   ► if you use Spotify.

00:56:29 ◼   ► So Federico, what do you think about this?

00:56:32 ◼   ► your Spotify user you have a car this makes sense to you?

00:56:34 ◼   ► No I stopped using Spotify like a few months ago but I think it's an awesome idea.

00:56:42 ◼   ► I can't keep up!

00:56:43 ◼   ► I think it's an awesome idea and I kind of wish that Apple made one of these.

00:56:48 ◼   ► If I'm getting the details right so this is an independent device that you can set up

00:56:53 ◼   ► in your car it connects via Bluetooth it's got its own microphone so it does not connect

00:56:58 ◼   ► the microphone via the phone, but it's got its own audio input, and it's got its own cellular

00:57:05 ◼   ► connection, so again, that does not depend on the phone. I think it's an awesome idea,

00:57:10 ◼   ► especially because I have this problem in my car. It does not... I have two problems, actually.

00:57:17 ◼   ► It does not support CarPlay, so it's a Kia car that came out like the year before that Kia

00:57:27 ◼   ► started supporting CarPlay, so I need to use my phone via standard Bluetooth and I get no special

00:57:33 ◼   ► interface in my car's dashboard. And when I try to play music using Siri, there's this delay between

00:57:41 ◼   ► saying the trigger word or pressing the side button and the microphone sound indicating that

00:57:51 ◼   ► Siri input is active, playing on the stereo.

00:57:56 ◼   ► So it's like I gotta press or invoke Siri and then wait like 3 seconds before I can

00:58:01 ◼   ► start talking.

00:58:02 ◼   ► Which is a Bluetooth bug that was never fixed for me and it basically makes voice activation

00:58:08 ◼   ► unusable.

00:58:09 ◼   ► And so I would love to have this kind of device that is independent from the phone, it uses

00:58:17 ◼   ► its own microphone instead of rerouting the input to the car and adding that delay.

00:58:24 ◼   ► There's probably some kind of setting that I can change but I don't know how this stuff works.

00:58:29 ◼   ► I would love to have like an Apple Music puck that I can put in my car and it works.

00:58:35 ◼   ► I think it's an awesome idea. I think if it's done right and if I were a Spotify user,

00:58:42 ◼   ► I would be totally over this and get one immediately.

00:58:46 ◼   ► And again, I'm not sure if I mentioned this on the show before, but I think what, for

00:58:51 ◼   ► example, Google is doing with what's it called?

00:58:54 ◼   ► Android Auto?

00:58:55 ◼   ► Yes.

00:58:56 ◼   ► The CarPlay version of Google.

00:58:58 ◼   ► The fact that it runs on phones, that you can kind of emulate Android Auto on compatible

00:59:04 ◼   ► phones, I think that's a feature that they kind of announced last year.

00:59:08 ◼   ► I think it should be available on iOS too.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Apple should, for people like me who own an iPhone and want to have iOS features in the

00:59:17 ◼   ► car but cannot get a CarPlay car just because Apple, you know, just because of Apple.

00:59:24 ◼   ► I'm not changing the car that I drive because of Apple.

00:59:29 ◼   ► But also I would love to have CarPlay.

00:59:31 ◼   ► So why not enable like a special CarPlay UI mode on my phone?

00:59:35 ◼   ► Like...

00:59:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean it could be part of Do Not Disturb While Driving.

00:59:38 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:59:39 ◼   ► Apple clearly feel that CarPlay is safe enough when you're driving.

00:59:43 ◼   ► I feel like these big companies, instead of...

00:59:49 ◼   ► It's awesome that they're working directly with car manufacturers to bring these new

00:59:54 ◼   ► services and software into new models and some select old models.

01:00:01 ◼   ► I think there should be more ways to retroactively bring these features into older cars so that

01:00:08 ◼   ► you're still helping everyone not be distracted or listen to music or bring up navigation.

01:00:15 ◼   ► So whether it's a separate device like Spotify for music playback or what Google is doing

01:00:20 ◼   ► with Android Auto, I welcome all of these initiatives because I think everything you

01:00:24 ◼   ► can do to make me look at my phone less, that gets a big thumbs up from me.

01:00:32 ◼   ► As soon as I saw this Spotify thing, it made me think, are they building their own Kindle?

01:00:38 ◼   ► is like the kettle, right?

01:00:41 ◼   ► 'Cause I'm assuming you're not gonna pay

01:00:43 ◼   ► for the cell service in this thing.

01:00:46 ◼   ► Like it's all wrapped up in your monthly fee

01:00:49 ◼   ► because they give you a year commitment, right,

01:00:52 ◼   ► with these things.

01:00:53 ◼   ► And there was like, as you said,

01:00:55 ◼   ► there's multiple models depending on the price.

01:00:57 ◼   ► It seemed to be leaked, one that had echo support,

01:00:59 ◼   ► one that didn't, and the price change

01:01:01 ◼   ► is different for those.

01:01:02 ◼   ► And I would expect it has like some storage on it,

01:01:05 ◼   ► so it's loading music in there,

01:01:06 ◼   ► and then anything else is pulling from 4G.

01:01:10 ◼   ► And I just saw this and was like,

01:01:12 ◼   ► "Huh, this really reminds me of how the Kindle started."

01:01:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:17 ◼   ► - I mean, it definitely seems like a smart thing,

01:01:21 ◼   ► but obviously we have no real details about it.

01:01:24 ◼   ► I mean, it may as well be a real product

01:01:26 ◼   ► considering how people have seen it, right?

01:01:29 ◼   ► Like, I don't really look at this as a rumor.

01:01:31 ◼   ► This just looks like something that accidentally leaked.

01:01:33 ◼   ► But there are so many things,

01:01:34 ◼   ► how does this thing actually play music?

01:01:36 ◼   ► Like, does it have a speaker built into it?

01:01:38 ◼   ► How does it connect to your like stereo?

01:01:40 ◼   ► Like, I'm not sure about all of that.

01:01:43 ◼   ► - Because you gotta use the,

01:01:44 ◼   ► I suppose you gotta use the phone to set it up initially.

01:01:47 ◼   ► I guess if it's got, it doesn't have a speaker,

01:01:51 ◼   ► so it connects to the car via Bluetooth.

01:01:54 ◼   ► So it implements the Bluetooth standard,

01:01:57 ◼   ► the what's it called,

01:01:59 ◼   ► it's got a specific name that I don't remember.

01:02:02 ◼   ► and it's got a microphone so you can talk to it and it's like a phone but it's got a

01:02:09 ◼   ► - I don't know - you talk to the small Spotify device which then streams audio via Bluetooth

01:02:16 ◼   ► to the car but then does the car think it's a phone or some other kind of device?

01:02:23 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a good question.

01:02:24 ◼   ► Does it have like a - yeah, because it's not really a phone but if I can connect directly

01:02:29 ◼   ► to the car, it's pretending to be a phone. Which, what happens if you then have an actual

01:02:35 ◼   ► phone that you also want to connect to the car? Like, if I'm supposed to, like, if you

01:02:39 ◼   ► connect this Spotify thing, do you stop receiving phone calls on your phone while driving?

01:02:46 ◼   ► Do you think this is a good idea for Spotify, or do you think it's like a distraction?

01:02:53 ◼   ► I mean, music while driving, it's extremely common. And it's that kind of feature that,

01:03:05 ◼   ► because Spotify does not own the devices that we use, it does not make Android phones, it

01:03:12 ◼   ► does not make iPhones, they are an application. So maybe they have realized that to entice

01:03:21 ◼   ► people to listen more and more and as much as possible, especially when you consider

01:03:25 ◼   ► the things they're doing with podcasting. So like, for example, imagine if you have

01:03:30 ◼   ► this Spotify device and you get in your car in the morning and you ask Spotify to play

01:03:37 ◼   ► the news, and you get this special programming from Spotify. So they need to make sure that

01:03:42 ◼   ► you're always listening no matter where you are. And on the smartphone, they can do that

01:03:47 ◼   ► with the app on your home screen.

01:03:49 ◼   ► But when you're driving, they are at a disadvantage

01:03:52 ◼   ► because both iOS and Android have more integrated systems,

01:03:57 ◼   ► starting from the voice assistant,

01:03:59 ◼   ► which plugs directly into the built-in music service,

01:04:03 ◼   ► especially on iOS.

01:04:05 ◼   ► So I think they want to do this because they need to make sure

01:04:08 ◼   ► that when people are driving, they still listen to Spotify.

01:04:12 ◼   ► Otherwise, they end up like me,

01:04:15 ◼   ► where it's more convenient for me to, despite my Siri problems with the car microphone,

01:04:22 ◼   ► it's still more convenient to use Apple Music because it's integrated with the phone, and

01:04:27 ◼   ► when I'm driving it works better than Spotify.

01:04:30 ◼   ► I get the controls on the watch.

01:04:33 ◼   ► What I started doing is I asked the Siri on the watch to play stuff because the microphone,

01:04:39 ◼   ► it does not redirect to the car's microphone.

01:04:42 ◼   ► It just uses the microphone on the watch.

01:04:44 ◼   ► So I think the problem here is that Spotify wants to make sure that people, exactly like

01:04:51 ◼   ► Google with YouTube, they need to make sure that people stay within Spotify and that they

01:04:56 ◼   ► keep listening multiple times a day.

01:04:58 ◼   ► So how do you do that?

01:05:00 ◼   ► You make a device for the car because otherwise you're still an app and you're subject to limitations

01:05:07 ◼   ► that maybe keep people from listening to Spotify all the time.

01:05:13 ◼   ► My thing is I just I struggle to like conceptualize how Spotify will attempt to sell this to people.

01:05:24 ◼   ► Like what benefits do you actually get as a customer?

01:05:28 ◼   ► Federica basically summed them all up that it's better in the car.

01:05:30 ◼   ► But what it doesn't do, I don't think it draws like new people to Spotify, right?

01:05:36 ◼   ► Because the reality is most people are just going to look at their phones, right?

01:05:39 ◼   ► Like we can just be honest about that.

01:05:41 ◼   ► We shouldn't, but people do.

01:05:43 ◼   ► So I don't think it's gonna be a big growth push for them,

01:05:48 ◼   ► but I think if you're really in the Spotify camp,

01:05:52 ◼   ► it maybe reduces friction and keeps you there

01:05:55 ◼   ► as a defense against Apple Music and Siri,

01:05:59 ◼   ► which I think is enough.

01:05:59 ◼   ► I think it's enough reason for this to exist.

01:06:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't have a car,

01:06:05 ◼   ► so maybe I don't resonate with the use case as much,

01:06:08 ◼   ► but it just seems super strange.

01:06:10 ◼   ► It's just interesting that you can say to people,

01:06:12 ◼   ► like here is this device that you connect to Bluetooth

01:06:15 ◼   ► and play music on.

01:06:16 ◼   ► So well I can do it on my phone.

01:06:17 ◼   ► - Right.

01:06:18 ◼   ► - Right, so you know what I mean?

01:06:19 ◼   ► It's just like the real benefits that you're trying

01:06:22 ◼   ► to get people to sign up for it.

01:06:24 ◼   ► I mean, you know, one of them is like, hey, it's free

01:06:27 ◼   ► if you sign up for it, yeah.

01:06:29 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:06:30 ◼   ► - That might be enough of a reason.

01:06:32 ◼   ► But I'm keen to see what happens with this.

01:06:35 ◼   ► Like clearly this is what happens when you have an IPO.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Right?

01:06:41 ◼   ► You gotta keep doing stuff.

01:06:42 ◼   ► You gotta try and advance.

01:06:43 ◼   ► Keep working.

01:06:44 ◼   ► You gotta keep doing stuff.

01:06:45 ◼   ► I saw a rumor today about Snapchat Spectacles too.

01:06:49 ◼   ► You know like this is what you have to do I think when you put yourself on the stock

01:06:54 ◼   ► market.

01:06:55 ◼   ► But Spotify are in...

01:06:59 ◼   ► I wouldn't...

01:07:00 ◼   ► I don't want to say danger because they're not.

01:07:02 ◼   ► But they are in... they are I think an at risk company going into the future.

01:07:08 ◼   ► Even though they are the dominant company in this space right now, you know, we spoke

01:07:13 ◼   ► about this many times, this is all they do is music.

01:07:18 ◼   ► And if that industry continues to get trickier for them, if it's harder for them to make

01:07:22 ◼   ► money, they have nothing to undercut it with.

01:07:25 ◼   ► And I guess locking people in to longer term contracts by sweetening them with devices

01:07:30 ◼   ► could be a good way to continue your, like, to like solidify your future success, I guess.

01:07:37 ◼   ► their company that is competing with first-party services. Apple Music's baked into the

01:07:42 ◼   ► OS. That's a big uphill battle.

01:07:48 ◼   ► And putting yourself on the stock market opens you up to this stuff in a more risky way.

01:07:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

01:07:53 ◼   ► Apple announced something and then Spotify's stock can plummet. That wouldn't have been

01:07:58 ◼   ► something that happened pre-IPO.

01:07:59 ◼   ► Right.

01:08:00 ◼   ► Yeah, it's interesting. It is interesting. What is this, two weeks away maybe, this event

01:08:04 ◼   ► that they're having, which they might announce this?

01:08:06 ◼   ► Yeah, two weeks from yesterday.

01:08:07 ◼   ► couple of weeks yeah all right so keep an eye out for it I think that does it I

01:08:11 ◼   ► think we've done it if you want to find show notes this week for all the stuff

01:08:15 ◼   ► we've talked about head over to relay.fm/connected/188 if you're

01:08:21 ◼   ► there you can get in touch you can send us an email or of course you can find

01:08:25 ◼   ► us on Twitter you can find Myke as I M Y K E and Myke hosts a bunch of shows here

01:08:30 ◼   ► at Relay FM. You can find Federico at V-I-T-I-C-C-I and he writes and is the editor-in-chief,

01:08:38 ◼   ► you know, the steady hand on the wheel at maxstories.net and you can find me on Twitter

01:08:43 ◼   ► as ismh and I write 512pixels.net. Big thanks to our sponsors this week, Warby Parker, Casper

01:08:50 ◼   ► and Simple Contacts and until next week guys, say goodbye. Adios.