Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► from relay this is upgrade episode 559 recorded monday april the 14th 2025 brought to you by fitbot expressvpn and factor i am again your one of your two regular co-hosts jason snell waiting for mike to return come back mike but in the interim i have had

00:00:29 ◼   ► uh now the theme if it wasn't already revealed can be revealed a parade of dads giving fatherly advice because of two reasons one i thought it was a fun theme and two i have to do all the work for upgrade and uh so i went with people i am comfortable being around to not increase the level of difficulty of this paternity leave and uh next up last up possibly uh in the list

00:00:58 ◼   ► it is my good friend a returning guest to upgrade after only about 500 episodes it's scott mcnulty hi scott

00:01:08 ◼   ► hello jason i did such a good job you had to wait 500 episodes because you couldn't stand the competition i think

00:01:15 ◼   ► uh yeah no it was that was it that was that was totally you we brought you on an episode eight an episode 85 to discuss primarily

00:01:25 ◼   ► e-readers which is a topic uh that you and i both are interested in and have and have diverging views on which i think is fun it's true and you have become i feel in the intervening 500 episodes you become much more interested in the e-readers i think so you you didn't need to

00:01:44 ◼   ► trot me out to talk about the latest kindle stuff because you already knew about it you were you were invested

00:01:48 ◼   ► in it there was a time when you you owned every e-reader ever released it's true i have not i have i have since

00:01:55 ◼   ► uh weaned my collection uh and i've only focused on things that i will actually use that's generally which

00:02:01 ◼   ► is not that's not actually true at all because i still buy additional ones but i don't buy every single

00:02:05 ◼   ► one i i i buy them to review them and then i i generally just have them and there are so many although

00:02:10 ◼   ► occasionally i do feel like captain picard in that star trek episode i do sometimes have two

00:02:14 ◼   ► different books going on two different e-readers do you do that trick where you turn it on airplane

00:02:19 ◼   ► mode so that it the library will not take your book back that's what i do that is a pro tip i like that

00:02:24 ◼   ► a lot well then yeah you can hold on because the e-readers don't know about time apparently anyway we

00:02:29 ◼   ► don't have time for any of this because we have to get to our snell talk question uh which is actually

00:02:34 ◼   ► perfectly perfectly picked for you being here colin wrote in and said i like jason love world building

00:02:40 ◼   ► sci-fi can you recommend a few book series that i can read that are like silo in that they have a

00:02:47 ◼   ► beginning a middle and an end so i took this to be like world building uh sci-fi and and has an end so

00:02:57 ◼   ► you don't do that thing i just read a book the other week scott where it was um a very exciting

00:03:03 ◼   ► book that ends and it's very clear that that and it was published like last year very clear that there

00:03:08 ◼   ► will be at least two more books before the story is complete and none of them will be released before

00:03:13 ◼   ► next year and it's a kind of a bummer right like sometimes it's nice to know that there's a beginning

00:03:19 ◼   ► and a middle and an end also sometimes there are books that are like in the same universe but they're

00:03:25 ◼   ► like like i didn't mention becky chambers uh series of of novels and novellas which i like a lot and

00:03:33 ◼   ► they're all in the same universe and they're sort of connected but it isn't telling one story every book

00:03:39 ◼   ► tells its own story and i don't think that's what colin is looking for here either that's true and this

00:03:43 ◼   ► is the uh i call the george rr martin problem in that you're really into the game of thrones uh

00:03:50 ◼   ► and i was and still am uh but you know it takes time to write these books and he's not done and i

00:03:55 ◼   ► think it's been over a decade since uh between the the final the last installment and i think there are

00:04:01 ◼   ► two more installments that he's planning supposedly yeah and so that's a long time to wait and i'm not

00:04:06 ◼   ► one of these people that's like why are you watching football george rr martin get back to work but uh

00:04:11 ◼   ► you know it's it's an investment and people don't have a lot of time so if you're i can understand why

00:04:16 ◼   ► you wouldn't want to start a new series that doesn't have an end because you don't know if

00:04:20 ◼   ► you're ever going to get that end and there's nothing worse than um reading a book that or a

00:04:25 ◼   ► story that doesn't end it reminds me of um i forget who it was but some some author wrote a really long

00:04:30 ◼   ► book and kind of the economics of publishing is that there's a certain page count where if you go past

00:04:36 ◼   ► it producing a physical book becomes much more expensive so so they split it in half and released two

00:04:43 ◼   ► books but they didn't make it clear that like they didn't you know usually when it's ending a first in

00:04:51 ◼   ► a series that like it has a conclusion at least and uh then the next one had it picks up where this

00:04:57 ◼   ► literally was a book that was cut in half so it just stopped and then the next book starts i don't like

00:05:02 ◼   ► that is that blackout all clear by connie willis because that was the one that i was thinking of that

00:05:07 ◼   ► a similar one but this is uh i think scott westerfield wrote uh a science fiction uh two

00:05:12 ◼   ► science fiction well one turned into two he wrote one they released two uh exactly and so it was it

00:05:18 ◼   ► was very discombobulating yeah i don't like luckily in that situation they were both released uh or they

00:05:23 ◼   ► were both available i don't know when they were released so i read the next one immediately because

00:05:26 ◼   ► i was like this is not done yeah the book continues all right so i've got i wrote down a bunch you wrote

00:05:31 ◼   ► down a few colin uh and anyone else who's interested in sci-fi world building with beginnings middles and

00:05:37 ◼   ► ends uh the ones i wrote down um mr carey's pan dominion duology which is about parallel universes

00:05:44 ◼   ► there are two books it they are they do feel like two separate books but they tell a single continuing

00:05:52 ◼   ► story that has a beginning middle and an end um if you're really ambitious and you somehow haven't

00:05:57 ◼   ► read the expanse series maybe you saw the tv show maybe you didn't it's nine books but it does have

00:06:03 ◼   ► a beginning middle and end you could argue that it's sort of like three books three sets of three um

00:06:09 ◼   ► adrian tchaikovsky there are so many uh he's one of my favorite writers going right now uh he wrote the

00:06:16 ◼   ► final architecture series uh three books starting with shards of earth that is super weird um

00:06:23 ◼   ► but i enjoyed it it's sort of like almost like what if star trek but very much weirder than that um

00:06:32 ◼   ► and uh and he wrote a series called the children of time which has three books starting with children

00:06:37 ◼   ► of time those are less beginning middle and end i guess that i guess i'm cheating a little bit those

00:06:41 ◼   ► are a little more shared universe but um they have some connections i really love the long

00:06:46 ◼   ► earth series by terry pratchett and stephen baxter there are five books there um it's sad because i

00:06:51 ◼   ► think terry pratchett was more involved in the beginning and obviously not involved much in the

00:06:54 ◼   ► end as he was uh fading away but um also parallel universes i i ate that up like five books i just

00:07:02 ◼   ► like inhaled those five books you're not supposed to eat books i know i know but i did because they

00:07:06 ◼   ► were i got a rare chocolate edition scott so delicious it's pretty nice and i wanted to mention the

00:07:12 ◼   ► merchant princess series another parallel i went through like a parallel universe series

00:07:16 ◼   ► uh binge last year that's charles strass starting with the family trade and uh those were all fun so

00:07:21 ◼   ► there's some recommendation but if i had to pick one right now and i'd say this is going to give you a

00:07:24 ◼   ► world building beginning middle and end might go with mr carrie's pan dominion uh that's a that's

00:07:30 ◼   ► a really nice duology so it's it's multiple books but not too many and it's pretty sure it's a lot of fun

00:07:36 ◼   ► uh and and jason listed many that i would have listed before i put it on the list so i um i think only one of

00:07:43 ◼   ► of mine really counts uh as answering colin's question and the other two are kind of cheats

00:07:48 ◼   ► so i will start with the one that actually counts and uh with yun ha lee's the machineries of empire

00:07:54 ◼   ► which is um you know jason you said shards of earth is weird the machineries of empire which starts with

00:08:01 ◼   ► nine fox gambit is incredibly weird and it it very well written tells the whole story it's a weird super

00:08:08 ◼   ► weird story um but it's super sci-fi so if you're looking for sci-fi um where you know different

00:08:15 ◼   ► regions of space have different rules and we're not quite sure why but then we kind of find out maybe

00:08:19 ◼   ► we do maybe we don't pick up that uh series uh and then the other two are are complete cheats uh

00:08:25 ◼   ► one isn't even science fiction although one could argue alternate history is science fiction uh joe

00:08:31 ◼   ► walton is a great writer yeah and if you haven't read anything by joe walton we could basically pick

00:08:36 ◼   ► up anything uh by her and read it uh the thing that popped into my mind for this question was the small

00:08:41 ◼   ► change series which is um farthing hey penny and half a crown uh it's an alternate history uh where

00:08:48 ◼   ► britain's uh neville chamberlain's appeasement works basically yes and so they join with hitler

00:08:54 ◼   ► exactly and it's very it's a detective story which i like um and so and it has a beginning a middle and

00:09:00 ◼   ► end now this one my final recommendation does not have a beginning a middle or an end but it does in

00:09:06 ◼   ► that the author is dead so there will be no more of them right uh and i believe amazon is turning them

00:09:12 ◼   ► into some high production super expensive tv show maybe uh the culture novels by ian banks which are all set

00:09:21 ◼   ► in the same universe the culture um but they are not related to each other in that they don't tell

00:09:28 ◼   ► the same story but it's a kind of an overarching mega story uh and you can pick up basically any of

00:09:35 ◼   ► them and uh you'll have a good time uh depending on your definition of good because some of them can be

00:09:39 ◼   ► kind of grim but that's true well i hope this helps colin uh many picks and we'll put them in the show

00:09:45 ◼   ► notes too let's move on to fatherly advice that i have now admitted to is really a very loose

00:09:51 ◼   ► concept because i decided i wanted to uh reduce the amount of production effort required while mike was

00:09:58 ◼   ► gone because i have to do the ads and i have to do the prep and i have to go people out there should

00:10:03 ◼   ► know that um i i already appreciated mike you may not know but i i know how much work mike does to make

00:10:11 ◼   ► upgrade happen especially given the time zones that i essentially roll out of bed on monday morning and do

00:10:16 ◼   ► do a podcast because mike's had all day to work on the show prep and that hasn't been the case for the

00:10:21 ◼   ► last eight weeks or whatever so uh anyway uh come back mike and in the interim scott do you have any

00:10:28 ◼   ► words of wisdom or observations to impart you have twin boys i do oh boy there are a lot of mcnulty boys

00:10:36 ◼   ► running around so many anything for mike and his singular child oh it's easy that's what i say one

00:10:44 ◼   ► child i laugh at uh one at a time come on mike you're you're an underachiever uh i will say i will

00:10:51 ◼   ► preface all these things by saying i love my children uh great which is important to make clear at the start

00:10:57 ◼   ► uh i am not one of those people who has ever thought of that they would be a father or who now that i am a

00:11:04 ◼   ► a father defines my self by my fatherhood uh and that is no no judgment on the people who do because

00:11:11 ◼   ► i think that's great live your own lives um but it's not something that comes naturally to me and

00:11:16 ◼   ► not something that i was ever interested in uh and in fact when i started dating my wife the first thing

00:11:21 ◼   ► she said to me was i want to have children you have to be okay with that and i was like okay fine

00:11:26 ◼   ► that's not actually going to happen but we'll do it uh and then many years went by and i thought she

00:11:30 ◼   ► she forgot but she didn't and and uh so we have kids now uh and uh so it was an adjustment for me

00:11:41 ◼   ► uh and i knew that i was mostly afraid uh that um i would love these children so much that it would

00:11:49 ◼   ► just make me worried all the time because i wouldn't want them to get hurt because that's kind of how i am

00:11:54 ◼   ► like if my wife is gone for slightly longer than i think she should be i assume she's dead uh and so

00:12:01 ◼   ► that's just my my personality and now with children yeah exactly with children it is amplified like a

00:12:06 ◼   ► million times and turns out i was right because i'm just constantly worried that they're going to hurt

00:12:11 ◼   ► themselves uh so my real advice i think is that children are are more resilient than you might

00:12:18 ◼   ► think it's really hard uh to to screw them up uh if you love them and are providing the basics for them

00:12:29 ◼   ► or even beyond the basics right um if you're a negligent parent that's super easy so that still happens but

00:12:36 ◼   ► if you love your children chances are everything else will fall into place it will be amazing it

00:12:42 ◼   ► will be annoying it will be exhausting it will be one hundred percent maybe one thousand percent more

00:12:48 ◼   ► work than you think it will be even if you think it is a lot of work yeah um and i my kids are five

00:12:54 ◼   ► and a half and i talk to parents uh like jason who have older children and i'm like when does it get

00:12:58 ◼   ► easier uh and the answer is it does not get easier it just gets hard it's it's just different right

00:13:04 ◼   ► and so because you you know they have a like these they start developing opinions and they want to do

00:13:09 ◼   ► things their way which is not the right way uh so i i think the biggest this is not amazing advice

00:13:17 ◼   ► at all but it's just you know relax it's gonna be okay uh you're not an expert and also the other

00:13:24 ◼   ► thing that i would recommend is related is don't compare yourself to other parents and don't judge other

00:13:29 ◼   ► parents choices we're all trying our best and you know when i didn't have children and i saw a parent

00:13:35 ◼   ► like scolding their child in in a supermarket or not scolding their child when they were doing something

00:13:41 ◼   ► i might have thought for a second why are they doing that and now that i have children i know sometimes

00:13:46 ◼   ► if you just if you are just at the end of your rope and you just need to ignore your kid ripping

00:13:53 ◼   ► open that box of cookies in the middle of the supermarket you'll pay for it you'll clean it up

00:13:57 ◼   ► but you you just have to pick your battles you know you know the context of your own children and nobody

00:14:02 ◼   ► else does it's absolutely true i think that's i think that's great advice one of the things that i say

00:14:07 ◼   ► often to parents of young kids is we like we would not have made it as a species if children think about like

00:14:18 ◼   ► during the earliest days of humankind like children have to be resilient they have to be not just

00:14:25 ◼   ► emotionally but physically like literally if you could kill your baby by dropping it on a rock i mean

00:14:32 ◼   ► don't drop your baby on a rock be clear but like jason's fatherly advice if that was the case with the

00:14:39 ◼   ► we wouldn't be here because all babies would have died right the fact is our the baby's heads are really

00:14:43 ◼   ► hard like not you don't want to do it but like you we're resilient and babies are tough and don't

00:14:51 ◼   ► don't test this but i'm just saying we have jamie had a thing where she had uh her elbow could get

00:14:58 ◼   ► dislocated very easily like you could literally like pick her up pull her up from sitting and sometimes her

00:15:03 ◼   ► elbow would just kind of like go and she'd go ah and we just learned to go and like pop it back in

00:15:10 ◼   ► and it's just like amazing like it comes off but it goes right back on so they're they're amazing so

00:15:15 ◼   ► they they're not you're gonna you you worry but like that it's a china doll when you get a baby but

00:15:20 ◼   ► actually uh they're they're gonna be able to deal with uh stupid things parents do because we've all

00:15:25 ◼   ► survived the stupid things our parents have done and you're exhausted and you make poor choices uh but

00:15:30 ◼   ► it's gonna be it's gonna be another choice and you're gonna make the right choice then and uh and i do think

00:15:36 ◼   ► when i don't know when they uh released your children from the hospital if you had to do this jason but

00:15:41 ◼   ► before they gave us our child um i know we have two children one got out before the other uh is they

00:15:48 ◼   ► had made us watch this video about don't shake your baby oh interesting and i thought to myself who would

00:15:55 ◼   ► would ever shake a baby and then i got a baby and i thought oh i see why you might shake a baby

00:16:04 ◼   ► don't that's a bad one don't do that don't do that don't don't don't and so that's my other advice

00:16:08 ◼   ► don't shake your don't shake your baby you can shake your booty but don't shake your baby got it

00:16:12 ◼   ► yes very good advice i don't know honestly i don't know if they showed us that video scott because

00:16:17 ◼   ► it's all a blur but um we had we did like a class before and stuff so i think we got i think we got

00:16:23 ◼   ► the lessons all right and that is fatherly advice possibly for the last time or maybe it'll be a

00:16:30 ◼   ► continuing segment where i just keep bugging mike or mike imparts advice the things that he's learned

00:16:35 ◼   ► to others maybe he's he's he's a father now he might have some advice it could be um all right well

00:16:40 ◼   ► we are going to move on to follow up i have a bunch of follow up uh first off i just want to mention

00:16:46 ◼   ► that i did the calculations we did a paternity draft we're going to resolve it next week when mike returns

00:16:51 ◼   ► assuming he's back next week um our tiebreaker was the total number of of minutes of upgrade episodes

00:16:58 ◼   ► released while mike was gone now the good news is for mike anyway that so many weird things happened

00:17:04 ◼   ► while he was gone in terms of what we drafted that he's going to win the draft like i'm spoiling

00:17:08 ◼   ► it right now he's going to win the draft uh i i guess i could make it more mysterious by saying

00:17:12 ◼   ► it's going to be taught it's not going to be tied but what i'm the point i'm making here is if it were

00:17:18 ◼   ► tied i looked at the tiebreaker and this episode would have to be about 44 minutes long uh so if it were

00:17:26 ◼   ► tied i would be thanking scott for being here goodbye scott i'd do a short episode and i'd win the draft

00:17:32 ◼   ► but uh it doesn't matter so we'll just do another one of these long guest episodes that we've been doing

00:17:37 ◼   ► all along so that's my paternity draft update i heard from some people about my fresno apple store

00:17:41 ◼   ► setup story mikhail wrote in and said i've never set up an iphone in the store why wouldn't you buy

00:17:48 ◼   ► the phone still in the box in the store and set it up at home when you are more comfortable okay

00:17:52 ◼   ► mikhail i in hindsight okay i gotta i gotta back this up when we're when we're uh 40 minutes outside of

00:18:02 ◼   ► fresno at my sister-in-law's house and they're talking about going to the apple store first off

00:18:07 ◼   ► it's just an idea for my mother-in-law and then my sister-in-law jumps in and says she could really

00:18:10 ◼   ► use a new phone too and i'm sitting there minding my own business drinking tea reading the paper whatever

00:18:15 ◼   ► i'm doing you know tapping around on my ipad and i am trying not to say anything like hoping maybe i

00:18:22 ◼   ► could dodge this right like man they'll think better of it and and then like and i'm not going to volunteer

00:18:27 ◼   ► i'm not going to jump up and say yeah let's do it let's go to the apple store because it's a three-day

00:18:31 ◼   ► weekend you know i want to help them but i also don't want to help them that much so uh we go i go

00:18:37 ◼   ► with them all right we're gonna do it um i'm still in that phase of mine though which is sort of like

00:18:43 ◼   ► i'm here to help them but i kind of want to just let them i don't know whether that's that i was trying

00:18:49 ◼   ► to be hands-off or whether that i wanted to kind of observe what a normal apple store interaction is

00:18:54 ◼   ► but as a result like i think in hindsight if i had been running the show i would have said let's

00:19:00 ◼   ► just sweep in get the phones get out of there and then i'll set them up back at my sister-in-law's

00:19:05 ◼   ► house um but i didn't do that and uh and then the transfers started to happen and there were lots of

00:19:14 ◼   ► mess up things with verizon and there was a lot going on there i was also concerned about my my mother-in-law's

00:19:20 ◼   ► phone being completely inoperable which it wasn't it turns out just had a very bad battery i i also

00:19:26 ◼   ► heard from one of my retail sources relating to this who explained apple always wants to offer the option

00:19:31 ◼   ► of walking out with your new phone up and running especially if you're doing a trade-in where you

00:19:34 ◼   ► don't want to have to come back to the store again but we always encourage the customer to take the phone

00:19:39 ◼   ► home and do it there because it's less of a strain on our staff the vast majority of our customers over the

00:19:44 ◼   ► the age of 40 have had ptsd from previous icloud backup restores going horribly wrong so they choose

00:19:50 ◼   ► to stay in our store to play it safe also i was disappointed that you were abandoned during the

00:19:54 ◼   ► verizon problem you should have been at a setup table where there was someone stationed there helping

00:19:58 ◼   ► everyone and moving around the table at all times uh whereas we had uh we sort of had somebody who then

00:20:04 ◼   ► left and they had to find them and bring them back or bring somebody else back so the point is

00:20:09 ◼   ► yes mikhail in hindsight the surgical strike technique to the apple store was the right one

00:20:15 ◼   ► but i was trying to let my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law kind of go through the process

00:20:21 ◼   ► being there to help rather than being like the guy who rolls into the apple store and says all right i

00:20:25 ◼   ► need two phones here we are let's gonna do i just sort of like wanted to let it happen and that led to

00:20:30 ◼   ► that moment where they're both calling for me across the store and i'm bouncing between them and all that

00:20:34 ◼   ► and it was like in hindsight it would have been less stressful for all concerned if except me maybe

00:20:41 ◼   ► if we just taken the boxes and go because then i back at home i would be there calling out like i need

00:20:45 ◼   ► you to enter your password and do you know your verizon pin and all of that anyway um you it's your

00:20:52 ◼   ► choice i think my the truth is my mother-in-law especially wanted to go through the process of

00:20:57 ◼   ► making sure her icloud backup worked and that her verizon got transferred and so she could go out

00:21:01 ◼   ► of the store with her phone functional and i understand that i think a lot of people that's

00:21:06 ◼   ► why they do it in the store and that's why as my retail store source said that's why they they uh

00:21:11 ◼   ► are open to that even though they are more than happy to just let you walk out with a box because

00:21:15 ◼   ► it means they don't have to waste their time oh man but going to the apple store is horrific

00:21:19 ◼   ► generally speaking i should say everyone who works at the apple store that i've interacted with

00:21:23 ◼   ► has been lovely yes i agree um but the experience of the apple store for me i have never had a very

00:21:31 ◼   ► good experience at an apple store uh even you know you have to so much like i go to the apple store to

00:21:37 ◼   ► buy something and i cannot find anyone to sell me something yeah like i have to my my wife marisa has

00:21:42 ◼   ► taken to raising her hand in the middle of the store interesting which is unusual and then some an apple a

00:21:48 ◼   ► concerned apple employee shows up and says can we help you and she says yeah i want to buy this cable or

00:21:52 ◼   ► whatever and then she gets and going and i know you can buy it on your phone yourself but i just feel

00:21:57 ◼   ► weird about that i know it is weird i have done that and i and then i walk out and i'm looking around to

00:22:01 ◼   ► see where the you know the secret camera is or the big guy who's gonna stop me if i if if i don't

00:22:06 ◼   ► verify but i like i like marisa in the most polite way has learned you just make a scene you just cause

00:22:12 ◼   ► trouble just cause trouble i'm sorry we'll say do you need to be helped can we help you crazy lady yes i

00:22:19 ◼   ► would like to give you money for this product yes like okay we can do that i one of the things that

00:22:24 ◼   ► i noticed at the apple store that um amused me and i can't do this at my local apple store because they

00:22:29 ◼   ► know who i am now they've spotted me um i didn't get spotted at the at the fresno apple store uh is i

00:22:36 ◼   ► really love the secret drawers on those tables have you noticed that they've got like there's the secret

00:22:40 ◼   ► drawer with watch watch bands and there's the secret drawer with with phone cases and there's the secret

00:22:45 ◼   ► door with money that was the one that made me laugh in fresno is there's a secret door with

00:22:49 ◼   ► cash in it i'm like first off who is who is going to the apple store and buying something with cash but

00:22:56 ◼   ► anyway if you are there is a cash register hidden you don't want any record of this light and those

00:23:01 ◼   ► yeah those special custom super expensive tables that have i guess they're super custom because they

00:23:06 ◼   ► need special secret they got secret and and they all like their key cards open them they all got like

00:23:10 ◼   ► nfc tabs on them that make them that's pretty fancy it's pretty wild um so we also got david smith was

00:23:18 ◼   ► on last week and we were talking about apple watch wireless failures you don't have an apple watch do

00:23:24 ◼   ► you scott or do you have an apple watch you have a you're a fitbit guy right i'm wearing both a fitbit

00:23:29 ◼   ► and an apple and an apple at this very moment amazing all right so you're doubly monitored i'm not an

00:23:34 ◼   ► insane person who goes running without his phone though ah okay well you see that that is my problem so

00:23:39 ◼   ► you've got you've got a fitbit and apple watch and a phone when you go running on my run yes amazing

00:23:43 ◼   ► all right well that's good it's look it's like weight training it's like a army guys running with

00:23:47 ◼   ► a backpack heavy backpack it's exactly kind of thing all right uh we talked about wireless failures ryan

00:23:54 ◼   ► wrote in and said i had this issue as well i found the best way to work around this is to turn off

00:23:58 ◼   ► bluetooth completely on your phone and then switch off wi-fi on your watch this will force your watch to

00:24:04 ◼   ► connect to lte and you'll get no audio cutout that's if you're using a cellular watch but yeah that's

00:24:08 ◼   ► the idea there i also heard from somebody who said if you uh you can set up an automation so

00:24:13 ◼   ► that when you start a workout it turns wi-fi off on the apple watch at that moment and that might work

00:24:18 ◼   ► that's clever i love these workarounds i'll just point out this shouldn't be a problem like that

00:24:21 ◼   ► the reason we mentioned it is because apple should not it should not do this like that's super weird

00:24:26 ◼   ► weaker you can fix it is not uh the the truly right answer we got anonymous feedback that said i've learned

00:24:32 ◼   ► when i go to the gym these some of these feedback items are amazing i need to turn off my iphone

00:24:37 ◼   ► while it's in a locker if i don't i have audio issues as i move from to machine to machine in the

00:24:42 ◼   ► gym if i happen to wander within bluetooth range of my phone i wish the workout out on the watch would

00:24:49 ◼   ► default all audio playback locally to the watch ryan wrote in and said i'm listening to you talk about

00:24:54 ◼   ► watch wi-fi range you remind me of a very frustrating experiment i did last year i use over

00:24:58 ◼   ► the ear noise cancellation headphones when i mowed the lawn last summer i tried on at least three

00:25:02 ◼   ► occasions to use my watch as a music or podcast source i kept having weird issues where audio

00:25:07 ◼   ► would drop or go out on one side or the other i started testing it and found it was occurring

00:25:12 ◼   ► when i went in and out of wi-fi range with my mower it was infuriating to discover and then chris

00:25:18 ◼   ► threw in uh it reminds this reminded me of an issue where i can't get directions in carplay if i'm in the

00:25:23 ◼   ► driveway to the stop sign because it is still seeing my wi-fi but can't quite get a signal

00:25:29 ◼   ► even though i have offline maps downloaded and i think a lot of us have experienced that if you're

00:25:33 ◼   ► pulling out of your driveway and you're not driving and you're sitting there with your phone and there

00:25:37 ◼   ► there's that like interim moment where it thinks it might get back on the wi-fi even though the wi-fi is

00:25:42 ◼   ► is already gone chief it's gone um and it is not yet willing to say all right it's i'm gonna stop

00:25:49 ◼   ► grieving my wi-fi and start using the cellular connection so apple has some wireless handoff

00:25:55 ◼   ► issues is what i'm saying scott sure does and more people are using their watch without their phone

00:25:59 ◼   ► than i anticipated because i feel like i never want to leave my phone anywhere i take it with me

00:26:03 ◼   ► everywhere i go i understand it i mean you also live in like a city where there's stuff i i'm i'm walking

00:26:10 ◼   ► the dogger running around a suburb neighborhood where there's no there's no stuff i mean i can pay for

00:26:15 ◼   ► stuff i i know that almost everywhere here i can pay for it with apple pay off my watch if i need to

00:26:20 ◼   ► and if my phone rings since it's cellular i i can get that call and i can get texts and i can do all

00:26:24 ◼   ► of those things i don't have a cellular one a cellular watch so that also that makes it it makes it a little

00:26:30 ◼   ► bit tougher case if you if you're completely out of contact when that's going on um anyway thank you for

00:26:36 ◼   ► that feedback uh and then uh there's more frenemy of the show griffin jones from cult of mac uh griffin

00:26:44 ◼   ► knows what he did i've upgraded him from enemy of the show to frenemy of the show now griffin's been

00:26:49 ◼   ► very helpful while still also potentially a foe uh griffin wrote i tested the ambient music feature

00:26:56 ◼   ► which we talked about last week on two phones one with an apple music subscription and one without so

00:27:01 ◼   ► this is really interesting on both each of the four moods have four different sub playlists but

00:27:06 ◼   ► the selections are entirely different for example chill has piano chill and ambient chill with apple

00:27:12 ◼   ► music but without it has laid back lo-fi and ambient unwind without it plays uncredited generic music with

00:27:19 ◼   ► generic artwork and there's a link to an article we'll put in the show notes about this so basically if you

00:27:25 ◼   ► use apple music your ambient modes are apple music playlists if you don't have apple music your

00:27:32 ◼   ► ambient modes are mysterious bespoke apple supplied things that might still be apple music playlists but

00:27:39 ◼   ► nobody can see them and they're just secret and licensed and apple's willing to pay whatever it's

00:27:44 ◼   ► paying for those uh even if you don't pay for apple music but they're probably substandard they

00:27:48 ◼   ► probably tell you it's like they're not good they're they're the bad ambient music i don't know they're

00:27:53 ◼   ► they're generated by apple intelligence maybe that's where all the work has gone i hope not generating

00:27:57 ◼   ► those i hope not uh but thank you to griffin uh upgraded to frenemy you know maybe a friend of

00:28:04 ◼   ► the show eventually we'll see uh tariffs i have some follow-up about tariffs uh we talked about tariffs a

00:28:13 ◼   ► little bit even though david and i didn't want to then then they changed then they might be different but

00:28:19 ◼   ► not gone and would still be over china but maybe not other places and then there was a 90-day

00:28:23 ◼   ► extension but then over the weekend the treasury secretary said they were going to come back

00:28:27 ◼   ► i don't really i mean i don't want to waste anybody's time because this will just keep changing

00:28:34 ◼   ► other than to say that there were a couple good articles last week uh especially a 404 media article

00:28:40 ◼   ► that goes into great detail about why they you're never going to make an iphone in the united states

00:28:45 ◼   ► has to do with the supply chain has to do with the inability uh to build factories has to do with

00:28:51 ◼   ► the lack of uh workers who know how to run that equipment the the fact that you would have to import

00:28:58 ◼   ► the equipment and the imports are also tariffed uh there's so many reasons and if you just look at what

00:29:03 ◼   ► tsmc has tried to do in phoenix with their american chip plant like they basically had to bring in a whole

00:29:09 ◼   ► bunch of people from taiwan because they needed workers and there are american workers in that plant

00:29:14 ◼   ► but we don't have the workforce uh and the training of the workforce to do that sort of job plus most

00:29:21 ◼   ► americans don't want factory jobs they want factories back in the us but they don't want to actually work

00:29:27 ◼   ► at a factory so um i don't know when i wrote my macworld column last week i said one of the top maybe the

00:29:34 ◼   ► number one thing and i think i mentioned it here that apple could do is um work the refs is is is

00:29:40 ◼   ► talk to the people in the white house and get them to do things that are favorable for apple and i still

00:29:43 ◼   ► think that's the case i thought that was the case when they announced that smartphones were going to be

00:29:48 ◼   ► and chips were going to be uh exempted and then the treasury secretary said only for a little while and

00:29:54 ◼   ► then maybe they'll come back nobody knows what's going on everybody like just look at the stock

00:30:01 ◼   ► market like it's a roller coaster and go that's my advice oh man yeah i think nobody knows what's going

00:30:09 ◼   ► on not even the people who are making these decisions no seem to know what's going on which

00:30:12 ◼   ► is the most uh terrifying part yeah it is a little bit disturbing in fact perhaps more than a little bit

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00:31:28 ◼   ► great it made my house smelled like pulled chicken with bacon all afternoon it was kind of pleasant and

00:31:32 ◼   ► smoky and nice and uh but i will say many of my factor meals are not uh eaten by me because my wife

00:31:40 ◼   ► goes to the library every day to do her job and she takes the meals with her and let me tell you uh

00:31:46 ◼   ► most of the podcast stuff that gets into the house she just looks at and goes i'm not forget it no not

00:31:51 ◼   ► interested and instead she tried a factor meal and now she steals my factor meals i was listening scott

00:31:55 ◼   ► i was listening to a podcast the other day and some uh buddy was reading a factor ad and they said

00:32:00 ◼   ► you know my wife takes the factor meals with with her to work and i thought hey wait that's my bit

00:32:05 ◼   ► what are you doing is that part of the copy jason is everyone you know everybody's mad at i think it was

00:32:10 ◼   ► the flop house they're like oh everybody i guess everybody they're so good that they don't stay in

00:32:15 ◼   ► the fridge that's my point and i'll also mention that we were worried about my mom's nutrition and we

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00:32:45 ◼   ► on your first box thank you to factor for supporting upgrade scott it is now rumor roundup time

00:32:53 ◼   ► yeehaw thank you that is the level of excitement that i expected

00:32:57 ◼   ► um over at the information wayne ma did a big story last week called how apple fumbled series

00:33:07 ◼   ► ai makeover um it is a tale of years of indecision and frustration it turns out while the users were

00:33:15 ◼   ► frustrated on the outside people at apple were frustrated on the inside and this is the thing that

00:33:20 ◼   ► i know sometimes we talk about things apple does and people go uh how could apple not be upset with

00:33:26 ◼   ► this thing and what i always try to say is oh there are people who are in the know who are inside

00:33:31 ◼   ► apple who are also upset about this thing but and yet somehow it it keeps happening it portrays

00:33:37 ◼   ► uh john gian andrea uh head of uh machine learning at apple and siri head robbie walker as complacent and

00:33:46 ◼   ► tentative and very conservative with their decision making walker reportedly spent a lot of time

00:33:52 ◼   ► on small wins like reducing response times by a few percentage points and getting so that you didn't have

00:34:00 ◼   ► to say hey before the trigger word rather than the perhaps systemic larger issues many other apple employees

00:34:08 ◼   ► outside the ai ml group artificial intelligence machine learning uh felt that the people in the

00:34:14 ◼   ► group were paid more got promotions faster and worked less uh leading many of them to start referring to

00:34:21 ◼   ► the ai ml group as aimless i see what they did there that's an apple burn uh and gian andrea when he came in

00:34:31 ◼   ► did not reorg siri when he was hired he didn't think it needed a reset and in the in i think scott the

00:34:38 ◼   ► best example of the portrayal of a company in deep dysfunction there were two separate ai teams the

00:34:46 ◼   ► ai ml team under john g and andrea and intelligence systems under craig federighi because that only happens

00:34:54 ◼   ► it's a it's either a turf war or one side is frustrated with the other side and how you allow

00:35:00 ◼   ► that to continue to go on uh very clearly the the os group under craig federighi the software group was

00:35:06 ◼   ► like we're not getting what we want we'll build our own intelligent systems group they'll never know

00:35:11 ◼   ► they'll never know if we call it intelligent systems they won't break the code it just i mean

00:35:18 ◼   ► that's the one scott that's the one where i just shook my head and i was like that is that is really

00:35:23 ◼   ► dysfunctional when you've got two separate warring factions inside different divisions inside apple

00:35:29 ◼   ► that's not good no and i don't know i have no insider knowledge so i should say this uh but this this

00:35:35 ◼   ► reads to me like um this might be you know for a long time ai was not a thing until it was right and

00:35:43 ◼   ► that's not a huge revelation um but all these companies were looking into it because they knew

00:35:48 ◼   ► something was there right and we could use and apple's been using machine learning for a whole

00:35:52 ◼   ► bunch of stuff for a long time uh so it's natural that they'd be searching and and looking into it

00:35:57 ◼   ► right in google and microsoft they've all been doing that and then open ai comes along and says this is

00:36:01 ◼   ► the next this is the greatest thing it's going to reinvent everything everybody's like omg we need we

00:36:07 ◼   ► have some of that let's let's just put that in a thing right because we don't want to be left out

00:36:12 ◼   ► we have it too uh and we didn't think it was good enough but open ai said it's fine and everybody

00:36:18 ◼   ► else pretty much said i'm okay if it just makes up stuff mostly uh and so i feel like this is a perhaps

00:36:25 ◼   ► uh uh an issue where a research project suddenly becomes like the most critical thing that you need

00:36:34 ◼   ► to get into everything no matter what and then you get all this kind of dysfunction and i was like well

00:36:40 ◼   ► it's fine it's interesting let's you know let them do their own thing and then people are like

00:36:44 ◼   ► whoa whoa we can't have that group of people doing stuff like this is this now matters we need to take

00:36:48 ◼   ► it over uh that's what it feels like to me yeah i think you i think you have nailed it actually that's

00:36:54 ◼   ► exactly what i feel is that i get the i get the real sense that john jan andrea is a very kind of

00:37:03 ◼   ► almost professorly research kind of guy where it's like big thoughts deep thoughts about machine learning

00:37:12 ◼   ► and that might lead into him scoffing at llms for you know not being good enough and being kind of dumb

00:37:20 ◼   ► and making lots of mistakes which is all true right um but you end up at that point i think you you underscored

00:37:28 ◼   ► it there the idea that suddenly this is an important like tactical product that needs to ship and the

00:37:36 ◼   ► sense i get anyway is that that group was not so much about the let's move fast and ship products as

00:37:45 ◼   ► let's think deep thoughts about the right way to do something which is probably why that other group was put

00:37:50 ◼   ► in place in the os uh group under fake craig federighi because those people have to ship

00:37:57 ◼   ► like those that's their job is to ship uh os updates so um it's still dysfunctional but i understand

00:38:04 ◼   ► i can understand why in the sense that it went from being just a research project with occasional spin

00:38:09 ◼   ► outs to do like photos well let's upgrade how photos uh recognizes faces and things like that

00:38:14 ◼   ► into being uh no we need to do a sprint to get a product out there and in some ways you could say

00:38:20 ◼   ► it was almost inevitable that moment where everything changed was going to uh be kind of cataclysmic for

00:38:27 ◼   ► some of the people working inside apple because you know if you're if if you're not built to shift into

00:38:33 ◼   ► high gear you can't do it and somebody else is gonna have to do it right and the article spends a lot

00:38:39 ◼   ► of time kind of bemoaning his management style about being like he's not as type a or or confrontation

00:38:44 ◼   ► all as the rest of the apple executives which made me think i don't want to work for those

00:38:48 ◼   ► executives but that's that's enough they're very successful so who am i to judge um but i feel like

00:38:53 ◼   ► i imagine now jason i've never applied for a job at apple but i assume at a certain level and it may

00:38:59 ◼   ► be even a low level it's very difficult to get a job at apple and there's a lot of uh you know they

00:39:04 ◼   ► interview and and kind of feel even at a low level yep exactly as they do even at a low level you have

00:39:10 ◼   ► an interview to work at apple um but i think they try to get a sense of your management style so this

00:39:15 ◼   ► this could not have been a surprise when they hired um this guy to do this yeah and i think his job

00:39:21 ◼   ► changed as the market changed yeah and he is not the right person to do the new job possibly like i

00:39:27 ◼   ► don't know according to this article certainly right he's not the right person to deliver this and

00:39:32 ◼   ► it makes me think of it might explain why he's been sort of like he continues on in this role but

00:39:39 ◼   ► this thing has been taken away from him is it seems to me like like look that could be window dressing and

00:39:43 ◼   ► he could be on his way out but it's also that they could have just said functionally you're going to go

00:39:48 ◼   ► back to doing what you did before we're not going to make you ship products we want you to do r&d

00:39:54 ◼   ► about the future of ai and machine learning and you and your team of people with like uh

00:39:59 ◼   ► patches on their sleeves and stuff like that wood paneled yeah you can still do your kind of more

00:40:06 ◼   ► academic publish your white papers um r&d stuff over there but over here the house is on fire and we

00:40:13 ◼   ► got a ship and and there's i think that function is important because it gives apple cache amongst the

00:40:21 ◼   ► super smart nerds that are interested in this and people you'd want to hire to make the products

00:40:25 ◼   ► uh or to investigate the the future of it right so you want to you want to have that group doing this

00:40:32 ◼   ► stuff but it can't be the same people who would then turn it into a product because it's just not

00:40:36 ◼   ► the way they think and it wouldn't be how you'd want them to think frankly yeah would you want

00:40:40 ◼   ► one of the professors at your institute institution to be placed in charge of shipping a product maybe you

00:40:47 ◼   ► shouldn't answer that question because you've got an employer i i do professors have a certain

00:40:51 ◼   ► mindset could we say that professors have a very important skill set and managing people is generally

00:40:58 ◼   ► outside of that skill set uh because they're thinking about other things and and they have

00:41:03 ◼   ► a particular and i want to not all professors are the same not all academics are the same but

00:41:08 ◼   ► generally they are interested in one particular thing and they just want to think about that thing and

00:41:14 ◼   ► they don't want to think about the hr paperwork or the deadline like what what deadline it's not

00:41:18 ◼   ► done yet we're not going to ship it exactly that's not that is not a right answer when you are a

00:41:23 ◼   ► company trying to sell a phone that needs to have ai in it that's that's exactly right i also think um

00:41:29 ◼   ► this other data point that that struck me was the managers were told they couldn't use models from

00:41:34 ◼   ► outside companies in apple products and that i understand it on the level of you look at some

00:41:39 ◼   ► of the output coming from some of those you know llms and you think oh that's that's bad and yet they're

00:41:45 ◼   ► taking the world by storm and people are using them and are are more forgiving and i can see somebody at apple

00:41:50 ◼   ► in general but i can also see an a more academic ai person scoff at that and say no no no no we're gonna

00:41:58 ◼   ► we're going to build our own models and they're going to be held to a higher standard i can see

00:42:02 ◼   ► that that is though that is not invented here syndrome and apparently according to the information

00:42:08 ◼   ► craig federighi has reversed that decision um there was interesting speculation that um that federico

00:42:14 ◼   ► vatici made over the late last week uh where he said uh he wondered if what that meant was not

00:42:20 ◼   ► necessarily that apple would have other companies models running on the iphone but that they might use

00:42:25 ◼   ► other companies models to help direct their um their training of models which is a possibility

00:42:32 ◼   ► um also i mean a lot of us who have tried these various features have said when you can get siri to

00:42:38 ◼   ► go to chat gpt everything does start to work better and most of my frustrations with siri over the last

00:42:44 ◼   ► year have been or at least since they enabled the chat gpt stuff has been when siri takes a query that is very

00:42:51 ◼   ► clearly for uh chat gpt uh i haven't said it but like it's clearly an answer chat gpt can give and

00:42:58 ◼   ► occasionally siri will be like no no no no no i got this one and then gives me the wrong answer

00:43:03 ◼   ► um so i wonder how they will how they will handle all of that also speaking of dysfunction i wanted to

00:43:09 ◼   ► mention the siri team apparently hadn't actually seen those features that have now been delayed before

00:43:14 ◼   ► they appeared at wwdc they're like what that's great what now say what now and that that left

00:43:20 ◼   ► un unanswered in this story is who exactly decided that even though those things kind of didn't exist

00:43:28 ◼   ► they were going to be animated and acted out and put in wwdc's keynote um because that is part of the

00:43:36 ◼   ► fault here is deciding those things or decreeing the you know the reality even though reality does not

00:43:43 ◼   ► match um not great not great no really good demos though or not even demos whatever they were whatever

00:43:50 ◼   ► videos videos amazing videos some of the promised apple intelligence features

00:43:57 ◼   ► are uh apparently coming this fall according to uh trip mickle my favorite apple reporter at the new

00:44:05 ◼   ► york times turns out he wrote a whole story about apple losing its way again it's his it's his thing

00:44:12 ◼   ► what's wrong with apple it's his thing it seems to be he thinks what's wrong with apple is they uh

00:44:17 ◼   ► are selling a super successful product but haven't uh made one that's equally successful right also they

00:44:23 ◼   ► don't listen to the designers anymore that's what my understanding is that you just need to listen to the

00:44:26 ◼   ► designers more that's that's what led to that gold apple watch and the and the vision pro perfect listen

00:44:32 ◼   ► to him more i am very clearly not on not on his side and not on their side but i will say this uh in there

00:44:39 ◼   ► he says they haven't canceled the revamped siri of course not they plan to release a virtual assistant

00:44:44 ◼   ► in the fall capable of doing things like editing and sending a photo to a friend on request

00:44:49 ◼   ► three people with knowledge of the plan said so that means that at least they are planning

00:44:53 ◼   ► in the fall not like sometime next year to bring those missing features like personal

00:44:58 ◼   ► context on-screen awareness and app integration we'll see if they let's see how it works out for

00:45:03 ◼   ► them but it's a it's a tidbit from trip mickle so i'm gonna put it in there um the the sheriff of the

00:45:10 ◼   ► rumor roundup mark german in his newsletter over the weekend had a little bit about the new plan for vision

00:45:17 ◼   ► pro um this has been a question is like what does apple do next with the vision pro and he says they

00:45:24 ◼   ► are working they have now decided to work on making a model that makes the headset both lighter and

00:45:29 ◼   ► cheaper i read this and i was like okay like yeah yeah he has previously reported that no no it will only be

00:45:39 ◼   ► lighter or no no it will only be cheaper and this time he's like hey what if it were both and like

00:45:47 ◼   ► clearly the two worst things about the vision pro are its price and the fact that it is uncomfortable

00:45:53 ◼   ► to wear for long periods of time for a lot of people and that they probably put things in it to make it

00:45:58 ◼   ► heavier that are not necessary or to make it more expensive that are not necessary and you can learn from

00:46:04 ◼   ► having that product out in the world and make a version that addresses if not completely addresses

00:46:09 ◼   ► both of those issues you make it a little lighter you make it a little cheaper it will be a little

00:46:13 ◼   ► bit better so good yeah i mean i hope it's a lot cheaper uh but yeah i don't know if they can make

00:46:21 ◼   ► it a lot cheaper right out of the gate but they but like if they keep pushing eventually they can make

00:46:26 ◼   ► one that's but like even a little bit cheaper i i've said this a lot but like at 3500 you will get

00:46:31 ◼   ► some people if you could offer like live nba games from courtside who would be like sure i'll do that

00:46:35 ◼   ► at 2000 you'll get way more of them not as many as at 1000 but again it's like a process it's just a

00:46:42 ◼   ► process to get it down there also he reports apple is still working on a vision pro he said they killed

00:46:48 ◼   ► something that was a ar glasses that tethered to a mac um which like so you can have the freedom of

00:46:54 ◼   ► ar glasses but a tether to a mac but have a mac attached to you yeah you could walk around your

00:46:59 ◼   ► neighborhood holding a laptop in front of you maybe i don't know i never understood that report

00:47:04 ◼   ► at all it sounded very much like a skunk works project but now they said well it'll be a vision

00:47:09 ◼   ► pro that plugs into a mac which i still i'm wondering like is that a separate product to the vision pro it's

00:47:15 ◼   ► something that's like lighter apparently but if it's a vision pro or ar glasses or vr a vr set i i don't

00:47:22 ◼   ► understand uh quite what this means but he i think he feels the need to follow up on his various

00:47:28 ◼   ► tethered glasses reportage with this one well i mean i guess they want to have well i don't really

00:47:35 ◼   ► know apple wants with the whole vision pro and i should say i've never used the vision pro so i have

00:47:39 ◼   ► no opinions about it as a product but um i imagine they want to have different flavors for people like

00:47:47 ◼   ► different steps as they do in their other product lineups right so you want to have the one you get

00:47:50 ◼   ► the cheap one that just plugs into your mac and uh x is a i guess the main thing would be it'd be a

00:47:56 ◼   ► big fancy display you have virtual display things thing um maybe because that was the latency issue

00:48:01 ◼   ► right and so uh and i guess he mentions uh like medical uses and things like that where they want

00:48:08 ◼   ► light latency uh low latency right so they want to wire a tethered connection so that they don't have any

00:48:13 ◼   ► network hiccups during surgery which which makes sense to me yeah so it does seem to me though that

00:48:17 ◼   ► it would be like a graduated kind of these are features for one product so you would get the one

00:48:22 ◼   ► that only tethers then you could upgrade to one that doesn't have to tether but can tether it would be

00:48:27 ◼   ► weird to me that if there was a tethering option you would buy a more expensive one that can't tether at

00:48:34 ◼   ► all well this is this is why i think what he's talking about here is things that they're exploring that

00:48:38 ◼   ► aren't products yet the making one cheaper and lighter again not really much of a report it's

00:48:44 ◼   ► like yeah uh-huh but uh that is the thing you would do to make a final product that you could ship but

00:48:49 ◼   ► in general it just sounds like these are the things they're exploring and like one of the applications

00:48:54 ◼   ► is what if we could make something that was presumably cheaper and lighter because it wasn't

00:48:57 ◼   ► doing on board as much on board because it was attached to a mac but it enabled you know applications

00:49:05 ◼   ► in medical and maybe applications for developers or for other people who are using it as a as a

00:49:10 ◼   ► virtual display as the primary feature sounds like they're exploring it the tidbit that i thought that

00:49:15 ◼   ► was most interesting in the whole german piece was that tim cook has this at the top of his priority list

00:49:21 ◼   ► because he and and you could look at that and say well but the iphone should be at the top like the iphone is

00:49:27 ◼   ► doing okay um he wants to beat meta to the real ar glasses and this has been the case this is why this

00:49:33 ◼   ► project exists is that apple doesn't want the iphone essentially to be replaced by a thing you just wear

00:49:40 ◼   ► like glasses that does everything an iphone does and more and just sits on your face because that's the

00:49:46 ◼   ► thing that might kill the iphone and that's where all their money is and that's not happening in the next

00:49:52 ◼   ► five years not really and and i think for it to be a product as broad as the smartphone it's probably

00:49:57 ◼   ► more like 15 years away but if you're tim cook and you got all the money you say let's just keep pushing

00:50:03 ◼   ► because there's nobody else doing this other than meta and the last thing we want is facebook to own

00:50:08 ◼   ► the future so keep working on it um and and i think that's i don't have a problem with this being a

00:50:16 ◼   ► a top product priority of his as long as we all agree it's a long i mean it's long game stuff it's

00:50:21 ◼   ► decade away stuff it's it's after tim cook is no longer ceo of apple kind of stuff in fact he's just

00:50:28 ◼   ► trying to push it forward and get it closer to reality and the thing that makes it so interesting

00:50:34 ◼   ► to me this quote is so tim cook's top priority are these fancy ar glasses which i understand as someone

00:50:40 ◼   ► who wears glasses i would like my glasses to do more for me than help me see which is a fundamental

00:50:46 ◼   ► thing and a good bonus so i say thank you glasses um but it's interesting to me that they end up with

00:50:51 ◼   ► something called with the vision pro as a starting point when you want to get to ar glasses it seems

00:50:56 ◼   ► like an interesting kind of entry into it because it's they are similar products but they do they're so

00:51:03 ◼   ► fundamentally different that i don't i don't really understand how you end up with a vision pro if you're

00:51:08 ◼   ► trying to get ar my understanding is that the ar stuff is just not it's just not ready enough and

00:51:13 ◼   ► you need so much computer hardware and that's why i mean this is why the the vision pro has passed

00:51:18 ◼   ► through and has all those cameras on the front is it's pretending to be an ar device but it's not

00:51:24 ◼   ► because it can't be so and that i'm glad you brought this up because i think vision pro is

00:51:29 ◼   ► definitely apple's attempt to start making a big clunky version of what they want to make in 10 years

00:51:34 ◼   ► the other part of this and meta is already experimenting there is what can we do in a

00:51:39 ◼   ► glasses shape what can we do up there and the answer is it's got to be super lightweight it's

00:51:44 ◼   ► tethered to a phone but it's got a camera it's got speakers it's got a microphone and it's it it's the

00:51:49 ◼   ► meta ray-bans glasses and and german also mentions that apple is still working on

00:51:54 ◼   ► glasses with camera and microphone like meta now mike and i talked about this uh earlier this year and

00:52:01 ◼   ► we're talking about how i think what i said is uh can is apple capable of maybe like making a

00:52:07 ◼   ► uh a product in a year or is everything a five-year plan for them now and like i feel like meta beat

00:52:14 ◼   ► them out with this product and that it's it's essentially air pods in a glasses shape and they

00:52:18 ◼   ► have all the pieces here and they should just crash course make this product because i think it's a great

00:52:23 ◼   ► idea to add to apple's list of things now they got to make their siri better and all of that totally

00:52:29 ◼   ► true but but um that's a larger problem with everything that they've got um what troubles me

00:52:35 ◼   ► is german's report says the company is actively debating whether it will allow the glasses to

00:52:40 ◼   ► capture media like competing models and this first off i i feel like this is one of the great dangers

00:52:47 ◼   ► of apple right now we said it before about the ai stuff and i think it's here which is apple says no

00:52:52 ◼   ► no no no no no no we hold ourselves to a higher standard but it really is sort of like you know

00:52:59 ◼   ► it's not invented here we don't trust facebook we're gonna we're we don't people don't want cameras in

00:53:04 ◼   ► their glasses because they'll feel surveilled and it's like well no people want cameras in their glasses

00:53:09 ◼   ► because then your your phone can say oh there's this thing ahead of you i know where you are

00:53:14 ◼   ► um and and not to be too cynical here but feels like the horse is out of the barn folks like

00:53:20 ◼   ► the the google glass moment when everybody was like really offended that people were walking around

00:53:25 ◼   ► with cameras something happened between then and the meta ray bands because i'm sorry if you're not but

00:53:32 ◼   ► i'm gonna say generally people are over it like we live in a society with cameras everywhere and

00:53:40 ◼   ► especially if the goal is not surreptitious photography but sort of assisted uh you know

00:53:47 ◼   ► photography when you want it but also just like ai assisted information gathering um it's a great

00:53:53 ◼   ► accessibility story there's so many interesting things about it and to say well there's a hot product

00:53:58 ◼   ► out there from our arch rival in this category but we're not sure we feel comfortable making that

00:54:04 ◼   ► product like what are you doing well it reads to me like you know it's it's shrouded in the privacy

00:54:09 ◼   ► thing which i know apple uh prides itself on on valuing privacy um but it also reads to me like well

00:54:17 ◼   ► we've got this iphone and it has a really good camera on it do we want to compete with ourselves like

00:54:22 ◼   ► the iphone is what what we are selling people uh and even though this is kind of trying to future

00:54:28 ◼   ► proof it and maybe iphones turn into glasses and nobody has phones anymore and everyone has smart

00:54:33 ◼   ► glasses uh in 10 to 15 years we're living in the now so do we want to compete with the

00:54:39 ◼   ► our own selves on that hmm yeah i i sometimes i think that the story of apple right now is that

00:54:46 ◼   ► there are too often letting um perfect be the enemy of the good or the great they're just it's just not

00:54:52 ◼   ► up to our standards like in some categories um i don't know i don't want to say lower your standards

00:54:58 ◼   ► but in some categories it's like compete you need to compete what are you doing yeah i mean if open ai

00:55:04 ◼   ► has taught us anything people will put up with a lot a lot of garbage yeah yeah a lot of garbage to get

00:55:09 ◼   ► because there are those moments when you're using any of these ai tools these llms where you are amazed at

00:55:15 ◼   ► what it does and it kind of shields the fact that it has completely made up you know i asked it about

00:55:21 ◼   ► a book and it just like to to make a summary of a book that i'd read and it just completely made up

00:55:26 ◼   ► the story i asked if if there was a sequel to a movie and it invented the sequel and all of its cast

00:55:34 ◼   ► which is amazing not what you want but it's amazing i think it was google that i asked that

00:55:39 ◼   ► of because you would expect a google search to find truth but it instead made up things yeah and and

00:55:44 ◼   ► that's the point is i know apple wants to be better than that but also that is the that is

00:55:48 ◼   ► what they're competing with and if you there is something to be said for entering that space and then

00:55:54 ◼   ► with a product that's kind of like shaky but gets better because and which is what open ai is

00:55:59 ◼   ► doing because the alternative is you're not in that space and by the time you get there with something

00:56:03 ◼   ► that's better it's too late it's gone they they walked away with it and that's a difficult decision

00:56:09 ◼   ► if you're inside apple but i i think that a lot of that um ai story is about the um forces of shipping

00:56:17 ◼   ► products against the forces of uh a little more academic research we hold ourselves to a higher

00:56:23 ◼   ► standard kind of thing and it's an interesting interesting to see how it plays out i have one

00:56:27 ◼   ► more piece of rumor roundup i wanted to throw in there mark german mentions ipad os 19 he says the big

00:56:32 ◼   ► theme a big theme of wwdc will be ipad os which i find strange on the face he said it will focus on

00:56:40 ◼   ► productivity multitasking and app window management with an eye on the device operating more like a mac

00:56:46 ◼   ► that is literally it that's all he says i don't know what this means um i i fear that it means

00:56:54 ◼   ► they're gonna keep tweaking stage manager um and the prop like great okay i i think that a

00:57:01 ◼   ► a lot of people who use the ipad would say that multitasking and window management

00:57:05 ◼   ► is not the best productivity i don't know what focus on productivity means does that mean like

00:57:10 ◼   ► you'll be able to let an app run in the background and it won't auto quit and you can export a video

00:57:14 ◼   ► from final cut without leaving it open in the foreground like you're using a mac in you know system seven

00:57:21 ◼   ► uh i don't know but what i want to say about this report is it's the software like it's the software

00:57:29 ◼   ► is the problem it's the software moving a window around on the screen is not the problem with the

00:57:34 ◼   ► ipad it's what's in the window and what can the app that's in the window do for you and that is where

00:57:40 ◼   ► everything on the ipad is so incredibly limited and that is by apple's choice so i i as a somebody

00:57:47 ◼   ► who uses an ipad all the time i i look at the improved productivity multitasking and app window

00:57:53 ◼   ► management and like awesome thumbs up great and yet part of me is like feels like they're rearranging the

00:57:59 ◼   ► deck chairs again like like because i don't think any of this solves a root problem with the ipad

00:58:06 ◼   ► that apple seems unwilling to solve instead they're like oh oh you don't like that we don't offer all

00:58:11 ◼   ► these different apps and all this functionality but you can move your windows better now is not i i just

00:58:16 ◼   ► don't see it that's why i don't use my ipad moving my windows around very difficult oh yeah uh

00:58:22 ◼   ► almost impossible i was thinking about this because the ipad is really like an in-between

00:58:26 ◼   ► product right you've got your iphone and you've got your mac and then in between it is your ipad uh

00:58:32 ◼   ► or i'll speak for myself that's what how it feels for me right because i'm sitting at my mac studio

00:58:36 ◼   ► right now if i want to do real real stuff i come in here and i use my mac studio if i'm just surfing

00:58:43 ◼   ► the web or whatever uh writing something like i've even written long kind of little essays on my iphone

00:58:49 ◼   ► because it's right there it's easy to hold i know how to use it it does everything i want

00:58:53 ◼   ► and then then i think oh wait if i'm gonna write this thing why don't i use my ipad i can sit on

00:58:58 ◼   ► the couch i have the keyboard thing it'll be great uh and it is it is it is a great product and i like

00:59:04 ◼   ► it but if tomorrow the ipad were to disappear i don't think i would miss it i would for my phone

00:59:13 ◼   ► i would miss it only in the sense that i really like the the reason that i've gravitated more to

00:59:20 ◼   ► the ipad is i like not having a whole laptop with a keyboard sitting on my lap when i'm watching tv

00:59:25 ◼   ► or when i'm in bed in the morning drinking some tea and and scrolling through stuff like it's nice but

00:59:33 ◼   ► that could be solved this is the other one of the great mysteries here is that there's this rumor that

00:59:36 ◼   ► there's a a giant foldable ipad or something that apple is working on that looks like a laptop but

00:59:42 ◼   ► sort of not and none of us can have decoded whether that's really an ipad or it's a mac or it's some

00:59:48 ◼   ► weird conversion of them and it's like you know what if i could take my macbook pro and pop the screen

00:59:54 ◼   ► off into and have it be functional as sort of like an ipad then then yes i wouldn't miss my ipad at all

01:00:01 ◼   ► because it's really about that more than anything else is the ergonomics of it it's true and this

01:00:06 ◼   ► what is it the surface book i don't know if they still make the surface books that had the detachable

01:00:10 ◼   ► screens but that was a pretty cool i mean windows on a tablet not great yeah it's not not good but

01:00:16 ◼   ► but yes good design convertible pcs do this sort of thing and it's not great but it's that same and

01:00:21 ◼   ► apple is sort of steadfastly refused and that leads us to these the same thing which is okay there's

01:00:27 ◼   ► a mac over there and an ipad over there and you know they don't want to make the ipad a mac but

01:00:31 ◼   ► that means that the ipad just doesn't do all this stuff so okay but they sell a but they sell an ipad

01:00:36 ◼   ► pro for you know thousands of dollars so what is happening and for me i think what i want is less a

01:00:44 ◼   ► foldable ipad but a foldable iphone that can turn into an ipad mini or whatever you would that is the

01:00:51 ◼   ► rumor that i know and i'm excited about that i like i love the ipad yeah it'll cost way more than both of

01:00:57 ◼   ► them put together but they won't be you can't put them both together uh tape you can duct tape them

01:01:03 ◼   ► yeah i know but the idea that you've got you've got your phone when you're roaming around and then

01:01:06 ◼   ► you pull it out and you go bloop and fold it open and it's an ipad mini and i was i was skeptical of

01:01:14 ◼   ► the foldables but i found myself um in the xfinity store uh uh uh i don't like the apple store uh i don't

01:01:21 ◼   ► like the xfinity store either but they were also very helpful um although they may i was trying to

01:01:27 ◼   ► unlock a phone so i could give it to my mother-in-law and it shouldn't have been locked and they were

01:01:31 ◼   ► couldn't figure out why it was mother-in-laws what's the deal i know uh and so they maybe do an annoying

01:01:36 ◼   ► thing where they said okay it's not on the latest version of ios so maybe that's the problem and i thought

01:01:42 ◼   ► to myself that is not the problem but uh i will update it in this xfinity store uh and it took forever

01:01:48 ◼   ► and so i had a lot of time to just wander around um uh long story short it didn't work uh and i think

01:01:53 ◼   ► what happened was someone just wrote typed in the wrong um id in their system uh because they someone

01:01:59 ◼   ► came over and was like oh it should work later and i was like hmm yeah sure anyway it gave me an

01:02:03 ◼   ► opportunity to try they had a whole bunch of foldable phones there and i'd never actually used

01:02:08 ◼   ► one um it was more of a like i was i was lusting from afar but now that i've used one i can see the

01:02:14 ◼   ► drawbacks the fold and all that stuff the the bend in it is not great so i can see why apple

01:02:19 ◼   ► isn't rushing to do it but i gotta say it's pretty sweet to have this little phone that then folds out

01:02:24 ◼   ► into an ipad-ish size yeah um i can see the allure uh and it made me think i i for a moment i thought

01:02:32 ◼   ► well maybe i could switch to an android and then i thought i don't think so yeah yeah i i yeah i'm with

01:02:39 ◼   ► you there well that is rumor roundup we've rounded it up scott we did it i'm a real cowboy now yep

01:02:47 ◼   ► this episode of upgrade is brought to you by fitbod when you want to change your fitness level it can

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01:03:15 ◼   ► which are all stored in your fitbod gym profile scott when i was in college i worked at the newspaper

01:03:22 ◼   ► and they took a picture it was like a gulf war protest so i'm dating myself but everybody already knows

01:03:26 ◼   ► my age um and uh i was covering it for the local paper but i got in the la times a photograph of the

01:03:34 ◼   ► of it because i was sort of you know walking backward in front of the protest uh taking pictures and and

01:03:39 ◼   ► talking to people and uh the reason that i bring this up now is that uh fitbod just said your unique body

01:03:45 ◼   ► and uh the it it appeared in the paper and a woman who was a photographer at the on staff at the college

01:03:52 ◼   ► paper said oh i knew that was jason because of his unique body type oh isn't that sweet i i don't know

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01:04:18 ◼   ► the right way thanks to a thousand demonstration videos oh those are very helpful i like to learn with

01:04:22 ◼   ► the videos because they're like to describe things that i could do to move my body and i go i don't even

01:04:27 ◼   ► know the words you're using or how i would move my body there and then like do this thing i'm like oh

01:04:31 ◼   ► okay i could do that thing muscles improve when working in concert with the entire muscular system

01:04:36 ◼   ► so overworking some muscles while underworking others it's bad it's bad my physical therapist

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01:05:31 ◼   ► membership thank you to fitbod for supporting upgrade scott we promised and now we deliver

01:05:40 ◼   ► that's right i promised this we i talked to mike about this before he went on leave he said jason if i have

01:05:47 ◼   ► one request it's that the last segment before i return be you talking to scott about e-readers

01:05:54 ◼   ► because then nobody will say you know i wish mike hadn't come back and that the show was just about

01:06:00 ◼   ► e-readers now great that's that's the function i provide when someone is absent they say let's get

01:06:07 ◼   ► scott in here at the last minute too people like please come back a contrast yes it's uh it's true we

01:06:15 ◼   ► haven't had that many people write in week by week but there's always somebody who's like boy i wish

01:06:20 ◼   ► john syracusa and jason talked every week and it's like thanks that that message my i deleted that one

01:06:25 ◼   ► before mike saw it so you know because of his unique body type scott that's a reference that upgrade plus

01:06:33 ◼   ► members aren't going to get because it was in the ad so this is like extra i'm sorry i made a i told the

01:06:38 ◼   ► story inside the ad my apologies i am scott i'm feeling a little down i'm a little despondent

01:06:43 ◼   ► um because i'm here the the m4 macbook air came out and the great thing about it to me as a person who

01:06:53 ◼   ► is often asked for technology advice is that it eliminated a couple of years of confusion where

01:07:01 ◼   ► people would say what mac laptop should i buy and i'd be like well the m3 is 1099 but the m2 is 999

01:07:09 ◼   ► and i know it's older but it's still pretty good and the m4 came out at 999 and i just it's we can

01:07:16 ◼   ► quibble and and you know tech nerds who have different needs are gonna say something different

01:07:19 ◼   ► but like for the most part just get the m4 macbook air like that it makes it so easy

01:07:24 ◼   ► and the problem i have is i cannot say the same thing about e-readers we love e-readers we love

01:07:33 ◼   ► reading books and and and we did snell talk where we talked about novels and you know i read almost

01:07:39 ◼   ► everything on a on an e-reader at some point and i try to write about them on six colors i've had you

01:07:44 ◼   ► write some things for me about various uh interesting e-readers on six colors too i just feel like

01:07:50 ◼   ► the i don't i don't know what it is i don't know whether it's that amazon and kobo and some of the

01:07:57 ◼   ► others are all like so bored with the basics of e-reading that they're just trying to find

01:08:03 ◼   ► something new that will drive some sales of this category that is so feel so static sometimes but it

01:08:10 ◼   ► seems to be that we've settled on nobody wants page turn buttons anymore almost nobody but color

01:08:16 ◼   ► screens except me yeah but i don't have an e-reader company is the problem but they want color screens

01:08:21 ◼   ► and pens

01:08:23 ◼   ► yeah i don't i don't know how i feel like it's kind of like the smartphone market in that

01:08:33 ◼   ► every smartphone you look at is just a slab of glass right with like 14 camera lenses on the back

01:08:41 ◼   ► uh and and uh that's kind of i don't know if this is just natural evolution of a product where you just

01:08:47 ◼   ► get to in in the capitalism society you want to get the cheapest thing to the most people possible

01:08:53 ◼   ► and so you just hone in on the least number of features that will satisfy the most number of people

01:08:59 ◼   ► and so you just get you know whatever the the basic format of an e-reader is an e-ink display that's

01:09:07 ◼   ► generally seven inches uh no buttons because it's cheaper like people might like them but

01:09:12 ◼   ► they break and let's just get rid of the buttons uh and we've got to pay for the touch screen anyway

01:09:17 ◼   ► so you know why why why bother paying for the buttons too right as we're putting them together

01:09:22 ◼   ► yeah i mean i've got a in my in my bedtime bedside table drawer i've got a kindle paperweight latest

01:09:29 ◼   ► generation black and white and like the truth is that is my recommendation and i sort of got turned

01:09:33 ◼   ► off of kindles and i don't like that it doesn't have buttons but like it's 159 it it's it does what

01:09:41 ◼   ► it says on the tin right it like it will show your books it's a great e-reader yeah uh if if you want

01:09:47 ◼   ► buttons it's a bad e-reader yes it's true actually if the biggest thing i don't like about it is that

01:09:53 ◼   ► it's got a button right on the bottom so it's so easy to turn it off accidentally oh my goodness that

01:09:58 ◼   ► is my least favorite thing about the current lineup of kindles is that button placement i don't understand

01:10:03 ◼   ► why it's there it is awful it's got to be that it's cheaper i mean that's the only because kobo

01:10:07 ◼   ► kobo tries and i know that you've got some complaints because there's one kobo that like the case covers

01:10:12 ◼   ► the power button but kobo puts them on the back uh and they're in they're sort of depressed and you

01:10:17 ◼   ► have to push them in in order to do it and i've never turned my kobo off by accident while holding it

01:10:22 ◼   ► whereas i turn that kindle off all the time so there's the the one button they have and it's a bad

01:10:26 ◼   ► button i don't what is happening i would love it in fact i would love a firmware or like a firmware

01:10:32 ◼   ► update that enables a software feature a setting feature that makes that button a page forward

01:10:37 ◼   ► button instead oh that's that's clever give me one button let me use it and i'll hold it down to turn

01:10:43 ◼   ► it off or something i don't know it'll just go i think it's a good button it is a satisfying button

01:10:47 ◼   ► to to use except if you do it by accident bad bad button placement i would say i would quibble with

01:10:53 ◼   ► i can always feel that satisfying thing when i'm not trying to turn off my kindle and it goes

01:10:57 ◼   ► ah no so you're momentarily satisfied and then enraged and then it's yes that button press was very

01:11:03 ◼   ► pleasant but in a in a in a bad way so kobo i i started using kobos more um there are things i like

01:11:11 ◼   ► about kobo but when i when i amazon after i switched to kobo amazon did actually do a major software

01:11:18 ◼   ► update to the kindle software and it's much better than it used to be it's got better library support

01:11:24 ◼   ► it's got better typography than it used to um it's got a better interface than it used to it's better

01:11:29 ◼   ► uh the reading interface and the book interface are better like i would say it reminded me a little bit

01:11:35 ◼   ► of the early days of the iphone and android where i came back to the kindle after using kobo which was

01:11:40 ◼   ► so superior to the old kindle software and i opened up a new kindle and i went wait a second

01:11:44 ◼   ► like oh things have changed it's it's like and it's just a matter of uh preference and they're they're so

01:11:50 ◼   ► close there are things i still prefer about the kobo but they're so much closer the one that i love about

01:11:55 ◼   ► the kobo is that you can put your finger on the on the side of the screen and swipe up and down and it

01:12:01 ◼   ► changes the brightness of the screen dynamically whereas kindle it's like you gotta swipe down and slide a

01:12:08 ◼   ► little slider around and swipe it back up so little stuff like that but it's not the night and day than

01:12:12 ◼   ► it used to be but they also seem to be more committed to putting buttons on their or leaving buttons on

01:12:18 ◼   ► their e-readers and i'm just a big fan of letting my finger rest on a button and then kind of just

01:12:24 ◼   ► squeezing a little bit to go to the next page next page next page instead of doing the touch screen thing

01:12:29 ◼   ► where you have to go move it touch move it back and i know it's a little thing but it really

01:12:33 ◼   ► it's not having read a bunch of books on that new paper white like it's not unusable it just is not as

01:12:42 ◼   ► nice i i just it's that simple um but amazon doesn't seem to think because now they've they killed their

01:12:48 ◼   ► high-end reader the oasis that had buttons they seem to just think the buttons are irrelevant

01:12:52 ◼   ► buttons are dumb yeah that's what amazon says uh i don't know what amazon says but i will say i think

01:12:58 ◼   ► it's so interesting reading is a very intimate experience uh because you're the thing is close

01:13:05 ◼   ► to you it's taking up your entire uh uh kind of concentration right and that's why you you have an

01:13:11 ◼   ► e-reader is because you want to concentrate yeah on what you're reading and you don't want the at least

01:13:17 ◼   ► for me the the siren call of the internet or the notifications yeah i could just flip over and check

01:13:23 ◼   ► twitter or or blue sky now right now i could just flip over and do that right now it's like no you

01:13:28 ◼   ► can't no you have to you have to go pick up you put it down you're going to pick up your other thing

01:13:32 ◼   ► and it's it's it's that's why you want any read i mean there are lots of other reasons as well

01:13:37 ◼   ► um but then that brings up the um your friend and mine john saracusa talked about how uh you know

01:13:45 ◼   ► the weird things that people do by themselves and they don't know people do things differently like

01:13:50 ◼   ► brushing your teeth and how you you uh uh wash your mouth out after you brush your teeth uh is

01:13:56 ◼   ► something that everybody does but you just assume everyone does it the way you do it and it turns out

01:14:01 ◼   ► there are many different people are making cups out of their hands people are using cups there's like

01:14:05 ◼   ► your people are sticking their face under the tap i don't even know there's so many different ways

01:14:10 ◼   ► so and there's so many different ways to read even on a kindle uh because i very rarely am holding

01:14:15 ◼   ► my kindle when i read it and so i am never almost never resting my thumb right you have a button would

01:14:21 ◼   ► be i have a case and i set it up and then so i'm going to move my hand anyway uh and so while i agree

01:14:29 ◼   ► with you that a button having buttons is nice i'm not anti-button right um it just is not relevant to the

01:14:35 ◼   ► way that i generally use my e-reader and it's just so interesting and this is what these companies are

01:14:39 ◼   ► dealing with right is like they have to figure out well who what is the largest percentage of people

01:14:44 ◼   ► doing like they have i'm sure they have lots of data on how many times people who own kindles with

01:14:49 ◼   ► buttons were using the buttons and they thought it's cheaper to get rid of the buttons most people

01:14:54 ◼   ► i guess uh and so and there were a long history of very bad kindle buttons as well so uh they did get

01:15:04 ◼   ► to good buttons but there were some bad buttons along the way yeah there was that one was i forget the

01:15:09 ◼   ► name of it now but there was the one where it was the squeeze buttons so there was a little dot on the

01:15:13 ◼   ► plastic and it was pressure sensitive underneath so you had to sort of like squeeze the case

01:15:17 ◼   ► harder than you would think to squeeze too it wasn't great i mean i would take that over no button

01:15:23 ◼   ► honestly but it was not great it was it was not great would you like a like a tap sensitive like

01:15:28 ◼   ► a touch sensitive area that isn't the screen this is the thing this is the thing that i've been

01:15:33 ◼   ► thinking of is alternatives and that's one of them which is if so another complaint i have about the

01:15:38 ◼   ► kindle software is that the kindle software doesn't auto rotate it doesn't they seem to oh on the on

01:15:46 ◼   ► high-end kindles my scribe will auto your scribe auto right here okay the paper white doesn't auto

01:15:51 ◼   ► rotate because they it's too cheap they're too cheap to put a uh an accelerometer in there and the thought

01:15:57 ◼   ► i had is if you have an accelerometer in there which allows the you know to tell you could build it so

01:16:05 ◼   ► that if i if i just tap with my finger on the back of the kindle it advances and that would be great

01:16:11 ◼   ► like i because my issue my issue i mean it would it would not be as good it would be different from

01:16:17 ◼   ► moving my finger but if i if i for me sorry everybody i'm just going to explain this for

01:16:22 ◼   ► really quickly the reason i care about a button is mostly because i don't want to shift my grip

01:16:26 ◼   ► i like you're reading the book you're immersed i don't want to shift my grip if i have to keep moving

01:16:31 ◼   ► my dancing my finger and holding it in a way that my finger is near the screen but not covering the

01:16:36 ◼   ► screen because then i couldn't read the words and then as i get to the last word i go up and i tap

01:16:42 ◼   ► it it's less immersive to me than if i'm just holding it my thumb is on the button and i go boop

01:16:46 ◼   ► boop boop and i just can do that forever i'm making lots of boops today it's a very beep boop day for me

01:16:51 ◼   ► it's morse code saying come back mike um so it is it so it would be different but i think that that

01:17:01 ◼   ► there's something to be said for having a having a standard grip where i could just tap the back

01:17:04 ◼   ► because part of the problem is using a touch screen is your finger covers up part of the screen when

01:17:10 ◼   ► you do that so you're not just moving it but you're you're you have to position in a way that you're near

01:17:15 ◼   ► the screen but not on the screen and so i could see like tapping on the back to advance now what's

01:17:20 ◼   ► interesting is there are also all these weird android readers that are out there now i reviewed that um

01:17:25 ◼   ► the books palma which is the it's like a an android phone with an ink screen basically um i bought one i i like

01:17:33 ◼   ► it but ergonomically like if i if look if i was a commuter i would probably use it but i mostly just

01:17:43 ◼   ► read it in my house and i don't need it to be my reader to be small like a phone but there are lots

01:17:49 ◼   ► of things i like about it including that because they're just using a standard android phone chipset

01:17:53 ◼   ► there are volume buttons on the side that you can turn into page turn buttons it's like aha

01:17:57 ◼   ► that's how they get you and i like i like that kind of innovation i just keep thinking about like

01:18:03 ◼   ► there's some smartphone innovation that could probably solve these problems if the if the

01:18:07 ◼   ► developers of these uh e-readers wanted to solve them but i fear with kindle that and i don't know

01:18:13 ◼   ► they've got a new head of hardware uh you know i don't know how panos panay reads ebooks i don't

01:18:21 ◼   ► know what he's thinking there i'm i'm excited because he was uh very uh i'm bringing up the

01:18:28 ◼   ► surface like again but he was very involved with the microsoft surface yeah one of the things that

01:18:31 ◼   ► many of the surfaces had were kickstands one of the things that i use my kindle i have a cover that's

01:18:36 ◼   ► basically a kickstand so if they somehow incorporate or make the covers better i'm very excited i think

01:18:41 ◼   ► he's a kickstand fan is all i'm saying and i'm hopeful that he will bring that energy to the

01:18:46 ◼   ► panos that's right the uh stan yeah so maybe they'll do some more innovation there i worry that

01:18:52 ◼   ► amazon's uh hardware uh they've just that that paperwhite that 159 yeah you should buy it it's

01:18:58 ◼   ► fine paperwhite feels to me almost like giving up or if you wanted to be more positive you could say

01:19:04 ◼   ► the final form but it feels like maybe they've optimized it to the point where it's just that's

01:19:10 ◼   ► just what it's going to be you have to look at what amazon or any company that's producing a

01:19:15 ◼   ► product is trying to do right and i think amazon is no uh is not hiding the fact that they want to

01:19:21 ◼   ► milk as much money as possible from you and all of your interactions with amazon um and i appreciate

01:19:29 ◼   ► how upfront they are about it right because you buy a kid like they want to make the kindle a good

01:19:34 ◼   ► experience i do think they want it to be a good experience because that way you buy more stuff on it

01:19:38 ◼   ► uh and so they want it to be but they want it to be the cheapest good experience that you can get

01:19:44 ◼   ► uh and then they're like well what what what are nice things that some people will upgrade but most

01:19:49 ◼   ► people don't care about so uh one of the things i really like about the kobo that amazon has uh copied

01:19:54 ◼   ► is that it displays the cover of the book right that you're reading very nice uh and a kindle will do

01:20:00 ◼   ► that too nowadays uh you just need to pay amazon a little bit more money to do it which is insane but

01:20:06 ◼   ► also very clever uh and and so i think that's amazon is just like how do we get more money

01:20:11 ◼   ► from this person who clearly wants to read books and guess what we sell books so let's give them a

01:20:16 ◼   ► device that we can sell them books for yeah the color thing is a thing that i put it in with the pens

01:20:23 ◼   ► as as i think there is i think that they are trying to find an audience that is not interested in reading

01:20:30 ◼   ► fiction like you and i do but is non-fiction or on larger e-readers it's even marking up documents and

01:20:37 ◼   ► i look i think the idea you could probably just use an ipad but if you wanted to use an e-ink reader

01:20:43 ◼   ► because you're reading lots of black and white you know legal documents or whatever and marking them up

01:20:47 ◼   ► with a pen and they've got a workflow that lets you send them off to dropbox or wherever to your people

01:20:52 ◼   ► after you've marked them up great but on a little e-reader that also supports a pen i don't really

01:20:58 ◼   ► understand why it's there other than i guess you could use it as a highlighter although you can just

01:21:03 ◼   ► use your finger for that i i know that the big feature on the color uh e-reader seems to be that you can

01:21:10 ◼   ► now highlight in different colors so you can have your note like like back in college highlighting a book

01:21:15 ◼   ► and it's like the red is this and the yellow if you're somebody who's that that's systematic which i never was

01:21:20 ◼   ► but you could do that that way the problem i have with the color and maybe this will be gone in a generation

01:21:26 ◼   ► or two but i was shocked to discover that the color e-ink screens are lower contrast than the black and white

01:21:33 ◼   ► ones and that's the thing that bugged me the most about the kobo libra color is it didn't perform as well

01:21:42 ◼   ► on black and white text as the kobo libra 2 and they didn't release a kobo libra 3 they only released

01:21:49 ◼   ► the color version and that that was what shocked me it turns out that there's in order to enable the

01:21:54 ◼   ► color there's sort of across the whole screen there's kind of a dot pattern and from a distance it just

01:21:59 ◼   ► resolves as being more gray like in the early days of the kindle where the contrast wasn't that great

01:22:04 ◼   ► and it wasn't backlit or side lit so it was those were the days when we used to clip book lights onto

01:22:11 ◼   ► kindles in order to read at night it was a different time ask your parents um but but so that that super

01:22:18 ◼   ► disappointed me because i although i don't need color and the big problem i have also is those you mentioned

01:22:24 ◼   ► the covers it's like well great the cover is now in color but when you turn off this the the the device

01:22:30 ◼   ► and let it sit there it goes dark so you can't really see the color unless it's in a sunbeam you

01:22:36 ◼   ► can't really see that cover in color that's where you get that book light out and you can put it just

01:22:40 ◼   ► clip it right on there just for display purposes the book light is there so but i i'm going to make an

01:22:46 ◼   ► admission here which is uh my primary ebook reader now is the kindred the kobo libra color even though

01:22:52 ◼   ► i kind of ripped it when it came out because the screen isn't as good and the the fact is the text

01:22:58 ◼   ► isn't as good but i don't know about the next generation of processors that these e-readers are

01:23:04 ◼   ► using but i realized that for years i have been willing to use an e-reader that's super slow because

01:23:12 ◼   ► what does it matter yeah you press the page turn button and then you wait and then it changes the

01:23:18 ◼   ► page but the truth is when you're pressing the page turn button or you want to adjust the fonts or you

01:23:23 ◼   ► want to check the time or you want to go back to the home screen even one generation apart that kobo

01:23:28 ◼   ► libra 2 it's so slow and the libra color is super snappy and fast and i realized you know what

01:23:36 ◼   ► i i have been ruined by modern e-readers and the old the old e-readers are nice and all and they've got

01:23:43 ◼   ► buttons and all of those things but whoo they're really slow so i guess that's one where where uh they

01:23:50 ◼   ► have gotten better is that is that the interfaces are not right because you know for an e-ink device

01:23:55 ◼   ► at least today you don't really need to worry about speed because the the screens don't even refresh that

01:24:00 ◼   ► fast but we are my understanding based on the verge cast interview with the the kobo ceo is that that

01:24:06 ◼   ► stuff's advancing rapidly and all these e-readers are now going to have to start pondering what happens

01:24:12 ◼   ► if you can refresh at a good refresh rate like do you start doing animations and making it feel more

01:24:19 ◼   ► like a smartphone can you do a a swipe where like currently on the kindle when you swipe to reveal it

01:24:25 ◼   ► just goes from not being there to it being there and it's like you would never do that on a smartphone

01:24:31 ◼   ► but on a on an e-ink device you have to do it that way and what he's saying is you know they're they're

01:24:35 ◼   ► really going to have to start grappling with the fact that they can actually animate stuff i don't know

01:24:39 ◼   ► if that's good or bad but it's it's true it'll it'll be different i think that's when amazon has

01:24:45 ◼   ► started investing uh a while ago in the redoing the kindle os right so that it is much nicer because as you

01:24:53 ◼   ► said before jason kobo was like miles ahead in the software arena uh of usability uh for a long time

01:25:01 ◼   ► and i would record i would still recommend kindles over kobos during that time because it was just so

01:25:05 ◼   ► much easier to get stuff onto a kindle yeah um generally speaking if you're buying from amazon if

01:25:11 ◼   ► you don't want to buy from amazon that's a whole different conversation um but uh they they have reached

01:25:17 ◼   ► parity pretty much um and i think that that's because amazon and kobo both are are like well

01:25:22 ◼   ► at some point these devices are going to be more capable and we need to think about the interface

01:25:27 ◼   ► so that people will keep using them although i do hope to your point that they aren't going to start

01:25:33 ◼   ► like every single like i tap a to open a book and like the book cover opens up and like a little

01:25:39 ◼   ► person dances and opens like no i don't want that book man go away can i disable book man and that was

01:25:46 ◼   ► kind of the point uh i recently amazon rolled out an update to the scribe lovely update um and it

01:25:54 ◼   ► includes like you would think i'm not a project a product manager but i would think that if you were

01:26:00 ◼   ► the product manager for a e-reader the most important real estate is the stuff that's on the screen that

01:26:08 ◼   ► stays on the screen while you're reading a book like that is like sacrosanct area right uh and amazon has

01:26:14 ◼   ► added a little icon uh at the top you can move it either to the right or the left but you can't turn it

01:26:19 ◼   ► off uh that you can tap to take a note uh directly in the book like kind of like you know writing in the

01:26:25 ◼   ► margins um which i think is a good feature but as someone who has described that i don't even know

01:26:30 ◼   ► where the pen is like i do not use that at all uh it's now this little thing that's just stand

01:26:34 ◼   ► staring there standing there annoying me as i read my book i've tuned it out now but it's visual clutter

01:26:40 ◼   ► and i just want to remove it from from the interface i just want an option that says i don't i understand

01:26:47 ◼   ► why you're selling these scribes it's not how i use it just let me disable that thing yeah i i this is

01:26:53 ◼   ► the it's it's fascinating to watch because it feels kind of like being a mac user back in the 90s where this is

01:27:00 ◼   ► not a category that's hot it's a category that exists but like you there's so much bargaining

01:27:07 ◼   ► where you're like please please buttons please sir may i have buttons please sir may i turn off this

01:27:13 ◼   ► icon and there's this feeling like part part of it i also feel like it's like being a podcast editor

01:27:19 ◼   ► using music apps to edit podcasts where like logic is not made for me they do not want me using logic

01:27:25 ◼   ► and yet i use logic uh and it feels a little bit like that with something like the kindle scribe where

01:27:30 ◼   ► it's like this is really for lawyers with a pen marking a pdfs and you're like i just want to read books

01:27:35 ◼   ► man on a big e-reader that's what i want big screen i like a novelty size e-reader yeah that's great

01:27:41 ◼   ► and you should you should be fine with that it's a so anyway it's a curious category i really do

01:27:45 ◼   ► recommend that verge cast interview with michael tamblin who's the ceo of kobo makes me want to root for

01:27:50 ◼   ► them they obviously this is what they do this is all they care about um i think their product is good

01:27:56 ◼   ► um i i i think that if you are unfortunately if you have built you know up a library of kindle books

01:28:04 ◼   ► it's very hard to switch although what i tell people who are thinking of switching is here's what

01:28:08 ◼   ► you do keep your kindle and and you you know even if you can never get your kindle books off your

01:28:15 ◼   ► kindle just keep your kindle unless it's dead unless if they last a long time you can even replace the

01:28:22 ◼   ► batteries if you really want to look it up there are ways to do that you can go to i fix it and they'll

01:28:26 ◼   ► do a battery replacement you can get a used kindle but you could keep your old books on the kindle and

01:28:30 ◼   ► then start buying new books on the kobo you could do that um kobo also uses this is a tidbit i didn't

01:28:35 ◼   ► realize kobo uses adobe digital editions as its drm and what that means is you actually can take a book

01:28:44 ◼   ► you bought at the kobo store i believe and put it on other devices as long as they support the digital

01:28:49 ◼   ► editions drm whereas amazon has its own drm because that's amazon that's what they're there they don't

01:28:56 ◼   ► want you uh moving them elsewhere so the kindle scribe is your go-to right now i love my kindle scribe i

01:29:01 ◼   ► bought uh uh books is that how you say books i like saying spooky uh palma 2 because um i just

01:29:11 ◼   ► wanted this and um i feel like much like my ideal iphone ipad combination is i can unfold it my ideal

01:29:20 ◼   ► e-reader is a scribe that i can just fold in half um because i do feel like there are scenarios where i

01:29:27 ◼   ► don't want the novelty size giant kindle uh even though it's i love it it's my favorite kindle ever

01:29:34 ◼   ► but something like if i'm standing waiting for the bus i certainly use it but i'd like it to be smaller

01:29:39 ◼   ► at that point um and and so if i could fold it that would be great uh because i think the the palma 2

01:29:46 ◼   ► is fantastic it's a little weird um and uh i think they it's kind of part of the the joy of the

01:29:54 ◼   ► product is it's a little weird uh like kobo and kindle have kind of you know shaved off all the

01:29:59 ◼   ► weirdness of their products i think uh to make this kind of reading capsule that you can use uh but where

01:30:06 ◼   ► the books is like well you know there's lots of weird stuff in between and we can try and figure that

01:30:10 ◼   ► out because there have been in the past a lot of weird kindles and a lot of weird kobos and they just

01:30:15 ◼   ► don't exist anymore yeah no and they're the kindle and the kobo are very much like don't tell anybody

01:30:20 ◼   ► it's android and uh the books palma is like it's android everybody and like that's the it's like you

01:30:26 ◼   ► don't like this reader use that use moon reader use the kobo reader use the kindle reader use a web

01:30:31 ◼   ► browser there's a there's a uh the web browser that i have on there it's called e-ink bro

01:30:35 ◼   ► apparently just bro is short for browser it turns out so think about that the next time you're around a

01:30:41 ◼   ► bunch of bros they're really just like which one is safari you play that game um but like there's

01:30:47 ◼   ► there is stuff i think the big problem i have once you get it set up it actually is pretty good and i've

01:30:52 ◼   ► watched i've been i've been reading um stuff on books devices for a while i've been reviewing them

01:30:56 ◼   ► and when they started it was rough because they're literally like hey we put android and e-ink screen

01:31:00 ◼   ► it's like yeah but none of the software was optimized for e-ink and so it was kind of a disaster and now

01:31:06 ◼   ► they i think they've contacted a bunch of these apps and they've they built in some hooks

01:31:10 ◼   ► where uh they've modified android so that a lot of them will do things like go into a black and white

01:31:16 ◼   ► mode uh where they will accept a a button press as a page turn even in like a web browser so that you

01:31:24 ◼   ► can do that also there is a convention on a lot of android apps where you can use your for reading apps

01:31:28 ◼   ► where you use your volume to change the page which is great too works with those buttons so i like that

01:31:34 ◼   ► i like that um it is i think their biggest liability is that they're a chinese company and their software

01:31:41 ◼   ► developers are not super great with the english but even there they've gotten a lot better um the first

01:31:46 ◼   ► setting up the first one was a real uh adventure and the latest ones are just much more straightforward

01:31:52 ◼   ► but again you have to be somebody who wants to tinker and and you describe those kindles and

01:31:57 ◼   ► copos as reading capsules that's what they are like they don't have apps in fact my complaint might be

01:32:02 ◼   ► it would be nice if they did have the ability to read other things that i read like articles again i don't

01:32:08 ◼   ► want to read social media but uh i would like to be able to read my rss feed instead of having to sort

01:32:13 ◼   ► of like send every article to pocket in order to read it on my kobo um i'd like them to be maybe a

01:32:20 ◼   ► little more functional for other kinds of reading but like that's the beauty of the android side is

01:32:25 ◼   ► you have to mess with it but like if there's an android app for it you can you can read it on the

01:32:29 ◼   ► books palma it might be good it might be terrible no way to know but try and there is so kindle does

01:32:36 ◼   ► have the whole send to kindle thing but it's not as as it's not as easy to do as you would like so

01:32:42 ◼   ► uh it'd be nice they used to have a thing where you could subscribe to um various like rss feeds and

01:32:49 ◼   ► either pay or not pay depending on how they set it up newspapers i used to get my newspaper you could

01:32:53 ◼   ► also opt in yeah and it's gone my website was for nobody other than me because i was trying to figure

01:33:00 ◼   ► out how to do it but uh you could make it available for free um i killed all that stuff i assume nobody

01:33:05 ◼   ► was using it but yeah they killed they killed the whole peer articles thing and everything

01:33:10 ◼   ► well scott thank you for talking about e-readers with me i appreciate it thank you for having me on to

01:33:16 ◼   ► to make people long for when i'm not on well we're not done yet it's time for our next sponsor it is

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01:34:19 ◼   ► reviewers like cnet and the verge uh when i was in uh in new zealand this is the story i tell uh we wanted

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01:34:33 ◼   ► whatever was called at the time they keep changing the name anyway uh so not available in that country

01:34:38 ◼   ► but uh one tap on my ipad while we were in christchurch new zealand and suddenly we were in america and could

01:34:45 ◼   ► watch the show that we paid for and uh that is awesome i also watched a college football game while

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01:35:03 ◼   ► expressvpn free expressvpn.com slash upgrade thank you to expressvpn for supporting upgrade but now scott

01:35:11 ◼   ► it's time as we finish the show for some ask upgrade questions oh i forget which the sound

01:35:19 ◼   ► effect is for ask upgrade uh it's lasers that's what it was yeah that's okay i'm here you're not

01:35:25 ◼   ► here every week you haven't been on for 500 weeks i do listen but uh i don't know the order i know and

01:35:31 ◼   ► like are we playing the lex theme songs this week we're not i don't know i play them in my head

01:35:36 ◼   ► sometimes this question comes from cods who says i share your fondness for e-readers and in particular

01:35:42 ◼   ► for e-readers with page turn buttons such as my kobo forma it seems all of our concerns about recent

01:35:47 ◼   ► e-reader designs ditching page turn buttons are mute thanks to this remote finger that may be the

01:35:54 ◼   ► answer to all of our prayers uh so the remote finger about the remote finger because uh a lot of people

01:36:02 ◼   ► said this to me uh it is great it would be great for scott actually uh our friend erica you uses a

01:36:12 ◼   ► remote finger because what she does is if you're not holding the e-reader you put on a table or erica

01:36:19 ◼   ► has got like a stand she puts it in and it kind of hovers above her so she doesn't have to hold on to

01:36:24 ◼   ► it the remote finger is a bluetooth device that clips on your e-reader and goes right over the edge so you

01:36:30 ◼   ► do have to try to not have it cover the text up but it goes right on the edge and it's got a little

01:36:37 ◼   ► piece of something on it that is like a finger in terms of how it touches it and then you get a

01:36:42 ◼   ► remote and so you can sit back and read and then you just keep clicking the button on the remote and

01:36:46 ◼   ► the finger goes physically goes boop and touches and turns the page and erica stands by this i know a lot

01:36:53 ◼   ► of people who do this a lot of people who like are under blankets and stuff and they want to be cozy

01:36:56 ◼   ► and they don't want to hold it or they've accessibility reasons uh so yeah scott you could do this if you

01:37:02 ◼   ► wanted to and then you would never have to reach forward and tap on your e-reader again i've been

01:37:07 ◼   ► tempted many times it's a great idea here's my problem with it which is these are computers they

01:37:13 ◼   ► have bluetooth support why don't they just support bluetooth devices to turn the page why do i need a

01:37:22 ◼   ► finger clipped to my clip to my e-reader i should just have a clicker a bluetooth clicker and be able to

01:37:29 ◼   ► go click and have it go to the next one i shouldn't need this weird

01:37:33 ◼   ► technique i mean i guess all fingers are digital uh but you know what i mean uh in the as a middleman

01:37:40 ◼   ► i don't want i don't need a middleman they should just make it they should support like literally just

01:37:43 ◼   ► support a keyboard profile where any key goes forward or maybe most keys go forward and some keys go

01:37:50 ◼   ► backward and then i assure you people will start building clickers that just do those two keys and they

01:37:55 ◼   ► they show up like keyboards but um that so sorry to cods but this doesn't solve my problem because my

01:38:01 ◼   ► problem is that i'm holding it and i'm not going to hold in one hand and that's not going to happen

01:38:06 ◼   ► you can tape the clicker to the back uh and and just click it imagine that um it's a nice idea

01:38:15 ◼   ► anyway thank you cods jack says i have a theory i haven't seen written anywhere a while about why

01:38:20 ◼   ► companies are pursuing colored e-readers despite their muted colors and lack of contrast i believe

01:38:25 ◼   ► this is a response to both a reduction in first-time e-reader buyers and people not needing to upgrade

01:38:30 ◼   ► their old e-readers and due to this e-reader manufacturers are attempting to find ways to

01:38:34 ◼   ► incentivize people already owning e-readers to upgrade to colored screens so it's that classic like

01:38:40 ◼   ► how do i get anybody to buy a new anything you got to have a feature and mr e-ink incorporated comes to

01:38:46 ◼   ► you and says we got color now and you go great put it in there i mean give it to me sounds right

01:38:52 ◼   ► i think jack has cracked capitalism this is this is how it works is uh you you try to create a desire

01:38:59 ◼   ► when there isn't a need and then you sell to that yeah i mean i would argue that this is the classic

01:39:04 ◼   ► apple move of of saying mr e-ink comes to you and says i've got this new thing and you're like yeah but

01:39:09 ◼   ► what problem does it solve because that's the whole idea is uh in all my days covering max and

01:39:15 ◼   ► pcs the pcs and android phones to a lesser extent but the pcs whenever there was a new technology

01:39:22 ◼   ► pc makers would just shove it in there they're like look new thing it's like what does it do why is it

01:39:26 ◼   ► practical we don't know what is new i i remember when they all the pcs had fingerprint readers but

01:39:32 ◼   ► windows really didn't know what to do with a fingerprint reader no but they were there but they

01:39:36 ◼   ► were there it was exciting so yes jack i think that's it is the the problem i have with it is

01:39:41 ◼   ► that is that for most use cases that i have the color is immaterial i will admit it's nice when i

01:39:46 ◼   ► turn it on and a little color thing comes up but not at the expense of of the contrast and reading which

01:39:52 ◼   ► is unfortunate but maybe they'll get better at that and then it'll be fine i did i do like color more

01:39:56 ◼   ► than i thought i would because i was long like but i don't need any color um but it is nice to have

01:40:01 ◼   ► it's a nice and i agree with you when the contrast the black and white contrast is the same

01:40:04 ◼   ► as it is on just black and white kindles or e-readers i should say color all over the place

01:40:10 ◼   ► uh i will happily have color be the default but until then yeah i'm i'm a black the screens just

01:40:16 ◼   ► need to get better i i don't read very much non-fiction that has especially that has embedded

01:40:21 ◼   ► photos but that is one of those cases and back when i read newspapers it was like this too like

01:40:26 ◼   ► i'm not i mean if if a book's got color photos in it that's going to be great the next time i i'm

01:40:33 ◼   ► going to read a non-fiction book at some point there's going to be a color photo and i'm going

01:40:35 ◼   ► to go like right this is a color combo oh my god it's going to be great it'll be a great moment i

01:40:41 ◼   ► look forward to it um tom writes i've happily used an ipad 2 as my primary reading device for years

01:40:48 ◼   ► but now i'm definitely in the market for something new that will make my middle-aged eyes happier

01:40:52 ◼   ► how do the newer ipads compare with the current crop of e-ink devices as an e-reader

01:40:58 ◼   ► well it's what you said partially which is an ipad you are always going to have the temptation

01:41:06 ◼   ► to do other stuff and i know you could resist temptation but what's better than resisting

01:41:12 ◼   ► temptation is being unable to fulfill the temptation and that's what works for me yeah yeah no it's it's a

01:41:19 ◼   ► little like i forget what the scenario was it was something like oh oh this was it um a few years

01:41:25 ◼   ► ago lauren and i decided the right way to eat we don't usually have potato chips or other kinds of

01:41:31 ◼   ► chips in our house snack items but the right way to eat a snack item is to get a little bowl and put

01:41:37 ◼   ► some snack items in it and then you close up the bag and put it away and then you take the little bowl

01:41:42 ◼   ► what you don't do is bring the whole bag right you don't do that and this is a little like that which

01:41:47 ◼   ► is look if you want more there's more you can go get more but you have to get up and go over there

01:41:53 ◼   ► and get it and and it's a very conscious decision it's there's barriers don't have to be huge you don't

01:42:00 ◼   ► have to lock it away with a timer and say the chips won't be available for another three days right

01:42:04 ◼   ► you don't have to do that you just have to make it a conscious decision to meter things out and that

01:42:11 ◼   ► that little soft barrier can be enough and that's how i feel about e-readers is i can pick up my ipad

01:42:17 ◼   ► but like i have to put down my kobo and pick up my ipad and open it up and unlock and do all those things

01:42:23 ◼   ► and as a result i do that sometimes but most of the time i don't i'm just reading my book

01:42:29 ◼   ► and you know maybe after 20 minutes i will check to see if something's going on or something but like

01:42:35 ◼   ► i will it it's it's that's the appeal i have and i i think the current crop of e-ink devices that's

01:42:42 ◼   ► what they're going to give you is they're not an ipad yes and i think when when at bedtime my

01:42:48 ◼   ► children uh we sit down and my kids run in after they brush their teeth and they yell

01:42:53 ◼   ► it's book time uh because we read before they go to bed and that's what in my mind when i pick up my

01:42:58 ◼   ► kindle i think it's book time because that's all my kindle will do uh and so i'm going to do that

01:43:04 ◼   ► and the other thing i mean i like that even though i said i don't it's an in-between device i do like my

01:43:08 ◼   ► ipad it's a great piece of equipment um but it's also heavy so if you're like uh jason and holding your

01:43:15 ◼   ► ipad uh get a smaller kindle it's much nicer on your wrist holders um yeah it i would also say

01:43:24 ◼   ► um look the the screens are very different because you mentioned middle-aged eyes um the screens are

01:43:30 ◼   ► very different i think they both have their pros and cons right like frame rates and all of that but

01:43:34 ◼   ► they're also backlit those ipads and the the way that the e-ink readers work and what makes them so

01:43:40 ◼   ► different is they have lights on them but the lights come from the side to illuminate the screen

01:43:44 ◼   ► or you're outside or you're in a well-lit room and you can just read it without any help or without

01:43:49 ◼   ► as much help but it's a different quality of light um also they're all like 300 dpi now so they don't

01:43:56 ◼   ► they look good i i don't want to make any medical claims but i think i would say they are kind of

01:44:03 ◼   ► easier on the eyes for long reading sessions um because they're more like paper that's the idea

01:44:10 ◼   ► so i think that i think middle-aged eyes might be happier with uh e-ink but you know your mileage

01:44:16 ◼   ► may vary get a cheap one try it out yeah yeah and i mean amazon it's easy to buy one and return it if

01:44:22 ◼   ► you don't like it but but uh i think if you're using an ipad 2 as your primary reading device you can

01:44:29 ◼   ► definitely do better and probably there's almost nothing on that ipad that i don't even know what

01:44:33 ◼   ► what apps are available anymore so um yeah i try try an e-reader and see michael writes if you had

01:44:42 ◼   ► to pick a form factor from the early generations of e-readers to use and modernize usbc backlight

01:44:47 ◼   ► etc what would you pick i'm thinking kindles with full keyboards sony readers nooks with two screens

01:44:55 ◼   ► kobos with four-way toggles those sort of models from the early wild west days of e-reading what do you

01:45:02 ◼   ► think scott it's when they were weird uh i i have a a drawer full of e-readers and so i pulled out some

01:45:08 ◼   ► to go down memory lane and i think that my uh i won't hold them up because it's not good for audio

01:45:14 ◼   ► podcasting but uh so i have a kobo mini so kobo made this tiny little cute e-reader uh i the first e-reader

01:45:23 ◼   ► i bought was a sony uh prs 505 which is beautiful uh and a beautiful piece of hardware the most

01:45:30 ◼   ► atrocious software to get a book on it was awful um but it is a beautiful device um and i actually like

01:45:40 ◼   ► a nook touch simple uh it's like kind of rubberized it's nice in the hand but i think what i would pick

01:45:47 ◼   ► if i had to pick one is going to be a controversial pick because i know jason does not like the original

01:45:54 ◼   ► kindle i loved the original kindle i know you returned it almost immediately yeah but i just

01:46:01 ◼   ► love the shape of it it's so weird it looks like you know uh something from the 80s somehow fell into

01:46:07 ◼   ► a time portal uh the buttons are a bit flappy so if we were updating it we'd make the buttons a little

01:46:13 ◼   ► better i think uh but keep the buttons get rid of the keyboard get rid of the weird silver roller

01:46:19 ◼   ► thing i don't know see i was going to pick i was going to pick it and say let's bring the silver

01:46:23 ◼   ► roller back let's do it so to do selection because it wasn't a touch screen to do selection there was

01:46:30 ◼   ► this stripe down the side vertical stripe that could have like a little silver bar on each line and so

01:46:37 ◼   ► you'd roll a wheel and the silver bar would move to a different line and then you would select it and

01:46:43 ◼   ► that would be how you select that line it was the weirdest thing plus yes the 80s shape of it where the

01:46:49 ◼   ► the button on the right side it was like at an angle um like it was the side of a pyramid or something

01:46:55 ◼   ► uh i was going to mention the original kindle sort of as a joke but like it's so weird and unlike

01:47:02 ◼   ► any other e-reader that it would be fascinating to see another take on it i agree with you don't need

01:47:06 ◼   ► keyboards i don't i don't miss keyboards on on kindles at all um and we have touch screen

01:47:12 ◼   ► keyboards now that are good enough for for taking notes and i just you know if you want to type that

01:47:17 ◼   ► much i don't know get out your iphone or something i seriously like or get a pen the right i guess you

01:47:22 ◼   ► get a pen now is what you do um the one that i wanted to mention is the original kindle oasis

01:47:28 ◼   ► it was weird but what i really liked about the original kindle oasis is it came with a cover

01:47:37 ◼   ► a really nice leather cover and the cover had a battery in it and so what you could do is by default

01:47:47 ◼   ► you could just use your kindle in the case like if you're a case using kind of person and you got this

01:47:54 ◼   ► great kindle and then if you take the battery off of it it has much lower battery life it's a little

01:48:00 ◼   ► like airpods and an airpods case because you could charge the main device from this auxiliary battery or

01:48:05 ◼   ► you could charge them both together but what it meant is if you took the case off the whole thing gets

01:48:10 ◼   ► way lighter and way thinner like and it was like the thinnest e-reader lightest e-reader i've ever used

01:48:15 ◼   ► very pleasant to hold um it was tiny but like i i can see why maybe amazon was like this is too many

01:48:25 ◼   ► moving parts and it's too complex and people don't care we'll just put the battery in it and that's

01:48:29 ◼   ► fine that's okay but as somebody who now at least when i travel i use a case um the idea that i could

01:48:35 ◼   ► have a an e-reader with enough battery to get me through some reading sessions and then when i pop it in

01:48:41 ◼   ► the case it recharges off the battery and that in in the case um but when it's out of there i don't

01:48:47 ◼   ► have to hold that battery up and it's way lighter i kind of i kind of miss it i kind of miss that

01:48:53 ◼   ► that original kindle oasis as weird as it was i kind of liked it well the thing it has it's the thing

01:48:59 ◼   ► it shares with the original kindle is it has kind of a contour to it right when you take the the battery

01:49:05 ◼   ► case off uh it's got a thick side and a very very thin side and you just hold the thick side

01:49:10 ◼   ► naturally right which is what the kobos do for the most part exactly so that is the thing i don't like

01:49:17 ◼   ► about kindle design now is they're all just like flat rectangles yeah they're stones from a stream

01:49:23 ◼   ► polished stones they're all just flat round racks yeah and and as to jason to your point like it's not

01:49:30 ◼   ► horrible it's just a it a small thing would make it more pleasant like having buttons making it fit

01:49:37 ◼   ► better in your hand uh are are nice things and you would think e-readers are at a mature they're a

01:49:44 ◼   ► pretty mature product that you know a very small group of people use uh but those small that small

01:49:52 ◼   ► group of people really cares about it right so you would think there's probably two markets there's uh

01:49:59 ◼   ► people buying it for other people uh who are like oh you like to read or i don't know what or you like

01:50:04 ◼   ► gadgets so here's a cheap kindle um but then there are the other people like you and i who really like

01:50:10 ◼   ► to read and really care about the reading experience um and so and that's why i think amazon was clever to

01:50:16 ◼   ► have basically two segments they have the cheap kindles and the super expensive kindles uh but i would like

01:50:23 ◼   ► them to do more in the super expensive yeah i i agree um there is i i think in the cheap kindle

01:50:31 ◼   ► category i would also put people like our friend uh casey list who like mostly doesn't read i think a lot

01:50:38 ◼   ► in general and but goes on vacations and wants like a beach read and all of that and and i have several

01:50:44 ◼   ► times given him the you know here's the right super cheap e-reader to buy right now because he doesn't

01:50:51 ◼   ► want features and and you know it used to be now i would say the paper white only because it's like

01:50:55 ◼   ► waterproof and like their their advantages to it but um but and that's fine like i think that's a

01:51:01 ◼   ► reasonable market i wish there was more of a market for the people who care a little bit more about them

01:51:04 ◼   ► like you said but maybe not well scott that brings us you did it we did it together to the end of this

01:51:11 ◼   ► episode of upgrade uh thanks to everybody who's listening you can send your feedback follow-up and

01:51:16 ◼   ► questions to upgrade feedback.com thank you to our members who support us with upgrade plus this week

01:51:22 ◼   ► i'm going to ask scott some questions about stories of of his life as depicted in his blog

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01:51:36 ◼   ► baby is just to join upgrade plus you can find us on youtube by searching for upgrade podcast

01:51:40 ◼   ► thank you to our sponsors this week they were fitbot express vpn and factor and thanks so much

01:51:47 ◼   ► to scott for being on this episode scott it was a pleasure you and i do a star trek podcast when star

01:51:54 ◼   ► trek is in season called the vulcan hello over on the incomparable and i always say that podcast exists

01:51:59 ◼   ► because i enjoy talking to my friend scott about star trek but it was nice talking to you about e-readers and

01:52:05 ◼   ► computers and stuff too it was fun talking to you i enjoy talking to you jason i also enjoy

01:52:10 ◼   ► listening to you and mike talk so i'm excited for mike to be back whenever he comes back as a proud

01:52:16 ◼   ► upgrade plus member i enjoy supporting the podcast and listening to the podcast uh it's a lot of fun

01:52:22 ◼   ► and an honor to be here so thank you for inviting me on that was great having you uh thank you everybody

01:52:29 ◼   ► out there for listening to upgrade as usual and once again i would also like to thank casey liss john

01:52:36 ◼   ► gruber john siracusa steven hackett dan morin david smith and scott mcnulty the dead squad for being here

01:52:44 ◼   ► we'll be back next week will mike be here i sure hope so but until then goodbye

01:52:50 ◼   ► bye you