0:00:00[Music]
0:00:08From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 268. Today's show is brought to you by Pingdom, Zapier, and Fresh Books.
0:00:16My name is Myke Hurley, I have returned, and I am joined by Mr. Jason Snow. Hi, Jason Snow.
0:00:21You're not Scottish.
0:00:23No. But everybody from the United Kingdom is just called English anyway, to the dismay of, uh...
0:00:28Oh, that's fair.
0:00:30...poor people from Scotland. Thanks to James Thompson for filling in last week, it was a very fun episode, I enjoyed it very much.
0:00:37Yeah.
0:00:37But I'm back now to wreak my English form of havoc upon this episode.
0:00:43And #snowtalkquestion comes from David, and David said, and says, "Because I listen to podcasts in the car these days, I've found that I sing a lot less.
0:00:53If there's no one else in the car, Jason, do you sing along to music, and if so, what is your preferred music to sing along to?"
0:00:59Um, the music that's playing in the car is the music that I sing along to. If there's music playing in the car, and I'm alone in the car...
0:01:06So you don't pick specific stuff?
0:01:08No. No, I'll sing along to anything.
0:01:11Yeah, me too.
0:01:12Absolutely.
0:01:12Me too. And I do sing along, and I love to sing.
0:01:15You're never in a car alone because you can't drive.
0:01:17Yeah, but you know, music happens in places other than cars.
0:01:21Okay, you're right, you're right.
0:01:22Whether I'm alone or with other people, I will sing because I enjoy singing.
0:01:26I'll sing along when we were driving Jamie up to college and back, you know, I'm singing along when there's music on the radio. It's fine, yeah, absolutely.
0:01:33But I don't do it as much as I used to because of podcasts. This is true, David. Absolutely true.
0:01:38If you would like to send in a Snowtalk question to open a future episode of the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag #snowtalk, and it will be captured into a spreadsheet, and I will talk about that spreadsheet a little later on in today's episode.
0:01:50That's a lot of detail.
0:01:51Mm-hmm. Follow up, lots of follow up, Jason. Lots of follow up today. We have in the past on this show, at least I in the past on this show have spoken about folding phones.
0:02:05And the first folding phone has become commercially available, which is the Samsung Galaxy Fold.
0:02:10I own one. And I gave my review of said device on episode 265 of Connected, which I recommend people go and listen to.
0:02:21It also includes our yearly emoji guessing game, which is a lot of fun.
0:02:26If you've never listened to Connected, this is a good episode to start with.
0:02:30It is.
0:02:31Because it spans the breadth of what we do on that show, and if you do not like that episode, you will never like Connected.
0:02:37If you like that, you will like the show. So there's two, it's a good two-bit double build.
0:02:42I mean, I could argue that if you like that episode, you may be disappointed that none of the other episodes is quite as much that as that episode is every year now.
0:02:52That's true. That's true.
0:02:53Because it's the Jeremy's now where Federico's guessing emoji, and that is incredibly entertaining.
0:02:58Mm-hmm.
0:02:59Also, you talked about the Galaxy Fold, which I listened to some of.
0:03:03I think I just never finished it. I don't think I got the whole thing.
0:03:09Because then I listen to ATP and they're like, "Oh, Myke said this." I'm like, "Did I hear that? Oh, maybe I didn't finish that episode."
0:03:14Because you have such folding, like Steven, you have Folding Phone Apathy, and you just tuned it out.
0:03:20It seems like if you're interested in space, you do not care about folding phones. That's the only corollary that I've been able to draw.
0:03:26It's strange, because one day they'll probably use folding phones in space, you would think.
0:03:30Well, I would think, because I believe them to be the future.
0:03:33But at least amongst my friends, I'm in the minority of that thought process.
0:03:38No, I think it's all very interesting, and I'm glad somebody is going through this process of exploring the folding phone, and I'm glad it's not me.
0:03:46I want to be the person that can help the people inside of our little industry understand this type of technology.
0:03:54In case it does come for us all, which I believe that it will.
0:03:56Myke, good old Myke Valley Fold Hurley.
0:04:01Thank you for remembering that.
0:04:03Siri Clip Grading. You say, "What are you talking about, Mr Hurley? What is Siri Clip Grading?"
0:04:09You may remember some weeks ago, we spoke about...
0:04:12How can I help?
0:04:13Stop!
0:04:14I grade that an F.
0:04:17I grade that Siri Interaction an F.
0:04:19So, Siri Clip Grading, you may remember, was the report from The Guardian about Apple having contractors listening to Siri interactions.
0:04:31Well, this and Apple...
0:04:34Stop!
0:04:35Ahoy telephone interactions, we'll call them from here on out in the episode, because my technology is refusing to play ball today.
0:04:52You may remember that this was the thing where Apple was sending misfires like those to contractors to have them listened to,
0:05:01to grade them as to what type of interactions they were, whether they were right or not, and therefore,
0:05:06people were having their private conversations, unbeknownst to them, transmitted back to Apple for human beings to listen to.
0:05:13Apple initially tried to downplay this and then ultimately said, "Yes, we were wrong, we are going to give this as an opt-in."
0:05:21The iOS 13.2 Beta, which is available in the beta process right now, which brings with it the emoji and other features, also includes this.
0:05:28It gives you the option to opt-in to making your audio clips of Siri requests available to Apple employees for grading,
0:05:37but it is worthwhile to remember that text transcripts are still sent no matter what.
0:05:43Opt-in, opt-out, doesn't matter.
0:05:45Text transcripts are still sent, and the only way to stop that is to disable Siri on your devices.
0:05:52I'm still unsatisfied wholly with this response, but at least they are providing an opt-in to the audio portion.
0:06:03I still think that sensitive information obviously can be transmitted back to Apple,
0:06:08because text or audio doesn't make a difference, right?
0:06:11If you're saying something you don't want to have necessarily been heard, it can still be consumed by a human.
0:06:17But at least again, now these are Apple employees.
0:06:21As I said at the time, and I still stand by this point, I'm not 100% sure why customers of these products,
0:06:30no matter what they would like to do, must be included in making these products better.
0:06:37It's an interesting form of technology, this, where it's like, well, the only way we can do it is to listen or read the communication.
0:06:47Where my challenge would be, every other form of technology we found ways around this,
0:06:53right, then forcing the customer to have their information used against them, or used for the benefit of the service.
0:07:03And I find it wholly peculiar that that seems to be the only way to solve this problem.
0:07:08We're still waiting for a HomePod update too, right?
0:07:12Yes, the HomePod has received nothing, and also Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2 have still not received WatchOS 6.
0:07:22Right.
0:07:24These are, let alone the features that have been pulled out of iOS 13 and more, this is it.
0:07:30Jason, I want to tell you about a weird iOS 13 bug that I've been having.
0:07:33Oh yeah.
0:07:34Pictures are deleting.
0:07:35Oh no.
0:07:35Yeah.
0:07:36What pictures are deleting? And where are they going?
0:07:38I have been, so the main way that I've seen this happening so far is,
0:07:42so I edit my photos in VSCO, and I save them to my camera roll, and they just delete from the camera roll.
0:07:50I watch it happen. I open the camera roll, and I watch the images disappear.
0:07:55So...
0:07:55That's creepy.
0:07:57I don't know if photos that I'm taking this is happening to either,
0:08:01but I'm seeing it happening to images that I'm saving, and I've checked in both places, you know,
0:08:07like I've checked in like the Photos tab and like the Albums tab in All Photos, right, to see like,
0:08:14is it assigning dates to them or whatever? Nope, they are just gone. They will just delete.
0:08:19I used to have a thing that I haven't seen in a while now where I would take some photos while on the lock screen,
0:08:26and then I would unlock the phone and switch to the Photos app, and the pictures I took wouldn't be there.
0:08:32I think I have, I mean, I'm doing this by memory, but I believe I have had at least one instance on
0:08:39iOS 13. I think it was the first time I noticed this where I was trying to take a picture, and it
0:08:43wouldn't, it just wouldn't save, but now it's, yeah, but now it is these, I've had it multiple
0:08:50times now, where it's just like, well, so what, am I living in a situation now? Is it even a cloud-based
0:08:55thing, like where I'm just watching images disappear, right, and I'm not super thrilled
0:09:01about that one, so I'm going to, I will report back on that, Jason. Okay, there's some advanced
0:09:05machine learning that's going on that's being analyzed, analyzing those photos, and they're like,
0:09:09poor edit, Myke, poor edit. Not, I reject your. iOS 13 is just terrible. It's been very bad. It really,
0:09:18it's just, it doesn't seem to be getting better. They keep pushing out updates, and there are still
0:09:24so many problems, and so many features that haven't shipped, and I don't like to be that guy, right,
0:09:28like I try and to be optimistic. I don't think this is the worst version of iOS. I think people
0:09:35forget iOS 7 when they say that, or iOS 8, which were, for bugs, way worse, and I mean, iOS 13 may
0:09:44bear itself to be the worst, right, like iOS 7 and 8 have bugs the whole way through the cycle,
0:09:49and I am like hoping that Apple will somehow iron out 13, but 13 is not good, especially when you
0:09:57compare it to the stability of iOS 12. It's a shame. More follow-up. Upgrading Jack worked out
0:10:03that NFC-enabled bank cards can be used to create Siri automations. How awesome is that? Isn't that
0:10:10great? I just wouldn't have thought about it. So you can scan your bank card, trigger an automation?
0:10:16Sure. I don't know what you might want to do that for, but go for it. But my thinking on this is,
0:10:21you may think, why is this important? Well, if you have a bank card that has a contactless chip in it,
0:10:25and you've just been wondering to yourself, what could I do, like you want to try out NFC triggering
0:10:30of shortcuts, this would allow you to do that, as opposed to buying stickers or whatever. It's just
0:10:36like a way to see what that's all about. If you just want to test it, then this is a way to do
0:10:41that. Also, if you have any of those Nintendo Amiibos, they all have the little chips in them.
0:10:50Because all it's doing is it's reading these NFC tags, it's just reading a unique serial number,
0:10:57essentially. And then when it sees that particular serial number, it will run an automation of your
0:11:03choice. That's how that works. So it's not nothing magical here, but if you have other objects that
0:11:08have NFC in them, then yeah, you can try it out. You can bring a little Yarn Yoshi with you and
0:11:13scan it when you need to do something, I guess. Jason, I have an iMac Pro in front of me right now.
0:11:20Are you on it? Are you using it right now? I'm using it right now. This is the first show I've
0:11:23recorded on it. And have you ever used Mojave before? No, this is the first time I've been
0:11:27on Mojave. So that is it, right? So I bought this iMac Pro so I could skip Catalina. I wanted a new
0:11:33machine. And I've wanted one for a while. I've been using my iMac since 2015. I wanted to upgrade.
0:11:40I have a family member who's desperately in need of a computer. So it was like the perfect time
0:11:44for me. And I wanted to get an iMac Pro before I was forced, I should say, to use Catalina because
0:11:53I know I don't like to be on the most recent version of macOS. I like to be a little bit
0:11:59behind. I don't want to be the first to encounter a bug, right, on a machine that is purely for
0:12:07producing podcasts. You want to be the last to encounter that bug. Or the last. But you know
0:12:13what I mean by being on the cutting edge. It's like, well, here's an edge case you've just
0:12:16stumbled yourself into. This is the production machine argument, which is that if you've got
0:12:21something that you're relying on to do your job, then rushing headlong into new software versions
0:12:26is probably a bad idea. And we always are production machines for our design and copy
0:12:32editing staff at IDG. We're always a step, at least one step behind because, again, they needed
0:12:42to be rock solid and working on whatever we were publishing and not toying around with new stuff.
0:12:49So they upgraded very carefully. So, okay, from Relay FM, this is Myke's iMac Pro review and
0:12:57Myke's Mojave review. How's it going? Well, I mean, I've been using it for the best part of an hour
0:13:03at this point. Well, I've set the machine up, right? Like, the machine's been set up. I've been
0:13:07doing that over the last couple of days, getting it to where I wanted it to be. And this is the
0:13:10first time I've really sat down to do anything with it. I haven't really put the iMac through
0:13:14its paces yet. I did want to, I was just wondering, like, how much faster are the typical things that
0:13:19I'll do? And I've noticed, like, things like forecast, Marco's tool that will encode audio,
0:13:25runs way quicker. But the biggest thing that I've noticed is that the iMac is completely silent.
0:13:30Yeah. Right? So things that would make my 5K iMac start screaming, which was forecast,
0:13:38was definitely one of them. I'm on the iMac Pro, nothing, no noise. I really, genuinely,
0:13:46this is so stupid, but a space-grade iMac is a significant improvement. It's much nicer to look
0:13:52at. I think it looks lovely. It's different. I'm using dark mode on Mojave, which I am not sold on,
0:14:00but I'm trying it out. Dark mode on the Mac is much inferior to dark mode on iOS. Everything
0:14:08looks weird and ugly, and there are way more apps that don't support it. And it's very strange.
0:14:14So I'm not sold on that yet either. I used to use increased contrast, which is a setting
0:14:22in on the Mac, which it kind of just draws some, like, darker lines around elements
0:14:27inside of Mac OS, which I've enjoyed. I had to turn that off because it's terrible in dark mode.
0:14:34And I have been, so I want to know if you can help me. I have a persistent badge on settings now.
0:14:45I have, so you're, it's telling you to upgrade to Catalina, right? Yes. I have just the thing for
0:14:52you. Who but my good friend Rob Griffiths, who worked at Macworld for many years and does many
0:15:00tricks now, and of course Mac OS X hints. Who but Rob, who is a cranky guy who does not want to
0:15:08be told to upgrade and does not want to be bugged, would post a blog post telling you how to remove
0:15:14the Catalina guilt trip, as he calls it, from Mojave. It's a great post. You got to know Rob
0:15:21and know that he's just a cranky guy. And he says stuff like, "I have no plans to move my Mac to
0:15:27Catalina." Right? And it's like, yeah. And it's true. I mean, he's got stuff that will break.
0:15:32And there's some terminal commands you can put in that will basically say, "Ignore
0:15:37Catalina updates," and that will go away. And there is still a little persistent flag that
0:15:43gets generated. And he's got a little script that he also, that if you really want to kill it,
0:15:49you can put this little script in, and it will always suppress the little alert flag. So we'll
0:15:58put a link in the show notes to Rob's blog post. I would say for me, the only thing that I find
0:16:01frustrating is the one on settings, because I have lived throughout the whole of High Sierra
0:16:09being asked to upgrade to Mojave. Right? So like, I already got that for, like I can get used to my
0:16:15Mac telling me that there are updates, and then I could just ignore them. Do that every day. But
0:16:21also just like, "Leave me alone, Macintosh. Just leave me alone, please."
0:16:26Yeah, that's the part that really bothers me is that there's no user intervention step to just say,
0:16:32"Do not bug me anymore about this. Like, I'll do it when I want to." And it's just like, "No, no,
0:16:37no. Update, update, update." But it can be suppressed. So you should probably follow Rob's
0:16:44various steps and get that flag completely out of there. I'm doing that on my server is the same
0:16:51story, right? Like, my server is not going to Catalina. It's going to run Mojave forever,
0:16:57probably. And so I want to turn all that stuff off. And I don't use it, you know, the interface
0:17:02of it every day, but I want it all to be just gone because I want to park it on Mojave for the
0:17:10foreseeable future. I love the iMac Pro. Marco loves the iMac Pro. Steven loves the iMac Pro.
0:17:18Like, welcome to iMac Pro Club. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations and welcome. And my other
0:17:24question for you is how many cores did you get? Did you get the base model or did you get a custom
0:17:28with more cores? I got a custom. I don't know if I got more cores, though. I got the 3.2 gigahertz
0:17:35Intel Xeon W. How do I know how many cores I have? If you go to the Apple menu, it looks like a
0:17:42little apple. It's in the corner. You choose about this Mac. Don't do this to me, Jason. I'm looking
0:17:46at that right now. Don't make it out like I don't know this. I've been using the Mac for, like,
0:17:50nearly, I don't know how many years, 15 years at this point? I don't know. Yeah, I know. All right.
0:17:55So now that you've got a window that says Mac OS Mojave and it says iMac Pro 2017 and it says
0:18:02processor. What does the processor say? That's what I just said. 3.2 gigahertz Intel Xeon W.
0:18:07It doesn't say how many cores? No. Oh, well, that must be a new feature of Catalina then because
0:18:13Catalina tells me I have eight cores. I have eight cores. I went into the hardware section on System
0:18:19Report. Oh, System Report. That's even deeper in there. Now you're a power user. But I got
0:18:25two terabytes of storage and I upgraded the RAM. I think I got, like, 16 gigabytes of RAM.
0:18:31No, 64 gigabytes of RAM. Sorry, 16 wasn't a lot. 64 gigabytes of RAM in this machine. That's great.
0:18:37James Thompson, also a member of the iMac Pro Club. It's just like everybody's doing it.
0:18:42Everybody finally, finally, you have, so welcome to the iMac Pro and welcome to Mojave, I guess.
0:18:47This is, you know, 2018 called and congratulates you on your computer. Well, you know, I know,
0:18:53I know. And I know this machine is at risk of being updated, right? But this is much more
0:18:58powerful than what I had. I was very happy. I was very happy with what I had. Like, I wasn't feeling
0:19:04any issues. And you don't want to get boxed into Catalina. Yeah. And I don't want to be on Catalina.
0:19:09I just, it's just not where I want to be right now because I have always, I've been sketching this for
0:19:15years, years. It has been since I have updated on day one to Macales. But even amongst my friends
0:19:24who always do, they're not this time or are advising against it this time. So I definitely
0:19:30don't want to be on the Catalina train right now. Yeah. I know you don't want to be there.
0:19:36It's a place you don't want to be, but I'll just say the high temperature today on Catalina, 28C.
0:19:42Okay. 83F. It's a beautiful, sunny, warm day. So maybe you do want to be there. Catalina is a place,
0:19:48you know. It is a place. That's what I'm getting at is it's a place. They're not just operating
0:19:52systems anymore, kids. They're also places. And yet it's still a cat. Why do they do this to us?
0:19:58After all those cats, they're like, "No more cats." And then they're like, "What's the prize? Catalina,
0:20:01Catalist!" This cat's called Lena. And it's coming for your 32 bits. And this cat's called List,
0:20:08Casey List? I don't know. Don't give that to him. He doesn't need something else. I withdraw my
0:20:14comment. So the last piece of follow-up today, Photoshop for iPad. Remember that? A year ago,
0:20:21a year ago, I believe we heard about that. There's a report on Bloomberg. The app is nearing launch,
0:20:27but beta testers are reporting that there are many well-established features that are missing. So I
0:20:33give a couple of quotes from the article. Users complained about less advanced or missing features
0:20:38around core functionality like filters, the pen tool, custom paintbrush libraries, vector drawing,
0:20:42color spaces, raw editing, smart objects, layer styles, and certain options for mask creation.
0:20:48Some of the missing features. Bloomberg spoke to Scott Belsky of Adobe, who Scott loves to give a
0:20:53quote. And Scott said, "The beta feature set won't represent..." I know. I was infected by James.
0:21:01James is making you say beta again. Beta feature.
0:21:03It's because the word feature was after it. I don't call it "fature." Nobody does.
0:21:08"The beta feature set won't represent the final version for consumers, and the need to collaborate
0:21:13with Apple meant that a lot of features are coming in hot ahead of the launch." What does that mean,
0:21:19Scott Belsky? I don't know what that means. What are you doing? You're doing it again,
0:21:23aren't you, Scott? Are you saying things you shouldn't be saying?
0:21:26I feel like Scott's basically saying that iOS 13 is a mess, and so their features are a mess.
0:21:32That's kind of how it feels to me. Or maybe even that there are things that weren't in the betas
0:21:36or betas, features in the betas that they couldn't, that they needed to use to make it work,
0:21:44and they had to wait for Apple to fix the bugs. He's throwing Apple under the bus a little bit
0:21:52here. Scott Belsky. "At launch," says Scott, "Photoshop will still lack some familiar features
0:21:58that will only represent version one of the product." I don't really know what to take
0:22:05away from this. So, the problem is, okay, first off, it's obvious that if they're bringing
0:22:12Photoshop to iOS and to the iPad, that it's not going to be exactly what's on Mac and Windows,
0:22:21right? Yeah, because I feel like at the time, we even thought, this is like Final Cut,
0:22:26when Final Cut changed over, right? From 7 to 10. Right. This is going to be real Photoshop, but
0:22:32I always assumed real Photoshop would be, you know, we're rebuilding Photoshop for the iPad.
0:22:38I did not assume every single feature would be there. And also, it's less advanced or missing,
0:22:43less advanced being a code, I think, sometimes for doesn't do it exactly like I'm used to doing it,
0:22:50which is not necessarily different, is not necessarily less advanced. Sometimes it is,
0:22:54sometimes it's not. So, it's not surprising that this Photoshop on iPad is not identical to the
0:23:03one that people are used to on Macs and PCs. It's not surprising. It's a little disappointing,
0:23:09because it does sound like they made this announcement, and now it's more than a year later,
0:23:14and they're still not shipping. I think we all hoped that they would ship it and then iterate
0:23:20on it, and they still haven't gotten to the point where they can ship it. And, you know, Scott here
0:23:25is sort of suggesting that's Apple's fault, which is interesting. But he's also, I think, maybe
0:23:30setting expectations. I think there's a little bit of like, you know, I think important to set
0:23:36expectations of like, it's not going to be exactly what you know. It's going to be a work in progress.
0:23:41Adobe has shown actually a lot of ability to iterate rapidly with updates. That's one of
0:23:47the nice things about them having a subscription service now, and you're in Creative Cloud,
0:23:52is they just push out new versions with new features, and they just keep doing it. And
0:23:58there's something kind of nice about that. So, I believe that they can iterate on this. So,
0:24:04I am disappointed, because, you know, in the broad scheme of things, I think we had hoped that
0:24:11we would have gotten it sooner, and there would maybe be a little bit more time by now to iterate
0:24:16on this. But at the same time, I'm not surprised even a little bit, because they are rebuilding
0:24:22Photoshop for iPad, and it's not going to be every feature there at launch. It's just not. And that
0:24:29was an unrealistic assumption, I think, that some people made. So, I'm sure. So, beta testers are
0:24:34complaining. I'm, you know, not surprised in the least about that. I am much more keen, and we
0:24:40don't have a sense of this yet, I don't think. I want to know what it does, how well does it do it?
0:24:46That's what I care about more, right? Like, of the features that are in this application,
0:24:52how good is this app? You know, you see what I'm saying, right? Like, I don't care about what
0:24:56features aren't in there right now. If they're important enough, they'll find their way into
0:25:00the software. But what is currently in the product, how well does it do it? And we'll find out.
0:25:06The good thing is, like, and the way that I see it, is like, it's better than when Final Cut
0:25:11launched, because this isn't replacing anything. Right. This is brand new. It's brand new.
0:25:16Nothing's been taken away. And also, it's their intent that Photoshop then lives on iPad, and
0:25:22they'll continue to iterate it. And that's good for iPad users who like Photoshop. Yep. Because
0:25:26they will get these things over time. You know what's great about Photoshop, at least from Adobe
0:25:28standpoint? Like, you pay every month for it, so they can keep iterating on it, right? It's not
0:25:35like a developer who's like, "Oh, we're gonna make the competitive for Photoshop, it's gonna
0:25:39cost you $5." And then everyone downloads it, hates it, and then nobody uses it ever again.
0:25:44You know, it's not like that. So that was a lot of follow-up, but that is the end of the follow-up
0:25:48today. And we have lots and lots and lots and lots of upstream headlines, and they're basically
0:25:53all to do with our friends at Apple. Yeah, it's true. It's true. But does that end the beta
0:25:59segment? Segment? Yeah. Or is it a beta format? I don't know, I'm just trying to think of other
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0:28:38Upstream time, Jason Snell. Oh boy. Lots of Apple TV+ news. We are hurtling towards November 1st.
0:28:45Yeah, we're in it now, right? I mean, it's the end of next week is when this all goes down.
0:28:51Oh, you know what? I wanted to give a little bit of feedback from last week's episode where you
0:28:56and James were talking about Apple and China. It was all good. And it just reminded me
0:29:02of... You dodged a bullet there, didn't you? Well, maybe I could just say what I think now so I
0:29:08could just take the bullet. About the entertainment stuff, it doesn't necessarily bother me because
0:29:18the entertainment is being made for the world. What is right in one country might not be right
0:29:24in another country. Apple doesn't necessarily have to make content that only meets the American
0:29:29standard. It's kind of one of the things I was thinking about anyway. And I say that as someone
0:29:35coming from the UK. We have different standards around language and what is right and what is
0:29:40wrong. And I understand that it's mixed up in looking at a very different worldview in China.
0:29:47An authoritarian state makes things very different. And that is a real mess. But the idea of companies
0:29:57tailoring content so it performs one of the different markets, that doesn't bother me.
0:30:00I think people are getting up in arms about that specific thing because of all of the other
0:30:05terrible things that are happening around China right now. So that was my thinking on that one.
0:30:10Because as you and James rightly said, this has been happening in Hollywood for a long time now.
0:30:15Because you've got a billion people there. It would be irresponsible. But anyway,
0:30:22it doesn't necessarily mean they have to pander to countries. But not offending people isn't
0:30:25always the worst thing in the world anyway. I don't know. But one of the things that I was
0:30:30reminded about when listening to that was kind of a thing that I've been saying for a while. When I
0:30:36first said it, people were really upset at me about Apple as an entertainment company.
0:30:42Different company. Very different company. This is another example of that. And is just another
0:30:48example of why Apple is an entertainment company. And we are now all accepting this. Very different
0:30:53company doing very different things. A lot of it we talk about in the afternoon segment. That was
0:30:57what I wanted to say. But anyway, there's a lot going on. So Apple have launched their own in-house
0:31:03studio to create new shows. So they don't have that right now. So all of Apple's content,
0:31:08they're working with a bunch of partners to create it. They're working with people who write the
0:31:12scripts. They're working with companies that do the casting. They're working with companies that
0:31:17will actually create the programming that is not them. But they have now launched their own in-house
0:31:22studio to create new shows. The first of which is a follow up to HBO's Band of Brothers. Pretty
0:31:27interesting one to start with. It's called Masters of the Air. It's going to be produced by Steven
0:31:32Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Van Amburg and Ehrlich, the two people from Sony that Apple hired to
0:31:38run their Apple TV+ project. They are going to be in charge of this new studio, which will create
0:31:45this show as its first product. Masters of the Air will be written by John Olaf, who worked on
0:31:52Band of Brothers. Yeah, it's an interesting story because HBO stopped doing these because they felt
0:31:58that the price of these expensive things, Band of Brothers and the Pacific, and actually I think
0:32:07From the Earth to the Moon kind of falls in this category. There's a series of these big
0:32:12budget HBO miniseries. They were offset, at least in part, by DVD sales. And as DVD sales fell off,
0:32:20HBO felt like it was no longer as good an investment for them to do them. So this third
0:32:27World War II related miniseries was pitched and HBO turned it down and it sort of has sat there.
0:32:35And it's interesting to see that in today's streaming dynamic world, Apple looks at that
0:32:42and says, "Yeah, I'll have that," and is happy to spend the money because for them, they're not
0:32:50worried about recouping DVD sales or whatever. They want prestige content for Apple TV+. So
0:32:57interesting how the sands have shifted there. Because if there's one thing HBO doesn't care
0:33:01about anymore, it's prestige television. They'll make anything.
0:33:05Well, this is the funny thing. This is the funny thing, right? I think the situation on the ground
0:33:11has probably shifted for HBO too, but Apple got back to them about this and maybe HBO has moved
0:33:18on or maybe I don't know what the story is and maybe they weren't thinking about it. Or maybe
0:33:24their budget just doesn't fit for something like this, a miniseries like this. But it works for
0:33:30Apple apparently. So it's definitely prestige stuff with the imprint of the people who brought
0:33:36you Band of Brothers and the Pacific. And that's Shyamalan's working on a project
0:33:40and not a lot have been known about it. It now has a name and a premise and a release date.
0:33:46So it's called Servant. It is a horror show debuting on November 28th. I will read you
0:33:53the premise taken from a Verge article. Servant follows a couple in Philadelphia as they hire a
0:33:58nanny to look after a therapy doll they're using to cope with their loss of a child.
0:34:02Strange things start to happen as the nanny enters their lives. The entire show takes place in one
0:34:08location, which Shyamalan says is to show a more play-like feel. I have a couple of things about
0:34:13this. One, this is not a show that I want to watch because, yes, it's too scary. But also,
0:34:19and we've got a couple of topics that we're going to be talking about today, which go along this
0:34:24line so we can get into it now or in a minute, that this content is darker, maybe, than people
0:34:35were expecting. And actually, I will give the second piece of news we're going to talk about
0:34:40along this line and we can talk about that in a little bit more detail because Apple is also
0:34:44previewing their shows to the TV industry right now. And I saw this tweet from Stephen Weintraub
0:34:49of Collider stating that episode 3 of See features "level of violence he was not expecting" from Apple
0:34:57and goes on to say it was kind of like a "holy poop moment" when Stephen saw how violent this
0:35:04episode was. So this goes into talking about something we've spoken about so much in the
0:35:11lead up to this, as there have been many reports about Apple won't accept this, Apple won't accept
0:35:15that. I think that these two pieces of news show that maybe some of this was wrong. There are
0:35:21things that Apple won't accept, but violence and gore and adult themes, maybe not so much.
0:35:26Tim Cynova Yeah, this will play, I think, interestingly with the people who have been
0:35:33reading about expensive NBC, right, that Apple is sort of a network TV level standards body.
0:35:43And based on this sort of thing, maybe I think this actually will be beneficial to Apple
0:35:49potentially when it's making deals for the next round, you know, its next set of deals,
0:35:55because it's actually one of the impediments Apple has had to doing deals with people is that nobody
0:36:02knows what Apple TV+ is. Nobody knows what's on it. Nobody knows what it feels like. Nobody
0:36:07knows the standards of it. And this launch gives Apple a chance to not just impress upon the world,
0:36:14like here's Apple TV+, but it lets it turn around to people who in Hollywood who are like,
0:36:19"I don't even know what this thing is, so why would I make a deal with it?" And say, "Here's
0:36:23what it is. Do you want to be involved?" And depending on how it goes, that could be really
0:36:27good for them. And this is an example of that where if somebody has a concept and they're like,
0:36:31"Oh, I can't take this to Apple because they're not going to want it." And then they see that
0:36:34episode of C or they see the M. Night Shyamalan show, then they might think twice about writing
0:36:41Apple off. So it will be interesting to see how Apple threads the needle here, how they
0:36:46communicate it, how they label it, and maybe it was much ado about nothing and sort of grumpy
0:36:51people who were told to tone something down, but it got generalized beyond what it really was.
0:36:56We'll see. Because it may have been one of those things where it was like they wanted a specific
0:37:00project to be different. And I'm thinking of the cancelled Richard Gere project with Vietnam
0:37:07veterans who were becoming vigilantes, right? Or the Amazing Stories thing, because we've talked
0:37:15a lot about how all of these streamers want to cover their bases and do kid stuff and appeal to
0:37:22families and also appeal to adults, and they want to cover it all. And I imagine people who were
0:37:28involved in that Amazing Stories project, which was originally going somewhere else, and then NBC,
0:37:34see again, I said it, NBC originally aired it. It was a family-friendly thing.
0:37:39Apple comes in and looks at what the stories are that the execs running that show want to tell,
0:37:47and I think basically goes to Steven Spielberg and said, "This isn't the Amazing Stories we wanted
0:37:51and that we bought. We want the bright, optimistic one like the one that you had back in the '90s."
0:37:57And those people left. Now, I could see those people saying, "This is exactly NBC, right? They
0:38:04want NBC at Apple TV Plus." But it doesn't necessarily mean that's true. It means that
0:38:08Amazing Stories was one that they had tabbed as being more of a family viewing,
0:38:13and I'm just guessing here, but a family viewing experience. And that may not be true for some
0:38:19other show, but in the press, those are the people who come out complaining and it becomes this
0:38:24narrative about it. So the truest response to that narrative from Apple's perspective is probably to
0:38:30release shows that show that it's not true. - Apple have got some new content and been winning
0:38:35some bids. The first is for a musical version of A Christmas Carol featuring Will Ferrell and
0:38:40Ryan Reynolds. - Interesting. And this is a film, unclear whether it will get a premiere in theaters.
0:38:48I assume they're premiering most things in theaters, but this sounds very much like a
0:38:53holiday 2020 project. - Yeah, don't expect it this year. - Yeah, and they're producing it,
0:38:59but also starring in it. And so they would be starring in it, and it's a musical. And I would
0:39:07imagine if they're going to do a theatrical release, they'll do a small theatrical release
0:39:11and then also drop it on their service so that people can watch it next Christmas. - So that
0:39:17seems like some fun, right? Like maybe just like some easy viewing. Let's compare this to
0:39:23an overall deal that they have scored with Fonso-Koran for a multi-year project to
0:39:32develop new TV projects. - Yeah, and this is interesting because like J.J. Abrams when we
0:39:37talked about him and he ended up signing with Warner, J.J. Abrams used to have two deals. He
0:39:43used to have a movie deal and a TV deal. And this is like that where Alfonso Cuaron, now that he's
0:39:49in business with Apple, it's possible that Apple will be interested in making deals for individual
0:39:54movies from him, but he does not have an overall deal with Apple for movies, but he does for TV
0:39:58development. - And his movie deal is a non-exclusive deal as well. - Right, with anonymous
0:40:05content. So he can go all over for that, but he gets basically Apple is writing Alfonso Cuaron
0:40:10a check to say, "Make some shows for us because we like the way you think." And that's also
0:40:16interesting, right? Because his movies are very stylish and some of them are harder-edged,
0:40:25but he's a super, super smart guy. And I would imagine that he's surrounded by other really
0:40:30talented people. And I would love to see some TV from the mind of, you know, Children of Men
0:40:37and Gravity and Roma, of course, which was a Netflix movie that was beautiful and amazing.
0:40:43And if people haven't seen it, they should see it. It's gorgeous. - Did Roma win an Oscar? - It did
0:40:49not. I think it was nominated for many. I'm not sure it won any. I don't recall. It didn't win
0:40:55Best Picture, but it's really good. And it did get many, many nominations. - Oh, no, it won Best
0:41:00Foreign Language Film. - Oh, yeah, that's right. But it was also nominated for Best Picture and it
0:41:05didn't win that. And it won Best Director. Cuaron was Best Director and Best Cinematography, which
0:41:09he shot it too. So he won both of those. So yeah, it did win some Oscars, just not the big one and
0:41:15is an amazing movie. So anyway, that guy is now gonna try to come up with some TV shows for Apple.
0:41:22And again, it will probably be, he will work with collaborators. He will direct maybe the pilot
0:41:27episode. I doubt it's gonna be one of these things where he directs every episode and writes every
0:41:32episode and shoots every episode, right? He's gonna be doing that for films. But a lot of times
0:41:36what happens in these prestige TV projects is you'll get a prestige director, especially if he's
0:41:42also the producer of it, to do the pilot. And it's not just shooting an episode when you direct a
0:41:49pilot. It's also defining what the show looks like. And then what they do is they hand that
0:41:54off to other directors who will presumably be directors that Alfonso Cuaron knows or will
0:42:00cultivate to, and they'll be excited to work with him. And they hand it off and say, you know,
0:42:05this is what the show looks like and sort of like shoot it like Alfonso shot episode one. So there's
0:42:12a lot of creativity that he can pour into the beginning of the process, working with collaborators
0:42:17without him being like super hands-on on the whole thing. So it's potentially a very interesting deal
0:42:23for Apple to get him. Again, you just kind of want to have really talented people around you
0:42:27when you're launching something like Apple TV+. This is a super weird one. Jason Sudeikis will
0:42:33be reviving his character, Ted Lasso, in a series written by Scrubs creator, Bill Lawrence.
0:42:39Lasso was a fictional football, British football, soccer coach, that was used to promote NBC's
0:42:47Premier League coverage in 2013. Yes. They were really great ad spots. They were amazing.
0:42:55I remember them. A show about this, I don't even know what that is. Like they made a Geico caveman
0:43:00show. It didn't go well. So who knows? But Jason Sudeikis is really smart. Bill Lawrence is great.
0:43:05Scrubs, Cougar Town, I think, is also one of his. Really good writer, producer. And the premise is
0:43:15it's an American football coach who gets hired to manage an English football club, even though he
0:43:21has no experience with that sport because same name, different sport. And it's funny. So will
0:43:28they be able to do a show? I don't know. But I really like this. Just follow me here on this
0:43:32chain. So Apple has, they are creating a show where the character was created on NBC. This show
0:43:42is being produced for Apple by Warner Brothers. That is a wild ride. There is a lot going on in
0:43:48there. Can CBS get in there somewhere? Because ABC slide on in there and part of the production
0:43:54process, can they shoot it? Who owns the IP of this character? It's a good question. Maybe
0:44:00Sudeikis does? I don't know. Which is just weird, right? Like why doesn't NBC own it?
0:44:06I don't understand. But there you go. Maybe Jason Sudeikis went to whoever bought this thing and
0:44:12said, I'd like to develop this into a series and bought, made a deal with them and they get cut in
0:44:17for some percentage. And so maybe NBC gets a little piece of this too. I would imagine so.
0:44:21But I really like Sudeikis. I really like the characters. So I'm looking for, I think that
0:44:27there isn't a lot of comedy on Apple TV+. I agree. And also I love these kinds of shows where it's
0:44:36a fish out of water kind of thing where you're trying to understand cultural differences. And
0:44:41that leads to a lot of comedic potential as well. And you see it in a bunch. Lily Hammer on Netflix
0:44:47was like that. There was an NBC sitcom that was co-produced with a Swedish broadcaster called
0:44:52Welcome to Sweden that was actually Amy Poehler's brother. That was really funny. I like shows like
0:44:58that with the collision of cultures and that could potentially be what this is and that would
0:45:02be funny. So, you know, but then again, it could be the Gecko Caveman show. So no, no, nobody gets
0:45:07too excited about it. And finally, in Apple TV+ news, For All Mankind has been renewed for a
0:45:12second season. Jason, can you explain this? Cause it seems peculiar, right? Well, this happens
0:45:19sometimes where like Apple seen it. Apple seen All For All Mankind, right? Apple knows how they feel
0:45:25about it and that they want to continue in business with Ron Moore and it wasn't a disaster,
0:45:30right? Obviously they liked it and they want to do more. I would also say that based on some of
0:45:35the stuff that I've read, Apple originally planned to launch this a lot sooner, the service, and some
0:45:42of these shows have to be renewed because generally in these TV contracts, there's a drop dead date
0:45:48after which the show's actors and stuff get released from their contracts. So you can't
0:45:56keep them around forever. At some point you need to say, yes, we're ordering more or no,
0:46:00we're canceling you. And so I'm going to guess that Apple liked it and Apple wanted to proceed.
0:46:07And also at some point Apple can't wait because they have to give an okay and let them start
0:46:13production of a second season. Also, if this goes well, they want that second season to be available,
0:46:17let's say next fall. And if they wait too long, it's going to be two years before they get a
0:46:22second season of For All Mankind. So this is part of the risk reward calculation here is,
0:46:28they didn't give it a two season commitment like they did to the morning show where they bought
0:46:34two seasons upfront. But still, if it's going okay and you like what you're seeing, you really
0:46:41need to move ahead with a second season as soon as you can because it takes a long time to make TV.
0:46:47And I still think this is going to be the standout for All Mankind.
0:46:55I'm very excited about it. And the more I've read about their plan, there was an article,
0:47:00I forget where it was, that was just this week about how they took reporters behind the scenes
0:47:06back in the winter to see them shooting some of this stuff and they talked to Ron Moore.
0:47:12And part of Ron Moore's pitch for this show is that he has seven seasons of it ready to go.
0:47:19He knows where this story goes. And what's intriguing about that is season one, now we
0:47:23know from that story, it's the first time I've definitively heard this, that season one takes
0:47:27place in the late 60s and early 70s. But the idea is that they will continue with the timeline.
0:47:34So you'll see you start from this one point in history being different and how it changes
0:47:39everything. And then you just kind of keep going with that story over the course of many seasons.
0:47:44And then over the course of presumably decades into the future, which is pretty cool. So I'm
0:47:49looking forward to it. I hope it's good. That's the one that I'm most excited by far to see
0:47:55because I love the space stuff. So I'm really excited. And the story I read said that they
0:48:00did a great job of replicating Mission Control, which is cool because Steven Hackett and I were
0:48:05just at the real one, which was just restored. And apparently while that was going on, they were also
0:48:10building an identical Mission Control as a set for all mankind. I have two pieces of HBO Max News,
0:48:18and then we can round out upstream for this week. One, they have scored an exclusive streaming rights
0:48:25deal for Sesame Street. Five new seasons, 50-year library, all going to HBO Max. This is that
0:48:33competing for families thing, right? Where Disney+ obviously has all that content. Apple's trying to
0:48:38do some of that. And here is HBO Max wanting that. And this is huge news. HBO Max has scored
0:48:46exclusive US streaming rights to the Studio Ghibli movies, the Miyazaki movies, which have never been
0:48:52anywhere before on streaming and are incredibly hard to get digitally in any form. Yeah, there
0:48:57are a handful of later ones, like Ponyo is an example somebody brought up where they did get
0:49:03a run on like, Starz, and there was a Starz deal with Netflix for a while. And so Ponyo was on
0:49:11Netflix for a little while. So there are some exceptions, but in general, Miyazaki movies have
0:49:17only been available on home video. And this is the great Japanese animation director, Hayao Miyazaki.
0:49:23We've done a whole series of episodes about his movies one by one on the incomparable. So great.
0:49:31And we do these episodes, and John Siracusa and me and a bunch of other people are talking about
0:49:37these great movies, and then we always hear from people who are like, "Is it really not available?"
0:49:41digitally, like, you can't buy it or rent it on iTunes. You can't stream it on a streaming
0:49:46service. It's just not available unless you buy the disc or go to a movie theater and see it,
0:49:51because they screen them there. And it's true. It's one of the great frustrations that this stuff
0:49:58has never really been freely available. The library has not been freely available on a
0:50:03streaming service. So it's going to be on HBO Max. It's kind of gigantic, because those movies are
0:50:10treasures. And it's also interesting, because they used to have a very close relationship with
0:50:16Disney. Disney released all of their movies on home video, and that relationship ended.
0:50:23G-kids took over the disc distribution. And so I heard from several people who were like, "I
0:50:31thought they were tight with Disney and this would go on Disney Plus." And I was like, "Well, no."
0:50:36I would say exactly the wrong time that relationship ended. And although I'm sure Disney
0:50:40could have bid for this and perhaps did bid for this, it went to Warner. So it'll be on HBO Max.
0:50:46It's a big deal. These are movies that some people have not seen just because they were not available
0:50:50readily on streaming. And they're so great. So it's amazing that they're going to be on HBO Max.
0:50:56It's another reason. It's going to be hard. See, this is the thing. Everybody's like, "I don't need
0:51:00HBO Max or I don't need Disney Plus." And then you see what's on it and you're like, "Oh, no.
0:51:04Oh, no. The libraries are going to keep getting better. They're going to keep making deals like
0:51:08this." They're going to make it as hard as possible for you to not subscribe to their service.
0:51:13- All right. Today's episode is also brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks can help you
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0:52:58So, October event, Jason? We were expecting one. We're at this point goading Apple to send out
0:53:07invites, but it feels like it might be a bit late. We're practically daring them to not put an invite
0:53:14in people's email tomorrow. But even if they do, this conversation will still kind of bear true
0:53:21because the reason we're expecting an event is because there are lots of products that we're
0:53:28still expecting. There's lots of smoke around a lot of products. From a high level, we're talking
0:53:35Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, maybe new iPad Pros. What about AirTile competitor? AirPods? What about
0:53:42streaming bundles? All of this stuff. There's loads of rumors around this stuff. And there doesn't seem
0:53:48to be any expected runway of when we're going to see these products because we would have expected
0:53:55there to be an event next week, which at this point seems incredibly unlikely. Yeah. It's been
0:54:01a while since they did an event with a week's notice. It'd be very upsetting because we wouldn't
0:54:06have drafted. But I want to talk about these products, Jason. I want to go through them a
0:54:11little bit with you. Where are they currently at right now? And then we can maybe talk about
0:54:15why we may have not seen anything. So the Mac Pro being the first one, this is a product that we know
0:54:20exists. This is a product that is due out this year. Yes. And we would expect it to be very soon,
0:54:28right? But there's been nothing since WWDC. Yeah. I mean, if we make the analog the iMac Pro,
0:54:35the iMac Pro, there was nothing after it was announced at WWDC until it shipped at the very
0:54:43end of December. Yeah. So that could be the model here. And let's be honest, the Mac Pro,
0:54:49while our audience, a segment of our audience cares about it a lot, is a low volume product
0:54:55that is cared about in very specific circles and not broadly, those people are paying attention,
0:55:00does not need a broad consumer launch. This is one of those when we were talking about doing an
0:55:05October event that would be like, well, if you're going to do a pro-focused event, of course you
0:55:10would use that opportunity to talk about the Mac Pro. But they're not worried about getting this
0:55:13one out before the holidays. Right. Exactly. It's not going to be a big holiday seller.
0:55:18Stockings stuffer. Maybe by the end of the year, one of the nice things about getting out by the
0:55:22end of the year is companies that want to load it into their capital budget, especially a big buy
0:55:27like this. And I have no doubt that's why it's coming before the end of the year in the same way
0:55:30iMac Pro. But if it comes on like December 20th, it probably doesn't make too much of a difference.
0:55:36Exactly. And if they put it up for sale on December 1st or something like that,
0:55:40then and ship them all toward the end of December, it doesn't really matter because it's not part of
0:55:46the holiday rush. It's just a thing that they need to do in parallel. And so they don't need
0:55:52to talk about it more on a stage somewhere. They already did that. Right. They already gave it
0:55:56time that is probably even the time of WWDC is probably not a great use of their time,
0:56:01given how many of them they'll sell, even though it's an important product and they did it as a
0:56:05gesture. It's, you know, it's not for the masses. So, yeah. But we have no reason to expect that
0:56:14anything's changed here, though, right? No, I imagine at this point, I kind of imagine that it
0:56:21is on that iMac Pro track where it'll just kind of come by the end of the year. And there will be
0:56:27that moment where they put up the ordering where there are a bunch of stories about, oh, can you
0:56:31believe that Apple is making a computer that will cost $100,000 or whatever, right? Like, there'll
0:56:37be those stories. But, you know, it's it. They don't. They can do it just like the iMac Pro if
0:56:44they want to. So MacBook Pro. So there's been some more stuff going around this over the past couple
0:56:50of weeks. So there's this is a 16 inch MacBook Pro that we're expecting with a new keyboard,
0:56:55obviously a bigger screen, 16 inch and potentially some new processors. It is effectively everybody
0:57:01s wishes just funneled into a computer. This will be an ultimately disappointing computer for many
0:57:07people because there's way too much writing on it right now. It's gonna have rainbows, like,
0:57:12literally a rainbow logo. It's gonna have the best touch bar ever and also no touch bar. It's gonna
0:57:18have the best keyboard ever. It's gonna be like, yes, it is everybody's dream of a MacBook Pro
0:57:28poured into it. So inevitably disappointing because of unrealistic expectations.
0:57:35But the rumors for this continue to say that it's coming soon. Yeah, and there is again,
0:57:41like more kind of stuff happening. So one thing was that somebody it was a I want to find the
0:57:48website, a French website called Mac generation uncovered icons that appear to be a different
0:57:56MacBook Pro in the current beta of at least the first couple of betas of Mac OS Catalina.
0:58:02And it seems to show a when especially when you put it side by side with the current kind of
0:58:09iconography or like what are these used for? Like somewhere in the system, just like images like of
0:58:15icons of servers that you connect to or, you know, yeah. And then when you compare the current one to
0:58:23the updated model, you can see the bezels are slimmer. People, including yourself, zoomed in
0:58:29and could see maybe it doesn't have a touch bar all the way, right? Maybe there's some like an
0:58:34escape key and that kind of stuff. But there's stuff continues to appear about this machine.
0:58:39There Min-Chi Kuo is still saying it's coming and Digitimes published a report today and I'll read
0:58:45a quote from MacRumors. Apple's widely rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro will be available by the end
0:58:49of October, suggesting that an announcement is imminent, according to a supply chain sources
0:58:54cited by hit or miss industry publication Digitimes. Ooh, Digitimes burn! That's why I
0:58:59wanted to put that one in there in a quote, because like, you know, it's referenced as maybe being not
0:59:04the most reliable. But there is a anybody who reports on rumors and that kind of stuff,
0:59:12especially supply chain stuff, will not budge on this machine being out, not just this year,
0:59:17but by the end of this month. Right. And so this is the I think this is the core of probably a
0:59:25discussion that Apple had at some point, which is do we have enough to hang an October event off of?
0:59:30But I think the answer and we'll talk about the iPad. But if if this is the real big hardware
0:59:34product that's coming, like do you do a whole show just for a laptop, a Mac laptop that, you know,
0:59:41Apple has shown that they can introduce new hardware without an event. They could do an
0:59:48event if they wanted to, but they could just as easily do a bunch of briefings for journalists
0:59:52and make a press release announcement and put up a video and call it a day for a lot less effort.
0:59:59So it may be that I think you could build an event around this product, but you don't have to,
1:00:08I guess, because they've managed that. I have analyzed somebody posted a little animation of
1:00:13the two icons of the current macro pro in this macro pro back to back and like flickering back
1:00:19and forth. And you can kind of see, like the suggestion that there is a little gap on either
1:00:27side of what would be the touch bar. Presumably that's the power slash touch ID button on one side
1:00:32and maybe an actual escape key on the other side. But, you know, it's who knows? Who knows how how
1:00:41right that is. But I think it's telling that we have not had that big rumor story from somebody
1:00:48in the supply chain saying, you know, wave it off. It's not going to happen. So it sounds like it is
1:00:52going to happen whether there's an event or not. I think a potential reason if there is no event,
1:00:57there will be no event like if they were going to build. So there's other stuff we can talk about,
1:01:01maybe stuff got moved around. But if they were thinking about, will we build an event around
1:01:04this machine? I think one of the reasons they wouldn't do this, I think it's going to be a
1:01:08very expensive computer. Right. Like we've seen those we've seen those reports. I think this thing
1:01:13will be you will not get one for less than three thousand dollars and it will sit at the top end of
1:01:20the current macro pro line replacing nothing just being an addition. And I think it would be very
1:01:27strange for Apple to have an event where I mean, even though it's a pro focused event where like
1:01:31they're showing off the Mac Pro, which is going to be massively expensive and the Mac Pro, which is
1:01:35going to be massively expensive. And maybe they don't need to do that, considering that both of
1:01:41these products will be pretty niche in their ownership. For sure. Anything just because of
1:01:45how expensive they're going to be. Yep. But then there are some consumer focused products as well.
1:01:53Well, there was there was rumors of an updated iPad Pro, but this has maybe been pushed to next year.
1:01:58New cameras, new processes, that kind of thing. But the most recent rumors that I saw was like,
1:02:04it's going to have a completely different camera module that it has like additional sensors, right.
1:02:09That like 3D sensing thing camera, right. Like time of flight, I think it's called.
1:02:15Yeah, that's right. And so that's going to be an iPhone. So they might want to hold off
1:02:20on that. Right. Because maybe they don't need it right now. Yeah. It strongly suggests that this
1:02:26is that the iPad Pro is on an 18 month schedule, not a 12 month schedule, which is fine, which kind
1:02:31of makes sense. And that they'll they'll bump the processors and change this camera technology,
1:02:36but not until next spring. And that that rumor has circulated recently to the point where I think all
1:02:43of us who carefully closely follow the iPad kind of nod and go, all right, it's not going to happen
1:02:48this fall. But there's still this tile competitor, the Apple tag, right? Like the thing that you can
1:02:53attach and work and find my Yep, everyone's been expecting this. I mean, people have talked about
1:02:59it. There's a lot of evidence for it. I it didn't get announced when everybody thought it would.
1:03:04And so I think you have to ask the question just because there's been a lot of smoke around this.
1:03:09Is there any fire still going on there? I think that's the thing you have to ask is this product
1:03:15could exist. I'm sure it did exist. Does it still exist? Is it is it not ready? Did it end up not
1:03:23working? Did they look at it and say this isn't good enough for us or we can't make enough money
1:03:28with this thing? I don't know. But that is the question because it sounds like a cool product
1:03:36and a consumer product and when you'd want to roll out and and get people to know about. But if you
1:03:42really had it ready to go, you would have done it at the iPhone event and they didn't. So I think
1:03:48it's an open question just because everybody said there's lots of evidence for it. I have no doubt
1:03:52that they worked on this product and that it exists. But the question is after air power,
1:03:57especially like let's not discount the possibility that they decided not to release it or it's just
1:04:05not ready and they decided to kick it into next year. And there's also lots of rumors about new
1:04:11AirPods. We've been hearing about these for a while. So AirPods with noise canceling in them.
1:04:17There has been some I wanted to kind of collate a bunch of reports to give a very basic overview.
1:04:23AirPods Pro is the idea of what these pro probably called. Almost also rumored to launch in October,
1:04:29probably for $260 is where the rumors are right now. Metal design, water resistant with noise
1:04:37cancellation. And we've also seen hints in the 13.2 code of a new design. So like having the
1:04:44little tips that go in the air along with sliders that could be included in control center to adjust
1:04:50the active noise cancellation. AirPods are a big product for Apple. They're probably a
1:04:57product to fantastic holiday product. One of I think Apple's most caught one of their most
1:05:03culturally significant products in a long time, probably the most since since the iPhone.
1:05:09Right. Just like as an item that has hit mass cultural appeal. Right. Like people know what
1:05:14they are. It's like a thing that people have on their body. Right. Like in the same way that you
1:05:18would have the white earbuds. And that was weirdly like it became culturally significant after being
1:05:24around for like a year. Right. Just kind of like hit like it hit a critical mass and AirPods
1:05:30exploded and it became a meme for a bit and stuff. I think that this product makes a lot of sense.
1:05:35Maybe like if they're going to if they're going to have it this year, it would come about now
1:05:42because you again, you want that for the holidays and the lineup of what this product could be makes
1:05:48a lot of sense to me. So about metal design, that seems weird. I don't know if they need that.
1:05:53I guess we'll wait and see. But noise cancellation or active noise cancellation in a product of this
1:06:00size is something that is beginning to exist more and more. There are some Sony headphones that are
1:06:04doing this now, some Bose headphones, I think they're doing this now like in-ears. So it would
1:06:08be a cool product for Apple to have and to have multiple products in an AirPods line. I'm sure
1:06:13is something Tim would love. So I wouldn't be surprised to see this. I would be very surprised
1:06:20if this product didn't launch this year, maybe even more so than the MacBook Pro because this
1:06:25just feels like if they've got something in the hopper right now, this makes a lot of sense, right?
1:06:29To get out immediately if they can. Absolutely. And you this is another product that would have
1:06:37had a lot of success in being part of a consumer media event, right? Consumer special event for
1:06:43them, but they didn't launch it in September. So where are we with it? This is one of those
1:06:50a little more of a head scratcher. Like Apple can launch anything without an event. It's not
1:06:53a problem. So they may just do this and put it out there. Also, I have to say, I think it's also
1:06:58possible that you look at something like the tracking tile or the AirPods and think maybe they
1:07:04have some production issues where there are only so many of these they're going to make. And maybe
1:07:09not the worst thing in the world to not stoke up even more demand for a product that they can't
1:07:14ship enough of for the holidays. So you put out there what you can and you sell every one of them,
1:07:19but maybe you don't need an enormous launch. Maybe you let the ramp up be slower because you are
1:07:26still not going to be able to make enough in time. I don't know. Like the original AirPods, right?
1:07:31Very, very constrained for a while. Exactly. So why go to the trouble of all the extra marketing
1:07:37and all the extra time of building a media event if you're going to be able to sell every one you
1:07:43make anyway? And lastly, I think one of the other things we've been expecting this year
1:07:49has yet to come, may never come, media bundles. But there was a report a few weeks ago from the
1:07:55Financial Times that they heard from sources that Apple is talking to people in the music industry
1:08:02about a super bundle. So probably the idea of as well as there are other things like TV and arcade
1:08:09also including Apple Music into a larger bundle that they will be providing of all of their
1:08:14services. So I'd kind of maybe thought that the bundle was dead until I heard this. It seems that
1:08:20Apple is still trying to shake some trees as to whether this is a service they would like to offer.
1:08:25So this is kind of like as where we stand towards the end of October. These are all of the things
1:08:31that we're still expecting to see at some point and there's been lots of smoke about all of them.
1:08:35But maybe, as we said, maybe it's not already. Maybe only some things are ready.
1:08:40What do you think here though out of this list would Apple most realistically want to launch
1:08:47by press releases? You know, I remember they did that wild week of press releases.
1:08:52Sure. Do you think that we could see something like that? And if so, what is most likely in your
1:08:57opinion to be launched that way without kind of convening the world's media? I think the truth is
1:09:03all of these products could be launched with a press release and some media coordinated media
1:09:07coverage. All of them. Every single one of them. And you know, who knows as we sit here today on a
1:09:14Monday morning as we record this in California, who's to say they could do it this week. They
1:09:19could do it next week. They could just roll all this stuff out. Announce a price and release day
1:09:24for the Mac Pro. Announce a new laptop. Announce a tile competitor. Announce new AirPods. And
1:09:30just drop those off. They could do all of that. Media bundle, who knows? I mean, they can literally,
1:09:36anytime they could throw that out there. My guess is that will happen later because they're about to
1:09:39launch Apple TV Plus and they've got the free trial and all of that. So I think they're just
1:09:44gonna end the year of free if you've got a new device. I think they can go for a while with that.
1:09:50And I do feel like without the iPad Pro, the idea of doing a pro-focused event loses a little
1:09:57something. It made sense when it was a new Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, and iPad Pro. But when iPad Pro
1:10:03gets pulled out, it is a less compelling event. It's more like a couple of, here's a laptop and
1:10:09a bunch of little gadgets. And that's a less compelling event, I think, which might be one
1:10:15of the reasons why it appears that they won't do it. But I think they could do all of these,
1:10:19I think, to varying degrees. Obviously, the MacBook Pro, you wanna have people get their
1:10:25hands on it under embargo and then talk about it and do some interviews and podcasts. And I know
1:10:34that this would be a bigger launch event in some ways than that iMac speed bump where we did the
1:10:38interview and all of that. But again, that was an example of a product launch where there was
1:10:43coordinated media, but it wasn't an event. And they could absolutely do that with that product.
1:10:50And some of these other products, even less, I mean, they can do coordinated, like the AirPods,
1:10:54if there are new AirPods, they probably would wanna do some coordinated media for that because
1:10:58they want some stories out there saying, "Oh, I used these and they're great," or whatever.
1:11:02But I think they could do this all by press release and a little bit of behind the scenes
1:11:07work and not need to call people to an event at a theater somewhere.
1:11:11- And maybe they will if they're gonna have any of this stuff because it certainly seems like
1:11:15there will not be an Apple event, another one this year. It seems very unlikely, at least. Apple have
1:11:22earnings on the 30th. - On the 30th, yeah. It seems like we've run out of time. It's still possible.
1:11:29I still keep thinking Apple TV+ launches on the first and it makes me wonder, like,
1:11:36could you do an event, you know, would they do an event that was like an Apple TV+ launch event that
1:11:42also they threw out some products in? That was something we toyed with. We talked about, like,
1:11:47doing something in LA on the 29th or something like that and having it be both of those things,
1:11:52having it be kind of an Apple TV premiere event and then also make some product announcements. But
1:11:56that's also a little weird crossing of the streams of their different kinds of products. So
1:12:00maybe there's nothing. Maybe the fact is Apple can get the attention without calling an event.
1:12:04So maybe that's what they'll do. - All right, let's round out today's episode,
1:12:09as we always do, with some #AskUpgradeQuestions. But before we do, let me thank our final sponsor,
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1:13:38So #AskUPGRADE. First question comes from Jamie. "Considering the success of Apple's A series of chips
1:13:47(so the chips that go into their iOS devices and more), what do you think the new form factors
1:13:52could be?" "This happened again." "What is going on today?" "What is going on, Jason?" "I don't know.
1:14:06Maybe you've been hacked." "Why is this happening so much today? Very peculiar." "It was the A
1:14:11series processors, I think." "But still, though, this doesn't happen to me. I say this stuff all
1:14:15the time. Jamie's question was, "What do you think that new form factors could be if Apple goes to
1:14:21ARM processors for the Mac? Could we see the Mac Mini become as small as the Intel NUC?"
1:14:27"You know, I love that size because it's so tiny, but I think the answer is no, because the fact is
1:14:33Intel NUC shows that you can do it with Intel. You can put a bunch of ports on it, and it's little,
1:14:40and it's great. And Apple didn't do it. Apple kept the same size for the Mini. So I think Apple
1:14:48makes design decisions based on their own choices and priorities and all of that, and they've decided
1:14:56that they want the Mac Mini to look like that. So I think Intel has products that are capable
1:15:05of doing all sorts of interesting things. That's not what drives Apple with its decisions."
1:15:11"Because I even think, like, oh, you could say, oh, maybe they can make the laptops even thinner
1:15:15and lighter, but I expect when Apple inevitably moves to ARM that they won't do that. They will
1:15:20want to get their gains for other things, right? So if you keep the laptops around the same kind
1:15:25of size, imagine how long the battery life could be. And they might go for stuff like that, as
1:15:31opposed to changing the form factors immediately." Daniel writes in and says, "I am in need of your
1:15:37help for a solution for system storage issues on my Mac. It's currently taking up 40 gigabytes."
1:15:43Daniel has a small hard drive. "I tried disutility and cleaning out files, but nothing seems to work.
1:15:48I am open to any and all thoughts about how to deal with my storage crisis."
1:15:52What do you think? Do you have any hot tips on this one, Jason? I mean, the thing is,
1:15:58right, the system storage stuff. So Daniel has a 120 gigabyte SSD as the startup disk,
1:16:06and it's taking up 40 gigabytes of the system. There's nothing you can really do about a lot
1:16:11of that, right? Yeah, it's weird because, like, I'm looking at mine and my system is 10 gigabytes.
1:16:18That's it. Yep. Hmm. I'm thinking something's gone wild here. I mean, could it be...
1:16:27What is that thing that was introduced? Could it be APFS stuff? Let's do it.
1:16:34I don't think so. I don't really know what's going on here. It's... There's a tough-ask
1:16:39upgrade because I don't have an answer. Well, my system storage is 91 gigabytes, so...
1:16:45Huh. I have a two terabyte hard drive, though. I don't know. So all I would suggest is the
1:16:53only thing that I could recommend is using an app like CleanMyMac or DaisyDisk to see if it
1:16:58can maybe give you something. There might be some, like, backup stuff going on. Maybe it's, like,
1:17:03Time Machine. Could that be in it, right? It's just not dumped at all off onto... I don't know.
1:17:08I don't know. Also, if you haven't tried it, because he says disk utility and cleaning out
1:17:15files, if you haven't tried it yet, go to AboutThisMac, click on Storage, and click on
1:17:21Manage. If you haven't tried that, try that, because that will open the system information app
1:17:25and it will show you all sorts of stuff that's on your disk that you might be able to delete. But,
1:17:33you know, when I look at that, the system entry is grayed out, because the system is intended to be
1:17:38just sort of this thing that you don't touch. And in fact, on Catalina, it's literally a thing you
1:17:44can't touch. It's mounted read-only. So I don't know. Try that. Try some of those third-party
1:17:51applications outside of that. I don't know. If any other... If any, uh, upgradians have answers
1:17:58that they can pass along, please do. Greg Wrightson, "Do you think the Apple Watch
1:18:04battery would improve from eliminating Force Touch, the Force Touch layer, in a similar way
1:18:10that the removal of 3D Touch did for the iPhone?" I'm not sure how critical this method is, this
1:18:16interaction method is, to watch usability. What do you think? My guess is that it won't do much,
1:18:24because on a very small screen, there is just a very small amount of sensor and, you know,
1:18:31tension monitoring you need in order to get the sense that something's being depressed. I don't
1:18:35think it's gonna save you what it would save you on an iPhone screen. But then again, every little
1:18:41bit counts on an Apple Watch. I'm sure that if they... Like, the truth is that Force Touch on
1:18:48Apple Watch is kind of pointless. Like, it's very not discoverable. And it's been buried as well.
1:18:55I mean, really, the place that you use it is on the watch face in order to do custom watch faces.
1:19:01But again, it's not super discoverable. Could they just turn it into a tap and hold, and would that
1:19:06be just as discoverable? Probably. So, you know, I think Apple has definitely decided that the
1:19:18Force Touch dimension is not a useful user interface thing, and that you might as well
1:19:24just do tap and hold. And so, of course, they're gonna look at that for the Apple Watch. But,
1:19:28you know, it wouldn't... It actually, because they've gotten rid of it on the iPhone,
1:19:32I would not be shocked if they got rid of it on the Apple Watch, even if it isn't a great savings,
1:19:37just because they're feeling like telling people to push harder is not a thing that they wanna do
1:19:42anymore, that they've kind of, like, decided that didn't work and they're gonna move on.
1:19:46>> I would say, though, if there is some kind of gain to be made, I think for the Apple Watch,
1:19:54you take the thickness gain, not the battery gain. Like, make the device a little thinner,
1:19:59because I think the Apple Watch desperately still needs that.
1:20:01>> Agreed.
1:20:02>> It is way too thick. And that they should be doing everything they can to try and make
1:20:06that thinner and thinner over time. Because I know people have had issues with the always-on
1:20:11screen, but the battery life is great. Like, it's still great. It's still an all-day device.
1:20:15It's fine. Matthew says, "After listening to upgrade 252, I was thinking about transitions
1:20:21in video technology. VHS to DVDs was rough. I lost access to lots of my movies this way.
1:20:26Do you think owning digital movies, like on iTunes, is a safe bet for future-proofing
1:20:30my collection going forward?" >> Yes and no. I think
1:20:36access is probably going to be maintained. Like, if you buy something on iTunes or Amazon,
1:20:43or you've got it in the Movies Anywhere collection, I bet you that's going to last a long time.
1:20:48I think what you're not going to get is what you usually get out of a format transition,
1:20:56which is improved quality. Like, that's the thing where you're going to still need to buy it again
1:21:01if you want the 4K HDR version and you buy it in HD.
1:21:03>> Do you think iTunes do that, though? Like, if you -- I mean, I know what you're saying,
1:21:06you can't always bank on it. But I'm sure that, like, you got upgrades to, like, at least HDR.
1:21:13>> Apple has updated some things, but a lot of other things not. Like, if you bought a
1:21:20Standard Def movie, I think you didn't get HD. Although, Movies Anywhere, I believe,
1:21:25did do some of that. So if you bought it in Standard Def and then it was a movie that synced
1:21:30to Movies Anywhere, then you got it back in HD. It's weird, some weird stuff in there. But I think
1:21:34that's the thing that is going to bug you in the future, is that you're just going to have these
1:21:41things where you're like, "Oh, but now it's 4K HDR," or "Now it's 8K," or whatever,
1:21:45however many Ks there are. And you're going to have your old 1080 version and just dumb old HD.
1:21:52That's not good enough. And you'll have to buy it again. It would be nice if you could pay an
1:21:56upgrade fee and whatever, but -- you know, or just get it upgraded for free because you bought it.
1:22:01But that will be, I think, what they'll have you do for those purchases where you own it,
1:22:06you know, own the streaming rights without it being on a streaming service somewhere.
1:22:10- And of course, you know, the other thing about owning it digitally like that is you
1:22:14don't necessarily always own it. Like, if it's a DVD, you at least always have the
1:22:17DVD in your physical possession. - Exactly. If the service goes away,
1:22:23you know, you're banking on that service continuing on Movies Anywhere or Amazon or
1:22:28iTunes to continue having that in the library. And those services are so huge that I think that
1:22:35that's not a bad thing to bet on. But yeah, if you've got the disk, then even if the services
1:22:43all die, as long as you've got a disk player or can buy another disk player when that one dies,
1:22:49you will have it. And you can -- if it's a Blu-ray and you can rip it, and then you've got the file,
1:22:54like, you know, yes, that's still the trade-off. The problem with the really beautiful 4K HDR stuff
1:23:00is that that stuff is not generally something you can rip today. There are some that you can,
1:23:07but it's like you don't -- you can't -- those tend to stream only. Then again, you know,
1:23:12what I've been doing lately is movies that I really want to have, I have been buying the 4K
1:23:19HDR disk because I have a 4K HDR player and a 4K HDR TV, and that has the highest bit rate,
1:23:26and they're beautiful, and they generally come with a digital code that will pop the 4K HDR stream
1:23:32version into my iTunes library and movies anywhere. So, you know, I've been doing that,
1:23:37but that means I do have that disk, which is the highest quality, and if the world ends and somehow
1:23:43I still have power and a TV, then I can watch the movie. Alex asks, "Will I be able to watch Apple
1:23:50TV+ shows on my Mac running Mojave? Not having access to 4K is fine, but I would like to watch
1:23:56it in 1080p on my desktop." There is a web version. The web, yeah, you'll be able to watch shows on
1:24:02the web, and they'll be in 1080p probably, and that'll be fine. So, yeah. But you won't get the
1:24:07TV app because the TV app is Catalina only. Right. You just watch it on the web. Yeah, and only
1:24:13certain Macs can do 4K anyway, like the latest MacBook Pro and iMacs from 2018 -- or '17 and '18.
1:24:24It's a limited group of systems that can do full 4K streaming, and the rest of them just show the
1:24:29HD version, even on Catalina. Finally today, Adrian asks, "Does it bother you that Todoist
1:24:35isn't updating their app for multiple Windows support for iPadOS anytime soon?" I picked this
1:24:41question not just because of Todoist. It's to talk -- it's an error grievance that I have, which is
1:24:45so many applications that I use are not doing anything on a multi-window right now, and it's
1:24:50frustrating because this is a feature that's not gotten off the ground. It's a very slow start,
1:24:54and most of the apps that I want to use in multi-window -- nothing. Crickets.
1:25:00I just got a beta of an app that I use all the time, and the beta enables multi-window,
1:25:05and I had that moment where I thought, "Well, okay, multi-window, but how am I going to use
1:25:11that?" And then I immediately realized, "Oh, I can put these two windows side by side and have two
1:25:16different..." I had that moment where I was like, "Oh, no, that's actually pretty cool. That's kind
1:25:20of what I want." So, you know, the multi-window stuff, I think there's a real question about how
1:25:26many people are going to use it. It's a power user feature. I think in the long run, it has a lot of
1:25:31benefit, but it's a weird feature, and it's limited. But there's also a whole chicken and egg
1:25:36thing happening here where you need to have the apps for people to discover use cases for them.
1:25:44You know, I think it all goes back to the iOS 13 betas being rough, and we know developers
1:25:51who have had to prioritize getting their apps to work right on iOS 13 over any other
1:25:59priority, right? Next is add features to the iOS version, and then after that you do the catalyst
1:26:07version. What might have in a perfect world taken place this summer has stretched over
1:26:14six to nine months of them doing this. So I'm hopeful that we'll get more of those windowed
1:26:20apps on the iPad soon, but I kind of understand why they aren't all there because, you know,
1:26:25if you've got to choose to get your app running properly first, you've got to do that first and
1:26:32then go on from there. So I'm starting to see it. I've got two apps, actually, that I use a lot on
1:26:35my iPad that both have recently gone into beta with multi-window support. So they're working on
1:26:40it, and who knows, maybe Todoist is too, but that's why it's happening so slow, and it's
1:26:47frustrating because there are good uses for that stuff.
1:26:49If you would like to send in a question for us to answer at the end of the show,
1:26:54just send out a tweet with the hashtag #AskUpgrade to open the show, #SNLtalk. If you want to find
1:27:00show notes for this week, you can find them at relay.fm/upgrades/268. Thank you to Zappia,
1:27:06FreshBooks, and Pingdom for their support of this show. If you want to find Jason online,
1:27:11he's @jasonl, @imike, @imyke. Jason writes at sixcolors.com and hosts many shows here on relay.fm
1:27:18and also on The Incomparable as well. And so until next time, say goodbye, Jason Snell.
1:27:24I draft AirPods.
1:27:26Okay.
1:27:28Okay.
1:27:36[BLANK_AUDIO]