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Upgrade

63: Crying about the Peripherals

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode number

00:00:11   63. Today's show is brought to you by lynda.com,

00:00:15   fracture and stamps.com. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:21   Hi Myke, how's it going? I am very well Mr. Snell, how are you today?

00:00:24   I'm pretty good. We got our

00:00:28   iPads Pro, did we not? Both, yes, the iPads who are pro, yes, the professional iPads.

00:00:33   Professional iPads. Yes. How are you? I'm good, so we had to bring in a

00:00:40   professional guest to help us talk about this professional product today. It's

00:00:43   important. And we have iMore's own Serenity Caldwell. Hello. Hello, Ren, how

00:00:50   are you? I'm good. Thank you so much for joining us today. Absolutely, I love to be

00:00:55   part of professional conversations.

00:00:57   This is all very serious today.

00:00:59   This is Upgrade Pro now.

00:01:01   Upgrade Pro is a different product line in the upgrade podcast product line.

00:01:08   But you know what isn't serious, Jason?

00:01:11   What?

00:01:12   Our follow-up.

00:01:14   It really isn't.

00:01:16   We have two items in the follow-up.

00:01:18   One is completely unrelated.

00:01:20   We talked about emoji last week and how they're adding 60 emoji, and I just wanted to point

00:01:24   out we had on Clockwise last week one of our sponsors has a sock related product.

00:01:30   We can talk about it. It's Foot Cardigan. They haven't sponsored this episode but it's

00:01:34   totally fine. It's the same network. You're one of the hosts I think. I think it's okay.

00:01:39   It's Foot Cardigan and we were we it was a funny you know it was a funny and fun ad read

00:01:45   from a company that's got a good sense of humor all their all their communications with

00:01:48   customers are funny it's it's it was funny but I realized after we were done that and

00:01:53   The conclusion we came to in the end was that we needed to change the name of the podcast

00:01:56   to Sockwise and just make it all about socks.

00:01:59   Thirty minutes about socks every week.

00:02:02   Is that any more ridiculous than a podcast entirely about pens, I ask you?

00:02:06   Don't answer.

00:02:07   Anyway, there's no sock emoji.

00:02:09   That's my entire point.

00:02:10   There's no sock emoji.

00:02:12   And you consulted Jeremy at Emojipedia, I assume.

00:02:16   Yes, and what Jeremy said was, "It's a slippery slope that leads to lots of emoji of underpants,

00:02:22   do I really want to live in that world?" which I said actually yeah I think I do

00:02:26   but because I want because I want a sock emoji but I think there should be an

00:02:29   underpants emoji there probably should be an underpants there should probably

00:02:33   be a boxer boxers emoji and a briefs emoji mm-hmm I agree I agree we should

00:02:41   have emoji for everything perhaps there are other types of undergarments that

00:02:45   we're not familiar with in our culture in in male culture Jason yeah indeed

00:02:51   Well, I was gonna ask I'm not going to presume what what what what undergarments worn by women should be part of the emoji spec

00:02:59   I will leave that to others. Good. What do you think?

00:03:02   Equal opportunity emojis. All right, well, this is why they have a committee

00:03:07   Ladies have very nice frilly underwear that usually doesn't get seen because it is, you know designed to be worn under clothes

00:03:15   So why not have a fun emoji with frilly underwear? There'd be fun

00:03:19   emoji, Unicode emoji subcommittee, take note.

00:03:22   We very quickly devolved away from the professional show.

00:03:25   It did not take long to do that.

00:03:27   No, no, this is a follow-up.

00:03:28   Follow-up is not part of the actual show.

00:03:29   This is the unprofessional follow-up from the previous weeks.

00:03:32   The other thing I wanted to mention is listener Kyle Seth Gray was reporting that he was in

00:03:37   a Starbucks and his stickers, his relay stickers on his laptop drew the attention of somebody

00:03:45   in the store.

00:03:46   As the story goes, he sent a series of tweets that the person who was taking note of the

00:03:56   relay stickers actually listens to all the great shows and is an Upgrading.

00:04:01   So they're out there.

00:04:02   You may run into them in the...

00:04:04   We need to create the secret handshake and symbol for Upgrading so that they can recognize

00:04:10   themselves in the wild.

00:04:12   But I thought that was just a fun little story.

00:04:15   of gradients around there.

00:04:16   It's a fun little story.

00:04:17   They are out there, if you know where to look.

00:04:20   Next week is going to be a mic at the movies week.

00:04:23   Jason, what have you chosen for me?

00:04:28   Our movie next week, so I was thinking, you know, our remit is generally the 80s, although

00:04:31   we may have to stray from that occasionally, but generally we're looking for things in

00:04:34   the 80s, and I asked you if you wanted to go comedy or sort of sci-fi action, and you

00:04:38   said always comedy if I get to choose, so we're going to veer back to comedy.

00:04:41   And I thought, you know, we've done John Cusack movies, we did say anything, we've done Rob

00:04:46   Reiner with This Is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride, why not put them both together with

00:04:51   an underappreciated film that is, while on its surface, like some of the other movies

00:04:57   we've seen, could be said as a sort of a teen romantic comedy or a teen sex comedy from

00:05:03   the '80s, is I think underappreciated and has a little bit more going for it.

00:05:07   Although you'll be the judge when you watch it.

00:05:09   It's called "The Sure Thing" from 1985 and I decree it the next Myke in the Movies pick.

00:05:18   I have grown a great affinity for 80's Cusack movies so I'm looking forward to this one.

00:05:24   Have you even ever heard of this movie?

00:05:26   I mean I've heard that phrase.

00:05:29   It is a phrase.

00:05:30   Exactly.

00:05:31   So my brain might be thinking like "yeah I've heard of that" but I may have just heard people

00:05:34   say "the sure thing" before so I'm gonna say I know nothing about this movie other than

00:05:38   than what you've just told me.

00:05:40   - Okay, well it's like I said, underappreciated,

00:05:43   but we'll be the judge in watching it back.

00:05:45   Perhaps, I haven't seen it in years,

00:05:47   perhaps we will have different feelings about it next week,

00:05:49   I don't know, but that's the choice.

00:05:51   So rev up your hot tub time machines

00:05:54   and go back to 1985 for the true thing.

00:05:56   And that's it.

00:05:59   - That's it for follow up.

00:06:00   So let's kick off with some iPad Pro talk.

00:06:02   So I'm assuming all three of us,

00:06:06   we all have iPad Pros, right?

00:06:08   I'm looking at one right now. Yeah, I've got it right in front of me. Mine's behind me

00:06:12   I actually started putting stickers onto it today to the whole of many people

00:06:17   mm-hmm

00:06:18   Directly onto it or onto a casing that you have wrapped around it directly onto the back

00:06:23   That escalated quickly

00:06:25   I guess you're keeping it

00:06:27   I guess you decided to keep it then and not return it even that risk is gonna be a very lengthy cleaning process before

00:06:34   Right now it feels like this is a device that I'm gonna be keeping and then we'll probably talk about why

00:06:39   I picked mine up on Wednesday. I actually went to a store and bought one

00:06:45   They were out in the stores. So I went and picked one up

00:06:49   No accessories yet. We'll talk about that in a bit. But Jason, what is your impression?

00:06:55   From a work perspective. I mean, you know

00:06:58   I know that you and Ren share a lot of the qualities in both being writers and doing a lot of that kind of stuff

00:07:03   for a living.

00:07:04   So I'm wondering what you guys think about this tool

00:07:08   as a writing tool.

00:07:09   So, Wren, why don't you let me know what you think?

00:07:12   - The iPad Pro.

00:07:13   Well, my confession about iPads in general,

00:07:17   and I feel like a horrible iPad person for saying this,

00:07:20   but like after the original iPad,

00:07:22   my iPad usage dramatically declined

00:07:25   in that I was using it primarily to sketch and draw.

00:07:29   And then once I got the mini,

00:07:31   I just abandoned my original iPad and then went to the mini

00:07:34   and I gave the original to my mother.

00:07:36   And then once I upgraded to the 6S Plus with the bigger screen

00:07:42   and 3D Touch, I just abandoned my iPad altogether

00:07:46   and started using the iPhone.

00:07:48   Because I'm like, oh, I can use a Jot Dash to sketch on the iPhone

00:07:51   and zooming and everything.

00:07:53   This is really nice.

00:07:54   So the iPad Pro is really my first venture back

00:07:57   into iPad, full time iPad in quite some time.

00:08:02   And I am pleasantly surprised.

00:08:06   I had written the iPad off pretty heavily

00:08:09   for tasks that I do every day in my job,

00:08:12   because I try and do a lot of them on my iPhone

00:08:15   and I hate doing them on my iPhone.

00:08:16   It's just uncomfortable.

00:08:18   I hate virtual keyboards.

00:08:19   The iPad Pro, for one thing,

00:08:23   I didn't think that the additional screen real estate

00:08:26   would really make that much of a difference, but it does.

00:08:28   It makes it feel like a real--

00:08:30   not a real computer, but it makes

00:08:31   it feel like a power machine, like it

00:08:33   deserves to run a lot of stuff and be

00:08:39   worthy of your day-to-day professional business routine.

00:08:44   And the other thing, I did not pick up

00:08:46   any of Apple's official accessories,

00:08:48   but I did pick up a Logitech Create case, which

00:08:50   is one of the first keyboard accessories that

00:08:52   uses Apple's smart connector.

00:08:55   And that has just completely changed

00:08:58   how I look at writing on an iPad.

00:09:00   'Cause I've hated every other Bluetooth keyboard

00:09:02   I've used with an iPad.

00:09:03   I even, even Apple's own Bluetooth keyboard is frustrating

00:09:08   because you have to remember to turn it on and it's bulky

00:09:10   and you have to carry it around and nah, nah, nah.

00:09:14   This Logitech keyboard is a little bulky, yes.

00:09:17   And the case is awful.

00:09:19   It just doesn't fit right.

00:09:20   But the keyboard itself is amazing.

00:09:23   And there is backlights.

00:09:24   and the fact that it just turns on

00:09:27   when I connect my iPad to it.

00:09:28   Like I just snap my iPad into it

00:09:30   and the keyboard is there within seconds.

00:09:32   And then as soon as I don't want the keyboard,

00:09:33   I just pick my iPad up out of the keyboard

00:09:35   and then the keyboard turns off.

00:09:37   I don't have to worry about switches.

00:09:38   I don't have to worry about batteries.

00:09:41   It's just, it's made going from all touch interface

00:09:45   to touch and typing to just typing,

00:09:47   back to touching, just seamless.

00:09:50   It's really cool.

00:09:52   It's really cool.

00:09:54   Yeah, I mean, I'm doing an experiment this week where I'm just using my iPad, which has

00:09:59   resulted in this weird hack that I'm doing right now where I have Adobe screens open

00:10:05   on my iPad Pro, and I'm using it to control my Mac as a giant sound recorder for this

00:10:10   podcast, because I don't have a...

00:10:13   It's just a really big microphone interface.

00:10:16   That's what I said on Twitter.

00:10:17   I'm like, essentially, my iMac has been reduced to a giant sound recorder that has headphones.

00:10:23   And that is definitely a compromise.

00:10:26   That is not something that makes the iPad easier to use as a sound recording machine

00:10:30   or easier to use than a computer.

00:10:33   But overall, all of the tasks that I have been doing so far in my day to day, I've actually

00:10:39   found to be just as easy, if not easier on the iPad Pro.

00:10:43   And that is something that I did not expect.

00:10:47   I was really planning on running into a lot more problems when I first started.

00:10:52   So that's kind of my overall.

00:10:54   There was something that I wanted to mention.

00:10:57   You said a moment ago that you had written off the iPad.

00:11:03   What was it that made you feel that way?

00:11:05   Did you not think it was powerful enough at the time?

00:11:07   Was there like a lack of apps?

00:11:10   How long ago would you say that you felt that way and what kind of brought you to that conclusion?

00:11:15   So a lot of it was lack of apps and lack of speed.

00:11:19   I had the original iPad until I got the first generation iPad mini.

00:11:24   So I skipped the iPad 2 and the iPad 3.

00:11:28   And then the next full size iPad I had was the iPad Air 2.

00:11:32   And I hate to say that the iPad Air 2 basically was nothing but a game device for playing

00:11:37   the room, but it really was.

00:11:39   Even though I knew that this was a powerful device and could clearly do a lot from a gaming

00:11:45   perspective.

00:11:47   I just, I don't know, when I when I went to conceivably do productive work on an iPad, all I could think of was my first experience with an iPad back in 2010, where it was really fun to sketch on.

00:12:00   And the sketch programs have only gotten better and better. But I have been so hesitant on using it for productivity uses. Because for me, the majority of my workday requires a keyboard.

00:12:14   And I am very, very anti software keyboard.

00:12:21   I am more of a fan of the iPad Pro keyboard

00:12:24   than I am of previous iPad keyboards,

00:12:26   and that's because of the size.

00:12:28   On the iPad Air 2, on the iPad Mini especially,

00:12:32   it just isn't comfortable to try and type the way that I'm

00:12:35   accustomed to typing, which is to say not one finger at a time

00:12:39   on a traditional hardware keyboard.

00:12:41   I like being able to type quickly when I'm doing work work,

00:12:45   when I'm not just like typing out tweets.

00:12:48   When I have to write an article, I don't wanna touch type.

00:12:50   I don't wanna be like, T-H-E space,

00:12:53   like that's, it just, it's too long.

00:12:55   And it, again, if we're talking about making the iPad

00:12:58   fit seamlessly into your workflow

00:13:00   versus forcing the iPad into your workflow,

00:13:04   I never wanted to force the iPad into my workflow.

00:13:07   That just didn't feel good to me.

00:13:08   I'm like, I'm not going to use a device

00:13:10   that doesn't feel right for my workflow just to use it,

00:13:14   just to do a gimmick, which is why I was kind of so excited

00:13:18   about my project this week, because it is part gimmick,

00:13:23   being like, I'm just going to use an iPad Pro.

00:13:25   But also, it's legitimately allowed

00:13:27   me to rediscover just how powerful the iPad platform has

00:13:31   become, and how far it's come, and what has changed since I--

00:13:36   as you said, since I wrote it off, since I basically said,

00:13:39   Nope. iPad is not for me as a writer.

00:13:42   It's just not not what I like it for.

00:13:44   And I'm willing to eat some claim chowder here.

00:13:48   Like I'm there's there's a lot that's changed.

00:13:50   And honestly, as a writer, I almost feel like this device is

00:13:55   in some ways better for me than my MacBook Air, which is something

00:14:00   that I did not expect I was going to be saying before I started this.

00:14:03   And does this claim kind of really exist for just the iPad Pro?

00:14:08   I think to a lesser extent the iPad Air 2 is true. iOS 9's multitasking features are of course a huge asset.

00:14:19   But I really do think, at least for me personally, the iPad Pro is what makes it feasible because of the screen size, so that split view actually makes some amount of sense.

00:14:33   I still feel like split view on the iPad Air 2

00:14:35   feels more gimmicky than realistic in terms of--

00:14:38   Especially if the software keyboard is split out, yeah.

00:14:40   Yes, exactly.

00:14:42   When the software keyboard is covering half the screen,

00:14:44   then you just have these little tiny boxes.

00:14:46   And it's essentially like you have two iPhones glued

00:14:48   next to each other.

00:14:49   It just doesn't feel workable.

00:14:53   The iPad Pro has the bigger screen, has more real estate.

00:14:57   It seems much faster than the Air 2.

00:14:59   I know the Air 2 is very powerful,

00:15:01   but the Pro just blows it out of the water.

00:15:04   And the fact that the on-screen keyboard is full size

00:15:08   and the hardware keyboard is full size

00:15:10   and not full size cramped,

00:15:12   but full size with some breathing room.

00:15:14   Like the Logitech Create, despite again,

00:15:16   having a terrible top case,

00:15:18   the keyboard itself feels so good on my hands

00:15:22   and it has this beautiful top row

00:15:24   that has a button to go back to the home screen

00:15:27   a button to go to the search screen, the spotlight screen.

00:15:33   My favorite button, a button to bring up universal keyboards so you can actually switch without

00:15:38   having to touch the screen between your regular keyboard and your emoji keyboard or a different

00:15:43   language keyboard.

00:15:45   If you like third party keyboards, this physical button suddenly makes third party keyboards

00:15:50   really really easy to use.

00:15:51   And it's just little things like that that really, really have improved the experience

00:15:58   for me.

00:15:59   Jason, does this mirror any of your thoughts, like writing with the iPad Pro?

00:16:05   Is it more of a machine that you're willing to do this type of work on than the iPad Air

00:16:09   2?

00:16:10   Because I know that when we were speaking about this a couple of weeks ago, you still

00:16:13   weren't really using your iPad Air 2 in that kind of way.

00:16:17   No, I occasionally use the iPad Mini and Air as a writing tool, sort of as a change of

00:16:25   pace, or if I was somewhere only with that, but, and we can mention this later, for podcasting

00:16:33   reasons, it's very hard for me to travel without a laptop because of things that the laptop

00:16:39   really is required for.

00:16:41   But for this, yeah, like we said, the iPad Air 2, as nice as the multitasking is, if

00:16:48   you're especially without an external keyboard, then there's very little room.

00:16:56   It is very cramped up there.

00:16:57   And on the iPad Pro, even with the slide-out keyboard, it feels like you can use that split

00:17:03   mode and have it be much--there's more room to see information, and it's just more comfortable.

00:17:09   And then if you have an external keyboard, then it is a vast amount of space.

00:17:15   I mean, it's like you've got a big, almost like a landscape iPad Air app and an iPhone

00:17:22   app running together, or if you go 50/50, you basically have two kind of portrait iPad

00:17:26   apps running side by side.

00:17:29   And the fact is a lot of the iPad apps are really great.

00:17:33   There is a compatibility issue here, which surprised me.

00:17:36   There are some apps that work really well on the iPad Pro.

00:17:40   They've been updated to take advantage and resize themselves on the bigger screen.

00:17:44   And then there's some that haven't.

00:17:48   And you know, it's a little bit like going to the iPhone 6 where you notice that the

00:17:52   keyboard is wrong and the bar--

00:17:55   - Hello, big keyboard!

00:17:56   - Yeah, giant keyboard and the time, suddenly the time and the thing that says iPad up on

00:18:02   the top bar are much larger than they just were because we're in a compatibility mode

00:18:06   now and it's usable but everything is just kind of blown up and that's kind of unfriendly.

00:18:13   Also iOS 9.1 that ships on the iPad Pro has a bug where even when you've got an external

00:18:20   keyboard attached like the smart keyboard or the Logitech keyboard it will still slide

00:18:25   out the software keyboard every time when you enter a text field and that's fixed in

00:18:30   the 9.2 betas apparently, but in 9.1 it's that's a that's a bug that is just

00:18:35   annoying. So there are some software issues in the OS and there's definitely

00:18:39   some issues where some of the apps you know are just not are just not up to up

00:18:45   to speed and where I really noticed it was in in productivity app stuff like a

00:18:50   lot of the markdown text editors don't have support for it yet which is

00:18:54   problematic especially since some of them like to lay extra rows of software

00:18:58   keyboard that don't go away even when you've got an external keyboard attached

00:19:01   and or they don't work well with the you know they can't use the new keyboard so

00:19:06   you get the giant keyboard plus another row which is not great and Google Docs

00:19:09   all the Google apps are are unusable essentially I was using I took a

00:19:16   screenshot on Friday I wrote an entire article in an orthodontist waiting room

00:19:21   because my daughter was getting braces and I just sat there and I actually had

00:19:24   the smart keyboard in my lap and it worked.

00:19:28   I think this is what people who use the Surface say

00:19:31   about using it in their lap is sort of,

00:19:33   if your lap is stable, you can use it.

00:19:36   It's a little bit kind of balanced,

00:19:37   but you can make it work.

00:19:39   I wrote a whole article, but I wrote it in Microsoft Word.

00:19:42   And why did I do that?

00:19:43   Because Microsoft Word has been updated

00:19:46   to support the iPad Pro and I was able to run it

00:19:49   in split view and use the smart keyboard

00:19:53   and it all worked really great.

00:19:54   and then I used, I wrote another article in One Writer, which has also been updated and

00:19:58   was very good, but a lot of these apps just haven't been updated and the Google stuff

00:20:01   is just, it's almost unusable, like it's text inputs all messed up and the other thing that

00:20:06   disappointed me is the comic book apps, like Marvel Unlimited, Comixology, they haven't

00:20:11   been updated either, so while you've got a comic on a big screen and it looks great because

00:20:15   it's a little bit bigger than the actual physical comic, those apps are upscaled right now,

00:20:21   aren't providing any extra resolution because they're all just scaled in the

00:20:25   compatibility mode. So there's definitely some new device pain here. It's not as

00:20:29   painful as some of the other device iOS screen size transitions have been, but

00:20:34   there's definitely some of that too. But bottom line, I wrote two articles on the

00:20:38   iPad Pro on Friday with the external keyboard and was able to do a

00:20:45   little more with the multitasking split view, whether it was checking in on

00:20:50   Slack or something like that or whether it was having a web browser open so I

00:20:54   could get some information off the web and then put it in the article.

00:20:58   I'm a big Google Drive user like Docs and Sheets. I'm confident that they will

00:21:05   update because Chrome has been updated but my feeling about this and I don't

00:21:11   know that what's going on behind the scenes but just looking at what Google

00:21:15   Docs is doing on iOS, I expect there is a ton of custom stuff in there.

00:21:20   And I feel like, which I was thinking about this today, I was listening to ATP and they

00:21:26   were talking about kind of windowing and all that kind of stuff.

00:21:31   And I was thinking about apps that aren't currently using the split screen stuff.

00:21:36   And it seems like a lot of the apps that currently aren't updated for the split screen stuff

00:21:40   are bigger companies.

00:21:41   So Google, right?

00:21:43   mentioned Comixology, which is owned by Amazon. And I started thinking about the

00:21:47   problem that Apple creates for itself with its secrecy. Because big companies

00:21:53   like Google are not going to, I would assume, put a ton of work and time and

00:22:01   money into updating and developing their apps until they know they need to. Right?

00:22:06   So when all this stuff like the the auto layout stuff, I can imagine that a

00:22:11   lot of these companies don't really start working on it seriously until they

00:22:15   know it's needed. So they see the devices come out. Because you know I kind of

00:22:20   think about it it's like why would you? Like if I am Google I'm not

00:22:25   gonna start putting man-hours and time into projects that are potentially

00:22:31   beneficial. And I think that Apple if they like so you end up with a product

00:22:36   like the iPad Pro or just iOS 9 multitasking on the iPad in general, and a lot of apps

00:22:42   still aren't supporting it, and I believe it's because they just haven't—they started

00:22:46   working on it the day that the product came out, as opposed to when the APIs were put

00:22:51   into iOS 9.

00:22:52   Yeah, they could have gone—this is the story that savvy Apple developers know this, right?

00:23:00   It's like, once Apple starts talking about this stuff, that's a hint, right?

00:23:03   It's like, you should implement it

00:23:05   because it will pay off later.

00:23:07   And recently Apple's track record there has been very good.

00:23:10   That when they say you should do this, you should do it.

00:23:13   And yet, yes, there are some developers like,

00:23:15   well, we'll see.

00:23:16   And then a new product drops and they're like,

00:23:18   oh, I guess I should do that thing

00:23:19   that Apple told me to do two years ago.

00:23:22   And that does happen.

00:23:24   And also there are big organizations,

00:23:26   I think you're right, Myke,

00:23:27   like Google probably has a very specific

00:23:30   sort of product development cycle for their iOS apps.

00:23:33   and they're probably working on a release,

00:23:36   a milestone release that perhaps will have this in it,

00:23:38   but they're not necessarily capable of dropping that

00:23:42   on day one of the iPad Pro.

00:23:44   But I will say Apple released

00:23:46   a professional productivity iPad

00:23:48   and Microsoft was there day one and Google wasn't.

00:23:52   - Well, I think the reason for that

00:23:54   is Apple approached Microsoft

00:23:56   and they put them on stage.

00:23:58   - Perhaps that is part of it,

00:24:00   But be that as it may, you know,

00:24:04   all of those apps were there

00:24:05   and a bunch of the independent apps were there

00:24:06   and Google stuff.

00:24:07   You know, Google's known the iPad Pro was coming

00:24:09   since September 9th.

00:24:11   So it's not like they didn't have two months of awareness

00:24:13   that this was a product.

00:24:14   So it's fine.

00:24:15   I'm sure they'll update it.

00:24:16   But as for now, I was trying to update.

00:24:18   We do a lot of our stuff for this show in Google Docs

00:24:20   and I have a Google spreadsheet.

00:24:22   I tried to use Google Sheets on the iPad Pro

00:24:23   and I just gave up.

00:24:24   It was ridiculous.

00:24:25   - It's painful.

00:24:26   - It works though.

00:24:27   Like I'm still using it every day.

00:24:29   It definitely works.

00:24:30   it's just a little bit comical.

00:24:32   - Try it with the external keyboard

00:24:33   and you'll find that it doesn't always work.

00:24:35   Half the time it won't accept keyboard input

00:24:38   until you get into a very particular state where it will.

00:24:41   Anyway, this isn't about Google sheets being terrible

00:24:44   on the iPad Pro, but suffice it to say, it is.

00:24:48   Anyway.

00:24:49   - It's the problem with apps in general.

00:24:51   You know, you buy this product day one,

00:24:54   we are early adopters in that we kind of expect

00:24:57   that things are gonna be broken

00:24:58   and things aren't maybe going to be 100%.

00:25:02   But people who are just seeing, oh, big iPad, maybe this

00:25:06   could replace my laptop.

00:25:07   Maybe this could just be a new device that I use in my house.

00:25:10   They go and they pick it up and they're like, what do you mean?

00:25:13   I can't buy my keyboard for it.

00:25:16   What do you mean I can't buy a pencil for it?

00:25:18   You guys were advertising that.

00:25:19   What do you mean my PDF software doesn't work the way

00:25:22   that I want it to?

00:25:23   What do you mean that I can't use Google Docs right now?

00:25:25   It's just, unfortunately, because this device relies so much on key software,

00:25:33   it's almost worse to me that the software works poorly than it just doesn't work or is not available at all.

00:25:41   Because then it just feels like a bad experience.

00:25:44   Whereas I feel like if it wasn't available at all, then it's a, "Okay, well, but it's probably coming soon, right?"

00:25:52   But if you have a, oh, it works, but it takes up two thirds of the screen with a virtual keyboard, despite the fact that you're using a physical keyboard or collaborating with somebody just doesn't work because the comments won't show up.

00:26:06   That kind of bugginess is really frustrating.

00:26:09   And the average user doesn't think, oh, someone hasn't updated their app.

00:26:14   It's, oh, Apple is broken with Google Docs.

00:26:17   What am I going to do?

00:26:18   Yeah. Yep.

00:26:19   I agree.

00:26:21   And I wonder what it takes to get to that point,

00:26:24   but I feel like there could be the potential

00:26:29   for Apple to maybe be more willing

00:26:30   to work with these companies.

00:26:31   I don't know how much they are,

00:26:33   but I think at the end of the day,

00:26:34   it is a problem for Apple more than it is for Google.

00:26:38   - Yeah.

00:26:39   - But I just, I gotta say, I don't,

00:26:41   I put this entirely on Google.

00:26:43   It's Google's fault.

00:26:44   It's not, I'm not gonna give Google an out

00:26:46   and say Apple should have done more to work with them.

00:26:48   Size classes have been part of the discussion at WWDC since 2013, I believe?

00:26:55   Yeah, for years now.

00:26:56   Not even 2014, 2013.

00:26:59   And this product has existed for, has been announced for two months and rumored for a

00:27:03   lot longer than that.

00:27:05   And Google, if Google had wanted to make an effort to support it on day one, it could

00:27:10   have, and it didn't.

00:27:12   And we can, I can excuse it by saying Google's got a different product cycle and they're

00:27:16   working on something, perhaps, that we'll see. But, you know, I think, could Apple have

00:27:22   been more aggressive in courting other developers to get them on board? Sure. And they chose,

00:27:28   obviously, to work with Microsoft so that they could get them on stage. But I don't

00:27:32   think I'm going to give Google a pass for not having their productivity apps ready for

00:27:38   the iPad Pro when it was released. And we'll see. This is not a big deal if they release

00:27:41   an update in a week that does it. The question is, will it be in a week? Will it be in a

00:27:47   month? Will it be in three months? That's, I think, an open question with Google.

00:27:51   Let's take our first break and then we'll jump straight back into this. This week's

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00:30:18   - So one thing we did mention that I wanted to talk about

00:30:20   was about the size of this thing

00:30:23   and what context in which it works

00:30:26   and what context in which it does not work,

00:30:28   because I think that's interesting.

00:30:29   And I'm curious what the both of you

00:30:31   have experienced with this.

00:30:32   I'll say for me, what surprised me is, yeah,

00:30:35   sitting on a desk, sitting on the bar

00:30:37   in my kitchen counter, even at the orthodontist's office

00:30:42   in my lap on the smart keyboard, it felt fine

00:30:48   and it worked well.

00:30:49   And I actually found that sitting on my couch

00:30:52   in my living room, when I tried to hold it

00:30:56   and use it like an iPad Air, it was uncomfortable,

00:30:59   but I seem to have adapted to the size of it

00:31:03   and the weight of it and where my hands need to be

00:31:06   in order to use the onscreen keyboard.

00:31:08   And I kind of got, I think, a good place for that.

00:31:11   The one place where I felt like it just didn't work for me

00:31:15   is in bed, where I wake up in the morning

00:31:18   and I wanna check Twitter and Slack,

00:31:20   and it's a very lean back experience,

00:31:21   or I'm going to bed and I'm gonna read Twitter,

00:31:23   I'm gonna read some webpages,

00:31:24   I'm gonna read some Instapaper, whatever it is.

00:31:26   And those are cases where I'm not doing much text

00:31:29   input and I'm not sitting up. And in those places, it felt just like overkill. Like it

00:31:39   was just too huge. It was this huge screen. I didn't really need it to be huge. It's huge

00:31:44   and heavier. And in that context, I felt like it was not a great experience. And I think

00:31:52   it's unlikely, and this is one of the challenges. If you're somebody who uses an iPad in that

00:31:56   scenario, I think this is an issue because I don't think people are gonna have like their

00:32:02   night iPad and their day iPad, right? But I feel like the pro, while bringing you all

00:32:08   of these other things when you put it on a table or a desk, when you are in a kind of

00:32:13   a casual lean-back environment and not watching a movie where the big screen is gonna really

00:32:18   do it, but you're just sort of like reading and you're about to go to bed or you just

00:32:20   woke up it's kind of crazy big and and I have not found it as pleasurable in that

00:32:26   in that scenario I'm curious what what where you guys have found it to be good

00:32:31   and if there are any particular settings where you kind of aren't where it's not

00:32:38   working for you you know for me I look at the iPad Pro like I look at something

00:32:44   like my laptop or even a coffee table book it's something that to me doesn't

00:32:50   belong, like I wouldn't bring a coffee table book into bed with me.

00:32:53   Just you know, they're nice to look at and I like reading them, but it's

00:32:58   something that is a little unwieldy to hold when you're groggy and wanting to

00:33:02   go to bed or just waking up in the morning. So I did use the iPad Pro

00:33:08   last week in bed with the keyboard case when I was recuperating and that I

00:33:13   thought was fine. That felt very similarly to how I use my MacBook Air if

00:33:18   if I'm sick and just want to curl up under covers and also

00:33:21   write.

00:33:23   But as a casual bedside device, I vastly prefer the 6S Plus.

00:33:31   That has a big enough screen where

00:33:33   I can read well without necessarily needing something

00:33:38   as large as a mini or a full-size iPad.

00:33:41   But I will say, in contrast, Jason, I actually really,

00:33:45   really like taking the iPad out of the Logitech case and reading it in portrait for big articles.

00:33:51   I subscribe to a social network that just went out of beta called This where it's basically

00:33:58   like Twitter except you can only send one tweet per day and it's basically a link.

00:34:04   So you're basically saying this is the best link that I found today.

00:34:08   This is the most interesting story I found today.

00:34:11   And at the end of the day, the editors of that service collect five or six articles

00:34:16   that you have to basically the best articles that have been shared today that you should

00:34:20   absolutely read.

00:34:22   So at the end of the day, after I've done with work, I'll usually take or I have been

00:34:26   taking the iPad turning it into portrait and relaxing and reading those five or six articles.

00:34:32   And that has actually been a really pleasurable experience, especially because those linked

00:34:36   articles are usually like big spreads from the Atlantic or the New York Times and really

00:34:41   well designed with CSS.

00:34:43   JJ Abrams' Star Wars Wired interview was one of them a week back or so and I was catching

00:34:50   up.

00:34:52   In that regard, I actually really like it.

00:34:55   Again I look at it like a coffee table book where it's not for your average web reading,

00:35:00   but if you want to sit back and really enjoy something long form or enjoy something that

00:35:05   has great photos, then I think it's worth the extra girth. But no, I have no desire

00:35:14   to hold it over my face and have it break my nose in the morning.

00:35:19   So I have transitioned the iPad Pro to be the device that I use at home when I'm not

00:35:26   at my Mac. So this was previously my iPad Air 2. I use my iPhone for little bits and

00:35:32   Bob's but it's not the primary machine when I'm at home that is when I'm kind

00:35:36   of out and about in the world so the iPad Pro has taken over all the duties

00:35:41   of the air so this is kind of lounging around but also like in bed in the

00:35:45   evening and in bed in the morning when I'm kind of like finishing my day and

00:35:48   starting my day I am using the iPad Pro for this it is a lot bigger it is a

00:35:54   little bit more uncomfortable to hold when reading and stuff like that but I'm

00:35:58   working it into my life and kind of changing my habits about like the way

00:36:03   that I'll hold it and the way that I use it because whilst it's not necessarily

00:36:09   as perfect a device there it is way better than my other devices in other

00:36:14   areas so I'm like finding a balance. Like for example watching Netflix it's way

00:36:18   better than my MacBook. The screen sizes are about the same but the screen looks

00:36:23   way nicer and it sounds way better. The sound is great. The funny thing is whilst this is

00:36:31   the iPad Pro it's also the best iPad they've ever made for content consumption. It really

00:36:36   is. I keep saying this phrase and people think it's silly but it's the most iPad iPad that

00:36:43   has ever been made. It's like everything that is good about an iPad this is turned up to

00:36:48   11. Also physically it is the most iPad. Exactly. It is the most. But you're right. You're right. This is one of the reasons why it's wrong to say this is only a device for professional users to use to do professional work because of that. Because watching a movie on that big screen and through those speakers which are far and away the best iOS device speakers ever made. It's not going to replace a giant home theater or something.

00:37:18   but they're so much better. The dynamic range is so much better and they're so much louder.

00:37:25   And so yeah, it is the best movie watching on an iPad experience you're ever going to

00:37:28   have.

00:37:29   It's also better, in my opinion, the speakers are better than most Macs right now. I think

00:37:34   the iMac probably edges it out a little bit. But comparing that to every single laptop

00:37:38   that I have in my house, it sounds cleaner, crisper and more surround, in part due to

00:37:44   of course, the speakers being everywhere, but it really is a different experience than

00:37:50   listening to sound on a laptop.

00:37:52   It's vastly superior to my MacBook Pro.

00:37:55   It's like night and day.

00:37:56   We just don't use that now to watch anything.

00:37:59   We just use the iPad.

00:38:01   And it's really taken that spot for me, but it is also just an excellent device to get

00:38:06   work done.

00:38:08   The fact that you can have, you know, in landscape, you effectively had to portray iPads is amazing.

00:38:14   amazing. But it is forcing me to rethink some of the apps that I use, right? I've spoken

00:38:20   about it on this show and on other shows. I am a mailbox user, but it looks like nothing's

00:38:25   happening anymore with mailbox. There hasn't really been any significant changes to that

00:38:29   app in a while. And I've been kind of like struggling along on other platforms and trying

00:38:34   not to let go because it's just the app that I'm used to and the one that I use, but it's

00:38:38   bad times on the iPad Pro. It looks ridiculous and it's not going to change. So like it's

00:38:44   it's forcing me to rethink some of that stuff and I'm happy to do it and in the

00:38:48   same way that I'm happy to rethink the way that I kind of use an iPad at home

00:38:52   because I really really love the iPad Pro I really really do it is awesome

00:38:58   just for this type of stuff that I use my iPad for it is just fantastic and I

00:39:04   really really want to be able to replace my MacBook with this completely and it's

00:39:11   so close except for podcast editing. So I do like I do 99% of my podcast editing

00:39:20   on my iMac obviously and I use my MacBook Pro when I go out and work in

00:39:26   other places. The only other time that I use my MacBook Pro in a different way is

00:39:31   when I'm traveling and say I'm flying or whatever and I always now edit podcasts

00:39:36   on planes. If I'm on a plane I will make sure I stack up some podcast editing to

00:39:40   do as was taught to me by Mr. Jason Snell because airplanes are fantastic places to

00:39:45   edit podcasts. They really are. So I use my MacBook Pro for that because I can get

00:39:50   logic and obviously having an iPad over a MacBook is perfect when you're

00:39:56   traveling it's like the ideal time for it but I still am not comfortable with

00:40:02   some of the other solutions and we're going to talk about one that Jason used

00:40:04   in a moment because logic is what I know, logic is what I trust and it does

00:40:08   everything that I need and considering this is my business I'm a little bit

00:40:12   apprehensive of trusting an app other than logic right now.

00:40:17   Yep. You might start to think about it though.

00:40:21   So tell me about this app that you use. Is it Ferret?

00:40:24   Ferret? I don't think it's Ferret because that is a creature.

00:40:30   But what's Ferret?

00:40:32   Isn't that like iron? An iron ore?

00:40:37   - Yes, it's iron.

00:40:38   - Yeah, iron or iron alloys, also used in magnets.

00:40:43   But we're gonna call it ferrite.

00:40:46   - Well, I'm gonna call it ferrite,

00:40:47   but everybody else can call it ferrite.

00:40:48   - No, don't call it a ferrite.

00:40:50   Why is a weasel editing your podcast now?

00:40:53   That is what people are gonna say

00:40:54   and nobody should do that.

00:40:56   It's an app from a company, we had fun with ferrite.

00:41:01   It's a company called Wuji Juice.

00:41:03   - See? - Okay.

00:41:06   - Yep, the ferret is drinking Wuji juice right now.

00:41:08   It's a free app with two in-app purchases that are,

00:41:12   basically there's a $10 in-app purchase

00:41:14   and there's a $20 in-app purchase

00:41:17   that includes the contents of the $10 in-app purchase.

00:41:19   So you could think of it as a sort of a stair step

00:41:22   of two $10 in-app purchases.

00:41:24   As you go, it enables more stuff.

00:41:27   It's a multi-track editor.

00:41:28   It looks a lot like Logic.

00:41:30   There are other multi-track editors.

00:41:34   on the iOS, I used Oriya a little bit,

00:41:37   but I would say that although they're powerful,

00:41:39   their interfaces have a lot to be desired.

00:41:41   They feel like kind of almost like PC software interfaces

00:41:45   that have been ported over to the iPad,

00:41:47   whereas Ferrite's interface is really nice.

00:41:50   It feels very much like an iOS native interface.

00:41:54   It's fun to use.

00:41:57   And most importantly, on Friday night, Thursday night,

00:42:02   Thursday night, actually, it was when I got the iPad Pro,

00:42:04   Thursday night I thought, "You know what I'm going to try to do?

00:42:07   One of the things I should try to do this week is edit a podcast using this app."

00:42:11   And I could do it on the iPad Pro, and then I could write about it in a couple of different

00:42:15   contexts, and that would be a lot of fun.

00:42:17   Now I did this knowing that I would probably give up, right?

00:42:21   Because that's what's happened in the past when I've tried it, is I've done it for a

00:42:23   little while and then I thought, "No, this is going to take forever.

00:42:28   It's not there."

00:42:29   So I imported all of the audio files from my Mac.

00:42:32   I actually used iTunes to do it, so I dragged the files over because they're huge. I could

00:42:36   have used iCloud Drive or Dropbox, but I just dragged them over, attached it via lightning

00:42:41   cable, dragged the files in. Of all the recordings for this weekend's, this past weekend's, incomparable

00:42:49   episode, so sort of five audio files plus the theme song, and I imported them all into

00:42:56   Fairite and I sat down with Fairite and about an hour and a half or two hours later, which

00:43:00   is my normal editing time for an episode of The Incomparable, I had the entire episode

00:43:05   edited in Ferrite. It didn't really slow me down very much. There were a few little things

00:43:10   that I've written to the developer about, but it has all of the tools that I use and

00:43:16   the techniques I use for editing podcasts. It has a strip silence feature, it has a compressor

00:43:21   and a noise gate, it has a "select all" -- there's a gesture to select all the clips that are

00:43:27   forward from whatever item you've selected, which is a huge thing for me on Logic, and

00:43:32   it's why I switched to Logic from GarageBand. You actually tap on a clip, and then you triple

00:43:36   tap on that same clip, and it selects everything forward of it in the project, everything that's

00:43:41   later in the project, and then you can slide it around. And I was able to edit the podcast

00:43:45   with no problem. There were a few things that made me attach the keyboard, because there

00:43:49   are some things that were noticeably more sort of sluggish or harder to engage on the

00:43:59   touch screen where you had to sort of like tap something and then tap again and hold

00:44:03   and it would bring up a context menu and then you'd tap that on the keyboard was a keyboard

00:44:07   shortcut.

00:44:08   So there were a few of those but mostly it I could totally edit podcasts on an iPad probably

00:44:15   on an iPad Air too. The iPad Pro was nice because it was bigger, but I think it would

00:44:19   have probably been fine even on the iPad Air. So I was very impressed with that, and that's

00:44:24   a story that's, again, not just about the iPad Pro, but about the software. But that's

00:44:29   a real thing that can really do it. It turned out in the end, Myke, you'll be amused to

00:44:34   know the developer of this product, or one of the developers of it, came to our meetup

00:44:40   in London. And I had forgotten that. And I vaguely remembered that somebody emailed me

00:44:46   in June, I think, asking for some sample files from The Incomparable because they were working

00:44:51   on an iOS podcast editor and they wanted to use real material that a real podcaster would

00:44:55   use instead of just their sample files. And I sent them a whole bunch of the same sort

00:44:59   of individual people's audio files and theme song and stuff. And it turns out it was this

00:45:04   developer. So I'm using this app thinking, "Wow, this app does all the things that I

00:45:09   wanted to do. This is amazing! And it turns out one of the reasons may be because the

00:45:14   developer has read the things I've written about podcast editing and said, "Oh, I should

00:45:18   do that feature." So there's a little telepathy involved, which is kind of fun. But in the

00:45:24   end, it's pretty great. A $20 multi-track podcast editor, and you can try it for free

00:45:30   because it's all in-app purchase. And I would say I could edit at more or less the same

00:45:35   speed other than getting the files on and off, which is an issue. I could certainly

00:45:41   now travel with just an iPad Air or an iPad Pro and Ferrite and edit podcasts and feel

00:45:47   like I could do that on the road without a MacBook around.

00:45:51   But it doesn't export to MP3, does it? That is a problem. In fact, it doesn't export

00:45:57   to WAV or AIFF right now. It only exports to AAC. Now, apparently they're going to do

00:46:02   a lossless export in their next update, I think is what they said to me. I hope that

00:46:08   wasn't a secret. They're working on it, basically, whether it's their next update, I don't know.

00:46:12   And MP3 is more problematic, although there are other apps that do MP3 exports, including

00:46:16   and conversions.

00:46:17   >>Yeah, so workflow will.

00:46:19   >>Indeed, you can actually run it, run the sharing extension from workflow inside Fairite

00:46:25   when you export and have an extension that generates an MP3 and uploads it to Dropbox

00:46:30   or to an FTP server, like the one I use for Incomparable.

00:46:34   And I did that after the fact and it totally worked.

00:46:38   So the only issue there is it's double encoding

00:46:41   at that point, which I'd prefer.

00:46:43   So I'd prefer it to not do that,

00:46:45   but very, very close, very, very close.

00:46:48   And other than the time thing of having to, you know,

00:46:51   copy a bunch of files off of Dropbox that are very large,

00:46:55   that part works well too.

00:46:56   So I was kinda blown away.

00:46:57   And it was just a combination of getting that hardware

00:46:59   and trying out the software and we're getting there.

00:47:03   The problem is recording podcasts are not,

00:47:05   when you're on Skype, like we are most of the time,

00:47:09   that's difficult to do on iOS now because the,

00:47:14   it's not that there isn't a way to transfer app audio

00:47:17   from one app to another,

00:47:18   because there is this audio bus thing

00:47:20   that actually will do it,

00:47:22   but none of the kind of conversation apps that we use,

00:47:25   Skype, for example, support it.

00:47:28   So right now you can't have a Skype conversation and record that conversation on the same device.

00:47:35   So this is why the Federico Vittucci, the Vittucci exemption, as we might call it, where

00:47:43   he does everything on the iPad except record his podcast.

00:47:46   That's why it exists right now, still.

00:47:48   Just to wrap up that ferret thing quickly, actually.

00:47:50   That is interesting to me.

00:47:52   The idea of being able to export lossless and then maybe converting the file in another

00:47:57   app like Workflow. That's interesting. When they add that in I might be more

00:48:02   willing to give it a go and see if I can actually produce something on there. But

00:48:07   one of the big issues about all of this, the same with editing shows and

00:48:11   recording shows on an iPad, it isn't even so much the fact that the tools don't

00:48:16   exist, it's that the tools have to exist and then exist reliably for some time

00:48:22   before I'm willing to go ahead and start using it seriously to do the

00:48:28   stuff that actually puts food on my table. Oh I should say, speaking of

00:48:32   reliability, somebody asked me if it didn't crash all the time and I said no.

00:48:36   I had I think one crash with it and when I went back that was one of the moments

00:48:40   of truth of like well am I gonna just give up now and when I went back it had

00:48:43   all it had everything from when I had crashed. It didn't lose a thing. So even

00:48:48   when it did crash and it only crashed once it didn't actually lose any of my

00:48:51   data but understood I mean this is one of the challenges with any any mission

00:48:55   critical workflow software is it needs to not just be provable that it works

00:49:01   that's step one and then it needs to work reliably and you need to talk to

00:49:06   people who've used it and then you need to try it out and see if it works for

00:49:08   you and it's a long process before you give it the big bear hug and say okay

00:49:12   you're part of my workflow now yeah yeah one of the things that made iMovie

00:49:18   finally usable for me on both the iPhone and the iPad was the, well, I know it's going to crash,

00:49:24   but okay, when I reload it, everything's still there. And I haven't actually lost anything,

00:49:30   despite the fact that this program is occasionally buggy. And that's something I could probably say

00:49:35   about the iPad as a whole right now, where there are a lot of things that aren't working quite

00:49:40   right. Because it's a brand new product, and they're running into interesting software bugs.

00:49:47   But at least things are, if not perfect, seem to be reliable in most of the apps that I'm using.

00:49:55   Yeah, it's just like, it's one of those things where it's like, I don't, I understand that

00:50:04   completely, right? That your things crash and it's all okay. But I really don't want to put that test

00:50:09   in place, right? You know? Like they'll be like, "Oh, I'll try this app. Maybe it will be fine after

00:50:14   after I give it a go for a couple of hours and put this in and then it crashes.

00:50:18   But oh great, it's all fine, it's all on iOS.

00:50:20   But I don't want to get to the point where I'm like, "Let me try!"

00:50:24   Especially I'm not willing to do it in the scenarios where I would need it.

00:50:30   Right? So I'm very, very unlikely to do this whilst on a trip.

00:50:36   Right? To start using these apps to see if I can edit shows whilst on a trip.

00:50:40   I need to try and do it here for a while first before I take the plunge on that.

00:50:45   But then the other part of me is like,

00:50:47   do I really have the time to mess around with this stuff?

00:50:51   Like when I could just be using logic and getting the work done.

00:50:54   And at a certain point,

00:50:56   I do genuinely believe that there will be a tip and it will work, right?

00:51:01   Like there will be a tipping point for this and I will be more willing to do it.

00:51:05   I just think that like right now it's not so much.

00:51:09   But as we move forward with later versions of iOS,

00:51:13   which are hopefully gonna continue to push down

00:51:15   this productivity line,

00:51:17   and then later versions of the iPad Pro

00:51:19   as it maybe gets stronger and more powerful,

00:51:21   I believe that I will be more willing

00:51:24   to give this stuff a try.

00:51:26   - Myke, it feels like to me that you are where I was in 2010

00:51:31   with the iPad, where it was like,

00:51:34   oh, there's so much potential and possibility,

00:51:36   But too much work and not enough time in which to experiment and not enough time to risk

00:51:44   losing potential important things as a result of the experiment.

00:51:48   You know, like I'm a happy user of my iPad for a lot of work tasks like email and show

00:51:57   prep and research, but just not the main thing that makes my money, which is recording and

00:52:02   editing podcasts.

00:52:03   I'm just a little bit nervous of that right now.

00:52:09   Should we start talking about the peripherals, the keyboard and the pencil?

00:52:13   I think that's a good idea.

00:52:14   Should we start crying about the peripherals?

00:52:15   Is that more appropriate?

00:52:16   Yeah, we'll get to that in just a moment.

00:52:18   So this episode is brought to you by Fracture, the company that will take your favorite images

00:52:23   and print them directly onto glass for you to proudly display or give as gifts.

00:52:28   First off, just want to give a huge thank you from Fracture and from us as well for

00:52:33   everybody who has supported these shows by buying Fracture Prints with our code and you

00:52:36   can use that code upgrade, it gets you 15% off any order for official first order with

00:52:41   Fracture. I just want to say thanks to everybody who has done this stuff because it really

00:52:46   helps support this show and Fracture are very very happy with us right and I want that to

00:52:51   continue so please continue to get your Fracture Prints and it's clear why. If you've ever

00:52:57   seen one of these things you know how incredible they look. If you haven't seen one, what are

00:53:00   doing? Go and order a fracture right now. Go to fractureme.com, upload an image

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00:53:12   perfect as gifts. They're a great way to show off achievements or lovely moments

00:53:17   from your life or from the lives of your friends and family. They just really are

00:53:21   absolutely fantastic to look at and I want to mention that the holidays are

00:53:25   fast approaching and every fracture gets hand printed and assembled in their

00:53:32   factory in Gainesville Florida. So because of this process if they get

00:53:36   really busy at the holiday season which I'm sure that they will you may face

00:53:40   some delays in getting your fracture before the holidays. So if you are

00:53:45   interested in this you want to make sure that you get your plans in immediately.

00:53:49   You want to just just stop the podcast right now pause this show go to

00:53:52   fractureme.com to get started. Upload your picture and use the code. Upgrade at

00:53:58   checkout. You'll get yourself a lovely 15% of your first order and support this

00:54:02   show. It's time to rescue those photos that are hidden away on your devices and

00:54:06   pick a few to have on show. Thank you so much to Fracture for their support of

00:54:10   this show and Relay FM. So Jason you are a lucky person. Yes. And I say this with

00:54:22   gritted teeth because you have all of the peripherals and the pencils the one

00:54:26   that I'm most interested in I have the smart keyboard in the pencil I don't

00:54:30   have a logitech create which some people got although Ren's got it so we but

00:54:33   among us we've got them covered and you have the smart keyboard too no you don't

00:54:38   know yeah I only have the create and honestly I think I prefer I I would not

00:54:44   have bought the smart keyboard had it been available in stores so where should

00:54:49   we start here you want me to talk about the smart keyboard a little bit please

00:54:51   - Yeah, it's a mixed bag to me, I would say.

00:54:56   There are things I like about it

00:55:00   and there are things I don't like about it.

00:55:01   I actually think the typing feel is fine.

00:55:05   I know that seems strange since I was critical

00:55:06   of the MacBook keyboard, but on a thing this thin,

00:55:10   I feel like maybe I'm just giving it

00:55:12   the benefit of the doubt.

00:55:14   For something this thin to have any typing feel at all

00:55:18   is kind of miraculous, and it does.

00:55:19   It has an okay feel.

00:55:22   I was able to type, like I said,

00:55:23   I wrote multiple articles on this smart keyboard last week,

00:55:28   and it worked fine.

00:55:30   I will say that I'm not a fan of the fact

00:55:34   that it's missing a row of keys.

00:55:36   That I really, let me back up.

00:55:41   On my Mac, I have a keyboard with media control keys on it,

00:55:46   play, pause, and things like that.

00:55:48   I never use them.

00:55:49   I never use them because I've actually got a third party app

00:55:53   that remaps my keyboard shortcuts

00:55:55   for turning my music on and off and stuff like that

00:55:57   to keyboard shortcuts that I have been using

00:56:01   since the days of the Apple CD player app in the 90s.

00:56:06   And I still use those keyboard shortcuts.

00:56:08   So I don't use the media keys,

00:56:09   but I use the media keys when I'm using an iPad all the time

00:56:13   because you don't have those other keyboard shortcuts.

00:56:15   And it's really nice to be able to turn the volume

00:56:17   and down to play or pause music and also, not media control, but to control the brightness

00:56:22   of the screen.

00:56:23   And I really like having those keys and they don't exist on the smart keyboard and it bugs

00:56:28   me.

00:56:29   It makes me sad.

00:56:30   I wish it did.

00:56:31   So that's a negative.

00:56:32   I would say that it works really well as a keyboard you keep with you all the time and

00:56:39   take it with you and that's the nice thing about it.

00:56:41   But as a smart cover, I would have to say I think it's not very good.

00:56:47   I found myself often just tearing it off in frustration

00:56:52   because it was just, it's just too much in a lot of context

00:56:58   because you don't need the keyboard,

00:56:59   you're not going to need the keyboard,

00:57:00   but you've got this keyboard cover

00:57:02   that is a lot heavier and bulkier

00:57:04   than a regular Smart Cover would be.

00:57:06   And so I find myself wanting a regular Smart Cover

00:57:11   and only using this cover when I absolutely know

00:57:15   that I'm going to be unfolding it and using it as a keyboard

00:57:19   because it's just a little, it's a, you know, it's a good,

00:57:23   it's a good keyboard as a keyboard that's hidden in a cover,

00:57:27   but it's not a good cover because it's too heavy and bulky.

00:57:33   So it's a compromise.

00:57:34   And if, you know, if you always want to have a keyboard

00:57:37   with you and not tote it around, that part of it is good.

00:57:40   But if you want to have a lighter kind of iPad experience,

00:57:44   then you're gonna either pull it off

00:57:45   or you're gonna wanna have a different item,

00:57:48   a different accessory that is not this cover

00:57:51   because it is, you know, it's bulky and heavy

00:57:53   and I noticed and it wasn't particularly enjoyable to use,

00:57:56   but it was great to have the keyboard there

00:57:57   when I wanted it, so that's the trade-off.

00:58:00   So basically, it's a little too much as a smart cover.

00:58:05   So what I found myself really wanting was a smart cover,

00:58:09   a regular smart cover and an external keyboard.

00:58:13   and that whether it's something like the Create,

00:58:17   even that you have to sort of snap it in

00:58:19   to this like frame of almost like a laptop.

00:58:24   I'm not sure even if that's what I want so much

00:58:26   as just a stand for it or a smart cover

00:58:28   that can be folded into a stand

00:58:30   and a Bluetooth keyboard or something like that.

00:58:31   So, you know, it works as a keyboard.

00:58:34   It is, I think not, it does not work as a cover very well.

00:58:38   It's really compromised and heavy and that doesn't work.

00:58:41   And then the other thing I wanted to mention,

00:58:42   which is not really about the fault of the smart keyboard

00:58:44   'cause it's true of all these keyboards,

00:58:46   which is iOS and external keyboards,

00:58:48   autocorrect is still problematic.

00:58:51   I was finding, I found at several points that I had,

00:58:55   it was assuming I was going to type a capital letter,

00:59:00   and I wasn't, but it gets into that mode

00:59:03   on the software keyboard, it makes sense,

00:59:04   where it's like, oh, we're shifted now,

00:59:06   you wanna type a capital letter here.

00:59:08   But I was on an external keyboard,

00:59:10   and it was forcing me to type a capital letter

00:59:13   and I couldn't get out of it.

00:59:14   I had to like backspace and go back or,

00:59:17   so that and a lot of really weird autocorrect

00:59:20   that I've been experiencing.

00:59:21   And as far as I can tell,

00:59:25   you can't turn off autocorrect for everything

00:59:28   on an external keyboard.

00:59:30   You have to turn it off for everything period.

00:59:32   And some apps will turn off autocorrect within,

00:59:35   you let you turn it off for that app.

00:59:37   But I realized I would really like a scenario

00:59:39   where autocorrect is on when I'm using the software keyboard and completely off when

00:59:43   I'm using a hardware keyboard, and I don't believe that's a feature that's offered.

00:59:46   So I got really frustrated where I was writing -- I was typing articles and typing exactly

00:59:51   the characters that I wanted to type, and they were all getting autocorrected into things

00:59:54   that were wrong, and I ended up turning off autocorrect.

00:59:57   But then when I would type on the software keyboard, I would get frustrated because I

01:00:00   have all these expectations that if I don't type the apostrophe, it's just going to fix

01:00:04   it because this is a known word and then it didn't fix them.

01:00:07   So I had some issues with that where I feel like iOS needs to do, when I'm trying to treat

01:00:13   this like a laptop, it ought to type it like it's on a laptop and it's overriding my typing

01:00:18   a little too much.

01:00:19   So that's my download on the smart keyboard.

01:00:21   If you've got any questions, I'm happy to ask them.

01:00:23   I am also curious about how the, you know, if friends got any more stories about the

01:00:28   Create.

01:00:29   >> In regards to the smart keyboard, Jason, do you think that you're maybe a little bit

01:00:33   more forgiving of the keyboard because of the device?

01:00:37   So you expect a better keyboard on a MacBook, so you're already down on that one, but on

01:00:42   the iPad you're kind of going from glass to something.

01:00:45   Yes, and the fact that it's a cover, right, so it's supposed to be ridiculously thin,

01:00:52   and it's supposed to be a compromised thing.

01:00:54   Whereas on a laptop, I kind of don't believe that it needed to be that thin, that it could

01:00:58   have been a little bit thicker and a much better keyboard.

01:01:01   So yes, some of this is just what direction I'm coming from, where the MacBook keyboard,

01:01:05   I look at it and think, come on, you should have done a better keyboard. And from this

01:01:08   direction I'm like, well, as a keyboard hidden in a cover goes, it's pretty good. So yeah,

01:01:15   that's some of it. Definitely the context is part of it.

01:01:19   Yeah, so on my end, I don't want a keyboard hidden in a cover. And I don't want to-- if

01:01:26   I'm going to require myself a hardware keyboard, I want a proper hardware keyboard. And that's

01:01:35   one of the reasons that an iPad has previously been untenable for me as a work machine is

01:01:40   I want a good hardware keyboard. I'm not willing to sacrifice small weird keys or bad Bluetooth

01:01:46   connections. It's just not been interesting to me. The Logitech is not perfect in that

01:01:52   the case that surrounds it, that you hook the iPad into it is quite frankly, kind of

01:01:59   ugly and very heavy and overall reminds me of the old iBook of 2001 and it adds an extra pound

01:02:08   pound and a half to the iPad. So the iPad is now with the Logitech Create Keyboard, the iPad Pro

01:02:20   128 becomes almost three pounds. So it's the same weight as the MacBook Air 13 inch, which I was

01:02:27   initially like, "Are you kidding me?

01:02:29   "That isn't the whole point of an iPad for it to be light?"

01:02:34   So that part I really don't like.

01:02:36   I kinda hope that Logitech comes out

01:02:38   with a version of the Create

01:02:41   that doesn't have all of this extra nonsense.

01:02:44   That's just the keyboard and maybe a slight,

01:02:47   a very thin prop up on the bottom.

01:02:50   I'm guessing a lot of why the case is so heavy

01:02:56   is to counterbalance the weight of the screen,

01:02:59   because the Pro is a pretty hefty machine.

01:03:02   The Pro is about a pound and a half on its own,

01:03:04   so it's gonna start leaning backwards

01:03:07   if it doesn't have a good counterweight.

01:03:09   And I will say the Logitech's counterweight is excellent.

01:03:13   I've never been in a position, like I've had it on a desk,

01:03:16   I've had it on my lap in a car, I've had it on a train,

01:03:19   I've had it just in bed, on a couch,

01:03:22   and I've never felt like the iPad is gonna tip backwards

01:03:25   and I'm not gonna be able to type properly on it,

01:03:28   which is awesome.

01:03:29   I also do like the fact that the Logitech,

01:03:31   it's a hard base, it's I believe a plastic,

01:03:35   a gold plastic base, and that adds some security

01:03:39   to typing on it, so it doesn't feel,

01:03:41   again, it doesn't feel flimsy, it doesn't feel fabric-y,

01:03:44   and I like that, and the keys are awesome.

01:03:47   The keys feel better than the new Magic Keyboard.

01:03:49   They just, they travel well, they're comfortable to type on,

01:03:53   you can type really hard or really soft

01:03:55   depending on your key style and that top row is really,

01:03:59   the top row is what absolutely sold me

01:04:02   over the smart cover keyboard,

01:04:06   because I just wasn't interested in a keyboard

01:04:10   that didn't have shortcuts.

01:04:12   And the backlighting is huge.

01:04:14   I wasn't even thinking about backlighting for a keyboard,

01:04:18   for an iPad keyboard.

01:04:19   I just, it wasn't even in my mind.

01:04:20   And then once I discovered that Logitech had it,

01:04:23   I'm like, of course, why would you ever not have backlighting

01:04:28   if you want a proper keyboard for your iPad?

01:04:32   And the fact that the smart connector powers it

01:04:35   means that all of that-- you don't have to worry about,

01:04:38   oh, it's a Bluetooth keyboard, but it's only

01:04:40   going to last seven hours because it's backlit.

01:04:43   No, it leeches power smartly from the iPad.

01:04:47   And that like, that is the biggest the biggest like, the biggest bit that has impressed me so far about the third party keyboard is just how little battery it drains overall from the iPad, and how smooth and simple it feels to switch between touch input and keyboard input or combination touch and keyboard input.

01:05:10   I really like not having to, you know, the fact that I can just pop it, I'm popping it

01:05:15   out of the case right now and then I lay it on top.

01:05:18   And I don't even have to take it out of the case, I can just take it out of the smart

01:05:21   connector and lay it on top of the keyboard.

01:05:24   And the back of the Logitech case folds over so you've got a nice little, I don't know,

01:05:29   fifteen degree incline just to use your, use the Pro as a tablet, as a straight tablet

01:05:35   and you can pick that up too and it works pretty well.

01:05:40   Overall, it just it feels really really the the keyboard is one of the best third-party keyboards

01:05:46   I've ever used on an on an iPad and I have used a lot despite not liking very many of them

01:05:51   The case is bulky the case is whatever. Yeah, but I I would recommend trying the the create

01:05:57   I'm really hoping that they really eat some I just hope they release something that can be a little bit less of a

01:06:04   Of a production

01:06:08   to put on your iPad.

01:06:11   - That is exactly what I was gonna say is,

01:06:14   I feel like the ultimate keyboard for the iPad Pro

01:06:18   is one that has that extra row of control keys

01:06:22   that is backlit, although I know where the keys are,

01:06:25   so I don't actually care about keyboard backlighting

01:06:26   'cause I know where the keys are.

01:06:28   I don't look at the keys ever, so I don't actually care.

01:06:31   It's fun to have keyboard backlighting.

01:06:33   It's like, yay, it's lighting up, but I kinda don't care.

01:06:36   But the ultimate one is one where it's like a tray

01:06:39   and you drop the iPad Pro onto it

01:06:43   so it is gonna hold it up in a good angle.

01:06:46   It's gonna click into the smart connector.

01:06:50   And then when I'm done typing,

01:06:51   then I lift it off and I go away.

01:06:54   Because I feel like I'm not impressed

01:06:56   with either of these products in terms of,

01:06:58   well, it's also a case or you snap it in

01:07:02   and it makes it more like a laptop.

01:07:03   And I know some people that want that kind of experience,

01:07:06   but my experience with the smart--

01:07:07   - They want a pro.

01:07:09   - Yeah, my experience with the smart keyboard is like,

01:07:10   yeah, it's a crappy case.

01:07:12   It's just a good, it's a good keyboard.

01:07:14   And for a case that's got a keyboard in it, hey, great.

01:07:17   But I wouldn't choose it just like if all I want is a case

01:07:20   'cause it's too much, it's ungainly, it's just no good.

01:07:23   And the create, I look at it and think,

01:07:24   I don't wanna snap my brand new iPad Pro

01:07:26   into this weird contraption

01:07:28   just so that I can have a keyboard.

01:07:31   So I feel like the ideal keyboard for the iPad Pro

01:07:36   does not yet exist.

01:07:37   And in fact, today, I would prefer to use

01:07:40   the Apple Bluetooth keyboard or my Logitech Bluetooth

01:07:43   keyboard and a regular smart cover or some other kind

01:07:47   of thing that can be folded into a stand.

01:07:49   That would be my preferred accessory today.

01:07:51   Not either of these other keyboards.

01:07:54   - See, I would agree with you if you already had

01:07:59   those things lying around and you're just like, this is what I'm using until something

01:08:03   better comes along. The smart connector is just so easy to use.

01:08:09   Oh, it is. I'm just assuming that sort of everybody's got a Bluetooth keyboard kicking

01:08:13   around somewhere that they can dig out and use for now. You're right. Not having to deal

01:08:19   with the battery and not having to worry about Bluetooth pairing and just having it work

01:08:22   is that product is out there, right? That product will happen. It's just not, I think,

01:08:28   either of these. The great thing about the smart keyboard is the fact that you don't

01:08:32   have to feel like you're lugging a keyboard with you everywhere, sort of, like it's

01:08:37   because it's super thin and light, but you are lugging a keyboard with you. It is way

01:08:41   heavier than if you take it off your iPad. So I don't know.

01:08:45   Although you know, I was debating this, um, just in terms of the weight differential,

01:08:49   cause I'm like three pounds, that's, you know, three pounds is half a pound heavier

01:08:53   than my 11 inch MacBook Air.

01:08:55   And I'm like, that kind of stinks.

01:08:57   But looking at it on the flip side, I'm like, if I take my MacBook Air out someplace, there's

01:09:03   a 90% chance that I'm taking its power cable out with me.

01:09:07   And my MacBook Air's power cable, probably with the additional, with the extension attachment,

01:09:13   I would guess is close to half a pound.

01:09:16   I don't know for sure because I haven't weighed it, but I would be curious just how much that

01:09:21   extra peripheral weighs me down.

01:09:25   Because when I put this in the Logitech case

01:09:28   in my laptop bag, and I carried it a variety of places

01:09:33   over the weekend, it really didn't feel that much heavier,

01:09:37   if at all, than my iPad, or than my MacBook Air.

01:09:41   In fact, it felt about the same.

01:09:43   So I'm curious if that's just, you know,

01:09:45   maybe it's just I can't tell the difference in weight,

01:09:48   or if the adapter really does make

01:09:50   that much of a difference because that is one thing that the iPad has heads over shoulders

01:09:56   against a laptop is that the battery life is supreme.

01:10:02   I mean my iPad Air or my MacBook Air supposedly gets six or seven hours of battery life but

01:10:10   really I can squeeze about three or four before I need a charge.

01:10:16   iPad Pro, this is the first time I am charging it since I juiced it up to full Friday morning

01:10:23   today, which is crazy to me. And it's not like it's just been sitting in a bag. I've been

01:10:29   writing on it, I've been using Slack up and again. I've been editing photos in Pixelmator,

01:10:36   I was working on workflows this morning. And the fact that it's at 5% battery right now, but

01:10:41   I've been using it essentially for almost four days and the battery hasn't died yet.

01:10:47   That's incredible to me.

01:10:48   I have a desire for a keyboard, right?

01:10:53   Especially if I want to like kind of replace my MacBook Pro with this in a lot of situations.

01:10:58   I just haven't decided on the one that I want to get yet because I have one of those.

01:11:02   I have a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard that I've used with previous iPads,

01:11:06   which I'll probably continue to use for the time being.

01:11:10   I think I'm leaning towards the Magic Keyboard because I'm not like as...

01:11:15   I'm not really gonna be writing articles right? It's not what I do. I'm like

01:11:18   responding to emails and tweeting. So I'm not too... I'm not too fussed with

01:11:23   the key travel and because this is not really something that interests me so

01:11:26   much. I need to try out the Magic Keyboard a little bit more in the store

01:11:30   which I will do and kind of see how I feel about it. But I do like the idea of

01:11:33   just something light and thin that just goes straight on there because of

01:11:36   of my needs. I don't want to add all that weight on with the case like the Create when

01:11:41   it's not really that important to me. So I want to try it out a little bit more. But

01:11:46   it is all about that smart connector. That is just super secret sauce there. That is

01:11:51   a genius move. The fact that you don't need to charge it anymore, right? That's the real

01:11:56   awesome thing.

01:11:57   >> We should also point out, because I know a bunch of people have asked about how the

01:12:00   smart connector works, the smart connector itself is not magnetic. So the side of the

01:12:04   iPads got magnets in it just like all the iPads since the two right have had

01:12:08   have magnets in it so that you can align a line a cover on the side or anything

01:12:15   else that has got the magnets that line up in that way but that's the magnetic

01:12:19   attachment the actual three metal connectors of the smart connector don't

01:12:24   have they're not magnetic they just touch and are held in place just for

01:12:28   what it's worth that's how it works. But there is the elephant in the room yeah

01:12:33   right now is the pencil. It's in the room with me. Please don't. So I think anybody that knows

01:12:41   me and has listened to this show will know that I am dying to get one of these things as anybody

01:12:49   that follows Ren would know the same right? Ren is like you know you are an artist right? I guess

01:12:55   you would describe yourself as such that you like to draw and like and doodle and paint and that

01:13:00   kind of stuff, I love to take handwritten notes. We are the perfect people, right, in two different

01:13:07   worlds to have a pencil. However, we are. Apple believes that they just shouldn't stock them

01:13:13   anywhere and this is the situation that we're in right now. For some reason, these things are

01:13:19   impossible to get. The current shipping time's like four to five weeks and it got to four to

01:13:24   five weeks after maybe like an hour or two of being on sale. And immediately when they were

01:13:29   put on sale, correct me if I'm wrong, they never had like shipping this week. It was

01:13:33   always like at least a week or two away. I have now tried in multiple Apple

01:13:38   stores in London. Nobody has them and I was able to get through on the phone

01:13:43   today to somebody who could actually check stock. So Apple have changed

01:13:47   something recently with their support lines. We used to be able to call and

01:13:51   you'd get through to the stores and you could ask them, "do you have X?"

01:13:54   Yeah, but now it's going to the online store.

01:13:55   Exactly. So I've tried a couple of times and they're like, "you can buy it online!"

01:13:59   I'm like, "You are useless to me. You are useless."

01:14:01   Yeah.

01:14:02   But today, I got through to a lady on the phone

01:14:05   and she actually checked stock.

01:14:07   She checked stock in all of the major stores in London

01:14:12   and there was not a pencil in any of them.

01:14:15   Mmm.

01:14:16   The thing that annoys me about this is

01:14:19   this isn't a third-party product.

01:14:22   This is Apple's product.

01:14:24   and the pencil seems to be a pretty important part of the iPad Pro.

01:14:29   And what it would appear to be right now is there are supply chain problems.

01:14:33   Either it was never going to be ready or something's changed and it's not ready.

01:14:37   And maybe in like three weeks time you won't be able to move for pencils in stores.

01:14:41   So my thinking with this is why is the iPad Pro on sale now?

01:14:47   Like could it have not just been held for a couple of weeks?

01:14:50   Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving.

01:14:52   I think it's getting, how seasonal is Apple, right?

01:14:56   It's the quarter, you gotta get it out, right?

01:14:58   Thanksgiving is coming too?

01:15:00   - Yeah, I mean, Black Friday,

01:15:02   as much as Apple doesn't actively participate

01:15:05   in Black Friday beyond like a minor deal sheet,

01:15:09   Black Friday still remains one of the biggest

01:15:11   shopping holidays and the start of the shopping season

01:15:15   for the year.

01:15:16   And whatever your feelings on capitalism and consumerism

01:15:22   and all of that, Apple is a business.

01:15:25   And unfortunately, if you're selling a plus $1,000 product,

01:15:30   you need to have it on sale in time for the holidays.

01:15:33   That said, the Pencil--

01:15:36   not having the Pencil ready to ship,

01:15:38   or not having an announcement that the Pencil wouldn't

01:15:40   be ready to ship the same time as the Pro--

01:15:43   and let's remind ourselves, it's not just the Pencil,

01:15:46   it's the keyboard too.

01:15:47   So it's none-- the only accessory that's available

01:15:50   launch day with the iPad Pro is the Logitech Create keyboard.

01:15:54   And the smart cover, right?

01:15:56   Well, I guess, and the cover, yes, exactly.

01:15:59   Not the keyboard, but the top.

01:16:00   The top of the iPad Pro is available if you want to cover its screen.

01:16:06   Which is just insane to me, the fact that you're going to launch a flagship product

01:16:13   That really depends on users being able to use it professionally.

01:16:21   For me, that involves a hardware keyboard and it also involves a stylus.

01:16:26   If I want to really seriously use this as an artist's tool, and there are a ton of reasons

01:16:30   why this makes a great artist's tool, which we really didn't talk about at all in the

01:16:34   podcast, but the fact that the pencil is so severely ship delayed, I'm actually shocked

01:16:42   that there wasn't something from Tim about this, just to be like, you know, even when

01:16:49   they were announcing the iPad Pro is going to be available this week, pencils will be

01:16:53   available the first week of December or something like that.

01:16:56   Like just setting expectations.

01:16:58   Especially since he's been talking to every single news outlet in Europe for the last

01:17:03   two weeks.

01:17:04   Yeah.

01:17:05   Setting expectations is crucial at this point, especially when you're launching a new product

01:17:11   accessories that I don't want to say hinge the product's success or failure

01:17:16   because the iPad Pro I have found lots to love about the iPad Pro and I don't

01:17:21   need a pencil but I also have a Jot Dash and I have you know five other styluses

01:17:26   and the the screen refresh rate makes it much better overall for drawing sure but

01:17:32   is it anywhere near what the pencil could be? No. Is it infuriating to me that

01:17:37   they don't even-- they have maybe two or three pencils set

01:17:40   up on display at the Apple stores.

01:17:42   They don't even have enough display units

01:17:45   to really do proper demos, which is crazy to me.

01:17:49   There's a line for pencil demos every time

01:17:51   I come into the Apple store.

01:17:53   And on the reporting side, or on the artistic side,

01:17:58   it was interesting to me.

01:18:00   The folks who have gotten review units and all of that,

01:18:03   the majority, again, is tech press.

01:18:05   But very, there are very few outlets that who are, you know, strong creatives or right for creatives who got a hand ahold of the pro and the pencil.

01:18:15   And I look at that as just like, what Apple that's, what are you thinking to a certain extent? Like, I, if you want pros to buy your machine, you need to show them what it looks like in the hands of a pro.

01:18:32   because I can, you know, Renee can draw pretty good Batmans and I doodle and I, you know, I,

01:18:38   I do pretty, you know, I'm not a I'm not a professional artist, I have gotten paid for

01:18:44   my artistic work, maybe three or four times in my life. And I it is really more of a hobby than

01:18:49   a career for me. But I know a lot of people who are in the comics industry, who are in the video

01:18:56   industry, who are graphics effects artists, people who are looking at this potentially as a huge game

01:19:02   game changer in the field as their opportunity to get off Wacom or to convince people not,

01:19:08   you know, to convince their firm, "Oh, I'm glad we held off on the surface because this

01:19:12   is going to be a better fit for us."

01:19:14   You know, you saw Apple showing Disney and showing Pixar these iPad Pros early on.

01:19:21   You heard little rumors of it, but Pixar and Disney artists didn't really get a platform

01:19:27   to say, "Oh, this is what I like about it and this is what's really great."

01:19:30   gotten occasional tweets from like Dr. Wave. But there's no, there hasn't really been outside of

01:19:35   like arts online, a big comprehensive piece from somebody in the graphics industry. I guess there's

01:19:42   that piece on Vox too. There's like little bits and pieces here, but there's really no one being

01:19:48   like, "I am an artist, and I can now use this in my day to day use. I can use AstroPad and a pencil

01:19:54   to connect to my computer and draw natively in Photoshop with pressure sensitivity and palm

01:20:00   rejection and it's awesome. Like that's the article or I can try this and it's

01:20:05   not awesome. That's the article I've been waiting for and the article that I

01:20:09   wanted to write if I had had a pencil. But it just it doesn't exist right now.

01:20:14   You mentioned that thing from Vox. I'm gonna put a link in to a YouTube video

01:20:18   of Vox designers review of the iPad Pro, especially the pencil. And it's really

01:20:23   great because you get to see somebody's thinking who does this type of stuff for

01:20:27   living and how the device works. But whilst that's good it still doesn't fix

01:20:31   the issue of like that was Vox taking a chance because the Verge got review

01:20:36   units. Like Apple haven't given these products to anybody who is coming at it

01:20:41   from that perspective, at least that I've seen. And it's like that is you know I

01:20:45   agree with you and it's so perplexing because I mean I've tried one in the

01:20:49   store and people say oh there's no lag. There is. There is definitely lag.

01:20:55   Well, in certain programs. Which programs did you try?

01:20:59   Well, I mean, I even tried the Notes app. And when I say "Lagman," it's not one-to-one,

01:21:02   right? But for somebody who maybe doesn't use a pen or a pencil very often, it does feel great,

01:21:09   because it's the closest that there's ever been. But it's nothing like me taking notes right here

01:21:13   with a pencil and paper. So my thinking with that is, there aren't people like yourself who have had

01:21:19   the chance to try these things out, but it's not even so much to try out. I just want to buy one.

01:21:24   I want to give you my money, Apple, in exchange for one of these things.

01:21:32   It's crazy making to me.

01:21:34   It's really dangerous that the pencils aren't connected to anything in the Apple store.

01:21:39   I know.

01:21:40   I'm not kidding.

01:21:41   This is so bad.

01:21:42   I was standing outside the store today, again, to see if I was waiting for them to open,

01:21:47   and I thought to myself, "You could just take it, right?"

01:21:51   It was just that one millisecond.

01:21:52   second. I was like, you could just I was like, No, you won't. But you could. It's just the fact that

01:21:58   this has entered both of our minds. And we are not what I would call even remotely criminally minded

01:22:03   people. We're probably one of the you know, more of the goody two shoes variety. But uh, but yeah,

01:22:09   it's, it's so frustrating. All I want to do is do stylus tests and then use it every day and make it

01:22:16   my new baby. Because I have like the the time that I've played with it and with the apps that

01:22:22   that I've played with it. It is very good. It's not perfect. It's not going to replace pen and paper. But will it replace a Wacom tablet? That is a definitive maybe. Like I need more hands on time. I need probably a week and a half, maybe two weeks, doing dedicated work to say definitively, "Yes, this could replace your Cintiq."

01:22:49   But I am really potentially excited about that prospect and comparing it against a surface.

01:22:57   We got a very brief video from Mashable in doing that.

01:23:01   But like, I don't know, there are just there are so many things that I would have liked to see day one from the pencil that I just haven't seen.

01:23:10   And from Apple just being like, yo, how how hard is it to say?

01:23:16   Even in bureaucratic speak, our shipments were delayed.

01:23:20   So iPad Pro available Wednesday,

01:23:23   pencils and smart keyboard available in December,

01:23:28   in early December, there you go.

01:23:30   Now you've set your expectations.

01:23:32   Instead it's just like, pick up unavailable.

01:23:35   These are not the styluses that you're looking for.

01:23:38   Oh, there are three or four arriving in random stores

01:23:41   across New England, but good luck

01:23:43   'cause you can't reserve any of them.

01:23:45   So you just have to pray that you're lining up at the right one and pray that no one's

01:23:50   decided to line up before you.

01:23:52   I am literally going to camp out in front of Providence's store this week.

01:23:56   I'm going there every single morning to ask if they have pencils.

01:24:00   And it is, I'm like, how have I been reduced to like 11-year-old buying Star Wars tickets

01:24:06   to get a $99 accessory that yes, I want to use, but also I just want to review.

01:24:13   I just want to give people more information about it so that they know if it's even worth

01:24:17   their while.

01:24:18   It is insane to me and it just makes me so mad.

01:24:23   I've been reviewing styluses for five years.

01:24:27   You know what makes a good stylist and a bad stylist pretty quickly.

01:24:33   I think it's an interesting supply chain question that if you don't have enough to fulfill demand,

01:24:40   Do you hold off and say it's not available until you've got enough to fulfill at least

01:24:45   some of the demand, or do you just make all your customers play this game?

01:24:49   And I think it's a good question that they made the decision that they would let the

01:24:54   styluses trickle out there instead, the pencil and even the keyboards, let that stuff trickle

01:24:59   out there.

01:25:00   And that would be the other way to go.

01:25:02   You're absolutely right, is to say available December and then the reviewers would have

01:25:06   them or whatever, but you wouldn't have to play the game where you're waiting in front

01:25:10   of a store or calling a bunch of Apple stores in your region and saying, "Do you have a

01:25:14   pencil? Can you hold it for me? You can't hold it. How fast can I drive?" That kind

01:25:18   of thing. Because that's not a fun--for most people, that's not a fun game. I'm sure somebody

01:25:22   finds that fun to race around like that and have a scavenger hunt for an Apple pencil.

01:25:27   But I think, you know, does Apple think that that's the best experience or would it be

01:25:30   better for them to say, "Look, you're just not going to be able to get one until December

01:25:34   first, at which point they'll be available.

01:25:38   Or we're only going to sell these online right now because we don't have enough and we need

01:25:41   to control what the demand is and we'll put you on a waiting list.

01:25:44   But instead it's this kind of old-fashioned game from before we had instant gratification

01:25:51   on the internet.

01:25:52   You just have to go to the store and hope.

01:25:54   It's Furbies all over again.

01:25:56   Yeah, that's right, Cabbage Patch Kids with their pencils instead.

01:26:00   I just don't get it.

01:26:01   I mean, the pencil is clearly a hot item.

01:26:03   was going to be a hot item. Yeah, well I've heard from people who said, you know, this

01:26:08   is, it's in the ads, like this is the reason you get an iPad Pro and then you get in the

01:26:11   store and you can buy your iPad Pro but you can't get the pencil. It is perplexing, yeah.

01:26:17   But unfortunately for me and Wren, Jason does have one. In so much as Jason has been sending

01:26:22   me little pictures all week whenever I talk about them. Little guilt-tripping pictures,

01:26:26   yeah. So Jason, we are interested to know what your thoughts are, but you want to thank

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01:28:23   So you do have an Apple Pencil, Jason?

01:28:26   I do. I do. The person who doesn't like pens and can't draw and does not have readable

01:28:32   handwriting is the person here that has the Apple Pencil. And if I had a portal, if I

01:28:36   had a transport device that would magically send... Unfortunately, Stamps.com will not

01:28:41   do this.

01:28:42   We asked them. They do not have a portal system.

01:28:45   I have to use the mail.

01:28:46   They do not yet have the teleportation technology

01:28:48   available.

01:28:50   I would pass it off to one of you in a heartbeat,

01:28:52   because I would love to see what you think of it.

01:28:55   As for me, as a savage, I have been trying it out

01:29:01   and sending you drawings, mostly pictures of you being

01:29:04   sad that you don't have one.

01:29:06   And I'm not really that sorry about that.

01:29:08   It seemed only fitting.

01:29:10   I did do a whole thing while you guys were talking

01:29:13   about the supply chain and how angry you were

01:29:15   and said that to you.

01:29:17   And it's in the chat room too.

01:29:20   Little notes, notes I'm making.

01:29:23   Also drawings of you being sad.

01:29:24   - Thanks.

01:29:26   - It's slippery.

01:29:27   It's completely perfectly around.

01:29:31   It's not like those pencils that have, you know,

01:29:35   the little, they're actually like,

01:29:37   I don't know whether they're like a hexagon

01:29:39   or something like that, but they've got the little kind of

01:29:41   like a series of flat ridges.

01:29:43   Instead, it's completely smooth and circular,

01:29:46   which I find that that makes it actually

01:29:48   a little bit slippery.

01:29:49   But, and famously, you know, it's weighted

01:29:53   so that it will actually stop.

01:29:54   And the little pencil name on the silver band

01:29:58   that's up by the, what would be an eraser,

01:30:02   but it's the cap that you take off in order to charge it.

01:30:05   Show says Apple pencil comes up right there.

01:30:09   super easy to use, plug it in, it does a pairing.

01:30:12   The battery lasts a long time

01:30:16   and then you can charge it quickly.

01:30:17   It comes with a little lightning cable extension

01:30:21   so you don't have to plug it in directly to the iPad

01:30:23   and make that little sign that you can't hold up

01:30:26   that says I've got an Apple Pencil.

01:30:28   What are your questions about it?

01:30:31   And then I will be unable to answer them

01:30:34   because I don't know anything about pencils.

01:30:39   It just makes me sad.

01:30:41   I mean, I don't really know if I have questions

01:30:43   for you specifically, right?

01:30:45   Because a lot of the things that interest me the most,

01:30:48   I think I maybe have a potential answer to them,

01:30:50   but I need to know myself.

01:30:52   Like one of the big things that I was interested in is,

01:30:55   is this going to be like writing on a piece of paper

01:30:57   in so much as I can write really, really small?

01:31:01   And I've tested this out,

01:31:02   and I now know that this is possible.

01:31:05   I know, Ren, you'll agree with me, I'm sure,

01:31:06   that there hasn't really been a product

01:31:09   that has been great for handwriting so far.

01:31:12   - No.

01:31:13   - That they all kind of--

01:31:14   - JotDash and Jot, yeah.

01:31:15   The Jot series have probably come the closest,

01:31:18   but still not great.

01:31:20   - Because it always ends up that what you're writing

01:31:23   is way bigger than what you intend it to be.

01:31:26   - I have done some of that.

01:31:28   I actually did some of it in Evernote,

01:31:31   and I took some fake notes as a test,

01:31:36   But I did that where I held it like in portrait orientation

01:31:41   and took a page of notes as if I was taking notes

01:31:47   in a class or something.

01:31:48   And it felt perfectly natural to me.

01:31:52   It felt like I was taking notes in my notebook

01:31:55   in a college class.

01:31:57   And the nice thing about OneNote, did I say Evernote?

01:32:02   I used OneNote, I used Microsoft OneNote.

01:32:05   - Okay, Microsoft OneNote, okay.

01:32:06   - And it's got the, you can have it, yeah,

01:32:10   look like different pieces of paper.

01:32:12   If you really wanna have the college rule lined

01:32:14   or a graph paper, you can do that.

01:32:16   But it has an OCR, handwriting recognition,

01:32:19   basically, feature.

01:32:21   And I thought that would be interesting to see

01:32:23   if it could even attempt to read my handwriting

01:32:26   because my handwriting is so terrible.

01:32:27   And it totally worked.

01:32:28   I was able to do searches for words that I'd put

01:32:31   in my note, in OneNote.

01:32:34   and it was able to come up with that document

01:32:37   and the exact place on the page where I wrote that word.

01:32:40   So I was impressed by that

01:32:41   just because my handwriting is terrible.

01:32:44   And yes, there are some,

01:32:46   it's smart where if it can't figure out what the word is,

01:32:49   it thinks it might be five different things,

01:32:50   it puts all five of those things in the index.

01:32:53   (laughs)

01:32:54   And so if you search on any of them, you will find it.

01:32:57   But yeah, so as a writing implement,

01:33:01   It totally felt to me as a layman

01:33:05   that I was experiencing the same experiences

01:33:10   if I was writing with a pen on paper or a pencil on paper.

01:33:14   And then I try to draw stick figures

01:33:16   and I'm very good at drawing stick figures and nothing else.

01:33:19   And yeah, I don't get any of the lag.

01:33:23   Even when I'm erasing, I put in the erase mode

01:33:26   and I'm very quickly moving over something

01:33:28   'cause I wanna erase it.

01:33:29   You don't get that thing where you go swish, swish, swish with a pen and then stop and watch

01:33:34   as the swish, swish, swish happens, right?

01:33:36   It's a little bit behind, but very close.

01:33:38   And if you're writing at the speed at which I'm writing words with a pencil on the screen,

01:33:44   my handwriting speed, it's essentially lagless to me, I would say.

01:33:52   At that rate, I never get that disconnect.

01:33:55   I think it's a little bit like when you're watching a movie

01:33:58   and if the speaker delay is off by a little bit,

01:34:01   there's like your brain patches it all together,

01:34:03   but beyond a certain point, it kind of breaks

01:34:05   and you lose the illusion and now it's just out of sync.

01:34:08   I think that maybe there's something like that

01:34:09   for lag with a pen.

01:34:11   And in most cases, I didn't feel it.

01:34:14   Like if I looked really closely,

01:34:16   I could tell that it was actually a little bit behind,

01:34:19   but when regularly using it,

01:34:22   I felt like the illusion was there

01:34:23   that I was putting ink on paper.

01:34:25   - Rann, I wanted to know from you,

01:34:27   'cause I know that, you know,

01:34:28   I'm sure you have some experience with things

01:34:31   like the Wacom Cintiqs and stuff like that.

01:34:33   What is the type of lag in those sort of devices?

01:34:36   - So the Cintiq does have a bit of lag,

01:34:41   as does the Intuos, which of course the Intuos,

01:34:45   you're not even drawing on the direct screen.

01:34:48   You're drawing on essentially a tablet with no screen,

01:34:51   and then you have to look up at the screen as you're drawing.

01:34:56   The Cintiq's lag, at least the most recent Cintiq

01:34:59   that I've used, is probably under 100 milliseconds.

01:35:03   It's not where you have a line trailing behind your pencil,

01:35:07   where it's a very minor sort of thing.

01:35:13   The Apple Pencil, to me, is fairly consistent with that,

01:35:19   is to say that when you make a line and when you make very quick lines in succession, you

01:35:27   are seeing the lines as you make them. In some cases, you're seeing the prediction of

01:35:32   the line, which I think is very strange, but cool technology from Apple to sort of course

01:35:38   correct if you think you've accidentally made a jitter in your drawing. But overall, I think

01:35:48   we're looking at something that's very, very similar latency. The issue in the

01:35:53   past, why latency is such a big deal, especially on the iPad, is that previous

01:35:59   styluses, first of all the iPad screen refresh rates have been much, much lower

01:36:05   than this current. The iPad Pro has 240 Hertz refresh rate, which means that

01:36:10   you're seeing more and more pixels come up as you draw. Previous

01:36:16   generation's iPads and iPhones had much much lower which made it much harder to

01:36:21   catch up to what the peripherals were doing. You also had to deal with the fact

01:36:26   that initially styluses were pretending to be fingers and so they were fat and

01:36:31   imprecise and the first iPads had basically touch sensitive grids that

01:36:37   were designed for fat fingers. So when people started using them to draw and

01:36:41   started saying "oh we'll make styluses" it was very hard to create pinpoint

01:36:46   accuracy with a fat stylus, with a rubber nib stylus, because you were essentially hitting like a

01:36:53   one by one grid in terms of finding out, "Oh, my finger/stylus is in this part of the screen." And

01:37:03   to try and hit that grid multiple times or pieces of that grid was almost impossible. When Zoom came

01:37:10   into effect, when apps started adding in zooming, it became a little bit easier because then you

01:37:15   could essentially that one by one grid, you could enlarge and actually address the individual

01:37:23   pieces of the drawing. And it's gotten to the point where pairing with Bluetooth, you've

01:37:30   been able third party stylus makers have been able to simulate low latency by basically

01:37:37   using the Bluetooth connection and specific API's within apps and simulate pinpoint accuracy.

01:37:45   But ultimately, that's what they are.

01:37:47   They're simulations.

01:37:48   And because they have to simulate something that the OS could be doing naturally, there's

01:37:53   going to be inherent lag built in that.

01:37:56   You look at any of the Bluetooth capable styluses, including Adonit's own Jot Touch, including

01:38:04   10.1's stylus, including the 53 Pencil, all of them have much better pinpoint accuracy

01:38:11   than they have in the past, but the lag is painful, especially in paper. This is can

01:38:17   be very, very painful because of the processing that they're doing simultaneous processing

01:38:23   to make sure that what you're entering on the screen with a physical device ends up

01:38:29   being represented appropriately on the page. So my hope has always been Apple makes a device

01:38:36   that actually communicates with the iPad natively,

01:38:41   rather than having to go through all of these backdoor

01:38:44   weird APIs put on top of basically addressing iPad flaws.

01:38:49   Now the former flaws that were preventing the iPad

01:38:52   from being great have been reconfigured

01:38:56   to work with a stylus.

01:38:58   And with the Pencil, with my very limited time with it,

01:39:03   I can see a major difference in how writing with a pencil feels and sketching with a pencil

01:39:08   feels over every other stylus because it is built naturally.

01:39:14   It's like the closest bit I can compare it to is almost like natural scrolling and scrolling

01:39:25   with adaptive movement where you see adaptive movement scrolling on an iOS device or on

01:39:32   on a Mac, and it just feels seamless, right? It just it feels comfortable if it makes sense.

01:39:38   And then you see a web app try and do adaptive scrolling, or you see Windows try and do adaptive

01:39:43   scrolling, Android try and do adaptive scrolling. And you can just it just doesn't feel the

01:39:49   same, right? There's a there's a different, there's a different interactivity there, it

01:39:53   just doesn't bounce the way that you want it to. And that's, to me, that's the difference

01:39:57   between having a native tool versus having a third party tool, is it just it instinctually

01:40:01   it feels more stilted.

01:40:04   - So I've been taking notes on my iPad

01:40:08   as you've been talking, and I wanted to add OneNote,

01:40:12   which is about OneNote.

01:40:16   What Apple's doing with the Notes app is very impressive,

01:40:20   and the Notes app shows very little lag.

01:40:23   When I switch to something like paper,

01:40:25   or when I switch to OneNote, and I'm taking notes

01:40:27   in my reporter style where I'm summarizing conversation

01:40:31   and doing some verbatim quotes and the things that I do if I'm interviewing somebody, these

01:40:35   are the skills that I learned when I would interview people for stories with a notepad

01:40:39   and paper, right? In notes, it is the illusion is perfect. In one note and paper, the illusion

01:40:47   is not perfect. There is much more lag. And I don't know whether that's just that they

01:40:51   need to be updated to take advantage of this particular input device or not. I assume so

01:40:57   because Notes can do it perfectly.

01:41:01   - It's the difference between something

01:41:03   that was built in-house.

01:41:04   They've had how long to work with the pencil.

01:41:06   - In fact, when you tap on the stylus dropdown in OneNote,

01:41:10   it lets you pick pencil by 53 or other stylus.

01:41:14   So clearly OneNote doesn't really know

01:41:17   about the Apple Pencil.

01:41:18   Maybe they can't buy one.

01:41:19   Maybe there aren't any at the Bellevue Apple Store

01:41:21   or the University Avenue Apple Store in Seattle.

01:41:26   So my understanding is that there are new APIs that can make this stuff better, right?

01:41:33   Yes and no.

01:41:35   So I haven't really dug into them myself because a lot of it's over my head.

01:41:41   What I will say is the increased refresh rate is good for all of the pens because, again,

01:41:47   it just means that what you're drawing, it shows up faster, which is great.

01:41:53   And you're still going to have that, you're still going to have the latency between the

01:41:56   connection.

01:41:58   So any Bluetooth styluses are still going to have that sort of hiccup because they have

01:42:01   to talk to the device over Bluetooth.

01:42:07   The stylus that I've actually been enjoying most on the iPad Pro is the JotDash, is Adonit's

01:42:11   JotDash because it's not Bluetooth connected.

01:42:14   It just has a small USB charged battery in it and it doesn't work as a stylus when it's

01:42:23   off.

01:42:25   It just doesn't.

01:42:26   It's a dead device.

01:42:28   But if you tap the bottom like you would a pen click, you can just tap it to turn on

01:42:36   and then it works just as a regular stylus except that it has a 2mm or I guess 1.9mm

01:42:44   Pixel point tip so it's designed to take advantage of the iPad's smaller grids and

01:42:50   Retina size grids now that the iPad is so gigantic and it's designed to take advantage of the refresh rate

01:42:56   By sort of future-proofing itself by saying well, we've developed this technology and it doesn't require

01:43:03   APIs and it doesn't require special things. We're just we're banking that Apple's hardware technology is going to get better and

01:43:12   were developing a pen that can hypothetically work well with that and it works decently with the iPad Air 2.

01:43:17   It works very well with the 6s Plus and it works

01:43:21   close but not identically to the pencil in Notes. That

01:43:27   drawing that I sent earlier to the Relay Channel was done with a JotDash and I'm like, well, you know,

01:43:34   it's you know, you can still do quite impressive things

01:43:39   In the notes app and in other apps with these other styluses the difference is of course

01:43:45   You've got lack of palm rejection. You've got

01:43:49   lack of first-party integration

01:43:52   But the third I mean, I don't think the I don't think it's doom and gloom for third-party stylus makers

01:43:58   I think that there are still things that they can position themselves to do

01:44:03   For one thing not everybody is gonna want to buy a hundred dollar pencil

01:44:07   And right now people having you know offering themselves as like the jot dashes like the $50 equivalent of the Apple Pencil

01:44:16   There are styluses that you can buy for nine or ten dollars if you just want a really really inaccurate

01:44:22   basis device for sketching or writing

01:44:26   So there are I think there are still avenues that Apple hasn't covered here

01:44:31   And I do think that the improvements that they've made in the iPad Pro

01:44:35   Can be taken advantage of by stylus makers just depends on how they'll adapt their apps to deal with it

01:44:41   And we'll just keep

01:44:43   Fingers crossed that we will have them sometime within the next couple of weeks

01:44:48   Keep watching the skies and stocking the stores, I guess is what I would say. Yeah, if nothing else. I'm just going to

01:44:54   I'm going to book a

01:44:56   Hypothetical genius appointment that I'm never going to show up for but I'm gonna check in for it and then spend the next 45 minutes

01:45:04   writing my pencil review because I just I feel like there's there's no better way.

01:45:10   It's no better way. Do we have anything more that we wanted to cover today on

01:45:16   this? No I think we I think we've done it. So I think we're gonna skip Ask Upgrade

01:45:20   this week. We'll come back with a bumper Ask Upgrade next week. Along with a mic

01:45:24   at the movies. Don't forget if you want to watch along with the Sure Thing 1985

01:45:30   Cusack hit for next week's episode of Upgrade. Ren, thank you so much for joining

01:45:36   us. It's been an absolute pleasure and you've provided a lot of great color on

01:45:39   all of this stuff from a perspective that me or Jason wouldn't have had, so

01:45:42   thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely, thank you for having me and

01:45:46   hi, for your sake and mine I hope pencils show up in store soon. Yeah, yeah I had

01:45:53   really hoped that you would get one in time for this episode and but it was

01:45:56   interesting that you didn't so yeah thank you for being here. I tried, we both tried.

01:46:00   We both really tried.

01:46:01   We tried so hard.

01:46:02   I know.

01:46:03   Every single day.

01:46:05   Every single day.

01:46:06   I'm going back to the office tour right now.

01:46:07   Gwen, where can people keep up with you online and see what you're working on?

01:46:10   I am on Twitter and Instagram at @settern, S-E-T-T-E-R-N, and I am writing a whole ton

01:46:17   of iPad Pro coverage over on iMore.com right now.

01:46:20   I'm doing my week with iPad Pro experiment.

01:46:23   So day three, coming soon to a iMore.com near you.

01:46:29   If you want to catch up with Jason's work online you can head on over to SixColors.com

01:46:33   and he is @JSnell on Twitter, JSNELL and I am @IMyke.

01:46:40   Thank you so much again to our sponsors this week, Stamps.com, Fracture and Lynda.com and

01:46:45   thank you for listening.

01:46:46   Until next time, say goodbye everybody.

01:46:48   Goodbye.

01:46:49   Goodbye.

01:46:50   Goodbye.

01:46:50   Bye!

01:46:51   [ Music ]