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384: Don't Fear the Laser

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:11   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade Episode #384.

00:00:16   Upgrade this week is brought to you by FitBod, Amazon Music,

00:00:19   and Smile. I'm Jason Snell. I'm always here, but I'm not usually doing

00:00:24   this part. But Myke Hurley, remember him? He is on assignment. He was in

00:00:29   Los Angeles last week, now he is in Hawaii, basking in the sun, drinking up the tropical

00:00:35   rain, whatever he's doing there. So instead we have brought in a special guest host, making

00:00:42   his only second appearance ever on Upgrade. It's very special guest, novelist, Macworld

00:00:50   columnist, clockwise and rebound co-host, and my co-conspirator at Six Colors, it's

00:00:55   It's Dan Morin.

00:00:56   Hi, Dan!

00:00:57   Hello, hello, hello, Jason.

00:00:58   Oh, no, I'm so sorry.

00:00:59   I'm so sorry.

00:01:00   You can't.

00:01:01   Don't.

00:01:02   Just don't.

00:01:03   Hi, Jason.

00:01:04   Uh, welcome to Upgrade.

00:01:07   It's been since 2016 since you were here.

00:01:10   I know, five years.

00:01:11   I'll be due back after this in another five, and that'll be nice.

00:01:14   No, it's great to be back.

00:01:15   I actually listen to Upgrade pretty much every week.

00:01:18   It's one of the few shows I do listen to every week, so it's always a pleasure to get to

00:01:22   come on and actually talk to you so you can hear me instead of just yelling at you and

00:01:26   Myke. And Dan and I, in addition to writing at Six Colors, we do a weekly podcast for

00:01:32   Six Colors members every Friday. So it's not like Dan and I don't talk every week about

00:01:36   tech stuff, but we're doing it here on Upgrade This Week. And we, as always, we're going

00:01:42   to start with a hashtag Snell Talk question. I got to pick it, no less. And it's this,

00:01:49   from Wes. What is the oldest question in Snell Talk? How old is it and why does Myke keep

00:01:56   skipping the question? And that brings us to this Snell Talk question from listener

00:02:03   Graham sent April 6th, 2017. After you appeared on the podcast, Dan, favorite law of physics?

00:02:13   (laughing)

00:02:16   Okay, thank you, Graham from 2017.

00:02:20   And I don't know, we're gonna have to leave it for Myke

00:02:23   to answer why he keeps skipping this question

00:02:25   and many other questions, 'cause it's a spreadsheet.

00:02:27   He could delete stuff at the top and say,

00:02:29   I'm probably not gonna answer a question.

00:02:31   Like the, Wes also asked about Ask Upgrade.

00:02:35   And the oldest Ask Upgrade question is from January, 2020.

00:02:40   And that's ridiculous, right?

00:02:41   I think that the answer there is Myke has just not gone through and cropped out the

00:02:46   ones, you know, questions about like, what do you think is going to be in the iPhone

00:02:49   12 or whatever? It's like, um, maybe not. But January 2020 is great because it's like,

00:02:54   oh man, do you think we'll ever see another global pandemic? I can't wait for WWDC this

00:02:59   year. I'm going to San Jose. Are you? Yeah, exactly right. So to answer Graham's question

00:03:05   from 2017, there's only one answer that I can give to this question and that is my favorite

00:03:10   law of physics, if we can call it that, is Snell's law,

00:03:14   a formula used to describe the relationship

00:03:16   between the angles of incidence and refraction.

00:03:19   - Oh, okay.

00:03:21   - Yeah, that's right, Snell's law.

00:03:23   And you can't prove it wasn't me who did it.

00:03:27   So that's my answer, Snell's law.

00:03:29   - That's a good answer.

00:03:30   - The gift of relay is something you can give

00:03:33   this holiday season.

00:03:34   I just wanted to mention this to people out there

00:03:36   who are listening and are thinking about becoming

00:03:38   relay FM member and haven't yet or maybe you've got a membership hesitant friend

00:03:43   you want to gift them a membership you want to unlock the doors of upgrade plus

00:03:47   or if you're a fan of Dan's show clockwise you could upgrade your

00:03:52   membership and unlock the doors of clockwise unwound and become a member of

00:03:56   clockwise either way or some other show on relay I guess that's not hosted by us

00:04:01   but you could do that too if you wanted to now is a great time to do it until

00:04:05   December 17th, all of our annual plans are 22% off

00:04:09   for new subscribers.

00:04:11   Just go to giverelay.com to learn more

00:04:14   and set up your gift.

00:04:15   This includes, of course, Upgrade Plus.

00:04:17   You will get a year of ad-free episodes

00:04:19   with bonus content every single week for just $39.

00:04:24   Try it yourself or give it to a friend

00:04:26   who has not yet been exposed to the amazing things

00:04:29   that we talk about, like Dan and I talking about tea

00:04:33   in this episode.

00:04:33   So just giverelay.com.

00:04:36   Yeah, check it out.

00:04:37   All right, we have some follow-up.

00:04:40   So fun.

00:04:41   Dad let me drive a car.

00:04:42   It's great.

00:04:43   - Why are we careening off this cliff, Jason?

00:04:46   - I don't know how to drive.

00:04:48   That's the problem.

00:04:48   Ironically, I do know how to drive

00:04:50   and Myke does not know how to drive,

00:04:52   but he knows how to drive a podcast, just not a car.

00:04:55   I wanna follow up on the Apple headset

00:04:59   is something we've talked about,

00:05:00   but also really it's, this is,

00:05:02   Technically, this is our weekly

00:05:04   what's in Mark Gurman's Bloomberg newsletter this week

00:05:06   segment, since Mark is very kind enough

00:05:08   to mail that one out on a Sunday,

00:05:10   and then upgrade happens on Monday,

00:05:12   and we get to read Mark's newsletter

00:05:15   and figure out what's going on in there.

00:05:17   Most of his newsletter this week was actually him

00:05:19   complaining about how he got jerked around

00:05:21   in his iPhone rebate,

00:05:23   which is, I thought, an interesting choice,

00:05:24   but there's a bunch of juicy stuff in the stuff

00:05:27   that only goes to Bloomberg subscribers.

00:05:32   - For people who repackaged Bloomberg subscribers.

00:05:34   - Yeah, I was gonna say, fortunately,

00:05:36   MacRumors has taken those segments

00:05:38   and blown them out into not one, but three separate stories.

00:05:43   Now that is something about this,

00:05:46   but I wanted to start with the AR headset

00:05:48   'cause Myke and I have talked about that a bit.

00:05:50   And what Mark says is,

00:05:52   "It will be positioned as a dream for game developers.

00:05:55   "It will be for media consumption."

00:05:57   And he expects Apple to work with media partners

00:05:59   to create content for VR on the device.

00:06:04   And third, communications, look for animojis

00:06:07   in a VR FaceTime-like experience to be the new age Zoom,

00:06:11   which AR FaceTime, sorry to people like Ben Thompson

00:06:15   who think it's great, AR FaceTime sounds as appealing

00:06:17   as those AR meetings in Metaspace

00:06:19   where you're a floating torso.

00:06:20   - I just don't get it.

00:06:22   I don't get it.

00:06:23   I don't think, I don't know that.

00:06:24   So I don't know, I've talked to other people,

00:06:26   my co-host over at The Rebound, Lex Friedman,

00:06:29   says that basically whenever he is on FaceTime

00:06:33   and his kids are on FaceTime,

00:06:35   they always want to do the Animoji thing.

00:06:37   And I guess that that is a possibility.

00:06:40   There's not a lot of kids in meetings.

00:06:44   I guess they do have Zoom for classrooms and stuff,

00:06:46   but who's gonna let them use the Animoji stuff for that?

00:06:49   It's a gimmick, but it's not a thing that's actually useful.

00:06:54   I mean, I don't know.

00:06:56   I think that there is,

00:06:57   all those things make sense in terms of like,

00:07:01   they seem well set up for what a VR headset is,

00:07:04   but I'm not sure that they are all things

00:07:06   that Apple will execute well on

00:07:07   and/or are things that people want.

00:07:11   That's my question.

00:07:12   - Yeah, I think that's the great mystery.

00:07:14   Now, I have an Oculus Quest 2, is that right?

00:07:18   Yeah, that I got for Christmas last year.

00:07:21   I gave it to the family.

00:07:23   My son and I both play it.

00:07:24   We didn't get my daughter or my wife to use it

00:07:27   other than like momentarily,

00:07:29   but I think it's a lot of fun.

00:07:30   I think the, so I'm interested in this,

00:07:34   the media partners to create content

00:07:36   that will be watched in VR.

00:07:39   I'm curious, watching VR content is very weird.

00:07:42   I will tell you one of the things that I have enjoyed

00:07:44   and I think there is an opportunity

00:07:46   for something in this headset,

00:07:47   especially since it's supposed to have

00:07:48   very high quality displays,

00:07:51   is I've actually watched a couple of 3D movies on it

00:07:56   because it's got the two different eyepieces.

00:07:58   So you can watch a 3D movie

00:08:00   and you can watch it in a 3D space

00:08:02   or you can be floating in a void or whatever.

00:08:04   And as somebody who is always skeptical about 3D movies

00:08:06   at the movie theater,

00:08:07   it is actually kind of cool to have that experience.

00:08:11   And you know, the home 3D movie experience was really bad

00:08:13   'cause 3D TVs and all of that.

00:08:16   So I do wonder if one of the things Apple might do

00:08:18   is get everybody to dust off all their 3D content

00:08:21   and put that in a, you know,

00:08:23   basically in a version of the iTunes store

00:08:26   or a version of Apple TV Plus or something like that.

00:08:29   I don't know.

00:08:30   Will the third season of C be in 3D for VR?

00:08:33   I don't know.

00:08:34   - Seems like an interesting choice

00:08:36   for a show given its subject matter.

00:08:39   I think the interesting things here are one,

00:08:40   you know, obviously they have a huge content arm now.

00:08:43   So like spinning up deals for content

00:08:45   for stuff specifically tuned for VR/AR.

00:08:49   That's a thing they can reasonably do.

00:08:51   I always have questions about this as an experience

00:08:54   because fundamentally when you're putting on a headset

00:08:56   and sitting there and watching something

00:08:57   is an experience that you're not going to share

00:08:59   with other people sitting around you probably,

00:09:01   unless I'm sure Apple would love you to all buy headsets

00:09:04   so everybody in your family.

00:09:05   - Little bobbing animojis in the theater seats.

00:09:09   - Great, but it does make me think

00:09:12   with Apple's huge push on SharePlay this year

00:09:14   that maybe that's a gateway for them.

00:09:16   Maybe they're envisioning this as like a,

00:09:18   well, now that we have SharePlay for all these others,

00:09:20   of course we have SharePlay for our new headset,

00:09:23   you can log into the metaverse and watch a movie

00:09:26   with your pals who are across the country

00:09:29   and all show up as your avatars or whatever.

00:09:31   - You'll see little animojis in the sense, yeah.

00:09:33   - Maybe, that's plausible.

00:09:35   - A lot of what we do when we're dealing with rumors

00:09:37   like this is try to connect the dots.

00:09:39   And I think you and I have both written articles

00:09:41   about how Apple is really good at,

00:09:46   although they like to keep secrets,

00:09:47   what they are really good at is laying groundwork.

00:09:50   And if you can connect the dots,

00:09:51   sometimes it's unexpected and sometimes it's clear,

00:09:54   but I think that that is a good dot connecting

00:09:57   that you just did there,

00:09:58   which is this idea that SharePlay and that VR headset,

00:10:03   you put those together and you end up

00:10:05   with that shared media consumption thing in a virtual space.

00:10:09   I think like if they are still believers in SharePlay in a year, I think that that's what

00:10:15   they'll have to do.

00:10:16   Plus at this point, you know, by the time they roll it out, it's probably, again, like

00:10:20   you said, groundwork laid for something that may get announced later this year.

00:10:25   And I think SharePlay also links into the idea of if you're going to do gaming on this,

00:10:30   having some sort of multiplayer experience where you interact with people and like have

00:10:33   a conversation, you know, like you're chatting on FaceTime while playing a game with someone.

00:10:37   I think that makes sense as well.

00:10:39   The gaming thing is extremely dicey

00:10:41   because although it is a place where obviously VR

00:10:44   has been most successful right now,

00:10:47   as you guys have discussed and as you and I have discussed,

00:10:50   Apple's relationship with gaming historically is very iffy

00:10:54   and thinking that they're gonna sort of put this platform

00:10:57   out there and they're like, "It's gonna be so great

00:10:58   "that people are gonna flock here

00:10:59   "and make amazing VR games."

00:11:02   Maybe, but I don't have a lot of faith built in.

00:11:05   - I think when Apple has been successful with gaming,

00:11:09   it has never been really on purpose,

00:11:11   but it's been because of their creating a product

00:11:14   that had a superiority over other products.

00:11:18   And their success in the iPhone has been

00:11:21   that they have provided so much graphics horsepower,

00:11:25   and also so many users,

00:11:28   that it has driven people to the iPhone game market.

00:11:32   And that's, I think that's the scenario

00:11:34   that you would have to look at here is that if Apple doing an AR headset or a VR headset

00:11:41   drives more sales of VR headsets than any other developer ever, and you can take your

00:11:48   iOS games especially and convert them fairly readily for this format, and it's got the

00:11:53   advantage of Apple Silicon so it's actually maybe the most capable untethered VR headset

00:11:58   out there, you know, what you hope is you put all that together and the developers are

00:12:03   right, what we have to be there. But that's a big leap, right? And it requires you to

00:12:10   build it in for them to come, and are they going to come? Because Apple, yes. Anytime

00:12:14   Apple has done a very careful, like, "Here is our game strategy," it's sort of been,

00:12:19   "Eh, okay." Whereas if Apple just sort of sticks to what it's good at and says, "We

00:12:22   made this great platform and people love it," then the game developers say, "We want to

00:12:25   be there."

00:12:26   Steve McLaughlin Right. And I mean, they've tried this, and

00:12:28   to a certain degree, I mean, Apple Silicon, Macs, you know, there is the ability to port

00:12:32   your games from iOS over there. I don't think that's been a particularly successful platform

00:12:38   as a result, at least so far. Maybe as the transition sort of completes and there are

00:12:43   more and more devices running on Apple Silicon, developers will find it more attractive to

00:12:48   move their iOS games over there. But so far we haven't seen a mass exodus of iOS games

00:12:53   onto the Mac OS. And the Mac is stuck in that regard because it's got that, it doesn't have

00:12:57   the touchscreen interface of iOS which helps make it very compelling in a lot of the games

00:13:01   that you play mobile, and it doesn't traditionally have the stuff that console or PC gamers want

00:13:08   to use or want to play. So they've always been a little stuck in the middle there, and

00:13:12   I think, I don't know, like you said, it's never something that they've really succeeded

00:13:15   at when they've tried to do it, but sort of when they make a great product that people

00:13:19   want to use, the games seem to follow.

00:13:22   Yeah, it's this really interesting conundrum of, like, Apple cares about games, but Apple

00:13:28   Apple caring about games is not what makes Apple succeed at games. Apple doing other

00:13:33   things is what makes Apple succeed at games. It's just always been that way since the Mac

00:13:38   days. It's just always been that way. Anyway, that is, we may 2022 may be the year of the

00:13:46   Apple headset at last. We'll see. It's been rumored so long, but unlike the Apple car,

00:13:52   it seems to be like maybe on the conveyor belt and slowly headed in our direction or

00:13:57   in the pipeline if you want to use that metaphor instead.

00:14:01   There are more Mark Gurman reports though,

00:14:03   but wait, there's more.

00:14:05   There's an overview on a bunch of other 2022 plans,

00:14:10   iPad updates, including an iPad Pro with wireless charging,

00:14:15   an iPad Air refresh, 'cause it's sort of a little,

00:14:18   it's a little long on the tooth now,

00:14:20   and maybe redesigning the base iPad

00:14:24   to be more in line with the other iPads

00:14:27   in terms of thinner and maybe no home button

00:14:30   on the front of it and maybe a flat side

00:14:33   so they can put Pencil 2 on it

00:14:34   instead of the original Apple Pencil,

00:14:36   which is what it currently uses.

00:14:38   - That's interesting.

00:14:38   I mean, I've been kind of waiting for them

00:14:40   to get their ducks in a row with the iPad lineup

00:14:42   because they release new models of iPads

00:14:45   at different times throughout the year.

00:14:47   And so therefore they're never quite in sync.

00:14:49   Like the iPad Air right now is a very tricky device

00:14:52   to recommend because it is expensive for what it is.

00:14:55   And once you get into sort of iPad Air price range,

00:14:58   an iPad Pro starts to look very appealing

00:15:00   for only a modest additional fee.

00:15:02   Whereas the base model iPad is a great value,

00:15:07   but it is definitely like the tech of yesteryear

00:15:11   in many ways.

00:15:12   - I mean, it's inevitable that it has to get revised

00:15:14   into something that looks like all the other iPads.

00:15:16   And the iPad Mini already went there this year.

00:15:18   So it feels like since it's inevitable,

00:15:20   next year is as good a time as any.

00:15:22   And I think Germin's report suggests that

00:15:25   Apple may have been shooting to get that out this year,

00:15:28   and it just was not something that they were capable of doing.

00:15:31   So they kicked it down the road a year,

00:15:32   but that we should expect to see that.

00:15:34   And I think that's about right.

00:15:36   I don't expect massive changes to the iPad Pro

00:15:39   because they just did some pretty impressive changes

00:15:42   other than bringing mini-LED to the smaller iPad Pro model.

00:15:47   But I'd be surprised if it gets a complete remake

00:15:50   because they just sort of did it,

00:15:51   and it's state of the art now in a lot of ways

00:15:54   other than dropping presumably like an M2 processor in there,

00:15:57   just like whatever is powering the new MacBook Air

00:16:00   that he has talked about, and that also he restated here.

00:16:03   - It is then very interesting.

00:16:05   Like if Apple does redo that base level iPad

00:16:08   with a lot of the benefits that you see,

00:16:09   new design, et cetera, Pencil 2 compatibility,

00:16:12   what is then the story we're telling

00:16:14   about something like the iPad Air?

00:16:15   Will the iPad Air come down in price

00:16:17   to sort of bridge that gap a little better,

00:16:19   or are there gonna be additional features to the iPad Air

00:16:22   that won't be in the base model.

00:16:24   I think they need to figure out

00:16:26   what their positioning is for that line.

00:16:27   - I'm a big fan of identifying product differentiation.

00:16:31   I think that it's a thing that is really important

00:16:33   when you understand what Apple is doing.

00:16:35   And that has been the challenge with the iPad Air,

00:16:38   especially as it's kind of an iPad Pro, but not.

00:16:41   And what's the optimal price?

00:16:43   'Cause what they really wanna do is design the iPad Air

00:16:46   in such a way that they can price it

00:16:48   in the right space in between the Pro and the iPad.

00:16:50   'Cause it is honestly, like the base iPad,

00:16:54   it's gonna be, people will buy it for their kids

00:16:56   and it's gonna go into schools,

00:16:57   but it totally is the classic marketing thing

00:17:01   of good, better, best, which is you get people

00:17:03   into the store with a low price,

00:17:05   and then you upsell them on the mid price,

00:17:07   and the mid price is the one that most people buy.

00:17:09   And that's the iPad Air.

00:17:10   It's like, it looks kinda like an iPad Pro,

00:17:12   but it's not quite, but still it looks really nice.

00:17:15   And this one looks like an old iPad.

00:17:17   Like they have to judge like the right gap

00:17:21   between those products in terms of features and price

00:17:23   so that people are kind of motivated

00:17:25   to spend a little more money and get that mid range.

00:17:29   Whereas the Pro, like I do wonder sometimes

00:17:31   if the iPad Pro is going to keep getting more expensive

00:17:34   because that's another, unfortunately,

00:17:36   as somebody who uses one,

00:17:38   that's another way that you could differentiate it

00:17:40   or spread it out from the iPad Air is to say,

00:17:42   well, yeah, but the iPad Pro costs so much more

00:17:44   than the iPad Air.

00:17:45   I think they I honestly think the error if they could hit that target point about like 500 bucks

00:17:49   499 for sort of the intro level error. That's the traditional price of the iPad right going back to the original iPad 499

00:17:56   I think that's where you want to be because you're just enough over that 329 price point that it's like

00:18:01   You know you're gonna get more for your buck, but it is more expensive

00:18:03   It's not the bargain basement sort of thing

00:18:05   But it keeps it well south of sort of the iPad pro ghost

00:18:09   Right and then you get that that base iPad the goal of base iPad is to have a as lower price as possible to get

00:18:14   people into the iPad line. I think it's one of the reasons the iPad has had its comeback

00:18:18   is that Apple has realized that instead of having over the last five years or whatever,

00:18:22   instead of having like an iPad in the middle, you need something that's cheap and you also

00:18:26   then can create something that's much more expensive and profitable but the like hardcore

00:18:31   people are gonna buy it. I'm one of those people and I love my iPad Pro. I love it.

00:18:36   Love it. My M1 iPad Pro with the big one with a mini LED. It's gorgeous. It's amazing. So

00:18:41   So I'm happy to spend that money every few years on one of those.

00:18:44   But there are a lot of people who even looked at the standard iPad back in the day and were

00:18:48   like, "It's too expensive.

00:18:49   I can get this Amazon, this terrible Amazon tablet, but I can still get it for a six-pack."

00:18:53   Right?

00:18:54   Remember that when they were offering six-packs?

00:18:55   Yeah, the quantity solves all your problem, right?

00:18:59   Yeah.

00:19:00   I mean, I know one tablet, one bad tablet is bad, but six bad tablets is also bad.

00:19:05   Worse.

00:19:06   Yeah, maybe, maybe.

00:19:08   Mark Gurman, since we're in the Gurman recap section, friend of the show, Mark Gurman,

00:19:13   he's been on the show.

00:19:15   Up Apple Watch update, he says, you know, series 8.

00:19:17   He's also, this is a really good newsletter because it's very much like him wrapping up

00:19:22   his reports from across the year in a kind of a nice package.

00:19:27   Not a lot of these are new, but it's all in one place.

00:19:30   So for Apple Watch, he says, yes, there'll be a series 8.

00:19:32   He says there'll be an updated SE model and the new rugged sports edition watch that is

00:19:40   aimed at athletes.

00:19:42   Now Myke and I have talked about the sports edition.

00:19:44   I think that's such a great idea because instead of creating a, instead of creating a rugged

00:19:50   something or rather around like a rugged case or something like that, it's like, no, why

00:19:55   don't we just take the guts of an Apple watch and put it in a completely different design

00:20:01   for athletes.

00:20:04   And you can, same software, probably same hardware,

00:20:07   or mostly the same hardware,

00:20:08   maybe the sensors are different,

00:20:09   but the shell is totally different.

00:20:12   And so many watch lines out there in the world,

00:20:15   like you think about your G-shocks or something like that,

00:20:18   like there are active watches that are rugged

00:20:21   and that are for sports.

00:20:23   And Apple's just sort of had their little metal rectangle.

00:20:26   So that rugged model makes a lot of sense to me.

00:20:29   - Yeah, I know, I agree.

00:20:30   I think it's interesting to do the differentiation based on something sort of more aesthetic

00:20:34   I would expect it to have you know a different watch face or something kind of like the

00:20:38   They've done with the Nike watch face exactly and maybe some different sensors or some different little things

00:20:43   But you know ultimately it will probably be a series 8. I would guess on the outside

00:20:49   Yeah, but in terms of the tech, but the outside would be totally different

00:20:52   Yeah, I think it's the equivalent of doing like different case materials right like I mean some ways you've done your ceramic

00:20:57   you've done your titanium and then it's like,

00:20:59   oh, here's our rugged case, whatever that is.

00:21:00   - Time for rubber or rugged or whatever it is.

00:21:03   Updated SE fascinates me.

00:21:06   So many people who talk about Apple all the time

00:21:08   have been talking about this weird dichotomy

00:21:10   between that very, very, very old series three

00:21:12   that's still kicking around and the SE

00:21:14   and the perception that we all thought

00:21:16   when the SE came out that it was gonna replace the three

00:21:19   and it didn't and a year later it still didn't.

00:21:21   And so when I hear updated SE, I actually start to wonder,

00:21:25   Does that mean better or does it mean like cheaper to make

00:21:30   so that they can get really get rid of the series three?

00:21:32   'Cause I have a hard time imagining them selling

00:21:34   the series three in the fall of 2022.

00:21:37   It feels like it's gotta go.

00:21:38   - It's sold.

00:21:39   - The SE, I would think that what you'd wanna do

00:21:42   with the SE is make that product that is,

00:21:46   maybe the first SE shot a little too high,

00:21:50   but I honestly don't know because I'm still kinda baffled

00:21:54   by the fact that the SE is still kicking around

00:21:57   in the middle and the three is still kicking around

00:22:00   at the bottom, so I don't really know

00:22:01   what they're up to here, but they have two paths to go.

00:22:03   It's just like the iPad, Dan.

00:22:04   It's just like the iPad. - Yeah, exactly.

00:22:05   - They got the two paths.

00:22:07   Do you make it an affordable kinda mid-range watch

00:22:09   or do you drag it all the way down

00:22:11   so you can get rid of your low-end, old model?

00:22:13   - Well, the question is differentiation again.

00:22:15   Like, what is the purpose of this?

00:22:17   Is it, as you said, to be that base level model

00:22:19   that is gonna get people in the door

00:22:21   and you're say like, "Ah, you can buy one for,

00:22:23   I don't know, $199 or something, right?

00:22:25   I'm sure they would love to have a watch

00:22:27   that's compelling down there,

00:22:28   but then what do you take out

00:22:30   so that it's not cannibalizing sales

00:22:31   of the more expensive watches, right?

00:22:33   I mean, right now, it doesn't have, I believe,

00:22:35   the always-on screen, right,

00:22:36   which is sort of in both the more recent ones.

00:22:39   The three being around especially is weird

00:22:42   because with the SE, I think with the three,

00:22:45   the SE and the SEVEN, you have different screen sizes, right?

00:22:49   'Cause the SEVEN got larger again.

00:22:51   So a three is basically, the SE is basically a series four-ish with a couple slightly different capabilities.

00:22:58   Yes.

00:22:59   And then there's the three which again makes no sense.

00:23:02   Three is there to hold that price point but I cannot imagine a lot of people are buying it.

00:23:06   So yeah I don't know I think it will depend in some ways on what other features will be rolled into the eight.

00:23:11   Because Apple does a thing of you know sometimes they keep around older models,

00:23:15   sometimes they have something like the SE that's sort of like we've kind of packaged a bunch of older models into one.

00:23:20   You know, rather than keeping our old Series 6 around or something, or a Series 5, we have

00:23:25   an SE that has some of the features of the 5, but also lacks some of the features that

00:23:30   the 7 and high-end watches still have.

00:23:32   Yeah, and if I had to pick one thing, that would be my guess about the SE, is they will

00:23:36   update the internals a little bit, but they'll still use that screen that is that sort of

00:23:41   second generation Apple Watch screen, and they will try to make it so that they can

00:23:46   finally get the margins to the point where they can make that their low-end model because

00:23:51   you know the the three is just going to be so long on the tooth at that point. As someone

00:23:55   who wears a Series 4 and still the SE was at such a weird product because it felt like

00:24:00   well it's still it's a very lateral move for me like it doesn't actually get me any of

00:24:05   the features that I wanted. No because it's but it's it's weird too because I mean it

00:24:10   is not just literally a rebranded Series 4. Exactly. It's like in between Series it's

00:24:16   It's a very weird. - Yeah, it's a strange product.

00:24:18   I mean, that's kind of the SE thing for Apple in general

00:24:21   with the phones. - Sure.

00:24:22   - And I, yeah, I see why they're doing it,

00:24:24   but it does run into problems where now they have sort

00:24:27   of backed themselves into a corner, so.

00:24:29   - It'll be interesting to see how they update it.

00:24:30   - And fourth in our list of ways that we use all

00:24:35   of the parts of the Buffalo,

00:24:36   the Buffalo being Mark Gurman's newsletter,

00:24:39   recapping his plan, five new Macs for 2022, he says,

00:24:45   from Apple, including, well, let's see here,

00:24:48   a high-end iMac, yay, with Apple Silicon

00:24:51   set above the 27-inch iMac,

00:24:54   a significant MacBook Air revamp featuring the M2,

00:24:57   and a new design, colors, maybe, colors?

00:24:59   An updated Mac Mini, that's the, you know,

00:25:02   replacing the Intel Mac Mini that's still there, folks,

00:25:05   the high-end Mac Mini's still there, so replacing that.

00:25:08   Maybe replacing the low-end one or not,

00:25:10   I'm actually kind of curious if they continue

00:25:12   to differentiate and have sort of like the silver one

00:25:14   the Space Gray one, and there's a Pro and an iPro.

00:25:17   He says, "A new version of the entry-level MacBook Pro,"

00:25:19   so that 13-inch model, that is weird now.

00:25:22   - Interesting choice there.

00:25:23   - Touch bar, touch bar needs to be removed.

00:25:26   And a new Mac Pro, there it is with Apple Silicon.

00:25:29   So that's his drop on those five Macs for 2022,

00:25:34   which sounds about right.

00:25:34   That's sort of what we're expecting.

00:25:36   - Mostly things that we've all sort of assumed are coming

00:25:38   because they fill gaps that are in the current lineup,

00:25:40   right, specifically the high-end iMac

00:25:42   and the new Mac Pro are both things that need to make the jump as well as the high-end Mac

00:25:47   Mini.

00:25:48   Interesting that they are revamping potentially that entry-level MacBook Pro.

00:25:51   It does make sense from a price point perspective but it also is weird because is it going to

00:25:55   be a 13-inch MacBook Pro?

00:25:57   Is it going to follow the design language of the new ones?

00:26:00   I mean, now that you've got a 14-inch in the mix, I'm kind of curious about what that product

00:26:05   is exactly because it sits weirdly between the MacBook Air and the new fancy MacBook

00:26:11   So, yeah.

00:26:13   - We're back to differentiation again, right?

00:26:15   - Yeah, exactly.

00:26:16   Exactly.

00:26:17   What's this?

00:26:17   And then the MacBook Air revamp is most interesting

00:26:19   because it's the sort of, that's the next gen,

00:26:23   a new processor potentially.

00:26:25   And also it's the first one that we'll see

00:26:27   like a second generation Apple Silicon model, right?

00:26:32   I mean, since the M1 Air was one of the first ones

00:26:35   to roll out and I'm intrigued

00:26:37   because that will probably be a much bigger departure.

00:26:39   The M1 Air was essentially the pre-existing Intel MacBook Air,

00:26:44   but just, you know, with different guts, basically.

00:26:47   - Right. - So, yeah.

00:26:48   - I'm intrigued by the 13-inch MacBook Pro

00:26:54   because I do think there's a way for them

00:26:56   to differentiate it, and the way is

00:26:58   they put an M1 Pro in it.

00:27:00   So the M2 continues to be low power,

00:27:04   but has great efficiency, and that's in the MacBook Air.

00:27:07   And then, right now the M1 is the MacBook Pro.

00:27:10   And it's like, why is that Pro then?

00:27:13   What makes it Pro?

00:27:14   And the answer is it's thicker, it's got a fan,

00:27:15   that's about it.

00:27:16   But they can easily refresh the 13 to have the same chip

00:27:20   as the 14 and the 16 and take the touch bar out.

00:27:24   And maybe it doesn't have the fancy screens

00:27:27   that the 14 and the 16 does,

00:27:29   but it's more affordable than the 14 and the 16

00:27:32   while still offering a base model with a bin obviously,

00:27:36   a Pro chip instead of the M1 or M2 chip.

00:27:39   And that, I think that's enough, right,

00:27:41   to call it a MacBook Pro and to price it up from the air,

00:27:44   but let it be an entry into the Pro space.

00:27:48   And then maybe they, you know,

00:27:49   it's got enough of the cooling system in there

00:27:50   that they can let you spend more money on it

00:27:53   and spec up that process.

00:27:56   - I do wonder about them updating it

00:27:58   without changing the design at all,

00:27:59   because it does feel very old.

00:28:01   It does feel very Intel in its design.

00:28:03   - It does.

00:28:03   I mean, if they end up revving the Air and the, you know,

00:28:08   now they've got the new MacBook Pros,

00:28:10   it starts to feel a little bit like that old,

00:28:12   what was it like, there was like an old non-retina one

00:28:14   or something MacBook that stuck around for a long time.

00:28:16   It had like a DVD drive in it and stuff.

00:28:18   And if it starts to feel a little bit like that,

00:28:19   it's like, well, we kept it here for a reason.

00:28:21   We want to hit that price point

00:28:22   and provide certain power or whatever,

00:28:23   but it definitely feels like an older version.

00:28:26   - But when we talk differentiation, I think that's it, right?

00:28:29   I think that's it.

00:28:30   It's like you want the fancy new 14

00:28:31   with the gorgeous screen that is like a extended dynamic range screen, well, you're going to

00:28:36   have to pay for the 14. The 13's got the old screen, and it doesn't look as fancy, and

00:28:42   it doesn't have all the fancy ports. Maybe it's got some different ports than it currently

00:28:46   has, but still, it's just—there are a lot of ways—like, that thing doesn't need to

00:28:50   be cutting edge, but maybe having a Pro chip in it instead of an M1 would be—

00:28:54   Steve McLaughlin It could be enough.

00:28:55   David

00:28:55   a little slot in there for it to differentiate is like, I want a pro model, but I don't want

00:29:00   to spend a lot of money. You end up with that 13-inch model that's a compromise. I'm not

00:29:05   saying that it's a great product, but I'm saying I can see Apple doing it. If that makes

00:29:10   any sense, like, yeah, we can do that. Put that in there. And a new Mac Pro. Like, I

00:29:15   like the confidence here from Mark Gurman saying, yeah, that's going to happen. We don't

00:29:18   know the details of exactly what that is. He keeps on saying that it's like a smaller

00:29:26   design, which is not surprising necessarily because the current Mac Pro is very tall and

00:29:33   what would go inside. And I will refer you to about 10 different episodes of Accidental

00:29:37   Tech Podcast where they have combination of analyzed and wish cast exactly what could

00:29:42   be inside. I listen every week. I think it's fascinating. But there are lots of decisions

00:29:47   that Apple has has made with this product that we don't know about that will lead. And

00:29:52   this is I always bring up the peril the parable of the three blind men and the elephant where

00:29:56   we get individual information and we don't know what we're seeing. And I feel that with

00:30:01   a Mac Pro like there's there's probably some stuff that they made decisions by where that

00:30:06   report of the small Mac Pro were like, oh, right. That's what it is, but we don't know

00:30:11   what it is yet. So looking forward to year of year 2022. It's the year of the Apple headset.

00:30:16   It's the year of the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, apparently.

00:30:19   - Big year.

00:30:20   - Sounds good.

00:30:21   Sounds good.

00:30:22   I'm looking forward to 2022.

00:30:24   Maybe it won't disappoint me.

00:30:25   (laughing)

00:30:27   - Oh, now you've jinxed it all.

00:30:28   - The track record is not great.

00:30:29   One last thing before we move on,

00:30:31   which is the Upgrades, the eighth annual,

00:30:35   a shocking name, the eighth.

00:30:37   And it seems just like yesterday,

00:30:38   I was telling Myke we couldn't call it

00:30:40   the first annual Upgrades, and now here we are.

00:30:42   The eighth annual upgrades, the voting is open.

00:30:44   You need to help us with nominees

00:30:49   because this is the thing

00:30:50   where you get to have your voice heard

00:30:51   and also you get to remind us of things

00:30:53   that we may have forgotten about for the year,

00:30:55   products and stories and other things like that.

00:30:57   Go to upgradees.vote to nominate now.

00:31:01   And you can also find all of our previous winners

00:31:03   at upgradees.com.

00:31:06   That episode announcing the upgradees

00:31:08   will be recorded and released on December 27th.

00:31:10   It's our last episode of the year as is traditional.

00:31:13   Voting is going to close on Tuesday, December 21st.

00:31:16   So you still got some time,

00:31:17   but definitely send us your favorites

00:31:21   by going to upgradees.vote.

00:31:24   This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by FitBod.

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00:33:17   Now, Dan, you and I have both written columns recently

00:33:21   at Macworld about Apple's sort of coming soon features,

00:33:26   which I think it's worth talking about.

00:33:29   This idea that, and it's happening more often now.

00:33:32   And I don't think the right way to frame it is to say,

00:33:35   It's happening more often that Apple announces features

00:33:37   and then fails to ship them.

00:33:38   I think it's more that Apple is now more open

00:33:42   to announcing features in June,

00:33:45   knowing that they will ship it at some point

00:33:47   during the OS cycle, but not on day one.

00:33:50   - It's a lifespan kind of thing.

00:33:52   Like iOS 15 is a kind of a thing

00:33:54   that's gonna continue evolving

00:33:56   until they basically get to iOS 16 pretty much.

00:33:59   - Exactly right.

00:34:01   Like it's just sometimes they'll do that.

00:34:03   they'll ship it right before the other thing.

00:34:05   It's like, no, we did this thing.

00:34:06   I know that WWDC is next week,

00:34:08   but that thing we promised last year, here it is.

00:34:10   So don't complain about it next week,

00:34:11   'cause we did announce it this week.

00:34:13   So yeah, I like the discipline

00:34:16   that they're also not gonna ship something

00:34:18   that they, I mean, other than shortcuts, huh, ugh.

00:34:21   - Zing!

00:34:22   - But they're less likely to ship something broken

00:34:25   and more likely to just defer it until it is,

00:34:30   you know, there's only one chance

00:34:32   to make a first impression kind of thing.

00:34:34   I think there's truth in that,

00:34:35   that you roll out a new feature and it's busted,

00:34:38   and people are like, "Well, I'm never trying that again."

00:34:39   So you kind of want it to work the first time out the door.

00:34:42   But there is a large catalog of things

00:34:45   that Apple announced in June,

00:34:47   many of them meant to be here by the, you know,

00:34:51   in the fall, later in the fall is the classic line,

00:34:54   later in the fall.

00:34:54   Well, later in the fall,

00:34:56   we are about two weeks away from it not being fall anymore

00:34:58   here in Cupertino fall, anyway.

00:35:01   - Much less 2021 at all.

00:35:03   - Or by the end of the year,

00:35:04   which is another way that they often phrase this stuff.

00:35:07   So I thought we would go down the list.

00:35:09   Your article definitely went through all of these

00:35:12   and let's do a little check-in on where all this stuff is.

00:35:14   So SharePlay.

00:35:16   - Yeah, we talked a little bit about SharePlay before

00:35:19   when regards to the headset,

00:35:20   but it, so it came out,

00:35:21   it wasn't in the original iOS 15 release.

00:35:23   It got released in 15.1 a few weeks ago at this point.

00:35:27   It is still not available on the Mac,

00:35:31   but it is in the Monterey 12.1 betas,

00:35:33   which have gotten pretty close.

00:35:35   I think the assumption is they will probably ship.

00:35:38   If they didn't ship, basically,

00:35:40   as we started the show today,

00:35:42   then maybe later this week or next week,

00:35:45   I would have to guess,

00:35:45   I would assume they will make that cut off of fall.

00:35:50   But it's definitely, it's interesting

00:35:52   because it was something that they hyped a lot, right?

00:35:56   It was a, if you look down the sort of list of features,

00:36:00   That was the one they spent a lot of time on this year.

00:36:03   And for good reason, I think.

00:36:04   It was very much tied into the pandemic, I think,

00:36:06   in terms of how they were rolling that out.

00:36:09   But it also took a while to get out there.

00:36:12   And then I think there's also been some question

00:36:14   of the uptake of it so far.

00:36:16   I'm not sure how many people are actively using SharePlay,

00:36:19   which is perhaps a whole separate kettle of fish.

00:36:23   - I am looking forward to it being on the Mac

00:36:25   because I do use the Mac all the time,

00:36:28   even though this is probably a more iOS centric feature.

00:36:31   I keep meaning to try out SharePlay,

00:36:33   but of course the challenge with SharePlay

00:36:34   is you need to try it out with other people.

00:36:37   I mean, I guess technically you're gonna have two devices

00:36:39   and how sad is that?

00:36:41   Like I'm sharing it with another device

00:36:42   with another Apple ID, yay!

00:36:45   - That's not using it though, right?

00:36:46   I mean, that's us testing it and fiddling with it,

00:36:48   but it's not a thing where it's organically getting used.

00:36:50   And I think, you know, it's interesting you say that you,

00:36:52   you know, obviously you use the Mac.

00:36:54   Do you do FaceTime a lot on the Mac?

00:36:56   I do it more than you might think, but it's mostly because my daughter calls me at random

00:37:01   times and I'm working, and so I will just answer on the Mac because what else?

00:37:07   But yeah, I don't initiate FaceTime calls from the Mac ever.

00:37:09   And so I can think of it being interesting.

00:37:11   I mean, I think as I've talked to you about before, I do a podcast with my friend Lex

00:37:15   Friedman called Not Playing with Lex and Dan where we watch movies and record a podcast

00:37:20   as we watch them.

00:37:21   So for that circumstance, it seems like, oh, SharePlay is perfect, right?

00:37:25   exactly what I want. So we don't have to fiddle with like, "We got our Zoom call up, we got

00:37:29   a sync playback." Rather, we can just sort of call and hit a play button and you're off

00:37:34   and running. But other than things like that, I mean, I just don't know if this is something

00:37:39   that just doesn't have a lot of application for me or whether it's a more broad, like,

00:37:44   doesn't have a lot of application for lots of people. So I'm glad that we'll have the

00:37:48   feature parody on the Mac and the iOS side. I think that's smart. And it does raise all

00:37:52   these interesting questions of where are they going with this is this something

00:37:55   there you know if this is this big an initiative it doesn't have another shoe

00:37:58   to drop is there something coming with the headset but yeah I'm glad that it's

00:38:03   sort of getting out there but it did take longer for something that they

00:38:06   spent a lot of time talking about during WWDC app privacy report yeah this is

00:38:13   actually in the iOS 15.2 beta is another thing that they touted pretty highly

00:38:17   sort of comes on the heels of the app tracking transparency stuff they did

00:38:20   earlier this year with the end of iOS 14.

00:38:22   Of course, that kept getting pushed back and pushed back

00:38:24   in terms of implementation.

00:38:26   And of course, it really pissed off Facebook.

00:38:29   I think this will probably be pretty similar.

00:38:32   It is in the 15.2 betas.

00:38:33   I was actually looking at it the other day

00:38:35   'cause on my iPad, which is still on the beta train,

00:38:38   'cause I was curious to see.

00:38:40   And I was kinda blown away to see,

00:38:41   like I had watched like one episode of Wheel of Time

00:38:43   on Amazon Prime, and there was like the Prime video app

00:38:46   definitely had like way more phone homes

00:38:49   than almost anything else, like twice as much

00:38:51   as the next thing down on my list.

00:38:52   That said, I don't use my iPad every day all the time,

00:38:57   so I will be more interested to see

00:38:59   when I'm using it on my phone exactly how that pans out.

00:39:02   But it is basically a screen that tells you

00:39:05   how often all your apps are checking in

00:39:08   with their servers at home or asking for permissions

00:39:11   to certain things and then how often, right?

00:39:13   So in a lot of cases it's like,

00:39:15   how often does this app want your location?

00:39:17   How often does this app want your access to your microphone

00:39:19   or things like that?

00:39:21   So I think that's interesting.

00:39:22   I think it's a really good addition.

00:39:24   I'm kind of curious to see just how much it pans out

00:39:26   in terms of, are developers gonna try

00:39:29   and find ways around this?

00:39:30   Like, I mean, it seems pretty sketchy if they do that,

00:39:34   but I can't imagine Facebook necessarily wants

00:39:36   to report all the stuff its apps are asking for.

00:39:39   - This is a screen where you can go in and say,

00:39:43   show me all the apps that are accessing

00:39:46   this particular sensor or using this kind of activity

00:39:50   down to a domain level that is the,

00:39:55   it's not the nutrition label,

00:39:56   it's like the analysis of what you ate.

00:39:59   - Yeah, exactly.

00:40:00   - And where it went.

00:40:02   It's interesting.

00:40:03   So it's in the beta.

00:40:06   - And again- - So it's probably

00:40:07   coming soon.

00:40:08   - 15.2, I'm guessing probably shifts

00:40:10   whenever Monterey 12.1 does,

00:40:12   so probably in the next week or two is my guess.

00:40:14   - Yes, you would think.

00:40:15   - It's pretty close before everybody goes on their holiday

00:40:19   vacation. - Yeah, on holiday break.

00:40:20   Yep, exactly.

00:40:21   - All right.

00:40:22   Now I've been informed by Apple that,

00:40:27   by a footnote on Apple's website that when you die,

00:40:31   coming later this year,

00:40:32   you will be able to use the digital legacy feature,

00:40:36   which is a good feature with a bad footnote.

00:40:39   But this is also one of those things that's in the category

00:40:43   of coming later.

00:40:43   the idea that you'll be able to basically mark somebody

00:40:47   to take your Apple ID and all of that over

00:40:52   if and when you pass away,

00:40:55   so that there isn't sort of a sudden lockout on an account

00:40:57   and nobody knows and nobody can get into it.

00:40:59   - Yeah, this was briefly in the betas very early on,

00:41:03   and I know because I actually put in,

00:41:06   like I set it up and printed out like a piece of paper

00:41:09   that had the recovery code on it,

00:41:10   and then I think it got removed in subsequent betas,

00:41:13   But I still have like my printout of like like I put my wife in charge or whatever. I was like here

00:41:18   You can have my account if you decide to that. I am no longer with you, and you need access to it

00:41:24   I think this is a great program. I mean it is something that I know a lot of people struggle with I have

00:41:30   You know remember my my one of my cousins trying to like cancel an AOL account for one of his

00:41:36   Deceased parents and them being like constantly trying to like get him to renew. Well, maybe

00:41:41   He's like no, she's not gonna need it anymore

00:41:44   Sorry, like and and that is a it's a terrible situation to be in when you have to deal with all these other stresses

00:41:51   so having an ability to

00:41:53   Set this up and and get access after the fact is I'm sure super beneficial but it is one of those things that requires a good

00:42:00   Education program to like people got to know it's there

00:42:03   And I'm guessing a lot of us will probably end up helping said he set this up before right for loved ones

00:42:09   I assume that after people update to iOS 15.2 when it's final prompt or something

00:42:15   There was gonna be a little thing that comes up that says hey digital legacy. Yeah, you're you you're gonna die

00:42:20   Don't lose your app. Let's think about what's important here your Apple ID

00:42:25   Yeah, it's way. It's when that dialog box has a countdown clock on it that I think it's really unsettling well

00:42:30   It's gonna be an animoji of a skull

00:42:32   (laughing)

00:42:34   Grim Reaper Ian emoji is gonna come up and say,

00:42:36   "Thumbs up."

00:42:37   Yeah, it's a super important thing.

00:42:39   One of my earliest memories is my mom getting upset

00:42:42   when we would get mail for her father

00:42:45   who had died when I was two years old, right?

00:42:49   And I definitely remember that she would get upset about

00:42:52   that and like stop sending that.

00:42:53   And she gets mail from my dad now who passed away

00:42:57   a few years ago and she's like,

00:43:00   he's not gonna take advantage of this offer.

00:43:02   It's not gonna happen.

00:43:03   But that, so this is important stuff and we'll get it.

00:43:08   - It's a separate thing too from,

00:43:09   there was also an account recovery thing.

00:43:12   What was it, like trusted contacts that is in iOS 15

00:43:15   where you can designate other people

00:43:17   if you lose your phone or something

00:43:19   to like help you get back into your account.

00:43:22   But it's sort of a similar idea,

00:43:23   but like, you know, different use case.

00:43:26   - Yeah.

00:43:27   IDs in Wallet, the idea.

00:43:29   This is our please tap the NFC reader

00:43:32   with your driver's license, which eight states,

00:43:36   and I think they said the TSA originally,

00:43:37   like also has signed onto this,

00:43:40   but this sounds like it's not,

00:43:41   it's because you've got all these big bureaucracies

00:43:44   and you've got all these security questions and all that,

00:43:46   that sounds like a 2022.

00:43:47   We're gonna put it in the 2022 hopper with the headset

00:43:51   and the, what else is in the hopper?

00:43:54   The Mac Pro, it's in there.

00:43:55   - Yeah, even then, I think it's gonna take a while

00:43:58   before it actually gets out there.

00:43:59   I mean, this is dealing with large institutions,

00:44:02   and we saw this a little bit with Apple Pay.

00:44:03   Like, you know, it takes a while

00:44:05   to get everybody to sign on.

00:44:07   It requires like some time to get critical mass

00:44:09   and start going, and it's even worse

00:44:11   when you're dealing with like government bureaucracies.

00:44:13   Right? So I will tell you where we're gonna see this first.

00:44:16   I've recently discovered that at some airports,

00:44:19   it's not all airports, but at some airports,

00:44:22   I no longer need to present at the security desk

00:44:25   a boarding pass because the boarding pass

00:44:28   is linked to my ID.

00:44:30   So they look at my, they scan my ID and the ID says,

00:44:33   "Yes, Jason has a flight at this airport on this day,

00:44:36   let him through."

00:44:38   And convenient until of course it's inconsistent

00:44:41   so it's not convenient

00:44:42   'cause then you go to the next desk at the next airport

00:44:45   and they're like, "I also need your boarding passer."

00:44:47   And I'm like, "Oh, all right, okay,

00:44:49   you don't have the new stuff."

00:44:50   But this is my prediction is,

00:44:52   we're gonna see another round of that.

00:44:54   Maybe even with those kiosks that already are like that,

00:44:57   where there will be like an NFC tap thing.

00:45:00   And you'll basically,

00:45:01   'cause they said the TSA is on board with this,

00:45:03   I think it's all related.

00:45:04   They're gonna, you're gonna tap with your ID

00:45:07   and it's going to correlate that with your ticket

00:45:09   and they're gonna look at you

00:45:10   and have you take your mask down so they can see your face.

00:45:12   And then you're gonna be ushered through.

00:45:14   Like, it's like, that's all they need.

00:45:15   I think that will happen probably the soonest of everything

00:45:19   because it's the one bureaucracy

00:45:20   that needs to start rolling it out.

00:45:22   And somebody will report,

00:45:23   "Oh, in this random airport,

00:45:25   I actually got to use this feature for the first time.

00:45:28   But in terms of it being more than that,

00:45:31   I think it's gonna be a long time.

00:45:33   - And I'll point to, you know,

00:45:34   I wrote a little bit on Six Colors

00:45:36   about the digital vaccine cards.

00:45:38   And I feel like this sort of links in with that

00:45:41   to a certain extent in reminding us

00:45:42   how fractured the US setup is in terms of,

00:45:45   it's very unequal in terms of where you can get these things.

00:45:48   So I think it will be interesting to see this roll out.

00:45:50   I've also seen that with the ID where they'll just scan that.

00:45:53   And it reminds me a little bit actually of traveling

00:45:55   in some places in Europe too,

00:45:57   where even to get on the plane sometimes,

00:46:00   I feel like you have to scan your passport

00:46:02   or something like that,

00:46:03   like it takes a barcode or something.

00:46:05   So I think this is an interesting feature

00:46:08   and obviously they talked it up a lot.

00:46:09   They posted a thing a couple months ago now,

00:46:12   going through essentially like,

00:46:13   not in details the spec,

00:46:15   but like here's how it's gonna work.

00:46:17   But yeah, having all or a preponderance of states sign on

00:46:21   is gonna take some time.

00:46:21   So, you know, if you're in one of those eight lucky states so far,

00:46:25   you'll be an early adopter potentially.

00:46:27   - Yeah, congratulations. - Congrats, I guess, yeah.

00:46:32   - Swift Playground's new version that lets you develop things

00:46:36   in Swift Playground and submit them to the app store later in 2021.

00:46:41   I forgot this was happening.

00:46:44   Really, until I wrote this piece, I was like, "Oh, wait.

00:46:46   Yeah, there was, like, a new version."

00:46:48   And that was a big deal because you can write apps on the iPad

00:46:51   before the iPad, there were rumors going around last week

00:46:56   that some developers were essentially getting invited

00:46:58   by Apple to like check it out in beta.

00:47:00   - Private beta, yeah.

00:47:01   - Yeah, which suggests to me that it's probably

00:47:05   pretty far along, so maybe they'll make that 2021 date,

00:47:08   maybe that shows up when the 15.2 and 12.1

00:47:12   get released, possibly.

00:47:13   I thought it was interesting that that didn't,

00:47:17   people talked about it so much

00:47:18   and it didn't really materialize.

00:47:20   - Yeah, I'm surprised that they didn't make it,

00:47:22   and maybe they will at some point,

00:47:23   a public beta or a test flight

00:47:26   that any developer can sign up for,

00:47:28   and even do a thing where it's like,

00:47:30   well, you can sign up for it now,

00:47:31   but you can't submit yet, right?

00:47:33   Or you can only submit into test flight,

00:47:35   and it's not gonna go in the store

00:47:36   and do that kind of prolonged testing.

00:47:38   'Cause it seems unlikely

00:47:39   that they would do a closed private beta

00:47:41   and then just roll out and say,

00:47:42   go to town, people, put this thing on the App Store.

00:47:45   Like, I don't think,

00:47:46   I think there've gotta be a bunch of steps in between.

00:47:49   a lot of these, and then one we're gonna talk about next.

00:47:52   It's sort of like, it's not that it isn't coming,

00:47:54   it's that I'm not sure it's at step two,

00:47:57   and it needs to get through three more steps to get out.

00:48:00   And so it's gonna be a while.

00:48:02   - Along with that, the Xcode Cloud,

00:48:05   which they talked about,

00:48:06   where you can build stuff in the cloud, that has been--

00:48:09   - They announced it as a beta,

00:48:11   so it was announced as a beta,

00:48:13   and that they're gonna ship it next spring or something.

00:48:15   - And it's a paid service too, right?

00:48:16   I think you have to pay for that, so that'll be interesting.

00:48:18   free as a beta, but then you have to pay, I think is how that is going to work.

00:48:21   But yeah. So a big one is universal control, which in some ways I think a lot

00:48:25   of us thought was one of the coolest things that they announced. And this is

00:48:28   the, for people who don't know, it's the technology that is kind of stitching a

00:48:32   bunch of stuff that Apple has already built. It's like that, you know, seeing

00:48:36   them lay the groundwork because it's sort of like airdrop and it's sort of

00:48:40   like screen sharing and it's sort of like sidecar. But what it is is you can

00:48:45   put multiple Macs or Macs and iPads together

00:48:49   and use one set of controls and move your pointer

00:48:53   and use your keyboard, but move your pointer

00:48:55   from one device to another to another across their screens.

00:48:59   And it's like you're using one surface of device,

00:49:04   but it's actually the individual devices.

00:49:06   So the simple example is I've got my iMac here.

00:49:09   I put my iPad Pro next to my iMac.

00:49:12   And when I move my track pad, the cursor or pointer,

00:49:15   whatever you wanna call it, goes off of the iMac screen

00:49:19   and pops over into the iPad, but it's not sidecar.

00:49:23   I'm using the iPad and its software and its apps.

00:49:27   So what I'm really doing is sort of having my keyboard

00:49:30   and track pad control the pointer on the iPad.

00:49:34   - It's like a KVM switch almost.

00:49:35   - Right, but you can also drag and drop things,

00:49:37   which is the AirDrop part of it, right?

00:49:40   And the clipboard is shared across them.

00:49:42   But it's the idea that you can,

00:49:43   As somebody who's used my iPad Pro with Sidecar,

00:49:47   it just makes it a Mac monitor, right?

00:49:49   And I always think to myself, well, if I'm gonna do this,

00:49:51   I should just use the iPad apps because I like the iPad apps.

00:49:55   Why am I putting a Slack window that's got some lag

00:49:59   over there when I can just run Slack on the iPad?

00:50:02   And this is the answer to that, which is, yes,

00:50:04   you could just run Slack over there.

00:50:05   And when you move your mouse over there

00:50:07   or you start typing over there,

00:50:09   it's the same keyboard you're using for your Mac.

00:50:12   You don't have to switch to some other device.

00:50:13   Anyway, very cool feature.

00:50:16   And this is what I was saying before about the steps is,

00:50:19   hasn't ever been even in a beta

00:50:23   and yet is supposed to come later this fall,

00:50:25   which I'll remind you is two weeks away is the end of fall.

00:50:28   - I think we say it's not happening, at least in the fall.

00:50:31   It basically seems impossible.

00:50:32   - It is search for universal control

00:50:35   in the system preferences app,

00:50:36   and it will open the displays control panel.

00:50:38   And depending on if you click the right way,

00:50:41   it will actually bring up, I just did it,

00:50:43   allow your cursor and keyboard to move

00:50:45   between any nearby Mac or iPad.

00:50:46   Beta, which the beta clearly means

00:50:49   they're gonna ship this as a beta when it ships.

00:50:52   But when you click the checkbox,

00:50:53   it gets a little dark while you're clicking

00:50:55   and then you let go and it doesn't check the box.

00:50:57   And then they're separately pushed through the edge

00:50:59   of a display to connect a nearby Mac or iPad

00:51:01   and that's grayed out.

00:51:02   So it is in some recent betas as a setting you can't choose.

00:51:07   - Yeah, I love that.

00:51:09   I found that by accident one day too,

00:51:10   'cause I could type universal control,

00:51:12   it would take it to displays.

00:51:13   I accidentally put my screen to sleep at one point,

00:51:15   and then I woke it up, and when I woke it up immediately,

00:51:18   the dialog box was there suddenly,

00:51:20   and I was like, "What, there's not even a button for it!

00:51:21   "Where did that come from?"

00:51:22   Why doesn't it click?

00:51:23   Why doesn't it check? - Yeah, it's so annoying.

00:51:25   And there was, I guess, a beta where you could kind of,

00:51:27   there was like a terminal, hackery stuff you could do

00:51:29   to sort of enable it, but it didn't work very well,

00:51:32   and yeah, I mean, it's--

00:51:33   - Well, somebody put out a thing where it was like,

00:51:36   there was like a secret preference

00:51:37   that's like a serial number for,

00:51:39   It's basically, it's an Apple internal something

00:51:41   that you can pop somewhere

00:51:43   and then it turns on the feature, but like, no, don't do that.

00:51:46   - Yeah, I wouldn't recommend it.

00:51:47   I mean, it's clearly, this was a lot harder, I think,

00:51:51   than the, like the demo promised

00:51:53   a high degree of difficulty, right?

00:51:55   Like the essentially, this will be seamless.

00:51:57   And we know that Apple loves to do seamless stuff like this

00:52:00   and say, it just works, right?

00:52:01   That's the old catch phrase.

00:52:02   - Ah, yes.

00:52:03   - Clearly it was not just working, I think.

00:52:06   - One of the things that I mentioned in my Macworld piece

00:52:08   is that they chose to set the bar very high for themselves.

00:52:11   They didn't, they could have,

00:52:13   I mean, I don't know if it would have shipped yet

00:52:15   'cause I don't know where they're having issues,

00:52:17   but it struck me at the time and it still strikes me

00:52:20   that they could have made this one of those features

00:52:22   that's kind of like sidecar,

00:52:23   where you have to go like,

00:52:24   all right, I'm gonna connect to another device

00:52:27   and this device,

00:52:29   and then I'm gonna place it to the right of my screen

00:52:32   and now it works.

00:52:34   And they said, no, no, no,

00:52:36   you're gonna have your device in proximity

00:52:38   and because of all of our AirDrop and related stuff,

00:52:43   all that proximity based stuff,

00:52:45   we're gonna know it's nearby.

00:52:47   And then you're gonna push the cursor

00:52:49   off of one of the sides of your Mac screen.

00:52:51   And from that, we're going to infer the location

00:52:54   of that device and do all the connection behind the scenes

00:52:58   and it will seamlessly pop with a little animation

00:53:01   out of the shell of your Mac and whoop,

00:53:03   appear over on the iPad.

00:53:05   It's like, that's awesome.

00:53:06   That is Apple kind of at its best of like,

00:53:09   we can figure this out.

00:53:10   Computers can do this.

00:53:11   We don't need to ask you.

00:53:12   We don't need to throw up any Chrome

00:53:14   that configures any of this stuff.

00:53:15   And that's fine, but that's harder.

00:53:18   - Hard, yeah, yeah.

00:53:20   The degree of difficulty, very high.

00:53:22   Like you said, they set the bar

00:53:24   extremely high for themselves.

00:53:26   I think this probably, as we said,

00:53:28   this probably ended up being much trickier to implement

00:53:31   or to get right than they initially thought.

00:53:35   And so I'm not shocked that they haven't come out

00:53:38   and said, "By the way, it won't make it."

00:53:39   But they don't do that.

00:53:40   They're not gonna come out and say,

00:53:41   "Oh, it's not gonna make it by the end of fall."

00:53:45   But yeah, you're not probably gonna see it.

00:53:47   I have to believe maybe the next round of betas,

00:53:50   because otherwise, when are you gonna ship it?

00:53:52   - This is it.

00:53:52   My prediction is gonna be

00:53:55   that they're gonna ship 12.1 and 15.2 of iOS,

00:54:00   and they're gonna then, the next day,

00:54:02   basically drop the next round of developer betas and it'll be on in there. That's my

00:54:07   prediction is that they don't want to mess up the current betas because they're about

00:54:13   to ship them. But then they will and they'll be able to say, you know, it's now in beta

00:54:19   and will be released publicly and it's like, okay, well, we got it out by the end of the

00:54:23   fall and that we put it in a public beta or a developer beta by the end of the fall. And

00:54:28   again, there's no cop that's going to pull them over by the side of the road if they

00:54:32   don't ship it by the solstice, right? It's not gonna happen. It's just us writing about

00:54:37   it. But still, it would be nice to see it. Yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah. The Apple, uh, it's

00:54:42   uh, it's Feature Cops. Feature Cops coming this fall on Apple TV+. Excuse me, Mr. Cook,

00:54:47   I'm gonna need to see your status of universal control. I hope you've got a legacy contact

00:54:53   - I feel that.

00:54:54   - I got some legacy notes.

00:54:58   - Loves those.

00:55:00   - Oh, he does.

00:55:00   He loves them.

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00:56:42   Now, Dan, I mentioned earlier that you last appeared

00:56:47   this show in 2016. Episode 85. What a world it was back in 2016. A classic episode about

00:56:57   uh, Kindles and Amazon Echoes called Talk to the Cylinder, episode 85, April 2016. And

00:57:03   I thought maybe we would revisit that a little bit. I wanted to start because Myke doesn't,

00:57:08   again, Myke doesn't read books and he doesn't want to talk about e-readers. I wanted to

00:57:11   start by saying that I reviewed a load of e-readers, um, recently on Six Colors. Uh,

00:57:17   you to John Gruber for linking to my review, which, you know, sometimes the

00:57:20   Daring Fireball links I expect. Other times I am taken completely by surprise,

00:57:25   and I was taking-- I saw that on Daring Fireball, and I'm like, "Really? Okay, great! I mean, it's

00:57:29   great!" And there aren't that many people-- here's another fact-- there aren't that

00:57:34   many people who review e-readers who care enough about it and are in a

00:57:38   position where they've got a platform where they can review e-readers. The

00:57:41   Verge does, and there are a few places that do, but not a lot. And I do care

00:57:45   about it. So I called up, I bought a Kindle because Amazon, I can never,

00:57:50   despite their sponsorship of this and the fact that we know high-ranking

00:57:54   Amazon executives now, executive anyway, I can't get them to send me review units

00:57:59   of Kindles so I just have to buy them or in the case of some of them buy them

00:58:02   and then return them. Thanks Amazon. Koppo actually sent me their new e-readers to

00:58:09   review which was really great of them. I bought one but they sent me the rest and

00:58:13   that was awesome because I wasn't gonna buy them. I was gonna buy like

00:58:16   eight e-readers. And so you can read that review on six colors but basically the

00:58:22   Kindle Paperwhite is probably the best choice for most people at this point. I

00:58:29   have switched over to the Kobo platform for a bunch of reasons. I think

00:58:33   it has better typography, I think the software is better, it's got a store just

00:58:37   like Amazon does. You can use the Mac app Calibre with a DDRM plugin to convert your

00:58:45   Amazon books so that they play on the Kobo. It's, I guess, technically not legal, but

00:58:50   I think if you're just play-shifting your own books that you bought, I'm okay with it.

00:58:54   You should be okay with it. And the Kobo has some other features, most notably, I think,

00:59:02   the fact that the Kobo Libra has physical page turn buttons,

00:59:07   which I really like, and Amazon thinks is a premium feature.

00:59:10   Buttons to turn the page are a premium feature

00:59:14   that only should exist on the highest end,

00:59:16   the Oasis, the highest end Kindle.

00:59:18   - The ghost of Steve Jobs has gotten to the-

00:59:20   - Yeah, war on buttons, Amazon.

00:59:22   Well, I guess this would be,

00:59:24   if Steve Jobs had lived a little longer,

00:59:25   perhaps he would have realized

00:59:27   that buttons were a premium opportunity.

00:59:29   - People will pay.

00:59:30   - That's right.

00:59:30   They'll pay for buttons.

00:59:31   Let those-

00:59:32   pay for buttons if they want to. But anyway, so I love the Cobra Libre 2

00:59:37   because it is priced like $100 less than the Kindle Oasis and has buttons. It's

00:59:43   not as nice as the Kindle Oasis. The screen isn't flush, so it's sort of

00:59:47   recessed a little bit around the bezel, which the Oasis isn't. The Oasis has a

00:59:51   metal back. It's a nicer piece of hardware, but it's also $100 more

00:59:55   expensive. So I think if you're somebody who cares about the

00:59:59   convenience of not having to tap on the screen. The problem I have with tapping

01:00:03   on a screen and not having a physical page turn button is, first off, you just

01:00:06   hold them in your e-reader and then you've got to reposition your hand every

01:00:09   time you turn the page in order to tap on it. Also, you can do mistapping, whereas

01:00:14   with the Kobo, you can turn off tap to turn the page, so you can only swipe to

01:00:19   turn a page, and it's delightful to not have mistaken taps turn the page of the

01:00:24   book you're reading. And you just keep clicking that button. It's such a

01:00:27   naturally you leave your thumb that you're holding the e-reader over the

01:00:31   button and then every time it's time to turn the page you just go boop and it's

01:00:35   very civilized and that's why I prefer the Kobo Libra. I have a Libra as well I

01:00:39   bought after I think your first review the first version of it a while back and

01:00:44   I like it a lot I've been using it more and more as my default reader I do have

01:00:47   a Kindle still that I I use and sometimes I jump back and forth because

01:00:51   it just depends where I where I have a book I'm living that Captain Picard

01:00:54   Multi-e reader tablet lifestyle. I love it. It's weird right because it's like now I used to have a stack of books on my nightstand

01:01:00   Little weird, but I did just buy for my wife's birthday, which is today

01:01:06   I bought her a new paper white because her old Kindle finally bit dust

01:01:10   And I ended up for a weird confluence of events

01:01:14   I ended up using it this past weekend while we were traveling and she was reading something on my Kindle because we only available on

01:01:19   my Kindle

01:01:20   So that was very fun story where I bought her a new e-reader and then I used it all week

01:01:24   I mean, so how did you like the paperweight because it's it's solid. It's it's the the screen is really nice

01:01:29   The flush screen on it is yes. I have a so my paperweight is a little older, but it has the flush screen

01:01:34   But this one has a much larger screen on it surprised me. So they shrunk the bezels a lot

01:01:38   I was using it without a case. I like it a lot. It looks great

01:01:42   I think the typography has improved even since the one I have which is only a few years old

01:01:47   Yeah, the process the processor is better too. So it's faster in it and the screen looks better. Yeah

01:01:51   Yeah, I think I think my biggest complaints about it are I do think the ergonomics of it are annoying

01:01:56   So narrow that it's actually kind of hard to hold

01:01:59   I have to hold at the bottom or after I put my entire hand like around the back. Yep, which is uncomfortable

01:02:04   I can do it, but it's uncomfortable or you got to hand it, which is yeah

01:02:08   Or you had to hand it and I'm reading it like in bed and I'm constantly if you hold it by the bottom

01:02:12   You're always worried like it's gonna tip out

01:02:14   Yeah, I

01:02:16   So that frustrates me a little bit and I actually will say and maybe this is an I don't know if this is a hot take

01:02:20   But like I think the Kindle

01:02:22   Software UX has gotten worse like I was trying to figure out how to turn some features off and being like where are like

01:02:28   there's the stupid feature that comes like enabled by default where it's like

01:02:32   Like social like the highlights where it highlights things other people have highlighted right it tells you like a hundred people have highlighted this phrase

01:02:39   And I hate it

01:02:40   I hate it

01:02:41   and I could not I was like going through all the preferences like where does this turn off and it turned out to be in

01:02:46   like a totally separate section of the,

01:02:48   like you could only view it in the preferences

01:02:50   when you were in a book

01:02:51   and then look at the viewing preferences

01:02:52   like while you're in the book.

01:02:54   And I was like, this is so dumb.

01:02:55   So I was like, this, this frustrates me.

01:02:58   I think that those, you know,

01:02:59   just their setup has gotten so complex

01:03:02   because they're trying to leverage all these like

01:03:05   internet and social aspects

01:03:07   that I think it's just a bit of a mess.

01:03:09   Whereas I think that Kobo actually has a much leaner,

01:03:12   much cleaner UI in a lot of places.

01:03:14   So I guess this is part of the risk of becoming

01:03:17   the dominant device maker in a market

01:03:21   is that you don't feel as pressed to improve things

01:03:25   constantly, at least from a software perspective.

01:03:28   But it is a fine piece of hardware.

01:03:30   I enjoyed reading on it.

01:03:32   But I do think, having gotten used to the Kobo,

01:03:35   I feel a little bit more spoiled when I have

01:03:38   to go back to my Kindle.

01:03:39   Yeah, I think that's exactly it.

01:03:41   The Paperweight, one of the challenges

01:03:43   reviewing products, and you know this too, is you've got to try to look beyond

01:03:47   yourself. And bad reviews often come from people who are just reviewing it for

01:03:52   what they're interested in. And like, I am trying to look beyond myself

01:03:57   and say that I still think the Paperwhite, because of the—there's the

01:04:01   cheap Kindle, I don't think that's good enough. I think the Paperwhite is a good

01:04:04   Kindle to buy. It is cheaper than the Libra, it's got some very nice

01:04:11   features and so because the bezels are so narrow and because I like page turn

01:04:15   buttons I am NOT gonna use it. I bought it and I used it and then I returned it

01:04:22   I'm like no I'm not gonna use it but I still think I understand that a lot of

01:04:26   people just don't care about the page turn thing as much as I do I don't

01:04:29   really understand it because I think ergonomically having a button to turn

01:04:32   the page is so much better so much easier and and then you can turn off the

01:04:37   taps which is even better because then there's so many mistakes. You get a

01:04:41   little speck of dust on the screen and you're like "I can't touch the screen

01:04:44   the dust must remain because I'll churn the page" and then right so like but

01:04:49   but yeah if you're just somebody who's very casual e-reader user or maybe you

01:04:53   only read some of the time or you read at the beach or whatever like that

01:04:57   Paperwhite, the screen is good, the hardware is solid, it's

01:05:00   waterproof, like it is the definitive e-reader for people who don't

01:05:06   who don't care so much.

01:05:08   They're not precious about their e-readers.

01:05:10   They just want Kindle to throw in a bag.

01:05:13   And it's got everything that Amazon has.

01:05:15   They've got their Unlimited and they've got,

01:05:17   if you're Prime, there's some books that you get

01:05:18   and all that kind of stuff is wrapped

01:05:20   into the Kindle platform that make that a good product.

01:05:23   - Yeah, it's got the new,

01:05:25   it's got the ambient backlight too thing

01:05:26   where it changes warmth depending on time of day

01:05:29   or something like that.

01:05:30   So, I mean, like that's cool that Kobo has that as well.

01:05:32   I actually think the Kobo again implemented a little better,

01:05:34   but I'm glad that it made its way to the Paperwhite

01:05:37   because it is a nice feature.

01:05:38   - You know, my favorite feature of Kobo,

01:05:40   so I like Kobo, like I said, I think the software is better.

01:05:43   I think, yes, the new Amazon software update hit me

01:05:46   right after I got that Paperwhite,

01:05:47   it opened up and it looked perfectly normal.

01:05:49   And then it said, "I am updating my software."

01:05:52   And then it rebooted and I'm like, "What happened?"

01:05:54   - What are, who are you?

01:05:55   How did you get in here?

01:05:56   - It actually, its home screen looks more

01:05:58   like the Kobo home screen, which I thought was really funny.

01:06:01   And the settings are all over the place.

01:06:02   Kobo software, I do think is better.

01:06:04   It's not perfect, but I think it's better.

01:06:06   Its typography is way better.

01:06:09   When people ask me why I choose Kobo,

01:06:12   number one reason is the typography.

01:06:13   I think there's something about the way that Amazon's font-

01:06:16   - It looks really good. I don't know why.

01:06:18   - Font rendering, I don't know either.

01:06:20   Amazon's font rendering and its default fonts,

01:06:22   there's something wrong there.

01:06:24   - They used to look like a book.

01:06:26   - The Kobo, just the type is all crisper.

01:06:29   My go-to is Georgia, I think.

01:06:31   - Yes, yep. - I think it looks the best.

01:06:33   - I agree. - But it's so crisp and clear.

01:06:35   It's like I'm reading on paper in a way

01:06:37   that the Amazon fonts are blocky.

01:06:39   - I don't get it.

01:06:39   It's so strange.

01:06:40   - It's literally the same E Ink screen,

01:06:42   so I don't understand that.

01:06:43   - I don't know what they're doing.

01:06:44   - And my number two, by the way, is libraries.

01:06:46   And I wrote a whole piece at Six Colors

01:06:47   that I'll link to in the show notes that explains,

01:06:49   'cause I hear, I say,

01:06:50   "Kobo's better at library books than Kindle is."

01:06:53   And I hear from all the people who own Kindle's going,

01:06:55   "What do you mean?

01:06:56   "It's fine."

01:06:57   And that's because I'm not saying that it doesn't do it.

01:07:00   I'm saying that Kobo is better at it.

01:07:02   with Kindle, you go to the Libby app on your iPhone and everybody who has a local library

01:07:06   get the Libby app. It's super good and I always want to extol its virtues. You log into your

01:07:13   local library, get a library card, they're free, go to your library. You might even be

01:07:16   able to sign up online and not even go to your library. You put that in there. They've

01:07:20   got a selection of audiobooks and ebooks that you just check out and use. Audiobooks, you

01:07:24   just play them on the Libby app, it's great. They're free because they're from the library.

01:07:28   What you do if you've got a Kindle is you go to Libby and you say, "Yes, I would like

01:07:32   this book," and then you tap "Send to Kindle," and it opens a web view of Amazon, and you

01:07:38   log in if you're not logged in, and you have to say, "Choose what Kindle you want to send

01:07:43   it to," and you press the button, and then it loads another page that says, "I sent it,"

01:07:46   and then you sync your Kindle, and it shows up.

01:07:48   It's fine.

01:07:49   Kobo—so the company that does Libby is OverDrive.

01:07:53   OverDrive is the preeminent library system for ebooks and audiobooks in the US. OverDrive

01:08:01   used to be owned by Rakuten, the same company that owns Kobo, for five years. It's not anymore,

01:08:06   but it was for about five years. And as you might expect, they had pretty good integration.

01:08:11   They built in good integration. So on the Kobo itself, you can tap "view my OverDrive

01:08:17   holds or browse my library's collection of ebooks. If you do a search, you can search

01:08:23   the Kobo store or you can search OverDrive and find the books that are in your local

01:08:28   library that you might want to read. And even if you're searching the Kobo store, if you

01:08:31   find a book before you buy it, if you tap the little ellipsis button, it'll say "check

01:08:37   this book out on OverDrive" if it's available from the library instead of from buying it

01:08:42   from the Kobo store. Like, it's just nice. It's just nicer. It's not that Kindle doesn't

01:08:46   - You can do it well, it's just the Kobo does it nicer.

01:08:48   So those are the reasons that I have that

01:08:52   and the fact that that Libra hardware is so good.

01:08:55   - My Libra tip, by the way, which I really love

01:08:57   and I discovered either did not know about or had forgotten,

01:09:00   is adjusting the backlight price.

01:09:02   - That's it. - That was it?

01:09:04   - That's not what I was about to say.

01:09:04   - That's spiking up and down left?

01:09:05   I tried to do it on the Kindle.

01:09:07   I was just, oh, this backlight.

01:09:08   I was like, oh, come on.

01:09:09   - You put your finger down on the left side

01:09:13   of the screen on the Kobo

01:09:15   and then slide it upward, the brightness goes up.

01:09:19   - It's so good.

01:09:20   - It's got a brightness up down gesture

01:09:22   that I use all the time.

01:09:23   And yes, Dan, when I was testing out the Paperwhite,

01:09:26   I kept being like, why won't it do it?

01:09:28   - Although I would go to a menu

01:09:29   and you got to hit the little buttons.

01:09:31   - Yeah, I will flip it and say that these ink screens

01:09:34   also support dark mode, which is a really weird thing

01:09:37   where it puts, you know, it's what you expect.

01:09:40   It uses the, the screen is black and white,

01:09:42   but it makes the whole background black

01:09:44   and the type white.

01:09:46   Now, because it's a reflective screen

01:09:47   and there's backlighting, it's still kind of bright,

01:09:49   but it is a little bit dimmer

01:09:51   and the typography isn't as good, but it's okay.

01:09:54   And I will give Kindle credit here.

01:09:56   Kindle, if you tap on the setting icon

01:09:58   from while you're reading the book,

01:09:59   you can just tap dark mode.

01:10:02   And to do that on the Kobo, you've got to go like,

01:10:04   you've got to tap settings

01:10:06   and then you got to go to page two

01:10:08   and then you got to check the box

01:10:10   and it's just, it's more swipes and taps

01:10:11   to get where you need to go.

01:10:13   So advantage Kindle there, I guess,

01:10:14   but I mostly don't use dark mode

01:10:16   and that brightness shortcut is the best.

01:10:20   - It really is great.

01:10:21   It was a huge, huge thing for me

01:10:24   when I actually discovered,

01:10:25   why is my screen getting,

01:10:25   ooh, hey, this is useful.

01:10:27   - And by the way, I should say there's also a Kobo Sage,

01:10:30   which is a new, it's a bigger e-reader

01:10:33   and that one's got the flush screen.

01:10:35   Lauren is using that one.

01:10:36   It's really nice.

01:10:37   So it's more like a trade paperback size,

01:10:40   whereas the smaller ones are more like a paperback size,

01:10:42   a little bit, a big screen.

01:10:45   Lauren likes it 'cause she can make the type bigger

01:10:49   and not have to change the page every two sentences.

01:10:52   And it's really nice if you're looking for something bigger.

01:10:56   So I guess what I'm saying is don't default to Kindle,

01:10:58   look around a little bit.

01:10:59   The Kobo stuff is really good and it has some advantages,

01:11:03   especially if you want those page turn buttons

01:11:04   and don't wanna buy a Kindle Oasis to do it

01:11:07   'cause it's $100 more.

01:11:08   And also Kobo, I'll point out just as a burn for Amazon,

01:11:12   The Kobo products just come without ads.

01:11:16   Whereas the Kindle products,

01:11:17   you have to pay extra to take the ads off.

01:11:19   - And to see your book cover on the front of the Kindle,

01:11:23   or which is...

01:11:25   - They did add that feature, which is nice.

01:11:27   - I know, it's great, but it took forever

01:11:30   and you have to pay for it.

01:11:31   So like that's, I know that's,

01:11:33   it's not a huge count in its favor.

01:11:35   - Ooh, while we're talking about books,

01:11:37   I think we need to have the obligatory

01:11:38   Dan is a novelist conversation.

01:11:41   You've got a book coming out next year.

01:11:42   You wanna tell people where they can order it

01:11:45   and what it's about? - Yeah, sure.

01:11:47   This is the "Nova Incident."

01:11:48   It's the latest installment in my "Galactic Cold War" series

01:11:52   which I've been writing for quite some time now.

01:11:55   It is book three or four, depending on how you count.

01:11:58   Do you wanna know why?

01:11:59   Go to my FAQ at my website.

01:12:00   It explains it.

01:12:01   It comes out in July of next year.

01:12:05   I'm very excited.

01:12:07   So it's the next installment.

01:12:08   Jason has read this book.

01:12:10   - I have. - Or an earlier version.

01:12:12   I'm actually working on my-- - I read a draft.

01:12:13   It may be very different now, I don't know.

01:12:15   - It's totally different.

01:12:16   There are rhinoceroses and unicorns.

01:12:18   - What? - No.

01:12:20   I actually am working through the manuscript notes

01:12:21   for my editor this week.

01:12:24   So I'm ready to get the wraps on that.

01:12:26   But it is, I think, kind of a fun thriller espionage story

01:12:31   that takes place on a sort of, on the planet

01:12:35   on which a lot of these ventures have not been set before,

01:12:37   but it's like the home of the Commonwealth.

01:12:40   Yeah, the Capitol.

01:12:41   It's got a, it's got like sort of a more thriller-y feel to it, I think.

01:12:44   That's how I'll describe it.

01:12:46   - All your books are kind of like spy thrillers, except in a sci-fi setting.

01:12:51   And so I feel like if you like both of those things, like I know you do,

01:12:55   that's your sweet spot, but I'd say if you like spy stuff or thriller stuff

01:13:00   and are turned off by sci-fi, you might want to give it a try,

01:13:05   because it's set, it is, you're mishmashing the genres a little bit,

01:13:09   but I think it's clear that these are,

01:13:11   and they're fun too, they're fun and funny.

01:13:13   It's not all just kind of bleak spies.

01:13:17   - I don't do bleak.

01:13:18   I don't do bleak. - You know the sad spies?

01:13:19   - It's not a sad spy story.

01:13:20   - Some of those le Carre spies, they're very sad.

01:13:23   - They're very tortured.

01:13:24   They're very tortured, yeah.

01:13:26   - Your characters are sometimes tortured,

01:13:29   but also sometimes they're wisecrackers

01:13:31   'cause you can't help yourself.

01:13:32   - That's true.

01:13:33   It's a little bit more like,

01:13:34   I think my blurb on the cover,

01:13:35   which is from our pal Antony Johnson this time around,

01:13:38   says it's like mission impossible in space.

01:13:40   So that's a pretty good sum up of,

01:13:42   it's kind of what you're looking for.

01:13:44   But it's available for now for pre-order

01:13:46   in pretty much every place,

01:13:48   whether you want your stuff in ebook,

01:13:49   you know, you can get it at Amazon,

01:13:50   you can get it on Kobo,

01:13:52   you can get it at Barnes and Noble.

01:13:54   It's available in paperback from all those places,

01:13:56   as well as your local independent bookstore.

01:13:58   I'm sure we'll be happy to order it for you.

01:14:00   I always recommend checking out indiebound.org,

01:14:03   which lets you search for local bookstores near you.

01:14:06   And this time for the first time,

01:14:08   I am doing signed paperback copies

01:14:11   through my local bookstore, Porter Square Books.

01:14:14   There is a link on my website

01:14:16   for where you can pre-order one of those,

01:14:18   and I'll sign it, I'll even personalize it.

01:14:19   It's a thing you can put in.

01:14:20   And I happen to know that because Jason did this.

01:14:23   - I did it, yeah, I did it.

01:14:25   I put a personal engraving in there that you have to do,

01:14:28   and it says something like,

01:14:29   "For Jason, I owe it all to you."

01:14:31   - So, which I have to write, it's the law.

01:14:34   - It's the law now.

01:14:35   - Yeah, I did this, I bought Joe Paznanski's book,

01:14:37   "The Baseball 100" and I bought it, I love this trend.

01:14:39   And I bought it from his Kansas City hometown

01:14:44   indie bookstore.

01:14:47   And he went to Kansas City, he lives in North Carolina now,

01:14:50   but he went back to Kansas City for an author event

01:14:53   for the release of the book.

01:14:54   And he went into the basement of the bookstore

01:14:56   and it was completely full of his book.

01:15:00   And they said, "You have to sign all these

01:15:01   and then scribe them."

01:15:02   And he said, "Oh my God."

01:15:03   They said, "And then tomorrow when you come back,

01:15:05   "there will be more because we couldn't fit them all in here."

01:15:09   Yeah, but I love it because it's authors

01:15:11   supporting their local indie bookstores

01:15:13   and you get something from it,

01:15:14   which is you pay for them to ship it to you,

01:15:16   but the author will personalize it.

01:15:18   And so I'm glad that you're doing that

01:15:20   with the Porter Square Bookstore.

01:15:23   I know when we talk about this

01:15:24   and we talked about eBooks just a minute ago,

01:15:27   people always ask like, "I wanna make Dan happy.

01:15:31   How do I make Dan the most amount of money?

01:15:34   And is there a difference?

01:15:36   Is your personal preference by a paper book

01:15:39   from an indie bookstore, or is it it doesn't matter, or what?

01:15:43   - So, you know, there's a lot of math

01:15:45   that goes into publishing contracts,

01:15:47   and I think the best thing for readers

01:15:49   is not to worry too much about it.

01:15:50   Buying the book is the most important thing.

01:15:53   It's the best way to show your support, honestly.

01:15:55   - Also, it's not fair that they put math

01:15:57   in publishing contracts, 'cause writers don't know math.

01:15:59   - I don't know.

01:16:01   Some of the numbers are larger than others.

01:16:02   It's very tricky.

01:16:04   But I mean, the short answer is,

01:16:06   they all help in different ways.

01:16:07   I think that there's a lot to be said for paper books,

01:16:10   even though the royalty rate on those tends to be lower,

01:16:12   and I'd be happy to have a long conversation.

01:16:15   If you're really interested, June Ann will do a,

01:16:17   I don't know, Jason and I will talk about this

01:16:18   somewhere else about books and publishing,

01:16:21   'cause it's super fun.

01:16:23   But the short answer is that the sales really help.

01:16:25   And the most important thing is pre-ordering is great,

01:16:27   because it goes into first week sales,

01:16:29   and first week sales tend to be the largest number

01:16:30   sales right the same way a movie box office is biggest on opening weekend and

01:16:35   that is the kind of thing that registers interest for the publishers for that to

01:16:38   say oh look there's a lot of sales happening this opening you know release

01:16:43   day for this book maybe we should consider handing that guy another

01:16:47   publishing contract or something like that so that's the most important and

01:16:50   then after that I think it's a matter of your preference as a reader it's where

01:16:54   you like to read your books if you're an e-book reader yeah buy it on e-book if

01:16:57   you prefer a paperback or you want a signed copy do it yeah order one of

01:17:00   those. That's great. You want to order all of them? Yeah, that's fantastic. Order all

01:17:04   of them. Do it. I will say there is, even though it's not available for pre-order yet,

01:17:08   there should be an audiobook version. I don't know exactly when it's going to go for pre-order,

01:17:12   but I will be posting about it on my website when it does. So yeah, keep your eyes out

01:17:17   if you're looking for that. Alright. And one last thing. We talked about paperwhites and

01:17:22   kobos and things like that. Do you have a preference or do you go, are you all over

01:17:27   of the place in terms of reading books and paper,

01:17:28   reading books and ebook?

01:17:30   - I used to read a lot more books in paper.

01:17:33   It's cut down a lot, especially in the pandemic.

01:17:35   I think just the ability to get books quickly,

01:17:37   like the instant gratification aspect,

01:17:39   just got huge for me during the pandemic

01:17:41   and being able to say like, whether it's at my library

01:17:43   or just buying a book and ebook,

01:17:45   just being able to go and say, I got it,

01:17:47   I'm gonna start reading, really removed a lot of barriers.

01:17:50   I do like reading on paper and I do do it occasionally.

01:17:53   I think also the other part of it is just like

01:17:55   having recently moved, like realizing,

01:17:58   I have a lot of paper books and acquiring new ones

01:18:00   is probably a lower down on the priority list these days.

01:18:04   - Yeah, I think that's fair.

01:18:05   - Any house face.

01:18:06   - For the record, I know I talk about e-readers a lot

01:18:09   and that's because I don't read paper books.

01:18:12   I will occasionally, there'll be a book

01:18:14   that'll be at the library in paper

01:18:16   and it's not available as an ebook

01:18:18   or it's only available to purchase

01:18:19   and I will have my contact at the local library,

01:18:22   being my wife, bring it home for me.

01:18:23   But, and so I've read a couple library books and paper

01:18:26   in the last couple of years,

01:18:27   but basically I'm 99% on eBooks now.

01:18:31   It just, and because I got into the whole

01:18:35   overdrive library thing, that's actually been delightful

01:18:38   because there have been, occasionally there are these lists

01:18:41   of books, like there was NPR put together

01:18:44   a definitive sci-fi fantasy reading list of the last decade

01:18:49   or something like that.

01:18:50   And there were a handful of books on there

01:18:52   that I hadn't read that were at my local library.

01:18:55   And I added all those in,

01:18:56   and I will sometimes see other articles that list books,

01:18:58   and I'll put them in there.

01:18:59   And then it's this sort of delightful thing

01:19:01   where eventually that book will pop out,

01:19:04   my turn in line basically comes up,

01:19:06   and they'll say, "Here it is."

01:19:08   And that's actually been really great

01:19:10   'cause there's this sort of random,

01:19:13   it's like a playlist on shuffle.

01:19:15   - Conveyor belt of books.

01:19:16   - Yeah, of random books that will come in an order,

01:19:18   like just a totally random order.

01:19:20   Books that I said that I was interested in,

01:19:22   but I don't remember anything about them

01:19:24   'cause I just read an article about them

01:19:26   and I put them on the list

01:19:27   and then they come based on who's in the line

01:19:29   and when it's your turn.

01:19:30   And so that has actually been delightful

01:19:32   because now in addition to the eBooks that I buy,

01:19:34   I've got all these library books

01:19:35   that just pop in and say, here I am.

01:19:37   And of course you can say, ask me again in three weeks

01:19:41   or something like that.

01:19:42   That's pretty easy to do, but I do love that.

01:19:44   So almost entirely.

01:19:45   - It is the weird thing with eBooks though

01:19:47   that like my wife and I were both reading books

01:19:49   on our eReaders this weekend

01:19:50   and they both ended up being very long books.

01:19:52   And I feel like that's the weirdest thing

01:19:54   because you can't tell anymore, right?

01:19:55   Like you got a paper book, it's like,

01:19:56   "Ooh, look, it's a thick paper book.

01:19:57   "This is gonna take me, I'm gonna like dive into this."

01:19:59   Now you're reading just a book on screen,

01:20:00   it's like, I have no idea.

01:20:02   - In terms of "Superiority of Kobo,"

01:20:04   that's another thing that I really like

01:20:05   is that they put the, what page number

01:20:07   of how many pages in the chapter at the top,

01:20:10   and at the bottom they tell you what the page number is

01:20:12   of the book overall, and there's a progress bar.

01:20:15   - Yeah, the progress bar is great.

01:20:17   - And that's the way you can tell

01:20:18   you're reading a long book is you read a few chapters

01:20:20   and then you look down at the progress score

01:20:21   and you're like, oh no, how big is this book?

01:20:24   But it will say, you know, this is page eight of 723

01:20:28   and you'll be like, yeah, okay, it's a long book.

01:20:31   Just lower the font size, make the font smaller

01:20:33   and the page count goes down.

01:20:34   - Please no, my eyes are not as good as these things.

01:20:35   - No, well, you can make it bigger

01:20:37   but then the page count goes up, that's how it works.

01:20:39   - Oh man.

01:20:39   - I know.

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01:22:02   Dan, you know what time it is?

01:22:04   - What time is it, Jason?

01:22:05   - It's time for Ask Upgrade.

01:22:09   (imitates laser)

01:22:10   Thank you, those are space spy lasers.

01:22:12   Thank you, I appreciate it. - That's right.

01:22:14   - Our first question comes from Michael,

01:22:15   who says, "Do you use an external trackpad with your Mac,

01:22:19   and if so, which one?

01:22:20   I still have the original Apple Magic Trackpad

01:22:22   with the AA batteries, but I think it's finally dying.

01:22:25   My keyboard is a Keychron K2, for what it's worth.

01:22:28   What trackpad should I get?"

01:22:31   - I have never used a trackpad that is not Apple's trackpad,

01:22:34   and I can't imagine ever using a trackpad.

01:22:36   Like, with the exception of,

01:22:37   I bought that Logitech keyboard for the iPad,

01:22:42   the one that had the trackpad built in last year

01:22:45   when the Magic Keyboard came out,

01:22:46   and the trackpad on that was not great.

01:22:47   - Not great. - Not great.

01:22:49   Yeah, I use a Magic Trackpad too on my Mac.

01:22:53   I had an original Magic Trackpad.

01:22:55   I love it.

01:22:56   I would never, honestly, never switch from that for anything.

01:22:58   - And I don't know if Michael is a laptop user,

01:23:00   but remember when Apple made that change

01:23:02   where they went to the sort of virtual trackpad

01:23:05   where it just vibrates when you click it,

01:23:06   and they got rid of the diving board effect

01:23:08   where you can't really click at the top of the trackpad

01:23:11   because it hinges from there,

01:23:12   so you have to click down lower on it?

01:23:14   Well, when they change that on the laptops,

01:23:17   they also, that's what the Magic Trackpad 2 is.

01:23:19   It's that vibrating, you can tap anywhere

01:23:22   on the whole thing and click and it works.

01:23:24   There's no diving board or anything like that.

01:23:27   And it's a really good product and that's what I use too.

01:23:29   I've also learned the hard way,

01:23:31   you mentioned that iPad case.

01:23:33   I have tried a lot of iPad cases with trackpads

01:23:35   in the last year because they added track pointer support

01:23:39   in iPad OS and so everybody's like,

01:23:41   "Hey, we can do our own trackpad keyboard combo now."

01:23:44   and I've used the one from Logitech

01:23:45   and I've used the one from Bridge.

01:23:46   And what I've learned is Apple puts a lot of secret sauce

01:23:51   in its trackpad stuff because two thirds of the Macs

01:23:56   they sell are laptops.

01:23:58   And they've been using trackpads for a very long time.

01:24:00   Apple has spent decades at this point perfecting

01:24:05   first trackpad gestures and then later multi-touch trackpads

01:24:10   and then later the one that they've got now

01:24:13   where it's kind of virtual, it's pressure detection

01:24:16   and all of that.

01:24:17   Like Apple has poured so much effort

01:24:20   into its trackpad software that's been invisible

01:24:25   because if you only ever use an Apple trackpad,

01:24:28   you just think it's what a trackpad is like.

01:24:30   - Yeah, if you ever use a PC trackpad

01:24:32   or bounce back and forth, it is wow.

01:24:35   My wife has a PC for work and I occasionally,

01:24:37   I want to like use it and show her something

01:24:39   and I'm like, I can't, it's just like,

01:24:42   Nothing works like I expected to.

01:24:43   - And so using those, the otherwise perfectly nice products

01:24:48   that the track pads are decent on the Kensington

01:24:51   and the bridge models, but they're not,

01:24:54   like I realized there were things that I do

01:24:56   with my fingers on the track pad

01:24:58   that I do on a non-Apple track pad

01:25:00   and the track pads get confused.

01:25:02   They don't do the right thing.

01:25:04   And I can like aggressively like move where my fingers are

01:25:07   or change how I do it because I've been trained

01:25:09   by Apple's track pad software too, right?

01:25:11   That's also been happening secretly in the background.

01:25:15   The short answer is you think it's invisible, but it's not.

01:25:19   If you use Apple products,

01:25:21   if you used an Apple Magic Trackpad,

01:25:22   if you use Apple laptops,

01:25:24   get a Magic Trackpad 2 for your desktop.

01:25:27   Not only is it great, I'm a big fan of trackpads,

01:25:29   and I love that all the gestures that I used on laptops

01:25:32   for all those years also work at my desk.

01:25:34   I also think -- and listener David, member David,

01:25:38   in the discard, points out that it's funny.

01:25:40   He says that Apple's mice are so bad

01:25:42   when Apple's trackpads are so good.

01:25:43   I think it goes to the fact that most Mac users,

01:25:46   and that includes people at Apple, are using laptops,

01:25:49   and they all have the Apple trackpad.

01:25:51   And then it is such an easy step to go from there

01:25:53   to using a trackpad on your desk,

01:25:55   which is what so many of us have done.

01:25:56   And I'm pretty sure that the people

01:25:59   who work on Apple's input devices

01:26:01   are probably more trackpad people than mice people.

01:26:04   And also that if you have to justify

01:26:06   working on one or the other,

01:26:08   Like the trackpad is built into two thirds

01:26:10   of the Macs you sell.

01:26:11   It has to be the priority.

01:26:14   - I just don't, it's been so long

01:26:15   since I've used a mouse regularly and everything.

01:26:17   I really, and then when I go back to them and find them

01:26:19   and like have to use one for some reason,

01:26:21   I always find them annoying.

01:26:22   I don't know.

01:26:23   I don't. - Yeah, I don't.

01:26:24   - I've moved on.

01:26:25   - I haven't used a mouse since the 90s

01:26:26   'cause I got, and I know I've told this story,

01:26:29   but basically one of my bosses at Mac User back in the day

01:26:32   had a Kensington Turbo Mouse.

01:26:34   And when she left to go to work for a different magazine,

01:26:36   I got that thing.

01:26:38   And at that point I was a trackball person

01:26:40   until the moment that I became a magic trackball person.

01:26:43   - I had a trackball at one of my jobs for a while too

01:26:46   that they got from me.

01:26:46   - Yeah, and you know what killed the trackball

01:26:48   is the innovation of the scroll wheel,

01:26:50   because you could do the two finger down scrolling

01:26:52   on a trackpad, but on a trackball they put like a ring

01:26:55   around it so you could, come on.

01:26:57   - They tried to bring a scroll wheel into some of them

01:26:59   at one point and it's like, no, that's not a thing.

01:27:02   - No, you can't do that.

01:27:03   - We all agree it's better than the ThinkPad eraser nub.

01:27:06   - Yeah, no, I think Casey--

01:27:07   -Kasey, not Casey Liss.

01:27:09   Casey Liss loves that thing.

01:27:10   -Casey Liss is wrong. -Love that little nubbin.

01:27:12   -You heard it here. -Yeah.

01:27:13   Well, he hates everything.

01:27:16   But he loves that ThinkPad nub.

01:27:17   He does. Hi, Casey.

01:27:19   Brantz writes, "With the rumors about an updated iPad Pro

01:27:22   next year with wireless charging,"

01:27:24   mentioned earlier in this episode,

01:27:25   "how do you think Apple will handle that?

01:27:27   A glass-backed iPad sounds too heavy,

01:27:29   so maybe an exposed MagSafe ring,

01:27:31   sort of like the clear iPhone case?"

01:27:34   Brance, I think you gotta, when you think iPad Pro,

01:27:38   you've gotta think MacBook.

01:27:40   You've gotta think that it's not a big iPhone,

01:27:44   it's a thinner laptop.

01:27:47   And so I'm gonna say, I think that if they do iPhone,

01:27:51   they do iPad with a MagSafe charger,

01:27:54   or wireless charging of any kind,

01:27:56   it's gonna be MagSafe,

01:27:57   and it's not gonna be lay it down on a pad.

01:28:00   It's gonna be either a Puck,

01:28:02   or it's gonna be a MagSafe connector

01:28:05   like the new laptops have.

01:28:08   Maybe even the same one.

01:28:10   (gasps)

01:28:11   Maybe, possibly.

01:28:12   - You think it's gonna have two ports?

01:28:15   Is that where that's going?

01:28:16   - Do you mean like a MagSafe plus the USB-C?

01:28:18   - And USB-C, yeah, yeah.

01:28:19   - Maybe.

01:28:21   It already has, I mean, technically it's got

01:28:23   the smart connector on the back, so it would be,

01:28:25   one way to do it would have it be a magnetic smart connector

01:28:28   that also is a charge connector.

01:28:29   - That seems interesting to me,

01:28:31   because I can't imagine them putting a MagSafe port

01:28:33   on the side and a USB,

01:28:34   I mean like they have to be on opposite sides maybe?

01:28:36   I don't know.

01:28:37   It seems odd.

01:28:38   - I think they could.

01:28:39   I mean, it's not really a port, right?

01:28:40   It's just the little kind of thing.

01:28:41   - I guess, yeah, that's a good point.

01:28:43   - But if you wanted to do charging via the smart,

01:28:47   by the magic keyboard,

01:28:49   then what you probably want to do is use the smart connector.

01:28:51   So could they do a new version of the smart connector

01:28:54   that also has more robust,

01:28:56   'cause you can do power transfer over smart connector,

01:28:59   but it's terrible.

01:29:00   You don't want to do it.

01:29:01   but they could do something like that.

01:29:02   And then they could potentially have something

01:29:05   that's more like a MagSafe charging puck,

01:29:07   like the ones that they sell,

01:29:09   but not like a Qi charger necessarily.

01:29:12   I just don't think they're gonna-

01:29:13   - It's hard to line up, right?

01:29:14   - Yeah, I just don't,

01:29:15   I think it's more likely that they would do something

01:29:16   that would connect like MagSafe

01:29:19   and make a physical connection and charge.

01:29:23   That's my guess.

01:29:24   - It kind of surprises me they didn't come up with a way,

01:29:27   and maybe this was just super complicated,

01:29:28   but it doesn't surprise me they didn't come up with a way

01:29:30   to put the USB-C port inside,

01:29:32   have a magnetic ring around the USB-C port or something

01:29:35   so you could use it for both?

01:29:37   I don't know.

01:29:38   That seems intriguing to me.

01:29:39   I'm surprised they didn't try to do something,

01:29:41   or maybe they didn't, it just didn't work out.

01:29:43   - But that's what I would say is don't think iPhone.

01:29:45   Think iPad Smart Connector or think Mac,

01:29:50   you know, new Mac MagSafe.

01:29:52   Although I will say,

01:29:53   traveling with that MacBook Pro for Thanksgiving,

01:29:56   I was reminded of a thing that used to happen

01:29:58   with my MagSafe laptops,

01:29:59   which is I would then lay it down on the ground,

01:30:02   leaning up against something,

01:30:04   and it would lean up against it

01:30:05   and pop the MagSafe charger off of it.

01:30:07   And I'd be like, "No."

01:30:08   And then I have to put it back on

01:30:09   and try to get it in an angle where it doesn't pop it off.

01:30:13   And I try to imagine doing that now with my iPad.

01:30:15   And I'm like, "Oh."

01:30:16   - That's one thing that makes me sad about my M1 Air

01:30:18   is it doesn't have MagSafe.

01:30:19   - Doesn't have MagSafe.

01:30:21   Yeah, it's true.

01:30:22   Mork, probably from Ork, writes,

01:30:26   "Do either of you," I think he means you, Dan,

01:30:29   own printers. If so, what do you use them for? Printing photos? Rough drafts of blog posts?

01:30:35   Sure, yeah, I print out all my blog posts. They're not real until you print them out and nail them to

01:30:41   your front door. Yeah, like Martin Luther. I own a brother, I'm looking at it across the room,

01:30:48   HL2280. It's an old multifunction. It's a beast. It's got a flatbed scanner in it and it is

01:30:55   Technically not even mine. I am custodian of this printer because it is the printer our MIT mystery hunt team

01:31:01   Used to use when we actually were in person

01:31:03   So I would lug it over to MIT for our weekend puzzle solving

01:31:07   annual event and I would set it up in there and then the rest of the time it would live in my house and I

01:31:12   Would use it when I occasionally need to print something out and I briefly had another brother laser jet

01:31:17   But we sold it when we moved so I just have this one because it's got the scanner in it

01:31:22   I use it to print like documents occasionally when I need to print something out. It's fairly rare these days

01:31:28   It's not even plugged. I'm looking over the cords just lying on the ground. It's not even plugged in just a 21 80

01:31:33   22 80 DW Oh 22 80 DW is a it's pretty big

01:31:38   It doesn't have its pre air print, which is really annoying

01:31:43   So I've used print opia for years with it because it's the only way like I don't want to set up

01:31:49   Having to like print to these things that I I also have a laser printer although I am the owner of it

01:31:55   I'm not just a custodian. I'm just a guardian. It is the HP color laser jet Pro m

01:32:01   255 DW ooh

01:32:04   Model names these printer makers. Yeah, it's a color laser. I resisted buying a laser for a long time

01:32:11   I used to have I had a personal laser writer to back in the day, and I loved it when I was in grad school

01:32:17   But I ended up, after a series of inkjet printers

01:32:21   that were disappointing,

01:32:23   and dealing with the ink and all that,

01:32:24   I decided to buy the laser printer.

01:32:27   I actually, my mom likes to print pictures,

01:32:30   and she lives in the desert.

01:32:32   And we bought inkjets for her,

01:32:35   and they were complete failures.

01:32:36   And I finally said,

01:32:37   "I'm just gonna buy a color laser for her,

01:32:39   because the ink dries out in the desert

01:32:41   if you don't print on a regular basis.

01:32:43   If you wait a week or two,

01:32:44   the ink dries out and it all jams."

01:32:46   And so I bought her a color laser and I went back,

01:32:49   when I visited her the last time,

01:32:50   there were new pictures on her wall

01:32:51   that she'd printed out with a laser printer.

01:32:53   And in setting it up, I thought,

01:32:56   I should not be afraid of the laser.

01:32:58   I should, don't fear the laser, this is Ask Upgrade.

01:33:01   The lasers are our friends.

01:33:02   So I bought one of the same model,

01:33:04   that M255DW that I had bought for my mom.

01:33:07   And it's great.

01:33:09   We don't use it a lot.

01:33:10   Like I don't print out my blog posts

01:33:12   and go over them in red pen.

01:33:15   that I haven't done that in years,

01:33:17   but there are documents that are required in places

01:33:21   or it's convenient.

01:33:22   Sometimes it's a coupon for parking at the airport.

01:33:25   More of those things are on apps now,

01:33:27   but they're not all on apps.

01:33:29   Some of them, they really want to see a piece of paper.

01:33:32   Every now and then I have a boarding pass

01:33:34   that it refuses to text to me for some security reason.

01:33:36   And so it says, "No, no, no, you have to print this."

01:33:38   I'm like, "Okay, I'll do that."

01:33:40   My son has stuff for school sometimes

01:33:42   where he has to do that.

01:33:44   Shipping labels are a great one. It's honestly just a it's a convenience to have it. I mean like

01:33:49   There are like you said there's just so many weird edge cases sometimes shipping labels is a good one

01:33:54   I definitely printed out a bunch of the returning stuff at Amazon even that is less

01:33:57   Needed now like right my local Whole Foods. You can just hand them something and show them a barcode and they'll be like yeah

01:34:04   We'll take care of it, and it's weird

01:34:05   I have a lot of those where it's the you know I need to print somebody sent me a

01:34:09   product that I'm returning and they've given me a label to print. Sometimes they print it themselves,

01:34:13   sometimes not, or I'm doing UPS. Because what I really want to do is, and this says something

01:34:18   about my personality too, I would much rather take the box that's already labeled for UPS to our

01:34:24   local UPS store, walk in, place it down, or to our local post office and walk it and place it down

01:34:30   and walk out to the place where they collect the boxes where you don't have to interact with anyone

01:34:34   or wait in line, than do those things, right? And talk to somebody and have them print a thing for

01:34:39   for me and I don't want to talk to them.

01:34:41   I just want to go online.

01:34:43   I want to print out the thing.

01:34:43   I want to tape it on and I want to walk in and say,

01:34:46   here you go.

01:34:46   Or for FedEx, just leave it outside the door and say,

01:34:49   come get it.

01:34:50   That's what I want to do.

01:34:52   So printers are great for that is what I'm saying.

01:34:54   - Yeah, yeah.

01:34:55   They still have their utilities.

01:34:56   And you know, I love having a laser printer.

01:34:59   Like that was a, I had a style writer way back in the day.

01:35:03   - Yeah, good times.

01:35:03   - It wasn't a great printer.

01:35:05   And Ammar asks, "Do you use tap on your Mac trackpad,

01:35:10   or do you use click?"

01:35:12   What do you think, Dan?

01:35:13   - I didn't come here to be attacked, Jason.

01:35:16   So this is a matter of dispute over on the rebound.

01:35:19   I have tapped a click on?

01:35:21   - You monster.

01:35:21   - I know, I know I'm a monster.

01:35:23   I don't end up using it that much, but I do,

01:35:26   I've tried to think about whether or not

01:35:27   I do it even consciously, and I'm not sure.

01:35:30   I do think there are some cases where I feel like a tap

01:35:32   is a thing I wanna do that is,

01:35:34   It's weird in my head, it's like less committing than a click.

01:35:37   It's like, oh, I want to bring a winch to the foreground,

01:35:38   but I don't want to click a button in the window,

01:35:40   so I'll tap on it.

01:35:41   It's totally like a weird mental thing for me,

01:35:44   but I do have it on, but I use both.

01:35:47   - All right, it is weird.

01:35:49   So I'm glad you admitted that.

01:35:51   I think that Tap to Click is the work of the devil.

01:35:55   - Knew that was coming.

01:35:58   - I don't, you know, people should like what they like.

01:36:02   I don't like it. That's my answer is I do not like it.

01:36:07   I think it's easy to misclick with tap to click.

01:36:13   - True.

01:36:15   - I really like doing it where I actually click

01:36:18   and it clicks and then everybody's happy.

01:36:20   We all know what a click is.

01:36:21   We all know what a click isn't.

01:36:22   Tap to click, it just gets in the way.

01:36:25   So that's my answer, Amar.

01:36:29   I use click. I do not use tap.

01:36:31   Whereas Dan doesn't care, apparently.

01:36:34   Or uses them for different things, which is even weirder.

01:36:36   (laughs)

01:36:38   - You get into weird habits with these computer things.

01:36:40   - It's true.

01:36:41   This is what I learned

01:36:41   when I use those third-party track pads is,

01:36:44   oh, I had to take video of my hands making gestures

01:36:47   and I'd be like, oh, that's what's happening.

01:36:50   That's why it's doing that weird thing

01:36:51   that the Apple track pad knows is fine.

01:36:54   But the other track pads, there's an extra finger here.

01:36:57   Seriously, the big one was, I kept,

01:37:00   Sometimes I keep, because it used to be,

01:37:02   because you have to click at the bottom

01:37:04   of the hinge track pads,

01:37:05   and because it used to be that there was a track pad

01:37:07   with a physical button under it,

01:37:09   I click with my thumb at the bottom of the track pad.

01:37:11   That's just always stayed with me.

01:37:13   And sometimes, and I never really realized this,

01:37:16   sometimes I lay my thumb on the bottom of the track pad

01:37:20   while I make other gestures.

01:37:22   And those third-party track pads are like,

01:37:24   what's this thumb doing here?

01:37:25   - And that way it teleports back and forth.

01:37:28   - And Apple's like, don't worry about it.

01:37:29   that thumb's not doing anything.

01:37:31   And that's entirely because of that long legacy

01:37:34   that dates back to when the button was below the trackpad.

01:37:37   It's my own personal problem,

01:37:39   but I was trained into that behavior

01:37:40   and I haven't been trained out of it.

01:37:42   - It reminds me of our friend Lex's,

01:37:44   I think he was the one that say this years ago,

01:37:46   using other people's computers is hell,

01:37:48   which is, I think a great,

01:37:50   every time I sit down at my dad's computer

01:37:52   and it doesn't have like natural scrolling on

01:37:54   and I'm just like, ah!

01:37:55   - You, so you haven't lived

01:37:58   until you have John Siracusa in your office

01:38:01   and he needs to print a boarding pass

01:38:03   and so he sits down at your computer in your office.

01:38:05   'Cause that's a moment of like, I may die.

01:38:08   I may die because John Siracusa is sitting in my office

01:38:11   using my computer and he's not gonna like it.

01:38:14   And he, for listeners, he did not like it.

01:38:17   (laughing)

01:38:18   - Jason, Jason, what are you doing?

01:38:20   What are you doing with it?

01:38:21   Why is this here?

01:38:21   - What is on the desktop here?

01:38:23   Yeah, oh yeah, I got it all from dad.

01:38:25   I did, I did, he judged me.

01:38:27   - You just found wanting.

01:38:29   All right, Dan, thank you so much

01:38:31   for guesting for Myke this week.

01:38:32   I appreciate it.

01:38:33   Where can people find you and the stuff that you do?

01:38:35   - I mean, they would have an easier time avoiding me.

01:38:39   You can find me in so many places.

01:38:40   Obviously, I write with Jason over at Six Colors.

01:38:43   Co-hosts Clockwise right here on Relay FM.

01:38:45   My co-hosts The Rebound,

01:38:46   which you can find at reboundcast.com.

01:38:48   For more on me, you can check out my website at dmoran.com,

01:38:52   which has not only a list of all my podcasts,

01:38:53   but also links to all my books,

01:38:55   including the NOVA Incident,

01:38:56   and you can preorder your copies there,

01:38:58   including your signed copies.

01:39:00   You can find me on Twitter @dmoran

01:39:03   and obviously also over at The Incomparable with Jason,

01:39:06   doing a bunch of other podcasts.

01:39:07   - And if you haven't listened to The Rebound

01:39:09   and you like connected and you enjoy the japery

01:39:12   that goes on at connected.

01:39:14   - Oh, do we jape.

01:39:16   - The Rebound is a real full of japes.

01:39:18   There's lots of japes.

01:39:20   Anything with molds, first off, is gonna have that.

01:39:22   And then Dan and Lex are also there with the japery.

01:39:25   So if you're fans of that sort of podcast,

01:39:27   a theoretically a tech podcast,

01:39:29   but that has become overwhelmed by japery, try The Rebound.

01:39:34   You get a second one 'cause-

01:39:35   - I will say, I will say,

01:39:37   I don't know if Connected goes there as much,

01:39:39   but we are probably on the R-rated language side though.

01:39:41   I will warn people about that.

01:39:42   - If you want a filthier version of Connected

01:39:45   but with all Americans, then that's the Rebound.

01:39:49   There you go.

01:39:50   - Except for the occasional Canadian

01:39:52   and the occasional scoutsman who drop in.

01:39:53   - Well, you can also find me at sixcolors.com

01:39:56   and on Twitter @jsnell.

01:39:57   Remember to vote and help us with the upgradees

01:39:59   at upgradees.vote.

01:40:01   And of course you can give the gift of Relay

01:40:03   for $39 a year for new plans to you

01:40:07   or to your friends at giverelay.com.

01:40:11   And we will be back next week.

01:40:14   And Myke will be back and horribly jet lagged,

01:40:17   but he will be back.

01:40:18   Thank you to our sponsors Fitbot, Amazon Music

01:40:20   and TextExpander from Smile.

01:40:22   and we will see you next week.

01:40:24   Until then, Dan, watch what you say.

01:40:28   - And keep watching the clock.

01:40:30   - Bye Jason.

01:40:31   - Ch-ch-ch-ch-choo.

01:40:32   - Clock lasers.

01:40:32   - Ch-ch-ch-ch-choo.

01:40:33   (upbeat music)

01:40:36   [ Music ]