00:04:58 ◼ ► If you want to celebrate the summer of fun this Christmas, go to upgradeyourwardrobe.com.
00:05:09 ◼ ► You know what, actually, you're always complaining, all right, that it's the wrong time of year.
00:05:27 ◼ ► B wrote in and asked, "Jason, is the color of your wacky inflatable children delighting
00:05:47 ◼ ► But I can tell you, I can report here for the upgrade program exclusively that according to the packaging,
00:06:11 ◼ ► I don't want to talk about it whether you like pulp in your orange Tubeman or not, by the way.
00:06:16 ◼ ► I feel like that that orange juice question may have been a tie-in to international orange that I didn't realize until right now.
00:06:30 ◼ ► I'll put a link in the show notes to a very good Instagram Reel short clip video thing that we did from the show.
00:06:53 ◼ ► Jason and the Tubeman are, like, frolicking around the world and you should go watch this. It's so good.
00:06:58 ◼ ► Yeah, Chip basically texted me on Monday or Tuesday and he said, "I need pictures of the Tubeman."
00:07:19 ◼ ► Which, by the way, in case you missed it, we did publish last week's episode to YouTube in full,
00:07:29 ◼ ► So if for some reason you would prefer a video version of this show, it is now on YouTube.
00:07:54 ◼ ► It's not just finding new people where it gets surfaced via the algorithm or people make clips or things like that.
00:07:59 ◼ ► It's also that some of our listeners are like, "Oh yeah, I'd listen to that. That sounds fun."
00:08:08 ◼ ► Again, like I said before, we were talking about this a little bit in Upgrade Plus last week.
00:08:20 ◼ ► Well, I was like, yeah, actually, they're kind of funny. They're mostly video games and pop culture.
00:09:02 ◼ ► That's been the way since we started doing the clips and it will be that way going forward.
00:09:11 ◼ ► I mean, occasionally, I'll do like a little wave at the camera when we're literally talking about recording ourselves,
00:09:20 ◼ ► The only thing that's changed about the show, Mike, is now I reliably take a shower on Monday morning before the show. That's it.
00:09:31 ◼ ► So, last week we spoke, in during our macOS review, about the high-performance screen-sharing mode, which you really liked, from Mac to Mac.
00:09:40 ◼ ► And I wondered if this might be the technology that Apple uses for the Vision Pro, because...
00:09:47 ◼ ► Yeah, there's that moment where I said you do it to a laptop and the laptop screen goes off, and you're like, "Oh, that's like the Vision Pro."
00:09:55 ◼ ► And that maybe that they're building it in there because it's kind of what you would need.
00:10:03 ◼ ► "You're mostly correct about how screen-sharing changes in Sonoma are for the Vision Pro.
00:10:13 ◼ ► a little pop-over button appears above the computer that, when picked, initiates screen-sharing.
00:10:18 ◼ ► The laptop screen goes dark and the virtual screen appears in front of you, which, of course, you can then move around, resize, etc. It's glorious."
00:10:28 ◼ ► I assume this is somebody who knows, and it isn't. I feel like this comment goes more or less with what's been announced and shown.
00:10:34 ◼ ► I don't remember seeing this little pop-over button. There's some detail here, which who knows, right? It's an anonymous thing, but it makes sense.
00:10:42 ◼ ► But yeah, it does feel like this... I was thinking of it... When you had that moment of realization, I was backtracking it and thinking,
00:10:55 ◼ ► So, whatever this screen-sharing mode is, it's probably built for Vision Pro as well as for the Mac, right?
00:11:05 ◼ ► And they'll probably say... I mean, they could use older versions of screen-sharing, but it wouldn't surprise me if Vision Pro was like,
00:11:17 ◼ ► Yeah, we're actually going to get into a little bit of that later on. There's some interesting stuff around Macs and Vision Pro.
00:11:23 ◼ ► But yes, I would expect if you want to connect a Vision Pro to a Mac, you will be running Sonoma to do it.
00:11:29 ◼ ► I put this in because we spend a lot of time talking about it on the show, but I also feel this sense of obligation now,
00:11:50 ◼ ► Well, you've done this early enough now that you've beaten my note that I do to myself that says, "Check on Apple earnings."
00:11:59 ◼ ► Because it was that one time, maybe like a year ago, and you forgot that it was happening until the day before.
00:12:15 ◼ ► So it's not the big quarter of the year, which is the holiday quarter, which is tech, what Apple calls their Q1,
00:12:22 ◼ ► because that's their financial year. But this is the one that will give us the early indication on the success of the new iPhones.
00:12:29 ◼ ► Mike, you mentioned earlier that we're in October, new month. It is. We are now in the holiday quarter.
00:12:40 ◼ ► Let me tell you, Jason, I don't like it. I love the holidays, but I get scared about how busy the holiday quarter is for me these days.
00:12:51 ◼ ► But, Mike, isn't it less busy now that September is over? September is not part of the holiday quarter.
00:12:57 ◼ ► That's true. I mean, by like a few days it tends to be. But it's a different kind of busy. It's a different kind of busy.
00:13:03 ◼ ► Actually, you know what? It's not busy. It's just high stakes. That's the best way to put it.
00:13:12 ◼ ► I don't have to like, you know, put in a bunch of extra hours, but I just have it there in my brain. It's just like, uh-oh.
00:13:20 ◼ ► I get it. I get it. I'm starting to do all the, you know, we're doing all the logistics for our holiday travel and all that.
00:13:25 ◼ ► And I'm starting to realize, oh, when are we going to record this? When are we going to do that?
00:13:32 ◼ ► We had a very fun, we won't share it, but we had a very fun conversation about the upgradees, didn't we?
00:13:52 ◼ ► I had fun reading through it. It was very good. There was a couple of things that I liked specifically that we hadn't really spoken about previously.
00:13:59 ◼ ► One was you had a very good experience with the ultra wideband feature to find Lauren when you were at a sporting event, which I thought was kind of cool.
00:14:28 ◼ ► And I had that moment where I realized, "Oh, we both have iPhone 15s. Let's try this feature."
00:14:45 ◼ ► And I had Find My open, and I was sort of headed in one direction thinking she's probably down there.
00:15:03 ◼ ► But eventually everybody will have absolute precise positioning of their friends if they want.
00:15:38 ◼ ► I think Apple may be doing some machine learning extrapolation at the super low down level.
00:15:52 ◼ ► because there's some of people in the stands that they look like horror movie monsters.
00:16:00 ◼ ► But I did zoom in to full pixels for a few of these things where the name on the back of the jersey,
00:16:52 ◼ ► What I'm saying is that Apple does a pretty good job of those extreme closeups looking good.
00:17:16 ◼ ► kind of like guesses about what is there in order for it to look not just purely pixelated.
00:17:25 ◼ ► If anything, I assume that it's like trying to maybe draw in every other pixel or something like that.
00:17:32 ◼ ► Like we're looking at these two things together and we're trying to make an approximation of them
00:17:42 ◼ ► And again, it's fine, but it was a thing I noticed that very clearly they're doing some work there
00:18:12 ◼ ► have you had any different takeaways or any kind of things that you were thinking before,
00:18:26 ◼ ► I closed the article with a version of my "Here's what you should do if you're updating from last year or the year before or the year before that."
00:19:07 ◼ ► I can foresee a time five years from now where our cars and doors and smart home stuff all know exactly where we are at all times.
00:19:27 ◼ ► If you're on the other side, it doesn't go, "Oh, you're close to the door. I'll unlock," because it knows you're on the inside.
00:19:33 ◼ ► It can do stuff like that that Bluetooth cannot do because Bluetooth doesn't have positioning.
00:19:38 ◼ ► Car locks the same way. They use Bluetooth now, but with ultra wideband instead of Bluetooth or NFC.
00:19:44 ◼ ► NFC, you've got to be right up against it. Bluetooth, it's making a guess, but it can also be hijacked.
00:19:53 ◼ ► If somebody tries to rebroadcast your Bluetooth from the restaurant out to the car, the time codes won't match with ultra wideband.
00:20:02 ◼ ► But with Bluetooth, they don't do that, and so it works because it's all based on amplifying the signal to make it seem like you're close to the car.
00:20:14 ◼ ► Having not gotten the phone under embargo and then also being in Memphis for the Podcastathon and all of that,
00:20:21 ◼ ► I really struggled because it feels like everything's been said about the iPhone, so I ended up taking the approach of,
00:20:30 ◼ ► after a couple of weeks with it, do I have some observations or thoughts about these products or also what Apple's doing in general?
00:20:46 ◼ ► Natural is really nice, but make no mistake, it's just gray. It's a nice gray. It's a really nice gray.
00:20:57 ◼ ► But I did a mini rant about the fact that wouldn't it be nice if they gave us choices and that some of those choices were colorful and not dull?
00:21:05 ◼ ► Because as a spread of colors, I don't think anyone can deny that the iPhone 15 Pro is just boring.
00:21:11 ◼ ► But yeah, it was good to get it off my back too because it's one of those things that I know I have to do it and I struggle with thinking about,
00:21:24 ◼ ► I will just say on the iPhone 15 Pro Max again, this is my favorite build of any iPhone.
00:21:31 ◼ ► I find it such a joy to hold. I just think it feels so great. It's that combination we spoke about already, the lightness and the rounded edges.
00:21:40 ◼ ► I just really, really, really like it. And I know a lot of people don't, but I do like the design, the overall design of the flat edge stuff.
00:21:53 ◼ ► This is kind of incredible where I had a conversation with Vadina because I was selling my iPhone to my brother and was remarking about how it was in good condition, my iPhone 14 Pro Max.
00:22:06 ◼ ► I was like, "Look at that. This is great. I haven't put a case on my phone." And it's not an issue because I just don't drop my phone.
00:22:14 ◼ ► That night, I dropped my phone in the bathroom and it didn't break at all, but I kind of bent the frame a little bit from the back, which is kind of interesting.
00:22:26 ◼ ► So there's a kind of a sharp point, I will say, at the top corner of my phone near the camera. But that's just the whole experience of it all now.
00:22:47 ◼ ► Yeah. The issue was just what I thought it was, which was like I couldn't activate it before I got home because it couldn't contact my network, you know?
00:22:58 ◼ ► You're right. Yeah, because it needs to phone home to actual home to do the activation.
00:23:08 ◼ ► This episode is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first ever bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, fresh pastas, and artisanal pastries.
00:23:19 ◼ ► Every item bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less, no thawing required. Jason, I believe you have received a box of Wild Grain goodness.
00:23:39 ◼ ► I did not know that I needed this. I was like, this is like, I'm packing the box and it's like, there's pasta, frozen pasta here and frozen loaves of bread.
00:23:48 ◼ ► And then, you know, what do you do? You pop the bread in the oven and you got basically hot, fresh baked bread that's real good, like really good.
00:24:00 ◼ ► And the pasta, you're like, well, why don't just get dry pasta? Well, this is frozen, but it's frozen, like fresh pasta.
00:24:15 ◼ ► It's real good. So it's like, you know, having made pasta in the past, like it's very different to have the fresh pasta than the dry stuff.
00:24:28 ◼ ► Sure. I wouldn't because I speak with an American accent. So I say pasta in the pasta. No, not pasta in the pasta. Pasta in the pasta.
00:24:39 ◼ ► Well, you see, I'm trying my best anyway, because I would say, like before, before I was speaking to Americans, I would say pasta, right?
00:24:53 ◼ ► Yeah. So it was really good. Lauren actually did the bread and they're like, keep it until it's, until it's dark brown.
00:25:01 ◼ ► And it was like the outside was super crispy and the bread was really nice. So it's, it's interesting.
00:25:05 ◼ ► They don't send you dough. They send you like a loaf of sourdough and, and a bunch of loaves actually.
00:25:10 ◼ ► And so you're thinking, well, wait a second. You're just heating up frozen bread. I don't know how they're doing it.
00:25:18 ◼ ► All I know is that I popped it in the oven or Lauren in that one, Lauren popped it in the oven and we waited for it to be brown and we brought it out.
00:25:24 ◼ ► And it was so like, seriously, instead of having extra helpings of, of the pasta, I had extra helpings of the bread and we saved the pasta for leftovers.
00:25:34 ◼ ► Cause the bread was, the pasta was great too, but the bread was so good. And you know, nothing beats that fresh out of the oven bread, honestly.
00:25:46 ◼ ► Yeah. Yeah. I got a little more, right. Cause I got, I got a whole box. So I got some more bread to bake up and some more pasta.
00:25:54 ◼ ► In future episodes, you can fully customize your wild grain box. This is something new.
00:26:02 ◼ ► If you want a box of all bread, all pasta, all pastries, live your best life. You know, just do it.
00:26:08 ◼ ► Plus for a limited time, you can get $30 off the first box plus free croissants in every box. When you go to wildgrain.com/upgrade to start your subscription.
00:26:54 ◼ ► Yeah, well you guys talked about this is follow out and it's also just sort of a mini topic.
00:27:07 ◼ ► One of the things they did was they say they're guaranteeing seven years of software updates, which is interesting.
00:27:26 ◼ ► I was thinking about it. I have bought multiple Google phones over the last 10 years because I want to have something that runs the latest version of Android.
00:27:35 ◼ ► And it's shocking how quickly you have to buy another one because even Google doesn't support its own operating system on its phones after a couple of years.
00:27:52 ◼ ► Like what does this really mean? And I think the answer is it probably essentially means security updates for seven years.
00:28:04 ◼ ► I said feature drops. So like, which is what they call them. So it won't get everything, but it's still going to get stuff.
00:28:11 ◼ ► It's going to get new versions of Android, but they might not have everything is what they're saying.
00:28:15 ◼ ► Right. That's my assumption is it will reduce over time, but it will be that you'll get some stuff.
00:28:24 ◼ ► And great. Like great. Because I actually had a moment while I was listening to Connector where I thought, oh, I could buy the new Pixel.
00:28:38 ◼ ► I mean, but, but I'm, and I'm not an Android user, but so my use case is very weird, but like, I like that idea.
00:28:44 ◼ ► I think you guys made the point quite rightly that Pixel buyers are probably not the kind of person who buys a phone and holds onto it for seven years.
00:28:50 ◼ ► But I do wonder if some of what, what Google is doing here is just shaming the Android phone business.
00:28:57 ◼ ► Right. I think I feel like that's part of what's going on here is just Google saying we should do better and we're going to put a flag in the ground.
00:29:04 ◼ ► I think that this is more, as you say, that they are trying to make this a stronger thing throughout all of their partners.
00:29:15 ◼ ► Right. I don't really think that they're going to sway a bunch of iPhone owners now to the Pixel because it's going to get them eight years of feature updates because Apple gets basically close to that, if not hitting that, you know, with certain models and will continue to.
00:29:39 ◼ ► I think that this is just going to be one of those things where they'll regret it later.
00:29:45 ◼ ► Well, I got to be honest, the first time I heard about this, I thought it's going to be really interesting in five years where Google announces that this Pixel will not be supported going forward and that everybody who bought it can get a coupon toward a new Pixel.
00:30:14 ◼ ► Seven years, I feel like if they had done five, I might have been like, oh, okay, seven feels extra enough that I look at it and think, one, yeah, they're going to regret it.
00:30:34 ◼ ► On year six, what's the minimum amount we can do and still be considered kind of like up to the letter of the promise here?
00:30:44 ◼ ► Because they're just like, there are things that, you know, maybe people will hate me for saying this.
00:30:51 ◼ ► Like the idea that like this is better for the environment, people aren't keeping their phones for seven years.
00:31:02 ◼ ► The only way it's better for the environment is if there is a good resale market for Pixels, right?
00:31:15 ◼ ► But after two years, you could sell it back and somebody else can sell it to a market that is not going to pay full price for it.
00:31:26 ◼ ► There's a lot of reused, refurbed, resold iPhones that hold, you know, they have some value because they're able to be kept current and the Pixel will be like that.
00:31:37 ◼ ► I think that it's just too easily overstated, but at least let's just say, I think an Android phone that can't run the latest Android is worthless almost.
00:31:49 ◼ ► But a Pixel five years from now, while not great, will, if it's running the latest version of Android and it's secure and all those things, have some value.
00:32:04 ◼ ► I want to say, though, Apple has been so good at this for so long, but I do wonder if Apple standards are slipping a little bit here.
00:32:27 ◼ ► And that's the first time in a long time where I've looked at a phone that is not allowed on the current OS and thought, that doesn't seem right.
00:32:52 ◼ ► And I don't think Apple is going to be pressed into making promises because Apple doesn't like to talk about the future.
00:33:03 ◼ ► And when you fall off the OS update train, you're still on the security update train for a while.
00:33:11 ◼ ► I do wonder if in the long run, I had this theory that Apple Silicon Macs may stay on the OS update train for a very long time.
00:33:20 ◼ ► I wonder how Apple feels about this, but like in the long run, wouldn't it be better to keep everybody using their Apple hardware secure and just move to a model where everybody's on the current OS, but they don't get these features instead of having to leave them behind.
00:33:49 ◼ ► Well, XR was the next year. It's that year, the 10 year, the 8 and 10 year is obsolete now or not supported.
00:33:58 ◼ ► So the A11 in the X and it was the A12 in the XR. I guess that's the cutoff point maybe?
00:34:20 ◼ ► But the 10, I don't know, the 10, it seems weird to me because it felt such a leap forward and yet it still just gets cut off. I don't know.
00:34:32 ◼ ► But the fact is it was a long time ago. And I guess that shows how well Apple has handled this overall.
00:34:44 ◼ ► But I guess what strikes me about it is the iPhone X is the first of its kind of the phones that we still use today.
00:34:51 ◼ ► If you think about the body class of the iPhone and the fact that there was the early iPhone era,
00:34:56 ◼ ► there was the four and five era of design, then there was the six to eight era, and now we're in the 10 era,
00:35:08 ◼ ► It's very funny looking at the iOS 17 compatibility list and then seeing the iPhone SE in there.
00:35:14 ◼ ► And it's like, there's got to be designers at Apple that are like, please, please do something with this.
00:35:23 ◼ ► Because from a design, like a user interface design perspective, that thing is just still out there doing its thing.
00:35:32 ◼ ► And it is now the only one that doesn't, and you should say the 10 still could have too,
00:35:38 ◼ ► but just looking at that list, it's the only one that doesn't have that new silhouette, edge to edge silhouette.
00:35:50 ◼ ► I mean, that's the one that struck me and I do think generally Apple has done a good job
00:35:54 ◼ ► and nothing has changed my opinion about this or formed my opinion about this more than using, buying a couple of Google.
00:36:02 ◼ ► I think about the Nexus models, the late Nexus models, but like you buy one and you're like, all right, I set it up.
00:36:08 ◼ ► And every time we would write about something regarding Android, and I'd be like, oh, Apple Music's on Android.
00:36:14 ◼ ► And then all of a sudden you turn around and it's like, it feels like two years later and they're like,
00:36:24 ◼ ► And I know Google has done a bunch of stuff to roll things into like play services where they can update a bunch of things without updating the OS.
00:36:33 ◼ ► So I'm glad that they made this, even though I think they will regret it and they overdid it.
00:36:44 ◼ ► although I definitely know people and shout out to editor Chip here who use older Macs with newer OSes
00:36:51 ◼ ► and just do the thing where you install the software that lets you install it and it runs fine.
00:36:55 ◼ ► And it makes me think that Apple, sometimes Apple just doesn't want to go back and qualify their operating systems on older hardware.
00:37:11 ◼ ► And also I'll point out, because this comes up sometimes, your computer doesn't stop working when it stops doing updates from Apple.
00:37:23 ◼ ► And so you can still use them, your older computers and phones and stuff, and it's fine.
00:37:37 ◼ ► I know Neil A. Patel over at The Verge talked about this a lot. It's like, "What even is a photograph anymore?"
00:37:52 ◼ ► Like there's two drives, at least in my history of dealing with Google internally, there's two drives at Google.
00:37:58 ◼ ► There are the people who are the engineers and they are driven to do cool stuff and push the cutting edge.
00:38:03 ◼ ► And then there's the suits, whose job is to get you involved in onerous contracts and charge you lots and lots of money and maximize revenue.
00:38:11 ◼ ► It's a fascinating company because it's sort of like having been through that process once, you're dealing with all the technical people and they're just like, "Oh man, let's just do this.
00:38:19 ◼ ► It's going to be awesome." And you work with them on a project and then everybody's really happy.
00:38:24 ◼ ► And then all of a sudden the business people start to talk and everybody is very sad because the business people are playing hardball because it's Google and they want their money.
00:38:33 ◼ ► So I look at this and I think, Google is just flooring it on what if we just did every AI feature possible in editing your photos?
00:38:42 ◼ ► Like you take some photos and if this person isn't smiling on this photo, but you did a burst or you did a bunch, we'll just take their head from another shot and put it here.
00:38:52 ◼ ► Now I'll tell you, I have done that in Photoshop when I get three family photos that I took and none of them are quite right.
00:39:02 ◼ ► There is in fact a poster in a frame in my living room of our kids on one of the lions at Trafalgar Square that is absolutely composited from three different shots.
00:39:22 ◼ ► And there's this question of like, what is real and at least expressions make sense and you know how cameras have done the thing where they won't quite snap the photo until everybody's eyes are open and all that.
00:39:36 ◼ ► But I do think when it starts to be like, oh, you can take a kid on the trampoline and erase the trampoline.
00:39:49 ◼ ► Apple seems to have a real ethos about honoring photography as a way to collect information about reality and depict it.
00:40:00 ◼ ► And although there is a real strong argument to be made about how photography fundamentally is not in context because it is a moment in time.
00:40:09 ◼ ► I do think Apple has a professional photographers in many ways approach to why photography is the way it is and it's to depict reality and that those pictures of your family where you erase the trampoline or whatever.
00:40:44 ◼ ► I'd say to a fault because there are places where I think Apple's software and photo stuff should be better.
00:40:52 ◼ ► I just I recently said a bunch of slides from there actually my mother in law slides from the late 60s and early 70s and had them all scanned in.
00:41:03 ◼ ► And they're beautiful and we recovered a thousand photos that were basically in a box that nobody had really seen in decades.
00:41:12 ◼ ► And although the photo scanning service did a pretty good job of cleaning them up, there's still little specs here and there.
00:41:28 ◼ ► You really need another app and you could use a machine learning based thing that tries to detect the dust and stuff and remove it.
00:41:43 ◼ ► Or you do the little thing where you take a fixed tool and you like click on the on the blemish or in this case, the dust and it fixes it.
00:42:13 ◼ ► So I feel like Apple is maybe a little bit too far down its own rabbit hole on this one and that they need to do a better job of thinking about how people are using this stuff.
00:42:25 ◼ ► But I think Google, it strikes me as Google may be going a little too far in the other direction, but I'm fascinated by the contrast between the two companies and how they approach photos.
00:42:34 ◼ ► Yeah, I'm worried that Google stuff is too far, but I feel like also this, the train has left the station.
00:42:40 ◼ ► Yeah, I think it's Google basically saying, look, it's inevitable, so we're going to make it easy.
00:42:45 ◼ ► I mean, as a platform owner, yeah, you're making really like it's, are they going to do a deep fakes next?
00:42:54 ◼ ► And say, you know, you can do all sorts of stuff, but we don't want to enable people to do this thing easily because then everybody will do it and we're not happy with it.
00:43:06 ◼ ► I don't know if Google has necessarily crossed that line, but I'm glad people are asking the question.
00:43:14 ◼ ► That said, I wrote a thing about after the iPhone event where it struck me that we may soon enter an era where instead of taking photos at all, you literally like hold out your phone or you even have something that you wear that takes, it continuously is taking high resolution images.
00:43:37 ◼ ► Like we're not that far off from something like that, which is wild because that's not photography at all, but it sort of is, but it's more like a life memory in stills and short videos and stuff.
00:43:51 ◼ ► So there's interesting stuff going on, but I'm kind of glad everybody at least got a little bit of a pause from Google's announcement, but it's so different from Apple.
00:44:18 ◼ ► So Mac widgets, I was critical of them last week and in my review, but not saying that they're bad and not saying that they're boring, just saying that they're a little less special on the Mac because the Mac has so many features.
00:44:31 ◼ ► The Mac has so many alternatives, whereas on iPad and iOS, I don't think if only the Mac existed, people would be like, "I got this idea for widgets and it's going to be great."
00:44:40 ◼ ► I think that the decision process would have been really different because of what already exists on the Mac.
00:44:48 ◼ ► Federico said that you said they were boring, and I don't remember you saying they were boring, and that's what I disagree with.
00:44:56 ◼ ► I understand the idea that there's a bunch of different ways to access that stuff, but I do really like it.
00:45:03 ◼ ► As I mentioned, as a stage manager user, I find myself seeing the desktop and getting to the desktop to be quite a frequent thing.
00:45:12 ◼ ► Yeah, I'm finding myself hitting my shortcuts buttons that I've put on little widgets quite often. I'm doing that exclusively now rather than using the shortcuts menu bar because it's just visually simple and easy.
00:45:27 ◼ ► Most of the time, with some of the shortcuts where I've set them up, I can actually just see the shortcut window all the time and I can just click it.
00:45:41 ◼ ► Yeah. The thing I wanted to call out, and this is, I'm not trying to play gacha with Federico here.
00:45:55 ◼ ► And then when Marco and Casey and John do it too, it's like, "Oh, that's so sweet." So hi, guys.
00:46:04 ◼ ► Here's the thing though that struck me as an interesting kind of like a quirk of how you view the Mac and how you view Windows on the Mac.
00:46:17 ◼ ► Because what I said was, "You could have a reminders widget on your desktop, but at that point you could also just have reminders running with a window open."
00:46:27 ◼ ► And he said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want a window with reminders in it open all the time.
00:46:37 ◼ ► And I get what he's saying, but my response to that is, "They're the same, or almost the same." Right?
00:46:46 ◼ ► Like I, and perhaps this is just different ways of perceiving how you use a Mac, but I often have reminders open to the list that I use all the time.
00:46:56 ◼ ► And it's off on the far left side of my display, down in the corner, usually covered by something, but not always, and it just sits there.
00:47:05 ◼ ► And then I will sometimes go there, sometimes I'll hide it, sometimes I won't, but often it just sits back there.
00:47:11 ◼ ► It's basically a widget. Now, the counterargument would be, "Now I don't need to do that. I could just have a widget down there."
00:47:17 ◼ ► And that's true. It's cleaner. But at the same time, I do have that thought, which is, it's still a reminder list sitting back in the corner of your screen.
00:47:27 ◼ ► And that was my point, is that there is a difference, but it's not a revolutionary difference, right?
00:47:38 ◼ ► I feel like you could do that before, because you could just leave reminders open. It's just a little smaller and simpler now.
00:47:44 ◼ ► Me and Federico are in this camp, and I'm not sure why we both are, but no overlapping windows. I don't like my windows to overlap.
00:47:52 ◼ ► And so there's something about the widget, which is different, it's like this permanent thing, it's just stuck there, rather than having this little window just clattering up the place.
00:48:04 ◼ ► Yeah, no, I get it. And that's what I mean, is that different people use the computer in different ways, and therefore, and that's why I didn't say widgets are pointless, right? I didn't say that.
00:48:15 ◼ ► I said they're just, they solve, they're not as revolutionary in some ways, because on the Mac, you can just leave reminders open there.
00:48:23 ◼ ► And it's like, you could even set it up to be super minimal, and it would be like a widget.
00:48:28 ◼ ► And the point I was trying to get at is, in a one app at a time interface, like by default, the iPad and the iPhone, it's revolutionary to be able to peer into multiple apps at once.
00:48:47 ◼ ► On the Mac, it's not. And that's all. That's all. But it's a good feature. I like it. I think it's a cool idea.
00:48:52 ◼ ► I just, I had a couple of funny moments where I thought, "Oh, I could put reminders down here," and then I literally stopped and thought, "But why?"
00:49:01 ◼ ► And, right, why put something that's a little less flexible? But I get that you guys want it clean, although I'll point out that it's not clean if there's a widget there.
00:49:24 ◼ ► That makes, yeah, I turn that feature off too. So, they'll show you where my head is. But, all right, that's it.
00:49:31 ◼ ► Pleasure. Happy to listen to the show, you know. First time caller and all that nonsense.
00:49:53 ◼ ► There's a new VisionOS beta out, and there's a couple of things in it that I just wanted to mention because I thought they were interesting.
00:50:18 ◼ ► Obviously, this is one of these things that I've seen a lot of people being very upset about because that is just the way that all these things go.
00:50:46 ◼ ► Like, oh, but it's artificial, and I should still be able to, like, the whole, every, the whole platform is on Apple Silicon now.
00:50:56 ◼ ► Like, you want to develop for Apple's next-gen operating system, next-gen device, but do it from an Intel Mac?
00:51:24 ◼ ► So, my feeling on this is a little bit similar to you, but I think maybe a little different.
00:51:46 ◼ ► I don't know when, I don't know what will cause it, but I don't think we're very far away from that.
00:51:52 ◼ ► So, I do feel like, specifically for VisionOS, why maintain the tools on a different platform?
00:52:14 ◼ ► I feel like it would have been easier and cleaner if it was just always Apple Silicon only.
00:52:20 ◼ ► That is, like, the weird part to me, but for this specific thing, I feel like I understand it.
00:52:26 ◼ ► Yeah, and, yeah, I don't want to say, hey, everybody who's using an Intel Mac sucks, right?
00:52:38 ◼ ► What I am saying is, if you are a professional software developer who wants to develop for Apple's next generation operating system and platform,
00:52:48 ◼ ► having Apple say you need to develop it on a system that is running the same kind of hardware as the new platform is not unreasonable.
00:53:01 ◼ ► If you're like, oh, but I have a MacBook Air that's three years old and it's still running on Intel and I should feel shame about this.
00:53:08 ◼ ► But if somebody's going to develop for Vision OS, Apple saying you need Apple Silicon, you need an M1 Mac Mini and then you're golden?
00:53:26 ◼ ► And the people who are complaining about it are either complaining because they want to complain about Apple or they're complaining about,
00:53:35 ◼ ► I don't want to invest anything in developing for Apple's new platforms, in which case Apple has basically said, okay, then you can't.
00:53:50 ◼ ► So in the disco, people are surprised at me saying the two-year thing, which was something that I heard David and Stephen talk about on Mac Power Users on their macOS Sonoma episode.
00:54:00 ◼ ► So I just went to the macOS Sonoma page and the compatibility is for machines from 2018.
00:54:17 ◼ ► I do believe we're about two years away from macOS versions being Apple Silicon only on some machines.
00:54:29 ◼ ► And so VisionOS being still a couple of years from being a real serious platform, if that at all, it just seems like why put the effort in to maintaining it.
00:54:48 ◼ ► Also from Steve Tramp Smith, Steve is very good at sharing stuff from the simulator, so he's a good follower on Mastodon.
00:54:55 ◼ ► He included, sorry, he had a video about a new sample project game, like sample code game that Apple has in the new beta called Swift Splash.
00:55:14 ◼ ► You can build it from these little components and then run it and see how this little fish goes down the water slide.
00:55:20 ◼ ► I think that this feels to me like an indication from Apple of the types of things they would like to see people build.
00:55:28 ◼ ► Like these mixed reality games that you can build in a space, you can move around them and watch them do a thing.
00:55:37 ◼ ► This feels like, to me at least, an indication of, "Hey, we would like to see this kind of stuff."
00:55:43 ◼ ► It's also a logical extension. Think back to all of those mixed reality AR kit demos that we got in the last five years.
00:55:58 ◼ ► The answer was, "Well, you can play it on a table, but you got to hold your iPad the whole time."
00:56:02 ◼ ► This is why they were talking about that, is that Apple thinks that this is an entertainment use case for Vision Pro.
00:56:17 ◼ ► The idea is not complex here. It's that we're not trying to immerse you in a magical world.
00:56:26 ◼ ► We're trying to put things that look like solid objects in front of you that are generated by software.
00:56:31 ◼ ► On some levels, that is kind of a subtle distinction, because I'm sure you could play something like Swift Splash on something like a quest, a meta quest.
00:56:44 ◼ ► You would be in a virtual world, but it wouldn't really matter, because what really mattered was the object in front of you.
00:56:52 ◼ ► Apple's saying, "Well, no. So many of these things, you don't need to be in a virtual world.
00:57:00 ◼ ► It looks fun. As somebody who spent way too much time playing Pipe Dream, I looked at this and I was like,
00:57:07 ◼ ► "Oh, that's really cool. Connect all the little things and see where the little fish goes."
00:57:15 ◼ ► Steve Moser at MacRumors found code in this beta that indicates that it would be possible to enable screen mirroring via AirPlay or FaceTime when using the Vision Pro,
00:57:40 ◼ ► There was somebody in the room who had an iPad, and they could see what we were seeing. It was a part of the demo.
00:57:47 ◼ ► I heard some people questioning it as if that would be a thing, or saying the other thing, which is, "Oh, yes. It will work. I've seen it happen."
00:57:56 ◼ ► But I wasn't convinced that it would ship that way. Is this just a thing of the units or the software that we are using that enables that?
00:58:05 ◼ ► I'm pleased that they will do it. This is a thing that other platforms offer, but the ability to be doing a thing or playing a game and sharing the screen with somebody who's with you,
00:58:16 ◼ ► and that's part of the gaming experience, you can see what someone's seeing, can be fun.
00:58:20 ◼ ► It's especially fun for someone who's trying it out for the first time, and they're like, "Whoa," and they're freaking out, and you can see what they're seeing.
00:58:27 ◼ ► It's like being shared to the TV or shared to an iPad. That's a fun thing in the VR experience.
00:58:33 ◼ ► I'm intrigued to see what the longer-term use cases will be for that, but I'm happy that they'll have it, even if just for that thing of being able to see what someone's seeing,
00:58:43 ◼ ► because they're having some kind of fun experience, and you want to share it with them. I think that's cool.
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01:01:08 ◼ ► You put a note into our document that says simply, "Jason had to delete his user and rebuild his life."
01:01:42 ◼ ► Please don't send me anything about alternatives. I have all the alternatives to Photoshop. I've used Photoshop for like 30 years.
01:01:49 ◼ ► Sometimes you just need Photoshop. Sometimes you're working with someone and they send you a Photoshop file.
01:01:56 ◼ ► I have been using Photoshop since I was in college. I know where everything is. I know how to think in Photoshop.
01:02:06 ◼ ► I can't imagine not having Photoshop. And I use those other tools and I'm like, it is good.
01:02:16 ◼ ► But I've just decided that I would rather pay Adobe $120 a year and not learn something else ever.
01:02:23 ◼ ► Because it's been with me for so long. They will need to do more work in order to get me to stop using Photoshop.
01:02:30 ◼ ► However, last year at some point, because Creative Cloud is great, you just get the new version.
01:02:35 ◼ ► And I don't have Creative Cloud startup at launch or anything like that. So I don't know.
01:02:40 ◼ ► I checked for an update and it was like, Hey, we got a Photoshop 2023 update and I installed it.
01:02:46 ◼ ► And the number one thing I do in Photoshop is save out JPEGs and pings to post on the web or to send to people.
01:02:53 ◼ ► And that's using a command called Export As. They used to have a thing called Save for Web.
01:03:59 ◼ ► It's like, you just got to put a button in the interface when there's an error saying learn how to fix.
01:04:03 ◼ ► And it'll put in the error information behind the scenes and it's going to pop up a solution.
01:04:12 ◼ ► And it's like, try this in Windows. I don't have that. Try this in Windows. I don't have that.
01:04:25 ◼ ► The other thing on the support document is literally, or you could search for this in our forums, which is just,
01:04:58 ◼ ► I've definitely done this where I've searched for something for an Apple problem and there's been an Apple support forum thing.
01:05:03 ◼ ► And you click on it. And, and first off, they're not very helpful, but I'm just going to anger a lot of people today.
01:05:10 ◼ ► I'm going to just say this. Apple support forums are populated by people whose apparently entire self-worth is their level on Apple support forums.
01:05:23 ◼ ► And I will tell you, they think they're being helpful. They are know-it-alls who don't answer correct questions correctly,
01:05:37 ◼ ► And those power users of Apple support forums are make the whole thing useless. Almost useless. I'll say.
01:05:54 ◼ ► Who are these people? And they're like, they're like, they think they're Apple support, but they're not.
01:06:01 ◼ ► They are unpaid labor, I assume, who've got like these high rankings because they're like,
01:06:06 ◼ ► I'm just going out there every day on the internet and helping people. And it's, if they were right, it would be okay.
01:06:16 ◼ ► Oh, it's the internet, but like it's different if it's Reddit, cause it's just Reddit, right?
01:06:20 ◼ ► But it's the Apple support forums. Like Apple should not, one, should not be relying on these people.
01:06:27 ◼ ► And two, should not be giving them any veneer of credibility, let alone power to do things like close discussions,
01:06:34 ◼ ► because I solved it. You did not solve it, sir. You did not solve it. Anyway, Adobe support forums,
01:06:48 ◼ ► it was like a screenshot of like a support forum or a Reddit thing. And it was like, the question was like,
01:06:53 ◼ ► Hey everyone, like happy to be here. I just have a quick question about this piece of software.
01:06:57 ◼ ► Like, I'm wondering if you can help me with this. And then like top comment and like, and then like thread locks.
01:07:02 ◼ ► It says you have simultaneously broken every single rule of the support forum. We have therefore deleted your question.
01:07:08 ◼ ► You know, it's just like, that's what it feels like sometimes. There is these rules and you don't know what they are
01:07:16 ◼ ► I'm not part of your community, whatever that is. It's a community of people who sit on the internet complaining about bugs in software.
01:07:24 ◼ ► That's your, what is the community there? It's not a community. It's people drifting in across the transom who are, need help.
01:07:33 ◼ ► They need help. And that's, I think that's fundamentally, I didn't expect this to go in this direction, but that's the fundamental problem
01:07:39 ◼ ► with your customer support forum is that you are, maybe I'm changing my mind. Maybe they are evil because here's,
01:07:47 ◼ ► here's what it is. The problem is it implies a level of lack of care, unless you are actively as the developer
01:07:54 ◼ ► participating in the community. And, and if it's a part of a larger community of users of your product who are also sharing
01:08:02 ◼ ► tips and stuff like that, great. But some of these things, it feels like all it is, is a place for people to come
01:08:09 ◼ ► because they have nowhere else to go and say, help me. And then you get a community in there. And that is the community
01:08:16 ◼ ► of the, of the know-it-alls who say you're doing it wrong and are not helpful. And I've definitely had that where
01:08:25 ◼ ► there's a piece of software I use that's, that we've talked about here before. I'm not going to go into it, but it's,
01:08:29 ◼ ► it's very kind of old software, but it works for me and it has a support forum. And the developer kind of comes
01:08:34 ◼ ► and goes, cause I think he's got other priorities too, but he does, he chugs along and there's a new beta every few
01:08:40 ◼ ► months and it's fine. But I've, I've had some issues with that software where I've gone to the support forums and
01:08:46 ◼ ► it's very clear that there are some, I think, self appointed people. And if they're not, they're like, they're not
01:08:52 ◼ ► involved in the, maybe the developer has given them moderator power, but they're like not involved in the production
01:08:57 ◼ ► of the software. And they are making all the classic customer service mistakes, which is they blame the user.
01:09:06 ◼ ► That's, that's what they do. They're like, you're doing it wrong. And I'll come in there and I'll be like, well, I'm not
01:09:12 ◼ ► doing it wrong, but thank you for your feedback person who does not like, is not part of the company and does not
01:09:21 ◼ ► need to be here, but is poking their nose in when I'm like, if you can help me, help me. But like, as a, as a
01:09:27 ◼ ► person who uses the software like I do, but what are you doing? Anyway, they're bad. I've decided it now. I've
01:09:33 ◼ ► come all the way around. Customer service forums are bad. They should be good, but they're not good. Official ones,
01:09:41 ◼ ► we should say. Unofficial ones, great. Great. Official ones, it's an abrogation of responsibility by the vendor
01:09:47 ◼ ► unless they're in there actively. Anyway, Adobe's support forums were no help. There's years of program error
01:09:58 ◼ ► complaints about their, about this very specific thing. Most of them ended up being reinstall it. That didn't work.
01:10:05 ◼ ► Or they were unchecked the graphics acceleration box. That didn't work. Oh my God. So I bit the bullet. I said, you
01:10:14 ◼ ► know what? I pay $120 a year for this. My day is free. Side note, my day would soon not be free. I was like, what
01:10:27 ◼ ► am I going to do this day? I got so much to do. What am I going to do this day? His day was filled. His day was
01:10:32 ◼ ► completely ruined. So I said, you know what? Contact us. And they're like, would you like to talk to a chat agent?
01:10:39 ◼ ► And I said, yeah, I would. And they're like, ah, robot. And I was like, I got a program error. And it said, here's a
01:10:46 ◼ ► document. It's the same document as the learn how to fix. I'm like, nope. They're like, oh, didn't help you. What
01:10:51 ◼ ► would you like to do? And it's like, search the FAQs, go to the user forums. And then the last item is talk to an agent.
01:10:56 ◼ ► I'm like, talk to an agent. Give me the agent. Give me the agent. Give me the agent. Agent comes on. Obviously, you
01:11:04 ◼ ► know, it's a it starts probably starts as pre formatted, but it's not a robot, I think, yet. I repaste my issue in.
01:11:13 ◼ ► And they suggest a couple of things. And I try to make it clear, like, I've tried all the things. It does not work.
01:11:21 ◼ ► Oh, I should say as a side note, reinstalling that old like you people may not know this Creative Cloud, you can go
01:11:29 ◼ ► back versions. They've got like a library of like, all the way back to I think I can go back to like Photoshop 2022
01:11:36 ◼ ► or something. They're all version numbers, but like old versions, and if I rolled back far enough, I could get it to
01:11:41 ◼ ► work. And so for the last two years, I've been using or year and a half, whatever. I've been using an old version, older
01:11:46 ◼ ► version of Photoshop. And every time it's like, you want to update? I'm like, no, I don't because I can't save. So the
01:11:54 ◼ ► person comes on. And I say, and I say, I can't do this, I can't do this. And they finally say, all right, here's what
01:12:01 ◼ ► we're gonna do. I'm going to give you a link. And it's going to install screen sharing software. And I am going to get
01:12:07 ◼ ► to the bottom of this. And I thought, you know what, let's do it. Let's do it. So I did it. And Adobe screen sharing
01:12:13 ◼ ► software, it's actually pretty impressive, you get it going. It. He's got a little chat window that he can send to me.
01:12:19 ◼ ► And then I can see what he's doing. And, uh, and I'm watching it and Mike, it was like a sports fan watching a sporting
01:12:28 ◼ ► event. Like it was like a playwright watching a play. I got to watch someone else try to troubleshoot my computer. And I,
01:12:41 ◼ ► I'm pretty sure he couldn't hear me, which is good. I muted all my microphones, but it was amazing because it was like,
01:12:50 ◼ ► all right, he's going, he's going to, he's going to the graphics processor thing and he's going to turn that off and relaunch.
01:12:57 ◼ ► And then, and then it's like, drum roll export as program error. I told you, buddy, I told you that wouldn't work.
01:13:05 ◼ ► And then he's like, okay, I'm going to go, let's, let's uninstall and reinstall to do program error. Sorry. I tried that one too.
01:13:14 ◼ ► Good. Good on you. And I get that he's trying it because people are unreliable, but still I knew it wasn't going to work.
01:13:19 ◼ ► So I'm like, this is amazing. Right. I'm watching all. And then he's like, okay, I'm going to go into preferences and I'm
01:13:25 ◼ ► going to change the permissions on all the Adobe preferences. I'm going to add all the specific users, not just the admin
01:13:32 ◼ ► group, I'm going to set all of them and everybody else to read and write permissions for the entire folder.
01:13:38 ◼ ► It needs a password. That's the moment where I come in and go, put my password off. We go.
01:13:44 ◼ ► Doesn't work. Then he's like, okay, there's this other set of things I can do to set the, the, the, the permissions doesn't work.
01:13:53 ◼ ► I don't know. I kind of took glee in it. Cause I'm like, see, see, this is hard. There is no good answer here.
01:14:02 ◼ ► Also part of me is thinking, is he just reading that tech support document? Cause it's not helping. That's not what the issue is here.
01:14:08 ◼ ► And I can't decide whether there are certain systems where this thing is broken and they just don't care or whether it really is
01:14:15 ◼ ► something involving me, but I can't figure this out. So then he says, he comes back on the chat and he says, okay,
01:14:22 ◼ ► here's what we're going to try next. We're going to follow me again. I was just all in at this point.
01:14:28 ◼ ► If I had to, if I had to yank the computer out of the power and boot it off the network, if I had to reformat my hard drive,
01:14:34 ◼ ► whatever, like I was just going to let him do whatever he needed to do. So he says, we're going to go to network utility and
01:14:41 ◼ ► enable the root user. And we're going to log out of your account. We're going to log in again as root. Like, wow.
01:14:48 ◼ ► Okay. Big guns, right? Let's not even create an admin account. It's like, we're just going to go to root.
01:14:52 ◼ ► And I think this is because he's convinced it's a permissions problem of some sort or some weird interaction involving file
01:14:58 ◼ ► permission somewhere or something else is broken in my user. And so if you go to root, like it eliminates all of those things,
01:15:04 ◼ ► you shouldn't ever in the long run have root enabled as a user on your Mac because it's dangerous.
01:15:11 ◼ ► But we did it just, just, you know, for just for a minute. So we do that. And I'm also thinking to myself, like, how's he going to come back in screen sharing?
01:15:20 ◼ ► Like we're going to be in a different user, but the Adobe screen sharing is installed for the whole system and is persistent across users.
01:15:29 ◼ ► So we log in as root eventually. I, Oh, he tried to give, he tried to set the root password and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
01:15:36 ◼ ► I texted him. I'm like, I have to do this part. He's like, yeah, okay. So I set my root password. We go over.
01:15:43 ◼ ► He comes back, which is kind of magical. It's like Adobe screen sharing. He's back. He just goes to applications,
01:15:51 ◼ ► double clicks on Photoshop. I think I have to log into creative cloud because it's a new user. I'm not sure. Something like that.
01:15:57 ◼ ► It opens. He opens a new canvas and draws like with the paintbrush tool, just draws a squiggle does file export as, and the export as window comes up.
01:16:07 ◼ ► At which point he brings in, he goes into text and he basically says, well, it's your user.
01:16:19 ◼ ► Well, okay. There, the fact that it didn't happen on older versions of Photoshop makes me think that it's partially at least their fault.
01:16:31 ◼ ► And if we had, or if I had wanted to, we probably could have done a deep dive investigation on everything in my system,
01:16:42 ◼ ► in my user folder to find out why it wasn't working. And I thought about it and I thought, you know what?
01:16:51 ◼ ► I feel like this is a symptom of a larger problem. I feel like I probably, this Mac is probably the legacy of untold migrations
01:17:03 ◼ ► for probably more than a decade, maybe even two decades, untold migrations. There were, I would always find like preferences that were from 15 years ago.
01:17:16 ◼ ► Like, okay. So I thought this is a sign. I think I just need to bite the bullet here and delete my user and rebuild my life.
01:17:26 ◼ ► So I thanked the guy, uninstalled the software, turned off root, deleted the root user, all those things.
01:17:36 ◼ ► And then you have to do the dance where I had to like make a new user, delete my old user, then make a new user that's me again,
01:17:44 ◼ ► log in as the new user, at which point this was the rest of my day. The rest of my day was, and I'll point out this wasn't a complete wipe.
01:17:55 ◼ ► The system level was all still there because it all worked fine and Photoshop still worked and everything.
01:17:59 ◼ ► So I log in and if anybody hasn't done this in a while, the experience, first off you get to experience every default that exists.
01:18:14 ◼ ► So like docs on the bottom, minimizes the genie effect, like literally everything, click on the desktop to hide all the windows,
01:18:22 ◼ ► like in stage manager, it's Sonoma defaults. Okay. So I have to start moving things around and things are showing up in my doc that I don't want there
01:18:33 ◼ ► because they're like recommend applications and recent applications in the doc and applications bounce in the doc when they're launching.
01:18:41 ◼ ► And it's like, oh boy, turn all those off. So I spent the rest of the day doing two things, which is setting preferences.
01:18:46 ◼ ► And every time the experience is every time you make a movement on the Mac, every time I go like, okay, I'm going to reach for this now,
01:18:55 ◼ ► you get permission dialogue, permission dialogue, permission dialogue. Every app wants to, and I've complained about this before,
01:19:05 ◼ ► but just to say, it's terrible, right? It's like, this is my software on my computer. And it's like, oh, now this app wants to look at the desktop.
01:19:13 ◼ ► This app wants to look at your documents folder. Like for Pete's sake, if it's in desktop and documents, you can have it, right?
01:19:20 ◼ ► Like everybody should take it. Take it all. I really want a button that says, allow every app to access desktop and documents. It's fine.
01:19:30 ◼ ► I have nothing, nothing in these folders that you can have it. If I have it in there, you can take it.
01:19:42 ◼ ► It's so terrible. And then there's like, oh, and this needs full disk access. And some apps, they just let the system handle it.
01:19:49 ◼ ► Other apps are like, Hey buddy, you're new here. Here's a proxy icon. And here's a little pretend you need to, I'm going to click this button.
01:19:58 ◼ ► And then I'll open, I'll do a thing that makes another button come up and you need to click that.
01:20:03 ◼ ► And then it opens in the system settings and then you click on this thing and then drag my little icon in and say, yes.
01:20:09 ◼ ► And then we'll be good. Oh God. And then they'll do it like five times. It's like, oh, I need microphone preferences too.
01:20:19 ◼ ► Were you using a Disney app? Cause it sounds like Mickey has entered the chat at the moment.
01:20:23 ◼ ► Mickey's a little higher than that. Oh, Jason, you got a new computer. It's not new Mickey. I don't care.
01:20:30 ◼ ► So, so the, so I hate all the permissions. I hate it. I really wish I understand why Apple does it.
01:20:40 ◼ ► I really wish Apple one would let power users say, please stop. And two I'd really like what I really like is don't ask for the next hour or something.
01:20:53 ◼ ► Right? Like don't ask for the give permission for the next hour for everything I do. I understand the security implications of that.
01:21:00 ◼ ► I understand that it's bad because what if there's bad stuff and all that, but like, oh my God, to have every app you use,
01:21:07 ◼ ► ask you a billion questions. And I know it only happens when this sort of thing happens, but it is infuriating.
01:21:17 ◼ ► I also have to look up the serial numbers of every app that I bought outside the app store. And there are lots.
01:21:23 ◼ ► Fortunately, one of the first things I do is install my email app, which has the receipts for every app I ever bought.
01:21:30 ◼ ► So I can search on there and I, and I do one password very quickly so I can get all the passwords that I need to relog into and do all of that.
01:21:37 ◼ ► But for the rest of the day, it's literally like I was doing a podcast later in the day. I press a button on my stream deck.
01:21:43 ◼ ► First off, the stream deck's not there. Second, the stream deck preferences are in a weird place.
01:21:48 ◼ ► So you have to find where the stream deck preferences are and copy it over. I have a backup.
01:21:52 ◼ ► So I have my old user folder in a backup that I can drag things out of. So I do that with some apps,
01:22:00 ◼ ► The thing that breaks Photoshop is in there somewhere. I don't want to do that. I'm trying to be good here.
01:22:04 ◼ ► So then we get the stream deck up and I press the button and it goes, error. Like what is happening?
01:22:10 ◼ ► And it was, this is a shortcuts error. So I have to go to open shortcuts because it launches a shortcut.
01:22:15 ◼ ► I'm like, okay, run the shortcut. It says, oh, shortcuts needs permission to like automate things.
01:22:26 ◼ ► I'm like, why? What? Allow running scripts, allow running scripts. It's like shortcuts, shortcuts is nice and all and it lets you to automate things.
01:22:35 ◼ ► But if you want to use Apple script or a shell script, you need to go in and check the box in advancing.
01:22:40 ◼ ► All right, fine. Yes. Shortcuts. I do want you to run Apple scripts. Thank you. Then I press the button.
01:22:45 ◼ ► Error. What is it now? Audio hijack needs permission to run scripts. All right. Permission granted.
01:22:56 ◼ ► Then I press the button and it works. I'm like, oh, but, but I'm telling you literally in the first five, six,
01:23:03 ◼ ► seven hours that I was running this, it really ran into the next day too. You do that thing that you do once a day.
01:23:08 ◼ ► You do that thing you do once every three hours and you're like, oh, click permission, permission, permission, error.
01:23:24 ◼ ► Restart your Mac into, oh, I did have to do the restart your Mac. At one point, I forget what the software was.
01:23:30 ◼ ► It was a restart your Mac and hold down the button and allow the extension to be loaded.
01:23:48 ◼ ► There aren't mysterious preferences and weird things loading that are not things that I needed to use.
01:24:01 ◼ ► But it did involve a lot of like trying to migrate Hazel, for example, is amazing because to do migrate Hazel,
01:24:08 ◼ ► there are instructions, but it's like you need to open activity monitor and quit all the Hazel processes and quit the preference process.
01:24:16 ◼ ► Then copy your files over and immediately restart. Really? Well, because apparently they're cached and the preference demon.
01:24:25 ◼ ► That's why you have to quit it because the preference demon caches the old preferences and will overwrite your new preferences.
01:24:30 ◼ ► So then you restart and then the preference demon comes up and sees the things on disk and it's like, oh yeah.
01:24:53 ◼ ► I'm like, well, that doesn't help me that that old user's gone. It's already gone chief.
01:24:58 ◼ ► I have a backup with files. I'm like, well, you can't get to it then. You just can't get to it. What?
01:25:03 ◼ ► So what I'm saying is, I was, I thought it was a bold move that you deleted the user before you've set the new one up fully.
01:25:21 ◼ ► I mean, I know you wouldn't have known that. Oh, that's true. That's true. I can't log back into the old, well, the problem.
01:25:25 ◼ ► So here's the problem. Although, although Mac OS has for its entire life as Mac OS 10 and Mac OS said,
01:25:35 ◼ ► Cause I want to, because some of my scripts are literally coded to my username and the name of my hard drive.
01:25:46 ◼ ► So then I have to change my other user's username to something different and then make a new one.
01:25:51 ◼ ► And guess what? It doesn't let you because like, Oh no, I'm still doing things over there.
01:25:55 ◼ ► And I don't know what it's doing. Breaking Photoshop. I don't know what's going on over there.
01:25:59 ◼ ► Slowly dismantling Adobe. I had to delete it, delete it, delete it, delete it to make a new user with that.
01:26:19 ◼ ► if you can manage the pain every so often, not migrating and doing a clean setup is probably smart because it's very painful.
01:26:26 ◼ ► But it's also probably dumb because it's extremely painful, but at least you get a clean thing out of it.
01:26:31 ◼ ► I don't know. Photoshop works. I'm on Photoshop 2024 now. I'm in the future with Photoshop.
01:26:48 ◼ ► and I learned this from the Sonoma install and migrating from one Mac to another and all the stuff that I've been doing in the last couple of months is I,
01:26:58 ◼ ► since I'm making people angry today, I'm going to make people really lean in today. I, I, yeah, I am.
01:27:05 ◼ ► It's hot. I'm not, I tell you, I'm not a hot take machine. I don't, I don't love doing it, but sometimes I just need to say the truth.
01:27:12 ◼ ► Apple, Apple security people, Apple security people, Mac OS security people in specific, I love you.
01:27:21 ◼ ► Thank you for keeping my Mac secure. You're out of control. You are degrading the Mac experience.
01:27:27 ◼ ► The, the fuselage of preference permission windows must stop. Give me anything to allow to control this.
01:27:39 ◼ ► So I am not dancing back and forth between multiple windows and the system settings in order to get alerts.
01:27:46 ◼ ► Oh, by the way, you've got that thing that pops up that says, I'm going to have to relaunch this app for it to work.
01:27:52 ◼ ► And you click later or you click quit and relaunch the app. I've got news for you. The apps don't need to relaunch.
01:27:59 ◼ ► They just ever changes. They don't need to relaunch. You say they have to relaunch, but I'm telling you, I use them without relaunching them.
01:28:15 ◼ ► I appreciate your dedication to improving Mac security. It's way better than it's been. Hooray. My computer belongs to me.
01:28:22 ◼ ► My software is software that I've chosen and I need you to get the hell out of my way when I'm updating or migrating.
01:28:32 ◼ ► You are corroding the Mac OS experience. It's a little like what we talked about when back when upgrading your iPhone was terrible.
01:28:39 ◼ ► When it's supposed to be the happiest moment because you're updating your iPhone and it's actually a disaster. It's not now.
01:28:46 ◼ ► Well, Mac OS is like that. You run an update, you do a migration, whatever. And then it's just all the permissions dialogues come up.
01:28:52 ◼ ► Stop it. Stop it. You are, you under the guise of making a safer, you've made the Mac worse. Stop it.
01:29:04 ◼ ► Call me. We'll talk about it together. I get what you're trying to do. You've gone too far. You're out of control. Stop it.
01:29:19 ◼ ► Yes. That's a good point. You don't make hot takes, but like when you have a take, you will allow it to burn down with the fire of the sun.
01:29:36 ◼ ► No, I don't like it. I don't like hot takes. I like considered takes that are scalding. Those are better.
01:29:42 ◼ ► Well, I'm happy that you're able to use Photoshop in the way that you want. I do wonder if it was worth it.
01:29:48 ◼ ► No more program errors. I do wonder if it was worth it too. But what I want to say here is, but yeah, Mike, everything's snappier now.
01:29:57 ◼ ► It's very snappier. It's snappier now. Now that I cleaned out the cruft of my user folder, all those preference files and all those P-LISTS bogging me down, holding me back.
01:30:09 ◼ ► Not anymore. I'm breaking free now, baby. I'm free. The P-LISTS can't stop me now. The sky is the limit.
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01:32:20 ◼ ► James asks, "I'm based in London and miss the pre-order period for the new iPhone. The phone that I want, the natural Pro Max, won't be available until mid-November for delivery. Would you recommend visiting the Apple Store in person to try and get a phone or just waiting it out until mid-November?"
01:32:50 ◼ ► Here's what I would suggest if you're able to do this. This is the best scenario but I understand if it might be tricky. Put in the order so you have a place in the queue but then be checking every day in the morning or late in the evening for the Apple Stores in your area to see if you can get a pick up.
01:33:14 ◼ ► I've done this before so put the order in so I've got a place in the queue but then also be checking every day. What I also like now, the Apple Store app and on the web will show you alternate devices that are available or alternate locations to the one you're looking at for where devices might be.
01:33:34 ◼ ► Maybe you could travel for an extra hour and get it or maybe you could get a different color or you could bump up to a different storage tier and you'd be able to get it sooner. I recommend checking often. They do get stock in the stores and they seem to prioritize that at points to making sure the stores have stock in them which I understand.
01:33:53 ◼ ► I would recommend if you're able to do it, put the order in and try and get the order but if you don't have the ability to do that it might just be best to put your order in and wait because you can drive yourself mad checking the store every day. It's just like that hassle or stress in your life that you might not otherwise want.
01:34:11 ◼ ► And hey, November will be here before you know it. I know that you've done this Jason right? That exact thing? Putting an order in and checking the stores?
01:34:20 ◼ ► That's how to do it. You make the order. It may ship earlier than you think for one. And in the meantime, if you can go and try to find it in your nearby stores, you may be pleasantly surprised because there is, I don't want to say there's always stock but what doesn't happen is that if you can't get it until November online, the stores don't have it until November, that doesn't happen.
01:34:44 ◼ ► There's a certain number of them that are allotted to the stores so that people can come off the street and buy the iPhone. They do try to spread it out and that's your opportunity.
01:34:53 ◼ ► Mm-hmm. Run, writes in to say that October 21st will mark the 30th anniversary of system 7.1.1 which included the debut of AppleScript. Jason, how will you be celebrating AppleScript's birthday?
01:35:09 ◼ ► I mean cake, clearly. Actually, I wasn't planning this and I didn't know this and I've now put an item on my calendar and maybe I will write something about AppleScript's 30th birthday. Yeah, sure. That's a good Apple history thing and it's still with us. It's still with us to this day. Kind of hard to believe.
01:35:29 ◼ ► I use more AppleScripts now than I've ever used in my life because they will come from you but I never have used them and now I use a bunch of them.
01:35:38 ◼ ► AppleScript is still not obsolete, that's the thing. It's great that Apple added shortcuts to the Mac and it's great that shortcuts can talk in AppleScript and in ShellScript but the next step should be that you shouldn't need AppleScript and that hasn't happened.
01:35:58 ◼ ► So AppleScript continues to exist and it's fine. There's things about AppleScript. I was just doing this the other day where I needed to parse a date and I used to use a ShellScript for that, inside an AppleScript.
01:36:16 ◼ ► I used a ShellScript for that and the Shell command changed in Sonoma, I don't understand why, and it failed, errored out. Okay. So I'm like, okay, I guess I'll need to, and I looked up how to process the dates in AppleScript
01:36:27 ◼ ► and I thought, oh, that's why I used a ShellScript because it's bananas, it's terrible. And it's like Python is easier, ShellScripts are easier, and it was just one of those reminders that AppleScript is like nothing else.
01:36:40 ◼ ► There are things that it does that make scripting so easy and there are things that it doesn't do that make you want to cry. So that's the AppleScript experience in a nutshell.
01:36:50 ◼ ► And Stephen asks, what does the home button on your Apple TV remote map to? Do you choose the home screen or up next?
01:37:01 ◼ ► Yeah, I'm home screen too. I don't know if I would have chosen home screen if that wasn't the default, you know?
01:37:09 ◼ ► Yeah, so here, I would, and the reason is I, so I'm a cord cutter, I use the Apple TV exclusively, but I don't just use what's in up next. I use up next a lot, actually, a lot.
01:37:25 ◼ ► But if I'm watching live TV, like sports and stuff, I'm in an app. I'd rather actually map the home button to Fubo because that's the live TV interface.
01:37:37 ◼ ► I'd rather do that. But certainly, I need apps, and I use channels to record stuff off of Fubo, actually, and then play it back later.
01:37:54 ◼ ► I have a bunch of apps that I use, like, so I would prefer to just use up next, but that's just not the way that Apple TV works.
01:38:03 ◼ ► Yeah, exactly. And here's the thing. I know that you've relinquished your post as the Apple TV guy.
01:38:16 ◼ ► You got bigger fish to fry, you're fine. But I would say this, there have been rumors about the idea of merging the home screen and the TV app, that it comes from a different time and that Apple's priorities have shifted.
01:38:29 ◼ ► I don't know if that's a good idea, that's kind of a lot, and Apple seems to be way too busy using the TV app to advertise things.
01:38:36 ◼ ► So, you know, there's no room for apps in there, but it would be not bad if I had, like, I know that you can put the TV app on the top level and set it so that your up next is in the preview stuff at the top.
01:38:50 ◼ ► And that's not bad, but, like, I could see the value in having the TV app and the home screen merge a little bit more so that I could, like, pin my apps that I use all the time and have them right below up next and all that.
01:39:08 ◼ ► I don't think it would be nice if Apple did it because clearly Apple is going to take the top of the interface and make it ads for content and not functional, and I hate it.
01:39:18 ◼ ► So, this is another kind of Apple, don't get me started, because we know what happens then, but this is another area where I think Apple's lost the plot a little bit.
01:39:26 ◼ ► Because it's literally at the point where I don't want them to integrate the apps I use into the TV app and merge them together in a way that might be useful, because I know they would screw it up and make it,
01:39:37 ◼ ► deprioritize all the stuff I care about and just use it as a way to get more promo material in front of my face.
01:39:47 ◼ ► Of course. I have something I want to say about Apple TV, but I must go back a second to correct something before a terrible disaster occurs.
01:39:53 ◼ ► So, in the Discord, there was a question of, well, is this an AppleScript thing on Steven's calendar?
01:40:01 ◼ ► So, I went and looked at my calendar, and it wasn't there, but then it was pointed out to me that on Steven's calendar, it is listed as October 4th, 1993.
01:40:18 ◼ ► So, I believe Ron is incorrect. I believe that it was on October 4th, not on October 21st.
01:40:50 ◼ ► Ron, if you would like to provide context for October 21st, go to upgradefeedback.com, and you have the opportunity to redeem yourself.
01:40:58 ◼ ► But we cannot cover and celebrate AppleScript's birthday now, because it's already passed.
01:41:11 ◼ ► Up to system 7, they were free. System 7.1, Apple was like, "You got to pay us money for this."
01:41:22 ◼ ► I know I want to go back to the Apple TV to say, there's a thing that Apple changed with TVOS 17 that I don't understand, which is they moved the app grid to a 6 app grid rather than 5.
01:41:45 ◼ ► I actually don't want it. I want to go back to 5, because now they're all smaller. I liked it the way it was.
01:42:01 ◼ ► Is it just because you wanted to put FaceTime in the thing? I think that was the reason. I genuinely think that's what the reason was.
01:42:07 ◼ ► Okay, maybe so. I think if you've got a lot of apps out there, it's nice to not have them be as far down when you go down. But really, I don't know.
01:42:15 ◼ ► No, Jason, I think they made a decision to change the grid from a 5 grid to a 6 grid purely so they could put FaceTime at the top.
01:42:28 ◼ ► That icon really stands out too, right? It's like yelling at you like, have you done a FaceTime yet?
01:42:34 ◼ ► In 20 years, the Apple TV will be a 600 by 600 grid because they keep adding new apps and they want you to see them.
01:42:42 ◼ ► Yeah, but the only way you'll be able to go from the far left to the far right is by swiping repeatedly.
01:43:07 ◼ ► And I was complaining about Google's Sunday ticket stuff the other week on some podcast or other because Fubo has that quad box.
01:43:19 ◼ ► And on Fubo TV, as with Apple TV, as with ESPN, you pick four things and it shows them all for you on your TV at once.
01:43:42 ◼ ► Google got NFL Sunday ticket and they said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're doing a quad box. Remember, we talked about that."
01:43:59 ◼ ► So what Google is doing and they're doing this, they say it's because of a lowest common denominator thing.
01:44:54 ◼ ► And maybe Google is like, "Yeah, we can't put it everywhere so that we're going to put it nowhere."
01:45:03 ◼ ► And I was watching it over the weekend because I had a baseball playoff game and college football.
01:45:13 ◼ ► And they have this new thing called widgets where you can actually put a little scoreboard down at the bottom.
01:45:17 ◼ ► And one of the cool things about that is that if you see a game that's close, you can click on it.
01:45:30 ◼ ► So you can see it, scroll through the scores and say, "Oh, that game looks interesting," and click and add it.
01:45:45 ◼ ► Or you can see all, even if they're not on Fubo, you can still see them in college football or major league baseball
01:46:19 ◼ ► And I finally figured it out that you have to go all the way to the left in the quad box.
01:46:34 ◼ ► I just thought, "Okay, I give Fubo a lot of credit for their Apple TV app. It's bananas.
01:47:04 ◼ ► John Gruber wrote an "It's an amazing AppleScript is still here" article for Macworld for the 19th anniversary.
01:47:43 ◼ ► If you would like to send in your questions, your follow-up, or your feedback, go to upgradefeedback.com.
01:47:49 ◼ ► Go to upgradeyourwardrobe.com for our limited edition merchandise and also our always edition merchandise.
01:48:11 ◼ ► You can find us on Mastodon. Jason is @jsnell on zeppelin.flights and I am @imike on mike.social.