Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode number 49. Today's show is brought to you

00:00:11 ◼   ► by Lynda.com where you can instantly stream thousands of courses created by industry experts,

00:00:16 ◼   ► text expander from smile, type more with less effort and backblaze. Online backups made easy.

00:00:23 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined today by Mr Federico Vittucci. Hi Federico.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Hey Myke.

00:00:28 ◼   ► How you doing?

00:00:29 ◼   ► I'm doing well, it's good to be back.

00:00:31 ◼   ► It is indeed, I'm Mr. Steven Hackett, welcome to yous-

00:00:33 ◼   ► Hey guys!

00:00:34 ◼   ► How you doing?

00:00:35 ◼   ► Uh, it's good, I agree with Federico's sediment- sediment?

00:00:38 ◼   ► That's what goes at the bottom of a river, sediment.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Uh, it is good to be back with you.

00:00:42 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:00:44 ◼   ► After a flying start today!

00:00:46 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:00:50 ◼   ► Everything's- everything's weird today, can I just-

00:00:53 ◼   ► can I just share a weird everything?

00:00:54 ◼   ► Why?

00:00:54 ◼   ► 'Cause it's Thursday, which is weird.

00:00:56 ◼   ► Uh, I'm at home-

00:00:57 ◼   ► It is a weird day Thursday in general. Why is it in the middle of the week, you know?

00:01:02 ◼   ► But it's also the end of the week, sort of. It's strange. Thursday is a weird day.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Thursday basically serves no purpose at all. It's not in the middle, it's not the end, but it's also like in the end of the week.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Yeah, because you think it's going to be the weekend and then, no, you still have Friday to deal with.

00:01:20 ◼   ► with. I'm recording in my kitchen which is strange in every way.

00:01:26 ◼   ► Are you eating right now? No I do have some juice though because my third

00:01:31 ◼   ► hurts but not not eating. I had a muffin before this though it was good. What was

00:01:35 ◼   ► in the muffin? No gluten and no dairy I can tell you that. Very exciting Stephen.

00:01:40 ◼   ► So just grass and bananas basically. Wow okay.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Mmm, grass banana muffin.

00:01:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I can see my backyard, I'm recording on a rig I don't use anymore, it's all very strange.

00:01:53 ◼   ► But we're here together, and that's what's important.

00:01:55 ◼   ► We always have one constant, even when things are strange, and that's follow-up.

00:02:00 ◼   ► It's true, except when I'm gone and then you hold it ransom, which I haven't forgiven you for yet.

00:02:05 ◼   ► We have a bunch of follow-up, and we are going to start with Apple Music.

00:02:11 ◼   ► Eric on Twitter wrote in and said basically "hey guys there is a schedule

00:02:18 ◼   ► in Apple Music" so we're talking we've been talking a lot about "hey would it be

00:02:23 ◼   ► nice to schedule have a schedule for what's on beats one" etc etc and I

00:02:28 ◼   ► because I'm not really using any of this stuff very much I was like "oh we must be

00:02:33 ◼   ► morons for not noticing this but Myke you would like to defend our honor"

00:02:38 ◼   ► Well, we've referenced that it exists multiple times.

00:02:42 ◼   ► We know that it's there, but it doesn't solve the problem, because the schedule only shows

00:02:46 ◼   ► between the next 10 and 12 hours of programming, which is not useful completely.

00:02:51 ◼   ► It's great to see what's coming up later, but if you want to know what time some of

00:02:58 ◼   ► these shows, like Ellie Goulding's show or the mixtape delivery service, you want to

00:03:02 ◼   ► know when they're on, and they might be a different day in the week.

00:03:06 ◼   ► becomes very difficult to find that out because as we said before the Tumblr page is a little

00:03:10 ◼   ► bit confusing because sometimes it only shows days and not times.

00:03:14 ◼   ► It's like there's just this mismatch of different ways of finding out what's on but nothing

00:03:21 ◼   ► can really tell you what's going to be live at 4pm local time in five days time which

00:03:26 ◼   ► is kind of what I want.

00:03:29 ◼   ► Yeah I mean I guess if you're a teenager a 12 hour heads up is fine because it's no big

00:03:35 ◼   ► deal for your schedule. But when you're an adult, you know, and you gotta think about responsibilities

00:03:39 ◼   ► and work and what you gotta do, it'd be nice to have like a full week overview of what's coming

00:03:44 ◼   ► up so you can plan accordingly. And I don't understand why we can't have just like a simple

00:03:48 ◼   ► calendar and we just check any day. At least give us like an overview of the upcoming three to four

00:03:55 ◼   ► days. I'm not saying you should give us an entire plan for the entire next three weeks because maybe,

00:04:01 ◼   ► you know, stuff changes. But at least like a simple calendar for the past, for the

00:04:05 ◼   ► next three or four days would be very welcome.

00:04:08 ◼   ► So Steven you said you're not using Apple Music which doesn't surprise me

00:04:12 ◼   ► but Federico are you happy?

00:04:14 ◼   ► Yes, very much.

00:04:16 ◼   ► I am too. I am too. Because you know, Jim Dourampal wrote this piece where he just ran Apple Music

00:04:22 ◼   ► into the ground because of some issues that he's having. But it seems like a

00:04:26 ◼   ► lot of his issues come from the fact that he had a very large music library

00:04:29 ◼   ► of his own in the first place and I don't deny it. I mean reading his piece

00:04:33 ◼   ► like I wouldn't want that to happen to me but I'm not having these issues and

00:04:36 ◼   ► I'm on the whole pretty happy. I did have an issue for like the last week where

00:04:40 ◼   ► there was some problem in the UK where there was like a DNS issue of some kind

00:04:45 ◼   ► it was widely unreported but there was a lot of stuff on the support forums so I

00:04:49 ◼   ► couldn't stream any music for like six days and when the when the store when

00:04:54 ◼   ► like basically all of Apple services went down earlier this week when it came

00:04:58 ◼   ► back up it was working again so they did change something. I wouldn't be surprised

00:05:02 ◼   ► if everything went down because they had to change something because there seemed

00:05:06 ◼   ► to be some sort of issue that was stopping the music from streaming like

00:05:10 ◼   ► it just wouldn't stream so I'd click an album and it would just go through all

00:05:14 ◼   ► the tracks just go through them all and it would be done in like two seconds but

00:05:17 ◼   ► nothing played it was really weird. So there are issues but on the whole like

00:05:22 ◼   ► I'm happy enough with the service all the music I want is there the radio is

00:05:25 ◼   ► good when I want to listen to it. Like I don't have any major problems of it but

00:05:29 ◼   ► there are a lot of people that do have issues.

00:05:32 ◼   ► So let me let me explain my situation because I've been thinking about this like since last night.

00:05:40 ◼   ► If I were in the same scenario of Jim, you know, you own this large music

00:05:46 ◼   ► collection and you're extremely precise, you know, about the songs that come from

00:05:51 ◼   ► from albums, songs that come from compilations, and you have this history of purchases on

00:05:56 ◼   ► the iTunes store, I would be extremely, you know, nitpicky about all the details of my

00:06:03 ◼   ► collection, and I totally understand where Jim is coming from.

00:06:07 ◼   ► And I did actually encounter an issue with iTunes Match and Apple Music a couple of weeks

00:06:13 ◼   ► ago I was seeing duplicate tracks in albums that I had in iTunes Match and in Apple Music.

00:06:24 ◼   ► So I just deleted everything from iTunes Match because that was no big deal to me.

00:06:29 ◼   ► I signed up for iTunes Match like last year just to try it and I was not depending on

00:06:36 ◼   ► iTunes Match.

00:06:38 ◼   ► So for what I need, I realize this may sound crazy to some people, not to everyone, but

00:06:46 ◼   ► to some people.

00:06:47 ◼   ► I don't start listening to music by going to my library first.

00:06:53 ◼   ► I either just search because an idea pops in my mind, I want to listen to, I don't know,

00:06:58 ◼   ► to Oasis today, big surprise, but let's say that I want to listen to an artist, I just

00:07:03 ◼   ► go to search and search and start listening or I go to the for you section

00:07:08 ◼   ► and I get a recommendation and I'm like whatever I want to start listening today

00:07:11 ◼   ► so I don't go to I don't use like a finder model I don't go to my library

00:07:17 ◼   ► browse my library and start listening from there so it's no big deal to me

00:07:22 ◼   ► when there's a library issue in Apple music I don't know if you make sense no

00:07:28 ◼   ► it does and that this is I do a kind of a bit of both like sometimes I add stuff

00:07:32 ◼   ► but a lot of the time I am searching as well or I'm just listening to a playlist

00:07:36 ◼   ► or whatever that I find when I go to the for you section. But like I wanted to

00:07:40 ◼   ► mention it because obviously there are some issues you know but I I'm not

00:07:48 ◼   ► having them and I just wanted to bring that up because I think it's I'm not

00:07:53 ◼   ► defending it but I just think it's interesting that we're saying that we

00:07:56 ◼   ► still like it but there there's a reason that we still like it because we use it

00:07:59 ◼   ► in very different ways. Anyway, Apple Pay UK, I wanted to do this piece of follow-up

00:08:04 ◼   ► Stephen if that's okay with you? Please. Nathan has written in, because I was

00:08:09 ◼   ► talking last week about some of the social conventions that we've built

00:08:14 ◼   ► up in the UK and I was saying how we show a card or something to show that we

00:08:18 ◼   ► want to use Apple Pay and Nathan wrote in with a great suggestion. It says "Just

00:08:22 ◼   ► something to add about using Apple Pay in the UK. I've been using it over the

00:08:25 ◼   ► past couple of days and when it comes to paying for something, I've now been

00:08:28 ◼   ► asking do you have contactless instead of can I pay by card or something

00:08:32 ◼   ► similar the person then gets the contactless reader I then get my phone

00:08:36 ◼   ► out and can pay for the thing without too much social awkwardness I think

00:08:39 ◼   ► that's great that's a great solution because Robin is saying I would like to

00:08:43 ◼   ► use Apple pay just say do you have contactless and they'll just get the

00:08:46 ◼   ► thing out and I have actually seen so Nathan then goes on to say I've had a

00:08:53 ◼   ► couple of good reactions so far notably someone who went whoa mind blown when he

00:08:57 ◼   ► used it and I've seen somebody do it I went to this little bakery that I like

00:09:01 ◼   ► to go to sometimes on a Sunday because they make great pizza I think even you

00:09:06 ◼   ► would like the pizza Federico no I think you would like it I've had fantastic

00:09:10 ◼   ► Italian pizza this is nowhere near as good as that but it's it's very good I

00:09:14 ◼   ► think you would like this okay and he this I was standing next to a guy while

00:09:19 ◼   ► he was paying and he used his watch to pay and the guy who was serving him was

00:09:24 ◼   ► like what did you just do? It was like what is this? And then everyone started laughing

00:09:29 ◼   ► about it and then the guy celebrated because it worked and I celebrated with him. So it

00:09:34 ◼   ► was it was a fun experience for everybody involved. But my bank, do you remember I said

00:09:38 ◼   ► about my useless bank? They've now moved their date from the 24th to the 28th. I don't think

00:09:44 ◼   ► they're gonna get it done in time. So we'll see.

00:09:47 ◼   ► That's right, Apple announced a handful of additional banks this morning actually here

00:09:53 ◼   ► in the US supported and I'm still not on it so I hope people tweet me were like oh hey

00:10:00 ◼   ► are you are you on this list and like well no I'm not what I'm starting to think is that

00:10:05 ◼   ► your bank my bank is actually the same even though my bank has like five branches and

00:10:09 ◼   ► it's tiny maybe they're secretly owned by your bank yeah there's a good chance that

00:10:13 ◼   ► that's happening I really I really wanna wanna try Apple Pay Sylvia as a as a contactless

00:10:21 ◼   ► card and she's been using it to buy stuff here in Rome because basically every shop

00:10:26 ◼   ► now has a contactless reader and it's so nice.

00:10:30 ◼   ► And I can only imagine like with my iPhone or my Apple Watch it feels so nice when you

00:10:36 ◼   ► don't need to type any code and you know, so convenient.

00:10:39 ◼   ► But I wonder if Italy will get like Apple Pay support in like two years at least, I

00:10:45 ◼   ► guess.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I mean we're always, we always get new stuff last.

00:10:49 ◼   ► So yeah, probably in 2017 I will get to try Apple Pay.

00:10:58 ◼   ► It is frustrating.

00:11:01 ◼   ► When Apple Pay first surfaced, I guess almost a year ago, people started using it, started

00:11:08 ◼   ► talking about it, and I sort of thought that it was overblown, like "ok guys, it's cool

00:11:13 ◼   ► or whatever, it's nerdy, but what's all the fuss about?"

00:11:18 ◼   ► And now that it is rolled out and you can really see not only like the actual benefits

00:11:23 ◼   ► but sort of the soft benefits, Michael, you're talking about, you know, in the store about

00:11:27 ◼   ► making it quick and everything and having a pizza party with that guy.

00:11:32 ◼   ► I do kind of want it, you know, and so it's, I felt silly for kind of mocking part of our

00:11:37 ◼   ► community of like, guys, come on, like it's not, like you don't have to write a 3000 word

00:11:41 ◼   ► piece on how you bought, you know, whatever with Apple Pay for the first time.

00:11:45 ◼   ► How you celebrated with a stranger at a pizza shop.

00:11:48 ◼   ► Hey.

00:11:49 ◼   ► Balloons came from the ceiling, it was incredible.

00:11:51 ◼   ► That's really exciting.

00:11:52 ◼   ► So Myke, tell us more about you approaching a stranger at a pizza shop.

00:11:56 ◼   ► I didn't approach him, I was standing next to him.

00:11:58 ◼   ► Like, I was next in line.

00:12:00 ◼   ► Did you make eye contact?

00:12:01 ◼   ► Uh, I was talking to the guy.

00:12:03 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:12:04 ◼   ► Just for a moment, like we were talking about Apple Pay.

00:12:07 ◼   ► Did you tell him about Relay?

00:12:09 ◼   ► I didn't do that.

00:12:10 ◼   ► I've not yet gone for the guerrilla marketing.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:12:14 ◼   ► Let's move on.

00:12:17 ◼   ► So we're going to talk about backups again.

00:12:20 ◼   ► Oh really?

00:12:21 ◼   ► I really enjoy your discussion, Steven.

00:12:27 ◼   ► You're crazy.

00:12:28 ◼   ► You're a crazy man.

00:12:29 ◼   ► Well, we're going to talk about that.

00:12:32 ◼   ► But I also respect you.

00:12:36 ◼   ► What's the word for when you have an appreciation for someone out of respect but you also think

00:12:43 ◼   ► they're insane.

00:12:45 ◼   ► I think

00:12:46 ◼   ► there's probably a German word.

00:12:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

00:12:52 ◼   ► No, Steven, seriously,

00:12:55 ◼   ► it's insane what you do, but it's also kind of fascinating.

00:12:59 ◼   ► So we're going to talk about iCloud and then Dropbox and then we're going to talk about

00:13:03 ◼   ► you, Federico.

00:13:04 ◼   ► So we had said that iCloud Drive and iCloud itself,

00:13:08 ◼   ► you know, there's not really a whole system

00:13:12 ◼   ► solution like there is on the Mac with Time Machine, you know,

00:13:16 ◼   ► with an iCloud component, right? So I can do Time Machine to a local drive,

00:13:20 ◼   ► but my iPad and iPhone can back up to iCloud wherever they are, and it's,

00:13:25 ◼   ► you know, sort of different. I get it off site, etc. And we kind of said,

00:13:28 ◼   ► "Well, you know, it'd be cool if something like Time Machine existed on the

00:13:33 ◼   ► Mac, but that was iCloud-based." There are a couple things here. We've got

00:13:38 ◼   ► a comment on Twitter from Matt Smith and he includes an image which my browser thinks

00:13:46 ◼   ► is sensitive information but it's not.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Yeah I just got that as well when I opened it.

00:13:50 ◼   ► Yeah I was like oh no what have I said on the air.

00:13:54 ◼   ► And so he has this little text outline that he sent us as an image, text shot as the kids

00:13:58 ◼   ► call them.

00:14:00 ◼   ► And you know saying that hey I get contacts mail, you know I get Safari history, I get

00:14:05 ◼   ► iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos information all back when I signed iCloud on a new machine.

00:14:11 ◼   ► I get music, I get films and TV shows I can re-download from iTunes, everything stored

00:14:17 ◼   ► in iCloud Drive, which we're going to come back to, apps from the App Store.

00:14:24 ◼   ► Basically building the case that you could rebuild a system from all these various Apple

00:14:30 ◼   ► cloud services it would not be as fluid as something like Time Machine where you just

00:14:36 ◼   ► plug a drive in and you say "oh bring my stuff over" and it just does it.

00:14:39 ◼   ► It would be a little more manual, a little more sort of piecing things together but definitely

00:14:44 ◼   ► doable if you're all in on iCloud and Apple Music and iTunes Match and Photo Library and

00:14:53 ◼   ► the cloud and all these other things.

00:14:56 ◼   ► And that's sort of where it breaks down for me a little bit.

00:14:59 ◼   ► yes you could do this, and I haven't done any of this, I've used iCloud Drive in exactly

00:15:03 ◼   ► like three applications, like it's not a big use case for me.

00:15:07 ◼   ► But it is interesting that you could do it.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Where I would, not argue with Matt because I mean this is all true, but where I would,

00:15:15 ◼   ► where my philosophy would differ is this is not simple to recover from like Time Machine.

00:15:21 ◼   ► This would be a great like secondary way to do it, and I use iCloud for a lot of this

00:15:24 ◼   ► stuff.

00:15:25 ◼   ► So you know, yes my contacts and all these other things are elsewhere but I think this

00:15:31 ◼   ► is different than something like Time Machine that functions only as a backup.

00:15:39 ◼   ► And this sort of segues into my point about Dropbox.

00:15:41 ◼   ► I said as an aside that I don't consider Dropbox as like a primary backup solution because

00:15:47 ◼   ► it is like two-way sync.

00:15:48 ◼   ► I'm not pushing data from me to the backup.

00:15:53 ◼   ► I'm pushing my data to something that can think and can do things and make decisions

00:15:57 ◼   ► without me and it's not completely within my control.

00:16:01 ◼   ► So that's sort of where the difference in my mind between sync and backup is that sync

00:16:07 ◼   ► can go wrong in many more ways than backup can because it's bi-directional or if you

00:16:13 ◼   ► have multiple machines, multi-directional.

00:16:18 ◼   ► It's better than nothing, which I think I said.

00:16:22 ◼   ► If all you have is a MacBook and a Dropbox account, put everything in Dropbox.

00:16:26 ◼   ► It is somewhere else.

00:16:28 ◼   ► You have gotten one step ahead of people who aren't doing anything.

00:16:36 ◼   ► But it's not something that I would feel comfortable with as my only backup, I guess is what I'm

00:16:43 ◼   ► saying.

00:16:44 ◼   ► Everybody dead?

00:16:45 ◼   ► Everybody just hung up?

00:16:46 ◼   ► No, no, no.

00:16:47 ◼   ► I'm just thinking about what you said.

00:16:49 ◼   ► I'm backing up my memories to iCloud Drive.

00:16:52 ◼   ► That's going to go terribly wrong,

00:16:53 ◼   ► because the next link is a little weird.

00:17:00 ◼   ► So apparently, under certain situations,

00:17:05 ◼   ► iCloud Drive doesn't act like something like Dropbox

00:17:09 ◼   ► or a regular Finder folder.

00:17:11 ◼   ► And you can create a situation--

00:17:13 ◼   ► this is complicated.

00:17:14 ◼   ► You should just go read it.

00:17:15 ◼   ► It's in the show notes.

00:17:17 ◼   ► But it is possible to get in a situation

00:17:20 ◼   ► where you think your stuff is in iCloud Drive and it's really not, or that iCloud Drive

00:17:25 ◼   ► does something unexpected and could generate data loss.

00:17:29 ◼   ► And so this looks like the show notes, which you can find on the internet I believe, Federico.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Yeah, well people can go to relay.fm/connected/49, which is 1 less than 50.

00:17:44 ◼   ► So it's easy to remember.

00:17:47 ◼   ► thing about the iCloud issue is definitely a thing I saw in it. A bunch

00:17:52 ◼   ► of people have seen it, like it's if you have files in a certain state and they're

00:17:57 ◼   ► not downloaded for example but you can drag them out of a folder and it looks

00:18:01 ◼   ► like the files gonna be there it just disappears. It's a thing that can happen

00:18:04 ◼   ► but Dan Warren on Six Colors he put a piece up like a little tip about how you

00:18:10 ◼   ► can actually use iCloud to sometimes restore some files from a backup. It's

00:18:15 ◼   ► It's kind of weird, it doesn't seem to work all the time, but I put that in the show notes

00:18:19 ◼   ► too.

00:18:20 ◼   ► So there is a little thing that Dan Morin discovered, so if you do have this issue you

00:18:23 ◼   ► might be in luck.

00:18:26 ◼   ► Guys I have many thoughts about backups and iCub and Dropbox.

00:18:30 ◼   ► Can I just confess everything to you two?

00:18:34 ◼   ► Uh-uh.

00:18:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:36 ◼   ► Okay.

00:18:37 ◼   ► So let's just go...

00:18:38 ◼   ► Okay.

00:18:39 ◼   ► So I don't backup my Mac anywhere, and don't go crazy, it's because I basically don't use

00:18:44 ◼   ► my Mac and when I do use my Mac, twice a week to record with YouTube, the shows, there's

00:18:51 ◼   ► nothing locally on my computer that I need to back up because Skype, it's Skype, and

00:18:59 ◼   ► when I open the web browser I go to Slack and Google Docs and everything is in the cloud.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Messages, there's nothing to back up, mostly because in theory it syncs with iCloud and

00:19:10 ◼   ► sometimes it doesn't.

00:19:12 ◼   ► else is in Dropbox, so whether I need to pull down some files like pictures or screenshots

00:19:19 ◼   ► or apps that sync with Dropbox, everything is in there. And I just feel like if my Mac

00:19:27 ◼   ► implodes and I'm no longer able to use my Mac and I need to buy a new one because I

00:19:32 ◼   ► still need to use Skype to record the shows and please don't send me follow up on how

00:19:36 ◼   ► to record from an iPad because I cannot do it for many reasons.

00:19:41 ◼   ► primarily because I'll have a heart attack.

00:19:44 ◼   ► - Yes, so thank you, but no.

00:19:46 ◼   ► If I ever need to buy a new Mac,

00:19:49 ◼   ► there's nothing that warrants my time spent

00:19:54 ◼   ► looking for backup solutions

00:19:57 ◼   ► or my money spent on backup solutions,

00:20:00 ◼   ► because iCloud and Dropbox are fine for what I need.

00:20:05 ◼   ► If I were to work more on a Mac

00:20:10 ◼   ► and generate local data or documents,

00:20:13 ◼   ► I would definitely consider backup solutions.

00:20:16 ◼   ► I just don't need them for what I do.

00:20:18 ◼   ► That's the first item of my many thoughts.

00:20:22 ◼   ► The second one is, for a long time,

00:20:24 ◼   ► I never really trusted iCloud

00:20:28 ◼   ► for any sort of sync or backup.

00:20:31 ◼   ► And the reason it's really simple,

00:20:33 ◼   ► it just felt like a black box

00:20:35 ◼   ► that didn't give you any sort of control.

00:20:38 ◼   ► And that's the reason why I use Dropbox for so many things.

00:20:44 ◼   ► It's because even if it's roughly the same concept,

00:20:47 ◼   ► it's something in the cloud that takes care of your stuff.

00:20:52 ◼   ► Dropbox gives me an explanation of what's going on.

00:20:56 ◼   ► So I can open a web browser, or I can open an app,

00:21:00 ◼   ► and it tells me we have X versions of your file,

00:21:04 ◼   ► and you can restore this file.

00:21:06 ◼   ► and you can rest assured that you can always open the web browser, go to Dropbox.com and

00:21:10 ◼   ► you see all the versions of your files.

00:21:13 ◼   ► And I can show deleted files easily, I can share stuff with others and more importantly

00:21:19 ◼   ► it works with apps and it works with apps as folders.

00:21:23 ◼   ► So if I set up a new app with Dropbox I can literally just open a folder and I see what

00:21:30 ◼   ► the app is doing.

00:21:32 ◼   ► for a long time with iCloud, it always felt like you turn it on and you get a

00:21:37 ◼   ► parade that it works and that's, you know, that was a problem because I cannot

00:21:43 ◼   ► trust this kind of random lottery of files with my important work stuff. The

00:21:52 ◼   ► thing is that lately with iCloud Drive and CloudKit, iCloud has become more

00:21:57 ◼   ► reliable. And there's also new APIs that developers can use to implement file

00:22:03 ◼   ► versioning in iCloud. And I am using a bunch of apps that expose versions of a

00:22:10 ◼   ► file, just like you can see versions of Dropbox or like you can see versions of

00:22:15 ◼   ► a file in the Finder. And versions make me trust the system more because they

00:22:21 ◼   ► are a concrete representation of the system working as it's supposed to,

00:22:26 ◼   ► because it's saving a copy of a file many times over and it's showing me changes.

00:22:32 ◼   ► And also with iCloud Drive I can now go on my Mac, on my iPhone and iPad, in iOS 9 there's an app on my home screen,

00:22:39 ◼   ► I can go to a web browser and there's folders and I can browse documents and it's still not the same kind of control that Dropbox gives me

00:22:47 ◼   ► because it's only app folders, now you can also create files but there's some...

00:22:52 ◼   ► There's many basic things that iCloud Drive doesn't do, such as, I'm pretty sure you cannot move a file into a subfolder

00:23:00 ◼   ► once it's into a folder. At least I'm not capable of figuring out how to move files into a folder inside a folder.

00:23:08 ◼   ► So that's pretty crazy.

00:23:10 ◼   ► Even if you can do it, the fact that it's not that obvious to you is a problem.

00:23:14 ◼   ► So, right now, where I'm at is, on my iPhone and iPad I use iCloud backup.

00:23:23 ◼   ► But that's also no big deal.

00:23:25 ◼   ► If it stopped working, I feel like I need iCloud sync and the iCloud service to work

00:23:33 ◼   ► reliably more than any iCloud backup.

00:23:36 ◼   ► Because I rarely need to restore, but I do need Apple Music.

00:23:40 ◼   ► I do need photos to work consistently.

00:23:45 ◼   ► So that's where I prioritize.

00:23:48 ◼   ► And for other, like right now I'm writing this review of iOS 9 and I started writing

00:23:55 ◼   ► this review in an app that used iCloud sync and it worked pretty well.

00:24:01 ◼   ► But the more that I was writing the review in there and the more the feeling of anxiety

00:24:07 ◼   ► about iCloud started growing inside of me and I felt like what if it's August and I

00:24:15 ◼   ► have 12 sections done and suddenly this file disappears and there's nothing that Apple

00:24:22 ◼   ► can do.

00:24:23 ◼   ► So I just, for as much as I was intrigued by that app, I just moved it back into editorial

00:24:30 ◼   ► and as soon as I started writing the article into editorial with Dropboxing, I felt safe

00:24:36 ◼   ► from worm inside. And I believe that's because it just gives me the sense of

00:24:41 ◼   ► security that it can always go wrong because Dropbox can, you know, many

00:24:48 ◼   ► things can go wrong in there. But it's never happened before.

00:24:54 ◼   ► Yeah, this is exactly, this is just what I was about to say, right? That it's not about the

00:25:00 ◼   ► fact of whether iCloud is better or worse than Dropbox. The problem is we have all had

00:25:07 ◼   ► iCloud problems way more than we have Dropbox problems. So just your fundamental trust of

00:25:13 ◼   ► iCloud is not strong enough yet and that needs to rebuild over time.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Yes, but I wonder if it can be rebuilt if you don't give me all the controls and information

00:25:26 ◼   ► Dropbox gives me. It can only start with you feeling like you're in control again.

00:25:34 ◼   ► And for as long as you feel that Dropbox is better, you're never gonna

00:25:39 ◼   ► try iCloud seriously anyway. And I'm exactly the same for file storage.

00:25:43 ◼   ► I've seen people say, "Oh, I'm all in on iCloud Drive." And I just think that

00:25:47 ◼   ► is just crazy to me. Dropbox is reliable and it works. And I put my

00:25:55 ◼   ► files there because I feel safe. I feel like Dropbox is my mother. She will never

00:26:01 ◼   ► betray me and that's exactly how I feel about... like I was seriously anxious when

00:26:08 ◼   ► I was writing in this iCloud app. I was constantly checking if the changes were

00:26:12 ◼   ► propagating across devices. That's crazy! I shouldn't have to worry about is the

00:26:16 ◼   ► system working? I should worry about writing and composing my document

00:26:20 ◼   ► instead of the system behind the document. So even if iCloud

00:26:24 ◼   ► it works for some stuff, contacts, mail, photos, iPod music, that's

00:26:29 ◼   ► mostly fine for me

00:26:31 ◼   ► calendars of course. That's fine, that's awesome, I love photos and Apple Music

00:26:36 ◼   ► but for this work, critical

00:26:39 ◼   ► documents and files, it just, I don't feel

00:26:43 ◼   ► safe. And there's people who are all in with iCloud Drive, I saw people

00:26:48 ◼   ► like deleting the Dropbox client from their iPhones and iPads and that's

00:26:54 ◼   ► awesome if it works for you. I just would be looking over my

00:26:59 ◼   ► shoulder every day looking for the iCloud fail to chase me and that I don't

00:27:04 ◼   ► want to do that. You can't live like that man. I think, I mean Apple is sort of in the situation

00:27:10 ◼   ► because of itself. I mean iCloud, Drive and the old data and document sync are

00:27:17 ◼   ► two different things and so that's you know if you remember like when iWork

00:27:21 ◼   ► first added sort of the document syncing it wasn't very good and you would go and

00:27:27 ◼   ► you would have a keynote or something on your Mac you go to your iPad is wouldn't

00:27:31 ◼   ► be there or it would be days old and when you opened it it would override the

00:27:36 ◼   ► new version I mean all sorts of issues with that old system and with iCloud

00:27:40 ◼   ► Drive built on a cloud kit it does seem objectively better than the old system

00:27:46 ◼   ► but with data loss it doesn't take it doesn't take a lot of that stuff to go

00:27:52 ◼   ► wrong before you just distrust it and once you distrust it it's really hard to

00:27:57 ◼   ► revisit like I know objectively the iCloud Drive is better than what they

00:28:01 ◼   ► had in the past but because I was burned in the past I'm not gonna go back to it

00:28:06 ◼   ► because Dropbox has always been good they've always given that control you

00:28:12 ◼   ► things like version history and the sharing and the web interface that is

00:28:17 ◼   ► is actually pretty good and

00:28:20 ◼   ► this stuff that Apple isn't going to do because Apple wants to keep things simple

00:28:24 ◼   ► they're not going to add versioning to something when they're also trying to hide the file

00:28:27 ◼   ► system. Those things are just

00:28:29 ◼   ► inherently at opposite ends of the spectrum and that's fine

00:28:33 ◼   ► I

00:28:34 ◼   ► just choose to work the way the Dropbox works. It makes sense to me.

00:28:37 ◼   ► And so that's, I mean

00:28:39 ◼   ► You can say all this stuff about iCloud Drive and all this stuff, but this is the situation

00:28:44 ◼   ► Apple's in because of decisions Apple made.

00:28:46 ◼   ► You know, yes, the technology didn't work the way they wanted it to.

00:28:50 ◼   ► Clearly they didn't launch iCloud Data and Document Sync thinking, "Oh, this is going

00:28:53 ◼   ► to be terrible.

00:28:54 ◼   ► Let's go ahead and do it."

00:28:55 ◼   ► Clearly they thought it would work.

00:28:56 ◼   ► And it didn't, and it kind of blew up.

00:29:00 ◼   ► And so now they're in the situation of, well, philosophically we're not going to give the

00:29:03 ◼   ► complication and control that something like Dropbox gives.

00:29:07 ◼   ► But also we're in the situation where people don't trust us because of our past.

00:29:12 ◼   ► And like, there's sort of a catch-22 there, at least for users like us.

00:29:18 ◼   ► I mean, I'm sure there are lots of people out there who use it who have no idea what

00:29:20 ◼   ► Dropbox is, like, "Oh, I could just use this as built-in or whatever."

00:29:23 ◼   ► That's great.

00:29:26 ◼   ► But for those of us who, you know, kind of are operating on a different scope, different

00:29:34 ◼   ► level than sort of the average user it's something that I just I'm not interested in seeing if

00:29:39 ◼   ► it works any better.

00:29:41 ◼   ► What's even better is that they actually do have a way to do file versioning but they're

00:29:46 ◼   ► just giving it as an API to developers and they're not using it in their own iCloud Drive

00:29:50 ◼   ► app on iOS 9 so they're like look we built the technology but whatever we don't care

00:29:55 ◼   ► you take care of this problem we don't want to have this problem in our app and frankly

00:30:00 ◼   ► that's quite, I wouldn't say stupid, but I would say peculiar.

00:30:06 ◼   ► Peculiar, yes.

00:30:07 ◼   ► Not the best way to make the people who want to actually, you know, it's an interesting

00:30:15 ◼   ► dichotomy between we want to make the iPad and iOS 9 all about productivity and getting

00:30:21 ◼   ► work done, but we give you also this file management app that doesn't even let you move

00:30:28 ◼   ► files into subfolders that doesn't expose versions.

00:30:31 ◼   ► That's quite interesting, I believe.

00:30:33 ◼   ► All right, let's move on.

00:30:37 ◼   ► Let's take our first break.

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00:32:57 ◼   ► So we learned this week that if you want to have widespread policy change at Apple, you

00:33:03 ◼   ► just need Federico to get mad about it.

00:33:05 ◼   ► No.

00:33:06 ◼   ► That is all it takes.

00:33:08 ◼   ► I mean, I find in general that like if anything needs to happen, you just let Federico get

00:33:13 ◼   ► mad about it.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Federico, could you get mad about my grass growing so I don't have to mow it every week?

00:33:17 ◼   ► Can you just write an article about it, please?

00:33:19 ◼   ► It'd be really great.

00:33:22 ◼   ► So what happened in the newest iOS 9 beta?

00:33:25 ◼   ► Yeah, you can no longer leave reviews on the App Store.

00:33:30 ◼   ► On the iOS App Store.

00:33:31 ◼   ► the iOS App Store and you can still leave star ratings, you can longer leave the review,

00:33:39 ◼   ► the text comment.

00:33:42 ◼   ► When you do, you try to write a review, you sign in with your App Store account and you're

00:33:47 ◼   ► given this new error message that says you cannot leave reviews on the pre-release version

00:33:52 ◼   ► of iOS.

00:33:54 ◼   ► And I would point out that the spelling of pre-release, it's kind of weird because there's

00:33:58 ◼   ► no...

00:33:59 ◼   ► Anyway, um...

00:34:00 ◼   ► Write an article about it, get them to change it.

00:34:03 ◼   ► No.

00:34:04 ◼   ► You're me, that's what happened.

00:34:05 ◼   ► Yes, that's all your fault, Steven.

00:34:06 ◼   ► The way you feel about that is the way I feel about so many things.

00:34:09 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:34:10 ◼   ► I realize that's a Stevenism that I don't want to have.

00:34:17 ◼   ► Anyway, that's a good change because since the first iOS 9 beta, and especially this

00:34:26 ◼   ► year that there's a public beta of iOS in addition to a public beta of OS X, users were

00:34:32 ◼   ► able to leave reviews on the App Store saying "this app doesn't work on iOS 9 yet, so one

00:34:39 ◼   ► star, you're a bad developer and you make a bad app and you should feel bad". That's

00:34:45 ◼   ► not the best way to go about it. And this is where people are surprisingly split on

00:34:53 ◼   ► this topic. In practice, so I'm going to give you truth and then I'm going to give you what

00:35:00 ◼   ► other people say, which is not, I believe, the truth. The truth is that during an iOS

00:35:07 ◼   ► beta, you cannot compile an app against the new SDK. You can make fixes sort of by working,

00:35:19 ◼   ► about the future, working around the issue. So there's iOS 9, there's a problem. And you

00:35:25 ◼   ► try to fix that problem by putting code into your iOS 8 app and hoping that that sort of

00:35:34 ◼   ► problem will go away also in iOS 9. So it's a workaround. And there's many reasons why

00:35:39 ◼   ► this type of "solution" is not in fact a solution. For example, there's many betas of iOS 9 and

00:35:48 ◼   ► stuff changes, so your workaround which you spend hours and hours trying to think about

00:35:53 ◼   ► and implement may break in like two weeks.

00:35:58 ◼   ► And the basic truth is that to avoid issues with a new version of iOS you should be able

00:36:05 ◼   ► to compile your app directly against the SDK of that version of iOS.

00:36:10 ◼   ► And that's not possible during iOS or OS X betas because Apple opens up submissions for

00:36:17 ◼   ► SDKs on the App Store, usually two to three weeks before the launch of a new OS.

00:36:24 ◼   ► So it's not fair, it's simply not fair to developers to leave a review mentioning an

00:36:29 ◼   ► issue on a beta of iOS 9 when the developers can do anything about it.

00:36:34 ◼   ► And I agree with the fact that you shouldn't be able to compile against iOS 9 now, because

00:36:38 ◼   ► you will definitely get people that abuse that and release apps, or try to release apps,

00:36:44 ◼   ► and things will slip through with iOS 9 features,

00:36:47 ◼   ► which you shouldn't be doing until September.

00:36:49 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:36:50 ◼   ► And what some other people argue

00:36:55 ◼   ► is that because installing betas is now so popular

00:37:01 ◼   ► and so of an expectation among not just developers,

00:37:06 ◼   ► but users also because there's a public beta,

00:37:09 ◼   ► that developers should be aware of the fact

00:37:12 ◼   ► that people are going to install their apps on a beta version of iOS and therefore if

00:37:18 ◼   ► your app crashes on a beta of iOS 9 it's your fault and you should be getting a one star

00:37:24 ◼   ► review because you deserve it.

00:37:27 ◼   ► And that's so, let me just say, that's so stupid as an argument, like it doesn't actually

00:37:32 ◼   ► make any sense.

00:37:34 ◼   ► First, the so-called expectation of using a beta, it's absolutely a false statement.

00:37:41 ◼   ► There's no way people like my mother or my friends are going to install an iOS beta because

00:37:48 ◼   ► there's an expectation that they're supposed to try it during the summer.

00:37:51 ◼   ► That's something that the tech nerds would say to justify the fact that their favorite

00:37:56 ◼   ► app is not working yet and they don't have the patience to wait for the developer to

00:38:01 ◼   ► ship a fix in September.

00:38:03 ◼   ► And the problem is that while there's no expectation in normal people to try even a public beta,

00:38:09 ◼   ► People don't want to try betas, people don't want their iPhones to break, people just want

00:38:14 ◼   ► September to come but they don't want to try betas.

00:38:18 ◼   ► The problem is that the consequence of leaving a review actually makes an impact on normal

00:38:22 ◼   ► people because when they go to the app store and they want to try or download an app and

00:38:28 ◼   ► they read the reviews, that's a practical problem that they come across.

00:38:33 ◼   ► Someone else saying this app is broken.

00:38:35 ◼   ► Now these people don't know details of what does it mean that it's broken on an iOS beta,

00:38:40 ◼   ► what does it mean that it crashes on launch, because these tech nerds always like to leave

00:38:45 ◼   ► very detailed reviews of the problem on the App Store.

00:38:49 ◼   ► And the normal people just come across this review and they're like "yeah, this app has

00:38:52 ◼   ► problems, I don't care".

00:38:54 ◼   ► And so they're coming from a perspective that's totally exclusive to them, this presumably

00:39:03 ◼   ► expectation of trying apps on a beta and they leave a consequence, they leave an issue that's

00:39:10 ◼   ► for everyone to worry about. So it is good to see Apple making this type of change on

00:39:16 ◼   ► the App Store. And even if it's not a complete fix for what's actually going on, because

00:39:23 ◼   ► you can still I believe leave reviews on iTunes, you can still of course, you can still have

00:39:33 ◼   ► There's no solution for OS X and Capitan because there's no dialogue, there's no

00:39:39 ◼   ► error when you try to leave a review on the Mac App Store on OS X and X 11 and they

00:39:46 ◼   ► only ship a fix on iOS 9 beta 4 and public beta 2 for the iPhone and iPhone

00:39:52 ◼   ► touch. So it is better and here is the right thing to do. I just wish that Apple

00:39:57 ◼   ► but also sort of create a culture among developers and nerds.

00:40:03 ◼   ► Just like by having an explanation in the FAQ section of the website,

00:40:09 ◼   ► don't leave reviews or maybe why you can't leave reviews on a pre-release version of iOS

00:40:15 ◼   ► because they just put up a dialogue without an explanation.

00:40:18 ◼   ► We know why they made this change and I don't want to believe that it was my article

00:40:23 ◼   ► because it was like a series of tweets and thoughts.

00:40:26 ◼   ► thing that happened, like lots of people were talking about it, like we're making

00:40:30 ◼   ► jokes, but obviously you contributed to it along with many other people that

00:40:34 ◼   ► were making a big thing about this time, whilst people always complain about it,

00:40:39 ◼   ► the difference this time is there is a much wider public beta which, as I agree

00:40:45 ◼   ► with you about the normal people thing, but what they've done is

00:40:48 ◼   ► they've opened it up for people that are tech inclined as well to install this,

00:40:54 ◼   ► you know, like people that are familiar with technology, like technology to

00:40:59 ◼   ► tinker around with it, you know, and I think that's where the problems have

00:41:02 ◼   ► arisen that, you know, I think I said this a couple of weeks ago, it's

00:41:07 ◼   ► people that like technology, follow technology, follow Apple, but aren't in

00:41:12 ◼   ► tune with the developer community that we kind of are inside of, you

00:41:17 ◼   ► know, like basically just everybody has sympathy for app developers in the

00:41:21 ◼   ► little community of people that listen to the show and stuff like that. But there is

00:41:25 ◼   ► a wider community of people that are interested in technology that don't care

00:41:28 ◼   ► about that part and they're the people that are installing the beta and then

00:41:32 ◼   ► leaving these reviews. That's why Apple should explain why. They definitely should.

00:41:36 ◼   ► They definitely should. Doing this is definitely a right step, right?

00:41:40 ◼   ► Cutting it off. Just cutting it off at the source. But there should be a little "why" button

00:41:44 ◼   ► and you click it and it takes you out to a page on Apple.com that explains why

00:41:48 ◼   ► rather than just like, "Nope!"

00:41:50 ◼   ► You know?

00:41:51 ◼   ► It's the right step, but there's still some place

00:41:55 ◼   ► that they can go with this, I think.

00:41:57 ◼   ► Yeah, and it doesn't have to be a technical explanation

00:42:00 ◼   ► that explains what an SDK is

00:42:02 ◼   ► or what an Xcode submission for an app is.

00:42:06 ◼   ► Just say third-party apps are going to have problems,

00:42:09 ◼   ► because your favorite apps, you're using a beta,

00:42:12 ◼   ► they're still not ready, so you cannot leave a review,

00:42:14 ◼   ► because what you experience is not representative

00:42:17 ◼   ► of the truth or the actual reality for most people on the App Store.

00:42:21 ◼   ► Just like a sentence.

00:42:22 ◼   ► It doesn't need to be a manual.

00:42:25 ◼   ► It does feel a little rushed.

00:42:28 ◼   ► They just throw up a dialogue and you can't do it.

00:42:30 ◼   ► Like you said, even if you're running one iOS 9 device on your iPad, for instance, and

00:42:37 ◼   ► your iPhone is iOS 8, you can leave your views on your iPhone.

00:42:41 ◼   ► It seems to be checking your iOS version.

00:42:43 ◼   ► It's not doing anything to your Apple ID.

00:42:45 ◼   ► So you can go to iTunes, the store itself, and even leave reviews there.

00:42:51 ◼   ► And like you said, developers on the Mac have been upset that this didn't come to El Capitan,

00:42:57 ◼   ► which the beta got an update the same day iOS did.

00:43:02 ◼   ► So they could have added it both places.

00:43:03 ◼   ► I think that Apple just forgets the Mac App Store exists, and they're like, "Oh yeah,

00:43:07 ◼   ► we have another one of those things."

00:43:09 ◼   ► No one uses it.

00:43:11 ◼   ► No problem.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Email Myke.

00:43:13 ◼   ► So the...

00:43:14 ◼   ► I agree with you guys.

00:43:17 ◼   ► I think that it would be nice for them to fill this out a little bit, of kind of explaining

00:43:21 ◼   ► why.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Use it as a, not just a dialogue box that looks like an error, but use it as an educational

00:43:26 ◼   ► thing of like, you know, "Hey, this is kind of what the deal is right now.

00:43:29 ◼   ► You signed up for this?

00:43:31 ◼   ► These are things that come with it."

00:43:34 ◼   ► It is, I mean, we're in a unique position because all three of us are friends with lots

00:43:40 ◼   ► of app developers.

00:43:41 ◼   ► And I know from their perspective, it's frustrating and harmful to get those reviews, but it's

00:43:46 ◼   ► frustrating not to be able to push updates out.

00:43:50 ◼   ► And that's just the nature of the beast, that when you have people running a version of

00:43:55 ◼   ► your operating system that's not released to the general public, there are these periods

00:43:59 ◼   ► of stress and sort of awkwardness almost, right?

00:44:04 ◼   ► That maybe your most impassioned customers, you know, if your app is nerdy, are on iOS

00:44:10 ◼   ► You know, you might have a large percentage of your users on the beta for some types of

00:44:15 ◼   ► apps and you can't do anything about that.

00:44:17 ◼   ► You can try to sneak in fixes if it's even possible.

00:44:21 ◼   ► Maybe it's something that to fix it against iOS 9 breaks it in iOS 8 or not even possible

00:44:26 ◼   ► in iOS 8.

00:44:27 ◼   ► So there's all these little edge cases that developers have to deal with and I for one

00:44:31 ◼   ► don't envy that.

00:44:34 ◼   ► Thankfully MP3s play on any version of iOS.

00:44:37 ◼   ► the extent of what I have to worry about but it there is this period of unusual

00:44:45 ◼   ► you know circumstances and I was as far as we can tell will always be an annual

00:44:52 ◼   ► cycle and so you are going to have three months out of the year where you know

00:44:58 ◼   ► you got to deal with this and you know July August and September are going to

00:45:02 ◼   ► be this way I don't think Apple is gonna like stop doing the public beta

00:45:06 ◼   ► next year, I think it will only continue.

00:45:08 ◼   ► So, I think Apple's got to look at

00:45:11 ◼   ► best ways to

00:45:13 ◼   ► protect developers

00:45:16 ◼   ► from bad reviews.

00:45:18 ◼   ► They're not gonna, there's no way, like I said, there's no way to

00:45:21 ◼   ► fix your application in any way that makes any sense.

00:45:24 ◼   ► But, I think some safeguards like this, in a more robust way,

00:45:28 ◼   ► would only be welcomed by the development community.

00:45:31 ◼   ► This is a great start, I think.

00:45:33 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

00:45:35 ◼   ► Right, should we take a second break?

00:45:38 ◼   ► Yes.

00:45:39 ◼   ► So, this episode is brought to you by Backblaze.

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00:46:32 ◼   ► just a case of I just install it, it will take a while to upload because I have a

00:46:36 ◼   ► slow internet connection but once it's there it's there and now every day the

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00:48:46 ◼   ► So there were new iPods last week.

00:48:49 ◼   ► What year is this?

00:48:50 ◼   ► Well, I mean, it's the year of now for you, right?

00:48:55 ◼   ► You bought one.

00:48:56 ◼   ► It's the year of now.

00:48:57 ◼   ► You bought a Shuffle.

00:48:58 ◼   ► So they release all these…

00:48:59 ◼   ► Wait, what?

00:49:00 ◼   ► Yeah, Steven bought a new iPod Shuffle.

00:49:02 ◼   ► What the picture from last night on Twitter was a real new Shuffle?

00:49:05 ◼   ► So I have…

00:49:07 ◼   ► Why?

00:49:08 ◼   ► I've had a second gym Shuffle since they came out.

00:49:12 ◼   ► I worked at the store, they gave them to employees.

00:49:14 ◼   ► - You keep sabotaging your future, Steven.

00:49:20 ◼   ► - I enjoy working out with a shuffle a good bit.

00:49:25 ◼   ► And my second gen has been dying for a while now,

00:49:29 ◼   ► doesn't hold charge anymore.

00:49:31 ◼   ► And so it's been like, it has never gone into my to-do list,

00:49:35 ◼   ► but I'm like, oh yeah, I need to replace that

00:49:38 ◼   ► 'cause I'm getting ready to start running again.

00:49:40 ◼   ► I'm gonna run a race at the end of the year.

00:49:41 ◼   ► and I should prepare for that.

00:49:43 ◼   ► And I was like, oh yeah, I'll pick up a shuffle.

00:49:45 ◼   ► And when they refreshed them, it reminded me,

00:49:48 ◼   ► oh yeah, I should go ahead and replace that.

00:49:50 ◼   ► It's the exact same shuffle I could have bought

00:49:51 ◼   ► for the last like seven years

00:49:53 ◼   ► 'cause they've never updated them.

00:49:55 ◼   ► But it was just a, oh yeah, I should do that

00:49:59 ◼   ► 'cause I'm getting ready to start training.

00:50:01 ◼   ► Now I have to have a sidebar.

00:50:02 ◼   ► Yes, to the hundreds of people who wrote into me,

00:50:05 ◼   ► it felt like.

00:50:06 ◼   ► I do have an Apple Watch.

00:50:07 ◼   ► And yes, I could just stream Bluetooth audio.

00:50:10 ◼   ► from the watch but that my problem is and I've tried two pairs and I am open

00:50:16 ◼   ► to recommendations on what I should try next. I've tried like the Jaybird X

00:50:20 ◼   ► bluetooth earbuds and I've tried the Powerbeats I've got them right here.

00:50:25 ◼   ► The Powerbeats they got a little over the ear thing and I really don't care for

00:50:31 ◼   ► either for for a couple of reasons neither of them are extremely

00:50:35 ◼   ► comfortable to me. The Powerbeats go over your ear and I wear glasses or if I'm

00:50:39 ◼   ► outside prescription sunglasses and they don't really work well with that.

00:50:45 ◼   ► And I have not found a pair of Bluetooth earbuds that you can comfortably only use one of them

00:50:49 ◼   ► in because most of these things they sort of are tethered to your head or your ears

00:50:55 ◼   ► and they use that to balance.

00:50:56 ◼   ► So if I toss one earbud out, which I will often do if I'm riding my bike around the

00:51:03 ◼   ► neighborhood or if I'm running so I can hear traffic, they don't, they like fly around

00:51:09 ◼   ► to fall out. I haven't, neither of the pairs that I have really work well in that situation.

00:51:14 ◼   ► And so I just haven't found any that really work for the way that they work for me. Like

00:51:19 ◼   ► it's great and that I can stream music from my watch. I have a playlist loaded on my watch,

00:51:23 ◼   ► which took like 19 hours to sync over, but I haven't found a earbuds that I really care

00:51:28 ◼   ► for at this point. So shuffle, I could plug ear pods in. I can tuck one in my shirt and

00:51:33 ◼   ► I can, I can go. So the power beats, did they go in your ear?

00:51:38 ◼   ► they do I hate I hate the one they go in the ear the ear pods is as much as I can

00:51:45 ◼   ► do well they're similar to that I mean they're not drastically the the earbud

00:51:53 ◼   ► piece is like an ear pod basically but then the body of it goes up over your

00:51:56 ◼   ► ear right now the jaybirds like they got these little rubber wing things and they

00:52:01 ◼   ► they actually like clip into your ear itself and kind of hold in with pressure

00:52:06 ◼   ► I didn't like those either for that reason because I feel claustrophobic almost.

00:52:10 ◼   ► Both of them sound fine. Like none of these things sound great, but it's neither of them really have worked for me yet.

00:52:16 ◼   ► I must have like one of my ears

00:52:18 ◼   ► must be like misshapen on the inside because I've used a bunch of these types of headphones and

00:52:23 ◼   ► they always fall out of my right ear. Like I've never had a pair that I could use that didn't just fall out.

00:52:30 ◼   ► I mean I had like these foam ones once

00:52:34 ◼   ► Which did work because you just squeeze the foam up and then it looks like

00:52:37 ◼   ► What do you call when you when you want to sleep? What are those things the foam things you put in your ears? Yeah

00:52:43 ◼   ► You know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. Yeah sure earplugs

00:52:47 ◼   ► They're kind of like earplugs

00:52:49 ◼   ► But the problem is like, you know the foam in the ear kind of gets a bit gross after a while. So

00:52:56 ◼   ► Yeah, then they're not great. I mean I've Federico you use the J birds, right? Yeah. Yeah, and what do you think of those?

00:53:04 ◼   ► They're fine for me. Yeah, but they work pretty well I guess.

00:53:14 ◼   ► I think that this is definitely a personal taste thing and like comfort, like what you're comfortable with.

00:53:20 ◼   ► But I've never found Bluetooth headphones that work for me.

00:53:24 ◼   ► But the whole point of this is, Stephen, you know people ask, people say like,

00:53:28 ◼   ► "Why are they still making these products?" Right? Like, "What is the point of them?"

00:53:31 ◼   ► the point of them. Stephen is the reason, so you can even blame him or thank him.

00:53:34 ◼   ► It's true, and so that kind of brings me to what I really want to talk about.

00:53:39 ◼   ► There's a link in the show notes, really interesting article by Matthew Burch,

00:53:47 ◼   ► Burchler, sorry I'm sorry, and he has a lot of experience in retail and kind of

00:53:56 ◼   ► talks about, I think at a Target, and talking about who buys iPods, just in his

00:53:59 ◼   ► experience so it's not a scientific survey but a really interesting look at

00:54:04 ◼   ► who is buying these things you know my experience in retail now is quite out of

00:54:09 ◼   ► date and you know I mean I started at the Apple Store in the iPod like the

00:54:13 ◼   ► iPod holiday like a little corner of the story to go any buy an iPod then you'd

00:54:19 ◼   ► leave like it was roped off I guess people were just streaming in buying

00:54:22 ◼   ► iPods. Those days are over clearly. But you know it talks about iPod touches being

00:54:29 ◼   ► sold for the very young so like kids and then like the very old who don't want

00:54:35 ◼   ► an iPhone, don't want to pay for it, or can't afford it for some reason or just

00:54:39 ◼   ► don't want it. And then kind of the same thing with the the nano you know it's

00:54:45 ◼   ► sort of the ends of the market and not like the the average everyday consumer

00:54:52 ◼   ► probably has a smartphone at this point and even though it might not be an iPhone

00:54:56 ◼   ► it can play music and that's the smartphone is what killed the iPod more

00:55:01 ◼   ► than anything of course but just a really interesting look at that I enjoyed

00:55:05 ◼   ► this article a good bit it's the iPod thing is just so interesting to me

00:55:11 ◼   ► because I just wonder how long we're gonna have them I mean I would have

00:55:19 ◼   ► Guess the Nano would have gone away. I think I think we had talked about that when this was rumored

00:55:23 ◼   ► I think the Nano is still around. It's like the shuffle just got updated colors

00:55:27 ◼   ► the Nano still is a really gross like

00:55:30 ◼   ► Really weird user interface strong Gruber says that there's no one left at Apple who's working on that project

00:55:36 ◼   ► So they just slap a new color on it and kept selling it

00:55:39 ◼   ► You know that the touch though that that butters is really if any of this is interesting

00:55:45 ◼   ► The iPod touch is the most interesting because it got the a8

00:55:49 ◼   ► So it's 64-bit now

00:55:51 ◼   ► It is more or less the same devices an iPhone 6 camera is not as good

00:55:56 ◼   ► it's not clocked quite as fast, but

00:55:59 ◼   ► It was on a 1a5 so much better

00:56:03 ◼   ► And if you're if you're buying one of these for like your eight-year-old to play games on

00:56:06 ◼   ► It's way better than it was last week way better

00:56:11 ◼   ► And the cheap model has a camera now the old cheap one like the one that you have Myke

00:56:16 ◼   ► You got the cheap one note like without a camera. It's a weird

00:56:20 ◼   ► weird little device

00:56:22 ◼   ► So the iPod touch I think is what's most interesting they gave it such a big update

00:56:26 ◼   ► And I'm sure it'll sit for another two years

00:56:29 ◼   ► You know so by the time the iPhones are on the a10 or a11 it will be complaining that this iPod touch is old now date

00:56:35 ◼   ► again

00:56:39 ◼   ► Federico, you're going to buy a new iPod?

00:56:41 ◼   ► You should get one of those nanos.

00:56:42 ◼   ► You relive the iOS six days.

00:56:44 ◼   ► What do you think?

00:56:45 ◼   ► I think yes.

00:56:46 ◼   ► Am I going to get an iPod?

00:56:48 ◼   ► I think you will. I think you are.

00:56:49 ◼   ► I don't know why the nano.

00:56:51 ◼   ► I don't understand the nano's existence.

00:56:54 ◼   ► The shuffle, I understand

00:56:56 ◼   ► for weird people like Steven.

00:56:58 ◼   ► The iPod touch, I understand for like the low end iOS market.

00:57:02 ◼   ► But I don't get the nano, man.

00:57:07 ◼   ► the touch and the shuffle makes sense to me, but the Nano, I just don't understand it.

00:57:11 ◼   ► It's the cheapest iPod with the display.

00:57:13 ◼   ► I mean, that's true, but if you're looking at why people use them,

00:57:19 ◼   ► like the Nano, I wrote about this like years ago when they first went to the touchscreen,

00:57:24 ◼   ► the Nano is terrible to run with, terrible to work out with, because you can't,

00:57:29 ◼   ► you can't do it by feel, you know, with a shuffle you can just reach over and feel where you are

00:57:34 ◼   ► and hit a button. With a watch or with the iPhone you have Siri, even the iPod touch

00:57:40 ◼   ► you have Siri. But the Nintendo's got none of that, like, you're just like punching blindly

00:57:46 ◼   ► at a tiny piece of glass trying to see what happens.

00:57:51 ◼   ► This is probably something that only I noticed, just a little fact that maybe could be interesting.

00:57:58 ◼   ► I do have some friends who have an iPhone and they're young people in their 20s, so

00:58:07 ◼   ► it's not old people.

00:58:08 ◼   ► So it's like you guys?

00:58:11 ◼   ► No.

00:58:13 ◼   ► So I have some friends who have an iPhone and they also have an iPod.

00:58:18 ◼   ► One of these cheap, like, Nanos and the Shuffle.

00:58:21 ◼   ► And the reason why they do this is because their iPhone's storage is full with pictures

00:58:28 ◼   ► and videos and they don't want to pay for Spotify or... now I don't know if they want

00:58:34 ◼   ► to pay for Apple Music or not because they don't want to pay a subscription and because

00:58:38 ◼   ► they do have these basically pirate music from their computers they just use the iPod

00:58:45 ◼   ► to listen to music and they keep everything else on the phone because like pictures and

00:58:50 ◼   ► videos you can only do on the phone and they use the iPod as an iPod because they don't

00:58:56 ◼   ► want to pay the 10 euros each month for the music service. Now it could be that my friends

00:59:02 ◼   ► are like, they don't, it's an exception, you know, but I do believe that, you know, there

00:59:09 ◼   ► must be some other young people who don't want to pay a subscription every month and

00:59:14 ◼   ► maybe they're crazy, but I've seen like at least 3 to 4 people do this in the past year,

00:59:21 ◼   ► So it must be not that absurd for a specific segment of Italian people at least.

00:59:28 ◼   ► That's the market they're going for.

00:59:29 ◼   ► They want 20-something Italians.

00:59:32 ◼   ► That is a lucrative market.

00:59:33 ◼   ► You walk in the iPod office.

00:59:34 ◼   ► Okay, so picture this here at Apple.

00:59:36 ◼   ► You're in the iPod development office.

00:59:39 ◼   ► It is a cardboard table, like a folding table, folding chair, one guy asleep in the corner.

00:59:47 ◼   ► framed picture of Federico's friends on the wall. That's all it is.

00:59:53 ◼   ► Keeping him in business, man. Yeah, they should be thankful to my friends.

00:59:58 ◼   ► Alright, let's talk about Apple results, but before we do that let's take our third and

01:00:01 ◼   ► final break for this week's episode. And I want to thank TextExpander from SMILE

01:00:06 ◼   ► today for helping support this week's show. If you ever need to type the same

01:00:10 ◼   ► sentences, phrases, or even words on a regular basis, then you need TextExpander

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01:00:47 ◼   ► Myke".

01:00:48 ◼   ► If you just keep typing that over and over again, you probably wouldn't say Myke, you'd

01:00:51 ◼   ► probably use your own name.

01:00:53 ◼   ► You could use Myke if you want to.

01:00:55 ◼   ► Texas Panda is going to pop up with a little notification and say "Hi".

01:00:58 ◼   ► You're not going to say hi, but you're using this a bunch.

01:01:00 ◼   ► You're saying "Kind regards from Myke" a bunch.

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01:02:34 ◼   ► So we had, well not we, Apple had their results a couple of days ago which is why we're recording

01:02:43 ◼   ► today.

01:02:45 ◼   ► But I believe before we get into that, Steven has some very pressing follow up on iPod controls.

01:02:51 ◼   ► Real time iPod control follow up.

01:02:54 ◼   ► Because the chat room is yelling at me during the ad read.

01:02:57 ◼   ► You can control an iPod Nano with buttons.

01:03:00 ◼   ► There's a long button on the side, pause, forward, back.

01:03:04 ◼   ► the four iPod Nano owners out there I apologize you don't drive me you're a

01:03:09 ◼   ► disgrace control it doesn't feel like like a like a heartfelt apologies no

01:03:14 ◼   ► doesn't feel like you really mean it it feels like you're just giving lip service

01:03:18 ◼   ► it's just terrible so results apples results so I mean overall things are

01:03:28 ◼   ► good right it was another another record quarter for q3 right I'm right in

01:03:33 ◼   ► thinking that. So it was another record quarter for Apple. Everything was

01:03:38 ◼   ► looking good except iPad. We'll get to that in a bit. There's some great

01:03:43 ◼   ► articles that I'm going to include in the show notes today. Jason had a great

01:03:47 ◼   ► piece on Macworld where he was giving some of his takeaways of the Q3 earnings.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Obviously Federico had a ton of great charts as he does so beautifully. So

01:03:59 ◼   ► thank you to that Federico. There's a couple of things that I wanted to touch

01:04:02 ◼   ► on from some of the stuff that I've read about this from what Jason had written

01:04:05 ◼   ► and then we can maybe talk a little bit in general and then talk about iPads. So

01:04:09 ◼   ► these are a couple of things that I'm gonna quote Jason from his Mac world

01:04:13 ◼   ► piece. Cook also said this is in regards to the Apple Watch, "The change

01:04:19 ◼   ► in Apple's other products accounting line from last quarter to this quarter

01:04:22 ◼   ► shouldn't be the source of estimates about the size of the Apple Watch market.

01:04:25 ◼   ► Many people have been guessing that the jump there was like a what a hundred

01:04:29 ◼   ► jump or something like that? What was it in the other category? So people have

01:04:35 ◼   ► been using that to try and work out how many Apple watches have been sold but

01:04:39 ◼   ► because the aggregate balance of the category is shrinking in other words

01:04:42 ◼   ► although other is up 952 million from last quarter that there's other parts of

01:04:48 ◼   ► it as well so some of the other parts of other are dropping. This is very

01:04:52 ◼   ► confusing but it's basically because Apple for whatever reason which does

01:04:57 ◼   ► seem a bit weird won't report anything specifically about Apple watch numbers

01:05:01 ◼   ► they decided that beforehand people have to try and kind of read the tea leaves

01:05:06 ◼   ► in this whole others category to try and work out how many Apple watches have

01:05:11 ◼   ► been sold but it seems like that it's basically not possible to do but it

01:05:15 ◼   ► looks like it's been in the millions I suppose it should be a billion dollar

01:05:22 ◼   ► business already. That's what most people are saying at least. And also what

01:05:28 ◼   ► Luca Maestri hinted at in an interview I think with the Financial Times or

01:05:34 ◼   ► someone else. So it's already bigger than other businesses in the tech industry

01:05:40 ◼   ► that's for sure. And we gotta wonder because Cook said we sold, this is the

01:05:46 ◼   ► biggest area of discussion among people this week is Cook said we sold more Apple

01:05:54 ◼   ► watches in June there in April and May and it's not clear if Cook's statement

01:06:01 ◼   ► reflects the actual charging of the credit card in June for people who

01:06:08 ◼   ► actually bought it in months before or if it's really Apple watches ordered and

01:06:16 ◼   ► processed in June. I tend to believe that what Cook says is exactly what he says, that

01:06:23 ◼   ► they sold more Apple watches in June because it became more popular, they also expanded

01:06:30 ◼   ► to more countries.

01:06:31 ◼   ► And it became available in the stores, right?

01:06:33 ◼   ► In the retail stores. So I tend to believe what he says is what he says, but some people

01:06:38 ◼   ► are kinda again reading tea leaves and saying yeah because there was this slice report with

01:06:46 ◼   ► some data on Apple Watch sales from April and May and maybe that's still true if you

01:06:52 ◼   ► think that what Cook says, that's some serious, you know, it's worse than people making theories

01:07:00 ◼   ► on the first season of True Detective last year, almost.

01:07:05 ◼   ► So I believe they actually sold more Apple Watches in June and that's about it.

01:07:11 ◼   ► Well, whatever it is, they sold a few million of them.

01:07:14 ◼   ► Yes.

01:07:15 ◼   ► Which seems like a pretty big number.

01:07:17 ◼   ► Like it's it's a good number.

01:07:20 ◼   ► I think the problem that many people have and it is the thing that I find weird

01:07:23 ◼   ► about it is like why aren't they reporting the numbers in its own category?

01:07:27 ◼   ► like are they being cautious?

01:07:30 ◼   ► Like, you know, when you add this level of confusion in--

01:07:33 ◼   ► - This is exactly what they want.

01:07:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, they add a level of confusion in

01:07:37 ◼   ► and then it makes people question it.

01:07:39 ◼   ► I know that the people that do this stuff at Apple

01:07:41 ◼   ► are smarter than me and this is obviously the plan,

01:07:43 ◼   ► but it's all weird, right, 'cause you have no idea.

01:07:47 ◼   ► But it seems like Tim Cook is saying

01:07:49 ◼   ► that they're expecting the final quarter,

01:07:52 ◼   ► like the holiday quarter to be huge for the Apple Watch,

01:07:55 ◼   ► So I guess we'll see what happens.

01:07:58 ◼   ► But, you know, fundamentally the product has been a success.

01:08:00 ◼   ► I mean, it hasn't taken the world by storm yet,

01:08:03 ◼   ► but it is clearly at these numbers

01:08:06 ◼   ► that the Apple Watch is a success for Apple.

01:08:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, they said months ago

01:08:11 ◼   ► that they didn't want the competition to know

01:08:13 ◼   ► exactly how badly the Apple Watch is doing.

01:08:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, so they lumped it in other.

01:08:23 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:08:24 ◼   ► did a terrible job of explaining a moment ago but I think we've been able

01:08:28 ◼   ► to clear up together. Another thing I find interesting that Apple more than

01:08:32 ◼   ► doubled its China revenue in this quarter compared to the same quarter a

01:08:36 ◼   ► year ago. Like the growth in China is insane. It's just a thing, it's

01:08:42 ◼   ► happening like and you can't ignore it. Yeah it's bigger than Europe and Cook

01:08:48 ◼   ► believes that it is sometime in the future he said it is going to be Apple's

01:08:52 ◼   ► largest market. I wonder what happens when that happens. Yeah, there's many

01:09:00 ◼   ► questions at play here because does it mean that Apple starts to make software

01:09:06 ◼   ► and hardware that prioritizes like the taste and culture of China? Not that I'm

01:09:13 ◼   ► not okay with it. It's just different from what it is now. It's an American

01:09:18 ◼   ► company that found success in China.

01:09:22 ◼   ► What happens when China becomes the biggest market?

01:09:25 ◼   ► I don't believe it turns into China.

01:09:27 ◼   ► You know what I'm saying?

01:09:28 ◼   ► It's not about...

01:09:29 ◼   ► It's like the roots of the company are American.

01:09:33 ◼   ► Let's say China is the biggest market and then they have a restriction on the amount

01:09:37 ◼   ► of X product that they can release.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Would they go China first?

01:09:41 ◼   ► I know it seems strange, right?

01:09:43 ◼   ► Because it's just not the way that we expected.

01:09:45 ◼   ► But maybe they would.

01:09:47 ◼   ► there's no reason to say that they wouldn't and that is just very different.

01:09:52 ◼   ► And you gotta wonder, when a company already makes a lot of their products in China,

01:09:56 ◼   ► if China is also the biggest market, it kind of makes sense to have China as the first country

01:10:03 ◼   ► where a new product is released. Because your logistical costs have just

01:10:07 ◼   ► disappeared. Yeah.

01:10:09 ◼   ► It's an interesting one man, the next next five to ten years, because especially with Cook in

01:10:15 ◼   ► right? Because he's... this is where his brain works on this type of stuff. So it's

01:10:20 ◼   ► it's very... I think that this is something to keep an eye on. But let's talk

01:10:24 ◼   ► about the iPad. Now Federico, will you allow me to make a statement?

01:10:30 ◼   ► Yeah, you can say whatever you want, it's your show.

01:10:33 ◼   ► It's your show. Because previously me and you at earnings time we have... we have

01:10:38 ◼   ► arguments about this. No, I don't want to have any more arguments. No, because I

01:10:42 ◼   ► - This is the thing, I don't think we're going to today.

01:10:45 ◼   ► I wanna make my statement.

01:10:46 ◼   ► So, looking at the numbers, it is undeniable

01:10:49 ◼   ► that it looks even worse for the iPad right now.

01:10:53 ◼   ► It's down year on year by 18%.

01:10:56 ◼   ► This is the lowest sales of any quarter in three years.

01:10:59 ◼   ► Clearly, right now, the iPad and its current guys

01:11:04 ◼   ► are stagnated and/or interest is waning in customers

01:11:07 ◼   ► to buy new models.

01:11:08 ◼   ► Like that is an undeniable fact now.

01:11:11 ◼   ► However, still bigger than the Mac, that is also a fact.

01:11:17 ◼   ► However, I believe I believe personally that iOS 9 and the upcoming refreshment

01:11:25 ◼   ► that we're going to get for the iPads this year, which will probably include

01:11:30 ◼   ► an iPad Pro, whatever that will be, I think will actually do a lot to kickstart

01:11:34 ◼   ► interest in the device again, because they will create more utility and the

01:11:39 ◼   ► split-screen stuff is gonna give Apple a new marketing reason for the product

01:11:44 ◼   ► because they will actually be able to say a thing that it does that only it

01:11:48 ◼   ► does on iOS and that makes it stand out against iOS. I mean maybe Apple can use

01:11:56 ◼   ► it to make it stand out against other tablets even though there are other

01:11:59 ◼   ► tablets that do this stuff but Apple's marketing team is very good, right? So

01:12:02 ◼   ► they'll show why the iPad is better than anything else and I think this will

01:12:07 ◼   ► actually be the job that the iPad needs and my prediction now is that holiday

01:12:11 ◼   ► quarter sales will increase on year on year not fall again that is a bold

01:12:16 ◼   ► statement to make but I think that holiday quarter for like the Q4 holiday

01:12:21 ◼   ► quarter or whatever is it when it ends up being it's very confusing I think

01:12:25 ◼   ► what iPad sales will be up on the previous quarter yeah I agree every time

01:12:30 ◼   ► I show is9 on the iPad to people they go oh that that's that's insane and

01:12:37 ◼   ► And a lot of people need a reason to use an iPad.

01:12:42 ◼   ► Don't need a reason to own an iPad

01:12:44 ◼   ► because they want an iPad.

01:12:46 ◼   ► But every time they try to do something

01:12:47 ◼   ► a little more complex than looking at a webpage

01:12:50 ◼   ► or writing an email in full screen,

01:12:52 ◼   ► they go, "Yeah, I need a computer."

01:12:55 ◼   ► And multitasking for these kind of people,

01:12:58 ◼   ► it's a really smart decision

01:13:00 ◼   ► and it's a nice implementation, of course.

01:13:03 ◼   ► And I agree with you, Myke.

01:13:06 ◼   ► It's undeniable that it hasn't been doing well, especially compared to...

01:13:14 ◼   ► Not necessarily... It's been doing well compared to the Mac and other products, similar products in the industry.

01:13:20 ◼   ► But considering where the iPad came from, it's been slowing down.

01:13:24 ◼   ► And that's just numbers.

01:13:26 ◼   ► All of the problem is against itself.

01:13:28 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

01:13:29 ◼   ► Because we've said this, this gets said every time.

01:13:32 ◼   ► That's a lot of money, massive business on its own.

01:13:34 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:13:35 ◼   ► - A company could exist around the revenues

01:13:37 ◼   ► generated just by the iPad.

01:13:38 ◼   ► But the problem is when Apple as a company

01:13:41 ◼   ► continues to grow in every area,

01:13:45 ◼   ► but they have one product that isn't

01:13:47 ◼   ► and that product is actively developed,

01:13:49 ◼   ► marketed, promoted.

01:13:51 ◼   ► If that product continues to fall,

01:13:53 ◼   ► then it is a cause for concern.

01:13:54 ◼   ► But I do think, like looking at iOS 9,

01:13:56 ◼   ► this is the most focused they've given this product

01:13:59 ◼   ► since it was released.

01:14:01 ◼   ► What we are saying is that iOS 9 can generate a new novelty effect on the iPad and that

01:14:10 ◼   ► it can get people curious about the iPad again.

01:14:13 ◼   ► And I agree totally with you.

01:14:15 ◼   ► And also, it's not just multitasking.

01:14:17 ◼   ► It's that there are many other details in iOS 9 that feel like Apple is truly ready

01:14:23 ◼   ► to make iOS 9 on the iPad different.

01:14:27 ◼   ► It's not just a bigger iPhone version anymore.

01:14:29 ◼   ► It is in many ways, but not as much as before.

01:14:33 ◼   ► And you can see this with multitasking, you can see this with the new notification center,

01:14:38 ◼   ► which is new widget design, the new keyboard shortcuts, it truly feels like they're saying

01:14:46 ◼   ► "Yeah, we neglected the iPad for many years and now we want to take advantage of this

01:14:51 ◼   ► screen in a way that doesn't require us to think about the same for the iPhone because

01:14:56 ◼   ► it has to be the same."

01:14:58 ◼   ► And that's a great decision, I think.

01:15:02 ◼   ► Steven, what do you think?

01:15:03 ◼   ► I mean something that's unique to Apple, I wrote a little bit about it yesterday, where

01:15:10 ◼   ► Apple has the sales data, right, they've got bar graphs as like we do, they understand

01:15:16 ◼   ► what's going on with the product and the market.

01:15:18 ◼   ► And unlike an OEM that's running Android or Windows, they control the software directly.

01:15:25 ◼   ► And so Apple can come in and say, look, you know, we want to do all these features on

01:15:31 ◼   ► the iPad and those features are, I mean, all the features on iOS 9 for the iPad are great

01:15:35 ◼   ► and using an iPad Air 2 on the beta has been really nice.

01:15:39 ◼   ► I was using the picture in picture just last night watching a video and taking some notes

01:15:42 ◼   ► for something and for the way that I use my iPad, it's a big improvement.

01:15:50 ◼   ► So Apple can look at the iPad and say, "Look, we want new features."

01:15:55 ◼   ► And they can implement those features not only for the feature's sake itself, because

01:16:00 ◼   ► Apple does want to make really good products, but they're making these features to make

01:16:03 ◼   ► the iPad more attractive to a certain type of user.

01:16:08 ◼   ► And that's a unique position for the company that their competitors don't have most of

01:16:14 ◼   ► the time.

01:16:15 ◼   ► And I agree with the two of you guys.

01:16:17 ◼   ► I think I'm hopeful that it will work.

01:16:20 ◼   ► I don't know if I'm willing to agree about the holiday quarter, we'll see if I'm the

01:16:27 ◼   ► odd man out on that bet.

01:16:30 ◼   ► But I do think it will help, and I think that things like Splitview, which are available

01:16:38 ◼   ► only on the Air 2 and then whatever comes next, I think that will help drive adoption

01:16:45 ◼   ► of newer iPads.

01:16:47 ◼   ► Every time we talk about this we get email from people saying "yeah I'm on an iPad 2

01:16:51 ◼   ► and it's great, it's not the fastest thing in the world but I can get everything that

01:16:55 ◼   ► I need to do done."

01:16:59 ◼   ► And the slow upgrade cycle in the market is a side effect of Apple supporting pretty old

01:17:06 ◼   ► devices at this point.

01:17:07 ◼   ► I mean the iPad 2 was what 2011?

01:17:09 ◼   ► They just got rid of that iPad mini that was basically the same machine but smaller.

01:17:15 ◼   ► And that's sort of a, you know, Apple's got to support old stuff to keep their users happy,

01:17:20 ◼   ► but they're doing it at the expense of upgrades.

01:17:23 ◼   ► And I think that iOS 9 will not only make current iPads better, but I think it will

01:17:30 ◼   ► make new iPads more attractive.

01:17:32 ◼   ► And that is a sort of a one-two punch that they can deliver.

01:17:35 ◼   ► And I think it'll work.

01:17:36 ◼   ► I don't think it's ever going to retain the level of sales it had at the beginning.

01:17:41 ◼   ► when the iPad first came out it was just it was crazy the fastest selling tech product for a while and

01:17:46 ◼   ► That I think is has come and gone, but I think they can get it back to a level that is

01:17:53 ◼   ► Better than where it is now. I think they can sustain it

01:17:57 ◼   ► I mean you're always gonna have dips and valleys the iPhone does the same thing if the iPhone

01:18:00 ◼   ► This quarter is always the worst quarter for iPhones because the fall quarter is coming with at least new ones

01:18:06 ◼   ► They're always gonna have that sort of pacing and rhythm because Apple's business is very

01:18:10 ◼   ► Paced every you can basically set your set your clock by when they're gonna release new products

01:18:16 ◼   ► But I think they can leverage the software to make a bigger difference this time around and I think it's smart

01:18:23 ◼   ► I think it's I mean why not try right like why not make your product better in

01:18:28 ◼   ► Specific ways that make it more marketable as well

01:18:30 ◼   ► Do you want to take outside bets and when we're gonna see the iPad refresh

01:18:36 ◼   ► You think October, Steven?

01:18:37 ◼   ► Federico, what do you think?

01:18:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree.

01:18:39 ◼   ► October.

01:18:40 ◼   ► What about the iPhone event?

01:18:44 ◼   ► Because they're not gonna show up on your Apple Watch, most likely.

01:18:47 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I was getting ready to say.

01:18:49 ◼   ► I mean, I think the alternative is they collapsed their following events back into one.

01:18:54 ◼   ► I think they're gonna do that.

01:18:55 ◼   ► That's my bet, is that in September we see iPhones and iPads.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Really?

01:18:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I do, because I think...

01:19:02 ◼   ► The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus got 14 minutes on stage in September.

01:19:07 ◼   ► And so to expand that back out to an hour long event, I don't know how you do it.

01:19:11 ◼   ► For the S revision.

01:19:12 ◼   ► So that's my thought.

01:19:13 ◼   ► Is there...

01:19:14 ◼   ► Unless there's a TV in the wings.

01:19:16 ◼   ► They have TV.

01:19:18 ◼   ► TV could be it.

01:19:19 ◼   ► I mean, they will tend to now, I think, always double up the iPhone event with something

01:19:23 ◼   ► else because the iPhone event gets all the eyeballs and they can show off the other product.

01:19:28 ◼   ► I think that's a smart one-two punch.

01:19:31 ◼   ► if the iPad is the push this year maybe September is iPad and iPhone you know

01:19:37 ◼   ► share the spotlight with the phone and then the TV is in the fall I don't think

01:19:42 ◼   ► we're gonna see any Apple watch hardware this year so I think you could see the

01:19:46 ◼   ► the TV being in October but Apple TV excuse me but um who knows man I mean

01:19:52 ◼   ► everything is crazy right now like there's there's all sorts of weird

01:19:55 ◼   ► questions about what they're gonna do with the iPhone period and like how do

01:19:58 ◼   ► you take two products and turn it into one in the mid-range and there's a lot

01:20:02 ◼   ► of interesting things that could happen this fall but my guess is that a big

01:20:07 ◼   ► part of their thought process right now is how do we get the most spotlight on

01:20:12 ◼   ► the iPad especially if there's a pro especially if the mini which has been

01:20:17 ◼   ► very popular gets back on track with the with the air you know right now the air

01:20:22 ◼   ► - hasn't it has a better processor than the mini actually the iPod touch has a

01:20:28 ◼   ► a better processor than the high-end iPad Mini right now. Yeah and the Air 2 has

01:20:32 ◼   ► the more RAM as well which is one of the great features. Right, so like I want to

01:20:36 ◼   ► go back to a world where the Air and the Mini are the same thing. I think that was

01:20:39 ◼   ► really successful, everybody seemed really excited about it. All three of us

01:20:43 ◼   ► in the last year have left the iPad Mini and gone back to the

01:20:47 ◼   ► full-size iPad which is interesting. That was a good decision by the way. I think

01:20:51 ◼   ► it was a great decision, I love my iPad so much. I really do love it again. So I think

01:20:56 ◼   ► that's uh my gut says that the the iPad will share the stage with the iPhone if

01:21:02 ◼   ► anything to get some of that bleed over attention if they've got something good

01:21:05 ◼   ► to announce mm-hmm yeah could be I almost wanted to make a joke about new

01:21:11 ◼   ► iPods in September but then I remember what happened and it could be it just

01:21:21 ◼   ► seems strange to me to have probably new iPhones and iPads released to the public

01:21:30 ◼   ► so you can buy them close to each other because in the past two years it's been

01:21:35 ◼   ► like a month there's a window between these two products coming out. They might

01:21:40 ◼   ► show them in September and sell them in October. But they get a marketing spotlight.

01:21:47 ◼   ► But it doesn't matter because the iPad isn't selling, right? The reason they don't

01:21:51 ◼   ► do that with the iPhone is because they can't take the drop in sales or they

01:21:55 ◼   ► don't want to take the drop in sales. But the iPad's not selling anyway, you get the spotlight on the

01:22:00 ◼   ► iPad because it's with the iPhone event. What if they do an event for the iPad

01:22:05 ◼   ► and iBooks Author? Everyone will be asleep. I mean, iBooks Author just got a

01:22:12 ◼   ► couple updates and you know they made a big push, what was it, right before the

01:22:17 ◼   ► the iPad 2 was announced, they did that book event in New York City.

01:22:21 ◼   ► And like, that's the last time iBooks author got, or iBooks store really got a lot of attention

01:22:27 ◼   ► on stage.

01:22:28 ◼   ► And I think it's one of those businesses that is there and they care about, but I think,

01:22:32 ◼   ► I don't think they're going to resolve textbooks with a bigger iPad.

01:22:36 ◼   ► You know what?

01:22:37 ◼   ► I'm going to tell you what the iPhone event is going to go along with.

01:22:42 ◼   ► New Beats.

01:22:45 ◼   ► That's a really good bet.

01:22:46 ◼   ► How do I end the Skype call?

01:22:48 ◼   ► No, I mean...

01:22:50 ◼   ► New Beats products could be a very interesting thing if they're working on something.

01:22:57 ◼   ► Yeah, and they haven't done anything with that.

01:22:59 ◼   ► The Beats stuff is just on the store and in some ways I feel like Apple is...

01:23:04 ◼   ► Part of Apple is a little embarrassed by it. They don't ever talk about it.

01:23:08 ◼   ► There's that recall thing for the speaker that looks like a dude that apparently can burn your house down.

01:23:13 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:23:15 ◼   ► The only thing that they have done actually is they color match their products now.

01:23:20 ◼   ► So the Beats Studio headphones you can get in silver, gold and space grey.

01:23:25 ◼   ► And those little in-ear ones, I can't remember what they're called, I don't think it's the Powerbeats.

01:23:29 ◼   ► They're in all the same colors as their sport watches.

01:23:32 ◼   ► Can I just say that I...

01:23:35 ◼   ► This is gonna make so many people angry.

01:23:39 ◼   ► I love my Beats Studio wireless so much.

01:23:42 ◼   ► Nothing wrong with that, man.

01:23:44 ◼   ► I don't know, some people are really, really like emotional about liking Beats products.

01:23:49 ◼   ► They sound great, they're super comfortable, they're super convenient.

01:23:53 ◼   ► The battery lasts like 12 hours and I just love them. I'm wearing them all the time.

01:23:59 ◼   ► Beats do not make the best headphones in the world for audio quality.

01:24:03 ◼   ► I don't know how to recognize great audio.

01:24:06 ◼   ► Me either. That's the thing.

01:24:07 ◼   ► So if you think that they are comfortable and the battery lasts and you like how they look,

01:24:12 ◼   ► there is nothing wrong with it. Nothing. Sorry Marco.

01:24:16 ◼   ► Yeah, sorry. I just can't recognize a great bass from a... what's the... like a mid-range whatever.

01:24:24 ◼   ► I trust Marco and I believe him. I just don't have the special ear.

01:24:29 ◼   ► You don't have the special ear.

01:24:31 ◼   ► No.

01:24:31 ◼   ► Okay, on that, I think we're gonna wrap up. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.

01:24:36 ◼   ► So

01:24:53 ◼   ► V-I-T-I-C-C-I on Twitter.

01:24:56 ◼   ► Steven writes at 512pixels.net and he is @ismh on Twitter and I am @imike.

01:25:05 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Connected and we'll be back next

01:25:10 ◼   ► time.

01:25:11 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye guys.

01:25:12 ◼   ► Adios.

01:25:13 ◼   ► Adios.

01:25:13 ◼   ► Adios!

01:25:14 ◼   ► [ Silence ]