Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► *Ding*

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Intro Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode number 47. Today's show is brought to you by Igloo and

00:00:15 ◼   ► intranet you'll actually like, Stamps.com, Postage On Demand and GoToMeeting. Make it easy to meet

00:00:21 ◼   ► with your team wherever you need to, wherever you are. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined

00:00:26 ◼   ► as always by your host of mine, Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Now Myke, we're getting dangerously close to number 50 now.

00:00:33 ◼   ► Very, very close now.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Very close.

00:00:36 ◼   ► We're getting very close to one year of everything of Relay and then a couple of weeks later,

00:00:40 ◼   ► one year of upgrade.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:42 ◼   ► It's a beautiful thing.

00:00:43 ◼   ► Yeah, pretty soon we will have time for reflection.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Probably not now, but soon.

00:00:48 ◼   ► So this time last year, were you still at IDG?

00:00:50 ◼   ► Oh yeah, yeah.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Yeah, so again, that's a couple of weeks away, isn't it?

00:00:55 ◼   ► Yeah, this is July. I think, so this time last year I was still at IDG and in fact it was probably a couple weeks from now that I got the word that everything was going well and that I was gonna go at that time.

00:01:12 ◼   ► That's coming up. That was a painful August and late August, early September. That was the worst. But yeah, so we're not quite there yet. Not quite at a year.

00:01:24 ◼   ► But look how far we've come. Look how far we've come. How about that? 46 episodes plus a few

00:01:30 ◼   ► minutes of episode 47 and we're here. We're doing great, I think. Talking about doing great,

00:01:36 ◼   ► you took the European countries quiz. I did. Somebody on Twitter said, "I think Jason should

00:01:44 ◼   ► take this quiz of European countries and see if he does any better than Myke did with the US states."

00:01:50 ◼   ► And not only did you do better than me, I think you did better than I would do taking this quiz.

00:01:55 ◼   ► Wow.

00:01:56 ◼   ► Because there are some countries on here that I don't know where they are on a map.

00:02:01 ◼   ► So basically, and we'll put a link in the show notes to the image I tweeted,

00:02:06 ◼   ► a screenshot I tweeted of doing it, somebody tweeted this and I just immediately responded

00:02:10 ◼   ► with "okay here it is" and I just did it right then, sitting on the couch on my iPad I did it.

00:02:15 ◼   ► And the problems that I, the ones that I missed, I actually, I got in my own head about the Baltics.

00:02:23 ◼   ► And I've been to Estonia. I know exactly where Estonia is. Latvia and Lithuania, you know,

00:02:28 ◼   ► I had it right. And then I said, "No, maybe it's this other way, which is the one that has got the

00:02:33 ◼   ► Kaliningrad going through it, the Russian enclave and, or exclave, I guess." And I switched them and

00:02:41 ◼   ► and I got those wrong so I got the two of the Baltics that I that I transposed

00:02:45 ◼   ► and I also transposed and my apologies to your girlfriend I transposed Romania

00:02:53 ◼   ► and what was the country I transposed it with? Bulgaria? Bulgaria yeah I just had

00:03:01 ◼   ► them I just had them reversed and then all of my other mistakes are because

00:03:06 ◼   ► when Yugoslavia broke up it broke up into like 90,000 different countries

00:03:11 ◼   ► so yep so yeah I genuinely think that yeah 39 is not only a great score it's

00:03:18 ◼   ► probably a better score than I would have gotten what what European countries

00:03:22 ◼   ► are the ones that baffle you oh most of Eastern Europe hmm like it all of the

00:03:28 ◼   ► kind of the same kind of one so I wouldn't know any of the ex Lucas

00:03:32 ◼   ► Yugoslavia countries place I got a few of them although I did I did put like I

00:03:37 ◼   ► I put Croatia and Slovenia on twice.

00:03:41 ◼   ► Because I was like, maybe this one?

00:03:44 ◼   ► Maybe this one?

00:03:45 ◼   ► Oh nice tactic, nice tactic.

00:03:46 ◼   ► It didn't pay off but it was a good idea.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Well I think it did pay off because I think I got them right and wrong so that they counted

00:03:53 ◼   ► for me but they also counted against the total.

00:03:56 ◼   ► But I got to some of them and I'm like, I don't even know.

00:03:58 ◼   ► I thought this one was Croatia but this can't be Croatia because then what's that?

00:04:03 ◼   ► And there are so, there are so many, like I like finding Kosovo on a map was, that was

00:04:09 ◼   ► just not, I, I, you know, I did get, and I, and I totally spaced on Montenegro.

00:04:15 ◼   ► I had no idea.

00:04:16 ◼   ► Um, I think, uh, yeah, those, those, I just totally, I totally blew some of those, but

00:04:21 ◼   ► I did get like, you know, I got Macedonia.

00:04:24 ◼   ► That was a good one.

00:04:25 ◼   ► Um, I, you know, I did, I did okay.

00:04:28 ◼   ► I did okay.

00:04:29 ◼   ► The East Eastern Europe is trickier.

00:04:31 ◼   ► It is trickier over there.

00:04:33 ◼   ► So like I would probably get the like the Nordic countries mixed up as well so I think

00:04:38 ◼   ► you did a good job getting those too.

00:04:41 ◼   ► Part of the advantage there is that I have been there.

00:04:43 ◼   ► Yeah see I've not been to a lot of Europe.

00:04:46 ◼   ► I've actually been to more of America I think.

00:04:50 ◼   ► And I've been to probably more of Europe than you then it's possible though you know you

00:04:54 ◼   ► at least could spot Romania on a map.

00:04:58 ◼   ► I hope so.

00:04:59 ◼   ► Having been there, you should probably do that.

00:05:03 ◼   ► But yeah, it was, yeah, that was kind of fun.

00:05:05 ◼   ► I have to say, I was kind of proud of myself.

00:05:08 ◼   ► I mean, 30 out of 39, I wish I was kicking myself

00:05:10 ◼   ► about Lithuania and Latvia, but,

00:05:13 ◼   ► and then I got to Yugoslavia.

00:05:15 ◼   ► It's just like, that's tough.

00:05:18 ◼   ► That's a lot.

00:05:19 ◼   ► Growing up learning geography, it was really simple

00:05:21 ◼   ► 'cause it was just Yugoslavia.

00:05:23 ◼   ► And now it's not like it's just two or three,

00:05:26 ◼   ► it's like seven different countries.

00:05:28 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:05:29 ◼   ► So that was harder, but I know where Greece is.

00:05:33 ◼   ► That's the important one.

00:05:34 ◼   ► - So let's take this conversation from the Earth,

00:05:40 ◼   ► from the countries on the Earth,

00:05:41 ◼   ► and propel it out into space.

00:05:43 ◼   ► - Into space!

00:05:45 ◼   ► - You and Steven got on the phone

00:05:47 ◼   ► and spoke about space for a while,

00:05:49 ◼   ► and it was put into our B-sides feed,

00:05:51 ◼   ► which is like extras. - On the pod phone.

00:05:54 ◼   ► - On the pod phone.

00:05:55 ◼   ► - It wasn't like an actual phone call where,

00:05:57 ◼   ► Hello? Steven there? Are we talking about space? It's not quite...

00:06:01 ◼   ► Let me get him for you, he's just outside.

00:06:03 ◼   ► It's not, "Shayden, your friend is here to talk about space!"

00:06:07 ◼   ► That would be an absolutely great way to start a podcast.

00:06:11 ◼   ► To call and have it be somebody's mom answers?

00:06:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:15 ◼   ► Yeah, sure.

00:06:16 ◼   ► "Your buddy's on the phone!"

00:06:19 ◼   ► That's a new kind of pod. The phone cast, the pod phone.

00:06:22 ◼   ► Yeah, we did. We talked for about 50 minutes about space stuff.

00:06:27 ◼   ► We regaled you with space stuff for so long

00:06:30 ◼   ► on two podcasts in the last couple of weeks

00:06:33 ◼   ► that we decided we would nerd out a little bit

00:06:35 ◼   ► about space on our own and posted it.

00:06:36 ◼   ► If people wanna listen to it,

00:06:38 ◼   ► you gotta go to the B-sides.

00:06:39 ◼   ► So that's what relay.fm/b-sides/12.

00:06:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, it'll be on the show this week as well.

00:06:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, so you can check that out.

00:06:48 ◼   ► And I've had a bunch of people say they liked it,

00:06:50 ◼   ► which was really great.

00:06:51 ◼   ► And I had a bunch of people say they would love for it

00:06:54 ◼   ► to be an actual podcast on relay

00:06:56 ◼   ► to which I say anything is possible and you know we couldn't contain ourselves

00:07:00 ◼   ► and that's why we did it we just thought it would be fun to try and see what

00:07:03 ◼   ► people thought and keep watching the skies yes there's a clock up there you

00:07:08 ◼   ► can keep watching it in the space I really enjoyed it I listen to it today

00:07:13 ◼   ► and it was good because you know I as I said to you both when you were bending

00:07:18 ◼   ► my ear off on this show and Stephen was doing the same on connected went during

00:07:23 ◼   ► the Pluto stuff. I have an interest in it that I've never really explored in any

00:07:30 ◼   ► way but like most nerds I'm just like interested in space especially this you

00:07:35 ◼   ► know Earth 2 planet which you spoke about a little bit that's the name I'll

00:07:39 ◼   ► give it because the name it actually has like Kevlar 4 2 2 B side or something I

00:07:46 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:07:47 ◼   ► - Kevlar/b-side/12 is the name of the planet.

00:07:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:07:52 ◼   ► - The quote, it's official name.

00:07:54 ◼   ► That's it, it's just not exciting or memorable.

00:07:56 ◼   ► So I liked hearing about that too.

00:07:58 ◼   ► So it was fun and people should go listen to it

00:08:00 ◼   ► and let Jason and Steven know what you think about it.

00:08:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:08:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I would say we would love to talk

00:08:08 ◼   ► about space stuff more often.

00:08:10 ◼   ► And there's lots, we got lots going on in our lives.

00:08:13 ◼   ► So we'd love to hear what people think

00:08:16 ◼   ► if they liked it or not, and we'll go from there.

00:08:19 ◼   ► But it was fun to do, and it was fun to be able to do that with the relay B-side thing

00:08:24 ◼   ► and just say, "Well, let's just talk and we'll put it in the B-side feed and it'll just be..."

00:08:29 ◼   ► You know, that gave us some place to put it, which was nice.

00:08:31 ◼   ► So, yeah, check it out.

00:08:32 ◼   ► >> Yeah, that's something we should do more with.

00:08:34 ◼   ► I mean, we're not...

00:08:36 ◼   ► We don't really do a lot of the After Dark type stuff, because it's, you know, there

00:08:41 ◼   ► There tends not to be too much to actually go in there that is already in the shows.

00:08:47 ◼   ► But doing things like little specials and stuff, we should try and do more of that.

00:08:52 ◼   ► We're thinking of maybe doing a big Q&A thing for our one year anniversary, so that will

00:08:57 ◼   ► go in there and stuff like that.

00:08:58 ◼   ► So listen out for that in a couple of weeks time, because we're gearing up to our one

00:09:02 ◼   ► year anniversary now as we mentioned at the top of the show.

00:09:06 ◼   ► I just wanted to mention, I'm very excited, Jason, tomorrow my bank will be enabling Apple

00:09:10 ◼   ► pay so I can go buy as much Manchego as I like from Whole Foods if I really want to

00:09:14 ◼   ► do that.

00:09:15 ◼   ► Excellent.

00:09:16 ◼   ► I can go do that.

00:09:17 ◼   ► You do.

00:09:18 ◼   ► You want to do that.

00:09:19 ◼   ► You do.

00:09:20 ◼   ► I just bought some Manchego with Apple Pay yesterday.

00:09:21 ◼   ► So if that's the case I'm going to be out of the house tomorrow buying all sorts of

00:09:27 ◼   ► crazy cheeses from local stores.

00:09:31 ◼   ► With touchless, contactless payments.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Indeed.

00:09:35 ◼   ► So this is, this is, um, so neither of your banks have it at the official Apple Pay in

00:09:40 ◼   ► the UK launch, right?

00:09:42 ◼   ► Don't you have two banks?

00:09:44 ◼   ► Yeah, um, one of the banks, Barclays, was trying to do their own thing, and they've

00:09:50 ◼   ► now since rescinded on that, and they actually lost someone high up in the company, like

00:09:55 ◼   ► they got fired or something, like one of the chief executives or something.

00:09:59 ◼   ► I was gonna say, where they're high up, just hopefully they can wander through the building

00:10:02 ◼   ► and find them tell them to go down the stairs. I would hate to be lost high up in a bank

00:10:07 ◼   ► that would be terrible that'd be frightening. It would be horrible it happened to me a few

00:10:11 ◼   ► times and HSBC the other bank they that I use they were meant to be on launch day but

00:10:19 ◼   ► mysteriously have pushed the date twice but they are they have made official press releases

00:10:25 ◼   ► and such to say that tomorrow is their live date. So okay so wait so HSBC is going to

00:10:30 ◼   ► be the one that goes live first.

00:10:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:10:33 ◼   ► - And then Barclays-- - Barclays don't have a date.

00:10:35 ◼   ► - Right, because they were the ones

00:10:36 ◼   ► who had their own thing

00:10:37 ◼   ► and so they really loved their own thing

00:10:39 ◼   ► and then, and now they're backtracking on that.

00:10:41 ◼   ► Well, I can't wait to hear what your Apple Pay experience

00:10:44 ◼   ► is like once you do start using it.

00:10:47 ◼   ► That'll be interesting, just different perspective

00:10:50 ◼   ► and also what stores have it.

00:10:52 ◼   ► It seems like they've made an effort

00:10:54 ◼   ► to get in a bunch of good,

00:10:56 ◼   ► have a bunch of good partners.

00:10:58 ◼   ► I know James Thompson keeps talking about

00:11:00 ◼   ► going down to his local Waitrose in Glasgow, which I've been in, and using Apple Pay, which

00:11:07 ◼   ► sounds very, you know, civilized and fun.

00:11:10 ◼   ► The partners thing is a little bit weird though, because Apple were promoting a select list

00:11:16 ◼   ► of partners that they're working with, but it should actually work on any contactless

00:11:20 ◼   ► terminal, which is basically every single major store in the country.

00:11:25 ◼   ► So it's a bit...

00:11:26 ◼   ► I'm gonna do some more testing on this, because I've never been able to really find a definitive

00:11:30 ◼   ► answer but my understanding is even it says this on Apple's website you know or

00:11:35 ◼   ► like you know any contactless any store that uses contactless but they're using

00:11:39 ◼   ► these partners I don't really get it so I'm gonna go and actually try that out

00:11:42 ◼   ► myself in some places that are like unofficial you know like I've seen

00:11:48 ◼   ► people use it in like bakeries and stuff just like if you have contactless yeah

00:11:52 ◼   ► you can try it and see if it works and a lot of times it will work and and

00:11:56 ◼   ► And sometimes the partners are a network

00:11:58 ◼   ► or a hardware provider.

00:12:00 ◼   ► And the individual store isn't a partner per se,

00:12:03 ◼   ► but they've turned on Apple Pay for their terminal

00:12:07 ◼   ► and so it works and they may not even know.

00:12:10 ◼   ► So it's worth a try.

00:12:11 ◼   ► I'm liking Apple Pay.

00:12:14 ◼   ► I mean, I have limited places where it's available

00:12:17 ◼   ► and then I go to some places and I see terminals

00:12:19 ◼   ► and I think, well, I could try this here.

00:12:22 ◼   ► I want it to be in more places

00:12:24 ◼   ► because I do find it really convenient.

00:12:25 ◼   ► There was a give and take that I had with Nevin Murgon

00:12:30 ◼   ► on Twitter where he was saying,

00:12:33 ◼   ► "Well, it's very obvious that Apple Pay is better

00:12:36 ◼   ► from the phone than from the Apple Watch."

00:12:38 ◼   ► Because for him, he preferred it that way.

00:12:41 ◼   ► My response was, "Well, I always use it with my watch

00:12:45 ◼   ► instead of my phone, always, because I think it's easier

00:12:48 ◼   ► to tap the little button," which also made him mad

00:12:53 ◼   ► 'cause you don't tap a button, you push a button,

00:12:55 ◼   ► which I feel like if you do it a couple of times,

00:12:57 ◼   ► then you're tapping on the button.

00:12:58 ◼   ► That's how that works.

00:13:00 ◼   ► But he's a designer and thinks that you only tap

00:13:03 ◼   ► on a touchscreen, I guess.

00:13:04 ◼   ► So I, anyway, I push the little friend button

00:13:07 ◼   ► a couple of times and it's a double push, if you will.

00:13:12 ◼   ► And it brings up Apple Pay on my watch and I go boop.

00:13:15 ◼   ► And then the phone or the watch vibrates and I've paid.

00:13:20 ◼   ► I think it's really convenient.

00:13:21 ◼   ► I wish it was in more places.

00:13:22 ◼   ► I think this is the challenge

00:13:24 ◼   ► all this contactless stuff is that it's going to be a little while before it's everywhere so it's

00:13:28 ◼   ► hard to leave the house with only Apple Pay because depending on where you go you know this place will

00:13:34 ◼   ► have Apple Pay and this place won't so you end up bringing your wallet with you anyway but it's

00:13:39 ◼   ► still fun and convenient and all this time later I'm still really enjoying using it so I hope you

00:13:44 ◼   ► enjoy it. Yeah it is without a doubt the thing that is pulling America kicking and screaming

00:13:51 ◼   ► into the modern age of this stuff. So it's interesting but not surprising that Apple

00:13:56 ◼   ► was the company to do it. Google tried.

00:14:00 ◼   ► Yeah, well, yeah, and Google will benefit now because these things all work with Google

00:14:05 ◼   ► Pay. Do they call it Google Pay now? They changed the name of it.

00:14:08 ◼   ► Isn't it Android Pay?

00:14:10 ◼   ► Android Pay maybe from Google Wallet. But it's a pay and there's Samsung Pay and I don't

00:14:15 ◼   ► even know. There's many pays now. But they all do the same thing. So they benefit. All

00:14:19 ◼   ► other vendors, this is not an Apple-only technology, so all the, all of these terminals will support

00:14:25 ◼   ► those other, those other things too, but it really kind of took Apple to push it over

00:14:28 ◼   ► the edge. Yeah, it's fun. I, I enjoy it. I like, you know, like I said, my Whole Foods

00:14:34 ◼   ► by my house is the place where I use it the most because it's right there and we're always

00:14:37 ◼   ► going over there to get three things because it's the supermarket we can walk to in less

00:14:42 ◼   ► than five minutes. So that's when we, that's when we do it, but it's fun. I'm, you know,

00:14:46 ◼   ► I enjoy it. It feels like the future.

00:14:50 ◼   ► -Stuart has written in to give more advice on shuffling.

00:14:54 ◼   ► Jason, can you take this one before I tear my ears off?

00:14:58 ◼   ► -Yeah. This is gonna be the last one,

00:15:00 ◼   ► 'cause we've got lots of people, even when we say things in the show,

00:15:04 ◼   ► we get people asking us if we know about the thing we said in the show,

00:15:07 ◼   ► which means I guess they just missed what we said in the show.

00:15:09 ◼   ► But I did want to mention this,

00:15:11 ◼   ► 'cause I thought this was a bit of nice practical advice from Stuart

00:15:14 ◼   ► for me wanting to listen to songs from an artist

00:15:17 ◼   ► without adding them to my library using Apple Music.

00:15:19 ◼   ► And the answer is you go to the artist,

00:15:20 ◼   ► you tap on their top songs list.

00:15:22 ◼   ► If they have one, again, they don't all have them,

00:15:24 ◼   ► but if they do, it's a sort of like the ones

00:15:26 ◼   ► that get played or bought or whatever the most

00:15:28 ◼   ► in Apple's database.

00:15:30 ◼   ► If you play the first track there,

00:15:31 ◼   ► at that point, it will just play that list

00:15:33 ◼   ► of the top 10 songs from that artist.

00:15:35 ◼   ► There may be duplicates in there, that is a risk,

00:15:37 ◼   ► but it's not a bad approach.

00:15:39 ◼   ► If you really just wanna say,

00:15:40 ◼   ► "Hey, play me some things from this artist

00:15:43 ◼   ► I've never heard of but I'm intrigued by. So that's not a bad tip. So thank you, Stuart.

00:15:48 ◼   ► And thus ends our discussion of shuffling music in an artist in Apple Music.

00:15:53 ◼   ► This will only come up again if it is fixed.

00:15:57 ◼   ► If there is a development, yes.

00:15:58 ◼   ► Or, yeah, if there is a change in which makes Justin Jason happy. But other than that, never

00:16:03 ◼   ► again. Thank you to everybody that suggested something.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Listen to Adrian wrote in about the iPods and in regards to the iPod touch and Adrian has said time will tell but this seems like

00:16:14 ◼   ► The perfect gift of my daughter's birthday. She's 10 loves taking photos

00:16:18 ◼   ► She wanted to be able to carry around her music and she even recently wanted a Fitbit

00:16:22 ◼   ► The new iPod touch has the m8 processor and he went to mention that he loves to show

00:16:27 ◼   ► I have a couple of cousins around the same age both girls and

00:16:32 ◼   ► was there we had a family barbecue on the weekend and they both

00:16:37 ◼   ► Love their iPads. That is what they are big on

00:16:41 ◼   ► for many of the same reasons like for taking photos and stuff like that and there my uncle works for a

00:16:49 ◼   ► Telephone company a mobile phone company

00:16:51 ◼   ► So there are lots of phones in the house, but they both much much prefer their iPads

00:17:00 ◼   ► But I can see how for Adrien's daughter, there may be a little bit more specific use cases like

00:17:06 ◼   ► tracking her steps and activity, which is really cool that at that age she wants to do that.

00:17:10 ◼   ► I can see how the iPod touch could make sense for her in this scenario. I mean, that's the thing, right?

00:17:16 ◼   ► I think when we were talking last week, I don't think, and you know, we can be correct,

00:17:21 ◼   ► it is so much that we were saying we didn't understand the iPod touch's placement, but more like why,

00:17:28 ◼   ► especially the Nano still exists. I think the iPod Touch makes sense in some areas,

00:17:33 ◼   ► and I think primarily as a game console, but I do think that the iPad is still better for

00:17:39 ◼   ► like 90% of tasks than the iPod Touch.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Right, but this is a good example of taking pictures, carrying around music, and even

00:17:48 ◼   ► the sort of like steps and things like that. I wonder whether this is a common thing or

00:17:53 ◼   ► whether she's a real edge case, this 10-year-old girl, but it's possible. My son is 10 and

00:18:00 ◼   ► just about to turn 11, and he has my original iPad Mini and loves it, and that's the thing

00:18:06 ◼   ► that he uses all the time. He absolutely loves it. But again, he's not carrying it around

00:18:10 ◼   ► and taking pictures with it and putting it in his pocket, because his pocket wouldn't

00:18:14 ◼   ► hit it anyway. But it's just like for him, it's all about the games, and he likes the

00:18:20 ◼   ► bigger screen. And we're talking about as he goes off to middle school, we're talking

00:18:23 ◼   ► about handing down an iPhone to him just so that he's got something to contact us since

00:18:27 ◼   ► he's going to be walking a longer distance to get to school and he's going to be not

00:18:30 ◼   ► walked to school by us every day. So you know, he's going to be with his friends, but we

00:18:34 ◼   ► want to we want to have a lifeline there. So we want to have him be able to call. And

00:18:38 ◼   ► there's this question of is he going to just completely embrace the iPhone or is he going

00:18:41 ◼   ► to still use the iPad and he declared on sort of like unprompted to us the other day that

00:18:47 ◼   ► he thinks he'll probably still use the iPad even if he gets an iPhone because of the big

00:18:52 ◼   ► screen.

00:18:53 ◼   ► He likes playing games on the big screen and I think that's probably true but you know

00:18:57 ◼   ► the iPad is not for everybody so the iPod Touch gives you another another angle to it.

00:19:03 ◼   ► I think it really is a kid's device though.

00:19:07 ◼   ► Yeah I think so.

00:19:08 ◼   ► I do hear from people every now and then who have a cheap cell phone plan and feel like

00:19:15 ◼   ► they've got Wi-Fi pretty much everywhere they go.

00:19:17 ◼   ► The John Siracuses, if you will.

00:19:19 ◼   ► This is the John Siracuses of the world from a few years ago. Now he has his iPhone. But

00:19:25 ◼   ► yeah, just like John, who they look at the cost, you know, data plans aren't cheap. Now

00:19:30 ◼   ► the way data plans are structured is changing. And with family plans, it can actually be

00:19:36 ◼   ► not a bad deal. And if you've got a certain number of people on a plan already, it can

00:19:42 ◼   ► start to make more sense, like you might as well just get a phone or use a hand-me-down

00:19:46 ◼   ► phone, but there are people for whom that is not worth it, and that, you know, they

00:19:52 ◼   ► don't need data when they're out and about, and they've got a cheap phone, maybe prepaid,

00:19:57 ◼   ► that just gives them that lifeline when they're out and about, and that's enough.

00:20:01 ◼   ► And for now, I think that is still an interesting kind of sliver of the market, but I do think

00:20:07 ◼   ► that over time there will be plenty of other ways to get people on data or cheap and you

00:20:17 ◼   ► know we'll have to see. I think that's one reason there's no cellular iPod touch is that

00:20:21 ◼   ► I do think there's a class of people who would say well why should I get an iPhone all I

00:20:26 ◼   ► want is data and I actually thought about that is that if I were a woman or if I was

00:20:29 ◼   ► a man with a purse I could put it that way too if I had a big bag that I carried around

00:20:34 ◼   ► all the time, I wonder whether I would really need my iPhone at all. Because if I had a

00:20:38 ◼   ► cellular iPad mini, let's say, that might be enough. I mean, I don't take calls very

00:20:44 ◼   ► often. It's all texts and using data. So, you know, I think it'll be interesting to

00:20:50 ◼   ► see in the next five or ten years what happens with access to data for cheap, and, you know,

00:20:56 ◼   ► what do you pay for, and is there a way to get fairly cheaply—in the U.S., anyway,

00:21:03 ◼   ► is still an issue to fairly cheaply get access to a lot of data when you're out and about.

00:21:09 ◼   ► But right now I think that there is a class of people who are like, you know, just not,

00:21:13 ◼   ► it doesn't make sense to pay that monthly fee for a smartphone plan.

00:21:20 ◼   ► I actually have a question for you about plans and upgrading and stuff like that.

00:21:27 ◼   ► Oh, upgrading.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Upgrading, upgrading on upgrade.

00:21:30 ◼   ► Let's take our first break first, because we're still not out of the follow-up.

00:21:34 ◼   ► So we may as well take a break in the middle of the follow-up now, because I'm about to

00:21:38 ◼   ► bring in a mini topic halfway through.

00:21:40 ◼   ► So let's do that.

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00:24:16 ◼   ► So, my mom has an iPhone 5C,

00:24:21 ◼   ► which she upgraded from a 3G from about 18 months ago,

00:24:26 ◼   ► which was a happy day for everyone.

00:24:28 ◼   ► Her contract is up for renewal in about 10 days time,

00:24:35 ◼   ► and she wants a bigger phone.

00:24:37 ◼   ► She wants an iPhone 6, I think.

00:24:39 ◼   ► She said she wants a bigger phone,

00:24:41 ◼   ► but she doesn't want a phone as big as mine,

00:24:43 ◼   ► so I'm thinking iPhone 6.

00:24:45 ◼   ► Now, we are probably about six weeks away

00:24:49 ◼   ► from the new iPhones, I think, at this point.

00:24:51 ◼   ► Would probably be a fair assessment, right?

00:24:53 ◼   ► Middle of September, early September.

00:24:55 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:24:56 ◼   ► - Should I have her make her upgrade to an iPhone 6 now?

00:25:02 ◼   ► Or wait?

00:25:04 ◼   ► Now there's no point getting a 6S for her because she doesn't want to spend money.

00:25:10 ◼   ► And to upgrade to an iPhone 6 now in the UK, you can get it for pretty much next to free.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Which she signs another year on her contract.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Because all the phone companies know that they need to be getting rid of their stock

00:25:25 ◼   ► now.

00:25:26 ◼   ► So they're driving the prices down.

00:25:28 ◼   ► She could probably upgrade for free or she could just sell her 5C to a gazelle-like company

00:25:34 ◼   ► We have here called Mazuma Mobile and pay off the contract fee.

00:25:38 ◼   ► There is a good chance, right, depending on how it works out,

00:25:41 ◼   ► that she could do it to a 6S as well when they come out.

00:25:43 ◼   ► She might get enough money, but I don't know.

00:25:46 ◼   ► I'm just wondering. She doesn't need the most recent,

00:25:49 ◼   ► so I'm not sure whether to wait to see what happens,

00:25:54 ◼   ► but like there could be, they could stop selling the 6 altogether.

00:25:57 ◼   ► We don't know what's going to happen.

00:25:59 ◼   ► And then she might have to spend the money that she doesn't want to have to spend.

00:26:02 ◼   ► So I'm in a bit of a struggle because I'm, you know, I'm looked at to get this decision

00:26:07 ◼   ► right for her.

00:26:08 ◼   ► So I'm not sure what to do.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Well I think, so it remains to be seen what happens with this because this is not quite

00:26:17 ◼   ► an iPhone mix like we've seen before from Apple because you've got the 6 and the 6 plus.

00:26:22 ◼   ► It remains to be seen what's going to happen in terms of what's the phone that is in the

00:26:28 ◼   ► US it's you know $99 down or $100 down.

00:26:30 ◼   ► It's the 99, 199, 299.

00:26:33 ◼   ► So it remains to be seen, is there going to be a last year's model of the 6 down 100?

00:26:41 ◼   ► Is that going to happen with the 6 Plus as well?

00:26:42 ◼   ► Are they going to have old ones of those?

00:26:44 ◼   ► Or are they going to do something where, I mean, there are some reports from an analyst

00:26:48 ◼   ► today saying that there's not going to be a four-inch iPhone with last year's stuff

00:26:53 ◼   ► this fall.

00:26:56 ◼   ► His track record's okay.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe not.

00:26:58 ◼   ► And maybe it will be next year.

00:26:59 ◼   ► Maybe it doesn't exist at all.

00:27:00 ◼   ► talked about that in previous shows. Yeah, because he's saying this guy is Timothy

00:27:05 ◼   ► Akuri, he's saying there's nothing in the supply chain, which is a pretty good, if he's right, I mean, that's a really good indication.

00:27:13 ◼   ► If he's right, and it's not unreasonable for Apple to say, "Look, we are gonna do

00:27:16 ◼   ► that phone, but we don't need to do it in the fall when we're making all these big

00:27:19 ◼   ► sales and it's our biggest quarter. Why don't we just, we don't need to launch,

00:27:22 ◼   ► like with the iPod Touch, do we really need to launch all of these products

00:27:26 ◼   ► simultaneously? Do that one in the summer, do this next one, you know, in the winter,

00:27:30 ◼   ► after the holidays, that's not unreasonable.

00:27:33 ◼   ► But if they don't do that, then the question is,

00:27:35 ◼   ► what's that $99 product?

00:27:36 ◼   ► Is that the 5S for another year?

00:27:38 ◼   ► Does that 5S go down?

00:27:39 ◼   ► Is there a 6, but not a 6+ maybe?

00:27:42 ◼   ► Does the 6 go down $100 and then the 6S is above it?

00:27:47 ◼   ► Is that what they do?

00:27:48 ◼   ► I bring this up because I feel like that's sort of

00:27:51 ◼   ► your mother's question here is,

00:27:52 ◼   ► if there's going to be in a few weeks,

00:27:58 ◼   ► that six is going to be $100 less,

00:28:01 ◼   ► or the equivalent in UK prices, right?

00:28:04 ◼   ► Is that a better deal than what she's being offered now?

00:28:09 ◼   ► And if that's a better deal, then maybe she should wait.

00:28:12 ◼   ► But if the six just goes away,

00:28:15 ◼   ► and it's replaced by the six S,

00:28:17 ◼   ► and now it's more expensive than what she would do right now.

00:28:19 ◼   ► - This is my problem.

00:28:20 ◼   ► - Then, so that will, so that, and that's, yeah,

00:28:24 ◼   ► that's the trick.

00:28:26 ◼   ► Since she doesn't need the, you know,

00:28:28 ◼   ► doesn't necessarily need the features

00:28:30 ◼   ► of a six versus a six S, I guess I would say

00:28:32 ◼   ► if she can get a really good deal now, it's probably fine.

00:28:36 ◼   ► But we don't know that piece, right?

00:28:40 ◼   ► Because normally I would say that, look,

00:28:42 ◼   ► in mid September, that iPhone six, base iPhone six

00:28:47 ◼   ► is gonna go down $100.

00:28:50 ◼   ► The question is, are they gonna limit it to one size?

00:28:52 ◼   ► Is that gonna be, you know, the 16?

00:28:54 ◼   ► Is that enough for her?

00:28:56 ◼   ► There's lots of other questions in there too, but--

00:28:58 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, she only needs a 16.

00:29:00 ◼   ► She doesn't put anything on her phone at all.

00:29:02 ◼   ► - 'Cause so if, I mean, if that phone exists,

00:29:03 ◼   ► I have a hard time believing that all sixes

00:29:06 ◼   ► are just gonna vanish on September 18th or whatever of,

00:29:10 ◼   ► you know, when the new iPhones are released.

00:29:14 ◼   ► It seems like, it seems like we're so close now

00:29:18 ◼   ► that she could probably benefit from waiting

00:29:20 ◼   ► unless the deal that her carrier is willing to cut her

00:29:26 ◼   ► on the 6 is really good. If it's really good then maybe it's worth taking it.

00:29:32 ◼   ► Because obviously, like you said, they're motivated to move them out

00:29:37 ◼   ► because they know that this is a tough time to sell a

00:29:41 ◼   ► new iPhone to somebody because everybody knows that the new ones are coming.

00:29:45 ◼   ► But some people don't care, right? Some people don't care that the new ones are coming.

00:29:48 ◼   ► So maybe that's your mom's case and that if she can get a good deal now maybe that's enough.

00:29:52 ◼   ► Like it's possible to get an iPhone 6 right now,

00:29:57 ◼   ► 16 gigabyte on a pretty good plan.

00:30:00 ◼   ► So say like 30 pounds, 35 pounds a month,

00:30:04 ◼   ► and you just pay 100 pounds upfront, which is excellent.

00:30:09 ◼   ► So it's a great deal.

00:30:10 ◼   ► And it's everything she needs as well.

00:30:13 ◼   ► - See that's the thing is I would say

00:30:14 ◼   ► it's that there's not something that nerds should do,

00:30:18 ◼   ► but that a regular light use person like your mom

00:30:23 ◼   ► is not one of those computer nerd people.

00:30:28 ◼   ► And that's a pretty good deal.

00:30:29 ◼   ► And she doesn't need to worry so much about

00:30:32 ◼   ► future proofing, oh, well, if you wait six weeks,

00:30:36 ◼   ► then you'll have a phone that will be slightly better

00:30:40 ◼   ► in three years or something like that.

00:30:41 ◼   ► I'm not sure that it matters or that the new features

00:30:44 ◼   ► that are coming are gonna be things

00:30:45 ◼   ► that she cares so much about that it's worth her waiting.

00:30:48 ◼   ► then again, and see I'm doing it now too, I'm going back and forth,

00:30:52 ◼   ► then again it almost never hurts to wait, especially if the wait's only six

00:30:56 ◼   ► weeks.

00:30:56 ◼   ► So really, to me it's sort of like how badly does she want something new?

00:31:01 ◼   ► This is what I mean, this is always what I say when people say "should I upgrade?" is do you

00:31:04 ◼   ► need to upgrade or can you wait?

00:31:05 ◼   ► If you can wait, wait, because there will always be something good,

00:31:09 ◼   ► something better coming later, but at some point you just need to buy something

00:31:12 ◼   ► and so you should buy it when you need to buy it.

00:31:15 ◼   ► Ugh. My feeling right now is probably to just wait. But I don't know. Maybe I wait and if it ends up costing her more, like I make her wait and if it ends up costing her more then I just cover the difference. I think that would be fair for everyone. So I'll probably take the gamble on waiting.

00:31:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that might be good. If she's willing to wait, I think it's probably worth waiting.

00:31:47 ◼   ► It's just that really tough time of the year for these kinds of decisions.

00:31:51 ◼   ► Because it's like we're weeks away, but yet we have literally no idea what's gonna happen.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Yeah, we don't.

00:31:59 ◼   ► Like at this family barbecue, somebody, one of my family members asked me,

00:32:05 ◼   ► "What's the new iPhone gonna have?" And I'm like, "I don't know."

00:32:09 ◼   ► People expect me to know? I don't know, like I can guess, but nobody knows.

00:32:16 ◼   ► But people think that I'm messing around when I say that. They expect that I know exactly what's going to happen.

00:32:23 ◼   ► You must get this constantly.

00:32:25 ◼   ► Yeah, people think that I know everything about what's coming and it's like, nope.

00:32:29 ◼   ► They don't talk to me about stuff like that. No.

00:32:33 ◼   ► Where we are right now, we really don't have a sense for what's happening.

00:32:38 ◼   ► - I know, isn't that funny?

00:32:39 ◼   ► Isn't that funny that there's nothing,

00:32:40 ◼   ► well, I mean, Mark Gurman just got back from vacation.

00:32:43 ◼   ► So, let's see what happens tomorrow.

00:32:46 ◼   ► He's gonna check in with all his sources

00:32:48 ◼   ► and we're gonna get all the details the next week

00:32:51 ◼   ► 'cause he's been on vacation.

00:32:52 ◼   ► He's powering up for the next round.

00:32:54 ◼   ► But we've heard a lot of talk about haptic stuff.

00:32:57 ◼   ► So, force touch and haptics built in, I think, makes sense.

00:33:02 ◼   ► Better camera makes, always makes sense,

00:33:05 ◼   ► always better camera. - Foster.

00:33:08 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah.

00:33:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, yeah, faster.

00:33:10 ◼   ► Maybe it'll have more RAM like the iPad Air 2 has.

00:33:14 ◼   ► You know, stuff like that.

00:33:17 ◼   ► It's the 6S, right?

00:33:19 ◼   ► It's not the 7.

00:33:22 ◼   ► And so it's the talk in the TikTok metaphor, maybe?

00:33:27 ◼   ► - Who knows?

00:33:28 ◼   ► 50/50 chance of getting that.

00:33:30 ◼   ► - Let's just say, sure, yeah.

00:33:32 ◼   ► So that's the, you know, if we define the Tik

00:33:35 ◼   ► as advancing to a whole new model with a different look and the talk as

00:33:39 ◼   ► meaning

00:33:40 ◼   ► the incremental update within the specs and size of the old model

00:33:45 ◼   ► that's the, you know, it's the S is what I'm saying so it's not going to be

00:33:49 ◼   ► as

00:33:50 ◼   ► big a jump

00:33:51 ◼   ► because the big jump happens every couple years

00:33:53 ◼   ► because the buying cycle right now is every couple years

00:33:57 ◼   ► so after we spoke last week uh...

00:33:59 ◼   ► about iPods you went and threw an SSD into a iPod Classic

00:34:04 ◼   ► or just as an iPod as it was called at the time.

00:34:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, it's the fifth generation iPod.

00:34:08 ◼   ► So I refer to it as the iPod Classic

00:34:10 ◼   ► and I had somebody say, well, actually,

00:34:12 ◼   ► that's the fifth generation iPod video

00:34:14 ◼   ► that you're referring to there,

00:34:16 ◼   ► which is I have, you know, fair point,

00:34:18 ◼   ► except I think we have to refer to those

00:34:21 ◼   ► as all as the iPod Classic at this point,

00:34:23 ◼   ► because Apple, and I pointed that person to the Wikipedia,

00:34:27 ◼   ► the Wikipedia page for iPod Classic,

00:34:30 ◼   ► which includes all of the classic iPod models

00:34:32 ◼   ► back to the original.

00:34:33 ◼   ► It's the thing we think of as the classic iPod,

00:34:36 ◼   ► which in its last generation was called the iPod classic.

00:34:39 ◼   ► Anyway, it's the big one with the spinning hard drive in it.

00:34:43 ◼   ► And I saw that Otherworld Computing

00:34:46 ◼   ► was offering this product that was a flash drive upgrade

00:34:50 ◼   ► for the fifth generation iPod

00:34:53 ◼   ► and sixth generation iPod classic.

00:34:55 ◼   ► And so I said, I'd like to check that out.

00:34:58 ◼   ► Can you send me one?

00:34:59 ◼   ► And they sent me one and I installed it myself,

00:35:02 ◼   ► which was a little scary.

00:35:03 ◼   ► I have never cracked an iPod open before

00:35:05 ◼   ► to do something like that.

00:35:07 ◼   ► And I was using a how-to article from the web

00:35:11 ◼   ► and it did me pretty well until the point

00:35:12 ◼   ► where I need to install their adapter

00:35:15 ◼   ► and then I didn't know which way to put it.

00:35:17 ◼   ► Fortunately, this was like one of the first ones

00:35:19 ◼   ► that they were selling and they've now

00:35:21 ◼   ► posted their how-to video,

00:35:22 ◼   ► which shows very clearly the one mistake that I made.

00:35:25 ◼   ► So I basically had to take it all apart a second time

00:35:27 ◼   ► and flip the thing around.

00:35:28 ◼   ► I had the cable in backward.

00:35:30 ◼   ► And to my surprise, it worked fine.

00:35:33 ◼   ► I closed it back up and now I've got this thing

00:35:35 ◼   ► that is much lighter because there's no spinning,

00:35:38 ◼   ► big metal spinning hard drive in it.

00:35:40 ◼   ► Instead, there's just a little compact flash memory adapter

00:35:43 ◼   ► with a, or what, SD adapter.

00:35:45 ◼   ► It's a little flash memory adapter with an SD card in it,

00:35:49 ◼   ► with like 128 gig SD card in it.

00:35:52 ◼   ► So I went from 60 of spinning disk

00:35:55 ◼   ► to 128 of not spinning and lighter and not gonna crash.

00:36:00 ◼   ► crash, and the way the iPods work, you just plug it into iTunes and it installs its own

00:36:06 ◼   ► software on the device and puts your music on it, and now I have my entire purchase music

00:36:11 ◼   ► library, because like all these products, it's not compatible with Apple Music, but

00:36:15 ◼   ► my entire purchase music library now is on there. It doesn't take any time to spin up

00:36:19 ◼   ► because there's nothing to spin. It's not going to crash. That's a 10-year-old iPod,

00:36:24 ◼   ► so that drive was going to die at some point. It lives in my car's glove compartment attached

00:36:29 ◼   ► to the car stereo.

00:36:31 ◼   ► And yeah, so it was pretty cool.

00:36:33 ◼   ► And so if you're somebody who has a classic iPod

00:36:37 ◼   ► of the fifth or sixth generation,

00:36:38 ◼   ► which like I said, is basically made in the last 10 years

00:36:41 ◼   ► of the big one and the hard drive has died

00:36:45 ◼   ► or you want more space,

00:36:46 ◼   ► I think it's actually a pretty cool option.

00:36:47 ◼   ► So, you know, it's funny that we were just talking

00:36:49 ◼   ► about old iPods and then I was working on this story.

00:36:54 ◼   ► So those both happened the same week.

00:36:56 ◼   ► So anyway, the link to the six colors post

00:36:58 ◼   ► will be in the show notes,

00:36:59 ◼   ► But yeah, I was pretty impressed.

00:37:01 ◼   ► It's not, you gotta be comfortable cracking open an iPod,

00:37:06 ◼   ► but if you are capable of doing that sort of thing,

00:37:11 ◼   ► of installing, you gotta work with some little things.

00:37:16 ◼   ► You gotta have good eyesight or good glasses.

00:37:20 ◼   ► But I got it to work.

00:37:22 ◼   ► It took me like half an hour once I figured out

00:37:24 ◼   ► what I was doing wrong because I didn't have the access

00:37:27 ◼   ► to the video that they posted now.

00:37:28 ◼   ► Yeah, big iPod now, in the car.

00:37:31 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:37:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:37:35 ◼   ► - It's weird to me that you plug it in

00:37:36 ◼   ► and it installs the software itself.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Like how does it know that it's an iPod?

00:37:39 ◼   ► - Well, no, I think so.

00:37:41 ◼   ► I think the, well, it looks at the drive and says,

00:37:45 ◼   ► my software isn't on this drive, right?

00:37:47 ◼   ► If you put in a new disc,

00:37:49 ◼   ► whether it's a spinning disc or this adapter,

00:37:50 ◼   ► it goes, oh, I don't know what this is.

00:37:52 ◼   ► But these things are designed to connect to iTunes, right?

00:37:55 ◼   ► So you connect it to iTunes, just to USB to your Mac, running iTunes.

00:38:00 ◼   ► And you do a software restore.

00:38:03 ◼   ► And it puts the software on.

00:38:04 ◼   ► I think it downloads the latest version from Apple.

00:38:07 ◼   ► Puts the iPod software on, lets you sync your music, and you're up and running.

00:38:11 ◼   ► That's how they're made to work, basically, is when there's a blank drive, they just want

00:38:14 ◼   ► to phone home to the Mac and to iTunes, and then they restore.

00:38:18 ◼   ► That's interesting.

00:38:20 ◼   ► That's very interesting to me.

00:38:22 ◼   ► one of those things that maybe my fundamental level of understanding of computing is failing

00:38:27 ◼   ► me, but it's like I just, if the drive's empty, I'm just a little bit like, "How does it know?"

00:38:31 ◼   ► It's computer magic, kids. That's how it knows.

00:38:34 ◼   ► Yeah, it's magic. There's an elf that lives inside the iPod.

00:38:37 ◼   ► Last piece of follow-up today.

00:38:38 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:38:39 ◼   ► Well, I mean, you know.

00:38:40 ◼   ► Mini, we're doing, these are like mini topics almost at this point.

00:38:44 ◼   ► We took a break in the middle of the follow-up.

00:38:46 ◼   ► We did. For some topics.

00:38:47 ◼   ► Put a topic and a sponsor in there. You know, it was very, very, very broken up today. We

00:38:51 ◼   ► spoke about Touch ID over wireless and listener Shep wrote in with some

00:38:58 ◼   ► indication that this may be possible. Shep says "Apple have already implemented

00:39:02 ◼   ► HomeKit encryption standards that require that accessories use

00:39:07 ◼   ► bleeding-edge 3072 bit keys and curve 25519" whatever that is "which is an

00:39:15 ◼   ► elliptical curve for signatures and key exchange which should be definitely be

00:39:18 ◼   ► sufficient for transferring and confirming touch ID information so

00:39:22 ◼   ► maybe is possible in a wireless device. Basically, whilst me and Jason don't have

00:39:26 ◼   ► any clue what that means, it sounds like that there is some kind of encryption

00:39:31 ◼   ► standard being used with HomeKit to identify that you are the person that

00:39:36 ◼   ► you say you are with the device that you have, right? So it's I assume what's

00:39:40 ◼   ► happening is the HomeKit devices are authenticating via your iPhone which is

00:39:44 ◼   ► unlocked by you to do these things. So if that's the case and if this stuff works

00:39:50 ◼   ► that way it's not too far a stretch to imagine that a touch ID sensor could

00:39:59 ◼   ► send a "yes this is the person" notification over to a device. There's an

00:40:06 ◼   ► elf that lives inside. Yeah and he shouts over "hey hey!" This one's okay let this

00:40:11 ◼   ► one through! I like this guy! He's got a friendly face!

00:40:15 ◼   ► Anyway, I appreciated this note and I put it in the show notes because basically what

00:40:19 ◼   ► Shep's saying is look, Apple's already pushing on a lot of encryption stuff for HomeKit and

00:40:25 ◼   ► perhaps that means that you could even do something like Touch ID for opening, you know,

00:40:32 ◼   ► for unlocking your computer or whatever or even kicking off an Apple Pay session if Apple

00:40:36 ◼   ► pay was baked into a version of OS X via a future Magic Trackpad that had touch ID or

00:40:44 ◼   ► something in that.

00:40:46 ◼   ► Maybe that's possible even though we were skeptical about it.

00:40:48 ◼   ► Maybe it is or maybe it's just going to be something that's going to be limited to wired

00:40:53 ◼   ► like trackpads on laptops.

00:40:55 ◼   ► And that, I mean, really laptops are Apple's focus.

00:40:58 ◼   ► Two-thirds at least of the Mac sold are laptops.

00:41:02 ◼   ► It's maybe verging up to three quarters at this point.

00:41:04 ◼   ► So this may not be an issue, even though I'm using an iMac, you know, most of Apple's users

00:41:09 ◼   ► are using laptops, and so putting a Touch ID sensor on the laptop wouldn't require wireless

00:41:15 ◼   ► anything.

00:41:16 ◼   ► So maybe that's where they're going with it if they go that direction.

00:41:18 ◼   ► >> I was looking at my Magic Trackpad today and looked at the little battery compartment,

00:41:24 ◼   ► you know, the little circular battery compartment, and thought, "A Touch ID sensor would fit

00:41:28 ◼   ► really nicely on there."

00:41:30 ◼   ► That was what I saw when I was using my Magic Trackpad today to edit.

00:41:34 ◼   ► podcast as I do two-handed one magic trackpad and one mouse because I am a

00:41:38 ◼   ► magician. That's how I work. Yes, one of the two. Apple Watch sales. So we're into another

00:41:46 ◼   ► mini topic now. So I know that you had had some annoyance over the way that some of

00:41:54 ◼   ► the Apple Watch stuff was being spoken about in the last couple of weeks about

00:42:00 ◼   ► there was like a New York Times piece where somebody was basically trying to

00:42:04 ◼   ► say that because Facebook don't have an app it means that Apple watches aren't

00:42:08 ◼   ► selling and then there's been reports backwards and forwards about how Apple

00:42:13 ◼   ► watches have been sold and then we had the earnings report. Now the earnings

00:42:17 ◼   ► report which came out last week, Apple's Q3 results, didn't break down watch sales

00:42:24 ◼   ► but did give an indication that watches are selling effectively and you wrote a

00:42:30 ◼   ► great piece for Macworld talking about some of the big key learnings from the

00:42:35 ◼   ► Q3 earnings. So what do you think about Apple Watch sales now past an earnings

00:42:40 ◼   ► report? Yeah so lots to unpack here I did complain about this New York Times

00:42:50 ◼   ► story that was in advance of the Apple Watch sales and basically was saying you

00:42:57 ◼   ► know it's hard for me not to look at this and read it as that the editor at

00:43:02 ◼   ► the New York Times in charge of tech said Apple financials are coming we need

00:43:06 ◼   ► a story that previews them find an angle and the angle was oh developers are

00:43:13 ◼   ► unsure about how they're gonna develop Apple watches and that means that people

00:43:17 ◼   ► are waiting to buy Apple watches until the developers of their favorite apps

00:43:20 ◼   ► support it which I think is a ridiculous premise that people are not buying Apple

00:43:24 ◼   ► watch because they're not sure whether Facebook will be on it I think that's

00:43:27 ◼   ► It's just, I think that is not, no, I don't believe that at all.

00:43:31 ◼   ► People are not buying them for a reason, you know, if they're not buying them.

00:43:34 ◼   ► But I also don't buy that that is in the buying decision.

00:43:39 ◼   ► Lack of apps seems unlikely to be a reason.

00:43:41 ◼   ► I mean, maybe lack of a very specific thing, like, I need an Apple Watch, but I needed

00:43:45 ◼   ► to do this, but I don't think it's sort of like, why isn't there a Facebook app?

00:43:48 ◼   ► And somebody pointed out, you know, Facebook didn't do an iPod, iPad version of Facebook

00:43:54 ◼   ► for years.

00:43:56 ◼   ► very careful with what they do, and quite rightly so. I linked to Marco Arment's piece

00:44:01 ◼   ► about ripping up the first version of Overcast on the watch and doing it again, and now there's

00:44:06 ◼   ► going to be WatchOS 2. I mean, there are lots of reasons why developers might want to wait

00:44:10 ◼   ► and see and figure out the best uses. I think a Facebook app full stop on the Apple Watch

00:44:15 ◼   ► is a terrible idea, because there's too much in Facebook, and that they'd be better. Yes,

00:44:20 ◼   ► a Facebook Messenger app, maybe? That makes sense. And maybe there's a very focused Facebook

00:44:25 ◼   ► that does this, but it doesn't do all these other things. But this idea that like, oh,

00:44:29 ◼   ► well, it should be pretty simple. They should just drop all Facebook on an Apple Watch app.

00:44:32 ◼   ► It's like, that would be terrible. That would be a terrible thing. So don't do that. And

00:44:37 ◼   ► they haven't. So good for them. But so I think it was a kind of a ridiculous story. And I,

00:44:44 ◼   ► you know, Brian Chen used to work for me and I like him. And I am not one of those people

00:44:48 ◼   ► who thinks that there are a lot of people who are very critical of a lot of the things

00:44:51 ◼   ► that he writes, and I actually think that that's overly harsh, but in this case, I think

00:44:57 ◼   ► this is a story that makes this link to Apple Watch sales and app developers, and it's lazy,

00:45:05 ◼   ► and it's a bad story. The bigger issue now is how many Apple Watches did Apple really

00:45:11 ◼   ► sell? As far as we can tell, it looks like they are the most successful smartwatch ever.

00:45:17 ◼   ► not a big surprise. But when it comes to details, basically what Apple says is, "Trust us, it's

00:45:23 ◼   ► doing well."

00:45:24 ◼   ► What do you think about this?

00:45:26 ◼   ► That's all I say. It's, well, you know, so Tim, what Tim Cook says is, "It's not a matter

00:45:34 ◼   ► of not being transparent, it's a matter of not giving our competition insight on a product

00:45:39 ◼   ► that we worked hard on." Okay.

00:45:41 ◼   ► That seems, I mean, hmm, okay, okay.

00:45:45 ◼   ► I've been thinking about this, Jason.

00:45:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:45:48 ◼   ► And I have an opinion which is probably

00:45:51 ◼   ► gonna be a little bit unpopular,

00:45:53 ◼   ► but I've been thinking about it and I'm annoyed about this.

00:45:55 ◼   ► I think that this is a real kinda

00:46:00 ◼   ► big city answer, like it's a...

00:46:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:46:04 ◼   ► I don't, I think that they were just concerned

00:46:08 ◼   ► about potential failings and that because Tim

00:46:13 ◼   ► basically staked his legacy on this product,

00:46:16 ◼   ► I think that he and everybody else around him

00:46:19 ◼   ► decided that they didn't want it to look like a failure

00:46:23 ◼   ► if it was a failure and that they would take,

00:46:26 ◼   ► because you can, they can later start reporting it, right?

00:46:30 ◼   ► But after they start reporting it, they then can't hide it.

00:46:33 ◼   ► But before they report it for the first time,

00:46:36 ◼   ► they can hide it, right?

00:46:37 ◼   ► If it doesn't sell well and then they're like,

00:46:40 ◼   ► we're gonna start reporting this in other now,

00:46:42 ◼   ► then it looks worse than if they do it

00:46:44 ◼   ► the other way around.

00:46:45 ◼   ► - There is a middle ground here,

00:46:48 ◼   ► which is the, we are gonna report it on our own terms.

00:46:52 ◼   ► And this is what they do with things like app sales

00:46:54 ◼   ► and even things like iOS device overall numbers.

00:46:59 ◼   ► There are numbers that aren't in the balance sheet

00:47:02 ◼   ► that they do know.

00:47:03 ◼   ► And then what they do is they release a press release

00:47:05 ◼   ► saying Apple celebrates sale of 2 millionth Apple Watch.

00:47:10 ◼   ► And you're like, okay.

00:47:11 ◼   ► And that's not a lie.

00:47:14 ◼   ► When they do that, it'll be the real number,

00:47:16 ◼   ► but it will be this timed release.

00:47:18 ◼   ► And then everybody else is like, okay, now what?

00:47:21 ◼   ► And then you wait to hear how long is it until they say,

00:47:24 ◼   ► do they say it at 3 million or 4 million or 5 million?

00:47:28 ◼   ► And everybody waits.

00:47:28 ◼   ► So that's the middle ground where they do things

00:47:31 ◼   ► to disclose, but they do it on a time schedule

00:47:34 ◼   ► that isn't quarterly and that makes it,

00:47:36 ◼   ► that casts the product in their own,

00:47:40 ◼   ► the best light possible.

00:47:41 ◼   ► And I think that is an option for them.

00:47:43 ◼   ► I think it's interesting

00:47:45 ◼   ► that they haven't shared the numbers

00:47:47 ◼   ► and it may be that they feel like it's lower than they'd

00:47:53 ◼   ► like, although they say it exceeded their expectations,

00:47:56 ◼   ► but we don't know what their expectations are.

00:47:57 ◼   ► And that's a funny game where you can also

00:47:59 ◼   ► have really conservative expectations

00:48:02 ◼   ► while you secretly think it's gonna be three times that

00:48:04 ◼   ► And then it turns out to be one and a half times that.

00:48:06 ◼   ► And you say, well, it exceeded my expectations,

00:48:08 ◼   ► but didn't really,

00:48:09 ◼   ► 'cause you didn't really think it was gonna be that low.

00:48:11 ◼   ► That's possible.

00:48:12 ◼   ► It's also possible that the production problems

00:48:14 ◼   ► that they had have complicated this so much

00:48:17 ◼   ► that they kinda don't wanna talk about it right now.

00:48:19 ◼   ► And they, like he said,

00:48:23 ◼   ► he said it was untrue that there was a peak of sales

00:48:26 ◼   ► and then it went down,

00:48:27 ◼   ► which is that one report that we got from that company

00:48:29 ◼   ► that like mines people's emails

00:48:31 ◼   ► and which is an insane business model.

00:48:35 ◼   ► And what they said is they were higher in June

00:48:40 ◼   ► that they had gone up, but that too is unclear.

00:48:47 ◼   ► - Nobody knows what that means.

00:48:48 ◼   ► - Because it could mean that the sales went up

00:48:51 ◼   ► because they were unable to charge people

00:48:52 ◼   ► for watches that hadn't shipped yet.

00:48:55 ◼   ► And they very slowly started to ramp.

00:48:57 ◼   ► And so what we're seeing in those sales numbers going up

00:49:00 ◼   ► is not demand going up, but it's the ramp going up.

00:49:03 ◼   ► At the same time, it's also disingenuous to say that,

00:49:06 ◼   ► oh well, it had a lot of initial sales

00:49:08 ◼   ► and then it dropped off, I guess it's a flop,

00:49:10 ◼   ► because brand new product, brand new category

00:49:12 ◼   ► preannounced by six months,

00:49:14 ◼   ► of course there's going to be a huge peak

00:49:17 ◼   ► of people buying at the moment it goes on sale,

00:49:19 ◼   ► and then it's gonna have to settle down

00:49:20 ◼   ► to an actual reasonable number.

00:49:22 ◼   ► So both of the numbers are suspect.

00:49:23 ◼   ► So we really don't know, other than Apple saying,

00:49:26 ◼   ► again, it's better than we thought,

00:49:29 ◼   ► we're very excited about the holiday.

00:49:30 ◼   ► I think, I thought the most intriguing thing they said was,

00:49:33 ◼   ► by looking at the customer experience

00:49:36 ◼   ► and what people are saying,

00:49:37 ◼   ► that we're really excited about the holidays.

00:49:42 ◼   ► Like I think what he said was,

00:49:43 ◼   ► we've learned a lot about the Apple Watch buying experience

00:49:47 ◼   ► and we're convinced that the watch is going to be

00:49:48 ◼   ► one of the top gifts of the holiday season.

00:49:50 ◼   ► So what that says to me,

00:49:52 ◼   ► is maybe that in their research about who's buying this,

00:49:55 ◼   ► they feel bullish on the fact

00:49:57 ◼   ► that it's going to break through past the like super excited

00:50:00 ◼   ► tech buyers to a broader audience in the holidays,

00:50:03 ◼   ► which I think is a reasonable premise,

00:50:06 ◼   ► but it doesn't really get us any closer to knowing

00:50:08 ◼   ► other than that the other category went up

00:50:11 ◼   ► by a little less than a billion dollars

00:50:13 ◼   ► and both Luca, the CFO and Tim Cook said,

00:50:18 ◼   ► Apple watch sales were way beyond that.

00:50:21 ◼   ► So we've got a few metrics of like how much greater it is,

00:50:25 ◼   ► But in the end, I made a chart last week of this,

00:50:28 ◼   ► of total Apple Watch sales.

00:50:29 ◼   ► And it's like, it's a bar with no number and no,

00:50:34 ◼   ► it's what we call a Bezos chart,

00:50:36 ◼   ► the Jeff Bezos charts from Amazon that there's,

00:50:39 ◼   ► look, the bars look great,

00:50:41 ◼   ► but we won't tell you what they mean.

00:50:42 ◼   ► It's a little like that.

00:50:43 ◼   ► We're in this really hazy situation

00:50:45 ◼   ► where Apple kind of doesn't wanna talk about it,

00:50:47 ◼   ► which is a little bit suspicious to me.

00:50:49 ◼   ► I feel like Apple is really good at blowing its own horn

00:50:52 ◼   ► and it sort of didn't do that here.

00:50:54 ◼   ► But at the same time, it is this new category

00:50:58 ◼   ► and they are undoubtedly by far

00:51:02 ◼   ► the most successful smartwatch ever already.

00:51:05 ◼   ► But what does that mean for the future?

00:51:08 ◼   ► And does it mean anything?

00:51:11 ◼   ► It's just a whole lot of hazy stuff

00:51:13 ◼   ► and not a lot of tangible information

00:51:16 ◼   ► about the watch right now.

00:51:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think just as I've been talking about it

00:51:20 ◼   ► and thinking about it,

00:51:21 ◼   ► I think I'm finding myself as frustrated with this

00:51:23 ◼   ► as I get with Jeff Bezos.

00:51:25 ◼   ► And the Kindle graphs that mean nothing.

00:51:28 ◼   ► Where it's like, yeah, no, there definitely was money.

00:51:31 ◼   ► So they're like, oh, there was loads of money.

00:51:33 ◼   ► But it's more money than you think there is money.

00:51:36 ◼   ► Like that's kind of the answer, right?

00:51:37 ◼   ► Where it's like, oh, the money went up,

00:51:39 ◼   ► but other things in that category went down.

00:51:42 ◼   ► So it's even more than you think.

00:51:43 ◼   ► We're just not gonna tell you.

00:51:44 ◼   ► Like it's like, either do it or don't do it.

00:51:47 ◼   ► And I just, I do feel like that just the reason for this

00:51:51 ◼   ► was they were just a little bit like,

00:51:53 ◼   ► we're not sure how this is gonna go,

00:51:55 ◼   ► so why don't we just play our cards

00:51:58 ◼   ► to our chest for a while?

00:51:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it did lead to a very funny moment

00:52:04 ◼   ► for me anyway, where in order to pump up

00:52:08 ◼   ► how well the watch was doing,

00:52:10 ◼   ► they said, well, that other category,

00:52:12 ◼   ► but you know that includes iPods, and those suck.

00:52:14 ◼   ► Those are falling through the floor.

00:52:16 ◼   ► So, you know, don't just assume that it's just even there,

00:52:20 ◼   ► 'cause I assure you some of those other categories,

00:52:22 ◼   ► like iPods and accessories, man, those were down,

00:52:26 ◼   ► those stunk.

00:52:26 ◼   ► So it's like they're throwing other stuff,

00:52:29 ◼   ► you know, out into the street because they wanna be like,

00:52:33 ◼   ► yeah, but the watch was doing great.

00:52:35 ◼   ► So yeah, they were shifty.

00:52:36 ◼   ► I think that's the bottom line here is they were shifty.

00:52:38 ◼   ► They're not ready to talk about it yet.

00:52:40 ◼   ► And how much of that is that they're not ready to,

00:52:44 ◼   ► they don't feel proud enough of the information now,

00:52:48 ◼   ► how much of that is strategic.

00:52:50 ◼   ► I don't know, but it is interesting that they're being kind of shifty about it and they don't

00:52:56 ◼   ► want to disclose and they don't have to because, I mean, the fact is, if Apple could, they

00:53:00 ◼   ► wouldn't do quarterly reports and tell you about how many phones they're selling either,

00:53:04 ◼   ► but they have to because they're a public company.

00:53:06 ◼   ► So it's like this is our chance to see facts about Apple's business that Apple would rather

00:53:12 ◼   ► not share.

00:53:13 ◼   ► Why do they have to tell us how many phones they sold and they don't have to tell us how

00:53:16 ◼   ► many watches they sold?

00:53:18 ◼   ► - Well, they make decisions about their main,

00:53:20 ◼   ► I think it would be very difficult for a public company

00:53:22 ◼   ► to have its most popular product

00:53:24 ◼   ► not be broken out in their financial lines.

00:53:27 ◼   ► But they have some latitude there.

00:53:29 ◼   ► For a brand new product category like this,

00:53:31 ◼   ► they've just put it,

00:53:32 ◼   ► it's just like the iPods have been sort of sucked back

00:53:35 ◼   ► into other now because it's just not relevant

00:53:36 ◼   ► and they did that.

00:53:37 ◼   ► But it's hard, they've got to recalculate

00:53:39 ◼   ► all of their finances when they put in a new category.

00:53:43 ◼   ► But they did it for the iPad, right?

00:53:44 ◼   ► And they haven't done it for the watch yet.

00:53:46 ◼   ► and they might, they might do a restated earnings

00:53:51 ◼   ► and put it in with, put a watch category on its own

00:53:54 ◼   ► next year, they might do that, they might not.

00:53:57 ◼   ► It is sort of an iPhone accessory,

00:53:59 ◼   ► so maybe they prefer to just to keep it that way.

00:54:02 ◼   ► But so they have some latitude,

00:54:04 ◼   ► but they do need to report about the structure

00:54:06 ◼   ► of their business to their investors.

00:54:09 ◼   ► And, you know, I do believe that if they had their druthers,

00:54:13 ◼   ► they wouldn't, you know, that's Apple.

00:54:16 ◼   ► but they have to say, they have to tell us some things, but they don't have to tell us everything.

00:54:19 ◼   ► I'm upset about something else. Oh, yes? But we can talk about that after this break.

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00:57:24 ◼   ► Okay Jason so this is something that I've been toying about discussing but it's got

00:57:31 ◼   ► to the point now where I want to talk about it, which is ad blockers and Safari content

00:57:35 ◼   ► blockers.

00:57:36 ◼   ► So...

00:57:37 ◼   ► And this is a little bit of follow-out in a way, isn't it?

00:57:39 ◼   ► Yeah, because you and Mr. Gruber had a great discussion about this on the talk show last

00:57:44 ◼   ► week.

00:57:45 ◼   ► Really fantastic episode talking about, like, the business that goes into these companies,

00:57:50 ◼   ► you know, and kind of web advertising, how horrible it's become, and why some of that

00:57:55 ◼   ► worked.

00:57:56 ◼   ► And you gave some of the great insight of working at a company like IDG, which I always

00:57:59 ◼   ► love whenever you're on a talk show there are always these great discussions

00:58:03 ◼   ► I just find them so fascinating where you and John talk about this with both

00:58:07 ◼   ► of your experience having worked in the web for so long. A lot of people are

00:58:11 ◼   ► upset about this for varying different reasons and a lot of it seems to be

00:58:16 ◼   ► focused towards the verge because I mean it previously it was focused on iMore

00:58:22 ◼   ► right that was where this conversation started then it became a bit of a hot

00:58:27 ◼   ► button issue. Neil I Patel wrote an article which definitely holds some

00:58:33 ◼   ► merit about why the mobile web sucks and this basically crossed the bar that like

00:58:39 ◼   ► the barrier between complaining about websites and ads and also complaining

00:58:44 ◼   ► about this Safari is the new IE thing. So Neil I was was you know in the post he

00:58:49 ◼   ► says about how the verge is part of a problem and ad networks are a bit of an

00:58:54 ◼   ► issue and he talks about more though about how different platforms supporting

00:58:59 ◼   ► different things and phones and tablets are worse off than the desktop in this

00:59:04 ◼   ► scenario. What this did was make a bunch of people lash out against the Verge for

00:59:11 ◼   ► their position on this and there are lots of studies done and lots of

00:59:15 ◼   ► statistics done. Some correct, some otherwise about how long it takes the

00:59:21 ◼   ► Verge's articles to load. I saw again a great post linked by Nilay in retort to

00:59:30 ◼   ► this. So basically the Verge, people saying how long it takes like it takes

00:59:33 ◼   ► 30 seconds for the Verge to load, 263 HTTP requests, it fetched over 9.5 megabytes

00:59:39 ◼   ► of data for that was for that article that Nilay was using to

00:59:43 ◼   ► complain about the mobile web, right? So saying you're saying this but look how

00:59:47 ◼   ► terrible your website is. Then in retort to this I'm basically giving the whole

00:59:50 ◼   ► story here. Then in retort to this, uh,

00:59:53 ◼   ► Neil I tweeted a link to a forum post from one of Vox media's people where they

00:59:58 ◼   ► said, where they said, well, you were not on a mobile,

01:00:02 ◼   ► and if you were loading it on mobile, it would have only been like six megabytes,

01:00:06 ◼   ► which was still a ridiculously large amount.

01:00:09 ◼   ► And they, they, he admits to the fact that it is still bad. It's not as bad,

01:00:13 ◼   ► but it's still bad. And you know,

01:00:15 ◼   ► that seems to be the biggest, the basis of their argument here is yes, we know,

01:00:18 ◼   ► we know we suck but we don't suck as bad as you think we suck yeah and then saying

01:00:22 ◼   ► that saying that they're getting better and they've had other focuses the

01:00:30 ◼   ► different websites launch stuff like that they're a company and they're

01:00:33 ◼   ► saying they have different priorities this is now becoming a priority so we

01:00:40 ◼   ► at the moment there's a lot of talk about this and now there is a lot of

01:00:47 ◼   ► discussion about people installing ad blockers. And I saw Marco was tweeting

01:00:55 ◼   ► about this and wrote in a link post that he is installing an ad blocker and I'm

01:00:59 ◼   ► seeing many other people that I follow on Twitter do this and people saying that

01:01:02 ◼   ► they're looking forward to the Safari content blocker things so they can

01:01:06 ◼   ► finally fix the issues that they're seeing on mobile. So what I wanted to

01:01:12 ◼   ► talk about is how I feel about this situation.

01:01:16 ◼   ► Relay your feels, Myke.

01:01:18 ◼   ► I'm going to.

01:01:19 ◼   ► This makes me very uncomfortable

01:01:22 ◼   ► because I feel bad for the people that work at these sites

01:01:26 ◼   ► because where we are now is basically a lot of people

01:01:34 ◼   ► crying foul against these websites and saying that,

01:01:38 ◼   ► you know, it's time for this to die.

01:01:41 ◼   ► seeing a lot of this kind of thing. And that advertising on the web needs to be

01:01:45 ◼   ► burned down to the ground and restarted and that kind of thing. And I understand

01:01:51 ◼   ► this and I mean I get as frustrated as many people do about web ads. They do suck

01:01:57 ◼   ► in a lot of ways but I'm just there's just something that I'm not comfortable

01:02:00 ◼   ► in that people saying that it needs to change completely because for things to

01:02:05 ◼   ► change I don't like the idea of the collateral damage of this being the

01:02:09 ◼   ► livelihoods of people that have no say in how the advertising is served because

01:02:13 ◼   ► fundamentally that's what it is and you know because basically by saying you

01:02:17 ◼   ► want this to go away and to die it's gonna kill off a bunch of websites a

01:02:21 ◼   ► bunch of websites that are reputable or it's going to cut the profits of a bunch

01:02:24 ◼   ► of websites which ultimately means people will lose their jobs and the

01:02:28 ◼   ► thing is it's like it's not their fault it's not even the company's like the

01:02:32 ◼   ► website company I don't even think it's like the verge and I am or it's not

01:02:35 ◼   ► their fault, this is just the market that they're in. And I admit that my current

01:02:40 ◼   ► form of employment is the reason that it's swaying my opinion this way because

01:02:45 ◼   ► we work on advertising here. I think the feeling about podcast advertising is

01:02:49 ◼   ► very different. I mean people get annoyed at it because it's advertising in and of

01:02:54 ◼   ► itself and some people just hate advertising. But I don't think it's

01:02:57 ◼   ► hated as much as web advertising because it's less intrusive, you can skip it if

01:03:01 ◼   ► you want to, and we try and do our best to pick advertisers. It's one of the

01:03:06 ◼   ► reasons that now at Relay FM we do all of our own advertising because we can

01:03:10 ◼   ► choose who we want, right? So there are ad networks but we don't use them.

01:03:17 ◼   ► So that's how I feel about this, and there is just this feeling to

01:03:25 ◼   ► me which makes me uncomfortable of the idea that this means people's livelihoods

01:03:29 ◼   ► go away and that makes me feel uncomfortable.

01:03:33 ◼   ► So that's how I feel, Jason.

01:03:34 ◼   ► - I get it.

01:03:36 ◼   ► A couple things that I wanted to mention

01:03:39 ◼   ► based on what you were saying there.

01:03:41 ◼   ► One is I get the feeling that you feel bad

01:03:46 ◼   ► for people who are going to be affected by this.

01:03:48 ◼   ► And I share that, I mean, I lived this, right?

01:03:52 ◼   ► I lived this.

01:03:53 ◼   ► Everybody who worked at Macworld,

01:03:54 ◼   ► and I think still, but I can't speak to that

01:03:56 ◼   ► because I'm not on the inside anymore.

01:03:59 ◼   ► everybody who worked at Macworld and IDG in general,

01:04:01 ◼   ► you know, the Macworld staff really,

01:04:05 ◼   ► they hated the increasingly crappy ads

01:04:09 ◼   ► and pre-roll videos and intercept ads and popover ads

01:04:14 ◼   ► and all of these things that kept getting added.

01:04:16 ◼   ► And so you feel bad for them.

01:04:17 ◼   ► And yet, you know, at the same time, the ad blocker thing,

01:04:21 ◼   ► you're losing all those ad impressions.

01:04:24 ◼   ► And those are ultimately the way

01:04:25 ◼   ► that their salaries get paid.

01:04:28 ◼   ► So you can feel bad for them.

01:04:29 ◼   ► At the same time, there are lots of professions

01:04:34 ◼   ► and industries that change because technology changes

01:04:39 ◼   ► and because people's habits change.

01:04:40 ◼   ► And this is like, I feel bad for the steel workers.

01:04:45 ◼   ► I feel bad for the people who used, for the milkmen,

01:04:52 ◼   ► but we don't have milkmen anymore.

01:04:55 ◼   ► You can feel bad for them, but also say,

01:04:58 ◼   ► I feel bad for the milkman, but I bought a refrigerator and my life is better because

01:05:02 ◼   ► I brought a refrigerator."

01:05:04 ◼   ► And you can feel bad for them without saying, "I'm going to hope that everybody forgoes

01:05:09 ◼   ► this inevitable progress, this inevitable change, because otherwise it'll hurt people

01:05:15 ◼   ► we like and we'll feel bad."

01:05:16 ◼   ► That just sort of, I think you can't fight it and you can still feel bad about it, but

01:05:22 ◼   ► that's not enough.

01:05:23 ◼   ► think that one of the parts of the story here is that this is an example of the web, not

01:05:29 ◼   ► -- it's not any one person's fault, but this is the problem of web advertising, that the

01:05:35 ◼   ► web was built as this thing that you had to give away for free, everything was free, and

01:05:40 ◼   ► that it became very difficult to make businesses out of it, especially as the web became successful

01:05:46 ◼   ► and the other traditional, older kind of businesses that funded a lot of this stuff went away

01:05:51 ◼   ► because the web finally kind of ate their lunch

01:05:53 ◼   ► and took all their ad revenue away.

01:05:55 ◼   ► And the world of advertising on the web,

01:05:58 ◼   ► it's been this vicious cycle where there's,

01:06:02 ◼   ► people stop paying attention to the ads

01:06:04 ◼   ► so they add more junk.

01:06:05 ◼   ► And then people stop paying attention to the ads

01:06:07 ◼   ► so they add more junk and there's more junk.

01:06:08 ◼   ► And then people stop wanting to read the sites

01:06:10 ◼   ► because there's too much junk

01:06:11 ◼   ► or people download an ad blocker.

01:06:13 ◼   ► And so I think there's an inevitability here too

01:06:16 ◼   ► of this the current world of web ads falling apart

01:06:20 ◼   ► for all but the biggest publishers,

01:06:23 ◼   ► because the prices go down and the junk goes up

01:06:29 ◼   ► and people are, and the technology gets more savvy

01:06:32 ◼   ► to block that stuff.

01:06:33 ◼   ► And I think it may not be something that we can say,

01:06:38 ◼   ► I wouldn't choose this.

01:06:39 ◼   ► I feel like it's just going to happen,

01:06:41 ◼   ► that the way that advertising on the web works right now

01:06:45 ◼   ► is just broken.

01:06:50 ◼   ► and I'm not sure how it gets fixed or if it gets fixed.

01:06:54 ◼   ► The shame of it is--

01:06:55 ◼   ► - I don't agree with you there.

01:06:56 ◼   ► I have to-- - Okay, go ahead.

01:06:58 ◼   ► - In the idea of we don't choose this,

01:07:00 ◼   ► people are choosing.

01:07:01 ◼   ► Ad blockers are not an organic thing, right?

01:07:05 ◼   ► It's not a thing that happens to your computer.

01:07:08 ◼   ► People are now making the choice

01:07:10 ◼   ► that they want these websites to make this money.

01:07:13 ◼   ► - What I'm saying is the websites are complicit

01:07:17 ◼   ► because the websites are filling their pages with junk

01:07:19 ◼   ► and making them hard to load.

01:07:20 ◼   ► And if you load a webpage on mobile,

01:07:22 ◼   ► sometimes you've got like multiple things

01:07:24 ◼   ► overlaying the content that you have to try and tap

01:07:26 ◼   ► and then you tap them.

01:07:27 ◼   ► And it takes you away from that page

01:07:29 ◼   ► to the thing that's being advertised instead.

01:07:31 ◼   ► And you get really frustrated and you go back.

01:07:32 ◼   ► All that is happening.

01:07:34 ◼   ► - I also do hate this stuff.

01:07:35 ◼   ► - That's what you can't control.

01:07:36 ◼   ► That's what you can't control is that that's where the web,

01:07:39 ◼   ► the world of web advertising is pushing.

01:07:41 ◼   ► How do we make money off of people on mobile?

01:07:43 ◼   ► There are way more people on mobile than on desktops,

01:07:45 ◼   ► but we can't make money there.

01:07:46 ◼   ► How do we do that?

01:07:47 ◼   ► And they keep pushing and pushing

01:07:49 ◼   ► and degrading the experience on desktop and on mobile, which I think does drive people

01:07:54 ◼   ► to get frustrated and drives the development of content blockers and ad blockers, and that's

01:07:59 ◼   ► part of what's going on here. So I do think that's part of it. And, you know, the web

01:08:05 ◼   ► brought this on itself because of the way that it's been built all along, you know,

01:08:10 ◼   ► and the fact that the reaction to this stuff is, "Let's put more junk on the pages."

01:08:14 ◼   ► That this is sort of—we've reached this point that it's very difficult. There's

01:08:17 ◼   ► There's a huge competition. I mean, I always cite Ben Thompson here from Stratechery and

01:08:22 ◼   ► his writing about the smiling curve in publishing, where you either go for volume or you go for

01:08:27 ◼   ► a very small but dedicated audience. And all the publishers that are caught in the middle,

01:08:32 ◼   ► you know, they've got lower and lower ad rates. They keep trying to add more ways to

01:08:36 ◼   ► make money to scrape by. And it feels like something that just can't be solved, that

01:08:41 ◼   ► it will just keep going down until a point where you, you know, you're, you can't have

01:08:46 ◼   ► a business anymore, unless you're on one end of the curve or the other. And that's the

01:08:51 ◼   ► scary part is the people we like who make good content who are in the middle, who are

01:08:56 ◼   ► not writing for BuzzFeed, right, but they're also not daring Fireball, what happens if

01:09:01 ◼   ► the web, the way that the web works is not sustainable, whether or not there are content

01:09:05 ◼   ► blockers? Because I would actually say the content blockers are a reaction to this race,

01:09:09 ◼   ► But this is happening anyway, because everybody wants to pour more junk onto pages because

01:09:14 ◼   ► the CPMs keep going down, which is the ad rates, basically, cost per thousand to display

01:09:21 ◼   ► an ad. Those just keep going down. So it's tough. It's a—I'm not sure where this goes

01:09:27 ◼   ► other than that I do think there will be a crack-up at some point. And you already, when

01:09:32 ◼   ► you talk to people—and I've seen it, people we know are talking about, "What do you do

01:09:38 ◼   ► to do, you know, to do a membership or something like that, that support. Maybe it's not a

01:09:44 ◼   ► Patreon, maybe it is, maybe it's some other kind of membership, but those things, people

01:09:48 ◼   ► are floating those things around. And one of the reasons is because, you know, what's

01:09:53 ◼   ► going to happen with advertising? Is advertising enough on its own? And yeah, podcast advertising

01:09:58 ◼   ► is a little bit different. I feel it's sort of a shame. Back in the day, like the early

01:10:02 ◼   ► days of computer magazines, the ads were great. Like people were excited to look at the ads

01:10:06 ◼   ► because it brought them information. And the web, I think, has trained a whole generation

01:10:09 ◼   ► to just despise everything advertising, because the web ads are generally so bad. And I think

01:10:14 ◼   ► podcast advertising is a lot better. But some people don't even want that, because, like

01:10:20 ◼   ► I said, I think that some people are just allergic to advertising in general. But I

01:10:24 ◼   ► think that's one of the things that the pod-- they haven't figured out how to screw up podcast

01:10:28 ◼   ► advertising and make them awful yet. And some of that is just because technically it's very

01:10:31 ◼   ► hard to do that because, you know, podcasts, you know, are, are, are, the way they're delivered

01:10:37 ◼   ► and, and processed is so different from the web that, um, it's a lot harder to mess it

01:10:42 ◼   ► up, which is, I'm sure there's some startup out there right now that's trying to ruin

01:10:45 ◼   ► podcast advertising too and make it awful.

01:10:47 ◼   ► >>Oh, there are many, I hear from them.

01:10:50 ◼   ► >>I'm sure you do. Um, but, uh, there's, uh, you know, their, their powers are, are less

01:10:56 ◼   ► than they are on the web. On the web, their powers are great. Those, those people to ruin,

01:11:00 ◼   ► everybody's experience with more advertising.

01:11:03 ◼   ► I think a lot of this comes from my general nature of why can't we all be nice to each

01:11:08 ◼   ► other?

01:11:09 ◼   ► Oh, I agree.

01:11:10 ◼   ► You know, that's my general nature is like, why do we, you know, why do we have to hurt

01:11:15 ◼   ► people, you know, like that kind of feeling.

01:11:16 ◼   ► And I always get a little bit upset about this kind of stuff.

01:11:19 ◼   ► But this is, this was always the case with Macworld, where Serenity would be like, you

01:11:24 ◼   ► know, Serenity often got the brunt of this because she was sort of manning the letters

01:11:27 ◼   ► account at Macworld and she would say, you know, she would get these people who are just

01:11:33 ◼   ► brutally angry about the stuff that was going on on the site and, you know, she would agree

01:11:39 ◼   ► with that too. That's the challenge here is the people who are doing the content often

01:11:43 ◼   ► agree, but at the same time this is the stuff that pays the bills and unless their business

01:11:47 ◼   ► finds another way forward, it's just, yeah, it's a difficult situation. I have never run

01:11:52 ◼   ► an ad blocker for the same reason, which is I feel like then I'm I feel like I

01:11:57 ◼   ► want to support the sites that I like and I want to support their

01:12:02 ◼   ► sponsors because I want them to have a business that works. At the same time, I

01:12:05 ◼   ► do think that you could argue that a lot of these businesses have really

01:12:11 ◼   ► abused that connection that we've got with the people who make the

01:12:16 ◼   ► content in order to do lots of things, not just annoy you, but track you in

01:12:22 ◼   ► order to keep the lights on. And again, yay, keep the lights on, but at

01:12:26 ◼   ► some point do you have to say, "This is unacceptable." And if you say, "This

01:12:31 ◼   ► is unacceptable," do you stop patronizing the site versus running an ad blocker?

01:12:34 ◼   ► Which is what I've always said, is like, "Look, if you don't like it, maybe you should

01:12:38 ◼   ► just not look at their site, not look at it with an ad blocker." But that's a hard

01:12:41 ◼   ► argument to make. It's just, you know, it's just funny to me that it's like, the

01:12:46 ◼   ► start of the show we were talking about what happened at Magworld and like how

01:12:50 ◼   ► sad it was but it's like if we keep going down this road there's gonna be

01:12:55 ◼   ► many more days like that? Yes. Oh, undoubtedly. It makes me uncomfortable. It

01:13:01 ◼   ► makes me really uncomfortable because I like the websites. I go to websites that

01:13:07 ◼   ► I like, you know, that's where I go. Yeah I know. And I don't want to go away. And

01:13:13 ◼   ► And the other problem is if every website you like

01:13:17 ◼   ► in the Mac space said, "We can't make it with advertising,

01:13:22 ◼   ► "but we're gonna do a membership thing,

01:13:24 ◼   ► "and we were asking you for $50 a year,"

01:13:27 ◼   ► that's great, except how many people are going,

01:13:30 ◼   ► how many, even if you're really deep into this

01:13:33 ◼   ► and you really love this, how many of those can you have?

01:13:35 ◼   ► How much are you going to pay?

01:13:37 ◼   ► Are you gonna pay $500 a year to 10 websites

01:13:42 ◼   ► order to support them. I think there's a limit to that too, and that's my

01:13:48 ◼   ► fear in all of this, is that the fact is the web has created this broad

01:13:54 ◼   ► canvas for anybody to reach an audience, and so a lot of people have, and that

01:13:59 ◼   ► we're about to enter a phase where it turns out that we have too many

01:14:05 ◼   ► people doing this. Not that they aren't good at their job and not that people

01:14:08 ◼   ► don't want to read them, but that there's no way we can get a big enough audience

01:14:12 ◼   ► to either make money on ads or generate enough support direct from readers/listeners in order

01:14:20 ◼   ► for them all to keep doing what they're doing as their livelihood. And that's scary because

01:14:25 ◼   ► that is, I mean, in journalism, since I've been doing journalism, it's been very clear

01:14:30 ◼   ► that it is a troubled industry, right? And we always joke about like, this is like sending

01:14:35 ◼   ► somebody to journalism school is a little bit like telling somebody to enter a valuable

01:14:40 ◼   ► career being a steel worker, right? It's like, well, wait, that is not an industry you necessarily

01:14:44 ◼   ► want to go into because it's kind of fading away and that would be a bad bit of career

01:14:48 ◼   ► advice. But sometimes this is one of those cases where I start to think about that even

01:14:52 ◼   ► more and think, you know, it's possible. And things could change dramatically and a lot

01:14:58 ◼   ► of people are going to make it through, but it is possible that in this population of

01:15:03 ◼   ► people we like who write stuff we like or do podcasts that we like, that in five years,

01:15:10 ◼   ► half of them are not doing it anymore because they can't make it work. And that's scary,

01:15:15 ◼   ► but that may be financially, economically, that may happen. And sometimes when I see

01:15:21 ◼   ► my colleagues in the computer journalism industry, the tech journalism industry going to work

01:15:27 ◼   ► in PR or going to work behind the scenes for a company, you know, those are examples of

01:15:34 ◼   ► that. We don't read things by Chris Breen anymore because he's working at Apple. We

01:15:40 ◼   ► We may read things by him, but we wouldn't know it because his name isn't on it.

01:15:46 ◼   ► We don't know, my friend John Seth, who's the executive editor of Macworld for many

01:15:51 ◼   ► years, he's working at Apple now, and so he's not working on this stuff day to day.

01:15:57 ◼   ► And the list goes on.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Somebody like Brad Mullen, who wrote about mobile for ages at a whole bunch of different

01:16:03 ◼   ► sites is doing PR now.

01:16:07 ◼   ► That always happened, but I do wonder if there is a reckoning coming where we're going to

01:16:14 ◼   ► do this.

01:16:15 ◼   ► And I don't think ad blockers—ad blockers are not going to be—I don't think we're

01:16:18 ◼   ► going to look back and say, "Oh, content blockers killed the web and everybody lost

01:16:22 ◼   ► their jobs."

01:16:23 ◼   ► It's just part of this much bigger issue, I think.

01:16:25 ◼   ► But I think you're right to be concerned about it, because it's a big deal, and it's

01:16:29 ◼   ► going to be—it's going to get worse before it gets better, I think.

01:16:32 ◼   ► It just makes me sad.

01:16:35 ◼   ► I agree.

01:16:36 ◼   ► I hope, you know, we're all trying to find ways, you know, including us, right? I mean,

01:16:40 ◼   ► I'm certainly trying to find a way to make it without being in the position that Macworld

01:16:47 ◼   ► is in, where they've got, you know, pre-roll ads and lots of tiles everywhere and things that slide

01:16:53 ◼   ► in over your page and stuff like that. I would-- that Six Colors has, like, a text ad and a post

01:17:00 ◼   ► a week and a little tiny deck ad and that's it. It's like incredibly lightweight because

01:17:06 ◼   ► as a reaction to all of that. But you know I'm also not at the point now where I think if I can't

01:17:12 ◼   ► make more money at six colors I'm gonna have to go you know start applying for jobs at tech

01:17:19 ◼   ► companies. I'm not at that point so it's easy for me to do that but what if I was at that point?

01:17:24 ◼   ► What are my options then? That's scary.

01:17:26 ◼   ► - Yep. I want to get a job, Jason.

01:17:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hear ya.

01:17:31 ◼   ► - Yeah. I'm gonna get too sad. How about we, uh,

01:17:34 ◼   ► whilst advertising is still good in this game, how about we stop and take one and then do some Ask Upgrade?

01:17:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, podcast advertising is, uh, is really nice, and one of the, one of the things is you can have a,

01:17:44 ◼   ► it's a little more personal and hopefully it's different every time.

01:17:47 ◼   ► Um, so this, this Ask Upgrade is about our friends at Stamps.com who are back.

01:17:53 ◼   ► We've told you about Stamps.com before. The idea here is if you're a small or medium-sized business,

01:17:59 ◼   ► you probably do a lot of shipping and mailing. And the old way of doing stuff, the old way of

01:18:07 ◼   ► businesses shipping and mailing is with a postal meter. But, you know, there's been a revolution in

01:18:13 ◼   ► this stuff just like there has been in so many different bits of technology. You can get the

01:18:17 ◼   ► mailing and shipping done without leaving your desk using Stamps.com. It never closes, unlike

01:18:22 ◼   ► the post office, you don't have to wait in a line, unlike the post office, you can actually buy and

01:18:26 ◼   ► print your postage from your computer and your printer, and then you just hand it to your friendly

01:18:32 ◼   ► letter carrier when they come by or drop it in a mailbox, and that's it. So businesses pay $15.99

01:18:38 ◼   ► a month, that's it. There's no long-term requirement, there's no multi-year commitment, that's

01:18:42 ◼   ► something that postage meters generally require. They also don't mark up your postage, in fact you

01:18:47 ◼   ► you can get discounts with Stamps.com. So if you would like to try this out for your

01:18:51 ◼   ► business here's what you should do. Use the promo code UPGRADE for this special offer.

01:18:56 ◼   ► You get a no risk trial and there's a $110 bonus offer that includes a digital scale

01:19:01 ◼   ► so you can get exact postage. It's a USB, a little nice USB scale that you get and up

01:19:07 ◼   ► to $55 of free postage. So don't wait, go now Stamps.com, click on the microphone on

01:19:14 ◼   ► on Stamps.com at the top of the homepage

01:19:16 ◼   ► and type in upgrade the show you're listening to right now

01:19:19 ◼   ► at Stamps.com and enter upgrade for the special deals.

01:19:24 ◼   ► But I've used Stamps.com quite a bit

01:19:26 ◼   ► and it is so great, I've talked about it before.

01:19:30 ◼   ► I work in my garage, I don't get out as much as I used to.

01:19:35 ◼   ► When I do get out of the house though,

01:19:36 ◼   ► you know what I don't wanna do?

01:19:38 ◼   ► I don't wanna go to the post office

01:19:39 ◼   ► and Stamps.com means I don't have to go there.

01:19:42 ◼   ► I can go somewhere nicer, like I can go next door

01:19:44 ◼   ► from the post office to Whole Foods

01:19:47 ◼   ► and buy Manchego or peanut butter.

01:19:49 ◼   ► And thank you Stamps.com for allowing me

01:19:53 ◼   ► to just swerve past the post office

01:19:55 ◼   ► and move on to someplace happier.

01:19:57 ◼   ► Stamps.com.

01:19:59 ◼   ► - Stamps.com, thank you Stamps.com.

01:20:02 ◼   ► Listen to Alan Rotin.

01:20:03 ◼   ► Listen to Alan has an iMac with a Fusion Drive in it.

01:20:09 ◼   ► And he finds that it grinds, pulses,

01:20:11 ◼   ► or simply feels like he's running on a stupid old slow spinning disk from 2003.

01:20:16 ◼   ► So, let's say that Alan could upgrade to a new iMac and he has $4,000 to spend on the

01:20:26 ◼   ► new 5K iMac.

01:20:27 ◼   ► So he's running an older iMac version where I think the Fusion Drive was just introduced

01:20:31 ◼   ► in the previous model and he's running that one.

01:20:34 ◼   ► So let's say in this scenario that Alan has come across this money, he's still stuck with

01:20:39 ◼   ► the decision of either a 1 terabyte SSD or a 3 terabyte Fusion Drive. What does he do?

01:20:49 ◼   ► What does he do? I am a believer in SSD. I know it's not as much storage space but I

01:20:57 ◼   ► feel like for your boot drive I think the best. Fusion Drive I've heard mixed things,

01:21:02 ◼   ► some people like it, some people hate it. I would go all SSD and if you need storage,

01:21:08 ◼   ► If you need like lots of external storage, I would say get a NAS, you know, network attached

01:21:13 ◼   ► storage device, or get a big external drive of some kind and offload your projects to

01:21:21 ◼   ► that when you're done.

01:21:22 ◼   ► So I've got a Mac mini server with the Drobo attached to it, actually about four feet away

01:21:27 ◼   ► from me, and an SSD on my iMac.

01:21:30 ◼   ► So I just use the SSD on my iMac and I store all my files on the big drive when I'm done.

01:21:36 ◼   ► I think that's the best combination and you have to look and see whether that fits in your budget,

01:21:41 ◼   ► but personally I want my storage that's on my Mac to be SSD at this point. It's just

01:21:49 ◼   ► that is the number one thing whenever I use a computer that still has the spinning disk in it,

01:21:54 ◼   ► even if it's a fusion drive, it is painful compared to the pure SSD. So that's my recommendation is

01:22:01 ◼   ► I think people should buy SSDs for their internal storage,

01:22:06 ◼   ► and then if they really need a lot of external storage to get a network-attached drive

01:22:11 ◼   ► and just put it on their network and they can do it that way,

01:22:13 ◼   ► or get an external drive you can attach when you need it,

01:22:16 ◼   ► or leave it attached all the time,

01:22:18 ◼   ► but know that that's the slower storage that just is just for kind of offloading when you're not using it.

01:22:24 ◼   ► Does that work for you, Myke?

01:22:25 ◼   ► Yeah I have a 512 SSD in my Mac Pro and it isn't a problem but I'm finding myself every

01:22:33 ◼   ► now and then going in and needing to delete stuff you know. So I've been thinking about

01:22:37 ◼   ► getting a Drobo for a while and it's on my long term shopping list you know maybe maybe

01:22:41 ◼   ► around tax season get rid of some of that money and so I think I'm going to do that.

01:22:48 ◼   ► Just to store stuff long term like audio files can get quite big

01:22:52 ◼   ► depending on what you're working with. And at the moment I'm like deleting

01:22:56 ◼   ► all the project files and I probably don't need them for that long but it

01:23:00 ◼   ► would just be nice I think to have something where I could just store stuff

01:23:04 ◼   ► long term. The great thing is like we have, Steven has a bunch of storage space

01:23:10 ◼   ► and we have some storage space with Mac Mini Cola and we have everything just

01:23:15 ◼   ► automatically download there for storage so it's not like a pressing issue. Like

01:23:19 ◼   ► Like all our shows are archived, you know, on our stuff that we have elsewhere.

01:23:24 ◼   ► But I wouldn't mind having something here.

01:23:26 ◼   ► It's just not pressing so I haven't gotten around to it yet.

01:23:30 ◼   ► But in all honesty, like for the machine that I work on, 512 gigabytes is fine, really.

01:23:37 ◼   ► I'm not putting movies on this, I'm not putting music on this.

01:23:40 ◼   ► Like it's just work files and it does a good enough job.

01:23:44 ◼   ► But I agree with you.

01:23:46 ◼   ► I did once have to go from SSD back to a spinning hard drive and it's one of the most horrible

01:23:51 ◼   ► things that I've ever done and I had to work on that Mac Mini for years.

01:23:57 ◼   ► And now I just, you couldn't, you could not make me do it.

01:24:01 ◼   ► I have the 512 gigabyte SSD in my iMac and it is plenty of space given that I am not

01:24:10 ◼   ► storing all the stuff that when I'm done with a project I move it.

01:24:14 ◼   ► The nice thing about having all that external storage space

01:24:17 ◼   ► is that I, yeah, I listened to you talk about,

01:24:19 ◼   ► I don't need my logic projects, I can just get rid of them.

01:24:21 ◼   ► And it's like, well, a lot of the relay stuff is so timely.

01:24:25 ◼   ► It's most valuable now.

01:24:29 ◼   ► And I mean, yeah, people might go back

01:24:30 ◼   ► and listen to some episodes from the past,

01:24:32 ◼   ► but it's mostly about the present.

01:24:33 ◼   ► Whereas incomparable stuff, I occasionally will go back

01:24:36 ◼   ► and I'll do a best of, or I'll do a special edit

01:24:39 ◼   ► of something and all of that.

01:24:40 ◼   ► And so I now keep all of those,

01:24:42 ◼   ► I'm actually keeping all of my logic files right now,

01:24:45 ◼   ► but those are the ones that are more timeless

01:24:48 ◼   ► that I wanna save it because I've actually had it come up

01:24:50 ◼   ► where somebody said, you know, what about this thing?

01:24:53 ◼   ► Or, you know, it's a best of the year thing.

01:24:55 ◼   ► And somebody's talking over somebody else,

01:24:57 ◼   ► but I can like isolate their track.

01:24:58 ◼   ► And I do that because I've got this, you know,

01:25:01 ◼   ► big raid with a giant amount of hard drive space.

01:25:05 ◼   ► And it's great.

01:25:06 ◼   ► And yet my Mac with the 512 SSD is super fast.

01:25:11 ◼   ► and it's a great combination if you can make it work

01:25:14 ◼   ► in your budget to have external storage.

01:25:17 ◼   ► That's the way to go.

01:25:19 ◼   ► - Yep, I'd go completely.

01:25:21 ◼   ► Right, Andrew asked, "With Apple Music

01:25:26 ◼   ► that is added to your library,

01:25:27 ◼   ► can you burn it to a CD to get around DRM

01:25:29 ◼   ► and have a permanent copy?"

01:25:31 ◼   ► I don't know the answer to this,

01:25:32 ◼   ► but I'm just gonna say no, you can't do that.

01:25:35 ◼   ► That's my feeling, I don't even feel like I need to check.

01:25:40 ◼   ► Yeah, it seems unlikely, doesn't it? I don't actually know. This was the old way you got around DRM, right?

01:25:50 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:25:50 ◼   ► Was you burned--you went to a playlist and then burned it as a CD.

01:25:56 ◼   ► Do you remember that era, Myke? Do you remember that?

01:25:58 ◼   ► Oh, 100%, Jason. I did that all the time.

01:26:00 ◼   ► Yeah, you'd want to get your friend the new album that you were listening to that you'd bought on iTunes,

01:26:07 ◼   ► So you'd burn them a CD on a CD-RW so they could give it back to you.

01:26:13 ◼   ► And then there would be no DRM for them, you wouldn't need to authorise their computer,

01:26:18 ◼   ► and they'd be good to go.

01:26:19 ◼   ► Yeah, so my guess is no.

01:26:21 ◼   ► But I don't know.

01:26:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I did some quick searching.

01:26:25 ◼   ► I haven't burned a CD in so long that, yeah.

01:26:28 ◼   ► I haven't got a computer that could.

01:26:31 ◼   ► Although I have an external drive that I use.

01:26:33 ◼   ► I do have one of those and I can't remember why I bought it but I bought it

01:26:38 ◼   ► relative... oh I remember I remember I had to make a CD for a funeral and it was

01:26:44 ◼   ► like yeah it was like well we needed the music and there was no other way to get

01:26:48 ◼   ► it and the the funeral home would only take a CD so I had to spend 80 pounds to

01:26:53 ◼   ► get a CD drive to make one CD man future so yeah that's the reason that I have

01:27:01 ◼   ► one and it's but I always forget that I have it because I never need it for

01:27:05 ◼   ► anything. Who uses CDs today man? Crazy. Crazy town.

01:27:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:09 ◼   ► John would like to know and I would love to know this and now that John has

01:27:15 ◼   ► pointed it out Jason I really hope you can help.

01:27:16 ◼   ► I have an answer.

01:27:17 ◼   ► I hoped that you would. Why do OS X keyboard shortcuts highlight their menu bar in blue like the

01:27:24 ◼   ► specific item where they live in the menu bar when it's pressed? So for

01:27:28 ◼   ► example if you are in Tweetbot and you press ctrl+N it will open the new the

01:27:35 ◼   ► box for the new tweet which is also underneath under the tweet menu in the

01:27:40 ◼   ► Tweetbot menu bar. Alright so it highlights it in blue the word tweet in

01:27:44 ◼   ► the menu bar as if to show you "hey it came from here" why does that happen?

01:27:49 ◼   ► Well I mean the answer is it is the idea is if you know a keyboard shortcut but

01:27:55 ◼   ► you don't know where its corresponding menu item is,

01:28:00 ◼   ► it's telling you.

01:28:01 ◼   ► That's really the answer.

01:28:03 ◼   ► The idea is to tie the keyboard to the menu bar,

01:28:06 ◼   ► which sometimes is useful if you're like,

01:28:08 ◼   ► well, I know what the shortcut is to make text bold,

01:28:11 ◼   ► but I don't know what it is to make it an underline

01:28:13 ◼   ► or a strikethrough.

01:28:14 ◼   ► If you press the text bold,

01:28:16 ◼   ► you'll see that it's in the style menu or whatever.

01:28:19 ◼   ► And you'll say, oh, well, that must be where it is.

01:28:22 ◼   ► And then you can go up and you can look for it.

01:28:24 ◼   ► But that is the reason why it does that,

01:28:26 ◼   ► is it's trying to make the connection

01:28:29 ◼   ► that the keys that you type are actually menu commands.

01:28:33 ◼   ► And then the counterpart is that the command

01:28:36 ◼   ► shows you the key you can type in the menu.

01:28:38 ◼   ► So it's a convention from the beginning of the Mac,

01:28:43 ◼   ► and so it remains, and sometimes it can be useful,

01:28:46 ◼   ► but it's also there just to tie those two things together.

01:28:49 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:28:50 ◼   ► I mean, it kind of makes sense.

01:28:51 ◼   ► That kind of makes sense.

01:28:53 ◼   ► but it's, there is a part of me that feels like

01:28:57 ◼   ► that is a remnant from a bygone era.

01:29:01 ◼   ► - Also, I'd say what it does is it's indicating to you that,

01:29:06 ◼   ► it's indicating to you that your key was heard, right?

01:29:14 ◼   ► Because you might not always see

01:29:17 ◼   ► in the interface something changes.

01:29:19 ◼   ► Like if I'm sitting at a cursor

01:29:22 ◼   ► and I choose Command + B to start typing in bold text.

01:29:26 ◼   ► There's no bold text yet.

01:29:28 ◼   ► So how does it know, did my key get read?

01:29:30 ◼   ► Did it hear me?

01:29:32 ◼   ► And by flashing in the menu bar,

01:29:34 ◼   ► you've got a visual indicator

01:29:36 ◼   ► that your keyboard shortcut was heard.

01:29:38 ◼   ► So that's the other reason.

01:29:39 ◼   ► - Funny thing is I don't see the menu bar

01:29:41 ◼   ► very often anymore.

01:29:42 ◼   ► 'Cause I run a lot of my apps in full screen.

01:29:45 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:29:47 ◼   ► - You know? - Same on you.

01:29:48 ◼   ► - Hey. - That's fine.

01:29:49 ◼   ► Didn't you write a piece about full screen?

01:29:52 ◼   ► Like on why it's good or was that Dan?

01:29:55 ◼   ► - No, no, no.

01:29:57 ◼   ► No, it's funny, I wrote a thing about how I think

01:30:01 ◼   ► split view makes full screen more useful.

01:30:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I was going for.

01:30:07 ◼   ► I'm kind of, I'm twisting your words there a bit.

01:30:09 ◼   ► - Well, and Macworld did too,

01:30:11 ◼   ► 'cause my piece was very much like,

01:30:13 ◼   ► hey, split views got a lot of problems

01:30:14 ◼   ► that Apple needs to fix

01:30:15 ◼   ► 'cause the metaphor is kind of broken.

01:30:17 ◼   ► And the headline is like,

01:30:19 ◼   ► I split for you will make things great.

01:30:20 ◼   ► I'm like, well, that's not what I said.

01:30:22 ◼   ► - I haven't read that piece yet.

01:30:24 ◼   ► That's why I thought you said it.

01:30:25 ◼   ► - Oh, the headline is much more positive

01:30:27 ◼   ► than the actual article is.

01:30:29 ◼   ► - By the way, I only noticed like yesterday

01:30:32 ◼   ► that your article is called "More Color"

01:30:34 ◼   ► and that's fantastic.

01:30:35 ◼   ► Your series is called "More Color" your column.

01:30:38 ◼   ► - That was Susie Oakes's idea and it's great

01:30:40 ◼   ► 'cause it not only references six colors,

01:30:42 ◼   ► but I couldn't stop laughing on the analyst call

01:30:44 ◼   ► because they're always asking Tim Cook

01:30:47 ◼   ► for more color about this or more color about that

01:30:49 ◼   ► in the results.

01:30:51 ◼   ► And Tim Cook at one point actually said,

01:30:53 ◼   ► in terms of more color on this other thing,

01:30:55 ◼   ► and it just made me laugh.

01:30:57 ◼   ► - So that's a really great name for the column.

01:30:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is.

01:31:00 ◼   ► Yeah, Susie, great suggestion by Susie.

01:31:03 ◼   ► - And finally, a question from Will,

01:31:04 ◼   ► going back to something we were talking about

01:31:05 ◼   ► a little bit earlier.

01:31:07 ◼   ► Will asks, "With US carriers dropping the subsidy model,

01:31:10 ◼   ► "should Apple rethink iPhone price points

01:31:12 ◼   ► "to offset sticker shock this fall?"

01:31:14 ◼   ► So my supplementary question to you, Jason,

01:31:16 ◼   ► is I didn't notice this happening, is this happening?

01:31:19 ◼   ► - It's starting to happen.

01:31:21 ◼   ► Really what's happening is that carriers are changing

01:31:23 ◼   ► from the subsidy model to what they're calling financing.

01:31:27 ◼   ► I think essentially the difference is that with financing,

01:31:32 ◼   ► you pay the extra money for two years,

01:31:35 ◼   ► you pay the 199 or whatever the price is with financing.

01:31:39 ◼   ► And after two years, your bill goes down.

01:31:43 ◼   ► Instead of what has been happening,

01:31:45 ◼   ► which is completely insane.

01:31:46 ◼   ► And I do think drives phone sales,

01:31:49 ◼   ► which is your subsidy is baked into your bill.

01:31:54 ◼   ► And if you use an iPhone for four years, instead of two,

01:31:59 ◼   ► your bill doesn't go down.

01:32:01 ◼   ► So you really are motivated to upgrade

01:32:03 ◼   ► as soon as you're out of your subsidy,

01:32:06 ◼   ► because you're essentially paying your subsidy,

01:32:08 ◼   ► whether you use it or not.

01:32:09 ◼   ► So you might as well use it

01:32:11 ◼   ► and pay the 199 or whatever,

01:32:13 ◼   ► and get a new phone because your bill's not gonna go down.

01:32:16 ◼   ► With this approach, your bill goes down.

01:32:18 ◼   ► So you pay an extra whatever, $20 a month

01:32:21 ◼   ► until two years is over and then your bill goes down.

01:32:25 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Which is great.

01:32:27 ◼   ► So I think it's interesting.

01:32:28 ◼   ► I think it's unlikely at this point

01:32:31 ◼   ► that Apple will rethink its price points

01:32:34 ◼   ► because it is by far the most important product

01:32:38 ◼   ► in Apple's product line

01:32:39 ◼   ► and it's doing really well and growing.

01:32:41 ◼   ► And I'm not sure Apple feels like it needs to,

01:32:44 ◼   ► it needs to change the prices.

01:32:47 ◼   ► But it is true, if we got to the point where people were,

01:32:51 ◼   ► I think what it's gonna take is I think it's gonna,

01:32:54 ◼   ► the more we abandon subsidies,

01:32:57 ◼   ► the more people are going to see the full price.

01:33:02 ◼   ► And that is going to lengthen the upgrade cycle.

01:33:08 ◼   ► It's gonna make people reluctant to pay

01:33:11 ◼   ► for that phone every two years.

01:33:12 ◼   ► - Even if they will pay less money overall,

01:33:16 ◼   ► which is probably accurate.

01:33:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely. - Seeing that number

01:33:20 ◼   ► is the problem.

01:33:21 ◼   ► - Seeing having to pay $600 for your phone,

01:33:27 ◼   ► even though in the end, over the course of two years,

01:33:30 ◼   ► your bill is less because you're not paying the subsidy,

01:33:33 ◼   ► it's still just buying psychology,

01:33:36 ◼   ► it is harder to say, yay, I'm gonna go pay $550

01:33:41 ◼   ► for the new iPhone.

01:33:42 ◼   ► Also, it takes it off of the calendar.

01:33:45 ◼   ► Then it's just, when do I wanna buy a new iPhone?

01:33:48 ◼   ► And it's no longer your phone company saying,

01:33:52 ◼   ► look, you're basically paying for it anyway,

01:33:54 ◼   ► you might as well get it, it's 199.

01:33:56 ◼   ► Now it's more, hey, you can get one whenever you want,

01:34:00 ◼   ► it's 599.

01:34:02 ◼   ► And so, yeah, well, I think when there's a feeling

01:34:07 ◼   ► that sales are going to start lagging because of the price,

01:34:13 ◼   ► because people are now seeing the full price,

01:34:15 ◼   ► that would be when it would happen.

01:34:17 ◼   ► But I think everybody involved in this transaction,

01:34:21 ◼   ► actually, well, even the consumers,

01:34:23 ◼   ► even though it doesn't make sense financially,

01:34:25 ◼   ► it makes sense emotionally for consumers.

01:34:27 ◼   ► I think everybody benefits by having it say 199.

01:34:31 ◼   ► So I think, you know, the change will be the finance model,

01:34:36 ◼   ► like I said, and the idea that after you've got your phone

01:34:39 ◼   ► for two years, your bill just goes down

01:34:41 ◼   ► until you get a new phone, and then your bill goes back up

01:34:44 ◼   ► for the two year period that you're paying it off.

01:34:47 ◼   ► That may remain.

01:34:49 ◼   ► I think it's there for a reason,

01:34:53 ◼   ► and although it's not necessarily the best deal,

01:34:55 ◼   ► the best deal would be to just buy your phone.

01:34:57 ◼   ► And the more they make it easy for you to just walk in,

01:35:00 ◼   ► I would rather do that.

01:35:01 ◼   ► I would just rather walk in and pay the full price

01:35:02 ◼   ► and walk out and have my bill be less

01:35:04 ◼   ► because I know in the end, that's a better deal.

01:35:06 ◼   ► But I think most people don't react that way.

01:35:10 ◼   ► And that's why it is the way it is.

01:35:11 ◼   ► And I think that'll probably continue.

01:35:13 ◼   ► But if it does tail off,

01:35:14 ◼   ► if we do start seeing a whole lot more people

01:35:17 ◼   ► just paying full price for the phone,

01:35:19 ◼   ► and if it has an impact on the upgrade cycle,

01:35:22 ◼   ► that's when I think you might start seeing

01:35:24 ◼   ► Apple feel some pressure to make the sticker price less.

01:35:28 ◼   ► So we have actually had this model in the UK for a year or two, but I didn't fully understand

01:35:34 ◼   ► it from the way that the question was asked.

01:35:36 ◼   ► And it's led to a couple of different things.

01:35:38 ◼   ► So the way that it's pitched here is maybe slightly different.

01:35:43 ◼   ► The idea being that you pay one amount of money, but it pays for two different things.

01:35:48 ◼   ► You pay for your contract and you pay for your phone, your handset.

01:35:54 ◼   ► And once you finish paying for your handset, you can upgrade to another one.

01:35:58 ◼   ► So you can do a free upgrade or if you want to keep on the contract period or extend the

01:36:02 ◼   ► contract or you can pay again for another one and then we put it back into your contract

01:36:08 ◼   ► again.

01:36:09 ◼   ► So you take out another handset payment and you're keeping the bill.

01:36:13 ◼   ► And one of the things this is doing is it's benefiting customers in one way which also

01:36:17 ◼   ► benefits the phone companies.

01:36:20 ◼   ► So people may take two, three year, four year agreements, so they're keeping their price

01:36:25 ◼   ► pan low but they can still upgrade sooner because they pay their handsets off over a

01:36:32 ◼   ► year.

01:36:33 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

01:36:34 ◼   ► So people are still changing their phones every year but they're locked into longer

01:36:38 ◼   ► term contracts which benefits the company but also keeps people's price plans cheaper

01:36:44 ◼   ► because the longer you take it out the cheaper it is.

01:36:45 ◼   ► So there is this weird thing where it's like a kind of a benefit for both sides.

01:36:51 ◼   ► Like if you're happy enough with the price and the service that you get from your phone

01:36:55 ◼   ► company, you end up being able to upgrade on a more frequent ratio, like more

01:37:02 ◼   ► frequent time period, so. Right, right, I think we'll see more of that. I

01:37:06 ◼   ► think the US market, this is what's happening now, is they're

01:37:10 ◼   ► realizing they need to try some different approaches here. That's the

01:37:14 ◼   ► advantage too of having a lot of competition in wireless, is that wireless

01:37:19 ◼   ► companies are willing to make you a deal and give you a better deal if you'll stay

01:37:23 ◼   ► with them and that's good. That's one of those cases where the

01:37:28 ◼   ► consumer has an advantage is they're afraid that you're gonna switch to the

01:37:31 ◼   ► other guys and that gives you know that motivates them to make a better deal.

01:37:36 ◼   ► Yep. All right so I think that brings us to the end of this week. I think so.

01:37:42 ◼   ► If you want to find our show notes for today's episode head on over to relay.fm/upgrade/47

01:37:49 ◼   ► That's where you also find a link to Steven and Jason's little little space conversation

01:37:54 ◼   ► Which I think you should go and listen to if you haven't already

01:37:56 ◼   ► Thanks again to our sponsors this week stamps calm igloo and go to meeting if you want to support this show

01:38:03 ◼   ► Go support our sponsors. It's a great way go check them out

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01:38:18 ◼   ► to

01:38:32 ◼   ► Jason L. J-S-N-E-L-L and he writes over at SixColors.com. Go and check out Jason's site

01:38:39 ◼   ► and click all of his ads as well. Why don't you do that if my sadness has reached you

01:38:45 ◼   ► today. And thank you so much for listening, thank you Jason for joining me as always and

01:38:50 ◼   ► we'll be back next time. To an end. Say goodbye Mr Snell.

01:38:53 ◼   ► Goodbye everybody.

01:38:53 ◼   ► [MUSIC]