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0:00:08From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 236. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN,
0:00:16Pingdom and Luna Display. I'm Myke Relay FM and I'm joined by Jason Six Colors. Hi Jason Six Colors.
0:00:22It's great to be here Myke Podcasters. We only, we got this one chance, uh, I think we're
0:00:29the first tech show in our little bubble to publish after Tim Apple, the Tim Apple situation.
0:00:34So even though it's old news, we get to do it. And for the sake of people listening far into the
0:00:39future, President Trump called Tim Cook Tim Apple during a... I think you mean Donald America.
0:00:48Donald America during a American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting, whatever the
0:00:56frick that means. Uh, called him Tim Apple, there's a video, I'll put it a link to a Verge article.
0:01:01And just in the best possible thing that could have happened, could have come out of this,
0:01:06Tim Cook changed his Twitter name to Tim and the Apple logo. Uh, I love so much that Tim Cook
0:01:13is trolling the President for like, I don't even really know what the gain is for that,
0:01:20but I like very much that he's doing it. I think it's hilarious. Yep, yep, absolutely. Um,
0:01:26John Oliver did a bit on his show on Sunday night that was, uh, suggesting there was a Photoshop of,
0:01:32uh, of young Tim Apple, um, taking the company over from his father who founded it, you know,
0:01:39Bob Apple or whatever. And it says, Oh, it's a family company. I don't know how, uh, you know,
0:01:44I think Donald Trump thinks of, of company names as equivalent to family names, right?
0:01:49Cause that's how his company works. Yes. But, uh, Tim Apple, the Apple's long,
0:01:55just giants in the technology world, the Apple family, his sister Fiona, uh, chose to go into
0:02:00music. Well, weird, but you know, whatever. And he is the son of the two Steve Apples,
0:02:05as we, as we all know, I don't even know how that works, but that's it. Aloha Steve Apples. They,
0:02:12they used to own a garage together. It's time we finished this and moved into #SnailTalk. And we
0:02:16have a great question this week from Brent who asks, Jason, when you fly, do you prefer window
0:02:21or aisle front, middle or back of the plane or any other preferences for the seat that you occupy?
0:02:27Um, I think this is a great question, mostly because I actually have opinions. Yep. I was
0:02:34just making some plane reservations and I realized I, uh, so first off I always prefer the window.
0:02:40And the reason for that is I know that the aisle gives you access to the aisle and to the bathroom
0:02:47without having to make your seat mates get up and all of that problem I have is my shoulders
0:02:52are wide enough that if I sit on the aisle, big, uh, beverage carts will slam into my shoulders
0:03:01occasionally. I just, it, it, that it happens either that or my knees are the problem. Oh,
0:03:07interesting. Yeah. It's for me, it's my shoulders. And if, um, if not that, then it's, um,
0:03:14then I'm repeatedly, uh, sort of touched on the shoulder by a flight attendant and told to move
0:03:21inward in order to avoid slamming, which is nice, but it's not the best. I just don't like it.
0:03:26Whereas at the window, I can just be at the window and there's a little space between me and the
0:03:30window and it's great. Um, and, uh, in terms of where, like in the plane, I, um, it kind of
0:03:40doesn't matter. Uh, I will sit as far forward as I can and get a, uh, window, but that's,
0:03:46that's about it. Uh, these days, the way airplane seat reservations work, they start to charge you.
0:03:52If I just bought some seats on a, I think United flight to my niece's high school graduation in May.
0:04:00And, um, I usually don't fly United, but, um, but I, I did on this and it was hilarious because not
0:04:07only do they have their economy, basic economy where you can't pick a seat at all, but the
0:04:12regular economy fare, uh, blocks out a bunch of seats that are in the front half of the plane.
0:04:18And they want you to pay a little bit extra for like a better seat, which I thought it's not,
0:04:22literally, it's not any better except for the fact that it's closer to the front. And, um,
0:04:27I'm not interested in that, so I'm not going to support that kind of business model. So I,
0:04:31I picked one further back, but, uh, but yeah, I love, love the window. Um, I think more on the
0:04:36right side of the plane too. I was just, uh, uh, when I was picking those seats, I realized that
0:04:40I was gravitating toward the right side of the plane. I don't know why I don't have any reason
0:04:43for that. Myke, what do you, where do you sit? So I have a few different considerations than you and
0:04:49a few different perks as well. I fly transatlantic the majority of the time. So I have status with
0:04:55British Airways, so I can always choose my seat whenever I want, right? That's one of the perks
0:05:00that I get. I don't have to pay for it and I don't have to wait. I can choose it whenever I want.
0:05:04And because I'm mostly flying transatlantic, I'm very typically in situations where people
0:05:09will be sleeping. So I always choose a seat, which means that if I am sleeping, somebody doesn't have
0:05:16to bother me. So I go for aisle seats in the middles. If I'm in one of, if I'm in like the
0:05:22two, three, two type thing, because then the other person can just move like the other way. I always
0:05:31try and make sure I come in the middle of the plane at an aisle so people don't need to climb
0:05:35over me or wake me up if they want to get out of their seat. And the same that if I want to get up,
0:05:40I don't have to move someone, right? So don't sit in the middle. It will sit on an aisle. It's kind
0:05:45of the same reasons. Just the different considerations when you're flying 9, 10,
0:05:5012 hours at a time, right? Like you're starting to think about the sleep in and then how that
0:05:54affects things. So that's typically what I do. I don't really care for window seats because they
0:06:00trap me in. Yeah, I don't like being trapped, but I like getting rammed with a big heavy cart.
0:06:06Yeah, yeah. I have one on a knee on my last flight to San Jose. Woke me up. That was real bad.
0:06:12It was real bad. Yeah, I just had a flight not too long ago where I ended up for, I think because the
0:06:18flight was crowded, I ended up on the aisle and I was like, "Oh, well, the aisle, we'll do the
0:06:21aisle. The aisle's fine." First thing you know, I'm getting slammed with a food cart or something.
0:06:27And I thought, "Oh yeah, I can't." It was a reminder like, "This is why I don't do this.
0:06:31I can't do this." So that's okay. I'll wave to you from over at the window.
0:06:36So thank you so much to Brent for sending in that #snowtalk question. If you would like to submit a
0:06:44question for the show, just send out a tweet with the #snowtalk and it may be given in consideration
0:06:50for a future episode. People had stuff to say about the TV license.
0:06:57Yeah. We said a lot of controversial things I thought last week, and I was actually surprised
0:07:03we didn't get more angry emails, but we did get a few tweets about the TV license, mostly saying,
0:07:08"Oh, something I think you said," which is, "Oh, they do have this thing where you can
0:07:14basically say, 'I never want a TV license. I certify that I never watch live TV or use
0:07:21iPlayer or whatever of those things. Please just stop bugging me.'" And that you could do that,
0:07:26and that they had done that, and that they wouldn't be bothered too much, except then somebody else
0:07:31posted a bunch of pictures of all these threatening billboards.
0:07:35Yeah. There are a bunch of billboards. This came from Colin. One is, "Our database lists every home
0:07:40without a TV license, just so you know. Get one or get done," which was...
0:07:45And that was in the tube.
0:07:46Yeah. Or, "Our database is notified when a new TV is purchased. There's nowhere to hide."
0:07:50Now, I think some of these ads are maybe a little older, but this is the point that I'm trying to
0:07:55get at. The way that they tone everything makes me feel like it's just going to be more hassle
0:08:01than it's worth. And I know people, I know friends who have tried to do this thing with a TV license,
0:08:06and they keep getting letters from the TV licensing people. And I will say, Jason,
0:08:10because I was following up with people, the majority of people that told me all I had to
0:08:15do is not pay it were people that didn't even live in the United Kingdom. Like, I'm super happy that
0:08:20people know that this is a thing you can do, but trust me, try and do it, right? Like, this is my
0:08:25point. Way to correct the English guy about things that happen in England, people who don't live in
0:08:30England. This is, it is not as easy as you think to opt out of the TV license. Like, it really just
0:08:35isn't. I wish... And even when you do, apparently they still do, like, bug you, and then they've
0:08:39also got the signs up that are particularly threatening. Yeah. But anyway, I have to say,
0:08:45I'm kind of relieved that, not disappointed really, even though I kind of brought it
0:08:51on myself that people weren't quite as upset by some of our pronouncements. That's fine. I think
0:08:57at this point, we scared away most of the people who can't get around to a high-risk way of thinking.
0:09:04You know? That's good. Maybe we'll scare away some more people. I just, I figured there'd be a real,
0:09:07like, face ID or touch ID partisan would pop in, or there'd be somebody who'd be really angry about
0:09:14iOS apps on the Mac and all that, but you're right. Perhaps we've... Also, you know, people
0:09:18who think that you should never click the skip intro button on Netflix. We had all of those hot
0:09:22button issues, but it was not that big a deal, so that's fine. We scared those people away.
0:09:26They can't take us anymore. No. I wanted to just give a little bit of follow-up
0:09:31for tracking the changes coming to the potential entry-level iPad line, so the regular iPads.
0:09:37Mac Otakara is reporting that the screen size of the next standard iPad is not yet finalized.
0:09:43They are saying that they've heard from some suppliers who are stating it will be 10.2 inches,
0:09:47and some are saying it will be 9.7. The way that I read this rumor, Jason, is not that it's not
0:09:52decided, it's that there will still be two of them. There will be a new version, and then there will
0:09:57be an old version, which is cheaper. That's what I think is going to happen. You think it will just
0:10:01keep the sixth generation around and then also release like a seventh generation? Yeah. Or,
0:10:06you know, at least keep the sixth generation in education. Right, right. That they're still making
0:10:13the sixth generation, plus they're going to make a new seventh generation and whoever...
0:10:17I think it would be super strange that there are suppliers that think that there are orders coming,
0:10:22but they're still debating it. Everything we know about Apple is like, they don't leave it.
0:10:26It's not like they're just still trying to work it out. This is a product that is apparently coming
0:10:30sooner rather than later. This iPad will also reportedly keep Touch ID and the headphone jack.
0:10:36So basically like the current ones that are in this generation. I don't think this is much of
0:10:41a surprise. I don't know if I'd necessarily spent too much time thinking about Touch ID versus Face
0:10:47ID, but I'm not surprised that Face ID wouldn't make its way into this line, right? You got to
0:10:52differentiate between the high end and the low end somehow, and that's a perfectly reasonable way to
0:10:57do it. And as our friend Zach in the chat room points out, not finalized when it's supposed to
0:11:04be shipping is kind of just patently ridiculous, which is why I think your theory, which is there
0:11:08must be... They must actually be planning on continuing to manufacture the old size as well
0:11:13as the new size is... I think the only explanation if these reports are true, because there's no way
0:11:19that they're like making supply deals and then they're like, "I don't know." We're not sure.
0:11:22We want to check the prices? It seems super weird. Guys, get more 10.2
0:11:27screens in there now. We just decided that's not going to happen.
0:11:31All right, so let's move into Upstream where we talk about the happenings in streaming media.
0:11:35We can say goodbye to the Disney Vault. CEO Bob Iger told shareholders that Disney Plus,
0:11:41at some point fairly soon after launch, will carry films that traditionally have been kept in a vault
0:11:46and brought out basically every few years. This is in a report from The Verge from a shareholder
0:11:51meeting. Jason, this is good news, right? Yeah, this is... I always... Disney decided
0:11:58that they would create this artificial scarcity with their films, which as a parent, let me tell
0:12:03you, it's the worst. It's the worst. Now, what you do get is you get like grandparents or even
0:12:08potential grandparents buying... I knew somebody who literally bought every single Disney VHS release
0:12:15because they wanted to get everything while it was out of the vault so that when their child
0:12:20had children, and this was somebody in their 20s, basically, when their 20-something child
0:12:26had children, that the grandma would be able to provide a video library of every Disney movie.
0:12:32And there was a whole buying strategy and hoarding these movies. Of course, in that case,
0:12:37you know what happened, which is by the time the kid was ready to watch Disney movies, everybody
0:12:41moved on to DVDs. And she had all these VHS tapes like, "Hmm, that's not so good." But it's
0:12:48infuriating because when I was... My daughter got really into Sleeping Beauty when she was little,
0:12:54and Sleeping Beauty was in the vault. And I'll just say it, you know what I did? I found a friend
0:13:02who had Sleeping Beauty on DVD, and I made a copy of it. I ripped the DVD and made a copy of it
0:13:09because my daughter wanted to watch Sleeping Beauty. It was not available for purchase
0:13:14anywhere. And it was infuriating. Now, three years later, they came out with the Blu-ray,
0:13:17and I bought the Blu-ray. I'm not sure we ever watched the Blu-ray of it, but I bought it
0:13:22because I had copied somebody's thing. But it's stupid. So when they announced they were doing
0:13:31the service, this was immediately what I thought, which was, "Well, this is the answer to the Disney
0:13:35vault," is instead of the Disney vault as a strategy to get people to hoard Disney movies
0:13:43and create this artificial demand for them by withholding them for no reason other than
0:13:49to withhold them, that instead it becomes... The Disney vault becomes an inducement to subscribe
0:13:57to Disney Plus because all of the movies, the only place that you can stream those movies are on
0:14:04Disney Plus. And I think that's really smart. I wonder tangentially, there are some other
0:14:09kind of treasure troves of movies that are not available on streaming that I wonder if somebody
0:14:13will back up a truck full of money to, let's say, Studio Ghibli, where all the Hayao Miyazaki
0:14:23movies are not available on streaming. And I think that's because Miyazaki... Yeah, I know, right?
0:14:27That's because Miyazaki, I think, has just basically refused, which is really annoying
0:14:33to make them digitally available in any way. You can't even buy them digitally after you get the
0:14:36discs. But that would be another example where there's a little treasure trove that maybe at
0:14:41some point somebody will spend and use as a motivator. But the Disney vault, they own it.
0:14:45They've got all those movies. They've been hoarding them all this time. And so I think
0:14:51it's a brilliant strategy because you're basically saying, "Hey, you're a parent. You love Disney
0:14:55movies. You wanna show them to your kids. Pay for Disney Plus and you get all of them." Like,
0:14:59yeah, that makes sense. That works. And we mentioned this before, but as well,
0:15:05Captain Marvel, which is out now and smashing records left and right, that will be the first
0:15:10Disney Plus exclusive as well, which is super interesting. So if you wanna get it digitally
0:15:17and probably in 4K, I bet they'll still sell it on iTunes, but only in 1080. If you want it on 4K,
0:15:21that's where you want it. So I'm only gonna stream on Disney Plus.
0:15:24I think that there is a question about the vault idea that it remains to be seen where Disney's
0:15:34movies end up in the long run. Like, will they be available? I assume they'll continue to be
0:15:40available on like Blu-ray and 4K and probably a la carte on other services, but it's possible that
0:15:48they will withhold some of those too in order to create a vault-like kind of thing where it's like,
0:15:55"Well, you can't get it anywhere else. That one right now, but you can get it on Disney Plus."
0:15:59- Yeah, it's like I don't think any of the most recent Marvel movies are in 4K
0:16:03to buy digitally. Like, not on iTunes. You can just get them in 1080.
0:16:09- Yeah, 'cause I have some 4K Disney stuff, but I think it's 4K on other platforms and not on
0:16:16iTunes and it syncs over as a 1080. - Yeah, like "Avengers Infinity War,"
0:16:20it's just in HD. That's it. It's not in 4K. It's not in HDR. They've done this for a while now,
0:16:27like the actual Marvel Marvel movies, right? There are Marvel-related movies, right? Like the
0:16:34Spider-Man movies you can get in 4K. - Right, because that's released by Sony.
0:16:38- Yeah, so if it comes from Disney, they've just not been doing it, which I'm portraying.
0:16:42- So it is very frustrating. So that is a question. Like, there are other vault-like strategies that
0:16:48they can do that are not quite the same, and that's interesting. I don't know if we've heard
0:16:53of Disney Plus is gonna do 4K HDR. I would assume it does, although probably they'll do like Netflix
0:16:59and say you can pay more and get the 4K HDR version and all of that as part of it too. It'll be
0:17:05interesting to see how they do it, but this is a huge asset for them, so it's not surprising that
0:17:09they would deploy it because they want people to pay for this thing, and that's a great motivator.
0:17:12Like every Disney movie, including stuff that's been out of circulation, maybe not every because
0:17:17they've got some that they don't want anyone to see anymore because of the racism, but mostly.
0:17:22- So yeah. - "Encyclopedia Netflixia." So this is a great title
0:17:29over on Six Colors because of a quote from one of media's Robert Greenblatt, so the guy in charge,
0:17:34"Netflix doesn't have a brand, it's just a place that you go to get anything. It's like Encyclopedia
0:17:39Britannica. That's a great business model when you're trying to reach as many people on the
0:17:43planet as you can." Now a lot of articles that I've seen about this quote from Greenblatt,
0:17:49frame this as him throwing shade at Netflix and being like, "Ah, Netflix is just a place where
0:17:55you go to get anything. They don't do anything specific. They're just a bunch of stuff."
0:17:58But you wrote something on Six Colors, which seemed a little bit more in defense of this quote.
0:18:04Yeah, I think a lot of people love to point and laugh at clueless executives who don't understand
0:18:09about technology and all of that. And I think they totally misread what Greenblatt was saying here,
0:18:18which is something that we've talked about before. I've written about it before, and it's the idea.
0:18:25So Greenblatt's the new guy in charge, which is why, as we said last week, the HBO guy left,
0:18:30and they're making a bunch of changes as AT&T takes over WarnerMedia. But his point here,
0:18:37it's actually related to what we've talked about Apple and about Apple's strategy and the
0:18:42reputation it's gotten in certain circles. That New York Post article we talked about last week
0:18:48is directly applicable, which is people who are kind of bent out of shape because Apple,
0:18:52who is spending billions of dollars on this content, is trying to set some standards for
0:18:57what they want for their content. The don't be so mean thing is the idea of, when we look at Apple's
0:19:04video stuff, what's the personality of that? It needs to have a personality. Ideally, any of these
0:19:12services need to have a personality. They need to say, "Here's what kind of vibe you're going to get
0:19:16from this." It's family-friendly. Disney, for example, is not going to do, almost certainly,
0:19:22Marvel stuff on Disney Plus, that is, with the content of the Netflix shows, which was basically
0:19:29rated R-level. I don't think Disney Plus is going to have any rated R-level content on it because
0:19:33it's the Disney brand. That stuff will go on Hulu. It won't go on Disney Plus, I think,
0:19:38almost certainly. So what's Apple's personality? And they seem to be, "Don't be so mean," a little
0:19:46more positive. We had that story about wanting to be able to show it in Apple stores. So
0:19:52you know, network TV level, maybe, in terms of standards and practices, and maybe a little more
0:19:59positive, that report about not liking dark techno criticism, like Black Mirror stuff.
0:20:08And that's their prerogative. They have the money. I think there's marketing value in it, too,
0:20:13because you need your product to mean something. Like, "What do I get when I sign up for Apple?"
0:20:17You get these kinds of shows. It's helpful. HBO has a perspective. It is not necessarily
0:20:26as simple as, "It's for families," but HBO has a... There's a feel for what an HBO show is.
0:20:33And I think the more feel that you have, the more clear your brand is, the better. And
0:20:37WarnerMedia and its streaming service is an empty box without a label on it, right? What is that?
0:20:45What is that? It's a corporation. It's like Warner Brothers. We've heard about that, and
0:20:48Looney Tunes. And the people have some associations with Warner Brothers and Warner in general from
0:20:55the old days. But what is the WarnerMedia streaming service? What does it mean? And I think that's
0:21:01what Greenblatt's saying here is... First off, he's like, "Don't talk about us compared to Netflix,"
0:21:07because Netflix is everywhere. Does the air have a brand? What he's really saying here
0:21:14is like the Encyclopedia Britannica, Netflix buys all kinds of content. And other than maybe Amazon,
0:21:22I don't think there's anybody out there who is currently at a point where they could be that.
0:21:26They can say, "Our streaming service is for everybody, and we spend $15 billion a year."
0:21:31Maybe they'll dream of ending up there, but right now, that's what Netflix does. They are making
0:21:36things around the world. They're making things for kids. They're making things that are super
0:21:40hard-edged and only for adults. Netflix is releasing multiple things every week.
0:21:45So when I look at what Greenblatt says here, I'm thinking what he's saying is,
0:21:50when he says it doesn't have a brand, he doesn't mean nobody knows who Netflix is. He's saying,
0:21:55"Netflix doesn't stand for a narrow-focused thing that's trying to target an audience."
0:22:00Netflix is for everyone. That's been their strategy, and that's why they're so dominant.
0:22:04Netflix is this enormous cultural force. And I think he's also saying, "Please don't compare
0:22:09us to Netflix, because we don't have that budget. We're not going to spend that money. Instead,
0:22:13we're going to try to create our own brand that is going to reach a certain audience that we're
0:22:19targeting with content that we think they will like, that will resonate with them. And that's
0:22:25what we're doing." And I think that's what he's saying here. I think he's very specifically saying,
0:22:30"We are going to come up with a personality, and we're going to try to reach these people.
0:22:33And we can't be Netflix." And it allows when they launch this thing and people are like, "Well,
0:22:38let's compare them to Netflix." He's already sown the seeds here of, "No, no, no, you can't compare
0:22:42us to Netflix, because they're like the encyclopedia. They are A to Z, everything.
0:22:47And we aren't that. We're not trying to be that." And the fact is, nobody, other than, like I said,
0:22:52maybe Amazon with Prime Video, nobody's in a position to even pretend to try to do what
0:22:58Netflix is doing. And finally today, MacRumors is reporting that Apple and Roku are currently
0:23:05finalizing negotiations to add AirPlay 2 support to their devices via way of a software update.
0:23:11GABLER>> There it is. There it is. We were talking about this when they made those first CES
0:23:15announcements, right? Like, gotta be that other shoe to drop. Looks like it's gonna happen,
0:23:20according to these reports, AirPlay 2 in Roku TVs, like mine, and also in Roku streaming boxes. And
0:23:29what this does is it gets AirPlay, which means it gets Apple's TV service and all of Apple's
0:23:36video content onto any TV for what, 20 bucks, 30 bucks, for the lowest end of the Roku boxes,
0:23:47assuming that they are going to be covered by this, which we'll have to see. I bought my mom
0:23:51a Roku, a little Roku streaming, I would call it a stick, but it's actually more like a, it looks
0:23:56like one of those little infrared receivers, except it's a whole Roku thing for 30 bucks, 29 dollars,
0:24:04at Walmart when I was visiting her. And, you know, it's basically invisible. And like, that
0:24:10is the thing that Apple needs to have in the market so that they have access to all these
0:24:15TVs for relatively cheap for people to watch their streaming service. And I think the beauty of this
0:24:21is it shows they're more concerned about services revenue than hardware revenue, and it actually
0:24:25frees them to not make a cheap-ish Apple TV if they don't want to, because they don't need to.
0:24:32Like, Apple TV has all these other features, and if all you want to do is beam your Apple TV shows
0:24:39from your iPhone to your TV, you can just buy a Roku thing for 30 bucks and it'll be fine.
0:24:44- And as we said a million times, but this just for me is like, if it's coming on Roku,
0:24:49it's going to be on the Fire TV stick too. - Probably. I mean, Apple and Amazon have had,
0:24:54seem to have resolved many of their differences, and they're tech giants and they go back and forth
0:24:59about it, whereas Roku is not a tech giant and therefore is, Roku really would love to support
0:25:06whatever Apple is doing, I'm pretty sure, right? It increases the value of their product, but
0:25:10I would be shocked. Yeah, I would be surprised anyway if Apple and Amazon didn't ultimately
0:25:17make a similar deal. - Yeah, it's valuable to Roku because they have the possibility of creating the
0:25:22cheapest AirPlay 2 box that you can get, right? Like that's their selling point there, right?
0:25:27- And then you're in Roku's ecosystem on the TV when you're there. - Which is valuable for them.
0:25:34- And that is, and that gives them a leg up on Amazon, which is why I think Amazon,
0:25:39for similar reasons, will want to be able to say that they integrate Apple's stuff.
0:25:46- Yeah, because if you're Amazon, you don't want Apple to king-make Roku, right? - Right, and
0:25:53AirPlay 2 seems like the best way forward because then it gets away from all of those problems that
0:26:01are a problem on the Apple TV for Amazon, which is purchases on device and stuff like that.
0:26:06If you just do the AirPlay 2 stuff, you don't have to worry about any e-commerce, any logins,
0:26:11any stuff like that, which is the point of contention between Apple and Amazon, is the
0:26:16cut that Apple wants to take of every purchase on their devices. - And AirPlay 2, as the method here,
0:26:23is beneficial to Apple's core business because it means you have to have an iOS device. You can't
0:26:28just sign up, right? Like for Apple TV and use it with another device, use it just on whatever stick.
0:26:35You have to be able to beam it from something, which is what they ultimately want everybody to
0:26:39have, which is an iPhone, right? So there's the other benefit. Will this sell iPhones?
0:26:43Probably not, but does it fit with Apple's core business? Yeah, it does. So I would be surprised,
0:26:50I mean, we're expecting an Apple event here in a couple of weeks. Depending on how the news goes
0:26:54over the next few days, maybe next week as a draft, which will be one of the weirdest,
0:26:58most wonderful drafts of all time, so I'm very excited for that. So, you know, maybe Roku finds
0:27:03its way into the draft. So, because I can imagine a slide where Apple says, "Hey, this is all these
0:27:09sticks we're working with." - All these partners. - All the great partners. - There's got to be
0:27:14that, right? Well, we'll draft it, but there's got to be a slide that says where this is available,
0:27:20where this is going to be available, and it's going to be all the Apple devices and all our
0:27:23partners. - Yep, so we'll see. All right, today's episode is brought to you in part by ExpressVPN.
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0:28:57their support of this show and Relay FM. So we're going to do some kind of extended follow-out and
0:29:03build upon a topic from ATP last week. The episode was titled "The MacBook Hierarchy of Needs,"
0:29:12and John Siricusa presented an interesting thought process of looking at the potential next entry in
0:29:20the MacBook Pro line and ranking via a list of priorities like the Maslow hierarchy of needs,
0:29:28about what are the most important features and what are the ones that you must have for the
0:29:36laptop for that product to be a viable product for you. So you wrote about this on Six Colors
0:29:43and I kind of liked your take on it. And I want to kind of do this in two different ways because
0:29:48we both use laptops but not to the level that the ATP guys use their laptops. So I think
0:29:55maybe our needs will be slightly different, we'll see, but I also wanted to pivot this a little bit
0:30:04into what it would take, what our hierarchy of needs are for an iOS laptop, which is the famous
0:30:11iBook created by Jason Snell. And so I figured that we could maybe kind of split it in two,
0:30:16maybe to see if there's any differences between those two things. So I kind of broke this down
0:30:21into a few different lists, right? So for a MacBook Pro, considering what people want from it,
0:30:27and also looking at the upcoming rumors, I think the things that we kind of have to pick from are
0:30:32like an increased screen size, and if that's important to you, ports, keyboard reliability,
0:30:38power. So I also wondered like Intel and ARM, is that like a thing that you can that you care about
0:30:44at this stage? Is a new design important to you as a reason to buy a laptop, battery life, cellular,
0:30:50and maybe MagSafe? So those are the kinds of things that I was thinking about as well, looking at what
0:30:54you wrote on Six Colors. So for you, when it comes to a MacBook or MacBook Pro, where does the kind
0:31:00of the line start to get drawn? Well, I think the thing that I found valuable in having this
0:31:07sort of thought experiment is the idea that there are the things that you can't change that are
0:31:15fundamental to the product, and that they have to be at the top of the hierarchy, right? It's a
0:31:20little bit like saying you need to, you know, you need to have food and clothing and shelter,
0:31:26you know, you need to be safe and secure first in the hierarchy. Like these things,
0:31:32the foundations, right, that everything else needs to be built on. And it speaks to the issues
0:31:39that people have had with Apple's laptops the last few years, because I think the keyboard is
0:31:44a great example. Like only one company makes Mac laptops, obviously, it's Apple. So if you want to
0:31:51use Mac OS, you need to buy their hardware. And at this point, other than the very, very, very old
0:31:55999 MacBook Air, they all use essentially the same keyboard, which is the keyboard that they
0:32:01introduced in to the MacBook in 2015. And it has now spread across the entire line. And it's been
0:32:08modified a few times. And some people have some problems with it. And I wrote a piece like two
0:32:12years ago about how part of the problem that Apple is having in terms of blowback from MacBook Pro
0:32:18users and MacBook users in general, is the fact that they have, they're cornered, they have nowhere
0:32:23to run. There's no alternative unless they leave the platform entirely, right? If Apple made like
0:32:30a Pro laptop and a consumer laptop, and the Pro laptop had a different keyboard, and that's what
0:32:35everybody was hoping, right? Everybody was hoping after the Magic Keyboard 2 came out, that the new
0:32:43MacBook Pros would use that keyboard and not the MacBook keyboard, because the MacBook keyboard had
0:32:47been optimized for thinness, and on a MacBook Pro, you could presumably afford a little more travel.
0:32:53And that didn't happen. And as a result, there's no choice. You can't say, "Well,
0:32:58if you want the different keyboard, get our other model." It's like, literally, this is the only
0:33:01keyboard you can buy. And that's why I keep thinking like, for things that are fundamental,
0:33:06you need to make careful decisions. Like an SD card slot is not fundamental. Like, it's a nice
0:33:11to have, but in the end, you can buy a little dongly thing that will give you an SD card slot,
0:33:18right? But you can't pull the keyboard out and put in a new keyboard. You can't pull the screen off
0:33:23and put in a new screen. And, you know, and you can't like drill a hole and add a couple of ports,
0:33:29right? So there are parts that are integral to the laptop. And that's where you have to start. So in
0:33:34my mind, that's where it has to start. And something like the keyboard, Apple needs to make
0:33:37decisions about that keyboard, I think, that make it more broadly appealing, because nobody's going
0:33:44to have an alternative. Nobody's going to have a choice of something different. If they're going to
0:33:48truly design one keyboard for every laptop they make, it needs to be appealing to everyone, or at
0:33:55least inoffensive to everyone, which I think the old keyboard was. And the new keyboard, there are,
0:34:01it definitely has its adherence. But I think that the challenge there is that you're making,
0:34:05if you make a keyboard and a certain percentage, let's say a quarter of your user base hates it,
0:34:11they have no recourse. Like they have nowhere to go. And that's not good. I think that's not good
0:34:17if you're Apple and you're the single supplier and you're basically saying everybody who likes our
0:34:21operating system has to like this keyboard, because this is all you're ever going to get.
0:34:26I think that that's not great. So for me, it all starts with the keyboard. I thought the ATP guys
0:34:31brought out a great point, which is for the pro laptops, getting to one-to-one on, so it's not a
0:34:37scaled display, because right now the default view is scaled. And so it's not as clear, it's not ideal
0:34:43like on a pro laptop, having that display be, you know, unscaled default, I think is a good
0:34:50one to put on the list because you can't do it later, right? You can't fix it later.
0:34:55And then all of the other stuff, I mean, I have to ask myself this question as I was listening
0:35:01to them and as I was writing my thing, which is, I wonder if part of why I found traveling with an
0:35:07iPad and working on an iPad so attractive is that an iPad is basically a screen without a keyboard
0:35:15and it lets me supply whatever keyboard pleases me. And there's some truth in that, right? Because
0:35:21I like the bridge keyboard and the bridge keyboard. And I even like the smart keyboard folio,
0:35:27although not as much as I like the bridge. I've been using that a lot because the bridge
0:35:31keyboard for the new iPads isn't out. And you know, I'm really missing my bridge keyboard.
0:35:36I'm dying for the keyboard. Yeah, right. Right. But that's a difference with the iPad is that you
0:35:41can supply your own keyboard and MacBook and MacBook Pro users can't do that. So I wonder
0:35:48about that too. So for me, that's where it all goes. I think MagSafe is one that's interesting
0:35:52to throw in there because while there are magnetic adapters that you can plug into a USB-C port,
0:35:57it's kind of hacky and, you know, or kludgy. Ideally, you know, I would love to see Apple say,
0:36:06"You know what? A magnetic connector, this is essentially a USB-C connector, but we've
0:36:10invented this new connection type, which is magnetic. So it's a breakaway or something."
0:36:14I would kind of love that. But, you know, that is a good example of something that is probably
0:36:21ideally integrated into the hardware and not something that you can just use an escape valve
0:36:26of a dongle. So for me, whilst I appreciate the importance of a reliable keyboard, I'll
0:36:35ask you, by the way, keyboard, reliability or feel or both? Like what is, what are you basing?
0:36:40Do you have to have a good keyboard? Do you have to have a reliable keyboard? What's the limit?
0:36:45- I think the core issue here is reliability, right? Because the people cannot like the
0:36:51keyboard. I think you can get used to it. Everybody can get used to everything. I would like them to
0:36:56make some different priority decisions on the actual feel of the keyboard. It does feel like
0:37:00they something designed for the MacBook. And then they basically forced everybody else who didn't
0:37:05need those constraints to also adopt it. But I also understand that like, you know, not everybody's
0:37:10a fragile flower like me who looks at that keyboard and is like, "I don't like it. I can
0:37:15use it, but I don't like it." I would like to think that Apple wants a keyboard that appeals to more
0:37:20people rather than is used begrudgingly. But I feel like the core problem they've got and that
0:37:26they've tried to address multiple times now is the fact that it's getting a reputation for being
0:37:32unreliable. That like people have stories and they tell other people about that time that their
0:37:37space bar stopped working and they were told to, you know, get a can of compressed air or take it
0:37:42into the Apple store. And that's not good. Like I think that is the thing that will threaten their
0:37:48sales figures the most is getting a reputation for unreliability. - So I will buck the trend.
0:37:57The keyboard is not the most important part to me personally for a MacBook Pro. We're going to talk
0:38:03about this later on, but I use my MacBook Pro five times a year probably, right? It's when I'm
0:38:08recording away from home. That's when I use a MacBook. And for me, the biggest thing that I
0:38:17would want to see to make me want to buy a new one would be the reintroduction of a USB, a regular
0:38:23USB port, because that's the thing that is most important to me. I don't use the keyboard, right?
0:38:29I'm not sitting and typing on it. Like it's really, it is just a machine to allow me to get
0:38:35to all of the software that I need to edit and all that kind of stuff. And I have some sticky keys.
0:38:41I have Marco's original MacBook Pro, the one where he first had a problem. I think it's got like a,
0:38:47the E key will get stuck. I have that. I bought it from him. So like this keyboard came to me with
0:38:53already having an issue. It's not something that is that important to me because I'm really just
0:38:58using it as a, like an audio production machine and using dongles. And like I use this like
0:39:04hyperdrive dongle, which only has one USB-C port because when I bought it, I think I bought it for
0:39:11a different machine than the one that I have. But anyway, and so it's not, it doesn't sit exactly
0:39:17how I would like. It gets a little bit wobbly and I don't like that. I would just like to be able to
0:39:21plug my audio interface in with USB and just leave it at that. That's what I would like to be able to
0:39:26do. Uh, but I don't have an option to do that right now. You can just get a USB-C to USB-A
0:39:32cable, right? Or is it the number of ports that's the issue? I have, I could get one of those cables
0:39:37and it would be great, but also I just think just the number of ports is an issue. Like it really
0:39:41restricts me. Um, cause I also need the SD card, right? So I'm still going to need a dongle for
0:39:47that because if I'm recording without the laptop, which happens too when I'm traveling, I then need
0:39:52something for the SD card too. So like the removal of all of the ports that came away, whilst there
0:39:57are some fixes, they're all fixes and I don't really care for them. Like what I want is the
0:40:02ports back. Do I think I'll get it? No, but that's why I'm not assuming I'm going to buy a new MacBook
0:40:07Pro, right? But that's where the line is drawn for me, uh, personally is to see some more, some of the
0:40:14more frequently used ports come back to the line. That's what I would like, but I'm an outlier
0:40:19because I don't use a Mac laptop the way that most people use Mac laptops. I mean, the touch bar issue
0:40:25is, is, you know, here too, right? Because you get the more ports on the touch bar models,
0:40:33but people, you know, are, some people are reluctant to go with the touch bar models.
0:40:38So that's, that's a question going forward. I don't want that. I don't want the cost of that
0:40:43for what I'm doing, right? Like, you know, it's too much and I don't need a touch bar because again,
0:40:50I wouldn't be able to effectively use the touch bar because I wouldn't, I'm not used to it. My,
0:40:54my, I'm act as an ever touch bar. And so I'm not going to get in a touch bar based workflow on a
0:41:00laptop that I use so infrequently, you know, I tried using a Mac book for a while. Like I
0:41:05used the Mac book for a while for this. And it just, it just can't deal with, with the pro apps
0:41:10very well. Like it was a point where using the pro apps, like final cut or logic plugged in the
0:41:18battery would be draining. So that was why I moved back to a Mac book pro, polo Mac book. And that
0:41:25was perfect for me, like the size and thickness and the weight and stuff. That's what I want,
0:41:30but it just can't handle what I need from those machines when I'm traveling, which is a shame.
0:41:36So, you know, I think that based upon what you want is typical to what most people want. And
0:41:42I'm a bit of an outlier when it comes to the Mac book. So why don't we just go into complete
0:41:46outlier territory, an iOS laptop. Now what diff, what could change here? What is important to you
0:41:55in this mythical product? Where does the line get drawn? I'm assuming this line would be a little
0:42:01bit higher. There would need to be more things that it would need if we look at where iOS based
0:42:07products are today to make this a compelling product. Do you agree with that? I think,
0:42:13oh, I mean, I'm struggling with the thought of given what Apple has said about the future of iOS
0:42:17and Mac OS. I, I am now finding it hard to believe that this product will ever exist. Then instead,
0:42:23it's going to be a more Mac iOS, like Mac laptop. But, you know, I think there are open questions
0:42:32there about just how iOS, like they're going to make the Mac and the big questions are things like
0:42:37touch support. Would they consider making a convertible where, you know, you could flip it
0:42:43around and make it more tablet, you know, tablet mode and then have it be more in the laptop mode
0:42:49or would they just ever consider making a more, you know, hardened keyboard option for the iPad
0:42:58Pro themselves rather than just these covers, something that's more like what Microsoft offers,
0:43:03where they've got some other keyboard options. I don't know. I don't know. So, so that's for me,
0:43:10that that's where I kind of run aground on the iOS laptop ideas that I'm, I'm feeling like Apple
0:43:16has just basically said, if you want, if you like iOS and you want a laptop, travel forward in time,
0:43:22a couple of years and look at and buy a Mac laptop because it'll run all your iOS apps and also do
0:43:29the things that a Mac can do. And that's great. I think the truth is that my, my favorite thing
0:43:36about traveling with an iPad fundamentally is that I can use it without the keyboard
0:43:43when I want to, because a lot of what I do with the iPad, I don't need a keyboard. And then I
0:43:47attach a keyboard when I need it. And when you travel with a Mac laptop, the keyboard's always
0:43:52attached. And I, I'm not sure that is going to change in, in the future that I'm not sure Apple
0:43:58is ever going to let, you know, make a product that basically feels like an iPad, but is actually
0:44:05a laptop. But I think that that's, that's part of it, right? So like for you, any product that Apple
0:44:11were to possibly make or make available for others to make in the future would need to include this
0:44:19like convertibility factor. So like, imagine if, so for me, like where I would want to draw the
0:44:26line at making, uh, my iPad more like a laptop is track pad support, right? Like that's the most
0:44:32important part of it for me, right? Like if we want to, if we want to continue pushing iOS to be
0:44:38more like a laptop, I would like to be able to use a track pad and could embed that into a keyboard.
0:44:42So like that's super important. Although I am kind of coming around to your idea that like,
0:44:46if there was ever the ability for iPads to support these things that we wouldn't want some company to
0:44:52come along and be like, all right, you got to keep it in this case now all the time, like the ability
0:44:56to be able to separate it is still really important. And I think that drawing the line with
0:45:00those two things, I think really helps push iOS to be more like a laptop without making it.
0:45:07Just an iBook that runs iOS. No, I think this is actually a good point that, um,
0:45:12that I hadn't really thought of before, but I'll put it out there now, which is if my choice was
0:45:18you can get an iPad that acts like a laptop, if you snap it into a case that makes it into a laptop,
0:45:26or you can just use a Mac laptop at that point, I just use a Mac laptop. Like I, I, I, I deal with
0:45:35the limitations of iOS because I'm less enthusiastic than, than somebody like Federico
0:45:41about, uh, how, cause Federico is very much a, I prefer iOS kind of guy. I am a, I like iOS. Sure.
0:45:49And I like iOS and I like the Mac. I prefer what the iOS devices shapes get me. And if I have to,
0:45:58this is why I don't like, I haven't liked any of the cases like Logitech made a case for the iPad
0:46:03where you basically snap it into this thing and it becomes a MacBook air. And then you have to kind
0:46:08of snap it back out every time you want to use it as a tablet. And like, if I wanted my iPad to
0:46:13permanently turn into a laptop, I just use a real laptop at that point. Like I'd rather just use a
0:46:18Mac book air or a Mac book pro, because the reason I like the iPad is because a lot of my uses are
0:46:26without the keyboard and I can ditch it. And I have a very light little tablet to hold. So for,
0:46:31for me, uh, you know, beyond a certain threshold, like I'm not interested anymore. So a convertible
0:46:36something, um, you know, I would be great. Like I just, I really love the fact that I can use a
0:46:42keyboard on my iPad when I need to and only when I need to, because that makes it a much better
0:46:47device because I only use the keyboard. I only have to use the keyboard some percentage of the
0:46:52time. And it's not a huge percentage. Yeah. 5%, 10%. I don't know. Yeah. I agree with you there.
0:46:56Cause it's like the smart keyboard I can keep, I keep it on cause it's fine. There's the folio.
0:47:01I can just flip it around. It's fine. But when I get back into the bridge lifestyle,
0:47:04which hopefully it will be sometime in the next few months when I'm, I would and did take my iPad
0:47:11out of the bridge keyboard quite a lot because that's too much at that point, like a fixed
0:47:16thing, which I can't really do anything with that adds weight and thickness. It's like, no, I don't,
0:47:21I don't want this on all the time. And the ability to just be able to take it out and put it back on
0:47:25again was really good. It's one of my favorite things about that. But that is, I think super
0:47:29important when thinking about iOS as a laptop, it's like, or iPads as a laptop is not losing
0:47:35inherently what makes an iPad an iPad. Like saying like, oh, well, you know, it's like an iPad,
0:47:40but we've just fixed it into this screen now, like into this case. And that's just how it is.
0:47:44That's not so fun. Like that's it, it loses something and being able to like still pop it out
0:47:51and do what you need to do and then pop it back in and it's back to being more of a traditional
0:47:56laptop form factor is a little bit more kind of enticing than the idea of just completely changing
0:48:03what that form factor is all about. So there you go, the iPad iOS laptop hierarchy of needs.
0:48:11We'll go with that. Thanks, thanks, John. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by our friends
0:48:18over at Luna Display, the makers of the hardware solution that turns your iPad into a wireless
0:48:23display for your Mac. This means you have a second display that's super portable with basically zero
0:48:28lag and stunning image quality. So talking about iOS and the Mac and coming together and moving
0:48:34apart, I was having some fun over the weekend working on a little project in Pixelmator. And I
0:48:41use Pixelmator on iOS a bunch. But there were some tools and also some font based stuff that just
0:48:47wasn't working for me on iOS. Because basically if the font you're trying to use is not already
0:48:53pre-installed on iOS, it can get real weird even if you try and install it with one of the apps
0:48:57that install stuff. So what did I do? I opened Luna Display, which is I have my Luna Display
0:49:02plugged into my Mac Mini. Then I could use Luna Display from the Mac on my iPad using the Apple
0:49:08Pencil. And it works flawlessly. It's super smooth. It looks fantastic. I can zoom in, zoom out,
0:49:14and I feel like I'm in complete control. I'm not feeling like I'm in this like weird hybrid mode.
0:49:19It's using the Apple Pencil and the keyboard and my fingers. It basically is making my iPad a touch
0:49:26screen like Mac basically. It's wonderful. It's like a complete extension to my Mac. This is what
0:49:32Luna call the Luna Display and I completely agree. And I was able to get what I needed done by using
0:49:37Pixelmator on my Mac instead of on the iOS. I love Luna Display because it's enabling me to be able
0:49:43to do these things without then needing to go and turn on a Mac and all that kind of stuff. And I
0:49:48could just be wherever I am and it's not breaking my workflow. But this isn't all that Luna Display
0:49:52is for. It can very simply be used as just an external display, which is wonderful. So
0:49:57maybe when you're traveling, even if you don't have a Wi-Fi connection available, you can just
0:50:01plug in Luna Display and then you can plug in your iPad and your Mac over USB. And then right there,
0:50:06you have extra screen real estate at your disposal. The all new liquid video engine added to Luna
0:50:11Display brings significantly reduced latency and an even faster screen refresh rate. The listeners
0:50:17of this show can get an exclusive 10% discount on Luna Display. Just go to L-U-N-A-D-I-S-P-L-A-Y.com
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0:50:37Trust me on this one. Our thanks to Luna Display for their support of this show and all of Relay FM.
0:50:43All right, so let's talk about podcasting on iOS.
0:50:49Uh-oh, is this an intervention, Myke? Are you intervening against me?
0:50:53No, no, I'm not. But I do want to kind of state my case on this whole little thing because
0:51:00you wrote an article a few weeks ago on Six Colors about your current setup for podcasting
0:51:07with an iPad Pro which got Federico pretty excited and Federico Vitticci has now kind of
0:51:14bought some of this hardware so he could replicate it himself for various reasons. Federico mostly
0:51:19because he spends some time in the summer at a different location to his home and would prefer
0:51:25not to have to take his Mac with him. So he's been doing some experiments as well which has brought
0:51:32him kind of to the similar place that you have and use because basically he's using what you
0:51:39didn't tell him to do but he took it as you were telling him to do in the post. So I want to get to
0:51:46this a little bit but before we get to kind of my feelings on this I want to talk about your approach
0:51:52so kind of a couple of things. Why do you do this? Under what circumstances do you do this? And what
0:51:57are you using right now to make podcasting on iOS work for you? So here the goal is okay I'm going
0:52:06to see my mom and then I'm going to LA. I'm on this trip for about a week and I've got to do
0:52:11podcasts while I'm gone. I've got like three podcasts at least that I have to do and I'm
0:52:15thinking can I do this with just my iPad because normally I would just travel with my iPad but
0:52:20there's this question like can I do this with just my iPad or do I need to bring my MacBook Air which
0:52:25I was kind of resolved to just bring my MacBook Air along and literally only use it to record
0:52:30podcasts because I'm going to bring my iPad along and I'm going to use it because that's my primary
0:52:35thing and I would even write on it because it's got the nice screen and I've got a keyboard and
0:52:39it's fine but I thought I might need to bring my old MacBook Air with me just for the podcast stuff
0:52:45because it's got audio hijack and it's got you know call recorder and all of those things on it
0:52:51and then I thought okay can I figure out a way to do this without that because that would be
0:52:56I wouldn't need to bring the laptop it is shaped like a laptop it's got to fit in a bag I got to
0:53:03take it out of security I got to do all these things and my question was like is there something
0:53:08I can do that will not require me to bring all sorts of you know extra hardware at which point
0:53:14I should just bring the laptop and I managed to get it to work and and what I did was add one box
0:53:21I brought my USB interface that I use to record which weighs you know less than a pound and that's
0:53:29it like I brought one extra box and is inherently easier to pack than a laptop is yes yeah because
0:53:36it's a it's a it's not quite a cube but it is a little rectangular thingy it's it's easy to pack
0:53:41throw it in a in a bag or carry on or whatever and it's powered by a USB plug so I don't have to bring
0:53:47like my macbook air is an older one so I have to bring its magsafe power adapter because that's how
0:53:54it only way it charges I also throw out there that my my my daughter travels with a laptop
0:54:00and my my but my mom doesn't have a laptop anymore she just has an ipad so I don't even have that like
0:54:07emergency safety net that I sometimes do when I travel where it's like well at least there's a
0:54:10mac around if I need it like nope there's not going to be a mac around when I'm in the desert
0:54:15there's no macs so the desert of macs just cactus no no macs in the desert yes right that's true
0:54:24good point good point so what I figured out is that I could add one box and I could do this
0:54:29because the goal here is I want to be able to when I'm doing a podcast I want to be able to speak into
0:54:35a microphone and hear my own voice returned to my ears because that's very important in terms of did
0:54:42I get the volume right am I popping my peas all of those sorts of things and I want to hear you
0:54:46right or whoever is on the other end of the podcast I need to hear both because I need to
0:54:50hear what you're saying otherwise this is just a one I mean it's a very bad podcast if we can't
0:54:55hear each other and also I want to hear you through your podcasting microphone so that's
0:55:02that's another piece of it right so so um I want to hear both I want to send you the my high quality
0:55:07microphone and not some sort of like laptop microphone or ipad microphone or earbud microphone
0:55:12I want you to get the one I'm talking into because that's going to make me sound the clearest and then
0:55:18number three is I need to be able to record my voice and that's important because then I need
0:55:23to send you the file or whoever you know I need to have a file of my voice at full quality and so
0:55:29what I ended up doing was using the zoom voice recorder plugging my microphone into that and I
0:55:37realized that it's got a it's got an you know an out port a line out plug that I could plug into
0:55:44my usb interface and then I could plug that into my ipad and the ipad pro with usb-c it works fine
0:55:51and at that point you're hearing my my voice come through via usb as if it was plugged into my
0:55:57microphone it's just that it's not it's plugged into my voice recorder that's plugged into my
0:56:02microphone and by adding that additional layer because unfortunately the zoom won't run as an
0:56:11audio interface and record onto a an sd card so if it could do both I would only need it but it
0:56:18can't do both so and my goal here was not to buy new hardware I was just using existing hardware
0:56:23and cables that I already owned because I was trying to say my goal for myself was can without
0:56:28buying anything can I make this work and I could with existing hardware as far as I know there is
0:56:33nothing that you even can buy so there are products by sound devices the company that makes the usb
0:56:39pre-2 that you're using called the mixpre series and they record simultaneously onto a sd card
0:56:47whilst also outputting over usb but they do not work with ios yeah I have heard mixed responses
0:56:53some people have gotten them to work with ios some people have not I you know that's not great right
0:56:58like next response even contacted sound devices support and they sound and they said they have
0:57:03absolutely no plans to support this officially so if it does work I wouldn't rely on it because it
0:57:10could break um at any point who knows but so I mean and it is worth noting because it does when
0:57:15you look at the image it looks like you have a lot of stuff on your desk but honestly it's one more
0:57:20box than one more box you're currently using so exactly like for for this for the typical setup
0:57:26it's not it's not that much now so this is kind of kind of how it works the problem is when you get
0:57:33into all the the trouble points it is two twofold one no software backup right of audio recording
0:57:40and two the file transfers so the software backup thing is kind of nothing you can do about that
0:57:46that's an ios thing we'll get to that in a minute but the file transfers what are you doing for that
0:57:50because you end up with files on an sd card right yeah and it's the same thing I've talked about it
0:57:54before um kingston makes a little box that's a little wi-fi a thing with an sd card slot and a
0:58:00usb plug on it and basically they have an app that runs on ios and if you attach a hard drive or plug
0:58:06in an sd card to that little box it it's a wi-fi box so you connect to it via wi-fi it's its own
0:58:12little base station you open their app and it shows you all the files of the whatever device
0:58:18is attached including the sd card and then you just copy them over um which is it's silly but
0:58:26that is the most effective way i've found to transfer things off of an sd card that aren't
0:58:30videos or photos which will be transferred natively but other file formats aren't seen
0:58:36by any if you attach an sd card directly via an adapter to uh to an ipad pro so instead you use
0:58:42this third-party app and it transfers the files over fairly fast and then i get about editing
0:58:48in ferrite which i did i did an episode of download where you know i collected all the files and
0:58:52in and i had to i was going to the airport so i had to do it in about half an hour and i
0:58:56i did it it was fine and i have federico he bought a weston digital thing called the my passport
0:59:02wireless pro and does the same thing and yeah but he can use it with an app that he uses called
0:59:09i think file explorer so it actually shows up in files for him over a network which is kind of cool
0:59:13that's nice yeah so he's been so federico's been playing around with this too um he even
0:59:18surprised me on an episode of remaster by by using all this gear surprise and amongst our friends i
0:59:26am i am considered to be a curmudgeon on this point but i have i have feelings about it which
0:59:35is why i think that this is not a good option if it is what you are considering to be the only way
0:59:44you're going to record so to try and break that down a little bit i think that this option is
0:59:50risky because you can only get one recording output right you are just recording to the sd
0:59:56card and when we're on our max again whilst it's only software i'm always recording in two places
1:00:02because things can die so having two recordings going at the same time whilst both in software
1:00:08is great and there is no way to do this on ios right now because of the way the audio is handled
1:00:13on ios so my feeling that because of the i think there is an additional level of complexity that
1:00:20comes with this really you were able to work this out because you really understand how this goes
1:00:25right like and it took you some time as well to get it kind of to the to the place this is not
1:00:30the first iteration of this setup that you've had sure but it's the first one that actually
1:00:34replicated my experience as a podcaster yeah yeah uh which is a which was a nice a nice point i
1:00:40mean like it took you even some time as somebody who does understand this stuff to kind of get to
1:00:45the point where you were like okay i found the setup right yeah and with all of these things you
1:00:50know whenever you say only an ipad what it really means is only an ipad and all the boxes that you
1:00:54need to attach in order to make this work right there's no only here the ideal would be that i
1:00:59would be able to take my microphone and either through an interface or if it's a usb microphone
1:01:03directly plug it into my ipad pro and do a podcast and have all of the recording things happen
1:01:10on the ipad like they do on a mac and that's not possible no and that that is what makes me kind of
1:01:18like uncomfortable like all traveling setups include risks right because like when i travel
1:01:24with a macbook pro and a zoom recorder things can go wrong because i don't use it enough i'm using
1:01:28dongles right like but i can still use multiple apps and i'm still like pretty convinced that
1:01:34what you are hearing from me is going all through the software so like what you are hearing as long
1:01:39as i've set things up correctly which i do know how to do right in software like you're going to
1:01:43hear me correctly so i just feel like if you're traveling or there are extenuating circumstances
1:01:49that prevent you from using a regular setup this is fine because all traveling setups come with
1:01:56potential pitfalls but i think as your only setup this is not how you should be recording podcasts
1:02:03like you're adding too many potential risk points in um and i it's just not at the moment set up to
1:02:10be a permanent solution like the mac is the best place for this stuff right now in my opinion but
1:02:16if you have to use it fine but i i don't think that this is the right thing for always right now
1:02:24that is my kind of feeling on this yeah i uh i i think i think one of the reasons i do this is
1:02:31because i don't want to travel with a laptop if i can help but one of the reasons i do this is
1:02:35also to explore the current state of the art and just remind myself of all the places where ios
1:02:40as everybody who has been using an ipad pro since they were announced has said where ios fails us
1:02:48and this is a this is a great example of that where in so many ways ios is just not capable
1:02:52of doing all these things that we in our particular niche have come to rely on and i'm sure other
1:02:57people in other niches can say similar things and other people in still other niches can say
1:03:02completely different things like oh no it's all resolved now but on the podcasting side it's not
1:03:06resolved because of the way ios handles sound and um access to the microphone and access to recording
1:03:12via an app and all of those things and as a result you're left with this kind of uh weird work around
1:03:19kind of scenario but that said like federico i i had that feeling of like can i get away with
1:03:24not bringing a mac because i'd like to if i'd like to not bring that laptop if there's another way
1:03:30with existing stuff i didn't want to spend money on uh on a new approach with lots of boxes but
1:03:37the net result was that my bags were lighter because i did this than they would have been if
1:03:41i had brought my macbook air and it's power adapter but you're right you lose some of your
1:03:46backup i would say actually one of my big fears was we record these podcasts and especially with
1:03:52guests who are not as uh as established as we are people who don't have all the stuff sometimes
1:03:59their recordings fail sometimes they record the wrong microphone or they press the wrong button
1:04:03and that's the part that like if i if i knew i was doing a podcast with somebody who didn't own skype
1:04:10call recorder on the mac because you're using that recording of skype do you exactly now there are i
1:04:15talked to somebody who said that there are some ways to work around that but i think that i think
1:04:19that basically um that is part of the risk you take when you do this is that is that you need
1:04:25you're relying on someone else so i like for download i relied on steven who i knew was using
1:04:30call recorder to provide me with a call recorder file that i could use to sync everything up um
1:04:37because i couldn't provide that myself so there's a lot there's a lot that you give up to do this
1:04:41the only advantage is that i didn't have to bring my laptop with me and i got to write an article
1:04:44about it so you know that was good but it's not it's not good enough for regular use that's the
1:04:50truth of it and i think that goes back to the core issue here which is that uh there's stuff that that
1:04:54as much as uh we like ipads and we like ios there's stuff that ios um especially on the software side
1:05:00just is not capable of doing right now and i hope that apple addresses some of these issues so like
1:05:05looking at the software there are options available that you can just take a usb microphone plug it
1:05:10into your ipad and go you know apps like anchor and zoom and ringer these are applications that
1:05:18provide calling interfaces and will do recordings for you um do what experience do you have of these
1:05:24i know you've played around with some of them yeah um there are challenges like anchor does a thing
1:05:30where they they have in their podcast recording app they have a guest mode where you can bring
1:05:36people in but they have to be on ios devices um you can't be i don't know i don't know if they do
1:05:42android but you can't be on like a mac or a pc because you need the app so that's no good um
1:05:49zoom is a tool that i use for some podcasts especially on the incomparable these days it's a
1:05:54it's a business teleconference app but it it has some features like it will record um it will do
1:06:00cloud recordings of people and it will let you actually record multiple um people on different
1:06:05tracks which is also really good um everybody has to have zoom they that's available on all
1:06:10platforms and if i if i absolutely had to only travel with an ipad and do a whole bunch of
1:06:15podcasts with a lot of people like i do with the incomparable i would probably do it all through
1:06:20zoom um and then the another option is ringer which is another for pay teleconferencing service
1:06:30and they have a uh they have a tier that's not cheap but they have a tier where um you can
1:06:36connect to people on um on computers or on ios devices or android devices i think and it will
1:06:45record your voice and it will record all the other people and you can get those files afterward
1:06:52and edit them so there are some but they're limited and some of them are limited by platform
1:06:57and some of them are limited in terms of their functionality and you know and i pay for zoom so
1:07:03i don't actually mind that but like um some of them record locally some of them don't they just
1:07:08have a cloud recording so it doesn't sound it's not as good quality but it's better than nothing so
1:07:13i don't know i feel like uh the challenge here is that it's asking everybody to get yet another app
1:07:18and you have to standardize and everybody has to get download that app or go to that web website
1:07:23and that just makes it more complicated but it's possible it's getting closer but this is the catch
1:07:29is that basically you have to count on somebody's app who has anticipated all of your needs you
1:07:34can't connect a few apps together like we do on the mac and say well i'm using audio hijack and
1:07:38i'm using skype and i'm using call recorder and now i've got everything and i'm you know i've
1:07:43built a whole system up and ios just kind of doesn't let you do that yep and that's it that's
1:07:48the key part that's what i'm waiting for for this is like i want to be able to on ios route my audio
1:07:53to multiple apps and have it record that's what i want and i know that about audio bus i know that
1:07:59it's this thing called audio bus which in theory that you're doing this on ios but nobody uses it
1:08:04no no way perhaps you're using it barely any recording apps other than garage band are using
1:08:09it like it seems to be a musician's tool um yeah it's not being yeah we hear we hear about it every
1:08:14time and and it's one of those things where it's like well theoretically this could happen it's
1:08:18like well that's great but um the problem is that the these it's not being supported by the apps
1:08:24that need it and you know they're not going to support it and the way you need to do this is you
1:08:29need to have a system-wide thing that lets an app like audio hijack say i want to grab the audio and
1:08:35let it instead of saying the the author of every single app has to opt in and support this very
1:08:40specific thing in order to do this it's just it's not realistic so um you know there there's
1:08:46definitely always a will actually uh involving audio bus that is like it's just it's right there
1:08:51but it's like yeah but it's not practical and it's not being used in in any of the apps that we would
1:08:55choose and so that's why i think apple needs to to uh you know let more than one app can look at the
1:09:01microphone at once for example as just one simple example and maybe look at the overall system audio
1:09:07as well and if i could have an app that could record my microphone and on one side of a stereo
1:09:13file and everybody else on the other side while i was using some other app um this problem would
1:09:19be solved actually i want to mention there are some great tools that let you record podcasts
1:09:24in browsers um zen caster and cast i use cast every week the problem is that they require
1:09:30chrome on the desktop and they don't work on mobile on ios because ios has safari and apple
1:09:37has made changes to the web rtc real-time communication standard over the last couple
1:09:43of years um but according to the developers of these apps it's still not enough for them to
1:09:48support safari so i was hoping that that might be a solution is to use one of these web apps
1:09:54because they will record locally and then send your file up over the internet and uh it's very
1:09:59clever because i can with non-technical people i can just say go to this url in chrome and we'll
1:10:04do a podcast and i get a file from them and they didn't have to do anything except go to a url
1:10:09great but it doesn't work on ios so because it doesn't work in safari so that's not an option
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1:11:35move into #askupgrade now and jason there is a theme to the majority of today's ask upgrade
1:11:42questions let's see if it plays out if you can see what the theme is as we move through okay okay
1:11:47first question comes from ben what do you think of including iMessage for android or windows as a
1:11:52part of apple's subscription service options in the future i think it's possible i think it's not
1:12:03you know it's it's more engineering that they have to do i think that it's more likely that
1:12:09they might build something i don't know i don't know i mean i think they could because it would
1:12:14be certain you're part of our ecosystem in terms of services and if you've got an android device
1:12:18you can get your stuff on there but is that a priority for them do they really think that that's
1:12:22going to move the needle in terms of services revenue or is it just going to be kind of an
1:12:26afterthought for people who happen to have an android device while also paying are android
1:12:31users going to line up to pay for some apple service just to get a blue bubble and how many
1:12:39so i'm skeptical about that but it's not impossible i don't think it's impossible i don't think it
1:12:45would be like i don't even know if it's necessarily something that like you would pay for just but
1:12:52would be a reason for people that don't use apple devices to sign up for a potential content bundle
1:13:00right like you pay for apple tv and we have this apple tv you have for android let's imagine and
1:13:05apple music for android and you also get iMessage too um it could be could be good it could also you
1:13:10know it's a platform thing i i figure iMessage for other platforms feels like a kind of if like a
1:13:19emergency release valve or something right like a break glass in case of emergency type situation
1:13:26for getting more revenue like you just it's like oh what else can we throw at the pile
1:13:31well we could also do this that's kind of how i look at that yeah but you you have to the problem
1:13:37is that you have to build it like you have to get a team to build iMessage for another platform
1:13:43which is not going to be easy right like of course it's not going to be easy um but that that's you know we'll
1:13:49see and i think it could happen i think maybe at a certain point apple might just do it especially
1:13:56when you look at some of the stuff that facebook's now talking about that they're going to do right
1:14:01that facebook's going to make this uh end-to-end encrypted chat platform right and i can kind of
1:14:06imagine i was listening to the vergecast this week and i think dita bone brought this up
1:14:11that like maybe at some point apple just do it to kind of like
1:14:14stick a thumb out at facebook and just be like well here is the truly end-to-end encrypted model
1:14:23right like his as a kind of like a privacy thing maybe um and i could potentially see that as an
1:14:28option just as like a kind of a way to stick a fork in the ground or whatever sure i'm making a
1:14:35lot of really weird broken floors here yeah but you kind of get what i'm saying right i think i
1:14:41think the challenge is a real cost analysis of how much is it going to cost for us to build and
1:14:46maintain a secure app on other platforms for this stuff and do we really want to do that you know
1:14:54is that going to get us subscribers and subscription revenue that is material but um i think it's i
1:15:01think it's possible like they could sell it as you know you get all this this great apple suite of
1:15:05features all on android too they could they could do that i just i don't know i don't know it's it's
1:15:12a i'm a little skeptical of it but they could certainly do it if they if they did them the the
1:15:16calculations and decided it was a good idea chris asks with apple's move towards services do you
1:15:22think apple will put stuff like news tv music and books in the browser or will they remain locked
1:15:29into apps i think this is a great question i feel like this is more um likely than building android
1:15:42or windows apps right like we've already seen on windows with icloud that what they've done is said
1:15:47oh if you're on a device that is not your usual device and might not even be a mac um we have a
1:15:54web interface for you and then they build a web interface and everybody can use the web interface
1:15:59so if you are on android or windows or whatever we don't care there's a website or on somebody
1:16:06else's mac and you need to log in and check something you can do that and that's fine i think
1:16:12that's a more likely scenario will it you know will they i don't know maybe maybe um i would
1:16:20hope they would actually i think this would be a good one for them to do because it it is the
1:16:24release valve right which is if you have no other way to do this you can just log in on our website
1:16:29and read that news or watch that tv show or play that music arthur asks apple music or spotify i
1:16:39now have apple music included with verizon so i'm deciding whether to cancel my spotify and go all
1:16:44in on apple music i think it depends on the features you're using right because spotify's
1:16:52selling point for a lot of people is the playlist that they make right so like discover weekly and
1:16:58stuff like that which are apparently very very good and and i hear a lot of people compare them
1:17:03to apples and apples are getting better but they're still not great and still not maybe as
1:17:08good as what spotify is doing if you use features like that you may not be as happy but if really
1:17:14all you're doing is listening to just the your like a library of music that you're putting
1:17:22together right you listen to your favorite artists or albums i don't see why you wouldn't
1:17:26go for apple music if it's now free for you basically because they all have the same library
1:17:32like all these services have the same library it's just the bits on top like for example if you're
1:17:38also using some of like spotify's features for controlling music on other devices using the
1:17:44spotify app well you're not going to get that on ios apple music doesn't do this as well right like
1:17:50if you're using you're like sending it out to echoes and to to sonos devices like whilst
1:17:56apple's getting better with airplay too so this stuff is a little bit lower locked down there
1:18:01yeah although you can just use the sonos app and you have access to apple music
1:18:04that way yeah and you can still play that stuff on some of those devices so i don't know mike i can't
1:18:10get if if i get apple music for free and i have to pay for spotify i'm going to use apple music
1:18:15because why would i pay for spotify well i 100% agree i use apple music like i pay for apple
1:18:20music apple music's just more integrated of ios i don't use spotify's features and i have home
1:18:25pods so apple music for me right like i really think it just comes down to the fact if you're
1:18:31using spotify like features that are specific to spotify that are outside of just the songs
1:18:35and stuff you're playing then maybe you're best off sticking with spotify even if it is free for
1:18:40you but if all you're doing is just listening to a library of music you've compiled i don't think it
1:18:44really matters where you go um kleezy asked asks what are the pros and cons of apple releasing
1:18:52apple podcasts for android i don't think it's maybe as much of a lock-in as ios for iMessage
1:18:58can you imagine apple making an android apple podcast app or why they would even
1:19:04i i can kind of imagine it but it would require them to um view podcasts super strategically for
1:19:11them and they they have shown no signs yet of doing that where like where they they say no
1:19:17actually we want to take advantage of we want to leverage our power in the podcast world to make
1:19:23money like if they were to announce and we've seen no rumors of this at all but if they were to
1:19:28announce that they're going to do what spotify is doing and create a whole bunch of like exclusive
1:19:32podcasts that are only on apple and they're only for like apple music subscribers or apple whatever
1:19:38services that are forthcoming subscribers to do that and that their delivery mechanism for that
1:19:43was going to be that they're going to make a great podcast app on android and give it away and it's
1:19:48and and they're going to use their their strength as a podcast provider to feed people into their
1:19:55services then i could see it but they've shown no interest in that so far i think it would be
1:20:02popular believe it or not if it was good because um the the podcast app market on android is really
1:20:11fractured and google's taken a couple swings at it but even their current podcast app which is kind
1:20:16of like a fake sub app of the google app is not great there are not to say there aren't good
1:20:22android podcast apps there are podcast uh pocketcast is on android and it's great but um i think that
1:20:29apple might have an opportunity there if they if they were going to make something of it but i'm
1:20:33not sure we have seen any evidence that apple is interested in being anything but passive when it
1:20:39comes to podcasting yeah i think the apple podcast could be successful on other platforms because of
1:20:47the marketing weight that apple have with podcasters you know like the mainstream
1:20:52podcasters you hear it all the time get it on apple podcasts like you just say that because
1:20:58it's the biggest player and if you have something more mainstream your percentage of of apple
1:21:04podcast listeners is massive right like for for like mainstream shows not shows like ours
1:21:09mainstream shows it is huge right it's a big big big part of the pie so it seems like just over time
1:21:16like a lot of like the celebrity driven shows or the kind of like you know your murder shows they
1:21:21all just talk about like apple get it on apple podcasts because that's kind of just like the the
1:21:26place for it and so then if you're not on ios you hear get out on apple podcasts and if you don't
1:21:33know you're like well i can't get it then right yeah so i think that could be an interesting way
1:21:39to play it because they are so strong with uh the marketing messages and asking i think a lot of
1:21:45these people to use the marketing messages and stuff like that so i think that it works for that
1:21:49reason um and it could be interesting it would i think it'd be kind of cool if they did do that to
1:21:54be honest but we'll see google podcast doesn't seem that great i've used it a bit it does not
1:21:59seem that great so no not yet anyway they seem to be talking a big game um but i'm i don't know if
1:22:06the result has been that great so far all right so that i think wraps up this week's episode of
1:22:13upgrade thank you so much to pingdom and lunar display and express vpm for their support of this
1:22:18show uh you can find out more about this episode by going to relay.fm upgrade 236 but all the
1:22:24show notes should be in your podcast player of choice we hope but if they're not you can go and
1:22:29find them there jason is online at the incomparable.com and six colors.com he is at j snell j s n e double
1:22:36l on social media platforms like twitter and instagram and i am i mike i m y k e you can follow
1:22:43me uh in many places you just whatever social network you use just type that in and if something
1:22:49pops up just follow it it's fine it's not gonna be a problem you'll find i'm sure something
1:22:53interesting will be there even if it's not me uh thanks so much for listening and we'll be back next
1:22:58time maybe with a draft if there is an apple event announced between now and then there will be a
1:23:04draft on the next episode fingers crossed everyone we'll see until next time say goodbye jason snow
1:23:11goodbye mike hurlan