0:00:00[Music]
0:00:08From Real AFM, this is Upgrade episode 125.
0:00:12Today's show is brought to you by Encapsula, Smile, and Squarespace.
0:00:16My name is Myke Hurley.
0:00:17I am joined by Mr. Jason Snell.
0:00:20Good morning, Mr. Hurley.
0:00:21Good morning, Jason Snell.
0:00:22How are you today?
0:00:23Hello to everybody out there in podcast land where it may be night, morning, daytime.
0:00:28The dead of night, I don't know.
0:00:29- It could be anything. - I'm doing well.
0:00:31For us, it's Monday.
0:00:32And for me, it's Monday morning.
0:00:35- For me, it's Monday evening,
0:00:36but for you, it could be anything.
0:00:38- This is how we start our week.
0:00:39- So we have some pretty huge follow-outs
0:00:40to start off this week's show.
0:00:42- We do.
0:00:43People don't realize if you were not listening to live
0:00:48that we actually did about a two plus hour show last week.
0:00:51And we decided it was too long.
0:00:54And so we cut the Ask Upgrade segment last week.
0:00:59But there was a debate about whether we should cut that segment or our discussion of Chris
0:01:03Lattner leaving Apple. And we decided to keep Chris Lattner's segment because we thought
0:01:11that that was worth talking about and it was very timely and we could replay some of those
0:01:15Ask Upgrade questions later. And in it, we really referred to strongly that people should
0:01:22listen to ATP, episode 204, where they talked in detail about Chris Latner and LLVM and
0:01:29Swift and what this all, you know, what it all means from a developer perspective. So
0:01:32we were like, yes, it's very nice of us to refer to ATP. And then like the next day they
0:01:37dropped their next episode, which includes a complete show wall-to-wall interview with
0:01:44Chris Latner.
0:01:45Mm-hmm.
0:01:46Yeah, as Seth pointed out, they use the weight of their 3P upgradey win to pull in a star
0:01:55like Chris.
0:01:56They're an award-winning podcast.
0:01:58Free time.
0:01:59Yeah.
0:02:00So yeah, it's a really great episode.
0:02:02If you for any reason have not listened to it, you should.
0:02:05I will give a disclaimer that it is very, very developer heavy.
0:02:10Like the show starts off and they were like trying to dumb things down and explain it
0:02:15it to everyone, but that didn't last very long. And then they got super in the weeds.
0:02:20But I don't understand what they were talking about. But I really enjoyed listening to it
0:02:24is it was, you know, it's the idea of like, they're speaking very passionately about things
0:02:27and every now and then I can kind of grok what they're talking about. But yeah, I really
0:02:31recommend it. It was a it was a fun episode. As you can imagine, like that there isn't
0:02:35like a lot of like behind the curtain stuff. But I think you can kind of get an idea from
0:02:41I'm listening to Chris, like kind of his motivations
0:02:44for wanting to move on.
0:02:45Like he clearly sounds like someone
0:02:47who needs to have new challenges
0:02:49and this just sounded like a big new challenge.
0:02:52- But it also is that, you know, he was, yes, he was at Apple
0:02:55but he's also at working on open source projects, right?
0:02:59So I kept thinking about, well, you know, wow,
0:03:01he's going into a lot of detail here,
0:03:03but as he pointed out himself,
0:03:06the, a lot of what Apple does on those projects
0:03:10is wide open, right?
0:03:11I mean, those are open source projects.
0:03:14So they're not the super secret part of Apple
0:03:17that Chris Latner was working on.
0:03:19And he did, yes, he did very carefully steer around
0:03:21a couple of, I think, levels of detail
0:03:24that would have been inappropriate.
0:03:27Also taking full advantage of the fact
0:03:30that he currently has no employer.
0:03:32It's like the perfect time to do something like this.
0:03:34Sort of he's decloaked, he's about to re-cloak again,
0:03:37but here he is.
0:03:38And again, though, the cloak isn't the same
0:03:40because it's open source stuff.
0:03:42So that's the beauty of these open source projects
0:03:45is that they are done out in the open
0:03:47and you can communicate about them.
0:03:49And a lot of conversation goes on about these.
0:03:51I mean, John Syracuse has been on that Swift mailing list
0:03:54since the beginning.
0:03:55And so he was able to say, you know,
0:03:57people argue about this and what do you think about that
0:03:59and all that because that conversation's happening
0:04:02out in the open.
0:04:03- Yeah, Latner was in like a weird position,
0:04:05like a unique position at Apple anyway, right?
0:04:09But yeah, it was a surprise to hear him on the show
0:04:11because even then it's like, oh, wow.
0:04:13He's like in between these two jobs
0:04:15and they probably both don't want him talking about too much
0:04:17but like Uppy Pops.
0:04:19It was a great episode.
0:04:20You go check it out, episode 205 of the Action Intersect
0:04:22podcast and I have some follow up suggested by a listener,
0:04:25Michael, which is related to ATP
0:04:29and their three time upgradey win.
0:04:32Michael suggests that ATP become the lifetime achievement
0:04:36award winner of the tech podcast for the upgrade is as it goes forward because they've had
0:04:41three wins now they could potentially continue winning the award forever so to let other
0:04:46people maybe try and claim it I think that ATP could become the lifetime achievement
0:04:49award and you know think if they want to you know they could maybe present the award to
0:04:55the the later winning tech podcast what do you think of that just like a micro suggestion
0:04:59yeah I think this is exactly right I had been thinking this myself so I appreciate Michael
0:05:03suggesting it and I think we'll put ATP in the in the upgradey Hall of Fame the
0:05:09first entrant into the upgradey Hall of Fame yes and we'll retire it and let
0:05:14somebody else have a chance at winning next year but this year ended this year
0:05:172017 2017 fourth annual this year yeah wow that's correct that's crazy to think
0:05:27about a bit of follow-up regarding Netflix and Apple TV we spoke about this
0:05:31this
0:05:50gives Netflix results now and it will play these results in the TV app as
0:05:55opposed to jumping you out. I think it maybe gave the results before but you
0:05:58click them and it will take you to the Netflix app. Now it will play that
0:06:01content within the TV app so you don't leave it and you're not jumping around
0:06:04from application to application. However Netflix titles will not appear in the
0:06:09recommended shows list and you cannot queue up Netflix programming either.
0:06:14So what this says to me is that like Netflix do not want to be having their
0:06:23recommendation system like kind of usurped by apples. They believe in
0:06:29their system and they want their system to remain but I do wonder how they think
0:06:36this is going to help them if people were leaving their application because
0:06:40then people are not going to see the recommended content. So this is kind of confusing.
0:06:43getting the data and I think they're feeling like if you want to get more, you'll go...
0:06:49It's an interesting decision. I think they must feel like the upside of having this key
0:06:53app that is... Apple's trying to place at the center of the Apple TV experience that
0:06:59making their offerings there. So if you're looking for Luke Cage or something, you're
0:07:04gonna find it and not be frustrated that it's not in the main TV interface. So I think that's
0:07:11okay. But yeah, from their perspective, what they don't want is people to never use the
0:07:20Netflix app and never see--because Netflix recommendations are entirely geared toward
0:07:24watching things on Netflix and promoting their own material, their own originals and all
0:07:29of that. The TV app, the way Apple has designed it, is to be promoting material across all
0:07:36of the things you subscribe to. And so that gives you the opportunity to see something
0:07:41on HBO Go or Hulu instead of, just as examples, instead of Netflix. And if that's the case,
0:07:49then, you know, this is the trade-off for all of these companies is they want complete
0:07:53control. And this is the case where Apple ironically is in the state of being, trying
0:07:59to be the place where everything comes together and synthesizes all the different catalogs,
0:08:05But everybody else really would rather live in a universe where they're the only competitor.
0:08:12There is no competitor, right?
0:08:14Once you're in the Netflix app, they have you, and everything you see is on Netflix.
0:08:19And hey, that's a great place to be if you can get them there.
0:08:22I think that the challenge here for any provider like Netflix seems to me to be that if there's
0:08:30enough critical mass, enough momentum behind the TV app, if it becomes useful enough that
0:08:36iOS users and Apple TV users really start to see it as the place where they find their
0:08:42content and watch their TV, then it becomes a problem for Netflix, because then Netflix
0:08:49is trying to, you know, is not being considered, it's not being shown, and then their promotion
0:08:56is nonexistent and that's bad for them. But is that really going to happen with the TV
0:09:02app? I'm kind of skeptical. I mean, they're going to need enough providers who are willing
0:09:07to take the chance at competing in kind of an open market. And that's the shame of this,
0:09:13really, is that I mean, frankly, first off, I have this on Mytivo now. Mytivo does this.
0:09:21TiVo integrates Netflix content, and I can add Netflix shows to my season pass, and they
0:09:29show up, and it keeps track of what I've watched and what I haven't, and when I choose an episode,
0:09:35it goes to the Netflix app. Now, what doesn't happen is if I play the next episode, I think
0:09:40it doesn't keep track of that because it's in the Netflix app and not the TiVo app anymore.
0:09:44So there's still some complexity here, but I will tell you, it's great. But yeah, if
0:09:49you're Netflix and you think you're number one and everybody should just live in the
0:09:53Netflix universe, I could see why you don't want to have to compete with whatever is on
0:09:58HBO and Hulu and Amazon Video. But, so it's a, it's like I see both sides of this. I think
0:10:03for consumers, clearly, it's better if everybody's in the TV app, even if we can complain a little
0:10:09bit about what the TV app's premise is and how it works and all of that. The idea that
0:10:12all of, all of the internet video that you pay for is in one place and you can manage
0:10:17it in one place is a good one for users, but I see why Netflix would not like the idea.
0:10:26And of course Amazon's not there on the Apple TV at all, so yeah.
0:10:30Yeah, yeah. At this point, do you think that we're gonna see Amazon video? Like, I've
0:10:39given up hope.
0:10:40I don't--well, I can't make a prediction because I don't see why it hasn't happened,
0:10:45There is an iOS app. There is literally no reason why they couldn't do it. They have
0:10:51the wherewithal to do it. I know it's not as simple as saying, "Well, let's turn this
0:10:54into an Apple TV app," but they have the will to put it on iOS. So clearly, Amazon Video
0:11:01wants to be present on iOS because there are so many iPhones out there especially. That's
0:11:05like their number one reason for doing it. I get it. And there aren't that many Apple
0:11:08TVs out there, and they make a device that is much better suited to consuming Amazon
0:11:14video than the Apple TV, which is the Fire TV, right? Which is theirs, and it's totally
0:11:20built around that, even though Amazon, you know, Netflix is on there, right? It's just
0:11:24iTunes that isn't on there. So, technically there's no reason for them not to be there,
0:11:30and in fact you can airplay to an Apple TV, it's just less convenient. So at this point
0:11:35I don't really know, because it's all about politics. Because I'm on the record on this
0:11:40show is saying, "I thought that they would be there last year sometime. I thought they
0:11:44would finally do it." Because in the end, what should matter most to Amazon is having
0:11:51as many people as possible have access to their content and not selling Fire TV sticks,
0:11:59right? In the end. But I think you could argue that this is the same thing we were just talking
0:12:04about, which is Amazon would much rather you have a Fire TV stick where they control all
0:12:10the recommendations in the UI and can show you their stuff than an Apple TV where you
0:12:16have to go through Apple's recommendation engine and like go away from it to the Amazon
0:12:22app and then see it, right? They would much rather you be there. I get that, but at the
0:12:27same time, I don't know if that's enough reason not to have it on an Apple TV too,
0:12:35just to get more of your customers watching your stuff.
0:12:39Yeah, it really feels like you're putting the money into the content, just give it to
0:12:42people wherever they want it. I feel like Netflix, the company that really understands
0:12:46that, the Netflix app is built into everything. Yeah, exactly. Netflix knows, Netflix doesn't
0:12:55have a box. Although I was talking to somebody about this the other week that Roku when it
0:12:59started was kind of the Netflix box. That was its first iteration was it played Netflix
0:13:05and it was the and it was kind of the official Netflix player box.
0:13:09They have the kind of did they have a button or this was it something else that they had
0:13:13on the Roku remote set a button for a service that maybe went away or something.
0:13:17Yeah. Oh yeah. The current ones do that. They have they have services that are that are
0:13:20dead that are on their on their remote controls that of new ones that they're still selling.
0:13:24The original Netflix, original Roku,
0:13:26which I guess they would call a Roku one right now
0:13:29was actually called the Roku Netflix player.
0:13:32That's what it was called.
0:13:34It was so, but Netflix basically doesn't have hardware.
0:13:38They don't care.
0:13:39They're not trying to sell you hardware.
0:13:40They just want to be everywhere
0:13:42because they think Netflix is where you want to be, right?
0:13:45That's what they believe.
0:13:47And they're willing to share space with competitors
0:13:50on the app level,
0:13:51but not like integrate their recommendations and stuff
0:13:54into and data into somebody's shared area.
0:13:59And Amazon has taken a different approach, right?
0:14:03Because Amazon's making its own hardware.
0:14:04It's funny, I mean, Apple is the same way,
0:14:07sort of in the sense that Apple is limiting its services
0:14:09to its own hardware, which Amazon's not doing,
0:14:12but that's what Apple's doing.
0:14:13Apple doesn't want you to be able to watch iTunes movies
0:14:17from any device but the Apple TV.
0:14:20and that's just been, you know, that's just the way they've chosen to do it.
0:14:26Kevin asked why you were so down on Bluetooth in cars that you didn't bother to use it in
0:14:32Hawaii.
0:14:33Yeah, this was a good question. The, I'm not down on Bluetooth in cars, I mean, I don't
0:14:41love Bluetooth in cars, I have a Bluetooth radio in my car that I use to listen to music
0:14:46podcast when I'm driving my car and it's finicky but it works. Sometimes I have to wait like
0:14:5320 seconds for it to finally kind of lock on and start playing the audio but it does
0:14:59work and that's what I use. On a rental car, two reasons, one is it's weird because you
0:15:08don't know where that car has been, right? It's like who has paired to that car? I don't
0:15:15know of any stories of things other than the short of people having like address book syncing
0:15:19and things like that, but the idea that your phone is now connecting to this device, that
0:15:24makes me feel kind of weird, but honestly the reason I don't even consider pairing to
0:15:29Bluetooth and rental cars is that I find the car setup experience so strange in different
0:15:36cars and it's just hard to figure out, it's different in different cars, and then you
0:15:42end up with this kind of finicky Bluetooth situation anyway. So I should probably consider
0:15:47doing that, but when I've done that in the past, I've gotten frustrated. Some cars also
0:15:52you start going to your destination and then, like my wife's driving and I'm there setting
0:15:55up the technology and all that for us to get, I'm navigating and I'm plugging things in
0:15:59and getting chargers in and all that, and then I try to pair the Bluetooth and it says,
0:16:05"Oh no, you can only pair Bluetooth when a car is stopped." That's a frequent one. Because
0:16:11'Cause they don't want drivers pairing their Bluetooth
0:16:13while they're driving, which is fine.
0:16:15Although, I mean, I would question that scenario,
0:16:18but people are dumb and they do dumb things
0:16:20like pair Bluetooth when they're driving.
0:16:22But at that point you're out of luck.
0:16:24That's happened to me too.
0:16:25So I don't know.
0:16:26It's probably a good reminder that I should
0:16:28at least consider that as an option.
0:16:29And I might have, if my phone was completely out of battery
0:16:34and I wanted to, you know, I wanted to still listen to music
0:16:38I might've, I would have obviously had to use
0:16:40the lightning port to charge my iPhone and then I might have considered, well, I could
0:16:45go through Bluetooth but the aux port is way easier, right? You plug it in and it works.
0:16:52And so that's usually my number one choice.
0:16:54Okay. I mean, yeah, it's the analog way of doing things. Sometimes a little bit nicer.
0:17:01And Steven wrote in to say that on his iPhone, using, I assume, mail and the calendar app,
0:17:09What's up tickets and flights, etc.
0:17:11On his calendar he doesn't need to use Google Calendar, which is something you mentioned
0:17:13last week about how Google services put sort of stuff in automatically for you.
0:17:17So I guess we should have expanded on it a little bit more that yes iCloud can do this.
0:17:22This was introduced in iOS 9 I believe, where there's some AI smarts happening there where
0:17:28mail/calendar can recognize some booking receipts and things like that and suggest these things
0:17:35to go in your calendar.
0:17:36also suggests names and addresses and phone numbers for contacts. Sometimes you'll get
0:17:42a call from someone and it will say, "Hey, this could be this person because they recognize
0:17:46it from your email," which is good stuff. But in my experience, it doesn't recognize
0:17:52a lot of these. There are some companies that it works with and some that it doesn't that
0:17:56I've found. British Airways booking information always works, but Virgin Atlantic stuff isn't
0:18:02recognized. I've found Expedia bookings, sometimes, like if it's flights it will get booked in,
0:18:08but if it's hotels it doesn't, but then some third party, like some direct hotel bookings,
0:18:14like when I book my San Francisco hotel, it recognizes that. Basically I've found that
0:18:19it works but not 100% reliably, and at least from what I've heard from people like you
0:18:24and from Federico with Google stuff, it seems to always work.
0:18:29Yeah, one of the challenges here, and this is what we were trying to talk about, is that
0:18:34Google has access to more data because more data is unencrypted and able to be processed
0:18:38by Google servers and Apple doesn't do that. So, this, I think one of the questions here
0:18:45that I have is, I think this is working in mail, where mail is seeing these events in
0:18:52your mailbox. Yeah, and then it's, when you have the email open, it recommends it at the
0:18:57the top like above the subject and it's like hey you could add this to a calendar or if
0:19:02you go to the calendar app and you have those emails in your inbox still it recognizes them
0:19:06in like a little thing called the calendar inbox which is nice and confusing.
0:19:11What I don't know is if Apple's doing any processing on mail that's on the iCloud you
0:19:16know iCloud mail you know mac.com, me.com, iCloud.com email addresses there's a doc we'll
0:19:24put in the show notes that Apple has that says what's encrypted on Apple servers and
0:19:28what's not and your mail is not because it's IMAP basically and that means that Apple could
0:19:32actually be reading your mail and doing what Google does which is read the mail, identify
0:19:38it as a flight reservation and pop it on your iCloud calendar and maybe they're even doing
0:19:43that.
0:19:44I do believe this is happening on device.
0:19:45Yeah, my guess is that it's doing what everything Apple does is doing which is on the device,
0:19:51you know, Apple mail knows that it's there and creates an invitation essentially on your
0:19:57calendar, which is what Google does. But what Google does is on the server it does it. And
0:20:02that does have the advantage of happening whether you're checking your mail or not.
0:20:07So one thing I've found of trying to do this, because I like it, because otherwise I'm entering
0:20:11this stuff manually because I use Apple services for these right now. Like I use iCloud email
0:20:16I'm
0:20:34I'm not going to go into the details of the process, but I'm going to go into the
0:20:41details of the process.
0:20:42I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:43I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:44I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:45I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:46I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:47I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:48I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:49I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:50I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:51I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:52I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:53I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:54I'm going to go into the details of the process.
0:20:55having it all happen server-side like Google can provide some a little bit more magic in
0:21:02the whole process honestly.
0:21:03Right.
0:21:04It's just happening without you doing anything explicit.
0:21:06And our goal is not to sort of say that, "Boy, Apple is dumb and Google is great."
0:21:12I think the point, the larger point here is one of the issues that happens with these
0:21:17two strategies is they have to build their stuff differently.
0:21:22with Google because, and everybody can say, "Well, this is why Google has liabilities,"
0:21:27right? Because Google knows, its servers know what's on my calendar. They can look at that.
0:21:33And they can look at what's in my email because I am on Gmail and I have a Google calendar.
0:21:39But what it gives them is the ability to scan messages as they pop in my inbox, even if
0:21:43my devices are all off and I am in the woods somewhere, right? It will go, "Oh, that is
0:21:48a... although how I made the reservation in the woods is a question for later.
0:21:52But...
0:21:53The bear did it for me.
0:21:59The calendar will just get that as a... I think they do it as a meeting invitation.
0:22:03So you can say no or yes or whatever, but it will pop it in there and say, you know,
0:22:08this is Southwest Airlines reservations and we'll pop it in there.
0:22:11Apple doesn't... although Apple does have access if you're using iCloud mail to your
0:22:17I don't think it's actually doing anything with it, but it at least has access. It doesn't
0:22:21have access to your calendar data because it's all encrypted because that's Apple's
0:22:24whole thing, right? And so everything Apple tries to do is device side, and it's just
0:22:29different and there are challenges with that.
0:22:31You just choose what your comfort level is really, I think.
0:22:34Yeah, but I do, it is great and it's great that Apple does have some of that in there
0:22:38now and it should keep working on that because that is, when we're talking about intelligent
0:22:43assistance. I mean, this is one of those areas that is such a natural that, you know, your
0:22:48device or cloud service, depending on how you've set it up, should be smart enough to
0:22:53start doing things like looking at your mail. And I know people will be like, "I don't want
0:22:57anybody looking at my mail." It's like, well, yeah, but if it's your device and it's doing
0:23:00the work for you, that's, to me, an easy trade-off, because that's not even Google's things in
0:23:06the cloud looking at my stuff. That is my iPhone on my iPhone looking at the stuff that's
0:23:11on my iPhone, but to have it be able to see what's coming in in mail and realize that
0:23:17I bought movie tickets or a plane reservation or whatever and knows what to do and puts
0:23:24it on my calendar so that when I go to my calendar to put it in there, it's already
0:23:28there, that's pretty great. That's pretty great. That you could theoretically buy a
0:23:32ticket to a movie, let's say, and not ever look at the email. Maybe the email doesn't
0:23:39even, well it gets filed or something, but you know, it comes to you but you don't look
0:23:42at it, and you forget about it, and then on the day you look at your calendar and it says
0:23:47you've got movie tickets tonight. It should be able to do that, and that's cool. So, Apple
0:23:52just has to do all that stuff sort of processing on the devices, and there are challenges there
0:23:56because you've got multiple devices, so which device does the processing, do they all work
0:24:01the same, do they all check the calendar to see that an event has already been created,
0:24:06right? There's way more challenges to the way Apple does it, but this is the choice
0:24:10Apple has made to make it encrypted so that only your devices know about it.
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0:25:15And then I can't even imagine now because I've been using PDF pen for so long and
0:25:20PDF pens so smart that it can deal with a lot of different file formats.
0:25:24Like every now and then someone will send me a Microsoft Word document and they're
0:25:28like can you sign this? And then I'm able to use PDF pen to import the Microsoft Word
0:25:33document, sign it and then export it back as a Microsoft Word document if that person
0:25:37needs as well. It's really really powerful stuff. You can add text, graphics or signatures
0:25:42to your PDFs, even make corrections, they've got everything you need. And PDF pen scan
0:25:46plus for iOS gives you the power of OCR when you're away from your desk and scanner. So
0:25:50I use this when I buy things from my business account. I'll take scans of the receipts,
0:25:55it
0:26:15Upgrade, thank you so much to Smile for their support of this show and RelayFN.
0:26:21So yesterday evening as we recorded this Samsung held a press conference to finally unveil
0:26:29and to expose I guess the reasons for their exploding Galaxy Note 7s.
0:26:36So I'll put a link in the show notes to Recode, Recode has a bigger explanation along with
0:26:40some diagrams that Samsung published but I'll give you kind of the cliff notes of it.
0:26:44Samsung had 700 of their own team members testing 200,000 phones and an additional 30,000
0:26:51batteries on top of that. They also brought in three outside companies to conduct tests
0:26:56and investigate along with them and Samsung are saying that these findings were validated
0:27:00by these investigators. As we record, no journalists have been able to get these investigators
0:27:05to give quotes. Samsung is saying that there were two separate
0:27:14faults that occurred with the batteries. The first fault in the first batch of phones was
0:27:20caused by a design flaw in the battery that made electrons prone to bend which in some
0:27:26cases led to a short circuit. I have condensed that. There is a lot more of a scientific
0:27:31reason as to why that happened. Basically these batteries weren't designed very well.
0:27:41was an issue with one of the corners of them and they made them in some instances short
0:27:46circuit and catch fire. These were the batteries that were involved in the first recall. So
0:27:53when Samsung said stop using these we're bringing them back. Then there was a second fault.
0:27:59So then the ones that happened after that, like that one that happened on the plane,
0:28:02you know the three or four more that happened after they did the recall. These were caused
0:28:07by a welding defect that also led to short circuiting from a second battery supplier.
0:28:14Samsung believes that this issue was caused because of the tight timelines they put on
0:28:18the battery manufacturer due to them needing to replace the recalled devices quickly. Samsung
0:28:23also said that if they wouldn't have put these tight timelines on, they believed that these
0:28:31batteries would have been fine and that they would have been able to continue selling this
0:28:36device.
0:28:37But that seems like a moot point really.
0:28:42Samsung stresses that the design for the Note 7 that they created was not the issue but
0:28:49it was due to the batteries they sourced.
0:28:52Samsung now has an 8 step battery testing process that has been beefed up in the wake
0:28:57of this.
0:28:58I saw a tweet from somebody who was retweeted a couple of times by some journalists that I follow
0:29:02by someone by the name of Avi Greengart who kind of summed it up quite nicely.
0:29:06So is Samsung the unluckiest OEM ever or is there something in its process that pushed multiple
0:29:13suppliers to deliver flawed components? I think this perfectly sums things up.
0:29:18When I read this, I mean I've been I was seeing some skepticism online about this report.
0:29:24I believe that Samsung are being truthful with their findings.
0:29:28I don't think they're trying to cover anything up at this point.
0:29:31I think that would be a really stupid idea, right, to like have found something out that
0:29:36they're not talking about.
0:29:38But I do feel like there is an underlying cause to these issues that an eight-step battery
0:29:44testing process will solve, but at the wrong end.
0:29:48Yeah, yeah, that's the, it's great that Samsung did all of this disclosure, but I think what
0:29:56has made some people uneasy is the fact that what they said is, "Great news everybody,
0:30:06it turns out it's the battery's fault, and the first battery, there was this mistake
0:30:11that caused it to do this, and the second battery, there was this mistake that caused
0:30:15it to do this, but it was totally the battery's fault and not us. Which may be true, but everybody
0:30:22kind of looks at that and says, "Well, boy, that's really unlucky, right, that you had
0:30:29this problem both times." Now, I think Samsung admitted that the second one, right, like
0:30:35you said, the second one, the reason that it failed is that they tried to ramp up production
0:30:42dramatically in order to get back, get the Galaxy Note 7 back in action. And so it's
0:30:49not so much of a coincidence. It's actually, it was a result of rushing to try and solve
0:30:54the problem that caused the second problem.
0:30:56Yeah, Samsung Electronics in America said basically that if they would have had more
0:31:01time, you know, like if they wouldn't have rushed, if they would have always gone with
0:31:05battery supplier B, they feel that the Note 7 wouldn't have had this problem.
0:31:11Well I mean it's an easy thing to say because they were still blowing up but like I get
0:31:16the point which is like they believe that these batteries were good and would have been
0:31:20good but they rushed the production of them and basically like there was just some abnormalities
0:31:27in them some of them didn't have correct insulation tape in them like they were they were really
0:31:33really rushed and there was a welding issue in them.
0:31:36Which is which is it's weird because I mean I don't think Samsung I didn't see the press
0:31:40conference. I don't think what Samsung is saying here is it's totally not our fault,
0:31:45but it is somebody's fault, right, that these batteries, after there had been a battery
0:31:53problem, new batteries were rushed into manufacturing and they were rushed so quickly that they
0:32:01had manufacturing defects, multiple kinds of manufacturing defects that caused some
0:32:07percentage of them to fail. What struck me, I think the larger issue here is about trust,
0:32:14right? Because the Galaxy Note 7, it's over, right? It's done. It's done. It's all over,
0:32:20but the announcements at airports, those continue, but it's done. The problem is what comes next?
0:32:27What happens with the Galaxy Note 8? They say they're going to, you know, keep on keeping
0:32:31on. They're not getting rid of the name. They're just going to do Galaxy Note 8. And I was
0:32:35struck by a reaction, there was a piece in the Wall Street Journal by Jeffrey Fowler
0:32:40and Joanna Stern about this, and what they said was, "Its explanation sometimes left
0:32:48us scratching our heads. We don't have a clear sense on whether these tests will raise the
0:32:53bar for safety or just catch Samsung up to other smartphone makers. What Samsung is still
0:32:59missing is its Tylenol moment," and that's a reference to the Tylenol cyanide poisoning
0:33:05incident in the 80s and what happened is Johnson & Johnson changed pill packaging, made sealed
0:33:13pill containers, and basically create through kind of marketing and product design some
0:33:21reassurance that this product was going to be safe. What's the equivalent of that for
0:33:27Samsung? I don't know, but what strikes me about that is that this is Samsung coming
0:33:33clean saying we got all figured out and then when two fairly tech savvy people, right,
0:33:37I mean, when Joanna Stern who is as tech savvy as they come says, "I kind of give them a
0:33:41grade of a C on this." It's like, you know what that's about? That's about not trusting
0:33:46Samsung, about looking at their explanations and looking at what led to the decisions that
0:33:51led to both of these failures, especially the second one honestly where they rushed
0:33:56basically like, "Let's make more batteries as fast as we can and not be as concerned
0:34:01about if they fail, which caused them to fail again. And extend that to consumers, right?
0:34:07I think that is the number one challenge for Samsung right now, is how do you communicate
0:34:12to people that you have addressed this? And if all they do is come out with a Note 8 and
0:34:18say, "It's great," and don't do a more clear job of communicating what they've done and
0:34:25kind of communicate that we know that the last one was a problem, which is tough, right,
0:34:29have part of your marketing message for a product be an apology for the previous product.
0:34:34Nobody wants to do that. But if you're so proud that you just don't acknowledge it,
0:34:38I think you risk everything because I think people don't forget something like that. And
0:34:44so that's a challenge. And let's be honest, Samsung's marketing, at least I can say in
0:34:49the US, you know, Samsung's never been good at nuanced marketing. Their marketing has
0:34:56always been kind of weird and I don't know whether that's just a cultural thing of precepts
0:35:02of marketing in South Korea not translating to the US market or whether it's just that
0:35:07Samsung's weird and they do weird stuff, but their marketing in the US has always been
0:35:13a little bit strange and sometimes quite tone-deaf and this is a case where they really need
0:35:19to do this right or they're going to do, you know, even, well, permanent damage has been
0:35:26done but I do think, like, they will kill their products if they don't do this right
0:35:32because they, this is not enough. And how do you make people feel like they can trust
0:35:38Samsung and that it's learned its lesson and that the new phones are safe? You, you know,
0:35:43there are lots of ways they could try to do that including having a commitment, which
0:35:45is I think what the Wall Street Journal wanted, a commitment from Samsung to being basically
0:35:50the safest smartphone in existence. But what the journal came away with is thinking, um,
0:35:58maybe what they ve done is raise their standards to everyone else s, which is not, not, not
0:36:03great. So Samsung were due to unveil the S8 at Mobile World Congress in February? They
0:36:13They did confirm to the Wall Street Journal that they will delay this until after.
0:36:19The Wall Street Journal is expecting it to be maybe March/April time.
0:36:24So the test is coming soon.
0:36:27It's a different line.
0:36:30It's the regular line rather than the big note line.
0:36:33But it's a new Samsung phone and we will see within the next couple of months how Samsung
0:36:40is going to pitch its marketing because the whole Samsung brand has been damaged here.
0:36:45And I'm interested to see what the S8, how the S8 is pitched. And it seems like from
0:36:51what they're kind of hinting at that one of the reasons that they're delaying it is to
0:36:54do more safety checks on this phone.
0:36:57So it's good. It's again, especially on an Apple centric podcast, it's very easy to read
0:37:04all of this discussion as Samsung bashing, but that's not, I think as we've done for
0:37:08the last year when we've been talking about this, I think it's more about like what do
0:37:12you do? It's an interesting problem to solve and to see how they're going to approach it
0:37:15because they are one of the giants of the tech industry and they have very successful
0:37:21product line and when you have something this spectacularly bad happen to you, the question
0:37:26is how do you get past it? And this is another step along the way, but I think the way that
0:37:32I read it, the reactions to it is sort of people feeling like they better not think
0:37:37that this is the last step because it's not good enough. Not yet.
0:37:42Dan Provost, host of Thoroughly Considered on this very network and one of the guys behind
0:37:49Studio Neat published an interesting article which goes along with some of the rumors that
0:37:55we've been seeing and that we've been discussing at length on Connected recently about a 10.5
0:38:01and
0:38:20sat down and did some math. When Apple introduced the 12.9" iPad Pro, Phil Schiller pointed
0:38:34out that the width of the 12.9" iPad Pro is the height of two 9.7" iPads stacked side
0:38:40by side. So what was that that time? The iPad Air. If you took two iPad Airs, put them next
0:38:44to each other, that's basically the width of the 12.9" iPad Pro. A 12.9" iPad Pro can
0:38:50and therefore run two full-sized iPad applications side by side in portrait mode.
0:38:55So the screen is basically a 2 for 1 of the 9.7" iPad.
0:38:59So you take two regular iPads, put them side by side in portrait mode,
0:39:02you get a 12.9" iPad Pro.
0:39:04So if you take that leap, imagine them doing the same exercise but with the iPad Mini instead.
0:39:11It's got the same number of pixels as the full-size iPad, they're just packed into a smaller display.
0:39:16So if you made an iPad Pro that could run two iPad apps side by side at the iPad Mini's
0:39:22resolution instead of the Air's resolution, you get 10.5 inches diagonally.
0:39:29So depending on how small the bezels were around the display, a 10.5 inch iPad Pro could
0:39:35have roughly the same physical dimensions as the 9.7 but would have the same number
0:39:40of pixels, 2732 by 2048, as the 12.9 inch.
0:39:44So you would be taking a 12.9 inch iPad Pro and effectively shrinking it down to fit inside
0:39:51of a 10.5 inch screen, which is also in the inverse taking two iPad minis, putting them
0:39:56side by side and stretching them up.
0:39:58Yeah, so the idea here is if you think of the iPad Air or iPad Pro 9.7 and the mini,
0:40:06they have the same number of pixels that crammed into a smaller space.
0:40:11So if you did that with the 12.9, the mini version of the 12.9 would be a 10.5, 10.48
0:40:20or something like that.
0:40:21And Dan did the math, bless him for that.
0:40:23Thank you for reading my article, which is much more, I think, I did the math last week.
0:40:29Let's not, right.
0:40:30Let's not revisit it.
0:40:31We did it.
0:40:32That's, that's what it is.
0:40:33So the idea is it actually kind of works, right?
0:40:35It kind of makes sense, this rumor that we've had for a while that I think it was a 10 to
0:40:4010.5 inch, like very vague, but with Dan's math it's at 10.47 or whatever it is. It's
0:40:47very close to 10.5 but not quite there. And it's just the same pixels as the iPad Pro
0:40:5512.9 in a smaller area. And that leads to, so I wrote this piece where I was trying to
0:41:05think what else would happen here, and like Dan says, Dan cut out, it's great, he cut
0:41:09out a piece of paper that's that size and laid it on the existing iPad Pro 9.7 and it
0:41:18fits with very little bezel. And so like they could really shrink the bezels and have it
0:41:25be the same size. I think it's more likely that it would physically be a little bit bigger
0:41:30than the 9.7. But I think it's I'm intrigued by this for a few reasons. One is I love my
0:41:3812.9-inch iPad Pro, but it is big and heavy. And if I could get... but when I use
0:41:44the 9.7, I just think the screen's not big enough, right? I just keep thinking to
0:41:48myself, I go into split-screen mode especially, I'm like, "No, no, forget it, no."
0:41:53But a somewhat bigger screen, a little bit bigger, and all the pixels of the
0:42:00big iPad Pro might be a really nice combination. The screen being a little
0:42:05bit bigger also means that something like the, although the keyboard might not be quite
0:42:09the size of a full-size keyboard, the software keyboard would be bigger than on the existing
0:42:169.7-inch iPad Pro. And then the other thing I thought was accessories. One of the problems
0:42:24with the 12.9 iPad Pro is that it's hard to do accessories for it because it's so huge,
0:42:30and then you clip on a thing that's the same size as a keyboard or something, and it's
0:42:34And you can do a full-size keyboard that doesn't have to be the length of the
0:42:39iPad Pro 12.9. There's extra space on it. And I started to think, I wonder if you
0:42:45had a 10.5-inch iPad Pro that was a little bit longer than the 9.7, if you
0:42:50could make a full-size keyboard that would be sort of exactly the size, and
0:42:56and that would be great. That would be-- I would buy that. So I just I started to
0:43:02to play it all around in my mind based on Dan's math because that is the best explanation
0:43:10I've heard yet about why there would be a product in between. It's a little bit like
0:43:14astronomy like finding like discovering something new because there's something weird in the
0:43:20data and you're like why would that be there and then you start to think about come up
0:43:24with a hypothesis about why it would be there. The 10.5 iPad Pro was always kind of like
0:43:28that of like, why is this here?
0:43:30This is a strange result.
0:43:31And then Dan comes in and goes, here's my, here's my hypothesis.
0:43:34It's the best hypothesis I've seen.
0:43:36So it's interesting to me.
0:43:39I mean, I really want this device, right?
0:43:41Like I, I really want a different version of the nine seven.
0:43:47Cause I love that.
0:43:48It's my favorite of the iPads, but I really get kind of cramped
0:43:52with the software sometimes.
0:43:53Like I want to full size apps side by side.
0:43:55I don't want one iPad app, one iPhone app, which happens a lot of the
0:43:58time right when you're using the multi-phase game. I really love that I can have like on
0:44:02the big one these two apps side by side. Right that's the whole idea is it's two full-size
0:44:06iPad apps side by side. That's what unlocks like the real power. Right and so this would
0:44:11be two full-sized apps on two iPad minis side by side essentially right. So it still works
0:44:18but everything is just smaller. Now I would really really like that but I want it to stay
0:44:24the same physical size and hopefully weight.
0:44:27That's the 9.7.
0:44:28Yeah, that's the 9.7, but you seem to want it that little bit bigger.
0:44:31Well, so I'm of two thoughts here.
0:44:34One is, I think if I'm Apple, well, part of it is, if I'm still selling the 9.7, it's
0:44:39a little bit weird to have two iPads of exactly the same size physically, but one has a screen
0:44:46that's bigger.
0:44:47Ah, see, I think it sounds weird unless you look at Apple's current product line.
0:44:51Well, hold on though, because the other thing they could do is do a new 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch
0:44:57model that have much smaller bezels. So the 10.5 could be the size of the current 9.7,
0:45:06but the new 9.7 could be smaller.
0:45:08Yeah, I think--oh. Oh.
0:45:10Right? So that's possible. My reasoning--and I cop to it in the piece. I cop to it in the
0:45:16piece. My reasoning for this is literally if it was a little bit bigger, that smart
0:45:20keyboard the keys could be basically full size and accessories because you can't, as
0:45:26we've seen with the existing 9.7, you can't make a keyboard that is quite full sized on
0:45:34the 9.7 but if you had it just a little bit wider you could do it. I don't know if that's
0:45:38enough of a reason to do it. I really don't want three iPads, like three new iPads in
0:45:43the Pro line. I know and yet this is this is where we are it's possible that the
0:45:4910.5 is the new model that the 9.7 goes away or is just sold for cheaper and
0:45:57I think it's cheap and deprecated and it's basically like we've taken the same
0:46:01iPad size and put a much larger more high-resolution display now the iPad Pro
0:46:09has the same resolution on either model and then the iPad Air or the old 9.7" Pro kind
0:46:19of continues along. That would make, yes, I agree with you, three new iPad Pros does
0:46:24seem kind of redundant and it does make me wonder if another thing that's happening here
0:46:29is these reports of a new version of the 9.7 are wrong because it's really like an iPad
0:46:33Air revision or something like that where it's getting some of the features of the
0:46:39the iPad Pro, but they're just going to call it the iPad Air and because there's a new
0:46:44iPad Pro at that size and it's got the bigger screen, it's got the 10.5 screen.
0:46:48Yeah, one of the things that makes me hesitant to think that they would make it a bigger
0:46:52iPad is because the iPad's always been this size, right? Like I feel like that there is
0:46:58like this story around it like being the perfect size physically, but now they've made the
0:47:04screen bigger. Right. Right, and also, you know, I think, I keep saying this, but I think
0:47:11the hope is that they show this design off as a way to show that there will be a new
0:47:15iPhone whenever that comes. Oh sure, this is the hint that, if this scenario plays out,
0:47:21this is the hint that the, you know, reduced or no bezel iPhone is also coming. Yeah, I
0:47:26think so. That would be the argument here. And the side bezel has already been getting
0:47:31smaller mostly I mean and they've got some some you know touch screen rejection stuff
0:47:37that they work on if you do need to grab it by the sides although I think generally the
0:47:40idea is you grab it by the larger bezels that are at the top and the bottom which is why
0:47:46I thought that it's possible that it gets no wider but a little bit taller or however
0:47:52you want I mean it depends on how you orient the directions but you get me that the bezels
0:47:55on the sides that are the narrow bezels might get smaller but the bezels that are on the
0:48:00the top and bottom, like where the home button is, might actually get a little bigger, but
0:48:06they could also just keep it exactly the same dimensions as the classic 9.7 if they wanted
0:48:11to. Again, if they can get that technology to work, I don't know how hard that -- the
0:48:15smaller the bezel is, the harder it is to fit everything in there and fit the screen
0:48:18on there. But I don't know, my piece last week about this was very much that I'm kind
0:48:23of warming to this as an idea. Dan doing the math made me feel like, okay, finally something
0:48:29makes sense here about why this would exist. But yeah, I agree, there's a question of what
0:48:35happens to the 9 7, and I have a hard time seeing it get updated and remaining exactly
0:48:39the same if there's a 10.5. It's more likely that it either gets updated and smaller, that
0:48:45they do the bezel reduction on it too, or that it goes away and there's just sort of
0:48:51a new iPad Air that is that size and that's the differentiator between the Air and the
0:48:57and the pro is this pro resolution that they've got or that 10.5 has to be bigger than the
0:49:039.7 I don't think I don't think they can all be true yeah I wonder if the iPad pro goes
0:49:08the way of what iPad was it that was called the new iPad well remember when they went
0:49:13was it like the iPad 4 that was the iPad 3 3 and then it kind of just like they just
0:49:18kind of got rid of it and it was not wasn't that the iPad 3 and it was the retina iPad
0:49:21that they just said it was the new iPad yeah and then third generation it had didn't have
0:49:25the dock, the 30 pin and then it got replaced by the fourth generation which had which was
0:49:32called what I think was maybe called the air or something I don't know but yeah there was
0:49:35like that weirdness. No that was the iPad fourth generation. Yeah I don't think it was
0:49:40even numbered that was a weird time for the iPad. The new iPad. Yeah it's the new iPad.
0:49:47Well that's fine I mean they could they could do that it was just yeah it was weird. That
0:49:51a weird time. I remember that because I was in—that was when I went to Mobile World
0:49:55Congress so I remember being in Barcelona thinking about the third generation new iPad.
0:50:02That was the retina iPad.
0:50:05Yeah, so I have my fingers crossed for this. I would be very excited about an iPad that
0:50:10looked and acted this way. That would make me very, very happy.
0:50:13Yeah, well, as somebody who—I look at the—I mean, we were talking about this when we were
0:50:17both in Memphis and you were showing off your 9.7 inch with the keyboard and all that and
0:50:21It's like, it's great 'cause it's light
0:50:26and my big iPad Pro is big and heavy,
0:50:30but I have never been convinced to use the 9.7.
0:50:35Like I just, it's not for the reasons
0:50:38that we've cited here.
0:50:39It's just not gonna do it.
0:50:41Something like this, I would give very serious consideration
0:50:45as my next iPad, absolutely.
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0:52:13So last week Apple updated their audio production applications. More specifically they updated
0:52:23Logic on the Mac and GarageBand on iOS received some heavy updates as well. So Logic got a
0:52:33new flatter user interface but I guess more importantly it gained Touch Bar support. So
0:52:40There are timeline overviews and customizable shortcut buttons.
0:52:45What I like the sound of, there are different banks of buttons.
0:52:47So if you hold the Alt key or the Option key, who has a Microsoft keyboard?
0:52:54I do!
0:52:55Or the Command key, you'll get different shortcuts.
0:52:59I use the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic keyboard, so I look down at my keyboard and it says
0:53:05Alt.
0:53:06I apologize.
0:53:07here is it is, um, this is the thing that I kind of wanted to see and, and I'm glad
0:53:12they did it. Yeah. There's a timeline view where you can see a little mini version of
0:53:15your timeline and where you're zoomed into and you can slide it around and all that on
0:53:19the touch bar. But the, the shortcut buttons view, you can customize all of them. You can
0:53:25say, I want this, you know, I want when I don't have a, a, a modifier key put down,
0:53:31I want it to look exactly like this and you can have it be, um, you can choose what commands
0:53:36go where, what the commands are, what the color of the button is. You can put in text
0:53:42of what you want the button to say, and you can do that for all of the different versions
0:53:49of modifier keys and all of that. So if you really want to go to town and reprogram it,
0:53:54it comes with buttons program, but you can reprogram everything.
0:53:58I tell you, man, this makes me want one so bad.
0:54:01I did, I programmed in so to drop a marker,
0:54:04I put that in on a red button with the,
0:54:09because it's an inside joke with a German flag
0:54:11on the button. - Oh, Jason.
0:54:13- So I can go boom, chapter marker,
0:54:17and it just shows up, which is great.
0:54:20And I put, I had something else too,
0:54:22strip silence, I think, and it had, was that it?
0:54:25It was something where the description,
0:54:26the text that it was using for the button,
0:54:28'cause some of them come with an icon that you can use
0:54:30and some of them just come with text
0:54:32and they didn't make sense to me.
0:54:33So I just edited it and put in my own text
0:54:36that made more sense,
0:54:36'cause you can fit a few letters on each button.
0:54:40And that was, when I saw the touch bar for the first time,
0:54:42that was my thought was, this would be really great
0:54:44if you can really customize it in a complicated app
0:54:47like Logic or Final Cut.
0:54:48That's what I think people are gonna want
0:54:51is to be able to make it their own
0:54:52and take their top features and put them out there.
0:54:55Now, the UI for assigning these commands,
0:54:58like the UI for assigning any keyboard shortcut
0:55:00or menu item in Logic, which it has to its credit,
0:55:05is, you know, it's not my favorite,
0:55:07but it does the job, you know, it does do the job,
0:55:13and I appreciate that, so it's a nice example.
0:55:16- Here's a question for you.
0:55:17Can you, with the keyboard shortcuts,
0:55:19only set one keyboard shortcut,
0:55:22or can you set like multiple keyboard shortcuts per button?
0:55:24- Per touch bar button?
0:55:25- Yeah, so like for example, could I put on one button
0:55:29above shortcuts like command F, command I or something.
0:55:34Or is it just like each button is one shortcut?
0:55:37You seeing what I'm saying?
0:55:38- No.
0:55:39- Okay, so let's say I wanted one button
0:55:41to perform two actions, which are usually triggered
0:55:43by two different keyboard shortcuts.
0:55:45- I don't think you have the ability to run macros,
0:55:47which is basically what that is from the buttons.
0:55:50I didn't try that, but I don't think so.
0:55:52And the way it works is not, you know,
0:55:55it's not doing it by keyboard shortcut,
0:55:56it's doing it by command in logic.
0:55:58so you actually have to find the name of the command.
0:56:01And, which it's got a search function, right?
0:56:04But you're, 'cause the keyboard shortcuts
0:56:07are also defined in that same interface.
0:56:11So.
0:56:12- I mean, I know the shortcuts of things.
0:56:14I don't know what Apple calls them,
0:56:16you know, like a lot of the time.
0:56:18- That was exactly my thought too.
0:56:20And actually, as cool as it was
0:56:22to see those keyboard shortcuts,
0:56:24I feel like I have learned enough about logic
0:56:27that I don't need them.
0:56:30'Cause like I already wired strip silence to command
0:56:33or to control X, I think,
0:56:35or maybe it was even already wired to that.
0:56:37And I just do that now.
0:56:38And I don't need to put that on a button.
0:56:40I think the value of this stuff is going to be
0:56:42for people who are learning
0:56:44that they're going to be able to provide
0:56:45those keys in context.
0:56:48But if you're somebody who uses a lot of commands
0:56:52in these apps and you can't remember
0:56:55the keyboard shortcuts for them,
0:56:56that's what these buttons are going to be good at.
0:56:59- So I disagree to a point,
0:57:01which is from my own experience,
0:57:03'cause I moved to a Wacom, right?
0:57:06And my Wacom tablet has six buttons on it
0:57:08that can be programmed.
0:57:10And I have programmed those six buttons
0:57:12to perform different actions in Logic.
0:57:14Now, I know what the keyboard shortcuts are
0:57:16for all of those things, but it's way quicker,
0:57:19like I have them programmed in such a way
0:57:21that I will very frequently hit button one,
0:57:23button two, button three, like in succession, and it will do something that I frequently
0:57:28do. So like for example, it might do select all, cut, select all forward. So they are
0:57:35three different buttons that I have assigned and I do those actions when I'm editing very,
0:57:39very frequently. So like having all of those things just like one, two, three is really
0:57:44nice. So even on the touch bar, you could set it up. So those three keyboard shortcuts,
0:57:49the keyboard shortcuts that you trigger in succession very often are right next to each
0:57:52other. Again, it's like I know what they are, but it's way nicer to just go boom, boom,
0:57:58boom, and they're all done. I like that. And it's worked for me very nicely. I can do all
0:58:03these things on the keyboard. I do when I'm on my MacBook Pro or my MacBook, but it's
0:58:08way nicer for me to have them all kind of lined up and ready to go. So I'm excited about
0:58:13that. I wish I could do it. There are virtual instruments. A lot more virtual instruments
0:58:19have been added to Logic. So you can, this is on the touch bar, so the idea is there's
0:58:24a piano on the touch bar that you can have or a drum kit that you can have on the touch
0:58:29bar. Crazy in a good way. Play the piano, instead of the keyboard typing feature which
0:58:36they have had, now there's also a touch bar keyboard basically or drum kit. GarageBand
0:58:42for iOS has received updates which are interesting, targeted for people that use Logic but they
0:58:48They wanna use it on the go?
0:58:50- Yeah, this is, the way they described it to me,
0:58:52'cause I did talk to some people at Apple about this,
0:58:54is they used the example of the guy from "Fallout Boy"
0:58:56who apparently was taking the tracks
0:58:59that they were recording for their album,
0:59:01and then on his iPhone or iPad,
0:59:03he was singing the vocals that I believe there are,
0:59:06I think what they said is there are some vocals
0:59:08on the "Fallout Boy" latest album
0:59:10that are from an iPad or an iPhone, which is kind of funny.
0:59:15But the idea, the larger point there
0:59:17is that a lot of musicians, yeah, they are moving around,
0:59:20they've got, you know, maybe they're on tour or whatever,
0:59:23and inspiration strikes and they wanna work on it.
0:59:25So they wanted to, and GarageBand is it for Apple on iOS.
0:59:30This is their high-end audio product
0:59:32'cause there is no logic for iOS.
0:59:34So they put in pro features in this release too,
0:59:38'cause Apple said the goal of both of these releases,
0:59:41they try to sort of theme their releases,
0:59:42like what are we gonna focus on for this wave?
0:59:44And this was sort of high-end audio production.
0:59:46So even GarageBand for iOS has sort of high-end audio production features, which, you know,
0:59:52if you're just using it to noodle around, it might seem dumb, but they have some compelling
0:59:57stories that they've got professional customers who use GarageBand for iOS all the time.
1:00:03So GarageBand for iOS has 12 new mixing effects, a visual equalizer, a professional grade compressor,
1:00:09and also has gained something called the Alchemy Synth Synthesizer from Logic, which is this
1:00:14very cool synthesizer.
1:00:16that has been added to iOS too. But the thing that is kind of mind-blowing to me is that
1:00:21you can now mix down a version of a logic project and sync it via iCloud to become a
1:00:26GarageBand project, GarageBand project, to use on iOS and then anything added to the
1:00:32GarageBand file will then sync back to logic via iCloud. That is really cool.
1:00:37Yeah, so what you can't do is go to, you know, take your iPhone out with your logic project
1:00:44and edit the drum track,
1:00:45because that's not what it's doing.
1:00:46It is doing a bounce down,
1:00:49a flattened version of what you've got in Logic.
1:00:51But what you can do is add to it.
1:00:53So that's the example of the singer wants to take the track
1:00:58and do vocals on it on the go.
1:01:01They can do that.
1:01:02And if they wanna add like an instrument track
1:01:05and put something in there,
1:01:07like I'm gonna try a few different things with this bassline
1:01:10to see what I can do with it,
1:01:11'cause there's no base on the recording or whatever,
1:01:14they can do that.
1:01:15And then that all syncs via iCloud.
1:01:17So when you go back to that Logic project on the Mac,
1:01:19back at home base,
1:01:21those new tracks that you've created
1:01:23are added to the existing project,
1:01:25the existing multi-track project.
1:01:27Really cool.
1:01:29- So there's some stuff there,
1:01:30like I'm happy to see Apple continuing
1:01:33to push these applications forward.
1:01:34- Logic, since it went to version 10 on the Mac,
1:01:37has released, they said 15 updates.
1:01:41So, here's something, we were kind of knocking Apple
1:01:46when we were talking about the report card,
1:01:49about people's concerns about the first party software,
1:01:53not the OS, but like Apple's apps.
1:01:55And this is an example where they are putting effort
1:01:59into the audio apps.
1:02:00And GarageBand is based on the logic code base.
1:02:03It's all part of one big base.
1:02:08So the people who are working on these things,
1:02:10it's all interrelated, which is how they can do stuff like this.
1:02:14But, um,
1:02:15here's an example of a place where Apple is still investing in updates to their,
1:02:20uh, their own professional apps.
1:02:23So the big thing about Logic, right,
1:02:25is all of the stuff that they're doing with the touch bar,
1:02:27like that is like the big marquee feature here.
1:02:30So it seems that Apple is continuing to invest time
1:02:36and people into working on making the touch bar better, you know,
1:02:39like with their own applications,
1:02:41by making the software better,
1:02:42they make the touch bar better.
1:02:43So how long is it gonna be
1:02:47until the touch bar breaks out of the MacBook Pro?
1:02:50Like if this is a tool aimed at professionals, right?
1:02:53It's debuted with the Pro for a reason,
1:02:56doesn't it make sense to make a version
1:02:59that desktop professionals could use as well?
1:03:02So you wrote a piece on Macworld about this,
1:03:06and a quote from you was that,
1:03:07"I'd argue that for the touch bars
1:03:08to be taken seriously as a core part of the Mac experience.
1:03:11It needs to be on more Macs than just the MacBook Pro.
1:03:14- Yeah, I think that's the challenge here is
1:03:18the MacBook Pro is a great product for professionals.
1:03:22Two thirds of Apple's or three quarters somewhere in there
1:03:25of Apple's Mac sales are laptops,
1:03:28but a lot of those are gonna be MacBook Airs and MacBooks.
1:03:30So you've got the MacBook Pro that has the touch bar.
1:03:32I feel like for this to in the long run be a touch bar,
1:03:37run be a feature that people focus on, you need to at least give them the option of having
1:03:45it work on the desktop. And you saw it even at the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar event, you
1:03:50could see it because they like to stage these areas sort of like showing you all the great
1:03:55features of these products. And the area that was running Final Cut on two 5K monitors or
1:04:02maybe three 5k monitors. It was trying to show off those, you know, the ability
1:04:06to do high-resolution video out. So they have these big monitors and the
1:04:12MacBook Pro in a video workstation setup. But they still have the MacBook Pro
1:04:15laptop sitting on a table with its lid open, and the idea was you would use the
1:04:20trackpad and the keyboard and the touch bar on the open laptop to drive those
1:04:26huge screens as well as the little laptop screen. And I'm sure people work
1:04:30like that, but I looked at that and thought, "Huh, that's weird." Like, what you're saying
1:04:35is we love the Touch Bar, but the only way you can get the Touch Bar is when the laptop
1:04:40is open. So even though you can connect your laptop to these enormous screens, you need
1:04:44to leave your laptop open and at the level where your hands are so that you can use the
1:04:50Touch Bar. I don't know. I'm sure, like I said, I'm sure some people do that, but there
1:04:57a lot of people who have who who are working on an iMac or maybe a Mac Pro someday again
1:05:05or they're using a MacBook Pro or MacBook or something like that docked and ergonomically
1:05:12I think having the laptop open is not necessarily the best experience for you so you maybe close
1:05:19the laptop but if you close the laptop you lose the touch bar so you know in the end
1:05:23I think the Touch Bar would be given a bit of a shot in the arm if Apple had some solution
1:05:31for people to use the Touch Bar who are not sitting in front of a MacBook Pro that is
1:05:36open.
1:05:37Again, from your piece, the most logical product for Apple to roll out is the Magic Keyboard
1:05:412 featuring the Boss to Fly mechanism keyboard design used in the MacBook Pro topped by a
1:05:46Touch Bar.
1:05:47Yeah, that's the most logical.
1:05:50I was, I had a good Twitter discussion with somebody who was doing the, they were running
1:05:55the math about the battery use on the Apple Watch, which has a processor and an OLED screen,
1:06:03and they're trying to get sort of like how much battery does the touch bar use. I think
1:06:07the touch bar screen is bigger than the Apple Watch display, and so I'm not entirely sure
1:06:13that I want to, I want to map those things out, but his argument was that if Apple can
1:06:18get a day of battery life out of the Apple Watch, then if you put a touch bar in a Magic
1:06:25Keyboard, you could get a day or two. I would like to believe that they want to shoot for
1:06:30more than a day's charge on a keyboard, but they might think that that was enough, that
1:06:36as we've seen, Apple makes those decisions sometimes, which is, you know, yeah, it's
1:06:40great if your keyboard lasts a week, but really, you could plug it in once a day at the end
1:06:44of the day, and then it would work fine the next day. So this does seem logical. And with
1:06:51the new keyboard, I'm afraid, even though I love the Magic Keyboard, it certainly seems
1:06:58that Apple feels that they've nailed it with the MacBook Pro keyboard. And so it would
1:07:05seem most likely to me that that would be what a Magic Keyboard 2 would be. It would
1:07:09be essentially like sawing off that portion of the MacBook Pro, like that keyboard, that
1:07:16touch bar, and then, you know, and the internals necessary to run the touch bar, and a battery
1:07:23so that it can run for at least a day.
1:07:26It's what made me sad, you know, as I copped to earlier, I use a Microsoft keyboard, right?
1:07:33Like I use the Sculpt ergonomic keyboard for ergonomic reasons.
1:07:38And it would be sad to me if this product existed attached to a keyboard because I would
1:07:43really like a touch bar. But my hope would be, you know, I would even be happy to have
1:07:50the thing plugged in all the time, you know, so I got the battery. But I struggle to imagine
1:07:54Apple doing that.
1:07:56You literally want to buy a touch bar.
1:07:58That's all I want, just a touch bar.
1:08:00And you can put it wherever you want.
1:08:01Yeah, anywhere.
1:08:02Yeah. Yeah, I, there are some ergonomic problems with that because the heights of the tops
1:08:07of keyboards vary widely, right?
1:08:10So there's some issues with like,
1:08:12how tall would they make that thing?
1:08:14And if it's flat, if it's fairly flat,
1:08:17then do you need like a riser behind your keyboard?
1:08:20And there's lots of issues there,
1:08:21but I think you're right.
1:08:22I think the number one reason that that's not a product
1:08:24is that it just doesn't feel like an Apple product to say,
1:08:27here's an add-on widget, right?
1:08:29It's much more likely they'll say,
1:08:31we have this totally integrated thing and here it is.
1:08:36I don't know.
1:08:38But you also posed the idea of what if it was integrated into a Magic Trackpad.
1:08:44Yeah, it's a wacky idea, but what I keep thinking is I already have a multi-touch surface from Apple on my keyboard tray.
1:08:54I already have one. It's the Magic Trackpad 2, right? I already have it. It's right there.
1:09:00And I think it's highly unlikely
1:09:02that this will happen anytime soon,
1:09:05but I just keep thinking like,
1:09:07if I'm an Apple and I'm thinking about interesting ways
1:09:09to do multi-touch as an input device on the Mac,
1:09:12what if the multi-touch device
1:09:16that they already sell for the Mac externally, wirelessly,
1:09:20you know, what if some of it or all of it was a display
1:09:25or optionally a display,
1:09:27or sometimes had a display that was visible,
1:09:30like on the Touch Bar but on the Magic Trackpad.
1:09:32There are lots of issues 'cause the Magic Trackpad
1:09:34is way narrower than the Magic Keyboard,
1:09:37or the Touch Bar.
1:09:40So you couldn't have that long Touch Bar interface on it.
1:09:44So then now all of a sudden if you did something like that,
1:09:47do you have two different layouts for the Touch Bar?
1:09:50It gets weird.
1:09:51How would you design something like that?
1:09:54I don't think there's reasonably a product here,
1:09:56and yet something in my mind just keeps turning over like,
1:09:59yes, but it is a multi-touch surface, right?
1:10:02It is the most logical place for something
1:10:06like the touch bar. - I would love it there.
1:10:06It'd make way more sense for a touch bar
1:10:08to be integrated into the track pad
1:10:10because that hand is doing tapping and poking and,
1:10:13you know, that's where I would want it to be.
1:10:16But I agree, it would be hard to put it there.
1:10:20But, you know, I could imagine it being easier that way.
1:10:24I expect more people probably say that. At least it would be easier, I think, to get
1:10:29people to go trackpad than to change their keyboard. I feel like people are maybe more
1:10:35picky over their keyboard than they are their input mechanism.
1:10:38Yeah, I mean, and everybody varies. Some people are picky about the input device, the pointer,
1:10:45and some people are more picky about the keyboard. But that's just, you know, again, the most
1:10:52thing to do with the least overhead is to make a Magic Keyboard with a touch bar at
1:10:57the top of it. But again, and that fits with the use case where you've got one hand on
1:11:03the trackpad on the MacBook Pro and one hand on the touch bar, which they showed on stage,
1:11:09which is different than like one hand on the keyboard and one hand on the touch bar, although
1:11:12you could do that too on the MacBook Pro. But I just, you know, my way I use my Mac
1:11:17is I've got my left hand on the keyboard and my right hand is either on the keyboard or
1:11:22it is right next to the keyboard on that trackpad where I've got multi-touch gestures and all
1:11:26of that. You know, the other problem with a lot of this is that the track or the touch
1:11:31bar works in a part because it's not very far from the screen and in a desktop the screen
1:11:38and the control surfaces move apart, right? Your screen goes up, especially if you're
1:11:44following good ergonomics, because laptops aren't great with the ergonomics, surprise.
1:11:49Your screen should go up, because it should be at your eye level, and your keyboard should
1:11:53go down at, you know, right angle of your elbow, right? At which point they are further
1:12:01apart, which means your eyeline is that much split, so when you're looking down at your
1:12:04keys and your touch bar, you're now looking way further down. But at the same time, you
1:12:11know, I think you would argue that if you need to look at your keyboard now, you're
1:12:14still looking down at it and then back up at the screen. So the act of keyboard
1:12:18looking is still there, and if Apple's whole premise with the touch bar is "I put
1:12:24a screen on your keyboard," then keyboard looking is required. So even though it
1:12:29might be a little bit harder and a little bit further apart, I'm not sure
1:12:33it's a deal-breaker. It might be less good or it might be
1:12:36different but I still think people would rather have it than not. So
1:12:42whether there's a Magic Keyboard 2 with Touch Bar and they keep selling the
1:12:47other Magic Keyboard or whether it's a separate standalone Touch Bar, you know, I
1:12:51hope they do something so it isn't just the MacBook Pro that gets this,
1:12:54especially since it unlocks everything in all scenarios, all their desktop
1:12:59systems, all their laptop systems that have a, you know, that might run on an
1:13:04external monitor basically everything can get the touch bar if you buy the
1:13:08external touch bar but still in the back of my mind I keep thinking I'm not sure
1:13:12the keyboard is the right place for it. Cards on the table will we see this in
1:13:172017? Will the touch bar break outside of the MacBook Pro? I think so. I think
1:13:22that some part of the new iMac and maybe other desktops who knows will be
1:13:28something like this. Do Apple make over desktops? They did they might again
1:13:33We'll see. We'll see. But it's just, it would... Is it a must-have? No, absolutely.
1:13:39If I had to put money on it, yeah, I think maybe I would say more likely than not, only
1:13:43because they put all this effort into the Touch Bar to have it only be on the MacBook
1:13:48Pro. I don't... Like, I would be shocked if a new MacBook had a Touch Bar, right? I mean,
1:13:54maybe it would, but that's a lot to pack into that MacBook.
1:13:57I feel like pros first, so like it comes with the next professional machines, you know,
1:14:02alongside. So whether the next professional machine is a Mac Pro or
1:14:07it's just an iMac, regardless, having it for that seems to make sense to me. I
1:14:12would say my wacky idea about a screen magic trackpad, although that feels like
1:14:18a very Apple product to me, I feel like that's not gonna happen anytime soon if
1:14:23ever. It's so beautiful, right? Like it would be all black and then that, you know, maybe
1:14:27the little, they would like light up when you, "Oh, that would be so good." You know, but
1:14:30The number one reason I think it won't happen is,
1:14:32if they were gonna do that,
1:14:35wouldn't they have engineered the MacBook Pro
1:14:38to have the touch bar be in the track pad?
1:14:40- Yeah, yeah, they probably would have.
1:14:44- And they didn't.
1:14:45So this is where we are.
1:14:48And it would give them parallelism, right?
1:14:51It would give them the same thing,
1:14:52which is it's part of the keyboard.
1:14:53It's in the function row.
1:14:55And, you know.
1:14:56- The thing is though,
1:14:57that it was easier space-wise
1:14:59to have it replace the keys.
1:15:01You know, but like with a Magic Trackpad,
1:15:04it can be as big as you want it to be.
1:15:06- Yeah, and there are lots of challenges
1:15:08in getting the screen, you know,
1:15:11I'm not saying just because it's a multi-touch surface,
1:15:13it doesn't necessarily mean it's the same kind
1:15:14of engineering that has to go into it
1:15:16versus something like the Touch Bar.
1:15:17But still, it is, you know,
1:15:20the Touch Bar has a similar texture to the Magic Trackpad.
1:15:25I mean, they're cousins, right?
1:15:28And so I do wonder about that.
1:15:30I will say, I think I like the idea of a touch ID sensor
1:15:35on an external device.
1:15:38I think that's far more likely than a touch bar.
1:15:41- Yeah, they've done it.
1:15:42You know, like the iPhone can authenticate things
1:15:45on the Mac, like they've worked out how to transmit that.
1:15:48- Exactly, so I think a touch ID sensor,
1:15:51maybe even on a Magic Trackpad,
1:15:53is the most likely scenario there.
1:15:57So, I'm with you, I think 2017 we see the touch bar break out somehow.
1:16:04I'm just not sure what that implementation is yet.
1:16:07Yeah.
1:16:08Alright, we should move into Ask Upgrade.
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1:17:24Luke wrote in with a conundrum.
1:17:27It will cost Luke $1000 AUD which is about $750 USD to replace the video card in a dead
1:17:34but specced out mid 2011 iMac 27" iMac.
1:17:40Should Luke do this or upgrade to a new iMac?
1:17:44Now this is an interesting question right, this is a machine that has maybe gotten about
1:17:495-6 years use out of. My feeling on this would be if you can afford it without it causing
1:17:57too much financial trouble, I would go new. This is a machine that has served a good life
1:18:04but my feeling is it's failed you now, I would be concerned it would fail again in some other
1:18:11way. That's just my look on these things. You know, I would be concerned that I'd spend
1:18:16$1,000 now, but then in six months, something else goes wrong and I need to pay again to
1:18:22have it replaced in some way. So if you can afford it, Luke, I would say to maybe to start
1:18:28to upgrade.
1:18:29Yeah, I mean, that's the name of the show, right? I agree. That's a lot of money to spend
1:18:34on a five to six year old iMac.
1:18:39And the iMacs, you know, the new iMacs are priced
1:18:47pretty well, I mean, you can get a,
1:18:50if you wanted another 27, that's gonna be a 5K iMac now,
1:18:54right, and that is, that's pretty good, that's pretty good.
1:18:59So I guess you, you know, you got it,
1:19:03you got it exactly right, which is,
1:19:05if you can afford to go without for a little while
1:19:09or just replace it now,
1:19:10I think throwing another $755
1:19:13at a six-year-old machine is not ideal.
1:19:21- I mean, look, you're gonna be spending
1:19:27about two grand for a new iMac
1:19:29because you wanna at least have the Fusion Drive in it,
1:19:33right? You really shouldn't get the one that has just the hard drive, which continues to
1:19:36be a joke that exists.
1:19:38Well, I mean, I would say you'd be better off spending that money and a little bit more
1:19:42on a, or maybe just that money on a 20, you know, on a, on a 25th, what, 2014 5k iMac
1:19:51that might be used or, yeah, I mean there, there are, or, or, or that somebody is a,
1:19:56when the new iMacs come out, maybe somebody buys a new one and their two year old, two
1:19:59two and a half year old one goes for sale or even a a pre-retina like a 2014 like I
1:20:05think you'd be better off spending that money on something else if at all possible even
1:20:10if it's a used system that is more recent than that because it's already pretty old
1:20:17and it's just gonna keep aging and it hurts to think of spending $750 and yeah and parts
1:20:22may still keep failing too. So yeah. Brent asked, "As a casual gamer, am I crazy
1:20:30for thinking the Nintendo Switch is the most innovative console I've seen in a long time?"
1:20:35So Brent, I will say, whilst they're also good dogs, you're not crazy. Weird joke.
1:20:44I love that meme, the good dogs meme. It's fantastic. If you don't know what I'm talking
1:20:48about just Google Good Logs meme you'll find it. I don't think you're crazy. I think that
1:20:53the Switch is very innovative but you have to be open to that type of innovation. If
1:20:58you're looking for Nintendo to create a PlayStation 4 competitor this is not that. But if you
1:21:05have had the dream like I and Federico have had of same console everywhere like I've had
1:21:11this dream for as long as I've played video games then this is the innovation you're looking
1:21:15for. Basically, the Nintendo Switch is a super powerful handheld console that you can plug
1:21:20into the TV. That's what it's not the other I read a great piece on the Guardian about
1:21:25this that I'm going to find and put in the show notes. That explains it that way, which
1:21:30I really loved. It's like people are thinking of it as a home console you can take on the
1:21:34go. It's more the other way around it is a handheld console. It was a piece written by
1:21:40Kate Gray, it's in the show notes. It is more like a handheld console that you can plug
1:21:44into the TV and continue your experience there. Like, it doesn't have great battery life,
1:21:49it can get anywhere between three to six hours, but it's USB-C. And when it's on the go, you
1:21:54can plug in external battery packs, any USB-C cable will go with it. Like, that is a new
1:21:59Nintendo, like for years Nintendo had their own weird proprietary ones.
1:22:04I just bought my son a DS last year and I had to find a DS charging cable.
1:22:08Doesn't come in the box.
1:22:09And the right... It's ridiculous.
1:22:11But they're really changing some of the ways that they work.
1:22:15And it's got these controllers that you can snap off and you can have two people play
1:22:19with just the controls that it comes with.
1:22:21It is doing a lot of really innovative stuff, but you've got to be open to that.
1:22:25If you want a new Xbox One or a PlayStation 4, but it's made by Nintendo, this is not
1:22:31that.
1:22:32And honestly, I don't think they're ever going to make that.
1:22:33I think that's right.
1:22:35This is never going to be that.
1:22:37In fact, you could argue, I mean, the last two Nintendo consoles have been a generation
1:22:41behind their competition as a console, and that will probably continue.
1:22:48The difference is that this is not just a console, and they're merging their handheld
1:22:55and console into one.
1:22:57It is no surprise that the people I know who are really, really into console gaming were
1:23:00not impressed by the switch and that's fine because again it is not a ps4
1:23:06competitor it's it reminds me a little bit about people complaining about
1:23:10things Apple does because they're not following the rules of Windows PC makers
1:23:15which always happened and now it happens a little bit with smartphones too it's
1:23:18like I can't believe that they're not just being like Dell was a classic right
1:23:22and it's like well Apple's not even remotely like Dell so why would they be
1:23:25that it's a little bit like that where it's like it's Nintendo they're gonna
1:23:29to be Nintendo and what they're trying to do, I mean, that Nintendo Switch announcement
1:23:35reminded me of Apple so much in the sense that Nintendo is relentlessly making these
1:23:40decisions that are like not what the industry decisions are. And some of them will flop
1:23:45and some of them will succeed, but that's what they do, right? And the Switch is like
1:23:49that. It's a weird product, but I think it's got a lot of potential, especially the idea
1:23:56that you have one system and you can play it around the house. Like, my son does this
1:24:02all the time where he's playing the Xbox One and I want to watch a TV show and I'm like,
1:24:05"I gotta kick you off, sorry." Right? It's like, with this, again, it's not an Xbox One,
1:24:10but if he's playing something on the Nintendo Switch, he just picks it up out of the dock
1:24:15and keeps playing it. And you can take it to a vacation or to a friend's house or whatever
1:24:19and it's your Nintendo that comes with you. Plus, there's the, anybody who brought computers
1:24:26over for a LAN party in the olden days will know this, that like, plus now you're your
1:24:31Nintendo Switch and your friend's Nintendo Switch and all of a sudden you've got like
1:24:36multiple controllers and they will network with each other and you can have a bunch of
1:24:41people playing games together. And that is actually a thing that I think will happen
1:24:45with it. So I think there's a lot that's cool about it as long as you're not, like you said
1:24:48Myke you're not judging it by the ps4 and the Xbox one because it's not playing that game and I think yeah
1:24:54I think Nintendo is not gonna ever play that game
1:24:56Matt asked blue snowball versus blue yeti
1:25:01So Matt's asking for a microphone recommendation here out of the two. I would say yeti
1:25:06But I know Jason's gonna say do neither and buy something else
1:25:10Yeah, that's that's it. Which is the yeti is by far the better microphone than the snowball. I don't recommend the snowball
1:25:16I started with a snowball, but don't don't buy it
1:25:18I think the best value if you're in the US especially because I know it's harder to get
1:25:23overseas.
1:25:24The best value is the Audio-Technica ATR2100 USB, which sounds really good.
1:25:29It's really cheap.
1:25:31It's a USB microphone by a mic stand.
1:25:33I wrote an article on six colors about how you can get in a whole podcast studio for
1:25:37less than $100.
1:25:39That's what I recommend.
1:25:40The Yeti is great.
1:25:41The problem with the Yeti is it's big.
1:25:44And that makes it not only is it heavy and big, but it's less compatible with mic stands
1:25:51and pop filters and things like that.
1:25:54And, you know, I loved I used a Yeti for like three years and it's it's great, but I think
1:25:59it's been surpassed.
1:26:00Something I've noticed recently.
1:26:04I've been sending the link that, you know, Marco's big microphone mega review to a bunch
1:26:09of people.
1:26:10Like I'm getting asked these questions a lot like what microphone should I buy?
1:26:14What microphone should I buy? And I really don't have a good
1:26:16recommendation. But you know I send Marco's review to people because he reviewed a bunch of them and
1:26:22you also get all the sound clips and stuff. It is it's just interesting to me that I'm getting
1:26:27a lot more of those questions. It seems like people people want to start podcasts.
1:26:31[Joe] The ATR2100 is the cheapest microphone in Marco's top five basically.
1:26:38- And it's in the top five.
1:26:40- I mean, I guess it's not, it's number four,
1:26:44and it's the cheapest in the top four.
1:26:46The mic at number five is cheaper,
1:26:47but you've got to add a $100 XLR interface.
1:26:49And the ATR2100 does XLR if you want, but it is a USB mic,
1:26:54so you just plug it in to your computer with a USB cable.
1:26:57And like Marco says, amazing value for the money.
1:27:01So that's the one that I am now recommending.
1:27:06And Brent also asked a couple of questions, kind of podcast related.
1:27:10One, how often do you monitor download statistics?
1:27:13And two, why do you rarely, if ever, ask for iTunes reviews?
1:27:16So I make a note of my statistics or our statistics, all of Relay FM's download
1:27:23numbers monthly, so I have a graph to track our shows and kind of see how they go
1:27:27over the year. So that's one time where I always do it.
1:27:30Sometimes an advertiser will ask and I'll get the numbers that way.
1:27:33so I see them or other times like when I'm uploading a show to the host, I might just
1:27:38check how the download numbers are but I used to be like obsessed with checking those numbers
1:27:43but I'm not so much anymore honestly.
1:27:46Yeah, I don't look except when I need to. When somebody like when my ad network asks
1:27:53for the stats, I will look the stats up and put them in their little form that says here's
1:27:58how many downloads we had but I don't look and I don't look at iTunes reviews either.
1:28:02I mean, I just don't look because I know what I wanna make,
1:28:06I know what I wanna do.
1:28:07I was like this at IDG too.
1:28:11People would expect me to like know,
1:28:12how many page views did PC World have last month?
1:28:14I'm just like, I don't know, I could look it up for you.
1:28:16They're like, you don't know?
1:28:18Yeah, you know what?
1:28:19I don't obsess about that.
1:28:20Like we used some stats, like some live stats,
1:28:25like Chartbeat of sort of like what stories were trending
1:28:29and for a news site that was useful
1:28:31finding out like what people really cared about and what what people were reading at a time. But
1:28:37like the big, you know, daily, weekly, monthly stats, I felt like that was much more likely to
1:28:41distract me and confuse me than to inform me because you can just start chasing flukes and
1:28:49you can start changing chasing sort of like bad stuff if you do that and you know I kind of know
1:28:55I kind of know what I want to do and and those numbers get magnified right you we do an episode
1:28:59that does 10,000 more than any of the episodes around there.
1:29:02And we might be like, oh, what did we talk about
1:29:03in that episode?
1:29:04We should totally do that.
1:29:05But it turns out that, you know,
1:29:07it almost certainly had nothing to do with the content
1:29:09of that episode, especially since the downloads happened
1:29:11before people listen, but it had to do
1:29:12with somebody mentioning us or somebody linking to us,
1:29:15or there was a hiccup in the network.
1:29:18And so people had, their clients had to redownload the file.
1:29:21I mean, there's so many reasons and you can get steered
1:29:23so far off course, if you look at it that closely.
1:29:26So, you know, I try to look at it like ten steps back and with a lot of perspective and
1:29:32So I don't look very often
1:29:35And then why don't we ask for iTunes reviews? I think it's mainly because most of the shows that we do
1:29:41iTunes tends to be one of the smaller
1:29:44Traffic sources. Yeah, it can be hard to tell exactly
1:29:49But I would estimate that we have somewhere between 10 to 15 percent of our listeners that listen through iTunes
1:29:56And honestly with the kind of the focus of iTunes these days that the shows that they tend to focus on
1:30:01I don't think that
1:30:03Reviews are gonna help us get the visibility that used to it used to be like having good reviews in iTunes
1:30:08was good for getting features and promotions, but the podcasting market and the landscape is very different now and
1:30:14The types of shows that tend to get featured on iTunes tend to be the more mass-market shows, which is fine
1:30:20Honestly, it doesn't it doesn't really concern or affect us in a big way
1:30:26Because the the tools the shows that our shows a lot of our tech focus shows
1:30:30People listen in the apps that they like to listen in and there isn't a consistent way to rate or review
1:30:37You know to make sense in those applications, you know, like we could say that you know
1:30:41Marco has the starring thing you could star us on overcast you could leave a review in iTunes
1:30:45But really the thing that we would love the most if you ever want to do anything
1:30:49This is tweet about the show tell friends about the show
1:30:52recommend the show to people something that they might want to listen to that's probably
1:30:55going to have a bigger effect than any of like you know leaving these reviews in these
1:30:59buckets within different applications so if you do like enjoy the show tell people about
1:31:04it because that's cool yep and if you want to find our show notes for this week head
1:31:10on over to relay.fm/upgrade/125 Jason is online he is at sixcolors.com and the incomparable.com
1:31:17and you can find Jason here @jsnell on Twitter, JSNEELL.
1:31:21I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.
1:31:24Thank you so much for listening, as always,
1:31:25and we'll be back next time.
1:31:26Thanks again to our sponsors,
1:31:28the fine folk over in Capster, Smile, and Squarespace.
1:31:31Say goodbye, Jason Snow.
1:31:32- Bye, everybody.
1:31:33(upbeat music)
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