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Upgrade

151: Caulk and Spackle

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 151.

00:00:12   Today's show is brought to you by TextExpander, Pingdom, and Jett.

00:00:17   My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Jason Snell.

00:00:20   Hello, Jason Snell.

00:00:22   Hello, Myke Hurley.

00:00:23   How are you?

00:00:25   I'm doing fine.

00:00:26   But nobody wants to know because it's #snelltalk time.

00:00:30   And today's Snell Talk question comes from Kathy.

00:00:33   Kathy would like to know, Jason,

00:00:35   do you prefer lasers or fireworks?

00:00:39   - Wow.

00:00:40   Now this is a question for the ages.

00:00:42   There are so many ways you could break this down.

00:00:45   I feel like this is dangerously close

00:00:47   to being an episode of "Robot or Not."

00:00:49   - I get lots of "Robot or Not" style questions

00:00:52   that I don't use for this, just FYI.

00:00:55   I, so lasers, my experience with lasers is not particularly great. It is the plot of,

00:01:02   lasers figure prominently in the plot of one of my favorite movies, Real Genius. Lasers

00:01:06   are a fun toy to play with my cat, where he chases the laser pointer around. And lasers

00:01:15   are fun in a laser show, although I've only ever been to a couple of laser shows in my

00:01:21   Whereas I see fireworks all the time, in fact we just saw fireworks last weekend, not this one that just happened, but the one before when we were in San Diego, because it was fireworks night at the ballpark.

00:01:32   And we saw some fireworks. So I gotta say, I think I prefer fireworks even though fireworks have loud noises, and sometimes loud noises can be bothersome.

00:01:41   but they're pretty and I prefer them I think maybe more because they're more readily available as a pretty spectacle.

00:01:48   So I think I'm going to have to go fireworks.

00:01:50   If I really preferred, truly preferred lasers, I would go to more laser shows and I don't.

00:01:55   So I think I have to answer fireworks.

00:01:58   Is it time to retire the Ask Upgrade lasers in favor of Ask Upgrade fireworks?

00:02:03   No, I think every tool has its proper job and I believe that lasers are...

00:02:10   Oh you know what, she probably means iMessage effects, doesn't she?

00:02:13   Lasers all the way then.

00:02:15   There's no, there was no explanation.

00:02:17   It was purely do you prefer lasers or fireworks is the question.

00:02:20   On iMessage I prefer lasers.

00:02:22   The lasers is the best one.

00:02:23   Of course I do because sent with lasers is the best.

00:02:24   Because you see, in reality,

00:02:26   fireworks are available using this sort of technology

00:02:29   and lasers are available using this sort of technology.

00:02:32   In iMessage all you have to do is say lasers,

00:02:35   give me some lasers, let's be honest.

00:02:37   If you could just conjure up lasers by saying,

00:02:41   you know, lasers, we'd all do that.

00:02:44   We would all do that.

00:02:45   - Yeah, that's what you want.

00:02:46   - I know, right?

00:02:47   Okay, so I think that's maybe what Kathy meant,

00:02:49   but instead we gave her the more broad,

00:02:52   real world definition, which is fireworks,

00:02:54   because they're more readily available than lasers.

00:02:57   It's hard to get a laser.

00:02:59   - Unless you're an evil super villain.

00:03:00   - Unless you're a super villain.

00:03:01   I was gonna say it too, and I decided not to say it,

00:03:04   and you said it anyway, so there we go.

00:03:05   You can always rely on me, Snell.

00:03:07   I would love a supervillain to try and destroy the world with fireworks.

00:03:12   The fireworks will dazzle them and while they are distracted I will something like that.

00:03:16   I don't know.

00:03:17   Shoot them with a laser.

00:03:18   If you'd like to send in your questions to open the show just use the hashtag SnellTalk.

00:03:23   As you've probably learned by now it can be about literally anything.

00:03:27   Yeah.

00:03:28   No submission too stupid.

00:03:30   Unless you're asking me to ask Jason a robot or not style question because I don't do those.

00:03:36   If you don't know what robot or not is, I'll put a link in the show notes.

00:03:40   Jason, you had some follow up for us.

00:03:42   A little bit.

00:03:43   So we talked about my cellular iPad adventures last time and how even though I'd extolled

00:03:48   the virtues of the flexibility of the cellular iPad, it wasn't until I added my own iPad

00:03:53   to our family plan that I felt like completely free.

00:03:58   I did have one piece of feedback from somebody who said, when I said, you know, I could tether

00:04:04   but I just never did because I never wanted to go through that.

00:04:08   And I did have one person say, "Oh, it's fine."

00:04:10   Like, okay, well, good, good feedback.

00:04:14   It's fine for some, but it wasn't fine for me.

00:04:17   - It is, I mean, I get it.

00:04:18   Like, for some people that's what they want to do and it works for them, but like, I've

00:04:22   never found it to work in the way that I want 100% of the time.

00:04:27   the cell does, you know?

00:04:28   - Yeah, it's a little fiddly, it can be unreliable,

00:04:32   sometimes it works fine.

00:04:34   What I can tell you is, if I'm sitting in a car

00:04:37   as a passenger and we're driving down the freeway

00:04:40   and I have the option of checking Twitter and Slack

00:04:45   on my phone or on my iPad, and I would have to tether

00:04:50   to do it on my iPad, I'm never gonna do that.

00:04:55   But what I discovered is when I can just pull out the iPad and it works because it's got its own cellular connection.

00:05:00   Yeah, yeah, I actually do that. I pull out the iPad instead because I prefer to use the iPad in that scenario.

00:05:05   And that's the difference here. So that was one thing was, you know, yes, I'm not saying that people who tether are bad.

00:05:11   I'm just saying that there is a little bit of a barrier there and that was enough for me.

00:05:15   Also, we went down into this pit of sort of like what the Apple sim does in various carriers in the US

00:05:22   And just suffice it to say that there are lots of complications there.

00:05:26   We heard from people who said that it sounds like Verizon just doesn't support it.

00:05:29   If you buy an iPad at an AT&T store, the Apple sim is locked to AT&T,

00:05:34   but not if you buy it in an Apple store.

00:05:35   It sounds like there are differences in terms of the software sim that's in the device,

00:05:39   which you can't remove because it's a virtual sim, or the hardware sim,

00:05:43   which is the one that I believe AT&T will lock if you attach an Apple sim hardware sim.

00:05:49   it basically is like, okay, we own this SIM now,

00:05:52   if you want another carrier, get a different SIM.

00:05:54   But, you know, the point is, there are complications here,

00:05:58   at least in the US, and it's kind of annoying.

00:06:01   But for me, what I ended up doing was having my carrier

00:06:05   send me for free, a SIM to put in my iPad.

00:06:10   And then all I had to do is pop it in,

00:06:12   and it was already associated with my account,

00:06:14   and it was not a problem.

00:06:15   And so that was the easiest thing for me to do.

00:06:17   but that also means that the internal Apple SIM

00:06:20   in that iPad is still available for roaming

00:06:23   or applying to some other carrier.

00:06:26   And so that's good too.

00:06:28   And then I got a nice piece of email from listener Erling

00:06:31   who wrote in to say,

00:06:34   one important feature of the cellular iPad

00:06:36   that we didn't mention is that it also has GPS.

00:06:40   And Erling is a private pilot and uses an app

00:06:46   to make flight plans and use GPS in the air.

00:06:49   It's called Air Nav Pro.

00:06:51   And the great thing about the iPad Pro with cellular

00:06:55   is that it's got GPS and that's true.

00:06:59   That is true.

00:07:00   It is gonna give you a more exact location signal

00:07:05   because of that.

00:07:06   So thank you to Erling and to everybody else who wrote in

00:07:08   about iPads and cellular.

00:07:11   - Whoa, these, I mean, as I expected,

00:07:14   I mean, I'm assuming this application,

00:07:16   Air Navigation Pro, right?

00:07:18   Because what I'm assuming it is, just from Googling it.

00:07:21   It is, it's 50 pounds to get in the door.

00:07:25   So it's probably around $50.

00:07:26   And then there are a bunch of like,

00:07:28   25, 26 pound in-app purchases for a bunch of things.

00:07:32   I mean, this is, it makes sense, right?

00:07:34   Like that's what you would expect

00:07:36   for an application like this.

00:07:37   But you know, I just see stuff like that.

00:07:38   And I think it's kind of funny in a way.

00:07:40   It even has an Apple Watch app.

00:07:42   - Yeah, it's got all your charts and stuff in it too.

00:07:44   This is like, 'cause I remember, 'cause my dad,

00:07:47   my dad was a private pilot.

00:07:48   My dad actually used to commute.

00:07:50   - I did not know that.

00:07:51   - By, yes, used to commute by plane

00:07:54   at one point in his career.

00:07:57   And this, he had like big stacks.

00:08:01   I remember when I was a little kid,

00:08:03   stacks of like charts and maps and things like that.

00:08:05   And this is all like in a computer or something.

00:08:08   - That is so cool.

00:08:09   Jason, I have some follow up for you

00:08:12   in regards to to-do lists and applications and such.

00:08:16   Jack wrote in to say that Things 3 seems to have a feature

00:08:19   that Jason might want for his new amazing to-do system.

00:08:23   So Things 3, oh my God, I'm struggling with that one.

00:08:27   Things 3 is what my brain is attempting to say.

00:08:31   Things 3, it lets you set different dates

00:08:36   and deadlines for a project.

00:08:38   So you can be notified about something a few days

00:08:40   before it's actually set to be done.

00:08:42   - I think Things 2 does this too.

00:08:44   I actually have Things version 2,

00:08:45   because that was one of the to-do lists

00:08:47   that I used in a previous attempt to do this.

00:08:50   So we did hear from a bunch of people saying,

00:08:52   "Hey, here's an app that does this thing."

00:08:54   I heard from a couple of nice people who said,

00:08:56   "But OmniFocus will let you do all of those things."

00:08:58   And I appreciate everybody being helpful.

00:09:02   I will say that the questions about the details

00:09:08   of the features of all of the available to-do list apps

00:09:11   and which one is best, do not really help me

00:09:16   with my feelings that this is a bottomless pit

00:09:20   of time wasting that is not gonna help me do my job better.

00:09:24   So I'm trying to keep as light a touch,

00:09:26   my point is, it's not you, it's me,

00:09:28   I'm trying to keep as light a touch as possible on this

00:09:31   and do as little investment into investigation

00:09:34   and everything as possible

00:09:36   because I don't want to waste my time researching to-do apps

00:09:40   and then find that I just--

00:09:42   they don't stick.

00:09:42   Because I used things to for a while, it didn't stick.

00:09:47   I found it not helpful for my workflow.

00:09:51   And that may also happen with Todoist.

00:09:53   And if it does, it's not the app, again,

00:09:55   as much as it is me.

00:09:56   If I find it incredibly useful and I

00:09:58   stick with the to-do list lifestyle into the future,

00:10:01   then perhaps I will shop around a little bit more

00:10:05   to try and address some of the weaknesses

00:10:08   that I found in Todoist in terms of how I do things.

00:10:11   But I do have things too still on my Mac, it still runs.

00:10:14   So I may play with that too at some point down the road.

00:10:18   We'll see, but I'm trying very hard

00:10:19   to spend as little time as possible on this.

00:10:22   I want the lightest touch possible

00:10:24   because the more work I put into it,

00:10:26   the more I'm gonna abandon it basically.

00:10:28   That's the short version of my to-do list philosophy is

00:10:31   if it requires a lot of effort to maintain my to-do list,

00:10:34   the to-do list is gone. So yeah.

00:10:37   I think that that is completely fair. I think it's a good approach.

00:10:41   I think it's the best approach.

00:10:42   So we'll see.

00:10:44   I want to talk about an update to one of my favorite iOS apps, Jason,

00:10:48   which is Carrot Weather.

00:10:50   Ah yes.

00:10:52   So Carrot Weather had a pretty big update, um, over the last week, uh,

00:10:56   and they added a bunch of features that I think could be interesting to people.

00:10:59   So you can now use weather underground data in Carrot Weather,

00:11:04   it's currently has only been using dark sky but if you are like a one of the

00:11:09   they have like an in-app subscription model thing if you wanted a subscribers

00:11:13   you can use weather underground data which I thought might be of interest to

00:11:16   you Jason because I know that you're reliant on weather underground data

00:11:21   right because of your your personal what is it called

00:11:26   weather station that's it I the only thing that I can't I have to actually

00:11:31   actually ask the carrot people, because I actually, I bought this this week, is I want

00:11:37   to be able to specify my weather station as the source, and I don't think it lets me do

00:11:42   that. It wants to just say my town. So I'm going to write to them and ask if they can

00:11:47   make it so that if I put in like the weather underground code for my weather station instead

00:11:51   of my location, if it will let just pull the data right from there for current temperatures

00:11:58   and stuff because as I've explained on previous shows, this isn't like my temperature is better

00:12:03   than their temperature. It's the fact that in a lot of cases, the weather data for my

00:12:09   town is based on a town near me and I happen to live on a pretty dramatic temperature gradient

00:12:14   where there are days when it's 65 degrees here and a weather app will say, "Oh, it's

00:12:21   78." It's like, "No, it's not. It's really not." And that's because they're taking it

00:12:25   from the next town up and the next town up is sunny and we have fog. So my weather station

00:12:30   tells me what the actual temperature is I'd like to put that on my watch and on my phone.

00:12:34   So I got to check in with them on that but I did buy it and it's very good and I used

00:12:40   their in-app purchase to get their super presidents premium fancy subscription data thingy because

00:12:46   I was excited about that too.

00:12:48   All of the Cara apps have a character in them, like an evil AI character.

00:12:56   This is something that a lot of people like and a lot of people don't like.

00:12:59   And they've added the ability, which I think is good, because I can see how it is a polarizing

00:13:03   feature to have this comical cartoonish character that lives inside of the application and gives

00:13:10   you crap.

00:13:11   You can now turn off the AI character and actually adjust the snarkiness level so you

00:13:16   you can have it be nicer or more mean to you if you want to,

00:13:20   which I think is a good way to do it.

00:13:21   It's a good way to handle it.

00:13:22   And they refresh the UI in general,

00:13:24   so it shows significantly more data on the screen

00:13:28   and with loads of customization options as well.

00:13:30   So you can say like,

00:13:32   if you want to know what the chance of rain is,

00:13:34   or you want to know what the wind is,

00:13:36   or you want to know what the feels like temperature is,

00:13:40   as well as accurate temperature,

00:13:41   you can add all of that in.

00:13:43   And you can also customize all of this stuff

00:13:45   in their Apple Watch app,

00:13:46   which I maintain is I think the very best Apple Watch app

00:13:49   that I have used.

00:13:50   It always loads quickly, the data is presented so well.

00:13:54   I use that Apple Watch app constantly

00:13:56   and they use the complication,

00:13:58   but you can also customize the complication as well

00:14:00   to have what you want on it

00:14:01   and I have changed it now to feels like temperature

00:14:03   'cause that's the one that's more important to me

00:14:05   when I'm looking for what the temperature is.

00:14:06   So yeah, I just wanted to just give a little plug

00:14:09   for Carrotweather 'cause I think it's so awesome.

00:14:11   I've been using it for a long time

00:14:13   and they've had a great update

00:14:14   which I think is worthwhile to check out.

00:14:16   So I'll put a link in the show notes

00:14:18   to the Carrot Weather app on the App Store

00:14:20   if you're interested, go check it out.

00:14:21   All right, pretty good.

00:14:23   Next up today, just a quick mention of something.

00:14:28   Apple has a machine learning blog now.

00:14:30   Well, they call it a journal.

00:14:32   - Sure.

00:14:34   - I'm not 100% sure what the difference is

00:14:37   between a journal and a blog,

00:14:39   but Apple have made it clear

00:14:40   it is the Apple Machine Learning Journal. This is machinelearning.apple.com and it is

00:14:48   a place where Apple's engineers are going to publish information about their work and

00:14:53   research. Now, they're also quite clearly in their kind of opening journal entry asking

00:14:59   for feedback from researchers, students, engineers and developers. So, I was kind of wondering

00:15:05   what does this tell us? I think it says two different things, Jason. I think one, Apple

00:15:12   is trying to position themselves here as a significant player in this field, in the machine

00:15:17   learning field. And from what I understand about technologies like this, to kind of be

00:15:23   seen as significant, you have to publish and share research with the community. And from

00:15:29   everything that I understand, Apple's actually been sending people to conferences about this

00:15:33   stuff in recent times as well. Like this is the thing that you should be doing if this

00:15:39   is something you want to be seen as being a part of, right?

00:15:44   So it's interesting because it's not, it's not research, right? Like it's not, they're

00:15:51   not going to be publishing their research here. This is not what that's for, but it

00:15:54   is like, this is, we have talked about this before. This is the battle that Apple faces

00:15:59   in some cases where a lot of these people are in academia, they're PhDs, what they don't

00:16:03   want to do is disappear from existence when they go work at Apple. They need to be able

00:16:07   to publish and I think it benefits Apple for them to be able to communicate like all the

00:16:12   amazing things. It's basically a kind of PR in a way which is all the amazing things.

00:16:16   Look, we are working on this. Look, we do have experts. We know what we're doing. And

00:16:20   that's kind of the message that's being sent here.

00:16:22   I also think, you know, as well as another sign of Tim Cook's wonderfully opposing ideals

00:16:27   at Apple of more secrecy and more openness. You know, like he's done both of these things

00:16:33   and this is another part of the openness, right? They're willing to share.

00:16:36   Well, they're doubling down on product secrecy, right? But this is a little bit different

00:16:41   in terms of openness about... I'm trying to pick it apart here because like, how do you

00:16:47   justify being secret and open? And I think it's like, they're not going to tell you about

00:16:52   particular products and you know here's another way to think of it. Apple has

00:16:57   always treated or almost always treated their products as black boxes like

00:17:01   that's part of magic trick is like how does it work?

00:17:03   Nobody knows but it's magic it's great and it seems like the way that Apple's

00:17:07   defining it a little bit more specifically now is some of the stuff

00:17:10   you need to know how it works because you need to feel confident in why it

00:17:15   does what it does and that it's not doing something creepy and so you make

00:17:19   some of the Apple product, like how they work stuff more transparent, and you disclose that.

00:17:24   But you're not taking away from having surprises, this feature that you didn't expect, this

00:17:28   phone has these features and you didn't know until we announced it. That's the dream for

00:17:33   Apple. So it is an interesting way to kind of pick that apart, I think, about what do

00:17:38   you disclose and what do you not. Because back in the days, if Steve Jobs had his druthers,

00:17:42   it would be like literally, here's a phone, you never, or any other product, you've never

00:17:46   heard of it. You've never seen it before. It does amazing things. What? And then we

00:17:51   would be like, so how does it do that? And the answer would be, it does it. It's great,

00:17:56   isn't it? And then that would be it. Like we're not going to explain how we do what

00:17:59   we do or what's inside just it works and that's it. And in some of these categories today,

00:18:06   you can't, you can't do that right in terms of security and privacy, what's being synced

00:18:10   to the cloud, stuff like that. You got to talk about it. And I think that this kind

00:18:14   of is connected to that too. So, you know, I can see why they're doing it, but it is

00:18:19   funny because it's Apple, so people will be picking apart every post on the machine learning

00:18:24   blog or journal or whatever it is to write inflammatory stories about how this obviously

00:18:30   means that Apple is coming up with X, right? That's still gonna happen. So, you know, you

00:18:34   can't win. Hey, Myke, have you seen the Rock and Siri video?

00:18:39   Even though this is completely within my wheelhouse because I know you know I have for many years smell what the rock was cooking

00:18:46   Uh-huh. I haven't actually watched this ad yet

00:18:49   Because it came out this morning and I have been slammed today and it wasn't in our show document

00:18:55   So I assumed that we just weren't gonna talk about it

00:18:57   So I have not yet watched the rock serie and I like hasn't seen it

00:19:03   This is you know, the whole reason that Myke of the movies exists is because Myke hasn't seen things. All right, it's it's cute

00:19:09   It's a three minute long video about how The Rock has a very busy day where he goes around

00:19:17   and--

00:19:18   No spoilers Jason, I haven't seen it yet.

00:19:19   --Gives some information.

00:19:20   Okay, I'll give you a little teaser Myke.

00:19:23   At one point you do get to smell what The Rock is cooking.

00:19:27   I would be really upset if they didn't do that.

00:19:32   Yeah.

00:19:33   Anyway, it's cute.

00:19:36   meant to show like, here are some things that Siri can do. And it shows that and, yes, people

00:19:43   should enjoy it. It's out there. You can check it out at Apple's YouTube page. And I thought

00:19:46   it was fun. I watched it last night before I went to bed. And because they posted it

00:19:50   late last night. And yeah, I thought it was cute. I didn't think it was annoying at all.

00:19:54   I think The Rock is a, I mean, obviously Dwayne Johnson has been successful because he's a

00:19:59   pretty likable character and he manages to be both like a big tough strong guy and also

00:20:06   be kind of self-deprecating and able to be silly and all those things that make him kind

00:20:10   of a winning performer and it all comes out in the ad. It's a, I think it's a funny silly

00:20:17   little thing. So we don't usually do ad watch here but I thought you know wrestling connection

00:20:21   I would ask.

00:20:22   Geoff - Yeah I'm sorry. You know what we're probably going to talk about it on Connected

00:20:26   because we have to turn.

00:20:27   - Good, well we'll forward promote

00:20:29   for another show on the network then.

00:20:31   You guys can break it down.

00:20:32   You can break down all the,

00:20:34   and that would be good too

00:20:35   because like I imagine like Federico

00:20:37   and Steven breaking down all the things

00:20:39   that Siri does in the ad that it doesn't actually do.

00:20:42   So yeah, sure.

00:20:44   I'll just point out, Steven will do this probably,

00:20:46   but I'll point out that there's some space related things

00:20:49   in there that are not really scientifically accurate.

00:20:51   - Space.

00:20:52   - Yeah.

00:20:54   - We're pre-recording an episode in a couple of weeks time.

00:20:57   To come out later in August and we've kind of made an allusion to this

00:21:01   But like I'm gonna be skipping a couple of episodes in August because we're both traveling to different places

00:21:06   But Jason has some exciting guests lined up

00:21:08   I think yeah, we spoke on last week's episode that you're going to be recording an episode from the command D conference

00:21:14   right

00:21:16   So but we me and you are recording an episode which is going to be as in in cortex parlance an episode out of time

00:21:22   So we're recording it early to be released later in the month. Yes

00:21:26   We're recording it 11 days before it will be released.

00:21:30   Yep. So considering that this show mostly focuses around what's happening in the news

00:21:34   this week, we can't do that because we will just be out of date by the time the episode

00:21:41   is released. So we wanted to ask you, the dear listener, is there anything that you

00:21:46   would like to hear us talk about which is a little bit more timeless? Maybe there is

00:21:51   a segment or a big topic you want us to dive into or as Jason said maybe even another draft

00:21:58   because why not? We love drafts on this show.

00:22:01   We do. So yeah whatever you want to hear us talk about send us some tweets and we can

00:22:07   maybe dive into some of that a little later on in the month. So tweet @imike@jsnell and

00:22:17   We'll be able to put those in for consideration.

00:22:19   We appreciate your assistance as always.

00:22:21   So, Jason, today, after we take a break,

00:22:24   we're gonna do something that we don't do as much

00:22:27   on this show anymore.

00:22:28   We're gonna talk all about the Mac.

00:22:30   We have two topics today, all about the Mac.

00:22:33   Isn't that exciting? - We do.

00:22:34   - Isn't that exciting?

00:22:36   We talk about the iPad and iOS a lot on this show,

00:22:38   of course, but we don't talk about the Mac as much

00:22:40   and we're all Mac today.

00:22:42   - Yes, I'm excited about it.

00:22:44   - Before we do, Jason,

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00:23:43   Now, Jason Snell, I know that you have been buying products

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00:23:50   - I am going to tell you,

00:23:53   well, it's very easy buying experience.

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00:25:32   of this show.

00:25:35   So last week I saw this pointed out first by Mac observer that the Mac Mini has reached

00:25:42   and has now surpassed 1000 days, 1000 days without an update. I also saw a bunch of people

00:25:49   tweeting about this yourself included Jason and you mentioned that kind of funnily the

00:25:54   fastest Mac Mini ever made which was released on October 23rd 2012 is now 1723 days old

00:26:03   so that's quickly approaching 2000 days and that's because the most recent now 1000

00:26:10   day old version of the Mac Mini actually decreased the amount of cores in the processes, right?

00:26:16   Am I explaining that correctly?

00:26:18   Yeah, there was a quad core option on the previous Mac Mini and when they updated the

00:26:25   Mac Mini a thousand days ago, they removed that because the Intel chipset that was available

00:26:31   at the time that they wanted to use didn't support quad core processors. So I believe

00:26:37   it is still the case now that it's basically been whatever, 1700 days, it's been whatever

00:26:41   that is, what, five years since the fastest Mac Mini still available was released.

00:26:46   I'm just going to apple.com/mac right now. Yep, no new badge, so we're still good on

00:26:52   this. Yeah.

00:26:55   I want to pose some questions here.

00:26:57   Why should Apple invest time and money into the Mac Mini?

00:27:01   - It's a good question.

00:27:02   - Like, do you think, Jason,

00:27:04   that it actually brings people into the ecosystem in 2017?

00:27:08   - I do.

00:27:09   - Because, you know, maybe set the stage a little bit

00:27:11   for why the Mac Mini exists as a product, if you can.

00:27:15   Like, why did they make it in the first place,

00:27:17   and how was it received?

00:27:19   - So, when it was initially released, it was the 499 Mac.

00:27:24   It was by far the cheapest Mac ever sold.

00:27:27   And it was sold as being B-Y-O-K-M-K-M,

00:27:32   I can't remember,

00:27:39   it was basically bring your own keyboard, mouse and display.

00:27:42   - Yeah, it was like B-Y-O-K-M-M or B-Y-O-

00:27:44   - DKM, DKM maybe?

00:27:47   - Yeah, bring your own keyboard, display and mouse.

00:27:49   That was the tagline, right?

00:27:51   It was like the letters, I remember that.

00:27:53   And the idea was going to be initially the way it was sold.

00:27:58   Maybe this says something that initially

00:28:00   they were sort of like,

00:28:01   how are we gonna sell this thing?

00:28:03   And it was a switcher Mac.

00:28:04   The idea that you could take your PC

00:28:06   if you wanted to switch to the Mac

00:28:07   and you could keep your keyboard, your mouse

00:28:09   and your monitor.

00:28:10   And all you had to do was unplug your PC

00:28:12   and plug in this Mac mini.

00:28:13   And for 4.99, you could have a Mac.

00:28:17   - BYODKM was the official-- - DKM,

00:28:20   display keyboard and mouse, yeah.

00:28:23   So, and then they did an update and they went to Intel and it was $599. I think at a later date they brought the base back down to $499.

00:28:32   But of course you can spend more than $1000 in a Mac Mini if you load it up.

00:28:35   And that was that option that I talked about. That was the quad core model.

00:28:42   That was a bill to order version for a lot more money.

00:28:46   And you can put an SSD in and there are lots of things that you could do.

00:28:50   but they updated it infrequently.

00:28:53   I mean, that's the bottom line here is that

00:28:55   the reason I mentioned the fact that it had been 723 days

00:29:01   previously between updates is the thousand days

00:29:05   between updates is kind of par for the course

00:29:08   for the Mac mini.

00:29:10   It's at least in the ballpark.

00:29:11   It's a little bit longer than the last one,

00:29:13   but the last one was a very, very long update

00:29:16   between October, 2012 and October, 2014.

00:29:19   So now it's been three years, it was two years before.

00:29:22   This is not a product that gets updated very often

00:29:25   because it's not a high priority for Apple.

00:29:27   But I do think it has a place in the Mac ecosystem

00:29:30   which is why it's still kicking around.

00:29:33   - What is the place?

00:29:34   - Versatility.

00:29:36   That's the bottom line is like, if you want,

00:29:40   and this is the problem, it's like what's the Mac mini for?

00:29:42   And the answer is, well, it's kind of for everything

00:29:45   that you can't use another Mac for

00:29:46   but you wanna have a Mac around.

00:29:48   I talk to people who use these as servers.

00:29:51   They use them as servers and racks.

00:29:52   They use them as servers at home.

00:29:53   They use them as things attached to their TV.

00:29:56   They are as second computers in a house

00:30:00   where they've got a monitor laying around.

00:30:02   I mean, they don't have, they're used in education.

00:30:05   They're used in all sorts of weird places.

00:30:08   I'm not sure there's a single good use.

00:30:10   I think it's more that by having this product exist,

00:30:13   the Mac can fit into places that it otherwise couldn't.

00:30:17   If Apple said like, "Sorry, we only sell iMacs and laptops,"

00:30:22   then the problem there is if there's any use

00:30:25   that you need something that is not an iMac or a laptop,

00:30:28   you need something small to put somewhere,

00:30:31   you can't buy a Mac to do it.

00:30:34   And so I think the value in the Mac mini is not so much

00:30:37   that it has this incredible market

00:30:38   that it needs to dominate where everybody loves it.

00:30:42   I think it's more like it takes the pressure

00:30:45   off the rest of the line

00:30:47   and lets Apple fill in the gaps.

00:30:50   It's like, I don't know, like caulk or spackle or something.

00:30:54   It's like, it fills in the holes.

00:30:57   It allows the Mac to go broader

00:31:02   while letting the individual Macs

00:31:04   that are the core of the Mac line be focused.

00:31:07   So it's a utility player and that is boring

00:31:12   and it's just never gonna be exciting necessarily,

00:31:16   but it's good that it exists because it gives them an answer that they can point to and

00:31:20   say, "Yeah, you can use the Mac Mini for that."

00:31:22   I've owned two and a half Mac Minis in my life. And the first two were me trying to

00:31:30   get a desktop Mac at the cheapest price possible. You know, like having moved between having

00:31:37   an iMac and then I kind of moved to the laptop but then wanted desktop Macs and I had a couple

00:31:41   of Mac Minis. Well I say a half because we own a Mac Mini at Real AFM, which is actually

00:31:48   how if you're listening to this show live, you're listening to it because we have a Mac

00:31:53   Mini at Mac Stadium and they host it there. So we use it as a server and we use it to

00:31:58   do all of our live broadcasts. So they're great for that sort of stuff, right? Maybe

00:32:04   people that are trying to get into the Mac ecosystem as we mentioned, that as you said

00:32:08   the versatility because they allow you to do these weird and wonderful things.

00:32:12   I'm just wondering like with the entry point position now, do people not consider this

00:32:18   the laptop?

00:32:19   Like I know, you know, if you're looking at a pure price situation, the Mac Mini can be

00:32:25   good if you already have other elements to plug it into.

00:32:29   But I don't, I just don't know if in 2017, the Mac Mini is a product that a lot of people

00:32:37   want especially to be their maybe first computer or their primary computer?

00:32:44   I don't know. I mean, I don't think the Mac Mini is going to be the answer to what a lot

00:32:48   of people want at all, right? A lot of people want is not the issue with the Mac Mini. It's

00:32:54   some people in various places want for various reasons. I do think if you're somebody who

00:33:00   has a spare monitor around and maybe a spare old keyboard, it is a place where you're like,

00:33:06   "Oh, you know, I can stick a Mac Mini there and we've got a family computer or my kid can

00:33:12   use this computer." That it lets you use the parts, whereas with the iMac it's very much

00:33:16   like do you have room for an iMac with the big iMac display and then when you're done

00:33:21   with it, you know, you've got a big iMac to take somewhere else or get rid of. It's more

00:33:26   versatile in that way. But is that a mainstream thing? No, I don't think it is. I think that's

00:33:30   the whole point is it is an oddball.

00:33:33   Cuz what was it that uh at that roundtable event because I know that

00:33:40   Apple spoke about like the percentage of desktops to did it talk about the

00:33:47   percentage of desktops in the overall line? Yeah I mean they used to they used to

00:33:52   actually talk about that really set in its financial in the financial

00:33:57   information for the company and they don't do that anymore but you know it

00:34:00   It has been between two thirds and three quarters of all Macs sold have been laptops for quite

00:34:06   a while now.

00:34:07   The majority of Macs by far are laptops.

00:34:12   I'm looking at a transcript of the Roundtable event that they did for the Mac Pro over at

00:34:18   TechCrunch and they were saying, this is for Sheila, that it's 80/20 now.

00:34:25   So my reason for bringing it up is, I assume it is a very small percentage of these Mac

00:34:35   Mini sales, right?

00:34:37   I assume less than the Mac Pro even, I would expect.

00:34:41   I don't know about that.

00:34:42   These have a value that the Mac Pro doesn't, and they're cheaper, so I'm sure that they

00:34:47   have a higher volume than the Mac Pro.

00:34:50   So really, what I'm thinking is, do we not think that there are other devices that maybe

00:34:58   fit the needs now?

00:35:01   If it's not a laptop that somebody wants, could an iPad not be the simple computer?

00:35:07   Could an Apple TV not be the media server?

00:35:10   What are the blockers there that means the Mac Mini should stick around?

00:35:14   Well, I'll tell you.

00:35:16   I have a Mac Mini in my house.

00:35:17   I'm not going to use an iPad to attach to a hard drive so that I can watch Plex.

00:35:24   I don't have an, I can't attach my iPad to my weather server.

00:35:29   I can't have, you know, any of the things that I use this for, I need a Mac or a PC

00:35:35   for.

00:35:36   That's just bottom line and I'm not going to buy a PC, right?

00:35:38   That's not my goal to run Windows in my house.

00:35:41   I'd rather not if I can avoid that.

00:35:43   Well, we'll talk about that in a moment, but there's no other.

00:35:46   But there's no other, like, so yes, is the existence of something like an Apple TV or

00:35:52   a Roku or an Amazon Fire mean that the idea that you'll attach a Mac Mini to your TV kind

00:35:56   of over? Yes, that used to be a big place for the Mac Mini and that has been subsumed

00:36:02   by other things. In terms of an iPad, like, yeah, I mean, if you want an iPad, that's

00:36:07   great, but again, not all of these scenarios fit. So this is my point. See, what I did

00:36:14   at the outset here Myke is say I think the Mac Mini's value is as this thing that just

00:36:19   kind of fills in the gaps and that Apple updates every three years or so and has it laying

00:36:26   around and your argument back to me seems to be but it's not but it's not popular or

00:36:33   mainstream which I've already granted you it's not it what it does do is it allows Apple

00:36:38   to do kind of minimal effort and keep a product floating around that gets everybody off their

00:36:44   case about "but the Mac can't do X" by saying "well yeah it can because the Mac

00:36:47   Mini will do that." The points that I'm making are in the guise of "will it continue?"

00:36:54   and you know, so I see what you're saying, I agree with what you're saying, but my

00:37:00   questions are in the line of like, are the reasons the Mac Mini exists getting less and

00:37:07   less on a yearly basis? Like, the reasons that this computer would be bought and sold

00:37:13   is that decreasing? And if so, does the Mac Mini have a place anymore?

00:37:18   The reasons that people buy Macs are also decreasing, by the way. So, sure, maybe they

00:37:23   shouldn't make Macs anymore. And also, about the Mac Mini, I mean, what I'm saying here

00:37:27   is that it's useful to keep it around at a minimal level because it just fills in the

00:37:35   gaps and it lets them go. I'm not saying-- I'll say on top of that, like, if they didn't

00:37:41   want to make it anymore, they could just not make it, and yet they still make it. And I'm

00:37:46   going to make the same argument I made about the Mac Pro, which is at some point, they

00:37:50   would get rid of it if they're going to stop making it anymore. As long as they keep selling

00:37:55   it, I think the idea is going to be that they'll sell it until it seems completely embarrassing

00:38:00   that it hasn't been updated, and then they'll do an update and walk away from it for another

00:38:03   three or four years. That seems to be their pattern. They could kill it, but I'm, again,

00:38:10   I'm skeptical because I think they could do a single turn on it and then walk away again

00:38:14   for another three or four years.

00:38:17   Do you think that that could happen within the next 12 months?

00:38:20   I do. I mean, I feel like there do. I do wonder sometimes about the people who are in charge

00:38:24   of making Macs and the fact that they are now scrambling to make a Mac Pro that they

00:38:29   didn't think they were going to make after making the iMac Pro and I don't know enough

00:38:33   about Apple's internals to say whether that means that any other Mac design that they

00:38:39   were working on got set aside so that they could scramble to get a Mac Pro

00:38:43   done for next year or not. I don't know that, but I look at what's available out

00:38:48   there and what the state of the art is in terms of these little modular

00:38:51   computers and there's technology out there today that would make a perfectly

00:38:56   suitable Mac Mini, which I mentioned in my Macworld story, and I feel like, you

00:39:00   know, it's not as if Apple has to reinvent everything in order to do a new

00:39:04   Mac Mini. I think that they could do it, I don't want to say fairly easily, because

00:39:08   making a new Mac is never easy, none of these projects is as easy as they seem,

00:39:12   but if you look at the parallels in terms of hardware that's out there,

00:39:16   taking standard Intel hardware, I think they could get pretty close to

00:39:23   having a product fairly quickly if they wanted to do it, and so I think sure, I

00:39:28   think that at some point they're gonna be able to turn that

00:39:31   product around.

00:39:33   The question is when do they want to bother, because the fact is the Mac Mini

00:39:38   although it's really old, for whatever reason because it's a low-end Mac, it

00:39:43   doesn't really feel as painful as the Mac Pro did in still being

00:39:49   available even though it's so out of date because that's a cutting-edge

00:39:53   product and it's very expensive whereas this is neither of those things.

00:39:56   So you mentioned that there is technology that could be used here.

00:40:02   What is that technology? Well, so Intel's been pushing this thing called the

00:40:06   NUC which is N-U-C, next unit of computing, and it's basically like a Mac

00:40:12   Mini. It's an Intel PC in a box that is kind of the size of an Apple TV,

00:40:18   not quite, but it's close. It's a lot smaller than the Mac Mini, and it's got

00:40:25   latest generation Intel processors in it, and room for RAM and an SSD. So it's

00:40:32   incredibly small. You can get one for a few hundred dollars that's got, I think it's got

00:40:39   four USB ports and a USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port and a headphone jack and HDMI video out. So

00:40:49   it's like, could there be a small Mac that has USB-C Thunderbolt 3 and even legacy USB

00:40:58   ports on it in a case way smaller than the current Mac Mini, the answer is yes, because

00:41:05   Intel has made something like that. Now, if Apple would have to either take that chipset,

00:41:11   do their magic on it, qualify it how they want, I mean, there are things that they would

00:41:14   need to do. I'm not guessing that they would just take an Intel product off the shelf and

00:41:19   rebrand it. I mean, they would want to make it sort of a special Apple kind of thing.

00:41:23   clearly this technology exists today to do this and if you go and price them

00:41:28   like how much would it be to get a an Intel NUC with an SSD and like a 512 SSD

00:41:38   and 16 gigs of RAM and assemble that yourself versus buying a Mac mini that's

00:41:46   the current model the three-year-old model with those same specs which means

00:41:50   that the processors two generations older and the answer is the the nook

00:41:56   would be about 700 750 dollars and that same spec mac mini is over a thousand so

00:42:05   in the end like could apple make something like that Intel nook product

00:42:10   and put their their margins into it and sell it at a price that was essentially

00:42:14   what we would expect a mac mini to cost it seems to me like the answer is yes

00:42:20   So it's just a matter of will again. Do they have the time and do they care

00:42:23   enough about the product to do it? But what makes me intrigued by this Intel

00:42:27   Nook idea is just the fact that it would let Apple tell a story about a new Mac

00:42:33   Mini because I think that Apple likes to do that. So if Apple said now you can

00:42:37   hold a Mac in the palm of your hand,

00:42:39   it's way smaller than the old Mac Mini. Look how amazing this is. That is going

00:42:43   to make Apple like more excited about a product than if it's, oh yeah, we change

00:42:47   the processors in the Mac mini, but it's the same old Mac mini. So they could do it. It's

00:42:51   right there. Like, I can see this product and what it would be and what it could be

00:42:56   priced. And I think it could be interesting for Apple to go that route. Will they? I don't

00:43:00   know. I mean, I don't know what their priority is and I don't know what else they're working

00:43:04   on on the Mac side right now. Mac Pro, presumably.

00:43:07   >> Yeah, Mac Pro. I'm finishing off the iMac Pro, probably. You got one of these Intel

00:43:14   Nooks, right?

00:43:15   I did, I bought one, I know that it costs 700 some dollars because I bought one, a Core

00:43:22   i5 and 512 SSD and 16 gigs of RAM and yeah, it's tiny, it's incredibly tiny and our friend

00:43:33   Russell from the material podcast did this too and yeah, it's pretty cool and you can

00:43:40   get it, you can install Windows right on it and run Windows and that's not a problem and

00:43:44   And if you want to descend into madness you can install Mac OS on it.

00:43:51   Did you do that?

00:43:53   I don't really recommend that to other people but yeah I did it.

00:43:56   It worked eventually.

00:43:57   You got a Hackintosh.

00:43:58   A Hackintosh is back again.

00:44:00   A Hackintosh in my hand, Myke.

00:44:03   In my hand.

00:44:04   In the palm of my hand.

00:44:05   Handintosh.

00:44:06   It is not, I'll write about it at some point.

00:44:11   know, yeah, it's "harrowing" is the expression I would the word I would use

00:44:16   to describe the hackintosh process today. It's they built some tools to make it

00:44:22   easier but you know it's still like ridiculous and you gotta bite the right

00:44:29   parts or you have to jump through more hoops and it is not a friendly... I was

00:44:34   talking to somebody who's a pretty knowledgeable Mac person about this and

00:44:39   they're like, "Oh, I didn't realize it was so complicated."

00:44:42   Like, I think there's a perception that like,

00:44:45   buying a Hackintosh Mac, you know,

00:44:48   setting up a PC to run Mac OS is like you run an installer

00:44:51   and you're done.

00:44:53   And let me tell you,

00:44:54   maybe there are some very specific systems

00:44:56   where you can do that,

00:44:57   but my experience with this thing, whew, nope.

00:45:01   There's weird software you have to run and weird drivers

00:45:04   and some hardware doesn't work right.

00:45:05   And you know, it's not, it's a fun science experiment.

00:45:08   It is not something for regular use,

00:45:11   but what it is allowing me to do is kind of explore

00:45:15   like what would it be like

00:45:17   if Apple made something like this,

00:45:18   which is sort of why I did it.

00:45:21   - And is this your new media PC?

00:45:24   - We'll see.

00:45:24   I don't know if it's gonna work.

00:45:25   I still have some things I have to try out.

00:45:27   If I can drive my Thunderbolt server,

00:45:32   or I guess via USB, but I prefer it by Thunderbolt,

00:45:37   If I can get it to drive the server,

00:45:39   the big raid and all of that stuff,

00:45:42   if that can all work,

00:45:43   I might use it as a replacement for my Mac mini server,

00:45:46   but we'll see.

00:45:48   I am not gonna believe that it's actually compatible

00:45:52   and reliable because it seems like an untrustworthy device,

00:45:55   but maybe it'll earn my trust over time.

00:45:57   And if not, I don't, I'll probably sell it at that point.

00:46:01   And I've got a Windows installed to put on it

00:46:03   so I could just sell it to somebody who wants a PC

00:46:05   'cause it's pretty nifty, I gotta say.

00:46:07   I would be more inclined to literally build a gaming PC than try and make a Hackintosh.

00:46:13   I think you get more out of it for sure.

00:46:15   Well yeah, I mean just like in the idea that I really don't want to build a gaming PC,

00:46:18   you know like I just don't want to do that. I really don't want to ever look at the Hackintosh

00:46:22   just because it just seems like a nightmare. You know I can remember all this, there was

00:46:27   some stuff going around an amount of time ago that just seems to rear its head every

00:46:31   now and then and there's things that you can't send out messages and stuff. Like it's just

00:46:35   like you know the imagination of running this is your only Mac seems like a real tough thing.

00:46:41   When I talked to Russell about this that's exactly what he said is you know it doesn't

00:46:46   do this doesn't do that it doesn't do this the thing about my server doesn't need to

00:46:50   do those things like it doesn't it literally does not I don't need to do airdrop I don't

00:46:55   need to you know play DRM movies on iTunes like I don't need any of that I don't need

00:47:03   Wi-Fi on it. I don't need Bluetooth on it. I literally don't need any of those things.

00:47:08   So it may end up working for me in that role as a dumb Mac server. It may not. At which

00:47:14   point I may end up just surrendering and installing Windows 10 on it.

00:47:18   It does sound like the perfect candidate for a Hackintosh because a lot of the things that

00:47:23   do tend to go wrong, like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and all that sort of stuff, you don't need.

00:47:29   So it could work. I'm interested to see if this goes forward for you. I think, you know,

00:47:34   my feeling on the Mac Mini, like, you know, I can pose an argument to you, I'm trying

00:47:38   to get you to talk. I want this thing to exist. You know, like I've owned them. I think it's

00:47:41   a nice addition to the line. I think it's a nice thing to keep around and I hope Apple

00:47:45   can find a reason for it. I mean, in its current state, it doesn't really feel like that there

00:47:50   is much of a reason other than, well, we've already made some of them. You know, I'd love

00:47:55   to see them make something like a Mac Mini the size of an Apple TV. That would just be

00:48:00   cool, right?

00:48:01   Right. And I think that's part of my argument here is that it would be cool and it would

00:48:06   still serve this purpose of letting them keep it in the product line and have that connective

00:48:15   tissue, have that spackle, have that thing that lets them say, "Look, the Mac can do

00:48:19   anything because if none of these other products works, just stick a Mac Mini there." And it

00:48:24   lets them be cool and feel good about like we made a cool thing that look how small it

00:48:28   is now. There's a whole Mac in here. You can put this in schools. You can put this here.

00:48:32   You can put this there like I can I can totally see that. So it fits with their attitude about

00:48:39   this stuff if they want to go this direction and and I mean this is a little I have no

00:48:42   information about this. It's literally like I look at that Intel Nook and I think wow,

00:48:47   that would be a really cool Mac Mini and way cooler than the Mac Mini that has been sitting

00:48:51   on the price list for the last three years. So will they do it? I don't know. I feel like

00:48:57   there's value in keeping it around, but they're busy with lots of stuff. So I don't know.

00:49:04   It seems a shame as a Mac fan and as somebody who would buy something like that in a moment,

00:49:10   I hope they consider doing something like that at some point in the next year.

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00:51:15   So Jason, we spent a little bit of time discussing the low end of Apple's desktop offerings.

00:51:21   So how about the low end of Apple's laptop offerings as well?

00:51:26   So you wrote an article this week in which I guess it's that time of year, right,

00:51:32   right when people would be thinking about if they need to buy computers for their kids,

00:51:36   what they would be buying.

00:51:37   So you're in the summer, right?

00:51:39   You're in the summer in the US now.

00:51:40   Is it break time?

00:51:41   Is it summer break?

00:51:42   You're a deep woman, I assume.

00:51:44   Oh yes, yes.

00:51:47   My children are free for, you know, what, two and a half months.

00:51:53   So this is the kind of time that you'd be thinking about some of these purchases.

00:51:56   So you wrote an article on six colors and you were weighing up the MacBook and the MacBook

00:52:02   Pro as whether it's right to buy for a student.

00:52:06   You know the MacBook, good choice because it's powerful enough for many tasks.

00:52:10   It's small and light but as you pointed out which I'm just getting increasingly more concerned

00:52:16   about with my travel over the next couple of months, it can struggle under intense load.

00:52:22   that like audio production, video production, little old MacBook can get a little upset

00:52:27   about that kind of stuff. But the MacBook Pro is made for tasks like this. But it is

00:52:33   of course more expensive, it's bigger, it's heavier. And I guess for you, you know...

00:52:38   We overstate the heaviness of the 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar, which is a

00:52:43   terrible name for it. We overstate that, right? Because it's basically the same weight as

00:52:48   is the 13 inch MacBook Air.

00:52:50   - Yeah. - Like it's heavy,

00:52:52   it's twice as heavy as the MacBook

00:52:55   'cause it's two pounds instead of one,

00:52:57   but it is only fractionally heavier

00:53:01   than the 13 inch MacBook Air.

00:53:02   So I think we are, none of us are served well

00:53:07   in just saying the MacBook Pro is big and heavy

00:53:10   'cause by MacBook Air standards,

00:53:12   by previous generation Mac laptop standards, it's not.

00:53:16   It's only in comparison to the MacBook.

00:53:18   - I think of it as big and heavy

00:53:20   because I own a MacBook, right?

00:53:22   - Yes.

00:53:23   - And I've been carrying a MacBook on trips.

00:53:24   - That's fair.

00:53:25   - So like for me, it's like,

00:53:26   well, you've got to double the weight

00:53:28   and it's like, well, now I've--

00:53:29   - Yes.

00:53:30   - Now I'm not happy again, right?

00:53:32   'Cause I'm happy with the MacBook

00:53:33   because I don't even know it's in my bag when I'm traveling.

00:53:36   Like I have no idea, right?

00:53:38   Like if I'm putting my iPad on my MacBook,

00:53:41   it's like, I don't even know if the MacBook's there,

00:53:43   but whenever I used to travel with my old MacBook Pro,

00:53:45   "Oh boy, did I know about it."

00:53:47   And of course that was much heavier

00:53:48   than even the current MacBook Pro, but yeah.

00:53:50   - Which reminds me of the story where I think

00:53:53   it was either David Polk or Steven Levy

00:53:54   when the original MacBook Air came out,

00:53:57   that they lost their review unit

00:53:59   and the best that they could figure,

00:54:01   it got caught up with the Sunday New York Times

00:54:04   and they just put it in the recycling

00:54:06   and they didn't realize it,

00:54:08   there was a computer in there 'cause it was so light

00:54:10   and that was a much heavier computer than the MacBook.

00:54:13   So yeah, it's very light.

00:54:15   It is, I mean, it's, it's literally, I mean, it's hard to get, it's hard to get

00:54:19   smaller at these scales and yet the one computer is two pounds and the other one

00:54:24   is one pound, so it's a lot lighter, but right, no fan, uh, and it can struggle

00:54:32   under load, although the current generation, you know, you can, if you

00:54:36   want, you can upgrade it to a, uh, an I-5.

00:54:42   and that's a pretty powerful processor, but there's still going to be some throttling if it gets too hot.

00:54:47   SSD helps a lot with things like video because so much of video and audio editing is about input/output to storage,

00:54:56   and it does that really well, but if you're cranking the processor, it can be an issue in a way that it isn't as much on the 13-inch that's got a fan.

00:55:08   And the screen is bigger on the bigger laptop, obviously, and that is a benefit too.

00:55:15   So you are, I think, yourself, you're kind of leaning for your kids towards a MacBook Pro as an option, right? Because of video?

00:55:24   Well, so these are not my kids. These are friends' kids. I get asked by friends about it.

00:55:29   I am not currently planning on buying anything for my kids. They've got stuff and it's fine for now.

00:55:35   My daughter might need something and I might have to figure that out.

00:55:39   But this is, I've got friends who keep asking me about this because they've got kids going off to college,

00:55:44   and they've got kids going into high school and things like that,

00:55:47   and they come to me because I'm the computer person they know, right?

00:55:50   So I get these and I thought, well, I should probably put this down somewhere,

00:55:54   because if I'm hearing from people about this, it's probably a wider issue,

00:55:58   which it is because I've heard from a lot of people about it.

00:56:00   And I want to say that this is an interesting, like,

00:56:03   If the premise is "I want to buy them a new Mac laptop, what should I buy?"

00:56:07   This is sort of my thought process. I want to say

00:56:10   you don't always need to buy them a new Mac laptop. The article says this.

00:56:13   You could look for a refurbished, because Apple has good deals on refurbished

00:56:17   models, current and previous generation models, that could be

00:56:20   perfectly fine. Pick up a refurbished MacBook from the previous generation,

00:56:24   that might be great depending on the needs of your

00:56:27   student. You could get a used laptop, you could do a hand-me-down, a lot of kids

00:56:32   get a hand-me-down.

00:56:33   from a parent or older sibling and those can be all that's required.

00:56:37   I also heard from people who are like, "Why don't you recommend an iPad?"

00:56:42   And my reasoning there is I'm very pro-iPad, but I am concerned that in lots of situations in schools

00:56:49   there are going to be scenarios where they need to have a computer.

00:56:53   And I don't feel comfortable saying, "You don't need to have a computer, you should get an iPad."

00:56:57   I feel like right now where the iPad is you need to be as a person using the device really committed

00:57:04   to doing sometimes the extra work required to get yourself over the hump and so like if a student

00:57:11   really wants to go with an iPad then I would say yes they should do that they need to be committed

00:57:18   but if you're a parent and you stick your kid off going off to college with an iPad and it turns out

00:57:22   there's some key thing that it's totally incompatible with, that's bad. So yeah,

00:57:27   that was my thought process there. So this was the piece that you laid out and kind of looking at

00:57:32   what the pros and cons are of these two devices, but you received a bunch of feedback that you

00:57:37   didn't talk about the MacBook Air. Yeah, yeah, it's true, I didn't. I omitted it for very particular

00:57:44   reasons, but so then I followed it up with another piece about it. The short version about my

00:57:48   my feelings about the MacBook Air is, yes, the MacBook Air is a great deal. It is a great deal.

00:57:53   It is the best deal among new Mac laptops because it's a lot cheaper than other new Mac laptops.

00:57:59   And so, sure, you should consider it. You could also consider a used or refurbed one of those.

00:58:06   My concern about the MacBook Air is that it's not new. It's new, but it's not new. And I have

00:58:12   this problem and I admit that some of this is just sort of being judgmental

00:58:18   about old hardware versus new the MacBook Air is very capable. I have

00:58:23   a what three-year-old, four-year-old MacBook Air that I can still use. I have

00:58:29   edited so many podcasts on that thing. It does almost anything, right? And that's an

00:58:34   older one than what you get now. And so yeah, it's totally capable. My hesitation

00:58:41   is more about the fact that it's a two generations back processor, sold as a new computer, because

00:58:50   while it's perfectly capable today, I'm a little concerned that it's not going to have

00:58:55   as much of a useful, completely compatible life. Because in two or three or four or five

00:59:02   years there's going to be an Apple OS update that doesn't support it, or there's going

00:59:06   to be a bunch of features that are added to a Mac OS update that is not supported. Because

00:59:14   it's really not a new computer, it's really a two-year-old computer that they're still

00:59:19   selling as new, whereas these other two models are new. And also today, the MacBook Air is

00:59:25   more compatible with everything because it has USB ports, normal USB-A ports. It has

00:59:31   MagSafe, which is nice. It has all these things that are nice today. And if you want to live

00:59:36   for today, it's got a lot going for it. My hesitation is it's a brand new computer, you're

00:59:43   making an investment in this computer, you want it to last a long time, and you're starting

00:59:47   yourself off on the wrong foot because in three or four years it may be that you're

00:59:52   going to need to buy all the dongles or you're going to try to look for an accessory that's

00:59:55   not compatible because you're using old, you've got Thunderbolt 2 and you've got USB-A. And

01:00:02   so again, same thoughts. It's like this is why it's cheaper at this point is because

01:00:06   it's older tech, it's less compatible. And then there's the retina issue, which is kids

01:00:13   have really good eyesight, better eyesight than old people. And they're used to watching

01:00:18   like HD videos and all that. My daughter watches Netflix HD streams all the time on her laptop,

01:00:23   which has a retina display.

01:00:24   And so that's a question.

01:00:27   It's like, are you gonna have your kid,

01:00:30   if your kid's got another video viewing device,

01:00:33   then it doesn't really matter, I suppose.

01:00:35   But if you do, you're also giving your kid

01:00:38   this non-retina display, which is not awesome

01:00:43   for things like watching HD video,

01:00:45   which it basically can't do.

01:00:47   So then again, it's got the old style keyboard.

01:00:50   And if the kid prefers those keyboards

01:00:52   to the new keyboards, that could be a bonus. I'm not sure most kids are going to care about

01:00:56   that in fact, who knows, these kids today, maybe they like the new keyboard. I don't

01:01:00   know. There are many snails running around here I'm sure, you know, like you know, just

01:01:04   tiny jest snails. I don't know how teenagers deal with low key travel. We'll have to send,

01:01:09   we'll have to do some research on that one. So, you know, the MacBook Air, it's still

01:01:13   available and is probably a good deal, although I would say maybe look for a used one because

01:01:17   it hasn't gotten that much better in the last two years. You might be able to buy one that

01:01:21   somebody bought two or three years ago for way cheaper and it will be just as good than

01:01:26   buying something that cost $9.99 and is not really any better than the one that they were

01:01:32   selling two years ago.

01:01:33   Yeah, I think, personally I think it would be a mistake to buy a new MacBook Air, not

01:01:38   a MacBook Air in general. Like if you buy from a friend, you buy from somebody you know,

01:01:43   even if you can find a good deal on something that's certified refurbished or you know,

01:01:48   in a good condition, then great.

01:01:50   But $1,000 on a MacBook Air today,

01:01:53   that feels like not a good deal to me.

01:01:57   Just because, like as you say, it's it is a good computer now.

01:02:01   It is probably a bad computer in three years time,

01:02:05   because as you say, it is it's not even like living now.

01:02:09   It's it's living a couple of years ago. Right.

01:02:13   Like the features that it has, they're good for now

01:02:16   because they were introduced years ago and now technology is surpassing what it was intended

01:02:22   to be for. But now, you know, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, they're looking to

01:02:28   the future and so they have some foibles. You have to take trips to Dongle Town if you

01:02:33   need to do lots of things.

01:02:35   Yes.

01:02:36   But soon, those trips to Dongle Town won't be needed and you will…

01:02:40   Soon the world will have moved to Dongle Town and you will still be back in Old Town.

01:02:45   - We will all live there.

01:02:46   - And then the people with the old computers

01:02:48   are gonna need to take a ride to Doggle Town

01:02:49   if they're allowed to do it, right?

01:02:51   Because some things may just not be compatible.

01:02:53   That's the risk.

01:02:54   There is risk.

01:02:55   I mean, we may be overstating it.

01:02:56   It may be that USB-C kind of fizzles

01:02:59   and it's really just a port change.

01:03:00   - Or USB-A just lives for another 15 years

01:03:03   alongside it, right, you know?

01:03:05   - Ever, right.

01:03:06   Apple is gonna be really pushing, right?

01:03:08   USB-C stuff though.

01:03:09   And so all that stuff is not,

01:03:10   like all of Apple's new stuff and new adapters

01:03:13   and new devices or whatever, like everything's gonna become.

01:03:16   The iPhone is gonna start at some point shipping

01:03:18   with a USB-C cable in the box probably, probably.

01:03:20   - To be this year?

01:03:21   - And yeah, who knows?

01:03:23   But so this is a, it's a, I don't know.

01:03:27   There's no, what I'm saying is there's no one right answer

01:03:30   here, it really depends much more on,

01:03:32   I can provide information for people about this stuff,

01:03:34   but it depends more on like, what's your budget?

01:03:38   What is your, the need of your student?

01:03:42   those matter more than anything else.

01:03:44   All things being equal, if you're somebody like

01:03:47   some of my friends who are like,

01:03:48   they're going to college, we're gonna buy them a computer.

01:03:51   This was always the plan.

01:03:52   They're gonna get a new computer.

01:03:53   I have friends who have twins

01:03:55   who are both going off to college in the fall.

01:03:57   And the deal from the beginning has always been

01:04:00   that part of the college fund is going to go to a laptop

01:04:05   to take with you to school.

01:04:06   They wanna do that.

01:04:08   And a new laptop.

01:04:10   It's like, all right, here are your options.

01:04:12   But even then, I can't say, "Buy this one," and they want it to be a Mac. It's like, I

01:04:16   can't say, "Buy this one laptop." I have to say, "There are two," which is, I think, the

01:04:20   most interesting point about where Apple is right now is, there are two that I recommend,

01:04:26   and it really depends on which way you want to go. Do you want to go bigger screen and

01:04:30   more power but two pounds, or do you want to go with smaller screen and less power but

01:04:37   one pound. And I feel like for most people, unless they are planning on doing video editing

01:04:44   and stuff that's pretty intense, for most people, the MacBook is fine. The MacBook will

01:04:50   do almost anything you can throw at it. And heck, it comes in gold. And it comes in gold.

01:04:56   Yes, yes indeed. I have a gold one and it's amazing. I love it. It's so beautiful. That

01:05:03   the thing about that MacBook man that is a beautiful computer like I even I want

01:05:09   one mic and I basically stopped using my MacBook Air but even I am like oh but

01:05:14   that MacBook it looks so good it's retina and yeah if I do get my daughter

01:05:18   a new laptop it may be just that it may literally be because I love the MacBook

01:05:24   so much that I want to have one in my house even if it's not mine it's

01:05:28   possible you could tell I mean I've done it I have exported Final Cut videos

01:05:32   although when I did the day that I did export the Final Cut video the battery

01:05:36   was draining faster than the MacBook could be charged but we don't have to

01:05:40   worry about things like that I got it out in the end I mean it was it was an

01:05:44   almost two-hour video right like it was a cortex episode so you know it was it

01:05:49   was really really kind of chunking on that thing but it did it I mean this is

01:05:53   the thing like I'm nervous about this you know about thinking oh my production

01:06:00   in August for all of my shows is going to happen on a MacBook, but I'm confident it

01:06:05   can do it. I'm just going to be waiting longer for everything. That's what the real thing

01:06:10   is going to be.

01:06:11   I should say, if you're a student, and this is something that was brought up in the chat

01:06:16   room this weekend, last week, if you're a student, or if you're a parent of a student

01:06:21   that's going off to school somewhere, please check the requirements at your school. Right?

01:06:31   Because I've had this happen. I talked to somebody who said they were going to get their

01:06:34   kid a Chromebook, but their school says it has to be a Mac or a PC, which is a big step

01:06:39   from it has to be a PC. There are places that will say, "We strongly prefer Windows PC."

01:06:46   I am gonna say those people are liars

01:06:50   because a Mac can run Windows too.

01:06:54   And in fact, maybe you don't want a MacBook at that point.

01:06:57   Maybe you want the MacBook 13 without touch bar,

01:07:00   but I don't necessarily believe that.

01:07:04   I think there are a lot of IT managers are like,

01:07:06   oh no, no, no, Macs they're confusing just by a Dell laptop.

01:07:08   Like, yeah, if your kid likes the Mac,

01:07:11   don't make them do that because I don't believe it,

01:07:14   but you should check, right?

01:07:15   You should check.

01:07:16   And also, yeah, you know, if you've got a kid going off as a freshman to college and

01:07:19   there's a major that says that in their major in two years they're going to require Windows

01:07:23   or something like that, really don't worry about it because one, Macs run Windows and

01:07:28   two, your kid may very well change their major several times in the next two years. Don't

01:07:32   sweat it too much.

01:07:33   - And heck, they may even break their Macs, so you can get them a Windows PC anyway.

01:07:39   - It's entirely possible. And like the iPad question again, like I think there are kids

01:07:45   for whom taking an iPad to school with an Apple pencil and a smart keyboard or

01:07:49   something like that is perfect but I feel like they will still be unless

01:07:57   their school is like no we love iPads I would be skeptical of that

01:08:03   because it's still an effort sometimes to be an iPad user in an environment

01:08:07   like that. I mean you know when I know there are still times as an

01:08:11   an iPad user trying to get work done that you're like,

01:08:14   oh, okay, I hit a wall here, how do I work around it?

01:08:17   - Yeah, I'm doing an iPad thing.

01:08:19   - Yeah, and if you're in an institution somewhere

01:08:21   that's like, here's this thing, then you've hit that wall.

01:08:24   It's not that different than a few years ago

01:08:27   when you'd be somewhere and somebody would say,

01:08:30   here's a floppy disk and you'd be like,

01:08:31   yeah, my computer doesn't have those anymore.

01:08:35   - Or even CDs, right?

01:08:37   CDs was more recently. - Or CDs, right?

01:08:39   Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:08:40   So I don't know, it's all, again, you gotta know your kid

01:08:45   and what they like to do and talk to them about it ideally

01:08:47   and know where they're going

01:08:48   and know how they use their computers

01:08:50   and know your budget and all of those things.

01:08:52   But yes, I think the MacBook,

01:08:55   if you wanna buy a shiny new laptop,

01:08:57   the MacBook is probably the like highest percentage chance

01:09:02   with a, you know, with a sidestep to the MacBook escape

01:09:06   if you want a little bit more power

01:09:08   and are willing to trade off the weight.

01:09:10   But boy, yeah, and a college backpack

01:09:11   to have that one pound MacBook, whew, that's good stuff.

01:09:14   - Today's show is also brought to you by Pingdom.

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01:11:21   Jason, it is time for Ask Upgrade.

01:11:25   Choose your sound effect.

01:11:26   Oh, lasers and fireworks.

01:11:29   There we go.

01:11:31   Lasers and fireworks.

01:11:33   The lasers are shooting the fireworks.

01:11:35   Oh wow, that is quite a show.

01:11:38   America, America right?

01:11:40   Yeah.

01:11:41   Also there were jet skis flying through flaming hoops but you didn't see those because they're

01:11:44   silent.

01:11:45   Silent jet skis?

01:11:47   Wow.

01:11:48   I don't know, they're far off.

01:11:50   All the stops today.

01:11:51   They have a silencer on them, that's what it is.

01:11:54   Jet skis with silencers.

01:11:55   John wants to know, I'm looking to buy an Apple Watch.

01:11:59   I buy it next week or do I wait to see if it gets revised this autumn? I think it will

01:12:05   be revised, right? I'll just say that. I don't know what that's going to be.

01:12:09   All right. Interesting.

01:12:10   But I do think there will be a new Apple Watch this year.

01:12:13   Huh. That's a good question. I was going to say buy it next week because I'm not convinced

01:12:21   there will be a new Apple Watch this fall.

01:12:23   Sorry, Jon.

01:12:24   There might be. There might be. Yeah, we're going to disagree on this one. But there might

01:12:27   be you're right if they do it may very well be that there's a series 3 and then the series

01:12:31   2 is also still available and the series 3 costs more which I think is a clever way for

01:12:35   Apple to keep the entry point into Apple watch low while also being able to kind of push

01:12:41   on features that are make the product more expensive.

01:12:45   I think this is a device that's new enough that they can continue to revise on it and

01:12:50   can continue to make incremental improvements like they did from series 1 to series 2 in

01:12:56   so much that I wouldn't be surprised to see a Series 3 this year. I think you can make

01:12:59   small improvements to it, as you say, while still keeping some of the line available and

01:13:03   making those prices even more competitive. A product that maybe is picking up steam,

01:13:10   you know, so it could be good to continue to push and push and push on it to break through

01:13:15   any barriers that there may be. That's why I think there'll be another one this year.

01:13:19   - No, could be, could be.

01:13:21   Yeah, I'm on the fence about that.

01:13:24   I'm not sure that they're gonna do

01:13:25   an every year Apple Watch update,

01:13:28   but I hope they do, they should, right?

01:13:31   I think they should just because this is a growing category

01:13:34   and I know there's more they wanna do with this product.

01:13:37   So I think that would be great if they do that.

01:13:39   So John, I don't know,

01:13:41   how badly do you want an Apple Watch

01:13:43   and how much are you worried about?

01:13:44   I mean, if they do a new one, it might have,

01:13:46   maybe it'll have cellular, I don't know.

01:13:49   Maybe it'll have different sensors.

01:13:51   I don't know.

01:13:52   I feel like the big next frontier for Apple Watch

01:13:55   is cellular connectivity and/or enough battery life

01:13:59   that they can do sleep tracking

01:14:00   and maybe keep the screen on.

01:14:02   But I don't know.

01:14:04   Sorry, Jon.

01:14:05   - So it's happened again

01:14:07   that there has been a new version of iOS 11.

01:14:12   We've got Beta 4, I think, is out now.

01:14:14   - Oh, good. - It's recording.

01:14:16   - Everybody update your Betas, or don't,

01:14:18   wait and see if it's terrible. One of those.

01:14:20   I'm looking forward to a beta update because on my small iPad, so my 10.5, it's no longer

01:14:28   downloading apps from the App Store. This just happened randomly, like halfway through this

01:14:34   cycle from 3 to 4. Like, it was fine, but now it's just not updating or downloading anything.

01:14:39   So I'm happy for a new beta, personally, just so I can get that functionality back.

01:14:46   Oplis asked, "When you guys do podcasts with guests, how do you usually handle the local

01:14:52   recording, maybe for people that are non-podcasters?"

01:14:58   Well I will recommend podcastguestguide.com, which my friend Antony Johnston put together,

01:15:04   which is all about how to get people to record their own microphone, because what you want

01:15:11   to do is make a local recording if you can, not one that's just sent over the internet

01:15:15   with Skype because that's really compressed and can sound bad. The local recording sounds

01:15:20   great because it's literally like you're right in the room because you are. You're recording

01:15:24   it yourself on your own computer. And on the Mac I generally have QuickTime. QuickTime

01:15:29   lets you do an audio recording so I tell people to do that. On Windows we generally recommend

01:15:33   Audacity which is free and lets you record your own microphone. There are now some services

01:15:41   like Cast and Zencastr that let you basically have somebody go to a web link in Chrome,

01:15:49   although it should work in Safari come fall with Mac OS Sierra and iOS 11, and the web

01:15:56   browser basically records them locally and sends that file along as well as having the

01:16:02   conversation happen. So there are a lot of different ways to do it, but that's definitely,

01:16:06   for both of us, our preferred way of making podcasts is we use something to connect, which

01:16:11   is generally Skype, although it doesn't have to be, to have the conversation and then everybody

01:16:14   records their own microphones and sends the files to whoever's editing it.

01:16:18   Yep, and I recommend the Podcast Guest Guide to people as well because it's so beautifully

01:16:23   put together and I don't have to deal with all the minutiae.

01:16:27   Exactly.

01:16:28   Because he's already done it for us.

01:16:29   Alex asked, "I've just got my first iPad with multitasking, which I'm in love with."

01:16:35   Welcome Alex, it's quite amazing, isn't it?

01:16:37   "Can you recommend a good Bluetooth keyboard for me?"

01:16:40   Well, my recommendation is, if you like, especially if you like Mac laptop

01:16:46   keyboards of the older variety, the Logitech EZ Switch K811, which I've had

01:16:52   for a long time, it feels very much like a MacBook Air keyboard. And it has

01:16:58   support for three Bluetooth inputs, so you can actually have it like, you can

01:17:01   switch on the fly from typing on your Mac to typing on your iPad. And it's

01:17:06   backlit and the battery lasts a pretty decent amount of time and I like it. It

01:17:10   is the Mac upgrade pick from the Wirecutter as well. Wirecutter's base

01:17:16   selection is the Logitech K380 which is a little bit different and has round

01:17:21   keys which strikes me as being very weird but it's also half the price of

01:17:25   the EasySwitch K811. So that's that's the one that I would say right now. I'm

01:17:31   I'm sure there is a raft of Bluetooth keyboards coming out

01:17:34   that are emulating the feel of the new Apple keyboards,

01:17:39   but I don't have any of those.

01:17:45   And I'm still, the Logitech Easy Switch is the one that I,

01:17:48   for iPad use, I mean, the Magic Keyboard is great too,

01:17:50   but it's thicker.

01:17:51   You gotta, then you carry that around

01:17:53   in a studio, neat canopy.

01:17:56   - Oh, naturally.

01:17:57   - That would work too.

01:17:59   Yeah, I've never used that keyboard that you're talking about, but it looks like a good one

01:18:03   because it allows you to do the multiple, it has a memory of Bluetooth, so you can,

01:18:11   I think that's really cool, so you're able to just say, "I'm on my iPad now, I'm on my

01:18:16   Mac now, I'm on my iPhone now," whatever.

01:18:19   Especially if you live the multi-pad lifestyle, even nicer.

01:18:22   So that's a good pick there.

01:18:24   So it's the Logitech K811.

01:18:26   811.

01:18:27   11. Easy switch. Easy switch. It's backlit too. Oh, even nicer. Even nicer. What's the

01:18:34   battery life like? If you use the backlighting it's less but it's still several days even

01:18:41   if you use it all day. Philip asked, "What is the best sim-only option for a three-week

01:18:46   trip to the US? I know that Jason uses a vending machine when he comes to London at Heathrow

01:18:51   But what does Myke do? So

01:18:53   Right now I just upgraded to one of those plans that lets you loot use your allowances overseas normally

01:19:01   So I'm with EE and I've upgraded today 4G EE max plan

01:19:06   So I can use my data and all that sort of stuff in

01:19:09   Them in America and it just comes out from my regular plan. I don't have to pay any extra. That's great

01:19:16   I'm gonna give that a go and see what that's like for the trips that I have coming up

01:19:20   But in the past when I have bought a SIM card, I always go with T-Mobile

01:19:25   Because they're easy to buy from and especially right now

01:19:29   I haven't bought this plan, but I know people that have so I can recommend it

01:19:32   They have a specific T-Mobile tourist plan that you can buy which is three weeks of talk text and data and

01:19:39   You can choose different amounts. So that's one but otherwise

01:19:43   T-Mobile have a bunch of plans a bunch of prepaid plans

01:19:48   Just go into their store and talk to people like I have had one in the past. I actually lost the SIM card

01:19:54   When I lost my wallet recently, which is very sad, but I would top up like $80 and I would have completely unlimited

01:20:02   Data for 30 days including tethering. So when I was traveling that was brilliant

01:20:09   It was like 4G data completely unlimited and I could tether as much as I wanted as well

01:20:14   So they have a bunch of different options. You can just go into a T-Mobile store in the US

01:20:18   and they're very helpful I've found and it's not a problem if you don't live in the US

01:20:24   to just get one of their pre-play patterns. It's really easy. So that's what I recommend.

01:20:30   Evan asked, "When Myke uses his iPad without a physical keyboard, does he prefer to type

01:20:35   on lap, table or a split keyboard?" Jason I'll ask you first. I mean I'm sure you use

01:20:40   physical and software keyboards all the time so when you're not using a physical keyboard,

01:20:47   whether a case or an extra Bluetooth keyboard.

01:20:49   How do you type on your iPad?

01:20:51   - Lap.

01:20:53   - You put it on your lap?

01:20:54   Yeah, I'm the same.

01:20:55   I mean, the split keyboard doesn't even exist on a 12-9.

01:20:59   I don't know if it exists on the 10-5.

01:21:02   I think it does, actually.

01:21:03   I think I tried it a couple of weeks ago.

01:21:05   Still boggles my mind why it's not on the 12-9 as well,

01:21:09   but it's not.

01:21:10   And yeah, I just put it on my lap.

01:21:13   That's how I work.

01:21:14   I never put it on a table and type because I'm going to put it on a table and

01:21:18   type. Then I'll use my smart keyboard, which is attached. Right?

01:21:21   Like I'm not going to do that. So yeah, if I'm not, if you know,

01:21:24   sometimes I'll do this if like I'm just reading stuff, like I'm just,

01:21:27   I want to see it all in full screen and I'm just holding the iPad in my hands.

01:21:30   I don't want to type something out.

01:21:31   So I'll just prop it on my lap and type something quick and then just carry on.

01:21:35   Uh, our last question today comes from Michael and this is,

01:21:41   this one's really confusing cause my name is Michael. So I'm like, I don't, I,

01:21:44   when every time I read it I see Michael and then it says Jason I'm getting confused in

01:21:47   my brain. Jason which comic-con trailer got you the most excited? So there was a bunch

01:21:55   of trailers right? Well there was Justice League, there was Thor Ragnarok right? What

01:22:04   else was there?

01:22:06   I don't even know there was a lot and my answer is is probably Star Trek Discovery.

01:22:14   Okay what is Star Trek Discovery? I don't know what that is.

01:22:18   It's a new Star Trek show.

01:22:20   It's the TV show, it's the name of the TV show. Okay cool I knew that was a TV show

01:22:23   but I didn't know the name of it. I wasn't sure if that maybe that was the new movie.

01:22:28   Is there a new Star Trek movie in the works?

01:22:32   I think they say there is, but it's far out and nothing, no details have really been announced.

01:22:37   So it's unclear if it's going to happen.

01:22:39   Oh, and this is a Netflix show?

01:22:40   Yeah, uh, Everywhere but the US and Canada, yes.

01:22:43   Ah, so that's why I'm seeing a Netflix trailer.

01:22:46   Yes.

01:22:47   That's funny.

01:22:48   Did you watch the Justice League trailer?

01:22:50   I did.

01:22:51   I couldn't understand what was happening.

01:22:54   Ah, yeah, I don't, I don't even want to go into it.

01:22:59   What I amused me about the Justice League trailer is that that is a trailer cut knowing that Wonder Woman is a hit

01:23:04   And so they're like, yeah, can we put everything in that shows Wonder Woman off in Justice League?

01:23:11   because I'm skeptical about how much she is actually showed off in that movie, but

01:23:16   That movie is a hit. So they're like no make Justice League seem like it's the sequel to Wonder Woman

01:23:21   Let's do that, but there's some Batman in it and there's some cyborg in it and there's some flash in it

01:23:26   I thought the flash was okay

01:23:28   And there's like a hidden villain and then there's a you know a hidden other thing that is very clearly

01:23:35   Not that secret, but I'm not gonna mention it here

01:23:38   Like there's one character who doesn't show up in any of the trailers who is obviously in the movie

01:23:42   But they can they can go along with that if they want to that requires you to have known what happens in

01:23:48   Batman vs. Superman and

01:23:50   I don't want to require that of anyone not even my worst enemies

01:23:54   It was interesting to me that they didn't do anything at all to say the names of the heroes like

01:23:59   You filled one in for me cyborg. I don't know cyborg

01:24:02   All I know was just a guy who looked like a robot like and the trailer didn't do anything to tell me who he was

01:24:08   He's not a robot though Myke. He's a cyborg. He's part human part machine

01:24:12   This is not robot or not and his name is cyborg and he was one of the Teen Titans

01:24:17   But suddenly he's in the Justice League

01:24:19   And I found it really weird that they didn't introduce that Khal Drogo from your favorite show Game of Thrones

01:24:24   Is Aquaman so there's also Aquaman in it. Yeah, I know I know about him. He I know him. Yeah

01:24:31   Just before we wrap up today

01:24:33   I want to do some end of the show follow out Jason

01:24:36   Because why not the format can be whatever we wanted to be on this show

01:24:39   And I just want to mention a new show on relay phone called query

01:24:42   The hosts are serenity Caldwell and Stephen Hackett and it is I guess at its simplest

01:24:49   Of course, the show is more than this. It's like if you enjoy ask upgrade. This is a much more

01:24:53   more

01:25:08   and I showed an ad to your rotation. So you should go check it out, relay.fm/query.

01:25:14   More things to go and check out, go to sixcolors.com, go to @Jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L on Twitter, and

01:25:21   you can find Jason's work online. You can go to Twitter, find me, I'm @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:25:28   If you want to participate in the show, we mentioned a few ways you can do that. You

01:25:31   can suggest some topics for us for later in the month, which we would really appreciate.

01:25:35   If there's something you want to hear us talk about,

01:25:37   which would maybe be a little bit

01:25:39   of a different episode of Upgrade.

01:25:41   And we have some secrets planned for that episode,

01:25:44   which we're excited about,

01:25:45   but we have some more stuff that we want to do.

01:25:47   You can tweet to us and let us know.

01:25:49   If you want to be involved in the show every week,

01:25:51   you can tweet #AskUpgrade for your questions

01:25:54   that you would like us to answer at the end of the show.

01:25:56   And if you have any esoteric fun

01:25:58   or kind of strange questions,

01:26:00   you can use #SNELTalk to open the show with one of those.

01:26:03   And we appreciate everybody who submits those

01:26:05   every single week. It is amazing that I continue to have more than I need every week. So thank

01:26:12   you so much for continuing to do that. Thanks to our sponsors Pingdom, Smile and Jet for

01:26:18   supporting the show. We'll be back next time. Most importantly, thank you for listening.

01:26:22   Until then, say goodbye to Jason Snow.

01:26:25   Goodbye everybody.

01:26:25   [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:26:29   [ Music ]