00:00:15 ◼ ► Luna Display, and hello, my name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell.
00:00:27 ◼ ► iPad pro extravaganza. Yes, yes, it's time. It is time, but we have a lot to get to before then,
00:00:34 ◼ ► starting with #SnellTalk, and today's question comes from Carlos, and Carlos wants to know,
00:00:51 ◼ ► Oh, wow, wow, wow. I feel like if I wanted to take the pressure, I would be on Jeopardy because I've
00:00:58 ◼ ► thought about being on Jeopardy. I think I would probably be bad at Jeopardy, although I know from
00:01:04 ◼ ► our friend Glenn Fleischman's experience on Jeopardy that what you do when you get on Jeopardy
00:01:09 ◼ ► is you study before you do it and you learn all the presidents in order and things like that so
00:01:15 ◼ ► that you've got all that stuff in your back pocket. But otherwise, I love The Price is Right, but I
00:01:22 ◼ ► think I would be bad at the pricing part of it. So I'm going to say, I'm just going to take this
00:01:28 ◼ ► out of left field. I want to be one of the panelists on...because the question is could
00:01:33 ◼ ► appear on a classic game show. I want to be one of the panelists on Match Game. I'd be one of those
00:01:38 ◼ ► six people who sits over there and comes up with wacky words to fill in the blank to frustrate the
00:01:56 ◼ ► - Oh my, yeah. So on The Incomparable Game Show, we've done some of what we call the game of
00:02:02 ◼ ► matching, totally distinct, not the same at all, where we've done something like that. And it's
00:02:07 ◼ ► actually a lot of fun to do that, to play a game like that where you fill in the blank. So you say,
00:02:13 ◼ ► "Dumb Donald was so dumb. How dumb was he? When he turned on the light switch in the living room,
00:02:20 ◼ ► he thought he would see a blank." I don't know what that is. And then you have to fill in the
00:02:25 ◼ ► blank and then the contestant has to guess. It's fun. It's silly. And the pressure would be off
00:02:34 ◼ ► to various Incomparable episodes now that include discussions of Jeopardy and Match Game. So if you
00:02:40 ◼ ► want to get those, go to our show notes and you can get them. So thank you so much to Carlos for
00:02:45 ◼ ► the Snell Talk question. You can send in a question to open any episode of this show with the #SnellTalk
00:02:51 ◼ ► and we pick one from your submissions. Thank you to Carlos for doing that. We have some follow-up
00:02:57 ◼ ► for today's show. iOS 12.1.1, the beta which is currently available, brings notification
00:03:04 ◼ ► previews via Haptic Touch to the iPhone XR. This was one of the big things that I was talking about
00:03:09 ◼ ► last week in our iPhone XR review that I really wanted was to be able to, when using the iPhone XR,
00:03:15 ◼ ► to use what is effectively 3D Touch, but Haptic Touch, right, like the long pressing, to be able
00:03:21 ◼ ► to see the notification content. So if you get a notification, you can preview it. This wasn't
00:03:26 ◼ ► available currently with the iPhone XR, but will be in an upcoming software update, which I think
00:03:31 ◼ ► is fantastic. I'm pleased to see that Apple are doing what they said, which was that they would
00:03:37 ◼ ► expand Haptic Touch to places that it was needed and they're doing it already, which I think is
00:03:42 ◼ ► fantastic. Especially like it's not even 12.2 probably that it's going to come out in, right?
00:03:47 ◼ ► Like it's a point update of 12.1, so I think that's really awesome. Yeah, that's great.
00:03:52 ◼ ► Bridge keyboard, we talk about them a bunch sometime in the next week or two. I think we both
00:03:57 ◼ ► have the 10.5 inch version, so for the previous iPad Pro on the way, because I know they just
00:04:02 ◼ ► shipped that, but we saw that they were talking over the weekend, they've shown some kind of
00:04:09 ◼ ► renderings of what they're going to be doing for the new iPad Pros, apparently going to be shipping
00:04:14 ◼ ► new versions of their keyboards in 2019, which I expect you are as excited about as I am.
00:04:20 ◼ ► Yeah, I'm very excited about that. They were kind of trolling us, they showed us a really,
00:04:27 ◼ ► really lousy Logitech keyboard design and we're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do it.
00:04:30 ◼ ► Don't go to the dark side. And they're like, no, we're just kidding. We have a thing that's
00:04:35 ◼ ► very much like the old one, which is funny because they're, you know, there's not a lot of bezel space
00:04:41 ◼ ► in there to put those little clips on, but they think they can do it. So I hope they can.
00:04:45 ◼ ► Yeah, I remain skeptical. Like I have faith in their ability as a company to make good technology.
00:04:51 ◼ ► But I also know from experience that they've had some shaky first attempts at things. And I can't
00:04:58 ◼ ► understand how this is going to really have a strong connection because the clip is so small.
00:05:05 ◼ ► I mean, we don't see what the back looks like or anything. So, you know, I'm very keen to see.
00:05:10 ◼ ► Yeah, I was kind of hoping that it would be a magnetized back that would be used to support
00:05:15 ◼ ► it rather than putting all the weight in the clips because there are those magnets back there that
00:05:18 ◼ ► they could just make a back that you clip, you know, you just touch it on to and then it stays.
00:05:23 ◼ ► But yeah, if it works, that's great. Also, they put those pictures out like the day that they
00:05:37 ◼ ► Yeah, so they may I think there might be some slight changes from the renderings that we see,
00:05:40 ◼ ► but who knows? I'm all I'll say is like, I cannot wait for these. I really hope that they're as good
00:05:45 ◼ ► as the current versions. Because I do sorely miss my my bridge keyboard, maybe not as much as I
00:05:52 ◼ ► thought that I would have. We'll get to that a little bit later on in the show. We had a I was
00:05:57 ◼ ► really happy with our episode last week, where we reviewed all of all the great Macs. So that was
00:06:03 ◼ ► really fun. But Jason's review from Six Colors got quoted on Apple's newsroom, which I just think is
00:06:10 ◼ ► a notable thing because I wanted to congratulate you, Jason, because that is quite an achievement
00:06:15 ◼ ► to be amongst a handful, the five or so reviews that were picked about the Mac Mini. They chose
00:06:22 ◼ ► your quote about how the new Mac Mini is exactly what it needs to be, which I think was a which is
00:06:27 ◼ ► a great quote. And I'm really pleased that Apple picked it because you were making a statement
00:06:38 ◼ ► Yeah, it was it's it's strange because you know, they're picking it because it is something that
00:06:44 ◼ ► reflects positively on their products. And I don't write my articles to be quoted by Apple,
00:06:51 ◼ ► right? I write them so that people read them who want to think about the products that Apple is
00:06:56 ◼ ► making. But I'm glad I mean, it's it's nice visibility to be there. It's nice to be recognized
00:07:02 ◼ ► and noticed and that somebody at Apple is actually reading what I write. That's, that's cool. So,
00:07:07 ◼ ► so yeah, that was that was awesome to see. That's, it's on the same level as sort of like when Phil
00:07:12 ◼ ► Schiller tweets a link to something you wrote, where again, I'm not writing it to please Phil
00:07:17 ◼ ► Schiller, but it's kind of cool that he's got a lot of people paying attention to him that that
00:07:21 ◼ ► he tweeted out my iMac Pro review last December. So it's it's kind of on that level. It's cool. I've
00:07:27 ◼ ► never been to my knowledge. I've never been quoted in Apple PR before. I remember at one point when I
00:07:33 ◼ ► was working at IDG, there was a PC World logo and quote in a in a presentation and that was exciting
00:07:40 ◼ ► for them and less exciting for me because I wasn't in charge of PC World at that point and they were
00:07:45 ◼ ► kind of competition. But yeah, it's nice to be be noticed. And lastly, a couple of weeks ago,
00:07:53 ◼ ► you were we were talking about the changing sizes of iPads and you created a audio comic for our
00:08:02 ◼ ► listeners, which podcast artist to the stars, Kate Matthews, went and created an actual little comic
00:08:10 ◼ ► strip out of and I think it's very cute and very funny and it's in our show notes if people want
00:08:15 ◼ ► to find it. Yes, thank you, Kate. We are bringing back Myke at the Movies. It has been a long time
00:08:22 ◼ ► for Myke at the Movies and there has been no Myke at the Movies. I actually we've only done two this
00:08:28 ◼ ► entire year. So we're going to be finishing out this year. We're going to be doing a couple. The
00:08:33 ◼ ► first one is going to be in two weeks time and we are going to be doing a movie that I have never
00:08:39 ◼ ► seen but feel like I should have seen by now. My Neighbor Totoro. Yeah, Miyazaki. We're going
00:08:52 ◼ ► I talked about it on the Uncomfortable with John Syracuse and many others and I'm excited for you
00:08:58 ◼ ► to see it. So that's going to be on the episode that will come out on the 26th of November. So
00:09:04 ◼ ► you have two weeks to watch My Neighbor Totoro. But there's more exciting news than that, Jason
00:09:09 ◼ ► Snow. You know how excited I am. We're not doing a draft. We're doing something that I think I enjoy
00:09:16 ◼ ► even more than the drafts. Is it the first annual of something? Because we remember there's no first
00:09:21 ◼ ► annual of every of anything at all. No, it's so much better than first. It is the fifth annual
00:09:27 ◼ ► upgrade ease. Oh boy, they're on their way. Fifth annual. Now that sounds really exciting. They are
00:09:35 ◼ ► coming at the end of the year but voting is now open. So there will be a Google form in the show
00:09:43 ◼ ► notes where you can go and submit your votes for the fifth annual upgrade ease. Very, very excited
00:09:51 ◼ ► about this. It is worth noting, you know, we're opening the voting a little early. So stuff like
00:09:56 ◼ ► the movies category doesn't have all of the entries in yet, but they will. So you may want to go in
00:10:02 ◼ ► and amend your votes later on. But we are going to be opening up the upgrade ease again, just like we
00:10:08 ◼ ► did last year, to hear from you, the upgrade-ians. We want you to complete the survey and let us know
00:10:14 ◼ ► your favorites in each of the categories. These results will be pulled together and they will have
00:10:19 ◼ ► an impact in every single category as they did last year. But some categories will be 100%
00:10:26 ◼ ► decided by the upgrade-ians. Me and Jason will be coming together over the next few weeks to decide
00:10:31 ◼ ► which ones exactly they will be, but it is now available. So we will announce a closing date for
00:10:38 ◼ ► nominations sometime in the next few weeks, but you've got some time so go in, think about it,
00:10:43 ◼ ► and we'll be talking about it as time goes on. But this is for the 2018 upgrade ease, which is our
00:10:47 ◼ ► fifth annual, which I am absolutely thrilled about, Jason Snow. Yep, it's hard to believe
00:10:55 ◼ ► that we've done five of them, but here we are. It's great. I know it's your favorite thing,
00:11:02 ◼ ► but it's a fun way to look back on the year and to get the listeners involved too, which is great.
00:11:06 ◼ ► So you can go and submit your votes and every vote counts. It's very important, so make sure you get
00:11:13 ◼ ► yours in. I would like to triumphantly, the triumphant return I should say, of Upstream.
00:11:26 ◼ ► Okay. First off, Disney streaming service has a name. No, it is not called the Disney Vault,
00:11:37 ◼ ► It's going to be called Disney+. This goes right with ESPN+, right? Yep, which is also from Disney,
00:11:43 ◼ ► so you know, it makes sense that they're expanding their branding, like I get it. It's not the most
00:11:48 ◼ ► exciting name, but it's clear. Yeah. So Disney+ is going to still be on target for launch in late
00:11:57 ◼ ► 2019, is the plan. This information all came from Bob Iger on a conference call. They also announced
00:12:03 ◼ ► another Star Wars series, which will be focused on the Rogue One kind of timeframe and will star
00:12:09 ◼ ► Diego Luna. So it's another Star Wars series. They announced some other more Marvel projects
00:12:16 ◼ ► and stuff like that that they're looking at doing. They also spent some time focusing on Hulu and
00:12:21 ◼ ► talking about Hulu because it's, you know, Disney owns 60% of Hulu now. They dodged all questions
00:12:27 ◼ ► about if they've tried to buy the rest of it, but it does seem like no matter whatever the case is,
00:12:33 ◼ ► Disney is steering the ship at Hulu. They will be focusing Hulu on general entertainment,
00:12:41 ◼ ► whilst Disney+ will focus solely on Disney properties. And Disney are looking to expand
00:12:47 ◼ ► Hulu internationally, which is exciting news. I gotta do that. They gotta do that. They want
00:12:52 ◼ ► to use this as a platform for some of their stuff. I think all the stuff they're getting from Fox
00:12:58 ◼ ► will be helping feed that. And it's a US-only service because it was based on US TV networks.
00:13:03 ◼ ► And now it's going to be something different. Hulu is going to be very different in five years
00:13:07 ◼ ► from what it is now. But I think this is what we all kind of expected, which is that they're
00:13:10 ◼ ► going to use it as a vehicle to get a bunch of other stuff out internationally that is separate
00:13:16 ◼ ► from the Disney brand. Like Disney+, calling it Disney+ and not giving it a name that is,
00:13:22 ◼ ► like, a weird name is the Disney branding, like, makes it clear, like, this has got the stamp of
00:13:26 ◼ ► the Disney, you know, Disney on it. And so there's going to be... We talk about Apple being wanting,
00:13:32 ◼ ► like, family-friendly entertainment on its service. You know, if you're going to call it Disney,
00:13:38 ◼ ► there's not going to be any rated-R Marvel shows on Disney+, right? It's not going to happen.
00:13:43 ◼ ► Not with that name. Maybe on Hulu, not on Disney+. So that's a clear difference. Where Hulu,
00:13:50 ◼ ► different brand, it's going to have a lot of different stuff on it. That's where you're
00:13:56 ◼ ► knows what else will go there. Things that Disney is going to own but will not want under the Disney
00:14:01 ◼ ► brand. The Information is reporting that Apple plans to launch their streaming service in the
00:14:08 ◼ ► first half of 2019 in the U.S. but is planning to roll the app and service out to 100 countries
00:14:15 ◼ ► within the following months. So they're planning on having, by the end of 2019, this thing available
00:14:25 ◼ ► - This is great. One of the questions was how fast was the rollout going to be and when it was going
00:14:28 ◼ ► to happen. And for the last... I feel like, Myke, for the last year and a half, we've had a bunch
00:14:32 ◼ ► of people say at every single Apple event, "Are they going to announce their TV service?" And we
00:14:36 ◼ ► keep saying, "Mm, probably not, probably not." And then recently it's been very much like, "Mm,
00:14:41 ◼ ► 2019." And we're almost in 2019 now and this is when it's going to happen. They've been on the job
00:14:47 ◼ ► for more than a year now developing content and we're going to get that strategy in 2019.
00:14:58 ◼ ► "First half of 2019 is when they're going to launch this thing," but within months, it will be rolling
00:15:03 ◼ ► out over 100 different countries. And that is something that I think we all knew that they would
00:15:09 ◼ ► do, that there is no way Apple is going to build a video streaming service if it can't roll out all
00:15:14 ◼ ► the content everywhere. There's just no way. There are some individual things about local content
00:15:19 ◼ ► being generated and things like that that deal with access to some markets. You got to have
00:15:31 ◼ ► ramping all that stuff up. They've been making hires, right? So they are very aware of this.
00:15:36 ◼ ► - Yeah, absolutely. So this is, it's not quite as simple as just flipping the switch and turning it
00:15:39 ◼ ► on everywhere, but I don't think this is going to be a Hulu situation either. So it's good to hear
00:15:45 ◼ ► that even if they launch in the US first, and they might not, they might launch in a handful
00:15:50 ◼ ► of countries first, but the idea is that they want to roll it out everywhere quickly. And that
00:15:54 ◼ ► leaves us to the big question, which is what's it going to cost? What's the preview going to be?
00:15:59 ◼ ► What content is going to be available at launch? And that's all still a little bit of a mystery.
00:16:16 ◼ ► - I would imagine a spring event. That's going to be my guess is I think they'll do a spring event.
00:16:29 ◼ ► the other thing I'll say is like, unless there's like a TV industry event that they want to tie
00:16:32 ◼ ► into, but my guess is that it'll be the only thing that I would, I mean, they're wacky ideas too. Like
00:16:38 ◼ ► what about the day after the Super Bowl or the day of the Super Bowl and they put a Super Bowl
00:16:43 ◼ ► commercial on saying all these shows are available now, go get it on only on Apple TV, like they,
00:16:48 ◼ ► or the Oscars or something like that. They could do something like that as a way to launch it.
00:16:52 ◼ ► But they could also probably, since it's Apple, they'll probably do an event and then say it will
00:16:58 ◼ ► be available on this date and maybe that date will be the day of the Oscars or the day of the Super
00:17:03 ◼ ► Bowl or whatever. And they'll do it that way. - They have the event to catch people that have
00:17:07 ◼ ► tuned in, but everybody else, they'll just wrap it all up with a big TV spot, right? And then that's
00:17:12 ◼ ► the day it's available. - I would think something like that, but it could be, I mean, when the
00:17:16 ◼ ► information says first half of 2019, probably one of the things that's happening there is that they
00:17:22 ◼ ► don't know yet, right? Like I think it's, they don't know yet. Otherwise we'd probably have a
00:17:27 ◼ ► better idea, but I would imagine it will be a kind of a spring thing, but we'll see. - They also
00:17:32 ◼ ► reiterated, the information also reiterated the rumor that as well as Apple's own programming,
00:17:42 ◼ ► solidifies the fact that really Apple are more of a prime video competitor than a Netflix competitor
00:17:47 ◼ ► from a business model perspective. - Yeah, I think that's right. I saw somebody, and I can't, I wish
00:17:52 ◼ ► I could remember who it was last week on Twitter said something very, very smart, which is, there's
00:17:58 ◼ ► no such thing as a Netflix competitor. Everybody else is trying to be another service in addition
00:18:04 ◼ ► to Netflix. And I think that's the right way to look at it is Netflix at this point is dominant.
00:18:12 ◼ ► And I don't see a lot of people dropping Netflix to pick up one of these other streaming services.
00:18:18 ◼ ► It's more like who else is in that packet of, Tim Goodman said this to me on TV Talk Machine last
00:18:24 ◼ ► week, like you're competing to be in the four streaming services that people subscribe to.
00:18:29 ◼ ► That's basically it. Netflix is one. I mean, Tim probably said this too about Netflix, like
00:18:35 ◼ ► Netflix is one. And then, you know, if you've got Amazon prime, you've already had two and it's like,
00:18:39 ◼ ► what are the other two? Is it Apple? Is it Disney? Is it like, but that's, that's where the competition
00:18:43 ◼ ► is going on. It's a little bit like the, you know, input one on the TV set where it's like, well,
00:18:48 ◼ ► if you've got cable input one is your cable box and nobody's actually replacing that. Now they are
00:18:53 ◼ ► with cable cutting, but it's that idea. Like there's Netflix and then there's everybody else.
00:18:58 ◼ ► I guess it kind of reminds me like of the iTunes music store. Like there was only really
00:19:03 ◼ ► one music store ultimately, which was the iTunes music store. And the reason that I kind of relate
00:19:08 ◼ ► those two things together as it being like Netflix is no one, there is, there is no way that some
00:19:14 ◼ ► company could be like Netflix again, like to get the deals that Netflix got to give it a base,
00:19:19 ◼ ► because no one will give that content away anymore. Right. All of it. Yeah. All of that
00:19:23 ◼ ► content that it's losing, which is all the old content from stuff that that'll all probably
00:19:27 ◼ ► drain away. But it doesn't matter now. Yeah. No one can be in that place. Well, like how, so,
00:19:33 ◼ ► you know, Warner shut down, what's its name? Filmstruck. Right. And they've shut down some
00:19:45 ◼ ► Natalie Jarvey who covers tech media for the Hollywood reporter and, you know, they undoubtedly
00:19:57 ◼ ► of course. Right. But they will get their Warner Brothers catalog of content. So I think like
00:20:04 ◼ ► Friends, which has been very successful and has a whole new generation of people has watched that
00:20:07 ◼ ► TV show on Netflix. Right. But that stuff's probably going to go to whatever the new Warner
00:20:12 ◼ ► streaming services. And that's, that's everybody right now is, is trying to pull their content
00:20:19 ◼ ► already built out a huge library of original content now. So they made it, they, you know,
00:20:24 ◼ ► they, they have made it to that point. People don't care what's on Netflix anymore. They just
00:20:29 ◼ ► know there's good stuff on Netflix. They don't care where it comes from. It doesn't matter.
00:20:32 ◼ ► And that's what you want is to, is to just have it be like, how could I drop Netflix? There's always
00:20:37 ◼ ► something on Netflix. But for Apple, it is, and Apple's going to do what Amazon's done that's very
00:20:42 ◼ ► smart, which is basically wrap all the other streaming services around you and say, we are not
00:20:48 ◼ ► just our own content. We also are the path to get all of these little services added in. It's a
00:20:56 ◼ ► little cable company like when you think about it, like, well, just go, you just get one bill,
00:21:00 ◼ ► right? It's just one that has all of these things inside it. Good user interface. If you're lucky,
00:21:08 ◼ ► right. Like that's, I mean, that's been my experience with the prime channel stuff is that
00:21:12 ◼ ► there is something to be said for subscribing to CBS All Access and BritBox and having them inside
00:21:20 ◼ ► the disclaimer past sponsor prime video channels, but having it inside the prime app, like if you
00:21:28 ◼ ► like the app experience of the rapper, whether it's prime or the TV app for Apple, if you, if you
00:21:35 ◼ ► prefer that experience, the nice thing about it is it's a unified experience instead of having, you
00:21:39 ◼ ► know, oh, now I want to watch Star Trek. I got to go to the CBS app and I don't like the CBS app, but
00:21:44 ◼ ► that's where Star Trek is. And you're like, I don't even need to open the CBS app. Just stay in my
00:21:48 ◼ ► TV app or my prime video app and do it from there. That could be potentially smart. And from Apple's
00:21:55 ◼ ► perspective also, it gets people in their app where they control the promotions and they can
00:22:09 ◼ ► what their flagship show will be because Steve Correll has signed on to join Reese Witherspoon's
00:22:17 ◼ ► TV show drama series. This show, as well as Reese Witherspoon and Steve Correll, also stars Jennifer
00:22:24 ◼ ► Aniston. This is a big one. I think like Star Power, like this is going to be one they put on
00:22:29 ◼ ► posters, right? Like this is pretty huge for them. They have a lot of great stars. A lot of, we've
00:22:35 ◼ ► been talking about it, right? Like even people like Oprah, like doing individual projects, but
00:22:48 ◼ ► going to be one of their big, big, we put it, I don't know how good it's going to be. I mean, honestly, I
00:22:52 ◼ ► think it will probably be fantastic because of that cost, but that's going to be one that looks really
00:22:57 ◼ ► good on a poster. Right? Right? That's the, and here's the other thing. Can we just stop for a
00:23:05 ◼ ► moment and imagine what an Apple event to launch this thing might be? First off, it might be
00:23:10 ◼ ► a very different event. We might, none of us might get invited, right? It might be that Tim Goodman
00:23:15 ◼ ► and Natalie Jarvey get invited to this. Well, it is for us, but maybe Apple don't know that, but you know,
00:23:27 ◼ ► the Apple watch, they bring in a lot of fashion press. Like it's slightly different, but this would
00:23:32 ◼ ► probably weight much more heavily on television media with maybe some big tech culture sites, you
00:23:40 ◼ ► know? But can you imagine the people they're going to bring on stage for these things? It's going to
00:23:45 ◼ ► be like a Marvel thing. Yeah. Here's Oprah, here's Jennifer Aniston, here's Steve Carell. It's probably
00:23:52 ◼ ► not going to be a good presentation, but it will be really interesting at least. And Joe is in the
00:23:58 ◼ ► chat room saying, and Joe and Zach are both in the chat room saying it's definitely going to be in
00:24:02 ◼ ► LA, which it 100% will be. I'm actually looking, the one thing that I wonder about, although we
00:24:07 ◼ ► would probably hear soon, but the TCA, the Television Critics Association, has not announced
00:24:14 ◼ ► their winter press tour dates yet, I think, but they're usually in January. And that's another
00:24:18 ◼ ► question I've got, like, would Apple do that? Would Apple do a day at the TCA and actually use a venue
00:24:24 ◼ ► like that to roll out some of their planning? Probably not. They could talk about the shows,
00:24:28 ◼ ► because the shows aren't a secret. Aren't a secret, right. So wouldn't that be interesting if TCA
00:24:33 ◼ ► puts up their schedule for the winter death march with cocktails and says, "Apple is doing Tuesday."
00:24:43 ◼ ► I'm like, "What?" Yeah, and they're going to show us some trailers. And they're going to bring in
00:24:46 ◼ ► Oprah and they're going to bring in Jennifer Aniston and they're going to do all that. And
00:24:48 ◼ ► then maybe they also, you know, maybe they time that with, again, the question is what Apple
00:24:52 ◼ ► chooses. They've got a lot of choices, but they could time that with an event in LA the same week.
00:24:58 ◼ ► And so they make sure that Oprah and Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell,
00:25:03 ◼ ► all those people are in LA that week. And they do an Apple media event on a Tuesday and maybe
00:25:09 ◼ ► the Thursday they're at TCA, the Wednesday they're at TCA. But whether it's TCA or it's something
00:25:13 ◼ ► else, like the choices that they're making are different because it's a TV service rollout. And
00:25:20 ◼ ► I would argue that actually they probably will include a lot of press that covers Apple normally
00:25:24 ◼ ► because why would you not want all the tech press and all the entertainment press to cover you?
00:25:30 ◼ ► That's twice the press coverage. Whoo! So, but we'll see. It's a different product, though. So
00:25:36 ◼ ► the rules are going to be different. This is not going to be like come to the Steve Jobs Theater
00:25:40 ◼ ► and we're going to put out a new iMac and also Jennifer Aniston will be here. That's probably
00:25:45 ◼ ► not going to be how it works. Yeah. The more we've spoken about this today, the more I think that
00:25:50 ◼ ► they might just do this on its own, right? Like just a straight up on its own event with a very
00:25:56 ◼ ► different press makeup in a very different location. You know, like maybe even Tim isn't
00:26:03 ◼ ► there, right? Like maybe this is a Schiller and Q deal or maybe this is Schiller and the two Sony
00:26:08 ◼ ► execs or now Apple execs. You know what I mean? Like it might be completely different. Well,
00:26:12 ◼ ► if it's something like TCA, you know, they'll have, it will just be maybe Eddie Q, but probably
00:26:18 ◼ ► it'll just be the two guys who run the studio who will come up and answer questions. If they're
00:26:23 ◼ ► going to go in a TV world, it's probably best to have the people that really know the TV world,
00:26:28 ◼ ► right? Yeah. To answer this question. Anyway, this stuff's heating up. Can't wait. And you know,
00:26:33 ◼ ► all upgrade listeners, you're well prepared for when this stuff launches. That is the service we
00:26:37 ◼ ► provide to you on Upstream. Today's show is brought to you in part by Hallo. Hallo is amazing. Hallo
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00:27:20 ◼ ► People have been sleeping on buckwheat pillows for years. They're very popular in Japan,
00:27:24 ◼ ► and you can also find them at some high end hotels as well. But another place you can find one is
00:27:28 ◼ ► under my head every evening. Don't come and take mine because I love it very much. But that is
00:27:33 ◼ ► something I have been sleeping on a hollow pillow for six months and I absolutely love it and I
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00:27:45 ◼ ► pillows, right? Because they don't have buckwheat pillows like me because they just have a regular
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00:29:04 ◼ ► Pro. Now, if I am correct, we both have both, right? Yes. So I think and we were talking about
00:29:12 ◼ ► this a couple of days ago. I think for the sake of ease now, because the 10.5 inch is now the 11
00:29:20 ◼ ► inch, we stopped calling the 12.9 the 12.9 and we just call it the 13. Apple legally can't do that,
00:29:28 ◼ ► right? Because it's claiming something that doesn't exist. I feel like the rest of us could if we
00:29:33 ◼ ► really wanted to. I don't know whether it'll stick. It's certainly way easier to say the 11
00:29:37 ◼ ► and the 13 than it is the 11 and the 12.9. But either way, it basically is essentially 11 inch
00:29:43 ◼ ► laptop and a 13 inch laptop. It's like the MacBook Air, except now these are iPads. Because it's not
00:29:49 ◼ ► 10.5 and 12.9 anymore, right? So we'll give it a go. I'm sure we're going to slip up, but we may
00:29:56 ◼ ► reference to it as the 13 in this episode and you know which one we're talking about now. Yep. So
00:30:01 ◼ ► you are getting ready to publish your review on Six Colors, but you sent me a draft of the review.
00:30:08 ◼ ► Yeah, of what I've written so far anyway. Yes. Your opening that you sent me is very strong.
00:30:14 ◼ ► Good, good feedback. Which is, "This is a computer." And I love that. Yeah, the night of
00:30:23 ◼ ► the event when I was flying back to San Francisco, I wrote a thing that my first impressions in the
00:30:28 ◼ ► headline was, "This is a computer." That is the theme of Apple's event. That is what Apple's
00:30:33 ◼ ► trying to say here. Apple's basically saying, "Look, it's USB-C. It's priced like a computer.
00:30:40 ◼ ► It's got more power than all of these laptops." It is Apple saying, "We want you to take this
00:30:46 ◼ ► thing seriously as a device." And that is the way it needs to be judged. Now, the challenge,
00:30:55 ◼ ► and you and I have seen this over the last week, especially with the iPad Pro reviews coming out
00:31:00 ◼ ► last Monday, is that there are two ways to look at this. One way is to judge it as a PC.
00:31:08 ◼ ► And the other way is to judge it for what it is and how it works. And that, I don't actually
00:31:18 ◼ ► think those are very different. And I think there are some reviews that really walked the line quite
00:31:24 ◼ ► well, including Nielle Patel's "At the Verge," where, as I say in the article, the iPad's not
00:31:32 ◼ ► a computer as it's been defined for the last 40 years, but it is different. And that means that
00:31:39 ◼ ► it does some things better than PCs, and it does some things worse than PCs. It's not a PC,
00:31:46 ◼ ► and I don't think we should judge it as a PC. Well, can it do these 10 things that my laptop
00:31:50 ◼ ► running Windows 10 can do? I think that's the wrong approach, because iPad Pro is a different
00:31:57 ◼ ► thing. It's a different kind of thing. But I also don't think that means you can't criticize it,
00:32:04 ◼ ► because in the end, it still has to measure up. It still has to be worth the money, and it still
00:32:10 ◼ ► has to be able to do things, even if they're not the same. So that's the distinction I'm trying
00:32:15 ◼ ► to make here, is like, how do you judge a product like this? And there is a group of people who
00:32:20 ◼ ► want to judge it, saying, well, if you're going to call it a computer, if you're going to say that
00:32:24 ◼ ► it's $1,000 and all of that, then every single thing that I can't do on my PC that I can do on
00:32:31 ◼ ► my PC that I can't do on the iPad is a strike against it. And I don't think that's quite the
00:32:36 ◼ ► right way to approach it, because, as our friend Federico will point out time and again, there are
00:32:41 ◼ ► lots of things that the iPad's way better than a traditional computer for. And so, you know,
00:32:46 ◼ ► trying to find that spot where you're not judging it based on old ways of thinking, old workflows.
00:32:53 ◼ ► One of the things that frustrated me last week was when Nile said on Twitter that his team of
00:33:01 ◼ ► video people at The Verge simply couldn't do a video on the iPad, as an example of what the iPad
00:33:06 ◼ ► fails at. And it's like, I'm sorry, that's totally wrong. Like, they could do a video, you can do
00:33:12 ◼ ► videos on the iPad. What he meant to say, or what they meant to say was, they weren't comfortable
00:33:18 ◼ ► making a video on the iPad because they have built an entire computer-based workflow, PC or Mac-based
00:33:25 ◼ ► workflow. That's how they make videos. They've made decisions based on the tools that they've
00:33:29 ◼ ► got on the computer, and those tools aren't available on the iPad. And therefore, for them
00:33:34 ◼ ► to make a video, it wouldn't meet their quality standards, or it would take a huge amount of
00:33:39 ◼ ► overhead to rethink their workflows, and that they weren't going to do that. I think that is
00:33:43 ◼ ► the challenge when we're thinking about the iPad, is theirs, can it do it? You know, okay,
00:33:49 ◼ ► but what are you asking it to do? Are you asking it to match what you do on a computer, or are you
00:33:55 ◼ ► using it for what it is good at, and what it can do? And within that, again, within that,
00:34:03 ◼ ► because that's the funny thing here is, people on both sides of this argument are pointing out
00:34:06 ◼ ► a lot of the same things that are lacking in iOS, but from one perspective, it's proof that this is
00:34:14 ◼ ► a toy, and from the other perspective, it's frustration that this productive tool doesn't go
00:34:20 ◼ ► far enough. So it's all a matter of perspective. Yeah, and it's, you know, we might spend some time
00:34:28 ◼ ► today talking about some places that we want to see the iPad Pro go to, but I think that, I think,
00:34:39 ◼ ► framing every single review around the fact that this machine has to be better or replace a PC.
00:34:56 ◼ ► you know, we don't, this isn't how we approach all products, you know? And I find that there can be
00:35:04 ◼ ► benefits in reviewing these things by people that use them every single day, like me and you,
00:35:16 ◼ ► Well, right, that's the advantage of having somebody like Federico write a review of it,
00:35:22 ◼ ► or having me write a review of it. But I think there, you know, if you're somebody who uses a
00:35:27 ◼ ► laptop and is intrigued by the iPad, having a review from somebody who uses a laptop and is
00:35:34 ◼ ► wondering if they can use an iPad is useful, because if that laptop user says, "Mm-mm, no,
00:35:40 ◼ ► you can't, you just can't," then, you know, again, from my perspective, I get frustrated,
00:35:46 ◼ ► because I say, "Well, no, a lot of those things you can, it's just different." But I think there
00:35:52 ◼ ► are, you know, it is a valid point of view to be one of those people who's on the other side of the
00:35:57 ◼ ► fence and who's, you know, literally like, "I don't know, could I use this? Could I, instead of buying
00:36:02 ◼ ► a new Mac laptop or PC laptop, could I just buy an iPad Pro and do everything?" And even the most
00:36:08 ◼ ► dyed-in-the-wool iPad Pro user would not approach that hypothetical and say, "Oh, yes, absolutely,"
00:36:16 ◼ ► right? You have to ask a lot of questions about what their job is and what tools they use,
00:36:21 ◼ ► because sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes it is no. And I think our frustration when we see
00:36:27 ◼ ► reviews of the iPad sometimes is because it's all framed around the fact that the iPad Pro is a
00:36:34 ◼ ► failure because sometimes the answer is no. And that's not right. Like, sometimes the answer is no,
00:36:41 ◼ ► sometimes it's not the right tool for the job. That doesn't mean that it's not a tool. It just
00:36:48 ◼ ► means that it's not the right tool for some kind of jobs. But the internet lacks a lot of nuance,
00:36:54 ◼ ► and people sometimes lack nuance, and the fact that it's not the right tool for some kind of jobs
00:36:59 ◼ ► translates into it's a toy. Yeah. Like, you know, there are a bunch of reviews that I really
00:37:05 ◼ ► enjoyed. I really enjoyed Nilay's review. I really enjoyed John Gruber's review. I think that they
00:37:11 ◼ ► had a lot of balance to them. But the problem is, you know, as is all these things, people see what
00:37:15 ◼ ► they want to see, and people will pick out things and be like, "Oh, well, look at this quote. It
00:37:20 ◼ ► means it's a failure." That's why it's great that there are so many reviews and videos and all these
00:37:24 ◼ ► things is because then I feel like you can get a really interesting, holistic view of the product
00:37:31 ◼ ► by seeing these different perspectives. And here is another one. Let's talk about hardware design.
00:37:35 ◼ ► These things are so thin, I cannot conceive the thinness of them. Like, I know how thin they are.
00:37:46 ◼ ► I know that they are thinner than any iPhone ever made, but my brain cannot believe that fact.
00:37:51 ◼ ► It's, um, well, I mean, the shape is so totally different. That's part of it. I think the thing
00:37:56 ◼ ► that struck me about it is that Apple has decided, so with the iPad 2, they started rounding the
00:38:03 ◼ ► edges. And really that was because they wanted to make them feel less chunky. I mean, so many Apple
00:38:10 ◼ ► products have rounded around the edges. My iMac Pro is rounded at the edges and bulges in the back.
00:38:17 ◼ ► And the idea there is to make it seem thinner than it is, right? And with this design, they just
00:38:25 ◼ ► stopped. They're like, "Nah, we don't need to do that anymore. We can go back to like the original
00:38:30 ◼ ► iPad. We can go back to those flat sides because it's so thin that..." And they get benefits from
00:38:42 ◼ ► Well, and also if you made these tapered sides, you wouldn't even be able to fit the USB port on
00:38:47 ◼ ► there anymore. Like you wouldn't be able to do that. Like you're at the point now probably where
00:38:55 ◼ ► issues as opposed to really making anything nice. And those flat edges, that is a, that is a stunning
00:39:02 ◼ ► design. That is just a beautiful design. I, you know, considering that you've got the thin bezels
00:39:11 ◼ ► as well, you know, they're both nine millimeters, which is interesting, right? Like I find it
00:39:15 ◼ ► interesting that the bezels are the same size on both the 11 and the 13. I continue to look at
00:39:24 ◼ ► these iPads and get this real sense of a futuristic feeling design. It's reminiscent of the iPhone 10
00:39:33 ◼ ► in that way for me that I'm looking at these products and they feel like they shouldn't be now.
00:39:41 ◼ ► Like it is a huge jump, right? You know, I still feel that way sometimes when I look at my iPhone 10.
00:39:47 ◼ ► It's like you really are something that is still feels new and these iPads definitely have that
00:39:54 ◼ ► feeling again for me. It's like, wow, you feel like a futuristic device. Yeah. And what it is,
00:40:00 ◼ ► it is literally, I mean, it is literally the first time that Apple has dramatically changed the
00:40:05 ◼ ► design language on the iPad since the iPad two, which was 2011, the second iPad ever made. Since
00:40:13 ◼ ► then it's gotten thinner, but it's basically been the same and they've, you know, they've made some
00:40:18 ◼ ► changes here and there, but like this is completely different. It is a completely different look.
00:40:21 ◼ ► The way I describe it in the review is that it's a little like looking at a laptop, except there's
00:40:28 ◼ ► only the one piece. It super looks like a laptop now. Like it really does. It's kind of weird.
00:40:33 ◼ ► Yeah. I think personally that this design is, it's one of my favorite designs that Apple has
00:40:41 ◼ ► ever put out. Um, because it is, it really does feel like, and I feel like this is overused now,
00:41:02 ◼ ► it's so close to perfection, right? Because if you push these things further, if you even make
00:41:10 ◼ ► the bezels thinner or the device thinner, in theory, you could be harming its usability.
00:41:18 ◼ ► It really feels right now, and again, it's going to change and we'll see how it changes,
00:41:23 ◼ ► but as it stands right now, this device feels about as perfect to what an iPad should be
00:41:36 ◼ ► I actually personally rank this above the iPhone 10 in terms of my personal feelings on design,
00:41:42 ◼ ► is the iPad Pro has no compromises in its design. Like the notch is a compromise, right? That is a
00:41:51 ◼ ► compromise in the design. I like the way it looks, but ideally Apple doesn't want that notch to be
00:41:56 ◼ ► there. But on the iPad, they don't need it. You know, like the only thing that I think could be
00:42:01 ◼ ► considered a compromise on design with the iPad Pro is the camera bump. But in usability affects
00:42:08 ◼ ► absolutely nothing. You can lay the iPads flat with no case on a table. They do not move. They
00:42:15 ◼ ► do not wobble. I don't know how that's possible, but they don't. Like, I really feel that this is
00:42:21 ◼ ► one of, from just a pure design perspective, one of the least compromising designs Apple has ever
00:42:27 ◼ ► made. It is just exactly as it should be. Yeah, yeah. I like it. It's fun. I mean, it is new,
00:42:38 ◼ ► too. So we've got the new product thing there. But part of this, too, is that it's so nice to see
00:42:54 ◼ ► There was something. So in our chat room right now, Zach Knox pointed out that, you know, in his
00:42:58 ◼ ► mind, the last big iPad change was with the Air and the Mini, which, I mean, we could argue about
00:43:06 ◼ ► it, but it still was a curved edge. The curve got a little steeper. They also got a lot thinner,
00:43:12 ◼ ► which is one reason they had to do that. But still, it felt like, you know, again, this is
00:43:18 ◼ ► the one where they threw out the design playbook. They didn't tweak it. They threw it out. And
00:43:24 ◼ ► so we can argue about how far back this goes. But it goes far back either way. Even if it goes to
00:43:29 ◼ ► the Mini and the Air, it goes far back. And in an era where we've also been complaining about how
00:43:36 ◼ ► Apple has not spent enough time thinking about iOS on the iPad, which we can get to later, but
00:43:42 ◼ ► it really shows now, like the fact that they didn't really start revving up the engine in terms of
00:43:49 ◼ ► iPad features until iOS 9, when they should have been putting their foot on the gas from the very
00:43:56 ◼ ► beginning. I feel like it's really starting to hurt them now. So at a time when they were kind
00:44:03 ◼ ► of like not doing it on the software side, they also weren't doing it on the hardware side. The
00:44:09 ◼ ► internals kept getting better. But like this is the time where it's like Apple has spent a lot of
00:44:13 ◼ ► design effort to make a completely different looking iPad now with the new iPad Pro. It feels
00:44:18 ◼ ► good, right? It feels, as somebody who uses this product line, it does feel nice to have it get
00:44:29 ◼ ► roll back the tapes. I said this after WWDC. We have no iPad features. And I still feel this way.
00:44:35 ◼ ► I would forgive it if the hardware was incredible, right? That like, I will let them go every two
00:44:42 ◼ ► years and be happy with it if that's how we're going to go for software. But in those off years,
00:44:47 ◼ ► I want good hardware. And like they really gave that to me. You know, like this for me is like,
00:44:53 ◼ ► I know iOS isn't changing, but I now have a renewed love for these devices again, because
00:44:59 ◼ ► the hardware is so incredible. And just because of some of the changes in the hardware, it's brought
00:45:04 ◼ ► some new stuff to me, which is making my overall experience better. Yes. You know, the iPad is the
00:45:09 ◼ ► screen, right? Like that's what it is ultimately. And this screen is just continues to be incredible.
00:45:15 ◼ ► So, you know, this True Tone wide color, and it has ProMotion. And I know ProMotion is something
00:45:20 ◼ ► that's kind of new for you now. Yeah, well, so that's one of the funny things about this is that
00:45:24 ◼ ► although I have a review unit of the second gen 12.9 in a drawer for photography for, you know,
00:45:33 ◼ ► all these things, but the one I bought and the one I use is the one I bought is a first generation.
00:45:38 ◼ ► And first generation does not have ProMotion. And it does not have the wide color gamut and it
00:45:45 ◼ ► doesn't have True Tone. And so I don't use those day to day on the iPad. So it's just a reminder
00:45:52 ◼ ► for people who are not upgrading. If they're thinking about upgrading to this and they're
00:45:55 ◼ ► not upgrading from the previous iPad Pro, you have missed out on a lot of these features that
00:46:01 ◼ ► are pretty amazing. So it's just a reminder to me of how good they are and how good that display is.
00:46:08 ◼ ► Again, not really new features, just the high frame rate, the smooth scrolling, it's pretty
00:46:14 ◼ ► great. And yes, it is important that that display be great because it is all you see. There's a
00:46:21 ◼ ► bezel, of course, the bezel is a little bit thinner than it used to be on two sides and
00:46:27 ◼ ► way thinner than it used to be on the other two sides. But the screen is at the center. Now,
00:46:32 ◼ ► I'm not going to say it's like touching light, because I don't know what that means. But it is
00:46:36 ◼ ► a big deal and a great experience when you're using it. I think they said that because they've
00:46:43 ◼ ► too many times said it's like just holding the web page in your hands or whatever. They needed
00:46:48 ◼ ► another way to describe it because they've used that thing a million times. The Rounded Edges,
00:46:53 ◼ ► Liquid Retina, which is apparently from the Eliza review, that's all that means, by the way.
00:46:58 ◼ ► Liquid Retina just means the edges are round and it's an LCD, has introduced some letterboxing
00:47:10 ◼ ► taking advantage of the full screen sizes, it has some slight letterboxing on the top and bottom.
00:47:16 ◼ ► So basically the home indicator like you have on the iPhone just is in a black bar and the status
00:47:22 ◼ ► bar is in a black bar and the content sits in between it. This is weirdly, I mean, there is a
00:47:32 ◼ ► The 11 changed its aspect ratio. So it is in addition to you, you're getting a letterbox
00:47:40 ◼ ► on the orientation or you're getting a pillar box. So it's, yeah, the lack of, if you've got
00:47:45 ◼ ► a non-updated piece of software, it's much more noticeable on the 11 than it is on the 13 for sure.
00:47:50 ◼ ► It really is. Yeah. I've held them side by side. I'm like the same apps open and it's like, yeah,
00:48:01 ◼ ► you're using an app that hasn't been updated with an app that has, it goes back to the letterboxing
00:48:06 ◼ ► because that's how it has to do it. I was actually writing my article, my review in a text editor that
00:48:12 ◼ ► was updated while I was writing the section about the displays and I ran the update and then suddenly
00:48:18 ◼ ► it was updated to support the new display sizes. I was like, oh, that's better. As I was writing
00:48:23 ◼ ► that section, which is pretty funny. And it's kind of like the iPhone 10, right? Like going
00:48:26 ◼ ► all the way to the edges doesn't necessarily add a lot of functionality, but it does look really good.
00:48:35 ◼ ► I saw people mentioning it in our Slack and I was like, it's not that big a deal. And the thing is,
00:48:42 ◼ ► it's not that big a deal because the black bezel and the black letterboxing, you kind of don't
00:48:47 ◼ ► notice it. In certain apps, you really do notice it. But yeah, the truth is that for the top and
00:48:53 ◼ ► bottom, especially, and when you've got the safe areas in the corners, because you've got those
00:48:56 ◼ ► curves, you know, a lot of times it's just content that's flowing under the status bar or flowing
00:49:04 ◼ ► under the home indicator at the bottom. And it's not super important content. It just, it looks
00:49:10 ◼ ► better that way. My text editor, one writer, actually had a bug where it was hiding the part
00:49:18 ◼ ► of the toolbar at the top of the screen was going off the top. And so there was like a game of like,
00:49:23 ◼ ► how can I get it back so that I can touch it? And then the update happened and it's like,
00:49:40 ◼ ► how important it is. And I think, I think the best example is when you're using a keyboard with it,
00:49:49 ◼ ► where, you know, when you're using a keyboard with it, you literally just keep using the keyboard.
00:49:56 ◼ ► You don't, you know, you call up one password and it opens. You go to the, you step to your
00:50:03 ◼ ► iPad wherever it is, and you touch the space bar and it opens, right. It doesn't, you don't have
00:50:08 ◼ ► to reach up because it's one of those things where you got to reach up and rest your finger on it and
00:50:13 ◼ ► get the face ID or get the touch ID and all that. And now that's just gone. Your face is already in,
00:50:18 ◼ ► it's right there and it unlocks the device and yeah. So it's huge. It's great. And the fact is
00:50:25 ◼ ► it's so forgiving. Yes. If you are covering the camera, it will tell you. But what I found is like,
00:50:31 ◼ ► unlike my iPad, my iPhone, which I feel like is not forgiving, obviously it's got to be upright
00:50:36 ◼ ► and all that. This thing is so forgiving in terms of, I don't even think about where the camera is
00:50:42 ◼ ► and I just flip it up and it works or it gives me a little arrow and I just move my hand and
00:50:47 ◼ ► it just immediately unlocks. It's, it's so it's fast, it's forgiving. And in a lot of scenarios
00:50:53 ◼ ► when you're using it, it basically, it's like you don't even need to know that it's there. It just
00:50:58 ◼ ► sort of happens and you keep going on working. Like I've been trying to trick it, but like,
00:51:04 ◼ ► I can't do it. It's so interesting to me. You know, like I feel like it unlocks way better.
00:51:09 ◼ ► Like I found it unlocks when two people are looking at it, it gets it. And I feel like,
00:51:13 ◼ ► well, that should confuse it, but it doesn't. It feels like it has a wider field of view and
00:51:18 ◼ ► can detect from further distances than my iPhone can. You know, like I can have my iPad flat down
00:51:23 ◼ ► on the desk in front of me and it will unlock and the iPhone is way spotier than that. Not only does
00:51:28 ◼ ► it work in all orientations, it will unlock in diagonal orientations. Like I've been testing,
00:51:34 ◼ ► I spin the iPad around. Like it is incredible. Like I don't know what they've done, but I genuinely
00:51:42 ◼ ► believe that there is some slightly different hardware in here as well that they're just not
00:51:48 ◼ ► mentioning right now. And I was on the talk show this week with Merlyn, Man and John Gruber,
00:52:29 ◼ ► What they didn't say, and it makes me wonder is, is it the same hardware in the same position?
00:52:38 ◼ ► Or did they do something where the infrared and the flood illuminator and the dot projector,
00:52:45 ◼ ► if it's the same projector, but it's projecting over a wider field or something like that,
00:53:04 ◼ ► - Yeah, it would be interesting to see exactly where all those sensors are and where they're
00:53:09 ◼ ► pointed and how that might vary. Maybe it's the same, but yeah, it is kind of hard to believe how
00:53:19 ◼ ► - And it really makes the whole thing so much nicer. I love how helpful the UI is, right?
00:53:26 ◼ ► Like you're too far away, you're covering it up. Yeah, thank you for all of that, right?
00:53:31 ◼ ► I enjoy all of those prompts. I think it's great. So Face ID, I mean, ultimately, big thumbs up.
00:53:37 ◼ ► Like I like it on the iPad even more than on my iPhone. I sit down to my iPad, it's at the desk
00:53:44 ◼ ► with the keyboard out and I hit the space bar two times and I'm in. It wakes up the screen and opens
00:54:04 ◼ ► The only one downside for me from Face ID, i.e. no home button, is unlocking or like quitting
00:54:14 ◼ ► an app when I'm using the Apple Pencil. Like I used to use my Apple Pencil and hit the home button,
00:54:29 ◼ ► interact with any of the system elements. So it could never change multitasking. It can't bring
00:54:37 ◼ ► down control center. It can't bring down notification center. So it also doesn't work with the home
00:54:42 ◼ ► indicator. So this is not a big thing, but it's just something that I keep like putting my Apple
00:54:48 ◼ ► Pencil to a place that doesn't exist, right? It's like off the edge of the iPad to try and hit the
00:54:53 ◼ ► home button. So that's the one downside that I have with no home button anymore. Everything else
00:54:59 ◼ ► is upside. Oh, and also there's a second, the screenshot thing is a nightmare. I hate that.
00:55:09 ◼ ► - They're the two buttons closest to the corner. So I've gotten used to this sort of like,
00:55:13 ◼ ► just kind of pinch the corner thing, but yeah, that takes some getting used to for sure.
00:55:17 ◼ ► - I've also found it to be less reliable. Like it's failing on me. Like it keeps changing the
00:55:21 ◼ ► volume. I assume this is just something that needs to be tweaked, but that's been a bit wonky for me.
00:55:26 ◼ ► Should we talk about the performance? I mean, I don't really know what to say. Like these are
00:55:30 ◼ ► incredibly fast and incredibly responsive as you would expect, but there is an abundance of head
00:55:36 ◼ ► room in these devices. Like it's just, this is why so many people are talking about the missing
00:55:45 ◼ ► parts of iOS because these devices are so powerful. Like I get how you get from there to there,
00:55:50 ◼ ► but all it does is, and I've seen other people say this, I completely agree. It reminds me
00:55:55 ◼ ► of the iPad Air 2 and iOS 9. Like the iPad Air 2 debuted and was way too powerful for what iOS on
00:56:08 ◼ ► - Yeah. And also I think it's like, you need more apps that can take advantage of this. And they
00:56:12 ◼ ► know that they've got Photoshop coming down the road and there are others. I spent a lot of time
00:56:16 ◼ ► doing some testing with, with Ferrite recording studio, the editing app that I use for podcasts
00:56:29 ◼ ► a couple of places where I'm like, I'm not seeing any benefit here. And I think I've found places,
00:56:34 ◼ ► I did some performance analysis apparently for him where there's some places that he might want
00:56:39 ◼ ► to actually, he can gain some benefit by speeding up the app. But there were also some areas where
00:56:45 ◼ ► it was just very clearly for something like that, much faster. And it's one of those things where,
00:56:56 ◼ ► if you're waiting for the export to happen, it does matter. And I think the challenge is that
00:57:00 ◼ ► there are a lot of apps that just don't stress out the system. And so we need more of those
00:57:06 ◼ ► and there needs to be more functionality that uses the power because the power is there.
00:57:10 ◼ ► And that's a recurring theme actually, in a lot of reviews, it comes out, as we said earlier,
00:57:19 ◼ ► it comes out dismissive. But for me, the big question is not, is this a computer or is this
00:57:26 ◼ ► a PC or can it replace your PC? For me, I think the question we need to keep asking is,
00:57:33 ◼ ► can a software live up to the hardware? And right now the answer is no. I think when we can get it,
00:57:40 ◼ ► we can get into it a little bit, but like the hard, like you said about the iPad Air 2 and iOS
00:57:44 ◼ ► 8 and then 9, the hardware is, I said last week, the hardware is willing, but the software is weak.
00:57:52 ◼ ► I mean, it's kind of like that. It's like, what can this hardware do? It can do anything you throw
00:57:56 ◼ ► at it. Are there more things we could throw at it? Like let's find some more things to throw at it,
00:58:02 ◼ ► because right now it will handle almost anything you throw at it. You can edit video with a 4K
00:58:10 ◼ ► external display and all that. Yeah, you can totally do that, but there are not as many
00:58:15 ◼ ► of those use cases as you want, because quite honestly, if you're not stressing out the hardware,
00:58:21 ◼ ► there are a lot of arguments that you should just be buying the $350 iPad at that point. The point
00:58:26 ◼ ► of having a $1,000 iPad with all this power is that you use it. And that's the big open question,
00:58:34 ◼ ► I think, about this product. And I'm in the camp of believing that there will be more places it
00:58:40 ◼ ► will be used. I mean, even just in Photoshop, right? Like I'm sure Photoshop really needs this.
00:58:45 ◼ ► But if you're gonna do more with the operating system, they had to release these devices now.
00:58:54 ◼ ► These iPads will be the iPads we have for the next 18 months to two years, because that's the kind
00:59:00 ◼ ► of cadence that the iPad is on right now, especially the iPad Pro. So you would want to
00:59:12 ◼ ► My theory is that that Germin report that they had iPad features in iOS 12 and they kicked them out
00:59:20 ◼ ► because they wanted stability. I believe that this thing was designed with some of those features in
00:59:27 ◼ ► mind. And we just didn't get them. And I think that may have actually been the case with iOS 8
00:59:33 ◼ ► and iOS 9 too, is in the end, I think in the end, Apple is willing to kick those features down the
00:59:40 ◼ ► road and just release an iPad that's incredibly capable and then let the next version catch up
00:59:45 ◼ ► with it. The nice thing about the iPad Air 2 being so capable is that when WWDC came around the next
00:59:51 ◼ ► June, they said, "You can test these features now on the iPad Air or iPad Air 2 or whatever. You can
00:59:57 ◼ ► test them now. We have them now, even though there is an iPad Pro coming, but we already have a
01:00:01 ◼ ► capable system that you can test these on." And whatever they do in iOS 13, these iPad Pros will
01:00:07 ◼ ► be able to handle it. But I think it's debatable whether these were designed purposefully to be
01:00:12 ◼ ► ready for whatever comes next or whether they were designed for whatever comes next and it got
01:00:16 ◼ ► delayed. So referencing another thing that kind of isn't there yet, USB-C. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
01:00:23 ◼ ► this is... We knew this would happen. You and I have been talking for months now about this
01:00:26 ◼ ► rumor about the iPads having USB-C. And I think saying that this is going to be a challenge for
01:00:33 ◼ ► Apple in terms of communication because USB-C is a plug and it only works with what the software has
01:00:41 ◼ ► been built to support. And Apple basically didn't improve the software support for devices.
01:00:49 ◼ ► It essentially, with the exception of like high resolution displays, and there's some complexity
01:00:54 ◼ ► there, right? Because it won't work with a... It'll drive 5K displays, but it won't drive 5K
01:00:59 ◼ ► Thunderbolt displays because it doesn't have Thunderbolt. You need to have a USB display.
01:01:03 ◼ ► And there are like three of them or something like that. There's not very many of them. No trip
01:01:07 ◼ ► to Dongle Town will save you on that one, I don't think. No, because you can't... Thunderbolt and
01:01:12 ◼ ► USB-C, you know, you can't make USB-C behave like Thunderbolt. That doesn't happen. So it's the
01:01:18 ◼ ► other way around. So the challenge is they haven't done anything for... If you could adapt it before,
01:01:25 ◼ ► you can do it now. And the difference is just that the port is different and you might not need
01:01:29 ◼ ► an adapter. But the sheer existence of it as a USB-C port doesn't make it support anything
01:01:35 ◼ ► more. That is, once again, it's back to the software. And... As far as I can tell, the only
01:01:40 ◼ ► different thing that it does is allows you to charge other USB-C devices, right? Or USB devices.
01:01:46 ◼ ► Well, it's so... So it can do more power than lightning. And so there are lots of USB devices
01:01:54 ◼ ► that are bus-powered that you previously could only use on an iPad with that adapter where you
01:01:59 ◼ ► also plugged in a lightning plug and plugged it into power. And then it would power those
01:02:04 ◼ ► devices that now will just run off of bus power. Lots of microphones and USB interfaces and even
01:02:10 ◼ ► some keyboards that wanted power and the iPad couldn't supply it over lightning and so they
01:02:16 ◼ ► didn't work. And now they work. And that's a function of USB-C. And yes, so that means you
01:02:20 ◼ ► can also charge external devices with it. That's a function of USB-C that is great. And the software
01:02:26 ◼ ► doesn't really need to support that at a high level, so great. But what it doesn't get you is
01:02:32 ◼ ► what a lot of people thought, which is, "Great, I can plug in my name of random USB-C device here
01:02:42 ◼ ► And so the one we keep talking about is file access, where Apple built file access on storage
01:02:54 ◼ ► And so it'll import, if you plug storage into any iOS device, it will open the Photos app
01:03:01 ◼ ► and try to bring in anything that it recognizes as a video or a picture. And that is all it is
01:03:07 ◼ ► capable of doing to this day, even though there's a file browser now and all of that, that's not,
01:03:11 ◼ ► it launches photos and it wants you to import photos and videos and that's literally everything.
01:03:16 ◼ ► And that, you know, by changing the port, Apple has opened itself up to that conversation again,
01:03:28 ◼ ► but it doesn't do the stuff that happens when you plug those devices into a computer. And, you know,
01:03:35 ◼ ► it's another one of those examples where it would really, I was talking to somebody the other
01:03:41 ◼ ► day, it might have been Dan Morin, and we were saying how it is kind of baffling why Apple,
01:03:48 ◼ ► I don't know, maybe they don't want to do it or maybe it's just too hard or maybe they couldn't
01:03:52 ◼ ► do it in time, but like, think of how much criticism Apple could have completely bypassed
01:03:58 ◼ ► about the iPad if they had put file storage into an iOS update. So like the amount of people that
01:04:07 ◼ ► but it's just something that's such an oversight we can't believe it didn't get fixed, right?
01:04:12 ◼ ► And it reminds me of range anxiety with electric vehicles, which is like most of the time you don't
01:04:18 ◼ ► need that range, but you are really reluctant to buy an electric car because what if I do?
01:04:28 ◼ ► and you and I both experienced this, you are closing yourself off to a bunch of scenarios
01:04:36 ◼ ► where somebody hands you a USB thing and says, can you get the file off of this? And the answer is no,
01:04:40 ◼ ► I literally cannot do that. When I am recording something with a USB recorder and it saves
01:04:46 ◼ ► something audio files on an SD card, I can't, I had to buy a weird contraption to bridge that via
01:04:53 ◼ ► Wi-Fi and a custom app and it's like all this whole thing because I can't just bring my iPad
01:04:59 ◼ ► and my SD card recorder, even though it's got USB and I've got an SD card reader for my iPad,
01:05:10 ◼ ► but it's hard to commit when you, by committing, you are closing yourself off from some very common,
01:05:25 ◼ ► cloud service file transfers is the future and we're building this for the future. But the fact is,
01:05:33 ◼ ► there are so many scenarios where you are not and the person you're dealing with is not
01:05:37 ◼ ► on a high-speed network. That was more of an excuse when you were using lightning ports,
01:05:42 ◼ ► but now you have the exact port that's needed. So now it's harder to excuse. Yeah, and also I don't
01:05:48 ◼ ► buy it like, okay, this is advice that can edit 4K video. What cloud access? Like, you know,
01:05:53 ◼ ► at least it can import the video. But that's an example where it's like, well, why even bother?
01:05:57 ◼ ► Let's just use the cloud. Oh, because the files are huge and my audio files, they're also huge.
01:06:01 ◼ ► And if I'm on an airplane and somebody hands me a PowerPoint presentation on a USB drive,
01:06:05 ◼ ► what do I do? The answer is nothing because the iPad won't see it. And that's like, that's not
01:06:11 ◼ ► good enough. So again, they could have saved, this all could have been avoided if they had done that
01:06:18 ◼ ► software update. And I wonder if it's coming or if they're just going to be adamant about not doing
01:06:22 ◼ ► it. I will say this, because I don't want to assume malfeasance here. It will be a crying shame
01:06:32 ◼ ► if Apple doesn't want to support file access in iOS because of some sacred cow that was put there
01:06:42 ◼ ► years ago by somebody who may not even be with Apple anymore saying, oh no, no, we can't do that.
01:06:48 ◼ ► Like you've got a files app now, get over it, let us plug in devices and see what files are on them.
01:06:59 ◼ ► but if they had done that before they had switched to USB-C or when they switched to USB-C,
01:07:04 ◼ ► this whole line of arguments would just vanish and they didn't do it. So maybe it'll happen later.
01:07:10 ◼ ► That would be good. But that's the part that gets me is not the, I want this feature, so therefore
01:07:15 ◼ ► I'm grumpy that they didn't provide it. It's like, do you guys understand how this one example opens
01:07:21 ◼ ► you up to this whole line of criticism that you could just avoid if you implemented that feature?
01:07:25 ◼ ► So maybe it's just really hard and they couldn't do it and they were concerned about the performance
01:07:30 ◼ ► issues in iOS 12 and so they had to kick it out. But it seems like maybe a mistake from an iPad
01:07:45 ◼ ► the peripherals that Apple sells alongside it. We should talk about those, but before we do,
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01:09:08 ◼ ► and RelayFM. So let's start with the keyboard folio. And let's start with the keys. So how does
01:09:18 ◼ ► this feel to you, the keyboard? I mean, it's effectively the same as the previous one, but
01:09:23 ◼ ► what have you been feeling? Well, it is the same, which is reassuring because I actually,
01:09:29 ◼ ► I like that keyboard. It's funny though, one of the biggest pieces of criticism I've heard
01:09:34 ◼ ► about the keyboard was from Harry McCracken, who used to be the editor at PC World and he's now at
01:09:39 ◼ ► Fast Company. And he's been using an iPad as his primary computer for a long time. People don't
01:09:45 ◼ ► know. He's another one we should put on the list of the high profile iPad people because that is
01:09:50 ◼ ► his computer. And his biggest criticism of it is he wears them out. He uses them so much to write
01:09:57 ◼ ► all of his articles and stuff that he wears them out and has to get new keyboards. And I think
01:10:00 ◼ ► that's not great. Like apparently if you really use them, you can wear out that fabric keyboard.
01:10:04 ◼ ► But I like it and he was disappointed because it doesn't seem to be any different. I've totally
01:10:10 ◼ ► worn them down to making them shiny. I haven't broken any, but I've made those keys shiny.
01:10:16 ◼ ► He's gotten them beyond that point, but yeah, they're really good. I think they're good and
01:10:19 ◼ ► bad in these new ones. I think they addressed, it's not quite like the pencil where I feel like
01:10:25 ◼ ► they addressed every issue and you and I have talked about that a little bit. They addressed
01:10:28 ◼ ► every issue and it's like, yes, they got it exactly. Here, it's a more complicated product.
01:10:33 ◼ ► It has to do a bunch of different things. They have had to make some trade-offs, but I do feel
01:10:37 ◼ ► like they learned from the past version and have made some very good decisions along with some
01:10:43 ◼ ► decisions that are questionable. But overall, like overall for me, the number one thing they
01:10:49 ◼ ► needed to do is make this thing more lappable, to make it more steady when you're typing with the
01:10:56 ◼ ► iPad in your lap because it was shaky. It's not quite as shaky as something with a pure kickstand,
01:11:01 ◼ ► but like the old one had a fold. And so the back case came down and a lot of the weight of the iPad
01:11:07 ◼ ► was transferred into the back of the underneath part that's sitting on your lap. And then there's
01:11:14 ◼ ► a fold there. And as a result, you end up with this thing where the two surfaces are kind of
01:11:18 ◼ ► independently moving and that made it feel much less stable. And plus it was dealing, you know,
01:11:25 ◼ ► the force was getting transferred through this kind of folded over triangle in the back.
01:11:31 ◼ ► And they completely changed that where there's a single rigid surface that is the part that goes on
01:11:36 ◼ ► your lap and the way that the force is transferred is more direct. And as a result, it is totally
01:11:42 ◼ ► like I have spent all weekend writing my review using the keyboard folio and mostly not on a
01:11:51 ◼ ► table, but in my lap. And it has worked great. And that is that. So, so for all the other details we
01:11:58 ◼ ► can get into here, for me, that was number one on Apple's list and they got it. They nailed it.
01:12:04 ◼ ► So the keyboard, as you say, in the lap is much sturdier, but the iPad itself, like when you're
01:12:09 ◼ ► tapping on the iPad, when it's in that kind of keyboard, it's pretty bouncy. Um, as it, as it
01:12:15 ◼ ► kind of is resting on that triangle, cause the triangle is still kind of there as like, you know,
01:12:19 ◼ ► how it's putting the angle in. There's quite a bit of bounce to it. It's a little bouncy,
01:12:24 ◼ ► but it's easier to put into position. Uh, you know, like it is a more easily understandable
01:12:31 ◼ ► design than the origami of the previous version. I went, I went back to, so when I was writing
01:12:37 ◼ ► about this, I got the old one out and I was using it now and I do what I still do, which is like,
01:12:42 ◼ ► how does this go? What is the order? Where does it? And like, it's, you can figure it out,
01:12:47 ◼ ► but like this one, there's no question. Just, Oh, it goes like this. It's super fast, easy.
01:12:51 ◼ ► The new one doesn't. I still, you know, same wishes, you know, I wish it had media keys,
01:12:56 ◼ ► you know, I really wish they found even to put some skinny media keys in there, you know,
01:13:00 ◼ ► like a play pause and brightness and all that stuff. Other keyboards have it. I really wish
01:13:05 ◼ ► that they would have had it, but they don't. So yeah, maybe enough, maybe another time.
01:13:10 ◼ ► - Yeah. No function row, which again, I don't really need. Um, this, I feel like this is one
01:13:15 ◼ ► of those things where it's the faster horse argument. I don't need a function row. What
01:13:20 ◼ ► I need is keyboard access to a play, pause, volume, brightness. Those are the things that I need
01:13:28 ◼ ► keyboard access to. And if Apple's not going to provide those keys on this keyboard, fine,
01:13:32 ◼ ► provide back to the software again, provide assignable shortcuts in the system that are
01:13:37 ◼ ► system-wide that let me do keyboard shortcuts to replace those dedicated keys that they've decided
01:13:43 ◼ ► they can't fit on this keyboard, but they don't do that. And I don't need backlighting. Although
01:13:47 ◼ ► I know people really want backlighting. It would be very hard to do on a keyboard with this design.
01:13:51 ◼ ► I do get frustrated by the lack of a caps lock indicator because boy, I start typing in all caps
01:13:58 ◼ ► because I brushed against the caps lock all the time. - There are lots of magnets. These magnets
01:14:03 ◼ ► make it easy to attach. - All the magnets. - There are just lots of magnets. There are magnets
01:14:07 ◼ ► everywhere in this thing. - 100 plus magnets all over this thing, including many of them are on
01:14:12 ◼ ► the backside, which provides that kind of like grid of support, which I think is actually makes
01:14:18 ◼ ► it easier to go on and it holds it more securely. The way that I have approached it is basically
01:14:24 ◼ ► look where the camera bump is and look where the camera hole is. And you just kind of go,
01:14:30 ◼ ► boop, and it does it and it aligns it and it holds it solidly. And my experience with it is that I,
01:14:36 ◼ ► only once or twice have I been fiddling with the case and had it kind of pop off the magnets.
01:14:48 ◼ ► but otherwise it stays stuck. And that's what I want. I think they did a pretty good job.
01:15:00 ◼ ► come off accidentally. And that's a tricky little balance that they, well-designed, I have no doubt
01:15:05 ◼ ► that people were really, at Apple, were really trying to find that sweet spot that it holds it
01:15:11 ◼ ► sufficiently well that it's not going to fall out accidentally, but that it still holds on.
01:15:16 ◼ ► - 103 magnets would have been too many. Like, "Oh, it's just a little bit too strong now. 102
01:15:22 ◼ ► is perfect." Right? The overall look of the Key Wolf Folio is incredibly boring. It is just this
01:15:30 ◼ ► smooth, gray nothing. Like, no Apple logo even. It has nothing. It's just smooth, gray nothing.
01:15:40 ◼ ► - This is my grumpy part of my review, especially, is like, it's so disappointing. Like,
01:15:51 ◼ ► but even the Folio that doesn't have a keyboard, that comes in gray and white on the big one,
01:15:57 ◼ ► and gray, white, and pink on the small one. And it's this synthetic material. It's super flat and
01:16:02 ◼ ► featureless, which I've also found picks up fingerprints, and it picks up other junk. I had
01:16:07 ◼ ► this in my kitchen at one point when I was cooking something, and I took it back to the living room,
01:16:12 ◼ ► and it had like, just junk all over it. And it's so visible because it's this featureless slab of
01:16:20 ◼ ► gray, kind of not particularly appealing material. And it's, yeah, it's not, and the one side,
01:16:29 ◼ ► which has that flat surface with the keyboard on it, which it's great that it's a single surface
01:16:33 ◼ ► for that, but there's nothing to detail it. It's just empty. At least there's a fold on the other
01:16:38 ◼ ► side. So yeah, the Apple logo, you mentioned that to me yesterday. It's like, "Why not put an Apple
01:16:45 ◼ ► logo on there?" Like, you're Apple. You're the only company that can put Apple logos on stuff.
01:16:49 ◼ ► Emboss an Apple logo on something to say, "I am so awesome. I am using my iPad as a keyboard with,"
01:16:54 ◼ ► and look at that horizontal Apple logo there. Nope, nothing. And it's super disappointing
01:17:03 ◼ ► they need to use certain kinds of materials, but like, it just is, it's not attractive. In fact,
01:17:10 ◼ ► what I say in the review, I keep referencing this review that I haven't finished writing yet,
01:17:14 ◼ ► is basically Myke was right, which is I don't like putting stickers all over everything,
01:17:22 ◼ ► but let me tell you, I really want to put stickers all over these keyboard cases because they're
01:17:28 ◼ ► super boring and kind of unpleasant to touch and look at as they are. And that's too bad. Like,
01:17:33 ◼ ► you know, I spent the last couple of years with a leather smart cover on midnight blue on my iPad
01:17:40 ◼ ► Pro and I loved it. I was so happy when they finally came out with some colors and some
01:17:44 ◼ ► better options for the smart cover. But here we are, we're back to the reset here where
01:18:04 ◼ ► had like two angles. You would have the keyboard out and it would be in a kind of like,
01:18:09 ◼ ► you know, it would be an angled away from you position, you know, like as you would have a
01:18:13 ◼ ► laptop and then you could flip the keyboard around and you could stand it up in what I would call the
01:18:17 ◼ ► media position, which is the same as what the smart covers used to do, smart covers still do,
01:18:22 ◼ ► but the smart keyboard would also do that. The new keyboard folio has two angles with the keyboard
01:18:30 ◼ ► in front of you. One is what they call desk mode and one is called laptop mode, but the desk mode
01:18:39 ◼ ► - It's media position. You would not, there's no good ergonomic scenario where you're using
01:18:46 ◼ ► that keyboard and the screen is in desk mode, I think. It's just not, either your hands are
01:18:50 ◼ ► gonna be too high or the screen's gonna be too low. In fact, I think on the 11, even in the laptop
01:18:56 ◼ ► mode, the angle isn't steep enough. I think it's much better on the 13 than the 11. It's too upright
01:19:05 ◼ ► in my opinion on the 11, even in the non upright mode. - So the 10-5 had this issue as well. The
01:19:25 ◼ ► - Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's the pure geometry of it and the size of the, I will say also the
01:19:30 ◼ ► keys are full size on the 13 and even on the 11, it's not quite full size. There are some narrow
01:19:51 ◼ ► you know, if I'm watching videos or whatever. I miss it. I think it's a shame to lose it.
01:20:00 ◼ ► - Well, yeah, the smart folio, that's what it's called. But it's effectively a smart cover with
01:20:06 ◼ ► a back on it. But I'm just not keen on swapping them around all the time. So I'll see how I go
01:20:11 ◼ ► on that one. I haven't made my mind up on if I get one and do swap it, but that doesn't seem
01:20:17 ◼ ► keen to me. And then I guess the last thing about the keyboard folio, you know, if you don't want
01:20:21 ◼ ► the keyboard in front of you, you kind of wrap it around now. So the keyboard's on the outside,
01:20:24 ◼ ► so you're kind of holding onto the keys. I've heard a lot of people say they don't like this.
01:20:31 ◼ ► So, you know. - I think there's a Hall effect sensor somewhere where basically when you uncouple
01:20:38 ◼ ► the iPad, even though the smart connector is on the back, when the iPad is sitting in one of those
01:20:44 ◼ ► two little trays at the front for the two different angles, it's the snapping of it into that tray via
01:20:53 ◼ ► a magnet that is turning on the keyboard. So when it's uncoupled at all from those little trays,
01:21:02 ◼ ► the keys don't work. So when you wrap it around backward, you can, you know, put your fingers on
01:21:08 ◼ ► those squishy little thingies all you like. It doesn't do anything. Now, if you feel that's weird
01:21:13 ◼ ► and distracting and you don't like it, then I get that. For me, and I think this is actually
01:21:20 ◼ ► an endorsement of this keyboard, I never, ever, ever, ever, ever went anywhere with my old smart
01:21:26 ◼ ► keyboard unless the only thing I was doing was using it for typing something. Otherwise, I would
01:21:34 ◼ ► take another cover or I would leave it off. I just, because it was thick, this other one,
01:21:39 ◼ ► the thing we didn't say, like, it's flat now. The old one had like the thin part and then the super
01:21:44 ◼ ► thick part where the keyboard lived. It was really kind of janky. This new one is just one thing.
01:21:49 ◼ ► It's flat. It feels much better. It's much lighter. The big problem with the 12.9 was always the
01:21:54 ◼ ► surface area of the screen was so huge and it had to cover it, which meant the whole keyboard thing
01:21:58 ◼ ► was huge. There actually were bezels on the keyboard, on the sides of the keys. There was
01:22:05 ◼ ► just like empty space because it had to cover the whole thing. So it's much smaller now and it's
01:22:10 ◼ ► much lighter now. All of these things make it a much better experience. So, you know, there's a lot
01:22:18 ◼ ► going for it. But I will say, so I will carry it around now. And that's a big win. Like, I can
01:22:26 ◼ ► carry it around and I do as my smart cover, essentially, with the keyboard. So that's huge
01:22:31 ◼ ► because I never wanted to do that with the old one. That said, when I'm just reading, especially
01:22:39 ◼ ► like in the morning, if I'm reading like the newspaper in bed while I'm drinking tea, I just
01:22:42 ◼ ► pull it off and just use the naked iPad and that's great. And then it just snaps right back on. So
01:22:50 ◼ ► that's sort of where I am is that I'm using the smart keyboard folio to take it around. But I'm
01:22:55 ◼ ► also trying to be a pretty aggressive in just removing it when I want it out of the way. So
01:23:08 ◼ ► scenario like that, I'll just take it off. Let's talk about the Apple Pencil. I think Apple just
01:23:14 ◼ ► improved the pencil in every conceivable way from version one to version two. It is a huge jump. It
01:23:22 ◼ ► is basically pretty much everything I wanted, but I didn't expect to get everything I wanted. So
01:23:30 ◼ ► again, it's a bigger jump than I would have thought it would have been. It's a weird feeling,
01:23:39 ◼ ► just exactly what is done. But that's what happened with the pencil. Whoever is building
01:23:58 ◼ ► cold, hard, shiny plastic. This isn't something that I've seen a lot of people mention because
01:24:03 ◼ ► only people like me really care about it. So one of the reasons it feels nicer to hold is that it
01:24:08 ◼ ► is better balanced. The weight inside of it is more evenly distributed. And the Apple Pencil
01:24:12 ◼ ► is actually smaller. It is not as long as the previous one. So kind of the entire end where
01:24:19 ◼ ► the lightning port was and the cap, they chopped that off. So the new Apple Pencil is slightly
01:24:24 ◼ ► smaller than the last one, and it needed to be. The previous Apple Pencil was slightly too long,
01:24:29 ◼ ► so when you would hold it in your hand, there was too much sticking out the other side,
01:24:32 ◼ ► which misbalanced it. So it has a much nicer feeling in the hand because it is less long,
01:24:37 ◼ ► so it is nicer to hold. It is more evenly balanced. So that's one of the reasons if you
01:24:41 ◼ ► feel like it feels nicer to hold. That's one of the reasons why. Another is the flat side. You can
01:24:47 ◼ ► hold it by the flat side. You can pick it up, you know, and it orientates itself. It doesn't
01:24:52 ◼ ► roll away because it has the flat side. You can put it down. You just put it down without it like
01:24:56 ◼ ► sliding off the table. It's fantastic. And also the flat side is how you store it. It's how you
01:25:01 ◼ ► charge it. The magnetic attachment and pairing and inductive charging is absolutely incredible.
01:25:19 ◼ ► what is more important than it always being there is that it's always ready. Now, I have always
01:25:26 ◼ ► stored my Apple Pencil in a pen loop that I stuck to the back. It's in the exact same position
01:25:37 ◼ ► the battery would always drain. I grabbed the pencil. It was never charged when I needed it to
01:25:41 ◼ ► be. Now, it always is because you store it on the charger. I have fallen in love with the Apple
01:25:48 ◼ ► Pencil all over again because of this one feature. I think for people like me who don't use the
01:25:56 ◼ ► pencil very much at all, it also makes it more relevant in the sense that, yeah, you want it,
01:26:02 ◼ ► and it's like, "Where is it?" and, "Oh, and it's not charged," and forget it. Whereas with this,
01:26:07 ◼ ► even if you don't know, like you're planning on using it, you're like, "I'm going to do some
01:26:12 ◼ ► pencil stuff here." Even if you don't carry it around all the time, then you just snap it to
01:26:16 ◼ ► the side and you go where you're going and it is there and it's charging and it's ready for you
01:26:22 ◼ ► when you decide to use it. So it's so much better on so many different levels. The magnetic
01:26:26 ◼ ► attachment is not so strong that if you just kind of toss your iPad in a bag, it's not going to pop
01:26:32 ◼ ► off, but it'll be in the bag with your iPad. And when it's out and about and you're using it and
01:26:36 ◼ ► shaking it and stuff, it stays put. - Yeah. So like, you know, it will attach and it will stay
01:26:43 ◼ ► attached and when you're going about your daily business, it will be fine. But as you say, this
01:26:47 ◼ ► exact thing happened to me. I was testing it, taking it in and out of the bag. It will come off,
01:26:55 ◼ ► concerns you, just pop it in a different pocket in the bag. Most bags have pencil pockets. Just put
01:27:01 ◼ ► it in there. It's totally fine. Get it when you need it. But it's going to be fine. It is not as
01:27:07 ◼ ► rigid as strapping it to there, but this is as strong a connection as they could do without you
01:27:13 ◼ ► putting the Apple Pencil into something. I think this is the right way to go. The double tapping
01:27:19 ◼ ► gesture is great. This is really nice. I've used it in a bunch of apps that use it and I'm seeing
01:27:26 ◼ ► lots of developers think about interesting ways to do it. We were talking about Ferrite earlier,
01:27:29 ◼ ► and you were telling me that there's a cool feature in Ferrite, the way that they're going to be
01:27:33 ◼ ► implementing it, that you could basically assign a keyboard shortcut to it effectively, which is
01:27:37 ◼ ► fantastic. - The beta, there's like a handful of features, although I wonder if he will expand
01:27:42 ◼ ► those. I don't draw and I don't write out long hand. My need for Apple Pencil has always been
01:27:52 ◼ ► pretty limited, but I think in part due to your feedback, Ferrite has some good Apple Pencil
01:27:58 ◼ ► support. I was looking at it as part of my review. I should say also, we speculated that there was an
01:28:08 ◼ ► accelerometer in here like AirPods, but what Apple told me is that it's a touch sensitive surface on
01:28:13 ◼ ► the front edge. The front of the cylinder of the pencil is like a little tiny track pad wrapped
01:28:20 ◼ ► around that front surface of the pencil, which means theoretically they could support other
01:28:24 ◼ ► gestures. It may be that they found that other gestures and moving your finger around on it
01:28:30 ◼ ► was confusing, but it's possible that software could handle other gestures beyond just a double
01:28:36 ◼ ► tap in the future. But anyway, that is a touch sensitive surface. It's not just feeling the
01:28:40 ◼ ► accelerometer tap. That's not what it's doing. But my point about Ferrite is, yeah, I set Ferrite to
01:28:48 ◼ ► use the pencil to delete audio and a double tap to play and pause. And that allowed me to hold my
01:28:56 ◼ ► iPad in my hand and stop the audio and delete a couple of little segments and then just double tap
01:29:04 ◼ ► the pencil and the audio starts again. And I thought, well, that's pretty cool. Like the idea
01:29:08 ◼ ► that you can do that or you can toggle. And that's an example where the app developer has overridden
01:29:14 ◼ ► the standard settings because there's a standard set of system settings and replaced it with their
01:29:20 ◼ ► own. In this case, you have to because there's no such thing as draw and erase really in an audio
01:29:26 ◼ ► editor. But I'm excited about that as a possibility that the gestural support on the pencil makes it
01:29:34 ◼ ► that much more of a tool that could be used in other apps as well. So all around Apple Pencil,
01:29:42 ◼ ► like I love it. I'm using it more again than I did before. Like I've fallen in love with it all over
01:29:47 ◼ ► again. It's absolutely wonderful. So there are two iPads. There is the 11 inch, there is the 13 inch.
01:29:56 ◼ ► Which one is right for most people? So I use I have been using both iPads frequently, right? Like I
01:30:03 ◼ ► have my uses. I had been using the 10.5 for when I travel and also using it in bed to read and watch
01:30:09 ◼ ► videos and to use it in the morning. And then would use the 12.9 as my work machine. It's where
01:30:16 ◼ ► I'm doing all of my communication, my email or my show planning, all of my administration,
01:30:22 ◼ ► everything's going in there. For me, nothing's changed because even though the 13 inch is small,
01:30:32 ◼ ► you know, it's physically smaller. For me, it's not necessarily the physical size. It's that 13
01:30:38 ◼ ► inches of screen is more screen than I want in those scenarios. Like at night, that's too bright.
01:30:46 ◼ ► It's too big. It's too bright. When I'm reading in bed at night, next to my wife, right? Like it's too
01:30:52 ◼ ► much light. And the 11 is still smaller. It's still lighter. It's still less expensive. You
01:30:58 ◼ ► know, like I actually still think that the 11 inch iPad, especially now that it is 11 inches,
01:31:05 ◼ ► so it's more than 10.5. I think that it is actually even more than the 10.5, the right iPad
01:31:12 ◼ ► for most people. I think the trade offs that you will experience like slightly less than full apps
01:31:17 ◼ ► and multitasking, slightly less than a full size on screen keyboard, they are worth it. If you believe
01:31:29 ◼ ► the 13 inch is probably the right one for you. Otherwise, you should get the 11 inch because I
01:31:34 ◼ ► think that the smaller iPad Pro is now better than it's ever been. So if you're in that camp,
01:31:40 ◼ ► you have a much, much better option available to you. So I sort of agree with you and sort
01:31:53 ◼ ► that the, I think the 11 is still the right, the smaller of the two is still the right iPad
01:32:20 ◼ ► so much less kind of ungainly to hold and the benefits you get in terms of the bigger screen,
01:32:26 ◼ ► the better multitasking, the better keyboard, that for a certain class of user that's larger,
01:32:32 ◼ ► maybe who might before have been like, "Oh yeah, I like all those things, but boy, it's just so huge."
01:32:38 ◼ ► It's gonna be, it's less awkward. It's less ungainly. It's more of a pleasant device to hold.
01:32:53 ◼ ► you know, who is the 11 for? The 11 is powerful and beautiful and has all of these accessories,
01:33:04 ◼ ► and that's great. Part of me wants to say that the 11-inch iPad Pro is kind of for people who
01:33:26 ◼ ► you can get an iPad, and it has pencil support. It's the old pencil, I know, but you can get that,
01:33:31 ◼ ► and you can get a keyboard case for it if you even want to type on it, and you can do multitasking
01:33:36 ◼ ► and all these things. If you're gonna spend $799 on the 11, I do think there is a good question
01:33:43 ◼ ► to ask yourself, which is, "At this point, what are you gonna use it for?" And if you're really
01:33:47 ◼ ► gonna use it for multitasking and things like that, consider that 13. It's not as ungainly
01:33:53 ◼ ► as it was. That all said, I do think for most people, the 11 is, or for more people than not,
01:34:01 ◼ ► the 11 is the right one to choose. I use, I've used them both, and it's funny because going into
01:34:09 ◼ ► this, I was really thinking that I might go down to the smaller iPad because the larger iPad was,
01:34:13 ◼ ► I love the screen, but it's just, you know, it was a load. It is, you know, it's a heavy thing,
01:34:20 ◼ ► and it's the way to spread out over a large distance. The new 13 really is so much better
01:34:26 ◼ ► at all of that. And then I pick up that 11, and I gotta say, I pick it up, and I'm like,
01:34:32 ◼ ► "Oh no, this is way too small." Like, it's great because it's so light. I spent a day just using
01:34:40 ◼ ► the 11, and at the end of the day, I picked up the 13, and I'm like, "Oh yeah, this is the stuff."
01:34:45 ◼ ► So for me, I am validated. I will say there are times where I've used the 13, and I'm like,
01:34:51 ◼ ► "Which one is this?" Mm-hmm. You lose perspective, but then you pick up the 11, and you're like,
01:34:56 ◼ ► "Oh, it's that one." It's just a, "Hey, little guy!" We are, I think we are mostly in agreement,
01:35:02 ◼ ► right? That, you know, the most people, yes, but the percentages have changed. I 100% agree with
01:35:09 ◼ ► that analogy. They're creeping closer together. And again, it's probably as close as it can get
01:35:15 ◼ ► if they keep these sizes distinct because there isn't really much more you can do to the 13-inch
01:35:21 ◼ ► to make it closer to the 11 now. You know, in size and weight, you know? And I don't think you'd want
01:35:26 ◼ ► it to get any bigger. That's the thing is you don't, and Apple made that choice, right? I think
01:35:31 ◼ ► if we talk about the future of the iPad, I have a hard time imagining them changing from this
01:35:35 ◼ ► scenario right now in terms of the iPad Pro. Yeah, there's an additional size, and it's a different
01:35:41 ◼ ► thing, right? Like, there is a bigger size you can do, but that's a different thing, and we don't know
01:35:46 ◼ ► what that looks like yet. Yeah, because I think that's the truth is if they're going to do
01:35:50 ◼ ► another iPad Pro size other than 11 and 13, I think it's like a 15, and it's an artist's tablet
01:36:01 ◼ ► slate thingy, and I don't think they're actually going to do that, but I feel like that's where
01:36:05 ◼ ► they would go is creating yet another giant screen, not like tinkering around the margins
01:36:12 ◼ ► of these two. They feel like they've kind of landed on more or less the right trade-offs here,
01:36:17 ◼ ► and if you get them closer together, yeah, sure, you can make a 12-inch iPad Pro that's one size
01:36:22 ◼ ► fits all, but I don't know. That doesn't seem necessary. So, we have a little bit more we want
01:36:28 ◼ ► to get to today, but first, let me tell you about Luna Display. I mean, if you want something,
01:36:33 ◼ ► a nice little trinket to make that new iPad Pro purchase even better for you, Luna Display is it.
01:36:40 ◼ ► It is the hardware solution that will turn your iPad into a wireless display for your Mac. You
01:36:46 ◼ ► will have a super portable second display with stunning image quality and zero lag. Setting up
01:36:52 ◼ ► a Luna Display is so simple. You just plug this beautiful little piece of hardware. It's effectively
01:36:57 ◼ ► just, as I say, the smallest dongle you will find. You put it into your Mac, and you'll be up and
01:37:02 ◼ ► running in seconds with everything working over Wi-Fi, or you can also use USB as well to connect
01:37:07 ◼ ► them all up together. It's super simple, and then Luna Display will be a complete extension
01:37:12 ◼ ► for your Macintosh computer. It supports external keyboards as well as Apple Pencil and touch
01:37:16 ◼ ► interactions. So, you have the best of all worlds basically turning your Mac into a part touchscreen
01:37:23 ◼ ► device. It is so simple to set up, and what I love about it is you can just plug it in and leave it,
01:37:28 ◼ ► and whenever your Mac comes on Luna Display, you can have it open and you're ready to go. So,
01:37:32 ◼ ► you don't have to go through this whole mess of like, "Open it on the Mac," and pairing it all
01:37:35 ◼ ► again. It's just you set it, you just open up the Luna Display app on your iPad, and you are ready
01:37:41 ◼ ► to go. I love this thing. It's super simple. You just plug it in, forget about it, and it's there,
01:37:46 ◼ ► and then you have the power of a second display whenever you need it. You know, like if you're on
01:37:50 ◼ ► the road, say you always use two displays at home, you're on the road, you've got a Mac, you've got
01:37:55 ◼ ► like a laptop, and you've got an iPad. Now, you can set up that two display experience no matter
01:38:00 ◼ ► where you are. It's super awesome, and listeners of this show can get 10% off Luna Display. This
01:38:05 ◼ ► is an exclusive discount for our listeners. Just go to lunadisplay.com and use the promo code
01:38:10 ◼ ► UPGRADEITCHECKOUT for that 10% off. That is L-U-N-A-D-I-S-P-L-A-Y dot com, lunadisplay.com,
01:38:19 ◼ ► and the promo code UPGRADEITCHECKOUT. Our thanks to Luna Display for their support of this show
01:38:23 ◼ ► and Relay FM. So, there is a gap between now and June, in which we will, I'm sure, touch on this
01:38:33 ◼ ► many more times, but just from a super high level, I was kind of trying to think of what are some of
01:38:39 ◼ ► the things that we would want to see in iOS 13 to really further take advantage of this professional
01:38:48 ◼ ► grade hardware that we now possess. I think one thing I want to see is some refinements to
01:38:53 ◼ ► multitasking. These are things that I wanted to see from the beginning, like more keyboard controls.
01:39:00 ◼ ► I can hit command space and search for an app, but give me a keyboard shortcut to throw that app to
01:39:06 ◼ ► the left or right side. I can get 70% of the way there with the keyboard. Let me do the whole thing
01:39:15 ◼ ► with the keyboard. I was thinking about this too, right? What more could you do with the dock?
01:39:21 ◼ ► Most of my applications that I use, like 75% of the applications that I frequently use,
01:39:28 ◼ ► they're all in a dock. I've set up my dock in such a way that if I need to bring up a second app,
01:39:33 ◼ ► I can get to it from the dock, or I use Spotlight. But I was thinking, what more could you do?
01:39:38 ◼ ► I was thinking about the home screen, right? How can you change up the home screen? Because
01:39:42 ◼ ► something I think needs to happen there as well. It got me to thinking, I don't know if this is a
01:39:47 ◼ ► good idea, but it's something I thought about. We have Launchpad on the Mac, right? Which is a
01:39:53 ◼ ► way to bring up all your applications from the dock. Why couldn't we just get to our applications
01:40:00 ◼ ► that way on the iPad? Like the Launchpad, which is in the dock, and that's where all your apps are,
01:40:06 ◼ ► and the home screen can be used for something else. Like you could have shortcuts there,
01:40:11 ◼ ► you could maybe have files there, you could have applications there. It's maybe more like the Mac's
01:40:16 ◼ ► desktop and less like an app launcher because you could have an app launcher in the dock.
01:40:22 ◼ ► - Yeah, sure. - Is that crazy? - No, I don't know. I think there's something there, right? I think
01:40:30 ◼ ► overall what you're saying is, I want the multitasking stuff to, I want another stab at it,
01:40:39 ◼ ► another draft of it, where knowing what we know now... - I don't want them to go back to the
01:40:43 ◼ ► drawing board again though, because I don't think that's good. I want to see them just,
01:40:47 ◼ ► because really they pretty much went back to the drawing board with 11. I want to see refinements
01:40:54 ◼ ► to 11's system. - Sure, sure, sure. But the dock is a good example where it's like, well, what
01:40:59 ◼ ► is the purpose of that and how do we get that to be more functional as a part of a multitasking
01:41:07 ◼ ► experience? I mean, the nice thing about using the keyboard is you can also go to Spotlight and find
01:41:15 ◼ ► an app and then drag it into multitasking, but if you don't have a keyboard, you can't do that.
01:41:20 ◼ ► So yeah, I think it's an interesting idea of being able to get more access there. And I hear you
01:41:26 ◼ ► about the keyboard controls. Overarching, it's going to come up a couple of times, but I feel
01:41:30 ◼ ► like keyboard is something like more keyboard stuff is a thing that I really want throughout.
01:41:37 ◼ ► But yes, should you be able to launch an app in multitasking from the keyboard? You totally should.
01:41:42 ◼ ► If that's Spotlight and then you select an app and you hit a keyboard shortcut to pop it
01:41:59 ◼ ► that'll never happen. It's like, I'd like to see the proof that that will never happen. It's like,
01:42:03 ◼ ► because Apple said that they wouldn't. Trackpad support, external pointing device support,
01:42:09 ◼ ► oh, that'll never happen. Well, I would have believed you until they put a text editing cursor
01:42:15 ◼ ► in iOS a few years ago. But literally there is a cursor now for editing text. So the genie's out
01:42:23 ◼ ► of the bottle. There's a cursor in iOS now. I would love to have a keyboard with a trackpad
01:42:31 ◼ ► attached to it or an external trackpad for, again, not mandatory, but for situations where I'm
01:42:37 ◼ ► editing text so I can move that text cursor around when I'm using an external keyboard,
01:42:51 ◼ ► you know, in a more significant way. I mean, I don't think it would be the worst thing in the
01:42:56 ◼ ► world to have some kind of pointer, like, so that you could plug it in to a display and have a
01:43:03 ◼ ► virtual finger of some description. You know, like, it's not completely graceful, but I wouldn't
01:43:11 ◼ ► mind to see them have a go at it. - Yeah, I think that's less likely, but I think it's not
01:43:18 ◼ ► impossible, especially since a lot of these apps are going to be updated to support menu bar and
01:43:31 ◼ ► impossible future direction, file the idea that Apple's going to release an external monitor
01:43:36 ◼ ► that is a touch screen, and so their external monitor will also, if you plug an iPad into it,
01:43:42 ◼ ► just be a giant iPad. That would be interesting. Maybe that won't happen, but it could. It could.
01:43:48 ◼ ► And then the external storage thing that we've talked about, like, it's just got to be at files.
01:43:52 ◼ ► This is, I'm just gonna put it out there, files needs to support when you plug in an external
01:43:59 ◼ ► storage device, it shows you the external storage device. And if there are technical issues where,
01:44:03 ◼ ► like, we don't want you opening, it's just a copy, you need to copy it to your local storage or
01:44:08 ◼ ► whatever, fine. I don't want to open a file on a drive and then have the drive disappear, great.
01:44:14 ◼ ► Do what you need to do. But when I plug in a storage device, I want files to open, or the
01:44:20 ◼ ► option for files to open. I want to see everything on that device and be able to copy it to an app,
01:44:25 ◼ ► sandbox, or just to my storage on my device, or to my cloud storage. And I don't want to stop there.
01:44:32 ◼ ► Two, I want native support for SMB shares in files. I want to be able to be on a local network
01:44:38 ◼ ► with a file server and mount it in files and copy the files off of it. I can do that with third-party
01:44:44 ◼ ► apps, and those third-party apps will even work within files, although it's really annoying because
01:44:48 ◼ ► you kind of got to launch the app and then launch files, which is kind of beside the point, but you
01:44:52 ◼ ► can do it. Like put it in there, put it in there. The iPad is being used in the enterprise,
01:44:57 ◼ ► enterprise servers, enterprises have not just cloud storage, but they have like file servers.
01:45:02 ◼ ► Companies have file servers. People have file servers. Just, just throw it in there. Again,
01:45:07 ◼ ► is an edge case sort of, but it's a blocker and it's frustrating. And why not just embrace it?
01:45:19 ◼ ► but you can get to them. They're, they're old soon. We will, uh, slough off our human shells
01:45:26 ◼ ► and become beings of pure thought and energy. But until then we have files for you. This is a
01:45:30 ◼ ► somewhat selfish one, but better audio support, multiple simultaneous audio streams. Let me make
01:45:38 ◼ ► a call in Skype and record it in another. Oh, so I w I was thinking about this because, so I was,
01:45:44 ◼ ► I was playing music via my home pod and, um, and I opened ferrite, which uses the audio subsystem
01:45:54 ◼ ► because it can record out of the microphone. And I hadn't, I hadn't switched away from the home pod
01:46:01 ◼ ► controls cause I was controlling my home pod so I could do the volume and next track and all of
01:46:06 ◼ ► that. And the moment I opened ferrite, the music stopped and I thought to myself, okay, this is,
01:46:13 ◼ ► this is ridiculous. Like this has got to change. And this is one of those examples where on iOS,
01:46:17 ◼ ► audio can't do more than one thing at a time. Um, it actually can to separate output devices. Like
01:46:23 ◼ ► in a way they've, they've gotten around this because when you pop open the little floating
01:46:28 ◼ ► thing of audio inputs, you can select a home pod and then play to that and then switch back to your
01:46:33 ◼ ► iPad. And that, that totally works, which is great, but it's like, okay, starting point. But
01:46:39 ◼ ► when I open ferrite, which is hitting the, the, uh, microphone, like, I don't want you to stop
01:46:47 ◼ ► playing my audio. Like I want, I want this thing to be able to do more than one thing at a time.
01:46:52 ◼ ► It needs to be more sophisticated and yes, it would be great if that meant I could run a
01:46:56 ◼ ► recording app and a telephony app simultaneously and recording over here in voice memos or
01:47:03 ◼ ► something else while also being in Skype. Um, and again, I'm not asking for audio hijack.
01:47:09 ◼ ► I would love apps to be able to have that level of audio access that, that rogue Amoeba could
01:47:13 ◼ ► write audio hijack for iOS, but I'm not expecting that. I'm expecting something like, Oh, you can
01:47:19 ◼ ► now use two apps can use the microphone at once. Uh, that would be great. So I don't know. I'm
01:47:27 ◼ ► with you that, that is, yes, it is a little self-serving cause what we do is audio, but also
01:47:31 ◼ ► like again, the more flexibility you build into the system, who knows what other things will come
01:47:35 ◼ ► out of that. Anyone that adopts, um, the iPad with iOS as a significant part of their workflow
01:47:43 ◼ ► will eventually come to shortcuts as the way to bridge gaps or help them fix problems that they,
01:47:51 ◼ ► they need to solve. I would love to see some enhancements to shortcuts as part of this,
01:47:55 ◼ ► you know, being able to have shortcuts trigger in the background automatically, you know,
01:48:04 ◼ ► Yeah. Uh, I, I agree that one of these, um, one of these things that somebody has asked me in the
01:48:11 ◼ ► past that I couldn't give them a really great answer is like, I want a shortcut to fire off
01:48:15 ◼ ► at a time. And it's like, I think you can do that through this like chain of apps. Uh, you always,
01:48:22 ◼ ► it always has to be some kind of user intervention. So like you have a notification pop up from like
01:48:27 ◼ ► launch center pro, which when you tap will go to tap, go to it and launch it, but you always have
01:48:32 ◼ ► to intervene. Exactly. So, so yes, being able to say, I just want to schedule this and run it at
01:48:38 ◼ ► this certain time. And I, yes, yes, Apple, that is scary because who knows how people will use those
01:48:47 ◼ ► sorts of things, but you can't neuter the system that way. You can't, you have to let people do
01:48:54 ◼ ► things like that. Even if they're, you know, they're annoying cousin will set a fart to play
01:49:02 ◼ ► out of the speakers at full volume at three. Right. Okay, fine. Don't let your cousin use
01:49:08 ◼ ► your iPad then, but I need to, I want, I want my alarm, put it in the alarms, put it in the
01:49:13 ◼ ► clock app and say, when this alarm goes off, don't make sound, but play a shortcut like, okay,
01:49:17 ◼ ► that, that would be fine. If they want to do it that way. I'll also throw in, I want keyboard
01:49:26 ◼ ► by using a defined shortcut. And yes, I realize that there's complexity there as there is on the
01:49:33 ◼ ► Mac. On the Mac, you can set a global shortcut and sometimes that will be overridden or override
01:49:39 ◼ ► in a particular app because it has a different shortcut. That's life. Choose a different,
01:49:44 ◼ ► choose a different shortcut then like, again, we're humans, we're smart. We can figure it out,
01:49:48 ◼ ► but let me do that. Let me be able to in any app go bloop and a shortcut happens. I got,
01:50:01 ◼ ► shortcuts to optionally run. Right now shortcuts run and show you the shortcut in a lot of
01:50:07 ◼ ► contexts. It's terrible. Like I get it, but it's like, that is, that is one of the most
01:50:12 ◼ ► aggressively nerdy things that Apple has done in a very long time. Like that is like running an app
01:50:17 ◼ ► with a window that shows you what source code is currently running. No, like I think it's great
01:50:22 ◼ ► for debugging, but as a user tool, you need the option of throwing up some UI that says,
01:50:28 ◼ ► my shortcut is running now and not here's a shortcut in its entirety as you watch it go
01:50:36 ◼ ► through the steps. That's so I would like shortcuts to be simplified and less in my face as well.
01:50:42 ◼ ► I feel like we got to mention Xcode. Sure. Yes. There's actually a #askupgrade question.
01:50:48 ◼ ► There was two I wanted to get today, but this is one. I kind of like this theory where Matt says,
01:50:53 ◼ ► could a reason behind the move to USB-C be Xcode and using the iPad to develop for the phone,
01:50:58 ◼ ► perhaps coming of iOS 13. I like that Jason style fever dream theory. Yeah. Right. Like,
01:51:04 ◼ ► and there are lots of reasons the developers will tell you why the iPad is not a real device,
01:51:10 ◼ ► but it always comes back to I can't do my development on it. And like fair point, I think
01:51:15 ◼ ► personally in the grand scheme of things, having developer tools on the iPad is not as important
01:51:20 ◼ ► as some of these other areas. But if I was a developer, I would feel differently about it,
01:51:24 ◼ ► probably. So I think it's out there. I still believe that Apple, what Apple is going to do
01:51:29 ◼ ► is they're going to do a new thing that lets you build apps and it'll run on iOS. It'll be
01:51:34 ◼ ► Swift only. Yeah. It won't be Xcode. It'll have some limitations. It might not be Swift only.
01:51:38 ◼ ► You might be able to bring in C and objective C and all of that, but it's going to be like
01:51:48 ◼ ► able to do everything. And if you're like using an existing app there, there will probably be like
01:51:53 ◼ ► 18 different reasons why you can't bring that app over to the iOS environment. But if you're
01:51:58 ◼ ► building a new app or you're building a certain subclass of apps, you can do it. And then there'll
01:52:03 ◼ ► be lots of complaining about that because that's what everybody does when you don't get exactly
01:52:07 ◼ ► what you want. But that seems to me like the most likely path forward. Again, not high on my list,
01:52:12 ◼ ► but it's got to be a start point, but you do have to start somewhere and it's unlikely that they're
01:52:16 ◼ ► going to say, Oh, we ported all of Xcode over. It's going to be, we have this new thing. And it may
01:52:19 ◼ ► be we have this new thing on all our platforms, right? It may be that, you know, we're going to,
01:52:24 ◼ ► we're going to keep Xcode here. It's going to be the thing that you can use for all your existing
01:52:28 ◼ ► projects. We're going to keep updating it, but we're also building a next gen set of tools and
01:52:32 ◼ ► here it is. And it also runs on the iPad. And then the last thing that I wanted to mention was like,
01:52:45 ◼ ► what can Apple do to entice more support for pro software? Like, can they realistically do
01:52:51 ◼ ► anything? I don't know. Like, do they need to do more or encourage more about subscription stuff?
01:52:57 ◼ ► Like larger companies like Adobe are bringing more software to the iPad and they're supporting this
01:53:03 ◼ ► because it's subscription. Um, or is this something that's naturally going to play out when the iPad
01:53:08 ◼ ► and the Mac run the same software? Is that what Apple does? Right? Like, will WWDC 2019 make it
01:53:14 ◼ ► easier for developers because they can create these applications that run in both places? Like,
01:53:19 ◼ ► is that what they need to do to help developer business models? Like, I'm not sure what the
01:53:23 ◼ ► answers are, but they need to do something. And I think the seeds are there to try and convince,
01:53:31 ◼ ► you know, some developers that this bringing professional, more professional software to the
01:53:36 ◼ ► iPad is a good move. Maybe. I mean, I think the subscription thing catches a bunch of it. I think
01:53:42 ◼ ► as the more as the perception of these as professional devices, like, as that continues
01:53:49 ◼ ► to permeate, app developers will think I want to reach those, the people who are using that,
01:53:53 ◼ ► and I want to price it accordingly. I just, as an experiment, I haven't gotten a chance to use it
01:53:57 ◼ ► yet, but I bought LumaFusion, which is a video editor. Um, it's 20 bucks. Like, and again,
01:54:02 ◼ ► that's not a hundred bucks. It's not 200 bucks, but it's 20 bucks. Fairite, uh, was about $20
01:54:07 ◼ ► all in. And then he just came up with a, came out with a fair right up update, which added an
01:54:11 ◼ ► in-app purchase for new features. And I thought, you know, you can do it like these, this is,
01:54:19 ◼ ► this is a software business model. It's not quite the old software business model. It's awfully
01:54:23 ◼ ► close. Like the fair, I think is super close where it's like, literally you get all your existing
01:54:28 ◼ ► features and if you want the new features, give me another five bucks or whatever. Um, I, I feel
01:54:34 ◼ ► like the, um, you know, honestly, I feel like the big issue here is just going to be to show
01:54:40 ◼ ► that lots of professionals are on the iPad pro. I think if you, if, if they are there, then the
01:54:46 ◼ ► tools will come and that's a chicken and egg problem, but guess what? The chicken just laid
01:54:50 ◼ ► an egg and it's Photoshop and it comes out next year. So maybe that will help matters. Um, and
01:54:55 ◼ ► you know, who else would help Apple? Apple would help if Apple would take its own logic pro apps
01:55:01 ◼ ► and put them on the platform and they've got garage band and iMovie. And I'll just say it,
01:55:08 ◼ ► I'm going to, I'm going to try to be a little mean here when you're Apple and you're trying to
01:55:18 ◼ ► seriously. Um, it is counterproductive to have your video and audio editing apps on the iPad pro
01:55:25 ◼ ► be toy versions of your real pro software. And that's what they have now. They have garage band,
01:55:30 ◼ ► which is a toy version of logic and the hell I movie, which is a toy version of final cut pro.
01:55:35 ◼ ► And, uh, you know, it, it, it, when I think about it, it infuriates me because you cannot
01:55:46 ◼ ► development shows that you don't take it seriously. So, um, like not to be too harsh here, but Apple,
01:55:54 ◼ ► if you want us to take the iPad pro seriously, take it seriously yourself. Whoever is in charge
01:55:58 ◼ ► of deciding what pro apps go on the iPad is asleep at the switch. I'm sorry. I'm just going to say it
01:56:04 ◼ ► that way. It is unconscionable that this product exists and we still have garage band and iMovie
01:56:11 ◼ ► and not logic and final cut. It doesn't have to be the same logic. It doesn't have to be the
01:56:16 ◼ ► same final cut, but how are we supposed to say, well, Adobe hasn't brought Photoshop to the iPad.
01:56:24 ◼ ► That's a real shame. Apple hasn't brought final cut to the iPad. Apple hasn't brought logic.
01:56:27 ◼ ► They've got the apps and they insist on creating these baby apps, these neutered apps, these,
01:56:33 ◼ ► these subset apps. And they exist on the Mac too, because a lot of users don't need the complexity
01:56:39 ◼ ► of those apps. Right. But garage band and iMovie and iOS are not even as powerful as I can apply
01:56:46 ◼ ► on the Mac either. But I'm saying the existence of garage band and iMovie is great, right? Like
01:56:50 ◼ ► you shouldn't feel offended if I, if I say the garage band and iMovie on, on the iPad, aren't
01:56:56 ◼ ► enough because for some people they are enough. My point is on the Mac, Apple does both because
01:57:01 ◼ ► for some people you just want garage band. Other people are like, no, I want to spend money. I want
01:57:04 ◼ ► to get logic. I need logic. I did that. I went from garage band to logic. Never looked back. Totally
01:57:09 ◼ ► worth it for me. Many people it's not worth it. That's great. On the iPad, you have no choice
01:57:15 ◼ ► because Apple hasn't bothered to bring their pro apps to their, to their pro tablet platform. It's
01:57:21 ◼ ► pathetic. So, you know, for all of the, you know, we can grouse about iOS, but like, where are the
01:57:27 ◼ ► apps, Apple? Like this is, and this is fundamentally, this is my frustration with this product is I love
01:57:33 ◼ ► it. I can do a lot of work with it. The problem is I can see, and I think you're in the same boat
01:57:37 ◼ ► here. I can see a lot of other ways I could do work with it, but nobody, you know, nobody knows
01:57:45 ◼ ► the barriers to doing certain kinds of work on the iPad pro better than people who work on the iPad
01:57:50 ◼ ► pro all the time. Trust me. And it is frustrating to see Apple make such great hardware. And then
01:57:58 ◼ ► like their software, just their software game isn't there. Their app game isn't there. It's so
01:58:03 ◼ ► frustrating because I can do a lot, but there's a lot more I want to do with my iPad pro that I just
01:58:08 ◼ ► can't do because the software's not there. And this is the big difference between people like us
01:58:13 ◼ ► and people who are coming to this device fresh. We see the same problems, but we also get more
01:58:19 ◼ ► benefit out of the improvements. Right. So we can see more of the fuller picture where like,
01:58:25 ◼ ► I totally understand. Like if you're trying to use this as your work machine and you feel like
01:58:28 ◼ ► you can't do it, like you're going to be annoyed about it and you're not going to get the good out
01:58:32 ◼ ► of it, but we get the good and we still see the frustration, but I have hope. Uh, I want to finish
01:58:38 ◼ ► today with one last hashtag ask a great question. It comes from Brent. Brent wants to know just one
01:58:44 ◼ ► laser this week, very short laser. Do you guys organize your iPad home screens based on portrait
01:58:49 ◼ ► or landscape layouts landscape, right? Oh yeah. Landscape. Absolutely. That's how I use my iPad.
01:58:55 ◼ ► It's a horizontal machine. In fact, when I am, I do use it in portrait in vertical when I'm,
01:59:01 ◼ ► you know, reading a newspaper in the morning, like something like that. And obviously for comic
01:59:06 ◼ ► books, I do it too. So I do that. And whenever I'm in the home screen, I go back to the home
01:59:10 ◼ ► screen in that orientation. I'm like, Oh, where is it? I don't know where anything is important.
01:59:14 ◼ ► No idea. Nothing. No idea. No, it's, we didn't get the Apple logo on the back and landscape this
01:59:20 ◼ ► time, which frustrates me a little bit, but again, and the thought that they could have put it on the
01:59:25 ◼ ► folio in the right orientation. And so when you've got the keyboard on suddenly your Apple's in the
01:59:30 ◼ ► right orientation and they didn't do that. Oh, it makes me so sad. Like this was your chance to kind
01:59:35 ◼ ► of fake it and say, yeah, it is a horizontal device when it's in this. Nope. Nope. Oh, well.
01:59:40 ◼ ► We will be answering more Ask Upgrade questions next week. So send in your tweets with the
01:59:47 ◼ ► hashtag #AskUpgrade and we can pull those out on another episode. Also don't forget a couple of
01:59:52 ◼ ► weeks time. My name is Totoro and Myke at the Movies. And don't forget to also get your votes
02:00:04 ◼ ► Oh, I hope so. Products. Um, so we'll be going back to maybe more regular content and programming
02:00:11 ◼ ► next week, but I will say it's been very busy, but this is a very, very exciting time. And it's
02:00:16 ◼ ► fun to talk about these new things. Um, you can look out for Jason's review of the iPad pro. It
02:00:21 ◼ ► will be going up before our next episode at six colors.com. Yep. I'm going to put that on you,
02:00:27 ◼ ► Jason. Thank you. All right. Yes. I would like to finish it, uh, sooner rather than later.
02:00:37 ◼ ► You know, I'm going to just naturally assume that on your behalf. Jason is @JSNEL on Twitter, J S N
02:00:44 ◼ ► E double L. I am @imike. I am @wenke on Twitter and Instagram. Um, this show is a part of Relay
02:00:52 ◼ ► FM. Go to relay.fm/shows and you can find more wonderful programming. If you've enjoyed
02:01:01 ◼ ► Federico Vittucci for his views on the iPad pro, which I'm very excited about to understand how
02:01:07 ◼ ► Federico has been enjoying this. He's been pretty deep in the, uh, peripheral rabbit hole as well.
02:01:13 ◼ ► He's been connecting monitors and all this kinds of stuff. So I'm excited to see what he has to say.