0:00:08From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, Episode 442. Today's show is brought to you by Rocket
0:00:15Money and Ladder. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason Snow.
0:00:20Hi, Myke Hurley. Shout out to our friend James Thompson as we do every 100 episodes when
0:00:23we hit 42.
0:00:24There you go. It's nearly James' birthday. This is an early birthday present to James
0:00:29Thompson, creator of Peacock.
0:00:31Happy birthday, James Thompson. Is it a momentous birthday? Is it a big birthday?
0:00:37Who could say?
0:00:38They're all momentous when you get to this age.
0:00:42Psst, it is.
0:00:44It is.
0:00:45I have a hashtag Snell Talk question or AKA just Snell Talk question.
0:00:50I'm still trying to work the hashtag out of my vocabulary.
0:00:53Phil asks, "Jason, if you podcast in your garage, does your car always have to live
0:00:58outside?"
0:00:59I haven't parked my car in my garage for years.
0:01:04California baby.
0:01:06Our cars are wet right now, but yeah.
0:01:09We bought a minivan in 2010.
0:01:11- Are you having the rain that I'm seeing everywhere?
0:01:15- Well, you know,
0:01:16still talk is not supposed to be about weather, Myke,
0:01:18but blue sky right now, but yeah,
0:01:20we've had an enormous amount of rain,
0:01:21enormous, enormous amount of rain,
0:01:24washing the dirt off our cars.
0:01:27We bought a van in 2010
0:01:29that basically didn't fit in the garage.
0:01:31And at that point we committed
0:01:33to just not parking our cars in the garage,
0:01:35at which point I realized slowly over a couple of years,
0:01:39I could actually use the garage
0:01:41and thus began our soft conversion of the garage,
0:01:44which is, you know, I hung the curtains
0:01:47and moved stuff out of half of it and put,
0:01:49we moved the door so it opens to the inside of the house
0:01:51instead of the outside of the house.
0:01:53But yes, Phil, that's, you've figured it out.
0:01:56We don't park our cars in our garage.
0:01:59Our garages essentially become half storage
0:02:01and half my office and our cars live in the driveway
0:02:04and the elements and the birds and the leaves and the sun,
0:02:09it's all on the cars.
0:02:11But as John Syracuse likes to point out,
0:02:14when he comes to California, he looks at the car,
0:02:17all the older cars we have here,
0:02:19and it's like he's in a museum, he says,
0:02:22because all those cars would have just rusted out to nothing
0:02:25and even driving around in Boston,
0:02:26let alone sitting out on the street.
0:02:27But yeah, no, our car's sit outside, that's it.
0:02:30- Like Cuba or something then, right?
0:02:32Isn't that the thing?
0:02:32all the really old cars in Cuba because they do they do because they don't they
0:02:36didn't get it imports for a while from anywhere except like trabies from East
0:02:40Germany or something yeah mm-hmm yeah if you would like to send in a question for
0:02:45us to open a future episode of upgrade just go to upgrade feedback calm and
0:02:49send in your snail talk question or use question mark snow talk in the relay FM
0:02:53members discord we're talking about Twitter later on today because feels
0:02:57almost pointless to even mention.
0:03:00You can send them via Twitter anymore,
0:03:02because who's there?
0:03:03But that's a conversation for later on.
0:03:06We have some follow-up, Jason Snow.
0:03:09First, I would like to thank everybody
0:03:11who sent in follow-up via the feedback tool.
0:03:14I think we got more follow-up in the past week
0:03:16than we have gotten in a really long time,
0:03:18so I appreciate everybody's excitement
0:03:21about the feedback tool.
0:03:22There was a ton of stuff, questions that we got sent in
0:03:25that we're going to use in this episode, later episodes.
0:03:27Lots of people just telling us that they love that we have the feedback tool.
0:03:30We're reading all of it. Even if we don't use some of it in some episodes, we do read all of it.
0:03:35So thank you to everybody that's been sending it in.
0:03:37And you can send in your feedback for the show by going to upgradefeedback.com.
0:03:41We had a bunch of people write in with fixes for the seasonal HomeKit items thing
0:03:46that we mentioned last time.
0:03:47So like, what do you do if you unplug your Christmas lights
0:03:51and then it just shows that you have an item as unresponsive in HomeKit?
0:03:55So if you go to the accessory detail view inside of HomeKit and turn off the status options
0:04:04that are at the bottom, this will remove it from the home summaries and then you won't get those
0:04:09errors anymore. And then there's a second part of this that a bunch of people wrote in because
0:04:14I was thinking about this. If I turned it off from the summaries I would lose it. I was like convinced
0:04:20that I would just "where are the lights?" right because then they're not showing up in any of the
0:04:23some reason I'd forget that I'd have to go into the specific room quote unquote in homekit to find it.
0:04:29So then a bunch of people said create a seasonal or holiday room or section in the home app and just
0:04:36move all that stuff there so then you'll know where to find it later on. So that's very clever
0:04:40and just like a good way to handle this. I'm gonna say Apple this is an opportunity for you to do
0:04:46something better here with this right because it makes perfect sense that there would be things
0:04:52that you'd only need at certain times of the year,
0:04:55not even just like holiday things, you know?
0:04:57Like as the seasons change,
0:04:59it's just like certain devices that you might not need,
0:05:01so you unplug them completely.
0:05:04And then, you know, it's all going wild.
0:05:06So I would like to see something to maybe designate
0:05:09of like, this device is not always plugged in,
0:05:12like don't worry about it, you know?
0:05:14- I like that I have created a deactivated room
0:05:16and my Christmas lights item is now living in there.
0:05:20- Thank you to the many upgradeans
0:05:22to send that in.
0:05:23Also got something from Curtis who says,
0:05:25"No one's buying a $2,000 Apple headset
0:05:28that does not already own the latest AirPods Pro.
0:05:31This is a non-problem."
0:05:32So this is in our complaint to the idea in Rumor Roundup
0:05:36of the AirPods Pro may be required to use the Apple headset
0:05:41because of like bandwidth and stuff like that
0:05:45for some things.
0:05:46- And I said, if I spend $3,000 on the headset,
0:05:48I want you to throw in the AirPods Pro
0:05:49that are required for free.
0:05:50So I disagree with Curtis that it's a non-problem.
0:05:53I think it's a problem for Apple.
0:05:54If this is a product that can only be sold
0:05:56to a subset of a subset of Apple customers,
0:05:59you also need to have this other thing.
0:06:01I think the idea that if this is a product
0:06:05that's only sold to people who have the latest AirPods Pro,
0:06:09I would also say that's a problem
0:06:10because again, subset of a subset, not great.
0:06:13Also let's all media coverage of the product
0:06:16include a free shot at the product
0:06:18by saying not only do you have to buy this thing,
0:06:20but you have to buy this other thing from Apple too.
0:06:21And oh, Apple gets rich on that
0:06:23'cause you gotta buy their expensive headphones
0:06:24in order to even use it, in order for it to even be usable,
0:06:27even if that's not true and it's got built-in speakers,
0:06:31they will take the shot.
0:06:32I think it's just a known goal, you don't wanna do it.
0:06:34And more than that, being seen selling a product
0:06:38for 2,000, 2,500, $3,000,
0:06:40and then being seen as also including
0:06:43a whole bunch of extra purchases on top of it
0:06:45that you have to add in order to have the best experience
0:06:47when it's already very, very expensive.
0:06:49I mean, I guess if you're selling a luxury car,
0:06:52that's how you do it.
0:06:53But that's my point.
0:06:55Is this a luxury car?
0:06:56Because developers aren't gonna build for a platform
0:06:58that is a super narrow luxury tech object.
0:07:02They need some belief that a lot of units are gonna be sold
0:07:06so that they can sell a lot of software
0:07:07to the people who bought it.
0:07:09So I appreciate the feedback, but I just don't agree.
0:07:12- Yeah, and I think that it is a,
0:07:14I don't know if I necessarily agree that like,
0:07:16just because you would buy that product
0:07:19that you would own every single product?
0:07:21Like what if you just didn't want the AirPods Pro, right?
0:07:24Like there just wasn't a thing that you wanted.
0:07:26- Non-problem.
0:07:29- Yeah, well, I just think that I agree
0:07:32with everything you said, right?
0:07:33Of like, you open yourself up to just more criticism
0:07:38over the already expensive product
0:07:41for the sake of 60, 70, 80, 90, $100,
0:07:44whatever it ends up costing, right?
0:07:46For the AirPods Pro to be produced,
0:07:49Just put them in.
0:07:50And I know that that is like not an Apple thing to do,
0:07:53to give you something for free or bundle it in the box.
0:07:56Like I was thinking about iPhone charges.
0:08:00Well, you know I have a good random piece of follow up.
0:08:03So I bought my mom an iPhone for Christmas.
0:08:06I think I mentioned this, I got her an iPhone 13.
0:08:09She had an iPhone XR.
0:08:11I got a call from her a couple of days after getting it
0:08:14and she's like, "There's something wrong
0:08:15"with the battery on this phone."
0:08:18And so I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
0:08:19And she's like, "Oh, the battery's running down
0:08:21and I'm running out of battery at the end of the day."
0:08:25So I was like, "All right, well, sometimes it takes
0:08:28a few days for some processing to occur.
0:08:30Just keep your eye on it and let me know."
0:08:33She's like, "Okay."
0:08:34And I was like, "Just take your charger to work with you.
0:08:36Do you have a charger at work?"
0:08:37She's like, "No, I just have a charger at home."
0:08:38I was like, "Okay, take your charger to work with you."
0:08:41She's like, "Okay."
0:08:42So, you know, couple of days go by and she's like,
0:08:44"I'm still having problems."
0:08:46I'm like, what's going on here?
0:08:48And then I realized she had an iPhone XR.
0:08:50She had like a 5 watt iPhone power adapter, right?
0:08:54So I had to then buy her a power adapter
0:08:59because she also had a USB-C cable in the box now anyway,
0:09:02right, so it's not, even the cable does nothing.
0:09:05And so it was kind of just my point of like,
0:09:07going all the way back to when they took the power adapter
0:09:10out of the box, like it doesn't work like that.
0:09:12Like the whole idea of like everyone has these things,
0:09:14it doesn't work like that.
0:09:15'Cause you, over many years, the amount of power required
0:09:19for these things changes.
0:09:21And just the secondary part of like,
0:09:23if this was purely an environmental thing,
0:09:26just give people the option to have one added in for free
0:09:28then every now and again.
0:09:29- Right. - You know, the people
0:09:30that update their phone every five years,
0:09:33they need a new power adapter.
0:09:35But, you know, they're now having to buy that
0:09:37on top of what they would have otherwise.
0:09:40- I'll also say that this is,
0:09:43The argument that they don't need to do this is missing the point, I think, of the fact
0:09:48that it's a design failure, right?
0:09:52If Apple releases a—regardless of the price, but especially if it's two or three thousand
0:09:56dollars—if Apple releases a headset that can't properly do audio in a way that really
0:10:02is immersive or can be used for communication or whatever without an additional purchase,
0:10:08doesn't that suggest that they failed at something in the product?
0:10:12If they're like, yeah, we couldn't do that.
0:10:15And again, I can see the argument that's like,
0:10:17well, actually what we did is we decided
0:10:18everybody's ears are different
0:10:19and everybody's audio preferences are different.
0:10:21And so we wanted to make that a separate feature.
0:10:23I'm like, okay, but like, if you're charging $3,000 for it,
0:10:26it's very hard for you to say, well,
0:10:28what we did was we cut the price from 3,200 down to 3,000.
0:10:32So now it's a deal and you can go buy a set of headphones.
0:10:34It just, it seems like a miss just to even be talking
0:10:37about the fact that everybody's gonna go,
0:10:40Like the Quest 2 has a headphone jack, right?
0:10:45So you can listen using the Quest 2 audio.
0:10:48If you want headphones, you can plug into the headphone jack
0:10:51and put whatever headphones you want in there,
0:10:53theoretically, right?
0:10:55With this though, it's like, well, no headphone jack,
0:10:56it's Apple, they need to be wireless.
0:10:58And then the specific report is that they need to be
0:11:00a very specific newest version of the AirPods Pro 2.
0:11:05So suggesting Apple's very latest and greatest tech
0:11:08is going to be required to do something that then, again, according to Germin's report,
0:11:13is a key feature of the product, which is communication stuff.
0:11:16It's like, that's where it all kind of like piles up.
0:11:18I could see it being sort of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you want a nicer experience,
0:11:22you get some headphones.
0:11:24But that's not what it is.
0:11:25It's like, if you want part of the key experience, you must get the newest chip that's in only
0:11:31a couple of Apple products.
0:11:33That's where it starts to become a little bit ridiculous when you're talking about a
0:11:36product that is not, we're trying to keep the price down. And that's why it's only...
0:11:40Like, I don't feel this way if after all of this it's cheaper than we think, which
0:11:45is, by the way, feedback that I've gotten from several listeners by various
0:11:51channels, which is a lot of people have talked about the iPad introduction and
0:11:55it being, you know, everybody thought it would be the iPad be over a thousand and
0:11:59it was $500, and wondering if Apple is actually sandbagging a little bit here.
0:12:03I'm not sure if that's true or if people are looking at the the bill of goods and
0:12:07Calculating a mark up in their head, but I have heard from people who say yes, but that way they'll dazzle us
0:12:13How could people be possibly impressed with a headset that cost $1,500 or $1,800?
0:12:19It's so expensive and the answer is prime the pump by telling everybody it's three grand and then when it's 1,500
0:12:25You're like, oh what a relief instead of what 1500
0:12:28But, you know, the cheaper it is, the more you can make the argument, "Look, if you want
0:12:32the best experience, pay a little more for accessories."
0:12:34But the more expensive it is, the harder I think it is to make that argument.
0:12:38Again, unless you're a luxury car maker and taking that approach, the problem is if you're
0:12:42trying to popularize this platform and get developers to develop for it, coming out with
0:12:49the ultra-high-end product is probably not the best way to do it.
0:12:54I think I mentioned the iPad thing on the episode too.
0:12:57It was like a hope of mine that they would do this, but.
0:13:01- You may, in fact, you did in episode 440.
0:13:04You mentioned it.
0:13:06An almost original iPad-like price surprise.
0:13:08And I know that because I now have a secret tool
0:13:11that lets me search old episodes of upgrade.
0:13:13- We'll talk about that one day.
0:13:16- One day.
0:13:18- We'll round up for you.
0:13:19Saddle up, Jason Snell.
0:13:20- All right, I'm up on the saddle.
0:13:22According to Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple has cancelled their plans for a full screen iPhone SE4 in
0:13:282024.
0:13:29Kuo, I think this is due to the consistently lower than expected shipments of mid to low
0:13:34end iPhones.
0:13:36This SE4 was expected to be a full screen experience and maybe Apple is just not completely
0:13:43sure of what's going on with this tier of phones that they make, so they seem to have
0:13:48at least put on hold or completely cancelled the SE4.
0:13:53But this has an interesting ramification, due to concerns over Apple's own modems.
0:14:02Due to the concerns that the performance of the in-house baseband chip may not be up to
0:14:06par with Qualcomm's, Apple initially planned to launch its baseband chip in 2024 and let
0:14:12the low-end iPhone SE4 adopt it first and decide whether to then use it in the iPhone
0:14:1816 to use its baseband chip depending on the development status of the iPhone SE4. A cancellation
0:14:24of the iPhone SE4 has significantly increased the chances of Qualcomm remaining the exclusive
0:14:29supplier of baseband chips for the 2024 iPhone 16 series.
0:14:34- Yeah, well, so again, you don't wanna make a mistake
0:14:38and ruin your iPhone, right?
0:14:40And we remember that time when Intel modems
0:14:44and Qualcomm modems were shared across an iPhone release.
0:14:49And it turned out that the Intel modems weren't as good
0:14:53as the Qualcomm modems.
0:14:54And I think Apple even did some speed gating
0:14:57of the Qualcomm modems so that they would all seem the same.
0:15:00But it was one of those, it was a bad thing.
0:15:01And the iPhone's too important to let that happen.
0:15:03So they have the smart idea, right?
0:15:05Of saying, let's test this in our iPhone SE, right?
0:15:09It's a low volume product.
0:15:10It's a low end product.
0:15:12We can put our chip in there.
0:15:13And even if it's slower than Qualcomm, what do you want?
0:15:16It's a cheaper phone.
0:15:19And if it goes well, we can look at the results
0:15:21and then we can release that chip elsewhere or not.
0:15:26And now the test bed is killed because I think,
0:15:31like you said, and we talked about this previously,
0:15:33Apple seems to be struggling with the identity of portions
0:15:37of the iPhone line, right?
0:15:39Like the iPhone mini and then the iPhone plus
0:15:41and neither of those seems to have worked
0:15:43according to reports that well.
0:15:44And the iPhone SE now being another concept
0:15:47that's sort of like, you know, maybe not.
0:15:50So they're struggling with that.
0:15:52But the, yes, the spinoff is really interesting,
0:15:54which is that was also gonna be their test bed.
0:15:56And if they can't test it with that,
0:15:58then the better safe than sorry
0:16:00to just kind of commit to Qualcomm for 2024.
0:16:03But Mark Gurman is reporting that Apple continues to work on their modem chips with the hopes
0:16:09of a 2024 release.
0:16:12So who knows what's going on there.
0:16:14Maybe they're still like still hoping that they can get them to work well, but if they
0:16:18do they're gonna have to take the plunge on it.
0:16:20Maybe they sacrifice another phone in the lineup, who knows.
0:16:23An interesting tidbit on this is it's not just the modem.
0:16:26Apple is looking to combine the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips together too and make them
0:16:30themselves to drop parts from another supplier, at least to design them themselves.
0:16:35And that seems to be closer to fruition that Apple – Apple's already done some Wi-Fi
0:16:39and Bluetooth in some of their products, but to take it to the iPhone, for example, and
0:16:44take those over, it's all part of their plan, but Broadcom definitely took a hit in their
0:16:49stock when the report came out that Apple was working hard and felt like they were getting
0:16:54closer to being able to build their own chip to do Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and not have to
0:16:59buy that chip from Broadcom.
0:17:01Mark Gurman and Ross Young are both reporting that Apple is looking to develop its own micro-LED
0:17:07displays for the iPhone and iPad, but starting with the Apple Watch Ultra first.
0:17:13Some debate on the timing of this is either going to be 2024 or 2025 for the first models
0:17:18to appear in an Apple Watch Ultra, but it's expected that production will begin in 2024
0:17:24at least, no matter when the devices are released.
0:17:27You may think to yourself, what's the benefit of this? Well, Mark Gurman says, "The display
0:17:31is intended to offer improved brightness, color reproduction and viewing angles, making
0:17:35images look more like they are painted atop the display glass, and replace parts currently
0:17:40supplied by companies like Samsung and LG." However, it's worth noting that someone
0:17:46actually has to make the displays, this is just Apple designing them and designing the
0:17:50technology. Ross Young suggests that it would still be LG display that does this, but Apple
0:17:55would be moving away from using their technology and designs, not their manufacturing capabilities.
0:18:01Right. So it's actually a little bit more like with Apple Silicon where Apple takes
0:18:05over design of the thing, but there's still somebody else who makes it, right? Taiwan
0:18:10semiconductor TSMC does that. This is going to be like that potentially. And also this
0:18:17is one of, remember, it's like Apple's smallest display, right? And then this rumor has been
0:18:21out there for some time. I think it's very easy to jump to the conclusions like, "Oh,
0:18:25"Uh-oh, Apple gonna make all their display technology
0:18:28going forward."
0:18:29And it's like, this is gonna take years, if ever,
0:18:33for this to happen.
0:18:34But I do think it's interesting that Apple decided
0:18:36that this was tech that they could push forward themselves
0:18:39and gain some sort of an edge.
0:18:42And so they have done it.
0:18:44Whether it's, you know, whether it goes beyond this,
0:18:47who knows, but it's interesting, right?
0:18:49You can see in all these areas,
0:18:51Apple trying to push a little bit on, you know,
0:18:53taking control of the key aspects of its own hardware.
0:18:57- And this was similar to the original Apple Watch
0:19:01had OLED, right?
0:19:02And it was OLED so, so much sooner than any other devices
0:19:07that Apple made got OLED.
0:19:08So it makes sense here too.
0:19:10- Right, OLED Apple Watch and then eventually OLED iPhone
0:19:12and still not OLED iPad, right?
0:19:15Or Mac display.
0:19:17So you can see the slow roll of display tech
0:19:22and how it might become economical
0:19:24in something like an Apple Watch display
0:19:26years before it might even remotely become economical
0:19:30in something like an iPhone, if it ever does, right?
0:19:32Because there's competing display tech
0:19:34and it might turn out that, you know,
0:19:37like a lot of us thought that maybe OLED
0:19:39would come to the iPad faster and it hasn't.
0:19:41And some, you know, there's different display techs
0:19:44with different price and performance characteristics
0:19:49basically, and something that makes sense on a screen
0:19:52this size for a product this price might not make sense
0:19:55ever on a larger device compared to some other tech
0:19:59that has different characteristics when you weigh them
0:20:01and say, actually we're better off with this other thing.
0:20:05So it'll be interesting to see what happens here,
0:20:08but I like that this seems to be moving forward.
0:20:12This was a rumor that was out there like years ago
0:20:14that Apple was trying to push the micro LED stuff forward.
0:20:18And 9to5Mac is reporting that Apple could have Mac news this week.
0:20:23"Apple could be making its first announcement of 2023 as soon as tomorrow," sources say.
0:20:29The company is holding Mac-related briefings with influencers and select members of the
0:20:34press this week, and an announcement could be made via Apple's newsroom website on Tuesday,
0:20:40which is tomorrow, as we record this.
0:20:42Certainly, we're talking about a lot of stuff that Apple could have done and didn't do,
0:20:47like different updates to maybe iMacs, MacBook Pros, Mac Minis, that kind of stuff.
0:20:54Yeah, that MacBook Pro, Mac Mini thing that everybody seemed to say was primed for the
0:21:00fall and never happened and they did that statement where they're like, "And that wraps
0:21:04up the year for us."
0:21:05Like, "Oh, wait a second.
0:21:07Okay, I guess that wraps up the year."
0:21:09And it did.
0:21:12know that suggests that that announcement's just kind of floating out there and I know
0:21:16Mark Gurman at one point said they don't introduce products in January so it'll probably be March
0:21:21and I remember at the time thinking well I mean no they've introduced products in January
0:21:25and if this report is correct it would suggest potentially that that thing that they couldn't
0:21:32ship in November they can ship in January so maybe we'll have something to talk about
0:21:36next week about new stuff that would be great.
0:21:38- It would be nice, well, hoping that they're exciting.
0:21:41(laughs)
0:21:42You know what I mean?
0:21:43- Well, right, I mean, yeah, the rumor of,
0:21:47you know, MacBook Pros are always exciting
0:21:49for a certain category, even if it's just a speed update,
0:21:51and waiting for the other to shoot a drop on the Mac Mini,
0:21:55that could be good.
0:21:57But who knows?
0:21:58I mean, Apple Card, like, there's lots of things
0:22:01it could be that are not as exciting.
0:22:03- We wouldn't expect, like, the bigger MacBook Air
0:22:07or Mac Pro or anything like that, right?
0:22:10- Anything's possible.
0:22:11Based on the rumor of the chain of events
0:22:16for all these products,
0:22:18the ones that are the clearest
0:22:21as sort of like they've been on the verge
0:22:23of being introduced are the Mac Mini
0:22:26and the MacBook Pro M2,
0:22:29which would mean we'd get a look
0:22:30at what the higher end M2 chips look like,
0:22:33which would be fun.
0:22:35But yeah, I mean,
0:22:35The Gherman's not hot on the iMac as a whole,
0:22:37but the Mac Pro is floating out there,
0:22:39the 15-inch MacBook Air is floating out there.
0:22:41There are some other options that could surprise us.
0:22:44It just, it feels like those two are, I mean,
0:22:47for a long time, everybody was pretty convinced
0:22:50who had inside knowledge that they were gonna roll out
0:22:52in November or October, and it didn't happen.
0:22:56So that, like with that MacBook Air,
0:22:58M2 that we were waiting for forever,
0:23:00like it kept, felt like it was about to come,
0:23:02and then eventually it would have to.
0:23:05These feel like that, but yeah, they could surprise us.
0:23:07Absolutely anything's possible.
0:23:10It's also possible that this is not right
0:23:12or it's possible that it's something,
0:23:15maybe EdiQ's got another blog post.
0:23:16I don't know, but we'll find out.
0:23:18- This episode is brought to you by Rocket Money.
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0:25:12of this show and Relay FM.
0:25:15According to Mark Gurman, Apple is looking at adding touch screens to the Mac. "Apple
0:25:21Engineers are actively engaged in the project.
0:25:26Apple has been long making comments about this being a bad fit for the Mac product,
0:25:31suggesting that the iPad is the way to go.
0:25:33And I have these two phrases in my mind that I'm sure I've heard at some point but
0:25:41Google was failing me today.
0:25:43One was zombie arms, the other was toaster fridge.
0:25:49Were either of these ever said and about the idea of touchscreen Macs?
0:25:55Zombie Arms, yes. Toaster Fridge, no. Toaster Fridge was about an iPad/Mac combination,
0:26:01like combining the two. And you can get to a touchscreen Mac sort of being like that,
0:26:10but that's not, I don't believe that that is what that was about. People can correct
0:26:14if I'm wrong, zombie arms, the idea is if, and again,
0:26:18totally overstated by people,
0:26:22ergonomically, if the primary way you interface
0:26:27with a screen that is basically perpendicular
0:26:32to your keyboard that you have to reach out for,
0:26:35so not in your lap, not in your hand,
0:26:38but where we put our computer monitors,
0:26:41if the primary way you interact with it
0:26:43is by holding your arms out.
0:26:45And you try to do that all day, it won't work.
0:26:48And you'll get the zombie arms, right?
0:26:50You're stretching your arms out,
0:26:51like you're looking for brains and you're reaching,
0:26:53and it's not great ergonomically.
0:26:57However, I don't know of any computers
0:27:02like PCs or Chromebooks that have a touchscreen
0:27:08and don't have another pointing device too, right?
0:27:12that are in that traditional configuration.
0:27:15I'll make all those statements.
0:27:17And having, I know many years ago, I talked about this.
0:27:20My daughter had a Chromebook with a touchscreen
0:27:21for a long time, and I would use it occasionally.
0:27:24And because I've been trained with the iPhone and the iPad,
0:27:29there would be a button, you know,
0:27:30like an alert would come up on the screen
0:27:31and I'd just tap it with my finger,
0:27:34or I'd scroll with my hand.
0:27:35And I wouldn't even think about it,
0:27:37of like reaching down to the keyboard
0:27:38and using the track pad or whatever.
0:27:40I just scroll because it's such a natural gesture.
0:27:42That's not the same as saying,
0:27:44I'm gonna do a four hour Photoshop job
0:27:47on my studio display essentially
0:27:50by stretching my hands out.
0:27:52And like, ergonomically,
0:27:54that's a totally different situation.
0:27:57So, you know, it's one of those things where like,
0:28:01I think Apple was making a very specific point
0:28:03about primary touch interface.
0:28:06And I think in some ways they were kind of cloaking
0:28:09the fact that they just didn't want to do it,
0:28:11because nobody was really asking
0:28:12for a primary touch interface,
0:28:14they were asking for an additional interface type,
0:28:16which was touch, because wouldn't it be nice
0:28:18if in addition to this beautiful trackpad and keyboard
0:28:20that you've given me, if an alert comes up on the screen
0:28:23and I absentmindedly tab on it,
0:28:25because you've taught me with your iPads and your iPhones
0:28:28that I could tap on that okay button and it works,
0:28:31that it would work on my Mac too.
0:28:33And Apple says, "No, no, you don't do that."
0:28:38And like, all right, I mean, that is,
0:28:40I don't think I'd agree with that,
0:28:43but that was sort of what was going on there.
0:28:46- In general, how do you feel about the idea
0:28:50of a touchscreen on your Mac laptop?
0:28:54- If it's,
0:28:57if it's a traditional laptop,
0:29:02it feels incremental to me.
0:29:05Seems nice, right?
0:29:07Would you agree?
0:29:08It seems nice. - Oh, I'd love it.
0:29:09Just for the convenience sometimes.
0:29:12- I mean, have you touched your MacBook screen?
0:29:14- 100% yeah. - Forgetting
0:29:15that it doesn't have touch?
0:29:16- Yep.
0:29:17- I do it all the time.
0:29:18And especially now that I have an iPad Pro
0:29:20in a Magic Keyboard, which we've had for almost,
0:29:24coming up three years now, I think,
0:29:26which has a laptop-like configuration,
0:29:29but also has touch, right?
0:29:30It has a pointing device, but it also has touch.
0:29:32And so, yeah, that happens all the time now,
0:29:34where I'm like, oh, I'll just scroll this.
0:29:36Oh, right, it's a Mac.
0:29:37I need to put my fingers down here
0:29:38and do two fingers scrolling on the trackpad instead.
0:29:41And is it better to keep my hands down there?
0:29:43Sure.
0:29:44Would I want my primary thing,
0:29:45would I want them to take my trackpad away
0:29:48on my MacBook Air?
0:29:49Absolutely not, right?
0:29:50Like, no, I don't want that at all, but I would like it,
0:29:54but that seems kind of incremental, right?
0:29:55That's like, oh, that's nice.
0:29:56That's a nice little addition,
0:29:58but it's not really groundbreaking.
0:30:00What would be groundbreaking is what it unlocks,
0:30:03because once you have a touchscreen,
0:30:06a lot of shapes and features of what we think of as MacBooks today are up for grabs, right?
0:30:15Apple, I think we would all pretty much agree, Apple has kind of perfected the laptop design,
0:30:20right? I think everybody in the computer industry would probably agree that if you talk about
0:30:24the traditional laptop design, which is a top and a bottom and a hinge, and you open
0:30:29it up and there's a screen and there's a keyboard and a trackpad, like everybody, the PC industry
0:30:33already agreed because they knocked off the MacBook Air. Every laptop is like a
0:30:36MacBook Air now. Not every, but you know what I'm saying. Like everybody really
0:30:41realized that is kind of the platonic ideal of a laptop for the last
0:30:46decade. But the PC laptop world is full of like weird other kinds of devices
0:30:53that are still running Windows but do different stuff. And Apple has not
0:31:01played in that other than via expressing it via the iPad, which is its own issue,
0:31:07right? Like what what are these two products? Apple sort of said traditional
0:31:10laptop, Mac OS and the Mac, and then tablet touch interface primary that you
0:31:15can put in a case that has a keyboard and all that iPad, and they're separate
0:31:18products. But what Apple has missed out on is the idea of, well, what if I want a
0:31:22device that is a, you know, PC, a desktop device, a Mac OS device, that can have
0:31:31the level of interface flexibility that the iPad has. The iPad starts as a naked touch
0:31:37tablet and then you can add on keyboard or keyboard and trackpad or pencil or external
0:31:42keyboard and mouse or external display or you know you can you can stack all of the
0:31:46things on top of that bare iPad. But the Mac can't do anything, a MacBook Air can't do anything
0:31:52other than be a MacBook Air. I mean you can close it up and attach it to an external display.
0:31:57that's the other, it's great active transformation is becoming a block of metal that runs other
0:32:03computers or other things, right? So that's what they're missing out on and that's what gets me
0:32:09excited about talking about touchscreen Macs is not the incrementally nice thing of like, yeah,
0:32:14I can scroll on the screen, but it's like what could that free Apple up to do with the Mac
0:32:20interface and the Mac hardware design.
0:32:23Because we've only seen iterations of these kinds
0:32:29of alternate products from PC manufacturers.
0:32:33And I personally don't feel convinced
0:32:36that let's let the PC manufacturers do it, they'll solve it.
0:32:39As a long time Apple product user,
0:32:43I actually don't believe that's true.
0:32:45I don't believe it.
0:32:45well, you know, we gave Asus and Dell and Samsung
0:32:50and Microsoft a decade to innovate here, and they solved it.
0:32:54Maybe they solved it, right?
0:32:55But it's like, what would Apple do?
0:32:57What would Apple do if they could make a convertible
0:32:59where you could take a standard laptop
0:33:02and turn the screen around, fold it down or whatever,
0:33:05and turn it into a tablet?
0:33:06What would that be like?
0:33:07That you could have a Mac that was also a touch tablet
0:33:10or had Apple Pencil support?
0:33:12what if you could tear the keyboard off of a Mac and still use it because its brains
0:33:19were all up in the screen? What would that be like? Like, they've experimented with this
0:33:23stuff but I wonder if Apple has something to add to the conversation. Are you excited
0:33:30about the possibility of a touchscreen MacBook?
0:33:32I've wanted one for years because I can't see any reason why you wouldn't do it. And
0:33:38I don't need a full scale rewrite of Mac OS to make this happen. I just want the ability
0:33:44to scroll a web page and sometimes hit a button with my thumb. This is a very easy thing to
0:33:51deal with.
0:33:52It doesn't have to change the world.
0:33:53No. I really don't need them to do more than that. I just don't feel the requirement for
0:34:00it. You were saying about PC laptops and the weird and wonderful designs. Do you know what's
0:34:05not considered weird on a PC laptop, touchscreen. Like all of the weird things that happen in
0:34:12the PC world, touchscreens are not one of them. In fact, it feels like these days if
0:34:18a PC laptop doesn't have a touchscreen on it, that is a point to bring up. Like I feel
0:34:24like just at this point, you know, yeah, look, go ahead and do something to macOS to make
0:34:30it more touch friendly. Like sure there are going to be some things that might be a bit
0:34:34tricky but you know what Apple like you really understand how to make touch
0:34:38friendly user interfaces and/or the ability to try and guess what someone's
0:34:43doing like we've all heard about that right like the you know it's not just
0:34:47where you're touching it's what they're expecting that you're touching and so
0:34:50much goes into that like especially with the keyboard and stuff like right you
0:34:53know it's gonna be tricky it's gonna be complicated but just start with like
0:34:58alright we have a touchscreen on this thing so now people can pinch and zoom
0:35:01and scroll and just go for it. Now here's the thing I wanted to bring up from
0:35:05Mark's piece. Based on current internal deliberations the company could launch
0:35:10its first touchscreen Mac in 2025 as part of a larger update to the MacBook
0:35:16Pro. Does this feel like the right Mac to start with, the MacBook Pro? Well if
0:35:22they're adding a touchscreen and it adds cost the MacBook Pro does kind of make
0:35:26sense. I do wonder, I have two thoughts about this. One is doing what you're
0:35:30describing which is just saying it's cool there's a touchscreen now whatever
0:35:34and like it doesn't change the world it's just like we've got the you know we
0:35:39got all these touch api's that come over and catalyst and all of that and like
0:35:44iPad apps will recognize it automatically and it's cool but it's a
0:35:48MacBook Pro still it's not any different right the MacBook Pro is a good choice
0:35:51for that because a touchscreen is gonna add some cost and the MacBook Pro can
0:35:55bear it and they can make some arguments that like you know this is the this is
0:35:59you pay more and you get more, you get this feature,
0:36:01and then eventually it'll come to all of its other laptops,
0:36:03but not on square one.
0:36:06And then the wild idea here is,
0:36:08what if this is more than a MacBook Pro,
0:36:12or not a MacBook Pro?
0:36:14What if it really is sort of like a new laptop
0:36:17that has support for some of this stuff,
0:36:20like touch and maybe even Apple Pencil again,
0:36:23and it's a MacBook Studio or something.
0:36:26It's like the Modbook comes back,
0:36:28but like something like that,
0:36:30'cause we're obviously, you and I,
0:36:33big fans of the studio concept
0:36:37and what other studio products could there be.
0:36:40I could see that.
0:36:41That might not be the 2025 MacBook Pro, right?
0:36:44Like the question is, is Apple's idea here,
0:36:46well, when we do touch on a Mac, it's gonna be radical.
0:36:49When we do touch on the Mac, it's gonna change everything
0:36:51'cause it's gonna free us up to make this Mac
0:36:53we've wanted to make for years, and now we're gonna make it.
0:36:55Or do they do the thing where they're like,
0:36:58"It's cool, no big deal, right?
0:37:00Like it's just, yeah, we have touch, whatever,
0:37:02we don't care."
0:37:03And then maybe they're freed up to do more down the road,
0:37:06but they start with just sort of like,
0:37:08"It's just a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen
0:37:11so you can scroll stuff.
0:37:13Don't get too excited about it."
0:37:16And honestly, it could be either, right?
0:37:18It depends, I think ultimately it depends
0:37:20on how Apple's hardware designers feel
0:37:22about the opportunities that touch screens bring
0:37:25to their product line and to macOS specifically.
0:37:28And do they think, well, no,
0:37:31because that's just the iPad.
0:37:32Then something like the MacBook Pro
0:37:36where it's sort of like, no, no, no, it's cool.
0:37:37It's just a basic touch screen.
0:37:40You're not meant to use it
0:37:41as the primary interface device, it makes more sense.
0:37:44If they are like, we've been dying to make a convertible
0:37:49and can't because of the touch thing, then they might get more radical.
0:37:56You mentioned in your link post on Six Colors that you think it would require some design
0:38:01changes to macOS to make it more appropriate. Do you have any thoughts on kind of the areas
0:38:06that you would like to see them tweak to make this a reality?
0:38:10Some stuff needs to be bigger, although honestly they've already been doing that work, right?
0:38:13Remember, we've been speculating about touch screens for a while now because they've been
0:38:16doing that work. They made a lot of targets larger. The menu bar is taller. Each menu
0:38:20item is a little bit taller.
0:38:22Because that was a whole thing with Ventura, right? Where like everyone was hanging on
0:38:25a, hang on a minute, and then Craig Federighi was doing interview after interview saying,
0:38:29"We're not doing it! We're not doing it!"
0:38:31And I also mentioned in that post, like, I have, actually, I use the screens app to connect
0:38:37to my, to connect to my Mac mini server, and for whatever reason, the, sort of use the
0:38:44the screen as a track pad to drive the cursor
0:38:46around the screen stopped working.
0:38:49And so for the last month or so,
0:38:51I've been using the tap to select interface instead,
0:38:54where I actually, instead of moving, you know,
0:38:56sliding my finger on my iPad screen
0:38:57to move the cursor on the Mac and then tap,
0:39:00I have to actually like literally put my finger
0:39:03on the thing I want to tap on and tap it on the iPad
0:39:06and it goes straight through to the Mac.
0:39:08Very different experience.
0:39:10And what I'd say is it works fine.
0:39:12It's not great.
0:39:14everything could be a little bit bigger,
0:39:16but other than that,
0:39:18and they could make everything a little bit,
0:39:20they could scale the screen
0:39:21and make all items on the screen interface elements bigger
0:39:24if they wanted to, but like it's usable.
0:39:26And certainly for stuff like scrolling
0:39:28or tapping on an okay button,
0:39:29or like it's completely usable.
0:39:32So I don't think it's,
0:39:33I think that there's work that they would want to do,
0:39:36but they've already done some of the work.
0:39:37And we're talking about a release in 2025.
0:39:40So they've got some time to do the work
0:39:42if they have decided to go down this road.
0:39:45I don't think it's a,
0:39:47this is one of those things that people say,
0:39:48it's like, oh no, they'll never do it
0:39:49because they have to totally change the Mac interface.
0:39:51It's like, eh, they already changed it some.
0:39:53Also, it's kind of usable as it is.
0:39:55And again, it's not the primary use case.
0:39:58It's not meant to be.
0:39:58Now, if they're gonna make a convertible
0:40:00that's gonna look like macOS
0:40:02when you put it into tablet mode,
0:40:03yeah, they're gonna have to make some changes.
0:40:05But who knows, right?
0:40:07Like, does a convertible Mac in tablet mode
0:40:09look like a Mac at all?
0:40:10or does it go into like an iPad-like mode
0:40:13where it's still macOS, but the interface changes
0:40:17when there's no longer a pointing device available
0:40:19and you're just using a touchscreen.
0:40:20That would be more work for them,
0:40:22although they could crib from the iPad,
0:40:24but it wouldn't require a redesign of standard macOS.
0:40:27It would be like an alternate mode.
0:40:29- And I think, safe to say,
0:40:32we are both not expecting by any stretch
0:40:35that this is a combo iPadOS/MacOS product.
0:40:39- Only, well, no, although I think that it's,
0:40:44if Apple decides to go with something
0:40:48that has a pure touchscreen mode in a conversion,
0:40:51I think there's a question of,
0:40:52is iPad OS essentially embedded inside Mac OS
0:40:57at that point, right?
0:40:59That it's a Mac that can also run basically
0:41:01in an iPad mode that is still a Mac, which is weird,
0:41:06but like they could do that if they wanted to,
0:41:08if they thought that was the best approach.
0:41:10I wanna take a step back though,
0:41:13'cause when we talk about the toaster fridge,
0:41:15this is the collision of the iPad and the Mac,
0:41:18which have come together in a lot of ways
0:41:21over the last few years, but are also still separate.
0:41:24And look, I don't have the answers here,
0:41:27and I appreciate how hard it must be
0:41:29for people inside Apple to make these decisions about,
0:41:32and we see it with that iPhone story, right?
0:41:34Like sometimes they make the calls and they think,
0:41:36I think this is how it's gonna work out
0:41:37with these lower end iPhone models.
0:41:39And then they look at the sales data, the real answer,
0:41:42and they're like, "Oh, we got it wrong."
0:41:44Like it happens.
0:41:45These are hard decisions to make.
0:41:47But that said, there's a little part of me
0:41:50that says to myself, okay, I love the iPad.
0:41:54And now I don't have an iPad laptop,
0:41:57which I wrote several columns about a few years ago,
0:41:59but the Magic Keyboard makes the iPad
0:42:01when it wants to be pretty much a laptop.
0:42:05However, my Mac can't be more like an iPad.
0:42:10Apple hasn't allowed it to be more like an iPad.
0:42:13It's sure, it's thinner and it's got the curved edges
0:42:15and it's got that nice screen.
0:42:16But in the end, there are places that the Mac platform
0:42:21is not allowed to go.
0:42:23Allowed by who?
0:42:24Allowed by Apple's own decision to stake out ground
0:42:29for certain product shapes for iPadOS.
0:42:34And I guess my question is, one, how's that going?
0:42:38How's iPad OS pushing into those areas going?
0:42:41Because what I'm not talking about is like base model iPad.
0:42:44I'm not talking about the iPad Air.
0:42:46I'm talking about the iPad Pro with all these accessories
0:42:48and with stage manager and all of that.
0:42:51And I could make the argument, and I don't want to,
0:42:57'cause I like my iPad Pro,
0:42:59but I could make the argument
0:43:02that Apple would be better off making a convertible Mac
0:43:06that can go into an iPad mode than making an iPad Pro.
0:43:11Because the iPad obviously is struggling
0:43:15to become more Mac-like.
0:43:18And maybe the Mac would struggle to become more iPad-like.
0:43:23I mean, sure, it probably would.
0:43:26But sometimes that boundary between the Mac and the iPad
0:43:30feels artificial and it feels like neither product can become, can reach
0:43:36its full potential as long as there's this wall between them that a Mac can't
0:43:43look more like an iPad and iPadOS struggles to be more like a Mac.
0:43:49So are you envisioning a world where they do merge the product line?
0:43:54I mean, no, because I think Apple is very conservative about this stuff, honestly.
0:44:02But if I were at Apple, I would have that conversation, which is, are we happy with
0:44:09how the iPad is going at the high end?
0:44:12Are we happy with all the effort we've put into making the iPad Pro more like a Mac?
0:44:18And are we happy with macOS being limited to sort of traditional laptop shape and not
0:44:27going further down the path of touch?
0:44:29And if we look out in this product line, especially since you've got generations of people raised
0:44:35in touch interfaces now, and so to have a computer that doesn't have a touch interface
0:44:38at all is kind of weird, but the iPad at the high end, like, this is that struggle.
0:44:48And I think if I were at Apple, I would at least have to ask, would we be better off
0:44:56considering iPadOS a basis for a touch mode on MacOS so that the people who say that their
0:45:06iPadOS power users can get what they want on a computer that is built to have more power,
0:45:16as opposed to a device that's been scaled up
0:45:20to provide more power,
0:45:21but without the software being able to be there.
0:45:24Like the macOS software has all this stuff,
0:45:26the iPad still struggles to catch up.
0:45:28And what if we had said a long time ago,
0:45:31instead of doing a higher end iPad and iPad Pro,
0:45:34what if we make an effort to start making Macs
0:45:38that can be converted into tablet-esque things
0:45:41that can run an iPad mode essentially,
0:45:44or something kind of like it?
0:45:45I know there's a lot of complexity here.
0:45:47I know there's like, but what about,
0:45:49what apps would it run?
0:45:50And what would the interface look like?
0:45:52And like, I get it.
0:45:54I totally get it.
0:45:55This is hard stuff, but I'm combining,
0:45:58I'm just putting out there my two separate thoughts.
0:46:01One of which is, it feels to me
0:46:02like Mac laptop design is stalled,
0:46:04in part because Apple doesn't wanna experiment at all
0:46:07with touch screens or do anything
0:46:09that's sort of like happening over in the iPad space.
0:46:11And secondly, that the iPad Pro especially
0:46:14has really struggled on the software side,
0:46:16because when you try to make the iPad do more,
0:46:19you end up having these solutions that sometimes are great,
0:46:24like the pointer support, I think is legitimately great.
0:46:27But that on the software side, especially, you know,
0:46:31in terms of third-party apps,
0:46:33and in terms of things like file management,
0:46:35that even when Apple tries, they do kind of struggle,
0:46:38and I'm not sure there's an enormous audience for pushing,
0:46:43what we think of as pushing the iPad
0:46:44to the highest esoteric high end,
0:46:48whereas in a Mac context,
0:46:50we would think of it as like using a computer, right?
0:46:53Like on the iPad, it's like,
0:46:54you're a complete maniac to use an iPad like this.
0:46:59But the like this is literally like using a Mac, right?
0:47:05And yet there's a disconnect there.
0:47:07So I don't know.
0:47:09That's a lot of thoughts engendered by one report
0:47:11about touchscreen Macs,
0:47:12but it does make me think of the fact that it is,
0:47:14we are talking about an iPad feature
0:47:16being inherited by the Mac and what does that mean?
0:47:18But in my heart of hearts,
0:47:20my guess is because Apple is so careful
0:47:23and Apple is so conservative about this stuff,
0:47:25that it's not gonna mean any of that.
0:47:26And that the iPad Pro is still gonna be kind of a product
0:47:29that is kind of Mac-like,
0:47:30but never really verges too far in that direction.
0:47:34And the Mac becomes a little more iPad-like in some ways,
0:47:37especially using like Catalyst,
0:47:39and in the long run Swift UI,
0:47:40apps that are built with some touch sensibility
0:47:43on top of them.
0:47:44And that maybe Apple down the road experiments
0:47:47with some different shapes,
0:47:49but for now I think is gonna be mostly happy
0:47:51that Mac OS laptops look like laptops.
0:47:53I am excited about the potential for change here
0:47:58because it's been whatever 13 years since the MacBook Air
0:48:03sort of defined what the laptop shape was and what's next.
0:48:09But I do feel like part of today's Apple is this restraint
0:48:14of saying, look, it works,
0:48:17so we're not gonna mess with it.
0:48:19And if that's the case, then throw a touchscreen on there,
0:48:23satisfy some people, and then walk away
0:48:27and don't push it beyond that.
0:48:29- 'Cause I guess at that point,
0:48:32in this scenario we're looking at here
0:48:35of the Mac gaining some kind of iPad-like mode,
0:48:40really, what you're left with is,
0:48:42'cause the iPad would continue to exist in this scenario,
0:48:46is what are you looking for hardware-wise, right?
0:48:50Like, what is, you know, that's what the customer has asked.
0:48:54And actually, like I was thinking about this
0:48:57as you were talking, I'm not sure most people
0:49:01are buying an iPad for iPadOS.
0:49:04Like, oh man, I want iPad OS.
0:49:08- Right.
0:49:09- And I'm not saying that as a bad thing to iPad OS,
0:49:11I just mean that I think people are buying,
0:49:14they want an Apple product for its apps, services, whatever,
0:49:18and then it's like, well, which one do I want?
0:49:20And I don't buy an iPad for iPad OS,
0:49:24I buy an iPad for what the iPad does,
0:49:27and it's good at what it's doing
0:49:28because of its form factor, right?
0:49:30Like, I want something to read my news
0:49:33on a slightly larger screen, iPad Mini is perfect.
0:49:36I want something to watch some video,
0:49:39you know, the iPad Air is perfect for that, right?
0:49:41Because then I haven't got this big keyboard in the way
0:49:44or whatever.
0:49:45And so in that scenario of like, well,
0:49:47the iPad Pro can still exist for people that want
0:49:50all of that form factor,
0:49:52but for people that really like iPad OS,
0:49:55they could use it on their Mac too.
0:49:57- Yeah, I just, I keep coming back to thinking,
0:50:00why do I have an iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard?
0:50:02And the answer is I do like iPad OS,
0:50:04but what I really like is that I like that I have one device
0:50:07that I can use in a tablet mode
0:50:08and I can also use in a keyboard laptop-esque mode.
0:50:11And there's nothing stopping Apple from saying,
0:50:13"Well, why not a Mac laptop that can become a tablet
0:50:17instead of a tablet that can become a laptop?"
0:50:20And that's a good question, right?
0:50:24Like I have a MacBook Air and an iPad Pro.
0:50:27Now, aside from the fact that that means Apple
0:50:30has sold me two pieces of hardware instead of one,
0:50:32which is a consideration, although I would,
0:50:34I think that I'm probably a little more of an outlier.
0:50:37But if I, if Apple made something that was a MacBook Air
0:50:42or MacBook Pro like device,
0:50:44that could also be an iPad Pro like device,
0:50:48and I could just turn them,
0:50:50and whether that's disconnecting the keyboard,
0:50:53or whether that's flipping around the screen or whatever,
0:50:55something, some version of what you see
0:50:57in all these windows laptops
0:50:58or convertibles that are out there.
0:51:01Would that be my primary computing device?
0:51:03I think it probably would be.
0:51:05I think it probably would be.
0:51:06I think that would be enough for me to say,
0:51:08well, now I have everything in one place
0:51:10and it's a laptop when I want it to be
0:51:12and not when I don't.
0:51:13Also, there's a certain level of artificiality
0:51:16of the fact that iPad Pro can be put in that case
0:51:18and look like a laptop,
0:51:20but it can't actually run macOS in that scenario.
0:51:23Only, I mean, I know why, and yet on another level,
0:51:26it's like, but it's a laptop, why not?
0:51:28And the answer is, well, no, it looks like a laptop,
0:51:31but it still has to behave in accordance
0:51:34with its base mode of being a touchscreen.
0:51:36And so all these things that I can do on a Mac,
0:51:39I can't do on my iPad.
0:51:41Like I was doing a thing this weekend
0:51:42where I had to collaborate with a bunch of people
0:51:44in Discord while also using Google Sheets.
0:51:46And I tried to use an iPad for it.
0:51:49And about like five minutes in,
0:51:51I just went and I got my MacBook Air.
0:51:53Because as much as I love my iPad Pro,
0:51:55can't, it's a bit terrible for that.
0:51:58Same screen size, but it just, it can't.
0:52:02It just is bad at it.
0:52:03It's just really bad at it.
0:52:05And that's just the lot of an iPad user
0:52:09is sometimes you hit that wall
0:52:11and it's like the shape of this thing suggests
0:52:13that it could do everything my laptop could do, but it can't.
0:52:17And I think, and this is why I say
0:52:20these are big picture things and this is hard decisions
0:52:23for people at Apple to make is people at Apple
0:52:25have to decide what does the laptop look like in five years or 10 years and what
0:52:28does our laptop look like there and where's the iPad going and is the iPad
0:52:32high-end stuff successful enough for us to continue investing lots of money and
0:52:36time in paying people to develop new software for iPad OS that makes it creep
0:52:43toward but never really reach Mac OS or is there another path and maybe the
0:52:50answer is no right I mean absolutely the answer could be no it doesn't really
0:52:54makes sense when you pencil it all out. I'm just saying, it's a hard question and when
0:52:57Apple does something like potentially commit to doing touch screens on on Mac OS, you have
0:53:04to ask the question, like, where do, did you redraw the line? Is this where the line is
0:53:09now or is there no line and we need to decide where to draw the line? Because they could
0:53:14have easily drawn the line at no laptop like thingy on iPad OS and they didn't do that.
0:53:22They made the Magic Keyboard and they introduced pointer support.
0:53:27So they didn't draw the line there.
0:53:30So where is that line?
0:53:31I don't know.
0:53:32It's just that's what's all swimming in my head.
0:53:34And I think it's fascinating and I think it's a hard decision for people at Apple to make.
0:53:38And I hope they had those conversations, right?
0:53:40I hope it isn't a culture where they're just like, "No, no, no.
0:53:43No, no, no.
0:53:44We'll put a touchscreen on the laptop.
0:53:46That's fine.
0:53:47laptops in 2030 are going to look exactly like they did in 2020. You know, they'll
0:53:53be thinner and lighter and more powerful, but otherwise it's still going to be those
0:53:55two planes that you open up and that's it. Like, that would be a shame if they didn't
0:53:59– if they weren't open to the possibilities of this. And I honestly don't know if that's
0:54:05the case. But that's like high-pay-grade level stuff at Apple. That is product vision
0:54:10stuff. And I'm not going to be out here as a pundit saying, "I could do that job,"
0:54:16or I've got an easy answer. I probably could not do that job. It's certainly not an easy
0:54:21answer but it's interesting to consider the paths that Apple has and maybe where they're
0:54:29choosing to walk and also based on Gherman's report really you get the impression that
0:54:34this is a potentially a change, right? That somebody said, "I've reconsidered where we
0:54:40need to take this and that's led to this decision." And that's interesting, right? Because that's
0:54:45That's Apple questioning its path forward for that product.
0:54:51I wonder where that will lead us.
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0:56:45On Thursday evening, Twitter cut API access to a variety of the most popular third party
0:56:52apps, rendering them unusable.
0:56:55Literally can't log in, log you out, can't log in, can't do nothing.
0:57:00This seemed to be a targeted thing.
0:57:05It seemed to be that the most popular apps, typically iOS apps, Tweetbot, Twitterific
0:57:11for example, there were some smaller apps to stack around.
0:57:14Twitterific on the Mac had a different API key so it was still available because it had
0:57:19fewer users, that kind of thing.
0:57:22There had been no communication from Twitter about this to anybody, including developers.
0:57:27There's been no response from any questions to Twitter from reporters, developers or whatever.
0:57:35This isn't just iOS, Android, basically it seems like all of the most popular third
0:57:40party apps, the ones that maybe showed up somewhere.
0:57:45This was bubbling a lot over the weekend, lots of people talking about it obviously.
0:57:49The information had a report suggesting that this was an intentional decision based on
0:57:54conversations in the Twitter Slack that they were shown, seemed pretty clear from that.
0:58:00Yeah.
0:58:01And I heard from somebody who, again, it's a somebody who knows somebody at Twitter,
0:58:04so it's secondhand, but somebody who I think, uh, yeah, I, I believe this person who said,
0:58:10uh, who sent me a note that said, yeah, I heard from a person I know in Twitter and
0:58:14this is totally intentional. Bottom line. Yeah.
0:58:17I mean, and I think it was, I mean, it was obvious, but was proven by the fact that the
0:58:22the developers of TweetTatBots switched their API key on the backend to test if this was
0:58:28a targeted thing. So they switched their key to a new key, it was very limited but users
0:58:33could sign in, it got cut off again. So, so ends another part of Twitter for a large portion
0:58:41of our listenership at least. Because I have no doubt that there are many people that use
0:58:47use third party apps that would not use the official app, which is why they were using
0:58:52third party apps in the first place. And I have no doubt that this whole situation would
0:58:59not kind of engender people to wanting to make that switch, right? Like that if Twitter
0:59:04pulled the rug from under you as a user, let alone as a developer, you as a user, you might
0:59:09be more angry about doing what they want you to do, right? So I expect that there are even
0:59:15more people now moving over to services like Mastodon than there ever was in our previous
0:59:21list in our kind of corner of the internet.
0:59:23Yeah, or dumping out of it entirely. I'm sure, you know, in our audience, there are definitely
0:59:28portions of Twitter's user base that don't seem to be going anywhere. My sports list
0:59:32is still, you know, going strong. I have now bookmarked it in Safari to just literally
0:59:39go to that page and read that list because I can't view it in Twitterific anymore on
0:59:44on my iPad, I can on my Mac, which is weird.
0:59:46Like they haven't killed the Mac API token yet.
0:59:50Curious, Ben Thompson wrote about this a little bit
0:59:54on Stretecory today.
0:59:55He had the exact same thought that I had about it,
0:59:57which is it does feel like maybe they've given up
1:00:00on Twitter Blue as a revenue driver,
1:00:02because you would think, and this is,
1:00:06I think this also shows you how Twitter doesn't seem
1:00:08to actually have any plans or anything
1:00:11that they can think through.
1:00:12If anything takes five steps
1:00:14and takes more than a few days to implement,
1:00:17they are just not gonna bother doing it
1:00:19because a logical thing to do
1:00:21with your super engaged and enthusiastic user base
1:00:25who loves your service so much
1:00:26that they use a third party app
1:00:28in order to get all these wizzy features,
1:00:30but the third party app has some issues
1:00:33that they don't display your ads
1:00:34and they don't display your algorithm, et cetera, et cetera.
1:00:37You could come up with a plan
1:00:39that allows API access,
1:00:42but only for people who pay for Twitter Blue.
1:00:45Or allows API access,
1:00:47but they have to include your ads in the feed.
1:00:50And that the way that the ads get turned off
1:00:52is via Twitter Blue or reduced is via Twitter Blue.
1:00:55And that they have to implement an algorithmic timeline.
1:00:58And would all these things make the users of those apps
1:01:00complain because they would degrade the experience?
1:01:03Sure, but you could use those people as a,
1:01:09You can make those developers jump through hoops
1:01:11for you potentially and do that.
1:01:14But Twitter has obviously decided it's just not worth it.
1:01:17Let's just, it's actually strange 'cause it's a move
1:01:20that comes from a position of power, it seems,
1:01:22where it's like, well, we'll just kill those clients
1:01:24and then everybody will have to use our app or our website.
1:01:27It's like, yeah, but a lot of them, you'll lose,
1:01:30I don't know about a lot, you will lose a bunch of them.
1:01:33You will lose some percentage of them
1:01:35because that is how they've interacted with your service
1:01:39from day one. Like I have used Twitter to the extent that I have over the years because
1:01:43I have native apps. And that's why I used it more than I used Facebook or Instagram.
1:01:49It's because I had native apps on my Mac especially, but also on my iPad and iPhone. And the Twitter
1:01:55native app was never really any good and it's still not very good. It's got its moments.
1:02:00I did use it for a little while off and on, but like they're proceeding from this, I guess
1:02:06think a position of power, which is like, what are they going to do? They obviously
1:02:09have to keep using Twitter, so they'll just come to our app, which is, I think, maybe
1:02:12an assumption they shouldn't make. But also the way it was handled shows just how classless
1:02:17this company is, because they obviously don't, not only did they have the attitude of like,
1:02:25well, we'll break these apps and then those users will come running to us, but they didn't
1:02:29have the respect to the apps and the developers, but especially to the users of saying, we're
1:02:36gonna do a shutdown.
1:02:37You have a week or 21 days or whatever, or a month
1:02:41to shut down the API and migrate people.
1:02:43And here's how you do it.
1:02:44And you can put a message in your app
1:02:45and don't renew anybody's payments for your apps anymore
1:02:49because your apps aren't gonna work after February 1st
1:02:51or whatever.
1:02:52And they could have done that.
1:02:54And that would have been the right thing to do.
1:02:59I was gonna say the classic thing to do,
1:03:00but it's literally, it's the right thing to do.
1:03:01Right thing to do for your users,
1:03:03right thing to do for these partners
1:03:04who have been partners of Twitter for like often
1:03:07more than a decade, just make it clear.
1:03:10Instead, not only did they do the wrong thing,
1:03:13the classless thing, but I would say
1:03:16they did the cowardly thing.
1:03:17And also it shows their own ineptitude
1:03:20because they just turned it off.
1:03:22They didn't tell anybody.
1:03:24They let everybody figure it out.
1:03:25And they only turned it off for certain apps
1:03:27and even for certain versions of certain apps.
1:03:29'Cause like I said, my Mac Twitter if it still works for now
1:03:31which is bizarre.
1:03:33So they did that badly.
1:03:34They didn't communicate it.
1:03:37They still haven't, as we were recording,
1:03:40communicated anything about this.
1:03:42These things just broke.
1:03:44So you've got your users who use those apps
1:03:46and rely on them.
1:03:47It looks like the apps broke, but it was actually you.
1:03:51And you never explained yourself.
1:03:53And I'd say it's also fitting that this is a company
1:03:55that no longer has a communications department
1:03:58or anybody who's supposed to communicate for the company.
1:04:01because Elon Musk doesn't believe
1:04:04in communications departments.
1:04:05He just fires them and shuts them down.
1:04:09So Tesla doesn't have one, SpaceX doesn't have one, right?
1:04:12So yeah, is it the right business move
1:04:17for Twitter in the long run to not have third-party clients
1:04:24that don't show their experience and don't show their ads?
1:04:27From a purely business standpoint,
1:04:30it is the right thing to shut them down.
1:04:32You either have to build a program
1:04:34where you are using those apps to make you money as well,
1:04:39which would require a lot of effort, I think,
1:04:43that they don't seem to be willing to have.
1:04:44So, okay.
1:04:45It's never been Thompson's point, and he's right.
1:04:49So it's sort of never made sense.
1:04:51They've sort of kept them around
1:04:52kind of out of some sense of-
1:04:53- No, they've been the odd one out, right?
1:04:55Like Twitter's the only company like this
1:04:59to have an API that they're still using.
1:05:02Like this is what I think is the main thing
1:05:05that's going on here is there is no desire
1:05:09or even ability at the moment inside of Twitter
1:05:13to maintain the API and make significant enough changes
1:05:18to it that Twitter the company will benefit
1:05:21from these users.
1:05:22- Yeah, and that's what I'm saying is that you could do it,
1:05:26but it would be a real effort.
1:05:27And why?
1:05:29Facebook doesn't let people build Facebook clones
1:05:31and the people who try to do,
1:05:32they tend to bring the hammer down on.
1:05:34This is a historic thing.
1:05:36It has to do with the founding of Twitter
1:05:37and Twitter trying to become popular
1:05:39by leveraging their API, which absolutely happened
1:05:43and apps like Twitterrific that were there at the beginning,
1:05:45not only did they help define features of Twitter
1:05:49for Twitter, but also helped give Twitter stickiness
1:05:54by making pleasant apps in which to use the service.
1:05:57That's all true.
1:05:59But if you're at Twitter in 2023, or arguably 2017,
1:06:03there really are only the two paths,
1:06:06which is you either make a real effort
1:06:08to make Twitter different in the sense
1:06:10that it's got this open API with a bunch of,
1:06:12and you make the API terms make sense for you financially,
1:06:16or you turn it off.
1:06:17Those are your choices.
1:06:18But the problem is, again, you announce a sunset, right?
1:06:22You announce that you're gonna do it.
1:06:24So I don't have a problem with Twitter saying,
1:06:26"Look, why are we letting people view Twitter without ads? That's how we make all our money."
1:06:31I totally get it. The jig is up. I really enjoyed using Twitter for more than a decade without
1:06:37ever seeing any ads. That was awesome for like 15 years. Great. I get that you don't want me to do
1:06:43that. Okay, fine. But the way they did it showed how clueless and classless they are, truly. That
1:06:52that this is the best they could do is, and cowardly,
1:06:54let's make it a threesome, clueless, classless, and cowardly.
1:06:59They did it scattershot,
1:07:01they did it basically in the dead of night.
1:07:04They didn't tell anybody that they did it,
1:07:06and they left their users
1:07:08and their longtime partners in the lurch.
1:07:10And I just believe that it would not have been hard to say,
1:07:14we're gonna turn this stuff off in a week or in a month,
1:07:18but they chose this other path.
1:07:21and it's their business, they can make their decision.
1:07:24But I think it says, for all of the talk
1:07:27about pronouncements by Elon Musk,
1:07:32and the way he has comported himself on Twitter,
1:07:36and the wisdom of this guy buying this company
1:07:39in the first place and how he tried to get out of it,
1:07:41all of that aside, I look at this and I think,
1:07:45this is a great indictment
1:07:47of how badly run the new Twitter is.
1:07:51is that they did it this way.
1:07:53And nobody's gonna stop them,
1:07:56but I would say that showing this utter lack of respect
1:08:00for your users is gonna bite you in the end.
1:08:05And that being, and I'm just gonna,
1:08:11just twist the knife a little bit,
1:08:13and you didn't even do it right.
1:08:15You missed some, you missed some.
1:08:18Why is Twitterific on the Mac still working?
1:08:21It's 'cause you blew it.
1:08:22You can't even, you couldn't even settle
1:08:25family business competently.
1:08:27You blew that too.
1:08:29You did it scattershot because this is not even a betray,
1:08:33just a betrayal, it's a half-assed betrayal.
1:08:35So well done, that says it all
1:08:37about where Twitter is right now.
1:08:39And like everybody else who I respect,
1:08:44who has said this in the past,
1:08:47That's pretty much it for me.
1:08:50I'm gonna look at my little sports list
1:08:52using their web interface,
1:08:53but this isn't a company that's doing anything
1:08:55that I'm interested in.
1:08:58And they've shown through their actions,
1:09:02they've shown just how badly run this company is.
1:09:04I didn't think some company could be worse run
1:09:07than the old Twitter,
1:09:08but the new Twitter is managing to do it.
1:09:10- It's this seems pretty clear that Elon Musk found out
1:09:13that there were third party apps on Wednesday.
1:09:16and says shut 'em off.
1:09:17- Yeah.
1:09:18- Yeah, because that's what modern Twitter seems to be.
1:09:21Today's Twitter seems to be a completely dysfunctional
1:09:25company ruled by fiat by a child king.
1:09:27- If I owned it, if it was my company, right,
1:09:32if I was in the situation where I ended up having
1:09:35billions of dollars and decided I wanted to buy it,
1:09:37I would shut down the API.
1:09:40I wouldn't do it the way he did it, but I would do it,
1:09:44because it doesn't make sense.
1:09:46It doesn't make business sense long term to do this.
1:09:51Like, because it's even like, all right, okay,
1:09:53you could charge people subscriptions, right?
1:09:55But as we've seen in the past, every single feature
1:09:58that you may ever want to add to the platform,
1:10:00you then have to consider the API.
1:10:03This is why Apple tried-- - And everyone has a cost.
1:10:04- This was, sorry, it's why they tried
1:10:05to get rid of the API, right?
1:10:07Group messaging, they tried to get rid of it already
1:10:10and they couldn't do it, and then they decided,
1:10:13all right, let's try and make it work out.
1:10:15And then they tried to make it work out
1:10:18and now it's gone, right?
1:10:19Like I, it is a legacy weird thing
1:10:24that they never got away from.
1:10:26And I think like Ben Thompson mentioned again,
1:10:28I mentioned Ben a lot, Shuritaker is great,
1:10:29you should read it.
1:10:30Every single one of the previous CEOs
1:10:33should have gotten rid of it,
1:10:34but no one could get their act together enough to do it.
1:10:37Right?
1:10:38And look, please don't misunderstand
1:10:39what I'm saying here, right?
1:10:40Like if you are a person who loves Twitter
1:10:43and loves Tweetbot, I'm not saying
1:10:45that you shouldn't get what you want, right?
1:10:46Like this is different, but like as a user
1:10:49and as the owner of the company.
1:10:51But like from a realistic standpoint,
1:10:54to run that network properly, right?
1:10:57It has to be advertising and the advertising
1:10:59has to be good and done well.
1:11:02And that means it needs to be in a controlled environment
1:11:05where you can get the statistics and blah, blah, blah, blah,
1:11:08Like to make Twitter as good as it can be,
1:11:11all of Twitter's users need to be on Twitter,
1:11:13which is why Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat,
1:11:17none of these apps have third-party services.
1:11:22Whereas Jason mentioned earlier, some of them used to.
1:11:24Like there was an Instagram API, there was a Facebook API,
1:11:28because at Web 2.0, that's what you did, right?
1:11:32But now you don't do that anymore
1:11:34because it makes everything more difficult.
1:11:38But as you say, the way that they did it
1:11:39was just ridiculous, bad, and just half-butted,
1:11:44I will say.
1:11:46- I already said half-assed, you can say that.
1:11:48- I know, but I don't wanna say it.
1:11:50- All right.
1:11:51- 'Cause then I have to say it the way I say it,
1:11:53and it sounds weird, right? - Half a butt.
1:11:54- Like as an English person. - Harf-arst.
1:11:56- Yeah, it just doesn't roll right.
1:11:59- The, yeah, I mean, we're going back and forth now.
1:12:04This is the bottom line, is that I think it makes
1:12:05business sense for them to do it.
1:12:07I agree, they should have done it long ago.
1:12:08I'm not happy about that because I, like I said,
1:12:10feel like I've gotten away with it for 15 years, right?
1:12:13Of using their service without seeing any ads.
1:12:15It's great, it's great.
1:12:16The only money I've ever given to anybody
1:12:17was to Twitter client developers.
1:12:19It's great, it's bad for Twitter.
1:12:21Good for everybody else, bad for Twitter.
1:12:22And you're right, if you're trying to rapidly,
1:12:25if you're trying to fix Twitter
1:12:26and rapidly develop things,
1:12:27the last thing you need to do is go into a hole
1:12:29where you're like, hey, we did polls.
1:12:31Well, we can't release polls yet
1:12:32because we need to do a polls API
1:12:34and then communicate that to the developers
1:12:36of our third-party clients and then give them time to,
1:12:38in order to, it's like, no, no, no.
1:12:40I just want it so that I roll out polls
1:12:42with the things I control,
1:12:43which is my app developers and my web developers.
1:12:45And then we're done, right?
1:12:46Like I get it.
1:12:47I totally get it.
1:12:49And there is a counter argument to be made,
1:12:51which is the other way to do it is open source media,
1:12:55like the Fediverse and like Mastodon and all of that,
1:12:57where there are open clients
1:12:59and it's a completely open environment.
1:13:00And that's fine.
1:13:01You gotta find another business model there.
1:13:03And maybe the business model is people are paying
1:13:05for servers and clients and all of that.
1:13:08Maybe that's a different ecosystem,
1:13:09but if I'm the CEO of Twitter,
1:13:13that's not my business, right?
1:13:14That's not my business.
1:13:16Dick Costolo tried at one point to kill the clients
1:13:19and then Dick or Jack or somebody tried to then
1:13:23start a project where they were gonna support
1:13:25sort of like a idea of a federated social media.
1:13:28But like the bottom line is that yes,
1:13:30yes, Twitterific created so much value for Twitter,
1:13:34right down to the bluebird.
1:13:35and the word tweet, all of that is true.
1:13:38And that the clients popularize the service,
1:13:40all of that is true.
1:13:41But if you're standing at Twitter in 2023,
1:13:44the right business decision is to say,
1:13:45well, that's all well and good, but I need to make money
1:13:48and the clients don't make any business sense.
1:13:50And I think it's true.
1:13:52So kill them.
1:13:55But to do it like this,
1:13:56I mean, to do it like this shows
1:13:58that they're either incontinently managed
1:13:59or realize that this is gonna be a problem.
1:14:03Yeah, or realize this is gonna be a problem.
1:14:05like I said, cowardly.
1:14:06And so they just wanna like not say anything
1:14:08and kind of whistle as they walk away from the crime scene,
1:14:11instead of just sort of like standing up and taking it
1:14:14and saying what we've said here,
1:14:16which is it doesn't make a business sense.
1:14:18We appreciate all the contributions these people have made.
1:14:20Here's what our users who are using those apps should do
1:14:23in order to migrate to our apps and website,
1:14:26January 30th, February 1st, whatever is the last day.
1:14:32goodbye. But they can't even do that. So not necessarily the wrong business decision, but
1:14:37just done poorly and in the wrong way.
1:14:43Craig Hockenberry of Developer
1:15:01social media space and says he has some ideas. I really hope this is a Phoenix-like moment.
1:15:14It's hard to explain unless you were there at the time, right? But it built Twitter.
1:15:22It built it. Without it, it wouldn't be the same. And it's not even just the words and
1:15:29the contributions like that. It made it a beautiful, wonderful, usable thing.
1:15:36I'm really interested to see if Lightning can strike twice here.
1:15:41I hope it does for them because they are a great bunch of people who deserve it.
1:15:47But obviously, the app at the moment is Ivory from Tapbots.
1:15:52Everyone's excited about Ivory. If you can get on the beta,
1:15:56that there'll be a shipping version of iMari faster now
1:16:00than there was gonna be otherwise.
1:16:02So I guess they're the apps to look out for at the moment.
1:16:06Just what it seems for people that are using Mastodon,
1:16:09although it seems like something from the Icon Factory
1:16:12is probably sometime away.
1:16:14- I don't know.
1:16:15I mean, they all seem kind of burned out,
1:16:17but I will say that Craig and Ged and Sean
1:16:25from ICON Factory, Sean Heber, who did most of the,
1:16:28I think he's been the primary developer on Twitterific
1:16:30for quite a while now.
1:16:32They're all on Mastodon, right?
1:16:34And they have, and as Craig's post says, they have been,
1:16:37and obviously the Tapbots people are also on Mastodon,
1:16:40and Paul is over there talking about Ivory,
1:16:42and a lot of us have tried it not, it's great,
1:16:43it's great app.
1:16:44So I wonder, but, and Craig's post is interesting in that,
1:16:48what Craig's not doing, it seems to me, is hinting that,
1:16:51yeah, we're gonna make something of our Twitterific
1:16:53code base by doing Masteriffic, right?
1:16:56Like, I don't think that's what he's saying,
1:17:00but I like the idea that they are getting
1:17:03in a conference call, the icon factory people,
1:17:06and they are saying, well, we've got this code base.
1:17:11Is there something, is there a product we can make with it
1:17:15since Twitteriffic is going away?
1:17:17And what do we want it to be?
1:17:19And what Craig is saying is let's not just do
1:17:22Twitter-ific for Mastodon. But let's think about it more broadly. And he mentioned federated
1:17:30social media and he mentioned Microblog by name, for example, which is Manton Reese's
1:17:37Fedeber's compatible microblogging environment that's, it's cool. And that strikes me as
1:17:42being Icon Factory saying, "Yeah, we're looking at this stuff, but one, we're kind of burned
1:17:49out because they've been fighting these battles with Twitter for a long time. And two, we
1:17:56want to do it right and we want to not rush in. And he's not casting shade on anyone.
1:18:04I think Paul Haddad is very smartly saying we're just gonna do this ivory thing and we're
1:18:10gonna make it happen and we're gonna give people a place to go that's nice. And it is
1:18:13nice. And they had started to do it before this.
1:18:17I think I got factory sort of saying,
1:18:20after this difficult time,
1:18:22we're going to take the time to pause
1:18:26and consider what we would do.
1:18:28And I think that's a great approach too,
1:18:31that when they come out with something,
1:18:34Tapots is gonna get the first mover advantage here.
1:18:36I mean, they're not the first movers,
1:18:37but they're the first very serious developer,
1:18:41app developer company to take a very serious product
1:18:46and build a version of it essentially on Mastodon.
1:18:49I know there are lots of Mastodon apps out there.
1:18:51I think Twitterrific may benefit or Icon Factory
1:18:54may benefit from taking the Twitterrific source code
1:18:56and thinking about it a bit more
1:18:58and trying to do something different.
1:18:59Because honestly, that's how they were successful
1:19:01on Twitter back in the day,
1:19:03was thinking those deep thoughts
1:19:05about what Twitter should be and how it should work.
1:19:08And a lot of the things that are in the Twitter product
1:19:11are because Icon Factory had to spend time
1:19:14thinking about the Twitterific product.
1:19:17And a lot of those decisions they made
1:19:19ended up influencing the Twitter product.
1:19:21So I'm interested in the idea
1:19:23that they're gonna use their brains to sort of think
1:19:25what does a federated decentralized social media
1:19:28posting and reading app look like?
1:19:31And great, I'd love to see it
1:19:34because Twitterific was in my dock
1:19:36of my iPhone and my iPad for more than a decade.
1:19:42and it's not there anymore.
1:19:44And that's sad.
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1:21:08Let's finish out today's episode with some Ask Upgrade.
1:21:11Patrick asks if you were Tim Cook and you could add either a touchscreen or a
1:21:18cell modem to the next generation MacBook Pro which would you choose
1:21:23because you think it would sell more computers? Wow what a question to sell
1:21:32more computers yes that's the specific part right I'll say for me touchscreen
1:21:38all day. I think a touch screen is easy to market. How do you market? Oh, hey, do you
1:21:44want to use what most people call Wi-Fi, but is actually set like it's too complicated.
1:21:51Like I feel like it's not a great ad. I think a great ad is someone's using their Mac and
1:21:56just reach out and touch it and scroll. I think there are enough people go, "Oh, I want
1:22:00that." Then like, "Oh, hey, I'm outside and I can sign up for another data plan. How awesome."
1:22:05I agree with you, although I think that both of them will probably sell a similar number
1:22:11of computers, but yes, it's also a much, it's just a much clearer thing to market.
1:22:14You can almost see the ad, right?
1:22:15That it's just like somebody, a finger reaches out and touches the screen and a thing happens
1:22:20and you know, popular music plays and you can see it.
1:22:25You know, you know what that's like.
1:22:26I got a free ad for you, Apple, right?
1:22:28Two people sitting next to each other, one of them reaches out to touch it.
1:22:32Someone goes, "No, don't do it!" and then they do it and it scrolls, right?
1:22:35"Oh, you know, like, yeah, that's how I've seen that in my life so many times."
1:22:40Brant asks, "If you could wave your magic wand over the MacBook lineup and bring either
1:22:44cellular connectivity or face ID to the entire line, which would you choose?"
1:22:49Now Brant wants to know just which would we choose.
1:22:52Yeah, cellular, because Touch ID is fine.
1:22:55And cellular is a great feature that, although we just said, may not sell as many computers
1:22:59as a touchscreen, I think it's a very great and convenient feature.
1:23:02And I know you can tether, but you know what?
1:23:04I don't like tethering.
1:23:05It's not always reliable.
1:23:07It's kind of inconvenient.
1:23:08It drains the battery of the device
1:23:10that you are tethering to.
1:23:12I think that there's real value in being able to
1:23:16pay that upgrade to your cell provider
1:23:19and get data wherever you go with your laptop.
1:23:22And face ID, while nice, and I would like to see it,
1:23:26we have touch ID and on, this is a MacBook question.
1:23:30Every MacBook has a keyboard with a touch ID sensor on it.
1:23:35It's that's good enough.
1:23:37Like it's on a display, on an iMac, something like that.
1:23:42Face ID would be nice, but is it necessary on a MacBook?
1:23:46I don't think it is.
1:23:47- We're in agreement on that one.
1:23:50Like I would like tethering for that reason.
1:23:52Like it's wild to me.
1:23:53Like I'm gonna use the battery of two devices
1:23:55so I can get an internet connection.
1:23:56Like just that, just so inefficient, frustrating.
1:24:01I would prefer that over Face ID.
1:24:03Because as you say, especially on a laptop,
1:24:05Touch ID is really easy, really easy.
1:24:07- It is, it is.
1:24:09It's there on all of them and it works great, right?
1:24:11It's different if you're, like I am sitting at a desk here
1:24:15where I've disassembled the keyboard
1:24:16and made a little Touch ID thingy.
1:24:19Like it would be great if the screen could just go,
1:24:22oh, it's Jason and that would be fine.
1:24:24but like on a laptop, I'm never like,
1:24:27"Oh no, I must move my finger to..."
1:24:30It would be nice to have,
1:24:31but it's not like I would take cellular over it any day.
1:24:34- Christian asks, "What was your favorite
1:24:38or most listened to album from 2022?"
1:24:41- Being funny in a foreign language by the 1975.
1:24:45It turns out that if the 1975 release an album in a year,
1:24:48that's pretty much gonna be the album I listen to the most.
1:24:51That's what I've learned.
1:24:52They're my favorite band of the moment
1:24:53and they have been my favorite band at the moment since I discovered them whenever that
1:24:57was five years ago. So yeah, yeah, definitely in 1975.
1:25:01Very good album. Mine is Surrender by Maggie Rogers.
1:25:05Also good album. Similarly, like if Maggie Rogers releases an
1:25:09album it's going to be my album of the year. I think she's incredible. Like her body of
1:25:14work across two albums is about as good as for me you could ever find in a singer-songwriter.
1:25:19The opening song Overdrive on her album Surrender is legitimately one of my favorite songs of
1:25:25all time.
1:25:27If you just listen to that one song, if it doesn't blow you away, like I'm surprised,
1:25:34then you can just stop there.
1:25:35But there's another song Horses, where sometimes, I know this song very well, sometimes I just
1:25:40listen to the album, Horses comes on, makes me cry.
1:25:42Completely random, it's just a beautiful song.
1:25:44She has just one of the greatest voices maybe ever.
1:25:49I love her. I loved her album Heard It in a Past Life. I don't like Surrender as much as Heard It in a Past Life.
1:25:56I think that's my issue with it more than anything else. But it's a good album and she's a great artist.
1:26:02And I love that she is a... she's like a folk singer who also understands like modern...
1:26:12lots of modern music techniques and styles. And it's a great... I know we've talked about her before.
1:26:17It's just a fun fusion of those things that it's like,
1:26:21what if somebody with real strong folk impulses
1:26:24was making modern music in 2022,
1:26:29which is Maggie Rogers.
1:26:31You've just described Maggie Rogers and she's great.
1:26:34- Like she has this talent,
1:26:36which I feel like she can sing
1:26:39while she's breathing in and out,
1:26:40which is like, 'cause sometimes she just continues
1:26:43making different noises for like a really long time
1:26:46in a way that does not feel like it is humanly possible.
1:26:50And so Maggie Rose is awesome.
1:26:51- Maybe she's a robot.
1:26:53- Jason wants to know, I don't know if this is you,
1:26:56you can tell me. - It's not me.
1:26:57- And I assume this is directed at me.
1:26:58Why have you gone from HomePod minis to a Sonos system?
1:27:01So, as a clarification, I had HomePods
1:27:04rather than HomePod minis,
1:27:06but I can give you a bunch of reasons.
1:27:07So the Sonos app is awesome.
1:27:10The fact that you can sign in to multiple streaming services
1:27:13from multiple people and have it all in one view,
1:27:15all accessible to everyone in that house is fantastic.
1:27:20Adina has a very good curated favorite for us on her Spotify that I really like. There
1:27:26is literally no way for her to share that to me on Apple Music and it stay up to date.
1:27:30But at home I can just choose that on Sonos and the Sonos app.
1:27:33It is so easy to group and ungroup speakers on an ad hoc basis inside of the app. Like
1:27:38if maybe I want to turn it off upstairs or I want to turn on these two downstairs or
1:27:42I want to change it. Same with the audio levels, you can control them all independently or
1:27:47as a group. It's so much easier to control music in general and where it's playing rather
1:27:52than using the very clunky controls that are built into iOS to do this. Like the control
1:27:57center thing is a nightmare. What I like is that this is Sonos' entire business. This
1:28:05is all they do. So they have to put the best effort into making this overall experience
1:28:10and hardware the best it can be.
1:28:13Then they have options with their devices.
1:28:14They have devices with line-in support.
1:28:16So I have a device like a Sonos 5.
1:28:19I've plugged my turntable into it.
1:28:20I can put records on it and play that music in my entire home.
1:28:24Apple don't have that.
1:28:25They have battery powered options if you want that.
1:28:29They have soundbar options.
1:28:30It goes on and on and on.
1:28:33Just for me, for what I want with music and even I think now television audio, Sonos is
1:28:39is the right call. That's why.
1:28:42- Okay. I use Sonos speakers in my office and I like it.
1:28:45I use HomePods in my living room and I like them too.
1:28:48- Yeah.
1:28:49- I'm not as enamored with Sonos' app as you are.
1:28:53Mostly again, that's because I do a lot of music listening
1:28:56on my Mac and the Sonos app on the Mac.
1:28:59Eh, it's not that great.
1:29:01- It's, I mean, I like that it exists,
1:29:03but like I don't really manage my music on my Mac.
1:29:06- Well, and I also listen,
1:29:07I have an iTunes library that includes my music
1:29:09and it includes Apple Music stuff
1:29:12and they're intermixed in the music app
1:29:14and Sonos app doesn't really have that experience.
1:29:18- Yeah, it's just Apple Music.
1:29:20- Yeah, so it's fine.
1:29:23What I have learned is that I think it's more stable
1:29:27when I do it from the Mac.
1:29:29Well, no, actually, no, the stability is about the same
1:29:33using Sonos and using the music app.
1:29:36The part that surprised me is that I had a trial
1:29:39for Spotify, which I no longer have.
1:29:41And Spotify's app has the Sonos protocol built into it.
1:29:45So it just directly connects to the Sonos speakers
1:29:47and tells them to stream from Spotify.
1:29:49And that was way more reliable than air playing from my Mac.
1:29:53But I also didn't like the Spotify app on my Mac.
1:29:55So here we are.
1:29:56- Yeah, I think that's called Spotify Connect.
1:30:00- Yeah.
1:30:00- I think Sonos built in Spotify's system
1:30:03to allow that to work.
1:30:04It's basically Chromecast for audio.
1:30:08- And it's basically like AirPlay 2, right?
1:30:10If you do AirPlay 2 right,
1:30:11what you do is you say to the HomePod or other speaker,
1:30:14"Go play this audio file," and it does the work
1:30:17and your device is controlling it,
1:30:19but not doing all of that work.
1:30:20But strangely, not as reliable.
1:30:22- Sonos is AirPlay 2, but yeah, who knows?
1:30:25- Sonos is as reliable doing AirPlay 2
1:30:27as the music app is reliable doing AirPlay 2,
1:30:30which is kind of reliable sometimes.
1:30:33- Exactly.
1:30:34And Dr. Arden asks, would you ever attend CES?
1:30:37And I will amend this to be have you as well.
1:30:40- Well, Myke, would you ever attend CES?
1:30:43- Yes.
1:30:43Just to have done it, I don't want to go and report on it,
1:30:48but it just seems like a weird thing to do once,
1:30:51but that's it.
1:30:53- Friends, I got a little story for you.
1:30:55It's very little.
1:30:56I've been to CES many times.
1:31:00When it was not conflicting with Macworld Expo,
1:31:03they would sometimes send me.
1:31:05As I rose in the company at IDG,
1:31:09they wanted me there,
1:31:11that Macworld and PC World did stuff together.
1:31:14How we had a trailer on the parking lot
1:31:17and we'd do coverage and it was a whole thing.
1:31:20I hate CES.
1:31:21I hate it.
1:31:22I hate it.
1:31:23I don't really like Las Vegas
1:31:24and a lot of the things that appeal about Las Vegas
1:31:26are things that don't appeal to me.
1:31:29And if you love Las Vegas, great.
1:31:30I have friends who love Las Vegas.
1:31:32It doesn't really appeal to me.
1:31:33I don't really like it.
1:31:34I think it's kind of gross.
1:31:36Las Vegas, when it's entirely full
1:31:38of tech industry people and hangers on
1:31:43and marginally related to tech industry,
1:31:46but they come to CES because they've got a booth
1:31:48in the giant airplane hangar warehouse number five
1:31:53on the giant campus.
1:31:54It's unwalkable.
1:31:55It's, you can't see it all.
1:31:56It takes days to walk through it all.
1:31:58you know, all these things.
1:32:00So that Vegas is even worse than the Vegas
1:32:03I don't already like.
1:32:04So there's that.
1:32:05You can't, as a person,
1:32:07unless you have a very specific area of specialization,
1:32:10you can't really cover CES.
1:32:12You have to very much focus 'cause it's enormous.
1:32:15So from a journalism standpoint, it's not great.
1:32:18Also, many of the announcements of CES are a joke
1:32:21because they don't ever come true.
1:32:23And there's a lot of ploys and a lot of like showbiz,
1:32:26nonsense that doesn't go anywhere.
1:32:28and do anything.
1:32:29So on that level, it's kind of a waste of time too.
1:32:32So suffice to say, I don't like CES.
1:32:35Would I ever attend CES?
1:32:36Let me put it this way.
1:32:37There was a period, a low period in my final year at IDG,
1:32:42where I decided I was gonna leave and I quit.
1:32:46And they asked me, where are you going?
1:32:49And I said, "Nowhere, I just can't work here anymore."
1:32:51Which is not what you wanna hear as a supervisor
1:32:54of somebody who's quitting, 'cause it's like, oh no.
1:32:57- What's happened?
1:32:57And they're like, please, please, please stay.
1:32:59Please, please, please stay.
1:33:00And I had basically two conditions
1:33:03under which I would stay.
1:33:04'Cause they're like, we're new management.
1:33:05We're gonna do things different.
1:33:06We're gonna turn this around.
1:33:07Friends, they didn't turn it around.
1:33:09The person who said this to me was fired.
1:33:13But I was like, okay, I was a sucker.
1:33:14I should have quit.
1:33:15I should have said no, but I said yes.
1:33:17My two things that I said was one,
1:33:20if we're gonna go through another,
1:33:21'cause we were about to lay a bunch of people off.
1:33:22And I said, okay, one,
1:33:23if we go through another big layoff like this down the road,
1:33:26please just lay me off because I don't wanna,
1:33:28I'm not gonna go through that again.
1:33:30And that's what they did.
1:33:31Thank you very much.
1:33:32People who were remaining after you got rid of everybody.
1:33:36My second argument about what I would be,
1:33:40what I would have to do
1:33:41if I was gonna be convinced to stay was,
1:33:43don't send me to CES.
1:33:46Literally number two was, don't send me to CES.
1:33:50And you know what?
1:33:51We had a whole, they agreed to it.
1:33:54And then like a week later, they're like,
1:33:56what do you mean?
1:33:56Somebody said, what do you mean Jason's not going to CES?
1:33:59And they came back to me and they said about the CES thing.
1:34:01And I'm like, guys, I told you, no CES.
1:34:05And in the end, what we negotiated was,
1:34:08I went to CES for one day, I flew in in the morning,
1:34:11I flew out in the evening, I was there for a single day,
1:34:15didn't sleep in Vegas,
1:34:17just did whatever stupid stuff they wanted me to do.
1:34:20So would I ever attend CES?
1:34:24No, no, you would have to pay me,
1:34:28you would have to pay me a lot of money,
1:34:29I guess is what I'm saying.
1:34:30Everybody's got a price.
1:34:32If you paid me a lot of money,
1:34:33but willingly to just go to CES to do my job,
1:34:38no, no, no, no, no, no, I hate it, it's terrible.
1:34:42- If you would like to send in a question
1:34:44for us to answer on the show,
1:34:47you can use question mark ask upgrade
1:34:49in the Relay FM members Discord,
1:34:51or you can send in some feedback for us.
1:34:53Go to UpgradeFeedback.com or click the link in your show notes and you can fill in the
1:34:57feedback there, follow up and also you'll ask upgrade questions.
1:35:01Thank you to everybody that has done that.
1:35:04If you want to find us online go to SixColors.com for Jason Snell.
1:35:09Jason also hosts many shows here on Relay FM and at The Incomparable.
1:35:14I am also hosting many podcasts here at Relay FM and you can find products that I make along
1:35:20with CGP Grey at CortexMerch.com.
1:35:23Thank you to Ladder and Rocket Money for their support of this week's episode.
1:35:29And thank you for listening. Also thank you to our members who listen to us on Upgrade Plus.
1:35:35We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.
1:35:39Have fun at CES, Myke!
1:35:41Thanks Myke!
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