The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Dieter, it's good to have you here.

00:00:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:02 ◼   ► It's like a, it's like, it's the first time we've talked in forever.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:05 ◼   ► Uh, we, we were going to be, I was going to have you on a month ago.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Uh, then all world changed and now we have more to talk about.

00:00:16 ◼   ► And then we did record for 20 minutes and it didn't take, and now we have to start

00:00:22 ◼   ► over, but it'll be good.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Anything.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Anything that you don't enjoy about the next 20 minutes that happens here, just

00:00:28 ◼   ► assume that it was great the first time around.

00:00:32 ◼   ► And you'll just have to imagine.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Anyway, there's three things I want to talk about.

00:00:38 ◼   ► They are new.

00:00:39 ◼   ► It's like the world is-- at least our world continues

00:00:41 ◼   ► to go on.

00:00:42 ◼   ► I want to talk about the iPhone, the new iPhone SE.

00:00:46 ◼   ► I want to talk about the iPad Magic Keyboard.

00:00:51 ◼   ► And I want to talk about Android-- the year 2020,

00:00:55 ◼   ► so to date, and Android flagships.

00:00:58 ◼   ► - Sure, yeah, there's a handful.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Call it three, no, four, three and a half.

00:01:04 ◼   ► Call it three and a half.

00:01:06 ◼   ► - I can't wait to hear what you think they are

00:01:07 ◼   ► 'cause that obviously is, I obviously have a lot to say

00:01:10 ◼   ► about the SE and the Magic Keyboard

00:01:12 ◼   ► and I personally don't have anything to say

00:01:13 ◼   ► about the Android flagships except that I find

00:01:18 ◼   ► everything very interesting and we'll get to that.

00:01:20 ◼   ► Let's do that as the third segment.

00:01:22 ◼   ► But the iPad Magic Keyboard I wanna get to first.

00:01:28 ◼   ► I thought your review was really interesting in a couple of ways.

00:01:34 ◼   ► But you, so everybody, at least I, everybody I know who's in the review racket had the 12.9 inch to review.

00:01:41 ◼   ► Yep, yeah, same. I bought the 11 inch, so I've got that now, but I reviewed it on the 12.9,

00:01:49 ◼   ► which maybe colored a little bit of my feeling about it,

00:01:54 ◼   ► because since I prefer the 11-inch iPad in the first place,

00:01:57 ◼   ► the 12.9 just feels big.

00:02:00 ◼   ► That's sort of why I focused on like,

00:02:01 ◼   ► here are the exact weight measurements.

00:02:03 ◼   ► And I did it in pounds,

00:02:05 ◼   ► 'cause I've mostly got a US audience,

00:02:06 ◼   ► and I know that's awful.

00:02:07 ◼   ► I should have just offered grams also,

00:02:08 ◼   ► but I was in a hurry.

00:02:10 ◼   ► But yeah, it's heavy.

00:02:12 ◼   ► And I think that Apple knew it was heavy from the jump.

00:02:15 ◼   ► In fact, I know they knew it was heavy,

00:02:16 ◼   ► because I asked them, "Hey, how much does the 11 inch one weigh? Because I'm weighing this 12 inch

00:02:21 ◼   ► one, it seems kind of heavy. Can you just, you know, let me know what the spec is?" And they just

00:02:25 ◼   ► told me that there was nothing to share on that. I thought that was so interesting too in advance,

00:02:29 ◼   ► even before we got the 12.9 inch, they didn't have the weights for any of them.

00:02:33 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I mean, they had it. They, they, I'm sure that somebody somewhere with an apple

00:02:39 ◼   ► had weighed it. Oh yeah, they knew it, but I'm saying that there was no, there was no way to go

00:02:44 ◼   ► to like if you go to apple.com and click on iPad and then they're like they're like iPad keyboards

00:02:50 ◼   ► and they have this nice page with all of the latest iPad keyboards and there's nowhere there

00:02:54 ◼   ► that tells you how much any of them weigh and Dr Drang the these pseudonymous lovely Apple blogger

00:03:05 ◼   ► stuff I just a gobble up I love every almost everything he posts had speculated on the weights

00:03:14 ◼   ► based on, well, let's take,

00:03:16 ◼   ► we know the weights of the smart keyboards

00:03:18 ◼   ► and we know the shipping weights

00:03:20 ◼   ► and somehow it was like Amazon published

00:03:22 ◼   ► the shipping weights for the Magic keyboards,

00:03:25 ◼   ► you know, like how much the whole package is.

00:03:27 ◼   ► So if we take them as a percentage, we could, you know,

00:03:30 ◼   ► and his guess for the 12.9 inch was very close,

00:03:33 ◼   ► but it turns out the 11 inch Magic keyboard

00:03:36 ◼   ► is quite a bit heavier than his guess.

00:03:39 ◼   ► It does seem, 'cause it's percentage wise,

00:03:44 ◼   ► the 11 inch Magic Keyboard,

00:03:47 ◼   ► the new thing with the clicking keys and the trackpad,

00:03:52 ◼   ► is a ways closer to the 12.9 inch

00:03:57 ◼   ► than the smart keyboard do.

00:03:58 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

00:04:01 ◼   ► And I guess it's something to the effect of,

00:04:04 ◼   ► and I don't know that anybody's torn these things apart yet,

00:04:07 ◼   ► but I'm guessing that there's aspects of them

00:04:10 ◼   ► where the difference in size doesn't matter,

00:04:13 ◼   ► that there's like hinge mechanisms for both hinges

00:04:18 ◼   ► that the difference in size doesn't really matter

00:04:21 ◼   ► so much as the fact that the hinge is there at all

00:04:24 ◼   ► and it's, I guess the track pads weigh about the same

00:04:28 ◼   ► even though it's only slightly smaller, et cetera.

00:04:30 ◼   ► So the 11-inch is quite a bit heavier.

00:04:33 ◼   ► I don't know why Apple hid it though.

00:04:35 ◼   ► I mean, it is what it is, just be proud of it.

00:04:40 ◼   ► I don't know, it just was suspicious,

00:04:42 ◼   ► but it made me think, yeah, maybe we are guessing low

00:04:45 ◼   ► on the weights of these things.

00:04:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, maybe they just,

00:04:49 ◼   ► they knew that everybody would dunk on it.

00:04:50 ◼   ► I mean, I know that the day before the morning

00:04:53 ◼   ► of the reviews coming out,

00:04:55 ◼   ► some of the keyboards had actually shipped early.

00:04:57 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And so everyone saw

00:04:59 ◼   ► that it weighs, the 12.9 with the keyboard weighs more

00:05:04 ◼   ► than a MacBook Air, but weighs about the same

00:05:07 ◼   ► as like a 13-inch MacBook Pro.

00:05:08 ◼   ► And so I was like, oh my God, it's so heavy.

00:05:10 ◼   ► And so I think they knew that that was gonna be

00:05:13 ◼   ► the reaction probably, but I agree with you.

00:05:16 ◼   ► I think they should have just owned it.

00:05:17 ◼   ► Just be like, yep, we made the best keyboard we could,

00:05:20 ◼   ► and that meant that it weighs a little bit more.

00:05:22 ◼   ► But the iPad, you know, Apple is very good at pivoting,

00:05:25 ◼   ► but the iPad is the greatest portable device ever,

00:05:27 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:05:29 ◼   ► You know, I think they could have pulled off

00:05:30 ◼   ► some sort of jujitsu on the messaging there.

00:05:33 ◼   ► - There's a great line, I love the writing books,

00:05:36 ◼   ► Drunk and White, The Elements of Style.

00:05:40 ◼   ► And as somebody who, long-time listeners of this show

00:05:44 ◼   ► know well, I've, I'm 47 years old,

00:05:48 ◼   ► but I've internalized a lot of words

00:05:51 ◼   ► I pronounced the wrong way.

00:05:53 ◼   ► Because I read them as a kid,

00:05:54 ◼   ► and I took a guess as to how they were pronounced,

00:05:56 ◼   ► and in my brain, they're just stuck that way.

00:05:59 ◼   ► And there's a line in that book where Strunk,

00:06:03 ◼   ► the old professor who was at E.B. White's English professor

00:06:08 ◼   ► at whatever college he went to,

00:06:10 ◼   ► His advice to his students was,

00:06:12 ◼   ► if you're reading out loud and you get to a word

00:06:14 ◼   ► you don't know how to pronounce, say it loud.

00:06:16 ◼   ► Don't, you know, instead of mumbling it,

00:06:18 ◼   ► if you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud.

00:06:21 ◼   ► And I kind of feel like, all right,

00:06:22 ◼   ► you're not proud of how much the Magic keyboards weigh?

00:06:26 ◼   ► Well, put the weight out there and be proud of it.

00:06:28 ◼   ► You know, just hang it out there.

00:06:31 ◼   ► But anyway, bottom line, the big thing for me,

00:06:35 ◼   ► my only regret with my review of the iPad Magic keyboard

00:06:39 ◼   ► is that I didn't put the review out

00:06:43 ◼   ► specifically as a review of the 12.9 inch

00:06:46 ◼   ► Magic, iPad Magic keyboard.

00:06:49 ◼   ► Because now that I have the 11 inch too,

00:06:52 ◼   ► for my personal iPad Pro, which is 11 inch,

00:06:56 ◼   ► which size I personally much prefer too,

00:06:59 ◼   ► I find that they're different enough,

00:07:04 ◼   ► more different than I expected and different enough

00:07:06 ◼   ► that they kind of demand to be reviewed

00:07:09 ◼   ► as separate products.

00:07:10 ◼   ► Or at least like one and a half different products,

00:07:13 ◼   ► it's like half the same and half different.

00:07:16 ◼   ► - So this is really fascinating to me

00:07:18 ◼   ► because I use so many different sized keyboards in my life

00:07:23 ◼   ► 'cause I try and make sure

00:07:24 ◼   ► that I'm switching platforms regularly enough

00:07:26 ◼   ► where I feel like I'm familiar with everything

00:07:28 ◼   ► that just from hand feel,

00:07:32 ◼   ► maybe I'm numb to major differences

00:07:34 ◼   ► in keys and keyboards.

00:07:36 ◼   ► 'cause the 11 feels about the same to me as a 12,

00:07:40 ◼   ► it's just smaller.

00:07:41 ◼   ► - For me, it's not so much about the keyboard being smaller

00:07:46 ◼   ► 'cause I'm used to smaller mini keyboards too,

00:07:49 ◼   ► including some that are truly, truly micro,

00:07:52 ◼   ► like ones that are like little fold up ones

00:07:54 ◼   ► that you're supposed to use with a phone,

00:07:56 ◼   ► which I don't really do anymore,

00:07:57 ◼   ► but it was sort of like a dream of mine to like,

00:08:00 ◼   ► and still maybe someday I'll find a device

00:08:03 ◼   ► that'll let me do it,

00:08:04 ◼   ► I've always thought it would be cool to go on vacation

00:08:06 ◼   ► or just go on a, remember when we used to have meetings

00:08:10 ◼   ► and stuff? (laughs)

00:08:12 ◼   ► Like if I had like an Apple briefing

00:08:15 ◼   ► or some kind of product demo from some company in New York

00:08:18 ◼   ► to take the train to New York and take nothing but my phone

00:08:22 ◼   ► and a little fold-up keyboard and do all of my work

00:08:25 ◼   ► just with that and not have to worry

00:08:27 ◼   ► about even taking an iPad along.

00:08:31 ◼   ► So the fact that the A to Z alphabet keys are smaller,

00:08:36 ◼   ► I don't know what percentage,

00:08:37 ◼   ► let's say it's like 90% layout,

00:08:40 ◼   ► I'm fine with that,

00:08:42 ◼   ► and my fingers are used to that over the years.

00:08:45 ◼   ► I wouldn't wanna write as much,

00:08:48 ◼   ► like the thing about the 12.9 inch keyboard

00:08:51 ◼   ► is it is a full keyboard, right?

00:08:53 ◼   ► Like if I were gonna write a book,

00:08:55 ◼   ► I wouldn't hesitate to do all of the typing

00:08:57 ◼   ► on that iPad keyboard.

00:09:00 ◼   ► It is as full-sized of a keyboard as Apple's desktop

00:09:04 ◼   ► Bluetooth Magic Keyboard or their laptop, the MacBook ones.

00:09:08 ◼   ► It's full-size, the keys feel just as good.

00:09:11 ◼   ► They may be different in certain niggling ways,

00:09:14 ◼   ► but the smaller 11-inch one

00:09:16 ◼   ► is definitely a slightly smaller layout.

00:09:18 ◼   ► I wouldn't want to do as much typing on it

00:09:20 ◼   ► if I had another option, but I could.

00:09:24 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:09:24 ◼   ► - My complaints, or not even complaints,

00:09:26 ◼   ► but just some of the differences,

00:09:28 ◼   ► is that some of the other keys are hard to type.

00:09:31 ◼   ► Like, I find it insane, absolutely insane,

00:09:35 ◼   ► that the right or left square bracket key

00:09:39 ◼   ► is a full-size key, and the right one is a half-size key,

00:09:44 ◼   ► even though they're a pair.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Like, I think that's insane.

00:09:48 ◼   ► I don't know how that past design muster at Apple.

00:09:53 ◼   ► It just seems crazy to me,

00:09:56 ◼   ► especially when there's a backslash key next to it,

00:10:00 ◼   ► you could make that one full size

00:10:02 ◼   ► and then make the two bracket keys half size.

00:10:05 ◼   ► It's just to make them the same.

00:10:07 ◼   ► Whatever size you make the bracket keys,

00:10:08 ◼   ► they should obviously be the same, is what I'm saying.

00:10:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, how often are you using one without the other?

00:10:14 ◼   ► - Right, like you're, yeah, you're,

00:10:17 ◼   ► if you are, you're like leaving your brackets hanging.

00:10:19 ◼   ► I find that crazy.

00:10:22 ◼   ► And then today, I linked to Dan Morin,

00:10:25 ◼   ► had a review of the Logitech keyboard

00:10:27 ◼   ► that they announced alongside these.

00:10:29 ◼   ► It's called the Touch Something,

00:10:31 ◼   ► the Logitech Touch Something,

00:10:32 ◼   ► I think is the official name.

00:10:35 ◼   ► Anyway, he had a review of that.

00:10:36 ◼   ► That's Logitech's product designed in conjunction

00:10:39 ◼   ► with Apple for the non-pro iPads

00:10:42 ◼   ► so that there's a cover/keyboard case

00:10:45 ◼   ► with an integrated trackpad

00:10:48 ◼   ► that connects to those iPad smart connectors.

00:10:50 ◼   ► Anyway, looking at the pictures of that,

00:10:54 ◼   ► The way they did it is they made the two square brackets

00:10:58 ◼   ► and the backslash key like 2/3.

00:11:02 ◼   ► All three of those keys are the same width

00:11:04 ◼   ► and instead of half and full,

00:11:06 ◼   ► they're all like 2/3 size.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Well, that's a good compromise.

00:11:10 ◼   ► 2/3 is a pretty good compromise.

00:11:13 ◼   ► And then the other key that really is really driving me nuts

00:11:16 ◼   ► trying to type it is the dash key,

00:11:18 ◼   ► another or hyphen, I don't know what you call it,

00:11:20 ◼   ► but it's the key next to zero in between zero and equals,

00:11:24 ◼   ► and it's a half-size key on the 11-inch iPad Magic keyboard,

00:11:29 ◼   ► and I keep missing it 'cause it's so small.

00:11:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, this I noticed because I'm actually

00:11:35 ◼   ► one of the worst people for just using em dashes

00:11:37 ◼   ► in lieu of actual punctuation or other punctuation.

00:11:41 ◼   ► - I'm right there with you.

00:11:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, Chris Welch, one of our reporters,

00:11:45 ◼   ► just yells at me every time.

00:11:46 ◼   ► Every time he edits one of my pieces,

00:11:47 ◼   ► he just deletes everything.

00:11:49 ◼   ► It's that, and then I have to stop using the word pretty.

00:11:51 ◼   ► Those are the two things that I need to cut out of my life.

00:11:54 ◼   ► - So I looked, and on the Logitech keyboard,

00:11:58 ◼   ► what they did, and I think this is pretty clever,

00:12:01 ◼   ► maybe there's other smaller footprint keyboards

00:12:03 ◼   ► that do this, and probably there are over the years.

00:12:07 ◼   ► I've never really noticed it, but I'm like,

00:12:09 ◼   ► "Well, wait, how is that keyboard,

00:12:11 ◼   ► "which is for 10.5-inch iPads, so therefore, in theory,

00:12:15 ◼   ► "perhaps even more space-constrained,

00:12:18 ◼   ► How do they have a full width hyphen key and an equals key?

00:12:23 ◼   ► And the trick is, if you squint and look at it,

00:12:27 ◼   ► the whole number row on that keyboard

00:12:30 ◼   ► is slightly smaller in width than the alphabet keys.

00:12:35 ◼   ► So the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 dot dot dot all the way across there,

00:12:40 ◼   ► they're like--

00:12:41 ◼   ► I don't know, I didn't take out Photoshop

00:12:43 ◼   ► and try to measure them.

00:12:44 ◼   ► but they look like they're all maybe like 85%

00:12:48 ◼   ► of the alphabet keys.

00:12:50 ◼   ► And so like one, two, and three align with Q W E

00:12:54 ◼   ► as you'd expect, but by the time you get to eight, nine,

00:12:57 ◼   ► and zero, they're a little bit further to the left

00:13:00 ◼   ► of the alphabet keys underneath them than you're used to,

00:13:03 ◼   ► but then that makes room for dash and equals keys

00:13:06 ◼   ► that are to the same width as those other number keys.

00:13:10 ◼   ► That seems like, since you have to make compromises

00:13:14 ◼   ► to get a smaller footprint keyboard, those seem like better compromises than what Apple's made.

00:13:20 ◼   ► - Oh, for sure. I mean, I would even be willing to have the backspace key be even a little bit

00:13:26 ◼   ► smaller, 'cause it's, you know, it's like Fitts' Law, but for people, like, you can reach out there

00:13:30 ◼   ► and hit it, and if it's a little bit smaller there, it's less of a pain than the hyphen key

00:13:35 ◼   ► being smaller. - Yeah, 'cause you can do,

00:13:37 ◼   ► it is, I think it actually is Fitts' Law. I don't think Fitts' Law only applies to software.

00:13:43 ◼   ► I think you could learn it you can just reach up to the corner right and just blindly go for the corner

00:13:48 ◼   ► And if you overshoot you're not going to hit the wrong key

00:13:50 ◼   ► You're going to be off the side or over the top of the delete key. You can hit it

00:13:55 ◼   ► Although on the on the it's called the logitech combo touch apparently on the logitech combo touch

00:14:00 ◼   ► You if you reach over you will hit the function row, which they have. Well, we'll have to talk about that in a moment

00:14:06 ◼   ► But the other thing I've noticed with the 11 inch magic keyboard

00:14:12 ◼   ► Compared to the 12.9 inch is that the magnets are a little different. It doesn't seem to me as strong and magnetic connection

00:14:19 ◼   ► Yeah, it's easier to take off which is good when you want to take it off

00:14:25 ◼   ► But it also seems like it's not quite as secure which maybe isn't as good if you're gonna use it on a bumpy train or something

00:14:32 ◼   ► Now the thing I don't know is I I do I know it's the same thing where it comes off a little bit more easily

00:14:40 ◼   ► But I don't I'm using my with the 2018 iPad Pro the 11-inch so which you know are compatible

00:14:46 ◼   ► So I wonder if I had a 2020 11 inch iPad Pro if it has stronger magnets in it. I kind of doubt it

00:14:52 ◼   ► But it's possible. Yeah, it's possible

00:14:56 ◼   ► I can't compare 11 inch 8 2018 to 2020 because I don't have a 2020 11 inch but I can compare

00:15:04 ◼   ► The 12.9 inch for both years because okay. I have my wife owns the 2018

00:15:10 ◼   ► 12.9 inch iPad Pro and

00:15:14 ◼   ► My testing with that was that it was magnetically identical

00:15:18 ◼   ► It was okay. It was I mean now I didn't measure it in any way with any kind of tool, but just

00:15:24 ◼   ► Anecdotally, it just seemed equally strong

00:15:28 ◼   ► exactly the same magnetically as the new one.

00:15:31 ◼   ► So I don't know, I can't say that the 11 inch

00:15:34 ◼   ► is the same way, but it's definitely a different thing

00:15:36 ◼   ► for me going between the 12.9 and the 11 inch.

00:15:39 ◼   ► It's just, and I don't think, again,

00:15:42 ◼   ► that's the sort of thing I regret about my review,

00:15:45 ◼   ► 'cause I really went on and on

00:15:47 ◼   ► about how magnetically strong it was,

00:15:50 ◼   ► and it's not that it is, but it is only for the 12.9,

00:15:55 ◼   ► so I wish I had emphasized that.

00:15:57 ◼   ► - Well, so one thing, and maybe we'll get into this later,

00:16:00 ◼   ► but one of the things that's nice about this keyboard,

00:16:05 ◼   ► and it sort of applies to smart keyboard,

00:16:06 ◼   ► not quite as much, is you can pick it up

00:16:10 ◼   ► and walk around with it in a way that,

00:16:11 ◼   ► like with a Surface Pro, to pick up a Surface Pro

00:16:14 ◼   ► with the keyboard attached,

00:16:15 ◼   ► it's kind of this weird floppy mess, right?

00:16:17 ◼   ► You gotta fold it up.

00:16:18 ◼   ► But this thing, you can pick it up and hold it in one hand

00:16:21 ◼   ► and walk around your house or your apartment with it

00:16:24 ◼   ► in a way that, like with this Logitech keyboard,

00:16:27 ◼   ► you can't, you know, 'cause it's gonna flop around.

00:16:30 ◼   ► So I really think that the magnets being strong,

00:16:34 ◼   ► maybe a little bit less strong on the 11, I don't know,

00:16:36 ◼   ► but the thing was designed, I don't know,

00:16:39 ◼   ► it feels like it was designed for my home

00:16:41 ◼   ► instead of like my backpack,

00:16:42 ◼   ► and that gets to the weight thing.

00:16:44 ◼   ► But it also just, it gets to like,

00:16:45 ◼   ► I feel like maybe you wrote this,

00:16:47 ◼   ► it feels more like a dock than it does a case.

00:16:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I did write that, and I do think that.

00:16:51 ◼   ► It's like a case, it's a dock that folds up

00:16:55 ◼   ► into a case-sized wrapper,

00:16:57 ◼   ► not a case with a keyboard that you can type on.

00:17:01 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

00:17:02 ◼   ► - I even turned it upside down.

00:17:03 ◼   ► I mean, I was, you know, I'm not reckless with review units,

00:17:07 ◼   ► but I am ever so slightly more reckless

00:17:10 ◼   ► than I am with the ones I've paid for.

00:17:12 ◼   ► Like, I'm not one, like, if they say that, you know,

00:17:17 ◼   ► here's a review unit of a new iPhone,

00:17:19 ◼   ► it's IP68 water-resistant.

00:17:22 ◼   ► I don't dunk it in water.

00:17:24 ◼   ► I just let other reviewers do it

00:17:26 ◼   ► because I don't wanna be the one who shorts one out.

00:17:28 ◼   ► And then it's not because, hey,

00:17:31 ◼   ► you're the ones who said it was water resistant.

00:17:33 ◼   ► It's not that I'm afraid to call Apple up and say that.

00:17:35 ◼   ► I don't wanna lose 24 hours to get a new review unit,

00:17:39 ◼   ► though, to do it.

00:17:40 ◼   ► So I don't.

00:17:41 ◼   ► So I'm a little bit cautious.

00:17:42 ◼   ► But I took the 12.9 inch in the keyboard

00:17:45 ◼   ► and turned it upside down.

00:17:47 ◼   ► And it's like, it doesn't come out.

00:17:49 ◼   ► And the hinge, I'm not gonna say the hinge

00:17:51 ◼   ► doesn't move at all, but it stays pretty close

00:17:56 ◼   ► to the same angle.

00:17:56 ◼   ► It certainly doesn't bend.

00:17:58 ◼   ► If it adjusts a degree or two, sure, that's gravity,

00:18:03 ◼   ► but you can turn it upside down and it doesn't come out.

00:18:06 ◼   ► I'm not sure I would do that with the 11-inch,

00:18:08 ◼   ► and I definitely wouldn't do any of that

00:18:10 ◼   ► with Apple's smart keyboard.

00:18:12 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, no, that thing pops off really easily.

00:18:15 ◼   ► - And you can definitely, I mean,

00:18:17 ◼   ► is it ever truly advisable to walk around your house

00:18:21 ◼   ► with a laptop of any kind?

00:18:22 ◼   ► Probably not.

00:18:24 ◼   ► But we do it, right?

00:18:26 ◼   ► I mean, everybody does it.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And you can definitely do that with the Magic Keyboard.

00:18:32 ◼   ► It's definitely much more stable than you would think,

00:18:35 ◼   ► especially given how similar it looks externally,

00:18:39 ◼   ► like from the bottom and top,

00:18:41 ◼   ► or not fabric, whatever you call that rubbery material

00:18:45 ◼   ► they make these things. - It's weird, right?

00:18:46 ◼   ► And it picks up just dust in a weird way.

00:18:50 ◼   ► There's something about that material that I'm just not a big fan of.

00:18:54 ◼   ► It's grippy, so I'll give them that.

00:18:56 ◼   ► But it's grippy in a way that, like, it doesn't, like, you know how some plastic,

00:19:00 ◼   ► I don't know, I've used a bunch of random keyboard cases and stuff, like, it's grippy,

00:19:04 ◼   ► but then it like starts to feel like weird and greasy?

00:19:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:07 ◼   ► This, that never happens to this really, but it, I don't know, it definitely feels like it's some

00:19:13 ◼   ► sort of, you know, custom polyurethane, probably something, something plastic that they really

00:19:19 ◼   ► believe in because it's grippy and means it won't slip off an airplane tray table.

00:19:26 ◼   ► But I'm not a big fan of it.

00:19:29 ◼   ► It has two problems that I've seen.

00:19:32 ◼   ► It's one, it definitely picks up dust or dust sticks to it in ways that it just seems prone

00:19:40 ◼   ► to it.

00:19:41 ◼   ► I think it picks up finger and palm grease,

00:19:46 ◼   ► and it cleans easily.

00:19:49 ◼   ► So it's not like permanent shiny spots.

00:19:53 ◼   ► I know what you're talking about.

00:19:54 ◼   ► There are some things that pick up permanent shiny spots.

00:19:57 ◼   ► They're not permanent, but I've been using it

00:20:01 ◼   ► in pretty clean areas, not really eating around it

00:20:05 ◼   ► or eating like a hot dog or something with my finger,

00:20:09 ◼   ► I've eaten chicken wings and then touching it.

00:20:11 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:13 ◼   ► But yet I still have grease spots on it,

00:20:17 ◼   ► for lack of a better term.

00:20:20 ◼   ► And then I wipe 'em off and they clean off,

00:20:22 ◼   ► but with all of Apple's aluminum MacBooks,

00:20:25 ◼   ► I never feel like I have to clean them every day.

00:20:30 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:20:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not a fan of this material either.

00:20:34 ◼   ► I didn't really get into that in my review,

00:20:36 ◼   ► but it's like I don't hate it.

00:20:38 ◼   ► I don't know, it's just so unusual.

00:20:40 ◼   ► It's almost like somebody needs to write a review

00:20:43 ◼   ► of this material.

00:20:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:20:45 ◼   ► - Because it's like nothing else.

00:20:47 ◼   ► I don't know what to compare it to.

00:20:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's very strange.

00:20:51 ◼   ► But I mean, I don't know, it bothers me more on the outside,

00:20:54 ◼   ► which honestly I never really see

00:20:56 ◼   ► because the thing sits on my desk.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Like I never take it off my desk.

00:20:59 ◼   ► I now am taking the iPad off of it and using the iPad

00:21:03 ◼   ► just all by itself without a case on it,

00:21:05 ◼   ► way more than I have in the past.

00:21:07 ◼   ► Like I kid you not, like three, four years.

00:21:09 ◼   ► Like I don't know if I've ever used an iPad this much

00:21:11 ◼   ► outside of a case as I do now,

00:21:13 ◼   ► that I basically have a dock

00:21:15 ◼   ► that I can just attach it to to charge

00:21:17 ◼   ► and then take it off to go walk around my house with it.

00:21:20 ◼   ► - See, I'm the opposite where I just haven't used it

00:21:22 ◼   ► in any sort of case for years

00:21:24 ◼   ► 'cause I so dislike the smart keyboard.

00:21:26 ◼   ► And so I've used a keyboard with my iPad,

00:21:29 ◼   ► but I have been using for years

00:21:31 ◼   ► just like regular desktop Bluetooth keyboards

00:21:34 ◼   ► and then propping up my iPad in a standalone little,

00:21:37 ◼   ► tiny little tripod stand.

00:21:39 ◼   ► And so it's even easier to pick it up

00:21:42 ◼   ► and just walk around with it as, you know,

00:21:44 ◼   ► iPad as a tablet.

00:21:46 ◼   ► But that's what I like so much about this case

00:21:48 ◼   ► is it's so easy to get it out and just do that.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Like, oh, I just wanna read some comic books at night

00:21:54 ◼   ► and I don't want, certainly don't wanna have

00:21:56 ◼   ► a bulky keyboard case folded around the back to do that.

00:22:00 ◼   ► It's so easy to just take it out and walk around.

00:22:02 ◼   ► But that's the thing that makes it so weird

00:22:04 ◼   ► that I seem to get greasy spots on it

00:22:08 ◼   ► because I'm not even moving it.

00:22:09 ◼   ► It's like at the same, I wipe it down,

00:22:12 ◼   ► put it on the kitchen counter at my spot

00:22:15 ◼   ► and leave it folded open and then I go to weigh it

00:22:20 ◼   ► or something or do something,

00:22:23 ◼   ► I pick it up for some reason and look at it.

00:22:25 ◼   ► I'm like, well, how did it get so dirty?

00:22:27 ◼   ► I haven't even moved it.

00:22:28 ◼   ► - You got ghosts.

00:22:31 ◼   ► All right, F keys, we gotta talk about the F keys.

00:22:34 ◼   ► - So, I think they should have included function keys.

00:22:39 ◼   ► I think that having, you know, even the iPad equivalent,

00:22:44 ◼   ► so like home button, a multitasking button,

00:22:47 ◼   ► play, pause, next, last, volume, keyboard brightness,

00:22:51 ◼   ► it is just way more convenient to just reach up

00:22:54 ◼   ► and hit a function key than it is to reach all the way up

00:22:57 ◼   ► to the control center or try and hit that tiny little target

00:23:00 ◼   ► the trackpad to start adjusting those things.

00:23:04 ◼   ► And they didn't put it in, obviously, and they didn't have it in their previous keyboards.

00:23:09 ◼   ► So part of it is I don't think Apple believes in function rows for iPads.

00:23:16 ◼   ► But part of it is they decided they wanted a keyboard dock that had a rock-solid base

00:23:22 ◼   ► that had this floating screen.

00:23:24 ◼   ► And I think there's reasons for that that make sense.

00:23:27 ◼   ► but it just meant that there was,

00:23:28 ◼   ► even if they physically wanted to,

00:23:30 ◼   ► it would have been awkward to fit the function row in.

00:23:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, depending on the angle, you know,

00:23:34 ◼   ► the angle that the screen,

00:23:36 ◼   ► if you have an acute enough angle, like closer to 90,

00:23:40 ◼   ► then there'd be room for them.

00:23:41 ◼   ► But when it's at its widest position,

00:23:43 ◼   ► you'd kind of have to,

00:23:44 ◼   ► it's like fitting your fingers into a slot, you know.

00:23:47 ◼   ► - Like sneaking in there, yeah, yeah.

00:23:50 ◼   ► - And you know, you get it with the backlighting.

00:23:52 ◼   ► But you know, speaking of backlighting, that's the key.

00:23:56 ◼   ► Everybody who mentions this,

00:23:57 ◼   ► And it's a good point, is that if you want to adjust

00:24:00 ◼   ► the backlighting, it's the only way to do it right now

00:24:04 ◼   ► is to go to the settings app, settings,

00:24:08 ◼   ► let me see if I can even remember,

00:24:09 ◼   ► settings, settings, general, keyboard.

00:24:12 ◼   ► - Keyboard, hardware keyboard.

00:24:14 ◼   ► - Hardware keyboard, and then backlighting.

00:24:17 ◼   ► And that is, I mean, you made the point in your review

00:24:22 ◼   ► that their default settings for the backlight are excellent.

00:24:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're great.

00:24:27 ◼   ► As long as you want the backlight there,

00:24:30 ◼   ► it's always correct.

00:24:32 ◼   ► I've never had to adjust it if I want the backlight on.

00:24:35 ◼   ► But the thing about the iPad that I love

00:24:38 ◼   ► is that you do more than just use it like a laptop.

00:24:41 ◼   ► You watch movies on it, you read, you do other things.

00:24:44 ◼   ► And sometimes you wanna have the thing propped up

00:24:49 ◼   ► with some kind of stand,

00:24:50 ◼   ► like this is a perfectly good stand,

00:24:51 ◼   ► and you don't want the keys lit up.

00:24:53 ◼   ► And in order to do that,

00:24:54 ◼   ► you gotta like hunt through the settings,

00:24:57 ◼   ► or you gotta follow Frederico Viticci on Twitter

00:25:00 ◼   ► and find a shortcut app.

00:25:02 ◼   ► You know, it's ridiculous.

00:25:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so there's no way they're going

00:25:06 ◼   ► to retroactively add backlight keys, hardware keys,

00:25:10 ◼   ► to this keyboard because a keyboard doesn't get

00:25:12 ◼   ► software updates that enable new keys.

00:25:14 ◼   ► But so the best we can hope for is getting

00:25:16 ◼   ► the backlighting into the control center?

00:25:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, and there's a perfectly obvious place

00:25:23 ◼   ► to do it, which is under a long press of the brightness

00:25:25 ◼   ► in the same way, 'cause logically, you long press the volume

00:25:29 ◼   ► and then you get to your AirPod extra settings,

00:25:31 ◼   ► so you should long press the brightness

00:25:33 ◼   ► and get to your keyboard brightness settings.

00:25:35 ◼   ► - I was excited because everybody,

00:25:37 ◼   ► a lot of people observed this and had it.

00:25:40 ◼   ► I had the thought, "Hey, let's see if Siri can do this,"

00:25:45 ◼   ► and I asked Siri to adjust the keyboard backlighting

00:25:51 ◼   ► and then it came up with a brightness slider on screen.

00:25:53 ◼   ► And I was like, bingo, there it is.

00:25:55 ◼   ► I can't wait to publish this tip.

00:25:57 ◼   ► And I went to try it, and as I slid it down,

00:26:01 ◼   ► it was my display brightness.

00:26:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:26:04 ◼   ► So I guess I can't even say that that's,

00:26:08 ◼   ► it would be good to add it to Siri too.

00:26:10 ◼   ► So you could just say turn the key,

00:26:12 ◼   ► it would be nice as a shortcut to tell Siri

00:26:14 ◼   ► to turn the keyboard backlighting off

00:26:16 ◼   ► and have the right thing happen.

00:26:20 ◼   ► And I guess it's not a bad guess to just,

00:26:23 ◼   ► well, here's the only brightness I know how to show you,

00:26:25 ◼   ► I'll show it to you.

00:26:26 ◼   ► I guess I can't complain about not understanding,

00:26:28 ◼   ► but it was a disappointment.

00:26:30 ◼   ► The other thing is that because there's no row of F keys,

00:26:35 ◼   ► there's no escape key.

00:26:37 ◼   ► And we kind of went through this with the MacBooks,

00:26:40 ◼   ► where the MacBooks that first shipped with the touch bar

00:26:43 ◼   ► didn't have a hardware escape key.

00:26:45 ◼   ► And now with the new one,

00:26:47 ◼   ► starting with the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

00:26:49 ◼   ► They even made it a bullet point.

00:26:53 ◼   ► It's like a selling point of what's so great

00:26:55 ◼   ► about the updated keyboard in the 16-inch MacBook Pro

00:26:58 ◼   ► is it has an escape key.

00:27:00 ◼   ► And it's so cool to see Apple putting that in

00:27:03 ◼   ► as a bullet point.

00:27:04 ◼   ► And again, with my person, I know there's people,

00:27:08 ◼   ► I know that this one is polarizing,

00:27:11 ◼   ► but I like the upside down T for the arrow keys too.

00:27:14 ◼   ► And I'm glad to see them making it a selling point.

00:27:17 ◼   ► But there is no F key row, and so there is no escape key.

00:27:22 ◼   ► But you get to remap it.

00:27:23 ◼   ► You can say, what do you do, caps lock?

00:27:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, so every computer that I own,

00:27:30 ◼   ► I've remapped caps lock to some kind of universal search.

00:27:33 ◼   ► So on my Mac, it goes to Alfred.

00:27:36 ◼   ► On Windows, I actually have it open up

00:27:39 ◼   ► a new edge browser tab.

00:27:43 ◼   ► on Chrome OS it's a new Chrome tab,

00:27:45 ◼   ► but you can't remap the caps lock key on the iPad to that,

00:27:50 ◼   ► so I remap it to escape because I'm so used

00:27:55 ◼   ► to hitting the caps lock key to do a search

00:27:57 ◼   ► that if I left it on as caps lock,

00:27:59 ◼   ► I would end up typing in all caps all the time.

00:28:02 ◼   ► - So you might as well have it mapped to something.

00:28:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:28:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have it set to the,

00:28:07 ◼   ► I have escape mapped to the globe hardware key

00:28:10 ◼   ► because I don't-- - Okay.

00:28:12 ◼   ► The only thing the globe does by default

00:28:14 ◼   ► is toggle between the hardware keyboard

00:28:17 ◼   ► and the on-screen emoji keyboard.

00:28:20 ◼   ► And you can type control space to do the same thing.

00:28:22 ◼   ► And I kind of, that comes naturally to me,

00:28:25 ◼   ► 'cause on the Mac you type control command space

00:28:28 ◼   ► to get the emoji picker.

00:28:30 ◼   ► So that comes naturally to me,

00:28:33 ◼   ► so I might as well remap the globe to escape

00:28:36 ◼   ► and it somehow feels okay mentally.

00:28:39 ◼   ► I mean, I could do it, if I couldn't do the globe,

00:28:41 ◼   ► If only caps lock, I would just do caps lock.

00:28:44 ◼   ► 'Cause I don't, who uses caps lock, right?

00:28:46 ◼   ► I mean, I mean, I guess there's some angry,

00:28:48 ◼   ► angry people on the internet who really,

00:28:51 ◼   ► really make use of it, but.

00:28:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think if you're gonna use caps lock to yell,

00:28:56 ◼   ► you should be forced to use the shift key.

00:28:58 ◼   ► And like, you really mean it,

00:28:59 ◼   ► like the physical effort of typing the capital letters,

00:29:02 ◼   ► it should be more work.

00:29:03 ◼   ► - You should, but I feel like the people who use it

00:29:06 ◼   ► would have none of it.

00:29:08 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:29:09 ◼   ► - It is nice, I guess it's not surprising.

00:29:11 ◼   ► I mean, and I know it's all software at some point,

00:29:13 ◼   ► but it is nice that if you remap the caps lock key,

00:29:17 ◼   ► the green light no longer goes on and off

00:29:20 ◼   ► every other invocation.

00:29:21 ◼   ► The green light is tied to the idea

00:29:24 ◼   ► that caps lock is caps lock, so that's cool.

00:29:27 ◼   ► - Oh, actually, if you are a Mac user,

00:29:31 ◼   ► they finally added in Catalina the ability

00:29:33 ◼   ► to natively remap the caps lock key on Macs

00:29:37 ◼   ► without having to use a third-party software

00:29:39 ◼   ► like Karabiner Elements.

00:29:41 ◼   ► So that's great.

00:29:41 ◼   ► And it also does the same thing where

00:29:43 ◼   ► if you remap it natively,

00:29:45 ◼   ► it doesn't turn on the green light.

00:29:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, so that's cool.

00:29:48 ◼   ► - What do you think of the trackpad?

00:29:53 ◼   ► 'Cause I, you know, like I mentioned in my review,

00:29:55 ◼   ► I use the Surface Pro a lot.

00:29:57 ◼   ► And so like this trackpad is almost identical in size.

00:30:00 ◼   ► And so it is,

00:30:02 ◼   ► I'm used to having small trackpads every now and then.

00:30:05 ◼   ► But if you're used to a trackpad on a MacBook

00:30:09 ◼   ► or used to like a trackpad on like an iMac or something,

00:30:12 ◼   ► those things are massive.

00:30:14 ◼   ► So I'm wondering what it's like to go down

00:30:16 ◼   ► to such a tiny trackpad for you.

00:30:17 ◼   ► - All right.

00:30:18 ◼   ► I like it a lot, and I like it a lot more.

00:30:23 ◼   ► It makes me wonder why they're so big.

00:30:25 ◼   ► I know that now that the MacBook Pro keyboards,

00:30:29 ◼   ► or trackpads in particular, have gotten truly expansive.

00:30:33 ◼   ► I mean, I joke that it's like the 16-inch one

00:30:36 ◼   ► is the size of a New York studio apartment.

00:30:38 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:30:41 ◼   ► I know that there have been others who say they're too big,

00:30:44 ◼   ► and I know there are some people who get problems

00:30:48 ◼   ► with their palms registering as false touches

00:30:51 ◼   ► 'cause they're so big, and I don't run into that

00:30:53 ◼   ► for some physiological reason about the skin on my palms.

00:30:57 ◼   ► I've been using a 16-inch MacBook Pro extensively

00:31:01 ◼   ► over the last few months, and I really don't have

00:31:03 ◼   ► any problems with it being so big

00:31:06 ◼   ► in terms of getting false touches.

00:31:08 ◼   ► But on the other hand, now that I'm getting by just fine

00:31:12 ◼   ► with this comparatively tiny little trackpad,

00:31:15 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't know why that's so big.

00:31:17 ◼   ► The one thing that it seems like I run into

00:31:20 ◼   ► the size problems is if I do try dragging

00:31:22 ◼   ► and dropping something, I run out of space.

00:31:25 ◼   ► But on the other hand, I don't drag and drop on iPad much.

00:31:29 ◼   ► I just don't think it's as much of a thing

00:31:31 ◼   ► as it is on the Mac.

00:31:34 ◼   ► I use it much more for just moving the pointer around

00:31:37 ◼   ► and it's big enough, even up and down, it's big enough.

00:31:41 ◼   ► And for scrolling, and for scrolling,

00:31:43 ◼   ► you just keep flicking, so it's not so much

00:31:47 ◼   ► going in one continuous movement where you need the size,

00:31:50 ◼   ► you just keep flicking two fingers to scroll,

00:31:53 ◼   ► and so it's fine.

00:31:54 ◼   ► I like it a lot.

00:31:55 ◼   ► I wanna know what the black magic is

00:32:00 ◼   ► that they've made it equally clickable

00:32:03 ◼   ► at the top and bottom instead of the diving board effect

00:32:07 ◼   ► of all the old, you know, because it doesn't use

00:32:10 ◼   ► haptic feedback to fake clicks, it really clicks.

00:32:14 ◼   ► But before Apple had these haptic magic track pads

00:32:18 ◼   ► in the MacBooks, they were these diving board buttons

00:32:23 ◼   ► that were way clickier at the bottom

00:32:28 ◼   ► than they were at the top.

00:32:29 ◼   ► And I don't understand why, if they were able to do this,

00:32:32 ◼   ► come they weren't doing it all along? Yeah, I don't know, the service trackpad is a

00:32:36 ◼   ► diving board again, but at first I was like, oh, they did the haptic thing, this is great.

00:32:42 ◼   ► And then I realized, oh no, it's actually a full-on button all the way top to bottom.

00:32:47 ◼   ► You are actually like pushing a thing down and it's clicking. It's really good. I'm really

00:32:53 ◼   ► impressed with it. I've never used a trackpad of this size that felt this good. I mean,

00:32:59 ◼   ► I think the only thing that I lose from going down to a smaller trackpad is, um,

00:33:03 ◼   ► I finally started using like the, the, like the pinch out,

00:33:06 ◼   ► pinch in gestures on the Mac to like go to your desktop or, um,

00:33:09 ◼   ► I'm actually using the launch pad per launch center,

00:33:12 ◼   ► whatever the app launcher is for once. Um, I haven't, I didn't use it for years.

00:33:16 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden, since I started using it to go to my desktop, I was like,

00:33:19 ◼   ► Oh yeah, this thing is here. I'll start clicking on this again.

00:33:22 ◼   ► And I kind of like it. That's weird.

00:33:23 ◼   ► And you find that the pinch, there's not enough room to pinch.

00:33:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that, I mean, but you don't need to

00:33:30 ◼   ► on the iPad 'cause you can do that sort of three finger

00:33:32 ◼   ► hold or three finger swipe up and it works pretty well.

00:33:36 ◼   ► I agree with you on dragging.

00:33:39 ◼   ► If you wanna drag something across, it's pretty tough.

00:33:41 ◼   ► But since I'm using the 11 inch most of the time anyway,

00:33:44 ◼   ► like you never have that far to drag.

00:33:47 ◼   ► So really like my only problem with the trackpad

00:33:50 ◼   ► is stuff that's kind of out of Apple's control.

00:33:53 ◼   ► It's just like, you never really know inside an app

00:33:56 ◼   ► what the track, if the track pad is gonna do exactly what you expect it to.

00:33:59 ◼   ► And I've complained about Google's apps in this regard.

00:34:02 ◼   ► Um, although Google's apps are just terrible on the iPad to begin with.

00:34:05 ◼   ► Uh, but even weird stuff, like if you, if you use Twitter, uh, the official

00:34:09 ◼   ► Twitter app, like some, some of the buttons, the iPad, like does the little

00:34:14 ◼   ► lock on thing, like the Apple TV.

00:34:15 ◼   ► And it does, you know, like turns into the shape of the button.

00:34:18 ◼   ► That's really neat.

00:34:18 ◼   ► And then other buttons just, Nope.

00:34:20 ◼   ► It's just like, it feels very weird and unnatural inside a single app where

00:34:24 ◼   ► Sometimes the mouse does the magical resize thing and sometimes it just stays that little circle

00:34:28 ◼   ► Yeah, and I guess I without knowing the you know, you'd have to talk to the developers and you know app by app

00:34:36 ◼   ► But i'm guessing it's some kind of thing where if you have a button and it's derived from a standard ui kit button

00:34:43 ◼   ► without overriding certain things you get this

00:34:47 ◼   ► magical the the cursor morphs into an outline around the button automatically and for other things that are

00:34:54 ◼   ► buttons and up until now when you just tap them with your finger act just like buttons and there's

00:35:00 ◼   ► no reason to think of them any differently they somehow don't inherit that for free and again

00:35:06 ◼   ► you're right and you're right though that even within the same apps it you can't really guess

00:35:12 ◼   ► until you hover the the mouse pointer over it whether it's going to do it or not yeah but there

00:35:18 ◼   ► are other like in control center so you to bring control you like you sort of you drag the the mouse

00:35:23 ◼   ► beyond the edge of the screen.

00:35:25 ◼   ► And that's what brings in your slide over

00:35:27 ◼   ► or your dock or whatever.

00:35:28 ◼   ► It took me a while to sort of get used to that feeling

00:35:31 ◼   ► of just keep moving your finger up

00:35:33 ◼   ► and it'll eventually come down.

00:35:35 ◼   ► So that's neat once you get used to it.

00:35:36 ◼   ► But I love, I don't know why this gets to me,

00:35:39 ◼   ► but I love when you hover the mouse over the volume

00:35:42 ◼   ► or brightness slider.

00:35:43 ◼   ► You don't need to do anything other than just

00:35:45 ◼   ► when you do a two finger scroll on those sliders,

00:35:48 ◼   ► it directly adjusts the volume.

00:35:50 ◼   ► It's so obvious and it's tiny

00:35:52 ◼   ► and it's not that big a deal,

00:35:53 ◼   ► but it's just, that's like a small considered thing

00:35:55 ◼   ► whereas if they had made you like click and drag,

00:35:57 ◼   ► I wouldn't have been surprised

00:35:58 ◼   ► but instead they just got it right.

00:36:00 ◼   ► - It's good.

00:36:01 ◼   ► I really, the existence of this trackpad support

00:36:06 ◼   ► and it is, to me, the software support for the trackpad

00:36:09 ◼   ► is the bigger deal because I've been ever since iPad OS,

00:36:14 ◼   ► I'm always gonna call it iOS,

00:36:15 ◼   ► but ever since iPad OS 13.4 shipped

00:36:17 ◼   ► with this trackpad support last month,

00:36:20 ◼   ► I've been using my iPad so much more,

00:36:23 ◼   ► not just because I need to use it

00:36:26 ◼   ► to be able to write about it,

00:36:27 ◼   ► but I just like, ah, finally I feel like

00:36:30 ◼   ► I'm text editing without thinking, you know?

00:36:33 ◼   ► And I just feel like now I'm using my fingers

00:36:37 ◼   ► instead of having mittens on my hands

00:36:39 ◼   ► and feeling so constrained

00:36:41 ◼   ► when I'm trying to just edit text.

00:36:43 ◼   ► And doing it in this integrated magic keyboard

00:36:48 ◼   ► that it snaps into is great.

00:36:50 ◼   ► - The funny thing about text stuff is

00:36:54 ◼   ► I tried really hard to wrap my head around

00:37:00 ◼   ► the way that iPadOS handled cursor and text selection

00:37:04 ◼   ► and copy and paste,

00:37:05 ◼   ► and there's the new three-finger tap stuff.

00:37:08 ◼   ► And I was like, all right, I don't wanna say it's me.

00:37:10 ◼   ► I don't wanna say I'm just a fuddy-duddy

00:37:12 ◼   ► and I'm stuck in my old ways.

00:37:15 ◼   ► maybe like I can really learn

00:37:16 ◼   ► how this new text selection stuff works.

00:37:18 ◼   ► And I never really got there and I'm still not quite there.

00:37:23 ◼   ► And it's really, really obvious to me now

00:37:26 ◼   ► that all of the way the cursor stuff works in iPadOS

00:37:31 ◼   ► was designed for the touchpad.

00:37:33 ◼   ► And then they're like, well, we also need to make it work

00:37:35 ◼   ► for a touch first experience.

00:37:36 ◼   ► So let's try and throw some machine learning at it

00:37:39 ◼   ► and see if it works.

00:37:40 ◼   ► And I just, I think I feel like it's honestly

00:37:43 ◼   ► a step backwards.

00:37:43 ◼   ► you don't have a touchpad attached to the magnifying glass work. It was still awkward

00:37:49 ◼   ► and like had lots of extra steps, but at least it was precise and it was completely predictable.

00:37:54 ◼   ► I feel like right now, without the trackpad attached, interacting with text is a little

00:37:59 ◼   ► bit unpredictable, and that is a thing that text interaction should never be.

00:38:03 ◼   ► Yeah, and I know that there are people both outside Apple, and I happen to know inside

00:38:10 ◼   ► Apple that there are people who I don't know that anybody is flat out like opposed to this

00:38:17 ◼   ► trackpad support system wide, but there are people who unlike me who just love it, who

00:38:24 ◼   ► are ambivalent about it on the grounds that it's taken away their motivation to finally

00:38:35 ◼   ► get a purely on-screen touch interface

00:38:38 ◼   ► for selecting text right,

00:38:41 ◼   ► which I don't think they've ever gotten

00:38:44 ◼   ► for the phone or the iPad.

00:38:46 ◼   ► Selecting text has always been fiddly.

00:38:49 ◼   ► And I'm with you that I feel like getting rid

00:38:52 ◼   ► of the magnifying glass was actually a step backward.

00:38:55 ◼   ► I think they made it slightly worse.

00:38:57 ◼   ► It feels like I'm less precise than I was before.

00:39:00 ◼   ► And it certainly isn't better.

00:39:03 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:39:03 ◼   ► I mean, I think the idea was they were hoping

00:39:05 ◼   ► that they could use some machine learning

00:39:08 ◼   ► to sort of like just fudge it, just figure it out for you.

00:39:11 ◼   ► And it just, it can't, it can't quite do that.

00:39:13 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:39:14 ◼   ► So the other thing we have to talk about

00:39:17 ◼   ► is your comparison as somebody who owns the Surface Pro X.

00:39:22 ◼   ► And clearly the biggest differences

00:39:24 ◼   ► between Microsoft and Apple

00:39:26 ◼   ► is how do you pronounce the letter X?

00:39:27 ◼   ► Is it an X or is it a 10?

00:39:31 ◼   ► It is an x but I I had to ask and they're like, of course, it's x it's like, okay

00:39:35 ◼   ► What does x mean, you know, it means x okay great

00:39:38 ◼   ► Uh, and then we get to minor minor differences, you know, like whether to integrate a kickstand into the tablet or not

00:39:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean

00:39:48 ◼   ► So look the the funny thing so the surface when it first came out surface pro like it introduced this they introduced this idea of uh,

00:39:55 ◼   ► which is just a hilarious word, but people were concerned that like,

00:39:59 ◼   ► could you fit the surface on your lap? Could you fit on an airplane tray table?

00:40:03 ◼   ► And you can, but it's just a little bit awkward.

00:40:06 ◼   ► But it's because they have this idea of a kickstand and I,

00:40:12 ◼   ► on the whole,

00:40:14 ◼   ► I tend to prefer the setup on the Surface Pro because I really do use that sort

00:40:19 ◼   ► of like, I don't know what mode to call it,

00:40:22 ◼   ► like the portrait mode where like there's no keyboard,

00:40:24 ◼   ► where there's no keyboard, but it's still able to stand up on its own.

00:40:27 ◼   ► And with the Surface, you could either do that with the keyboard attached, or just flip

00:40:30 ◼   ► the keyboard around behind it.

00:40:32 ◼   ► The other thing that you can do with it is, because that kickstand goes all the way to

00:40:36 ◼   ► almost flat, is if you draw a lot, you can put the thing down at a really comfortable

00:40:42 ◼   ► drawing angle.

00:40:43 ◼   ► Now, you can do all these things with an iPad with the original, sort of, origami smart

00:40:48 ◼   ► cover.

00:40:49 ◼   ► It has, like, you can put it sideways, or you can stand it up, or whatever.

00:40:52 ◼   ► But ever since they did the smart keyboard and now with this thing, it really, really

00:40:58 ◼   ► wants to have the iPad be at that sort of laptop angle.

00:41:02 ◼   ► And it really fights you if you want to do, you can't really, you can't do any other angle.

00:41:06 ◼   ► So you kind of need to take the thing out.

00:41:09 ◼   ► And then if you want to prop it up in some way, you're sort of on your own.

00:41:14 ◼   ► And is a kickstand inelegant to have on a physical piece of hardware?

00:41:19 ◼   ► Yes, it is.

00:41:21 ◼   ► it's so functional for me to be able to just like,

00:41:25 ◼   ► you know, set the thing down in bed and like start a movie

00:41:29 ◼   ► or, you know, if I do want to draw, which I don't do much,

00:41:32 ◼   ► you can like bend the thing down.

00:41:34 ◼   ► For me, the trade-off is worth it.

00:41:35 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, in the kickstand's favor too,

00:41:38 ◼   ► you always have a way to stand it up.

00:41:40 ◼   ► You're never without it.

00:41:42 ◼   ► You're not, oh, I forgot to take my little, you know,

00:41:45 ◼   ► $10 tripod thing that's just to prop it up

00:41:48 ◼   ► so that I can watch a movie, you know.

00:41:50 ◼   ► I forgot to put it in my bag.

00:41:52 ◼   ► Now how am I gonna prop this thing up?

00:41:54 ◼   ► The drawing thing is interesting too.

00:41:58 ◼   ► I mean, it is very, very clear

00:42:01 ◼   ► that the iPad Magic Keyboard is only meant

00:42:04 ◼   ► to be used in laptop angles.

00:42:08 ◼   ► And Apple says 90 to 130.

00:42:11 ◼   ► The 130 is the maximum open angle.

00:42:14 ◼   ► You can actually open it less than 90.

00:42:17 ◼   ► You can, you know, it stays where it is

00:42:20 ◼   ► at like 80 to 75 degrees.

00:42:22 ◼   ► It's just that there's no, they don't even advertise

00:42:24 ◼   ► that as a feature because it's almost,

00:42:27 ◼   ► who would never-- - Who would want that.

00:42:28 ◼   ► - Who would want that.

00:42:29 ◼   ► I do find, I'm not an illustrator,

00:42:33 ◼   ► so I don't really draw much.

00:42:35 ◼   ► I do find that it's a little bit,

00:42:37 ◼   ► I have a pencil though and I do write notes with my iPad.

00:42:41 ◼   ► I find that it's easier to write on the screen

00:42:43 ◼   ► than I expected while it's in the Magic Keyboard,

00:42:47 ◼   ► but I will admit that I wouldn't wanna write extensively,

00:42:51 ◼   ► but it's not super awkward.

00:42:53 ◼   ► And then I thought about it.

00:42:54 ◼   ► I was like, well, people write on whiteboards

00:42:56 ◼   ► at a 90-degree angle all the time.

00:42:58 ◼   ► And I know that ergonomically something that's,

00:43:01 ◼   ► while you're standing up, writing at something chest high

00:43:06 ◼   ► is a lot different ergonomically

00:43:08 ◼   ► than writing on a laptop screen, but it's not ridiculous.

00:43:11 ◼   ► And if it's literally on your lap, laptop, as a laptop,

00:43:16 ◼   ► like in some kind of, any kind of scenario

00:43:20 ◼   ► where you actually have it on your lap,

00:43:22 ◼   ► your lap can, depending on how you sit and your posture,

00:43:27 ◼   ► you can have it fade away from you, slope away from you.

00:43:30 ◼   ► So you can kind of get the iPad and a Magic Keyboard

00:43:35 ◼   ► at a more amenable angle to drawing

00:43:38 ◼   ► or scribbling or putting notes.

00:43:40 ◼   ► And because it's so, the hinges are so strong

00:43:44 ◼   ► and the magnetic connection is so strong,

00:43:46 ◼   ► it, I feel like you could do it securely.

00:43:49 ◼   ► So I don't feel like it's preventing you

00:43:52 ◼   ► from using your Apple Pencil while it's connected.

00:43:54 ◼   ► It's just, it's certainly not ideal though,

00:43:57 ◼   ► compared to something that can fold all the way around.

00:44:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, and like the whole question is like,

00:44:02 ◼   ► is the kickstand worth it or, and this is,

00:44:05 ◼   ► I tried to, I didn't do this really elegantly,

00:44:07 ◼   ► but like, there's nothing essential

00:44:11 ◼   ► about the shape of the iPad

00:44:12 ◼   ► or the shape of the Magic Keyboard.

00:44:14 ◼   ► Apple could have chosen other things.

00:44:17 ◼   ► So the Brydge Keyboard, for example,

00:44:19 ◼   ► it is a proper laptop,

00:44:20 ◼   ► and it has these really, really strong clips.

00:44:25 ◼   ► And so when it's all put together, it feels fine,

00:44:27 ◼   ► but getting the iPad in and out of it's really awkward.

00:44:30 ◼   ► And so that's pretty inelegant.

00:44:32 ◼   ► There are other ways they could have chosen

00:44:34 ◼   ► to construct this thing as a physical object

00:44:37 ◼   ► that might have solved some of these problems,

00:44:39 ◼   ► but it would have ended up with trade-offs,

00:44:41 ◼   ► And it's really clear to me that the number one thing

00:44:44 ◼   ► they wanted to do with this design

00:44:46 ◼   ► was make a good keyboard.

00:44:47 ◼   ► And everything else, drawing, watching a movie on it,

00:44:51 ◼   ► whatever else you might want to do was secondary to,

00:44:54 ◼   ► let's have a big, flat, solid metal base

00:44:57 ◼   ► so that it feels rock solid,

00:44:58 ◼   ► and then let's put a really good magic keyboard on it.

00:45:01 ◼   ► And that's what it's for.

00:45:04 ◼   ► And then everything else had to wait after that.

00:45:07 ◼   ► - So here's another thing,

00:45:08 ◼   ► And it's like sort of unfortunate timing for Apple

00:45:12 ◼   ► that this thing came out in the midst of this pandemic

00:45:16 ◼   ► that has everybody doing 10 times or more video conferences

00:45:21 ◼   ► than they've ever done before.

00:45:24 ◼   ► The camera, I mean, famously, Joanna Stern

00:45:31 ◼   ► just did a whole video about how terrible laptop cameras are

00:45:34 ◼   ► and the new MacBook Air camera in particular

00:45:37 ◼   ► and that saying that it's 720p resolution

00:45:40 ◼   ► doesn't even get to how bad it is in low light.

00:45:43 ◼   ► It has nothing to do with resolution, it's just bad.

00:45:45 ◼   ► And iPads have really good FaceTime cameras,

00:45:48 ◼   ► the front-facing camera.

00:45:50 ◼   ► And so if you're just going to do a FaceTime or a Zoom call,

00:45:54 ◼   ► you're gonna get a much better picture quality of yourself

00:45:57 ◼   ► from an iPad than you are from any MacBook.

00:46:02 ◼   ► But it's over on the side.

00:46:05 ◼   ► And so it really exacerbates this sort of,

00:46:10 ◼   ► I don't know, you just look, you're looking right at it,

00:46:12 ◼   ► you're fully engaged, and it looks like you're reading

00:46:15 ◼   ► email or Twitter off on the side

00:46:17 ◼   ► because your eyes are way off center.

00:46:20 ◼   ► - And if you decide you do want to read email

00:46:22 ◼   ► or Twitter off the side, most video conferencing apps,

00:46:25 ◼   ► especially Zoom, I think all of them actually,

00:46:27 ◼   ► completely narc on you by turning off your video

00:46:30 ◼   ► because the iPad is super secure and any app

00:46:32 ◼   ► that isn't the front most is not allowed

00:46:34 ◼   ► to have the camera lit up.

00:46:35 ◼   ► - Right. (laughs)

00:46:37 ◼   ► I didn't even think about that aspect, but yeah.

00:46:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a huge hassle.

00:46:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:46:44 ◼   ► - I've been trying to spy on my son,

00:46:47 ◼   ► who's in 10th grade, doing quote unquote Zoom school.

00:46:51 ◼   ► And it seems like they pay attention,

00:46:54 ◼   ► but there is absolutely a back channel.

00:46:56 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:46:57 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, for sure.

00:47:00 ◼   ► - I've said this, they've straightened it out.

00:47:02 ◼   ► It was like day one, day one of Zoom school,

00:47:04 ◼   ► they got a Zoom bomber,

00:47:06 ◼   ► and the back channel went crazy.

00:47:09 ◼   ► The one kid photoshopped like a wanted poster for the guy.

00:47:12 ◼   ► And he didn't do anything.

00:47:13 ◼   ► He didn't speak up.

00:47:15 ◼   ► He didn't do anything inappropriate.

00:47:16 ◼   ► He didn't put any porno into the video.

00:47:19 ◼   ► He just sat there and listened to them

00:47:21 ◼   ► talk about English literature.

00:47:24 ◼   ► And the teacher apparently didn't notice,

00:47:26 ◼   ► but all the kids noticed that a 25-year-old man

00:47:29 ◼   ► was just creeping on their English class.

00:47:31 ◼   ► - God. - You know, and then the school

00:47:34 ◼   ► quickly, you know, it became a thing where we all,

00:47:36 ◼   ► all the parents got email and again,

00:47:38 ◼   ► nothing inappropriate even happened,

00:47:40 ◼   ► but you know, and they're like,

00:47:41 ◼   ► we're gonna change our policy and have, you know,

00:47:45 ◼   ► I forget what, I don't know if they have passwords

00:47:47 ◼   ► or if the teacher is white listing who's in,

00:47:49 ◼   ► yeah, they fixed it, but.

00:47:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's a mix of fixes they've instituted.

00:47:54 ◼   ► They've been updating the thing almost weekly now.

00:47:57 ◼   ► They just, I think they just put out version 5.0.

00:48:00 ◼   ► The big hassle for me is to fix this camera problem.

00:48:03 ◼   ► I had to buy a really nice video camera

00:48:05 ◼   ► and you can use software like Cam Twist or OSB

00:48:09 ◼   ► to make a virtual webcam out of any camera that you want

00:48:13 ◼   ► or out of any window you want, literally anything.

00:48:16 ◼   ► But the Zoom set it up so that it no longer

00:48:19 ◼   ► will accept virtual webcams 'cause it's using

00:48:22 ◼   ► some other more standard Apple library

00:48:24 ◼   ► that is a little bit more locked down.

00:48:26 ◼   ► And so there are people that are now,

00:48:28 ◼   ► because they so desperately need virtual webcams

00:48:31 ◼   ► to run their classroom or, you know,

00:48:33 ◼   ► just because they want to have a nicer looking camera,

00:48:35 ◼   ► you either have to like downgrade your Zoom

00:48:37 ◼   ► to something more insecure,

00:48:39 ◼   ► or you can go in and remove the code signing on the Zoom app

00:48:43 ◼   ► and then it will accept virtual webcams.

00:48:45 ◼   ► So the thing is like Zoom got super successful

00:48:49 ◼   ► because it was, you know,

00:48:50 ◼   ► it did a whole bunch of growth hacks and it was way easier.

00:48:53 ◼   ► And they also played fast and loose with security.

00:48:55 ◼   ► Now that they're doing the right thing,

00:48:57 ◼   ► They brought on Alex Stamos from Facebook

00:48:59 ◼   ► to be a consultant, all this stuff.

00:49:01 ◼   ► People are still like, "Well, I'm still gonna disable

00:49:04 ◼   ► "some of your security 'cause I wanna do a thing with it."

00:49:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've heard from a couple people

00:49:10 ◼   ► who are having great success with iPhones

00:49:12 ◼   ► as their virtual web cameras.

00:49:14 ◼   ► Again, it's like, all right, the world is short

00:49:18 ◼   ► of commercial or domestic toilet paper,

00:49:22 ◼   ► and okay, I get it.

00:49:23 ◼   ► Everybody gets it, where everybody's pooping at home

00:49:26 ◼   ► instead of pooping at school or in the office

00:49:28 ◼   ► or wherever else we've gone to the bathroom.

00:49:30 ◼   ► And so, yeah, yeah, it makes sense.

00:49:32 ◼   ► The run on webcams, it makes sense,

00:49:36 ◼   ► but it's like, if you worked at the webcam industry,

00:49:41 ◼   ► you're like a webcam supply chain person at Logitech

00:49:45 ◼   ► or one of these companies.

00:49:47 ◼   ► Like, who would have thought that your job

00:49:49 ◼   ► would become a pants-on-fire company-wide emergency in 2020?

00:49:55 ◼   ► - Well, and Logitech, they know it's bad for their brand,

00:49:59 ◼   ► so they're talking to every retailer they can

00:50:01 ◼   ► trying to stop price gouging.

00:50:03 ◼   ► They can't stop it on eBay, but they'll like,

00:50:05 ◼   ► they're hunting for Logitech cameras on Amazon every day

00:50:10 ◼   ► and issuing takedown notices,

00:50:11 ◼   ► 'cause they don't like the look

00:50:12 ◼   ► of one of their cameras being sold for $600.

00:50:15 ◼   ► - Right, it's bad enough that they're out, right?

00:50:18 ◼   ► Because it's like, oh, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth,

00:50:21 ◼   ► 'cause you need it.

00:50:22 ◼   ► It's all of a sudden your professional image

00:50:25 ◼   ► is being hindered because you don't have a quality webcam.

00:50:30 ◼   ► And yeah, it stinks, you can't get a Logitech one.

00:50:33 ◼   ► But then when you see one being sold

00:50:34 ◼   ► for three or four times the price,

00:50:37 ◼   ► it's like, oh my God, this is terrible.

00:50:39 ◼   ► It feels, you know.

00:50:40 ◼   ► Literally is like a black market.

00:50:45 ◼   ► It's not good.

00:50:46 ◼   ► But anyway, who would have thought

00:50:48 ◼   ► that would have been a go-go industry in 2020,

00:50:52 ◼   ► but here we are.

00:50:53 ◼   ► - Not me.

00:50:55 ◼   ► - Anything else on the iPad Magic Keyboard

00:50:57 ◼   ► before we take a break?

00:50:59 ◼   ► - Man, I don't think so.

00:51:01 ◼   ► The one thing is the charging port.

00:51:05 ◼   ► It doesn't do data, but it does charging.

00:51:08 ◼   ► I've got a little USB meter,

00:51:10 ◼   ► and it charges almost as fast as just plugging it in directly

00:51:13 ◼   ► which I did not expect through those little pogo pins

00:51:15 ◼   ► on the back.

00:51:16 ◼   ► It's like, it's just a couple of watts shy.

00:51:19 ◼   ► - So I totally blew that in my review initially.

00:51:22 ◼   ► And I don't know how, because I did measure it.

00:51:25 ◼   ► And I think that where I went wrong

00:51:27 ◼   ► was that I was measuring it while still using it.

00:51:31 ◼   ► And that maybe I was doing something that was doing,

00:51:33 ◼   ► like while I had it plugged in directly

00:51:37 ◼   ► in the side of the iPad,

00:51:38 ◼   ► I was doing something more intensive

00:51:41 ◼   ► when I had it plugged into the Magic Keyboard thing.

00:51:44 ◼   ► but I wrote in my review that it was

00:51:46 ◼   ► a significant difference in charging speed.

00:51:48 ◼   ► And that's what I got in my notes.

00:51:50 ◼   ► I really did, but I was totally wrong.

00:51:52 ◼   ► And Apple even reached out to me

00:51:54 ◼   ► in the very kind and nice way that Apple PR does,

00:51:58 ◼   ► where they're like, "Hey, we loved your review."

00:52:01 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Wait, why are we on the phone?"

00:52:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:52:03 ◼   ► But, you know, you said this,

00:52:06 ◼   ► that's actually, the team thinks

00:52:09 ◼   ► that that's not the way it's supposed to be.

00:52:11 ◼   ► I was like, "Well, I'll look again."

00:52:12 ◼   ► And I looked again and did it,

00:52:13 ◼   ► it's exactly what you said. It's, I don't know, maybe like 85% the speed, you know?

00:52:18 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like 21 watts versus like 25.

00:52:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it's really good, which is excellent. And it's, so I rejiggered that part of my review and

00:52:29 ◼   ► crossed, you know, used the actual strike through HTML thing so that I wasn't weaseling, you know,

00:52:34 ◼   ► I didn't want anybody to feel like I was gaslighting them. Like, I thought Gruberth

00:52:37 ◼   ► said that it was slow. I was like, no, no, I'm wrong. But I need to, it was so wrong,

00:52:41 ◼   ► I need to post like some kind of minor separate update to just say hey, this is actually a great way to charge the thing

00:52:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean that's that's that's how I charge it every night now

00:52:50 ◼   ► I just set it on there pick it up in the morning. Yeah. Yeah, it would be I don't know why they can't do data

00:52:55 ◼   ► It you know

00:52:57 ◼   ► It's I get I'm sure there's some kind of technical reason there that it's not really USB. It's just some proprietary

00:53:04 ◼   ► It would be cool if you could

00:53:06 ◼   ► But yeah, I think it's actually pretty much just USB

00:53:10 ◼   ► Which is why it's so bonkers that nobody but Logitech has ever bothered to make anything for it

00:53:15 ◼   ► Like I don't I don't think it's part of the MFI program

00:53:18 ◼   ► none of that, I think it's just that the the

00:53:22 ◼   ► Cost of making a part to work with the smart connector is so high that

00:53:28 ◼   ► You you have to have a high degree of confidence that you're going to be able to continue to make that thing for

00:53:33 ◼   ► Many many years and I think the iPad changes form factor often enough that only Apple is willing to sink that

00:53:40 ◼   ► That initial development cost in them. That's my hunch

00:53:43 ◼   ► I don't actually know but it is very strange if you if you really look around there's nothing that uses the smart connector

00:53:50 ◼   ► Yeah, but it is true. It is a little confusing

00:53:54 ◼   ► I find that as somebody who like I just said a couple minutes ago

00:53:57 ◼   ► I have for quite a long time been a a Bluetooth iPad user with

00:54:02 ◼   ► iPad, Bluetooth keyboard user with my iPad.

00:54:07 ◼   ► And it's nice for just walking around with the iPad again,

00:54:09 ◼   ► but then every time you go to type,

00:54:11 ◼   ► you have to remember to toggle Bluetooth on and off

00:54:13 ◼   ► or hit the button, you know,

00:54:14 ◼   ► you have to do something to get it to disconnect

00:54:16 ◼   ► from the keyboard if you haven't left the range.

00:54:19 ◼   ► And these days, I never leave Bluetooth range.

00:54:22 ◼   ► It's so nice.

00:54:25 ◼   ► It sounds like such a bizarre thing to complain about,

00:54:27 ◼   ► but it's so nice that it's not Bluetooth,

00:54:30 ◼   ► And so it's if it's connected it's connected and if it's not physically connected

00:54:34 ◼   ► It's not physically connected which makes you wonder why there aren't more peripherals that use it because it's so nice

00:54:40 ◼   ► Convenience wise but there aren't yeah, I don't know

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00:56:49 ◼   ► Alright next up iPhone SE and conveniently you also wrote the verges review of the iPhone SE

00:56:56 ◼   ► Yeah

00:56:58 ◼   ► this might have been my first iPhone review for the verse usually a neil i doesn't does them all but I

00:57:02 ◼   ► Had a little bit more space in my video time than he did

00:57:07 ◼   ► It is such an interesting product and I

00:57:13 ◼   ► Like it. I think it's I think it's a really great little thing

00:57:18 ◼   ► I think it's just what the doctor ordered for an awful lot of iPhone users

00:57:25 ◼   ► But it is also the strangest

00:57:28 ◼   ► Phone I think any company will release this year because I don't think any company but Apple could possibly

00:57:35 ◼   ► Release a phone like this. I

00:57:38 ◼   ► Mean it I

00:57:41 ◼   ► Agree it's it's a it's funny the it actually had to restrain myself

00:57:48 ◼   ► from like certain kinds of praise because I just I know that in a few

00:57:53 ◼   ► years it may not age as well as it feels right now but the idea that you could

00:58:01 ◼   ► get a phone of this quality that can do these things for $400 is it's just

00:58:08 ◼   ► shocking it's it's so incredibly good it's a mix of things that are two and a

00:58:16 ◼   ► and a half years old, like just the way it looks,

00:58:19 ◼   ► the display, the display gets a lot of that attention

00:58:22 ◼   ► because so much, and we'll get to this

00:58:24 ◼   ► when we talk about Android phones too,

00:58:25 ◼   ► but for obvious reasons, it is the most obvious thing

00:58:29 ◼   ► that the whole point of the last 14, 13 years

00:58:34 ◼   ► of smartphone design is that they are quote, unquote,

00:58:37 ◼   ► all display, and slowly but surely,

00:58:40 ◼   ► as they've evolved across the board,

00:58:44 ◼   ► they've actually gotten more and more all display.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Like the 20, the original iPhone at the time seemed like,

00:58:52 ◼   ► oh my God, it's all display, there's only one button.

00:58:54 ◼   ► Whereas now the screen to surface area ratio

00:58:58 ◼   ► of the original iPhone seems comically small

00:59:01 ◼   ► for this display.

00:59:03 ◼   ► Well, by modern standards, meaning 2020,

00:59:06 ◼   ► the new iPhone SE has very large chin and forehead.

00:59:11 ◼   ► I mean, you just don't--

00:59:13 ◼   ► - There's no getting around it.

00:59:14 ◼   ► - There's no getting around it.

00:59:16 ◼   ► - So, the immediate response to that complaint is,

00:59:20 ◼   ► well, you know that that was how they got the price down.

00:59:23 ◼   ► Is like they were able to use the factories

00:59:25 ◼   ► they've had online since 2014 or whatever

00:59:28 ◼   ► to just keep making this thing

00:59:30 ◼   ► and they didn't have to retool anything,

00:59:31 ◼   ► which I get, but that also is not my problem.

00:59:36 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:59:38 ◼   ► - It's, I've used plenty of Android phones

00:59:41 ◼   ► that cost this little.

00:59:42 ◼   ► There's many reasons why they're not as good as this,

00:59:44 ◼   ► to be clear, where they do manage to reduce the bezel.

00:59:48 ◼   ► Now, in order to do that, Apple would have to make

00:59:52 ◼   ► one of basically three choices.

00:59:54 ◼   ► Number one, they'd have to decide to reduce it on the top.

00:59:58 ◼   ► Well, number one, they'd have to retool everything.

01:00:00 ◼   ► Assume they're willing to retool.

01:00:02 ◼   ► They'd either need to reduce the bezel on the top

01:00:04 ◼   ► but leave the big home button on the bottom,

01:00:06 ◼   ► and then it would look asymmetrical and weird.

01:00:07 ◼   ► - And they wouldn't do that.

01:00:08 ◼   ► I guarantee you that's out. - They wouldn't do that.

01:00:09 ◼   ► Nope, no way.

01:00:11 ◼   ► They'd have to put the fingerprint sensor on the back,

01:00:13 ◼   ► which is what a lot of Android phones have done for years.

01:00:16 ◼   ► I don't know if they'd be willing to do that.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Or they would need to spend the extra money

01:00:20 ◼   ► to do an in-screen fingerprint sensor,

01:00:23 ◼   ► which even in the best of cases is not really that great.

01:00:27 ◼   ► And or number four, they'd have to just switch to Face ID,

01:00:30 ◼   ► which would have, again, added a ton of cost.

01:00:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so on number three,

01:00:35 ◼   ► putting the fingerprint sensor in-screen.

01:00:37 ◼   ► I wouldn't say that that's something Apple,

01:00:41 ◼   ► that's a great list, 'cause I feel like,

01:00:43 ◼   ► A, that list is comprehensive.

01:00:45 ◼   ► So the asymmetrical chin and forehead

01:00:48 ◼   ► is something Apple would not do.

01:00:50 ◼   ► I don't even think they would do it a little.

01:00:52 ◼   ► Like, and to a degree that's almost irrational,

01:00:55 ◼   ► like when you look at a lot of the flagship Android phones

01:00:59 ◼   ► that are out there, where there's a little bit more

01:01:02 ◼   ► of a chin than the forehead,

01:01:04 ◼   ► and I don't think that's a particularly bad look,

01:01:07 ◼   ► especially if we're going to concede

01:01:11 ◼   ► that the Apple phones, since the iPhone X,

01:01:15 ◼   ► have a notch on the one side, right?

01:01:19 ◼   ► Like the notch, whatever you think of it,

01:01:21 ◼   ► is far more obtrusive and asymmetrical

01:01:26 ◼   ► than the fact that the bezel other than the notch on the top

01:01:31 ◼   ► is the same exact size as the bezel along the bottom

01:01:35 ◼   ► that doesn't have a notch.

01:01:36 ◼   ► but I mean, you know what I mean?

01:01:38 ◼   ► It's crazy that they're fanatical

01:01:41 ◼   ► about making the bezel symmetric on all four sides

01:01:44 ◼   ► when they were willing to use a notch

01:01:46 ◼   ► for the face ID array, but they are.

01:01:50 ◼   ► And there is something in Apple's internal design aesthetics

01:01:54 ◼   ► that I'm not even saying I agree with it,

01:01:56 ◼   ► but I can feel it in my teeth

01:02:00 ◼   ► that they feel that asymmetry in that way is wrong.

01:02:04 ◼   ► So they're not gonna do it.

01:02:06 ◼   ► The in-screen fingerprint thing, I think they would do in theory.

01:02:10 ◼   ► I think they might do going forward as an additional thing in addition to face ID.

01:02:15 ◼   ► I know there've been rumors along that line, but even without the rumors, I just feel like,

01:02:19 ◼   ► eh, if they could do it right, they might, but there's no way they would do it in an

01:02:24 ◼   ► SE.

01:02:25 ◼   ► Right?

01:02:26 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:02:27 ◼   ► Well, so there's a couple, I mean, one, it's expensive.

01:02:29 ◼   ► But two, I believe it requires that you use an OLED screen, not an LCD, because like the

01:02:35 ◼   ► needs to have a backlight, and if you have a backlight,

01:02:37 ◼   ► you can't put a fingerprint sensor underneath it, right?

01:02:38 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, that makes sense.

01:02:40 ◼   ► - It works with OLED.

01:02:41 ◼   ► There's actually a fifth option, which some phones do,

01:02:44 ◼   ► where they either integrate the fingerprint sensor

01:02:46 ◼   ► in the sleep/wake button on the side,

01:02:48 ◼   ► or they have it sort of next to it on the side

01:02:51 ◼   ► as a separate thing, and again,

01:02:53 ◼   ► I don't think Apple would ever do that,

01:02:55 ◼   ► because that completely changes the modalities

01:02:59 ◼   ► of what you expect iPhone buttons to do,

01:03:02 ◼   ► and I think they very much didn't want to introduce

01:03:04 ◼   ► a whole new interaction model into an iPhone SE

01:03:09 ◼   ► that wasn't there before.

01:03:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, and we'll have to get to that.

01:03:13 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't really think they had,

01:03:15 ◼   ► for the SE to be the SE and start at $400,

01:03:20 ◼   ► it sort of had to be this way.

01:03:23 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:03:24 ◼   ► - But then the weird aspects of the trade-offs

01:03:27 ◼   ► that they're able to do because they're Apple

01:03:30 ◼   ► is that they're able to put the,

01:03:32 ◼   ► not just good, but literally best of industry A13 chip in.

01:03:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, you cannot buy an Android phone for any price

01:03:43 ◼   ► that has a faster processor than this $400 phone.

01:03:46 ◼   ► - And, so A, competitive with Android,

01:03:50 ◼   ► it is the fastest phone that you could get,

01:03:53 ◼   ► and it's only $400, and as I really,

01:03:57 ◼   ► I sort of enjoyed pointing out in my review,

01:04:00 ◼   ► it is faster at single-threaded performance

01:04:03 ◼   ► than a $3,000 16-inch MacBook Pro,

01:04:06 ◼   ► which is the best laptop chip that Apple makes available

01:04:10 ◼   ► in a MacBook Pro.

01:04:12 ◼   ► And I don't wanna go on a whole benchmark digression,

01:04:16 ◼   ► but single-threaded benchmark scores

01:04:18 ◼   ► are more important than multi-threaded

01:04:20 ◼   ► for most people in day-to-day use,

01:04:23 ◼   ► especially on a phone,

01:04:24 ◼   ► because you're just doing things like that.

01:04:26 ◼   ► The areas where multi-threaded performance

01:04:28 ◼   ► can really, really make a difference in your life

01:04:30 ◼   ► are professional contexts,

01:04:32 ◼   ► like you're rendering out 4K video or something like that.

01:04:37 ◼   ► The things where multithreaded can really make a difference

01:04:43 ◼   ► are professional contexts or developers,

01:04:46 ◼   ► like Xcode developers can really make use on build times

01:04:50 ◼   ► of having a whole number of cores.

01:04:52 ◼   ► Single-threaded performance really matters.

01:04:54 ◼   ► JavaScript, for example.

01:04:55 ◼   ► So anything you're doing on the web

01:04:57 ◼   ► where it's powered by JavaScript code.

01:04:59 ◼   ► It's always single-threaded, and so it matters.

01:05:02 ◼   ► And it's $400. (laughs)

01:05:04 ◼   ► It's kinda crazy.

01:05:05 ◼   ► The camera is really good for a single-lens camera,

01:05:10 ◼   ► and it has features like the portrait mode stuff

01:05:14 ◼   ► that are really quite remarkable,

01:05:18 ◼   ► and it's $400.

01:05:20 ◼   ► It's a really good camera.

01:05:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, so actually the two things that make me go,

01:05:27 ◼   ► ah, about the iPhone SE is,

01:05:31 ◼   ► and honestly the only things that keep me

01:05:33 ◼   ► from just straight up calling it a triumph are,

01:05:36 ◼   ► will the camera and the battery in particular

01:05:41 ◼   ► feel like they hold up in two or three years?

01:05:44 ◼   ► And I'm like complaining,

01:05:45 ◼   ► will this phone be good in three years as a complaint

01:05:47 ◼   ► seems kind of silly given how long Android phones

01:05:50 ◼   ► at this price point tend to last.

01:05:52 ◼   ► But just in terms of like in the context of iPhones

01:05:54 ◼   ► and recommending iPhones, it is a thing to notice.

01:05:58 ◼   ► So iFixit did their tear down, went up Monday morning,

01:06:02 ◼   ► they were recording this,

01:06:04 ◼   ► and the battery is exactly the same.

01:06:05 ◼   ► In fact, you can swap out the iPhone 8 battery.

01:06:08 ◼   ► It's the exact same size battery.

01:06:09 ◼   ► And we know that those batteries, you know,

01:06:11 ◼   ► start to degrade after a while.

01:06:13 ◼   ► And the thing that shocked me,

01:06:14 ◼   ► given the quality of the camera,

01:06:16 ◼   ► is it seems like the iPhone SE

01:06:20 ◼   ► has the exact same camera module as the iPhone 8.

01:06:24 ◼   ► I thought it maybe had the 10R camera module,

01:06:26 ◼   ► but you can swap in the iPhone 8 camera module

01:06:29 ◼   ► and it just works.

01:06:30 ◼   ► - I thought that it did too.

01:06:31 ◼   ► And that's an error in my iPhone SE review.

01:06:34 ◼   ► I didn't say for a fact that it had the sensor from the 10R,

01:06:38 ◼   ► but I kinda thought that it did.

01:06:40 ◼   ► And I took side-by-side photos

01:06:42 ◼   ► within tough lighting conditions.

01:06:43 ◼   ► And it was like, "It looks the same."

01:06:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, so this isn't like guaranteed

01:06:49 ◼   ► they haven't done the full X-ray and taken apart this actual sensor module, but you can one for one

01:06:53 ◼   ► swap it out with the iPhone 8, which is a pretty good sign that it's probably the same, or very,

01:06:59 ◼   ► very close. It looks like it's a little bit smaller than a XR module when you look at the photos.

01:07:04 ◼   ► And that is a thing to be concerned about long-term, it might not hold up as well,

01:07:09 ◼   ► but it is a thing to absolutely marvel at in terms of the camera quality that they have

01:07:14 ◼   ► right now, you know, when they said we put the A13 in it,

01:07:18 ◼   ► therefore the pictures are gonna be better.

01:07:19 ◼   ► I was like, yeah, we'll see.

01:07:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I thought the same thing.

01:07:23 ◼   ► - But if it's using a sensor or something

01:07:27 ◼   ► that's virtually equivalent to the sensor of the iPhone 8,

01:07:30 ◼   ► and it's able to get, you know,

01:07:32 ◼   ► the quality of photos that come out of this thing,

01:07:34 ◼   ► I'm shocked at how good it is.

01:07:36 ◼   ► My only, you know, I think it's pretty bad in low light.

01:07:38 ◼   ► I think it actually falls down like a steeper cliff

01:07:41 ◼   ► in low light than an iPhone 11 does, for example,

01:07:45 ◼   ► or even, maybe even a XR.

01:07:47 ◼   ► But other than that, there's really not a whole lot

01:07:50 ◼   ► to complain about.

01:07:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it doesn't do night mode.

01:07:54 ◼   ► - Right, which is weird, isn't it?

01:07:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, because I, so it does have the full array

01:08:01 ◼   ► of portrait mode modes for lack of a sub-mode and port,

01:08:07 ◼   ► you know, lighting effects, I guess we could call them,

01:08:09 ◼   ► in portrait mode.

01:08:11 ◼   ► And the ones that mask out the background,

01:08:14 ◼   ► whatever Apple calls them, I always forget,

01:08:17 ◼   ► but the ones that just isolate you, the person,

01:08:20 ◼   ► and mask out the background as black or white,

01:08:24 ◼   ► the stage light ones and high key light ones,

01:08:27 ◼   ► the other phones they've had don't do that

01:08:33 ◼   ► because it's, I guess, computationally

01:08:35 ◼   ► or machine learning wise expensive,

01:08:38 ◼   ► and with the A13, they're able to do it,

01:08:40 ◼   ► and the results are really good.

01:08:43 ◼   ► And I put it in a footnote in my review,

01:08:47 ◼   ► but I kind of like, eh, not really use those modes

01:08:51 ◼   ► since they were new.

01:08:52 ◼   ► Not that I never used them, but I don't use them as much.

01:08:55 ◼   ► And I realized, I was saying that other people may not,

01:08:58 ◼   ► but what I really was doing was writing about myself,

01:09:00 ◼   ► is that the live preview in the camera is rough,

01:09:04 ◼   ► and then you snap your self-portrait,

01:09:06 ◼   ► like with the selfie mode and the high-key lighting,

01:09:10 ◼   ► and it doesn't look good as you're taking it,

01:09:12 ◼   ► and then you give it a second or two to process,

01:09:15 ◼   ► and you get, you can, not always,

01:09:17 ◼   ► sometimes it's funky and your glasses are off

01:09:20 ◼   ► or your ear's not right or something,

01:09:22 ◼   ► but more often than not, it's actually really credible

01:09:26 ◼   ► and 100 times better than the preview would suggest.

01:09:30 ◼   ► - Yeah. - So I was like,

01:09:31 ◼   ► "Ah, this actually does deserve to be here,"

01:09:33 ◼   ► but if that's computational,

01:09:35 ◼   ► I thought that the night mode was purely computational,

01:09:39 ◼   ► and so the A13 would have allowed it and it doesn't.

01:09:43 ◼   ► And I don't know if that's just like deliberate marketing,

01:09:46 ◼   ► like well, like I'm sure it's not just a secret switch

01:09:51 ◼   ► they could flip to enable it,

01:09:52 ◼   ► but that they didn't spend time on it

01:09:53 ◼   ► because they didn't want the $400 phone to have it

01:09:57 ◼   ► for marketing reasons or--

01:09:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't wanna ascribe that.

01:10:01 ◼   ► Like that's like one step too far down

01:10:04 ◼   ► like a conspiracy rabbit hole for me,

01:10:05 ◼   ► although I'm tempted to say it.

01:10:06 ◼   ► I think the fact that if it is in fact something similar

01:10:09 ◼   ► to the iPhone sensor, maybe that's a piece of the puzzle,

01:10:12 ◼   ► but the thing that they've done here

01:10:14 ◼   ► that they didn't do before the XR and the X

01:10:17 ◼   ► was they are doing, they're taking multiple,

01:10:20 ◼   ► multiple, multiple photos in whatever they call

01:10:23 ◼   ► their advanced HDR, like the foundation

01:10:25 ◼   ► of what computational photography is these days.

01:10:29 ◼   ► And they are doing that with this camera

01:10:32 ◼   ► and this A13 processor.

01:10:34 ◼   ► The one thing that they're not doing that's pretty modern

01:10:37 ◼   ► is their depth map, as far as I know,

01:10:41 ◼   ► is completely done via machine learning

01:10:43 ◼   ► just by like semantically looking at what's in the image

01:10:46 ◼   ► trying to guess it.

01:10:47 ◼   ► They're not doing the weird thing

01:10:49 ◼   ► where you can like do a differential

01:10:50 ◼   ► between like two sides of a pixel or whatever.

01:10:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, so let me just say before we go on,

01:10:56 ◼   ► my personal belief is not that it's marketing spite.

01:10:59 ◼   ► I just, I think that there is something

01:11:01 ◼   ► about this iPhone 8 era sensor

01:11:05 ◼   ► that does not makes it incompatible

01:11:07 ◼   ► with the way they do night mode.

01:11:09 ◼   ► And the fact that they didn't hold back

01:11:10 ◼   ► on the portrait mode stuff makes me think

01:11:12 ◼   ► that if they could have done it relatively easy,

01:11:14 ◼   ► they would have.

01:11:15 ◼   ► And the fact that the $1,000 plus iPad Pros

01:11:20 ◼   ► that they just came out with

01:11:22 ◼   ► don't have those portrait mode features,

01:11:26 ◼   ► but they do have an A12 series chip

01:11:30 ◼   ► makes me think that it really is A,

01:11:33 ◼   ► tied to the A13 specifically, which the SE has,

01:11:37 ◼   ► and even the new iPad Pros don't,

01:11:40 ◼   ► and needs a very recent sensor.

01:11:44 ◼   ► And so the iFED SE has this, the A13,

01:11:49 ◼   ► which enables the portrait mode stuff,

01:11:51 ◼   ► but can't do the night mode, so that's my theory.

01:11:53 ◼   ► But yeah, I feel like on a podcast,

01:11:55 ◼   ► you have to toss it out, you know, as who knows.

01:11:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh, sure, yeah.

01:11:58 ◼   ► And again, like, I cannot wait for someone

01:12:01 ◼   ► to actually like break the metal on this thing

01:12:03 ◼   ► look directly at the sensor and confirm that it is the same because it might not be. It might be

01:12:08 ◼   ► something slightly different, but the fact that you could just swap the part out seems like a

01:12:13 ◼   ► pretty good sign. It's crazy. The other thing with the SE that it, so Apple is so different than any

01:12:20 ◼   ► other phone maker. I mean, they control their own OS, which is the thing everybody thinks about and

01:12:25 ◼   ► is the most notable aspect. But the little things like it's just underappreciated that they make

01:12:32 ◼   ► their own chips and that their chip team is like seriously like years ahead of the competition.

01:12:39 ◼   ► It's really a strange situation that doesn't have any historical comparison

01:12:45 ◼   ► and enables them to put a top-of-the-line chip in a $400 phone. Yeah, well and also like nobody else

01:12:56 ◼   ► has, I mean Samsung sells a shit ton of phones don't get me wrong, but nobody else has the

01:13:00 ◼   ► economy of scale to be like, well, we're already making so many of these 813s anyway, it would

01:13:06 ◼   ► probably cost us more to put a lower end chip in it and keep that production line spun up

01:13:11 ◼   ► just for this phone than it would to just use our top of the line one that we're already

01:13:14 ◼   ► making anyway.

01:13:16 ◼   ► Nobody else could do that.

01:13:18 ◼   ► So one of the downsides that Apple faces, though, is that they just don't make many

01:13:23 ◼   ► phones, model-wise, right?

01:13:26 ◼   ► So they, you know.

01:13:28 ◼   ► And even if you count, and people underestimate this, when you go to apple.com or when you

01:13:34 ◼   ► go into the actual Apple store, when the Apple stores are open, and you see what they have

01:13:41 ◼   ► on the table, they've got now, they've got the SE, the XR, and the iPhone 11, and then

01:13:47 ◼   ► the 11 Pros, and that's it.

01:13:50 ◼   ► But they still make a lot of the other ones from recent years.

01:13:54 ◼   ► still in man being manufactured and they're sold quote unquote in the channel like if you go to

01:13:59 ◼   ► Best Buy there's a lot more iPhones available like the iPhone 10s and 10s max and you know you could

01:14:07 ◼   ► buy I don't think they still make the original 10 anymore but you could you could buy it for years

01:14:11 ◼   ► after it was out of Apple's official lineup now you can even there I don't know if they're still

01:14:16 ◼   ► making it but in channel the iPhone 8 plus is still out there in the world uh I think they

01:14:22 ◼   ► might still be making it and if they're not making it making it they they stockpiled it because somebody

01:14:27 ◼   ► somebody had it in their review that that it's officially in the channel

01:14:33 ◼   ► because they don't have a home screen iphone in the plus size that's called the se there is no se plus

01:14:41 ◼   ► right but that means though that apple has to always kind of has to try to kill multiple

01:14:50 ◼   ► market segment birds with one stone.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And there's, the SE is trying to do

01:14:57 ◼   ► a bunch of things at once, right?

01:14:59 ◼   ► It's the low-cost new phone that will have

01:15:02 ◼   ► technical relevance for years to come.

01:15:04 ◼   ► Like you're gonna get four or five years

01:15:06 ◼   ► of software updates for an SE that you buy tomorrow.

01:15:09 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:15:10 ◼   ► - It's only 400 bucks, right?

01:15:12 ◼   ► And again, maybe for a lot of people,

01:15:15 ◼   ► 400 bucks still sounds like a lot for a phone.

01:15:18 ◼   ► But it's not a lot for a new iPhone,

01:15:20 ◼   ► and that's their answer to that.

01:15:22 ◼   ► But then there's also the segment,

01:15:26 ◼   ► I know people toss out their mom as a quote unquote,

01:15:31 ◼   ► example of a technically unsavvy person,

01:15:34 ◼   ► but my mom really is the perfect target

01:15:38 ◼   ► for the new iPhone SE.

01:15:40 ◼   ► She has a 6 or a 6S, I forget which one,

01:15:43 ◼   ► but at the very newest it's a 6S.

01:15:46 ◼   ► Her battery is failing, and it's usable,

01:15:49 ◼   ► but it's like she doesn't get through a day,

01:15:51 ◼   ► and she doesn't do anything.

01:15:52 ◼   ► So she leaves the house, her phone is in the red

01:15:56 ◼   ► by the time she comes home from a day out.

01:16:00 ◼   ► And I've been telling her, you should wait.

01:16:03 ◼   ► And now, in the last couple of weeks,

01:16:05 ◼   ► it's been really easy to tell her she could wait.

01:16:08 ◼   ► She doesn't want news.

01:16:09 ◼   ► She wants, and she's gotten, and Apple has her numbers,

01:16:14 ◼   ► She's gotten the email to her mac.com address

01:16:17 ◼   ► with telling her about the SE,

01:16:19 ◼   ► and she's like, "This is what I want."

01:16:20 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Mom, that's the one I've been telling you.

01:16:23 ◼   ► "You should wait for her."

01:16:24 ◼   ► But she loves that it looks like the phone

01:16:27 ◼   ► she already knows.

01:16:28 ◼   ► That is a market segment.

01:16:31 ◼   ► And the touch ID versus face ID thing is huge.

01:16:37 ◼   ► There are millions of people who just,

01:16:40 ◼   ► because they've never used face ID

01:16:42 ◼   ► and it sounds weird to have your phone

01:16:45 ◼   ► facially recognize you, they want a fingerprint sensor.

01:16:49 ◼   ► And so the Apple's trying to sell something to this market

01:16:53 ◼   ► and the fact that for all of we enthusiasts

01:16:57 ◼   ► who think that it looks dated,

01:16:59 ◼   ► that it has this chin and forehead

01:17:01 ◼   ► that go back to the iPhone 6,

01:17:03 ◼   ► is comforting to people who just want a new phone

01:17:07 ◼   ► that's faster and has a fresh battery

01:17:10 ◼   ► and works exactly like they did.

01:17:12 ◼   ► You know, the SE is trying to do all those things at once.

01:17:14 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's a lot and the fact that it's able to pull off most of that stuff, or all of it actually, is really impressive.

01:17:21 ◼   ► It's funny, I made a joke of this in my video, but I forgot how much I liked the home button.

01:17:28 ◼   ► It gets really nice. Actually, it's not even just the home button.

01:17:33 ◼   ► It's swiping up from the bottom for control center.

01:17:37 ◼   ► I'm so used to that at home, for going home now,

01:17:39 ◼   ► that it felt really, really weird to swipe up

01:17:42 ◼   ► and have control center pop up.

01:17:44 ◼   ► But it's just, it's such a larger target of a swipe

01:17:49 ◼   ► than that upper right-hand corner

01:17:51 ◼   ► that as soon as I went back to it and after a day,

01:17:54 ◼   ► it's like, oh yeah, I prefer this in a funny way.

01:17:57 ◼   ► Now, I would never want to go back

01:17:58 ◼   ► to not having the full gesture navigation

01:18:01 ◼   ► and swiping up from the bottom

01:18:02 ◼   ► is the appropriate way to do that, to go home.

01:18:04 ◼   ► It is like the thing you want to be the easiest.

01:18:07 ◼   ► So it makes sense. Apple made the right call there.

01:18:10 ◼   ► But you know, just like for a little while,

01:18:12 ◼   ► at least it's nice to like just have easier access

01:18:15 ◼   ► to control center.

01:18:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I kind of feel, you know, and there's, you know,

01:18:19 ◼   ► I've heard it from home button diehards

01:18:23 ◼   ► who are enthusiasts because they read Daring Fireball

01:18:26 ◼   ► and follow me on Twitter and that they're, you know,

01:18:28 ◼   ► oh yeah, I forgot the other market that this has been to,

01:18:30 ◼   ► Pease, is the people who want the smallest possible iPhone.

01:18:33 ◼   ► - Right, well, I didn't bring it up

01:18:36 ◼   ► because it's not, I mean, it is the smallest possible iPhone,

01:18:38 ◼   ► but that's not necessarily saying much.

01:18:40 ◼   ► - Right, right, but, you know,

01:18:42 ◼   ► and those people are really, you know,

01:18:45 ◼   ► heartsick that it wasn't iPhone 5-sized,

01:18:50 ◼   ► which is what they really want.

01:18:51 ◼   ► They wanted a new SE that looked like the old SE,

01:18:53 ◼   ► which looked like an iPhone 5.

01:18:55 ◼   ► And I tried to explain that a week or two ago

01:18:59 ◼   ► on "Daring Fireball" as to why that isn't really aligned

01:19:02 ◼   ► with Apple's strategy, even though that's a reasonable idea.

01:19:06 ◼   ► And if Apple made seven different iPhones at a time,

01:19:09 ◼   ► maybe one of them would still be that size.

01:19:12 ◼   ► But I think all the developers that are looking forward

01:19:15 ◼   ► to dropping that from their UI support are like, no, no.

01:19:19 ◼   ► Really, fewer screen sizes would be a little better.

01:19:33 ◼   ► So the one thing about the iPhone X style,

01:19:36 ◼   ► I wish we had a name for it.

01:19:37 ◼   ► You know, like when Mac OS X first shipped

01:19:41 ◼   ► and they had the, way back in like 2001 or 2002,

01:19:46 ◼   ► whatever year it was,

01:19:47 ◼   ► Steve Jobs introduced the new user interface.

01:19:50 ◼   ► They gave it a name, they called it Aqua.

01:19:52 ◼   ► And Aqua was that look and feel that they,

01:19:56 ◼   ► you know, it looked so good you could lick it.

01:19:57 ◼   ► And it's, you know, had this,

01:19:59 ◼   ► it just, it was nice to have a name for it.

01:20:03 ◼   ► It would be nice if we had a name

01:20:05 ◼   ► for the iPhone 10-style interface

01:20:08 ◼   ► where you swipe up from the bottom

01:20:09 ◼   ► and control center's in the top right.

01:20:11 ◼   ► Some things are the same,

01:20:15 ◼   ► but some things are fundamentally different.

01:20:17 ◼   ► And I've gone back and forth in my writing

01:20:22 ◼   ► calling it the post-iPhone 10 interface or whatever.

01:20:27 ◼   ► I get it why Apple hasn't named it.

01:20:29 ◼   ► They just sort of want you not to think about it.

01:20:31 ◼   ► But when you do write about it,

01:20:32 ◼   ► There's nothing to call it.

01:20:33 ◼   ► But the one thing that,

01:20:34 ◼   ► to me it's like fitting jigsaw puzzle pieces together

01:20:38 ◼   ► as designers, and I feel like Apple was like,

01:20:40 ◼   ► okay, we don't have a button anymore.

01:20:42 ◼   ► What can we do?

01:20:43 ◼   ► Well, we could swipe up from the bottom

01:20:45 ◼   ► like WebOS used to do.

01:20:47 ◼   ► I don't know if you remember that, Dieter.

01:20:49 ◼   ► - Do you think?

01:20:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I vaguely remember WebOS.

01:20:53 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:20:55 ◼   ► - You could swipe up from the bottom

01:20:56 ◼   ► and your apps would look like cards,

01:20:58 ◼   ► and then you could go side to side.

01:21:00 ◼   ► And you start fitting in all these things

01:21:02 ◼   ► that the home button and touch ID used to do.

01:21:05 ◼   ► And it's like, well, what about if you wanna authorize

01:21:07 ◼   ► a purchase and you're looking at the phone already?

01:21:10 ◼   ► Well, you could double click the power button

01:21:12 ◼   ► after face ID identifies you.

01:21:14 ◼   ► And they're like, okay, that's not perfect, but that works.

01:21:18 ◼   ► And then I feel like the one puzzle piece

01:21:20 ◼   ► that was left over was control center, right?

01:21:25 ◼   ► It's like top down was notifications and it still is.

01:21:29 ◼   ► And bottom up now is home screen and multitasking.

01:21:34 ◼   ► And the sides mean other things.

01:21:38 ◼   ► Like the left side is how you go back in an app.

01:21:42 ◼   ► And it's like they had this puzzle piece,

01:21:44 ◼   ► and they're like, well, you could go down

01:21:46 ◼   ► from the top right corner where the wifi

01:21:50 ◼   ► and cellular signal strength is,

01:21:52 ◼   ► because that's where the wifi and signal strength things are,

01:21:56 ◼   ► control center.

01:21:58 ◼   ► Also, that's, just gonna say, that's how WebOS did it.

01:22:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:22:04 ◼   ► - Well, maybe that, maybe that's,

01:22:08 ◼   ► wouldn't you like to think that there's somebody

01:22:10 ◼   ► on the team who was working on that who was at Palm,

01:22:12 ◼   ► you know, 10, 11 years ago,

01:22:15 ◼   ► who was just like, just keeps raising their hand?

01:22:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:22:20 ◼   ► - By the way, we solved this problem once before.

01:22:22 ◼   ► - Well, no, maybe, I'd like to think

01:22:23 ◼   ► that maybe the way they sold it internally

01:22:25 ◼   ► was they didn't even mention it.

01:22:26 ◼   ► They were like, "How about?"

01:22:28 ◼   ► (both laughing)

01:22:30 ◼   ► They're like, "Well, that could work."

01:22:32 ◼   ► It is, it's just, it's not,

01:22:36 ◼   ► ill-fitting puzzle piece is not quite right,

01:22:41 ◼   ► but it still, it just feels overloaded

01:22:45 ◼   ► at the top of the screen that it's--

01:22:46 ◼   ► - Well, so the way Android solves this is it just,

01:22:49 ◼   ► it combines those two things.

01:22:50 ◼   ► There's a quick settings area that comes down,

01:22:53 ◼   ► and then the notification shade is attached to that.

01:22:55 ◼   ► And so you can expand the quick settings

01:22:57 ◼   ► or the notification shade.

01:22:58 ◼   ► So the entire top of the Android phone

01:23:01 ◼   ► is both of those things.

01:23:02 ◼   ► And what you see when it comes down

01:23:04 ◼   ► depends on how many times you swipe down.

01:23:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, neither is great.

01:23:09 ◼   ► There's trade-offs with both.

01:23:10 ◼   ► But yeah, it's weird.

01:23:13 ◼   ► I had a really hard time with it

01:23:16 ◼   ► when I was trying to use the SE for a week

01:23:18 ◼   ► where I just kept going top right

01:23:20 ◼   ► 'cause I've really ingrained it into my habits.

01:23:25 ◼   ► The one that I just could not,

01:23:28 ◼   ► a few of the things I just could not get used to

01:23:31 ◼   ► is I could not get used to the fact

01:23:32 ◼   ► that you can't tap the screen anywhere to wake it up.

01:23:35 ◼   ► I-- - Yes.

01:23:36 ◼   ► - I just, I cannot tell you how many times

01:23:38 ◼   ► I thought the battery had died,

01:23:39 ◼   ► and I was like, wait, that might be a problem,

01:23:41 ◼   ► 'cause I know I had like 60% battery,

01:23:44 ◼   ► and now this thing's dead.

01:23:46 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:23:47 ◼   ► But it does still have the accelerometer

01:23:49 ◼   ► where if you like, it feels that you picked it up

01:23:51 ◼   ► or it feels you pulled it out of your pocket,

01:23:53 ◼   ► it will light up the screen.

01:23:54 ◼   ► And so I couldn't just tap it on the table,

01:23:56 ◼   ► but I got the habit of just picking the thing up

01:23:58 ◼   ► to wake it up.

01:23:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it's, and maybe it's like a review thing too

01:24:02 ◼   ► where I'm spending a lot of time in a review at a keyboard,

01:24:07 ◼   ► and the iPad or iPhone I'm reviewing

01:24:10 ◼   ► is right there on the desk next to me,

01:24:12 ◼   ► but I wanna wake it up.

01:24:14 ◼   ► I just kept poking at it, didn't wake up.

01:24:16 ◼   ► I'm trying to think what else on the iPhone SE.

01:24:21 ◼   ► Anything else?

01:24:23 ◼   ► I mean, you can make fun of me for being sad

01:24:25 ◼   ► about the headphone jack.

01:24:25 ◼   ► - Ah. (laughs)

01:24:27 ◼   ► Well, I'm not gonna make fun.

01:24:28 ◼   ► I mean, at this point, I give you credit

01:24:31 ◼   ► for sticking with it, you know?

01:24:33 ◼   ► - Well, so the only reason on the iPhone SE in particular,

01:24:36 ◼   ► and maybe this is patronizing, maybe this is whatever,

01:24:41 ◼   ► is that a bunch of Android phones in this price class

01:24:45 ◼   ► make it a point to leave the headphone jack in

01:24:48 ◼   ► because they figure if you're price sensitive enough

01:24:50 ◼   ► to wanna spend that little on a phone,

01:24:52 ◼   ► you're price sensitive enough to not wanna have to go out

01:24:54 ◼   ► and spend 150 bucks on a pair of Bluetooth headphones.

01:24:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, and you know, that if you wanna get replacements,

01:25:03 ◼   ► you do just wanna pop into the drugstore

01:25:06 ◼   ► and get the $7 ones, you know, that you don't even,

01:25:09 ◼   ► you know, you just, you know that they work,

01:25:12 ◼   ► you can just look at it, you don't have to look for like

01:25:14 ◼   ► a works with iPhone logo or something, it's, you just,

01:25:17 ◼   ► you know, it just has a headphone jack,

01:25:19 ◼   ► you know it's gonna work.

01:25:21 ◼   ► know, and you also know you have a drawer full of them, even if you're not the sort of person

01:25:26 ◼   ► like us who has a drawer full of all sorts of cables. Everybody's got a drawer full of headphones.

01:25:31 ◼   ► Pete: I keep a stockpile of the original iPhone earbuds that, you know, nobody really likes

01:25:37 ◼   ► because they fall out of your ear just because it's the most reliable microphone I have for

01:25:44 ◼   ► conference calls. Like, last ditch, my Bluetooth headphones failed, blah blah blah blah. I just

01:25:48 ◼   ► grab those, plug it into my Mac, and know that I'm going to have reliable headphones

01:25:52 ◼   ► and a microphone for a conference call.

01:25:53 ◼   ► I used to have a stockpile of them because I've bought a bunch of, over the years, I

01:25:59 ◼   ► just wound up, how could you not, in my racket, wind up with a ton of them?

01:26:04 ◼   ► I owned a bunch of iPods.

01:26:07 ◼   ► By the mid-2000s, by the early end of the 2000s at least, I started doing reviews on

01:26:12 ◼   ► a regular basis and getting review units, and Apple doesn't even want the headphones

01:26:15 ◼   ► back when you send the review units back.

01:26:19 ◼   ► And I wouldn't even open the new ones.

01:26:20 ◼   ► I would just put them, you know,

01:26:22 ◼   ► keep them in a nice little case and put them aside.

01:26:25 ◼   ► I wound up going through my whole stockpile

01:26:27 ◼   ► because I'm not gonna name names,

01:26:29 ◼   ► but it was my son Jonas who slowly

01:26:32 ◼   ► but surely destroyed them all.

01:26:35 ◼   ► Because while there are good things to say about them

01:26:41 ◼   ► and the microphone is one of them,

01:26:43 ◼   ► the the

01:26:45 ◼   ► durability

01:26:46 ◼   ► Yeah, much like light apples lightning cables the durability of the connector where it goes in is not great

01:26:54 ◼   ► Nope

01:26:56 ◼   ► Once he found out which drawer I kept them in eventually I went in I was like, hey, there's no more of these left

01:27:02 ◼   ► And he's like, yeah, do you have any more of those and I was like, oh my god

01:27:07 ◼   ► But on the plus side we got him air pods for Christmas like two years ago two Christmases ago

01:27:13 ◼   ► And he hasn't lost them either of them and so kudos to him and it is completely alleviated

01:27:19 ◼   ► His destruction of my entire collection of apple branded

01:27:23 ◼   ► Keychains. All right. Let me take another break here and thank our other sponsor for this episode our good friends at squarespace

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01:29:22 ◼   ► So let's, we don't have tons of time left, but let's talk Android. So I'm curious

01:29:26 ◼   ► to hear what you think are the flagships worth talking about in 2020 so far?

01:29:31 ◼   ► - So the most interesting stuff so far, there's a couple of Samsung Galaxy S20s,

01:29:37 ◼   ► the Ultra and the regular, and I put those in two different categories. Then there is the new

01:29:44 ◼   ► OnePlus 8 Pro, that's three, and then we're soon to have something from Motorola trying to make

01:29:51 ◼   ► a comeback. You know, there's a bunch of other stuff in and around all those, but those are like

01:29:56 ◼   ► the most interesting ones. I mean, the thing to know about Android flagships is they're all

01:30:01 ◼   ► completely dependent on Qualcomm processors, right? Like, Qualcomm has a monopoly in the US,

01:30:07 ◼   ► Samsung is doing its level best to break it with Exynos processors that it tries to sell

01:30:12 ◼   ► internationally, but like, in the US, it's just Qualcomm, and like, you get what Qualcomm gives

01:30:17 ◼   ► you, and what Qualcomm is giving Android manufacturers this year is the Snapdragon 865,

01:30:24 ◼   ► and then there's a 700 series.

01:30:26 ◼   ► And the 865 is notable because the 865 is the fastest one,

01:30:30 ◼   ► it's the one everybody's gonna want,

01:30:32 ◼   ► and it only works with 5G, there is no 4G version

01:30:35 ◼   ► because it has a separate modem from the processor,

01:30:40 ◼   ► which is weird, but that modem,

01:30:42 ◼   ► the only compatible modem is a 5G modem.

01:30:45 ◼   ► All of which is to say flagship Android phones

01:30:48 ◼   ► are just like every other phone, but especially this year,

01:30:51 ◼   ► they're coming in pretty expensive,

01:30:53 ◼   ► Even the quote-unquote cheap one like OnePlus is still you know, 800 bucks 900 bucks

01:30:57 ◼   ► um because they've got that

01:31:00 ◼   ► 5g radio that costs a bit more money

01:31:02 ◼   ► um

01:31:04 ◼   ► And so that the cadence is also weird because you expect phones to come in the fall

01:31:08 ◼   ► But Qualcomm releases these processors basically in the spring

01:31:11 ◼   ► And so the first one out of the gate with them is usually Samsung with the Galaxy S line. So

01:31:15 ◼   ► uh this year

01:31:17 ◼   ► Samsung was trying to pull off two things. They were you know, this is the big year for 5g

01:31:22 ◼   ► It's a big year that 5G is actually real and matters and it's something you're gonna want. I think that's not true, but whatever

01:31:28 ◼   ► and so they they wanted to push 5g with the Galaxy s20 line and

01:31:32 ◼   ► Then they have in the galaxy s20 ultra which is the big big big one the huge one

01:31:37 ◼   ► They were trying to push this whole new camera system that has a periscope, you know

01:31:43 ◼   ► So there's a mirror that like pushes down so you can get extra zoom whatever but they also have a hundred and eight megapixel

01:31:49 ◼   ► camera sensor in it that Samsung makes instead of just using a Sony sensor, which is what everybody else has been doing for years

01:31:57 ◼   ► So Samsung really wanted to like we can we can do this whole thing ourselves now

01:32:01 ◼   ► and

01:32:03 ◼   ► The ultra is just like 1400 bucks

01:32:06 ◼   ► Turns out that 108 megapixel camera. They didn't figure it out like that. They couldn't they couldn't wrangle it

01:32:12 ◼   ► And so it's it's got really bad focus problems and it's just kind of meh

01:32:18 ◼   ► Whereas the galaxy s20 which has a less ambitious camera is just a great phone. It's really really good

01:32:24 ◼   ► It's it's probably my favorite Android phone of the past, you know, six months to a year. I really enjoy it

01:32:29 ◼   ► and then the story with one plus just to ramble get through the rest of the ramble here is

01:32:35 ◼   ► To date their whole shtick has been we give you a really good quality phone

01:32:41 ◼   ► But we hold back one or two features to save a bunch of money so you can get

01:32:45 ◼   ► Virtually the same quality as Samsung phone

01:32:48 ◼   ► But you can spend a few hundred dollars less for stuff you don't care about.

01:32:53 ◼   ► Usually that's something like wireless charging.

01:32:55 ◼   ► But this year, they decided they were going to take Samsung head on

01:32:59 ◼   ► by including wireless charging that's like super fast wireless charging.

01:33:03 ◼   ► It's really fascinating.

01:33:04 ◼   ► But also with working with more carriers.

01:33:07 ◼   ► So now it works with both T-Mobile and Verizon for the first time.

01:33:10 ◼   ► So they are really, really trying to come at Samsung's like dominant monopoly

01:33:16 ◼   ► in Android phones, I don't know if it's a monopoly,

01:33:21 ◼   ► but they've got a huge dominant position,

01:33:22 ◼   ► especially in the US,

01:33:23 ◼   ► and they're finally getting challenged head on.

01:33:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, yeah, monopoly's,

01:33:28 ◼   ► it's like a lowercase m monopoly, right?

01:33:30 ◼   ► It's sort of like Apple's monopoly on iPhones,

01:33:33 ◼   ► where they don't have 50% of the market share of the phones,

01:33:36 ◼   ► but they do have the only iPhones,

01:33:38 ◼   ► and the only phones running iOS.

01:33:40 ◼   ► And Samsung's monopoly is sort of like mental monopoly,

01:33:44 ◼   ► you know, on high-end, state-of-the-art flagship Android phones. I mean, however you want to

01:33:50 ◼   ► describe flagship, you know, Samsung has sort of had like a, they're at the forefront of this.

01:33:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, and Huawei was coming for them until that whole, all went to hell, but the reason Samsung

01:34:01 ◼   ► has that monopoly on the high end is because they've spent the past 20 years, like, forming

01:34:08 ◼   ► relationships with carriers and cutting deals with carriers in the US. And so when Verizon wants to

01:34:13 ◼   ► to have a new phone, Samsung is at the door

01:34:16 ◼   ► with a suitcase full of 10 of them.

01:34:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, so the 108 megapixel phone,

01:34:22 ◼   ► I still don't really understand how,

01:34:25 ◼   ► if most phones have 12 megapixels

01:34:28 ◼   ► and how it jumps up to 108,

01:34:30 ◼   ► because it's sort of like a funny definition of megapixels.

01:34:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, so they bin it down to, I think, 12 most of the time

01:34:40 ◼   ► So they combine all the megapixels together

01:34:44 ◼   ► into one larger pixel.

01:34:46 ◼   ► But the way the sub-pixels work is a little bit fuzzy

01:34:50 ◼   ► in terms of what the RGB is.

01:34:52 ◼   ► And so it's not quite exactly like one-to-one

01:34:55 ◼   ► what you would expect, you just get RGB

01:34:57 ◼   ► and then multiply it times never megapixels you have.

01:35:01 ◼   ► But the way the binning works,

01:35:04 ◼   ► the way that they combine those pixels

01:35:07 ◼   ► in like really solid conditions,

01:35:09 ◼   ► you do actually get a really high megapixel image

01:35:11 ◼   ► that does have a little bit more detail.

01:35:14 ◼   ► The problem comes is you don't actually want,

01:35:16 ◼   ► you're not shooting in perfectly bright light

01:35:18 ◼   ► with a perfectly still camera on a tripod 99% of the time.

01:35:21 ◼   ► And so what you wanna do is you wanna combine

01:35:24 ◼   ► all of those pixels in the hardware in some way

01:35:27 ◼   ► so that it acts more like a manageable

01:35:29 ◼   ► 12 or 16 megapixel sensor.

01:35:32 ◼   ► And they just didn't get it.

01:35:34 ◼   ► They weren't able to wrangle all that stuff.

01:35:37 ◼   ► Like the thing that makes the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra,

01:35:41 ◼   ► terrible name, oh, there's a 5G in there somewhere too.

01:35:43 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:35:45 ◼   ► The thing that makes that camera good

01:35:47 ◼   ► in so far as it's good is it's just a larger sensor.

01:35:51 ◼   ► It's just physically bigger

01:35:52 ◼   ► and that makes a huge difference.

01:35:53 ◼   ► - And that's sort of in even lay person's terms,

01:35:57 ◼   ► bigger sensor is in and of itself is always better.

01:36:02 ◼   ► It just means, 'cause it means more light hits the sensor

01:36:04 ◼   ► and doesn't even matter how you count the pixels,

01:36:07 ◼   ► it's bigger sensors better.

01:36:08 ◼   ► And it even goes back to the film days

01:36:11 ◼   ► where the large format cameras

01:36:14 ◼   ► that professional fashion photographers would use

01:36:16 ◼   ► or landscape photographers like Ansel Adams,

01:36:19 ◼   ► you could just get these fantastic images

01:36:21 ◼   ► out of this enormous compared to a 35 millimeter

01:36:24 ◼   ► frame of film negative.

01:36:27 ◼   ► - But so the dynamic with especially flagship Android phones

01:36:31 ◼   ► is really interesting and I think different than iPhone.

01:36:35 ◼   ► So everybody's cycle is slowing down,

01:36:37 ◼   ► that people are upgrading less often, right?

01:36:39 ◼   ► So that's thing one is everybody knows

01:36:43 ◼   ► that they're not necessarily going to get everybody

01:36:45 ◼   ► to upgrade every year, so that's fine.

01:36:48 ◼   ► With the iPhone, Apple just keeps,

01:36:51 ◼   ► it's another iPhone, here you go,

01:36:53 ◼   ► these are the new things we added to it.

01:36:54 ◼   ► But with Android phones, there's so much more competition

01:36:58 ◼   ► amongst the different players there

01:37:00 ◼   ► that they have to find some way

01:37:03 ◼   ► to not only convince people they might wanna upgrade,

01:37:06 ◼   ► but also convince people that they wanna buy

01:37:08 ◼   ► a Samsung or a OnePlus phone

01:37:10 ◼   ► instead of a competitor's phone.

01:37:12 ◼   ► And so they get into these sort of weird spec horse races

01:37:17 ◼   ► that sometimes lead them down blind alleys.

01:37:20 ◼   ► I sort of think of it in the same way

01:37:22 ◼   ► that I think about television.

01:37:25 ◼   ► So everybody bought HDTV,

01:37:27 ◼   ► and the reason they actually bought it

01:37:29 ◼   ► is 'cause it was a thin LCD, not 'cause it was 1080p.

01:37:32 ◼   ► And then after that cycle, all the TV manufacturers

01:37:35 ◼   ► are like, well, what's next?

01:37:37 ◼   ► Well, maybe everybody wants 3D TVs.

01:37:39 ◼   ► Nope, nobody wants 3D.

01:37:40 ◼   ► Maybe everybody wants curved TVs.

01:37:42 ◼   ► Nope, nobody wants curved TVs.

01:37:43 ◼   ► What about 4K?

01:37:45 ◼   ► Maybe.

01:37:45 ◼   ► What about 4K plus HDR?

01:37:47 ◼   ► Okay, now you're getting somewhere

01:37:49 ◼   ► and they're starting to get more upgrades.

01:37:51 ◼   ► So Android phones have a similar challenge.

01:37:53 ◼   ► They're trying to come up with the mix of magical upgrades

01:37:58 ◼   ► that will convince you, okay, I'm gonna upgrade

01:38:00 ◼   ► more than every three years or whatever.

01:38:03 ◼   ► And that more than anything is the reason for 5G hype,

01:38:07 ◼   ► is the carriers also benefit

01:38:09 ◼   ► from people upgrading their phones.

01:38:11 ◼   ► And so they really wanna convince you

01:38:13 ◼   ► that 5G is hot shit that you need.

01:38:16 ◼   ► And so they are pushing in,

01:38:18 ◼   ► there's like a cabal between the carriers

01:38:21 ◼   ► and the Android makers and Qualcomm

01:38:23 ◼   ► to try and spin up 5G into something magical

01:38:26 ◼   ► that convinces you you wanna upgrade.

01:38:28 ◼   ► And in certain areas, on certain networks,

01:38:33 ◼   ► 5G is very fast and very impressive,

01:38:36 ◼   ► but it is nowhere near, I think,

01:38:39 ◼   ► worth the cost premium right now.

01:38:42 ◼   ► A year from now, they might build out the networks even more

01:38:44 ◼   ► and might impress me and that'll be fine.

01:38:46 ◼   ► But if you wanna buy a new phone this year,

01:38:49 ◼   ► especially a new Android phone,

01:38:50 ◼   ► get it because you need a new phone

01:38:52 ◼   ► or you want the camera or whatever the other feature is.

01:38:55 ◼   ► Don't get it because it has 5G appended

01:38:58 ◼   ► to the end of the name.

01:38:58 ◼   ► - And it's always, it's like everything in technology,

01:39:01 ◼   ► there's always diminishing returns as the years go by.

01:39:05 ◼   ► And you know, you name it, it's always true.

01:39:08 ◼   ► You know, CPU speeds used to be such a huge deal

01:39:11 ◼   ► where if you bought a new PC 18 months

01:39:14 ◼   ► after your last one, it's like, oh my God,

01:39:16 ◼   ► it's like 10 times faster.

01:39:17 ◼   ► And you know, going from edge to 3G

01:39:21 ◼   ► was like turning the lights on in a dark room.

01:39:24 ◼   ► It's like, oh my God, this is unbelievable.

01:39:26 ◼   ► and then going from 3G to LTE wasn't quite as fantastic

01:39:31 ◼   ► as pre-3G to 3G, but it was still like,

01:39:35 ◼   ► wow, this LTE is seriously like,

01:39:37 ◼   ► might be faster than my Wi-Fi, this is really good,

01:39:40 ◼   ► and it's good up too.

01:39:42 ◼   ► And sure, 5G might be better than LTE,

01:39:44 ◼   ► but LTE is like really good.

01:39:47 ◼   ► - Well, it's like where are the pain points with LTE?

01:39:52 ◼   ► There's actually fewer than you think,

01:39:54 ◼   ► like streaming quality maybe could be better,

01:39:57 ◼   ► you know, like how often are you really uploading files?

01:39:59 ◼   ► Like the whole point of 5G is that it's going to enable

01:40:02 ◼   ► you to do things that you otherwise would only do

01:40:05 ◼   ► on WiFi or, you know, on Ethernet or whatever.

01:40:09 ◼   ► And I just don't think a lot of people

01:40:10 ◼   ► are like hankering for that right now.

01:40:12 ◼   ► - Right, and I've seen, you know, a lot of reports

01:40:14 ◼   ► that 5G might have a better story for covering rural areas,

01:40:19 ◼   ► you know, that they might be able to have,

01:40:22 ◼   ► with fewer towers and spread out more, get a signal

01:40:26 ◼   ► so that places that still don't have a good LTE signal

01:40:29 ◼   ► or any LTE signal might be able to get a 5G signal.

01:40:33 ◼   ► And that is great if you live there, but by definition,

01:40:36 ◼   ► it literally, by definition, there's not that many people

01:40:40 ◼   ► because you're talking about sparsely populated areas.

01:40:42 ◼   ► So it's not going to sell a lot of phones

01:40:44 ◼   ► because that's not where the people are.

01:40:47 ◼   ► - And it's also hard to know how much

01:40:50 ◼   ► that rural connectivity story is real

01:40:53 ◼   ► and how much of it is the carriers telling the FCC things

01:40:56 ◼   ► that the FCC wants to hear

01:40:57 ◼   ► and the FCC pretending like it's true