Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [beep]

00:00:00 ◼   ► [music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, Episode 164.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by PDF Pen from Smile, Timing, and Encapsula.

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

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hi, Jason Snell!

00:00:22 ◼   ► Hi, Myke Hurley, we're back in our respective offices, in our respective homes again this week.

00:00:28 ◼   ► been a week of travel for us again.

00:00:30 ◼   ► - Classic upgrade has returned, classic upgrade.

00:00:33 ◼   ► - But nobody cares about that.

00:00:34 ◼   ► I think they do, but nobody does.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Rick wants to know in our #snelltalk segment,

00:00:39 ◼   ► Jason, where and what type of pizza did you eat in Chicago?

00:00:44 ◼   ► - Well, I guess this is a place for us to promote the fact

00:00:50 ◼   ► that you and I, along with Stephen Hackett

00:00:52 ◼   ► and Federico Battucci,

00:00:54 ◼   ► - Had the great honor

00:00:55 ◼   ► of going to the Cards Against Humanity office

00:00:59 ◼   ► where they have the podcast studio

00:01:02 ◼   ► that is spectacular, high quality podcast studio.

00:01:05 ◼   ► - Makes me so jealous.

00:01:06 ◼   ► Just I want that office, that studio, I want all of that.

00:01:11 ◼   ► - And we were there, I was very excited of course,

00:01:14 ◼   ► 'cause that's where they record Hello from the Magic Tavern,

00:01:17 ◼   ► which is one of my favorite podcasts.

00:01:18 ◼   ► And I did a dramatic reading of the entire name

00:01:21 ◼   ► of Yussidor the Wizard because I had to.

00:01:25 ◼   ► And then we recorded an episode of Dubai Friday.

00:01:28 ◼   ► - We sure did. - Involving with Alex Cox

00:01:31 ◼   ► and Max Temkin and via a very broken Skype connection,

00:01:35 ◼   ► Merlin Mann. - Uh-huh.

00:01:36 ◼   ► - And Merlin was eating a microwave Chicago pizza

00:01:39 ◼   ► while we ate like seven different kinds of Chicago pizza,

00:01:44 ◼   ► including like a thin buttery party pizza

00:01:48 ◼   ► that was Max's childhood pizza.

00:01:50 ◼   ► And we ate a, what else do we have?

00:01:52 ◼   ► We had a deep dish, we had a focaccia.

00:01:55 ◼   ► We had another kind of pizza

00:01:58 ◼   ► that I don't even remember what it was.

00:01:59 ◼   ► There was a reheated, which was unfortunate,

00:02:01 ◼   ► but very tasty kind of more traditional Italian pizza.

00:02:04 ◼   ► And then things took a turn

00:02:05 ◼   ► when we got to the gluten-free deep dish,

00:02:07 ◼   ► which everybody ate and said wasn't very good.

00:02:10 ◼   ► - We didn't know.

00:02:11 ◼   ► - And then we all kind of like, we didn't know.

00:02:13 ◼   ► We thought it was just a bad deep dish pizza.

00:02:14 ◼   ► And then it turned out that was the gluten-free

00:02:16 ◼   ► and as Steven Hackett, who can't eat gluten, pointed out,

00:02:20 ◼   ► the secret ingredient in gluten-free,

00:02:23 ◼   ► The gluten-free alternative is sadness.

00:02:26 ◼   ► They put in sadness instead of gluten.

00:02:27 ◼   ► And we all experienced the sadness of gluten,

00:02:30 ◼   ► the gluten-free pizza, which, and that was when we,

00:02:33 ◼   ► I think all were like, oh, I can't eat any more pizza.

00:02:36 ◼   ► - There is also a great possibility

00:02:38 ◼   ► that we'd eaten too much pizza at that point anyway.

00:02:40 ◼   ► - I think it's just funny that that's the one

00:02:42 ◼   ► that it turned on.

00:02:43 ◼   ► I think the good flavor of all the others made us,

00:02:45 ◼   ► like gave us momentum to keep eating,

00:02:47 ◼   ► even though we should have stopped.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And then my big mistake was that I really liked

00:02:52 ◼   ► focaccia pizza and I ate the whole piece and I knew that was a mistake and I should have just taken

00:02:56 ◼   ► one bite. You got to do what wine tasters do, right? Which is you take a sip and spit it out.

00:03:03 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what we should have done. Just spit pizza all over their wonderful desk.

00:03:07 ◼   ► So I really, really encourage people, one, to listen to Dubai Friday in general, but also to

00:03:13 ◼   ► check this episode out. There will be a link in the show notes. I will say it is without a shadow

00:03:16 ◼   ► of a doubt, one of the most fun experiences I have ever had behind a microphone. We had

00:03:24 ◼   ► such a great time. It was an honor to be on that show because I really respect the three

00:03:28 ◼   ► of them and the work that they've made. I think Dubai Friday is incredible. It is an

00:03:33 ◼   ► upgradey award winner for newcomer of last year.

00:03:36 ◼   ► I suppose that's true, yes.

00:03:38 ◼   ► The upgrade is on the way, Jason. I'm very excited about that.

00:03:40 ◼   ► I know.

00:03:41 ◼   ► Months away, but I start to think they're excited now because we're in the quarter.

00:03:44 ◼   ► always on the way. As soon as they're over they're coming back around again.

00:03:47 ◼   ► That sounds all great, they will get you. And I wanted to just give a very quick mention

00:03:53 ◼   ► to Alex Cox's incredible editing skills. There were like a bunch of really interesting technical

00:04:00 ◼   ► problems that she was able to edit around and what she did with that show is incredible.

00:04:06 ◼   ► So if you like it and you enjoy it, you can tweet to @AlexCox and tell her because she

00:04:11 ◼   ► did a great job. So if you enjoyed that episode, it's because of Alex's hard work.

00:04:15 ◼   ► As a podcast editor, I love it when an editor in editing sort of shapes and saves the material.

00:04:23 ◼   ► And ideally you don't have to do that. Ideally it's not a disaster and it's a very easy edit.

00:04:28 ◼   ► But I've had those, the Uncomfortable Holiday Music Special comes to mind where there's

00:04:34 ◼   ► just a disaster of things technical and content wise. And what Alex did was she shaped a show

00:04:40 ◼   ► show out of parts of our conversation, edited around some massive technical problems, and

00:04:46 ◼   ► then also generated their after show for their Patreon supporters. So, kind of amazing. On

00:04:52 ◼   ► The Incomparable, we have the members get to listen to the bootleg, which is the untouched,

00:04:57 ◼   ► just original recording. If they had such a thing for Dubai Friday and you compared

00:05:02 ◼   ► it to the final product, you would be blown away with the work that Alex did. So, yeah.

00:05:07 ◼   ► And it was so fun to be there with them and talk to them. And like Max Temkin, who I follow

00:05:10 ◼   ► on Twitter and I've exchanged all sorts of things with him. I met briefly with him at

00:05:14 ◼   ► XOXO and all these things. And then it was very funny because I started to speak and

00:05:19 ◼   ► he's like, "Whoa, Jason Snell's voice is here," because he listens to the stuff that we do.

00:05:25 ◼   ► And that was fun because it was like, "Wait a second, Max Timken knows the stuff that

00:05:29 ◼   ► I do, but I know the stuff that you do." And it was one of those. I think I actually said

00:05:33 ◼   ► the phrase, "Love your show," which is the podcast equivalent of... Well, I mean, it

00:05:39 ◼   ► It is the showbiz phrase, right?

00:05:40 ◼   ► It's like you put on the glasses and then you just say, "Love your show."

00:05:44 ◼   ► You don't even need to know if they have a show.

00:05:45 ◼   ► You just say, "Love your show."

00:05:47 ◼   ► That's the thing.

00:05:48 ◼   ► But I actually said that.

00:05:49 ◼   ► I couldn't help it because...

00:05:50 ◼   ► Yeah, so it was good.

00:05:51 ◼   ► Great hospitality in Chicago and at Cards Against Humanity.

00:05:55 ◼   ► Very nice.

00:05:56 ◼   ► Episode 47.

00:05:57 ◼   ► The title is Fancy Prince.

00:05:59 ◼   ► Go check it out.

00:06:00 ◼   ► It's in our show notes.

00:06:02 ◼   ► If you want to send in Snell Talk questions, #SnellTalk for a question to start off the

00:06:06 ◼   ► show.

00:06:07 ◼   ► to Rick for the question that he asked, which allowed me to very easily transition into

00:06:12 ◼   ► some semi-follow-out, which was a great experience.

00:06:14 ◼   ► - But that was all the pizza we ate was during that podcast. Literally, we did a podcast

00:06:19 ◼   ► where we ate pizza and that was it. Quite frankly, I went to the airport that evening

00:06:23 ◼   ► and usually at Midway Airport, and it's funny because I talked to Dr. Drang about this because

00:06:26 ◼   ► Dr. Drang flies out of Midway Airport all the time on Southwest Airlines, just like

00:06:32 ◼   ► I do when I go to Chicago. I fly into Midway on Southwest from Oakland. And he and I both

00:06:38 ◼   ► shared how we get like a hot dog at the food court at Midway. You can get a Chicago dog.

00:06:43 ◼   ► There's all sorts of different kinds. There's a hot dog place there. And for him, it's like

00:06:48 ◼   ► a ritual. And for me, it's kind of like a ritual now too. I go to Midway Airport and

00:06:51 ◼   ► before I get my flight, I get a hot dog. I eat a little hot dog in Chicago and then that's

00:06:55 ◼   ► the end. Well, guess what, Myke? I don't know if you had dinner on Wednesday night, but

00:07:01 ◼   ► I did not. I went straight to the gate and sat down and I got on the plane and I flew

00:07:06 ◼   ► home and I went to bed and I did not eat a single thing the rest of the day after that

00:07:11 ◼   ► pizza because that was a lot of pizza.

00:07:13 ◼   ► I was choosing, like my choice was I would eat nothing and Fedorica gave a talk that

00:07:17 ◼   ► day at release notes so we went out and had some drinks afterwards and then after having

00:07:21 ◼   ► some drinks I had a cheeseburger. But that, yeah, I maybe shouldn't have done that.

00:07:26 ◼   ► Bold move.

00:07:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:28 ◼   ► Bold move.

00:07:29 ◼   ► Strong. Very strong.

00:07:30 ◼   ► in Chicago. We spent a bunch of time together. Release Notes, the conference that we were at,

00:07:34 ◼   ► was really good. I enjoyed it there. They put on a real good show. But we got to spend a lot

00:07:39 ◼   ► of time together, which was nice. But there were some technology observations that I had made from

00:07:44 ◼   ► us from being there. One was seeing you purely on iPad for the entire time, which was fun.

00:07:51 ◼   ► Tim Cynova Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've talked about this before, but it was still one of those moments

00:07:56 ◼   ► that everybody's like, "Oh, you don't have," like you and Steven both are like, "Oh, you

00:08:00 ◼   ► don't have a laptop here." It's like, I don't travel with a laptop unless I absolutely have

00:08:06 ◼   ► to. And the number of cases where I absolutely have to keeps decreasing because if I can

00:08:14 ◼   ► get it done on the iPad, then why would I bring, I'm going to bring my iPad regardless.

00:08:18 ◼   ► I love my iPad, right? I'm not going to leave it behind. I prefer to use it. I can't even

00:08:24 ◼   ► envision traveling without the iPad. And so at that point, it's a question of like, do

00:08:27 ◼   ► I also need to bring a laptop? And if I can avoid it, I do. And so, yeah, that was a good

00:08:32 ◼   ► example of people getting to witness it in person, that I was doing everything I needed

00:08:36 ◼   ► to do on the laptop.

00:08:37 ◼   ► So, because we were recording so many live shows, like four live shows in Chicago, I

00:08:43 ◼   ► decided I would bring my MacBook Pro for emergencies, right? Like just in case something happened.

00:08:48 ◼   ► Nothing happened, and I've decided I'm going to stop doing that. If we're going to a place

00:08:53 ◼   ► where, you know, because like Steven mostly will handle the technological stuff in regards

00:08:58 ◼   ► to the recording of the show, so he always has his MacBook with him.

00:09:01 ◼   ► He has a whole case with microphones and things in it.

00:09:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:05 ◼   ► It's like a whole big thing that he's very good at.

00:09:07 ◼   ► So I'm just going to stop bringing my MacBook as a backup or an emergency because I figure

00:09:12 ◼   ► if there is the requirement for an emergency, we can find a Mac somehow.

00:09:16 ◼   ► Right?

00:09:17 ◼   ► Yeah, especially at a tech conference.

00:09:19 ◼   ► Yes.

00:09:20 ◼   ► Macs are available.

00:09:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:22 ◼   ► every big city has an Apple store. We could just go buy a MacBook

00:09:26 ◼   ► or you could get one of those places that rents, that'll rent you a laptop. I mean

00:09:30 ◼   ► there's so many different ways to do it that if you needed to do it. Yeah.

00:09:33 ◼   ► So I'm gonna stop carrying my MacBook Pro around with me when I don't need it.

00:09:36 ◼   ► And the only time then you'll bring a Mac with you when you travel is if you have like you

00:09:39 ◼   ► want to, you want to or know you need to edit a podcast or record a podcast or

00:09:43 ◼   ► something like that but not as

00:09:44 ◼   ► not as the emergency fallback. Unless I am solely responsible.

00:09:47 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah exactly, exactly. That makes sense. I don't want to do, I just don't want to do that

00:09:51 ◼   ► anymore because I'm carrying it around for a week. It seems kind of pointless to me.

00:09:57 ◼   ► The other, I mean you also, I got a lot of people, as I always do when I travel with

00:10:01 ◼   ► that thing and I go to tech circles, people were asking about that bridge keyboard that

00:10:04 ◼   ► I have, which we talked about and it's the, I'm lucky because I've got one that works,

00:10:08 ◼   ► you tried it and you got one that didn't. The only one that works, Jason. You have the

00:10:11 ◼   ► only working bridge keyboard. Yeah. Bridge 12.9, it's possible. Stephen Hackett has bought

00:10:17 ◼   ► a 10.5 bridge keyboard, so we'll see if they've worked out the bugs there.

00:10:22 ◼   ► He got an email, right?

00:10:23 ◼   ► Oh, I saw the email.

00:10:25 ◼   ► The bridge have just released a version for the 10.5, and they took his payment and shipped

00:10:29 ◼   ► it.

00:10:30 ◼   ► Then he got an email, which was kind of an email to the mailing list, being like, "There's

00:10:34 ◼   ► a problem with the hinges.

00:10:36 ◼   ► This company cannot make reliable products."

00:10:38 ◼   ► Yeah, it's really a shame because I love that keyboard, and I said this, because we're talking

00:10:43 ◼   ► about it now, but I would shout it to the world, like, "Buy this keyboard."

00:10:47 ◼   ► - I want it. - 'Cause people see it,

00:10:48 ◼   ► and they're like, "Oh, what's that?

00:10:49 ◼   ► "Oh, that's, how does it, oh, that's, you've got a,"

00:10:52 ◼   ► 'cause everybody's like, "What laptop are you using

00:10:54 ◼   ► "that has a touchscreen?"

00:10:55 ◼   ► I'm like, "It's an iPad, but it looks like a laptop."

00:10:59 ◼   ► But I can't, like, I had to go through three of them

00:11:03 ◼   ► before I got one that worked.

00:11:04 ◼   ► You went through two, and both of them

00:11:06 ◼   ► had the same failure.

00:11:08 ◼   ► And now Steven has had this thing where it's like,

00:11:09 ◼   ► well, some of these might have an issue,

00:11:12 ◼   ► so you should watch that.

00:11:13 ◼   ► And it's like, oh boy.

00:11:15 ◼   ► It's too bad, it's a shame.

00:11:16 ◼   ► I kinda, and I believe that there was something else

00:11:18 ◼   ► with this company where they kinda like had new management

00:11:20 ◼   ► or they got bought out or something like that.

00:11:22 ◼   ► It's too bad because this idea for a product is really great

00:11:24 ◼   ► and I wish that it was being stewarded by a company

00:11:27 ◼   ► that was more capable of building reliable products.

00:11:30 ◼   ► - Yeah. - 'Cause I'd like to recommend--

00:11:31 ◼   ► - It's a product I want, I really want it,

00:11:32 ◼   ► but it seems like I can't buy it.

00:11:34 ◼   ► - The other amazing thing that happened last week

00:11:38 ◼   ► that we should mention is that Federico saw a Kindle

00:11:41 ◼   ► for the first time, I wanna say.

00:11:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so.

00:11:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it was the first time we'd ever seen one.

00:11:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, my Kindle Oasis,

00:11:48 ◼   ► and we were talking about the new Oasis,

00:11:50 ◼   ► but I had my old, first generation Oasis with me,

00:11:53 ◼   ► so I just pulled it out, and Federico's like,

00:11:55 ◼   ► "Oh," and then he starts touching on it,

00:11:58 ◼   ► and like, "How do I select things,

00:11:59 ◼   ► "and does it do multi-touch?"

00:12:00 ◼   ► I was like, "No, Federico doesn't do that.

00:12:02 ◼   ► "Where's the menu, how do I go back?"

00:12:04 ◼   ► I'm like, "You gotta top it,"

00:12:06 ◼   ► 'cause it's got a weird gestural interface.

00:12:07 ◼   ► - Like, "Why can't I see the previous page?"

00:12:10 ◼   ► All that kind of stuff.

00:12:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and then it took him a long time

00:12:13 ◼   ► realized that, oh, I could use these hardware buttons

00:12:15 ◼   ► to go next and previous, 'cause he was swiping,

00:12:17 ◼   ► which is very iPad gesture, right?

00:12:19 ◼   ► Makes sense.

00:12:20 ◼   ► And then he was also the E Ink screen.

00:12:22 ◼   ► He's like, why is it flickering?

00:12:24 ◼   ► And it's got like a little like hint of the previous page.

00:12:27 ◼   ► And I'm like, yeah, it's E Ink.

00:12:28 ◼   ► That's how that works.

00:12:29 ◼   ► And it was funny for him.

00:12:30 ◼   ► It was like first time to see it.

00:12:32 ◼   ► So that was kind of fascinating.

00:12:33 ◼   ► That was like a moment of somebody

00:12:36 ◼   ► who's just literally never paid attention

00:12:38 ◼   ► to this particular area of technology,

00:12:40 ◼   ► suddenly getting his hands on it

00:12:42 ◼   ► and wondering what the heck it was.

00:12:44 ◼   ► - We were talking about it a bunch.

00:12:45 ◼   ► I don't know if he's gonna buy one, but I think he might.

00:12:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think he was kind of intrigued by it.

00:12:49 ◼   ► Well, you know what actually intrigued him the most

00:12:52 ◼   ► is the fact that I have my Instapaper archives sent there.

00:12:54 ◼   ► Every time that I have like a,

00:12:57 ◼   ► I add an article to Instapaper,

00:12:58 ◼   ► it basically at 6 a.m. sends me my Instapaper bundle

00:13:03 ◼   ► of like 20, the last 20 articles I added to Instapaper.

00:13:08 ◼   ► And so that's, especially when I'm traveling

00:13:09 ◼   ► or there's a long form article that I'm just,

00:13:11 ◼   ► there's no way I'm gonna read it.

00:13:12 ◼   ► I put it in Instapaper and it shows up on my Kindle.

00:13:15 ◼   ► And so when I'm sitting on an airplane somewhere,

00:13:17 ◼   ► generally is when it happens,

00:13:18 ◼   ► and I'm thinking I want something to read

00:13:20 ◼   ► and I don't wanna read one of the novels

00:13:22 ◼   ► that's on my Kindle.

00:13:23 ◼   ► I've got the Instapaper things there.

00:13:24 ◼   ► And Federico was very intrigued by that idea of like,

00:13:27 ◼   ► oh, so you can just get your whole Instapaper archive

00:13:29 ◼   ► and have it go to your Kindle automatically.

00:13:31 ◼   ► And so yeah, that's a good alternate use for the Kindle.

00:13:35 ◼   ► But Stephen's got one too.

00:13:36 ◼   ► I mean, he and I are both kind of believers in

00:13:39 ◼   ► when you're just reading text,

00:13:40 ◼   ► the Kindle is a, that's what it's good for, right?

00:13:44 ◼   ► It's like not distracting.

00:13:45 ◼   ► The way Steven put it was,

00:13:47 ◼   ► my Kindle's not gonna tell me that there's a tweet

00:13:49 ◼   ► on Twitter I should look at, right?

00:13:51 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:13:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's something to be said for that.

00:13:53 ◼   ► So I'm sure we'll have more comprehensive Kindle coverage

00:13:57 ◼   ► when the, well, in fact, I think it's next week,

00:13:59 ◼   ► the new Kindle Oasis ships.

00:14:01 ◼   ► So we may have to call in our Kindle experts.

00:14:03 ◼   ► - Kindle experts, people from the field.

00:14:06 ◼   ► I wanted to mention we have some

00:14:08 ◼   ► Relay FM merchandise available, which has been a much requested item.

00:14:13 ◼   ► So we sold stickers to go on your AirPods case to make it look like dental floss,

00:14:18 ◼   ► Relay FM branded stickers. Um, we're doing something kind of different, uh,

00:14:23 ◼   ► but kind of the same. We are doing a bundle, uh,

00:14:26 ◼   ► which we're calling the cool fresh gear bundle,

00:14:28 ◼   ► which includes a t-shirt with the artwork of the sticker on it and two,

00:14:33 ◼   ► a new red cinnamon flavor, uh, stickers.

00:14:38 ◼   ► so you can get those, they're available now.

00:14:40 ◼   ► We're gonna be doing this different

00:14:41 ◼   ► to how we've done stuff before,

00:14:42 ◼   ► because we believe that there might,

00:14:44 ◼   ► if it's like the last time we sold these stickers,

00:14:46 ◼   ► that the demand might be quite high.

00:14:48 ◼   ► We sold out in like an hour previously.

00:14:51 ◼   ► So we're gonna be doing pre-orders.

00:14:53 ◼   ► You can pre-order until November the sixth.

00:14:55 ◼   ► Of course, all the links will be in the show notes,

00:14:57 ◼   ► but you can go to, you can go check it out

00:14:59 ◼   ► if you wanna just go there right now.

00:15:00 ◼   ► You can go to relay.fm/store and you'll find it there.

00:15:02 ◼   ► But we're doing pre-orders until Monday, November the sixth,

00:15:05 ◼   ► and these will be shipping in mid-December,

00:15:08 ◼   ► 'cause this is a tricky logistical thing.

00:15:10 ◼   ► We have stickers and t-shirts coming in

00:15:11 ◼   ► from all different places,

00:15:13 ◼   ► and they'll be shipping out from the US.

00:15:15 ◼   ► I apologize in advance to people

00:15:17 ◼   ► if you're outside the US with the shipping prices,

00:15:20 ◼   ► we are unfortunately fixed into standardized shipping prices.

00:15:24 ◼   ► There's nothing we can do about that, I'm afraid,

00:15:25 ◼   ► with our fulfillment center.

00:15:27 ◼   ► But yeah, you can go check it out now.

00:15:29 ◼   ► These are really, I think we're really happy about this.

00:15:31 ◼   ► I know a lot of people really, really loved

00:15:33 ◼   ► and wanted us to bring back these stickers,

00:15:35 ◼   ► so we've found a way to do it

00:15:36 ◼   ► that makes sense for everybody. So it's going to be a t-shirt and sticker combo, which I

00:15:40 ◼   ► think is really cool and it's fun and it's kind of different and you can go check it

00:15:43 ◼   ► out and as I said you can pre-order up until November the 6th.

00:15:48 ◼   ► I just tried to order one. The funny thing is that when I got to the order summary screen

00:15:51 ◼   ► it said, "So you're ordering seven of these." And I thought, um...

00:15:55 ◼   ► What did you do?

00:15:56 ◼   ► I don't think I did anything but it thinks I want seven of them, which is great! I don't.

00:16:02 ◼   ► I only want maybe five shirts and ten stickers.

00:16:06 ◼   ► Yeah, you should, you should get your hoard the stickers.

00:16:08 ◼   ► Oh man, they're worth, I still have some of the,

00:16:10 ◼   ► I still have some of the green,

00:16:12 ◼   ► those are collector's items now.

00:16:13 ◼   ► They really are.

00:16:14 ◼   ► Those are worth, that's like Bitcoins, yeah.

00:16:16 ◼   ► So yeah, this is, we did it this way so we won't run out.

00:16:19 ◼   ► That was the plan, we ran out last time.

00:16:20 ◼   ► That's great.

00:16:21 ◼   ► Lots of people wanted them, so we're doing it

00:16:22 ◼   ► as a pre-order so we don't run out of them.

00:16:24 ◼   ► 'Cause we have no idea how many people.

00:16:25 ◼   ► That's good.

00:16:26 ◼   ► There you go, I can see Jason Snell's order right there.

00:16:27 ◼   ► You only ordered one, so good work on adjusting.

00:16:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I didn't do seven after all.

00:16:32 ◼   ► I also wanted to mention,

00:16:34 ◼   ► before we finish a follow-up today,

00:16:36 ◼   ► Our good friends over at AppCamp for Girls currently have an Indiegogo fundraising going on.

00:16:40 ◼   ► They want to raise $75,000 to expand their efforts to three new cities by 2020.

00:16:45 ◼   ► There are a bunch of great rewards for this campaign, as with all good crowdfunding campaigns,

00:16:50 ◼   ► but I think you should give some money to AppCamp because it's a cause worth supporting,

00:16:54 ◼   ► because you'll be helping to inspire and encourage young girls, transgender, and non-gender conforming kids

00:17:00 ◼   ► to become developers.

00:17:01 ◼   ► And having just been to a technology conference,

00:17:04 ◼   ► this is really important.

00:17:05 ◼   ► We need to have more non-men in this industry,

00:17:10 ◼   ► and anything that we can do and you can do

00:17:12 ◼   ► to help AppCam for Girls is a good thing

00:17:15 ◼   ► to ensure diversity in the future of the stuff that we do.

00:17:18 ◼   ► So you can go check them out.

00:17:19 ◼   ► They're doing really great.

00:17:20 ◼   ► They've raised $23,000 so far.

00:17:22 ◼   ► They're 31% of their goal.

00:17:24 ◼   ► I would love it if the upgrade-ins could go there

00:17:27 ◼   ► and give some money to the great folk over at AppCamp, of course.

00:17:33 ◼   ► They really are great.

00:17:35 ◼   ► We would all appreciate that.

00:17:37 ◼   ► Okay, should we take a break, Jason?

00:17:40 ◼   ► Sounds like a good idea.

00:17:42 ◼   ► I want to thank Timing for supporting this week's show.

00:17:45 ◼   ► Timing is the smarter way to track time.

00:17:48 ◼   ► Time is your most precious resource.

00:17:50 ◼   ► You need to know how you're spending it.

00:17:53 ◼   ► But, frankly, manual time tracking can interrupt your workflow.

00:17:56 ◼   ► workflow, it's easy to lose track of and sometimes can just be kind of annoying.

00:17:59 ◼   ► And that's why timing is different, because timing automates your time tracking to save

00:18:03 ◼   ► you as much time as possible.

00:18:05 ◼   ► First, it automatically tracks how you spend time on your Mac broken down by app, website

00:18:10 ◼   ► and document.

00:18:11 ◼   ► But that's a lot of data to work through, right?

00:18:13 ◼   ► So timing lets you use drag and drop to create rules that automatically categorise your time

00:18:17 ◼   ► so it just gets done for you.

00:18:21 ◼   ► Timing also understands that not all of your work will happen when you're sitting down

00:18:24 ◼   ► on your Mac.

00:18:25 ◼   ► That's why it automatically suggests to fill gaps in your timeline so you never forget

00:18:29 ◼   ► to track a meeting.

00:18:30 ◼   ► It can even automatically ask you what you did whenever you returned to your Mac so you

00:18:34 ◼   ► can just enter it right in there.

00:18:35 ◼   ► I spent a bunch of time with the developer, Daniel, of Timing while we were in release

00:18:40 ◼   ► notes.

00:18:41 ◼   ► Really, really nice guy.

00:18:43 ◼   ► We were talking about things that he wants to add to the app in the future.

00:18:45 ◼   ► He has a really great plan for this app.

00:18:48 ◼   ► It's really, really cool and I think you should go and check it out.

00:18:50 ◼   ► There are loads of great graphs and charts in the application when you've been using

00:18:55 ◼   ► for time tracking that break down not just the apps that you're using but also

00:18:58 ◼   ► like the categorization stuff is really cool. I was really really impressed with

00:19:03 ◼   ► that so you can track everything in the phrasing that you understand because you

00:19:07 ◼   ► can even customize all of these categories as well so it's like in your

00:19:10 ◼   ► vernacular. You can download the 14-day free trial today by heading to timingapp.com/upgrade

00:19:14 ◼   ► and you'll save 10% when you purchase. Timing. Stop worrying about

00:19:20 ◼   ► time and focus on doing your best work instead. We'd like to thank Timing for

00:19:24 ◼   ► their support of this show. Alright Mr Snell. Yes sir. Should we talk about Android TV a

00:19:30 ◼   ► little bit? This is still a little bit more follow up, got a lot of follow up today. Yeah.

00:19:34 ◼   ► Majd wrote in to remind us, and I've completely forgotten about this, and not only do we never

00:19:39 ◼   ► think about Chromecast, we also didn't remember that Android TV exists as a whole product.

00:19:46 ◼   ► That's right. It is an operating system with Chromecast support and a bunch of apps that

00:19:50 ◼   ► is built into TVs and other TV connected devices.

00:19:54 ◼   ► - Right, so this is Google's equivalent of Apple TV

00:19:57 ◼   ► and Roku and Amazon Fire TV.

00:20:00 ◼   ► Chromecast obviously way more prominent

00:20:02 ◼   ► in terms of mindshare kind of everywhere,

00:20:05 ◼   ► but there is Android TV.

00:20:07 ◼   ► It does have apps.

00:20:08 ◼   ► It's built into a few boxes and a bunch of TVs.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Although it seems like Roku is beating them on the TV side.

00:20:18 ◼   ► It seems like at least I see Roku TVs,

00:20:21 ◼   ► I hear about Roku TVs a lot

00:20:23 ◼   ► and less about Android TV embedded,

00:20:25 ◼   ► but they are playing in the embedded TV game

00:20:28 ◼   ► and powering the idea there

00:20:31 ◼   ► that they put their operating system in it

00:20:33 ◼   ► and then the apps just come from their platform

00:20:35 ◼   ► instead of the TV manufacturer

00:20:37 ◼   ► building their own like custom thing

00:20:38 ◼   ► that's got a few apps in it,

00:20:39 ◼   ► they just put in Android TV or they put in Roku

00:20:42 ◼   ► and they walk away and say, we're good.

00:20:44 ◼   ► So it does exist.

00:20:47 ◼   ► That's what we were talking about.

00:20:50 ◼   ► So that's Google's real direct sort of app-based TV strategy.

00:20:57 ◼   ► But I think the fact that we didn't think of it--

00:20:59 ◼   ► I mean, part of that is that we're more in the Apple space.

00:21:01 ◼   ► But even though I've got a Fire TV,

00:21:03 ◼   ► and I have a Roku that's old, and I don't use it anymore.

00:21:06 ◼   ► I don't have the latest Roku.

00:21:08 ◼   ► But it is interesting that we didn't think of it.

00:21:10 ◼   ► I think it doesn't get brought up a lot.

00:21:12 ◼   ► And I understand how frustrating that can be,

00:21:14 ◼   ► because I remember in the old days as a Mac user,

00:21:17 ◼   ► people would list off things and they'd be like,

00:21:18 ◼   ► "Why didn't you mention the Mac?"

00:21:19 ◼   ► And it can be very frustrating when there's a thing

00:21:21 ◼   ► that you use and you understand

00:21:22 ◼   ► and that people pretend it doesn't exist.

00:21:24 ◼   ► This happens when we talk about streaming services a lot

00:21:26 ◼   ► or live TV streaming services where people say,

00:21:29 ◼   ► "But why didn't you mention this?"

00:21:31 ◼   ► 'Cause it turns out we mentioned three as examples

00:21:34 ◼   ► and there are five.

00:21:35 ◼   ► And the people who are users of the other two get angry

00:21:38 ◼   ► and I get it.

00:21:39 ◼   ► So Android TV is a thing that exists.

00:21:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I mean, I would argue

00:21:45 ◼   ► that even Google doesn't put the focus on this product.

00:21:49 ◼   ► They focus on Chromecast.

00:21:51 ◼   ► I just watched the Made by Google keynote, right?

00:21:53 ◼   ► And a couple of weeks ago,

00:21:55 ◼   ► I didn't hear Android TV brought up at all.

00:21:57 ◼   ► I don't even remember it being brought up at Google I/O,

00:21:59 ◼   ► but it may have been.

00:22:01 ◼   ► - Chromecast is funny because it's a product,

00:22:03 ◼   ► basically, and a feature.

00:22:05 ◼   ► And in fact, one of the main features of Android TV

00:22:08 ◼   ► is Chromecast. - Chromecast support, yeah.

00:22:11 ◼   ► - I did hear from somebody and I thought this,

00:22:12 ◼   ► they made a good point that,

00:22:14 ◼   ► and I know you got that email too,

00:22:16 ◼   ► a little bit kind of tangential

00:22:18 ◼   ► to the point we were trying to make,

00:22:19 ◼   ► but worth at least mentioning,

00:22:21 ◼   ► one of the values of Chromecast is

00:22:23 ◼   ► that you can have Chromecast devices all over your house

00:22:26 ◼   ► and use your phone to control them.

00:22:31 ◼   ► And it's essentially one device logged into the services

00:22:37 ◼   ► that you're streaming because it's your phone.

00:22:40 ◼   ► And if you're on a device,

00:22:41 ◼   ► if you're on a service that limits the number of devices

00:22:44 ◼   ► that you can have.

00:22:45 ◼   ► One of the advantages, whether that's for legitimate,

00:22:47 ◼   ► sort of like, I have lots of devices issues,

00:22:49 ◼   ► or it's semi-legitimate, I'm sharing passwords

00:22:52 ◼   ► with other people in my family kind of issues,

00:22:56 ◼   ► you could hit a limit a lot more readily

00:22:59 ◼   ► on three devices in your house,

00:23:01 ◼   ► or five devices in your house,

00:23:02 ◼   ► plus whatever else is going on,

00:23:04 ◼   ► than with necessarily with a Chromecast,

00:23:06 ◼   ► which you're just kind of like,

00:23:07 ◼   ► your phone is the master device,

00:23:09 ◼   ► no matter which Chromecast you're casting to.

00:23:11 ◼   ► So it's worth mentioning too.

00:23:13 ◼   ► There's some nuances there.

00:23:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, there definitely is.

00:23:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I guess we should talk about another thing

00:23:22 ◼   ► regarding TV streaming.

00:23:23 ◼   ► So this is like a, we don't have a word for it.

00:23:26 ◼   ► It's probably okay that we don't have a word.

00:23:28 ◼   ► I'm sure there's a word in German for it anyway,

00:23:29 ◼   ► which is a new topic that grows out of follow-up.

00:23:34 ◼   ► But we might as well talk about it here

00:23:37 ◼   ► since we're talking about video.

00:23:39 ◼   ► - We don't need to try anything else today.

00:23:41 ◼   ► don't send any suggestions in for what this is called.

00:23:45 ◼   ► We're building out.

00:23:49 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:23:50 ◼   ► - Please don't, you're doing it.

00:23:51 ◼   ► Stop it. - No, I'm doing it.

00:23:52 ◼   ► I gotta stop, I gotta stop.

00:23:53 ◼   ► We talked a lot about streaming services, right?

00:23:56 ◼   ► We talked about Apple getting into this.

00:23:57 ◼   ► Apple's gonna do streaming services.

00:23:59 ◼   ► Everybody wants a streaming service.

00:24:01 ◼   ► People are frustrated,

00:24:01 ◼   ► like how many $10 streaming services can I subscribe to?

00:24:04 ◼   ► And the answer is probably not many.

00:24:05 ◼   ► And some of the streaming services will discover that.

00:24:07 ◼   ► And then they're gonna go out of business

00:24:10 ◼   ► or retrench or merge because they're gonna discover that.

00:24:13 ◼   ► But they're all trying to grab a piece of the pie

00:24:15 ◼   ► because they feel like that all the money

00:24:17 ◼   ► that has been going into traditional TV

00:24:18 ◼   ► is kind of up for grabs and they want it.

00:24:20 ◼   ► So everybody wants to build their own streaming service.

00:24:23 ◼   ► And a lot of these companies are entertainment companies.

00:24:27 ◼   ► Some of them are technical

00:24:28 ◼   ► and some of them are entertainment.

00:24:29 ◼   ► And what's interesting is to look at how they

00:24:32 ◼   ► approach their businesses.

00:24:34 ◼   ► So like when Amazon builds their video service,

00:24:39 ◼   ► video service, or Netflix, which is a tech company, you know, they're more than

00:24:43 ◼   ► they're an entertainment company, I would argue, or at least they started out that

00:24:46 ◼   ► way. And Apple is certainly a good example of this. They are going to

00:24:50 ◼   ► approach it from a technical standpoint, and presumably their streaming

00:24:54 ◼   ► infrastructure, it doesn't mean that they'll do it right, but they've got a

00:24:57 ◼   ► much better chance of doing their streaming infrastructure right, because

00:25:01 ◼   ► like, they have a big streaming infrastructure already for other things,

00:25:05 ◼   ► and they've got data centers, and they've got advanced, you know, network

00:25:09 ◼   ► engineers who know how to build this stuff. And they struggle potentially

00:25:15 ◼   ► with the part of the business that is not what they're good at, which is like

00:25:18 ◼   ► entertainment, which is why you see Apple hire TV guys to run their business.

00:25:23 ◼   ► Because, you know, Apple's expertise does not extend to making deals

00:25:28 ◼   ► with creative people in Hollywood. It doesn't, for television shows and

00:25:33 ◼   ► developing a slate of television programming. It doesn't map. If you're an

00:25:38 ◼   ► entertainment company, the reverse is true, right? You've got programming down. Like,

00:25:43 ◼   ► HBO is already doing it. It's good. But then HBO says, "But we want to do a streaming service."

00:25:48 ◼   ► And if you don't know this story, I mean, the short version of the story is HBO's chief

00:25:52 ◼   ► technical officer was charged to build a streaming service. And I think he was building HBO Now

00:25:59 ◼   ► while they were using Major League Baseball, Advanced Media's streaming service for HBO

00:26:06 ◼   ► Go. I think that's what it was. And basically the HBO home-built thing was a disaster, and

00:26:14 ◼   ► they fired the guy, and they just went to MLB Advanced Media, which is now called Bamco

00:26:19 ◼   ► and is owned by a majority by Disney, because Disney bought them for the same reason of

00:26:25 ◼   ► like, they're... You think about baseball, and if you're like some people, you think

00:26:30 ◼   ► baseball is boring, but they did... Major League Baseball built this company that is

00:26:34 ◼   ► basically state-of-the-art in terms of streaming video on the internet. And they built it for

00:26:37 ◼   ► themselves, and then a bunch of other sports companies went in, and then a bunch of entertainment

00:26:41 ◼   ► companies went in with them, because they built a tech company that was very good at

00:26:47 ◼   ► video streaming. So HBO was finally like, "Okay, we give up. We're gonna use you, because

00:26:51 ◼   ► you know what you're doing." Now, HBO is actually saying now they're building their own infrastructure

00:26:55 ◼   ► and they're gonna move off of BamCo. "Good luck," I say to them, "Good luck." I bring

00:27:01 ◼   ► this up because I've been enjoying watching Star Trek Discovery which is in the US is

00:27:07 ◼   ► on CBS's streaming service. The rest of the world it's on Netflix except for Canada

00:27:11 ◼   ► where it's on a Canadian streaming service but in the rest of the world it's on Netflix

00:27:16 ◼   ► which is great but here in the US we have to use CBS All Access. So CBS built their

00:27:23 ◼   ► own streaming service, yay! And it's a disaster. And this is one of those good examples where

00:27:28 ◼   ► if you're an entertainment company

00:27:31 ◼   ► and you don't have expertise in tech,

00:27:32 ◼   ► you are gonna struggle on that side.

00:27:35 ◼   ► So CBS All Access, they don't support 5.1 audio.

00:27:39 ◼   ► I believe they're streaming a 720p stream.

00:27:42 ◼   ► There's no higher quality available.

00:27:44 ◼   ► The close captioning is rudimentary compared to Netflix.

00:27:49 ◼   ► Like the Netflix experience outside the US,

00:27:51 ◼   ► way superior to what we're getting in the US,

00:27:55 ◼   ► the origin of this because their app

00:27:57 ◼   ► and their infrastructure can't support it.

00:27:59 ◼   ► And then last night's episode of Star Trek Discovery,

00:28:03 ◼   ► anybody with an Apple TV and some other people

00:28:06 ◼   ► using other devices reported this too,

00:28:08 ◼   ► but it sounds like everybody who watched with an Apple TV,

00:28:11 ◼   ► it was glitches and video would just back up

00:28:16 ◼   ► by two or three seconds and repeat multiple times.

00:28:20 ◼   ► Like it was trying to figure out what to do

00:28:22 ◼   ► with the stream and failing, or they had a bad file.

00:28:25 ◼   ► I'm not really sure quite what was going on, but it was, well, it took me like an hour

00:28:30 ◼   ► to watch a 45 minute episode. So that should tell you how it was. And it kind of broke

00:28:34 ◼   ► the mood when you have something dramatic. And the way it sounded just to give people

00:28:38 ◼   ► an illustration of how it sounded when this was happening, it was like that. It was just

00:28:49 ◼   ► infuriating. And I mean, all I have to say is, I like that CBS, I mean, a lot of people

00:28:56 ◼   ► are mad because they're basically saying you have to pay if you want to watch Star Trek

00:29:00 ◼   ► and you're not going to just use your Netflix subscription, you have to pay us directly

00:29:04 ◼   ► if you're in the US. We're holding this show hostage because we want to build a streaming

00:29:07 ◼   ► service. I get why that frustrates people, but I think it's a clever business decision,

00:29:12 ◼   ► I think it's borne out, they renewed Star Trek Discovery for season two, I think it's

00:29:15 ◼   ► working for them, I think it's working for Netflix and the rest of the world, all that's

00:29:19 ◼   ► fine. But the other part of the story is you got to do a good job with your technical infrastructure

00:29:24 ◼   ► and it's harder than it looks. Just like we say all the time about Apple and television

00:29:29 ◼   ► that it's harder than it looks to do content. We got to be fair here. It's harder than it

00:29:34 ◼   ► looks to do internet. And so when FX and AMC say they're going to do streaming services,

00:29:41 ◼   ► I had that moment where I think maybe Disney wasn't so stupid when they spent billions

00:29:46 ◼   ► of dollars on Major League Baseball advanced media because they bought a company that knows

00:29:52 ◼   ► how to do video streaming and I think a lot of these companies are fooling themselves

00:29:57 ◼   ► when they feel like that's the tech part's not a problem. We'll figure that out. It's

00:30:00 ◼   ► the creative part, what we are good at. That's the secret sauce and the tech part is just

00:30:04 ◼   ► whatever. Streaming on the internet, how hard could it be? And the answer is it's very hard.

00:30:11 ◼   ► I wanted to just provide some real-time follow-up that the company is called BAM Tech.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Oh, that's right, BAM Tech. BAM Tech, which is just out of Major League Baseball Advanced

00:30:22 ◼   ► Media. They always called it BAM, B-A-M, and now it's BAM Tech. That's right, it's

00:30:29 ◼   ► not BAM Co., it's BAM Tech, but it's a dumb name. The old name was dumb too. It's

00:30:32 ◼   ► now a new dumb name, but the point is they built a tech startup essentially inside Major

00:30:37 ◼   ► League Baseball that learned about how to do video streaming and did it right early

00:30:42 ◼   ► and everybody else went, "Oh my god, let's just pay those guys to do this because this

00:30:46 ◼   ► is hard." And when you see somebody go it alone, and it goes to the streaming infrastructure,

00:30:52 ◼   ► it also goes to the app development, like the CBS All Access apps aren't very good

00:30:56 ◼   ► either because they've had to build, you've got to build your own app, and they're not

00:31:00 ◼   ► very good. So where the blame is to be placed, the fact that the streams aren't high quality

00:31:06 ◼   ► either when they do work. It's a--I just thought it was really interesting, and I've been thinking

00:31:11 ◼   ► about writing about that for a while now and talking about it, but really last night was

00:31:14 ◼   ► The Capper, because it made the show basically unwatchable. And if I hadn't been set to record

00:31:21 ◼   ► a podcast an hour later, which we did, which we do every week, which is a lot of fun, it

00:31:25 ◼   ► was a fun episode, we had a lot of laughs, it was actually a really great recap episode,

00:31:28 ◼   ► and the episode itself was good, but I would have given up and come back to it days later

00:31:33 ◼   ► if I didn't have that commitment because it was terrible. A terrible experience to watch

00:31:37 ◼   ► it. So streaming, it's harder than it looks.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Yeah I mean even, even BamTec don't get it perfect. So the WWE used BamTec. That's what

00:31:46 ◼   ► their platform is based on. And I was watching it live last night and had a very similar

00:31:49 ◼   ► experience to you where it just kept jumping back to a previous part of the stream, like

00:31:54 ◼   ► every now and then. Like an hour earlier and stuff like that, you know.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Yeah and is that their stream or is that their app is also unclear. Major League Baseball

00:32:01 ◼   ► is not without fault. I mean, they have issues, but when they're going well...

00:32:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I will say, like, this is a rare occurrence.

00:32:07 ◼   ► Major League Baseball's app, you can do a 60 frames per second live stream of any baseball

00:32:12 ◼   ► game that's playing at any given time, which is amazing. And they set records on usage every year.

00:32:17 ◼   ► I get the press releases from the guys at BAM Tech, who it's like, "Here's the latest record

00:32:24 ◼   ► numbers of video streams for Major League Baseball." And it keeps going up. So, yeah.

00:32:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it's just, it's funny that, so when you hear,

00:32:34 ◼   ► I asked the listeners, when you hear about a tech company

00:32:38 ◼   ► say they're gonna get entertainment,

00:32:39 ◼   ► I think you're gonna bring your skepticism.

00:32:42 ◼   ► When you hear an entertainment company explain

00:32:45 ◼   ► that they've got a tech thing, like a streaming service,

00:32:49 ◼   ► I think we all need to apply that same level of skepticism,

00:32:52 ◼   ► because just 'cause they know how to make TV

00:32:54 ◼   ► has no bearing on whether they can put the TV

00:32:57 ◼   ► on the internet.

00:32:58 ◼   ► So in more news of Apple executives responding to emails, there are a couple of instances...

00:33:04 ◼   ► Isn't it great they use email? They use email at Apple!

00:33:07 ◼   ► Wild, it's wild. A couple of instances, one comes from MacRumors, where somebody emailed

00:33:13 ◼   ► Craig Federighi and asked, "Will we see an October event?" This guy named Luke asked this question.

00:33:19 ◼   ► Federighi replied with, "I think we'll keynote it out for the season."

00:33:24 ◼   ► So this is kind of answering the question of will we see an event which includes the HomePod and the iMac Pro?

00:33:32 ◼   ► The answer seems to be probably no.

00:33:35 ◼   ► The answer is no. And the reason is we already saw that event, it was the WWDC keynote.

00:33:42 ◼   ► And I get the people, I think there's a little too much emphasis on live events, especially in the Apple world,

00:33:50 ◼   ► where I've seen some people speculating, especially on Twitter, like, "Well, what happens? There's

00:33:57 ◼   ► so much more to say about the HomePod." It's like, "Yeah, but the reveal already happened."

00:34:02 ◼   ► And Apple's got lots of other ways to get out details to the people who care about details,

00:34:06 ◼   ► right? To the people who don't care about details, Apple's got a really great way to

00:34:09 ◼   ► get it out, which is they buy ads. And there are cool ads with the HomePod at the holidays

00:34:16 ◼   ► or whenever they've got these things ready to ship, and people will know that it exists.

00:34:20 ◼   ► But they don't need an event to do that, and they don't need an event to get the details

00:34:24 ◼   ► out because they can bring press down if they want and do some briefings and seed them with

00:34:30 ◼   ► review units and have an embargo, and then suddenly one day in December every tech site

00:34:37 ◼   ► has a HomePod review. They can do that. They can do it by press release if they really

00:34:44 ◼   ► wanted to, I doubt they will. I think they will take the extra step of seeding review

00:34:48 ◼   ► units in certain places and getting people to write about it that way. And the iMac Pro

00:34:54 ◼   ► is the same way. It's already been unveiled. Like, there are details, sure, but they can

00:34:58 ◼   ► do that with reviews, and that becomes news, the fact that the first reviews have dropped

00:35:05 ◼   ► via embargo. And for the people who care about details, that's going to do it. That's going

00:35:09 ◼   ► to do the trick. And they'll post their own content, too. We ignore that. People like

00:35:14 ◼   ► me who like are on the independent content creation side ignore the fact that one of

00:35:18 ◼   ► the big sources for information about Apple's products is Apple.com and they can post videos

00:35:23 ◼   ► and spec sheets and tech specs and all sorts of things there and do. So there's going to

00:35:29 ◼   ► be a lot of information out there. You don't really need, I think the events are about

00:35:34 ◼   ► the reveal right? The events are about the reveal not the details and it's iPhone 10

00:35:39 ◼   ► launching too, it's the same way. They don't need to do another event to say it's shipping

00:35:43 ◼   ► though there will be details there. So none of these products, they've already been revealed.

00:35:47 ◼   ► So there's no new event necessary and it feels very much like the Mac, which we're going

00:35:52 ◼   ► to talk about the Mac a little bit too, I think that's the next email in the inbox,

00:35:56 ◼   ► the upgrade inbox. The Mac stuff feels very much like, with the exception of that iMac

00:36:02 ◼   ► Pro, a 2018 kind of story.

00:36:06 ◼   ► I did want to mention though about the HomePod. I understand why people are questioning and

00:36:12 ◼   ► wondering if there's going to be an event because the WWDC event left a lot of questions

00:36:18 ◼   ► like even to the point where they were like oh it's it's gonna do other stuff right like

00:36:22 ◼   ► it's there'll be more but like we didn't see it like all the Siri things like I feel like

00:36:26 ◼   ► this is a product that that it's like um it feels to me in a way that do you remember

00:36:32 ◼   ► the original uh unveiling of the Apple watch in like I think it was in like September and

00:36:39 ◼   ► then they brought it out in March do you remember that like they they showed it off and then

00:36:42 ◼   ► and then they did another event where they brought it out.

00:36:45 ◼   ► There was a time period.

00:36:47 ◼   ► So that's how I'm kind of thinking of the HomePods.

00:36:49 ◼   ► You've shown us the basics of this, but where's the rest?

00:36:52 ◼   ► And what they are probably gonna do now

00:36:54 ◼   ► is bring in a bunch of press and do big feature stories.

00:36:58 ◼   ► That's probably the way they're gonna do this.

00:36:59 ◼   ► But I understand why there was a question,

00:37:01 ◼   ► especially around the HomePods,

00:37:03 ◼   ► because it's a new product,

00:37:04 ◼   ► it's a thing we've never seen before,

00:37:06 ◼   ► and we didn't get all the details.

00:37:08 ◼   ► So I personally can see why there was a question in the air.

00:37:12 ◼   ► But in the same vein, I can see why you could say,

00:37:14 ◼   ► well, the home pod is not enough for an event on its own,

00:37:17 ◼   ► which it's not.

00:37:17 ◼   ► The iMac Pro doesn't need an event

00:37:19 ◼   ► 'cause there's nothing else more than what we've seen.

00:37:21 ◼   ► Right, like it is what it is,

00:37:22 ◼   ► and they have no other products.

00:37:23 ◼   ► So it's not an event, it's not enough,

00:37:26 ◼   ► unless they had something else, which they don't.

00:37:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I sometimes wonder, I mean,

00:37:30 ◼   ► but it would come under the heading of event.

00:37:33 ◼   ► I do sometimes wonder if what they could do

00:37:36 ◼   ► is something that's a little bit less like an event.

00:37:39 ◼   ► I guess it would be a briefing.

00:37:41 ◼   ► because they could invite people down to Cupertino and have these things in different rooms and

00:37:44 ◼   ► like usher people through, but either that's a press event where everybody's going there

00:37:49 ◼   ► at a certain time to do this, at which point it's an event, essentially.

00:37:52 ◼   ► Yeah, you may as well have somebody get on stage at that point because it's more efficient.

00:37:55 ◼   ► And the briefings are what they prefer, and that's what they're going to do, is they've

00:37:59 ◼   ► got places that they can take journalists, and I've been through that. I've run the gauntlet

00:38:05 ◼   ► there a bunch. You go into one room, they tell you about one thing, then they take,

00:38:10 ◼   ► you know, you're there for 30 minutes, then they take you to another room, they tell you

00:38:13 ◼   ► about another thing, you're there for 30 minutes, they do demos, you know, and then you, if

00:38:17 ◼   ► you've got a review unit, you get that and you leave and you get an embargo time and

00:38:21 ◼   ► if it's under embargo and you go back home and go to work, that's the deal. So they can

00:38:27 ◼   ► do that with the HomePod and that's probably what they'll do. They seem to do that in Cupertino

00:38:33 ◼   ► and in New York, you know, they book people and bring them in and have them do that. So

00:38:39 ◼   ► I imagine that's what's going to happen. Just like they do, they'll do that for the iPhone

00:38:42 ◼   ► 10 as well, right? They'll, they'll get people to come and give them a briefing and give

00:38:46 ◼   ► them a review unit with an embargo time.

00:38:47 ◼   ► Yep. Because they weren't given out, right? We know that.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Right. So, which is funny. It's, it's not an event, but it's like, it's still a PR campaign

00:38:58 ◼   ► that happens. It's just not a public event. Instead, it's this private kind of behind

00:39:02 ◼   ► the scenes timed coordination that they do, but it's a big part of their rollout strategy

00:39:07 ◼   ► for any product too. So I suspect that's what it will be. And there will be some morning

00:39:11 ◼   ► in December where all of a sudden there will be 10 or 15 stories from people who got pre-release

00:39:17 ◼   ► HomePods talking about their full review after having spent a week with the HomePod in their

00:39:24 ◼   ► house.

00:39:25 ◼   ► I hope that was something like that. And then also Tim Cook responded to an email and this

00:39:32 ◼   ► There's another one coming from MacRumors where Rita Crowe wrote in to ask about the

00:39:38 ◼   ► Mac Mini and Tim said, "I'm glad you love the Mac Mini, we love it too.

00:39:43 ◼   ► Our customers have found so many creative and interesting uses for Mac Mini.

00:39:47 ◼   ► While it is not time to share any details, we do plan for Mac Mini to be an important

00:39:51 ◼   ► part of our product lineup going forward."

00:39:54 ◼   ► So it has gone from being a product in the line to an important part of the product line.

00:40:01 ◼   ► So the Mac Mini has received a wording upgrade, not an actual upgrade, the current version

00:40:08 ◼   ► of it is three years old now, but this is maybe more positive about the Mac Mini than

00:40:16 ◼   ► the last time Apple gave a public statement about the Mac Mini.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Yeah, well the last statement was "Yes, the Mac Mini exists."

00:40:26 ◼   ► And this is an important part of our product line going forward, which, okay, the parsing,

00:40:34 ◼   ► let the parsing begin, right?

00:40:35 ◼   ► Like going forward means it will continue to exist.

00:40:38 ◼   ► Okay, that's a step forward then currently exists.

00:40:41 ◼   ► It will continue to exist in the future.

00:40:43 ◼   ► And then part of the product line, we covered that last time, right?

00:40:45 ◼   ► It exists.

00:40:47 ◼   ► Important part of the product line suggests that it has a level of, I don't know, an undefined

00:40:54 ◼   ► level of value to Apple as part of the product line that is not zero. So,

00:41:01 ◼   ► interesting statement, of course, Tim Cook email issuances tend to be hard to

00:41:08 ◼   ► parse in a way. We talked about it on the show the last time he did this that I

00:41:14 ◼   ► feel like this is a, you know, one of the attempts to just sort of like soothe

00:41:18 ◼   ► people without giving details is to do this. And they tried to do that with a

00:41:22 ◼   ► Mac Pro and it failed and they ended up having to do the emergency all hands round table

00:41:28 ◼   ► Mac Pro event to get to soothe that group of people and get a story out about how they

00:41:36 ◼   ► were going to listen to them. I'm not sure that will happen with the Mac Mini where we're

00:41:40 ◼   ► going to suddenly have eight journalists were convened around a table to talk about the

00:41:44 ◼   ► Mac Mini. That's probably not going to happen, but I'm encouraged by this because I feel

00:41:49 ◼   ► that this does go beyond the Mac Mini exists to say it will continue to exist and it, I

00:41:55 ◼   ► take important part of our product line up to mean we will update it every so often like

00:42:01 ◼   ► we've been doing for its entire life.

00:42:02 ◼   ► It's not important if you leave it there forever, right? Like it's not, you know,

00:42:07 ◼   ► so they must be doing or planning to do something.

00:42:11 ◼   ► Yeah, well and it's obviously not a priority for them but the fact is that the Mac Mini

00:42:18 ◼   ► has often gone in its lifetime through long stretches of time where it's

00:42:23 ◼   ► untouched and then it comes out. Now I would like it to be updated more

00:42:27 ◼   ► regularly as new chips come out but that seems to just not be what it...

00:42:31 ◼   ► Its sales must not merit that, I'll put it that way. I think it's

00:42:35 ◼   ► probably right for Apple not to highly prioritize the Mac Mini so they give it

00:42:39 ◼   ► a refresh, a new code of paint every few years and then they let it sit there for

00:42:43 ◼   ► a while. Now you know I've talked about on this show before that you know you

00:42:48 ◼   ► at what Intel has done with their next unit of computing little boxes that are

00:42:53 ◼   ► incredibly small, they're the size of an Apple TV, essentially, and there's a whole

00:42:57 ◼   ► computer in there that's powerful, it's got an Intel like an i5 or an i7

00:43:02 ◼   ► processor in there, and a fast SSD, and a bunch of ports, and the Intel stuff, it

00:43:06 ◼   ► supports Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C, plus standard USB-A, HDMI out, it's got all of

00:43:12 ◼   ► these features in a little tiny box that's the size of an Apple TV, and I look

00:43:15 ◼   ► that box and I say, and I have one right here, I look at that box and I say, "That's what

00:43:20 ◼   ► the Mac Mini should be." You know, it doesn't have to be quite that small, it doesn't have

00:43:23 ◼   ► to look quite that plastic, Apple can do their own thing with it if they want to, but like,

00:43:28 ◼   ► that strikes me as being a great direction for Apple to say the Mac Mini is even more

00:43:32 ◼   ► mini now, and they put it out there, and then they walk away from it for three years again,

00:43:36 ◼   ► because that's what they're gonna do. But it's, you know, I'm encouraged by the fact

00:43:40 ◼   ► that maybe in 2018 at some point, we'll see that, that something that's sort of styled

00:43:44 ◼   ► like the Apple TV maybe comes out except it's a Mac and I really believe and forgive me

00:43:52 ◼   ► because this is like a broken record I've said this many times that gives Apple enough

00:43:56 ◼   ► to kind of like pat itself on the back and say look how we've reinvented computing again

00:44:01 ◼   ► by blowing your mind by doing this small this super small Mac.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Yeah and that would be a fun story.

00:44:07 ◼   ► Even though they exist already.

00:44:08 ◼   ► You know like for a product that maybe doesn't get a lot of the spotlight because it's not

00:44:12 ◼   ► a very popular product.

00:44:13 ◼   ► Isn't it the smallest Mac ever?

00:44:14 ◼   ► Yeah, but yeah, the smallest Mac ever, a Mac you can fit in your pocket, you know?

00:44:17 ◼   ► That might be fun, right?

00:44:19 ◼   ► There could be some fun branding around that which might entice people to grab one and

00:44:24 ◼   ► like put some something on it and throw it in a cupboard, right?

00:44:26 ◼   ► Like it's, you know, there are uses for a product which is mega tiny.

00:44:30 ◼   ► Well, right, and the, I saw Neil Seibert, the analyst on Twitter, was talking about

00:44:35 ◼   ► I'm not sure where the Mac Mini, you know, how important it is and how necessary it is,

00:44:39 ◼   ► and I, you know, I replied to him and I basically said what I've said to you before, which is

00:44:43 ◼   ► is, it's one of the reasons that it's good to have a Mac Mini is that it's like an escape

00:44:47 ◼   ► valve, like a pressure release valve. It's like, if there's something you want to do

00:44:51 ◼   ► with Mac OS, and none of the other options work, there's the Mac Mini. Just do what you

00:44:56 ◼   ► want, right? It's like literally, it's affordable, it runs Mac OS, you can attach anything to

00:45:02 ◼   ► it, just take one and do whatever. This could become the education computer, right? Like

00:45:07 ◼   ► these are the computers you put in schools, right? There are many things that it could

00:45:11 ◼   ► do, especially if it was priced interestingly, there are options.

00:45:16 ◼   ► There are options.

00:45:17 ◼   ► Right, and it allows the iMac not to need to be everything to everyone or the Mac Pro

00:45:22 ◼   ► to be everything to everyone because they can't be.

00:45:26 ◼   ► And that's the, you know, I'm just a real believer in this, like, products need to not

00:45:30 ◼   ► carry the entire weight of the platform.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Like the more diversity you have in the product line, that allows the products to do what

00:45:40 ◼   ► Apple likes them to do, which is like super, like be true to themselves and have that kind

00:45:44 ◼   ► of specific, like this is what the iMac, you know, the iMac is trying to be the best iMac

00:45:50 ◼   ► it can be. It's a lot easier if somebody who says, "Well, yeah, but I don't want the big

00:45:55 ◼   ► screen or whatever." You're like Mac Mini, just go to the Mac Mini, right? The Mac Mini

00:45:59 ◼   ► then is that pressure release valve, which is if you would like to do literally anything

00:46:03 ◼   ► you can think of with a Mac, the Mac Mini exists, go to town, right? And so I think

00:46:10 ◼   ► I think that's the value of that product is that it lets them point at it and say

00:46:13 ◼   ► for all of your little project because I think there's no one single amazing use

00:46:18 ◼   ► for the Mac Mini used to be like attached to your TV and stuff but we've

00:46:22 ◼   ► gone way past that with the Apple TV and other things it's a lot less of an issue

00:46:26 ◼   ► but there are still a million different weird things that a Mac Mini is good at

00:46:33 ◼   ► and that's why it's important to have it so I'm encouraged by this I think there

00:46:38 ◼   ► will be a new Mac Mini and I hope, I feel like the existing footprint of the Mac

00:46:43 ◼   ► Mini is still stuck in the spinning hard drive, there used to be a CD drive kind

00:46:47 ◼   ► of a mentality in terms of the design of it, so I have a strong feeling that the

00:46:52 ◼   ► next Mac Mini will be something more like those little Intel boxes or like

00:46:57 ◼   ► the Apple TV where they just, that's a very Apple thing to do too, just go all

00:47:01 ◼   ► in on tiny that it's SSD, you know, there's no CD drives anymore so we can

00:47:06 ◼   ► make this thing incredibly small and then go away. Take it away, we don't want to talk

00:47:13 ◼   ► about it anymore, just take your thing and go. Because I think that is sort of Apple's

00:47:17 ◼   ► attitude to it is, we just need it to exist and then we'll move on to the more exciting

00:47:21 ◼   ► products elsewhere.

00:47:22 ◼   ► I wanted to say just one more thing about the Mac Mini. I don't remember who but I saw

00:47:26 ◼   ► somebody on Twitter saying, all of the people that are complaining about the Mac Mini not

00:47:31 ◼   ► existing are people that wouldn't buy it, right? So like people like me and you, like

00:47:35 ◼   ► We don't really have use for that type of product.

00:47:36 ◼   ► Like we want the powerful products.

00:47:38 ◼   ► We want the portable products.

00:47:40 ◼   ► I agree with that idea, right?

00:47:42 ◼   ► Like people that are complaining about it won't buy it,

00:47:44 ◼   ► but that's not the reason

00:47:46 ◼   ► that people are frustrated about it.

00:47:48 ◼   ► The reason that people are frustrated about it

00:47:49 ◼   ► is because Apple is selling a product to people,

00:47:53 ◼   ► potentially, it's available for you to buy,

00:47:55 ◼   ► which is bad, which is just bad.

00:47:57 ◼   ► It's a bad product because it is slow and old.

00:48:00 ◼   ► Yeah, like, I mean, I would say maybe even worse

00:48:02 ◼   ► than the Mac Pro, honestly.

00:48:04 ◼   ► Like, it is an old slow product that they made slower when they refer--

00:48:07 ◼   ► You said it!

00:48:08 ◼   ► Uh, worse than the last version of it, so...

00:48:11 ◼   ► The best Mac Mini ever made is now not three years old,

00:48:15 ◼   ► like these current models, the best Mac Mini ever made is what, five or six years old now?

00:48:19 ◼   ► 'Cause it was that four core system that the new Mac Mini was slower than.

00:48:23 ◼   ► That's still the, uh, the fastest Mac Mini ever, and it's very old now.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Like, I don't care what they do, I just want them to do something.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Do something!

00:48:31 ◼   ► - We don't sell the Mac Mini anymore, awesome, right?

00:48:34 ◼   ► Like, I don't care what you do, just do something with it.

00:48:37 ◼   ► Because, you know.

00:48:38 ◼   ► - This is the ongoing story,

00:48:40 ◼   ► and for those who listen to ATP, you know,

00:48:43 ◼   ► John Syracuse is a believer in the Mac Renaissance,

00:48:45 ◼   ► and I kind of am too,

00:48:46 ◼   ► I feel like they've changed their tune on this,

00:48:47 ◼   ► but this is another example of what we've seen

00:48:50 ◼   ► the last couple of years,

00:48:51 ◼   ► which is rot in the Mac product line,

00:48:53 ◼   ► where things just sit there.

00:48:55 ◼   ► And Apple, it's like they're not paying attention to the Mac,

00:48:58 ◼   ► that they don't update them when new chips come out,

00:49:00 ◼   ► and the products age.

00:49:02 ◼   ► And a product that is a good value buy today

00:49:06 ◼   ► at the same price with the exact same specs in two years

00:49:09 ◼   ► is a terrible value.

00:49:11 ◼   ► So that's the problem in most cases,

00:49:13 ◼   ► maybe not in all cases, but in most cases,

00:49:15 ◼   ► is that these products are unattended.

00:49:18 ◼   ► And the laptops have been attended to.

00:49:21 ◼   ► We can talk about the issues involving them being attended

00:49:24 ◼   ► and what Apple's trying to do with them,

00:49:25 ◼   ► but at least they have paid attention to them.

00:49:26 ◼   ► They've speed bumped the iMacs.

00:49:28 ◼   ► The Mac Pro, at least they've said they know they're going to do something, and now the

00:49:32 ◼   ► Mac Mini, I suspect the same thing is happening, but for now, yeah, that's the open question,

00:49:37 ◼   ► which is why is this product being left there to rot?

00:49:40 ◼   ► I believe, just like I did with the Mac Pro, that the reason that it's sitting there is

00:49:44 ◼   ► because they're working on something else, because if they weren't, they'd just kill

00:49:48 ◼   ► it.

00:49:49 ◼   ► You hope.

00:49:50 ◼   ► I believe that.

00:49:51 ◼   ► I believe that to be the case, that if Apple truly did not care about the Mac Mini and

00:49:55 ◼   ► was never going to update it again.

00:49:57 ◼   ► After three years of it just sitting there,

00:49:59 ◼   ► they'd probably say, yeah, we're gonna shut this down.

00:50:02 ◼   ► It's the end of end of life,

00:50:03 ◼   ► like the iPod classic or something like that.

00:50:05 ◼   ► Just like this is the end, it's gone.

00:50:07 ◼   ► And, but instead they're like,

00:50:10 ◼   ► oh, but just around the corner, there's new ones.

00:50:12 ◼   ► So we're just gonna leave it there.

00:50:13 ◼   ► We're not gonna, we don't wanna create stories

00:50:14 ◼   ► about how they've killed the Mac mini

00:50:16 ◼   ► and then bring it back.

00:50:16 ◼   ► We're just gonna leave it, let it sit there

00:50:18 ◼   ► until we've got a new one and they've let it sit too long.

00:50:20 ◼   ► But I have hope that next year there will be a new one.

00:50:24 ◼   ► And that's great because I've had a Mac Mini running

00:50:26 ◼   ► in my house for like a decade or more now.

00:50:31 ◼   ► You know, I've gone through a couple of different ones,

00:50:33 ◼   ► but I find it, you know,

00:50:35 ◼   ► incredibly valuable to have in my house.

00:50:37 ◼   ► I'd love to keep using it.

00:50:38 ◼   ► I'd rather not repurpose an iMac or something into,

00:50:42 ◼   ► 'cause that's just a waste for what I use them for.

00:50:45 ◼   ► But yeah, we'll see.

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00:52:05 ◼   ► their support of this show and Relay FM. Well, one thing I wanted to mention is, before we move on,

00:52:11 ◼   ► is about Mac Mini versus Mac Pro. And just that I've seen a lot of people say, "Well,

00:52:17 ◼   ► maybe the Mac Pro is the Mac Mini, which is a fun conspiracy theory. But I mean, and I

00:52:23 ◼   ► am not a computer engineer, I can't say, but my impression is that those are two entirely

00:52:27 ◼   ► different computers, because one of them needs to be cheap, light, small, the speed is okay,

00:52:33 ◼   ► it's got, you know, okay power, it doesn't need a lot of ventilation, because they can

00:52:37 ◼   ► use a small fan or whatever. And it'll be fine. But the Mac Pro needs a huge like amount

00:52:45 ◼   ► of ventilation and the fastest parts and all of those things in order to do its

00:52:49 ◼   ► job and so I don't see how that's one computer I feel like that's two

00:52:54 ◼   ► computers the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro you can't make like a one-size-fits-all

00:52:58 ◼   ► because then the parts that you're putting in the the the one-size-fits-all

00:53:02 ◼   ► are gonna be way more expensive than necessary for the Mac Mini and the

00:53:06 ◼   ► enclosure is gonna be way bigger than it needs to be or you're gonna skimp on

00:53:10 ◼   ► those things and then the Mac Pro is gonna be lousy again which you don't

00:53:12 ◼   ► want. So I just wanted to say that before we moved on.

00:53:16 ◼   ► All right then, so I want to talk about the iPhone now. Let's shift gears from the Mac

00:53:20 ◼   ► to the iPhone. iPhone X availability has been a question mark about this over the last few

00:53:27 ◼   ► days because analysts from KGI Securities, everybody's favorite Min-Chi Kuo, has published

00:53:33 ◼   ► a report talking about supply chain problems for the first weekend sales. So, quick breakdown.

00:53:39 ◼   ► According to this report, Apple is still facing severe constraints for the iPhone X. Kuo is

00:53:44 ◼   ► reporting that Apple may have only between 2-3 million units for the launch weekend.

00:54:01 ◼   ► The iPhone 6s sold 13 million units in the first weekend.

00:54:05 ◼   ► Of course there were two phone options and this time the 8 line exists as well.

00:54:10 ◼   ► You can assume that the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus have chipped away, some of those say

00:54:15 ◼   ► there's going to be 15 million, so it's taken junk out of those.

00:54:18 ◼   ► But I bet the remaining number is more than 3 million.

00:54:21 ◼   ► That would be my expectation.

00:54:23 ◼   ► Quo is reporting that there are a variety of problems that are leading to these shortages.

00:54:28 ◼   ► There is a new flexible circuit board in the iPhone X which has been problematic for production.

00:54:33 ◼   ► There's a separate circuit board for the new camera sensors which is facing issues and

00:54:37 ◼   ► also a component of the infrared sensor for Face ID.

00:54:40 ◼   ► So Apple is struggling to get reliable parts for all of these things.

00:54:45 ◼   ► So it's looking like, as we assumed, it's looking like to be the case that if you want

00:54:50 ◼   ► one of these on day one, it's going to be a struggle no matter where you are in the

00:54:53 ◼   ► world and there may be very long waiting times.

00:54:56 ◼   ► Which is a shame considering that this device is already shipping way later than we maybe

00:55:01 ◼   ► would have initially expected right like it's coming out in November which is two

00:55:05 ◼   ► months after when an iPhone usually debuts and even with that lead time the

00:55:11 ◼   ► extra time potentially it seems like that there's still we're still gonna be

00:55:15 ◼   ► faced with real difficulties to get one of these within a within a time oh man

00:55:21 ◼   ► I'm just gonna it's gonna be like a command center in here on Friday morning

00:55:25 ◼   ► let me tell you I think everybody's gonna be disappointed it's gonna be it's

00:55:29 ◼   ► gonna be tough. It's gonna be a bloodbath, I think, honestly. It's gonna be real bad.

00:55:34 ◼   ► If you care about this stuff, which I'm assuming you do because you listen to this

00:55:37 ◼   ► show, we can all wallow in our sadness together. Yeah, and it's, uh, when, when is the pre-order?

00:55:43 ◼   ► It's Thursday at midnight, at midnight, first, midnight Pacific, Friday and Thursday

00:55:48 ◼   ► night, Friday morning. It's Friday at 8am for me, it's Thursday at midnight for you,

00:55:53 ◼   ► and midnight Pacific, yeah, between. 3am Eastern, yeah. Uh, oh boy, yeah, that's gonna be

00:55:59 ◼   ► - It's gonna be tough.

00:56:00 ◼   ► That's gonna be a tough one.

00:56:01 ◼   ► - Are you gonna pre-order?

00:56:03 ◼   ► - I think I'm gonna try, but my hope is that,

00:56:09 ◼   ► yeah, I mean, yes, I am,

00:56:11 ◼   ► because it's time for me to buy a phone.

00:56:13 ◼   ► So I am going to try.

00:56:14 ◼   ► We'll see how long it takes to get there.

00:56:16 ◼   ► My hope is that I will get a review unit.

00:56:19 ◼   ► So I'll be able to review it sooner

00:56:20 ◼   ► than I would actually be able to get it, but who knows?

00:56:23 ◼   ► 'Cause it may be like,

00:56:24 ◼   ► "Well, you'll get your phone in January,

00:56:26 ◼   ► but maybe I can get a review unit before that,

00:56:28 ◼   ► 'cause I'd like to write about it.

00:56:29 ◼   ► But I will buy one regardless because it's my time,

00:56:33 ◼   ► it's time for me to buy a new phone for myself

00:56:35 ◼   ► and that's the one I'm gonna get.

00:56:37 ◼   ► But this could be rough.

00:56:39 ◼   ► And we know that probably a lot of our listeners,

00:56:44 ◼   ► people who really care about Apple stuff,

00:56:46 ◼   ► a lot of them are, I think, deferring, right?

00:56:50 ◼   ► Not getting the iPhone 8 and instead waiting for the 10.

00:56:53 ◼   ► And so this is the challenge.

00:56:56 ◼   ► we talked about it when these rumors were first starting,

00:56:58 ◼   ► which is can they spread the demand out

00:57:01 ◼   ► or is everybody just gonna wait for the 10

00:57:04 ◼   ► and they can't deliver the 10

00:57:07 ◼   ► and it stays back ordered for months?

00:57:10 ◼   ► I mean, it could be that this phone is back ordered by months

00:57:15 ◼   ► through like mid 2018.

00:57:18 ◼   ► - When you're assuming they've already been building them

00:57:20 ◼   ► for months, right?

00:57:21 ◼   ► And the most they've been able to generate

00:57:22 ◼   ► is 3 million of them,

00:57:24 ◼   ► that you could be waiting months more to get the next three million.

00:57:28 ◼   ► We don't know how well all of this stuff works.

00:57:30 ◼   ► It says that apparently in Quo's report that production will be able to ramp up shortly,

00:57:34 ◼   ► but that's still going to then just fulfill the people that are pre-order.

00:57:39 ◼   ► I think this is probably going to be one of the worst four waiting times that maybe we've

00:57:43 ◼   ► ever seen for the iPhone.

00:57:44 ◼   ► I'm intrigued.

00:57:45 ◼   ► I mean, for me personally, I know that maybe this sounds silly, but it's important to me.

00:57:52 ◼   ► I will be frustrated if I'm not able to get one soon because I want to be able to talk about it on the shows

00:57:57 ◼   ► Right because otherwise it will be like maybe a month of me going like still haven't got it

00:58:02 ◼   ► And then when I get it, nobody cares what I think anymore

00:58:04 ◼   ► You know, no one wants to review anymore because it's two months, right? Right. So yeah, I hope that I'm able to get one

00:58:09 ◼   ► I'm gonna try my best to get one

00:58:11 ◼   ► And just see how we go and then hope with fingers crossed that you get one and maybe Federico gets one

00:58:17 ◼   ► from Apple

00:58:19 ◼   ► PR or something like that and then hope so then we'll have stuff to talk about on the show

00:58:22 ◼   ► So that's my main thing if I don't get one

00:58:25 ◼   ► I don't care as long as you have one because if you have one we want to go on this show

00:58:29 ◼   ► No, but you know what? I mean?

00:58:30 ◼   ► It's like because that's that's the thing that's most important to me like obviously I really want this phone

00:58:34 ◼   ► But the thing that takes the most importance is being able to talk about it here

00:58:39 ◼   ► So people can hear about it because that's what people are tuning in for so fingers crossed

00:58:43 ◼   ► On all fronts and then maybe I'll fly to California and just press some buttons if he'll soon as

00:58:48 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:58:50 ◼   ► - But you got confused, I assume,

00:58:53 ◼   ► thinking that there is a phone to be ordered

00:58:56 ◼   ► and you've ordered a phone already.

00:58:57 ◼   ► You did something, it says in our document.

00:58:59 ◼   ► Did you accidentally pre-order too soon, Jason?

00:59:02 ◼   ► What happened to you?

00:59:02 ◼   ► - No, I bought an iPhone 8 this weekend.

00:59:04 ◼   ► - Okay, okay.

00:59:06 ◼   ► Were you just getting ready?

00:59:07 ◼   ► Like, you know, you were like priming the pump,

00:59:09 ◼   ► getting some practice in for the ordering process?

00:59:13 ◼   ► - No, I mean, I did look actually online

00:59:16 ◼   ► to see if I could order it and just have it shipped to me

00:59:18 ◼   ► and it said, "Oh, that iPhone 8 will be there in two weeks."

00:59:23 ◼   ► Or you can just go up to your local Apple store

00:59:27 ◼   ► that's one exit up the freeway and buy it today.

00:59:29 ◼   ► - You've always gotta go up the freeway, Jason.

00:59:31 ◼   ► We've learned that so far for this season.

00:59:32 ◼   ► Always go up the freeway.

00:59:34 ◼   ► - Go to the Apple store, go to the Apple store.

00:59:36 ◼   ► This time I was recognized.

00:59:38 ◼   ► I walked in the door and the guy said, "Jason."

00:59:40 ◼   ► - Mr. Smith. - And I don't know whether

00:59:41 ◼   ► that's that he knows me or who I am through local things.

00:59:46 ◼   ► I didn't recognize him or whether they like do mug shots of the people who have placed an order and are coming into the store

00:59:52 ◼   ► I don't know, but it was quite strange. I was wearing my purple ATP t-shirt. So maybe that was a

00:59:58 ◼   ► Thing too, but I did I went up there and came back with a space gray iPhone 8

01:00:04 ◼   ► because

01:00:07 ◼   ► My wife has been using an iPhone 6 for the last three years and

01:00:13 ◼   ► The you may not have heard this mic but a couple of things happen after three years of using an iPhone 6 one is

01:00:19 ◼   ► the battery life has been a problem for the last six months the battery starts to get old three-year-old battery and

01:00:26 ◼   ► The other thing and this is something that people have been complaining about a little bit on the internet

01:00:31 ◼   ► And I have seen it for myself and my wife's phone and my daughter's phone, which is

01:00:35 ◼   ► IOS 11

01:00:37 ◼   ► Really is really bad on iPhone 6 like I was 10 was fine

01:00:41 ◼   ► I don't know what they did, but iOS 11 is really bad on iPhone 6.

01:00:44 ◼   ► And as much as I roll my eyes at the conspiracy theories about Apple making old phones slow

01:00:49 ◼   ► so that you have to upgrade to new phones, the fact is iOS 10 was fine on the iPhone 6.

01:00:54 ◼   ► And iOS 11 is really bad, and you can't go back now.

01:00:57 ◼   ► I would just tell my daughter to go back to iOS 10, and she can't.

01:01:03 ◼   ► The biggest problem is the battery life.

01:01:05 ◼   ► Yeah, the battery life.

01:01:06 ◼   ► So what I'm doing with my wife is I bought her an iPhone 8.

01:01:11 ◼   ► What I'm doing with my daughter is I bought her

01:01:13 ◼   ► a replacement battery and I'm gonna replace the battery

01:01:15 ◼   ► in her phone.

01:01:16 ◼   ► And I'm gonna make her still use her iPhone.

01:01:18 ◼   ► - You're gonna replace the battery in the phone?

01:01:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:21 ◼   ► I got the iFixit kit.

01:01:22 ◼   ► I'm ready to go.

01:01:23 ◼   ► I'm just gonna, and you know what, Myke, if I break it,

01:01:26 ◼   ► guess what?

01:01:27 ◼   ► I got another iPhone 6.

01:01:28 ◼   ► That's my wife's old phone.

01:01:30 ◼   ► So, but yeah, I'm gonna try to do it that way for her.

01:01:33 ◼   ► But the iOS, I hope that they can make some changes,

01:01:35 ◼   ► but I'm not particularly optimistic that Apple is spending any time trying to make iOS 11

01:01:42 ◼   ► work better on older phones, but it's pretty sad that the iPhone 6, which is a pretty good,

01:01:47 ◼   ► powerful phone, it just struggles. Like, you type something in Spotlight and you gotta

01:01:51 ◼   ► wait like five or ten seconds for it to come up with a response, and if you tap on an app,

01:01:56 ◼   ► sometimes you're like, "Okay, I tapped on the app." And then finally the Apple launch,

01:02:00 ◼   ► like it's really kind of unforgivable that it is so bad on an iPhone 6. But my wife's

01:02:07 ◼   ► happy because she's got an iPhone 8 now. And we had to buy her a new case because the camera

01:02:12 ◼   ► is different and so her old case that she likes covers part of the camera now. So we

01:02:19 ◼   ► got her a new case to not cover that camera. And it's all good. A funny thing happened

01:02:26 ◼   ► last week too, which is that I have an iPhone 8 review unit, and yes, I am

01:02:30 ◼   ► eventually going to write an iPhone 8 review. I finally got an angle for it.

01:02:33 ◼   ► This is the angle. I took it to release notes and it was like everybody

01:02:39 ◼   ► was like, "Ooh, is that the iPhone 8?" And I realized that this is a

01:02:44 ◼   ► nerd conference and all the nerds are waiting for the iPhone X and none of

01:02:49 ◼   ► them have seen an iPhone 8 because it's just not even on their

01:02:53 ◼   ► radar it's like the lost phone for at least for nerds and for like real serious

01:03:00 ◼   ► tech enthusiasm about Apple it's all about the iPhone 10 to the point that I

01:03:06 ◼   ► was kind of taken aback I did not expect the level like it happened at least a

01:03:11 ◼   ► half a dozen times where somebody was like oh is that the eight because I

01:03:16 ◼   ► don't I don't have a case on it so it's very clearly like the the glass back and

01:03:20 ◼   ► There were also a bunch of like, Jason's got an eight,

01:03:22 ◼   ► show him, you know, he hasn't seen the eight,

01:03:25 ◼   ► so show it, like a lot.

01:03:28 ◼   ► So I really got the message talking about our previous topic

01:03:31 ◼   ► like, oh boy, there's gonna be a lot of people

01:03:34 ◼   ► trying to get the 10, 'cause they've just passed the eight

01:03:36 ◼   ► by the fact that I could like a month after the phone

01:03:39 ◼   ► came out, I could bring it to a tech conference

01:03:41 ◼   ► and nobody had seen one before.

01:03:43 ◼   ► - Like I got to hold one which I hadn't done before

01:03:45 ◼   ► and I love the glass, oh man, I'm so excited

01:03:48 ◼   ► for the iPhone X to have the glass back again.

01:03:50 ◼   ► I've forgotten how much I missed that.

01:03:53 ◼   ► But I am, what I want is a bumper case again.

01:03:57 ◼   ► And I hope people make those.

01:03:59 ◼   ► - I know.

01:04:00 ◼   ► - For the iPhone X.

01:04:01 ◼   ► 'Cause it's glass so I don't want no case.

01:04:04 ◼   ► But I would prefer to not have a case

01:04:06 ◼   ► and keep the phone thinner.

01:04:07 ◼   ► So a bumper case would be real good

01:04:09 ◼   ► because the bumper doesn't add noticeable thickness

01:04:12 ◼   ► when it's in your hand.

01:04:13 ◼   ► 'Cause you're holding it right

01:04:14 ◼   ► and the bumper's just in your hand.

01:04:16 ◼   ► You don't really notice it.

01:04:17 ◼   ► So I'm hoping, I mean there have always been bumper cases,

01:04:20 ◼   ► like you can get bumper cases for the six line.

01:04:23 ◼   ► So I'm hoping that somebody, but like a really good company

01:04:26 ◼   ► makes one of these bumper cases again.

01:04:28 ◼   ► That's what I'm hoping for.

01:04:29 ◼   ► Because it's a glass phone,

01:04:32 ◼   ► so I feel it's gonna be more susceptible to being broken,

01:04:35 ◼   ► but I want to be able to just hold it

01:04:39 ◼   ► in the way it's meant to be held.

01:04:41 ◼   ► - I see what you're saying.

01:04:42 ◼   ► My last thought about the iPhone 8,

01:04:45 ◼   ► I am gonna write all this down at some point,

01:04:47 ◼   ► maybe this week, is am I saying that since all the nerds

01:04:52 ◼   ► hadn't, were like, ooh, show me your iPhone 8,

01:04:55 ◼   ► which is the first time that I've ever gone a month

01:04:57 ◼   ► and gone to a tech conference and people have been

01:05:00 ◼   ► interested in the phone that I've been carrying, right?

01:05:01 ◼   ► Because by that time, everybody's got one.

01:05:03 ◼   ► Everybody's seen it.

01:05:04 ◼   ► But the truth is, who's the iPhone 8 for?

01:05:11 ◼   ► And for that, I take you back to the start

01:05:13 ◼   ► of this conversation, which is,

01:05:16 ◼   ► I bought an iPhone 8 this weekend because for my wife, who is on an iPhone 6, the iPhone

01:05:23 ◼   ► 8 is a huge upgrade. She's not going to want me to spend, you know, she was like, "Go buy

01:05:28 ◼   ► me a phone. I just don't want to deal with this anymore. You do it." I'm like, "All right,

01:05:31 ◼   ► I'll do it." Like, she's not going to spend $1,000 on an iPhone 10. She doesn't want an

01:05:35 ◼   ► iPhone 10. She doesn't need an iPhone 10. She doesn't care. She and I had the conversation

01:05:40 ◼   ► about whether I should just buy her an iPhone 7, honestly. And I was like, "You know, you're

01:05:43 ◼   ► the kind of person who uses a phone for three years let's get you the latest

01:05:46 ◼   ► phone and you'll use it for three years and then we'll get you an iPhone

01:05:48 ◼   ► whatever that is 12 11 s 10 point x point I I whatever it is I don't know

01:05:58 ◼   ► and and that's what the iPhone 8 is for it's for people who don't want to spend

01:06:04 ◼   ► that money who have an old phone and they just want the new phone that is

01:06:08 ◼   ► like their old phone but better and faster and doesn't isn't slow under iOS

01:06:12 ◼   ► and doesn't have a bad battery or whatever and that's what the iPhone 8 is

01:06:15 ◼   ► therefore it talk about a release valve for the Mac Mini. The iPhone 8 is kind of

01:06:20 ◼   ► a release valve too because the the tech cutting-edge people, sorry I called you

01:06:25 ◼   ► nerds but I do it with love, the tech nerds and and people who want to be on

01:06:29 ◼   ► the cutting edge and people for whom money is no object and people who can

01:06:32 ◼   ► wait and are very patient will get the iPhone 10 and that's fine but the iPhone

01:06:36 ◼   ► 8 is for everybody else who's upgrading from a 6 or a 6s and they don't need to go to the

01:06:44 ◼   ► 10 the 8 is going to be a really nice upgrade for them and that that hit home this week

01:06:49 ◼   ► when I noticed all the tech nerds hadn't seen it before and then I went and I just I bought

01:06:53 ◼   ► one and it you know it made my wife happy and my daughter is unhappy because she does

01:06:58 ◼   ► I'm not gonna buy her a new iPhone that's not gonna happen so yeah so so that's that's

01:07:05 ◼   ► That was my iPhone 8 education this week on both who doesn't want it and who does want

01:07:09 ◼   ► it.

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01:09:19 ◼   ► Rafal wants to know, Jason, I'm gonna ask you Jason,

01:09:24 ◼   ► do you think that the AirPower mat

01:09:27 ◼   ► will be able to charge multiple iPhones?

01:09:29 ◼   ► - It's a great question,

01:09:32 ◼   ► especially since there are now two phones in my house

01:09:35 ◼   ► that support wireless charging, which is fun, right?

01:09:39 ◼   ► I had that moment where I showed my wife that,

01:09:42 ◼   ► oh, you can just, it was literally the upgrade

01:09:45 ◼   ► from a few weeks ago, which is, oh, you can land your phone

01:09:47 ◼   ► on this helicopter pad, or you can just plug it in.

01:09:49 ◼   ► That's easy.

01:09:51 ◼   ► And she's like, oh, all right, like, why would I do that?

01:09:53 ◼   ► And I'm like, I don't know, it's kind of fun and cool,

01:09:55 ◼   ► but also dumb.

01:09:56 ◼   ► - Do you use the wireless charging?

01:09:57 ◼   ► - I feel like I'm almost using it ironically now.

01:10:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, okay.

01:10:03 ◼   ► I plugged it in to try it.

01:10:06 ◼   ► And so now it's sitting over where--

01:10:08 ◼   ► it's sitting right next to where all the USB cords are,

01:10:12 ◼   ► which is next to the microwave oven in the kitchen, which is

01:10:14 ◼   ► where we charge all our phones.

01:10:15 ◼   ► It's in the kitchen.

01:10:16 ◼   ► There's a counter there next to the microwave.

01:10:19 ◼   ► And there's an outlet there with four USB.

01:10:23 ◼   ► And it's just got cables coming out of it.

01:10:24 ◼   ► And all the phones gets charged there.

01:10:27 ◼   ► And the batteries get charged there.

01:10:30 ◼   ► And that's like the charging station.

01:10:32 ◼   ► And I ran from behind the microwave,

01:10:34 ◼   ► I plugged in the cord that goes to the wireless thing

01:10:38 ◼   ► and it sits there too.

01:10:39 ◼   ► And I come into the house and I'm like,

01:10:41 ◼   ► I could plug it in.

01:10:42 ◼   ► I'm like, well, the stupid helicopter pad is there.

01:10:46 ◼   ► I might as well just lay it on that.

01:10:47 ◼   ► And then I do and it's fine.

01:10:50 ◼   ► But I have not like moved it somewhere else

01:10:52 ◼   ► or integrated into some other part of my life

01:10:54 ◼   ► because I haven't found a need or value in it or anything.

01:10:57 ◼   ► Like the cables work pretty well.

01:10:59 ◼   ► So I think at some point I will just go,

01:11:01 ◼   ► this is dumb that this is taking up space on my counter

01:11:03 ◼   ► and I'll just take it and I'll put it away somewhere.

01:11:05 ◼   ► So I'd say no.

01:11:08 ◼   ► Now that Lauren's got the iPhone 8 too,

01:11:10 ◼   ► I had that moment of,

01:11:12 ◼   ► oh well, if at some point,

01:11:15 ◼   ► if the AirPower thing charged multiple phones,

01:11:19 ◼   ► I could put the mat down here

01:11:21 ◼   ► and it would be,

01:11:24 ◼   ► and you could still put like papers or other stuff on it

01:11:26 ◼   ► and it wouldn't be a big deal,

01:11:27 ◼   ► but if you laid a phone on it, it would charge it.

01:11:29 ◼   ► and that would be kind of cool.

01:11:31 ◼   ► So I hope, I don't know, but I hope it will,

01:11:36 ◼   ► Apple's spec sheet says,

01:11:38 ◼   ► "Simultaneously charge up to three devices."

01:11:42 ◼   ► So my hope is that that means any three devices.

01:11:44 ◼   ► - Why three?

01:11:46 ◼   ► - Keep in mind, they had to modify this whole,

01:11:48 ◼   ► you know, charging the Qi charging standard

01:11:50 ◼   ► to support multiple device charge.

01:11:52 ◼   ► And it must be that in terms of engineering,

01:11:54 ◼   ► this is the most they could do.

01:11:56 ◼   ► It also may be just the power output of the pad.

01:11:58 ◼   ► But surely, like, they're all different power requirements, right?

01:12:03 ◼   ► Like, three iPhones will need more power than three Anapods cases.

01:12:07 ◼   ► Yeah, but they may have to weave, like, three different sets of power transfer coils into this thing.

01:12:12 ◼   ► Right, okay.

01:12:13 ◼   ► And have them be, like, for—because they have to charge independently of one another.

01:12:17 ◼   ► I don't know the engineering—there's probably a lot of very weird electrical engineering happening in these pads.

01:12:21 ◼   ► The dream, of course, right, is that you have a big charging pad that you can lay down and just put wherever devices on it.

01:12:28 ◼   ► and it's a surface in your home,

01:12:29 ◼   ► you can put just papers on it or whatever,

01:12:30 ◼   ► but if you lay a device that's relevant,

01:12:33 ◼   ► you know, and compatible next to it,

01:12:34 ◼   ► it just charges it and that's great.

01:12:36 ◼   ► Like that's the dream here.

01:12:38 ◼   ► And this is like a first step toward that.

01:12:39 ◼   ► But if that's all true,

01:12:43 ◼   ► I will be sorely tempted to buy an air power mat

01:12:46 ◼   ► for that counter space in my kitchen,

01:12:49 ◼   ► because I know that what that means is that my wife

01:12:51 ◼   ► and I will both just be able to lay our phones down

01:12:54 ◼   ► in that space where we already charge them,

01:12:56 ◼   ► not helicopter them down right on top of a plastic puck, but just sort of lay them down

01:13:01 ◼   ► and they'll charge. And that I might do. That would be more interesting. So I think that's

01:13:07 ◼   ► the dream. We'll see. It's next year anyway. That's another... So many things we're talking

01:13:13 ◼   ► about are like 2018 things this week. That's a 2018 thing.

01:13:17 ◼   ► Rajiv wants to know, "Are either of you two having crashing issues on the Apple TV 4K?

01:13:21 ◼   ► I have to reboot often because of navigation problems. I haven't had anything like this,

01:13:27 ◼   ► have you?

01:13:28 ◼   ► No, me neither. All of my issues have been like CBS All Access being broken. Every now

01:13:36 ◼   ► and then there's an app that behaves weirdly, but I haven't had any problems with the Apple

01:13:40 ◼   ► TV 4K.

01:13:41 ◼   ► And I've not heard anybody else say this either, so sorry, Rajiv.

01:13:45 ◼   ► Napali asked, "I scanned some old black and white photos. They're sized around 20-40 megabytes

01:13:50 ◼   ► each. Will photos convert to HEIC? Is that it? HEIF? No HEIF. HEIF, right? HEIF. Oh my

01:13:58 ◼   ► god. See HEIF. See, no problem. They got the HEVC and HEIF.

01:14:02 ◼   ► Well HEIC is the container file. It's worse, Myke. HEIC is the container file format for

01:14:10 ◼   ► a HEIF file. Why? HEIC is a HEIF container file. God, I need to update my photos book

01:14:18 ◼   ► because this is so confusing.

01:14:19 ◼   ► I am, I'm gonna do that in the next month.

01:14:21 ◼   ► - Napali's question is,

01:14:22 ◼   ► will photos convert these images to heath

01:14:25 ◼   ► or do I need to do it,

01:14:26 ◼   ► or does they need to do it themselves

01:14:28 ◼   ► before putting them into photos?

01:14:29 ◼   ► - Photos doesn't do any file conversion,

01:14:30 ◼   ► so you would need to convert that to a heath file

01:14:35 ◼   ► and then bring it in,

01:14:36 ◼   ► because photos doesn't do that.

01:14:38 ◼   ► I mean, it'll convert out to a compatible format

01:14:42 ◼   ► if it needs to,

01:14:43 ◼   ► but what you bring in is what it takes in.

01:14:45 ◼   ► If you bring in a compatible file format,

01:14:46 ◼   ► even if it's this big ping, it will take it

01:14:49 ◼   ► and just have it, 'cause it doesn't wanna mess

01:14:51 ◼   ► with your files.

01:14:52 ◼   ► So you should do that conversion yourself,

01:14:54 ◼   ► make sure you're happy with it,

01:14:55 ◼   ► make sure that it looks good,

01:14:57 ◼   ► because that's gonna be your original from that point on.

01:15:00 ◼   ► So be sure, but you should do that yourself.

01:15:02 ◼   ► - All right, next up comes from Steven.

01:15:06 ◼   ► How do you transfer video content from the Mac to the iPad,

01:15:09 ◼   ► for example, Blu-ray rips or downloads?

01:15:11 ◼   ► Jason, what do you do?

01:15:14 ◼   ► I used to attach a wire and drag it over from,

01:15:19 ◼   ► like sync it via iTunes,

01:15:21 ◼   ► but I've stopped doing that

01:15:22 ◼   ► because iTunes is not good at that.

01:15:25 ◼   ► And currently I use Plex.

01:15:28 ◼   ► So I have the Plex app on my iPad

01:15:30 ◼   ► and I have my movies all on my Plex server.

01:15:34 ◼   ► And before I go on a trip,

01:15:36 ◼   ► I bring up the movie and I save it to my iPad.

01:15:39 ◼   ► And it basically downloads the file from my Plex server.

01:15:42 ◼   ► - Is that doing that local,

01:15:44 ◼   ► is it downloading from your local network

01:15:47 ◼   ► or is it downloading from the internet?

01:15:49 ◼   ► Is downloading from the local network?

01:15:49 ◼   ► - No, it's downloading from my server.

01:15:50 ◼   ► It attaches to my server 'cause the Plex app on iOS,

01:15:53 ◼   ► I can play movies that are sitting on my server.

01:15:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I knew that.

01:15:55 ◼   ► - And I can just watch them, right?

01:15:56 ◼   ► So you just say, you basically you save it.

01:15:59 ◼   ► And then when you're in mobile mode, basically,

01:16:01 ◼   ► you can watch those movies on your iPad using the Plex app.

01:16:04 ◼   ► So that's generally what I do.

01:16:06 ◼   ► I use other apps before where I would attach by wire

01:16:10 ◼   ► and then use just the app part of iTunes

01:16:12 ◼   ► where it's like the file transfer part of iTunes,

01:16:15 ◼   ► which really should be in the finder and not in iTunes,

01:16:18 ◼   ► but that's just on the list.

01:16:20 ◼   ► But Plex has made it a little easier.

01:16:24 ◼   ► So now before I go on a trip,

01:16:25 ◼   ► I have that moment of like,

01:16:27 ◼   ► do I wanna download movies or TV shows

01:16:28 ◼   ► from iTunes that I own?

01:16:29 ◼   ► Do I wanna download movies or TV shows from Plex?

01:16:32 ◼   ► Do I want to download Amazon or Netflix shows

01:16:36 ◼   ► that I can cache on my iPad?

01:16:40 ◼   ► And I do all of that before I go on a trip.

01:16:42 ◼   ► but for the stuff that is not in iTunes,

01:16:45 ◼   ► if I've got it on Plex and on iTunes,

01:16:48 ◼   ► honestly, I will just download the iTunes version

01:16:49 ◼   ► 'cause that's super easy.

01:16:51 ◼   ► But I will, if it's only available on Plex,

01:16:55 ◼   ► I just download it on Plex and do it that way,

01:16:57 ◼   ► and that works great.

01:16:59 ◼   ► - I know Casey's gonna be so mad

01:17:00 ◼   ► that I asked a question about Plex

01:17:02 ◼   ► and just didn't have the answer, right?

01:17:03 ◼   ► 'Cause he's always trying to convince me to use it.

01:17:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, what do you do?

01:17:07 ◼   ► - I don't have any local media,

01:17:09 ◼   ► So it's either downloading iTunes movies or TV shows or I'm downloading videos on Netflix

01:17:17 ◼   ► or Amazon Prime like there you go because you can download locally stuff for both of those like

01:17:22 ◼   ► I don't keep local media like I don't even have a way to like take a blu-ray and make a thing out

01:17:28 ◼   ► of it right so you know I did it works for me you know everything's in iTunes and I have not a huge

01:17:34 ◼   ► iTunes library but I have an iTunes library with a bunch of content that I really enjoy

01:17:39 ◼   ► So typically when I'm on planes I tend to just watch movies I've already seen before.

01:17:42 ◼   ► I just watch the stuff that I like otherwise I'll just watch what's on the plane because the plane

01:17:47 ◼   ► has all the new movies right so it's like I have my favorites on my iPad or I watched the movies

01:17:52 ◼   ► on the plane because they're all new stuff that I've never seen before. I cannot remember the last

01:17:56 ◼   ► time I watched a movie on a plane and you know why it's because the plane screens aren't as good

01:18:02 ◼   ► as the screens that I own. And they're massively inconsistent right so when we the audio is bad

01:18:07 ◼   ► when we flew out to Chicago the flight out the screen was one of those like ancient like yeah

01:18:14 ◼   ► four inch it felt like cross and it had a terrible coating on top of it I mean I was good because like

01:18:19 ◼   ► I was just playing switch or whatever yeah it's a standard shiny grainy standard def screen and

01:18:24 ◼   ► then you plug in your headphones and you get the audio but in the background is like a kind of like

01:18:29 ◼   ► weird hum it's not good like I'm sure there are good airplane things but but the fact is

01:18:37 ◼   ► I have a huge iPad screen, it's like a giant HD iPad screen, it's great, that's when I

01:18:42 ◼   ► want to watch things.

01:18:43 ◼   ► Yeah, but the thing is like, so, okay, in favor of the airplane experience.

01:18:47 ◼   ► Okay, Myke, in defense of the airplane.

01:18:50 ◼   ► Most flights take a transatlantic, and they tend to be newer planes, this was a weird

01:18:54 ◼   ► one that I had when it was old.

01:18:55 ◼   ► So honestly, in most instances, the TV screens will do the job just fine, and they have typically

01:19:03 ◼   ► a better selection of movies than I'm bringing with me.

01:19:05 ◼   ► Right, like that's just like for me personally. So that's why I would do it. I have done it.

01:19:09 ◼   ► I don't always do it, but I have no like philosophical problem with you, with like

01:19:14 ◼   ► watching movies on a plane. Um, so, but typically I will watch stuff on my iPad, but it's things

01:19:19 ◼   ► that I'm bringing with me. Um, unless there is like a new film that I specifically wanted to

01:19:23 ◼   ► watch. Right. So like I'm on a flight recently, I got Deadpool and captain strange and captain

01:19:28 ◼   ► America's all movies and scene. Dr. Strange. He's not a captain. No, it's a different version here.

01:19:34 ◼   ► it's like you know how they renamed the Avengers, they're calling it Captain Strange here, don't

01:19:37 ◼   ► worry about it, it's a British thing, don't worry about it, just don't look it up either.

01:19:41 ◼   ► Chris wants to know if you get a cellular series 3 watch and don't activate cellular,

01:19:48 ◼   ► will you get longer battery life? I would expect so, but I don't know.

01:19:51 ◼   ► I haven't tested it but I don't see why you wouldn't, right, because every time the cellular

01:19:56 ◼   ► watch gets activated, the cellular features get activated, it's going to use battery.

01:20:02 ◼   ► If the question is, will I get better than the Series 2, I don't know. If the question is, will I get better

01:20:09 ◼   ► battery than if I was using the cellular, then yes. I don't know if the Series 3 watch has

01:20:14 ◼   ► massively different battery life than the Series 2 in general. But if you're using the

01:20:22 ◼   ► cellular radio, you get worse battery. I would imagine it's not as... I mean, if the idea is,

01:20:29 ◼   ► well, I want the most battery life, so I'm going to buy the cellular version instead of the non-cellular

01:20:32 ◼   ► Series 3. I don't think that's going to help you. Because my gut feeling here is that they

01:20:38 ◼   ► have the same battery, more or less, and it's just a matter of, um, you, it's trying very

01:20:45 ◼   ► hard not to use the cellular radio except when you exactly need it, and when you do,

01:20:50 ◼   ► you lose battery life, and that's part of the cellular battery life experience. So I

01:20:54 ◼   ► don't think there's like a secret, one secret trick to more Apple Watch battery life is

01:20:59 ◼   ► is to buy the cellular and not turn it on.

01:21:02 ◼   ► I don't think that's it.

01:21:04 ◼   ► - On Apple's comparison page,

01:21:06 ◼   ► series three with cellular,

01:21:08 ◼   ► series three with GPS and series one

01:21:10 ◼   ► are all quoted with up to 18 hours battery life.

01:21:13 ◼   ► So Apple rates them all the same,

01:21:16 ◼   ► even the watch you currently have.

01:21:18 ◼   ► - Because the way they rate battery life

01:21:20 ◼   ► is doing the same things.

01:21:22 ◼   ► And then they say with cellular,

01:21:23 ◼   ► if you talk on the phone for two hours,

01:21:26 ◼   ► then you'll drain the entire battery, right?

01:21:28 ◼   ► That's, but it's not part of the, I think, yeah,

01:21:31 ◼   ► in terms of just normal use, it's exactly the same.

01:21:34 ◼   ► And then you get your cellular use,

01:21:36 ◼   ► like is deducted from your runtime.

01:21:38 ◼   ► - John said, pictures taken at my house

01:21:41 ◼   ► are spread across a huge radius in the map view

01:21:44 ◼   ► in photos in many stacks.

01:21:46 ◼   ► Are there any tips that you have, Jason,

01:21:48 ◼   ► on merging these or getting all these photos

01:21:50 ◼   ► to recognize the same location?

01:21:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, basically you wanna select all those photos

01:21:55 ◼   ► and then you choose Command + I to bring up the info palette

01:21:58 ◼   ► and you can actually drop a pin in one particular location

01:22:02 ◼   ► and that sets the location for all those photos.

01:22:04 ◼   ► So you can manually reset the location of your photos.

01:22:07 ◼   ► And so if you wanna force all of your house photos

01:22:12 ◼   ► to be in one location,

01:22:13 ◼   ► the other way to do it is just zoom out a little bit.

01:22:16 ◼   ► Because if you zoom out,

01:22:17 ◼   ► it will agglomerate them all together in one place.

01:22:20 ◼   ► - But if you are a picky person about that data,

01:22:23 ◼   ► which I understand, then--

01:22:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, if you're super frustrated about the fact

01:22:28 ◼   ► that they are slightly in slightly different locations,

01:22:32 ◼   ► then that would be the way to do it,

01:22:33 ◼   ► is to just select those photos,

01:22:38 ◼   ► which you may have to create an album or something

01:22:41 ◼   ► in order to select them all.

01:22:42 ◼   ► But once you've selected them

01:22:43 ◼   ► and you open up the info palette,

01:22:45 ◼   ► you can actually go in and move the pin

01:22:49 ◼   ► to a different location,

01:22:51 ◼   ► and it should overwrite the data

01:22:54 ◼   ► and override your selection

01:22:56 ◼   ► and put them all in the same place.

01:22:57 ◼   ► or go in one at a time and then drop their pin at the same location

01:23:00 ◼   ► because within a few feet of one another, they are, um, you know,

01:23:04 ◼   ► they're all just kind of like marked together.

01:23:06 ◼   ► So it's okay.

01:23:09 ◼   ► And Brandon asks the question that I am asked many times a week,

01:23:14 ◼   ► but I'm always happy to answer because it results in good things.

01:23:18 ◼   ► Brandon wants to know, shall I get the 10.5 inch or the 12.9 inch i5 Pro?

01:23:23 ◼   ► Uh, I will be using it for researching.

01:23:26 ◼   ► I usually watch videos or surf in Safari while taking notes at the same time.

01:23:30 ◼   ► I tend to work either at my desk or the couch.

01:23:32 ◼   ► Brandon, in your situation, I would recommend getting the 12.9 because it sounds

01:23:38 ◼   ► like you're in fixed places, either an office or at home.

01:23:41 ◼   ► And if you're doing that, if you're planning on buying this iPad and mostly

01:23:45 ◼   ► using it in one location, I mostly recommend the 12.9 for this because as

01:23:49 ◼   ► well, if video and notes and Safari are all involved, the extra screen space

01:23:55 ◼   ► is going to be great for you.

01:23:56 ◼   ► So in this instance for Brandon, I would recommend the 12.9.

01:24:00 ◼   ► I am updating my personal overall pick to be the 10.5.

01:24:04 ◼   ► I think that in most instances for most people,

01:24:08 ◼   ► the 10.5 inch iPad Pro is the perfect iPad,

01:24:11 ◼   ► but there are certain instances where I'd recommend a 12.9

01:24:16 ◼   ► and for Brandon, I would recommend a 12.9.

01:24:18 ◼   ► - I agree 100%.

01:24:22 ◼   ► - If you wanna find our show notes for this week,

01:24:24 ◼   ► Head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/164.

01:24:27 ◼   ► Jason is online, he is @jasonel on Twitter.

01:24:30 ◼   ► Even when he's offline, he's still @jasonel on Twitter.

01:24:32 ◼   ► So it's always, you know, the accounts always there.

01:24:34 ◼   ► You just tweet him, he'll get to you when he wants to.

01:24:36 ◼   ► He's the incomparable.com

01:24:37 ◼   ► for many of Jason's incredible shows,

01:24:39 ◼   ► focused, would you say, mostly on pop culture, right?

01:24:42 ◼   ► Is that a good way to like sum up the incomparable?

01:24:44 ◼   ► But there's game shows and there's Dungeons & Dragons

01:24:47 ◼   ► playthroughs and loads of amazing content.

01:24:49 ◼   ► - Entertainment and culture and silly stuff

01:24:51 ◼   ► and all of that stuff.

01:24:52 ◼   ► and then the more like tech and, although,

01:24:56 ◼   ► Lift Off is about space, I don't know what that's about.

01:24:58 ◼   ► Anyway, there's also shows on Relay FM.

01:24:59 ◼   ► - Space technology, space technology, we'll go with that.

01:25:01 ◼   ► - It is, it's techy, sure.

01:25:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, and yeah, Jason hosts many shows at Relay FM,

01:25:06 ◼   ► some great ones, really great ones, not just Upgrade.

01:25:08 ◼   ► Upgrade's amazing, but they're all the great shows.

01:25:09 ◼   ► - Some of the great shows!

01:25:10 ◼   ► - Some of the great shows, Jason's on them,

01:25:12 ◼   ► but all of the shows at Jason's on are great,

01:25:14 ◼   ► so they are all the great shows.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Sixcolors.com for Jason's work,

01:25:17 ◼   ► you can find me at Relay.fm.

01:25:20 ◼   ► I host many shows, I think seven,

01:25:22 ◼   ► I think seven. I think that's how many shows that I do. Somebody asked me at release notes

01:25:25 ◼   ► and I don't have to count it and I think I missed something.

01:25:27 ◼   ► I've got a new answer to that. I just say I can't count that high now when they say

01:25:32 ◼   ► how many shows do you host. It's like I've lost count. I can't count that high.

01:25:35 ◼   ► Nobody knows. Nobody knows.

01:25:37 ◼   ► Nope. It can't be calculated. It's impossible.

01:25:39 ◼   ► Thanks again to our fine sponsors this week. PDF Pen Family, products from Smile, Timing,

01:25:44 ◼   ► and Encapsular. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Love your show.

01:25:52 ◼   ► Love your show.

01:25:53 ◼   ► Great show.

01:25:54 ◼   ► Love it.

01:25:54 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:25:58 ◼   ► [ Music ]