Upgrade

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00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 167. Today's show is brought to you by Text Expander

00:00:14 ◼   ► from Smile, Squarespace, and MacWaldon. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Mr. Jason

00:00:20 ◼   ► Snell. Hello, Jason Snell.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Hello Mr. Myke Hurley, how are you?

00:00:24 ◼   ► Jason, nobody cares about that. We're going straight into #SnellTalk this week.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Oh wow.

00:00:28 ◼   ► is November right now. November is known to some, including you, as NaNoWriMo. Mark has

00:00:36 ◼   ► a NaNoWriMo question for you, Jason. Mark wants to know, "Will any of the novels that

00:00:41 ◼   ► Jason has written for National Novel Writing Month ever see the light of day?"

00:00:46 ◼   ► Tim: This is a great question, and the answer is, when you write a draft of a novel, it's

00:00:52 ◼   ► not done. Writing a novel is a little bit like making, like doing any other kind of,

00:01:01 ◼   ► I don't know, like making furniture or, you know, woodworking or things like that where

00:01:07 ◼   ► it's a craft and you're not done when you do your first draft. You need to edit it and

00:01:13 ◼   ► you need to fix stuff that doesn't make sense or problems that you discover as you go through.

00:01:19 ◼   ► the novel you finish is not the same as the one you started?" And so the answer is I have

00:01:24 ◼   ► three novels basically in a drawer, in a folder, where I've written them through. None of them

00:01:31 ◼   ► I consider done. None of them are publishable, in my opinion. I have tried to rewrite one

00:01:39 ◼   ► of them, but going--one of the consequences of going out on my own is it's very hard to

00:01:46 ◼   ► clear time and say, "I'm going to use this to rewrite my novel when I have a whole bunch

00:01:52 ◼   ► of other things that I'm trying to do to pay the bills." It has definitely changed my mindset.

00:01:57 ◼   ► - Yes, oh yes. I have been feeling that recently with some projects. It was like, "I would

00:02:00 ◼   ► love to be able to put my time into this, but unfortunately I have a job to do." Right?

00:02:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I tried to block out time, but even then it's hard to get out of the space

00:02:10 ◼   ► of "I could use this time to do this other thing that is going to bring in money," and

00:02:16 ◼   ► it's unfortunate because I really should spend the time, do the rewrite, and get it out there,

00:02:22 ◼   ► whether it would be published by somebody or whether I would just self-publish it, which

00:02:25 ◼   ► would be fine, I don't really care. But to get to that point, they all need work, and

00:02:32 ◼   ► I haven't even gotten through working on the one, let alone the other two that are sitting

00:02:36 ◼   ► there. This is also the reason why I, when people ask me, "Are you doing NaNoWriMo this

00:02:40 ◼   ► year?" my answer is no, because I don't really want to put a fourth novel in the drawer that

00:02:46 ◼   ► I have to rewrite since I have proven to be unable to rewrite the ones that I've already

00:02:52 ◼   ► got in there. And if I'm going to spend energy on something like that, I would like to resolve

00:02:57 ◼   ► the existing things one way or another. So they sit for now, and hopefully I will, I

00:03:03 ◼   ► I have been gradually going through the one rewrite process

00:03:06 ◼   ► and I had hoped to get back to that this month,

00:03:09 ◼   ► inspired by NaNoWriMo.

00:03:11 ◼   ► And I feel like, I don't know if you feel like this Myke,

00:03:15 ◼   ► but I feel like since the Apple event in September,

00:03:19 ◼   ► I've just been going at full max capacity.

00:03:22 ◼   ► And then you throw in the travel,

00:03:24 ◼   ► 'cause I had a couple of trips

00:03:25 ◼   ► and you had the one trip to Chicago,

00:03:28 ◼   ► like you throw in the travel

00:03:29 ◼   ► and all the Apple announcements

00:03:31 ◼   ► and then all these Apple product releases,

00:03:32 ◼   ► which have been staggered out even over a longer time

00:03:35 ◼   ► because of the iPhone 10, that I have had no,

00:03:38 ◼   ► like the dog is angry with me

00:03:41 ◼   ► because I don't walk her as much as I should.

00:03:43 ◼   ► 'Cause I just, I have felt like I've been at max capacity

00:03:46 ◼   ► for basically every day since mid September.

00:03:51 ◼   ► So that's been, it's awfully hard to break away from that,

00:03:55 ◼   ► but I need to try.

00:03:55 ◼   ► This is like a mini episode of Free Agents.

00:03:57 ◼   ► People should listen to Free Agents if they wanna hear me

00:03:59 ◼   ► and David Sparks talk about grappling

00:04:02 ◼   ► with our time management and our perceptions of getting work done versus doing personal

00:04:09 ◼   ► things because it's definitely one of the issues if you're somebody who makes their

00:04:13 ◼   ► own schedule and is their own boss like we are.

00:04:16 ◼   ► If you would like to submit a question to start the show like Mark did, thank you Mark,

00:04:21 ◼   ► just send a tweet with the hashtag Snail Talk and yours may be chosen for a future episode.

00:04:27 ◼   ► So we have more Apple TV show news. Apple have signed another show. Jennifer Aniston

00:04:33 ◼   ► and Reese Witherspoon will star in a morning show drama based on a book called Top of the

00:04:39 ◼   ► Morning. When we spoke a few weeks ago about some Apple TV related stuff, there was the

00:04:46 ◼   ► rumoured apparently that Apple was bidding for this new Jennifer Aniston project. It

00:04:51 ◼   ► was really interesting to me to read the Hollywood Reporter article and realise that they threw

00:04:56 ◼   ► this out there and this is wild to me that this is this will be um aniston's return to

00:05:01 ◼   ► a tv series since friends this is she's not doing any tv shows since friends which is

00:05:07 ◼   ► yeah wild right she's been she's been doing movies right the movies is what she has done

00:05:11 ◼   ► um but it's it's yeah i was really really surprised about that because i think

00:05:15 ◼   ► basically every other war every other friends actor has right all of the actors and actresses

00:05:22 ◼   ► and friends have done other TV shows to my memory. Like I'm scanning it through like

00:05:27 ◼   ► of all the big like the main crew.

00:05:30 ◼   ► Has David Schwimmer done a TV show so far?

00:05:32 ◼   ► He did Band of Brothers.

00:05:33 ◼   ► Oh well I guess that's an HBO miniseries but sure.

00:05:36 ◼   ► That works as a TV show I'm sure. I think I can pass on that. But anyway, so this Apple

00:05:42 ◼   ► has won a multiple outlet bidding war with a straight to season two season order.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Which is a, you know, that's risky. Talking to Tim Goodman last week on the podcast I

00:05:54 ◼   ► do with him, he was like, "Yeah, that's risky, because it could be a bad show." They're stuck

00:05:59 ◼   ► with two years of it, or paying to buy out the second year, which sometimes happens.

00:06:04 ◼   ► This seems like a rare type of deal, like I imagine this isn't done very often.

00:06:11 ◼   ► The story, I mean, first off, these are streaming seasons, so they're probably, you know, they

00:06:16 ◼   ► they probably bought 25 episodes or 22 episodes, which used to be a season.

00:06:19 ◼   ► It's 20. It's 20.

00:06:20 ◼   ► It's 20, see? So it's 20 -- it's two 10-episode season. So it's not like they're buying 50

00:06:26 ◼   ► episodes. They're buying 20 episodes. And the other thing is this is happening right

00:06:31 ◼   ► now in the bidding wars, in this peak TV bidding war thing, because this show's been out there

00:06:36 ◼   ► for a while, and people have been talking about it, and Apple has been linked to it

00:06:39 ◼   ► before. But Apple was also linked to the Ryan Murphy show that Netflix signed him for.

00:06:46 ◼   ► And that was a case where there was a bidding war and Netflix ended up bidding for a two-season order and

00:06:53 ◼   ► raising the amount of money they were paying for

00:06:57 ◼   ► streaming rights to his other shows like American Horror Story, yeah, and

00:07:03 ◼   ► And so this seems to be par for the course

00:07:08 ◼   ► Now if you really want to book to get one of these

00:07:10 ◼   ► big-name shows that everybody's bidding on, one of the ways you do it is say, you

00:07:16 ◼   ► know, "Yeah, we'll commit to 20 instead of 10. We'll commit to two seasons." And that's

00:07:21 ◼   ► just more money on the table. And that is, from a creative side, I mean, it's great to

00:07:26 ◼   ► go into it knowing you're making 20 episodes instead of 10, that you can have a plan. And

00:07:31 ◼   ► I don't know, it's interesting, but this is the case where Amazon and Netflix have a lot

00:07:37 ◼   ► of money too and so Apple is up against them in terms of getting and they want to make

00:07:43 ◼   ► a splash and they want names because they want people to to watch their stuff so this

00:07:48 ◼   ► is an interesting move it won't be the last again they got a lot of money that they're

00:07:53 ◼   ► that they're able to spend but it's the next step there will be more.

00:07:58 ◼   ► From The Hollywood Reporter this show is described as an inside look at the lives of the people

00:08:02 ◼   ► who help America wake up in the morning exploring the unique challenges faced by the women and

00:08:07 ◼   ► men who carry out this daily televised ritual of being a morning TV show host.

00:08:13 ◼   ► Aniston and Witherspoon will be executive producers and the series is being written

00:08:16 ◼   ► by another executive producer, Jay Carson, who produced House of Cards and Carson will

00:08:22 ◼   ► also serve as the showrunner for top of the, well it's called Morning Show Drama is the

00:08:28 ◼   ► working title at the moment I think.

00:08:30 ◼   ► - Unnamed, "Untitled Morning Show Drama."

00:08:34 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll see how it is.

00:08:36 ◼   ► And when they can put it into production, right?

00:08:39 ◼   ► I'm still kind of a believer that this is going to be a,

00:08:42 ◼   ► this Apple video service thing is a fall 2018 thing.

00:08:47 ◼   ► And, you know, the theory may be it's a fall 2018 thing

00:08:52 ◼   ► and everybody gets a trial, you know,

00:08:55 ◼   ► a three to six month trial when they sign up

00:08:57 ◼   ► like they did for Apple Music,

00:08:58 ◼   ► which means that basically Apple will give you

00:09:01 ◼   ► all their fall shows, their launch shows,

00:09:03 ◼   ► so that you will watch and try it out

00:09:07 ◼   ► and presumably like it enough to stick around.

00:09:09 ◼   ► Oh, I had a quick, speaking of Apple TV related things,

00:09:14 ◼   ► I had an Apple TV box related update.

00:09:16 ◼   ► So I finally took the plunge and downloaded the,

00:09:20 ◼   ► I put the beta little profile thingy on my Apple TV 4K,

00:09:26 ◼   ► which requires Xcode.

00:09:30 ◼   ► It's dumb because it doesn't have a USB

00:09:32 ◼   ► and it doesn't have a USB-C port on the Apple TV 4K.

00:09:35 ◼   ► So you have to just kind of do it over the air

00:09:37 ◼   ► which is also a little bit disturbing, but I did it.

00:09:40 ◼   ► I updated to Apple TV, TV OS 11.2

00:09:44 ◼   ► and found, and I used the like dynamic auto adjust

00:09:50 ◼   ► frame rate thing that they added in the beta.

00:09:52 ◼   ► And it's great.

00:09:54 ◼   ► It seems to work really well.

00:09:55 ◼   ► Many apps support it, although not all.

00:09:58 ◼   ► I was able to use the TV app,

00:10:00 ◼   ► but also the Netflix app and the Plex app,

00:10:05 ◼   ► and it was changing frame rates.

00:10:07 ◼   ► So basically if you were playing a film

00:10:09 ◼   ► and the film's at 24 frames a second,

00:10:11 ◼   ► the Apple TV flips over into 24 frames mode

00:10:15 ◼   ► and the TV just displays the 24 frames

00:10:18 ◼   ► instead of what used to happen,

00:10:19 ◼   ► which is the Apple TV, we take the 24 frames from video

00:10:23 ◼   ► and convert it into a 30 frame per second image

00:10:26 ◼   ► by adding duplicate frames,

00:10:29 ◼   ► which your TV then, depending on how it's configured,

00:10:32 ◼   ► might try to dynamically remove or might not.

00:10:36 ◼   ► And with this setting,

00:10:38 ◼   ► this is the setting that John Saracusa

00:10:40 ◼   ► is really excited about.

00:10:41 ◼   ► It just switches, and my TV blinks momentarily

00:10:45 ◼   ► when you start to play the video,

00:10:46 ◼   ► it blinks and then comes back.

00:10:48 ◼   ► But it takes the new frame rate and then just plays it

00:10:52 ◼   ► because the TV has the ability to take a 24 frame,

00:10:55 ◼   ► frame rate video and just play it at 24 frames a second,

00:10:59 ◼   ► which is better because you lose a bunch of like hiccups

00:11:03 ◼   ► in movement that are artificially put in

00:11:06 ◼   ► by the conversion from 24 to 30.

00:11:08 ◼   ► So it's cool.

00:11:09 ◼   ► I'm a little baffled why Apple has never offered

00:11:12 ◼   ► this feature before,

00:11:13 ◼   ► but I'm glad that it's there in the beta

00:11:15 ◼   ► because I think it's, you know, for people who care,

00:11:18 ◼   ► it's a really great feature.

00:11:20 ◼   ► So it's good to see that it's in there.

00:11:22 ◼   ► Johnny Ive was interviewed/profiled in wallpaper magazine, the design magazine.

00:11:28 ◼   ► There was an interesting quote, possibly interesting quote, that I just wanted to read and then

00:11:32 ◼   ► just discuss just a little bit.

00:11:34 ◼   ► So this is a quote, this is Johnny Ive speaking to wallpaper.

00:11:37 ◼   ► What I think is remarkable about the iPhone X is that its functionality is so determined

00:11:42 ◼   ► by software and because of the fluid nature of software this product is going to change

00:11:45 ◼   ► and evolve.

00:11:46 ◼   ► In 12 months time this object will be able to do things that it can't now.

00:11:50 ◼   ► I think that is extraordinary.

00:11:52 ◼   ► I think we'll look back on it and see it as a very significant point in terms of the products

00:11:56 ◼   ► we have been developing.

00:11:57 ◼   ► So I want to unpack this just a touch.

00:12:00 ◼   ► I love you reading the words of Jonny Ive because as an American, having a British accent

00:12:06 ◼   ► read it is better.

00:12:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I slowed it down.

00:12:08 ◼   ► Say aluminium, Myke.

00:12:10 ◼   ► Aluminium, Myke.

00:12:11 ◼   ► All right.

00:12:12 ◼   ► I wanted to just slow it down just a touch so I could try and get a bit of Jonny in it.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Were you in the white room momentarily?

00:12:18 ◼   ► In my mind.

00:12:19 ◼   ► The white room of my mind.

00:12:20 ◼   ► Okay.

00:12:21 ◼   ► That's title fishing.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Title fishing.

00:12:24 ◼   ► I obviously, okay, obviously, all iPhones get new software every single year, right?

00:12:32 ◼   ► This is just a given.

00:12:33 ◼   ► But there are just a couple of things in this quote that are interesting to me.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Like I think we'll look back on it and see it as a very significant point in terms of

00:12:40 ◼   ► the products we've been developing, talking about how it's going to be very different.

00:12:45 ◼   ► So I've just been thinking about this combined with my usage of the iPhone 10.

00:12:49 ◼   ► So listening to a great discussion on Under the Radar last week, episode 105 where Underscore

00:12:55 ◼   ► and Marco were talking about new considerations due to more prevalent larger screen sizes

00:13:01 ◼   ► and OLED screens and how that may make them rethink the way that their apps work, like

00:13:05 ◼   ► where things are placed and the use of dark colors, right, like to black because you get

00:13:10 ◼   ► the true black of OLED and stuff like that.

00:13:12 ◼   ► It's making me wonder if iOS 12 will see some significant changes to the functionality and

00:13:22 ◼   ► feel of iOS from a UI perspective.

00:13:25 ◼   ► You know iOS 7 was a long time ago now, it's five years right, so this could be time for

00:13:32 ◼   ► a bit of a change and I think that the iPhone X could be enough of a reason for it.

00:13:38 ◼   ► So like I've been playing around with the smart invert colors accessibility option which

00:13:42 ◼   ► I recommend anybody who has the iPhone X should do because then when you open all of your

00:13:47 ◼   ► apps that have white backgrounds, oh my word, they look unbelievable. It just looks so good

00:13:53 ◼   ► to me anyway. Like the all black, like the all you're seeing is just the pixels that

00:13:59 ◼   ► are illuminated. It's beautiful. So yeah, I think that this could be, there could be

00:14:05 ◼   ► some stuff here and I think that they wouldn't have changed it necessarily too much before.

00:14:10 ◼   ► I mean there are definitely clearly some changes to iOS 11 made for the iPhone, like the big

00:14:15 ◼   ► title bars and stuff like that, I think a lot of that was changed for the 10 and some

00:14:20 ◼   ► of the changes they made to the iPad operating system with the swiping gestures I think were

00:14:25 ◼   ► because of the 10.

00:14:26 ◼   ► But I think that we could be looking at some bigger UI changes in iOS 12 because I expect

00:14:35 ◼   ► there is a possibility that we, you know, there is always a possibility we may have

00:14:40 ◼   ► more phones, right, that look and operate like this one in September of next year. If

00:14:46 ◼   ► not just the fact that the OLED notch screen will get its second iteration most likely,

00:14:51 ◼   ► right, so there will be, even if they don't introduce any new models, that they don't

00:14:56 ◼   ► introduce a plus model or whatever, that phone will, there will be more of them. And if Apple

00:15:00 ◼   ► sees it as the future, maybe it's the time to do some UI redesign. So I just thought

00:15:04 ◼   ► that this Johnny quote coupled with things that I've been hearing developers

00:15:09 ◼   ► talk about seems to me like this could be the recipe for some some new changes

00:15:13 ◼   ► come June time. Yeah I'm I'm legitimately surprised that the iPhone 10 which is

00:15:21 ◼   ► the first OLED iOS device doesn't come with a dark mode. Yeah. I am legitimately

00:15:31 ◼   ► surprised by that. The Apple Watch, which is OLED, was built from the ground up to

00:15:36 ◼   ► prioritize black over white, and there's, you know, there's screen savings and

00:15:43 ◼   ► power savings reasons to do it, plus you can really embrace the darkness,

00:15:48 ◼   ► embrace the black of the OLED screen in a way that the LCD with the LED backlight

00:15:56 ◼   ► doesn't let you do. And so smart invert colors is interesting. The reason that

00:16:02 ◼   ► for people who don't know that it's smart invert colors is that the old

00:16:05 ◼   ► invert colors literally inverted everything and smart invert colors lets

00:16:09 ◼   ► you say the this is an image so it shouldn't get inverted basically and so

00:16:15 ◼   ► if apps are updated to support smart invert colors the UI elements all get

00:16:21 ◼   ► reversed so black turns into or white turns white, white turns black and the colors get

00:16:27 ◼   ► inverted but the images stay the same so like on in Twitterific which supports smart invert

00:16:33 ◼   ► colors I can invert and suddenly the white theme is black background but the images that

00:16:40 ◼   ► are in line all look normal whereas overcast which doesn't support smart invert colors

00:16:47 ◼   ► the white theme looks black which is nice but all the podcast artists reversed which

00:16:50 ◼   ► which is less nice. So, Smart Invert Colors is an interesting attempt by Apple to create

00:16:54 ◼   ► something that's kind of like a dark theme, but is really more like a hack with a hack

00:16:59 ◼   ► inside it to make it look less bad.

00:17:02 ◼   ► And it's an accessibility feature as well, right? Like it's not a real like dark theme.

00:17:08 ◼   ► But why not a dark theme? Because you know, I use, and this is not just about an iPhone

00:17:13 ◼   ► thing, this is an iPad thing too. It's like I use my iPad at night sometimes when the

00:17:16 ◼   ► the lights off and I'm sitting there reading

00:17:19 ◼   ► and I'll be in Safari Reader or something

00:17:22 ◼   ► and I'll have it set to black background

00:17:24 ◼   ► so that it, 'cause I just, it doesn't need to be that bright

00:17:26 ◼   ► and then I'll open like mail or something

00:17:29 ◼   ► and it's just blast of white.

00:17:32 ◼   ► And I don't understand why they have not embraced this idea.

00:17:37 ◼   ► I feel like this on the Mac too

00:17:42 ◼   ► and at least they have the dark theme in the title bar

00:17:45 ◼   ► but it doesn't like change the window chrome to be darker.

00:17:50 ◼   ► And it's like, just why not?

00:17:52 ◼   ► Why not do that?

00:17:53 ◼   ► And iOS seems like the perfect place to do it.

00:17:55 ◼   ► And the iPhone 10 seemed like the perfect time

00:17:57 ◼   ► and they still haven't done it.

00:17:58 ◼   ► So I hope it happens,

00:17:59 ◼   ► but I have to say I've got some skepticism

00:18:02 ◼   ► about whether they will do it

00:18:05 ◼   ► because if they were gonna do it,

00:18:06 ◼   ► why haven't they done it already?

00:18:08 ◼   ► And I do think, yeah, on your larger point,

00:18:13 ◼   ► iPhone X is so clearly, I mean, in some ways,

00:18:16 ◼   ► it's the culmination of some changes they've been making

00:18:18 ◼   ► in the background for a couple of years,

00:18:20 ◼   ► but it's also so clearly the way forward for iOS,

00:18:23 ◼   ► the way they view iOS going forward,

00:18:24 ◼   ► which is no physical home button,

00:18:27 ◼   ► lots of different gestures from the edges and all of that,

00:18:30 ◼   ► that that is what all iOS devices

00:18:32 ◼   ► are ultimately gonna be like.

00:18:34 ◼   ► - And bigger screens than we've ever had before

00:18:36 ◼   ► in all sizes, right?

00:18:37 ◼   ► The screens are all gonna get bigger.

00:18:38 ◼   ► And, you know, it is funny to me to hear

00:18:41 ◼   ► my developer friends talk about,

00:18:42 ◼   ► "Oh, we must consider big screen sizes."

00:18:45 ◼   ► Like, yeah, thanks for three years ago, right?

00:18:47 ◼   ► Like I've been using a bigger screen,

00:18:49 ◼   ► but now finally people are understanding

00:18:52 ◼   ► bigger screens can cause their own issues

00:18:54 ◼   ► and keeping all the UI at the top can be a bit of a struggle

00:18:57 ◼   ► at times and et cetera, et cetera.

00:18:59 ◼   ► But I'm happy to see people starting to understand this

00:19:03 ◼   ► and maybe embrace the bigger screens

00:19:05 ◼   ► because now it's more available, right?

00:19:07 ◼   ► Bigger screens are more available to people.

00:19:09 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:19:10 ◼   ► I was sitting on the train today, Jason,

00:19:12 ◼   ► and I saw somebody using a Plus,

00:19:14 ◼   ► and it looked huge to me, it was hilarious.

00:19:16 ◼   ► I thought it was so funny to me

00:19:18 ◼   ► that already the Plus phone looks mammoth to me.

00:19:21 ◼   ► Although I will say all Plus users

00:19:24 ◼   ► that I've ever spoken to agree with this,

00:19:26 ◼   ► the Plus size phones always look bigger

00:19:28 ◼   ► when somebody else is holding them.

00:19:31 ◼   ► I don't know why that is. - Sure.

00:19:32 ◼   ► It's an optical illusion.

00:19:34 ◼   ► It's something that's the,

00:19:35 ◼   ► why people didn't think that Myke was right.

00:19:38 ◼   ► I've heard some Plus users talk about how,

00:19:41 ◼   ► I've heard some skepticism from some quarters among Plus users

00:19:45 ◼   ► about the iPhone X. We definitely got some feedback

00:19:47 ◼   ► from somebody who said, Myke should really

00:19:49 ◼   ► try the iPhone 8 Plus, which was weird because like--

00:19:52 ◼   ► It doesn't make a difference.

00:19:54 ◼   ► No, the iPhone 7 Plus was close enough

00:19:57 ◼   ► that you know what the iPhone 8 Plus is going to be like.

00:20:01 ◼   ► And I've also seen some speculation

00:20:03 ◼   ► that maybe next year-- and this is not a rumor.

00:20:06 ◼   ► This is pure speculation--

00:20:08 ◼   ► but that next year that Apple might very well do an iPhone 10 plus.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Well, just as we went on the air today, Jason, Ming-Chi Kuo reported that next year there

00:20:20 ◼   ► may be a trio of iPhones, including a 5.8 inch, a 6.5 inch OLED, and for some reason

00:20:27 ◼   ► a 6.1 inch LCD with a notch in it. So, Ming-Chi Kuo wasted no time. There will be three phones

00:20:36 ◼   ► with Face ID, assumedly, so they have notches in them.

00:20:40 ◼   ► - So basically, it's an iPhone 10,

00:20:43 ◼   ► an iPhone, you know, an iPhone 10, 2018 edition,

00:20:47 ◼   ► which we should talk about sometime,

00:20:48 ◼   ► 'cause I think maybe we've reached the point

00:20:52 ◼   ► where Apple's going to just call the iPhone 10 by it,

00:20:57 ◼   ► as the iPhone 10, and with a year,

00:20:59 ◼   ► like they do with the iPad Pro.

00:21:01 ◼   ► And then their differentiator is that

00:21:03 ◼   ► they're gonna have the iPhone 9,

00:21:05 ◼   ► and then they'll have the new iPhone 10

00:21:06 ◼   ► and then the iPhone 10 Plus.

00:21:09 ◼   ► But anyway, that's another discussion to have about naming

00:21:12 ◼   ► and that'll be great in that period in like February

00:21:15 ◼   ► where nothing is happening and we need to talk about names

00:21:19 ◼   ► 'cause we do that.

00:21:20 ◼   ► But the Nchi Kuo's report is iPhone 10, iPhone 10 Plus,

00:21:25 ◼   ► and basically like iPhone 9,

00:21:28 ◼   ► where it's still the LCD screen,

00:21:31 ◼   ► but they put face ID in it and take the home button off.

00:21:34 ◼   ► So it's a plus with Face ID effectively, right?

00:21:37 ◼   ► And a slightly updated design in theory,

00:21:39 ◼   ► but so they can still hit another price point, I guess,

00:21:42 ◼   ► would be the thing. - I guess.

00:21:44 ◼   ► - Do they have something that can sit in between it all?

00:21:46 ◼   ► But yes, so--

00:21:48 ◼   ► - You're right, that would be a plus.

00:21:49 ◼   ► That would be like the iPhone 9 Plus.

00:21:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, so there you go.

00:21:53 ◼   ► It's already started.

00:21:55 ◼   ► - It is already happening.

00:21:57 ◼   ► Well, you know, I saw my first 2018 iPhone rumor

00:22:00 ◼   ► like the week after the iPhone event, right?

00:22:03 ◼   ► that it's like, it's nice that they keep that level

00:22:05 ◼   ► of decorum to wait until after Halloween

00:22:07 ◼   ► to put up the Christmas decorations.

00:22:09 ◼   ► - It's the grace period.

00:22:10 ◼   ► - So, mm-hmm.

00:22:11 ◼   ► But I do think that the iPhone 10,

00:22:16 ◼   ► 'cause I'm trying to think,

00:22:18 ◼   ► I'm gonna talk about naming now, just for a moment,

00:22:21 ◼   ► 'cause I'm interested, you can give me a reality check

00:22:23 ◼   ► if this is totally crazy, but iPhone 10,

00:22:26 ◼   ► I can't think of a good name that follows it.

00:22:31 ◼   ► I mean, iPhone XS, 10S, pronounce the S,

00:22:35 ◼   ► don't pronounce the X, call it a 10.

00:22:38 ◼   ► I don't think they're gonna go iPhone 11 or XI either way.

00:22:43 ◼   ► I don't think they're gonna do that.

00:22:44 ◼   ► I keep coming back to that this is their iPad Pro moment

00:22:48 ◼   ► with the iPhone, where they're gonna do to iPhone 10

00:22:51 ◼   ► what they did with OS X, which is just keep it for a while

00:22:56 ◼   ► and just say iPhone X is iPhone X.

00:23:00 ◼   ► I don't think it's a good idea because people have been too locked into the sequential numbering

00:23:05 ◼   ► over the last 10 years.

00:23:07 ◼   ► Oh, I know.

00:23:08 ◼   ► That if you just keep calling it iPhone 10, people will think it's old.

00:23:11 ◼   ► I think rather than…

00:23:12 ◼   ► I still stand by the idea of them giving them a new product name and just pulling the numbers

00:23:18 ◼   ► away.

00:23:19 ◼   ► So the next ones maybe just called iPhone.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Or they call it iPhone Pro.

00:23:24 ◼   ► Whatever.

00:23:25 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:23:27 ◼   ► So I think they could do it for a little while.

00:23:29 ◼   ► I think you could collapse the, like,

00:23:30 ◼   ► if you think about the iPhone 6, 6S, 7, 8,

00:23:34 ◼   ► that you could take three or four years and just say,

00:23:37 ◼   ► this is iPhone 10 and it's better at the all new iPhone 10.

00:23:41 ◼   ► But the other way to do it would be something

00:23:42 ◼   ► that they did with OS X.

00:23:44 ◼   ► And it's something that they're doing with the chips now,

00:23:46 ◼   ► which is to call it iPhone X something,

00:23:48 ◼   ► but not a number or a letter.

00:23:50 ◼   ► And so if you imagine if this was,

00:23:52 ◼   ► and it's not called this,

00:23:53 ◼   ► but if imagine if this was iPhone X bionic

00:23:57 ◼   ► and that last year's phone was iPhone Fusion or whatever.

00:24:00 ◼   ► They could do something like that too.

00:24:03 ◼   ► - I mean, and then eventually they just drop the 10 name

00:24:05 ◼   ► and every year they come up with a new marketing name,

00:24:08 ◼   ► which is not a number, but it's got, you know, like Pixel,

00:24:12 ◼   ► right, like Google Pixel.

00:24:13 ◼   ► - Right.

00:24:14 ◼   ► - I know that they've given those numbers,

00:24:14 ◼   ► but like the name, I actually think that might be a nicer

00:24:17 ◼   ► way to do this going into the future is give them

00:24:20 ◼   ► a cool name, stop doing numbers.

00:24:23 ◼   ► Let's give these products some interesting names

00:24:25 ◼   ► and sums up some of the features in them.

00:24:28 ◼   ► I like that idea, Jason.

00:24:29 ◼   ► And I don't want them to pick like,

00:24:31 ◼   ► big trees in California.

00:24:34 ◼   ► I want it to be something a little bit more abstract,

00:24:37 ◼   ► which is applicable to everyone, you know?

00:24:40 ◼   ► So they like bionic, 'cause it's just a cool word, right?

00:24:44 ◼   ► Like give it some name like that.

00:24:45 ◼   ► But yeah, I'm on board with that.

00:24:47 ◼   ► So there we go, we've solved that problem.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Thanks, Alan. - All right.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Well, everybody check back in in February

00:24:53 ◼   ► for naming corners.

00:24:55 ◼   ► - Somebody write this down.

00:24:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, something like that.

00:24:58 ◼   ► Or Frank will come up with some segment art

00:25:01 ◼   ► for naming corner and we'll just have to do it every week.

00:25:03 ◼   ► That's how it works, right?

00:25:04 ◼   ► - That is exactly how it works.

00:25:05 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Mack Weldon.

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00:26:18 ◼   ► Apple Pay for iMessage appeared in the most recent version of the 11.2 beta version.

00:26:48 ◼   ► for iOS. So I want to give you some rundowns here, Jason, of some of the things that are

00:26:55 ◼   ► occurring here. So as it stands right now, Apple Pay for iMessage is US only. This was

00:27:01 ◼   ► expected when it was originally announced, but found by a friend of the show, Guillermo

00:27:06 ◼   ► Rambo, who is @_insight on Twitter, who you should be following because he finds so much

00:27:12 ◼   ► awesome stuff dug deep into iOS. Additional countries can be added with OS updates like

00:27:20 ◼   ► Apple Pay. So Apple Pay could be turned on in certain countries and on devices without

00:27:28 ◼   ► their requiring an iOS update. So that's a good thing. So it means that countries could

00:27:34 ◼   ► be turned on for Apple Pay for iMessage as they get ready to do that.

00:27:41 ◼   ► You will find inside of your wallet app on iOS your current Apple Pay cash balance along

00:27:47 ◼   ► with recent transactions.

00:27:50 ◼   ► And it has a little card which looks really nice and I'll put a link to a tweet from Matt

00:27:55 ◼   ► Pansarino over at TechCrunch.

00:27:57 ◼   ► It has like an iridescent effect so when you move your phone around there's like a glittery

00:28:03 ◼   ► colour changing hologrammy effect on the card which is in the Apple Wallet app.

00:28:09 ◼   ► that

00:28:26 ◼   ► credit card, there's a fee, if you use a debit card it's free. There are a couple of ways,

00:28:31 ◼   ► actually there are a lot of ways that you can send somebody Apple Pay cash. So you can

00:28:36 ◼   ► open the iMessage app and send it inside of messages. You can ask Siri to send someone

00:28:41 ◼   ► money or request money from someone. There is a pay, an Apple Pay button on people's

00:28:47 ◼   ► contact cards. When you send someone an iMessage that has an amount in it, like for example

00:28:52 ◼   ► if I send Jason a message that says you owe me $10, Jason will see that message with the

00:28:57 ◼   ► $10 underlined, which he can tap and it will open the Apple Pay app open and pre-fill the

00:29:05 ◼   ► amount for him. And also the QuickType keyboard will also prompt you with an Apple Pay logo

00:29:10 ◼   ► when somebody asks you for money. Basically Apple really want you to be using this a lot.

00:29:17 ◼   ► So there are some limits probably for money laundering purposes. Single transactions and

00:29:21 ◼   ► transfers to your bank are limited to $3,000 in total. You cannot send less than $1 a time.

00:29:39 ◼   ► You can only send or receive a maximum of $10,000 in a 7 day period and you can only

00:29:44 ◼   ► withdraw a maximum of $20,000 per week to your bank account. I'll just say thank you

00:29:49 ◼   ► to, I think it was Ryan over at MacStories for providing me with a lot of that information

00:29:54 ◼   ► in his great article.

00:29:55 ◼   ► I'm curious about the international stuff though, right? Like, I imagine that you will,

00:30:01 ◼   ► they will have to do some UI that explains the currency conversion?

00:30:05 ◼   ► Yep. This might be one of the reasons that they haven't done it for outside of the US

00:30:09 ◼   ► yet because it becomes infinitely more complicated when Jason's paying me money.

00:30:14 ◼   ► Right, because do you get it in dollars? Does it go in your wallet? Does it get converted

00:30:19 ◼   ► then into pounds? Can you keep it in dollars and pay American people in dollars or does

00:30:26 ◼   ► it then get converted back? There's a lot of complexity there that I wonder about.

00:30:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:30:33 ◼   ► Or do we just use US dollars for everything? Apple's always in US dollars and then that

00:30:40 ◼   ► doesn't make sense, right? Because if you're in a foreign currency, you want to pay your

00:30:43 ◼   ► friends in the foreign currency. Yeah, so I can see why it's US only.

00:30:48 ◼   ► Because the idea for this is that it's in your Apple Pay, right? So in your actual Apple

00:30:53 ◼   ► Pay, this is the problem that these have got the same name. When you're using Apple Pay

00:30:58 ◼   ► in stores or public transport, you can have your Apple Pay cash card set as the default

00:31:03 ◼   ► cards so whenever you have any money on that it can take from it.

00:31:09 ◼   ► That's like PayPal balance or something right which is you you want to use your your mad

00:31:14 ◼   ► money your your money that's just sitting in your wallet in cash essentially instead

00:31:19 ◼   ► of using your credit card.

00:31:21 ◼   ► So you know the idea of where this is very simple right in that like you are filling

00:31:26 ◼   ► up the card right by making transactions so it just debits an account right the same as

00:31:32 ◼   ► PayPal. It's very similar to PayPal in this way, but it's hooked right into all of iOS.

00:31:37 ◼   ► I want this because it seems...

00:31:45 ◼   ► Of course you do.

00:31:45 ◼   ► Well, I like the... Honestly, I would want it because of the hooks into iOS and into iMessage.

00:31:56 ◼   ► because it just seems like a very seamless thing. It seems like just an easy way to pay people money

00:32:04 ◼   ► and a problem that I have is most of the services that provide this, stuff like Venmo,

00:32:10 ◼   ► I can't get access to. So my hope is that this will go international and that there will be a

00:32:16 ◼   ► way to make very simple international payments with this. For example, when me and Federico

00:32:23 ◼   ► travel together, we're sending PayPal transactions constantly back and forth because one of us

00:32:28 ◼   ► has booked the hotel, one of us has booked the flights, so it's all PayPal stuff. And

00:32:34 ◼   ► it's like, "Ah, but I have a PayPal business account and a PayPal personal account." Honestly,

00:32:37 ◼   ► I would just like to get all my business stuff in PayPal and then all my personal stuff in

00:32:42 ◼   ► the iMessage payments. It just gives an easy way to deal with it. Plus as well, when we're

00:32:46 ◼   ► talking about the numbers, we're texting them to each other, right? We're sending iMessages

00:32:49 ◼   ► back and forth. So wouldn't it be nice to just hit a button?

00:32:53 ◼   ► If Apple does this well, though, right, and it's the question of whether they're going

00:32:57 ◼   ► to do it. I could also see them rolling it out and saying it's only to pay people who

00:33:00 ◼   ► are using your local currency right now, and we'll do international later. But if they

00:33:04 ◼   ► do it right, they're going to do those conversions. I can see lots of scenarios like you and Federico

00:33:09 ◼   ► are in the US together and trying to split bills. So you're getting a bill in US dollars.

00:33:17 ◼   ► would be really nice if you could say, "I want to pay Federico 20 US dollars," and have

00:33:23 ◼   ► it say, "That'll be this many pounds out of your account, and that'll be this many of

00:33:28 ◼   ► whatever currency he wants to use." Euro, fine. Or if he wants to use his laundered,

00:33:33 ◼   ► I don't even know what, Swedish kroner, he could do that. Oh, I've said too much. But

00:33:41 ◼   ► the idea that you could take, yeah, so you've got pounds and euros and dollars all in the

00:33:45 ◼   ► same transaction and if they do it well, and I don't know if it's possible because this

00:33:50 ◼   ► sounds like a really complicated setup, but if they do it well, that should all just happen,

00:33:54 ◼   ► right? You should say, "I want to pay Federico 20 US dollars," and it'll be able to say,

00:34:01 ◼   ► "Well, that's this many pounds that you have in your account, so I'll take that out, and

00:34:05 ◼   ► then I'll pay it to Federico, which will turn it into Euro, and now he gets Euro." And,

00:34:11 ◼   ► right? That's the dream.

00:34:12 ◼   ► - I'll say the PayPal app on iOS does this kind of stuff

00:34:16 ◼   ► and they have a very, very simple UI in their iOS app.

00:34:20 ◼   ► The web, not so much, but on the iOS app,

00:34:22 ◼   ► it's like just big numbers, you just tap on the little flag

00:34:26 ◼   ► and you change the currency and then you can tap on this one

00:34:28 ◼   ► change that currency, just say the amount.

00:34:31 ◼   ► When you go through, it can give you a breakdown.

00:34:33 ◼   ► Do you want to send this to this?

00:34:34 ◼   ► It's going to cost you this, job done.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Right, that's, and a lot of that stuff

00:34:38 ◼   ► probably could be done quite nicely

00:34:40 ◼   ► inside of an iMessage app.

00:34:42 ◼   ► I think so.

00:34:43 ◼   ► I think this is great and I'm not surprised that Apple is doing all of this honestly because

00:34:47 ◼   ► as I said before, as I said when this was rumored when it came out, this is like, so

00:34:51 ◼   ► what big companies are doing now, big companies want to be mini banks because why not as well

00:34:57 ◼   ► as get people to spend money with you, just get them to literally give you their money

00:35:01 ◼   ► to just look after.

00:35:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:03 ◼   ► Right.

00:35:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:05 ◼   ► And then all that money that's sitting in your wallet is money that's sitting in Apple's

00:35:06 ◼   ► bank account to gain interest or do whatever until it comes back out.

00:35:11 ◼   ► and stuff like that, you know, and then when they've got all the reserve, they give you

00:35:15 ◼   ► the money when you need it. It's not like Apple haven't got enough cash that they need

00:35:19 ◼   ► to spot for themselves. They're fine. They've got that money. And then also the other part

00:35:24 ◼   ► of it is just system lock-in, right? You then may be more likely to spend that inside of

00:35:28 ◼   ► an Apple Pay thing somewhere, whether it's giving money to Apple or just using it inside

00:35:32 ◼   ► of their system because the money is already there and it's easier than getting it out

00:35:36 ◼   ► again, yeah, I'm not surprised that all of this is happening. It looks like Apple's UI

00:35:42 ◼   ► and all the systems are good, and I hope that they, one, do a good international rollout,

00:35:47 ◼   ► and two, that they find a way to make it work for international transfers. I'm excited for

00:35:51 ◼   ► that.

00:35:52 ◼   ► I want to take a step back here and say that I think this is an interesting trend that

00:35:57 ◼   ► sort of has happened the last year or two, but is really ramped up this year, which is,

00:36:02 ◼   ► Is iOS number whatever now a marketing concept? And I say that because among the features

00:36:12 ◼   ► Apple has announced as being part of iOS 11 or coming in a future update, right, are iMessage

00:36:20 ◼   ► in the cloud, Apple Pay, friend to friend, and I might even throw like faster inductive

00:36:28 ◼   ► charging in there. That wasn't an iOS 11 announcement, it was announced when the 8 and the 10 were

00:36:34 ◼   ► announced, but it was sort of like a future development. And I think it's really interesting

00:36:38 ◼   ► as a trend. We've touched on this before, but I want to point it out now in the context

00:36:41 ◼   ► of Apple Pay for iMessage, which is Apple seems to now be okay with the idea that when

00:36:48 ◼   ► they say something is coming in iOS 11, they don't mean that it will necessarily be an

00:36:55 ◼   ► 11.0. Like it will be part of iOS 11 at some point. And I think I'm okay with that. I'd

00:37:05 ◼   ► be okay with iOS announcements being kind of a roadmap where a lot of this stuff will

00:37:12 ◼   ► hit on day one, but some of it is going to roll out over time because, even though we

00:37:17 ◼   ► all want it now, right, of course, because that lets them pluck some things out that

00:37:24 ◼   ► are more complicated and not happening and not ship them when they're not ready and keep

00:37:31 ◼   ► working on them and then rolling them out when they need to. And I gotta be honest,

00:37:36 ◼   ► it used to be that if you didn't make the iOS drop in September, that didn't show up

00:37:42 ◼   ► for a year. And I kinda like the idea that Apple can be a little more confident in announcing

00:37:49 ◼   ► features in June because they know that even if they don't all make it in September, they

00:37:55 ◼   ► just need to make it by December or January or February. I like that, but it's different,

00:38:02 ◼   ► right? And that is, but I feel like that's the game they're playing now is iOS 11 is

00:38:07 ◼   ► a collection of the features across multiple software releases and that's just how it is,

00:38:12 ◼   ► right? We'll get iMessages in the cloud, iMessage in the cloud at some point and we'll get the

00:38:16 ◼   ► the inductive charging update at some point

00:38:18 ◼   ► and we're gonna get Apple Pay for iMessage

00:38:20 ◼   ► if you're on the public beta now,

00:38:22 ◼   ► but that'll roll out in the next few weeks.

00:38:24 ◼   ► And it's just this kind of rolling iOS 11.

00:38:26 ◼   ► It's not the single release anymore.

00:38:28 ◼   ► I think that's good probably,

00:38:31 ◼   ► but it's definitely the way they seem to be approaching it.

00:38:34 ◼   ► - So we have two Mark Gurman rumor articles

00:38:39 ◼   ► to discuss this week.

00:38:40 ◼   ► We'll start with the smaller of the two, I think,

00:38:44 ◼   ► which is an Apple AR headset.

00:38:47 ◼   ► So I wanna read some of the key points.

00:38:52 ◼   ► - All right, break it down for me.

00:38:53 ◼   ► - Summarize some of this stuff for you.

00:38:55 ◼   ► So this will be a breakthrough product

00:38:59 ◼   ► to succeed the iPhone.

00:39:00 ◼   ► I'm sure I've heard that.

00:39:01 ◼   ► I'm sure I've heard that somewhere before.

00:39:03 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:39:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:39:06 ◼   ► That is not the strongest thing in this article, right?

00:39:10 ◼   ► - Nope.

00:39:11 ◼   ► - You're gonna get to the details.

00:39:12 ◼   ► And I think the, I was asked, I was on Twitter yesterday

00:39:14 ◼   ► and I was asked about this

00:39:15 ◼   ► and I think all these details are true,

00:39:18 ◼   ► but the product to succeed the iPhone part, not that part.

00:39:24 ◼   ► - No. - At least not

00:39:25 ◼   ► in the short term. - I put that in

00:39:26 ◼   ► because I find it so kind of ridiculous at this point.

00:39:30 ◼   ► - Everybody is looking for the next iPhone.

00:39:32 ◼   ► Everybody's looking for an iPhone killer.

00:39:34 ◼   ► I think that, I think the smartphone is gonna survive

00:39:37 ◼   ► for a long time yet. - Yes, yes.

00:39:39 ◼   ► I mean like this was what the app,

00:39:41 ◼   ► My joke is the Apple Watch, right?

00:39:43 ◼   ► This is what-- - Yeah, right.

00:39:43 ◼   ► I mean, the Apple Watch-- - Is gonna be.

00:39:45 ◼   ► - Is not gonna be bigger than the iPhone,

00:39:47 ◼   ► and talk like this makes it seem like

00:39:49 ◼   ► if it's not bigger than the iPhone, it's a failure.

00:39:51 ◼   ► And it's not.

00:39:52 ◼   ► Nothing is going to be bigger than the iPhone

00:39:55 ◼   ► for a very, very long time.

00:39:57 ◼   ► So this is silly talk.

00:39:59 ◼   ► But let's get into the details.

00:40:00 ◼   ► - Could ship a product as soon as 2020.

00:40:03 ◼   ► Apple's device will have its--

00:40:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:40:06 ◼   ► It will have its own display.

00:40:07 ◼   ► - As soon as, as soon as is great.

00:40:09 ◼   ► - You gotta let me go through this, Jason.

00:40:11 ◼   ► - Myke, I could go into outer space as soon as tomorrow.

00:40:15 ◼   ► - Apple's device will have its own display

00:40:18 ◼   ► and run on a new chip and operating system.

00:40:21 ◼   ► The company began putting together a team

00:40:23 ◼   ► to work on AR related projects a couple of years ago.

00:40:25 ◼   ► This team's first product was ARKit.

00:40:28 ◼   ► And their next step, what they're working on now,

00:40:30 ◼   ► is creating a headset with a built-in display

00:40:32 ◼   ► capable of streaming 3D video without draining the battery.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Apple is creating their own chips again for this,

00:40:39 ◼   ► that they have been doing recently

00:40:40 ◼   ► with a lot of their new products.

00:40:42 ◼   ► The new operating system, internally dubbed ROS,

00:40:45 ◼   ► for reality operating system, that is not a good name.

00:40:50 ◼   ► - No.

00:40:51 ◼   ► - AROS is better than ROS, it's R,

00:40:53 ◼   ► it's the prior operating system.

00:40:55 ◼   ► - ROS.

00:40:56 ◼   ► - ROS is based on iOS, as you could assume,

00:40:59 ◼   ► again, as like TVOS and watchOS have been.

00:41:02 ◼   ► The company plans to release a new version of ARKit

00:41:06 ◼   ► as soon as 2018.

00:41:07 ◼   ► This will include things such as shush, persistent tracking.

00:41:11 ◼   ► Persistence tracking is when you can put an object

00:41:14 ◼   ► in a virtual space, look away,

00:41:16 ◼   ► and the object is still there, right?

00:41:18 ◼   ► So you could put something down,

00:41:19 ◼   ► you could turn away, do something else,

00:41:20 ◼   ► turn around, then it stayed exactly where it is.

00:41:23 ◼   ► The persistence tracking,

00:41:24 ◼   ► I think there's very basic versions of that right now.

00:41:27 ◼   ► It's not as good as it could be, like it loses its place.

00:41:29 ◼   ► I assume there'll be many other things

00:41:31 ◼   ► that come with ARKit.

00:41:33 ◼   ► But of course, what this whole thing is framed around

00:41:36 ◼   ► is like an Apple Google Glass, right? That this is what we're assuming.

00:41:42 ◼   ► Or an Apple HoloLens is the other way to look at it, right?

00:41:46 ◼   ► Yes. Yes.

00:41:47 ◼   ► Because HoloLens actually had AR features. Google Glass didn't. Google Glass was just

00:41:50 ◼   ► a screen projected in front of your face for text and stuff.

00:41:54 ◼   ► It was too old, right? Like, it was too long ago. I mean, Google Glass, if it existed now,

00:42:01 ◼   ► would be AR but then it was just a HUD right it was the heads-up display was

00:42:06 ◼   ► what it was. Exactly that's that's right. You know there's a lot of things to say

00:42:13 ◼   ► that you don't want to say when you get something like this because episode 300

00:42:21 ◼   ► of Upgrade we can look back and laugh at ourselves for some of the things we say

00:42:25 ◼   ► here but this is something that I'm I'm really struggling to get my head around

00:42:29 ◼   ► is Apple making an AR headset? My assumption is they are not making an

00:42:38 ◼   ► AR headset to be used just at home like I think the HoloLens is. My

00:42:44 ◼   ► assumption would be if they made something it would be to become part

00:42:49 ◼   ► of your life. It would be more like a wearable really than anything else

00:42:53 ◼   ► and it would, I guess, be akin to something like Google Glass. I struggle with this, partly

00:43:04 ◼   ► because Google Glass kind of ruined it, right, for everyone. And I, it just, there is an

00:43:13 ◼   ► inelegance to a product like this that I'm kind of not sure about.

00:43:19 ◼   ► Well, so the product doesn't exist, right? So anything we think about it is what we bring

00:43:29 ◼   ► to it ourselves. But as soon as 2020. Here's the thing. I feel like this is clearly a direction

00:43:43 ◼   ► and Apple wants to go in.

00:43:45 ◼   ► Tim Cook talks about AR all the time.

00:43:48 ◼   ► I think Apple, sometimes I think the modern strategies

00:43:52 ◼   ► of all the tech companies is,

00:43:55 ◼   ► at least a lot of it can be explained by fear

00:43:57 ◼   ► of being left out of the next big wave of technology

00:44:02 ◼   ► and being obsolete.

00:44:03 ◼   ► And nobody wants that.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Modern tech companies know

00:44:07 ◼   ► that they can be obsoleted in a minute, right?

00:44:10 ◼   ► That they could be Blackberry.

00:44:13 ◼   ► to use one of many examples, that they could be just,

00:44:17 ◼   ► if you poo-poo something that's new technology,

00:44:21 ◼   ► it could be the thing that destroys you.

00:44:22 ◼   ► And so I think Google and Apple and others,

00:44:26 ◼   ► Amazon, Microsoft, are somewhat obsessed

00:44:29 ◼   ► with investing in things that could potentially

00:44:32 ◼   ► be a threat to their thing that they do,

00:44:35 ◼   ► or could potentially be a threat to the thing

00:44:38 ◼   ► that their competitor does really well.

00:44:41 ◼   ► And so for Apple, you look at AR and VR is kind of a subset of AR, and you say, "Well,

00:44:49 ◼   ► if anything is going to replace a smartphone, it's probably wearables and something that

00:44:55 ◼   ► is a heads up kind of display where you don't need to hold a phone, hold glass in front

00:45:02 ◼   ► of your face."

00:45:03 ◼   ► Right?

00:45:04 ◼   ► That is a threat.

00:45:06 ◼   ► And AR is interesting, and VR is interesting, and they've got the powerful processors and

00:45:13 ◼   ► sensors and all those things. And so they make ARKit, and they put it in the modern

00:45:17 ◼   ► phones. And they start to work on, well, what would happen if we took our OS knowledge and

00:45:22 ◼   ► our sensors and our APIs and all the hardware we build, and we built a headset? And I think

00:45:32 ◼   ► the answer is probably like, well, this isn't going to be a product that's any good for

00:45:36 ◼   ► a few years yet that anybody's going to want. And I think that is why you say, "Could you

00:45:41 ◼   ► ship a product as soon as 2020?" It's like that's somebody saying, "We're working on

00:45:45 ◼   ► stuff that's on the roadmap, but what we've got now is kind of clunky, but maybe there's

00:45:50 ◼   ► something there." And then the question is, "What's it for in 2020?" And the answer, there

00:45:55 ◼   ► are a lot of answers, right? It could be that it is mostly for home use originally, and

00:46:01 ◼   ► is a game playing thing because I would imagine that if it can do AR, you could probably flip

00:46:08 ◼   ► down a thing, a covering over the eyes and basically turn it into VR if you wanted to

00:46:14 ◼   ► do that. I think that they, right, so this product makes sense to me in that I think

00:46:21 ◼   ► they need to work on it and that they will probably come to a point where they think,

00:46:25 ◼   ► yes, there is a product here, but it's so far off now that it is more about hedging

00:46:30 ◼   ► about the future and making sure you don't,

00:46:33 ◼   ► 'cause Apple has advantages here.

00:46:34 ◼   ► In that they've been working on ARKit,

00:46:37 ◼   ► in that they're building their own silicon,

00:46:39 ◼   ► in that they've got, in terms of apps and games,

00:46:43 ◼   ► some developers who are going to already

00:46:46 ◼   ► are getting up to speed on AR stuff with the iPhone

00:46:49 ◼   ► and are going to be exploitable in the good way of like,

00:46:53 ◼   ► look at all of our developers are already here

00:46:55 ◼   ► for this new platform.

00:46:57 ◼   ► And then imagine how great James Thompson's calculator

00:47:00 ◼   ► slash game will be on a set of goggles.

00:47:03 ◼   ► We may never hear from James again.

00:47:05 ◼   ► He may just be in the goggles from then on.

00:47:08 ◼   ► So like, I like it from that level.

00:47:12 ◼   ► I think the question is,

00:47:13 ◼   ► how do you picture this as a product at the end?

00:47:15 ◼   ► And yeah, that's a real question.

00:47:17 ◼   ► I don't know if the tech even in 2020

00:47:20 ◼   ► is gonna let us like wear them out of the house,

00:47:23 ◼   ► but in an office setting, in a home setting,

00:47:26 ◼   ► it's a little more plausible.

00:47:27 ◼   ► That's certainly what Microsoft is targeting.

00:47:30 ◼   ► But I don't know.

00:47:31 ◼   ► I think the best way to look at this

00:47:33 ◼   ► is that it is maybe a short-term product,

00:47:36 ◼   ► but it is a long-term hedge

00:47:38 ◼   ► against the disappearance of the iPhone glass

00:47:41 ◼   ► because that's a huge threat to Apple's livelihood

00:47:44 ◼   ► in the 2020s.

00:47:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is something that I'm really struggling with

00:47:51 ◼   ► because I just can't, I don't know.

00:47:56 ◼   ► I really struggle to see this as a product

00:47:58 ◼   ► which is mass market, I really do.

00:48:00 ◼   ► - Oh, I agree with you.

00:48:03 ◼   ► I think it's, and that's why I think

00:48:04 ◼   ► it's not the next iPhone.

00:48:06 ◼   ► - No.

00:48:07 ◼   ► - Well, let me put it this way.

00:48:09 ◼   ► And yeah, we can laugh on this and upgrade 400 or 500,

00:48:13 ◼   ► which is, I guess that only pushes it out two years

00:48:17 ◼   ► every time we say that.

00:48:18 ◼   ► But if you asked me if by the end of the 20s,

00:48:23 ◼   ► which is weird to say that,

00:48:27 ◼   ► But by the end of the 20s, if people are largely forgoing

00:48:32 ◼   ► a slab of glass in their hand as they walk around

00:48:35 ◼   ► in the world for wearables, that includes potentially

00:48:40 ◼   ► something that they can see, you know,

00:48:43 ◼   ► it's basically a heads up display of some kind.

00:48:45 ◼   ► I would say, yeah, that sounds reasonable.

00:48:49 ◼   ► Like it sounds reasonable.

00:48:50 ◼   ► The question is how we get from here to there,

00:48:53 ◼   ► because I don't think voice interface and talking

00:48:57 ◼   ► is going to be enough on its own.

00:49:00 ◼   ► I'm not sure whether having just, you know,

00:49:03 ◼   ► headphones in and a cellular watch on your wrist

00:49:06 ◼   ► is going to be enough to satisfy people

00:49:09 ◼   ► to leave their slab of glass at home.

00:49:12 ◼   ► But I'm also not sure everybody wants to walk around

00:49:16 ◼   ► wearing, you know, wearing glasses,

00:49:19 ◼   ► unless they are like literally as light

00:49:21 ◼   ► as the pair of glasses I'm wearing right now.

00:49:24 ◼   ► But I could see it, right?

00:49:26 ◼   ► I think the challenge is how we get from here to there.

00:49:31 ◼   ► And the problem with that is that it's very hard

00:49:34 ◼   ► if you're a company, any company,

00:49:37 ◼   ► to not have a product between here and there, right?

00:49:42 ◼   ► The only way you get from here to there

00:49:44 ◼   ► is by releasing a product and having it be not great,

00:49:49 ◼   ► but exciting and people get it and then you make it better and then you make it better, right?

00:49:54 ◼   ► And the challenge for Apple is unlike some of their competitors, Apple is really reluctant to

00:49:59 ◼   ► release a product that they don't think that they can sell a bunch of. And that's a challenge,

00:50:04 ◼   ► right? How do you make this thing good enough that people want it? Even if it's impractical

00:50:09 ◼   ► and expensive and not a lot of people want it, but like the Apple Watch, it's enough to get the

00:50:14 ◼   ► the category rolling and then you iterate and more people start to buy it and then it

00:50:20 ◼   ► kind of becomes its own thing. That's what they need to do here. And for me that's like

00:50:24 ◼   ► that's the question for whoever's building this thing at Apple. And it's probably the

00:50:29 ◼   ► question for all the managers of those people in terms of when do they think that this is

00:50:33 ◼   ► a real thing or do they potentially go, "Oh no, no, no, we're not, push it back. This

00:50:38 ◼   ► is not going to happen." Because that's the real question is will anybody buy an Apple

00:50:43 ◼   ► thing that they strap on their face that does VR and AR apps that they can use at home.

00:50:50 ◼   ► Will people buy that product? What are the details of that product in 2020 that would

00:50:54 ◼   ► make somebody buy it? And we don't have a lot of examples of other companies doing this

00:50:59 ◼   ► successfully, right? Microsoft demos HoloLens and we've had some VR only game things like

00:51:07 ◼   ► like Oculus and the PSVR, but it's super limited.

00:51:12 ◼   ► So I don't know, it's something you've got to do,

00:51:15 ◼   ► but you're kind of going into the woods here, right?

00:51:17 ◼   ► As Apple and saying, I hope we find the right product

00:51:22 ◼   ► in two or three years.

00:51:25 ◼   ► - I hope so.

00:51:28 ◼   ► I...

00:51:32 ◼   ► - You see what I mean though?

00:51:33 ◼   ► They got to do this, but I'm not sure-

00:51:35 ◼   ► - I agree.

00:51:36 ◼   ► They do. I mean, because I mean, I was the one who for before ARKit, right,

00:51:42 ◼   ► was was saying like Apple us being silly for not pursuing VR and AR, right?

00:51:48 ◼   ► Like I was getting concerned that they were not going in this route.

00:51:52 ◼   ► I personally think that something more like the HoloLens is more interesting

00:51:59 ◼   ► and something that should be progressed as something than Google Glass.

00:52:03 ◼   ► My concern is Apple will go down the Google Glass route, which I think is the wrong route.

00:52:08 ◼   ► And that really, I believe that these AR products could be more interesting as a way to augment computers, not smartphones.

00:52:20 ◼   ► And I hope that that's the route that they're going down.

00:52:24 ◼   ► I really struggle by 2020 to imagine there to be a product compelling enough that is like the Apple Watch

00:52:32 ◼   ► but for our faces. That's what I am concerned about because you don't...

00:52:40 ◼   ► If Apple screwed this up the first time they're not going to get another shot at it for a while,

00:52:45 ◼   ► right? And then they may then miss it because I think that this is a product which is fraught

00:52:51 ◼   ► with social problems and it's just very tricky. It's just like a very tricky thing because you know

00:52:57 ◼   ► if Apple make a headset they're going to have to put a camera on it and it's like that is there's

00:53:01 ◼   ► There's like a million problems in there.

00:53:03 ◼   ► And yeah, so I just think,

00:53:06 ◼   ► I don't know if the world's ready for it, Jason,

00:53:08 ◼   ► is the problem.

00:53:10 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:53:11 ◼   ► And will it be ready in three or four years or not?

00:53:15 ◼   ► - I can't see how, right?

00:53:17 ◼   ► Like, what's gonna change, right?

00:53:20 ◼   ► Our smartphones are gonna continue to be our smartphones.

00:53:23 ◼   ► They're still gonna have cameras on them, right?

00:53:25 ◼   ► They're the cameras we're used to.

00:53:27 ◼   ► I don't know, this is just something that like,

00:53:30 ◼   ► Between now and then, I'm really interested to see where technology goes because I just,

00:53:35 ◼   ► I really just don't imagine it within the next couple of years that to be a

00:53:38 ◼   ► product that people could walk around in the streets with and like everyone's

00:53:42 ◼   ► totally cool with that. I just don't see it.

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00:56:20 ◼   ► So the second report from Mark Gurman is about the 2018 iPad.

00:56:28 ◼   ► Yay!

00:56:29 ◼   ► So, we were talking about this last week on Ask Upgrade. Somebody asked if we think that

00:56:37 ◼   ► there will be a 2018 iPad with Face ID and how that's going to work. Like where are the

00:56:41 ◼   ► the camera is going to go, what's the orientation going to be, that kind of stuff.

00:56:44 ◼   ► And we were wondering like maybe 2018 is too soon for Face ID on the iPad.

00:56:49 ◼   ► Well Mark Gurman says that it's not.

00:56:52 ◼   ► So here is the key information from this second Mark Gurman report.

00:56:56 ◼   ► So the next iPad, the 2018 iPad will have a screen size similar to the current 10.5

00:57:02 ◼   ► inch iPad Pro but with again smaller bezels at the top and bottom and no home button.

00:57:08 ◼   ► It will have Face ID support.

00:57:10 ◼   ► It will not have an OLED screen because they're super expensive and currently only Samsung

00:57:15 ◼   ► can make them to Apple standards and all of their screens are going into phones.

00:57:19 ◼   ► Maybe next year as we spoke about at the top of the show there will be even more phones

00:57:22 ◼   ► right so they're going to need even more screens and they're already struggling to get the

00:57:25 ◼   ► amount that they need.

00:57:27 ◼   ► This new iPad will have a faster processor and a custom Apple GPU again.

00:57:31 ◼   ► There will be a new version of the Apple Pencil with an implied release date more than a year

00:57:37 ◼   ► after the recent iPad Pro update, so kind of maybe fall of 2018, where we got the most

00:57:43 ◼   ► recent iPad Pro WWDC time, which was because it was super late, right? So we're kind of

00:57:49 ◼   ► looking at, again, about like a kind of 15 to 18 month cycle on the iPad Pros, which

00:57:56 ◼   ► seems to be becoming the norm, right? Like you're looking at a year and a half now, which

00:58:00 ◼   ► is kind of cool. So I want to ask you, Jason, do you think that this report makes more or

00:58:07 ◼   ► less sense than the last one? Like, does this one stack up to you?

00:58:11 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I think this makes sense. The idea that Apple would want to bring Face ID

00:58:17 ◼   ► everywhere totally makes sense to me. I think that we know that, that this is also not a

00:58:23 ◼   ► wait and see. Like, Apple went all in on Face ID a while ago. They've been said so. And

00:58:29 ◼   ► so how would they not have said, "Okay, we got this stack. We've got these sensors. We've

00:58:33 ◼   ► got this stuff, bring it everywhere. And the next generation iPad has probably always had

00:58:39 ◼   ► Face ID as part of the plan.

00:58:41 ◼   ► >> And probably Macs too, right? Next generation Macs?

00:58:45 ◼   ► >> Yeah, one would hope. I mean, there they have to build it into Mac OS, right? Whereas

00:58:49 ◼   ► it's already in iOS. But yeah, you would think that at some point they definitely got the

00:58:53 ◼   ► word like, "Put this in. This is our--we're not doing Touch ID."

00:58:57 ◼   ► >> Also, here's my question for you. Could the Touch ID work be like the start of it,

00:59:02 ◼   ► because for a lot of what I guess I could understand from iOS was that like

00:59:08 ◼   ► they obviously had to do work to support face ID but it was it was piggybacking

00:59:12 ◼   ► on the biometric stuff and all the secure enclave yeah yeah I mean the work

00:59:17 ◼   ► that they've done on Mac OS already to support touch ID on MacBook Pro with

00:59:23 ◼   ► touch bar means that they basically got that they still have to do all of the

00:59:28 ◼   ► whatever, you know, whatever is happening in terms of the intelligence of face ID,

00:59:34 ◼   ► right? That has to get built in, although that's probably fairly

00:59:37 ◼   ► portable. I was gonna say, like, again, from what I understand about how it

00:59:41 ◼   ► works on the MacBook Pro, a lot of the processing is happening on a specific

00:59:45 ◼   ► chip, right? Which I'm assuming is very much like the chips that run on iOS, so

00:59:50 ◼   ► maybe then again, right? Like, a lot of that code is usable because it's not

00:59:54 ◼   ► actually happening in Mac OS itself, maybe to a point.

00:59:57 ◼   ► - Right, it's happening in some ARM processor

01:00:02 ◼   ► that's also running the Secure Enclave and all of that.

01:00:04 ◼   ► It's possible, it's possible.

01:00:05 ◼   ► It's just a little more work than like iOS,

01:00:07 ◼   ► it's in there, right?

01:00:08 ◼   ► So the iPad getting it is a little more straightforward

01:00:12 ◼   ► than the Mac. - Yes, than the Mac,

01:00:13 ◼   ► for sure, for sure.

01:00:14 ◼   ► - But the OLED stuff totally makes sense to me

01:00:17 ◼   ► that they wouldn't do an OLED iPad screen

01:00:19 ◼   ► only because Apple's shown to be super conservative

01:00:22 ◼   ► with OLED, like, it's not that there aren't OLED tablet panels out there, because I think

01:00:28 ◼   ► there are, but like, Apple is not going to jump in until they get an OLED panel that,

01:00:35 ◼   ► one, matches, you know, meets their standards, which are high. I think Apple is very happy

01:00:41 ◼   ► with the iPad screen as it currently exists, because it is the wide color gamut screen.

01:00:46 ◼   ► got the high refresh rate for ProMotion, and also there's price issues, right?

01:00:54 ◼   ► Because an OLED panel for tablets is going to be super expensive, and

01:00:59 ◼   ► that's going to either cut into the margins or raise the price of the iPad

01:01:01 ◼   ► Pro, and I don't think they want to raise the price of the iPad Pro right now. I

01:01:04 ◼   ► think they want to sell more iPad Pros at the current prices, so I buy

01:01:08 ◼   ► that part of the story too, that this is not going to be an OLED iPad, it's going

01:01:12 ◼   ► to be a Face ID iPad. And what the Face ID gets you is you can take the button off the

01:01:17 ◼   ► screen and you can shrink the top and bottom areas. And you don't have the space constraints

01:01:24 ◼   ► of a phone, so you can still leave room for the sensor bar. I don't think there's going

01:01:28 ◼   ► to be a notch. I think they can leave room for the sensor bar, but have all the bezels

01:01:32 ◼   ► come in a little bit more so that you can make a smaller iPad that's got the same size

01:01:36 ◼   ► screen or alternately a same sized iPad that's got a bigger screen.

01:01:42 ◼   ► What do you think of that one though actually? Because I was wondering right now, you know,

01:01:47 ◼   ► saying the report from Girma says it has a screen size similar to the 10.5 inch iPad

01:01:52 ◼   ► Pro, like I can see that that's the case, but I can also see that like that could have

01:01:56 ◼   ► been misconstrued, whether like oh it's going to be the same size and you think it means

01:02:00 ◼   ► screen, but like it's actually physical size. Do you think that they're more likely to bring

01:02:04 ◼   ► it in or push the screen out to the edges of the current one?

01:02:08 ◼   ► - I'd say I'm 50/50 on it. If I had to choose, I would say that it feels more likely that

01:02:16 ◼   ► they would keep this, they would maintain the screen size and make the physical size

01:02:20 ◼   ► smaller. But you know, if you keep the physical size the same, that means you've got more

01:02:24 ◼   ► room for components and battery, but it means it's bigger and heavier. So what is Apple

01:02:29 ◼   ► gonna solve for there. And in the 12.9, assuming they do this on the 12.9, it's the same question,

01:02:35 ◼   ► which is I would take a smaller 12.9, right? Because I like the bigger screen, but I'd

01:02:41 ◼   ► be happy if it was smaller and lighter. 10.5 seems like a very nice size. People like it.

01:02:47 ◼   ► So that's a question is could you make it smaller or could you just stretch out the

01:02:50 ◼   ► screen? On the 10.5, quite frankly, I think they could do either one and it would be a

01:02:54 ◼   ► good product. It would be a better product, either a little more screen. I think the advantage

01:02:58 ◼   ► of having it be the same screen size is it's not another iOS screen size. Right. They just

01:03:05 ◼   ► say no no no it's the same size as the 10.5 it's fine it's fine.

01:03:09 ◼   ► Do you think they'll do anything to the 12.9 or do you think it's gonna be like another

01:03:13 ◼   ► two to three years for that one right so like they they rev the 10.5 and then maybe in a

01:03:18 ◼   ► year and a half rev the 12.9 again?

01:03:21 ◼   ► Good question. I don't know. I want them to be in lockstep, right? I'm going to fear

01:03:29 ◼   ► for the 12/9 if it isn't updated at the same time as the 10/5.

01:03:33 ◼   ► Right, because we had the 12/9, then the 9/7 came out with new features, nothing happened

01:03:38 ◼   ► to the 12/9, then they both got updated together in June.

01:03:42 ◼   ► Right. So I want them updated together again from now on.

01:03:45 ◼   ► I know, but I don't know. I don't know.

01:03:49 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:03:50 ◼   ► I feel like that the 12 9 that like that they like it's not like it's dead but I can imagine

01:03:54 ◼   ► them skipping right so like the 10 5 gets a revision and in a year later it gets another

01:04:00 ◼   ► one and then the 12 9 gets a revision I doubt I doubt they I doubt it sells a lot right

01:04:06 ◼   ► I mean as much as I love it I doubt it sells a lot in fact I was going to say with the

01:04:11 ◼   ► 10 5 like if they made that a little bit bigger screen they would pick off even more users

01:04:17 ◼   ► potentially from the bigger iPad. But I do think that there's an advantage to having

01:04:24 ◼   ► — I think there's an advantage to giving people choice in terms of screen size, because

01:04:29 ◼   ► if you're somebody who wants extra screen space, a 10.5-inch screen is not great. I

01:04:34 ◼   ► mean, on a laptop, people prefer a 13 over an 11, and yet on the iPad, definitely people

01:04:40 ◼   ► seem to prefer the 11 or 10 and a half to the 13 essentially. But at the same time the

01:04:48 ◼   ► 12.9 is more expensive and has presumably really nice margins so they want to keep it

01:04:54 ◼   ► around. Yeah, realistically the 10.5 is the priority and then the question is do they

01:05:00 ◼   ► keep updating the 12.9 in lockstep. I hope they do.

01:05:05 ◼   ► So if the home button goes away, then what happens to our gestures?

01:05:11 ◼   ► So I can't imagine that Apple would change iOS on the iPad's gestures to match the iPhone,

01:05:20 ◼   ► so that the swipe up would take you home, because I really think that the swipe up for

01:05:25 ◼   ► the dock is way more powerful there, like all the dock stuff makes more sense.

01:05:30 ◼   ► And honestly, I think that they would just keep what's already there.

01:05:35 ◼   ► There is already a gesture on the iPad to go home and it's a four finger pinch.

01:05:39 ◼   ► And you can also use four fingers to swipe left and right and you can go between apps

01:05:42 ◼   ► like you can on the iPhone.

01:05:45 ◼   ► I would hope and think that they'll probably go down that route rather than once again

01:05:49 ◼   ► changing all of the UI gestures for iOS on the iPad because you'd end up with like, what

01:05:55 ◼   ► would you do for the dock?

01:05:56 ◼   ► Like do a finger swipe up and then, you know, it's...

01:05:59 ◼   ► - I've got, here's my theory,

01:06:02 ◼   ► I'm just gonna put it out there,

01:06:03 ◼   ► which is swipe up to go home,

01:06:08 ◼   ► swipe up and hold or swipe up and go high

01:06:12 ◼   ► to bring up the dock and the multitasking switcher

01:06:15 ◼   ► and control center, which is what it currently does.

01:06:18 ◼   ► If you think about swiping up from within an app

01:06:21 ◼   ► and doing the big swipe,

01:06:24 ◼   ► you get to a place where the dock is there,

01:06:26 ◼   ► the multitasking switcher is there

01:06:27 ◼   ► and control center is there.

01:06:28 ◼   ► They're all there.

01:06:29 ◼   ► I wouldn't like that.

01:06:30 ◼   ► - So you just get rid of the little dock swipe

01:06:32 ◼   ► and the dock swipe becomes a home instead.

01:06:35 ◼   ► - Because all the multitasking stuff

01:06:36 ◼   ► will be so much slower, right?

01:06:38 ◼   ► Like doing, 'cause you'd swipe up

01:06:40 ◼   ► and then you'd want to bring a new app in

01:06:42 ◼   ► and then you'd have to tap again and then bring,

01:06:44 ◼   ► it all seems like it's just adding even more steps

01:06:46 ◼   ► to what can be sometimes clunky UI anyway.

01:06:50 ◼   ► - I find myself, the swipe up a little to get the dock

01:06:54 ◼   ► is not a gesture that I have embraced on iOS 11.

01:06:58 ◼   ► - Oh, wow, I use it all the time.

01:07:01 ◼   ► - I rarely use it, but I can see how for multitasking

01:07:06 ◼   ► and kicking off apps, that is where I use it.

01:07:08 ◼   ► And so that would be more complicated.

01:07:10 ◼   ► I think the four finger pinch thing

01:07:13 ◼   ► is too esoteric for people.

01:07:17 ◼   ► I think Apple wants something a little more specific

01:07:21 ◼   ► than that, they may move some gestures around,

01:07:23 ◼   ► but I feel like they will find a simple gesture

01:07:27 ◼   ► to have you go home.

01:07:28 ◼   ► - What about like a swipe in from,

01:07:32 ◼   ► I don't know, I was gonna say from the side,

01:07:34 ◼   ► but like that would just--

01:07:35 ◼   ► - I was gonna say also another solution,

01:07:38 ◼   ► and this is like lifting something else from the Mac,

01:07:41 ◼   ► which they have done some of,

01:07:43 ◼   ► which is what if home is,

01:07:48 ◼   ► the home screen is already an app in the app switcher, right?

01:07:53 ◼   ► When you Command + Tab,

01:07:55 ◼   ► one of your options is the home screen in the app switcher.

01:07:59 ◼   ► - Right, so it's in the dock maybe.

01:08:01 ◼   ► - So what if it was in the dock?

01:08:03 ◼   ► So if you wanna go home, you flip up and tap on home

01:08:07 ◼   ► and it shows us up as an app,

01:08:09 ◼   ► maybe in multitasking too as an app that you can move to.

01:08:11 ◼   ► - Well, Jason, what if there just isn't home anymore

01:08:14 ◼   ► on the iPad?

01:08:15 ◼   ► (

01:08:15 ◼   ► probably not, but they could de-emphasize it, right? Because you're flipping around

01:08:20 ◼   ► between apps, so maybe just putting it on the dock is the answer, is that they keep

01:08:25 ◼   ► the UI the same and they just put a home, the home screen just lives on, in the little

01:08:28 ◼   ► side area on the dock at all times, just like the finder is always in the dock on the Mac.

01:08:33 ◼   ► Yeah, that would work. Or like, you know, Launchpad comes back, Launchpad finds its

01:08:39 ◼   ► way, and then that's it, right? Like you hit it, and then the little, all your apps open

01:08:43 ◼   ► up rather than you going home. That's all it is, right? Just rearrange the apps and

01:08:48 ◼   ► it could just be some weird little app launcher which just sits in the dock instead. That's

01:08:53 ◼   ► all home is, right? Unless they do something more there, I mean, but yeah, that could totally

01:08:59 ◼   ► work.

01:09:00 ◼   ► Goemon referenced the new app version of the Apple Pencil. I just want to run through very

01:09:05 ◼   ► quickly again.

01:09:06 ◼   ► What do you think of that?

01:09:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I want to just say what I want to see. Well, okay.

01:09:11 ◼   ► Okay.

01:09:12 ◼   ► I think it will be is just that the lag is improved, right? The latency is improved.

01:09:16 ◼   ► That's what I honestly I think it will be. It would probably just be that. But if I was

01:09:20 ◼   ► going to ask for what I would like, it's a couple of things. Buttons. I would like there

01:09:25 ◼   ► to be a button which could have some functions programmed to it. This could be great for

01:09:30 ◼   ► drawing apps, right? Because you could assign shortcuts to it or whatever. But there are

01:09:33 ◼   ► many different applications that could do interesting things with buttons. You could

01:09:38 ◼   ► have it could be programmable inside of applications which I would really like

01:09:41 ◼   ► so like say for example an app like your wonderful ferrite that you could have

01:09:47 ◼   ► effectively what would be like a shortcut key attached to it so like if

01:09:51 ◼   ► you press the button and tap it cuts the audio right right at that point or

01:09:56 ◼   ► something like that you know like you could I'm I'm thinking of like what my

01:10:00 ◼   ► Wacom tablet does right so I have like select so when I hold the button and

01:10:06 ◼   ► and drag, it's like I'm pressing the select key.

01:10:09 ◼   ► And you know, it's the shift, I should say,

01:10:12 ◼   ► not select, shift, I'm not saying.

01:10:14 ◼   ► It's like I'm holding the shift key and then dragging, right?

01:10:17 ◼   ► That's what happens when I use the button on my Wacom.

01:10:19 ◼   ► So I'd like to see some programmable buttons there

01:10:22 ◼   ► or an eraser, right, on the top.

01:10:24 ◼   ► I would also honestly like to see new material options.

01:10:28 ◼   ► I've said support, I would love an aluminum Apple Pencil

01:10:30 ◼   ► because that would be wonderful

01:10:34 ◼   ► and it would still be super light

01:10:35 ◼   ► and it would look really nice and you could get them

01:10:37 ◼   ► in all the four colors or three colors,

01:10:40 ◼   ► however many colors there's gonna be in the next iPads.

01:10:42 ◼   ► I will quite like that too.

01:10:44 ◼   ► So yeah, that's what I think the Apple Pencil could have.

01:10:46 ◼   ► I would also like to see new smart keyboards

01:10:49 ◼   ► with backlighting on them, please.

01:10:50 ◼   ► Thank you very much, that would be great.

01:10:52 ◼   ► - Let me throw out there for the Apple Pencil

01:10:57 ◼   ► inductive charging and not as long.

01:11:01 ◼   ► - No.

01:11:02 ◼   ► - I wish it was a little bit shorter.

01:11:05 ◼   ► I feel like it's awkward.

01:11:08 ◼   ► - Making it out of aluminum could make it shorter

01:11:10 ◼   ► because it's all about balance, right?

01:11:13 ◼   ► So like how it feels in the hand.

01:11:14 ◼   ► So like having it longer is like, it's this balance thing.

01:11:17 ◼   ► It's the pen thing.

01:11:18 ◼   ► But having it smaller and made of aluminum,

01:11:20 ◼   ► the weight and the balance would be nice.

01:11:22 ◼   ► - The pens I use are not as long as the Apple Pencil

01:11:25 ◼   ► and a newly sharpened pencil

01:11:28 ◼   ► is not as long as the Apple Pencil, I think.

01:11:31 ◼   ► It's just a little bit too long.

01:11:33 ◼   ► So I'd like it to be a little bit shorter,

01:11:35 ◼   ► but it's just a little ergonomic thing.

01:11:37 ◼   ► It just seems like it's too, there's too much there.

01:11:40 ◼   ► And yeah, maybe there's a balance and a waiting thing

01:11:42 ◼   ► that is a part of this too.

01:11:44 ◼   ► And then inductive charging, I think is one where

01:11:46 ◼   ► I think the charging issues with it are dumb, right?

01:11:49 ◼   ► With the thing and you can do it and it's fine,

01:11:52 ◼   ► but it's not its best feature that it's got a little nubbin

01:11:55 ◼   ► under the cap that you have to use to charge.

01:11:58 ◼   ► And then you have to find, you have to use an adapter

01:12:01 ◼   ► or stick it into the bottom of your iPad

01:12:02 ◼   ► and have it stick out kind of weirdly.

01:12:03 ◼   ► - What would it inductively charge against though?

01:12:06 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, they would allow it to inductively charge

01:12:10 ◼   ► against air power.

01:12:13 ◼   ► - But like then if the battery dies, what do you do

01:12:17 ◼   ► if you're out at a coffee shop?

01:12:19 ◼   ► - I think it would still need a lightning plug.

01:12:21 ◼   ► I would also be fine if it had a,

01:12:23 ◼   ► my feeling is if it had a female lightning

01:12:27 ◼   ► so that you could just plug it into

01:12:29 ◼   ► any of your many lightning plugs.

01:12:30 ◼   ► I get that there's the emergency of you're at a coffee shop and you can just siphon off

01:12:35 ◼   ► some of your iPad's battery power, but it still seems like a very weird.

01:12:39 ◼   ► So I will say like I will go to, I will fight in war over this statement that whilst it

01:12:48 ◼   ► looks silly, it was the best, smartest way to deal with this product was to have the

01:12:53 ◼   ► male lightning plug on there because when you need to charge it, you just want to be

01:12:58 ◼   ► be able to stick it into the iPad and charge it.

01:13:01 ◼   ► And anything which is not, I am charging it via the device

01:13:05 ◼   ► I'm using is a step backwards.

01:13:07 ◼   ► If I have to have a cable, because like my iPad,

01:13:11 ◼   ► I don't need to take charges with it

01:13:13 ◼   ► when I'm leaving for the day,

01:13:14 ◼   ► because it's got all their battery life, right?

01:13:17 ◼   ► The Apple Pencil doesn't and it drains quicker,

01:13:21 ◼   ► especially if you keep it near it,

01:13:22 ◼   ► I hope that they can do something around that as well,

01:13:24 ◼   ► because if you keep them near each other,

01:13:26 ◼   ► they're connected to each other and the battery drains.

01:13:28 ◼   ► to have any kind of case or anything that keeps it attached to the battery drains.

01:13:31 ◼   ► I don't want to then have to take a full connector with me somewhere because I might have to

01:13:37 ◼   ► charge my Apple Pencil because it has a female connector. Whilst it is dumb and it's fun

01:13:42 ◼   ► to make jokes about it because it looks ridiculous to stick the Apple Pencil in the bottom, it

01:13:47 ◼   ► makes so much sense during usage. It's like having an inkwell. You would stick the pen

01:13:52 ◼   ► into the inkwell to refill it and then use it. It just kind of makes sense to me that

01:13:57 ◼   ► have this thing you stick it in there you wait 30 seconds and you're good for

01:14:01 ◼   ► 15 minutes like whilst it is not necessarily like this is definitely a

01:14:06 ◼   ► function of a form decision that they made and if they decide to go in another

01:14:11 ◼   ► route of it in my opinion if it doesn't charge from the device they've made

01:14:15 ◼   ► they've made a bad decision. Okay take it from someone that uses it. Yep I buy I

01:14:24 ◼   ► I'll take that.

01:14:26 ◼   ► It is frustrating in all other contexts, I would say,

01:14:31 ◼   ► but you are right.

01:14:32 ◼   ► If you're just out somewhere with your iPad

01:14:34 ◼   ► and your pencil's running out of battery,

01:14:36 ◼   ► it would be terrible to be like, oh no,

01:14:38 ◼   ► I need to get an adapter out and plug it in

01:14:42 ◼   ► that I brought just in case the pencil ran out

01:14:44 ◼   ► when you can just sort of stick it in the iPad

01:14:46 ◼   ► and it charges.

01:14:47 ◼   ► I get that.

01:14:48 ◼   ► It's just, again, all the other scenarios, it's weird.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And I really, it makes me uncomfortable to plug that thing

01:14:56 ◼   ► into the bottom of my iPad and have this big pencil,

01:14:59 ◼   ► big long pencil thing sticking out the bottom.

01:15:01 ◼   ► Like I'm afraid I'm gonna snap it off every single time.

01:15:05 ◼   ► It terrifies me, but you use it more than I do.

01:15:07 ◼   ► So I get why it's there.

01:15:09 ◼   ► - Push and wrench that thing in and out.

01:15:10 ◼   ► Like there is no problem, it's not breaking.

01:15:12 ◼   ► You're all good.

01:15:13 ◼   ► I wouldn't worry about it.

01:15:14 ◼   ► But also, so you don't ever need to leave it in

01:15:16 ◼   ► for that long.

01:15:18 ◼   ► You kind of just, I will plug it in.

01:15:19 ◼   ► I'll open up a couple of apps,

01:15:20 ◼   ► kind of get all my ducks in a row

01:15:22 ◼   ► and then I'm good to go,

01:15:23 ◼   ► 'cause it only takes like 30 seconds or whatever.

01:15:25 ◼   ► It's totally fine, totally fine.

01:15:29 ◼   ► - All right.

01:15:30 ◼   ► - Anything else on this iPad?

01:15:31 ◼   ► I mean, I know I want it.

01:15:33 ◼   ► And also, yay for increased sales means we get more iPads.

01:15:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I was gonna say is,

01:15:40 ◼   ► yes, please an iPad update in 2018.

01:15:44 ◼   ► I know we had one in 2017, I'm greedy.

01:15:46 ◼   ► I want another iPad update.

01:15:47 ◼   ► I want the iPad to get the whizzy new iPhone features.

01:15:50 ◼   ► They don't have to get them the same month,

01:15:52 ◼   ► but maybe like the next iPad has the whizzy features

01:15:55 ◼   ► that came to the iPhone.

01:15:57 ◼   ► And the iPad is, you know,

01:15:58 ◼   ► iPad's doing the iPhone a solid,

01:16:00 ◼   ► the iPad did the True Tone

01:16:02 ◼   ► and then it moved back to the iPhone.

01:16:04 ◼   ► Well, I want it the other way.

01:16:06 ◼   ► I would love Face ID on my iPad

01:16:09 ◼   ► and all the latest, you know,

01:16:11 ◼   ► latest processor tech upgrades and all of that stuff.

01:16:14 ◼   ► And getting rid of the home button I think is fine

01:16:17 ◼   ► because I am over the physical home buttons now.

01:16:21 ◼   ► Yeah, me too, unfortunately. It's like when I use touch ID on my iPad, I'm like, "Oh,

01:16:28 ◼   ► yeah, look at you!" I mean, I have--it has been kind of weird to keep using the physical

01:16:31 ◼   ► home button for this amount of time anyway, right? Because we've had the 3D touch home

01:16:37 ◼   ► button.

01:16:38 ◼   ► Yeah, oh, I don't use the home button very much other than unlocking it via touch ID,

01:16:43 ◼   ► because I have gestures to move around.

01:16:45 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. I understand.

01:16:46 ◼   ► is why I believe that it's not necessary on the iPad.

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01:18:22 ◼   ► It is time for #ASKUPGRADE. Dave wants to know, I've noticed a trend this week which

01:18:32 ◼   ► Dave is making fun of but I've noticed it, given that Twitter now allows 280 characters

01:18:38 ◼   ► is in their tweets. Do you think that the upgradians will be more loquacious in their

01:18:47 ◼   ► hashtag #askupgradequestions? And what impact do you think this will have on the segment?

01:18:52 ◼   ► Will it be better or worse? Now this word loquacious means tending to talk a great deal

01:19:00 ◼   ► or talkative. I like – everyone's making fun, I'm sure, with the word choice, right?

01:19:04 ◼   ► But I did notice when I was looking through the Ask Upgrade questions that boy were they

01:19:09 ◼   ► longer!

01:19:10 ◼   ► Hey!

01:19:11 ◼   ► 280 character tweets, people are using them.

01:19:14 ◼   ► So I'm going to say that whilst the questions in some cases are longer, quite a lot of the

01:19:21 ◼   ► time people would send multiple tweets.

01:19:24 ◼   ► This is fine.

01:19:25 ◼   ► I mean if it helps our listeners get their questions out to us in a more detailed way

01:19:32 ◼   ► to try and help with some stuff, great, because a lot of the time as well, I was noticing

01:19:36 ◼   ► people just like wrenching to fit the 140 in, like really kind of, yeah.

01:19:41 ◼   ► Also sometimes you paste in a tweet and it's not the whole question and then you're like,

01:19:45 ◼   ► "Oh God, what was the rest of the question?" You have to go back and find the next tweet.

01:19:49 ◼   ► I think there are a lot of good debates that people are having about whether 280 instead

01:19:52 ◼   ► of 140 hurts Twitter or helps Twitter about like regular conversation and people, the

01:19:58 ◼   ► kind of challenge of fitting a thought in 140.

01:20:02 ◼   ► And I think those, I have some opinions on them,

01:20:04 ◼   ► but I think it's a good, great, debatable subject.

01:20:09 ◼   ► I will say, as somebody who does podcasts

01:20:11 ◼   ► where I'm posting a new episode

01:20:13 ◼   ► and I'm trying to mention everybody who's on the panel

01:20:15 ◼   ► and I can't fit it in 140,

01:20:17 ◼   ► I'm very happy to have 280

01:20:19 ◼   ► so I can mention everybody in the same tweet

01:20:21 ◼   ► and keep it in one tweet and say,

01:20:23 ◼   ► "Here's our new episode with these five people

01:20:25 ◼   ► and here's the link."

01:20:26 ◼   ► And as somebody who does podcasts with this hashtag

01:20:30 ◼   ► where people are asking questions,

01:20:31 ◼   ► and I do that with TV Talk Machine too,

01:20:33 ◼   ► where people tweet at TVTM with their questions,

01:20:35 ◼   ► and it's a super easy way to get podcast feedback

01:20:38 ◼   ► and questions, I'm very happy with 280,

01:20:41 ◼   ► because I want them to be able to fit their question in

01:20:44 ◼   ► and not give up or send an email

01:20:46 ◼   ► that then we forget to read on the air,

01:20:48 ◼   ► 'cause like people send emails to upgrade every now and then.

01:20:51 ◼   ► And I feel really bad because I usually forget

01:20:54 ◼   ► that we've got them by the time the show happens. And so I'm happy. I think this is a great

01:20:59 ◼   ► change for some of these uses that we have for it. So I'm glad to have longer, clearer

01:21:07 ◼   ► #AskUpgrade tweets. I think that's great.

01:21:11 ◼   ► Ryan wants to know, "How do you clean the inside of your AirPods case?" Jason, please

01:21:16 ◼   ► tell me you have good options for this. I'm assuming compressed air would do it. But there's

01:21:23 ◼   ► just like there is some lint in my AirPods case which feels like it's now just a part

01:21:27 ◼   ► of the AirPods case like it's impossible to get out.

01:21:30 ◼   ► I don't have a good answer here. My in-ear headphones came with a little tiny tool that's

01:21:38 ◼   ► like a little kind of scraper thing that's super small that I will use sometimes. I was

01:21:46 ◼   ► This is not, okay, I'll just say it.

01:21:49 ◼   ► I have a SIM removal tool that I use

01:21:52 ◼   ► to like pop out the SIM card on my old iPhone

01:21:54 ◼   ► and put it in the iPhone 10 and all of that.

01:21:56 ◼   ► And it was out.

01:21:57 ◼   ► And it's basically like a little tiny pin.

01:22:02 ◼   ► And so I actually kind of used it to scrape off the like,

01:22:05 ◼   ► the lint and the junk around the corner

01:22:08 ◼   ► of the AirPods case.

01:22:11 ◼   ► - You did it, Jason.

01:22:13 ◼   ► I'm now using a sim removal tool right now.

01:22:16 ◼   ► There you go, see, you did have an answer for me.

01:22:18 ◼   ► - I did it.

01:22:19 ◼   ► - That's fantastic.

01:22:21 ◼   ► - It's not like a push pin where it's gonna kinda scrape

01:22:25 ◼   ► and not, 'cause it's too pointy.

01:22:26 ◼   ► It's kind of a blunt pin and that worked pretty well

01:22:30 ◼   ► to scrape the stuff out.

01:22:32 ◼   ► So yeah, there you go, there's my,

01:22:34 ◼   ► if you've got a sim removal tool, that might be your answer.

01:22:37 ◼   ► - That is an upgrade top tip.

01:22:39 ◼   ► Chris has a question for me.

01:22:42 ◼   ► Chris wants to know, is there a reason to get AppleCare+ for the iPhone 10 and not just

01:22:47 ◼   ► have it on something like home contents insurance with accidental damage cover?

01:22:51 ◼   ► Now I'm assuming Chris asked me this question because Chris is also in the UK and is like

01:22:55 ◼   ► me unaware of what home contents insurance is like or if it even exists in the US, who

01:23:01 ◼   ► knows.

01:23:02 ◼   ► But here is my question about this, right?

01:23:03 ◼   ► And I've also had people say to me like, oh, what about European Union warranty laws and

01:23:08 ◼   ► all that sort of stuff?

01:23:09 ◼   ► I'm sure that there are ways in which you can argue a case, um, or you can put it on

01:23:16 ◼   ► home contents insurance with accidental damage cover and you might be able to get stuff fixed.

01:23:21 ◼   ► I have a laptop fixed that way once where I spilt an entire, uh, like half pint of soda

01:23:28 ◼   ► into a laptop keyboard and with the accidental damage cover, they replaced it here.

01:23:33 ◼   ► That's what we call the PEPC syndrome.

01:23:35 ◼   ► That's what we always used to call that when I was a kid.

01:23:37 ◼   ► It's like the China syndrome except instead of a nuclear meltdown it's Pepsi on your computer

01:23:41 ◼   ► keyboard.

01:23:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:43 ◼   ► Which is it feels very similar at that moment in time.

01:23:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:46 ◼   ► I actually I dumped that I did that to that computer during the month in which we were

01:23:53 ◼   ► launching Relay like building up to it.

01:23:56 ◼   ► It was the month prior.

01:23:58 ◼   ► In the US generally this is called renters insurance.

01:24:02 ◼   ► Okay yeah see this is something that people that own homes also get I don't know if that's

01:24:06 ◼   ► 'cause rent as insurance sounds like something you do

01:24:09 ◼   ► when you're renting, but like there's like a-

01:24:11 ◼   ► - Here it's for homeowners, it's generally just,

01:24:15 ◼   ► it's your homeowner's insurance and you can have it cover

01:24:19 ◼   ► and it covers your house and the contents.

01:24:21 ◼   ► And then it depends on your policy, but there's for just

01:24:25 ◼   ► a policy for just the contents, I think generally,

01:24:27 ◼   ► you know, the difference there is then you're a renter.

01:24:30 ◼   ► - You're a renter.

01:24:31 ◼   ► - Because a homeowner's insurance,

01:24:32 ◼   ► you also have to be insured against somebody tripping

01:24:34 ◼   ► on the shrub outside your house and breaking their neck

01:24:37 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:24:38 ◼   ► And I'm with you, which is what's your insurance like?

01:24:43 ◼   ► What's the deductible?

01:24:44 ◼   ► What's, you know, there's a whole list of things

01:24:47 ◼   ► that like you sure maybe your insurance is awesome

01:24:49 ◼   ► and it totally covers it,

01:24:50 ◼   ► but I'm not sure how confident people are

01:24:54 ◼   ► about their insurance coverage covering something

01:24:56 ◼   ► like dropping your iPhone. - They may say they cover it,

01:24:59 ◼   ► but like, will they actually agree to fix it?

01:25:01 ◼   ► How long is it gonna take them?

01:25:03 ◼   ► who is going to perform the repair? Right? Like all of these questions, like for example,

01:25:08 ◼   ► I got my laptop replaced, but it took like four weeks, three or four weeks. Now, the Apple store,

01:25:14 ◼   ► in theory, is not going to take that long, especially for an iPhone. Now, I know like

01:25:17 ◼   ► the iPhone stuff is done relatively fast when you actually can get an appointment.

01:25:20 ◼   ► And I know that it's the Apple store that's fixing it. Like who fixes these things for

01:25:28 ◼   ► contents insurance companies. Who does that? Like do they have some third party that they send them

01:25:33 ◼   ► out to? Right? So yes, in theory you can do this. I went with AppleCare+ because if I have a problem,

01:25:40 ◼   ► I want to take it to an Apple store and the Apple store fixes it. With their warranty

01:25:47 ◼   ► extensions on those repairs, right? And all that sort of stuff. And then it doesn't put up my

01:25:52 ◼   ► entire home insurance premium and plan and you know and all that sort of stuff.

01:25:57 ◼   ► So yeah, I just I didn't want to go through all of that.

01:25:59 ◼   ► Dean has an interesting question. Dean wants to know if you could swap time zones with me,

01:26:05 ◼   ► would you? The pro is Apple product pre-orders are at 3 p.m. The con is keynotes are at 1 a.m.

01:26:12 ◼   ► and Dean is in Perth. So Western Australia, yeah.

01:26:16 ◼   ► Yes. What would you do? Would you swap? Would you swap?

01:26:21 ◼   ► I certainly would not. No, you're in the prime time zone for it, right?

01:26:27 ◼   ► I'm in, as Apple will continue to explain to you, Cupertino time zone. So, product pre-order

01:26:34 ◼   ► at midnight is not a big deal. It's like a party. And then the keynotes are at a proper

01:26:38 ◼   ► time at 10am. So, I am going to stay here. But what about you, Myke?

01:26:43 ◼   ► I mean, I am in the one true time zone, which is GMT or GMT offset by one. But right now,

01:26:49 ◼   ► I'm in the ultimate prime time because it's the time. I'm in time. I'm at zero right now,

01:26:56 ◼   ► which is in GMT. No, I wouldn't either because our pre-order is 8 a.m., which is not terrible,

01:27:02 ◼   ► right? Like, it's pretty good. And we watch the keynotes at like 6 o'clock at night. Like,

01:27:08 ◼   ► that's fine too. So I'm sure there are some people in the world that would want to make

01:27:11 ◼   ► that switch. Maybe people in Eastern time would be more inclined to do it, right? So

01:27:16 ◼   ► they'd have to wake up at 3 a.m. for their product pre-orders.

01:27:18 ◼   ► But they're used to the world revolving around them and their time zones.

01:27:21 ◼   ► This is why I want to point out that the one true time zone is my time zone, Casey, not

01:27:27 ◼   ► yours. It makes no sense that Eastern Time would be... Anyway, moving on, Rob wants to

01:27:32 ◼   ► know, "What are your thoughts on if Apple will or should or could break out apps like

01:27:39 ◼   ► Safari into releases that are not tied to the OS?" What do you think about this, Jason?

01:27:44 ◼   ► talking about this recently, like iOS seems to be the same with like a

01:27:47 ◼   ► staggered release of products now but like should stuff like Safari still be

01:27:52 ◼   ► tied into big OS updates?

01:27:56 ◼   ► So I'm sure Apple would like to unhitch apps and have them go through

01:28:05 ◼   ► software update like iWork does, like you know, there's just a

01:28:08 ◼   ► pages update and you go okay that's fine on iOS and Mac. I think the problem with

01:28:13 ◼   ► with Safari is that it's not just Safari, it's WebKit,

01:28:17 ◼   ► and it's underlying the entire web experience

01:28:19 ◼   ► of the operating system.

01:28:21 ◼   ► And that's why it's tied to the OS,

01:28:23 ◼   ► is that, you know, the apps, theoretically,

01:28:25 ◼   ► the apps that are tied to the OS are the ones

01:28:28 ◼   ► that can't be updated outside the OS update structure.

01:28:32 ◼   ► So yeah, Apple could pull Safari app

01:28:36 ◼   ► and make that updatable separate

01:28:38 ◼   ► from like all the WebKit frameworks, I suppose,

01:28:42 ◼   ► but I'm not quite sure what you get by doing that

01:28:45 ◼   ► because how often are they gonna update the Safari app

01:28:49 ◼   ► versus doing, you know,

01:28:51 ◼   ► pushing an update that also updates the rest of it.

01:28:53 ◼   ► So I get the frustration if you're an avid user,

01:28:57 ◼   ► like for me, it's with photos where I write about photos,

01:28:59 ◼   ► I'm working on the update to my book about photos

01:29:03 ◼   ► 'cause I'm gonna do that in the next couple of weeks

01:29:05 ◼   ► and photos only gets updates when the OS updates.

01:29:09 ◼   ► And why is that?

01:29:09 ◼   ► It's like, well, I guess it's so tied into iCloud stuff that they just have made it a part of the OS stuff.

01:29:20 ◼   ► But it's frustrating.

01:29:21 ◼   ► I think, though, that's the theory.

01:29:23 ◼   ► And Safari is a great example.

01:29:26 ◼   ► It's actually the best example.

01:29:27 ◼   ► Like, all web rendering on iOS, for example, is happening in Safari, essentially.

01:29:35 ◼   ► and it is web rendering in the Mac,

01:29:38 ◼   ► wherever it's needed is being supplied

01:29:40 ◼   ► by the web kit under Safari.

01:29:43 ◼   ► So I think that's the theory is they don't want to do that.

01:29:46 ◼   ► The good news is on the Mac,

01:29:49 ◼   ► you can just get the Safari developer preview

01:29:53 ◼   ► if you want a peek at the next generation Safari stuff,

01:29:57 ◼   ► Safari technology preview,

01:30:00 ◼   ► and that gets updated all the time, which is cool,

01:30:03 ◼   ► but they want to keep the, you know, the updates that affect web rendering across the entire

01:30:08 ◼   ► platform constraint. So that's why.

01:30:11 ◼   ► I want to just have, before we finish today, a quick tangent which is coming off this,

01:30:15 ◼   ► which is tied to machine learning. There's been this weird bug going around on iOS, which

01:30:22 ◼   ► seems like some kind of weird virus, spreading from machine to machine, where it's been replacing

01:30:28 ◼   ► the capital I with an A and a question mark and a box, like this is like a weird Unicode

01:30:34 ◼   ► bug effectively was what was going on. And it seems like, now there have been, I am interested

01:30:41 ◼   ► to see Apple publish a potential paper on this in the future, but what it seems like

01:30:47 ◼   ► is that there has been some kind of bug in CoreML or in differential privacy or something

01:30:52 ◼   ► like that in which somebody put this into autocorrect and then somehow that spread to

01:30:58 ◼   ► everyone to a lot of people and it seems like there's this theory which I subscribe to but

01:31:05 ◼   ► hasn't been proven of like if it was sent to you it maybe got into your autocorrect like if somebody

01:31:10 ◼   ► sent you a message and it had those characters in it that then maybe you would start doing it but

01:31:15 ◼   ► you didn't even know it was happening it's a very strange thing like people would see it but you

01:31:19 ◼   ► didn't know you were doing it it didn't happen to me but it's there's been this bug which apple was

01:31:24 ◼   ► fixed via a software update. So my kind of question mark about this is how good is your

01:31:32 ◼   ► machine learning system when the only way you can fix it is via a software update. Now

01:31:38 ◼   ► if this happened to Google, Google would just fix it on their back end, right, because their

01:31:43 ◼   ► machine learning algorithms, they control them.

01:31:46 ◼   ► But here it's running on the device.

01:31:49 ◼   ► But when it's running on device, if there is a problem in your, in something in your

01:31:53 ◼   ► machine learning in this differential privacy stuff, you have to push an operating system

01:32:00 ◼   ► update as your way to fix this. Which means it's still happening and people are still

01:32:05 ◼   ► seeing it because not everybody updates their phones. Like, I have a big question mark about

01:32:13 ◼   ► this because it's like, well, many actually. Like, does this mean that maybe this isn't

01:32:19 ◼   ► the best way to do this at grand scale. And then also, this is a bug we've seen. Are there others?

01:32:26 ◼   ► What other bugs could exist in the machine learning? Like, are all of the locations in

01:32:33 ◼   ► my photos being tagged incorrectly? Like, are all of the subjects? Like, am I no longer seeing

01:32:39 ◼   ► mountains and horses because they've been miscategorized somewhere but I can't see it?

01:32:43 ◼   ► Like, this is one we can see because it's happening to our keyboards. But like, could

01:32:47 ◼   ► there be other errant information like other like weird stuff that's happening

01:32:50 ◼   ► somewhere in these machine learning databases but we don't necessarily see it and can they then only

01:32:57 ◼   ► be fixed via operating system updates? It's curious to me like this this is this we're seeing one of

01:33:03 ◼   ► the trade-offs this is one of the trade-offs when you go for privacy it would seem. Yeah I think so

01:33:08 ◼   ► and and it's one of those things where they could probably uh change the architecture so that they

01:33:15 ◼   ► they could make this something that was correctable

01:33:18 ◼   ► without a software update.

01:33:20 ◼   ► But first off, there are lots of security implications there.

01:33:25 ◼   ► And secondly, they won't hit this one again.

01:33:30 ◼   ► It'll be somewhere else, right?

01:33:32 ◼   ► And they're all constantly changing,

01:33:33 ◼   ► "Oh, well, maybe we should make that something

01:33:35 ◼   ► we've been remote control."

01:33:36 ◼   ► And maybe there's something that it's, but so you're right.

01:33:38 ◼   ► This is live by the sword, die by the sword here,

01:33:40 ◼   ► where if this was a cloud database,

01:33:43 ◼   ► Apple could just delete this from it

01:33:44 ◼   ► and everything would be okay.

01:33:46 ◼   ► But since it's learning and then on device,

01:33:49 ◼   ► I had that same thought, which was, wow,

01:33:53 ◼   ► wouldn't this be the kind of thing

01:33:56 ◼   ► that Apple could like just kind of pop in and take away?

01:34:01 ◼   ► And instead they're like, nope,

01:34:02 ◼   ► we gotta release a software update for it.

01:34:04 ◼   ► Everybody's gonna have to reboot their phone

01:34:05 ◼   ► in order to fix this problem.

01:34:07 ◼   ► - I don't understand enough of this stuff, right?

01:34:09 ◼   ► But my assumption would be that

01:34:11 ◼   ► this is the way you fix this,

01:34:12 ◼   ► because if they could fix it remotely,

01:34:15 ◼   ► then there's a back door, right?

01:34:16 ◼   ► Which is exactly what they don't want.

01:34:19 ◼   ► Like, the only way to fix this

01:34:20 ◼   ► is to go to my device and fix it.

01:34:23 ◼   ► And if it's not done by software update, how do you do it?

01:34:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

01:34:27 ◼   ► I see it's a very, it's a curious problem.

01:34:29 ◼   ► This is why I would like to see and hope that like,

01:34:31 ◼   ► on their machine learning blog,

01:34:33 ◼   ► they publish a paper about this.

01:34:34 ◼   ► Like, what happened?

01:34:36 ◼   ► How can you prevent it?

01:34:37 ◼   ► And is there a way to stop it going,

01:34:40 ◼   ► putting it in the future?

01:34:41 ◼   ► or like what changes are they gonna make

01:34:43 ◼   ► to stop this type of thing happening in the future?

01:34:45 ◼   ► Because I think a lot of the reason

01:34:46 ◼   ► that Apple made this machine learning blog

01:34:48 ◼   ► is they want to, I think, encourage other companies

01:34:51 ◼   ► to take their approach,

01:34:53 ◼   ► which is a privacy first look at machine learning.

01:34:57 ◼   ► Well, I think we've seen one of the problems with that.

01:34:59 ◼   ► And like why some companies are like, "No, no,

01:35:02 ◼   ► we'll control the data set."

01:35:04 ◼   ► Right?

01:35:05 ◼   ► And then we could just change it if we need to.

01:35:06 ◼   ► So yeah, very, very interesting.

01:35:09 ◼   ► I've been racking my brain on this one a little bit.

01:35:13 ◼   ► And again, I have no doubt that there are many things

01:35:16 ◼   ► that I don't understand, but it's been an interesting,

01:35:19 ◼   ► it has been a very interesting thing to watch

01:35:23 ◼   ► kind of happen to the internet.

01:35:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, what a weird thing too.

01:35:29 ◼   ► I hope that there's some lesson they can learn from this

01:35:32 ◼   ► about, so that something like this doesn't happen again.

01:35:36 ◼   ► But again, probably this won't recur

01:35:38 ◼   ► and it will be some other weird thing that happens the next time.

01:35:42 ◼   ► Now I'm just terrified that it's all wrong and I can't see it. It's all wrong and nobody

01:35:47 ◼   ► knows. Today's episode was brought to you by our friends Squarespace, Matt Gauldin,

01:35:53 ◼   ► and Texas Spanto from Smile. Thank you to them for supporting this week's show. You

01:35:56 ◼   ► can find our show notes at relay.fm/upgrades/167. Jason is at sixcolors.com and he is @jasonel

01:36:05 ◼   ► on Twitter. I am @imikeyke. If you'd like to send in questions to open the show, use

01:36:10 ◼   ► the hashtag #snelltalk if you want to send in questions for us at the end of the show,

01:36:14 ◼   ► hashtag #askupgrade. Thank you so much for your continued participation in these segments.

01:36:19 ◼   ► We quite literally could not do them without you. As always, thank you for listening. We'll

01:36:23 ◼   ► be back next time. Until then, say goodbye Jason Snell.

01:36:27 ◼   ► Goodbye everybody.

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