0:00:00[Music]
0:00:08From Real AFM, this is Upgrade episode 135 today.
0:00:14We are in London together. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined across
0:00:18this very table by Mr. Jason Snell.
0:00:20Hi Myke.
0:00:20Hi Jason.
0:00:21I'm looking at you.
0:00:22I know, we are recording in my living room right now.
0:00:25Mega living room.
0:00:26Mega living room.
0:00:28So I guess that it's gonna sound different and everything,
0:00:31but we can do the high five that you know well,
0:00:34the real in-person high five.
0:00:36You didn't hear it 'cause it was a small high five,
0:00:38but it happened.
0:00:39So it is only time, it is now the time,
0:00:42that we must address #snailtalk for the week,
0:00:45and our snail talk opening question for this week
0:00:47comes from Matthew.
0:00:48Matthew wants to know, other than Guinness,
0:00:50what is your favorite beverage when you come to the UK
0:00:52or Ireland, which you do every year now?
0:00:54- Yeah.
0:00:56I'm trying not to say anything bad about Guinness.
0:00:58Guinness is fine.
0:01:00It is a style of beer that I like,
0:01:01and it is perfectly fine,
0:01:02although there are better stouts in the world than Guinness.
0:01:06I don't know.
0:01:08And tea.
0:01:11Tea is good.
0:01:12Right, this is a good place for tea.
0:01:13If you like tea.
0:01:14These islands are good for tea.
0:01:16I will seek out, I like dark beer,
0:01:19so when I'm in the UK especially,
0:01:20I will seek out if there is a local stout or porter,
0:01:24since this is the home of the porter, I believe it was invented here, and that's my favorite style of beer.
0:01:29I look for those. I keep an eye on those. I had a local London beer yesterday, but it was a Belgian wit style beer, so it was a little bit different.
0:01:44But yeah, so I would say a dark beer is probably the answer. Not Guinness.
0:01:49Not Guinness.
0:01:50Guinness is fine again, but a local different brand would probably be my choice.
0:01:55If you would like to submit a question for our opening segment of the show, you can use
0:01:59the hashtag SnellTalk and you can do that and they will come into a lovely spreadsheet
0:02:04and thank you to Matthew for his submission.
0:02:06We have already had the first casualty of SnellTalk though, last week.
0:02:10You bought a new car, you bought an electric car, which we would have definitely spoken
0:02:14about at the beginning of the episode when I asked you how you were doing.
0:02:16I gazed out my window to check on the sky and see if it was it was gray or blue.
0:02:21You would have said, "Oh, there's a new car out there."
0:02:22I would have.
0:02:23What did you get?
0:02:25We bought a used Nissan Leaf.
0:02:30This is full electric.
0:02:31Full electric.
0:02:32It's not hybrid.
0:02:33No, there's no place to put gas.
0:02:34You can pour it in but you're just going to ruin the leather inside of it.
0:02:38You'll ruin the seats.
0:02:40Yeah, one of these days I'm going to be driving past a gas station and I'm just going to drive
0:02:44the car right through it and back out the other side and it's just
0:02:48trolling the gas station. But yeah we were looking for a new car for our
0:02:53second car. We have a minivan that's sort of the number one car and
0:02:57right now we have a compact car that's our second car. But it's getting
0:03:02up there in age and it has some issues with its transmission and I decided I
0:03:06didn't think it was suitable or safe for my daughter to drive. I'm okay driving it
0:03:11right now but even I think that it's in a long run it's just getting up there
0:03:15and it needs to go. So we needed a second car and a car our daughter learning to
0:03:19drive has been something that sort of precipitated it happening soon. And we
0:03:23realized that I mean I kind of wanted to get an electric car but we realized that
0:03:27for a second car we really didn't need a lot of range so it wasn't a big deal to
0:03:32buy a new electric car that's got a couple hundred miles of range we could
0:03:36get a used model. And the thing with a lot of these electric cars and people
0:03:40who are in the know about electric cars,
0:03:42a lot of electric car usage is lease usage
0:03:46because it's new technology and why not lease a car
0:03:50and not be stuck with it?
0:03:51So after three years or whatever, you give it back
0:03:54and you move on to your next electric car.
0:03:58Well, what happens to those cars that were leased
0:04:00when their lease is up?
0:04:02And the answer is they put them out on the used car market
0:04:05at a pretty reduced price
0:04:08from what they cost originally a few years ago.
0:04:10And that's what this car was, it was a lease.
0:04:13So we bought it for less than a third
0:04:17of what its original list price was, I think.
0:04:20So that's, you know, and I think for us,
0:04:22that was, it was a good choice because we have,
0:04:24even though its range is not particularly great,
0:04:26I think it gets like 70 miles of range.
0:04:30But that's more than enough for where it'll get used.
0:04:32- Yeah.
0:04:34Congratulations on the new addition to the Snell driveway.
0:04:37- Thank you.
0:04:38Let's do some small items, some follow-up and many stuff.
0:04:43MLB at Bat has gained personalized app icons with iOS 10.3.
0:04:48You remember that one of the things that was in 10.3
0:04:52was the ability for an application to change its icon,
0:04:55and it wasn't like dynamic, you had to make a choice,
0:04:57sometimes there'd be this little pop-up.
0:04:59It seemed really super weird.
0:05:01Well, now the MLB at Bat application
0:05:04will allow you to choose your team's logo
0:05:06to replace the MLB icons on your home screen.
0:05:11Have you done this with yours?
0:05:12- I did it and decided I didn't like it
0:05:16and went back to the original MLB icon
0:05:19because I use that app not just to check on my favorite team,
0:05:23but I use it to check on other teams and scores
0:05:26and watch other games and things like that.
0:05:30And so it seemed weird to me to turn it
0:05:31into a branded app for one team.
0:05:34And I'm used to the MLB app.
0:05:36So it's kind of funny, I get why you'd want to do this if really the whole point of using
0:05:40the app is to check on your team, but for whatever reason I just decided I kind of liked
0:05:44it the way it was.
0:05:45You're a fan of the sport.
0:05:46I am.
0:05:47I do have my favorite team and all that, but I am checking other scores and looking at
0:05:50other video of other games and things like that.
0:05:52So I decided not to do it.
0:05:54I tweeted about this and I heard from a couple of people that they had heard from people,
0:05:59you know, like as the grapevine goes, that this entire feature in 10.3 was for MLB.
0:06:05That is what I've heard from those same kind of grapevine sources.
0:06:10It makes sense that they would ask for it, but I don't think it makes sense that Apple
0:06:13would give it to them.
0:06:14Like why?
0:06:15Why would they give them that feature?
0:06:17Like an entire feature in the OS just for this.
0:06:19They've been a trailblazing developer for iOS for a long time.
0:06:23They've always been.
0:06:24This is a Hall of Fame app.
0:06:28Macworld I think put it in the app Hall of Fame.
0:06:30You speak very hard of it, right?
0:06:33Was it a week or two ago?
0:06:34It is a great app and it's been a great app for a while now.
0:06:39So my guess is that what probably happened is they said,
0:06:42it would be nice if we could do this.
0:06:45Or they said something like,
0:06:46we are thinking of releasing individual apps for every team
0:06:50because people want this and we can't provide it.
0:06:53And Apple said, no, no, no, no, no, we'll do it.
0:06:55But my guess is that Apple wouldn't implement this
0:06:57just for them, but that this may have been the impetus
0:07:00for it, 'cause you can see other examples of this,
0:07:03just off the top of my head, imagine Overcast, the podcast player has a light
0:07:09theme and a dark theme and the icon is based on the light theme.
0:07:13Well, it's got another color scheme, why not offer another color scheme for
0:07:17its icon?
0:07:17And that's true of any app that's got that.
0:07:20Or you've got an app icon that you can skin in
0:07:24a different colors based on people's design choice.
0:07:28Why not allow them to do that?
0:07:30It is a sort of a silly feature and
0:07:32Of course it has to be done through a user interface so you can't just change it as a
0:07:36calendar app, you can't change the date every day, it doesn't work like that.
0:07:41But it allows some more customizability and I think that's fine.
0:07:46The new iPad has been torn down by iFixit and they confirm that it's basically identical
0:07:55in build on the inside to the iPad Air, the first iPad Air.
0:08:00confirms what we thought that Apple were going for. They're trying to make an iPad at the
0:08:04lowest price possible, so they're reverting some parts, they're maybe reverting to an
0:08:07easier to build machine, and that's what they've done with the iPad. I think that, you know,
0:08:12I don't think that really this is to be criticized, but I just thought it was interesting to get
0:08:17the information from iFixit.
0:08:18Right, and it seemed like that, that it was basically the specs, other than the processors
0:08:23that they upgraded, it seemed very much like an iPad Air. Now we know that Dan Frakes at
0:08:27the wire cutter who is the czar of iPod and iPad and iPhone accessories.
0:08:34He has been the iPhone accessory guy for so long.
0:08:38Dan said that iPad Air cases, some of them will work with the new iPad and some of them
0:08:46won't.
0:08:47iPad Air, not iPad Air 2, but iPad Air.
0:08:49Because the shape is the same but the location of like the camera I think and some of the
0:08:53ports is slightly different.
0:08:55So you may not be able to reuse that case if you've got an iPad Air.
0:09:00But really why would you get an iPad Air or an iPad if you've got an iPad Air?
0:09:05I mean it is slightly upgraded but it's essentially the same.
0:09:09It's really targeted at pre-iPad Air users.
0:09:13Yep.
0:09:14Alright, should we take a break?
0:09:16Sure.
0:09:17Jason, would you like to thank our returning sponsor?
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0:10:03So many 9s. MailRoute has taken all the 9s. Good luck everybody else. There are no more
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0:10:14that they've filtered out. So I've got it set to every day, although you can set how
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0:10:24that has been filtered out and with one click you can deliver that message or
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0:10:57match a competitor's contract. Check it out. mailroute.net/upgrade. Thank you
0:11:02MailRoute for their support of this show and their support of mail bagging.
0:11:08Before we sat down today I was giving Jason a tour of Mega Office and I showed
0:11:15him where the mailbag that he bought me lives. It lives, the mailbag lives, ladies and gentlemen.
0:11:22Greatest gift ever. Not only do mailbags live, Jason Snell, so does the Macintosh Professional.
0:11:29Oh, what an unlikely turn of events this is, Myke.
0:11:31I was so prepared for today's show. I had a whole document done, we had a bunch of topics
0:11:37all set out. We were ready to go.
0:11:39It would have been a great show. One of the all-time greats.
0:11:41One of the all-time greats. And then a bunch of, I guess an embargo lifted, and a bunch
0:11:47of articles were published. To name a few, John Gruber, we have Buzzfeed, TechCrunch,
0:11:53Axios, which I wasn't sure existed until you mentioned it to me. What is Axios?
0:11:58It's a new one. It's a startup and Inafri, who used to be at Recode, is there.
0:12:04And Mashable. They all had pieces where Apple sat down with them.
0:12:08With literally those five people.
0:12:10And a bunch of people from Apple, I think it was like kind of one-to-one in Apple representatives
0:12:14to press representatives to talk about primarily the Mac Pro, but as a whole Apple's commitment
0:12:24to Macintosh professional users.
0:12:27They kind of touched across the whole gamut, but it's primarily on the Mac Pro.
0:12:31So let's start with what they have done today.
0:12:35Can we start with #JasonWasRight?
0:12:37because I would say when people felt despair I was definitely not alone but I was on the
0:12:43team who said that Mac Pro is not sticking around and looking old just to be discontinued.
0:12:51That there has to be another story.
0:12:53You remain faithful and everybody else will give them up.
0:12:55Otherwise they would have just killed it.
0:12:57And that didn't happen and it turns out we kind of got a one-two punch today about the
0:13:02Mac Pro.
0:13:03So what is happening immediately is that today,
0:13:08Apple is releasing a small speed bump for the Mac Pro.
0:13:12- New Mac Pros, everybody.
0:13:13- I think so.
0:13:14I think it says new on Apple's store page.
0:13:17- They are new.
0:13:17- So the $2,999 model goes from a four core Xeon CPU
0:13:22to six cores and it gets a GPU upgrade.
0:13:26I don't understand the GPU upgrades,
0:13:28but I know that there's more numbers in there.
0:13:29- Well, there's two, yeah, I don't understand it either.
0:13:32There's two GPUs and they got upgrades.
0:13:33They made the innards faster than it was.
0:13:36I haven't seen whether this is,
0:13:39I'm sure that other people will be writing about it soon
0:13:42if they haven't already.
0:13:43I don't know how current these Xeons are.
0:13:46They may be a year old.
0:13:48- Yep, but it's better.
0:13:50- But they're newer than what was there
0:13:51when they introduced the product,
0:13:52which hasn't changed since then.
0:13:54- And the $3,999 model goes from a six-core CPU
0:13:58to eight cores and also gets a GPU upgrade as well.
0:14:01That's it for upgrades, no Thunderbolt,
0:14:03no Retina display support, no USB-C.
0:14:05- Yeah, it's still using the old Thunderbolt
0:14:07and the old USB-3 and all of that stuff.
0:14:10It's literally a swapped in chips on the Mac Pro.
0:14:15- But this is merely the starter to what is the big news,
0:14:18the main course of this.
0:14:20Apple has preannounced today,
0:14:22they have preannounced that a new Mac Pro
0:14:25and external display made by Apple are being worked on.
0:14:29They won't be out this year,
0:14:31but they're saying it will be out next year.
0:14:34Can I read a quote from John Gruber?
0:14:35- Sure.
0:14:36- Apple is currently hard at work
0:14:38on a completely rethought Mac Pro
0:14:39with a modular design that can accommodate high-end CPUs
0:14:43and big honking hot running GPUs.
0:14:45I'm not sure if that's a quote from Apple exactly,
0:14:47but it's what John said.
0:14:48And which should make it easier for Apple to update
0:14:51with new components on a regular basis.
0:14:54They're also working on Apple branded pro displays
0:14:57to go with them.
0:14:58So let's start off with one key word in this.
0:15:02- Is it honkin'?
0:15:03- Well, not honkin' so much.
0:15:05- Let's do that. - Modular.
0:15:07- Modular.
0:15:07So,
0:15:09looking at the context of that word,
0:15:14my guess is what it means is,
0:15:17it's something that we'll talk about more in a little bit,
0:15:20which is modular for Apple.
0:15:23That it makes it,
0:15:25It's a system that is less carefully balanced and integrated than the trash can Mac Pro.
0:15:31That allows them to more easily swap in new parts.
0:15:36It's possible that it's a modular design for users as well.
0:15:40There's no extra detail here.
0:15:42It could mean that it'll have slots and things.
0:15:45But I think- >> I see where you're going now.
0:15:46>> I think the context here is that the existing one was not modular enough for
0:15:51them to easily swap in new stuff because it was balanced on the head of a pin.
0:15:55It ended up being less modular than they expected or like the modularity, if there's
0:16:01a new word for you, that they expected didn't pan out which was that you would
0:16:04just connect stuff to it. And that just wasn't a future that was
0:16:08realized. I hadn't thought about the idea of the modularness. I'm gonna go with modularity.
0:16:17I'm gonna go with modularity. Well done. I wasn't, I didn't really think of it in a
0:16:22sense of like it would make it easier for Apple to upgrade. I was thinking of
0:16:25it in the sense of like, "Cheese grater Mac," right? Where you could open the door
0:16:28and you could pull stuff out and put new things in. So do you think that maybe we're looking
0:16:33at more like the design is modular for Apple's machines to build more of these
0:16:38and update them quicker or that users may be given the ability to pull off a
0:16:42door and put stuff in it. Yeah I think Apple's never going to prioritize card slots.
0:16:51Right. I mean there's literally not a system they make that has something like
0:16:57that. Cards and bays and you know open spaces with a question mark where it's
0:17:03your product add-on product can go here. But the fact is also true that they
0:17:10could do things to make it more repairable and upgradeable than it is
0:17:13now even if it's not officially repairable or upgradeable and if they
0:17:18did that it would probably be a side effect of the real reason they're doing
0:17:22it which is they want to be able to quickly drop in new hardware because
0:17:26quite frankly I mean this is the thing about the existing Mac Pro that
0:17:29frustrated people and it made no sense is quite frankly for pro users they're
0:17:35most concerned about can I buy the highest spec system that I can and if
0:17:40you have to wait two years to buy that system or you can never buy it because
0:17:44it's never going to be compatible then that why do we have a high-end product
0:17:48at all instead you want like feature one of the high-end product to be its
0:17:52ability to rapidly be turned into the latest and greatest processors when or
0:17:57GPUs when they're available. So we'll come back to like to that part like the
0:18:02idea of the updating in a little bit because Apple gave some information about, I think
0:18:07they tried to explain I think what happened with the trashcan.
0:18:11But there was more stuff that they spoke about today.
0:18:14Apple said that they will have great new iMacs for release this year, which will include
0:18:20configurations specifically targeted at large segments of the pro market.
0:18:24Which I do wonder if that's the iPad or the iMac Pro rumor that has been going around.
0:18:29Well at least the idea.
0:18:31yeah the idea that that there are iMacs that are specifically targeted at large
0:18:37segments of the pro market like they say here like what can we do if we're Apple
0:18:41to take the iMac and make it even more appropriate for the high-end pro
0:18:45market which they've been pushing it up to right now. Me and you do not need a Mac Pro. No we don't
0:18:50although you know I do have those moments when I'm processing when I'm
0:18:53denoising audio in iZotope where I've pinned the cores and it still takes a
0:18:59a minute or two to denoise a two hour audio file.
0:19:03And where I think faster CPU and faster storage,
0:19:08which my iMac is the original 5K, so it doesn't have the faster storage,
0:19:14that both of those things are something I could use.
0:19:16I probably don't need a Mac Pro.
0:19:19I could just get a more powerful iMac if one existed.
0:19:22So I do think that that rumor going around,
0:19:25that it's sort of gotten taken by some people as an example
0:19:28of why the Mac Pro wouldn't exist, probably has its roots in this idea that for them to
0:19:33specifically say configurations targeted at Pro users suggests that there's more above
0:19:40and beyond where the iMac is today that they're going to try to push those systems to be capable
0:19:45of.
0:19:46I also see this as no matter what that actually ends up being, right, no matter how powerful
0:19:50it is, it feels like another part in this puzzle where Apple is trying to associate,
0:19:56right?
0:19:57we don't know what it's gonna look like yet. It might not be anywhere even near a Mac Pro,
0:20:00but just like a bump that we would expect. But what they're trying to do is like, okay,
0:20:05we don't have this new Mac Pro until next year, but we do have some more
0:20:07powerful machines coming this year. And they may just call it an iMac Pro,
0:20:12no matter what it looks like. But I think it's the idea that they are trying to let people know
0:20:18that we care about professional users. They bang this drum all day with this. And one of
0:20:26of these things is like, "Oh, it's for segments of the pro market," because they just want
0:20:30to say, like, "We promise," like, "We really seriously promise that we've got something."
0:20:33Well, I think it's an interesting line for them to walk, because they know how many of
0:20:38these models they sell.
0:20:40And yes, there's truth that it's not exactly what everybody wants, but they know that the
0:20:50iMac sells really well.
0:20:51And it's true that the Mac Pro, in its current state, it does not appeal to Mac users so
0:20:55much as a certain level of Mac Pro user type, right?
0:21:02So I think this is the line they have to walk is making a new Mac Pro doesn't solve it for
0:21:12all their Pro customers because a new iMac is actually a better solution for a lot of
0:21:17the Pro users, not the ones who are really clamoring about the Mac Pro, but the iMac
0:21:22peeled off a huge professional user base.
0:21:24So that's what they all, it's not neither or in short, right?
0:21:30They need to make the iMac better for pro users who want to use an iMac and they need
0:21:35to make a Mac Pro because there's another class of user who does not.
0:21:39So the other thing you neglected to mention there in that quote that you read, Apple branded
0:21:45pro displays.
0:21:47So even though they told Nilay Patel at the Verge that they're out of the display business,
0:21:54apparently they're not out of the display business.
0:21:56Maybe he just didn't listen to the rest and they said for now.
0:22:00Maybe or maybe that was something not...
0:22:02I think things have changed.
0:22:04Or somebody, something not authorized to speak about it.
0:22:06But it's also possible that they did this LG thing and then they saw what happened with
0:22:11that monitor which is you know not very pretty to look at and don't put it near Wi-Fi and
0:22:18all these things and thought why did we, this is what happens when we don't make it ourselves
0:22:23so let's make it ourselves now.
0:22:25But it's also possible that that was just, they changed direction and you know there
0:22:29are lots of possibilities there but this is a definitive statement right that they're
0:22:33going to make a new Mac Pro and they're going to make an Apple branded display to go with
0:22:37it.
0:22:38And I'm happy to see that just because it's something that people want.
0:22:43You know, it is another part of the puzzle, right?
0:22:45For people that care about this stuff a lot, right?
0:22:48John Siracusa.
0:22:49Like, it's important for them to have this whole thing.
0:22:52And it does help inform and enforce the commitment.
0:22:56And it's going to be an expensive monitor.
0:22:58And it's going to be more expensive than your usual external high quality monitor.
0:23:04It's going to be.
0:23:05But that's, so, and they're gonna do that because they're gonna sell these things in
0:23:08bundles and they're going to sell them at the Apple store and they're going to, it's
0:23:13an Apple product and with the Apple label on it it's going to cost more and that's gonna
0:23:16be a profit center for them.
0:23:18But they're gonna be people who are happy to pay it and people who don't want to pay
0:23:21it will buy something else.
0:23:22But at least the option will be there.
0:23:24I think it's great, I think it's great news because I know, you know, the LG display when
0:23:29I saw it briefly looked perfectly fine but I heard from a lot of people who, you know,
0:23:33They would rather just buy Apple hardware down the line rather than go out and buy some
0:23:37third party display.
0:23:39And right now the Thunderbolt display is the only one that was the last one that Apple
0:23:43made so you're out of luck right now.
0:23:45Best Apple display you can buy right now is to buy a device and use the built in display.
0:23:53John Paxkowski of Buzzfeed asked about the Mac Mini.
0:23:58And a very interesting comment was given, the Mac Mini remains a product in our line
0:24:02up.
0:24:03Yes, the Mac Mini is a product that exists.
0:24:06Good work everyone.
0:24:07Uh huh.
0:24:08Congratulations, we saw it on the website.
0:24:10Would you like to talk about iPhone cases?
0:24:12Yeah.
0:24:13It remains a product.
0:24:16And we have nothing more to say about it today, I think I saw in one of the requests, which
0:24:20is interesting, right?
0:24:24I think the Mac Mini thing is much ado over nothing.
0:24:27Forgive me if I've said this before, but when I see countdowns or count ups of how long
0:24:33it's been since the Mac Mini update, go check on how often the Mac Mini gets updated.
0:24:42This is a product that gets updated seldomly and has been for a decade.
0:24:48I would argue it's probably not even much more than the longest it's ever gone without
0:24:53an update.
0:24:54checked that but just my gut feeling is when the last Mac Mini update came out
0:24:59it was hailed as being a rare update to the Mac Mini. It's not a product that
0:25:03gets updated very often. I was going to point out that the Mac Mini and the Mac
0:25:07Pro are both interesting examples of products from Apple that in many ways
0:25:11failed to be better than the product they replaced.
0:25:14Yeah. Because like with the Mac Mini you had the four core version that got
0:25:17kicked out when they went to this version and that four core version is
0:25:21still the fastest Mac Mini you can buy. And the high configuration of the
0:25:25previous cheese grater Mac Pro is actually more powerful than the highest
0:25:30grade Mac Pro you could buy, at least until today. It may not be anymore.
0:25:34So these are both categories with issues. But I think the Mac Mini will continue
0:25:39to be around. They even said that it has Pro...
0:25:41I believe one of the quotes from an Apple executive said, I think Schiller,
0:25:44said that the Mac Mini has its Pro users as well, but it's got a very different
0:25:48profile. So maybe even in the pro context, you know, we know people who use Mac
0:25:53Mini and all sorts of things. Pro, I see it in like music environments and, you
0:25:57know, in audio environments and there are lots of places where it's useful to have
0:26:00a Mac, to stick a Mac Mini. So I don't think it's going to go away either. The
0:26:04only question to me is, you know, does Apple make the Mac Mini a low-end
0:26:09configuration of what is currently like they're working on as a Mac Pro and say
0:26:13like we have one standalone Mac and you can get a cheap version or a super
0:26:17expensive version or if that i think the easiest thing would be just keep it
0:26:20rolling right i mean if that mac mini enclosure and the and the design inside
0:26:24work more or less just update the processor every couple of years and call
0:26:28it good
0:26:29of all of the macs in the entire line laptops desktops the whole shebang it is
0:26:34the one that requires the least amount
0:26:36and just it
0:26:37not even necessarily requires from a technical perspective which is from a
0:26:41custom perspective like it is the one that needs the less attention
0:26:45And as long as they keep it, it's going to remain a product,
0:26:49and they just put new bumps in it every couple of years,
0:26:52that's fine.
0:26:54I think it's fine.
0:26:55- Yeah, so the Mac Mini has gone two years without an update.
0:26:59But it previously, it was updated.
0:27:03There was a gap of, this is thanks to N. Creminz
0:27:08in the chat room, there was a gap of more than,
0:27:13this is not the record.
0:27:14The gap between October 2012 and October 2014 was 723 days.
0:27:22So it's more but not a lot more. And there was also a 574 gap.
0:27:27So I guess it is a record but not by much.
0:27:29I mean the Mac Mini was ignored for two years before and now it's been ignored for three years.
0:27:34Or two and a half years. Yeah, two and a half years.
0:27:37Maybe it gets updated in a year and then not touched for four years.
0:27:40Yeah, it might get upgraded this summer or this fall.
0:27:43But then if they do, I can almost assure you that they will then ignore it for
0:27:47a couple of years at least.
0:27:48Just because they think that that's the sufficient amount of focus to give to
0:27:53the Mac Mini.
0:27:54I hope when they do update the Mac Mini that they do bring in some of those low
0:27:58end four core configurations again, cuz that was a pretty great system to buy.
0:28:02That was a pretty powerful Mac Mini, but we'll see.
0:28:06But anyway, the Mac Mini has a history of not being introduced with a new version
0:28:11version for at least a couple of years so it's not a it's a record but not by
0:28:15much. This is exactly what we wanted right? What they've given us today. Like I
0:28:22mean the collective the collective we of the Apple think piece, podcast, whatever
0:28:27yeah I think so in the sense that not just in the sense that they've announced
0:28:34that something will exist not just in the sense that they've updated the
0:28:38existing Mac Pro which we could argue like why did they even do that and the
0:28:42answer is because they're still selling that old model and for that price and
0:28:46it's pretty sad and there are people who still buy it because they need a Mac Pro
0:28:50they need something about it and they have to buy it. Both of these things
0:28:53happen because of each other it was one or the other either they wanted to
0:28:57update the Mac Pro so they had to talk about it or they decided they really
0:29:01wanted to talk about it so at the same time they also decided to update the Mac
0:29:04pro right because you they couldn't have done these updates and not said anything
0:29:09that would have been worse and I think even leaving it there right like
0:29:12probably it wouldn't solve it wouldn't solve the larger problem which is we can
0:29:16talk about later about the method by which they disseminated this information
0:29:20and and why that's a little media inside baseball but but the short version is my
0:29:25gut feeling is that this is a reaction to the fact that they've tried to tamp
0:29:30this down twice with statements from Tim Cook and neither have done anything to fix it right
0:29:37and so this is like all right we're gonna lay it on the table here this time like they went
0:29:41they went a little bit further with it look who they had in the room Tim wasn't there oh yeah
0:29:46right right and quite right that it's that it's they know who they need to have software and
0:29:50hardware heads right craig and phil yeah i mean tim's not the right conduit for that information
0:29:55but it still feels to me like there were attempts to send the signal, and the signal was rejected.
0:30:01It's like, no, that's right, you need to give us more than that, friend, for us to get this.
0:30:08So I think that's interesting. But the larger point is, is this what people wanted in the sense
0:30:15that they said in advance, "Here's where we're going, and that means that we're no longer in
0:30:23in the dark about where they're going.
0:30:25And it puts out, it deprives of oxygen,
0:30:30all the conversations about whether Apple cares
0:30:34or not about this.
0:30:35You can still have a conversation about how much Apple cares
0:30:38or if they did the right thing or what they messed up.
0:30:40Absolutely, but it kills the thread that is,
0:30:44they're not working on anything they've given up.
0:30:47- Yep.
0:30:47- And that thread can respawn after this one ships, right?
0:30:51They'll bring that back
0:30:52because that will be inevitably a storyline
0:30:54'cause it has been and it will continue to be.
0:30:57But it's more than a head fake.
0:30:59It is a direction of like, we are doing this.
0:31:02And it calls to mind actually nothing more
0:31:04than when they did that statement before the last Mac Pro,
0:31:09where Tim Cook said, we do have a great new solution
0:31:13for our professional users that we're working on
0:31:16that will be available next year,
0:31:18which they did before they did the Trashcan Mac Pro.
0:31:21And this is more than that, but it's a very similar kind of announcement where they felt
0:31:26like they needed to send a signal to an unruly pro user base that they were working on something
0:31:31but it was just going to take some time.
0:31:33Tamira, what you were just talking about a moment ago, they've tried to do it again but
0:31:36it didn't work this time.
0:31:37Right?
0:31:38Like last time they said we have great professional devices coming and we were like, "Okay then."
0:31:41This time they tried to do it again and we're like, "No, we need more than that."
0:31:44The difference was there had been relatively recent, like within a year, speed updates
0:31:49to the cheese grater. And it'd been too long for the Mac Pro. Right, in this case
0:31:55it was so stale that that was not going to be enough. I would argue that if the
0:31:59Mac Pro kept getting hardware updates every year, even if they were minor, that
0:32:04would have tamped down. There would still be frustration of like why don't they do
0:32:08more, why don't they make these updates better, but instead they got in this
0:32:12really weird position, which we've talked about numerous times on the show, that
0:32:16it's their own fault for being here and we can talk more in a little bit about
0:32:21why, but the fact remains that this was the spot they were in and they had to
0:32:25find a way out of it and this is the way out is to very clearly disclose we are
0:32:30working on something also setting expectations you won't see it at WWDC in
0:32:36fact you won't see it in 2017. It will be, I'm not sure they said 2018, I think they
0:32:43just said not this year so look forward in 2019 no it'll be next year I think so
0:32:48it'll be next year and they don't want to commit everything right like right
0:32:52let's say it's coming yeah well I like them saying it won't be this year because
0:32:56that's good because the next thing that would start up is maybe we'll see it at
0:32:59WWDC like that you know and and and they'll tease it and then it'll ship by
0:33:03the end of the year and they're like no that's not gonna happen maybe they will
0:33:07show it tease it this year maybe not but at least we won't expect it right it
0:33:11doesn't have nothing to expect. I think it's great for Apple to set expectations like this.
0:33:15This is not a consumer product. This is not a frivolous product. This is not a
0:33:20product that they can really legitimately worry about sales being
0:33:23cannibalized because I think they're the only people who are going to buy the
0:33:26existing Mac Pro as it's been for the last year or two are people who
0:33:29absolutely have to have it today and are not going to wait because everybody else
0:33:33is waiting. So they'll wait a little bit longer. So it's a unique position for
0:33:37Apple to be in, but it allows them to break out of their rules of we never talk about
0:33:42future product announcements and say, "Okay, we are working on it.
0:33:47You won't see it until next year, but it does exist, and here are the vaguest parameters
0:33:51about what we're working on, and let's never speak of it again until we see you in 2018."
0:33:56You've been covering this stuff more than anyone, for longer, I think.
0:34:00I can't think of anybody who's been covering Apple product releases longer than you.
0:34:05Would you have ever imagined that Apple would talk so openly about an unreleased product?
0:34:11This isn't just a speed bump.
0:34:13From what they're saying, this is like a brand new design.
0:34:17I think it's a little less divergent from what Apple does than you might think, only
0:34:25because Apple's main goal in talking about products before they're released is to avoid
0:34:32that is because they want to avoid cannibalization.
0:34:35They want to avoid the Osborne effect for people who are very old.
0:34:39They may remember that that's a famous computer industry thing named after the guy who ran
0:34:43the Osborne computer and he preannounced a product and then his company lost all of its
0:34:48current sales, which is a really bad way to do business.
0:34:51You want to sell those computers until the day they're replaced.
0:34:56There's a great podcast, one of those Gimlet creative podcasts.
0:35:00It's like the eBay one, open for business.
0:35:03Adina was listening to it once in a house and it was amazing.
0:35:05I'll put a link in the show notes.
0:35:06It is telling the story of the Osbourne effect.
0:35:09I didn't know anything about it, but I knew the phrase.
0:35:11That is fascinating.
0:35:12I'll put that in the show notes if anyone's interested.
0:35:14- Yeah, so I'd say when has Apple announced a product
0:35:18that it wasn't ready to ship?
0:35:20And the answer is, you can look at it.
0:35:23I already mentioned the Mac Pro, which was a head fake,
0:35:26but it was pretty clearly we're working on a new Mac Pro
0:35:28and it'll be available next year, or you'll see it next year.
0:35:32And then everything else is exactly what you'd think, which is they announced the iPod and they shipped it a couple months later.
0:35:38They announced the Apple Watch and they shipped it six months later.
0:35:41They announced the ITV, which became the Apple TV, and they shipped it like six or eight months later.
0:35:46Products that didn't exist before, that couldn't be Osborned, right?
0:35:52That's when they do a pre-announce.
0:35:54The iPhone.
0:35:55The iPhone, great example, six months to ship it.
0:35:59all of these products that were new.
0:36:01So the difference with this is just like,
0:36:05look, I mean, you can see it.
0:36:06Apple doesn't care if it doesn't sell more
0:36:09trashcan Mac Pros.
0:36:11That, right?
0:36:12Because first off, like I said,
0:36:14only people buying them now,
0:36:15the only people who should buy the new speed bumped version
0:36:17are people who are so desperate,
0:36:20the only computer they can buy as a Mac Pro
0:36:22and they have to buy it now.
0:36:23So they buy it and it's the same person.
0:36:24And it's like, you're being rip-off.
0:36:26I think it's literally the same person as last week.
0:36:29I don't think it's even any different between this week and last week, even though the specs have been updated.
0:36:34Because it's still not a great buy and it's still outmoded technology.
0:36:38You're being ripped off if you bought it. If you were someone who was buying it before today,
0:36:42you're probably still not getting great for your money, but how old it was was like...
0:36:48Sure, but they kind of are okay that the only people buying this thing... This is a stopgap.
0:36:53And that's why they're okay saying, "We will have something new next year."
0:36:56I also think that it's interesting that they did that mention about like great iMac stuff for the high end
0:37:03because that is also a promise of more things to come.
0:37:07They're vaguer about it, they're not ready to announce the hardware yet,
0:37:10but I think it's telling about how little they care about their current Mac Pro sales,
0:37:14which are probably very small, that they're willing to do this and potentially cut those sales off entirely
0:37:22Because they are I mean like I said they already know
0:37:24Nobody's buying the Mac Pro unless they're desperate and they just have to do it
0:37:29And I don't know who that is but those people do exist
0:37:31Where they're like I gotta get it and it has to be a Mac Pro and I need to get it today
0:37:35They're like alright for you. We have one for you. We have a special idea
0:37:40We don't want me to be working on cooking it up for you handmade in the USA just for you
0:37:45There is still quite a lot to unpack
0:37:50Let's take a second break and then we can jump right back into this today's episode is also brought to you by away
0:37:56Look your luggage shouldn't cost more than your plane ticket. Jason has these arms raised in glory
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0:39:32- It's like acrobatics with a case.
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0:41:13I would go there if I didn't already have one. That would be nice for me to take a little visit again.
0:41:18I need a second on this, although you know one of the big suitcases.
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0:41:25they're still great. But they're still really cool. Still great. Yep. Alright so it turns out
0:41:31turns out that the trash can Mac Pro was kind of ended up being a bit of a
0:41:37misplaced bet for Apple.
0:41:38- Yep, that's I think the best way to put it.
0:41:40What Craig Federighi said was we designed ourselves
0:41:43into a bit of a thermal corner.
0:41:46The idea here is that Apple thought that the future
0:41:51of high performance professional stuff was multiple GPUs.
0:41:56So the Mac Pro trashcan, for those who don't know,
0:41:59is on the inside, it's a triangle.
0:42:01It's basically in the very center, it's got the fan core.
0:42:04the fan blows from the bottom, blows it out the top,
0:42:08or sucks it from the top and puts it out.
0:42:11But anyway, there's an air chamber
0:42:12right down the center of it.
0:42:14And that's for cooling, and it blows it out the top.
0:42:19Yep, and so in the triangle around it,
0:42:22there are these three motherboards, or three boards,
0:42:25and one of them has the processor on it,
0:42:27one of them has GPU one, and one of them has GPU two.
0:42:30So that was the whole design.
0:42:33and Apple's like this is going to be great, this is the way of the future.
0:42:36Turns out, it's not.
0:42:40Turns out the way that this went, Apple tried to steer the industry, right?
0:42:45Apple tried to do one of those things where it's like we're visionary, this is going to happen,
0:42:48and it totally didn't happen.
0:42:49Instead, it turns out that the future was pretty much what the present was back then,
0:42:53which was we're going to make GPUs faster and faster and more powerful and more powerful, single GPUs.
0:42:59and what happens Myke when you make a chip faster and faster and more powerful?
0:43:05It gets hotter and hotter. It gets hotter and hotter and what Craig Federighi said
0:43:10here is that the problem with that is they became unable to put high-end GPUs
0:43:18in the Mac Pro because they couldn't cool them fast enough. That they had
0:43:23balanced this design on a head of a pin, that they had made this three design
0:43:28thing and that limited the amount of thermal capacity that they had. And it's a big admission
0:43:34from them. They didn't talk about this in terms of it being a design failure, but it's
0:43:40a failure of vision and a failure of design, or some combination thereof. They designed
0:43:45it the way they knew what they were doing when they designed it. The problem was they
0:43:48were designing for factors that turned out not to be true and that they couldn't recover
0:43:52from. And I think that is the most telling explanation about why the Mac Pro has been
0:43:57sitting there like a lump for the last few years is they spent too much time
0:44:02trying to fix it I think right like that could be that they they've wasted time
0:44:07in trying to fit stuff into this machine and they could just never get out instead
0:44:12of just declaring a debt yeah they may have tried for a couple of years like
0:44:15would have wasted money right and we may have been why the upgrades didn't happen
0:44:19at all and then they finally had a moment where they realized we just got
0:44:22to throw this thing away this is not serving anybody pushed it past the point
0:44:26where it's in use anymore. Or the way they would say it is not that it's not serving anybody,
0:44:30but it's not serving enough of a group of users. There's still a group of users that it's not
0:44:35serving. And those people aren't being served well enough. The people that it is serving,
0:44:39the people that are buying it and using it and needing it, they're not getting the experience
0:44:43that Apple wants them to have. So something Shida said as well, as we've said, we made something
0:44:48bold that we thought would be great for the majority of our Mac Pro users, and what we
0:44:52discovered was that it was great for some and not others enough so that we
0:44:55need to take another path so they're basically saying look some people are
0:44:59okay with it but we know that we failed yeah we failed people that's it and and
0:45:04at one point one of the executives it might have been Schiller said use the
0:45:09word sorry yeah he says sorry so that we're sorry to these users that have
0:45:14been frustrated by it yeah this is I know that people are gonna say well
0:45:18Well Apple didn't really say whatever.
0:45:22This is the most you will ever get out of Apple.
0:45:24This is Apple.
0:45:26If you want more contrition than this from Apple, you're never gonna get it.
0:45:30You're never gonna get it because they're never gonna be more contrite than this.
0:45:33This is them saying, "We blew it.
0:45:35We had a failure of vision.
0:45:38It led to our design going in a bad direction.
0:45:41We failed to support some of our users and we're sorry.
0:45:44I know that they have too much pride even in this statement to come out and say it in
0:45:48that way because it's PR and they want to have it be a positive spin.
0:45:51You know, and a positive spin is "Yay! New Mac Pros are coming!" and Apple recommits
0:45:56to the high end.
0:45:58But you know, you can read it, unless you are willfully trying to ignore what they say,
0:46:03you can read it very clearly here that they're admitting they blew it.
0:46:06And that's good because, I mean, they blew it, right?
0:46:09The fact that they give detail about why they blew it is fascinating to me because they
0:46:14They could have probably just kind of whistled and said, "Yeah, it wasn't for everyone.
0:46:19We learned our lesson.
0:46:20We're going to do something different.
0:46:21It'll be better."
0:46:22But instead, they went into some detail, which is, "We designed this thing for something
0:46:27that it turned out to be completely wrong for, and that's why it's a goner."
0:46:32From Shilla, "The current Mac Pro, as you said a few times, was constrained thermally,
0:46:36and it restricted our ability to upgrade it.
0:46:37And for that, we're sorry to disappoint customers who wanted that.
0:46:41And we've asked the team to go and re-architect and design something great for the future
0:46:45for those Mac Pro customers who want more expandability, more upgradeability in the
0:46:48future, it will meet more of those needs.
0:46:51So there you go, like, we are sorry to disappoint, is what they're saying.
0:46:54Right.
0:46:55So a lot of these quotes are coming from John Gruber's piece, which you should go and read.
0:46:59Like, we'll put links in the show notes on that, but John goes into detail a lot about
0:47:02like just his experience of being in this environment, which is also kind of fascinating.
0:47:05But yeah, so you know, as well, like they don't, Apple do not go into any details on
0:47:11what stage they're in, the design process, they're not talking about that, like Schiller
0:47:14said, we're just not going to.
0:47:17But they're looking to do something that can be supported for a long time with customers
0:47:20of updates and upgrades throughout the year.
0:47:23We'll take the time it takes to do that.
0:47:25And that is the, where the modular concept comes from, I think, which is the idea, it
0:47:30sounds to me, and we'll see it in practice, right, but it sounds to me what Schiller's
0:47:33saying there is okay you're right we when we design this new thing it needs
0:47:39to be something that we can upgrade regularly like we get it that pro users
0:47:45want the cutting edge and we can't deliver it right now and so that's not
0:47:49too fancy with that's right and so whether that is we're going to release
0:47:54this and then once a year doing a processor upgrade or or maybe it
0:47:59certainly open the certainly opens the possibility that what they're really
0:48:02saying is we will design this thing so that whenever there's a new CPU in the
0:48:08class that we support we will we will rapidly update these things because
0:48:15that ideally what you'd want for and what what the pros want is Intel comes
0:48:19up with a new processor that is appropriate for this this machine and
0:48:23within a small time horizon Apple is selling that in the Mac Pro so that's
0:48:29That's what you want.
0:48:30That like in that kind of guise that you could just buy from Intel and put it in yourself.
0:48:37Do you think they'd ever make a computer like that?
0:48:40I don't think they would intentionally make something like that.
0:48:42I think it's more likely that they would, that the engineering choices they make in
0:48:47making it upgradeable by them internally would have the side effect of it being upgradeable
0:48:53externally.
0:48:54It's possible.
0:48:56if it makes sense for them to do it that way, they'll do it.
0:49:00But it's going to be one of those aftermarket things where I feel like more likely it's
0:49:05going to be an aftermarket thing.
0:49:06It would be great if they put the GPUs on a card and said, "hey pro users, upgrade it
0:49:12yourself.
0:49:13Go for it.
0:49:14Knock yourself out."
0:49:15I feel like they might go middle of the road.
0:49:18You won't be able to pop out everything, but you might be able to do more than you can
0:49:23currently do.
0:49:24So it returns to a world that is more like the cheese grater, right?
0:49:30Where you have the ability to pop out more stuff.
0:49:33You can upgrade the graphics card and stuff in those, can't you?
0:49:36So they might go back to that world.
0:49:38Yeah, it's possible.
0:49:39It's possible.
0:49:40My gut feeling is that they won't, like I said, my gut feeling is they won't do it as
0:49:47something they, "hey it would be nice if third parties could sell graphics cards for this,
0:49:51that we're then gonna have to deal with,
0:49:53like configuration and support and drivers
0:49:55and things like that.
0:49:56But it may be a side effect.
0:49:57- They also, I guess, don't wanna just sell one of these
0:50:00to people and then they keep it for 20 years.
0:50:02- Right. - Right?
0:50:03They probably-- - Like John Siracusa.
0:50:04- Yeah, they probably wanna make something that,
0:50:07at least 'cause it's such a small market
0:50:09and they're putting all this time in again,
0:50:11that people are gonna buy 'em maybe once every three,
0:50:14four years or something.
0:50:16It is really interesting to me that they're doing this.
0:50:19I mean, I'm happy they're doing it.
0:50:20pleased but I don't know if they're ever going to see the money back that they're
0:50:25going to invest in this thing if you consider the loss of the the trash can
0:50:28right that the trash can must be a loss to Apple from an R&D perspective now.
0:50:33I think it's I think it's a cost of doing business is they want to be in the
0:50:35Mac business and the Mac business requires they have a high-end Pro system
0:50:38and they made a bet on the Mac Pro trash can and it's a failure and it's a
0:50:44rare abject product failure from Apple. Now we you know it doesn't happen often
0:50:49People who are agitated about the touch bar may say that that's a failure. We'll see.
0:50:54But it will take Apple trashing it for it to be an official declaration of failure.
0:51:00Trash the can.
0:51:01But they trashed the can, or they're in the process.
0:51:04They updated the can in the process of trashing it. It's an interesting decision.
0:51:10Sometimes you gotta live with what you got.
0:51:13- They also spent some time talking about the Mac in general
0:51:17to I think alleviate the concerns.
0:51:21Federighi just like head on, like talks about the fact
0:51:25that people, as he refers to on internet forums,
0:51:28are concerned that Apple doesn't care about the Mac anymore.
0:51:32- Websites and podcasts are forums on the internet.
0:51:36- It depends on your, like how he's using the word, right?
0:51:39'Cause forum could just mean an avenue
0:51:42for contributing thought.
0:51:44I mean, what he's talking about is podcasts and blogs,
0:51:48right, about the concern that people have about,
0:51:52like, and he talks about it, right,
0:51:54if they release an iPad or they release any new product,
0:51:57but they don't touch the Mac,
0:51:58then it means that they don't care about the Mac anymore,
0:52:01right, and that they're,
0:52:04does it mean that if they're not updating the product
0:52:06that I love, that they don't care about my product?
0:52:09And he says, "I understand how that will come out in the form of concern that this is happening to you."
0:52:15But they say, "The Mac, we say it over and over again, is here to stay. It is a huge part of our future. We are deeply invested in it."
0:52:25Three years ago, Federighi and Schiller told me in person on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Mac, and I quote, "The Mac goes on forever."
0:52:37He's absolutely right to say, "Apple has been consistent on this point, we care about the Mac."
0:52:43In fact, they used this opportunity, Federighi did especially, to try to bat down this idea that the existence of the iPad means the Mac isn't important anymore.
0:52:54And they said, "People talk about the iPad and it creates a sense of insecurity. What does this mean?"
0:53:02but they say it's not a zero-sum game.
0:53:05That they care about the iPad, they care about the Mac, they care about the iPhone,
0:53:08these are all product lines they care about,
0:53:10and they're not taking Steam away from one in order to inject it in the other.
0:53:16Now, in the end, they're one company, but companies can scale.
0:53:21So I think their argument here is that as their product line grows,
0:53:25they're growing and they're able to keep this attention.
0:53:28We can argue about whether Apple is living up to this promise or not, but the argument
0:53:36that Apple is not making promises, you can't make, right?
0:53:39Because they've restated it again.
0:53:42It could not have been more recent, saying "No, it's not a zero-sum game, we do love
0:53:46the iPad, but that doesn't mean we love the Mac any less, and we are going to keep on
0:53:51doing this, it's part of our future, and we want to invest in it."
0:53:55We can all argue the details, but unless you just want to say they're a bunch of liars
0:54:00and they don't mean it, I think you have to at least give them credit for committing to
0:54:05the Mac here.
0:54:06We can talk about the details of whether it's a good commitment, whether they're really
0:54:10capable of committing at the level that's required.
0:54:13We can debate all of that, but it is interesting to see them feel they needed to make this
0:54:18affirmation, to feel that they needed to put it in the context of the iPad, right?
0:54:24is a big part of the conversation on internet forums.
0:54:29So it's good to hear, right?
0:54:30It's good to hear that.
0:54:31Because they didn't need, that's, talk about things in this event that they didn't need
0:54:35to say, that they went out of their way to say, that is a big one.
0:54:39Shilla doubled down.
0:54:40We're committed to the Mac.
0:54:41We've got great talent on the Mac, both hardware and software.
0:54:44We've got products planned for the future and as far as our horizon line can see, the
0:54:49is a core component of the things Apple delivers including to our pro customers.
0:54:54Now technically the horizon line is as far as the person observing it can see and as
0:55:01far as the horizon line can see is that like an even further out beyond I can't see it
0:55:07but the horizon line tells me that it doesn't see it either or is this one of those things
0:55:11where it's like infinity plus one probably just means as far as to the horizon.
0:55:17And it looks like we can look forward to the Inside Apple Pro podcast coming quite soon.
0:55:23As Sheila says, "We're really serious about this idea that we want to figure out how to
0:55:27better communicate with pros.
0:55:29We understand their jobs, rely on this stuff, they make important decisions about this stuff,
0:55:33they need to hear from us.
0:55:35We do have a process we need to go through to make products and not tell competitors
0:55:38what we're doing and on and on.
0:55:40But we're trying to have it not all be one way and find the right balance."
0:55:44I think this is really interesting.
0:55:47is where... Here's the thing. Again, Shiller, if you want to come on the show, you know,
0:55:51as part of your outreach for professionals. Phil knows who I am. It's cool. I have had
0:55:57great interactions with Phil, but the idea here, I think, is a good one because what
0:56:05he seems to be potentially suggesting, and this goes back to, like, Apple's culture changing,
0:56:11is consumer products need to be surprises.
0:56:16But enterprise products, business products,
0:56:21professional products don't.
0:56:25Bottom line, they don't.
0:56:26- They're buying them anyway.
0:56:27- That's right.
0:56:28Big reveal of the, the curtain reveal
0:56:30that Steve Jobs was so great at
0:56:32is great for consumer products.
0:56:35But I think you could really make an argument
0:56:37that on the professional level,
0:56:38and the Mac Pro is the perfect example of this,
0:56:41Is anything gained by doing a big reveal on the Mac Pro?
0:56:45As opposed, and I would say, no, in fact, what is gained is giving a roadmap
0:56:50and being clear about what your update strategy is going to be in the long run.
0:56:54Back in the day, I learned this when I started in this business, Mac Week existed.
0:56:58It was a weekly newspaper, essentially, about what was going on in the Mac.
0:57:01The entire premise of Mac Week was that they rooted out what Apple was going to do next,
0:57:06when Apple wouldn't say because their audience which was decision makers who
0:57:11spent a lot of money on computer hardware wanted to plan their buying
0:57:15decisions. Now I'll grant you a little bit of that was a lie.
0:57:18People like to know what the rumors are just in general and people would lie to
0:57:22get copies of Mac Week. But the fundamental premise is true which is
0:57:25professional markets people who spent a lot of money whether they're individuals
0:57:30or they're big corporations for stuff like this that doesn't have any consumer
0:57:35impact, it's not going to be a big holiday seller, they would rather get
0:57:40information up front that makes them confident investing hundreds of
0:57:43thousands of dollars in hardware, rather than being like, "well, I could plan my
0:57:48budget, but instead I'm going to wait for somebody on stage to pull some, you know,
0:57:52pull a drape off of a product and reveal it." Now, I think it's
0:58:00interesting the venue that they chose to announce this, because most of the people
0:58:04that they talk to, while all of them are excellent tech journalists, most of the
0:58:09channels they write for speak to a broad consumer audience, which to... for whom... I
0:58:16mean, I love, I love BuzzFeed. I love Mashable.
0:58:21Oh, well, okay, Mashable's fine. I love BuzzFeed.
0:58:24Sorry, title suggestion. Mashable and Guinness are together in the fine group.
0:58:29No, they're fine, and Lance is great, and Lance has been doing this a long time.
0:58:32The people are great.
0:58:33But some of those brands, those are consumer brands.
0:58:35The BuzzFeed audience, the BuzzFeed tech audience
0:58:38does not care about the Mac Pro, right?
0:58:41So I think that's a little weird.
0:58:43Like Gruber I think is the perfect,
0:58:45like if there was one person for whom everybody
0:58:47who cares about the Mac Pro is going to get the information,
0:58:50it's somebody like John Gruber.
0:58:52So that part's a little bit weird,
0:58:54but the truth behind this statement still goes,
0:58:56which is this isn't a product Apple should play coy about.
0:59:00Apple should be more transparent about this.
0:59:01Apple should get over its obsession with secrecy about something like this.
0:59:05In fact, Apple would be better taking a book from taking a page out of Microsoft's playbook,
0:59:10which has played this game for decades now, which is when you're communicating with businesses,
0:59:16just tell them what you're going to do.
0:59:18Not only is that good for their planning purposes, but it actually allows you to blunt the competition
0:59:24because you've now pre-announced what you're going to do and that makes it harder for the
0:59:27competition.
0:59:28You know, if you don't announce anything, there's a window where the competition comes out with something better,
0:59:33and then they're better than you, and you've got nothing to say, and so they can make hay with that.
0:59:38But if Apple's out on the record as saying, "Look, this is what we're doing in six months,"
0:59:41makes it a lot harder for somebody else to come in and say, "Hey, what's Apple got for you? I've got this thing today."
0:59:48I think it's good. I think it's a good move. I think Apple could really move in that direction with products like this.
0:59:52Apple doesn't have a lot of products like this. This is a product that has no appeal to consumers.
0:59:56literally zero appeal to consumers.
0:59:58If anything, you want to stop consumers from buying.
1:00:01I'm not sure Apple has another single product like this.
1:00:04But it has this one, so why not disclose?
1:00:08Let's talk a bit about the briefing
1:00:11from what we know, right?
1:00:13Mostly from what Gruber has told us and a little bit from Panserino as well.
1:00:17It happened in Apple's product realization lab, which is effectively,
1:00:22I think, kind of internally called like where the Macs are made.
1:00:26I haven't decided whether this is a brilliant bit of theater or whether they literally have no place else to host something like this because they're moving everybody to campus too.
1:00:35They wanted to walk people through this room.
1:00:37Yeah, but again, maybe it's a little from column A and a little from column B, like where are we gonna put them?
1:00:41And it's like we'll do a fancy meeting in some place that impresses upon you this.
1:00:48Hotels.
1:00:48They could clean up a conference room.
1:00:49Anything, right?
1:00:50Like they chose this place to like really set the scene of like look at all the Macs we've made.
1:00:55It's similar to when you get the Johnny Ive interview in the Johnny Ive studio.
1:00:57It's similar to after the Antennagate thing where a bunch of us were taken over to the the Anechoic chamber.
1:01:03I was trying to think of that word earlier. Anechoic.
1:01:05Anechoic, yes.
1:01:06That's like one of the, you know, I think we spoke about this in the show every now and then.
1:01:09We all find out a new phrase and like use it a bunch, right?
1:01:12Because they told us a new thing, like chamfer.
1:01:14Yes.
1:01:15I prefer my anechoic chambers to be chamfered.
1:01:18There were nine people at the table.
1:01:19Yes.
1:01:20This is from John Gruber.
1:01:21Phil Schiller was there, Federighi was there.
1:01:23John Turnus, who is the vice president of hardware engineering in charge of the Mac.
1:01:27That's a new name for us. That's also a nice uh there yes there is a guy in charge of Mac hardware.
1:01:33Here he is. Bill Evans from PR. Yep. Matthew Panzareno, TechCrunch,
1:01:38Mark Zulanov of Mashable, Inafrid of Axios, John Paxowski of BuzzFeed, and John Gruber of Don't Fireball.
1:01:44Yep. Who wasn't there? Everybody else. But like who should who when you look at that list because
1:01:51Because you said that you find it weird that Buzzfeed and Mashable were there, so who should
1:01:56have been there?
1:01:57I think they got the right guy there, because it's Grouper.
1:02:01And Panzareno, I think TechCrunch, although technically it's about the business of technology,
1:02:08at least they are a very arcane site for a very specific group of users, and Panzareno
1:02:16is the best, right?
1:02:18He knows that stuff down.
1:02:20In fact, their coverage of Apple detail is way more than what TechCrunch probably should have.
1:02:25But they've got Matthew Pansarino.
1:02:27They've got Matthew Pansarino, so why not cover it? Because he can cover it, so let him cover it.
1:02:32And the other people are all great journalists, I'm just not sure that they're...
1:02:36So it's fine, and they reach great audiences.
1:02:38I mean, Ina Fried, Axios is new, but I think that's paying her respect as a tech journalist to have her be there.
1:02:47Even though she's moved to a different outlet.
1:02:51And then as for BuzzFeed and Mashable, those are great people.
1:02:56I'm not sure their audiences are a great match.
1:02:59I was joking before we got started that one of the challenges is Apple PR now invites
1:03:04YouTubers to events but they didn't...
1:03:08MKBHD got an exclusive interview after the MacBook Pro.
1:03:11Right.
1:03:12As he showed always forever.
1:03:13So you could argue that maybe maybe MKBHD should have been at this event. Well, they wouldn't let him make a video
1:03:18Well, that's the thing, right?
1:03:19so I can I can see that and then podcasters would be the same way and I'm not saying us but like
1:03:24Given how much that ATP covered this subject would they invite Marco and would he come and what do you want?
1:03:30What do you want to do it? I don't know that might not be the best fit John Syracuse
1:03:33I didn't even mention because he wouldn't want to come and Casey Liss would turn them down. So
1:03:37But
1:03:40So I don't know. I don't know what the right answer is. The challenge is there isn't
1:03:45Ars Technica maybe? There used to be you could lift list off the litany of
1:03:51publications that care about the high-end computing market and
1:03:56They kind of are not prominent anymore. They do exist, but they're kind of not prominent anymore
1:04:02I would honestly say that these audiences these markets they have turned to podcasts
1:04:07It doesn't make sense to me why they don't invite like the ATP crew
1:04:12They just have they just haven't gotten I think I think that's it's gonna take them some time to warm up to that
1:04:18frustrates me
1:04:19I think the advantage of inviting John Grouper is that he has his he has his very broad and and deep technical
1:04:24Audience of daring fireball and the talk show. Yeah, and so it's a great twofer
1:04:29He is a great you were saying great choice like we're saying this before they could have just invited John
1:04:34Like this could have just been an exclusive for daring fireball and it would have reached everyone it needed to I
1:04:38I agree. I mean that's I I think I think it's great that they invited more
1:04:44They may have felt like they wanted more coverage
1:04:46But I think better because I personally needed to invite was John Gruber because everybody like, you know
1:04:51I've read I read Johnson but panzerinos as well before
1:04:54Because this broke like an hour before I was recording connected and
1:04:59- So, Panzerino gave another insight which was great.
1:05:02Like, his opinion was really great.
1:05:04But, like, if all they were doing
1:05:06were trying to reach the pros,
1:05:07then Darren Fireball would reach everyone they needed.
1:05:10- I would say, you know, somebody like Jim Dalrymple,
1:05:13because he's got a very broad audience,
1:05:15although the loop is a small site,
1:05:17and I can say that because I'm an even smaller site, right?
1:05:20Six Colors is an even smaller site.
1:05:21But at least Jim has had great relationships with Apple
1:05:25and is listened to about these things.
1:05:28And like ours is a good example of somebody,
1:05:32a site that still has a lot of technical depth.
1:05:37But you know, but it's tough.
1:05:39I'm not saying this is a no brainer
1:05:41and they miss some people who are obvious.
1:05:43- It's just interesting to see who was there and who wasn't.
1:05:44- If I was still at Macworld,
1:05:45I would be super bummed out that I didn't get invited,
1:05:47but I'm not at Macworld anymore
1:05:48and I don't have that bully pulpit anymore.
1:05:50But you know, there was a day, I guess,
1:05:52is what I'm really saying,
1:05:53when you could count on a bunch of kind of enterprise
1:05:58high-end creative sites or magazines or newspapers that you could say it and
1:06:04that doesn't really exist anymore because you're right it has it has gone
1:06:08to blogs and the web and the reality is that you know there are only
1:06:12some bloggers that Apple's comfortable with but these some of these websites
1:06:15are you know they're great they're great sites again I feel like this is going to
1:06:19come out as being like Jason's got sour grapes that he wasn't invited first off
1:06:23I wasn't available but more than that it's like no I have a little site I'm
1:06:28I'm just interested in the mismatch of news that is very important to us because we've
1:06:33been talking about all this time, but like the bulk of people even reading the tech section
1:06:38of BuzzFeed just don't care.
1:06:40I mean it's an esoteric product for the very high end.
1:06:43I'm not sure it's that important.
1:06:44It's great because you've got a great writer who you're comfortable with if you're Apple
1:06:49that you invite to do it.
1:06:50And so that's what they did.
1:06:51But it is a little weird.
1:06:52It is a little weird of a list.
1:06:54I look at this list and my mind is boggled that there were no Vox Media properties of this.
1:06:59It's a little surprising. No Recode, no Verge. Like, that is very surprising to me. Like, surely,
1:07:05surely The Verge has a higher audience than Buzzfeed Tech.
1:07:12CNET is another not a bad example. Or Mashable's tech. Maybe even for this type of thing,
1:07:20bigger than TechCrunch. People go to TechCrunch for the moves and shakes in Silicon Valley.
1:07:24It's entirely possible. In fact, given how Apple pried, I think Apple PR, so much of it is, I don't know if they pride themselves on it, so much of it is personal relationships.
1:07:33My best guess is that whoever originated this idea, and it was probably Phil, said, "These are people..."
1:07:43Well, it's not even like, "These are the people who are gonna get what we have to say right."
1:07:49Okay, because it's gonna be a pre-brief and they're gonna write their stories
1:07:52Which means that's a leap of faith for Apple because Apple has to say
1:07:56Here's what we're saying now go away and write it and we'll see what what you come up with
1:08:02So and you could spin that as being these are the people that Apple considers dependable sources for their PR
1:08:07I think that's unfair, but people will spin it that way and already have been but I do think that Apple
1:08:12Doesn't invite you if they're not comfortable with you and these are writers Apple trust trusts
1:08:18To get it right not necessarily to parrot what they say but to get it right
1:08:22In this context and so a bottom line
1:08:25I think that's why because like in as a great example like the axios audience is not the same as the recode audience
1:08:31It's building and it may be great someday, but they trust you know, and they should and so it's great that they invited her
1:08:36So let's talk about like they get some statistics today, which I think
1:08:41Highlight why it is strange to go to like broader tech websites
1:08:47Apple's Mac sales comprise 20% desktop, 80% laptop.
1:08:52So for the, like there is 20% of their entire market,
1:08:58which may even be interested
1:09:00in these announcements today, right?
1:09:02And of those 20%, a single digit is Mac Pro customers.
1:09:09Less than a single digit.
1:09:12- Well, it's not no digits, there's nothing less than--
1:09:14- You know what I mean, like a low single digit.
1:09:16- Yeah, this is good because they dropped out the mix
1:09:20of desktop and laptop.
1:09:20They used to report desktop units and laptop units of Macs
1:09:23and they stopped.
1:09:25And so I've been saying for a while now
1:09:27that somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 of Macs sold
1:09:32our laptops because those were what the numbers
1:09:35were regularly.
1:09:36They were going closer to 75%,
1:09:39but we haven't had hard numbers there.
1:09:42And so for them to disclose that it's 80% laptops--
1:09:45- Well then, it's more laptops than you even thought.
1:09:49- Yeah, so now, yeah, so it's gone,
1:09:50since I've been tracking that number,
1:09:52it's gone from two thirds to three quarters to four fifths now.
1:09:57It's full on 80% laptops.
1:10:00And yeah, what do you think most of those desktop sales are?
1:10:03They're iMacs.
1:10:05So what's left over is tiny numbers
1:10:08for the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro.
1:10:11MacBook Pro sales are up 20% year on year for Q1.
1:10:15I think that's a false flag.
1:10:17I don't think that it's saying that the touch bar's amazing.
1:10:21I think it's just saying--
1:10:22- The new Mac.
1:10:23- People were waiting, it was pent up demand.
1:10:26- I agree.
1:10:26- And 15% of all Mac customers, says Phil Schiller,
1:10:31use a pro category app multiple times a week,
1:10:34and I think it's 30% use one once a week.
1:10:37And they consider their pro apps,
1:10:39I guess like something like Photoshop or something
1:10:41All of this just goes to indicate this market is small. Yes, it is small
1:10:47Yes, and that's important to keep in mind when you think about everything they've done when your favorite tech podcast
1:10:53Huh and it might not be this one
1:10:56But when your favorite tech podcast well my favorite tech podcast ATP, right?
1:11:01Devotes so much time to this topic and has historically for its entire run
1:11:06But I assume it's they have a very large percentage of their audience that want to hear it.
1:11:09I agree, but this is the point. It may be your favorite tech pod guest. It may be your favorite tech podcasters favorite subject.
1:11:16It may matter to you. This is always the challenge, right? Just because it matters the world to you,
1:11:21just because it matters the world to your friends and the people you listen to,
1:11:25you can't lose perspective of the fact that for a lot of people it doesn't matter and it's not important.
1:11:32And so it's just something to keep in mind that it's an important...
1:11:37Just because it's small doesn't mean it's not important,
1:11:40but it does mean that for the vast majority of the people who care about Apple products in general,
1:11:45or even the Mac in particular, it doesn't matter to them.
1:11:48This is a niche product. It's an important niche product. It should exist.
1:11:52I'm glad that it's going to exist.
1:11:54But let's not forget that the number of people who actually need a Mac Pro,
1:11:59even in our audience, I would imagine, is small.
1:12:02And will remain so, even if there's a snazzy new model in a year.
1:12:06Anything else to say on this?
1:12:10No, I am...
1:12:13Bumshell of a day.
1:12:14I am relieved that Apple...
1:12:16This has been my frustration with the two Tim Cook headfakes, right?
1:12:20Is that they really seem like, "Calm down, it's gonna be okay."
1:12:24"Nah, by saying it's gonna be okay, he means it's not going to be okay!"
1:12:28That was like the answer. It's the internet, it happens, right? So he's like, "No, no, no. It's fine."
1:12:32"Ah, that means not fine. He's just saying it's fine. It's like when Jason said Guinness is fine.
1:12:38It means that he doesn't really love it, and I want him to love it."
1:12:42So I'm glad they finally are like, "Alright, listen. Listen, you people. Here are the details."
1:12:49Good. It's great that they did it. It at the very least changes the debate to something more tangible
1:12:56then Apple doesn't care and I don't think it's going to be around anymore.
1:12:59And I think it perhaps suggests that Apple is going to open up about this stuff more in the
1:13:04future, which I think it should. Take a break? This week's episode is also brought to you by
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1:14:29many things happening and I am dying right now.
1:14:32- You're killing me. I understand now why these ad reads make you cry this late in the
1:14:36day.
1:14:37- There you go, because I always read them around dinner time.
1:14:38- This is breakfast time for me back home, right? So I wouldn't be bothered, but now
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1:14:42- I want to eat all the food, Jason.
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1:15:17show and relay FM. Blue Apron, a better way to cook. Time for Ask Upgrade. Christopher
1:15:27asks, the question probably only Myke can answer, what Apple device color is best for
1:15:32stickers? So I have recently become partial to the gold devices for this, so my regular
1:15:39size iPad Pro, the 9.7, I keep calling it the 10.5 because I'm like so set on this happening.
1:15:46living in the future. That is gold and so is my MacBook Adorable. That's gold and I
1:15:50really like that it's just something different. It's an interesting backdrop color. I'm interested
1:15:55in seeing what rose gold might look like or maybe like red or you know give me a color.
1:16:00Let me see what I can do. I think maybe more, I haven't tried it on any of the, well I got
1:16:06the dark grey one. Space grey. Space grey. And that looks pretty good but it's still
1:16:10too close to silver. Go for the colors. Interesting. I have no opinion about that. Although I will
1:16:15point out that I have my MacBook Air with me today and there is a decal on it.
1:16:19It has the rainbow one. I try and get the rainbow stickers for all my devices.
1:16:24Marco asks, "Is there any Twitter client that lets me group who I follow, like sports people,
1:16:29tech people and professional related people?" I feel like lists is what Marco's looking
1:16:35for here. I don't know if you've tried that.
1:16:37I use lists all the time and that's the answer. Twitter has a feature called Lists, it's built
1:16:41into Twitter.
1:16:42And they can be private.
1:16:43Twitter clients have that built in as well that you can build them and you can
1:16:46add a person instead of following them you add them to a list you can add
1:16:50them to multiple lists. So I have a sports list that is a curated list of
1:16:56sports journalists and athletes and things like that. It's people I'm
1:16:59interested in who say interesting things and it's great. Not only is it great to
1:17:03read but it's also great because Nuzzle has a feature that you can
1:17:08Nuzzle is the service that looks at your social media feed and provides news
1:17:12headlines you can also use your lists to feed Nuzzle separately and that's great
1:17:20because that creates a sports news reading list and I also have a space and
1:17:23science list that is curated of journalists and scientists and things
1:17:29like that who cover space and science and I love it so that's I couldn't
1:17:33recommend more all reputable Twitter clients support lists as does Twitter
1:17:37itself. Change it so that the list becomes your timeline essentially. Right, so it looks
1:17:43like it's just your timeline but it's that specific list of people. That's one of the
1:17:46things I love about, since I use Twitterific, is that the lists interface and the support
1:17:51is really great for it. I've got a little sidebar with all my lists and I can even make
1:17:55one of my icons like my timeline and my replies, I have them for my two lists too. Oh nice.
1:18:00And a saved search. So like in the little tabs, like the little tab thing you can change
1:18:04them to?
1:18:05Yeah, mine is timeline mentions a saved search for the incomparable so I can see if people
1:18:12are talking to the incomparable instead of me and then sports and science.
1:18:16That sounds pretty sweet.
1:18:17It's great.
1:18:18Michael asked, "Any suggestions for a media player that can access files from Dropbox
1:18:23on iOS?"
1:18:24I don't know.
1:18:25I wondered if this is one that the Upgradients can help with.
1:18:29I tried to look for something.
1:18:30I found an app called equity, but that's just like to load to play your local music and stuff
1:18:35But this is like to take files from Dropbox and play them
1:18:38I don't know if it would maybe pull them from the web or it would like pull them and download them
1:18:43I I couldn't find anything if any upgrade Ian's know let us know well like GoodReader
1:18:48Can be linked to Dropbox and you can download things into GoodReader from Dropbox
1:18:54Okay, and it's a it's a pretty decent media player someone in the chat room. I've just tapped out
1:18:59I'm on my iPad today. Suggested VLC? Maybe? Maybe VLC could do it? I don't know. But,
1:19:06yeah, I think there might be some options. I'll put those two in the show notes so Michael can
1:19:11get those. But, yeah, so maybe Good Reader, maybe VLC, maybe there's something else. If there is,
1:19:17we'll provide it in follow-up next week when we do that. Doug wanted to know, "Do you buy any
1:19:26magazines or comics in print? I'm curious to know which parts of your media
1:19:29libraries are still analog. What about you, Jason?
1:19:33I am almost entirely digital at this point. I don't buy comics. Other than occasionally something that I truly love, I will buy
1:19:42basically a keepsake edition, like especially even though they make trade
1:19:45paperbacks now, I won't even buy those, but I'll buy the hardcovers sometimes.
1:19:48It's like when the entire Hawkeye run from Marvel Comics with Matt Fraction as
1:19:52the writer. When that finished I bought the hardcover of Hawkeye so I will
1:19:59occasionally buy the hardcovers of things but even that is becoming more
1:20:02rare. It's all digital and books it's all digital if I buy them I buy the ebooks
1:20:08so yeah I'm pretty much done with consuming analog media. I guess you know
1:20:16the blu-rays aren't analog they're digital but they're physical media. I
1:20:21I will occasionally buy a blu-ray and I immediately convert it to digital, right?
1:20:26I rip it and put it in my Plex library.
1:20:28So, but I will at least occasionally buy those because they've got better stuff on them or they're cheaper.
1:20:34You can see my vinyl over there.
1:20:41Oh, yeah?
1:20:42So I have a record player.
1:20:44I got the record player because I started buying vinyl records of my favorite records as like a keepsake.
1:20:50Yeah, so just nice to display then I ended up with so many that I was like
1:20:55I want to have something to play these on so I bought a record player and
1:20:57Every now and then I will add to it some of my favorite albums
1:21:01I haven't done this in a while and I should because I have a bunch of albums that I really love and want to add to
1:21:05My collection I do that and then I buy like the occasional graphic novel or book in hard copy if I really like them
1:21:10But I'm similar to you. I never start right now
1:21:13I never go into something cold and it's physical like I start with the digital and if I really love it
1:21:17Then I'll buy it physically. Yeah, I feel like that is the
1:21:20that is the secret to the success of physical stuff. Video games is maybe the only thing I still do that with
1:21:25just because it can take so, I mean not now with my mega internet, but it can take so long to download something.
1:21:31Right, like you ordered that game and you had it, you wanted it delivered by drone.
1:21:36Yep, and it will come quicker. Well I think they know that for keepsakes and things like that, that's a market for it
1:21:44and that's why you see, even for video games that are available for digital download,
1:21:47there's also the special edition that comes in a booklet and has all the extra
1:21:53stuff and I have so many of those yeah but like with the switch the switch
1:21:56carts are so small I'm still buying some games on the carts as well as buying
1:22:02from the e-shop. Cliff asked Myke you really got into buying watch bands Apple
1:22:07watch bands in the beginning I was wondering if you're still adding to your
1:22:10collection I haven't added any in a while I read it the nylon bands and I'm
1:22:14keen to see the new ones the new stripey color ones I haven't got any of them yet
1:22:18I showed the pictures to Adina and she said she didn't like them I'm wearing
1:22:23the blue nylon today yes I see the first edition of that and I really like those
1:22:27so I want to go and take a look at them if there's any that I really love I'll
1:22:31get them but like I showed them there at the end issues I don't like the look at
1:22:33them she is kind of she helps me with the things that are supposed to look
1:22:38good mm-hmm smart but I do want to see them because I think they look cool but
1:22:42I haven't bought any yet.
1:22:44That's Ask Upgrade this week.
1:22:45If you want to send in any questions for Ask Upgrade you can always tweet at us with the
1:22:49hashtag #AskUpgrade and we'll get that.
1:22:51Now we're going to take another break here and when we come back from the break we've
1:22:54got Myke at the Movies.
1:22:55I watched Alien yesterday and we're going to talk about Alien.
1:22:59But before we do Myke at the Movies this week is brought to you by our friends over at Encapsula.
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1:24:32Thank you so much to Wincapsula for their continued support of this show and we love
1:24:37that.
1:24:38So, Alien.
1:24:39Yes.
1:24:40Watch this yesterday.
1:24:411979.
1:24:42I watched it yesterday. 1979. 1979, I watched it yesterday. I was very apprehensive of this one Jason.
1:24:49Very apprehensive. I don't like scary movies and I was worried about it.
1:24:57I was very uncomfortable going into it. I've seen some of it. I think I mentioned
1:25:03before I've studied some scenes of this movie for a media degree. So I have seen
1:25:08the stomach scene about 50,000 million times we watched it over and over and
1:25:12over again to study everything that was going on in that scene so I knew what I
1:25:18was in for I mean everybody knows some of the scenes from Alien right like it
1:25:22is a landmark movie so I was a little bit like I'm sure about it so but I've
1:25:29watched it I watched it yesterday do you want to know how I felt about it and we
1:25:32talk about some of the parts? Yeah. I can see why so many people love this
1:25:39movie. It is incredibly well made. It is an intriguing movie. It is an interesting
1:25:44world. It is a movie from 1979 that holds up in every respect today. Right? Other
1:25:51than, you know, the monitors. We'll get to that. The old text. The big TV.
1:25:58I mean like production value perspective. Oh yeah. Holds up. I mean I probably
1:26:01probably watched a restored version you know. Sure but it's still the movie that
1:26:05they made back then. So this was three years before Ridley Scott made
1:26:10Blade Runner which is often hailed for its visuals and it's sort of a
1:26:17visionary science fiction movie. We should maybe do Blade Runner next because
1:26:20there's a new Blade Runner movie coming right? I know you know but I've never
1:26:23seen Blade Runner. All right we could do that. People are gonna really be unhappy
1:26:27with me. I don't speak about Blade Runner publicly because I don't really like it
1:26:31So that's my maybe we should talk about it instead of it being on the incomparable way like maybe you raise people, you know
1:26:36But alien I feel like you could argue
1:26:38I'm not gonna compare it to Blade Runner. I will say
1:26:41there's a reason it looks as good as it does and is as interesting as it is and
1:26:46it is not surprised that three years later that guy made Blade Runner because
1:26:51Alien is itself a pretty tremendous technical achievement. It just it looks
1:26:58Amazing and in not I think maybe it has some some benefit of being of following Star Wars
1:27:04It is aggressively not the kind of sci-fi movie that you saw in the late 60s and early 70s where everything is clean and white
1:27:11It is like Star Wars this universe taken to an extreme. It is dirty and gross
1:27:17There is steam flying out of everything. Yeah for 95% of the movie steam is pouring out of a pipe
1:27:23Yeah, and you get the sense that this is a this is a spaceship that has been worked hard
1:27:27It's a blue-collar spaceship.
1:27:30These people are workers.
1:27:32They just want to go home and get paid and instead they have to go and get diverted to
1:27:37this other place.
1:27:38Their ship is their workplace.
1:27:40It has shown signs of wear and signs of work.
1:27:43It's been out there a long time.
1:27:45It's dirty and messy and yet still a spaceship, which is a great combination.
1:27:50Like me and I told Adina I was watching it and I told her that I was like apprehensive
1:27:56of the movie and she asked me after I watched it like oh how silly were the
1:28:00special effects I'm like they weren't because it wasn't it's because she was
1:28:04like oh how dumb was the CGI right was her quote was huh right or like stop
1:28:09motion or you know you know like the stuff that looks stupid in Terminator
1:28:12right right it was none of that you know the only the only the and I had somebody
1:28:17tell me that it's good that it's this way because it's a release of tension
1:28:20but at the end of the chestburster scene where the alien emerges and runs away
1:28:24It's like it's it's literally like we tied a puppet to a fishing line and pulled it across the floor
1:28:30It is so terrible
1:28:31The only other part as well for me is when the alien is shot out of the ship and it's so obviously a man in a suit
1:28:38Right, like it looks so bad fair enough. Those are the two parts but most of the time it's terrifying the jaws
1:28:45It's the jaws story right which is by not showing it so much you make it more scary
1:28:50And you don't give the opportunity for it to be demystified for you to pick it apart.
1:28:55They don't show too much of the alien, right? Like they just show parts?
1:28:57And it is a legendary piece of creation of character design.
1:29:04It's freaking me out thinking about it right now.
1:29:06The HR Geeker alien could not be a more iconic monster design.
1:29:12It's disgusting.
1:29:13And yet one of the things I love about it is that, you know, it doesn't linger too much on the monster.
1:29:19Which I think makes it better and more scary.
1:29:21And yes, I think this movie, for a movie from 1979,
1:29:25I think it holds up pretty well technically.
1:29:27Not perfect, but it holds up pretty well.
1:29:29- It's not my kind of movie.
1:29:32It just isn't.
1:29:33I don't like feeling anxious or uncomfortable
1:29:35when I watch movies and like I was for the whole time.
1:29:38This is the only movie that I have watched for this show
1:29:42where I was doing other stuff while it was on for parts.
1:29:44Like I had to be like reading Twitter and stuff
1:29:46because I was so uncomfortable.
1:29:50- So we talked about this on the incomparable
1:29:51and one of the things that I think we all agreed about it is
1:29:55we think of it, or you can think of it
1:29:58as a science fiction movie.
1:29:59- It's a horror movie. - It's a horror movie.
1:30:01Like, literally, the characters are picked off one by one
1:30:06until there's only one left.
1:30:08- And like-- - Just like every other
1:30:10horror movie. - Unnecessary jump scares.
1:30:11- It's a slasher movie. - Right, the start
1:30:12of the movie. - Yeah.
1:30:13- The computers coming on are supposed to scare you.
1:30:16- Yeah, no. - 'Cause it happens
1:30:17like dead silence, bang, computers on, it's like, ah.
1:30:19- But I think the brilliance of setting a slasher movie
1:30:21essentially in a science fiction universe is,
1:30:24that is one of the reasons for its appeal,
1:30:27is that it is not the movie you think you're watching.
1:30:31- It's also less scary because it's not a human.
1:30:33Right, I find-- - It's a monster.
1:30:36- Because I, you know, it's like,
1:30:37that alien's not gonna come kill me.
1:30:39- Right, 'cause it doesn't exist, it's--
1:30:41- But like I can't watch the home invasion type movies.
1:30:44- Right, 'cause that could at least plausibly,
1:30:46even if it's only slightly possible, it could happen.
1:30:49And an alien xenomorph stalking you--
1:30:52- On my spaceship.
1:30:53- Is probably not gonna happen.
1:30:54- Not in my lifetime.
1:30:55- Yeah.
1:30:56- So I struggled to watch a lot of it, like really focused,
1:30:59because I knew a lot of the stuff that was gonna happen,
1:31:02right, like you could just tell.
1:31:04But when it was more action or drama or suspense,
1:31:07not suspense, but like,
1:31:09not suspense in a thriller kind of way,
1:31:13I actually I really liked it like and I can see
1:31:16Why this is considered to be one of the best movies ever made like I can see all of it
1:31:20I just couldn't enjoy it because I was too uncomfortable watching it. So that's kind of my overall feeling
1:31:27Yeah, I I know and I can see so clearly why this is one of the best movies ever committed to film
1:31:32But I just couldn't I think I think the first
1:31:35Part isn't great. I think it starts out really boringly and a lot of times I
1:31:42I use the phrase, "If this movie was made today,"
1:31:46and I follow it by pointing out all the ways
1:31:49that modern movie making would screw it up.
1:31:52I feel like some techniques of modern movie making
1:31:57would help the first 30 minutes of Alien
1:31:59because it is a slow-- - I enjoyed the world building.
1:32:01- Yeah, but some of the space stuff is just so slow.
1:32:03- When they're out on that planet,
1:32:04oh my God, I wanted to kill myself, it was so boring.
1:32:07- Yeah, it's trying to build up the tension,
1:32:09But it's not, for all the visual strengths here,
1:32:12I think Ridley Scott, the late 70s, early 80s,
1:32:17Ridley Scott of Alien and Blade Runner,
1:32:19I have issues with the pacing of his movies.
1:32:21And I realize that just means that I'm a whippersnapper,
1:32:25but I feel like both of these movies have parts
1:32:27that are just super sleepy.
1:32:29- Was it Ash?
1:32:30I mean, a lot of it they're trying to show
1:32:31that Ash is a weirdo, right?
1:32:32Like you're supposed to feel like he's weird.
1:32:34- 'Cause that's set up for later.
1:32:35- But like, you could have done that.
1:32:38economically. Just when he's in that seat and they're out on the ship, like out on
1:32:43the alien ship and stuff it's like oh my god. Well they make it they land
1:32:47on this planet and it's a soft landing and it's fine and in the landing is you
1:32:52get the impression it's supposed to be a pulse pounding thrilling dangerous
1:32:57descent but you kind of don't see it and all you hear is like these alarms going
1:33:02off all over the ship and it's really weird because what were the alarms for
1:33:05it was apparently a routine. Can you imagine in an airplane as you were landing like all of the alerts go off because we're gonna be
1:33:11landing now gonna be landing. There's no problem, but like we're gonna make a load of noise.
1:33:15Yeah, it's it's it's weird. I love it gets a lot better
1:33:20It gets a lot better when they bring him back to this when right when they bring John Hurt back to the spaceship
1:33:24It gets a lot better
1:33:25So I like to see if like they're asleep on this ship there and suspended animation like all of that is like super smart
1:33:30Like I've seen that used in so many other places
1:33:32I don't know if Alien was the first movie to really use it, but like I liked it, right?
1:33:36Like I liked all that. I thought it was cool. I loved the super old-school technology
1:33:40It's intended to look futuristic. The ship is just covered in lights like the mother room. Yeah
1:33:44Why is it why are there lights everywhere, but it doesn't matter. There's loads of lights everywhere
1:33:48Yeah, the keyboards are like super clacky like your kind of keyboard like, you know
1:33:52I like it one thing that I found really weird about this movie and I didn't like and I didn't understand why there was so
1:33:57much corporate politics baked into it all so
1:34:01Yeah, it's it's funny
1:34:03So the reason is maybe I don't know whether you got this or not
1:34:07and I this is why I think a modern science fiction movie would do the setup better is
1:34:11the reason we get the detail about they're working for the corporation and they're being sent on this job and all that is that there's the
1:34:17Revelation when ash it turns out to be an Android one of the revelations is that they're all considered expendable
1:34:23Because all that really matters is they want to get the alien
1:34:27And so the corporate politics is all meant to be,
1:34:31I mean, it's a biting satire,
1:34:34'cause these are blue collar workers
1:34:35who are being sent on a mission that is highly risky
1:34:38and may result in their death,
1:34:39because the corporation has decided
1:34:41it's worth it to risk the lives
1:34:42of their employees for profit.
1:34:44That's actually what's happening here, but--
1:34:47- You don't know it.
1:34:48- I think it is not told as clearly as it should be.
1:34:51- One of the problems for me anyway
1:34:53is like the sound is terrible.
1:34:55Like at any point where people are talking,
1:34:57like especially when they're sitting around.
1:34:58- It can be hard to understand the dialogue.
1:34:59- It's like, oh my God, they're having seven conversations
1:35:02and like you can't hear any of them.
1:35:03- Don't watch a Robert Altman movie.
1:35:05- Okay.
1:35:05- But you know, like when they're sitting around that table.
1:35:07- It's naturalistic, it's a 70s thing.
1:35:08It's a naturalistic dialogue kind of thing.
1:35:10- I didn't really like it.
1:35:11- But it is hard to follow.
1:35:13And again, you could argue that a modern SF movie
1:35:15would set up this better,
1:35:17but it would also be really obvious and less artful.
1:35:22And that's also true.
1:35:23But I do think that there might be a,
1:35:25I think there's probably a really good fan edit
1:35:29that probably has already been made of Alien
1:35:31where you could make the story clearer.
1:35:34- Yeah.
1:35:35I really like the kind of Hitchcock vibe
1:35:38of the way the characters are set up.
1:35:40Like you have no idea Ripley's the main character
1:35:41of this movie for such a long time.
1:35:43- Right.
1:35:44- And like, and you're like,
1:35:45what's the guy's name? - It's a Hitchcock level
1:35:46thing where it's-- - I loved it.
1:35:48I absolutely loved it.
1:35:49'Cause again, when this is--
1:35:50- Well, Tom Skerritt is the captain, right?
1:35:52Yeah, like what's his name in the movie? I don't remember now. I haven't got IMDB in front of me. Yeah
1:35:56But like as well like in that media class, I mean, this is probably why we did it
1:36:00I don't remember like I don't remember enough it but in that media class we cited psycho
1:36:04Which is probably why we also watched alien. That's the why I'm like
1:36:07Yes, the same idea you do the movie you're watching is not the movie or you think you're watching like she's just this background character
1:36:14Like she has barely anything to say for like the first 15 20 minutes in a movie and she gets killed John Hurt is clearly
1:36:19John hope starts as your main character. Well, no, I'm scared as Dallas
1:36:23He's the captain hurts the first person that wakes up sure, right?
1:36:27So like he's your hero and then also like he's the person who goes out and like he's out on his own
1:36:31Investigate in and then it's like oh, but he gets eaten by the monster basically, right?
1:36:35So then it becomes Dallas is the ship's captain
1:36:37He's the only one that gets to go into the special room to talk to the computer and he gets taken away by the monster
1:36:42And then it's like oh and then you got ash right like it's like ash is like this dude
1:36:47investigation is suspicious, but you follow him. No, it's this woman Ripley. Yeah, it's a total badass
1:36:51But you don't know that until the end of the movie. Yep, and I loved that right like I loved that
1:36:56I mean, it's slightly spoiled for me because hindsight shows me that I actually know it is Sigourney Weaver who is the hero
1:37:02Yeah, I know it's hard, right, but but it's you can
1:37:04Yeah, I could still really appreciate how the movie is built like when I'm watching the first time like oh maybe like in
1:37:11this movie
1:37:14Sigourney Weaver isn't that much of a star like you know
1:37:16see that where it's like someone's in a movie and then they go and make another
1:37:20movie and they become a megastar so they make them more important. I think of
1:37:23Parks and Recreation. Parks and Rec has Chris Pratt and he's like a
1:37:28bumbling character but then they make him more and more important because he's
1:37:31about to become the world's biggest movie star. And so yeah I liked
1:37:35all of that. You know and the intrigue begins like when Ash lets the alien in
1:37:40right? The facehugger in. I didn't like Ash for good reason. He was seen untrustworthy.
1:37:46How do you like his death scene or his almost death scene?
1:37:52The robot smashing, the head smashing.
1:37:56And he's squirting milky goo instead of blood?
1:38:01Yeah, they screwed this up, right? This scene is not done well enough. And the reason is
1:38:07is because they clearly add in voiceover work to say he's a robot.
1:38:12Obviously, no one could tell what the hell this character is supposed to be.
1:38:15Right.
1:38:16He took it too far.
1:38:17He tried to build his own world in a way that was, that is imperceptible to what
1:38:24people would expect these things to be.
1:38:25Why the hell is the robot bleeding?
1:38:28It looks like an alien.
1:38:29We are in a world surrounded by aliens.
1:38:31Right.
1:38:32Right?
1:38:32That are bleeding weird things, right?
1:38:34Like he's already set up in this movie that these aliens drips weird goo and then you've got this thing
1:38:39That's having its head smashed off and it's got white
1:38:42liquid milk pouring out of it and like it doesn't all the parts of the inside don't look at anything like a like robot parts like
1:38:49these weird balls and like tubes which just look like innards of an alien and
1:38:53Obviously where I the way I look at the show in this movie
1:38:57I'm sure it's a story about this business to the law that I'm telling myself the show in this movie to test audiences
1:39:01No one understands what the hell this thing is because you can hear it
1:39:04I mean I can hear it
1:39:05Because I'm quite tuned into way like audio sounds in different environments because what I do for a living and it gets
1:39:10What's that? What's the character's name the guy who hits him in the head? I mean, he's one of the worker guys
1:39:15He's the one who's like left alive at that point
1:39:17But where's a bandana?
1:39:20Yaffa kodau with Parker Parker. Yeah, I think it was Parker and
1:39:23he
1:39:26He's the one who smashes the ashen head with the like fire extinguisher or whatever
1:39:29It's like a big piece of metal and all this liquid starts pouring out of him and he lands on the ground
1:39:34It turns away and you hear him say it's a robot. Mmm
1:39:37Ash is a robot. Yeah, but like he that wasn't in the original movie. All right, right cuz you can't tell
1:39:44Like what the hell is this thing? It took me so I'm like, is he an alien?
1:39:47Like this is what I'm going for my head until he says it cuz it doesn't look anything like a robot robots
1:39:52Don't bleed and I know what it's meant to be right? It's like the liquid that calls an Android. Yeah
1:39:57He has milky milky goo, but I don't think that they did a good enough
1:40:02I think I think that they took it too far. All right
1:40:04But like fascinating and I didn't like that scene
1:40:07Right. I just didn't like it was too brutal for me like the skin tearing and all that stuff
1:40:13I really liked his head being on the table though. That was freaking awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I really like that
1:40:20That's the only effect that doesn't work that when he changes when he changed one to the other like we gonna do that
1:40:24That's hard to even do today, right?
1:40:27Like with CGI or with practical effects,
1:40:28like it's hard to do that sort of thing
1:40:30because like there's just something about humans, right?
1:40:33You can just tell when it's a human and when it's not.
1:40:35Like we just have that ability to just be able to tell,
1:40:37right, like you got the rogue one.
1:40:39There are people, not everyone, but like a lot of people,
1:40:42I mean, we can tell when Tarkin's not real, right?
1:40:44You can just tell.
1:40:45And I liked all that part, right?
1:40:49Like everything that happens before that as well,
1:40:51like the lead up to his death is funny to me.
1:40:53I love that mother is accurate to modern digital assistants
1:40:58and that she cannot understand the commands
1:41:01being given to her.
1:41:02Does not compute, unable to compute, reminds me of Siri.
1:41:04Right, like I don't understand what you're saying.
1:41:06Let me Google that for you.
1:41:08The crew being expendable is good, right?
1:41:10Like when they find out the crew is expendable,
1:41:12like that's cool, right?
1:41:13At that point it's like you understand all the story
1:41:17and everything that's happening around it.
1:41:18Like I enjoyed all of this.
1:41:20I really, I loved the scene where Ash explains his motivation when his head is cut off.
1:41:24It's my favorite scene in the movie.
1:41:26Like when he is like laughing at the end.
1:41:30He's like, "You have no chance."
1:41:31And he thinks it's awesome.
1:41:32I love that.
1:41:34I loved all of that part.
1:41:35Like that was so, it was all such great acting.
1:41:38And I love the idea that this, there's like this evil vindictive robot.
1:41:43And because I think that one of the, the, like the female, um, the one who's like
1:41:49super hysterical she's just saying like you like this don't you like you you
1:41:53love this outcome like that kind of thing and he's just kind of like I just
1:41:56like seeing what's happening right like he just likes to see what's going on and
1:42:01I think that's really interesting then of course like you know it kind of all
1:42:06moves along I don't like the logic of Ripley risking her life to save the cat
1:42:16yeah I don't think you'd do it I know you have cats or I know you have cats and I don't have pets
1:42:21but it's more that like I know you want to save the cat. She doesn't do a lot. She looks for the cat at the
1:42:28point when she could be like finding the escape pod like when she's on her own
1:42:31after everyone else is killed. Well she has to double she has to have double
1:42:34back in one of the things that I really like she says the self-destruct and this
1:42:38movie does what few movies I think do which is you buy the self-destruct and
1:42:42and she's going to the exit,
1:42:44and then she realizes that she can't,
1:42:47and so she like, or she deactivates it,
1:42:50but then it's too late.
1:42:51- Too late, and she starts screaming at the digital assistant.
1:42:54- She tries to deactivate it, fails to deactivate it,
1:42:59which turns out to be fine that she fails,
1:43:01but that's a nice moment.
1:43:03I don't know, I like the cat.
1:43:04I think that's a great example of the lived-in world
1:43:06that this is, that they have a cat on the ship.
1:43:09And it hisses at the alien.
1:43:11I feel like there's two she should be too scared in my opinion of this alien to
1:43:18take care of even think about the cat that's but again like I know that I'm
1:43:23not the right person to judge this because I don't have animals but like I
1:43:26just don't really get in the rest of the movie that she's super attached to this
1:43:29cat like to the point that she would risk her own life to save it.
1:43:33She has the opportunity to save the cat it's the only other creature left alive on the ship other than her and the alien.
1:43:38I guess and she doesn't kill the alien right? The aliens like I don't really I didn't really get what the alien was
1:43:42Does the alien asleep in the pod? Like why is the alien just laying up in the pod?
1:43:46I don't get it get that at the at the end. Yeah, it's uh, it's hiding
1:43:51It's stowing away. It's hiding. It's hiding
1:43:54Right. So it's trying to get to us. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense then I didn't fully understand
1:44:00Yeah, so it's a weird ending it like it's like what is it doing? And yeah that but I did like it
1:44:06It's a scary monster that you think is dead that's not dead and it has to jump out at you and say boo because it's a
1:44:11Horror movie, but it's just super weird that like she sees it. It doesn't see her she gets into the like he into the spacesuit
1:44:20Was kind of uncomfortable with her being in her underwear, yeah that came up in the incomparable episode
1:44:27It's it is our underwear so heuristic
1:44:29Yeah, but but I find it there's something you're talking about like the lived-in world
1:44:33Her underwear is too small for her and that was kind of a an interesting choice. Yeah
1:44:38I like I like that you might end up in space is so bad that you may end up being
1:44:43Chased by a monster in your underwear
1:44:46like I like that but the choice of the underwear was kind of like
1:44:50this is this strikes me as being a
1:44:53Choice that was made and unless in a little audiences. Yeah, but yeah, there was just a part of it like where I just like
1:45:02It was just interesting. It's an interesting choice.
1:45:04It's to make her vulnerable. I get the reasons for it, but I just wish it hadn't happened.
1:45:09I think today, she would have slightly less revealing underpants on.
1:45:14Or that she was just not in any armored clothing. Or that she was in like long john.
1:45:21You know, she's just not in the appropriate clothing to deal with an alien.
1:45:26But I wish that she just wasn't in such revealing clothing.
1:45:29because it just makes me uncomfortable to see that kind of thing now because my
1:45:33brain knows that it's wrong you know it's like I don't like this.
1:45:37Yeah that's an obvious thing that they're doing. But we see a lot watching the movies from the era
1:45:42that we watch these movies from this sort of stuff happens a lot.
1:45:45Sure we should count ourselves lucky that the alien doesn't come and rip her top off.
1:45:50Was it Star Trek? Was it the second one or the first one? Right where the like the
1:45:56captain's thought is changing and there's a scene of her taking her clothes off and
1:45:59she's in no underwear. Oh Star Trek Into Darkness? Yeah that's a bad scene.
1:46:04Yeah I know that received a lot of flak but it's exactly the same scene as this right
1:46:07it's like she's just changing for the sake of changing on camera but like
1:46:11having her not having her have to put clothes on adds tension so she has to
1:46:16get into that suit right she has to get into the spacesuit so like the build of
1:46:20her having taken off her clothing gets in the spacesuit so she can live when
1:46:24she opens the hatch all makes sense but like if it was made today you know it
1:46:29would be made differently. Right. Right. And I love the murder scene because
1:46:34it's not scary it's action and I loved that scene. I say murder where she gets
1:46:38rid of the alien. Yeah. Like the way in which like the plan that she
1:46:41formulates to get rid of the alien including the point where she's in the
1:46:45closet like all of that is really good I liked that scene because like it
1:46:50didn't feel scary because like you know the aliens already there but you know
1:46:53it's there. Right, it's suspense it's not a surprise. But it is one of the
1:46:56effects that doesn't look so good like when the aliens like jumping out of the
1:46:59steam like one of the many steam scenes yeah and then it's difficult to
1:47:03understand what is happening to the alien like I ended up just working out
1:47:07on my own that like she's just sucking the oxygen out and that is not clear
1:47:11like initially it just looks like the aliens just getting shot with steam but
1:47:15it's like well steam's a problem it would have been dead hours ago because that spaceship is full of steam.
1:47:19steamy spaceship. Very steamy spaceship. So yeah I have to say look this was not a
1:47:24I didn't dislike this movie because it was a bad movie and I didn't dislike
1:47:29this movie I just couldn't really like this movie because it's not my kind of
1:47:33movie. So that's Alien. I think we should maybe do Blade Runner. Okay. We can
1:47:40discuss it. I mean if you if you think that it's gonna be bad then maybe we
1:47:44shouldn't do it but we were originally planning. It would be fascinating compare and contrast for
1:47:49you like we were originally planning on doing alien and aliens but I don't think
1:47:53I want to watch another one of these you do blade runner let's do it okay so
1:47:56blade runner next time I actually think we're gonna do one maybe at the end of
1:47:59this month so maybe we'll do blade runner so that's alien and that's this
1:48:04episode we're done we're actually gonna be together again yeah we are so this
1:48:09was our London leg we're gonna be in Dublin if you're coming to the if you're
1:48:13listening to this before Wednesday if you're coming to the meet up can't wait
1:48:17to see you that's gonna be fun we're doing a meet up in London tomorrow other
1:48:23than that thanks so much for listening to this week's episode you'll find our
1:48:26show notes for this week loads of links this week go to relay.fm/upgrades/135
1:48:31thanks again to our sponsors Encapsular, Blue Apron, Away and MailRoute we'll be
1:48:36back next time you want to submit questions for Snail Talk
1:48:40hashtag SnailTalk questions for Ask Upgrade hashtag Ask Upgrade you want to
1:48:43find Jason online he's @jasonl on Twitter sixcolors.com and incomparable.com
1:48:48I am @imikeyke and we'll be back next week until then say goodbye Jason Snell
1:48:54goodbye Jason Snell yeah
1:48:57[ Music ]