Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 177.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by SaneBox, Anchor, and Freshbooks.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snell.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Good morning, Jason Snell.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Welcome to another week.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Good evening, Myke Hurley.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Welcome to Upgrade.

00:00:27 ◼   ► We have a #SNELTalk question this week from Roman,

00:00:31 ◼   ► and I wanted to keep the conversation going

00:00:34 ◼   ► from a couple of weeks ago

00:00:35 ◼   ► about your design choices on macOS.

00:00:37 ◼   ► And Roman asks, "What appearance setting do you use, Jason,

00:00:41 ◼   ► blue or graphite?"

00:00:43 ◼   ► - You know, when Apple introduced the appearance

00:00:46 ◼   ► for an OS X, and I don't even know when that was, X1 maybe,

00:00:50 ◼   ► because there was a lot of pushback about Aqua

00:00:55 ◼   ► and how it was all this colored UI

00:00:57 ◼   ► And people who did design said it was very distracting to have all these little color bits.

00:01:01 ◼   ► So they're like in a very Steve jobs way of like, fine.

00:01:04 ◼   ► You can also have it be graphite and it's just black and white, basically.

00:01:08 ◼   ► It's just gray.

00:01:08 ◼   ► So here it is.

00:01:10 ◼   ► Take it.

00:01:11 ◼   ► And thus it has remained.

00:01:14 ◼   ► There is this wonderful appearance pop up.

00:01:16 ◼   ► Um, in the general preferences and you can choose from blue or graphite.

00:01:22 ◼   ► That's it.

00:01:23 ◼   ► Those are your choices.

00:01:24 ◼   ► It's never changed.

00:01:25 ◼   ► - They're sadly named choices as well, blue and graphite.

00:01:29 ◼   ► 'Cause it's not like it turns everything blue, right?

00:01:32 ◼   ► - No, I mean, literally when your appearance is set to blue,

00:01:36 ◼   ► you have the red and yellow buttons.

00:01:40 ◼   ► - Everyone's favorite shade of blue, red, yellow, green.

00:01:44 ◼   ► - Red, yellow and green.

00:01:46 ◼   ► Those are the best.

00:01:46 ◼   ► Those are my favorite shades of blue.

00:01:48 ◼   ► I have the blue setting because although there are many

00:01:53 ◼   ► colors I can't see very well,

00:01:54 ◼   ► I can see colors and I like colors and blue is a color I can see well. So why would I,

00:02:00 ◼   ► I have no desire to desaturate my UI. I never have. And so I'm fine with it. I do think

00:02:07 ◼   ► it is funny though, that this is one of those things that really only exists because when

00:02:10 ◼   ► OS X came out, a bunch of designers complained that they didn't like the color UI elements.

00:02:17 ◼   ► And so there was a moment of like fine here and then literally it just stays there forever.

00:02:24 ◼   ► pretty funny.

00:02:25 ◼   ► >> Yeah, with nothing ever changed, it's interesting.

00:02:29 ◼   ► I use gray.

00:02:30 ◼   ► I have the graphite.

00:02:32 ◼   ► >> You are in graphite?

00:02:33 ◼   ► >> But I do one weird little thing as well.

00:02:36 ◼   ► I'll just get to know.

00:02:37 ◼   ► CGP Grey turned me on to this.

00:02:39 ◼   ► In accessibility, under display, there is a check box for increase contrast.

00:02:45 ◼   ► And I use that.

00:02:46 ◼   ► And I like -- I prefer the way everything looks.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Everything's bolder and stronger with UI elements.

00:02:53 ◼   ► just my weird little thing that I do. Yeah, I tried that and it reminds me... it

00:02:58 ◼   ► feels wrong and it feels almost like going backward to old Mac OS days, the kinds of

00:03:10 ◼   ► things that people like me and John Siracusa talk about where suddenly everything's got

00:03:13 ◼   ► heavy lines and the menu bar is white and I don't need that. I do have in that accessibility

00:03:20 ◼   ► I do have differentiate without color checked on,

00:03:23 ◼   ► which is just a little thing that lets you,

00:03:26 ◼   ► in certain circumstances,

00:03:28 ◼   ► it will make sure that color is not the only way

00:03:35 ◼   ► you can differentiate between different buttons.

00:03:38 ◼   ► And I don't know where exactly this actually gets used.

00:03:43 ◼   ► It used to be that iChat was a good example,

00:03:46 ◼   ► where there were different sort of like statuses.

00:03:49 ◼   ► And by default, they were sort of shown

00:03:50 ◼   ► by a little circle with color, but you could set it so that instead it was like a square

00:03:54 ◼   ► or a circle or a triangle of different colors.

00:03:57 ◼   ► I had that too actually. I don't know why, but I changed it to have the little icons

00:04:01 ◼   ► as well as the colors. It's just easier to see.

00:04:04 ◼   ► So I do have that, but I don't know if it actually is doing much. But that's all.

00:04:08 ◼   ► So you can send in your #SnailTalk questions about whatever you want, just like Roman did.

00:04:13 ◼   ► So send a tweet with the hashtag #SnailTalk and it may be included on a future episode.

00:04:16 ◼   ► Thank you to Roman.

00:04:17 ◼   ► So I want to do a bit of follow out for Jannison's wonderful show "Download" where this week you

00:04:23 ◼   ► went into detail about a big story about Apple in regards to money.

00:04:28 ◼   ► So Apple has taken advantage of new tax legislation in the United States to bring foreign money

00:04:34 ◼   ► back to the US.

00:04:36 ◼   ► They're giving bonuses to staff and they're also going to create 20,000 new jobs because

00:04:41 ◼   ► of all of this.

00:04:42 ◼   ► Yeah there's a whole press release that they did.

00:04:46 ◼   ► And they're also building a new campus somewhere.

00:04:49 ◼   ► There's not really a lot of information about that yet,

00:04:51 ◼   ► but I assume that will hold a lot of these new people,

00:04:55 ◼   ► which will be--

00:04:55 ◼   ► - Well, and it sounds like it's tech support people.

00:04:59 ◼   ► They already have tech support people, I believe,

00:05:01 ◼   ► in Austin and Sacramento, I wanna say.

00:05:04 ◼   ► So it sounds like they're gonna do more of that

00:05:06 ◼   ► in another building.

00:05:07 ◼   ► But I mean, there are so many Apple campuses.

00:05:09 ◼   ► I've seen this reported.

00:05:10 ◼   ► There are a couple places where this got reported

00:05:12 ◼   ► as a second campus, and it's like, well, wait a second.

00:05:14 ◼   ► Like Apple has so many campuses.

00:05:17 ◼   ► This is not HQ2, this is just another set of buildings

00:05:21 ◼   ► with a bunch of Apple employees in another location,

00:05:23 ◼   ► just like they've got people in all sorts of places,

00:05:26 ◼   ► like Austin.

00:05:26 ◼   ► - That's very good context.

00:05:27 ◼   ► - I guess Sacramento.

00:05:28 ◼   ► - Very good context.

00:05:29 ◼   ► - And they've got multiple campuses in the Bay Area.

00:05:31 ◼   ► In Cupertino, they have multiple campuses,

00:05:34 ◼   ► not just Infinite Loop and Apple Park.

00:05:37 ◼   ► - Later on in the show,

00:05:38 ◼   ► we're gonna talk about another one, right?

00:05:39 ◼   ► So like lots.

00:05:40 ◼   ► - Indeed.

00:05:41 ◼   ► - Campus is the wrong word probably, right?

00:05:44 ◼   ► They're just opening a new employee space somewhere.

00:05:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it's gonna have a lot of people in it,

00:05:49 ◼   ► and that's great.

00:05:50 ◼   ► - I have really conflicting feelings

00:05:52 ◼   ► about a lot of this stuff,

00:05:53 ◼   ► because this is like big business

00:05:58 ◼   ► doing big business things, right?

00:06:00 ◼   ► Like, I think there is a tendency to paint Apple

00:06:04 ◼   ► as like this mythical, wonderful company

00:06:06 ◼   ► that like makes every right decision,

00:06:08 ◼   ► but I mean, this is just Tim doing big business stuff, right?

00:06:11 ◼   ► They didn't have to wait to do any of these things.

00:06:14 ◼   ► Like Apple has the money to have done all of this stuff

00:06:17 ◼   ► without needing to bring this US money back.

00:06:19 ◼   ► Or they could have brought it back

00:06:20 ◼   ► and paid all the tax on it, right?

00:06:21 ◼   ► Like it's just about what the law is at the time.

00:06:24 ◼   ► So they waited until these tax legislations

00:06:27 ◼   ► that have been passed by the current government

00:06:30 ◼   ► was all in place before doing any of this.

00:06:32 ◼   ► Like obviously this is Tim doing what he should do

00:06:36 ◼   ► as the CEO of the biggest company in the world

00:06:39 ◼   ► to make sure that you can maximize the amount of money

00:06:41 ◼   ► company makes and pay the least amount of tax legally as possible. But like, my question

00:06:46 ◼   ► is to people just to think about like, what does this make you feel about the company?

00:06:51 ◼   ► Like is this the company that you expect? Honestly, it's the company that I expect because

00:06:56 ◼   ► they are a big business. But I think it's just worth mentioning stuff like this because

00:07:01 ◼   ► if you don't like the thought of this, we'll just assume that Apple isn't perfect. I don't

00:07:06 ◼   ► know. That's all I have to say. I don't really understand enough of this stuff. But that's

00:07:09 ◼   ► how it makes me feel.

00:07:10 ◼   ► Yeah. It's not my favorite subject either. I think it's great that Apple has for a while

00:07:16 ◼   ► now been highlighting ways that it impacts the U.S. economy and creates jobs and spends

00:07:22 ◼   ► money in the U.S. I think that that is one of the savvier kind of PR and political PR

00:07:29 ◼   ► things that they've done for a while now. This is hardly the first of those. We can

00:07:33 ◼   ► go back and forth. It all depends on how you view tax policy and how businesses work and

00:07:38 ◼   ► all that because Apple could have brought this cash in earlier. They would have just

00:07:41 ◼   ► had to pay more in taxes. But it's been a discussion for the last maybe five years of

00:07:47 ◼   ► in Congress, and I would actually say goes across administrations. It's been happening

00:07:52 ◼   ► for a while, this conversation about would there be a sort of like, whether you want

00:07:57 ◼   ► to call it a one-time holiday or a change in tax law in some way that allows them to

00:08:01 ◼   ► bring the money that's held overseas back to the U.S. with a reduced tax rate. And that

00:08:06 ◼   ► was basically, it's almost like a negotiation between the government and a big business

00:08:12 ◼   ► saying, well, we'll bring it back for a lower rate. And then it's like, well, what's that

00:08:18 ◼   ► rate going to be where it's low enough that we'll bring it back, but high enough that

00:08:21 ◼   ► the government is happy to take the money. And so Apple's going to pay like, I don't

00:08:26 ◼   ► know what, $13 billion in tax or something on this. Although my understanding is actually

00:08:30 ◼   ► that Apple would have been paying tax on it, I think, regardless of whether they brought

00:08:33 ◼   ► it back or not. It's some change in the law. There's a lot of details here that I am not

00:08:38 ◼   ► a tax expert at all. But you know, the fact is they are a big business. They are focused

00:08:46 ◼   ► on money and value for shareholders and they are concerned about government regulations

00:08:53 ◼   ► and how that affects their business. And they are concerned about whether the government

00:08:58 ◼   ► looks upon them positively or negatively from a standpoint of not just tax but regulation

00:09:07 ◼   ► in general. So one of the games that they're going to play, and every big company should

00:09:10 ◼   ► be playing these games, is pointing out publicly how very important they are and how many jobs

00:09:18 ◼   ► that they create and how much money they're investing in the United States, because that

00:09:22 ◼   ► a way to express to the government that oversees them that they're important and should be

00:09:31 ◼   ► either shouldn't be messed with or should be taken care of depending on how you want

00:09:35 ◼   ► to view it. So yeah it's it's it's uh but you know the other started I would say Tim

00:09:41 ◼   ► Cook like announcing that the Mac Pro was going to be made in the US was was part of

00:09:45 ◼   ► this you know they've tried to highlight about the the app economy and and how many app development

00:09:51 ◼   ► jobs are out there that are basically using Apple's platforms. So they're trying to take

00:09:55 ◼   ► credit beyond just Apple, but like the Apple sphere of influence, because that gives them

00:10:00 ◼   ► bigger numbers to report and bigger impact that they're making. But so this goes on.

00:10:06 ◼   ► And I, beyond that, I mean, it's something you said really struck me, and it's something

00:10:11 ◼   ► that I've talked about for a while now, which is there's a lot of people who, and this was

00:10:16 ◼   ► true, I'd say it's true less now than it was back then because Apple is so clearly an enormous

00:10:22 ◼   ► business with high stock price and all that.

00:10:24 ◼   ► And they don't have the mythical figure anymore.

00:10:26 ◼   ► Right, well that's true, but still, even now, but less than it was five or ten years ago,

00:10:31 ◼   ► I would have these conversations with people five or ten years ago where they'd be like,

00:10:34 ◼   ► "Oh, you know, why does Apple do this and why does Apple do this and I'm really disappointed

00:10:37 ◼   ► in them." And I would say, "Okay, you love Apple, you love Apple's products, that's great.

00:10:44 ◼   ► I know you feel a connection there.

00:10:45 ◼   ► They're connected to you personally,

00:10:48 ◼   ► probably to your livelihood.

00:10:49 ◼   ► There's lots of connection there.

00:10:51 ◼   ► Lots of emotional connection there.

00:10:52 ◼   ► It's great that like so many people

00:10:54 ◼   ► made an emotional connection to Apple

00:10:55 ◼   ► or believed in the products.

00:10:57 ◼   ► - We both have it, right?

00:10:59 ◼   ► We both have it.

00:10:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely, right?

00:11:01 ◼   ► The problem is they are a profit making business

00:11:06 ◼   ► regulated by lots of rules about serving their shareholders

00:11:13 ◼   ► and about the value of the shareholders holdings. And that's just, it's sort of like being a

00:11:22 ◼   ► fan of a baseball team or something like that, any sort of sports franchise. It's like, they're

00:11:27 ◼   ► a business. You're their customer. And you can feel attachments to them because people

00:11:34 ◼   ► certainly do that with sports stuff too. But in the end, they are a business. They are

00:11:38 ◼   ► are gonna make decisions based on money. And some of them you may not like. And that's

00:11:43 ◼   ► just they're not a charity, they're a business and they're gonna run it that way. And it's

00:11:47 ◼   ► always important to keep that in mind. Just keep your eyes open to that part of it, which

00:11:51 ◼   ► is this is, you know, and now it's more clear that Apple is a huge business. There was a

00:11:57 ◼   ► while there where Apple might as well have been the charity because it was not going

00:12:01 ◼   ► so great. But that's not the case anymore. And you can see it more clearly now. And I'm

00:12:06 ◼   ► not saying don't feel an emotional attachment to Apple or Apple products or, you know, what

00:12:10 ◼   ► the Mac or the iPhone or the iPad means to you. It's just, you know, be aware of the

00:12:14 ◼   ► other part of it, which is this is not a company that's making decisions because it wants to

00:12:18 ◼   ► make the most people happy. It's a company making decisions because it wants to be successful

00:12:24 ◼   ► and fulfill its corporate ideals and, yes, make people happy, happy customers who give

00:12:30 ◼   ► them money. That's just how it is. That is the nature of the relationship. And if Apple

00:12:35 ◼   ► was just trying to increase everybody's happiness but not actually bring in any money, they

00:12:43 ◼   ► would be in trouble because their shareholders would be very angry at them. That's all. I'm

00:12:48 ◼   ► not trying to say wake up sheeple here or anything like that. I'm just saying let's

00:12:53 ◼   ► all keep it in mind that this stuff is, they have attorneys, tax attorneys, and this is

00:12:59 ◼   ► why they create. This came up with the tax shelters in Ireland and all that. It's the

00:13:03 ◼   ► thing. It's like, you know, you can love the products, but of course they're hiring attorneys

00:13:09 ◼   ► to navigate to pay the least amount of tax possible because that's their job. That is,

00:13:15 ◼   ► you know, you don't have to like it, but you got to be aware of it. But on the flip side,

00:13:19 ◼   ► there are amazing things. Like today, there's a press release from Apple that they are going

00:13:24 ◼   ► to be funding the Malala Foundation to support girls' education, right? So there's like this big

00:13:30 ◼   ► a piece on the Apple newsroom today that they're going to be funding for the Malala fund like

00:13:34 ◼   ► it's just a ton of money. So that's also the good stuff, right? That not all companies

00:13:39 ◼   ► do these kinds of things. It's great that they do. So that's what kind of stuff makes

00:13:43 ◼   ► you feel good about them. But then there are also things where it's not so much.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Tim Cynova And I'm definitely not saying Apple doesn't

00:13:50 ◼   ► do anything but be a cold unfeeling corporation, right? Apple does a lot of things because

00:13:56 ◼   ► of their corporate beliefs and their feeling of being a positive force in the world and

00:14:04 ◼   ► all that. They do stuff too, but it's also a giant corporation.

00:14:08 ◼   ► But they have the business side. They have that and you can't ignore it. And if they

00:14:12 ◼   ► didn't have that, then they wouldn't be around anymore. It is what it is. Anyway, so let's

00:14:18 ◼   ► move on. Last week we decided that the ongoing media segment should get its own name. So

00:14:25 ◼   ► We petitioned the Upgradients to come up with some suggestions.

00:14:29 ◼   ► And I've picked out, Jason, my favorites.

00:14:32 ◼   ► So many people suggested this, but Kate was first in the chat room upstream.

00:14:37 ◼   ► Matt suggested Media Outlook.

00:14:39 ◼   ► Mark suggested Myke TV in honor of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

00:14:45 ◼   ► Tom suggested Antenna Upgrade, but I prefer just Antenna.

00:14:48 ◼   ► I think Antenna sounds good.

00:14:50 ◼   ► I like one word where we can.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Phil suggested Showtime.

00:14:55 ◼   ► Chris suggested pre-roll and Mark suggested TV Guide, which I thought was also quite clever.

00:15:01 ◼   ► Which do you like, Jason Snow?

00:15:04 ◼   ► I kinda like Upstream because it's like upgrade and streaming video.

00:15:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's where it comes from.

00:15:12 ◼   ► You know, it's like, that's the, it means what it says and says what it means and I

00:15:16 ◼   ► like that.

00:15:17 ◼   ► I kinda like Myke TV.

00:15:20 ◼   ► I don't think it's the right name.

00:15:22 ◼   ► - I really like it though, it's fun.

00:15:24 ◼   ► - It has the advantage of like,

00:15:26 ◼   ► I'm just gonna have you do all the work on that one then.

00:15:29 ◼   ► 'Cause it's Myke TV, it's not Jason TV.

00:15:31 ◼   ► I don't need to be involved at all.

00:15:32 ◼   ► You can just pre-tape that, we'll drop it in.

00:15:34 ◼   ► Myke TV, here's Myke, let's listen to Myke.

00:15:36 ◼   ► - We can do like with Snell talk,

00:15:37 ◼   ► we can do Myke TV with Jason Snell, right?

00:15:38 ◼   ► Like that's how that works.

00:15:39 ◼   ► - Interesting.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Is that how that works?

00:15:42 ◼   ► But I like it because it's a Charlie

00:15:44 ◼   ► and the Chocolate Factory reference, right?

00:15:46 ◼   ► That's Myke TV was the kid who got beamed

00:15:48 ◼   ► into a television on that and that was fun.

00:15:50 ◼   ► What about you?

00:15:51 ◼   ► They are my two favorites. So we need to decide between one of them.

00:15:57 ◼   ► Well it's Upstream then. I think it's going to be Upstream. So Upstream

00:16:00 ◼   ► is the name of our new media segment and we are about to begin the first ever Upstream.

00:16:06 ◼   ► So Disney has hired an ex-Apple executive to guide some of their video launches. So

00:16:13 ◼   ► Bam Tech Media, which is a company we spent a bunch of time talking about, hired a guy

00:16:17 ◼   ► by the name of Kevin Swint. Swint has previously worked with both Apple and Samsung. The Variety

00:16:24 ◼   ► report doesn't specify what he did at Apple. We assume it's something on the media side,

00:16:29 ◼   ► but you know, as you can imagine.

00:16:31 ◼   ► It said, the report I saw said that he was in charge of the movies area of iTunes, which

00:16:39 ◼   ► is not, I don't know, I guess that means that includes like maybe making deals and how movies

00:16:46 ◼   ► get marketed and do they get special extras on the iTunes version and all that, but it's

00:16:50 ◼   ► unclear exactly, but something in that area.

00:16:55 ◼   ► So Swint has been tasked to build and run what will eventually become Disney's upcoming

00:16:59 ◼   ► Netflix competitor. So Disney are building multiple streaming services. One of them is

00:17:03 ◼   ► to include all of their properties. So like for example, Disney isn't renewing any contracts

00:17:08 ◼   ► with Netflix, right, because they're going to take all of their stuff and they're going

00:17:11 ◼   ► sell it to you for a monthly fee. Swint's credentials is he built a service Samsung

00:17:18 ◼   ► called Milk which is their music and video streaming service. I had no idea this product

00:17:22 ◼   ► ever existed. Who knows if he's the right person for this. I saw some interesting people

00:17:28 ◼   ► tweeting about this. I saw some stuff popping up in my timeline. Disney hired a guy who's

00:17:34 ◼   ► created potentially two failed streaming services to run my streaming service. So, you know,

00:17:41 ◼   ► we'll see what happens there but Disney are making some serious moves and I really hope

00:17:47 ◼   ► that they're going to get the good front end tech to go with their good back end tech for

00:17:51 ◼   ► this. We'll have to wait and see.

00:17:53 ◼   ► JJ Abrams is shopping around a TV space drama. It's a spec script that he's got right now

00:18:00 ◼   ► showing it to a bunch of people. Apparently the most interested part is our Apple and

00:18:04 ◼   ► HBO. My question on this is if Apple got this, wouldn't this be their third space show? It

00:18:11 ◼   ► feels like too much space.

00:18:12 ◼   ► It sounds like that would be another another site. Well, so here's the the the argument

00:18:18 ◼   ► against it is it's too much sci-fi stuff and you want to balance it out. The argument for

00:18:24 ◼   ► it is that Apple's going to have a somewhat. Well, Apple's going to have a somewhat nerdier

00:18:30 ◼   ► your audience so maybe it's okay if there's more sci-fi stuff on there. It's J.J. Abrams

00:18:34 ◼   ► getting a deal with J.J. Abrams, probably not a bad idea. And I will point out like

00:18:40 ◼   ► the biggest hits on TV right now are genre. It's The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.

00:18:47 ◼   ► The biggest hits for decades now in film are blockbuster genre movies, mostly science fiction,

00:18:54 ◼   ► fantasy action kind of stuff. And so maybe you pursue it anyway, hoping that one of these

00:19:03 ◼   ► things is going to hit and be a Game of Thrones kind of like Buzz show. And again, the kind

00:19:09 ◼   ► of people to be in business with like Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams is not necessary.

00:19:15 ◼   ► And Ron Moore, right? It's like these are also creators that you want to be in business

00:19:19 ◼   ► with. So I see the other side though, which is like, we said this last week, it does seem

00:19:25 ◼   ► a little bit like they don't want to be the sci-fi channel, right? And that's the danger

00:19:30 ◼   ► here. At the same time, you know, HBO's got Westworld and Game of Thrones, and I think

00:19:34 ◼   ► they've got some other sci-fi projects as well. So it's, I could go either way on that.

00:19:40 ◼   ► I think they probably look at this and say, "Look, all things being equal, we wouldn't

00:19:45 ◼   ► be bidding on another science fiction show necessarily but it's a spec script from JJ

00:19:50 ◼   ► Abrams. I think it's the first script that he's done for TV since Fringe I want to say.

00:19:55 ◼   ► That's what the Hollywood Reporter is saying. Yeah he produces a lot of TV but he hasn't

00:20:00 ◼   ► actually like built his own TV show in a while that he has written. So and HBO is interested

00:20:06 ◼   ► too which means that price is just going to keep getting driven up. It's good to be JJ

00:20:10 ◼   ► Abrams I guess. But yeah. Yeah I think right now if you have a script

00:20:15 ◼   ► to shop around, you want to see Apple's name in it. Right? If you want that money to go

00:20:18 ◼   ► up, you want to see their name in it. Right? Seems like you want to see Netflix, you want

00:20:21 ◼   ► to see Amazon. Like that's how the prices are getting pushed up right now because there

00:20:25 ◼   ► is an arms race going on.

00:20:29 ◼   ► Apple have also grabbed some more office space in Culver City. HBO backed out of a deal for

00:20:35 ◼   ► this office space, which Apple has now moved in. I like that the company that owns the

00:20:39 ◼   ► building, they were like, "We're excited about HBO. We're a lot more excited about Apple."

00:20:44 ◼   ► I'm sure you are. For those that don't know, Culver City is a city in California that has

00:20:48 ◼   ► been historically popular for Hollywood. It's kind of just where everybody is. There's like,

00:20:55 ◼   ► what is it? The MGM lot is there, which Sony owns now, I think I write about on Wikipedia.

00:21:02 ◼   ► It makes sense that Apple would want to have some real specific space there if they're

00:21:07 ◼   ► already leasing some space, but this will be a bit more serious, a bit more prominent.

00:21:12 ◼   ► So continuing to make those moves.

00:21:14 ◼   ► So that was our first ever upstream.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Should that be a hashtag to be hashtag upstream or just upstream?

00:21:20 ◼   ► I think it's we're not really soliciting comments that drive the content, right?

00:21:27 ◼   ► Like ask upgrade and still talk to so I would say no.

00:21:30 ◼   ► I know you like custom art for the people who get custom art on chapter markers in their

00:21:34 ◼   ► podcast apps.

00:21:36 ◼   ► I doubt it will be there in this episode because that would require the art to be created while

00:21:40 ◼   ► while we're talking, which is probably not going to happen, but soon there will be, who

00:21:46 ◼   ► knows what it will look like even, but that's the main reason we do these segments, I think,

00:21:51 ◼   ► is to get cool art.

00:21:52 ◼   ► It's one of my big reasons. I love the art so much. But I like the segments, the segments

00:21:59 ◼   ► are fun. I will say, if you come across the Upgradians, any interesting news, please send

00:22:05 ◼   ► it in because I'm at the moment struggling to find out where to get this stuff from.

00:22:11 ◼   ► So basically if I start following Variety and Hollywood Reporter on Twitter I'm going

00:22:17 ◼   ► to get too much stuff that I don't want to see.

00:22:20 ◼   ► I'm already following all of this because of TV Talk Machine.

00:22:22 ◼   ► All right, you just send me the links and then I'll do it.

00:22:25 ◼   ► All right, thank you.

00:22:26 ◼   ► That's all I want.

00:22:27 ◼   ► All right, yes sir.

00:22:28 ◼   ► We're going to finish out the episode today with something a little bit special.

00:22:31 ◼   ► The first and maybe only ever mic at the matinee.

00:22:35 ◼   ► I saw Hamilton and I need to talk about it and Tyson Snell was the person that I will

00:22:40 ◼   ► talk about Hamilton with. So that's going to be the end of our show today.

00:22:44 ◼   ► Seems fair. Alright, let's take a break. Today's show

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00:24:19 ◼   ► of Relay FM.

00:24:21 ◼   ► So there was a report via 9to5Mac from KGI Securities. KGI are KG at best with their

00:24:32 ◼   ► rumors but they talk sense a lot of the time and I like this, I think it makes a lot of

00:24:39 ◼   ► sense. They are having a report about the iPhone lineup for this year. KGI is saying

00:24:46 ◼   ► that there will be three new iPhones debut this year. There will be an iPhone X successor,

00:24:50 ◼   ► of an iPhone XS, a 6.1 inch LCD model to replace the iPhone 8, it will look in style to the

00:25:00 ◼   ► iPhone X, but priced to be cheaper in the 650-700 range. Then there will be a 6.5 inch

00:25:12 ◼   ► OLED iPhone X Plus. Which is a very interesting line up to have. KGI suggest interestingly

00:25:21 ◼   ► that Apple may actually stop making the current iPhone X completely this year. It won't fall

00:25:26 ◼   ► down the line as a cheaper model. Apple will come into the end of this year with a brand

00:25:32 ◼   ► new line up of phones. One of the reasons they are said to be doing this is that the

00:25:38 ◼   ► The iPhone X has not been selling as well as predicted in China.

00:25:42 ◼   ► Again all coming from KGI's reports, they're an analyst firm.

00:25:45 ◼   ► Always take those things for a grain of salt, but they do their work and they're paid for

00:25:48 ◼   ► it.

00:25:49 ◼   ► And apparently this, because it's not that popular in China, it's harming the overall

00:25:53 ◼   ► sales of the model and apparently this is being said because there is a perception that

00:25:57 ◼   ► the notch has been a turn off as it indicates wasted screen space.

00:26:02 ◼   ► And the 6s and the 7 and all the plus models and the 8s, they're still selling really good

00:26:07 ◼   ► because they've got these big full screens because in China, big screen phones are a

00:26:11 ◼   ► huge deal. It's one of the reasons that Apple created the Plus in the first place.

00:26:15 ◼   ► KGI believe that if they do ship all three new units this year, the iPhone shipments

00:26:20 ◼   ► will grow 10% year on year. So thinking about this, my first question is, I don't fully

00:26:25 ◼   ► understand that last part because if there are problems in China about the notch, why

00:26:31 ◼   ► would having three phones of a notch improve this?

00:26:36 ◼   ► That's my question. Maybe the thinking is if you have a stronger line-up overall, which

00:26:42 ◼   ► all embraces this design, that maybe it might make it more desirable in some way, or by

00:26:47 ◼   ► having the iPhone X Plus, it serves that purpose, because that is a huge screen at that point,

00:26:53 ◼   ► so maybe that's what they need. Maybe it will be the Plus model that tips it over.

00:26:58 ◼   ► But I don't think that KGI and the report have gone into detail about why doing this

00:27:02 ◼   ► will turn the tide in China.

00:27:05 ◼   ► there's something embedded in this that's an assumption that an iPhone X successor might

00:27:11 ◼   ► have a slightly different design where they get rid of the notch and just leave a little

00:27:16 ◼   ► bit of headspace at the top for the sensor?

00:27:18 ◼   ► Yeah, it might be smaller at least, right? So like there's still a notch, but like it's

00:27:22 ◼   ► much less significant than the current one. And if that is the case, like if they do make

00:27:27 ◼   ► a refinement to the design, then I could understand why the X would go away completely. But apparently

00:27:33 ◼   ► they're hearing rumors that the iPhone X will be considered end of life in August.

00:27:39 ◼   ► - I actually think that's one of the most reasonable things in this report, is the idea

00:27:43 ◼   ► that the X being a high-end and expensive device is maybe not as conducive to being

00:27:51 ◼   ► rolled down the price structure at this point as the other models are. And I don't, I mean,

00:27:58 ◼   ► mean this something we talked about about naming. I don't see where you go

00:28:03 ◼   ► with the iPhone 10 in terms of a name unless you really just go. All right,

00:28:07 ◼   ► and now it's iPhone 11, but I don't I look at this as Apple replaying what

00:28:11 ◼   ► they did with the OS X brand which is 10 is the brand and so a new iPhone

00:28:17 ◼   ► 10 this fall will be the new iPhone 10. That's it like the new iPhone 10

00:28:22 ◼   ► iPhone 10 2018 model and then next year will be the iPhone 10 2019 model.

00:28:28 ◼   ► and it'll just keep going like that. I think that that is a very possible direction because it gets

00:28:34 ◼   ► Apple off of the name incrementing thing. It's just the iPhone 10 means this phone, this model,

00:28:42 ◼   ► like the iPhone SE means this phone. So Apple has started naming the chips, right? Like Bionic

00:28:48 ◼   ► and stuff like that. Do you think we could see something like that with the iPhone 10? So it

00:28:52 ◼   ► becomes like the iPhone 10 Bionic? Like that would delineate the new model? I think it's possible.

00:28:57 ◼   ► it depends, I mean that's a marketing question of like,

00:29:01 ◼   ► does Apple feel like it can sell a new iPhone with the,

00:29:04 ◼   ► you know, can you sell a new iPhone 10

00:29:07 ◼   ► that's just the new iPhone 10

00:29:09 ◼   ► to people who have last years or two years ago's iPhone 10?

00:29:14 ◼   ► Now, in every other product they sell, that is the case.

00:29:16 ◼   ► Right? - Yeah.

00:29:17 ◼   ► - Like the new iPad Pro is just the new iPad Pro.

00:29:20 ◼   ► You know, I have the iPad Pro 2017, right?

00:29:27 ◼   ► versus a 12.9 inch 2017 as opposed to 2015, right?

00:29:30 ◼   ► But they're just, it's not a new number.

00:29:33 ◼   ► It's not the iPad Pro 12 inch, you know, 12.92, right?

00:29:37 ◼   ► It's not.

00:29:38 ◼   ► So there's a marketing question there,

00:29:42 ◼   ► which is like, do you need to sort of give it a spin

00:29:44 ◼   ► and this is the iPhone?

00:29:46 ◼   ► Yeah, then you're turning it into like OS X nicknames,

00:29:50 ◼   ► right, where you're giving it bionic infusion

00:29:52 ◼   ► and things like that.

00:29:53 ◼   ► I think it's possible.

00:29:54 ◼   ► - 'Cause my challenge would be that like,

00:29:56 ◼   ► The iPhone is the only product that Apple has where they expect or want their customers

00:30:01 ◼   ► to buy a new one every year.

00:30:05 ◼   ► Everything else is like people have their time frames in which they replenish.

00:30:09 ◼   ► The iPad, most people don't buy iPads every year.

00:30:12 ◼   ► We know that.

00:30:13 ◼   ► We can see that in the numbers.

00:30:14 ◼   ► But the iPhone is like people want that every one or two years.

00:30:18 ◼   ► You want people to be moving through it.

00:30:20 ◼   ► So my thinking would be that having the same name open Apple up to the criticism that they'd

00:30:28 ◼   ► faced previously to the iPhone X, it's like nothing's changing, right?

00:30:32 ◼   ► Like the phones look the same.

00:30:34 ◼   ► So my concern would be having it at the same name would draw the same problem of like,

00:30:39 ◼   ► "Oh, it's no different because they didn't even change the name."

00:30:43 ◼   ► So I would expect...

00:30:44 ◼   ► That's the counter argument for sure.

00:30:46 ◼   ► I totally am on board with the theory that it will be iPhone X, but I think that they

00:30:50 ◼   ► they will give some kind of way to differentiate the name a little bit. I don't know what it

00:30:53 ◼   ► would be, but I do think that iPhone X is a brand of its own. That is like a new brand.

00:31:02 ◼   ► We'll see how that goes.

00:31:04 ◼   ► It should be. It should mean this kind of phone, right? The phone that looks like this,

00:31:11 ◼   ► that has the OLED screen, that's got the face ID, this is the iPhone X. And as long as this

00:31:16 ◼   ► look is around, it will be the iPhone X. Now maybe if they do a big upgrade and they get

00:31:21 ◼   ► rid of the notch in two or three years or whatever, maybe that's also still the iPhone

00:31:25 ◼   ► X or maybe not. Maybe at that point it's the iPhone something else. Maybe not 11 because

00:31:31 ◼   ► I think, I do think they want to get off the numbers here. I feel like in the end we're

00:31:35 ◼   ► going to have iPhone SE, iPhone, and iPhone X or maybe it's iPhone SE, iPhone something,

00:31:41 ◼   ► and iPhone X. And then iPhone always remains the name but the numbering goes away and it's

00:31:46 ◼   ► more just about what's in the lineup. And I think that is better because I do think

00:31:50 ◼   ► that in the end you probably don't want to sell the iPhone 14.

00:31:54 ◼   ► What do you think about this proposed actual lineup of phones? Like a new 10, a 10 Plus,

00:32:00 ◼   ► and a new one to replace the existing phones?

00:32:02 ◼   ► iPhone 10 Plus we talked about I think a couple weeks ago and I think it's great. It was last

00:32:10 ◼   ► week, it was our wish list, right? I would love to see it because I know there are people

00:32:14 ◼   ► who like larger phones and a larger iPhone 10. If the iPhone 10 satisfies me

00:32:19 ◼   ► and I don't like a larger phone that makes me feel like there are people who

00:32:23 ◼   ► are not happy with the size of it and that would like a bigger phone and that

00:32:28 ◼   ► person is not me but I think that that market must exist so that sounds great.

00:32:32 ◼   ► It all breaks down for me with this other model and the idea that it would

00:32:38 ◼   ► replace the 8 which I also don't it doesn't follow like a 6.1 inch LCD

00:32:44 ◼   ► phone does not replace any existing iPhone models, right? It is not even close. The existing

00:32:51 ◼   ► models are 4.7 and 5.5. So a big LCD to replace the 8 doesn't make sense to me.

00:33:03 ◼   ► What about if it still costs you $1000 to get into OLED minimum?

00:33:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, but this is not about fitting it to a price.

00:33:14 ◼   ► It's about reaching a market.

00:33:16 ◼   ► Like if you clear out all the smaller phones,

00:33:20 ◼   ► and I'm not talking about the SE,

00:33:22 ◼   ► I'm talking about the iPhone 8 and say,

00:33:25 ◼   ► no, we're not doing that anymore.

00:33:26 ◼   ► The next phone is gonna be,

00:33:28 ◼   ► it's just gonna be another enormous phone.

00:33:30 ◼   ► It's gonna be bigger than the plus

00:33:33 ◼   ► in terms of screen diagonal.

00:33:35 ◼   ► Like I just, that's,

00:33:38 ◼   ► So I guess what I'm saying is I guess I could see this product as kind of an additional

00:33:42 ◼   ► model almost like a, almost like a, an iPhone 9 Plus kind of phone.

00:33:49 ◼   ► It's a cheaper way to get interface ID in the new design, right? I think that's, that

00:33:53 ◼   ► was why this would exist, right, for that reason. So it is like, and I do agree with

00:33:58 ◼   ► you that it seems strange to be like, we're going to replace two phones with one phone

00:34:04 ◼   ► that's big.

00:34:06 ◼   ► So I don't, I just don't believe it makes any sense that there would not be a standard

00:34:13 ◼   ► iPhone.

00:34:14 ◼   ► But what if just the 8 is still around and cheaper?

00:34:17 ◼   ► Well this is the question, is would you, are we at the end or is there another phone to

00:34:24 ◼   ► come because my problem with it is I still feel like the standard iPhone, the 4.7 inch

00:34:32 ◼   ► diagonal iPhone, that's the iPhone 8, is a huge seller. Just my gut feeling. KGI confirmed

00:34:41 ◼   ► that 6, 7, and 8 are still selling great. Yeah, so why would you say we're no longer

00:34:48 ◼   ► going to make a new model in that shape? Why would you do that if you're Apple? Why would

00:34:53 ◼   ► you not just let it ride another year and make it faster and take the plus maybe and

00:34:58 ◼   ► turn that into something that looks a little bit more like the 10 and keep it around because

00:35:05 ◼   ► I mean that's a big step to say hey this is this is perhaps our best model best-selling

00:35:09 ◼   ► model and if not it's one of our best-selling models but we're just not going to update

00:35:14 ◼   ► it we're just going to let you can still buy the iPhone 8 and we moved on I don't know

00:35:17 ◼   ► I feel like there's probably space in there for another year and an iPhone 9 to do that

00:35:24 ◼   ► But this report suggests, and again, sometimes I wonder about these reports because they're

00:35:28 ◼   ► about new models, and therefore existing model shapes can be invisible to them. So it could

00:35:34 ◼   ► be that they're also going to do an iPhone 9 that's 4.7 inch and it looks just like the

00:35:38 ◼   ► one that's there now and it'll have new internals and it's not on their radar because it's not

00:35:43 ◼   ► a different shape. It looks exactly like an iPhone 8 and therefore they can't see the

00:35:48 ◼   ► parts aren't that different and their intelligence from the supply chain can't help them.

00:35:52 ◼   ► 100% imagine four phones. There is the regular iPhone, the plus is replaced by this 6.1 inch

00:36:00 ◼   ► LCD and then you have the two two outlet phones.

00:36:05 ◼   ► I think there isn't really a, if they make this, this 6.1 inch LCD phone, there's no

00:36:11 ◼   ► point having the plus around anymore. You may as well get this new, this new model,

00:36:16 ◼   ► which gives you all of that plus face ID for a cheaper price.

00:36:21 ◼   ► a lower price and that's the big thing. Whether it's, yeah, I mean, let's assume that it's

00:36:25 ◼   ► Face ID and not Touch ID because if they're doing a new design, presumably they would

00:36:32 ◼   ► move it to Face ID and the OLED screen is presumably the thing that is the biggest limiter

00:36:35 ◼   ► in terms of the cost of the hardware and so it allows them to price it down below what

00:36:42 ◼   ► the 10 and the 10+ would be. Yeah, I mean, I think if you had me just, you know, throw

00:36:48 ◼   ► a dart at the dartboard and say, you know, pick a scenario. I think the scenario that

00:36:55 ◼   ► I would pick, I would aim for, would be that, which is 9, 9+, 10, 10+. And that gives them

00:37:06 ◼   ► a spread, and then presumably they keep selling the 8 and the 8+ at lower price, and then

00:37:11 ◼   ► the SE down on the bottom. And that's your iPhone product line, which gives them a range

00:37:18 ◼   ► of prices.

00:37:19 ◼   ► I could almost see them taking that iPhone 6 size and just making it like the SE, right?

00:37:25 ◼   ► There's just this cheaper one and it's this size and you can get it if you want it, but

00:37:29 ◼   ► the future is over here. And then they just keep it around for a period of time with older

00:37:34 ◼   ► technology and then just refresh it.

00:37:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, so it's fascinating.

00:37:40 ◼   ► The 6.1 inch LCD model is really fascinating to me

00:37:46 ◼   ► because presumably it would be kind of like taking the 8 Plus

00:37:52 ◼   ► and doing the bezel-less thing like the X

00:37:59 ◼   ► but with a cheaper display.

00:38:02 ◼   ► And so you'd get more screen out of it

00:38:05 ◼   ► even if it wasn't much bigger physically.

00:38:08 ◼   ► And it's an interesting idea to do that.

00:38:11 ◼   ► Like that's the part that really-

00:38:12 ◼   ► - It's also a status thing,

00:38:13 ◼   ► 'cause it looks like you have the new phone.

00:38:15 ◼   ► - Right, it looks like an iPhone 10, even though it's not.

00:38:17 ◼   ► Yeah, it's fascinating if they did that.

00:38:20 ◼   ► And if they did that while keeping the iPhone 8 style

00:38:23 ◼   ► for the smaller phone, which I think would be fine,

00:38:25 ◼   ► 'cause it's the same argument as the SE, right?

00:38:27 ◼   ► It's like some people like perfectly,

00:38:29 ◼   ► the old style is fine, let's just keep it around.

00:38:31 ◼   ► And so the iPhone 5 style continues in the SE.

00:38:35 ◼   ► maybe that's the answer for the 4.7-inch diagonal with touch ID. It's like, well, it's kind

00:38:40 ◼   ► of our old design now, but people like it, it's popular, we'll keep it around. But taking

00:38:46 ◼   ► the plus and kind of like pushing it forward toward the 10, because ultimately, I think

00:38:53 ◼   ► we would probably say, ultimately Apple's goal, I think, is to have OLED phones with

00:38:57 ◼   ► face ID and not have these LCD touch ID phones, but it's gonna take years for that to roll

00:39:05 ◼   ► out because they want to keep, they want to maintain their price points. So yeah, yeah,

00:39:09 ◼   ► I think it's, I, I, I'm, I think it's really interesting. Also, I guess it's officially

00:39:13 ◼   ► 2018 now, Myke. Let the iPhone fall on the roof again.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Myke: Yeah, that's when you know that it's really ticked over. There's one last thing

00:39:20 ◼   ► I wanted to touch on with this, Jason. If KGI are right and the iPhone X is underperforming

00:39:26 ◼   ► in China, what does that do to Apple's earnings?

00:39:30 ◼   ► Well, we will get an idea. The big holiday quarter results call will tell us a lot about

00:39:38 ◼   ► what's going on. That is on February 1st. Oh, I've already got it on my calendar, in

00:39:45 ◼   ► fact. Apple results, 1.30 Pacific, February 1st, a Thursday.

00:39:51 ◼   ► So what are we going to talk about in two weeks? Well, no, like on this show we'll talk

00:39:54 ◼   ► about it in two weeks, that's interesting.

00:39:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, Apple predicted that it would be

00:39:58 ◼   ► their biggest quarter ever.

00:39:59 ◼   ► - Yep. - Right?

00:40:00 ◼   ► So if there's underperforming iPhones somewhere

00:40:03 ◼   ► in the world, it may hit the numbers.

00:40:08 ◼   ► How much is it underperforming?

00:40:10 ◼   ► Is this kind of an overreaction?

00:40:12 ◼   ► People got the ability of Apple to ship iPhone 10s wrong.

00:40:15 ◼   ► So, you know, there's been some bad reporting

00:40:19 ◼   ► or some poor assumptions that have been baked in,

00:40:21 ◼   ► but we'll see it.

00:40:22 ◼   ► And if we don't see it,

00:40:23 ◼   ► even if the pure numbers are really great,

00:40:25 ◼   ► we may see a slower growth in China or something like that

00:40:29 ◼   ► that would be an indicator.

00:40:30 ◼   ► And then I would bet almost certainly-

00:40:32 ◼   ► - Sound price as well will help.

00:40:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, almost certainly Apple or almost certainly analysts

00:40:38 ◼   ► will ask Apple about it.

00:40:41 ◼   ► And Tim Cook really likes to drill down

00:40:44 ◼   ► on some China specific numbers.

00:40:46 ◼   ► So I'd imagine we're gonna get a good idea

00:40:49 ◼   ► of how the iPhone 10 was received in China

00:40:52 ◼   ► come February 1st.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Talking about products and releases and such and such, the HomePod.

00:41:01 ◼   ► The HomePod has received FCC approval.

00:41:05 ◼   ► Now typically Apple gets FCC approval about a month before a product launches.

00:41:12 ◼   ► You may say to me, "Myke, how do they do this for every iPhone?"

00:41:15 ◼   ► Well there is a secret process that the FCC will go through for an unreleased product,

00:41:24 ◼   ► But if a product is already known to the world, then all this stuff is public.

00:41:29 ◼   ► So you can see it.

00:41:30 ◼   ► You can see that it is a public approval.

00:41:32 ◼   ► So for example, the iPhone X received FCC approval about a month before it shipped.

00:41:37 ◼   ► So it is possible that this is moving along and in about a month or so we may see the

00:41:42 ◼   ► HomePods release.

00:41:44 ◼   ► However, we got a little email today, Jason, from someone in the know.

00:41:50 ◼   ► Yeah, from a source, I guess, that's not inside Apple, but it was interesting and backs up

00:41:58 ◼   ► some other stuff that's sort of the rumblings about this, which is that the holdup really

00:42:01 ◼   ► here is software and maybe even specifically AirPlay 2. The idea that the, which we've

00:42:08 ◼   ► heard and speculated about before, that the HomePod hardware is fine, like it's done,

00:42:14 ◼   ► and they've probably made them, and they're sitting in a warehouse in China somewhere

00:42:17 ◼   ► ready to ship but the software side hasn't been there and that Airplay 2 in particular

00:42:24 ◼   ► has been you know as an ambitious project and it has taken time for them to kind of

00:42:30 ◼   ► get it right and as a result the and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some other sort

00:42:35 ◼   ► of like Siri related stuff happening too but rather than ship the HomePod and I think honestly

00:42:42 ◼   ► I think Apple's thinking if we ship this and it isn't good enough people are going to just

00:42:46 ◼   ► destroy us and they're not going to just say this is a bad product they're going

00:42:49 ◼   ► to say Apple can't beat Amazon or with Alexa or with the Google Assistant you

00:42:56 ◼   ► know or other competitors that are out there like Apple will look really really

00:43:00 ◼   ► bad because they're entering late into this market so I would agree I'd agree

00:43:06 ◼   ► with that you can't enter late and badly right like that's that's not good they

00:43:12 ◼   ► kind of need to stick the landing even if they've set expectations for exactly

00:43:18 ◼   ► what they're doing here and what they're not doing here like the HomePod is what

00:43:22 ◼   ► it is it is one one product from Apple so they're still going to be seen as

00:43:27 ◼   ► kind of being behind here but if it's good at what they say it's for then it

00:43:34 ◼   ► will be received positively and it's a it's a place to start but if it's not

00:43:39 ◼   ► good at what they say it's for, that's going to be bad. So anyway, it seems like from some

00:43:44 ◼   ► people who seem to be in the know that this is what's going on, is that the HomePod hardware

00:43:49 ◼   ► is ready but there's been some software issues and that's what we're waiting for. But Apple

00:43:53 ◼   ► seems confident that it's going to ship early this year, which means what, between now and

00:43:58 ◼   ► April? Or between now and the end of April? I don't know.

00:44:01 ◼   ► Yeah, Vinit in the chat room is asking, like, what is AirPlay 2? Well, AirPlay 2 is a few

00:44:06 ◼   ► different things. It's good multi-room audio support, available for third parties. It's

00:44:11 ◼   ► also home kit support as well. So these are pretty important things for the future of

00:44:18 ◼   ► this type of product on Apple's ecosystem. So this is the type of stuff that they want.

00:44:22 ◼   ► And I guess that there's more features there as well, but they're the types of things that

00:44:26 ◼   ► we know about right now. And that's what they need for the home party, needs to be able

00:44:30 ◼   ► to support these types of things. And if it doesn't, well, that's a disaster of a product

00:44:34 ◼   ► and that might be why it's being held up. I mean, we were also told that apparently

00:44:38 ◼   ► the hardware's done and ready and waiting, and it's just a case of Airplay 2 being ready

00:44:43 ◼   ► for as long as that may or may not take. I don't even, I mean, personally, I'm not interested

00:44:51 ◼   ► in this product. I don't know if people are. I don't know if this is something where, like,

00:44:55 ◼   ► the HomePod is being eagerly awaited by the masses.

00:44:59 ◼   ► I don't know, I mean, it looks like an interesting product,

00:45:04 ◼   ► I think it'll have a market.

00:45:06 ◼   ► As we talked about when it was announced,

00:45:07 ◼   ► it feels like a niche product.

00:45:10 ◼   ► And the fact that it's from Apple

00:45:12 ◼   ► means that it will probably appeal to a wider audience

00:45:14 ◼   ► than the same product would if it was released by Sonos,

00:45:17 ◼   ► let's say.

00:45:18 ◼   ► But it is, you know, it's a music player pod

00:45:23 ◼   ► with voice control and also presumably app control

00:45:26 ◼   ► through AirPlay 2.

00:45:28 ◼   ► And so, you know, there are lots of those out there now

00:45:32 ◼   ► and maybe Apple's will be really good

00:45:34 ◼   ► and it will have integration that other devices don't have

00:45:39 ◼   ► because it's from Apple.

00:45:43 ◼   ► So, but I'm with you.

00:45:46 ◼   ► I mean, this has been the curious thing about this product.

00:45:49 ◼   ► It's most notable because it's from Apple

00:45:51 ◼   ► and it's Apple's first voice controlled

00:45:54 ◼   ► sort of a standalone device.

00:45:56 ◼   ► And that's interesting more than it is,

00:46:01 ◼   ► 'cause this is, for the price and what you get,

00:46:06 ◼   ► it is a narrower market

00:46:08 ◼   ► than a lot of the other competitive products here.

00:46:11 ◼   ► So, and that might be good.

00:46:14 ◼   ► I mean, in the end, it might be good at that.

00:46:15 ◼   ► And that might make it a successful product,

00:46:17 ◼   ► even if it's to a smallish audience.

00:46:20 ◼   ► But I don't think it's gonna have the broad appeal

00:46:22 ◼   ► of something like AirPods, right?

00:46:24 ◼   ► It's not that kind of product.

00:46:26 ◼   ► I mean between this being announced in June and where we are eight months later, probably

00:46:33 ◼   ► by the time it gets out to the world, Amazon and Google have not been resting on their

00:46:39 ◼   ► laurels and CES this year was flooded with smart assistant products.

00:46:46 ◼   ► Yeah, this is, I wrote a piece about this for Macworld following up on a couple of pieces.

00:46:53 ◼   ► Brian Chan at the New York Times, Ben Beharan, who had his Tech Pinions piece republished

00:46:58 ◼   ► in Recode. And both of them made this observation that the hot products at CES this year, the

00:47:06 ◼   ► ones that everybody has—CES is all about tech companies, consumer electronics hardware

00:47:13 ◼   ► companies, especially, falling over themselves to find an angle, like to find an angle for

00:47:20 ◼   ► them to sell a product. And so it's oftentimes it's integrating with or connecting with some

00:47:25 ◼   ► popular product. So when I was going to CES, a lot of it was, "How can we get this to be

00:47:31 ◼   ► an angle with the iPhone?" So it was, "This is a case for the iPhone. This is a battery

00:47:36 ◼   ► case. This is a battery. This is a screen protector." And some of it was, "This is a

00:47:40 ◼   ► weird piece of hardware, but we have an app that sort of talks to it, but that gives us

00:47:46 ◼   ► a story to tell about the iPhone and that's what it's all about, right? And so what Ben

00:47:51 ◼   ► and Brian are saying is, well, it used to be that people bend over backwards to connect

00:47:58 ◼   ► themselves to Apple, but at CES this year, everybody was trying to connect themselves

00:48:02 ◼   ► to the Google Assistant and to Amazon Echo.

00:48:05 ◼   ► - That is such a good point, right? Because it was like, oh, our product now has a 30

00:48:12 ◼   ► and dark connector in it so you can put your iPhone and iPod like it's you know that was

00:48:16 ◼   ► the big thing and now it's just like oh no as well as all of the other things that our

00:48:20 ◼   ► product can do it also has Google Assistant built right in.

00:48:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:25 ◼   ► Right like there are like light switches.

00:48:26 ◼   ► There's a toilet there's a toilet with Cortana.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Of course there is.

00:48:29 ◼   ► At CES.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Right?

00:48:31 ◼   ► So there's some really interesting looking products as well like there's a lot of junk

00:48:34 ◼   ► but there's some really good looking stuff if you are in that world.

00:48:38 ◼   ► So this is always the thing with CES, is CES, there's a lot of junk, and so much of it is

00:48:44 ◼   ► what I just described, which is let's desperately try to find some popular product for us to

00:48:50 ◼   ► connect ourselves to so that we can convince people that this is a product that they want

00:48:55 ◼   ► to buy. And that's just, I mean, that's business, that's how it is, sort of like when we were

00:48:58 ◼   ► talking about Apple's business. Like, I'm not trying to render judgment here on the

00:49:03 ◼   ► business approach, I am trying to say let's just be clear about what's going

00:49:08 ◼   ► on here and a lot of the products that I saw that connected to the iPhone at CES

00:49:12 ◼   ► were garbage. They were crappy cases or badly designed battery cases or things

00:49:18 ◼   ► that were supposed to do things that they basically couldn't that I knew iOS

00:49:22 ◼   ► couldn't do but they were claiming they could do. There was a lot of that. A lot of

00:49:25 ◼   ► sort of snake oil because they hadn't really thought through their pitch. They

00:49:28 ◼   ► were just trying to connect themselves to Apple and Apple unlike Google and Amazon with

00:49:35 ◼   ► the Echo, Apple kind of holds everybody at arm's length. Apple is uncomfortable with

00:49:45 ◼   ► the CES kind of market, those companies, and when they allow them to play in their ecosystem

00:49:52 ◼   ► it's at arm's length and it's with Apple being in complete control as much as possible like

00:49:58 ◼   ► made for iPhone licensing, HomeKit licensing, that's the app store with an approval process,

00:50:04 ◼   ► like that's how Apple interacts. Whereas CES would much prefer it be the Wild West, which,

00:50:10 ◼   ► you know, Microsoft and Intel always were like, fine. And I think Google and Amazon

00:50:16 ◼   ► are to a point as well, like, yes, here's an open thing, come on in everybody. And so

00:50:22 ◼   ► everybody's taking advantage of it. Also, they're new. Like, I don't think the companies

00:50:27 ◼   ► companies at CES or in the tech industry in general are saying, "Well, we're not interested

00:50:31 ◼   ► in the iPhone anymore." But all the connections to the iPhone have been made and the App Store,

00:50:36 ◼   ► like connected devices. We assume that if you've got some sort of toy robot, it will

00:50:40 ◼   ► have an app, right? That's not gonna make news. But connections to Alexa or Cortana

00:50:48 ◼   ► or Google Assistant will make news. So that's part of it. And, you know, a lot of people

00:50:53 ◼   ► pushback on Ben and Brian's statements, and I did too, because on one level I think it's

00:50:58 ◼   ► really easy to overstate the importance of Apple being mentioned at CES, because so much

00:51:06 ◼   ► of the stuff at CES was garbage, is garbage, doesn't ship, nobody buys it, it's not important.

00:51:14 ◼   ► But as much as, so I do roll my eyes a little bit at the kind of like puffing up of the

00:51:18 ◼   ► importance of CES for Apple, because Apple kind of never cared, I do understand what

00:51:23 ◼   ► they're saying in terms of it being a barometer. Because if you've got a huge trade show full

00:51:28 ◼   ► of these companies, large and small, that are trying to find an angle in order to sell

00:51:35 ◼   ► their products, and all of them are talking about Apple as the angle, and then two or

00:51:41 ◼   ► three years later all of them are talking about Amazon Echo and Cortana and Google Assistant

00:51:47 ◼   ► as the angle. That's an important data point. Like, it doesn't mean "Oh God, Apple is doomed,"

00:51:53 ◼   ► or anything like that, and Ben Baharan, to his credit, said "I'm not saying that here,"

00:51:58 ◼   ► but it does say something, which is that the hot new thing that everybody's rushing to

00:52:02 ◼   ► try and profit from in some way is not in Apple's ecosystem right now. There was HomeKit

00:52:09 ◼   ► stuff there, HomeKit seems to be moving along, but that the hot products were not from Apple,

00:52:16 ◼   ► the hot things that everybody was trying to connect with are Amazon and Google and to

00:52:22 ◼   ► a lesser extent Microsoft's voice assistants. And that's something to think about. And I

00:52:27 ◼   ► think what is challenging here is that Apple's approach is not the same as these other companies,

00:52:31 ◼   ► right? So Apple doesn't have, like, Amazon has this whole set of Alexa connectivity,

00:52:41 ◼   ► like the official connectivity and then like the skills library, where, which is kind of

00:52:45 ◼   ► an app store for Amazon Echo skills and plugins. And what does Siri have? Almost nothing, right?

00:52:55 ◼   ► We know very limited iPhone apps with access to SiriKit, almost nothing there. There's

00:53:01 ◼   ► no Siri outside, right? HomePod hasn't shipped yet. There's no Siri outside of these, you

00:53:06 ◼   ► know, this existing set of Apple devices either.

00:53:08 ◼   ► Yeah, and there definitely won't be any devices that come from other companies that have Siri

00:53:14 ◼   ► embedded in the way that Google and Amazon are now allowing for.

00:53:19 ◼   ► It seems unlikely, right? So some of this is structural, which is Apple made decisions

00:53:26 ◼   ► that make it less likely for your average CES product to connect with it. And that goes

00:53:31 ◼   ► back to the wanting control and wanting everybody at arm's length. And it's like, that makes

00:53:35 ◼   ► sense. Also, you've got this weird kind of bifurcation that makes sense if you're viewing

00:53:41 ◼   ► it from Apple's standpoint to a certain extent anyway.

00:53:43 ◼   ► I mean, I could argue about Siri,

00:53:44 ◼   ► like what is Siri exactly?

00:53:46 ◼   ► And I'm not sure Apple knows,

00:53:47 ◼   ► it keeps defining it in different ways,

00:53:49 ◼   ► but Apple has Siri.

00:53:51 ◼   ► Siri has Siri kit where you can control,

00:53:54 ◼   ► you can use Siri to control certain apps,

00:53:56 ◼   ► but that's not quite the same as the apps plugging back in

00:53:59 ◼   ► and being data sources for Siri.

00:54:01 ◼   ► Then you've got HomeKit,

00:54:02 ◼   ► which is in some ways Siri in the sense

00:54:05 ◼   ► that one of its big selling points is HomeKit

00:54:08 ◼   ► is the only way that you can use Siri

00:54:10 ◼   ► to control smart home devices, right?

00:54:13 ◼   ► Is you've got to go through HomeKit

00:54:15 ◼   ► 'cause Siri only goes to HomeKit.

00:54:17 ◼   ► So you've got, you know, Apple's approach to this

00:54:20 ◼   ► is different and we've seen like historically

00:54:22 ◼   ► that one of the challenges Apple has in being understood

00:54:25 ◼   ► by the rest of the tech industry

00:54:27 ◼   ► is that Apple just doesn't behave like other companies

00:54:30 ◼   ► and it gets frustrating.

00:54:30 ◼   ► It's like, well, why don't you just open it up wide

00:54:33 ◼   ► like these other companies?

00:54:34 ◼   ► And Apple's like, yeah, we're not gonna do that.

00:54:35 ◼   ► So it's an interesting case where I think on one level,

00:54:40 ◼   ► maybe too much is being made of this,

00:54:42 ◼   ► but on another level, it is an important data point

00:54:46 ◼   ► that Apple is just rolling out their first

00:54:51 ◼   ► sort of embedded smart assistant device,

00:54:55 ◼   ► which even though it's very audio focused,

00:54:57 ◼   ► at a time when so much of the tech industry

00:55:00 ◼   ► is doing a kind of gold rush into the smart assistant stuff,

00:55:04 ◼   ► which could be seen as good,

00:55:07 ◼   ► but their competitors are ahead of them

00:55:10 ◼   ► and their competitors are allowing these third parties

00:55:15 ◼   ► access to their systems in ways that Apple doesn't.

00:55:18 ◼   ► And that could go either way.

00:55:19 ◼   ► Like you could look at history and say,

00:55:21 ◼   ► this could be good for Apple

00:55:22 ◼   ► because Apple is gonna keep a lid on it.

00:55:24 ◼   ► And adding Alexa skills is a pain.

00:55:28 ◼   ► It's an enormous pain.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Like the interface is terrible, I will tell you.

00:55:33 ◼   ► It's great that all those things are there,

00:55:35 ◼   ► but I think it's a mess, right?

00:55:37 ◼   ► I don't think it's something that Apple would want to approach in the same way. But at the

00:55:41 ◼   ► same time, they are there and there are a lot of other devices that will connect with

00:55:45 ◼   ► those systems, and meanwhile Apple's kind of off on its own plane with Siri and HomeKit,

00:55:51 ◼   ► and it's worth watching how that goes. Because it could be good for Apple, it could also

00:55:56 ◼   ► be really bad for Apple. Because if this is the next wave of technology integration, and

00:56:04 ◼   ► Apple's products are not only not the leaders, but are kind of like at a disadvantage.

00:56:09 ◼   ► That could have an effect on Apple's business.

00:56:11 ◼   ► I mean, you could drown in the think pieces that have been written in the past of

00:56:16 ◼   ► "Apple has won CES and they never were even there," right?

00:56:20 ◼   ► But that's not a thing that's happening anymore.

00:56:23 ◼   ► It's the inverse.

00:56:25 ◼   ► Does that mean anything?

00:56:27 ◼   ► We have no idea of knowing right now, but it's something to keep an eye on.

00:56:32 ◼   ► are they falling behind on something that matters? We don't know, right? We don't know if in the

00:56:36 ◼   ► grand scheme of things this stuff matters. But it's a trend in technology right now that all the

00:56:41 ◼   ► all big tech companies are rushing towards. And if it ends up being a serious thing, then

00:56:46 ◼   ► it will be interesting to see what happens to Apple's approach.

00:56:50 ◼   ► Tim Cynova Yeah, I mean, this is, it's funny.

00:56:53 ◼   ► And some part of this is just me being writing about Apple for 20 years. But this has all

00:57:01 ◼   ► all happened before and this will all happen again.

00:57:04 ◼   ► - It happens every year, right?

00:57:06 ◼   ► Like there's the thing and it's like netbooks.

00:57:08 ◼   ► - And Apple, right, and sometimes it works out for Apple

00:57:12 ◼   ► and sometimes it doesn't.

00:57:14 ◼   ► I think Apple is generally makes the right call

00:57:19 ◼   ► because Apple doesn't want to be the subject

00:57:26 ◼   ► of a thousand CES vendors trying to shove their,

00:57:31 ◼   ► half-baked idea and use their platform to advertise it, right? Like, I get it. I get

00:57:38 ◼   ► that. Then again, the App Store, with its restrictions and everything, still was a huge

00:57:44 ◼   ► benefit for iOS and the iPhone, right? It was a huge deal. And that involved Apple opening

00:57:49 ◼   ► its doors a little bit more. And so I think there's a real question about, like, what

00:57:54 ◼   ► is -- you know what this entire segment has boiled down to, Myke? It's something we've

00:57:57 ◼   ► talked about before which is what the heck is going on with Siri like that's

00:58:01 ◼   ► kind of what this is which is like they announced it it was really exciting but

00:58:05 ◼   ► now it feels like not it's super limited and and there are two every year but

00:58:13 ◼   ► they add not a lot right and on the back end presumably they're updating the

00:58:18 ◼   ► server stuff but it just you get this feeling like series just kind of like

00:58:21 ◼   ► stuck in the mud and there are serious competitors out there that are making

00:58:26 ◼   ► more connections to more stuff while Siri is sort of like, you know, limited app connections

00:58:32 ◼   ► and limited set of smart home devices that it'll connect to. And, you know, again, if

00:58:38 ◼   ► the net result is a better experience for everybody, that's great, but is Siri really

00:58:43 ◼   ► a better experience? And is not having compatible devices and services a better experience for

00:58:49 ◼   ► anybody? I do wonder if the root of all of this is just like what exactly is Siri supposed

00:58:55 ◼   ► to be for Apple because Amazon has defined what Alexa is as everything and there are

00:59:02 ◼   ► problems with that approach too but if you are trying to establish an ecosystem it would

00:59:09 ◼   ► be hard to say that there is much of a Siri ecosystem at all and Amazon is cultivating

00:59:15 ◼   ► a large ecosystem with a lot of which will be bad but still it will be large. So I don't

00:59:25 ◼   ► know. I mean, I think you could make a case that Apple is doing the right thing to be

00:59:30 ◼   ► careful and I would say I like Apple being careful and not just opening the doors because

00:59:35 ◼   ► that leads to a lot of junk. But at the same time, it's really hard not to look at this

00:59:40 ◼   ► and think that Apple's still behind and that Siri is still stuck in the mud.

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01:01:55 ◼   ► Let's do some hashtag ask upgrade questions. Today's first question comes from friend of

01:02:02 ◼   ► the show Joe Steele. Joe wants to know do you ever think back on Tim Cook saying the

01:02:07 ◼   ► future of TV is apps and think maybe not so much Tim.

01:02:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:02:14 ◼   ► - The future of TV is not apps, right?

01:02:16 ◼   ► It is more streaming services.

01:02:18 ◼   ► That's what the future of TV is.

01:02:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, and if you wrap those,

01:02:23 ◼   ► I get what he, I get both sides again, sorry

01:02:27 ◼   ► for being somebody who sees both sides of this.

01:02:31 ◼   ► As a way to kind of mock Apple TV,

01:02:33 ◼   ► I think this is an effective approach.

01:02:34 ◼   ► Thank you, Joe Steele.

01:02:36 ◼   ► I get, I think that in some ways,

01:02:39 ◼   ► maybe the future of TV is apps accidentally

01:02:42 ◼   ► because what he's really saying is,

01:02:44 ◼   ► we're just gonna open the door

01:02:46 ◼   ► and let every streaming service build their own app

01:02:48 ◼   ► and we'll provide a container app

01:02:51 ◼   ► that they can tie into if they want, which is the TV app.

01:02:54 ◼   ► But is that really apps?

01:02:57 ◼   ► Is that the future of TV?

01:02:58 ◼   ► I mean, the nice thing is it means that every

01:03:01 ◼   ► streaming service can design and develop their own app,

01:03:05 ◼   ► which can take advantage of being an app

01:03:07 ◼   ► rather than just a dumb kind of set of containers,

01:03:10 ◼   ► lists and things,

01:03:11 ◼   ► which is sort of what the old Apple TV was.

01:03:13 ◼   ► At the same time, the downside of that is

01:03:16 ◼   ► all the streaming services want their interface

01:03:18 ◼   ► to be the same across all the platforms.

01:03:20 ◼   ► And that can lead to a really weird disjointed experience

01:03:25 ◼   ► for an Apple TV user, let's say,

01:03:26 ◼   ► because then Amazon doesn't behave like Netflix,

01:03:29 ◼   ► doesn't behave like HBO, doesn't behave like CBS,

01:03:32 ◼   ► doesn't behave like the iTunes apps.

01:03:34 ◼   ► So yeah, yeah, it's I think the future of TV is apps in the sense that the TV boxes

01:03:41 ◼   ► are our platforms and streaming services need to live inside them, but that may be it.

01:03:48 ◼   ► Yeah, it isn't like games or shopping things like they showed, you know, like when the

01:03:56 ◼   ► Apple TV was debuted and it was showing off tvOS it's like, oh, you could do your shopping.

01:04:01 ◼   ► No, it's not any of that.

01:04:03 ◼   ► Like that's not what it is.

01:04:04 ◼   ► - I feel like Apple has already realized

01:04:07 ◼   ► that sort of the TV app is actually

01:04:09 ◼   ► what the center of the Apple TV should be.

01:04:12 ◼   ► And they did the software update where they said,

01:04:13 ◼   ► "Oh no, now that button is gonna just take you

01:04:15 ◼   ► to the TV app."

01:04:16 ◼   ► And I think that would be a good decision

01:04:18 ◼   ► if every other app on the platform supported it.

01:04:22 ◼   ► But since many of them don't, it's not.

01:04:25 ◼   ► And so you end up with it, you know,

01:04:27 ◼   ► but that makes sense, right?

01:04:28 ◼   ► Like if literally every streaming service that you had

01:04:31 ◼   ► on your Apple TV tied into the TV app properly,

01:04:34 ◼   ► then you would have a single app,

01:04:36 ◼   ► not a bunch of different apps, they're in the background,

01:04:39 ◼   ► that lets you see all your programs

01:04:41 ◼   ► and choose what you wanna watch

01:04:42 ◼   ► and then kicks off an app that's appropriate.

01:04:46 ◼   ► That's not a bad approach.

01:04:47 ◼   ► The problem is that you end up with Netflix disputing,

01:04:52 ◼   ► they don't wanna provide the information that Apple wants

01:04:56 ◼   ► in order to make that to work.

01:04:57 ◼   ► And so then you're missing a huge swath of programming

01:05:00 ◼   ► when stuff like that happens.

01:05:02 ◼   ► - Alan asks, and this relates to our conversation

01:05:05 ◼   ► from earlier, if Apple does iPhone 10 Plus,

01:05:08 ◼   ► what did I do with the notch?

01:05:09 ◼   ► Did I keep it the same size as it is in the 10?

01:05:12 ◼   ► Or did I scale it up and make it bigger

01:05:15 ◼   ► so it fits with that design layout?

01:05:17 ◼   ► This is a very interesting question.

01:05:19 ◼   ► It took me a minute to visualize what Alan was asking,

01:05:22 ◼   ► but it's like if you imagine the current design,

01:05:24 ◼   ► do they make the notch the same size proportionally

01:05:28 ◼   ► so that apps can be scaled up properly?

01:05:30 ◼   ► or do they make it the same size physically,

01:05:33 ◼   ► 'cause that's all you need,

01:05:34 ◼   ► and then ask developers to rethink designs a little bit

01:05:37 ◼   ► again because they don't need to take up as much space?

01:05:41 ◼   ► - I think this is a fantastic question.

01:05:45 ◼   ► My gut feeling, since there actually is stuff happening

01:05:48 ◼   ► underneath the notch, like apps can draw things there,

01:05:51 ◼   ► you just never see them except when you're flipping

01:05:54 ◼   ► and it's getting shrunk down.

01:05:58 ◼   ► So my gut feeling is that they will keep the notch

01:06:01 ◼   ► the same size, not scale it.

01:06:04 ◼   ► - Same physical size, right?

01:06:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, same physical size.

01:06:07 ◼   ► And they will tell app developers

01:06:10 ◼   ► that they should still honor the safe space up there.

01:06:15 ◼   ► And some of the under notch safe space

01:06:19 ◼   ► will show on the larger phone.

01:06:21 ◼   ► But that's fine, just don't worry about it, is my guess.

01:06:25 ◼   ► - I think you're probably right.

01:06:27 ◼   ► I mean, it seems like the logical way to do it.

01:06:30 ◼   ► - And if somebody did wanna do a custom layout

01:06:32 ◼   ► that took advantage of that slightly additional space

01:06:36 ◼   ► on those specific phone models,

01:06:39 ◼   ► then I'm sure they can do that.

01:06:40 ◼   ► But I think Apple's probably basic advice is gonna be,

01:06:43 ◼   ► you know, that's the unsafe area

01:06:46 ◼   ► that could be covered by hardware,

01:06:48 ◼   ► so don't draw anything important in there.

01:06:50 ◼   ► And, you know, just have the background color

01:06:52 ◼   ► match the background around it,

01:06:53 ◼   ► so that if you're on a phone with a smaller notch

01:06:56 ◼   ► a bigger notch, relatively speaking, then you just don't have to worry about it, is

01:07:01 ◼   ► probably my guess.

01:07:04 ◼   ► Todd is back with another difficult question for you, Jason.

01:07:07 ◼   ► Oh no.

01:07:08 ◼   ► There's too much good TV to watch, how can I watch it all?

01:07:11 ◼   ► Well Todd, I hate to say it, but you're going to have to quit your job and just watch TV.

01:07:16 ◼   ► That's how you can watch it all.

01:07:17 ◼   ► Because there's literally too much, we live in the platinum era of television, there's

01:07:23 ◼   ► literally too much good TV to watch.

01:07:26 ◼   ► Like I remember when we were kids, Todd, there were the shows that were good and you watched

01:07:33 ◼   ► them and then you found shows that were not so good and watched them too because you still

01:07:39 ◼   ► had time to watch TV and there were no longer any good shows left to watch.

01:07:44 ◼   ► This is no longer the case.

01:07:45 ◼   ► Now I don't think any person with a job and a life, even if they make time to binge

01:07:52 ◼   ► shows on the weekends and whatever, I'm not sure anybody could get through all the good

01:07:59 ◼   ► TV. I think not. I think it would be very hard to do. So, you can't give up. Just find

01:08:07 ◼   ► stuff you like and watch that instead.

01:08:09 ◼   ► - Jason, can you give me some recommendations for good TV right now? What is Jason Snow

01:08:14 ◼   ► enjoying on the television?

01:08:17 ◼   ► just finished Patriot on Amazon which is a spy show we call it sad spies in our

01:08:28 ◼   ► house about a depressed spy who plays a guitar and sings made-up songs about his

01:08:38 ◼   ► spy missions that he really shouldn't do it's not for everybody but I really like

01:08:43 ◼   ► it's kind of kind of slow paced but every at every turn it does something I

01:08:48 ◼   ► don't expect so I I would recommend that we just started watching Counterpart

01:08:57 ◼   ► which is on stars in the US I don't know if it's going to be elsewhere in the

01:09:01 ◼   ► world it just premiered on stars this weekend that stars JK Simmons and is a

01:09:11 ◼   ► a kind of John Lockeray spy story mixed in with a sort of a science fiction twist that

01:09:23 ◼   ► I've only seen the pilot but I really liked it. I'm trying to think what else we're watching.

01:09:29 ◼   ► We're watching Star Trek Discovery right now which is on Netflix everywhere but the US

01:09:32 ◼   ► and Canada. I've watched a couple of the new Black Mirror episodes but haven't gone further

01:09:40 ◼   ► that with those. What else? I don't know. Um, that's that I mean that's there's

01:09:48 ◼   ► there's some right there I mean oh Travelers we just this weekend's episode

01:09:52 ◼   ► of The Incomparable is about the Canadian science fiction series Travelers

01:09:55 ◼   ► which is available in most of the world on Netflix and is excellent and surprise

01:10:02 ◼   ► has surprising amounts of complexity and it also a lot of fun but like its

01:10:08 ◼   ► premise it truly commits to its premise its time travel premise and is worth is

01:10:13 ◼   ► really worth watching okay that's a lot I mean one of them that you mentioned

01:10:19 ◼   ► Black Mirror I could never watch that show I don't think I just I can't I

01:10:25 ◼   ► would I don't even go near it it's yeah no for somebody who says that I would

01:10:30 ◼   ► say exactly what John Syracuse has said several times which is you should watch

01:10:34 ◼   ► the episode in the third season San Junipero yeah I've heard it's a good

01:10:37 ◼   ► story. It's an anthology show so you can literally just pick and choose and that

01:10:41 ◼   ► one is the that one is the best one so watch it sometime it's like a little

01:10:46 ◼   ► movie and there are a few others that I like I don't like I there are a lot of

01:10:50 ◼   ► Black Mirror episodes I really dislike but there are some that I really like so

01:10:53 ◼   ► it's it's uh you know I watch them but I watch them with a sort of skeptical eye

01:10:57 ◼   ► like and I don't subject my family to them I will occasionally rewatch an

01:11:03 ◼   ► episode with Lauren because I'll say oh you would like this one but most of them

01:11:06 ◼   ► I don't do that. - This is existentially depressing.

01:11:09 ◼   ► - Often it is, often it is. San Junipero is, I would say, uplifting. And you could argue that

01:11:15 ◼   ► USS Callister, the first episode of this new season, is also uplifting. And it's kind of a

01:11:20 ◼   ► mini-movie and a Star Trek homage. And although it's got some dark, dark stuff in it, it ends

01:11:25 ◼   ► ultimately up, I would say, ultimately it is a fun uplifting kind of story, as uplifting as

01:11:33 ◼   ► as Black Mirror can ever be.

01:11:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I like some of Charlie Brooker's stuff,

01:11:37 ◼   ► but I just have like a fundamental,

01:11:39 ◼   ► disbelief in his ultimate idea of like design,

01:11:44 ◼   ► like these devices are destroying us,

01:11:47 ◼   ► whilst he's also making money from, anyway.

01:11:50 ◼   ► But next question comes from Wokro.

01:11:53 ◼   ► What is stopping Amazon from creating a YouTube competitor?

01:11:57 ◼   ► So we've spoken a bunch about Amazon

01:11:59 ◼   ► and YouTube's struggles.

01:12:01 ◼   ► So I did a little bit of thinking on this,

01:12:02 ◼   ► did some digging. So you need two things. You need content creators and audiences and

01:12:08 ◼   ► really they have to come at the exact same time because if you have one but not the other

01:12:15 ◼   ► you kind of screwed and it's incredibly difficult to do that. But Amazon owned Twitch.

01:12:21 ◼   ► Yeah, this is the answer is Amazon is already has a YouTube competitor.

01:12:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean so the thing is when Amazon bought Twitch it wasn't a YouTube competitor because

01:12:32 ◼   ► at that point Twitch is just live streaming. YouTube tried to become a Twitch competitor

01:12:38 ◼   ► but their live streaming stuff is nowhere near as much as Twitch's.

01:12:41 ◼   ► So Twitch is now coming from the other end and you can do pre-recorded videos and put them on Twitch.

01:12:47 ◼   ► So two things recently. Twitch just did a deal with Disney. Disney owned Maker Studios.

01:12:54 ◼   ► Maker Studios is a YouTube network that houses a lot of the biggest, especially in gaming,

01:13:00 ◼   ► YouTubers. PewDiePie was in this before all of his stuff happened. He had a deal with

01:13:08 ◼   ► Maker Studios for his own little mini network. But Maker Studios is one of the biggest and

01:13:13 ◼   ► they have done a deal with Twitch and Maker Studios and a deal to create exclusive content

01:13:19 ◼   ► that is only available on Twitch. That's coming at some point in the future. They have also

01:13:24 ◼   ► created a new set of tools to help people promote content and schedule reruns of streams.

01:13:30 ◼   ► Which is interesting because in a re-run the way they are doing it, the stream can keep

01:13:34 ◼   ► going and people can chat as if it's live.

01:13:37 ◼   ► Very interesting.

01:13:38 ◼   ► So what Amazon is doing is making Twitch better and better and better over time.

01:13:43 ◼   ► And they are trying to chip off some of YouTube.

01:13:46 ◼   ► And it has been interesting because this is happening at the exact same time that a lot

01:13:49 ◼   ► of content creators are really upset at YouTube.

01:13:52 ◼   ► Because YouTube is doing a bunch of stuff which is really annoying people and I'm starting

01:13:56 ◼   ► to see more and more people get more and more involved in Twitch. So it's interesting to

01:14:02 ◼   ► see these moves happening because YouTube is a behemoth in video and the idea that something

01:14:11 ◼   ► will ever come along and take it down is like my similar thoughts to Facebook which is that

01:14:17 ◼   ► Facebook is so big I don't know how anything can knock it off like it's big to the point

01:14:22 ◼   ► when nothing's been big before and I feel like YouTube is similar. So I'm keen to see

01:14:29 ◼   ► what happens here. Like how much of a dent can Twitch really make? Honestly, I don't

01:14:34 ◼   ► think it will be that big, but I'm keen to see them try.

01:14:41 ◼   ► And James asks, "Jason, do you think we're ever going to see the promised messages in

01:14:46 ◼   ► cloud feature in an iOS 11 release or do you think it will be iOS 12 if ever?

01:14:53 ◼   ► I would like to believe that Apple is still trying to make an effort to get it in iOS

01:14:58 ◼   ► 11 but at some point here you know that they are going to just say well look we're going

01:15:04 ◼   ► to be working on our developer release of iOS 12 for June so we're out of here.

01:15:11 ◼   ► Yeah it's like there has to be a cut off where the feature just moves into the next big release

01:15:15 ◼   ► - Right, we don't know when that is,

01:15:17 ◼   ► but there has to be one.

01:15:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:15:20 ◼   ► So, although I don't know,

01:15:22 ◼   ► my gut feeling is that this is all server-based stuff,

01:15:26 ◼   ► that the real issue here is how you get this to all,

01:15:28 ◼   ► well, it's not all server-based,

01:15:30 ◼   ► but like the server is a huge part of it too.

01:15:32 ◼   ► You got the clients,

01:15:33 ◼   ► the clients need to send and receive and sync up.

01:15:37 ◼   ► I don't know where the problem is.

01:15:38 ◼   ► And I've seen lots of speculation

01:15:40 ◼   ► about what some of the issues might be.

01:15:42 ◼   ► I really hope that it will be part of this cycle

01:15:46 ◼   ► and not fall, but it's getting there.

01:15:49 ◼   ► So I don't know, that would be a black eye.

01:15:51 ◼   ► I feel like Apple would really rather roll it out

01:15:53 ◼   ► at some point in a dot release,

01:15:57 ◼   ► rather than having to kind of take their lumps and say,

01:16:00 ◼   ► "Hey, remember that feature?"

01:16:02 ◼   ► This time for sure, which they might do,

01:16:05 ◼   ► but I think they would rather not.

01:16:07 ◼   ► - All right, if you would like to send in a question

01:16:11 ◼   ► for a later episode to have us answer during the show.

01:16:14 ◼   ► Just send a tweet with the hashtag #AskUpgrade

01:16:16 ◼   ► and they collect up into a sheet for me to delve through

01:16:19 ◼   ► and pick out some for us to answer.

01:16:21 ◼   ► Thank you to everybody who sent questions in this week.

01:16:24 ◼   ► So we're gonna take a final break for the show.

01:16:25 ◼   ► When we come back, we're gonna talk about

01:16:27 ◼   ► the musical "Hamilton,"

01:16:28 ◼   ► which I'm very excited to discuss with Jason.

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01:17:57 ◼   ► So Hamilton. Now obviously I've been aware of Hamilton for probably like coming up on

01:18:04 ◼   ► two years, right? I think that's the point where basically everybody knew about it, right?

01:18:10 ◼   ► About like 18 months, two years ago. And I was aware of it. I knew that people enjoyed

01:18:16 ◼   ► it. And then I was like, maybe I should check this out. So I downloaded the soundtrack and

01:18:21 ◼   ► I didn't listen to it for whatever reason.

01:18:24 ◼   ► Then I heard it was coming to London,

01:18:28 ◼   ► like probably 18 months ago, maybe longer,

01:18:31 ◼   ► probably a bit longer than that,

01:18:32 ◼   ► because the news day was gonna come to London.

01:18:35 ◼   ► So I figured, well, I know how big a thing this is,

01:18:37 ◼   ► I guess I will keep an eye out for tickets,

01:18:40 ◼   ► and I signed up for the mailing list.

01:18:42 ◼   ► And then about 18 months ago,

01:18:44 ◼   ► I listened to some of the music,

01:18:45 ◼   ► and I listened to a handful of songs twice,

01:18:49 ◼   ► just like the first five or six songs.

01:18:51 ◼   ► Then I decided that I would never listen to another second

01:18:55 ◼   ► of the Hamilton soundtrack until I could see it.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Because I knew it was good, right? I was listening to it and I was like,

01:19:00 ◼   ► "Oh, this sounds really good, but I don't know the story.

01:19:03 ◼   ► I don't know the context.

01:19:05 ◼   ► I can't see anything.

01:19:06 ◼   ► I want to wait."

01:19:07 ◼   ► And then one year and two weeks ago, the tickets went on sale

01:19:11 ◼   ► for the London showing of Hamilton and I bought my ticket

01:19:15 ◼   ► and last Wednesday, we went to see it.

01:19:18 ◼   ► and I have thought about nothing else since, I think.

01:19:23 ◼   ► There are very few things that you will experience in your life that are hyped beyond belief that can

01:19:33 ◼   ► actually live up to it. Hamilton exceeds that for me. I pretty much immediately knew I was

01:19:42 ◼   ► was going to love it. It started and it just felt good. And I was like, this is going to

01:19:48 ◼   ► be fun. But I didn't know by the end just how much I was going to love it.

01:19:53 ◼   ► One of the interesting things is I don't know a lot of this history. I especially know nothing

01:19:59 ◼   ► about Hamilton. I just don't know a ton about the American Revolution in general. And I

01:20:05 ◼   ► didn't know anything about Hamilton. Basically nobody did. And that's one of the fun things

01:20:09 ◼   ► about this is no one really knew his story even though he was on the $10 bill. And that's

01:20:16 ◼   ► one of the things that's made the show so fun is that people got to learn some history.

01:20:23 ◼   ► I want to talk about King George real quick because this is an interesting thing, right?

01:20:28 ◼   ► So this whole show is focused around the revolution, right? America breaking away from the rule

01:20:36 ◼   ► of like it's no longer a colony right breaking out of the British Empire right

01:20:40 ◼   ► so one of the the big characters who has a bunch of just solo songs like anyway

01:20:50 ◼   ► is King George and the moment King George stepped onto the stage everyone

01:20:58 ◼   ► in the theater just lost it. It was hilarious. The guy playing him was

01:21:06 ◼   ► fantastic, the costume is wonderful and it highlighted to me a funny thing about

01:21:12 ◼   ► the I think maybe part maybe the difference between Americans and British

01:21:18 ◼   ► people because like I saw a clip of Lin-Manuel Miranda the creator the the

01:21:23 ◼   ► the wonderful creator and writer and composer of Hamilton about the opening night of the London

01:21:29 ◼   ► show and he was nervous about how British people would react to King George and also in the same

01:21:36 ◼   ► vein I've had a bunch of American friends ask me about like oh like how are British people going

01:21:42 ◼   ► to react to Hamilton like it's all about the American Revolution like but there are two things

01:21:49 ◼   ► here. One, British people love self-deprecating humour, like that is our thing. We take great

01:21:56 ◼   ► joy in making fun of ourselves. So King George being portrayed the way he is is just wonderful,

01:22:02 ◼   ► like full of regret and hate and he's so upset that anyone would think to leave him and he's

01:22:09 ◼   ► in this wonderful gown and crown and all that kind of stuff. It's just hilarious to us because

01:22:14 ◼   ► it's making fun of us, right? But we kind of go along with that. And the other thing

01:22:19 ◼   ► is, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, but British people do not care about the American

01:22:25 ◼   ► Revolution today. No one thinks about it. We don't. British people don't feel like we

01:22:33 ◼   ► lost America, right? Like this isn't a thing. We don't think about it. It's so far in our

01:22:39 ◼   ► history, and there was an entire empire that we lost. It wasn't just America. It was like

01:22:44 ◼   ► most of the world. And I think that it is more prevalent in American history because

01:22:49 ◼   ► you have Independence Day. And at some point, you have to learn about why you celebrate

01:22:56 ◼   ► Independence Day. We don't have "Goodbye America Day." I never learned.

01:23:01 ◼   ► Maybe you should. You could do fireworks and everything.

01:23:05 ◼   ► The American Revolution, probably for reasons, is not taught in school.

01:23:10 ◼   ► I don't ever think about it. I am not bitter and upset and mad about the fact that America

01:23:18 ◼   ► is no longer a part of our empire. So it's just funny to me, it was just funny to me

01:23:24 ◼   ► for people to give those reactions of like, "Oh, how is it going to be reacted? How are

01:23:28 ◼   ► people going to..." We love it. And also, we love America, right? Britain has a love

01:23:34 ◼   ► affair with America, and this is just more America for us. But it's just funny, watching

01:23:39 ◼   ► it. Even when I'm watching this unfold, I'm not even thinking about Britain. Because

01:23:46 ◼   ► it's like a different age for us. It's a different thing. That Britain is not this

01:23:50 ◼   ► Britain.

01:23:51 ◼   ► CURTIS McKEAN That America is not this America either.

01:23:54 ◼   ► MATT BRITTIN There is a celebration in America for it,

01:24:01 ◼   ► which we obviously don't have.

01:24:02 ◼   ► And we understand the mythology, like American school children are given, you know, this,

01:24:09 ◼   ► the mythology of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, right?

01:24:14 ◼   ► So we have these figures, these famed figures, of which Alexander Hamilton has generally

01:24:20 ◼   ► been considered a minor player, but yes, you're George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin

01:24:25 ◼   ► Franklin, like there are the big names. And as an American growing up, you know all of

01:24:32 ◼   ► So then you see this and there's that additional resonance of like knowing the the legend of George

01:24:40 ◼   ► Washington and Thomas Jefferson. So that's really interesting. The introductions of Jefferson and

01:24:47 ◼   ► Washington in the musical are these huge moments, right? Like the way they introduce Washington is

01:24:53 ◼   ► like, "You've been waiting for him. Here he is, but like that doesn't hit with us." Yeah. Like,

01:24:58 ◼   ► I wasn't waiting for him. It kills me. I love it.

01:25:01 ◼   ► I didn't even think about him, right? Like, I don't really know a lot of the history.

01:25:05 ◼   ► So like, I think for our audience, King George coming out onto the stage is way more of a

01:25:10 ◼   ► fun moment, because it's like this weird mirror being turned on us, because we are

01:25:15 ◼   ► in the Victoria Palace Theatre watching this. Yes.

01:25:19 ◼   ► Right? And, well, and he's singing it in a very

01:25:22 ◼   ► kind of Brit-poppy style, right? It's so wonderful.

01:25:24 ◼   ► That's the choice that Winwin and Ro Miranda made for those songs, yeah.

01:25:28 ◼   ► When I hear his songs, I think of Elton John.

01:25:31 ◼   ► Yes, I agree.

01:25:32 ◼   ► I hear a lot of people who say that it's sort of like Beatles-esque and I'm like,

01:25:35 ◼   ► "Mmm, no, Elton John."

01:25:37 ◼   ► It's Elton John completely.

01:25:38 ◼   ► Because it's all piano as well.

01:25:41 ◼   ► And also, by the way, currently, what is the name of his first song?

01:25:47 ◼   ► You'll Be Back.

01:25:48 ◼   ► That is currently my favorite song.

01:25:49 ◼   ► I love it so much because it fills me with so much joy.

01:25:55 ◼   ► And I will say I prefer the way that the British actor sings it because I can hear the American

01:26:05 ◼   ► in the Broadway recording.

01:26:07 ◼   ► Ah.

01:26:08 ◼   ► Right?

01:26:09 ◼   ► I can hear it.

01:26:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:11 ◼   ► It's very good.

01:26:12 ◼   ► His accent is very good.

01:26:13 ◼   ► Like some of the way that he pronounces the words, but just like the hearing it sung,

01:26:18 ◼   ► hearing a British person put on a fake British accent just is more fun for me.

01:26:25 ◼   ► So like, but it, that this, so by like, you know, all of the introductions of the big

01:26:31 ◼   ► people in the play, they don't really hit in the same way. It's very interesting. I

01:26:36 ◼   ► think it's, it's, it, there is this weird mix, I expect, of how it's represented, like

01:26:41 ◼   ► how it's accepted in the different audiences. And like, the funny thing for me is I didn't

01:26:46 ◼   ► know what the end was. Like, I know he says, I know like Burr at the beginning says that,

01:26:51 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm the fool who shot him." But I don't know if that means he dies or not. Like, I didn't know until the end.

01:26:58 ◼   ► Yeah, it's, uh, I was gonna say the only two things that Americans knew about Alexander Hamilton mostly were that he was on the $10 bill.

01:27:06 ◼   ► Maybe. They knew that. Maybe.

01:27:08 ◼   ► And there was an ad

01:27:11 ◼   ► for the milk producers, part of their award-winning Got Milk campaign.

01:27:17 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:27:17 ◼   ► And that ad was a guy sitting in a room full of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and dual memorabilia, including like the pistol.

01:27:31 ◼   ► And he's listening to the radio while eating like a peanut butter sandwich.

01:27:36 ◼   ► And the radio says, "We're going to give a big prize to the first caller who can tell us who shot Alexander Hamilton in that famous duel."

01:27:45 ◼   ► And he calls in and they say, "What's your answer?"

01:27:48 ◼   ► And he goes, "It's my bird!"

01:27:50 ◼   ► Because his mouth is full of peanut butter

01:27:52 ◼   ► and then you cut to, "Got milk?"

01:27:54 ◼   ► Right. - Wow, that's so weird.

01:27:55 ◼   ► - Very funny ad, famous ad, well-known,

01:27:58 ◼   ► and honestly, kind of like that's how people knew

01:28:01 ◼   ► who Alexander Hamilton was for a very long time,

01:28:04 ◼   ► but not anymore, not anymore.

01:28:06 ◼   ► So yes, so a lot of American audiences go in there

01:28:09 ◼   ► knowing that this is the most famous thing

01:28:11 ◼   ► about Alexander Hamilton, which is really unfair

01:28:14 ◼   ► when you get to dig into what exactly,

01:28:16 ◼   ► I mean, he kind of shaped how American government

01:28:19 ◼   ► ended up working out.

01:28:21 ◼   ► - Shaped the world, right.

01:28:22 ◼   ► 'Cause the things that he did, other countries adopted.

01:28:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh yeah, no, it's true,

01:28:28 ◼   ► but he was so disliked by so many of the people

01:28:31 ◼   ► who were his contemporaries who did end up in power

01:28:34 ◼   ► that he did not get the credit that he probably deserved.

01:28:38 ◼   ► That is not to say that he is, oh,

01:28:40 ◼   ► actually the towering figure behind the American Revolution,

01:28:42 ◼   ► but a hugely influential person

01:28:44 ◼   ► who ended up not being very well known

01:28:45 ◼   ► other than this real odd thing

01:28:47 ◼   ► about how he was a founding father

01:28:49 ◼   ► who didn't kind of go on like so many of the rest

01:28:53 ◼   ► to be president or to be prominent in politics

01:28:56 ◼   ► 'cause he died young-ish

01:28:58 ◼   ► and also just the novelty of the fact

01:29:01 ◼   ► that the sitting vice president of the United States

01:29:03 ◼   ► shot him in a duel.

01:29:04 ◼   ► That's crazy.

01:29:07 ◼   ► But anyway, so yeah, it's cool to think that you were like,

01:29:11 ◼   ► "Is he gonna die here?"

01:29:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had no idea, I had no idea.

01:29:14 ◼   ► - Yes, he is gonna die here.

01:29:16 ◼   ► - But let me say, right. - Time stops,

01:29:17 ◼   ► the bullet is hanging and hanging in that moment.

01:29:20 ◼   ► - Oh, such a loss. - And he considers his life.

01:29:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:29:23 ◼   ► - Again, so it's like, I'm so happy

01:29:25 ◼   ► I didn't listen to the music,

01:29:26 ◼   ► because I wouldn't have understood the gravity

01:29:28 ◼   ► of some of these situations, right?

01:29:29 ◼   ► Like, I would have learned the songs

01:29:32 ◼   ► without seeing the context,

01:29:33 ◼   ► and I'm so pleased that I got it with the context,

01:29:36 ◼   ► because the final two songs, like, I am in tears.

01:29:41 ◼   ► years, right? In the theater. And I would not have got that, I don't think, if I would

01:29:47 ◼   ► have known the music because I wouldn't have experienced it. In my opinion, like for me,

01:29:52 ◼   ► I wouldn't have experienced it in the same way. Like, this was when I was learning about

01:29:57 ◼   ► this. Like, I didn't know this was going to happen. And, like, the final song, where Eliza

01:30:05 ◼   ► – oh my god. So, we have listened –

01:30:08 ◼   ► Even if you harden your heart and you can get through the rest of it, the moment that they talk about the orphanage, you're gone.

01:30:13 ◼   ► Yeah, that was it. The orphanage was when I turned the point from tears in eyes to tears rolling down face. It was the orphanage.

01:30:20 ◼   ► So we have been listening to this soundtrack constantly for the last five days.

01:30:26 ◼   ► I have not and cannot listen to "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story." I can't do it.

01:30:32 ◼   ► I need to. It needs more time.

01:30:34 ◼   ► I've listened to act one an awful lot. I've listened to act two a

01:30:39 ◼   ► Much smaller number of times because it is quite a ride and all it's very good. It's also very painful

01:30:45 ◼   ► I once I was driving to the airport to pick up my mom and

01:30:49 ◼   ► Made the mistake of playing Hamilton and I was sitting on the 880 freeway in Oakland like 20 minutes

01:30:56 ◼   ► Yeah, 10 minutes from the airport and we got to the end of act two and I was like God

01:31:02 ◼   ► And I was just like tears streaming down.

01:31:04 ◼   ► I'm like, what am I doing?

01:31:06 ◼   ► - 'Cause you've seen it,

01:31:06 ◼   ► you've seen the traveling production, right?

01:31:08 ◼   ► - So my method here was that I listened to it an awful lot.

01:31:12 ◼   ► And then after whatever a year or so of listening to it,

01:31:17 ◼   ► knowing that we were going to see it in 2017,

01:31:22 ◼   ► I kinda stopped listening to it.

01:31:24 ◼   ► So by the time we went and saw it in April or something,

01:31:29 ◼   ► I hadn't really listened to it in three or four months.

01:31:33 ◼   ► 'Cause I wanted to create a little bit of a gap

01:31:36 ◼   ► so that I could come in and have it be,

01:31:39 ◼   ► not that I wouldn't know the songs by heart,

01:31:41 ◼   ► but that I wouldn't have heard them for a while

01:31:42 ◼   ► and it would be kind of like,

01:31:44 ◼   ► I'd be getting that experience of like,

01:31:46 ◼   ► now here it is, I'm getting to see it instead of,

01:31:48 ◼   ► if that makes any sense,

01:31:49 ◼   ► instead of like literally listening to it on the way in

01:31:51 ◼   ► before the show.

01:31:52 ◼   ► Like I wanted to create a sort of special space there.

01:31:55 ◼   ► And so, yeah, and then we saw it.

01:31:56 ◼   ► And the same thing.

01:31:58 ◼   ► was the it was an incredibly we brought our kids it was an incredibly emotional experience

01:32:04 ◼   ► it was amazing it was the best theater experience I've ever had and I've been to theater I'm

01:32:11 ◼   ► not you know I'm not a diehard theater goer but I've seen a lot of I've seen a lot of

01:32:16 ◼   ► theater over the years and this beat out like my favorite previously was something I'd seen

01:32:21 ◼   ► in Ashland Oregon like 30 years before so it beat that out and then we we managed Lauren

01:32:28 ◼   ► and I managed to go a second time right before it left town and that was great and it was

01:32:31 ◼   ► really different because I was able to survey it a little less emotionally than the first

01:32:37 ◼   ► time because it was no longer just about the story and about finally the end of this journey

01:32:40 ◼   ► of now I get to see this thing and it was and I had seen it once before so I was able

01:32:45 ◼   ► to pay attention to kind of some of the stuff that maybe I missed in the moment and that

01:32:48 ◼   ► was pretty great too. I don't bring that up a lot because there's nothing worse than being

01:32:51 ◼   ► the person who says you know the second time you see Hamilton is different because people

01:32:56 ◼   ► like shut up like I don't want to hear about the second time you see Hamilton

01:33:00 ◼   ► but we did sneak it in there we were lucky to do that so and we'll when it

01:33:04 ◼   ► comes back here I will try to go see it again because it was great one of the

01:33:08 ◼   ► reasons that I was in tears was because I was dumbfounded that one person could

01:33:16 ◼   ► do this. Like, I cannot fathom how one person could create and write all of this wonderful

01:33:28 ◼   ► music and tell this story completely through song. It's like a masterpiece and I cannot

01:33:34 ◼   ► fathom how one man did it. I just can't.

01:33:39 ◼   ► It is, you know, as a creative thing. It is amazing. I mean, he obviously has a great

01:33:43 ◼   ► support system and he's got his arranger Alex Lacamoire and then but and the whoever did

01:33:49 ◼   ► the choreography the choreography is amazing too. My wife and daughter who are dancers

01:33:56 ◼   ► at least you know they like to they take dance classes and stuff like that we're especially

01:34:00 ◼   ► amazed by the the choreography in the show but yeah in the end Lin-Manuel Miranda boy

01:34:05 ◼   ► that's a really talented guy I love that I love seeing somebody so amazingly talented

01:34:11 ◼   ► being able to kind of will something like this into existence because it's

01:34:14 ◼   ► such a huge project and he and it's and it's something that took him you know

01:34:18 ◼   ► years to put together and it and and the thing that amazes me is if you just

01:34:22 ◼   ► listen to the to the cast recording there are so many good songs in this

01:34:29 ◼   ► show it's kind of mind-blowing like you mentioned how you'll be back is your

01:34:36 ◼   ► your favorite. I have had like 10 different favorite songs. Yeah yeah yeah.

01:34:42 ◼   ► Also the room when I finished the show The Room Where It Happens was my

01:34:46 ◼   ► favorite because I loved that one so much because also the thought of that song

01:34:51 ◼   ► like what is going into that song is so tantalizingly interesting. And so many

01:34:56 ◼   ► different styles too right? Like he's telling a story, he's bringing in history

01:35:01 ◼   ► and the songs are in different styles whether it's Elton John or a room where

01:35:07 ◼   ► it happens is you know a very different thing stylistically than something like

01:35:11 ◼   ► helpless or satisfied like it's all over the place. We found a documentary

01:35:18 ◼   ► which was on PBS on YouTube. Oh yeah sure. Which it's difficult to find it's called

01:35:25 ◼   ► Hamilton's America like it keeps getting taken down and we watched a low quality

01:35:29 ◼   ► version of it. But there was a guy who was talking on it. I mean, one person compared

01:35:34 ◼   ► him to Shakespeare, Lin-Manuel, which is like, I can totally understand that. And another

01:35:38 ◼   ► person was saying that, like, I think this was the guy who wrote the book that Lin-Manuel

01:35:43 ◼   ► Miranda based a lot of the...

01:35:46 ◼   ► The Rontrenot.

01:35:47 ◼   ► That's it. And he said, like, people are paying attention to this because the rap and hip

01:35:55 ◼   ► is novelty on the stage on the Broadway stage and now the West End stage but

01:36:01 ◼   ► there are all styles of music represented here including just

01:36:06 ◼   ► traditional show tunes but like people are saying oh it's the hip-hop musical

01:36:12 ◼   ► because typically that it's not featured in huge musicals so and it's got it's

01:36:18 ◼   ► got it's making some very specific hip-hop references at various points that

01:36:22 ◼   ► would only be appreciated by people who are deep into hip-hop and the history of rap and

01:36:29 ◼   ► things like that that I've read about now. I'm like, "Wow, I had no idea that's fantastic!"

01:36:34 ◼   ► Right? There's amazing stuff in there. I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention one

01:36:37 ◼   ► of the things that's happening here too is that beyond the music, beyond the text, beyond

01:36:41 ◼   ► the choreography, the casting is intentionally part of the story of this. That the story

01:36:46 ◼   ► of America and so much history is about white men and so Hamilton is cast with people of

01:36:58 ◼   ► color in all the major parts except for the king.

01:37:01 ◼   ► It's the same in London too by the way. Yeah and that is part of the story of Hamilton

01:37:08 ◼   ► is it's talking about immigrants in the early days of the United States everybody was an

01:37:12 ◼   ► Alexander Hamilton, like Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose father immigrated from Puerto Rico,

01:37:18 ◼   ► or parents immigrated from Puerto Rico. I don't know if they both came together. Anyway,

01:37:22 ◼   ► Alexander Hamilton was from a poor Caribbean island, and although he was Scottish in his

01:37:28 ◼   ► background, he was poor and his mother died and all those things that happened in the beginning,

01:37:32 ◼   ► and he ends up sort of getting sent to America because he's so brilliant that they take up a

01:37:36 ◼   ► collection to send him to America because he deserves a decent education. And it is an

01:37:41 ◼   ► immigrant story and so Miranda is taking that and saying you know in this era

01:37:46 ◼   ► where immigration is this argued about thing American it's worth remembering

01:37:53 ◼   ► that America is a nation of immigrants founded by immigrants and here's a poor

01:37:57 ◼   ► immigrant from the Caribbean who has looked down on and insulted for where he

01:38:03 ◼   ► came from by a lot of well-known people and the impact he made and one of the

01:38:08 ◼   ► ways that the show does that is by having it not just be a parade of white

01:38:15 ◼   ► guys playing those parts and in fact saying no we're gonna have it all be

01:38:19 ◼   ► people of color instead and that's part of the politics of Hamilton and it's not

01:38:24 ◼   ► in the script and other than you know I mean there are parts where like

01:38:29 ◼   ► immigrants we get the job done so that is an applause line in the United States

01:38:33 ◼   ► they stop because it's your the cheer is too long and they have to

01:38:38 ◼   ► they have to stop at that point with the cheers.

01:38:41 ◼   ► In San Francisco, let me tell you,

01:38:42 ◼   ► that was a big applause line.

01:38:44 ◼   ► Anyway, it's great.

01:38:46 ◼   ► It's great.

01:38:47 ◼   ► I mean, that's the other thing that came out of it

01:38:47 ◼   ► when I saw it.

01:38:48 ◼   ► I was flashing back to that when you were posting

01:38:51 ◼   ► that you had just gotten out of it is,

01:38:54 ◼   ► that was the thing that I told people afterwards,

01:38:55 ◼   ► like, "Hey, guess what?

01:38:57 ◼   ► Hamilton's really good."

01:38:58 ◼   ► Like, it's the stupidest thing to say,

01:39:01 ◼   ► but then you see it and you're like,

01:39:02 ◼   ► "Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah."

01:39:04 ◼   ► It's like, I need you to know that I know it's good.

01:39:06 ◼   ► That's why we're doing this right now

01:39:08 ◼   ► I need you all to know that this is amazing.

01:39:10 ◼   ► Our year-end Incomparable episode, that was one of the things I mentioned, is like,

01:39:13 ◼   ► we were talking about things we liked in 2017 and I said, you know, I have to say it,

01:39:17 ◼   ► I saw Hamilton a couple of times in 2017. Turns out, did you know, Hamilton's pretty good? Yeah,

01:39:22 ◼   ► it is. It is pretty good. It is so interesting to me that something could be made which is this

01:39:27 ◼   ► good, like, it's, it's weird, it's like the... We make things, right? Like, we try and be creative

01:39:34 ◼   ► ever make things and the thought that somebody could make something that everybody just loves

01:39:40 ◼   ► is like such an interesting thing. It's like how do you do that? Like how? It's why I'm

01:39:45 ◼   ► - one of the reasons that I am so wrapped up in this right now is just not just because

01:39:50 ◼   ► it's incredible, it is why is it incredible? Like that's what I'm like - I will never come

01:39:57 ◼   ► to an answer but like what makes it so good? We're just obsessed. We bought the vinyl.

01:40:03 ◼   ► I know that will drive you bonkers, but we bought the vinyl and so we now have the Ford

01:40:07 ◼   ► Disc vinyl set because I want a thing, right? Like we listen to it now for music, but I

01:40:12 ◼   ► want a thing. And we took the program that we bought and we put it inside the box, right?

01:40:16 ◼   ► Now we have that. And we're going to go again because this is going to be in London probably

01:40:21 ◼   ► for like 20 years now. I expect like it will be in the West End. Like, you know, the Book

01:40:26 ◼   ► of Mormon just celebrated its 10th year in the West End, right? Like this will be here

01:40:31 ◼   ► for

01:40:46 ◼   ► lottery system here too and whenever we have a free evening we'll enter the lottery for

01:40:50 ◼   ► that evening. I will see this show again and I'll probably see it again after that and

01:40:55 ◼   ► we'll just keep trying to see it because I need to keep consuming it because I love it

01:41:01 ◼   ► so much. So it's wonderful. Just wonderful. So that's Hamilton. If you have the opportunity

01:41:08 ◼   ► to see Hamilton, see it. And also if you've never listened to it, don't. If you're going

01:41:16 ◼   ► When you see it, don't. That is my advice. If you have the ability to get a ticket to

01:41:21 ◼   ► it and you get one and you haven't yet listened, I would say just don't. Just experience it

01:41:27 ◼   ► because the music will be there afterwards.

01:41:30 ◼   ► If you've waited this long and haven't listened to it, then just, yes, go see it.

01:41:35 ◼   ► Then don't spoil yourself. You've already given yourself two and a half years without

01:41:40 ◼   ► listening to it. Just give yourself another six months, right?

01:41:43 ◼   ► I know, you know, the hype can be like make people roll their eyes like, "Oh boy, I'm

01:41:46 ◼   ► tired of hearing about it."

01:41:47 ◼   ► It's really good.

01:41:48 ◼   ► That's, I mean, that's the bottom line is it's a really great show and you don't have

01:41:50 ◼   ► to, you don't have to join the fan club and you don't have to create fan art and you don't

01:41:53 ◼   ► have to watch all the videos on YouTube.

01:41:55 ◼   ► You could just go to the theater and see it.

01:41:56 ◼   ► It's an amazing theatrical experience that is, it's rich, the lyrics and music are fantastic,

01:42:04 ◼   ► the story is great, and you don't feel like you're getting a history lesson even though

01:42:10 ◼   ► there it is about things that really happened more or less. I wanted to plug

01:42:14 ◼   ► one thing if you do like Hamilton and you didn't know about it already people

01:42:18 ◼   ► should check out the podcast we did at The Uncomparable in 2016 we did a

01:42:21 ◼   ► podcast called Pod4Ham it's all there the whole thing is there you can

01:42:25 ◼   ► subscribe and listen to it at your leisure and it is an episode about every

01:42:29 ◼   ► single song. It is a completed project which is yes doesn't happen a lot. I'm

01:42:34 ◼   ► I'm done. That was my 2016. I produced a basically 50 episode podcast about Hamilton over on

01:42:43 ◼   ► weekly. I am not. I'm only on like five, but I edited all of them and I assigned all the

01:42:49 ◼   ► panels so it was a lot of work even though my voice is only, well my voice is on every

01:42:53 ◼   ► episode because I introduce it, but I'm only a participant in like five or six of them.

01:42:59 ◼   ► I wish it was still going. I could throw my opinion in, but I've got it here now. But

01:43:05 ◼   ► my gosh, what a show. I'm tearing up again thinking about it. It hit me, man. I couldn't

01:43:14 ◼   ► talk.

01:43:15 ◼   ► I'm glad you liked it.

01:43:16 ◼   ► I was speechless.

01:43:17 ◼   ► It's great.

01:43:18 ◼   ► Like, Adina was trying to talk to me about it, and I would start talking and I'd start

01:43:21 ◼   ► crying again. She's like, "Clearly, we can't talk about this right now." Yeah, wonderful.

01:43:24 ◼   ► All right. Thanks for listening to this week's episode. You can find our show notes at relay.fm/upbeat.

01:43:29 ◼   ► of

01:43:49 ◼   ► and I will include those.

01:43:51 ◼   ► Jason Snell can be found at the incomparable.com,

01:43:55 ◼   ► sixcolors.com, and on many shows at Relay FM.

01:43:58 ◼   ► If you only listen to this show,

01:43:59 ◼   ► pick another, relay.fm/shows.

01:44:02 ◼   ► There's a bunch of shows with me on,

01:44:02 ◼   ► a bunch of shows with Jason on.

01:44:04 ◼   ► They're all great, and we have many, many more

01:44:06 ◼   ► for you to choose from.

01:44:07 ◼   ► Jason is @jsnell on Twitter.

01:44:09 ◼   ► I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E, and we'll be back next time.

01:44:13 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.

01:44:15 ◼   ► - President John Adams, good luck.

01:44:18 ◼   ► Good luck!

01:44:19 ◼   ► I wondered what line you were going to pick.

01:44:24 ◼   ► I was trying hurriedly to come up with something and that's what I got for you.

01:44:28 ◼   ► Good luck!

01:44:28 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:44:32 ◼   ► [ Music ]