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Upgrade

152: August State of Mind

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 152.

00:00:12   Today's show is brought to you by Eroting and Encapsula.

00:00:16   My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by my wonderful co-host, Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:20   Hello, my wonderful co-host, Mr. Myke Hurley.

00:00:22   How are you?

00:00:23   Very well.

00:00:23   This is a co-host appreciation episode.

00:00:26   That's right.

00:00:27   Traditionally, the 152nd episode is the co-host appreciation episode.

00:00:31   But Jason, nobody cares about how wonderful we are.

00:00:34   Hashtag Snail Talk this week comes from Eric.

00:00:38   Eric wants to know, "How does Jason's working setup and schedule change during the summer

00:00:44   when the kids are out of school?"

00:00:46   Oh boy.

00:00:48   It changes in every possible way.

00:00:50   Oh boy, yeah.

00:00:53   um there's people in my in in the place that is usually not does not have people in it and that

00:00:59   that that uh so schedule wise um so my wife works her work starts a little bit late i think she

00:01:07   starts work at uh 9 30 usually i think is when is when she starts but um that doesn't uh that

00:01:18   that doesn't happen, that's after the kids are off to school.

00:01:22   So the school is the thing that gets us up in the morning.

00:01:25   Things are happening in the morning

00:01:26   because the kids are out the door by like 7.45.

00:01:29   So everything happens more slowly in the summertime,

00:01:35   which is nice, I guess, but it's also frustrating

00:01:39   because like I like being gotten up

00:01:43   by the activity in the house.

00:01:44   And instead I sort of have to start the activity

00:01:47   in the house because everybody else is slow in getting up.

00:01:52   So that's a challenge.

00:01:54   It's nice in the sense that I don't have to run my kids

00:01:59   around to different activities after school,

00:02:01   which I sometimes have to do.

00:02:03   And that can be a time waster and a distraction

00:02:05   for my afternoon work.

00:02:07   And I'd say, but I'd say the biggest thing to me is that

00:02:11   I really am, like I said, when I started,

00:02:14   I am accustomed to working, I can work with the door open to the rest of the house. I

00:02:19   can move my, I can like set up my iPad and a keyboard on the counter in the kitchen on

00:02:24   the bar top and get a little change of scenery. I can, there are lots of things I can do and

00:02:31   the house is silent other than like the presence of the cat and the dog. And when the kids

00:02:37   are home for the summer, I got to close the door there. I can hear them like shouting

00:02:42   and playing video games and doing stuff in the rest of the house. And I feel a little

00:02:49   more isolated in that way, where I have to hunker down and do work when everybody's having

00:02:54   fun on the other side of the wall. So it's different psychologically. And as nice as

00:03:01   it is to have summer vacation and have flexibility for trips and things like that, the fact is

00:03:06   that when the kids go back to school, the professional working part of me will be incredibly

00:03:12   relieved because I get to go back to sort of my default state where when I'm in the

00:03:17   core of my workday, nobody's here. And that is, it's less distracting that way. There

00:03:25   are fewer distractions in that scenario. So, you know, but like there are positives, like

00:03:29   I said, but I think that in the end it knocks me out of my normal working rhythm and some

00:03:36   are so scattershot that there's never, there's not like a summer pace either. It's like,

00:03:40   Sometimes the kids are here, sometimes one of them has gone to a camp or to a friend's

00:03:44   house and it's all just much more erratic and that's not great if you're trying to get

00:03:48   into a groove.

00:03:49   So the nice thing about it is that even if they're camped out in the house, if it's a

00:03:54   nice warm day, I can just go out in the backyard under the tree with a chair and with my iPad

00:04:00   and get work done and that's pretty great.

00:04:02   If you're interested in hearing more about this type of thing, I recommend Free Agents

00:04:07   on Relay FM which is a show that Jason hosts with David Sparks.

00:04:10   episode number four, location, location, location. I think the two of you went into depth about

00:04:14   like what would it maybe take to work out of the home and stuff like that so people

00:04:17   can get more color there if they want to. But as always, thank you Eric for submitting

00:04:22   your Snell Talk question. If you want to have a question that opens the show, just send

00:04:27   a tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk. I collect them up and pick the ones that I find super

00:04:31   interesting. I have a nice backlog, Jason. I've got a great, great spreadsheet building

00:04:36   up.

00:04:37   - If you tweet them at me, I don't wanna see 'em.

00:04:39   I don't wanna see 'em until right before the show

00:04:41   or right when Myke asks me.

00:04:43   I don't wanna, I'll be tempted to answer them directly

00:04:46   on Twitter and that's no good.

00:04:48   - Either tweet them at me or just send them out into ether.

00:04:51   I will see them all, don't worry.

00:04:52   As long as you use the hashtag SnellTalk, I see them all.

00:04:54   - Myke sees all, knows all.

00:04:55   - Talking about seeing them all, Jason,

00:04:57   I feel like in the past week,

00:04:58   we've seen every Mac Mini user currently around.

00:05:01   - Yep, all the Mac Mini users wrote to us

00:05:05   and we appreciate it.

00:05:06   We, last week's show was funny because I was,

00:05:11   I mean, we're talking about a product that doesn't,

00:05:13   I mean, it currently exists in Apple's price list, right?

00:05:16   It's still a current product.

00:05:16   - It's Schrodinger's computer, right?

00:05:18   Like it even does and doesn't exist.

00:05:20   - Yeah, well, we know Apple have reassured us that,

00:05:22   in that thing, that it is a product that exists.

00:05:25   Great, that was the most minimum of reassurance.

00:05:28   But, so our conversation was me saying,

00:05:32   I like the Mac Mini and I use it

00:05:33   and I think it needs to be around,

00:05:35   but it's never getting refreshed.

00:05:37   It's obviously a low priority.

00:05:39   And being intrigued by like what I saw

00:05:41   with that Intel next unit computing thing,

00:05:44   the NUC that is like a mini Mac mini

00:05:47   and how I look at that and think,

00:05:49   say Apple could make a really interesting next gen Mac mini

00:05:52   if it wanted to, where it was even smaller

00:05:55   because it doesn't, you know,

00:05:57   it's only gonna have an SSD in it.

00:06:00   And so they can be that much smaller

00:06:03   and just like keep making it smaller and smaller.

00:06:06   And you took a devil's advocate position

00:06:09   for the purposes of like a conversation,

00:06:12   I think about like, well, do they really need it?

00:06:14   And I think what we heard as a result,

00:06:17   what we heard from many people was not,

00:06:19   yay, hooray, thank you for defending it.

00:06:21   And was not boo, you are mean,

00:06:23   you shouldn't have said bad things about it.

00:06:25   They're like, oh, they really just kind of talked about it

00:06:28   back and forth.

00:06:29   So what instead what we got was lots of descriptions

00:06:32   how people use the Mac Mini. And what I took from that was very much what we said in the

00:06:37   show last week, which was that Mac Mini doesn't have one use. It kind of is that, like I said,

00:06:45   like the spackle, the caulk, it just fills in a whole bunch of parts of the Mac market

00:06:51   that other Macs don't reach. So we heard from people who say they've got it in racks as

00:06:56   like as musicians, in installations for art,

00:07:01   for a lot of people pointed out that at $500,

00:07:05   it is way cheaper to get into the Mac with a Mac Mini

00:07:08   than any other device.

00:07:09   Like there are lots of examples,

00:07:11   and I feel like we covered those last week,

00:07:13   but it was good to hear from Mac Mini people

00:07:15   to basically say, yes, yes,

00:07:17   there are all the things you said,

00:07:19   and all these things that you didn't say

00:07:20   are reasons why we're enthusiastic about it.

00:07:23   And I think that's why it still exists, quite frankly,

00:07:26   is that there is a market of assorted parts,

00:07:30   but it's kind of like a junk drawer.

00:07:32   And I mean that in the nicest sense,

00:07:34   which is, you know, you're like, whoa, this drawer is full.

00:07:36   Yes, it is full, but it's full of like all sorts

00:07:38   of assorted little things.

00:07:39   That's kind of the Mac mini, which is, it's just,

00:07:43   it's a tool that can be applied to lots of different,

00:07:46   lots of different things.

00:07:47   So it was great to get that feedback

00:07:48   'cause I think it proved the point,

00:07:50   which is people really love it

00:07:53   and they're using it for a huge diverse set of tasks

00:07:58   that are, it's not like it's big in X.

00:08:01   Like it's no, it's just kind of scattered around everywhere.

00:08:03   People use it for when they want a Mac in a certain place

00:08:06   and it's the best one that fits.

00:08:08   - Yeah, I feel like from the feedback that we got,

00:08:10   what I've taken away is that this is maybe

00:08:13   the most versatile computer that Apple currently sells

00:08:16   from just how people use it, not how they make it, right?

00:08:20   Like if you think about versatility,

00:08:22   I think we typically think of all the modular Mac Pro that's coming in the future is very

00:08:27   versatile but really that's going to have one or two main uses, right? Like people that

00:08:31   want to play games and people that want to do high-end production.

00:08:34   It'll be an amazingly versatile piece of hardware but in the end it will probably be, because

00:08:40   of the price, it will probably be concentrated in some very specific markets.

00:08:44   But like the Mac Mini, people like, they repurpose it for lots and lots and lots of weird and

00:08:50   wonderful things because you can because it's small it's all in this one little

00:08:55   box it doesn't you know you can run it headless like it's it's an interesting

00:09:00   machine and I think the way that I came out of it I wouldn't say that I'm was

00:09:05   particularly down on the Mac Mini I kind of just apathetic but now I do feel a

00:09:10   little bit more of a sense of like I hope it sticks around just because I

00:09:15   don't know like I feel like there's all these people that seem to continue to be

00:09:18   super excited about a machine that's just not very good anymore. And so I would really

00:09:22   like to see it get updated now.

00:09:24   Yeah, I think that's, I mean, that was sort of my goal when I am prompted by seeing that

00:09:29   Intel Nook and talking to Russell about his experience buying one of those, that I just

00:09:36   had that thought of like, oh, this is something that makes me excited about the Mac Mini,

00:09:43   and I feel like that would be good, like to have a Mac Mini that excites people. And again,

00:09:47   I kind of expect that even if Mac were to do,

00:09:50   or Apple were to do an update on the Mac mini,

00:09:52   even if all they did was turn over the processors,

00:09:56   but let's say they do make a mini Mac mini,

00:09:58   an even more mini that's a little bit smaller,

00:10:02   that's kind of, might not be as small as an Intel NUC,

00:10:05   but something like that.

00:10:06   You know, they wouldn't update it again for three years.

00:10:08   And I think that would be okay.

00:10:10   Like, I think that's what that product is gonna be.

00:10:12   It's never gonna be cutting edge.

00:10:13   They're not gonna be putting in the effort

00:10:14   to turn it over every year.

00:10:16   Maybe they could, it would be nice if they did,

00:10:19   but they don't have to.

00:10:20   But I do think continuing to like kind of nudge it along

00:10:24   every so often, keep that plate spinning is a good thing

00:10:28   because there are uses for that.

00:10:32   And it makes the Mac as a whole, a better platform

00:10:36   and a better environment for people,

00:10:39   even if it's isolated value is not particularly great.

00:10:46   because that way you're keeping people in the platform, in the ecosystem, by giving

00:10:51   them that outlet at $500 or $700 or whatever they want to price it at.

00:10:57   So last week you had a Game of Thrones hangover, I think is the right way to put it.

00:11:03   Oh man.

00:11:04   The show had just come back like week two or something like that.

00:11:07   Week one, week two, I don't know how many.

00:11:09   I don't watch Game of Thrones.

00:11:10   But you had a bit of a Game of Thrones hangover last week.

00:11:13   Yeah.

00:11:14   I do a podcast about it right after it's on, so I have to watch it and take notes, and

00:11:17   then we do a podcast, and sometimes it's late, and then I gotta edit it and post it and all

00:11:22   of those things.

00:11:24   And this happened last year when it was on, then I get up the next morning and do Upgrade,

00:11:28   and sometimes I'm very sleepy.

00:11:29   In fact, today I tried to get up early and have more tea, and also I tried to be done

00:11:37   earlier last night so that I would be awake for Upgrade because I didn't want the Game

00:11:43   Thrones hangover again because last week and you know the and we didn't get

00:11:49   nearly as much feedback about this as I thought we would which is because

00:11:54   everybody was too busy telling us about their Mac minis I guess you know what it

00:11:56   is Jason I think people just believed it because you said it in the same way that

00:12:00   I believed it because you said it to the point that I then repeated these facts

00:12:04   unconnected yeah you know so here's so here's what happened is I was parts of

00:12:10   my brain were asleep and what I said was that the MacBook was weighed a pound, which of

00:12:15   course it weighs two pounds.

00:12:17   And that the MacBook Pro was twice as heavy, but it isn't. It's like three pounds.

00:12:22   Yeah, it's 50% as heavy. And why did I say that? Because quite honestly, I don't know,

00:12:27   my brain was not working right and when you're on a podcast you just say stuff and then you're

00:12:32   like okay. And the thing of it is, my brain at that point when I said it and we were talking

00:12:37   about was like, "Really? One pound? That seems kind of light. Maybe you mean two pounds."

00:12:42   And I was like, "Whatever." No one in the chat room got us. We just kept rolling with

00:12:48   it and then I believed it for an extra two days.

00:12:51   My inner fact checker was like, "I think that might not be right. I think that might not

00:12:54   be right." But again, parts of my brain just were asleep. So I apologize for... It's a

00:13:02   podcast. Sometimes we say things that are wrong and that was one of them. It's a two

00:13:06   - Two pound product, somebody pointed out,

00:13:08   boy, I'd love a one pound MacBook.

00:13:09   I'm like, yeah, that would be pretty great.

00:13:10   'Cause that would be the weight of the 9.7 inch

00:13:12   or the 10.5 inch iPad Pro, right?

00:13:15   That would be really great, but no,

00:13:16   that's gonna be a long time coming.

00:13:18   But two pounds, which is still very light for a lifetime.

00:13:23   All, the other thing, Myke, is all my arguments about it

00:13:26   were right, it's just the numbers were wrong.

00:13:28   Like one of them is smaller and one of them is bigger

00:13:30   and one of them is, you know, all that.

00:13:33   Another thing that I think is interesting,

00:13:35   although again, I would say it kind of doesn't

00:13:38   quite change the argument, it just changes the terms,

00:13:42   is that our friend Marco Arment wrote in to point out that

00:13:46   although the build to order, the processors in the Macbook

00:13:50   are now called i5s and i7s,

00:13:53   it's basically a marketing change.

00:13:56   They are still the same product line as the M5 and M7

00:14:00   in the previous generation.

00:14:02   And this is one of those sneaky things

00:14:04   where now they can say, look, it's got an i5 processor in it.

00:14:07   But as Marco points out,

00:14:09   it's still that same five watt product line,

00:14:12   barely faster than the ones they had before,

00:14:15   very little variation between the lowest

00:14:16   and the highest end CPUs.

00:14:19   - Yeah, this is on the 12 inch MacBook,

00:14:20   just for double double clarification,

00:14:22   just so we don't get it wrong again.

00:14:24   - Yeah, yeah.

00:14:25   So although we can now say, look,

00:14:27   you can get an i7 in a MacBook, isn't that awesome?

00:14:29   But yes, they call it an i7,

00:14:32   but it's really the same as what they used to call the M7.

00:14:36   And that's true.

00:14:38   It's not going to blow away the processor and the MacBook Pro

00:14:43   without Touch Bar.

00:14:44   It's not going to blow it away at all.

00:14:47   It is a much less powerful CPU.

00:14:49   However, the overall argument still

00:14:51   remains the same, which is for almost everything, it's fine.

00:14:56   That's the bottom line of that.

00:14:57   But it is a good point and another point

00:15:00   that my sleeping brain spaced on,

00:15:03   which is it's a marketing change

00:15:06   and not really a hardware change substantially.

00:15:10   And keep that in mind that this is one of those things

00:15:15   where like, oh, people are turned off by this M5 branding

00:15:18   because they're so used to the I5 branding.

00:15:22   Like, okay, we'll call it that then.

00:15:23   All right, I guess you could do that.

00:15:26   Yeah, brilliant. - It's an upgrade.

00:15:28   - Yeah, that's right.

00:15:29   developer of Carrot Weather wrote in, Brian Mueller,

00:15:33   and he got in touch to say,

00:15:34   'cause we were talking about Carrot Weather last week,

00:15:35   that it is actually possible to force Carrot Weather

00:15:38   to use a specific weather station,

00:15:39   which is something that you were looking for.

00:15:42   - Yes, it is, this is very exciting.

00:15:43   I actually just did this the other day after Brian's advice.

00:15:46   You go into a location,

00:15:47   which I hadn't really thought about,

00:15:49   like saving my location and saying,

00:15:51   basically you go to the current location

00:15:53   and you tap the kind of more button,

00:15:54   and it says,

00:15:57   In this location, you can choose,

00:16:00   if you've got weather underground as your source,

00:16:01   you can choose a weather station.

00:16:03   And basically, so when I'm in Mill Valley,

00:16:06   I have set my watch and phone app of Carrot Weather

00:16:11   to use my weather station,

00:16:13   which is awesome because the current temperature then

00:16:16   is the actual current temperature in my backyard

00:16:19   because there's a lot of variation where I live,

00:16:21   a lot of microclimates.

00:16:22   What's funny about this is that now

00:16:25   that data is intermingled with the forecast data,

00:16:29   which is still what I said before, problematic,

00:16:32   because if you're using a forecast for the town below me

00:16:36   or the town above me, it could be a huge temperature range.

00:16:40   So like it was a very,

00:16:41   it's been very foggy here the last couple of days,

00:16:44   even though there's been heat in other parts of the Bay Area,

00:16:46   it's been very foggy here right by the water.

00:16:49   And so the little chart in carrot weather shows

00:16:52   like the current temperature is 62.

00:16:56   And then it's got, and that's based on my weather station.

00:16:58   The rest of it is based on a forecast

00:17:00   from a data source, right?

00:17:02   And those are all like 74, 76, 78.

00:17:05   So there's like what it actually is

00:17:08   and then the dream of what the forecast is.

00:17:10   And they still don't match, but that's fine

00:17:13   'cause it's a forecast and it actually is useful

00:17:15   'cause I can see their forecast is way too optimistic

00:17:19   for how warm it's gonna get today.

00:17:20   But bottom line is, yeah, I can look at Carrot Weather now

00:17:23   and see the actual temperature at my house,

00:17:27   which is awesome.

00:17:28   - And it's such a good app.

00:17:30   Have you played with the watch app?

00:17:31   - Yeah, absolutely. - It's fantastic, right?

00:17:34   And the complication is, I love it.

00:17:36   And so just another huge thumbs up.

00:17:38   So just a second recommendation for the app.

00:17:41   - It's the first, 'cause Weather Underground

00:17:43   makes a watch app with a weird complication,

00:17:45   but they haven't updated it in a while,

00:17:47   and so it's sort of the old tech.

00:17:49   This is the first watch app where I've been able to put

00:17:52   weather complication on my watch

00:17:54   that is the current temperature at my house

00:17:57   and is actually right and updated.

00:18:01   And I love it, it's fantastic.

00:18:03   That's exactly what I wanted is I wanna be able to look down

00:18:05   at my watch and see what's the temperature outside.

00:18:07   And now I can.

00:18:08   - Jason, you wanna take the same piece of follow up?

00:18:11   - Sure, yes.

00:18:14   So those who are people who are relay members

00:18:18   may remember last summer, we did a,

00:18:23   what's called a parsley adventure.

00:18:26   There's a guy named Jared Sorenson who has created a series

00:18:29   of, they're like text adventures for, as a party game.

00:18:34   So basically you get a group together

00:18:37   and somebody is the parser and they have the map.

00:18:40   They have the rules and they accept your commands

00:18:45   in the style of an old text adventure.

00:18:47   So go north, get the gun, go south, shoot the gun.

00:18:52   And they're a lot of fun.

00:18:55   We played three of them so far on the Incomparable Game Show

00:18:58   and there's another one coming this week.

00:19:00   And last summer you and CGP Grey played a game

00:19:05   called Six Gun Showdown from this Parsley collection

00:19:10   with me as the parser.

00:19:11   And that was our upgrade Cortex crossover special

00:19:14   for members.

00:19:15   and it's still available if you become a member and you've not heard it, you can become a

00:19:19   relay member and get it.

00:19:20   It's fantastic, you should do it, like, it was so much fun.

00:19:24   Yeah, and we should tease that this, the membership season for relay is coming up later this summer,

00:19:33   and yes, there is a new Myke and Gray play a text adventure with the Snellatron 5000

00:19:40   coming. So if you're, if you are thinking of being a Relay member, uh, there's another

00:19:46   inducement, and if you're already a Relay member, get excited, we're gonna do another

00:19:50   one, it's gonna be hilarious.

00:19:51   Yep. We have a--

00:19:52   Um, Myke is hard at work on it.

00:19:55   It's done. It's basically done, and it's brilliant. We had so much fun with it, and if you remember,

00:19:59   you're gonna love it. So, go to relay.fm/membership, support any show, and you'll get all of the

00:20:04   benefits, you'll get all of the perks, and you'll be hearing a lot more about this in

00:20:08   few weeks as our membership season kicks off at relay FM.

00:20:11   Right. But the reason we're mentioning it now is there's a Kickstarter going on for

00:20:16   the next, as we record this, 11 days. That is by Jared Sorensen, the creator of Parsley

00:20:22   Games including Action Castle and Six Gun Showdown. And you can get, if you back it,

00:20:28   you can get a PDF of the entire collection of the Parsley Games and you can get a book

00:20:33   the entire collection. And I would say it is really fun as a party game. One person

00:20:39   is the parser, everybody else just plays along. Ideally the way you do it, which is not how

00:20:43   Gray and Myke chose to do it, is everybody is forced to take turns and not collaborate,

00:20:48   which means you end up sort of like arguing in your commands to the parser, which is funny.

00:20:54   Yeah, it's, so I recommend people go to Kickstarter, we'll put a link in the show notes, and back

00:20:58   this. I backed it, I want to get the hardcover, I think it's a lot of fun, there's a lot of

00:21:01   neat art that is focused on each of the games. He commissions original art for each of the games,

00:21:06   and then there's extra stuff that's in the Kickstarter that will be in the new book.

00:21:14   So it's a lot of fun. So check it out. We're gonna do a new one. We've already got one that's

00:21:19   available for members, and then the Incomparable Game Show's got some that you can check out too,

00:21:23   starting with Action Castle and a new one this week there. So it's just a lot of fun. So people

00:21:28   people should check out Jared Sorenson's Parsley Games Kickstarter.

00:21:32   Yeah, so go back and I back the hardcover. They're so much fun.

00:21:36   So you should go check them out and we'll put a link on the show notes for that.

00:21:40   Alright, today's show is brought to you in part by our friends over at Ting.

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00:23:29   So last week Jason in Ask Upgrade we answered the question of whether we thought that there

00:23:34   was going to be a new Apple Watch this year and you didn't think so but I thought so.

00:23:38   There's been a report from MacRumors this week who are saying that one of Apple's manufacturing

00:23:43   partners for the watch, I think they've been responsible for building all of the watches

00:23:47   so far, or at least a vast majority of them, a company called Quanta. They are indicating

00:23:52   that they are going to enjoy a strong second half of 2017, in part due to a third generation

00:23:59   Apple Watch. And previous rumors indicate that there will be no major visual design

00:24:05   change, but we're going to see a soul radio in series 3, and that was just kind of reiterated

00:24:09   by MacRumors. So what do you think? Do you think that that sounds compelling?

00:24:16   - Well, I mean, I think the next generation Apple Watch,

00:24:19   or at least, well, I shouldn't say that, right?

00:24:21   I think the next big step for the Apple Watch

00:24:23   is cellular connectivity, right?

00:24:25   Because one of the challenges right now is

00:24:27   you have to bring your phone with you.

00:24:30   If you want to get a text message, get a call,

00:24:33   anything like that, you need to bring your phone with you.

00:24:35   And I face this every time that I go out

00:24:38   running or bike riding with my,

00:24:41   I got an Apple Watch, I got AirPods,

00:24:43   And when I ride my bike, I bring my phone

00:24:47   and I stick it in the bag underneath the seat, right?

00:24:49   So it's not in my pocket, but it's still with me.

00:24:52   And when I'm running, it's in my pocket

00:24:54   and wiggling around out there.

00:24:56   And it's not great, but I need to do it.

00:24:58   So the next step is leave your phone at home.

00:25:00   It doesn't matter.

00:25:00   You're still out there.

00:25:01   If there's an emergency, you can still call.

00:25:03   If somebody calls you or texts you, you can see it.

00:25:06   That's clearly where the Apple Watch needs to go.

00:25:08   And I know people are like, yeah, I

00:25:09   don't care about that so much.

00:25:11   It's like, yeah, but it will be so much more useful

00:25:13   when it can reliably and the apps on it will be more useful when they can

00:25:16   reliably update over a connection and all of the carriers now are offering

00:25:21   you know little monthly upgrades that attached to your constellation of

00:25:25   devices and put it on your plan and I think that's where clearly where this is

00:25:30   going the question is this is a rumor that's like okay a manufacturer says

00:25:34   they expect to do better and the cited like previous reports is like a supply

00:25:40   chain analyst in March said that it would have this so it's like I'd say

00:25:47   these are not the strongest rumors it doesn't mean they're not true no it's

00:25:52   not like blockbuster these are not mark Gurman says that this is happening these

00:25:58   are more like you know a guy who is an analyst says that he thinks it might

00:26:04   happen and a company that has been known to make products for Apple thinks that it will

00:26:12   be nice later. It's like it's a very weird kind of hazy thing. So I'd say this pushes

00:26:18   it a little more into the likelihood percentage, you know, a little bit more than last week.

00:26:25   But and I don't think it's an unreasonable rumor, right? I think I think it's highly

00:26:30   unlikely that Apple is going to completely radically change the Apple watch design, right?

00:26:34   I think it's kind of iconic at this point,

00:26:38   like, you know it's an Apple Watch.

00:26:40   It keeps compatibility with all of these bands

00:26:44   that they've sold.

00:26:45   They're not gonna be able to make it radically smaller.

00:26:49   That's not gonna happen.

00:26:50   If they change the screen,

00:26:52   everybody would have to redo their apps,

00:26:54   which I think nobody wants to do.

00:26:56   So yeah, keeping the same design

00:27:00   and adding some other connectivity

00:27:02   is totally what the next step would probably be

00:27:04   unless they can't get there yet

00:27:06   and they're gonna do another like little half step

00:27:08   where, well, it's a little faster

00:27:09   and it's got one new feature.

00:27:11   But I think the question is, will it be this fall or not?

00:27:15   I really don't know.

00:27:16   Like it could be, it totally could be.

00:27:18   And I think I said that when we talked about this,

00:27:20   it's like, yeah, sure, it could be, or it could be a year.

00:27:23   We don't really understand what Apple's approach

00:27:26   with the Apple Watch is,

00:27:27   but now that they've got the different series

00:27:30   that might actually free them up to make a series three with cellular connectivity and

00:27:34   get rid of the series one, keep the series two around and allow the series three to have

00:27:37   a higher price because it's got the cellular connectivity for people who want it. That

00:27:42   could totally be what they do this fall. And I would welcome it because I think the Apple

00:27:45   Watch with cellular is going to be a way better product, like vastly better product. They

00:27:50   need to get there. I can't wait for that day where I can leave the phone at home and still

00:27:55   be connected and get everything that I need to do. But, you know, will it be this fall?

00:28:00   I don't know. That's a lot of stuff to cram into that Apple watch, right? I mean, are

00:28:06   they at that point now where they can do that? Maybe a lot of the other smart watches have

00:28:09   cellular connectivity, so maybe they can.

00:28:11   I think it makes sense, like I've been thinking about this, like, to do it now, do it before

00:28:15   you make a visual change, right? Because the hardware case is the same size, I think it

00:28:21   like slightly thicker so they're getting used to like making things smaller and potentially

00:28:26   making some space right like if I if I the little I understand about this stuff right

00:28:31   like miniaturization continues and you're able to be more efficient well you want to

00:28:36   make sure you have a ton of battery and if you're going to put a cell radio in there

00:28:39   and considering how good the battery life is in the series 2 you can keep that make

00:28:43   it a little bit better even and then throw a cell chip in like that makes the most sense

00:28:47   to me before you make it thinner maybe which I assume is going to happen at some point

00:28:51   where they will do a big visual change. It might make sense to try and get the cell radio

00:28:56   in before that but we'll see, we'll see. I would welcome either of those things, either

00:29:00   a big visual change to make it a lot thinner or a cell radio, I'll be equally happy.

00:29:03   So let's talk about some uh some leaks which are significantly more credible um than than what we

00:29:14   we saw today overnight last night as we record this. Steve Trout and Smith, notable code

00:29:22   miner, has once again been digging into some code from Apple to find some details about

00:29:29   future product releases. There's quite a few little tidbits here so we're going to try

00:29:33   and go through them piece by piece. So this time all of this stuff was found on a HomePod

00:29:42   firmware release, which was located on Apple's servers. I actually want to start with just

00:29:49   talking about that as a thing that happened before we actually talk about what was in

00:29:56   there. Like, this is so weird to me. Like, why did this ever exist in the public? It

00:30:04   must have been a mistake, right?

00:30:09   - It's gotta be, right?

00:30:09   I mean, why, I mean, I suppose you need to test

00:30:14   the HomePod firmware update and things like that,

00:30:17   and they've probably seeded units to people at Apple

00:30:20   and they wanna push out the firmware updates,

00:30:23   but to have it on a public website

00:30:28   where Steve Trout and Smith is watching,

00:30:31   that shouldn't happen.

00:30:34   - And many others, right?

00:30:34   Like it's not just something that he snuck into,

00:30:37   Like this is a thing that people can access.

00:30:39   Like there were a bunch of people that saw this,

00:30:42   there were a bunch of people that dug into it,

00:30:43   but there are people that just see it

00:30:44   and just kind of ignore it.

00:30:46   But like this is a thing that was just available

00:30:48   for the public to dig into essentially.

00:30:51   - Yeah, there's a page where you can see

00:30:53   the firmware downloads and there's this device

00:30:58   that is not a previously known device

00:31:00   in terms of its identifier.

00:31:01   I wonder if there's a disconnect about like,

00:31:04   well, it shouldn't be a problem

00:31:05   because we already announced the HomePod,

00:31:07   so this shouldn't be an issue,

00:31:08   but the problem is that the software is assuming a world

00:31:11   at the end of the year

00:31:12   where all the new iPhones have come out.

00:31:15   And so they contain, they're building it for that world.

00:31:19   They're not gonna release it before then, right?

00:31:21   So you don't have the software

00:31:24   that you're working on in beta in July

00:31:27   for a product that's gonna ship in December.

00:31:30   You don't have it not know about the next iPhone,

00:31:33   because why would you do that?

00:31:35   Why would you have to add that late in the game?

00:31:38   You're building for December.

00:31:41   You're pretending essentially that it is December

00:31:43   when you're building this product

00:31:45   because you don't need to release it before then.

00:31:48   And I wonder if there was a disconnect

00:31:51   where somebody said,

00:31:53   "Well, it's already announced product.

00:31:54   "We can just put it up and it's not a big deal.

00:31:56   "Nobody's got one."

00:31:57   But inside it,

00:32:00   and this is not the first time this has happened,

00:32:02   but inside it there are lots of details that can be gleaned about what's in the HomePod

00:32:12   and the HomePod makes references to stuff that's in the new iPhones.

00:32:17   Which is even more delectable. Like I've seen screenshots of people posting where there

00:32:22   are files and strings and stuff like that that have the word "hide" in them. As in,

00:32:29   Things are supposed to be hidden, which is beautiful, right?

00:32:32   Like, it's a thing that I think it's hilarious.

00:32:37   - Yeah, it's not good, right?

00:32:40   Like, either that stuff should have been trimmed

00:32:43   or this should have been put in an alternate stream.

00:32:45   And it's, you know, this stuff is complicated

00:32:47   and somebody appears to have really screwed it up.

00:32:50   - So let's talk about what some of the details were,

00:32:56   what some of the details were of the release.

00:32:58   So the firmware has included data that refers to a few different things which can be attributed

00:33:07   to some rumors about the upcoming iPhone that I don't actually think that we've really covered

00:33:12   at all on this show about like the facial detection and stuff like that.

00:33:16   So the firmware includes references to something called face detect, infrared capture and pearl

00:33:22   ID.

00:33:23   And I've seen people tweeting that apparently "Pearl ID" is an internal code name for a

00:33:29   face detection system.

00:33:32   So this seems like pretty solid evidence that the next iPhone is going to have some kind

00:33:39   of face detection system.

00:33:41   Right like they are referencing it.

00:33:43   The code is clearly referencing that Apple is building some kind of face detection.

00:33:49   Right?

00:33:50   what this is.

00:33:51   It sure looks like it, right?

00:33:55   I mean, it's kind of hard to argue with this, that this is an infrared camera on the front

00:33:59   of the device so that it can see you even in darkness, and it will detect your face,

00:34:05   and there are strings in there about like too many faces or can't detect a face, and

00:34:11   so it looks very much like this is an iPhone that is, you know, doing biometric verification

00:34:18   via face detection.

00:34:19   - Yeah.

00:34:20   - What do you think about this, Jason?

00:34:23   How do you feel?

00:34:23   I mean, we've not spoken about it.

00:34:25   Like, what are your feelings when you hear

00:34:29   Touch ID goes away replaced by face detection?

00:34:31   - Well, so my initial thoughts were that

00:34:37   this sounds real complicated, right?

00:34:39   And I remember you guys talked about this unconnected.

00:34:41   Like, Touch ID is everywhere, right?

00:34:44   And having a biometric approval system

00:34:47   is vital to what Apple does.

00:34:50   So you can't not have a biometric approval system.

00:34:54   But yet there were these rumors about this.

00:34:59   So the next question is, okay, let's assume this is true.

00:35:04   What does that mean?

00:35:06   And I gotta say, I don't think Apple would,

00:35:11   if you think back to other things

00:35:12   that we've been skeptical about,

00:35:13   like I don't think Apple would release

00:35:15   face scanning as their biometric replacement for Touch ID,

00:35:20   if they didn't feel like they had it down, right?

00:35:28   I feel like we're imagining, this does happen sometimes,

00:35:31   and they may blow it, I mean, it's entirely possible,

00:35:34   but sometimes what we do is we imagine

00:35:38   a bad implementation of something

00:35:40   because it seems so hard and unlikely

00:35:42   and we think of all the challenges that are involved.

00:35:44   And then Apple comes out with it,

00:35:45   like the fingerprint scanning, honestly.

00:35:47   And everybody goes, "Oh, Apple did a good job.

00:35:51   "They implemented it properly."

00:35:52   That's gotta be what's going on here, right?

00:35:54   Like, if they, I really believe this,

00:35:57   that if they don't have the face recognition stuff working,

00:36:01   they wouldn't ship the phone.

00:36:03   Like seriously, I think it's that simple,

00:36:05   that there's no way that Apple is going to ship

00:36:08   a brand new flagship iPhone

00:36:10   with a biometric identification system that doesn't work.

00:36:14   Like I just, I can't see that happening.

00:36:17   That is not what Apple does.

00:36:19   That would be the most un-Apple thing imaginable.

00:36:22   So I've got to start thinking,

00:36:25   what would this be like if it totally did what it said?

00:36:28   Like literally I pick up my phone and it knows it's me

00:36:32   and it works and it's unlocked

00:36:35   or at least I can unlock it easily at that point.

00:36:39   There are a lot of questions, right?

00:36:40   About what that means in terms of,

00:36:43   could somebody else hold your phone up to your face

00:36:46   while you're tied in a chair being held hostage

00:36:48   and use your phone?

00:36:49   Yeah, but they could probably jame your finger

00:36:51   on the touch ID button too.

00:36:53   So I don't know, I feel like we have to start conceiving

00:36:56   of how this could be good,

00:36:57   good enough for Apple to actually implement it

00:37:01   because I don't think I believe that Apple would put,

00:37:05   like Apple Pay and all of their security stuff

00:37:10   in the hands of technology that they weren't supremely

00:37:13   confident would work.

00:37:14   - I am completely of the opinion.

00:37:18   I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, right?

00:37:19   You know, the rumors have been around

00:37:20   for like a month or so now.

00:37:22   My feeling is just, well, I am confident

00:37:26   that it's gonna be great, right?

00:37:28   That's how I feel about it.

00:37:30   Like right now I'm like, well,

00:37:32   I'm sure that it's gonna be awesome

00:37:34   because why else would they do this?

00:37:35   Right?

00:37:36   Like I of this exact same mindset that you're in.

00:37:39   This isn't just like the next iPhone.

00:37:42   This is like the next iPhone that we're expecting is going to be a mega

00:37:46   expensive iPhone and that they would be like, Oh, Hey everyone,

00:37:51   you're buying this new phone.

00:37:52   And like to unlock it, like just sucks.

00:37:55   Do I think that it will be as completely reliable as touch ID?

00:38:01   No, probably not.

00:38:02   Like, I reckon it will probably get close, but every now and then it might get a bit

00:38:07   confused.

00:38:08   But like, I'm okay with that as long as the margin of error is slim within that kind of

00:38:13   realm, right?

00:38:14   Like that it's almost as good or as good for me to accept it because it's like, I expect

00:38:20   it to be really cool, right?

00:38:23   Like, I'm willing to take a small, like small, I mean small, hit on reliability if it is

00:38:30   significantly cooler than Touch ID, right? Because you can kind of let it go, right?

00:38:35   Like, it was like when Touch ID came around, every now and then it wouldn't work. Now,

00:38:39   I could always put my passcode in correctly, but that's nowhere near as cool as using your

00:38:42   fingerprint. So I'm expecting there to be an increase in the call factor. And if that

00:38:47   is met, and they do just a good enough job at trying to get it close, then I would be

00:38:52   happy personally.

00:38:53   There's coolness, and there's, I would say speed is another thing. Like, there's reliability,

00:38:59   and you're right, it might be less reliable,

00:39:00   but I think speed is an issue.

00:39:02   Like you want it to unlock like fast.

00:39:04   And people, the fact that people talk

00:39:05   about second generation touch ID is kind of ridiculous.

00:39:10   Why did they do that?

00:39:11   They talk about it because it's faster.

00:39:13   Like that matters to people.

00:39:14   Like it unlocked my phone faster.

00:39:16   I just had it where I was doing something in the kitchen

00:39:19   and then I tried to unlock my phone

00:39:20   and my fingers felt dry and the phone felt dry.

00:39:23   And yet obviously there was a little bit of moisture there

00:39:26   and it's a second generation touch ID sensor,

00:39:28   didn't matter was like, nope, you can't unlock your phone,

00:39:30   put in your password.

00:39:31   And it's like, ah, like it does happen.

00:39:33   It does happen now, even with second generation touch ID,

00:39:36   but yeah, you want it to be fast.

00:39:39   You want it to be pretty reliable

00:39:40   and having it be cool is great.

00:39:42   I think the other thing I would say is the difference

00:39:46   between this and something like the dual camera thing,

00:39:51   like that was a, with a depth mode, right?

00:39:55   That is not a core feature.

00:39:58   Like that could be in beta and kind of work

00:40:02   and not be turned on originally and still be fine, right?

00:40:07   Because it was not a core feature of the phone.

00:40:10   You could still do all the things you would expect to do

00:40:12   on an iPhone, even if that didn't work right

00:40:14   or was not turned on or was in beta, right?

00:40:17   This is not that, right?

00:40:18   Biometric authentication, which up to now

00:40:21   we've kind of called touch ID,

00:40:23   but it also includes face ID or whatever they call it.

00:40:28   That's a core feature.

00:40:34   I also wonder about the Apple Watch.

00:40:35   I have this other thought,

00:40:37   which is could they use the Apple Watch to authenticate

00:40:40   as well if you have an Apple Watch

00:40:42   and it hasn't left your wrist and you're close,

00:40:45   would it let you go the other direction

00:40:47   where it'd be like, oh, Apple Watch is still on, it's fine.

00:40:49   I don't know if they would do that or not, but.

00:40:51   - 'Cause they do it the other way around, right?

00:40:53   Like you can put your watch on, unlock your phone.

00:40:56   Just in case people don't notice,

00:40:57   you could have missed this.

00:40:58   If you have your watch on and you unlock your phone,

00:41:00   your watch unlocks and you don't need the code,

00:41:03   which is just a nice little thing.

00:41:04   - Yeah, and it stays unlocked the entire time

00:41:06   it stays on your wrist

00:41:07   because there's a proximity detector on it.

00:41:09   And you can use your watch to unlock your Mac.

00:41:13   So could you use your watch to unlock your phone

00:41:15   and could that be a second way of doing it?

00:41:16   I mean, maybe, maybe not.

00:41:18   Maybe it's not worth doing

00:41:19   because this infrared thing is so amazing.

00:41:21   The point is that biometric authentication,

00:41:23   by whatever means, is a core feature of the system now.

00:41:26   Like you can't half-ass that, you can't.

00:41:30   So I think we have to assume that if this is real,

00:41:34   that Apple feels supremely confident

00:41:36   that this infrared camera and face detection

00:41:40   and whatever else they're doing to get that face profile

00:41:44   actually works like solidly,

00:41:46   because this is not an experimental feature.

00:41:49   this is a core part of the iPhone experience now.

00:41:52   - But this wasn't all.

00:41:55   But I did just, why is this even in the HomePod stuff

00:42:00   do you think?

00:42:01   Like why, why is this showing up?

00:42:04   - I don't know, I mean.

00:42:06   - I was thinking maybe some kind of like

00:42:07   remote authorization for something,

00:42:10   but like I can't even work out what that would be.

00:42:12   Maybe some of the Siri commands,

00:42:14   'cause it has to be tied to your phone, right?

00:42:16   Like if you ask it to read you a message,

00:42:18   the phone needs to be unlocked.

00:42:19   So maybe like the HomePod needs to confirm that.

00:42:23   And so like it's in the firmware.

00:42:24   Like it's just strange to see all this stuff

00:42:26   popping up in there, right?

00:42:28   - It could be a mistake, like just it shouldn't be in there,

00:42:31   but it got in there because of something in their process.

00:42:33   This is a, you know, HomePod is an iOS device basically,

00:42:36   or, you know, a variant, but it's basically another one,

00:42:39   another ARM processor running code that's derived from iOS.

00:42:43   So it could be that it's just kind of in there.

00:42:46   It could be that there's some thing of like authenticating

00:42:49   in order to change features of the HomePod.

00:42:53   I don't know, but yeah, it looks sloppy to me

00:42:57   on a few levels, right?

00:42:58   It's sloppy that it's in there maybe,

00:43:01   sloppy that it got out.

00:43:02   Lot of sloppy stuff here.

00:43:05   And yes, I would not wanna be in the hallway,

00:43:09   well, maybe I would,

00:43:10   but in the hallway between the people working on the HomePod

00:43:13   and the people working on the new iPhone.

00:43:16   like that would be to be a fly on the wall there as angry people marched down the hallway.

00:43:22   You ruined our product launch!

00:43:24   Well maybe there's no hallway, Jason, maybe they all work in one big open plan area.

00:43:29   Big, yeah, and they're just throwing stuff across the room at them, yeah, mhm, maybe.

00:43:34   Maybe.

00:43:35   But again.

00:43:36   Tomatoes, tin cans, yeah.

00:43:38   There's so much stuff we've already spoken about, but there's more.

00:43:41   So apparently Steve Trouton Smith discovered that there is code relating to the HomePod

00:43:49   that indicates that the top of the HomePod is some kind of LED matrix display.

00:43:55   So it's pretty rudimentary, it's not like a display you would get in a phone, but it's

00:44:01   like a grid of LEDs that could show shapes and symbols and stuff like that.

00:44:05   So basically the tale of what is that top part continues to just like change and change

00:44:12   and change.

00:44:13   Nobody like is 100% sure what's going to be shown on that little display on the top of

00:44:18   the HomePod, but the technology seems to at least indicate that it's an LED matrix display.

00:44:22   So there is animations, there is stuff that it can show.

00:44:24   Yeah, it sounds like it's a 32 by 32 grid of LEDs.

00:44:29   It's not, and this again, it's not really a display in the way we think of it.

00:44:35   - It's like a grid of dots.

00:44:37   - It's a bunch of colored lights, right?

00:44:39   - Yeah, it allows them to do Siri animations

00:44:42   and stuff like that,

00:44:44   but they could theoretically put other indicators up there.

00:44:49   So if they wanted to, I think it's not built for that

00:44:54   and it's probably not what they want.

00:44:55   They probably just wanna do it

00:44:56   so they can do a little sort of Siri animations

00:44:58   and things like that.

00:44:59   But who knows?

00:45:02   It's interesting.

00:45:02   put symbols up there if they wanted to or, you know, but they're not, it's not going

00:45:08   to be like displaying the name of the currently playing track or anything like that because

00:45:11   it's a very small little grid of dots.

00:45:14   >> Unless it just shows you one letter at a time. Just slip really slowly. That would

00:45:20   be kind of funny. But there is more. We have some iPhone stuff, some more iPhone stuff.

00:45:28   firmware this stuff that was found also included an outline icon of I we're

00:45:35   assuming what the next iPhone is gonna look like and it's what we expected it

00:45:39   is a version of an iPhone with thin bezels that has that little notch taken

00:45:44   out of the top of the screen right the little forehead that houses the cameras

00:45:48   and sensors I feel like yes this is confirmed now that's what the next

00:45:52   iPhone is gonna look like you know all of this these mock-ups that we've seen

00:45:55   there's potential hardware, there seems to be a lot of like confusion about what's in

00:46:00   there this this explains it and and yeah so no home button buttons on the side notch out

00:46:07   the top. Yeah and with a notch it looks like what they're what they're probably going to

00:46:11   do there is have the battery status and the cellular status appear up there by the cameras

00:46:21   and all that and that moves out of what we currently think of as the status bar. Those

00:46:27   things get tucked in in the side. Maybe the time too, I don't know, but like basically

00:46:33   there are, there's just enough space on either side of those sensors for some basic status

00:46:38   information when you're holding the phone in portrait orientation.

00:46:43   So while still like there isn't a ton, tons of sound on that, like that was the most interesting

00:46:48   thing to me, like, that's what the next iPhone's gonna look like. This leak came from Apple,

00:46:52   right? And I know it's like super basic, right? Like, just an outline, but for this phone,

00:46:58   that tells so many stories, right? Like, an outline of an iPhone before this, not interesting.

00:47:04   The outline of this iPhone, very interesting, right? Like, it's the worst possible one for

00:47:09   them to see.

00:47:10   Yeah, 'cause it's not—I could see the argument, like, well, it's not really a picture of the

00:47:15   next iPhone. It's just sort of a platonic ideal of the iPhone, but like it's got no

00:47:19   home button and it's got cutouts. Like this is not a shape of any existing iPhone and

00:47:25   it corresponds exactly to the rumors of what the iPhone is. So it's very hard not to look

00:47:31   at this unless this is a prank, you know, unless it's like, oh, put that, put that in

00:47:35   the HomePod stuff and see what they think. It's a, it totally doesn't look like that,

00:47:39   but let's do that. But unless it's a really ridiculous prank that Apple is pulling on

00:47:43   Like this is just reaffirmation of the fact that the rumors were right.

00:47:48   We're really building up now, right? A couple of months away.

00:47:52   I know it's July 31st as we record this, but this is an August conversation, is it not?

00:47:57   This is the, like, they turn the burner up all the way on iPhone rumors as we get through August into September.

00:48:04   This is what August is like. It is the, you know, things start to really build toward that launch event.

00:48:12   events so maybe you know it was July on the calendar but this is this feels very

00:48:18   August to me this is the this is the height of iPhone silly season yeah this

00:48:22   is an August state of mind this is yeah this very really kind of just

00:48:27   fascinating all of these little tidbits just to come out as one piece of fun

00:48:31   where I do wonder like at a certain point can't Apple just offer like an

00:48:35   insane amount of money to Steve Trouton Smith and just hire him just stop him

00:48:39   Just stop him. I know there are other people that find this stuff as well, but I think

00:48:45   he's high profile enough at a point that when he posts this, every website runs with it

00:48:51   because he has just great skills and track record of finding this stuff. Just offer the

00:48:57   guy a bajillion dollars and stop him. Maybe make him work on the other side of it. He

00:49:04   hide the things. So people like you can't find them. Super interesting. And some people

00:49:10   have had a really really bad Monday. Really bad. Just really bad.

00:49:15   I think so. When you go to so much effort to double down on privacy or on security and

00:49:21   secrecy. And this is just stupid, right? Like this is

00:49:23   just a silly mistake. Well, and it's, you know, yeah, and it's

00:49:27   leaking inadvertently from people who didn't understand what they were doing probably or

00:49:33   or didn't take proper care or weren't properly trained on it.

00:49:37   That's tough when it's an accident and not--

00:49:40   they do all of that work to tell people don't leak things,

00:49:43   keep it a secret.

00:49:45   And it's all about intentional leaking, right?

00:49:49   And then this is just an accidental disclosure

00:49:52   that generates this.

00:49:54   I mean, you've got to learn from it, right, and say, oh, that is

00:49:56   part of our process that we didn't really think about.

00:49:58   Or whether it's we didn't think about putting it up,

00:50:02   that Steve Trouton Smith exists.

00:50:03   I did have that moment where I thought,

00:50:05   can't Apple just hire Steve Trouton Smith?

00:50:07   Like he's kind of brilliant,

00:50:09   even if they didn't use him for anything,

00:50:11   like that guy, he causes you trouble.

00:50:14   He has this great understanding of what's going on.

00:50:17   Have him find your leaks and just tell you about it.

00:50:21   - Just put him in a room and just like stop him,

00:50:24   make him secure the officer, like whatever it takes.

00:50:27   - Just pay him to read books and eat ice cream all day,

00:50:31   if you want to, go ahead.

00:50:32   'Cause he's incredibly valuable.

00:50:34   'Cause he's the guy who takes the stuff apart

00:50:37   and looks at it and has discovered all sorts

00:50:40   of interesting things about it.

00:50:41   I should mention, by the way, he has a Patreon.

00:50:43   If people really like all these disclosures

00:50:46   that are coming from Steve,

00:50:48   maybe you wanna throw him a few bucks

00:50:49   because he does this all kind of

00:50:52   out of his own inquisitiveness,

00:50:54   but he does have a Patreon for people

00:50:56   who wanna support him.

00:50:57   But I did have that same thought,

00:50:59   which is like, maybe Apple should take him off the board

00:51:02   in some way, because like, yeah, anyway,

00:51:05   they'll figure out like what part of their process

00:51:07   broke down because it's not Steve's fault.

00:51:09   Like people found this, it was on a public website.

00:51:11   So why was it there?

00:51:12   Why was the stuff that was in it in it?

00:51:14   And either they didn't realize that that was visible

00:51:19   or somebody didn't do the right thing and made a mistake.

00:51:22   And either they were just being human

00:51:24   or they didn't get trained properly, but whatever it is,

00:51:27   I'm sure they will redouble their efforts,

00:51:29   but it's super embarrassing

00:51:31   and gotta be frustrating for Apple.

00:51:33   - Yeah, as I said, I think what makes it so much worse

00:51:35   is there was all this code about hiding it,

00:51:38   which was visible.

00:51:41   Rather, there's all these words like hide

00:51:43   and stuff like that, but they hadn't hidden them.

00:51:46   It's like, oh, gosh.

00:51:47   It's so glaring when you see it all just right there.

00:51:51   Fascinating.

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00:53:52   But you don't need it with the beacons

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00:54:29   Geographically like a good place for a Wi-Fi base station, but there's no wiring there for Ethernet

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00:56:18   So Jason, we talk about new products but we must also talk about the end of old products.

00:56:24   Earlier this week, Apple removed the iPod Nano and the iPod Shuffle from sale.

00:56:33   just quietly, apple.com/iPod now redirects to apple.com/iPodTouch.

00:56:39   I'll include a link in the show notes to noted Apple historian Stephen Hackett.

00:56:43   He put together a lovely post and a little YouTube video to lament the end

00:56:49   of some of the more traditional iPods in the line.

00:56:52   The iPod Touch remains on sale.

00:56:56   It's $199 now and it has double the capacity than before.

00:56:59   I was wondering, Jason, before we talk about the iPod and what's gone away, how long do

00:57:05   you think the iPod Touch has left in its life?

00:57:10   Well I think the question is, is the iPod Touch the Mac Mini of iOS?

00:57:14   Ha!

00:57:15   Yes, it probably is, right?

00:57:17   It hasn't been significantly updated in a while, and I mean they're putting new storage

00:57:22   in it, but I think that's just to kind of keep it up to date so it can maybe handle

00:57:27   some of the more recent updates, but it's old now.

00:57:31   What is it, like an A8 and an iPhone 5 screen or something?

00:57:34   - Yeah, it's old, but it's $199, and it's little,

00:57:37   and there are probably uses for it in education

00:57:41   and training and all--

00:57:43   - Families?

00:57:44   - Families with little kids who don't want an iPad,

00:57:46   but they wanna give them something.

00:57:47   There are uses for it, but they're scattered,

00:57:50   and there's no, I think it's harder to point,

00:57:53   like with the Mac Mini, at the iPod Touch and say,

00:57:55   "Here is the market for the iPod Touch."

00:57:57   "Well, no, kind of not."

00:58:00   But there are lots of different uses for it,

00:58:01   and it probably sells well enough for them

00:58:03   to keep it around like the Mac Mini,

00:58:05   but not well enough for them to spend

00:58:07   a lot of time upgrading it.

00:58:09   So again, maybe the iPod Touch dies,

00:58:12   maybe the iPod Touch gets an update at some point

00:58:16   that is really minor,

00:58:18   and then doesn't get updated again for another three years.

00:58:22   That could totally happen.

00:58:23   So I don't know, I kind of feel like it's useful

00:58:27   for them to have a small iOS device that's not a phone,

00:58:32   but yeah, I mean, you could flip a coin on it,

00:58:37   but it depends on how much they really sell.

00:58:39   Do they know how much they really sell?

00:58:41   But I do hear from people who say that these things happen

00:58:45   in camps and schools and other places.

00:58:48   Now, the iPad is the real question,

00:58:50   'cause there's now a fairly low cost iPad,

00:58:53   and that is much more successful in schools

00:58:56   and other places that used to sort of use iPod Touches,

00:58:58   now they tend to use iPads.

00:59:00   So you could maybe argue that Apple would rather

00:59:02   they buy iPads than the iPod Touch, but I don't know.

00:59:06   I mean, if it sells well enough to keep it around, why not?

00:59:09   The challenge is that it's,

00:59:11   advantages it's using iPhone parts, right?

00:59:14   So that makes it pretty easy,

00:59:16   but it doesn't have the cellular stuff.

00:59:17   So Apple's got the parts,

00:59:20   Apple knows how to build something this small.

00:59:22   They can make it smaller

00:59:23   because it doesn't have any of the cellular stuff

00:59:24   and make it cheaper.

00:59:25   but do they want to?

00:59:28   I really don't know.

00:59:28   I think it's a coin flip.

00:59:30   It really depends on does it sell well enough?

00:59:32   Does it fill enough of the iOS market?

00:59:34   And unlike the Mac mini,

00:59:36   which I feel like is very clearly filling that market,

00:59:39   I'm not convinced that Apple is convinced

00:59:42   that the iPod touch is required when the iPad exists.

00:59:46   - Yeah, for me, it's just, it's weird to see.

00:59:50   Like, you know, I'm not incredibly nostalgic

00:59:52   for a lot of this stuff,

00:59:53   But the iPod as a music player going away, there's something a little bit sad about that.

01:00:01   Like I have a really great history with that.

01:00:03   You know, I'm of the the people that kind of are interested in this stuff.

01:00:10   I'm the iPod generation.

01:00:11   You know, the iPod got me into the Apple ecosystem.

01:00:15   I had an iPod mini, a pink iPod mini was my first Apple product.

01:00:20   and it opened the door for me to want to get a Mac.

01:00:24   You know, and then I got like all of the iPods

01:00:27   that I wanted after that, right?

01:00:28   Like I had the Nano, the iPod Nano,

01:00:31   the original iPod Nano is still, I think,

01:00:32   one of the most impressive products Apple ever shipped.

01:00:35   Just the jump in what they made going from the iPod Mini,

01:00:40   which is small but this big chunky thing, you know,

01:00:42   maybe the size of like a pack of cigarettes

01:00:45   or something like that, right?

01:00:46   down to something that was, you know, like a packet of,

01:00:51   I know the shuffle was like this packet of gum,

01:00:54   but like the Nano was like this thin thing,

01:00:56   like almost like a stick of gum, right?

01:00:58   Like a few sticks of gum stacked on top of each other,

01:01:00   like this impossibly small product,

01:01:03   like how did they go from that to that, right?

01:01:05   Like it was really fascinating.

01:01:07   And also like the iPod mini was selling so well for them,

01:01:10   but they cut it off and made this new thing.

01:01:11   And you know, then kind of like going to like the iPod video,

01:01:15   Like I have these vivid memories of like putting TV shows onto my iPod video and when it was

01:01:22   like I was supposed to be going to sleep for school the next day I would be watching TV

01:01:25   shows under the covers on my iPod video.

01:01:28   The iPod was a very important product to me and it's a shame, you know.

01:01:34   It is a shame to see the Nano and the Shuffle go like the Classic did because really what's

01:01:40   left it isn't like an iPod right like the iPod touch is not an iPod it's an

01:01:48   iPhone without a cell radio yeah it's an iPod name only because it's basically an

01:01:52   iPhone yeah no you're absolutely right I would say in fact the Apple product most

01:01:56   like the iPod now the Apple watch small yeah it's with you you can load music

01:02:01   onto it you can sync music onto it it'll play the music back over Bluetooth you

01:02:05   You know, it's the iPod Nano of today, is the Apple Watch.

01:02:12   As weird as that is to say, it kind of is.

01:02:15   In fact, I had a moment when this announcement happened where I thought to myself, you know,

01:02:20   I don't think Apple wants to do this, but if Apple wanted to make a next generation

01:02:24   iPod, it could just take the Apple Watch tech.

01:02:27   Like literally, it could take the Apple Watch technology and use that to make something

01:02:31   that's kind of like an Apple Watch and kind of like an iPod Nano or shuffle with like

01:02:34   a clip on it and just say, here's the new iPod.

01:02:37   It does Apple music and it's got wifi

01:02:39   and it runs little apps and it's basically the Apple watch.

01:02:42   But I don't think they will

01:02:43   because I think they want you to buy an Apple watch

01:02:45   to do that.

01:02:46   But it's not that far off, right?

01:02:47   Like it's got a touch interface that isn't,

01:02:50   unlike the recent Nano that just got discontinued

01:02:53   where it was like a sham of an iOS interface

01:02:57   'cause it's not actually running iOS.

01:02:59   The iPod or the Apple watch has a real interface

01:03:03   that actually is built for it.

01:03:05   And it's got, you know, music sync

01:03:07   and very much like the iPod,

01:03:08   it's reliant on a parent device to sync its music.

01:03:12   It doesn't, it can't do it itself.

01:03:15   And so it's very iPod-y in that way.

01:03:17   And you can walk around without your phone or anything

01:03:19   and listen to music on it.

01:03:20   So I don't know, it just, it hit me.

01:03:24   I don't think it's ever gonna be more than that,

01:03:26   but it did strike me that the,

01:03:29   Today's iPod Nano or iPod Shuffle is an Apple watch.

01:03:34   - Hey, what if they made it into the AirPods?

01:03:38   Right, you just put music in the case and you know?

01:03:41   - I think a long term thing for the AirPods

01:03:45   is probably like what you can't, why not?

01:03:49   Like in the long, I'm not making a rumor here

01:03:51   for this fall or something, I'm saying in the long term

01:03:53   like at some point, couldn't your AirPods

01:03:56   be that intelligent, couldn't they sync music

01:03:58   and store it locally, like, yeah.

01:04:00   I think at some point you might not need anything

01:04:03   more than that to go out for a run.

01:04:05   And if you get a call, your AirPods are on your cellular plan.

01:04:09   Now there's some issues with having devices

01:04:11   that have radios that are that close to your head

01:04:14   for things like cellular connectivity.

01:04:17   That might not be the best idea,

01:04:19   but having it on your wrist is not that bad.

01:04:23   - Just build it into the case, right?

01:04:24   This case is always gonna be there.

01:04:25   - You just have to carry your case around with you, yeah.

01:04:28   I suppose so.

01:04:28   So, you know, it's just, it's funny.

01:04:30   This is where we've come is that like, we've, we've left the world where the

01:04:34   iPod is there because you want to have a, and again, some people still want them

01:04:40   and need them and use them and great.

01:04:41   But for most people, like that is the old tech and the new tech is these smaller

01:04:46   devices that we wear that have this stuff built in and, uh, and that's why I feel

01:04:51   like the Apple watch has this kind of like, Interesting affinity with the, the

01:04:56   iPod like it's kind of doing what the iPod did but in a modern context.

01:05:05   So the Wall Street Journal had a profile of Johnny Ive and Apple Park showing us some

01:05:13   details some pictures we haven't seen of the newly open building and you know you can tell

01:05:19   me if you have any of a feeling on this but I think it seems that the majority of discussion

01:05:26   that has come out of this profile for whatever was in there

01:05:28   is mainly talking about kind of like the open office nature

01:05:33   that the Apple Park seems to have.

01:05:35   But we've seen some photos in this

01:05:38   which show these kind of stark, open areas,

01:05:43   like these vast, open areas, these working areas

01:05:46   that we've heard about, right?

01:05:47   Like we've heard in previous profiles

01:05:50   that Apple Park would contain this stuff,

01:05:53   but this is the first time that we've seen anything of it.

01:05:57   Right?

01:05:58   - Right.

01:06:00   - And I think that that is the thing that has sparked

01:06:02   the majority of conversation is like,

01:06:05   what does this look like?

01:06:06   How is this gonna work?

01:06:08   So I wanted to talk a little bit about open offices,

01:06:12   because I think we both have some experience with those.

01:06:16   It seems like there are engineers

01:06:19   who work inside of Apple reportedly,

01:06:22   and commentators are very upset.

01:06:23   So it seems like there is a,

01:06:26   coming from the Wall Street Journal article,

01:06:27   it seems like people are upset

01:06:29   and I've seen lots of people tweeting about this,

01:06:30   about the idea of potentially loud,

01:06:33   disruptive working environments

01:06:34   and the idea that the whiteboards

01:06:36   are now being replaced by sliding glass doors,

01:06:38   which I actually think sounds super cool.

01:06:41   Like I think of House, right?

01:06:42   Like House used to write on the glass, it was awesome.

01:06:44   But this is a trend, right?

01:06:48   Like this isn't something that Johnny Ive has created,

01:06:51   hasn't created the open office. Open offices are a real thing. And I think it seems like

01:06:59   you mention open offices to people and people hate them. You mention the term open office

01:07:04   and everyone's like, "Oh, I hate open offices." But companies keep installing them and moving

01:07:11   in that direction. So I've been thinking about this. There has to be a reason. If they were

01:07:16   were as bad, if open offices are as bad as people fear or think, why do they keep getting

01:07:25   put in? Like if open offices really destroy all productivity, wouldn't somebody have worked

01:07:29   that out by now?

01:07:32   Well, I don't know about like what studies have been done. Have there been studies done

01:07:40   about this?

01:07:41   Someone's done them, right? Like somebody has.

01:07:43   - Well, I don't know anything about that.

01:07:45   I also don't know anything about,

01:07:47   work is not like we tested workers

01:07:51   and found that they were more productive

01:07:53   because everybody's work is different.

01:07:55   I'm not sure you can boil this down.

01:07:58   If you can then great,

01:07:59   but you would have to work very hard

01:08:01   in terms of like we had two different scenarios

01:08:04   where people's workplaces were essentially identical

01:08:07   in every other way, but not in this way

01:08:10   because everybody's workloads are different

01:08:12   and different groups work differently.

01:08:16   And it's funny 'cause when I wrote my comment

01:08:19   on this Wall Street Journal piece,

01:08:22   what I said was basically,

01:08:24   some people aren't gonna like it

01:08:27   because I've experienced that.

01:08:28   We moved to an open plan

01:08:29   and we also moved to a cube based office at one point

01:08:32   when a lot of people had offices

01:08:33   and they got kicked out into cubicles

01:08:35   when I worked at Mac user.

01:08:36   And then at Macworld, we ended up at IDG

01:08:39   doing an open plan, like a severe open plan,

01:08:42   no cube walls kind of thing.

01:08:44   And I saw it, like some people were okay with it

01:08:49   and some people were not.

01:08:50   And then the other thing that I observed is,

01:08:53   and this comes from not just this Wall Street Journal story,

01:08:55   but my own personal experience.

01:08:57   What I observed is,

01:08:59   sometimes the people who are designing and rolling out

01:09:04   and approving open plan spaces,

01:09:10   I think sometimes their motivations are flawed

01:09:14   and sometimes they, and again, not all the time,

01:09:17   and sometimes they lose some perspective

01:09:19   because they don't know how the people

01:09:22   who are gonna be in the space actually work.

01:09:24   And sometimes the managers who are vouching for them

01:09:27   do not understand how they actually get work done.

01:09:30   And there's often a lot of corporate talk about productivity

01:09:33   and collaboration and things like that that goes into this.

01:09:38   So I guess what I would say is sometimes offices get built

01:09:41   and they're not really looking at studies

01:09:43   and they're not looking at evidence

01:09:45   and they're not looking,

01:09:47   ideally they would talk to their people

01:09:48   about what they want.

01:09:49   Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't.

01:09:51   Sometimes you talk to the people

01:09:53   and then you don't give them what they want.

01:09:56   Trust me, I've seen it happen.

01:09:58   - Sure.

01:09:59   - So, you know, so I look at this and I think,

01:10:02   okay, I'm not a big fan of open plan.

01:10:07   But one of the things that bothers me about it is that

01:10:10   it seems to often be inflicted on workers

01:10:14   by people who think that it's great,

01:10:17   but aren't doing the job that they're doing.

01:10:19   Now, I've heard, since I wrote that,

01:10:21   I've heard from people who are programmers who say,

01:10:23   I love OpenPlan because collaboration

01:10:25   is an incredibly important part of what I do.

01:10:27   But I also heard from lots of programmers who say,

01:10:31   it's terrible because it's distracting and I need to focus.

01:10:35   And like Joel Spolsky wrote a piece about how,

01:10:38   you know, developers need to be in flow, right?

01:10:41   Where they get in a groove and they are really working

01:10:44   on that and that's when they're at their most productive.

01:10:46   And you've got audio and visual clutter in an open plan

01:10:50   that distracts you and gets you out of flow.

01:10:53   And his suggestion was,

01:10:54   programmers are at their most productive

01:10:56   when they are in a space they can control.

01:10:58   And that means like cube walls or an office.

01:11:00   Now, not every developer is gonna be like that.

01:11:03   Our friend Casey has always worked in cubicles, right?

01:11:06   And some people are fine with that.

01:11:07   Although cubicles aren't open plan.

01:11:09   I'll point that out.

01:11:10   Like open plan is you have a table

01:11:12   and you can look around and see everybody else

01:11:15   working in the room, like everybody.

01:11:17   There's no, you don't have any privacy at all.

01:11:19   You are completely exposed.

01:11:21   That's what open plan is.

01:11:23   And that's what Apple is doing.

01:11:24   So, you know, again, it's an adaptation.

01:11:28   It's gonna be a productivity hit for Apple.

01:11:29   Some of the people are gonna hate it.

01:11:31   And what I found at IDG is people can come up with ways to deal with open plan.

01:11:37   They face the wall, they put on headphones, they do things to, um, they work from home,

01:11:44   like they do things to try to override the open plan because they need to do their work.

01:11:50   And collaboration is something, collaboration is important, right? But I think it's importance

01:11:56   gets overstated. And, you know, in my workplace, like, there was always, there were always

01:12:04   times where we needed to collaborate. We wanted to stand up, we talk, we go into a room and

01:12:09   have a conversation and draw things on a whiteboard. That's totally important. It does happen.

01:12:14   I do think it gets overstated. Then there's the part where you have to go back to your

01:12:18   desk and work. And very rarely is somebody's work, especially in, if you're a writer, if

01:12:24   a programmer, something where literally the work you're doing is happening with someone

01:12:29   there, unless you're doing like pair programming or something like that. Like you are sitting

01:12:32   down by yourself and focusing. And if you're in a workspace that is not conducive to focus,

01:12:37   then you're not going to be able to do your job very well. And I think that's the challenge

01:12:41   that Apple has here. And I don't know, like, I don't know how much Apple talked to its

01:12:45   people. I don't know how much this was driven by design. I don't know. I've not seen the

01:12:50   space like in use. That's one of the things I'm kind of fascinated by is, will we see

01:12:53   a picture of a workspace at Apple Park at some point when people are moved in and there's

01:12:58   clutter and there are humans and what does that look like and how is it working. But

01:13:04   I am a little bit skeptical that this is a design-driven project that the developers

01:13:11   who work on this stuff are going to have to do some serious adaptation and are going to

01:13:17   be frustrated and are going to push back and some of that is a fear of change but some

01:13:21   of that may be legitimate resistance to a distracting work environment. Because as much

01:13:28   as people say, "Oh no, collaboration is great," who among us would argue that collaboration

01:13:32   isn't important? But at the end of the day, when I'm writing an article, like, I'm not

01:13:36   writing an article while talking to somebody. I am focused. I'm not collaborating at that

01:13:42   point. And, you know, even in a Google Doc where somebody else is in there, like, making

01:13:47   changes while I'm working, that's distracting. Having people walking around and standing

01:13:52   by my desk and things like that, super distracting. So again, not for everybody. Some people will

01:13:58   like it, some people will hate it, but I do, I think I gotta call out the suggestion that,

01:14:06   "Well, this is just how it works now, and it's great because collaboration." Because

01:14:10   it strikes me that this is more like, it looks great, you can see everybody if you're a manager,

01:14:15   and you can see what they're doing, they can't hide from you, and it's cheaper, not in Apple's

01:14:19   case, but in general because you don't have to pay for those cube walls or those offices,

01:14:23   you can just have a completely reconfigurable space where everybody's out in the open.

01:14:28   So I worked for like three years in an open plan office and it definitely had its downsides.

01:14:33   One of the biggest problems for me was if there were people that got on your nerves,

01:14:37   you couldn't hide from them, like they were there every day, like frustrating you and

01:14:40   you keep hearing them or whatever, just doing their thing, right? We're all human. We don't

01:14:45   have to like everybody. There are people that can just frustrate you, right? And there were

01:14:50   people like that. But it can be distracting, yeah, for sure. But there were definitely

01:14:57   benefits to it. I honestly felt like collaboration was aided with my coworkers. We could all

01:15:05   frequently jump in to help each other out with problems, right? Someone would say something

01:15:09   to the table, there's like 13 of us sharing this desk, there would be like 6 on one side,

01:15:14   6, 7 on the other side. Everybody's kind of just around this huge table, this long table.

01:15:20   And there were upsets to it, right? Like we could help each other out, we could solve

01:15:24   problems, it was a thing that was useful in some situations. Of course it could be difficult

01:15:29   in others but this is why everybody had headphones, right? Like this was the thing, when you didn't

01:15:34   want to be bothered you put the headphones on. But it was really easy to get somebody's

01:15:38   attention if you needed and wanted to ask them a question. Like, there are benefits

01:15:41   to it, but of course it shouldn't and doesn't work for everyone, but also in the same way

01:15:47   that private offices won't work for everyone either.

01:15:49   Totally. Totally. Now, I agree, but this—and this is one of my questions is, for Apple

01:15:54   Park, is like, who decided—and did they talk to the developers? Who decided that developers

01:16:01   love being out in the open versus in little rooms? Because I think everybody having their

01:16:06   own office is pretty extreme, right? That's pretty extreme. And then you have to make

01:16:10   a real effort to get people out of their offices. At the same time, and maybe it's generational

01:16:16   where younger programmers have no problem just sitting out at a table where they can

01:16:20   see everybody in their office and all that. I get what you're saying about being able

01:16:28   to have a conversation with somebody, although when you described that table, I thought,

01:16:31   "Well, that sounds like hell to me. I would have to put on headphones." At which point,

01:16:35   can't say "Hey Jason" instead they have to wave at me and then am I now worried

01:16:39   that I need to look around to see if somebody's waving at me in order to get

01:16:43   my attention so that I can take my headphones out and pause my music?

01:16:46   We used to IM each other to get attention. Okay, so why not just use IM?

01:16:51   Why not go to a collaboration space? It's way better to be able to talk to

01:16:55   someone who's across the desk from you than have an IM thing and also like

01:16:59   here's the thing like saying... But why not get up and go to a collaborative, a more

01:17:02   collaborative space. I mean, we had... Right, because there was no space, right?

01:17:06   That gets back to the whole reason they're doing this, I'm sure.

01:17:09   Space is a premium. Because it's cheaper.

01:17:12   But like, it's not even about cheaper. It's like, how big can you make your building?

01:17:16   Right? Like, Apple Park is huge. And they still can't fit everyone in it. Right?

01:17:22   Like, I've been to a bunch of big technology companies now. I've been to their offices

01:17:27   and every single one of them is open plan. Like, and they have offices that people can

01:17:31   go into for meetings and stuff like that.

01:17:32   But these companies are so huge, they have so many people,

01:17:36   what else are you gonna do?

01:17:37   - Right, well, and that's my point, actually.

01:17:40   You just made my point, which is,

01:17:41   the reason this happens is because

01:17:44   configuring offices is expensive.

01:17:46   You have to put in a drywall,

01:17:48   you have to build the offices in there.

01:17:51   And then if you reconfigure because you leave

01:17:54   and the next company comes in,

01:17:55   'cause you've grown and you've outgrown the space,

01:17:57   then they wanna reconfigure and they tear the offices out

01:18:00   and they put in new offices.

01:18:00   and that's really expensive.

01:18:02   It's way cheaper to just have an empty room

01:18:04   that you stick tables in, or maybe low walls,

01:18:08   or maybe you make like rows with higher walls

01:18:11   and then everything else is a low wall

01:18:12   because you're just in an empty box.

01:18:14   There are lots of really good reasons financially

01:18:18   to do open plan, lots of them.

01:18:21   None of them has to do with the productivity of your workers.

01:18:23   None of them has to do with them feeling like

01:18:25   they can focus on their job.

01:18:27   It's all about the managers and the budget.

01:18:30   And that's the facts, right?

01:18:32   Like it would be almost impossible to create a space

01:18:36   with all offices and you wouldn't want to

01:18:38   because that would be oppressive.

01:18:40   But at the same time, I don't buy the argument

01:18:45   that I think they're selling us and they're selling workers,

01:18:49   which is no, no, OpenPlan is great for you too.

01:18:52   It's not just because it's cheaper for us.

01:18:54   It's not just because it's our budget.

01:18:56   It's great for you because it's so collaborative.

01:18:58   It's like, okay, there are jobs where collaboration

01:19:00   is important at various levels.

01:19:02   There are jobs where you really need to focus.

01:19:05   And some people maybe can be masters of focus.

01:19:08   I don't think I could survive doing what I do.

01:19:12   And I mean, podcasts aside, 'cause that doesn't work,

01:19:13   but like being a writer and an editor,

01:19:15   doing what I've done for my career.

01:19:17   If I was sitting at a table with no barriers

01:19:19   with 10 other people, even if I had my headphones in,

01:19:23   because I think it would be very hard for me to focus,

01:19:26   especially if I knew that some of them

01:19:28   might want to talk to me at some point. I think that would be a very difficult way to

01:19:31   adapt. Now maybe if you're 22 and you're just starting out, you totally deal with the distractions

01:19:38   differently and you're able to do it. There may be some generational things happening

01:19:42   here, but what sours me on this is I feel like OpenPlan is used way too often as an

01:19:49   excuse to tell the workers to shut up and take it because it's actually good for them,

01:19:56   collaboration. And at Apple, like, I hope Apple's better than this. I said this on

01:20:01   Twitter when people were asking me about it. It's like, I hope Apple's better than

01:20:04   this. I hope Apple knows exactly who their people are and how they do their

01:20:07   job and that they've configured the workspaces in this incredible next

01:20:11   generation building to get the most out of their workers. My fear is that this is

01:20:18   a design project, first and foremost, and Johnny Ive and all of his collaborators

01:20:24   want it to look like this, and then reality will intrude, and then the question will be

01:20:29   like, "Oh my god, the engineers are freaking out." It's like, okay, well, it's a period

01:20:33   of adaptation, let's give them six months. But in six months or a year, does somebody

01:20:37   go, "Yeah, we're gonna need to put up some cube walls. We're gonna need to put up some

01:20:41   offices. We're gonna need to change this." Because I think this is one of those cases

01:20:47   where the battle plan doesn't stay the same once it meets the enemy. I think that when

01:20:51   when Apple Park is opened, you're going to find that a lot of the people who build the

01:20:55   software especially that Apple relies on are going to have some serious problems adapting

01:21:03   to the work environment. And hopefully most of those go away after six months. But I wouldn't

01:21:09   count on it.

01:21:10   I don't know. I feel like it's a maybe. I don't think it's possible to make a statement

01:21:15   like that, to just be like, it's not going to work. And I'm not saying that you're necessarily

01:21:20   making that statement but like I've seen a lot of people just saying, as I just said,

01:21:24   I've seen a lot of people saying like, oh it's not gonna work, like engineers can't

01:21:29   work that way, right? And I don't think that it's possible to make those kinds of claims.

01:21:32   Look, for every person who said to me, um, it's fine, right? Like I've gotten some people

01:21:38   are like, I have an open plan and it's fine. Works for me, right? It's like, okay, well,

01:21:44   great. It works for you. You have you proven anything by telling me it works for you. You've

01:21:47   You've proven that it's not terrible for 100% of the people.

01:21:51   For every one of those, I've gotten one or two people

01:21:54   who said, "It won't work.

01:21:55   "It's terrible.

01:21:56   "Programmers can't work like that."

01:21:58   Those statements are wrong, right?

01:22:00   Some people can work like this.

01:22:02   The question is gonna be, again, what's in the middle?

01:22:04   And again, I wanna say change.

01:22:09   Of course people are gonna be resistant to change.

01:22:11   Of course that's gonna happen.

01:22:13   The people who are used to another working environment

01:22:15   are gonna come into this space and be like, "Oh boy."

01:22:17   We got our big, beautiful, brand new space at IDG,

01:22:20   and it was big and beautiful and new

01:22:23   and so much more modern than the old thing,

01:22:25   which was like out of a magazine,

01:22:28   movie about a magazine in the 1980s.

01:22:30   Like it was super old and dark and terrible.

01:22:32   And the new space was none of those things.

01:22:34   And yet, once we all got settled in,

01:22:37   it was like, I don't know, like it was not great.

01:22:40   And that's resistance to change.

01:22:41   You got to adapt.

01:22:42   It's gonna happen.

01:22:44   But yeah, in the long run, who's gonna bend?

01:22:49   Are the employees gonna adapt?

01:22:51   Are some of them not gonna be able to adapt?

01:22:53   Is the company gonna be able to adapt?

01:22:55   Once this building is not a grand opening anymore,

01:22:58   but an ongoing concern,

01:22:59   are managers going to,

01:23:01   and the people running the facility, going to adapt?

01:23:04   Are they gonna say, look,

01:23:06   look, it's always gonna be this way

01:23:07   and leave Apple if you don't like it, or get on board?

01:23:10   Or are they gonna be like, you know, this is bad.

01:23:12   We need to fix this

01:23:13   because we are distracted and we're losing people

01:23:16   or they're great engineers that we don't wanna lose

01:23:18   and we need to change it.

01:23:19   I don't know.

01:23:20   I don't know how it's gonna go.

01:23:21   I just had my little spider sense going off

01:23:23   that I've seen this happen before.

01:23:27   And it just, in my environment,

01:23:30   and IDG is not Apple by a long shot,

01:23:32   but in my environment,

01:23:34   it was not the most productive workplace after all.

01:23:39   And it was less open than Apple's is actually,

01:23:42   'cause we did have rows with higher walls.

01:23:44   The Apple photos, there's like your wall next to you

01:23:47   is actually a glass panel with a conference room behind it.

01:23:51   So there'll be meetings going on while you're sitting there

01:23:54   and they can see you and you can see them.

01:23:56   And I don't know.

01:23:57   Well, it looks beautiful.

01:23:59   This is the thing, it looks beautiful.

01:24:01   How does it work?

01:24:01   Because as Steve Jobs told us,

01:24:04   design isn't how it looks, design is how it works.

01:24:07   And so I hope Apple has made good design decisions

01:24:10   for Apple Park about the people who work there being able to get their work done productively

01:24:15   because if it's a beautiful building that people hate to work in and are not productive

01:24:20   in, it's a failure. So it needs to be a success and that means the people need to

01:24:24   be productive and happy when they work there.

01:24:27   Just before we move on, I just want to state for the record, like, I'm not saying this

01:24:34   is good. I'm not saying it's bad, right? Like, I feel like sometimes, you know, I'm

01:24:39   my best to argue with you, right? For conversation. I don't always like...

01:24:46   You don't hate the Mac Mini. No, I don't always necessarily believe like 100% of what I say.

01:24:52   Like a lot of the time I'm playing devil's advocate to draw out the conversation.

01:24:57   You know, my feeling on this, like if I was to summarize it, it's just like

01:25:01   when I look at something like this, I'm like, well, I assume the reason they're doing this

01:25:08   is the reason they have to do it. And it may purely be like, look, at the end of the day,

01:25:14   we only have so much space and it's like you can either work here or you can go back to Koopa

01:25:20   Teen, you can go back to Infinite Loop, right? Like it's, we can only fit so many people in

01:25:24   and we're just gonna see how it goes. Like I see that as being like a real potential here

01:25:28   and it's not necessarily saying that like anybody believes it's good or bad or better or worse,

01:25:33   but it's like we want to try and get as many people as we can into Apple Park and the only

01:25:38   only way we can do that is to put you all in this room together, right?

01:25:43   But, that is, again, where the rubber meets the road is, like, does it work as a workplace?

01:25:51   Like I get, like, we wanna, they could pack them in, they could pack them in even tighter,

01:25:55   like fill every space in Apple Park until it's like a sweatshop. They could do that,

01:25:59   but they won't do that because that would be a terrible place to work. The question

01:26:03   is like where does that line get drawn and over time does it change? And we don't know

01:26:07   No, Apple, look, right now, Apple is justifiably proud of their space and they're showing it

01:26:12   off. It is a beautiful brand new building. It is the dream of Steve Jobs. It is billions

01:26:17   of dollars. I want to see it. It looks amazing. And that's all great. It's just that when

01:26:23   the Wall Street Journal specifically calls out like trepidation about these spaces, I'm

01:26:29   like, yeah, I can see that. I went through it. And it will all come down to how people

01:26:35   how managers work with their staff, how the staff reacts,

01:26:39   how flexible the facility is to make adjustments

01:26:44   based on how people work.

01:26:46   Again, if you're somebody who says,

01:26:47   "Look, I can't work without a private office,

01:26:49   give that to me or I'm out of here,"

01:26:50   I doubt Apple Park is going to be able to please them, right?

01:26:53   They're going to be like, "Sorry, that's not going to happen."

01:26:55   You know, at IDG, it was the same thing.

01:26:56   It's like we had two offices

01:26:57   in the entire side of the building I was on.

01:26:59   And I was in one of them, and I was actually kind of miserable

01:27:01   because the office was terrible too.

01:27:03   I almost I think I would have rather been out in the cubes

01:27:06   in fact, if I hadn't left I probably would have moved out into a cube because

01:27:09   It was a tiny dark interior office. That was soul-sucking

01:27:13   So, you know, we'll see how it goes we'll see we'll see how the adaptation happens it's gonna take time

01:27:21   There are gonna be stories about angry people at Apple who hate Apple Park. They're gonna be stories about

01:27:28   Tech failures at Apple Park. Oh this elevator didn't work or oh it leaked when it rained

01:27:33   Or it got a little too cold and everybody had to bring jackets or Apple had to buy jackets for everybody

01:27:37   we're gonna get those stories because it's a new facility and it's gonna shake down and

01:27:41   Every everything that Apple does is reported with high drama

01:27:43   My question is just like for Apple's ongoing productivity and the happiness of the people who work there

01:27:49   What is that workspace like in a year and is it something where it's kind of like nope

01:27:54   We decided it's gonna be like this

01:27:55   you guys are all going to have to deal. Or is it going to be, "Oh, this group doesn't

01:27:59   work like that. We should make some changes." And I hope it's the latter, because that's

01:28:04   how a good company deals with this. And this is not a—unlike so many of these companies

01:28:09   where they rent office space and they're in there for a few years and then they move,

01:28:12   right? Where you can't make big structural changes because it's not worth the investment

01:28:18   because you're not going to be there very long. You've got a small lease. This is Apple's

01:28:21   building for essentially the rest of Apple's existence as a company. Like, they need to

01:28:26   get this right, not just for now, but for the long term. So, we'll see. We'll see. But

01:28:32   I hope they're continuing to listen to their employees about what makes a conducive workspace.

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01:30:16   Jason it is time for Ask Upgrade.

01:30:20   Already?

01:30:21   Already.

01:30:22   Jimmy asked, do you think that at some point Apple may make matte black or jet black iPad

01:30:29   Pros?

01:30:30   Wow.

01:30:31   I think it's possible depending on how the colour line shakes out into the future because

01:30:35   we can get gold ones, right?

01:30:36   Like you can get gold now.

01:30:39   I don't think you can get rose gold, but you can get gold.

01:30:41   So if matte black and jet black

01:30:43   just becomes standard colors over the years,

01:30:47   seems possible, right?

01:30:48   Like maybe the space gray gets replaced

01:30:50   with matte black or something?

01:30:52   - I think there's a materials issue,

01:30:53   which is these are larger devices.

01:30:57   So like fingerprints on them are different.

01:31:00   Physically making them is different.

01:31:03   And that's my gut feeling about like a Jet Black iPad

01:31:07   is can they really make that and how would it hold up

01:31:11   and how expensive would it be for them to manufacture that

01:31:13   and would that eat into their profit margin?

01:31:15   I think it's possible.

01:31:16   The matte black is very fingerprinty.

01:31:20   The Jet Black is kind of fingerprinty too.

01:31:23   I think on large devices,

01:31:24   I would say think about the iPad Pro

01:31:26   and think about the MacBook and the MacBook Pro the same way

01:31:28   which is like they want those to be,

01:31:30   they have been really conservative with those

01:31:32   and making something that isn't

01:31:33   in that anodized aluminum thing,

01:31:37   I think is something they're willing to do

01:31:39   on an Apple Watch or an iPhone,

01:31:42   but not on a bigger device.

01:31:43   So I doubt it, but we'll see.

01:31:48   I think it's more likely that they would do,

01:31:51   yeah, they would have another color variation

01:31:54   like they have on,

01:31:57   like how those iPod Touches have colors, right?

01:32:00   or there's the red iPhone.

01:32:02   I think it's more likely that we might see a new kind of very subtle color variation

01:32:07   that rolls across the line eventually than something that is like super shiny like a

01:32:14   jet black.

01:32:17   So next up today from James, do you think there's any chance that there might be an

01:32:21   iPhone SE update this fall considering how popular the product was when it launched and

01:32:26   kind of took Apple by surprise?

01:32:28   there's always a chance, although I kind of, I mean, maybe, although, I mean, the

01:32:34   question is, what's the easiest for Apple? Like, is it easier for Apple to

01:32:38   slipstream the iPhone SE when they announce new iPhones in the fall, or is

01:32:42   it easy for them to do it, like, later, when they're not busy with other things,

01:32:45   and have that drop in the spring, like they did when they originally announced

01:32:49   the iPhone SE? I don't know. My gut feeling is that it would be easier for

01:32:52   them to release that design later, rather than say, "Well, here's a new iPhone 8 and

01:32:58   and an iPhone 7S and an iPhone SE, right?

01:33:03   Like would it be easier for them to just say,

01:33:06   you know, the SE is not about the latest and greatest.

01:33:08   We will update it next spring

01:33:11   with the innards of an iPhone 7 or something or a 7S.

01:33:15   So yeah, it's possible,

01:33:19   remains to be seen whether it's gonna join the iPhone line

01:33:22   for updates, whether it'll get updated sort of off axis

01:33:25   every other year in the spring

01:33:27   or whether it won't get updated at all.

01:33:29   I think that's also a question.

01:33:30   I hope it does though.

01:33:31   - Yeah, I feel that this is one

01:33:33   that I really haven't got a solid feeling on.

01:33:35   - I mean, they only did it once.

01:33:37   So we're guessing now.

01:33:39   I don't think it's gonna go away.

01:33:41   I think that there is a great value in that size.

01:33:44   I was one of those people who was plugging them,

01:33:46   not giving away that size from the beginning.

01:33:49   And now that it exists,

01:33:50   I'm on board with the, yes, it needs to get updated.

01:33:53   I'm not sure it needs to get updated with everything else.

01:33:55   In fact, if they're trying to kind of like ramp up

01:33:58   those big iPhones and get that up and going

01:34:01   like they did with the iPhone SE,

01:34:03   where then later they came in and said,

01:34:05   oh yeah, and this has last year's,

01:34:06   last fall's tech in this thing too.

01:34:08   You know, that might be a more fitting place in its lineup,

01:34:12   but we just don't know because we only have

01:34:14   the one data point, which is when they release the SE.

01:34:16   - Yeah, and also my feeling is assuming

01:34:18   that it's gonna be an SE isn't necessarily

01:34:21   the right thing to think about, right?

01:34:22   like the 5C was kind of this as well, right?

01:34:25   Like a new phone with all parts inside.

01:34:30   Like there is a possibility of just like a different thing,

01:34:34   you know, maybe more like the 5C

01:34:36   where it's got some kind of new case.

01:34:37   Like I feel like the idea of Apple releasing a new,

01:34:41   inverted commas, iPhone with old parts is like,

01:34:45   that's not a new idea and they could continue to do that.

01:34:49   And I think will continue to do that,

01:34:50   but I have no real good sense of what I think it's going to look like the next time they

01:34:55   do it or even when.

01:34:57   Sorry.

01:34:58   Considering, this is from Michael, not from me, Michael is considering a new MacBook Pro

01:35:02   purchase but doesn't like the Touch Bar.

01:35:05   Do we think that the Touch Bar is here to stay and that he should just get used to it

01:35:09   and buy the MacBook Pro?

01:35:11   I don't know.

01:35:12   I feel like it's going to at least last another generation.

01:35:16   Even if Apple decide they don't like it, I don't think they'd can it that quick.

01:35:21   Yeah, I mean that's probably right.

01:35:24   If you're getting a 13, you could just get it without the touch bar and that's a pretty

01:35:29   good computer.

01:35:30   But if you want a 15 or you want more power, then you could get it with a touch bar.

01:35:37   I don't love the touch bar.

01:35:39   I think it's got a lot of potential, but I am not seeing the Touch Bar meeting its potential.

01:35:47   High Sierra doesn't really have anything to speak of about Touch Bar in it, which is really

01:35:51   disappointing.

01:35:52   So I don't know.

01:35:56   You could get used to it.

01:35:57   I'm not convinced it's here to stay because it doesn't seem like a hit.

01:36:00   It seems like something Apple is still trying to make it happen.

01:36:04   And I don't find people loving it as a group.

01:36:08   seems like it's present. So, I don't know. I don't have a good answer here other than

01:36:15   if you don't like the touch bar and you can buy a MacBook Pro that pleases you that doesn't

01:36:19   have it, which is that 13-inch model, maybe that's what you should do and just not worry

01:36:23   about the touch bar and wait for later to see if the touch bar evolves into something

01:36:27   you like. Or goes away.

01:36:31   Corey wants to know, "In the new Files app in iOS 11, can you be signed into two different

01:36:35   Dropbox accounts. I think about this for a minute. I was like, why?

01:36:38   Why would you need that?

01:36:40   Like, I can't I don't think there's any way you can currently do that, like on

01:36:44   any device. Right. Like, I don't think.

01:36:46   Yeah, you can't do that anywhere.

01:36:47   Right. You can't do it on the Mac.

01:36:49   I don't think you definitely can't do it in the Dropbox app.

01:36:51   But I was thinking about this. Right.

01:36:53   And I was like, you know, there might be a way around this in files in the files

01:36:58   app. So, OK, so let me back up a second right now.

01:37:01   No, but Dropbox hasn't been updated, of course.

01:37:03   right so it's it's in the files app currently but it's just the old document provider right like it

01:37:08   just opens a window eventually it's going to get updated and it's going to appear in files it's

01:37:12   going to be amazing and we're all going to be so happy but i still don't think that you're going

01:37:15   to be able to have the dropbox letting you sign into two accounts because i just it's such a niche

01:37:21   thing i just don't think you're going to have to do that but i think you could spoof it because

01:37:25   you could use another app something maybe like documents by readall to sign into the second

01:37:30   Dropbox account, then that will show up in files, and effectively you'll have access

01:37:34   to two different Dropbox accounts within the Files app, right? Like that seems like that

01:37:38   would work, right?

01:37:39   - Maybe, as long as those apps aren't doing, I mean, that's the thing. Like, if those apps

01:37:46   are using the new files method, which they're all gonna get updated to do, then it's not

01:37:51   gonna happen. But if they're using an older method that is separately isolated, logging

01:37:55   into Dropbox, then maybe so. I use GoodReader sometimes to do this, but I think Dropbox

01:38:02   very much wants you to have one Dropbox account, I think. I wonder if this is like a personal

01:38:06   one and a work one or something like that, that have a different set of files on them.

01:38:11   I don't know. I don't think the intent is to do this, but we don't know. So I think,

01:38:17   yeah, the second app workaround is maybe not terrible, but it's not going to provide the

01:38:21   files experience then. It's going to be in another app.

01:38:24   Well no, but you could... I'm assuming that documents will be a file provider.

01:38:28   Right, like it will have all the stuff, so you'll be able to get...

01:38:32   Because it is currently! So...

01:38:34   Yeah, but then there... are they syncing... I don't know. That's... that... maybe? Maybe not.

01:38:39   Well I have to see, like I... my conception of this says it could work in some strange way,

01:38:45   but I don't know, right? But like, when I was thinking about this, I was like, "Hmm,

01:38:51   Maybe that will work, but we don't know.

01:38:53   We'll see.

01:38:55   Travis wants to know, "Does photos on iOS 11, Jason, support smart albums?"

01:39:02   I don't think so.

01:39:03   I mean, there's nothing more to say.

01:39:06   As far as I can tell, smart albums are still not supported.

01:39:08   They don't work.

01:39:10   You can't see them.

01:39:11   They...

01:39:12   The last time I checked, I haven't checked in recent betas,

01:39:15   but when I talked to Apple about it, that was not a thing that came up.

01:39:20   So it seems like not.

01:39:21   Ido Ido asked, "Do you primarily use your iPad in portrait or landscape?"

01:39:28   What about you Jason?

01:39:30   JASON LEWKOWICZ Landscape.

01:39:31   MATT PORTER Me in landscape.

01:39:32   JASON LEWKOWICZ Almost exclusively.

01:39:35   I will use it in portrait for reading comics, sometimes for reading articles because depending

01:39:41   on the app, like I use the New York Times app, I often will read that, not always, but

01:39:45   often will read that in portrait because the column width is too wide in landscape, but

01:39:52   sometimes I read it in landscape most, I would say most of the time, like 95% of the time,

01:39:58   my iPad is in landscape.

01:40:01   I'm mostly in landscape as well because I have the keyboard attached, but like I will

01:40:05   sometimes turn it into portrait, like if I'm reading Twitter for a while or something,

01:40:08   you know, it's nicer in landscape, in portrait.

01:40:10   I mean, I think I've complained about this before,

01:40:13   but I am frustrated by Apple's insistence

01:40:17   that in its industrial design,

01:40:18   that the iPad is a portrait device,

01:40:20   'cause I just don't think it is.

01:40:21   I think it's a landscape device.

01:40:22   And the fact that the home button

01:40:24   is on the bottom in portrait.

01:40:28   And so you've got,

01:40:29   when you're using it in the landscape all the time,

01:40:31   you just got one side's got a button on it.

01:40:32   Which side is it?

01:40:33   'Cause you could use it either way.

01:40:34   And so I find that kind of ridiculous.

01:40:38   And when you start it up,

01:40:41   the Apple logo is there in portrait orientation.

01:40:45   And of course on the back,

01:40:46   the Apple logo is in portrait orientation.

01:40:48   And that makes it just like every other iOS device,

01:40:50   but I never use my iPhone in landscape mode,

01:40:55   unless I'm watching a video or playing a game,

01:40:57   but my iPad is always in landscape orientation, always,

01:41:00   with very few exceptions.

01:41:02   So I think that's a little bit silly that Apple,

01:41:05   maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm an outlier,

01:41:06   but I feel like the iPad is a landscape device

01:41:09   more often than portrait.

01:41:11   - If you would like to send in questions for Ask Upgrade,

01:41:14   you can tweet at us with the hashtag #AskUpgrade.

01:41:18   You can also, don't forget to send in

01:41:19   your Snell Talk questions if you want to be

01:41:21   at the start of the show, #SnellTalk, we'll send those in.

01:41:24   Want to find our show notes today,

01:41:25   head on over to relay.fm/upgrade/152.

01:41:30   Want to find JSON online, it's at sixcolors.com

01:41:32   and @Jsnell on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L.

01:41:35   I am @imike. Thanks to Eero, Ting and Encapsular for supporting the show. And as always, thank

01:41:44   you for listening. We'll be back next time and I'm going to be in the United States of

01:41:50   America. Until then, Mr Jason Snell, say goodbye.

01:41:53   Bye everybody.

01:41:54   [MUSIC PLAYING]

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