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Upgrade

241: The Tweaky Features

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 241. Today's show is brought to you by KiwiCo,

00:00:14   Luna Display and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm back. And of course,

00:00:20   Jason Snell is here. Hi, Jason Snell. Hi, Myke Hurley. Welcome back to the Upgrade program.

00:00:24   Thank you. I would like to thank John Syracuse for filling in last week. I always enjoy listening to

00:00:28   Upgrade. Upgrade's a good podcast, so it's sometimes nice when I get to just appreciate it as an

00:00:33   upgradian instead of us. How did I do with the theme music last time? It was, it felt pretty

00:00:38   right to me. I tried to emulate the Myke Hurley creative choices with the theme music last week.

00:00:43   Well, what I will say is I didn't start it and think, "Oh, Jason, so you must have done the

00:00:49   right job," right? Because usually you'll put in like variant B or something, right? Yes. So

00:00:55   I appreciate that. But nobody cares about this, literally, except for me and you. So we should

00:01:00   go into #SnellTalk. And we have a question from Dylan. And Dylan wants to know, "Jason,

00:01:04   what do you prefer, day travel or night travel?" I prefer flying early in the morning. And getting

00:01:10   up is terrible, but it just, you can, I can do it. It's fine. I don't like getting up at four in the

00:01:16   morning or whatever and going to the airport, although there's no traffic, four in the morning

00:01:20   and the lines are not terrible, four in the morning. But I prefer to do that for a few

00:01:27   reasons. One is I live on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, which means almost all of my travel is

00:01:34   to the east. And the later you travel, the later you get there, like leading to the fact that if

00:01:42   you travel too late, you are getting, it's an overnight flight. It's like a red eye.

00:01:47   And then you're getting there the next day. And the problem is I don't live there. And you don't,

00:01:51   flying a red eye when you don't have a destination where you can just kind of go home is not good

00:01:59   because then you're, it's 6 a.m. and you're on the streets of Boston or wherever, and you can't

00:02:05   go to your hotel. Your hotel won't take you in for another, you know, eight hours, nine hours.

00:02:11   - Yeah, you're just stuck, right? - And so you're just a zombie with a suitcase wandering the streets. I've done that.

00:02:17   It's not good. And so the red eye is not really practical for me, for something other than,

00:02:24   I suppose like if we came back from Hawaii on a red eye, which I've never done, that might work.

00:02:28   The other big thing is that if you go in the morning, the planes generally, with the exception

00:02:34   of red eye flights, generally the airlines reset their planes in the morning and the plane has been

00:02:40   sitting overnight at the gate or in a hangar or wherever, but it's ready to go. You haven't had

00:02:47   a chance for your flight to get delayed because the plane that your flight is on is delayed

00:02:52   somewhere else in the country. It's already there, which means that early in the morning, there are no,

00:02:59   there are fewer delays and it's more reliable to fly in the morning. So I generally try to fly first

00:03:04   thing in the morning if I can manage it. - Some Jason Snow travel hacks right there. - That's, oh yeah, oh yeah,

00:03:10   deep, deep stuff. - That's all the people tune in for. I, very quickly, when I'm going to America, I like to

00:03:15   leave early in the morning. When I'm coming home, I like to leave late at night. - I fly overnight to Europe,

00:03:19   yeah, overnight to Europe. From the West Coast, it's such a long flight that it's really the only

00:03:24   way to do it. And because it's, I know that's a red eye, but because it's an overnight flight to Europe,

00:03:28   by the time I get to Europe, it's already in the afternoon. Most of the time. I did once fly into

00:03:34   London and we got in at 6 a.m. Again, no place to go, just a zombie, not good. - Don't want that.

00:03:42   So this actually ties into a programming note. We're going to be a day late next week because

00:03:47   Jason is traveling. Nothing's happening. There's no, well, we don't know of any big news. We're not like

00:03:53   holding the episode because there's a new iPhone. - No, there are no embargos that I can, if I have

00:03:59   an embargo, no, here's the thing. If I have an embargo, if I have something that is secret,

00:04:04   I can't say that I have it. It's like the canary clause in one of those contracts where like,

00:04:09   if you stop talking about it, then maybe it's true. But if I don't have one and I say,

00:04:16   I don't have one, I'm not lying because I wouldn't lie. I would deflect or something, but I wouldn't

00:04:22   lie about it. I don't have anything. - Do I have to ask you the question? Is that how it works? - I'm going to a wedding.

00:04:26   - Oh, okay. - Yeah, I'm going to a wedding and on Easter Sunday, basically, and I'm not getting back

00:04:32   until Monday afternoon. And so we're going to do the podcast on Tuesday morning and release it

00:04:37   afterward. So just one day late next week is what I'm saying. It'll be very similar to the

00:04:41   one last week where we had to record late and released it late. In this case, it'll be a

00:04:49   daylight. It'll be okay. It'll be a good episode though. I'll be awake, which I wouldn't be if we

00:04:53   were recording it the day after a wedding while in a hotel room. So that's why we're delaying it.

00:05:00   We're delaying it because we care. - Yep. If you'd like to send in a question like Dylan did to open

00:05:04   the show, #snowtalk is the way to do that. We use Google Docs here at the Upgrade program, and as I

00:05:10   look at it right now, the ghost of John Siracusa is hovering over this Google Doc, so it can only

00:05:15   mean that it is time for follow-up. Do you see his little face there up in the corner? - Yeah.

00:05:18   - He's hovering over us now. - Well, what's exciting,

00:05:22   Myke, is that means that we're in one of his 1,000 open tabs. - Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I need to

00:05:29   start leaving him some little messages or something. I don't know. You've published your iMac review.

00:05:34   We've spoken a ton about this iMac over the last few weeks, but I just kind of wanted to get the

00:05:40   sense from you. I have two little questions for you. One is, do you recommend this iMac after

00:05:45   having using it? And two, I've heard you mention this in a couple of places. You mentioned it in

00:05:51   the article too. I've heard this said in other places as well, like the idea that

00:05:56   there is a potential logic that a bigger change is coming to the iMac, which is why this one has

00:06:02   mostly remained the same except for some of the internals. I just wanted to test the water of,

00:06:08   do you think that there could be any wishful thinking in there? So there are my two things.

00:06:11   One, would you recommend it to people? And two, do you think a change coming soon could be a little

00:06:16   bit of wishful thinking? - So the review is, I mean, it's almost like an essay, especially since

00:06:22   I wrote about some of the performance stuff on Macworld before. It's kind of like an essay on

00:06:26   the state of the iMac right now more than it is anything else. I do think that if you are

00:06:31   torn between the base model iMac Pro and specking up a high-end iMac,

00:06:39   that unless you have some very particular need for some aspect of the iMac Pro, you shouldn't get the

00:06:45   base model. I feel like the high-end iMac is so much cheaper for basically the same performance.

00:06:53   Even if you put in the RAM and the SSD and everything and the high-end video card and all

00:06:59   of that, you're still gonna save $1,000, $800 over the iMac Pro. And that's real money for

00:07:09   the differences being, unless one of those differences really matters to you.

00:07:13   So I feel like what this really has done is kind of pushed the iMac Pro. If you want an iMac Pro

00:07:19   and are gonna spec it up to the 10-core model or one of the even more expensive models, then yes,

00:07:24   of course, get the iMac Pro. But if you're just thinking, "Well, maybe I could eke out

00:07:30   the $5,000 model," I think you should seriously consider not doing that. Now,

00:07:36   I have the base model iMac Pro, and I'm happy with it. But part of that is that I do podcasts and the

00:07:42   fan is silent in this, and that's sort of reason enough for me. But even so, it would still be

00:07:51   a harder decision. Plus, if you don't need the RAM, you can actually buy less RAM because the

00:07:57   base model iMac comes with 32 iMac Pro. And I think the iMac, you can spec lower than that.

00:08:03   So there's other ways to save money as well, and it comes with a terabyte SSD in the iMac Pro. And

00:08:09   if you wanted to save money, you could do that and save even more. I think my larger view of

00:08:15   these iMacs, and we have discussed it at length here, is this is the 2012 design.

00:08:20   Something's gotta give. The fact that this is the last new Mac without a T2 processor in it

00:08:29   suggests to me that this is, I mean, I feel like it's inevitable that there will be a new iMac that

00:08:35   will be very different technically. And it's unclear when that will come. And will this just

00:08:41   continue to be an Intel Mac until Apple switches to ARM? Or will there be a new generation that is

00:08:47   an Intel iMac that has presumably smaller bezels and a rethought cooling system and no spinning hard

00:08:54   drives and stuff like that? I feel like that change is inevitable, that this is the end of

00:09:00   the line, and that this feels like modern processors in old tech. And that's fine. It's a

00:09:09   really good computer and very powerful, and you can spec it up to a lot. And if you need an iMac,

00:09:14   I'd say go ahead and get it. But at the same time, I do look at it and think it's kind of an outlier

00:09:20   at this point. It's not a modern Mac in some senses. In some ways, that might be good.

00:09:24   There are probably going to be things several years out from now, there are going to be things

00:09:29   it can't do because it doesn't have a T2 processor. There are probably going to be things that it can

00:09:33   do that modern Macs are shut away from because Apple's like, "No, no, no. You can't," like,

00:09:39   I don't know, running old operating systems and things like that. I don't know. It's a quirky

00:09:43   thing where it's not what you expect from a brand new Mac in 2019. But that said, a lot of that

00:09:49   stuff is for the future and is charting Apple and its general direction with computers. And it

00:09:56   doesn't take away from the fact that it is, you know, they have great screens. You can power up

00:10:00   that 4K iMac if you don't need a giant screen in your face. That 4K iMac can be made pretty

00:10:08   powerful too, including having powerful graphics and not the super high-end ninth generation Intel

00:10:15   processors, but a pretty powerful processor in it. So, you know, they're good. I just think on the

00:10:20   larger story, this is Apple kicking the can down the road a little bit. And I'm a little frustrated

00:10:28   by that, but I don't think it really affects whether it's a good computer or not. I'm a little

00:10:35   frustrated and it makes me wonder why they're doing it. And it may be as simple as they have

00:10:41   other Mac stuff that they're working on and the iMac sells pretty well as it is. And they don't

00:10:47   want the iMac to maybe get painted in the corner like the MacBook and the MacBook Air where the

00:10:54   added expense of a brand new iMac without spinning hard drives as an option would mean that the whole

00:11:01   iMac line got more expensive and that they would be, you know, I think they're price conscious with

00:11:07   the iMac because they sell a lot of base model iMacs. It wouldn't shock me if they take the 27

00:11:13   inch and do a new version of that in the future that is modern. Is that how the retina started?

00:11:20   Yeah, the 5K came in 2014. I forgot this because I bought the 5K iMac and it's right when I started

00:11:25   as an independent. The next year, the 4K iMac, the 21 5 got retina. So that may happen again,

00:11:32   where we see a totally brand new 27 inch iMac or other dimension, who knows, and that the 21 5 can

00:11:40   stay down there in the price line with the non retina version and even a retina version with

00:11:44   spinning disks. And that'll be a cheaper one and that will allow them to price up the...

00:11:48   I also guess in a funny way, the iMac Pro is kind of like that too, right? Where it's just like,

00:11:54   it's the very top end, like size wise, the most expensive one. And they did a bunch of weird stuff

00:11:58   to it, which will eventually some of it will find its way into the product lineup, you'd assume,

00:12:03   right? Like in the way that things have gone in the past.

00:12:05   I would assume, although it's weird because I feel like the iMac really needs an external redesign

00:12:13   and maybe it doesn't, but it's seven years old, right? And we live in a world where everybody's

00:12:18   pulling in the bezels. And the funny thing about the iMac Pro is internally, I think it is what

00:12:23   Apple wants Macs to be, cause it's got the T2 and it's SSD only. Externally, it's just a space gray

00:12:30   version of the 2012 design. So it's not there either, but it's possible that, yeah, it's

00:12:35   possible that we don't know the final fate of the iMac Pro either, right? Like it was designed in

00:12:42   a world where there was no Mac Pro, but there is going to be a Mac Pro. So it's also not impossible

00:12:47   that the iMac Pro is a one-off and that they do a new iMac 27 that has the ability maybe they

00:12:53   maybe they even design it so that they can sell a, you know, a high-end thing that's even more high

00:12:59   end than what's in the iMacs today. And they say, beyond this, you should just get our external

00:13:03   display in a Mac Pro because the need for the iMac Pro goes away in that scenario.

00:13:08   >> On last week's episode, you noted a Ming-Chi Kuo report that suggested that the

00:13:15   mythical 16-inch MacBook Pro was delayed. It turns out that report was incorrectly translated.

00:13:23   The report was mostly about the external monitor. And when it was originally translated from Ming-Chi

00:13:31   Kuo, it was believed that he was saying that the MacBook Pro was coming later, but it's actually

00:13:38   not mentioned at all. So there is currently nothing to suggest that the MacBook Pro is going to not

00:13:45   meet its original timeframe whenever that may be. So basically the idea of it not coming out this

00:13:50   year, there's nothing to say that now. >> Right. That was a, we mentioned it very

00:13:56   briefly last week in that interim where there were these initial reports saying that he said it

00:14:02   wasn't going to happen. And then we, uh, and then we got a better translation and said that's totally

00:14:07   wrong. And that's not what it says at all. >> And last piece of follow-up, uh, we'll talk

00:14:12   about this more over the coming weeks. >> For sure.

00:14:14   >> As of this morning, Jason's 2018 iPad Pro Bridge keyboard arrived.

00:14:19   >> Yeah. Bridge sent me one that they say is one of the first ones off of the final. Remember,

00:14:24   I had a couple months ago, I had a prototype. This is, they say the final and they're,

00:14:27   they're producing them and they're going to start fulfilling orders. Um, it looks like it's going to

00:14:33   happen in early May. >> I think if you order now, it's coming from May, but I re I believe they

00:14:38   originally said that some would start shipping in April, which seems possible. >> Yeah. I don't think

00:14:43   that's going to happen. I think that, I think that it's, it's all going to be shipping in early May

00:14:48   and it looks good so far. Although again, I just, I, I ran a little typing test on it and got,

00:14:53   I typed it at full speed and it worked, but you know, I want to live with it for awhile.

00:14:56   I will say that I, uh, having the old bridge on the old iPad Pro, uh, that it kind of ruined me,

00:15:03   like to the point where I am in those situations now with the smart keyboard and I'm like,

00:15:09   okay, like I'm just not super enthusiastic and smart keyboards fine, but, uh, I find myself,

00:15:17   uh, longing for the, the better keys of the, of the bridge keyboard. So I'm looking forward to

00:15:22   trying it out and I'm very excited about that. It's getting a little warmer weather, uh, do,

00:15:27   doing more work outside in the backyard. It's very nice to have that set up with a,

00:15:31   with the bridge keyboard. So I'll report more as I use it. >> All right. So let's talk about Disney+.

00:15:40   So, uh, there was a investor meeting, um, this, this past week where Disney, we gave a bunch of

00:15:48   details about Disney+. So I'm going to run through a bunch of these and then we can kind of wrap it

00:15:53   up a little bit just to keep everyone on the page as what we do here on the upstream segment of

00:15:57   upgrade. So it's going to be launching in the U S on November 12th. It will cost $6.99 a month or

00:16:02   $69.99 a year, which is a really nice price. By the end of year one, there will be 7,500

00:16:09   episodes of TV shows. Some that will be currently on air, some off air. So like some effectively

00:16:15   vault stuff. Um, there'll be 25 original series or by the end of the first year.

00:16:20   And one of the key things I think that, uh, brings that total number up to 7,500 is all 30 seasons of

00:16:28   the Simpsons will be on Disney+. Um, there will be 400 movies on the service as well.

00:16:33   10 will be original again, all within the first year. It's ad free. So that, that price, that $6.99

00:16:39   a month, that's all it is. There's no ads. They're putting it everywhere they can smart TVs, games,

00:16:44   consoles. It's on the web. It's in apps. Um, according to Bob Iger, they're going to put it on

00:16:50   Apple platforms, probably the Apple TV, but we don't know how much it will be yet. Um,

00:16:54   international rollout is going to be happening steadily. Um, they're going to be hoping to be

00:16:59   doing West Europe and the Asia Pacific also in Q4 cause, uh, so by the end of the year, um, and then

00:17:06   Eastern Europe and Latin America in 2020. Um, but they need the reason that they're staging it out

00:17:12   a little bit is they need to wait for rights to expire in those regions. Uh, as expected,

00:17:19   they're locking up the big movies. So you're only going to be able to stream movies like

00:17:22   Captain Marvel, Toy Story 4, Avengers Endgame, and Frozen 2 on Disney+. It's the only place you'll be

00:17:27   able to stream them. And they previewed a bunch of original programming, including some new stuff. So

00:17:33   the things that they spent some time talking about was Jon Favreau's Star Wars series,

00:17:37   The Mandalorian. Uh, there's a Rogue One prequel starring Diego Luna, a Clone Wars series,

00:17:43   a Monsters Inc series called Monsters at Work. And then there's a bunch of Marvel stuff, including a

00:17:48   Loki TV show, a show called WandaVision, which is Wanda and the Vision, The Falcon and the Winter

00:17:52   Soldier and Hawkeye. And those four, those four shows all include the A-list movie actors

00:17:59   replacing their roles. Yep. Pretty big, right? They weren't, they're not kidding around. Pretty

00:18:05   big. I should say for, for clarity's sake that when we say, um, you can only stream them on

00:18:11   Disney+. My understanding is that, you know, they're still going to sell, you know, you'll

00:18:15   still be able to go to iTunes. It's not the only digital place you'll be able to get them.

00:18:19   But you won't be able to stream them. You know, we have a streaming service. It'll be,

00:18:23   they're going to wait for all the Netflix contracts to expire and things like that.

00:18:26   And then they will disappear from Netflix. And, uh, and Captain Marvel is the first where they,

00:18:31   it is the first movie that is not touched by their contract on Netflix. So it will never go

00:18:36   to Netflix and all the rest of them will slowly just drip off of Netflix and disappear. And I

00:18:42   imagine, you know, the same thing is going to happen to all of the Disney animation stuff and

00:18:46   all the Pixar stuff. It's all going to drain out of Netflix and then reappear on Disney+, along with

00:18:51   all those movies that Disney puts in the, you know, the vault where they, they don't sell them

00:18:55   for a while. Those are all going to be on this service. But the, um, but the big thing here is

00:19:00   the price, right? Like this is a super aggressive price. It's way less than other services like

00:19:05   Netflix, especially charge is way less than anybody really expected Apple to charge. And Apple

00:19:10   has no catalog and just some originals that are not tied to these mega brands that Disney owns.

00:19:15   Um, and, um, I talked about this with Tim Goodman last week on our TV podcast that we do. And, um,

00:19:22   you know, he, he believes, and I think he's right that this is, uh, a real wake up call if they

00:19:29   didn't expect it already for Apple, that, um, it's hard to imagine how Apple can come into the market

00:19:36   with something at nine 99 or 14 99 when all they have is originals. And it's starting to make me

00:19:45   reconsider. Not sure I believe the people who are like, well, the only way they need to do,

00:19:50   they just need to give it away for free. Like, I'm not, I still don't believe Ben Thompson wrote

00:19:55   about this today. Like that Apple's business model is, is like Amazon's is really to kind of like

00:20:01   build a nice home where they can resell all of these other, uh, streaming services. And I, you

00:20:07   know, that's true, but they also want to make money on their own service. I do think that this makes

00:20:12   it harder. Now. I just, I don't think Disney, I think Disney cares so much about this, that they

00:20:18   are willing to take a loss on this in the short term in order for the larger benefits. I would

00:20:24   put money down that in five years, Disney plus costs a whole lot more than $7 a month.

00:20:29   But to go out with that, not say it's introductory, but they'll raise the price in two or three years,

00:20:34   right? Not say it's an introductory rate. Cause it's technically not, they can just,

00:20:38   they'll just have to raise the price later. But with this so aggressively with so much content,

00:20:43   um, that I think I saw somebody say, if you're a child or were once a child,

00:20:48   this is, this is for you. And they had slides in their presentation showing the demographic reach

00:20:55   in terms of age and gender of their properties. And they're like, here it is for Disney.

00:21:00   Here it is for Pixar. Here it is for Marvel here, you know, and they went through them up here. It

00:21:04   is for star Wars. And then they did the final overlay, which is like, so here is our demographic

00:21:10   reach for the service as a whole. And that slide was basically like, it's every everybody, are you,

00:21:16   are you alive? Then we are going to hit you. Are you getting it yet? This isn't just one demographic

00:21:21   reach. Yeah. So I do think that in, in to put it in Apple terms, if I'm Apple, um, there's no way

00:21:29   there's no way that I can price my service above Disney plus and expect it to be taken seriously.

00:21:36   They might still do it, but like, I feel like they're going to have to dig deep. Like if they

00:21:42   want to grow, I also think, and Tim mentioned this last week. I also think if I look at this,

00:21:48   I think Apple really does. If Apple is really in on this and truly wants to compete with Disney,

00:21:56   with Netflix, with Warner media, if they want to be at that level, and I'm not sure they do,

00:22:03   maybe they do just want to be, um, a little more like Amazon and create an ecosystem.

00:22:08   That's got some originals and resell channels and just kind of be that. But if they want to be more,

00:22:14   if they really want to want to up their game and compete at this level, they're, you know,

00:22:20   Tim's point. And I agree with him is they're going to have to start buying, um, companies that have

00:22:24   intellectual property, right? Because Apple is, Apple is making deals with companies that

00:22:29   have intellectual property, like, you know, amazing stories or something like that. And with stars,

00:22:34   like not stars, the cable channel stars, like, you know, Reese Witherspoon, uh, to make shows.

00:22:40   Um, Disney owns star Wars and Marvel and the whole Disney intellectual property catalog.

00:22:47   And, and it makes you, it makes me think that if Apple really wants to play at that level,

00:22:52   they're going to have to start buying entertainment companies with, with catalogs,

00:22:55   with, with back catalog content and intellectual property content.

00:22:58   But let me ask you though, Jason, what's left?

00:23:01   There's stuff out there. Um, you know, it's not, you know, I think,

00:23:05   I think they could potentially make a move for, for Sony. I'm not a, uh, an industry,

00:23:11   you know, entertainment industry business investment expert here, but like Sony is a

00:23:17   weird thing where Sony says they're committed to it, but it's sort of like a very weird business.

00:23:21   Um, CBS and paramount, the whole Viacom stuff. Um, they could, they could swallow that if they,

00:23:27   if they wanted to like, they've got the money to buy some of these companies that are not,

00:23:31   if it's not owned by Disney or Warner or Comcast, I'd say it's kind of up for grabs.

00:23:39   Yeah. I, I, I get the point.

00:23:40   There's stuff out there.

00:23:41   You kind of get what I'm saying though. It's not a lot.

00:23:44   It's not necessarily the blue chip stuff. Right. And we, and we, when I mentioned Warner, like,

00:23:48   uh, I had this discussion again and blue Disney has a lot of the blue chip stuff, but Warner,

00:23:52   if it wanted to for its streaming service, it has Batman. It has Harry Potter.

00:24:00   Oh, Warner have an incredible, like, honestly, I said this before you put Harry Potter in this

00:24:05   conversation and we're, we're talking a different game now because that is a massive franchise. And,

00:24:10   and I don't know who I need to talk to at Warner to convince them to make a Harry Potter TV show.

00:24:16   Uh, but they got to do it at some point, I think.

00:24:18   Right. Right. For streaming. And the same is true for like, I mean, Game of Thrones,

00:24:22   that has been the HBO strategy, but that is a, that is a Warner property and they could do some

00:24:28   other stuff with that too. So they've got them and that's the power of it. Like, so, you know,

00:24:32   for Apple, I, I'm not sure they want to play at this level, but I, and I'm not sure they want the

00:24:38   overhead, the burden of owning like a whole studio. And I think this is going to be a real test

00:24:44   of what Apple really wants to do here because there's, there's two ways. Well, there's three

00:24:49   ways for them to go. One way for them to go is to be like, look, this is really just a hobby

00:24:54   and we just, we're going to make some shows, but it's not, uh, you know, it's not a major

00:24:59   tent pole of our business. And it's just part of, part of our thing. I, I think, I think you're

00:25:03   right, but that's the, that's the kind of option zero. Option one is we're going to be doing this

00:25:10   resell and also a bunch of originals and we'll build a catalog up over time, but what, and we're

00:25:15   going to be, you know, in playing in that game with the kind of niche, uh, streaming channels,

00:25:21   as well as our own reselling of other people's stuff. And that's what we're going to do,

00:25:25   which might be okay, but it's never going to set the world on fire or they need to load up and say,

00:25:32   well, we're in this, we're, we're in this to be an entertainment powerhouse. And because the fact is

00:25:37   the entertainment giants are enormous now and they're, they have gotten bigger Disney's buying

00:25:42   Fox, most of Fox, you know, Comcast buying Warner, like they are huge with deep pockets and they,

00:25:50   uh, and, and then they have intellectual property and they know that they need to win the streaming

00:25:56   wars or they're in deep trouble. And so Apple, if Apple wants to be in that fight at that level,

00:26:03   they can do it, but they're going to have to spend billions on intellectual property. They can't

00:26:07   make it work by just licensing some stuff here and there. So if they wanted to buy a bunch of,

00:26:13   you know, loose studios that are out there, then they could do that. Like if they want to buy

00:26:20   Viacom and CBS, then they can pick up. Star Trek and they can do that. I mean,

00:26:26   you can already see CBS on its own is sort of like, we're going to build a whole streaming

00:26:30   service on the back of Star Trek. And even though there's only one show there now, they're like five

00:26:34   shows in development. And that, that is not as effective for CBS because they've got nothing else

00:26:40   in that vein. Anyway, they're trying. Um, whereas Disney can say we've got Star Wars and Marvel and

00:26:49   Pixar and Disney and net geo, right? So, uh, it's a, it's a challenge for CBS as a smaller company

00:26:57   and, and Viacom with sister company, basically. Um, and they're, they're floating out there.

00:27:01   And I think it's going to be what we are focused on Apple here. So we talk about like,

00:27:05   Apple needs to decide if it wants to step up. If I'm, um, anybody else. So Justin Marks, who is the

00:27:10   show runner of counterpart, uh, one of my favorite shows of the last decade, uh, two seasons on stars

00:27:16   and then canceled. And he was tweeting about this because it, you know, nobody could find his show.

00:27:22   Nobody knew about his show. Couldn't, it wasn't really marketed very well. Nobody could see it.

00:27:26   You have to sign up for this totally separate thing. And so he was coming from that perspective

00:27:30   when he said, if you were one of these like small players without the money to put in the game,

00:27:36   forget it, you know, he said, maybe I'm a little bit bitter, but forget it. And I think he's right.

00:27:42   I think, I think, um, Rightly or wrongly. And I don't think it's great. If you're, if you're a,

00:27:48   a niche player in like a genre, like, um, like shutter for horror or Brit box or am, or acorn

00:27:55   or crunchy roll, um, maybe right. Because that is a, you're, you're feeding a very specific audience.

00:28:02   But if you're sort of like stars and you're like, Oh, we just do shows that people like,

00:28:05   I don't know. I don't know if in the long run, if you're going to be able to make that work.

00:28:10   So that that's part of this and stars is I think Lions gate. So there's just a real question about

00:28:15   like, if these small entertainment companies are going to have to, if there's going to be a run of,

00:28:19   of purchases or mergers or something in order to give them the scope that they need,

00:28:25   or if they're going to get picked off by the other big fish in this, which could also happen

00:28:30   Amazon and Apple. Yeah. But also, you know, Comcast and Netflix and, uh, and Disney and Warner.

00:28:38   Those are all out there too. I think that maybe it's because of stuff like this way that we didn't

00:28:46   find out any pricing information about Apple TV. Plus like it's a, it wouldn't have been the only

00:28:50   reason, but I reckon it's a reason. I am also starting to adjust my, um, my thinking on this.

00:28:57   I don't think that Apple TV plus will be straight up free, but I think you will get it with any

00:29:04   other service you pay for. So like if you pay for Apple music, you'll get it. Or if you pay for

00:29:11   Apple arcade, you'll get it. I think that's the most likely scenario. Honestly, if I, if I had

00:29:16   to pick one scenario right now, I would say that Apple video, Apple TV plus will cost something

00:29:22   like nine 99 or seven 99, but it will really not be that if you buy any other Apple service

00:29:32   that it'll be either free or it will be almost nothing, but maybe even free just so, you know,

00:29:39   Apple music subscribers get Apple TV plus and that, that fits actually it fits both models,

00:29:45   right? Because it fits the people who say they're going to give it away. And it fits the people who

00:29:49   say they can't give it away. They got to charge for it. Well, they'll do both. They'll give it

00:29:52   away. I don't think Nick. No, I agree. I agree. So they will charge you for it. If the it's the

00:29:58   literally the only Apple service you want, they will charge you for it. Uh, I think that's the

00:30:02   most likely scenario, but that they will either deeply discount or give away. If you are an

00:30:06   existing subscriber to something else, um, or maybe just like music or something like that.

00:30:12   And this is, it puts the Hulu deal that Spotify made into some extra context, right? Yes. Where

00:30:19   Spotify's biggest competitor is, uh, is starting a TV service, uh, that they may give away for free

00:30:29   with your Apple music subscription. They can differentiate, right? Because you can't

00:30:32   differentiate on a music catalog. You can only jump differentiate on, on other stuff like, uh,

00:30:36   premium, uh, like TV shows that are exclusive or podcasts that are exclusive for Spotify side.

00:30:42   And they made the deal with Hulu where they're, you know, if you're a Spotify member, you can get

00:30:46   the ad supported version of Hulu, which still has a charge for free. And I right. It like,

00:30:52   that's the kind of way to survive right now is you gotta, you gotta do that because their

00:30:58   competitors totally going to do that. So it's, it's very interesting, very interesting stuff.

00:31:02   It is going to be a wild ride, but I think Apple, I think we need to watch Apple and see

00:31:07   what their, uh, you know, what level of player do they want to be here.

00:31:13   Today's episode is brought to you by KiwiCo. When you're looking for fun activities for kids,

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00:32:04   what crate you got and what you thought of the pieces and the projects and the instructions and

00:32:09   that kind of stuff. So I've got the Tinker Crate here, which is for teenagers and up, and I am up,

00:32:16   and it is a kit for a walking robot and it's very cool. So it's got an electric motor,

00:32:23   and here in the packaging, electric motor with a battery. It's got a bunch of little gears and

00:32:29   little parts and it's got some cardboard pieces for particle board, maybe pieces for the legs.

00:32:35   And the idea is you get a little assembly project where you put the guy together piece by piece and

00:32:42   attach it all and you've made something and then you turn it loose in your house and it terrorizes

00:32:47   your cat. I think that's pretty much the plan and I haven't assembled it yet, but I suspect I will be

00:32:52   doing that this week. And it's adorable. And if you want a head, you can use basically provide

00:32:59   your own spherical object. So like stick a tennis ball on the top or the head is not functional.

00:33:04   The head is to just make it more personified. So you can use a tennis ball or a balloon or

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00:33:37   enjoy. Our thanks to KiwiCo for their support of upgrade and all of Relay FM. So I, every morning,

00:33:45   every Monday morning, I sit down and I plan out what we're going to talk about and I take a look

00:33:48   at the things you recommend and I take a look at the news and I had a whole document ready. And

00:33:52   then a couple of hours before we recorded today, a friend of the show, Guilherme Rambeau, who's at

00:33:56   9to5Mac, published a, I'm going to say, Gherman-like report about iOS 13. This is a very interesting

00:34:07   report. It's full of tantalizing information. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Guilherme Rambeau and, and

00:34:14   Steve Trotton Smith have made their name by analyzing things that have been, that have been

00:34:21   sent out from Apple accidentally or hidden in places. This, that may be true here. He's not

00:34:30   revealing how he got this information, but it says, according to people familiar with the development,

00:34:34   which makes it seem like this is, uh, these guys have stepped up their game or people have

00:34:38   inside Apple have noticed them. I am expecting it's a combination of all of that, right? Like

00:34:45   knowing the way, cause as Steve Trotton Smith is credited with helping, uh, Guy with the article

00:34:50   and knowing how they work and the fact that Guy is now part of 9to5, I expect it as a combination

00:34:57   of all of that. Like that there is some code mining, there is some sources and that kind of

00:35:01   stuff. Um, but this is a, we're going to go through all the kind of the major things that

00:35:07   I mentioned in this article, but just at the top level, this feels like a very complete list of

00:35:11   things. Like the stuff that we're going through, I can imagine Apple standing on stage and saying,

00:35:16   this is iOS 13 and that being it. And that's when I say it's almost like Gorman, like in that it

00:35:22   reminds me of the way that Mark Gorman has done stuff in the past, especially at 9to5 Mac. He

00:35:27   would write lots of reports, like pretty much just like this one. Right. And this is not to, um,

00:35:33   belittle anything that's been done here, but it's just, I think it's actually a, uh, a compliment

00:35:38   because, you know, Mark Gorman kind of owned this space for a very long time. And I think it's

00:35:43   interesting to see, um, somebody else, uh, other people kind of stepping up and putting their name

00:35:50   on this stuff. And again, we will see what happens, right? Like we will see how right or wrong this

00:35:56   ends up being, but I feel like this is a, this feels like a list that I look at and be like,

00:36:01   yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, I think the only question I've got, I tend to believe what

00:36:08   they're reporting is probably true again with the caveat. And we mentioned this last week,

00:36:13   the caveat that things can change, right? Like there is a tent for this to be an iOS 13 doesn't

00:36:19   mean it will because something could happen and they could decide not to ship something.

00:36:23   It's entirely possible that things will fall out, but I'm inclined to believe that this is all real.

00:36:28   I am also inclined to believe that it's not necessarily everything. Um, but it's so right.

00:36:34   So, so I don't view it as maybe like a complete list, but that it is a list of things that are

00:36:39   currently planned to be in iOS 13. When we see it, when I say like, when I say it's a complete list,

00:36:45   it's like, you could show me this and I would be content with it. But like, I, I expect there's

00:36:49   more cause plus there's pieces that are completely missing from like, there's nothing here about

00:36:53   shortcuts and I'm expecting that they will do something with that, right? You know, there's

00:36:56   nothing here about marzipan and that's going to affect the iPad in other ways, but just as like a,

00:37:01   here are your tent pole features for iOS. I can see some of this stuff being the majority of it.

00:37:06   So let's go through it. System-wide dark mode, including a high contrast option similar to

00:37:11   Mac OS. So there's two parts of it here. System-wide dark mode. That's amazing.

00:37:16   High contrast is an option in Mac OS display settings, which basically puts big thick lines

00:37:22   or thicker lines around a lot of things. I actually use high contrast, um, because I like

00:37:28   the way it looks. Uh, you know, this, this to me feels like two things. You have a dark mode

00:37:34   for people that want to use it and then high contrast, which is another accessibility option

00:37:38   that is added in to go along with the dark mode. Um, system-wide dark mode is something people

00:37:44   wanted for a long time. It feels like something, it feels like it's something that's difficult to

00:37:50   implement, but feels like a low hanging fruit, right? It feels like something that makes a lot

00:37:55   of people very happy and would make your products look amazing on the OLED screens that they have.

00:38:00   Steve McLaughlin Yeah. Also the, since Mac and iOS are going to share apps and Mac has a dark mode,

00:38:07   this allows the dark mode stuff to be equivalent across.

00:38:11   Ben Lee Yep. Which makes perfect sense, right? Like it's like when you start tying, you know,

00:38:17   you feel like, um, you know, the meme of Charlie Day from Always Sunny with the string in the room,

00:38:22   right? And like you're just tired of putting all this stuff together. But when you start,

00:38:26   when you think about, um, when you think about Mazapan and then you think about all of the other

00:38:32   things that can, can come away from that, if you start thinking about there has to be a bridge

00:38:39   between iOS and the Mac, stuff like this starts to fall out. It's like, well, what do you do about

00:38:43   dark mode? Well, you have to have one is what you have to do. So, um, I think that's really,

00:38:48   that's really interesting. I'm excited for, for a dark mode. So this is one that is, okay,

00:38:55   multiple windows on the iPad. So this is something that Mark Gorman has been talking about for a

00:38:59   while, like windows on the iPad. Now I'm going to need to just read this quote from the article,

00:39:04   cause I can't, I don't think I can do a good job of summing it up. Right. So I'm just going to read

00:39:09   it. Each window will also be able to contain sheets that are initially attached to a portion

00:39:16   of the screen, but can be detached with a drag gesture, becoming a card that can be moved around

00:39:21   freely, similar to what an open source project called panel kit could do. These cards could be

00:39:27   stacked on top of each other and used as a depth effect to indicate which cards are on top and

00:39:32   which are on the bottom. Cards can be flung away to dismiss them. So I took a look at what, uh,

00:39:37   Rambo referenced the panel kit and the way that I would describe this thing is, you know, when you're

00:39:42   in an app and you get a little pop over, so maybe you type in the search field and you get a little

00:39:47   pop up and you can see the results falling down into it. Imagine being able to tap that and drag

00:39:52   it away. Right. So now it becomes its own little floating window over the top of the application.

00:39:59   And I will put a link in the show notes to the GitHub project panel kit, which has a little

00:40:03   animated gif, which can show, which shows you what it looks like. And it might give you an idea for

00:40:08   that. The thing that confuses me though, and there still isn't really any kind of, um, explanation

00:40:15   for like, what a windows mean? What does that mean? Right. And, and, uh, I feel like nobody

00:40:21   really knows yet. Right. Like it's like, Oh, there's going to be windows. Yeah. But what

00:40:26   does that mean though? Like that's the key part that right now it feels like nobody's seen it,

00:40:32   but people were talking about it. Yeah. Uh, our chat room is pointing out that the guy

00:40:35   who built panel kit works at Apple now, which is funny. So, so, um, I, uh, yes, we had this

00:40:45   conversation a while ago about like, what is a multi window world look like? It's presumably

00:40:49   not the Mac. Although one of the things that this enables is, uh, a conceptual window, Myke,

00:40:56   which is, uh, I don't know what that is, but the idea is that you say, okay, my app has a window

00:41:01   and it's a marzipan app. Um, it doesn't necessarily mean that that window behaves the same way on the

00:41:06   Mac as on iOS potentially. Right. Like on the Mac, it might be a window like on the Mac,

00:41:11   right? Because windows, windows could just be the renaming of what we currently have, right.

00:41:16   They could just call every section in multitasking. It's just, it's on window,

00:41:20   right? Like it doesn't mean free floating with open closed dialogues. Like it's, you know,

00:41:25   I think more likely it means something that's more like what we think of as iPad multitasking,

00:41:30   where you've got, uh, tiles of, of w instead of different apps, you've got tiles of different

00:41:37   windows. Um, it's possible that it's, it's tabs. That would be another way to do it.

00:41:42   I cannot imagine, right. Which is what people think. Like there is a way that you could see

00:41:47   an iPad app in front of your desktop, like in front of your home screen. I just can't

00:41:51   imagine that. And I think that's what people's mind jumped to when they say,

00:41:55   well, sure. People are thinking about, about the Mac or windows. And I think this is much more,

00:42:00   what is the iPad? What's Apple's conception for a next generation kind of like flexible interface

00:42:06   and the, why do you need windows in an app? And the best example and Safari does this now,

00:42:10   but the best example is what if I have a text editor with two documents I want to have open

00:42:15   three documents I want to have open. You can't really do that. You can switch among them,

00:42:19   but it's like not the system doesn't let you do what you can do on the Mac, which is just

00:42:23   have multiple documents open and they can be in a picker. That could be in tabs. They could be,

00:42:28   yes, they could be an overlapping windows. And I would be surprised if Apple says, sure,

00:42:32   just make a bunch of windows and have them overlap. I doubt that is going to be the approach, but,

00:42:38   uh, the, the little floaters that have taken the popovers and dragging them out is interesting

00:42:44   because that is going to create a layered interface potentially, but you would have to want to do that

00:42:49   to yourself. And in some apps that would be super convenient because you, you want a floater that

00:42:54   you can refer to or tap on, but you want to be able to kind of move it around where it needs to be.

00:43:00   So it isn't obscuring content and other places. And it would then also be analogous to the,

00:43:04   to a floating palette on the Mac, which would be a positive new undo gesture. So this would be a

00:43:13   three finger tap onto the keyboard and then sliding left and right to undo, undo or redo.

00:43:19   Now. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Nope. All right. All right. I'm, I'm unhappy with this

00:43:27   because what do I do when I need to undo something that's not taxed?

00:43:33   Right now, this is a great idea for text. Like, yes, brilliant, but it doesn't solve the problem,

00:43:39   right? Like the problem is not solved here. You've just augmented the issue. Uh, if there's no

00:43:46   keyboard, you still have to shake to undo presumably. And, and that, you know, the thing

00:43:52   I use shake to undo for the most is the, is like a misfiling or misleading, uh, an email message

00:44:01   and mail where I swipe the wrong way and I'm like, Oh no. And then I have to shake my iPad,

00:44:05   which is ridiculous. I'll also point out there's already an undo button on the keyboard. Yeah.

00:44:12   It's already in the little quick bar. I don't understand. I don't understand this. I don't

00:44:17   really know what, I don't think it's solving the, what I will say is I have like, I have like a

00:44:23   whole big thing I wanted to talk about with this undo thing at some point. And I just, I haven't

00:44:27   got the energy for it, but like, I think that the undo situation on iOS is more of a perceived

00:44:34   problem than an actual problem. Um, I think people think it's an issue more than actually is an

00:44:38   issue because it is possible to undo text with the keyboard. Right. But like people know that the

00:44:45   shake to undo exists. So they're like, Oh, shake to undo. That's ridiculous. It was like, yeah, but

00:44:50   like, what do you do? Right. You want to put in control center? Like where are you going to put

00:44:54   it? Now, if you have a keyboard, you can use commands that most of the time, but there has

00:44:59   to be some kind of like system wide way of doing it. This still isn't that this doesn't solve the

00:45:04   problem. It's nice to have more ways to do it. It's nice to do more like track pad like things

00:45:10   with the, I, with, uh, with iOS, but this is not a fixed to undo, which is probably not too big of

00:45:17   a problem in the first place. I mean, I know that shaking your iPad is silly, but like, it doesn't

00:45:23   bother me that much in all honesty, but that's my, that's my feeling on the whole undo situation.

00:45:29   But I don't think that this gesture fixes what people want fixed because it's for the keyboard

00:45:35   is redundant, right? Like it's, it's a redundant thing. It's a button, which is way easier than

00:45:39   a gesture anyway. And it's also, now we have a three finger gesture. I, I'm, that is a very,

00:45:45   even if they, they say, Oh, well, they'll put up a thing that teaches you how to use it. Like

00:45:49   still counting the fingers, it's kind of a power user gesture. Yeah. There's already the two finger

00:45:55   put on the keyboard to move the cursor around the screen. So now we're going to add a three finger

00:45:59   gesture that will let you undo back and forth rather than just tapping the undo button. It does.

00:46:04   I mean, again, maybe it's the way that this has been reported. And then when we see it, we'll,

00:46:08   we'll, we'll say, Oh, that makes much more sense, but it's like, Oh, it's actually system-wide

00:46:12   right. Like you can do it in any app and it will work right. Like whatever we'll say, but even then

00:46:17   it's an obscure, you know, multi-finger gesture. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Uh, Safari to automatically

00:46:24   request desktop websites in quotes when necessary. Now this is a feature we have both

00:46:31   really wanted, but I am really keen to see what the details are of that. Like, how does it know?

00:46:37   Yeah. Is there, is there a list of sites like YouTube where it's like, no, no,

00:46:42   just always do it that Apple provides or what I've wanted for a while is what Safari on the

00:46:47   desktop has, which is a whole bunch of per domain settings that you, that you can change. And you

00:46:54   can say, don't autoplay video on this site and all of that. And that's what I'd really like to see in

00:46:59   Safari on the iPad so that I could say, always load the desktop version of this site block,

00:47:05   you know, don't autoplay video on this site and all of that stuff and have it all

00:47:08   be available on a per site basis, because that seems to make the most sense, right?

00:47:12   Is that you get frustrated that a site keeps pushing you into mobile view and you just say,

00:47:16   don't ever do that again. Well, here's what I would like. I would like that. So I could tell it,

00:47:20   but I want Apple to use their differential privacy data to know if people are doing this and then

00:47:26   just do it. Oh yeah. That's that's nice. If, if some, everybody forces it into desktop mode,

00:47:31   we're going to just make it a rule that that gets forced into desktop mode. So then for most users,

00:47:35   they never need to set the, uh, set the websites themselves, right? Because it should just be doing

00:47:41   it on its own. Yeah. Cause it'll learn from user behavior. And I, that would be fantastic.

00:47:46   It's a question about iOS productivity, right? That's one of the big things here. And there's

00:47:50   a bunch of stuff we've spoken about here, which will make huge, you know, they're like,

00:47:54   they're big points. And there was some stuff about like trying to come up with collaboration systems.

00:47:59   So they're like third party apps can, can have better collaboration within them.

00:48:03   Font management is one of these things like custom keyboards that I never thought I would see

00:48:12   in iOS. You can do it now, but you have to install a profile that contains fonts, which is bananas.

00:48:17   And they say that there's just going to be a setting and you're going to have a,

00:48:19   be able to have a font picker and there'll be links to it and you can, you'll be able to install

00:48:24   custom fonts. This will make me so happy, Jason, cause like I have, you know, I, I deal with a lot

00:48:30   of paperwork and I like to use custom fonts and I have to install these like 10 individual profiles

00:48:36   using like an app, like any font every single time I get a new device and I always forget and it takes

00:48:42   forever. And it's just like the worst. I hate it. I only do it like once a year, but I put it off

00:48:46   for like six months. Right. Yep. And so I will be very happy to be able to do real font, real font

00:48:53   management on iOS. See, finally, you'll be able to do real font management, but like I am genuinely

00:48:58   excited about it. Um, upgrades to mail, including smart categorization features and a read later queue

00:49:06   who woke up at Apple and decided that they were going to try and make an actual like 2019 mail app.

00:49:16   What is going on? Like this is wild to me. I'm, I'm very pleased about it. Right. Like,

00:49:22   so smart characterization would be like, this is a newsletter. This is important, right? That the

00:49:27   stuff that you see in Gmail, the stuff that you see in lots of third party apps, read later is

00:49:33   snoozing, right? But these types of features coming to mail, that is really exciting because

00:49:39   do you know what everybody, all mail applications are bad and Apple could make theirs a lot better

00:49:45   than it is already. And a lot of us just use mail on iOS, right? A lot of us do not chase the endless

00:49:52   trying to find the ideal mail client. And I just use mail and it's not very good and I would love

00:49:58   for it to be better. And this, this is the type of stuff they should be. These are like table stakes

00:50:03   for making a modern mail app is using smarts and adding features. So very excited about that.

00:50:11   New gestures to allow for the selection of multiple items in collection and table views.

00:50:15   Basically this means a gesture, which is similar to clicking and dragging. So like if you're in

00:50:20   like numbers or whatever you like click and drag. So it looks like they're trying to create gestures

00:50:24   to make that sort of stuff easier and being able to drag and drop that around. I like the sound

00:50:28   of that, right? Like let's try and be a bit more nimble here. And we have 10 point devices. I know

00:50:34   that this stuff gets complicated, but these are power user features for work stuff. So I think

00:50:41   that sounds fun. Uh, redesigned reminders app, new volume display UI, which is brilliant. So no longer

00:50:47   that big square in the middle would hope, or maybe it's just a bigger square. We don't know, right?

00:50:52   Like maybe, maybe the volume thing is now just the entire screen. Who knows? Uh, so yeah, they're kind

00:50:59   of, I think the big things to take away from Guilherme's brilliant report, I would say. Yeah,

00:51:04   the redesign reminders app he also throws in is going to be on the Mac too, which makes me believe

00:51:08   that that'll be a marzipanified app, um, this fall, which is fun. I'm going to miss when they

00:51:14   give this an actual name. I like marzipan as a name. Unless it never has a name. I mean,

00:51:19   it's possible that it'll never have a name and it'll just be, you know, UI kit on Mac.

00:51:23   Right. But then that's what we'll have to call it, right? Like eventually over time,

00:51:26   we'll just start calling it UI kit on the Mac and move away from marzipan. But I do, I do love

00:51:31   marzipan. But Jason, is there anything missing for you from this report? Is there stuff that you

00:51:36   should have seen that didn't? I was going to say, and some of this has to do with the nature of

00:51:41   their sources, right? Like they are detailing some very specific system level things. However,

00:51:48   I will just point out that this report doesn't seem to mention anything about changes to

00:51:53   the files app, to how the iPad accesses files, to if we're going to see the iPad pro with that nice

00:52:02   USB-C port have more ability to access USB-C devices, including devices that have file systems

00:52:08   on them. Uh, one of my pet peeves about iOS right now. And I just, I just noticed it's not here,

00:52:13   not mentioned at all. Not mentioned that it's not coming, just not mentioned. So I'm just going to

00:52:19   put it out there that that's one of those areas, uh, file stuff and USB-C in general that I,

00:52:24   you know, audio stuff goes in there too. How, how do they handle microphones and other external

00:52:29   devices that are sort of handled in a very simple way now, because of the assumptions made in the

00:52:34   early days about an iPhone OS that are maybe not as valid with, uh, with the iPad. I'm just saying,

00:52:40   it'll be really sad if, uh, this all comes out and I'm going to have to wait another two years

00:52:45   or forever, two years and up in order to, uh, do what I want to do with my iPad.

00:52:53   I'm going to choose to believe that there are lots of files changes, and they just got missed

00:52:59   in this report because I can't, I can't conceive of there being no updates to that system because

00:53:06   it needs them. It like desperately needs them. There are just bugs and weirdness in it and it

00:53:13   could be and should be and needs to be a lot better. Uh, it's like just a fundamental, and I'm,

00:53:18   I'm not like one of these people that feels like they have to fundamentally rethink the way that

00:53:24   files are. Like, I don't think you need to go to a file-based structure completely, right? Like,

00:53:29   I don't mind the hybrid system that they've got right now. Like sometimes you think in apps,

00:53:33   sometimes you think in files because that's how my brain thinks. Um, maybe because I've just

00:53:38   gotten used to iOS, but they're just the files that needs a lot of work and I want to see Apple

00:53:45   work on that. But I will say this report is making me very excited for June. There's a lot of stuff

00:53:52   in there that I think I'm going to have a lot of fun playing with. So I'm really excited.

00:53:56   Sure. Yeah.

00:53:57   All right. Today's episode is also brought to you by our friends over at Luna display,

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00:55:59   Jason, I want to talk to you about iTunes. This is, uh, this has been the talk of the town over

00:56:06   the last week. We all kind of figured this was coming. It even came up on the show last week,

00:56:11   right? Like hence the, like the title of the whole episode kind of being about iTunes and QuickTime

00:56:16   and all that sort of stuff. Um, but then there was another report at nine to five Mac by friend of the

00:56:22   show, Guillermo Rambo. This is the Guillermo power hour today on, on upgrade. Um, that the next major

00:56:28   Mac iOS version will include standalone music podcasts and TV apps. We knew the TV app was

00:56:33   coming. Books will get major redesign. Uh, there's some basic details in there plus some icons as

00:56:38   well. Kind of just like more kind of like fuel for the fire. Uh, that something like this is going to

00:56:44   be, uh, happening, which means the breakup of iTunes, a thing that we've spoken about forever.

00:56:49   Um, there was a very good debate, I think, uh, on ATP this week, um, with a sentiment, which I

00:56:56   can totally understand from Marco of. You don't know what you've got until it's gone

00:57:01   about iTunes. And I've been thinking this myself a little bit recently where I, when it, when it's

00:57:07   dead, what actually happens. And we spent some time talking about this last week on connected

00:57:13   as well, where, you know, like me and Federico, we just use Apple music. Right. And if there's

00:57:22   an Apple music app, it's going to be better than the really bad Apple music support that iTunes has.

00:57:28   Right. Cause it's very bad. It's it's, it's super weird in places. The searching is terrible. The

00:57:33   way that you browse feels, it feels like it's loading a web browser inside of iTunes, which I'm

00:57:38   sure is what's happening. Like it's, it's a nightmare, not a nightmare, but it's not nice.

00:57:43   Right. And for me as just a complete Apple music user, I would quite like Apple music,

00:57:48   the iPad app on my Mac, but I understand. So you've got people like Steven and then people

00:57:53   like Marco people like John. Um, I don't know how much do you use like these types of features of

00:57:58   like the more typical iTunes features, adding in your own music, doing more categorization,

00:58:03   looking at more information, like all that kind of stuff. And so the idea over the last few years of

00:58:10   it's time to break up iTunes was build an actual new music player, right? Like that's what this

00:58:17   has always been for the last few years. Like pull the music features out of iTunes, pull the podcast

00:58:22   features out of iTunes, make apps for them. It wasn't until now, because now this is what's

00:58:29   probably going to happen is let's just have the iOS app. Like no one was thinking that because

00:58:34   that wasn't a thing we thought about until last year that this would even be a thing. So now when

00:58:40   the conversation is iTunes is going to get broken up into a bunch of distinct applications, everyone

00:58:45   knows what that means. Now what that means now is we're getting the iOS versions. Yeah. I think at

00:58:52   the core of what Marco talked about and, um, and what John also talked about, and I liked what John

00:58:59   had to say. I thought that was, I was building up all sorts of comments while listening to Marco,

00:59:04   and then John said them all. So I was like, all right, okay, then we're good. Um, I think the

00:59:10   reality, right, reality hits here. This is the cold reality of it's not going to be some idealized,

00:59:15   brilliant new Mac app that set of Mac apps that Apple is writing. It's going to be

00:59:18   marzipan and it's going to be maybe new updated versions of what's in iOS 12, but that's what it's

00:59:25   going to be. And you get that reality and suddenly it's not your ideal, uh, dream app. It is what you

00:59:33   already have been using on the iPad all along. If you have an iPad. And I think at the core of it,

00:59:39   if I'm going to dissect what Marco and John were both saying, especially it's the, a lack of

00:59:45   confidence in Apple in terms of Apple's interest in building apps that have depth

00:59:55   for users who demand more depth than the average user is the way I would maybe put it like that

01:00:03   Apple in the past designed apps that were for the masses, but also had tweaky features for the power

01:00:14   users and that Apple of the last decade feels much more like an Apple that is not interested in the

01:00:20   tweaky features or is too overwhelmed with whoever is building their apps to devote time to that,

01:00:28   that they struggle to update and build their apps as it is, which I think I agree actually,

01:00:33   I think is actually high on my list of my problems that I have with the way Apple has run today is

01:00:40   that they seem to not be as focused on their apps as they should be, that the apps they provide are

01:00:46   not as good as they should be and that they could be better. And it's not the fault of the people

01:00:50   working on them. I get the distinct impression that there are not as many people working on them

01:00:54   and there's not as much attention devoted to them as there should be at a top level priority level.

01:00:59   But I see that point, which is Apple partly distorted by the fact that Apple has been making

01:01:06   mobile apps and the perception and John Syracuse had talked about this a lot on that ATP episode.

01:01:11   The perception is mobile means simplified. And there are lots of good reasons for that. I think

01:01:17   last week it came up on Upgrade with John that I was talking about the difference between Apple

01:01:24   making decisions because Apple's been focused on mobile and it comes from that root decision of

01:01:29   the iPhone OS is where iOS came from. It came from the small screen iPhone and Apple shifting

01:01:36   its philosophy because the user it was trying to reach in 2000 is not the user it's trying to

01:01:40   reach in 2019 or even in this decade. And something like Smart Playlist feels like a last decade Apple

01:01:46   to me, which is that Apple seems to have decided, regardless of the iPhone thing, that it doesn't

01:01:58   want to focus on tweaky user features. It wants to keep things super simple.

01:02:02   David: Apple don't make products for the crazy ones anymore. They actually make them for everybody.

01:02:10   Chris: Yeah, I mean, this goes back to something that we've talked about a lot, which is

01:02:14   the Apple of today is reaching an audience that is massively larger than the Apple of a decade ago

01:02:20   and even more so of two decades ago. And I think the problem is that that means I don't

01:02:29   think the size of the power user base has changed accordingly. I think that as a percentage it keeps

01:02:34   getting smaller. And there's a really strong argument to be made that the tweaky stuff

01:02:40   shouldn't be prioritized because there's so many other things to do that aren't the

01:02:43   tweaky stuff. The problem is if you're one of the people who uses the tweaky stuff, it's frustrating.

01:02:47   I totally get it. I am one of those people too.

01:02:49   David; And I just wanted to add on this as well, right? Because there is this,

01:02:57   I was talking to ATP as I was listening to it because I actually do agree with the majority

01:03:03   of what Marco was saying, but the power user stuff exists in the same way on iOS. Like the

01:03:08   way he is describing himself being a power user on the Mac, I feel that way about iOS. Like I know

01:03:16   the things you do that aren't shown. I know the keyboard shortcuts that exist that people don't

01:03:23   think exist. I know the way that you would do a specific drag and drop to get this to work. I know

01:03:31   how to get shortcuts to work the way that I want. It is nowhere near as complex. It is nowhere near

01:03:37   as surfaceable. The power user stuff is easy to find on the Mac. But there are those types,

01:03:44   it's not gone from iOS, it's very different. There are these types of power user features,

01:03:53   because I'm using them. David; Yeah, they're different and they don't go as low level as some

01:03:59   of the stuff does. Marco does a lot of his work and I do a lot of my work with shell scripts and

01:04:03   things that are running that iOS doesn't do that. And that's frustrating because you do hit a wall.

01:04:09   But you're right, there are power user features. David; And the proportions are very different.

01:04:13   The proportions of power users on the Mac is way higher, which I understand.

01:04:16   David; But I think the core problem here is Apple's philosophy of what its apps should be. And the

01:04:23   fact that Apple is also a, you know, as a company kind of a control freak, which means they spend a

01:04:29   lot of time talking about it wouldn't be a problem if any app could have access to the Apple Music

01:04:33   Library. Because then you could just write an app that was better for power users that would tweak

01:04:38   it. And that would be an alternative. But there isn't an alternative. And the thing you've got is

01:04:43   sanded down to this amazing smoothness. But it also means that it's like a featureless surface

01:04:48   and you can't get a toehold. You can't get a grip if you're somebody who's trying to do something a

01:04:53   little bit out of alignment with what they envision the use of their app as being. And I can see that

01:04:59   at the same time. You know, and this is me being a little optimistic here, but Apple has spent the

01:05:04   last 10 years building a, or 15 years really almost behind the scenes, building a completely

01:05:12   new operating system, a completely new app platform, modifying that operating system to

01:05:16   work on larger screens with the iPad, dealing with the early days of the smartphone era where it was

01:05:22   a huge arms race in terms of feature development. And now it's more mature, but back then it wasn't.

01:05:28   And they've got all that going on and they need to write versions of their apps for this new

01:05:33   platform and they're maintaining the Mac. And is it any wonder that the Mac stuff got left by the

01:05:41   side of the road, largely? It's not. But we live in an era now where the arms race for smartphone

01:05:46   stuff has lessened, that Apple is aggressively moving toward this single app platform across

01:05:55   its operating systems. And I think that's a real opportunity. I think that's an opportunity

01:06:03   for Apple now to invest more effort in its apps in general. And because of Marzipan,

01:06:10   that means that it's able to invest that effort in stuff that will be seen on the Mac and the iPad too,

01:06:18   in a way that maybe it didn't do when it was so focused on keeping the iPhone pushing forward.

01:06:26   And I think that could benefit Mac users and iPad users and we'll see, right? It could be the same

01:06:32   old story, but I feel like there's at least a ghost of a chance that now that Apple doesn't have to

01:06:38   either implement the same feature twice in two different code bases or somewhat shared code bases,

01:06:43   but you get my point, like, "Oh, we need to update this feature for the Mac and for iOS."

01:06:48   And sometimes they're like, "Forget it." And they just wouldn't do it on the Mac.

01:06:52   With Marzipan, this era, that ends. That ends. And instead, whoever's in charge of "reminders"

01:07:01   writes one app and it deploys on the Mac and it deploys on iOS. And for Apple Music, I think,

01:07:07   like Jon and I talked about last week, iPad users benefit because a lot of this stuff,

01:07:13   the Mac metaphors will be extended to the iPad as well when we talk about tear-off popovers

01:07:19   and things like that. And the iPad will become more capable too, because now you're able to

01:07:24   target two platforms. Now, if you're thinking, "I might write an iPad, I might focus on the iPad

01:07:29   version of my app," or, "This is an app that really requires the iPad," you're like, "Eh, iPad,

01:07:34   I'm not really going to go there." But if suddenly you can write that app and you can target the Mac

01:07:37   and the iPad simultaneously, that's a way bigger market. And I feel optimistic that developers of

01:07:46   these kind of apps are going to look at Marzipan and say, "Oh, this is great. I can make an app

01:07:50   that runs on the iPad and the Mac." And no, it may not feel like a classic Mac app, but it may get

01:07:55   more better apps on the platforms. And that part is good. So, I'm not saying that people who use

01:08:03   Apple Music on the Mac this fall are not going to be like, "Ew, gross. What is this thing?" It's

01:08:09   totally going to be a bumpy ride, even if they add features to it. But in the long run, I think that

01:08:15   there are a lot of positives from the Mac. I don't disagree with Marco that one of the great

01:08:22   concerns here is that the Mac just becomes an operating system that doesn't have any of those

01:08:30   features that appeal to people who want to dive a little deeper. And I hope that Apple will take

01:08:35   this opportunity, now that they've rejiggered their app platform, to let Mac and iPad users

01:08:43   who want a little bit more get a little bit more out of it. Now that they're out of this

01:08:48   decade-long period where they've been building a second operating system and a second app platform

01:08:53   and in this huge arms race with Android, that starting from now, they can actually put a little

01:08:58   more time into that stuff. It would be just a great waste and a shame if, effectively, the Mac

01:09:05   becomes just a different screen size target for iOS, right? Like, that would just be a waste.

01:09:10   I agree. I agree. Although I will say that as the owner of a 12.9-inch iPad Pro,

01:09:18   I also think it would be a shame if the power given to a user with a 12-inch MacBook Air

01:09:26   was not given to me. Oh, 100%. You know I'm coming at it from that point, Jason. I care about the

01:09:32   most, right? And that's why I am excited. I'm in the club of people who are excited about the

01:09:37   possibility of Marzipan because of what it could do to my iPad, right? Like, all of this potential

01:09:44   in new applications and in power, I could have stuff that I'm used to using on my Mac

01:09:51   on my iPad and vice versa, and that is incredibly exciting to me.

01:09:55   Also, by the way, we're talking a lot about iTunes and Apple Music. Like, the podcast app on the Mac

01:10:01   is going to be way better than the iTunes podcast experience, in my opinion.

01:10:04   Yes, that's why it doesn't get brought up.

01:10:05   But you won't have to use it because Marco's going to do Overcast, presumably,

01:10:09   in Marzipan if he can, and that will be even better. But there are lots of other benefits here.

01:10:15   I do think there's a lot of mystery about what happens with device sync and does that go away.

01:10:21   What I'd like to see, I mean, obviously iTunes is going to stay around hidden in a folder somewhere

01:10:26   for a while or downloadable or whatever it is, but what I'd like to see, I think there are some

01:10:30   fairly basic things that Apple could do in iOS and macOS to make all of the things that currently

01:10:35   exist in terms of—all or almost all of the things that exist in terms of device management

01:10:40   that people might want could just be taken out and put in the OS. Like, in terms of—maybe

01:10:47   you get file access, you know, if they really do have the ability to, like, share files so I could

01:10:56   see the contents of my iPad and drag a file into it, do I need iTunes to do that? Or could these

01:11:02   devices just talk to each other? And you can airdrop now, but I wonder if there are some other

01:11:06   ways of doing things just to keep them in sync. So there's other stuff they can do. I don't think

01:11:10   we're rid entirely of iTunes. Windows is still a big question, is what are they going to do on

01:11:15   Windows for this? They could just keep iTunes for Windows around forever, I don't know. Or they

01:11:21   could go to a web interface for most of it and reduce the Windows app to a device-syncing app.

01:11:26   There's some details here that we're going to have to deal with. But there is a lot of potential

01:11:32   benefit, but there's no doubt, you know, any time you go through a change like this, there's going

01:11:35   to be a huge set of feature aggressions. And I think it's interesting that John

01:11:39   Syracuse in that ATP episode came down basically the same place I've come down on iTunes Match or

01:11:46   people who don't subscribe to Apple Music, which is, I don't see how it's a, it's actually a big

01:11:53   progression for iOS as well to let the music app accept audio files and put them in the library and

01:12:01   then upload them if you're using iTunes Match or Apple Music and add them to your collection.

01:12:05   Like, that's not an earth-shattering UI change to do to that app. And then you've got the ability to

01:12:13   open a Mac with the music app and add your library and have it just work, you know, as if you had

01:12:20   synced it using iTunes for people who don't use Apple Music. I feel like that's a feature that,

01:12:26   if it's not there this fall, will probably be there eventually. And then, and that's an example

01:12:32   of something that presumably would come over to iOS and would be a benefit for if you've ever

01:12:37   bought like an indie album on Bandcamp or something and gotten a zip file and been like,

01:12:43   "What do I do with this on iOS?" And the answer is, there's nothing you can do with it. You can

01:12:47   unzip it, but then you've just got some MP3 files. You can't get them in your music library that,

01:12:51   from that direction. It would be nice if that was, that was a new feature of iOS. That would

01:12:55   be a good thing. -I know that this is going to come up a lot. Like, this isn't the last time

01:12:59   we're going to talk about this. -Oh boy. -Because it's actually, it's not about iTunes, right? We

01:13:04   all see this, right? Like, this is not, this has nothing to do with iTunes. -In Microcosm, it is

01:13:09   the story of what's going to happen this fall. -Yeah. -And progressively, but the big blow is

01:13:14   going to happen this fall when a new version of macOS ships and it's got a whole bunch of apps

01:13:18   that come from iOS and they're not going to be, you know, even if they kind of look like

01:13:23   Mac, they're not going to be the same. They're going to be really different. -And again,

01:13:26   you know, I don't want to have to keep reiterating this constantly. This is so much more than all of

01:13:31   that. Like, this is the future of Apple one way or another because, like, we believe, right, starts

01:13:40   here, then we get ARM Macs. Then what happens? And right, you know, there was that Goermann report a

01:13:46   few months ago where he spoke about, like, it's iPad this year, but then next year it's iPhone,

01:13:52   and the year after that it's universal applications, right? Like, this starts now. It's, you know,

01:14:00   it's kind of started last year, right? We started to find out about it, but now it's like, okay,

01:14:04   we're building up to, like, everything changing in June, good and bad. So, whilst we are talking

01:14:13   about iTunes specifically, it's so much more than that, and there's gonna be a lot of, like,

01:14:19   people's identities being challenged. -Yeah, yeah, for sure. This is going to be, in fact, and for,

01:14:28   I know so many of our listeners, it's great, by the way, I am, you know, teenager and up, right?

01:14:33   I'm up. This is going to be like the OS X transition was in a lot of ways, where in a two,

01:14:41   three-year period, the Mac of, you know, before and the Mac of after is almost unrecognizable.

01:14:48   And when you're in that, and then you get past it and you're like, oh yeah, this is my Mac now.

01:14:53   But when you're in that period, it's weird and it's rough and it does challenge your identity,

01:14:58   because you're like, I always do it this way. Like, there were so many people when Mac OS X

01:15:01   came out that they're like, why does the Apple menu not show the contents of a folder or an

01:15:05   alias that I put somewhere in the file system? And like, as an OS X user today, you'd be like,

01:15:09   that's bizarre. -I don't even know what you're talking about. -Why would the Apple menu do that?

01:15:11   -I have no idea what you're talking about. -But that's what it did under classic Mac OS,

01:15:15   and people were really bent out of shape about it. And it's gonna be, I mean, that's just a silly

01:15:19   example, but like, yes, it is your identity as a person who is confident with your technology,

01:15:25   who has spent maybe years bending the technology to do exactly what you want it to do in the way

01:15:31   you want to do it. You've bent it, it's bent you a little bit, you have come to a comfort level,

01:15:37   and then Apple is gonna roll in over the next two or three years and make you really uncomfortable.

01:15:42   And, you know, again, I think there will be good and I think there will be bad,

01:15:47   and I think there will be a lot of frustration. I think the good news, and I got to say this based on

01:15:51   my history in all the chip transitions and the OS transition that have happened on this platform,

01:15:57   on Apple's platforms in the past, the good news is, if you can learn to balance your enthusiasm

01:16:04   for the new, you've been accustomed, I mean, maybe you've already taken a hit with the Mac

01:16:10   books over the last three years, but generally you're accustomed to this enthusiasm for the new,

01:16:14   "Oh, I want to get the new, I want to get the latest and greatest." If you can temper that

01:16:17   a little bit, you can survive a transition because nobody's making you move. And that's an important

01:16:23   point here is that, you know, if one of the things that happens in these transitions is people stay

01:16:29   behind for a while, and I would not be shocked if that happens here, where people are like,

01:16:34   "You know what? I'm gonna keep my old iMac that still runs Mojave, and I'm gonna stay there for

01:16:40   a while with my 32-bit apps and with my stuff that isn't from iOS and with my iTunes, and I'm

01:16:45   just gonna hang out here for a while." And that happens in big transitions, and that's okay. Like,

01:16:51   we had devices running classic Mac OS for years at Macworld because we, like, they were where our

01:17:00   page layout got done, and they just didn't want to move because, like, the software wasn't ready,

01:17:05   and they just stayed there, and we made it work, and then eventually they came across,

01:17:09   and it was a funny moment where the editors had been living on OS X for, like, four years,

01:17:13   and then the production team moved to OS X, and they're like, "How does this work?" And we're

01:17:17   like, "Oh, yeah. Let me tell you all about it," because we had been living it. That's gonna happen,

01:17:23   and it's gonna get frustrating, but if you can learn to temper your desire to push forward and

01:17:30   use the latest and greatest, it can serve you well in transitions like this. Don't, if you've

01:17:35   got something vital that you do and it's jeopardized by the new way, the solution is not to

01:17:43   use the new way, and you'll be able to do that for a while, I think. So something to keep in mind. I

01:17:48   don't know how this transition is gonna go exactly, but having been through a bunch of them, it's

01:17:52   something to keep in mind. Like, I know we all as tech enthusiasts want to push forward and use the

01:17:57   latest and greatest. There is no harm in stepping off the carousel for a while and letting it turn

01:18:04   a few turns without you. And I will say, if you do want to stay on the carousel, the best thing you

01:18:10   can try and have is an open mind. Yeah, that's always the case, right? Like, things will be,

01:18:17   you know, again, it's gonna get weird. It's gonna get weird. There are gonna be things that are

01:18:23   great, and there are gonna be things that are terrible. That's gonna happen. There are gonna

01:18:27   be things that you're like, "Why did they do this?" Like, the number picker, right? One of the

01:18:31   things that happened on Twitter is that Garramine Rambo posted a tweet, or maybe Steve Trout and

01:18:36   Smith did, and he replied to it. But it was one of these things that was like, "Wouldn't it be funny

01:18:40   if Marzipan didn't change that number picker from Mojave?" Where you've got the iOS thing with the

01:18:46   spinning thing is that you have to use a mouse to, like, click the spinning things to set a date.

01:18:51   It's this ridiculous thing that should not be on a Mac. And the strong implication there is that

01:18:59   maybe it's still there. And we're gonna have stuff like that. We're like, "Why would you do this?"

01:19:03   And that's gonna happen. There are also gonna be things where you're like, "Oh,

01:19:06   this is really cool." And that's gonna happen too. It is gonna get weird. You are absolutely right.

01:19:11   And some patience, open-mindedness, because part of this is you've got that way, that you've bent

01:19:20   your tech to your will, and it's bent you to it a little bit, and you found this comfortable place

01:19:26   to be. There is a new—there may very well be, not 100% guarantee, there will be a new place to be.

01:19:31   It's not gonna be like your old place, though. It's not gonna work the same. And getting there

01:19:37   is frustrating. Now, first off, you don't have to go there right away, like I said, but it can be

01:19:43   frustrating to build up that new thing. And then once you build it up, you're like, "Oh, what was

01:19:47   the problem?" Like, seriously, OS X did that to so many people, where OS X, the rules were totally

01:19:52   different from classic Mac OS. But there were lots of benefits, and there were some things that

01:19:56   really lagged behind, and we all found a new equilibrium. And I think that will happen

01:20:01   with Marzipan and potentially with ARM coming down the road as well. But it's gonna be weird for a

01:20:07   while, for sure, and there's gonna be frustration, and that's okay. And so I heard that from Marco,

01:20:12   like, I get it. And he's not wrong. I think there's some good, and there's some reason to be

01:20:17   optimistic, but there's gonna be stuff that's really frustrating. And honestly, listening to

01:20:22   Marco, my core worry—and I do actually have this as a concern—my core worry is that where Apple's

01:20:29   going, Apple is so unconcerned with the needs of power users that, in the end, if you want to be

01:20:39   an old-school computer user with all of these things that are features that you expect from

01:20:46   your desktop or laptop computer, that in the next decade there will come a time when Apple even says,

01:20:56   "Yeah, if you want to do stuff like that, you should just buy a PC."

01:20:58   But how do you balance that worry of what Apple's gonna do with the same company who bent to the

01:21:06   will of the pro user to create a new Mac Pro, an iMac Pro, and to, we believe, based on rumors,

01:21:14   fix the MacBook Pro? That is the reason for optimism, is that whoever got—while

01:21:21   this Marzipan stuff is going on, some group within Apple made the decision that they actually need to

01:21:27   serve pro users. And that gives me hope, right? Because that Apple doesn't want to send power

01:21:35   users to Windows. That Apple wants to keep them on the Mac. And as long as that Apple has a say

01:21:41   in what happens on the Mac—and maybe it's outside Marzipan, right? Maybe Marzipan is just the—

01:21:45   Marzipan, maybe it's like the frosting on a cake. Maybe it really is, and that underneath on the

01:21:54   Mac they have all the other things that you expect on the Mac, and they don't go away,

01:21:57   and they do get improved. Maybe that's the case. Maybe that is their strategy, is Marzipan is for

01:22:03   everybody, but the Mac is still going to have the power underneath. And I hope that's the case,

01:22:07   because I don't want Apple to drive power users off of their operating systems, because I am one,

01:22:12   and I don't want to go. I'm not interested in—like all these people talk about the MacBook

01:22:16   keyboards, and they're like, "Oh, I could just go to Windows." I'm like, "Yeah, that's a dealbreaker.

01:22:20   I'm not going to do that. I'm not interested in that." But it doesn't mean that I'm not frustrated

01:22:25   by the current state of affairs. Today's show is also brought to you by Squarespace.

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01:24:19   Make your next move. Make your next website. Let's do some #askupgrade questions to round

01:24:25   out this week's episode. First one comes from MT Walker and they want to know,

01:24:29   "Should I hold out for the mythical, magical, modular Mac Pro or should I settle for an iMac

01:24:34   Pro? I'm currently using a 2013 Mac Pro with 12 cores, 64 gigabytes of RAM and a D700 GPU."

01:24:41   I don't know what some of that stuff means, Jason. I'm not going to lie. But in Matt's tweet,

01:24:47   they posted an image of an activity monitor and it was doing some Adobe media encoding stuff. It

01:24:53   looks like they are a Premiere Pro user. And it seems like basically they need all the power they

01:24:58   can get. Yeah, it depends as it always does on how long you're willing to wait because I think

01:25:08   at this point we're two months out from possibly hearing more details about the Mac Pro.

01:25:14   From at least understanding a little bit more about what it might be and you might not want

01:25:19   to make your decision. It might be that you see that and you're like, "No, the iMac Pro is

01:25:23   probably good for me." And then you go for it. But you know, leading from what I think you were

01:25:29   going to say, "I wouldn't, unless you are having significant issues, I wouldn't want to move right

01:25:35   now." Yeah, I think that's right. That there is a thing coming in a couple of months that may tell

01:25:47   us more. And so that more information is good. Also, the iMac Pro hasn't been updated since

01:25:55   December 2017 when it was released, which means I don't think there's new stuff for it, but it means

01:26:00   that if it's going to be updated, presumably that would happen at some point and it hasn't been. So

01:26:05   keep that in mind. What I said earlier about how the high spec iMac will kind of reach the low spec

01:26:15   iMac Pro. That said, iMac Pro is great. You can buy it with lots and lots of cores and lots of RAM

01:26:20   and that's all good. I think you could get it. I think the other thing to keep in mind is what

01:26:28   you're feeling is about monitors because all the rumors are that the new Mac Pro will come alongside

01:26:34   a new Apple monitor that will be presumably newer, bigger, sleeker, more beautiful. And if you want

01:26:44   that monitor, then wait because you'll be able to get that with the Mac Pro. Although presumably,

01:26:51   a modern iMac will drive that monitor too, just fine, as a second monitor. So there's a lot of

01:26:57   stuff going on here. I would say if you can afford to wait and find out what the deal is with this

01:27:01   Mac Pro and then make a judgment then, go ahead and wait because I think the iMac Pro is great

01:27:09   and it will serve you well. But if you can wait a couple of months, wait and see because that may

01:27:15   answer your question and it would be a shame to commit now to buy the iMac Pro that's been sitting

01:27:22   out there for more than a year when in two months you'll know hopefully a little bit more about

01:27:28   whether the Mac Pro will suit you. Here's an interesting question from Eric. "What's happened

01:27:35   to Photoshop for iPad? We haven't heard about it in a while and we're a third of the way through

01:27:40   the year." Two-thirds of the year remains. All they said was 2019. Yeah. I would not be surprised if

01:27:48   this is a WWDC thing. It might not be. It could come out any day or it could come out at WWDC.

01:27:58   It could come out announced for iOS 13. Yep. As we kind of said at the time, I think still might

01:28:06   need some stuff that's not in iOS yet, right? Like that they know is coming because they're working

01:28:10   together, right? Like that was very clear from the original announcements that like Apple and Adobe

01:28:16   working very closely together on some of this stuff and I think helping push each other forward

01:28:21   for this stuff. Yeah, I agree. It is strange that we haven't heard about it at all for a while,

01:28:29   right? Like there's not really been anything else. It came out with such a bang and it was all this,

01:28:34   like it felt like for a few weeks always getting this information and then it stopped.

01:28:38   And I can understand what has been the avenue, like where would they have, what was the outlet

01:28:43   for showing it, right? Or maybe there just isn't much more to show. So I understand where it's

01:28:48   like, huh, what happened to that? I always thought it would be out by now. Like my mind,

01:28:54   I don't remember the offhand, I don't remember that if they gave any kind of timeframe,

01:28:58   it was probably just 2019. But I always kind of thought, oh, well, if they've announced it

01:29:03   in like August, September, we'll have it by the end of Q1. But that didn't happen. And I think

01:29:11   that probably a lot of other people like me thought that, right? Like they're announcing

01:29:15   it like six months early and we'll get it. It's definitely happening. We've had quite a few

01:29:21   versions of this question asked to us, Jason, and many of them are kind of like,

01:29:25   it's obviously been canceled. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is happening because

01:29:32   it's too important for both companies now. Not only did they announce it, but like,

01:29:36   there's a reason they're doing it in the first place and that hasn't changed.

01:29:40   But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if like you, we get more about it in June with a date

01:29:46   for when we're likely to see it come out for the iPad.

01:29:49   Daniel asks, do you know of a way to transfer music from an iPod touch third generation to a

01:29:57   MacBook Pro? I've been trying to figure out a way to transfer my mom's music from her old iPod touch

01:30:03   to her iPhone 7 Plus. I think about this one. I have a couple of options and I think they'll work.

01:30:12   And maybe you can tell me if I'm right or wrong. There are apps like iExplorer, which I haven't

01:30:18   used in a long time, but this is one of those applications that like will let you get in to

01:30:24   an iOS device and kind of tinker around. And you never really know what to think about with apps

01:30:31   like that. But I have used this one in the past for similar kinds of things where it's like, well,

01:30:35   there's a thing that I need and I need to do and I haven't got any other way of getting to it or

01:30:40   doing it like messages, backups or whatever. Right. Right. But my other thought was,

01:30:45   if you signed up for iCloud music library, wouldn't that just do it?

01:30:50   I don't think it'll upload from the iPod touch. Really?

01:30:57   Okay. I don't think so. Because I was wondering, would it merge the libraries? But then I was

01:31:03   worried about like, oh, but what if it then just deleted it all? So things like iExplorer,

01:31:10   like iExplorer has a trial. I would give that a go and see if that will do it. If that doesn't do it,

01:31:16   maybe look into something like iCloud music library, but proceed with caution, I think would

01:31:22   be my thought on that one. This is a tricky one. I mean, another one that I thought Jason was like,

01:31:28   if you did an iTunes backup, would that carry over?

01:31:32   Possibly. The question is, can you then back up an old, old iPod touch to a brand new iPhone?

01:31:38   Or will there be a, you know, will that work where you can just restore the backup even

01:31:44   though it's from the older operating system? It's possible if it's if it's a depends on what those

01:31:48   files are and where they're from. Yeah, yeah. So this is a this is a very interesting question.

01:31:55   But I don't know the answer. But I know of a couple of ways to do it. There's another app,

01:31:59   which has been recommended by Justin in the chat room called iMazing.

01:32:02   iMazing, yeah. I don't remember which one of these I've used, honestly, but they seem to be by and

01:32:07   large, the same kind of thing. But again, these apps are doing weird things. So always proceed.

01:32:16   Yeah. With caution.

01:32:17   Yeah. On that would be the upgrade.

01:32:22   Recommended use. Meher asks, did you get your Avengers Endgame tickets? I'm wondering if there

01:32:27   will be a following Monday, Myke at the Movies special. What did you get your tickets, Jason?

01:32:33   I haven't bought any tickets, but that's not going to preclude me from being able to see it.

01:32:37   I don't live in a place where movie theaters sell out and you get reserved seats. So

01:32:41   Okay, I did. And I get to see it on the 25th of April, because tax cuts for Disney means that

01:32:51   a lot of these movies are shot in the UK, which means that they either premiere here or they come

01:32:57   out a little bit earlier. So I'll be seeing it on the 25th in the afternoon. Like it comes out

01:33:02   midnight 25th here, right? But I don't think I could do a midnight watch.

01:33:10   It's a three-hour movie, Myke.

01:33:11   Yeah. I'm not keen on that. So I'm just going to go see it on the 25th,

01:33:14   which I'm very excited about.

01:33:16   Yes. I will see it that weekend too.

01:33:19   But we're not going to be doing Myke at the Movies about it on this show.

01:33:22   That's true, actually. We aren't. We aren't. And the reason we aren't is because,

01:33:30   you know, you never know. But the plan is that the following weekend's Incomparable episode

01:33:36   will include one Myke Hurley on the panel.

01:33:41   On his first ever, I think, main Incomparable show appearance, which I am so very excited. And

01:33:48   for a reason I can't describe, really nervous about. So that's going to be a whole thing.

01:33:53   It doesn't really happen to me anymore, Jason, but like that's a different arena. It's like

01:33:58   more Myke's weird movie opinions guide him through the show, but only you can find out.

01:34:04   So that's going to be, is that weekend or the next weekend? I don't remember.

01:34:10   It's the following Saturday. So you will have a week to think about it, ponder it.

01:34:17   It's very possible I'll go see it again.

01:34:19   And maybe see it a second time.

01:34:21   Yeah. And finally, Daniel wants to know, I want to get a new Mac Mini.

01:34:25   Do you think it would be able to drive the new Apple monitor for resolution and frame rate,

01:34:28   or should I wait until it's announced to be sure?

01:34:30   I think it will.

01:34:32   Yeah, I'd be super surprised. I'd be super surprised. Look, there's, I think there's a

01:34:37   reason that they colored that Mac Mini space gray. It is more focused as a pro machine. I mean,

01:34:42   they really kind of did say it as that. And the laptops will be able to use that thing.

01:34:48   I would be flabbergasted if there is a Mac that is released right now that can't power it,

01:34:54   because that just seems wild to me.

01:34:56   Yeah. I mean, keeping in mind that Mac Mini can drive a pretty powerful display, right?

01:35:05   It can drive, it's rated for 5120 by 2880 resolution. So yeah, I would be shocked if it

01:35:14   can't. I can't guarantee it.

01:35:15   It can do like a couple of monitors, right, as well. Like it's, you know, it's got some real

01:35:20   throughput.

01:35:21   Yeah. It can do up to two displays where one of them is 5120 by 2880 and the other one is

01:35:30   4096 by 2160. That's a lot of pixels. So to, you know, is it going to be able to drive via

01:35:37   Thunderbolt 3? This thing? I've got to think it will.

01:35:42   If you would like to submit a question for a future episode, you can send out a tweet

01:35:49   with the hashtag #askupgrade and it will be included into our document and maybe we'll

01:35:55   answer on the show. Thank you so much to everybody that has sent one in. Thank you to Squarespace

01:35:59   Lunar Display and KiwiCo for their support of this week's episode. Thank you for listening.

01:36:04   If you'd like to find Jason's work online, you can go to SixColors.com or TheIncomparable.com.

01:36:09   Jason is @JSnell, J S N E double L on Twitter. I am @imike, I M Y K E and this show is a part

01:36:15   of Real AFM where you'll find many shows. Some I am on, some Jason's on and some are

01:36:20   hosted by neither of us, but by equally talented, if not more talented individuals. We have

01:36:25   many wonderful shows at Real AFM. If you only listen to Upgrade or maybe listen to Upgrade

01:36:29   and one other, go take a look because I bet there's something else that you would love.

01:36:32   We'll be back next week. Remember we were going to be recording and releasing on Tuesday

01:36:38   for no reason other than travel. No conspiracy theories, please.

01:36:43   You can make them, but understand that they are, they're not true.

01:36:48   It's just a regular episode. I'm going to travel for a family wedding.

01:36:52   That's what they want you to think. Goodbye everybody. Say goodbye, Jason Snell.

01:36:58   Goodbye everybody. The black dog barks at midnight.

01:37:01   Wink wink.