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58: What’s Magic About That Keyboard?

 

00:00:00   *

00:00:23   joined by the man with the plan, Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:26   Hi, Myke. How's it going?

00:00:28   Very well, sir. How are you?

00:00:30   What is my plan?

00:00:31   We'll find out over the course of this episode.

00:00:33   I think perhaps we will.

00:00:34   The Jason Snell five-step plan to success.

00:00:38   That's right.

00:00:39   Something like that.

00:00:40   Step three, profit. I don't know what happens after that. I'm still working on the plan.

00:00:47   So we've got an exciting episode today. Got some cool stuff to talk about, but as is

00:00:53   tradition we have some follow-up to do which we'll get through now. A couple

00:00:59   of little things that we want to mention. So there is now a live streaming app.

00:01:04   Relay has a live streaming app which you can grab. It's in the App Store. It's

00:01:08   available for the iPhone and the iPad and we built this along with a company

00:01:13   called Tapjet. So you may know that previously it was a company called Glide.

00:01:18   They worked on Loop Magazine and they've been working with us to create this

00:01:21   brand new app and you'll be able to listen to us live and there's a bunch of

00:01:26   really exciting stuff in there for you to play around with so I really think

00:01:31   that you should go and check it out it's got some great animations and it will

00:01:35   help you listen live there's also some back catalogue stuff in there and if you

00:01:38   find anything new that maybe you haven't listened to before it's an easy button to

00:01:41   help you subscribe in your podcast app of choice we're really proud of it I

00:01:44   hope that you go check it out let us know what you think we're always doing

00:01:48   new stuff, working on new things to add to it, like we're thinking, well, we are going

00:01:52   to be adding at some point in the future.

00:01:54   Chat functionality and stuff like that will be coming in a later update, but we're full

00:01:59   steam ahead on really trying to make this a great experience to listen live to our shows

00:02:04   on iOS.

00:02:05   Yeah, and a bunch of people were asking sort of what's the difference between this and

00:02:10   a podcast app, and I think that's the important distinction is this is about alerting you

00:02:13   when things are live, so you can listen live, that's a lot of fun, being able to interact

00:02:17   coming down the road I think is going to be a great thing too. And yes, if you want to

00:02:21   just stream an episode you can do that too. So it's worth checking out if you're happy

00:02:25   with your podcast app of choice. In fact, it works with it. If you discover a show that

00:02:28   you want to subscribe to, you can just sort of send it off to your podcast app of choice

00:02:33   too. So it's not meant to replace Overcast or Podcasts or PocketCasts or any of the others.

00:02:39   We took great pains to make sure that we weren't competing. It was never a thing for us where

00:02:44   we wanted to try and compete with podcast apps because one we don't really

00:02:50   desire to do that. I don't think we were really interested in building a platform

00:02:54   to do it and also like I considered you know iTunes and all of the third-party

00:02:59   app makers like Overcast and Pocket Casts to be like partners and we have no

00:03:04   desire to try and you know upset them or usurp them because they help us out a

00:03:08   lot so right for example you can't download episodes in the relay FM map

00:03:12   It's just streaming and primarily built around the live experience.

00:03:16   So what we hope it will do is help more people listen live that haven't been able to before

00:03:21   because it makes it a lot easier.

00:03:22   A lot, lot easier.

00:03:24   So go check it out.

00:03:25   We have some Myke at the Movies news, don't we?

00:03:28   We do indeed.

00:03:29   Two pieces of Myke at the Movies news.

00:03:30   This is very exciting.

00:03:31   Myke at the Movies is becoming a huge franchise and expanding to other areas.

00:03:35   Phenomenon, you may even say.

00:03:37   It is.

00:03:38   And we're not kidding.

00:03:39   So there's two things happening.

00:03:40   is that next week we're gonna do a Myke at the Movies episode and we're doing it for

00:03:45   timely reasons given that it is October of 2015 we are going to watch Back to the Future

00:03:52   part two for next week's episode.

00:03:54   Yeah so we're slightly changing the rules of Myke at the Movies for this one episode

00:04:00   because obviously I have seen Back to the Future 2 it's one of my favorite movies.

00:04:04   It is from the 80s though so we've got that 1989.

00:04:07   So that for me, I feel like there's, I wanted to do one that week. There's no way that we

00:04:14   could in that week not do Back to the Future.

00:04:17   I think so. It's when, for those who don't know, this is the point to which Marty McFly

00:04:24   travels from 1985, the first movie set in 1985 and they go back 30 years to 1955. In

00:04:32   the second movie they go they do go back to 55 but they also go forward 30 years

00:04:36   to 2015 and yes that does mean that Back to the Future the original is now as far

00:04:42   away from us as 1955 was from Marty in the movie but since since we are living

00:04:49   in the future we're gonna watch Back to the Future part 2 for next week. Those

00:04:55   should be good. Yeah I'm looking forward to that. The other news is we're not kidding about the

00:05:00   Myke and the Movies franchise. We, for various reasons, you and I have talked about this

00:05:05   for a little while now. Obviously in the shows that we do at Relay FM, there's a lot of talk

00:05:10   of current events in the technology industry. So we'll have these shows that are all about

00:05:14   current events and then we'll talk about a classic movie for half an hour or an hour.

00:05:19   And that's great in the sort of stream day to day. It's nice to have a little bonus at

00:05:23   the end of an episode of Upgrade or Analog about a classic movie. But, you know, a year

00:05:29   from now, the classic movie discussion is still going to be great, but the tech discussion,

00:05:34   while great, is going to be dated. So what we are doing is we are doing a separate podcast

00:05:40   feed for Myke at the Movies. So if there is a movie that you want to watch and then listen

00:05:45   to and it doesn't fit in with your day-to-day listening to this show or to Analog, but you

00:05:50   enjoy us talking about movies, you can listen to just the movie reviews. They'll be posted

00:05:55   with a bit of a delay. I think we're thinking about a month delay because we have sponsors

00:06:00   on these shows and this is where the idea for this feed is that it's sort of the classic,

00:06:05   it's always accessible, you can listen to any of these movie reviews whenever you want.

00:06:09   And it's at The Incomparable because that's your place to go for pop culture podcasting.

00:06:15   So if you go to the incomparable.com/mike, that's M-Y-K-E like Myke Hurley, you will

00:06:21   find the new Myke at the Movies podcast which has got all of our old episodes. So it's got

00:06:28   the Raiders of the Lost Ark episode, this is Spinal Tap. I'm just realizing I think

00:06:33   I don't have the Princess Bride in there so I'm gonna have to add that. That was a-- I

00:06:36   think I just missed that one. But we'll fix it up. We're still working it out. But Sneakers,

00:06:43   The Rocketeer from you and Casey are in there. And so we'll just, you know, we will put them

00:06:50   And then if you want to go back and you're like I can't listen to that now and then it sort of escapes you you

00:06:54   can always just tune in to the mic of the movies feed and

00:06:56   those old

00:06:58   Conversations will will live there

00:07:00   So and and if Myke should talk about a movie on some other relay podcast at some point those will pop in there, too

00:07:06   So right now right now we have nine and since I just remembered that one is missing. There'll be ten. Yay

00:07:11   and so you can check all those out and and I think I think it's a I think it's a cool thing and the art

00:07:19   Stupendous.

00:07:20   - Spectacular.

00:07:21   - I think it's my favorite.

00:07:24   - I think you may be giving a movie poster of this artwork.

00:07:27   - Yeah, Frank is coming to England at the end of the month, so I'm finally gonna get

00:07:34   to meet him, and he's gonna make me a poster version, which I'm incredibly excited about.

00:07:40   - Yeah, it's really nice.

00:07:41   Nice 60s movie poster style.

00:07:44   It's got some glasses, it's got your glasses on it.

00:07:47   So anyway, if you like the Myke of the Movies segments, if you want to revisit them or file

00:07:50   them away for later listening, check that out, the incomparable.com/Myke.

00:07:56   And also, more Myke of the Movies news.

00:08:00   So as well as there being Back to the Future next week, me and Casey are also doing a Myke

00:08:05   of the Movies episode of Analog that will come out next week on True Lies.

00:08:09   Wow.

00:08:10   Yep.

00:08:11   Because I'm going to be away at release notes, so we're going to bank an episode about True

00:08:16   Lies. So I watched True Lies today. I'm gonna see you there. You will be seeing

00:08:20   me there. You know our first Myke watches the movies was The Princess Bride and I

00:08:24   totally missed it so I guess there'll be a zero episode of Myke at the Movies.

00:08:27   Perfect. Zero is perfect. You gotta start from zero right? I wanted to do just one

00:08:33   little piece of follow-up before we get into the meat of today's episode which

00:08:38   was around the whole Apple Amazon Netflix thing that we were talking about

00:08:42   last week because we had quite a few people making comments about what we

00:08:48   were talking about about you know how fair it is that these companies pay to

00:08:52   30%. My stance being that I believe that once a company gets to a certain size

00:08:57   Apple should be doing deals. But there are many people which is totally fine

00:09:02   have the belief that they think everyone should be treated equally by Apple. Which

00:09:07   I appreciate that. I appreciate the idealic fairness of it all you know that

00:09:11   ever put it as a level playing field. But I just wanted to underscore

00:09:16   the point in case I didn't make it last week and I want to make sure that I do.

00:09:20   That I think that for Apple's platform to continue to advance and grow it will

00:09:26   eventually require them needing to make deals with other companies. That's

00:09:31   my feeling about this. They are in a very very strong position but when big

00:09:36   companies like Amazon just say well no we're not gonna sell your products

00:09:40   anymore. It puts them in situations which they don't need to be in, I think, and if

00:09:46   they really want to continue pushing down the content and entertainment route with the

00:09:50   Apple TV, I think they're going to need to do a little bit more glad handling than they

00:09:55   are at the moment.

00:09:56   Yeah, one of the things that we definitely hear is, "No, no, you can't play favorites.

00:10:02   Apple's got to do 30% for everyone." But, you know, Apple can do what it wants, so it's

00:10:06   not true. People, I think some people seem to think that that's some sort of law or rule

00:10:11   that isn't violent and I just, it could change. Apple could make a deal. That happens all

00:10:17   the time and they could have preferred partners and that happens all the time in business.

00:10:21   And so I think they don't have to. The other thing that I got a lot of was like, I can't

00:10:28   believe Apple doesn't have to do this. And I was like, well, no, Apple doesn't have to

00:10:31   do this, but at some point I think maybe Apple should do it. And you know, we can disagree

00:10:35   on that, but I think let's not pretend that Apple can't do what it wants. Apple could

00:10:40   cut a deal if it feels like it's in its best interest to do so. So, you know, it may not

00:10:46   be fair, but business isn't always fair. That's just, that's business. That's how it works.

00:10:52   So also we heard from some people who said, "Hey, what if this is all just in advance

00:10:59   of Amazon stocking the new Apple TV because it's going to have an Amazon app?" And that

00:11:04   be. That may--I wouldn't put it past them. I think it would be silly if Amazon didn't

00:11:09   write an app for the new Apple TV. And I would imagine that it would be approved because

00:11:14   it's not like other stuff isn't approved for the App Store, including all of Amazon's stuff

00:11:20   today. So I would imagine that would continue on the Apple TV. But we'll see.

00:11:25   Also MyCast, why can't Amazon just increase in-app prices to exactly offset Apple's 30%

00:11:31   and they can't do that because Apple explicitly says that they can't in the

00:11:34   rules. So that is a thing you can't you can't sell your product or your

00:11:41   subscription service for a cheaper price elsewhere it has to match so that's why.

00:11:48   Yeah and that policy has changed over time but but the other thing is Amazon's

00:11:53   business model one Amazon's business model is is based on the low margins but

00:11:57   But two, then what you're doing essentially is Apple is saying you can lose money or you

00:12:04   can be more expensive than us and everything we sell on iTunes and iBooks.

00:12:07   And you know, for the book thing, this is what I keep coming back to, is that the problematic

00:12:12   thing here is that Apple is a platform vendor that is also selling media.

00:12:17   And that's problematic.

00:12:19   That is a challenge, because then when Apple makes these rules, it stops being about like,

00:12:24   it's fair for the platform owner to do this

00:12:27   and take their share and it becomes well,

00:12:30   but they're also erecting barriers for their competition

00:12:33   since they also sell books and comics

00:12:35   and movies and TV shows and music.

00:12:40   So that makes this messier.

00:12:43   And I think I'm just a person who feels like

00:12:46   Apple's media sales stuff should stand or fall

00:12:49   based on its merits and not because of artificial barriers

00:12:52   that are erected to protect it.

00:12:54   And I think that there's some of that going on here.

00:12:56   And I'd rather Apple just let iBooks compete

00:12:59   and iTunes compete on a level playing field

00:13:02   instead of having it be that Apple makes it harder

00:13:05   for Amazon to do business on Apple platforms.

00:13:07   - Yep.

00:13:08   - And I think it makes the platforms worse

00:13:09   when there isn't that competition there.

00:13:12   - Mm-hmm, definitely, definitely.

00:13:15   All right, let's talk about the new iMacs.

00:13:17   But before we do that,

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00:14:43   So Jason, we have some new products.

00:14:46   Now we're talking just before the embargo goes out for these, so I know nothing about

00:14:53   what you have in front of you.

00:14:56   That's right, this episode is being timed to drop once I can publicly discuss the products

00:15:03   that I've been using for the last few days.

00:15:06   But that means also that you are a babe in the woods and know nothing about what Apple

00:15:11   announced and released.

00:15:13   could tell me anything and I would have to believe you. That's right. Well they've

00:15:18   got a 45-inch iMac. Wow. Yeah that's not true. It's called the iMac Pro. It comes

00:15:25   with a pen. Nope not true. These are these are not true facts. These are

00:15:30   these are all lies. So what do we have? So the iMac line got a refresh this morning.

00:15:38   that's what happened. New iMacs abound. In fact, I'm gonna bring up... I actually

00:15:47   spent the weekend with a spreadsheet of changes in this, but I mean the big story is that

00:15:55   there's a 21-inch Retina iMac now, 21 and a half inch Retina iMac. That's new, that's

00:16:04   exciting but the whole iMac line got refreshed so even the the non retina 21

00:16:10   and a half inch iMac is refreshed for the first time since late 2013 wow so

00:16:15   it's been a long time there's Broadwell chips which is like they call them the

00:16:21   fifth generation Intel core technology but it's Broadwell chips in the 21 and a

00:16:25   half inch iMacs and Apple's doing this thing that they that they tend to do

00:16:30   which is keep their price points and change the products inside the price point. So the iMac price

00:16:37   points as of yesterday, as of Monday the 12th, were 10.99, 12.99, 14.99, 17.99, 19.99, and 22.99.

00:16:48   I love that 99.

00:16:49   Yeah, they do. They do. It's the buying psychology, I guess. I hate it,

00:16:54   but at least it's not 10.99 and 99 cents. They...

00:16:57   Yeah.

00:16:59   It's dumb, so, but anyway,

00:17:01   those price points are all still there.

00:17:04   What Apple has done is upgrade,

00:17:07   look, show title,

00:17:09   upgrade everything inside those price points.

00:17:13   So now the 1099 and 1299 price points

00:17:18   are still 21 and a half inch IMAX,

00:17:22   but those are now using Broadwell processors

00:17:25   instead of the old Haswell processors.

00:17:27   So they're faster, it's 1.6 and 2.8 for the 1099

00:17:32   and the 1299 respectively.

00:17:35   The RAM's a little bit faster.

00:17:38   The storage on the 1099, which used to be half a gigabyte

00:17:43   is now a full, or 500 gigabytes, half a terabyte,

00:17:46   is now a full terabyte.

00:17:47   They're using Intel integrated graphics,

00:17:51   but it's the newer integrated graphics.

00:17:53   So it's the 6000 and the 6200.

00:17:56   and they support Thunderbolt 2 now. So they get a nice little upgrade for the cheap iMacs,

00:18:02   but the big story is the 1499 slot which used to be a 2.9 gigahertz, 1 terabyte, 8 gigs of memory,

00:18:12   21.5 inch iMac. It is now a retina iMac for that same price, 3.1 gigahertz quad-core i5

00:18:22   Broadwell, 8 gigs of memory, the faster speed, Intel 6200 integrated graphics and two Thunderbolt

00:18:28   2 ports. And then there's…

00:18:31   And what drive does that have in it? The 21?

00:18:34   That's got the… the 1499 model has a terabyte… okay, so I just reviewed it, you can read

00:18:44   my review of Macworld. I reviewed this model, the 1499 terabyte hard drive. It is a 5400

00:18:49   RPM spinning disk terabyte hard drive.

00:18:52   - Come on, not even a fusion.

00:18:54   - So here's the thing.

00:18:55   Yeah, that is the...

00:18:57   (laughs)

00:18:59   Okay, I wasn't gonna talk about this now,

00:19:01   but let's talk about it now.

00:19:03   I haven't used a spinning disc Mac in ages now, right?

00:19:08   I--

00:19:09   - I don't understand why they would do this.

00:19:11   - My daughter's iMac has a fusion drive,

00:19:13   and my laptop is SSD only, my iMac is SSD only.

00:19:18   And I admit this means that I'm spoiled,

00:19:21   But let me tell you, when you boot up this brand new Mac,

00:19:25   brand new retina Mac, gorgeous display,

00:19:27   we can talk about it a little bit more.

00:19:29   You know, there's a 4K display, 4096 by 2304.

00:19:32   It is beautiful.

00:19:33   And then you wait because the disc is slow

00:19:38   'cause it's this 5,400 RPM hard drive.

00:19:41   And then you launch an app

00:19:43   and you wait some more for the app to launch.

00:19:46   It is so clearly the problem in the device,

00:19:51   'cause it's not the 3.1 gigahertz quad-core i5

00:19:56   that's slowing it down, right?

00:19:59   It's this slow spinning hard drive.

00:20:02   So yeah, it's not so great is what I'm saying.

00:20:07   There is a configured order, I think for $100,

00:20:11   you can go up to a terabyte fusion drive.

00:20:15   And although there, what Apple has done is

00:20:20   to make the fusion drive upgrade cheaper,

00:20:24   the one terabyte fusion drive actually has less

00:20:27   flash storage in it.

00:20:29   So if you're somebody who's like a heavy duty user,

00:20:32   you're gonna wanna get the, and you want a fusion drive,

00:20:34   you're gonna want the two or,

00:20:36   or I think there's a three terabyte option now as well.

00:20:40   But the one terabyte option is a hundred dollars more.

00:20:43   I think it's like 40 gigs of flash,

00:20:47   and then the rest of it is the Fusion Drive.

00:20:51   But I don't think I would recommend to anybody

00:20:54   that they just spend 1499 on a Retina iMac.

00:20:57   'Cause if you're gonna buy a brand new Retina 4K iMac,

00:21:00   21 and a half inch iMac,

00:21:01   I think you owe it to yourself to not be constrained

00:21:05   by the speed of that disc.

00:21:06   - It kind of seems counterproductive

00:21:09   to what you're attempting to do with it.

00:21:12   Well, when I talk about them hitting the slots, I think this is what happens.

00:21:16   This is how you hit the slot.

00:21:17   This is how you hit $1499 and have this new iMac fit in the same price point as the previous

00:21:22   model.

00:21:23   I feel like you'd be better put in a 256 solid state and then a 1TB hard drive.

00:21:30   Just from a user features.

00:21:33   Because the speed is surely more important than the storage.

00:21:36   Yeah, but there's still price issues.

00:21:38   Yeah, I guess so.

00:21:40   So what is that price again for the 4K?

00:21:44   For the 21.5 inch 4K, it's $14.99 US.

00:21:48   So it's the same as the highest end, before configuration.

00:21:53   Now, you can configure to order it with a discrete graphics processor, which is new,

00:21:59   I believe, that you can put a GeForce GT750M in there.

00:22:04   So by default, it uses Intel integrated graphics, and that's actually the reason why these aren't

00:22:09   Skylake, the new generation, sixth generation processors, according to Apple, is that they

00:22:14   don't have a chipset for Skylake with integrated graphics, which is what they want here. Because

00:22:19   again to save money, there isn't an integrated graphics processor or a discrete graphics

00:22:26   processor instead, it's just the Intel integrated stuff that comes on the chipset. It's part

00:22:30   of the Broadwell collection, right? But you can configure to order. So if you do want

00:22:36   the smaller iMac but you want the extra graphics power you can get it with a

00:22:40   discrete GPU and you can also increase that processor to 3.3 gigahertz quad

00:22:49   core i7 so there are a lot of nice configuration options at the top of the

00:22:52   line plus you can choose you know one or two terabyte fusion and you can choose

00:22:59   256 or 512 gigabyte flash storage so there are lots of options that

00:23:06   make it more expensive but that make it much more powerful but those are options

00:23:11   because again they want to hit that $1499 and you know $1499 is a great price for

00:23:17   a 21 and a half inch retina iMac a 4096 by 2304 a truly in a 4k for more than

00:23:24   4,000 pixels wide iMac but with that configuration has the slow drive it's

00:23:34   just so interesting to me because when you look at the MacBook line, like they

00:23:39   start with solid state, right? That's where you get, that's where they all are.

00:23:45   They're all on solid state. I mean I know that they're not a terabyte, right? You

00:23:49   know like for example the 1299 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina comes of a 128

00:23:55   gigabyte flash storage which is, I know it's barely nothing, but at least it's, I

00:23:59   I feel, my feeling about that is actually the use of the machine would be better to

00:24:05   have the flash than to have the hard drive, the spinning disk.

00:24:08   Why do you think Apple have made the decision to not just put this one terabyte drive in

00:24:13   there rather than throwing in a very small flash storage drive?

00:24:20   I think it's price.

00:24:22   Because surely the 128 gigabyte can't be that much more expensive, right?

00:24:26   Because they're putting it in a $1,300 MacBook.

00:24:29   Well, think of it this way. Yesterday, to add a 256 flash to an iMac was $200 upgrade from the

00:24:40   one terabyte spinning hard drive. So yes, a lot of that is Apple's profit, but a lot of that is also

00:24:46   expense that it costs. And I think also maybe some of Apple's research is in here,

00:24:54   that they know how people use iMacs, and perhaps they know that a big desktop iMac can't really,

00:25:02   most people are not going to be satisfied with 128 gigs of storage in it, right? That's not a lot

00:25:07   for a big iMac. And then there's just, when you start to compare it to the laptops,

00:25:14   I mean this screen is huge, the screen is 21 and a half inches, you know, the biggest written

00:25:20   Retina MacBook Pro is 15. There are a lot more pixels. So it's a much bigger screen,

00:25:25   much more to drive, much more graphics power needed to drive it. So, you know, it's not

00:25:30   the same kind of system. But yeah, I think in the end it is, fly storage is still way

00:25:34   more expensive, and Fusion Drive is supposed to be a way around that. That would be my

00:25:39   thing is that I appreciate that Apple has made stepping up to Fusion Drive cheaper,

00:25:43   but I kind of wish that the stock configuration had a Fusion Drive. I feel like for the $1499

00:25:47   at the top of the line, you've got the retina, it would be really nice if that had the Fusion

00:25:51   Drive too, but obviously Apple felt like their margins weren't going to be good enough at

00:25:54   $1499. So this is essentially, that's essentially a $1599 iMac with a terabyte Fusion Drive.

00:26:00   Yeah, because you're really, you know, it's saying that I love you're cutting your nose

00:26:04   off to spite your face at the point of buying the stock one. I can't recommend anybody buy

00:26:09   a brand new computer that is fast in so many different areas and has this amazing screen

00:26:14   and then is stuck with a 5400 RPM spinning disk.

00:26:18   - In 2015.

00:26:20   - Into, exactly, in late 2015,

00:26:23   if you're going to spend 1499 on a new iMac,

00:26:25   unless it's literally all the money that you can spend,

00:26:28   you should at the very least spend 1599

00:26:31   and get the Fusion Drive.

00:26:32   Because you need to get some of that speed that comes

00:26:36   and the responsiveness that comes with having

00:26:38   super fast flash storage.

00:26:40   And you may not be able to afford a big SSD and that's fine,

00:26:43   but go to the fusion drive if you can,

00:26:46   because the drive is slow.

00:26:47   It's just, you know, I could tell,

00:26:49   it makes everything sluggish.

00:26:50   Once you've been on an SSD or a fusion drive even,

00:26:54   you can tell when you're on a computer with a spinning disk.

00:26:57   It's painfully obvious.

00:26:59   And it's just, you know, it's yeah, it's the end of 2015.

00:27:02   This is a retina display machine that, so anyway, yeah,

00:27:05   I highly recommend that upgrade.

00:27:08   I should mention the memory, it comes with eight standard.

00:27:11   you can configure it with 16,

00:27:13   but this is the 21 and a half inch model.

00:27:15   And just like the last generation,

00:27:16   'cause these look, they look exactly the same.

00:27:18   They're the same size, they're the same shape.

00:27:20   They're the same weight.

00:27:21   And just as before, the 21 and a half

00:27:24   doesn't have the door on the back for user installable RAM.

00:27:28   So if you want 16 gigs of RAM,

00:27:31   you need to order it with 16 gigs of RAM.

00:27:33   Otherwise you can't, you know,

00:27:35   it doesn't have a door for you to pop it off

00:27:36   and put in more RAM later.

00:27:38   - Yeah, sure.

00:27:39   But eight gigabytes of RAM is a better starting point

00:27:41   than a spinning disk, right?

00:27:42   Like in the RAM department, that's a good thing to do.

00:27:46   Can you replace the hard drive?

00:27:47   Is the hard drive user replaceable on the 21?

00:27:50   - I don't, I think it's as user replaceable

00:27:53   as anything else is on these machines,

00:27:54   which is not very, because it's essentially a sealed,

00:27:58   it's a sealed container.

00:28:00   And yeah, so this is, and this is what you wanna buy, right?

00:28:04   - Not the 21.

00:28:05   - No, you're gonna buy the 27?

00:28:07   - Yep.

00:28:08   - So I'm eagerly waiting for you to tell me about that

00:28:10   in a moment, but I want to talk a little bit more about the 21 inch because I feel like

00:28:13   all we've done is complain about it.

00:28:14   Yeah, and this is the one that I've spent time with.

00:28:17   Tell me what is good about this machine.

00:28:20   Well the screen is amazing. It's the same story as when we got the 5K screen last time.

00:28:26   It's a great screen, it looks good, retina is so good, your photos look amazing on a

00:28:31   retina display, and having all of the area of a 21 and a half inch display, it's, you

00:28:39   You know, 27-inch is not for everyone.

00:28:40   It can really dominate a desk.

00:28:42   It can really dominate a room.

00:28:43   It can be unwieldy to move around.

00:28:45   21 and a half is a much more kind of human scale,

00:28:48   in some ways, computer.

00:28:50   Having stared at a 27 for the last year, getting to 21,

00:28:53   I was like, oh, it's so cute and reasonably sized.

00:28:58   But it's still-- it's not 5K.

00:29:00   It's 4K.

00:29:00   But it's still got this kind of incredible, bright, colorful

00:29:04   screen.

00:29:05   Apple's widened the color gamut on all of these iMacs,

00:29:09   so they actually show more color.

00:29:12   I forget what the number,

00:29:13   they quoted the number 25% more color,

00:29:15   especially in the reds and greens,

00:29:16   which are the ones that I don't see very well.

00:29:18   - Yeah, I was gonna say, can you see it?

00:29:20   Like for anybody that doesn't know,

00:29:21   Jason has some mild color blindness.

00:29:24   - Yeah, I'm slightly red-green colorblind.

00:29:26   I saw some demos at Apple that I could tell the difference,

00:29:29   and a lot of it is, some of it is vibrancy,

00:29:32   and some of it is detail where there's minute detail

00:29:37   that gets washed out when you can only,

00:29:40   when you can't go into more detail

00:29:42   with the variation in color,

00:29:43   it all sort of becomes the same.

00:29:46   And then if you add extra detail that can actually,

00:29:49   to the color space, it can add detail to your photos.

00:29:51   It's not just about it being kind of more vibrant.

00:29:54   Actually, you can see more variation

00:29:56   and therefore your photos have more detail.

00:29:58   So it's the P, it's 99%, I guess,

00:30:00   of the P3 color space, I think, which is,

00:30:02   as opposed to the old sRGB color space that the old IMAX fit inside.

00:30:09   So if you're somebody who does a lot with photography or video, having the additional

00:30:14   color is, it's a subtle thing for me anyway, maybe it'll be more dramatic for other people,

00:30:19   but even for me it was definitely there.

00:30:21   I don't think this is enough reason for people to take their old 27-inch red and IMAX and

00:30:26   throw them in the bin.

00:30:30   still a pretty good display regardless, but the new ones have a wider color gamut, that's

00:30:37   for sure. So that's good.

00:30:38   I imagine Apple sitting you down in the demo rooms and they're like, "Jason, look at the

00:30:44   change in these colors!" and you're like, "Mm-hmm, yep, yeah, looks great guys!"

00:30:49   Well apparently the LEDs, the white LEDs that most of these displays use tend to put out

00:30:55   more, they have more ability to put out blue wavelengths than red or green, and as a result

00:30:59   The red and green variation is limited and they've got a new LED that is much better

00:31:04   at putting out red and green wavelengths.

00:31:06   And that's that according to Apple, that's the thing that makes this capable of the wider

00:31:10   color gamut.

00:31:11   But, you know, I did warn them.

00:31:13   I did say, you know, I'm a little red green colorblind, but I still they were like, can

00:31:17   you see this?

00:31:18   Can you see this?

00:31:19   It became more of a test for me.

00:31:20   It was like an eye test at that point.

00:31:21   But it was it but you can you can tell you could definitely tell.

00:31:25   And they had a funny moment, they said that the Denver Broncos of the NFL, their orange

00:31:31   jersey is outside of the SRGB color space.

00:31:35   So they say whenever you see, unless you're there in person, whenever you see a picture

00:31:40   or video of the Denver Broncos, you're not seeing the right orange.

00:31:43   What a very peculiar and specific thing to pick.

00:31:46   I know.

00:31:47   Well, I think it's good though, because it's a good example of a shade that maybe doesn't

00:31:51   render exactly right.

00:31:54   But again, is this a huge feature? For most people, probably not. But for some people,

00:31:58   it will be pretty nice. But the flexibility of the Retina displays I wanted to mention,

00:32:04   which is this isn't just about it being a 4K display, it's about the fact that once

00:32:08   you've got this many pixels on a screen, this densely populated, you can scale the interface

00:32:13   and not have it look bad. It used to be, when we went to LCD screens, flat screens, that

00:32:21   You can't, you used to be able to change monitor resolutions on CRTs.

00:32:25   You could make everything bigger, make everything smaller, you could do that and it still looked

00:32:30   good.

00:32:31   But on LCD panels it never looked good because the resolution just isn't high enough and

00:32:36   it would dither it and anti-alias and it looked bad.

00:32:39   But these are so high resolution that you can do that.

00:32:42   So if you want to make your everything on the screen a little bit bigger or a little

00:32:47   bit smaller so you have more room, you can do that on these retina displays super easily.

00:32:51   And I know people who don't run in 100% 2x mode

00:32:56   on their retina display.

00:32:57   They actually run with everything a little bit smaller

00:33:00   and it makes it seem like a bigger screen

00:33:02   or with everything a little bit bigger.

00:33:04   And it still looks crisp

00:33:05   because there are so many pixels there

00:33:06   that even though it is scaling it and anti-aliasing it,

00:33:11   you can't see it because they're just too many,

00:33:13   the pixels are too dense.

00:33:15   You don't even see that it's happening.

00:33:17   My MacBook Pro I run in most space mode.

00:33:21   - See, yeah.

00:33:23   - And I love that. - Yeah, exactly.

00:33:24   - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:33:25   And so that now comes to the 21 and a half inch iMac size

00:33:28   with this, so I think that's good.

00:33:31   Thunderbolt 2, more speed, the Broadwell processors

00:33:35   are faster than the Haswell that came before.

00:33:38   And I like that this top of the line 21 and a half inch

00:33:42   does have those build to order options.

00:33:43   So if you just don't want, if you want the power

00:33:46   but you don't want the size of the 27 inch.

00:33:49   You can do that.

00:33:50   You can get the 4K iMac, upgrade the storage,

00:33:53   upgrade the processor, and that's a good thing.

00:33:55   Right, oh, so one thing before we go on,

00:33:57   I was saying that there are discrete graphics as an update.

00:33:59   There aren't, I got that wrong.

00:34:01   It's 6,200 integrated graphics is what you get.

00:34:05   You can't build to order discrete on that one.

00:34:08   So if you really want the superpower, you want the 27 inch,

00:34:13   because that one has all of the options.

00:34:15   The only things you can configure on the 21 and a half inch retina, you can get the i7

00:34:21   and you can upgrade the storage, but you cannot go to integrated graphics on that one.

00:34:25   Alas.

00:34:26   Okay.

00:34:27   That graphics stuff really confuses me now.

00:34:29   Yeah, well, I mean, the short version of it is that Intel tries to make it so you don't

00:34:34   need to buy a graphics, you know, a GPU from someone else, because Intel's got you covered,

00:34:40   But it's never, you know, it's never as good as having the discrete graphics chip, it's

00:34:46   just that those are expensive.

00:34:47   And so, you know, they're, they're, they're, it's, everything's better if you've got one,

00:34:54   but it's expensive.

00:34:56   And so the 27s have them and the 21 and a halfs don't.

00:35:01   And partially that's a function that they're driving a smaller display and so there's not

00:35:04   as much penalty and part of it is cost.

00:35:07   >> Okay. All right, so I want to know about this 27 because it's what I've been

00:35:12   looking for. So have I been right to be waiting?

00:35:15   >> Well, yeah, because this is the-- although there was this sort of interim step in the

00:35:22   spring that was basically like a lower end model, they took the-- last fall when the

00:35:30   5K iMac came out, it was sitting above the 27-inch iMacs that existed, and it was more

00:35:35   expensive and that's what I bought and then this spring they came around with

00:35:42   one that was sort of the the the cheaper model that that they that allowed them

00:35:51   to hit some other price points so that was the one that that let them do what

00:35:58   1999 and then and then the one they lowered the price on the one that I

00:36:02   bought to $22.99. So now the the old non-retina 27-inch iMacs have been cleared away. They're gone.

00:36:09   Oh wow. Okay. Gone. What were they? I don't even remember them. It's like they were never there.

00:36:15   Forget I even said non-retina iMacs 27 inches. Nope. Nope. It's not a thing. So $17.99, $19.99,

00:36:22   $22.99, those are your price points and those are where the the three new 5k iMacs sit. They've all

00:36:28   got that wider color gamut 5k screen 5120 by 2880 they're using Skylake processors so

00:36:35   it's the it's the sixth generation Intel Core architecture it's a 3.2 gigahertz quad-core

00:36:47   i5 on the 1799 and the 1999 models and it's a 3.3 gigahertz quad-core i5 on the 2299 model

00:36:57   They all have discrete graphics from AMD. It's a Radeon R9 M380 in the 1799, M390 in the 1999,

00:37:07   and M395 on the 2299. I'm sure there are reasons why those are different and I don't understand

00:37:15   them. And then on the storage side, the 1799 comes with a spinning hard drive,

00:37:22   although it is a 7200 RPM spinning hard drive,

00:37:25   because it's the bigger drive.

00:37:27   So it's faster.

00:37:30   1999 comes with a terabyte Fusion Drive standard,

00:37:33   and the 2299 comes with the two terabyte Fusion Drive standard.

00:37:37   And that 1999 terabyte Fusion Drive, I believe,

00:37:40   I mentioned earlier, that's the one that's got,

00:37:42   it's actually got less flash in it

00:37:44   than the old terabyte Fusion Drive did.

00:37:46   As, this is Apple's attempt to try and get it,

00:37:51   get Fusion Drive to be more affordable so that they can make it standard sooner, but

00:37:56   it's just not standard yet on some of these systems like we've been talking about. So

00:38:00   that's the 27-inch. They've got the stuff that they already had, that the Retina 1 already

00:38:06   had in terms of Thunderbolt 2 and all of that. And then the build-to-order configuration

00:38:12   options, the two high-end models can be upgraded to a 4 GHz i7. All three models can be upgraded

00:38:21   to the Radeon 395 with four gigs of GDDR5 magic memory memory memory memory nerds out there

00:38:35   when I listen to ATP and they talk about chipsets I'm like yeah I don't care so much they really

00:38:39   love it but anyway yeah so you can upgrade to the super awesome graphics and even on

00:38:44   the on the 2299 that upgrade is basically more more memory to the GPU the stock is eight

00:38:50   gigs of memory but you can go all the way up to 32 it does have the door so you can

00:38:54   do it yourself if you want to do it that way and it's got all the storage options 1, 2

00:38:59   or 3 terabyte fusion drives 256 or 512 flash on the 1799 model and the 1999 and the 2299

00:39:07   you can configure a terabyte flash too so you know it's it's basically the old 5k iMac

00:39:16   spread across the whole line with upgraded processors to Skylake.

00:39:20   That's exactly what I was looking for. Apple is not saying this is four times

00:39:24   faster than the old model. I think these are incrementally faster. I think

00:39:30   it's not a radical change there but it is the newer architecture, you know,

00:39:35   newer graphics processors, newer CPUs, so everything's a little bit

00:39:42   bit better but it's not like a quantum leap. It's not gonna blow the doors off.

00:39:48   No, no, but keeping in mind that the high-end one really hasn't updated in a

00:39:52   year I mean this is and then they basically pulled it down to $19.99 in the

00:39:57   spring and now they've pulled it all the way down to $17.99 and everything's a

00:40:00   little bit better at those price points. So I will be getting the top of the line

00:40:05   I'll push right you can take up to 4 gigahertz you said and I seven yeah yeah

00:40:12   then I'm gonna throw 16 gigabytes of RAM and a terabyte flash in there.

00:40:16   Beauty. That is gonna be my screen. Top of the line. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. So like I

00:40:23   will mention this and I will mention it at another point I'm not gonna belabor

00:40:26   it. I will be selling my Mac Pro if you are in the UK and you're interested let

00:40:29   me know and we take it in for full service with Apple and then I'm gonna be selling

00:40:33   it. So if you want to jump the gun on that I'll give you a good price on it.

00:40:38   And I'm also getting rid of my 25-inch Dell monitor that I have, and I'm going to be trading

00:40:44   it in for a beautiful 27-inch iMac.

00:40:46   Very excited.

00:40:47   It's a good thing.

00:40:49   Welcome.

00:40:50   Yeah.

00:40:51   Welcome to 27-inch iMac world.

00:40:53   I've been so happy with my 27-inch iMac that I definitely recommend it to people.

00:40:58   It's funny, one of the things that I actually wrote about in the Macworld article is who

00:41:02   needs a desktop?

00:41:04   Because there is that argument, right?

00:41:06   I think it's more than three quarters of the max that it's or it's roughly three

00:41:11   quarters of the max that Apple sells our laptops now but I think there are lots I

00:41:15   think there are lots of uses for desktops dedicated workstations with

00:41:20   lots of power I think are nice big screens are really nice and I think

00:41:26   there are a lot of intangibles to like for me the the work-life balance thing

00:41:30   that this is this huge not only is this a huge powerful computer with a with a

00:41:35   big screen, but it's also at my desk. And when I leave it, I'm not working then. And

00:41:41   yeah, I can get a laptop and I can do stuff, but this becomes my workplace. And I kind

00:41:46   of like that, that the computing power is concentrated here, and this is where I want

00:41:50   to be if I'm working. And when I step away, I'm stepping away from all of that stuff.

00:41:55   And I think there's something to that. I also know a lot of families who, you know, an iMac

00:41:59   is a nice shared computer. They put it on a desk in a family room or something like

00:42:03   and the kids take turns or work on it together rather than having sort of a laptop where

00:42:09   to go, it's floating around, it stays anchored to the table. So there are lots of reasons

00:42:15   why, but I've been really happy with the iMac and I hadn't used an iMac as my primary system

00:42:21   in quite a while and it's a great system so now it's even better.

00:42:24   Yeah, when you were talking about the 21, I was thinking, "Oh, that seems like the perfect

00:42:29   student computer and like, you know, where is that going to be used, you know, like in

00:42:32   dorm room or something and then I realised no you use a laptop for that

00:42:35   because you can take it to class. Like the 27 is like that it's that one

00:42:40   exactly it's for the creative professional that is the new machine

00:42:43   it's not the Mac Pro because this thing has an incredible screen on it right and

00:42:48   I feel like that's probably why it's edging it for many people as the Pro

00:42:52   machine now this top-of-the-line 27. So I'm wondering who is the 21 for? Is it

00:42:57   just for price conscious or space conscious people? Because that is a really

00:43:01   weird group to have a machine for, like in my mind anyway.

00:43:05   - I think for a lot of people, 27 inches is just too much computer. I really believe that.

00:43:12   And I've seen people see a 27-inch iMac and go, "Oh my God, it's so huge." And 21 and

00:43:18   a half is a much more, like I said, human scale almost. I think 27, it is so big and

00:43:24   it's beautiful that it's this big screen, but it's not for everyone. And then the price

00:43:28   is the same thing, right? I mean, $1499, that it's a lot—so if you don't need the size

00:43:35   and the screen space, and you can save money, it's just, it's logical. So I think for a

00:43:41   lot of people, I think that's a much more casual user kind of computer than the 27 is,

00:43:47   and I think, you know, you can see it now, that there's—they still haven't pushed it

00:43:51   down to $1099, right? That'll probably happen in the next year or two. But, you know, for

00:43:55   For now, it's the higher-end model, but it's for, you know, I know people who would not

00:44:00   buy the 27-inch and they've got, and money's no object for them because it's just too big

00:44:05   and they don't need a computer that's that big and, you know, their house doesn't have

00:44:09   a place to fit it.

00:44:11   I think there's perfectly reasonable use cases for the 21 and a half.

00:44:18   And in the long run, this is also part of Apple clearing the non-retina out of the product

00:44:22   line.

00:44:23   You know, in a year, let's say,

00:44:25   when the 21 and a half inch 1099 iMac,

00:44:30   you know, maybe next year, maybe the year after,

00:44:32   when that one is gone,

00:44:33   and certainly the 1299 next year, right?

00:44:36   We will get to a point very soon where the MacBook Air

00:44:41   and these 21 and a half inch iMacs will be gone

00:44:43   and we will be all retina

00:44:45   across Apple's product line at that point.

00:44:47   And then it's coming.

00:44:48   This is, you know, it continues to push downward

00:44:51   until there's nothing left.

00:44:53   - Any rumblings about an external display?

00:44:56   - No, I got no rumblings.

00:44:58   And in fact, these retina ones still don't do

00:45:01   target display mode, which the old ones did,

00:45:05   where you could use it as a,

00:45:07   once it had ended its life as a computer,

00:45:10   you could turn it into a monitor for a different computer.

00:45:13   They don't do that.

00:45:14   And I think it goes down to the fact

00:45:15   that connectivity is still an issue.

00:45:17   Driving a display like this is still an issue.

00:45:19   - Right.

00:45:20   And from what I've heard, you know,

00:45:23   Thunderbolt 2 can drive some large HD displays

00:45:28   and Thunderbolt 3 will do a much better job of it.

00:45:30   And I feel like maybe this is just Apple waiting

00:45:33   for the technology to get to the,

00:45:34   either for the technology to get to the point

00:45:36   where they can do it,

00:45:37   or for them to have sold enough systems

00:45:40   that can support it for them to sell it.

00:45:42   - That makes sense. - 'Cause that's part

00:45:43   of the thing too, is if you release a monitor

00:45:45   that only the computer you announced that day can use,

00:45:48   I mean, they might do that if they update a Mac Pro and say,

00:45:50   and here's the external monitor you use with it.

00:45:52   They might do that, but it would be better

00:45:55   if they sort of had already seeded the market with Macs

00:45:59   that were capable of driving it with laptops

00:46:01   and maybe even iMacs that could drive it

00:46:03   as a second retina display.

00:46:05   So no rumblings, but I feel like we're getting closer

00:46:08   to that and I do think it will happen eventually.

00:46:10   I think the question is, is it gonna happen, you know,

00:46:14   is it gonna happen soon?

00:46:15   Is it gonna happen with Thunderbolt 3?

00:46:18   I don't know.

00:46:19   All right, that isn't the only news of the day though.

00:46:22   I want to talk about input devices with you because I see the titles of these in our document

00:46:27   and I'm very intrigued because I-- everything else I could guess.

00:46:33   There's some words in this document that I don't understand.

00:46:35   Yes, as the iMac always does, it comes with input devices, but the input devices in these

00:46:42   new iMacs are different.

00:46:45   But first, I think we should hear from a friend.

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00:49:10   So tell me what we've got here.

00:49:14   Are you sitting down?

00:49:18   I'm sitting down.

00:49:18   All right, so with these new iMacs, Apple also announced and we'll be shipping separately as well,

00:49:26   the new Magic Keyboard, the Magic Trackpad 2, and the Magic Mouse 2.

00:49:35   Okay.

00:49:37   The sequels.

00:49:38   Okay, Magic Keyboard.

00:49:40   Now I'll tell you what I think this is.

00:49:42   I haven't heard it.

00:49:43   I expect it's the new...

00:49:46   See, I feel like what I'm going to say is so crazy.

00:49:49   The new style, so the San Francisco font with the new keycaps, and if it's Magic, there's

00:49:55   There's some kind of movement device built into the keyboard, that's what I would say.

00:50:01   Nope.

00:50:02   Okay, hit me with it.

00:50:04   What's magic about it?

00:50:06   I don't know what's magic.

00:50:07   It seems to me that the magic of it is that it's rechargeable.

00:50:15   Okay.

00:50:18   The font is different.

00:50:20   I just was checking with my other keyboard here.

00:50:23   So the story here with the keyboard, and with all these devices actually, is that they're

00:50:28   rechargeable.

00:50:29   All the Apple, especially the trackpad and the keyboard were built around this cylinder

00:50:34   at the back with AA batteries in it, and they've replaced all of that with a lightning connector

00:50:41   and a rechargeable battery inside.

00:50:45   Lightning is the perfect connection for this.

00:50:48   I was wondering where you were going to go with that.

00:50:50   So they're much thinner, like the keyboard is super thin all the way to the top.

00:50:56   It's wedge-shaped, so it's much thinner at the bottom than at the top, but it's a much

00:51:00   less of an angle, which is also good I think ergonomically that it's not quite as angled

00:51:06   from top to bottom, but it is still wedge-shaped.

00:51:10   And on the back edge is a lightning connector and an on/off switch.

00:51:17   And it is, so let's see, people will be very happy to know that it is not using the butterfly

00:51:28   mechanism of the MacBook.

00:51:30   It is not based on the MacBook keyboard.

00:51:33   I think this is a really good sign that they're not going to make us use that keyboard technology

00:51:38   with everything.

00:51:39   It feels like they have designed that keyboard technology now, I can see this, to work where

00:51:44   it's needed.

00:51:45   Like they designed it for the MacBook, but they also wanted to put it in the iPad Pro

00:51:51   keyboard cover, right?

00:51:53   Because you need really, really thin keyboards in those scenarios.

00:51:56   Right.

00:51:57   So this uses a scissor mechanism, although Apple says that they improved on the scissor

00:52:03   mechanism, that the keycaps are slightly larger, that it makes a clicky sound, which it actually

00:52:09   does.

00:52:10   it's soft but there is definitely, you know, you can hear yourself typing and that they

00:52:16   say that the keycaps are more stable and I think they're right. But it is, there's more travel,

00:52:25   it feels like, than on the MacBook. It definitely feels more like a regular typing experience than

00:52:29   the MacBook keyboard does. I think they say there's a millimeter of travel, which Apple

00:52:34   declares is the optimal amount of key travel. So, okay, who are we to argue? Who are we to argue?

00:52:39   but it definitely takes up a lot less space.

00:52:41   I was looking, so last week I fell into this sort of hole

00:52:43   of looking at keyboards on eBay

00:52:46   after Joshua Topolski tweeted these pictures

00:52:49   of these incredible like little tiny keyboards

00:52:54   that are just, they don't even have the function row.

00:52:58   It's just numbers and it's, so what it's one, two, three,

00:53:02   four, five, like five rows of keys

00:53:04   and then the edge of the keyboard.

00:53:05   Like it's a super tiny keyboard.

00:53:07   And I love that because I don't like the extended keyboards.

00:53:10   That is a similar design to this Apple keyboard actually.

00:53:14   There's not a lot of space around it.

00:53:16   It does have the function key row at the top

00:53:18   and they're actually full sized function keys.

00:53:20   They're not half height, they're full height.

00:53:23   - Oh interesting. - But that's it.

00:53:24   Yeah, I wonder if it's because they had the space

00:53:26   because they needed to put in the battery

00:53:28   and things like that, that it couldn't get much smaller.

00:53:32   - And the funny thing is it's worked in the inverse to usual.

00:53:36   - Yeah, but it's a funny thing.

00:53:38   Well, 'cause you've got to keep the symmetry, right?

00:53:40   Because it's the same border around it,

00:53:41   but it's very, very much,

00:53:43   there's not a lot of extra space around the keys.

00:53:45   You basically get white keys framed

00:53:47   by the silver keyboard.

00:53:51   So yeah, I've been typing on it all weekend.

00:53:55   I would say it's pretty nice.

00:53:57   I don't think I've come to a verdict yet

00:54:00   about whether I prefer it to some of the other keyboards

00:54:02   that I've got around here,

00:54:03   I have not felt miserable after using it for days and days,

00:54:08   which is what happened to me with the MacBook keyboard.

00:54:10   So I take that for what it will, what you will.

00:54:13   I don't like the fact that it's got the, like the MacBook,

00:54:17   it's got full size left and right arrow keys,

00:54:20   but split up and down arrow keys,

00:54:22   because I used that space where the small left

00:54:26   and right arrow keys left on the keyboard,

00:54:29   I used that to kind of orient.

00:54:30   So I've had to kind of relearn that part of it.

00:54:33   But I'd say it's pretty nice.

00:54:35   And I haven't even told you the most amusing part of it,

00:54:37   which is the Apple-est touch of all.

00:54:39   If you get one of these,

00:54:42   and you have to be on a system that's running El Capitan,

00:54:44   but if you get one of these and you plug it in

00:54:48   to the lightning port that comes with it,

00:54:51   it comes with a lightning to USB cord.

00:54:52   If you plug that lightning to USB cord into the keyboard

00:54:55   and into your Mac running El Capitan, it instapares.

00:54:59   So you don't have to do Bluetooth pairing or anything.

00:55:03   It sees that you've attached the Magic keyboard, and maybe that's what the Magic is, and it

00:55:09   instantly pairs, which is just a really nice touch.

00:55:12   And it's fun to not have to go through that.

00:55:16   And they say that it lasts a long time.

00:55:22   In a two-hour charge, you can get more than a month of use, they say, out of it.

00:55:26   it's just another place to charge your Apple Pencil. I guess so. I don't think that...

00:55:34   we'll see. I've been thinking about that recently, like all of the places in my life that I could

00:55:39   charge an Apple Pencil and it seems like I'm now going to have some more options. But I've

00:55:43   got this Logitech rechargeable keyboard and it runs out of battery like every week and

00:55:48   Apple says this is a month or more, depending on how you use it. And I should say that the

00:55:53   The story Apple's telling with all of these devices is that it's about getting the batteries

00:55:56   out and they tell an environmental story like it's much better that now it's a rechargeable

00:56:00   thing instead of having people use batteries that you then throw away in a landfill or

00:56:05   something like that.

00:56:06   I like the idea of rechargeable devices because I mean I use rechargeable batteries for my

00:56:10   input devices but it's still a pain that I have to keep recharging these batteries separately

00:56:15   and then I...

00:56:16   Yeah and they often don't last as long then.

00:56:17   Yeah they don't last as long at all.

00:56:19   So that seems like a good thing for me.

00:56:22   I don't know if I would switch to the Magic Keyboard because I use one of these ergonomic

00:56:26   keyboards.

00:56:27   Yeah, you wouldn't, you probably wouldn't do it.

00:56:29   So there's not really a lot of benefit.

00:56:30   I'm using this Logitech rechargeable keyboard that is very similar to this one, in fact,

00:56:35   and I might switch.

00:56:36   I might.

00:56:37   We'll see.

00:56:38   So it doesn't sound like there's a lot of magic in this keyboard, so I hope there's

00:56:41   a little bit more magic in the trackpad and mouse.

00:56:45   There's more magic in the trackpad.

00:56:46   Okay, this is a shame.

00:56:50   Okay.

00:56:51   Trackpad, so similarly, the Trackpad is charged via lightning and will pair via

00:56:56   lightning to a Mac running El Capitan via USB. You can use these

00:57:01   with things that aren't running El Capitan, I think, but they will lack in a

00:57:05   lot of functionality. So the new Magic Trackpad is not silver on top,

00:57:10   it's white, which I think is interesting. The Trackpad space is

00:57:17   29% more area, so it's physically a much larger trackpad. It's basically, if you imagine the

00:57:29   Magic Trackpad, it's got that whole non-trackpad part up at the top, which is also where the

00:57:34   batteries live. You cut that off, imagine that that's gone, but then you add another sort of

00:57:39   inch on the side of the trackpad, so it's shorter and wider. It isn't, again, angled as high,

00:57:45   because it doesn't have the AA batteries in there.

00:57:48   That's big though.

00:57:50   And of course, so it's, well, it's a little bit bigger. It's just, it's a little bit wider.

00:57:55   But not as high. And it matches the keyboard perfectly. And it's, so it's a glass trackpad.

00:58:03   And of course the old Magic Trackpad, and Apple is happy to point out its flaws now,

00:58:08   It had the little feet that sat on the desk and they sort of indented when you pressed

00:58:17   them, but they were at the bottom so you couldn't really click as well from the top, and of

00:58:21   course this one clicks everywhere because it's a Force Touch.

00:58:26   And they're still calling it Force Touch?

00:58:27   They still are, because that's what the feature is on the Mac.

00:58:31   Maybe they'll change it later.

00:58:32   I wondered if maybe this would be like the overall, like, you know, the next shift.

00:58:37   oh, this is 3D touch, like weird, but okay.

00:58:41   - I think 3D touch is a different feature, right?

00:58:43   It's a, this is what this is called

00:58:45   and they're not gonna rebrand it yet.

00:58:47   I think maybe that'll take an OS revision

00:58:49   before they do that.

00:58:50   - Seems like it.

00:58:50   - But anyway, it doesn't depress.

00:58:53   Actually, if you look all around,

00:58:55   the whole top of it is kind of floating over

00:58:58   a very thin sort of squishy something.

00:59:00   I'm not quite sure what it is, but if you turn it off,

00:59:04   if you watch as you press,

00:59:06   You can see that the physical,

00:59:08   the glass top does depress a little bit,

00:59:12   but if you turn it off and try to do it,

00:59:14   you don't feel anything.

00:59:15   I mean, it is not, you would never feel a click.

00:59:18   So the click feelings are all emulated through vibration

00:59:22   just as they were on the MacBook.

00:59:24   It's the same idea and on the new MacBook Pros

00:59:28   that use this technology.

00:59:29   And you can do the force touch,

00:59:31   You can press harder on a word in a web browser

00:59:36   and it pops up the definitions

00:59:37   and all the other things that you could do on the laptop,

00:59:39   you can now do on a desktop with this track pad.

00:59:44   And it's even got, just as the laptops do,

00:59:49   it even has a setting for the sound of the click.

00:59:54   So it's got in it,

00:59:55   I think it's got a little speaker in it somewhere

00:59:57   that makes the sound that you associate with clicking

01:00:02   and you can turn that off.

01:00:03   And it still makes a little bit of a noise

01:00:07   because it's vibrating.

01:00:08   Certainly on my desk, it makes a little bit of a noise,

01:00:10   but it's much quieter when you do that.

01:00:12   And it's actually a little disconcerting.

01:00:14   I turned the click back on.

01:00:15   And this is why they have it, but it's totally artificial.

01:00:18   It's like cars that pipe in that make fake car noise,

01:00:21   electric cars that make fake car noise

01:00:23   'cause they want it to sound more like a car.

01:00:25   It's a little bit like that.

01:00:26   And that's true on the MacBook, the same thing.

01:00:31   They add some clicking noise to give you more feel

01:00:36   that it's actually clicking, even though it's not really,

01:00:39   it's just all in your head.

01:00:41   - The thing that keeps sticking with me though,

01:00:44   that you mentioned a moment ago,

01:00:45   is that they changed it to white.

01:00:48   - Yeah, it's white.

01:00:49   - So the keyboard, is it aluminum and white?

01:00:54   Yes, so it's matching the keycaps.

01:00:57   Interesting.

01:00:58   Rather than the metal frame.

01:01:00   Okay, okay.

01:01:02   Yeah, I was surprised too.

01:01:04   Seems odd, I can't really put my finger on why,

01:01:07   'cause everything else has white in it,

01:01:08   all of the other input devices.

01:01:10   But usually track pads,

01:01:13   well I guess track pads do for, anyway, nevermind.

01:01:16   But so anything else in the track pad that's interesting?

01:01:19   So yeah, two hour charge,

01:01:21   month or more of use they say,

01:01:23   and you can click because it's this force touch,

01:01:25   you can click anywhere on it.

01:01:26   So there's this clickable area is much larger.

01:01:28   And of course the actual surface area of the thing

01:01:31   is much larger too.

01:01:32   - Okay.

01:01:33   - And I've been using it for the weekend

01:01:35   and it feels good.

01:01:36   I'm a magic mouse user and I like it.

01:01:39   That said, the number of things you can force touch

01:01:43   in OS X, it's still not particularly great.

01:01:47   But I feel like this is actually going to speed adoption

01:01:51   of those features because of a couple things.

01:01:54   One, it makes those features accessible

01:01:56   to everybody who doesn't have those new laptops.

01:02:00   And especially developers oftentimes

01:02:04   are using a desktop computer

01:02:06   and don't have access to those features.

01:02:08   And now they can buy the Magic Trackpad

01:02:10   and they can actually get those features

01:02:13   and see for them themselves.

01:02:16   And that's a nice, I think that will help

01:02:18   that developers can actually try this stuff out now

01:02:21   instead of kind of scoffing and saying,

01:02:23   "No, it's not that important.

01:02:24   I'm not gonna bother."

01:02:25   So I hope to see more because honestly,

01:02:28   there are not a lot of places

01:02:29   where I'm using the Force Touch feature now.

01:02:31   And I would like more of that.

01:02:33   - There isn't peak and pop in OS X yet, is there?

01:02:37   - No, I mean, it could be implemented by somebody,

01:02:42   but they would have to do it themselves.

01:02:43   Whereas in iOS 9, it's implemented,

01:02:46   Apple has provided an API for peak and pop,

01:02:50   but there's nothing like that.

01:02:51   My hope is that there's either in an OS X update or in the next version next year that

01:02:56   they kind of revisit all of this stuff and make it more consistent and maybe they change

01:03:01   the name.

01:03:03   But it hasn't happened yet.

01:03:05   Okay.

01:03:06   And the Magic Mouse 2 then.

01:03:08   So I was hoping that this was going to solve an issue that I'm having.

01:03:12   So you know how much I love, as everybody does, the Logitech MX Master.

01:03:17   Yes.

01:03:18   I'm having severe wrist pain and I think it's to blame.

01:03:22   I think the reason is, is because I set it up

01:03:27   with all these buttons to do all of these things.

01:03:29   I think I'm exercising muscles in my hands and wrists

01:03:33   so I shouldn't be to make it do certain things

01:03:35   like clicking this button to change spaces

01:03:38   and this button to pause.

01:03:39   I think that the movements that I'm doing

01:03:41   with my hand and wrist are not good for it.

01:03:46   So I was hoping, what I was hoping was I was gonna be able to get a new Magic Mouse which had some false touchy type stuff in it

01:03:53   or something that would be a bit more useful to me, but this doesn't sound like what is about to be described to me.

01:04:00   - No, it is very much like the old Magic Mouse.

01:04:07   Apple says that the structure is a little more rigid and the feet have been redesigned and that it's lighter.

01:04:13   So they say that, you know, it clicks better and has a better feel in your hand.

01:04:18   But, and I'm not a mouse user, so I'm going to kind of take them at their

01:04:22   word here, but I don't really know.

01:04:23   But, uh, what it does have, so beyond those things, what it does have is a

01:04:29   lightning port, it, you can plug to pair.

01:04:33   It recharges.

01:04:34   Now the problem is the lightning port is on the bottom.

01:04:36   So here's the question.

01:04:38   What happens when you're in the middle of a project

01:04:42   and the Magic Mouse 2 runs out of battery?

01:04:45   - That's crazy, 'cause the MX Master charges via USB,

01:04:50   but the USB port is right in the front,

01:04:52   so you plug it in and it's just like a wired mouse.

01:04:54   - So what Apple says is, in 30 seconds,

01:04:57   you can get four hours of use,

01:04:58   and in a minute you can get an eight hour day

01:05:01   of use out of it.

01:05:02   - All right.

01:05:03   - So if you end up in trouble, you plug it in for a minute,

01:05:06   and then you're good for the rest of the day,

01:05:08   and then overnight you let it charge.

01:05:10   But that's it though.

01:05:14   There's no force anything.

01:05:16   It's a physically moving,

01:05:18   pivots from the back,

01:05:21   so you click on the top magic mouse.

01:05:24   So there's not, I would say it's not a huge story,

01:05:27   but it is different,

01:05:29   and the big story is that it's lighter and rechargeable.

01:05:33   - Okay.

01:05:34   Well,

01:05:35   I am a trackpad user. I might start using the trackpad more as a way to combat these issues that I'm having,

01:05:42   so maybe I'll pick up one of these trackpads as well and see what it's like.

01:05:46   But I'm sad about the mouse, I was hoping to get a little bit more than that.

01:05:50   Yeah, it's not that exciting.

01:05:55   But again, they claim about a month. All of these devices, they say it's basically got a month-ish of battery life.

01:06:02   And all of this stuff is available now?

01:06:04   All of this stuff should be available now.

01:06:08   In quantity is my understanding for the IMAX. They should be in stores.

01:06:12   Lovely. So this is, I think they've been making them and now they're releasing them to the wild.

01:06:17   This is not one of those, "yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be..." This is probably one of those things where

01:06:21   if they'd wanted to, they could have mentioned it back on September 9th, but they didn't want to and

01:06:26   that was a really busy thing and they would have had to say, "well, they're shipping in October."

01:06:29   But instead they just didn't say anything and then, you know, here's the announcement.

01:06:33   So here it is, new iMacs, new keyboard, new trackpad, slightly new mouse.

01:06:37   And yeah, it's news from Apple.

01:06:40   - Overall good stuff, you feel?

01:06:43   - Yeah, well, the keyboard is a huge relief. I mean, we can talk about this. I'm still trying

01:06:47   to get some perspective on it and working on some stories that I'm going to post in six colors about

01:06:52   this stuff. But the keyboard, I am, as somebody who's not a fan of the MacBook keyboard and hey,

01:06:58   some people like it and and and good good for them it's great but I don't like

01:07:02   it I think it's a I think it's a mistake to put that keyboard with all of its

01:07:06   compromises on other devices and even Apple when they introduced it admitted

01:07:12   that it was compromised but they needed to do it for the MacBook I'm really

01:07:16   happy to see that there's a brand new keyboard created by Apple that isn't the

01:07:21   MacBook keyboard brought to the external keyboard but is something that maybe

01:07:24   take some cues from it in terms of what they tried to do like improving key

01:07:29   stability but uses scissor mechanism and you know we'll see what the keyboard

01:07:35   snobs all say about whether it's any good or not but I will say this it is

01:07:39   way better than that MacBook keyboard in my estimation and that's a that's a good

01:07:43   sign that Apple doesn't think that the MacBook keyboard is the one that

01:07:46   everybody should use and that it will probably not appear on all its devices

01:07:50   So I like the keyboard, but I think I love the signal it sends about what Apple thinks about keyboards, which is not quite

01:07:57   what I feared it would be. And the Magic Trackpad 2 is really nice, and I, you know, as a Magic Trackpad user,

01:08:05   I am absolutely gonna buy it because I like, you know, I like the idea of

01:08:10   doing more Force Touch stuff, but I also I like the idea that it's

01:08:15   rechargeable and

01:08:17   Takes up it's got more surface area and is flatter. I think those are all good things too. It's pretty

01:08:24   Cool sounds good. All right. Should we do some ask upgrade to round out today's episode?

01:08:29   Let's do it and I look forward to next week talking about hopefully the new 27 inch high back that I will purchase

01:08:35   Whoo-hoo

01:08:37   So join there. Thanks stamps calm for sponsoring this week's episode

01:08:40   That's a good idea stamps calm is sponsoring this week's episode and hashtag ask upgrade

01:08:46   You know, mailing and shipping are a routine part of running your business.

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01:09:38   I kind of jumped in and jokingly said, "Would you sell my old flash audio recorder?"

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01:09:47   And I sold it to him, so I shipped it to him using Stamps.com, and I shipped out some trophies

01:09:52   for that award that The Incomparable won a while ago.

01:09:55   We have trophies, and they're going to my panelists, and I'm using stamps for that.

01:09:58   And it was great because I didn't have to go to the post office and fuss over it.

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01:10:38   (mimics air whooshing)

01:10:39   (laughing)

01:10:40   - I'm just, that's lodged in my brain now.

01:10:43   I can't get it out, so there we go.

01:10:45   For anybody that was missing mail bagging,

01:10:47   you've got (mimics air whooshing)

01:10:48   (laughing)

01:10:49   That's coming back soon though.

01:10:51   - There was, you know, in the Incomparable Radio Theater,

01:10:55   there's a mail bagging reference.

01:10:57   People should check that out.

01:10:58   - Oh, it warmed my heart greatly.

01:11:00   - Wow, yeah.

01:11:01   And I have been, David Law has told me to keep listening.

01:11:05   Is it people he tells me?

01:11:07   - I, yes.

01:11:08   And again, I'll just put in a plug here.

01:11:10   Please check out the Incomparable Radio Theater.

01:11:12   - Please do.

01:11:13   It's incredible.

01:11:14   I will say it for you.

01:11:15   I love it so much. - Thank you.

01:11:16   - And I'm so happy you guys are making it

01:11:19   because it is a real joy to listen to.

01:11:21   It's like podcast dessert.

01:11:23   - Ooh, I like that.

01:11:25   I like that phrasing.

01:11:26   Yeah, it's funny.

01:11:27   And short, they're all about 20 minutes long.

01:11:30   And it's very different from most of the podcasts

01:11:33   I would imagine that are in your podcast players

01:11:35   because it's fictional and has sound effects

01:11:39   and acting from good actors,

01:11:41   acting from tech people that you know

01:11:44   who may or may not be good actors and much more.

01:11:47   So yeah, please check it out.

01:11:49   But there is a Mailrat sponsor the first four episodes.

01:11:52   So there are lots of jokes in there,

01:11:54   including a mail bagging joke that relate to that.

01:11:56   So for upgrade listeners, that's a little call back.

01:12:00   Our first question this week comes from,

01:12:02   I believe this name would be Hjalta.

01:12:04   I'm gonna go with that.

01:12:05   - I think so.

01:12:06   - You said that Touch ID is faster on the success.

01:12:08   Is it also more accurate,

01:12:09   i.e. more forgiving of smudgy and sweaty fingers?

01:12:12   I have found that yes to be the case.

01:12:13   It feels more accurate to me.

01:12:14   Jason, would you agree?

01:12:16   - I don't know if I have done it enough

01:12:20   to say that it definitely is.

01:12:23   It seems like I'm not getting rejected by Touch ID

01:12:26   like I used to,

01:12:28   even when there's moisture on my fingertips.

01:12:31   But, you know, I'm glad that you have that perception

01:12:36   because I haven't been through it enough times

01:12:39   to say that it's definitely that way,

01:12:42   but it seems like it may be.

01:12:44   - One annoyance that I have with the new Touch ID sensor now

01:12:48   is how much harder it is to activate the Apple Pay gesture

01:12:51   with the double tap.

01:12:53   - Uh-huh, because it wants to unlock your phone.

01:12:55   - Yeah, 'cause it's just like,

01:12:56   "oh you want to unlock? Great, here you go." But if you unlock then you can double tap and it will

01:13:02   go to Apple Pay. Really? Yeah. Double tap, yeah okay. Or I mean double press the home button.

01:13:12   Well doesn't that activate multitasking though? Oh you're right, you're right. I thought no,

01:13:18   it's got to be on the lock screen. Well that's no good. Well just don't activate it, just

01:13:23   I don't know that you're right that is a problem. Yeah I find that I have to like hit it with my

01:13:28   nail like you know purposely try and get away from it but um yeah it's a lot faster. If I want

01:13:35   to see the lock screen I do a lot of uh it's like my thumb is on is on tiptoes I do it like the edge

01:13:40   of my thumb the front of my thumb where it can't recognize my thumb I do I do that a lot. Yeah

01:13:49   The problems is the faster Touch ID. Jeremy asked, "With iOS 9, iTunes does not seem to transfer

01:13:55   purchases. This means if I upgrade my phone to a 6s, I will have to redownload apps. With a limited

01:14:01   bandwidth as a rural user, I can't afford to download apps again." So this goes back to that

01:14:05   discussion we've been having recently, and this definitely seems to be the case, right? Like,

01:14:09   if you do an iOS 9 upgrade now, your purchases are redownloaded from the cloud. Like, I can't

01:14:15   seem, or I couldn't seem to find a way to get transfer purchases to mean that when

01:14:20   I did my backup, I restored from backup, it seemed like everything just went to download

01:14:24   from the cloud.

01:14:25   Yeah, that was my experience too, and I think it's a mistake.

01:14:28   I think Apple needs to provide a way for you to completely image your phone and then restore

01:14:34   it.

01:14:35   Because for people like Jeremy, that is a cost to him.

01:14:38   It comes out of his pocket to get his phone back to normal again.

01:14:41   This is an example of a lack of perspective that happens sometimes, I think, when people

01:14:47   who work at Apple and have great internet connections and have huge amounts of data

01:14:51   and don't worry about this stuff don't realize that people in rural areas are on super slow

01:14:56   data or super slow cellular and may be metered.

01:15:02   And there's so many different reasons why you can't just assume that you're going to

01:15:07   reinstall everything from the cloud.

01:15:09   And I feel like this is an example where that has become a problem, where Apple apparently

01:15:16   has lost that perspective and they need to get it back.

01:15:19   Because, yeah, if I'm somewhere far away, if I'm in Antarctica, right, and I don't have

01:15:26   an internet connection to speak of, except some, you know, tiny satellite thing that

01:15:30   comes over every few hours, and I want to restore my phone, I should probably—I've

01:15:35   got all the data right there, right?

01:15:37   I shouldn't need to give up until I leave

01:15:42   when the summer comes and I can get back out again

01:15:45   or whatever it is, sorry Antarctica.

01:15:48   But you see what I mean?

01:15:49   I mean, a lot of times people are in data challenge

01:15:53   situations and the data is right on your phone,

01:15:55   you should be able to do something with it.

01:15:56   And I think it's problematic that you can't.

01:16:00   So if people have tips about ways to get around this,

01:16:03   I would love to hear it, but I think Apple needs to make

01:16:06   this an easier process. This goes back to what we were talking about a couple

01:16:10   weeks ago when we were talking about upgrade problems is it would really be

01:16:13   nice if Apple would let you plug in your phone and say, "All right, I'm transferring

01:16:17   this to a new phone," press a button, have it suck everything off of it, and then

01:16:20   have it say, "Okay, plug in your new phone," and then drop everything back onto it.

01:16:25   And we don't have that right now. And this falls in that category too, where

01:16:29   you shouldn't have to take an app that you already have downloaded and

01:16:33   re-download it. Yep, I agree. It's a shame. Sorry Jeremy, we can't help, I don't think though.

01:16:40   Afraid not. David asked, "With ongoing iCloud issues and storage costs, should I upgrade to

01:16:45   the iPad Pro to replace my MacBook Air or go with a new Mac?" So my feeling for this question,

01:16:52   I feel like a lot of people might ask this question or be asking it of themselves, I think

01:16:57   the iPad Pro is only an option as a replacement for you if you can currently do it with an iPad

01:17:03   right now. If right now you can't take an iPad Air and replace your laptop with

01:17:08   that then the iPad Pro will not be an answer to you is the way that I feel.

01:17:11   Because all the iPad Pro is doing is giving you more space and more power and

01:17:17   a bit more flexibility with input devices. It's not currently at least you

01:17:23   know it's not feasible to say now that it's going to fundamentally

01:17:27   change the iPad in any way greater than that. It may over time but that's not

01:17:32   going to happen in a month's time from now. Like if you can't currently do all of your

01:17:37   work on an iPad, even if it, you know, just maybe it's a bit more cramped, then you won't

01:17:42   be able to switch to the iPad Pro completely. That's what my feeling.

01:17:47   I agree because you can use external keyboards with the iPad Air and you can use pens, although

01:17:53   not maybe of the quality of the Apple Pencil, you can use different pens with those. So

01:17:59   If you can't make a go of it now,

01:18:00   just because the iPad Pro is gonna be bigger and faster

01:18:03   and have the Apple Pencil support,

01:18:06   but really it's still running iOS.

01:18:08   It's gonna be what an iPad is.

01:18:10   And if that's not enough, then the answer is no.

01:18:14   I don't really understand the,

01:18:15   with ongoing iCloud issues and storage costs here too,

01:18:18   because either an iPad or a MacBook Air

01:18:22   can bypass Apple's stuff for a lot.

01:18:26   You know, you can use other services other than Apple's.

01:18:29   You have to sign in with your Apple ID for a few things,

01:18:32   including apps, but so much of the stuff can be replaced.

01:18:37   So I'm not sure that it's as big an issue as that.

01:18:41   I feel like unless you're having kind of huge iCloud issues

01:18:44   with restoring or something like that,

01:18:48   but otherwise, you know, you can use Dropbox

01:18:50   or you can use Microsoft stuff with the iPad

01:18:54   or with your Mac.

01:18:55   and I'm not sure that that is going to make a big difference.

01:18:58   Yep, definitely. And finally today Brandon asked,

01:19:01   "What do you think Amazon is doing with the Kindle? They haven't changed it to be

01:19:05   a better reading device in a while." What do you think, Jason? So obviously

01:19:10   this is the e-ink Kindle, right? Yeah, I'm a fan and I, you know, I've

01:19:15   bought many and I'm using their current version, the

01:19:19   Voyage. I guess they've got a new, an updated

01:19:21   version of it, but I've got the first generation of the Kindle Voyage.

01:19:25   I think that they have a place until other devices can do what they do in terms of readability

01:19:35   in providing contrast and readability in bright light and battery life. So I think that

01:19:42   it's a good niche product. It's not for everybody. I know a lot of people are reading books on their

01:19:48   on their smartphones or their iPads and that's fine, but for some of us, including me, the

01:19:54   the Kindle is a nice dedicated reading device.

01:19:56   And I love that I have a dedicated reading device.

01:19:58   That's where my books are.

01:19:59   And I read on that device and I find it pleasant

01:20:02   that that is the place that I'm doing it.

01:20:05   Is that a big enough market for Amazon

01:20:06   to invest a lot of R&D into that?

01:20:09   I don't know.

01:20:10   I mean, you could argue that it's not.

01:20:11   You could also argue that Amazon owns that market.

01:20:13   And so they wanna keep pushing the ball forward there.

01:20:16   Amazon's had a lot of problems with a lot of their hardware.

01:20:18   So, you know, this is,

01:20:20   I don't know enough about what's happening inside Amazon

01:20:22   to know whether they're investing anything at all

01:20:25   in Kindle or not.

01:20:27   They did, you know, they added a font and some other stuff.

01:20:31   I would hope that they were continuing to improve it.

01:20:33   You know, that said, I feel like the hardware

01:20:36   is pretty good.

01:20:37   They can, you know, if the E Ink screens

01:20:39   just keep getting better and more high resolution,

01:20:42   that's nice.

01:20:44   I think their software is due for a refresh

01:20:47   'cause I think the Kindle software is,

01:20:49   feels, still feels really primitive.

01:20:51   but I don't know.

01:20:53   - It feels to me like that product has matured

01:20:57   and really now is incremental change and software revisions

01:21:00   is the only thing that they can really do.

01:21:03   - Yeah, yeah, I mean, the,

01:21:05   they will, they'll push it forward as the technology

01:21:14   'cause I think E-Ink stuff will continue to get better.

01:21:17   But yeah, it has matured and it is very targeted

01:21:21   at what it, at this little audience.

01:21:24   And with the rise of tablets and smartphones,

01:21:27   it isn't because it isn't for everyone.

01:21:30   That is, you know, if I were Amazon as a cold,

01:21:37   you know, cold business decision,

01:21:40   I think it would be hard for me to justify

01:21:42   huge amounts of investment in the Kindle

01:21:45   because how much of a growth area is that?

01:21:50   It's a nice product that does a pretty good job

01:21:54   at what it does and doesn't need to be more than it is.

01:21:58   Like I said, I'd rather they invest in making the software

01:22:01   on the existing devices better

01:22:03   than in building new devices or build new devices

01:22:05   that are not that different from the old ones

01:22:07   but have much better software in them.

01:22:09   I think that would be better

01:22:09   'cause I think the Kindle software,

01:22:11   the typography, the user interfaces,

01:22:14   it could do some more work there,

01:22:15   but they're fine.

01:22:17   I like my Kindle.

01:22:18   I'd like to see them marching forward.

01:22:20   I just don't want them to be discontinued.

01:22:23   So I hope they continue to make them.

01:22:25   - That would be crazy to me

01:22:27   if they got rid of that product.

01:22:28   It's so cool to Amazon's business.

01:22:30   - Yeah, I think you're right.

01:22:32   I think--

01:22:33   - There've got to be enough people there

01:22:34   that care about reading.

01:22:36   - So many readers are not tech people too.

01:22:40   I think we lose, again, with the tech podcast world

01:22:43   and tech media world, we lose sight of the fact

01:22:45   that so many people who are readers are not us.

01:22:50   There is a huge, the book reading audience is big,

01:22:55   but it is demographically very different

01:22:59   from the tech audience.

01:23:00   It is more women, it is older,

01:23:04   and I would say it is less comfortable with technology.

01:23:10   And so, Kindles can be really good

01:23:14   for people who are older, less comfortable with technology,

01:23:17   because this is like a book, you know,

01:23:21   except you can buy things right on it.

01:23:22   And I've seen that happen time and again.

01:23:25   Over time, you know, like I kept buying

01:23:30   or handing down older Kindles to my mom

01:23:32   and she's got an iPad now

01:23:33   and she doesn't need the Kindle anymore.

01:23:34   She doesn't use the Kindle anymore

01:23:36   because she just does it on the iPad now.

01:23:37   But you know, and that may continue to happen

01:23:40   where people who might be perfect targets for this

01:23:44   have other devices and feel that they're, you know, they don't need, if you're less

01:23:48   technical and you've already got an iPad, you're probably not inclined to be a multi-device

01:23:53   person, right? You want to simplify. And I think the Kindle gets the boot in that case.

01:23:57   So, so yeah, I love it. It's a niche that I'm in, but I appreciate that it's a, it's

01:24:02   a little niche.

01:24:03   >>Right. I think that about wraps up this week. Um, Jason, where should people go to

01:24:08   read all of your coverage, um, and your thoughts about this, uh, these new products today?

01:24:14   You can read my review of the 21.5-inch iMac, 4K iMac, on Macworld.

01:24:22   You can read about a whole bunch of other stuff, including the input devices and some

01:24:28   other thoughts about the iMac line, at sixcolors.com.

01:24:31   And as always, you can find me on Twitter @jsnell and read me in general on sixcolors.com.

01:24:37   Okay, you can find the new mic at the movies subcast.

01:24:41   Is that--that's your phrasing for them, isn't it?

01:24:43   No, that's not a podcast.

01:24:44   That's a podcast.

01:24:45   This is a full-on podcast.

01:24:46   Wow, look at that.

01:24:47   Look at that.

01:24:48   Absolutely.

01:24:49   That's over at the incomparable.com/mike, which is my favorite URL on the internet now.

01:24:55   And you can find our show notes for this week, which has links to all of that sort of stuff

01:24:58   over at relay.fm/upgrade/58.

01:25:02   Thanks again to our lovely sponsors for this week's episode, the great people over at Braintree,

01:25:07   Hover, and Stamps.com.

01:25:08   Thank you so much for your support.

01:25:10   And most of all, thank you for listening.

01:25:13   We'll be back next time.

01:25:14   Jason will be maybe the same and I will be with a wallet that is very much lighter.

01:25:20   Until then, say goodbye Mr. Snow.

01:25:22   Bye everybody.

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