Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade. Episode number 107. Today's show is brought to you by Text

00:00:15 ◼   ► Expander from Smile, FreshBooks and AppCare. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr. Jason

00:00:21 ◼   ► Snow. I'm very excited today, Mr. Snow. I know you are, Myke. I know you are.

00:00:26 ◼   ► It is iPhone review episode. It's my favorite one.

00:00:31 ◼   ► It is the iPhone review episode. It's true.

00:00:33 ◼   ► I have so many things to say later on in the show today. So many things. All the great

00:00:38 ◼   ► things. But we have some follow-up to address today before that, and I believe you want

00:00:43 ◼   ► to kick us off.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Yeah, a couple things. One, we talked a few months ago. There was a, we did a podcast

00:00:50 ◼   ► sort of inside baseball episode or two. We talked to Lex Friedman at the mid-roll, who's

00:00:55 ◼   ► who's a former Mac world writer who now works at this podcast ad network. And Lex was talking

00:01:00 ◼   ► about their strategy and why they bought Stitcher and what they think about podcasts and podcast

00:01:04 ◼   ► advertising and how the podcast industry works. And that was a good conversation. We didn't

00:01:10 ◼   ► necessarily agree with everything that Lex said, but it was really great to get that

00:01:13 ◼   ► other perspective. And I thought that was a good conversation.

00:01:16 ◼   ► I have a couple of bits of follow-up. One is we were talking about Stitcher and one

00:01:19 ◼   ► of the knocks on Stitcher, I know Marco Arment had this as a complaint about Stitcher. And

00:01:24 ◼   ► I think a lot of podcasters felt this way about why a lot of us kept Stitcher at arm's

00:01:29 ◼   ► length was this feeling that Stitcher didn't really respect the creators of podcasts, and

00:01:37 ◼   ► one way was that they would take our file, download our file, and then cache their own

00:01:43 ◼   ► copy of it so we couldn't actually see who else downloaded it from Stitcher because we

00:01:48 ◼   ► would only see that Stitcher downloaded it.

00:01:50 ◼   ► And to make matters worse, they wouldn't just download it and take it away from us so that

00:01:53 ◼   ► we can't see who else is listening to it. They would re-encode it at a low, very low

00:01:58 ◼   ► quality bit rate. So the shows on Stitcher sounded worse. And these were major complaints.

00:02:04 ◼   ► And I just, as a matter of follow-up, I actually saw an email from Stitcher that they sent

00:02:10 ◼   ► out in August, I think, so last month, that they have changed their system and they're

00:02:16 ◼   ► no longer caching and re-encoding any podcast files. So basically, Stitcher is now a podcast

00:02:21 ◼   ► app that downloads files like other podcast apps do straight from the server. So that

00:02:25 ◼   ► was one major complaint, that they were trying to create this closed ecosystem, and I think

00:02:29 ◼   ► Stitcher... this is one of the funny things when people freaked out about Midroll buying

00:02:33 ◼   ► Stitcher, is they were saying, you know, they were sort of applying Stitcher's mindset to

00:02:39 ◼   ► Midroll, and I think what happened is rather the reverse, which is, Midroll came in there

00:02:44 ◼   ► and said, "Yeah, don't take all that closed stuff out and just open it back up," because

00:02:49 ◼   ► because Midroll, in all my conversations with Lex, is a champion of the open podcast ecosystem

00:02:55 ◼   ► and they like that and they are fine with that and Stitcher is not an attempt for them

00:03:00 ◼   ► to create a closed ecosystem around Stitcher. So Stitcher is just a podcast app now.

00:03:05 ◼   ► It's good to him. Yeah, yeah. Lex, by the way, he got a promotion.

00:03:11 ◼   ► He's now like the chief revenue officer at the Midroll. So I think you... And they got

00:03:15 ◼   ► a new CEO left, so they've got a new CEO who's a long-time mid-roll person, and then Lex

00:03:20 ◼   ► is now got a promotion. So congratulations, Lex. I think he's not so big yet in this industry

00:03:26 ◼   ► that he wouldn't come back sometime to talk podcast economics. So I'd like to do that

00:03:29 ◼   ► sometime down the road when we think the time is right for him and for us, because this

00:03:34 ◼   ► is a rapidly changing business, and we've got some good feedback about that. I don't

00:03:37 ◼   ► want to overdo it. This is not a show about the podcasting industry, but every now and

00:03:40 ◼   ► then as this kind of window into what's going on, I'm kind of fascinated by it. So I'd like

00:03:45 ◼   ► to be able to do that every now and then. And another related note, mid-roll is actually

00:03:51 ◼   ► I think the prime mover behind this podcast festival that they're doing. It's in Southern

00:03:54 ◼   ► California in Anaheim, Orange County. The weekend of October 29th, there are about 30

00:03:59 ◼   ► different podcasts that are going to be performing live at this festival, including The Incomparable.

00:04:03 ◼   ► We will have a pretty -- it's looking like a bunch of people from The Incomparable are

00:04:08 ◼   ► going to be there. So if you like that podcast, my podcast, or there's some other amazing

00:04:14 ◼   ► Hello from the Magic Tavern's gonna be there, which is really exciting for me because I

00:04:17 ◼   ► love that podcast. Anyway, it's called Now Hear This, like, huh? Listen? Anyway, so you

00:04:23 ◼   ► can go to Now Hear This Fest dot com if you're interested in that. That's the weekend of

00:04:27 ◼   ► October 29th. You can come and see us on the 29th. We'll be performing live in Anaheim.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Also, I'll put a link in the chat. What are you gonna be doing?

00:04:37 ◼   ► Remains to be seen. Might be a regular, incomparable episode. Might be a weird mashup, kind of

00:04:42 ◼   ► game show draft something. Depends on who's there. The slot is 90 minutes, I think. So

00:04:49 ◼   ► we could just do a regular episode, but I kind of would like to make it a little bit

00:04:53 ◼   ► wackier than that. At Macworld Expo, we often did drafts, and I like those. We did the computer

00:04:58 ◼   ► draft ones at Macworld Expo Live, and that was fun. So I'm still figuring it out, and

00:05:03 ◼   ► it really does. Usually with the incomparable, you pick a topic and then people say if they

00:05:07 ◼   ► want to be there, but in this case basically people are saying if they can come to Anaheim

00:05:12 ◼   ► and then I'm going to have a list of who's going to be there, and trying to pick something

00:05:17 ◼   ► that everybody can participate in will be a little bit of a trick.

00:05:19 ◼   ► It's going to be cool though.

00:05:20 ◼   ► But we're figuring it out. Yeah, yeah, it should be fun. It's not the first time we've

00:05:23 ◼   ► done it. We're not going to do like a radio theater performance I think. I think that's

00:05:27 ◼   ► not what the intent is here. I think it's going to be something else, but it should

00:05:30 ◼   ► be fun.

00:05:35 ◼   ► another piece of follow-up for you? Are you ready? I tweeted about this this week that

00:05:43 ◼   ► there's nothing, one of the fascinating things about podcasting is, and you actually get

00:05:48 ◼   ► to find out when people listen to your podcast is, you say something wrong and then throughout

00:05:52 ◼   ► the week people helpfully tell you that you got it wrong. And so we posted that episode

00:05:59 ◼   ► what, Sunday night, Sunday afternoon. And from then through this morning, I have been

00:06:08 ◼   ► getting notes from people about how I said something wrong sitting in an Airbnb in Portland,

00:06:14 ◼   ► Oregon last Sunday.

00:06:15 ◼   ► I expect it will still continue past today.

00:06:18 ◼   ► I expect because yes, some people don't listen in the first week, they listen later. So this

00:06:23 ◼   ► will continue, but now I can actually follow up and stop the flow of, at least from listeners

00:06:28 ◼   ► who have listened to episode 107 as well as 106,

00:06:33 ◼   ► I said there was no now playing app in watchOS 3.

00:06:35 ◼   ► And here's the story.

00:06:37 ◼   ► In early betas of watchOS 3, there was no now playing app.

00:06:40 ◼   ► And I filed a radar about it, a bug ticket with Apple,

00:06:42 ◼   ► and they said that's closed as a duplicate.

00:06:44 ◼   ► One of the problems is like there's a music complication,

00:06:47 ◼   ► but if you tap on it,

00:06:48 ◼   ► it only shows you the music interface.

00:06:49 ◼   ► So if you're playing through a different app like Overcast,

00:06:52 ◼   ► that is not helpful.

00:06:54 ◼   ► But they added one, they added a now playing app.

00:06:57 ◼   ► So it's no longer swipe up to the control center

00:07:01 ◼   ► and be able to control what's playing on your iPhone,

00:07:05 ◼   ► essentially, to your headphones.

00:07:07 ◼   ► But an app lives in the dock when audio is playing

00:07:10 ◼   ► through your iPhone, it lives in the watch dock.

00:07:13 ◼   ► You can keep it there, and I think it comes and goes

00:07:16 ◼   ► as you're playing, but it does exist.

00:07:19 ◼   ► It's not as well integrated as I would like.

00:07:21 ◼   ► I would especially like a complication, actually,

00:07:24 ◼   ► that lets me quick access it or have it be part

00:07:27 ◼   ► of the control center, like swipe up and then swipe right or left, like you do on the iPhone

00:07:32 ◼   ► in order to get that control. But it is there, and I said that it wasn't there, and they

00:07:38 ◼   ► did actually add that in Beta 3 or Beta 4 of WatchOS 3, and so it does exist, and I

00:07:45 ◼   ► said it didn't exist at all.

00:07:47 ◼   ► Yeah, it would be really good if it was maybe contextually aware in some way, you know,

00:07:54 ◼   ► when I'm listening to something on my iPhone,

00:07:56 ◼   ► like it knows and can do something a little bit more,

00:08:00 ◼   ► little bit more clever than what it does right now,

00:08:04 ◼   ► because accessing the Now Playing thing,

00:08:06 ◼   ► even when it's in a dock,

00:08:07 ◼   ► is not always the easiest thing to do,

00:08:08 ◼   ► because sometimes I'm swiping all the way to one side

00:08:10 ◼   ► or something, 'cause I was just in an application,

00:08:12 ◼   ► so it's now on the end of the dock.

00:08:14 ◼   ► So I'm happy that it's there, because if it wasn't there,

00:08:16 ◼   ► that would have been a real disappointment,

00:08:19 ◼   ► but it's nowhere near as easy to get to those controls

00:08:24 ◼   ► as it used to be.

00:08:25 ◼   ► No, and that's how I described it, right? Is that even the old, on watchOS 2, this is

00:08:31 ◼   ► one of the only regressions, but it's one I use, and when we talked about how the AirPods

00:08:35 ◼   ► have no controls, really, this was one of the options. That was the context of that

00:08:41 ◼   ► conversation is, yeah, but if you've got an Apple Watch, you actually have some controls

00:08:45 ◼   ► for your playback on your wrist that you can use, which, you know, it's not a solution

00:08:50 ◼   ► to say, "You don't have an Apple Watch and you're having trouble with your AirPods, you

00:08:54 ◼   ► should buy an Apple Watch." That's a little bit silly, but if you have an Apple Watch

00:08:57 ◼   ► and you get AirPods or even other wireless headphones like the ones that I use, it's

00:09:03 ◼   ► a way you could do it. But on the old OS, I could swipe up and literally spin the crown

00:09:10 ◼   ► to change the volume, or swipe up and tap to pause or go forward or back. And now I

00:09:16 ◼   ► I have to tap to bring up the dock and then tap on the Now Playing app and then do my

00:09:23 ◼   ► motion. And it's just a little more fiddly, and if it's not right visible in the dock,

00:09:28 ◼   ► you have to move to that one in the dock and tap on it. And it's one of those things that

00:09:32 ◼   ► I'm glad that it's there, but it still feels like it could be, contextually like you said,

00:09:38 ◼   ► a little bit quicker access would be nice because I think this is actually a big feature

00:09:43 ◼   ► that's only going to get bigger as people use AirPods because a lot of Apple Watch people

00:09:50 ◼   ► will probably get AirPods and the Apple Watch is a great remote for AirPods that gives you

00:09:55 ◼   ► more control, but it's not maybe as good as it could be.

00:09:58 ◼   ► That was like my thinking, like, "Oh, you know, the fact that there isn't playback controls

00:10:03 ◼   ► in the AirPods is a shame, but I could use my watch. I always have my watch on." I was

00:10:07 ◼   ► like, "Yeah, I can still do that, but it would be way better if it was super easy for

00:10:12 ◼   ► for me to access still, but it's not. That's a shame.

00:10:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:10:16 ◼   ► - I wanna talk about Samsung again.

00:10:20 ◼   ► There was a really interesting article that I saw today

00:10:22 ◼   ► from Bloomberg Technology about the battery problem

00:10:27 ◼   ► that they're having.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And it kind of went into a little bit more detail

00:10:31 ◼   ► from some anonymous sources as to why it happened.

00:10:35 ◼   ► So of course, take it with a grain of salt,

00:10:37 ◼   ► it is anonymous sources,

00:10:38 ◼   ► but Bloomberg has a pretty good track record, you know,

00:10:42 ◼   ► and I'm sure they, as we speak about whenever we talk about

00:10:45 ◼   ► any of the German reports, they do a lot of work

00:10:47 ◼   ► to try and make sure they're doing these things right.

00:10:49 ◼   ► They talk to a lot of analysts,

00:10:50 ◼   ► they're really kind of clued into this stuff.

00:10:53 ◼   ► So basically what Bloomberg is saying that they've heard

00:10:57 ◼   ► is that Samsung really rushed the Note 7

00:11:01 ◼   ► to be out before the iPhone,

00:11:03 ◼   ► because they had heard what was coming in the iPhone,

00:11:06 ◼   ► and because there was no device,

00:11:07 ◼   ► like hardware design changes,

00:11:10 ◼   ► they wanted to get their product out quickly

00:11:12 ◼   ► because it had some really interesting things

00:11:14 ◼   ► and is incredibly good looking.

00:11:16 ◼   ► The Note 7, in my opinion, the Note 7

00:11:19 ◼   ► and the Galaxy S7, I think it's called now,

00:11:23 ◼   ► are the best looking phones on the market today.

00:11:25 ◼   ► I think they are fantastic.

00:11:27 ◼   ► I love the way the screens go edge to edge,

00:11:29 ◼   ► especially on the ones where they wrap around,

00:11:31 ◼   ► to the point where you can get a phone

00:11:33 ◼   ► with the size of a plus, like a 7 Plus.

00:11:38 ◼   ► You can get the screen size of that,

00:11:39 ◼   ► but in the form factor of a seven.

00:11:41 ◼   ► Like I think it's amazing.

00:11:42 ◼   ► I really hope that Apple take a clue out of Samsung's book

00:11:45 ◼   ► now and actually try and make something that looks

00:11:47 ◼   ► a little bit more like these than what we have right now.

00:11:49 ◼   ► Because that is a incredible design, the edge to edge.

00:11:53 ◼   ► Anyway, so they wanted to try and push it out

00:11:56 ◼   ► so they would be out before Apple.

00:11:58 ◼   ► So they shortened all their timelines,

00:12:00 ◼   ► they shortened all their deadlines,

00:12:01 ◼   ► they pushed a lot on their suppliers,

00:12:02 ◼   ► they pushed a lot on their people.

00:12:04 ◼   ► They're talking about like people sleeping in their offices

00:12:06 ◼   ► and stuff like that because they wanted to take

00:12:09 ◼   ► all these risks to try and make sure that they could be out up front. This ultimately

00:12:13 ◼   ► resulted in the phone not being completely designed correctly from a technical perspective

00:12:17 ◼   ► and not adequately tested. And for as much as you can tell, there seems to be maybe two

00:12:21 ◼   ► potential reasons as to why this may have happened. It may have been that the battery

00:12:26 ◼   ► was too big for the housing and was causing some heat issues and/or the increased power

00:12:31 ◼   ► from the battery because they went from a, I think a 3000 to a 3500 milliamp hour battery.

00:12:38 ◼   ► was too powerful for the fun.

00:12:40 ◼   ► So it was one of, basically there are two schools

00:12:42 ◼   ► of thought right now as to what exactly happened,

00:12:46 ◼   ► but the idea of the fact that they rushed it

00:12:49 ◼   ► is the overriding reason as to why this problem occurred.

00:12:53 ◼   ► So I think this is clearly a bad decision in hindsight,

00:12:56 ◼   ► but you can totally see why they did it, right?

00:12:59 ◼   ► Like from a business perspective,

00:13:00 ◼   ► like this is a risk that you would take, right?

00:13:04 ◼   ► This was a gamble that they took

00:13:06 ◼   ► and now they're hurting from it.

00:13:08 ◼   ► and honestly, I hope that they're able to recover from it because

00:13:11 ◼   ► Samsung are doing really interesting stuff and Apple needs good competition.

00:13:16 ◼   ► Well I'm sure they're gonna be able to recover but it's gonna hurt them.

00:13:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean like recover quickly, right? They will obviously recover but like, you know,

00:13:23 ◼   ► the fact that the next phone that they release... They might miss a cycle, right?

00:13:27 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. And the next phone there might be some skepticism and I mean

00:13:30 ◼   ► they'll be residual problems for them. There's no doubt but I'm sure they'll

00:13:33 ◼   ► come back. You're right, it's a gamble.

00:13:36 ◼   ► I think that's a good way to put it is the question is the level of arrogance going on

00:13:40 ◼   ► here like did they really believe that they could just push it and it would be fine or

00:13:43 ◼   ► did they I doubt they actually thought well let's do this really fast and hopefully we'll

00:13:48 ◼   ► come up with a phone the chances are pretty good that our phone won't explode that's probably

00:13:52 ◼   ► not what they thought.

00:13:53 ◼   ► Steve that thought never entered their mind right they were just like we know we can do

00:13:56 ◼   ► this stuff let's just do it quicker.

00:13:58 ◼   ► John So maybe this comes from me following Apple

00:14:01 ◼   ► for years but I look at this story and the one thing that I keep that tickles the back

00:14:05 ◼   ► in my head is, I feel like one of the problems with Samsung is that they are, I mean, they

00:14:13 ◼   ► always talked about being a fast follower, right? This is part of their culture, and

00:14:18 ◼   ► I see it here, it's like Samsung seems to define itself by its competition and in terms

00:14:26 ◼   ► of the smartphone market by Apple, and we saw that early on where they just aped Apple

00:14:31 ◼   ► stuff. And now you're absolutely right, they have pushed some stuff ahead. The entire note

00:14:36 ◼   ► line, which was a joke at the beginning, but proved to be find a market that people wanted

00:14:43 ◼   ► those large phones, and everybody thought that that was--everybody else was following

00:14:46 ◼   ► Apple and they went beyond. They did phones of all sorts of different sizes, they learned

00:14:50 ◼   ► a lot, and they found that the phablet category was a real thing, and that people wanted those

00:14:54 ◼   ► big phones. So full credit to them, this is not all that they do, but sometimes I think

00:14:58 ◼   ► maybe Samsung's culture is a little bit too focused on Apple. And you could argue, look,

00:15:03 ◼   ► Apple's number one. Of course you want to take on number one and you want to strategize

00:15:08 ◼   ► about how you can beat Apple. On another level I think, you know what, there's a lot of smartphones

00:15:14 ◼   ► being sold. Samsung is the leading Android smartphone vendor. It's basically Samsung

00:15:19 ◼   ► and Apple. And Samsung is taking, you know, Apple's got the market of people who want

00:15:24 ◼   ► Apple and Samsung's got the biggest chunk of the market of people who don't want Apple

00:15:29 ◼   ► stuff, they want Android stuff. And I don't know, at what point do you say we should,

00:15:34 ◼   ► our stuff should stand on its own and we can beat Apple. Like, it's not like Apple, um…

00:15:39 ◼   ► But I think that was what they were saying though, right? They believed that they could,

00:15:44 ◼   ► so they wanted to get it out before them to show how much better the phone was going to

00:15:47 ◼   ► be. No, but that's not, that's exactly wrong though. That's saying, that's saying

00:15:52 ◼   ► we're going to make the best product. No, no, no, we need to make the best product we

00:15:55 ◼   ► can really fast so that we can be out there before Apple because what we want to do is

00:15:58 ◼   ► jump in front of Apple with something that's more interesting because we read rumor sites

00:16:02 ◼   ► that say that Apple's phone is going to be kind of boring and that this is an opportunity

00:16:06 ◼   ► for us to really punch Apple in the face by rushing out a product a month before they

00:16:11 ◼   ► make their announcement.

00:16:12 ◼   ► Yeah, but I will say though, we don't know that Apple doesn't do this stuff, right? Like,

00:16:17 ◼   ► is a perception of them as the perfect corporate company, but I think that the new phone shows

00:16:23 ◼   ► some interesting decisions of them as a business that makes decisions.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Sure, of course, of course there are business that makes decisions, but I guess part of

00:16:32 ◼   ► it is Apple still, you know, just comes out with an iPhone in the fall.

00:16:36 ◼   ► Yeah, but maybe the Plus was a little bit early, right, because they didn't have all

00:16:38 ◼   ► the features for it. And so what I guess what I'm saying is maybe

00:16:42 ◼   ► a little bit of "Never Let 'Em See You Sweat" and a little bit of, if you're, one of the

00:16:49 ◼   ► business parables is that Coke's slogan for its company was, internally, was, you know,

00:17:00 ◼   ► our company goal is continue to be the number one soft drink company in the world. And Pepsi's

00:17:05 ◼   ► was "beat Coke." And you could argue that if you're number two, focusing on beating

00:17:13 ◼   ► number one should be what your company is all about, but you could also make the argument

00:17:17 ◼   ► that focusing on beating your competition and being number one is not necessarily the

00:17:22 ◼   ► same as focusing on making a good product and doing what you're best at and letting

00:17:26 ◼   ► the market come around to the fact that you are producing a better product. And that's

00:17:30 ◼   ► all I'm saying here is I get a little bit of a tickle when I look at this story, the

00:17:33 ◼   ► Bloomberg story of like, "Come on Samsung, you're doing really well, you've got innovative

00:17:37 ◼   ► stuff, you've come a long way in the last few years, why make a bet like this? Is it,

00:17:42 ◼   ► did you really need to be out a month before the iPhone?" I mean, maybe so, but I just

00:17:47 ◼   ► kind of don't think it's worth that. I think they're, I can see like LG doing it or something,

00:17:52 ◼   ► right? Where they're like, "Oh man, we gotta do this," or Huawei or something like that.

00:17:55 ◼   ► We gotta get noticed, we gotta get out there. But this is Samsung, did they really need

00:17:59 ◼   ► to do this?" And it bit him. And it's too bad, but it is a fascinating story. And I

00:18:05 ◼   ► just had that moment of, I'm sure Apple is very competitive on the inside, but on the

00:18:09 ◼   ► outside they're like, "We're just grinding, we're never going to let them see us sweat,

00:18:13 ◼   ► we're just going to put out a product, here's our product."

00:18:15 ◼   ► Yeah, they don't let it show anymore. They had a time where they would throw jabs at

00:18:20 ◼   ► people, but luckily that's kind of stopped now, which I like. They didn't mention Samsung

00:18:26 ◼   ► on stage right Samsung mentioned Apple on stage where nothing had happened right

00:18:30 ◼   ► saying about the headphone jack but Apple just like keeps it to themselves

00:18:33 ◼   ► like and how perfect it is right to say your phone's catch on fire but they just

00:18:38 ◼   ► kept their mouth closed which I think is the right way to go yeah because it

00:18:41 ◼   ► could be them next time I mean yeah and Google stopped doing a lot of that as

00:18:44 ◼   ► well there was a time where every Google I/O keynote was just how many Apple

00:18:48 ◼   ► jokes can we string together but that's all stop now so I think it's the better

00:18:51 ◼   ► way to be classy. Let's talk about the upgrade program, which is not this. It's the iPhone

00:19:00 ◼   ► upgrade program.

00:19:01 ◼   ► I saw this in the notes, the upgrade program. Welcome everyone to the upgrade program on

00:19:05 ◼   ► BBC Radio 4.

00:19:07 ◼   ► There has been some follow-up and some interesting occurrences with the iPhone upgrade program.

00:19:11 ◼   ► So after last week's episode, it seems like Apple started to get their stuff together.

00:19:15 ◼   ► We were talking about people trying to go who were part of the upgrade program couldn't

00:19:19 ◼   ► get their phones, which was like a what is going on? Like you'd, you know, as we were

00:19:23 ◼   ► saying in the back of your mind, you expect you kind of have a phone guaranteed. But there

00:19:27 ◼   ► was like, well, no, you have to wait like everybody else, or maybe even longer. Now,

00:19:32 ◼   ► many people wrote in to say that after a week, they were getting some emails from Apple,

00:19:35 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah, like saying to call them. Many people I heard from spent over two hours

00:19:39 ◼   ► on the phone with Apple support, but it seemed like every interaction ended up being positive.

00:19:47 ◼   ► So the two hours on the phone, I don't think you can blame Apple for this.

00:19:52 ◼   ► This was like a day or two after they announced a new iPhone.

00:19:55 ◼   ► This is what happens.

00:19:56 ◼   ► I got through the iPhones, went on sale.

00:19:58 ◼   ► This is just people calling up to try and find out if they're stock, to try and find

00:20:01 ◼   ► out X, to try and find out Y.

00:20:03 ◼   ► That's what's going to happen.

00:20:04 ◼   ► There's no amount of staffing that they could put on to fix this problem.

00:20:08 ◼   ► This is just how it's going to be.

00:20:10 ◼   ► You could never get people adequately trained enough to deal with two weeks of high call

00:20:15 ◼   ► support volume and then go away. Now see what Apple have learned now for next year is okay

00:20:20 ◼   ► how do we avoid letting people be on the phone for two hours? Because they seem to have for

00:20:26 ◼   ► many people at least solved the issue by speaking to people on the phone, finding some stock

00:20:31 ◼   ► for them, telling them we're going to set you a reservation for this local store, maybe

00:20:34 ◼   ► not the one you thought about, we're going to have a phone for you waiting there. And

00:20:38 ◼   ► there was also been some reports that Apple then started holding back some phones for

00:20:43 ◼   ► these people. So now, like a lot of people who said that their phones were going to be

00:20:46 ◼   ► shipping in October, they're now shipping now because they've sorted everyone on the

00:20:50 ◼   ► upgrade program out. So it seems like Apple jumped on this because they were surprised

00:20:55 ◼   ► by it, is how it seems. But it looks like that they have got it kind of sorted out.

00:20:59 ◼   ► But I would I would expect next year there's going to be a lot more communication and a

00:21:03 ◼   ► much better flow for these customers.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Yeah. Like one of the people that wrote into us is Upgrading Casey, not Mr.

00:21:10 ◼   ► and Casey said that he was on the phone for two hours.

00:21:13 ◼   ► I saw some friends who were doing it

00:21:15 ◼   ► and they were on the phone for two hours

00:21:17 ◼   ► and talking about two hours actually,

00:21:19 ◼   ► I went to the Apple Store to pick up my phone

00:21:22 ◼   ► and the lady said to me,

00:21:23 ◼   ► you're not doing the upgrade program are you?

00:21:24 ◼   ► Like really like worried about it.

00:21:26 ◼   ► I was like no, no, I'm just buying outright

00:21:28 ◼   ► and she's like oh good 'cause it's been down all morning

00:21:31 ◼   ► and it was 8.30 at this point.

00:21:33 ◼   ► So her previous customer, like the store opened at eight.

00:21:36 ◼   ► Her previous customer he got completely broke

00:21:38 ◼   ► and then I was seeing people that I know

00:21:39 ◼   ► and talking to people from the UK

00:21:42 ◼   ► who have spent like three hours in the store

00:21:44 ◼   ► trying to get their phones on the upgrade program.

00:21:46 ◼   ► The system just completely died.

00:21:49 ◼   ► - Oh.

00:21:49 ◼   ► - Which reminds me of the first iPhone.

00:21:51 ◼   ► So when I tried to buy the first iPhone in the UK,

00:21:54 ◼   ► they were doing card transactions only,

00:21:56 ◼   ► no cash to stop scalping.

00:21:58 ◼   ► And I was third in line.

00:22:00 ◼   ► My brother had left school at three o'clock.

00:22:03 ◼   ► He went to stand in line for me.

00:22:04 ◼   ► I left work at five.

00:22:06 ◼   ► When I met him, stood in line,

00:22:08 ◼   ► I was in the store for an hour and a half,

00:22:10 ◼   ► 'cause this is a car phone warehouse,

00:22:12 ◼   ► it was like a chain of phone stores,

00:22:15 ◼   ► it's like a phone store,

00:22:16 ◼   ► and they were the only ones selling it at that point.

00:22:18 ◼   ► I don't know why we didn't have them in the Apple stores,

00:22:20 ◼   ► but it was only a car phone warehouse.

00:22:22 ◼   ► And all this network, complete network

00:22:25 ◼   ► across the country went down.

00:22:26 ◼   ► So they were like, you're just gonna have to get cash.

00:22:29 ◼   ► So everybody was going out to the cash machines

00:22:31 ◼   ► and just giving them like 600 pounds in cash

00:22:33 ◼   ► and taking the funds,

00:22:34 ◼   ► and they're like, you're gonna have to activate it at home.

00:22:35 ◼   ► It was amazing.

00:22:37 ◼   ► They were just like, "There's nothing we can do.

00:22:38 ◼   ► We have this line of like 100 people,

00:22:40 ◼   ► and we can't even serve customer number one."

00:22:43 ◼   ► It was insane.

00:22:45 ◼   ► Nobody expected it.

00:22:46 ◼   ► This had never happened before, right?

00:22:47 ◼   ► That people were lining up for a phone.

00:22:49 ◼   ► So their systems couldn't deal

00:22:50 ◼   ► with all of these transactions,

00:22:52 ◼   ► 'cause they went on sale at 6.02 in the evening,

00:22:56 ◼   ► which ended up being like a thing that stuck

00:22:58 ◼   ► for a few years, because the network 02

00:23:01 ◼   ► were the exclusive carrier of the iPhone.

00:23:03 ◼   ► So they put them all on sale at two minutes past the hour.

00:23:06 ◼   ► Also Apple realized that perhaps not having all the iPhones in the world start activating

00:23:11 ◼   ► at exactly the same moment was probably a good idea. So instead it became a rolling

00:23:17 ◼   ► like local time in the morning you could get your phone instead of it being but that first

00:23:20 ◼   ► one.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Well, we'll talk about that Jason.

00:23:23 ◼   ► Yeah, it's true. So I wanted to say, so it's the first year of the upgrade program having

00:23:28 ◼   ► the upgrades happen and I think you're exactly right that as we talked about last week a

00:23:33 ◼   ► little bit. This is the opportunity for Apple to say, "Okay, how do we minimize people on

00:23:38 ◼   ► the phone? How do we get people's orders in early? You know, we know these people are

00:23:41 ◼   ► gonna want a new phone. We should ask them what model they want as soon as we announce

00:23:46 ◼   ► the new iPhone. We should say, "Hey, the new iPhone's coming. If you want to upgrade, go

00:23:50 ◼   ► to this page. Choose your model. We'll tell you when you're gonna get it," having all

00:23:54 ◼   ► that. And I'm sure they're going to do that. It's just a matter of that this will be a

00:23:59 ◼   ► learning process from them. And I also wanted to mention, talk about that podcast effect

00:24:02 ◼   ► of saying things and then seeing what happens and getting the feedback. It did seem to start

00:24:07 ◼   ► changing right after we talked about it. Like, Monday morning, it seems like Apple kind of

00:24:11 ◼   ► had a strategy shift with the upgrade people to make it right with them a little bit more.

00:24:18 ◼   ► And as a result of what we were talking about on Sunday, we got feedback from people as

00:24:24 ◼   ► they were hearing from their upgrade people, including Casey, but a bunch of other people

00:24:27 ◼   ► too. And that was kind of cool to see because they were all saying the same thing, which

00:24:32 ◼   ► is Apple is working on making this better than I thought it was last week, right? Which

00:24:38 ◼   ► is a good sign. Again, it's sort of damage control and trying to fix what was broken,

00:24:42 ◼   ► but this all leads into hopefully a much streamlined upgrade program next year.

00:24:46 ◼   ► Will Hope so. All right, after this break, upgrade iPhone review time. So excited. This

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00:27:25 ◼   ► All right, Mr Snell.

00:27:27 ◼   ► So you have put together a great iPhone review, which people should go and read.

00:27:34 ◼   ► I did say to you privately and I'll say it here again, this is my favorite that I read.

00:27:38 ◼   ► Aw.

00:27:39 ◼   ► I thought it was really good.

00:27:41 ◼   ► What can I say?

00:27:42 ◼   ► Captured by that Snell charm.

00:27:44 ◼   ► You get me every time.

00:27:45 ◼   ► Ah yes, of course.

00:27:46 ◼   ► Famous.

00:27:47 ◼   ► You get me every time.

00:27:48 ◼   ► So there's a lot here.

00:27:49 ◼   ► Well if you will so permit me, I would like to run through my kind of thoughts and feelings

00:27:56 ◼   ► about the iPhone.

00:27:58 ◼   ► And denied.

00:27:59 ◼   ► No, I'm not going to permit you.

00:28:00 ◼   ► Well I'm going to do it anyway.

00:28:01 ◼   ► Sorry.

00:28:02 ◼   ► Let's, okay, fine.

00:28:03 ◼   ► And then you can kind of chip in with your thoughts as well.

00:28:06 ◼   ► Because people, I'm sure everyone that's listened to this show has either already read your

00:28:10 ◼   ► iPhone review or paused the show to go and read it right now.

00:28:13 ◼   ► I'm sure.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Right?

00:28:15 ◼   ► So this is my place.

00:28:16 ◼   ► This is where I talk about my feelings about the iPhone.

00:28:18 ◼   ► And I have many.

00:28:19 ◼   ► I am interested in your feelings about the iPhone.

00:28:22 ◼   ► So I want to preface this.

00:28:24 ◼   ► I don't usually do this, but I want to preface this review.

00:28:26 ◼   ► This is an opening statement you're making here?

00:28:27 ◼   ► I have an opening statement.

00:28:28 ◼   ► Oh boy, here we go.

00:28:30 ◼   ► I love my 7 Plus.

00:28:33 ◼   ► I think the iPhone 7 Plus is a great phone, and I'm very happy that I made the upgrade.

00:28:38 ◼   ► I recommend it to many people that listen to this show.

00:28:42 ◼   ► Like if you are a technology-focused person like we are, I recommend it because you're

00:28:47 ◼   ► going to get a lot out of this device, but there are some interesting decisions and things

00:28:55 ◼   ► that have happened to this phone that I think need to be in some parts praised and some

00:29:00 ◼   ► parts criticized in equal measure. Even some one decisions need to be praised and criticized.

00:29:06 ◼   ► So I want to do all of that. I want to talk about all of that. I also have documented

00:29:10 ◼   ► the entire setup process. So I can go through that again like we did last time. Is that

00:29:15 ◼   ► Okay. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think about my opening statement?

00:29:18 ◼   ► I think I think that you're saying nice things about it because you are about to say all the things that you found that are wrong with it.

00:29:25 ◼   ► But I'm also gonna talk about all the things that I like, okay

00:29:28 ◼   ► but I have I have a lot of things that I think are really strange and I don't want people to think that I'm just

00:29:34 ◼   ► Ragging on the phone until I get to the end

00:29:36 ◼   ► You know, so I want to just talk about everything that I've found about it. So

00:29:42 ◼   ► First off I have the gold phone, but they had some demo units of the seven in both of the black models

00:29:50 ◼   ► In the store, they didn't have any pluses because that was the thing. There were no pluses available for to buy anywhere interesting

00:29:57 ◼   ► They didn't even in the in the store have the black

00:30:00 ◼   ► Demo units for the plus just the sevens just a regular size

00:30:05 ◼   ► Seems like either it's a combination of the plus being more popular and maybe they're not making enough

00:30:10 ◼   ► I don't know but there seems to that there can severely supply constraint here

00:30:14 ◼   ► So yeah, I saw both of them now. This is 830 in the morning. The store had been open for 30 minutes

00:30:20 ◼   ► They were both covered in fingerprints like just covered and I I didn't like it

00:30:27 ◼   ► I preferred the matte black out of the two of them

00:30:30 ◼   ► I will call it matte black forever

00:30:33 ◼   ► By the way, because you can't call something black and jet black like you have to give the black one another name

00:30:40 ◼   ► name, right?

00:30:41 ◼   ► Call it soft matte.

00:30:42 ◼   ► Soft matte black. I preferred that of the two of them, because to me, I know everybody

00:30:46 ◼   ► loves the jet black. The jet black just looks like the 3GS. It just looks like shiny plastic,

00:30:50 ◼   ► and I don't like that look.

00:30:53 ◼   ► It does, there is no doubt it reminded me of the 3G and the 3GS, except that that is

00:30:58 ◼   ► that big plastic curved back, and this is this, you know, super shiny, flat back.

00:31:03 ◼   ► But material, the way the materials look, it just looks like there's this covering

00:31:07 ◼   ► of plastic over the top of it. It's very strange looking. But I can also see why people love

00:31:13 ◼   ► it because it really does look just like it's made out of one thing. It looks like when

00:31:18 ◼   ► it's off, it's just a stone.

00:31:20 ◼   ► This is the, what I wrote in my review is, this is, I believe, the Johnny Ive dream that

00:31:26 ◼   ► he's been working towards since the original iPhone, which is curved edges, slab, one material

00:31:36 ◼   ► all the way around, as if it's just a single unbroken surface, because there are antenna

00:31:40 ◼   ► lines but you can basically not see them, and when the screen is off, the glass in the

00:31:46 ◼   ► front and the material in the back looks essentially the same.

00:31:51 ◼   ► So you know what I want? I want a white ceramic all the way around, you know?

00:31:56 ◼   ► But it won't be, because the screen will still be black. That's why this is a—I heard John

00:32:01 ◼   ► Syracuse are talking about this on ATP.

00:32:04 ◼   ► I don't like white front iOS devices

00:32:07 ◼   ► because the screen's black.

00:32:09 ◼   ► And when the screen does come on,

00:32:13 ◼   ► you're now competing with the white of the material

00:32:15 ◼   ► of the frame with the white on the screen.

00:32:18 ◼   ► And I don't think that's a great comparison either.

00:32:20 ◼   ► So I always have preferred black framed iOS devices.

00:32:23 ◼   ► I like the jet black a lot.

00:32:25 ◼   ► I like the matte black too.

00:32:26 ◼   ► If they made the matte black only,

00:32:28 ◼   ► I would be beside myself about that design.

00:32:30 ◼   ► 'cause I think it looks great,

00:32:32 ◼   ► but I think the jet black is great too.

00:32:34 ◼   ► I actually kind of like, prefer the jet black

00:32:37 ◼   ► in terms of fingerprints

00:32:38 ◼   ► because although it's got fingerprints,

00:32:40 ◼   ► I also feel like I can just sort of wipe it off

00:32:42 ◼   ► and it's got the oleophobic coating on the back there

00:32:46 ◼   ► and they wipe off pretty well.

00:32:48 ◼   ► Whereas when I try to wipe off the back of the matte black,

00:32:53 ◼   ► which I also have, those are my two review units

00:32:55 ◼   ► or we're both different blacks.

00:32:58 ◼   ► That one it just smudges. So I actually think it looks worse with fingerprints on it than the Jet Black does.

00:33:06 ◼   ► Anyway, I think it's sort of like the ultimate Johnny Ive design. He's been going for this since the beginning.

00:33:14 ◼   ► I said in my review that it sort of makes the original iPhone look like clown pants.

00:33:20 ◼   ► Because if you look at it, it's like there's sort of like the black bottom of the back and the silver top of the back,

00:33:26 ◼   ► and it's got the glass front and then it's got the shiny chrome frame around it. It's

00:33:30 ◼   ► like all these different materials.

00:33:32 ◼   ► >> STEVEN SCOTT It's like how many can we fit in here?

00:33:34 ◼   ► >> CHET HAASE Well, and you know that that was just, you

00:33:36 ◼   ► know, that chrome frame, there's no way that Johnny Iov was really happy about that because

00:33:41 ◼   ► it doesn't match anything else, but it's like, yeah, well, that's what we gotta do, so we're

00:33:44 ◼   ► gonna do it. And this is his thing. So it's not for everybody, but it does feel that way.

00:33:50 ◼   ► And I would also say people were talking about grippiness, and I was trying to imagine, like,

00:33:54 ◼   ► could the Jet Black model be grippier? It doesn't make any sense. But because it's not

00:33:58 ◼   ► that, it's this polished covering instead of the sort of traditional rougher anodized

00:34:06 ◼   ► aluminum and what you get is that effect if you've got a slightly damp finger, and our

00:34:11 ◼   ► fingers generally are a little bit damp, that's how people are, and you run it on a pane of

00:34:16 ◼   ► glass, you know how it sort of sticks a little bit? Or if you pull it hard you can actually

00:34:22 ◼   ► make the glass like squeak. It's that effect that's happening. It's so smooth on the back

00:34:27 ◼   ► that it actually sort of like grabs onto your fingertip and the moisture in your fingertip

00:34:31 ◼   ► as you move. And so it is absolutely grippier. I have been using this since I got it without

00:34:37 ◼   ► a case, which I never did for my 6 and my 6S. And that's been a lot of fun because it's

00:34:42 ◼   ► a way better product out of the case, and I feel much more confident about holding onto

00:34:46 ◼   ► it than I do with the normal anodized backs of the other phones.

00:34:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I always keep my phone in a case. So, you know, the special black pack.

00:34:57 ◼   ► So it could be any color, really. Exactly. So for me, I like the gold and the

00:35:01 ◼   ► rose gold because I like the accent colors. So like, I have it in a nice blue case and

00:35:05 ◼   ► I get the gold Touch ID ring, I see a bit of gold at the bottom, a bit of gold at the

00:35:09 ◼   ► back and the side. I like that more. It's got a little bit more of the flair that I'm

00:35:13 ◼   ► looking for. Like, just not too much, right? Like, it's not ostentatious, it's just like

00:35:17 ◼   ► a little bit and you can match it with the case and I like that. So that's why I go for

00:35:21 ◼   ► for

00:35:39 ◼   ► think they're my preference. Which is fine, that's why they make a bunch of them.

00:35:45 ◼   ► Whilst we're on kind of hardware, something that immediately got me, the SIM tray is super

00:35:50 ◼   ► hard to open now because it has a seal on it. Genius, right? Of course it does. Everything

00:35:55 ◼   ► needs to be sealed up because of the water.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Yeah, I felt like the, um, I had a paperclip that I usually use to pop the SIM tray out

00:36:02 ◼   ► because I...

00:36:03 ◼   ► So let's talk about this for one second because I keep hearing this from my friends. Every

00:36:07 ◼   ► Every iPhone I have ever received has a SIM tool in it.

00:36:10 ◼   ► Yeah, that doesn't happen in the US when you buy a locked phone.

00:36:13 ◼   ► Right, see, because ours are basically all unlocked to a point.

00:36:17 ◼   ► So there's always this in--every time I've ever bought an iPhone--now this may have changed

00:36:21 ◼   ► recently but like when I bought them even from carriers, the box always had the little

00:36:25 ◼   ► SIM removal tool in it.

00:36:27 ◼   ► Weird.

00:36:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:29 ◼   ► Weird.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Yeah, so I--and I have some around but you know you can never find one when you need

00:36:32 ◼   ► one.

00:36:33 ◼   ► But anyway, my point is that the--the paperclip I used didn't fit.

00:36:36 ◼   ► I don't find something else, because I think the hole is a little bit smaller too on top

00:36:42 ◼   ► of everything else, and it was harder to pop it out for sure.

00:36:45 ◼   ► I feel like I should gray-market these things. I have so many of them. Right, Jason.

00:36:50 ◼   ► Yes, Myke.

00:36:51 ◼   ► You remember from last year?

00:36:54 ◼   ► It's perhaps our, you know, I would say maybe our most notable episode that we've ever done.

00:36:59 ◼   ► I thought we really nailed it, and we really kind of, and people reacted well to it, and

00:37:04 ◼   ► It was our discussion of this act of buying a new iPhone and getting it going, which should

00:37:11 ◼   ► be a joy. You just spent a lot of money on a fancy new iPhone. The next steps, what happens

00:37:17 ◼   ► next and how does it go? And we said last year that it felt like Apple needed to tighten

00:37:21 ◼   ► up its game on this a lot, that it was not a fun experience to get your iPhone set up.

00:37:28 ◼   ► It was more like something to be endured.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Yeah, it was, I think it was like two episodes in total, but like the one where we actually

00:37:38 ◼   ► kind of really went into it was episode 56 called "The Migration Experience", which is

00:37:42 ◼   ► a great name for that episode, where we just spoke about how hard it is and how hard it's

00:37:46 ◼   ► become to set up an iPhone for many different reasons.

00:37:50 ◼   ► And it's because over time Apple are adding more and more and more to this stuff.

00:37:54 ◼   ► And Apple's kind of way of not syncing a lot of these things with iCloud because of security,

00:37:59 ◼   ► they're great for our security does add a lot to this process. So what I did this time

00:38:04 ◼   ► was I wrote down every step that I had to take to get my phone set up. So the first

00:38:11 ◼   ► thing that I did was backed up my old phone on iTunes with an encrypted backup because

00:38:18 ◼   ► this is what saves the passwords. Now I've seen some people talking about this, I don't

00:38:21 ◼   ► know if this is confirmed, that iCloud backups are now encrypted so they will save passwords.

00:38:27 ◼   ► But I do this stuff over iTunes because I don't have the best internet connection so

00:38:33 ◼   ► I want to try and make sure I get everything possible quickly.

00:38:37 ◼   ► So I backed it all up, turned on the new phone, I had to enter my wifi information, I had

00:38:44 ◼   ► to then set up touch ID, which you can only do the one thing for so you then have to go

00:38:50 ◼   ► and set up later the rest of your fingers, which is fine.

00:38:52 ◼   ► Then I set up a passcode, then I restored from backup.

00:38:57 ◼   ► So that takes however long that takes, let's say 30 minutes.

00:39:00 ◼   ► Then I had to set up Apple Pay again, so I had to enter in some of the information from

00:39:05 ◼   ► my card, get a text message that I was entering a code from.

00:39:09 ◼   ► Then I had to, I was thinking to myself, it popped into my head, what do I do with my

00:39:13 ◼   ► Apple Watch?

00:39:15 ◼   ► And I couldn't quite remember.

00:39:18 ◼   ► So I decided to go for it and just unpaired my Apple Watch from my old phone, which takes

00:39:23 ◼   ► quite a while to do. Because the whole time I'm thinking like, "Do I back this up? Like,

00:39:28 ◼   ► I can't see an option to back this up."

00:39:30 ◼   ► Right, and the unpairing backs it up, I believe.

00:39:32 ◼   ► Which is not said anywhere. Like, I know what they're trying to do. I know what they're

00:39:37 ◼   ► trying to do. They're trying to make it a seamless experience. But just one line that

00:39:41 ◼   ► says "unpair and back up," like, that's all it has to say. Because you don't know what

00:39:47 ◼   ► you're doing you're like entering an abyss.

00:39:49 ◼   ► I am surprised that the Apple Watch backup transfer thing has not gotten better this

00:39:57 ◼   ► year. I guess they were really working on WatchOS 3 and that was the priority and probably

00:40:01 ◼   ► should be because that's the experience that you have every day but I'm a little surprised

00:40:05 ◼   ► that it still is a big pain to move your Apple Watch when you buy a new iPhone. But there

00:40:11 ◼   ► it is. So that's what you do, you unpair it, it backs it up.

00:40:14 ◼   ► I think that the process is totally fine.

00:40:16 ◼   ► What happens, you unpair, backs up,

00:40:19 ◼   ► and then you set it up with the new one,

00:40:21 ◼   ► restores from a backup, which is going to iCloud.

00:40:23 ◼   ► But it doesn't tell you.

00:40:25 ◼   ► And I don't think that it is a thing

00:40:28 ◼   ► that you just assume is gonna work.

00:40:30 ◼   ► Because that's not how any other devices work.

00:40:33 ◼   ► Because it's so intrinsically tied to the phone.

00:40:35 ◼   ► It's just the whole thing is frustrating.

00:40:38 ◼   ► So I did it, I unpaired my Apple Watch,

00:40:39 ◼   ► it was going in the background.

00:40:41 ◼   ► Then you have to set up the home button now.

00:40:43 ◼   ► you choose your customization for how forcefully it hits you back when you click it.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Then my phone is ready, it unlocks, and I'm waiting for apps to download.

00:40:53 ◼   ► This drives me crazy.

00:40:54 ◼   ► This drives me crazy.

00:40:56 ◼   ► Why am I backing up the phone and then downloading applications again?

00:41:02 ◼   ► Why can I not just do a complete backup to iTunes and then put it all back again?

00:41:08 ◼   ► Why can't I do that?

00:41:09 ◼   ► I don't know why a backup means then download all of your apps from the store again.

00:41:14 ◼   ► The data is kept, but the apps are downloaded.

00:41:17 ◼   ► And in a world with super fast internet connections, this isn't a problem.

00:41:21 ◼   ► But this isn't the life for everyone, and also there are problems I'll get into in a

00:41:26 ◼   ► minute which make this a terrible solution for iPhone launch day.

00:41:30 ◼   ► I don't know why they do this.

00:41:31 ◼   ► Right.

00:41:32 ◼   ► It's funny too, because I think there's some inconsistency here, which is when I attached

00:41:38 ◼   ► my iPhone to my Mac and tried to back it up on iTunes, what it told me, and I had an iCloud

00:41:45 ◼   ► backup but I thought I would try it this way too, and it gave me the, there's some content

00:41:50 ◼   ► on your device that isn't in your iTunes library, I need to sync that back before I do the backup,

00:41:58 ◼   ► and I thought, "I don't want to sync my phone with my iTunes, I just want you to make a

00:42:02 ◼   ► backup." And I gave up.

00:42:05 ◼   ► If I'm remembering correctly, the ability to back up apps and then re-download apps to iTunes

00:42:12 ◼   ► changed last year, didn't it? This was part of the big problem. It's like, they always download from the store now.

00:42:17 ◼   ► Right, the argument is that if they're doing that space-saving thing, where it's actually dynamically giving you a different binary based on what your phone is,

00:42:26 ◼   ► then if you're upgrading from an iPhone 5 to an iPhone 7, you're gonna get a different version of that app.

00:42:32 ◼   ► app, they can't just pull down the binary from the five and push it to the seven.

00:42:37 ◼   ► So they're embracing the cloud for that reason, and fair enough, but as

00:42:43 ◼   ► we will get to, the challenge then is you've got a lot of devices trying to

00:42:48 ◼   ► download items from the App Store immediately upon getting the new phone,

00:42:52 ◼   ► so they better well download, and that is where I got stuck.

00:42:58 ◼   ► That was the problem is that I had some confusion,

00:43:01 ◼   ► and I think I ended up like logging out of the app store

00:43:04 ◼   ► in settings and then logging back in,

00:43:07 ◼   ► and that seemed to kind of,

00:43:09 ◼   ► and then at some point I restarted

00:43:11 ◼   ► and it seemed to get it to life,

00:43:12 ◼   ► but I had a long period of time where all of my apps

00:43:15 ◼   ► were basically paused or waiting to download

00:43:18 ◼   ► and didn't download.

00:43:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, after a little while,

00:43:21 ◼   ► I started getting a bunch of app install errors,

00:43:23 ◼   ► like this app couldn't be installed,

00:43:25 ◼   ► retry and you'd retry it and it would fail again

00:43:26 ◼   ► and fail again.

00:43:27 ◼   ► So that was the thing I was dealing with.

00:43:29 ◼   ► That was popping up randomly.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Some apps were installing, some weren't.

00:43:33 ◼   ► Then I tried to set up my Apple Watch again

00:43:34 ◼   ► in the Apple Watch app,

00:43:36 ◼   ► and it got stuck on the terms and conditions screen

00:43:38 ◼   ► for like five minutes.

00:43:38 ◼   ► It was just spinning, spinning, spinning.

00:43:40 ◼   ► I had no idea what was happening.

00:43:41 ◼   ► I quit the app, did it again,

00:43:43 ◼   ► and then it just starts pairing.

00:43:45 ◼   ► It's like, "Hey, pair your Apple Watch."

00:43:46 ◼   ► And still I'm like, "Am I, have I done this wrong?

00:43:49 ◼   ► "I have no idea if I've done this wrong."

00:43:51 ◼   ► And then it ended up like after a while,

00:43:54 ◼   ► the Apple Watch set up and everything was there.

00:43:56 ◼   ► I had to like set up some stuff again, like it seemed like the watch OS 3 plus application

00:44:01 ◼   ► stuff like a bunch of complications got knocked off like until the apps were updated.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Like that was like whatever but the whole process with the Apple watch was frustrating

00:44:09 ◼   ► because at no point during this like one hour process I had any idea if I'd done it right

00:44:14 ◼   ► until it opened up and they'd done it right again.

00:44:17 ◼   ► I still don't have Apple Pay on my watch because an error occurred while setting up Apple Pay

00:44:23 ◼   ► is what I get every time I try to add the card that's on my phone and I can't even take

00:44:28 ◼   ► action. It's just an error occurred and that's been occurring since I put it on there. I

00:44:33 ◼   ► have no idea why.

00:44:36 ◼   ► So after dealing with my Apple Watch and all the install errors, I set up all my other

00:44:39 ◼   ► fingers for Touch ID and then...

00:44:42 ◼   ► I like that we live in a world where you have to set up fingers. That's interesting.

00:44:46 ◼   ► Just go through and do all of that again. And then at a certain point, all applications

00:44:49 ◼   ► stopped installing. So this is I started doing this pretty early in the day, right?

00:44:55 ◼   ► So I'm back at home doing this at like 930 in the morning. So by this point, like

00:45:00 ◼   ► when I started, so by this point I'm getting close to 11 a.m. This is when I

00:45:03 ◼   ► assume lots of people start getting their phones around Europe and stuff

00:45:07 ◼   ► like that. So this is just when the App Store just starts to fail and then after

00:45:12 ◼   ► a while a bunch of apps didn't install and their icons disappeared. So it

00:45:17 ◼   ► happened last year as well. So I then had to do like an inventory of my old phone to

00:45:21 ◼   ► my new phone and work out which apps hadn't installed. Then I had to download all my Apple

00:45:28 ◼   ► Music again. Yeah. So this was my setup process. It ends with me looking at both of my phones

00:45:39 ◼   ► and choosing which applications the phone has decided not to download and then downloading

00:45:43 ◼   ► Apple Music. So I will say overall, this was still very complicated and annoying, but nowhere

00:45:49 ◼   ► near as bad as last year. And I think there's a couple of reasons for this.

00:45:53 ◼   ► Yeah, I was going to say, I ended up ultimately restoring from iCloud and the encrypted iCloud

00:45:58 ◼   ► backup, so the number of passwords I had to re-enter was so much less than back when they

00:46:04 ◼   ► weren't encrypting the iCloud backups. And I have to applaud them for that. I was so

00:46:08 ◼   ► frustrated by the attempt to iTunes backup because it wanted to pull content off of my

00:46:12 ◼   ► phone and put it on my, in iTunes, just like I don't do, I don't play that game, I don't

00:46:17 ◼   ► want to have apps, iOS apps on my Mac, I'm not interested in having them present there,

00:46:23 ◼   ► just do a little backup file, you know, encrypted backup file with all my stuff in it, and that

00:46:29 ◼   ► failed, but the iCloud backup, yeah, was so much speedier because all of that data transferred.

00:46:36 ◼   ► But it's, you know, the issue is the App Store on this day cannot handle these people coming

00:46:43 ◼   ► to it. It's the same as the two-hour wait thing, right?

00:46:45 ◼   ► Yeah. And it's, and it's, this is one of those cases where Apple just needs this, if this

00:46:49 ◼   ► is unavoidable, which it may be because of the way they set up the app downloading system,

00:46:55 ◼   ► if it's unavoidable, then they, they need to really work on handling demand because

00:47:05 ◼   ► not a surprise that there's a huge amount of iPhone demand. And I know that it's very

00:47:10 ◼   ► difficult to scale for the one or two days where you need vastly more than you need the

00:47:16 ◼   ► rest of the year, but this is the biggest product at your company and the biggest product

00:47:22 ◼   ► in some ways in the world. You gotta make the onboarding experience good for everybody.

00:47:28 ◼   ► And that means meeting this demand. So it feels like this was the number one problem

00:47:32 ◼   ► with this is Apple services were really shaky that day. I mean, Apple Music stopped working

00:47:39 ◼   ► at one point on my Mac and a bunch of people saw this where it was like, "I haven't been

00:47:43 ◼   ► able..." There's a really annoying dialogue that comes up in iTunes which is very unfriendly

00:47:49 ◼   ► and un-Mac-like, which is something like, "I haven't been able to connect to Apple Music

00:47:53 ◼   ► for the last 20 seconds," or something like that. Okay. Okay!

00:47:57 ◼   ► Alert! Alert! You're stealing music! You're stealing music!

00:48:01 ◼   ► You might be, we don't know. I don't know where I am. I'm confused. So this is the thing,

00:48:06 ◼   ► is clearly lots of things that were bad were happening to Apple server infrastructure on

00:48:12 ◼   ► iPhone day. This is not a surprise though, right? So that's the challenge for Apple,

00:48:16 ◼   ► is how do we either increase our server capacity so this doesn't happen, or change the way

00:48:22 ◼   ► we handle the upgrade experience to get some of the load off of our servers. And that might

00:48:26 ◼   ► be something like having your backup contain apps and only restore them, you know, restore

00:48:34 ◼   ► the ones that are compatible via app thinning and the ones that aren't, you mark them as

00:48:40 ◼   ► you need to redownload this. Or, I don't know, right? I mean, but are there things that they

00:48:44 ◼   ► can change in the backup process or the upgrade process that lighten the load on the servers?

00:48:49 ◼   ► That's one strategy and another strategy in addition to that probably is how do we make

00:48:54 ◼   ► the server stay up. How are we hitting the servers? How do we keep them up? Do we need

00:48:59 ◼   ► to increase capacity temporarily? But clearly they need to do some more work here because

00:49:04 ◼   ► they just can't. On day one, it's a bad experience. And I know, yeah, okay, day three it's not

00:49:09 ◼   ► so bad necessarily, but here's the thing. Like we were talking about last week with

00:49:13 ◼   ► the upgrade customers, and actually there was a, people had to do a, who went to the

00:49:20 ◼   ► 10-0 update on their old devices on day one. This also happened after last week's show.

00:49:25 ◼   ► In the first hour, ended up with a phone that needed to be attached to a computer in order

00:49:29 ◼   ► to complete the update because there was something wrong. We haven't even mentioned that little

00:49:33 ◼   ► part of it. But it's the same thing which is, yeah, you fixed it after the first hour

00:49:36 ◼   ► but who was downloading it in hour one? Your biggest fans, your most excited customers.

00:49:43 ◼   ► And this is the same about iPhone day one which is iPhone day one is the people who

00:49:47 ◼   ► are the most excited and you need to have that be a good experience and it just is,

00:49:53 ◼   ► you know, the server stuff just isn't there yet.

00:49:56 ◼   ► Nope. And it's a shame. It's a real shame.

00:49:59 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, as a fairly sophisticated iPhone user, I ended up in that same position,

00:50:04 ◼   ► which is, it's like a mystery. It's like, what do I do when I have screens full of apps

00:50:11 ◼   ► that are sitting there at waiting for hours? What do I do? How do I approach this? And

00:50:17 ◼   ► I did the, I turned it off, I turned it back on, I logged out of the App Store, I logged

00:50:20 ◼   ► back into the App Store, which is, you know, Settings, you know, App Store, tap on your

00:50:26 ◼   ► Apple ID, sign out, sign back in. I did all of that stuff, and eventually it just sort

00:50:32 ◼   ► of went, and, but even then it took time, and some things stalled out and came back

00:50:37 ◼   ► later, and it's just not great, because, you know, your phone is, the apps are very important

00:50:42 ◼   ► to a phone and they weren't, they were stalled. It was too bad.

00:50:47 ◼   ► It's really weird that you had these issues as well because this was just a random day

00:50:51 ◼   ► for you, right? You were a couple of days before, but there were still issues, so...

00:50:55 ◼   ► That's true, that's true. I did experience a lot of these issues not on the Friday but

00:50:59 ◼   ► on the Wednesday. Yeah.

00:51:01 ◼   ► But like I gotta say, overall it was better and I don't know why. Maybe there weren't

00:51:05 ◼   ► as many problems, maybe I was used to it, maybe my expectations were different for how

00:51:09 ◼   ► it was going to be this time around, but it was better than last year, but it's still

00:51:12 ◼   ► not great.

00:51:13 ◼   ► I really believe the encrypted backup thing does eliminate a whole slice of complaints

00:51:18 ◼   ► that we had the last time.

00:51:19 ◼   ► Yeah, but I did that last year though, with iTunes.

00:51:21 ◼   ► All right.

00:51:22 ◼   ► So like the thing is that the data is all there.

00:51:24 ◼   ► Like even on the applications I had to re-download from the store after they failed, the data

00:51:29 ◼   ► was still there.

00:51:30 ◼   ► Like it's just sitting in the iPhone somewhere until you re-download the application again.

00:51:34 ◼   ► Like there's, you know, like it's the whole app, is it app slicing, they call it?

00:51:39 ◼   ► You were mentioning earlier, I think that's what it is.

00:51:40 ◼   ► App thinning.

00:51:41 ◼   ► One of those things.

00:51:42 ◼   ► Isn't it app thinning?

00:51:43 ◼   ► Yeah, thinning, slicing.

00:51:44 ◼   ► And slicing, it might be both.

00:51:45 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:51:46 ◼   ► Chopping it up, dicing.

00:51:47 ◼   ► Yeah, that's it.

00:51:48 ◼   ► It's app dicing.

00:51:49 ◼   ► App thinning and resource slicing.

00:51:50 ◼   ► See, we're both right.

00:51:52 ◼   ► App dicing.

00:51:54 ◼   ► Like I gave Apple some slack earlier about the two hour wait times, right?

00:51:58 ◼   ► And saying like, "What are you going to do?"

00:51:59 ◼   ► Because that's a people problem.

00:52:01 ◼   ► This is a technology problem.

00:52:03 ◼   ► is just having more robust technology. And this just costs money, and Apple has all of

00:52:09 ◼   ► it. So have some extra servers that come online. I know that's such like a layman's way of

00:52:14 ◼   ► saying it, but that's the way I look at it, right? It's like, you can fix this by throwing

00:52:20 ◼   ► more money at this. And quite frankly, you have all the money. So make it better.

00:52:26 ◼   ► So I've got some thoughts about the UI of this too that I'm kind of confused about,

00:52:30 ◼   ► which is, and I'm sure, this is my standard disclaimer

00:52:33 ◼   ► for Apple stuff, but it's like,

00:52:34 ◼   ► I'm sure these conversations happen inside Apple,

00:52:35 ◼   ► but let's just bring it out and talk about it here,

00:52:39 ◼   ► 'cause inside Apple, conversations stay inside Apple.

00:52:42 ◼   ► Is the restore process,

00:52:45 ◼   ► is the UI for the restore process right?

00:52:47 ◼   ► I mean--

00:52:48 ◼   ► - It's better.

00:52:49 ◼   ► It felt like less screens than last time, I gotta say,

00:52:51 ◼   ► but it's still like a nightmare of stuff.

00:52:55 ◼   ► - There's a lot of questions you have to ask,

00:52:59 ◼   ► and you know how vibratey do you want the home button to be and things like that

00:53:03 ◼   ► that are in there. But so the app, so then you get to the home screen

00:53:08 ◼   ► that's restoring and it's got to restore all those apps. Is that the right way to

00:53:10 ◼   ► do that? Would you be better off having a restore screen that is a

00:53:16 ◼   ► progress bar so your phone is basically unusable or a different way to

00:53:22 ◼   ► display those apps? Do those apps not appear? Is there instead like a proxy app

00:53:26 ◼   ► that says "restoring your apps" and then as the apps are restored they pop into view,

00:53:31 ◼   ► would that be less frustrating than seeing a hundred apps grayed out saying, you know,

00:53:37 ◼   ► waiting? I don't know. I wonder if this is not instead of making them download faster,

00:53:45 ◼   ► but in addition is there a way to make it feel less frustrating to…

00:53:50 ◼   ► But then wouldn't you just think that all your apps would disappear? Like you think

00:53:53 ◼   ► they all got deleted?

00:53:54 ◼   ► That's the that's the argument right, but you could also I mean you could just lock people out and say please wait while I restore

00:54:00 ◼   ► Your apps, but then you can't use anything including the stock Apple apps what you want to do so this new phone for $1,000

00:54:06 ◼   ► Yeah, it's difficult

00:54:07 ◼   ► This is the thing like I don't purport to have all of the up answers because I really don't if I had all of the answers

00:54:13 ◼   ► Then I probably wouldn't be recording the show with you right now Jason

00:54:17 ◼   ► I won't be solving the problems, but like I know my experience as a user, and I know it can be better and

00:54:24 ◼   ► It goes back to like, you know trade-offs for security

00:54:27 ◼   ► A lot of this stuff is re-entering stuff because they won't sync it and I love that. Yes, they keep my data secure

00:54:32 ◼   ► But it's also frustrating

00:54:35 ◼   ► Like I don't know what the trade-off I don't know what the right trade-off is there and frankly

00:54:40 ◼   ► I'll let them make that decision

00:54:41 ◼   ► But I know that there's like five or six screens in that process that could just be synced between devices

00:54:47 ◼   ► you could do it locally over Wi-Fi like there is a

00:54:50 ◼   ► Way to do this, but hey, huh? I have so much more to say about this phone, Jason

00:54:54 ◼   ► But I'm done with I'm done with the setup process now. The phone has been set up. Okay, good good

00:55:00 ◼   ► So I stick at last okay. This episode is brought to you by app care and their new service app doctor now

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00:56:57 ◼   ► of this show.

00:56:58 ◼   ► What an interesting service.

00:57:01 ◼   ► So they're gonna help out all these developers, I hope,

00:57:04 ◼   ► and keep some of these applications in the store.

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00:57:26 ◼   ► Home button.

00:57:30 ◼   ► Now, little home button.

00:57:35 ◼   ► You were not the thing that I was expecting

00:57:37 ◼   ► to be so contentious.

00:57:39 ◼   ► I was expecting headphone jack,

00:57:41 ◼   ► but I got used to that super quick, Jason,

00:57:43 ◼   ► because I use ear pods for the majority of my time

00:57:45 ◼   ► and I have those.

00:57:46 ◼   ► I got a little adapter and I'm good.

00:57:48 ◼   ► That's all fine.

00:57:49 ◼   ► That's all taken care of.

00:57:51 ◼   ► Home button, I was not expecting to be the way that it is.

00:57:55 ◼   ► So the first click of the home button, that is no bueno.

00:58:00 ◼   ► I can't imagine anybody who clicks that button

00:58:03 ◼   ► for the first time, and I'll say click and button

00:58:05 ◼   ► in the biggest air quotes, finds that to be nice.

00:58:09 ◼   ► It is a horrifying experience.

00:58:12 ◼   ► - So remember when I came back from the event

00:58:15 ◼   ► and I said that the home button thing didn't work for me,

00:58:18 ◼   ► that it was like, it felt like it was not quite

00:58:20 ◼   ► the right location and it didn't feel good at all.

00:58:23 ◼   ► And that's what you said,

00:58:24 ◼   ► that's the no bueno experience right there,

00:58:26 ◼   ► which is like, what is going on here?

00:58:28 ◼   ► But one of the things that I discovered

00:58:31 ◼   ► is that that was a setting,

00:58:33 ◼   ► that that home button had been set to a setting

00:58:35 ◼   ► that was not the strongest setting.

00:58:38 ◼   ► So it was a combination of it being kind of a weak vibration

00:58:42 ◼   ► and just the initial experience of like, "Whoa, this is not what I'm used to with an iPhone

00:58:47 ◼   ► button that I've been using for the last nine years."

00:58:49 ◼   ► No. I agree with you that setting number three is the correct one. It is the most forceful.

00:58:56 ◼   ► It is the one that makes it feel like you're actually doing something. This is just weird.

00:59:02 ◼   ► So it takes way more pressure to click the home button. The settings of one, two, and

00:59:06 ◼   ► three are not the settings I wanted. I wanted those to be pressure settings, but they're

00:59:11 ◼   ► They're just feedback settings, right? So how

00:59:14 ◼   ► One two and three is just how hard the vibe the tactic motor goes off

00:59:18 ◼   ► You know, I thought it might be like touch ID where you could have soft and hard presses, you know

00:59:22 ◼   ► Touch ID of 3d touch the same on the track pads, right? You could say how hard it is

00:59:27 ◼   ► You want it to be depressed? It's not here. So

00:59:30 ◼   ► There are some weird things about this

00:59:32 ◼   ► like I feel like when I hit the button the whole bottom of the phone is being clicked in is how it feels like it's a

00:59:40 ◼   ► hinged screen, right? So like you hit it and then the whole bottom of the phone

00:59:45 ◼   ► compresses. Would you agree with that kind of feeling? Like when you hit that

00:59:48 ◼   ► button it feels like everything's moving.

00:59:51 ◼   ► I don't... That's not how it feels to me. How it feels to me is like when I press it it's almost like I'm

00:59:56 ◼   ► pushing through and I'm feeling... because I hold it, I've got... you know, my

01:00:00 ◼   ► fingers are in behind the phone and my thumb is on the front of the phone and

01:00:06 ◼   ► that's how I click it. And it feels to me like I'm pushing through and the vibration

01:00:11 ◼   ► is carrying through the back of my hand, like the whole thing is going. So it doesn't feel

01:00:16 ◼   ► like the whole phone is bending, that's not how I would describe it. And I don't have

01:00:21 ◼   ► any problem with the pressure of it, it seems perfectly reasonable to me.

01:00:26 ◼   ► So that, you know, I just think different people react to it differently. So like, and

01:00:31 ◼   ► every now and then it's funny, like I was finding him the first day or two, and he's

01:00:35 ◼   ► kind of worn off now but I would hit the button feel the vibration and thought I

01:00:39 ◼   ► did something wrong like I thought the phone was telling me I made a mistake

01:00:42 ◼   ► like it was just getting used to it right yeah I mean that that's what I

01:00:46 ◼   ► don't feel that anymore like I actually now I've gotten used to it and I take

01:00:50 ◼   ► some pleasure in the exaggerated click that it produces like the the feeling is

01:00:55 ◼   ► more visceral it's like a you're in the phone like I like it but this is not a

01:01:00 ◼   ► better button like it's not about a button and it never will be a better

01:01:04 ◼   ► button and I can't work out the reason why they've done this. If there is a reason, Apple

01:01:11 ◼   ► hasn't said that reason. I am sure there are a long list of reasons why they changed the

01:01:18 ◼   ► home button. Some we could see now and some maybe will come clear in the future, right?

01:01:24 ◼   ► If all the rumors of the unicorn tend to be believed. But as of right now, the reason

01:01:30 ◼   ► on stage was no it's customizable it's like no nobody needed that it's like man I really

01:01:34 ◼   ► wished that this button clicked at different forces like yeah this is this is my criticism

01:01:40 ◼   ► is like we all talk about this we're talking about this with a headphone right we want

01:01:44 ◼   ► the story what is the story of the removal of the headphone jack right we got a story

01:01:50 ◼   ► whether you're happy with that story or not is is a you know is whatever but we got a

01:01:54 ◼   ► story right? We're moving to wired, we want to get rid of this old technology, we have

01:02:00 ◼   ► courage, but with the home button? Nothing. It's like it's customizable, but there's no

01:02:09 ◼   ► reason for it because this is... Look the reason is that it's not moving, it's one less

01:02:16 ◼   ► place for a water incursion to happen. It's gonna be one less moving part that is broken

01:02:25 ◼   ► that needs to be fixed. There's lots of--they have reasons, right? You're right, they didn't

01:02:30 ◼   ► go into them.

01:02:31 ◼   ► That's what I mean, I'm sure there are a laundry list of reasons, but none of them are like,

01:02:39 ◼   ► here's why you as a customer is gonna get a better experience out of this.

01:02:44 ◼   ► It's funny that you feel this way.

01:02:46 ◼   ► I have no problem with it.

01:02:48 ◼   ► Having set it to three, I just have embraced the new home button.

01:02:53 ◼   ► It works just fine.

01:02:54 ◼   ► I have no problem with it.

01:02:55 ◼   ► It doesn't bother me at all.

01:02:57 ◼   ► So I kind of enjoy it, actually.

01:03:01 ◼   ► I'm kind of burying the lead on this a little bit.

01:03:04 ◼   ► The reason I have an issue with this is because there are times where the home button doesn't

01:03:08 ◼   ► work.

01:03:09 ◼   ► I press a button that does nothing.

01:03:11 ◼   ► So I noticed this thing, right?

01:03:13 ◼   ► That if the iPhone 7 home button is covered

01:03:17 ◼   ► with any kind of material, something is obstructing it,

01:03:20 ◼   ► maybe if you're using your fingernail,

01:03:21 ◼   ► you're not pressing the phone correctly,

01:03:23 ◼   ► there is no click, right?

01:03:25 ◼   ► And there was this whole big thing

01:03:27 ◼   ► that happened over the weekend with,

01:03:29 ◼   ► Capacitive gloves will solve your problem,

01:03:30 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:03:32 ◼   ► My point was never anything about gloves.

01:03:34 ◼   ► It was just no sensor connection, no click

01:03:37 ◼   ► is what I came to the conclusion of, right?

01:03:38 ◼   ► The touch ID sensor is now what registers the click being made.

01:03:42 ◼   ► That you have to make a connection with the touch ID sensor.

01:03:45 ◼   ► So I'm having many times where like I'm hitting it and maybe not hitting it properly and there's

01:03:51 ◼   ► no button.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Or like the reason, when I notice this is something I do all the time.

01:03:55 ◼   ► I am laying down on the bed with my phone in my hand and I'm kind of resting my phone

01:03:59 ◼   ► against my chest or my stomach and I go to press the button and I'm pressing material

01:04:05 ◼   ► like my t-shirt, right?

01:04:06 ◼   ► Like it's just obscuring the button a little bit.

01:04:08 ◼   ► Doesn't work like that. This is an and as well when you make that connection and nothing happens

01:04:14 ◼   ► It feels to me viscerally uncomfortable like you're just jamming your finger or your fingernail into a piece of unmoving glass

01:04:22 ◼   ► Which is really weird because you're always doing that but when it gives you the tactic it feels like a button

01:04:27 ◼   ► But when nothing's happening, you just feel like you're just mashing against this piece of glass. It's like this is my whole thing, right?

01:04:34 ◼   ► I feel like

01:04:36 ◼   ► The experience that I feel is not as good anymore

01:04:41 ◼   ► because this button is a button that can fail on me and this was always my problem with the

01:04:49 ◼   ► Trackpads right there are times when it doesn't work on the laptops my magic trackpad

01:04:56 ◼   ► Never have a problem with it

01:04:57 ◼   ► But every time I use one of the new 15 inch MacBook Pros

01:05:01 ◼   ► I hate the trackpad because it seems to not work as well for me as the magic trackpad does

01:05:06 ◼   ► I don't know why.

01:05:07 ◼   ► Maybe it's just like whenever I do this, I'm just using Stevens and I think he uses a different setting to me

01:05:11 ◼   ► But anyway, like I don't like that when it's not set up the way that I like but I have this button now

01:05:16 ◼   ► which which doesn't work and it is

01:05:19 ◼   ► In times that I want it to and I find it very frustrating as somebody who's used a phone for nine years

01:05:25 ◼   ► Like I'm so used to just like hitting that button and it goes like as I said, like I'm getting used to it

01:05:31 ◼   ► Like you when it works. I'm you know, I'm fine with it

01:05:34 ◼   ► right? Like it is a different experience and I'm fine with it, but it is a button that

01:05:39 ◼   ► doesn't have a 100% success rate, which is really weird.

01:05:42 ◼   ► I, well, I mean, it breaks the spell of the, this is no, no, no, it's a button. It's really

01:05:48 ◼   ► a button because it's not. And, and you, you press it in certain circumstances and it doesn't

01:05:52 ◼   ► react and you feel like, I just had this the other day with my magic track pad where it

01:05:56 ◼   ► lost connection with my Mac and I clicked on it and nothing moved.

01:06:01 ◼   ► What is this photo?

01:06:03 ◼   ► Right, so that breaks the illusion and that's problematic. Yes, that's a thing. But I will

01:06:10 ◼   ► say it also means stuff like it doesn't accidentally get pressed in your pocket.

01:06:16 ◼   ► But nothing happens. I've heard people say this. When has that ever happened to anyone?

01:06:20 ◼   ► And then what happens? Like, oh, Siri might go off?

01:06:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I've had that happen. I've had it be pressed in my pocket when I didn't intend

01:06:29 ◼   ► for it to be. Absolutely.

01:06:30 ◼   ► Your pockets must be pointy. I don't know what's happening with your pockets.

01:06:33 ◼   ► I have the pockets. Indeed, yeah. It's a tough world out there. People are always poking

01:06:38 ◼   ► your pockets. I'm sure it might happen, but I just don't

01:06:41 ◼   ► see that as like a "hooray." And I've never experienced what you're describing

01:06:46 ◼   ► with the 7, which is pressing it and having a thumbnail not register.

01:06:53 ◼   ► This is like different ways of operating the button, right? But what I'm saying is a categorical

01:06:58 ◼   ► fact that something can obstruct the button and the button doesn't move.

01:07:01 ◼   ► I think, actually, this came up, people were talking about gloves and things like that

01:07:04 ◼   ► in the winter time, which I don't understand.

01:07:06 ◼   ► I love how, like, I just want to say, just for the weirdness, and by the way, if Steven's

01:07:11 ◼   ► going through this whole thing, right? We're hissing, we're going to talk about that on

01:07:15 ◼   ► Connected as well, it's been a weird weekend for us. It was just so interesting to see

01:07:18 ◼   ► this happen, where I just said something obstructs it, the button doesn't work, and within an

01:07:22 ◼   ► hour everyone was posting articles about capacitive gloves. I never even said that. I don't care

01:07:29 ◼   ► about gloves. I'm just saying, it doesn't always work. Whatever. That's all I want to

01:07:33 ◼   ► say on that.

01:07:34 ◼   ► But it is for people who use gloves, that was a question, and there are some people

01:07:37 ◼   ► whose iPhone strategy involves being able to push the home button.

01:07:39 ◼   ► Yep.

01:07:40 ◼   ► And for some people it worked and some people it didn't was what I was seeing.

01:07:43 ◼   ► Exactly right. So some capacitive gloves work with it and others didn't. It sounds like

01:07:47 ◼   ► there's like you've got to hit it a certain way because it is trying to get that connection

01:07:51 ◼   ► otherwise it won't trigger. So it's something that, you know, if you are somebody who relies

01:07:56 ◼   ► on gloves and uses an iPhone, you've got a set of gloves, you should check it out on

01:07:59 ◼   ► your 7 before there's a really cold day and your fingers freeze or you can't use your

01:08:03 ◼   ► phone but it's probably not that big a deal.

01:08:05 ◼   ► But you might need to buy new gloves which is like...

01:08:07 ◼   ► You might.

01:08:08 ◼   ► I didn't expect I'd need to buy new gloves when I bought my iPhone.

01:08:11 ◼   ► Yeah, that's true.

01:08:12 ◼   ► It's just the thing, like I just find it to be a weird thing.

01:08:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

01:08:19 ◼   ► It doesn't bother me.

01:08:20 ◼   ► For me, I just accepted it and it works fine and it doesn't bother me at all.

01:08:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:25 ◼   ► for the most people, it's not going to be a problem.

01:08:28 ◼   ► But for the people that notice it, like me,

01:08:30 ◼   ► it's a lesser experience, right?

01:08:32 ◼   ► And we talk about all the time on the show

01:08:37 ◼   ► the magic of Apple, right?

01:08:38 ◼   ► It's why we do this show, because we love the things

01:08:40 ◼   ► that they make.

01:08:41 ◼   ► And as people who really obsess over the criminology

01:08:44 ◼   ► of this stuff, as we do, as all of you listeners do as well,

01:08:47 ◼   ► it's why you're listening to this show.

01:08:48 ◼   ► We always talk about the story of the product, right?

01:08:51 ◼   ► And just as of today, the story of this button has not been told, and it makes no sense.

01:08:57 ◼   ► It's weird that they talked about it being customizable, as if...

01:09:00 ◼   ► And I kept thinking like, "Whoa, what does that mean? Are there certain clicks I can do now?"

01:09:04 ◼   ► And then, nope.

01:09:05 ◼   ► I thought I was going to get like gestures and stuff, you know?

01:09:08 ◼   ► Nope.

01:09:09 ◼   ► No, nothing. It's just like, "Oh, how hard does it vibrate?"

01:09:11 ◼   ► Alright, sure, Phil.

01:09:14 ◼   ► Okay.

01:09:14 ◼   ► If that's what you need, man, we'll go for that.

01:09:16 ◼   ► But let's talk about that Taptic Motor, the thing that is powering it, because this

01:09:20 ◼   ► I love.

01:09:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's great.

01:09:23 ◼   ► - This Taptic motor is pure Apple whimsy.

01:09:27 ◼   ► Like this is what they do so well, right?

01:09:30 ◼   ► This is the complete opposite of the button.

01:09:33 ◼   ► - And it feels restrained to me.

01:09:35 ◼   ► And I'm sure there are people out there who are gonna go,

01:09:36 ◼   ► ugh, I don't want it to move,

01:09:38 ◼   ► my phone to move at all when I do anything on the screen.

01:09:41 ◼   ► It's like, okay, well you should turn off that feature then.

01:09:42 ◼   ► And then it won't do that.

01:09:43 ◼   ► But I found like--

01:09:45 ◼   ► - It's a delight.

01:09:47 ◼   ► - Using Android phones that have, you know,

01:09:49 ◼   ► Oftentimes there are these Android interfaces where everything you do vibrates the phone

01:09:54 ◼   ► a little bit, and it's like, what has happened to every tap?

01:09:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it vibrates on the keystrokes, and that's too much.

01:10:00 ◼   ► You can turn it off, but Apple didn't do that.

01:10:03 ◼   ► It is fairly restrained, but I find it whimsical and delightful and yet a little bit restrained.

01:10:09 ◼   ► If you're reordering a podcast list in Overcast, and this is not something that Marco Arment

01:10:15 ◼   ► actually wrote.

01:10:16 ◼   ► It's just he's using a standard controller.

01:10:18 ◼   ► When you slide those items around in the list, there's a little bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-b

01:10:48 ◼   ► of dragging them over like, this is the genius, like this taptic stuff, whatever they did

01:10:53 ◼   ► is amazing, right? Like, how it tricks you, because it's the same with the home button.

01:10:57 ◼   ► Like it tricks me. Nothing changes, but I feel like something's happening. It really

01:11:02 ◼   ► is brilliant.

01:11:03 ◼   ► At my, when I was at Apple I saw this app that was, it's a music app, and it's like

01:11:09 ◼   ► a piano, and you run your finger over, from left to right, over the piano on like the

01:11:15 ◼   ► 7 Plus and you can feel your finger going over the keys.

01:11:19 ◼   ► It's crazy.

01:11:20 ◼   ► So here's the thing about that.

01:11:21 ◼   ► Do you remember before all this came about, it's been going on for years, about Apple

01:11:25 ◼   ► were apparently creating a screen that would give feedback.

01:11:27 ◼   ► Do you remember?

01:11:28 ◼   ► That was the rumor.

01:11:29 ◼   ► It's like it would give you feedback when you touched it in certain areas.

01:11:32 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

01:11:33 ◼   ► I think this was it.

01:11:34 ◼   ► People were just tricked by it.

01:11:36 ◼   ► That's the idea.

01:11:38 ◼   ► It's definitely like that.

01:11:39 ◼   ► And I mean, there was a Taptic Engine on the 6S for 3D Touch, but they were very clear

01:11:43 ◼   ► to me that this is a much, the Taptic API stuff doesn't work on the 6S because they

01:11:48 ◼   ► felt like that was, yeah, they said this is a much more refined and focused Taptic Engine.

01:11:53 ◼   ► They can do a lot more tricks with it and some of these taps are so light and they're

01:11:56 ◼   ► so fast.

01:11:57 ◼   ► - Oh, this is amazing.

01:12:00 ◼   ► - But I think it's really good. I'm interested to see what third-party developers do with

01:12:03 ◼   ► it, but I like that Apple has done this sort of sprinkling across everything and it's subtle

01:12:07 ◼   ► but delightful. And that is the best when you have features that work like that. I'm

01:12:13 ◼   ► with you. I really liked how they integrated haptics into the UI with the Taptic Engine

01:12:19 ◼   ► so that it felt like, you know, all that animation they've been putting in over the years with

01:12:27 ◼   ► all the different classes that they've got where sort of like you just as a developer

01:12:31 ◼   ► say, make a list here and then reorder it. But it actually, everything slides around.

01:12:36 ◼   ► so much animation in the UI, and a lot of this Taptic Engine stuff that they're doing

01:12:40 ◼   ► seems to be tied to the animation, so it really does give you that illusion like, well of

01:12:44 ◼   ► course, as this is moving, I can feel it moving. And that, instead of it being just a completely

01:12:49 ◼   ► abstract thing, it's something that's happening as part of your gesture, or as part of the

01:12:54 ◼   ► UI that's leading to the movement, and that makes sense. I also played a game for a minute

01:12:59 ◼   ► that uses this, and that was pretty amazing too, like you fire a missile, and you can

01:13:03 ◼   ► know what this game was called. I don't remember now. I should look it up. But it was like

01:13:07 ◼   ► if you fire a missile and you can feel it go and when it explodes you can feel the rumble

01:13:12 ◼   ► of the explosion. I mean it's not quite at like, I'd say it's not at the level of vibration

01:13:17 ◼   ► of like a rumble pack in a console controller. But it's also more detailed than that. That's

01:13:24 ◼   ► kind of a, right? The console controllers are sort of like, right? It's just a blind

01:13:29 ◼   ► vibration, right? This is a much more kind of refined effect, but not as

01:13:35 ◼   ► powerful as something in a console controller, but pretty cool. So there will

01:13:40 ◼   ► be some cool uses of this by third-party apps too. And bad. There will be bad ones too.

01:13:46 ◼   ► There'll be terrible ones that will all say "what the hell did you just do?" but that happens.

01:13:51 ◼   ► I've listened to and read a bunch of people saying stuff about the camera on

01:13:56 ◼   ► the plus. You know, like on ATP they were talking about it, Marco changed his decision.

01:14:02 ◼   ► Because something something something optical stabilization images mashed together something

01:14:09 ◼   ► something stuff I don't understand basically. But I love the camera. My god. My god this

01:14:17 ◼   ► camera is incredible. It's incredible. Like, just the standard pictures that I can take

01:14:24 ◼   ► on this thing are insane, right? The depth of field that I can get already is insane

01:14:29 ◼   ► before the portrait stuff is even available. The zoom? Whoa. Like taking pictures of people?

01:14:37 ◼   ► I know, look, everybody who's ever had a camera before, like, is just laughing at me, you

01:14:41 ◼   ► know, I'm not a camera guy, like, whatever. The telephoto lens. I absolutely love it.

01:14:48 ◼   ► Like I've been just been taking pictures, like I took a picture of my cereal just for

01:14:52 ◼   ► whatever. Like, you know, because it was just what was in front of me when I figured I wanted

01:14:56 ◼   ► to take a picture. The way that this, like, the quality of the zoom is incredible, and

01:15:04 ◼   ► just the detail that it picks up, like, I absolutely adore this camera. Like, it is

01:15:11 ◼   ► amazing.

01:15:12 ◼   ► Yeah, it's pretty good. Pretty great. One of the things that I discovered is I took

01:15:18 ◼   ► some pictures of some sunflowers that are in my kitchen. And I took that with this as

01:15:26 ◼   ► well as the 6S, 7, 7 Plus, and the 6S. The fact that it's capturing wide color gamut,

01:15:32 ◼   ► the P3 color gamut, and then the displays can show the P3 color gamut. On a non-P3 display,

01:15:40 ◼   ► you can tell that the color is better. It's a better camera. And on the P3 display, it

01:15:46 ◼   ► is shocking how much better it is. So when you're taking pictures and looking at them

01:15:51 ◼   ► on the device, you're benefiting double. You're benefiting from the quality of the camera

01:15:57 ◼   ► and the capture and then the display of it. But it's pretty impressive. They continue

01:16:03 ◼   ► to make--this is the thing, you know, camera is one of the most important features of a

01:16:07 ◼   ► smartphone and Apple has tried very hard to make that iPhone camera better every single

01:16:12 ◼   ► year and they did it again, it is better again, plus on the 7 Plus you've got the 2X version

01:16:21 ◼   ► and then, you know, they're doing a little secret sauce behind the scenes to take advantage

01:16:25 ◼   ► of the two cameras when they can. Which they didn't talk about on stage at all.

01:16:31 ◼   ► Secret sauce is making me laugh right now.

01:16:33 ◼   ► Secret sauce.

01:16:34 ◼   ► This is one of those things that Apple has the ability to do to us.

01:16:37 ◼   ► They have a whole kitchen that's cooking up secret sauce all the time.

01:16:40 ◼   ► mentions a phrase like horses and mountains and secret sauce on stage and they mentioned

01:16:45 ◼   ► it in regard to the AirPods and now I'm hearing a secret sauce everywhere.

01:16:50 ◼   ► Secret sauce, it's a thing. You gotta have sauce and if you have sauce, keep it a secret.

01:16:54 ◼   ► We were never saying this before though. Keep it a secret. Oh no, that's a thing. Secret

01:16:57 ◼   ► sauce is absolutely a thing. No, I know what it is. It's McDonald's, right?

01:17:00 ◼   ► But like we weren't talking about... Anyway, but it's just funny to me. Like they mention

01:17:04 ◼   ► a phrase and it becomes part of the lexicon for a while. Like, secure enclave. We all

01:17:09 ◼   ► what they are now. Jim took a picture of his pineapple pizza in a similar vein to me when

01:17:15 ◼   ► you can really, another example in a low light condition of the great camera. I'm, I'm, look,

01:17:22 ◼   ► I know that people that love cameras, they're never going to be completely happy with the

01:17:28 ◼   ► way that these things work, right? Because they're not real cameras, you know, that they're

01:17:32 ◼   ► trying to put real cameras inside of a phone, which is difficult to do. But for someone

01:17:36 ◼   ► who doesn't really know and just likes the way that their pictures look when they're taken really well.

01:17:41 ◼   ► I'm very happy. I'm just like over the moon with this camera. Like it's just incredible.

01:17:47 ◼   ► You know all the stuff that it's doing with the two lenses and

01:17:49 ◼   ► all the stuff I can get out of the zoom with them like I am

01:17:53 ◼   ► so thrilled with this. They look incredible to me. Um and I

01:17:57 ◼   ► It's one of my favorite features of the phone obviously, but I wasn't expecting it so much to love it as much as I do.

01:18:05 ◼   ► I'm so happy with it.

01:18:06 ◼   ► - It's very good.

01:18:07 ◼   ► And well, I wanted to just follow up.

01:18:10 ◼   ► They didn't mention it on stage, but it is true.

01:18:12 ◼   ► Every time you take a picture in the standard,

01:18:15 ◼   ► like in the camera app, it's firing both sensors off.

01:18:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know why they didn't mention this.

01:18:22 ◼   ► - Gathering both pictures and when it does its processing,

01:18:26 ◼   ► if it does, and they won't talk about the details

01:18:28 ◼   ► of it really, but it is doing some things,

01:18:32 ◼   ► knowing that it's got another camera to try if... the way I read it was if it's

01:18:38 ◼   ► got areas of the camera of the photo that look questionable that if it's got

01:18:42 ◼   ► data from the other camera that looks better it will try to mix in the other

01:18:46 ◼   ► other one it's super secret sauce stuff Myke it's secret sauce stuff but so they

01:18:51 ◼   ► won't talk about it but the jpeg you get out of the iPhone 7 plus may include

01:18:56 ◼   ► data that's been merged together from both sensors in order to get the best

01:19:01 ◼   ► picture possible. Obviously if you shoot with another app that's using RAW, you're

01:19:07 ◼   ► picking the the sensor and you get the RAW sensor data, but the JPEG that's gone

01:19:11 ◼   ► through all of Apple's processing, that's one of the things that Apple will do

01:19:14 ◼   ► with processing on the 7 Plus, is potentially look at the other camera

01:19:18 ◼   ► data and see if it can integrate that in some way, which is also pretty

01:19:22 ◼   ► pretty wacky.

01:19:23 ◼   ► My layman's way of thinking of this is it's like some kind of super HDR mode.

01:19:27 ◼   ► My understanding of HDR is it takes the best brights and the best

01:19:31 ◼   ► stars or whatever and put them together to make the best image. It kind of feels like

01:19:34 ◼   ► that.

01:19:35 ◼   ► You could do that. I'm unclear on if they're actually doing that, but wouldn't that make

01:19:38 ◼   ► sense that if you're on the wide angle and you take a shot with the wide angle or vice

01:19:44 ◼   ► versa that you would actually set the settings on the other camera to be different shutter,

01:19:52 ◼   ► something different about it to sort of get that to happen. The way HDR works now is it

01:19:57 ◼   ► takes two pictures in rapid succession and then merges them together. I don't know, they

01:20:02 ◼   ► said noise reduction is one of the big things that they're trying to do with that.

01:20:06 ◼   ► So I guess you could take detail from one lens, color from another, you know, I don't

01:20:10 ◼   ► know how it's done. It kind of makes sense in my brain.

01:20:13 ◼   ► But they do some of that, but they don't talk about what they're doing. So that's just,

01:20:17 ◼   ► we just kind of have to take them at their word there.

01:20:19 ◼   ► The speakers are so loud and they're really clear. It's not as good as the iPad Pro, of

01:20:24 ◼   ► because the iPad Pro has two times more speakers. It doesn't sound two times louder to me, but

01:20:31 ◼   ► it's a lot louder. I'm very happy. They're way clearer. It's funny, when you have it

01:20:34 ◼   ► at full volume, your iPhone basically shakes. You hold it and you can feel the sound.

01:20:39 ◼   ► Yeah, and they're not just putting Taptic Engine in there just to fake it. I think it's

01:20:46 ◼   ► much louder. It's still tinny. I would not love listening to music or watching a movie

01:20:51 ◼   ► just on the speakers, but you can. It's nowhere near as good as the iPad. The

01:20:54 ◼   ► speakers are just legitimately good. They're very good. This is like what I wanted, it's

01:20:59 ◼   ► way better.

01:21:00 ◼   ► And the stereo effect really is surprising in that it doesn't feel like they've tuned

01:21:05 ◼   ► that speaker so that it's in stereo and you don't feel like you have one speaker

01:21:09 ◼   ► aimed at you and one speaker aimed away from you. They feel balanced when you listen to

01:21:14 ◼   ► it. It plays stereo for audio, I mean for music, as well as for movies. So if you play

01:21:21 ◼   ► music track, it will actually use the one speaker for left and one speaker for right,

01:21:27 ◼   ► even if you're in portrait, you're holding it upright, it will still stereo separate.

01:21:33 ◼   ► I'm really worried that one day I'm going to hit the loudspeaker button when I'm on

01:21:37 ◼   ► the phone call and burst my eardrum. I think they'll try very hard not to do that.

01:21:42 ◼   ► My hope would be that they use the sensor to not do that, right? Like if you hit loudspeaker

01:21:48 ◼   ► and put it up to your ear it won't go off because they can use the screen detection

01:21:51 ◼   ► sensor. That's what I hope they're doing. If Apple, if you're not doing that and you've

01:21:55 ◼   ► heard that, I recommend that. That might save somebody's eardrums because these things are

01:21:59 ◼   ► loud.

01:21:59 ◼   ► I would be surprised if they didn't have it in there so that if you have the proximity

01:22:04 ◼   ► sensor and they know that there's a person near that speaker that it doesn't, it's volume

01:22:09 ◼   ► limited.

01:22:10 ◼   ► Thinking about it, there's an easy way to test this and I'll do it. I'll just put my

01:22:13 ◼   ► finger over it. This phone is so fast in everything it does. It is incredible. Everything loads

01:22:22 ◼   ► faster there's less lag across the whole system. I noticed it almost immediately just how powerful

01:22:27 ◼   ► this thing feels. It's insane.

01:22:29 ◼   ► Yep it's twice as fast as the 6.

01:22:32 ◼   ► I mean you can really feel it even from the 6s right like I feel in it like I just you

01:22:37 ◼   ► do every time but this thing is noticeably faster I have no idea how they continue to

01:22:42 ◼   ► make these things faster and faster all the time. It's such a small little box.

01:22:47 ◼   ► The other big thing that I love, love is the screen. My gosh, the wide color gamut stuff.

01:22:54 ◼   ► What it does to these screens, like everything looks better to me. Like it was how I felt

01:22:58 ◼   ► about the iPad Pro, right? Like that just looking at my home screen was a treat. And

01:23:03 ◼   ► that's how I feel here. It's a shame to not have the True Tone, but quite honestly, it's

01:23:07 ◼   ► so close to me. Like I can look at the two devices and I can see what True Tone is doing

01:23:11 ◼   ► to them. But the quality of the screen and the wide color gamut is so good, I almost

01:23:16 ◼   ► don't care that much because it is so fantastic. And when you pair with night shift on the

01:23:21 ◼   ► iPhone, it is just a completely pleasurable experience, the screen on these things. Absolutely

01:23:28 ◼   ► fantastic.

01:23:29 ◼   ► I agree. It's a very impressive screen. I think my only thoughts go back to when we

01:23:35 ◼   ► were talking about Samsung is it does feel like that's a challenge for Apple is can you

01:23:41 ◼   ► get it to feel a little more edge-to-edge, there's not a lot of frame left around it,

01:23:45 ◼   ► but there's still frame left around it. And on the regular 7, you know, I'm not a big

01:23:52 ◼   ► believer in the idea. I've heard people who are fans of Android devices say, "Oh, but

01:23:57 ◼   ► Apple's so far behind in resolution, you've got these Super HD displays on Android devices."

01:24:02 ◼   ► It's like, you know, above a certain DPI, it really doesn't matter, and in fact it's

01:24:05 ◼   ► a bad idea to have a higher resolution display, because no one can see it, but you still have

01:24:09 ◼   ► to draw all the pixels, which means you have to have the GPU to drive it. That all said,

01:24:15 ◼   ► the iPhone 7 not being able to show true 1080, the smaller iPhone could probably have a higher

01:24:22 ◼   ► resolution screen than it has, so I hope they go down that path. I don't think it's something

01:24:26 ◼   ► that most regular people are going to care about. It's a beautiful screen. It is a retina

01:24:32 ◼   ► screen, so you probably couldn't detect a whole lot of difference anyway. I think it's

01:24:37 ◼   ► worth mentioning that, that it's like the Plus is a true 1080 screen, but the 7 is not.

01:24:42 ◼   ► It's not quite there yet. So, maybe in the next version, but I think this kind of leads

01:24:47 ◼   ► us to our conclusions. It's sort of like, what is this iPhone? How is it different than

01:24:52 ◼   ► the past and what does this mean for the future?

01:24:56 ◼   ► So I think this is the weirdest iPhone ever made because there are strange choices with

01:25:04 ◼   ► peculiar outcomes. You know, we didn't even talk about the headphone jack because I just

01:25:09 ◼   ► feel like it's a non-story at this point. We've said everything.

01:25:12 ◼   ► Maybe this is why they have the TikTok approach where there's like the 5 and the 5s, the 4

01:25:18 ◼   ► and the 4s, the 6 and the 6s. Maybe that's why they only do two because when you do a

01:25:22 ◼   ► third one it gets weird. You don't want to go to the third one because this is what happens.

01:25:27 ◼   ► Strange things start to happen.

01:25:28 ◼   ► It gets weird at the third iteration. You're completely right.

01:25:31 ◼   ► You don't want to, yeah, you know, and this is, this is, it is weird.

01:25:36 ◼   ► There are a lot of challenges, things they're doing here that are like, we're going to change

01:25:39 ◼   ► things.

01:25:40 ◼   ► We're going to do all this stuff.

01:25:41 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, of course the phone is, or the camera's better and the processors are faster.

01:25:46 ◼   ► It's like all those things happen every time and they're to be commended.

01:25:49 ◼   ► We shouldn't take that for granted, but they're to be commended for that.

01:25:51 ◼   ► But then you've got, we also added a camera, got rid of the home button, got rid of the

01:25:55 ◼   ► headphone jack.

01:25:56 ◼   ► And like, okay.

01:25:57 ◼   ► Enjoy.

01:25:58 ◼   ► It looks the same.

01:26:00 ◼   ► It is weird and for me,

01:26:03 ◼   ► and I like it, I think it's actually,

01:26:06 ◼   ► I think it's great, I think they pushed it forward in a bunch of

01:26:09 ◼   ► areas that are really nice, I think that

01:26:11 ◼   ► the color gamut stuff, the camera improvements, it's really impressive,

01:26:14 ◼   ► great to look at, so much faster, all those things are great,

01:26:18 ◼   ► the better speakers are fantastic.

01:26:21 ◼   ► I do wonder what this says about the iPhone product line, like,

01:26:25 ◼   ► we won't know for a year what

01:26:28 ◼   ► this phone's place in the world is,

01:26:32 ◼   ► and I feel like we've got a couple of options.

01:26:35 ◼   ► One is, it's a weird phone,

01:26:37 ◼   ► and we're gonna look back and be like,

01:26:39 ◼   ► and then they did that third one,

01:26:40 ◼   ► that the seven, which was basically like the six

01:26:42 ◼   ► and the six S, and that was strange.

01:26:44 ◼   ► They made a lot of weird decisions there,

01:26:46 ◼   ► but then they wiped it all away and they did a new phone.

01:26:49 ◼   ► I think more likely is we're gonna look back

01:26:51 ◼   ► and say that this was a transitional device,

01:26:54 ◼   ► where they were trying out a bunch of stuff

01:26:57 ◼   ► before implementing it and a whole lot of other weird stuff with whatever next year's

01:27:02 ◼   ► phone is. But we won't know. I mean, there were rumors that suggest that that is the

01:27:05 ◼   ► case, but we won't really know until next year. But that, you know, I think one way

01:27:10 ◼   ► or another, it is a very different phone in a lot of ways than any previous iPhone. I

01:27:16 ◼   ► think that's interesting that they've done that nine years in.

01:27:19 ◼   ► Yeah, this is the thing. Like, I love this phone as I love all new iPhones because it

01:27:23 ◼   ► gives me a bunch of stuff that's really great. But it's also given me some things that are

01:27:26 ◼   ► not so great which is weird. You know like I don't, I can't think of an iPhone that's

01:27:31 ◼   ► done this before. Like it's made some decisions that are like completely perplexing. You know

01:27:38 ◼   ► like removing the headphone jack is perplexing. Like I'm sure that I would feel probably the

01:27:43 ◼   ► same way as I do about the home button if I didn't know about the headphone jack like

01:27:47 ◼   ► six months ago. You know? And I think that's a decision made by Apple. You know? To like

01:27:53 ◼   ► imagine if they would have taken off how you would have reacted. No matter how you were

01:27:56 ◼   ► reacting when the rumors were first coming out. You know, I think it was very smart by

01:28:00 ◼   ► them to remove it because that's way more of a hot button issue than the home button

01:28:04 ◼   ► is, right? But...

01:28:06 ◼   ► Well, I mean, technically, the... Oh, I want to mention and this is probably something

01:28:14 ◼   ► that can be solved in software, I don't know, but people have discovered by the way that

01:28:17 ◼   ► the lightning port goes to sleep.

01:28:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:20 ◼   ► So, if you plug in your headphones and you listen to a podcast and like 20 minutes later

01:28:25 ◼   ► you want to click to pause your phone, I believe it doesn't work.

01:28:30 ◼   ► So, there's been a bit of contention. What I have seen proven on video is play a show,

01:28:37 ◼   ► pause it, five minutes later you cannot unpause. Oh, so it's when it's not playing audio.

01:28:44 ◼   ► When nothing's happening. I see, interesting. I've seen video proof of this, I'm going to

01:28:47 ◼   ► put it in the show notes, that when you want to resume, you have to basically plug and

01:28:55 ◼   ► replug to get it to work.

01:28:57 ◼   ► Okay. Well, so that's one of those things that maybe that's just an unintended side

01:29:02 ◼   ► effect of all of this that, like I said, I hope can be fixed with the software update.

01:29:05 ◼   ► But this is the thing about having a weird phone like this, right, is that I think there

01:29:10 ◼   ► are going to be weird edge cases in all of these things that are going to come out of

01:29:14 ◼   ► stories and some of it Apple's gonna say "that's just how it is now" and other

01:29:19 ◼   ► things Apple's gonna say "oh that'll be addressed in a software update

01:29:22 ◼   ► that's coming soon" and that one strikes me as being you may need to trade

01:29:27 ◼   ► off on the battery life that like if you've got a lightning device plugged in

01:29:30 ◼   ► and audio isn't playing that yeah you still need to listen for it to give you

01:29:35 ◼   ► a command to play the audio again you got to do that and and hopefully

01:29:39 ◼   ► something with software.

01:29:40 ◼   ► With the headphone thing, I've just not bumped into anything yet. I will do.

01:29:44 ◼   ► Sure, but you will, and we'll see those stories. I mean, I could write those stories now. I

01:29:48 ◼   ► can predict those stories. There'll be somebody who's somewhere, and it's like, "My wedding

01:29:52 ◼   ► was ruined because I didn't have this adapter, and so we couldn't play that song." Right?

01:29:56 ◼   ► That story will be posted.

01:29:57 ◼   ► I mean, we could laugh, but that's gonna happen.

01:29:59 ◼   ► It's gonna happen. "My car trip was ruined because I couldn't connect my iPhone." Those

01:30:06 ◼   ► stories will get written by angry people. There are always, I mean, I was sharing in

01:30:11 ◼   ► the relay slack, there are always people who really have a bad experience with something

01:30:15 ◼   ► and then they go on Twitter or whatever or Facebook and they vent and then somebody picks

01:30:21 ◼   ► it up because if you write anything about anything about an Apple product, somebody

01:30:25 ◼   ► will write a story for their blog about the fact that you had that issue. Like you found

01:30:30 ◼   ► out with your observation about having a t-shirt in front of the home button that that became

01:30:35 ◼   ► a story on people's websites because you had an observation on Twitter. So that will happen

01:30:40 ◼   ► at some point down the road, that's true. And some of them, Apple will be like, "Yeah,

01:30:43 ◼   ► that's, you know, whatever." And other times, there may be some things where they're like,

01:30:47 ◼   ► "Oh, actually, yeah, that's a good point. We're gonna fix that in an update."

01:30:50 ◼   ► Which one are you gonna buy? Because I know you were on the fence about the plus, and

01:30:56 ◼   ► some of the stuff you were saying in your review really made it seem like you were maybe

01:31:00 ◼   ► leaning that way more than you ever have before because of some of the advancements.

01:31:04 ◼   ► I know but I mean I thought I gave it away when I very specifically said it's

01:31:07 ◼   ► almost enough to make me switch and join the plus club because of the camera

01:31:11 ◼   ► I just want you were there if I had some luck in it I read it I know what it meant

01:31:14 ◼   ► by just keep see if I could do that word is almost but but not not quite though

01:31:20 ◼   ► you know the plus I've got it here I actually am going to switch I've been

01:31:24 ◼   ► using the seven I'm going to use the seven plus as my primary for a little

01:31:28 ◼   ► bit because that's part of the experience of it

01:31:30 ◼   ► It's really nice and big, it's also really big.

01:31:34 ◼   ► So that's my thing, is do I really want,

01:31:40 ◼   ► for the more flexible camera and all of that,

01:31:43 ◼   ► the fact is I run with my phone in my pocket,

01:31:46 ◼   ► and this thing's enormous,

01:31:48 ◼   ► so am I leaving my phone behind if I do that,

01:31:50 ◼   ► and then I can't listen to podcasts,

01:31:52 ◼   ► because I don't have, unless I get out the old iPod Shuffle

01:31:56 ◼   ► or something like that,

01:31:57 ◼   ► just it it it the way I use my phone I don't think there's enough benefit in in switching

01:32:03 ◼   ► to the plus because I'm going to have to tow that thing around everywhere I go and it's

01:32:07 ◼   ► big. It's really large like it's very you get used to it yeah you get used to it I it's

01:32:14 ◼   ► it's funny to me to hear so many people get so close just fall at the last hurdle next

01:32:20 ◼   ► year I think I'm going to get you all I think it's always worth considering I don't know

01:32:24 ◼   ► - No, Myke, next year, the smaller phone may be so amazing

01:32:28 ◼   ► that we don't even need that big phone anymore.

01:32:31 ◼   ► - That's a topic for another time.

01:32:33 ◼   ► - Let me, I'll give you this to button this up,

01:32:35 ◼   ► which is I did as part of this run a bunch

01:32:38 ◼   ► of benchmark tests, a bunch of speed tests

01:32:40 ◼   ► with Geekbench using a bunch of different iPhones,

01:32:42 ◼   ► including the SE and the five.

01:32:45 ◼   ► And holding that SE in my hand,

01:32:48 ◼   ► I felt like I was holding a remote control,

01:32:50 ◼   ► like a clicker or something.

01:32:51 ◼   ► It's so small.

01:32:52 ◼   ► Good or bad, is that so small?

01:32:54 ◼   ► - That ship has sailed.

01:32:56 ◼   ► There's no way I'm gonna use a phone that size.

01:32:58 ◼   ► Forget it.

01:32:59 ◼   ► I know the nostalgia when it came out

01:33:01 ◼   ► and people like Groob were saying,

01:33:02 ◼   ► "Oh, but I like it, I like that size."

01:33:04 ◼   ► I don't like that size, it's too small.

01:33:05 ◼   ► - I think it's crazy pants to go back to a phone that small.

01:33:10 ◼   ► It's like child's toy phone.

01:33:12 ◼   ► - I was a big advocate in that phone existing

01:33:15 ◼   ► 'cause I think it's an important part of the market

01:33:16 ◼   ► and not everybody wants a big phone.

01:33:18 ◼   ► Just like not everybody wants the gigantic phone

01:33:20 ◼   ► that you use, but for me, I can't see going back to that phone ever. It's just so tiny.

01:33:28 ◼   ► Alright, so I feel like I've made my point now, like that's why I wanted to say it up

01:33:33 ◼   ► top, right? I do really, really love this phone. I'm happy I made the decision. I've

01:33:36 ◼   ► already sold my 6S Plus. It's gone. I love this phone, but it's a weird phone. I'm getting

01:33:44 ◼   ► used to it, but it's weird and things are going to continue to be weird because I haven't

01:33:48 ◼   ► even bumped into any headphone stuff yet. It's going to be weird and we'll see what

01:33:54 ◼   ► it results in.

01:33:55 ◼   ► But, Jason, it's time for some Ask Upgrade. This week Ask Upgrade is brought to you by

01:34:00 ◼   ► FreshBooks, the company on a mission to help small business owners save time and avoid

01:34:05 ◼   ► the stress that comes with running their businesses by giving you all of the tools that you need

01:34:09 ◼   ► for pain-free invoicing.

01:34:11 ◼   ► FreshBooks have created a super intuitive tool that makes creating and sending invoices

01:34:15 ◼   ► is

01:34:34 ◼   ► I went into Freshbox yesterday to check some stuff.

01:34:37 ◼   ► I love that I get reports to tell me how old things are

01:34:40 ◼   ► so I can see who I need to chase.

01:34:41 ◼   ► I can see if those people have actually looked

01:34:44 ◼   ► at their invoices so I know what to send them.

01:34:46 ◼   ► I love that I can create account lists.

01:34:50 ◼   ► I can't remember the exact name that they give it right now,

01:34:52 ◼   ► but it can show every invoice that's been sent,

01:34:54 ◼   ► how much has been paid, how much is owed.

01:34:56 ◼   ► It's really great stuff.

01:34:57 ◼   ► I could just send that to someone and say,

01:34:59 ◼   ► "Hey, can you take a look at this?"

01:35:01 ◼   ► Freshbox give me all of the tools that I need

01:35:03 ◼   ► to make my business run smoothly.

01:35:05 ◼   ► And both me and Steven use it,

01:35:07 ◼   ► like Steven does all the account reconciliation,

01:35:10 ◼   ► I send out all the invoices

01:35:11 ◼   ► and we're able to use it so simply together.

01:35:14 ◼   ► Everything's there, everything that we need is there.

01:35:16 ◼   ► There's amazing support that they have.

01:35:18 ◼   ► You just pick up the phone

01:35:19 ◼   ► and you'll get through to someone at FreshBooks.

01:35:21 ◼   ► You don't need to be a numbers person

01:35:22 ◼   ► to get this stuff done.

01:35:24 ◼   ► All the information is saved.

01:35:25 ◼   ► You can save all your clients,

01:35:26 ◼   ► you can save all the line items that you add to invoices.

01:35:29 ◼   ► Seriously, if you send invoices to anyone for any reason,

01:35:33 ◼   ► Go and try out FreshBooks.

01:35:35 ◼   ► They're giving a 30-day free trial

01:35:36 ◼   ► for listeners of this show.

01:35:38 ◼   ► You don't need any credit card to try it out.

01:35:39 ◼   ► To claim your 30 days of unrestricted use,

01:35:41 ◼   ► go to FreshBooks.com/upgrade and enter upgrade

01:35:45 ◼   ► in the how you heard about us section

01:35:46 ◼   ► so FreshBooks knows that you came to them from this show.

01:35:49 ◼   ► Thank you so much to FreshBooks

01:35:51 ◼   ► for their continued support of upgrade.

01:35:53 ◼   ► And relay FM.

01:35:54 ◼   ► - Hooray. - Let's get into

01:35:56 ◼   ► Ask Upgrade time.

01:35:57 ◼   ► (imitates air whooshing)

01:36:00 ◼   ► TJ, upgrade it.

01:36:01 ◼   ► - Taptic vibration, taptic vibration.

01:36:03 ◼   ► probably a six to a seven.

01:36:05 ◼   ► And TJ wanted to know what our favorite

01:36:07 ◼   ► 3D touch shortcuts were and if we take live photos.

01:36:10 ◼   ► So my favorite 3D touch shortcuts,

01:36:12 ◼   ► I love the peaking at emails, links and messages,

01:36:16 ◼   ► just so I don't have to open stuff and switch apps

01:36:18 ◼   ► or like I get a message, I just wanna see what it says

01:36:20 ◼   ► in full without sending off a read receipt

01:36:22 ◼   ► or I get an email and I don't wanna open it

01:36:24 ◼   ► so it marks as read, I just wanna peek at what it says.

01:36:27 ◼   ► I love all of that stuff and there was notifications now

01:36:30 ◼   ► and you can kind of expand the notifications.

01:36:32 ◼   ► that stuff is great. I'm really happy with all of that. I also really do love live photos.

01:36:38 ◼   ► It's one of my favorite things that Apple has added to iOS in recent years because it

01:36:42 ◼   ► just makes my photos more delightful. Like, the photos sit still, I swipe through them

01:36:47 ◼   ► and they move a little bit which is nice, and then I press and hold on them and I see

01:36:50 ◼   ► something that wasn't captured in the image that I caught. And it's a whole different

01:36:54 ◼   ► way of taking photos and a lot of the time the real joy of the photo now is actually

01:37:00 ◼   ► and looking at the moments before and after it.

01:37:02 ◼   ► I really, really love Live Photos,

01:37:04 ◼   ► and it seemed like such a trivial thing

01:37:06 ◼   ► when they introduced it,

01:37:07 ◼   ► but it's one of my very, very favorite things

01:37:09 ◼   ► about iOS today.

01:37:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, my favorite 3D touch shortcut is actually the,

01:37:16 ◼   ► I'm really liking in iOS 10, the flashlight

01:37:19 ◼   ► that you can 3D touch on the control center

01:37:22 ◼   ► and then choose the brightness of the flashlight.

01:37:24 ◼   ► I think that's amazing and hilarious.

01:37:26 ◼   ► - Light, medium light, low light.

01:37:29 ◼   ► - Oh, look at that.

01:37:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, right?

01:37:31 ◼   ► - So you control center, I'm about blinding everyone.

01:37:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, control center 3D touch is something

01:37:35 ◼   ► that I really wanted for iOS 10 and they delivered

01:37:37 ◼   ► and I'm very happy about it.

01:37:39 ◼   ► And I take live photos too all the time.

01:37:41 ◼   ► I don't often by mistake, 'cause I leave it on,

01:37:44 ◼   ► but I do enjoy them in certain circumstances.

01:37:47 ◼   ► And it's really fun to go back to a photo that you took

01:37:51 ◼   ► and like and discover it's a live photo

01:37:53 ◼   ► and get to see the world around the photo that you like,

01:37:55 ◼   ► which is really sort of how Apple pitched it last year was,

01:37:58 ◼   ► you know, what if your photos could come to life?

01:37:59 ◼   ► It's not like, okay everybody,

01:38:01 ◼   ► I'm gonna take a live photo now, so start acting.

01:38:03 ◼   ► It's more like, it's a photo,

01:38:04 ◼   ► and then you can see what happened

01:38:07 ◼   ► around the moment of the photo, and that's pretty cool.

01:38:10 ◼   ► So I'm all surprised-- - Like, is someone like,

01:38:11 ◼   ► blinking and making, you know,

01:38:14 ◼   ► the face before they make the photo effect?

01:38:16 ◼   ► Like, I love all of that.

01:38:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I got a picture of my dog running around

01:38:19 ◼   ► and in the live photo, the dog kinda like,

01:38:21 ◼   ► comes into the frame and looks at the camera,

01:38:22 ◼   ► and then that was when the picture got taken,

01:38:24 ◼   ► and then she runs out.

01:38:25 ◼   ► It's like, it's pretty cool stuff.

01:38:27 ◼   ► And we have a great selfie live photo of you and me where the flash fired, the true tone

01:38:33 ◼   ► flash on the front of the camera fired, and you're blinded by it.

01:38:36 ◼   ► And that's the best live photo ever.

01:38:38 ◼   ► It is the best live photo ever.

01:38:41 ◼   ► We need to, I'm going to find that.

01:38:42 ◼   ► I'm going to put it in the show notes.

01:38:44 ◼   ► All right.

01:38:45 ◼   ► Somehow.

01:38:46 ◼   ► This could take a long time.

01:38:47 ◼   ► Do you have it to hand, or am I going to have to keep scrolling through your Twitter time?

01:38:50 ◼   ► I think it's in my favorites.

01:38:52 ◼   ► All right, well, we'll find that.

01:38:56 ◼   ► we'll put the GIF version in the show notes.

01:38:58 ◼   ► I'm gonna leave that task of use now.

01:39:00 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:39:01 ◼   ► - We can do this.

01:39:02 ◼   ► Next up on our

01:39:02 ◼   ► Next up on our upgrade this week we have Richard. Richard wanted to get an input from you Jason.

01:39:10 ◼   ► Isn't it a major oversight that Sierra isn't aware of tethering and will attempt to sync

01:39:13 ◼   ► desktop and documents no matter how large they are or what connection you're on?

01:39:17 ◼   ► It's a major oversight that the Mac is not aware of tethering. This has been a thing

01:39:21 ◼   ► for a while now. It's probably why there are no cellular capable Macs is because I think

01:39:28 ◼   ► there are some fundamental problems. I'm surprised though that they didn't three or four years

01:39:32 ◼   ► ago put together a new set of APIs for the Mac that indicate whether something is on

01:39:37 ◼   ► a cellular connection or not. But I mean, your argument would always be that until Apple

01:39:42 ◼   ► makes Macs with cellular stuff, then they're not going to bother. But this is a problem

01:39:48 ◼   ► when you tether because it has, it thinks it's on Wi-Fi and it can eat as much as it

01:39:54 ◼   ► wants. But of course, you know that it's on cellular.

01:39:56 ◼   ► I think this became a problem when the OS became aware of tethering as a thing.

01:40:02 ◼   ► So when they added the continuity features?

01:40:04 ◼   ► You got the little link in the chain thing, so it knows.

01:40:08 ◼   ► But there's no API.

01:40:09 ◼   ► That's the thing.

01:40:10 ◼   ► iOS was built fundamentally for the idea that you're going to do a lot of things on Wi-Fi

01:40:13 ◼   ► and less things on cellular.

01:40:14 ◼   ► From day one, that was the iPhone OS model.

01:40:18 ◼   ► And so every app, every part of the system has these two different classes of data, and

01:40:23 ◼   ► sometimes settings about what the behavior is.

01:40:26 ◼   ► every app has that. And the Mac has never had that. And it would be a big thing to do

01:40:32 ◼   ► that. They could do it. They could have done it, they could have seen this coming years

01:40:35 ◼   ► ago and Apple seems like they just don't care about worrying about the Mac using data when

01:40:41 ◼   ► it's on a cellular connection. So all I have to do is say use Trip Mode. That's why it

01:40:46 ◼   ► exists. I think it's tripmode.ch is the website, I believe, but it's a, Trip Mode is a utility

01:40:53 ◼   ► that looks at the connection that you're making,

01:40:56 ◼   ► and you can do it by interface

01:40:58 ◼   ► and by a Wi-Fi base station, I believe.

01:41:01 ◼   ► So you can basically say,

01:41:02 ◼   ► when I'm connected to this device,

01:41:04 ◼   ► turn on and block all data from these processes.

01:41:08 ◼   ► And it's not perfect,

01:41:09 ◼   ► but it does allow you to use metered connections

01:41:14 ◼   ► and block certain background stuff like iCloud

01:41:19 ◼   ► from using that connection.

01:41:22 ◼   ► It's not perfect, but that's the workaround right now.

01:41:24 ◼   ► But yes, Apple has been missing the boat on macOS for years

01:41:29 ◼   ► in terms of laying the foundation

01:41:30 ◼   ► for being able to differentiate between,

01:41:33 ◼   ► okay for unlimited bandwidth and please watch your step

01:41:38 ◼   ► and don't download stuff on this connection.

01:41:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's kind of surprising

01:41:46 ◼   ► that they've added this new feature

01:41:48 ◼   ► and it doesn't do it, right?

01:41:50 ◼   ► Like, as you sound like, I completely agree

01:41:51 ◼   ► old features, maybe it was never thought of the OS didn't know the difference between

01:41:56 ◼   ► tethering or not, but now it feels like it could. When an application like trip mode

01:42:01 ◼   ► exists, it shows it's possible to understand what the connection is.

01:42:04 ◼   ► It's only with tethering with iOS devices though, I mean that's the thing, is that there

01:42:07 ◼   ► are also little Wi-Fi hotspots and there are non-Apple devices.

01:42:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I know, but tethering on iOS devices will be a good start at least.

01:42:16 ◼   ► Sure, but it's just not there.

01:42:19 ◼   ► ask the age-old question I feel like every episode of upgrade gets this question. In

01:42:24 ◼   ► light of the A10 in the iPhone 7 should I wait for an upgrade to the 12.9 inch iPad

01:42:29 ◼   ► Pro or purchase now? So I'll give you the same answer that I give as always. If you

01:42:33 ◼   ► can wait and you can wait for an undetermined amount of time, if you can wait for a year

01:42:37 ◼   ► even before needing to buy an iPad Pro you should wait because the A10 in that thing

01:42:43 ◼   ► is going to be bonkers. It's going to be bonkers. So if you can wait, because we expect

01:42:50 ◼   ► within the next six months there will be an update, then yeah, you should wait because

01:42:53 ◼   ► those things are darn expensive. So if you can wait, wait. If you can't, it's brilliant

01:43:01 ◼   ► right now. So there you go. Nate wanted to get started with some HomeKit stuff. Jason,

01:43:07 ◼   ► where should he begin?

01:43:08 ◼   ► Oh, I'm the wrong person to ask. I bought a couple of Hue lights. I don't have any HomeKit

01:43:14 ◼   ► stuff. I actually bought a couple of Hue lights just so that I could write about the Home

01:43:17 ◼   ► app, which I haven't done yet. I haven't even put in the lights. How many Apple writers

01:43:21 ◼   ► does it take to screw in a light bulb? The answer is they're waiting for their Amazon

01:43:24 ◼   ► delivery of their Hue hub so they can do that. So I don't have an answer here.

01:43:30 ◼   ► I have no answer. Alright, so I have a basic answer. Go to Apple.com and take a look at

01:43:36 ◼   ► what's HomeKit enabled because they've got some stuff there.

01:43:40 ◼   ► But my next tip will be what I'm thinking about right now.

01:43:43 ◼   ► I am trying to find devices that are HomeKit enabled

01:43:47 ◼   ► and have some kind of other service attached to them.

01:43:50 ◼   ► Because in, when is it gonna be, a week and a bit?

01:43:55 ◼   ► Just over a week or so away?

01:43:58 ◼   ► I'm gonna be receiving an Echo.

01:44:01 ◼   ► - Oh.

01:44:02 ◼   ► - Because they are available in the UK now.

01:44:04 ◼   ► And I want to be able to have devices

01:44:07 ◼   ► that the Echo can talk to and HomeKit can talk to.

01:44:10 ◼   ► Because I don't want something that's locked into one system.

01:44:14 ◼   ► So I don't want things that just the Echo can talk to.

01:44:17 ◼   ► I don't want things that just HomeKit can work with.

01:44:20 ◼   ► So stuff like the Hue lights work

01:44:22 ◼   ► and I think some of the Y things stuff work.

01:44:23 ◼   ► So I'm trying to find things that I can use for both

01:44:26 ◼   ► because I don't want to get locked into one of them

01:44:28 ◼   ► because we have no idea which one of them

01:44:29 ◼   ► is going to win right now.

01:44:30 ◼   ► Google Home might be the winner.

01:44:31 ◼   ► You know what?

01:44:32 ◼   ► and try and find devices as much as possible that will work with all of my stuff because

01:44:37 ◼   ► when we move into the new place I'm going to be doing a lot of this so before the end

01:44:41 ◼   ► of this year you're going to be hearing from me a lot more about home automation so Nate

01:44:46 ◼   ► if you can hold off wait until I start looking into this stuff otherwise if you want to buy

01:44:50 ◼   ► right now look on Apple's website.

01:44:53 ◼   ► Last up today Tony asked about Apple pencil skins and pen loops for the Apple pencil and

01:44:59 ◼   ► asked me if I had any I could recommend and if I found them useful. So I will include

01:45:02 ◼   ► a link in the show notes to a little post that I put on my Tumblr site where I linked

01:45:08 ◼   ► to some things, some little hacks that I have for my Apple Pencil including a clip, a pen

01:45:12 ◼   ► loop that I use and the skins that I use. I recommend all of those things. I think the

01:45:17 ◼   ► skins add grip and a little bit more fun to the just white piece of plastic that you get.

01:45:22 ◼   ► I think the pen loops are almost essential. I think you have to have something that attaches

01:45:27 ◼   ► your pencil to the iPad. So right now my 9.7 I have the pencil in the pen loop of the Logitech

01:45:33 ◼   ► case thing to create and on my 12.9 where I'm still using the smart keyboard I have

01:45:38 ◼   ► a pen loop. I think you have to keep them together. Otherwise it's going to get lost

01:45:43 ◼   ► or it's not going to be there when you need it. So I really recommend the stuff and things

01:45:47 ◼   ► that are in that blog post are tried and tested by me and I love them and when I bought my

01:45:52 ◼   ► second Apple pencil for my second iPad because multi-pad lifestyle I did the exact same thing

01:45:56 ◼   ► with them, although I bought a different skin. One of them has the pencil skin that you see,

01:46:00 ◼   ► one of them has a Crayola crayon skin that I found from a different website. So check them out,

01:46:06 ◼   ► the skins are great, the dbrand skin is really good and the other skins I found are really good

01:46:10 ◼   ► as well. You'll find links in the show notes to my post where I explain all of that.

01:46:14 ◼   ► I think that's it, Jason. I have enjoyed this one. I was really looking forward to it. I hope

01:46:20 ◼   ► our listeners have too. I could tell you were having a good time. This is your time to let

01:46:25 ◼   ► it all out, let all your feelings about your brand new Apple product out.

01:46:29 ◼   ► Yep, that's good, it's good stuff.

01:46:31 ◼   ► So, and next week it's going to be Mac OS time because as we record this Mac OS comes

01:46:40 ◼   ► out tomorrow, Mac OS Sierra, so next week it's going to be all Mac all the time I think,

01:46:44 ◼   ► so get ready for that one.

01:46:45 ◼   ► I'm not upgrading.

01:46:47 ◼   ► Shh, silence.

01:46:49 ◼   ► We'll talk about that, we'll talk about why next week.

01:46:52 ◼   ► If you want to find our show notes, go to relay.fm/upgrades/107.

01:46:57 ◼   ► If you want to find Jason online, he's over at 6, the amazing 6colors.com and the incomparable,

01:47:03 ◼   ► incomparable.com, the incomparable.com I should say.

01:47:08 ◼   ► If you want to find him on Twitter, he is @jasonel.

01:47:10 ◼   ► I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:47:13 ◼   ► Thanks again to our sponsors for this week's episode, the great folk over at AppCare, Fresh

01:47:18 ◼   ► Books and Smile.

01:47:20 ◼   ► Thank you for listening, as always. If you like the show, share it with a friend. Why

01:47:25 ◼   ► not? What is the worst that can happen if you do that? They might say they don't like

01:47:28 ◼   ► it and that's okay. They probably won't judge you too harshly. We'll be back next time.

01:47:33 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye Mr Snow.

01:47:35 ◼   ► Goodbye everybody.

01:47:35 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:47:39 ◼   ► [ Music ]