0:00:00[Music]
0:00:08From Relay FM, this is Upgrade #72.
0:00:11Today's show is brought to you by PDF Pen 7 from Smile and Squarespace.
0:00:16My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Mr. Jason Snell.
0:00:18Hi Myke, how's it going?
0:00:20Pretty well, pretty well.
0:00:21We were just discussing on the live stream before that we're both drinking
0:00:25caffeinated beverages today during the show, which is irregular, so expect a severe uptick
0:00:32in energy around topic number one.
0:00:35It's irregular for you, it's not irregular for me.
0:00:37Oh, yeah, because it's very early for you, isn't it?
0:00:40It's Monday morning, I always have a cup of tea with me, very British, of course, as I
0:00:45am.
0:00:46I always have a cup of tea in the morning to prepare me and to energize me for upgrade.
0:00:52upgrade.
0:00:53And I'll take the American coffee in my Portland mug today.
0:00:57That's fine. See? It's a little, you know, we're going across the Atlantic. It's only
0:01:02fitting.
0:01:03Talking about Atlantic and the UK, I bought muffins. English muffins.
0:01:09Oh no! Okay, muffin vertical. Here we are, muffin vertical. It's very important.
0:01:14When we were doing the online shopping, I said to Idina, "Can we put muffins in, please?"
0:01:20they arrived this morning. I haven't eaten them yet. But I'm saying this to close Muffin
0:01:26Gate now.
0:01:27That's right. The circle has closed. Myke bought muffins.
0:01:34Eventually I will eat the muffins, but you will not hear about my opinion.
0:01:38Toast them, and yes. I'm out of muffins, so we're going to go to the store today, and
0:01:44one of the things we will buy will be muffins. And that's good, because I miss them for my
0:01:49breakfast. I'm going to toast them and put jam on them. Oh good, that's a nice one, that's
0:01:54great. Yeah, it's all good. Jam on a muffin is wonderful. But apparently, as Twitter would
0:02:00let me know, you say that biscuits, what you call biscuits, which are closer to scones
0:02:06than the other biscuits, you say that they are superior to English muffins. Oh yeah,
0:02:13buttermilk biscuits. So buttermilk biscuits, southern style buttermilk biscuits, are fantastic,
0:02:17And there are many ways to eat them.
0:02:19And I bake them myself here at home on many weekends.
0:02:23And they're great, but they're fresh.
0:02:25You know, fresh homemade anything out of the oven is going to be better.
0:02:28And those southern biscuits are better.
0:02:31The difference is that they're really only better right when they're hot and fresh out
0:02:35of the oven.
0:02:36And then, you know, when they cool off, they're not as good.
0:02:39Whereas muffins are good because they're storable and they toast up very well and all that.
0:02:46Biscuits are fantastic.
0:02:47But uh, but, and if those of you, we'll put a, we'll put a link in the show notes to my
0:02:54recipe for those.
0:02:56I got it already, the little screenshot that you did.
0:02:58Yeah, from out of Vesper.
0:03:00Uh, yeah, if you're somebody outside of the United States who doesn't even know, they're
0:03:03kind of like scones, but they're not, they're not, uh, because they're moist and, uh, sort
0:03:09of flaky layers and scones are a little kind of harder and drier and stuff.
0:03:13But thus ends muffin gate.
0:03:16Jason, would you say that early January is a quiet time for technology news?
0:03:21No!
0:03:22Well, the muffin conversation would indicate that maybe it is.
0:03:27Let's move on to some follow up in regards to the 3.5mm audio jack.
0:03:33We had a bunch of interesting tweets sent in to us, we picked out a few.
0:03:38The first one is from @LeFrenchFab and they said "Replacing the 3.5mm jack and lightning
0:03:43ports of a smart connector would be a way to waterproof an iPhone. What do you think
0:03:48about that?
0:03:49Yeah, I mean, there are rumors that based on the teardown of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus
0:03:54that Apple is already kind of experimenting with more water resistance in the iPhone design.
0:04:01And I don't know enough about the design of the headphone jack to know whether it's
0:04:07just always going to be a problem in terms of waterproofing a device, but it is a big,
0:04:12know, hole in your phone that water can get into, so possibly. I'm not sure whether
0:04:18the lightning port is better at that or not, because it is also, you know, it's also
0:04:22a port and it's got a hole that water can get into.
0:04:25So my super unknowledge about all of these things, having just looked at devices, like
0:04:31potentially the lightning port is waterproof because the hole is, it ends, right? Because
0:04:36the port just works via pins, so the pins will just connect and I guess you could seal
0:04:42that all up quite nicely. Because there are phones that exist in the world, like Android
0:04:48phones that are completely waterproof that don't always use little caps or whatever
0:04:53over the sockets like the mini USB or whatever. So maybe it's possible, I don't know if
0:04:58you have to have the smart connector to do that. There are claims that the current iPhone
0:05:03is kind of waterproof, right? People were dropping them in bowls of water and stuff
0:05:07like that.
0:05:08The idea of the smart connector is if you have a smart connector, then there's nothing,
0:05:13right? The smart connector is just a little magnetic—it's not even magnetic, but it's
0:05:17just the three little dots. And then there's also a magnet—the dots aren't magnetic—on
0:05:20the iPad Pro. And so theoretically, you are—there's nothing, right? And if you did a smart connector
0:05:28and you did, if Lightning is waterproofable and if you did like, you could also do, there
0:05:35are rumors about wireless charging, induction charging, then you know, there are ways to
0:05:42make the phones more waterproof. So maybe? I don't know.
0:05:47I don't know enough about what the smart connector can carry, but I would find it incredibly
0:05:52surprising if the smart connector replaced both the 3.5mm jack and the lightning port
0:05:58in the next device. I don't even think that the iPhone is going to get the smart connector
0:06:02for some time if ever. It really feels like, currently, more of an iPad thing. It's to
0:06:09connect big devices that require power physically to them. And I don't think that there is an
0:06:13awful lot of stuff that you could really put an iPhone with. Maybe like a speaker, but
0:06:20Bluetooth is kind of the way to go for that kind of stuff. And there's no magnets. There's
0:06:25no magnets embedded in the iPhone. No, they could put one in though, right? Well, they
0:06:27could, but then they're adding magnets and then what's the surface area of the magnet
0:06:31if they're trying to make it a thinner iPhone? You know, you're reducing the amount of surface
0:06:35area to magnetize something too. It's already kind of a curved side. It would be difficult.
0:06:42Nico suggested, "Couldn't Apple combine Lightning and Bluetooth headphones into one set with
0:06:48the new iPhone. They totally could, I just don't think that they're going to include
0:06:53those. I mean you could maybe have a... Too expensive. Yeah, you could maybe have Bluetooth
0:06:57and lightning right in one little package. That would be nice if they wanted to sell
0:07:01some extra headphones. I expect that this is probably what they'll do with Beats. Sure.
0:07:09You know, put a little lightning port in the headphones so you can charge them from the
0:07:13phone which would be really nice actually to be able to do that. Like if, yeah because
0:07:18one of my issues right now is I have battery anxiety with my Bluetooth headphones and if
0:07:25there was a way to plug my headphones into my iPhone, take a bit of battery from my iPhone
0:07:31and charge my headphones for another hour, that would be kind of sweet. I would like
0:07:35that. You know like in the same way you charge the pencil. I would like that a lot, Jason.
0:07:41Yeah, I think these are good ideas, interesting ideas. So, but I agree with you that it seems
0:07:48unlikely that Apple would include a wireless headset in the box. There'll be a, you know,
0:07:54cheaper pair of ear pods that'll be in the box with some sort of wired connection, you
0:07:59know, presumably lightning if this happens.
0:08:01If we get Bluetooth headphones in the box, the iPhone price just went up. Right? Like,
0:08:07they've just put the price of the iPhone up. I'd be shocked. It's not happening.
0:08:11Joe Steele wrote in, fake name, real person, "Did you guys mention lightning removing the
0:08:15ability to charge and listen at the same time last week?" I might have missed it. I think
0:08:19this is a good point. I don't know if we mentioned it except in passing, but this is one of the
0:08:22use cases that's problematic if all you've got is a lightning port is people often will
0:08:27be listening to their phone while it's charged and you would need to have wireless headphones
0:08:32to do that in this scenario because if you've got lightning plugged in, you can't charge
0:08:38at the same time, if that's your method of charging. And that happens to me all the time.
0:08:44When I'm in the car, when I'm in my car, I've got it paired to Bluetooth, but when I'm in
0:08:49the car that my wife drives, it's paired to her phone and it gets kind of messed up if
0:08:53it's also paired to my phone. And I've just got an AUX IN plug, and so I'll plug it in,
0:08:59and then I'll also plug in the power when we're taking a long drive or something like
0:09:02that. And this would not be possible with this setup. I would have to change how we
0:09:07do that. And it is true, it is an added complication, the idea that if you have to plug your audio
0:09:13device in via lightning, but you also want to charge your phone, there's only one lightning
0:09:19port.
0:09:20Yeah, it's not ideal.
0:09:22Yeah.
0:09:23So we'll see what happens there. Previously in the past, we have spoken about podcasting
0:09:29and audio production tools, and I just wanted to draw attention to a couple that I know
0:09:33that you've been using recently, which are new and are quite cool, I guess, for people
0:09:38that are wanting to make podcasts and stuff like that. Jason, would you like to talk about
0:09:43Chapters and Loopback?
0:09:44Sure, so Chapters is an app that I don't know, I don't think it's been approved by the Mac
0:09:49App Store yet.
0:09:50Yeah, we can assume it'll be around within a week or so, but they have a website together
0:09:54now.
0:09:55But I, yeah, they've got a website and it's been submitted for approval, and I've used
0:09:58a beta of it and basically you point it at an mp3 file and you can put in time
0:10:04time code markers and then save out and it saves out the mp3 file with mp3
0:10:11chapters embedded in it and so if you're using a podcast app that supports
0:10:16chapters mp3 chapters your podcast will then have chapters and we talked about
0:10:21this Overcast supports this now but there are limited numbers of tools I
0:10:26I believe the ATP chapter markers are being made by Marco using a tool he built for himself,
0:10:31but this is a public. Thomas Pritchard wrote it, he sent me a bunch of betas of it as he was working
0:10:38on it. It is a publicly available tool. You bring your own MP3, drop it in, it reads the metadata
0:10:45that you've already got in there, which is kind of nice. So it's not like you've got to re-tag your
0:10:48MP3 and then you go through and say, you know, at eight minutes, 15 seconds, you know, here's the
0:10:53the title, here's the link, and you build up a list and then you save it out and it
0:10:57saves the MP3 with the data in it and then you upload that file. So if you're somebody
0:11:01who is a podcaster who wants to do chapters but has no way to do MP3 chapters, look for
0:11:07chapters, which is going to be in the Mac App Store. And I think it's going to be like
0:11:1020 bucks or something. It's not, you know, he's going to charge for it. But if you're
0:11:14a podcaster who wants to embed chapters, it's probably worth it because I think there
0:11:18are no other Mac tools that do that at this point.
0:11:20Not that I've seen. Thomas has sent me betas for this but I've yet to actually check it
0:11:25out. But it looks really good and it gets the Jason Snow stamp of approval so what more
0:11:30do you need?
0:11:31Yeah, I mean there are other, I will say I have used other tools.
0:11:36Say it so have I.
0:11:37As have you that are not publicly available and may or may not ever be. So I'm not just
0:11:44using Chapters app but I have used Chapters app on a clockwise and on an incomparable
0:11:48and as far as I can tell it works great. So it's nice to see a public tool for this because
0:11:56you know tools that are private or in beta don't help everybody else. So it may be great
0:12:00that I've got a chance to try some of those tools but it doesn't help anyone else. In
0:12:05Chapters App I can say it's you know, assuming Apple approves it it'll be in the Mac App
0:12:09Store and if not then I'm sure he'll put it up on his own. So one way or another you'll
0:12:12be able to get it soon. So chaptersapp.com.
0:12:15All right, and then also Loopback. What is Loopback?
0:12:20Loopback is a new utility from our friends at Rogue Amoeba, makers of AudioHijack. I
0:12:26talked to them a long time ago when they were beta testing AudioHijack. I asked them about
0:12:31a few things. I said, "Can AudioHijack do this?" And it turns out this was definitely
0:12:35not a feature that they had planned for AudioHijack, but they said that they had something else
0:12:40in the works that would probably do it. Loopback is that tool. Basically, one of the things
0:12:44I've talked about this before, it's surprising to me how rudimentary some of the Mac sound
0:12:50subsystems are. It actually makes it not surprising that sound is so poorly handled on iOS in
0:12:56terms of being able to record an input and record across multiple apps at once and all
0:13:01of that, because even on the Mac it's kind of rudimentary. You can't natively in the
0:13:06Mac say, "Record the audio from this app," or "Route the audio from this app to this
0:13:10other app. It's just you can't. You need to add extra software to do that. Audio Hijack
0:13:16is a good example of that. It'll do some routing and it'll also do recording. Loopback
0:13:21is all about kind of routing audio from one device to another. What it does is, if you
0:13:25plug any kind of recording device into your Mac or any output device to your Mac like
0:13:29speakers, and you go to the sound preferences pane, you'll see in the output tab you'll
0:13:34see all the output devices listed and in the input tab you'll see all the input devices
0:13:38What Loopback does is it lets you create "new devices" in quotes that are not real, but
0:13:45what they are is sounds coming from different places mixed by Loopback and then sent back
0:13:52out.
0:13:53So you can create, for example, a good example is Skype.
0:13:55When I was building the Macworld podcast studio, we had a mixer with four microphones on it,
0:14:01but Skype only ever takes track one from any audio device that you set as the microphone.
0:14:06Yeah, we really, really unfortunately found that out whilst trying to record Connected
0:14:11at WWDC last year.
0:14:12Exactly, and Loopback would have solved your problem in one step.
0:14:18So what Loopback you could do is you could create a new device, a new virtual device,
0:14:22and put all four of the audio tracks, the audio from the four tracks on your mixer onto
0:14:28track one of this virtual device.
0:14:31literally just drag them over and drop them on one and then save it and check
0:14:37the box and now that's a new input it's a new microphone you can use you select
0:14:43it in Skype and now you're getting all four together and you can do lots of
0:14:47other things like you can plug in two USB microphones and create one microphone
0:14:51out of it that included the source for both so you could record them
0:14:54simultaneously because one of the things that the Mac sound subsystem doesn't do
0:14:59do is let you kind of aggregate devices in a clean way, and so you can do that with Loop
0:15:07Back. Some of the stuff you can kind of do through Audio Hijack, but there's also some
0:15:12stuff like Audio Hijack won't let you create a new virtual input. It'll let you route audio
0:15:15to existing places, but Loop Back will let you create new channels for audio, including
0:15:23things like saying "play GarageBand to Skype," which is not something that you could otherwise
0:15:28do, and Skype picks up the input of what's coming out of GarageBand and suddenly the sound
0:15:34is flowing across. So it's a pro tool, I think they're an introductory sale for $75,
0:15:41but in the end it's going to be $100. But again, if you were somebody who keeps having
0:15:46kind of crazy--and at Mackerel what we ended up doing is running a line out, basically
0:15:51a headphone jack out of the back of the mixer, and running it into the little audio in on
0:15:57the back of the old iMac that we were using. It's still using, I think they still do it
0:16:01this way. And using that as the microphone for Skype. So Skype people were receiving
0:16:07this weird mixer audio that was coming out of one of the headphone jacks and running
0:16:14through a 3.5mm jack cable to that little mini jack input on the back of the iMac. It's
0:16:22ridiculous, but that was the only way we could get them to hear what we were saying. So this
0:16:27would solve that problem because you could just aggregate everything together. So yeah,
0:16:31loopback, it's cool, it's a cool idea. It's, you know, it's not for everybody, but you
0:16:36know, you'll know it if you need it because you'll have that moment where you're like,
0:16:38"How do I do this?" And the only answer will be to get loopback or try something like Soundflower,
0:16:43which does similar things, but that's an open source project that has been not developed
0:16:48very well over the years. It's sort of on and off as many open source projects are,
0:16:53and I find its interface to be almost impenetrable.
0:16:55So once you install Soundflower, it is incredibly difficult to uninstall Soundflower.
0:17:01Yes.
0:17:02Yeah.
0:17:03So loopback is much more straightforward.
0:17:04And if you uncheck all the boxes, if you're like, "I wonder if loopback is slowing down
0:17:08my system or doing other things that I don't want to my sound," you just uncheck the boxes
0:17:12and loopback of the virtual inputs and they go away and then they're gone.
0:17:15So yeah.
0:17:17So definitely people should check it out if they are in need of a utility like that.
0:17:21Oh, oh, oh, there's one more bit of follow-up I wanted to do, which is I got something wrong
0:17:25last week, I said that I thought that Lightning currently could do analog audio out, and that's
0:17:30not true. I actually got that mixed up from the speculation on an episode of ATP that
0:17:35they thought that they could do, they could build analog audio out into Lightning, which
0:17:41they could do but they haven't done. So it's possible that one thing that Apple could do
0:17:46would be to update Lightning so that one of the things that it could do was send out analog
0:17:51audio thereby preventing you from needing a DAC in the external audio device, a digital
0:17:58to analog converter. Although, as Marco pointed out to me privately, Marco Arment from Podcasting's
0:18:04ATP, the DACs are cheap, so it probably wouldn't be a big deal for most devices to have their
0:18:10own DAC, although the one on the iPhone is pretty good, and so getting the analog signal
0:18:14out from the iPhone might be preferable to having whatever DAC would be in your external
0:18:19audio device. But anyway, that's about speculation and not fact, and I stated it as fact. So
0:18:23I apologize. ATP is part of my reality, apparently.
0:18:29This week's episode is brought to you by SMILE and PDFPen. PDFPen is your Swiss army knife
0:18:35for working with PDFs. With PDFPen, you will have all of the basics covered, such as filling
0:18:40in and signing forms, making edits to PDFs, highlighting, and using OCR to detect text,
0:18:46which you can then use anywhere.
0:18:48Or you can take that text and put it into other apps
0:18:50if you need to.
0:18:51You will be a PDF wizard with PDF/PEM
0:18:54when you use redaction, word export, page numbering,
0:18:58and even Bates numbering.
0:18:59And with PDF/PEM for iPad and iPhone,
0:19:02you'll be able to take control of PDFs
0:19:04no matter where you are.
0:19:05You can be able to completely master signing forms.
0:19:09You can very easily redact no matter where you wanna be
0:19:13with their apps for iOS as well.
0:19:15If you're the type of person that enjoys living or enjoys the idea of a paperless office,
0:19:21you're going to love PDF/Pen.
0:19:22No more printing, scanning and faxing.
0:19:24Just fill in and sign with PDF/Pen and you'll be on your way.
0:19:27PDF/Pen is an indispensable tool for me.
0:19:30It's something that I use multiple times a week, signing contracts and stuff like that,
0:19:35which I have to do lots of.
0:19:37Without PDF/Pen, I would be spending a fortune in ink and going crazy with scanners.
0:19:44So I love PDFPen for what it allows me to do and because I use a Wacom tablet for my
0:19:50input in my Mac, I actually do really sign everything, which is awesome.
0:19:54Like doing that still makes me feel very important when I'm signing things because I actually
0:19:58do apply my real signature every single time, which you can do with PDFPen.
0:20:02Smile also has a bunch of great tutorials from the very talented Mr David Sparks.
0:20:06These short videos will show you everything that you need to know about PDFPen 7 and they're
0:20:10on Smile's website.
0:20:12You can learn all about PDFPen at smilesoftware.com/upgrade.
0:20:16PDFPen 7 and PDFPen Pro 7 require Yosemite and work beautifully on El Capitan.
0:20:22And PDFPen for iOS is available from the App Store.
0:20:25Thank you so much to Smile for their support of this show.
0:20:28You call it wake 'em and not whack 'em?
0:20:31I don't know anymore.
0:20:32I'm losing my voice a little bit.
0:20:34I don't know if you'd notice that today, Jason.
0:20:36No.
0:20:37Yeah, it's just a little bit croaky.
0:20:38So, it's nothing to worry about.
0:20:42You sound like a professional. Yeah, just as an aside to the listeners out
0:20:46there, if anybody has any good resources for vocal exercises, please send them to me. I
0:20:52would love to know. As the more I do this, Jason, the more worried I get about losing
0:20:59my voice completely, and what would I do if that happened?
0:21:05It is true. This comes up at conferences sometimes. I do have those moments where I realize that
0:21:12if I'm planning to do a podcast the next day or something like that, like I kind
0:21:15of need to actually watch my voice, which is a little weird because what would be
0:21:21the impact of having a croaky voice the next day? But if you have to do podcasts
0:21:25or presentations of some sort, it matters. It really does. It's weird. It's like
0:21:30suddenly we've turned into singers, you know, "I need my tea with lemon before I
0:21:35I can go on. I don't know how that happened. Crumb crisp coating.
0:21:42Jason, talking about good audio for podcasting and things like that, you have done something
0:21:48that would in theory ruin your audio. Yeah.
0:21:52Would you like to demonstrate what you have done?
0:21:55Uh, okay, sure.
0:21:58That, ladies and gentlemen, is a horribly quick keyboard, which I'm sure Jason would
0:22:05not be able to use during this show quietly.
0:22:08What have you bought?
0:22:09I'm very intrigued about this.
0:22:12I don't know why I did it, but I've been intrigued by going back to mechanical switch keyboards
0:22:18for a while now.
0:22:19I have not spent a lot of time exploring it.
0:22:21I used a Matthias Tactile Pro for a little while.
0:22:25I have, um, I mean, I used back in the day and I do actually have an Apple
0:22:29extended keyboard, although the ADB USB adapters are not particularly reliable.
0:22:33And it's a little frustrating.
0:22:35Um, the classic kind of battleship, but the thing is I like, um, I, so I always
0:22:41thought maybe I should go back to a mechanical keyboard.
0:22:44I've talked about how I don't like key travel, like short key travel on this, on
0:22:48the show, like the Mac book keyboard.
0:22:49And I thought, well, um, maybe someday I will explore that.
0:22:53And actually Joshua Topolski, formerly of The Verge and Bloomberg, now doing mysterious startup things,
0:22:58posted a tweet with a picture of this keyboard. And it was this little keyboard, had no 10 key,
0:23:06no number pad. It was a super tiny keyboard. It didn't even have a function key row.
0:23:10And it had like kind of different colored keys on it. And I looked at it and I was like, "Ooh,
0:23:17"Ooh!" I was surprised to find myself really kind of intrigued by that, and I asked him what it was,
0:23:24and I spent, you know, three months basically, four months not buying it, but just sort of
0:23:30thinking about it. And I looked at some other mechanical keyboards. Matthias makes a mini
0:23:36keyboard in a couple of different versions, because I didn't--I do all my pointing with my
0:23:42trackpad on my the right side of my keyboard and I don't need a number pad
0:23:47I don't want a number pad and all the number head pad does is push the trackpad further away from me
0:23:52So I wanted I want something that is apparently we learned called 10 keyless
0:23:59Okay, that's a keyboard term and and I looked at Matthias's mini tactile Pro and mini quiet Pro
0:24:06Which are both ten keyless keyboards there. They're bigger
0:24:09they've got a bigger bezel and they've got a function key row at the top and
0:24:12and it's funny because they make a quiet one that is only in a PC layout and then
0:24:21the loud one they make only in a Mac layout. Quiet is a is an interesting
0:24:27word to use because it's not quiet. It's not it well it's much quieter than their
0:24:31normal keyboards. It should be the quieter rather than the quiet. It's true
0:24:37It's true. So I thought about those and I might yet get one of those
0:24:40I don't know
0:24:41But what I did was I actually got the same basically the same one that Joshua Topolski had which was a Leopold
0:24:46FC 660 M. This is a
0:24:49Korean I
0:24:52Think it's a Korean. Well, it's made in Taiwan. I
0:24:55Don't know whether the company is Korean or Chinese. I got it from
0:24:59somebody in in
0:25:02Korea on eBay because that seems to be the best place to get them is you buy them on eBay from somebody in Korea
0:25:07And then they come to you. It's weird
0:25:09And I've been using it for the last week, and it's uh it's interesting
0:25:14I I bought some custom key caps because it comes with a windows keyboard layout so actually I had to change the you know
0:25:21There's a system setting that you can set per keyboard which is pretty cool in os 10
0:25:25it didn't used to be that way to flip the
0:25:28Command and option keys to be the other way around which you need to do for a Windows keyboard
0:25:32I bought some custom key caps. So I replaced the
0:25:36Alt keys with actual keys that say command on them
0:25:41I still have a Windows key. That's my option key
0:25:44I need to get a blank key at the very least and and
0:25:47Replace that so that I don't have to stare at the Windows logo because why why would I want to do that?
0:25:52I do all the time. I have
0:25:55Microsoft sculpt ergonomic keyboards and I have to look at the Windows logo.
0:25:58You could do, but if I can get away to not do that, then I will choose that.
0:26:02So I bought some custom keycaps for it, and it's just been kind of fun.
0:26:07What I've learned is that I really love it for when I'm in the zone writing, just typing away
0:26:17a lot. It really is great. It is, you know, you feel every key click, you can hear it,
0:26:25uh, you're, you're, you're writing up a storm, you get some almost like it feels almost like
0:26:30momentum or like you're, you're, you're, it's like horses galloping. It's just click, click,
0:26:36click. You just, you're going, that's great. When I'm doing something like editing up,
0:26:39editing a podcast or just kind of clicking around and looking at Twitter and looking
0:26:43at Skype and doing occasional key clicks that are like clunk, clunk, clunk. It seems kind
0:26:48of ridiculous. Like it's overkill for that. It's too much. I don't need feedback for those
0:26:52sorts of things. Perhaps one day some geniuses will create a keyboard that is entirely artificial
0:26:59like the Magic Trackpad 2 and you can set your sound and tactile levels per operation,
0:27:11perhaps in the wonderful future we'll get there. But as it is, that's my thought,
0:27:15is that I kind of like it, I kind of love it for writing, but when I'm just kind of
0:27:21mousing around and then doing keyboard shortcuts, it seems like really overkill. That said,
0:27:27since I've been using it, I went back, so I kept my little Logitech Bluetooth keyboard
0:27:31for podcasting, because I do need a quiet keyboard while I'm podcasting, which is dumb,
0:27:37But that is part of this story.
0:27:40And I started typing on it and I thought, "Ew."
0:27:44Suddenly I feel much less charitable toward that keyboard and I see what the mechanical
0:27:48keyboard people see in them and have against the kind of mushy keyboards.
0:27:53Because while I've been really used to the MacBook style, not the new MacBook, but the
0:27:57kind of MacBook Air, MacBook Pro style, which is also in a lot of these Bluetooth keyboards,
0:28:01of a sudden, I can see that they feel kind of weird and mushy compared to the mechanical
0:28:08ones.
0:28:10I understand the idea of the sound and how it makes you feel. Like if I ever, I mean,
0:28:16basically all of the writing of any kind that I do these days is occurring on my iPad Pro
0:28:20as many things are. And that makes a noise.
0:28:24Oh, that's true.
0:28:26the smart keyboard, right? Like, it's a... I don't think it's a satisfying sound, but
0:28:33it makes a noise. And when I'm typing on it, like, I kind of like that sound. Like the
0:28:37"tik tik tik tik" noise that it makes.
0:28:39Just a little bit of... Yeah, I mean, this is all about degrees here. I did actually
0:28:43attach this to my iPad Pro using a USB adapter, because it's a USB keyboard, it's not a Bluetooth
0:28:48keyboard. And that was hilarious and weird, to have this clicky keyboard attached to an
0:28:56iPad Pro. That was kind of maybe a bridge too far. But it worked. Totally worked.
0:29:04So there you go. For all you people that like super clicky keyboards, Jason has got you
0:29:08covered. Yeah, you can check it out. I'll let you
0:29:10know what I think about it in the long run. Like I said, I'm feeling good about it as
0:29:13a writing tool. It is kind of ridiculous because it is loud and it's very old school. I also
0:29:21just love I love how it looks I love how small it is it's just this tiny tiny
0:29:26thing it's got almost no bezel it's got no function key row and I used I
0:29:32downloaded actually keyboard maestro which I used back like when it was a
0:29:36first I think before Peter Lewis bought it way back when and and that's actually
0:29:42a really great utility that I've known was really great but I've never used
0:29:46personally in since very very early versions and that's been great because
0:29:51it can do some mapping of keys to different things that I need on this
0:29:57keyboard because it's not quite the keyboard I'm used to like the the the
0:30:01tilde and single tick key that's usually in the upper left hand corner isn't on
0:30:06this keyboard it's an that's where the escape key goes so I needed to map that
0:30:11key like command of that key to the command tilde that you do to cycle
0:30:17through windows a little stuff like that along with some more complicated stuff
0:30:21that I've been playing with, so it's been fun to use Keyboard Maestro a little bit too,
0:30:25which I haven't had reason to try for a while.
0:30:29There you go. Beautiful.
0:30:32Just after last week's episode, Apple dropped something upon us.
0:30:37Almost during the episode.
0:30:38Yeah, pretty much. And it's the iOS 9.3 preview. So at this point, there's probably not much
0:30:46use in us going through what the 9.3 preview includes.
0:30:51Well there's a, and I think this is the most interesting part of the story,
0:30:54there's a page on Apple's website that details what is in iOS 9.3.
0:30:59Yeah, which makes it different from being just a beta, right? It is a preview in that
0:31:03Apple is
0:31:04previewing it to the world, which is a new thing.
0:31:07Is this the first time they've ever done this, like for a point release? I feel like
0:31:12maybe yes?
0:31:14I think outside of WWDC announcements, it's the first time that Apple has done a marketing
0:31:20push for the initial developer release of an OS update.
0:31:26And I think it's really smart.
0:31:30They talked about this a bit on ETP last week, so it's worth people listening to that too.
0:31:33I agreed with their thoughts about it there.
0:31:36I think it's smart of Apple, because what happens is inevitable.
0:31:42They release it just to developers, it's a beta, it's under NDA, and then within a couple
0:31:46of hours all the rumor sites, all the other news sites that cover developer betas have
0:31:51detailed everything that's in the betas and speculated about things that are, you know,
0:31:55the next day it's speculated about things that are suggested in the betas, and it goes
0:31:58on and on.
0:31:59So if you're Apple, why wouldn't you own that?
0:32:02If you know that people are going to cover it, why wouldn't you own that?
0:32:04You're allowing the people who are reporting on developer betas to control the story of
0:32:11your, not your major update that comes at WWDC, but your minor updates that come other
0:32:16times that might have a few features in them. And if you're proud of those features, why
0:32:20would you not make, it's not like they did a huge press blitz, but they did post a page
0:32:25saying here's what's coming in iOS 9.3, here are these features and they'll be coming soon.
0:32:30And it's very clear that the reason you do that is because they know people are going
0:32:33to write about it as soon as it goes into beta, so they might as well get on top of
0:32:36it and tell their own story. And that's smart marketing, that's smart PR. So that's what
0:32:41they did. And I think it's really smart, but I feel like that is a new thing. That is,
0:32:45to just jump out there like that, that's a new thing. And smart.
0:32:50Do you think this signifies anything? So Dan and I talked about it on Clockwise, I think,
0:32:58and the Six Color Secret Subscriber podcast too, but then Dan wrote a story about it on
0:33:05Mac world and you know there was some interesting response to that because like
0:33:09Mark Gurman was like oh this isn't new they have had notable dot releases
0:33:13before but I think I think what's notable is that this is new features
0:33:16that haven't been promised before that are being rolled into this version of
0:33:22the OS instead of iOS version 10 and I think that that might be different than
0:33:27we've seen before it might not be I saw a lot of people who are involved in
0:33:30education saying the problem with iOS 10 is that the education cycle happens
0:33:35earlier than that in terms of planning for education for the school year, and that if
0:33:39they've got something that is announced in summer and ships in the fall, it's too late
0:33:43for education. So taking the education feature of user logins, which is something that's
0:33:49one of the banner features that's going to be in this 9.3 update, and pulling it forward
0:33:53maybe is more about timing and doing some education updates earlier rather than waiting
0:33:59all the way until fall, because they've got quite a battle with Chromebooks in schools.
0:34:04So I think that might be part of it. What my speculation was, and I think Dan's speculation
0:34:09is, I wonder if this is also a hint that Apple's going to be a little less monolithic with
0:34:14the iOS updates and roll some features out throughout the year, including new features,
0:34:20not just features that are promised but not yet delivered or attached to new hardware.
0:34:25Because none of these things are attached to new hardware nor were they promised. Not
0:34:29the new version of basically Flux that will get rid of the blue light on your device screen
0:34:37at night, not the user login. These are things that are not things that we had heard about
0:34:43before and now here they are. Or they're in the betas and they're coming.
0:34:48Yeah, so there's slight precedent, right? In the last year, 18 months, there have been
0:34:56updates to the devices that are relatively large things that have come with point releases,
0:35:02right? So Apple Pay internationally, Apple Music and stuff like that.
0:35:08That's why they weren't the minor releases, that's why they got the whole point.
0:35:11Yeah, exactly. So there's been more of that happening, but what makes this one different
0:35:16is that we didn't know about any of this stuff until the beta came, which that's the new
0:35:22part of this right is that it is unannounced so what do you think this
0:35:28says for WWDC do you have any kind of feeling about whether we're gonna get
0:35:339.5 or are we gonna get 10 if you're reading the tea leaves what would you
0:35:38say is gonna happen here my gut feeling is that is that we'll get 10 because
0:35:42that's how Apple has done it every single time before so why not but you
0:35:46know this made me at least stop and think what would it be like if what they
0:35:50did was announce iOS 9.5 and said actually what we're gonna do is we're
0:35:54gonna we're gonna do 9.5 now and we're gonna release it you know soon and then
0:35:59in the fall you'll see 9.6 and then in the spring you'll see 9.7 and that we're
0:36:05gonna we're gonna do some some individual releases over time we've got
0:36:09everything worked out now we've got we can push updates to everybody
0:36:13automatically we can push updates to developers automatically we can push
0:36:16them to the beta testers automatically and then we can push them to the users
0:36:19automatically. We don't need to be in this monolithic cycle where we're changing everything
0:36:23once a year. We can break it down a little further. They could totally do that, and I
0:36:26think that's interesting. Will they do that? I don't know. I mean, it seems more likely
0:36:32that they won't because that would require them to change their ways, but I'm kind
0:36:36of interested by it just because I wonder sometimes if that would be a better way to
0:36:42roll out features and make the process for developers and users a little smoother, just
0:36:47sort of spread out the OS development over the course of many months. They could also
0:36:53do iOS 10 and still have sort of more impressive updates in the interim before the next year
0:37:02at WWDC. They could still use WWDC as the stake in the ground where they make some bigger
0:37:07changes, but also not have it be that if a feature doesn't get in, it has to wait a year,
0:37:13which is sort of what it's been like for most features up to now. I don't know, what do
0:37:17you think?
0:37:18I think that we may see WWDC as the starting point of this occurring from iOS 10 onward,
0:37:28and that they are putting 9.3 out now as an example, like trying to set the stage. So
0:37:36basically from 10 we may see a change. I actually do think that at 10, and I'm just going to
0:37:43throw this out there, I think that there will be a change in the naming convention for iOS.
0:37:49At a certain point the numbers get too high, and 10 feels like a better time to change
0:37:54that than 20, because why would you change it at any other point?
0:37:58So if you're going to change it, you may as well go for it now.
0:38:01I wonder if they're, you know, they probably will give it the numeral 10 if they're going
0:38:05to give it anything, but I think we may see some kind of change.
0:38:08Because like for example, Google from a branding perspective, they're able to put out smaller
0:38:14updates to the OS but give it a brand new name because they just go over letter every
0:38:18time and they give it a candy name.
0:38:21But Marshmallow was a smaller update than KitKat and whatever L was, I can't remember.
0:38:30It was actually a smaller update.
0:38:31Lollipop.
0:38:32Lollipop, that's it.
0:38:33But it still had the branding of a full number.
0:38:36So I think we may see Apple go that route, you know, as they have shown us that they
0:38:41can do and do with OS X.
0:38:44I personally think we're going to see something there.
0:38:46But I also believe that we're going to see a change in the way that OS updates are pushed
0:38:53out.
0:38:54And I think that they will be more staggered, more staged, which I assume internally for
0:38:58Apple will mean that things can maybe stay in the oven a little bit longer, which would
0:39:02benefit everybody.
0:39:04so I do really hope that this is the case and because there will be a marketing risk
0:39:08for not doing big number releases at WWDC every year, I hope that they're able to
0:39:13do some marketing magic to make it look better than it is and personally I think that giving
0:39:20them names rather than numbers will help that.
0:39:22So, I think those are good points. I do think it's possible. I think this is one of those
0:39:30those things that I mean who can tell for sure being on the outside but it would seem
0:39:33to me that going to a cycle like this might might be better in terms of the features that
0:39:39are ready get in and the features that aren't ready can go next time and and just my gut
0:39:45feeling is and again it's just a gut feel so it could be wrong but is that changing
0:39:49everything once a year in one monolithic update and then doing bug fixes for year seems like
0:39:55that would be more dramatic and fraught than changing, you know, having a bigger change
0:40:02once a year and then a bunch of smaller changes at a few, you know, or not a bunch, but like
0:40:06three more smaller changes, let's say quarterly updates or three updates a year. It just seems
0:40:12like that would be more sensible and comfortable for everybody. It means developers don't have
0:40:17to invest all their time all summer long on adopting all the new features of the OS. Apple,
0:40:23So the arguments against this are, there are a few of them. You mentioned one, which is
0:40:26marketing. There's also the argument about WWDC's value being you roll out all the
0:40:31new platforms there and then the developers get them. Taking the second one first, I think
0:40:35what we saw with the Apple Watch development, which although it didn't, you know, it
0:40:39didn't go well because there were issues with the platform not being very strong, they
0:40:42were able to roll out the Apple Watch SDK and all of that and developers got that and
0:40:47they didn't need to be at WWDC. And most developers aren't at WWDC, right? So yeah,
0:40:52Yeah, but I don't think that the marketing thing is an issue to how you market to developers.
0:40:56It's how you market to the general public.
0:40:58Let me take these separately.
0:41:00So the developer issue I think is not an issue.
0:41:02I think the fear that, well, if you don't introduce all your new features at WWDC, the
0:41:06developers, you aren't communicating well with the developers, it's already been shown.
0:41:10Apple has lots of other means to communicate with developers.
0:41:13They've done a good job with it.
0:41:14I don't think that's the problem.
0:41:16Marketing is the issue.
0:41:18And I would dispute what you said.
0:41:20I am not sure that Apple needs marketing about an OS update and I'm really not sure that
0:41:29they need marketing about an OS update three months before it happens.
0:41:33So the marketing issue I don't think is what anybody needs or what people think they need.
0:41:40The problem now is if Apple do not do a full number release at WWDC there will be stories
0:41:48written in the general press about how Apple is slowing down, Apple's failing. That's
0:41:53the problem that they're in, right? Because then these things, they leak into the minds
0:41:57of the general public. I think that's where—that's the only reason I think that this problem exists,
0:42:03and it's not necessarily an accurate one, but that's not the point. That's not the
0:42:08thing to worry about, right? It's how things are perceived, which is the issue.
0:42:12I so I see what you're saying if I'm if I'm Apple I
0:42:17Would if I'm at Apple I would advocate for the fact that
0:42:22And this is a family podcast so I won't use the phrase that I would probably use in the meeting
0:42:27Which is I don't think those kind of criticisms matter. I think that's chattering. I think that's inside baseball stuff
0:42:34I think that the most important part in terms of marketing their products is when the new products the new hardware comes out and
0:42:41And I think it would be much better to have these key features highlighted when you roll
0:42:48out the new iPhone every year, which people really pay attention to, than this event that's
0:42:53super technical and it's geared toward developers, but there's this little PR angle that's
0:42:59in it too, where you're talking about a new version of software that's got some
0:43:02very particular features and isn't going to ship for three months.
0:43:05It is something that's a big deal for our audience and that maybe, yeah, the financial
0:43:11analysts who are always writing about how Apple is doomed, you know, they may behave
0:43:17even worse if it's taken away from them. But I think for the general public, it's
0:43:21the worst event Apple does every year because it's not tangible, usually. There usually
0:43:28isn't a product that comes out of it. And OS updates are kind of, you know, they're
0:43:33very much this intangible thing. It's like, "Oh, there's going to be a feature.
0:43:36Well, do I get it now? No, you don't get it until September or October. Oh, well, why
0:43:40do I care?" So I could totally see Apple saying, "We're going to take a step back and not
0:43:47make as big a deal about OS betas at WWDC and instead build our, you know, extol the
0:43:55virtues of our hardware and the software features that come with them when we launch the hardware."
0:44:00I think that argument can be made.
0:44:03I understand your argument and I think that it's true.
0:44:07That would be the downside of abandoning the huge monolithic software release.
0:44:13But as you said, you could also market the small release and say, "This is the year
0:44:19of El Capitan.
0:44:22This is the year of the mountain lion," or whatever back in the day, and you'll see
0:44:28some stuff across the year instead of it all being dropped in a load over the summertime
0:44:33and shipped in September.
0:44:35I completely agree with you and I take the view that it is possible to manage this and
0:44:40put a good spin on it, but the way that I look at it, that is a risk though still, right,
0:44:45because you can assume everything but you never know how people are going to react.
0:44:49I personally believe that it is that risk that we're not sure factor, which is what
0:44:56could be potentially holding them up internally from making a change like this. But I think
0:45:02that it is more than possible for Apple to deal with this and put it in those terms.
0:45:08But I think that it's something worth watching, and I do think it's going to happen post-10,
0:45:15but it will be interesting to see what they do at number 10.
0:45:19It's actually logical, in fact. You could make the argument that 10 is a great place,
0:45:24you alluded to this earlier, 10 is a great place to say we've reached a milestone, here's
0:45:30how we're going to handle this going forward. Even if the analysts look back and go, "Oh,
0:45:35you know, 93 was kind of a hint in this direction," that maybe that would be something that they
0:45:40would do. I don't know. I mean, we're just guessing here, but I think you're right in
0:45:43saying, if you're going to change the way that you handle operating system stuff, then
0:45:49doing it on a number, on a big number like 10 is not a bad way to do it. I also, again,
0:45:55I wouldn't put, I think there's a percentage chance that they just punt about dealing with
0:46:00the number 10 for a year and say, "We're going to do 9.5 and it's going to be awesome
0:46:05and it's going to have all these features and, you know, and then we'll do, you know,
0:46:10we'll do some other updates over the course of the year and not, and just not call it
0:46:1410. I think that that still could happen, although, you know, I think it's less likely.
0:46:20I think the most likely thing is to expect what we've seen, which is new number.
0:46:24>> Well, one of the things that seems strange to me about this is why did they put a new
0:46:29user feature, an unrequested user feature like night shift in 9.3 and not hold it over
0:46:34for 10? >> Good question.
0:46:36>> I can't work -- I can't wrap my head around that one. Like, the education stuff, throw
0:46:42it in 9.3, bug fixes and changes and some of the other stuff that they've done in 9.3,
0:46:48that's fine because that fits with a point release, right?
0:46:52Oh, here's a bunch of stuff.
0:46:54It's things that we're putting in, little bits and bobs and here you go, take that.
0:46:59And oh, if you're in education, this is what you get for 9.3, this is really great.
0:47:04But night shift is something that's cool.
0:47:06I like it a lot.
0:47:09been a bit of hubbub about Flux but that was nowhere even near like a mass market amongst
0:47:15tech nerds right like yeah this is not something that everybody uses and or wanted. Additions
0:47:23to Notes, News and Health would have and CarPlay would have been enough for 9.3 from a user
0:47:29focus I'm really perplexed about what putting something like Night Shift into iOS 9.3 means
0:47:37for WWDC. So I've got a theory. My theory about why
0:47:41they did it is that there was this very minor in our community hubbub about Flux and somebody,
0:47:49my theory is that, and this is based on no information, is that somebody at Apple said,
0:47:53"Well, why don't we do that?" And maybe even some engineer said, "Well, actually,
0:47:58we did do that. It's not implemented all the way yet, but we're working on that and
0:48:03that's on the roadmap. And maybe they're saying, "Well, let's put it in 9.3. If it's close
0:48:10and you think it's fairly simply done, maybe we should just put it into 9.3 rather than
0:48:14holding it for the fall again." Or maybe there's an attitude like, "Well, we want these feature
0:48:21updates to be a little more substantive than they've been in the past, and that's a pretty
0:48:23good feature to pull forward. It's fairly simple. We could implement that fairly quickly.
0:48:28Maybe we're already working on it. Let's pull that forward." My guess is that it may
0:48:32have been pulled forward because it became part of the conversation a little bit and
0:48:37Apple thought that there was some maybe even good PR to be done by saying look how great
0:48:41we are in you know making our mobile devices gentler on your eyes and that's a little
0:48:48a nice little feature. So I've got some those are my kind of theories about it is
0:48:53that is that you know it's some combination of those things. It's a fairly small feature
0:48:58it was probably already being discussed and it would be something that could be slipped
0:49:01into a small version like this rather than, you know, waiting to roll it out to everybody
0:49:06in September.
0:49:07Yeah, I mean, I can totally see that. The thing that I just find so strange about it
0:49:13is iOS 9 was not a big release, really. There actually wasn't a ton in it. There was lots
0:49:20for the iPad, but that was kind of it. And I wonder what the next version will bring,
0:49:28is, I'm interested to see, are we going to get a lot again, or is it going to be not
0:49:35so much? And if it's not so much, then why did they put a user feature in now? You know?
0:49:41Night shift also is funny because it is really simple. Like, it's a switch.
0:49:45Yeah, but it's a nice little thing, right? And it's just a thing you can see, it's a
0:49:49thing you can demonstrate. But what interests me about it is that it's super simple, and
0:49:54I look at it and I immediately think like you could tie this to Do Not Disturb, you
0:49:59could put it on Mission Control, or is that what it's called?
0:50:04Control Center.
0:50:05Control Center, the thing you flip up from the bottom, you can put a button there to
0:50:08toggle it on and off.
0:50:09None of that was done, right?
0:50:10It's just, it's kind of off in the display settings and it's there and you can turn it
0:50:14on if you want to.
0:50:15So it's not like it couldn't, it could be a lot more integrated into the system than
0:50:19it is.
0:50:20So, for 9.3 it looks like, unless they add features, it seems most likely that for 9.3
0:50:26it's going to be this super simple feature, like it's there if you want it.
0:50:29And maybe it gets more integrated into the system down the road.
0:50:32So that's kind of interesting too, that it does seem to be a very simple implementation
0:50:37to get it in the system.
0:50:39Driven now, people will say, "Well, why not just let Flux into the App Store or let Flux
0:50:43distribute it?"
0:50:44I think this goes to the core of the OS, is that there's stuff that Flux does as an app
0:50:50is just that Apple just cannot allow a lot an app to do that there's no public
0:50:55API for controlling this stuff and they don't like the way that flux I mean flux
0:51:01is acting on the entire display whether it's running or not basically it's
0:51:05pretty invasive and I'm pretty sure that the engineers at Apple said we cannot
0:51:10allow that app and it does too much but this is the sort of thing that needs to
0:51:14be tackled by the system this is a system feature you know not only should
0:51:18it be a system feature but it needs to be a system feature rather than being
0:51:22done by a third-party app and I I strongly agree with that that this this
0:51:27is something flux exists because the OS is haven't cared about this not because
0:51:32it should be a third-party app that does it so I don't know it's interesting
0:51:38we're reading the tea leaves again but it does seem like apples you know apples
0:51:41trying some different stuff and that web page is the best example of it because
0:51:45that is them getting out in front of the story and saying this is an update
0:51:47that's coming you know basically stealing the thunder of the sites that
0:51:53got to make some hay reporting on the details of the first developer beta.
0:51:59I mean the reason we read the tea leaves on this stuff is because Apple do things
0:52:04a very specific way pretty much all of the time so when they do something
0:52:10different it is like a pause for thought right you're like huh what are you doing
0:52:15here. This is a new one. Set up and pay attention. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and they've been doing
0:52:18that a lot lately. This is, this is, Apple was very understandable for a long time. They
0:52:24went in cycles, they had the rules, you could see what the rule book is, and there is definitely
0:52:29a culture at Apple today that is questioning some of the rules, and why do we have to do
0:52:34it the way that it's always been. And some of that is Tim Cook instead of Steve. Some
0:52:38of that is Katie Cotton, the head of communications, leaving. There are new people in positions
0:52:45of authority and I think they're questioning some of the old assumptions.
0:52:48This one, I have to say, no matter what it means for Apple's long-term software development,
0:52:51I think this was such a good idea to get out in front of it.
0:52:55If you're Apple, why are you letting 9to5Mac and MacRumors write stories introducing new
0:53:03features that are coming to your operating system?
0:53:05Why?
0:53:06Why are you doing that?
0:53:07We don't live in a world where developer betas are a secret.
0:53:10They're not.
0:53:11You know they're not a secret.
0:53:12So why pretend that they don't exist until…
0:53:15I know it would be better if you could just deliver the features on the day of and communicate
0:53:20them, but you can't.
0:53:21So get out in front of it.
0:53:22Take control of your own story.
0:53:24And I think it's great that they did.
0:53:25It's super smart.
0:53:26Should have done it a long time ago, but you know what?
0:53:30They did it.
0:53:31And I think it's a really smart move for them.
0:53:35Is there anything else in 9-3 you wanted to talk about?
0:53:39I wanted to ask you…
0:53:42I've gotten reports that people who use the Apple Pencil are very unhappy with the first
0:53:46developer beta of 9.3. Have you tried it with your Apple Pencil?
0:53:49Sure have. And I wrote a little thing on my Tumblr blog just voicing my frustrations.
0:53:57And I want to make this very clear because I just do. I fully understand that this is
0:54:04a beta. I fully understand that there could be bugs. I get all of that.
0:54:08This could be a bug.
0:54:09This could be a bug, this could be a change in direction, whatever it is is different.
0:54:14So now the Apple Pencil on 9.3 no longer is able to scroll UI lists and interact with
0:54:24the UI as a replacement for a finger.
0:54:27It only works to draw and write.
0:54:30Now this is a big change in the way that this is working.
0:54:34Of course it is potential for a bug, but because this is so disruptive to me, I wanted to talk
0:54:41about it and bring it up just to kind of voice my concern.
0:54:46That if this is a change in the way that the Apple Pencil interacts with the iPad, I think
0:54:52Apple is making a big mistake.
0:54:55Because currently in 9.3, there is nothing to suggest any change to the Apple Pencil to
0:55:01make it, to give it any extra benefit. There is nothing that removing this function is
0:55:08allowing me to do. That may be Apple's plan, but as I say, all I can do is say what I'm
0:55:14seeing and what I'm seeing is now it has been decided that they don't want people to be
0:55:20scrolling UI and using their iPads as pen input devices. So that is a concern to me
0:55:29if that is the way it's going to be going forward because I don't know why they would
0:55:36stop that other than a "You mustn't use our device in this way." And that is a concern
0:55:43for me. It seems like a bad user experience in the sense that you have to mode shift.
0:55:47You have to take the pencil out of your hands and do things and then put the pencil back
0:55:50in your hands. Yeah. Where oftentimes you're just switching. You're going "I'm going
0:55:53to tap this and scroll this and then I'm going to draw." I have two theories. One
0:55:57is that this is a bug. Okay, three theories. One is it's just a bug. One is what they're
0:56:02trying to do is give developers the opportunity to decide whether they want to ignore pencil
0:56:09input for things that are not drawing and that this is the kind of emergence of that
0:56:13and then it'll get fixed. And the third theory would be that it's going to be a setting that
0:56:18allows the system to determine whether you want to lock out UI interactions for pencil
0:56:24and only use it for drawing.
0:56:25Because I can see where some people might say,
0:56:28God, the pencil drives me crazy.
0:56:30I'm just trying to draw with it.
0:56:32Why does it keep trying to do these UI things?
0:56:34So I don't know whether that's true or not,
0:56:36but I could see how that might be.
0:56:37So those are my theories is that this is, you know,
0:56:40that this is not Apple saying,
0:56:41no, you'll never use your pencil as this,
0:56:43but that more likely it's either a bug
0:56:44or they're trying to do something that gives
0:56:47either the system or the developers a little more control
0:56:49of whether that non-drawing input can be ignored or not.
0:56:53That's my theory. - Yeah, I would hope
0:56:54that either of those is true, as opposed to just no.
0:56:58Because that's my thing, right?
0:56:59Like if there's a benefit, if there is some reason
0:57:02that this is being stopped, then that would be great,
0:57:05but that definitely isn't the case right now.
0:57:09I would even call for Apple to put a toggle
0:57:12for this in accessibility.
0:57:13Because I think that there is a good use case
0:57:17for accessibility here as well.
0:57:19- Yeah, I agree. - It definitely is for me
0:57:21because for RSI and things like that,
0:57:23is way more comfortable for me to use the pen input.
0:57:27That is my gut feeling, is this is a side effect of them trying to do something different,
0:57:34and that in future betas we'll see it. But you're right, if this was in the final product,
0:57:39you would be right to scream bloody murder about it, but it's a beta, so on one level
0:57:43we want to disclaim it, on another level we want to kind of draw attention to it in case
0:57:48is happening in Apple. People at Apple don't know. You filed a radar, right?
0:57:54I didn't file a radar, but somebody else filed a radar. I sent feedback through the feedback
0:58:00app that comes on the device, which I believe goes into radar.
0:58:04Yeah, I think so.
0:58:06But, you know, I got a lot of that people telling me, "You should file a radar," for
0:58:11people that hadn't actually read what I'd written in the post, which I specifically
0:58:15said I put the radar number that somebody else had filed and sent to me.
0:58:20Very nice.
0:58:21And then I filed my own feedback.
0:58:23So yeah, look, I understand how this stuff works, right, but I wanted to bring it up
0:58:27because I also understand how that stuff works as well.
0:58:31Yeah.
0:58:32Sometimes you have to kind of make a little bit of noise for people to understand what
0:58:36the issues are.
0:58:37It's very interesting.
0:58:38So I'm going to wait and see on that one.
0:58:40It's a shame.
0:58:42Some people said to me to roll back, right?
0:58:44Oh, you should roll back to 9.2 if this is a big problem for you.
0:58:47But I don't want to do that because if it's going to go away, I need to start getting
0:58:50used to it at some point.
0:58:52So maybe that time will be now.
0:58:53And plus rolling back is a nightmare.
0:58:57All right, let's move on to Ask Upgrade.
0:58:59This week's episode and this section of Ask Upgrade is brought to you by Squarespace.
0:59:04You can start booting your own website today at squarespace.com and you want to use the
0:59:08offer code upgrade at checkout that will get you 10% off Squarespace.
0:59:14Squarespace can help you build a site that looks professionally designed regardless of
0:59:17your skill level with no coding required.
0:59:19They have intuitive and easy to use tools that make building a website a dream and you'll
0:59:24be able to create something that looks and feels exactly the way that you want.
0:59:28Squarespace has state of the art technology that they use to power all of their sites
0:59:32and to give that power to the millions of people that use Squarespace.
0:59:37also ensures security and stability which is something that's so important.
0:59:40Talking about stability and peace of mind and that kind of stuff, they back everything
0:59:44up with their 24/7 support.
0:59:46They have support teams across the world and they have live chat and email so you'll be
0:59:50able to get the answers that you need to the questions that you have if you ever have them.
0:59:54It's just a great thing to know that it's there if you ever need it.
0:59:58Their site templates are all fantastic to look at.
1:00:01They feature responsive design so they'll make sure that your site looks great on all
1:00:04sizes of device.
1:00:06I'm a big fan of Squarespace's commerce platform.
1:00:08This allows anybody to add a store to their Squarespace site.
1:00:11We use that at Relay FM to sell stickers and t-shirts
1:00:14at our official store, which you can get to
1:00:17by going to relay.fm/store.
1:00:19We use Squarespace for that.
1:00:20They have great integrations that we can plug in.
1:00:23So for example, we have integration with Stripe,
1:00:26so we can actually take payments.
1:00:28I love all of that stuff.
1:00:29I think that it's fantastic that Squarespace do all of that
1:00:32because it makes it just like a great one-stop shop
1:00:35for people that want to be able to build a fantastic website.
1:00:39If you sign up for a year, you will also get a free domain name allowing you to choose
1:00:44exactly what you want your site to be called.
1:00:48Squarespace plans start at just $8 a month and you can sign up for a free trial today
1:00:52with no credit card acquired by going to squarespace.com and then when you decide to sign up for a
1:00:57plan, make sure that you use the offer code UPGRADE.
1:00:59Not only will you be showing your support for this show, you'll get 10% off your first
1:01:03purchase as well.
1:01:04If you get one of their annual plans, you'll get a great discount.
1:01:06Thanks so much to Squarespace for their support of this show and Relay FM.
1:01:10Squarespace, booty beautiful.
1:01:11All right, so ask upgrade, Jason, it is time.
1:01:17John would like to know which Apple TV model did you purchase
1:01:22and how much space do you have left?
1:01:25So I went with a 32 gigabytes.
1:01:27I have no idea how much space I have left.
1:01:29I know it would be a lot because I don't install a lot of stuff on it.
1:01:33I have the same answer as you. I bought the cheapest Apple TV for, and I don't know how much space I have left, and I kind of don't care, because that's not how I use it.
1:01:45I don't want to manage the space on it, and it hasn't been a problem up to now. But I don't have a lot of stuff on it. I have, you know, ten apps or something like that.
1:01:53Yeah, so it's not an issue.
1:01:55Sorry, Jon. We just kind of are not paying attention to it and trying not to care.
1:01:59I don't put anything on it, right? So I can't imagine it's ever going to be an issue.
1:02:03Well, he says, there could be things, but the way that
1:02:07tvOS is built right now, like, I'm not going to be downloading catalogs of
1:02:11video and games, right? It's all built to not really do that.
1:02:15Well, video doesn't even get stored. It would be the app data.
1:02:19And, yeah, I haven't noticed anything there.
1:02:23Nope, not me. I don't spend a lot of time playing Apple TV games. I mean, mostly I'm using the Apple TV
1:02:27TV for purchased stuff iTunes purchase stuff and Plex that's mostly what I'm
1:02:36using it for right now I didn't know you a Plex user Mac you know I've got so
1:02:41yeah I mean it's Casey's fault but I can I actually have it on a on a server that
1:02:48is also running iTunes and those files are you know I can add them to iTunes
1:02:53and they show up there but the nice thing is if they're not in the night
1:02:56compatible format they still show up in
1:02:57Plex and it sort of saves a step if you
1:03:00have a file that you just drop on there
1:03:03you don't have to get in the right
1:03:04format and add it to iTunes Plex just
1:03:06sees it and updates its library so it's
1:03:09I'm sort of shifting to that just
1:03:12because I was doing a lot of effort to
1:03:13get things in iTunes format for watching
1:03:16on my TV on an Apple TV and now I don't
1:03:19have to because Apple TV runs the Plex
1:03:21app and that works. Okay next up we have Brian. Have you tried
1:03:28Cloud Magic email for Mac yet? If so, what do you think of it? I put this in because
1:03:33I've had a lot of people ask me. Cloud Magic is an iOS app that has recently made its debut
1:03:38on Mac. I haven't tried it. I actually have never tried Cloud Magic. And it sounds so
1:03:46I hate that brand name. I just don't like it. And their whole branding doesn't really
1:03:53excite me very much. So I've not tried Cloud Magic. And I know that it's like, don't judge
1:04:00a book by its cover type scenario, but the reason brands exist is because people do judge
1:04:04books by their cover. But more than anything, really, the reason that I haven't tried it
1:04:10out now is I'm really happy with Outlook on iOS and these days I am doing about 95% of
1:04:19my email on iOS.
1:04:20So I haven't felt the desire to make any change.
1:04:23I wasn't really that interested in Cloud Magic for iOS so I'm not going to switch over for
1:04:28Mac.
1:04:29I'm using Airmail on my Mac and that's doing a pretty good job of what I need it to do
1:04:34whenever I am at my Mac doing email, but the majority of the time I am using Outlook on
1:04:40iOS, on my iPhone and my iPad as my predominant email app.
1:04:48Same for me, I haven't tried it. The Mac version looks very much like a Gmail interface. Maybe
1:04:52I should try it only because I'm using Mailplane, which is a Mac wrapper around Gmail, and that's
1:04:58what I use on the Mac and then on iOS. I am also using Outlook right now, but you know,
1:05:03something that I every so often I will get in a phase where I will have a bunch
1:05:06of email clients and I will try them all out and and then use one for a while I'm
1:05:12in the cruise phase with outlook right now where that's what I'm using but at
1:05:17some point I will look around again and I'll check it out but right now I haven't
1:05:23it's not time. Nicholas would like to know what our favorite condiments are I
1:05:30I like ketchup a lot and if it would count maybe maple syrup depending on
1:05:37what I'm eating it's very rare except for bacon that I would use those
1:05:42condiments on the same thing I don't use them at the same time but bacon I have
1:05:46with ketchup and with maple syrup depending on what is surrounding the
1:05:50bacon I don't feel like maple maple syrup is a is a condom yeah that's why I
1:05:54wasn't sure about that one but baby you could you could argue it and we could
1:05:58start condiment or not. I don't want to do that. A limited series podcast. And I would
1:06:05actually agree with you. Ketchup is my favorite condiment, without a doubt. Ketchup makes
1:06:11almost everything better. It goes with so many things. I know you get a little tomato
1:06:16savory, you get some vinegar action going in there, a little sweet on top of it. It's
1:06:21great. Perfect. There are many great condiments, don't get me wrong. Yeah, all the great condiments.
1:06:25Ketchup is the king of condiments.
1:06:28And Richard would like to know, this is a meta question, and I quite like this, how
1:06:31many questions on average do you get for Ask Upgrade on a weekly basis?
1:06:37I would say that we get probably about 30 questions a week, maybe, I feel like that's
1:06:41a good number, maybe between like 20 and 30.
1:06:45But the participants vary quite a lot, it's not always the same people, which I do really
1:06:50like.
1:06:51always, you know, don't forget if you ever have questions and even follow up for the
1:06:55show, you just tweet with the hashtag #AskUpgrade and we get them. And as Jason pointed out
1:07:00in our document here, in the last two weeks we've been getting way more muffin-related
1:07:05things on the #AskUpgrade hashtag than usual questions.
1:07:08Yeah, I think we got fewer questions and comments than usual because everybody was really focused
1:07:15on Muffin Gate. And also, Nicholas, I see what you're doing here. You're trying to create
1:07:19a condiment vertical. And you may have succeeded, we'll have to see. But I see the game you're
1:07:24playing, "Oh yeah, you gotta think two moves ahead with these upgrade listeners." They're
1:07:28smart. They're smart.
1:07:30Devious upgradians.
1:07:31I know.
1:07:32Yesterday evening, I can't remember how this came up, but I think Adina said something about,
1:07:41"Oh, upgradians happen only once a year." And I was like, "No, no, darling. The upgradies
1:07:46happen once a year. Upgradients are our listeners. And it just made me realize just how complicated
1:07:51over time the naming conventions have become. But how dearly I love them.
1:07:57Yes. Yeah, we are the secret society of Upgrade. We should have like a seal, a secret seal
1:08:04for the secret society.
1:08:05Oh, you do say, huh?
1:08:08Mmm.
1:08:09Mmm.
1:08:10That's foreshadowing.
1:08:11Indeed.
1:08:12What if we did?
1:08:13[GASP]
1:08:14secret, you don't even know what it is. We do.
1:08:18Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade. If you want to find links
1:08:21for today's show, go to relay.fm/upgrade/72. I want to thank again Smile and Squarespace
1:08:29for sponsoring this week's show. If you want to find us online, you can head on over to
1:08:32sixcolors.com where you'll find Jason. Jason also hosts a couple of great podcasts on Relay
1:08:38I.F.M. as well as this one and they are Lift Off and Clockwise and of course you can find
1:08:44a cavalcade of shows over at TheIncomparable.com. If you want to find me online you can head
1:08:50on over to Twitter I am @imike and I am the host of many shows and the fine Relay FM that
1:08:56works at Relay.fm and you'll find a bunch of great shows there, all the great shows
1:09:00as some would say. I want to thank you all for listening as always and we'll be back
1:09:06next week with another episode of Upgrade. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow.
1:09:11[typing]
1:09:12Bye Myke!
1:09:13Is that you typing goodbye?
1:09:14[typing]
1:09:16[MUSIC PLAYING]
1:09:19[ Music ]
1:09:25[ Silence ]