00:00:08 ◼ ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 353. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace,
00:00:15 ◼ ► DoorDash and Ooni Pizza Ovens. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by the one and only Jason Snow. Hi Jason Snow.
00:00:21 ◼ ► I'm Myke Hurley, how are you? I'm fine my friend. Big show today, lots of stuff happening, lots of stuff going on.
00:00:27 ◼ ► But we must stick to format and begin with a #snowtalk question. This one comes from Stitch and
00:00:33 ◼ ► Stitch asks, "Jason, how many apps are currently installed on your phone and do you think that it is more or less than Myke's number?"
00:00:41 ◼ ► I can tell you the answer but even before I looked because I really don't know, I'm going to assume
00:00:52 ◼ ► Okay. I just have more apps than me. If people want to find this out for themselves rather than
00:00:57 ◼ ► counting every app which could take a long time, you go to Settings, General and About and there's
00:01:01 ◼ ► a bunch of information there. I actually thought it might be fun to compare some of these stats anyway.
00:01:06 ◼ ► But how many applications do you have installed on your phone, Jason Snow? 186. Yes, okay.
00:01:15 ◼ ► 408. I don't know why I have 408 apps on my phone. I don't know why I have 186 apps but the fact
00:01:23 ◼ ► that you have more than twice as many as me, that part, I do understand. You're a little more free
00:01:29 ◼ ► and easy with the apps also that you do a podcast with Federico so he's feeding you apps all the time.
00:01:44 ◼ ► I don't think so. I don't know. I honestly don't know. Okay, so let's look at some other stuff
00:01:52 ◼ ► then. How many songs do you have on your phone? 892. Okay, I have 746. I did come to realize a
00:02:00 ◼ ► couple of days ago I was trying to listen to some music and I went into an area that had no
00:02:10 ◼ ► because I got this phone during COVID and I usually only need to download music when I'm
00:02:21 ◼ ► make Apple Music download a bunch of songs and then always download those songs when you
00:02:29 ◼ ► Videos. What are these? I don't know. I assume it's every kind of video, right? I'm assuming it's
00:02:39 ◼ ► more the videos that you've taken with your phone but maybe also if you have stuff in the TV app.
00:03:02 ◼ ► Yeah, I don't know what those are but there you go. Photos. This has got to be bananas. Photos.
00:03:08 ◼ ► How many you got? 90,909. 90909. Now this is maybe similar to the apps thing. I knew you'd have more.
00:03:20 ◼ ► I didn't think it would be that many more. I'm at 13,172 photos. Oh, 13,000 photos. That's so cute.
00:03:28 ◼ ► Well, in a couple of years you could cross 100,000 photos. Yeah, and in fact that number is the
00:03:34 ◼ ► number of photos in my photo library. So those are not actually on the device. That's the number that
00:03:39 ◼ ► is in my iCloud photo library. So those videos are, yeah, those are the videos that are in my
00:03:48 ◼ ► No, no, I know, I know. And every year I have to update the, I think it's in the introduction
00:04:17 ◼ ► I've written a book about it. Sometimes I get those things. It's like, why does it do it this
00:04:21 ◼ ► way? Why do you? And it's like, I don't have anything to do with it. I'm just reporting the
00:04:25 ◼ ► news here, people. I don't have it. Can you do this? No, you can't. Can you do this? No,
00:04:37 ◼ ► If you would like to send in a question to help us open the show, you just send out a tweet with
00:04:47 ◼ ► You know, the thing that really surprises me about this is that I have 256 gigs of capacity
00:04:58 ◼ ► I put mine away now, but I'm basically the same, but I have a five 12 phone and I'm halfway
00:05:03 ◼ ► full on that. I don't know why, but probably because I'm using 63 gigs of storage on this,
00:05:07 ◼ ► on this phone. So I don't actually, this is a good tip for everybody out there when you're
00:05:17 ◼ ► Look and see how much storage you're using. You've got a big 256 storage phone and then
00:05:28 ◼ ► Well, on last week's episode in an ask upgrade question, we were talking about app clips
00:05:58 ◼ ► into locations. So if you're going to a restaurant or something, so we have it here, you have
00:06:02 ◼ ► to open the NHS app and scan it. And so you've been to that restaurant or you've been to
00:06:20 ◼ ► whole thing seamless. So you no longer need to actually download an app to do the whole
00:06:27 ◼ ► Even if the app is downloaded, the QR code still works to do the action. So either way,
00:06:32 ◼ ► it is like a quick thing. We also heard from a bunch of people in Texas. In Texas, very
00:06:38 ◼ ► specifically get on your cowboy hat in Texas, oil country saying that Exxon is using app
00:06:52 ◼ ► that's where they decided to start. But people in Texas reporting Exxon using app clips at
00:07:21 ◼ ► all about putting things in an infrastructure. It's about rolling it out. Like the Exxon
00:07:25 ◼ ► example, it's like rolling it out to every gas station in your gas station network. That's
00:07:36 ◼ ► the place because it's a, you know, the example I always give is like, you got to pay for
00:07:41 ◼ ► a parking meter in a city that you're visiting and you need to download their app. It's like,
00:07:47 ◼ ► I don't have their app. I don't want their app. And now you'll be able to just like tap,
00:07:51 ◼ ► it opens the app clip, you pay and then you get on with your life and you don't need to
00:08:12 ◼ ► as we said last time, like the thing that's going on here is that really the opportunities
00:08:25 ◼ ► dining thing primarily. And the last year there just hasn't been a lot of that opportunity
00:08:32 ◼ ► available. But I could tell you about another one in a moment, but before that, let me tell
00:08:38 ◼ ► you about the 2021 Apple Watch Pride Band, which has been unveiled. It is a combination
00:08:44 ◼ ► of a new watch face and there's two watch bands, a braided solo loop and a Nike sport loop.
00:08:51 ◼ ► The design of the watch face and the solo loop are intended to evoke various pride flags now
00:08:57 ◼ ► to represent the broader LGBTQ+ community. And now Apple is trying to incorporate kind of as many
00:09:03 ◼ ► colors of these as possible for the various, like for various parts of the community into one band.
00:09:09 ◼ ► And I think that this band is absolutely stunning. I think that the braided solo loop is gorgeous.
00:09:21 ◼ ► I just really appreciate that Apple makes such beautiful watch bands to support these kinds of
00:09:28 ◼ ► causes and, um, like to, for people to be able to express this because also I think it, because
00:09:36 ◼ ► they're so beautiful, it draws other people to them. And I think can help highlight things to
00:09:41 ◼ ► people that otherwise wouldn't be in those communities. So I kind of really liked that.
00:09:45 ◼ ► And as well, this was announced on the international day against homophobia, transphobia
00:09:49 ◼ ► and biphobia. So it's like the perfect time to show it off. The Nike sport loop is the more
00:09:55 ◼ ► traditional pride flag, uh, but it's got some like reflective materials woven into it. So it's good
00:10:00 ◼ ► for like nighttime running or whatever. Um, and Apple is actually using an app clip in the
00:10:06 ◼ ► packaging of the watch band to help customers easily install the matching watch face. So there
00:10:10 ◼ ► you go all ties in. Somebody in the app, it seems like we could use app clips in our packaging.
00:10:16 ◼ ► They're like, all right, okay. It's like, if we have to, here we go, everybody, evidence that
00:10:21 ◼ ► app clips are a thing is that Apple is using them. No, that's evidence of nothing. I'll stick with
00:10:26 ◼ ► the Australian gradients. I absolutely adore this watch band. It's separated solo loop, so I'm not
00:10:33 ◼ ► going to buy one yet. I want to wait until I can try them on. I want to try them on cause I have
00:10:37 ◼ ► no, I don't want to deal with the whole paper sizing thing. So I would pick one of these up
00:10:43 ◼ ► at some point though. Cause I just think it's stunning. If you've got any with the little
00:10:47 ◼ ► notches on them, you can just use those and get your sizing. Oh yeah. It was the whole thing that
00:10:51 ◼ ► Gruber did and it works. I bought multiple bands for me and for Lauren using that technique works
00:10:58 ◼ ► great. Okay. I'll, I'll dig into that then. I'll dig into that, but it's really cool. It's
00:11:02 ◼ ► beautiful too. I think it did a fantastic job. So I want to tell you about something special. It's
00:11:08 ◼ ► membership special time. So it's double special. We, every year around August, we have had extra
00:11:14 ◼ ► bonus episodes for relay FM members. Uh, we are now doing this earlier. So one of the reasons we
00:11:21 ◼ ► are kind of splitting up the time that we have is because we would go straight from our specials
00:11:27 ◼ ► into the podcast. These are two huge projects that we have been doing around the same time of the
00:11:32 ◼ ► year. And we have decided that's a bad idea. Don't do that. Don't do that. So we're now going to
00:11:38 ◼ ► be doing our membership specials earlier in the year, kind of around May time. And here we are.
00:11:43 ◼ ► So on this show, we are going to be teaming up again with CGP Grey of the Cortex podcast
00:11:47 ◼ ► for our annual special that we do, uh, the last, I think four years or so we've been doing text
00:11:53 ◼ ► adventures. Jason has been our text adventure, parser and Mia Grey have been going through
00:11:58 ◼ ► the world, but this time we're doing something different. Yeah. So instead of a text adventure,
00:12:04 ◼ ► we're going to be stepping things up a notch and doing a full RPG adventure instead. Yeah.
00:12:15 ◼ ► it's not Dungeons and dragons, but it's like Dungeons and dragons. And I think the most
00:12:27 ◼ ► Snellatron 3000 instead I have joined you and Grey as a player. When we were looking at this,
00:12:36 ◼ ► kind of changing it, I think it was something that we decided that it just felt right for you to be
00:12:41 ◼ ► on our side now rather than playing against us. It's like the shoe was on the other foot on that
00:12:45 ◼ ► way. And then also we're expanding the, expanding the world and expanding the way we do it. So the
00:12:50 ◼ ► logical step would be that now the three of us who've done all of these specials together
00:12:54 ◼ ► would now have to join forces in, you know, in a new adventure. So we're going to be part of the
00:13:00 ◼ ► same team navigating a space-based adventure. And we've brought in our ringer, Tony Cinderella,
00:13:07 ◼ ► who is the dungeon master slash games master of the total party kill podcast to help us.
00:13:12 ◼ ► We needed an experienced game master to create the world for us. And Tony has done an absolutely
00:13:18 ◼ ► superb job. This special is going to be published on May 21st. It's this Friday, if you're listening
00:13:35 ◼ ► If you are already a member, you can log into memberfall and you can get this feed from your
00:13:39 ◼ ► podcast page, but I'll also put a link in the show notes of this episode. So you can just tap it,
00:13:43 ◼ ► log in and subscribe to it straight away. If you haven't signed up yet, go to getupgradeplus.com
00:13:49 ◼ ► right now, and you'll not only get the RPG special, you'll also get access to upgrade plus,
00:13:55 ◼ ► which has longer episodes of upgrade every week with no ads. We really love putting this special
00:14:01 ◼ ► together. Came out great. There's a lot of work from everyone. And I think it's really come,
00:14:06 ◼ ► it's really shows and we hope you enjoy it. We're going to have a trailer at the end of the episode
00:14:10 ◼ ► today, so you can hear what it's going to be all about. Go sign up, getupgradeplus.com and you can
00:14:16 ◼ ► get all of it. Yep. Come for the bathrobe, stay for the squirrels. Indeed. You'll understand what
00:14:21 ◼ ► that means. If you listen. Should we talk about some upstream headlines before we move on today?
00:14:28 ◼ ► Yeah, there's so much going on with Apple, but we need to do a little check in on upstream
00:14:33 ◼ ► because there were, I keep sending you links and things keep happening and we need to talk about
00:14:39 ◼ ► them. But I wanted to start with Jeff Bezos as television development executive because it made
00:14:47 ◼ ► me laugh and laugh. This is Jeff Bezos. This is a tweet we'll put in the show notes from Peter Kafka
00:14:55 ◼ ► talking about Brad Stone's new book, Amazon Unbound, and about why Amazon's original attempts
00:15:03 ◼ ► to launch a TV service were maybe a little bit off kilter because in part it was Jeff Bezos who had
00:15:12 ◼ ► decided that, I'm just going to quote it here. "Look, I know what it takes to make a great show.
00:15:17 ◼ ► This should not be that hard. All of these iconic shows have basic things in common." And then he,
00:15:23 ◼ ► off the top of his head, began rattling off the secret formula to making a successful TV show,
00:15:28 ◼ ► including a heroic protagonist who experiences growth and change, a compelling antagonist,
00:15:33 ◼ ► wish fulfillment, moral choices, diverse world building, urgency to watch next episode,
00:15:38 ◼ ► oh man, I'd love me some urgency, civilization, high stakes, humor, betrayal, and positive
00:15:44 ◼ ► emotions like humans feel, love, joy, hope, et cetera. Boy, Jeff Bezos has solved television.
00:15:52 ◼ ► Anyway, yeah. - It's like, okay, like, yeah, you're right on those things, but it's not like a recipe.
00:16:04 ◼ ► an archetypal version of the suit of the studio, like the overseer, giving notes to creative people.
00:16:12 ◼ ► Look, this is simple, people. Why don't you get it? I have a list. I'll just rattle it off off the
00:16:19 ◼ ► top of my head. I'm a guy who runs an online shopping site, but even I know you got to have
00:16:25 ◼ ► those positive emotions and the moral choices and the diverse world, come on, people. This is,
00:16:36 ◼ ► apparently they would be in development meetings for prime video shows and people would be
00:16:43 ◼ ► challenged about, did their thing fulfill all of the checkboxes of Jeff Bezos's map to successful
00:16:51 ◼ ► television. And if it didn't, they had some explaining to do. - Unbelievable. This book
00:16:56 ◼ ► seems like it's probably getting pretty good. - Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so Jeff has got it solved,
00:17:01 ◼ ► everybody. Shut it down. Just listen to Jeff. - Can't wait for "The Lord of the Rings" show.
00:17:06 ◼ ► That's in production now. They've actually started. - Yeah, well, so I'm unclear on the timeline of
00:17:10 ◼ ► this, but what happened is that they actually replaced the development executive, the head
00:17:14 ◼ ► of Prime Video with a new development executive who is much more, well, I don't know more,
00:17:19 ◼ ► but who is very highly thought of, who's Jen Salke, I think is her name. And I suspect that
00:17:27 ◼ ► they have changed their planning a little bit, but still, Jeff wants what he wants. So if he says,
00:17:33 ◼ ► bring back the expanse, they're gonna do it. And they did it. So anyway, it made me laugh.
00:17:38 ◼ ► "Billionaire" has opinions about TV. - Dax Shepard's "Armchair Expert" podcast is going to become a
00:17:44 ◼ ► Spotify exclusive starting July 1st. As well as this, they're gonna be doing a first look
00:17:51 ◼ ► deal with Spotify for, 'cause the "Armchair Expert" podcast is now kind of like they created a whole
00:17:57 ◼ ► network of shows from it. And they're gonna get a first look deal with Spotify. "Armchair Expert"
00:18:03 ◼ ► has an estimated monthly audience of around 20 million. It's a huge show. And it is a show that
00:18:09 ◼ ► I feel I see Apple promoting a lot on the podcast store. 'Cause it's one of these shows that they
00:18:17 ◼ ► talk to lots of famous people. I think the last episode they had Prince Harry as a guest. It is a
00:18:29 ◼ ► Spotify have bought it. - I think you mean it was a huge, huge show. - Yeah. - Now it's going to be,
00:18:36 ◼ ► because just to be clear, this is a Spotify exclusive. It will be available to listen to
00:18:43 ◼ ► for free. You don't have to be a paid Spotify member. But you're not gonna be able to get it in
00:18:47 ◼ ► any podcast app. - Only on Spotify. So there you go. Another one. Another one bites the dust,
00:18:55 ◼ ► I suppose. - Yeah, I mean, it will be interesting to see, as it is with all of these things,
00:19:02 ◼ ► how much of their audience comes with them and how much of their audience is lost. And I think
00:19:06 ◼ ► Spotify, from Spotify's perspective, maybe not from Dax. Okay, how does this work? Dax Shepard and his
00:19:12 ◼ ► people, they get paid by Spotify, right? So what they get out of it is more money from Spotify than
00:19:18 ◼ ► they're getting on the open podcast ecosystem. What Spotify, why is Spotify overpaying? Well,
00:19:32 ◼ ► currently using Spotify for podcasts, and they're gonna convert. And so Spotify is really just
00:19:40 ◼ ► spending money to acquire people listening to podcasts in the Spotify app, because then they're
00:19:46 ◼ ► in the Spotify app and then they've got them. That's the idea. And so good for Dax Shepard,
00:19:51 ◼ ► I assume, at least in the short term, because they're gonna, he and his crew are gonna get paid
00:19:58 ◼ ► probably overpaid by Spotify in order for them to do this, because they're gonna give up audience
00:20:02 ◼ ► in order to take money from Spotify. But the danger is that in the long run, Spotify doesn't want them
00:20:10 ◼ ► or they don't want Spotify, and they're gonna have to emerge from the cloak of Spotify and who's left
00:20:16 ◼ ► in their audience at that point. That's the downside of it. So I hope the check is big.
00:20:26 ◼ ► selling everything. So they have other shows, right? And they will still have those. They're
00:20:31 ◼ ► still gonna be openly available. They have that first look deal for new shows, but there is still
00:20:37 ◼ ► a collection of things that they can produce on the free and open podcast market. It's just that
00:20:42 ◼ ► one show. - Right, right. If Spotify doesn't want other armchair shows, then they can just put those
00:20:47 ◼ ► out there. That's true. Good point. And it's the whole catalog too. So the whole thing is gonna go
00:20:53 ◼ ► gonna duck back behind the Spotify wall, whatever you want to call it, and not be available in
00:20:57 ◼ ► Apple Podcasts or Overcast or any other podcast player. - And it keeps getting bigger. AT&T is
00:21:04 ◼ ► going to spin off WarnerMedia and merge it with Discovery. So Discovery CEO David Zaslav will
00:21:13 ◼ ► run the combined business according to the announcement. - Hell of a Scrabble word. He's
00:21:17 ◼ ► got a Z and a V in his name. - I apologize. Executives from both companies will be in key leadership roles.
00:21:22 ◼ ► - Jason Kalar, who is the CEO of WarnerMedia, is not mentioned in any of these releases. So he's
00:21:26 ◼ ► out. Although this isn't gonna close until next year sometime, but he's out. And I feel for
00:21:32 ◼ ► all the people who are long-time Warner employees because they just got through this AT&T transition
00:21:38 ◼ ► and a bunch of hard changes. And here they are, they're back in the washing machine again for
00:21:43 ◼ ► another year where they're gonna get buffeted around by who knows what the deal is gonna be.
00:21:48 ◼ ► But this is interesting. This is AT&T saying, "Oops," about what they did when they bought
00:21:55 ◼ ► WarnerMedia. They already got rid of DirecTV. Now they're kind of getting rid of WarnerMedia.
00:22:02 ◼ ► But to be clear, I've already seen people sort of say, "Oh, well, they're selling it at a loss
00:22:07 ◼ ► and that's it." That's not what they're doing. They're actually gonna own like 70 some percent
00:22:13 ◼ ► of this combined company. And I would imagine that over time they can sell that off if they want to,
00:22:18 ◼ ► or it'll... But they're structuring their debt differently and they're getting it kind of off
00:22:22 ◼ ► their books and Discovery Media, which is for those who don't know, that's like the home of
00:22:28 ◼ ► the Discovery Channel and they own the Food Network and they own a bunch of other cable
00:22:32 ◼ ► channels and they have a Discovery Plus streaming service that they just launched. And David Zaslav
00:22:37 ◼ ► is actually fairly highly thought of, I believe, as an executive at this relatively... Trying to
00:22:42 ◼ ► navigate the waters with this relatively small company. And now he's apparently going to have a
00:22:46 ◼ ► much larger company to run. But it's interesting because I think Discovery was too small on its own.
00:22:53 ◼ ► I think Discovery was just kind of floating out there. - Especially Discovery Plus, right? Like,
00:22:57 ◼ ► especially the streaming service. - Yeah. Not that they didn't have some good stuff on it,
00:23:01 ◼ ► but again, it was not gonna be a must-see. And I would think that... I think in the long run,
00:23:09 ◼ ► it's obvious that this is all gonna get mushed together into one streaming service. It's a little
00:23:13 ◼ ► bit like... Honestly, it's a little bit like Disney Plus has National Geographic. They may bundle,
00:23:23 ◼ ► they're gonna be combined in some way or other that benefits them. I don't know. It's really
00:23:30 ◼ ► interesting. There's a bunch of behind the scenes stuff here too. Like Jeff Zucker, who runs CNN,
00:23:35 ◼ ► said he was gonna leave at the end of the year, but it sounds like he didn't like Jason Kallar
00:23:42 ◼ ► and... But he's good buddies with the guy who owns Discovery. So is he gonna stick around and what
00:23:50 ◼ ► does that mean? I find CNN being a part of Warner Media and yet not being in any way on HBO Max,
00:23:57 ◼ ► another interesting thing of like, what do they do with their news properties and how does that
00:24:19 ◼ ► eating this company or putting its assets in with this company in order to bulk up to fight Disney.
00:24:26 ◼ ► And I don't really see that. And I say that only... And I'm not a media industry insider.
00:24:32 ◼ ► - Jason, it's Hulu too, that would be a good point, right? - Yeah, electric Hulu, Hula Blue.
00:24:56 ◼ ► I've definitely seen speculation to that effect. But is it possible that this is just a way
00:25:02 ◼ ► to set this thing out there so that NBC Universal or Disney can come in and swallow it all?
00:25:32 ◼ ► But they don't actually wanna run it. John Stankey, the CEO of AT&T, doesn't actually wanna run that
00:25:38 ◼ ► business. And David Zaslav wants to run that business. And John Malone, who owns Discovery,
00:25:45 ◼ ► likes that business. So this is an interesting way for AT&T to kind of like push it at arm's length
00:25:50 ◼ ► in the short term and probably sell off chunks of it in the long term in order to get their money
00:25:57 ◼ ► back. Very sad for HBO. This just feels very sad to me. Well, the only positive thing is that I
00:26:03 ◼ ► think Casey Bloys is still at HBO, right? Who is the creative director of HBO and HBO Max.
00:26:09 ◼ ► And I think that maybe is a positive now in the sense that maybe HBO will have a little more
00:26:16 ◼ ► stability with the AT&T guys kind of out of the way. But still, I feel bad. I think overall this
00:26:21 ◼ ► will be better for HBO, but I just feel like HBO has such a good history, track record, pedigree,
00:26:34 ◼ ► - What's gonna be left when this stabilizes? And is HBO still gonna be HBO? Are they gonna have any
00:26:39 ◼ ► value having done all of this? I also wonder like HBO Max, just 'cause we love talking about the
00:26:45 ◼ ► names of streaming services. I wonder if this will be an opportunity for them to come up with a new
00:26:50 ◼ ► name for that service that does not use the HBO brand and allow HBO to go back to being just HBO.
00:26:57 ◼ ► I don't know. I mean, I don't think Discovery is a great brand either, to be honest. I think it's
00:27:04 ◼ ► kind of confusing, but we'll see what they do. But it's a big change in the streaming world. And
00:27:12 ◼ ► AT&T, for those who care about like getting HBO Max with their AT&T plans, I don't know what's
00:27:19 ◼ ► gonna happen with that in the long run, but AT&T is gonna own most of the company in the short run,
00:27:30 ◼ ► your friends want pizza, someone else is craving froyo. There's something for everyone with DoorDash.
00:27:36 ◼ ► DoorDash connects you with the restaurants that you love right now and right to your door.
00:27:40 ◼ ► And you can get the grocery essentials that you need with DoorDash too. You can get drinks,
00:27:44 ◼ ► snacks and other household items delivered in under an hour. Ordering is super easy. You just
00:27:49 ◼ ► open the DoorDash app, choose what you want from where you want and your items will be left safely
00:27:54 ◼ ► outside your door with their contactless delivery drop-off setting. They have over 300,000 partners
00:28:00 ◼ ► in the US, Puerto Rico, Canada and Australia. You can choose to support your neighborhood go-tos
00:28:05 ◼ ► or from some of your favorite national chains as well, like Chipotle, Popeyes and Cheesecake Factory.
00:28:11 ◼ ► I know that you're a big fan of DoorDash, Jason. Can you tell our listeners what they can expect
00:28:19 ◼ ► first off, I like about DoorDash that my daughter drove for DoorDash for a while and that was pretty
00:28:23 ◼ ► cool. And she would sometimes bring us food, which was nice. She's always been our personal DoorDash.
00:28:32 ◼ ► when you're not hungry, pre-order. This is my technique. I've told you about it before.
00:28:35 ◼ ► Order when you're not hungry, tell them when to deliver it and then your food will show up
00:28:40 ◼ ► at that time and you will not do what I do sometimes, which is order when you're hungry,
00:28:45 ◼ ► you over order. It doesn't come right away because they're gonna make it and then drive it to you and
00:28:50 ◼ ► that's not as good. So just set your, everybody agree in your family, like, when are we eating?
00:28:56 ◼ ► What are we eating? And then you do that like in the afternoon and then your dinner shows up.
00:29:00 ◼ ► - For a limited time, our listeners can get 25% off and zero delivery fees on their first order
00:29:06 ◼ ► of $15 or more. When you download the DoorDash app and use the code UPGRADE2021 in the US or UPGRADEAUS
00:29:13 ◼ ► if you're in Australia, that's 25% off up to $10 value and zero delivery fees on your first order.
00:29:23 ◼ ► or for our Australian upgradients, just use UPGRADEAUS. That is UPGRADE2021 for the US,
00:29:34 ◼ ► subject to change, terms apply, our thanks to DoorDash for their support of this show and Relay FM.
00:29:56 ◼ ► - It's over on the side. It's been watching us as we record this, remaining silent until now.
00:30:17 ◼ ► makes a silver one. So they've got one that's neutral. That was not an option you had in the
00:30:23 ◼ ► early days of the iMac, right? Remember when Apple turned everything blue? Blue Power Macs and blue
00:30:28 ◼ ► iMacs and all of that. But to give the option to not have it be neutral and have it fit into your
00:30:34 ◼ ► color scheme of your room or just delight you with a color. And it is, it's delightful. The back of
00:30:42 ◼ ► that thing too, because it's flat now, it doesn't have the kind of taper to the bulgy part in the
00:30:48 ◼ ► middle. It's just completely flat. And it's got that big Apple logo on it. It's quite striking
00:30:57 ◼ ► - In your office, you actually would work with this computer 'cause you don't have your desk
00:31:02 ◼ ► to the wall, do you? - I don't. And so I was writing this review that is now up at Six Colors.
00:31:09 ◼ ► I actually plopped it down. I used the arm on my iMac Pro and swung it away and then plopped it down
00:31:16 ◼ ► - And just sat here and wrote on it. And then, yeah, you get the, from the side and from
00:31:22 ◼ ► different angles, you see the bright. And then you see the bright color also on the stand, right,
00:31:26 ◼ ► on the little foot. It's bright there. Even if you're in front of it, that part of it is bright.
00:31:34 ◼ ► and then as I was using it, I noticed that Apple, I think, had done a really good job with, is this
00:31:39 ◼ ► idea of creating a, it's almost like a gradient where you've got your bright stand and then you've
00:31:49 ◼ ► got that, the lighter, almost in this case peachy part that's above it that's on the chin. And then
00:31:54 ◼ ► you get that neutral gray border and then you get your screen. So that when you're working on it,
00:31:59 ◼ ► you can focus on the screen and not get distracted by the color, but the color is also there, but
00:32:07 ◼ ► it's not in the center of your vision. So I can't imagine that they didn't do a lot of thought and a
00:32:15 ◼ ► lot of testing about creating this kind of a thing that would allow them to bring color to the
00:32:20 ◼ ► experience of using an iMac without having it be so in your face that it became maybe even unpleasant
00:32:28 ◼ ► to use it because it was just screaming at you from all over your vision. You really kind of
00:32:32 ◼ ► lose it when you're focused on what you're working on. Obviously the iMac, it is a screen, right?
00:32:38 ◼ ► Like the whole computer is a screen. Now this screen is 24 inches. How did you feel about this?
00:32:45 ◼ ► Because you're used to 27 on your iMac Pro. What did 24 feel like? You know, it's a little smaller,
00:32:51 ◼ ► but I'm not sure I'm the best user of a 27 inch screen. Like I have had one for a long time now
00:32:59 ◼ ► since the 5k iMac came out, but 24 is nice. It's a four and a half K. So it's more than the
00:33:06 ◼ ► old 21 and a half inch iMac, but less than the 27 inch iMac. So yeah, it's a little bit smaller,
00:33:13 ◼ ► but I didn't find it small at all. It's a very nice, large, bright screen. It's sort of like,
00:33:19 ◼ ► one of the things I was thinking is that Apple gives us these screens now and they've become
00:33:25 ◼ ► almost old hat. Like yeah, they're bright and they've got wide color gamut and night shift and
00:33:31 ◼ ► all that stuff. Yeah, and they're so good that they've got, yeah, it's got true tone, right?
00:33:36 ◼ ► It's like, you know what screen this is. You know what it looks like. It's really good, but unless
00:33:40 ◼ ► you're out there trying to find like third party monitors that do what Apple's displays do, you may
00:33:46 ◼ ► not realize like, no, they're really good. They're very good at what they do. So yeah, I didn't find
00:33:52 ◼ ► the, it's smaller. It's way smaller on my desk. That was one thing that I found really funny about
00:33:58 ◼ ► it, but it's still a really generous screen. You can fit a lot of stuff on it. - What's the
00:34:04 ◼ ► resolution? Is it 4.5? Is that what they said? - 4.5, yeah. - And I assume that that is, gives
00:34:12 ◼ ► you more than enough screen real estate for stuff. - 4480 by 2520 in terms of pixels. It's a lot. And
00:34:18 ◼ ► then you can, you know, you can go to the displays and make it more space if you want to. And it
00:34:22 ◼ ► will shrink everything down a little bit and give you more space if you want that. Like again,
00:34:27 ◼ ► if you're somebody who wants the biggest possible display, this is not the biggest possible display,
00:34:31 ◼ ► but for somebody who is buying the low-end iMac, it's more display than has ever been in the low-end
00:34:37 ◼ ► iMac. And it's a very generous display. It's something that just, you know, not too many
00:34:41 ◼ ► years ago would have been an enormous display, not to mention the fact that it's also retina. So it's
00:34:46 ◼ ► high resolution and enormous. - Like that was TV sizes not too long ago, right? - Yeah. Oh yeah.
00:34:51 ◼ ► - The actual physical size, you know, you mentioned it's smaller. Is it, the thinness of the computer
00:35:01 ◼ ► does that strike you as impressive? Do you really feel much about that when you see it? - I absolutely
00:35:06 ◼ ► think it's impressive. I used it all over my house, right? I used it at a desk, at my wife's
00:35:12 ◼ ► desk. I used it at my desk. I used it at a table in my office and I used it on the bar, actually,
00:35:16 ◼ ► bar top of our kitchen and sat on a bar stool. And a few things I noticed. So like when I was
00:35:24 ◼ ► at the bar, I stood for some of it and sat for some of it. And when I stood, I was higher up
00:35:30 ◼ ► and I would reach and tilt the display up. And anytime I positioned it like that, tilting the
00:35:36 ◼ ► display or something, you can feel, first off, the fact that on an Intel iMac, it's narrow at
00:35:44 ◼ ► the edge, but then it immediately is trailing away and it's curving away. And this is not like that.
00:35:49 ◼ ► This is an absolutely flat surface. It feels nicer to touch it. And then positioning it is like,
00:36:08 ◼ ► or not iPads, iMacs thinner and lighter, like it's a big iPad, which is kind of what it is now,
00:36:13 ◼ ► and saying, "Well, you know, you just put it on your desk and then you don't worry about it
00:36:16 ◼ ► anymore. So why do you care if it's big and heavy and stuff?" It's like, "Well, yeah, that's true,
00:36:20 ◼ ► although setting it up is easy." Moving it around is easy. I feel like they've also designed this
00:36:24 ◼ ► thing so that you can move it around. So you can say, "Why don't we put it over here? Why don't we
00:36:29 ◼ ► put it over there in a house?" Something like that, where you can change the context if you
00:36:34 ◼ ► want to. But you can also, when you take it out of the box, like it's less than 10 pounds. It's not
00:36:40 ◼ ► bulky at all. And you lift this thing up and put it on a desk and then tilting it to adjust it.
00:36:45 ◼ ► I imagine that if you put this on a VESA mount and put it on an arm, that it would adjust like
00:36:52 ◼ ► a dream that way too. I like that you moved it around a lot, because it gave you the ability
00:36:59 ◼ ► to see it in those different spaces. Because, I mean, honestly, color-wise, it looks different
00:37:05 ◼ ► in those environments, right? Like it suits different environments differently. And I think
00:37:09 ◼ ► that it was refreshing to see it in different places. And also it's fun because you get to
00:37:12 ◼ ► test out the weight of it. But you mentioned about the VESA arm. What was the viewing height like
00:37:17 ◼ ► in practical terms? Like how do you feel the ergonomics of the machine are having used it?
00:37:21 ◼ ► I think, yeah, I don't know. I mean, it depends on your setting, right? Like, so at my desk here,
00:37:30 ◼ ► it was lower than my screen usually is. So I was using it sort of tilted up a little bit.
00:37:38 ◼ ► I would probably, if it was on an arm, I would probably float it a little bit higher on my desk.
00:37:46 ◼ ► is that they can tell us that they looked at ergonomics and all of that. And that's great.
00:37:51 ◼ ► But different bodies need different height for good ergonomics on that. And because it's not
00:37:59 ◼ ► adjustable, this beautiful orange thing in some circumstances, or whatever color you choose,
00:38:04 ◼ ► is going to be on a dictionary or something, which is just like, it's not great, but that's what
00:38:09 ◼ ► people do. So it's too bad that it's not adjustable. I think that that's a failing of it. But,
00:38:13 ◼ ► you know, but I used it and it was fine. In the long run, I would have wanted to be higher.
00:38:17 ◼ ► Look, we know there are things you can do. You can put it on books or whatever. You can put it
00:38:23 ◼ ► on a stand thing that you can buy to raise it up, which is what I do with my iMac Pro and I've done
00:38:27 ◼ ► for a long time. So I have something that sits underneath the foot. I think I already said this,
00:38:31 ◼ ► but like 12 South will undoubtedly come out with color matched aluminum stands for every one of
00:38:37 ◼ ► these iMacs, right? And that's fine. It's just Apple could have solved this by building a better
00:38:44 ◼ ► stand and they chose not to. It's the same iMac stand more or less that they've had all along.
00:38:48 ◼ ► I hope that the iMac Pro honestly has some kind of option akin to the Pro display. Not $1,000,
00:38:57 ◼ ► right? Not $1,000. No. But something. Yeah, and an option would be fine, right? Just to say that you
00:39:02 ◼ ► could you can get this with the adjustable height or the standard height or a VESA mount and you
00:39:07 ◼ ► could choose. That would be great and people who care about the height could pay extra for it. I
00:39:11 ◼ ► think that would be fine. I want to read a little quote from your review that I loved. Okay. "At
00:39:16 ◼ ► least for the moment, Apple's essentially selling five different computers that are technically the
00:39:19 ◼ ► same. It just matters if you want a fanless 13-inch laptop, a 13-inch laptop with a fan,
00:39:24 ◼ ► a 12.9-inch touch tablet, a small headless computer, or a computer with a built-in 24-inch
00:39:29 ◼ ► display. They're all basically the same product in slightly different shapes and sizes." If you
00:39:34 ◼ ► read this five years ago, you would assume that the worst had happened. That Apple has put iOS
00:39:42 ◼ ► and everything. You know what I mean? You read this out of time and you would assume something
00:39:46 ◼ ► bad had happened. But in our timeline right now, the M1 is so good. This is actually a very good
00:39:52 ◼ ► thing. Yeah, it is. It is important to keep in mind as we did last fall that the M1, although it has
00:39:59 ◼ ► caused sort of leaps in performance over the computers that it's replacing that were from
00:40:04 ◼ ► Intel, it's a low-end processor. It's Apple's first Mac processor and it's going in low-end
00:40:12 ◼ ► models. This is the low-end iMac. It was going in the Mac Mini, the low-end version. They still
00:40:18 ◼ ► sell the Intel version. It was going in the MacBook Air. It was going in the lesser of the two 13-inch
00:40:24 ◼ ► MacBook Pros. This is the low-end Mac processor. There's more to come, but this is such a leap for
00:40:37 ◼ ► those low-end systems that it's, yeah, it is a good thing. Like all of them, if you compare this,
00:40:44 ◼ ► the performance scores of this to the 21, even the specced out 21 and a half inch iMac that was using
00:40:51 ◼ ► the fastest processor, Intel processor you could put in it, it's faster. Like, it's faster and it's
00:40:56 ◼ ► cooler and I can't get the fan to make noise because it doesn't make noise. It doesn't have
00:41:04 ◼ ► heat problems. It's just, it's the same story you've heard before. If you've read about those
00:41:09 ◼ ► other M1 Macs, this is just that, except the big story here is that they also redesigned the outside,
00:41:15 ◼ ► which they didn't do for the other ones. Let's talk about the peripherals a little bit because
00:41:20 ◼ ► they are very exciting. There are so many. They look so good. Oh my god. They do. They're really
00:41:26 ◼ ► good. Rounded corners and stuff. I'm still mad about the, that they didn't. Every other keyboard
00:41:30 ◼ ► they've introduced in the last two years has brought back the inverted T keys and these
00:41:34 ◼ ► compact keyboards didn't. They still got full-size left and right arrows. I don't understand it,
00:41:39 ◼ ► but the fact that they're color matched even down to the, just the little metal band that's around
00:41:44 ◼ ► the back and the sides of the magic track pad, like that they went to the trouble that that's
00:41:49 ◼ ► color matched aluminum. The underside of the mouse, so when you plug it in by stabbing it
00:41:55 ◼ ► with a lightning port, it's very colorful. Color matched lightning cables. And yeah, it's, it's a,
00:42:03 ◼ ► so it's an orangey, uh, you know, woven cable braided cable cover. Uh, it's clearly the
00:42:12 ◼ ► nicest lightning cable ever made by Apple and it's peach. Mine's peachy. They're going to go for good
00:42:17 ◼ ► money on eBay. Those cables. Well, yeah. And this is, this is, yeah, you wonder about the future and
00:42:22 ◼ ► we have more to say about this later, but we wonder about the future of, of Apple's color plan.
00:42:27 ◼ ► And if they've got, this is going to be rolling out everywhere and this is where it starts. But,
00:42:32 ◼ ► uh, the fact that the, yeah, so the, the, the magic track pad is, uh, it's got more, it's got a
00:42:38 ◼ ► more curved corners and is a little bit lower than the old magic track pad, right? Because it,
00:42:46 ◼ ► they matched the height and the angle of the keyboards. They're all exactly the same. So
00:42:52 ◼ ► if you put the track pad and the keyboard touching each other, they are the same kind of profile now.
00:42:57 ◼ ► Exactly. Are they the same depth? Yeah. Huh? It's like, why, you know, just cause we're Apple,
00:43:12 ◼ ► all that kind of stuff would mean that you should have those two things the same. I could imagine
00:43:16 ◼ ► them being different for different reasons. And they had to rebuild the magic track pad,
00:43:19 ◼ ► right? Which hasn't, you know, magic track pad two, which they haven't. And it's, it's largely
00:43:23 ◼ ► the same. You wouldn't really tell the difference. It's just, but they still had to make it different.
00:43:27 ◼ ► And they all have to be in all the different colors. I want to mention the touch ID because
00:43:32 ◼ ► what they do with the touch ID is really clever. We've been speculating for a long time about how
00:43:36 ◼ ► do you do wireless touch ID with a Mac? How would you do that? And the answer is, and there's a tech
00:43:43 ◼ ► note up about it now, but the answer is it says, okay, you want to set up the touch ID. Here's what
00:43:48 ◼ ► you do. Double tap on the power button on the back of the iMac. What? Wait, what? That's what it's
00:43:55 ◼ ► doing. So to do touch ID, what it needs to do is verify it pairs that keyboard with that Mac.
00:44:04 ◼ ► You double tap. Double tap on the power button. And that doesn't turn the computer off? No.
00:44:09 ◼ ► Cause I guess you have to hold it, right? To go off. Yeah, yeah, right. So they built this other
00:44:15 ◼ ► thing in. Weird. So you double tap it and then it pairs it with the touch ID sensor on it. And then
00:44:20 ◼ ► what happens is the touch ID sensor is only sending back what it's reading. It's all processed in the
00:44:26 ◼ ► secure element. So the keyboard doesn't know your fingerprint. The keyboard just knows what it sees
00:44:31 ◼ ► on your finger when you lay it on the touch ID and sends that back to the Mac. Presumably that's
00:44:36 ◼ ► encrypted. And that's why you're doing the double tap is that you're getting them to pair. But the
00:44:52 ◼ ► wouldn't do the pairing. No, because they, I think the idea there is that it's a Bluetooth keyboard.
00:44:58 ◼ ► So the idea is that it's going to be wireless probably. And they want to have faith that it's
00:45:03 ◼ ► the right keyboard that is for this Mac and that they're connected together. And that they're not
00:45:11 ◼ ► inseparable, but like, this is the thing that verifies that that is my keyboard and that we
00:45:16 ◼ ► are talking to each other and that sets up, I believe, their secure connection to one another
00:45:20 ◼ ► for touch ID purposes. And do you only do this once? Yeah. Okay. I mean, presumably if you added
00:45:25 ◼ ► a different keyboard or maybe if you wiped the drive or something, you'd have to redo it. But
00:45:30 ◼ ► basically, yes. That's wild. That's so wild. Yeah, it's pretty wacky. Also, we talked about the
00:45:35 ◼ ► lightning cable, that braided lightning cable. The setup process has you, which I think they've been
00:45:41 ◼ ► doing for a while now, but it's very much like, why does the lightning cable there? Well, the
00:45:44 ◼ ► lightning cable is there to pair the keyboard and the mouse or the trackpad with the device. So you
00:45:49 ◼ ► boot it and it says, plug in the cable, now plug it into your keyboard. Now you have a keyboard.
00:45:54 ◼ ► Now plug it into the trackpad. Now you have a trackpad. Right? Like that's how that works.
00:45:58 ◼ ► So you need to have that one cable because they want to do the easy pairing with the plug to pair,
00:46:03 ◼ ► but they also made it this very pretty. And then it's yours to charge, right? You've always got it
00:46:07 ◼ ► to charge them up. Yeah. And you do an initial charge and all of that. Yeah, it makes sense.
00:46:11 ◼ ► When you plug it in, it's going to look good while it's charging, which I really genuinely appreciate.
00:46:18 ◼ ► The other braided cable of course is the power cable that goes on the back that attaches
00:46:22 ◼ ► magnetically, which is not mag safe because remember mag safe means it's easy to tear it off.
00:46:28 ◼ ► And this one is hard. It's I would, I would say it's actually harder to pull it out than it is
00:46:33 ◼ ► to pull the power plug out from my iMac Pro. This is mag safe max or mag safe pro. Well,
00:46:38 ◼ ► it's not, it's, it's mag unsafe. It's mag attached. It's super attached. Well, that makes it extra,
00:46:44 ◼ ► it's safe, but in a different way. I guess so. So you pull, so when you, when I've got the little
00:46:48 ◼ ► screen tilted and I pull on that power plug and what happens is the screen comes all the way back
00:46:53 ◼ ► to fully vertical, at which point it can't pivot anymore. And only at that point, if you, if you
00:47:00 ◼ ► pull hard on it, will it disengage the magnet? You really have to give it a real pull to disengage it.
00:47:05 ◼ ► Apple says it's as much, I think it's more force than the friction that's in the standard power
00:47:12 ◼ ► cable and in like my iMac Pro. And I've accidentally pulled out the iMac Pro cable more than once. And
00:47:19 ◼ ► I, I would feel more confident with this cable being robust. It is a very powerful magnet.
00:47:31 ◼ ► all of my transfers when I plugged in ethernet into the power plug. I, I do say in the review,
00:47:36 ◼ ► I love that this is a direction for Apple. I love the idea of getting things off of desks
00:47:42 ◼ ► and making the desk more, especially if you've got this pretty colorful iMac, getting things off your
00:47:46 ◼ ► desk. Like a lot of us nerds do this anyway, where we, where we try to route things off our desk.
00:47:51 ◼ ► I've got a USB hub attached under my desk so that I can reduce the number of cords that are running
00:47:56 ◼ ► from my computer across the desk. And I have a bunch of other stuff hiding under my desk, right?
00:48:02 ◼ ► So I like this idea of getting power and ethernet off the desk and you just have the one cable.
00:48:07 ◼ ► I want them to do more with this. This is the place where like in the long run, I want them to
00:48:12 ◼ ► do data on there too. I really want them to put USB ports on there. They don't have to be Thunderbolt,
00:48:18 ◼ ► they could just be USB. But like if you've got other stuff, if you want to plug, you know,
00:48:23 ◼ ► a keyboard in or something, you run it under the desk. If you want to plug, really, you know,
00:48:28 ◼ ► anything you can think of, a U.S. or a UPS power supply, you could do it that way. You could do my
00:48:36 ◼ ► little podcast microphone. Like there's all sorts of things you could plug in that way. And it would
00:48:40 ◼ ► all happen under the desk because cable management is a thing. And this could be even more than it is.
00:48:46 ◼ ► But what it is, is pretty impressive. And again, I'll say, because it's not magsafe, you're not
00:48:52 ◼ ► unplugging this thing. It stays attached. So I don't think there's the worry about like, if you
00:48:56 ◼ ► have your backup hard drive attached to the power brick, I don't think there's a worry about data
00:49:01 ◼ ► loss because this is, you're not unplugging this. It's different with magsafe, right? If you have a
00:49:07 ◼ ► hard drive attached to a power brick with magsafe, that's bad because magsafe is going to pop off
00:49:14 ◼ ► when there's any force attached to it. That would be the idea. But that's not the idea of this thing.
00:49:19 ◼ ► So I like it. It's pretty nice. It is true. I gave it a try. Depending on exactly how I wire it,
00:49:26 ◼ ► when I put my desk in a standing configuration, it kind of barely touches the ground. It's really
00:49:32 ◼ ► close. And if the cable is kind of off to the right just a little bit, it doesn't touch the
00:49:39 ◼ ► ground. But the truth is, if I were to have an iMac like this on my desk, the power brick would
00:49:46 ◼ ► probably be attached to the underside of my desk, not laying down on the floor. That's the truth.
00:49:57 ◼ ► - Well, it's the same webcam as in the 27-inch iMac and my iMac Pro. It's the 1080 webcam.
00:50:07 ◼ ► - Best they've done on the Mac. Best they've done on the Mac. And I want to come back to that point
00:50:12 ◼ ► because I have some complaints here. But I also had them side by side, in the same lighting
00:50:19 ◼ ► conditions, side by side, my iMac Pro and the iMac, 24-inch iMac. Apple talks about how Apple's
00:50:29 ◼ ► image processing helps the image be better. They are not kidding. The image out of the iMac is way
00:50:37 ◼ ► better than the image out of my iMac Pro. It's way better. And that's not because of the camera.
00:50:42 ◼ ► It's the same camera. It's because of the image processing, that they're able to do better things
00:50:46 ◼ ► in terms of dealing with low light conditions and having the tone be more even. It's still a 1080
00:50:53 ◼ ► webcam, but they're doing a lot of smart processing and the quality of it is pretty good.
00:50:59 ◼ ► - Well, that's the thing, right? Apple announced this product along with the iPad Pro. And the
00:51:08 ◼ ► iPad Pro has a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera on the front. And it has center stage, which auto
00:51:18 ◼ ► crops and follows you around and uses that image processing to recognize faces and zoom in and out
00:51:24 ◼ ► and all of those things that we all saw on the demo, right? If ever there was a feature for the
00:51:33 ◼ ► where your iPad is for doing a video conference, you just move it, 'cause it's an iPad. But an iMac,
00:51:42 ◼ ► if it's sitting on a desk or sitting in the corner of a room or something, you're probably not gonna
00:51:47 ◼ ► do zoom with grandma and grandpa. And even though it's relatively easy these days with this light,
00:51:54 ◼ ► you know, less than 10 pounds iMac to do it, you're probably not gonna disconnect all your
00:51:58 ◼ ► peripherals and unplug your iMac and lift it up and move the papers out of the way and then put
00:52:03 ◼ ► it over where the family is sitting and then run an extension cord and boot up the iMac and get into
00:52:09 ◼ ► zoom with grandma and grandpa, right? You're just not gonna do that. The iMac is going to be by its
00:52:14 ◼ ► very nature less mobile than a mobile device. And yet center stage is on the iPad, a mobile device.
00:52:22 ◼ ► And I'm sure center stage is gonna be great, I'm sure, but why is it not on the iMac? And I think
00:52:30 ◼ ► this is just honestly, this is that Apple is not, I don't know whether it's Apple keeping things a
00:52:38 ◼ ► secret or whether Apple is getting its product releases kind of out of step and the iMac was
00:52:44 ◼ ► being built too soon or they prioritize that software on iPad OS, but like it can't be the
00:52:52 ◼ ► camera 'cause this is an iMac. I'm sure they could fit the camera that's in the iPad Pro in
00:53:00 ◼ ► this iMac. I'm sure they could. And it can't be the processor, it's the same processor.
00:53:06 ◼ ► I guess it could be the software, but not only could it be the software, but now the hardware
00:53:12 ◼ ► on these things is locked in, it's a 1080 webcam. It's not the ultra wide thing that allows the iPad
00:53:19 ◼ ► Pro to do all that center stage stuff. So it's kind of a missed opportunity. And maybe we'll see
00:53:24 ◼ ► that camera in the bigger iMac, that would be great, but like, ah, it's such a missed opportunity.
00:53:30 ◼ ► This is a perfect, the low cost iMac put in a family room somewhere and have center stage
00:53:37 ◼ ► as a feature. It would be perfect and it's just not there. So it's a nice webcam. They're probably
00:53:43 ◼ ► right in saying it's the nicest webcam on the Mac ever because of the combination of the hardware
00:53:48 ◼ ► and the software. But it's also, it just strikes me as being a huge missed opportunity. They've
00:53:53 ◼ ► got the technology, it's in the other product that they announced the same day, but it's not
00:53:59 ◼ ► on the Mac, it's on the iPad. And I just think it's bad for the Mac that Apple made that decision.
00:54:05 ◼ ► And it also exposes something about Apple's product development that they had a feature
00:54:11 ◼ ► like that and they either chose not to put it in the Mac or they were so out of sequence that
00:54:16 ◼ ► the Mac just couldn't get it. And it's too bad either way. And it hurts more when you see
00:54:24 ◼ ► Yeah, this continues to be an issue. It's going to continue to be an issue for a while. I expect
00:54:33 ◼ ► that this stuff is going to start improving because they're getting so much pressure from
00:54:36 ◼ ► people about it. We're talking about it here and every reviewer is going to talk about it as well.
00:54:46 ◼ ► "Oh, this is what the webcam looks like. Okay, we'll move on." But the last nearly two years,
00:54:51 ◼ ► 18 months, I should say, this world has really shown that we need this stuff to just be better
00:55:00 ◼ ► and we want it to be better. It cuts both ways to the M1 by putting the M1 in Macs and iPads.
00:55:08 ◼ ► It does make us, I think, more fairly ask Apple, "Why does this device do this and this other
00:55:14 ◼ ► device doesn't?" And it cuts both ways in the sense that we're doing that a lot with the iPad, right?
00:55:18 ◼ ► When they announced that iPad, we had a lot of conversations about, and really since 2018,
00:55:24 ◼ ► about the stuff that iPadOS doesn't do, that the Mac can do. And it's not the power because
00:55:30 ◼ ► the processor is the same now. But it goes both ways. And here it is cutting the other way,
00:55:36 ◼ ► which is, "Why does the Mac not have this feature that's in the iPad?" It's better for the Mac. It's
00:55:43 ◼ ► a better fit for the Mac than the iPad. The iPad, that's a really whizzy feature, but the iPad,
00:55:48 ◼ ► you can move it and point it in the right direction. You can't really do that with an iMac.
00:55:59 ◼ ► those kinds of times when family video calls are more done from mobile computers than fixed
00:56:05 ◼ ► computers and that's why you might want it, I don't know. Nevertheless, this is a feature
00:56:08 ◼ ► that should be everywhere because it's just really good. Yeah, and that brings me to a larger point,
00:56:12 ◼ ► which is just about how Apple views the iMac. And we've been seeing this, and upgrade listeners
00:56:17 ◼ ► have been seeing it, since we talked the first time, since I interviewed Colleen Novielli,
00:56:23 ◼ ► because that was the first time I really noticed Apple trying to put the iMac in a different kind
00:56:30 ◼ ► of context, right? When the iMac was first created, home computers, you would have a computer in your
00:56:36 ◼ ► home. That was the idea. It was still in the era back in '98 where really you wanted a home
00:56:43 ◼ ► computer for everyone in the home and you park it somewhere and that's the computer and everybody
00:56:48 ◼ ► uses it. But today, and even a few years ago when we had that first conversation with Colleen,
00:56:54 ◼ ► everybody's got mobile devices, right? There are tablets maybe, you got your iPads, you got phones,
00:57:02 ◼ ► two-thirds, three-quarters of the Macs Apple sells are laptops. So what's the role of the iMac?
00:57:08 ◼ ► It's obviously very different than it was back in the day. And over the last few years, talking to
00:57:14 ◼ ► Colleen, seeing how Apple puts this in context, you get the idea that Apple really is trying to
00:57:20 ◼ ► show you sort of like the scenarios where the iMac is used or can be used. And so it's tidbits like
00:57:28 ◼ ► in hotels and offices and public spaces where they need a computer. And this is a pretty computer,
00:57:34 ◼ ► now even prettier because you can choose your color, and it goes at the front desk and people
00:57:40 ◼ ► see it and it says, you know, we have a sense of style and we're not a fly-by-night operation
00:57:44 ◼ ► because we could afford a computer, whatever. But in the home, it's like, well, how do we do this?
00:57:52 ◼ ► And I think the answer is, you know, they're pitching it as things like you can have a big
00:58:00 ◼ ► screen because sometimes you want a bigger screen than your laptop or your iPad or your iPhone can
00:58:06 ◼ ► give you. Like, which is weird to think of the reason you buy an iMac is because it's got a big
00:58:12 ◼ ► screen because you can do multitasking, right? But like there is some truth to that. And I think
00:58:16 ◼ ► Apple hopes that the iMac will fill a niche in terms of kids who don't have their own devices
00:58:22 ◼ ► or families that have some other devices, but there's work that is better done on big screen
00:58:28 ◼ ► rather than like a laptop screen. Or there are contacts, contacts where having a home computer,
00:58:47 ◼ ► like I wouldn't do that. I would use my laptop or my iPad or my phone in the kitchen. I probably
00:58:54 ◼ ► wouldn't put an iMac in the kitchen. But there are other scenarios where I think it makes sense.
00:58:58 ◼ ► And that's where the center stage conversation comes in too is like, if you do have an iMac
00:59:03 ◼ ► in your family room or living room or something like that, it's got the big screen, it may actually
00:59:08 ◼ ► be the best place to do a FaceTime conversation or a Zoom meeting or whatever, because it's got
00:59:13 ◼ ► the big screen, but it doesn't do the center stage part. So I don't know. It's interesting to see
00:59:20 ◼ ► Apple kind of try to find its way of like, what are the, it has to explain what are the scenarios
00:59:24 ◼ ► where you would use an iMac. And that's something that we didn't ever have to do back in the day.
00:59:28 ◼ ► But today it really is like, well, I've got all my mobile devices. Why would I buy an iMac? And
00:59:33 ◼ ► the fact is only a little fraction of the Mac market is the iMac. It's probably, I don't know,
00:59:41 ◼ ► 20%, 15% of the Mac market is all the iMac. But that it's still a valuable, as we know from talking
00:59:48 ◼ ► to Colleen, still a very valuable and important part of Apple's business. And with this iMac,
00:59:53 ◼ ► it feels to me like they're leaning into those scenarios. They're like, okay, we know that the
00:59:57 ◼ ► iMac isn't everywhere now, but where is it being used? And how can we make a better iMac for that?
01:00:02 ◼ ► So the fact that it's lighter and the fact that it's colorful, those all kind of factor in. The
01:00:07 ◼ ► fact that it's got a bigger screen, probably too, because it helps differentiate it from your
01:00:18 ◼ ► Well, I mean, it's a first cut at it. So presumably the literate and some of this stuff will come in.
01:00:24 ◼ ► I wish there were the ports on the power plug. I think that would be a fun way to expand the
01:00:34 ◼ ► Yeah, the port situation on the back is weird. The low end model only has the two Thunderbolt ports,
01:00:39 ◼ ► which is probably fine. It's not great, but it's fine. It's the low end model. The higher end model
01:00:44 ◼ ► has the two additional USB 3, USB C ports, which leads to that weird situation where two ports are
01:00:52 ◼ ► labeled for Thunderbolt with little lightning bolts and two aren't. And Apple generally,
01:00:57 ◼ ► in its history, it's been very rare that you've seen a Mac that has two ports that are identical
01:01:02 ◼ ► that do different things. It happens, but the fact that they have to label them, it's been a long
01:01:07 ◼ ► time, I think, since they've had something like this dramatic, but that's how they had to do it.
01:01:12 ◼ ► It's the M1. The M1 can't do more than two lanes of Thunderbolt. So here we are. I'm glad it's
01:01:19 ◼ ► still got a headphone jack. I'm glad it still supports ethernet, even though it doesn't support
01:01:24 ◼ ► it. By default, on the low end, you can pay for, on the low end model, you can pay for not just a
01:01:30 ◼ ► better keyboard with touch ID, but the low end model, you can also pay to get the brick that's
01:01:34 ◼ ► got ethernet on it if you want that. But, you know, the webcam, while good, I think could be
01:01:40 ◼ ► better. But it's pretty great. Like, it's an M1 computer, and all the great things we said about
01:01:48 ◼ ► the M1 computers last fall is true for this one too. Plus, it's got this new design that it's just
01:01:53 ◼ ► so nice. I know people are skeptical about the gray. It's not white. It is a light gray border
01:02:00 ◼ ► around the screen. But I think they did a pretty good job with it. I will say it is more of a light
01:02:07 ◼ ► mode experience than a dark mode experience. It's fine in dark mode, but in light mode,
01:02:12 ◼ ► it really works having the neutral gray around the border. But again, presumably, there's another
01:02:19 ◼ ► iMac, the high-end iMac that has not been touched yet that is also to come and will perhaps be a
01:02:25 ◼ ► variation on this. But it's, you know, if you're in the market for a desktop Mac, like, and you're
01:02:34 ◼ ► not a pro, obviously this is the product for you. And the fact that it's here and it's got that M1
01:02:40 ◼ ► power that's going to make it so much better, right? Like, it's not designed for spinning hard
01:02:43 ◼ ► drives anymore. So that's out. It's all SSD as it should be. It's quiet. It's light. You know,
01:02:52 ◼ ► I don't know, there's a lot of really great stuff about this computer, even though I can quibble.
01:02:57 ◼ ► The quibbles are good because it gives Apple something to iterate on, right? You're never
01:03:03 ◼ ► going to get everything in there on the first iteration, but it's still a pretty impressive
01:03:07 ◼ ► display. If you think about it, Myke, this is the first Mac redesign we've seen in the Apple
01:03:14 ◼ ► Silicon era. This is the first M1 Mac, if you would think of it that way. That's how I kind
01:03:19 ◼ ► of think of it. Like, the other ones, they were Intel Max and M1 chips. Yeah, this is the first
01:03:23 ◼ ► Mac designed for M1, clearly. This is the first one of this new generation of products. And I
01:03:29 ◼ ► suspect they're all going to be like this from here on out. I don't think we're ever going to see
01:03:33 ◼ ► a retread of an Intel product again. Maybe there'll be a Mac Mini update or something like that,
01:03:39 ◼ ► but it sure feels like from here on out, they're going to be... They could make the Mac Mini
01:03:42 ◼ ► so cool, like, tiny, just like miniscule, like Apple TV size, you know what I mean? Like,
01:03:47 ◼ ► people have wished for something like that for years just because why not? They could. Will
01:03:51 ◼ ► they? Who knows? But it does feel like we've reached the... There was a break point between
01:03:57 ◼ ► last fall and this spring where we've shifted from the first ones get out the door and they look like
01:04:03 ◼ ► the old ones. And now we're going to start seeing those redesigns that it really is the computers
01:04:10 ◼ ► that were made for Apple Silicon. They weren't made for Intel. They wouldn't have worked with
01:04:24 ◼ ► the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. From websites
01:04:34 ◼ ► They combine cutting edge design and world-class engineering, making it easier than ever to
01:04:38 ◼ ► establish your home online and make your ideas a reality. Squarespace has everything you need
01:04:44 ◼ ► to create a beautiful and modern website. You start with a professionally designed template,
01:04:49 ◼ ► and you use drag and drop tools to make it your own. You customize the look and feel, the settings,
01:04:54 ◼ ► even the products you could have on sale in just a few clicks. And all Squarespace websites are
01:04:59 ◼ ► optimized for mobile, so your content automatically adjusts so it's going to look great on every
01:05:03 ◼ ► device. You'll get free unlimited hosting, top of the line security and dependable resources to help
01:05:09 ◼ ► you succeed, like award-winning 24/7 customer support. If you need any help, Squarespace are
01:05:14 ◼ ► on hand. I actually had a question for Squarespace's support team a couple of days ago, sent in an
01:05:19 ◼ ► email, got one back super quick. They asked my question, really easy, fantastic service.
01:05:23 ◼ ► Squarespace have nothing to patch or upgrade. They even let you quickly and easily grab a great and
01:05:28 ◼ ► unique domain name, and they have everything you need for SEO and email marketing as well.
01:05:33 ◼ ► You can use Squarespace to turn your big idea into a new website, showcase your work with
01:05:37 ◼ ► their incredible portfolio designs, publish your next blog post, promote your business,
01:05:41 ◼ ► announce an upcoming event, and so much more. I think I've used Squarespace for basically every
01:05:46 ◼ ► single one of those things. It really is an amazing platform. Go to squarespace.com/upgrade
01:06:00 ◼ ► There's squarespace.com/upgrade and then the offer code UPGRADE to get 10% off your first purchase.
01:06:25 ◼ ► It has been rumored over the last couple of weeks that there was going to be some kind of
01:06:33 ◼ ► a night before Apple announced it, they put a little teaser in Apple Music saying music is
01:06:39 ◼ ► about to change forever. It was like, oh okay, it's coming, it's coming. And then within,
01:06:44 ◼ ► I don't know, 12 hours or so, we got a press release. But I don't really know what to call
01:06:58 ◼ ► because it's not an extra tier, it's not going to cost anything extra. I think what we would say is,
01:07:06 ◼ ► want to say that. I got it exactly right. Because Spotify announced the high quality tier and it
01:07:11 ◼ ► left Apple alone as the only one that didn't do a high quality tier. And I thought, well,
01:07:16 ◼ ► that's not going to do it. But then I thought about their spatial audio stuff and I thought,
01:07:20 ◼ ► well, what they really should do is lean into doing some multi-channel spatial audio kind of
01:07:25 ◼ ► audio content, because that's nice. I have some 5.1 albums, I've got like five or six of these
01:07:33 ◼ ► DVDs that are albums mixed in in multi-channel and they sound great. And I thought, well,
01:07:38 ◼ ► with the spatial audio stuff Apple's been doing with movies, they could do that with music too.
01:07:44 ◼ ► And that's exactly what they did. So it's spatial audio with support for Dolby Atmos. My understanding
01:07:50 ◼ ► is, on an Apple TV, if you've got a Dolby Atmos system attached to your Apple TV and you play this
01:07:57 ◼ ► music once this launches, you're going to get full surround music, which I think is really cool.
01:08:04 ◼ ► But they're also doing various levels of lossless, which is interesting. They're going to do
01:08:11 ◼ ► lossless using Apple lossless, which starts at the CD quality, 16-bit, 44.1, but they say up to
01:08:21 ◼ ► 24-bit at 48 kilohertz. And you have to opt in because it eats so much bandwidth, but they have
01:08:28 ◼ ► a super high quality 24-bit, 192 kilohertz, and you actually have to attach an external USB DAC,
01:08:35 ◼ ► a digital audio converter, in order to get that, because otherwise you couldn't hear it,
01:08:40 ◼ ► because Apple's DAC doesn't support that level of quality. So if you're Federico, you're fine.
01:08:45 ◼ ► If you're Federico, this is perfect for a high quality audio fan like Federico. I can't wait
01:08:50 ◼ ► for Connected this week. He's going to be so excited. It's going to be Federico mania on
01:08:54 ◼ ► Connected this week. So I think this is cool. Again, I think a lot of people can't tell
01:08:58 ◼ ► the difference between lossless and not, but some people can, and Apple just offering it and saying,
01:09:04 ◼ ► "Yeah, if you want to listen to it that way, you can," I think is really good. There are certain
01:09:07 ◼ ► circumstances. I think the spatial audio, you really can tell, and it's beautiful. It's not
01:09:12 ◼ ► for everybody, and it's a different kind of experience, but I can say for the handful of
01:09:18 ◼ ► 5.1 audio DVDs that I have, I don't listen to them that often, unfortunately, because it's just,
01:09:25 ◼ ► the workflow isn't great. I'm hoping all of those will also eventually get in there. Everybody's
01:09:30 ◼ ► rustling through their catalogs of music for anything that's multi-channel so that they can
01:09:34 ◼ ► put it out here, but I love it. Listening in my home theater where I've got stereo speakers,
01:09:39 ◼ ► a center channel, and two rear channels is all I've got. I don't have a whole Dolby Atmos setup,
01:09:43 ◼ ► but you end up with the vocals isolated on the center speaker, and then you've got instruments
01:09:50 ◼ ► left, right, and then you've got more instruments rear, left, and right, and it's like you're inside
01:09:54 ◼ ► the music. Even a familiar album sounds totally different, partly because it's been mixed for
01:10:01 ◼ ► multi-channel, but partly because you can hear things you just couldn't hear before, because now
01:10:05 ◼ ► every speaker is playing a different portion of whatever it is you're listening to. It's really
01:10:10 ◼ ► good. I've got the first Crowded House album, I've got a Glenn Phillips album, I've got the Beatles.
01:10:16 ◼ ► Giles Martin did that 5.1 mix of a bunch of Beatles songs for the Cirque du Soleil show,
01:10:23 ◼ ► Love, and it sounds amazing, and then he's done several other Beatles albums in multi-channel that
01:10:31 ◼ ► sound great. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get that one. Yeah, and it'll be a day we never forget.
01:10:38 ◼ ► So there are some services that have done multi-channel so far, but Apple is going to be
01:10:44 ◼ ► really, I think Apple's weight will really drive this in the music industry and getting these
01:10:52 ◼ ► things into the catalogs, and I'm curious, I actually kind of wonder, I don't know if this
01:10:57 ◼ ► was detailed, all they said was that it'll work with all Beats and Apple devices that have the...
01:11:02 ◼ ► H1 or W1. This is really interesting. So Apple have said in the press release, "Dolby Atmos will
01:11:08 ◼ ► play by default on all devices of a H1 or W1 chip as well as using built-in speakers on other
01:11:14 ◼ ► devices." Right, like the iPad Pro has the four speaker system and all of that, yeah. But right
01:11:19 ◼ ► now, Spatial Audio is only available on AirPods Max and AirPods Pro, so I don't know what that's
01:11:27 ◼ ► going to be like. Is it going to be different quality? Are they going to bring Spatial Audio to
01:11:31 ◼ ► all of the H1 and W1 products? My guess is yes, and my guess is that it's even more than that,
01:11:36 ◼ ► because my understanding, and again, we'll find out more as this rolls out, but my understanding is
01:11:44 ◼ ► that the current Bluetooth implementation for Apple's wireless headphones won't generate lossless
01:11:56 ◼ ► quality audio. It's compressing it. So one question I have is, is Apple going to do a firmware update
01:12:04 ◼ ► for H1 and W1 chip headphones that enables a higher quality audio stream for certain Apple
01:12:11 ◼ ► hardware, right? Have they been holding in their back pocket a lossless or at least less lossy
01:12:19 ◼ ► Bluetooth mode that it's all part of that Apple AirPod secret sauce stuff? I wouldn't put it past
01:12:28 ◼ ► them, but it is also possible that if you're really going to want this, you're going to want it on
01:12:32 ◼ ► wired headphones, and there's an argument that the AirPods aren't going to really benefit from.
01:12:36 ◼ ► And they are using their own codec, and that might be why, right? So they may have done that.
01:12:42 ◼ ► Right. Is there an Apple lossless stream that's possible? Do they have the bandwidth to do that?
01:12:51 ◼ ► things on different devices, but yeah, I would imagine, I'm looking forward to listening to
01:12:59 ◼ ► multi-channel interpreted by AirPods Pro, which I listen with, because I think that'll be kind of a
01:13:06 ◼ ► fun thing. But I think in a lot of cases, you're going to have lossless audio via plug-in, really
01:13:11 ◼ ► high quality plug-in headphones, perhaps depending on the level through an outboard USB DAC, whether
01:13:19 ◼ ► it's on a Mac or an iPad or whatever, just to get the highest quality if you want the super high
01:13:23 ◼ ► quality. And then, like I said, I'm also really thinking that this can be a great thing for music
01:13:27 ◼ ► listening in an Apple TV setup, where you've got really good speakers that do surround, whether it's
01:13:33 ◼ ► a soundbar or a full-on surround system, that's actually a pretty great place to experience music
01:13:38 ◼ ► that is multi-channel. So there's lots of different things here that, this is not one announcement,
01:13:43 ◼ ► right? It's like many different moving parts for different devices. It's two different things.
01:13:48 ◼ ► Yeah. And that is worth remembering. The lossless audio and the spatial audio are two parts of Apple
01:13:54 ◼ ► Music now. And the lossless is three different levels of it, including one you have to opt in
01:13:59 ◼ ► for that is mandatory that you have to have an external DAC to use. So it's, and then you've got
01:14:05 ◼ ► the H1W1 chip thing where, what's that look like and all that. This is obviously going to be in a
01:14:11 ◼ ► release that comes out around WWDC, right? Into the next release of the current version of the OS.
01:14:17 ◼ ► That's what they'll do to roll this out. But I'm excited by it. Yeah, it's 14.6, which will
01:14:24 ◼ ► be coming in June. I guess it will probably be the last major 14 release. So there is a potential
01:14:31 ◼ ► that not too long after this episode comes out, maybe there's a beta that actually has it.
01:14:39 ◼ ► worth just again, like the way that they're rolling this out is different. So the lossless audio,
01:14:45 ◼ ► they're putting out millions of tracks and by the end of the year, it will be all 75 million songs
01:14:50 ◼ ► will be, they'll have lossless audio for. The spatial audio is going to be thousands of songs
01:14:56 ◼ ► at launch. They're going to be updating previous tracks and then new stuff's going to be coming in
01:15:00 ◼ ► and they're going to keep rolling it out and also doing like playlists and sections inside of Apple
01:15:05 ◼ ► Music to highlight the best kind of experiences with spatial audio. Ian in the Discord says that
01:15:12 ◼ ► Apple confirmed that Bluetooth streaming streams AC and so, you know, you won't get lossless on that.
01:15:19 ◼ ► I had kind of hoped that they would have a, especially for AirPods Max, they would have a
01:15:23 ◼ ► story for that. This is what they've said right now. I'm still holding out hope. Like you said,
01:15:26 ◼ ► because they could do something. There's like a rabbit that they could pull out of their hat for
01:15:30 ◼ ► some of their devices. It would be really silly if AirPods Max didn't support high quality audio
01:15:35 ◼ ► unless you plugged in a cable. But yeah, I also understand it because the whole infrastructure
01:15:39 ◼ ► of Bluetooth audio streaming is not built around high quality audio because it's, you got to stream
01:15:45 ◼ ► a lot of data and that kills your battery. It may be, and the way that I'm thinking about it,
01:15:55 ◼ ► of a fun experience than lossless. And I think that that's probably what they're going to bet on.
01:15:59 ◼ ► That the spatial audio experience on AirPods Max is going to be the best one because they have more
01:16:05 ◼ ► control there. And I bet that it's going to sound fantastic. And I would expect that that's probably
01:16:10 ◼ ► what Apple's betting on. The Space Gray peripherals that were introduced with the iMac Pro, so the
01:16:16 ◼ ► Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard, they've all been discontinued. They're being sold
01:16:21 ◼ ► in the Apple Store now while supplies last, which is the same as the iMac Pro. However,
01:16:26 ◼ ► I went to the Mac Pro page today and it says that when you buy a Mac Pro, you will still get your
01:16:30 ◼ ► peripherals in silver and black. Yeah, they're kind of different, aren't they? Because they're
01:16:35 ◼ ► silver with the black accents, but the iMac Pro is just all space gray. Yeah, so I guess they're
01:16:40 ◼ ► reducing. This is so transparent, right? Like they're clearing this out of the pipeline because
01:16:45 ◼ ► they've got those seven different colors of, or sorry, six colors and then silver, of the Magic
01:17:07 ◼ ► thing. So yeah, I would think that they're just turning all of this over. I also would think that
01:17:15 ◼ ► if they do a color scheme that is not the bright color scheme for iMac Pro kind of thing or a high
01:17:22 ◼ ► end iMac, that they would do the color matching for those too. So this feels to me more like
01:17:27 ◼ ► they're just kind of clearing out the old thing and then making way for the new thing. I would be
01:17:32 ◼ ► surprised actually if, like the regular Magic keyboard doesn't look like the one that comes
01:17:37 ◼ ► with the iMac, the low-end iMacs, right? It's got curved edges and stuff that aren't there in the
01:17:43 ◼ ► regular ones. So clearly the keyboards are turning over and this is the first step there, is they're
01:17:48 ◼ ► getting rid of this bespoke space gray one. So if you want a space gray peripheral, get it now.
01:17:53 ◼ ► I just hope it means there's a new iMac Pro coming. That's just like the thing that I'm,
01:17:58 ◼ ► fingers crossed, on there was a report that the MacBook Pros could potentially be delayed to 2022.
01:18:04 ◼ ► I choose to reject this report personally because I just don't want to believe that it's true,
01:18:10 ◼ ► that they're being delayed. So I choose to reject that reality. I'm substituted with my own,
01:18:15 ◼ ► which is that we're going to get new MacBook Pros and iMac Pros in two weeks time or whatever.
01:18:20 ◼ ► That's what I have decided to believe and we will see in the future. While we're on that note about
01:18:26 ◼ ► color, so we spoke about the potential colors coming for the MacBook Air to replicate the iMac.
01:18:38 ◼ ► and this is also published on MacRumors. So the renders are kind of suggesting that we'll get on
01:18:46 ◼ ► the MacBook Air iMac colors, flat edges as you would obviously expect because that's Apple design
01:18:51 ◼ ► now. No taper, so it's kind of like a thinner MacBook Pro, right? Because the MacBook Pro has
01:19:04 ◼ ► full-sized function keys like the iMac's keyboard. It's been a long time since there were full-sized
01:19:10 ◼ ► function keys on an Apple laptop. So that seems to have squished down the size of the trackpad a
01:19:15 ◼ ► bit, which is a peculiar thing. So I'm not sure about that myself, that part. It does feel like
01:19:20 ◼ ► this is, I think what he said is that they got this from somebody who had seen the aluminum parts
01:19:24 ◼ ► and only only from certain angles. So this is a, there's a lot of extrapolation going on here.
01:19:31 ◼ ► The bottom though, super intriguing to me, instead of the little circular feet in the corners,
01:19:37 ◼ ► two long vertical rubber feet down each side of the device. I think it looks kind of cool.
01:19:53 ◼ ► exact opposite. And then the, obviously the bezel is that white gray color. So from the iMac
01:20:01 ◼ ► 24. So yeah, I mean, what we said last week still goes for me, which, and I wrote about this in Mac
01:20:07 ◼ ► World this week or last week too, which is if this is a MacBook replacing the MacBook Air, it's,
01:20:15 ◼ ► you know, I think, and then that's a marketing decision what they call it, but if this is that,
01:20:19 ◼ ► I'm intrigued by it. I think the idea that Apple is going to roll out the color scheme of the 24
01:20:25 ◼ ► inch iMac across other parts of its product line kind of makes sense and to make them sort of
01:20:31 ◼ ► consistent. So it wouldn't, it wouldn't shock me if this is what they're doing. So yeah, more color,
01:20:38 ◼ ► I say. - Yeah. And fingers crossed for this on everything. - I take it. I take an orange MacBook
01:20:45 ◼ ► Air or Mac book or whatever. That'd be really fun. - Oh my God. It's going to be weird when I
01:20:54 ◼ ► available on the computer, right? Do I go Mac book Air or Mac book Pro because I can get an orange
01:20:59 ◼ ► one? You know what I mean? That's going to be a very weird time, but I consider it a possibility,
01:21:04 ◼ ► honestly. - Yeah. Well, this is the danger. I mean, I have an iPhone 12 mini, um, for similar
01:21:11 ◼ ► reasons though, though, like the danger of having your pro colors be boring or non-existent and your
01:21:19 ◼ ► non-pro colors be fun is that you may be inducing people who might otherwise give you more money,
01:21:30 ◼ ► that's the danger there. - Do a good job, please. We'll be very happy. This episode is brought to
01:21:35 ◼ ► you by Ooni Pizza Ovens, the world's number one pizza oven company because they make surprisingly
01:21:40 ◼ ► small ovens that are powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal, or gas, letting you make
01:21:46 ◼ ► restaurant quality pizza in your very own backyard because Ooni Pizza Ovens are not only easy to use,
01:21:52 ◼ ► they're incredibly portable too. They're going to fit into any outside space and they can reach
01:21:57 ◼ ► temperatures of up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit, 500 degrees Celsius. This is going to enable you to
01:22:02 ◼ ► cook restaurant quality pizza in as little as 60 seconds. That high temperature is what separates
01:22:13 ◼ ► The most popular models is the, one of the most popular models I should say is the Ooni Coda 16.
01:22:19 ◼ ► This is a gas powered oven that will let you cook up to 16 inch pizzas and has an innovative L-shaped
01:22:24 ◼ ► burner at the back to give you even heat distribution. Ooni Pizza Ovens start at just $299
01:22:31 ◼ ► and they're free shipping to the US, UK, and EU, as well as the Ooni Coda 16, one of their other
01:22:36 ◼ ► most popular models is the Ooni Karu, which can use wood, charcoal, or gas to cook your pizza.
01:22:42 ◼ ► They also have a great app as well to help you perfect your dough recipe and give you loads of
01:22:46 ◼ ► pizza making tips. I will now turn over to resident pizzaiolio, I think that's how you say it, I
01:22:52 ◼ ► probably butchered that word, Jason Snell of the El Creo podcast. Jason, tell our listeners why the
01:22:58 ◼ ► Ooni gives you a really great pizza experience. Well, it is hot in there. It gets very, very hot,
01:23:05 ◼ ► hotter than your oven inside can get, which is why you should do this outside where you're not
01:23:10 ◼ ► going to set anything on fire because it's like 700 degrees Fahrenheit in there. But that means
01:23:16 ◼ ► you get this sort of scorched edges and the bubbly top and the pizza cooks through and gets all
01:23:23 ◼ ► crispy. And it's much more like what you would get in a wood-fired pizza oven at an actual pizza maker,
01:23:30 ◼ ► except at home. And that's what I like about it. So you should go check it out for yourself right
01:23:35 ◼ ► now and listeners to this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Ooni pizza oven. Just go to
01:23:40 ◼ ► Ooni.com that's O-O-N-I.com and use the code Ooniupgrade21 at checkout. While you're there,
01:23:47 ◼ ► you'll also find a great range of accessories from peels to cutters to oven tables. Everyone's
01:23:52 ◼ ► making pizza at home right now or everybody wants to and it's beginning into those warm summer months.
01:23:57 ◼ ► Ooni pizza ovens are the perfect tool for the job and they are incredibly high demand. So if you
01:24:01 ◼ ► want one, go right now. Ooni pizza ovens are the best way to bring restaurant quality pizza to your
01:24:06 ◼ ► own backyard. Go to Ooni.com and use the code Ooniupgrade21 that's O-O-N-I-U-P-G-R-A-D-E to
01:24:13 ◼ ► one for 10% off. Thanks to Ooni pizza ovens for their support of this show and Relay FM.
01:24:23 ◼ ► First one comes from Anjay who asks, "Based on the early impressions, do you think that the
01:24:28 ◼ ► Brydge 12.9 Max+ will be a better buy than the Apple Magic keyboard?" We have not spoke about
01:24:35 ◼ ► this product at all. Brydge, we've spoken about them many times on the show, have a new type of
01:24:41 ◼ ► keyboard. It's called the Max+. I don't think they had a Max before. I don't know why they now have a
01:24:47 ◼ ► plus for the Max. It's a different kind of layout for them which I actually like. They've basically
01:24:54 ◼ ► made a kind of a laptop without the screen. So they've actually got a back case to it now. So
01:25:01 ◼ ► the iPad Pro sits in it with magnets as opposed to using those little clamps that you would slide it
01:25:07 ◼ ► into. And so overall you get this aluminium shell which has got the whole kind of keyboard built
01:25:12 ◼ ► into it. Brydge are now saying that their trackpads are comparable with Apple's trackpad,
01:25:17 ◼ ► with its gestures and stuff. They have new firmware for some of their stuff and they've
01:25:26 ◼ ► If they're able to do what they're saying they're able to do with this firmware that they've got
01:25:40 ◼ ► What do you think? Well, we talked about it here before so I'll just say it again. Apple's trackpad
01:25:47 ◼ ► firmware is without compare. They've spent decades refining it on their laptops and then with the
01:25:54 ◼ ► Magic trackpad on desktops as well. And third-party trackpad experiences on iPadOS are not as good.
01:26:07 ◼ ► Brydges is as good as the other third-party cases like Logitech that's got some iPad cases with
01:26:18 ◼ ► trackpad and that Apple has promoted. And I'll just say that even though Apple has promoted
01:26:23 ◼ ► those and mentioned those in press releases, Apple has not given them the Magic firmware.
01:26:26 ◼ ► They are still not quite as good. Their gestures aren't quite as good. I think that there's hope
01:26:34 ◼ ► that they could get better over time as they improve the firmware. But I could not in good
01:26:42 ◼ ► conscience say that any third-party trackpad, not just Brydge, any third-party trackpad is as good
01:26:48 ◼ ► as Apple's. Apple's is best in class. Apple's Magic keyboard also costs a lot of money and
01:26:54 ◼ ► this case is a lot less. So I think that's really the trade-off is you get something that
01:27:01 ◼ ► magnetically attaches. I used a pre-production version of this briefly and it snaps on with
01:27:09 ◼ ► magnets which is really nice. It gives you that full laptop feel that even the Magic trackpad
01:27:16 ◼ ► doesn't quite give you because it's got the little cantilever thing going on. The keyboard's nice,
01:27:21 ◼ ► the trackpad is big and good, but what you're losing is that Apple's trackpad feels exactly
01:27:32 ◼ ► like Apple's trackpad feels on all Mac laptops or with the Magic trackpad on Mac desktops.
01:27:39 ◼ ► It's the same experience. And the third-party trackpads aren't. They're a little bit lesser.
01:27:46 ◼ ► They're not terrible. They're okay. They're fine. But if you're somebody who has completely
01:27:52 ◼ ► internalized Apple's trackpad and uses it that way everywhere you go, like me, it's harder to switch
01:28:00 ◼ ► to this. That said, you can't really beat the price. It's remarkable because the truth is that
01:28:08 ◼ ► the Magic trackpad is for iPad. It's a very pricey accessory. Well, I will say there is only $50
01:28:14 ◼ ► difference now. Yeah, that's true. Like it's cheaper but this bridge is more expensive than
01:28:20 ◼ ► previous bridge keyboards. Yeah, it is. It is. And it's a much larger trackpad which is good. And you
01:28:25 ◼ ► have different function keys and stuff. Actually, you have function keys. Right, there's function
01:28:29 ◼ ► keys. And a lot of people didn't like the clip approach that the old bridge keyboards had which
01:28:33 ◼ ► I liked. I thought it was fine. But this one doesn't have that. Instead, it's snapping in
01:28:37 ◼ ► magnetically. But yeah, you know, honestly, it's about the ergonomics of it but I just have to be
01:28:43 ◼ ► honest and say even though I've supported bridge's products over the years, the trackpad stuff just
01:28:50 ◼ ► isn't as good as Apple's because Apple's trackpad firmware is just the best. That's bottom line.
01:28:58 ◼ ► It's the best. And then every now and then with a bridge trackpad or the Logitech one, I will make
01:29:04 ◼ ► a gesture or something and it will like my click won't be registered or the gesture won't be quite
01:29:08 ◼ ► right. And that's just because I have developed a trackpad using style that works with Apple's
01:29:18 ◼ ► firmware. Right? And then you take that out of the equation and you start asking yourself a lot of
01:29:21 ◼ ► questions about like, where do I put my fingers and when do I click and all of that. I'll also
01:29:26 ◼ ► say you can train yourself to use third-party trackpad firmware and have it work just fine.
01:29:33 ◼ ► And then if you go back to Apple's trackpad with that style, it'll also work just fine. It's just
01:29:38 ◼ ► that in my particular case, there are things that I do on Apple trackpads that do not work on third
01:29:44 ◼ ► party trackpad firmware. And so for me, it was frustrating to have to switch because I had to
01:29:49 ◼ ► be more aware of what I was doing with my fingers in order to get the pointer to go where it needs
01:29:57 ◼ ► to go and the clicks to happen the way I needed them to happen. And also, I think the thing that's
01:30:01 ◼ ► going to be important really is waiting for reviews too. Like this product, I don't think it's been
01:30:07 ◼ ► reviewed anywhere yet. I agree with what you're saying, right? But you want to see how it performs.
01:30:11 ◼ ► - Yeah. Like I said, I used a pre-production model and it seems to perform pretty much like the other
01:30:16 ◼ ► bridge keyboards perform, which is it's a good keyboard. It is Bluetooth, so you have to pair.
01:30:21 ◼ ► So that's different as well. It's not using the smart connector, but it's of a similar quality
01:30:30 ◼ ► to other bridge products. Except it's big and it's got a big trackpad and that's really nice.
01:30:36 ◼ ► It's going to give you a real 13 inch MacBook Pro feel on your iPad Pro. It's just that
01:30:43 ◼ ► the trackpad's not quite the same. So that's a choice that people are going to have to make
01:30:49 ◼ ► between looking at something like this or spending a little bit more money and going for the full-on
01:30:54 ◼ ► first party experience. - Ryan asks, some software like BB Edit is available in both the Mac
01:31:00 ◼ ► App Store for a subscription and is available from the developer directly with paid upgrades.
01:31:05 ◼ ► Which of these scenarios do you prefer for your software? - I'd say it varies. I use them both
01:31:10 ◼ ► in different contexts with different tools and I don't really have a preference. I think that in
01:31:17 ◼ ► the end, I am paying a software developer regularly for the apps that I use regularly. And that's the
01:31:23 ◼ ► most important thing. I don't want to say that people who hate subscriptions are wrong because
01:31:34 ◼ ► I get why they don't like them. That said, I'm not sure that using software that you rely on,
01:31:44 ◼ ► maybe for stuff that you don't care about, but software that you rely on, you probably want to
01:31:49 ◼ ► stay on the current version. And if you don't stay on the current version, you play the game where
01:31:53 ◼ ► you ride one version for three years and then you do an upgrade, first off, the upgrade pricing
01:32:00 ◼ ► gets you away from that. Where it's like, if it's the latest version, your upgrade pricing is less.
01:32:03 ◼ ► So they try to game you there, but also you're not supporting the makers of that software. So I've
01:32:09 ◼ ► seen it both ways. BB Edit, I've seen as like, well, it's just pay for the upgrade. Basically,
01:32:16 ◼ ► you pay when they ask you to. They feel like they've made enough of a change since the last
01:32:21 ◼ ► time they asked that they come to you and say, we would like you to pay again. And it does not
01:32:25 ◼ ► renew and you have to choose to pay. And if you don't pay, you still stay on the old version. So
01:32:30 ◼ ► it still works. Like there's a lot to be said for that. But I also pay for Photoshop and Microsoft
01:32:38 ◼ ► office. I prefer the super model and, and I just know that I always have it and it's always the
01:32:43 ◼ ► latest version and there's a lot to be said for that too. Less of a thing for me to think about,
01:32:48 ◼ ► right? Like I don't have to be like, do I want to buy this version? And then also a lot of apps
01:33:02 ◼ ► Plus as a customer, I mean, I know that like what I say, and I still say this like for people,
01:33:08 ◼ ► you know, it's a shame that I don't think Apple should take 30% of all these developers. I think
01:33:13 ◼ ► it should be less, but nevertheless, as a customer, I like buying things from the Mac app store
01:33:17 ◼ ► because then they're just available on all the machines and don't have to keep codes in one part.
01:33:21 ◼ ► Like I don't have to, you know, it's just easy. Here's the thing you can get Microsoft office
01:33:28 ◼ ► but I'm not paying Apple for my Photoshop or Microsoft office subscriptions. I'm paying them
01:33:33 ◼ ► directly. So they're, they're getting the money directly from that subscription. I'm not even
01:33:36 ◼ ► using it in Mac apps over that. Um, which if you do it through a Mac app store, it's 30% for the
01:33:41 ◼ ► first year and then it's 15% after that. No, BB edit, you know, they, their software model doesn't
01:33:46 ◼ ► work in the app store and you will pay a premium in the app store for a BB subscription by the way,
01:33:51 ◼ ► like it's, you'll end up spending more money, but for some people, uh, that's fine. They just want
01:33:57 ◼ ► it in the Mac app store and that's fine. Um, I always try to seek out a way to pay the developer
01:34:02 ◼ ► directly if I can. I will say that's a preference, but, um, I don't necessarily have a preference
01:34:07 ◼ ► about subscription versus not. There are a lot of convenient things about, like Myke said,
01:34:10 ◼ ► about having a subscription. There's just an awful, like, am I ever going to stop using
01:34:14 ◼ ► Photoshop? Probably not. Probably not. Am I ever going to stop using Excel? Probably not.
01:34:23 ◼ ► going to keep spending a hundred bucks a year to each of those giant companies so that their
01:34:27 ◼ ► software always is on my computer and my tablets and my phones and I can always use it and it's
01:34:32 ◼ ► always there. Like I'm just, it's fine. Like I I'm, I'm perfectly happy to do it that way and,
01:34:38 ◼ ► and to have that the convenience and confidence to know that it's just always there. Also,
01:34:43 ◼ ► you could argue that having an ongoing revenue stream is better for software development as well,
01:34:48 ◼ ► because you don't, you don't have like artificial, um, saving a bunch of features for the next big
01:34:53 ◼ ► version because you need to use it to sell copies. It just sort of smooths like the Photoshop
01:35:03 ◼ ► They don't save it up for two years and then do a big, you know, amazing marketing feature
01:35:08 ◼ ► late in release in order to sell copies. That was a distortion of software in a lot of ways for
01:35:14 ◼ ► marketing purposes that is a lot less present when you're doing a subscription. Brian asks,
01:35:21 ◼ ► do you think Spotify's more magnanimous podcast description offering could be because they don't
01:35:26 ◼ ► want to give Apple a comeback on the monopoly ruling if they were locking podcasts and forcing
01:35:31 ◼ ► podcasts to give them money for using the Spotify app. This would be exactly what they are arguing
01:35:36 ◼ ► Apple is doing with the app store. I give a bit of background on here to catch people up because
01:35:39 ◼ ► they don't remember is just talking about like the differences between Spotify's podcast subscriptions
01:35:44 ◼ ► where you can pay and Apple's podcast subscriptions where you can pay because Spotify's
01:35:49 ◼ ► whole thing is you can pay and it can be in Spotify and it's easy, but they'll also give
01:35:52 ◼ ► a public RSS feed so you can get them anywhere. And Apple was like, you get them in Apple podcasts
01:35:57 ◼ ► and that's that. So Brian's kind of asking like, is this like a ploy from Spotify in a sense,
01:36:03 ◼ ► like they're doing it this way because then they either can use this as a way to say Apple is being
01:36:09 ◼ ► more controlling or to say like, look how much different we are. My kind of question on this
01:36:14 ◼ ► would be is maybe Spotify just believed that the business should be done this way. Like,
01:36:24 ◼ ► You know, I feel like that there's like a, I don't know, it's also in the same episode where
01:36:28 ◼ ► we're talking about them buying up another big popular show. So it's kind of complicated.
01:36:33 ◼ ► What do you think? I think podcasting is like, I think it contains multitudes and I think Spotify
01:36:41 ◼ ► knows that. Spotify wants to make money always, right? They want to make money from podcasts that
01:36:46 ◼ ► are open and they want to make money from podcasts that are in Spotify. And so I don't think, I mean,
01:36:53 ◼ ► who knows? It seems unlikely to me that Spotify is launching major business efforts because they
01:36:59 ◼ ► don't want to look a certain way, maybe in a particular court or regulation case. That seems
01:37:11 ◼ ► this is an additional way for Spotify to make money, which is through ads, through Anchor,
01:37:20 ◼ ► right? Like that kind of thing. It's all about- - Or through the subscriptions through Anchor.
01:37:24 ◼ ► - Or through the subscriptions through Anchor or like, right, sorry, there's two different
01:37:40 ◼ ► Spotify wants you to use their app, but their app doesn't support your favorite podcast that
01:37:45 ◼ ► has a subscription model. So you can't use Spotify's app. Well, by enabling the ability
01:37:51 ◼ ► to do that, what are you doing? You're reducing the barrier to switching to Spotify as your podcast
01:37:55 ◼ ► app. Benefit to Spotify. Everything Spotify does is because they see a tangible benefit to their
01:38:01 ◼ ► business to do it. I don't think the tangible benefit is kind of trying to game some sort of
01:38:06 ◼ ► image viewed by a, you know, somebody who's making a judgment. I just don't think that's
01:38:16 ◼ ► what they're doing here at all. So no, I guess that's my answer is no, I don't think that.
01:38:20 ◼ ► - If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, just send out a tweet
01:38:24 ◼ ► with the hashtag #AskUpgrade or use question mark #AskUpgrade in the Relay FM members Discord,
01:38:33 ◼ ► you can sign up right now and you'll also get longer ad-free episodes of Upgrade and access
01:38:40 ◼ ► to our wonderful members crossover special, which we'll be playing in a trailer for right at the
01:38:45 ◼ ► very end of this show today. Before we go, Jason, can you tell our listeners about another show here
01:38:50 ◼ ► on Relay FM? - Sure. This is a change of pace that I think you might like. It's Make Do, which is
01:38:57 ◼ ► about maybe turning your hobbies into something a little bit more. They're ready to be your
01:39:03 ◼ ► cheerleader. This is Tiff Arment and Julia Scott, and they're doing hobbies and maybe putting on art
01:39:09 ◼ ► shows and doing other stuff with the things that they make. It's fun. It is different from a lot of
01:39:14 ◼ ► the Relay FM shows, I think in a good way. Go to relay.fm/makedo, M-A-K-E-D-O, or just search for
01:39:21 ◼ ► Make Do wherever you get your podcasts. - If you'd like to find Jason online, you can go to
01:39:25 ◼ ► sixcolors.com and he is @jsnell on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you so
01:39:33 ◼ ► much to our sponsors this week, Ooni, Squarespace, DoorDash, and thank you for listening. We'll be
01:39:58 ◼ ► local tavern. Little do these three know that they are not about to enter the familiar doors
01:40:11 ◼ ► Probably going to need to have some ID if you're looking to get far in this world. - Spit,
01:40:15 ◼ ► my friends, they're without proper identification, you know. Where can I help them get some ID?
01:40:27 ◼ ► So I'm going to apply the Newton Effect, my special shtick, and I'm going to try to make
01:40:32 ◼ ► the infinity of this building drop away to something that would be actually in a building.
01:40:38 ◼ ► - All right, suddenly it is like an earthquake, a great trembling, all the rats look up and giant
01:40:45 ◼ ► kind of steel girders erupt from the ground. The ceiling seems to kind of lower as the girders rise
01:40:52 ◼ ► to meet it. From the horizon, walls start to close in, but it's like a tsunami of architecture.
01:41:12 ◼ ► that we're living in, and/or Jason is a god. Look, we're not getting anywhere without our phones,
01:41:24 ◼ ► - You insert your phone into the mysterious space slot, and it makes some sounds kind of like a 1960s
01:41:29 ◼ ► computer, and then a panel on the front of the dispensing machine opens up, and a little display
01:41:36 ◼ ► prompts you to put your hand into that slot. - Sure, you know what, we're not getting anywhere
01:41:49 ◼ ► and then there's a sound, kind of like a giant stapler. Your hand is warm, your phone seems to
01:41:55 ◼ ► be now somewhat embedded in your hand. Can you just remind the listeners what the John Doe effect
01:42:05 ◼ ► does? - It says that I have one of those faces where people constantly think they recognize me
01:42:10 ◼ ► as an old coworker or long-lost cousin, childhood friend, etc. You may also be mistaken for someone
01:42:29 ◼ ► from the bench, sending the bench kind of shifting back. A large orangutan person has grabbed both of
01:42:36 ◼ ► your arms and is attempting to pull them off of your body. Let's just make a quick strength check
01:42:46 ◼ ► - I am going to tell you that you are going to take three points of damage. Your arm is
01:42:51 ◼ ► really badly hurt, and you are not feeling great. The horrible orangutan thing is kind of growling
01:42:58 ◼ ► in your face. You are drawing the attention of several rats. When the seam on your voluminous
01:43:06 ◼ ► pocket gives out and cheese starts pouring out of the hole in your jumpsuit onto the floor of
01:43:12 ◼ ► the office, several rats are giving you scandalous looks, Jason. - I pretend like nothing has happened
01:43:18 ◼ ► and continue moving toward the mailroom, oiling my bucket. - Will our heroes ever get the documents
01:43:26 ◼ ► that they need to return to their normal lives? Will Jason stop tormenting space rats? Will Gray's