0:00:00[Music]
0:00:08from relay FM this is upgrade episode number 62 today's show is brought to you
0:00:13by lynda.com stamps.com and casper my name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Mr Jason Snell
0:00:20hi Myke hi Jason Snell how are you I'm doing uh I'm doing fine it rained here in California today
0:00:25so we don't know what to do with ourselves.
0:00:27- Oof, well I wonder what that's gonna do for the show today.
0:00:30- I don't know.
0:00:31It's not raining now,
0:00:32and the thunder and lightning have stopped
0:00:34because in my only semi-insulated garage,
0:00:38I have found that it's quite pleasant actually when it rains,
0:00:41but it's audible.
0:00:42So that would be interesting to do the rain podcast,
0:00:46but alas, I think it stopped raining now.
0:00:48- It has not rained here today,
0:00:50so we are in kind of bizarro land.
0:00:52- It is weird.
0:00:53The sun appears to be coming out right now
0:00:55because it is California. That's it, dry up all that rain. Get us back to the brown.
0:00:58I bet it's still like 25 degrees Celsius when it rains.
0:01:02It's uh it's 51 right now here. I don't know what that means.
0:01:06Uh that's 10. Okay that's that's similar to here probably. Let me see what my
0:01:13weatherman says. Um we have oh 16 degrees. Look at that.
0:01:19It's the weathercast. It's warmer there too. Yeah we're uh it's all messed up Myke.
0:01:23everything's ruined. Should we do some follow-up? Yeah I think I think some
0:01:29follow-up would be perfect. So I've come to a decision I think about my storage
0:01:35needs. Storage! Vertical! Vertical! And I think so I've had a few people suggest
0:01:44this but I had seen it but didn't really pay too much attention to it which is a
0:01:48product called the Drobo Mini. The Drobo Mini is as much smaller box and
0:01:53and it can connect by Thunderbolt and USB 3, I think.
0:01:57But what makes the Drobo Mini different
0:02:01is that the Drobo Mini can take two and a half inch SSDs.
0:02:05So this is probably the product I'm going to go for
0:02:09because I can attach it locally,
0:02:11which is what I want to do.
0:02:13And it's SSD, so it will be super fast, quiet,
0:02:16and everything else that I want.
0:02:18- Up to four laptop drives essentially,
0:02:22but that includes SSDs.
0:02:24So you could get up to four SSDs in an array.
0:02:27That's not quite a RAID because it's Drobo
0:02:29and Drobo is not quite a RAID, it's its own thing.
0:02:33That's interesting.
0:02:34That's an interesting,
0:02:34that will get you your fast silent storage, won't it?
0:02:37- It will, but there is one,
0:02:38there is two problems with this.
0:02:41SSDs are still relatively small.
0:02:45- And expensive.
0:02:48- And extremely expensive, that's problem too.
0:02:50So I found an Amazon,
0:02:52'cause I wanted to take a look at the prices of SSDs,
0:02:55what was available and what was kind of tested
0:02:58and approved by Drobo.
0:03:00And there are some SSDs that I found,
0:03:03I think it was Samsung, which are a terabyte,
0:03:05but they're 250 pounds each.
0:03:08And the enclosure is 500 pounds.
0:03:10- That's very heavy.
0:03:11That sounds much heavier than it should be.
0:03:13Oh, you mean money.
0:03:14Okay.
0:03:15That's still, that's actually very heavy for money.
0:03:17- Womp, womp, womp.
0:03:19- Womp, womp.
0:03:20Well, we converted Fahrenheit to Celsius earlier.
0:03:22It's only fair.
0:03:23That's, that's yeah, it's not cheap.
0:03:26- So I will be looking at four terabytes for 1,500 pounds.
0:03:31- Oh my God.
0:03:33That's like buying another, how much did your iMac cost?
0:03:35- That's half the price of my iMac.
0:03:37- Wow.
0:03:38- So basically this is the solution
0:03:41that I am planning on going for,
0:03:43but now I need to get the money together to get it.
0:03:46And with the iPad Pro just around the corner,
0:03:49it might be a couple of months away.
0:03:51But this one feels like the right one for me.
0:03:53Again, four terabytes is a lot,
0:03:55but it's not as much as I could get in another solution.
0:03:59I understand that, but I have to kind of weigh up
0:04:02what I'm looking for.
0:04:03And I'm not looking to keep everything
0:04:06that I make forever,
0:04:07I'm just looking to keep a bunch of things for a long time.
0:04:11And four terabytes is probably more than enough to do that.
0:04:15By the time that I would need more,
0:04:17I'm sure I could get bigger SSDs for cheaper.
0:04:20I think I'm only using about two or three terabytes in my archive where I'm literally
0:04:26not throwing away anything on my Drobo, my big Drobo, and although some of that space
0:04:32will be used by Drobo because it does its thing where it's redundant, so if something
0:04:38dies something else lives and all that, and it depends on how you set it up.
0:04:41But yeah, that's that I mean that's a lot of space and silent, which is the other key
0:04:46thing instead of having... the thing that I hated about having the external hard drives
0:04:50was that I ended up with that stack. I ended up with like three one terabyte hard drives
0:04:55in their own enclosures and they were all noisy and they were all on the chain and you
0:04:59had to find a place for them. I just hated it. So something like this, it's a clever
0:05:04idea and the nice thing about it is that you don't have to fill it up, right? You could
0:05:09put two in and then buy another one later and slide that one in and it adds to your
0:05:13storage and then you know and then add a fourth and then at some point down the
0:05:17way down the road when the SSD prices are better take one of the smaller SSDs
0:05:21and replace it with a bigger one and it all just kind of keeps working so.
0:05:25I may get the enclosure and one SSD right one 1 terabyte SSD or maybe like
0:05:32two 500 or something like that and go from there I think that that might be a
0:05:37good place to start. Like I don't need to max it out immediately. So this is
0:05:43probably what I'm gonna go for. It seems to tick most of the boxes and I did kind
0:05:46of want something like a Drobo because I like the idea of the Drobo system right
0:05:52where it kind of you don't get you don't get four terabytes by putting four
0:05:56terabytes in it but what you get is data redundancy and that seems like a good
0:06:02thing for me considering the setup that I have you know I have limited bandwidth
0:06:06so I can't back up a lot of this stuff to an online backup.
0:06:11So it wants to be offline,
0:06:14so I like the idea of data redundancy
0:06:16in my offline backup system.
0:06:19If I get online and offline right way around,
0:06:22then I'll be in a much better stead for this conversation.
0:06:24But that's kind of what I'm thinking about doing.
0:06:26This seems like the right solution for me.
0:06:28So that's what I'm considering.
0:06:30And then maybe in a couple of years time,
0:06:32or maybe in a year or so, when we're in our own place,
0:06:36might be able to look at something that's network attached as well as this.
0:06:40So I have a big honking disc that is attached to this thing and then I could
0:06:45also back up everything to something like a Synology as well. Step one, Jason,
0:06:50step one. It's a good place to start. I'm very happy to have a big
0:06:57drive that is, you know, one and a big logical volume because that's the other
0:07:01problem about having those three drives is that they're three different volumes
0:07:04so you end up having to kind of manage what goes where
0:07:07and what's full and what's not.
0:07:09And I hate that, I hate that too.
0:07:11So it's nice having just a huge volume.
0:07:13I can check all my stuff in there and it's there.
0:07:16My problem has been, and I haven't mentioned this yet.
0:07:19So I've been using CrashPlan as my primary online backup
0:07:23for a while now and it works well.
0:07:28It's not the most beautiful thing to look at,
0:07:29but it works pretty well.
0:07:31but I discovered the other day that it was basically failing at backing up my entire
0:07:39server volume, which is this big volume, because it didn't have enough memory allocated to it,
0:07:45because it runs in Java and it needs memory allocation. And I'm still struggling with that.
0:07:50And I talked to a couple people on Twitter who said, "Yeah, that's why I ended up switching
0:07:54to backblaze was because my data set was too big." And it's a little bit infuriating because
0:07:59CrashPlan offers unlimited data, basically, but clearly their app by default cannot...
0:08:10Its idea of unlimited is pretty limited.
0:08:13And their support said, "Okay, well, why don't you add more memory to the memory allocation?
0:08:18You click here and you type something in."
0:08:20And I did that.
0:08:22And it's still kind of churning, but there are rumors that there is a CrashPlan native
0:08:28app coming that doesn't require Java. And that would be nice because this is... And
0:08:35I paid for like three years of crash plan. So I would really rather not just switch to
0:08:39another backup provider at this point. And also, this is what I paid for is it's a volume
0:08:44attached to a computer in my house and I'm paying for it to be backed up. And it was
0:08:50basically the most disturbing thing about it was that it thought it was backing everything
0:08:54up because it was sort of backing up everything that it could see before it sort of ran out
0:08:58of memory. And that's the worst thing is that it didn't say, "Hey, I can't back up all of
0:09:05that because there's not enough memory," and sort of alert me. Instead, it just sort of
0:09:09silently went about backing up not everything, and that was not cool. So this is an edge
0:09:13case, I will admit, because I'm asking it to back up a couple of terabytes of data,
0:09:18but that's why I've got the service is to do this. So I will report back. I'm in touch
0:09:25with their support people and I'll report back. But it's a little bit disappointing
0:09:29because I do have stuff on there that I want backed up, eventually backed up offline or
0:09:34backed up online somewhere and it can take its time and back up at night and you know
0:09:39slowly trickle out. But I thought it was doing that and it turns out that it's sort of not
0:09:43been doing that and that's frustrating.
0:09:45For me, that's like finding out that that happened, I don't think I could trust it anymore.
0:09:50Yeah, well, we'll see.
0:09:54We'll see where it goes.
0:09:55I've already paid for a couple more years of it, so I'm not going to...
0:09:58I'm not gonna...
0:09:59I'm going to see if I can either get it to work or get them to give me their forthcoming
0:10:07non-Java version if it truly exists or what, but yeah.
0:10:11But yeah, it's, hey, it reminded me of the days back
0:10:14when you had to allocate memory to Mac apps
0:10:16by selecting them and choosing get info in the classic days.
0:10:20And you know, that was like one big troubleshooting thing
0:10:24was that you would select an app and choose get info
0:10:27and then you'd change how much memory was allocated to it.
0:10:30There was like literally,
0:10:31I don't know if you remember this at all,
0:10:32there was literally a box that would say like 900K
0:10:35and you could put it at 1900K.
0:10:38- No, that's before my time, I'm afraid.
0:10:39Oh man, and this was exactly what I got with the Java thing.
0:10:43It was like, "Oh, I'll allocate more memory.
0:10:44"Click on the thing to bring up the console
0:10:47"and put in this command line command
0:10:48"and it will allocate more memory in Java for the app."
0:10:51And I thought, wow, feeling like 1998 all over again.
0:10:56- Ah.
0:10:58- Yeah, they are a sponsor.
0:11:00I use Backblaze.
0:11:01I pay for Backblaze as well.
0:11:04And I have them running on my laptop,
0:11:09is connected to my home internet which is not... I don't have it running on my
0:11:13iMac because that's connected to the LTE hotspot that I pay for. So basically
0:11:17whenever the MacBook is on it sort of trickles data up to backblaze and a very
0:11:21very very slow internet connection that I have. But I like that it's there and it's
0:11:27just another place for me to... basically for me to back up my Dropbox right? So
0:11:31it's just like a secondary place that all of that stuff goes to. Which I kind
0:11:36like that I have that. But it doesn't cause me the issues and I really don't
0:11:40like the idea that it looks like it's backing up what you're having and but
0:11:45it's not that is a kind of like at that point it's kind of horrifying.
0:11:48It's basically not seeing everything when it sets the backup set for some reason
0:11:52because it runs out of memory or it times out or something like that and so
0:11:56and then rather than throwing an alert it just says okay I guess this is it I'll
0:11:59back it up. It's probably not good.
0:12:04Also, just before we recorded today, there was an update for the Apple TV.
0:12:09Apparently it's 9.0.1, which is what it relates to from the beta builds.
0:12:15It doesn't say that on the Apple TV, it just says there's a software update available,
0:12:19and there are no release notes, so there's no way of knowing what it does.
0:12:24But I mean, 9.0.1, you'd assume bug fixes.
0:12:29And no matter what it is, I'm happy to see the pace of release.
0:12:35It shows that there are at least some people working on it, right?
0:12:38That they had a 9.0.1 released basically a week after the product came out.
0:12:42So I think that's good.
0:12:43I think that's good to see.
0:12:44Yeah.
0:12:45I wish it was...
0:12:46I'll let you provide some detail though, right?
0:12:49Yeah.
0:12:50I mean, my feeling about it though, it's just going to say bug fixes.
0:12:52You know, it's just going to be one of those ones anyway.
0:12:54So there's kind of no...
0:12:55Sure.
0:12:56What it's showing, there's kind of no point in seeing it.
0:12:58But I'm just happy to see that something's going on there.
0:13:02Let's talk about Apple TV a little bit, but before we do that, we'll follow up from last
0:13:07week.
0:13:08All good stuff to say this week I think.
0:13:10Or at least less bad stuff.
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0:14:28So it's been a week since we last spoke about the Apple TV so we both had a
0:14:34little bit more time to play with it and I was wondering if there's any changed
0:14:39opinions or just any kind of feelings or thoughts that you may have having spent
0:14:44a little bit more time with the product and gotten over the initial frustrations
0:14:47that we were finding last week?
0:14:49Well, yeah, I think one of the challenges is I haven't set it up again, right?
0:14:55Yeah, sure.
0:14:56So if the complaints are about getting on board, this is when we talked about the iPhone,
0:15:00it's the same thing, which is everybody complains about it and then they forget about it for
0:15:05a year and then they hope that it's better and it's not and then they complain about
0:15:08it again.
0:15:09So I have no further complaints about setting it up because I haven't done that.
0:15:13I wrote a piece on Six Colors about my daughter's birthday party this weekend where they ended
0:15:18up basically playing music on the Apple TV and singing along for like an hour, loud.
0:15:26It was kind of amazing and impressive.
0:15:29And once I got it in the music app, just because they wanted to hear a particular song, then
0:15:35my daughter took the remote away and pretty much was able to drive the rest of the entertainment.
0:15:42But the one limitation was she kept navigating to the things she wanted and then pressing
0:15:49the menu button or the play/pause button.
0:15:53And she was like, "Daddy, what is happening?"
0:15:58And which is sweet because that's the sort of thing that she used to say all the time
0:16:01when she was seven and not so much when she's 14.
0:16:05And what ended up happening was she didn't realize you could physically click on the
0:16:09trackpad.
0:16:10So she was moving with the trackpad and then figured she had to press a button.
0:16:15And so I said, "No, no, you can just click, just actually click."
0:16:18And she's like, "Oh, like real click?"
0:16:20And she went, "Click."
0:16:21And she was like, "Okay."
0:16:22And then that was it.
0:16:23They had a great time.
0:16:24And so that was a real world kind of experience where they were able to navigate without any
0:16:30problem and they were playing a lot of music on Apple Music Playlists and things and some
0:16:35music videos too that they watched and they, yeah, they had a great time.
0:16:38And then we did some--we took some pictures, we set up like a photo booth kind of thing
0:16:42in my garage office space, actually.
0:16:45I put up some lights and stuff, and I shared those over iCloud photo sharing, and then
0:16:51we watched those.
0:16:52That was sort of the last part of the party was that they were watching all the--they
0:16:55looked at all the photo booth pictures on the TV, and there was much laughter at the
0:17:00photo booth pictures.
0:17:01And we just kind of kept that running as a screensaver while people picked up their daughters
0:17:07at the end of the day from the party.
0:17:09So yeah, so that was, I would say a positive interaction
0:17:11with the Apple TV.
0:17:13And I've done a couple other things this week with it
0:17:17that let's see, we played "Crossy Road 2 Player"
0:17:21a little bit more and had a good time with that.
0:17:23And yeah, I have had pretty good experiences with it.
0:17:28There's some stuff that, you know,
0:17:31there are apps that I wish were on there
0:17:32that aren't there yet, on there yet.
0:17:34And I haven't used it as much as you would think
0:17:38just because like I said,
0:17:39I usually just watch Netflix through my TiVo at this point
0:17:43because it serves as that.
0:17:45And it runs Plex now too.
0:17:47So I don't really need to go to the Apple TV for that stuff.
0:17:51But yeah, I'd say it's been a perfectly fine experience.
0:17:54The one thing that I would say that,
0:17:56'cause we obviously got a lot of feedback
0:17:57about last week's episode.
0:17:59One of the things that people pointed out is
0:18:02The remote itself is not,
0:18:07how should I put this?
0:18:10It's the remote itself is a rectangle
0:18:12with buttons on it, right?
0:18:13And so it's hard to detect which end is up
0:18:16when you pick it up in the dark,
0:18:17which I think for a remote control,
0:18:19this is the same reason why a pure,
0:18:21like a touch screen interface,
0:18:24where you have to look at the screen
0:18:25is bad for a remote control,
0:18:26because nobody wants to take their eyes off the TV
0:18:30in order to control the remote.
0:18:31Well, the Apple TV doesn't have a screen, so that's good.
0:18:33Good call.
0:18:35But you can lose the orientation where it's not,
0:18:37it's not, it feels symmetric, symmetrical,
0:18:41but somebody pointed out, it's not,
0:18:44the buttons are not, right?
0:18:45There's the, the up-down buttons are connected,
0:18:49the what, the plus minus buttons are connected.
0:18:52And the Siri button is actually concave,
0:18:55a little tiny bit.
0:18:56The problem is this reminds me actually of,
0:19:00it's not quite as bad as the third generation iPod,
0:19:03but if you remember that one with the four buttons across
0:19:05that to orient, 'cause I used to listen to that
0:19:08when I was waiting in my room for my daughter
0:19:11to fall asleep, after I would read the story,
0:19:14she'd want me to stay there until she fell asleep.
0:19:16And I did that for a little while and it was really boring.
0:19:18So I'd have like one earbud in
0:19:20and I'd be sitting there listening to a audio book
0:19:22or music or something.
0:19:23And to orient with that,
0:19:25you had to like move your fingers on the iPod
0:19:28to try and figure out which button it was.
0:19:30but if you touch the button,
0:19:31which was the only way to orient,
0:19:32it would do whatever that button did.
0:19:35It's a really bad design.
0:19:35- Is that the one with the touch sensitive buttons?
0:19:38- Yeah.
0:19:39- Yeah, that's the problem, right?
0:19:40- Yeah, exactly.
0:19:41So I would say that that's the problem with this is yes,
0:19:44if you look at it, you can orient it properly,
0:19:46but by feel,
0:19:47you have to sort of move your fingers across the buttons.
0:19:50And if you accidentally press a button
0:19:52or if you accidentally move your finger across the trackpad,
0:19:55there's some input problems there.
0:19:56But it is true that you can,
0:19:59if you become savvy enough you can detect that really it's like your thumb if your thumb
0:20:04is oriented on the on the up and down button properly you're like okay I've got it in the
0:20:08right direction so it is there it's just really subtle maybe I guess if you were criticizing
0:20:13it you would say maybe a little more subtle than it should be but there is it's not you
0:20:18know it's not identical by feel.
0:20:22So one of my big differences from this time last week is I now have one of the game controllers.
0:20:31So I bought the Steel Nimbus controller.
0:20:35And I would say everybody that I've spoken to about this seems to have vastly different
0:20:39opinions about this controller.
0:20:42I think it's pretty good.
0:20:44The buttons are fine, the D-pad is fine, the analog sticks are a little too concave in
0:20:52the middle for my tastes they kind of they dip in way too much so they're not
0:20:58great to hold on to but the triggers are also really good that it weights pretty
0:21:02well and it gives you just another way to control the UI right the d-pad
0:21:05controls the entire UI of the Apple TV it's better than I expected for some
0:21:11games and it has improved every game I played with it except for Beat Sports
0:21:16because Beat Sports is excellent with the remote you played that yet no I
0:21:22haven't you really need to trust me like if you want a good gaming experience on
0:21:25this device that is it because it's built for the Apple TV remote where
0:21:29others haven't been right they've been ported mainly but the controller really
0:21:33does change the way so many games are played it's better for the four games
0:21:39like altos adventure way better for crossy road right having a d-pad I can
0:21:44click makes it just easy to play and I also found a game called evil Knievel
0:21:49which I had an amazing amount of fun with. You drive is Evil Knievel on motorbikes
0:21:55and jump things and do loops and I was playing it for hours on the Apple TV very
0:22:01happily. I also now have it on my iOS devices. It's a really great game except
0:22:04for one flaw in that it doesn't sync your progress across devices which is
0:22:10kind of weird because it's a universal app on three different devices but it
0:22:13doesn't do it doesn't sync your support. You're like you're saved but I mean
0:22:19it's fine because I enjoy the game enough that I actually don't mind
0:22:23replaying all the levels but it's a really fun game that works really really
0:22:27well and when they showed me the Apple TV remote instructions I was like this
0:22:31would be impossible to play but with the game controller you just use the
0:22:35shoulder buttons to make him flip left and right and to make him go backwards
0:22:38and forwards and I thought it was really good so if you are serious about this
0:22:42like about playing games on the Apple TV I actually think that it is
0:22:46beneficial for sure to pick up one of the remotes and the Steel Nimbus is the
0:22:52one that I have I think it's anyone that's currently available that is at
0:22:55least ordained by Cupertino but it does it does a good enough job I find it and
0:23:02it does make playing games a lot of games a lot better like also geometry
0:23:07wars which is a analog stick game it's a two stick game and I I haven't even
0:23:12tried to play this with the remotes I don't even know how you would do it like
0:23:16the game has been all about two sticks on multiple platforms for a long time
0:23:20and it plays really really well with this thing with the Nimbus
0:23:25controller so I would suggest it but I would also really suggest Evil Can Evil
0:23:30that is my top tip of this week's episode it is a fun fun game that I
0:23:34haven't seen much of elsewhere.
0:23:36Huh interesting yeah I haven't I haven't seen that either but
0:23:40but with a with a controller.
0:23:42Yeah or play it on the iOS devices it's really good
0:23:46on iOS devices. So yeah that's that's kind of where I am with the Apple TV. I
0:23:49haven't spent too much time with it otherwise and just to play some games
0:23:52here and there. Like this was funny so yesterday evening me and my girlfriend
0:23:57were going to watch, we're currently working our way through 30 Rock and
0:24:04we were laying in bed and I said you know I could just we could just watch
0:24:08this on the Apple TV because we're at the point now where we have to buy the
0:24:11seasons from iTunes because only the first three are on Amazon. I was like we
0:24:15can just watch it on the Apple TV." And she's like "Nah." I'm like "Yeah I know." Like it's
0:24:20just at the other side of the room but it's like well that's over there and
0:24:23we've got this we've got the laptop right in front of us like that is our
0:24:26way right that is just our way. And she said you know to me as I've said before
0:24:30like when we've got our own place like we all well it's kind of in the way that
0:24:34we want we'll put the Apple TV on our big TV in the front room and we'd watch
0:24:38it there but at the moment it just makes a lot of sense for us but it did make me
0:24:41think about the fact that the iPad Pro, right, is the same size as my Mac Pro, so
0:24:47maybe that will change in a couple of weeks with the device we're using to watch
0:24:50this stuff on. Yeah, well the iPad Pro is gonna be a, despite its name, it's going
0:24:57to be a great TV. Yes. And movie, and movie watcher, and they know it, which is
0:25:02why they put those four speakers in with the auto-detect, stereo, all of that is
0:25:07because they, you know, this is the story of Apple, we've talked about it before on
0:25:10this show, you make up, you got to learn the lesson that people are going to use your product
0:25:14in all sorts of ways that you didn't intend.
0:25:16And so that's why the selfie camera is better.
0:25:18And that's why the iPad camera is better.
0:25:20Because you know, you might not believe that anyone should take selfies or take pictures
0:25:24with their iPads, but people are going to do it.
0:25:26So you might as well give them a good experience.
0:25:29And this is an example of that where the iPad Pro, no, it's probably not a product that
0:25:34you should target at watching, you know, movie watchers.
0:25:38This is a big screen for watching movies, and yet it's going to be really good for that.
0:25:44And who are we to judge people who buy it just for that?
0:25:47But also keep in mind that pro users watch movies and TV shows too.
0:25:50So it makes... and why would you not watch it on that big beautiful screen if you're
0:25:55not preferring to watch it on a big TV somewhere?
0:25:58So it'll be interesting to see.
0:26:00I am laughing at the fact that you have spent... did you get the big or the small Apple TV?
0:26:05The small.
0:26:06Okay, so you spent the equivalent of about $200 on this product that you were not interested
0:26:11in.
0:26:12Yeah.
0:26:13Okay, because you bought the controller, the $50 controller.
0:26:15Yeah, well, I mean, because I'm more interested in it for games than TV, though, right?
0:26:20That's true.
0:26:21That's always been the way, like, I like to play iOS games at home, so this is a nice
0:26:26way to play iOS games at home.
0:26:27Yeah, that's true.
0:26:28That's a good point.
0:26:29But I still don't care about it enough.
0:26:30Like, I've bought this device so I can talk about it on this show, right?
0:26:34Yeah.
0:26:35I'll be sitting here going,
0:26:36"Jason, what does the Apple TV do?"
0:26:38And it just doesn't feel, to me anyway,
0:26:42considering this is what I do for a living,
0:26:43that doesn't feel professional enough,
0:26:44which is why I put the money down on it.
0:26:46Which is why I'll also be putting
0:26:48an incredible amount of money down on an iPad Pro,
0:26:50because I think I want it, but I don't know if I want it.
0:26:53- Yeah.
0:26:53- And I might return it.
0:26:54We'll come back to that in a minute actually,
0:26:55'cause we finally had the pricing.
0:26:57But I just wanted to touch on this emoji article
0:26:59that you wrote.
0:27:00- Emoji vertical, woo!
0:27:02- I really like this, 'cause you kind of,
0:27:05- Indeed, you kind of surfaced a frustration that I had,
0:27:10but wasn't really 100% sure in how to kind of express it.
0:27:15So you wrote this piece for Macworld,
0:27:17and you're basically talking about how great emoji are,
0:27:20which they are, and all of the new emoji are fantastic.
0:27:23I love them, I love the little nerd face guy,
0:27:25because I had previously been using--
0:27:26- You use them a lot.
0:27:27- I use it all the time.
0:27:28I was previously using the sunglasses guy
0:27:31as a way to represent me,
0:27:33So I would use the little sunglasses guy
0:27:35because he wears glasses, but now I have the nerd face guy
0:27:37and his glasses look like my glasses.
0:27:39So it's like, that is me, I am nerd face guy.
0:27:42So I love all the new emoji,
0:27:44but you have highlighted a problem in this,
0:27:45is as they have added a ton more,
0:27:48they are becoming more and more difficult to find
0:27:51in the Apple list that they have.
0:27:54- Yeah, well, and it's a huge number.
0:27:56It's the 9/1 and 10/11/1 update
0:28:02added another 184 of these.
0:28:05It's funny, in Indianapolis, I spent some time
0:28:08at the release notes conference,
0:28:11the mingle thing afterward, after dinner,
0:28:14talking to Jeremy from Emojipedia.
0:28:16And that was cool because he knows everything about emojis.
0:28:21- You could say his knowledge is almost encyclopedic, right?
0:28:26- Encyclopedic, yes, 184 new symbols.
0:28:30And Apple is the first company to have this cover
0:28:32the whole Unicode standard for emoji, which is cool.
0:28:35And it's not as simple as you'd think.
0:28:37I mentioned this in the article, and I find it fascinating,
0:28:40even if nobody else may, which is emoji,
0:28:43we mentioned on the show, so Upgradients know all about it.
0:28:46Emoji fragmentation, the idea that there is no art
0:28:50that is given to somebody to support emoji.
0:28:53It doesn't work that way.
0:28:54So platform owners and website developers
0:28:58basically need to make their own emoji
0:29:00or rely on the platform of the users,
0:29:04but it'll come down to the platform user.
0:29:06There's no, like Unicode,
0:29:07the Unicode consortium doesn't have a budget
0:29:10and go out to an artist
0:29:12and have an artist come up with the official emoji
0:29:15and then give that away to everybody.
0:29:16None of that happens.
0:29:17In fact, my understanding is that
0:29:20that Emojipedia will sometimes help
0:29:23because Emojipedia likes to mock up
0:29:25potential future emoji.
0:29:26I think that since Jeremy from Emojipedia is on the Unicode emoji subcommittee, which
0:29:32is a great thing to say, the emoji subcommittee, bureaucracy crossed with emojis, what could
0:29:37go wrong?
0:29:39And I think they actually, he's helping them out by having Emojipedia do some mock-ups
0:29:46because I think the Unicode consortium has no ability to do that.
0:29:49They have like little silhouettes of what the emoji are supposed to be, but basically
0:29:53it's incumbent on Apple and Google and Microsoft and Facebook and Twitter and anyone else who
0:29:58wants to do it for their custom for their websites to build this stuff. And so it's
0:30:04a lot of work and Apple has been dedicated. They are paying a designer to come up with
0:30:09this consistent emoji design across iOS and OS X, which is really great. But there are
0:30:16so many of them, and this was what my article was about, that on Mac you can bring up, I
0:30:22I think it's control, command, space.
0:30:25You can bring up a little floating emoji palette.
0:30:28And it's got, and if you scroll up, it's got a search box
0:30:30and you can put in smile
0:30:32and it'll bring up things that have smile in the name.
0:30:34And if you put in Germany,
0:30:36I believe it will show you the German flag
0:30:39and you can click on it so that you insert a German flag
0:30:42when you intend to and not a Belgian flag, which I did once.
0:30:45And this is what started this whole story
0:30:47because I was sleepy.
0:30:48And I realized that on iOS, you can't search for emoji.
0:30:52You've got all 184 new ones and the total number
0:30:56is some ridiculous number of how many?
0:30:59Sixteen, twenty total emoji characters possible?
0:31:04And you can't search for them on iOS.
0:31:05So I think, you know, yes,
0:31:07this is not an earth-shaking subject, it's a fun subject,
0:31:10but emoji are fun and they're easy to type sometimes
0:31:15and it would be nice if Apple,
0:31:18which has been so supportive of the display of them,
0:31:22maybe took a look at better ways to choose them
0:31:27because on iOS especially, it's kind of hard.
0:31:31You get to the flag segment and literally
0:31:32they are alphabetized by their country code.
0:31:35And you end up playing this game where you're like,
0:31:37let's see if there's a flag near the flag that I want
0:31:40that I recognize.
0:31:42And then from there, maybe I can orient
0:31:44and find out if it's alphabetically before or after that.
0:31:47And you have to know the country codes
0:31:48because if you're looking for the German flag,
0:31:50you have to know that that's DE.
0:31:52It's yeah, it could be better.
0:31:55And on the Mac, you know, the Mac one is okay,
0:31:57I ended up using Launch Bar,
0:31:59although there are other sort of text expansion utilities
0:32:02that offer this, but I use Launch Bar
0:32:04because Launch Bar has emoji built into it now.
0:32:06And since I already use Launch Bar,
0:32:09I can type emoji, you know, tab,
0:32:12and then the thing I'm looking for and it'll pop it up.
0:32:14But I feel like the best example of this right now is Slack.
0:32:18Slack does such a great job with emoji.
0:32:20Not only do they have a good picker,
0:32:22but they have a shortcut that searches the emoji dictionary.
0:32:25So if you type a colon and start typing something
0:32:28after the colon, it will auto-complete a bunch of options
0:32:32for other emojis that you could pick.
0:32:34And my gut feeling is that something like that
0:32:37might be the way for Apple to do it on iOS,
0:32:39is a button somewhere,
0:32:40not just switch to the emoji keyboard and good luck,
0:32:43but like an emoji button on the regular keyboard,
0:32:46or I don't know, I'm not a UX designer,
0:32:48but something that lets you very quickly go,
0:32:50I want a smiley here and it shows you smileys
0:32:53and you go to that one,
0:32:54or I want a flag here and it shows you flags,
0:32:56or I want the German flag.
0:32:58I know the code for that and it auto-completes to that.
0:33:00So I would like that part to be better.
0:33:02That's what the article's about.
0:33:04- Yeah, there's a few things about this.
0:33:06One, talking about Slack,
0:33:08never ever would I have imagined
0:33:10that the emoji reactions feature that they have
0:33:13would have actually caught on.
0:33:15I really love using that, which is where you can add an emoji to a line of text.
0:33:20So somebody says something and you can react by just adding an emoji to it.
0:33:25We use that a lot, right?
0:33:26We – yeah.
0:33:27Yeah, absolutely.
0:33:28I love that.
0:33:29That was a surprise to me.
0:33:30I wouldn't have necessarily considered that that would have actually been something that
0:33:33we continued to use, but it's fun.
0:33:37I think that – I believe that Apple will help surface the emoji via search or something
0:33:43on iOS in the future, but the reason they haven't yet is because this has only really
0:33:48become a problem with 9.1.
0:33:50Well, it does, it does, it certainly exacerbates the existing problem.
0:33:55Well they added so many in one time.
0:33:58Well 9.0 added a lot of them too, right?
0:34:01So this is, they've actually added a lot of emoji symbols very quickly in the last few
0:34:06months.
0:34:07By the way, Jeremy, since he's on the committee, pointed out to me that their goal is I think
0:34:11to only add about 60, only 60 a year. So this is only going to get worse, although they're
0:34:17not going to drop 180 at once like happened in 9.1. He says that the spec, they're shooting
0:34:24for about 60 a year.
0:34:26Right, okay. Well, we'll see. I mean, I expect that there will be some differences. I mean,
0:34:31you know, some different tools.
0:34:32Yeah, it's fun. On the Mac, there are lots of options. And on iOS, we should say, there
0:34:37are some custom keyboards. Actually, Apple's keyboard for Chinese input, I believe, auto-suggests
0:34:46emoji. And it may on some other keyboards, but somebody sent me a screenshot. The problem
0:34:50is you need to know the Chinese characters to get to that point. And there are custom
0:34:56keyboards that do a better job and have searchable emoji. And there's, in fact, Emojipedia, there's
0:35:03a link in our notes to this because you put it in there. Emojipedia makes an app that
0:35:06that I believe just shows you all the flags.
0:35:09- Yeah, they worked with Quartz, the news agency,
0:35:12to create an emoji flag search keyboard.
0:35:17- Yeah, so there's some options out there and they're good.
0:35:21And like I said, I'm using Launch Bar on the Mac.
0:35:23You could set up your favorite emoji in TextExpander,
0:35:26I mean, there's so many different ways you could do it,
0:35:28but it would be nice.
0:35:30I think this could be something,
0:35:33the delight, I'll put it this way,
0:35:34'Cause this isn't even, it's the positive show, right?
0:35:38This isn't even a criticism of where Apple is,
0:35:39so much as to say, I didn't realize how great it was
0:35:43to have easy access to emoji until I used Slack more.
0:35:48And I saw how Slack had said, you know what?
0:35:50Emoji is kind of part of the parlance
0:35:53of online conversation.
0:35:55And if we make it easy for people to use it,
0:35:57they'll use it more and that'll make
0:35:59the conversations richer.
0:36:00And I agree with that.
0:36:01I feel like that was a smart move on their part.
0:36:04I think they're right.
0:36:05As silly as emoji, I heard from somebody this week
0:36:08who said basically, what are you 12?
0:36:11No adults should use emoji.
0:36:12And it's like, well, I disagree.
0:36:15No adults should use emoticons.
0:36:16No adults should use LOL.
0:36:19You know, okay, you can say that.
0:36:21I will get off your lawn, sir.
0:36:22But I think it adds to the richness of the conversation
0:36:26and is fun to boot.
0:36:28And once I saw how Slack did it,
0:36:31where I was auto-completing into emoji
0:36:34and I was starting to think in terms of,
0:36:36well, if I want the German flag, that's flag DE.
0:36:39I know what to type to get it.
0:36:41Once that happened, or is there a snowman?
0:36:46And you do, you know, colon S-N-O-W and you realize,
0:36:49oh my God, there's a snowflake and there are two snowmen now.
0:36:52Oh, it's crazy.
0:36:53It opened up a lot of thinking
0:36:59what could be done with emoji input that I hadn't thought of before. And that's my point
0:37:03here is that having seen that, I look at that and I look at how it currently works on iOS
0:37:09and even on the Mac, and I think there's an opportunity there, especially on iOS, for
0:37:13better emoji input, and that would make everybody's online conversations a little more fun. So,
0:37:21you know, it's an area I think that Apple could add a lot of richness to iOS, especially
0:37:28if they if they put a little more emphasis on emoji input. It's silly. It is silly. It
0:37:34is not going to change the world but but Myke you know you have to admit I mean in the slack
0:37:39channel that we share and in the other slack channels that I'm into the emoji are like
0:37:44part of the they make everything funnier and better and and I think I think richer.
0:37:50>>I agree.
0:37:51>>Whether it's whether it's just in the conversations or those emoji reactions which are also hilarious.
0:37:55Merlin Mann does not agree, so if you would like to hear Merlin's view on this, listen
0:38:00to episode 13 of Reconcilable Differences.
0:38:03Of which whilst I was editing, I was shouting at Logic back at him.
0:38:09It's a fun episode, especially because John really kind of parades Merlin around in this
0:38:17episode to make him kind of the worst he can be.
0:38:20It's a fun one for us to do.
0:38:21I should also mention when talking about Slack
0:38:24that another feature that I like 11 Slack
0:38:26that is not applicable to this conversation,
0:38:29but I wanna mention it is Slack is also great
0:38:31because they let you make your own emoji.
0:38:33- Yeah.
0:38:34- And that makes that also fills me with delight.
0:38:37We have a, in the incomparable chat room,
0:38:38we have a Skeletor emoji.
0:38:40It is fantastic.
0:38:43And you know, it's fun stuff.
0:38:45It's no different than expressing yourself with,
0:38:49like I said, emoticons or animated GIFs
0:38:51or acronyms or any other kind of nerd code speak that's been going on since the beginning
0:38:57of the internet. This is just, it's pretty visual and fun and I like it.
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0:40:30So we found out today as we are recording, which is Monday the 9th of November 2015,
0:40:37the iPad Pro will go on sale on Wednesday the 11th.
0:40:42- Wednesday, yes.
0:40:43- Online and there will be stock in stores later this week.
0:40:47So right there probably-- - Later this week.
0:40:49I love that.
0:40:50That's like, might be Thursday, probably not.
0:40:51Might be Friday, probably.
0:40:53Some places if you don't get a Friday,
0:40:54Saturday is still part of the week.
0:40:56- I expect it's like,
0:40:57'cause it's just depending on the store, right?
0:40:59I bet some stores will have them on Wednesday.
0:41:01- Yeah, if I had to bet,
0:41:03I would say they'll have them Friday.
0:41:05and then some of them will get them Saturday.
0:41:08If I had to guess, that would be my guess,
0:41:10that they won't, that there'll be a gap there.
0:41:12But you're right, it could be.
0:41:14It could be that when they open sales on Wednesday,
0:41:16they're already in some stores, entirely possible.
0:41:19- So I will be logging on on Wednesday
0:41:23to see if I can try and maybe reserve one
0:41:25for an in-store pickup,
0:41:26because that's what I like to do these days.
0:41:29I hate waiting at home for these things.
0:41:30Otherwise, I'll just be popping down to a store
0:41:32later on in the week.
0:41:33I finally, as of today, have the pricing information
0:41:38that I've been waiting for.
0:41:39This is the first time that any pricing
0:41:42has been released outside of the US.
0:41:45So I will be able to get the 32 gigabyte model
0:41:50for 679 pounds, that is Wi-Fi,
0:41:54and it goes up to 899 for the Wi-Fi and cellular 128 gig.
0:41:59Doesn't have the pricing for the 128 Wi-Fi,
0:42:02But I can assume that that will probably be in the 700 pound range.
0:42:06It's whatever they usually add on for the cellular version, I would imagine.
0:42:10In the US, it's always whatever it is.
0:42:13Good point.
0:42:14So I can just see what that amount is and just reduce it from the 879, from the 899
0:42:19figure.
0:42:20So it's probably around 750, 760, something like that.
0:42:23The Apple Pencil will be available for £79 and the Smart Keyboard available in charcoal
0:42:29grey for £139. It's gonna be an expensive week again. Well, so what did you say? The
0:42:39base model is £679? Mm-hmm. Wow. You are really getting it in the wallet there. That's
0:42:48a thousand dollars US. This is the usual pricing. For the £799 model. So that's two hundred
0:42:5726 equivalent dollars more than it is in the US. That's what the VAT would do to
0:43:05you. Wow. If you remember all of our sales tax is included in the price right?
0:43:10Oh well that's true. That's worth remembering. That's true because then
0:43:15then I will have to add it in but but $7.99 is is is $5.29. Yeah. And and you're
0:43:22paying a lot more than that. I have some friends who are visiting London they've
0:43:25been there this last week, I think they're going home soon, but one of them said, had
0:43:29a tweet who they said, "London is great, let's live here," looks at rental prices.
0:43:36Well, got to go back to work, back home in Canada, because yeah, things can be expensive
0:43:43there.
0:43:44But although you're right, you've got inclusive tax in the prices where we have the hidden
0:43:49secret surprise taxes that just appear, yay.
0:43:52So even though the products are more expensive here anyway, at least the tax is included
0:43:57which means we don't have like sticker shock at the checkout.
0:44:00Well also Apple is, and this has come up on past shows and I wrote about it at Six Colors
0:44:05too, Apple is also I think anticipating a strong dollar continuing and they want to
0:44:11have the stronger the dollar gets the smaller their margins get so I think that's part of
0:44:17it too is that they're pricing based on what they think the currency markets are going
0:44:22gonna do but still that's uh yeah that's pricey you're gonna you're gonna be
0:44:26spending a lot of money on are you gonna get the 32 are you gonna get the 128 or
0:44:30you're gonna go with 128 cellular I'm gonna have to go 128 because if I think
0:44:34I'm seriously gonna use this device 32 is ludicrous all right I will probably
0:44:40go Wi-Fi because I just tether you know I'm fine doing that with my current
0:44:49iPad. I always have my iPhone with me. I can just tether. So that's
0:44:53probably what I'll do. But I'll also be going in for the pencil and
0:44:58the keyboard because I want the full experience. So there's been
0:45:03some stuff today, some press today like Eddy Cue did a kind of half-hearted demo
0:45:08to CNN Money which there's just been a few little bits and bobs flying around
0:45:14today. It looks like the executives are in full PR force right now because I saw
0:45:20like Tim Cook is somewhere in London doing something and I think he was
0:45:24presenting to someone from the press as well today. So they're doing what
0:45:28seems to be the usual now for a product launch right? They're making themselves
0:45:31very visible around this period of time. So I wanted to just bring this up
0:45:36because it's a little bit of news but I wanted to kind of talk a little bit
0:45:39about the iPad and how we're both using them now because me and you both are
0:45:44upgraded to the Air 2 after WWDC right because we have to take advantage of all the iOS 9
0:45:49iPad related features. So are you still continuing to use the Air 2 if you switch back to the
0:45:55Mini like where are you currently on this spectrum? I am using the Air 2. I haven't
0:46:03gone back to the Mini. I still have my Mini 2 is still in a drawer and because I don't
0:46:09know I keep feeling like I'm going to go back and look at it and and consider it again.
0:46:13I'm actually working on a story that will probably not be out for a couple of weeks,
0:46:16which is sort of like a survey of all the iPad models for Macworld.
0:46:21They do this every year and now as a freelancer it's nice when they're like, "Hey, we'll pay
0:46:24you to do this story that you used to write for free in your spare time when you worked
0:46:29here."
0:46:30So I'm thinking about this a lot.
0:46:32The Air 2, or the Mini 2…
0:46:34When you say a survey, what does that mean?
0:46:36Oh, just like an overview.
0:46:39I'm going to write about every single available iPad and basically say sort of like which
0:46:42one is right for which person. Okay like a buyer's guide. It is a buyer's guide, exactly.
0:46:49So the mini, my mini 2, I love it when I pick it up I think oh it's so light and small and
0:46:55great but as I you know as I discovered in the last year I'm really feeling the fact
0:47:04that I am on the precipice of needing reading glasses at 45 years old and I fought it as
0:47:11as long as I could.
0:47:12- You got fought.
0:47:13- It's gonna, but it's gonna happen.
0:47:15I mean, I've got the long because I'm nearsighted.
0:47:18So I've got the, I've been wearing glasses since I was 18,
0:47:21but now I'm gonna have to do that.
0:47:25And the iPad Air 2 just has as many pixels as the mini does,
0:47:30but they're bigger and spread out over a larger distance.
0:47:35And when you're getting old and your eyes are going bad,
0:47:39it's nicer for it to be bigger.
0:47:41And I read, I do things like read comics on it.
0:47:43And I don't, so I'm fully kind of committed to the Air 2
0:47:48as much as I like the size of the Mini.
0:47:49And every time I pick it up, I think, oh, you're so nice.
0:47:52I just, I think the Air 2 is that big screen.
0:47:57And it is more powerful than the Mini 2,
0:48:00certainly let alone the Mini 4 that's out now.
0:48:03That one is more powerful,
0:48:05but it's still not as powerful as the Air 2,
0:48:07is my understanding.
0:48:08So, you know, it's, I love the Mini, it's really cool,
0:48:13and I would use it if, and love it,
0:48:16if I didn't have the Air 2,
0:48:17but the Air 2 is just that much more, you know, bigger.
0:48:21It's all about the screen size.
0:48:22- So, are you finding yourself in a situation
0:48:28where you're taking advantage of the multitasking features
0:48:31and stuff like that?
0:48:32Do you find them, like, do you use them seriously,
0:48:34or do you use them as like a novel thing?
0:48:37- Well, the way I use my iPad,
0:48:39the multitasking features don't get used very much.
0:48:42- Okay.
0:48:42- I have those moments.
0:48:44One of the ways you fight,
0:48:46especially when you're writing,
0:48:49'cause doing podcast stuff you kind of need equipment for,
0:48:52but when you're writing,
0:48:54one of the ways you fight that kind of sluggish time
0:48:57when you fight the TDM of like,
0:49:00you're staring at the cursor
0:49:01and you know you need to write something,
0:49:02and I'm not gonna call it writer's block
0:49:04'cause I think writer's block is not a thing.
0:49:05I think there's lots of different things
0:49:07that make you not be able to write
0:49:08that get rolled up into writer's block
0:49:09and it becomes this legend.
0:49:11But it's more like you're just staring at the screen
0:49:12and like, I need to change what I'm doing here.
0:49:16Sometimes I will take, like in the summer,
0:49:17I'll take my laptop and I'll sit outside
0:49:20and I'll try to write outside
0:49:21because staring at the screen in the office isn't working.
0:49:23Let's try to change the location.
0:49:25And sometimes I'll do that with the iPad,
0:49:26either on the keyboard or I'll get out the Bluetooth keyboard
0:49:30and I'll go set it up at the dining room table
0:49:32and try that as a different kind of experience.
0:49:36and sometimes the iPad is a very nice focused experience.
0:49:39But most of the ways that I use the iPad day to day
0:49:43are not that, you know,
0:49:44and so I don't use the multitasking features very much.
0:49:46I don't even use slide over.
0:49:48I think I forget that slide over exists
0:49:50until I'm trying to go forward in Safari
0:49:54and I use that gesture to go forward
0:49:55that doesn't do that anymore
0:49:56because it's the slide over gesture
0:49:58and I need to press the forward button instead.
0:50:00So I don't use it that much.
0:50:03Mostly what I'm using is,
0:50:06Ideally, when I leave the office at the end of the day,
0:50:09or if I'm taking a lunch break or whatever,
0:50:12I have a big iMac here, it doesn't come with me.
0:50:14I have a laptop, but it just stays docked behind me
0:50:17most of the time.
0:50:19The iPad is what I'm using in the house.
0:50:23That's my thing, my connection to the internet
0:50:25is that iPad.
0:50:27That's how I use it.
0:50:28- You mean when you're not in the office?
0:50:30- When I'm not in the office.
0:50:31When I'm in the rest of the house.
0:50:34That's how I'm using it.
0:50:35And so for me, you know, there are moments where I'm like,
0:50:39oh, I should split screen this and use it.
0:50:42But most of the time I don't,
0:50:43'cause most of the time it's, especially on that screen,
0:50:45this is something I'm looking forward
0:50:46to trying in the iPad Pro.
0:50:48Even on the Air 2 screen, you know,
0:50:51a split view with two apps, it feels a little crowded.
0:50:54It feels a little cramped.
0:50:56I could put Slack on one side and Twitter on the other
0:50:59or something like that, and I have done that,
0:51:01but it feels kind of cramped
0:51:04and it's actually easier just to have both of them open
0:51:06and just swipe between them.
0:51:08So I usually just do that.
0:51:10So, you know, I'm not using those features a lot,
0:51:12but I do use my iPad all the time.
0:51:14And I love it because it is fulfilling
0:51:17the space that a laptop used to take in my life,
0:51:22where I would have a laptop on the dining,
0:51:24or in the like the living room, like the coffee table,
0:51:27just so that I could flip it open
0:51:28and look at something on the internet.
0:51:30And it's nice to not have to worry about that.
0:51:32and the iPad does that instead.
0:51:35- No, I definitely use the split view stuff all the time.
0:51:38I love it.
0:51:39It's the thing that makes the iPad
0:51:41a useful tool for me again, because--
0:51:42- So what are you pairing?
0:51:43What are you splitting?
0:51:45- So quite a lot of the time,
0:51:48I might be doing something
0:51:50and then maybe an email will come in or something like that
0:51:53and I will slide over Outlook and take a look at it.
0:51:58I may then turn it into a multi-pane view to look at something in Chrome and bring it
0:52:06in.
0:52:07Say for example somebody wants to buy some sponsorships, I can bring up our sponsorship
0:52:11calendar in Chrome and take a look at it there and compare to see what's available and then
0:52:16I can go flick back over and look into, well I can just tap into Outlook on the right side
0:52:22or whatever and reply to it.
0:52:24If I'm on Twitter, if I'm in Tweetbot, I usually will have something like Slack Open as well,
0:52:29just because they kind of just go together for me, because they're both just kind of
0:52:32like goofing off type stuff.
0:52:37There are still some apps that need Split View support for me, like the Google Drive
0:52:41apps, and when I have those as well, it will go to a whole other level, where I'll be combining
0:52:48Notes and Google Drive to do show preparation.
0:52:51currently do that but I'm like flicking over into the multitasking view and
0:52:55going back or I'm using notes in slide over and then I go back into drive and
0:52:59then I slide over notes again and go back into drive. So I see only for me a
0:53:05continuation of my use of this feature as time goes on in all honesty.
0:53:11I feel like it is after having used it for a while now I feel like the next
0:53:17logical step for it is a little less maintenance if that makes sense like one
0:53:22of the problems I have with it is it doesn't always do what I what I kind of
0:53:28I've realized I want it to do and again as a first iteration I think it's fine
0:53:33but you know obviously there are things like the list of multitasking available
0:53:37apps that that you you see in the slide over is not sustainable with a large
0:53:43number of apps on your device. That is an elegant view. Yeah, and then the other
0:53:47thing I would say is I kind of want and how you make this work with gestures and
0:53:53have it be something that regular users can understand I don't know but I find
0:53:57myself wanting pairs of apps to live together and so... I feel the same, yeah, so
0:54:03I press one icon and have two apps launch. Yeah, like if it knows that when I
0:54:07have a Tweetbot or Twitterrific open I want Slack to be with it or when I have
0:54:11Slack open, I want a Twitter client to be with it, whatever my choice is, that when
0:54:16I'm in the home screen and I tap on Slack, that it open in the split view with the app
0:54:22that goes with it.
0:54:23But if I have some other app, I have Safari open, it knows that, well, Safari is open
0:54:29with Notes.
0:54:31And so I will open Safari with Notes.
0:54:33And right now it doesn't do that.
0:54:35It sort of like you set the sidebar item, whether it's slide over or split view, that
0:54:40the right hand side item, and that's the app that opens
0:54:43with whatever app you open.
0:54:46And again, makes sense for a first crack at it,
0:54:49but I find myself wanting context there.
0:54:51I find myself wanting these apps to know who their buddy is
0:54:55and bring the buddy along.
0:54:56Come on, buddy.
0:54:57It's time for us to open up.
0:54:58Both the apps are gonna open up
0:54:59and that doesn't happen right now.
0:55:01- Yeah, I think that would be nice.
0:55:03I think that is, you know,
0:55:06I would love to see an app like Workflow
0:55:08have the ability to do something like that, right?
0:55:10Like you create a custom icon that you hit
0:55:12and it opens the two apps together.
0:55:14- Oh yeah, that'd be nice.
0:55:15- But it can't, right?
0:55:16There's no way it could do that right now.
0:55:17- No, it's gonna have to be a system thing.
0:55:21The other thing I would say is,
0:55:23with the work that Apple's done on proactive stuff
0:55:26in iOS 9, especially, I think you see that on the iPhone,
0:55:30I would love to see a proactive list of suggestions
0:55:37of apps for the sidebar, right?
0:55:40So it could actually make a good guess
0:55:43about what app you probably want to load.
0:55:44- Yeah, as opposed to just time-based.
0:55:47Be like, oh, well, when you have this open,
0:55:49you usually want this open.
0:55:51- Yeah, and have it be,
0:55:53even if it doesn't select it for you automatically
0:55:55to have it be a suggestion at the very top,
0:55:57because those can work pretty well.
0:55:58I'm shocked when I switch to the proactive view and go,
0:56:01oh, there it is, that's the app I wanted.
0:56:04It doesn't always happen,
0:56:05but it happens more than I thought it would.
0:56:07So, you know, these are other directions,
0:56:10but for me, that I think it actually does limit my use
0:56:14of Split View because I feel like once I'm in Split View,
0:56:17I'm also committing that I have to do maintenance
0:56:19on Split View, I need to, then I load another app later
0:56:22and I'm like, oh, I still had Split View,
0:56:23I've got to close that out,
0:56:24or I need to change apps or something like that.
0:56:26And I'd like it to be, I'd like it to just be less work.
0:56:30I'd like it to sort of, again,
0:56:32how you do this is an open question
0:56:34and what encumbrance you add on top
0:56:36to get this stuff to be set up that way,
0:56:37I think is an open question.
0:56:39And it's a challenge for whoever is designing
0:56:42that feature at Apple.
0:56:42But wouldn't it be nice if I know that this app,
0:56:46I always wanna open full screen,
0:56:47but this app, I always wanna open
0:56:49with this other app next to it.
0:56:51That would be cool.
0:56:52- Let's see how the, or if the iPad Pro will change
0:56:55your opinion at least on the split view, right?
0:56:58The more real estate may help that.
0:57:00- Just more room.
0:57:01Oh, that's gonna be, more room will be huge.
0:57:03- Yeah.
0:57:04- So we'll see, I'm becoming more and more excited
0:57:07about the thought of it,
0:57:08just because of how much I'm using the Air,
0:57:11but I don't know how I would feel about the bigger device,
0:57:14right, the added weight, the added size,
0:57:16like all of those things,
0:57:17all of the unanswered questions that make me consider
0:57:21how good the potential functionality could be
0:57:24when compared to the adding on
0:57:27of the rest of the device, right?
0:57:29- Well, I can't wait.
0:57:30I mean, not only will we be able to get them this week,
0:57:32but presumably there's a whole set of embargo reviewers
0:57:36out there who are getting ready to drop
0:57:37their reviews this week.
0:57:38So there'll be a lot to read,
0:57:40there'll be lots of things to order and spend money on,
0:57:42and then there'll be products.
0:57:43So it's an exciting week.
0:57:44It's iPad, I think I did a post on Six Colors today
0:57:47that was basically, "Hey, it's iPad Pro week."
0:57:49It turns out, Apple released a press release that says,
0:57:51"iPad Pro, this is the week we are excited about it."
0:57:55So hopefully next week will be the week
0:57:56where we get to talk about it on upgrade.
0:57:58That should be a lot of fun.
0:58:00- Yeah, this is relentless, right?
0:58:03- This is the last one, I think,
0:58:05but it has been quite a,
0:58:07the fallout from that September 9th event,
0:58:09which is we've got a lot of products to show you
0:58:11and then we're gonna be dropping them
0:58:12over the course of the next two months,
0:58:14'cause it's two months today since that event.
0:58:17It's been busy, they've been busy,
0:58:21and so we've all been busy, and it's good.
0:58:24But I feel like this is probably the last one
0:58:26until next year.
0:58:28- Yeah, there's nothing else, right?
0:58:29- Yeah, there's nothing else from that event.
0:58:31- Nothing promised, no.
0:58:33I mean, they could call me up next week and say,
0:58:37"Hey, we got something new, come on down and visit us."
0:58:39But I think it's unlikely.
0:58:41- I hope so.
0:58:41- I think they've got some Christmas shopping to do
0:58:43and they're done.
0:58:45- This has been like a season
0:58:47that I don't think there's ever been before,
0:58:49like product release-wise.
0:58:50- Actually, okay, so I think it's the most,
0:58:53that's the most we've seen in a while.
0:58:55But there was a year, and I can't remember what year it was.
0:58:58And my colleagues at Macworld will back me up on this
0:59:01from back in the day.
0:59:02There was a year where the first, the Tuesday,
0:59:07every Tuesday there was an Apple product announcement
0:59:11for like 12 straight weeks, 15 straight weeks.
0:59:15Some of them were minor, some of them were major,
0:59:18but there was something.
0:59:19There would be like an iLife rollout
0:59:20and then there'd be a new iPod
0:59:22and then there'd be a new laptop
0:59:23and then there'd be an update to Final Cut Pro.
0:59:27And there was, there was, and I talked to Apple PR
0:59:29at the time about it, and they're like, yep, well,
0:59:31this is, somebody obviously said,
0:59:33what if we were just in the news forever?
0:59:34And everything we did, we just dripped it out
0:59:36one at a time.
0:59:37And that was exhausting.
0:59:39It was a lot of fun.
0:59:40And when you're doing a monthly magazine,
0:59:42I have always said to the people at Apple,
0:59:44at Apple PR, when I was at Macworld,
0:59:46I would always say to them, you know,
0:59:48one really awesome looking new Apple product
0:59:50every month works for us.
0:59:53It's like, that is great.
0:59:55'cause there's nothing better than putting a new Apple product
0:59:58on the cover of a computer magazine.
0:59:59It was always the best thing you could do.
1:00:02So they did that for a while, and then there was one Tuesday
1:00:04where it was like, "No PR?"
1:00:06And it's like, "Let's call Apple PR, see if they're okay."
1:00:08And they're like, "Yeah, that, it's done, it's over."
1:00:11But they did it.
1:00:12This is the biggest one I can remember since then
1:00:14where there's been a real march of products over time.
1:00:17But they did do that kind of masochistic
1:00:19product rollout one time, where it was like three months
1:00:21where there was something new every week.
1:00:23It was crazy.
1:00:25I would really love it if you could follow up on what that time was and what the products
1:00:31were.
1:00:32I'll look into it.
1:00:33I'll look at the Apple PR archive.
1:00:34I would really like to know that now.
1:00:35But it was a crazy time.
1:00:37We could maybe go back in time, right?
1:00:39And we could do each one.
1:00:41Little historical upgrade.
1:00:42Yeah, that sounds like fun.
1:00:44Alright, I think it's time for Ask Upgrade.
1:00:46I think so.
1:00:47Jason, could you please thank our Ask Upgrade sponsor for this week?
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1:02:41(imitates laser)
1:02:44- First question comes from Jimmy.
1:02:46- For Christmas I need real lasers.
1:02:48- We can look into that.
1:02:49- We saw, I'll give you some laser sound effects
1:02:52Christmas maybe. Jimmy had a question for me this week. Jimmy would like to know
1:02:57what case I use for my iPhone. So Jimmy let me tell you because Jimmy's just
1:03:04joined the plus Club the only the only good club to be a part of of course and
1:03:09#MykeWasRight. And the case that I use is just the Apple silicon case. I'm very happy with
1:03:15the Apple silicon case it does a good job. It's maybe a little bit bulkier than
1:03:19I would like at times but I like colors and I like the grip and it has the Apple
1:03:23logo on it which is nice so I think it does a really good job and it's the case
1:03:29that I like to use. Nice and simple. All right. Do you use a case? Good for you. I bet you don't, right?
1:03:36I have the leather, I have the Apple leather case it's the same one that I
1:03:41had on the 6 that I've just moved over to the 6s and it fits slightly more
1:03:47snuggly on it but it still fits and I like it because it adds that extra
1:03:51grippiness to it and so I've gotten used to it it's the first case that I have
1:03:54used in an extended way over my entire lifetime of iPhone ownership but I like
1:04:01it's just the black leather Apple case. Now Vic has a question for you.
1:04:06Vic wanted to clarify something from last week's episode and Vic asked "Did I
1:04:11hear correctly that you said that Apple would not intend to support the iOS
1:04:15remote app on the new Apple TV. That is a quote that you said you were told from
1:04:20the the mouth of Apple PR to your ears.
1:04:24Well, from a guy. So what happens at these Apple
1:04:27events is it's every device that's out there and there are lots of
1:04:32them that's being demoed, there's an Apple employee with it that's sort of
1:04:35its minder and those are Apple employees they can't all be Apple PR and marketing
1:04:40people because they don't have that many of them or maybe it's marketing people
1:04:45people, but it's not just the Apple PR team.
1:04:47It's a lot of other Apple employees.
1:04:48They are often not people you've met before.
1:04:51You don't know their names.
1:04:52They don't wear name tags.
1:04:53They don't identify who they are,
1:04:54but they've all been trained to say basically
1:04:57the same things, what to demo, what not to demo,
1:04:59what not, what to allow you to do,
1:05:01what to not allow you to do.
1:05:03It's all pretty well-trained.
1:05:04And my story is that when I asked him about the remote app,
1:05:07this guy who I didn't, I don't think I knew,
1:05:10if I'm recalling correctly, said that they weren't,
1:05:14I expected him to be non-committal about the remote app.
1:05:16And he said, when I said, you know,
1:05:18are you going to be able to use the remote app?
1:05:20The answer was no.
1:05:20And I was like, well, that's weird.
1:05:22And interestingly specific.
1:05:24And I just filed it away
1:05:25and didn't really think about it much more
1:05:27until the Apple TV shipped and it wasn't there.
1:05:30So I, that's a, they pronounce it from some guy
1:05:35who is an Apple person who was trained.
1:05:37It could very easily have been a misstatement.
1:05:39The fact is that remote app hasn't been updated.
1:05:42It doesn't mean that there isn't a new Apple TV app coming
1:05:45that is more fully functional than that remote app,
1:05:48which is, if I'm being honest, kind of showing its years.
1:05:51It was built to control iTunes on a Mac,
1:05:53basically, a long time ago.
1:05:55And it's, you know,
1:05:58they could probably build something new that's better,
1:06:01or they could retrofit it if they wanted to,
1:06:03but it wouldn't shock me if there was just an Apple TV app
1:06:05that came out at some point.
1:06:06I'm surprised that it's not out now,
1:06:08and that there isn't a way to more easily input
1:06:12things like text and maybe even use to emulate
1:06:15the Apple remote on the Apple TV.
1:06:19Also the Apple TV only supports one Apple remote right now,
1:06:22which I wonder about for game reasons and things like that.
1:06:26Maybe there's a software reason why it's not doing it yet.
1:06:28So there may be software updates
1:06:29for the Apple TV to come as well.
1:06:31But certainly it would be nice to have the ability
1:06:35to remote control that Apple TV from an iOS device.
1:06:38I can't believe that there isn't something in the works,
1:06:41but the person told me no, flatly, when I asked,
1:06:46and that has been borne out in the sense that
1:06:49we're a week out with this product now,
1:06:50and that app hasn't been updated since April.
1:06:53- Pascal has shared a wish,
1:06:55kind of from the Apple TV to iOS.
1:06:59How great it would be for universal search for content
1:07:02in the same way that you can use the Apple TV.
1:07:05So for example, "Hey Siri, play this song in Spotify."
1:07:08Or like, you know, "Hey Siri, play this song,"
1:07:11and it shows you the available places
1:07:12that you can grab it from.
1:07:14Do you think that this is something
1:07:15that you would be interested in?
1:07:17I guess Spotlight goes some of the way by indexing content,
1:07:21but it's a little bit different as like searching
1:07:23for something that you don't know that you have, right?
1:07:25And it's showing you, or you can watch it on Netflix
1:07:27or iTunes or Hulu or...
1:07:29Would you wanna see that on iOS?
1:07:31Yeah, I mean, this is all the stuff, I don't know, it's weird, the Siri stuff and the Spotlight
1:07:40stuff, it's all kind of mixed around, and you would like to see it all kind of intermingle,
1:07:45right?
1:07:46I think it would be great to have the books, I mean, apps can contribute to Spotlight on
1:07:55iOS though, right?
1:07:56They can do that now, they can contribute to the Index.
1:07:59I'm not sure whether Spotify is or an app like it is capable of say downloading the
1:08:05entire Spotify library of strings for all the songs and putting that in spotlight because
1:08:11it may make there may be limitations on that and it might make your phone explode.
1:08:17But yeah the more the more of this stuff the better it would be great to be able to ask
1:08:22Siri about a song or an album and have it say here you know here it is on Apple Music
1:08:27or you're not logged into Apple Music but Spotify has it or whatever and I think we'll
1:08:31probably get there.
1:08:34Next up we have a question from Rob.
1:08:36What apps are you hoping will come to the Apple TV?
1:08:40For me I really struggled with this question so I just thought about a couple of the things
1:08:44that I really like that I kind of wish were there already.
1:08:47One of them is 3s.
1:08:48I think 3s would work really really nicely on the Apple TV.
1:08:51Like the remote, like the touchpad on the remote is kind of built for a game like 3s
1:08:55really.
1:08:56And I would also like to see Overcast on the Apple TV as well.
1:09:02I'm gonna say Overcast, I agree with podcast apps in general.
1:09:06There's an opportunity there, Apple's podcast app isn't there.
1:09:11Amazon video.
1:09:12Yeah, I didn't even think of that one.
1:09:14I didn't want it there.
1:09:15I mean, but yeah, of course.
1:09:16I think I kind of just wrote it off in my brain.
1:09:19Spotify?
1:09:20Yep.
1:09:22There isn't a Spotify app for Apple TV yet, is there?
1:09:24is Apple Music for my sins. So Jamie uses Spotify, my daughter uses Spotify, and at
1:09:34her birthday party that would have made it much easier because she's got her
1:09:36playlist and everything like that. And she insists on using Spotify even
1:09:40though it's the unpaid Spotify with ads and low quality, even though I
1:09:45have Apple Music, she has access to Apple Music. I don't understand it, but
1:09:50There's kids today. What are you gonna do?
1:09:52- Yeah, they really should. - Get off my lawn.
1:09:54My lawn is dead. There's no water.
1:09:56There's no lawn anymore.
1:09:57So something like status board and other stuff like that
1:10:02that turns your TV into kind of like an information hub,
1:10:04I think would be interesting.
1:10:06I'm not quite sure how you would architect
1:10:09some of that stuff, but I would like to see it.
1:10:11You know, their favorite games, you mentioned threes.
1:10:15I think that's a good example.
1:10:16Other fun games would be nice to see,
1:10:20but those are the two that I think of as, you know, something like a podcast
1:10:24app, something like Status Board from Panic, and yeah, other media stuff
1:10:30like Amazon and Spotify just to load that up with every media option that
1:10:34you could possibly imagine.
1:10:36Tristan has asked, "Any chance of Apple releasing an iPad Air 3
1:10:41within the next few months?" Tristan says, "I want an iPad Air, but I don't like that
1:10:46it's last-gen technology."
1:10:48The last gen technology thing is quite interesting because it's kind of not last gen.
1:10:55It was always extremely overpowered, the iPad Air 2.
1:10:59So it's kind of current gen.
1:11:01Right.
1:11:02Yeah, well, the shipping of the iPad Pro will mean that the iPad Pro's got a processor that
1:11:08is much more powerful than what's in the Air 2.
1:11:14But you're right, the iPad Air 2 was way more powerful than what came before it.
1:11:18So like, when the iPad Air 3 comes out, there is the potential of an iPad Pro 2, which will
1:11:24have a faster processor in it again.
1:11:26Right.
1:11:28Potentially.
1:11:30My answer to this question is the chances of Apple releasing an iPad Air 3 in the next
1:11:35three months are, let's say, what percentage do we want to ascribe to something that is
1:11:42Highly unlikely, but you never know because Apple continues to do things that are unexpected
1:11:48that are not in the playbook from the last five years, every now and then.
1:11:51- Yeah, I would say 5%.
1:11:54- It's not impossible, but I think it's highly unlikely that you'll see an iPad Air 3 before,
1:12:00you know, first week, second week of September next year, it'll get announced.
1:12:05And we'll do this all again, where that one will get what the iPad Pro has now, and the
1:12:09iPad mini won't get updated because it got updated last year and we'll just
1:12:12kind of take this little product cycle and do this for a while. Yeah I'm I still
1:12:17I do believe now my belief is that the each iPad line will get an update every
1:12:23two years. Yeah the pro may get updates faster than that because it's brand new
1:12:29and they want to make up make an impression with it but other than that
1:12:35that I here's what I would say to Tristan. I when I'm working on this Mac
1:12:39World story, spoiler alert, I think I'm going to recommend the iPad Air 2
1:12:45wholeheartedly as the most mainstream "If I need to get an iPad what should I get?"
1:12:50I have no hesitation to recommend that product even though it's the same
1:12:54product that they sold last year because it was so far ahead when it was released
1:12:59and it's still so impressive technically and it doesn't feel like a year-old
1:13:02product it feels like everybody got this year's product a year early. So
1:13:07that's what I would say is I think people shouldn't have fear of buying the
1:13:12iPad Air 2. I don't think it's gonna get replaced in the next few months and it's
1:13:17still an incredibly impressive piece of hardware. And then finally today we have
1:13:22a question from Scott who wanted to know what I thought of the iPad Pro keyboard
1:13:27being US layout only and he links to the UK page and it has a note right at the
1:13:32very top which says "smart keyboard for iPad Pro is available in US English
1:13:36keyboard layout" which is disappointing to me because it's not the keyboard that I
1:13:42use and... Right I know you use that funny keyboard with the pencil... We have the
1:13:49return key... The return boot... Which is I don't know it's very frustrating I don't
1:13:56know why Apple is releasing a keyboard in just one configuration especially when
1:14:03they know they're doing it because they own up to it it just seems like a
1:14:07peculiar choice to make I'll try it anyway I think I could probably get used
1:14:14to it but I'm not overjoyed at the fact that it will feel weird to me to type on
1:14:20this other than the fact that it just looks like a weird keyboard anyway right
1:14:26I don't know. Obviously it's complicated enough to make it that they are only
1:14:33currently making it one localization. I imagine that's the reason for it is not
1:14:38that they don't like other people but that they just don't have the
1:14:41wherewithal to make it in multiple configurations. They should have just chosen the UK layout
1:14:47because it's superior anyway. Oh I see. That's the one they should have chosen
1:14:51rather than the US one I think. It's the way they should have gone. It's a shame.
1:14:55They missed out. If you'd like to find the show notes for this week's episode head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/62
1:15:02If you want to find me and Jason online, there's a few places you can do that
1:15:05We're both on Twitter. Jason is @jsnell
1:15:08And I am @imike
1:15:11And you can read all of Jason's lovely work over at sixcolors.com
1:15:15Which is where you'll find original pieces and it's also a hub for everything else that Jason does on the internet
1:15:21Thanks again to our lovely sponsors this week great people over at Casper stamps calm and Linda calm and we'll be back next time
1:15:29Hopefully with iPad pros in our hands until then. Yeah, say goodbye to snow. Goodbye everybody
1:15:35Ready?
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