00:00:21 ◼ ► Hello Myke Hurley. How are you Jason Snow? Hello, can you see me through the the horrible smoke
00:00:29 ◼ ► actually that's outside my window right now. I got the air filter running and I'm breathing in
00:00:36 ◼ ► air that is hopefully filtered a little bit. Yeah, there is, I mean, you know, we shouldn't spend a
00:00:45 ◼ ► ton of time about it because this is a fun show, but there are some just horrible things happening
00:00:51 ◼ ► in California right now. Yeah, pretty much. It's really, really terrible. It's breaking my heart.
00:00:57 ◼ ► I'm gonna put some links in the show notes to the Red Cross if you want to donate to help with the
00:01:03 ◼ ► fires that are happening in California right now. Our hearts go out to the people that are
00:01:10 ◼ ► dealing with this situation. Yeah, I definitely, I grew up in, not that far north, but in the
00:01:18 ◼ ► Foothill region and I actually know people who have family who were in that area. And then there's
00:01:25 ◼ ► some stuff in Southern California that's really bad too. So, but it's yeah, it's a quite a disaster.
00:01:29 ◼ ► It's awful and it is terrible air quality for more than a week and a half here in the Bay Area too.
00:01:38 ◼ ► We're very far away and the whole Central Valley is covered in smoke too and it's bad. So it's
00:01:43 ◼ ► a tragedy happening in places where the fire is burning and then there's actually, you know,
00:01:50 ◼ ► millions and millions of people affected beyond that in terms of not being able to go outside or
00:01:55 ◼ ► having to flee to areas with clear air or into buildings that are filtered air if they don't.
00:02:04 ◼ ► a lot of very clever smart people in California who want to save energy and be good for the
00:02:17 ◼ ► including Apple Park. And I wonder, Axios did that interview with Tim Cook this weekend on their
00:02:23 ◼ ► HBO show. It was great to see. And they're doing it at Apple Park and they've got the whole interior
00:02:30 ◼ ► of the ring behind them as they're doing this interview with Tim Cook. But you could see how
00:02:34 ◼ ► smoky it was in the background there. And I'm sitting there thinking, I wonder if Apple has
00:02:40 ◼ ► any air filtration system as a part of their natural air ventilation. Because the problem
00:02:48 ◼ ► with building that really clever building that lets in air from the outside is what if the air
00:02:53 ◼ ► from outside is toxic? So I wonder if there's somebody out there who knows, let us know.
00:03:06 ◼ ► can you not work in Apple Park? I don't know. But anyway, there's some links to the Red Cross
00:03:14 ◼ ► in case you're interested in finding out more in our show notes. And again, our hearts go out to
00:03:22 ◼ ► those affected. But we should get on with the show. We should start with #SnailTalk. And this
00:03:26 ◼ ► one comes from Myke, not me, a different Myke. Myke wants to know, "Jason, if you could switch
00:03:36 ◼ ► - There was a time when I probably would say Homer Simpson just 'cause I think it would be funny. And
00:03:41 ◼ ► I really liked that there were those GPS things that had Homer Simpson in it. But I'm gonna say,
00:03:46 ◼ ► and this is... I just did two podcasts about this on the "Incomparable." And actually the voice,
00:03:53 ◼ ► the actor who played this character's voice just passed away last weekend. And it is Douglas
00:04:01 ◼ ► Raine who played Hal 9000 in 2001 and 2010. And it is an amazing voice performance if you have
00:04:13 ◼ ► not seen those movies or haven't seen them in a long time. He is the very calm, quiet voice
00:04:24 ◼ ► - I think that would be hilarious. I think it would be hilarious to have the killer robot...
00:04:32 ◼ ► Oh, by the way, if you ask Siri questions that were asked of Hal in 2001, it will indicate that
00:04:39 ◼ ► it doesn't think that's funny, which I also enjoy. Don't ask Siri to open the pod bay doors 'cause it
00:04:49 ◼ ► but I feel like just like a traditionally great voice would be good, like a Morgan Freeman
00:04:54 ◼ ► or something. - Just some person who narrates documentaries or something like that. Or like...
00:05:01 ◼ ► Oh, who is it? - David Attenborough. - Yeah, that would be good. Either one. One of them is a live
00:05:09 ◼ ► one of them is dead. - David is the documenter. - No, I was thinking, what if it's Werner Herzog?
00:05:18 ◼ ► The weather today might be unpleasant. Something like that. I don't know. - Thank you to Myke for
00:05:28 ◼ ► sending in that suggestion. If you would like to send in a question to open the show, the hashtag
00:05:32 ◼ ► Snail Talk is the way to do that. Jason, it is merch time. - It is merch time. - We have amazing
00:05:39 ◼ ► upgrade merch. 'Tis the season for merchandise. You can go to upgradeyourwardrobe.com or you can
00:05:47 ◼ ► find a link in our show notes to some merchandise. We're selling a few things. We're selling some
00:05:52 ◼ ► stuff you know, like the upgrade hoodie and the upgrade official logo tee, which you can get in
00:05:58 ◼ ► black on black, which is the best, just the best combo. But we have some new items. We have the
00:06:04 ◼ ► very first official dongle town merchandise. We're selling two dongle town t-shirts, one in orange
00:06:11 ◼ ► and one in navy. They say dongle town, California, port authority on them. They're incredible. I love
00:06:19 ◼ ► them dearly. People seem very excited about these t-shirts so far, which is great. I enjoy that
00:06:24 ◼ ► people enjoy this as much as we do because it's a funny thing, but they've been designed by the
00:06:29 ◼ ► wonderful Simon very, very well. So they look good. They just look like good t-shirts. - Yeah,
00:06:33 ◼ ► I think somebody who doesn't get computer stuff will look at this and assume that this is just
00:06:39 ◼ ► a, you know, generic t-shirt from Hollister, California or whatever, right? But it's actually
00:06:46 ◼ ► from dongle town with a USB-C port silhouette. You've established 2015 when the MacBook came out.
00:06:54 ◼ ► And so you can become a citizen of dongle town. - When we created dongle town, that was when we
00:06:58 ◼ ► founded dongle town on this show at some point. I'm pretty sure it was an upgrade, was the first
00:07:03 ◼ ► uttering of dongle town, but here it is. And also something I'm very excited about. So of the
00:07:08 ◼ ► t-shirts and the hoodie, they're going to be on sale until December 4th. We're taking part in a
00:07:15 ◼ ► cotton bureau campaign called All the Ts. They have information about that on their website,
00:07:20 ◼ ► but it's like a great giveaway thing that they're doing. But we also have a limited number of enamel
00:07:25 ◼ ► pins of the upgrade logo. Now we have a limited number of these. When they're gone, they're gone.
00:07:31 ◼ ► It is just the wonderful little red logo with the up arrow in the U shape, the power icon that we
00:07:37 ◼ ► have. They're available too. So you can go to upgradeyourwardrobe.com for those. We enjoy this
00:07:44 ◼ ► stuff. It's a fun thing. And I heard you talking about this on the secret subscriber podcast at
00:07:49 ◼ ► Six Colors. We mostly make this merchandise just because we want to have it because we think it's
00:08:00 ◼ ► to find out more. And if you buy any merchandise, we appreciate it. But talking about it being the
00:08:06 ◼ ► season, there's a few other things. There's a bunch of wonderful, incomparable merchandise
00:08:22 ◼ ► at the Relay FM store, there'll be a link to these in the show notes, but you can find it on
00:08:26 ◼ ► Cotton Bureau too. We are selling AirPods stickers, which we've done a few times. So they're little
00:08:32 ◼ ► stickers you can put on your AirPods to make them look like dental floss. But we're selling
00:08:36 ◼ ► two of these in a pack with an enamel pin on it as well. So you can go and find that as well. I know
00:08:42 ◼ ► lots of people ask me they want the AirPods stickers and we're selling them again. So all
00:08:46 ◼ ► the great merch. Yeah. Yep. Yep. It is the season. Find a reason to buy yourself or your family or
00:08:56 ◼ ► your friends or make it, you know, put it in your stocking and say, "Oh, I didn't know a
00:09:02 ◼ ► dongle town t-shirt was in here." Whatever. However you want to do it. It's fun to do it. We do these
00:09:08 ◼ ► not just because people seem to like them and also because we like them and we want them for
00:09:12 ◼ ► ourselves. So it's a fun time. And the podcast is still free. So you don't need to buy the
00:09:17 ◼ ► merch if you don't want to, but it's great. And the dongle town t-shirt, I think it's going to be,
00:09:20 ◼ ► I think it's a winner. We've had that design for a while now and we've just been sitting,
00:09:26 ◼ ► we want it so badly. We want that shirt. Exactly. The orange shirt. It's my favorite. The black on
00:09:32 ◼ ► the orange shirt, Johnny Eye's favorite color. It looks great, but there's also one where it's
00:09:36 ◼ ► in more traditional colors, like on a darker shirt. Cause orange is orange, you know, it's
00:09:42 ◼ ► bright. I will say like they're talking about us in the chat room. I see and hear dongle town
00:09:48 ◼ ► all over the place now. It's, it seems to be, uh, it's our follow-up, you know, I guess so.
00:09:53 ◼ ► It's cool on Jason Snow. I guess so. I would love somebody, uh, one of our esteemed researchers out
00:09:59 ◼ ► there to identify the original, um, coining of dongle town on upgrade. Where, where that,
00:10:05 ◼ ► where was that? Cause I don't remember now, but it was probably in 2015, I would guess. Although
00:10:09 ◼ ► I don't know. You would expect it was around the time of that Mac book, right? Yeah. But I don't
00:10:15 ◼ ► know if it was, or if it was when the Mac book pros came out or what I don't, I don't remember
00:10:19 ◼ ► at all. I remember it as something along the lines of me saying, come on down to dongle town. I think
00:10:26 ◼ ► it was just something that just popped out of my mouth. It's like, I kind of couldn't really stop.
00:10:31 ◼ ► Sounds right. It sounds like you. Sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like me. You
00:10:39 ◼ ► November 7th, 2016. The episode is called get on down to dongle town and it's all about, uh,
00:10:46 ◼ ► the Mac book pro. Okay. That may, that may be it. It is a two words dongle town. Yeah. We've,
00:10:53 ◼ ► we've upgraded it over the years to be one word, uh, dongle town. I still have this idea in my head
00:10:59 ◼ ► of the English twin town, which is dongle town. Yeah. We'll do a follow up t-shirt next year with
00:11:05 ◼ ► dongle town in old English lettering. There's like a pub. There's like, you know, dongle town arms.
00:11:12 ◼ ► And it'll be ye old port authority and the dongle town t-shirt predates the USB-C on the iPad pro
00:11:17 ◼ ► too, which is great because we're, we are so deep down into that, the suburbs of dongle town now. So
00:11:23 ◼ ► it's great. All right. We should move on with the show. Just talk about a couple of items of
00:11:28 ◼ ► follow up. Uh, one, we both received the bridge 10.5 keyboards and the bridge keyboard for the
00:11:34 ◼ ► 10.5 inch iPad pro. Um, it is as great as we would want it to be, uh, you know, like it, it is just
00:11:41 ◼ ► as good as the 12.9 inch one. Um, it's super tiny and cute in a fun way. Uh, it is, I wished that I
00:11:49 ◼ ► had this when I was using the 10.5 because it only makes it an even better travel computer. I think.
00:11:56 ◼ ► So if you do own the 10.5 inch iPad pro and you're looking for a keyboard, get the big thumbs up on
00:12:03 ◼ ► this one again. And they do this one at a bunch of colors too. The great little running machine. It
00:12:06 ◼ ► was, I used to say about the, uh, original 9.7 iPad pro that you could put it with that Logitech
00:12:12 ◼ ► case. And you had this great little compact, like perfect portable writing machine for somebody who
00:12:18 ◼ ► is maybe even not super technical, but like is a, is a, is a writer, a novelist, a, you know,
00:12:24 ◼ ► a computer tech writer, a, you know, anything in between those things that it was good. I think now
00:12:30 ◼ ► what I would say is the equivalent of that is, and it's still for sale too, is that 10.5 iPad pro
00:12:36 ◼ ► with this bridge keyboard, because it's a, uh, the keys are, it's very typeable. The keys are a
00:12:41 ◼ ► little bit narrower than a standard key layout, but it, but it's very easy to type on. Um, and
00:12:46 ◼ ► it turns your iPad, your, your, uh, 10.5 into a laptop when it's in the little clips and the
00:12:52 ◼ ► beauty of it is unlike a laptop, you just pull it out and then it's back to being an iPad again.
00:12:58 ◼ ► But, uh, yeah, it's, it's nice. It's, it's funny that, you know, it has arrived at the time when,
00:13:03 ◼ ► uh, the, the 10.5 is now not gone, but no longer as relevant because there are new models. Um,
00:13:15 ◼ ► if you've got a 10.5 or thinking of getting a 10.5 instead of one of the new models, because
00:13:20 ◼ ► they're too pricey for you and you're thinking about the keyboards, you might want to look into
00:13:24 ◼ ► this bridge keyboard because it is, it's very good. Yeah. So I really, really recommend it.
00:13:30 ◼ ► Um, on the last episode, I was talking about my frustration of the way that you take screenshots
00:13:36 ◼ ► now on the new iPad pros. We have to do it with like one volume button and the side button as
00:13:43 ◼ ► it's called. And Dr. Drang reminded me that if I'm using my keyboard, I can just use command shift
00:13:48 ◼ ► three or command shift four to take screenshots. I always forget about this. I forget this exists
00:13:53 ◼ ► all the time, but it's great. Yeah, it's good. I, I find myself rarely taking screenshots with
00:13:58 ◼ ► a keyboard attached, but that's just cause most of the iPad screenshots I'm taking of are sort of
00:14:04 ◼ ► like a things while I'm, I, I'm not, I don't have a keyboard attached most of the time. Yeah. You
00:14:08 ◼ ► see, I'm very small. Isn't it like I am, my iPad is always has the keyboard. Like it, I think we're
00:14:15 ◼ ► in the inverse. Like the times that you have the keyboard on is like when I would have the keyboard
00:14:19 ◼ ► off. So it's changing a little bit with the, with the new keyboard, because I think the new keyboard
00:14:23 ◼ ► is a much, um, it's much more likely that I'll keep that around than the old keyboard. But,
00:14:36 ◼ ► don't forget next week, we're going to be going back to Myke at the movies with my neighbor,
00:14:42 ◼ ► Totoro. Um, we haven't asked upgrade question on this, which I guess we'll just answer now.
00:14:52 ◼ ► Um, no, no, there isn't. Well, I found this out. This movie is hard to get. So if you are planning
00:15:03 ◼ ► Amazon and get a Blu-ray or a DVD as soon as possible, because that seems to be the only way
00:15:08 ◼ ► to do it. So, uh, this it's unfortunate when these things aren't on streaming services, uh, is this,
00:15:13 ◼ ► are they in the Disney vault? Is that the problem? No. Um, in fact, they're, they're no longer
00:15:17 ◼ ► published by Disney. They're now published by G kids, but it is Miyazaki and studio Ghibli in
00:15:24 ◼ ► general that, um, they don't, they, they don't believe in the streaming services. It's very funny.
00:15:30 ◼ ► They just basically they're, they say no. And I do wonder if at some point they will have,
00:15:39 ◼ ► but right now they're just not, they're not interested in digital distribution in that way.
00:15:43 ◼ ► So you, you have to, you have to get the discs basically. And I have them all. Yep. Just either
00:15:48 ◼ ► go to Jason's house, um, or go to Amazon one or the other really. And the upgrade is voting is
00:15:55 ◼ ► still going. We have had hundreds of votes for the upgrade is so far, which I'm super excited about.
00:16:00 ◼ ► I'm really, really pleased to see that. Um, so you can go to our show notes. You can find, uh,
00:16:06 ◼ ► our nominations form for the fifth annual upgrade is so very, very excited about that. So you're
00:16:12 ◼ ► still can take part, give us your votes. Um, we're going to be announcing the closing day over the
00:16:17 ◼ ► next few weeks, but it's best to get your vote in now. So you don't forget. So that will be in our
00:16:23 ◼ ► show notes. And I have one item of upstream for you today, Jason, which is Apple related.
00:16:28 ◼ ► Um, Apple have inked a deal with the Oscar winning studio A24 to develop a selection of movies for
00:16:41 ◼ ► know who they are, I didn't know the name. They are responsible for films like Moonlight,
00:16:46 ◼ ► which won the best picture in 2016. Um, and room, the witch and X Machina have been some of their
00:16:52 ◼ ► more popular movies. So I found this interesting because it's not just TV that they're doing.
00:17:03 ◼ ► we speculated about this, about, are they going to just do TV? Cause Netflix and Amazon both have
00:17:09 ◼ ► original films as well and obviously would not be investing in them as they are if they didn't find
00:17:15 ◼ ► them effective. I'm fascinated by it because I have very rarely watched an original film
00:17:21 ◼ ► on either of those streaming services. I just, it just has never, never really clicked for me that,
00:17:28 ◼ ► Oh, here's a movie premiere on Netflix that I want to watch. Maybe, maybe they will turn the corner
00:17:33 ◼ ► at some point and, and, and do that. But it just, it has never really gotten into me, but obviously
00:17:38 ◼ ► it has worked for them because, uh, also as our friends in the entertainment industry point out,
00:17:44 ◼ ► uh, the other part of this is, is awards, which is not to be discounted, which is if you're Netflix,
00:17:52 ◼ ► if you're Amazon, if you're Apple, the prospect of winning an Academy award is, uh, is worth spending
00:18:00 ◼ ► money on films for. And there's an argument to be made that films of a quality level to win an
00:18:05 ◼ ► Academy award these days, the kind of funding that they're going to get for the budgets of a prestige
00:18:12 ◼ ► kind of film may, this is money that they may have a hard time getting elsewhere to make a deal with
00:18:19 ◼ ► Netflix or Amazon or Apple. So that's fascinating as a dynamic too, that so many mainstream Hollywood
00:18:26 ◼ ► releases these days are big blockbusters. That's sort of what the game is and that the prestige
00:18:30 ◼ ► films that when Oscars may not be, uh, in that category, they might find a harder time getting
00:18:36 ◼ ► made, but, uh, Netflix and Amazon and Apple seem to be very interested in that. So it's not just
00:18:42 ◼ ► that audiences may enjoy original films on these platforms. It's also, I think some, uh, desire to
00:18:49 ◼ ► win prestige through the Academy awards. Yeah, I think it's like they want to just get eyes,
00:18:57 ◼ ► right? Like awards bring eyeballs. Well, right. It's good. It's good prestige. It's good marketing.
00:19:02 ◼ ► Everybody's talking about that movie and it's only on Apple's service or it's only on Amazon.
00:19:06 ◼ ► That is like a, when Manchester by the sea got nominated for a bunch of Oscars. That was
00:19:09 ◼ ► interesting because that was an Amazon movie and it was on Amazon. And so if you wanted to see it,
00:19:13 ◼ ► you had to go to prime video and watch it. Well, it's like Amazon had that, um, they had that TV
00:19:18 ◼ ► show transparent that won a bunch of awards too, right? Like, and I know it got a bunch of people
00:19:22 ◼ ► talking. Sure. TV awards, prestige. I mean, that's big too, but then there's a whole other award
00:19:27 ◼ ► category you get from making a movie. So yeah. And arguably like more people pay attention to
00:19:32 ◼ ► the movie awards and the TV awards, I think. Yeah. All right. Today's episode is brought to you by
00:19:38 ◼ ► FreshBooks. Everyone loves to save time, but it's especially important when you're a freelancer,
00:19:43 ◼ ► you work for yourself, you set your own time, your time, time is money as they say, Jason,
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00:19:53 ◼ ► simple cloud accounting software for freelancers. I know they say, I can't even imagine how much time
00:19:58 ◼ ► FreshBooks has saved me over the last five years. I think we're up to like, we get, we're very soon
00:20:04 ◼ ► approaching our 2000th invoice sent out with FreshBooks over the history of our company.
00:20:10 ◼ ► And their system is so simple. Like I go in and I've got all my client information there.
00:20:15 ◼ ► It's all there. I can just generate an invoice super quickly. I type in some stuff and it auto
00:20:19 ◼ ► completes and I see the invoice and I send it out so much faster than me, like opening pages and
00:20:25 ◼ ► typing it out and getting the template and then sending it and then having to like chase someone
00:20:29 ◼ ► next week when they are not sure if they saw it or not. You don't have to do it in FreshBooks.
00:20:33 ◼ ► Everything is tracked for you. It's all in the system. You know, when someone's seen it,
00:20:36 ◼ ► you can see when someone's printed it and more importantly, most importantly, you know,
00:20:39 ◼ ► when it's been paid as well. People can pay you right within FreshBooks. It's wonderful.
00:20:43 ◼ ► They have like a payment system built right in that you can take advantage of. You can set up
00:20:47 ◼ ► automatic late payment email reminders if you want to. And every time you log into FreshBooks,
00:20:52 ◼ ► they tell you what's changed in your business since you last logged in and what you need to
00:20:55 ◼ ► deal with. You can see what's late if you want to. You can see if somebody's logged in, which is super
00:21:00 ◼ ► useful, right? Like if you're waiting on a client, you see they've logged in or maybe they're checking
00:21:04 ◼ ► the invoice. It's really, really important stuff. And if you do any invoicing, any time tracking,
00:21:09 ◼ ► any expenses stuff, you should be looking at FreshBooks. They're offering an unrestricted
00:21:14 ◼ ► 30 day free trial to listeners of this very show with no credit card required. Just go to
00:21:19 ◼ ► FreshBooks.com/upgrade. And when they say, "Hey, how did you hear about us?" say on the upgrade
00:21:24 ◼ ► podcast. Our thanks to FreshBooks for their continued support of this show and Relay FM.
00:21:29 ◼ ► So Jason, you've just completed some huge reviews, right? So many, many, many, many thousands of
00:21:38 ◼ ► words have left your brain through your fingertips over the last couple of weeks. Congratulations.
00:21:44 ◼ ► That's not where I thought you were going with that. I really thought it had left my brain,
00:21:49 ◼ ► like it had oozed out of my brain through my fingertips. Oh no, no, I've lost my brains
00:21:55 ◼ ► at my fingertips. Yeah. And it's been distributed to the world who's read them and everybody's
00:22:01 ◼ ► happy. Last week, we talked about my iPad Pro review, which is up and we can put a link in
00:22:04 ◼ ► the show notes to it, I suppose. And we'll talk about it later, but that was 5,000 words that came
00:22:10 ◼ ► out of my brain. And I wrote that entirely, that one, I wrote entirely on the smart keyboard folio
00:22:17 ◼ ► on the iPad Pro. Right, so this is what I want to get into, right? Considering you've gone through
00:22:21 ◼ ► all of this, I'm interested in seeing what your writing setup is right now from a software and
00:22:29 ◼ ► hardware perspective. And if spending such a time, you know, like looking at and writing so many
00:22:35 ◼ ► thousands of words has made you rethink or reconsider anything based upon any frustrations
00:22:41 ◼ ► you may have felt during this period of time. Well, I, so I'm reminded that I like the smart
00:22:47 ◼ ► keyboard. There are some people who don't like the feel of it. I like the feel of it. I think it is
00:22:51 ◼ ► solid. It's not, you know, it's not my favorite, but it works fine and I can get into a groove on
00:23:02 ◼ ► too easy for me to press the little globe button in the bottom left corner and pick up the emoji
00:23:08 ◼ ► keyboard when I don't want to. I hit that a lot by accident. But it's good and it's stable on my lap,
00:23:14 ◼ ► which is really the thing that is most important to me is that I can sit on the couch or even in
00:23:20 ◼ ► bed and have the ability to write things with the keyboard, which the old one, you could do it,
00:23:26 ◼ ► but I never liked it. It never felt comfortable to me because it was much less stable. And also
00:23:32 ◼ ► the keyboard being that single plane instead of it being folded over a bunch of times and having
00:23:36 ◼ ► the thick part and the thin part like this to the point where like I measured it, I weighed all of
00:23:42 ◼ ► these. The, uh, the, the 12.9 keyboard folio is heavier than the old 12.9 keyboard, um, by quite
00:23:52 ◼ ► a bit, like 406 grams to 338 grams. It's heavier. And yet to me, it doesn't feel bulkier and that's
00:23:59 ◼ ► weird, but it doesn't because it is just wrapping around the device, uh, rather than having that
00:24:06 ◼ ► extra thickness and all of that. And, and, and it's not as clumsy. It's a, it's a funny, it's
00:24:11 ◼ ► a funny feeling. So I'm liking that. I will say that when I get my hands on a, you know, a bridge
00:24:16 ◼ ► keyboard for the new iPad pro, I'm going to be excited about that. Cause I'm, I think that that
00:24:21 ◼ ► will be, uh, fantastic. Um, and then a funny thing came up last week because I took a picture of the
00:24:29 ◼ ► new iPad pro in that, uh, that doc that I tweeted about a long time ago and grouper asked me what it
00:24:35 ◼ ► was and all of that, which is the, the Vias on doc. I've got that doc. I've also got that other doc
00:24:39 ◼ ► that you have both of them. Um, yeah. And the, um, and they're both, they both have their advantages.
00:24:46 ◼ ► Um, Tabitha is a little bit taller. The Vias on doc, I feels nicer cause it doesn't have little
00:24:53 ◼ ► spindly plastic things sticking out secure feeling. Yeah. And a little less fiddly too. So I,
00:24:58 ◼ ► but I was using the Vias on doc and I took a picture of it with the, uh, my keyboard just
00:25:03 ◼ ► attached via directly via USB C via an adapter rather than routed through the USB three adapter
00:25:11 ◼ ► for lightning with power, which is sort of the other way. I might've even just had it be a
00:25:15 ◼ ► Bluetooth keyboard, but anyway, I did that and I brought up, uh, I think I had drafts on the screen
00:25:21 ◼ ► and people were like, Oh, are you writing in drafts now? And I was like, no, actually that's
00:25:25 ◼ ► just, I brought that up for, cause I was checking something out that somebody mentioned about a
00:25:29 ◼ ► drafts update, but I don't write in drafts and somebody was saying, well, you should give it a
00:25:33 ◼ ► try. There's drafts for Mac is in beta now and you could try it out. And I realized, um, this is one
00:25:38 ◼ ► of those funny things where I've built this little writing workflow around my preferences, which, um,
00:25:45 ◼ ► is, is kind of funny. It's so I write on BB edit on, on my Mac, unless I'm like working on a novel
00:25:51 ◼ ► or something, I'm writing BB edit on my Mac, uh, long form stuff I will put in Scrivener, but most
00:25:56 ◼ ► stuff I write is in BB edit. Uh, and BB edit is a Mac only there's no iOS equivalent, but it does
00:26:01 ◼ ► text files. And so what I, what I've created is this whole system where I, um, my, all of my
00:26:07 ◼ ► default, I even have the default folder app default to be be added to a folder called stories,
00:26:13 ◼ ► which is on my Dropbox and the stories go in the stories folder. And that means that they're
00:26:21 ◼ ► available via Dropbox in that folder. I have set my, uh, writing app on my iPad, which is currently
00:26:27 ◼ ► one writer to, uh, connect to Dropbox and look in the stories folder. So when I go on one writer
00:26:33 ◼ ► or if I create a story there, it goes in that same stories folder. And that gives me round
00:26:40 ◼ ► trip stuff where I can start a story here on my, on my Mac and BB edit, take the iPad out
00:26:51 ◼ ► And then I actually have a, um, uh, Hazel script that runs a Hazel rule that runs on my Mac.
00:27:03 ◼ ► waiting for a certain conditions. And then it, it springs into action and Hazel takes everything
00:27:14 ◼ ► Uh, so I still have that stuff, but I want to kind of keep the stories folder to only the,
00:27:20 ◼ ► really the recent stuff that I've been working on. And that system is actually working really
00:27:24 ◼ ► well for me. It gives me the freedom to use any iOS text editor that has Dropbox connectivity,
00:27:30 ◼ ► which not all of them do. Um, and if I, there was a fantastic iOS text editor out there and
00:27:38 ◼ ► it only worked with iCloud drive or something I would consider I could, I could modify my system
00:27:43 ◼ ► to do that, but, uh, I realized that that's where I am with my, with my, uh, kind of writing setup
00:27:50 ◼ ► now is I w I want to keep using BBA on the desktop and then I find, you know, something and I'm open
00:27:55 ◼ ► to one writer is working for me right now. And actually, while I was writing the iPad pro review,
00:27:59 ◼ ► I think I might've mentioned this last week, it literally updated, uh, in the middle of a paragraph
00:28:05 ◼ ► about, uh, how you have to update apps to change this, to support the new screen sizes of the iPad
00:28:12 ◼ ► pro models. Um, I went to, I was like, I wonder, and I went to the app store app and looked for
00:28:17 ◼ ► updates and there was a one writer update that updated it to work better with the screen. It was
00:28:22 ◼ ► one of those moments like, okay. And then I went back and, and I continued writing. My apps must
00:28:26 ◼ ► be updated. It was kind of, it was, it was, it was weird. It was very weird. So anyway, that's
00:28:32 ◼ ► working for me now. I would be happy like one writer gets occasional updates. It's okay. Uh,
00:28:37 ◼ ► I have, I have yet to find a, uh, um, uh, text editor that syncs to Dropbox and does mark down
00:28:44 ◼ ► and ideally has some, you know, either good, uh, commands or programmable macros and all that. I,
00:28:50 ◼ ► you know, it's, I used editorial for a long time, but it hasn't been updated in a long time. Um,
00:29:01 ◼ ► I've been writing in for 20 years. It seems unlikely. I think that's what I said to the
00:29:05 ◼ ► person who told me about drafts. I said, I'm not saying never say never, right. I'm not saying that
00:29:09 ◼ ► I'll never use anything but BB edit, but it would take a lot for me to not be using BB edit on my
00:29:16 ◼ ► Mac, but on iOS, I'm much more open. Yeah. It is a bonus if there's a Mac version. So you could,
00:29:22 ◼ ► if something was weird, you could just open the Mac version of the iOS app and fix it. Right.
00:29:28 ◼ ► But certainly, certainly. And I am writing in markdown, I'm writing in plain text. I'm not
00:29:34 ◼ ► interested in styles. This is one of the reasons, uh, that I don't use Ulysses is that although
00:29:40 ◼ ► Ulysses supports markdown, it really wants you to treat it like a styled text editor, like word kind
00:29:46 ◼ ► of thing. So like the hyperlinks get all, you know, turned into buttons and they hide the links
00:29:52 ◼ ► and only show that it's text with an underlying link. And I don't want that. Like, I understand
00:29:57 ◼ ► why other people might want that. And I talked to the people from Ulysses about it and they,
00:30:03 ◼ ► they totally have a philosophy of what they want to do with that app. And it just doesn't
00:30:08 ◼ ► fit with how I write and that's fine, but that means that it's not going to be an app that I use
00:30:13 ◼ ► because it doesn't fit with trying to keep it simple and keep it plain text and, uh, you know,
00:30:33 ◼ ► Yeah. So, so on, so I have, um, normally I'm writing, uh, like I'm, I'm writing more in my,
00:30:41 ◼ ► in my lap. That's a great configuration to write sitting on the couch. Uh, very nice. Uh, when,
00:30:47 ◼ ► as it gets cooler into fall and winter, um, it's nice as a change of pace to leave my desk. And
00:30:53 ◼ ► also I don't have a strong heating out here in the office to go into the other room and I can
00:30:58 ◼ ► sit under a blanket and sit on the couch and middle of the day, if the kids are at school
00:31:01 ◼ ► or whatever, and I'm the cat next to me and I'm writing on there. And that was generally where I
00:31:07 ◼ ► used, uh, the bridge keyboard, but right now I'm using the smart keyboard folio and that works,
00:31:12 ◼ ► that works great. But another change of pace that I like to do is to go work at standing up at the,
00:31:18 ◼ ► um, at the bar in my kitchen. And, you know, it's all to play for because again, I'm open to other
00:31:24 ◼ ► things. The nice thing about the Mattias, uh, what is a quiet laptop keyboard, which is the silver
00:31:29 ◼ ► monstrosity, right? As you pointed out, it's thick, it's, you know, big kind of curved plastic
00:31:47 ◼ ► Yeah. Well, the thing is their, their new stuff all looks like Apple's modern stuff where it's
00:31:52 ◼ ► thin with aluminum, but those are also not the mechanical, the fancy mechanical keys. I agree.
00:31:58 ◼ ► I think they need a, uh, an industrial redesign for their mechanical stuff, but they, they don't
00:32:04 ◼ ► have it. So that's it. They could do something that doesn't look like this, but still has all
00:32:09 ◼ ► the features, you know? Well, there, there, there are lots of other mechanical keyboards. Like the
00:32:13 ◼ ► one I'm using now at my Mac, it, it, it has no bezels at all. It has an aluminum frame around
00:32:17 ◼ ► the bottom and that's it. Which is that one. It's a, what is this one? So many keyboards.
00:32:24 ◼ ► Yeah. I have so many, this is the vortex. Uh, I forget which, which model it is, but it's a,
00:32:29 ◼ ► it's a little mini cause remember I have the little tiny keyboards. Yeah, you do. Um, but so
00:32:34 ◼ ► I I'm using on the iPad out there right now. I'm mostly using that keyboard, that, that Bluetooth
00:32:40 ◼ ► Matthias keyboard, because it's got really nice mechanical keys and it's Bluetooth, which really
00:32:45 ◼ ► just means I don't have to, if I'm carrying my iPad and that keyboard out there, cause I don't
00:32:49 ◼ ► leave them set up out there, it's my kitchen. I, uh, it's nice not to have to plug anything in,
00:32:54 ◼ ► right? I have, um, mechanical, like a USB Matthias keyboard that is white that I can plug in and use.
00:33:03 ◼ ► And I've got a whole bunch of other keyboards too, but again, there are lots of issues here because,
00:33:13 ◼ ► you can flip command and control and so that they're in the right place. If it's a PC keyboard
00:33:19 ◼ ► and then, and then go about your business iOS, you can't do that. So if the PC keyboard, suddenly
00:33:24 ◼ ► the keys in the wrong place and for keyboard shortcuts, cuts and stuff. And I don't like that.
00:33:28 ◼ ► So it's gotta be a Mac keyboard or have a switch that lets it go into Mac mode. And then the other
00:33:33 ◼ ► thing is just, uh, the, the size of it. If it's a, if it's a big keyboard with a number pad or
00:33:37 ◼ ► something, I'm not really that interested in it because it's, uh, I don't, I don't want that. I
00:33:41 ◼ ► want a smaller keyboard. So I continue, but in the end, I think my number one thing is just,
00:33:46 ◼ ► Bluetooth keyboards are better for this because I don't have to plug anything in. All I have to do
00:33:51 ◼ ► is carry my stand and my keyboard out there and snap the iPad into it. And then I've got my,
00:33:56 ◼ ► um, you know, landscape orientation writing machine that lets me focus and then I can turn
00:34:02 ◼ ► it sideways and, and in horizontal mode, I can, I can do multitasking and stuff like that.
00:34:14 ◼ ► you feel is missing? Like, is there something that you wish was better, but just doesn't exist?
00:34:24 ◼ ► the, the stands are still an open question. I think the Vias on stand is still my favorite.
00:34:31 ◼ ► The Tabitha is fine. Um, if one thing that I haven't found yet, although I'm not sure I want
00:34:38 ◼ ► to commit to this anyway, some people have sent in a sort of Mount arm stands where you can clamp it
00:34:44 ◼ ► to something like I have my iMac clamped to my desk. Um, and I've thought about that of like,
00:34:50 ◼ ► well, what if I had that for, uh, for my iPad and I would super investigate that if I had a place to
00:34:56 ◼ ► put that, but I don't really, my, I don't want to put it on my desk where my iMac is. And, um,
00:35:02 ◼ ► and I can't have a permanent permanently stationed iMac or iPad in my kitchen. So it's going to be,
00:35:14 ◼ ► they can't get much taller without toppling over or becoming, having a huge base and the Tabitha,
00:35:24 ◼ ► you need it to not fall over. Um, I don't feel like I found the perfect keyboard that is,
00:35:29 ◼ ► that feels good to type on and that is easy to set up. Um, but I've got, you know, who are we
00:35:35 ◼ ► kidding? I'm going to try more keyboards. So maybe I'll get there in the end. No, there's never going
00:35:41 ◼ ► to be the perfect keyboard for you, Jason. It's one of those things. It's like it's the endless
00:35:44 ◼ ► quest, but it'll never, it'll never actually come to pass. It's possible. It's possible. But, um,
00:35:49 ◼ ► I do think, um, one of the nice things about the new iPad Pro is that it powers all of these
00:35:55 ◼ ► things. Some of the Matthias keyboards, especially, but any keyboard that really had, uh, USB ports on
00:36:00 ◼ ► it require those require more power because you've got to power the other ports. And, um, some of
00:36:04 ◼ ► them would just not work on the old iPads without plugging in that adapter and external power. And
00:36:10 ◼ ► that's not the case with the new iPad Pros. So that, that makes it a little bit easier because
00:36:15 ◼ ► then you can just sort of plug in anything with that simple USB-C to USB-A dongle and then plug
00:36:21 ◼ ► in the keyboard and it'll work. So I'll continue my quest there. But, um, but right now it's great.
00:36:27 ◼ ► I mean, I honestly, I think having that dedicated thing, dedicated writing machine, uh, it's much
00:36:33 ◼ ► less distracting. It's a good mode switch for me. I would say, I think I, I think at this point,
00:36:37 ◼ ► I prefer writing on the iPad to writing on the Mac. I think I, in the last year that has come
00:36:43 ◼ ► around where there are a lot of times when, um, and some of this is about my job, like when I'm
00:36:48 ◼ ► doing podcasts and email and Slack and stuff in the morning, and then I'm like, I need to switch
00:36:54 ◼ ► modes and write a column. That's a good time to leave my chair and go somewhere else and write
00:37:02 ◼ ► that column in a different context. But I do think also some of it is just that I have to be much more
00:37:07 ◼ ► active about switching away from my writing to look at Twitter or look at Slack. And it makes
00:37:11 ◼ ► me focus a little bit better. Um, so, uh, and in the stands, I can do the big, I can type with the
00:37:17 ◼ ► big, uh, vertical orientation, which is great because I can see more of my story. And I actually
00:37:22 ◼ ► really like writing in, uh, in portrait mode. Oh yeah, that's interesting. I see quite a few
00:37:29 ◼ ► people do that and I get it right because you see more of the words at one time. Yeah. Well,
00:37:35 ◼ ► if you're in landscape mode and you're writing because, because long lines are no good, long
00:37:38 ◼ ► lines are bad for, for legibility. Uh, what you end up with is just enormous margins and the text
00:37:44 ◼ ► is running down the center and you turn the iPad. If it's in a stand, you just turn the iPad and now
00:37:49 ◼ ► the margins are not ridiculous and you can see more context of what you're writing, which in
00:37:54 ◼ ► some cases people don't want it, but I find it useful to do it that way. And then, like I said,
00:37:58 ◼ ► I turn it into horizontal orientation. If I want to bring up, like sometimes when I'm writing my
00:38:05 ◼ ► columns, I will be referring to things on like Apple's website and specs and prices and things
00:38:10 ◼ ► like that. And then I'll work where instead of having a big wide margin, I've got one writer on
00:38:15 ◼ ► one side and Apple's website on the other, and I'm dragging in links and stuff like that.
00:38:19 ◼ ► All right. Should we take a break? Yeah. Today's episode is also brought to you by our friends over
00:38:28 ◼ ► at Luna display. Luna display is the hardware solution that turns your iPad into a wireless
00:38:35 ◼ ► display for your Mac. You'll have a super portable second display with stunning image quality
00:38:41 ◼ ► and basically zero lag. You can set up your Luna display super easily. You just plug in this little
00:38:46 ◼ ► dongle into your Mac and then you'll be up and running. You just download the Luna display app
00:38:51 ◼ ► on the Mac and on the iPhone. They see each other. Perfect. It's done. It's so simple. Even if you
00:38:56 ◼ ► don't have an access to a wifi connection, you can connect them together via USB. Luna display is a
00:39:01 ◼ ► complete extension for your Mac. You can use it as a second display, right? So you can put anything
00:39:06 ◼ ► you want on there. You can have maybe, maybe you're like working on something, maybe you're
00:39:10 ◼ ► working on a design project and you have to use your entire Mac screen, but you want some reference
00:39:14 ◼ ► material on the side. Well, now you have your iPad to do that. Um, I've spoken before about like my
00:39:19 ◼ ► plan to get a Mac mini and plug in the Luna display and then access the Mac mini via my iPad. Luna
00:39:26 ◼ ► display did this. They made a whole video about it too, which I'll put in the show notes, like to
00:39:30 ◼ ► show how it's possible to do it. And it looks so cool. Like they set up this little stand, then
00:39:36 ◼ ► like the Mac mini on top of it. And they're just using the iPad pro as a screen for a Mac mini.
00:39:41 ◼ ► It's really, really super cool. And you have this amazing flexibility for you. You have a
00:39:46 ◼ ► touchscreen device to use with your Mac. You can use your keyboards, Apple pencil, and so much more.
00:39:50 ◼ ► This is a super awesome piece of hardware to have if you have both of these devices. And if you
00:39:56 ◼ ► listen to the show, you probably do have an iPad and a Mac. Well now you can connect them together
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00:40:08 ◼ ► display. Just go to lunadisplay.com and enter the promo code upgrade at checkout to get a 10%
00:40:14 ◼ ► discount. That is L U N A D I S P L A Y lunadisplay.com promo code upgrade at checkout to get 10%
00:40:24 ◼ ► off our thanks to Luna display for their continued support of this show and relay FM. So you
00:40:30 ◼ ► mentioned that you published your iPad pro review, um, and we've both had some more time to spend with
00:40:37 ◼ ► the devices, right. Then we've had another week, right? So like we're living with them, working
00:40:41 ◼ ► with them every day. Um, and I just wondered if like you'd had any additional thoughts or
00:40:47 ◼ ► experiences that you wanted to talk about. Well, the biggest one for me was this weekend. So this
00:40:54 ◼ ► weekend we fled the bad air quality here and went and visited family up in the foothills where the
00:41:01 ◼ ► air quality was a little bit better. And that meant I added the incomparable on the weekend,
00:41:06 ◼ ► and that meant that I was, um, doing the editing on fair right on the on the new iPad pro,
00:41:13 ◼ ► which I had not done before. Uh, I mean, obviously I'd done on the old iPad pro a lot, but this I was
00:41:19 ◼ ► using the new model and I and I brought the Apple pencil with me because I thought maybe I will try
00:41:28 ◼ ► And, you know, part of that was just being resistant. Part of it was, was thinking that
00:41:32 ◼ ► where is the Apple pencil? Is it charged all of those things? Whereas this one has been hanging
00:41:37 ◼ ► around with the device pretty much since the start of it. And that's been, uh, so I know it's
00:41:43 ◼ ► charged and I know it's paired and I know where it is. So I brought it with me and I decided, you
00:41:48 ◼ ► know, it's new iPad. I'm going to give this a try. And it took, it took a while for me to get it,
00:41:53 ◼ ► but I did kind of embrace the idea of we're going to try to edit this episode with the pencil.
00:41:59 ◼ ► And so I sat at a table for a little while and on a couch for a little while, and I edited that
00:42:04 ◼ ► episode of the incomparable using the pencil as well as my fingers to do it. But my usual workflow
00:42:12 ◼ ► is entirely just, uh, my fingers for doing it. So I, uh, integrating the pencil was different.
00:42:18 ◼ ► Um, I set up double tap on the pencil to be play pause so that I could do that without having to
00:42:23 ◼ ► reach out every time and touch the screen with two fingers to tap it, to do play pause. I'm not sure
00:42:29 ◼ ► that was the right choice. I'm not sure how the way I hold the pencil, because I'm really bad at
00:42:39 ◼ ► I'm in an awkward position here. Uh, if I try to double tap, I'm going to drop the pencil.
00:42:44 ◼ ► I did that a lot, but in the end, it is the most time I have ever spent using the Apple pencil
00:42:50 ◼ ► because I don't draw or write in longhand. And so I can try out the Apple pencil and doodle a stupid
00:42:57 ◼ ► thing and say, yup, that's a great. Okay. But I can't, I can't do what people like you can do,
00:43:04 ◼ ► who are more committed to using it. It's just, it's not my thing. Um, but with ferrite, I really
00:43:09 ◼ ► got into it and I had the, I, the pencil sent as a deletion tool. Plus you could also move things
00:43:14 ◼ ► around and, uh, and, you know, tap to change the timeline and double tap on the pencil itself to do
00:43:21 ◼ ► play and pause. And, uh, by the time I got to the end of the project, I was actually working
00:43:27 ◼ ► very quickly. So much of what I do in editing podcasts is delete. Noises I do strip silence.
00:43:34 ◼ ► And then I, you can see where there's sort of stray noises where there's echo coming from
00:43:39 ◼ ► somebody's headphones or they bumped the microphone or there's something going on in the background,
00:43:43 ◼ ► their dogs barking, whatever. And I do a lot of deletion and on ferrite, uh, that's a gesture,
00:43:48 ◼ ► but it's like, you have to put two fingers down in the right place and then swipe from right to left
00:43:53 ◼ ► in order to delete something. And instead with a pencil, you just, just move it over that stuff
00:43:58 ◼ ► and it, and it disappears. And even if I'm editing somebody speaking and they've got a kind of a
00:44:02 ◼ ► pause or they, um, they say there's long, like, um, uh, kind of thing with a pencil, I was able to
00:44:10 ◼ ► see it in the wave form and drag over it to delete it and then triple tap on the remaining, you know,
00:44:17 ◼ ► tracks and, and pick them up with all with the pencil and slide it together and solve that
00:44:22 ◼ ► problem, which is, um, again, it's a little more precise than my finger. It's a little harder to
00:44:29 ◼ ► hit the right spot with my finger using ferrite than with a pencil. Um, and so it, it took time.
00:44:34 ◼ ► I think I could get really good using it. I'm not entirely convinced that the double tap gesture is
00:44:38 ◼ ► the right one for play/pause. Maybe there's a better gesture there. Um, and I, I've got to,
00:44:44 ◼ ► I've got to think about like all of the ramifications of this, but it just makes me say
00:44:49 ◼ ► what I have said all along about editing podcasts on an iPad, which is it feels, and I'm sure other
00:44:54 ◼ ► people feel this way about drawing and things like that. It feels different, substantively different
00:45:00 ◼ ► to edit something with your hands than with a keyboard and mouse and a little bit more like
00:45:06 ◼ ► your, you know, you're making it, your hand crafting it in a way, and it isn't always the
00:45:10 ◼ ► most efficient way to do it, although it's extremely satisfying to do it that way. And I
00:45:15 ◼ ► think it might be more efficient in some ways. And I think in some ways it might lead to a better
00:45:19 ◼ ► product because I noticed that I was thinking, oh, I could take that out. And normally I might
00:45:25 ◼ ► leave something in, but I was like, no, but I can just take that out with a pencil and I can,
00:45:28 ◼ ► I can do it really quick. And on my Mac using logic, I might've said, I'll just leave it in.
00:45:32 ◼ ► I'm going to move on to the next thing. So there's some, something like that too. And, uh, yeah,
00:45:41 ◼ ► Fair. I can do everything else in terms of, I, I, that episode that posted this weekend of the
00:45:45 ◼ ► incomparable it's got like, like, uh, what, 15 chapters in it or 18 chapter markers in it. Um,
00:45:53 ◼ ► you know, it's got art and all the MP3 tags, uh, exported and encoded as MP3 on my, uh, on my iPad
00:46:00 ◼ ► and then FTP up to the CDN using, uh, I think I use transmit to do it. And I did the whole thing
00:46:09 ◼ ► on the iPad other than the initial, um, processing of the audio files, which I did do on my Mac.
00:46:14 ◼ ► Cause I was originally planning on editing it. I had it all ready to go on my Mac to edit it. And
00:46:18 ◼ ► then I, we, we decided in a very short amount of time, we were just going to leave for the weekend
00:46:28 ◼ ► Yeah. Oh yeah, you can. So, and you can even, you can either have them tied to the time code
00:46:36 ◼ ► of the file or tied to the audio that's underneath the play head. And if it's tied to the,
00:46:42 ◼ ► underneath the play head, then as you move the, the, the project around the chapter marker will
00:46:48 ◼ ► slide around too. So it's actually a little better than logic. So you were telling me about this over
00:46:53 ◼ ► the weekend, cause I think you were proud of yourself for using the pencil. Right. And for
00:46:58 ◼ ► you to tell me, yeah, you're Mr. Apple pencil. And I kept telling you how jealous I was of you,
00:47:09 ◼ ► This sounds awesome. This, this way of editing, like, and I don't think that I would necessarily
00:47:14 ◼ ► want to edit like this every week, but I would love to have the skill that you do with ferrite
00:47:20 ◼ ► that if I'm in a situation like you were in, which does happen where I'm not at my desk,
00:47:25 ◼ ► or if I'm editing something long and don't want to be sitting on my desk for that amount of time,
00:47:34 ◼ ► to get to that point, it takes the time required to get to grips and learn. Like I would have to
00:47:41 ◼ ► be learning ferrite from the beginning, right. And then getting all the way to where you are.
00:47:45 ◼ ► And when you're learning a new piece of software, you're slower, right? Like you were just slower
00:47:51 ◼ ► than if you're doing it under your usual workflow. And I was, I was thinking about this. Like,
00:47:55 ◼ ► I think this is why this is where a lot of the iPad criticism comes from because pretty much
00:48:00 ◼ ► everything that you're doing, you have to learn again, right? Like there's things you already know,
00:48:04 ◼ ► you have your workflow, it's your established flow of doing things and the iPad can do most of them,
00:48:10 ◼ ► but it does them in a different way. And it requires you to learn. Like it's not that the
00:48:14 ◼ ► device can't do it, it's that you need to learn a new way of doing it. And that's going to slow you
00:48:19 ◼ ► down for a while and maybe frustrate you. So irrespective of how it will feel on the other end,
00:48:23 ◼ ► which I know would be great, I'm hesitant to do it because I'm going to have to sit down
00:48:28 ◼ ► and learn it. Yeah, this is a big part of a lot of the criticism we notice about the iPad Pro,
00:48:33 ◼ ► right? And this is the thing that actually makes me the most frustrated is when somebody says,
00:48:44 ◼ ► sometimes they can't do it. Like we all, nobody knows better than an iPad Pro user that there
00:48:51 ◼ ► "Well, that's that." But a lot of these that I see, especially in reviews, like mainstream reviews,
00:48:57 ◼ ► where some random person at a TV network or website gets the job of writing the iPad Pro review,
00:49:03 ◼ ► and they say, "Oh, you can't do this." And the answer is, "Well, you can do that. It's just not
00:49:07 ◼ ► the way you're used to." And it might be more efficient, it might be less efficient, but it's
00:49:12 ◼ ► going to be different and there's going to be a learning curve and that's going to frustrate you,
00:49:14 ◼ ► and then you're going to write your review and say you were frustrated. And that is not the same
00:49:21 ◼ ► as, "He can't do it." Because the point and the underlying impression I get from these articles
00:49:27 ◼ ► is what they're really saying is, "It's not a laptop, which is what I'm used to, and I wish it
00:49:33 ◼ ► were like a laptop." And that completely misses the point of the iPad, which is that it is not
00:49:38 ◼ ► a laptop. It is not trying to be a laptop. It doesn't mean it couldn't be better. We said this
00:49:42 ◼ ► last week, could, you know, the software side really needs a lot of help. But this is a great
00:49:48 ◼ ► example where the way I edit on a podcast on an iPad is totally different and there's a lot of
00:49:55 ◼ ► adaptation and there's a learning curve and it's going to take time. And the first time you do it,
00:49:59 ◼ ► it is going to slow you down. Absolutely the first time I tried to edit something in Fairite on my
00:50:04 ◼ ► iPad, I was like, "Oh my God, this is so painful." And I actually wrote to the developer and I said,
00:50:13 ◼ ► that's good feedback." And there was an update that fixed a lot of those problems. Like,
00:50:17 ◼ ► that was also amazing. So full credit to Wooji Juice, the makers of Fairite, for being super
00:50:23 ◼ ► responsive to users about this stuff too. It's got keyboard shortcuts in there that it didn't
00:50:30 ◼ ► use to have. It's got this great pencil support. But the big point is like, you have to jump in.
00:50:34 ◼ ► So for you, Myke, if you wanted to edit a podcast using this, it would be super scary and it would
00:50:38 ◼ ► be a big time commitment to do it. But I do think that in the end, you would have a different kind
00:50:44 ◼ ► of podcast editing experience out of it. But a more flexible one, which is what I would love
00:50:50 ◼ ► to have. What this feels like to me is like a holidays project. Right? You know what I mean?
00:50:55 ◼ ► Like, you've got some time, usual things aren't happening, maybe now I'll give it a go. Because
00:51:09 ◼ ► Marzipan exists, that I could learn these apps, right? Like I can, these apps, something like,
00:51:17 ◼ ► I could move to stuff like Fairite and LumaFusion and use them on my Mac and on my iPad. And then
00:51:24 ◼ ► it's one experience. That's what I really want, you know? Because that's actually the hardest
00:51:29 ◼ ► thing right now is not that I can edit in Fairite or I can edit on Logic. It's that I can't move
00:51:36 ◼ ► between them. Like I can't do the BB Edit, Dropbox, text file, one writer thing. I can't do that with
00:51:42 ◼ ► video project or an audio project. So I have to be all in on Fairite or all in on Logic for a
00:51:49 ◼ ► particular project. You have to make the decision before you begin, where is this project going to
00:51:53 ◼ ► start and end? And I would really love more fluidity because that's all of the other software
00:52:00 ◼ ► that I use is like that, right? Like as you're saying, my text editor, my Twitter apps, like Slack
00:52:06 ◼ ► and my email, like they're all the same apps, right? Like all of, I like to buy into software
00:52:12 ◼ ► that's everywhere I'm going to be. And these professional creation tools, a lot of them aren't
00:52:18 ◼ ► right now. You know, it's like I use Pixelmator on my Mac and Pixelmator on my iPad. And I don't
00:52:23 ◼ ► really like Pixelmator on my iPad. Like it's too slow. You have, there's too many taps to get to
00:52:29 ◼ ► buttons. Like they should have palettes and I don't understand why they don't. Like it's like,
00:52:33 ◼ ► it's slow, but I understand how you use it. So I use it. So like I'm looking forward to Photoshop
00:52:37 ◼ ► because it looks like it's going to be more of a consistent user experience. And I'm hopeful for
00:52:44 ◼ ► UIKit on the Mac that we're going to start to see a lot of these like professional iOS apps that do
00:52:51 ◼ ► exist, have a second life on the Mac, which will bring people like me and you to a consistent user
00:52:58 ◼ ► experience. Like I use a heavy music tool to make podcasts. That's what I do. It is not sustainable
00:53:07 ◼ ► in the long term, right? Logic as the podcast editor. Like I would love a podcast editing tool
00:53:13 ◼ ► as my only tool because Logic Pro is like, this is a music app that I'm forcing to do the thing that
00:53:20 ◼ ► I want it to do, right? Like I feel like I'm constantly fighting against Logic and like it
00:53:24 ◼ ► has all of these features in it, which it's trying to get me to use, but I have no use for them,
00:53:34 ◼ ► Well, sure. Logic is a... That's the thing. And I was talking to somebody about Logic for iPad and
00:53:39 ◼ ► they said, "Well, I can't do it for my giant music project that I've got because of this and this
00:53:44 ◼ ► thing and this thing." It's like, well, yeah, first off, they should fix that too, right? But secondly,
00:53:50 ◼ ► the truth is that a lot of us are using a product that is designed for music professionals to do
00:53:55 ◼ ► podcasts because we need it and it's the best we can get. We're a subset of the audience. It's
00:54:02 ◼ ► not built for us, but we can adapt it and use it. We use Logic over anything else because if it's
00:54:07 ◼ ► power and it's capability and handling large files, that's why we use it ultimately, right?
00:54:12 ◼ ► Like it has tools that we need, but other things like, you know, with some of the amount of tracks
00:54:17 ◼ ► that we use and the file sizes, GarageBand was really getting upset with me, which was why I
00:54:22 ◼ ► moved to Logic. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. But we're still using 10% of the features, if that,
00:54:27 ◼ ► of Logic. And that's something like Fairite was built for podcast editing basically and other
00:54:32 ◼ ► audio editing of spoken word. And it is... Right, so it's a lighter weight and all that. I hear you.
00:54:39 ◼ ► If Logic went on iPad and Fairite went on Mac, it would be an interesting question of what I
00:54:46 ◼ ► would end up standardizing on. I suspect it would be Fairite just because it is more directly
00:54:51 ◼ ► addressed at what I do. But either one, I would get very excited just because of portability of
00:55:10 ◼ ► Because I use iCloud in this way, right? Like I have a numbers spreadsheet that I make on my iPad
00:55:16 ◼ ► and then it's on my iPhone and it's on my Mac and I can just access it whenever I want, right? And
00:55:21 ◼ ► it's the same with Pixelmator. Like it's why I use, even though Pixelmator for iOS is not
00:55:26 ◼ ► necessarily what I want it to be, I use it because then I can go between my Mac and my iPad,
00:55:32 ◼ ► both of my iPads, and the documents are all there. Like the chapter art that I made for our
00:55:39 ◼ ► merch chapter, I made it on my iPad and then I went to my Mac today and just exported it so I
00:55:44 ◼ ► could have it ready, right? Because one reason, like the Mac version gives me quality sliders for
00:55:51 ◼ ► exporting images, but the iPad version doesn't. Really, it feels like they made that app and then
00:55:57 ◼ ► didn't really do a ton to it. Like they haven't really pushed it where it should go. And there are,
00:56:03 ◼ ► I don't know, it feels like there are companies, what is it, Affinity, that are like kind of coming
00:56:08 ◼ ► in and really owning this space. And I've thought about, well, maybe I should check out Affinity,
00:56:12 ◼ ► but I'm like, no, no. In a couple of months time, I'm just going to get Photoshop and then
00:56:17 ◼ ► I'm just going to, you know, that's just what I'm going to be on because it's Photoshop, right? And
00:56:22 ◼ ► I'll have it on my iPad. Like, of course, that's what I'm going to do. But like, I do like that
00:56:26 ◼ ► idea, right? So the idea of having a podcast project in a way live in the cloud, however,
00:56:34 ◼ ► that might end up being, you know, like what ideally what I would like is I have my files
00:56:39 ◼ ► in Dropbox and then these apps just like pull it from Dropbox and there's a way that that all
00:56:43 ◼ ► works. I don't know. But like just the idea of this portability is very exciting to me.
00:56:48 ◼ ► In a world where I can't necessarily plug my iPad in just to a screen. Although that possibility
00:56:57 ◼ ► still seems like it's getting closer and closer all the time to me. You know, the idea of just
00:57:01 ◼ ► having my iPad and plugging it in and then I can use a mouse and a keyboard and then I'm just
00:57:05 ◼ ► editing there. That's my iOS 13 dream, by the way, of just like you plug one cable in and now you
00:57:14 ◼ ► have a mouse pointer and you have a keyboard and you can just do all the stuff there. And
00:57:18 ◼ ► that would be like the slow march to me of like reducing the amount of Mac that I need, you know?
00:57:25 ◼ ► But that's all like a dream for the future. We'll see. But I will concur with you that the Apple
00:57:31 ◼ ► Pencil is getting even more use out of me than ever before. And it really is just this almost
00:57:38 ◼ ► muscle memory now of just reaching out and grabbing it. Like I just pick it up and it's always ready
00:57:45 ◼ ► to go. I just pick it up and I love it because I can just grab it whenever I need it. And I think
00:57:50 ◼ ► it's wonderful. I've been thinking about this more and more and just this is one of my favorite like
00:57:57 ◼ ► second generation products that Apple has ever made, right? Like where they've taken a product
00:58:02 ◼ ► and then they brought out a new one. It's like this almost reminds me of like the iPod Nano from
00:58:09 ◼ ► the Mini or something. It's like you took everything that everyone loved and then you went and made a
00:58:13 ◼ ► one that is so much better for basically everyone that uses it. Like I feel like that's what they
00:58:18 ◼ ► did for the Apple Pencil. They made this thing and it did what it was supposed to do, but it had some
00:58:22 ◼ ► flaws and it had some weak points. So then they brought out a new one and it was like, "Oh, this
00:58:27 ◼ ► is a better Apple Pencil in literally every single way. Everything is better about it. Like every
00:58:33 ◼ ► part of it is better." And so I'm in love with it. I think it's changing the way that I use my iPad
00:58:39 ◼ ► again, all over again, right? And so it's making me be super aware of applications that are
00:58:45 ◼ ► implementing new features for the Pencil in some way because it's like, "Oh, well, I might be more
00:58:49 ◼ ► inclined to look at that one because it's enabling me to use this tool in new ways." So I'm really
00:58:55 ◼ ► excited about it. I should say the one thing that I couldn't do on my iPad that I needed a Mac for
00:59:03 ◼ ► in editing my podcast over the weekend was the opening of the incomparable is spoken by
00:59:08 ◼ ► a text-to-speech voice. It's Fred. It's the same voice that's used in like original Mac stuff and
00:59:18 ◼ ► in the "Fitter Happier" on OK Computer by Radiohead. It's that voice. It's a not very good
00:59:25 ◼ ► old computer voice. And I have an automator action that basically generates that for me on my Mac.
00:59:32 ◼ ► And the last time I checked, shortcuts won't do it. You can generate text-to-speech and you can,
00:59:38 ◼ ► I think, pick a voice now, but you can't output that to a file. I think it'll just speak it out
00:59:44 ◼ ► loud. And so for that, I actually used screens to connect back to my server at home and ran that
00:59:54 ◼ ► script and got the file and put it in iCloud drive or on Dropbox or whatever and I copied it from
00:59:59 ◼ ► there. So that was one place where I cheated. Yeah, but you still use an iPad app to do it.
01:00:04 ◼ ► That's true. All right, Jason, we should probably do some #askupgrade questions. I want to give some
01:00:10 ◼ ► love to #askupgrade because we've been so full these past few weeks. We've not been giving it
01:00:16 ◼ ► the time that it deserves. But before we do, let me thank Pingdom for their support of this episode.
01:00:21 ◼ ► Pingdom are brilliant because they help keep your websites that you love and the sites that you own
01:00:26 ◼ ► online because Pingdom will monitor your site so you don't have to, so nobody else has to.
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01:00:42 ◼ ► day just of the websites they are monitoring. Can you imagine the sheer scale of problems that
01:00:48 ◼ ► occur on the internet every day because the internet is a system of tubes. Sometimes those
01:00:52 ◼ ► tubes get blocked or they get holes in them or whatever and when that happens Pingdom will alert
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01:01:15 ◼ ► 500 company, you need alerts about critical website issues and Pingdom can help you. No
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01:01:50 ◼ ► and the code upgraded checkout to get 30% off your first invoice. Our thanks to Pingdom for
01:01:56 ◼ ► their support of this show and Relay FM. #AskUpgradeTime and our first question comes from
01:02:05 ◼ ► Nicholas. Nicholas wants to know, Jason, which processor would you recommend picking up for a
01:02:10 ◼ ► Mac Mini that is intended to be used as a home server? Is the i5 sufficient or should I go for
01:02:16 ◼ ► the i7? Myke Hurley would also like to know the answer to this question. Well, so home server is
01:02:22 ◼ ► not enough detail. We need to know more but I'm gonna say something that I know Stephen Hackett
01:02:27 ◼ ► will strongly disagree with which is I have a home server. I bought the base model. It's not entirely
01:02:37 ◼ ► true. I upgraded the Ethernet to the 10 gig Ethernet because my iMac also does 10 gig Ethernet
01:02:42 ◼ ► and I bought a 10 gig Ethernet switch with the hope that it would speed up my file transfers
01:02:47 ◼ ► locally and maybe it hasn't, maybe it hasn't. We'll see. But I use the i3, the base model,
01:02:54 ◼ ► and it's so much faster than my old Mac Mini. Not surprising because my old Mac Mini was very old.
01:03:13 ◼ ► I only have had the i3, not the i5 or the i7, but I think it's sufficient. I think what I would say
01:03:22 ◼ ► is, I mean, if you've got the money to spend, go ahead and spend it. But I feel like you could get,
01:03:27 ◼ ► if you're not using this thing to like actively to do heavy workload stuff, you're probably not
01:03:35 ◼ ► spending your money wisely in upgrading the processor. That's my feeling about it. I think
01:03:42 ◼ ► people undersell the lower configs. This is a pretty fast system. If all you're using it for
01:03:46 ◼ ► is a home server, I don't think you need to spend a lot of money on a processor upgrade because that
01:03:51 ◼ ► processor is going to sit idle all the time. Aside from the ethernet though, did you upgrade
01:03:55 ◼ ► anything else like the RAM or the storage from the base model? Nope. You just got straight up
01:04:00 ◼ ► base model. I mean, but it makes sense though, right? Because your Mac Mini was probably worse
01:04:04 ◼ ► in every configuration option than the base model and that was doing the job. Believe it or not,
01:04:10 ◼ ► the SSD in my Mac Mini was larger, was a 256 because I installed that myself. But I don't use
01:04:18 ◼ ► it because all my storage is on a big external storage device. I have a Drobo 5D. And so it's
01:04:28 ◼ ► just a boot drive and there's nothing on it other than the system. So it didn't need to be upgraded.
01:04:39 ◼ ► piece of storage off of it, if you'd rather just upgrade it to two terabytes SSD and have it sit
01:04:43 ◼ ► there and do that, I would argue again, that may be the most efficient way, effective way for you
01:04:48 ◼ ► to spend your money would be on external storage even then, because the cost of it from Apple is
01:04:53 ◼ ► quite a lot. But for my use anyway, I was like, I don't need more here. I just don't need more. And
01:04:59 ◼ ► I'm not going to spend $1,500 on a Mac Mini when I can spend, you know, 800 or 900. And so, yeah,
01:05:11 ◼ ► So this is a question from David. This is one that I can answer. "I'm thinking of getting a
01:05:17 ◼ ► Nintendo Switch for our family for Christmas," says David. "The only console we have is the
01:05:21 ◼ ► original Wii. What do we need to get beyond the Switch itself? Extra controllers? What games?
01:05:26 ◼ ► We have three kids." So get an extra pair of Joy-Con because then you'll have either two to
01:05:32 ◼ ► four players that can play at a time because it comes with two, but you want another two.
01:05:36 ◼ ► I would suggest for adult hands to get a pro controller. It's much, much more comfortable
01:05:46 ◼ ► And some game recommendations for fun multiplayer between a family. I would recommend a game called
01:05:53 ◼ ► Overcooked, which is action packed and fast and fun. I would say, you know, for some single player
01:06:00 ◼ ► experiences, Legend of Zelda and Mario Odyssey, two of my favorite games of all time. So
01:06:06 ◼ ► definitely worth checking out. Mario Kart. Can't go wrong with Mario Kart. So always get Mario Kart.
01:06:12 ◼ ► It's great for everybody. And I'm currently playing an adoring Pokemon Let's Go. It is a
01:06:17 ◼ ► wonderful entry to the Pokemon series. It is especially good if you've never played a Pokemon
01:06:22 ◼ ► game before or like me, you've played every Pokemon game because you get the nostalgia.
01:06:26 ◼ ► But it also has really wonderful drop in drop out co-op. So can be really good for families to play
01:06:33 ◼ ► together. Like if you're playing with a kid and they need specific help in a battle, you could
01:06:36 ◼ ► jump in and help them out or whatever it is. So that's really great. But the main thing I'll say
01:06:42 ◼ ► about the Nintendo Switch is there are new games being added to the system, like tons of them every
01:06:47 ◼ ► single week. It is a wonderful gaming system. It continues to be my favorite console ever made.
01:06:54 ◼ ► I don't think you can, if people in your family enjoy video games, you literally cannot go wrong
01:07:00 ◼ ► with a Nintendo Switch. So that is my recommendation. I agree. I agree completely. And you're right
01:07:06 ◼ ► about the controllers too. Joy-Cons are fun and you end up with four if you get the second set.
01:07:11 ◼ ► Pro Controller is much more comfortable, much more comfortable. And there's a lot of great games out
01:07:17 ◼ ► there for the, I'll say Mario, if you don't have Mario Kart, Mario Kart is fantastic as a
01:07:22 ◼ ► multiplayer game on the Switch. So you should check it out. It's like, it's an always, every Mario
01:07:27 ◼ ► Kart is always great for multiplayer, right? Like that is like the staple of multiplayer.
01:07:35 ◼ ► X.3 editions in the spring with a small handful of minor but welcome feature editions. You remember
01:07:42 ◼ ► there's been some like the education stuff for the iPad. I think the previous one had the battery
01:07:48 ◼ ► screens, you know, like after the battery problem that we had last year. So Brent says USB-C
01:07:56 ◼ ► external drive access seems like a feature that would fit nicely here. What do you guys think?
01:08:02 ◼ ► I think if they were going to add this feature, they should do it then because it's, it's almost
01:08:13 ◼ ► become like a meme of the iPad right now that it can't do USB external storage, even though I don't
01:08:22 ◼ ► think many people would use it that much. Just everyone's super aware of this thing that it can't
01:08:27 ◼ ► do. So adding it would just shut all the people up basically. It feels like a good feature to just
01:08:35 ◼ ► add if it's possible to do. You know, people like Steve Trout and Smith seem to indicate that it,
01:08:41 ◼ ► it wouldn't be a mountain that needs to be climbed to add stuff like this into the system. So it feels
01:08:49 ◼ ► like a good feature for this if that's the route that Apple wants to go down by adding features in
01:08:54 ◼ ► iOS 12.3. Yeah, I think the, I think the real question is what is Apple's goal with the iPad
01:09:08 ◼ ► software releases and how much does it think it's in damage control? Because if you think about it,
01:09:14 ◼ ► we're in November now, they could prioritize a couple of things and roll them out in early next
01:09:21 ◼ ► year and get them out as part of iOS 12 and say, see these issues that people had with the iPad
01:09:30 ◼ ► Pro are gone now, right? They could do that. They could say file access for storage or like an
01:09:38 ◼ ► update to the files app. Especially things that you would expect are not intrinsic to iOS 13.
01:09:44 ◼ ► Which this wouldn't necessarily be, probably. However, if one of the goals, and Mark Germin
01:09:49 ◼ ► says it is, he actually had a tweet over the weekend about this. He says one of the planned
01:09:56 ◼ ► features of iOS 13 is a completely revamped files app that includes a bunch of stuff people are
01:10:00 ◼ ► complaining about. The challenge is if the people who work on iOS have been working on a new files
01:10:05 ◼ ► app with the goal of it being part of iOS 13 for the last who knows how long. It may not be
01:10:11 ◼ ► plausible for it to be pulled out and put in iOS 12. If that's something that they're doing,
01:10:15 ◼ ► it's a bad idea because then it's like, well, we're going to bring this thing that we've worked on
01:10:19 ◼ ► back in time. We assumed that it would be in the new one and we can't pull it back, right?
01:10:25 ◼ ► So I could see it and quite frankly, I don't look at this and say, oh, Apple is in huge damage
01:10:31 ◼ ► control with the iPad Pro. I think it's not too worried about it. So my gut feeling is that Apple
01:10:36 ◼ ► is not going to rush in a couple of iPad features. Maybe they will, that'd be great. But if I
01:10:41 ◼ ► had to guess, I'd say, no, they're going to stand by it because they know that in June,
01:10:46 ◼ ► they're going to announce those features in the iOS 13 beta. And then people will rush to install
01:10:52 ◼ ► the beta and they'll get those features and won't that be great. So that's my guess. I would love it
01:10:59 ◼ ► if they came sooner because I could use them. But that's my feeling is that they pulled them out
01:11:06 ◼ ► of iOS 12, put them in 13 last summer, maybe, according to Germin, and they're on that track now
01:11:13 ◼ ► and unless there's an emergency because Apple has been known to do that, where they prioritize
01:11:18 ◼ ► something heavily because they're getting beat up about it. But I'm not sure that the reviews that
01:11:23 ◼ ► we've seen about the iPad are really enough of that. I think they're going to keep selling iPad
01:11:28 ◼ ► Pros. I think it's going to be fine and they know that next year, the OS is going to make a big leap,
01:11:34 ◼ ► let's hope, in terms of iPad functionality. I would say that if there was a debate inside Apple
01:11:40 ◼ ► about some of this pro-level iPad functionality and how high a priority it was in general,
01:11:47 ◼ ► including in iOS 13, that the reviews of the iPad Pro probably will give a lot of ammunition to the
01:11:54 ◼ ► people who say, "We need to do this," right? Because what if there's some feature that has
01:11:59 ◼ ► been kicked down the road and it might get kicked out of iOS 13? Now somebody is like, "No, we cannot
01:12:06 ◼ ► do that. We're going to spend another year getting beaten up over the iPad not being able to do this.
01:12:11 ◼ ► It needs to stop." But I don't think that's going to happen. Everything that I've heard through
01:12:17 ◼ ► sources like Mark Germin says that this has been the plan for a while now is that iOS 13 is going
01:12:22 ◼ ► to focus on the iPad stuff. And yeah, it's stupid that it's going to happen next year and that
01:12:27 ◼ ► these things are here now and they can't take advantage of that. But I don't think it's a
01:12:32 ◼ ► crisis where Apple needs to push something forward just so it can say, "See? We slapped some server
01:12:38 ◼ ► support or some external storage support into iOS 12." I don't think that would be the reason,
01:12:46 ◼ ► but that would be the reason, by the way, it would be for being beat up in the press about it and
01:12:51 ◼ ► public perception about it more than it would be about serving those users like me who are desperate
01:12:56 ◼ ► for file access. That would not be the reason. So Benjamin asks, "Myke, with the removal of the
01:13:02 ◼ ► Home button and the lack of pencil navigation controls," because remember I was talking about
01:13:06 ◼ ► like I liked to press the Home button with the pencil but can't do it anymore. And I was saying,
01:13:10 ◼ ► you know, the Apple Pencil can't access things like Control Center and Notification Center.
01:13:14 ◼ ► Ben asks, "Have you thought about using Assistive Touch with your pencil?" So Assistive Touch is that
01:13:21 ◼ ► little Home button dot which is on the screen which can be programmed to do a bunch of very
01:13:26 ◼ ► interesting things, right? Like you can do single taps, double taps, and triple taps for little
01:13:30 ◼ ► options. You can bring up a little menu that can allow you to produce like to perform system actions
01:13:35 ◼ ► and gestures and stuff like that. I have tried it out but ultimately don't enjoy the experience
01:13:42 ◼ ► with the Apple Pencil. Every time you tap it with the Apple Pencil, it tries to move the button a
01:13:48 ◼ ► little bit. Like it's not perfect. It's way better to use with your finger. And if you're using my
01:13:54 ◼ ► finger on it, then I may as well choose the gestures. It is definitely an option and it's
01:13:59 ◼ ► an interesting option but I don't think it's the one for me. Yeah, I think so. I do wonder if at
01:14:09 ◼ ► some point Pencil might, given that that's a touch sensitive surface, if Apple might add like they
01:14:15 ◼ ► did with the AirPods, they might actually add extra gestures but not configure them by default.
01:14:22 ◼ ► That's an interesting move on Apple's part. Like I could swipe down and it would, like,
01:14:28 ◼ ► for example on some Android phones, you can swipe your finger over the, like down over the
01:14:40 ◼ ► Very nice. I would like that very much. Right? So the move that Apple made, and I'm not sure
01:14:44 ◼ ► whether it was because the software wasn't there or because they didn't want to train people
01:14:48 ◼ ► into this complexity, but when they released the AirPods, they said you can just double tap and it
01:14:54 ◼ ► does a thing. And then they did an update and they're like, "Oh, yeah, you can now double tap,
01:15:00 ◼ ► you can configure them independently and they can be different things." And like, okay, that's a big
01:15:05 ◼ ► step forward. I wonder if they might do that at some point with the Pencil where there'll be a
01:15:09 ◼ ► software update. And if you go into the Pencil's settings in the Bluetooth settings or wherever,
01:15:15 ◼ ► it'll be like, "Oh, you can now redefine, you can add all of these other gestures that are not
01:15:21 ◼ ► turned on by default." And it may be one of those things where they know that some power users would
01:15:26 ◼ ► use them, but they don't think that it's a good experience for your regular user. It's also
01:15:32 ◼ ► possible that they built this touch surface and then they realized that there were like way too
01:15:36 ◼ ► many accidental gesture interpretations and that the clearest signal was the double tap, so they
01:15:41 ◼ ► were going to stick with that. I don't know. Yeah, so I would love to have some of that stuff,
01:15:48 ◼ ► like to be able to have the Pencil have some programmatic cool gestures, even if, I mean,
01:15:53 ◼ ► I would love them for the system, but even for apps as well, right, where I can do more than just
01:15:57 ◼ ► the tapping. That would be really cool, especially when, as you say, it's just like the AirPods,
01:16:01 ◼ ► in theory, it can support it. But I think I do agree with the idea of not everything at once
01:16:13 ◼ ► And make the basic gesture rock solid. I think that thinking about the software development part,
01:16:17 ◼ ► having them say, "Look, I know we can do all of these things, but why don't we just ship it with
01:16:22 ◼ ► double tap?" And make it that the double tap always works and everybody is going to be happy with it
01:16:28 ◼ ► because it's a new thing. And there's no, it's not like, with a touch surface, it's not like
01:16:32 ◼ ► there's a button that does, you know, this button does something and this button does not do
01:16:36 ◼ ► anything. Do not look at this button. Do not touch this button, right? It's not like that.
01:16:45 ◼ ► but there's no obvious missing feature there. So they can ship it like that and ship it and have
01:16:50 ◼ ► it be solid. And then if they want to, they can be working on the background on a more capable
01:17:07 ◼ ► - Exactly. Oh yeah, exactly right. And then when you roll it out, maybe you roll it out,
01:17:12 ◼ ► but it's, you know, it's not on by default and individual apps can support it and you can go
01:17:16 ◼ ► into the system settings and support it. But if otherwise it remains unchanged and the base
01:17:21 ◼ ► approach is just solid, that's, you know, maybe, maybe I'm still holding out some percentage chance
01:17:27 ◼ ► that they built this thing for very ambitious sets of gestures and then realized that they,
01:17:34 ◼ ► people miss, they misinterpreted the gestures too much and that they ended up keeping it simple
01:17:56 ◼ ► right? So only the newest ones could use them because of power reasons, or if they said,
01:18:00 ◼ ► hey, only the 12.9 inch iPad Pro could use this because they need the screen real estate. What
01:18:06 ◼ ► do you think? Like, would you, would you be fine with that if they restricted it to certain models
01:18:11 ◼ ► of the iPad? - I would not be surprised at all if stuff got restricted to certain iPad Pro
01:18:19 ◼ ► generations. Wouldn't surprise me a bit. If this generation especially was a line that got crossed
01:18:24 ◼ ► at some point where it's like, it's just, it won't work. We need all the power of the 2018 iPad Pros.
01:18:30 ◼ ► The 11 versus the 13, I don't know. I don't love that idea. I could see why somebody might say
01:18:37 ◼ ► that. I did have somebody point out to me that they couldn't use Logic on an 11 inch screen
01:18:45 ◼ ► or even on an iPad screen. And I, my response was that I spent years editing podcasts and Logic on
01:18:51 ◼ ► an 11 inch MacBook Air. So I'm a little skeptical that an 11 inch screen couldn't support these apps.
01:18:59 ◼ ► It would be tight, I know. I would, so I would, I would not love it if they differentiated based
01:19:03 ◼ ► on screen size. I don't think Apple's ever really done that in the past. And it's much more likely
01:19:08 ◼ ► that they would say, sorry, 2018 only. - Yeah. I think there might be some iOS 13 features that
01:19:12 ◼ ► will be 2018 iPads only. Right. They've done that in the past. Like even the current multitasking,
01:19:19 ◼ ► you get different results depending on how old your device is. So like some apps can't do the
01:19:28 ◼ ► they're like RAM constraints, processor constraints to what can be done. So, but we will see,
01:19:33 ◼ ► we will see. I continue to be very excited for June. I said this on connected and I'll say it
01:19:38 ◼ ► here too though. Like I really people just got to get in mind that like, we don't know what 13
01:19:46 ◼ ► is going to be and we can't assume it's going to fix everything and make the iPad perfect.
01:19:51 ◼ ► Cause I fear that like, that is way too much of the conversation right now is people like,
01:19:55 ◼ ► Oh, but it will be fixed in iOS 13. Like we've had some, I've been seeing some questions come in and
01:20:00 ◼ ► some feedback come in where people are starting with the assumption that everything is fixed.
01:20:05 ◼ ► What do you think about this? And it's like, we can't start with that assumption though. Like
01:20:09 ◼ ► the general consensus amongst people that pay attention to this stuff and people that have
01:20:16 ◼ ► information is that, or at least have believed to have good information, right? Is that there will be
01:20:24 ◼ ► enhancements in iOS 13, but it's not going to be like, Oh, well now everyone can replace their max.
01:20:31 ◼ ► Like I don't think we're going to get to that level. It's just going to make people that
01:20:35 ◼ ► use iPads already. They're going to be really happy and it might bring some more people in,
01:20:49 ◼ ► I feel like whenever you buy any hardware, the golden rule is never assume more features will
01:20:57 ◼ ► be added or software problems will be fixed in an update because I've had that happen to me before
01:21:02 ◼ ► where you buy the hardware and you're like, well, this new thing's going to happen. And they're
01:21:05 ◼ ► working on a new thing. And the end, what they do is they announce a new piece of hardware that has
01:21:08 ◼ ► the new software on it. And the old software, old hardware never gets it. Like you can't, you can't
01:21:13 ◼ ► make assumptions about this stuff. So I think it's great right now that we're just imagining that iOS
01:21:18 ◼ ► 13 will solve all of our problems. But the fact is, um, it's always going to be a more complicated
01:21:24 ◼ ► reality than that. That was true actually back with iOS 11 and even iOS nine when we were like,
01:21:29 ◼ ► finally multitasking and, Oh, they're going to fix the multitasking and every, not only, you know,
01:21:34 ◼ ► when they address your problems, sometimes they won't address your, your issues. And you'll be
01:21:38 ◼ ► like, ah, I've got to wait again. They didn't address my issue. Maybe they're never going to do
01:21:42 ◼ ► it. But even if they do address the issues that you've got, sometimes they do it in a way that
01:21:46 ◼ ► you're like, Oh, this brings other issues. This is not perfect because of course it's reality and
01:21:56 ◼ ► Will Barron Thank you to everybody who sent in a question today. You can just send in a tweet with
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01:22:30 ◼ ► You can find Jason at sixcolors.com and he is @jsnell on Twitter. I am @imike, I M Y K E on
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