116: Design Team Yearbook
00:00:08
◼
►
from Real AFM this is Upgrade episode number 116 today's show is brought to you by Mac Weldon
00:00:16
◼
►
in Capsula and Eero my name is Myke Hurley and I am joined across a very big body of water
00:00:24
◼
►
by Mr Jason Snell.
00:00:26
◼
►
Big body of water and then a large landmass. Let's not undersell it. It's very far away.
00:00:32
◼
►
Hello. Or you can go large landmass then big body of water if you want. It just depends
00:00:35
◼
►
which way you want to go, right? You can go anywhere.
00:00:39
◼
►
Ah, yeah. Fair point. Fair point. You could do it that way.
00:00:42
◼
►
You could if you want to think about it.
00:00:43
◼
►
That would kind of be the far way. What you want to do is just kind of go straight here
00:00:47
◼
►
over Greenland.
00:00:48
◼
►
Thanksgiving week.
00:00:51
◼
►
It is. So for those of us in the United States, it's a holiday week. I mean, we, of course,
00:00:57
◼
►
as I like to say in one of my other podcasts, we release the upgrade simultaneously worldwide
00:01:03
◼
►
like Netflix does with its original shows. We don't delay it for some markets. You all
00:01:06
◼
►
get it at the same time. That's how good we are. That's how nice we are. Forward thinking.
00:01:11
◼
►
But in this country, the US, this is a holiday week and Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. So
00:01:18
◼
►
So everybody gets Thursday and Friday generally off and sometimes the Wednesday.
00:01:25
◼
►
My kids have, let's see, my daughter has Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off.
00:01:28
◼
►
My son has the entire week off, which is kind of funny.
00:01:31
◼
►
I guess that's, I think some school districts just give up and they realize that they're
00:01:36
◼
►
going to, in the US school funding, a lot of school funding has to do for public school,
00:01:40
◼
►
has to do with attendance.
00:01:42
◼
►
And so if a school anticipates days that will not be well attended, they will often just
00:01:47
◼
►
make them holidays, make them vacation days, and move those days elsewhere in the year
00:01:52
◼
►
just because, you know, they can get better attendance on other days. So my son's middle
00:01:59
◼
►
school has just given up and given him the whole week off, so not eight feet away from
00:02:03
◼
►
me in the living room, my son and a friend of his are playing video games right now.
00:02:08
◼
►
It's a party.
00:02:09
◼
►
He's living the life.
00:02:10
◼
►
Yeah, it's Thanksgiving week. They're thankful that they have lots of video games to play.
00:02:14
◼
►
Which also means with being Thanksgiving week, I have some kind of weird pseudo-holiday week.
00:02:18
◼
►
It's very strange, because I just don't talk to anybody for a couple of days, right? Because
00:02:23
◼
►
everything shuts down.
00:02:24
◼
►
Steve McLaughlin Yeah. Life continues as normal. Although you
00:02:26
◼
►
could, you know, you could do what you did. You could go to an American restaurant for
00:02:30
◼
►
a Thanksgiving meal on Thursday.
00:02:32
◼
►
Adam Backman I'd considered it, but didn't get anything
00:02:34
◼
►
booked in. So that means I probably won't be able to do it. But we'll see. Maybe I'll
00:02:39
◼
►
find something. It's always options.
00:02:41
◼
►
Steve McLaughlin You can check that. Have some turkey. And
00:02:43
◼
►
like a little pre-Christmas Christmas for those over there. Yeah, this is a funny one
00:02:49
◼
►
because this is our, this is the one, I mean, 4th of July is like this too, where it s like
00:02:52
◼
►
it s a holiday only for us. And it used to not matter when, yeah, I was thinking about
00:02:58
◼
►
this, back before the internet, I know that s kind of a weird thing to say, but let me
00:03:02
◼
►
In ye olden days. And before, yeah, back in the old times, the old times, it s just one
00:03:08
◼
►
of those things where it, as an American, you didn't think about the fact that the rest
00:03:13
◼
►
of the world didn't celebrate this holiday. Everything you could see, your entire world
00:03:20
◼
►
was constrained to, like our TV channels were only American. Everything is only American.
00:03:27
◼
►
And you didn't have, with the internet, everything is much more globally connected now. So it's
00:03:34
◼
►
only been more recently that you get that effect of knowing that life goes on everywhere
00:03:41
◼
►
else while we are stuffing ourselves with turkey and rolls and yams and things like
00:03:49
◼
►
that. It's funny.
00:03:50
◼
►
Will Barron Once we're talking about that, Apple is strongly
00:03:52
◼
►
encouraging that everybody gets out of the house on Thanksgiving and actually participates
00:03:57
◼
►
in some exercise as opposed to just eating. So they are going to be, they kind of announced
00:04:04
◼
►
this via push notification I believe today to Apple Watch users that if you do a 5K,
00:04:09
◼
►
which is about 3 point something miles, 3.1 miles I'm told by Dan Morin at Six Colors,
00:04:14
◼
►
that you will get a special achievement badge in the activity app on your Apple Watch which
00:04:20
◼
►
is Thanksgiving themed. It's kind of cute.
00:04:24
◼
►
Yeah, yeah, I like this idea. I think it's a really great idea. The idea to motivate
00:04:30
◼
►
people, like what motivates somebody? Is a dumb Apple Watch badge going to motivate people?
00:04:35
◼
►
Well, maybe it will. I mean, I'm going to have that moment of like, "Oh, we should go
00:04:38
◼
►
for a walk today," which maybe before I would be like, "We should eat more yams." Yeah,
00:04:45
◼
►
that's right. More big potato. And instead, go out for a walk. So I think it's a fun idea
00:04:53
◼
►
to prompt people on a day like Thanksgiving to get out and move their bodies.
00:05:00
◼
►
We should do some follow-up. G. Llewellyn on Twitter wrote in to tell us, this is just
00:05:04
◼
►
an interesting tidbit, that in China the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is called the Multi-Touch
00:05:09
◼
►
Bar version. And you can see it. I'll put a link in the show notes to a screenshot that
00:05:15
◼
►
G. Llewellyn sent to us and you can see it because they translate that part into English.
00:05:19
◼
►
It's called the Multi-Touch Bar. That's just an interesting thing to me. I mean, obviously
00:05:23
◼
►
this stuff happens quite a lot but I can't think of anything like product naming was
00:05:28
◼
►
from Apple that has been changed when translated like iPhone is iPhone is iPhone right? Yeah
00:05:33
◼
►
it might there must be some cultural reason right why it was considered or a trademark
00:05:38
◼
►
reason or something although I'm not sure that's a huge issue but something something
00:05:41
◼
►
like that where they decided that this was a safer way to to describe it. Dave wrote
00:05:47
◼
►
in to recommend a lightning to SD card adapter from a company called Lexar.
00:05:53
◼
►
Yeah, Lexar is a major manufacturer of memory cards basically.
00:05:59
◼
►
And they have an actual physical adapter that you can plug into your iOS devices via lightning
00:06:05
◼
►
and you can pull the files straight directly from the SD cards.
00:06:09
◼
►
So this was in response to us talking last time about having a wireless SD card.
00:06:16
◼
►
- Yeah, the Toshiba Wi-Fi SD card.
00:06:19
◼
►
So Dave shows how fast things can move sometimes.
00:06:22
◼
►
I went and immediately purchased this,
00:06:24
◼
►
got it from Amazon, tried it out,
00:06:26
◼
►
and discovered that it was no good.
00:06:28
◼
►
Well, I was gonna write about it.
00:06:30
◼
►
First off, it uses micro SD cards,
00:06:32
◼
►
and my recorder, my portable recorder, the Zoom,
00:06:36
◼
►
uses full-size SD cards.
00:06:37
◼
►
So I would need to get a micro SD card with an adapter,
00:06:42
◼
►
and then pull that card out,
00:06:44
◼
►
and then pull the little card out of the adapter and then put it in in order to get it to work.
00:06:50
◼
►
But I like the idea of using a wired transfer, essentially a lightning port transfer instead
00:06:55
◼
►
of a Wi-Fi transfer. And then I do actually already have a couple of micro SD cards and
00:07:02
◼
►
they are readable by my devices and by my Mac and neither of them was readable by the
00:07:08
◼
►
Lexar thing. It was like, I don't know what to do. And so I went to Amazon and started
00:07:13
◼
►
a return and it's going it's in a box going back to Amazon now so I can't I
00:07:17
◼
►
can't maybe I got a bad one I don't know. It works for Dave. Dave said that he loses it. But it didn't work for me and I'm
00:07:25
◼
►
pretty happy with how the the Toshiba Wi-Fi card is working so I think I'm
00:07:29
◼
►
gonna stick with that. We've had a couple of people contact us maybe you could
00:07:33
◼
►
speak a little bit more to this Jason to say this is in response to an Ask God
00:07:37
◼
►
question, that it is possible to drive the LG 5K display via Thunderbolt 2. Now we were
00:07:43
◼
►
under the impression that it could only be driven by a Thunderbolt 3 capable device.
00:07:50
◼
►
- Right. So since it's, it sounds like, since this is happening where it's multiple channels
00:07:55
◼
►
of DisplayPort, what I've heard, and I can't confirm this, and I kept asking people who
00:08:01
◼
►
said that they had heard that this was possible, to let me know if they ever saw it in action,
00:08:06
◼
►
nobody has said this yet but I've heard because we answered with some confidence last week
00:08:12
◼
►
that it was impossible when we were asked about it on AskUprader.
00:08:14
◼
►
Because it literally says on a technical specifications that it works via a computer that has Thunderbolt
00:08:21
◼
►
3. Like it says it on the page, right?
00:08:23
◼
►
Right. So it may be that some Macs have the video out capability, the GPU capability to
00:08:32
◼
►
do it if you attach a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter to the display and
00:08:37
◼
►
then a Thunderbolt cable from the display to the computer. I don't know if
00:08:45
◼
►
that will work or not, but we heard from a couple people that it would. We heard
00:08:49
◼
►
rumblings that this may actually be set up in Apple stores as a way to
00:08:55
◼
►
display these things attached instead of the Thunderbolt display attached to like
00:09:01
◼
►
a Mac Pro. It's also possible that it will work, but it will work at a lower frame rate.
00:09:07
◼
►
It'll work at like 30 frames per second instead of 60. I don't know. So basically, we wanna
00:09:14
◼
►
say we've heard from some people that it may be more complicated than simply saying no,
00:09:19
◼
►
like we did last week. So the jury's still out on this. If you have seen one of these,
00:09:24
◼
►
I mean, they haven't even shipped yet is my understanding, right? So it may be that the
00:09:28
◼
►
first time we see them will be in an Apple store and somebody should look and see if
00:09:34
◼
►
they're attached via that Thunderbolt adapter. Maybe that'll be the story.
00:09:38
◼
►
But we just don't know.
00:09:40
◼
►
I think I might have something here, Jason.
00:09:42
◼
►
All right. So the 5K display says "Connection Thunderbolt 3 enabled Mac." The 4K display
00:09:52
◼
►
says "USB-C enabled Mac."
00:09:55
◼
►
So, they're different.
00:09:56
◼
►
They are different.
00:09:57
◼
►
- They are different. - They ask for different things.
00:09:59
◼
►
- They are different and I'm sure that lots of Macs
00:10:01
◼
►
can drive a 4K display.
00:10:03
◼
►
And yeah, so it's a mystery.
00:10:07
◼
►
So anyway, if somebody does succeed in getting
00:10:10
◼
►
the 5K display operating with a Mac
00:10:13
◼
►
that does not have Thunderbolt 3, let us know.
00:10:16
◼
►
That would be interesting.
00:10:18
◼
►
- Yeah, I'm still not holding out hope for this.
00:10:21
◼
►
- Yeah, I have skepticism that even if it does work,
00:10:24
◼
►
if it's optimal, that's really my thought there
00:10:27
◼
►
is it going to be able to drive it at 60 hertz like the modern Thunderbolt 3 Macs are?
00:10:35
◼
►
Is it going to melt your GPU? Who knows.
00:10:38
◼
►
Anything is possible.
00:10:39
◼
►
Anything is possible.
00:10:40
◼
►
Hey, are you at your new house or are you at your old house?
00:10:44
◼
►
So you're still in micro-office?
00:10:45
◼
►
Yeah, I'm still in micro-office. Due to a myriad of issues last week, I didn't end up
00:10:50
◼
►
recording any shows from the flat. I actually recorded less shows last week. I had to skip
00:10:54
◼
►
But this week I should be recording a couple of things from from Mega Office.
00:10:58
◼
►
Mega Office is now painted which is great.
00:11:01
◼
►
All right, are you still doing your chair plan?
00:11:06
◼
►
Yeah, no furniture yet. However, I'm maybe this weekend going to buy a desk.
00:11:11
◼
►
I'm gonna get a sit-stand desk which is gonna be new for me.
00:11:14
◼
►
Good, welcome.
00:11:15
◼
►
So yeah, I'm gonna I'm probably gonna well I'm definitely gonna be recording at least one show this week from from the new from the new flat.
00:11:23
◼
►
That's great.
00:11:24
◼
►
And just a piece of homework, next week is going to be our first holiday season mic at
00:11:31
◼
►
the movies, and as we mentioned before, it's going to be Gremlins.
00:11:34
◼
►
So we will be talking about Gremlins on next week's episode of Upgrade.
00:11:38
◼
►
So if you want to follow along with the final segment of the show, which will be our discussion
00:11:42
◼
►
about Gremlins, you need to watch before next Monday, which is also a reminder to me and
00:11:46
◼
►
Jason that we must watch the movie by next Monday.
00:11:49
◼
►
I've had a lot of podcast homework lately, watching various movies and TV shows for the
00:11:54
◼
►
incomparable and then I realized that my next bit of homework is for Upgrade. That's kind
00:12:00
◼
►
of fun. So sometime this week.
00:12:01
◼
►
Most important though, right? You agree with that? Myke at the Movies is the most important.
00:12:05
◼
►
Sure. Of course. Goes without saying.
00:12:08
◼
►
This week's episode of Upgrade is brought to you very kindly by our friends over at
00:12:11
◼
►
Mack Weldon. Mack Weldon is better than whatever you're wearing right now, unless you're already
00:12:17
◼
►
wearing Mac Worlden clothing because we all know, me and Jason, and you should know that
00:12:22
◼
►
it's the best. Right? We believe this, Jason Snow, do we not? Mac Worlden is the most comfortable.
00:12:26
◼
►
Yes, I'm wearing it right now, so it's not better than what I'm wearing right now.
00:12:29
◼
►
That's why I said it, because I knew you would challenge me, because I know that you wear
00:12:33
◼
►
Mac Worlden often as I do, because their products are so comfortable. Mac Worlden will give
00:12:38
◼
►
you the most comfortable underwear, socks, shirts, undershirts, hoodies, and sweatpants
00:12:42
◼
►
that you will have ever experienced. They look good, as well as being comfortable. You
00:12:46
◼
►
You can be out on the street.
00:12:47
◼
►
I mean, as I've mentioned many, many times,
00:12:49
◼
►
I travel with my Macworld and sweatpants
00:12:51
◼
►
and they're the most fancy looking sweatpants
00:12:53
◼
►
that I've ever worn.
00:12:54
◼
►
I don't think I stick out like a sore thumb.
00:12:56
◼
►
You know, I don't look like I've just come from the gym.
00:12:58
◼
►
I look good, but the most important thing for me
00:13:01
◼
►
is that I feel good.
00:13:02
◼
►
I feel comfortable when I'm wearing this stuff as well.
00:13:05
◼
►
I love my Macworld and underpants as well.
00:13:08
◼
►
And I find the whole situation,
00:13:10
◼
►
the whole way of buying Macworld and products to be so easy.
00:13:13
◼
►
They have a great website. - The situation.
00:13:14
◼
►
- The whole situation.
00:13:15
◼
►
The situation of buying--
00:13:16
◼
►
The MacWeldon website situation is good, is what you're saying.
00:13:19
◼
►
They can put that on the website, right on the very top.
00:13:22
◼
►
Myke Hurley says, "The situation is good."
00:13:24
◼
►
I really do like their stuff.
00:13:26
◼
►
This is something that not only am I happy to tell you about it, I'm also happy to put
00:13:31
◼
►
it on my body.
00:13:32
◼
►
I think that's got to be the biggest endorsement that a human can give.
00:13:36
◼
►
They can put that on their website, too.
00:13:37
◼
►
You can also put-- I'm giving just tagline after tagline for MacWeldon.
00:13:40
◼
►
It's amazing.
00:13:41
◼
►
They have silver underwear and shirts that naturally are antimicrobial. They eliminate
00:13:46
◼
►
odor. This is some cool science stuff to make sure you're also going to smell good.
00:13:50
◼
►
Also it'll protect you from werewolves. They don't really promote that, but it's true.
00:13:55
◼
►
Put it on the website, Mack Weldon. Protect you from werewolves, says Jason Snow. Mack
00:13:59
◼
►
Weldon want you to be comfortable. They believe in that so much that if you don't like what
00:14:03
◼
►
you buy, if you buy your first pair and you're not happy with it, just keep it and they'll
00:14:07
◼
►
refund you. They don't want your underpants back. You just keep them.
00:14:13
◼
►
Listeners of this show can get 20% off at MacWeldon.com. That's Macweldon.com with the
00:14:19
◼
►
coupon code upgrade. Thank you so much to Mac Weldon for their support of this show
00:14:22
◼
►
and Relay FM. Trust me, as a human being, you probably need to buy some of these products.
00:14:28
◼
►
Just go and get yourself some and I know that you're going to love it. Thank you so much
00:14:31
◼
►
to Mac Weldon for their support this show. Werewolf protection.
00:14:35
◼
►
Yeah, it just comes standard with silver underpants.
00:14:39
◼
►
Somebody over in Cupertino should have stretched a pair of silver underpants over the airport
00:14:45
◼
►
extreme in the airport, so that couldn't be killed because a report from the man who has
00:14:51
◼
►
been on fire since he joined Bloomberg, Mr. Mark Gurman, he has said today that the wireless
00:15:00
◼
►
division, the router division, I don't even know what you'd call it, over at Apple.
00:15:04
◼
►
To make Airport Extreme and Airport Express and Time Machine, basically, or Time Capsule.
00:15:11
◼
►
Time Capsule.
00:15:12
◼
►
I mean, the difficult to remember the name of Time Capsule. That they've shut that down,
00:15:19
◼
►
disbanded the team, and presumably won't be making any more wireless router products.
00:15:25
◼
►
They said that the team has been kind of slowly being closed down over the last year, and
00:15:32
◼
►
moving these people into like Apple TV and iPhone and they're just moving them out into
00:15:36
◼
►
other divisions. This product is dead. They're still on sale though, right? Like I can still
00:15:41
◼
►
today go to Apple.com and buy an airport for my sins I guess. Let me go and take a look
00:15:48
◼
►
and see if it's still available in the accessories. But whilst I do this, Jason's now, is this
00:15:54
◼
►
an issue in any way? Yes, I can still buy an airport extreme and a time capsule if I
00:15:58
◼
►
I want to. Do you see this as a problem?
00:16:04
◼
►
I don't. I don't. I know there's a lot of people out there. Any time Apple does anything,
00:16:10
◼
►
there's a reaction and it's sort of like, people are like, "I can't believe they're
00:16:13
◼
►
doing this!" That seems to just happen every time. But I don't think it's a big deal. Does
00:16:20
◼
►
Apple need to be in this business? This is the thing that I keep coming back to with
00:16:23
◼
►
some of this stuff. It's like, does Apple really need to be in this business? Now, I
00:16:28
◼
►
will grant you that I think in the long run, the airport products have been pretty reliable.
00:16:36
◼
►
I still have a generation of prior airport base station that I have been using up until
00:16:45
◼
►
recently when I switched to another class of product, which we'll get to in a second.
00:16:49
◼
►
I've been using it. It was solid. It held a connection. I bought other Wi-Fi routers.
00:16:54
◼
►
They have been much less reliable as well as harder to set up. When I needed to set
00:17:00
◼
►
up a Wi-Fi router at my mom's house, I got her an Apple router because it was more reliable
00:17:07
◼
►
than the one that she had, and it has continued to be so. So there are a lot of things to
00:17:11
◼
►
be said for it, but it's kind of, I mean, they're competing with companies that want
00:17:16
◼
►
to make routers that specialize in making routers. Does an Apple-branded router bring
00:17:23
◼
►
a lot more to the table? There are some people who are going to buy it, but at this point,
00:17:28
◼
►
I don't know. I wasn't a big fan, I should disclose, of the last generation, the tall
00:17:33
◼
►
design that was basically designed so that they could fit the big hard drive in it for
00:17:38
◼
►
the time capsule. I thought it looked ridiculous. I never liked it, never bought one. But, you
00:17:44
◼
►
know, I don't know. It's one of those things I just have a hard time being upset about
00:17:49
◼
►
because although they've been pretty good and they've been pretty reliable, it feels
00:17:53
◼
►
like the Wi-Fi world keeps changing and advancing and that Apple reached a point where they
00:18:00
◼
►
were going to need to either put more effort into these products or just walk away. And
00:18:05
◼
►
I can really see the argument, like, why are we doing this? There is a thriving market
00:18:10
◼
►
of companies, traditional and startups, that are making Wi-Fi products and other infrastructure
00:18:16
◼
►
products. Is this something that we need to go down in order to make the world better?
00:18:20
◼
►
They're all compatible with our stuff. We don't need to worry about this. And that seems
00:18:24
◼
►
to be where they've ended up. And it's hard for me to fault that.
00:18:27
◼
►
I think in the world where Apple have decided that they don't want to make monitors anymore,
00:18:32
◼
►
why would they continue to make Wi-Fi base stations and routers? That seems like a less
00:18:39
◼
►
important product even than making a first-party display.
00:18:43
◼
►
I agree, I agree. And I just, I don't feel like it, I mean, the argument here is also
00:18:50
◼
►
Apple, what do you mean Apple's got all this money, Apple's huge, why do they need to focus,
00:18:55
◼
►
why do they need to eliminate jobs and divisions and move people around and things like that.
00:18:59
◼
►
There are other things that they've done this week that we'll talk about later about this
00:19:02
◼
►
too, but Apple isn't as big as you think, first off. It's big in terms of size, but
00:19:06
◼
►
Apple in terms of the core group that's building products is smaller than you might expect.
00:19:12
◼
►
And they seem culturally not to want to get much bigger. They are, and I think that stems
00:19:17
◼
►
from Steve Jobs and when he came back to Apple, that they want to, you know, hiring at Apple
00:19:24
◼
►
is a slow process a lot of the time. They only want to hire, they definitely seem to
00:19:28
◼
►
practice that, only hire the very best and they're very careful about that, it seems,
00:19:38
◼
►
and so they don't grow their groups very quickly. So part of this is that, yeah, I'm sure that
00:19:46
◼
►
they benefit from focus. Also, I think groups that are not in the spotlight tend to not
00:19:51
◼
►
have the... if you're somebody who wants to grow and advance at Apple, if you get put
00:19:59
◼
►
on something like Airport, my guess is your feeling is that you're in a cul-de-sac, right?
00:20:04
◼
►
So they're not going to have their best people working on this stuff anyway, whereas if you're
00:20:07
◼
►
at a company that this is what you do, you're going to hire people who are the best and
00:20:12
◼
►
they're going to know that this is what the company is all about. So I think that there's
00:20:15
◼
►
a bunch of stuff at play here, so that even though Apple is a huge company, it kind of
00:20:20
◼
►
sense to say this is just isn't a company focus why are we doing this we don't need
00:20:24
◼
►
Or on the flip side of that you know because we don't know who's on the airport team they
00:20:28
◼
►
could have people that are too good that are working on that team and want to get them
00:20:33
◼
►
out you know like the airport people could be the best in the world at selling and networking
00:20:39
◼
►
and they really want them on the iPhone.
00:20:41
◼
►
Well that's why the slowly tearing down the team thing makes sense because that's like
00:20:45
◼
►
hey, Billy is over there in the airport team
00:20:49
◼
►
and we need them to come over here
00:20:51
◼
►
and work on this thing for iOS.
00:20:54
◼
►
Like, and Billy's like, yeah, great, iOS engineering,
00:20:58
◼
►
that's awesome, right?
00:20:59
◼
►
And then they've just lost somebody from their team
00:21:01
◼
►
and it just goes like that until it's a skeleton crew.
00:21:04
◼
►
And then they, somebody says, do we wanna staff this up
00:21:07
◼
►
in order to do another revision?
00:21:09
◼
►
And everybody looks at it and goes, no, why?
00:21:11
◼
►
And that's it.
00:21:12
◼
►
Billy's doing such good work on the antenna bands.
00:21:16
◼
►
Why would we take him away and put him back
00:21:17
◼
►
on the airport extreme?
00:21:20
◼
►
- Yeah, I struggle to care about this emotionally
00:21:25
◼
►
because I've never been invested in these products.
00:21:30
◼
►
I tend to just use what my provider gives me
00:21:35
◼
►
and in the UK, the hardware that we get given
00:21:38
◼
►
from our providers is actually pretty good stuff.
00:21:42
◼
►
it tends to be, not always, but like,
00:21:43
◼
►
where there's some proprietary stuff that they make,
00:21:45
◼
►
but it tends to be pretty good.
00:21:47
◼
►
- You make a good point in the US too,
00:21:50
◼
►
like cable modems now tend to come with WiFi,
00:21:53
◼
►
and we can, nerds especially, can be like,
00:21:55
◼
►
I don't use it, I turned it off,
00:21:57
◼
►
and I've got another router that I'm using,
00:21:59
◼
►
but you know, that's us.
00:22:01
◼
►
I think for the vast bulk of people,
00:22:03
◼
►
like you get WiFi with your router, that's it, right?
00:22:07
◼
►
You're done, you don't need anything more.
00:22:09
◼
►
- 'Cause I once owned an airport,
00:22:11
◼
►
I think the Express, the one that just was a plug,
00:22:14
◼
►
you just plugged it directly into the wall.
00:22:16
◼
►
And I owned that because my router
00:22:17
◼
►
didn't have Wi-Fi enabled.
00:22:20
◼
►
- That's why these products first started to exist.
00:22:23
◼
►
But now, as you say, that's not needed.
00:22:26
◼
►
- Apple had to make these products
00:22:27
◼
►
because there was a need for them.
00:22:30
◼
►
Like they needed to exist and they didn't exist.
00:22:32
◼
►
And that's just not true anymore.
00:22:34
◼
►
- But I do have a question though.
00:22:36
◼
►
This clearly seems like Apple is taking their time right now
00:22:40
◼
►
to pull back from some areas
00:22:41
◼
►
that they're not interested in anymore.
00:22:44
◼
►
And they're using those resources in other areas.
00:22:47
◼
►
I know that some of this stuff can upset people.
00:22:50
◼
►
I think for me, I see it as a positive
00:22:52
◼
►
because there are things in Apple's product line right now
00:22:55
◼
►
that I agree need work on.
00:22:57
◼
►
So I would like to see Apple stopping to care
00:23:01
◼
►
about these periphery things
00:23:03
◼
►
and putting more focus on these products, right?
00:23:06
◼
►
I would love to see more work done on the Mac.
00:23:08
◼
►
would love to see more work on the iPad. So taking talented people and putting them in
00:23:13
◼
►
other areas, that's a big thumbs up for me. But I can't understand why Apple still sell
00:23:19
◼
►
Tim Cynova Well, Dan Morin posted a link today to a Mac
00:23:25
◼
►
World story he wrote a little while ago, which was, "Apple products that need love." It was
00:23:32
◼
►
like displays and airport and the iPod Touch. And he's like, "Umm..." It's like, do they
00:23:43
◼
►
come in threes? And iPod, obviously, like the regular iPods too, they sell enough. Here's
00:23:49
◼
►
the thing. Those aren't ever... iPod Touch we could talk about, right? Because that requires
00:23:54
◼
►
iOS versions and all of that. And there are some arguments to be made there either way.
00:23:58
◼
►
But the iPods, the music players, they're at the end of their life, right? There's no
00:24:02
◼
►
development going on for those anymore. They are never going to get updated, and they will
00:24:08
◼
►
make them until they can't sell them anymore. So I don't think there's any internal focus
00:24:14
◼
►
placed on a product like that, because literally everybody knows there's never going to be
00:24:20
◼
►
anything more. And you can say that because already the iPod is, I would argue, kind of
00:24:27
◼
►
irrelevant, right? Because like, iPods can't do Apple Music. So they're already irrelevant.
00:24:33
◼
►
They're already just a product that they sell because some people still want to buy them.
00:24:36
◼
►
But there will come a time when the cost of selling them, or the money made by selling
00:24:40
◼
►
them is more than the cost of making them, having production line up at all to make them.
00:24:49
◼
►
Are they going to run out of the parts for them potentially at some point? Right? At
00:24:53
◼
►
some point it'll balance off and I don't know when that'll be and they'll just say, "Okay,
00:24:57
◼
►
the time has come. Like when I mentioned a week or two ago about IDG looking at our magazines
00:25:02
◼
►
back in the day and saying, "Once they're not profitable, the jig is up. We're not going
00:25:06
◼
►
to keep them around out of ego." At some point, the balance sheet goes into the red and you
00:25:13
◼
►
say, "That's it. We're done." But I think there's no intellectual energy being expended
00:25:19
◼
►
on the iPod, right? Whereas with the airport, when you look at what Google is doing, what
00:25:25
◼
►
companies like Eero who is sponsoring, unrelated, sponsoring this episode. So we'll just try
00:25:31
◼
►
to keep those separate. But there's an investment in kind of rethinking Wi-Fi, setting up more
00:25:39
◼
►
intelligent kind of mesh networks where you've got multiple stations doing coverage in houses
00:25:44
◼
►
where that was always kind of harder to do and now they're trying to make that easier
00:25:48
◼
►
for people to buy two packs or three packs of routers and you plug one in at the base
00:25:53
◼
►
and you plug a couple other in, they talk to each other, they configure, it's like,
00:25:57
◼
►
it's really good and much better as an experience than Wi-Fi has been up to now and much easier
00:26:02
◼
►
to set up. All of these reasons for that. And you're Apple and you're like, "Are we
00:26:06
◼
►
going to play that game?" No, we're not. It's fine. Other people are going to play that
00:26:10
◼
►
game. And you know, I, that's that question is always, are we going to have to spend more
00:26:15
◼
►
mental energy on this or aren't we? And the iPod is easy because as long as it pencils
00:26:20
◼
►
out there's no, you know, is there anybody, is there literally anybody looking at iPod
00:26:26
◼
►
software, firmware, hardware, anything? I don't think so.
00:26:29
◼
►
But that's, I agree with that, but was anybody doing that with the airport? But I still found,
00:26:35
◼
►
they're still potentially finding the need to kill this.
00:26:38
◼
►
Well they were still releasing like software updates for it every now and then. That was,
00:26:42
◼
►
that was a thing that was happening. And I do wonder again if there was an impetus here
00:26:46
◼
►
where they realized that beyond a certain point they were going to have to keep releasing
00:26:51
◼
►
software updates, you know, maybe they keep it on a maintenance mode for a certain amount
00:26:55
◼
►
of time, I don't know. I mean, you do wonder if there's that moment where they're like,
00:26:59
◼
►
"Oh, yeah, we need to choose now if this is going to be an ongoing concern or not." And
00:27:04
◼
►
we choose not.
00:27:06
◼
►
So the upgrade podcast from Real AFM decrees that it is not an issue.
00:27:11
◼
►
Yeah I guess, I mean, I feel for people who love these things and are sad that they're
00:27:15
◼
►
not going to continue, but I really feel like there's a lot of progress being made on other
00:27:19
◼
►
fronts here and that there are going to be other options that are going to be better
00:27:23
◼
►
and that for most people, probably the, you know, you get your router out of the box from
00:27:29
◼
►
your provider that has wifi and then you also have these other companies that are trying
00:27:34
◼
►
to build more robust mesh kind of networks for people who want that kind of thing. And
00:27:40
◼
►
do we need, do we need Apple in that game? Maybe it would be nice if they were there,
00:27:44
◼
►
Apple doesn't think it's particularly, you know, important that they be there.
00:27:48
◼
►
No, I, I, I endorse that.
00:27:51
◼
►
I just want to take a moment to touch on the "Design by Apple in California" book.
00:27:55
◼
►
Yes, yes, that was, that, that happened after our, after our show last week, so we
00:28:00
◼
►
didn't get a chance to talk about it here.
00:28:02
◼
►
I feel like there's a slight tie in here, um, because a lot of people are looking at
00:28:07
◼
►
this and I completely understand why, it's like, are Apple putting their focus on the
00:28:12
◼
►
right places right now, you know? Is it worth putting time and effort into creating a book
00:28:19
◼
►
chronicling the last 20 years of Apple design when the MacBook Pro is over a thousand days
00:28:24
◼
►
without a refresh, right? Like, I can see the idea of that for people's…
00:28:30
◼
►
Only the people involved in page layout, photography, and paper were instead designing the interior
00:28:36
◼
►
components of a Mac Pro. If only they had been retasked.
00:28:40
◼
►
I agree with you there mostly. There is definitely going to be some work expounded by the designers
00:28:47
◼
►
but I do agree. I don't think that this is saying that Apple are not putting their focus
00:28:55
◼
►
in the right places. I think that there is a nugget of something here which I'm struggling
00:29:01
◼
►
to land on which I think is a PR issue. I don't think this was the right time for this
00:29:08
◼
►
book to come out. So let me, in terms of the people, not only
00:29:13
◼
►
yes, the people who make a book are not the same people who engineer a product, and I
00:29:17
◼
►
think it's different, but I think if I had to guess internally how this worked at Apple,
00:29:21
◼
►
they've been collecting this archive for years, they want to have an archive of their old
00:29:24
◼
►
products for various reasons, not just for the book. They didn't call Stephen Hackett,
00:29:28
◼
►
I don't know what was up with that, they bought these products. You know what probably happened
00:29:34
◼
►
is that they brought some people on on a contract for six months and paid them to make this
00:29:40
◼
►
book and you know they contracted with a photographer and they contracted with a designer and they
00:29:45
◼
►
had some meetings where Johnny Ive or some other designers said here's what we'd like
00:29:49
◼
►
the book to be and then they paid you know they paid people to do it.
00:29:52
◼
►
And then there were sign-offs and etc etc. It's self-published but I really doubt they
00:29:56
◼
►
retasked key members of any team anywhere to work on this book. By far the most likely
00:30:02
◼
►
thing is they brought people in on a six month contract or something to build this book and
00:30:05
◼
►
paid them, wrote a check and did some interviews and did a couple of, you know, did some product
00:30:10
◼
►
management passes and some, you know, let's look at the page designs and are they looking
00:30:15
◼
►
okay and it was not, you know, I think this is a like write a check kind of a transaction
00:30:21
◼
►
with a little bit of oversight here after having collected the, so I think you could
00:30:25
◼
►
overstate the amount of effort that was put into this by anybody who has any effect on
00:30:29
◼
►
Apple's products and design really, really, I think it's very easy to overstate that.
00:30:36
◼
►
I think it wasn't a big deal. Now, to your point, right, you would say right now, given
00:30:42
◼
►
all the other things that are going on in the hubbub around all these other things at
00:30:45
◼
►
Apple, do you want to choose this time to release an introspective self-congratulatory
00:30:54
◼
►
Who is this book for? Who are they selling it to? Us. Right? They are selling it to the
00:31:03
◼
►
people that love Apple the most. The people that spend hours a week talking about or listening
00:31:10
◼
►
about or writing about or reading about these products. Apple must know that there is a
00:31:16
◼
►
little bit of unrest in that community right now. Right? They're not stupid. That's why
00:31:22
◼
►
they discounted dongles, right? Like, they're very aware of this.
00:31:26
◼
►
Sorry, I had to laugh at thinking of, wait, you mean that there's unrest in the community
00:31:33
◼
►
that Apple made unhappy by prioritizing other things over them? That seems like exactly
00:31:39
◼
►
consistent behavior, right? Like, they didn't care before, why would they care now? I don't
00:31:46
◼
►
know. It's, it's, you're, you're, I'm not sure there's ever a good time to do
00:31:51
◼
►
something like this. I was on the talk show last week and Gruber and I talked
00:31:56
◼
►
about this a bit and you find that in somewhere an hour or two. It was a long
00:32:02
◼
►
conversation and, and I feel like what John suggested is they could have used a
00:32:10
◼
►
a coffee table book publisher of Renown as a front? Like, not even necessarily given
00:32:18
◼
►
up any control over it, but they could have used the publisher as a front to say, "Oh,
00:32:24
◼
►
they're publishing it, we're not." But Apple's like, "Nope, we're publishing it, it's all
00:32:28
◼
►
us, we think we're great, here is this photo book of all of our stuff." And they didn't
00:32:33
◼
►
do that either. But, you know, was there ever going to be a good time to do it? This seems
00:32:39
◼
►
like, I feel like they wanted this out for the holidays because they know that there
00:32:42
◼
►
are people who are big fans of Apple who will buy this as a, you know, as a holiday gift
00:32:47
◼
►
and it costs a ridiculous amount of money, but a lot of coffee table book kind of art
00:32:52
◼
►
book stuff, a lot of them cost what we would perceive as a ridiculous amount of money because
00:32:56
◼
►
that's how those kinds of things are often priced. I don't know. Myke, the thing that
00:33:02
◼
►
baffles me the most about this book is that it's just pictures of old hardware, that there's
00:33:07
◼
►
literally no insight into--John Saracusa talked about this on ATP last week--there's no insight
00:33:12
◼
►
into what they did in detail. Like, apparently there's a booklet that comes with the book
00:33:17
◼
►
that's got some descriptive text, but that the book is basically just pictures, and,
00:33:22
◼
►
you know, if this is--why? Like, literally anyone could make this book, and many have.
00:33:30
◼
►
Why did Apple make a book that is literally just pictures of Apple hardware that is publicly
00:33:38
◼
►
available and that anyone can amass a collection of, including Steven Hackett, and that there
00:33:42
◼
►
are other books about this? That's the part that actually baffles me, because that's
00:33:48
◼
►
somebody saying, "Well, other people can do it, but we want our own." And that's
00:33:55
◼
►
what I keep coming back to, is what this really feels like is the industrial design group
00:33:59
◼
►
wanted a yearbook. They wanted a collection of their work so that they would have it.
00:34:05
◼
►
At some point, somebody said, "Well, why don't we just sell it? Why just make it for us? I'll give
00:34:12
◼
►
you the money to build this book, but why don't we recoup some of that by selling it at Apple
00:34:17
◼
►
stores too?" Somebody's like, "All right, let's do that." But it feels very much like this is
00:34:23
◼
►
somebody, you know, the Industrial Design Group wanted a pretty thing to put, you know,
00:34:29
◼
►
to take with them.
00:34:30
◼
►
Is this an example of Johnny I's power? Has he been able to just say, "We're making
00:34:36
◼
►
this book and the book is made"?
00:34:37
◼
►
Yeah, I mean, there may be multiple steps there, but my guess is that he or somebody
00:34:41
◼
►
else in his group was a proponent of this, and like I said, my theory is that they wanted
00:34:46
◼
►
to make this for themselves, and then a series of decisions was made that led to it being,
00:34:51
◼
►
well, maybe other people want it.
00:34:52
◼
►
Well, maybe we should sell it publicly
00:34:53
◼
►
'cause we can make some money that way
00:34:55
◼
►
and let fans and people who appreciate our great work do it.
00:34:58
◼
►
I don't think it started as,
00:34:59
◼
►
what we need to do is make a photo book
00:35:01
◼
►
so that the masses can appreciate our,
00:35:03
◼
►
I don't think it came from that direction.
00:35:05
◼
►
But sure, I doubt that, I mean, who else could do,
00:35:09
◼
►
who else could kick off a project like this, right?
00:35:13
◼
►
- But Johnny I, but I do feel like it was very much,
00:35:16
◼
►
we're proud of the hardware work we've done
00:35:18
◼
►
and we wanna have something that, you know,
00:35:20
◼
►
we don't think that the existing books about our work really tell the story, or we've been
00:35:25
◼
►
building this archive for eight years, we'd like to document it, and then it sort of snowballs
00:35:29
◼
►
into this bigger project, is my guess.
00:35:33
◼
►
It does frustrate me that there's no iBooks version of this, for a couple of reasons.
00:35:38
◼
►
One, so people that want to enjoy this stuff don't have to pay $200 for it. And also, two,
00:35:45
◼
►
This is a multimedia-rich platform that they could have used to create.
00:35:51
◼
►
You could have put videos in there, they could have put narration in there.
00:35:54
◼
►
They could have made a really interesting iBook out of this as well, like in complement
00:35:59
◼
►
to that maybe even you got for free if you bought the real big book.
00:36:03
◼
►
And that goes back to my theory that this project was always of a smaller scope and
00:36:09
◼
►
then it just sort of like expanded and nobody, I mean, I've seen that happen in lots of different
00:36:14
◼
►
areas where you start with something small and it expands without anybody saying, "Wait
00:36:19
◼
►
a second. If we're going to expand this, maybe we should expand the scope of it." It's like,
00:36:22
◼
►
"Well, no, no, no. The argument is no, that doesn't work. We don't want to spend too much
00:36:26
◼
►
time on it. We're just going to do what we're going to do. And if you want to sell it, you
00:36:29
◼
►
can sell it." And nobody stopped to say, "Well, wouldn't this be a great iBook that we could
00:36:34
◼
►
build and we could throw in videos and we could throw in other things?" It's like, "No,
00:36:38
◼
►
The whole goal here was just to have a beautiful photography book on custom paper.
00:36:46
◼
►
But then they released a big press release about it, which is like, "Ugh!"
00:36:50
◼
►
That's where it kind of ties together into a bit of a mess, I think.
00:36:53
◼
►
Yeah, I mean, I agree that the optics of it are weird, but I don't know.
00:36:59
◼
►
What I said on the talk show, I'll say here, which is, I feel like how people react to
00:37:03
◼
►
this book is a way to peer into how people feel about Apple right now. I feel like that's
00:37:11
◼
►
what this is. This is an inkblot test kind of thing, which is if you are inclined to
00:37:16
◼
►
believe that Apple is rotting and doesn't know what it's doing, then you can point to
00:37:22
◼
►
this and say, "See? This is proof." And if you think that Apple's fine and people get
00:37:28
◼
►
freaked out about things that they shouldn't worry about, you can point to this and be
00:37:32
◼
►
like it's not a big deal. And so I guess that's why I'm kind of lukewarm on the whole thing,
00:37:38
◼
►
other than being disappointed because it seems like a huge missed opportunity not to actually
00:37:41
◼
►
tell the story of Apple design in some way and instead just show pictures that anybody
00:37:46
◼
►
can make a book and has showing pictures of these products. Beyond that, really all I
00:37:51
◼
►
have to do is sort of shrug and say it's not that big a thing and people who want to use
00:37:57
◼
►
it as evidence of something are doing it not because they originally thought everything
00:38:03
◼
►
was fine but because they already were worried about it and this buttresses their case. It
00:38:08
◼
►
seems very much like an inkblot test to me.
00:38:13
◼
►
My overall feeling is I'm not annoyed that the book exists, I'm annoyed at how they priced
00:38:17
◼
►
it and I'm annoyed at the time that they chose to introduce it. I just think that it shows
00:38:23
◼
►
a little bit of either arrogance or blindness to the people that they're
00:38:29
◼
►
trying to sell this to which is Apple but it still can be annoying. I guess I
00:38:34
◼
►
think I think those of us in our our Apple focus bubble can get can think of
00:38:41
◼
►
the situation as being more extreme than it actually is. Sure but you know I right
00:38:46
◼
►
you know we're the most likely audience to buy a book like this and I think
00:38:50
◼
►
must know that. However, after watching Stephen's video where he was able to line up the book
00:38:56
◼
►
with his own actual Apple collection, I do want the book. I honestly do want it. I'm
00:39:01
◼
►
a huge Apple fan. This book is for me. I want it. I want to look at the pictures. And with
00:39:07
◼
►
the holiday season coming up, maybe it will appear in my stocking and I'll be very happy
00:39:11
◼
►
to receive it.
00:39:12
◼
►
That's a big stocking.
00:39:13
◼
►
It's a big stocking. But this is the type of thing that I know that I would enjoy. I'm
00:39:18
◼
►
not annoyed that the book exists I just think that it could have been done better and I
00:39:23
◼
►
really wish that they would have had an iBook version so more people could enjoy it I think.
00:39:28
◼
►
That I think that's the thing that frustrates me the most it's like you can enjoy our photos
00:39:33
◼
►
if you pay us multiple hundreds of dollars to do so.
00:39:36
◼
►
So, hey ho, this episode is brought to you by Eero. These days everything in our homes
00:39:42
◼
►
requires an internet connection, our speakers, thermostats, light bulbs, front door locks,
00:39:46
◼
►
security cameras, everything in between. And we're increasingly looking at streaming services
00:39:50
◼
►
like Netflix, Hulu and Spotify for our home entertainment. I know this as I'm collecting
00:39:54
◼
►
up items to buy for the new home, just seeing how many of these things need Wi-Fi to make
00:39:59
◼
►
them work. It is the foundation for all of the stuff that we need these days and we are
00:40:03
◼
►
totally dependent on it. I have no Wi-Fi at all in my new flat right now and it is a sad
00:40:09
◼
►
place to be at times. It's funny to see just how intrinsic it is to our everyday lives.
00:40:15
◼
►
funnily enough wifi is broken. So imagine going into a room in your house and plugging
00:40:21
◼
►
in your iPhone into a socket in the corner of the room and a notification pops up and
00:40:25
◼
►
tells you that your phone is going to charge too slowly because you're too far away from
00:40:28
◼
►
the electric meter. It doesn't make any sense right? It doesn't make any sense, electricity
00:40:32
◼
►
flows everywhere it's fine. But this isn't the norm for wifi. If you're too far away
00:40:36
◼
►
from your wifi base station or your router you can get dead zones, you're going to have
00:40:40
◼
►
buffering issues. To get the best connection today you need a distributed system that can
00:40:44
◼
►
provide you with a connection all over your home. This is what Eero is all about. Each
00:40:51
◼
►
Eero, you get these little boxes, they have two radios inside them. They keep your connection
00:40:55
◼
►
fast and everything in sync. You get a pack of them, you install them around your home,
00:40:59
◼
►
you download the Eero app on your iOS device, it'll walk you through the setup, and then
00:41:02
◼
►
your whole home is blanketed in great Wi-Fi. Now Jason, I know that you have some Eero
00:41:08
◼
►
JASON WARNKE I do. In fact, it's funny you're talking about the importance of Wi-Fi. I currently
00:41:12
◼
►
have 23 devices on my network. So that is how much we rely on Wi-Fi. That's iPads and
00:41:22
◼
►
iPhones and Macs and printers and smart home devices, all sorts of things that are on that
00:41:29
◼
►
And how easy was it to set up the Eero?
00:41:33
◼
►
Oh, it was surprisingly easy. I plugged them in. I actually have wired locations in my
00:41:41
◼
►
house where I had other base stations at some point. So I was able to attach it in three
00:41:47
◼
►
different places in my house with wires, although one of them didn't originally have that. And
00:41:52
◼
►
it didn't really matter because what happens is you get the Eero plugged in and going and
00:41:56
◼
►
then you add other, I got a three-pack, and you add other Eero stations and they talk
00:42:03
◼
►
to each other and they connect with each other. So whether they're wired together or whether
00:42:07
◼
►
they're just using the wireless mesh network to talk, they configure each other. And this
00:42:12
◼
►
is something I was mentioning earlier when we were talking about the airport, that getting
00:42:16
◼
►
base stations to work together seamlessly is actually kind of hard to do with traditional
00:42:23
◼
►
stuff. And this new generation of wireless base stations is much better at it. And it's
00:42:27
◼
►
good because, you know, in a lot of situations you need more than one to get your coverage
00:42:32
◼
►
to be solid. Even my house isn't very large, but if I put the wireless base station in
00:42:39
◼
►
the front room, then the bedroom's Wi-Fi was poor. That was bottom line, it just wasn't
00:42:46
◼
►
good enough. And so instead I just plugged these things in and ran through the very simple
00:42:51
◼
►
setup procedure and that was it. Suddenly I had much better Wi-Fi coverage everywhere
00:42:55
◼
►
in my house.
00:42:56
◼
►
The average house in the US is easily covered by between 2-3 Eero's. A 3 pack is a good
00:43:02
◼
►
starting point but you can have up to 10 if you have a larger space to cover. And because
00:43:06
◼
►
of their 30 day money back guarantee you can always return one or more of them if you end
00:43:10
◼
►
up not needing them all. If you want to find out more about the Eero and get one for yourself
00:43:14
◼
►
just go to Eero.com and because you listen to this show you will get yourself free overnight
00:43:21
◼
►
shipping just by selecting overnight shipping at the checkout process and entering the code
00:43:25
◼
►
upgrade at checkout.
00:43:41
◼
►
So there is some news this week that came out that a man by the name of Sal Sogoin has
00:43:49
◼
►
Now I am sure that there are people that leave Apple of their own accord or are pushed out
00:43:54
◼
►
the door every day, but it usually never meets us. It's very rare that we hear about a departure
00:44:02
◼
►
from a non-executive, right? The executive leaves, we all know about it. But maybe we'd
00:44:08
◼
►
hesitate to say a rank and file member of Apple, somebody who maybe is a team leader
00:44:12
◼
►
or works within a team, they leave, we don't hear anything. Who is Sal Seguian? What did
00:44:16
◼
►
he do at Apple and why is it important that he's no longer there?
00:44:20
◼
►
So, Sal was the product manager of Automation Technologies, which he announced at the Mac
00:44:26
◼
►
Tech Conference where he was speaking that his position was eliminated for business reasons,
00:44:31
◼
►
which is, that's basically Apple code for services no longer required, right? That was,
00:44:38
◼
►
he was, he was, he was told to leave. Sal's history at Apple goes back a very long way,
00:44:46
◼
►
into the OS 9 days. The first time I ever saw Sal was at a WWDC in the 90s where he
00:44:51
◼
►
was not working at Apple, and he was demoing AppleScript support in QuarkXPress, and basically
00:44:59
◼
►
he was a consultant and he was working for a publishing company, a newspaper company,
00:45:03
◼
►
and they had a database of all their classified ads, and he built a script that queried the
00:45:09
◼
►
database and laid out their classified ad page automatically, which you have to, I mean,
00:45:15
◼
►
have to see it in that context, it was mind-blowing. Like, literally an entire page of the newspaper
00:45:22
◼
►
was made in seconds by this script. And that was--he was and is a great demo guy. He always
00:45:32
◼
►
had a session at WWDC. Apple hired him to be their scripting and automation guy, basically,
00:45:40
◼
►
inside Apple. And he was a pretty high profile, he is a gregarious guy, you get to know him,
00:45:46
◼
►
he's a nice guy, he was very visible, and I think, you know, I'm unclear on all the
00:45:54
◼
►
details of how the inner workings of Apple work. He had a team, he was the product manager,
00:46:03
◼
►
the funding and access that his team got is an open question, how much he got to direct,
00:46:10
◼
►
what the direction that this stuff went versus what was sort of dictated to them from the
00:46:15
◼
►
OS people I think is open to discussion. And I would say that his tenure is not without
00:46:20
◼
►
things that we can criticize about it. There are definitely some things that maybe didn't
00:46:24
◼
►
work as well as they could have, but I also got the distinct impression that he didn't
00:46:29
◼
►
have a whole lot of support within Apple for their stuff. Like they did Automator, which
00:46:34
◼
►
was back in like OS 10.4, I think. It was a long time ago. And then they did some script
00:46:42
◼
►
bridge stuff so that you could get access with JavaScript to scripting. They did some
00:46:48
◼
►
things, but it's been pretty limited over time. And I think I got into a Twitter back
00:46:53
◼
►
and forth with somebody who was saying, you know, they haven't shipped anything interesting.
00:46:57
◼
►
And my understanding is they haven't shipped anything interesting because they had no support
00:47:00
◼
►
within Apple. So I think for me the question was in some ways, how is this able to go on
00:47:06
◼
►
for so long where Apple's OS group didn't seem to care about what Sal and his team were
00:47:13
◼
►
doing and yet they remained to kind of twist in the wind. I wonder about that, but I just
00:47:18
◼
►
I don't know enough about the inside details to say.
00:47:22
◼
►
- Sal has always been something I've been aware of,
00:47:25
◼
►
maybe over my last kind of 10 years,
00:47:27
◼
►
or maybe 10, 15 years,
00:47:29
◼
►
I've been interested in Apple products significantly.
00:47:32
◼
►
'Cause I've seen him.
00:47:33
◼
►
You know, I remember episodes of the old MacBreak video show
00:47:38
◼
►
with Sal Seguin as a guest whilst employed by Apple.
00:47:42
◼
►
I know that he gives talks whilst employed by Apple.
00:47:44
◼
►
He has his own website.
00:47:46
◼
►
- Multiple websites about OS features that he generates
00:47:50
◼
►
that are not hosted by Apple,
00:47:52
◼
►
but look like Apple websites sort of, and for years.
00:47:56
◼
►
So he's definitely been playing by a different book
00:47:58
◼
►
than most. - Right.
00:48:00
◼
►
This is the stuff that Apple people can do.
00:48:03
◼
►
And I wonder, maybe you could provide
00:48:04
◼
►
a bit of context on this.
00:48:06
◼
►
Is he kind of a hangover from the days of the evangelists?
00:48:10
◼
►
- Well, I'd say he definitely feels evangelist-y
00:48:15
◼
►
in a way that you don't see very much of anymore
00:48:18
◼
►
in the broader world. I think there's something to that. And the fact that he was given free
00:48:24
◼
►
reign, I think the fact that he was given sort of free reign for some of this stuff
00:48:27
◼
►
also speaks to Apple's lack of interest in it. Like, it wasn't important enough to not
00:48:33
◼
►
have him doing it, and he was just kind of evangelizing their technologies. I definitely
00:48:38
◼
►
felt, the sense I always got from Sal about Apple stuff was that Sal was counting on us,
00:48:45
◼
►
press and the users to send the message that the stuff that he was doing was cool and should
00:48:52
◼
►
continue because the, you know, the implication there was because he and his team couldn't
00:48:59
◼
►
do it. Like they, they were making the case and that was just not going to do it, that
00:49:04
◼
►
we needed to make noise for it to continue. In fact, you know, back in the day, there
00:49:08
◼
►
was a question about whether Apple script was going to make it into a OS 10. And it's
00:49:14
◼
►
because if you think about the darkest days of Apple, there was a while there where one
00:49:18
◼
►
of the reasons, one of the main reasons publishers didn't switch to Windows was that they had
00:49:23
◼
►
all these AppleScript automation things that had been built to ease their production systems
00:49:30
◼
►
and they didn't translate to Windows and so it kept them on the Mac in the darkest of
00:49:35
◼
►
the days. So in the end, AppleScript did come to OS X and they did introduce Automator in
00:49:42
◼
►
and for. But yeah, it's a, I don't know, it was a different time and it was never a huge
00:49:50
◼
►
priority for him and he was always a good spokesman, so he did end up being kind of
00:49:53
◼
►
an evangelist and they didn't seem to put the clamps on him either. So yeah, you know,
00:50:03
◼
►
it's interesting to ask why now and why not sooner and maybe this is all part of a thing,
00:50:09
◼
►
go back to the airport stuff, maybe this is the end of 2016 reckoning where Apple is doing
00:50:19
◼
►
some reorg and getting rid of more old stuff that they don't think they need to have around
00:50:26
◼
►
anymore. Maybe that's the thought process here.
00:50:28
◼
►
**Beserat Debele
00:50:30
◼
►
I mean, I think Sal is great, but does Apple care?
00:50:35
◼
►
I mean, this is the question.
00:50:37
◼
►
It's like if Apple doesn't really care
00:50:38
◼
►
and all that he and his group do is they are underfunded,
00:50:42
◼
►
under-resourced, and make trouble
00:50:45
◼
►
because they don't agree. - That's exactly
00:50:46
◼
►
what I was gonna say.
00:50:47
◼
►
Well, I would assume that inside of Apple,
00:50:49
◼
►
I mean, I know nothing, that all Sal and his team
00:50:53
◼
►
are troublemakers now because they're not able
00:50:55
◼
►
to do anything else.
00:50:56
◼
►
- Yeah, sure.
00:50:57
◼
►
They have no leeway, they have no budget to actually do anything.
00:51:01
◼
►
I think that shows in the fact that this isn't really a thing that is spoken about in Apple
00:51:04
◼
►
Script anymore.
00:51:05
◼
►
So I'm sure all they do is just try and be involved and they're just seen as troublemakers.
00:51:10
◼
►
And they bug everybody who's building an app internally, I'm sure gets bugged by, or got
00:51:15
◼
►
bugged by Sal and his team about like, "Are you doing scriptability?
00:51:20
◼
►
Is pages scriptable?
00:51:21
◼
►
Is numbers scriptable?
00:51:22
◼
►
Why isn't it scriptable?
00:51:23
◼
►
You need to do that."
00:51:25
◼
►
And that's probably annoying for people too.
00:51:26
◼
►
also a couple points. Because it's also possible that they wanted to go in a direction that
00:51:34
◼
►
this team doesn't want to go in or wasn't a good fit for. It's possible. And that's
00:51:40
◼
►
my optimism scenario that we can get to in a little bit. But I do want to say one thing
00:51:43
◼
►
about AppleScript because it's very easy to conflate Sal with AppleScript. He's the AppleScript
00:51:47
◼
►
guy. But AppleScript and automation is more than AppleScript and it's more than automator.
00:51:53
◼
►
a lot of stuff. It's hooks into, like I said, you could script apps on the Mac with languages
00:51:59
◼
►
that are a language that is not AppleScript. You could do with JavaScript. I think you
00:52:02
◼
►
can do it with a bunch of other scripting languages too. Um, and like I use automator
00:52:08
◼
►
stuff every day, but most of it is actually triggering shell scripts and automator exists
00:52:15
◼
►
to make it easy for me to connect those shell scripts with the, the Mac UI. So I don't have
00:52:21
◼
►
have to open a terminal window and type them. And some of them are Apple scripts and some
00:52:25
◼
►
of them are Apple scripts that build shell scripts and then run the shell scripts. So
00:52:28
◼
►
it's a bigger world. And I'm more concerned about Apple's platform having scriptability
00:52:39
◼
►
and access so that users can connect apps together in ways that the apps can't anticipate
00:52:46
◼
►
themselves separately and do other kind of automating of simple tasks in general as a
00:52:52
◼
►
concept than I am in preserving something like AppleScript. I mean, anybody who's used
00:52:56
◼
►
AppleScript will probably tell you that AppleScript is a kind of a mess and a pain to use. And
00:53:00
◼
►
I don't particularly love it. If somebody came to me and said, "We're vastly improving
00:53:04
◼
►
the scripting system in OS X," and maybe even like have something like that for iOS, but
00:53:09
◼
►
you're going to have to learn Swift, I'd say, "Great. Like, great. Great. Let's do it. Let's
00:53:15
◼
►
make it happen. So it's a bigger issue than like Apple Scripter Automator, which are not
00:53:21
◼
►
without their serious flaws.
00:53:24
◼
►
I think this might just be like this whole thing of automation and scripting. I just
00:53:29
◼
►
think it might be something that Apple just isn't interested in putting the time and effort
00:53:34
◼
►
And I think the key for that is that they haven't hired the workflow team.
00:53:39
◼
►
The fact that workflow exists tells me that maybe they're not that interested in doing
00:53:44
◼
►
it themselves because if you were you just do just buy them.
00:53:48
◼
►
I think well I think workflow though so we're talking about the workflow app for iOS I think
00:53:53
◼
►
the argument could be and this is that my pessimistic scenario versus my optimistic
00:53:59
◼
►
scenario the argument could be that Apple doesn't need to make automation tools. Apple
00:54:04
◼
►
needs to make their platform have hooks basically have ways for automation tools for scripts
00:54:12
◼
►
to access the system.
00:54:15
◼
►
- That works for me, right?
00:54:17
◼
►
- Right, so that's the question.
00:54:19
◼
►
Now iOS automation works not because of Apple,
00:54:23
◼
►
but despite Apple.
00:54:24
◼
►
Like workflow is cool, X callback URL is a nice hack
00:54:29
◼
►
that developers have come up with,
00:54:31
◼
►
but Apple could have built a legitimate system
00:54:36
◼
►
of automation and inter-app communication for iOS
00:54:40
◼
►
and didn't bother.
00:54:42
◼
►
And that's the question and is poorer because of it.
00:54:44
◼
►
As great as, you know, and Federico and Fraser can talk
00:54:49
◼
►
on another podcast about how great automation stuff is
00:54:54
◼
►
with workflow on iOS.
00:54:56
◼
►
- As Canvas, you should check out their series, it's awesome.
00:54:58
◼
►
- It is Canvas, thank you.
00:55:00
◼
►
You should listen to that podcast.
00:55:03
◼
►
As great as it is, it could be so much better.
00:55:05
◼
►
It could be so much better and so much less
00:55:07
◼
►
of working around things in the system
00:55:09
◼
►
if Apple had a commitment to doing that.
00:55:13
◼
►
But my understanding, and talking to Sal over the years,
00:55:16
◼
►
was that iOS engineering, not even remotely interested.
00:55:21
◼
►
It was like a wall for the automation group.
00:55:23
◼
►
Like, nope, not just no, forget it.
00:55:26
◼
►
At which point you've got to say,
00:55:28
◼
►
the only reason the Mac had it
00:55:29
◼
►
is because it had it in the past,
00:55:31
◼
►
and that Apple has no concern about it moving forward,
00:55:33
◼
►
because if they cared about this kind of issue,
00:55:35
◼
►
maybe they would put it on iOS.
00:55:37
◼
►
You could argue, oh, well, the Mac is,
00:55:39
◼
►
is a platform for more finicky, fiddly stuff.
00:55:42
◼
►
And iOS is smooth and serene and for consumers more,
00:55:46
◼
►
although iPad Pro, what happens there?
00:55:49
◼
►
But I think that's the optimistic scenario I have
00:55:54
◼
►
is what if Apple does have a plan to make automation
00:56:00
◼
►
kind of more modern and tie into modern scripting languages
00:56:03
◼
►
or maybe even tie into Swift and use it as a kind of a ramp
00:56:07
◼
►
up, like you learn Swift and you can do automation in the system and then you can build an app
00:56:11
◼
►
and it's all part of a ramp up, or is, I think more evidence suggests that Apple just doesn't
00:56:17
◼
►
care and that they look at something like Workflow and instead of saying, "Wow, that's
00:56:21
◼
►
really amazing," they look at Workflow and say, "See, we don't need to do anything."
00:56:25
◼
►
Again, that works for me, right? Like I've never been an AppleScript person. I love Workflow.
00:56:32
◼
►
I've tried AppleScript. It never made any sense to me. Workflow makes sense to me.
00:56:36
◼
►
And no disagreement there.
00:56:38
◼
►
And Workflow does a better job of being Automator
00:56:40
◼
►
than Automator ever did.
00:56:42
◼
►
But Workflow still has some really weird things about it.
00:56:45
◼
►
And the access that Workflow has is limited by the fact
00:56:50
◼
►
that the way Apple has built iOS makes it hard.
00:56:54
◼
►
There's stuff you can't access.
00:56:55
◼
►
And I see this on the Mac too.
00:56:57
◼
►
Like there are apps that are not scriptable.
00:56:58
◼
►
And this is the thing, again, it isn't just Apple script.
00:57:01
◼
►
Like I use keyboard maestro for a lot of things
00:57:04
◼
►
and it's pretty great too.
00:57:05
◼
►
but there's stuff that, you know, in my Stroll,
00:57:07
◼
►
I end up having to like open a window,
00:57:10
◼
►
move the cursor, click on a button.
00:57:13
◼
►
And that's ridiculous, right?
00:57:14
◼
►
You should be able to have that,
00:57:16
◼
►
tell the app to set that setting.
00:57:20
◼
►
And in some apps you just can't do it.
00:57:23
◼
►
And you have to resort to kind of scripting the UI,
00:57:25
◼
►
which is kind of dumb.
00:57:27
◼
►
So that's my issue is I would be happy
00:57:29
◼
►
if Apple got out of the tools game,
00:57:34
◼
►
but had a little bit better of a commitment to opening access for the people who build the tools.
00:57:40
◼
►
But I'm not sure that's really what's happening here. My most likely scenario for me is that all
00:57:46
◼
►
the script stuff in the Mac is going to be in the same deep freeze where they keep dashboard.
00:57:51
◼
►
By the way, there's a dashboard button you can put on the control strip in the touch bar,
00:57:59
◼
►
which is hilarious. I hadn't even thought of that. I can't believe they made that.
00:58:03
◼
►
Yeah, you can put that in there. So if you like your 2016 future technology mixed with
00:58:08
◼
►
your technology from the previous decade, you can do it.
00:58:12
◼
►
I love that they took the dashboard key away from the keyboard, but now they've put it
00:58:16
◼
►
back in the touch bar.
00:58:17
◼
►
Well, the touch bar, if you want it, it's there. And I heard from somebody who said
00:58:21
◼
►
they use dashboard every day and never use AppleScript. And I was like, fair enough,
00:58:26
◼
►
to each their own. But yes, if you would like dashboard on the touch bar, you can make that
00:58:30
◼
►
happen. You crazy diamond.
00:58:31
◼
►
and shine on you.
00:58:33
◼
►
- Just carry on my wayward son.
00:58:35
◼
►
I feel like the theme of today's episode is
00:58:39
◼
►
Apple is killing some stuff.
00:58:41
◼
►
They are, they're moving away from certain areas.
00:58:45
◼
►
But I think we both think that that's okay.
00:58:49
◼
►
- Yeah, I would say it's okay, I think it's healthy
00:58:53
◼
►
for Apple to look at stuff and say,
00:58:55
◼
►
"We don't need to be doing this anymore."
00:58:57
◼
►
I think it's healthy for all of us to do that, right?
00:58:59
◼
►
What can we not do? What are we doing because we, many years ago, decided we would do it,
00:59:05
◼
►
and not because it would ever make any sense for us to do it? It's like what I said about the iPod,
00:59:09
◼
►
right? At some point you have that balance of like, well, maybe it's easier for me to keep
00:59:13
◼
►
doing it, but at some point it's not easier for you to keep doing it. The best thing to do is to
00:59:17
◼
►
stop, and then it's done, and then you get that time back, you get that money back, you get those
00:59:21
◼
►
people back, whatever it is. I think that's absolutely true. My question is, what comes next?
00:59:28
◼
►
What comes next? And in the case of the airport, maybe what comes next is other third-party
00:59:36
◼
►
stuff that's way better than the airport was, so why should Apple bother? In the case of
00:59:40
◼
►
scripting, this is my question of automation, is what comes next? Is this, we give up, we
00:59:46
◼
►
don't care anymore, nothing's going to be scriptable anymore, the system, you know,
00:59:50
◼
►
we just don't care. Or is it, actually what we want to do is something that's very different,
00:59:56
◼
►
we have an idea. Like we do care and we are going to make some changes there. And like
01:00:02
◼
►
I said, I think that's less likely, but it comes back to that as much as I feel for Sal
01:00:08
◼
►
and his team and as much as I have benefited from the work that they've done, if Apple
01:00:12
◼
►
has truly felt for years that it was a waste of time and money, they should have done this
01:00:19
◼
►
a long time ago. So why not do it now? Right? If they truly have no commitment to this,
01:00:25
◼
►
Why put up the false front, right? Why act like you do and cart out these poor people
01:00:33
◼
►
who are trying their best to advocate for their technology while knowing that they have
01:00:37
◼
►
no support internally for their technology? Why? Why do that? So on that level, it comes
01:00:43
◼
►
back to it's okay. Like, if you really don't want to do this, just say so. It's not you,
01:00:49
◼
►
- But we both will just underscore the point that,
01:00:52
◼
►
we're not happy to see people lose their jobs, of course.
01:00:56
◼
►
- No, no, and I hope that, and Sal lost his job.
01:00:59
◼
►
I hope that a lot of the people on his team,
01:01:02
◼
►
what I, the report I read was that it was disbanded.
01:01:06
◼
►
I don't know if that's actually accurate or not,
01:01:08
◼
►
but in a lot of cases, the technical people at Apple,
01:01:11
◼
►
they don't lose their jobs, they are transferred elsewhere.
01:01:14
◼
►
And that is, and it could have been, who knows,
01:01:17
◼
►
this could have been precipitated by key members of the team
01:01:20
◼
►
being pulled elsewhere,
01:01:21
◼
►
leaving them with nobody on their team
01:01:23
◼
►
and somebody saying, "Let's just pull the plug.
01:01:25
◼
►
Why would we staff this team back up?"
01:01:27
◼
►
- Let's get rid of the troublemaker and carry on.
01:01:30
◼
►
- That's right, possibly, possibly.
01:01:32
◼
►
And I think Sal, again, Sal was a fierce advocate
01:01:34
◼
►
for his stuff as any product manager should be.
01:01:37
◼
►
But I can see how that could be perceived
01:01:38
◼
►
inside an organization that doesn't care about his stuff
01:01:42
◼
►
as being a pain because, right, that was his job,
01:01:45
◼
►
to be a pain.
01:01:46
◼
►
if people aren't listening to him.
01:01:49
◼
►
So I don't know.
01:01:50
◼
►
I mean, I look at workflow on iOS and I think there's hope
01:01:54
◼
►
because somehow even in a cold unfeeling universe
01:01:57
◼
►
where Apple made no attempt to do automation of any kind,
01:02:01
◼
►
they found a way.
01:02:02
◼
►
Life, life finds a way.
01:02:04
◼
►
Sorry, I'm getting all Jurassic Park on you now.
01:02:07
◼
►
They found a way to do it with X callback URLs
01:02:09
◼
►
and other wacky stuff like that.
01:02:11
◼
►
They found a way to do that stuff
01:02:13
◼
►
and through share sheets and the sharing extension.
01:02:15
◼
►
So, you know, there's hope, there's hope,
01:02:18
◼
►
but I would love it if Apple would give the people out there
01:02:23
◼
►
who want to build that stuff the access to do it.
01:02:28
◼
►
For me, that's like, that's my bargaining right now,
01:02:31
◼
►
is Apple doesn't have to do it.
01:02:32
◼
►
Apple just has to make it accessible
01:02:36
◼
►
for other people to do the work and not shut them out
01:02:38
◼
►
and maybe give them some tools to do a better job with it.
01:02:41
◼
►
(phone ringing)
01:02:43
◼
►
Myke, this just in.
01:02:45
◼
►
After we recorded the entire episode, we've come back in time.
01:02:48
◼
►
It's like Back to the Future 2, Myke.
01:02:50
◼
►
Marty, I need your help.
01:02:54
◼
►
Craig has sent an email.
01:02:56
◼
►
So after we recorded, but before we finished talking on the live stream,
01:03:00
◼
►
Craig Federighi sent an email to somebody on the internet who reads 9to5 Mac.
01:03:07
◼
►
So 9to5 Mac posted a story about it.
01:03:09
◼
►
And basically the emailer said, Hey, I'm sad that you could let go, Sal.
01:03:14
◼
►
I like automation on the Mac.
01:03:16
◼
►
And Craig Federighi wrote back to them and said,
01:03:18
◼
►
"Hi, we have every intent to continue our support
01:03:22
◼
►
for the great automation technologies in macOS."
01:03:25
◼
►
You can hear Craig saying it.
01:03:26
◼
►
- You really can.
01:03:27
◼
►
- And do we think this is good news?
01:03:31
◼
►
My thought is continued support
01:03:34
◼
►
does not necessarily mean anything other than dashboard.
01:03:42
◼
►
It continues to exist.
01:03:44
◼
►
Is there more to it?
01:03:45
◼
►
Am I being pessimistic and viewing it that way?
01:03:47
◼
►
It's great that Craig is reassuring somebody about it,
01:03:50
◼
►
but this is, you know, again,
01:03:52
◼
►
no talk about future product directions,
01:03:55
◼
►
but continuing our support is not anything
01:03:59
◼
►
other than keeping it alive, I think.
01:04:02
◼
►
- I think what this means at a minimum
01:04:04
◼
►
is that this is life support, right?
01:04:07
◼
►
They are at least confirming
01:04:09
◼
►
that automation is on life support at Apple.
01:04:11
◼
►
Best case scenario means that they have some other ideas
01:04:14
◼
►
that they wanna work on, and as we mentioned,
01:04:16
◼
►
Sal and his team didn't fit those ideas.
01:04:18
◼
►
But I think the fact that Federighi took the time
01:04:22
◼
►
to send those emails, they do this purposefully,
01:04:24
◼
►
they know these things are gonna get out there,
01:04:26
◼
►
I think it's a positive message.
01:04:27
◼
►
Because this isn't something worth giving
01:04:29
◼
►
a press release over.
01:04:30
◼
►
Like, the amount of people that actually care about this
01:04:33
◼
►
in the grand scheme of things for Apple
01:04:35
◼
►
to issue a press release, it's not worth their time.
01:04:37
◼
►
They don't have to do more explaining
01:04:40
◼
►
to try and explain what they're even talking about
01:04:42
◼
►
to the wider masses,
01:04:43
◼
►
then it would be worth doing the suppress release.
01:04:45
◼
►
This makes sense.
01:04:46
◼
►
They know this stuff's gonna get out there.
01:04:48
◼
►
This is just a confirmation from them, at least,
01:04:50
◼
►
that they have no intention of killing this support,
01:04:53
◼
►
which is, for people that use automation,
01:04:55
◼
►
is a good thing, is a good starting point.
01:04:57
◼
►
- All right, so basically, sort of where we were before,
01:05:01
◼
►
which is a little positive signal from Craig,
01:05:03
◼
►
but you can take it as being the optimistic view
01:05:06
◼
►
is they've got a plan and the pessimistic view is
01:05:08
◼
►
They're going to just let it sit there, but not really do much to it,
01:05:11
◼
►
which is what we thought before.
01:05:14
◼
►
Can't believe I came all the way back in time just for that.
01:05:16
◼
►
Anyway, I'm going to go back to the future, Myke.
01:05:18
◼
►
Using lasers. Here I go.
01:05:22
◼
►
This week's episode is also brought to you by Encapsula.
01:05:26
◼
►
Encapsula is a cloud service that makes your website faster and safer.
01:05:29
◼
►
They have a worldwide network that can inspect every packet
01:05:33
◼
►
that comes and goes from your website, blocking attacks against your site
01:05:36
◼
►
whilst delivering your content to your customers faster.
01:05:40
◼
►
Every single day websites of all sizes are attacked. Criminals use giant botnets to scrape
01:05:45
◼
►
website content to try and break into databases and bring sites down with denial of service
01:05:50
◼
►
attacks. On the performance side, your visitors want to visit your website, they want it to
01:05:55
◼
►
load quickly and reliably. Sites that take multiple seconds to load can turn people away.
01:06:00
◼
►
If your site goes down or is unavailable, customers will go somewhere else. Put simply,
01:06:06
◼
►
Encapsula prevents and solves all of these problems. They employ a powerful global network
01:06:11
◼
►
to filter out and block all the bad stuff leaving your website and your customers unaffected.
01:06:16
◼
►
As a listener of this show you can get one whole month of service for free to give it
01:06:20
◼
►
a try. All you need to do is go to Encapsula.com/upgrade. This is where you can find out more about Encapsula's
01:06:32
◼
►
service and also claim your free month. Thank you so much to Encapta for their support of
01:06:37
◼
►
this show, Relay FM and this week's Ask Upgrade. Brent asked "Jason, which product have you
01:06:46
◼
►
been the most excited to get a review unit for in the last few years?"
01:06:52
◼
►
I don't know how to answer this question. I don't. I don't. Oh, the last few years.
01:07:01
◼
►
I don't know. I mean, I was really excited to get the iPad.
01:07:04
◼
►
I think that that might be my answer.
01:07:06
◼
►
- The original iPad?
01:07:08
◼
►
- Yeah, the iPhone, we didn't get really a review unit.
01:07:11
◼
►
We got it the day of with everybody else.
01:07:14
◼
►
The original iPad, I got a few days before.
01:07:16
◼
►
- I remember vividly your iPad review.
01:07:20
◼
►
You were sitting, I watched all the video parts
01:07:24
◼
►
that you did of it.
01:07:24
◼
►
You were sitting on a table by a window
01:07:27
◼
►
and you were doing all these series of videos
01:07:30
◼
►
showing what the iPad was capable of.
01:07:33
◼
►
I remember it.
01:07:34
◼
►
There you go.
01:07:36
◼
►
I have no, I have no memory of that, but okay.
01:07:39
◼
►
I'm glad it's vivid in your memory.
01:07:42
◼
►
That was a big, that was a big thing.
01:07:43
◼
►
The iPad, iPad release that we had been excited for that new product for a long
01:07:49
◼
►
And I got, I, you know, I got it, uh, like I said, a day or two before release.
01:07:54
◼
►
And, uh, that was pretty exciting to, to get that an entirely new Apple product.
01:07:58
◼
►
and I remember little bits of that. I remember writing the review, you know, over the weekend,
01:08:05
◼
►
sitting on my bed at home, churning out thousands of words and yeah, it was that I'd probably
01:08:12
◼
►
say that. That was probably the most exciting one.
01:08:15
◼
►
I wish I could find those videos. I can find your original review but I can't find the
01:08:21
◼
►
videos. I know that they existed. I'm almost certain of it. I have a very vivid memory
01:08:27
◼
►
of it but...
01:08:28
◼
►
It's possible those were Macworld videos that have now been horribly deprecated.
01:08:31
◼
►
It's entirely possible.
01:08:32
◼
►
If anybody finds them or remembers them, please write in #askupgrade and we'll
01:08:37
◼
►
find it and I can talk about it next week. I'm sure I have a vivid memory of this.
01:08:40
◼
►
Lucas asks, "On the MacBook Pro, is the Touch ID part of the Touch Bar
01:08:44
◼
►
an actual physical button? Does it click?"
01:08:48
◼
►
Yeah, yeah it does. It is a key basically. It's not shaped like the other
01:08:52
◼
►
keys but it is a key.
01:08:54
◼
►
you can push it down.
01:08:55
◼
►
And in fact, if you push, it's the power button.
01:08:57
◼
►
It is what we used to think of as the power button.
01:09:00
◼
►
Its behavior is very different now.
01:09:01
◼
►
If you hold it down for six, I wanna say seconds,
01:09:05
◼
►
it forces a reboot.
01:09:06
◼
►
And that's so that you've got a hardware,
01:09:09
◼
►
'cause you can't necessarily,
01:09:11
◼
►
if the touch bar doesn't work,
01:09:12
◼
►
you can't do kind of the old method
01:09:14
◼
►
of force rebooting a system,
01:09:16
◼
►
'cause that involved the escape key,
01:09:17
◼
►
which doesn't exist anymore.
01:09:18
◼
►
So you hold down that key for like six seconds
01:09:22
◼
►
and it just reboots.
01:09:23
◼
►
It's very much like the same hardware,
01:09:26
◼
►
hold down two buttons on the iPhone or iPad
01:09:29
◼
►
and have it reboot.
01:09:29
◼
►
- In the same kind of vein,
01:09:33
◼
►
Brent was interested to know if you have any idea
01:09:36
◼
►
if the Touch Bar has Generation 1 or 2 Touch ID.
01:09:40
◼
►
- I think those concepts are concepts
01:09:42
◼
►
very specifically related to iOS
01:09:44
◼
►
and don't have applicability on the Mac.
01:09:47
◼
►
There's no way for me to tell
01:09:48
◼
►
'cause I'd have to compare it to,
01:09:52
◼
►
previous touch ID on the Mac, which doesn't exist
01:09:54
◼
►
or compare it to iOS.
01:09:55
◼
►
So I don't think I have anything to say about that.
01:09:57
◼
►
I think it's touch ID,
01:09:59
◼
►
it's touch ID on the Mac is what it is.
01:10:02
◼
►
- Does it feel fast enough?
01:10:04
◼
►
- Yeah, again, yeah, it seems to react quickly,
01:10:10
◼
►
but it's a very different thing because it's a Mac,
01:10:13
◼
►
so it's unlocking.
01:10:14
◼
►
And so is that the Mac responding differently than iOS
01:10:18
◼
►
or with like one password unlocking?
01:10:21
◼
►
It's the same thing.
01:10:22
◼
►
to happen really fast. I would also say, this question was does the touch bar have? It is
01:10:27
◼
►
distinctly, it's on the touch bar row but it's not the touch bar. It is this distinct
01:10:31
◼
►
button to the right of the touch bar. So I think it would be inaccurate to say the touch
01:10:35
◼
►
bar has touch ID. There's a row that's got the touch bar and touch ID sensor in it, but
01:10:42
◼
►
the touch ID sensor is next to the touch bar, it's not the touch bar.
01:10:46
◼
►
I really do have a sneaking suspicion that it was supposed to be, but they couldn't get
01:10:50
◼
►
it to work. My theory is it was supposed to be part of the bar with the idea of that being
01:10:57
◼
►
the same technology that would implant a touch ID sensor inside of the screen, and I don't
01:11:04
◼
►
think they've been able to do it.
01:11:07
◼
►
That would be new tech, and instead they went with... I mean, this solves the other problem
01:11:11
◼
►
of having a physical reset button on the computer, too. But yeah, I know. There's a lot of interesting
01:11:18
◼
►
things that if only they release a book explaining their reasoning but all we get is a picture
01:11:23
◼
►
of the touch bar.
01:11:25
◼
►
Interesting question from Kyle, "What is the current biggest factor that makes a Mac feel
01:11:30
◼
►
fast?" What is the most important part there, Jason?
01:11:34
◼
►
SSD. Storage, storage, storage, storage is the answer.
01:11:37
◼
►
Interesting.
01:11:38
◼
►
That's it. That's number one. Like if you--use a Mac with a spinning hard drive and no fusion
01:11:44
◼
►
drive and then go to a fusion driver or an SS and then go to an SSD you know at
01:11:48
◼
►
the end of it I did this with a Mac Mini that my Mac Mini that's five years old
01:11:52
◼
►
now it was a spinning drive and I I took it apart and put in an SSD and it's like
01:11:56
◼
►
a completely new computer if you've if you've used if you've been on an SSD for
01:12:00
◼
►
a while and you haven't used a computer with a spinning disk go back and try
01:12:03
◼
►
that it is horrific like it is it is that is the constraint on so many things
01:12:11
◼
►
now of computer usability is the responsiveness of the storage. I feel
01:12:17
◼
►
like that is the big bottleneck right now. If you're already using an SSD like
01:12:21
◼
►
say you're on an SSD MacBook Pro and you're getting a new MacBook Pro what
01:12:24
◼
►
would be the thing there would it be like the processor maybe? Maybe. I guess
01:12:27
◼
►
the jumps aren't as big right? Yeah the jumps aren't as big I feel like that was
01:12:31
◼
►
the that was the big jump was going to SSD because it's just so much more
01:12:36
◼
►
responsive and you know the newer SSD is even faster. I don't even remember it
01:12:40
◼
►
like I you know I know that I did it but like I have no memory of how slow it was
01:12:44
◼
►
before I bet you're right if I went to something like that I would rip my hair
01:12:48
◼
►
out yeah another question about the new mac pro what does the function key do on
01:12:55
◼
►
the MacBook Pro with touch bar it makes the top row of the touch bar turn into a
01:13:02
◼
►
function row so you get f1 f2 f3 etc yep that's what it does and you can also go
01:13:08
◼
►
into the keyboard system preferences and actually apply, you can add apps that inherit the F
01:13:18
◼
►
keys automatically. So like if there's an app that you have that you really need the
01:13:23
◼
►
function keys, you can actually go into system prefs and drag that app in and then it will
01:13:27
◼
►
always just show the F keys there. And then I think if you want to see the touch bar,
01:13:31
◼
►
you hit the F key and it toggles it back. But yeah, that's what the FN key does is flip
01:13:37
◼
►
you over into classic F-key mode.
01:13:40
◼
►
And lastly, I'm wanting to know, what do we want to see in the next iPad Pro? Now I have
01:13:46
◼
►
a list here. This has been a very JSON-focused Ask Upgrade now, so I'm going to take the
01:13:52
◼
►
lead on this one. So I would like to see True Tone across the line. So the 12.9 inch gets
01:13:57
◼
►
True Tone, because True Tone is for me as good as Retina was.
01:14:03
◼
►
You gotta have it.
01:14:04
◼
►
You gotta have it.
01:14:05
◼
►
The inconsistency, I mean, we could broaden that and say the inconsistency between the
01:14:09
◼
►
9.7 and the 12.9 must go away.
01:14:13
◼
►
- Yeah, 9.7 should get fast charging and all that stuff.
01:14:17
◼
►
That stuff needs to go.
01:14:18
◼
►
But yeah, but true tone on the 12.9 is imperative at this point.
01:14:22
◼
►
I'm upset that it's not on my iPhone as well, but it's a story for another day.
01:14:27
◼
►
I want the iPad Pros, both of them, to be lighter and thinner because they are products
01:14:31
◼
►
that should and can still be lighter and thinner, right?
01:14:35
◼
►
The 12.9 is too heavy.
01:14:37
◼
►
If that was lighter, that would be awesome.
01:14:39
◼
►
I don't need my iPhones to do that,
01:14:41
◼
►
but I do want my iPads to continue doing that.
01:14:43
◼
►
And then outside of that, you get the usual.
01:14:47
◼
►
Faster, more OS stuff, all of that.
01:14:52
◼
►
But iPad Pro is not just the iPad.
01:14:54
◼
►
iPad Pro is the accessories as well.
01:14:57
◼
►
So I want to see enhancements there.
01:14:59
◼
►
I want a pencil 2 that has a better battery life because considering Apple have embraced
01:15:06
◼
►
the people like me who like to use the pencil a lot more than intended, right, the battery
01:15:11
◼
►
isn't good enough.
01:15:13
◼
►
So I want to see a better battery life in there.
01:15:17
◼
►
And I would also like there to be a button of some kind which apps could take advantage
01:15:20
◼
►
of in some way, like an eraser or a button on the side, which could enable deeper and
01:15:26
◼
►
richer interactions.
01:15:28
◼
►
So for example, with my, I use a Wacom tablet, it has a button on the side of it, it has
01:15:33
◼
►
a couple, it has actually quite a few buttons, but let's just say one of the buttons, if
01:15:36
◼
►
I click it, it will make, it will basically highlight select, so then I can drag things
01:15:43
◼
►
Right, so I would like to see the Pencil 2 have a button on it, which an app like Procreate
01:15:48
◼
►
could use to turn the pen into an eraser, you know, or many different apps could use
01:15:53
◼
►
it in different ways, I would like to see a button added to it.
01:15:55
◼
►
I would also like a new smart keyboard. I would like there to be one of two things.
01:16:00
◼
►
Now dream scenario would be something touch bar like. Not necessarily that it is a touch
01:16:06
◼
►
screen, but a screen. That brings down a lot of the things like the quick type. Although
01:16:11
◼
►
a touch screen would be great because you could use the emoji picker. That would be
01:16:14
◼
►
amazing. I think we're a way away from that, right? I can't imagine that happening.
01:16:18
◼
►
In terms of thickness alone, yes. It would be crazy. But I would love to have
01:16:24
◼
►
media keys on the smart keyboard.
01:16:28
◼
►
And or make the smart keyboard more like the Logitech Create.
01:16:32
◼
►
Give me a backlight, make the key travel a little bit nicer, but I actually think the
01:16:37
◼
►
key travel on the smart keyboard is nicer than the MacBook.
01:16:40
◼
►
I actually prefer the smart keyboard to type on.
01:16:43
◼
►
I would like to see some big improvements to the smart keyboard.
01:16:47
◼
►
Make the keycaps larger, give me some function, give me some media keys.
01:16:54
◼
►
I want that. I want a backlight.
01:16:56
◼
►
- I think the top row of keys
01:16:57
◼
►
that's missing from the smart keyboard is painful, right?
01:17:02
◼
►
And we've said, "Oh, function keys are dumb,"
01:17:03
◼
►
but Apple did map those to other functions,
01:17:06
◼
►
including media playback,
01:17:09
◼
►
and it's painful to not have those.
01:17:11
◼
►
- My 9.7 has more keys on it and better features,
01:17:14
◼
►
the Logitech one, than the 12.9-inch iPad one
01:17:17
◼
►
that Apple make.
01:17:18
◼
►
They need to take a key from Logitech
01:17:20
◼
►
and make those keyboards better.
01:17:22
◼
►
So that's kind of what I'm looking for.
01:17:24
◼
►
OS improvements though I think are the most important
01:17:27
◼
►
even though I spent the least time talking about those.
01:17:30
◼
►
A lot of the iPad features are very dated now
01:17:35
◼
►
to the point where I can't understand
01:17:36
◼
►
how anybody ever thought that the app switching
01:17:40
◼
►
or the multi-tasking window where you,
01:17:44
◼
►
I kind of, what do they call that?
01:17:46
◼
►
The app picker? - I don't even know.
01:17:47
◼
►
- The multi-tasking app picker?
01:17:49
◼
►
It's the split view app picker thing.
01:17:52
◼
►
- I can't understand how anybody ever thought
01:17:54
◼
►
that that was the right way to design that.
01:17:57
◼
►
They were just like these little things.
01:17:58
◼
►
- I think they just ran out of time.
01:17:59
◼
►
I think they didn't know it,
01:18:01
◼
►
but we've been now living with it for a year and a half.
01:18:03
◼
►
So yeah, yeah.
01:18:06
◼
►
And I'll throw in there that OS improvements,
01:18:09
◼
►
I mean, yeah, drag and drop would be nice,
01:18:12
◼
►
a better app picker.
01:18:13
◼
►
Yeah, there's all sorts of things.
01:18:17
◼
►
access to mass storage so that I can attach an SD card without having to use some wacky
01:18:24
◼
►
Wi-Fi transfer app in order to see the files on the SD card and open them in an app.
01:18:29
◼
►
Find a way to make 3D touch work.
01:18:31
◼
►
Oh, interesting.
01:18:33
◼
►
Even if it's not putting 3D touch in the device, find a way to make 3D touch shortcuts work
01:18:38
◼
►
because the iPad is missing them.
01:18:40
◼
►
I can't clear all my notifications.
01:18:43
◼
►
Find a way to make that work.
01:18:44
◼
►
So there you go.
01:18:46
◼
►
That's why I want to say I have a high hopes for the iPad Pro.
01:18:51
◼
►
And I'm looking forward to them revising the next year.
01:18:54
◼
►
I will, I think this is also in the unlikely category, but I'm going to throw it in there
01:18:58
◼
►
because I want to, which is USB-C. I was just about to say that.
01:19:06
◼
►
I think that they really need to add it, but I don't think that they will.
01:19:09
◼
►
I don't think that they will either.
01:19:11
◼
►
I understand why they won't and I can support that decision, but I would still like it because
01:19:15
◼
►
it opens up the device to a whole world of things.
01:19:19
◼
►
Think of it as a laptop replacement, not as an iPhone.
01:19:23
◼
►
That's what Apple was saying it is, and they need to push it further towards that.
01:19:28
◼
►
And I think USB-C would go a long way to enabling that.
01:19:32
◼
►
But I understand at the same time why they wouldn't do it, because it's vastly different
01:19:37
◼
►
and an incredible amount of work, I'm sure, to get USB-C support on all of the peripherals
01:19:43
◼
►
that they would need into iOS. I understand why they wouldn't do it, but I would really
01:19:48
◼
►
like to see something like that, just to enable more expandability to the system.
01:19:54
◼
►
Oh, and I mean, part of the across the line, True Tone across the line, I'll say P3 across
01:19:58
◼
►
the line, because the iPad Pro 10.9 doesn't have P3.
01:20:03
◼
►
Oh, it has a wider color gamut though, right?
01:20:09
◼
►
- The 10.7 has the wide color gamut, the 10.9 does not.
01:20:12
◼
►
Or sorry, the 12.9 does not.
01:20:13
◼
►
- Ah, that's why, yeah, okay.
01:20:14
◼
►
- Baby Pro has the wide color gamut,
01:20:16
◼
►
the full size Pro does not.
01:20:18
◼
►
- Yes, I would like to, yeah.
01:20:19
◼
►
- So that's the trade, that's the trade.
01:20:21
◼
►
You get P3, you get True Tone, yay.
01:20:23
◼
►
- And leave the Mini alone.
01:20:26
◼
►
- And you get USB 3.0 transfer speeds on the small one,
01:20:29
◼
►
which doesn't have it, which is, you know,
01:20:30
◼
►
and the fast charging.
01:20:32
◼
►
- Yeah, revise the Mini.
01:20:33
◼
►
I think they need to revise the Mini,
01:20:35
◼
►
but do not make it a Pro.
01:20:37
◼
►
Just leave that product alone, give it a nicer screen,
01:20:40
◼
►
give it a nice touch ID, make it a little bit faster,
01:20:43
◼
►
but just keep that product ticking along as it is, I think.
01:20:46
◼
►
All right, I think that wraps it up for today.
01:20:48
◼
►
We've solved a lot of things here, yeah.
01:20:50
◼
►
Yeah, we're helping.
01:20:51
◼
►
Just take our list up and implement those things
01:20:53
◼
►
and then we'll all be happy.
01:20:55
◼
►
- Yeah, you're welcome.
01:20:56
◼
►
- Product roadmap sorted.
01:20:59
◼
►
If you wanna find our show notes for this week,
01:21:00
◼
►
head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/116.
01:21:04
◼
►
I wanna take a moment again to thank our lovely sponsors
01:21:06
◼
►
this week, Eero, Encapsula and Mac Walden. If you'd like to find Jason's work online
01:21:11
◼
►
he is @jsnell on twitter and he writes over at 6colors.com. I am @imike on twitter. If
01:21:21
◼
►
you would like to submit questions, feedback, follow up for the show just tweet with the
01:21:25
◼
►
hashtag #askupgrade and we will see it and hopefully we'll include it in later episodes.
01:21:31
◼
►
So don't forget, if you want to be up to date with the show next week, you want to watch
01:21:36
◼
►
Gremlins in anticipation of Myke at the movies.
01:21:40
◼
►
Thank you so much for listening, we'll be back next time.
01:21:43
◼
►
Until then, say goodbye Jason Stell.
01:21:45
◼
►
Don't get water on Myke or feed me after midnight.
01:21:47
◼
►
All will become clear next week I suppose.
01:21:50
◼
►
[MUSIC PLAYING]