0:00:00[Music]
0:00:08From relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 148. Today's show is brought to you by Casper,
0:00:15Freshbooks, and Encapsula. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Jason Snell.
0:00:19Hi Myke Hurley, how are you?
0:00:21I'm very well Jason Snell, how are you?
0:00:23I'm enjoying um, patriotic holidays. That's what I'm doing.
0:00:29doing. It is the Independence Day long weekend in the United States. It was just the 150th
0:00:38Canada Day in Canada. So North America is just one big, festive, red, white, and sometimes
0:00:44blue party.
0:00:46MATT PORTER, JAYSUN, "Frank would like to know for #SnellTalk this week, what is your
0:00:51favorite snack?"
0:00:52I will refer Frank to episode 108 of the Robot or Not podcast, which was just posted last
0:01:01week, in which I declare my love for peanut butter in all its forms. It is my favorite
0:01:08food. It is absolutely my favorite snack. So peanut butter, that's it, right out of
0:01:14the jar? Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, I'll do that. Right out of the jar.
0:01:17Yeah, see I'm pretty sure we've actually had a "what is your favorite food" question
0:01:21somewhere.
0:01:22I think we have, because it was clear at that point that my favorite food would kill you.
0:01:29So you know.
0:01:30But it's interesting that not only is your favorite food peanut butter, your favorite
0:01:34snack is peanut butter.
0:01:35I wonder what else peanut butter fills.
0:01:37I wonder what other categories in your life, favorite thing to buy of Apple Pay?
0:01:42Peanut butter, right?
0:01:43Like the list goes on.
0:01:45it, I once had a, despite peanut butter being my favorite food, I went to this restaurant
0:01:51when I was visiting family in Pennsylvania and they brought the dessert menu out and
0:01:55it had peanut butter pie on it, which is a thing that exists, but I had literally never
0:01:59heard of peanut butter pie before and I said, "Well, bring that to me now." And it's pretty
0:02:05great. So peanut butter, you know, is it my favorite dessert? I don't know. I really like
0:02:09peanut butter frozen yogurt. If I go to a frozen yogurt place, I will get the peanut
0:02:12butter flavor if it's there. There are good ones, there are bad ones, but they're all
0:02:17peanut butter, so they're all okay. Yeah. Love it. I'll have it for breakfast, I'll
0:02:21have it for lunch.
0:02:23Maybe one day I'll buy some EpiPens and I'll come over to California and you can give me
0:02:31a taste of the amazing peanut butter that you like.
0:02:34I'm sure there's a peanut butter flavor that is entirely devoid of actual peanuts.
0:02:39I wonder.
0:02:40They probably make that.
0:02:41If anybody knows of such a thing that exists, let me know.
0:02:45It won't taste like peanuts at all, but you know, maybe it exists. I'm totally artificial
0:02:50peanut flavoring. Talking about things that shouldn't exist at all.
0:02:54Haha, yeah, oh boy. The Galaxy Note 7 FE, which is actually known
0:03:01as the Galaxy Note 7 Fandom Edition, that is what the FE stands for, is going on sale
0:03:07July 7th in Korea, this is a refurbished version of the Galaxy Note 7s that were recalled.
0:03:17So Samsung is trying to put back into the market all of the handsets that they had to
0:03:23bring back. They're saying that it's featuring different components to the original. I don't
0:03:28get this.
0:03:29These are also, I just want to be clear, these are the ones that didn't explode. They didn't
0:03:35refurbish the ones that blew up.
0:03:37the ones that didn't explode. At this point I wouldn't have put it past them. You had
0:03:40to bring them back in and now they're selling them for fans, for the fans. The fandom. For
0:03:46the people who just, they wish they had that Galaxy Note 7 and they didn't get it and now
0:03:49they're gonna finally get it with a battery that is apparently much less capable than
0:03:56the one because that seemed to be the source of the problem. You calling your contacts
0:04:00in Korea now, Myke? Trying to get a Galaxy Note 7 FE? Oh, you know me. FE stands for
0:04:05For phones explode. Phones explode. Phones explode. I like that Jason. Phones explode.
0:04:11Yep. We're just months away from the Galaxy Note 8. Because it debuts before the iPhone.
0:04:20This is such a strange thing. I mean I can obviously see why they're doing this because
0:04:25they have a warehouse full of Galaxy Note 7s and they're just trying to get some out
0:04:31there like just just get rid of some of these but it's like just don't like I
0:04:37know why you're doing it Samsung but just just don't this is why people look
0:04:41at your company and say silly things about your company it's why you get
0:04:45weird headlines right like these are the bad decisions that you make and this is
0:04:49just one of them. I look at this and think there's a manager somewhere who is looking at the
0:05:00cost of these things that are in the warehouse and is making a case, right, making a claim
0:05:06saying, "You know, we could sell these maybe in certain markets like our home market of
0:05:16Korea and make some money out of these things because they're perfectly good with the battery
0:05:24replaced and if we do that we'll cut our losses and we'll limit it to these
0:05:31markets so you know where we're impervious and maybe not put it
0:05:35elsewhere but we'll sell some here and we'll make some money and look at
0:05:38how the budget will be improved by this. I imagine there's someone made a
0:05:43business argument somewhere and how yeah I mean I get it like on one level you
0:05:50want to sweep it under the rug on the other level it's an opportunity for them
0:05:54to make some of the money back that they lost in this thing. I don't know. From an optics
0:06:00perspective you'd kind of want to just let it be. Fandom Edition is also such a weird
0:06:07name. I do wonder if it's literally the way this is being marketed is people who love
0:06:11Samsung and buy all the Galaxy Note models are really sad that they can't have a Galaxy
0:06:16Note in their collection.
0:06:17Well, and also like people loved that phone, right? And like were unwilling to give it
0:06:23back to the point that Samsung had to brick the phones to make people send them in, right?
0:06:28So this is them saying, "Alright, if you really want it, you can have it." But it's
0:06:34uh, yeah, it's weird. You'd think that you'd want to move on, but Samsung does
0:06:37lots of things we don't understand. And uh, yeah, that's, that's uh, it's weird.
0:06:44it's really weird. By all accounts it was a good phone other than the exploding so I
0:06:48guess I can see that but the Galaxy Note 8 is going to come out so yeah it's weird. We
0:06:55don't understand Samsung.
0:06:56"Last week Bloomberg posted a big article claiming that Apple is working with Hertz,
0:07:04the rental car company, to manage its self-driving fleet. That is the headline. Apple is working
0:07:10of Hertz to manage its self-driving fleet. In the article they note that Apple is leasing
0:07:15a small fleet from Hertz for their cars and compares it to the deal that Alphabet and
0:07:21Avis have together for working on self-driving technology. This is a collaboration between
0:07:26these two companies to try and work on self-driving cars. Because of this news, as you can imagine,
0:07:32the shares for Hertz skyrocketed. But it came out a little bit later on in the week that
0:07:39There is no story here, and that Apple are literally just leasing six cars from Hertz
0:07:45that they are outfitting with their technology, and there is no special deal. Apple later
0:07:50told CNBC that they are, like, categorically, we are not partnering with Hertz. What is
0:07:57going on here?
0:07:59I really like this, Myke. I think that this is something that we should take up in our
0:08:02daily lives, and just stick with me here for a moment. Like, I got an Amazon package yesterday,
0:08:06so I'd like to announce I'm partnering with Amazon.
0:08:08- Oh, congratulations.
0:08:10- Thank you.
0:08:11I've got a new relationship with Amazon
0:08:12that involves branding and e-commerce.
0:08:15That is the incomparable incorporated sixcolors.com
0:08:18and me personally, Jason Snell.
0:08:19I have that deal with Amazon now.
0:08:22So we've extended that relationship.
0:08:23The details of the relationship are kind of,
0:08:25I'm gonna keep it under wraps,
0:08:26but it mostly involves me giving them money
0:08:28and then putting cardboard boxes in front of my door.
0:08:31But we'll see where it goes from there.
0:08:32So I hope my investors are excited about that.
0:08:36I'm also happy to announce that I have a relationship, I'm partnering with Comcast. That relationship
0:08:44is they are providing me, they're the exclusive provider of internet access in my house, in
0:08:49the, sorry, in the headquarters of the Incomparable Incorporated, exclusive access. Also, we cut
0:08:55an entertainment deal on the side. They're also my entertainment provider partnership.
0:08:59So I think that's going to be big. I think it's going to be really big.
0:09:02I have some late-breaking news, Jason Snapp, some late-breaking news straight from the
0:09:08market floor that both Comcast and Amazon shares have skyrocketed upon the news of a
0:09:15very recent and sudden and strong partnership collaboration effort. This is ridiculous,
0:09:22right? This is just… I don't know what Bloomberg was doing here. I don't know if
0:09:28they heard something and misinterpreted it or they're just trying to make a story out
0:09:35of nothing. But it's like they wrote this entire article which had just one sentence
0:09:44that was of any interest and they spun this one sentence into this entire piece which
0:09:51which then created this effect. And I've got to say, this is the start of a... Not start,
0:09:58this is indicative of a trend at Bloomberg right now, which we have spoken about. We
0:10:03had spoken about it last week with the, talking about the Apple rumors and stuff. It seems
0:10:10like that they have a habit right now of finding out one little thing and then making a huge
0:10:16big story out of it.
0:10:20The fact is that this happens in journalism a lot, where you get a source, and especially
0:10:31in modern web journalism, you get a source and you get a tidbit of info, and what you
0:10:40do is you write a whole story around it. And I mean, I've seen this, and this happens not
0:10:44even when you're doing reporting, but this is also how reblogging goes, where I read
0:10:51a story the other day that was based on an interview on another website, and to their
0:10:55– no, sorry, it was based on three different interviews on another website, and this story
0:11:00wove those three interviews together with background information. It was very expertly
0:11:06done, but contained no new information. It was literally just strip mining other people's
0:11:13stories and organizing it into a new way. So that's just a thing that we deal with on
0:11:17the web these days and the Bloomberg stories are a little bit like that where, you know,
0:11:21they got a tidbit, an original reported tidbit from someone and then you build your narrative
0:11:27around it. And so like literally you could have a story with one piece of information
0:11:33which is you know a guy at Apple or at Hertz or somewhere in between who says, "Hey, did
0:11:41you know, I'm just giving you a tip here, that Apple is getting into bed with Hertz.
0:11:47They've got a small fleet of cars that they have leased involved, and it's the self-driving
0:11:52stuff. So they're making a deal. Apple's making a deal with Hertz on this, and so it's big
0:11:57news you should report on that. And it's gonna be, and so they've got the details, it's like
0:12:03their Lexuses, they're leased from Hertz's fleet management unit, and then what do you
0:12:11do with that story? And the answer is you write a story with a big headline that
0:12:14says "Apple's working with Hertz" and then your lead is "Apple's leasing a
0:12:20small fleet, they're going to lease this model, Apple declined to comment" and then
0:12:28you throw in like background. So it's "Here's what's Hertz stock performance is"
0:12:32and "Alphabets deal with AVIS" and that draws a parallel and then you
0:12:38You throw in a paragraph of background, which is here's what's happened with the Apple car
0:12:42project in the past, and Tim Cook said, you know, last month that they are working on
0:12:47something. And you end up with this big story, it's not that big, but it's like a six, seven
0:12:50paragraph story, that's really based, you could really summarize in one sentence in
0:12:54terms of the initial information, which is Apple is leasing some cars from Hertz related
0:13:00to their self-driving fleet, and it's small and there may only be a half dozen of them.
0:13:05Okay, it's not much of a story then, so you build it up in the narrative.
0:13:09And that happens sometimes, we've seen it with Mark Gurman's stories, which at 9to5Mac
0:13:14were pretty no-nonsense of here's what I've heard and here's the background.
0:13:19And since he's been to Bloomberg, one of the things that happened is you've seen more co-buy
0:13:23lines where he's put on with someone else, and you've seen these kind of more fluffed
0:13:29up expansive stories where more narrative is put into it, wrapping around what the actual
0:13:37nuggets of information are. And that just seems to be the approach Bloomberg is taking
0:13:41to this sort of thing. And not just Bloomberg, I think a lot of news organizations do this
0:13:46sort of thing when you've got scraps and you're trying to make something out of the scraps.
0:13:50It's just a silly story. The other thing that I think is kind of funny is that why aren't
0:13:56Apple just buying six cars. Why are they leasing and then like drilling holes in these cars?
0:14:01Like just buy the cars. It's really weird. It does seem a little weird. I wonder if there's
0:14:06something about like them, there's a reason why it's a better thing legally or in some
0:14:13other way to lease cars rather than buy them for a part of this project. I don't know,
0:14:18but it does seem like they could write it. It feels like an accounting thing to me, honestly.
0:14:21go down to the Lexus dealer, buy some cars, have them sent over. Also, I will say, this
0:14:30is an interesting example when Apple actually told CNBC that there's no special deal there.
0:14:38Like, there's an Apple decline to comment in the Bloomberg story. So, what seems to
0:14:45have happened here is Apple has done its reflexive "we're not talking about this, we're just
0:14:50gonna keep everything quiet. And then they saw this story take off and they
0:14:56saw Hertz shares go up and somebody at Apple saw all of this and said "no no no
0:15:02no no no we got to get out there." Now I would like I'm gonna say that Apple PR
0:15:12should maybe look at this as an example of how you don't... your old classic
0:15:20decades-long policy of reflexively declining to comment or occasionally
0:15:25saying you'll get back to somebody and then never doing it, this is a good
0:15:30example why maybe that's not a great standard policy. Maybe you should process
0:15:34these requests a little bit more, knowing that Bloomberg is going to write a big
0:15:37story about your connections to Hertz, which maybe as a PR person you don't
0:15:41know anything about, maybe do a little research and find out what's going on there and give
0:15:46an actual reply to Bloomberg that says, "No, no, no. This is overstated. We have rented
0:15:53at least six cars for this project that we're working on. It's not a big deal." At which
0:15:58point Bloomberg actually might not run the story, right? But instead they're just like,
0:16:03"No, we have nothing to say." Bloomberg runs the story, Hertz stock goes up, and then somebody
0:16:06had Apple decides to put their foot down and tell CNBC that it's overblown. It's weird.
0:16:15In other words, Apple could have nipped this story in the bud because really if Apple had
0:16:19come back to these writers and said, "No, you got it wrong. We're not commenting you
0:16:26here guys. Literally, you got it wrong. If you think that a half dozen cars that we're
0:16:32like six cars is newsworthy than go to town, but it's just part of our everyday operations
0:16:40when we're working on projects. And then they could run that story if they wanted to, but
0:16:44it certainly would have been a lot less interesting. Then again, I'll take it from the reporter's
0:16:49side, you kind of don't want Apple to get back to you, right? Because they might pop
0:16:54your balloon. So you almost want them to decline comment, or if they don't get back to you
0:16:59you right away be like, "Oh, they didn't respond," which is what Hertz did. Hertz just didn't
0:17:02respond in time for them to post the article. It's like, "Well, that's good because then
0:17:05they have an article. Otherwise, they don't have an article." I don't know. It's just
0:17:09weird that Apple declined comment and then felt the need later to burst the bubble.
0:17:14Yeah, I wonder what decline to comment means. Like, if it means that they were like, "We're
0:17:19not talking about this," or they just didn't bother to reply because it was a stupid thing.
0:17:24Decline to comment means that they said that they didn't have any statement about it.
0:17:31So what would they say, like Apple didn't reply to requests or whatever?
0:17:35Well here's the sentence in the story, "An Apple spokesman declined to comment while
0:17:38a representative for Hertz didn't immediately respond to a request for comment." And that's
0:17:43the difference.
0:17:44Immediately. You have 20 seconds.
0:17:48Yeah my guess is they called Hertz and said, "So we got this story, you got any comment?"
0:17:52and they're like, "Let me get back to you," and you wait.
0:17:54And I will say, yes, maybe you wait a minute
0:17:58and then you post the article.
0:17:59But I will say I have written articles
0:18:02where I've really wanted an Apple comment
0:18:04and I called Apple and said, "I got this article.
0:18:08"I would like a comment."
0:18:10And they've said, instead of,
0:18:11"We don't have a comment on that,"
0:18:12they've said, "I get what you're saying.
0:18:15"Let me go get, let me talk to some people
0:18:17"and I will get you a comment."
0:18:18And I've held the story.
0:18:20In one case, we held it for a couple of days.
0:18:23They never responded.
0:18:25And at some point, as a journalist, at some point,
0:18:27you've got to be like, I'm not just going to wait around.
0:18:29Because I definitely have felt played in the past by sources
0:18:32where they're just trying to put you off the story.
0:18:35And they're never going to get back to you.
0:18:37Yeah.
0:18:37And you don't want to sit on it for too long,
0:18:39because then somebody else is going to post it.
0:18:41Exactly.
0:18:42And it's like, yeah, I mean, I'm doing you a courtesy
0:18:45by letting you go on the record about what I'm writing about.
0:18:48but I'm not gonna let you delay my story for three days.
0:18:52So get back to me in a reasonable amount of time.
0:18:54So that could be the case here, or it could literally be.
0:18:56They said, because they said immediate,
0:18:58I wonder Bloomberg must have a policy
0:19:00of what immediate means.
0:19:01Like if it's less than a day,
0:19:03or if it's less than six hours,
0:19:04or if it's less than an hour,
0:19:05I don't know what the policy is,
0:19:07but it wouldn't surprise me if they actually have a policy
0:19:10about what makes it an immediate,
0:19:13didn't immediately respond,
0:19:14because you could see how a source might get frustrated
0:19:17they respond in an hour, and it doesn't matter because they, you know, "Hey, could you help
0:19:21me out? I need you to clarify this thing about your car leases." Okay, well, I'm going to
0:19:24have to talk to people who I'm not even sure who knows about this, but I will try to get
0:19:28back to you as soon as I can, and then you turn around and you start finding that person
0:19:31in your organization and, oh, meanwhile Bloomberg already posted the story. Like, I can understand
0:19:35how that would be really frustrating if you're the person trying to get the comment and they
0:19:39just are going through the motions, but we don't know what the background news gathering
0:19:46here is. But in the end it ends up being the story that boosts the stock. The story has
0:19:50been updated to reflect the boosting of the stock, which I think is interesting. And then,
0:19:58but not updated with the statement that they gave to CNBC.
0:20:00Yeah, I noticed that too. Like, why didn't they put the Apple comment back in? Because
0:20:07the answer to the story has been given. Like, yeah, it was given to CNBC, but like, just
0:20:11link to CNBC now.
0:20:14I think if you asked the editors at Bloomberg, what they'd say is their story is not factually
0:20:18inaccurate. They say it's a small fleet. They say it's testing self-driving technology.
0:20:25Their suggestion in the lead that it echoes a larger deal is the problem, right? Because
0:20:30that is providing a linkage to the Alphabet and Avis deal.
0:20:34And the fact that in the copy, in the story, they literally call out that deal. They refer
0:20:40to it.
0:20:41Right.
0:20:42And it's like, "Oh no, we just mentioned it."
0:20:43- Paul said no.
0:20:44- Yeah.
0:20:45(laughing)
0:20:46- Like, you know, we're just bringing it up.
0:20:47But like, no, you bring it up
0:20:48because then it makes it look like
0:20:50it's a bigger thing, I guess.
0:20:51Anyway, this isn't much of a story
0:20:55other than it's, I think it is just an interesting indication
0:21:00about where a lot of these stories live now,
0:21:04like the kind of the world that they're operating in
0:21:07with like any piece of information
0:21:09and you'll post it and it becomes a big deal,
0:21:11big enough that it literally affects the value of another company.
0:21:16Myke, this is Justin. I'm happy to report that I now have a strategic relationship with
0:21:22the peanut butter producers of America.
0:21:24Oh, congratulations. That must mean a lot to you.
0:21:27It does mean a lot to me. I'm going to be purchasing peanut butter, American-made peanut
0:21:32butter, and eating it. So that's a strategic partnership where they make peanut butter,
0:21:38And that's their strategy, and I buy it and eat it, and that's my strategy.
0:21:41So I think this is going to be great news for the peanut butter industry.
0:21:46I just had the peanut butter industry get in contact with me, Jason, to say that this
0:21:51is merely just a one tub a month deal.
0:21:54It's not like a big, big partnership.
0:21:58Well, I think, Myke, I think what you'll find is that it parallels your deal with the ice
0:22:04cream producers of the UK.
0:22:05Mm-hmm.
0:22:06I'm pretty sure.
0:22:08It mirrors, it echoes, well it echoes that deal. It's not quite the same, but it echoes
0:22:13it, I think you'll find.
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0:24:26So Jason, I saw an article that you wrote on Macworld, when you're extolling the virtues
0:24:33of the keyboard on the 10.5 inch iPad Pro.
0:24:36Yes. I did write that article. I'm glad you found it. I'm glad you read it.
0:24:40I'm always looking. I'm always looking. Like, what's Jason up to now? I have tabs on it.
0:24:44The 10.5, look, it's, I mean, I did the measurements. It's a few millimeters wider. It's like, it's
0:24:50not that much wider than the 9.7 was, but for making a full-size keyboard by the way
0:25:02the definition Apple has chosen, it is wider enough that there's that much, if you think
0:25:09about it, the wider the iPad is, the wider the Smart Cover is, because the Smart Cover
0:25:16is the exact dimensions of the screen of the iPad and of the whole thing, screen plus bezel.
0:25:24And they've redesigned the smart cover a little bit, or the smart keyboard I guess, not smart
0:25:28cover, smart keyboard, the keyboard that lives inside a cover. And it means that those letter
0:25:32keys are now what they would call full size. There's actually an ISO standard which is
0:25:38basically 17 to 19 millimeters between the centers of the key caps is what's considered
0:25:44a full-size keyboard. And these are 17 millimeters, they are the smallest keycaps you can have
0:25:53and call it full-size. But they are, and they actually shrunk some other keys to do that.
0:25:59And the result is that, yeah, I think typing on the 10.5 is even better than typing on
0:26:03the 9.7 was, and I liked the 9.7 smart keyboard. And the 10.5 smart keyboard is that much better.
0:26:10Plus, you get the wider screen, right? So the on-screen keyboard is also better because
0:26:16it's bigger. They just scaled it up. It's literally just stretched wider. I checked.
0:26:22I checked. They didn't reformat, it seems, anything, at least so far, unless they change
0:26:29it in iOS 11 at some point. It's just every keycap is a little bit wider, which means,
0:26:34again, it's not quite the size of the 12.9, which has the full-size keyboard on-screen
0:26:39with a number row at the top, but it's way better. And so that's one of those things.
0:26:45It's like we've talked about the screen being better on the 10.5 than the 9.7, and that's
0:26:50true, but don't miss the other part of it, which is that the keyboard is better. And
0:26:55on iOS 11, you also get that Flick keyboard, which is even better once you get used to
0:26:59it because then you've got quick access to the secondary keys, secondary symbols without
0:27:05having to toggle into another mode. So the typing story on the 10.5 I think is way better
0:27:12than the 9.7. And not to say the 9.7 is bad, but if you're a 9.7 iPad Pro user and you're
0:27:17looking to upgrade and find a reason to upgrade to the 10.5, I would say typing is a thing
0:27:22to keep in mind. Now it's true you have to buy all your accessories again because you
0:27:25can't really, you shouldn't really use the smart keyboard from one on the other and the
0:27:30whole point is that you want the bigger keys. But yeah, I think it's pretty good. I don't
0:27:34do you have all of this, right? You have a smart keyboard on a 10.5. Have you found it
0:27:39to be?
0:27:40>> It feels more comfortable. I mean, I noticed it almost immediately just by looking at it,
0:27:45which is kind of weird. Like, the first time that I saw one of the keyboards, I couldn't--when
0:27:49I looked at the iPad, I couldn't tell that the iPad was physically bigger. But as soon
0:27:53as I saw the keyboard, I was like, "That's bigger." I don't know why, but it was just
0:27:56something in my brain where I was like, "Yep, I know that." And I've been happy with it.
0:28:00I will say last week I was working out of the house for a day or two and I was kind
0:28:08of like around London and just like finding different places that I needed to go and in
0:28:13between meetings and stuff we're just going to coffee shops and just setting up and I
0:28:16was using the 10.5 for it and that is such a great, my god it's such a great iPad to
0:28:23work on.
0:28:25It doesn't, as we said before, it doesn't have all of the benefits of the 12.9 but that
0:28:30kind of middle ground of the full-size keyboard, the 10.5 inch screen, which is bigger, so
0:28:36it's nicer just because everything's bigger because the screen's bigger.
0:28:39So you get, you know, you can kind of, whilst you don't get the ability to, you know, have
0:28:45the full-sized applications side by side, you can like zoom out on them more and stuff
0:28:49like that.
0:28:50Like I'm able to zoom out more on spreadsheets and things like that because I have more physical
0:28:54space to deal with.
0:28:56And I've been really, really impressed with it.
0:28:58like everything is more comfortable, the keyboard is great, the screen is fantastic, like that
0:29:03is an absolutely fantastic iPad.
0:29:08It is even more like an iPad that I'm even more happy to use when traveling.
0:29:13So like I'm going to be traveling a lot over the summer and I've been deliberating or was
0:29:19deliberating right.
0:29:20Do I take the 12.9 or the 10.5?
0:29:22I wasn't sure.
0:29:23And whilst I still haven't come to my complete decision, it isn't a case now of like, oh
0:29:28the screen's too small, that's not gonna be the reason. So I'm really, really impressed
0:29:34with the 10.5. And I've been using it just more and more at home and stuff like that.
0:29:38It really is just an absolutely fantastic iPad.
0:29:42I've been trying to travel with both of them, so I'm taking a couple of short trips over
0:29:49the last couple of weeks. And it's because I want to try both of them out. And yeah,
0:29:54I'm still trying to write my final statement about the iPad Pro because I haven't gotten
0:29:59to that because there's been so much else going on. But I agree with you. I think the
0:30:0310.5 is excellent. As a 12.9 user, I love the 12.9. I really do. It is huge, but I love
0:30:11it. And iOS 11 on it, which we can talk about a little bit more, makes it that much better.
0:30:16The apps are big. It's great. When I use the 10.5, I still feel like, wow, this is small.
0:30:24there's less room for everything than I'm used to on the 12.9, but it's better than
0:30:28the 9.5 or the 9.8, right? It's better, it's bigger without feeling bigger or heavier,
0:30:36really. And I think I've reached the same conclusion you have, which is I would probably
0:30:45enjoy my experience more on the 12.9, just because I do love that big screen, but could
0:30:52I travel without any hesitation about, like, "I really need to be the 12.9 because..."
0:31:00with this 10.5, it's like, "Yeah, I would. I would travel." It's the same processor,
0:31:04you know, it does everything that the 12.9 does. The screen's just a little bit smaller,
0:31:09and it's lighter. And yeah, I could do what I do on the 12.9 just fine on the 10.5. It
0:31:16wouldn't be... it would feel a little more cramped, and I might have to do a little more
0:31:20kind of moving things around on screen than I have to do on the 12.9, but it's an incredibly
0:31:25capable device to the point where I would say like there's like a pie chart of appropriate
0:31:31users for the 12.9 and the 9.7 and now we update that pie chart for appropriate users
0:31:38for the 12.9 and the 10.5. I feel like the already majority of the pie chart that was
0:31:43the 9.7 gets a little bit bigger because I feel like this will push a few more people
0:31:50over to saying, you know, I don't need the bigger iPad. And that's fine. I still love
0:31:55that 12.9 and I'm glad it exists. I would have been very sad if it had been eliminated,
0:31:59but yeah, I think the 10.5 is appreciably better than the 9.7 in a bunch of different
0:32:05ways that make it a more usable device. I am very sad, as you are, that Logitech has,
0:32:13so far at least, chosen not to make a create keyboard for it.
0:32:16I chose to make a terrible keyboard. It's not just so much that they didn't make a create,
0:32:20they made a decision instead to make one of the worst keyboards I've ever used, which is the...
0:32:25- Not that you're bitter. - Not that I'm bitter at all.
0:32:28What is it called? The Slim something or other?
0:32:32- Yeah. - Oh, it's so bad.
0:32:33Just, I hate it. I really, I really, really hate it.
0:32:37Slim Combo. That's it. The Slim Combo.
0:32:39We like the 9.7 create.
0:32:43And so, where's the 10.5? There's a larger
0:32:46issue that I'm going to write about at some point, which is, again, what is the deal with
0:32:51the smart keyboard or the smart connector? Just like so few products with the smart connector.
0:32:59Obviously it's got some issues, but I like the idea of creating keyboards for the iPad,
0:33:06and maybe it's just the size of the market. Maybe people are concerned that they can't
0:33:10make enough money on an iPad keyboard that only works on the iPad Pro, one model of the
0:33:15the iPad Pro but that create keyboard was really good for the 9.7 it would be you know
0:33:23you use it all the time imagine that but a little bit bigger on the 10.5 not the giant
0:33:29shell the MacBook Air shell that's the 12.9 create keyboard but the 9.7 so good a 10.5
0:33:36would be that much better and for whatever reason Logitech seems to just not again they
0:33:43might be working on it and there's something going on and they can't announce it. But the
0:33:48lack of any comment about it makes me concerned that it's just not going to happen. And it's
0:33:53too bad. Not to say that the smart keyboard isn't good. The smart keyboard is good and
0:33:57you can use it in all sorts of circumstances. It's a good keyboard. But the create keyboard
0:34:04was, for people who really want to use a keyboard, was that much better.
0:34:08I think that annoyed me is like they made a product called the slim folio for the iPad
0:34:15the current standard 329 iPad which is the create without the loo with Bluetooth with
0:34:24Bluetooth but they didn't make a version of the create or haven't made a version of the
0:34:30create for the new iPads but I don't know whatever come on Logitech or like anybody
0:34:36really? Like, why is it just Logitech? It's not called the Logitech smart connector, right?
0:34:42Like, come on. What's going on here? Someone needs to do some digging on this to find out
0:34:47what is happening with the smart connector.
0:34:49I agree. Yeah, and if there's anybody out there, we don't do this often, but I'll say
0:34:55if there's anybody out there who knows what the deal is with the smart connector and why
0:35:00accessory vendors are kind of hesitant to do it, if they're technical issues or if it's
0:35:03literally just like the market's not big enough. You would think that there would be some sort
0:35:10of market here, but maybe not. I don't know. I would love to hear about it. I know Myke
0:35:16would love to hear about it because where are they? The iPad Pro is--Apple, I'll put
0:35:24it this way, Apple is providing an opening here. Apple has not yet made a more traditional
0:35:30laptop style keyboard for the iPad Pro. Apple has declined to do that and I'm a
0:35:35little bit baffled by that. I know the smart keyboard is their thing and it's
0:35:41where the first product to do this at all and maybe they think this
0:35:47is enough or maybe they have to start somewhere but like there are
0:35:50opportunities to get in on the ground with this iPad Pro and say we've got a
0:35:57better solution than Apple for you people who are doing your work and your
0:36:01those fortune 500 companies that are embracing the iPad and like we can get
0:36:04you something that's that's more a little more keyboard than what you get
0:36:09with a smart keyboard and yet there are very few that do that it's a little bit
0:36:15it's disappointing I'll say that so let's talk about iOS 11 I have been
0:36:22been holding off installing iOS 11 onto my iPads for a couple of reasons. I mean, one,
0:36:29you know, people say don't put betas on your work devices. Well, these are my primary work
0:36:35devices, both of my iPads, right? The 10.5, the 12.9. That is where if I'm not recording
0:36:40and editing a podcast, all of the other work that comes with running my business is done
0:36:45from those machines. So I've been a bit hesitant. This hesitance came from the fact that beta
0:36:50and bricked both of my iPads and I had to restore them.
0:36:54But then the temptation got to me and I installed the developer beta 2 on my 12.9 inch iPad
0:37:04this morning.
0:37:05This was mostly because this was in our document today and I woke up to a message from Jason,
0:37:11two messages, I think something to the effect of like, "Come on, just install it now."
0:37:16Do it!
0:37:17Do it!
0:37:18So at that point, Jason pushed me over the edge and I installed Beta 2 this morning and
0:37:23it went fine and I can tell there is a massive difference between Beta 1 and Beta 2 and just
0:37:29general reliability.
0:37:31I was having a lot of problems with Beta 1, just like everything was like shaking around
0:37:35all over the place, like it was not good.
0:37:38And Beta 2 is way better.
0:37:40Which I think is the public beta.
0:37:41I think the second developer beta is basically the public beta.
0:37:44So that's the one that anybody can sign up for.
0:37:46Yep.
0:37:47You've been running the betas since WWDC, right?
0:37:51- Yeah, I would say, yeah.
0:37:54So I installed it on a secondary iPad
0:37:56when developer beta one came out.
0:38:01But when I got the new iPads,
0:38:03I didn't wait too long before I installed.
0:38:07So I got a 12.9 and the 10.5.
0:38:10And so I installed the beta on the 12.9 almost right away,
0:38:14figuring that it was based on a backup of my personal 12.9,
0:38:19and this is the one I got for the review.
0:38:22And so if there was a problem,
0:38:26I would just pick up the real 12.9 and use that,
0:38:30my previous one.
0:38:31But I then went, after a few days,
0:38:38I went and installed it on the 10.5,
0:38:41because really it is night and day.
0:38:45Like again, if you absolutely have to rely
0:38:48on everything working right on your iPad,
0:38:51you shouldn't install a beta, especially in early beta,
0:38:53because things are broken.
0:38:56There are things that I try to do.
0:38:57Like I have it where occasionally command tab
0:39:00just stops working.
0:39:01Or if you use the four finger gesture to move between apps
0:39:06in beta two, I have apps that just freeze
0:39:10when you try to do that. That you switch to the other app and then they freeze and you've
0:39:14got to kind of go to the lock screen and unlock it and then wait for it to quit before you
0:39:18can move on with your life.
0:39:20And there's stuff like in Tweetbot for example, if you paste the link into the compose box
0:39:25it immediately crashes every single time.
0:39:28Yeah.
0:39:29By the way there is a workaround for this. If you paste the link before you write any
0:39:33other text it won't crash. Just a quick FYI for anyone.
0:39:38In Twitterific there's a weird bug where when you paste a link in at the end of a tweet,
0:39:43it shows it pasted into the beginning of the tweet and then it moves to the right place.
0:39:50It's super weird.
0:39:51I think there's something to do with the drag and drop stuff is messing around with copy
0:39:57paste.
0:39:58Yeah, and then another one that gets me, and this is actually a workflow issue that I did
0:40:02have to deal with, which is literally because I have these workflows in
0:40:07workflow that resize photos and upload them to my server for six colors and
0:40:14using transmit the FTP app and they don't work. It gets to the transmit
0:40:19step and just stops. And so I let panic know and I let workflow know. Um, and
0:40:27it's fine because it's a beta. Like I'm not going to get mad at anybody
0:40:30about it other than myself maybe. That's what happens. But this is what I'm saying is you
0:40:36gotta pay right now. If you want to get the benefits of the multitasking stuff now, you
0:40:42gotta pay now. Now for us, we talk about this stuff, I think it's worth taking that as part
0:40:49of our jobs, taking that risk a little bit. I have found that you can work with them and
0:40:55bugs are not horrible, you can deal with them, and the trade-off I get is that I get to experience
0:41:01and think about and write about these features, and maybe even, Dan and I were talking about
0:41:07this the other day on the Six Colors podcast, maybe even influence it a little bit, because
0:41:12I've seen, like Matthew Panzareno had a really nice Twitter thread that, you know, I hope
0:41:18he filed some radars too, but he had a really nice Twitter thread about some of the UI things
0:41:23that are in these early betas of iOS 11 that just seem like misguided or wrong. And now
0:41:28is the time for those of us who use this stuff a lot to write articles and post tweets and
0:41:35file radars and say don't let this ship to stuff that isn't quite right. Because there's
0:41:43definitely stuff in there that is new interface stuff that doesn't work right. That like you
0:41:51you shouldn't do it this way. And some of that stuff, it may be stuff we get used to
0:41:55and we deal with it and we move on, but some of it feels like it's just misguided and the
0:42:00more people who say, "Why is it like this?" the more somebody inside Apple has ammunition
0:42:05to say, "See, I told you we shouldn't do it this way," and maybe change it.
0:42:11So what are some of the things for you right now that are sticking out, good and bad?
0:42:19Well, on the good, and I haven't even put it on my iPhone because I don't see the point,
0:42:24because really I installed it for the iPad stuff. I'm looking forward to using drag and
0:42:30drop, but drag and drop right now is kind of, until there are betas of third-party apps
0:42:35I use that support drag and drop more explicitly right now, it's really hit and miss, so I
0:42:39kind of don't bother a lot of the time. So for me, it is the multitasking stuff, primarily,
0:42:44fact that I can have two windows open in split view and a slide-over window
0:42:50running and the slide-over window can be left or right, the fact that I can have
0:42:55those two windows live together so that I can have Twitter and Slack open side
0:43:00by side in one and my text editor and Safari open in another and I can command
0:43:06tab between them, that's great. That's that moment where I'm like, "Oh yeah!" and
0:43:10the command tab is fast, it basically just does a dissolve, a really fast
0:43:14dissolve and you've gone from your these two apps to these other two apps and
0:43:18they get to sit there in the configuration you set them in because
0:43:21remember in iOS 10 you can only have one sort of secondary app that you set and
0:43:26if you switch command tab to a different app the the left app changes but the
0:43:31right app just stays there and in iOS 11 that concept is gone which is great
0:43:36which is not to say that it couldn't be better but it's so much better than what
0:43:39was there before. So for me, that's the number one.
0:43:44That's an interesting thing to point out because I know for a lot of people, that change has
0:43:49been a problem and I thought that it was going to be a problem for me, right? Because I would
0:43:54do so much work where I would have, I would basically be using three applications and
0:44:00the way that I would do it is so like I'll give the biggest one for me is when I'm preparing
0:44:04for shows. I would have Google Docs on the right hand side, so it's in the non-moving
0:44:09side, and then on the left hand side I would have Notes. And what would happen is I would
0:44:15be going through my Notes document where I've been saving links and stuff throughout the
0:44:18week, I would tap on a link, it would switch out to Safari, I would read the articles that
0:44:23I need to read, copy and paste the things that I need, and then just Command Tab, and
0:44:27that Command Tab would swap me right back to Notes again. And this is just something
0:44:32that I've really gotten to use and that is the way that I work, right? And I do it for
0:44:37like when we're sending out invoices and stuff, then I'll have like a web browser, I have
0:44:42two web browsers, don't ask, and Google Sheets and would like I'll be swapping between Safari
0:44:47and Google Sheets with Chrome on the right hand side. Like, what? Great, right? That's
0:44:51how I would do it. And I've realized quite quickly, ah, can't do that anymore, right?
0:44:59that doesn't work. If you command tab, it takes you to a complete full screen app or
0:45:04another pair or something like that. But the way that I was doing it this morning, because
0:45:09I prepared for this show using iOS 11, I waited until I'd update it before I did it so I could
0:45:13try and work it out. It's just a case of changing things around. So one thing that I was, the
0:45:17way I was doing it this morning, is I would have Google Docs and a web browser open. So
0:45:24I'd have Google Docs and Safari open,
0:45:26and then I would have notes in that little slide over app.
0:45:29So I would just slide it over, click the link,
0:45:32it would open in Safari, slide it away again,
0:45:34and then I can use the two and bring it back when I need it.
0:45:37So it's just a case for me of adapting to the new method,
0:45:42and while it feels weird right now,
0:45:45it's because I've had two years of muscle memory
0:45:49to build these workflows that I currently have,
0:45:51like the way that I'm currently working on my iPad,
0:45:54it's been that way forever,
0:45:56but it doesn't mean that that was better.
0:45:58Like for example, I spent, I'm not kidding,
0:46:0145 seconds yesterday trying to find an app
0:46:05in the current split view picker on iOS 10.
0:46:08So I was just swiping through the list,
0:46:09I was like I know it's here somewhere,
0:46:11and I'm doing it the whole time,
0:46:12and then I realized if I was on iOS 11,
0:46:15I would just swipe up from the dock and just drag it up.
0:46:19And just for an hour today of doing this, I'm like,
0:46:23oh, this is really, I'm zipping around the system.
0:46:27You just gotta lock into it, but it's like,
0:46:30okay, so I can just bring up this app
0:46:32and then I can swap it around with this one,
0:46:33and then I can search for this app
0:46:35and it brings open a full screen,
0:46:36and then I just bring up the doc
0:46:37and just drag another app in.
0:46:38And I was doing something earlier,
0:46:40I was watching a YouTube video in the YouTube app, right?
0:46:43And then I needed to respond to a message
0:46:47and I needed to copy something out of an email,
0:46:49so I brought up the two applications, did that, right, did the work that I needed, swiped
0:46:53up from the dock, and then the recent thing was the YouTube app. I just pressed it and
0:46:56it pulled the YouTube video back again. And like, iOS 11, me and you are gonna be real
0:47:00good friends.
0:47:01Yeah, you talk about the muscle memory, I think that's one of the challenges when you're
0:47:06using a beta is, and you're evaluating it and you're writing or talking about it, is
0:47:12trying to keep in mind that everything is different, and different doesn't necessarily
0:47:19mean bad, because the danger is that everything you see that's different, you go, "Oh, this
0:47:28is bad, they should go back to the way it was," and then you complain about it or you
0:47:31file a bug or whatever. And that's one of the tricks I've found, is like, you gotta
0:47:37really think about it like, "Do I react to this because it's different or because there
0:47:42are reasons why it doesn't work for me?" And that's just a challenge. So when, you know,
0:47:49some of the stuff that comes up in a new system I end up embracing and being like, "Oh yeah,
0:47:55okay, I see why they did it. I just need to live with it for a while." And other things,
0:47:59if you go through that process and try to say, "Now why am I reacting this way to this?
0:48:03was I doing before? Is there another way to do this now? Or is this a mistake? Because
0:48:08it's just so easy to just have that knee-jerk reaction of, "Oh, it's different. I don't
0:48:11like it. Make it back to the way it was." And sometimes changes can be bad, but sometimes
0:48:16it's just change and you're reacting to it. So I will give you an example of something
0:48:21that somebody came up with. Was it Federico? Somebody mentioned, maybe Steve John Smith,
0:48:27But it was a really good point, which is, to your old workflow, one thing you can't
0:48:35do is pair two apps together and then pair another app with one of those previous apps.
0:48:43Like, they only have one buddy, and I get why that would be a thing that you would do
0:48:51if you're Apple, because it sort of simplifies the whole process not to have different instances
0:48:56of the app displaying in the app switcher and all of that, but I can see how in different
0:49:01workflows you might want to have the same app recur, like I want this app in Safari,
0:49:06but I also want this app in Safari. And in iOS 11, at least so far, that's not something
0:49:11you're allowed to do. And that's, and slide over might be a workaround there, but I could
0:49:16see like the argument that that's a case where is there a workaround like slide over and
0:49:22is that enough or is this something that really it should be able to do it but I also feel
0:49:26a little bit ungrateful even talking about it because it's like it's so much better than
0:49:30it was yeah and like I said it could be better there are some things that I don't entirely
0:49:36endorse but it's so much better than it was so yeah that's that's the challenge the multitasking
0:49:42I mean I gotta say I think they I think they kind of nailed it searching is another thing
0:49:46right we in a multitasking context you you still can't like search for an app and then
0:49:51drop it in. It has to be in the dock or in the recent part of the dock.
0:49:56Well you can search through Spotlight and then pull it in. So for someone like me who's
0:50:01a keyboard user, right, like I'm a persistent keyboard user with my iPad, that works fine
0:50:07because I can Spotlight search and then drag and drop from the Spotlight results. But I
0:50:11know that it's not as easy to do this if you don't have a keyboard all the time. But that
0:50:16works great for me.
0:50:17And I imagine that's that's the thing making that more searchable. I imagine is something that is going to happen
0:50:23In fact, I was finding that I wanted the command tab switcher to allow me to just touch on one of them and say drag
0:50:32It over here and is like nope that
0:50:34Not allowed I'll be nice. I tried to do that too where I was like, oh, why do I need to?
0:50:39I just need to bring it in. Let me just drag it straight out
0:50:41Yeah, I you know you touch on something there that I do feel it's like I feel like I feel like I can't criticize
0:50:46criticize, I'm scared they're gonna take it away from me. Right? Like, you asked for
0:50:51this, don't start saying we're doing it wrong now because we'll take it away.
0:50:55Multitasking has been removed in public beta 2. You ungrateful people.
0:50:59How dare you. There is one thing though, Jason, where I completely agree with you, right?
0:51:03Sometimes, don't just say something bad or worse, get used to it first and then see how
0:51:08you feel. I agree with that. However, the notification center is a disaster right now.
0:51:16There are a ton of different things that are wrong with it.
0:51:19Now the idea of merging the lock screen
0:51:22and notification center, I know why that's problematic
0:51:27and some people don't like it, right?
0:51:29'Cause it's like what is the lock state or whatever,
0:51:31but from a functional perspective,
0:51:33that doesn't bother me too much, right?
0:51:36Like whatever, right?
0:51:38I've just got the time there now instead.
0:51:39I mean admittedly I'm not using this on an iPhone.
0:51:42I don't know how it is on an iPhone,
0:51:43if it's different in any way or if it's trickier
0:51:45or more confusing, but it's like, okay, whatever.
0:51:48My problem is, so I'm coming at this from the iPad,
0:51:51one, you have just a single column,
0:51:54which is such a waste of space
0:51:56on this huge screen that you've given me,
0:51:58especially now you have reverted
0:52:00to a single column widget layout,
0:52:02where we had a dual column widget layout before,
0:52:04but the biggest problem is just the way
0:52:06you interact with notifications is a nightmare.
0:52:10So currently, even on the iPad,
0:52:12you have to do like a mock 3D touch
0:52:14to do any interaction at all with notifications.
0:52:18Where in the past, you used to be able to swipe them
0:52:20and perform some quick actions, which is way quicker
0:52:22because on the iPad, you're waiting for an animation.
0:52:25Because on the iPhone, you are instigating the 3D touch
0:52:29so you can make that happen immediately.
0:52:31But on the iPad, you have to press and hold
0:52:33and wait for it to open. - It's a tap and hold, yeah.
0:52:35- Because it's-- - There's a lot
0:52:36of tap and hold now. - Exactly.
0:52:37I mean, and tap and hold for the drag and drop,
0:52:39like I'm fine with, but for the notifications,
0:52:43it's not great.
0:52:44Also, I can't find a way to-- you can't just tap on the notification and it opens the app
0:52:50anymore.
0:52:51All the notification stuff seems like a bit of a nightmare to me right now.
0:52:56That is the one area that-- well, one, I'm seeing a lot of people who are using the public
0:53:00beta now start to complain about this.
0:53:02I'm hoping that this is a thing that will get refined as we go through because right
0:53:08now it is a bit of a mess, I think.
0:53:10Right.
0:53:11We don't know.
0:53:12of the other things that's tricky when you talk about betas is we can talk about them
0:53:17like it's a done deal, but we actually don't know whether…
0:53:20Yeah, they just, they literally may have not gotten to it yet. Like, we're making some
0:53:23changes to the notification stuff. It's not finished, right? Like, you know…
0:53:27Or they, or they, they, they said, "Well, let's try this and see what the reaction
0:53:31is," right? Because they know that they have a public beta process now. So let's try
0:53:34it and see what the reaction is. "Oh, wow, people really hated that. Let's go back,"
0:53:37because we've seen that, right? We've seen that in previous betas, where they made
0:53:40changes and everybody screamed and they went back. Even sometimes things that we kind of
0:53:44like the changes but other people are like, "Oh no, I can't believe it!" and they're like,
0:53:47"Alright, we're going to turn that off."
0:53:48Yeah, so I have faith that if there's something here that categorically people are not happy
0:53:53with and people are raising feedback and stuff like that, that they will change it because
0:53:58they're not silly and we've seen it happen before. But like I was saying, if there's
0:54:01one thing that I don't like, it's that. That's kind of the thing that I'm not too keen on.
0:54:07I feel like it's not fully baked. I agree with you there. I was going to point out,
0:54:14I actually don't like control center on the iPad. I think that, I think again, I think
0:54:19it needs to be refined.
0:54:20I like it a lot. What do you not like about it?
0:54:23I don't love, um, I understand that they kind of wanted to have a single gesture for the
0:54:30multitasking and control center. So you've got this and the doc, right? So you've got
0:54:35the, you got to take the big swipe up. Um, but there are a few things. So like I needed
0:54:40to airplay a video last weekend and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to do
0:54:49it because there was no airplay command visible in the video player in the app. And I ended
0:54:57up figuring it out with help, but what I had to do was I had to swipe up to control center.
0:55:02I had to tap and hold on the "Now Playing" icon, at which point it expanded to show the
0:55:12– because the screen mirroring is visible on Control Center.
0:55:15But that's not what you wanted to do.
0:55:18But I wanted to AirPlay a video and not mirror my screen, and I had to tap and hold on "Now
0:55:23Playing" to bring up the AirPlay submenu, which then I could tap on and choose an Apple
0:55:27TV.
0:55:28then, so I'm out of the app, I'm in Control Center, I'm in a modal pop-up in Control Center,
0:55:35and then I bring up another modal, I guess it changes the modal pop-up to be a list view,
0:55:42and then you pick where you want to play, and then it plays. And that's wrong for a
0:55:47few ways. First is we want to play video, and it's very much like a music interface
0:55:53that's happening here. So that was not good. I don't like the fact that I can't tap and
0:55:59hold on the Bluetooth and the Wi-Fi and get a picker to pick a new thing. I have to go
0:56:07to the settings app. I feel like that should be covered. I think you should be able to
0:56:12add and remove items from Control Center by tapping and holding and having them jiggle
0:56:17and move them around on the screen or remove them.
0:56:19- Yeah, I'll have to be able to move stuff too.
0:56:22- It's editable from a list in the settings app,
0:56:24which just seems completely wrong to me.
0:56:26And again, it's a new feature,
0:56:28maybe it's on their list
0:56:29and they just couldn't make it happen.
0:56:30That's frustrating to me.
0:56:32And then my number one complaint actually
0:56:35is about the brightness control.
0:56:36Because, so I'm sitting in bed and it's morning or night,
0:56:41I'm reading something on my iPad and it's, you know,
0:56:45it's black text on a white background, it's really bright.
0:56:48And I decide I need to make this screen a little bit darker
0:56:52so that this white text on a black text on a white background
0:56:56is not as harsh in my eyes.
0:56:59In iOS 10, you flip up Control Center
0:57:02and you grab the brightness slider, right?
0:57:05And the Control Center is only
0:57:06on the bottom part of the screen.
0:57:07As you slide the brightness slider, what happens?
0:57:10It actually drops out the opacity on the app behind you
0:57:13so that you can see the actual effect
0:57:16of the brightness change on the app you're using
0:57:19and get it to like there, there, I'm comfortable with that.
0:57:21Well, in iOS 11, it takes your app,
0:57:24throws it into a thumbnail
0:57:26and then you slide a little slider,
0:57:27which means you can't see the context,
0:57:29not really, of brightness.
0:57:31So then now you're guessing like, well, is that enough?
0:57:34Tap on the app.
0:57:35Nope, it's still too bright.
0:57:36Bring it back up, make it down a little bit.
0:57:37Oh, that's a little too dark.
0:57:39Tap it again, bring it a little bit up.
0:57:41It's just, it's a mistake.
0:57:42Like it's bad user experience.
0:57:44I want to adjust, they had it right before.
0:57:47I want to adjust the brightness in context
0:57:49of what I'm viewing so that I can see
0:57:52whether it's too bright or too dark.
0:57:53And with this approach, you can't do that.
0:57:55You just have to guess.
0:57:56And, you know, again, I'll get used to it, I suppose,
0:58:00but that's one where I can tell now,
0:58:02like, that is not the right effect.
0:58:06That is, you are losing usability by doing that.
0:58:09So what I'm saying is control center.
0:58:11There are a lot of things I like about it,
0:58:14but that is not, I've got some complaints.
0:58:16- Yeah, I can agree with you
0:58:17that there are definitely some issues,
0:58:19especially the brightness one, 'cause I do the same.
0:58:21But on the whole, I really prefer
0:58:24the control center layout and design,
0:58:26because even, you know, the thing with the brightness thing,
0:58:29what I'm, I'm willing to make the trade-off
0:58:32based on the fact that now I can swipe it up
0:58:34and brightness is always in the same place
0:58:35where I expect it to be.
0:58:36Like-- - I agree.
0:58:37- That has annoyed me every day for a year.
0:58:41and I think I would prefer to just like,
0:58:45maybe have to do a little bit more fiddling
0:58:46or eventually just work out what the brightness will be.
0:58:50Right, like there will always be like in the morning
0:58:52or at night there's gonna be a level that I'm gonna like
0:58:54and I'll be able to tell visually, right,
0:58:56like on the little slider, maybe.
0:58:58But the fact of me knowing where everything's gonna be,
0:59:01I'm way happy with that.
0:59:02And also, I am maybe in the minority here
0:59:05but I think it looks really cool.
0:59:06I like the way it looks.
0:59:09and I'm also a big fan of the additional functions.
0:59:12It's been really fun, right,
0:59:13like to watch people sharing things about the beta
0:59:16'cause everyone's just using screen recording.
0:59:19- Yeah, absolutely. - It's been really fun
0:59:20to see that, and I'm like, yeah, this is great.
0:59:22Like, this is a great step.
0:59:24So this is just the beginning of our iOS 11 thoughts,
0:59:29I guess.
0:59:31There is a lot to like, there is a lot to,
0:59:34clearly that needs some refinement,
0:59:36And honestly, we're so early in the process right now,
0:59:39I believe a lot of it will be refined.
0:59:41But overall, I am very, very, very positive about iOS 11,
0:59:47and I'm really excited to see what happens
0:59:51come September, October, as all of the applications
0:59:54that I use are updated and enhanced, right?
0:59:57Like drag and drop.
0:59:59- I'm excited that TestFlight, which is the source of,
1:00:02that's how you get beta versions of apps,
1:00:04Like Apple has already apparently turned on the spigot
1:00:07where apps built for iOS 11 can be put in TestFlight,
1:00:11which it used to be that that took a while,
1:00:14like that was late in the game.
1:00:15And so we would have these summer experiences with iOS 11,
1:00:18but it was iOS 11 from Apple.
1:00:21And then all of our apps were iOS 10 apps.
1:00:23And this summer I have hope that for the apps
1:00:26that if you're fortunate enough to be using betas of apps,
1:00:30you've talked to the developer,
1:00:32you've gotten on their TestFlight list.
1:00:33And I would say that if you are somebody who makes the move to iOS 11 and has an
1:00:38app that you love on iOS 11, that whether it works properly or not, if you love it
1:00:46and you use it and you know, you're going to use it a lot under iOS 11 this summer,
1:00:50send an email to the developer and offer and say, Hey, I'm using iOS 11 and I love
1:00:58your app.
1:00:59I don't know if you're doing a test flight for iOS 11, but I'm, you know, I,
1:01:05I would, I would use it heavily if you want to, if, if you want me to test it,
1:01:08they may say, no, be polite, don't demand it and don't feel like you're entitled
1:01:14to it.
1:01:14But, um, I would say that that can certainly make the beta experience better.
1:01:19And I would think that getting good feedback from committed users of a
1:01:24product is helpful to developers as part of the beta process, but you're really
1:01:28in deep now because then you're using beta software on beta software. So you
1:01:32gotta be prepared. But I'm excited about it because I've got apps that I use and
1:01:36that I like that are going to be updating in TestFlight for iOS 11 and
1:01:39that's exciting because I'm not gonna have to wait until the day that iOS 11
1:01:43ships and then the update hits the App Store because I want to use it. I want to
1:01:49use that stuff now. I have apps in my TestFlight that are built for iOS 11 but
1:01:55TestFlight is not working on my iPad.
1:01:58- I've heard, yeah, so TestFlight didn't work at all
1:02:00in beta one for me.
1:02:01In beta two, it's working on some of my iPads
1:02:05and not on others.
1:02:06And we've had friends who've said the same thing,
1:02:09that they can't get, the first beta,
1:02:14I just kept tapping the link
1:02:16and it never would click, basically.
1:02:21- I am trying to log in and it's telling me
1:02:23that TestFlight is unavailable.
1:02:25- Yes, so I have three iPads right now running iOS 11,
1:02:29the old 9.7, the 10.5, and the 12.9.
1:02:33And two of them have access to TestFlight,
1:02:36and the other says it's not available.
1:02:38- If anybody knows how to fix this,
1:02:40please let me know, please let me know.
1:02:42I really wanna use TestFlight.
1:02:44There is one application in there that I really wanna use,
1:02:49and I can't, and it's making me upset.
1:02:51Also, I'm gonna run into some problems
1:02:52of some of the apps that I used.
1:02:54(laughing)
1:02:55That I'm on the base for anyway,
1:02:56so we'll see how that goes.
1:02:58I was 11 kids, it's real.
1:03:00- It's real.
1:03:00- All right, today's show is also brought to you
1:03:02by FreshBooks.
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1:05:12of this show. Small giant mic. That's me. That is me. So, uh,
1:05:19the Mac OS High Sierra public beta. I don't, I don't, thank you. I don't know
1:05:28if there's as much to say with this one. I have you, I'm sure you've probably played with the
1:05:38the-- hi, Sierra Beta a little bit. Do you have any-- what is here, Jason? What is here
1:05:44for people?
1:05:46JASON LEWIS-CURTIS-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DUHN-MCCOY-DU
1:05:46Well, it's, there's stuff. Photos, I wrote a whole thing about photos.
1:05:54But we're gonna get into photos in a minute, right? We're pulling photos out of this initial discussion.
1:05:58I'm letting you get away with it that easy, because we have a whole discussion about the new photos.
1:06:02But I wanna know...
1:06:04Apple file system, which I haven't tried yet, but people are excited about.
1:06:10So when you sign up for High Sierra, does the does APFS begin immediately like with iOS 10.3?
1:06:18Like does it just move you over or do you does it like say hey do you want to do this?
1:06:22No, I think you have the option to upgrade a drive.
1:06:26I feel like that's better for the Mac.
1:06:27If you because you can boot different storage devices on Macs, right?
1:06:32It's not like iOS and so you could be in a situation where you convert that and then you boot into another OS
1:06:38an earlier OS and it doesn't like see the drive.
1:06:41It's like, I don't even know what that is.
1:06:43And that's bad because then your data is only visible
1:06:46from versions that can see APFS.
1:06:49So, but I haven't tried it out.
1:06:51And, you know, they talked about it a lot
1:06:54on accidental tech podcasts.
1:06:56So I'd refer people there.
1:06:58I think there's some stuff that's existing now
1:07:02that's exciting, like quick copies.
1:07:04Like if you duplicate a file,
1:07:05it just basically marks it as a duplicate.
1:07:07It's instant, treats it, does the right thing.
1:07:10If you edit it later, it'll write that new edit out to disk
1:07:13while keeping the original in its place.
1:07:15It's all good.
1:07:18Time machine in a long run will be better,
1:07:20but not in the short run using this technology.
1:07:23I'm interested in how it works on fusion drives,
1:07:27'cause it sounds like since it was built
1:07:29with a fusion drive in mind,
1:07:31that fusion drives will be better.
1:07:35that Apple has said that it's gonna place data
1:07:40on the flash and hard drives on a profile basis
1:07:43using hints on optimal file location for different apps
1:07:48for increased performance.
1:07:50So it sounds like they're trying,
1:07:52APFS is trying to do the right thing
1:07:57and be very optimized for Fusion Drive.
1:08:00Also it's a file system built with the idea for SSDs.
1:08:05So I'm intrigued by that as somebody who's got a computer
1:08:09that has an SSD on it,
1:08:10that this might be a much better experience
1:08:13in terms of my disks than the file system
1:08:19that was built for spinning disks.
1:08:21But again, this is esoteric stuff.
1:08:23It's gonna be like, this is step one of a long process
1:08:26where this is coming in and then changes will start to happen
1:08:31that will make it more relevant as time goes on.
1:08:37What else is in here?
1:08:40All the HEVC stuff, high efficiency video coding
1:08:44that is in iOS 11 is in here too.
1:08:47So support for those higher quality,
1:08:51more compressed videos, H.265,
1:08:56is in High Sierra too.
1:08:59So you wanna have that compatibility thing.
1:09:02I mean, it's still gonna be incompatible.
1:09:04This stuff is gonna be, unless it's converted,
1:09:06it's gonna be incompatible with older operating systems,
1:09:08but it will be the two most recent Apple operating systems
1:09:13will have compatibility for those files.
1:09:17What else?
1:09:18Metal 2, but again, it's a developer feature.
1:09:23So the idea there is that you should be able
1:09:26to see apps take advantage of a better
1:09:31and more efficient graphics pipeline.
1:09:33That includes their VR support that they've got,
1:09:37the HTC Vive for headsets.
1:09:39It remains to be seen if they're gonna be like,
1:09:42if we're actually gonna see HTC Vives attached
1:09:45to Macs playing VR games,
1:09:50if that's gonna be a thing that happens or not,
1:09:52and which Macs would that be?
1:09:55Is it just the new iMacs?
1:09:57Is it other models?
1:09:58We don't really know.
1:09:59Safari update stuff is in there,
1:10:03although that'll come to older operating systems,
1:10:06'cause I think they update Safari
1:10:08a couple of versions back when they do it,
1:10:11including WebRTC, which we talked about,
1:10:13that will mean that a lot of these web podcast tools
1:10:16will start to work on Safari at some point, probably.
1:10:19There's some work that the developers need to do
1:10:21to support it, but it should be supportable.
1:10:24So tell me what's going on with the photos then.
1:10:27You don't want to hear about the improved full screen mode in Mail?
1:10:31No, not really, Jason.
1:10:34Or a Safari reader on a per domain basis.
1:10:39That's actually kind of nice.
1:10:40Sure.
1:10:41I get all these complaints when I link to stories that I write on sites that have autoplay
1:10:44video and it's like, well now you just mark it as always turn on Safari reader.
1:10:48Well also, autoplay video is being killed in Safari, right?
1:10:52true too. That's the story, although I haven't seen that work, but that's the idea, is that you can just turn off
1:10:58autoplay of everything. Which is, that's pretty cool. So yeah, the big one I would say is photos. There's a lot of changes in photos, which is,
1:11:10I wrote a book about it, so I care about that. There's new editing views, there's some new editing tools, they finally have committed to the sidebar for the UI for it, which previously you could have it as tabs or as a sidebar,
1:11:21tabs or as a sidebar felt like there was a little war going on there where some people
1:11:25were like, no tabs and other people are like, come on sidebar. And they're like, oh no,
1:11:30sidebar is like iPhoto. It's old and boring. We don't want that. And the sidebar people
1:11:33won. So the sidebar is just there all the time, which is fine. And they've got, you
1:11:38know, your photos organized into different media types. So like you can quickly jump
1:11:42to all the live photos and all the screenshots and that's in this albums area along with
1:11:47with your own albums that you make.
1:11:49And then there's like a library view
1:11:50where there's all your imports you can actually see now.
1:11:54Like when did I import that file?
1:11:56It was back here and you can find it that way.
1:11:58It's got a persistent import history view of your library,
1:12:02which is kind of interesting.
1:12:03And they improved memories and people,
1:12:09the people got better.
1:12:11The people are better.
1:12:12Yeah, your friends are gonna be better now.
1:12:13people stuff is, the interface is a little nicer, but they've actually improved the face
1:12:19recognition engine. They actually look at context of what people are in what photos.
1:12:24The example that I gave, I think, in my story about this is if you've got two people that
1:12:29you have photos of who never appear together and it finds a photo of people, it thinks
1:12:38it's those two people, it's going to be more skeptical of that because they're never supposed
1:12:42to be together, or if you've got photos of two people
1:12:43who are commonly together, and it's got,
1:12:46I know this person is in this photo,
1:12:48and this might be that person,
1:12:49it's going to be more aggressive about saying,
1:12:52"No, that's that person," because it understands
1:12:55the context of when people are together or not,
1:12:58and uses that as a hint.
1:12:59So that's kind of interesting.
1:13:02And then when you say, "This is this person,"
1:13:07that metadata gets synced in the cloud,
1:13:09So your other devices can use that as part of the hinting
1:13:13when they're doing their facial processing of your photos,
1:13:16which is not the same as syncing all your metadata.
1:13:18I wrote the story and I had a bunch of people say,
1:13:20"Wait a second, I thought that it synced all the metadata."
1:13:22And it's like, "Well, yeah, we thought that too
1:13:24when it got announced on stage,
1:13:26but it turns out that that's not the case
1:13:27and that it scans everything."
1:13:30But on every device, I don't know.
1:13:33But this is a bit of metadata that does get synced,
1:13:37which is if you said this photo contains this person,
1:13:40that rides along with that photo.
1:13:41And that the other devices can look at that and say,
1:13:44"Oh, that's that person."
1:13:46And that helps keep your faces in sync across.
1:13:51And that's good because that's the one place
1:13:53where there's human interaction with training.
1:13:55That's probably why they did it.
1:13:57Is like, this is the one place where there is,
1:14:00like you have to do work to train faces.
1:14:03You don't do work to say, this is a cow, this is a cow,
1:14:05This is a cat, this is a dog, this is also a cow, right?
1:14:10This is a mountain, this is a horse, this is a lake.
1:14:13With people though, you have to do that.
1:14:15This is Julian, this is Lauren, this is Jamie,
1:14:18this is Myke, this is Steven, right?
1:14:20You have to do that.
1:14:22And it's really annoying if you have to do that
1:14:24on every device that you own.
1:14:26So they put that in, they sync that.
1:14:29So at least that part is better.
1:14:31And then on the memory side,
1:14:33it's more of this machine learning stuff
1:14:34where it's like memories are these auto-generated albums.
1:14:36It's actually very clever that they introduced last time
1:14:39and they've created more context now.
1:14:42Basically it's looking for things it recognizes
1:14:46and building albums based on those.
1:14:48And those are memories.
1:14:49And now there are more of those things it's looking for.
1:14:51So like pets as an example where it'll see animals
1:14:54and maybe like even like at your house and it'll say,
1:14:58oh, here's a gallery of pet photos.
1:15:01or like recognizing food and saying,
1:15:04oh, there's a gallery of your meal photos.
1:15:08So there's like a half dozen new things
1:15:11it's trying to mine out of your photo metadata
1:15:15and float up so that you can see them,
1:15:18which is, it's interesting
1:15:20'cause this is what they're trying to do
1:15:22is they're trying to take your library
1:15:23of tens of thousands of photos
1:15:24and use some intelligence based on those scans
1:15:27that it's done and the objects it's recognized,
1:15:29do a second level which is now that I know what's in all these photos and when they were
1:15:34taken and where they were taken, can I make albums based on that? And so it's trying to
1:15:39get better there.
1:15:40What do you think, is there anything else other than the machine learning data which
1:15:45isn't synced, which should be, which we all thought was going to be, but turns out it
1:15:48isn't. Is there anything else from that, in that sort of vein that you would like to see
1:15:54added? Are there any other big missing features for you?
1:15:56I don't know, I think some of it is just that it all needs to get better. And that's like,
1:16:02the memories thing is a good example of that, where they just need to keep pushing on that,
1:16:06because the ultimate goal is that you should not, not only should you not have to tag your
1:16:10family in every photo, you should not have to make albums, right? Like, you take a trip,
1:16:15you take a road trip for the summer, it should figure that out, right? It should be like,
1:16:19"Oh, you know, these, this, if I look at this time stream, I can see you moving, you know,
1:16:24in this direction and then coming home again and being in all these places you aren't usually,
1:16:28and it's these people, and like, I can make a photo highlight of your vacation with all
1:16:34the different locations included, right? All of it's there. It just needs to be intelligent
1:16:39enough to be able to do that, and for a birthday party, and for a trip to the beach, like whatever,
1:16:44it should be able to do all that stuff. So the more that Apple can push that, the better,
1:16:49because not only is Google giving them a lot of competition there, but I think that's one
1:16:52of the great advantages of having this stuff. It's like, I don't just want a repository
1:16:56for my photos anymore. I do want it to start doing my organization for me because I'm not
1:17:01going to take the time. I'm not going to build a lot of albums. I might build some, but if
1:17:06it can float up something and say, "Hey, here's all of your trips to Seattle in this little
1:17:11gallery." It's like, "Wow, that's really great. You know, I just took a trip to Seattle and
1:17:15then I've taken trips there before and now you've put this whole thing together with
1:17:18some of the same people across 10 years, 15 years, that's really great, right? More like
1:17:24that and better recognition, better metadata fits into that, better realization like they've
1:17:29added of the relationship between different people where these people appear in photos
1:17:33together and these people don't. So these are work people and these are home, you know,
1:17:37family people and that, you know, these are these kinds of family people and these kind.
1:17:41The more that all of these photos things do with that, the better. Also, I will say, we
1:17:47we get a calendar every year that's based on the previous year. So like January will
1:17:51be pictures from January and February will be pictures from February. And one thing that
1:17:55they haven't done that frustrates me a little that I'd like them to do is like if I order
1:17:59a calendar from Apple, it should like figure out what I might want in the calendar like
1:18:05before I start working on it. That would be great. It's like we've already done it. We've
1:18:10already you know we've already picked the best photos from this year and put it on a
1:18:14a calendar for you that would be great but on the account that they are still
1:18:17the ones making these things it is interesting that they've not applied the
1:18:20machine learning to make in the products yeah Google do that now right that was
1:18:24one thing that Google photos now does yeah third-party apps actually can hook
1:18:30into photos now for the first time so like Shutterfly can build an app that
1:18:34basically lives inside of photos and lets you build and order stuff through
1:18:37Shutterfly so they've opened that to third parties it's no longer just sort
1:18:40of via Apple. And these are going to be like Mac App Store apps, right? Yeah, yeah, there's
1:18:46going to be a special section in the Mac App Store that is going to be for apps that have
1:18:50this feature and you download them in the Mac App Store and then they basically get
1:18:54inserted into Photos and then you can use them within Photos to build these things and
1:19:00that actually passes through some memories data, which is interesting, but I don't think
1:19:05that Apple is using it. Turns out there is something happening with the Mac App Store.
1:19:11A very little bit, a very little bit. I should say two years after introducing live photos
1:19:17they actually put live photo editing into photos which is nice. You can set the crop,
1:19:22you can set the animation effect if you wanted to bounce or just be a standard animation.
1:19:26They've got this wild like, it's a long duration exposure thing where I had these live photos
1:19:33at a waterfall and I flipped it into long duration exposure mode and it turns into this
1:19:37kind of like beautiful like long exposure of the waterfall but it was built out of a
1:19:41live photo which is pretty cool and you can choose the representative image, the picture
1:19:48frame image basically from your live photo. I think that's going to be better over time
1:19:51because I suspect newer iPhones running iOS 7 are going to get better or iOS 11 are going
1:19:57to get better at what they capture with the live photo will be higher quality I think
1:20:03over time. And so that's good because that allows you to pick a fairly high quality representative
1:20:11image so like when you look at that live photo you missed it by a half a second but you can
1:20:16actually like tick it over and have that be the image that displays in your library which
1:20:20is kind of neat.
1:20:21I'm excited about the live photo changes. We're going to get to this in a minute actually.
1:20:26I won't spill the beans. We've got an Ask Upgrade just about this too. Great. Speaking
1:20:31of which, should we move on to Ask Upgrade?
1:20:34Sounds good.
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1:21:52So let's do this question that we have here from Chris, where Chris is asking us about
1:21:56photos and Chris wants to know if we still use bursts at all.
1:22:02But Chris says that he used to use burst photos all the time when they came out, but then
1:22:07when live photos came along, he stopped using bursts.
1:22:11What do you do, Jason?
1:22:12Do you still use bursts and have live photos maybe kind of taken a lot of that away from
1:22:16you or what?
1:22:17I only ever used bursts in very specific circumstances where I felt like it was something happening
1:22:23so fast that I just wanted to just grab all the photos and deal with it later and pick
1:22:28the ones that I liked. But I never used them very often. I generally leave live photo turned
1:22:34on because it's kind of fun. And so you end up with these things that you never really
1:22:40thought about being good live photos that are good live photos. But it's still kind
1:22:45of a curiosity for me. I'm not using the live photos as much as I maybe hoped, but it is.
1:22:52Basically for me, the live photo is this really cool thing where you find a photo that you
1:22:55like and realize that if you tap and hold on it or 3D touch on it, that it plays a little
1:23:00tidbit of the surrounding action. And sometimes that's really great. Like I had a picture
1:23:04of my dog at the dog park and when I opened up the live photo, it shows her like spinning
1:23:10around or running around and that was cool. I get the extra time there. It's fun, which
1:23:17is why I leave it on, but that's kind of about it. I think we'll get to the point where the
1:23:21live photo stuff is more valuable because they will up the quality of the live photo
1:23:27content to the point where it's approaching the quality of the still. And that's really
1:23:31great because the closer you get to that, then you get to the ability of picking your
1:23:36moment and then it's like a burst where I don't know whether it's doing this now, but
1:23:41you know theoretically when you're doing a live photo you could take not just the one
1:23:45full quality photo in the middle, but you could bracket it you could have a full quality
1:23:48photo every 10th of a second 20th of a second half of a second whatever and that would allow
1:23:57you after the fact like every photo is a burst and a video basically and that's great because
1:24:01then you could go back and say oh, I just missed the moment and then slide it back a
1:24:04little and be like, "No, actually I got it because the moment was slightly earlier."
1:24:08I know that there's file size issues and all that, but that's one of the reasons Apple
1:24:11is doing this higher quality video and photo formats, is I think to give them the ability
1:24:18to capture more data when you capture a photo. Because by all rights, when you capture a
1:24:23photo, if you had enough space and the technology allowed it, I would want it to capture lots
1:24:27of data around the photo because I might not have pressed the button at the right time.
1:24:32But if it captures slightly earlier than that and slightly later, if I miss the moment by
1:24:37half a second, if it's always capturing and buffering that, you know, a second before
1:24:42or three seconds before, then I'm going to get the shot after all. That's pretty great.
1:24:46Like that, that, uh, that should, we need more of that. And I feel like live photos
1:24:51is, is, is taking us in that direction.
1:24:55I'm a huge life photos fan. Um, I love it. I don't really use bursts very much anymore.
1:25:01I really enjoy live photos. I leave them on all the time.
1:25:05There was a time recently where I realized I had them off for a while by accident
1:25:09when I was really sad about that because the live photo is just gone, right, if it's not taking it.
1:25:14But I love when I'm flicking through my library and the photos are moving a little bit.
1:25:19I love that. I mean, I really do like the fun that they add and I'm really excited about some of the changes.
1:25:25Like, I have some live photos which are terrible photos, but the live photo is awesome.
1:25:31But the image is bad
1:25:32So I love that you can now change the image the representative image
1:25:36So you'll know what the live photo is and then also some of the loop stuff like I've been playing with that a little bit
1:25:41The way that it's looping and all that little fun effects you can do now
1:25:44They are really good and you can sometimes get some really funny stuff happening with them. So
1:25:50I'm very excited to see
1:25:53The more that's gonna happen here and I'm looking forward to just playing around with live photos more with these new effects
1:26:00I'm really excited about it. It's one of my favorite things about iOS honestly.
1:26:03Like I really love live photos.
1:26:06Brian is looking for a decent iPad Pro 10.5 sleeve.
1:26:10Ideally that can hold the smart cover, keyboard and pencil. Any suggestions?
1:26:14I think there's only one suggestion which is the one that Apple makes, the leather sleeve.
1:26:20I haven't seen anything else. I don't know if you have Jason, but this fits the bill perfectly.
1:26:25Apple made it. It's perfect with the keyboard on it rather. It all fits in there.
1:26:29and it's got a nice little slot for the pencil. This is on my like someday list
1:26:33like I like the look of this I just don't have a reason to buy it right now
1:26:38but like I might put this on like my holiday list you know like if somebody
1:26:42wants to get me a nice gift for the holidays like this could be something
1:26:45for that right I just like the way it looks and when I'm traveling and stuff
1:26:49it might be nice to just put it all in and you know if I'm working out then
1:26:53I've got this nice little lever thing to put down I can put my notepad on it or
1:26:56whatever. I really love the way this case looks. I think it's a nice accessory, but
1:27:01I just haven't got a reason right now to pick one up. But I think if you want a sleeve,
1:27:08like this is right now the one to get, I assume.
1:27:12That's all I know. That's all I know, too. It's not cheap, but it's very nice. It's very
1:27:17well done. And there will be more iPad 10.5 accessories as time goes on if you can wait
1:27:24you want to wait to see if there's something else out there. I'm sure they will arrive
1:27:27at some point.
1:27:28Oh, by the way, just something on photos that I forgot to mention. The Photos app on iOS
1:27:34now shows animated GIFs. There is like, also like, there is an auto-created folder in the
1:27:43Photos app, it's called animated, and when you open a GIF now, when you open it up, it
1:27:48starts to animate. Finally.
1:27:51Yes.
1:27:52So, I'm excited.
1:27:53Congratulations, you get your animated GIFs at last.
1:27:57Oh, I noticed what you did there.
1:27:59We won't talk about that today.
1:28:00Dave wants to know if either of us
1:28:04use Apple's two-factor authentication.
1:28:08I will include a link in the show notes
1:28:10to Dan Morin's excellent article on six colors last year,
1:28:14where he went into this in detail,
1:28:17and helped me set it up.
1:28:19I do use Apple's two-factor authentication,
1:28:22and it works great. - Me too.
1:28:24- I'm happy with it. - Yep.
1:28:25- Like it does exactly what I need.
1:28:28- Yeah, I like it a lot the way they do it
1:28:29where you log in and it pops up the little thing
1:28:32on all your devices and you just need one of your devices
1:28:34to get the code and you put it in and it's a,
1:28:37I've got two factor on lots of stuff now,
1:28:39but I am using it.
1:28:40I have heard that in iOS 11 and macOS,
1:28:45hi Sierra, that the, you don't have to do the two step,
1:28:49that Dan describes, that there's a more direct way
1:28:52to upgrade from one to the other from the old two factor to the new two step because
1:28:57there was a or two step to two two factor, whatever there was an old one and there's
1:29:00a new one and it used to be very complicated, but it's about to be less complicated. But
1:29:05I think people should do it. Like I know it's a pain because every time you log in on a
1:29:08new device, it's going to ask you to put in a six digit code. But it means that if somebody
1:29:14doesn't have one of your devices, they can't get into your account, which means that if
1:29:18If somebody random somewhere on the internet is trying to break into your account, they
1:29:23can't do it unless they also have one of your devices, which is going to be less likely.
1:29:28Yeah. I, uh, the only thing that frustrates me with the two factor is the app specific
1:29:34passwords were like apps that use my iCloud information. I have to go to the Apple website
1:29:40and create a specific password for them every single time. It's just like an, and it like
1:29:45It's just a frustration.
1:29:46It's just, it's not, you know,
1:29:48I only ever have to really do it one time,
1:29:49but like when I'm setting up a new device,
1:29:52I have to generate all these different passwords
1:29:54and you literally have to use a different password
1:29:57for every instance of an application
1:29:59on all of your machines.
1:30:00And it's just, it's just a frustration.
1:30:02I wish there was an easier way to set it up.
1:30:04I wish there was like an iOS app that could do this,
1:30:07that Apple made, instead of having to go
1:30:10to the Apple account page every time
1:30:14and setting it up in this weird way
1:30:15and
1:30:31kit and increased access to the Plus's sensor data in iOS 11 with the depth API, what do
1:30:37you think the likelihood is of dual cameras on all of the iPhone line coming in September?
1:30:44What do you think, Jason?
1:30:46I think I think what you think, which is that if the scenario where there's a 7S and an
1:30:528 both released, which is unclear, but that's the rumor, I would imagine that the 8 would
1:30:58have dual camera. The high-end, sort of in between the size of the 7 and the 7 Plus,
1:31:07if that phone exists, I have a hard time thinking that they wouldn't put the best stuff in it,
1:31:13including the depth-effect stuff from the two cameras. So that's going to be, you know,
1:31:18that's my guess. If they also do a 7S and 7S Plus, I think it would not be as likely
1:31:25in the 7S that they would just sort of that's a you know no don't change it too much kind
1:31:30of update that they're doing in the background while they're also releasing an iPhone 8 if
1:31:34that's the case I think that the smaller phone wouldn't get it but the newfangled awesome
1:31:38phone would probably pick up the second camera because why would you not mean you want that
1:31:44to be like the phone that has everything the best of everything in it so it would mean
1:31:48two cameras for sure because it's gonna cost like a million dollars but yeah that's what
1:31:54should be doing right this this iPhone whatever it's gonna be is is like the
1:32:01next generation I think that's how I see it as being like set up is like
1:32:06whatever this iPhone is it is like the past ten years of iPhones look this way
1:32:11and then this is the future of the iPhone that's how I think they're gonna
1:32:14they're gonna talk about that this iPhone 8 or iPhone Pro whatever it's
1:32:17gonna be and I think that it will have all of the features right that the
1:32:22previous iPhones have had plus these new ones. So I can't see them being like "oh
1:32:27it still has one camera if you want two cameras you have to get 7s+" like I
1:32:31just don't think that's gonna happen. And then in 2018 they'll all have two
1:32:37cameras right like all of the phones that Apple release will have two cameras
1:32:40on is what I think it will happen but we're still going to be in this in
1:32:43between in 2017. And finally today Boze asked "is it stupid to get a high-end
1:32:51end retina 5k iMac for future proofing I'm mostly concerned about the hundreds
1:32:56of tabs that I keep open. So my feeling on this is it depends how far into the
1:33:01future you're expecting to keep this machine like if this is gonna be your
1:33:05computer for the next five years ten years I think future proofing is a great
1:33:11reason like if you're buying a computer now and you're wondering if you should
1:33:15spend a little bit extra to get some some more beefy specs because you're
1:33:19looking to keep this machine around for a while. I think that's a good part of
1:33:22the purchasing process honestly because you do want to future-proof yourself.
1:33:27Like if you're planning to buy this computer and keep it around for say five
1:33:32years you want to make sure that in five years it's still gonna be running well.
1:33:36Look at John Siracusa. Yeah he's going for the, he's shooting the moon, going for
1:33:41ten years. But do you agree with this? Yeah I think if it's within your means I
1:33:47I think the best way to buy a Mac is probably to spend a little money on higher-end models
1:33:54because they'll last longer and then run them into the ground. But everybody's different.
1:33:58I know people who buy a stock model, run it for a couple years, sell it, and get a new
1:34:05model. And that's what they do. But I will say this is kind of how I use cars. I will
1:34:14oftentimes buy a new car and then just drive it for a very, very long time until
1:34:19it is old and that not everybody wants to do that. But there is something to be
1:34:23said for that, that you can buy a high-end model and I would say technology
1:34:28right now like it used to be like the difference between the computer now and
1:34:32two years ago was dramatic. But these days it's not so dramatic. It's not so
1:34:39dramatic and that's how John Siracusa has been able to run a Mac Pro for
1:34:43almost 10 years. The changes are not as dramatic as they used to be. So I think a
1:34:48higher-end retina iMac that is going to last you for many years is probably a
1:34:54good thing if you have the means, if you can afford to buy it at that high price
1:34:58because it is a high price. That was my rationale when I bought my 5k iMac was I
1:35:03wanted it to last and I wanted the
1:35:07fastest one because I knew that over time you know it becomes less impressive
1:35:11and less fast. And the fact is that although I don't have the fancy screen
1:35:16that the new iMacs have, that processor, that i7 processor I have in my iMac,
1:35:21still pretty fast. Still pretty darn good. I'm not worried about its
1:35:26performance. So it's not stupid, but it depends on what your priorities are.
1:35:32I did this when I bought my iMac and this iMac would last me with my current
1:35:37tasks years more because I went for the top of the line. My only thing is
1:35:43the VR. If VR games come to the Mac then I might have to ask some
1:35:49questions about what I want to do, but under the current things that I'm
1:35:53doing, I bought the best so it would last the longest. Also hundreds of
1:35:58tabs I'll just point out what you need to do is max out your RAM. That's
1:36:01what you need to do if you've got hundreds of tabs open. More than anything
1:36:04else more than processor, disk, or anything, it's RAM. Max out your RAM. And you can do
1:36:10that through third parties. You don't actually need to max it out at Apple if you buy the
1:36:1627 because it's got the door on the back for RAM and you can have it to be the minimum
1:36:20amount of RAM sold on that model and then buy the max from a third party and install
1:36:26it. You can do that, but if you've got lots of tabs, you want as much RAM as possible.
1:36:32On that note we will wrap up today. Thank you so much to our sponsors for this week's
1:36:36show, Casper Freshbooks and Encapsula. If you want to grab our show notes they are at
1:36:39relay.fm/upgrade/148. I will mention at this point if you haven't yet checked out Jason
1:36:45Snell's new show on relay.fm, Download just reached episode 10 last week. Go check it
1:36:51out it's a great show I think that you'll enjoy it. There's a lot of people on there
1:36:54that you may have heard of and a lot of people that you may have not and you're going to
1:36:57be introduced to some new awesome voices so go check out download that's at relay.fm/download
1:37:03because you upgrade at the start of your week and you download at the end of it. Isn't that
1:37:07right Jason? That's right. Mmhmm you know it. You know it. If you want to find Jason's
1:37:11work online he's over at sixcolors.com and he's @jasonel on twitter J S N E double L.
1:37:17I am @imike I M Y K E. I want to thank you all for listening as always and we'll be back
1:37:23next time enjoy your independence day over there Americans I hope that you
1:37:28have lots of hot dogs and fireworks until then say goodbye Jason snow
1:37:34fireworks wait hang on that sounds like lasers how do we do fire similar like
1:37:40maybe there we go perfect fireworks nailed it
1:37:48(Music)
1:37:50*sneezes* Hot dogs!