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Connected

218: My Thumb Is Now Useless

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:06   From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 218. Today's show is brought to you by

00:00:12   Linode, Luna Display, and Casper. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Federico Vittici. Ciao Federico.

00:00:19   Ciao Myke, how are you?

00:00:20   I'm very good. I expect that so many of our listeners, they felt that beginning of the

00:00:25   episode like a warm hug from an old friend you know because it's me hosting

00:00:30   the show. Steven's not here he's on vacation.

00:00:33   yeah it reminds you it reminds you of of easier times when you know you know the

00:00:40   world was a better place and Myke was introducing connected you know good

00:00:44   times they're now gone but just today. I would say that that my times got better

00:00:50   when Steven took over a lot of the duties but nevertheless I'm back today

00:00:56   and because I'm back in in the hot seat in the control seat follow up if we ever

00:01:01   get to it maybe later because we have iPad pros to talk about so I have spoken

00:01:07   with Jason and we reviewed the iPad Pro on upgrade you have been publishing

00:01:13   stuff on Mac stories this week you published your second of multiple

00:01:19   articles that you're going to be publishing about your impressions of the iPad Pro, but

00:01:24   I figured that we had to talk about this as like almost mentor mentee type relationship

00:01:30   that me and you have. You are my iPad mentor and I feel like we would be severely doing

00:01:37   a disservice to listeners of this show if we both did not get into an in-depth review

00:01:43   of some of the key aspects of using the 2018 iPad Pros.

00:01:49   So I want to ask you some questions and we'll go back and forth a bunch too.

00:01:54   But I guess we should start off with the actual hardware itself.

00:01:58   So what do you feel has been significantly improved or has seen some real great improvement

00:02:06   for this new hardware compared to the old hardware?

00:02:09   Well I think obviously the screen is the big one for me.

00:02:12   I think just holding the device,

00:02:16   looking at the screen that extends to the corners

00:02:18   of the body of the entire computer, I think it's amazing.

00:02:23   It looks incredible.

00:02:24   And it gives you that feeling of the iPhone X.

00:02:29   It's the same effect of the iPhone X,

00:02:31   but at a much, much bigger scale.

00:02:34   And I think it's impressive.

00:02:35   Like I cannot stop looking at the device

00:02:37   and appreciating the device.

00:02:38   And it's really the same reaction

00:02:40   that I had to the iPhone X last year.

00:02:42   And now, of course, I've gotten used to the iPhone X

00:02:45   and the XS Max, but looking at the iPad Pro

00:02:49   and that screen, it looks so pretty, really.

00:02:54   And I think also from a more practical perspective,

00:02:58   I love how the new edges, the squared off sides,

00:03:08   I think I prefer the way that I can hold the device with this new hardware design.

00:03:15   And I just prefer how I can hold the device in landscape, even when I'm typing with the software keyboard,

00:03:25   and it feels like I'm seeing more because of this bigger display.

00:03:30   It's not actually bigger, but it feels bigger, if that makes sense.

00:03:35   Honestly, I just think the new design is what sells it for me from a hardware standpoint,

00:03:42   because I don't... like the speakers may be slightly better, but I don't think you can

00:03:46   really tell the difference from the previous model.

00:03:50   It's not like the difference of, I don't know, the original stereo speakers, right, from

00:03:55   the iPads before or whatever.

00:03:57   Yeah.

00:03:58   And yes, it's thinner, but again, it's not something that I can immediately tell.

00:04:07   The fact that it's somewhat lighter, that I can tell.

00:04:11   But really it's just a whole picture of seeing this display that extends from corner to corner,

00:04:17   and it feels like I'm holding a device that is bigger but also more compact.

00:04:22   because it is more compact, but I'm not sacrificing multitasking and split view

00:04:28   and the content that I can see all at once in a single screen without swiping, that kind of stuff.

00:04:33   And I feel like having the iPhone X language brought over to the iPad,

00:04:40   and that includes gestures, that includes the home indicator,

00:04:43   that includes all these new interactions that we had a year to get used to,

00:04:48   I feel like that was a good bet.

00:04:50   the idea of taking the iPhone X and bringing it over to the iPad

00:04:54   while making some optimizations to make it work better with split view and multitasking.

00:04:58   I think in hindsight, we were all kind of, maybe some of us, not all,

00:05:04   but some of us, we were concerned that Apple would just take the iPhone X

00:05:07   and make it bigger without making the proper considerations.

00:05:11   But I think they really did a good job, actually.

00:05:15   So, yeah, the screen, man, it's good.

00:05:18   I was listening to Tyler Stallman's podcast and he had MKBHD on his most recent episode

00:05:25   and they both kind of came to the conclusion, which I completely agree with,

00:05:28   like this screen is so good, it's better than OLED screens. Like the colors are incredible,

00:05:38   the darkness levels are incredible, but what you lose in some of the, you know, like some of the

00:05:44   really great HDR stuff or whatever, like what you start to lose in some of that, you make

00:05:49   up for in the refresh rate and things like that.

00:05:52   Like that kind of overall, and I actually do agree with this, overall I think this is

00:05:57   a better screen than the iPhone X screen because I've started like turning on more like black,

00:06:05   like all true black UI in apps that I use on my iPad and like just really looking, like

00:06:11   trying to really look and see the differences and I can barely see the differences.

00:06:16   So, you know, whilst I like the idea of having an OLED screen, that iPhone XR made me feel

00:06:23   this way too, I think that what I thought was good about OLED isn't necessarily what

00:06:31   I value, if that makes sense.

00:06:34   You know, like what I value about OLED on the iPhone X is that the bezels are thinner

00:06:39   and that the phone is thinner, like they're there and that the battery life is better.

00:06:43   Like they're things that I get from having an OLED screen,

00:06:46   while the black levels is maybe something that isn't as important to me

00:06:51   when the liquid retina screens on the XR and the iPad Pro,

00:06:55   the black levels on those are about as good as I can perceive

00:07:01   with my eyes.

00:07:03   But then I also get the 120 hertz refresh rate, which is unbelievable.

00:07:09   I love it. That is something that I notice all the time and continue to really love,

00:07:13   that the user interface feels much more alive and feels like it's more easily manipulated

00:07:20   or like it feels more manipulated by me because it's moving at a rate that my eyes

00:07:25   seem to be comfortable, like that there isn't this abstraction layer between me and the computer.

00:07:30   This is the same feeling that you get when you're playing a video game and you say,

00:07:34   "Well, I'm fine at 30 frames," but then you try 16,

00:07:37   you're like, "Oh, I understand why people want to get 16."

00:07:40   - Like any game of fast motion, like racing games, right?

00:07:42   Like, you know, it really, it significantly helps

00:07:44   to have higher refresh rates where you can.

00:07:47   - I was setting up an old iPad Pro,

00:07:50   the first generation one, the 2015 one for my mom.

00:07:53   So I gave the 12.9 that I still had,

00:07:56   like in my closet, to my mom, and I was setting it up

00:07:59   and logging into all the, you know,

00:08:01   because we have family sharing,

00:08:02   So, logging into all the family accounts, the Apple IDs for my mom, and I was swiping

00:08:08   across the home screen and I noticed, why are all these... am I seeing blur when I swipe

00:08:14   across pages of the home screen and then I realize, oh, it doesn't have ProMotion.

00:08:19   So everything looks like a giant blur.

00:08:22   I have a question for you.

00:08:24   To your memory, was the original iPad Pro heavier than the second edition iPad Pro?

00:08:33   So like the 12.9 inch, did it get lighter before it moved to this new one or was it

00:08:37   always kind of the same weight?

00:08:39   I think it was always the same, like the 2015 and the 2017 were.

00:08:44   Because I haven't touched my old 12.9, but yesterday my dad came over and he has a 12.9

00:08:51   which he just calls his pad, which kills me.

00:08:54   His pad?

00:08:55   He just calls it the pad.

00:08:57   It just murders me.

00:08:58   It could be worse.

00:09:00   It could be worse, but that's still pretty bad.

00:09:02   He could have said a tab.

00:09:04   He could have said that, I don't know where he would have gotten that.

00:09:06   And he needed me to help.

00:09:09   See, I think my issue is he removes "I" from everything.

00:09:13   He had problems with his cloud that he needed me to fix.

00:09:17   Because he didn't have enough storage in his cloud.

00:09:20   There's no "I" in Myke's dad.

00:09:24   No, I think he just removes it.

00:09:27   And he gave me his iPad and his pad and it felt so heavy and huge.

00:09:39   And he picked up mine and he was like, "Oh."

00:09:42   He was like, "They sent me an email about this."

00:09:45   But I wasn't, he said he looked up his trade-in value.

00:09:50   He could get 290 pounds for a 2015 12.9,

00:09:55   which I was super surprised about.

00:09:57   More money than I would have expected.

00:09:59   And he was like, "I don't want one right now."

00:10:02   But he's like, "But I do really like this."

00:10:04   And I was like, "Uh-oh, uh-oh."

00:10:06   But yeah.

00:10:08   So it is like the size of this thing,

00:10:12   the difference is in the size.

00:10:13   Like I have both, right?

00:10:15   The 11 and the 12.9.

00:10:18   And there are times where I'm using the 12.9

00:10:20   where I like look at it and I'm like,

00:10:23   is that the 11?

00:10:25   Like I'm not 100% sure which one I'm using,

00:10:27   whether it's the 11 or 12.9, which is kind of funny to me.

00:10:31   So we should actually do a quick refresher

00:10:34   of what we bought.

00:10:35   So I bought both.

00:10:37   I bought the 11 inch with LTE and 512 gigabytes of storage.

00:10:41   and I bought the 12.9 inch with Wi-Fi

00:10:44   and 256 gigabytes of storage.

00:10:47   Long time listeners will know

00:10:48   that I live the multi-pad lifestyle.

00:10:50   That is going to continue.

00:10:52   Even though the 12.9 is physically smaller,

00:10:57   it's still more screen than I want in certain circumstances.

00:11:01   Like, I find it, the 12.9 is too big and too bright

00:11:05   to use at night when I'm in bed next to my wife.

00:11:09   I prefer the 11 inch for that.

00:11:12   Plus it's still easier to hold.

00:11:14   It has also benefited from thinness and lightness.

00:11:17   And so I actually think that funnily enough

00:11:20   for what I was using it for,

00:11:21   especially for travel related purposes,

00:11:24   the fact that the 10.5 has gone up to 11 inches

00:11:26   has made it even better for that.

00:11:28   I still actually maintain for most people

00:11:32   that the 11 inch is the right iPad.

00:11:34   But the 12.9 inch, for people that are serious about this

00:11:39   or it has become an even better device for them.

00:11:42   But I'm still planning on maintaining and using both.

00:11:45   What did you get again?

00:11:47   I got the the 12.9 LTE with one terabyte.

00:11:51   So this is the only iPad Pro that I got. I considered

00:11:56   getting the 11 inch also, but there's a

00:12:00   there's a few old iPads that I need to sell.

00:12:03   I have a whole list of things to sell now that I basically

00:12:08   refreshed my entire setup. I gotta sell my MacBook Pro, I gotta sell my old iPad Pro,

00:12:15   and if I get the 11-inch iPad Pro I would only get it in Wi-Fi, so it would be like my reading

00:12:23   or playing games in bed sort of iPad, and maybe some like when I'm on a plane and I need to work

00:12:30   and the 12.9 is still a bit too big, I could use the 11-inch. Yeah but you wouldn't want to travel

00:12:36   without the LTE, that's the problem. But I wouldn't want to travel without the LTE so

00:12:40   if I go, you know, if I could, if I get the 11 inch I would need to sell the 6th generation

00:12:48   iPad that I have as well but luckily, you know, I'm talking to a bunch of people who are interested

00:12:56   in buying my old things because I really, you know, you talk to a friend and a friend of a

00:13:01   friend and then my mom she she talks to people and you know I really don't want

00:13:07   to be bothered with putting items online if possible you know taking pictures and

00:13:12   taking care of shipping and all that kind of stuff and also I I would prefer

00:13:16   to avoid putting in putting things up for sale on those like local things

00:13:21   where you actually need to meet a person and exchange cash in a parking lot I did

00:13:26   that once in a very public place because our our concern was what if this guy

00:13:31   robs us and so we met right in front of a McDonald's, you know, very crowded place.

00:13:37   Anyway, I got the one terabyte LTE, so basically the fully maxed out

00:13:47   iPad Pro 12.9 inch model. That's what I got.

00:13:50   Okay, now we were talking about the 6 gigabytes, the 6 gigabytes of RAM, right?

00:14:00   Yes.

00:14:01   In the 1TB.

00:14:02   And we were wondering, like, is this important or not?

00:14:07   And I know you've been doing some wild testing, which has given you some conclusions about

00:14:11   this.

00:14:13   So yes.

00:14:15   So the thing that I and some other people heard after the Apple event from some friends

00:14:21   who work at Apple, from some engineers, was that the 6GB of RAM was not a big deal because,

00:14:27   Of course, Apple doesn't like to talk about RAM.

00:14:29   And what we heard was that, you know,

00:14:32   maybe that RAM is in there just to manage the storage,

00:14:36   like the extra storage of the one terabyte model.

00:14:40   Then of course, when I actually got the iPad Pro

00:14:42   with one terabyte and six gigs of RAM, I wanted to test it.

00:14:47   So I thought maybe I could put together a shortcut

00:14:51   that does some very heavy duty tasks,

00:14:55   some very like memory intensive tasks.

00:14:57   and see what happens. And so I came up with the idea of taking a relatively large image,

00:15:05   so a screenshot captured by Steven on a 5K iMac, and it was a 3.6 megabyte image.

00:15:14   And doing my original test was doing a thousand iterations of encoding the image and decoding the image in base64.

00:15:25   So this is a very, like, it's five actions, very simple shortcut.

00:15:29   You get an image and you repeat these two actions, encoding and decoding a thousand times.

00:15:37   And the iPad Pro, the 2018 one with 6GB of RAM, got it done in 40 seconds without crashing.

00:15:46   It was fine.

00:15:47   Then I tested on the 2017 iPad Pro, so last year's model, which didn't get it done at all.

00:15:55   It crashed at 50 seconds in. So 50 seconds into the execution of the shortcut, the shortcuts on

00:16:02   a 2017 iPad Pro crashed, and the same shortcut also crashed on a XS Max, which suggested that

00:16:09   it wasn't necessarily the A12 architecture that was helping with the execution on the 2018 iPad Pro,

00:16:16   but it was maybe the extra RAM.

00:16:18   And so I was talking to our friend of the show,

00:16:21   really close friend of the show,

00:16:22   Steve Chaten-Smith about this.

00:16:24   - Hi, Steve.

00:16:24   - And his idea was, well,

00:16:26   what if you hook it up to instruments,

00:16:28   which is a debug tool for Xcode on the Mac,

00:16:31   and you check what the memory consumption is like.

00:16:35   And so of course I had no idea how to use instruments.

00:16:38   What I ended up doing was I-

00:16:40   - Is this one of those things where you go,

00:16:42   "Yes, Steve, great idea."

00:16:44   - Yes, sure.

00:16:45   Or I will use, I know, instruments to give you an idea of how unfamiliar I was with instruments.

00:16:55   I had to open Xcode and click on the help thing in the menu bar and type "instruments"

00:17:03   because I didn't know where to look.

00:17:06   Anyway, so what you do is I ran the shortcut while it's kind of like recording an audio

00:17:11   session, but you're recording what actually is happening on the device. And I saved the

00:17:17   file and I messaged the file to Steve. I was like, "Look into this file."

00:17:22   [laughter]

00:17:23   "I've done what you've asked for, I guess. I can't go any further than this."

00:17:30   What he discovered, and that he also very gracefully explained to me with screenshots,

00:17:36   My iPad Pro, the 2018 one, was peaking at 5GB of RAM consumption while running this shortcut.

00:17:45   And shortcuts itself, so the application shortcuts, was peaking at 3.4GB of memory consumption.

00:17:55   And of course the old iPad Pro was peaking at 4GB and then crashed, because there was

00:18:00   no more gigabytes to get.

00:18:03   So the takeaway from this is that this shortcut, I've seen people say, "No, it's crashing on

00:18:11   the old iPad Pro because the shortcuts team is not doing garbage collection right."

00:18:17   I don't even know what garbage collection is.

00:18:19   I suppose it's something related to memory and whatever.

00:18:21   I think it's a mafia thing, isn't it?

00:18:23   Like garbage collection services?

00:18:27   Yes, that's the front.

00:18:29   They do other businesses.

00:18:32   they advertise it, that's garbage collection.

00:18:34   - Ah. - But it's really not.

00:18:36   (both laughing)

00:18:38   And other people say, "No, if only the shortcuts engineers

00:18:41   "would use this technique, I don't care."

00:18:43   The basic truth is that I took this app

00:18:46   and I ran a complex task on it.

00:18:49   And with six gigs of RAM,

00:18:53   the task was completed, with less, it was not.

00:18:57   So even though I'm not suggesting that

00:19:02   that complex tasks are now only possible on the one terabyte iPad Pro with six

00:19:08   gigabytes of RAM. That is clearly not what I'm implying. But what we can

00:19:13   extrapolate from this are some interesting truths about

00:19:20   having more RAM on iOS. What does it mean? It means that, well, first of all, the

00:19:25   idea that that extra RAM is only for managing storage is not completely true,

00:19:31   because when it's available, the OS can use it, apps can use it, so it's there and it's RAM,

00:19:37   there's nothing super special about it. Also, it means that in everyday tasks,

00:19:45   so even if you're not writing a shortcut, right, this is not even a benchmark, this was a test,

00:19:50   and if I increase the number of iterations for the shortcut, the 2018 Apple Pro would have crashed

00:19:58   also. So this is not a scientific test. This is not a benchmark.

00:20:01   You were trying to break it, right? Like that was the point.

00:20:04   I was trying to break it, exactly. But in everyday tasks, it means that having two more

00:20:10   gigabytes of RAM, for example, Safari tabs will be held in memory for longer. Or, you know,

00:20:19   more apps will be kept active, you know, in the background without having to, you know,

00:20:23   when you open an app and you need to see the splash screen again because it's been evicted

00:20:26   from memory. In theory, with 50% more RAM, you will see that 50% less, because the OS

00:20:35   has more capacity in terms of memory to hold more apps suspended in the background.

00:20:41   I think what you've actually shown us, which is not necessarily something that we would

00:20:45   have known without a test like this, is that, as you say, with more RAM, the iPad will make

00:20:53   use of it. This is an example of that. Because I think it would have been not completely

00:21:01   out of the realm of possibility for Apple to basically use that 2GB of RAM only for

00:21:09   management of the storage if that was why it was in there. It feels like a kind of an

00:21:13   app-ly thing to do. Like 4GB is usable by the system, the other two is in certain circumstances

00:21:19   when one terabyte is causing problems, right? But no, the system will use all six gigabytes of RAM

00:21:26   in apps where necessary. So that is just, we know something we didn't know before. And I've seen a

00:21:33   lot of people, and I know that you were complaining about this too, saying that like, you know,

00:21:39   because you mentioned it in your article as well, and you mentioned it on Twitter that day about

00:21:43   like if you, you know, this is good for if you're going to keep this device for a long period of

00:21:48   time. It's future proofed, you know, some of that power is there. And I definitely feel this, right,

00:21:53   that like I say like, oh, you know, I think this machine will be good for a few years,

00:21:57   knowing full well that I do not plan to keep this machine for longer until the next one comes out.

00:22:02   And when that comes out, I'll upgrade. But I would say that part of our responsibility in reviewing

00:22:07   these products is taking into consideration that not everybody will be upgrading every year.

00:22:13   and providing people with information for purchasing decisions.

00:22:17   So, for example, if you're like, OK, I can buy this now,

00:22:20   but I'm not going to buy one for four more years.

00:22:23   Well, in that case, if you have the availability,

00:22:26   we would recommend that you get the one terabyte because it's future proofed

00:22:30   in a more consistent way or like potentially a more long term way.

00:22:34   So it's just something to to know.

00:22:36   Yes, it is completely true that both me and Federico will be upgrading

00:22:41   our iPads as soon as possible, but we know full well that there are lots of people that

00:22:45   want and we just want to provide that information.

00:22:47   And exactly, and really I don't understand, like, I always try to give my old devices

00:22:56   to members of my family or to sell them. And I don't think it's too difficult to understand.

00:23:03   First of all, I don't want to give crappy iPads to my family members.

00:23:09   Right, but they would probably outlast the performance though, you know?

00:23:14   Like, it would keep going for them, probably.

00:23:18   Probably.

00:23:19   Like, look at, for example, I just gave an iPad Pro to my mom, and I can safely assume

00:23:26   that that iPad Pro is going to last three to four years, at least.

00:23:31   If I had an iPad Air 1, that would have been a different discussion.

00:23:36   So also these things, they have better resale value.

00:23:40   In a few years, when people will be looking for an iPad Pro

00:23:43   that doesn't cost a thousand euros,

00:23:45   I will have a one terabyte model with six gigs of RAM

00:23:49   that will probably sell better on the market

00:23:51   than the basic model.

00:23:53   So the argument that I cannot say

00:23:57   that I'm future-proofing my iPad

00:23:59   because I will personally not take advantage of that,

00:24:02   I don't understand that counterargument.

00:24:04   So yes, the basic thing that we discovered is

00:24:09   the extra RAM is in there, the OS can use it,

00:24:13   apps can use it, they don't need to do anything special

00:24:15   to use it, and it will be interesting to see what happens

00:24:20   with iOS 13, for example.

00:24:22   Once Apple enables, you know, multi, multiple,

00:24:27   quote unquote, Windows for individual apps,

00:24:30   Next year, will the extra RAM help at all?

00:24:35   Will there be, maybe not in iOS 13, but maybe 14,

00:24:40   special features that Apple will say

00:24:43   this is only available for devices?

00:24:45   They will not say that directly,

00:24:47   but I don't think it's unusual for Apple

00:24:51   to limit certain functionalities

00:24:53   based on the amount of memory available in certain iPads.

00:24:57   Remember, for example,

00:24:59   when they launched Split View and Slide Over,

00:25:02   and when they updated it for the,

00:25:05   I think the 2017 iPad Pro, so last year,

00:25:08   that you could use three active apps at the same time.

00:25:11   So you could have the two apps in Split View

00:25:14   and the one in Slide Over,

00:25:15   and all three of them were active.

00:25:18   That feature was available for devices with four gigs of RAM.

00:25:21   I don't think it's impossible to imagine

00:25:24   that in a couple of years,

00:25:25   there will be a feature that is available for iPads

00:25:28   with six gigs of RAM.

00:25:30   Yeah. And this iPad will be the only one.

00:25:33   I expect that will be the case, but I bet that wouldn't happen

00:25:36   until the next hardware revision.

00:25:37   Just because it would be too difficult for them to say like.

00:25:41   It works on the new iPad pros, but only if you have the one terrible

00:25:46   like it would just it seems like kind of a difficult thing to get across.

00:25:49   But I do I completely believe you and agree with you

00:25:52   because there is very clear precedent for it.

00:25:55   This is that is not the first time that has happened as explained by you

00:25:59   That before we move on from the power aspect

00:26:03   I did notice something in your article and this is quoting from your first impressions article

00:26:08   I want to experiment with proper video production for Mac stories in 2019 and beyond again

00:26:12   My priority was getting an iPad Pro that could be ready for all kinds of 4k video assets with plenty of built-in storage to get started

00:26:19   Hi

00:26:20   yeah, so I sent you today a picture of

00:26:25   Lightroom running of my iPad Pro connected to the 4k display

00:26:29   yeah, I'm I was thinking about like

00:26:32   What do I want to accomplish in 2019?

00:26:36   and I I

00:26:39   Don't want to say that I get bored over time by doing the same things, but I want to try new things

00:26:46   I don't want to say it, but I get bored over time

00:26:49   No, I feel you

00:26:53   the creative person. Exactly. I want to try new things. You never content. You always want to do

00:26:57   more. Always want to do something new. I want to do something new. It's a phrase "itchy feet"

00:27:01   is a phrase. Yeah. Be like you just want to get on the move do something else. That's terrifying.

00:27:05   But yes I want to explore the possibility of what if we did more video or what if I, you know,

00:27:16   what if I actually knew what it meant to edit raw pictures and what if I had sort of, I don't want

00:27:22   I don't want to say education, but reading online and watching how other people work,

00:27:27   that kind of stuff.

00:27:28   But mostly, video is something that I've been thinking about for a long time.

00:27:35   And maybe, I'm not saying that I will launch a YouTube channel in two months.

00:27:39   No, it's nothing like that.

00:27:41   Because we already have a YouTube channel, but it's basically unused.

00:27:44   What I want to do is I want to start small.

00:27:46   And I want to see, for example, can I do a video where I describe a shortcut and it's

00:27:51   just a screencast?

00:27:52   I don't have a camera, I don't have a proper, you know, video studio setup.

00:27:56   But what if I did a simple screencast where I can show a shortcut running

00:28:00   and explain people what's happening on screen instead of just showing the,

00:28:04   you know, the thing running on its own with no audio?

00:28:07   So something simple like that.

00:28:08   And, you know, I would love to edit that kind of stuff on my iPad Pro.

00:28:13   And I would love because I use it in the past.

00:28:15   Remember when I did the dance video?

00:28:17   Actually, two dance videos.

00:28:19   And that was on the 2015 iPad Pro running Pinnacle Studio Pro, which is the app that eventually became LumaFusion,

00:28:27   which is the app that everybody's using these days to edit video on the iPad Pro.

00:28:31   So I'm familiar with that already, but I would like to sort of get back into it and start doing it more.

00:28:37   There's two things that I would like to do in the in the in the relatively near future screencasts for shortcuts.

00:28:44   So when I do a shortcut, I would like to describe it.

00:28:48   And also the pictures that are in my second iPad Diaries article published today about the smart key

00:28:57   portfolio, those were raw pictures shot on my iPhone with Halite, if that's the way you say that

00:29:03   that name, I never know. And they were edited with Lightroom on my iPad Pro. And they're probably

00:29:11   terrible pictures but I don't care because you know there's no better way to get started and

00:29:15   and have people actually tell you

00:29:17   if you're doing something wrong

00:29:19   or if you're doing something right and send you feedback.

00:29:21   So that's something that I will,

00:29:24   these two tasks, they're new things that,

00:29:28   when you get that creative itch, as you say,

00:29:33   it sort of ignites a fire inside of you,

00:29:37   that like learning something new, learning a new skill,

00:29:40   it's good for the soul really

00:29:44   be to learn, to learn something new.

00:29:47   And to do it on the iPad Pro is even more fun

00:29:49   because it means that I can write about it

00:29:51   and I can talk about it.

00:29:52   So it's a double opportunity, if you will.

00:29:57   - I will.

00:29:59   Let's take a break.

00:30:00   There's so much more to get to.

00:30:01   We've just started scratching the surface of this.

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00:32:11   You mentioned iOS 13 a minute ago as like, just in passing, and it triggered something

00:32:18   for me that I'm a little bit concerned about right now, which is the hope of iOS 13.

00:32:24   Okay.

00:32:25   There's far too much conversation about how it's like, blah, blah, blah, blah. I expect

00:32:33   this to be better in iOS 13 or that are definitely going to fix this in iOS 13

00:32:38   or I can't wait for iOS 13 for this to truly become the laptop killer. I am

00:32:44   concerned that everyone is putting far too much stock in the potential for iOS

00:32:51   13. Like I tell you right now everything you want in iOS 13 is not what you will

00:32:56   get right like that is just a fact right like we're not gonna get everything we

00:33:01   want. Like iOS 11 was amazing, did not give us everything we wanted for the iPad.

00:33:06   Right. Hashtag shelf life.

00:33:07   Right. You don't get everything you want.

00:33:10   It's just not how it is.

00:33:11   And I just want to try and like make sure we're keeping that in perspective.

00:33:16   There is absolutely nothing to say that iOS 13 will include any iPad features

00:33:22   other than just our own feeling that they will.

00:33:25   Right. Like it feels very logical.

00:33:27   Like all rumors of iOS 12 would point to there being iOS features later.

00:33:32   But what if it was iOS 14?

00:33:34   Like, we don't actually know.

00:33:35   I hope that we will see a lot of great stuff in iOS 13.

00:33:40   But, you know, I wouldn't I just want to make sure that everybody's

00:33:45   trying to keep their hopes and dreams in check.

00:33:47   I think it's always risky to expect Apple to fix everything

00:33:54   you see as being wrong or problematic on the platform in a single release.

00:33:59   And especially over the past few years we've seen how, you know, Apple likes to separate features

00:34:06   across multiple releases and they're, you know, they have now more sort of freedom to delay,

00:34:13   quote unquote delay, because some people would say, well, you cannot delay something that has not

00:34:17   been announced, whatever. They can push features to the next year if they're not comfortable with

00:34:22   them. I would expect iOS 13 to feature improvements to multitasking, so the thing where, you know,

00:34:33   how in Safari now you can have multiple tabs for the same app, so that should be an API for

00:34:41   third-party developers. And I would expect at this point a redesigned home screen. That's been

00:34:47   rumored for the past couple of years and it sounds like it was one of the features that was pushed

00:34:52   back from iOS 12 to 13 in 2019, so I would expect that. But considering also that next year's WWDC,

00:35:02   Project Snippek or Marzipan, whatever the final name is going to be, will likely be the focus of

00:35:09   Apple and the developer message of "you now have a new technology to bring your iPad apps to the

00:35:16   Mac. So I wouldn't expect iOS 13, and I would love to be wrong, of course, but I wouldn't expect this

00:35:23   massive revolution of the iPad suddenly turning into this brand new kind of computer in a single

00:35:31   point release. I would love it if, you know, if that happened. I would be super happy.

00:35:37   I agree. I think too many people are feeling that way, where I feel like mine and your

00:35:42   expectations are adjusted differently because we've been living this life for so long.

00:35:47   We've seen this before, all this hope and this hype,

00:35:50   only to, you know, not to be disappointed, but just temper your expectations.

00:35:56   iOS 13 is going to make iOS on the iPad better in significant ways for people that are currently

00:36:03   using iOS on an iPad. I don't think it is going to be the release that will mean that you can get

00:36:10   and get rid of your MacBook Pro, right?

00:36:12   Like I don't think that's gonna happen.

00:36:14   Honestly, I do think that we are getting closer to it.

00:36:16   I think that maybe 14 or 15 would be

00:36:19   because of the cross-platform apps.

00:36:21   Like I think that that's gonna be something

00:36:24   that really will help a lot of people,

00:36:26   but I don't think that's gonna ship with iOS 13, right?

00:36:29   Like I don't think that the next versions

00:36:32   of the software will be that.

00:36:35   I just don't think it's yet.

00:36:36   I think there'll be more to show.

00:36:38   I think it might be the beginnings of it,

00:36:40   but I don't think it's gonna be like full powered.

00:36:42   Like I can't imagine that someone who makes

00:36:45   like a really like powerful Mac app

00:36:48   will just be able to very easily move it to iOS.

00:36:50   Like that's not gonna happen, but I think it might start.

00:36:54   We're getting closer and it does feel like

00:36:56   it's more of a possibility than ever before,

00:36:58   but I don't think that's gonna be shown off in June, right?

00:37:02   Like I just don't think that's where we're gonna be.

00:37:04   I'm very happy to be wrong on that one, by the way,

00:37:07   but I don't think that's gonna be the case.

00:37:09   Let's go back to talking about what we do have now,

00:37:12   which is Face ID.

00:37:13   So in your testing and in your usage over the last week,

00:37:17   how has Face ID compared to Touch ID?

00:37:21   - It is so much better than Touch ID.

00:37:23   I love having Face ID while I'm working at a desk.

00:37:28   And I'm surprised that Apple still hasn't shipped

00:37:31   Face ID solution for Macs at this point,

00:37:33   because it's just so much better.

00:37:36   the iPad is in front of me, it's looking at me,

00:37:39   I don't need to do anything.

00:37:40   I can just double tap the space bar,

00:37:42   which by the way, works with any keyboard,

00:37:44   whether it's a USB keyboard that you have connected

00:37:46   to the iPad or a Bluetooth keyboard or the smart keyboard,

00:37:49   you can just double tap it and it authenticates.

00:37:51   And it's, you know, if your face is close enough,

00:37:53   which it's so good and it's so much better than,

00:37:57   I prefer Face ID on the iPad to Face ID on the phone.

00:38:02   - Yes, me too.

00:38:04   Because face ID on the iPad, if your iPad is mostly used

00:38:09   in a sort of as a stationary iPad,

00:38:11   it's like it's sitting at a desk.

00:38:13   There are fewer variables to account for.

00:38:16   You're just sitting and you're looking at the thing

00:38:17   and the thing looks like you and you're like, okay, sure.

00:38:19   - Even if you don't, the variables are more likely to work

00:38:24   on an iPad than an iPhone

00:38:27   because it doesn't matter what orientation it is.

00:38:30   It doesn't matter how your head's,

00:38:32   like what angle your head is at.

00:38:33   - And you're likely not walking, you're not walking,

00:38:37   you're not wearing sunglasses, I would suppose.

00:38:40   Some people like to wear sunglasses inside, which I respect,

00:38:43   but I don't think most people do.

00:38:45   Maybe Liam Gallagher does, I don't know.

00:38:49   Still, yeah, I prefer Face ID on the iPad.

00:38:54   I'm trying to get used to the camera cupboard message,

00:38:59   which I was, my impression was that,

00:39:02   I'm not going to see this message a lot.

00:39:04   But in practicality, I am seeing the message a lot because, you know, it's when I hold my iPad.

00:39:09   Naturally, my hands rest where the camera sensor is.

00:39:14   So it's very helpful that iOS displays that message.

00:39:18   I'm trying to remember like this is basically all a muscle memory problem.

00:39:22   I'm trying to force myself to hold the iPad differently so that I'm not covering the camera.

00:39:29   But it's going to take a while.

00:39:31   So I'm seeing that message a lot.

00:39:32   But overall, I would say this is a better Face ID than Face ID on the phone, because

00:39:36   it works no matter what, because the feedback displayed on the lock screen is better than

00:39:41   the feedback you get on the iPhone, and it's just as fast to me.

00:39:46   So big thumbs up, even though my thumb is now useless because Touch ID is gone.

00:39:52   Big nod to Face ID.

00:39:53   Big attention up.

00:39:56   I've done some very unscientific testing, but it feels to me that Face ID on my iPad

00:40:03   can see me from further away than my iPhone does.

00:40:07   So like, you know, I've helped the two devices, like I put the two devices next to each other

00:40:10   and the iPad will unlock but the phone won't and I have to bring the iPhone.

00:40:16   It's not a dramatic difference, like a couple more inches closer to me, but it's just something

00:40:20   that I've noticed.

00:40:21   like oh wow okay like and also the viewing angle it seems to get it at a

00:40:26   better angles for me like I've found it to be a superior in most ways I will say

00:40:33   when face ID fails on the iPad it's it's typically more frustrating to

00:40:40   get it to to unlock so like for example if face ID fails on my iPhone it's

00:40:49   It's already in my hand. I just swipe up again and go for it. But if Face ID fails on my

00:40:54   iPad, then like sometimes I have to like pick my iPad up, right? And that is more of a thing,

00:41:01   that is more of an involved process than it is on my iPhone. It's like if I'm laying on

00:41:06   the couch, right? And I've got it in the folio and it can't see me, like for whatever reason,

00:41:11   I have to just like physically move my 13 inch iPad to bring it closer to my face or

00:41:18   in front of my face to get it to work, where on the iPhone, that is not a cumbersome experience

00:41:24   to get the re-authentication. So whilst this happens to me less, I find it to be, as I

00:41:29   say, much more reliable. When it does fail, which it does, and it will, and it's just

00:41:34   whatever, it is more of a process to get it to authenticate.

00:41:38   Yeah, I can understand that. I have caught myself punching over the iPad, looking at

00:41:44   the screen from a very close distance. And I had the thought, you know, sort of

00:41:49   having, what if I, you know, trying to have like this out-of-body experience,

00:41:55   like looking at me as a different, as another person. I look like a crazy man

00:41:59   staring at a tablet, you know, trying to get face authentication to work.

00:42:05   Yeah, because it's like if my iPad's on a table, and I was on like the dining room

00:42:09   table or whatever. And if I needed to unlock it with Touch ID, I just reached down and

00:42:15   unlock it. But I have to make sure that it can see me, which is a very different experience,

00:42:22   right? But there are always edge case issues. There are always like weird things with this

00:42:28   type of stuff. But like on daily usage, it's much better. Face ID is much better.

00:42:33   Yeah, isn't it nice that all the feedback that you get on the lock screen,

00:42:39   you also get, for example, for extensions or for apps that use Face ID?

00:42:43   Like, how nice is it when you're in Safari or in a third-party app

00:42:48   and you need to log into service with one password?

00:42:51   And it just comes up, scans your face, and it's done?

00:42:55   That's super awesome, honestly.

00:42:57   Like, the best part is how integrated it feels.

00:43:02   I love it. Yeah, really well done.

00:43:05   USB-C.

00:43:07   Oof. That's a...

00:43:09   Now, the only thing that I've plugged into my iPad is the USB-C power cable.

00:43:15   Because right now I feel like we are far too early in this process

00:43:21   for me to even bother trying to connect other stuff to it.

00:43:25   And also, everything that I know tells me that, you know,

00:43:29   It can't, it doesn't really seem to be able to do like a massive amount more than a bunch

00:43:35   of different dongles I could have used before.

00:43:37   But I know you have been going pretty deep on the USB-C stuff, so I want to know what

00:43:42   you have experienced.

00:43:44   The wonderful word of USB-C. Okay, so, a bunch of different chargers.

00:43:52   I have... because I had a feeling of, you know, two years ago that Apple was really getting into

00:44:00   this USB-C stuff and that it was not going to be limited to the Mac. So I have been accumulating

00:44:08   a collection of... I have all the Apple USB-C chargers, I have all the Apple USB-C cables they make,

00:44:17   And I also have a collection of third-party chargers in multiple configurations.

00:44:22   I have 29-watt ones, I have 30-watt, I have 60-watts.

00:44:28   I have a really good collection that Silvia deeply hates, this collection of cables and adapters.

00:44:36   And I, which I understand, it's not something that I'm proud of, but it's ugly.

00:44:41   It's like ugly and messy.

00:44:43   Yeah, it's bad.

00:44:45   So chargers and different cables.

00:44:48   I got by the recommendation of our very close friend, Marco Arment, a tiny USB-C.

00:44:57   It looks like a USB drive, but it's got a display.

00:45:01   It's a power meter.

00:45:02   So you plug this into the iPad and you plug a cable into the other end of this drive.

00:45:07   And it tells you how much charge the iPad is pulling from the adapter.

00:45:14   And that is gonna be part of the tests that I will conduct as part of my iPad Diaries series when I will talk about USB-C.

00:45:24   So I've been testing all kinds of chargers and external batteries as well.

00:45:28   I just today, and then of course I have also used the iPad Pro as a charger for other devices, so I've charged my Sony headphones,

00:45:38   you know, those with the with the unspeakable name, not because it's an

00:45:43   ugly name, because I don't remember the name of those headphones. They are USB-C

00:45:47   headphones and they can be charged via USB-C and I've charged my iPhone, I charged

00:45:52   my Nintendo Switch, all the obvious stuff, but it's only 7.5 watts of power so if

00:45:58   you play with the Nintendo Switch while it's charging the battery will go down

00:46:02   because it's not enough to charge the Nintendo while playing.

00:46:05   I have of course connected my iPad Pro to the ultra fine 4k, the LG display, and that gets us into the wild territory of USB 3.1.

00:46:20   So the thing that I'm interested to keep testing is how much can you accomplish with the cable that Apple puts in the box of the iPad Pro.

00:46:34   and different cables based on the USB 3.1 spec.

00:46:39   The USB 3.1 spec is also divided in two sub versions.

00:46:47   There's Gen 1 and Gen 2.

00:46:53   Gen 2 is the good one, we should say.

00:46:56   It supports up to 10 gigabits per seconds

00:46:59   of data transfers.

00:47:01   And it's what, you know, it's a, of course,

00:47:03   nobody is gonna remember, you know,

00:47:05   nobody's gonna write as a marketing name, USB 3.1 Gen 2.

00:47:10   So most companies, they refer to these specs

00:47:13   as SuperSpeed and SuperSpeed Plus, for some reason.

00:47:16   It's the marketing terms they chose.

00:47:18   And for example, using the cable

00:47:23   that is in the box of the iPad Pro,

00:47:24   you hook it up to the LG Ultrafine 4K, nothing happens.

00:47:28   Nothing happens because that's a USB-C cable based on the USB 2.0 spec.

00:47:34   So it supports data transfers with USB 2.0 specifications.

00:47:40   That is not enough to drive an external display.

00:47:43   But if you use the cable included with the LG Ultrafine or any other USB 3.1,

00:47:50   I think it doesn't matter whether it's Gen 1 or Gen 2 for a 4K display,

00:47:55   you're gonna see your iPad screen mirrored on the external display, which is fantastic,

00:48:00   because as I mentioned a few minutes ago, today I was editing pictures in Lightroom

00:48:04   and I sent you a picture of the setup and I could see the Lightroom on my iPad Pro,

00:48:10   but the photo preview, it wasn't a different view, it was the same UI, but it was much bigger

00:48:17   on the 4K display, which was convenient for photos.

00:48:21   So I want to see how much you can do with the cable that Apple gives you and other cables that the iPad Pro supports,

00:48:30   because the iPad Pro, Apple states in the press release and on the product page, it's fully compliant with USB 3.1 Gen 2.

00:48:39   What's also interesting to me is that Apple says that this iPad Pro supports up to 5K displays,

00:48:48   but I think 5K displays that are not based on Thunderbolt 3 are still kind of rare to find.

00:48:56   Marco was tweeting about this a few days ago and that is why I ultimately went with the LG Ultrafine 4K

00:49:02   because this monitor is compatible with the iPad Pro because it uses USB-C. The 5K, it uses Thunderbolt 3,

00:49:10   which is not compatible with the iPad Pro. Of course, I also have a bunch of dongles,

00:49:17   So I've been testing audio in my car.

00:49:22   So I have a USB port in my car's dashboard.

00:49:31   I can play music as if an iOS device was an iPod.

00:49:37   It's got this old iPod compatibility mode support.

00:49:41   And so if you're running USB-A cable

00:49:44   and you have the right adapter on the iPad Pro,

00:49:45   you're going to play music from the iPad Pro via the car.

00:49:49   It's kind of useless, but it proves a point.

00:49:51   Also today, I was,

00:49:53   I'm going to test a bunch of third party keyboards

00:49:56   for the iPad Pro.

00:49:57   And one of the, I wanted to get extreme options.

00:50:01   So I started with the Apple Smart Keyboard Folio,

00:50:03   which is the thinnest one that I could get.

00:50:05   And then I thought, I want to get the opposite of this.

00:50:08   I want to get a clicky keyboard

00:50:10   that sounds like a keyboard from the 80s.

00:50:12   So I got a Mattias tactile, mini tactile pro.

00:50:17   This is a keyboard modeled after the Apple extended two.

00:50:21   They sort of copied the same keys, which is,

00:50:23   and it's a USB keyboard, which of course I, you know,

00:50:26   I can run a USB cable from the keyboard,

00:50:28   have a USB-C adapter on the iPad Pro, and it totally works.

00:50:32   You can actually, it fully supports keyboard shortcuts,

00:50:36   fully supports double tapping the space bar

00:50:38   on the lock screen.

00:50:39   And it's, you get this weird feeling of having this keyboard

00:50:42   that sounds like the keyboard that your mom used in the 80s,

00:50:46   but it also supports Face ID,

00:50:48   which is this weird, you know, opposites at play.

00:50:52   - And I guess the thing is, like, whilst you couldn't,

00:50:54   I mean, you could do that before, right?

00:50:56   You could get the dongles and do it before.

00:50:59   One of the benefits here is that, like,

00:51:00   eventually these keyboards will be USB-C,

00:51:03   so you just plug them right in.

00:51:04   - Yeah, and you get this, for example,

00:51:06   the display is a good example, because the USB-C,

00:51:10   While having external display support on iOS is nothing new,

00:51:13   and there are no new APIs,

00:51:16   this is the same mirroring technology that existed before,

00:51:19   what is new is that, well, 5K support is new,

00:51:22   but I haven't been able to test that.

00:51:24   4K display support, I think, is also new.

00:51:27   But what's important here is that USB-C

00:51:30   gives you that flexibility of, it's a single standard,

00:51:35   it's a single cable.

00:51:37   Once you understand all the details of this,

00:51:40   which is a, you know, it's a terrible wild west

00:51:43   of different cables, different specifications.

00:51:45   But once you understand it, I can now have a single cable.

00:51:49   And when I wanna work on my Mac mini,

00:51:50   it's plugged into the Mac mini.

00:51:52   If I wanna work on the iPad Pro, the same cable,

00:51:54   I just attach it to the iPad Pro.

00:51:56   And so that kind of flexibility, I think is beautiful.

00:51:57   - Right, and the keyboard and everything

00:51:59   is attached to the monitor.

00:52:01   - Exactly, exactly.

00:52:02   So everything goes through the monitor as a hub

00:52:05   and you also get, you know, downstream,

00:52:07   you get the features, you get this compatibility on the iPad Pro as well.

00:52:11   Of course the big problem right now...

00:52:18   Sorry, I should have mentioned, I didn't know this because I was at the

00:52:23   event in Brooklyn so I missed the announcement, but apparently Belkin is

00:52:27   is working with Apple on a USB-C to HDMI adapter that supports 4K, 60Hz and Dolby Vision.

00:52:37   I totally missed this, but it's happening, it's coming out, I think the Belkin press release says

00:52:44   it will be available on belkin.com and in Apple retail stores in time for the holidays, whatever

00:52:49   that means, because right now I can tell you Myke that I bought a bunch of HDMI to 4K 60Hz

00:52:57   adapters via Amazon and they're all fake. None of them support HDR. So Dolby Vision,

00:53:04   which is a kind of HDR, or 60 hertz. They're all ugly pieces of plastic that they don't

00:53:12   do what they advertise. So I think it's interesting that Apple is working with Belkin to offer

00:53:16   this. I think it's going to be extra nice when I can download an HDR movie on my iPad

00:53:21   Pro and I can run USB to HDMI adapter with an HDMI cable to my 55 inch OLED TV that supports

00:53:30   Dolby Vision and I will be able to mirror a Dolby Vision movie from my iPad Pro to the TV.

00:53:35   I mean it doesn't necessarily apply to me because I also have an Apple TV 4K,

00:53:39   but again proves the point of this large bandwidth that USB-C enables that with the collection of

00:53:48   of adapters, it allows you to do a bunch of interesting things.

00:53:53   Of course, the big problem right now, the most obvious thing,

00:53:56   you cannot use USB drives with USB-C. You can import photos.

00:54:03   That's all you can do, though.

00:54:04   And we've been over this a bunch of times.

00:54:08   USB drives should really be a location in the Files app.

00:54:12   And it's going to be--

00:54:13   I believe that Apple is working on this because everybody

00:54:16   is complaining about this feature.

00:54:18   And when everybody, in product reviews and on podcasts,

00:54:22   when literally everybody says, it's great,

00:54:25   but there's this one missing feature,

00:54:27   usually Apple likes to address that feature

00:54:30   in the next software update or iteration of the device.

00:54:33   In this case, I think it should really be a software update.

00:54:36   And I think Apple shouldn't wait until iOS 13 comes out

00:54:40   to enable USB drives.

00:54:41   But when that happens, it's gonna be extra nice

00:54:44   to have these large transfer speeds

00:54:47   and being able to have a single dongle, for example,

00:54:50   that allows you to do connect to USB drive,

00:54:54   connect to monitor, and have the monitor as a hub

00:54:59   and you're working on your iPad.

00:55:00   And maybe if developers adopt external display support,

00:55:04   you're gonna have one kind of UI on the iPad Pro

00:55:08   and a different kind of UI on the monitor.

00:55:10   And it's getting closer to this idea of the iPad Pro itself

00:55:14   is still display.

00:55:16   I can still get up from my desk, detach a single cable,

00:55:20   and I'm holding a screen, I'm holding a display.

00:55:23   But when I sit down, if I want to,

00:55:25   I can take advantage of the power of iOS,

00:55:27   and I can look it up to a 4K display,

00:55:30   and it becomes a workstation.

00:55:31   And I don't understand how some people cannot see

00:55:35   the beauty of this concept, the beauty of this idea of,

00:55:38   you got the single piece of glass that, if you want,

00:55:41   it can walk with you.

00:55:42   It can literally be in your hands.

00:55:45   It's a display that you hold

00:55:49   and you're effectively holding content in your hands.

00:55:52   But then if you sit down and again,

00:55:55   if you took care of a bunch of electronics,

00:55:58   it becomes a computer that can run a 5K display.

00:56:03   And I just think that that's just a beautiful idea

00:56:07   that it's kind of sad when some people make fun of it

00:56:10   because for me, this is the dream

00:56:12   of the computer, it transforms.

00:56:15   It can be portable or it can be a desktop

00:56:17   and it doesn't change the nature of it

00:56:19   because its nature is to be, you know, is to transform.

00:56:23   It's kind of like Kirby, the Nintendo character.

00:56:25   It's in its nature to transform.

00:56:28   So anyway, is there anything else you want to know

00:56:31   about USB-C, Myke, or using an iPad with a monitor?

00:56:34   - No, I mean, ultimately right now, you know,

00:56:37   you are proving my assumption

00:56:38   that it is just a real frigging mess,

00:56:40   which is why I'm not interested in going down this route,

00:56:43   like with most people, and it's why we're happy you're around.

00:56:46   I will wait for you to tell me what to do

00:56:47   when I decide I wanna do it,

00:56:49   because you will have gone through it all, right?

00:56:51   - Yes.

00:56:51   - This is what your job is, this is what our jobs are,

00:56:54   right, as like, we go through this mess

00:56:57   so people don't have to,

00:56:59   and you're going through this mess right now

00:57:00   and trying to be at the forefront of this,

00:57:03   because it seems pretty clear

00:57:05   that it's gonna become more important

00:57:06   for reasons that we can't completely foresee right now,

00:57:11   but it feels like this is a thing.

00:57:14   Like there must have been a reason

00:57:16   that they've moved to USB-C, right?

00:57:18   There must have been a reason.

00:57:19   This kind of stuff is probably the reason,

00:57:23   but the full story has not been told yet

00:57:25   and that will take time to come out.

00:57:27   But if you're doing this stuff now,

00:57:29   when it comes to the time that everybody's gonna wanna get

00:57:31   a display and make sure they got all the right cables,

00:57:34   et cetera, et cetera, you will have the guide, right?

00:57:36   like you will have done it and then we can all just follow what you did.

00:57:39   And if you think about it, um, when Apple moved to lightning, we all complained

00:57:44   about, Oh, now we gotta, we gotta switch our cables and now everything's different.

00:57:47   None of my accessories work, but the move to lightning opened up to move opened up

00:57:53   the possibility to, you know, remove the headphone jack, which also coincided with

00:57:58   iPhones getting thinner and going, you know, all screen and also AirPods and moving

00:58:03   to USB-C. Right now it's a mess, but thinking down the road, thinking in a couple of years,

00:58:09   what could this possibly enable? And this is a 100% Apple playbook of using a single

00:58:19   change to enable multiple changes down the road, multiple major features down the road.

00:58:27   So right now it's a mess and understanding which cables you gotta use is a mess, but

00:58:32   I think we are already seeing with the existing APIs on iOS for external monitors, which are

00:58:38   super limited and really not what you expect, you know, coming from a Mac.

00:58:43   It's really not like using a Mac with a second display.

00:58:46   But still we are seeing, you know, some developers coming up with wild ideas about how could

00:58:51   an iOS app ever take advantage of an external display.

00:58:55   John Sandel, I hope that's the right way to pronounce his name, tweeted a bunch of examples

00:59:00   on his Twitter account, you should follow him.

00:59:03   But one of them is a markdown text editor,

00:59:06   then on the iPad, it shows you the plain text markdown.

00:59:10   So you can type on the iPad.

00:59:12   On the external monitor,

00:59:13   it shows you an HTML preview of markdown.

00:59:17   - How cool is that? - And I want that.

00:59:18   I want all markdown editors to work like that now,

00:59:23   because that's exactly what I want.

00:59:24   - I would say that maybe the other way around

00:59:27   would be better, but yes,

00:59:30   just the idea that you can do it is great because you know what I mean? Like and I figure

00:59:34   if you can do one you can probably do the other but wouldn't it be nicer to have the

00:59:38   screen that's right in front of your face with the bigger space be what you're writing

00:59:41   on and you look down to see the preview? But like it doesn't matter it's still incredible

00:59:45   this is something he just like played around with and walked up but like that's super cool

00:59:49   it's super cool.

00:59:51   Yeah so I am right now you know I have this new desk and it's got a drawer on the left

00:59:57   of the right side and this drawer is full of cables and adapters and I am thinking,

01:00:03   I'm gonna sound like Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory, I wanna label things, I want

01:00:09   a labeling machine.

01:00:11   You probably should.

01:00:12   I probably should because I need to understand which cable is which and it gets messy, like

01:00:18   is this a 2016 Apple USB-C cable or not?

01:00:22   So I should probably start labeling things.

01:00:26   Yeah, it's fun in a sort of terrible way,

01:00:29   because it's terrible because, you know,

01:00:31   managing cables and adapters is not fun,

01:00:33   but also it's like a problem that I can solve.

01:00:37   And yeah, I will have something about USB-C soon.

01:00:42   Still gotta write about some other keyboards first,

01:00:47   and then I will probably move to USB-C.

01:00:49   - We should, the iPad Pro is not just the iPad itself,

01:00:53   There's also a bunch of other stuff that's involved in it,

01:00:56   and we should get to that.

01:00:57   But before we do, let me thank our next sponsor,

01:01:00   and that is our friends over at Luna Display.

01:01:03   It's kind of funny,

01:01:04   talking about like external monitors and iPads,

01:01:06   there is another way to do this,

01:01:09   which is using a Luna Display,

01:01:10   but it's in the opposite direction.

01:01:12   So it's taking your Mac and having your iPad

01:01:15   be a second display for your Mac.

01:01:17   This is what Luna Display will let you do.

01:01:19   Your iPad has this incredible display, right?

01:01:22   and these small packages. Everybody always wants more space when they're at the computer. This is

01:01:27   a great way to do it. Luna Display provides crystal clear image quality, reliable performance,

01:01:32   and wireless flexibility. You just pop this tiny little dongle into your Mac and you're good to go.

01:01:37   Even if you don't have access to a wi-fi connection you can connect with USB. It's super

01:01:41   super simple to do so this means that you can have two displays wherever you are. If you have

01:01:47   like a laptop and an iPad and you're traveling maybe you're working on the go, you're maybe in

01:01:51   in a hotel room, maybe you're even on a train or something, you can set these things up

01:01:55   and you will have two displays for your Mac which is awesome. Everybody always wants more

01:01:59   screen real estate and you don't have to buy another screen, you can just use your iOS

01:02:03   device to do it. It will support your external keyboard, it will support your Apple pencil,

01:02:08   your touch interactions, it's like then having a touch screen Macintosh which is also kind

01:02:12   of a wonderful thing. Luna Display is so simple to set up, you just download their apps which

01:02:18   to

01:02:32   can get 10% off any lunar display. So just go to lunardisplay.com L-U-N-A-D-I-S-P-L-A-Y.com

01:02:41   use the promo code connected at checkout that is lunardisplay.com promo code connected to get 10%

01:02:47   off our thanks to lunar display for their support of this show and relay FM. So the Apple Pencil,

01:02:54   I mean the Apple Pencil is a super easy one to talk about because it is better in literally

01:02:58   every single way. Everything they did to it made it better over the first version. It feels nicer

01:03:03   to hold, it is more convenient because it's always where it needs to be stuck to the side of the

01:03:08   iPad. That convenience is a storage solution but also charges it. So the convenience also comes

01:03:15   from the fact that your Apple Pencil is always ready to go. It has more functions, right? So

01:03:20   it has like you can double tap on it and you can switch tools and more and more applications are

01:03:24   are being updated with this. All the drawing apps are being updated to take advantage of

01:03:29   the tool switching and then there are some more apps that are trying some more complex

01:03:34   things with it and we're going to see how that stuff goes into the future but I am absolutely

01:03:39   thrilled with this device. I think it is fantastic. It has renewed my love for the Apple Pencil

01:03:47   all over again. I absolutely adore it.

01:03:50   I love the fact that when I want to use the Apple Pencil it's right there.

01:03:55   It's not something that I need to manage anymore and it doesn't solve the magnetic attachment,

01:04:05   it doesn't solve the problem of carrying the iPad in a bag and the Pencil is loose.

01:04:12   gonna happen because you know it's not like you're attaching the the iPad to

01:04:19   your the the pencil to your iPad with nails or something it's it's a magnet so

01:04:23   it's gonna detach in them in a bag yeah but then it's in your bag right like

01:04:27   it's you know but it's just in your bag and it's again you can just put it on

01:04:31   top of the iPad any charges any pairs it's it's perfect it's exactly like

01:04:35   It's one of those things that I didn't know that I wanted this, but as soon as I tried it, I was like,

01:04:44   "How could I ever have accepted the Pencil before?"

01:04:49   Because this is the ideal state of the Pencil. It's sort of hovering over the iPad at all times, ready for you to pick it up.

01:04:58   And you just grab it? You just grab it?

01:05:00   Yeah, you just grab it and you go. And it's perfect.

01:05:02   you it's you know when I had it in the pen loop it was always more of an involved thing to like

01:05:07   slide it out but like now it's just my hand reaches for it and I have it like there's no

01:05:13   resistance you just you just take it and it it's wonderful whoever did this whoever came up with

01:05:19   this whoever had to lobby to get the apple pencil to be changed in this way thank you like like you

01:05:28   have made it perfect, you know, it is as close to perfect as this thing is probably ever

01:05:34   going to be. I adore it. Like, it's wonderful. Let's talk about the keyboard. Smart keyboard

01:05:40   folio.

01:05:41   Speaking of things that are perfect.

01:05:44   You published a scathing review.

01:05:46   Oh, it's not scathing, come on.

01:05:48   Oh, it is.

01:05:49   It's not scathing.

01:05:50   Do you want me to do a dramatic reading of some of these parts here?

01:05:54   I think it's fair. It's not scathing.

01:05:56   Come on.

01:05:57   Okay, it's critical, it's critical. It's very critical then. Much more critical than me I

01:06:03   think, not my feelings about it. Now it is not as clear at home run as the Apple

01:06:08   Pencil is, like the keys are the same and that can either be good or bad depending

01:06:13   on how you feel about it. I like the magnetic attachment, I think that it is

01:06:17   overall better than the way the previous one attached, you know I like that it's

01:06:22   simple to do. I like that you don't have to do a bunch of folding. It's super plain and

01:06:28   super boring. It is. It's very boring. One of the most boring looking products Apple

01:06:35   has made in a very long time. It has no logo. It's nothing. It doesn't even have a texture.

01:06:41   It's just flat. It's flat. Perfect for stickers. And it really is. And it's actually, it being

01:06:47   all flat is better because now I don't have to like get specific stickers to fit in the

01:06:51   little panels, like I could just put the stickers wherever I want.

01:06:54   That's a great point, that's a great point.

01:06:56   So it's great for that. It is secured by the millions of magnets. Everyone's seen this

01:07:00   by now but MKBHD had a, he found this like little magnetic paper that shows where magnets

01:07:05   exist on a device. It's wild to see all those magnets. But so that's, you know, that's a

01:07:11   thing. I feel like this is about as much as I would have wanted. I miss my old media of

01:07:21   view of being able to flip the stand all the way around and have it stand up on its own.

01:07:27   I may be though the only user and defender of the desk orientation. You know like you

01:07:35   have the two modes of like what do they call it? Desk and lap? I use the desk orientation

01:07:42   sometimes when I'm on a desk. I use it when I'm on my sofa, you know like maybe doing

01:07:47   some work order. I don't know why it's good for me but not for others but sometimes with

01:07:53   the way I'm sitting or how far I have the device away from me, the desk orientation

01:07:58   is better. I actually sometimes feel like the lap orientation is too angled away from

01:08:05   me.

01:08:06   If you're far enough from the iPad Pro, totally. Like I was in bed last night and I needed

01:08:12   to edit a story and I used desk mode. But again, I was in bed.

01:08:19   So here's something that might be interesting for between the two of us, right? So like

01:08:23   if I'm writing or working at the kitchen table, I want to have my iPad far enough down the

01:08:29   desk that my arms don't rest on the corner of the desk.

01:08:35   Oh, okay. Okay. So that's a difference. Okay.

01:08:38   Because that can trigger RSI problems for me because I'm like leaning on the the tendons in my arms

01:08:44   So I will have my whole arms on the desk and then the if it's angled away from me

01:08:48   It's then angle too much. So the desk mode works pretty well for me there

01:08:52   Because I will I will that's typically how I have all of my keyboards

01:08:56   They're pretty far into the desk so I can rest all of my arms on the desk

01:09:01   Which is more comfortable for me personally. So okay, I use it for that. I'm not like that

01:09:06   And the reason, you know, really this is, I think for a lot of people it's used to watch

01:09:11   videos and stuff, but they couldn't call it that because it's not good because the keyboard's

01:09:16   always there.

01:09:17   It's not a good look.

01:09:18   It's not a good look.

01:09:19   I don't think it's a good look to say, "Buy this keyboard and it's got media mode."

01:09:23   You know, a mode where you will not be using the keyboard that you just paid for.

01:09:28   Yeah, when this really is more of a keyboard than the smart keyboard.

01:09:32   the smart keyboard folio is more of a keyboard product than the previous smart keyboard was,

01:09:37   which was really like this whole thing, you know, like you could do everything and it

01:09:41   has a keyboard on it as well. What do you think about when you wrap the keyboard around?

01:09:47   It's weird. It's weird when you wrap it around and you feel the keys in the back of the iPad.

01:09:54   Even though it's like... I like to press them. No, no, no, no, no. I like doing that, you

01:10:00   know like I'm just like kind of wrapping my key my fingers on the keys I like it

01:10:05   it feels like they're gonna break and I don't like it why would they break

01:10:09   because I'm not I'm not looking at them I don't feel like I'm in control of them

01:10:14   I'm using them in a way they're not supposed to be used keys are supposed to

01:10:18   be pressed not to be held yeah but I like it yeah well why would you though

01:10:24   Like a fidget toy?

01:10:26   Yes, 100%. You know me.

01:10:28   Yeah, I know you, but you know me. I'm not a fidget toy person.

01:10:31   [Laughter]

01:10:33   No fidgeting for me.

01:10:34   No fidgeting.

01:10:35   I have many thoughts about this keyboard that I tried my best to share today in a story on Mac Stories.

01:10:43   Here's my summary of it, is the following.

01:10:47   that I appreciate the portability and the thinness of the Smart Keyboard Folio.

01:10:54   It does its job well if you value portability, if you want

01:11:01   something that can be easily attached, something that you don't need to manage,

01:11:05   you don't need to charge because of the Smart Connector and all of its benefits.

01:11:10   And that also offers protection this time because it covers the back

01:11:15   of the iPad, this is probably what you want to get. I don't love that it's more

01:11:20   expensive, especially when you consider that in Italy this cost 220 euros, which

01:11:27   would be roughly $250. It's too much in proportion to the price of the

01:11:37   My basic argument is this. Apple makes the iPad Pro. Is the smart keyboard a

01:11:45   Pro keyboard or is it just the bare minimum that Apple can do to offer a

01:11:51   portable keyboard for the iPad Pro? I want Apple to make a smart keyboard

01:11:56   Pro for people who don't value necessarily extreme thinness and

01:12:02   and extreme portability, but value pro typing.

01:12:06   So having more keys, having more keyboard shortcuts,

01:12:10   having function keys, everybody else that makes

01:12:14   an iMac Pro keyboard has function keys

01:12:17   and special iOS shortcuts,

01:12:20   like going back to the home screen.

01:12:23   And yes, iOS supports Command + H

01:12:25   to go back to the home screen,

01:12:27   but having a dedicated home key allows you,

01:12:30   for example to summon Siri or to summon the App Switcher, which you cannot do by holding Command+H

01:12:38   or double-tapping Command+H, having function keys for controlling media playback.

01:12:42   If you want to start playing a song on your iPad Pro and then you want to pause that song,

01:12:49   you cannot do this with the Smart Keyboard. You need to reach to the screen and swipe to open

01:12:55   Control Center and Pause, which I think is insane. The Apple Magic Keyboard has function keys and they

01:13:02   work for controlling media playback, the Smart Keyboard doesn't have them. I think it's...

01:13:08   I don't want to say insane, I think it's very strange that three years into the iPad Pro,

01:13:16   the Smart Keyboard is still the only option we have from Apple, especially because the Smart

01:13:22   connector has not turned into the ecosystem that maybe Apple envisioned?

01:13:28   Because they certainly didn't promise an ecosystem, but we all sort of thought

01:13:32   well some people are gonna take advantage of this and it turns out that

01:13:36   only Logitech did and this time Logitech doesn't even have an option for the new

01:13:40   iPad Pro. So on a recent episode of ATP Marco had a briefing with with Apple PR

01:13:46   about the iPad Pro he had a conversation with them and he shared a bunch of his

01:13:50   experiences. It's a very interesting episode. But he asked about this, like

01:13:55   about like what is going on with the smart connector, right? And the impression

01:14:00   that he seemed to get from talking to Apple PR was this is the smart keyboard

01:14:05   folio, that's what the smart connector is for. And it seems like that it may be

01:14:11   sure that nobody else is going to make products for this now. It is an Apple

01:14:16   only thing, which actually I think only adds to your call here that they should make another

01:14:23   keyboard.

01:14:24   I mean, the same company makes iPad and iPad Pro. Why do they only make one smart keyboard?

01:14:32   Clearly, they know that there are different types of users, you know, people who... when

01:14:38   I need to write for like five hours straight, can you imagine me doing that on a smart keyboard

01:14:44   for five consecutive hours, there will be madness. And any serious writer, I mean, I'm

01:14:49   not saying that you can't use the smart key.

01:14:52   What you're saying is you can't get real typing done on a keyboard folio, right?

01:14:56   No, oh my god. What I'm saying is, is that... what I'm saying is that there's obviously

01:15:07   so much more that Apple could do for people who need to write for a living, and they're

01:15:13   not doing that. I'm not saying that you cannot use a smart keyboard because you totally can,

01:15:17   because I have written in-depth reviews on the smart keyboard. I am using the smart keyboard,

01:15:24   even though I don't like it, because it's my job and it's also my only option. But what I'm saying

01:15:29   is that third-party companies are making Bluetooth keyboards that have more features and are not so

01:15:37   terribly thicker or heavier than the smart keyboard. It is possible and from

01:15:44   my perspective Apple is dropping the ball if they're not addressing this

01:15:48   market, if they're not considering people who... you know, how many novelists or

01:15:53   journalists or writers use an iPad Pro to get their work done? And I think it's

01:15:58   so strange that the smart keyboard, the basic smart keyboard, is still the only

01:16:03   option we have from Apple. So I am waiting for more options. Again, as I mentioned, I'm

01:16:09   gonna test a bunch of different typing scenarios for when I'm at home. I'm gonna test the Magic

01:16:14   Keyboard with the Kanopy, I'm gonna test the Mattias USB keyboard. Here's something interesting

01:16:23   for you, Myke. You know the Magic Keyboard as a Lightning connector? For some reason,

01:16:31   If you connect a USB-C to Lightning cable, you run the cable from the iPad Pro to the

01:16:36   Magic Keyboard, it works, but it doesn't support function keys.

01:16:40   If you use it in Bluetooth mode, it supports function keys.

01:16:43   So something is getting missed in the USB-C to Lightning cable when it comes to function

01:16:48   keys.

01:16:49   I don't know.

01:16:50   Function keys work fine over Bluetooth and they work fine over USB, but USB-C to Lightning,

01:16:55   they do not work.

01:16:58   So yeah, look, I'm gonna keep using the smart keyboard folio because especially for the

01:17:03   next few months I have no other option.

01:17:06   But you're gonna hear me complain about it.

01:17:08   Also, it's not backlit, which is, again, I don't understand why.

01:17:13   I mean, I do understand why I don't understand why Apple doesn't offer another option.

01:17:16   Like I would pay more money.

01:17:20   We've been over this before.

01:17:21   I would pay more money for a better keyboard, but it's not there.

01:17:23   I can sort of understand the feeling of pro Mac users now because I don't know, I'm a pro keyboard user maybe?

01:17:32   I don't know, but still like let me give you more money but you're not allowing me to give you more money for a pro thing that I want.

01:17:42   That I want you to make and you're not making it.

01:17:44   So basically I think this is this keyboard folio is gonna be fine for most

01:17:49   people even though it's expensive but I would love Apple to make a pro version

01:17:54   of it because it's called the Apple Pro and we deserve a pro keyboard.

01:17:57   I would like more but I'm also mostly happy with what I have. I don't write as much as

01:18:03   you so you know like my writing is typically in short bursts it's not for

01:18:08   extended periods of time so I greatly value the flexibility that the smart

01:18:15   keyboard offers me. As soon as bridge come out with their new devices,

01:18:20   early next year is what they're saying, I will 100% buy them though because I

01:18:24   loved my bridge keyboard on my 12.9. I actually just today got my bridge

01:18:29   keyboard for the 10.5 inch iPad Pro. It's awesome, right? Like I can't wait to

01:18:34   get those for the new devices because they're great keyboards. So I'm looking forward to

01:18:40   seeing what they're able to do with that. So fingers crossed for those.

01:18:46   So I think that's it for the iPad, right? I think we've gone through as much as we wanted

01:18:53   to get through today on the iPad. We should probably do some follow up, I guess, right?

01:18:58   Now we can do some follow up. But before we do, let me thank Linode for

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01:20:29   Show and Relay FM. So last week of follow-up follow-up follow-up last week

01:20:36   Steven cast himself as an action hero in a movie he called the Wireman. He also

01:20:43   Steven Hackett is the Wireman. He kind of demanded posters and we had a number of

01:20:49   listeners that they heard the call of the Wireman and provided those

01:20:54   posters we have from podcast fan art created to the stars Kate Matthews

01:21:03   created a wire man poster for Steven which is amazing it's all illustrated in

01:21:10   Kate's wonderful style as she is known to do I especially like the logo of this

01:21:15   one and I'll put links to all of these in the show notes Oliver has a whole

01:21:20   thread of different movies and sequels. I like that Oliver created The Wireman 1, 2,

01:21:27   3 and 4. 4 is my favourite. 4 is like Liam Neeson, you know? Like he's been pulled back

01:21:35   out of retirement. They kidnapped his Max and now The Wireman is on the run. What I

01:21:42   like about this is The Wireman in version 4 is clearly as big as a building. Yes, also

01:21:48   So we've got the Godzilla version of the wire man and then

01:21:52   The one that probably makes me laugh the most is Corey's

01:21:56   For just a bunch of things that are going on like the references to the 40 year old virgin a brilliant

01:22:02   There the face that he's the Steven is pulling all of these are fantastic. They're all in the show notes

01:22:09   Thank you to everyone who submitted artwork for Steven's self casted movie

01:22:14   Also, you should know you should point out the details in the in the quarry version

01:22:21   I don't want to point out too much right because I want people to see them. But yeah, I just want to say

01:22:26   One two three podcasts production. Yeah, I like that a lot. I like that a lot

01:22:32   Also, there's a there's some

01:22:36   Music that is referenced in some of the some music some music. I know I know

01:22:41   These are very very good. Thank you to everybody who

01:22:44   Submitted one of these it's very cool. If if you've seen these and you also want to make a poster

01:22:52   Steven Zego loves them so you could just keep doing them. Go wild. They are very fun though

01:22:58   So thank you to everybody who did one of those for the upcoming movie The Wireman

01:23:04   I also wanted to point people over to an article over at Laptop

01:23:10   which is Laptop Mag, I think they're just called Laptop now, which I find kind of funny,

01:23:13   but it's Laptop Mag, where I gave some quotes about working on the iPad because I am a fancy

01:23:19   quote boy now. My friend Henry who works over there wanted to get my kind of opinions on working

01:23:29   on an iPad and what that means as a way, like he interviewed a bunch of people who work like this,

01:23:33   including I think Bradley Chambers is quoted in the article too, so that's a good one to go and

01:23:37   read but before we finish today an important piece of follow-up that I feel

01:23:42   I can't that the two of us can't really do justice to is just the two of us but

01:23:47   like you got a Mac today your Mac mini arrived today I got a Mac today so yeah

01:23:54   this has been years in the making really how many years ago Steven started saying

01:23:58   you should get a Mac a lot it's been a long time over you know just because

01:24:02   you've had remember when your EK the EK broke on your oh my god yeah it's

01:24:07   It's been like since then.

01:24:09   - I do, the E key.

01:24:11   - So you're actually talking to me

01:24:12   on that device right now, right?

01:24:14   - Yes, I'm looking at the Ultrafine 4K

01:24:17   connected to the Mac mini that I got.

01:24:19   Again, I should give you,

01:24:22   because people are gonna ask the configuration.

01:24:25   This is the 3.2 gigahertz Core i7 model with 16 gigs of RAM.

01:24:30   And as far as storage is concerned,

01:24:36   I got the, I'm just double checking.

01:24:39   How do you, see, max, how do you use them?

01:24:43   - Nobody really knows.

01:24:44   - I think it's called the status bar.

01:24:46   Called the status bar, hold on.

01:24:48   This is the 256 version, yes.

01:24:52   - 256 gigabyte SSD is what you're saying, right?

01:24:55   - Yes. - Okay.

01:24:56   - Yes, and yeah, it's, you know, the cables are still a mess

01:25:01   because the wire man hasn't been here yet, so.

01:25:05   the Wireman cometh. Yes, it's like Santa Claus. It arrives, it can visit everybody

01:25:12   in just one night. Everyone wakes up on Wire morning and all of their cables have been

01:25:20   taken care of. All of their wires have been managed by the Wireman. You leave out some

01:25:25   gluten-free cookies for him. Yes, please. It's bigger than I expected. It's a big square

01:25:33   with rounded corners. I think the old one used to be smaller of course, but this one is bigger and space gray,

01:25:41   which looks hot. It's very nice, but it's bigger.

01:25:44   So I need to rethink the... because I wanted to put the Mac Mini on top of the ultra-fine stand,

01:25:51   but it's a little too small for that. So it's probably gonna be in the top right corner of my desk with cables

01:25:59   managed all neat and nice

01:26:03   behind my desk so I don't see them. But yes, I ran through the configuration

01:26:09   really quick. I don't have any complex needs when it comes to migrating Macs

01:26:14   because I don't keep any important data on my MacBook. I just needed to set up

01:26:19   the podcast recording setup that I have and log into iCloud, log into Google

01:26:25   Services and that was about it. I don't even have Dropbox installed because I

01:26:29   I don't need Dropbox locally. I can just log in through Dropbox.com.

01:26:33   It's going to be here eventually, but also it's not my

01:26:37   it's not a must have as soon as I set up a Mac.

01:26:41   This feels like a real candidate for selective syncing, right?

01:26:45   I can set up a Mac in five minutes. It takes me longer to set up my iPad

01:26:49   for sure. All the things that I need to download and all the apps that I have.

01:26:53   But yes, I have a new Mac

01:26:57   I still need to make the desk a little nicer. I've also been thinking about buying one of those

01:27:05   coloured light strips because I wanted to... Oh, like the hue things? They're really nice.

01:27:10   Yeah. Steven bought me one for Christmas on my birthday or something.

01:27:13   I remember that. And I really like it. We were planning that behind your back.

01:27:17   Oh, that's nice. I was aware of that gift.

01:27:19   Are you taking partial credit for this gift now? No, I'm just saying that I was in on the gift.

01:27:26   You're in on the whole heist.

01:27:29   Yes, I want to add some accent colors to my desk.

01:27:34   It's kind of boring right now.

01:27:35   It's just like a white desk against a white wall.

01:27:38   But I don't want to have a lamp, so my idea was I could get a strip and sort of run it

01:27:43   through like the part of the desk that I don't see.

01:27:46   So it's still gonna add some color, but it doesn't get in the way in the like our normal

01:27:52   desk lamp.

01:27:53   because they have adhesive strips to hue strip right so I just stuck it to the

01:27:58   edge of the back of the desk exactly so it's like that's what I want to do yeah

01:28:03   yeah so well I mean I don't know do you want to ask me anything but it's just a

01:28:11   Mac it's just a Mac that I use for podcasts I'll be completely honest with

01:28:15   you I don't I don't really have any questions I figured I don't really know

01:28:21   what to say. I just figured I should say something because I know that you got it.

01:28:26   Hoping that you would say, "Here is this really interesting thing that happened."

01:28:31   But I don't think either of us are really cut out for this conversation.

01:28:37   I can tell you one interesting thing.

01:28:40   Okay.

01:28:40   I need to understand...

01:28:42   I mean, it feels like a letdown otherwise.

01:28:46   I want to take the default wallpapers, these 4K wallpapers, I want to take them and I want to use them on my iPad Pro.

01:28:54   So I need to figure out the location in the finder to steal these wallpapers and add them to my photos library.

01:29:02   That's literally the only slightly interesting thing I have for you.

01:29:06   I don't think that is anything near what people would have wanted.

01:29:09   So we will have more to say on this, especially because I keep saying I'm going to do this,

01:29:14   but I am going to buy one of these things

01:29:17   to set up a home server.

01:29:18   Like that is a thing I will 100% be doing

01:29:21   because I keep thinking about all of the different things

01:29:24   that I wanna do with it.

01:29:25   Like for today, I was publishing an episode of a show

01:29:29   and I realized that I didn't set

01:29:31   the chapter art correctly, right?

01:29:34   So I had to go and turn on my Mac and open forecast,

01:29:39   change the chapter art and publish it.

01:29:43   I didn't wanna do that.

01:29:43   Like what I wanted to do was to, again, sponsor,

01:29:47   but this is what I wanted the reasons I want it to just open the Luna display

01:29:50   app and just do it on the Mac mini, right.

01:29:53   That would just be sitting in the house.

01:29:54   So I could just stay where I was on the sofa,

01:29:57   like without needing to go to the iPad to the iMac and do that.

01:30:00   So like this is something I will do.

01:30:03   I've just had too many new devices to focus on over the last couple of months

01:30:08   that I need just a little bit of a break before I got,

01:30:11   before I dive into here's another new one.

01:30:13   So we will have more to say on this.

01:30:15   - I'm feeling that like new device burnouts,

01:30:19   sort of like-

01:30:20   - The most privileged level of burnout

01:30:23   that a human being in technology can go through.

01:30:26   - But also this is a tech podcast.

01:30:28   So I feel like it's kind of expected.

01:30:31   Also because I've been changing furniture,

01:30:33   like we went, Silvia and I,

01:30:35   we went a little bit crazy over the past two months.

01:30:38   We started with the idea of,

01:30:40   why don't we do some renovations in the bedroom?

01:30:42   and that sort of started bleeding into other parts

01:30:46   of the house to the point where we're now buying

01:30:49   new furniture for everything.

01:30:50   Because same idea, we wanna try something new.

01:30:53   We wanna see new things, we wanna see new furniture,

01:30:55   we wanna change things up a bit, which is fun.

01:30:59   But also like new, like everything is new,

01:31:02   my desk is new, my office setup is new, the bedroom is new,

01:31:05   I have new iPhone, new watch, new iPad, new Mac.

01:31:08   It's like I need to just sit down

01:31:11   actually spend time with these things because otherwise like I feel like I'm taking notes

01:31:18   of everything without actually trying them in real life like I need to just settle down

01:31:27   Yeah you're in review mode right I totally feel this

01:31:29   Yes I am yeah that's a good way to put it

01:31:32   So we'll have more to say but we just wanted to mark this monumental occasion by referencing

01:31:37   that it happened

01:31:38   You can find our show notes for today's episode by going to relay.fm/connected/218. Federico

01:31:45   you can find him online at MacStories.net and he is @Vittici in places like Twitter

01:31:51   and Instagram. I am @imike. You can find @thewireman on Twitter, he is @ismh. And Stephen will

01:31:59   be back with us next week, probably to tell us how disappointed he is in our coverage

01:32:04   of the Mac Mini and the fact that we move follow up to the end. Hey buddy. But until

01:32:09   then, thanks so much to our sponsors of this week's episode, Linode, Luna Display, and

01:32:13   Casper. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye,

01:32:18   Federico. Adios. Cheerio. Wait, you have to do one more, right? Arrivederci. Thank you.

01:32:28   [Laughs]