Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 172.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Balance Open, Squarespace, and Encapsula.

00:00:18 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Mr. Stephen Hackett.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hello, Stephen Hackett.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Hello, Mr. Michael Hurley.

00:00:24 ◼   ► And Federico Vittucci. Ciao, Federico.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Ciao, Myke. How are you?

00:00:28 ◼   ► I'm good. I am in Pacific time, so it's like 10 a.m. for me right now.

00:00:32 ◼   ► I don't feel very comfortable about that because I don't record podcasts at this time in the morning.

00:00:39 ◼   ► I usually record them in my afternoon time. So that's my report for you today.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Okay, so the show is done. You can find the show notes at ria.fm/connected/numbers.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Numbers, that's the URL.

00:00:54 ◼   ► We'll talk to you next week, yeah?

00:00:56 ◼   ► Yep, thanks everybody.

00:00:57 ◼   ► Good show, good show Myke, thank you, thank you.

00:00:59 ◼   ► Bye.

00:01:00 ◼   ► Okay, Myke.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Okay, Federico.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Let's do some follow up now that everyone's gone.

00:01:06 ◼   ► Okay.

00:01:07 ◼   ► How did the iPhone X review go?

00:01:09 ◼   ► Posted that last week?

00:01:11 ◼   ► It went really well.

00:01:12 ◼   ► I'm happy that people were able to enjoy something that arguably was like a month late because

00:01:20 ◼   ► of course the iPhone launched like exactly four weeks before my review.

00:01:25 ◼   ► But I'm happy that a lot of people told me, like, I was not expecting to be reading an

00:01:32 ◼   ► iPhone review now, and you found a way to make it relevant, which is, you know, it makes

00:01:38 ◼   ► me happy, because that's what I was going for.

00:01:41 ◼   ► And the entire discussion about, like, what are the bigger topics and the bigger themes

00:01:47 ◼   ► that we should keep an eye on going forward, with that kind of maybe eye-hole perspective

00:01:52 ◼   ► that it's hard to get when the iPhone just, you know, you just get an iPhone like two

00:01:57 ◼   ► days before. It's hard to have that kind of discussion. So I'm happy with the way it turned

00:02:02 ◼   ► out. I would have liked to be done like a week earlier, but you know, I'm slow when

00:02:07 ◼   ► it comes to writing and editing. So it went well, I would say.

00:02:12 ◼   ► Don't say slow, say methodical.

00:02:14 ◼   ► No, I'm slow. I'm not sure.

00:02:17 ◼   ► No, no, no. I don't pay a lot of attention to detail. I'm just super, super slow. Four

00:02:22 ◼   ► More words a day, Federico Vittucci.

00:02:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I actually stare at sentences for a really long time.

00:02:29 ◼   ► Silvia makes fun of me because I'm super slow when it comes to writing these kind of stories.

00:02:34 ◼   ► I have this weird writing process where sometimes I can get like 2,000 words down in Ulysses

00:02:40 ◼   ► in like two hours, and sometimes 2,000 words it takes me like a week.

00:02:45 ◼   ► I don't know why it is, I don't know what goes on in my brain, but that's the way that

00:02:49 ◼   ► it is and I just come to accept it.

00:02:51 ◼   ► So we have some speaker news. I don't know when we became like the home speaker podcast

00:02:57 ◼   ► but we have.

00:02:58 ◼   ► Have we?

00:02:59 ◼   ► It feels like it because we have follow up.

00:03:03 ◼   ► I think it's more connected devices I think is what.

00:03:07 ◼   ► Right?

00:03:09 ◼   ► The show is done everybody. You can find the show notes.

00:03:12 ◼   ► It's just a perpetually ending show.

00:03:16 ◼   ► So Sonos in its never-ending quest to find more companies to partner with.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Poor Sonos.

00:03:23 ◼   ► To help maybe keep them afloat.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I don't know that actually.

00:03:27 ◼   ► I'm sure Sonos is fine.

00:03:29 ◼   ► They have announced a partnership with IKEA for the home audio something or other.

00:03:36 ◼   ► What is this?

00:03:37 ◼   ► What is happening?

00:03:38 ◼   ► So nothing has really been said as to what Sonos and IKEA are going to be doing together.

00:03:44 ◼   ► Did you say that?

00:03:45 ◼   ► IKEA?

00:03:46 ◼   ► say it like they say it on the ad, "ikir". It's really interesting. There's an ad in

00:03:51 ◼   ► the UK and it's narrated by a Swedish person and they say it more like "ikir". And I'm

00:03:57 ◼   ► going to hear from all the Swedish people that are telling me that I'm either doing

00:04:00 ◼   ► it okay or horrifically wrong, so blame the ad.

00:04:04 ◼   ► That reminds me, like, how do you pronounce the brand Nike, right? You say Nike.

00:04:09 ◼   ► Yeah, Nike. Yeah, yeah. But in England it's Nike and people get super mad when they say

00:04:14 ◼   ► it.

00:04:15 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. People get super mad when you call it like, I don't know why, but that's

00:04:20 ◼   ► that's the whole thing. But anyway, Sonos and IKEA are doing something together. They

00:04:25 ◼   ► haven't said what they're going to be doing. But the kind of the press release, it tends

00:04:31 ◼   ► to indicate that it's going to be more than just, we're going to sell Sonos', like I'm

00:04:36 ◼   ► sure they will do that. But they talk about like starting a brave and bold partnership

00:04:40 ◼   ► together that kind of stuff. So I mean it seems likely I think that we may see,

00:04:46 ◼   ► which I think would be really interesting, some Sonos tech integrated

00:04:49 ◼   ► into some IKEA products and I was thinking like imagine if they could put

00:04:54 ◼   ► Amazon Echo stuff in it too or Google Home stuff in it, via the new Sonos

00:04:59 ◼   ► partnerships. That could be kind of cool, right? Just talking directly to your lamp.

00:05:04 ◼   ► sofa can recommend recipes to you and stuff.

00:05:08 ◼   ► Or you could assemble your own Sonos.

00:05:11 ◼   ► You get a box, you can assemble the speakers, you get the speaker grill.

00:05:14 ◼   ► Oh my god!

00:05:16 ◼   ► You also get a new CEO in the box and you can make your own Sonos.

00:05:21 ◼   ► Oh, Puerto Rico, that's mean.

00:05:23 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:05:25 ◼   ► You just get like a pile of wires and an Allen key and that's how you build a Sonos.

00:05:33 ◼   ► You got a phone book with all the numbers of the companies you can partner with and you can just make your own sonos

00:05:39 ◼   ► Wow

00:05:42 ◼   ► It's good

00:05:44 ◼   ► And the Google home max is shipping now. So yeah, Apple so it's shipping you can buy it from Google Best Buy

00:05:51 ◼   ► Verizon a Walmart, I think I think it might just be shipping to the US first, but it is shipping

00:05:56 ◼   ► I saw an MKB HD's Instagram story that they sent him one. So I expect he'll have a review up in the next few days

00:06:03 ◼   ► So yeah, they're shipping, they made it, they got it out there.

00:06:07 ◼   ► I don't actually think that this causes a problem for anybody honestly, like I don't

00:06:11 ◼   ► imagine that there was going to be a lot of crossover, like I can't imagine that a lot

00:06:16 ◼   ► of Android users are going to buy a HomePod and a lot of iOS users are going to buy the

00:06:22 ◼   ► Google Home Max, but at least it's out there.

00:06:24 ◼   ► I mean they are head to head competitors because they're in the same price bracket and all

00:06:27 ◼   ► that kind of stuff, but yeah it's just a note right, it's just noteworthy that they got

00:06:31 ◼   ► it out, it's done, it's on the way.

00:06:33 ◼   ► I mean, so many of these purchasing decisions are just the ecosystem you're in, the music

00:06:37 ◼   ► streaming service you pay for. And if you use Apple Music, then you know, you're, you're

00:06:44 ◼   ► basically set with the with the HomePod, you know, if you want to talk to it. So yeah,

00:06:50 ◼   ► I agree with you. Like, I don't think it's a problem for Apple that that Google beat

00:06:53 ◼   ► them out. I think I think that the this is like the market is more complicated than just

00:07:01 ◼   ► who got there first. I think it's interesting about the, just circling back to the Sonos

00:07:05 ◼   ► IKEA thing, I think it's interesting to consider the possibility of maybe having some kind

00:07:10 ◼   ► of, like IKEA furniture that has pre-built locations, like pre-built spots for putting

00:07:17 ◼   ► your Sonos, like different types of speakers. Like imagine if you get like a Malm cabinet

00:07:22 ◼   ► and there's like an inset for the Sonos play bar and you can put the play bar in there

00:07:27 ◼   ► and then you buy a TV, you put the TV next to the play bar, or maybe I could see like

00:07:31 ◼   ► some cabinet, some kind of living room furniture with, you know, like a spot for an integrated

00:07:38 ◼   ► Sonos Play One. That could be fun, but honestly, I don't know how much IKEA can integrate with

00:07:45 ◼   ► Sonos unless they make their own Sonos hardware. Is there even a possibility? I don't think

00:07:51 ◼   ► so. Because you can see IKEA, they make their own furniture with wireless charging, right?

00:07:56 ◼   ► there's like you can buy that stuff and it's all pre-built for you but what

00:08:01 ◼   ► does it mean to have IKEA partnered up with Sonos? Sonos makes their own

00:08:05 ◼   ► hardware and IKEA makes their own furniture so how can the two come

00:08:09 ◼   ► together? I don't know. Yeah it's gonna be interesting to watch right like it

00:08:14 ◼   ► would be super nice to be able to have I don't know like some kind of side table

00:08:17 ◼   ► like a bedside table that had Sonos with some kind of smart speaker integration

00:08:22 ◼   ► built into it and Qi charging it's like wow thanks IKEA like that would

00:08:27 ◼   ► actually be really cool I would like that a lot we'll see. So Steven you have

00:08:31 ◼   ► some scheduling information for us. I do so we have the show this week we have

00:08:37 ◼   ► the show next week next Tuesday as normal we are taking off December 26th

00:08:43 ◼   ► the day after Christmas and we are going to be offline and we'll be back on

00:08:48 ◼   ► January 2nd. January 2nd will be our year in review show. So that'll be a show

00:08:54 ◼   ► where we round up all the big topics from 2017. We've done this for several

00:08:59 ◼   ► years now. We would love to have your help with this. If you have a story that

00:09:04 ◼   ► you think is really stands the test of time and is worth mentioning as a story

00:09:09 ◼   ► of the year, tweet with the hashtag #ConnectedYear and we have a little

00:09:14 ◼   ► Zapier going around and scooping those up and putting them in a spreadsheet. So

00:09:17 ◼   ► So we're gonna start pulling those together.

00:09:20 ◼   ► So we'd love to know what you folks think

00:09:23 ◼   ► is the stories of the year.

00:09:24 ◼   ► I think when we're talking about this

00:09:26 ◼   ► kind of behind the scenes, it's always hard

00:09:28 ◼   ► because you think about the most recent stories

00:09:30 ◼   ► 'cause they're freshest in your mind.

00:09:32 ◼   ► And so we go through month by month

00:09:34 ◼   ► and talk about the big stories from January,

00:09:36 ◼   ► February, March, et cetera.

00:09:37 ◼   ► So it's always a lot of fun.

00:09:39 ◼   ► I always enjoy doing these shows

00:09:40 ◼   ► 'cause it's a fun thing to look back over the year

00:09:43 ◼   ► and kind of see ideas and thoughts and stories

00:09:47 ◼   ► beginning of the year did they pan out or did they not?

00:09:50 ◼   ► #ConnectedYear, all one word. As Stephen said, give us your favorite stories and hopefully

00:09:56 ◼   ► we'll be able to include them in our Year in Review episode.

00:09:58 ◼   ► Alright, today's episode is brought to you by our friends at BalanceOpen, a free open

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00:10:18 ◼   ► from when Balance became a sponsor to now. Like I remember it was like I was first kind

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00:10:27 ◼   ► stuff is a thing. And now it's on the front page of every newspaper because Bitcoin is

00:10:31 ◼   ► soaring through the roof. And it's just like a funny thing to me to be like from then to

00:10:35 ◼   ► now. I think everybody has got some kind of exposure to cryptocurrencies now. And Balance

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00:10:58 ◼   ► Our thanks to Balance for their support of this show.

00:11:01 ◼   ► So a couple of days ago, yesterday maybe it was, out of the blue, out of nowhere, Apple

00:11:08 ◼   ► has begun to allow app developers in the iOS App Store to enable pre-orders for their products.

00:11:18 ◼   ► Now is this just for iOS?

00:11:20 ◼   ► It's for every platform.

00:11:21 ◼   ► iOS, I think Mac OS and TV OS.

00:11:24 ◼   ► So I can't wait to pre-order some apps on TV OS.

00:11:28 ◼   ► You can pre-order games that don't exist.

00:11:30 ◼   ► So that's going to be awesome.

00:11:33 ◼   ► So if you cast your mind back to when Super Mario Run came out, it was this, right?

00:11:38 ◼   ► Do you remember?

00:11:39 ◼   ► You'd go and you'd go to the page.

00:11:41 ◼   ► It might be exactly, but it's similar, right?

00:11:43 ◼   ► You go to the page and you'd be like, I want this like register for interest.

00:11:46 ◼   ► And then it would give you a push notification.

00:11:48 ◼   ► It's like 50% of that functionality because you get that.

00:11:51 ◼   ► So you go there and you said like, I want this and you pay or you press the get button,

00:11:55 ◼   ► which I think now is badly worded again because you don't actually get it.

00:11:59 ◼   ► have to wait. It doesn't actually say pre-order, which I thought was weird. The button doesn't

00:12:05 ◼   ► say it, it's just text by the side of the button. I don't think that the layout of the

00:12:10 ◼   ► pre-order page is extremely clear right now. I think more could be done with that. But

00:12:14 ◼   ► what happens is, as a user, you pay or you order and then on the day that the app is

00:12:21 ◼   ► released you get notified and it starts to download automatically. And then as a developer

00:12:28 ◼   ► You have to do everything as if the app is already released.

00:12:31 ◼   ► So you have to submit a build for review, you have to create the app store page, and

00:12:35 ◼   ► you set a pre-order date which you are able to amend.

00:12:38 ◼   ► You can only change the pre-order date within a 90 day window of the original date that

00:12:42 ◼   ► you set in case there's any delays.

00:12:44 ◼   ► And you can do everything as normal, you can submit updates during that period of time

00:12:47 ◼   ► and everything while you're getting, I guess the idea is you're getting marketing plans

00:12:51 ◼   ► in place and stuff like that.

00:12:53 ◼   ► Because I see a lot of people being like "oh why would I want to do this?

00:12:56 ◼   ► I don't want to tell people about my app beforehand."

00:12:58 ◼   ► There are so many companies that have, especially in games, will have a press release announcing

00:13:04 ◼   ► a date and if they're iOS games, something that's always frustrated me is like I kind

00:13:09 ◼   ► of just have to wait, right? Like I have to like try and remember in my head to get the

00:13:14 ◼   ► app later or be like I hope I see it again. But now what my expectation will be is a lot

00:13:19 ◼   ► more companies will have the pre-order ready and a lot of it isn't because like you're

00:13:23 ◼   ► waiting to finish the game, which I think is how a lot of maybe indie developers are

00:13:28 ◼   ► like they're waiting to get the app finished but like there's a lot of companies that like they'll

00:13:32 ◼   ► get it ready and then they'll have a plan a marketing or PR plan which take a set amount

00:13:38 ◼   ► of time and then the app will release and I guess it's more for that kind of stuff but I would say

00:13:42 ◼   ► like I see a bunch of my friends they'll like they'll tweet about like okay my app is done

00:13:47 ◼   ► it's all submitted and it's coming out on Tuesday and wouldn't it be way better if like it's coming

00:13:51 ◼   ► out on Tuesday but you can pre-order it now like and I hope to see more indie developers get on

00:13:56 ◼   ► this because there is so many companies will like give a tease like oh the app is coming like here's

00:14:01 ◼   ► a page if you actually have a button for people to hit right there you will convert better and

00:14:07 ◼   ► so i'm hoping to see that like i think that this is just a good addition um i think for me personally

00:14:13 ◼   ► like this is the kind of thing that as a user i want more than like discount pricing and stuff

00:14:17 ◼   ► like just over time i just find myself less interested in the requirement for that but

00:14:21 ◼   ► pre-ordering is more of a thing that i would want to be able to have so i'm pleased it's going to

00:14:25 ◼   ► happen. So I have a few comments about this. The first one is a reality check for indie

00:14:30 ◼   ► developers on iOS. I see every single week, so many developers, they work on an app for

00:14:37 ◼   ► months and then they just email us or some other websites and they're like, "This app

00:14:44 ◼   ► is coming out in two days." They have no marketing strategy whatsoever and they approach the

00:14:49 ◼   ► press with like 48 hours in advance, which is a terrible strategy nowadays. It used to

00:14:55 ◼   ► work a few years ago when the competition on the App Store was not so fierce. But today

00:15:02 ◼   ► it's just crazy to have that kind of launch strategy because it is not a strategy. So

00:15:07 ◼   ► pre-orders, the common refrain that I've seen on Twitter since last night is "Oh, this doesn't

00:15:12 ◼   ► make any sense for digital goods that have no supply issues." Well, this is not about

00:15:17 ◼   ► supply, right? This is not about pre-order to make sure that you get the app when it

00:15:22 ◼   ► launches. Of course, you're going to get the app on launch day. But this is more about

00:15:25 ◼   ► the marketing strategy for developers who want to, one, gauge interest before they actually

00:15:30 ◼   ► release an app or a game, but also to make sure that you get the word out and you can

00:15:34 ◼   ► then start approaching the press and you can send them to the pre-order page. You can let

00:15:38 ◼   ► them see what the app is going to be like and then maybe you can invite them to TestFlight

00:15:41 ◼   ► and do other things. So this is all about marketing and it's all about reminding users

00:15:46 ◼   ► when something is coming out.

00:15:48 ◼   ► I was also wondering if it would help with App Store propagation too.

00:15:51 ◼   ► I don't think it does.

00:15:53 ◼   ► The page is already going to be there though, right?

00:15:56 ◼   ► So on your launch day, you won't be like manically refreshing because it's already there, the

00:16:01 ◼   ► app is in the store.

00:16:03 ◼   ► The app is there, but Apple is being kind of vague about how it actually downloads on

00:16:07 ◼   ► your device.

00:16:08 ◼   ► Okay.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Because if you don't go there and hit the download button manually, it says that it

00:16:14 ◼   ► appear on your device within 24 hours since the pre-order date expires. So I'm assuming...

00:16:23 ◼   ► I was thinking it might help with people that are searching, like on launch day or something,

00:16:26 ◼   ► because it may have been indexed better or something, I don't know.

00:16:29 ◼   ► I think it will help because you're getting an iTunes ID for the product anyway. So the app

00:16:35 ◼   ► must be somewhere on Apple CDN. It depends on, like, I want to see how the automatic download

00:16:42 ◼   ► stuff works. But also, another comment that I've seen is this is like Kickstarter for

00:16:49 ◼   ► apps, which is totally inaccurate.

00:16:50 ◼   ► No, that doesn't make any sense.

00:16:53 ◼   ► Customers do not get charged until launch day. So it's not like you're giving developers

00:17:00 ◼   ► money beforehand so they can get some cash to finish the product. You register your interest,

00:17:06 ◼   ► you authorize the payment in the pre-order. And in fact, if the developer changes the

00:17:11 ◼   ► price during the pre-order stage, so let's say that you pre-order a game at $3 and when

00:17:16 ◼   ► the game launches it's $5, you don't pay $5, you pay $3. Because some legislation in the

00:17:22 ◼   ► App Store, you know, Apple is forced to honor the price that the user registered their interest.

00:17:29 ◼   ► Which means that in addition to marketing, the angle that a lot of people are missing

00:17:34 ◼   ► is that this could be used in a bunch of interesting ways.

00:17:38 ◼   ► First could be register now and get the discounted price

00:17:42 ◼   ► before the game or the app launches.

00:17:44 ◼   ► But also, it could be a way for developers

00:17:46 ◼   ► to do some kind of upgrade discounted pricing

00:17:51 ◼   ► to a new version of an app.

00:17:53 ◼   ► If you're an existing user, you can apply for a discount now.

00:17:58 ◼   ► And I know that in theory, everybody

00:18:00 ◼   ► could apply because the pre-order listing is public.

00:18:03 ◼   ► But it could be a way for developers

00:18:05 ◼   ► to sort of fake their way around upgrade pricing,

00:18:08 ◼   ► to say during the preorder stage, you can get $3 off.

00:18:12 ◼   ► And that could be a nice idea.

00:18:14 ◼   ► But in general, I feel like all the indie developers that

00:18:18 ◼   ► are saying, oh, this is useless.

00:18:20 ◼   ► This doesn't make any sense because it's not

00:18:22 ◼   ► like you're preordering a limited edition video game.

00:18:24 ◼   ► That's not the point.

00:18:26 ◼   ► The point is make sure that you have a marketing strategy

00:18:28 ◼   ► in place, which is super important these days.

00:18:30 ◼   ► And if you're still one of those developers sending

00:18:33 ◼   ► press releases two days in advance you're doing it wrong. And it's a way to offer discounted

00:18:38 ◼   ► pricing and to get on the App Store and make sure all your ducks are in your row before

00:18:43 ◼   ► you actually launch a game or an app. I think it's very clever, honestly.

00:18:46 ◼   ► Steven, what do you think of all this? I think it's great anytime Apple adds features

00:18:52 ◼   ► to the App Store that developers can use to either make their businesses more profitable

00:18:56 ◼   ► or I think what's important this time around

00:18:59 ◼   ► is to garner more attention from their audience, right?

00:19:04 ◼   ► So if you have a game or an app that you are hyping,

00:19:08 ◼   ► like Myke, like you said, if there's a call to action,

00:19:10 ◼   ► there's a button someone can tap where they're in, right?

00:19:15 ◼   ► Even if the app doesn't come out in front of the week,

00:19:17 ◼   ► then that's more beneficial than you're hyping,

00:19:20 ◼   ► you're pre-announcing, you're saying things,

00:19:22 ◼   ► and then you have everyone's attention,

00:19:24 ◼   ► but there's no call to action.

00:19:25 ◼   ► I think for them to do right and then you have to like get them again when the app comes

00:19:29 ◼   ► out or the game comes out.

00:19:31 ◼   ► I think that's why we see developers trying different strategies when it comes to publicizing

00:19:37 ◼   ► what they do.

00:19:38 ◼   ► A lot of developers don't say a word until the thing is out in the App Store.

00:19:42 ◼   ► Developers talk about their apps on podcasts or in blog posts or on Twitter and kind of

00:19:46 ◼   ► build that tension up over time.

00:19:48 ◼   ► So yeah, I think I'm excited about it as a user.

00:19:51 ◼   ► I'm excited about it.

00:19:52 ◼   ► I think as someone who knows a lot of developers

00:19:55 ◼   ► and who is excited for developers to be successful,

00:19:59 ◼   ► I think it's a good thing.

00:20:00 ◼   ► So I'm glad to see it.

00:20:03 ◼   ► Hackett, have your time.

00:20:04 ◼   ► We saved the floor to you.

00:20:07 ◼   ► Just cracking my knuckles here.

00:20:09 ◼   ► The iMac Pro.

00:20:11 ◼   ► The iMac Pro is here almost.

00:20:14 ◼   ► You can order it on December 14.

00:20:17 ◼   ► That is Thursday.

00:20:17 ◼   ► That's two days from now.

00:20:19 ◼   ► We're seeing this today.

00:20:20 ◼   ► So today is Tuesday the 12th.

00:20:21 ◼   ► We've seen a couple things.

00:20:23 ◼   ► MKBHD has a nice video about it.

00:20:25 ◼   ► There's several blog posts about it.

00:20:27 ◼   ► We'll put these in the show notes

00:20:29 ◼   ► so you can go check them out.

00:20:30 ◼   ► There's no final pricing or options list yet,

00:20:33 ◼   ► so we still only know the starting price

00:20:35 ◼   ► for the 8-core, 32 gigs of RAM, terabyte SSD model.

00:20:40 ◼   ► MKBHD, he had the 10-core in his video

00:20:44 ◼   ► and he shared some Geekbench scores in the video

00:20:48 ◼   ► and it just completely smokes anything out there, including the 2013 Mac Pro.

00:20:56 ◼   ► So if you had a 2013 Mac Pro, this is a really nice step up.

00:21:01 ◼   ► Up until this point, that was still the most powerful Mac under Cerna measurements.

00:21:08 ◼   ► And other measurements, the 27" iMac beat it, but this machine beats both of them.

00:21:12 ◼   ► I did want to talk a little bit about the upgradeability deal.

00:21:17 ◼   ► talked about this when the iMac Pro was announced over the summer but it is a

00:21:23 ◼   ► sealed box so you can't go in there and upgrade things including the RAM that

00:21:28 ◼   ► like my 27-inch iMac has a RAM door I'm kind of feeling it right now behind the

00:21:32 ◼   ► display the iMac Pro does not does not have that that's a bummer I wish it did

00:21:39 ◼   ► but I understand why it doesn't I was talking to some people in slack earlier

00:21:43 ◼   ► and and Jason's now does something really smart he said you know this is an

00:21:46 ◼   ► iMac Pro it comes with the baggage of the iMac and that means that things like

00:21:52 ◼   ► the GPU like having a GPU slot in an iMac Pro to replace the GPU two years

00:21:57 ◼   ► down the road that was never on the table for this machine when Apple

00:22:00 ◼   ► decided this is going to be an iMac that was slanted towards pro users that

00:22:07 ◼   ► defined it from there on out and you can argue whether or not like it comes with

00:22:11 ◼   ► the good and the bad right you also get an incredible screen built in but then

00:22:16 ◼   ► you lose the ability to change the RAM. That is a very astute point. Yeah, and if you're

00:22:20 ◼   ► like me, I really, really like the all-in-one form factor. You know, I have a lot of stuff

00:22:26 ◼   ► hooked up to my iMac all the time, several drives, all this audio stuff for podcasting,

00:22:30 ◼   ► and it's all nice and neat because it's an all-in-one. I'm not like running cables everywhere,

00:22:34 ◼   ► and it's, I like the aesthetic of the all-in-one, I like the functionality of it, and like I

00:22:39 ◼   ► said, you get an incredible display built in. That's not for everybody though, and that's

00:22:43 ◼   ► why at some point 2018, assuming we will see a Mac Pro. So if you want a six or $7,000

00:22:50 ◼   ► machine that you can upgrade your RAM in, or upgrade the GPU potentially, then note

00:22:56 ◼   ► that Mac Pro may be free. We don't know anything about that product yet. But assuming that

00:22:59 ◼   ► when they said modular, they meant upgradable. What's a more interesting debate than should

00:23:04 ◼   ► the iMac Pro have a RAM door or not, is we were we were living in a world where the iMac

00:23:11 ◼   ► was going to be it before Apple decided to resurrect the Mac Pro to pull that team back

00:23:17 ◼   ► together and to task them with building a new Mac Pro. The iMac Pro, this new 27 inch

00:23:24 ◼   ► on one space gray hotness was going to be it that was going to be their professional

00:23:29 ◼   ► Mac. In that world, I would be much more upset about the RAM door on the iMac Pro. But because

00:23:38 ◼   ► the Mac Pro will exist it gives users of like of our caliber options and for me

00:23:45 ◼   ► now I don't know what the Mac Pro is going to be like I don't know if it'll be

00:23:49 ◼   ► you know much more powerful than the iMac Pro or not I honestly don't know how it

00:23:52 ◼   ► could be that the iMac Pro is is by far the most powerful Mac they've ever made

00:23:56 ◼   ► the trade-offs with the all-in-one design are worth it for me at this point

00:24:03 ◼   ► You know, I am NOT going to sit around and wait to see what the Mac Pro will be

00:24:09 ◼   ► before I decide to order an iMac Pro or not, because the iMac Pro is going

00:24:16 ◼   ► to be here now, unless you want the 18 core, that's going to be next year, which

00:24:20 ◼   ► is kind of a bummer, but whatever. It is going to grant me so much more

00:24:25 ◼   ► horsepower than the 2015 inch, 2015 inch, that's not a saying. Yeah, no, that's the

00:24:32 ◼   ► 2015-inch iMac. It's humongous. Really good for video editing. Yeah, it's like the whole side of my house.

00:24:43 ◼   ► It's so much more powerful than the late 2015 iMac I have now, then that it makes

00:24:48 ◼   ► the Mac Pro sort of a non- like sort of a non-issue for me. Yeah, and also it's

00:24:54 ◼   ► like how many times have you opened your iMac? Right? Yes, yes, I ordered mine with

00:24:59 ◼   ► 16 gigs of RAM. I ordered a refurbished model. It has an i5 in it, which is a bummer, but

00:25:05 ◼   ► it was the refurbished one that was in the budget that was for sale when I needed a machine.

00:25:08 ◼   ► It came with 16 gigs of RAM. I upgraded to 32. And I'm set like 30 gigs of RAM is fine

00:25:14 ◼   ► for this computer. My guess is that Apple has information on users with third party

00:25:23 ◼   ► RAM in their 27 inch iMacs. And my guess is that the percentage of people who ever opened

00:25:28 ◼   ► that door or even know that doors there is very low right that they have it

00:25:35 ◼   ► there it's not on the 21 inch I mean I agreed about this on like our old show

00:25:39 ◼   ► the prompt when the 21.5 inch came out there's no RAM door and I freaked out I

00:25:43 ◼   ► guess apples have worn me down over the years but my guess is it's not it's not

00:25:48 ◼   ► gonna be that big of a deal so it's something to think about when you order

00:25:50 ◼   ► it right that hey the base is gonna be 32 gigs of RAM I would recommend you know

00:25:55 ◼   ► I'd probably say if you're gonna buy an iMac Pro and you intend on using it for

00:25:58 ◼   ► several years, probably upgrade to 64 gigs, and that's fine.

00:26:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wanna say, we have to super just make the point.

00:26:06 ◼   ► We 100% know that there are many people that would need

00:26:10 ◼   ► a machine, that they can open up and upgrade.

00:26:12 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:26:13 ◼   ► - That's not the point we're making.

00:26:15 ◼   ► The point is that the vast majority of people

00:26:18 ◼   ► that would buy this machine probably would not need to.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Like, they're gonna be good with what it comes with.

00:26:24 ◼   ► In the same way that the current high-end iMacs

00:26:27 ◼   ► people aren't opening those up all the time because they're incredibly powerful machines.

00:26:32 ◼   ► Right. The people who have, or who had, some of them still have them, the cheese grater,

00:26:39 ◼   ► and they did put cards in them, those people were unhappy with the late 2013 Mac Pro, the

00:26:45 ◼   ► trash can. They're unhappy with the iMac Pro. Those people are going to get a Mac Pro again,

00:26:52 ◼   ► and assuming that you'll be able to take the side of it off or open it somehow and be able

00:26:55 ◼   ► to put stuff in it and that's awesome right like if that's what you want or

00:26:58 ◼   ► that's what you need and there are people who truly need that I'm super

00:27:02 ◼   ► pumped that Apple is building machine for those people right I really am

00:27:06 ◼   ► because those customers are important Mac users and it's important for the Mac

00:27:12 ◼   ► lineup to have a machine like that I truly believe that but I'm not sure I'm

00:27:17 ◼   ► one of those people I would like a RAM door if they had it in there I would

00:27:21 ◼   ► save money on the front end and upgrade the RAM later,

00:27:24 ◼   ► but it doesn't, so I'm just gonna order it

00:27:26 ◼   ► with 64 gigs of RAM in it and just be done,

00:27:28 ◼   ► because I want the all-in-one form factor.

00:27:30 ◼   ► I don't want a tower with a bunch of stuff

00:27:34 ◼   ► just laying everywhere.

00:27:36 ◼   ► The point I think we're making is that the options are good,

00:27:39 ◼   ► and whether you are happy or not with the iMac Pro,

00:27:43 ◼   ► you can balance that with knowing there's something

00:27:45 ◼   ► else coming at some point, hopefully, in 2018.

00:27:50 ◼   ► what we should be happy about and excited about the year of optimism is

00:27:54 ◼   ► that hey Apple listened and is giving those users that machine.

00:27:58 ◼   ► I mean we were on track until whenever that Mac roundtable was February last

00:28:01 ◼   ► year March whenever it was we were on track to be in a world with the iMac Pro

00:28:07 ◼   ► was it and thankfully someone stepped in and said hey this is not what we need to

00:28:12 ◼   ► do we need another option even above that so so I'm excited as someone who

00:28:17 ◼   ► uses a 27 inch iMac I love the form factor I love the display I want an all-in-one on my desk.

00:28:23 ◼   ► So this machine is is looking increasingly exciting to me as someone who does a bunch of audio

00:28:31 ◼   ► and a bunch of 4k video who needs multi-threading. I wrote this thing on iMore about multi-threading

00:28:38 ◼   ► applications being the reason I would buy an iMac Pro. So for a user like me you know I'm

00:28:44 ◼   ► I'm a professional Mac user, and Myke you are too, and you know we produce audio and video on our Macs.

00:28:51 ◼   ► For us this is this is a great choice and for those people who want or need more they have a

00:28:58 ◼   ► choice too and everybody can be happy. We don't have to be sad today. Today's a happy day if

00:29:02 ◼   ► you're a Mac user as long as you got five to ten grand laying around. You're using a lot of language

00:29:08 ◼   ► which would suggest that you're going to order one of these. I am very much interested in this.

00:29:13 ◼   ► - And with this amount of RAM, I will be good with this.

00:29:17 ◼   ► - I am, so I do wanna see what the final pricing is

00:29:21 ◼   ► because I would like to know, okay, if I do this,

00:29:24 ◼   ► like how much is it actually going to cost me

00:29:26 ◼   ► to do a machine that would be reasonable

00:29:29 ◼   ► to have for a long time?

00:29:31 ◼   ► - Is it weird to have the pre-orders go up

00:29:33 ◼   ► and not have prices?

00:29:35 ◼   ► - So, I mean, so all they've said today was

00:29:37 ◼   ► it will be available on the 14th.

00:29:39 ◼   ► And so I assume on the 14th that information will be there.

00:29:42 ◼   ► Do we have a start in price?

00:29:44 ◼   ► - Five grand.

00:29:45 ◼   ► - Okay, so it starts at five,

00:29:46 ◼   ► so you know that's what you gotta get to get in the door.

00:29:48 ◼   ► - That's the base, and we know the specs of that model.

00:29:50 ◼   ► That's eight core, 13 gigs of RAM, one terabyte SSD,

00:29:54 ◼   ► and the base GPU, which still has four times the video RAM

00:29:58 ◼   ► of the high-end video card I have in my iMac.

00:30:01 ◼   ► So even the base blows away the high-end

00:30:05 ◼   ► of even just a couple of years ago.

00:30:08 ◼   ► - So in theory, what are you configuring?

00:30:10 ◼   ► So I'm gonna look at a couple of things.

00:30:12 ◼   ► I wanna see what the RAM pricing's gonna be.

00:30:14 ◼   ► And some of those articles that are out now

00:30:17 ◼   ► have a bunch of graphs in them,

00:30:20 ◼   ► but no one really has the,

00:30:23 ◼   ► everyone just has the 10 core, it looks like,

00:30:25 ◼   ► that has early access to these.

00:30:27 ◼   ► And so what I wanna see is,

00:30:30 ◼   ► what is the performance difference

00:30:31 ◼   ► between the eight and the 10 core?

00:30:33 ◼   ► Because the 18 just seems extremely re-killed to me.

00:30:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, you don't need that.

00:30:40 ◼   ► I just don't think you need that.

00:30:41 ◼   ► I think you're good.

00:30:42 ◼   ► And so what I want to see is the price difference there.

00:30:45 ◼   ► And does it make sense to invest in the 10 core over the 8?

00:30:48 ◼   ► My guess is, honestly, sitting here today,

00:30:51 ◼   ► what I think will probably happen

00:30:54 ◼   ► is I'll do a base machine, so the 8 core with the base GPU.

00:30:58 ◼   ► Again, I'm getting many more cores than I have now.

00:31:02 ◼   ► And I'm getting twice the video RAM

00:31:03 ◼   ► and upgrading it to 64 gigs of RAM.

00:31:05 ◼   ► and that being such a big improvement over where I am now

00:31:10 ◼   ► that it's just fine.

00:31:13 ◼   ► Because a lot of this is an expensive machine.

00:31:15 ◼   ► Like I'm gonna have to sell this iMac

00:31:17 ◼   ► and pull some money together

00:31:19 ◼   ► and talk to my business partner about it

00:31:21 ◼   ► and go from there.

00:31:23 ◼   ► - Don't worry about me.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Make you buy what you need.

00:31:26 ◼   ► I have no intention of upgrading to this.

00:31:31 ◼   ► It's just not, I just think it's too much for me.

00:31:35 ◼   ► Like I think I'm good.

00:31:36 ◼   ► I wanna see how it goes, right?

00:31:37 ◼   ► Like I wanna see what people say,

00:31:39 ◼   ► but I never feel like my iMac is being stretched.

00:31:44 ◼   ► Like I just don't feel like that.

00:31:46 ◼   ► And I know I can make things go a bit faster

00:31:49 ◼   ► and like, and I understand how like those time savings

00:31:52 ◼   ► add up over time, right?

00:31:54 ◼   ► Like it's why I don't do all of this on a MacBook, right?

00:31:57 ◼   ► Like the time adds up and you really feel it over time,

00:32:02 ◼   ► but I just don't think I need to get in on this right now.

00:32:05 ◼   ► Honestly, personally, I want to see what the Mac Pro is like.

00:32:09 ◼   ► I just want to see what that's like.

00:32:12 ◼   ► I want to have all the options.

00:32:13 ◼   ► - And you have a desire for VR games, right?

00:32:15 ◼   ► Is that a factor in this?

00:32:17 ◼   ► - The factor is I'm gonna buy a PC,

00:32:23 ◼   ► so I don't want to buy an iMac.

00:32:24 ◼   ► I don't want to buy two computers.

00:32:28 ◼   ► I want to buy one.

00:32:29 ◼   ► - Very expensive computers.

00:32:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'm gonna buy and build a PC,

00:32:34 ◼   ► that's like my next project that I'm gonna do

00:32:36 ◼   ► at some point next year.

00:32:37 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:32:38 ◼   ► - And I don't have a desire to bring an iMac Pro

00:32:41 ◼   ► into MegaOffice as it stands right now.

00:32:43 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:32:44 ◼   ► - It feels like just too much for me personally.

00:32:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the speed thing is definitely part of it

00:32:49 ◼   ► where if forecast or logic or Final Cut

00:32:52 ◼   ► just render faster, I get time back.

00:32:55 ◼   ► But I think that's part of it,

00:32:57 ◼   ► But the bigger part for me is really with 4K video.

00:33:01 ◼   ► That when I do that, I'm doing an increasing amount of it

00:33:05 ◼   ► for YouTube stuff that the late 2015 iMac,

00:33:09 ◼   ► as great as it is, struggles with that workload.

00:33:14 ◼   ► And the iMac Pro seemingly would not.

00:33:18 ◼   ► So if I was just doing the audio,

00:33:21 ◼   ► I would not be as interested in this.

00:33:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, it makes sense.

00:33:25 ◼   ► The 4K video is what is pushing me over the edge.

00:33:28 ◼   ► And like I said, I don't necessarily need to swap stuff out.

00:33:31 ◼   ► And two, just because it's being talked about

00:33:34 ◼   ► in the chat room, I'll bring this up briefly.

00:33:37 ◼   ► The Mac Pro, of course, in the cheese grater era,

00:33:40 ◼   ► used to be upgradeable, right?

00:33:41 ◼   ► You could go out and buy capture cards,

00:33:44 ◼   ► and we have friends who run SSDs on PCI cards

00:33:47 ◼   ► 'cause it's super fast.

00:33:49 ◼   ► You could put in new video cards.

00:33:51 ◼   ► But the reality is, most people didn't do that, probably.

00:33:56 ◼   ► But even if you did, your options were super limited, right?

00:34:00 ◼   ► It's like, you can have any graphic card you want,

00:34:02 ◼   ► as long as it's one of these two that macOS supports.

00:34:05 ◼   ► If that was the case then, after that form factor

00:34:08 ◼   ► had been around for so long,

00:34:11 ◼   ► and was more affordable than this,

00:34:13 ◼   ► I mean, you could get a base Mac Pro at times

00:34:15 ◼   ► for like three grand, I think,

00:34:18 ◼   ► the market for that now may be even smaller.

00:34:23 ◼   ► So this thing, the iMac Pro comes with the AMD Vega graphics

00:34:28 ◼   ► similarly the Mac Pro would as well.

00:34:30 ◼   ► Is your only option gonna be AMD cards?

00:34:33 ◼   ► There's not much stuff there past Vega.

00:34:35 ◼   ► Vega's the best AMD card there is.

00:34:36 ◼   ► You can go to like Nvidia stuff, like the 1080 Ti

00:34:40 ◼   ► and some of those really high end cards

00:34:43 ◼   ► but Apple has to support it in the software

00:34:45 ◼   ► And the card OEMs, like Nvidia,

00:34:49 ◼   ► whoever you're buying your video card from,

00:34:51 ◼   ► has to have drivers for it as well.

00:34:54 ◼   ► And so saying I'm gonna wait for a Mac Pro

00:34:57 ◼   ► because I can upgrade the GPU,

00:34:58 ◼   ► like that's true and that's fine,

00:35:01 ◼   ► but I think that market is gonna have to prove itself

00:35:05 ◼   ► to be valuable for companies to support it.

00:35:08 ◼   ► And if the Mac Pro sells in the thousands of units range,

00:35:13 ◼   ► or even the tens of thousands of units range,

00:35:15 ◼   ► that may not be enough for someone like Nvidia

00:35:17 ◼   ► to deal with the drivers.

00:35:20 ◼   ► And they have drivers for some stuff now

00:35:21 ◼   ► and you can do EGP's and all that stuff.

00:35:23 ◼   ► But I think that there's a,

00:35:25 ◼   ► I think there's a real lack of options there.

00:35:28 ◼   ► It's not gonna be, the Mac Pro is not gonna unlock

00:35:31 ◼   ► some paradise where Myke, if you build your gaming PC,

00:35:34 ◼   ► and I think you totally should do it,

00:35:35 ◼   ► you know, you're gonna have a wide option of choices.

00:35:37 ◼   ► And over the years you can really

00:35:39 ◼   ► keep that machine up to date.

00:35:41 ◼   ► And that's just harder on a Mac.

00:35:44 ◼   ► Like, even if they're drivers,

00:35:46 ◼   ► and I know at like the chatroom I know,

00:35:48 ◼   ► Nvidia drivers for the Mac, stop yelling at me,

00:35:51 ◼   ► it's just not as flexible as the PC market's gonna be.

00:35:54 ◼   ► So again, the trade-off for me, the iMac Pro wins.

00:35:56 ◼   ► And you know, when the Mac Pro comes out at some point,

00:35:59 ◼   ► then I can always reevaluate.

00:36:00 ◼   ► But I think for now, my options now for 2018,

00:36:04 ◼   ► the iMac Pro is the best machine for me

00:36:07 ◼   ► if the budget stuff works out.

00:36:10 ◼   ► But my real question is Federico,

00:36:14 ◼   ► if you're still out there somewhere.

00:36:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:36:16 ◼   ► - You wandered off, you went and got a sandwich

00:36:18 ◼   ► and came back.

00:36:19 ◼   ► When you,

00:36:21 ◼   ► 'cause I think about all this Mac hardware, right,

00:36:25 ◼   ► like way more powerful hardware options,

00:36:29 ◼   ► and really the Mac has, now with the iMac Pro,

00:36:32 ◼   ► has a wide range of hardware.

00:36:35 ◼   ► And I'm not talking form factor,

00:36:37 ◼   ► that's maybe part of this cut this question I'm going to ask you. But in

00:36:40 ◼   ► terms of power and capability right like from my wife's little retinum MacBook,

00:36:44 ◼   ► all the way up to this iMac Pro is a huge range of stuff right and you can

00:36:49 ◼   ► pick a machine at a price point that makes sense for you with the specs that

00:36:53 ◼   ► make sense for you. The iPad line of course doesn't have that and the way

00:36:58 ◼   ► Apple gets around it is they sell older things for less money which is fine I'm

00:37:03 ◼   ► I'm not, it's not commentary on that.

00:37:05 ◼   ► But can you see a day in the future where iOS has

00:37:11 ◼   ► such a wide range of hardware capability

00:37:13 ◼   ► that you have an iPad that is great for this type of user

00:37:18 ◼   ► and then you have the Pro that is even further removed,

00:37:22 ◼   ► 'cause right now the $329 iPad and the iPad Pro,

00:37:26 ◼   ► they're different from each other,

00:37:27 ◼   ► but they're not night and day different from each other.

00:37:30 ◼   ► And do you think iOS would benefit

00:37:32 ◼   ► would be hurt by like a wide range of flexibility and like hardware power.

00:37:39 ◼   ► That's a good question. I would say that with that great responsibilities require greater

00:37:47 ◼   ► power and until... No, no, you got that wrong.

00:37:50 ◼   ► Yeah, that's exactly backwards. It's with great power comes great responsibility

00:37:54 ◼   ► and Spider-Man! No, stay with me. Stay with me. I know, don't

00:37:59 ◼   ► Don't teach me references, I know what I'm talking about.

00:38:03 ◼   ► I was about to say that until...

00:38:05 ◼   ► I know you were making a joke by the way, I thought I could control you.

00:38:09 ◼   ► I love you so much.

00:38:11 ◼   ► You've been mean to me for the past couple of weeks, Myke.

00:38:16 ◼   ► Oh, I'm sorry.

00:38:18 ◼   ► I don't want to be mean to you.

00:38:19 ◼   ► I tried to be nice last week, people thought I was still being mean, but I was trying to

00:38:22 ◼   ► be nice.

00:38:23 ◼   ► Maybe it's just my nature, I'm just not a good person, I'm sorry.

00:38:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it's something to think about for Christmas, Myke.

00:38:32 ◼   ► I was about to say that until iPads are capable of having those responsibilities, like, can

00:38:41 ◼   ► you work on complex VR development on an iPad?

00:38:45 ◼   ► No, you cannot, of course.

00:38:47 ◼   ► Can you do, you know, highly complex scientific calculations on an iPad?

00:38:52 ◼   ► Probably not.

00:38:53 ◼   ► Until Apple thinks that an iPad can handle those responsibilities, do you need that kind

00:38:59 ◼   ► of power?

00:39:00 ◼   ► I would love to have an iPad that can be connected to a 25-inch monitor and you have a version

00:39:07 ◼   ► of iOS running in desktop mode.

00:39:11 ◼   ► And of course in that case, I would say yes, of course Apple needs more variation in the

00:39:16 ◼   ► iPad line to make sure that you can accommodate that kind of scenario.

00:39:19 ◼   ► And I could see honestly a future where the workstation is but a screen that if you're

00:39:25 ◼   ► on the go it's an iPad and if you put it on your desk it becomes an i-something Pro.

00:39:32 ◼   ► So ten years from now do we think we're still gonna have Mac Pros and iMac Pros and on the

00:39:38 ◼   ► side iPads?

00:39:40 ◼   ► I tend to believe that in the future there won't be two operating systems but just one.

00:39:47 ◼   ► So in the short term, I'm not sure, does the iPad next year, does the 2018 iPad need a

00:39:54 ◼   ► super pro version?

00:39:56 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure it doesn't, because what else are you going to do on an iPad Pro that is

00:40:00 ◼   ► not already supported by the iPad Pro in 2017?

00:40:03 ◼   ► But 10 years from now, maybe.

00:40:06 ◼   ► Or five years from now, maybe.

00:40:08 ◼   ► And this goes back to the excellent discussion that you had, Myke, with JSON on Upgrade about

00:40:13 ◼   ► the iOS laptop, which I totally agree with.

00:40:19 ◼   ► It depends on where we see these things going,

00:40:21 ◼   ► because Apple says the Mac goes on forever,

00:40:24 ◼   ► and they don't want to do the hybrid,

00:40:26 ◼   ► they don't want to do the single OS.

00:40:28 ◼   ► But maybe for now, but realistically,

00:40:32 ◼   ► for a company that likes to integrate as much as possible

00:40:34 ◼   ► the software and the hardware, it's

00:40:37 ◼   ► a bit short-sighted to believe that they are not

00:40:40 ◼   ► going to integrate all of the software

00:40:43 ◼   ► and all of the hardware decades from now.

00:40:46 ◼   ► So that's my argument.

00:40:47 ◼   ► For now, it doesn't make much sense, I think,

00:40:50 ◼   ► to have multiple versions of the iPad Pro

00:40:53 ◼   ► where you can choose the specs.

00:40:55 ◼   ► But in the future, maybe.

00:40:59 ◼   ► But it depends on what they're gonna do with the OS, I think.

00:41:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's a really good point.

00:41:04 ◼   ► Like, you could just keep making

00:41:06 ◼   ► more and more powerful hardware, and that's awesome.

00:41:09 ◼   ► But there's gotta be something to do with it.

00:41:11 ◼   ► - Right.

00:41:12 ◼   ► They're just, everything that you can do on an iPad right now, the current hardware is

00:41:18 ◼   ► already too powerful for it.

00:41:22 ◼   ► There's already hardware to spare on this stuff, so it's not required.

00:41:28 ◼   ► Maybe one day, but not now.

00:41:30 ◼   ► Even if you work in Affinity Photo, or those pro apps that I don't use, I mean of course

00:41:34 ◼   ► I'm using Ulysses and I'm not like, I'm working on reviewing plain text and I'm like, man

00:41:39 ◼   ► I wish I had 10 gigs of RAM on this iPad to deal with this plain text. So that's not me.

00:41:45 ◼   ► But I'm pretty sure that even if you added some 4K video with LumaFusion or some other

00:41:50 ◼   ► video editor on the iPad, it's enough for now. Because you cannot do that kind of more

00:41:58 ◼   ► complex work that people buy Macs for. So, you know, it doesn't make much sense now,

00:42:04 ◼   ► I think.

00:42:05 ◼   ► All right. Today's show is also brought to you by Squarespace. Use the offer code "world"

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00:43:24 ◼   ► So the Amazon Prime Video app has finally arrived.

00:43:28 ◼   ► It's made it.

00:43:30 ◼   ► We were told about this like six months ago

00:43:34 ◼   ► and it's coming, we promise.

00:43:36 ◼   ► and now here it is. People are really upset about it. Um, I'm just going to say, I'm going

00:43:40 ◼   ► to let you guys talk. I'm just a super quick thing and I'll say that you guys can, can

00:43:43 ◼   ► give your thoughts. I kind of don't care that the app is janky. I just need to get to my

00:43:47 ◼   ► video and I can get to my video. Like that's it. That's it for me. I don't care. Like none

00:43:52 ◼   ► of those apps look good, right? Netflix doesn't look good. Like it doesn't look like a tvOS

00:43:56 ◼   ► app. It just looks like the Netflix app. They all look like, like the BBC iPlayer app just

00:44:00 ◼   ► looks like the web app. Like they all just look like that. Personally, I don't care because

00:44:05 ◼   ► all I want to do is watch the videos and as long as I can get to them even if

00:44:08 ◼   ► they're a bunch of clicks away I just want one box which I now have which is

00:44:12 ◼   ► 4k and HDR so I don't have to use my TV stuff and I'm using an Amazon thing

00:44:16 ◼   ► that's all I care about hmm yeah wouldn't you like to have a better app

00:44:21 ◼   ► Myke yeah but there are no good apps like who makes a good TV OS app that's a

00:44:26 ◼   ► pretty sad state like Apple's TV shows up is super janky right

00:44:34 ◼   ► Have you ever tried to watch a show with multiple seasons?

00:44:37 ◼   ► Yes.

00:44:38 ◼   ► You have to scroll through the entire list every time.

00:44:42 ◼   ► It doesn't remember where you are.

00:44:44 ◼   ► And there's no way to easily go, "I want season four."

00:44:46 ◼   ► You just have to go like, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and you get there.

00:44:50 ◼   ► But at least it feels like a TV OS app.

00:44:52 ◼   ► I don't care though!

00:44:55 ◼   ► Okay, so that's a disagreement here from a, you could say, a philosophical point of view

00:45:02 ◼   ► I tend to prefer stuff that looks native to the platform where I use it.

00:45:08 ◼   ► And I know that most people don't care, and it's fine.

00:45:10 ◼   ► I'm not gonna judge someone using the Prime app on tvOS.

00:45:16 ◼   ► I'd like that for iOS, because I think iOS's general conventions are built well.

00:45:20 ◼   ► I don't think I agree with the general conventions and user interface of tvOS, which is in part

00:45:26 ◼   ► because of the remote.

00:45:27 ◼   ► I just don't think the navigation of the operating system is that elegant in the first

00:45:32 ◼   ► place, so I kind of don't care about the tv/os metaphors because I don't particularly have

00:45:38 ◼   ► a lot of affinity for how it runs. Does that make sense?

00:45:41 ◼   ► Yeah, sure, it does. I just think that, you know, for example the fact that when you navigate

00:45:47 ◼   ► the Amazon app it doesn't make any sounds, that's a tiny detail. I know that most people

00:45:53 ◼   ► don't care, but I like it, my navigation, when I use the remote, which I hate by the

00:45:58 ◼   ► I think it's awful, but at least I have some kind of feedback when I use it.

00:46:03 ◼   ► Yeah, it sounds nice, because there's no vibration, there's no tap tick, so sound is nice.

00:46:08 ◼   ► And I was thinking about this, not about the Amazon app itself, because I don't even care.

00:46:12 ◼   ► I don't even watch video in the Amazon app, but about the bigger...

00:46:15 ◼   ► I don't care about Amazon.

00:46:18 ◼   ► It was just a starting point for another mini discussion that I wanted to have about all

00:46:25 ◼   ► these cross-platform apps and read it once

00:46:29 ◼   ► and run it everywhere, that kind of mentality.

00:46:32 ◼   ► Sometimes I wonder, honestly, if it could be less work

00:46:37 ◼   ► to just write individual native apps that work better

00:46:42 ◼   ► and that are native to the platform,

00:46:44 ◼   ► instead of spending months trying to adapt

00:46:47 ◼   ► to these monster conglomerates of a bunch of different APIs

00:46:52 ◼   ► and JavaScript and WebViews to make sure that they work in some capacity, why don't you

00:46:58 ◼   ► just write a native app and be done with it? And I know that these big companies have bigger

00:47:04 ◼   ► interests like maybe they want to make sure that everything is a WebView so they can track

00:47:09 ◼   ► your stats and behavior better. I don't know. But as a user and as someone who writes about

00:47:16 ◼   ► apps. Sometimes I wonder, is it really worth the investment for Amazon? Couldn't they,

00:47:23 ◼   ► if the problem is analytics, for example, couldn't they just embed some analytics in

00:47:27 ◼   ► a native tvOS app that feels better, looks nice, and nobody complains about it, instead

00:47:33 ◼   ► having to spend months trying to adapt it and trying to make it work? And the same could

00:47:38 ◼   ► be said about Electron on the Mac.

00:47:40 ◼   ► Oh, and Electron is hot garbage, and anyone who uses it should be ashamed of themselves.

00:47:44 ◼   ► But I think there's a point to the TV,

00:47:47 ◼   ► the video streaming world that you're missing

00:47:52 ◼   ► in your argument, and Myke touched on it a little bit.

00:47:55 ◼   ► And yeah, I agree with you, the app should be better,

00:47:57 ◼   ► and we deserve better TV OS apps.

00:47:59 ◼   ► I agree with all that.

00:48:01 ◼   ► But these companies want their platform,

00:48:04 ◼   ► so Amazon Prime wants Amazon Prime Video

00:48:09 ◼   ► to feel the same and look the same on iOS,

00:48:13 ◼   ► TV OS, Roku, the stupid app on your smart TV,

00:48:17 ◼   ► same with Netflix, right?

00:48:18 ◼   ► The Netflix UI is the same wherever you go

00:48:22 ◼   ► and I think we are more sensitive to that on the Apple TV

00:48:25 ◼   ► because we have the expectation from iOS

00:48:28 ◼   ► that apps kind of look and feel a certain way

00:48:30 ◼   ► and yeah, the Amazon Prime Video app is not great

00:48:33 ◼   ► but it gets the job done and I'm not in the app very much

00:48:37 ◼   ► 'cause I just wanna go watch the Grand Tour.

00:48:39 ◼   ► Like, I see what you're saying and I hear it

00:48:43 ◼   ► and I agree with a lot of it, but at the end of the day,

00:48:47 ◼   ► like I understand why companies don't make the investment.

00:48:50 ◼   ► I understand that they want everything

00:48:51 ◼   ► to look the same everywhere.

00:48:52 ◼   ► And I don't think it's that big of a deal

00:48:55 ◼   ► because users are just gonna go in and watch a video

00:48:58 ◼   ► and they want to be able to find it quickly

00:48:59 ◼   ► and that's the win for Amazon, right?

00:49:02 ◼   ► They would rather you expect, even if it's not good,

00:49:06 ◼   ► they would rather have the same expectations set everywhere.

00:49:09 ◼   ► And I can understand that.

00:49:12 ◼   ► Let me take that a step further, Federico, right?

00:49:15 ◼   ► Let's imagine a world in which Google and Apple and Microsoft

00:49:19 ◼   ► go, right, we are fed up with the way the web looks.

00:49:23 ◼   ► It is time to implement our standards templates.

00:49:26 ◼   ► And every website in the world now

00:49:28 ◼   ► has to design themselves to look exactly how we want

00:49:34 ◼   ► with our interface guidelines.

00:49:35 ◼   ► and then you have to redesign Mac stories to look away that Apple likes, or that Google

00:49:41 ◼   ► likes, or that Microsoft likes?

00:49:43 ◼   ► No, we already had AMP pages.

00:49:44 ◼   ► It's a different topic.

00:49:46 ◼   ► No, but it's like...

00:49:47 ◼   ► You're comparing a web browser with an Apple TV, which is a product by Apple that you made,

00:49:51 ◼   ► and you sign an agreement to be on the App Store.

00:49:54 ◼   ► That's a very different discussion.

00:49:55 ◼   ► Yeah, but all I'm trying to get at is like, these applications believe in their own branding,

00:50:01 ◼   ► whether you like it or not.

00:50:03 ◼   ► It doesn't matter, but like...

00:50:04 ◼   ► Yeah, and I don't like it. It's fine.

00:50:06 ◼   ► You don't have to. Amazon does.

00:50:08 ◼   ► So why should Apple be able to say to them,

00:50:11 ◼   ► "No, you can't look the way that you want," right?

00:50:14 ◼   ► No, it's not Amazon. It's people like me and John Gruber complaining about it.

00:50:18 ◼   ► It's really... It's not Apple.

00:50:20 ◼   ► I just think from... It was really just a taste, personal taste thing.

00:50:26 ◼   ► I don't like this janky stuff when I see it.

00:50:31 ◼   ► I mean, I don't like it, but I also just don't think that any company should be forced to

00:50:35 ◼   ► conform.

00:50:36 ◼   ► Yeah, companies are people too.

00:50:41 ◼   ► Remember?

00:50:42 ◼   ► Because I know I wouldn't want to, right?

00:50:44 ◼   ► Like if Apple were like, "You can't do artwork like that anymore.

00:50:49 ◼   ► Your artwork has to look like this for your podcasts."

00:50:52 ◼   ► Like, that would annoy me and be like, "No, we believe we can express ourselves in our

00:50:56 ◼   ► own way.

00:50:57 ◼   ► I know that we're on your platform, but I don't think that you should be able to control everything.

00:51:02 ◼   ► And I think that's how a lot of these companies are. I mean, I think the argument that me and

00:51:06 ◼   ► Steven are making here is more that just like the apps shouldn't necessarily have to conform to the

00:51:12 ◼   ► human interface guidelines constantly. We are not arguing that this is a good app because it just

00:51:17 ◼   ► isn't, right? But I think a lot of the argument is just like, oh, it should have to look like tvOS.

00:51:23 ◼   ► And I don't necessarily think it should be the case.

00:51:26 ◼   ► Let me rephrase it. My argument was not necessarily about the way that it looks, even though that's

00:51:34 ◼   ► the most evident problem. But I think it's a slippery slope when you start saying, "I

00:51:39 ◼   ► have my custom framework and I want my services to look this way." Because once you get into

00:51:44 ◼   ► that mindset, you end up with products like Google, Google Apps on iOS, which we always

00:51:50 ◼   ► complain about. And guess why they don't support drag and drop and iPad multitasking at launch?

00:51:55 ◼   ► they decided years ago to make things their own way and they made that commitment and

00:51:59 ◼   ► now that you know the sunk cost of making custom frameworks prevents them from supporting

00:52:04 ◼   ► the features that we want when they launch on iOS for everybody.

00:52:07 ◼   ► That is the 100% the downside to everybody and I wished that people wouldn't do it but

00:52:13 ◼   ► I also see from their perspective why they might want to. But I don't like it like obviously

00:52:18 ◼   ► like I hate the fact that it takes Google so long to update things but like that's a

00:52:22 ◼   ► technology thing as opposed to a design thing. Like because they are building their own engine,

00:52:27 ◼   ► which Apple doesn't supply to them. Like Apple doesn't supply to Google the ability to do

00:52:32 ◼   ► collaboration. Like that's not a thing that they can do, right? The problem with them

00:52:36 ◼   ► updating so slowly is because they're building their own frameworks so they can do their

00:52:39 ◼   ► real-time collaboration, not because they want to look like an iOS app.

00:52:44 ◼   ► I'm not sure where you're going with this, but okay.

00:52:46 ◼   ► I think we're arguing slightly different points now.

00:52:49 ◼   ► I think we just agree the Amazon Prime video is not ideal,

00:52:54 ◼   ► but we're glad it's here if you wanna watch

00:52:56 ◼   ► Amazon Prime stuff.

00:52:57 ◼   ► I'm glad it's there.

00:52:58 ◼   ► I put it on my Apple TV the day it's available.

00:53:00 ◼   ► I've used it several times.

00:53:01 ◼   ► It's great.

00:53:02 ◼   ► It's great to have that content available

00:53:03 ◼   ► outside of something like AirPlay.

00:53:05 ◼   ► - All the great shows.

00:53:06 ◼   ► - Okay, so in talking about TV, Federico,

00:53:10 ◼   ► you have been shopping.

00:53:12 ◼   ► You've upgraded to a 4K television.

00:53:15 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:53:16 ◼   ► - You have plugged a bunch of stuff into it.

00:53:17 ◼   ► What have you done?

00:53:18 ◼   ► So I bought for Black Friday initially, but then my order got cancelled.

00:53:25 ◼   ► So I bought it from a different store, an LG OLED 55 inch TV.

00:53:32 ◼   ► It's the B7, the 2017 model.

00:53:35 ◼   ► It's a 4K OLED HDR television.

00:53:38 ◼   ► And it's beautiful.

00:53:39 ◼   ► It's just, I never, this is my first modern TV that I bought with my own money and that

00:53:47 ◼   ► actually costs a bunch of money. I never had a really good TV. Even when I got my first

00:53:56 ◼   ► HD TV years ago, it wasn't like a current top of the line one. And this is a great TV.

00:54:04 ◼   ► So the first thing I noticed is that these 4K TVs are awful for normal people because

00:54:11 ◼   ► if you want to have the best picture quality, and yes I do believe that you gotta calibrate

00:54:15 ◼   ► or television and make sure that the colors are correct and all that stuff.

00:54:19 ◼   ► But someone like my mom or even my friends, they have iPhones and they have iPads and

00:54:25 ◼   ► Macs but these settings and these values that you need to manually change and follow a guide

00:54:32 ◼   ► somewhere on the web, it's just awful.

00:54:36 ◼   ► There's just so many things to change if you want to have the best experience.

00:54:40 ◼   ► And even the fact that you gotta change all these settings and values for each individual

00:54:45 ◼   ► input source. So for example, having game mode on the PlayStation 4 Pro, but a different

00:54:52 ◼   ► game mode for the Nintendo Switch and different settings for the Apple TV and the Chromecast

00:54:58 ◼   ► and also live television with... It's just awful. So many things to change. There's no

00:55:03 ◼   ► like a single... Ideally, the TV should be smart enough that... And maybe this is the

00:55:10 ◼   ► potential for future Apple television. You know, if Apple ever wants to make it.

00:55:15 ◼   ► No, no, no, you said it. Don't say those words.

00:55:18 ◼   ► Another gene master is suddenly gonna appear on the show now. But ideally there should

00:55:24 ◼   ► be like a smart mode where it's like TV, do the thing on your own. Understand whether

00:55:30 ◼   ► I'm playing with my PlayStation or I'm watching Netflix and just adapt the settings automatically.

00:55:36 ◼   ► I don't need to manually change them. Anyway, it looks beautiful, the picture quality is

00:55:41 ◼   ► awesome, OLED is great, HDR is great, my girlfriend doesn't care, she doesn't see the difference

00:55:47 ◼   ► from... she just says it's a bigger TV, she doesn't really care about the 4K and the HDR,

00:55:54 ◼   ► which I understand because it's not a... unless you really pay attention and maybe unless

00:56:01 ◼   ► play video games in HDR 60 frames per second, you maybe don't really notice the difference.

00:56:08 ◼   ► I see the difference, I think I see the difference, I think it's awesome. But she's just, "Yeah,

00:56:13 ◼   ► well, it's bigger. You wanted to buy a TV, you got your TV, are you happy now?" This

00:56:17 ◼   ► was her reaction.

00:56:18 ◼   ► - Does she like that the TV is bigger?

00:56:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, she loves it. She said, "You know, it's actually really great to watch movies

00:56:23 ◼   ► this way." Like, "Yeah, I know it's good. I know it's a good TV."

00:56:27 ◼   ► - We had a similar thing in my house where it was like, "I don't think I want a TV that

00:56:30 ◼   ► big in the front room. I'm just like please let's just get it if you don't like it I'll

00:56:34 ◼   ► return and then it's like oh no I love this. Yeah. I'm gonna use all this when I upgrade

00:56:39 ◼   ► from my like I have a we have a 42 inch 1080 which we bought like four years four or five

00:56:44 ◼   ► years ago it's fine I will use it until it dies but on occasion like where it is now

00:56:50 ◼   ► in our new house I could go bigger it's like maybe I need to do this but yeah. Go 90. I

00:56:55 ◼   ► don't know about that. Oh man. Get the 2200 inch one. Yeah there you go. We were talking

00:57:00 ◼   ► about earlier. So, what was I saying? So it looks great, the settings are terrible, and

00:57:07 ◼   ► in terms of devices that I'm using, so I have my PS4 Pro, I'm selling my PlayStation 4 so

00:57:16 ◼   ► I moved to the Pro, moving Sony as a feature to move from an old PlayStation 4 to a PS4

00:57:23 ◼   ► Pro, but it didn't work for me, I used the LAN cable and it wasn't transferring anything,

00:57:29 ◼   ► So thankfully, unlike Nintendo, Sony has an online system to backup your saved data and

00:57:37 ◼   ► download it again on a new device.

00:57:39 ◼   ► So I uploaded my game saves to PlayStation Plus, and I redownloaded the games themselves

00:57:47 ◼   ► from the PlayStation Store on the PS4 Pro, like you would redownload games on an iPhone

00:57:52 ◼   ► or an iPad, and I also redownloaded my saved data, and there it was, already on the PS4

00:57:58 ◼   ► without having to do the transfer feature, which was not working. So that was really

00:58:02 ◼   ► cool. I got an Apple TV 4K. A reader on Twitter told me, "Make sure you get one of those

00:58:10 ◼   ► Belkin high-speed HDMI cables to avoid any problems with HDR and 4K and 4K consoles."

00:58:19 ◼   ► And I did some basic research. I didn't really want to spend days investigating whether this

00:58:23 ◼   ► was true or not. But Apple is selling this cable. So I just went to the Apple store and

00:58:28 ◼   ► like give me also the backing cable. And to be fair, no problems. Zero problems so far

00:58:33 ◼   ► with the Apple TV 4K and the 4K TV. So I love the screen savers. Myke told me the screen

00:58:40 ◼   ► savers were beautiful. They are.

00:58:42 ◼   ► Oh, so good. Oh my god.

00:58:44 ◼   ► Can I have a feature request for the screen savers that just came to mind as we're talking

00:58:48 ◼   ► about this? You know, we have them on and occasionally new ones come in and I have a

00:58:52 ◼   ► mindset to download new ones basically daily or whenever they're available. I would love

00:58:57 ◼   ► to be able to pull down on the remote

00:59:01 ◼   ► and Apple tell me about the location, right?

00:59:04 ◼   ► So there's one, it's panning this city skyline

00:59:09 ◼   ► and I had to Google around to find what city it's in

00:59:11 ◼   ► because I thought it was in one city,

00:59:13 ◼   ► Mary thought it was in a different city

00:59:14 ◼   ► and we were debating,

00:59:15 ◼   ► I was like, well, let's see if we can find it.

00:59:17 ◼   ► I would just love to have a little thing

00:59:19 ◼   ► I could get to in the UI and be like,

00:59:20 ◼   ► hey, this is Hong Kong,

00:59:21 ◼   ► hey, this is an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

00:59:24 ◼   ► I just, I think it'd be nice.

00:59:27 ◼   ► I do agree with that actually. I think it would be nice to get that information.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Because some of the stuff I'm like "What is this place?"

00:59:34 ◼   ► I still need to watch a proper 4K HDR movie from iTunes.

00:59:38 ◼   ► I'm trying to see if there's a movie that Sylvia would enjoy

00:59:43 ◼   ► and that I would also enjoy. So I think we have plenty of choice because we're

00:59:47 ◼   ► we are kinda terrible at staying on top of movie releases.

00:59:50 ◼   ► I could probably choose one of those superhero movies.

00:59:54 ◼   ► I'm not even sure what is popular these days.

00:59:56 ◼   ► Probably some kind of Spiderman maybe.

00:59:59 ◼   ► Spiderman was good and it's in 4K HDR on Apple TV.

01:00:02 ◼   ► And Sylvia likes Spiderman.

01:00:04 ◼   ► So yeah it's a good movie.

01:00:06 ◼   ► That could be a good movie.

01:00:07 ◼   ► Or Wonder Woman.

01:00:08 ◼   ► Yeah you know Wonder Woman could be an idea.

01:00:11 ◼   ► You can find a Star War 2 probably.

01:00:15 ◼   ► I was going to say also maybe a Pixar movie.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Yeah I don't know if they have any in 4K HDR yet though.

01:00:22 ◼   ► I want to say Inside Out.

01:00:24 ◼   ► Okay.

01:00:25 ◼   ► Also Baby Driver.

01:00:26 ◼   ► Great movie.

01:00:27 ◼   ► It's about an iPod collector, I think.

01:00:29 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a...

01:00:30 ◼   ► Yep.

01:00:31 ◼   ► Yes, actually.

01:00:32 ◼   ► It's the one with Don Draper also in the cast.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:00:36 ◼   ► Yep.

01:00:37 ◼   ► Okay.

01:00:38 ◼   ► So you're happy with all this?

01:00:41 ◼   ► You're enjoying it?

01:00:42 ◼   ► Thumbs up?

01:00:43 ◼   ► Very much so.

01:00:44 ◼   ► I also have the Chromecast Ultra for... because YouTube and 4K, that's what you gotta get.

01:00:50 ◼   ► Do you recommend this?

01:00:51 ◼   ► I've been rolling this around in my brain if I should get this.

01:00:54 ◼   ► The Chromecast Ultra?

01:00:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:57 ◼   ► Yeah, because most of the channels that I follow on YouTube now, they do 4K.

01:01:03 ◼   ► So MKBHD does 4K, Austin Evans does 4K, Casey Neistat sometimes I think does 4K.

01:01:10 ◼   ► And they look--

01:01:11 ◼   ► Steven does 4K.

01:01:11 ◼   ► Steven does 4K.

01:01:13 ◼   ► I actually sent a picture to Steven the other day in front of a big picture

01:01:19 ◼   ► of Steven on my TV in 4K. He looked fancy. So yeah, I recommend it. It's, of course,

01:01:27 ◼   ► you know, the whole system of casting a video to the TV is very simple. From YouTube on

01:01:33 ◼   ► iOS, you just tap a button and you're done. But yeah, I wish there was a setting actually

01:01:38 ◼   ► to say on YouTube, I always want to stream in 4K, never mind adjusting the playback depending

01:01:44 ◼   ► on the speed of my internet connection. Like I want a setting that says always 4K, but

01:01:49 ◼   ► it doesn't exist. I'll wait, I'm good. I'll wait, I'll wait. Just make sure you don't degrade

01:01:53 ◼   ► the quality. Anyway, yeah, I'm very happy so far. I'm playing with the Switch also on

01:01:59 ◼   ► the 4K TV, which of course doesn't support 4K, but it looks beautiful. And finally, finally,

01:02:05 ◼   ► I can play without having to sit in front of my TV. I can just sit in bed and play from

01:02:13 ◼   ► a distance which would be I guess like four meters away and I can still see all the details.

01:02:23 ◼   ► Really it's just a big beautiful TV, it's solid and it looks great and I got a PS4 Pro

01:02:27 ◼   ► and a bunch of 4K devices and I'm pretty happy so far.

01:02:30 ◼   ► But the settings are awful.

01:02:32 ◼   ► They always are.

01:02:33 ◼   ► They always, always are.

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01:03:42 ◼   ► for their support of this show and Relay FM. Surprise everybody! Apple bought Shazam!

01:03:48 ◼   ► It is surprising, right? It is a big surprise. It's a very weird one. This is one of those

01:03:57 ◼   ► things that I, because I've been at a conference this weekend, I haven't really been paying

01:04:03 ◼   ► attention. I saw you two talking about it and I honestly thought that you were

01:04:08 ◼   ► joking. I thought that you were making a joke and so yeah very interesting. I think

01:04:14 ◼   ► BuzzFeed got the scoop. Apple has bought Shazam. Yeah and we don't know for how

01:04:21 ◼   ► much. We don't know what's gonna happen to the Shazam suite of apps because they

01:04:27 ◼   ► have apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, video game consoles maybe? It's one of those services.

01:04:34 ◼   ► It's everywhere. It's everywhere. So we don't know any details, just that of course

01:04:41 ◼   ► Apple PR wants you to know that they have some exciting plans for Shazam and Apple together.

01:04:47 ◼   ► So I thought it could be interesting to discuss a bunch of the possibilities here. Of course the

01:04:55 ◼   ► first one I think it's Shazam becoming part of Siri. Back in the days of iOS 8, I think

01:05:04 ◼   ► the developer betas of iOS 8, you could, Apple was integrating Shazam with Siri. And actually

01:05:12 ◼   ► today you can do song recognition via Siri, but you have to ask a command. You have to

01:05:18 ◼   ► ask "what song is this" or "what's playing". Back in the days of the iOS 8 Beta, Shazam

01:05:26 ◼   ► song recognition was always on. As soon as you summoned Siri, it would listen either

01:05:32 ◼   ► for spoken words or music. And that integration never made the cut for the public release,

01:05:39 ◼   ► probably. I'm assuming because of some privacy or security concerns, I'm not sure. But the

01:05:44 ◼   ► The idea now is that Apple could do that feature all over again, but by having a built-in API

01:05:53 ◼   ► with Shazam becoming a system feature and being able to listen for music playing and,

01:05:58 ◼   ► I guess, direct you to Apple Music or to the iTunes store and not to Spotify or other services.

01:06:07 ◼   ► Let me ask you guys a question about this, because I was thinking about this, right?

01:06:11 ◼   ► One of the features of the Pixel 2 is the song recognition, right?

01:06:16 ◼   ► Like you can have music on and it shows you on the screen.

01:06:19 ◼   ► But Google is doing that with a combination of machine learning and all that kind of stuff,

01:06:23 ◼   ► right?

01:06:24 ◼   ► And none of it's going off device.

01:06:25 ◼   ► But Shazam is all off device, right?

01:06:28 ◼   ► It listens, it sends something to a server and comes back.

01:06:31 ◼   ► This is not very Apple, right?

01:06:33 ◼   ► I can't imagine them integrating the way that Shazam currently works into an iOS system

01:06:39 ◼   ► feature because then it would be sending the audio out. And if you're doing constant listening,

01:06:46 ◼   ► right? But like if there is a constant listening aspect, that's a different story, right? So

01:06:53 ◼   ► I'm intrigued to see how this goes. Maybe Shazam was working on a feature, maybe they've

01:06:58 ◼   ► already got this, right? And like Apple saw it and they were like, yeah, we'll buy you

01:07:02 ◼   ► now because they have some sort of like on-device machine learning algorithm for it. But I don't

01:07:06 ◼   ► Here's the problem with that. Anytime there's a new album out, the Shazam is recognized,

01:07:13 ◼   ► those need to push out an iOS update. So Siri can see it.

01:07:17 ◼   ► Oh my god.

01:07:20 ◼   ► It's easy with Apple these days. Just make it another coprocessor inside the iPhone.

01:07:27 ◼   ► Make it the Apple Z one.

01:07:31 ◼   ► And it's only for Shazam.

01:07:35 ◼   ► It's exactly Shazam and it's the Shazam CP co-processor.

01:07:42 ◼   ► You know they're naming the chips, right? They name the processors every year. So the

01:07:45 ◼   ► next one is going to be the A12 Shazam.

01:07:47 ◼   ► It's good. I think we've cracked it.

01:07:50 ◼   ► The A12 song. That's all. A12 song.

01:07:54 ◼   ► Oh, God.

01:07:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't, Myke, I agree with you. Like there's some unappleyness to Shazam. But what

01:08:01 ◼   ► What I keep thinking about is Shazam, like they do all this music stuff, but what they

01:08:07 ◼   ► actually are, are a recognition engine.

01:08:10 ◼   ► That's what y'all Shazam is.

01:08:11 ◼   ► It happens to be about music.

01:08:13 ◼   ► And as Tim Cook goes around talking about AR every day to literally anyone who would

01:08:19 ◼   ► listen, like you're next to him at a bagel shop and he's like, "Hey, let me tell you

01:08:22 ◼   ► about ARKit."

01:08:23 ◼   ► Have you heard the good news?

01:08:24 ◼   ► I've heard the good news about ARKit.

01:08:27 ◼   ► of media and, assuming the objects and other things,

01:08:32 ◼   ► is very important in AR, right?

01:08:34 ◼   ► Where you could point your iPhone or iPad at something

01:08:36 ◼   ► and it'd know about what's going on,

01:08:39 ◼   ► or if you turn your microphone on, on your iPhone or iPad,

01:08:44 ◼   ► that it can listen and tell you what's going on.

01:08:47 ◼   ► That's a very important step towards Tim Cook's AR land.

01:08:51 ◼   ► And maybe it is just about kicking people

01:08:54 ◼   ► to Apple Music and iTunes, and I bet we see that, right?

01:08:56 ◼   ► I bet we see a future version of the series that does this in a more cohesive way.

01:09:01 ◼   ► But I can't help but think that underlying technology is also really attractive to Apple

01:09:05 ◼   ► as they continue their march forward into AR.

01:09:08 ◼   ► Because my assumption is, if you build a really good music recognition engine, you could use

01:09:15 ◼   ► that bass methodology to recognize other things.

01:09:19 ◼   ► I don't see why not.

01:09:20 ◼   ► I can't imagine that it's like, your skills are only for music.

01:09:24 ◼   ► like you can't do anything else. I assume that you've just got a bunch of people that are super good.

01:09:30 ◼   ► Even just like making Siri even better, right? Like understanding what you're saying to it,

01:09:35 ◼   ► that kind of stuff, right? Like I imagine there's got to be some value in that,

01:09:40 ◼   ► which Shazam has been building for maybe longer than anybody else, right? Some like audio

01:09:44 ◼   ► recognition system. Yeah, I think when it comes to the audio fingerprint engine that Shazam has,

01:09:51 ◼   ► You could argue that Apple as a media company, I could see Shazam becoming some kind of...

01:09:58 ◼   ► sorry... I could see Shazam becoming some kind of layer on top of video, either from iTunes or

01:10:10 ◼   ► any video, that just pops up and if you want to and it tells you what song is playing in a movie

01:10:14 ◼   ► or in a TV show. Right. Like Amazon's x-ray thing, right? Exactly. And that, I guess a part of that

01:10:21 ◼   ► is that everything should tie into just tap on this button and go to Apple Music

01:10:27 ◼   ► and you can save or stream the song. I don't think, maybe in the short term, the

01:10:32 ◼   ► Shazam application will stay around and you will be able to connect your Spotify

01:10:35 ◼   ► account, but I would be really surprised if the next step for Shazam as any other

01:10:42 ◼   ► music streaming integration on iOS and Apple platforms. But I also wanted to

01:10:49 ◼   ► mentioned, in addition to, so they're making this music recognition feature,

01:10:53 ◼   ► it's probably gonna work with Siri, it's probably gonna work with Apple Music, and

01:10:57 ◼   ► it could be some bigger AR play, but we shouldn't forget the all the data that

01:11:03 ◼   ► Apple is buying, which is years and years of recognized songs and regional data

01:11:09 ◼   ► for different countries and different demographics, tagging songs, recognizing

01:11:15 ◼   ► songs and even just the user profiles and the data, what kind of trends do we see during

01:11:22 ◼   ► the year? What kind of trends do we see in Europe versus America for example?

01:11:27 ◼   ► Yeah that is a good point. That's a very good point. Like if they're a music company now,

01:11:32 ◼   ► even more than ever, having that data is really valuable.

01:11:34 ◼   ► Yeah and it kind of reminds me, maybe not to the same extent, but in a way it reminds

01:11:40 ◼   ► me of Spotify and buying the Echo Nest years ago. And arguably the Echo Nest was the best

01:11:46 ◼   ► acquisition ever made by Spotify because it is the engine that made it possible for Spotify

01:11:52 ◼   ► to release features like Discover Weekly, Release Radar, and FreshFinds. All the features

01:11:56 ◼   ► that make Spotify stand out, those were possible because of the data. The Echo Nest was largely

01:12:05 ◼   ► responsible for those features. But Shazam is not the iconized, it's not that advanced,

01:12:10 ◼   ► but it's still valuable data from millions of users on many different platforms. And I bet there's

01:12:19 ◼   ► something interesting that Apple could do there, even just if you account for Shazam's effort to

01:12:26 ◼   ► become more than a microphone that listens for music. Especially over the past two years,

01:12:33 ◼   ► if you've been paying attention to Shazam, they revamped the entire app so that it was

01:12:39 ◼   ► focusing more on discovery and browsing artists pages and finding related songs and discovering

01:12:46 ◼   ► regional trends in each country. And I bet that Apple wants some of that focus and sort of

01:12:53 ◼   ► philosophy when it comes to making a music streaming service that is not just the music

01:12:59 ◼   ► streaming service that is made, arguably, in LA and made by Apple. So when it comes

01:13:04 ◼   ► to curation and discovery, they could use Shazam's year's worth of regional data, I

01:13:10 ◼   ► think. I think that makes a lot of sense. I would expect to see, I mean, my

01:13:14 ◼   ► expectation is that for the time being that the Shazam app will remain, but I

01:13:20 ◼   ► expect an update which rips out Spotify and stuff like that. Oh yeah, it's gone. There's no way.

01:13:26 ◼   ► Apple music is on Android so like they can just do that they could just pull it

01:13:31 ◼   ► right out and just make Shazam you can still get all the information you want

01:13:34 ◼   ► but any links to go and buy the song listen to the song will just take you to

01:13:38 ◼   ► Apple music which I think is like whatever like that's how this stuff

01:13:41 ◼   ► works like they don't have to I mean you still get into use out of the app which

01:13:44 ◼   ► is the main thing you want it's just tell me the name of the song right and I

01:13:47 ◼   ► think that's what most people are looking for yeah and and that may even

01:13:53 ◼   ► be a big deal long term because what if what Google's doing on the pixel becomes part of

01:13:57 ◼   ► Android in the future, right? They just roll it in and Android phones can just do it. At

01:14:01 ◼   ► that point, Shazam is in trouble, right? Because now Android users don't need their app. And

01:14:06 ◼   ► so I think it makes sense from a lot of angles. And it's just weird. Like, it was so surprising.

01:14:13 ◼   ► We rarely see Apple make big public purchase like this. Like, everybody knows what Shazam

01:14:18 ◼   ► is right like when they bought the semiconductor like oh they make

01:14:22 ◼   ► chips and like that led to the a-line of chips but no one knew who they were

01:14:25 ◼   ► except us like my mom knows what Shazam is like everyone knows and so that's

01:14:30 ◼   ► that's exciting to see Apple see what they can do with it so pretty crazy like

01:14:34 ◼   ► not on a huge not on a huge huge scale but it became kind of Google like with

01:14:39 ◼   ► the verb right like yeah Shazam it yeah right like it became like a thing I

01:14:44 ◼   ► I mean I know that I've heard people say that. It's not crazy huge.

01:14:47 ◼   ► It sounds so bad in Italian when my friends say that. It's like it's...

01:14:52 ◼   ► Okay. Alright you have to do it now.

01:14:54 ◼   ► Shazamalow.

01:14:56 ◼   ► Oh!

01:14:57 ◼   ► It's like when someone says tag it on Shazam but as a verb and it's the

01:15:07 ◼   ► conjugation of the verb in Italian that is so awful. It's one of those...

01:15:11 ◼   ► Shazamalow?

01:15:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:13 ◼   ► I love that. It would be like the imperative form of putting on shazaam. I don't know how

01:15:19 ◼   ► to say it. Shazam it. Yeah. Yeah. It's just ugly. Shazamaloo! That's great. Sounds like

01:15:26 ◼   ► a really bad Marvel superhero. Oh boy. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode

01:15:36 ◼   ► of Connected. You can find links for this episode where Federico?

01:15:40 ◼   ► read.fm/connected/172

01:15:46 ◼   ► Perfect, you did it.

01:15:49 ◼   ► If you want to find Federico's work online,

01:15:51 ◼   ► maxstories.net, appstories.net.

01:15:53 ◼   ► He is @Vittucci on Twitter, V-I-T-I-C-C-I.

01:15:56 ◼   ► Steven is at 512pixels.net.

01:15:58 ◼   ► He's 512pixels on YouTube and he is @ismh on Twitter.

01:16:02 ◼   ► I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:16:04 ◼   ► Thanks again to our lovely sponsors this week,

01:16:06 ◼   ► Encapsular, Squarespace, and BalanceOpen.

01:16:09 ◼   ► We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye guys.

01:16:12 ◼   ► Arrivederci.

01:16:13 ◼   ► Adios.