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Upgrade

279: I Predict It Every Year, Why Stop Now?

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 279. Today's show is brought to you by

00:00:14   DoorDash, Squarespace, Booz Allen and KiwiCo. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi Jason Snell.

00:00:21   Hello Myke Hurley, how are you? I'm very good. No mystery drama, no award ceremony. We're back to regular old upgrade today.

00:00:29   Yeah, a lot happened while we were doing off-format episodes, so we have a lot to talk about.

00:00:34   I have many, many, many things that I want to talk to you about today, but we start off,

00:00:38   upgrade as we start off every episode of Upgrade with a #SnellTalkQuestion, and Phil wants to know,

00:00:43   do either of you use an electric toothbrush? Yes. I feel like you've got to these, I mean, I, you know,

00:00:51   I use an electric toothbrush, I use like a Philips one, um, the Sonicare something, something, something.

00:00:56   They've changed it a bunch, but like, it's good. I have the Braun Oral-B, but yes, it is, and I have four ages,

00:01:02   and, uh, you, you should probably use an electric toothbrush. They're better, they're more, they're

00:01:07   better at their jobs. Yeah, I, I feel like, I'm like an animal, as John Sirkus would say, when I use a

00:01:12   non-electric toothbrush now. I, I travel without, you know, it's, it's, I don't have a travel electric

00:01:17   toothbrush or something like that, and, uh, and, uh, it does feel really weird and feels very nice to

00:01:22   return to the electric toothbrush. Oh, mine comes in like a little box, and like a little carrying

00:01:27   thing, which also has a charging port in it, which I like. Um, so you can plug in like a mini USB

00:01:33   cable or something into the toothbrush case, and it charges the toothbrush, which is nice. It's the

00:01:39   Philips one, they have a bunch of them, you can find it, like, it's great. Um, but I, one of the things that I

00:01:46   like about using an electric toothbrush is it will keep going until it should be time for me to stop,

00:01:53   you know? Right, like, I don't have to think, "How long have I been brushing my teeth for?"

00:01:57   It will do it for the amount of time that it's supposed to do it, so I like that. And if you would

00:02:02   like to send in a question to open an episode of Upgrade, just send out a tweet with the hashtag

00:02:06   #snowtalk, and it may be included for a future episode. Because we have not done a regular show

00:02:11   for a couple of weeks, there is no follow-up today, but what I do have for you, Jason, is a lot, a lot of

00:02:17   upstream stuff that I want to talk to you about. So I wanted to just state for the record that I was very, very

00:02:23   happy with the way that both The Morning Show and For All Mankind ended. I was really pleased with

00:02:29   the ending of both of those shows from a, like, a show quality standpoint. I've heard mixed feelings

00:02:34   from people about the ending of The Morning Show, but I really liked it. Like, I think that the last,

00:02:40   like, 15 to 30 minutes of the final episode really gave, like, a satisfying ending that made me want

00:02:48   more of the show. So I am genuinely very much looking forward to both of those shows coming

00:02:55   back. Like, For All Mankind was the best Apple show that I've seen so far. It was kind of incredible,

00:03:04   quite dark at the end, but still very, very, very good. Yeah, I love the end of that show. That was

00:03:10   a great one. And I think it's interesting too. So Apple did this weekly release schedule, and we

00:03:17   spent a couple years questioning how they were going to do a release, and they are doing both.

00:03:22   They are doing some drop two or three episodes and then release weekly, and they're also dropping some

00:03:27   as complete seasons. And I've been thinking this fall as we've had a real, and now winter,

00:03:34   the bounty of good TV that's been out there with Watchmen, The Mandalorian,

00:03:39   For All Mankind, Morning Show, these other Apple TV shows, that what I've noticed is that, first

00:03:48   off, a lot of shows are being discussed week to week, like in the old days, where you really can,

00:03:53   like, obsess about what happened in this episode and wonder what's going to happen next.

00:03:59   And I've said it before, but I want to say it again because I think this is a perfect

00:04:04   moment to illustrate this. I think binge dropping a show is a mistake for most kinds of shows,

00:04:11   if you're a streaming service. I think Netflix does it mostly because they have so much content

00:04:16   that they don't want to promote a show week to week. So they want to do a single launch,

00:04:20   like it's a movie, and then they want to walk away to the next thing. But I don't think it serves

00:04:25   the material for people to have their spoiler issues so that some people will spoil it for

00:04:30   everyone. Other people will not say anything for fear of spoiling it. It's very hard, if you are a

00:04:36   TV critic or a recapper or a podcaster or whatever, to deal with these shows that drop

00:04:42   10 episodes at once. And so maybe you don't at all, or maybe you do it week by week, but it's

00:04:47   kind of like your audience is all over the place because some of them have seen it to that point

00:04:52   and are going back, and some of them haven't seen it yet. It's one of those things where

00:04:57   I get why it's done. I also get why people like binging TV shows. But again, my argument here is,

00:05:03   once it's rolled out, you can binge it. Like dropping it in a bunch with 10 episodes

00:05:10   versus letting it roll out over 10 weeks or eight weeks. The Apple TV stuff was mostly in eight

00:05:16   weeks because they dropped three in week one. I think that works really well, and then it's all

00:05:24   there for you if you want to watch it all at once. So yeah, I think binge mentality, though,

00:05:29   it also ties in with being impatient. Oh, for sure. For sure. But I think there is,

00:05:35   I guess what I'm saying is I think there's great power in making you wait. And that I think,

00:05:43   I just think it's a mistake. I think the conversation online about a show that's ongoing

00:05:53   is not only really fulfilling as a viewer, but I think is a way to build word of mouth about a show.

00:06:00   And I think like if Baby Yoda, would Baby Yoda have been a thing if they had just dropped every

00:06:07   episode of The Mandalorian? Maybe, but I think it would have been a thing that blew itself out

00:06:12   a lot faster because there wasn't this chance for the conversation to continue as there was more of

00:06:19   it every week. Everyone is at the same place. Everyone discovered Baby Yoda at the same time.

00:06:22   Exactly. Only if you're in the United States of flippin' America.

00:06:25   Of course, or the Netherlands or Canada, but not the UK. Anyway, so my point here is I like that

00:06:33   Apple is doing this hybrid model where they're giving you a big kickstart and then they're

00:06:41   rolling out more episodes later. I think that some of these, as much as I like getting to the

00:06:45   penultimate episode of a season on Netflix or Amazon and being able to just plow right

00:06:50   straight into the finale because of the narrative momentum, I do love that moment. I find that

00:06:54   that's when I watch two in a row is the last two episodes. Because I get to the next to last

00:06:59   episode and I'm like, "Oh, I don't want to wait. I'm going to keep going." But I just finished

00:07:02   watching The Expanse, which dropped in December. And the other point I'll make here is it felt

00:07:08   less necessary for me to watch it. And I still haven't finished all of Mrs. Maisel. It felt less

00:07:15   necessary to watch it because it was all there and I could get to it whenever. Whereas when

00:07:22   The Mandalorian dropped or when For All Mankind dropped and on Sunday nights when Watchmen dropped

00:07:28   on HBO, I was there because I wanted to see the next episode. And some of these binge shows,

00:07:34   it's like, they're not going anywhere. So they're not as much of a priority because I will get to

00:07:40   them eventually. So I think that works against them too. So if you like binging TV shows,

00:07:45   I don't have a problem with it. I get it. I just don't think that that's the rollout strategy that

00:07:49   is right for a lot of stuff, especially scripted, dramatic, you know, with cliffhangers and you want

00:07:56   to have conversation about what's going on. I think those work better with a little bit of

00:08:01   scarcity. That's all. So I will say like to build on your point, like for myself, I think that this

00:08:09   type of rollout, like the give us a couple of episodes, you can have a mini binge and then you

00:08:14   go week to week is really good for thoughtful drama shows because then you have the time

00:08:20   to kind of for it to sit with you and you think about it. But like lighthearted comedies,

00:08:26   just binge the whole thing. That's my feeling on it. There's also a TV critic thing where

00:08:30   that I think Apple is smart with, although ironically, you know, they didn't get a lot

00:08:35   of love from the TV critics, but one of the problems that TV critics note is the pilot

00:08:39   episode. The first episode is often a set up episode to introduce you to characters. And,

00:08:45   you know, this is for logical reasons, but like the pilot episode is never representative of the

00:08:50   series as a whole because it's the introduction episode. And what you really want to see to judge

00:08:55   a show as a viewer or a critic is what does the show look like when it's up and running?

00:08:59   What is every episode of the show going to feel like? And episode one never does that. So I think

00:09:05   it's smart for Apple to say we're going to drop three because then, yes, if you want to really

00:09:10   dig down deep into it and episode one, what's your appetite? Well, try number two. And if episode one,

00:09:16   you're like, man, I don't know. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've recorded. I've set

00:09:19   up like a season pass for a TV show on traditional TV and watched episode one and like never gotten

00:09:28   to episode two because it's like not, it's fine. Maybe I'll get back to it. And then I never get

00:09:33   back to it. And I think there's something to be said for having episode two queued up. So if

00:09:37   you're unsure about episode one, you can just roll into episode two and see if it continues to work

00:09:43   for you. And I think that's a good like way to sell your series. - The pilot is three episodes,

00:09:46   not one episode. - Exactly. Which means you get a better sense of what the show actually will be

00:09:50   week to week. So, you know, I don't know. There's no right answer here, but I guess what I'm saying

00:09:55   is I think there's a right answer, which is what Apple is doing, which is, and what Disney is doing.

00:10:02   Roll some of your drama stuff out week to week. I think it's better. I know why Netflix doesn't

00:10:07   do it, but I don't think it's as good. - So there were no Golden Globe wins for Apple. - Nope. Tim

00:10:12   Cook was there though. Tim Cook got a nice plate of vegan entree and some wine to sit there next

00:10:18   to Jennifer Aniston. - And my understanding from reading reports is that Ricky Gervais

00:10:23   roasted him, right? Like I have no time for Ricky Gervais anymore. Like I just can't, but whatever.

00:10:30   Like, you know, to each their own, it's just not my style. In my opinion, The Morning Show was the

00:10:35   wrong choice for the Golden Globes anyway. It should have been for all mankind. I don't know

00:10:40   what the process is to have a show nominated for a Golden Globe. Like if it's chosen by a committee

00:10:45   or if like the studio puts it up, right? I don't know the way it's done, but I feel like... - It's

00:10:51   all a sham. - This is what I'd assumed that like a company pays money. - It's not quite that, but

00:10:59   it's not a real thing. - Yeah, but my feeling is like that maybe Apple had some hand in like

00:11:05   what goes up or whatever, but like, you know, you put it up for contention. It's put up for

00:11:10   contention in some way and I could see why you would have put The Morning Show here because it

00:11:15   feels like it is playing to the people within the bubble, right? But I think that For All Mankind

00:11:22   had a better story, better payoff and better acting performances across the board than The

00:11:29   Morning Show did. Even though The Morning Show, I still thought was very good. I think the parts

00:11:35   that Apple actually had nominations for with The Morning Show, they have better options with For

00:11:41   All Mankind. Like you could have picked literally anyone to win the best supporting or best actor

00:11:49   role from For All Mankind, like in my opinion, because the performances of all of the cast,

00:11:55   nobody faulted. Every single one of them was fantastic. So yeah, that's my feeling on it. So

00:12:02   but anyway, they didn't win, which is a shame for them. It would have been really good if they could

00:12:06   have brought one home, but they didn't. - That's fine. They'll survive. They'll cry into their

00:12:10   money. - They'll survive, but it would have been, you know, I'm just saying that Apple would have

00:12:14   really loved it, right? Like it would have been very good for them to come away of a Golden Globe.

00:12:18   - We won an award, not very prestigious award. - Yeah, I guarantee though that they didn't win

00:12:24   because of who they are, right? Like it just wasn't gonna happen for them this time. Like

00:12:28   Hollywood's not behind them. All right, but we have some information about some new shows coming

00:12:33   because it's a bit of a quiet time for Apple TV+ right now, but it's about to kick off in February.

00:12:38   So Apple TV+ will be getting a five-part documentary series exploring the LGBTQ movement

00:12:44   in television. This is coming in February. It's produced by Wanda Sykes among others,

00:12:50   and the show will investigate the importance of TV as an intimate medium that has shaped the American

00:12:56   conscience and how the LGBTQ movement has shaped television. Obviously that's a quote from press

00:13:01   releases. All five episodes will debut on Valentine's Day. They're gonna feature voiceovers

00:13:06   and interviews from people like Ellen DeGeneres, Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow, and more.

00:13:11   This show is one of the very few, I think is in a very rare club of shows that have been first

00:13:16   announced for an Apple press release. Most of the stuff was leaked out, right? Because they're

00:13:21   much longer lead times and stuff like that, but a documentary series.

00:13:26   - Also, yeah, it's a doc, so there's no set and there's no big, it's a different kind of supply

00:13:33   chain. - Right, I expect overall, but it does come from the very fun URL, apple-tv-plus-press.apple.com,

00:13:42   which is just like a fun little website that Apple built, which is just like, it's a specific news

00:13:48   room just for press releases of Apple TV+. I think this is also where you can log in and get,

00:13:54   if you are a member of the media, I think, and get screeners and stuff. I think I've seen this.

00:14:00   - I don't know, maybe. - Rob McElhenney's comedy series is going to be debuting on February 7th.

00:14:06   This is the show that focuses on a video game studio, which I believe Activision is involved

00:14:12   with, which is like super weird. - It's Ubisoft. - Ubisoft, that's the one, thank you.

00:14:17   - Yeah, it is. So it's Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,

00:14:22   and the series is produced by Lionsgate, okay, right, 3 Arts Entertainment, all right,

00:14:26   makes sense, and Ubisoft, because it is a video, it's about a video game studio,

00:14:33   and they're producing, it's fascinating to me, February 7th, and they're binge check,

00:14:39   here it is, it's a sitcom, it's a nine half-hour episode comedy, and they are dropping all nine

00:14:45   episodes. - So I also remember that Charlie Day was involved in this. He's not anymore.

00:14:52   It's not listed as, oh, yeah, it's actually from him, but he was originally going to be in it,

00:14:58   but is not in it anymore, I think. - Ah, interesting. - That was how I remember it.

00:15:02   - Yeah, so he's a producer credit. - Yeah, or at least it was the case of,

00:15:05   when it was announced, people assumed, right, 'cause it was just like, from McElhenney and

00:15:09   Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny, right, and you just assumed they would both be in the show,

00:15:14   but Charlie Day is not in the show, Rob McElhenney is in the show, I think he plays the lead

00:15:19   character in the show, he is the creative director of the fictional company. So I'm actually really

00:15:26   excited for this, 'cause I'm super keen to see what this show is gonna end up being from an

00:15:30   outside and inside part, right, like I'm interested because I like Rob McElhenney,

00:15:35   but also this one seems so weird with the Ubisoft involvement that I can't imagine them being,

00:15:41   actually focusing on the real issues that exist within video game development,

00:15:48   like I can't even imagine them touching on it. - It does seem unlikely that this will become a

00:15:53   Silicon Valley-style brutal satire of the game industry if a game company is producing it.

00:16:00   - But then you look at Rob McElhenney, and that is his bag to do that type of show,

00:16:06   which is why these two things seem so out of whack of each other, so I'm interested.

00:16:12   - Yeah, what is the nature of that Ubisoft producer relationship, and is it that they're

00:16:19   a consultant and they generate some of the, I don't know, it's fascinating, we'll see,

00:16:24   we'll see, I'm interested. - I don't know if I said the name.

00:16:26   - It's an interesting project. - The show is called Mythic Quest

00:16:28   Ravens Banquet, which I love that name because it sounds like a ridiculous video game, so the name

00:16:34   is very funny to me, and I'm wondering if there is gonna be some kind of fictional world within

00:16:41   this world, like, I'm keen to see this one, this is the next Apple TV show that I will be checking

00:16:48   out immediately, I think, that's kind of where I am with that one, I'm excited for this one,

00:16:52   because I like the people that are involved. The rumour became true, ex-HBO boss Richard

00:16:58   Pletpla will make content exclusively for Apple TV Plus in a five-year deal between Apple and

00:17:05   Pletpla's company, Eden Productions, it will encompass television series, documentaries,

00:17:10   and movies, I think this could end up being, I'm probably not alone in this, a very big deal for

00:17:15   Apple in becoming a key player in the streaming wars, it feels like, so far, their goal has been

00:17:21   quality over quantity, and this could bring good quality. - So who is Richard Pletpla,

00:17:26   he ran HBO for a long time, and is the guy from HBO who stood up on stage at an Apple event and

00:17:32   talked about how they were bringing HBO, now I wanna say, their over-the-top version, to Apple TV,

00:17:40   the Apple TV platform, so he has somebody who had a relationship with Apple, when AT&T took over

00:17:47   HBO and Warner Media, he left, and there's a big New York Times article about him, he talks about,

00:17:57   he clearly has signed a non-disparagement agreement with AT&T as part of his severance,

00:18:03   or departure, because they ask him about it a lot, and he basically declines to say anything other

00:18:08   than, you know, a new company, or a new, we had a new owner, and it felt like the right time to

00:18:14   leave, which is funny, I've kinda been there, so I get it, and what's interesting is that apparently

00:18:23   Eddie Q called him up after he left HBO and was like, "Can we get into business with you?"

00:18:31   - So this is one of those things, I've had this, we spoke about this on Connected a long time ago,

00:18:37   about the idea of people always think that Eddie Q's useless and should be fired and is pointless,

00:18:42   Eddie Q's not pointless, Eddie Q brings home deals, we have seen this time and time again,

00:18:49   that he is mentioned in this, and from reading the New York Times article, it genuinely feels like,

00:18:55   without Q, this would not have been done, this was the deal. - It's possible, but clearly that was

00:19:01   the personal connection, and I do think that that is the thing that Eddie Q has turned out to be

00:19:05   best at, is that he is a schmoozer and he has personal connections, and this, clearly he had

00:19:12   some sort of personal connection with Richard Plepler, then they get him in touch with, you know,

00:19:16   Zack and Jamie, who are running Apple TV+, and basically this seems, it's interesting,

00:19:23   'cause it seems to be that what Richard Plepler didn't wanna do is be inside a giant corporation

00:19:30   where he could get sold off or replaced or whatever, like what happened at HBO, that he

00:19:35   wanted to have a little more control over what he does, so he wanted to set up a production company

00:19:40   and use whatever, you know, talent that he put together and skill that he put together in building

00:19:46   modern HBO, but he didn't wanna do it where he was completely boxed in. What's interesting is,

00:19:52   it sounds like, you know, this is a five-year deal, so like, Apple, unclear how exclusive it

00:19:57   is or if it's first look or if there's a certain amount, there's lots of different ways this could

00:20:01   go, but instead of him being hired by Apple, his company has basically been hired by Apple

00:20:07   to produce premium HBO-style content, which is totally, I mean, this is Apple's game, right?

00:20:13   Apple is playing the HBO game, which is funny 'cause HBO is not playing it anymore. You know,

00:20:20   they're going more broad for HBO Max, but Apple TV is gonna have a smaller number of shows and

00:20:26   they want them to be perceived as high quality and prestige, and that is what "Pleplers" HBO did.

00:20:32   So, you know, they're gonna be a supplier and from Zach and Jamie's perspective, it's like,

00:20:38   you know, who knows what it's like behind the scenes or if they're like, "Is he kind of

00:20:42   verging in on our territory here or is it more like, great, you know, they're gonna provide more

00:20:47   content for us?" But I think overall for Apple, it's another stake in the ground about how they

00:20:54   wanna be HBO. And so Apple's adding stuff, other companies are losing stuff. We knew this was gonna

00:21:00   happen. It's now happened. Now the year's ticked over. "Friends" is currently unavailable to stream

00:21:05   anywhere in the US. It's left Netflix and will be coming to HBO Max sometime later on this year.

00:21:11   And there was a report from a few places, I have one site from Polygon, that there are some movies

00:21:16   that are disappearing from Disney+ already, including "Home Alone," one of the "Pirates

00:21:21   of the Caribbean" movies, and "Dr. Dolittle." This is because of some, like, crazy licensing

00:21:26   agreements is what people have worked it out and from what sources are saying, Disney are

00:21:30   not commenting on this yet. And it's also likely this could happen in the future. There are some

00:21:35   reports suggesting that movies like "Black Panther" could end up back at Netflix in 2026

00:21:40   because of some weird deal. Yeah, there's an additional window. There's an additional window

00:21:44   that they have later on. So we knew the streaming wars were gonna cause complexities and it's

00:21:50   already happening. But it's a surprising thing for Disney+. Like, it hasn't been around very long,

00:21:56   and some movies are disappearing. And "Home Alone" is particularly funny because they are developing

00:22:01   a new "Home Alone" for Disney+. So it would be weird if the movies aren't there, right? That,

00:22:06   like, they're creating a new "Home Alone," but the old "Home Alone," they're gone. And the funny

00:22:10   thing is, they're gone, but nowhere else. Like, they're not showing up. No one's found where

00:22:15   "Home Alone" lives right now, but it's not on Disney+. Yeah, it's gonna happen for a while,

00:22:22   too, right? Because these are contracts that were signed in the last decade that are still playing

00:22:28   out before--when the strategy changed, but these contracts are still there. So it's gonna be a

00:22:33   little weird for a little while. This is also why you create originals, right? This is ultimately,

00:22:37   this is why you have to create originals. It's why Netflix spends billions on creating originals

00:22:42   and has spent tens of billions in the last decade to create original material that they have

00:22:48   complete control over, because that stuff will never leave Netflix, right? That's why they do

00:22:52   that, and that's why everybody is doing that, because these other things, movies and catalog

00:22:57   shows and all of that, are all just kind of licenses, and they can come and go. And we're

00:23:02   in this really weird period now where they are, they're kind of coming and going. And, you know,

00:23:06   the office will be the same way, right? The office is gonna vanish and at some point and go to Peacock,

00:23:12   which they launched--NBC actually launched Peacock as a social media presence yesterday during--and

00:23:20   this is, I'm not making this up--during a football game between the Eagles and the Seahawks,

00:23:26   because they thought a bird-themed event would be hilarious for the launch of the Peacock social

00:23:33   media presence. I'm not gonna lie, Jason, if I was the head of marketing for Peacock, this is what I

00:23:38   would have done. Yeah. Maybe that tells you something, like if that's what my group has done.

00:23:42   Hey, it's birds! Let's do it. I don't know if it's the right move for you, but there you go.

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00:25:18   next move. Make your next website. So we heard about a while back the Bridge Pro, which is the

00:25:25   keyboard for iPad, which makes your iPad look like a MacBook Pro, like a laptop. It's like a

00:25:30   clamshell design kind of thing. But the Bridge Pro was coming. We heard about this first from like a

00:25:37   lawsuit that Bridge had with another company. Because about their hinge design. But there's

00:25:43   no point focusing on that for now. They have officially unveiled their iPad Pro keyboard,

00:25:48   including a trackpad. It is going to be taking advantage of the assistive touch accessibility

00:25:53   feature included in iOS 13. The product is called the Bridge Pro Plus. It's available to ship

00:26:00   starting February. The 11 inch model costs $200. The 12.9 inch model costs $230. Pre-orders begin

00:26:07   on Tuesday, January 7th at 11am Pacific. Jason, you've had one of these, right? You've got a

00:26:14   prototype unit? Yeah, I had one. It's actually before that other keyboard. People are like,

00:26:20   "Oh, they're angry because this other company got to the market of a keyboard and trackpad combo

00:26:25   unit first." It's like, well, first off, Bridge had a Surface keyboard and trackpad a long time

00:26:32   ago because Microsoft Surface is basically a PC. But I was testing a prototype of this before that

00:26:39   other company announced their product. So, Bridge has been working on this a long time.

00:26:45   And part of the challenge is, like we talked about with iOS 13, what exactly is supported in iOS?

00:26:52   Because this is an accessibility feature called Assistive Touch that will let you use an external

00:26:57   pointing device. And over the summer, we're like, "Is this going to get any better?" And it got a

00:27:04   little bit better, but not a lot better. And it's definitely a virtual finger that is there for

00:27:08   accessibility purposes. And you can use it, but it's definitely not what I'd hoped for. And for

00:27:15   me, the number one thing is that even though there is a text editing cursor in iOS that you can

00:27:20   control, you know, on the iPad, you put two fingers down on the keyboard and you can move around a

00:27:25   text editing cursor, that's not connected at all to Assistive Touch. And for me, that was going to

00:27:31   be the big benefit of adding an external pointing device was being able to edit text. And Apple just

00:27:36   didn't provide that. So it's been disappointing to me having this. It's great that that feature

00:27:42   exists, but it is not as functional as I had hoped. And we don't really know what Apple's

00:27:48   plans are. Apple could say, "Solved it. Right. Done. We're done. Good." Or they could say,

00:27:55   "Wow, this could be a lot better. There are a lot of people out there who want to use these pointing

00:27:58   devices and we need to do a better job and we'll wire in the text and the cursor and we'll change

00:28:02   how we're doing it. And if it's connected, we could wire it into Safari so we could support

00:28:07   mouseover events and things like that." And it's like, there's a lot of things they could do,

00:28:10   but are they going to do any of them at all? So I get this thing from Bridge while iOS is still,

00:28:16   I think, in beta even. And I had it for a week. And what I learned was I was very excited to get

00:28:23   it because it's like, yes, I wanted this keyboard with trackpad. So now my iPad can be a full-on

00:28:30   laptop mode device when I want it to be. And then I pull it out and then it's back to being a tablet.

00:28:34   And what I learned was in a context of a MacBook, you really do expect the trackpad to be of MacBook

00:28:44   trackpad quality. And Apple's trackpads are real good. Like, they're really good. And this isn't.

00:28:54   That's the bottom line. It's fine. But in that context where you expect it to suddenly,

00:29:00   you're like, "I'm using a laptop and now I'm going to reach down to the trackpad and I'm going to do

00:29:03   something." And it's like, no, the gestures aren't really there and the scrolling isn't very good.

00:29:08   And what you're capable of clicking on in iOS with this virtual finger is not as good as what

00:29:16   you really want. You end up kind of doing this click and push in order to try to scroll some

00:29:20   things. It's just not great. It's got its moments for sure. But the issue here is that it's not as

00:29:32   good as what it feels like it should be because it feels like you're using a MacBook and you're not.

00:29:37   And the OS is the reason. It's not the hardware. It's the OS. It's just not made to be used with

00:29:44   a trackpad like this. Plus, by the way, there's no trackpad support is my understanding in iOS.

00:29:49   It's a mouse that's supported, so trackpads have to emulate a mouse, which is, I think,

00:29:54   very common on the PC side too. But Apple's Magic Trackpad... This is why Apple's Magic Trackpad

00:29:59   basically doesn't work on iPads because it's a special pointing device. It's a trackpad. It's got

00:30:05   a totally different kind of set of characteristics. And as a result, you know,

00:30:09   Brydge is doing their work to emulate a mouse on top of trackpad gestures, but it's not as good.

00:30:17   It's not as good. That's wild though, right? Like, I can't get my head around that properly yet.

00:30:25   That they built a trackpad that works like a mouse, not a trackpad. Like, do you know what that

00:30:30   actually means? My understanding is that this is not uncommon in terms of like trackpads that

00:30:38   aren't like the Magic Trackpad. They're like lower quality external PC trackpads. You move the finger

00:30:46   and it says, okay, that's the mouse moving up. Just like it translates that into a mouse movement

00:30:52   set of data and pushes that to the computer. And so the end result is you move your finger up,

00:30:58   the cursor moves up. You're like, all right, that's it. But what's really happening is that,

00:31:03   and not like I got a multi-touch trackpad and I'm going to do four finger gesture here, and I'm

00:31:08   going to do... Like, it's not that sophisticated. And my understanding in talking to people at

00:31:15   Bridge is that's the challenge here is that Apple didn't implement... You know, if iOS implemented

00:31:20   the trackpad whatever software that is on the Mac on iOS as part of AssistiveTouch, then presumably

00:31:30   you could pair a Magic Trackpad with it and it would work really well. And that Bridge could do

00:31:35   something like that too, but you can't. It's just Bluetooth mouse basically that you get. So it's

00:31:43   got some limitations there too. Bottom line is it's a really neat piece of hardware. And I think

00:31:47   maybe for some people it will be exactly what they want, but I think I want to just be in...

00:31:52   I want to strike a note of caution because I feel like this is a product that is not for most people,

00:31:57   that most people will probably be frustrated by it because iOS isn't there yet. And I am always

00:32:04   reluctant to tell anyone to buy a piece of hardware hoping that the software will improve later,

00:32:09   because guess what? Most of the time the software doesn't improve later in the way that you want it

00:32:12   to. So to buy this now and say, "But I'm sure for iOS 14 it'll get better." Like, "Are you sure?

00:32:20   Don't be so sure. Don't count on it." So I don't know. It's a really interesting product. And I

00:32:25   think the reason that Bridge has been so careful and they know that there's an audience for this

00:32:30   and they want to bring it out, but at the same time I do get the real sense that they're concerned

00:32:34   that this is the kind of product that could be oversold and that people will be disappointed

00:32:40   when they see how AssistiveTouch works. Because we know, we've been talking about it for the last few

00:32:45   months, but if you don't know and you're like, "Oh, now they've got an iPad with a trackpad,

00:32:50   that'll be great." And then you get it and you say, "Oh, it's not great. It's weird." And that's

00:32:57   not a great experience. - Yeah, I feel like you should only buy this if you've tried the

00:33:04   current AssistiveTouch feature and you're okay with it. - Yeah, get a Bluetooth mouse and try

00:33:10   it out and see what all the issues are. - A wired mouse, any mouse will work. Just try it out. I'm

00:33:15   very sure that many people have access to one of those, right? Like a mouse with some description

00:33:20   in their home. You might need a dongle if it's not USB-C. - I had to buy one, but yeah, sure.

00:33:25   - And give it a go. Bridge have actually also made a standalone trackpad for iPadOS now because they

00:33:31   did all the work. So they now sell just a trackpad if you want that. I wanted to talk about this a

00:33:38   little bit because I am personally very excited about this because I use pointer mode, the cursor

00:33:44   mode in iOS 13, basically every single day. So I am very excited for this product because

00:33:52   what I do now, if I'm sitting down to do any amount of work, I want to have an ergonomically

00:33:59   sound environment for me if I'm going to be using my iPad. So I use my ClearLook stand and I use

00:34:05   either my Bridge keyboard or another keyboard. I have a WASD mechanical keyboard that I like,

00:34:10   or also coupled with a Logitech MX Master mouse. This is what I'm using right now. Mouse is by

00:34:16   Bluetooth. Then I plug the keyboard in via USB-C. I'm ready to go. And then I get like a great setup.

00:34:23   The ClearLook stand has the iPad at eye height. I have a desk, which is all set up correctly. I

00:34:27   have my chair, which is set up correctly. So I'm able to work with the operating system that I want

00:34:32   to use that suits me better with ergonomics in mind. So now I also want a trackpad on my Bridge

00:34:41   keyboard for the times when I am in laptop mode rather than desktop mode because I'm getting very

00:34:45   used to using an iPad of a cursor. And I know, look, okay, if you are opening Twitter right now

00:34:52   to tell me to use a Mac, close it because I do not care about that response, right? Like, I'm not even

00:34:58   going to bother getting into it right now. Right? Yeah, I have a Mac. I'm talking into it right now.

00:35:02   Typically when I'm, do you know what, when I'm using my iPad in that mode, I'm on a second desk

00:35:07   I have in my office. My Mac is behind me, right? Like I could get to it if I want to. I don't want

00:35:13   to. I'm actually still planning on like working out a permanent station in my office. Like I want

00:35:19   to have a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, and like in a hub that works all of it together. So I can

00:35:26   just like plug one cable into the iPad and it's always ready to go. Um, I am taking recommendations

00:35:33   from anybody if they can recommend good monitors for iPads and good hubs. Like I want to know if

00:35:38   anybody's using these. Um, I know that John Voorhees has done some stuff with this. Federico's

00:35:43   done some stuff with this on Mac stories, but I just want recommendations from people if they're

00:35:47   working in this way. Um, but I, I really like it. Like it lets me use the apps that I use in a way

00:35:54   that I'm familiar. I think that the, the cursor mode is way better implemented than I would have

00:35:59   expected it to be based on being somebody who's used Apple pencil for so long for interacting with

00:36:04   UI because Apple pencil could never, um, operate any of the kind of operating system layer stuff.

00:36:14   So you couldn't, you pull down notifications, you couldn't adjust anything in split view.

00:36:19   None of that can be done with the Apple pencil, but you can do it with the cursor. So you can like,

00:36:24   basically you are minute, you are like mimicking a finger, which I know can be frustrating in places,

00:36:30   but gives me way more, uh, functionality available than I can just using the Apple pencil to use the

00:36:39   UI. So then you also have, you know, the, the MX master has a couple of buttons on it and you

00:36:44   can program what those buttons do. Right. So like, yeah, I really like it. It's working great for me.

00:36:50   And it gives me more flexibility when it comes to using iOS, because then I can also just pop

00:36:56   that screen right out of that system and take it with me and I'm good to go. Right. Like, and then

00:37:01   it's my iPad again. But other than that, it is like a, uh, it is a focused work device, right.

00:37:07   Which is how I'm using it for the rest of the time. So I am very happy with the situation,

00:37:13   like just the whole like setup that I've got right now, but I want, uh, I'm keen to see what it would

00:37:20   be like to use, uh, this device, like a laptop, like an actual laptop with a track pad. I'm keen

00:37:26   to see what that ends up looking like. Yeah. I have to be honest. I might be more interested in

00:37:30   the standalone track pad just because I could position that next to my keyboard when I'm working

00:37:36   on the iPad in a stand and, um, and use that instead of the weird Bluetooth mouse. Cause

00:37:44   basically I don't like mice, so I'd rather not. And I might use that more. Um, I might not,

00:37:49   I don't know. We'll see. But, uh, but yeah, this has potential. And I think if you've used it in

00:37:54   that mode, like you have, you understand its strengths and weaknesses, but it's great. Uh,

00:38:00   there are a lot of speculation about this too. Uh, when this got announced, a lot of conversations

00:38:04   about it. The question is like, what will it take for Apple to make this mode on iOS more

00:38:10   and really on iPad OS better? And you know, one argument is they won't because just never bet

00:38:17   against Apple considering something that they just worked on done and leaving it on the side of the

00:38:22   road for a few years. That happens a lot. So I think that's actually the most likely scenario

00:38:26   is that nothing will happen. They could make it better as an accessibility feature. They could

00:38:31   decide to make it a more mainstream feature and wire it into more stuff. And that would be great.

00:38:38   I am deciding to hold out positive hope for this, that like the amount of people and the

00:38:44   amount of buzz that there has been about this feature could lead to it becoming a thing,

00:38:49   but that is my own hope. So here's, here's what I'm getting at is oftentimes what drives the

00:38:56   software side is the hardware side. So one, one, and we're going to get to this, uh, in our next

00:39:04   segment, when we talk about my predictions for 2020, cause I wrote a bunch of articles about what

00:39:08   I think is going to happen in 2020 or what I hope is going to happen, that delightful combination of

00:39:12   prognostication and wish casting that happens this time of year. Um, but one of the things that I

00:39:18   think is what are they going to do with the iPad pro? Like how do you, how do you do an update?

00:39:23   Is it just going to be, Oh, well, the processor's faster and there's this, you know, depth camera

00:39:28   housing thing on the back. That's like the one that's going to be in the iPhone this fall.

00:39:32   And that's the, that's the rumor. It's like, okay, like, all right. But the last time it was,

00:39:38   this is as powerful as a laptop and we've got USB-C and now we're serious. And I thought,

00:39:42   I'm not sure we're going to see a dramatically different iPad pro because it's the second

00:39:48   revision of this version of the iPad pro. But I did have this thought just in the back of my head,

00:39:53   which is what about accessories? What about more pro accessories? What if there's a new

00:39:58   smart keyboard and one thing that could drive, whether it's in addition to the existing one or

00:40:05   they just take the existing one away and replace it with a new one, but what if they could do a pro

00:40:12   smart keyboard that had the function row, maybe at some point, you know, it could actually have like

00:40:18   a magic keyboard set of keys on it. It would be heavier. I'll grant you, but it would be nicer

00:40:23   keys. And the big one is what if it also had a pointing device that would drive, they would have

00:40:29   to make the cursor support way better if they did that. I'm not saying they will, but I'm saying,

00:40:35   part of me feels like the only way we're going to get really good cursor support in iOS

00:40:41   is if Apple has a product that uses it. Otherwise it's going to kind of be off on the side. So I

00:40:46   think you got to pin your hopes on having some sort of an Apple pointing device accessory and

00:40:53   smart keyboard with either a trackpad or with that thing that they patented where you just move your

00:40:59   fingers over the keys and it's like a trackpad. Like I might take that if I can put two fingers

00:41:04   down like I do on my software keyboard and I could actually use it on the smart keyboard to move a

00:41:09   cursor around. That would be interesting. So I don't know. It is. I do think that though,

00:41:14   sometimes that for this quantum leap in terms of the quality of this feature, you almost need Apple

00:41:20   to say, uh, you have to make this feature internally because we're building hardware that uses it.

00:41:26   >> Fingers crossed. >> Yeah.

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00:43:50   their support of this show and Relay FM. So predicting Apple in 2020. There's a series

00:43:57   of articles that you wrote, but you started out with grading your 2019 predictions. I just want

00:44:02   to give a run of some of these. So you were correct that the Mac Pro was expensive and modular,

00:44:08   but there was only one display option. You'd hoped like many that there would be more than one.

00:44:12   Yeah, it still doesn't make sense to me. Maybe still 2020, we'll see. There was some

00:44:18   laptop satisfaction in 2019. You got some, but you were hoping for more. So the 16-inch Mac Pro

00:44:24   exists, but that was kind of it. That made people really happy anyway. The MacBook Air was a good

00:44:31   revision, but not perfect. There was an iMac update, but it wasn't as significant as you

00:44:37   hoped it would be. Catalyst was ultimately a bust and you thought it was going to be a big deal.

00:44:42   Jason, you were correct that the starting iPhone prices were brought lower. The iPhone 11 was not

00:44:48   only taking the role of the XR, it was also cheaper anyway. And there were improvements

00:44:54   to shortcuts and you had hoped then and prognosticated that the iOS on the iPad

00:45:01   would become more powerful, where Apple introduced an entire new operating system,

00:45:04   as they call it, iPadOS. So that is that. We're pretty much going over just your predictions this

00:45:11   episode. If you're intrigued in my predictions, these are not my full predictions, but you can

00:45:16   listen to episode 275 of Connected where we do what we call the "Reckys," which is a

00:45:21   pick-based episode. There's a lot to unpack there as to why it's called that. I recommend just going

00:45:28   to listen to that episode where me, Steven and Federico make some picks for the year. And there

00:45:32   are lots of ramifications around our picks for the year. So let's, Jason, let's look at these,

00:45:37   right? So we're going to start with just a few different categories. We'll start by looking at

00:45:41   iPhone, the iPad, and wearable devices. So we're talking iPhone size changes. This is like a big

00:45:48   thing that's been rumored. What's going on here? Yeah, the rumors, right? And we have to start with

00:45:55   the supply chain rumors because they tend to be accurate. And so I feel like that's the base of it.

00:46:01   And what it looks like to me is that we're going to get essentially five new iPhones in 2020 based

00:46:09   on these rumors, which I do believe are probably accurate, but they're, you know, "new" in quotation

00:46:14   marks because I think that there's only one that would really be considered new. And this seems to

00:46:19   be Apple's kind of relentless sort of year after year adding more variations to the iPhone so that

00:46:25   customers have...their customers have more options because more options are good. And I think Apple

00:46:30   has come to realize that. So, you know, based on the rumors, there's going to be a new iPhone SE

00:46:35   that'll be out this spring that's basically the iPhone 6 6s 7 8 size. And that will be the,

00:46:43   you know, so you want this cheaper, smaller phone. Here it is. And then the other rumors are that

00:46:49   there are going to be four iPhones in the fall, right? So there'll be a new 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max

00:46:59   that the 11 Pro or so the 12, let's say, Pro Max will be bigger, even bigger, that the 10R/11

00:47:09   that there will be a 12, let's say, of that just again. The rumor is that they're going to add this

00:47:15   big depth sensing thing on the back. But the one that I think is most intriguing is that there

00:47:19   would be like another 10R class phone that's small. That's the rumor. That's much smaller

00:47:27   than the iPhone X style that we've been using for people who never really got used to having

00:47:34   a phone that size. And potentially, you know, that's going to be the lowest priced of the main

00:47:42   line of iPhones. So you did something that all wild Apple people, Apple watches do. You tried

00:47:51   to give your guests on the names. I'll point out, by the way, making up names about Apple products

00:47:56   today is really easy because people will be like, "No, no, they'll never do that." And you say,

00:48:02   "Won't they?" Because like, I don't have, show me the evidence that they won't have totally

00:48:09   wacky names for their products because that's been the last couple of years.

00:48:12   - So to name them all going from price is iPhone SE, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Max, iPhone 12 Pro,

00:48:20   and iPhone 12 Pro Max. Now, that seems like a lot, right? It seems like a wild thing to do.

00:48:26   - It does.

00:48:27   - Unless you think about the last couple of years, right? And look at their competition.

00:48:31   - I mean, we live in the world of Pro Max. We are in the Pro Max era.

00:48:35   - But here's-

00:48:36   - And you look at the competition, right.

00:48:37   - So if we think about that, right, one, they want more iPhones at varying price points to

00:48:42   appeal to more buyers because they need to do that now, where they didn't before. The other thing is,

00:48:48   now there's been a lot of rumors around this and I think it could make sense, two release schedules.

00:48:54   Samsung do this. The S lines come out in the spring and the Note lines come out in the fall.

00:49:01   And there have been some rumors saying that Apple is going to split this line. Now,

00:49:05   imagine if the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Max came out in March and the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max

00:49:12   came out in September. That would be, in theory, a smarter way to run their business because they

00:49:18   don't have to pack everything into one time. It makes a lot of things very different about like,

00:49:25   what is iOS anymore? Like, when does it come out? What does it focus on, right? Like, there's like

00:49:30   weird things to do with that. Unless there are also, you know, many people have been saying,

00:49:34   we want a roadmap. Maybe this is a way to do that. You know?

00:49:37   - I actually think that the case for this, and I'm not, I didn't predict this, but I think it's

00:49:43   possible, is the case for this is you put out your high margin, expensive cutting edge product in the

00:49:49   fall. And that's the Pro model. You could leave the iPhone 11 kicking around, right? And update it

00:49:58   the next spring. You'd still release iOS in the fall. iOS first version would be again, for the

00:50:04   cutting edge phone, it would be focused on the cutting edge features of the cutting edge phone.

00:50:07   And by the time the next iteration of the phone came out in the spring, you would have,

00:50:13   it would be settled a little bit more. So that's the argument. The counter argument is,

00:50:18   are people gonna be as enthusiastic about buying an iPhone 12, three, six months after the 12 Pro

00:50:26   has appeared or not? And I guess you could look at, you could ask that question about Samsung,

00:50:32   right? Are they, the Note and the regular Galaxy at different times, does that make a difference?

00:50:37   Like, do they interpret this as one product or two products?

00:50:41   - It depends what way you do it, right? Because Samsung introduced all the new stuff first,

00:50:46   and then the expensive line gets all of that and a few more things. So like, Apple could start,

00:50:52   they could have an event like in April or March and we get the iPhone 12. And then they do the

00:50:59   12 Pro later in the year. Like that could, I mean, that's the way that competitors do it.

00:51:04   Lots of other companies work this way. - And then the 12 would run iOS 13 and iOS 14

00:51:10   would come out alongside the Pro in the fall anyway. - And then iOS 14 could be like, all

00:51:15   right, and now we're gonna release these features in September and these features in March, right?

00:51:20   Like, and they just lay that out and that's how they go for the future. - I don't feel like that's

00:51:24   necessary for them to do it that way though. They don't, they could use their existing

00:51:28   annual cycle regardless. - They don't have to do it, but they've been doing it by accident

00:51:31   over the last few years. So they may as well just like do it, right? - Yeah, I wouldn't want to put

00:51:37   those two things together 'cause I think that's a separate argument and it's not necessary. And

00:51:41   I also don't think they're gonna do it. - Yeah, they don't have to, they could, they don't have

00:51:45   to, doesn't mean they will. But I am on board with the idea of splitting the iPhone line. It would

00:51:53   add maybe a little bit more steadiness to the earnings as well, potentially, right? Like,

00:52:02   rather than one big spike quarter, the spike may be smaller and that the other quarters might level

00:52:08   out a little bit more because of this. It also could add just a little bit more breathing room

00:52:14   for Apple and their industrial design and manufacturing teams that they don't have to do

00:52:18   everything at one time, right? That they can let things spread out and breathe a little bit more.

00:52:24   - For sure. - There are a lot of merits to this. We'll see. We'll see what they're gonna do.

00:52:28   - 'Cause five iPhone models is a lot, right? It's a lot. - If they're gonna do five, they shouldn't

00:52:33   bring them all out at the same time. If they're gonna do four, they shouldn't bring them all out

00:52:36   at the same time, right? - So here's the other thing I wanna mention too, which is, for those who

00:52:43   watch the Apple financials, you can tell the longer an iPhone design has been out, the less

00:52:49   exciting it is to a portion of the market 'cause it's the same old phone. And I'll just point out

00:52:54   that with the Pro iPhone and Pro Max, the Max getting bigger at least gives it a little bit

00:53:02   of a differentiator, but that iPhone Pro model was the iPhone X, it was the XS, and then it was

00:53:09   the 11 Pro. So if there's a 12 Pro this fall with a different camera on the back, that's the fourth

00:53:16   iPhone X. And with the XR and the 11, an iPhone 12 would be the third iPhone 12. And I'm just saying

00:53:25   that's a lot of iterations on a single design, and that's not great for sales. It's just not.

00:53:33   No matter what they put on the back, if the rumors are true, that product is a lot less... It's not

00:53:40   gonna be a lot less interesting, but it's just fundamentally less interesting because it's the

00:53:44   fourth iteration of the same product. It doesn't mean that it isn't better on the inside, it means

00:53:48   it looks more or less the same, and that's not great for sales. - Do you think the 12 line will

00:53:53   look different? - I don't see. I mean, there are no rumors to that degree. That would be great,

00:53:59   right? It would be very dramatic and interesting if they picked up the design language of the

00:54:05   iPad Pro, let's say. But I'm not sure I believe that. - There are rumors, but they're not necessarily

00:54:10   coming from the places you would expect them to come from. They're not coming from the really

00:54:15   reputable sources right now. It seems too old for that. - It would certainly help if they had a

00:54:20   look refresh. It would certainly help because when you're going into year four of the iPhone X,

00:54:26   iPhone X is great, but it's year four regardless. And if you suddenly said, "Oh no,

00:54:30   it looks totally different. It's a totally different looking kind of thing," that people

00:54:36   who care about that stuff will get excited and there tends to be a sales bump there.

00:54:40   They may not feel they need it if they've got a Pro Max that's bigger and then they've got this

00:54:45   smaller mainstream phone. Those are the two new models and then the other ones just kind of motor

00:54:50   along. And then the following year, there's a bigger change. That may be what they're thinking.

00:54:55   - I would be very surprised personally if they introduced new sizes to the line,

00:55:01   but the phones will look the same still. That would be a surprise to me because I can't think

00:55:05   of another time that Apple have done that, like changed the physical dimensions and kept the look

00:55:10   the same. - And kept the look. Yeah, I mean, adding the bigger phone is a, you know, this is a 10,

00:55:16   but it's also big, right? The 10 plus, which is now a 10, the 12 Pro Max, 11 Pro Max.

00:55:23   - But still, I would expect to see some change, but it doesn't have to be. I'm very intrigued

00:55:28   about this lineup. - No, you're right. You look at five phones in 2020 and you're like, "Really?

00:55:33   Really, are they going to do that?" But the last couple of years have told us that every time we

00:55:38   get an iPhone rumor that we've said, "Really, too?" Yeah, the answer has been, "Yeah, really, yeah."

00:55:43   - You predicted some other features. I reckon these will probably just be on the Pro models,

00:55:47   but 5G and a faster refresh rate on the screen. For the overall smartphone market in 2020,

00:55:56   these feel like table stakes, like if you pay attention to everything. - You got a phone called

00:56:02   a Pro, right? You got to have features on it that are Pro. You've got to. And if the rumors are true

00:56:06   about OLED coming down into the lower end models, you really have to find something, right? Something,

00:56:12   so if it's the 3D camera stuff on the back and it's 5G and it's ProMotion and the other one I

00:56:22   threw out there, which again is more wish casting, but it's like every time Apple comes out with a

00:56:28   larger phone, I have to say, "Apple Pencil support?" - Apple Pencil support. - Because there's an

00:56:33   argument to be made that the iPhone Pro is the Galaxy Note, right? That's what it is. And Samsung

00:56:41   has, and if you're thinking of a Galaxy Note as like one giant phone, it's like Galaxy Notes

00:56:45   align now. I get very confused. There are Galaxy Notes that are not that much different in size than

00:56:52   the Galaxy? What's the difference? - The S you're thinking of. They're all galaxies. - They're all

00:57:00   galaxies, right? But they aren't as clearly differentiated as you might think. They overlap

00:57:06   a little bit. - In 2019, Samsung made their lineup significantly more complicated by,

00:57:12   really between the Note and the S11+, the only difference is one has a stylus. That's kind of

00:57:22   where they are with that now. - Right, and so this is my point, is differentiation can be good,

00:57:26   and you can see what Samsung does. And I look at this, well, we're gonna have this iPhone 12 Pro

00:57:31   Max that's got an even bigger screen than what's in the 11 Pro Max. Apple Pencil, it's right there.

00:57:38   You did all the software work. Some people would love it, and it's not a mandatory feature, and

00:57:44   why not? You got a giant screen on this thing, why not do it? So I'll throw that in there too.

00:57:48   But I do think that that is an ongoing challenge, is you want to roll these really great features

00:57:54   down into your mainstream models, but how do you keep the Pro model actually a Pro model? How do

00:57:59   you do that? You've got to have new stuff pouring in that people are gonna want, and the Think is

00:58:04   cool and cutting edge. - I would really want to see them make a pencil that is scaled to the

00:58:10   phone size, though. I wouldn't want the current Apple Pencil. I mean, it wouldn't work anyway,

00:58:15   because it couldn't charge, right? Like, that's the difference between Pencil 1 and Pencil 2.

00:58:20   Like, Pencil 1, you could still charge it the same way. Pencil 2 won't work in that regard. - Yeah,

00:58:25   unless they had a new design with the sides and the magnets. - Wouldn't it be weird, though,

00:58:31   to have a pencil that's significantly larger than the phone attached to it? It would be very strange.

00:58:35   - It would feel to me that they would need, like, a golf pencil or something. - Yeah,

00:58:39   and I think that'd be sweet. It'd be like a cute little thing. And let's talk about the iPad Pro.

00:58:43   What do you think's going to happen to the iPad line in general this year? - Well, they turned

00:58:49   over so much of it in 2019, but not the Pro. So I think the Pro is where the interesting thing will

00:58:56   happen. And I mentioned it earlier, which is having just put out a new iPad Pro in the fall of 2018,

00:59:05   it's version 2. You're generally not going to do anything dramatic with that. There is that rumor

00:59:11   about the cameras on the back, the new camera stack that they want to do that's better for AR

00:59:16   and depth perception and things like that. On the front, you know, what do you do to change it? I

00:59:22   don't know, which is why I kept coming back to accessories, that if the knock on this was like,

00:59:28   the software was holding it back, well, the software's better. It's not perfect, but iOS 13

00:59:34   did enable more Pro kind of functionality on iPadOS. So how do you take it one better? And

00:59:40   I keep thinking about like accessory related stuff. Like you're not going to completely

00:59:46   redesign the iPad Pro, but you could design a new accessory that uses the smart connector on the

00:59:52   back to create a, you know, maybe a more laptop-like keyboard as an option in addition to the existing

00:59:58   smart keyboard. That would be one way to go. I mentioned it earlier. You could have it have

01:00:04   a trackpad if you added that as an iOS feature. If you did that, you probably wouldn't ship it until

01:00:10   the fall when iOS is out, but you could do that. Or it could just be a beefed up smart keyboard,

01:00:15   give people two options. They can get this thicker, heavier keyboard that feels more like

01:00:19   a laptop. That would be pretty sweet. And then I threw in the SD card slot. I know it seems silly,

01:00:24   but like it's a Pro iPad. Photographers love it. It's great for photography. You can have a huge

01:00:30   storage in it. It's got that beautiful screen. Maybe in addition to the USB port, which people

01:00:36   said, "Oh, well, I never put USB on an iOS device." And they did. Maybe you do put like an SD card slot

01:00:42   on it and say, "This is great for photography because it tells a Pro story." And they've got

01:00:47   three, four other iPads that don't tell the Pro story. Can you imagine the outrage if Apple put

01:00:57   a SD card on the iPad and not on the MacBook Pro? I can. So that's what gives me pause on that one.

01:01:08   Like I agree with your thinking, but like you could make the same argument for the MacBook Pro

01:01:14   as it being a great photographer device. And they haven't got one on there. That's true.

01:01:20   And yet, I don't know. I think that you and I are in the... Essentially, we're in the meeting

01:01:26   for this product when we're talking, which is, "What do we do to make this more Pro?" We're not

01:01:31   going to do a complete industrial design refresh on it, but what can we do to push this forward?

01:01:36   And I'm going to be in the corner going, "Well, I got some accessory ideas." We could do a second

01:01:42   smart keyboard that was smarter and more Pro since every... Again, talk about differentiation. Like,

01:01:48   every iPad basically, except the mini, can do keyboard stuff now and has a smart keyboard

01:01:55   or has pencil support. The amount of differentiation we have across the line,

01:02:00   it's getting kind of weak. So we need some new things. So a really Pro keyboard attachment thing

01:02:06   for the people... You've seen all... I would say to these imaginary people around this table at

01:02:12   Apple, there is the bridge keyboard. People talk about it. It's not for everybody, but it's out

01:02:16   there. We could do a way better job if it was a first-party keyboard. And we could still sell the

01:02:21   smart keyboard to most people, but this would give us a Pro message. It would help us differentiate.

01:02:25   And then I would bring up the SD card and probably be laughed out of the room, but I would say,

01:02:30   "You know what? Let's forget about the Mac. Let's focus on this product. Do we know that a lot of

01:02:34   photographers use this? Do we sell this as a great ultra-mobile photography studio? Could we put an

01:02:39   SD card slot next to the USB-C?" It would be very tiny, and it would be another way to differentiate

01:02:45   it and say, "This is the one that Pros need to get." And then they would say, "Please leave your

01:02:49   badge at the front desk on your way out." - We've told you time and time again, Jason.

01:02:54   You won't listen. - Insert your badge in the SD slot at the exit and then leave. - Get out.

01:03:00   What about, so you also referenced the Apple Watch 6 and the AirPods 2 as products that will exist

01:03:06   in your expectation. That seems pretty set. Do you have any real thoughts on what these could

01:03:11   feature? - No, I mean, so this is the thing. AirPods, new AirPods, we have them, so they're

01:03:17   probably not going anywhere. I think the only thing that we might get is the rumored AirPods

01:03:24   over-ear stuff. - Oh, okay. HeadPods. - Because, yeah, HeadPods, because that would allow them to apply

01:03:33   that to something that isn't a Beats-branded thing but uses noise canceling. And I think we've seen

01:03:39   now Apple's interest in expanding AirPods beyond the original. They did the second generation,

01:03:45   they did the AirPods Pro. I feel like you have such success in that area. Why would you not carry

01:03:52   it through? And I know that they have Beats as well, but still. Apple-branded over-ear headphones.

01:04:00   I think Apple, if I was in charge of AirPods at Apple, again, I'm sitting at a table, they've

01:04:05   given me my badge back. - SD console. - Yeah, I would say everything we do here is successful.

01:04:11   Let's do more. There are other areas in this market that we can attack with an Apple, with

01:04:17   white Apple-branded things. Let's keep rolling, right? There's no reason for us to stop.

01:04:25   Let's do headphones. I know we'll also still sell Beats headphones. I want Apple headphones

01:04:30   that are Apple-branded that people can wear around, and then they'll have their white headphones with

01:04:34   them. - I also think, you mentioned white headphones a few times. I think if you want to do something

01:04:39   with the AirPods, you could do some new finishes, different colors, you could do that. And that would

01:04:44   be a... - Guys, Johnny's gone! We don't just need to do them in white anymore. - But I just feel like,

01:04:49   you know, it's like you say, we're back in that room again, and we're the AirPods team.

01:04:53   We have nothing to give to the AirPods from a technology line, because we also don't want to

01:04:58   encroach on AirPods Pro. What can we do to refresh them to get them back in stockings again next year?

01:05:05   We'll put them in some colors. - We talked to our plastic guys, and the plastic guys say,

01:05:09   "We can get you colored plastic for next fall." - And they're like, "Whoa." And then they do it.

01:05:14   - Yeah, then they're like the iPod Nano, right? We've got our serious white, awesome Pro headphones

01:05:20   here, and then we've got our fun colors for the lower-end model. - Nano-chromatic, Jason.

01:05:24   - I like what you're saying. You're hired, early. You're hired. For Apple Watch, I have one thing,

01:05:30   which is, I'm gonna just say sleep tracking again, because I feel like they'll do some more battery

01:05:35   things. It's a logical place for them to do a health update, and I think wear your watch

01:05:42   overnight, and it tracks your sleep, and it's like, you can already do this and then charge it

01:05:48   like when you have breakfast or are in the shower in the morning, and I feel like it's just, it's

01:05:54   right there. So if I had to guess, and that's a combination of the hardware improving and also the

01:05:58   software supporting sleep tracking stuff, but I feel like that has to be where they go next.

01:06:05   - Didn't they give an award of some description recently to a sleep tracking app? - Yeah,

01:06:12   it's funny, right? Because it's there, but it's not blessed by Apple as something to do with your

01:06:19   Apple Watch, and Apple owns Bedit, which makes a sleep sensor you put on the bed, but I feel like

01:06:26   having a scenario where it's tracking your sleep, and then it's also able to give you wake-up alarms

01:06:34   on your wrist, and they could potentially even do that thing where it's like, we're monitoring

01:06:38   whether you're sleeping deeply or lightly, and we can have that adjustable alarm that wakes you up

01:06:43   when you're surfacing instead of as you dive back down for more deep sleep, because we know when you

01:06:47   need to wake up. I think I can see a sales pitch around that. - They didn't give an award. It was

01:06:54   in their press release when they were talking about their awards. They also spoke about the best,

01:06:58   the highest selling apps and games of the year. - Oh, that's it. It's from that episode of

01:07:04   Connected where you guys were talking about what exactly is Apple doing with its marketing, and

01:07:08   one of the highest selling, the biggest selling Apple or Apple Watch apps is a sleep tracker.

01:07:13   - It was in the Apple Watch, but it was in the kind of apps of the year was an app that was just

01:07:23   an Apple Watch sleep tracking app, which is a wild thing to consider. I cannot find that app

01:07:31   right now, but I know it exists somewhere. I think it was like Autosleep. I think it was Autosleep.

01:07:39   But yeah, I just think that that was like a wild thing that it was for the Apple Watch,

01:07:45   but it was in the top paid apps of the year. So like you look at that data, Apple must surely be

01:07:56   working on it. You'd be wild not to, right? Like if people are buying these applications,

01:08:02   wouldn't you do it? - Nothing sends a better signal than seeing incredible success in the app store.

01:08:07   I mean, this is the thing that Apple gets accused of all the time is, "Oh, they took my idea and

01:08:11   they integrated it," which has happened forever. And that's just, if you're a platform owner,

01:08:16   you find out it's one of those, I see those stories and I really roll my eyes. It's not

01:08:21   that I don't feel bad for the developer who comes up with a great idea and then it's in the software

01:08:26   but at the same time, can you imagine a world where the platform owner is unable to develop

01:08:31   any new features if they exist in a third-party app? It's like you can't live like that as a

01:08:36   platform owner. So you have to look at the signal from the app store and say, "Oh my God,

01:08:41   our customers want sleep tracking. It is so clear. Plus it's health, which is perfectly aligned with

01:08:47   what we're doing. Let's make it happen." And I can only assume that the reason that it hasn't

01:08:52   happened yet is that they're worried about the kind of battery issues with that, especially

01:08:55   since they added the always-on display and that hits their battery, but it's got to happen.

01:09:00   It's got to happen. I remember there was a story recently that detailed that Apple had a team that

01:09:07   looks for trends in the app store and then they talk about them as if these are things that we

01:09:12   want to do. And it's like, of course, they would have that. You'd be wild not to. I can't find

01:09:20   for sure the name of that app. I'm looking. I think they may have changed the press release

01:09:24   to remove that information. I don't know. There was a previously an Apple press release and it

01:09:29   also said these were the most downloaded apps of the year. But I know it was in there. I believe

01:09:33   it was Autosleep, but that's beside the point. Should we talk about the Mac?

01:09:36   Yeah, let's do it. Another MacBook Pro update for the current 13-inch. Lots of people are hoping

01:09:44   that they will make a MacBook Pro, which is like the 16-inch MacBook Pro. Do you think that will

01:09:48   happen in 2020? Yeah, I feel like the easiest prediction to make at all is that they will do

01:09:53   a revision of the smaller MacBook Pro and that it will include the new keyboard. I think that's a

01:10:01   gimme. That's a layup. That is the easiest one. I think the hard one is the MacBook Air because,

01:10:07   again, differentiation. Having the Magic Keyboard on the Pro model and not on the Air,

01:10:14   you could make an argument is differentiation. This is not an argument I want to make. I'm just

01:10:19   saying I'm trying to think like Apple here. That said, and when I wrote this article,

01:10:24   what I said was it really depends on how confident they feel that this, you know,

01:10:28   bad PR aside, that their new materials version of the butterfly keyboard actually solved the problem.

01:10:33   And given that you and I have a friend, Mr. Steven Hackett, who has a 2019 MacBook Pro 15,

01:10:40   so it's the new materials keyboard that is supposedly better at resisting,

01:10:44   and that he's got like a crunchy delete key. He had a completely stuck delete key.

01:10:48   Yeah. So that kind of data point, that kind of anecdote makes me think, oh, no, they've got to

01:10:58   get rid of it on the MacBook Air too. But I feel like if I'm Apple and I've gotten beaten up,

01:11:02   especially by the Pro users about this, but I feel like, again, PR aside, I feel like I actually did

01:11:09   solve the problem with the butterfly keyboard and it's not a problem anymore. I can make the

01:11:13   argument to keep it on the MacBook Air. If it's still a problem, you just got to get rid of it.

01:11:18   So I don't know how they feel about it internally because it would be a differentiator,

01:11:24   but my hope is that the next MacBook Air will also just have the magic keyboard. And that, in fact,

01:11:29   that the MacBook Air was built during a time when they built this new MacBook Air, the retina MacBook

01:11:35   Air, during a time when they knew they would be doing a keyboard transition. And so it's engineered

01:11:40   so that they could put in the new keyboard instead. That's my hope. If it helps Apple,

01:11:45   if you update the MacBook Air to include the magic keyboard, the holy household will buy two of them.

01:11:51   Maybe that will help tip it over the edge for you. But like sold off me and Idina are looking

01:11:57   for updates. Like she has like a MacBook Pro, the last MacBook Pro 13 inch before the keyboard

01:12:05   change. Right. So it's, you know, it's one of the thicker ones with the, with the scissor switch

01:12:10   keyboard, right. The ones that were like considered to be gold dust for a while because people hated

01:12:15   the new ones. And her battery is just like, it just doesn't run very well. It's just not running

01:12:20   very well anymore. And I have the first MacBook Pro escape key version with no touch bar. Um,

01:12:29   and we want to replace both of those with MacBook Airs. Um, but I'm not doing that until,

01:12:36   I'm not doing it until Apple change it. When, if they revise it this year and it doesn't include

01:12:43   the magic keyboard, I may still get at least one of them. I'm just waiting to see what they move,

01:12:49   like how they move. Right. Because if they don't do it, it means they may never do it.

01:12:53   And then, you know, then we'll all, we'll work at that point. We may go with 13 inch MacBook

01:12:59   Pros again. Right. But I want to see what they do because I would prefer MacBook Air to a MacBook

01:13:05   Pro because I just don't need a MacBook Pro. Um, but, but we'll see. What about the iMac? Do you

01:13:09   think you're going to get the revision to the iMac that you want? So I think that the iMac

01:13:17   is, I mean, it's ripe, right? It hasn't changed its look in more than a decade, but

01:13:30   so my prediction is this, which is, are you going to join the club of the iMac Pro is dead?

01:13:35   Cause I'm in that club. I think Marco's now in that club. I think that the iMac Pro is gone.

01:13:40   I was already in the room and you guys walked in. Um, all right. The iMac Pro was conceived as a

01:13:48   replacement for the Mac Pro and then they decided they needed to make a Mac Pro. So here's what I

01:13:53   think. I think they're going to use the iMac Pro design, which is an internal redesign where it

01:13:59   gets rid of spinning hard drives and it puts in a much better cooling system. I think they're going

01:14:05   to use that as the basis for a new, and there's no rumors here. I'm just making this up, but this is

01:14:09   what I think I want to predict something. Here's my prediction. Um, they're going to use that as

01:14:14   a base basis for the new version of the 5k 27 inch iMac. So the big iMac will get the new cooling

01:14:22   system, will no longer offer any spinning hard drives and will have the fastest available core

01:14:29   processors, but not Xeons, which already, if you look, those core processors are very fast. Like

01:14:36   the modern, I believe the modern iMac for, uh, at the high end is faster than my base model iMac Pro

01:14:44   now, not at the high end of the iMac Pro, but if you're at the high end of the iMac Pro,

01:14:47   there's a really strong argument that you should just get a Mac Pro now that the Mac Pro exists.

01:14:52   So I think it would be logical to say, look, we're going to take our high end iMac, our,

01:14:56   our 5k iMac, and we're going to basically, it's going to be the iMac Pro, except, uh, we won't,

01:15:03   either we won't put Xeons in there or we will put Xeons in there as an option. So, but we're not

01:15:08   going to even call it the iMac Pro. We're just going to call it the iMac. And then we're going

01:15:13   to keep the 4k and non retina low end iMac kicking around using the existing technology. That's

01:15:22   been there forever. Spinning drives are available. Fusion drives are available, and that's going to

01:15:27   let us hit a lower prices and we're going to continue to sell those. But on the higher end,

01:15:31   with the big iMac, we're going to fold the iMac Pro into the big iMac. That's my prediction is that

01:15:38   I don't think they're going to take the iMac Pro effort that they did in engineering and throw it

01:15:42   away, but I kind of have a hard time seeing them, um, keeping it around. I hope they do, but

01:15:51   there's like three products in two slots right now. Like the iMac Pro is kind of both an iMac

01:15:56   and a Mac Pro, and I don't know if they need that, that computer. I think that they could do with

01:16:02   a really capable, uh, thermally controlled high-end iMac that can go up to a pretty

01:16:08   powerful processor. And then that will go high end enough that beyond that point you say,

01:16:15   now you need to go to the Mac Pro. I think the iMac Pro as a line doesn't need to exist. It can

01:16:19   just be the highest end iMac that replaces it, as you say, and if you really need more,

01:16:24   go to the Mac Pro. Like, I think that what they should do is what you said, right? Like a new iMac

01:16:30   that if you spec it up right to the top is like super powerful. So then the iMac Pro just doesn't

01:16:34   need to be there anymore. And that's why we've not seen it. Because honestly, as anybody who's used

01:16:40   those modern iMacs, like last year's iMacs, will tell you, oh, if you get a high-end processor,

01:16:47   like those fans, those fans go on and they go on loud because the old iMac thermal, uh, system is

01:16:55   not, it's struggling at the edges of that. And the iMac Pro does not have a problem with it,

01:17:01   but what you give up is the spinning disk stuff. And I think, uh, yeah, so an iMac with a T2 and,

01:17:07   uh, a great cooling system and SSD only, like the time is here and that product's already been

01:17:13   designed and it's the iMac Pro. So why not just use that as the new iMac and say, Hey, that iMac

01:17:18   Pro, that's what the iMac is now. And you know, there can, there can not be Xeons in it and it's

01:17:23   fine. It's fine. I would like to see a refreshed industrial design. Yeah. I just, I feel like maybe

01:17:29   they're never going to do that. I, or not do that anytime soon. I don't want to say never,

01:17:33   cause there's always something, but I feel like they must be comfortable with it. I would love

01:17:37   to see less bezel on the iMac and maybe they they'll do that, but I don't know. I don't know.

01:17:44   Can make the screen a little bit bigger, you know, reduce the bezels, make the screen bigger.

01:17:50   I would like that. I would like that. That'd be nice. Um, what else on the Mac do you think we're

01:17:55   gonna, do you think catalyst is gonna Phoenix its way out of the flames? Hmm. I would like,

01:18:04   there's what I, what I would like is for Apple to get it together and, uh, improve catalyst and,

01:18:11   uh, you know, keep pushing catalyst ahead so that in the OS release that happens in the fall,

01:18:16   um, catalyst is that much more, more good and able to be make good Mac apps. And that's what

01:18:23   I would like. Do I think that's going to happen? I see very little evidence that it's going to happen.

01:18:28   So I think, I think we will see more catalyst apps in 2020, because I think one of the reasons

01:18:34   the catalyst is, is not as big as we thought it would be is because of its limitations. But I

01:18:40   think that it's also that the developers are just too busy with everything else. Like the apps that

01:18:46   I expected to be using on my Mac that were from iOS, um, to my knowledge are basically not even

01:18:53   being developed right now for catalyst. And it's because I was 13. Was, you know, compatibility

01:19:00   updates were hard and then new feature updates are hard. It was a tough summer. And then you'll

01:19:04   look at catalyst and like, well, I'm not prioritizing that right now. So I, I don't know.

01:19:10   I, I, so I would like to see more catalyst improvements, but I don't think I could predict it.

01:19:14   Uh, what about, um, I predict arm max every year. Why stop now?

01:19:25   Uh, you would think that if they introduced an I'm or an iPad pro in late 2018, that was faster

01:19:33   than 90 plus percent of all laptops released that year, that Apple. And I ha I did have a friend of

01:19:38   mine say that it's a friend of a friend thing, uh, say that he talked to this guy who was very

01:19:44   technically knowledgeable, who said, Oh, making a mobile processor is easy. Making a computer

01:19:49   processor is hard and they're not, you can't, you know, so when people say Apple is going to

01:19:53   make their own arm processors for their, for the max, that's not going to happen. It's much,

01:19:57   it's much too hard. And it's like, I see the argument from a, uh, especially like across the

01:20:02   entire product line perspective. I see it, but I look at the process of that's in the,

01:20:07   that's in the iPad pro and think that could be in an arm Mac book and it would be probably faster

01:20:17   than the Mac book was. So, um, I w I feel like it's an inevitability that Apple's going to use

01:20:24   their own processors on part of the Mac line at least. But when, uh, again, I just put it out

01:20:32   there for this year cause it didn't happen last year or the year before the year before that. And

01:20:36   I keep predicting it, but I feel like there's a hole in the consumer laptop, you know, the,

01:20:43   the Mac book air has arrived, which is great, but they have one consumer laptop. Wouldn't it be nice

01:20:49   if they had another, they did that thin and light and unbelievable battery life laptop story again,

01:20:54   but this time it was with, uh, an arm laptop. So I'll, sure I'll predict it, but I've been wrong

01:21:00   every year since I started predicting it. So we spoke about catalysts. What about software in

01:21:05   general across Apple's platforms? Do you have any key themes that you think Apple are going to focus

01:21:10   on in 2020? It's good to have themes, isn't it? Themes of the year are pretty good. I've heard.

01:21:15   I got a, I got to think that the, after iOS 13 and after Catalina, that there's going to be some,

01:21:21   uh, stability across their platforms. Um, on iOS, you know, I will put in my wish

01:21:28   for more shortcuts stuff because I think that that gets Apple, um, building a structure in which

01:21:36   third-party developers and users can build their own stuff. So you don't have to build it for them

01:21:42   is something that every computing platform really needs to get to at some point. And, and it takes

01:21:49   the burden off of you as a, as a platform developer to say, look, we gave you the tools

01:21:53   to automate this, to add these features yourself. We were not going to do it. iOS isn't there yet,

01:21:59   so they've got more work to do. I think the share sheet they've been refining it. That needs to keep

01:22:03   getting better. It's still kind of messy, but I think it's a good direction where, you know,

01:22:08   you get a menu of items and it's items from the app and from other apps and suggestions,

01:22:14   I like continue to refine that. Um, and then let's throw in the cursor support. Like I would really

01:22:19   like to see them go further down that route for iPad, uh, OS and more broadly, they named it iPad

01:22:26   OS last year. So I would like to believe that that means they will have to add some iPad specific

01:22:35   features. There's no option. In a way that they otherwise have not every other year for the last

01:22:41   six years. This is not a question in my mind anymore. This is a necessity. There has to be

01:22:47   features to iPad OS specifically. You have to do it. It has to get it stage time and you do it

01:22:54   because otherwise what was the whole point, right? Like you give tvOS time every year,

01:22:59   even if you only add a little, you give watchOS time every year, even if you only add a little,

01:23:03   iPad OS needs this time and you give it something. It could be anything, but it's got to be something

01:23:08   and it has to be iPad specific. Otherwise there was absolutely no point in calling it iPad OS.

01:23:14   You may as well just kept it as iOS. No one was like, well, okay, I say no one in inverted

01:23:19   commas. Nobody was really asking for iPad to be spun off in this way. Like we were mostly fine.

01:23:27   Like, you know, it was thoughts of like, wouldn't it be interesting or wouldn't it be nice? But like

01:23:31   no one was like, you must do this Apple. Everybody's just wanted features, but you decided

01:23:36   Apple, you took the step to call it a separate operating system. Uh, you know, again, it's not

01:23:42   separate, but they market it differently. It has a separate set of features. That means you have to

01:23:46   commit. Otherwise it was no point. Do you have a wild card? I know you do. I've read the articles,

01:23:52   but can you please tell me your wild card pick for 2020? The dream that will never die.

01:23:57   Speaking of the Arm Mac, which is really like always the wild card, never the card,

01:24:03   something like that. Never chosen as the card. Um, iPad OS laptop. Like I know it's, I know it's

01:24:12   not going to happen almost certainly, but like all the pieces are there. They could do it if they

01:24:16   want to, if they want to iterate on the, I, on the iPad and iPad iOS in a way that they've expanded

01:24:24   the iPad line. I talked about how there's clearly some interest in people in using iOS in a laptop

01:24:31   sort of shape. If you couple that with improvements again, improvements to cursor support.

01:24:38   Um, I don't know. They could make an iPad OS laptop that would be what we've already described,

01:24:46   which is why don't we take this thing that is a very functional operating system and getting

01:24:51   better every year and put it in a laptop shape for people who want a laptop shape. I don't really

01:24:56   want this product because I like, I like using a tablet. That's why I use the iPad the most is

01:25:01   that I use a tablet, but I do know people and I think people exist who would really love the idea

01:25:07   of using iPad OS as a laptop and maybe it folds over and maybe it's convertible or something like

01:25:13   that. But I don't know. I think this product could exist and it's a question of, uh, does Apple want

01:25:18   it to exist? I think all signs point to them not wanting it to exist, but I got to make a wacky

01:25:24   pic. This is my Ricky pic, Myke. Uh, thank you. They made a video iPod, you know, who wants one

01:25:29   of those things when made one. So right. I just, I, the, the, this is like the flip side of the

01:25:35   coin that I'm flipping for my arm Mac, which is an arm laptop would have very long battery life.

01:25:43   And the apps on iOS are very capable. Most of them, not the Google apps, but like

01:25:49   Microsoft office and like there are very capable apps. You could, as somebody who uses an iPad as

01:25:55   an, as a laptop, sometimes you could totally do it even without a track pad, you could totally do it.

01:26:01   So, you know, it's, it would be a little more like a Chromebook. It would not have the full

01:26:07   Mac experience, but it would have the full iPad iOS experience. I could sit in that room before

01:26:12   being escorted out. Who is this guy? He doesn't work here. Get him out and, and make that claim,

01:26:16   which is okay. We're not confident in making an arm Mac iOS device right now. Why don't we make

01:26:23   an arm laptop? And it's just the same internals more or less that are going in the iPad pro that

01:26:30   we're doing, except it's attached to a keyboard. I, you know, again, if Apple was not as conservative

01:26:40   as they are in terms of what products they release, if they were more like Samsung, it's like, sure.

01:26:45   Or even Microsoft, let's put it out, see what happens. I think they, we would already have seen

01:26:50   it, but I think that Apple is always reluctant to release a product if they don't think that there's

01:26:55   an enormous market for it. And, um, I think there's a real question about whether this would be

01:27:00   an enormous product that, that said as part of a product line that includes the iPad pro and the

01:27:05   iPad and the iPad air and the iPad mini maybe. So that's Jason's 2020 predictions. I look forward

01:27:16   to it. Lay it back in 12 months. Folks. This episode is brought to you by door dash. We have

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01:29:33   dinner and get $5 off with the promo code upgrade of your first order from door dash. Our thanks to

01:29:38   door dash for their support of this show and relay FM. Jason Snell. Hi Carly. Can we talk about the

01:29:46   best thing? Well, the best named thing ever project connected home over IP. This is a terrible name

01:29:53   for a great thing. This was announced a few weeks ago and I really wanted to talk about it. I didn't

01:29:57   want to let it go. Uh, basically all of the major smart home tech companies like Apple, Google,

01:30:03   and Amazon, along with selection of accessory makers are joining together to create an alliance

01:30:08   called the connected home over IP. This has been given various names. I like the name chip. I think

01:30:13   you like the name chop. Right? Yeah. It's very NASA to go the other way and say it's a, the over

01:30:19   is what counts. And then we ignore the I and go to the P cause NASA does stupid stuff like that all

01:30:26   the time when they're making their acronyms. I think I've changed my mind and I want to call

01:30:29   it Choy, like C H O I. So I'm going to go with Choy. Yeah. But the fact that the press release

01:30:34   doesn't give it a name that's cute and clever suggests that that's not going to be the name.

01:30:38   I liked that all of the names you're proposing at the end of the article, like smart home everywhere

01:30:43   or any have any tech home hub, like just like some stupid name that they're going to give it.

01:30:48   But look, the naming doesn't matter because what has happened is that these companies have

01:30:53   announced plans to create an open source protocol for all of their devices to work together no

01:30:58   matter who makes them. This is a quote from the website. The goal is to simplify development for

01:31:03   manufacturers and increase compatibility for consumers. The project is built around a shared

01:31:08   belief that smart home devices should be secure, reliable and seamless to use, which is great.

01:31:14   This is just great. It's exactly what you want. You never thought you're going to get it right,

01:31:18   because it doesn't make sense when you think about how Apple, Google and Amazon specifically work.

01:31:23   Like why on earth would they want to work together? We'll maybe get to that in a minute,

01:31:27   but like it just doesn't seem like it fits with these companies overall plans.

01:31:31   After the announcement of this, Apple open sourced some parts of their home kit accessory

01:31:36   development kit so people can play around with what they do and how they could maybe

01:31:40   interact with them. These are now available on the Apple developer site.

01:31:44   The real likely outcome of this is that a company could like more quickly tinker around to see if

01:31:50   they can realistically make something before getting certification. I reckon that the

01:31:56   certification is going to change. I feel like the MFI certification that people still need to go

01:32:03   through is not going to be the same because of this new... Well, for home kit stuff, I would

01:32:10   assume that this organization will have a certification system that's fairly straightforward.

01:32:14   We'll just say works with whatever we call it. Works with CHOP, joy. Works with any tech home hub.

01:32:22   Right. So dream life spot. Home smart life future, whatever it's going to be. But like you

01:32:30   expect that it will change in some way. But I think it's cool that Apple immediately did something

01:32:35   with it like, "All right, so now this is open source. Go wild." Which is a great way to stir

01:32:41   up a bit more excitement in this community. Can I read a quote from you, Jason, that you wrote in

01:32:46   your article about this? Oh, yes. Yes, please.

01:32:47   My quick hit reaction to this is that we're so far down the smart home path that the major players

01:32:52   have realized none of them have dominated the initial land grab. And now all of them face a

01:32:56   barrier to growth because of the incompatibility of the different smart home tech approaches.

01:33:01   So basically, everyone's doing their own thing. There's a bunch of stuff out there. None of it

01:33:06   works together. And now maybe people aren't adopting it.

01:33:09   It used to be our way to grow is to dominate and make everybody be inside our silo. And now we've

01:33:15   reached the point where they all look around and say, "Our growth is being limited by this silo."

01:33:19   It's like, "Yeah, it is. Nobody won. Nobody completely blew out everyone else and brought

01:33:25   them to their knees. Everybody's in their little silos." And the third-party developers hate the

01:33:30   fact that they have to build integrations with all of these different kinds of home platforms

01:33:35   instead of just one. And so everybody... This is like, to me, this is disarmament. This is

01:33:40   everybody realizing they are better off working together than trying to force everybody into their

01:33:47   specific silo. And that growth will happen when... That the open path here is going to

01:33:53   create more growth for them than control over a silo. And you would think Apple would be the last

01:34:01   to do that, but I would argue that Apple's been down this path for a while now,

01:34:05   ever since it realized that it had to stop enforcing its hardware encryption and things

01:34:09   like that. Apple has been backpedaling on how porous its silo is for a while now because they

01:34:17   weren't getting people to use HomeKit. And Apple have the least amount of products

01:34:22   available out of those three companies. Google and Amazon both make more than just the

01:34:28   talky hub thing, the thing you talk to. Apple only make those products and then everything else has

01:34:34   to be certified. The rest of the stuff... So the other companies, they're making other stuff.

01:34:40   When I look at this whole thing, I feel like the fly in the ointment was Amazon. Amazon got in

01:34:45   early and established this market, got a lot of product into a lot of homes. The Echo seems

01:34:51   to be a pretty popular thing because they sell it so cheaply. You can get into that ecosystem.

01:34:56   But then Amazon couldn't capitalize because they don't have the rest of the ecosystem. They don't

01:35:04   have phones and tablets that people are really buying en masse and using. So they got out there,

01:35:11   started integrating with anyone in any way they possibly could and probably made it harder for

01:35:17   a Google or an Apple to really own it because people were already using the Amazon devices.

01:35:22   And basically no one's been able to create a full solution, which seems obvious now when you look at

01:35:28   it. No one was ever going to be able to do this. And I expect that some stuff's like happening

01:35:33   where companies like Philips were going to the larger companies like to Apple and being like,

01:35:38   "Look, you are this percent of our market now. We are not interested in going through a certification

01:35:45   review anymore because if we just go with the other guys, it's easy." I imagine stuff like that

01:35:51   started happening. So then these companies started bounding together. Or it might have been a case of

01:35:56   again, a company like a Philips, like a large company going to all of them and being like,

01:36:00   "We're not going to do this. We're going to keep playing this game. Why don't you

01:36:04   integrate with us now instead? How about that?" I reckon that what we're going to end up with here

01:36:11   is something akin to Bluetooth in the sense that like, so AirPods, they are Bluetooth headphones

01:36:18   and they will work with any Bluetooth device, right? You can just pair them.

01:36:22   But when you pair them to an Apple device, they have extra features. And I reckon that what will

01:36:29   end up happening is yes, smart home devices work in the overall thing and you can use this product

01:36:36   with this company, this company, this product, this company. But if you get like these like

01:36:41   ordained pairs, they get additional features, right? So like you can use Nest with the HomePod,

01:36:47   but if you use Nest with Google Home, it gives you a little bit more. You know what I mean?

01:36:51   Yeah. I think the other big thing that will happen if this works is, you know, I have

01:36:57   at least two and I think maybe three little wireless things that are attached to my network

01:37:05   at home that are separate from my wifi network in order to talk to specific devices that I have in

01:37:12   my home that are smart home devices, right? Like I've got a Phillips Hue hub, I've got a Lutron

01:37:18   Casita hub, I've got an Arlo camera hub and they're each doing, Arlo is actually doing wifi,

01:37:28   but it's like its own, the others are whatever, they're Zigbee or whatever, they're like other

01:37:33   wireless protocols. And that's the over IP part of this thing is it's also coming together and saying,

01:37:40   we need to come up with standards for wireless and communication over IP, internet protocol,

01:37:48   so that there's interoperability. I think that means that in the long run, it may not be that

01:37:53   everything has embedded wifi that just works with your wifi router, but if not that, that you should

01:37:59   be able in this future, in a few years, you should be able to buy like a hub from anyone and all

01:38:10   devices that use that will just be able to use it. So like in my example, I think if this all comes

01:38:16   to pass, I wouldn't have needed to buy two or three different little wireless bridges for

01:38:24   specific kinds of tech. There'd just be like, get a wireless bridge or don't use one at all,

01:38:30   cause we're using wifi. And that would be a huge thing. Cause it's ridiculous that you're like,

01:38:35   Oh, I'd like to buy this light bulb, but in order to do that, I have to buy this plastic box and

01:38:39   attach it to ethernet and plug it in. And it's like, no, no one wants to do that.

01:38:43   - Yeah. In our home, we have like the basics at this point, like for this reason,

01:38:49   like the more I got into it, it was like, this is just becoming so much more complicated than I

01:38:54   wanted it to be. But we are also in that boat of like, we have the home pod and I use the home pod

01:39:01   to do like to control our lights and stuff. But we also use the echo for that. And the echo is

01:39:08   used more in our home. Like we had it first. So we trained ourselves to just say the Amazon wake word

01:39:17   and ask it to do things. But also the echo works with some of our products in our home

01:39:23   and the home pod doesn't. So like we have a Dyson fan that you can control and our Roomba,

01:39:28   you can control with the echo. So we're never going to leave that because we have some benefits

01:39:33   there. And honestly, the home pod, we don't use a ton for the smart home stuff because we would

01:39:41   have to be using both of them. - Yeah. And the, this is where,

01:39:45   if anybody has used home bridge, which I use, which is like a piece of software that you can run

01:39:50   that it does what it says, it connects these different things. It's basically home kit.

01:39:55   It's a home kit bridge that takes things that aren't home kit compatible and puts them on

01:40:00   home kit. And it's great, but really what it says to me is that's what the future needs to be.

01:40:07   - Which in theory is, right? - Everything should just work together.

01:40:12   Like because I'm using home kit, I'm using an Apple device and I plug in a Google device,

01:40:18   it should just show up, right? It shouldn't be like, "Oh no, I don't work with home kit.

01:40:22   I only work with Google and Amazon." That's so frustrating and so annoying. So I think it also

01:40:29   means that you could probably, there'll be like a bridge product that will backward compatibility

01:40:35   everything, and it will probably be based on home bridge, but that would be nice, right? To not have,

01:40:40   it's going to take time, but we will ideally, and I think this is going to happen. I'm not

01:40:46   too skeptical about it. I think it's going to take time and you're going to have old products

01:40:50   that you're going to have to replace and it's going to be annoying. But I do think we're going

01:40:52   to reach, enter the second phase where everything's just going to work on everybody's home systems.

01:40:59   - That's interesting because I had thought to myself like, "Backwards compatibility is

01:41:03   a very important part of this." - Now they're going to be, I don't think they're

01:41:08   going to say, "Oh, Philips, all their old light bulbs now will just show up on home kit." No,

01:41:14   that may be a bad example because they actually do work with home kit. But I think you're going to

01:41:18   have orphan products that won't get a firmware update or something to work, right? They're not

01:41:24   going to work. It's going to be a new standard and new things are going to be certified and the stuff

01:41:28   that is new-ish at the time that it all gets worked out will become compatible and the stuff

01:41:34   that already worked with all of them will stay. But I'm sure that if you've got some smart thermostat

01:41:40   that only works with Alexa and Google Home, let's say, and not home kit, and then they do this thing,

01:41:48   it's not going to get a software update to work with home kit. I don't think that'll happen. So

01:41:53   like your first-generation Nest thermostat that you're still using that doesn't work with home kit

01:41:58   unless you use Homebridge, it's not going to get a software update. That's never going to happen.

01:42:02   You're going to need a new thermostat. - Whatever it is, though, I'm excited for

01:42:08   Choi because I think that this is needed to continue the advancement of this type of technology

01:42:15   in the same way that Wi-Fi was needed, right? And we got that.

01:42:20   Bring on smart life home hub tech bot plus. - Plus pro. Smart home plus pro. That's what

01:42:30   we're going to call it. Everyone loves pluses and pros. This episode is brought to you by Booz Allen.

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01:43:25   BoozAllen.com/Relay. That's BoozAllen.com/Relay. Our thanks to Booz Allen for their support of this

01:43:31   show. It's time for #AskUpgrade Jason Snell. We'll round out this big bumper episode.

01:43:37   Ian asks, Myke, you previously mentioned that you like white text on a dark background. Does

01:43:41   this preference carry over at all to pen and paper? Not at all because...

01:43:45   - White ink on black paper, Myke. - You could do it.

01:43:49   - How much black could it be? - It exists as a thing.

01:43:51   But I am not interested in doing that. I like colored inks. I like lots of color in my ink,

01:43:57   oranges and greens and purples and reds and blues.

01:43:59   - Also, that's not how it works. It's like they don't make a flash dark that shines dark.

01:44:08   Where you point it, it only works the one way. You cast light, you don't cast dark out. And you don't

01:44:17   put light ink on. No, that's not how it works. - Aloha. That is a joke from the Flop House.

01:44:25   I just wanted to just for the sake of the Flop House episode about the Rise of Skywalker is so

01:44:33   good. It's an absolute classic. I have not listened to the Flop House for a while. Like it just fell

01:44:39   off my radar for a bit. I'm so back in now because I remembered exactly why I love this show. And

01:44:44   that was it. It is absolutely fantastic. If you liked the movie, you might not be a big fan of the

01:44:53   episode. Dylan asks, "Do you have location services turned on for camera and photos?"

01:45:00   Do you? - Yeah. Yeah. That's how you search your photos for where they were taken. Yeah, for sure.

01:45:09   - I do. And as well, I mean, I understand some people may not have in case like when

01:45:14   sharing images, it would have location data built into it. - These days, almost everything has a

01:45:21   "don't share location data" feature that I think is turned on by default. - And also,

01:45:26   they added an iOS feature that I really like where when you go into the share sheet, there's a little

01:45:31   text button that says "Options" where if you're sending an image to somebody, you could choose

01:45:36   to remove it for that image, which that wasn't the case before. If you text me or AirDrop a photo to

01:45:43   me, it would have all the data in it. You can now turn it off. And you can also, like with live

01:45:47   photos, you can also turn off the live photo data in that screen. I really like that. I think that

01:45:52   was a nice little addition that Apple made with iOS 13. But yeah, like you, right? Like sometimes,

01:45:58   I can only find an image because of the location. - No, the user benefit to have the, you know,

01:46:05   find it on a map or search for a particular place and have it turn up is far too great. And,

01:46:11   you know, I don't think there's an issue here. I would have an issue sharing a picture with

01:46:16   location data of like my house or my kids' preschool or something like that. But

01:46:22   that is not, yeah, it doesn't really happen. Like, I feel like we've come far enough that

01:46:29   I'm not paranoid about this. As concerned as I am about privacy, this is not where I'm concerned.

01:46:35   - Right. But yeah, but like in the same vein, like it's just a kind of a thing of I don't take,

01:46:42   I don't share pictures of my house. - Yeah, well, that's true too.

01:46:45   - You know, but like, but yeah. - I don't know. You just share that

01:46:47   picture of your iPad with the keyboard and all of that.

01:46:50   - I know, but when I share images like that online, Jason, I meticulously look through it.

01:46:55   - OpsSec, yeah, sure. Yeah, it doesn't have like your neighbors' street signs and things like that.

01:47:01   - I also as well, like I check like what are the names of my widgets?

01:47:06   I just look now because it's, you know, you're gonna get questions. Like this one from Johan,

01:47:13   what is the first app on your home screen? - Geez.

01:47:17   - Top left, what is it? - I couldn't tell you.

01:47:20   - You don't know? You don't have your phone there? You got your phone there? You can open it.

01:47:26   - Messages. - Messages, top left?

01:47:28   - Top left. - I have the Relay FM app there.

01:47:31   I never listen to our shows live because I'm usually the one doing the live thing,

01:47:36   but I just really like having my company logo on my screen. And I find the top left,

01:47:41   especially if you're a pro max user like me, it's the hardest app icon to get to.

01:47:46   - Yeah, it's very far away. - It's kind of like the data.

01:47:49   Didn't messages always used to be top left? Is that why yours is there? Like that's how

01:47:52   the original iPhone shipped? I feel like it might.

01:47:56   - Yeah, that might be. I don't know, I have messages in phone. They're cuddling up there.

01:48:00   - I love that you have the phone. - The green boys, they're cuddling up there.

01:48:03   - Big cuddly green boys.

01:48:05   Benjamin asks, "We're coming up on five years since the launch of live photos.

01:48:10   Has live photos and the introduction of that changed the way that you take photos on your iPhone?"

01:48:16   - It's changed photography for me in the sense that I turn it on and then

01:48:25   I'm sharing a photo and it gives me the little icon that says, "Do you want to share the live photo?"

01:48:28   And I go, "No, I don't." And I have to turn it off because mostly I don't. There are moments

01:48:34   where I've captured video and I'm very happy that I've gotten it. Mostly not. I would say

01:48:40   the thing that would really push live photos over the edge for me is I'd like it to take a little

01:48:45   bit more video than it does. And I'd like it to grab more photo quality stills than it does.

01:48:53   - Yes. - So that I could also scrub through and say, "That's actually the still I want."

01:48:59   - The key photo thing is awesome, but they're frequently too low quality.

01:49:03   It should be capturing more photos, which you can dump. Get rid of the photos after a period of time

01:49:08   if you want to. I would like that too. That's a good one. I'm going to say, and I think I said

01:49:13   this before, I stand by it. Live photos is one of my favorite additions to iOS that's ever been

01:49:18   added. I love live photos because it makes scrolling my photos more engaging. I love it

01:49:25   when you're scrolling through and there's a little bit of movement to it. It's like I'm in Harry

01:49:28   Potter or something. It helps to add content to the videos that iOS generates for you. There's

01:49:35   little videos that photos just sometimes gives you. There can be sometimes movies in those because

01:49:41   it's pulling them from live photos. There are times where I take photos specifically because

01:49:46   they will be good live photos. Then I also like to use the bounce and loop effects that you can

01:49:52   change in the photos app to create some fun animations. I really love live photos. There

01:49:58   are some photos that I have that are some of my favorites because they're great live photos,

01:50:02   including that one of me and you where the flash happens.

01:50:05   - Capturing a moment like that is amazing.

01:50:09   - Yeah. I have a few like that that are just really great.

01:50:15   I like pairing these two questions together. Stuart asks, "How many Slofies did you take

01:50:19   this year?" I completely forgot about this until Apple made an ad recently.

01:50:23   - Yeah, they're trying to make Slofies happen again.

01:50:25   - Yeah, I genuinely feel like I wished I'd used this more because it could be fun,

01:50:30   but I never think to use it. I completely forgot that the selfie camera could take slow motion

01:50:37   video. I find slow motion video is usually really low quality. I understand why, but it makes me

01:50:47   hesitant to ever use slow motion unless I'm in really good conditions and then I usually don't

01:50:52   remember to do it anyway. Finally today, Tony asks, "I have yet to see even one sign in with

01:50:59   Apple button out in the wild." Jason, have you seen any?

01:51:02   - I haven't seen a single one.

01:51:03   - I have seen one in one app called Tripsey and I use it for Tripsey. Now I looked into this

01:51:11   because my expectation from WWDC is like not only were they going to be here, Apple was going to

01:51:19   enforce it with an iron fist, right? So some of the rules changed during development and it's

01:51:28   starting off much more slowly. This was an example of Apple listening to feedback, clarifying the

01:51:34   apps that had to use it and adding some exceptions and being a bit more gentle about it. So there are

01:51:39   a bunch of application types which is defined in the guidelines now to like, you don't need to do

01:51:45   this. Like if your app is an app for a service, right? Like if you're making a Twitter app,

01:51:50   you don't need to have sign in with Apple. It doesn't make any sense because like you need

01:51:54   Twitter or like if you're a corporate app and stuff like that. So they made some changes there,

01:51:59   which I think is really great. They also extended the deadline date for existing apps to update.

01:52:05   So if you create a new app that has these sign in buttons, you do have to add this now. But if you

01:52:12   are an existing application that has sign in with Google, sign in with Facebook, April 2020 is now

01:52:19   the deadline date. So they moved it, which I think is great. They gave people more time. They made

01:52:23   some clarification stuff. So it is still happening, but it's taking a bit longer than as originally

01:52:31   suggested. Yeah, this is funny. This is a thing that Apple has done in a few places because

01:52:37   they also announced that they were going to require notarization of Mac apps outside of the

01:52:44   Mac app store, which notarization is basically you're a third party developer who's got a Mac

01:52:49   app that you're not selling in the Mac app store and notarize it, which you upload it to Apple

01:52:54   servers and they have an automated scan and check and then they cryptographically sign it and they

01:52:59   send it back to you. And that is like a, so you have an Apple developer account and you've had

01:53:06   it signed by Apple and this is their way of putting a level of security on stuff that's

01:53:12   outside the app store. And it's not a formal approval process, but it's this sort of robot

01:53:18   approval process. And they said that you would basically get rejected. Your app would be rejected

01:53:24   by the launch demon in Catalina if it wasn't notarized by a certain date. And they pushed

01:53:32   that date back, I think maybe a couple of times. I think it's coming up now, but they pushed that

01:53:41   back because they got feedback that it was too fast and that the developers needed more time,

01:53:46   et cetera, et cetera. So they've shown some flexibility about this. And by the way,

01:53:50   if you hold down control and click on the app and choose open from the pop-up and it will let you

01:53:59   open it anyway. If you change your security settings, this is all by default. So it's not

01:54:06   completely locked down, but it's way more locked down than it used to be by default.

01:54:10   That if a random app on the internet is not by a registered Apple developer and has not passed

01:54:15   through Apple servers to be approved by default, it won't open. It won't open anymore. You can get

01:54:23   it to open by changing your settings, but it's not going to open by default. That's a big thing,

01:54:27   but they did push that back as well. So I think that's a good sign. We can debate whether these

01:54:33   things are good or bad, but definitely I think it's a good sign that Apple has heard feedback.

01:54:37   They make these big announcements and then people try to implement them or think about

01:54:41   implementing them and say, "This doesn't actually make sense." And that Apple's like, "You're right.

01:54:45   We're going to adjust this. We're going to delay it a little bit." So some of that is going on

01:54:49   inside Apple. They're not just a cold unfeeling black box that makes deadlines that you have to

01:54:55   follow all the time. Just some of the time. If you'd like to send in a question for us to

01:55:02   answer on the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag #askupgrade. Please send those in

01:55:06   because we've not been doing that for a couple of weeks. We don't have so many. So send out a tweet

01:55:11   with the hashtag #askupgrade if you have a question you would like us to answer. So my backlog is

01:55:16   getting smaller on those. Thanks so much to our sponsors this week. That's DoorDash, Booz Allen,

01:55:21   KiwiCo, and Squarespace. You can find Jason online at sixcolors.com and he is @jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L,

01:55:28   on social media platforms. I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E. You can find show notes for this show, including

01:55:34   lots of links and information in your podcast app of choice or at relay.fm/upgrade/279.

01:55:41   And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:55:45   Let's do this again in a week this time.

01:55:48   All right, okay. There might be something a little bit different next week,

01:55:51   but like, we'll work to that. But we'll be back.

01:55:53   [Music]