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430: Other Kickstands Are Available

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Ding]

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 430.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's action-packed bumper episode is supported by memberful DoorDash,

00:00:18 ◼   ► Uni Pizza Ovens, and ExpressVPN.

00:00:21 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Jason Snell.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Hi, Jason Snell.

00:00:24 ◼   ► - Hi, Myke Hurley. Woo! 4.30, oh yeah!

00:00:27 ◼   ► Busy day for you.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Busy day.

00:00:30 ◼   ► We're gonna be talking about iPad reviews.

00:00:33 ◼   ► We're gonna be talking about Mac OS.

00:00:36 ◼   ► So much stuff going on today.

00:00:38 ◼   ► But we must start, as we always do,

00:00:40 ◼   ► with a #snowtalk question.

00:00:42 ◼   ► This one comes from Dylan.

00:00:44 ◼   ► We are continuing the e-reader discussion

00:00:47 ◼   ► with this question. - Very slow segment,

00:00:48 ◼   ► yes, okay.

00:00:49 ◼   ► - Dylan asks, "As a fan of physical e-reader buttons,

00:00:52 ◼   ► "do you use the top one to turn the page forward

00:00:56 ◼   ► or do you use the bottom one to turn the page forward?

00:00:59 ◼   ► - You would think that this would be

00:00:59 ◼   ► a pretty straightforward answer, right?

00:01:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:01:02 ◼   ► - The answer is, the page forward button

00:01:06 ◼   ► is the button that my thumb rests on naturally

00:01:09 ◼   ► when I hold the e-reader.

00:01:10 ◼   ► - So it is device ergonomic dependent.

00:01:14 ◼   ► - It is.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Generally, I think with the Kobo that I'm using right now,

00:01:19 ◼   ► and generally this is the case,

00:01:20 ◼   ► the bottom button ends up being the one

00:01:22 ◼   ► that's the forward button,

00:01:23 ◼   ► because generally I just wanna go forward

00:01:26 ◼   ► and I wanna rest my thumb on the page turn button.

00:01:29 ◼   ► So wherever my thumb is most comfortable

00:01:32 ◼   ► and the grip that is most comfortable to me,

00:01:35 ◼   ► that's where my thumb goes.

00:01:36 ◼   ► So they let you choose which one is forward

00:01:41 ◼   ► and which one is back.

00:01:42 ◼   ► And I think I'm using the bottom one for forward

00:01:45 ◼   ► and the top one for back.

00:01:47 ◼   ► - So what you're saying is wherever I lay my thumb,

00:01:49 ◼   ► that's- - That's it, it's home.

00:01:51 ◼   ► - That's my home.

00:01:53 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a Snell Talk question of your own to help us open a future episode of Upgrade,

00:01:58 ◼   ► just send out a tweet with the hashtag SnellTalk or use question mark SnellTalk in the Relay FM members discord.

00:02:04 ◼   ► I have a "Where is Tim and Eddy?" update for you, Jason Snell.

00:02:11 ◼   ► Ladies and gentlemen,

00:02:13 ◼   ► It is time.

00:02:15 ◼   ► Start your segment!

00:02:17 ◼   ► Love it.

00:02:18 ◼   ► Tim Cook and Eddie Q spotted together at the Circuit of the Americas this weekend

00:02:25 ◼   ► for the American Grand Prix in Austin Texas. Is that like the Straits of Magellan or

00:02:30 ◼   ► something? Circuit of the Americas? I mean that's what they call it it's called

00:02:35 ◼   ► that I don't know. Oh oh oh is it because Apple has a manufacturing facility in

00:02:40 ◼   ► Austin and so they're doing circuits there? I mean yeah sure if you that's

00:02:44 ◼   ► what you want.

00:02:45 ◼   ► - Does it, like, they're, you know.

00:02:47 ◼   ► - Tim Cook and Eddy Cue were at the Grand Prairie

00:02:51 ◼   ► this weekend.

00:02:52 ◼   ► This led to lots of speculation on my timeline

00:02:55 ◼   ► that Apple's trying to vie for F1 rights.

00:02:57 ◼   ► Let me give you two pieces of information on this.

00:02:59 ◼   ► One, well, let me give you three pieces of information

00:03:02 ◼   ► on this.

00:03:03 ◼   ► One, no is piece of information one.

00:03:05 ◼   ► Piece of information two--

00:03:05 ◼   ► - ESPN already renewed their rights with--

00:03:07 ◼   ► - Lots it up, because ESPN would be bananas not to do it

00:03:12 ◼   ► because it is probably the fastest growing sport in America.

00:03:16 ◼   ► I've just said that, but I believe it to be true.

00:03:19 ◼   ► Is at least growing very quickly.

00:03:21 ◼   ► You know, I feel like maybe a lot of people

00:03:23 ◼   ► could attest to this, right?

00:03:25 ◼   ► I feel like you must see it in your timeline

00:03:27 ◼   ► more than ever, right?

00:03:28 ◼   ► People talking about Formula One.

00:03:30 ◼   ► - It's just the same bloody Europeans.

00:03:33 ◼   ► - So a lot of Americans,

00:03:34 ◼   ► I know a lot of Americans getting into the sport now,

00:03:37 ◼   ► and this is all because of Netflix's drive to survive.

00:03:39 ◼   ► And this is like, if those rights were available,

00:03:42 ◼   ► Netflix would take them, 100% Netflix would take them.

00:03:46 ◼   ► They would move heaven and earth to get them, right?

00:03:48 ◼   ► I believe that to be true.

00:03:50 ◼   ► Anyway, what they were doing there

00:03:53 ◼   ► was they were with Brad Pitt

00:03:55 ◼   ► because Brad Pitt is making a movie about Formula One,

00:03:59 ◼   ► which will be on Apple TV+.

00:04:02 ◼   ► So one of the things that was announced this weekend

00:04:05 ◼   ► as part of Brad being there,

00:04:06 ◼   ► which I reckon is probably why Tim and Andy were there,

00:04:09 ◼   ► is that in next year's season, they are going to be filming some parts for the movie at

00:04:14 ◼   ► the courses, like at the tracks. They're going to be doing some form of filming. So I expect

00:04:19 ◼   ► that they were all there together. One of the things that happened was for some reason,

00:04:24 ◼   ► Tim Cook was given the honor of waving the checkered flag. It didn't look like he wanted

00:04:30 ◼   ► to. So I don't know why he did it. You have never seen a man look so unhappy to be doing

00:04:36 ◼   ► Basically anything and then to put on the worst flag waving performance anybody's ever seen

00:04:42 ◼   ► I will direct you to a 9 to 5 Mac article which has both of these things

00:04:46 ◼   ► There is a picture which shows just how unhappy Tim Cook looked and then there's a video of him waving the flag

00:04:52 ◼   ► I'm gonna dispute this. Okay. I don't I don't think and especially this is as a parent of of

00:04:58 ◼   ► A couple of children. Mm-hmm. I don't think he's unhappy. I

00:05:02 ◼   ► think he is

00:05:06 ◼   ► very, very serious about doing a thing

00:05:09 ◼   ► he doesn't understand how to do.

00:05:11 ◼   ► - Ah, it's like, I don't know how my face

00:05:15 ◼   ► should look right now.

00:05:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think he's very focused

00:05:18 ◼   ► and he's doing like wave it back and forth, Tim,

00:05:21 ◼   ► just wave it back and forth.

00:05:22 ◼   ► - Right. - This is very,

00:05:23 ◼   ► they're all looking at me, I'm going to do this.

00:05:25 ◼   ► Did I do it okay?

00:05:26 ◼   ► - I will say, I've thought this a lot, right?

00:05:28 ◼   ► That feels like a very scary job

00:05:30 ◼   ► because you do not wanna drop it

00:05:32 ◼   ► because the cars are still going.

00:05:33 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:35 ◼   ► I've always been nervous about the Chekka flag waver because, you know, if that, if

00:05:40 ◼   ► you drop that flag and it lands on the racetrack, that's bad news.

00:05:44 ◼   ► There, you know, there's probably like a tether that's, there's a guy standing just off the

00:05:48 ◼   ► camera who's got the tether to make sure or like a little net or something.

00:05:53 ◼   ► We saw a number, when we were in Minnesota, we went to a Twins game and we saw a number

00:05:56 ◼   ► retirement ceremony, and that's the retiring an old player's number, and they, they had

00:06:04 ◼   ► the family and we were standing literally right behind where the number was going to

00:06:09 ◼   ► be, drinking beer and eating hot dogs. And it was a pretty great vantage point. They

00:06:15 ◼   ► brought his son and daughter, he was down in the field, they brought his son and daughter

00:06:18 ◼   ► up. They are there and they're gonna pull off the thing to reveal the number that is

00:06:24 ◼   ► permanently gonna be on the side of the stadium and inside. And first off, there's like, there

00:06:32 ◼   ► is a guy with a rope who's behind them and off-camera to and and then they try to pull

00:06:41 ◼   ► it and they kind of can't do it and it doesn't really work right and then they look back

00:06:45 ◼   ► at him and he just kind of pulls it and they pull along with it and then it really goes

00:06:49 ◼   ► and it's like you've got the back the like the off-camera backup plan so that it doesn't

00:06:54 ◼   ► become a disaster right so if Tim Cook dropped the checkered flag I there's like a flag catcher

00:07:02 ◼   ► thing somewhere because otherwise that would be terrible. Anyway, he strikes me as just

00:07:06 ◼   ► being like a kid who's just super focused on not wanting to screw it up more than it

00:07:11 ◼   ► does that he disdains it in his board. I think he's just like, "I don't know how I'm supposed

00:07:16 ◼   ► to look or how I'm supposed to do this, so I'm just going to really focus on going left,

00:07:19 ◼   ► right, left, right with this flag and can I go now?"

00:07:23 ◼   ► - So that's where they are.

00:07:25 ◼   ► - Right. What he's not, see, if they wanted an ebullient, dynamic, flag-waving finish

00:07:32 ◼   ► - Should've given it to Eddie, man.

00:07:34 ◼   ► - Eddie Q's your guy for that.

00:07:35 ◼   ► - He would've been the one, right?

00:07:36 ◼   ► Why? - He's your guy.

00:07:37 ◼   ► - You know?

00:07:38 ◼   ► - He's gonna give it a little loops,

00:07:41 ◼   ► and he's gonna do a woo-hoo,

00:07:43 ◼   ► and he's gonna pump his fist.

00:07:44 ◼   ► - Flowing it up in the air,

00:07:45 ◼   ► like some batons whirling. - He's gonna go, yeah, baby!

00:07:47 ◼   ► Checker flag!

00:07:49 ◼   ► - Because look, Eddie was excited.

00:07:50 ◼   ► So you'd see them around.

00:07:52 ◼   ► Eddie was having a great time.

00:07:53 ◼   ► He was there, they were there with Ferrari for some of it,

00:07:55 ◼   ► because Eddie's on Ferrari's board.

00:07:57 ◼   ► Eddie was having a great time.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Also-- - Myke, Myke, Myke, Myke.

00:08:01 ◼   ► - Do we need to specify that Eddie's having a great time?

00:08:04 ◼   ► Do we really need to even, of course,

00:08:07 ◼   ► Eddie's having a great time. - Where's Phil?

00:08:08 ◼   ► Where's Phil?

00:08:08 ◼   ► Phil is a big racing fan, you know?

00:08:10 ◼   ► - Phil's on the roof, he's not part of the--

00:08:12 ◼   ► - He should have been there.

00:08:14 ◼   ► Maybe he was there, but we just didn't see him.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Some breaking news for you, Jason Snow.

00:08:19 ◼   ► Breaking news.

00:08:20 ◼   ► - Is it Formula One related in any way?

00:08:21 ◼   ► - Not this time.

00:08:23 ◼   ► It's breaking news. - Okay, thank God.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Okay.

00:08:25 ◼   ► - Apple is increasing the prices

00:08:27 ◼   ► of some of their subscription offerings,

00:08:30 ◼   ► as of today. - Oh, here it comes.

00:08:32 ◼   ► - Apple Music's monthly price has been increased by $1

00:08:35 ◼   ► for individual plans, $2 for families.

00:08:37 ◼   ► Apple TV+ is rising by $2

00:08:41 ◼   ► and Apple One is going up by $3 per month.

00:08:44 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:08:45 ◼   ► - So obviously you won't pay for all of these things

00:08:48 ◼   ► depending on, you know, if you're an Apple One,

00:08:49 ◼   ► you're not gonna pay like six more dollars a month,

00:08:51 ◼   ► you'll pay three more dollars a month,

00:08:52 ◼   ► but if you just subscribe to one of the two

00:08:54 ◼   ► entertainment services,

00:08:56 ◼   ► then you're gonna see some increases in price there.

00:08:59 ◼   ► And since Apple One is essentially a family plan of music and TV, those individual plans

00:09:06 ◼   ► are going up $4, but the bundle's going up $3, so they're keeping some bundle savings

00:09:11 ◼   ► in there too. Interesting.

00:09:12 ◼   ► They've got to get that Apu up, I guess.

00:09:16 ◼   ► Well they said, in turn, this means artists and songwriters will earn more for the streaming

00:09:20 ◼   ► of the music because it's a percentage, right? So they raised the price, and that means that

00:09:23 ◼   ► there's actually more money also going to the artists. That's something. I'm glad they

00:09:27 ◼   ► mentioned it.

00:09:28 ◼   ► secondary way to do that though, which is just reduce what Apple takes. So let's

00:09:32 ◼   ► not treat it, I know you're not saying this, but if they're gonna come out and say it like that, they're trying to

00:09:39 ◼   ► say "hey, we're the good guys." I like that they said it because what

00:09:44 ◼   ► they're saying is this is not all going to us, this is going to us and the

00:09:48 ◼   ► artists and the record companies. Don't talk about them, nobody likes them.

00:09:53 ◼   ► Yeah but it goes for Apple in two ways, right? Because now services revenue just

00:09:57 ◼   ► automatically increases again, which is good for their share price. So like, I know I'm

00:10:03 ◼   ► not directing this at you, I'm directing this like, but don't try and make it out like you're

00:10:07 ◼   ► doing this for the good of creatives, right? Like, because there are other things that

00:10:10 ◼   ► you could do, like it just so happens that that happens for them, as opposed to this

00:10:15 ◼   ► is why we're doing it. That's how I look at it anyway.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I think that if you're a PR person, you absolutely make it out to me that

00:10:24 ◼   ► - Right, like that's your job is to do that.

00:10:26 ◼   ► And also they're throwing the record company

00:10:28 ◼   ► under the bus in that sentence.

00:10:29 ◼   ► It is a marvelous sentence.

00:10:31 ◼   ► 'Cause it's the change to Apple Music

00:10:33 ◼   ► is due to an increase in licensing costs, right?

00:10:36 ◼   ► They're like, it's not us, it's not us.

00:10:38 ◼   ► It's the record companies.

00:10:39 ◼   ► And in turn, artists and songwriters will earn more

00:10:42 ◼   ► for the streaming of their music.

00:10:43 ◼   ► So they're like, it's not us, it's the record companies,

00:10:46 ◼   ► but at least the artists that you love

00:10:49 ◼   ► will also get more money

00:10:50 ◼   ► in addition to the record companies.

00:10:52 ◼   ► They totally threw the music industry under the bus there.

00:10:55 ◼   ► They're like, "It's not us.

00:10:56 ◼   ► "It is due to an increase in licensing costs."

00:10:59 ◼   ► They're throwing some shade there.

00:11:02 ◼   ► I think that's a pretty good PR sentence.

00:11:04 ◼   ► - Let me tell you about a subscription plan

00:11:07 ◼   ► that hasn't gone up and isn't gone up.

00:11:09 ◼   ► Upgrade Plus.

00:11:10 ◼   ► Go to getupgradeplus.com

00:11:12 ◼   ► and you can get longer ad-free episodes of Upgrade

00:11:16 ◼   ► every single week.

00:11:17 ◼   ► No ads and bonus content and tons of other perks

00:11:20 ◼   ► for being a Relay FM member.

00:11:21 ◼   ► - What does that cost? - Go to getupgradeplus.com.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Just $5 a month, Jason Snow.

00:11:25 ◼   ► Or $50 a year if you want a discount you can buy.

00:11:28 ◼   ► - That's a bargain, that is a nice discount.

00:11:30 ◼   ► I'm a little hesitant to have you say it's not going up,

00:11:33 ◼   ► 'cause what if it does someday?

00:11:35 ◼   ► - I mean right now today, I just meant not going up now.

00:11:40 ◼   ► - Unfortunately, due to Myke,

00:11:42 ◼   ► it's now going to be $6 a month,

00:11:44 ◼   ► but it does also help compensate Jason.

00:11:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:11:50 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:11:52 ◼   ► - I feel like I wanna create a compensate Jason plan now,

00:11:56 ◼   ► which is six days.

00:11:57 ◼   ► - Oh no, you don't, no, no, it's okay.

00:12:00 ◼   ► - But I will take a cup from it,

00:12:01 ◼   ► but it will also compensate Jason.

00:12:02 ◼   ► - Oh, but it will also compensate me more, thank you.

00:12:05 ◼   ► Thank you, Apple PR, very good, very good.

00:12:08 ◼   ► - We're gonna talk about iOS 16.1 and iPadOS 16.1 more

00:12:11 ◼   ► over the next few weeks, it's not on our docket for today.

00:12:15 ◼   ► - There are gonna be lots of articles out there

00:12:17 ◼   ► about Stage Manager, please enjoy them.

00:12:19 ◼   ► - I put, and podcasts, I put all of my effort

00:12:23 ◼   ► into my Mac OS review for two reasons.

00:12:26 ◼   ► One is because iPad OS, it's mostly stage manager

00:12:30 ◼   ► and I really was trying to focus on Mac OS stage manager.

00:12:33 ◼   ► And also I feel like, honestly, I had that moment

00:12:35 ◼   ► this morning where I was thinking,

00:12:38 ◼   ► Federico is gonna get his stage manager,

00:12:39 ◼   ► it's out now as we record his stage manager piece.

00:12:44 ◼   ► And I kinda wanna give him the space

00:12:48 ◼   ► - I have opinions about Stage Manager on the iPad,

00:12:51 ◼   ► don't get me wrong, and they're not the same as Federico's,

00:12:55 ◼   ► but I feel like he's spent them,

00:12:57 ◼   ► he's taken the most bullets, he spent most time with it,

00:13:00 ◼   ► he needs to get out there with it.

00:13:01 ◼   ► And honestly, I prioritized macOS,

00:13:04 ◼   ► and then the last week I prioritized the new iPads,

00:13:09 ◼   ► because I've had those for the last week.

00:13:12 ◼   ► So that's been my priority.

00:13:14 ◼   ► So we're gonna, so we will definitely be talking more about

00:13:17 ◼   ► the 16.1 release, but it's not on the docket for today.

00:13:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause there's stuff like,

00:13:24 ◼   ► I still wanna try out more apps

00:13:27 ◼   ► with live activities and stuff like that.

00:13:29 ◼   ► - Absolutely.

00:13:30 ◼   ► - And so I wanna be able to talk about those later on.

00:13:32 ◼   ► And as you say, we have more than enough stuff

00:13:34 ◼   ► to talk about today, so we're gonna focus on the things

00:13:37 ◼   ► that we do, and one of those is a rumor roundup, Jason Snow.

00:13:40 ◼   ► - Of course.

00:13:41 ◼   ► - We're gonna have a rumor roundup.

00:13:42 ◼   ► I wasn't going to today, but then there were too many rumors,

00:13:45 ◼   ► so someone's gotta round 'em up.

00:13:46 ◼   ► That's how it happens, yeah.

00:13:48 ◼   ► - They get out of the pen, you gotta round 'em up.

00:13:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, you can't just say there's sheep,

00:13:51 ◼   ► I mean rumors, in the field, and they'll be fine, right?

00:13:54 ◼   ► You gotta go get 'em.

00:13:55 ◼   ► You gotta bring 'em in. - You gotta go round 'em up?

00:13:57 ◼   ► - Otherwise the rumor coyotes will,

00:14:00 ◼   ► rumor wolves will get, anyway. - The rumor wolves will get 'em.

00:14:02 ◼   ► - You gotta bring 'em in so they're safe.

00:14:05 ◼   ► - The wolves are the other podcasters.

00:14:07 ◼   ► - We are building a world here with the rumor,

00:14:09 ◼   ► the world of the rumor roundup,

00:14:11 ◼   ► and one of them is now that the rumor wolves

00:14:13 ◼   ► will devour all rumors that are not brought in

00:14:16 ◼   ► to safety by us.

00:14:18 ◼   ► - We're building the UCU, right?

00:14:20 ◼   ► This is the Upgrade Cinematic Universe now.

00:14:22 ◼   ► - I mean, is it connected to the rest of it

00:14:25 ◼   ► or is it just the Rumor Roundup universe?

00:14:27 ◼   ► But anyway, we'll let the fansites debate it.

00:14:31 ◼   ► - It's a spinner.

00:14:32 ◼   ► Mark Gorman is reporting that Apple is still working

00:14:35 ◼   ► on multiple Macs at this time that will be launched

00:14:38 ◼   ► within the next few months, maybe some coming in November.

00:14:41 ◼   ► New MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips.

00:14:45 ◼   ► A Mac Mini with an M2, possible M2 Pro, which is interesting.

00:14:50 ◼   ► And a Mac Pro featuring an M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme,

00:14:54 ◼   ► likely coming in 2023.

00:14:56 ◼   ► The article's from Mark,

00:14:57 ◼   ► and I'll put a MacRumors article in the show notes as well.

00:15:00 ◼   ► Lots of numbers about cores.

00:15:02 ◼   ► We said some of these before,

00:15:03 ◼   ► we'll talk about them again in the future.

00:15:05 ◼   ► All very powerful stuff, but to say, yeah.

00:15:07 ◼   ► - It's what we've been talking about.

00:15:09 ◼   ► It's what we would expect.

00:15:11 ◼   ► It's the only, I felt, you say a possible M2 Pro

00:15:15 ◼   ► in the Mac Mini.

00:15:15 ◼   ► I mean, I actually felt that was, he's hedging a little,

00:15:18 ◼   ► he doesn't know for sure.

00:15:19 ◼   ► But I have a hard time imagining that they're gonna do

00:15:22 ◼   ► a Mac Mini and not have an option for an M2 Pro.

00:15:25 ◼   ► - I agree with you, but he's seemed to have changed

00:15:29 ◼   ► his tune a little bit, which makes me just,

00:15:31 ◼   ► I pause a little now.

00:15:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I think he doesn't have that as clear.

00:15:36 ◼   ► And maybe, as we've said before,

00:15:38 ◼   ► one of the challenges in grading people who do rumor stuff

00:15:41 ◼   ► is Mark is reporting on what's going on

00:15:45 ◼   ► at any given moment inside Apple,

00:15:46 ◼   ► or at least when his source knew something

00:15:49 ◼   ► about what was going on inside of Apple,

00:15:52 ◼   ► and Apple changes its plans.

00:15:53 ◼   ► So sometimes reports are what Apple was planning at the time

00:15:57 ◼   ► and then six months go by and they don't release that,

00:16:00 ◼   ► it's because they changed their plans.

00:16:01 ◼   ► But looking at the Mac desktop lineup,

00:16:04 ◼   ► I have a hard time imagining that there wouldn't be,

00:16:06 ◼   ► like, I feel like the existence of that Intel Mac Mini

00:16:09 ◼   ► is essentially Apple saying, "We know. We have to do a higher performance Apple-

00:16:15 ◼   ► - Or at least like there is a placeholder here, right? Like we are leaving one spot.

00:16:21 ◼   ► - Exactly. Which would be the, you know, M2 Pro option to go make your Mac Mini that much

00:16:27 ◼   ► more powerful. But otherwise it's, yeah, it's revising the MacBook Pros with M2 versions of

00:16:32 ◼   ► the M2, the M1 Pro and Macs, just the next version. And then Mac Pro Ultra and Extreme,

00:16:37 ◼   ► I mean, he's basically talking about, right?

00:16:38 ◼   ► It's the two chips or the four chips,

00:16:40 ◼   ► which we've been talking about for a long time.

00:16:42 ◼   ► And that seems like a next year thing.

00:16:44 ◼   ► I think it's interesting that he equivocated

00:16:45 ◼   ► a little bit about this year.

00:16:47 ◼   ► That he, it seems to me,

00:16:50 ◼   ► I don't know if I would read this,

00:16:51 ◼   ► is that he's now got intel that they may not be this year.

00:16:56 ◼   ► I think it's more like he's got kind of an old source

00:16:59 ◼   ► that said those Mac revisions,

00:17:01 ◼   ► the MacBook Pros and the Mac Minis were coming this fall.

00:17:05 ◼   ► but it's unclear if he has been able to reestablish

00:17:09 ◼   ► that as a fact.

00:17:10 ◼   ► So he's hedging a little and saying,

00:17:12 ◼   ► or maybe next year, 'cause he doesn't really know.

00:17:14 ◼   ► I still think it's entirely possible

00:17:16 ◼   ► that we could get a Mac release as a press release,

00:17:19 ◼   ► tomorrow or a week from Tuesday or a week after that.

00:17:24 ◼   ► Like there are, I think it could happen anytime,

00:17:27 ◼   ► but Mark's report says,

00:17:31 ◼   ► if it doesn't happen before Christmas,

00:17:34 ◼   ► don't be too surprised if it's something

00:17:36 ◼   ► that's more in January, 'cause he even said,

00:17:38 ◼   ► they tend to release mags in November, January, and March,

00:17:41 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:17:42 ◼   ► It's like, well, actually, that's kind of right.

00:17:43 ◼   ► So if they don't hit the next few weeks,

00:17:46 ◼   ► it'll be January instead.

00:17:48 ◼   ► - So we're gonna talk about the iPads today.

00:17:52 ◼   ► One of the things that the 11-inch iPad Pro did not get

00:17:54 ◼   ► when they were announced last week

00:17:56 ◼   ► was the Liquid Retina XDR display, the mini LED display.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Ross display analyst, Ross Young,

00:18:03 ◼   ► expects that the iPad Pro lineup

00:18:05 ◼   ► will switch over to OLED in 2024.

00:18:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, we'll talk about this more

00:18:11 ◼   ► when we dive into the iPads,

00:18:12 ◼   ► but it starts to give a sense of where Apple is

00:18:15 ◼   ► and is not with iPad Pro hardware.

00:18:18 ◼   ► The idea that this is basically confirming

00:18:22 ◼   ► what we all just saw last week,

00:18:23 ◼   ► which is no properly new iPad Pro right now,

00:18:28 ◼   ► it's the ones you've already seen.

00:18:31 ◼   ► But in 18 months, when the cycle to refresh hits again,

00:18:35 ◼   ► there will be, at the very least,

00:18:36 ◼   ► 'cause he's a display analyst,

00:18:39 ◼   ► an OLED iPad Pro model or models in 24.

00:18:43 ◼   ► So that's the, that suggests to me,

00:18:46 ◼   ► we can talk about it more,

00:18:47 ◼   ► that that's what they've got pinned

00:18:49 ◼   ► as their next major iPad update,

00:18:53 ◼   ► which is funny because if you think about it,

00:18:55 ◼   ► that's more than five years

00:18:57 ◼   ► since the last body change to the iPad Pro of substance.

00:19:01 ◼   ► It's pretty wild.

00:19:02 ◼   ► - Question for you.

00:19:03 ◼   ► Do you think that 2024 is the next iPad revision

00:19:07 ◼   ► or do you think there is one in 2023?

00:19:09 ◼   ► - Well, the 18 month cycle suggests

00:19:12 ◼   ► that 2024 is the next iPad revision

00:19:14 ◼   ► if it's the first half of 24.

00:19:17 ◼   ► - You know, there is a conversation about like,

00:19:19 ◼   ► are they gonna go to M3?

00:19:20 ◼   ► And if they do, when do they do that, right?

00:19:22 ◼   ► Like that's, you know.

00:19:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think there's some questions.

00:19:25 ◼   ► First off, there's a question about the M3

00:19:26 ◼   ► 'cause I'm still not entirely given the timeline of M1

00:19:31 ◼   ► and M2 versus A14 and A15 and A16.

00:19:36 ◼   ► I'm not entirely convinced that the M3

00:19:41 ◼   ► is going to be based on the A16, right?

00:19:44 ◼   ► I think it's possible that they're gonna skip it

00:19:47 ◼   ► and put the M3 on the next falls iPad chip base,

00:19:51 ◼   ► or next falls iPhone chip base,

00:19:54 ◼   ► instead of this fall's iPhone chip base,

00:19:57 ◼   ► if that makes any sense.

00:19:58 ◼   ► So they might actually,

00:20:00 ◼   ► 'cause if you're doing a sort of 18 month-ish Mac chip

00:20:02 ◼   ► and an annual iPhone chip,

00:20:05 ◼   ► depending on especially what the process changes are at TSMC,

00:20:10 ◼   ► would they skip an A series generation

00:20:15 ◼   ► and then go to the next fresher M series generation?

00:20:19 ◼   ► So I think that's out there.

00:20:20 ◼   ► And then the other thing I'll throw out about the iPad Pro

00:20:22 ◼   ► just as pure speculation is we've heard some speculation

00:20:26 ◼   ► about a larger iPad.

00:20:27 ◼   ► And in fact, Mark Gurman said there's a 14 inch iPad Pro

00:20:31 ◼   ► of some sort in the works.

00:20:33 ◼   ► And we've heard that from other people.

00:20:35 ◼   ► That one could come out before 2024, right?

00:20:38 ◼   ► If you think back to the iPad Pro,

00:20:40 ◼   ► they did the first big iPad Pro alone

00:20:43 ◼   ► and then they did the smaller iPad Pro.

00:20:46 ◼   ► So they could definitely introduce like a mega iPad Studio,

00:20:50 ◼   ► iPad Pro 15, 14, whatever they want to call it, out of sync with the ones that we got

00:20:56 ◼   ► this week, or getting this week, that were announced last week. They could do that, but

00:21:02 ◼   ► it feels like the 12.9 and 11 iPad Pros that we know today kind of make sense for me that

00:21:09 ◼   ► they wouldn't get updated until early 24, because it's an 18-month cycle. They've been

00:21:12 ◼   ► doing that since 2008, or 2018, not 2008. 2008, there were no iPads.

00:21:19 ◼   ► I am starting to wonder if they ever really should have put the mini LED on the 12.9 if

00:21:27 ◼   ► I got I just am not sure that was the right move if they were never going to bring it

00:21:32 ◼   ► to the 11.

00:21:33 ◼   ► It's just like I just think it lessens the product line.

00:21:35 ◼   ► Nevertheless, we'll talk about that later.

00:21:36 ◼   ► Mark Gurman is also reporting that Apple had plans to create a sub $500 iPad and keyboard

00:21:44 ◼   ► combo.

00:21:45 ◼   ► Quote from Mark, Apple was internally considering launching an iPad of a plastic back and a

00:21:49 ◼   ► a plastic keyboard that would ship in the same box for below $500. The idea was seemingly

00:21:55 ◼   ► abandoned but that was probably apples only real hope of ever giving Chromebooks a run

00:21:59 ◼   ► for their money in most schools.

00:22:02 ◼   ► "Oh, you should make it, make this product."

00:22:05 ◼   ► - It feels like this is one of those pieces of information

00:22:08 ◼   ► that he was given that was like,

00:22:09 ◼   ► "You can write about this after they ship this new iPad."

00:22:13 ◼   ► Almost, like from the source.

00:22:14 ◼   ► It's like, "After they ship this new iPad,

00:22:16 ◼   ► "I'll let you share my disappointment

00:22:18 ◼   ► "about the fact that they didn't go in this other direction."

00:22:20 ◼   ► For the record, the new iPad

00:22:23 ◼   ► that we're gonna get to in a minute,

00:22:24 ◼   ► the new iPad 10th generation

00:22:27 ◼   ► with the keyboard that Apple is selling

00:22:29 ◼   ► is a $698 device.

00:22:34 ◼   ► Not close to sub-500.

00:22:37 ◼   ► In fact, their only sub-500 anything

00:22:40 ◼   ► is the ninth generation iPad with the old smart keyboard.

00:22:44 ◼   ► No trackpad.

00:22:46 ◼   ► That's 488.

00:22:48 ◼   ► So I think it feels to me that this report

00:22:50 ◼   ► is that people argued to go cheaper with the iPad

00:22:58 ◼   ► and have it be plastic so it was cheaper to produce

00:23:03 ◼   ► and include the keyboard in the box,

00:23:05 ◼   ► which is really interesting, right?

00:23:07 ◼   ► And have it be, at least for schools, let's say,

00:23:11 ◼   ► and have it be under 500.

00:23:12 ◼   ► And that would be basically there,

00:23:14 ◼   ► this is a laptop replacement kind of thing.

00:23:17 ◼   ► And I would say that that would have been a change

00:23:20 ◼   ► for Apple strategy and that the current iPad

00:23:23 ◼   ► is very consistent with Apple strategy.

00:23:25 ◼   ► But it's an interesting idea

00:23:27 ◼   ► that they were even thinking about it.

00:23:29 ◼   ► - And lastly, while we're talking about hardware,

00:23:33 ◼   ► this was a rumor that got confirmed.

00:23:35 ◼   ► Apple have announced that industrial design lead,

00:23:38 ◼   ► Evans Hanke is leaving the company.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Hanke will be staying on for six months

00:23:43 ◼   ► as they transition her role to someone else.

00:23:45 ◼   ► They have not named a successor yet.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Hanke was in the role for three years.

00:23:48 ◼   ► This is fascinating to me.

00:23:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know anything about the behind the scenes,

00:23:54 ◼   ► But this is a--

00:23:57 ◼   ► so who knows, right?

00:23:58 ◼   ► Who knows what causes this?

00:23:59 ◼   ► But it is interesting when you're

00:24:03 ◼   ► talking about that narrative of what's Apple's design

00:24:05 ◼   ► leadership like post-Johnny Ive,

00:24:07 ◼   ► that they made a big deal of saying that Evans-Hange was

00:24:10 ◼   ► in this position, and that she was in charge,

00:24:12 ◼   ► and it's like, it's OK, everybody.

00:24:14 ◼   ► And now she's-- not now, but in six months, but she's gone.

00:24:19 ◼   ► And I guess the question--

00:24:21 ◼   ► there's internal questions that it's very hard for us

00:24:23 ◼   ► to even understand what they are.

00:24:25 ◼   ► Externally, I think the question is,

00:24:29 ◼   ► does this concern Apple's investors essentially,

00:24:35 ◼   ► so that they would get punished in the stock market

00:24:40 ◼   ► or has the fear of Johnny Ive leaving faded?

00:24:45 ◼   ► 'Cause I view the way they really talked up Evans-Hanky

00:24:49 ◼   ► as in part being a relax everybody,

00:24:52 ◼   ► Apple's gonna be okay even though Johnny's not here anymore kind of thing. A PR thing,

00:24:57 ◼   ► a PR move. And I'm not sure with her leaving if they feel the need to do that again with

00:25:03 ◼   ► the newly designed. Maybe they will, but it feels a lot less imperative, right?

00:25:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:09 ◼   ► Yeah. And like this is nothing on Evans. I think it's pretty, I mean, I'm pretty sad

00:25:14 ◼   ► about this because Apple's hardware design, especially on the Macs has been so friggin'

00:25:19 ◼   ► and good the last few years, so this worries me.

00:25:23 ◼   ► - We just don't know, right?

00:25:24 ◼   ► We just don't know, like, that's my problem,

00:25:27 ◼   ► is I'd like to ascribe this to her leadership,

00:25:29 ◼   ► but we're not on the inside.

00:25:31 ◼   ► So somebody on the inside could say,

00:25:32 ◼   ► "Yes, she's the one who really cleaned up all the mess."

00:25:35 ◼   ► Somebody inside could be like,

00:25:36 ◼   ► "Yeah, she wasn't really involved in that one,

00:25:38 ◼   ► "and that was really this other couple of designers

00:25:39 ◼   ► "who did that, and they were really great about it."

00:25:42 ◼   ► - But ultimately, she may not have been put in pen to paper,

00:25:46 ◼   ► but like she's going to be saying yes or no

00:25:49 ◼   ► on this stuff, right?

00:25:50 ◼   ► And three years would suggest like stuff

00:25:53 ◼   ► that's coming out now,

00:25:54 ◼   ► that may have been some of her first work, I don't know.

00:25:56 ◼   ► But like, I'm just gonna say that I like her leadership

00:26:01 ◼   ► has been good for products, I think.

00:26:04 ◼   ► I think Apple's designing some really good stuff right now.

00:26:07 ◼   ► So I am a little concerned about this,

00:26:10 ◼   ► but we'll have to wait and see.

00:26:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth being concerned about it.

00:26:14 ◼   ► I just, I, and she gets, she's the one in charge,

00:26:18 ◼   ► so she should get the credit for it.

00:26:19 ◼   ► It's just, I just wanna remind everybody

00:26:21 ◼   ► that just as with Jonny Ive, there's this moment of like,

00:26:23 ◼   ► well, who actually is the author of this stuff?

00:26:27 ◼   ► It's probably lots of people.

00:26:29 ◼   ► And have we seen, we may only have seen,

00:26:32 ◼   ► 'cause of time dilation, the end point of her output

00:26:37 ◼   ► is what we're seeing now.

00:26:38 ◼   ► And because there is so much time sometimes

00:26:41 ◼   ► between a product being conceived

00:26:43 ◼   ► and a product being shipped.

00:26:44 ◼   ► And that's all the stuff we can't know.

00:26:47 ◼   ► So maybe Mark Gurman's sources will tell us,

00:26:50 ◼   ► but it is something to note and be concerned about.

00:26:54 ◼   ► If for no other reason, honestly,

00:26:56 ◼   ► than losing your lead means there's gonna be a shakeup

00:27:00 ◼   ► and some instability, and that's not great for any company,

00:27:05 ◼   ► especially a company that cares about industrial design

00:27:07 ◼   ► like Apple does.

00:27:08 ◼   ► - If I was to armchair quarterback this,

00:27:11 ◼   ► my feeling would be, I think maybe this role

00:27:16 ◼   ► should not be reporting into Jeff Williams.

00:27:18 ◼   ► It is very strange to me considering Apple's lineage

00:27:23 ◼   ► as a company, that they never put a chief of design in,

00:27:27 ◼   ► or they did not consider their head of software

00:27:30 ◼   ► and their head of industrial design

00:27:31 ◼   ► part of the leadership team.

00:27:33 ◼   ► That's always felt weird to me.

00:27:35 ◼   ► - Yep, I think so.

00:27:37 ◼   ► A point that Mark Gurman, I think, made about this,

00:27:40 ◼   ► I saw somebody make this point, maybe it was German,

00:27:43 ◼   ► maybe not, that I thought was very good

00:27:47 ◼   ► is talk about pressure.

00:27:50 ◼   ► Being the head of industrial design at Apple,

00:27:55 ◼   ► that is a pressure job.

00:27:58 ◼   ► That is a very serious job

00:28:00 ◼   ► because Apple cares so much about industrial design

00:28:04 ◼   ► and because of the legacy of Johnny I.

00:28:06 ◼   ► So that's tough.

00:28:09 ◼   ► Maybe this is only supposed to be a three to five year job,

00:28:12 ◼   ► but Johnny just did it for a really, really long time.

00:28:15 ◼   ► Right?

00:28:16 ◼   ► - Maybe so.

00:28:17 ◼   ► Keep in mind also, a lot of these designers

00:28:19 ◼   ► are elite designers who've been at Apple a long time.

00:28:21 ◼   ► They've got a lot of Apple stock.

00:28:23 ◼   ► I don't know if that's the case for Evans Hanke,

00:28:24 ◼   ► but I kind of assume it's one of those things too.

00:28:26 ◼   ► As with a lot of Apple executives

00:28:28 ◼   ► where they don't need to stay there.

00:28:30 ◼   ► They actually don't need to stay at Apple

00:28:33 ◼   ► to support themselves and their families.

00:28:36 ◼   ► And that's a challenge for Apple,

00:28:37 ◼   ► to motivate them to be there.

00:28:39 ◼   ► And so for a tough job like this, you're right.

00:28:41 ◼   ► I mean, maybe it really is something that you do

00:28:43 ◼   ► for a few years and then you're like,

00:28:44 ◼   ► "I need to step off now

00:28:46 ◼   ► and let somebody else have a crack at it."

00:28:48 ◼   ► - Kind of like Johnny,

00:28:49 ◼   ► like I now need to go and do the thing

00:28:51 ◼   ► that it is I want to do.

00:28:53 ◼   ► I don't need to continue doing the thing here.

00:28:55 ◼   ► - Right. - Right?

00:28:56 ◼   ► Like I'm gonna go and gonna go make a small practice

00:28:59 ◼   ► and I'm gonna just do the work, right?

00:29:02 ◼   ► Not the work work.

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00:30:57 ◼   ► So it is iPad embargo day.

00:31:01 ◼   ► - It is.

00:31:02 ◼   ► - As we're talking today.

00:31:03 ◼   ► - It is.

00:31:04 ◼   ► - And you have had,

00:31:06 ◼   ► we're gonna talk about just the iPad for the moment.

00:31:09 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:31:10 ◼   ► - How long have you had the iPad?

00:31:12 ◼   ► - Well, I got to see it Tuesday and I got it Wednesday.

00:31:16 ◼   ► So I've had it in my hands since last Wednesday.

00:31:20 ◼   ► - So like four or five days, something like that.

00:31:23 ◼   ► What color do you have?

00:31:25 ◼   ► - I have yellow.

00:31:26 ◼   ► - Ooh, do you like the yellow?

00:31:28 ◼   ► - Yes, I do, it's bright.

00:31:31 ◼   ► It's not, I mean, because it's metallic,

00:31:34 ◼   ► it's hard not to read it as a very, very, very yellow gold.

00:31:38 ◼   ► - Probably light my eye, man. - Just because.

00:31:40 ◼   ► - I bet it's light my eye. - Metallic yellow, yeah,

00:31:42 ◼   ► but it's nice, and then they dress it up.

00:31:43 ◼   ► They have a yellow Smart Folio that you can put on it,

00:31:47 ◼   ► right, that like, that pushes it even further

00:31:51 ◼   ► in the yellow direction, in the big bird direction.

00:31:54 ◼   ► But it's nice, I like it.

00:31:55 ◼   ► I would not choose it myself.

00:31:56 ◼   ► I would choose the blue probably

00:31:58 ◼   ► 'cause I'm like that, I do that.

00:32:00 ◼   ► Also, I got to see the pink one,

00:32:03 ◼   ► which is very, I mean, it's pink, but it's very red.

00:32:05 ◼   ► It's beautiful too.

00:32:06 ◼   ► I walked into the meeting room

00:32:11 ◼   ► where they had all the colors, Myke,

00:32:13 ◼   ► and I have to say my immediate thought was,

00:32:16 ◼   ► I may have said it out loud actually,

00:32:17 ◼   ► which is, wow, the colors are really,

00:32:19 ◼   ► was putting in extra time on this one.

00:32:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:32:23 ◼   ► 'Cause it's, yeah, 'cause this is, I approve,

00:32:27 ◼   ► again, this is the low-end iPad, right?

00:32:29 ◼   ► So this is where Apple feels somehow

00:32:31 ◼   ► like it's okay for them to get colorful,

00:32:34 ◼   ► whereas mostly they don't do that.

00:32:42 ◼   ► So it was good to see it.

00:32:46 ◼   ► - So this is an unprecedented thing

00:32:48 ◼   ► that's occurring right now

00:32:49 ◼   ► and it's not good for you as the listener,

00:32:50 ◼   ► but Jason's just turned on his video in Zoom.

00:32:52 ◼   ► we're recording zoom and he's showing me a yellow iPad.

00:32:55 ◼   ► And I will say that that is definitely more colorful

00:32:59 ◼   ► than the iPad Airs are.

00:33:00 ◼   ► And I will say, look at that,

00:33:02 ◼   ► that actually looks very much like the yellow

00:33:06 ◼   ► that is on my iMac.

00:33:07 ◼   ► That is the anodized part, the goldy part.

00:33:10 ◼   ► - I think so.

00:33:10 ◼   ► - I think it's pretty close to that.

00:33:12 ◼   ► I had a thought about this, all right?

00:33:13 ◼   ► I want to just share this thought with you.

00:33:15 ◼   ► And I know you're gonna agree with me

00:33:16 ◼   ► 'cause we're real big on color around here.

00:33:19 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:33:20 ◼   ► The iPad and the iMac both got fun colors.

00:33:24 ◼   ► Why didn't the MacBook Air?

00:33:26 ◼   ► Because isn't the MacBook Air in the same class

00:33:31 ◼   ► as those two products within their lineup?

00:33:33 ◼   ► - And there were rumors that they were gonna do that.

00:33:35 ◼   ► So I have two theories.

00:33:39 ◼   ► I have two theories.

00:33:40 ◼   ► I would love to know, by the way,

00:33:41 ◼   ► we don't do this that often here, but like--

00:33:43 ◼   ► - Yes, if you know-- - Somebody at Apple

00:33:44 ◼   ► knows why, I'd love to hear it.

00:33:46 ◼   ► Even if you wanted to tell anyone.

00:33:47 ◼   ► - We'll never tell anyone, we just wanna know.

00:33:49 ◼   ► I just wanna know.

00:33:50 ◼   ► The, that would be also not,

00:33:52 ◼   ► speaking of things that aren't good for podcasts

00:33:54 ◼   ► is us knowing and saying we can't say anything about it.

00:33:56 ◼   ► So two theories.

00:33:58 ◼   ► One is the theory of the supply chain,

00:34:00 ◼   ► which is even though Apple was fine making, you know,

00:34:03 ◼   ► a bunch of different iMacs in different colors,

00:34:05 ◼   ► they have to make so many MacBook Airs.

00:34:06 ◼   ► And they had, and remember,

00:34:07 ◼   ► they had a lot of production delays

00:34:10 ◼   ► that it's possible that what they said is,

00:34:11 ◼   ► look, this is terrifying.

00:34:13 ◼   ► Let's just do the tried and true MacBook Air colors.

00:34:17 ◼   ► and maybe we'll do the colors later.

00:34:19 ◼   ► So that's part of it, maybe they just were afraid

00:34:22 ◼   ► of the extra complication when they were trying

00:34:23 ◼   ► to get out a product that was a very complicated

00:34:25 ◼   ► and hardship.

00:34:26 ◼   ► My other theory, and this goes back

00:34:29 ◼   ► to that 20 max for 2020 story I did

00:34:30 ◼   ► about the original iBook that came in orange and blue.

00:34:34 ◼   ► And those were the only ones that were ever colorful, right?

00:34:38 ◼   ► After that, they made them white plastic and black plastic,

00:34:42 ◼   ► and then we've had various forms of boring

00:34:45 ◼   ► in aluminum shades.

00:34:47 ◼   ► I wondered at the time if the reason we don't see colorful laptops in the world is because

00:34:55 ◼   ► laptops get taken into the world and there's this feeling like in professional environments

00:35:01 ◼   ► and there's this thing about like do you want to be known as the person who's got the orange

00:35:04 ◼   ► laptop and that the result is that people don't buy colored laptops because they don't

00:35:11 ◼   ► want to have to commit to that color. And so at that point, if they're not buying them,

00:35:17 ◼   ► why are you selling them? I wonder if there's been market research about that or whatever.

00:35:21 ◼   ► My argument would be, I know if I'm buying a blue MacBook Air, just let me buy it. But

00:35:27 ◼   ► I can see the other side, which is, yeah, but then what if you take your orange MacBook

00:35:31 ◼   ► Air into a meeting and they're like, "Whoa, look at that orange laptop. Who are you?"

00:35:37 ◼   ► I think is dumb, but I think is also possibly real. But I don't know. I just would like

00:35:43 ◼   ► to see it. I mean, I'd like to see it across their product line, that they'd be a little

00:35:46 ◼   ► more bold with color with boring options as a choice if you feel you need to go that way.

00:35:51 ◼   ► But it's very clear that from Apple's perspective, it's just on these low-end models. And yes,

00:35:54 ◼   ► I know you can take the iPad out into the world. I did that. I took this iPad out into

00:35:58 ◼   ► the world.

00:35:59 ◼   ► - iPad's on for real luck. You know what I mean?

00:36:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that's it. People don't take iPads seriously anyway, so color's not a problem.

00:36:06 ◼   ► Well, I mean, if you did though, you get the iPad Pro, which just comes in a range of boring

00:36:10 ◼   ► colors.

00:36:11 ◼   ► It's boring, yeah.

00:36:12 ◼   ► But yeah, that was my thought, right?

00:36:14 ◼   ► The MacBook Air seems even weirder to me now than it did before because now the entry level

00:36:20 ◼   ► quote unquote products of these other two lines, or what is considered the every person

00:36:26 ◼   ► product of these lines, got fun colors, and the MacBook Air didn't.

00:36:31 ◼   ► Maybe there's going to be a really colorful 12 inch MacBook in the future.

00:36:34 ◼   ► One can only dream.

00:36:35 ◼   ► Maybe. Or they'll revise the MacBook Air. I'm still holding out some hope that they

00:36:40 ◼   ► might even do a mid-product line correction where they come out with a fun MacBook Air

00:36:46 ◼   ► color or something.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Would you mind?

00:36:48 ◼   ► Probably not. Who knows.

00:36:49 ◼   ► I'm quoting now from the one and only Jason Snell.

00:36:52 ◼   ► Oh.

00:36:53 ◼   ► The new low-end iPad suggests that Apple is stepping into the future of the iPad as a

00:36:59 ◼   ► sometimes laptop from its default orientation to the use of a trackpad and full function

00:37:05 ◼   ► key row.

00:37:07 ◼   ► So we're going to talk a little bit later on about the quite perplexing lineup that

00:37:12 ◼   ► they've got right now, but I think the thing that I took away from your review most keenly

00:37:17 ◼   ► was this idea of like, this is potentially the first signal of a continuation of the

00:37:24 ◼   ► like the furthering of the iPad line, because it has some features that we've wanted for

00:37:29 ◼   ► a really long time on the entire lineup, but just this one got it, which is also very weird

00:37:37 ◼   ► for how Apple updates the iPad line of like, the iPad gets features before anything else.

00:37:44 ◼   ► Yeah, although we had it where the iPad Air got features before the iPad Pro did.

00:37:49 ◼   ► But the iPad Air is still the iPad Air, you know what I'm talking about?

00:37:52 ◼   ► But it's not the iPad Pro.

00:37:53 ◼   ► - It's not the iPad Pro.

00:37:54 ◼   ► I know it's weird, it's weird.

00:37:55 ◼   ► I'm just saying that Apple, Apple's,

00:37:57 ◼   ► this is not unprecedented in Apple being real scattershot

00:38:00 ◼   ► with where it introduces products.

00:38:01 ◼   ► But I tried to take, it's funny you called up that sentence

00:38:03 ◼   ► 'cause I think that was literally the last sentence I wrote

00:38:06 ◼   ► in the whole thing.

00:38:07 ◼   ► It's in the introduction,

00:38:08 ◼   ► but I think it was the last sentence that I wrote.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And pro tip, sometimes you save the intro for the end

00:38:14 ◼   ► 'cause then you know what you said

00:38:15 ◼   ► so you can lead into it.

00:38:16 ◼   ► Anyway. - Oh, smart.

00:38:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, mm.

00:38:19 ◼   ► So yes, this was my thought about this iPad.

00:38:22 ◼   ► And we can talk about the iPad as a product,

00:38:25 ◼   ► but there's also the iPad line as a product line.

00:38:29 ◼   ► And I think when you look at those things,

00:38:34 ◼   ► moving the FaceTime camera to the horizontal aspect,

00:38:39 ◼   ► so that when you're doing a FaceTime call,

00:38:41 ◼   ► it looks like you're looking at the camera

00:38:43 ◼   ► and not off to the side of the camera

00:38:45 ◼   ► when you're doing it in horizontal orientation,

00:38:46 ◼   ► which I would argue is the primary iPad orientation.

00:38:50 ◼   ► And then Apple making keyboards was like the first nudge

00:38:54 ◼   ► of like even Apple recognizes that horizontal

00:38:57 ◼   ► is now a primary orientation, not just when you hold it,

00:38:59 ◼   ► but also if you've got it in a keyboard.

00:39:00 ◼   ► So let's put it there.

00:39:02 ◼   ► So that was number one.

00:39:03 ◼   ► They put a track pad on a keyboard for the,

00:39:07 ◼   ► it's not technically not the lowest end iPad

00:39:10 ◼   ► 'cause they kept the ninth generation around,

00:39:12 ◼   ► but let's say the new low-end model comes with a keyboard

00:39:17 ◼   ► and that keyboard has a trackpad on it.

00:39:19 ◼   ► So that's number one, right?

00:39:20 ◼   ► Where they're like, no, no, we're serious

00:39:22 ◼   ► about keyboards with trackpads on the iPad

00:39:25 ◼   ► and not just like, well, on the low-end models

00:39:27 ◼   ► you can get a keyboard, but it has no trackpad.

00:39:29 ◼   ► This clearly is a direction that they're pushing down

00:39:31 ◼   ► from the high-end all the way down.

00:39:34 ◼   ► And the function key row that they added

00:39:37 ◼   ► is another one of those things where in absence of it

00:39:41 ◼   ► on iPad keyboards from Apple,

00:39:42 ◼   ► you have to ask yourself the question,

00:39:44 ◼   ► is Apple just fundamentally opposed to it?

00:39:46 ◼   ► And you know, I have briefings with Apple people

00:39:50 ◼   ► that are on background and know Apple says

00:39:52 ◼   ► and all those things, so I can't really quote them.

00:39:54 ◼   ► I just have to know things that I learned there.

00:39:57 ◼   ► I have asked,

00:39:59 ◼   ► when they introduced the Magic Keyboard, I asked.

00:40:01 ◼   ► I've asked since then about the function row,

00:40:04 ◼   ► because the lack of the function row

00:40:06 ◼   ► on the Magic Keyboard for iPad is very frustrating.

00:40:08 ◼   ► And you know, they're PR people.

00:40:10 ◼   ► They gotta come up with an answer.

00:40:11 ◼   ► So sometimes I get an answer and the answer is like,

00:40:13 ◼   ► well, the control center is very convenient,

00:40:15 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:40:16 ◼   ► It's like, okay.

00:40:17 ◼   ► But you know what would be more convenient?

00:40:20 ◼   ► - It's like, really.

00:40:20 ◼   ► - Is not taking my hands off the keyboard

00:40:22 ◼   ► in order to pause my music.

00:40:24 ◼   ► Because I have the keys that are on every other

00:40:27 ◼   ► freaking keyboard that you guys make.

00:40:29 ◼   ► But there was no way to know whether Apple agreed.

00:40:33 ◼   ► Just like with the FaceTime camera.

00:40:34 ◼   ► There was, we could say, say,

00:40:36 ◼   ► wouldn't it be nice if the FaceTime camera

00:40:37 ◼   ► was on the other side?

00:40:38 ◼   ► And they'd be like, well, you know,

00:40:39 ◼   ► our users love holding the iPad."

00:40:41 ◼   ► And you're like, "Okay, but they can hold the iPad

00:40:44 ◼   ► the other way too."

00:40:45 ◼   ► And they won't give you an answer

00:40:47 ◼   ► because they're not gonna talk about future products

00:40:50 ◼   ► and they're not gonna admit to any flaws in anything.

00:40:52 ◼   ► It's not their job to do that, I get it.

00:40:55 ◼   ► So to see this, see the function row,

00:40:57 ◼   ► to see that moving camera,

00:40:59 ◼   ► and to see them push the trackpad down

00:41:01 ◼   ► to this lower end iPad,

00:41:04 ◼   ► suggests to me that now Apple is saying,

00:41:08 ◼   ► "Yes, those are all, the things you wanted are things we understand and also think the iPad should have."

00:41:16 ◼   ► And I find that very encouraging because when they're absent, I mean, there's no telling whether it will ever happen, right?

00:41:26 ◼   ► Like, until last Tuesday, we had, as iPad users, no idea if Apple even thought that putting an escape key and function keys

00:41:37 ◼   ► on an iPad keyboard was something anybody should do, right?

00:41:41 ◼   ► Like literally, did they just decide,

00:41:43 ◼   ► "No, you don't need that on the iPad or not."

00:41:46 ◼   ► And now we know that they think you do

00:41:50 ◼   ► because they put it on their keyboard.

00:41:51 ◼   ► And I find that encouraging.

00:41:54 ◼   ► It doesn't mean that they won't say,

00:41:55 ◼   ► "Oh no, it's just for that one

00:41:56 ◼   ► "and we can't put it on the others."

00:41:58 ◼   ► They may yet disappoint us,

00:41:59 ◼   ► but I like the idea here that Apple

00:42:01 ◼   ► seemed to have really internalized the idea

00:42:04 ◼   ► that sometimes you use your iPad as a laptop,

00:42:06 ◼   ► horizontal orientation is important,

00:42:08 ◼   ► trackpad's important, function key row is important.

00:42:12 ◼   ► I don't know if I put this in the review,

00:42:13 ◼   ► but I had that thought last week, which was,

00:42:15 ◼   ► all that remains is for them to rotate that Apple logo

00:42:18 ◼   ► on the back 90 degrees, but they haven't done that yet.

00:42:22 ◼   ► - Let's talk about the Apple Pencil.

00:42:24 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:42:25 ◼   ► - I mean, it's just less than great.

00:42:26 ◼   ► I think you summed it up so perfectly.

00:42:28 ◼   ► I don't particularly wanna like redo the whole conversation

00:42:32 ◼   ► about like the charger and such,

00:42:34 ◼   ► but you just said, if you're someone who cares

00:42:35 ◼   ► about the Apple Pencil, just don't bother with this model,

00:42:38 ◼   ► spend the extra money, get the iPad Air,

00:42:39 ◼   ► it supports the superior Apple Pencil too.

00:42:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's the bottom line is,

00:42:45 ◼   ► overview here by the way,

00:42:47 ◼   ► I really like the 10th generation iPad.

00:42:49 ◼   ► I think it's great.

00:42:51 ◼   ► I think it is, A14 is so powerful on its own

00:42:56 ◼   ► that you really have to start looking for use cases

00:43:01 ◼   ► where it's simply unsuitable.

00:43:04 ◼   ► it's pretty good and it's got a good price.

00:43:08 ◼   ► And it doesn't have the stupid home button anymore.

00:43:10 ◼   ► It's on touch ID on the--

00:43:12 ◼   ► - So it just looks good, right?

00:43:14 ◼   ► Like it just looks nice.

00:43:15 ◼   ► - It looks good, yeah.

00:43:16 ◼   ► - It's got the flat side design, right?

00:43:18 ◼   ► It's got the colors.

00:43:19 ◼   ► It does, you know, the borders are bigger

00:43:21 ◼   ► than the borders on some other devices.

00:43:23 ◼   ► - But the iPad needs borders.

00:43:24 ◼   ► The iPad needs borders, it does.

00:43:25 ◼   ► - You do need a place to hold it.

00:43:27 ◼   ► Absolutely, so all of that is good.

00:43:29 ◼   ► However, there are cases, like yes,

00:43:31 ◼   ► if you're doing high-end video

00:43:32 ◼   ► And if you're doing like,

00:43:33 ◼   ► if you really need that memory bandwidth,

00:43:35 ◼   ► you're doing like big media applications,

00:43:37 ◼   ► which again, most people aren't.

00:43:38 ◼   ► Like for a writer,

00:43:40 ◼   ► like, I mean, other than the keyboard,

00:43:43 ◼   ► which we'll get to in a minute,

00:43:44 ◼   ► but like as the idea,

00:43:46 ◼   ► I always think about like,

00:43:47 ◼   ► leaving aside my podcast editing and things like that.

00:43:50 ◼   ► What about being a writer?

00:43:51 ◼   ► And I take something like this little iPad out there

00:43:53 ◼   ► and it's like, I took this iPad over to Starbucks.

00:43:56 ◼   ► I sat at a table and I tapped, tapped, tapped

00:43:58 ◼   ► and wrote notes and stuff about the iPad.

00:44:00 ◼   ► And it was great.

00:44:02 ◼   ► I'm like, this is a great little computer for writing.

00:44:05 ◼   ► All of that is good.

00:44:06 ◼   ► However, rather than jumping around and saying,

00:44:10 ◼   ► look at this, I mean, we could talk about the,

00:44:12 ◼   ► why is the Pencil One supported on this device

00:44:14 ◼   ► that doesn't have lightning

00:44:15 ◼   ► so they have to create a weird adapter

00:44:16 ◼   ► where you plug the Pencil One in

00:44:18 ◼   ► and then you plug a cable into the other side

00:44:20 ◼   ► and that's a little adapter that people are gonna lose,

00:44:22 ◼   ► especially in schools.

00:44:23 ◼   ► It's not great, right?

00:44:25 ◼   ► I can look at that and have, and I wrote last week about,

00:44:30 ◼   ► like the, why did that happen?

00:44:33 ◼   ► And it's like Apple painted itself in a corner,

00:44:34 ◼   ► they made some design decisions for the Apple Pencil 2.

00:44:37 ◼   ► - Bad compromises, they made a set of bad compromises.

00:44:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, which was like four or five years ago,

00:44:41 ◼   ► they made a decision about that,

00:44:43 ◼   ► but they, and they had previously made the decision

00:44:45 ◼   ► that like, we're gonna just take a lightning port

00:44:47 ◼   ► and jam it into an iPad,

00:44:48 ◼   ► and that's how you're gonna charge the original, which was--

00:44:50 ◼   ► - They drew themselves into a lightning corner.

00:44:54 ◼   ► - Okay, so I'll give you that.

00:44:57 ◼   ► - Thank you.

00:44:58 ◼   ► under protest.

00:44:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:45:02 ◼   ► But those are decisions made, you know,

00:45:03 ◼   ► those are decisions made like five, six years ago

00:45:07 ◼   ► and like eight, nine years ago.

00:45:08 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:45:09 ◼   ► - Those two Apple pencil designs.

00:45:10 ◼   ► And they get to this model and they're like,

00:45:12 ◼   ► "Oh, what are we gonna do?"

00:45:15 ◼   ► Because they are now stuck with those two decisions.

00:45:19 ◼   ► And my guess is there's probably an Apple pencil three

00:45:22 ◼   ► in the works, but it's not ready yet.

00:45:25 ◼   ► And they're not gonna launch it here.

00:45:27 ◼   ► and it's probably got lots of expensive things

00:45:29 ◼   ► and all that.

00:45:30 ◼   ► So they're left with, do we support one or two?

00:45:32 ◼   ► And for whatever reason, they said,

00:45:34 ◼   ► we're gonna do this kind of embarrassing adapter

00:45:36 ◼   ► and support the Apple Pencil 1,

00:45:38 ◼   ► because to support Apple Pencil 2 would require X.

00:45:41 ◼   ► And I don't know what that is,

00:45:42 ◼   ► would require some more changes to the internals

00:45:45 ◼   ► that they're not willing to do,

00:45:47 ◼   ► or use of the magnetic space on the opposite side,

00:45:51 ◼   ► which is where the buttons are,

00:45:52 ◼   ► 'cause they've got the smart connector on the one side,

00:45:55 ◼   ► instead of on the back.

00:45:56 ◼   ► Like there's lots of conversations about ways

00:45:58 ◼   ► they could have done it,

00:45:59 ◼   ► but the fact was it was an additional complexity

00:46:02 ◼   ► that they decided that they didn't want.

00:46:04 ◼   ► And so we ended up there.

00:46:05 ◼   ► Okay, that's my pencil talk.

00:46:07 ◼   ► But here's the bottom line is,

00:46:09 ◼   ► if you care about the Apple Pencil, don't buy this iPad.

00:46:13 ◼   ► That's the bottom line, right?

00:46:14 ◼   ► Like just don't do it.

00:46:15 ◼   ► Because first you're gonna get the bad pencil.

00:46:17 ◼   ► Well, I mean, it's not bad,

00:46:18 ◼   ► but like it's not as good as the Apple Pencil 2.

00:46:19 ◼   ► You're gonna have to use the original Apple Pencil,

00:46:22 ◼   ► which will never work on another iPad probably.

00:46:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is the last one, yeah.

00:46:27 ◼   ► - And you gotta get the adapter,

00:46:28 ◼   ► and you gotta get the cable,

00:46:30 ◼   ► and it's all really inconvenient.

00:46:31 ◼   ► And at that point, if you care enough

00:46:34 ◼   ► about the Apple Pencil, you should get the iPad Air,

00:46:37 ◼   ► because then you get the Pencil 2.

00:46:38 ◼   ► - Or, what I would say is, like, if you want this iPad,

00:46:43 ◼   ► and like, you maybe sometimes might wanna take notes,

00:46:46 ◼   ► the Logitech Crayon exists.

00:46:47 ◼   ► - Get the Logitech Crayon for $70,

00:46:49 ◼   ► it's less than the Apple Pencil 1,

00:46:51 ◼   ► and it works with this iPad, and all iPads.

00:46:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's USB-C, you know, like.

00:46:58 ◼   ► - To charge.

00:46:59 ◼   ► - And I think that's great.

00:47:00 ◼   ► That will do the job for you.

00:47:03 ◼   ► That's it.

00:47:06 ◼   ► - Absolutely, yeah.

00:47:07 ◼   ► So that's the bottom line is we can talk about

00:47:09 ◼   ► the weirdness of it and why it happened

00:47:10 ◼   ► and that's all kind of fun from an academic perspective.

00:47:13 ◼   ► From the sheer,

00:47:15 ◼   ► well, tell me if I should buy this product perspective.

00:47:17 ◼   ► The answer is,

00:47:19 ◼   ► do you have some very kind of higher end needs?

00:47:22 ◼   ► Do you really want the Magic Keyboard,

00:47:24 ◼   ► which has some, although it doesn't have a function row,

00:47:27 ◼   ► has some features that this thing lacks.

00:47:30 ◼   ► Do you use the Apple Pencil?

00:47:32 ◼   ► And like, if any of those is true,

00:47:34 ◼   ► I'm gonna wave you off of this one.

00:47:36 ◼   ► But, you know, that's all that needs to be said.

00:47:38 ◼   ► I appreciate that Apple has given it Apple Pencil

00:47:42 ◼   ► compatibility through this ridiculous means,

00:47:46 ◼   ► but I don't think it's worth it.

00:47:47 ◼   ► I mean, like if you're starting fresh, I wouldn't do it.

00:47:53 ◼   ► - I have a question for you.

00:47:54 ◼   ► You didn't mention it in your review,

00:47:55 ◼   ► so maybe you don't have a particular feeling about it.

00:47:58 ◼   ► What do you feel of the display on this device?

00:48:00 ◼   ► Do you have any particular feelings about the display?

00:48:04 ◼   ► - I think it's fine.

00:48:05 ◼   ► I mean, it's not as good.

00:48:06 ◼   ► I have a 12.9 inch iPad Pro, right?

00:48:08 ◼   ► So I am coming from the highest--

00:48:10 ◼   ► - The best of the best. - High-end iPad display.

00:48:13 ◼   ► And this display is not laminated,

00:48:15 ◼   ► so it's a little bit further back from the glass.

00:48:17 ◼   ► And it's not XDR or anything like that.

00:48:19 ◼   ► It's just a, you know, an LCD iPad.

00:48:22 ◼   ► And what I would say is what I said about a lot

00:48:24 ◼   ► of other stuff, which is it's fine.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Like again, it's not the best you can get.

00:48:29 ◼   ► The A14 is not the best you can get.

00:48:31 ◼   ► Although I will say for a lot of tasks,

00:48:34 ◼   ► the A14 is gonna be faster than an A12X iPad Pro

00:48:37 ◼   ► from 2018, right?

00:48:39 ◼   ► Like there is a lot that did advance,

00:48:42 ◼   ► that pushes it higher than even some iPad Pros in some ways,

00:48:47 ◼   ► but it's fine.

00:48:49 ◼   ► It's not as good, but it's fine.

00:48:51 ◼   ► And I think that that's just, that's my,

00:48:53 ◼   ► that's really my take on it is that if you care enough

00:48:58 ◼   ► to get the very best, spend more money on an iPad.

00:49:02 ◼   ► But what I won't say is that this low-ish priced iPad is,

00:49:07 ◼   ► like that's not one of the compromises,

00:49:11 ◼   ► I would say is major.

00:49:12 ◼   ► It's noticeable, I guess.

00:49:15 ◼   ► It's not as nice, but it's also the cheaper iPad.

00:49:19 ◼   ► So it's not surprising it's not as nice.

00:49:20 ◼   ► I don't think it's as big a deal as like the Apple Pencil

00:49:23 ◼   ► dongle or something like that.

00:49:24 ◼   ► Because I think in the end,

00:49:27 ◼   ► one of the challenges with the iPad in general

00:49:29 ◼   ► and Apple's devices in particular

00:49:31 ◼   ► and computers in 2022 in particular,

00:49:33 ◼   ► is that they're really very good.

00:49:36 ◼   ► Right?

00:49:37 ◼   ► And like even the cheap ones are really very good.

00:49:38 ◼   ► It's just like how I felt about the MacBook Air,

00:49:40 ◼   ► which is, yeah, the MacBook Pro is better.

00:49:44 ◼   ► Do most people need it to be that much better?

00:49:46 ◼   ► Probably not.

00:49:47 ◼   ► Right?

00:49:48 ◼   ► Like for most people, the MacBook Air is fine.

00:49:50 ◼   ► In fact, for most people, the M1 MacBook Air is still fine.

00:49:53 ◼   ► It's very nice.

00:49:54 ◼   ► So it ends up becoming more of a calculation

00:49:57 ◼   ► of like how much extra do you wanna pay for extra niceness?

00:50:00 ◼   ► And there are fewer roadblocks,

00:50:02 ◼   ► which is like, I just said for the Apple Pencil,

00:50:04 ◼   ► which is, whoa, now, if you wanna use the Apple Pencil,

00:50:07 ◼   ► just don't buy this, I think.

00:50:09 ◼   ► But mostly it's just like, well, I mean, yeah,

00:50:11 ◼   ► pay more for a nicer screen if you like.

00:50:13 ◼   ► But this one's fine.

00:50:15 ◼   ► I really just feel,

00:50:17 ◼   ► and I'm not trying to dam it with faint praise,

00:50:19 ◼   ► I'm trying to say, I don't think most people will care.

00:50:22 ◼   ► It's a good iPad.

00:50:23 ◼   ► It's a really nice iPad.

00:50:24 ◼   ► I'm actually, I had that moment while I was using it

00:50:28 ◼   ► where I thought, other than the ninths

00:50:30 ◼   ► is still being around, right?

00:50:31 ◼   ► That complicates things.

00:50:33 ◼   ► But taking that aside for a moment,

00:50:35 ◼   ► this is the base model iPad.

00:50:37 ◼   ► It's really good.

00:50:38 ◼   ► It's really nice.

00:50:40 ◼   ► Like if this is, and I think that a lot of times

00:50:42 ◼   ► when we talk about iPad, we get hit from people

00:50:44 ◼   ► who are like, yeah, but I don't care that much

00:50:45 ◼   ► about the iPad.

00:50:46 ◼   ► I'm not gonna buy an iPad Pro.

00:50:47 ◼   ► Do I need to buy an iPad Air?

00:50:48 ◼   ► I really, I use my iPad some, but not that much

00:50:51 ◼   ► and not for a lot of serious stuff.

00:50:52 ◼   ► And can I get away with buying the cheaper iPad?

00:50:56 ◼   ► And to them, I would say, hell yeah,

00:50:59 ◼   ► you can get away with buying the 10th generation iPad.

00:51:01 ◼   ► It's really good.

00:51:02 ◼   ► - Always consider the iPad mini though.

00:51:05 ◼   ► iPad mini is so good.

00:51:07 ◼   ► - iPad mini is good too.

00:51:07 ◼   ► I mean, you gotta have, it's small

00:51:09 ◼   ► and everything's a little smaller.

00:51:11 ◼   ► So you gotta have the vision for it.

00:51:12 ◼   ► And ergonomically, it's good for some people

00:51:14 ◼   ► and bad for other people.

00:51:15 ◼   ► But yeah, it's also good.

00:51:16 ◼   ► But if the question is like,

00:51:18 ◼   ► I don't wanna spend that much money on an iPad,

00:51:20 ◼   ► is it a crappy iPad?

00:51:22 ◼   ► And this goes back to that idea of the plastic iPad

00:51:24 ◼   ► in the box with a plastic keyboard.

00:51:26 ◼   ► Like Apple didn't make that product, they made this product.

00:51:29 ◼   ► And I would say this product feels really nice.

00:51:32 ◼   ► Like it feels like a premium product,

00:51:35 ◼   ► as I would argue, probably every Apple product should,

00:51:37 ◼   ► I think that that's their design goal.

00:51:39 ◼   ► - They're all expensive. - It's good.

00:51:41 ◼   ► It is a good product.

00:51:42 ◼   ► It is more expensive than the ninth generation.

00:51:45 ◼   ► It's not a cheap iPad, but it's gonna,

00:51:49 ◼   ► you can buy this iPad

00:51:51 ◼   ► and you're gonna get a really good iPad experience.

00:51:53 ◼   ► - Tell me about the keyboard.

00:51:55 ◼   ► - Oh boy.

00:51:56 ◼   ► Okay, so smart, it's what?

00:51:57 ◼   ► Magic Keyboard Folio is what it's called.

00:52:00 ◼   ► It is reminiscent of other third-party iPad keyboards

00:52:03 ◼   ► I've reviewed in the past,

00:52:05 ◼   ► in that it's got a smart connector,

00:52:08 ◼   ► which is the one that was used in the smart keyboard,

00:52:11 ◼   ► just to do the ones that were just keyboards.

00:52:14 ◼   ► It's got that smart connector on the side.

00:52:16 ◼   ► So it does a side attach.

00:52:18 ◼   ► Like if you've been using a higher end iPad,

00:52:21 ◼   ► you have to think back a few years

00:52:23 ◼   ► to back when there was the magnetic attach on the side

00:52:27 ◼   ► instead of the back.

00:52:28 ◼   ► That's what it's using.

00:52:30 ◼   ► And then there's a second piece.

00:52:32 ◼   ► So that's for the keyboard part.

00:52:34 ◼   ► And then there's a second piece, which is a magnetic back,

00:52:37 ◼   ► very much like the magnetic back that you find

00:52:40 ◼   ► in all the other modern Apple iPad cases.

00:52:43 ◼   ► So there's strong magnets in the back of the iPad

00:52:45 ◼   ► that it attaches to.

00:52:47 ◼   ► And what the magnetic back is,

00:52:48 ◼   ► is it's a back plate with a kickstand.

00:52:53 ◼   ► So it's thicker and heavier than you'd think,

00:52:57 ◼   ► because it's a layered thing with a,

00:53:01 ◼   ► it's all the same flatness, by the way.

00:53:02 ◼   ► They've made it thicker on the top part

00:53:04 ◼   ► that isn't a kickstand,

00:53:05 ◼   ► so that when the kickstand is not folded out, it's flat.

00:53:10 ◼   ► But there's a kickstand.

00:53:11 ◼   ► So, and it's adjustable to any angle.

00:53:13 ◼   ► I mean, up to, I forget what the exact angle is,

00:53:16 ◼   ► but like it's got a wide angle that goes back to like,

00:53:19 ◼   ► I don't know, 30 degrees.

00:53:20 ◼   ► And then it will come closer if you want.

00:53:25 ◼   ► It won't go flat or anything.

00:53:26 ◼   ► So there's some limitations, but within that,

00:53:28 ◼   ► there's not like one angle.

00:53:30 ◼   ► You can kind of slide it to any angle you want

00:53:33 ◼   ► above that point.

00:53:34 ◼   ► - That's really good. That's good.

00:53:36 ◼   ► I was wondering about that.

00:53:37 ◼   ► I assumed that would be the case,

00:53:39 ◼   ► but like I was happy to hear that it wasn't like,

00:53:42 ◼   ► it has a few set positions or whatever.

00:53:44 ◼   ► You know like how the Magic Keyboard

00:53:46 ◼   ► has that like parts where it locks.

00:53:48 ◼   ► - Right, no, it's free positioning here, basically,

00:53:51 ◼   ► until you get to the edge of beyond which it won't go.

00:53:54 ◼   ► Like it's not gonna let you flop it way over.

00:53:57 ◼   ► It's gotta be pretty upright,

00:53:59 ◼   ► but then it can be really upright

00:54:00 ◼   ► or a little bit less upright.

00:54:03 ◼   ► - I feel like I'm currently,

00:54:04 ◼   ► this is like Myke Hurley in the "Multiverse of Madness"

00:54:07 ◼   ► because I do two Apple-focused tech shows, right?

00:54:11 ◼   ► I have Upgrade with Jason Snow, and I have Connected,

00:54:14 ◼   ► where one of my co-hosts is Federico Vittigi.

00:54:17 ◼   ► And between my two co-hosts here,

00:54:19 ◼   ► we occupy the exact opposite set of the spectrum

00:54:23 ◼   ► about kickstand feelings.

00:54:24 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:54:25 ◼   ► - This is very intriguing to me.

00:54:26 ◼   ► You hate them, Federico loves them.

00:54:29 ◼   ► - Right, the fun polarizing simplification is

00:54:34 ◼   ► that I think kickstands are garbage.

00:54:36 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:54:39 ◼   ► But, and we talked about this on Twitter today.

00:54:42 ◼   ► - Is there a but to garbage?

00:54:43 ◼   ► - No, no, yeah, no, I mean, well, like I said,

00:54:45 ◼   ► that was the fun polarizing one.

00:54:46 ◼   ► It's fun just to say on Twitter,

00:54:47 ◼   ► kickstands are garbage and, you know, end of tweet.

00:54:50 ◼   ► But here's the thing, I don't like kickstands.

00:54:55 ◼   ► And the reason I don't like them

00:54:56 ◼   ► is that I actually use my iPad in my lap.

00:54:59 ◼   ► And I think my opinion is, kickstands are bad on the lap.

00:55:06 ◼   ► they're bad because they put all the weight

00:55:08 ◼   ► on the edge of the kickstand.

00:55:11 ◼   ► And so you're feeling that.

00:55:13 ◼   ► I think it is less stable because it's,

00:55:16 ◼   ► so much of the weight is going on the kickstand.

00:55:19 ◼   ► And because of the angles, you have to,

00:55:21 ◼   ► 'cause the whole keyboard is in front of the iPad,

00:55:24 ◼   ► and then behind the iPad,

00:55:26 ◼   ► there's another angle with the kickstand.

00:55:28 ◼   ► It means you actually need a fairly long amount of space.

00:55:32 ◼   ► And so what I always find is that I end up,

00:55:34 ◼   ► for me to be comfortable typing and looking at the screen,

00:55:38 ◼   ► I end up having to have the kickstand at an angle

00:55:40 ◼   ► where it's practically going off my knees.

00:55:43 ◼   ► And I find it really uncomfortable

00:55:45 ◼   ► and unstable and unpleasant.

00:55:48 ◼   ► If all you do, 'cause we were having this conversation

00:55:51 ◼   ► on Twitter this morning

00:55:54 ◼   ► with our friend Dan from The Verge.

00:55:58 ◼   ► And-- - Big fan of the

00:56:01 ◼   ► Orange Dongle Town t-shirt is my understanding from Twitter.

00:56:04 ◼   ► - I love Dan, he does great work.

00:56:05 ◼   ► And Dan, what Dan said that I thought was really telling

00:56:09 ◼   ► 'cause Dan's a kickstand, pro kickstand person,

00:56:12 ◼   ► although he says Apple's kickstands aren't as good

00:56:14 ◼   ► and there are other better kickstands out there.

00:56:16 ◼   ► - Other kickstands are available.

00:56:17 ◼   ► - Other kickstands are available, exactly.

00:56:20 ◼   ► What he said is I just don't use it in my lap very much.

00:56:22 ◼   ► And like, I would also say if you use it on a soft surface,

00:56:24 ◼   ► like a pillow or a cushion or something like that,

00:56:27 ◼   ► kickstands are also not very good.

00:56:28 ◼   ► You kind of need to use them on a table.

00:56:30 ◼   ► If you use them on the table, they're fine

00:56:33 ◼   ► other than that you need the extra depth,

00:56:35 ◼   ► because again, very deep kind of thing.

00:56:37 ◼   ► So look, what I'm saying is, if you like kickstands,

00:56:42 ◼   ► oh, and I didn't even mention,

00:56:43 ◼   ► I'm gonna say something positive about kickstands.

00:56:45 ◼   ► You can tear the keyboard off this thing,

00:56:48 ◼   ► and that back plate still has the kickstand on it,

00:56:50 ◼   ► which means now you've got a kickstand for your iPad,

00:56:52 ◼   ► that's a magnetic attach, which is very nice, right?

00:56:55 ◼   ► - Prop it up for video, all that kind of stuff.

00:56:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not on your lap, it needs to be on a table.

00:57:00 ◼   ► But yes.

00:57:01 ◼   ► - But it's so much more usable and useful

00:57:04 ◼   ► than the SmartFolio in that regard.

00:57:08 ◼   ► - It is also thicker and heavier, which I don't love.

00:57:11 ◼   ► And then the sheer awkwardness,

00:57:12 ◼   ► and Federico has a great gif of this,

00:57:14 ◼   ► the sheer awkwardness of the kind of squooshiness

00:57:17 ◼   ► of that keyboard.

00:57:18 ◼   ► I don't think it's a very good case.

00:57:21 ◼   ► You can use it as a case,

00:57:22 ◼   ► but it doesn't really offer protection.

00:57:24 ◼   ► And then you've got to either have the keyboard

00:57:25 ◼   ► going up against your screen,

00:57:27 ◼   ► or you can flip it around and have it on the back,

00:57:30 ◼   ► or you can, and you can flip it around either direction.

00:57:32 ◼   ► It's not, it's not great as a case.

00:57:35 ◼   ► It's better as a case than I would argue

00:57:36 ◼   ► the Magic Keyboard is because the Magic Keyboard,

00:57:39 ◼   ► basically you can only use it as a keyboard

00:57:41 ◼   ► in that orientation.

00:57:42 ◼   ► It's not, you can use it as a stand,

00:57:43 ◼   ► but you've got to have the keyboard there.

00:57:45 ◼   ► It's not as good.

00:57:46 ◼   ► This is better than that, but in that way.

00:57:49 ◼   ► But I don't think it's a very good case.

00:57:51 ◼   ► I think you, if you buy this,

00:57:53 ◼   ► you will probably want to seriously consider

00:57:55 ◼   ► buying a Folio case too,

00:57:56 ◼   ► and only using this when you're really, you know, using it.

00:57:59 ◼   ► But I just, if you like kickstands

00:58:02 ◼   ► or you don't use things on your lap

00:58:04 ◼   ► or you use kickstand stuff on your lap and you don't care,

00:58:07 ◼   ► then it's great.

00:58:07 ◼   ► For me, it's not great.

00:58:11 ◼   ► I would not use this because I use my iPad in my lap

00:58:15 ◼   ► and it's just not right.

00:58:19 ◼   ► So I view this as being a, when we say like,

00:58:23 ◼   ► oh, they put the trackpad and they put the horizontal camera

00:58:26 ◼   ► and they've got the function row,

00:58:28 ◼   ► Like, ah, maybe I should get the iPad.

00:58:30 ◼   ► I go, yeah, but they make you have a kickstand.

00:58:32 ◼   ► That's how you know you're using the low end product

00:58:34 ◼   ► is they forced you to use a kickstand.

00:58:36 ◼   ► But that's me.

00:58:37 ◼   ► I just don't like kickstands.

00:58:38 ◼   ► I'm against them.

00:58:39 ◼   ► - But it's an option.

00:58:41 ◼   ► - It is good and some people will like it.

00:58:43 ◼   ► I would say that it's just such a compromise

00:58:44 ◼   ► that as somebody who uses an iPad in my life,

00:58:46 ◼   ► I am not willing to make it.

00:58:48 ◼   ► And I feel like if it wasn't a compromise,

00:58:50 ◼   ► we wouldn't have laptops anymore.

00:58:51 ◼   ► We'd have slabs with kickstands and floppy keyboards.

00:58:55 ◼   ► And that hasn't, I mean, we do have those,

00:58:57 ◼   ► but that hasn't really replaced the laptop,

00:58:59 ◼   ► I think for some good reasons.

00:59:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:59:02 ◼   ► Like, you know, obviously the Microsoft Surface

00:59:04 ◼   ► is the king of this.

00:59:05 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:59:06 ◼   ► Yeah, and I have a Surface and again,

00:59:08 ◼   ► it's a thing I use on a table.

00:59:11 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:59:11 ◼   ► - Right, I like, I pick it up and I'm like,

00:59:13 ◼   ► oh, I'll go, hmm, no, I'm gonna go to the table and use it.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Because I just don't,

00:59:18 ◼   ► if I'm actively typing and it's got the kickstand open

00:59:21 ◼   ► and the floppy keyboard is on the front,

00:59:23 ◼   ► it's like, it's just, I just don't like it.

00:59:26 ◼   ► I find it very uncomfortable.

00:59:27 ◼   ► So, and the angle, I actually find the screen angle

00:59:29 ◼   ► uncomfortable because I can't get it far enough back

00:59:33 ◼   ► so that I can see it the way I want to

00:59:35 ◼   ► without it sliding off the backs of my knees.

00:59:37 ◼   ► So I don't like that either.

00:59:39 ◼   ► So anyway, but it's there.

00:59:41 ◼   ► It's a good keyboard.

00:59:42 ◼   ► It's identical to the Magic Keyboard in every other way

00:59:45 ◼   ► as key travel and all of that.

00:59:47 ◼   ► It isn't backlit.

00:59:48 ◼   ► It does have the function row.

00:59:50 ◼   ► - Make a trackpad, you said, right?

00:59:53 ◼   ► - The trackpad is a little bit bigger, that's true.

00:59:57 ◼   ► - I think maybe it's Federico, I've read that too.

01:00:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, well the magic keyboard for iPad,

01:00:03 ◼   ► there's so many different keyboards now,

01:00:05 ◼   ► has a lot of dead space at the top

01:00:07 ◼   ► because it's under the overhang of the cantilever.

01:00:10 ◼   ► And this thing doesn't have that problem.

01:00:13 ◼   ► So it's got more depth to work with.

01:00:16 ◼   ► So the trackpad's a little bit bigger

01:00:17 ◼   ► and they have added that function row.

01:00:19 ◼   ► It makes me wonder what they'll do

01:00:21 ◼   ► if they ever revisit that cantilever design,

01:00:25 ◼   ► whether they will try to jam some more stuff in there

01:00:27 ◼   ► that's further back or they change the physics of it.

01:00:29 ◼   ► The physics of suspending an iPad

01:00:31 ◼   ► so you don't need a kickstand are hard.

01:00:33 ◼   ► It's totally true that they're hard.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Oh, the other thing about,

01:00:36 ◼   ► I did mention about the case that I need to mention

01:00:39 ◼   ► is that it's cost,

01:00:40 ◼   ► it costs about 55% of what the iPad costs,

01:00:44 ◼   ► more than half of what the iPad costs.

01:00:46 ◼   ► And I mean, it's Apple,

01:00:50 ◼   ► this is the kind of thing that happens,

01:00:51 ◼   ► but it sure takes the wind out of my sails

01:00:53 ◼   ► when I try to say,

01:00:53 ◼   ► "Oh, well, yeah, you can get the cheaper iPad

01:00:55 ◼   ► and the keyboard and, oh, yeah."

01:01:00 ◼   ► Then you're already up at 700 bucks.

01:01:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's expensive.

01:01:03 ◼   ► - Right.

01:01:04 ◼   ► And for another, again, just to put it in perspective,

01:01:07 ◼   ► for another 200, you can get the iPad Air with the pen,

01:01:11 ◼   ► and it supports the Pencil 2,

01:01:13 ◼   ► and you can get the kind of proper magic keyboard case

01:01:17 ◼   ► instead.

01:01:19 ◼   ► - So that's the iPad, right?

01:01:20 ◼   ► - That's it.

01:01:23 ◼   ► It's like I said, I actually think it's really good.

01:01:26 ◼   ► I don't like the kickstand part of the case,

01:01:31 ◼   ► but as an iPad, like I think in the end,

01:01:34 ◼   ► what it's gonna mean is most people

01:01:36 ◼   ► are gonna buy this thing as I wanna get a new iPad.

01:01:39 ◼   ► Like I said before, I want a new iPad.

01:01:41 ◼   ► I'm not that serious about the iPad.

01:01:42 ◼   ► I wanna get an iPad for me or for my kid or whatever.

01:01:45 ◼   ► Is this new iPad good?

01:01:48 ◼   ► And the answer is yes.

01:01:50 ◼   ► But, right, all those notes, pencil, kickstand,

01:01:54 ◼   ► like there are issues.

01:01:55 ◼   ► But like if those issues don't matter to you, it's great.

01:02:00 ◼   ► Like it is a very nice,

01:02:02 ◼   ► I never used the 10th generation iPad and thought,

01:02:06 ◼   ► other than with the Apple Pencil Dunkle thing,

01:02:08 ◼   ► and thought, ugh, what a bad iPad.

01:02:11 ◼   ► It's so cheap.

01:02:12 ◼   ► It never happened, never.

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01:04:12 ◼   ► So let's talk about the iPad Pro.

01:04:15 ◼   ► I will start with two quotes from your overall iPad review which included iPad Pro as well.

01:04:23 ◼   ► It's a good design, yes, but it's a little frustrating that it's been in stasis for four

01:04:28 ◼   ► full years.

01:04:31 ◼   ► There are several iPads available at the 11 inch size, so it would be nice if the iPad

01:04:35 ◼   ► Pro were a bit better differentiated from, for example, the iPad Air, it's not.

01:04:41 ◼   ► I think this does a very good job of encapsulating my outside observation of the iPad Pro, which

01:04:46 ◼   ► is the 11" has just become a worse product, I think, ultimately, because it did not take

01:04:54 ◼   ► the jump that it should have, in my opinion, so it's become an even harder product to recommend,

01:05:00 ◼   ► And the 12.9 didn't get, I think, well-rounded meaningful updates.

01:05:08 ◼   ► If you are a particular type of illustrator, maybe this is meaningful to you.

01:05:13 ◼   ► But otherwise, I mean, Apple's already kind of proven that the M chips won't give you

01:05:20 ◼   ► much because stage manager was supposed to be M chips only.

01:05:24 ◼   ► But now it's just if you want to plug it into a monitor, which is like, we're going on thinner

01:05:29 ◼   ► and thinner wedges at this point, right?

01:05:32 ◼   ► So this iPad Pro, honestly, I don't understand it.

01:05:36 ◼   ► - It is, well, I understand it in the sense

01:05:40 ◼   ► that it is Apple basically saying, let's just let it ride.

01:05:44 ◼   ► It is a company that has an iPad design

01:05:49 ◼   ► that they wanna push out there for another cycle.

01:05:52 ◼   ► And they've got new chips, they make their own chips.

01:05:54 ◼   ► So they're like, well, why don't we just stick the M2 in it

01:05:56 ◼   ► and call it a day?

01:05:58 ◼   ► I have some theories about it.

01:05:59 ◼   ► My theory is that we've heard from Mark Gurman, right?

01:06:05 ◼   ► And we heard from Ross Young.

01:06:09 ◼   ► OLED display on iPad Pro, larger iPad Pro.

01:06:14 ◼   ► I have a theory that they were probably

01:06:21 ◼   ► targeting this period for a new body for the iPad Pro.

01:06:26 ◼   ► And at some point they said, "Not gonna happen.

01:06:30 ◼   ► "Let's push it off 18 months to the next cycle."

01:06:33 ◼   ► Because this is unlike a, you know, the iPhone now

01:06:37 ◼   ► has the same body for three consecutive cycles,

01:06:39 ◼   ► which is three years.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Well, we're on cycle four for the iPad,

01:06:42 ◼   ► and it's an 18-month cycle, not a 12-month cycle.

01:06:45 ◼   ► So it is four full years since that Brooklyn event,

01:06:49 ◼   ► where they did the retina iPad Air

01:06:54 ◼   ► and the new 2018 A12X iPad Pro.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Same body, I mean, they changed,

01:07:00 ◼   ► there's a camera with LiDAR

01:07:01 ◼   ► and the screen got upgraded on the 129.

01:07:03 ◼   ► And like, there are changes, but like, you know what I mean.

01:07:05 ◼   ► It's the same body.

01:07:09 ◼   ► And it's a good design,

01:07:11 ◼   ► but it does sort of feel like they probably didn't intend

01:07:15 ◼   ► to do it four times,

01:07:17 ◼   ► where it's gonna end up being five and a half years

01:07:20 ◼   ► between revisions of it.

01:07:22 ◼   ► Maybe they did, but I would like to believe

01:07:25 ◼   ► that Apple's iPad Pro Design people were,

01:07:29 ◼   ► you know, they've got a new one in the works,

01:07:30 ◼   ► and pandemic, supply chain crisis,

01:07:34 ◼   ► like for some reason, they're like, "Hmm, let's wait."

01:07:39 ◼   ► Maybe it was price of like, they wanna go all OLED,

01:07:41 ◼   ► and they're like, "Not yet, we can't do it yet

01:07:43 ◼   ► with confidence," or a confluence of those things.

01:07:46 ◼   ► But something I think happened and made them say,

01:07:48 ◼   ► "Nah, we gotta let it ride."

01:07:49 ◼   ► And so what you get is, again, out of context,

01:07:54 ◼   ► as a standalone product, it's perfectly good,

01:07:57 ◼   ► because it's like the M1 iPad Pro, except faster, you know,

01:08:01 ◼   ► M2, 1900 Geekbench instead of 1700.

01:08:04 ◼   ► I mean, it's literally the same scores

01:08:06 ◼   ► as I could have just pasted in a paragraph

01:08:08 ◼   ► from my M2 MacBook Air review,

01:08:11 ◼   ► comparing it to the M1 MacBook Air,

01:08:13 ◼   ► 'cause M1s are M1s, M2s are M2s.

01:08:15 ◼   ► The numbers don't change, they don't.

01:08:18 ◼   ► they are literally the same.

01:08:20 ◼   ► So it's a little faster,

01:08:22 ◼   ► but you shouldn't really upgrade for an M1

01:08:24 ◼   ► other than for the one feature,

01:08:25 ◼   ► which is a very, very specific niche use case.

01:08:29 ◼   ► And it only pushes the platform forward

01:08:31 ◼   ► in a couple of places.

01:08:32 ◼   ► So like out of context, it's fine.

01:08:34 ◼   ► Like if you're looking for an iPad Pro,

01:08:36 ◼   ► your iPad Pro breaks, you have a 2018 model

01:08:38 ◼   ► and you wanna get something that's faster because X.

01:08:41 ◼   ► You've been holding out

01:08:42 ◼   ► because you've got the older, older model

01:08:44 ◼   ► and you finally wanna update.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Like you could get this one,

01:08:47 ◼   ► Although knowing that there's probably a bigger update

01:08:50 ◼   ► coming in 18 months, and it's not bad, it's great.

01:08:53 ◼   ► The M2 iPad Pro is great.

01:08:57 ◼   ► Also it lacks, right?

01:08:59 ◼   ► But it's like a message in the bottle from 2018.

01:09:02 ◼   ► And so when Apple has said, aha,

01:09:04 ◼   ► we're gonna add a function row

01:09:05 ◼   ► and we're gonna move the FaceTime camera

01:09:07 ◼   ► to the horizontal edge and all that,

01:09:09 ◼   ► it's like, well, that's a 2022 thing.

01:09:11 ◼   ► - Well, it's probably a 2020 decision, right?

01:09:14 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, but it's a 2020 release decision.

01:09:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you know, like so that,

01:09:19 ◼   ► the iPad Pro is a 2016 set of ideas.

01:09:23 ◼   ► And then the iPad is a 2020 set of ideas.

01:09:26 ◼   ► And we all know what difference those four years

01:09:29 ◼   ► would have made, you know what I mean?

01:09:30 ◼   ► - Actually, I think it's more than that

01:09:31 ◼   ► because you can't do the release date for one

01:09:33 ◼   ► and the invention date for the other.

01:09:35 ◼   ► So let's just say the iPad is a 2022 release

01:09:38 ◼   ► with this message that it sent us last week.

01:09:41 ◼   ► And the iPad Pro is a 2016, no 2018 release, right?

01:09:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's why I said 2016 and 2020.

01:09:48 ◼   ► - Oh, you said '16, all right.

01:09:50 ◼   ► So you can subtract a couple of years off of it,

01:09:51 ◼   ► but that's the point, right?

01:09:53 ◼   ► Is that this iPad Pro is new, yes,

01:09:57 ◼   ► but it's also four years earlier

01:10:00 ◼   ► in Apple's thinking about the platform than where it is now.

01:10:03 ◼   ► And it's dispiriting, right?

01:10:06 ◼   ► Like again, as a product, it's fine.

01:10:09 ◼   ► But then you look over the iPad and you're like,

01:10:11 ◼   ► oh, but I see where they're going.

01:10:12 ◼   ► And this makes this design feel old,

01:10:15 ◼   ► even though it's perfectly good, it feels old

01:10:19 ◼   ► because it feels like it's coming from an era where

01:10:22 ◼   ► it's literally, we can pinpoint it, right, Myke?

01:10:24 ◼   ► We can pinpoint it to that Brooklyn event and say,

01:10:27 ◼   ► or it's even more than that

01:10:30 ◼   ► because maybe they knew about it at the Brooklyn event.

01:10:32 ◼   ► We can pinpoint it to March of 2020, right?

01:10:36 ◼   ► Which is when the Magic Keyboard came out,

01:10:39 ◼   ► as the moment where Apple was like,

01:10:40 ◼   ► all right, we're doing a pointing device

01:10:44 ◼   ► and pointing device support.

01:10:46 ◼   ► And now we're getting there, right?

01:10:49 ◼   ► But that was the kind of initial pointing device thing.

01:10:52 ◼   ► And the hardware hasn't even changed since before that

01:10:56 ◼   ► for this iPad Pro.

01:10:57 ◼   ► Whereas that new iPad is obviously their next thought

01:11:01 ◼   ► about that design where it's like,

01:11:03 ◼   ► we're gonna do a bigger track pad

01:11:04 ◼   ► and we're gonna add a function row

01:11:06 ◼   ► and we're gonna move the camera.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Like, 'cause they could have moved the camera,

01:11:11 ◼   ► Theoretically, they could have moved the camera on the M1

01:11:14 ◼   ► because the 2020 model, 2020 March,

01:11:20 ◼   ► well, actually they could have done it on the A12Z even,

01:11:23 ◼   ► the slightest of iPad updates ever.

01:11:26 ◼   ► When they came out with that keyboard,

01:11:28 ◼   ► they could have said,

01:11:29 ◼   ► "Ah, yes, we're moving the camera now."

01:11:30 ◼   ► And they didn't do it.

01:11:32 ◼   ► 'Cause even then they're like,

01:11:32 ◼   ► "No, it's too much internal work, too much design work.

01:11:35 ◼   ► We're just not gonna do it.

01:11:36 ◼   ► We're gonna push the same design out again."

01:11:39 ◼   ► And so here we are fourth time out.

01:11:41 ◼   ► It's wild.

01:11:43 ◼   ► But again, as a product, it's fine.

01:11:45 ◼   ► I mean, it's a good product.

01:11:48 ◼   ► It's just the same.

01:11:48 ◼   ► It's exactly the same.

01:11:50 ◼   ► I swapped it.

01:11:51 ◼   ► I copied all my stuff over from my M1 iPad Pro

01:11:55 ◼   ► to the M2 iPad Pro and put it in my case.

01:11:59 ◼   ► And other than having to reenter passwords occasionally,

01:12:02 ◼   ► right, 'cause I did an iCloud migration,

01:12:05 ◼   ► I can't tell the difference.

01:12:06 ◼   ► Other than, I'm sure that with Apple Pencil

01:12:09 ◼   ► and the hover feature, I will be able to tell the difference

01:12:11 ◼   ► on something somewhere sometime.

01:12:13 ◼   ► But for the most part, it's just the same.

01:12:17 ◼   ► It's just a new chip.

01:12:19 ◼   ► That's it.

01:12:20 ◼   ► - I guess the only meaningful change is Apple Pencil hovers.

01:12:25 ◼   ► This is the ability that, what's the distance from,

01:12:28 ◼   ► you know? - Oh, I forget.

01:12:30 ◼   ► - Close, we'll call it close.

01:12:31 ◼   ► - 15 millimeters, something like that?

01:12:33 ◼   ► - If the Apple Pencil is close to the display,

01:12:35 ◼   ► but not exactly touching it, it can enter a hover state.

01:12:38 ◼   ► I said before, this is just like a Wacom tablet.

01:12:41 ◼   ► Like I use, you know, if I hover my Wacom over,

01:12:44 ◼   ► I'm moving the cursor.

01:12:45 ◼   ► If I touch it down, it's going to start dragging things

01:12:48 ◼   ► around.

01:12:49 ◼   ► And, you know, there are some interesting things

01:12:51 ◼   ► like Procreate obviously got advanced warning of this.

01:12:55 ◼   ► They've put out an update, which has a bunch of stuff in it.

01:12:58 ◼   ► Like you can hover over and it will show you like a,

01:13:01 ◼   ► what brush you're going to be using,

01:13:03 ◼   ► what color you're going to be using.

01:13:05 ◼   ► And you can then use pinching gestures to make some changes

01:13:08 ◼   ► to size and stuff like that.

01:13:09 ◼   ► So if you're an artist, this is cool.

01:13:12 ◼   ► - That's the thing.

01:13:13 ◼   ► So they're leveraging all the pointer stuff

01:13:16 ◼   ► to do hover states and just generic apps, right?

01:13:19 ◼   ► It's sort of a, you're getting the mouseover effect

01:13:24 ◼   ► from that, that they already did

01:13:25 ◼   ► because of the trackpad support.

01:13:27 ◼   ► What is, which is fine, but you know,

01:13:31 ◼   ► it gives you a little bit of feedback.

01:13:32 ◼   ► It's nice.

01:13:33 ◼   ► If you're somebody who is navigating an iPad

01:13:34 ◼   ► with an Apple Pencil, it's gonna be great

01:13:36 ◼   ► 'cause it's a little extra something.

01:13:37 ◼   ► What I like about this feature

01:13:42 ◼   ► is it manages to add a new vocabulary to Apple Pencil

01:13:47 ◼   ► without having to update the Apple Pencil itself.

01:13:49 ◼   ► And if you think about it, the way it does this is,

01:13:54 ◼   ► now before the device only really knew

01:13:58 ◼   ► is the pencil down or is it not?

01:14:00 ◼   ► And now it knows three things.

01:14:03 ◼   ► it knows is the pencil down, is the pencil hovering,

01:14:06 ◼   ► or is it not?

01:14:07 ◼   ► And obviously when the pencil's down,

01:14:11 ◼   ► something different happens,

01:14:14 ◼   ► because the pencil is down.

01:14:16 ◼   ► But now this hover state means

01:14:18 ◼   ► you can do stuff when hovering.

01:14:20 ◼   ► So the preview is a do stuff when hovering.

01:14:23 ◼   ► The demo that I saw was Procreate,

01:14:26 ◼   ► where they've modified their app,

01:14:28 ◼   ► and there's an API for this

01:14:29 ◼   ► that has been released for developers,

01:14:31 ◼   ► that you can do like hover state,

01:14:33 ◼   ► you can have different things happen

01:14:34 ◼   ► when the pencil is in hover state.

01:14:36 ◼   ► So Procreate has it that if you run a finger up and down,

01:14:39 ◼   ► I think it changes like the opacity.

01:14:41 ◼   ► And if you pinch and spread while it's in hover,

01:14:45 ◼   ► it actually changes the brush size.

01:14:47 ◼   ► So you get a whole other vocabulary

01:14:49 ◼   ► where gestures mean something different

01:14:54 ◼   ► when you're hovering, when you can also,

01:14:55 ◼   ► the hover is previewing what you're gonna do.

01:14:57 ◼   ► So when you change the brush size,

01:14:58 ◼   ► you see the brush size change.

01:15:01 ◼   ► but you're not actually painting.

01:15:03 ◼   ► You're just seeing the preview.

01:15:05 ◼   ► That's really cool.

01:15:07 ◼   ► And then they actually, they also wired in a feature

01:15:09 ◼   ► that's based on the, you know, double tap on the pencil

01:15:12 ◼   ► that you can set double tap on pencil when hovering

01:15:15 ◼   ► to mean something different

01:15:18 ◼   ► than when you double tap on the pencil

01:15:19 ◼   ► when you're not hovering.

01:15:21 ◼   ► And also, I think it's my understanding

01:15:24 ◼   ► that Scribble has been updated where,

01:15:27 ◼   ► if you think about Scribble,

01:15:29 ◼   ► which is the thing where you write words on your iPad

01:15:32 ◼   ► and it gets turned into text.

01:15:33 ◼   ► If it knows only whether the pencil is down or gone,

01:15:39 ◼   ► it has to make some guesses

01:15:41 ◼   ► about whether you're gonna keep writing letters,

01:15:44 ◼   ► but now it knows when you're hovering.

01:15:46 ◼   ► And so the pencil algorithm apparently has been tweaked

01:15:50 ◼   ► to use that information to decode things faster.

01:15:54 ◼   ► If it knows you've removed the pencil out of hover range,

01:15:58 ◼   ► it's like, oh yeah, they're done writing that stroke.

01:16:00 ◼   ► I can start translating now.

01:16:03 ◼   ► Whereas if you keep it hovering,

01:16:04 ◼   ► it knows that you're probably still going.

01:16:06 ◼   ► That's really interesting too.

01:16:07 ◼   ► And it knows your hover location.

01:16:09 ◼   ► So that's a fun little thing, which is like,

01:16:11 ◼   ► well, they have more data about where your pen is

01:16:14 ◼   ► than they used to, so they can do a better job with it.

01:16:16 ◼   ► So I think it's nice.

01:16:17 ◼   ► Again, this is a very niche feature,

01:16:21 ◼   ► but it's a nice feature.

01:16:22 ◼   ► I think, I imagine it will be a feature on every iPad

01:16:28 ◼   ► with a Pencil 2 from now on, and I hope it is,

01:16:30 ◼   ► because it's a nice little thing.

01:16:32 ◼   ► And if you are a Procreate user who,

01:16:36 ◼   ► I met one, I met somebody who does videos

01:16:42 ◼   ► about Procreate and all that, and she was levitating

01:16:45 ◼   ► about this new feature, 'cause for her,

01:16:47 ◼   ► this is a game changer.

01:16:48 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:16:49 ◼   ► - But again, a very limited niche

01:16:52 ◼   ► in which it's a game changer.

01:16:54 ◼   ► - One of the things you mentioned is,

01:16:55 ◼   ► double tapping on the Pencil while hovering

01:16:57 ◼   ► can kick off a completely different command than double tapping when it's

01:17:00 ◼   ► not hovering that will be maddening. I mean it's optional yeah I know but like

01:17:08 ◼   ► I feel like if you did that for the double tap on the pencil I feel like if

01:17:14 ◼   ► you're getting used to if you're used to what that means it what like I don't

01:17:17 ◼   ► know like a couple of millimeters different to perform a different action

01:17:20 ◼   ► and like do you always mean it to you know what I mean I feel like that's not

01:17:24 ◼   ► That specific part is maybe not so great.

01:17:27 ◼   ► - It's a choice that the app developers have to make

01:17:29 ◼   ► and Procreate, it was basically grabbing,

01:17:31 ◼   ► I think it was grabbing colors from a palette.

01:17:33 ◼   ► So the idea that you could actually keep your pen,

01:17:37 ◼   ► the demo was you keep your pen over the thing

01:17:41 ◼   ► and you've got like your color selection.

01:17:43 ◼   ► So while you're hovering, you can go like double tap,

01:17:47 ◼   ► tap on a thing, double tap, tap on a thing.

01:17:50 ◼   ► and you're doing that gesture entirely

01:17:53 ◼   ► while working with the pencil and the canvas.

01:17:56 ◼   ► And in the current version, basically,

01:17:58 ◼   ► that is not this new version that's gonna come out,

01:18:01 ◼   ► you would have had to tap on an item,

01:18:03 ◼   ► go up to the Chrome around the app,

01:18:06 ◼   ► pick the next color, come back down, right?

01:18:09 ◼   ► It's that kind of thing that there are probably,

01:18:11 ◼   ► again, talk about a niche within a niche.

01:18:13 ◼   ► But I think, like I was thinking about Fairite,

01:18:16 ◼   ► which is the app that I use the most with the pencil by far,

01:18:19 ◼   ► 99% of my pencil use is ferrite.

01:18:21 ◼   ► And I thought, there's probably something there.

01:18:24 ◼   ► Like, I don't know if it's the double tap gesture,

01:18:27 ◼   ► or I was thinking like,

01:18:28 ◼   ► maybe he does like an audio preview

01:18:30 ◼   ► when you scrub on hover or something like that.

01:18:33 ◼   ► Like maybe, it'd be interesting to see

01:18:35 ◼   ► what developers do with it, but make no mistake.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Like, most of the people out there listening to this

01:18:41 ◼   ► are like, I don't care.

01:18:42 ◼   ► And that's, I think that's true.

01:18:44 ◼   ► The people who care will care a lot and that'll be great.

01:18:47 ◼   ► but it is a very limited niche feature.

01:18:50 ◼   ► - You wrote an article after the announcement,

01:18:54 ◼   ► which was kind of talking about, as you called it,

01:18:57 ◼   ► the iPads erratic odyssey.

01:18:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was actually why my review is shorter

01:19:02 ◼   ► is 'cause I already wrote a couple of thousand words

01:19:04 ◼   ► about the big picture stuff,

01:19:05 ◼   ► but just based on the announcement, yeah.

01:19:06 ◼   ► - And basically, to kind of try

01:19:10 ◼   ► and sum this up a little bit,

01:19:13 ◼   ► there's just so many things here

01:19:15 ◼   ► which are hard to...

01:19:18 ◼   ► I'm just gonna, actually I'm gonna read from you.

01:19:20 ◼   ► As an iPad for everyone,

01:19:21 ◼   ► if you can figure out which ones have which features

01:19:24 ◼   ► and whether those features are worth the extra price.

01:19:28 ◼   ► So like, you know, as we look at each,

01:19:29 ◼   ► I think you mentioned this in your review too,

01:19:31 ◼   ► like as you look at each product on its own,

01:19:34 ◼   ► you could be like, oh, that's interesting or not.

01:19:36 ◼   ► And like, you can kind of weigh it up to what it is

01:19:38 ◼   ► as a product in the iPad line.

01:19:41 ◼   ► But when you zoom out and look at the whole line,

01:19:45 ◼   ► it's wild, right?

01:19:48 ◼   ► And like, you know, like I mentioned,

01:19:50 ◼   ► the iPad mini being in there is also wild, right?

01:19:54 ◼   ► It's like, it's smaller, but it's more expensive.

01:19:57 ◼   ► You know, like there's like parts of that,

01:19:59 ◼   ► which is like, you know,

01:20:00 ◼   ► you can see the price go up as the size goes up.

01:20:02 ◼   ► Oh, except for this one, which is, you know,

01:20:05 ◼   ► it's just like, it's a very strange lineup of products

01:20:09 ◼   ► that are yes, hitting each area,

01:20:13 ◼   ► but at this current point,

01:20:15 ◼   ► some of the fundamentals like where does the camera go?

01:20:19 ◼   ► What pencil supported?

01:20:20 ◼   ► What's on the keyboard?

01:20:21 ◼   ► Which keyboards are most flexible?

01:20:23 ◼   ► Like it differs wildly across the product line.

01:20:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:20:32 ◼   ► I mean, and I've gotten some feedback from people

01:20:35 ◼   ► who have said, there's a guy I used to work with,

01:20:38 ◼   ► who I had lunch with and he said, I don't know.

01:20:42 ◼   ► I mean, some of it is a little,

01:20:45 ◼   ► I think what he was getting at is it's a little esoteric.

01:20:48 ◼   ► It's sort of like, well, you know,

01:20:50 ◼   ► as observers of the whole product line,

01:20:51 ◼   ► we have complaints about the consistency

01:20:53 ◼   ► of the entire product line.

01:20:54 ◼   ► And isn't that a little academic?

01:20:56 ◼   ► I think on one level it is.

01:20:57 ◼   ► I think that's accurate.

01:20:58 ◼   ► I think my counterargument would be it's not academic

01:21:03 ◼   ► if you're somebody who is trying to buy an iPad

01:21:06 ◼   ► and is confused about all the options.

01:21:09 ◼   ► Because now you have iPad 9th generation,

01:21:12 ◼   ► iPad 10th generation, iPad mini, iPad Air,

01:21:16 ◼   ► 11-inch iPad Pro, 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

01:21:19 ◼   ► You've got six currently selling models,

01:21:23 ◼   ► all of which have different features.

01:21:25 ◼   ► They don't necessarily go up with price.

01:21:29 ◼   ► Some of the features are outliers at different price points.

01:21:33 ◼   ► There are multiple accessories

01:21:36 ◼   ► with different device compatibility.

01:21:38 ◼   ► There are, as you quoted in my piece,

01:21:42 ◼   ► there are essentially three 11-inch iPads, four, I guess,

01:21:46 ◼   ► but really three current 11-inch iPads for sale

01:21:50 ◼   ► at different price points.

01:21:51 ◼   ► And it's just, it's a little bit of a mess,

01:21:54 ◼   ► not in the academic sense

01:21:56 ◼   ► that I wish Apple would get its story straight,

01:21:58 ◼   ► but in the marketing sense of which one is for me.

01:22:03 ◼   ► And like, there are clear advantages that the Air has

01:22:07 ◼   ► over the 10th generation iPad.

01:22:10 ◼   ► The non-laminated screen, Apple Pencil 2 support,

01:22:14 ◼   ► the processor, like there are,

01:22:18 ◼   ► which enables stage manager and like, there are things, right?

01:22:23 ◼   ► There are things and the Magic Keyboard support.

01:22:27 ◼   ► But if you're just somebody who's looking for an iPad

01:22:30 ◼   ► for Christmas as an update, and you go to that page

01:22:33 ◼   ► and you start comparing, it's a little bit wild.

01:22:36 ◼   ► - That would be my argument to your lunch friend

01:22:39 ◼   ► of like, if you are a regular customer, right?

01:22:43 ◼   ► Which is 99% of Apple's customers, maybe.

01:22:48 ◼   ► It's not a very high number, right?

01:22:49 ◼   ► And they're like, "I'm gonna go to the Apple store.

01:22:52 ◼   ► I wanna buy an iPad."

01:22:54 ◼   ► You go into the Apple store,

01:22:55 ◼   ► and you find a lovely person and say,

01:22:56 ◼   ► "I'd like to buy an iPad."

01:22:59 ◼   ► It is like a flow chart now to understand which one.

01:23:04 ◼   ► Because do you wanna get the cheapest one?

01:23:08 ◼   ► Well, the cheapest one, you know what,

01:23:09 ◼   ► or do you wanna get the biggest screen?

01:23:12 ◼   ► Or what do you want the screen to be made of?

01:23:15 ◼   ► It's complicated.

01:23:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is why I said last week,

01:23:19 ◼   ► and that was a moment of realization

01:23:20 ◼   ► during the show last week,

01:23:22 ◼   ► is my moment of realization thinking,

01:23:25 ◼   ► "Oh, I wonder if the 11-inch iPad Pro is dead."

01:23:27 ◼   ► That was that moment I had,

01:23:30 ◼   ► which was where I put together the larger iPad Pro rumor,

01:23:34 ◼   ► the existence of the iPad Air at 11 inches

01:23:36 ◼   ► that's got most of the features that the 11-inch Pro has.

01:23:40 ◼   ► I just had that moment where I thought,

01:23:41 ◼   ► "Oh, maybe that's what we're seeing here."

01:23:45 ◼   ► 'Cause remember, this whole thing is in slow motion, right?

01:23:48 ◼   ► This is a slow motion product line.

01:23:52 ◼   ► And so we get months to dwell on every little item.

01:23:54 ◼   ► But I'm sure there's somebody at Apple

01:23:56 ◼   ► who knows the whole picture of where they're going,

01:23:58 ◼   ► and it totally makes sense to them.

01:24:00 ◼   ► But you gotta get there, and they're not there.

01:24:04 ◼   ► And so we devour these little items,

01:24:06 ◼   ► but, and we're like, why is it like this?

01:24:09 ◼   ► And it's entirely possible there's somebody at Apple

01:24:11 ◼   ► who's like, well, yeah, but like that 11 inch is going away

01:24:13 ◼   ► because we're gonna do the 15 inch or the 14 inch

01:24:15 ◼   ► and the 12.9 inch, and we're gonna do

01:24:16 ◼   ► the two high-end iPad Pros.

01:24:17 ◼   ► And then the Air comes up a little bit

01:24:19 ◼   ► and is in the firm middle,

01:24:20 ◼   ► and then the other iPad is down there at the low end,

01:24:23 ◼   ► and then it makes a lot more sense.

01:24:24 ◼   ► It's like, okay, that would actually make a lot more sense,

01:24:27 ◼   ► but we're not there yet if we are going there.

01:24:30 ◼   ► So it is weird.

01:24:33 ◼   ► The three almost exactly sized iPads

01:24:37 ◼   ► that have three different price points

01:24:38 ◼   ► and that one of them has a totally different set

01:24:40 ◼   ► of compatible accessories, it's weird, right?

01:24:44 ◼   ► And I think that the people will stumble on that.

01:24:46 ◼   ► And that's why I probably should write an article

01:24:49 ◼   ► at some point that's like, what iPad should you buy?

01:24:52 ◼   ► But as I said earlier on in this show,

01:24:55 ◼   ► I do think that you should start

01:24:58 ◼   ► with that 10th generation iPad

01:25:01 ◼   ► if you don't care about list of things

01:25:04 ◼   ► and then go up from there.

01:25:05 ◼   ► The iPad Air to the 11 inch iPad Pro

01:25:07 ◼   ► is a tougher conversation to have.

01:25:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, for a long time I said that the 11 inch iPad Pro

01:25:13 ◼   ► was the best iPad for most people, I think.

01:25:16 ◼   ► Like it was, gave you the most flexibility and features.

01:25:19 ◼   ► Now, if anybody is keeping track of which iPad does Myke Hurley recommend, I say the iPad Air

01:25:25 ◼   ► is that product now because the difference between those two products I think is kind of

01:25:30 ◼   ► there isn't really one anymore and the iPad Air, at least for me I think in ways that matter,

01:25:37 ◼   ► and the iPad Air gets pretty much all of the good that the iPad Pro has, you know,

01:25:42 ◼   ► with the good pencil, it has the good keyboard. Like yeah you're losing face ID but I actually

01:25:49 ◼   ► don't think that's massively important on the iPad. It's a nicety. I have an iPad Air. I bought

01:25:57 ◼   ► one during WWDC week so I could try out iPadOS. I think that it's a great product. I use it as

01:26:07 ◼   ► still as my status board iPad. I just think that that's the one that most people would get.

01:26:12 ◼   ► If you want the iPad-iest iPad, if you're looking for just content consumption, the iPad Mini,

01:26:17 ◼   ► I think is the best one.

01:26:19 ◼   ► But the, like that, yeah, I'm talking like,

01:26:21 ◼   ► if you want like the most well-rounded iPad experience,

01:26:24 ◼   ► I think the iPad Air is the one to go for.

01:26:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I would make a case,

01:26:28 ◼   ► I think I can make a case for the 10th generation iPad.

01:26:30 ◼   ► - Oh, you sure can, yeah, definitely.

01:26:32 ◼   ► - If you don't need the things

01:26:35 ◼   ► that the iPad Air brings to the table,

01:26:37 ◼   ► which I mentioned earlier,

01:26:38 ◼   ► because if you literally don't care

01:26:40 ◼   ► about any of that stuff, it's really nice.

01:26:42 ◼   ► But you could get the ninth generation and save some money.

01:26:44 ◼   ► Ninth generation feels real tech, right?

01:26:46 ◼   ► like it's got the home button and all that,

01:26:48 ◼   ► it's headed out the door.

01:26:49 ◼   ► I wouldn't, unless that is the only price point

01:26:52 ◼   ► that you can manage, in which case get it,

01:26:54 ◼   ► 'cause it's also pretty good.

01:26:56 ◼   ► But the 10th generation is, it's real nice.

01:27:00 ◼   ► In fact, so nice that a couple of years ago,

01:27:03 ◼   ► we would have looked at it and thought it was an iPad Pro.

01:27:05 ◼   ► That's how nice it is.

01:27:07 ◼   ► So, and it still looks a lot like an iPad Pro.

01:27:09 ◼   ► It's not, but it's got a lot of the niceness baked in,

01:27:14 ◼   ► and it's only some of the extra stuff

01:27:16 ◼   ► that a lot of people don't ever,

01:27:17 ◼   ► like I don't know how many iPad users

01:27:19 ◼   ► use an Apple Pencil ever, or use a keyboard ever.

01:27:22 ◼   ► It's gotta be, a vast majority of people

01:27:24 ◼   ► don't do those things.

01:27:26 ◼   ► So for them, there's the 10th generation iPad.

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01:30:16 ◼   ► Unbelievably, there's more to talk about today.

01:30:21 ◼   ► - There's more.

01:30:22 ◼   ► - As we said earlier, we're not even talking about

01:30:23 ◼   ► all the things that there is to talk about today.

01:30:25 ◼   ► We're talking about macOS Ventura.

01:30:28 ◼   ► - Let's do it.

01:30:28 ◼   ► - Does macOS Ventura feel ready?

01:30:31 ◼   ► Do you think that it is ready? - Sure.

01:30:32 ◼   ► - Yeah?

01:30:33 ◼   ► That it's good that it spent the time?

01:30:35 ◼   ► I have been using it on my, well, I don't know,

01:30:37 ◼   ► they're gonna put macOS out in October anyway.

01:30:40 ◼   ► Like they didn't delay macOS,

01:30:41 ◼   ► this is always when it comes out.

01:30:43 ◼   ► I think it's fine.

01:30:44 ◼   ► I've been using it for, I would say two or three months now

01:30:46 ◼   ► as my primary, maybe two months as my primary

01:30:48 ◼   ► on my desk every day.

01:30:52 ◼   ► And it works fine.

01:30:52 ◼   ► I haven't had any real buggy issues or anything like that.

01:30:56 ◼   ► Like if you update to it

01:30:57 ◼   ► and you don't use any of the new features,

01:30:59 ◼   ► you're just gonna sort of say, okay, you know,

01:31:01 ◼   ► macOS update, all right.

01:31:03 ◼   ► It's not, we had a few Mac OS updates in recent memory

01:31:06 ◼   ► that were sort of like, what did they do to my menu bar?

01:31:09 ◼   ► What did they do?

01:31:10 ◼   ► Like, what did they do to my computer?

01:31:12 ◼   ► I didn't feel that way.

01:31:12 ◼   ► Ventura is a pretty chill in that regard.

01:31:15 ◼   ► - Let's talk about something that makes you not chill,

01:31:18 ◼   ► system settings.

01:31:19 ◼   ► - Ah, wow, you're jumping ahead.

01:31:20 ◼   ► - Apple finally addressed its old outmoded

01:31:23 ◼   ► system preferences app by replacing it with a new app

01:31:26 ◼   ► that isn't any better, just bad in different ways.

01:31:28 ◼   ► It's not just a misfire,

01:31:30 ◼   ► It's a frustratingly wasted opportunity.

01:31:33 ◼   ► - Yup.

01:31:35 ◼   ► - Not happy still, huh?

01:31:36 ◼   ► - You know, I try to think about why this thing happened.

01:31:41 ◼   ► And I think the answer is somebody said,

01:31:45 ◼   ► we've got to do something about system preferences.

01:31:48 ◼   ► It is a design from Mac OS 10, 10.0.

01:31:51 ◼   ► And all of our iPad and iPhone customers

01:31:56 ◼   ► use this settings app

01:31:57 ◼   ► and it has a totally different metaphor.

01:31:59 ◼   ► And so why don't we change the System Preferences app

01:32:02 ◼   ► to a System Settings app and have the scrolling list

01:32:05 ◼   ► and have it be more like people are used to

01:32:07 ◼   ► from their iPhone or their iPad?

01:32:09 ◼   ► I don't think that's a bad premise at all.

01:32:12 ◼   ► This summer when I criticized the System Settings app,

01:32:14 ◼   ► I heard from people who were like,

01:32:15 ◼   ► "I like it 'cause it's like the iPad."

01:32:17 ◼   ► It's like, well, yeah, that's not my problem with it.

01:32:20 ◼   ► My problem with it is that the old System Preferences app

01:32:23 ◼   ► was a mess and while they changed the look of it,

01:32:27 ◼   ► it's still a mess.

01:32:28 ◼   ► they didn't do anything to make it less of a mess.

01:32:31 ◼   ► It's just a different mess than it was before.

01:32:33 ◼   ► And that's when I say

01:32:34 ◼   ► it's a frustratingly wasted opportunity.

01:32:38 ◼   ► That's part of my frustration with it is

01:32:41 ◼   ► I don't think it's good,

01:32:42 ◼   ► but I also am frustrated that they put all this effort

01:32:44 ◼   ► into something that needed effort

01:32:46 ◼   ► and they didn't make it better.

01:32:47 ◼   ► They just made it different.

01:32:48 ◼   ► It is early on in the beta cycle, there were a lot of bugs.

01:32:52 ◼   ► The bugs aren't there.

01:32:53 ◼   ► I think it's actually, I mean, there might be bugs,

01:32:55 ◼   ► but I don't run into bugs.

01:32:57 ◼   ► It's more consistent.

01:32:58 ◼   ► It doesn't have,

01:32:59 ◼   ► there was a Twitter thread that went viral back in June

01:33:02 ◼   ► that showed all the things that were super weird

01:33:03 ◼   ► about system settings.

01:33:04 ◼   ► It feels like somebody on the system settings team

01:33:07 ◼   ► literally went through that thread

01:33:09 ◼   ► and fixed every single one of those.

01:33:11 ◼   ► They're gone.

01:33:12 ◼   ► Like it is completely functional.

01:33:14 ◼   ► And I know I've ranted about this before,

01:33:16 ◼   ► but I'll just say the short version of it is,

01:33:19 ◼   ► this thing needs to be organized better.

01:33:21 ◼   ► It needs to be more consistent.

01:33:23 ◼   ► It needs to be friendlier to users who are trying,

01:33:26 ◼   ► 'cause something I say in the review is,

01:33:29 ◼   ► does it, is it purely academic?

01:33:30 ◼   ► Is it purely from a Mac aesthetic critic point of view

01:33:35 ◼   ► that I criticize the organizational structure

01:33:37 ◼   ► of system settings because all everybody really does

01:33:39 ◼   ► is search and find the thing and they click on the thing?

01:33:42 ◼   ► I would say yes, but one is when you are,

01:33:46 ◼   ► when your computer is broken

01:33:49 ◼   ► and you're desperately trying to fix it,

01:33:51 ◼   ► system settings is where the rubber meets the road.

01:33:54 ◼   ► And it would be great if it was a friendly,

01:33:59 ◼   ► understandable thing in that context.

01:34:02 ◼   ► And I don't feel it is.

01:34:04 ◼   ► And two is not everybody is search dominant

01:34:09 ◼   ► and just says, "Well, I'll just search for it."

01:34:11 ◼   ► Some people look at the,

01:34:15 ◼   ► you gave me a list of 30 things for me to scroll through,

01:34:19 ◼   ► like on the iPad or the iPhone.

01:34:21 ◼   ► I'm gonna scroll through them

01:34:22 ◼   ► and see if I can find the thing that I need.

01:34:25 ◼   ► And those people will be let down.

01:34:27 ◼   ► Almost certainly will be let down

01:34:29 ◼   ► because the list, the iPhone and iPad style list

01:34:33 ◼   ► that you're scrolling through

01:34:35 ◼   ► is not organized in any way that makes any sense

01:34:37 ◼   ► and has labels that conceal some of the things

01:34:42 ◼   ► that are behind them.

01:34:44 ◼   ► So in the end you have to search

01:34:45 ◼   ► 'cause you're like, well, where is this thing?

01:34:46 ◼   ► And the answer is, well,

01:34:48 ◼   ► Like I saved a, what is it?

01:34:53 ◼   ► I wanna turn off or on this photo book plugin

01:34:58 ◼   ► that lets me make books in the photos app.

01:35:02 ◼   ► Where do I go for that?

01:35:03 ◼   ► Well, the answer is you go to the privacy and security pane

01:35:07 ◼   ► and scroll all the way to the bottom.

01:35:09 ◼   ► It's like six or seven pages down

01:35:11 ◼   ► to a thing labeled others

01:35:13 ◼   ► that includes links for extensions.

01:35:17 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:35:18 ◼   ► It's very much the Douglas Adams line about how the plans were placed on public display

01:35:25 ◼   ► in the basement of City Hall in a disused lavatory that was boarded up with a sign on

01:35:32 ◼   ► the door that said "Beware of the Leopard."

01:35:34 ◼   ► It's that sort of thing.

01:35:35 ◼   ► But it was on display.

01:35:37 ◼   ► It was available for the public.

01:35:38 ◼   ► You just have to find it.

01:35:40 ◼   ► And that's how I felt.

01:35:41 ◼   ► "Beware of the Leopard" is very much how I felt in system settings.

01:35:46 ◼   ► So what I would say, understanding what the charter was for this app, my hope is, and

01:35:52 ◼   ► this is a recurring theme in my review, my hope is that the people at Apple look at this

01:35:58 ◼   ► and say, "Okay, for this release, this is all we could do.

01:36:03 ◼   ► We need to get it out the door.

01:36:04 ◼   ► We don't want it to be buggy.

01:36:05 ◼   ► We want the system settings to be in this new paradigm.

01:36:08 ◼   ► And then now that we're there, we're going to make it better."

01:36:12 ◼   ► And I wrote a whole piece over the summer about how they can make it better in a bunch

01:36:15 ◼   ► of different ways, make it better organized,

01:36:17 ◼   ► maybe show a history of where you've been recently,

01:36:20 ◼   ► maybe let you add favorites or something like that.

01:36:23 ◼   ► So that if you've got your systems that you go to

01:36:25 ◼   ► and they're three levels down, could you like fave that

01:36:27 ◼   ► and have it show in the sidebar as a fave

01:36:29 ◼   ► so you could get there fast?

01:36:30 ◼   ► Like there are user friendly things they could do.

01:36:33 ◼   ► They could also reorganize the way it's structured

01:36:35 ◼   ► because even though it's got 30 different options

01:36:37 ◼   ► at the top level, a bunch of those have sub menus

01:36:40 ◼   ► that have long scrolling lists inside them.

01:36:42 ◼   ► Like it doesn't make any sense at all.

01:36:45 ◼   ► So my hope is they'll ship this and then they'll say,

01:36:48 ◼   ► okay, now the work can begin.

01:36:50 ◼   ► And over the course of hopefully this year

01:36:52 ◼   ► and not waiting for next year's WWDC,

01:36:56 ◼   ► we'll see macOS updates that actually address

01:36:58 ◼   ► some of the other problems that this app has.

01:37:01 ◼   ► But as we'll get to with other stuff in macOS,

01:37:04 ◼   ► I have to say it, Apple's track record here,

01:37:07 ◼   ► historically has not been good, right?

01:37:09 ◼   ► Apple's track record is they ship it

01:37:11 ◼   ► and then nothing changes for a year or two.

01:37:14 ◼   ► And that would be a shame for system settings

01:37:18 ◼   ► because it needs help.

01:37:20 ◼   ► And if the argument is,

01:37:23 ◼   ► look, they brought it over and it works.

01:37:25 ◼   ► Okay, fair enough.

01:37:29 ◼   ► But it's not good.

01:37:30 ◼   ► And if Apple is gonna take pride in its craftsmanship,

01:37:34 ◼   ► they can't leave it in the state that it's in

01:37:36 ◼   ► because it's bad.

01:37:36 ◼   ► And I get it that they're replacing an app

01:37:38 ◼   ► that was also bad.

01:37:39 ◼   ► But just saying that it's new

01:37:42 ◼   ► and just as bad as the old one,

01:37:43 ◼   ► that is not an endorsement, right?

01:37:45 ◼   ► Like it's gotta be, it should be better.

01:37:47 ◼   ► The users deserve better.

01:37:49 ◼   ► - I assume the other thing you're referring to there

01:37:52 ◼   ► is a stage manager on the Mac.

01:37:54 ◼   ► - Yes, I feel the same way about,

01:37:57 ◼   ► see in my review I kind of tried to soften the blow

01:38:00 ◼   ► about the things that I don't like

01:38:01 ◼   ► with the things that I do,

01:38:02 ◼   ► but we're going right to the,

01:38:04 ◼   ► well, all right, let's get to it.

01:38:05 ◼   ► Stage manager on the Mac.

01:38:06 ◼   ► - People could go read the review

01:38:07 ◼   ► if they want the full picture.

01:38:09 ◼   ► - Yes, that's true. - 'Cause we're also not

01:38:09 ◼   ► gonna talk about everything here today.

01:38:11 ◼   ► - That's true. - I wanna hit

01:38:12 ◼   ► the biggest items.

01:38:13 ◼   ► I get it, no, I get it, we're coming on,

01:38:16 ◼   ► I have some praise later.

01:38:18 ◼   ► Stage Manager, I used it this summer

01:38:21 ◼   ► and I think I've decided that it doesn't work.

01:38:23 ◼   ► I think they could make it a lot better

01:38:25 ◼   ► and it would work a lot better.

01:38:26 ◼   ► But right now, I think the simple version of my feelings

01:38:30 ◼   ► about Stage Manager is it takes too much effort

01:38:34 ◼   ► to get things to go where you want them to go,

01:38:36 ◼   ► and at that point, why are you wasting the effort?

01:38:39 ◼   ► If the whole idea of something like Stage Manager

01:38:42 ◼   ► is to make your life easier as a Mac user

01:38:44 ◼   ► by simplifying the interface and getting stuff

01:38:46 ◼   ► out of the way that you don't need to see.

01:38:48 ◼   ► If you give back all of that brain power and more,

01:38:52 ◼   ► wrestling with where your windows are going,

01:38:55 ◼   ► just turn it off.

01:38:58 ◼   ► And that's how I feel about Stage Manager right now is,

01:39:00 ◼   ► I like the idea.

01:39:01 ◼   ► I think the concept of trying to reduce the cognitive load

01:39:04 ◼   ► on having, you're probably not using all 15

01:39:06 ◼   ► of those windows at once,

01:39:08 ◼   ► and you could break them up into smaller bits

01:39:09 ◼   ► and switch between them sort of like spaces,

01:39:11 ◼   ► but a little bit more present is not a bad idea.

01:39:15 ◼   ► But the way it works now, it's so easy to just get things,

01:39:20 ◼   ► I mean, it still assumes that sort of almost anything you do

01:39:23 ◼   ► needs to open a new space.

01:39:24 ◼   ► And I think that's a fundamental mistake

01:39:26 ◼   ► because if I'm working in an app or a set of apps

01:39:31 ◼   ► and I do a thing that opens another thing,

01:39:33 ◼   ► I want it to open here, but you click on a link

01:39:35 ◼   ► and it like says, "Oh, let's open Safari

01:39:37 ◼   ► in a new space somewhere else."

01:39:38 ◼   ► And it takes you away from where you were

01:39:40 ◼   ► to this new Safari thing that's out on its own.

01:39:43 ◼   ► And maybe some people wanna work that way,

01:39:44 ◼   ► but I found that, I don't know, nine times out of 10,

01:39:48 ◼   ► eight times out of 10,

01:39:49 ◼   ► whenever I did anything in Stage Manager,

01:39:50 ◼   ► it did something I didn't want

01:39:52 ◼   ► and took me to a place I didn't want.

01:39:54 ◼   ► And then on top of that mystifyingly,

01:39:57 ◼   ► it doesn't really let you do things

01:39:58 ◼   ► like set keyboard shortcuts or gestures

01:40:01 ◼   ► to move around between them.

01:40:03 ◼   ► Some of which actually exist on the iPad

01:40:05 ◼   ► and don't exist on the Mac.

01:40:06 ◼   ► But if you go into aforementioned system settings app,

01:40:10 ◼   ► and find the place where you can do settings

01:40:12 ◼   ► for all of these things,

01:40:14 ◼   ► where there are the mission control settings.

01:40:15 ◼   ► And then there's also a little button

01:40:18 ◼   ► that you can push for stage manager settings.

01:40:20 ◼   ► And the stage manager settings are like,

01:40:23 ◼   ► show the desktop or not.

01:40:24 ◼   ► And showing the desktop in stage manager is great

01:40:26 ◼   ► because that's what I don't like about full screen mode

01:40:28 ◼   ► is that you can't see the desktop

01:40:29 ◼   ► and I have files on the desktop that I might want.

01:40:31 ◼   ► But the stage manager setting is not the same

01:40:34 ◼   ► as the mission control settings in terms of style.

01:40:36 ◼   ► That's weird.

01:40:37 ◼   ► And if there are ways to set keyboard shortcuts

01:40:39 ◼   ► or trackpad gestures for things in Stage Manager,

01:40:43 ◼   ► I can't find them.

01:40:45 ◼   ► I don't think they're there.

01:40:46 ◼   ► So in the end,

01:40:49 ◼   ► we end up with yet another window manager in macOS,

01:40:55 ◼   ► which is fine because not everybody manages their windows

01:40:58 ◼   ► the same way, right?

01:40:59 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:41:00 ◼   ► I don't think Apple intends any of these

01:41:01 ◼   ► to be the 100% solution for all Mac users.

01:41:05 ◼   ► They're trying to cater to some different use cases

01:41:07 ◼   ► to give you some options

01:41:09 ◼   ► from which you can pick the window management you wanna do.

01:41:13 ◼   ► But as somebody who was inclined to like the idea

01:41:17 ◼   ► of what stage manager was trying to accomplish,

01:41:20 ◼   ► the net result was a negative.

01:41:22 ◼   ► The net result was I was wasting more time,

01:41:25 ◼   ► more brain space, my work was getting derailed,

01:41:28 ◼   ► and I spent my time managing windows on my Mac

01:41:31 ◼   ► instead of doing work.

01:41:33 ◼   ► And if that's what the window management tool

01:41:35 ◼   ► is gonna bring is a net negative,

01:41:37 ◼   ► there's a really simple answer and that's,

01:41:40 ◼   ► don't use it, turn it off.

01:41:41 ◼   ► And that's where I ended up with stage manager,

01:41:44 ◼   ► is they gotta do like system settings.

01:41:46 ◼   ► There's something here that could be good.

01:41:50 ◼   ► They got a lot of work to do.

01:41:52 ◼   ► And I hope they don't ship it and forget it similarly,

01:41:54 ◼   ► because it's already gonna make a bad first impression,

01:41:58 ◼   ► I think on a lot of people.

01:42:00 ◼   ► But if they leave it there as if they've done it

01:42:03 ◼   ► and solved it and fixed it and it's perfect,

01:42:06 ◼   ► and then leave it there, laying there for a year or two,

01:42:10 ◼   ► then it's a dead feature.

01:42:12 ◼   ► - As a prolific Spaces user, which I am,

01:42:17 ◼   ► I am still very keen to try this.

01:42:19 ◼   ► And I don't know, I do wonder if maybe

01:42:24 ◼   ► it will be a smaller barrier for me to get over than you,

01:42:27 ◼   ► 'cause I know you don't like Spaces, right?

01:42:29 ◼   ► - I don't.

01:42:30 ◼   ► - So I use Spaces constantly,

01:42:33 ◼   ► and I am wondering if maybe it will be,

01:42:37 ◼   ► I will get more benefit out of it

01:42:39 ◼   ► and might be more willing to shake off some of the issues.

01:42:42 ◼   ► I'll find out. - Maybe.

01:42:43 ◼   ► - I'm downloading macOS Ventura right now,

01:42:45 ◼   ► my MacBook Air, which is where,

01:42:47 ◼   ► again, the place I plan to put it on

01:42:48 ◼   ► for the foreseeable future.

01:42:50 ◼   ► And we'll see.

01:42:53 ◼   ► We'll see what I think. - It seems like

01:42:55 ◼   ► a more present version of Spaces.

01:42:57 ◼   ► So for Spaces users, it might actually be an improvement.

01:43:01 ◼   ► I don't know about the differences in opening new stuff

01:43:04 ◼   ► in spaces versus in stage manager

01:43:09 ◼   ► and whether there's frustrations there or not

01:43:12 ◼   ► because I'm not a space user.

01:43:13 ◼   ► - It's like so maybe this is why spaces works.

01:43:16 ◼   ► If I have Safari in space one

01:43:18 ◼   ► and I click on a link in space two,

01:43:20 ◼   ► I will go to space one where Safari is.

01:43:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hate that.

01:43:25 ◼   ► - And I don't like that it works that way,

01:43:26 ◼   ► but I'm used to it, you see, right?

01:43:28 ◼   ► - Right.

01:43:29 ◼   ► - And I think, I mean, there's, again,

01:43:31 ◼   ► if we theorize that Apple's gonna keep working on this,

01:43:33 ◼   ► which is the big open question,

01:43:36 ◼   ► it's possible that the existence of stage manager

01:43:38 ◼   ► will force Apple to reckon with some of these,

01:43:41 ◼   ► what do I do when I click on a thing, questions,

01:43:45 ◼   ► that it didn't ever reckon with with spaces.

01:43:48 ◼   ► Maybe it will finally have to reckon with that

01:43:50 ◼   ► in terms of APIs, in terms of guessing the default behavior

01:43:53 ◼   ► or having a modifier that lets you change the behavior.

01:43:55 ◼   ► maybe it will kick into gear some like more consideration

01:44:00 ◼   ► about the interface issues there.

01:44:03 ◼   ► - It gets even worse if you're me specifically

01:44:05 ◼   ► where I am both a prolific spaces user

01:44:07 ◼   ► and a prolific tab groups user,

01:44:09 ◼   ► because then what happens is if I'm in Slack in space two

01:44:12 ◼   ► and I click a link, it will take me to space one

01:44:16 ◼   ► and then open a new window if I'm in a tab group.

01:44:19 ◼   ► - Oh, and then it's in your tab group.

01:44:22 ◼   ► Oh, it'll open a new window and not put it in your tab group.

01:44:25 ◼   ► So it takes me to the space where Safari is

01:44:29 ◼   ► and then opens a brand new Safari window

01:44:31 ◼   ► to show me that link. - Right, if you're gonna

01:44:32 ◼   ► do that, why didn't you just open the window where you were?

01:44:34 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:44:35 ◼   ► - Right, and there should be a shortcut or a gesture

01:44:38 ◼   ► or something that you know that would be, you know,

01:44:40 ◼   ► the equivalent of Command-Click or Option-Click

01:44:42 ◼   ► or something, Shift-Click, that would force it to open

01:44:45 ◼   ► in the existing space and not the other space, right?

01:44:47 ◼   ► - Yes, and that feels like something they should add.

01:44:50 ◼   ► - My understanding is if you open Safari,

01:44:52 ◼   ► if you put a Safari window in that space--

01:44:54 ◼   ► - It will observe that, sure.

01:44:56 ◼   ► - It will observe it.

01:44:57 ◼   ► But if you don't have one, it doesn't ask nor does it...

01:45:01 ◼   ► I get that this is hard.

01:45:02 ◼   ► I'm just saying like, it's hard, but this doesn't solve it.

01:45:05 ◼   ► And it's a new feature that is,

01:45:07 ◼   ► it feels like it's incomplete.

01:45:09 ◼   ► So more work, see me after class, more work required.

01:45:13 ◼   ► - So let's talk about something that I think from

01:45:16 ◼   ► my reading of your review is pretty complete,

01:45:18 ◼   ► which is iCloud shared photo libraries.

01:45:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, there are,

01:45:24 ◼   ► I used it, I have, Lauren and I have shared

01:45:26 ◼   ► our photo libraries.

01:45:28 ◼   ► It works pretty well.

01:45:31 ◼   ► I used it over the summer with kind of a fake user.

01:45:34 ◼   ► It's good, it's a feature that should have been there.

01:45:37 ◼   ► I don't wanna apply it too hard.

01:45:38 ◼   ► This is a feature that should have been there

01:45:40 ◼   ► like six years ago.

01:45:41 ◼   ► But I get that Apple was reluctant

01:45:46 ◼   ► to have it be an all or nothing.

01:45:47 ◼   ► And so what they've done is instead they've built

01:45:49 ◼   ► this system where you choose your initial import,

01:45:53 ◼   ► You can choose after a certain date.

01:45:54 ◼   ► So let's say you're in a relationship with somebody,

01:45:56 ◼   ► you could share photos with them after the date

01:45:58 ◼   ► where you got together, but not before then.

01:46:01 ◼   ► You can set it to suggest or move things in

01:46:03 ◼   ► based on like people.

01:46:06 ◼   ► On an ongoing basis, it will suggest like,

01:46:08 ◼   ► oh, you were together for this,

01:46:09 ◼   ► or there are new photos of these people,

01:46:10 ◼   ► would you like to contribute them?

01:46:13 ◼   ► You can manually contribute or remove things

01:46:15 ◼   ► from the shared library.

01:46:16 ◼   ► And there's even a toggle in the camera app on iOS

01:46:19 ◼   ► that lets you say, put this in the shared library directly

01:46:22 ◼   ► or turn it off and they don't go in the shared library.

01:46:24 ◼   ► And you can always add them later.

01:46:26 ◼   ► You can always remove them later.

01:46:27 ◼   ► I think they did a pretty good job.

01:46:29 ◼   ► There are, I've had some duplicate issues.

01:46:32 ◼   ► My understanding is that it tries to dedupe

01:46:36 ◼   ► when you are contributing to a shared library.

01:46:38 ◼   ► So the idea that if you've got,

01:46:40 ◼   ► if you've taken your partner's photos

01:46:42 ◼   ► and imported them into your library,

01:46:44 ◼   ► and then you do the shared feature,

01:46:46 ◼   ► they shouldn't double.

01:46:48 ◼   ► I've seen doubles.

01:46:50 ◼   ► I've also seen ones that aren't doubled.

01:46:52 ◼   ► There's also in photos now a duplicate detection feature,

01:46:56 ◼   ► but I didn't see it working with the cloud photos,

01:47:00 ◼   ► the shared photos.

01:47:01 ◼   ► So I don't know what's going on there.

01:47:03 ◼   ► And so when I say they've got some,

01:47:04 ◼   ► they still got a little work to do.

01:47:06 ◼   ► I feel like there are probably gonna be

01:47:07 ◼   ► some weird edge cases where there's duplicates

01:47:10 ◼   ► across shared and that they're gonna have to do

01:47:12 ◼   ► some more work to kind of get that all to work right.

01:47:15 ◼   ► And of course, there's also some weirdness

01:47:18 ◼   ► because some metadata is shared, but some metadata is not.

01:47:23 ◼   ► I ended up with some faces that I needed to reclassify

01:47:27 ◼   ► or merge with existing people

01:47:30 ◼   ► because it had done face detection

01:47:33 ◼   ► and it had identified people or Lauren had identified them,

01:47:36 ◼   ► but they were separate, right?

01:47:38 ◼   ► So there's like two people and I needed to merge them.

01:47:41 ◼   ► So there's some weirdness about that.

01:47:42 ◼   ► It's trying to bring over as much as it can,

01:47:45 ◼   ► but not like the machine learning algorithm

01:47:47 ◼   ► doesn't migrate off a device.

01:47:50 ◼   ► So it's using the other metadata to say,

01:47:52 ◼   ► oh, that's who this person is.

01:47:54 ◼   ► And so I think if you do this,

01:47:57 ◼   ► you may need to do another round of sort of

01:47:59 ◼   ► naming and merging faces in order to get your people library

01:48:03 ◼   ► to be better if you use the people feature.

01:48:06 ◼   ► - I like the way that you described it.

01:48:08 ◼   ► Yeah, it's basically they give so many different

01:48:13 ◼   ► ways in which you can share, where you can share everything or share everything from a certain date

01:48:19 ◼   ► or just choose things to share or choose in the camera at what you want to share or not,

01:48:24 ◼   ► or it makes suggestions which is meeting the different types of groups.

01:48:28 ◼   ► Me and my wife want to create a shared photo library. We don't want every photo we ever take

01:48:34 ◼   ► to be in that library because there's a lot of crap. I take a lot of screenshots,

01:48:38 ◼   ► I have a lot of work stuff in there, she doesn't want those in her camera roll.

01:48:42 ◼   ► where similarly Adina takes a lot of pictures for things to remind her to do something later on.

01:48:47 ◼   ► I don't want all of those in my camera roll, but I would like it if when we go and do things together

01:48:52 ◼   ► when we're on holidays that just all of that stuff is automatically shared. Or like that there is an

01:48:58 ◼   ► easy way for us to just be like, all right, just add those to the library rather than like,

01:49:02 ◼   ► I'm going to text these to you or airdrop these to you and like that, you know. So I like that

01:49:07 ◼   ► that they have all of these options

01:49:09 ◼   ► for different types of family groups.

01:49:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, they have, look, this is the excuse they gave me

01:49:16 ◼   ► about why they didn't have this feature

01:49:17 ◼   ► many, many years ago.

01:49:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:49:20 ◼   ► And I'm glad that when it finally arrived,

01:49:22 ◼   ► it actually does address that issue.

01:49:23 ◼   ► - Jason, why don't you tell us how you really feel?

01:49:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:49:26 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, was it not, I mean,

01:49:29 ◼   ► anybody who listened to Accidental Tech Podcast

01:49:31 ◼   ► knows this too, right?

01:49:32 ◼   ► Like it was very clear when iCloud Photo Library came out

01:49:34 ◼   ► that the logical next, and they had families,

01:49:36 ◼   ► iCloud families, that the next step was you gotta let families share photos.

01:49:40 ◼   ► And for six or seven years, Apple was like, no, families can't share photos.

01:49:46 ◼   ► And when I asked them, they're like, well, it's complicated, right?

01:49:48 ◼   ► They're like, oh, well, do you want to share every photo?

01:49:51 ◼   ► Not, and we don't want just the people who want to share every photo.

01:49:54 ◼   ► We want to get other people involved who want to contribute, but only certain

01:49:56 ◼   ► ones, because your kids off at college are only going to want to contribute

01:49:59 ◼   ► certain photos, maybe in certain circumstances.

01:50:01 ◼   ► And then you would have to build that and all that.

01:50:03 ◼   ► And I was like, okay, but like in the meantime,

01:50:06 ◼   ► could my wife and I just check a box

01:50:07 ◼   ► and share our photo libraries?

01:50:09 ◼   ► 'Cause we don't need any of that.

01:50:10 ◼   ► They're like, no.

01:50:12 ◼   ► So cut to six or seven years later,

01:50:15 ◼   ► at least what they have is a more nuanced sharing thing

01:50:19 ◼   ► that is trying to get beyond,

01:50:21 ◼   ► like seriously, you can set this up.

01:50:23 ◼   ► If you're somebody who was like creeped out

01:50:24 ◼   ► about the idea of sharing your photo library

01:50:26 ◼   ► with another member of your family or whatever,

01:50:29 ◼   ► you can set this up to not contribute anything by default.

01:50:32 ◼   ► and then just push things in when you want to.

01:50:36 ◼   ► And it differs from past sharing that they've done

01:50:38 ◼   ► in that this is a full on iCloud library.

01:50:40 ◼   ► Whoever creates the library owns all the space.

01:50:45 ◼   ► It goes against their account, but it's fully functional.

01:50:50 ◼   ► Like it's designed in the apps to be integrated completely.

01:50:55 ◼   ► There's a little badge you can put on this as well.

01:50:56 ◼   ► This one's in shared library and this one isn't,

01:50:59 ◼   ► but otherwise they're just, you know,

01:51:02 ◼   ► it's like they're all mingled together,

01:51:03 ◼   ► or you can choose a view where they're not mingled together

01:51:06 ◼   ► and you're just viewing one or the other.

01:51:07 ◼   ► So they did it right.

01:51:08 ◼   ► I mean, they really did do it by and large the right way

01:51:13 ◼   ► and with broader appeal than I think it would have had

01:51:15 ◼   ► if it was all or nothing.

01:51:17 ◼   ► - I was surprised in poking around in the betas

01:51:21 ◼   ► and also in the release today,

01:51:22 ◼   ► 'cause I just updated my phone.

01:51:24 ◼   ► It doesn't really seem like it surfaced

01:51:27 ◼   ► as a feature you can enable?

01:51:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think there's a--

01:51:33 ◼   ► - Like you kind of got to go in through the settings app?

01:51:36 ◼   ► That's the way to set it up, which is odd.

01:51:38 ◼   ► - On the Mac, that's not the case.

01:51:40 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:51:41 ◼   ► - On the Mac, you go to settings

01:51:43 ◼   ► and there's a shared library settings

01:51:45 ◼   ► and you press add people, make a library and add people.

01:51:49 ◼   ► And that's a logical place on the Mac.

01:51:50 ◼   ► - Yes, but it's the same thing.

01:51:51 ◼   ► You're still going in through settings.

01:51:53 ◼   ► I mean, yes, settings, right?

01:51:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's true.

01:51:55 ◼   ► It's true.

01:51:56 ◼   ► I don't know if there's a pop-up.

01:51:57 ◼   ► I haven't seen that, but there may be like a pop-up

01:52:00 ◼   ► that says shared libraries are now available,

01:52:02 ◼   ► you can do it, or they may not have done that.

01:52:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, if I've updated to the shipping version

01:52:09 ◼   ► of iOS 16.1 that came out today, and in the photos app,

01:52:14 ◼   ► I can't find anything in the app itself

01:52:17 ◼   ► that would seem to suggest that this is a feature

01:52:19 ◼   ► that exists, which is intriguing to me.

01:52:22 ◼   ► You know, I wanna feel confident about this feature.

01:52:25 ◼   ► That kind of stuff doesn't make me feel super confident,

01:52:28 ◼   ► but maybe they just wanna take it easy, I don't know.

01:52:32 ◼   ► But it is weird to me.

01:52:33 ◼   ► - I don't know if they wanna get in everybody's face.

01:52:37 ◼   ► Actually, that would not be a bad rollout plan

01:52:39 ◼   ► is to not get in everybody's face,

01:52:40 ◼   ► let people who wanna use it try it out

01:52:42 ◼   ► and then push it later just to reduce the load

01:52:47 ◼   ► of everything getting transferred on the servers

01:52:51 ◼   ► or something, but it worked really well for me.

01:52:55 ◼   ► And finally, continuity camera.

01:52:58 ◼   ► So this is, I mean, an interesting looking feature.

01:53:02 ◼   ► You had some screenshots.

01:53:04 ◼   ► I'm still like really keen to see like how often

01:53:07 ◼   ► it's going to suggest that I switch my camera

01:53:09 ◼   ► to this camera or just decide to do that for me.

01:53:12 ◼   ► I mean, it looks good.

01:53:13 ◼   ► I'm happy that it exists.

01:53:15 ◼   ► For me personally, I want it because I'm still having

01:53:19 ◼   ► the light flickering issues intermittently

01:53:21 ◼   ► with my studio display,

01:53:23 ◼   ► which is not an issue that I ever have with my iPhone.

01:53:26 ◼   ► So I want to be using it.

01:53:28 ◼   ► However, there currently is no option for me

01:53:31 ◼   ► to be able to mount my iPhone to my studio display.

01:53:34 ◼   ► The Belkin mount that is available right now

01:53:37 ◼   ► is for laptops.

01:53:38 ◼   ► So I'm still going to be waiting on that,

01:53:41 ◼   ► but it is a feature that I'm excited about using,

01:53:44 ◼   ► even if it is kind of like a consolation prize

01:53:47 ◼   ► kind of feature, which is an interesting thing anyway.

01:53:50 ◼   ► Right?

01:53:51 ◼   ► My take on it is the,

01:53:54 ◼   ► like the phone is so good.

01:53:58 ◼   ► The phone camera is so good.

01:54:00 ◼   ► You know, you probably should never even bother.

01:54:03 ◼   ► You might need to get a mount or something,

01:54:04 ◼   ► but like, it's so good,

01:54:05 ◼   ► it's gonna be superior to anything

01:54:06 ◼   ► that's on a monitor or a laptop.

01:54:10 ◼   ► So, like for me,

01:54:14 ◼   ► although one thing that I learned is the issue,

01:54:18 ◼   ► like people are like,

01:54:19 ◼   ► oh, I'll replace my center stage camera

01:54:22 ◼   ► on my studio display with my iPhone camera.

01:54:24 ◼   ► Well, let me tell you, if you put it in center stage mode,

01:54:27 ◼   ► you're back to the exact same image quality

01:54:29 ◼   ► you were before, right?

01:54:29 ◼   ► 'Cause it's gonna take the ultra wide

01:54:31 ◼   ► and it's gonna pan it,

01:54:31 ◼   ► and it doesn't look any different to my eyes.

01:54:35 ◼   ► However, that main iPhone camera is so good.

01:54:41 ◼   ► So that does look really good.

01:54:45 ◼   ► My big complaint about this is there are no settings.

01:54:48 ◼   ► other than turn on center stage and turn on studio light

01:54:51 ◼   ► and turn on portrait mode.

01:54:53 ◼   ► And that kills me because like you've got this huge camera.

01:54:56 ◼   ► Other apps like Camo will let you crop it

01:55:00 ◼   ► and like choose a crop or choose a zoom.

01:55:03 ◼   ► And Apple just doesn't give you any controls

01:55:05 ◼   ► and it's frustrating.

01:55:06 ◼   ► So I don't like that about it,

01:55:07 ◼   ► but like kind of new camera is a great feature

01:55:09 ◼   ► that lets your Mac do better video

01:55:11 ◼   ► by putting your iPhone to work

01:55:14 ◼   ► and you don't have to connect it.

01:55:15 ◼   ► You don't have to launch an app.

01:55:16 ◼   ► You don't have to do any of that.

01:55:16 ◼   ► You just sort of, other than turning off airplay,

01:55:20 ◼   ► 'cause if you're airplaying something to speakers

01:55:23 ◼   ► and then you try to use it, it doesn't let you,

01:55:25 ◼   ► which is so weird, but there we are.

01:55:28 ◼   ► So other than that, it's a good feature.

01:55:32 ◼   ► I like it.

01:55:33 ◼   ► It's more of an iPhone feature than a Mac feature,

01:55:34 ◼   ► but it's good.

01:55:35 ◼   ► And the Deskview app is good.

01:55:37 ◼   ► Although I think it's gonna have limited use

01:55:39 ◼   ► because you really need to have a lot of space in front

01:55:42 ◼   ► of your camera in order for it to work.

01:55:44 ◼   ► - But it's just cool that it exists,

01:55:45 ◼   ► - Even if it's not useful for you as an individual,

01:55:48 ◼   ► you may, like, it's just like, I like that they did that.

01:55:51 ◼   ► That couldn't have been easy.

01:55:51 ◼   ► - I do too.

01:55:52 ◼   ► - And I just like that they did it.

01:55:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, and some people will use it,

01:55:54 ◼   ► but they're just gonna have to,

01:55:55 ◼   ► I just wanna warn people, like the setup,

01:55:56 ◼   ► you need to have a lot of space in front of your device

01:55:59 ◼   ► in order for it to work.

01:56:00 ◼   ► And so your ergonomics of your standard, like, use case

01:56:03 ◼   ► are probably not gonna work with Desk View,

01:56:05 ◼   ► and you're probably gonna have to move your computer

01:56:07 ◼   ► or your display or whatever

01:56:08 ◼   ► in order to get Desk View to work right.

01:56:10 ◼   ► But when it works, it's pretty nice.

01:56:12 ◼   ► And also this feature will force,

01:56:14 ◼   ► and is forcing Belkin and other third parties

01:56:17 ◼   ► to develop a little camera mounts for phones, right?

01:56:21 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, oh, well,

01:56:22 ◼   ► you could use your phone as your camera.

01:56:23 ◼   ► Maybe even your older phone would have a very good camera

01:56:26 ◼   ► that would be better than the current webcam.

01:56:28 ◼   ► And so like, I know Belkin's got one for a laptop

01:56:30 ◼   ► and they're working on one for external displays.

01:56:34 ◼   ► And like, there will be,

01:56:35 ◼   ► because I don't know if you remember this,

01:56:37 ◼   ► but like Camo wrote a whole blog post

01:56:39 ◼   ► about like trying to find a way to mount your iPhone

01:56:41 ◼   ► and use it as a webcam because they wrote the software.

01:56:44 ◼   ► And then I was like, well, how do I do this?

01:56:45 ◼   ► And the answer was,

01:56:46 ◼   ► there are no satisfying camera mounts out there,

01:56:49 ◼   ► which is really disappointing,

01:56:52 ◼   ► but Apple creating this feature will be enough

01:56:54 ◼   ► to create decent iPhone camera mounts for various displays.

01:56:57 ◼   ► And that's a good thing.

01:56:58 ◼   ► - I mean, they went to Belkin, I assume, right?

01:57:01 ◼   ► - I assume they did.

01:57:03 ◼   ► - I think Apple has this relationship

01:57:04 ◼   ► with a couple of companies.

01:57:05 ◼   ► Belkin is one of them.

01:57:06 ◼   ► I think Logitech is another, right?

01:57:08 ◼   ► We look at the crayon.

01:57:09 ◼   ► - We want this to exist, but we don't want to make it.

01:57:11 ◼   ► - Can you just do this for us, please?

01:57:13 ◼   ► and they do.

01:57:14 ◼   ► So that's macOS Ventura.

01:57:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had one last note before we go,

01:57:19 ◼   ► which is I made a big thing earlier

01:57:21 ◼   ► about Apple leaving features untouched

01:57:24 ◼   ► and how I don't like that

01:57:28 ◼   ► and they need to do more work on it.

01:57:30 ◼   ► I wanna give Apple a little bit of credit.

01:57:32 ◼   ► Safari tab groups, which was introduced last year,

01:57:37 ◼   ► they actually improved this year.

01:57:40 ◼   ► They added pin tabs and custom backgrounds

01:57:43 ◼   ► and shared tabs feature.

01:57:46 ◼   ► That is a feature that I thought that after last summer's

01:57:50 ◼   ► kind of debacle and all the things going on,

01:57:53 ◼   ► that was a feature I kind of expected them

01:57:55 ◼   ► to just let sit there and they didn't.

01:57:58 ◼   ► And so I want to call that out since I was complaining

01:58:01 ◼   ► about Apple leaving features by the side of the road

01:58:04 ◼   ► for years, they didn't really tweak it during the year,

01:58:07 ◼   ► but they did actually do substantial improvements to it

01:58:12 ◼   ► in year two, and that's a good thing.

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02:00:05 ◼   ► Let's finish up today's episode with some #AskUpgrade questions.

02:00:11 ◼   ► First one comes from Rob. Rob says "I would be curious on your thoughts in regards to the iPad

02:00:18 ◼   ► lineup by comparing it to the "dark days" of the Mac. Seems like a lot of worry but maybe it takes

02:00:25 ◼   ► Apple some time to transition lines to a new plan?

02:00:28 ◼   ► - The dark days of the, I don't think it's the same

02:00:34 ◼   ► because I think the dark days of the Mac

02:00:38 ◼   ► were Apple making some bad decisions

02:00:40 ◼   ► and then being stuck with them

02:00:42 ◼   ► or choosing not to rectify them fast.

02:00:45 ◼   ► I don't think that's what's happening here.

02:00:48 ◼   ► I think that this is a more run of the mill.

02:00:52 ◼   ► Apple doesn't wanna make the effort

02:00:56 ◼   ► to do a complete redesign of the iPad across the line

02:01:01 ◼   ► and then leave it for four years.

02:01:05 ◼   ► Instead, what they wanna do is roll out changes over time

02:01:10 ◼   ► across models.

02:01:11 ◼   ► And so, as Rob says, maybe it takes Apple time

02:01:15 ◼   ► to transition lines to a new plan.

02:01:18 ◼   ► I think that's exactly what is going on here.

02:01:21 ◼   ► I could be wrong, but I think that's what we're seeing

02:01:23 ◼   ► is just that it's actually like a corollary

02:01:27 ◼   ► to the fallacy that people have

02:01:30 ◼   ► where it's like every time a new Apple product comes out

02:01:32 ◼   ► and it's just a speed bump and it's not a redesign,

02:01:34 ◼   ► everybody's like, "Why didn't they redesign it?"

02:01:36 ◼   ► And the answer is they can't.

02:01:40 ◼   ► Not even Apple is going to do a complete hardware chassis

02:01:44 ◼   ► redesign every single time they release the product.

02:01:48 ◼   ► First off, that would be really jarring for users, right?

02:01:50 ◼   ► Also, I think we would start to criticize them

02:01:53 ◼   ► for doing change for changes sake.

02:01:55 ◼   ► So they've got this kind of nice rhythm

02:01:56 ◼   ► where every few years they have some new design language

02:01:59 ◼   ► and some new fashion and new things they wanna try.

02:02:02 ◼   ► And every few years they make a change.

02:02:04 ◼   ► But they keep it stable on the other years.

02:02:08 ◼   ► And so those hardware changes happen

02:02:10 ◼   ► every two, three, four years.

02:02:12 ◼   ► So that's what's going on with the iPad.

02:02:14 ◼   ► Like I said earlier, it feels a little bit

02:02:16 ◼   ► like the iPad Pro maybe was supposed to change

02:02:19 ◼   ► And at some point they're like, we can't do it.

02:02:22 ◼   ► So let's just push it off again.

02:02:23 ◼   ► 'Cause it feels a little stale now.

02:02:26 ◼   ► But that said, it's also fine.

02:02:27 ◼   ► Like it's just that you end up with this weird thing

02:02:30 ◼   ► where the low end iPad is exposing things

02:02:33 ◼   ► about potentially the direction of the platform

02:02:34 ◼   ► that the high end models aren't.

02:02:36 ◼   ► And we get used to those high end features,

02:02:39 ◼   ► those new features rolling out as high end features, right?

02:02:41 ◼   ► And that didn't happen this time.

02:02:43 ◼   ► And that's jarring,

02:02:44 ◼   ► but I don't think it's anything like the dark days

02:02:47 ◼   ► of the Mac, 'cause that very much felt like

02:02:48 ◼   ► they made a major misstep and then took a bunch of years to,

02:02:53 ◼   ► or made a bad decision and then started to put that plan

02:02:56 ◼   ► into the works and then realized it was a mistake.

02:03:00 ◼   ► Yes, and then had to rectify,

02:03:04 ◼   ► but then it took years for them to kind of get

02:03:06 ◼   ► all their ducks in a row.

02:03:07 ◼   ► - Where really right now,

02:03:09 ◼   ► I've been thinking about this a lot,

02:03:10 ◼   ► this has been coming up a lot over the last week or so,

02:03:13 ◼   ► like, you know, last five days.

02:03:16 ◼   ► That like, you know, come to the roundtable moment,

02:03:20 ◼   ► you know, the Mac Pro was a disaster.

02:03:23 ◼   ► The iMac was just kind of not really going anywhere.

02:03:26 ◼   ► Apple decided that they were gonna get rid of the Mac Pro

02:03:30 ◼   ► and place it in the iMac Pro.

02:03:32 ◼   ► The laptops had the touch bars, which nobody liked.

02:03:35 ◼   ► The MacBook basically failed.

02:03:38 ◼   ► The MacBook Air just wasn't going anywhere

02:03:40 ◼   ► and it had that huge bezel around it.

02:03:42 ◼   ► The keyboards were broken.

02:03:43 ◼   ► Like it was just like the entire product line

02:03:45 ◼   ► had some kind of problem, right?

02:03:48 ◼   ► You know, they were still shipping Fusion drives

02:03:51 ◼   ► in the iMac's standard, right?

02:03:53 ◼   ► Like, or not even as standard.

02:03:54 ◼   ► I think as standard was a spinning hard disk.

02:03:57 ◼   ► It was every problem I had big issues

02:04:00 ◼   ► where I think the iPad line right now,

02:04:03 ◼   ► just the iPad Pro where it's a bit like,

02:04:06 ◼   ► it's getting creaky.

02:04:08 ◼   ► But like, I think the rest of the line is doing okay.

02:04:12 ◼   ► I do understand the fear if you care about this product line up to be like is that where

02:04:19 ◼   ► we are going here? Especially at a time where iPadOS has struggled and continues to struggle

02:04:27 ◼   ► and is struggling now in new catastrophic ways depending on what you do with it. I understand

02:04:33 ◼   ► the fear.

02:04:34 ◼   ► Nate asks for all of the weirdos, Nate's words not mine, for all of the weirdos that have

02:04:39 ◼   ► the dock on the left on their Mac what happens when using stage manager because

02:04:44 ◼   ► that's where the kind of what it's called the strip the one that's kind of

02:04:47 ◼   ► know what they call it whatever that's called the strip thing what happens with

02:04:51 ◼   ► the dock and that because you've got the way you pick the stage windows and the

02:04:55 ◼   ► dock do you what what what goes on there you're gonna make me I'm gonna make you

02:05:00 ◼   ► do it yeah the stage manager stuff goes to the right oh okay that's good there

02:05:08 ◼   ► There you go, Nate.

02:05:09 ◼   ► So you can go and be a weirdo

02:05:10 ◼   ► and use stage manager if you want.

02:05:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, and your stage manager will be

02:05:13 ◼   ► just as weird as your doc.

02:05:14 ◼   ► So good for you.

02:05:15 ◼   ► Let it fly.

02:05:16 ◼   ► Let that stage manager doc flag fly.

02:05:20 ◼   ► Good job.

02:05:21 ◼   ► - And Zach asks,

02:05:23 ◼   ► while Apple did press release announcements

02:05:25 ◼   ► for these new iPads,

02:05:26 ◼   ► they also dropped a nine minute video on YouTube

02:05:28 ◼   ► at the same time that looked and felt an awful lot

02:05:30 ◼   ► like an event video.

02:05:32 ◼   ► Is this possibly the remnants

02:05:33 ◼   ► of what the events team was working on?

02:05:35 ◼   ► What do you think this quote,

02:05:37 ◼   ► "Sort of like an event but not" means for a future strategy?

02:05:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's funny because what they've done in the past

02:05:45 ◼   ► is play videos during events

02:05:50 ◼   ► and then say, watch the video later.

02:05:53 ◼   ► And that's what they did without an event, right?

02:05:59 ◼   ► Is that they had watched the video.

02:06:00 ◼   ► I'm sure they've done something like this before,

02:06:02 ◼   ► but yeah, I'm sure it's a very similar,

02:06:04 ◼   ► if not the same product team.

02:06:06 ◼   ► It's a good question.

02:06:07 ◼   ► I mean, did they make it thinking it might need to be

02:06:10 ◼   ► in a video?

02:06:12 ◼   ► Maybe?

02:06:13 ◼   ► I don't know.

02:06:14 ◼   ► I don't know.

02:06:16 ◼   ► It's an interesting question.

02:06:17 ◼   ► I think the overview I would say is,

02:06:19 ◼   ► Apple is constantly exploring what it means

02:06:22 ◼   ► to launch their products

02:06:23 ◼   ► and what's the best way for them to do it.

02:06:26 ◼   ► And having a video that is a commercial essentially,

02:06:29 ◼   ► but it's completely controlled by Apple

02:06:31 ◼   ► is one of the ways you do that.

02:06:32 ◼   ► so that you're not just having it be press reports

02:06:35 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

02:06:35 ◼   ► So they do a press release,

02:06:36 ◼   ► but people don't necessarily read press releases.

02:06:39 ◼   ► People do watch videos.

02:06:40 ◼   ► So I'm sure that they will continue to explore that.

02:06:44 ◼   ► Is it something that might've been in an event

02:06:47 ◼   ► and ended up not being in an event?

02:06:48 ◼   ► I don't know.

02:06:49 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe not.

02:06:51 ◼   ► - It was interesting, right?

02:06:53 ◼   ► Like there were, I think this was one of

02:06:56 ◼   ► the potential strategies we assumed they could have taken.

02:07:00 ◼   ► Right?

02:07:01 ◼   ► 'cause it was reminiscent of the first kind of video

02:07:05 ◼   ► they did during COVID where like Craig Federighi

02:07:08 ◼   ► was in a room, right?

02:07:10 ◼   ► Which was a video that they shared with press

02:07:11 ◼   ► and then you were allowed to post it

02:07:13 ◼   ► on your YouTube channel, which is like,

02:07:15 ◼   ► I don't think that was the right strategy particularly,

02:07:18 ◼   ► but the video portion.

02:07:20 ◼   ► And I guess this, and who knows,

02:07:22 ◼   ► that I can imagine that this was meant to be part

02:07:25 ◼   ► of a potential event that they were supposed to do.

02:07:28 ◼   ► And I am, I will say now,

02:07:29 ◼   ► having seen these product announcements,

02:07:31 ◼   ► I am surprised they didn't do a 30 minute video event

02:07:36 ◼   ► because that iPad is cool.

02:07:39 ◼   ► - Well, with Mark Gurman's thing about like,

02:07:41 ◼   ► oh, maybe the Mac is this year, maybe it's next year.

02:07:46 ◼   ► It's also possible that they were planning on doing

02:07:48 ◼   ► a video event double barreled with the Mac and the iPad.

02:07:51 ◼   ► At some point, the Mac got pushed back

02:07:53 ◼   ► and they're like, well,

02:07:55 ◼   ► we're not gonna just do it for the iPad.

02:07:57 ◼   ► Although you're right, they could.

02:07:58 ◼   ► Why not?

02:08:00 ◼   ► That would be another way to do it.

02:08:01 ◼   ► I think that they want to kind of modulate,

02:08:03 ◼   ► like they don't want to oversell a video event

02:08:06 ◼   ► 'cause they're gonna turn some people off.

02:08:08 ◼   ► We're like, that's it?

02:08:10 ◼   ► And maybe they felt they had nine minutes of content here

02:08:13 ◼   ► and so that was good enough.

02:08:15 ◼   ► I think the truth is that their marketing teams

02:08:18 ◼   ► will always be making films, quote unquote,

02:08:21 ◼   ► about their new products because so many people,

02:08:24 ◼   ► their media consumption is YouTube, right?

02:08:26 ◼   ► It's video and a press release or just, or again,

02:08:30 ◼   ► just letting YouTubers be the conduit

02:08:33 ◼   ► for their product announcements.

02:08:34 ◼   ► Like if I was an Apple PR person, I wouldn't, I mean,

02:08:37 ◼   ► I love the YouTubers and they're giving me publicity

02:08:39 ◼   ► for my product, but they also have these opinions

02:08:42 ◼   ► and they highlight things that matter to them

02:08:44 ◼   ► and not that matter to us.

02:08:45 ◼   ► So I'm gonna do my own video too.

02:08:48 ◼   ► And I'm gonna drop that at the time.

02:08:50 ◼   ► - Nine million views on YouTube, that video.

02:08:53 ◼   ► So, you know, did the job, I would say.

02:08:56 ◼   ► Yeah. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future

02:09:01 ◼   ► episode of Upgrade, just send a tweet with the hashtag #AskUpgrade or use

02:09:04 ◼   ► question mark #AskUpgrade in the Relay FM members discord. I would like to thank

02:09:08 ◼   ► our members for supporting the show along with ExpressVPN, Ooni, DoorDash and

02:09:13 ◼   ► Membrful and of course thank you for listening. This has been a great episode

02:09:19 ◼   ► of Upgrade, Jason. Thank you for all the work you've done today because I know

02:09:22 ◼   ► that I've had to ask... Finally we did one good. That was good. Hey! They're all good. This one was

02:09:26 ◼   ► - It's extra good.

02:09:27 ◼   ► We don't say that about our show.

02:09:30 ◼   ► We make a very good program, me and you.

02:09:32 ◼   ► We talk about it in those terms.

02:09:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I always just like it when somebody promotes

02:09:35 ◼   ► something and says, "This was a good one."

02:09:37 ◼   ► Like, I think Berlin did that last week

02:09:39 ◼   ► for one of his podcasts.

02:09:40 ◼   ► It's like, "This was a good one."

02:09:41 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Okay, I believe you,

02:09:44 ◼   ► but also what are you saying about the other ones?"

02:09:46 ◼   ► - Extra good one, right?

02:09:48 ◼   ► This is an extra good one.

02:09:50 ◼   ► - Over the top.

02:09:51 ◼   ► - There you go.

02:09:53 ◼   ► Thank you for listening.

02:09:55 ◼   ► We'll be back next time.

02:09:57 ◼   ► You can find Jason online at sixcolors.com.

02:09:59 ◼   ► It's earnings report week, so stay locked to Six Colors.

02:10:03 ◼   ► Jason is @jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-

02:10:03 ◼   ► Jason is @jsnwjsnell I am @imike I am Y-K-E

02:10:08 ◼   ► We'll be back next time until then, say goodbye Jason Snow

02:10:11 ◼   ► Bye!

02:10:12 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:10:16 ◼   ► [ Music ]