0:00:00*Bing*
0:00:00[Music]
0:00:08From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode number 57.
0:00:12Today's show is brought to you by Lynda.com,
0:00:14where you can instantly stream thousands of courses created by industry experts.
0:00:18Stamps.com, posted on demand, and go to meeting.
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0:00:27My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by the wonderful Mr. Jason Snell.
0:00:31Can you believe we've done 57 of these?
0:00:33It's amazing.
0:00:34It's amazing.
0:00:35It's flying by my friend.
0:00:36It is flying by.
0:00:37You do an episode a week and they just, the numbers just keep on going and it's
0:00:41just a couple of extras as well.
0:00:43Yeah, that's true.
0:00:44That's true.
0:00:46Well, happy, happy Monday to you.
0:00:47We recorded this on Monday and happy whatever day it is to you podcast
0:00:51listeners when you're listening to this.
0:00:53I always had that problem because the podcasts happen in this eternal
0:00:57present that is any day or any time and so you can't say tonight or today if you
0:01:02are listening during the day kind of thing. It's hard because podcasts could
0:01:07be any time. They're unmoored from time and space.
0:01:11Exactly. That's right but I'm glad that you're listening to this podcast now. So
0:01:17I want to do a little bit of follow-up from last week if you remember I tried
0:01:21my best to activate Ahoy! telephone on people and it didn't affect everyone as
0:01:27we heard from many people over Twitter in both camps so some people I did
0:01:33activate their Ahoy! telephone and some I did not and we heard from both from both
0:01:39sides so basically all you know is that the training isn't as perfect as you
0:01:45would maybe hope it would be and that it doesn't matter kind of who the person is
0:01:49it can still activate the new Ahoy! telephone feature.
0:01:53If you do not know what I'm talking about when I say Ahoy! telephone, it is to activate
0:01:57the personal assistant in your phone whilst the screen is off, which can now happen in
0:02:01the new S-phones.
0:02:03But we say Ahoy!
0:02:04telephone so we don't activate people's telephones.
0:02:07But I had an instance for me where I was watching a TV show and it activated a couple of days
0:02:12ago.
0:02:13Somebody said, "Are you serious?" and it lit up.
0:02:16But the funny thing about it is it was an American lady coming through my MacBook speakers.
0:02:22So I think the training clearly needs work.
0:02:25So this made me think, can you turn this feature off?
0:02:28And yes you can.
0:02:29If you go to settings general in Siri, you can turn off the new feature that's in iOS
0:02:339 and the new S phones, which is what I have done.
0:02:37Because I have my watch if I need to do the hands-free stuff and that makes way more sense
0:02:41to me anyway.
0:02:43makes sense to me too. And the training, I'm unclear on whether the training is just looking
0:02:49at particular like tones of voice or frequency ranges or if it's doing something a little
0:02:54more sophisticated. It does have you say a few different things but I'm still not convinced
0:02:57that's doing anything other than trying to get you to speak with a natural tone. So it
0:03:03sounds like it's better than it was perhaps but it's not locked on to your voice and no
0:03:09whether voice will unlock that feature.
0:03:12That doesn't seem to be the case.
0:03:14I think that there is more that you can do, like for example if it maybe had you just
0:03:18try and say more words than just that key phrase.
0:03:22Because you'd think that gender and accent would be a real...
0:03:28Like they're basically the two biggest defining characteristics of somebody's voice.
0:03:32And the fact that it picked up the exact opposite to me was interesting.
0:03:38Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
0:03:42There may be something about the way that it's listening to that it because the other
0:03:46thing that would solve this is if you could set something to say, set a key phrase or
0:03:51choose from a collection of key phrases, which is I think what Amazon does.
0:03:54My guess is though that there are costs for all of that because it's obviously listening
0:03:58for a certain pattern of sound with its low power mode, but it's still listening just
0:04:05for that certain pattern.
0:04:07so it might be harder to do it. It's a tricky problem, but the difficulty is, yeah, if it's
0:04:14listening all the time and you're in lots of places where people are talking, that you're
0:04:18going to get accidental activations.
0:04:22Also to follow up on my iCloud problems, during the last episode and now, Apple has released
0:04:27another point update. I don't know what these ones are actually called. What are these called?
0:04:33Because point updates is like 9.1.
0:04:35I don't know. Minor updates.
0:04:37update, we'll go there, 9.0.2, which had a bunch of fixes. It didn't mention anything
0:04:44about iCloud, but it has fixed my iCloud backup problems. So my phone is now backing up overnight
0:04:52automatically. Now the thing is, I have some friends, because I've been talking to people
0:04:57a lot about this who are having the same problem as me, and this did not fix it for them. Which
0:05:02I think further goes to my point from last week in that something is broken
0:05:06and it's a random set of things that can fix it for different people. Like you
0:05:11know I was saying like it just needs that kick to reboot it and that did that
0:05:149.0.2 did that for me but it still hasn't done it for everyone. I don't know
0:05:21what Apple need to do here because it seems like there's a fix that they can't
0:05:25put their finger on either. I'm hoping that 9.1 will be enough of a big change
0:05:31for a lot of people that it does fix it but not being able to back up to iCloud
0:05:35it's very frustrating. I agree it get you lose your safety net when when you you
0:05:42aren't doing that when you can't rely on that. Yep and it's the reason I pay for
0:05:46iCloud storage so right yeah yeah in a in a roundabout way I pay to back up my
0:05:53phone. I guess this is why people don't upgrade right away is that you spend a
0:05:59couple of weeks and Apple obviously spends a couple of weeks shaking all the little bugs
0:06:02out. And they're inevitably, you know, so when, when I write reviews of stuff like this,
0:06:07people are like, I can't believe you didn't mention this thing. And the answer is, well,
0:06:10you know, what happens most of these things are things that don't happen every time they
0:06:14happen to one person out of a thousand or one person out of 10,000. The problem is that,
0:06:20you know, if you're, if you're only testing with a small group, relatively small group
0:06:23of people, you may never find some of these quirks and then you roll it out to tens of
0:06:27thousands and then you notice. Confidence has definitely been shook in the average
0:06:33consumer about upgrading even though Apple's statistics are fantastic right? I
0:06:37just know that from people that I've spoken to they get a bit nervous about
0:06:44upgrading their devices now. Yeah I think IOS 7 really made a lot of iOS
0:06:49users wary because that was a pretty traumatic update and changed the
0:06:54you know, change the OS interface itself. And I think that has led to iOS users being
0:07:02a little more reluctant to dive in.
0:07:04- And was it eight that break people's phones? Or was it seven?
0:07:08- I don't know.
0:07:09- I remember it was one of them that had... There was like a bad... There was some bad
0:07:12code in the update.
0:07:13- Oh, yeah. Well, that was in eight. In eight, there was the one that it... There was an
0:07:17eight update that killed the cellular modem.
0:07:19- Yeah, there you go. That was it. That's what I wanted to go about.
0:07:22- Good times.
0:07:23So it's like, you know, you keep doing these things and people are like, "Oh!"
0:07:28And I feel for Apple because, I mean, the 7, the iOS 7 one, where they maybe could have
0:07:34predicted it, they didn't necessarily know that people wouldn't like it, right?
0:07:39But it's the issue of if people aren't tuned into your marketing message, they wake up
0:07:43the next day and they basically have a different phone, right?
0:07:47Because it looks nothing like the one from the day before.
0:07:50the motivation of the vendors is interesting because in a lot of these cases, they don't
0:07:55want you to not upgrade. They want you to upgrade and they don't care. They know that
0:08:00some people are going to be fearing change and be reluctant to change, but they're highly
0:08:05motivated to get everybody on the latest and greatest. And so they're not trying to make
0:08:13life easy for people who are holding back from updating. They're not interested in that.
0:08:20And the challenge is when you do something really traumatic, like with the iOS 7 interface
0:08:25changes, that's pretty, yeah, that was pretty shocking.
0:08:29And I think there was a lot of trust lost there because their phone changed overnight.
0:08:32And I know I heard it from some of my relatives, like, you know, "There's a new update.
0:08:36Is this going to change my phone again completely?"
0:08:38Nope.
0:08:39Just that one time.
0:08:40But still, they remember.
0:08:42>>It is one of those things, though, that I don't know how you solve that problem.
0:08:46Like if it's what you want to do, like, I don't know if there's any other way to do
0:08:50it but, you know, there are people smarter than me to look at these issues.
0:08:54Let's do a bit of follow-up.
0:08:57We haven't spoken about this yet and I know that a few people wanted us to.
0:08:59It's all part of the conspiracy.
0:09:00Yeah, it's all part of the conspiracy, the ever-running large conspiracy regarding peace
0:09:06and ad blockers and Marco.
0:09:10And there's been some really interesting discussion on ATP136 and on the talk show 132 about this
0:09:16this. Obviously Marco was on both of those. And I know that, Jason, you wanted
0:09:23to kind of talk about the fact that we're friends, right? Yeah, this is, I mean
0:09:32I don't really want to spend a lot of time talking about ad blockers and
0:09:35about the, I think it's a complicated issue. I think I may have said
0:09:41this previously, you will end up just all feeling bad and not solving anything.
0:09:48I'm gearing up for something, like I'm still chewing through my feelings and I think that
0:09:54me and Grey are going to talk about this at some point, just because I think he's going
0:09:58to have a different kind of view on this kind of stuff because he comes from somewhere else.
0:10:03I would be interested to hear what he has to say. I think after we did the show last
0:10:06week we talked about this a little so the people who were in the live chat listening
0:10:10live stream heard it, but I did talk about ad blocking and more generally about how problematic
0:10:17web ads are on the talk show in July, so that's episode 126 of the talk show. Gruber and I
0:10:24talked about that for quite a bit and I think, you know, I recounted some of the things that
0:10:30I witnessed working for a publishing company that was struggling with how you make money
0:10:35on the web. And my feelings about ad blocking in general are--they're difficult, they're
0:10:42problematic because I think that on one level it is wrong to take the content that's being
0:10:50offered but not the things that ride along with them. On one level I think that's wrong.
0:10:57On another level though I feel like the abuse of that connection and that trust has gone
0:11:05totally out of control and and sort of taken the publishers don't have any ground to stand
0:11:10on anymore about this because of how badly they've abused that if you could imagine getting a getting
0:11:15a newspaper your daily newspaper suddenly I mean think back 10 years your daily newspaper
0:11:22suddenly comes with a fake a fake front page that's all fake stories about an advertiser and
0:11:30And when you open it up, there's like a thing that pops up and plays a sound until you close
0:11:37that page.
0:11:38And then somewhere else in there, they've inserted eight different cologne samples and
0:11:43those are stinking up the newspaper.
0:11:46And some of those were attempted in print.
0:11:49And generally, it was very expensive and it turned out that the readers hated it.
0:11:54I've got to say I saw Andy Baio tweet today about the front page of the LA Times and it
0:12:02looks like a web page.
0:12:03I put a link in the show notes and in the chat room.
0:12:06It's kind of fun to see.
0:12:08So the trend toward junk, I mean, it happens.
0:12:12So I feel like it's a complicated issue and like I said I think in the end everybody just
0:12:16feels bad because you want to find a way to support this.
0:12:20This is one of the things that was, I think, almost inevitable when the entire model for
0:12:25the web settled down to everything is free, or almost everything is free on the web and
0:12:30it's all about traffic and ads to make money and not about people paying for stories. It
0:12:38used to be you didn't get news unless you paid for it, and now we all get it for free
0:12:44from a lot of different sources. So there's that issue. But that's actually not what I
0:12:47wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about, at least briefly, is that I had that
0:12:50moment listening to Marco talk about making the decision to pull Peace because he wasn't
0:12:55comfortable and he decided he didn't want to be in the ad blocking industry. I don't
0:13:03know, Myke, you and I were privy to--we saw a beta of Peace and we saw conversations about
0:13:12piece a little bit in our Relay FM Slack channel. And I just had a couple of moments where I
0:13:20felt like I asked myself, "Did I fail Marco by not trying to steer him away from this
0:13:27idea that he decided was a bad idea?" Because I felt like we were all sort of supportive
0:13:32of Marco. It's like, "Hey Marco, I can't believe you're doing this thing, but good for you."
0:13:38And we tried to be sort of friendly and supportive.
0:13:41And I just had that moment of thinking, you know, should we have been more skeptical?
0:13:46Should we have been, you know, warned him, like, "Do you really want to get into this
0:13:51or not?"
0:13:52I don't know.
0:13:53I just feel a little bit of guilt that I could have seen this coming and failed to say anything.
0:13:58I didn't see it coming.
0:13:59It's not like I saw it coming and decided I was going to let him, you know, go through
0:14:05this.
0:14:06had that moment of pause of like, you know, did I, could I have thought about this a little
0:14:13bit more and sort of jumped out and said, "No, wait my arms. No, Margot, stop. No, think
0:14:18about this some more." And I didn't do that.
0:14:20See, I feel bad about it too now. And it kind of frustrates me looking back at it because
0:14:32I have, I mean we've spoken about it on this show in the past, like I have very complex feelings
0:14:39towards ad blocking and I don't really know where I fall on it. So I should have been able to
0:14:47transplant that feeling onto the idea to say "Marco this could be trouble" but for some reason
0:14:56it never crossed my mind. I was using it, trying it out, I was like "this is really cool" was my
0:15:02thinking. Right? And just like, "Wow, look how fast the pages load!" I was purely
0:15:07focused on the technical, and this is exactly what Marco was saying, and I
0:15:11think it might be difficult for people to hear that and believe it. Right, like
0:15:15he was talking about this on ATP, but I was like nodding along because I was
0:15:20like, "Yeah, I saw it too, and it never... I didn't connect the dots between the two
0:15:26things." Because it just felt like, "Hey, this is a technical achievement. He has
0:15:30created a thing that really works well and I really think it's because I don't
0:15:39have skin in this exact game I think that was why I didn't think about it
0:15:45because there's nothing to block on Relay there's nothing there I mean some
0:15:51some desktop ad blockers do actually block our this episode was sponsored by
0:15:56Box because every now and then I get an email from someone saying you should put
0:16:00sponsors on the page I'm like hey you should turn off your ad blocker and I
0:16:05checked that it was one of the first things I checked when I install pieces
0:16:08to our sponsor blocks load on the on the show pages and they did and I was
0:16:11like great that works and so I didn't ever really think about the you are
0:16:16entering into a war of ideals here and it's interesting to look at it now and
0:16:22be like well yeah of course he was and it's funny how we all kind of came to
0:16:27that thinking afterwards rather than before?
0:16:33>>TIM CHANIN-POMERANZ It's a story that's been told many times,
0:16:35which is the, you know, I think most probably most notably in the Manhattan Project, but
0:16:43it's the story of scientists and there and and but it goes for all technology, which
0:16:51is there's the enthusiasm about learning something new and creating something new. And then there
0:16:55there is the thought about the application of it. And those are always in conflict, or
0:17:01often in conflict anyway, where you've got the, as the line from one of my favorite TV
0:17:05shows said, I mean, I only build the bomb, I don't drop it, right? Like, it doesn't,
0:17:10I'm completely disconnected from the effects of the thing that I've built. I'm just focused
0:17:15on the building. And I think history is full of examples of people enthusiastic about building
0:17:20new things without necessarily thinking through all the horrible uses that would come to them.
0:17:25And so, you know, I think that we were guilty in some ways of not shifting our frame of
0:17:32reference from this person we know who we're in this sort of private conversation with
0:17:38having worked on something new and trying it out and saying, "Yeah, it really does
0:17:43work, and I noticed this about it," and not taking that step back and saying, "What's
0:17:49going to happen when this all goes down, and where does it lead?" and thinking about
0:17:53that, and I'm not saying that making an ad blocker is immoral, but I'm saying that it
0:17:58is controversial enough that when you pull back from the idea of "this is a cool thing
0:18:04that you built," you then start to have that realization of what's going to happen. I think
0:18:10we could have seen it coming, and that's all I wanted to bring up. There's no answer here
0:18:15other than I feel bad that Marco had to go through it. I totally understand how it happened,
0:18:21which is that he realized that, first off, he's a smart businessman. I have to say that.
0:18:26He saw an opportunity here. As a programmer, he thought, "Oh, content blockers on OS 9
0:18:32are going to be a big thing. Let's do something there." And he did something there, and he
0:18:36built it. And he did that because of his interest in learning about this technology, in supporting
0:18:42new Apple technologies, and because he assumed, I think, more than—and he talked about this
0:18:47on ATP and I think the talk show, he assumed there'd be 20 of them, right? And there weren't.
0:18:57Surprisingly only a handful of them at launch. And that was the stuff that was driving him,
0:19:03was I could build this, I could make a deal with Ghostery, I could learn what the different
0:19:07formats are and I could implement this new thing from Apple. And that was what was driving
0:19:13it. And it was only afterward that he realized, "Oh, I'm going to get all the people in the
0:19:19media business angry at me, and I'm looking now at a future where I'm going to have to
0:19:24maintain this thing, and now I'm part of the ad block industry, which is kind of a gross
0:19:28industry." And he didn't want to be a part of it. So ultimately, I feel bad that he went
0:19:34through it and that he didn't stop earlier and say, "Oh, this is not a good idea. I shouldn't
0:19:38release this. And like I said, I feel at least a little residual guilt that I didn't at least
0:19:48have enough perspective to say, "Are you sure you want to do this?" And I'm not saying that,
0:19:53you know, like I said, I didn't know this was going to happen and say, "Well, we'll
0:19:56see. Let's watch what Marco does now." It was like, I didn't think of it and I wish
0:20:00I had. Yeah. Definitely. All right, let's take a break and get into, we have a real
0:20:06selection of topics today. Lots of little things going on.
0:20:09Oh yeah, big menu.
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0:22:46So OS X El Capitan came out in between the two shows that we've recorded.
0:22:53I'm running El Capitan on my Mac Pro right now.
0:22:57It has not fixed the issues I was having with my Mac Pro, which is for anybody that hasn't
0:23:03followed the chain.
0:23:04I have an issue with my Mac Pro wherein it sometimes just freezes.
0:23:11All of the UI locks up.
0:23:13I can still have podcast conversations, Skype still works, and in some apps audio recording
0:23:20still works.
0:23:21It's a whole big thing, which is so much to say this is why I will be buying a new iMac
0:23:27as soon as they are revved, which I'm hoping should be soon-ish.
0:23:30I hope so.
0:23:31I priced one out today.
0:23:32Oh, well that's never a good sign.
0:23:35I'm going to be buying a monster, Jason.
0:23:38I'm looking at currently, as it stands, 4 gigahertz quad-core i7, 16 gigabytes of RAM,
0:23:471 terabyte of flash storage.
0:23:50Are you anticipating getting an updated 5K?
0:23:54Yeah, I'm getting the 5K, yep.
0:23:56Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
0:23:58Boy, that's gonna be a sad--
0:23:59That day is coming soon, I'm sure,
0:24:01where my precious 5K iMac here will be last year's model.
0:24:05I mean, technically it is last year's model,
0:24:07but it hasn't been eclipsed yet.
0:24:08But it's--well, yeah, I mean,
0:24:10they've re-bundled some stuff and all that,
0:24:12but my precious, my precious model.
0:24:13Yeah, I'm gonna be going the whole way,
0:24:15'cause I'll be able to sell my Mac Pro
0:24:17for about two-thirds of the cost.
0:24:18Dare I say #JasonWasRight?
0:24:21[laughs]
0:24:22Well, no, you see--
0:24:23Come on, give this to me.
0:24:24Give this to me!
0:24:25No, because people say this, right, because they said, "Oh, you should get an iMac, you
0:24:28should get an iMac at the time."
0:24:29But at that time, I only had the space for one monitor in the office where I work, and
0:24:36I needed to have something that could also have games consoles plugged into.
0:24:42So that was why I had to go with a machine.
0:24:44That was one of the primary reasons.
0:24:45But now I have a whole different setup.
0:24:47I have a lovely TV here that my PS4 and Xbox and Wii are plugged into.
0:24:51And so now I'm going to go for the iMac because I want that big Retina display as well as
0:24:55all the power now.
0:24:57All right.
0:24:59I'll allow it.
0:25:00Yeah, I'm sorry.
0:25:03You'll get a Jason was right in soon enough.
0:25:05Maybe before the end of this episode.
0:25:06You're just copying me.
0:25:07Yeah, that's it.
0:25:08I just want that Jason Snell experience.
0:25:11Yeah, the full Snell Zone experience.
0:25:14Thank you.
0:25:16So El Capitan, what you're saying is your solution updating to El Capitan isn't going
0:25:23to do it, so instead you're just going to buy a whole new computer.
0:25:26Yes.
0:25:27I'm sorry, I had hoped that maybe just whatever that problem is that it would be solved in
0:25:32El Capitan, but...
0:25:33This isn't a thing to be sorry about.
0:25:35I'm going to be getting a nicer computer.
0:25:37Sure.
0:25:38You know, there was a part of me that was hoping that this wouldn't fix the problem.
0:25:43Well then congratulations, I'm glad your bug did not get fixed in El Capitan.
0:25:48Whatever it is, whatever strange OS bug it is that it does that, that's just such a weird
0:25:54thing.
0:25:55Yeah, so El Capitan came out.
0:25:58That's what we're saying.
0:25:59El Capitan is out.
0:26:01I'm hoping you will have more to say about El Capitan than I do.
0:26:05Like I don't have a ton to say.
0:26:06I like the split screen and I like the overall enhancement submission control because I really
0:26:12do work in my Mac in Mission Control?"
0:26:14Well, I mean, I think that's one of the unheralded improvements is that I really like what they
0:26:20did to Mission Control.
0:26:21The fact that all of your windows now appear when you activate Mission Control instead
0:26:30of stacking all the windows from an app together, which was kind of annoying if you work heavily
0:26:36in some specific apps.
0:26:39And I really like that they've got the geography thing going on where it's much easier to find
0:26:45windows in Mission Control because they don't go too far away.
0:26:48They sort of stay roughly where they were.
0:26:52So you know like it was over on the left somewhere and you look and you can find it.
0:26:56I think they did a good job with all of that and you can drag more things up into the Mission
0:27:01Control bar now.
0:27:02I like that you can send them out full screen by just dragging it up there.
0:27:06Yeah, you just grab the window and toss it up there and it's full screen.
0:27:09And the split screen stuff is really good. So talking about that presentation
0:27:12that I'm working on, see I'm working on 25 inch monitor here. So I have keynote
0:27:17open, effectively it's full in size and I also have the Notes app
0:27:22pinned to the side because I've written my outline for my presentation
0:27:26in the Notes app and then I'm transferring some into my speaker notes
0:27:30and using it to help me go through the presentation and add slides in and stuff
0:27:35like that so the split screen is fantastic for that I wish there was a
0:27:40more elegant way to bring apps out of full screen currently going up to the
0:27:45menu bar and hitting the green well what used to be the green button or whatever
0:27:49it is now it's a really inelegant solution so do you know the other the
0:27:54other way to do it is in mission control you can actually if you go to the the
0:27:59the space that is your split screen uh-huh instead of having the X to get rid
0:28:04of the space, it has this little icon that's like,
0:28:07it basically means blow apart.
0:28:09And if you click it, the two, both of the windows
0:28:12go back into regular mode.
0:28:14- Yeah, see that's-- - So that is a way
0:28:16to do it faster, but-- - That doesn't feel right
0:28:17to me. - But you should have
0:28:19a keyboard shortcut on that green button, I think.
0:28:23Or the green button should just pull both of the apps out.
0:28:25I think this is one of those cases where
0:28:27the fact is Split View is just full screen mode
0:28:30with two apps in it.
0:28:31and they both think they're in full screen mode
0:28:34on a monitor that's narrower.
0:28:36- My ideal way of doing this is if you have two apps
0:28:40in split screen and you go into mission control,
0:28:42it shows you those two sort of broken out
0:28:46and then you can move them individually.
0:28:48- That'd be nice.
0:28:49- Right?
0:28:50- Yeah, it's just, it's not,
0:28:52this is one of those features
0:28:53that will get refined over time, I think.
0:28:55- Exactly.
0:28:55- But in this first version, it's a little bit of a hack.
0:28:57It is two apps in full screen mode,
0:29:00but running side by side.
0:29:01They don't really know about each other.
0:29:03I have some issues with the fact that apps don't,
0:29:06so many apps are not written to assume
0:29:08that if they're in full screen mode,
0:29:09they might be sharing space with another app.
0:29:11And so they don't often indicate whether they're active
0:29:14or not, and that's problematic because, you know,
0:29:17you can only type in the one that's active.
0:29:18And in some cases, things like scrolling or pinching
0:29:20and zooming are limited based on whether the app
0:29:23is front most or not.
0:29:24In full screen mode, there's no concept
0:29:26of front most kind of.
0:29:28it's, they're gonna work this stuff out.
0:29:30But I agree with you, it is, you should be able,
0:29:34right now if you click that green button,
0:29:36one app goes back into the desktop
0:29:40and the other one stays full screen,
0:29:43which I'm not sure should be the default behavior,
0:29:47but at the very least it would, you know,
0:29:49it would be nice if there was a very quick way
0:29:52to do that, to uncouple them both
0:29:56and send them back to their respective spaces rather than having to click one and then go
0:30:00swipe back to the other one and click it too.
0:30:03And right now the fastest—there is a shortcut to do that, but it's to go to Mission Control
0:30:07and blow up the little space that they share with the little icon in the corner of the
0:30:16icon at the top of the screen in the Mission Control bar.
0:30:19Not ideal.
0:30:20you've spent more time thinking and reviewing, naturally, OS X than I have.
0:30:28Are there any other features of El Capitan that excite you or that interest you?
0:30:35I mean, for example, if there's anything good in Safari, I don't know what it is, because
0:30:39I'm using Chrome, like a gentleman.
0:30:41Well, Pinsights.
0:30:42like pen sites okay which is like mega favorites instead the because I use the
0:30:56bookmarks bar or the favorites bar or whatever they call it now and and it's
0:31:01the favorites bar and I've got a bunch of stuff up in there but the the pen
0:31:06sites is these little these little tiny tabs they live within the tab bar and
0:31:12and they have an icon if the site has given an icon.
0:31:17Although I found in Safari that the icons sort of come and go
0:31:21don't really know why.
0:31:22Sometimes they're there, sometimes they aren't there,
0:31:25but you can pin those sites and they stay there
0:31:28and they're in every window.
0:31:29And so if you've got sites that you visit a lot,
0:31:31you can just pin them and then they're always available.
0:31:33They're a keystroke away.
0:31:35It tries to keep them up to date.
0:31:37So they're preloaded.
0:31:38If you click on a link that's in the pin site,
0:31:41it stays in the pin site, but if you click on an offside link rather than closing your
0:31:45pin site and opening that link in the same window, it just flips you to a new tab, and
0:31:53the place you left on your favorite site is still there.
0:31:56So there's some nice things about that that I think it's kind of cool.
0:32:01And I think Safari, oh, that changes the keyboard shortcut behavior, which is kind of annoying
0:32:07if you're somebody who did get used to the keyboard shortcuts of the bookmark bar.
0:32:11And then there's the audio muting feature, which is nice, which is your auto-play video
0:32:15feature.
0:32:16If you've got a tab that suddenly starts making noise, and people who have lots of tabs open,
0:32:21this happens a lot, you can mute your browser tab if it's playing in that window.
0:32:27You can also mute all the others and just say, "Wherever that thing is playing, I don't
0:32:32want to hear it."
0:32:33And that's a nice feature.
0:32:36So there's some stuff in there.
0:32:38Notes got big improvements that sync up with the iOS 9 improvements.
0:32:41I should have mentioned notes because it's one of my favorite apps now.
0:32:45Just flat out.
0:32:47All those features that use the iCloud, first off it's the iCloud syncing so you don't have
0:32:51to just use IMAP email boxes for your notes.
0:32:54They actually sync with iCloud now and iCloud.
0:32:59iCloud notes get all these other features where there's like more like check boxes and
0:33:03you can do sketches with on iOS and you can view those on the Mac, although you can't
0:33:07create them.
0:33:10You know, it's a, I think like in my review on Macworld, I liken this to putting a better
0:33:17selfie camera on an iPhone and putting a camera on the iPad is one of those things that maybe
0:33:22Apple when they were building these products didn't expect it to be as popular a behavior
0:33:27as it turned out to be.
0:33:28And once you realize that it's popular, you say, well, we should probably make it better
0:33:32then if it's going to be popular people
0:33:34going to use it we should make it better
0:33:35and I feel like that's what happened
0:33:36with notes is they realize that
0:33:38everybody uses notes for something
0:33:39because it's pre-installed it's super
0:33:41easy to get to it may not be the
0:33:43greatest thing in the world yes there
0:33:44are competitors that do a better job but
0:33:45it's still crazy popular so let's make
0:33:48it better and so they did and so it's
0:33:50better across iOS and and OS 10 and I
0:33:54think they did a good job and I'm glad
0:33:55they finally put in the effort to not
0:33:57make it like use your email boxes in
0:33:59order to do notes because that was dumb
0:34:01It was a hack that lasted for like eight years.
0:34:04I don't know how that managed, but it's done now and it's very easy to migrate to.
0:34:10You can actually just select your notes and drag them into iCloud and they move over to
0:34:14iCloud and it's fine.
0:34:16You can set up folders for your notes and, you know, they did a very good job, I think,
0:34:20with updating notes.
0:34:23And photos, since I'm the author of Photos for Mac, a take control crash course, a book
0:34:29book available, an e-book available for download now. I pay very close attention to the Photos
0:34:35app because I wrote a whole book about it and now that there's an update to Photos version
0:34:411.1 that comes with El Capitan, I wanted to go through that and find all the new features
0:34:48there because I'm going to have to update my book. It will be a free update but I'm
0:34:52gonna update my book for for 1.1 and and there are a few they knocked off the
0:34:58the biggest feature requests keeping in mind photos for Mac only came out in the
0:35:02spring they haven't had a whole year to update it so it's a it's not a 2.0 it's a
0:35:071.1 but like the top complaint of users of photos was that you couldn't geotag
0:35:13photos in the app you couldn't edit geo data and you couldn't add geo data to
0:35:17photos that didn't have it embedded in it, like taken from an SLR or something, some
0:35:23other device that doesn't have location information.
0:35:26And you can now.
0:35:27It uses the same maps database that everything else does by default, the Apple Maps database.
0:35:34But I selected a whole bunch of pictures that I took 10 years ago that aren't geotagged,
0:35:40and I was able to select them all and choose Command-I to bring up the info pane and enter
0:35:45in the name of the location where we were and hit return and boom they were
0:35:47all geotagged and it automatically syncs over iCloud so if I search later for
0:35:52pictures from Seattle those pictures that I tagged are now going to show up
0:35:56so that was a it should have you know it should have been there but it wasn't
0:36:00batch batch geotagging individual geotagging batch changing of titles and
0:36:04descriptions and keywords that's all in there now so you know and the other
0:36:08thing is extensions I actually wrote about this on on six colors you can now
0:36:11app developers can write extensions that work in photos, editing extensions,
0:36:17similar to the concept of photo editing extensions on iOS, which there haven't
0:36:22been a lot of, but I've counted like four or five that are in the Mac App Store
0:36:27right now that will let you...
0:36:28Still waiting on that VSCO one that they demoed on stage.
0:36:34Yeah.
0:36:35With iOS 8 or whatever it was.
0:36:38- Yeah, yeah, that didn't get a lot of pickup, did it?
0:36:41But I tried a few from Mac Fun, from B-Funky,
0:36:46and Pixelmator's got one that's coming out
0:36:48with an update to Pixelmator.
0:36:50And, you know, we'll see how the developer
0:36:54adoption goes of this.
0:36:56And the idea is that third parties can add things.
0:36:59Like, there are some filters that are black and white
0:37:01filters inside photos, but Tonality from Mac Fun,
0:37:05which is like an $18 app.
0:37:07And it's funny because as an app, it is just like a blank.
0:37:10You know, you open a picture and it brings up an interface
0:37:13and you make changes and it creates a, you know,
0:37:16a really nice, usually like black and white image
0:37:19and you press okay and it saves it out.
0:37:21It's not much of an app.
0:37:22And it actually makes sense as an extension inside
0:37:26of photos because then you're editing a photo
0:37:29and then you get to the point where you wanna run it
0:37:31through this third party extension and you can do that.
0:37:36and then you save it and you never left photos.
0:37:39You just use the functionality of that inside of photos.
0:37:42So that got added.
0:37:44We'll see if it's a curiosity
0:37:45or if it becomes more valuable.
0:37:47I think that one of the nice things about it is
0:37:50it lets people who have pet features
0:37:52that there's some subculture of people,
0:37:54some subsection that really, really wants this feature,
0:37:57but it's never gonna be enough for Apple to add it.
0:37:59Now somebody can develop an extension that does it
0:38:02and it'll work inside the photos
0:38:04and Apple doesn't have to go down that path.
0:38:07So that's beyond that.
0:38:11I mean, El Capitan is where it's compatible with everything.
0:38:15I believe they haven't reduced compatibility
0:38:19for an OS release since Mountain Lion.
0:38:24I think all the same systems run Mountain Lion,
0:38:28Maverick, Yosemite and El Capitan.
0:38:31They haven't, not all the features work,
0:38:34But Apple very much wants everybody.
0:38:36And in fact, you can upgrade from as long,
0:38:38if you've got a compatible system
0:38:39from as far back as Snow Leopard,
0:38:41you can upgrade directly to El Capitan.
0:38:44- That's good.
0:38:47- Yeah, well, Apple wants everybody on the current version.
0:38:49And that's where all the biggest security updates are.
0:38:53And that's part of the reasoning for doing it this way,
0:38:57is they want everybody on this version.
0:38:59They want, that way,
0:39:03they're not spending all their time maintaining Windows XP, right?
0:39:06They're like, "Look, if you've got any computer that we've sold,
0:39:09almost any computer we've sold in the last six years,
0:39:12you can just run El Capitan and you'll get all the updates."
0:39:15So, I think that's interesting.
0:39:18It's free, it's a download,
0:39:20and it works with pretty much any computer
0:39:24from the last five years.
0:39:25- Anything else, El Capitan?
0:39:28- I don't know, I feel like I've got it all there.
0:39:32That's, it's free.
0:39:34It's been solid for me.
0:39:36I think people should, yeah,
0:39:42I think you should give it a try.
0:39:43Again, we just talked about,
0:39:45if you wanna wait a couple of weeks
0:39:47to see if issues get shaken out, then do so.
0:39:51And then I guess the other thing I would say is,
0:39:53if there are apps that you rely on day to day
0:39:55to do your job, go check and see if they are okay
0:39:59in El Capitan, 'cause if they're not, don't upgrade.
0:40:01That's like rule one, is if there's stuff that you rely on
0:40:05that doesn't work with it, 'cause I heard from somebody
0:40:07who said, "Oh, I upgraded to El Capitan,
0:40:08it turns out that these two programs that I use
0:40:10that I totally rely on that are like five years old
0:40:13don't work in El Capitan without installing
0:40:14all of these extra things."
0:40:16And it was a disaster, so I went back to Yosemite.
0:40:18I'm like, "Well, yeah, I think if you were relying
0:40:23on especially old software, check out to Google around
0:40:26a little bit, see if there are issues,
0:40:28because that can be a problem.
0:40:32I didn't have any issues like that
0:40:34because I'm using mostly recent software.
0:40:37Like an app that many podcasts use,
0:40:40the Levelator apparently broke in El Capitan,
0:40:42although Tidbits posted an article about
0:40:44there is a way to fix it.
0:40:47It's an unsupported app from a company that no longer exists
0:40:52but people are trying to keep it alive.
0:40:55But with the exceptions of
0:40:57if you've got a mission critical app
0:40:58that just won't work in it, I'd say,
0:41:00otherwise it's a pretty smooth update.
0:41:02I thought it's almost routine.
0:41:05And that's a good thing that Apple is trying to make this
0:41:09as smooth and routine as possible
0:41:11and not have these upgrades seem upsetting to people.
0:41:16And I think they did a pretty good job with El Capitan.
0:41:20It's a, you know, I can't measure the speed improvements.
0:41:24They say it's a lot faster.
0:41:25It's probably more measurable on slower systems
0:41:28than the 5K iMac that I was using for most of my testing because it's pretty fast as
0:41:32it is.
0:41:34But by using Metal underneath instead of OpenGL, the game performance should be a lot better
0:41:38and a whole bunch of other graphics stuff should be a lot smoother because core animation
0:41:42and core graphics are now using Metal instead of OpenGL.
0:41:45>> Cool.
0:41:46>> But it didn't fix your computer.
0:41:50Sorry.
0:41:51>> No, it didn't.
0:41:52It did not fix my computer at all.
0:41:54Actually, let me take a second sponsor break right now and then I want to talk about Amazon
0:42:01a little bit.
0:42:02Okay.
0:42:03Yeah, because there's some interesting stuff going on there this week.
0:42:05Yeah.
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0:43:48So, over the past few days, Amazon have issued a release and have then subsequently stopped
0:43:59selling devices like the Apple TV and the Chromecast.
0:44:03And the quote from Amazon is, "Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important
0:44:08part of Prime," is what they said in an email that they sent out.
0:44:12"It's important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in
0:44:16in order to avoid customer confusion.
0:44:20So basically what it seems like and what the assumption is
0:44:24that Amazon and Apple and Amazon and Google
0:44:29have not yet come to an agreement
0:44:33over how to work together to get Prime onto their platforms.
0:44:37So whether it's the Apple or Google
0:44:40are asking Amazon to design in a certain way
0:44:43that they're uncomfortable with,
0:44:44or Amazon is saying,
0:44:46we're not gonna go through your in-app purchase system
0:44:48and we want people to sign up for their accounts,
0:44:49whatever the reasons are,
0:44:52they've basically come to a stalemate
0:44:54in which Amazon has now taken some pretty harsh action.
0:44:58- Yeah, it's weird, it's weird.
0:45:03I see both sides of this and I know that
0:45:06it's been very popular for people to just point at Amazon
0:45:09and say, "Amazon, you're evil, boo."
0:45:13If you're Amazon and you've spent, this is the conflict.
0:45:17Amazon has spent a lot of time and money promoting their video services,
0:45:23their streaming video services.
0:45:24And so now they're a video platform owner.
0:45:30They're also a seller of products.
0:45:33And some of those products don't work with their video platform.
0:45:36And I totally understand somebody at Amazon saying, this is confusing.
0:45:43We're getting complaints.
0:45:44I have to explain to people that, uh, no, just because you bought that video
0:45:50streamer on Amazon and you're an Amazon customer, it doesn't mean that you can
0:45:55get your video from Amazon on that product that you bought from Amazon because it's
0:46:00from Apple and they don't like us.
0:46:02And so they like us to sell their stuff, but they don't like us to put our stuff
0:46:06on their, on their boxes.
0:46:07Um, I, I get that.
0:46:10I actually do get that.
0:46:11I think that as computer nerds, it's easy for us to say,
0:46:15oh, well, come on, everybody knows that you can't do that
0:46:17on the Apple TV and all that, but I don't know.
0:46:20If you're an Amazon customer and you're using Prime Video
0:46:22and you say, oh, you know, I heard you can put that
0:46:24on a TV, well, I've got Apple stuff,
0:46:26I'm gonna get the Apple TV and use that.
0:46:29Although you can, you can use AirPlay to play Amazon video
0:46:33on the Apple TV, but you just can't use the app.
0:46:36So I guess what I'm saying is I understand that.
0:46:41this is the difficulty of having this platform
0:46:43and also being a seller of hardware,
0:46:45is that you are going to have issues like this,
0:46:48where the stuff that you're doing over here
0:46:52is not compatible with the stuff
0:46:53that you're selling over there.
0:46:54It's hard not to see this as a power play though,
0:46:59as like the equivalent of Apple taking a publisher's books
0:47:02out of the Apple store as an expression
0:47:06of discontent in some way.
0:47:08It also seems kind of bizarre to me in the sense
0:47:10I think we all assumed that Amazon would do an app for the new Apple TV.
0:47:16And if that is the case, wouldn't they not make such a big deal about sweeping the old Apple TV out of the store?
0:47:25I don't know. It seems weird. Seems weird.
0:47:29I think that Amazon probably want an app, but what they also want to do is sell subscriptions.
0:47:37And that's why this is happening. So that's why I believe this is happening right now,
0:47:41is because I assume that Apple and Amazon are meeting about the Apple TV.
0:47:47So Bezos is like, "We're not getting what we want. Screw this. We'll show them." And this is
0:47:53in the middle of the discussions. He said, "Well, we'll take it out of the store." And Apple go,
0:47:57"Fine, try us." And they go, "Okay." And they pull it out. That's what I assume is happening right
0:48:02now. And then somebody pulled down their pants at some point and just exposed their butt. But we
0:48:06But we don't know who that was. That could have been either side, really. It was a very
0:48:10juvenile meeting. It was very -- they should have ended it long before they had it.
0:48:14You say that, though. I expect that this is a lot of why this is happening. And the reason
0:48:18it's happening right now is because of the upcoming Apple TV. That is my feeling about
0:48:23this. So the thing is that the way that I see this is I don't fully know if I can reconcile
0:48:31in my mind why it's okay for Apple to take a cut of signups for Amazon Prime
0:48:37video. I can't work out in my head, like so people like oh you know there's
0:48:43people call foul on Amazon, but why should Apple be taking a cut of signups
0:48:50anyway? Well the standard approach has been if you offer, if you
0:48:56don't offer it in the app it's okay. That's why you can play Amazon instant
0:48:59video stuff on an iPad. Sure, but why shouldn't people be able to sign up in the app? Well,
0:49:05I think that's a separate issue. I think it's a separate issue. I think it is the issue.
0:49:10Well, I'm... Because this is probably, I mean, this is one of the major problems that Amazon
0:49:15and Apple have together, right? Sure, this is behind ripping all the commerce out of
0:49:20ComiXology too, it's the same story. And why the Kindle app, you can't buy books in the
0:49:24Kindle app and yeah it's true. And I wonder like why Apple think that this is
0:49:30something that it's okay for them to demand because you can buy physical
0:49:35goods right so it's not like there's a problem with we can't allow over payment
0:49:40processing because other payment processing happens in Apple App Store
0:49:43apps it's just this idea of a subscription service which they won't
0:49:49play ball on. Yeah. When like you could just sign into your Amazon account and
0:49:52and purchase it in the app like how you do a toaster.
0:49:57So my feeling on this is if Amazon don't want to use the in-app purchase
0:50:02system, I don't know why Apple think that they
0:50:05deserve to say you can't do any kind of
0:50:10account generation.
0:50:13I don't think I'm following you here. I mean,
0:50:17I have to admit I am surprised that this took a turn into
0:50:21Apple's 30%. I think that doesn't need to...
0:50:23- Maybe I'm not being completely clear about what I'm talking about.
0:50:25- I don't think that needs to be relevant because there are these two issues.
0:50:28There's the issue of does our box play your stuff? And historically, Amazon,
0:50:36you know, again, does not have an app. There's a Netflix app on the Apple TV,
0:50:39but there's not an Amazon app. But there is an Amazon video app on the iPad,
0:50:43and there is a Netflix app on the iPad. And the Amazon app, you can't,
0:50:47just like there's a Kindle app, you can get to your stuff, but you can't buy it on the device.
0:50:52You can't subscribe other than in Safari. You can't do it in the app. And that's dumb,
0:51:00but at least you can watch your stuff. I don't think people are signing up for Prime
0:51:04necessarily on these devices in app. And so maybe it's not that big an issue. Now separately,
0:51:10which is your point, is that's still a bad experience. And that's got to be part of the
0:51:16conversation here is it's a much better experience like imagine all the
0:51:21engineering work that Comixology had to do to rip out all their stuff they did a
0:51:24whole update of their app that essentially was trying to make it more
0:51:28palatable after they had to rip out all the all the commerce on iOS and this is
0:51:33all because of this 30% thing that Apple is charging that that you know Amazon
0:51:39doesn't want to pay because I have the margins for it yeah can't give they
0:51:43can't give those margins to Apple. So like it's just I maybe didn't connect
0:51:49the dots correctly but basically my feeling on this is that Amazon are
0:51:54unhappy with any device in which they can't sign up customers on. So like
0:52:01they you know with the iPad app for example you can just go to Safari and
0:52:06sign up for a Prime account but you can't do that on the Apple TV there's no
0:52:09flow for that so if somebody downloaded it like they want to be able to push
0:52:13people to new accounts. That's my assumption here and which is why I feel
0:52:17like there's always been this problem. Because I was really surprised to see
0:52:21Netflix is now selling their subscriptions via in-app purchase and I
0:52:27really wonder I look at that and be like, are they gonna let Apple take 30% of
0:52:32that? I wonder if it is the standard deal. You know, you look at that
0:52:37and I don't know if Netflix needed that but they've done it. I mean in Apple
0:52:41a proton and like crazy for doing it. So I really wonder what the play is. I mean
0:52:46maybe it's because there doesn't seem to be any preferential treatment for the
0:52:51Apple TV because they've come out and said Apple have said that the the what
0:52:57the API to have your content show up in universal search is available to all.
0:53:03You know so it's stuff like I'm like wonder why Netflix did it so like all of
0:53:06this adds fuel to the fire for me and like that there is something about the
0:53:10creation of accounts that hold is holding up Amazon that's my feeling
0:53:15about this anyway yeah I don't know what's going on with the Netflix thing
0:53:21and if they are I mean so far everything I've heard from Apple is that 30% is 30%
0:53:25that's just the deal and so is it possible the Netflix is just figures
0:53:30that the that it's more important to acquire those customers and pay up over
0:53:3430% than it is to not, and that maybe they will try to do something later to convert
0:53:43them, or is it that Apple cut them a deal and they're only paying Apple 10% or something
0:53:48like that? Maybe they feel it's just an important percentage of their customer base, but not
0:53:52a huge percentage, and they'd rather have them at a lower rate than not have them.
0:53:57Yeah, like maybe Netflix know the amount of people that download their app, try to sign
0:54:00on and have no account.
0:54:02Also something like Amazon Prime is problematic because Amazon Prime Video is not a video
0:54:07streaming service.
0:54:08It's part of a much larger package, and I'm sure Amazon is not willing to give Apple 30%
0:54:12of a package that only includes the video.
0:54:16Right?
0:54:17It makes even—Amazon's business doesn't make a lot of sense with the 30% model.
0:54:21That's why you can't buy books in the Kindle app.
0:54:23It's because Amazon's whole business is based on these low margins.
0:54:26There's no room there for them to hand somebody through.
0:54:31not a business designed for a middleman, right? And Apple is the middleman here.
0:54:36When it comes to selling of content, like, who are Apple to boss Amazon around, right?
0:54:41Like, they're both so huge, right? It's like, why should we have to do anything you tell us,
0:54:48you know? I, you know, and I hate the subject. I hate the subject because it says to me,
0:54:53I feel like this is some of Apple's worst tendencies. Yeah. You know, and you get that
0:55:01aspect of wanting complete control and being a dictator is what gets you a lot of positive
0:55:07things about Apple stuff. But this also has to me the width of one of, I think, the least
0:55:15enjoyable parts of Apple's personality as a company, which is this idea that anybody
0:55:22who's making money in their playground owes them a cut because they're making money off
0:55:26of Apple's greatness. And, you know, in some circumstances maybe that's true, but at some
0:55:34point it becomes, I feel like, more than that. It's not about that anymore. Like, is degrading—we've
0:55:41talked about this before, we talked about this about Comixology—is degrading the user
0:55:44experience of being a comic book reader on an iPad worth it to Apple because they need
0:55:52that cash? If you're going to sell comics on my platform, you've got to give me the
0:55:55cash, I need that cash." Well, they don't really need it. I think if Apple is ever at
0:56:00a point where their business is really based on making 30% of a skim off of everything
0:56:05that's sold in their financial transactions in the App Store and through iTunes IDs, then
0:56:10their business is in trouble because that's not really their business, that's a side business,
0:56:15and taking some reasonable cut is fine, but 30% is a pretty large cut. And for an established
0:56:20business like Amazon, it's incompatible. And so Apple has said, "Hey, comic book readers,
0:56:26here's the most popular comic book reader on the platform, and it's going to be worse
0:56:31now because we have this 30% rule and that's just how it has to be." That bugs me. That
0:56:36bugs me because I feel like the users get hurt because Apple and Amazon are fighting
0:56:41over this. And in this case, I'm going to take Amazon's side and say, "Amazon's business
0:56:45is not built so that they can give Apple 30%. They can't do it. They can't do it because
0:56:52they're acting as the middleman. There can't be another middleman. So, you know, I feel
0:57:00like the reasonable solution here would be for Apple to either have these tough negotiations
0:57:04behind the scenes, which who knows, might happen and that may not have gone well and
0:57:08that may be why we saw Amazon take its ball and go home like they did, but or
0:57:15throw Apple's ball in its face and stalk off the field that might be a better
0:57:19metaphor for it. Or have Apple say we're gonna work with a few partners
0:57:25who are trusted, you know, trusted third-party partners who have their own
0:57:29existing commerce sites and let them do in-app purchases but it's gonna be
0:57:34limited to this list and I people always complain it's like no no no Apple can't
0:57:37do that, it's got to be fair and it's got to be the same for everybody." It doesn't.
0:57:41It absolutely doesn't. It's Apple's store. It's Apple's rules. Apple can do whatever
0:57:44it wants. Apple could very easily say, "These five outside parties, we're going to allow
0:57:49this," because they're established and they have these much more complicated businesses.
0:57:54Apple could do that if it wanted, I think, and it wouldn't be a big deal for them and
0:57:59for their business. And it would probably improve the quality of buying books and stuff
0:58:06like that on iOS devices through Amazon that much better.
0:58:12But I feel that on the flip side in the same instance, if Amazon want to remove products
0:58:18from their store they can. It's their store and they can do whatever they want.
0:58:21Sure! It's their store! Amazon's not a public utility.
0:58:24No. Amazon, and that's what I was saying initially,
0:58:27is I see the argument, again, I don't read it this way. If Amazon had done this maybe
0:58:32a little more quietly. I don't, I don't think this is actually why it went down the way
0:58:36it is, but I see the argument that if you're Amazon and you're really invested in getting
0:58:40people to sign up for Prime and use this video service and there are these devices that don't
0:58:45support what you're doing, I can see taking them off, not because you're trying to improve
0:58:50a point to their manufacturers, but because it's confusing to some of your customers and
0:58:57they have every right to make those decisions. Just like every merchant has a right to decide
0:59:01what gets stocked in their stores.
0:59:03Yeah.
0:59:04All right, there's one other thing that I wanted to mention today because it news broke
0:59:08this morning and we've spoken about it a ton, that Jack Dorsey is back in as Twitter CEO.
0:59:15Yeah, Jack's back.
0:59:18Jack is back.
0:59:19I mean, you know, we were talking about it.
0:59:20I mean, do you have any feelings on it right now?
0:59:23I mean, it's kind of a bit like it's like, okay, what now?
0:59:28Like you know, what are you going to do?
0:59:30He had a tweet storm this morning.
0:59:34- He did, good.
0:59:35- And yeah, that's kind of the guess,
0:59:39the way you should do it, right?
0:59:40I liked it, it was good.
0:59:41I'll put a link in the show notes to his tweet
0:59:44and also to Adam Bain's tweet
0:59:46and you can kind of see the tweet storms trailing off them.
0:59:49Adam Bain is now the COO.
0:59:51This was the change that people wanted to see.
0:59:55This was the exact changes that people were asking for.
0:59:59I am hopeful for difference in Twitter.
1:00:03I mean, I believe in Dorsey.
1:00:05I endorse-y him.
1:00:08Not saying that again.
1:00:11But I'm interested to see where it goes now.
1:00:15I think that Twitter as a company clearly is aware
1:00:18that they have to make some changes.
1:00:20And again, as we've said before,
1:00:21that doesn't mean that it's gonna be the changes we like,
1:00:24but it's just gonna be changes.
1:00:27- Yeah, we don't know.
1:00:29But boy, he does sound like he gets the product.
1:00:32That's what I think we've been saying all along here,
1:00:34is that he knows and understands the product,
1:00:36and he loves it, he cares about Twitter,
1:00:37he wants it to be better.
1:00:38There was an interesting story
1:00:40that came out over the weekend
1:00:41about sort of like the personal growth of Jack Dorsey,
1:00:45and how he's changed a lot, and grown,
1:00:48and become a much better CEO over the years,
1:00:51and a much better listener, and a much better manager,
1:00:54which on one level, I think, I think, uh, was a really good story.
1:00:58And another level I had this moment of like, Hmm, I wonder what the story is
1:01:02behind this, this particular story launching at this particular time.
1:01:05Like how much of this is organically happening and how much of this is the
1:01:09Jack Dorsey PR training happening.
1:01:12But either way, um, It became very clear over the last couple of weeks that there
1:01:17was nobody else to do this job who was, you know, that, that the other, for
1:01:22whatever reason that this was the only name and they didn't want you know they
1:01:26wanted him to leave Square and do this and he said no I'm not gonna do that and
1:01:31they still did it they still hired him so clearly they didn't have some other
1:01:37candidate in the wings that that was gonna be you know a better choice than
1:01:41him so so it's gonna be him and he's gonna have to split his time between
1:01:44Twitter and Square but I feel like the people at Twitter believe in him and
1:01:48that are energized by the fact that he's back and having a founder come back and take up
1:01:54the reins, we know that that can be a good experience. I hope it is for Twitter. It sounds
1:01:58like they've already got a bunch of stuff in motion. And you know, I don't know if you
1:02:02saw this, the most telling thing in the last couple of weeks about Twitter was that there's
1:02:08this rumor that they're going to do something that breaks the 140 character limit for tweets.
1:02:12And it's unclear whether that means something like there are going to be Twitter posts that
1:02:16are going to be embeds in a Twitter in a tweet or whether they're going to take some of the
1:02:20metadata and move it out of the tweet of counting it for the tweet length. It's unclear. And
1:02:26we can debate whether that's a good or bad idea for Twitter. But this is the part that
1:02:30really got me is they talked to somebody at Twitter, I think maybe anonymously, who said
1:02:36there was huge internal debate about something like this. And Jack came in and said, it's
1:02:42okay." And everybody's like, "Oh, it's okay." And then they went about their business in
1:02:47building this feature. To me, that's like, wow, that is a company that is desperately
1:02:53looking for vision and leadership. And as the CEO and co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey
1:03:01has the authority to say, "Here's my vision for Twitter, and we're going to do this now,"
1:03:06and not have people be like, "Well, does it really fit? What do you think? Let's debate
1:03:10it'll he has the ability to cut through that and say it's fine build it and I
1:03:15get the feeling hearing that story I start to think about Twitter meandering
1:03:19for the last few years and think yeah maybe that is one reason why is that
1:03:23there was nobody to say you know dick Costolo didn't say we're gonna do it
1:03:27this way about the product because I think he kind of maybe didn't care about
1:03:29the product so much I think he was focused on other areas and I don't know
1:03:34again I'm just I'm just in the peanut gallery here but that that's that's my
1:03:38take on it is I was impressed with that anecdote that that was Jack saying it's
1:03:42fine do it and and everybody felt freed to do it then. So that actually mirrors
1:03:48completely a tweet from Adam Bain today where he said Jack has the insight as well
1:03:52as the moral authority as a founder to push teams to make big bold changes. Yeah
1:03:57right right because otherwise you're afraid you're am I screwing up Twitter
1:04:01now and Jack's Jack of all people is going no it's fine oh well if Jack says
1:04:05fine then let's do it." But it's also the other way where it's like people like
1:04:10Jack we shouldn't do this and he's like "do you know what though? It's mine so
1:04:13whatever like we can do about it like I came up with the idea this is another
1:04:17idea that I've had so therefore it is the actual thing right and these those
1:04:21things do kind of marry up in a weird way I think I'm I think it's great and
1:04:26another tweet that I just wanted to mention which I really loved from Dorsey
1:04:31where he's like "Twitter is the most powerful communication tool of our time
1:04:34it shows everything the world is saying right now 10 to 15 minutes before
1:04:38anything else. Also Adam Bain you mentioned he got promoted to COO chief
1:04:46operating officer from chief revenue officer and I think that's telling
1:04:49because I think that what that's saying is how is Jack gonna work as a CEO when
1:04:54he's also the CEO somewhere else and I think the answer is he's got he's got
1:04:59Adam Bain to do this part of this part of the job right he's gonna he's gonna
1:05:02to keep Twitter running and focus on some of these areas, including sales and the revenue
1:05:09stuff. I get the feeling that Jack as CEO is, in addition to being the leader of the
1:05:15whole package, is also going to be much more focused on parts of the product, and that
1:05:20Adam Bain gets to run parts of the business under Jack's thumbs up. That's the structure
1:05:27that makes sense to me, too.
1:05:28Well, because it's impossible to not compare Dorsey to Jobs right now.
1:05:32Um, you know, if you think about the way that Steve ran Apple, especially later on,
1:05:39he did things that interested him and that he thought was important and Tim
1:05:42Cook took care of everything else.
1:05:43And Tim Cook handled the rest of it.
1:05:44And yeah.
1:05:45Hey, it worked for them.
1:05:47Maybe it all worked for Twitter too.
1:05:49And Twitter doesn't need to, and doesn't do things at the scale that Apple does.
1:05:53So...
1:05:54It's true.
1:05:54It's true.
1:05:55It's a, yeah, it's, it's a much smaller group.
1:05:57I'm excited to see where this goes.
1:05:58- Yeah, me too.
1:05:59At this point, we've detailed this on past shows.
1:06:03Twitter needs to move its product forward.
1:06:06And we may not agree with all the changes
1:06:07that come from that,
1:06:08but they need to move the product forward.
1:06:10I did see somebody had a little exchange with Jack today
1:06:14on Twitter that ended with the person saying,
1:06:17essentially, you should bring back
1:06:20the third-party developers.
1:06:22And it'll be interesting to see.
1:06:25I wouldn't put money on that happening
1:06:27because I feel like maybe we've just gone down the road too far.
1:06:30But I look at the state of the Twitter app on the iPad,
1:06:34and then I look at Tweetbot 4 and Twitterific,
1:06:37and this is so clear that Twitter as a company right now
1:06:41can't make a good mobile experience,
1:06:45and third-party developers can.
1:06:47So it'll be interesting to see what they do there,
1:06:51whether they embrace the third-party developers
1:06:53or whether they actually make an effort
1:06:55to get their internal mobile development team in shape.
1:06:58What we've talked about before,
1:07:00the whispers are that they bring talented developers
1:07:05in to work on Twitter's mobile apps
1:07:07and then they leave not too long after.
1:07:10And that's a bad sign.
1:07:12So I'm curious about how that goes,
1:07:15about whether Twitter says,
1:07:17"You know what, third-party apps are an important part
1:07:19"of our ecosystem and we're gonna do more with them
1:07:21"because that's an important part
1:07:22"of what we need to do to grow."
1:07:24or whether they'll say, no, no, no, we need to own that,
1:07:27but we're gonna do a better job.
1:07:28I don't think there's an option
1:07:30other than one of those two though.
1:07:31I will be grossly disappointed with the new Jack Dorsey era
1:07:36if their presence on the iPad remains what it is now,
1:07:41which is a joke.
1:07:42- Well, they just shut it down
1:07:44and point everyone to tweet, well, it's terrific.
1:07:47- Yeah, well, my fear is that they'll shut it down
1:07:49and point everybody at the web
1:07:51and say, just use the web version of Twitter.
1:07:53I think they're not that dumb.
1:07:54No, well, yeah, you're probably right.
1:07:57Then again, have you seen Twitter for iPad?
1:08:00I know, but at least it looks better than what they had before.
1:08:03I know there's a lot of white space, which is terrible, but that previous version was just horrific.
1:08:08Yeah, it was.
1:08:09It was.
1:08:10So, you know, we live in hope.
1:08:12We do indeed. Should we do some Ask Upgrade?
1:08:14Yeah, it's a good idea.
1:08:15Would you like to thank our Ask Upgrade sponsor this week, Jason?
1:08:18Yes, I would. I would like to thank them.
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1:10:03"upgrade." Thank you to Stamps.com for supporting upgrade and #AskUpgrade.
1:10:09#AskUpgrade. I need to get an actual sound effect for you. Justin has asked, "Regarding
1:10:18display zoom, do you use standard or zoomed?" I use standard. I use standard too. Wow, on
1:10:27the 6 Plus, well, you know, you're taking full advantage of the room then. I know some
1:10:31Some people—so my wife uses it zoomed on the 6 because she's getting a little far-sighted.
1:10:42She needs reading glasses now, so she uses it zoomed.
1:10:46So when she went from the 5 to the 6, she put it in zoomed mode, and that means that
1:10:52she's got essentially the same real estate as she had on the 5, but everything's bigger.
1:10:57And that works—that's actually worked great.
1:11:00she was struggling with cranking up the font size on things, and that's really inconsistent
1:11:04in iOS, because not everybody's using the right font APIs in their apps, and so now
1:11:10she's using it Zoomed. But I'm still on standard.
1:11:13So if you remember, many weeks ago, I spoke about my mum getting a new phone for my mum.
1:11:19We got her a 6, it came a couple of days ago, and I set her up on it. She is using it standard,
1:11:25but she has the text bumped all the way up and bold text on, because it makes it easier
1:11:29for her to see. But she loves the iPhone 6. She loves it. She's coming from a 5c.
1:11:36We've got touch ID set up which she thinks is awesome because she wasn't
1:11:40using a passcode before. So we set her up with touch ID. Although she found the
1:11:45whole process of enabling touch ID hilarious she just was really giggling.
1:11:48Like, you know, keep lifting your thumb, let your finger or
1:11:52thumb point up and down up and down. I was telling her to do it and she just
1:11:56thought it was so funny to the point where she couldn't stop laughing so much
1:11:59that I had to hold her hand and do it for her. It was a whole big family silly
1:12:04moment but she really really loves it. She thinks she loves the big screen. She
1:12:09did say that she kind of wishes it was bigger like she's interested in the plus
1:12:13but she wouldn't be able to use it. It would be too big for her hands which she
1:12:17understands but she really does like her six a lot and I'm happy that we've
1:12:22got her on a new phone and she seems really happy about it and she's
1:12:26learning how to use apps more and she transferred her banking app overall by
1:12:30herself and stuff which is great because like my mom has never used a computer
1:12:34like she uses a Windows machine at work which she only knows how to use that
1:12:38exact machine with the programs in the exact way right she's one of those kinds of
1:12:42people that she knows how to use. My dad never used computers but I set
1:12:48him up with an Excel spreadsheet for his office's accounting for his books.
1:12:53It was just an Excel spreadsheet with tabs for every month.
1:12:57And every year I would make him a new one and he never did anything else ever on a
1:13:01computer, but he knew how to turn on the Mac SE, I think, or maybe it was a Mac 2.
1:13:06It ended up being a 2C-I after a while.
1:13:09Um, and he knew to click on the folder with the year and click on the
1:13:14month and put in the numbers.
1:13:16and that was it, but he knew how to do that one thing.
1:13:19That was using a computer.
1:13:21- Yep, 'cause that's exactly it.
1:13:23That is computer, right?
1:13:24But yeah, she knows how to use her iPhone.
1:13:27She was talking to me the other day about Googling things.
1:13:29Like, it's awesome.
1:13:30And I love that this device is easy enough
1:13:32for her to understand.
1:13:33But we did have that conversation again.
1:13:35I had it with her as I have on this show a lot
1:13:37about the complexity stuff.
1:13:39Like, she completely agrees with me about how there are,
1:13:41you know, as it gets more complex,
1:13:43it's harder for her to understand
1:13:44because something changes in the phone that she doesn't get.
1:13:48So she just knows if there's anything she doesn't get,
1:13:50she needs to tell me.
1:13:51Because plus I say to her,
1:13:52it also is really good for the shows
1:13:53because it gives me something to talk about.
1:13:55- Yeah.
1:13:56- Wimsey asked, what's your solution
1:13:58for storing all of the watch bands that you own?
1:14:00I just put mine in a drawer,
1:14:03which is in my bedside cabinet.
1:14:05- Yep.
1:14:06- I don't have like a box or anything.
1:14:08- Yep, that's mine too.
1:14:09It's in the drawer.
1:14:11Drawer solution.
1:14:13I look at them now, now that I have another one, I look at them and think, I should probably
1:14:18do something about that, but I haven't done anything beyond just have them around.
1:14:21I would love to see someone make a little box.
1:14:27Mickey wants to know what we think will come first.
1:14:30Apple stopping selling 16GB iPhones or more free iCloud storage.
1:14:38Can I choose the death of the universe?
1:14:40end of time the sun expanding into a red giant and melting the earth every now and then i mean you
1:14:47will have seen this more than me but i feel like in the time that i've been interested in this stuff
1:14:52there is a story in apple press that becomes a thing and it becomes like a mcguffin for a while
1:15:00and the 16 gigabyte iphone one is that now to the point where i think apple are kind of into a
1:15:07corner of having to change it because now it's being brought up in reviews in
1:15:12the more general tech press like it needs to come out because if they don't
1:15:16stop it now for the iPhone 7 it's gonna it's gonna get away from them and it
1:15:22could end up being a bigger point than it is now so I think that no matter what
1:15:27they were intending with the way that the discussion because we'll just keep
1:15:30talking about this for the next eight months we will it's gonna have to go
1:15:35away the 16 gigabyte now that's my feeling and if they don't do it then
1:15:39they need to they need to have a very clear reason as to why that they are
1:15:43will communicate to people then again it gives us something to talk about and
1:15:47that's you know these the next 50 shows aren't gonna talk themselves I mean
1:15:51that's the problem right because we need stuff to talk about so we'll keep
1:15:54talking about that right so that's why they have to change it because the press
1:15:58just keep going around and around I'm gonna go with you next fall is an
1:16:02opportunity for Apple to revisit the 16 gig lower end when they do the iPhone 7.
1:16:08It seems like a perfectly appropriate time to go up to 32 or more, but let's
1:16:15say 32 with the low-end model.
1:16:18And they had the opportunity, they changed the iCloud storage rates so
1:16:23infrequently and they just changed them and they didn't increase the free
1:16:27number from five to 10.
1:16:29So my gut feeling is that will probably take longer.
1:16:33Although there's so much, oh,
1:16:37topic for another episode, we'll preview this.
1:16:40There's so much more that needs to be done
1:16:43on the shared services in a family.
1:16:48'Cause I was trying this weekend
1:16:49to get my wife's iPhone to back up
1:16:52to my terabyte of iCloud storage that I'm paying for.
1:16:56and I can't do it without losing Find My iPhone, basically,
1:17:00or Find Friends for her,
1:17:01because you have to choose one or the other.
1:17:03And it's just, there's so many things they need to fix.
1:17:06So sometimes I wonder about that, like,
1:17:08could families pool,
1:17:09or could you have a bunch of different devices
1:17:11that each get five gigabytes that increment
1:17:13toward a larger number up to a limit?
1:17:16Lots of things they could do there,
1:17:17but my gut feeling is since they didn't do it
1:17:19when they just revised all the plans,
1:17:21that they probably won't do it again
1:17:23for a couple of years at least,
1:17:24because they would have done it if they were planning on doing that.
1:17:30And finally today, Oz would like to know if we have any thoughts on the round Pebble design.
1:17:34So Pebble came out with another new watch called the Pebble Time Round, which is a round
1:17:39face and it has some slightly different features I believe.
1:17:42I haven't looked into this too much to be honest, Jason, which I think is inherently
1:17:46part of the problem.
1:17:48I say to them, "Bravo for trying new things."
1:17:51I think I like the idea.
1:17:54I think the bezel is too much.
1:17:57I mean, I can accept the little flat tire thing
1:18:02on the Moto 360.
1:18:03I agree, well, I buy Motorola's reasoning for that,
1:18:08which is I say is otherwise they would need a bezel,
1:18:12probably like this one,
1:18:13'cause they need to put the display driver somewhere.
1:18:16I think that this is more of an indication to me
1:18:21that Pebble are in trouble because it's another version.
1:18:27Yeah, they're trying everything. I will note that it's now a two-day battery life. It used
1:18:35to be like six, six or seven. Now it's down to two.
1:18:39I think this is because it's so thin maybe?
1:18:41Yeah.
1:18:42Maybe? I don't know.
1:18:43Could be. I think it looks nice, although the bezel is huge. Bevel. Bevel, bubble. But
1:18:51I admit that I've written off Pebble because I don't think their iOS story is compelling.
1:19:01I think even their Android one is getting harder to do.
1:19:04Because some of these device makers now are making full-on smartwatches with full-color
1:19:10screens that are real little computers that Pebble don't make that, but the battery life
1:19:17is starting to get better and better and better on these Motorola stuff and the Asus stuff.
1:19:21They're losing their competitive advantage day by day now.
1:19:25Yeah, it's tough for them.
1:19:28Especially if their competitive advantage is battery life and they've just released a really good-looking one
1:19:32but they've cut the battery life significantly, then at that point, why would you not go for a Moto 360? I don't know.
1:19:40For $250. I mean, that's the other thing is if this was a $99 watch, then I would say, "Oh, well, that's nice."
1:19:46Because I do think there's a market for a cheap, light smartwatch, something that doesn't really do a lot.
1:19:51but it shows the time and maybe it gives you some notifications or maybe it's a tracker or something,
1:19:55but it's cheap and it's, you know, but this is 250 for this, so that doesn't seem cheap to me.
1:20:03That seems like a lot. I don't think they got a long time left in them. I especially don't think
1:20:13they have long left in their current size and scale. I wonder if at some point they might be
1:20:20be an aqua hire kind of thing where they've been thinking about you know
1:20:23they've been thinking about smartwatch stuff for a while and if somebody might
1:20:27buy them just for their engineers and all that but there may be too much it
1:20:31may just be too late and and I don't know we'll see. If you're a company like
1:20:35Motorola, Asus, somebody like that you know these guys and girls have been
1:20:42doing this for longer than anyone you should you should get them because you
1:20:47know that that software idea for the Pebble Time I thought was really smart
1:20:51and innovative you know you know like the way that everything was in a
1:20:54timeline I thought that was really clever and it made a lot of sense so
1:20:59this is the type of stuff that they could think about because they've been
1:21:01doing this for as long as they have so I think somebody should consider scooping
1:21:05them up maybe we should buy them upgrade timepieces exchange for some relay stock
1:21:12yeah yeah we'll work on that work on that if you want to find show notes for
1:21:16this week's episode head on over to relay.fm/upgrade/57. If you want to find Jason online he's over
1:21:23at SixColors.com and he's @JSNEL on Twitter, J S N E double L. I am @imike, I M Y K E.
1:21:32Thank you so much for listening as always, we really appreciate it. If you have questions,
1:21:36comments, thoughts, follow up, follow out, follow in, you can use the hashtag #askupgrade.
1:21:40It is a great way to get all of that stuff to us because we look at it for all of those
1:21:45reasons. And thanks again to our sponsors, the great people over at lynda.com, gotomeeting
1:21:51and stamps.com. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye Jason Snow.
1:21:56Bye Myke Hurley.
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