0:00:00*Ding*
0:00:00[Intro Music]
0:00:08From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode number 47. Today's show is brought to you by Igloo and
0:00:15intranet you'll actually like, Stamps.com, Postage On Demand and GoToMeeting. Make it easy to meet
0:00:21with your team wherever you need to, wherever you are. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined
0:00:26as always by your host of mine, Mr. Jason Snell.
0:00:29Now Myke, we're getting dangerously close to number 50 now.
0:00:33Very, very close now.
0:00:35Very close.
0:00:36We're getting very close to one year of everything of Relay and then a couple of weeks later,
0:00:40one year of upgrade.
0:00:41Yeah.
0:00:42It's a beautiful thing.
0:00:43Yeah, pretty soon we will have time for reflection.
0:00:46Probably not now, but soon.
0:00:48So this time last year, were you still at IDG?
0:00:50Oh yeah, yeah.
0:00:51Yeah, so again, that's a couple of weeks away, isn't it?
0:00:55Yeah, 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.
0:01:12That'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.
0:01:24But look how far we've come. Look how far we've come. How about that? 46 episodes plus a few
0:01:30minutes of episode 47 and we're here. We're doing great, I think. Talking about doing great,
0:01:36you took the European countries quiz. I did. Somebody on Twitter said, "I think Jason should
0:01:44take this quiz of European countries and see if he does any better than Myke did with the US states."
0:01:50And not only did you do better than me, I think you did better than I would do taking this quiz.
0:01:55Wow.
0:01:56Because there are some countries on here that I don't know where they are on a map.
0:02:01So basically, and we'll put a link in the show notes to the image I tweeted,
0:02:06a screenshot I tweeted of doing it, somebody tweeted this and I just immediately responded
0:02:10with "okay here it is" and I just did it right then, sitting on the couch on my iPad I did it.
0:02:15And the problems that I, the ones that I missed, I actually, I got in my own head about the Baltics.
0:02:23And I've been to Estonia. I know exactly where Estonia is. Latvia and Lithuania, you know,
0:02:28I had it right. And then I said, "No, maybe it's this other way, which is the one that has got the
0:02:33Kaliningrad going through it, the Russian enclave and, or exclave, I guess." And I switched them and
0:02:41and I got those wrong so I got the two of the Baltics that I that I transposed
0:02:45and I also transposed and my apologies to your girlfriend I transposed Romania
0:02:53and what was the country I transposed it with? Bulgaria? Bulgaria yeah I just had
0:03:01them I just had them reversed and then all of my other mistakes are because
0:03:06when Yugoslavia broke up it broke up into like 90,000 different countries
0:03:11so yep so yeah I genuinely think that yeah 39 is not only a great score it's
0:03:18probably a better score than I would have gotten what what European countries
0:03:22are the ones that baffle you oh most of Eastern Europe hmm like it all of the
0:03:28kind of the same kind of one so I wouldn't know any of the ex Lucas
0:03:32Yugoslavia countries place I got a few of them although I did I did put like I
0:03:37I put Croatia and Slovenia on twice.
0:03:41Because I was like, maybe this one?
0:03:44Maybe this one?
0:03:45Oh nice tactic, nice tactic.
0:03:46It didn't pay off but it was a good idea.
0:03:49Well I think it did pay off because I think I got them right and wrong so that they counted
0:03:53for me but they also counted against the total.
0:03:56But I got to some of them and I'm like, I don't even know.
0:03:58I thought this one was Croatia but this can't be Croatia because then what's that?
0:04:03And there are so, there are so many, like I like finding Kosovo on a map was, that was
0:04:09just not, I, I, you know, I did get, and I, and I totally spaced on Montenegro.
0:04:15I had no idea.
0:04:16Um, I think, uh, yeah, those, those, I just totally, I totally blew some of those, but
0:04:21I did get like, you know, I got Macedonia.
0:04:24That was a good one.
0:04:25Um, I, you know, I did, I did okay.
0:04:28I did okay.
0:04:29The East Eastern Europe is trickier.
0:04:31It is trickier over there.
0:04:33So like I would probably get the like the Nordic countries mixed up as well so I think
0:04:38you did a good job getting those too.
0:04:41Part of the advantage there is that I have been there.
0:04:43Yeah see I've not been to a lot of Europe.
0:04:46I've actually been to more of America I think.
0:04:50And I've been to probably more of Europe than you then it's possible though you know you
0:04:54at least could spot Romania on a map.
0:04:58I hope so.
0:04:59Having been there, you should probably do that.
0:05:03But yeah, it was, yeah, that was kind of fun.
0:05:05I have to say, I was kind of proud of myself.
0:05:08I mean, 30 out of 39, I wish I was kicking myself
0:05:10about Lithuania and Latvia, but,
0:05:13and then I got to Yugoslavia.
0:05:15It's just like, that's tough.
0:05:18That's a lot.
0:05:19Growing up learning geography, it was really simple
0:05:21'cause it was just Yugoslavia.
0:05:23And now it's not like it's just two or three,
0:05:26it's like seven different countries.
0:05:28Oh my god.
0:05:29So that was harder, but I know where Greece is.
0:05:33That's the important one.
0:05:34- So let's take this conversation from the Earth,
0:05:40from the countries on the Earth,
0:05:41and propel it out into space.
0:05:43- Into space!
0:05:45- You and Steven got on the phone
0:05:47and spoke about space for a while,
0:05:49and it was put into our B-sides feed,
0:05:51which is like extras. - On the pod phone.
0:05:54- On the pod phone.
0:05:55- It wasn't like an actual phone call where,
0:05:57Hello? Steven there? Are we talking about space? It's not quite...
0:06:01Let me get him for you, he's just outside.
0:06:03It's not, "Shayden, your friend is here to talk about space!"
0:06:07That would be an absolutely great way to start a podcast.
0:06:11To call and have it be somebody's mom answers?
0:06:14Yeah.
0:06:15Yeah, sure.
0:06:16"Your buddy's on the phone!"
0:06:19That's a new kind of pod. The phone cast, the pod phone.
0:06:22Yeah, we did. We talked for about 50 minutes about space stuff.
0:06:27We regaled you with space stuff for so long
0:06:30on two podcasts in the last couple of weeks
0:06:33that we decided we would nerd out a little bit
0:06:35about space on our own and posted it.
0:06:36If people wanna listen to it,
0:06:38you gotta go to the B-sides.
0:06:39So that's what relay.fm/b-sides/12.
0:06:44- Yeah, it'll be on the show this week as well.
0:06:47- Yeah, so you can check that out.
0:06:48And I've had a bunch of people say they liked it,
0:06:50which was really great.
0:06:51And I had a bunch of people say they would love for it
0:06:54to be an actual podcast on relay
0:06:56to which I say anything is possible and you know we couldn't contain ourselves
0:07:00and that's why we did it we just thought it would be fun to try and see what
0:07:03people thought and keep watching the skies yes there's a clock up there you
0:07:08can keep watching it in the space I really enjoyed it I listen to it today
0:07:13and it was good because you know I as I said to you both when you were bending
0:07:18my ear off on this show and Stephen was doing the same on connected went during
0:07:23the Pluto stuff. I have an interest in it that I've never really explored in any
0:07:30way but like most nerds I'm just like interested in space especially this you
0:07:35know Earth 2 planet which you spoke about a little bit that's the name I'll
0:07:39give it because the name it actually has like Kevlar 4 2 2 B side or something I
0:07:46I don't know.
0:07:47- Kevlar/b-side/12 is the name of the planet.
0:07:51(laughing)
0:07:52- The quote, it's official name.
0:07:54That's it, it's just not exciting or memorable.
0:07:56So I liked hearing about that too.
0:07:58So it was fun and people should go listen to it
0:08:00and let Jason and Steven know what you think about it.
0:08:04- Yeah.
0:08:05Yeah, I think I would say we would love to talk
0:08:08about space stuff more often.
0:08:10And there's lots, we got lots going on in our lives.
0:08:13So we'd love to hear what people think
0:08:16if they liked it or not, and we'll go from there.
0:08:19But it was fun to do, and it was fun to be able to do that with the relay B-side thing
0:08:24and just say, "Well, let's just talk and we'll put it in the B-side feed and it'll just be..."
0:08:29You know, that gave us some place to put it, which was nice.
0:08:31So, yeah, check it out.
0:08:32>> Yeah, that's something we should do more with.
0:08:34I mean, we're not...
0:08:36We don't really do a lot of the After Dark type stuff, because it's, you know, there
0:08:41There tends not to be too much to actually go in there that is already in the shows.
0:08:47But doing things like little specials and stuff, we should try and do more of that.
0:08:52We're thinking of maybe doing a big Q&A thing for our one year anniversary, so that will
0:08:57go in there and stuff like that.
0:08:58So listen out for that in a couple of weeks time, because we're gearing up to our one
0:09:02year anniversary now as we mentioned at the top of the show.
0:09:06I just wanted to mention, I'm very excited, Jason, tomorrow my bank will be enabling Apple
0:09:10pay so I can go buy as much Manchego as I like from Whole Foods if I really want to
0:09:14do that.
0:09:15Excellent.
0:09:16I can go do that.
0:09:17You do.
0:09:18You want to do that.
0:09:19You do.
0:09:20I just bought some Manchego with Apple Pay yesterday.
0:09:21So if that's the case I'm going to be out of the house tomorrow buying all sorts of
0:09:27crazy cheeses from local stores.
0:09:31With touchless, contactless payments.
0:09:34Indeed.
0:09:35So this is, this is, um, so neither of your banks have it at the official Apple Pay in
0:09:40the UK launch, right?
0:09:42Don't you have two banks?
0:09:44Yeah, um, one of the banks, Barclays, was trying to do their own thing, and they've
0:09:50now since rescinded on that, and they actually lost someone high up in the company, like
0:09:55they got fired or something, like one of the chief executives or something.
0:09:59I was gonna say, where they're high up, just hopefully they can wander through the building
0:10:02and find them tell them to go down the stairs. I would hate to be lost high up in a bank
0:10:07that would be terrible that'd be frightening. It would be horrible it happened to me a few
0:10:11times and HSBC the other bank they that I use they were meant to be on launch day but
0:10:19mysteriously have pushed the date twice but they are they have made official press releases
0:10:25and such to say that tomorrow is their live date. So okay so wait so HSBC is going to
0:10:30be the one that goes live first.
0:10:32- Yeah, yeah.
0:10:33- And then Barclays-- - Barclays don't have a date.
0:10:35- Right, because they were the ones
0:10:36who had their own thing
0:10:37and so they really loved their own thing
0:10:39and then, and now they're backtracking on that.
0:10:41Well, I can't wait to hear what your Apple Pay experience
0:10:44is like once you do start using it.
0:10:47That'll be interesting, just different perspective
0:10:50and also what stores have it.
0:10:52It seems like they've made an effort
0:10:54to get in a bunch of good,
0:10:56have a bunch of good partners.
0:10:58I know James Thompson keeps talking about
0:11:00going down to his local Waitrose in Glasgow, which I've been in, and using Apple Pay, which
0:11:07sounds very, you know, civilized and fun.
0:11:10The partners thing is a little bit weird though, because Apple were promoting a select list
0:11:16of partners that they're working with, but it should actually work on any contactless
0:11:20terminal, which is basically every single major store in the country.
0:11:25So it's a bit...
0:11:26I'm gonna do some more testing on this, because I've never been able to really find a definitive
0:11:30answer but my understanding is even it says this on Apple's website you know or
0:11:35like you know any contactless any store that uses contactless but they're using
0:11:39these partners I don't really get it so I'm gonna go and actually try that out
0:11:42myself in some places that are like unofficial you know like I've seen
0:11:48people use it in like bakeries and stuff just like if you have contactless yeah
0:11:52you can try it and see if it works and a lot of times it will work and and
0:11:56And sometimes the partners are a network
0:11:58or a hardware provider.
0:12:00And the individual store isn't a partner per se,
0:12:03but they've turned on Apple Pay for their terminal
0:12:07and so it works and they may not even know.
0:12:10So it's worth a try.
0:12:11I'm liking Apple Pay.
0:12:14I mean, I have limited places where it's available
0:12:17and then I go to some places and I see terminals
0:12:19and I think, well, I could try this here.
0:12:22I want it to be in more places
0:12:24because I do find it really convenient.
0:12:25There was a give and take that I had with Nevin Murgon
0:12:30on Twitter where he was saying,
0:12:33"Well, it's very obvious that Apple Pay is better
0:12:36from the phone than from the Apple Watch."
0:12:38Because for him, he preferred it that way.
0:12:41My response was, "Well, I always use it with my watch
0:12:45instead of my phone, always, because I think it's easier
0:12:48to tap the little button," which also made him mad
0:12:53'cause you don't tap a button, you push a button,
0:12:55which I feel like if you do it a couple of times,
0:12:57then you're tapping on the button.
0:12:58That's how that works.
0:13:00But he's a designer and thinks that you only tap
0:13:03on a touchscreen, I guess.
0:13:04So I, anyway, I push the little friend button
0:13:07a couple of times and it's a double push, if you will.
0:13:12And it brings up Apple Pay on my watch and I go boop.
0:13:15And then the phone or the watch vibrates and I've paid.
0:13:20I think it's really convenient.
0:13:21I wish it was in more places.
0:13:22I think this is the challenge
0:13:24all this contactless stuff is that it's going to be a little while before it's everywhere so it's
0:13:28hard to leave the house with only Apple Pay because depending on where you go you know this place will
0:13:34have Apple Pay and this place won't so you end up bringing your wallet with you anyway but it's
0:13:39still fun and convenient and all this time later I'm still really enjoying using it so I hope you
0:13:44enjoy it. Yeah it is without a doubt the thing that is pulling America kicking and screaming
0:13:51into the modern age of this stuff. So it's interesting but not surprising that Apple
0:13:56was the company to do it. Google tried.
0:14:00Yeah, well, yeah, and Google will benefit now because these things all work with Google
0:14:05Pay. Do they call it Google Pay now? They changed the name of it.
0:14:08Isn't it Android Pay?
0:14:10Android Pay maybe from Google Wallet. But it's a pay and there's Samsung Pay and I don't
0:14:15even know. There's many pays now. But they all do the same thing. So they benefit. All
0:14:19other vendors, this is not an Apple-only technology, so all the, all of these terminals will support
0:14:25those other, those other things too, but it really kind of took Apple to push it over
0:14:28the edge. Yeah, it's fun. I, I enjoy it. I like, you know, like I said, my Whole Foods
0:14:34by my house is the place where I use it the most because it's right there and we're always
0:14:37going over there to get three things because it's the supermarket we can walk to in less
0:14:42than five minutes. So that's when we, that's when we do it, but it's fun. I'm, you know,
0:14:46I enjoy it. It feels like the future.
0:14:50-Stuart has written in to give more advice on shuffling.
0:14:54Jason, can you take this one before I tear my ears off?
0:14:58-Yeah. This is gonna be the last one,
0:15:00'cause we've got lots of people, even when we say things in the show,
0:15:04we get people asking us if we know about the thing we said in the show,
0:15:07which means I guess they just missed what we said in the show.
0:15:09But I did want to mention this,
0:15:11'cause I thought this was a bit of nice practical advice from Stuart
0:15:14for me wanting to listen to songs from an artist
0:15:17without adding them to my library using Apple Music.
0:15:19And the answer is you go to the artist,
0:15:20you tap on their top songs list.
0:15:22If they have one, again, they don't all have them,
0:15:24but if they do, it's a sort of like the ones
0:15:26that get played or bought or whatever the most
0:15:28in Apple's database.
0:15:30If you play the first track there,
0:15:31at that point, it will just play that list
0:15:33of the top 10 songs from that artist.
0:15:35There may be duplicates in there, that is a risk,
0:15:37but it's not a bad approach.
0:15:39If you really just wanna say,
0:15:40"Hey, play me some things from this artist
0:15:43I've never heard of but I'm intrigued by. So that's not a bad tip. So thank you, Stuart.
0:15:48And thus ends our discussion of shuffling music in an artist in Apple Music.
0:15:53This will only come up again if it is fixed.
0:15:57If there is a development, yes.
0:15:58Or, yeah, if there is a change in which makes Justin Jason happy. But other than that, never
0:16:03again. Thank you to everybody that suggested something.
0:16:07Listen 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
0:16:14The perfect gift of my daughter's birthday. She's 10 loves taking photos
0:16:18She wanted to be able to carry around her music and she even recently wanted a Fitbit
0:16:22The new iPod touch has the m8 processor and he went to mention that he loves to show
0:16:27I have a couple of cousins around the same age both girls and
0:16:32was there we had a family barbecue on the weekend and they both
0:16:37Love their iPads. That is what they are big on
0:16:41for many of the same reasons like for taking photos and stuff like that and there my uncle works for a
0:16:49Telephone company a mobile phone company
0:16:51So there are lots of phones in the house, but they both much much prefer their iPads
0:17:00But I can see how for Adrien's daughter, there may be a little bit more specific use cases like
0:17:06tracking her steps and activity, which is really cool that at that age she wants to do that.
0:17:10I can see how the iPod touch could make sense for her in this scenario. I mean, that's the thing, right?
0:17:16I think when we were talking last week, I don't think, and you know, we can be correct,
0:17:21it is so much that we were saying we didn't understand the iPod touch's placement, but more like why,
0:17:28especially the Nano still exists. I think the iPod Touch makes sense in some areas,
0:17:33and I think primarily as a game console, but I do think that the iPad is still better for
0:17:39like 90% of tasks than the iPod Touch.
0:17:43Right, but this is a good example of taking pictures, carrying around music, and even
0:17:48the sort of like steps and things like that. I wonder whether this is a common thing or
0:17:53whether she's a real edge case, this 10-year-old girl, but it's possible. My son is 10 and
0:18:00just about to turn 11, and he has my original iPad Mini and loves it, and that's the thing
0:18:06that he uses all the time. He absolutely loves it. But again, he's not carrying it around
0:18:10and taking pictures with it and putting it in his pocket, because his pocket wouldn't
0:18:14hit it anyway. But it's just like for him, it's all about the games, and he likes the
0:18:20bigger screen. And we're talking about as he goes off to middle school, we're talking
0:18:23about handing down an iPhone to him just so that he's got something to contact us since
0:18:27he's going to be walking a longer distance to get to school and he's going to be not
0:18:30walked to school by us every day. So you know, he's going to be with his friends, but we
0:18:34want to we want to have a lifeline there. So we want to have him be able to call. And
0:18:38there's this question of is he going to just completely embrace the iPhone or is he going
0:18:41to still use the iPad and he declared on sort of like unprompted to us the other day that
0:18:47he thinks he'll probably still use the iPad even if he gets an iPhone because of the big
0:18:52screen.
0:18:53He likes playing games on the big screen and I think that's probably true but you know
0:18:57the iPad is not for everybody so the iPod Touch gives you another another angle to it.
0:19:03I think it really is a kid's device though.
0:19:07Yeah I think so.
0:19:08I do hear from people every now and then who have a cheap cell phone plan and feel like
0:19:15they've got Wi-Fi pretty much everywhere they go.
0:19:17The John Siracuses, if you will.
0:19:19This is the John Siracuses of the world from a few years ago. Now he has his iPhone. But
0:19:25yeah, just like John, who they look at the cost, you know, data plans aren't cheap. Now
0:19:30the way data plans are structured is changing. And with family plans, it can actually be
0:19:36not a bad deal. And if you've got a certain number of people on a plan already, it can
0:19:42start to make more sense, like you might as well just get a phone or use a hand-me-down
0:19:46phone, but there are people for whom that is not worth it, and that, you know, they
0:19:52don't need data when they're out and about, and they've got a cheap phone, maybe prepaid,
0:19:57that just gives them that lifeline when they're out and about, and that's enough.
0:20:01And for now, I think that is still an interesting kind of sliver of the market, but I do think
0:20:07that over time there will be plenty of other ways to get people on data or cheap and you
0:20:17know we'll have to see. I think that's one reason there's no cellular iPod touch is that
0:20:21I do think there's a class of people who would say well why should I get an iPhone all I
0:20:26want is data and I actually thought about that is that if I were a woman or if I was
0:20:29a man with a purse I could put it that way too if I had a big bag that I carried around
0:20:34all the time, I wonder whether I would really need my iPhone at all. Because if I had a
0:20:38cellular iPad mini, let's say, that might be enough. I mean, I don't take calls very
0:20:44often. It's all texts and using data. So, you know, I think it'll be interesting to
0:20:50see in the next five or ten years what happens with access to data for cheap, and, you know,
0:20:56what do you pay for, and is there a way to get fairly cheaply—in the U.S., anyway,
0:21:03is still an issue to fairly cheaply get access to a lot of data when you're out and about.
0:21:09But right now I think that there is a class of people who are like, you know, just not,
0:21:13it doesn't make sense to pay that monthly fee for a smartphone plan.
0:21:20I actually have a question for you about plans and upgrading and stuff like that.
0:21:27Oh, upgrading.
0:21:28Upgrading, upgrading on upgrade.
0:21:30Let's take our first break first, because we're still not out of the follow-up.
0:21:34So we may as well take a break in the middle of the follow-up now, because I'm about to
0:21:38bring in a mini topic halfway through.
0:21:40So let's do that.
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0:24:16So, my mom has an iPhone 5C,
0:24:21which she upgraded from a 3G from about 18 months ago,
0:24:26which was a happy day for everyone.
0:24:28Her contract is up for renewal in about 10 days time,
0:24:35and she wants a bigger phone.
0:24:37She wants an iPhone 6, I think.
0:24:39She said she wants a bigger phone,
0:24:41but she doesn't want a phone as big as mine,
0:24:43so I'm thinking iPhone 6.
0:24:45Now, we are probably about six weeks away
0:24:49from the new iPhones, I think, at this point.
0:24:51Would probably be a fair assessment, right?
0:24:53Middle of September, early September.
0:24:55- Yep.
0:24:56- Should I have her make her upgrade to an iPhone 6 now?
0:25:02Or wait?
0:25:04Now there's no point getting a 6S for her because she doesn't want to spend money.
0:25:10And to upgrade to an iPhone 6 now in the UK, you can get it for pretty much next to free.
0:25:17Which she signs another year on her contract.
0:25:20Because all the phone companies know that they need to be getting rid of their stock
0:25:25now.
0:25:26So they're driving the prices down.
0:25:28She could probably upgrade for free or she could just sell her 5C to a gazelle-like company
0:25:34We have here called Mazuma Mobile and pay off the contract fee.
0:25:38There is a good chance, right, depending on how it works out,
0:25:41that she could do it to a 6S as well when they come out.
0:25:43She might get enough money, but I don't know.
0:25:46I'm just wondering. She doesn't need the most recent,
0:25:49so I'm not sure whether to wait to see what happens,
0:25:54but like there could be, they could stop selling the 6 altogether.
0:25:57We don't know what's going to happen.
0:25:59And then she might have to spend the money that she doesn't want to have to spend.
0:26:02So I'm in a bit of a struggle because I'm, you know, I'm looked at to get this decision
0:26:07right for her.
0:26:08So I'm not sure what to do.
0:26:10Well I think, so it remains to be seen what happens with this because this is not quite
0:26:17an iPhone mix like we've seen before from Apple because you've got the 6 and the 6 plus.
0:26:22It remains to be seen what's going to happen in terms of what's the phone that is in the
0:26:28US it's you know $99 down or $100 down.
0:26:30It's the 99, 199, 299.
0:26:33So it remains to be seen, is there going to be a last year's model of the 6 down 100?
0:26:41Is that going to happen with the 6 Plus as well?
0:26:42Are they going to have old ones of those?
0:26:44Or are they going to do something where, I mean, there are some reports from an analyst
0:26:48today saying that there's not going to be a four-inch iPhone with last year's stuff
0:26:53this fall.
0:26:56His track record's okay.
0:26:57Maybe, maybe not.
0:26:58And maybe it will be next year.
0:26:59Maybe it doesn't exist at all.
0:27:00talked about that in previous shows. Yeah, because he's saying this guy is Timothy
0:27:05Akuri, 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.
0:27:13If he's right, and it's not unreasonable for Apple to say, "Look, we are gonna do
0:27:16that phone, but we don't need to do it in the fall when we're making all these big
0:27:19sales and it's our biggest quarter. Why don't we just, we don't need to launch,
0:27:22like with the iPod Touch, do we really need to launch all of these products
0:27:26simultaneously? Do that one in the summer, do this next one, you know, in the winter,
0:27:30after the holidays, that's not unreasonable.
0:27:33But if they don't do that, then the question is,
0:27:35what's that $99 product?
0:27:36Is that the 5S for another year?
0:27:38Does that 5S go down?
0:27:39Is there a 6, but not a 6+ maybe?
0:27:42Does the 6 go down $100 and then the 6S is above it?
0:27:47Is that what they do?
0:27:48I bring this up because I feel like that's sort of
0:27:51your mother's question here is,
0:27:52if there's going to be in a few weeks,
0:27:58that six is going to be $100 less,
0:28:01or the equivalent in UK prices, right?
0:28:04Is that a better deal than what she's being offered now?
0:28:09And if that's a better deal, then maybe she should wait.
0:28:12But if the six just goes away,
0:28:15and it's replaced by the six S,
0:28:17and now it's more expensive than what she would do right now.
0:28:19- This is my problem.
0:28:20- Then, so that will, so that, and that's, yeah,
0:28:24that's the trick.
0:28:26Since she doesn't need the, you know,
0:28:28doesn't necessarily need the features
0:28:30of a six versus a six S, I guess I would say
0:28:32if she can get a really good deal now, it's probably fine.
0:28:36But we don't know that piece, right?
0:28:40Because normally I would say that, look,
0:28:42in mid September, that iPhone six, base iPhone six
0:28:47is gonna go down $100.
0:28:50The question is, are they gonna limit it to one size?
0:28:52Is that gonna be, you know, the 16?
0:28:54Is that enough for her?
0:28:56There's lots of other questions in there too, but--
0:28:58- Oh yeah, she only needs a 16.
0:29:00She doesn't put anything on her phone at all.
0:29:02- 'Cause so if, I mean, if that phone exists,
0:29:03I have a hard time believing that all sixes
0:29:06are just gonna vanish on September 18th or whatever of,
0:29:10you know, when the new iPhones are released.
0:29:14It seems like, it seems like we're so close now
0:29:18that she could probably benefit from waiting
0:29:20unless the deal that her carrier is willing to cut her
0:29:26on the 6 is really good. If it's really good then maybe it's worth taking it.
0:29:32Because obviously, like you said, they're motivated to move them out
0:29:37because they know that this is a tough time to sell a
0:29:41new iPhone to somebody because everybody knows that the new ones are coming.
0:29:45But some people don't care, right? Some people don't care that the new ones are coming.
0:29:48So maybe that's your mom's case and that if she can get a good deal now maybe that's enough.
0:29:52Like it's possible to get an iPhone 6 right now,
0:29:5716 gigabyte on a pretty good plan.
0:30:00So say like 30 pounds, 35 pounds a month,
0:30:04and you just pay 100 pounds upfront, which is excellent.
0:30:09So it's a great deal.
0:30:10And it's everything she needs as well.
0:30:13- See that's the thing is I would say
0:30:14it's that there's not something that nerds should do,
0:30:18but that a regular light use person like your mom
0:30:23is not one of those computer nerd people.
0:30:28And that's a pretty good deal.
0:30:29And she doesn't need to worry so much about
0:30:32future proofing, oh, well, if you wait six weeks,
0:30:36then you'll have a phone that will be slightly better
0:30:40in three years or something like that.
0:30:41I'm not sure that it matters or that the new features
0:30:44that are coming are gonna be things
0:30:45that she cares so much about that it's worth her waiting.
0:30:48then again, and see I'm doing it now too, I'm going back and forth,
0:30:52then again it almost never hurts to wait, especially if the wait's only six
0:30:56weeks.
0:30:56So really, to me it's sort of like how badly does she want something new?
0:31:01This is what I mean, this is always what I say when people say "should I upgrade?" is do you
0:31:04need to upgrade or can you wait?
0:31:05If you can wait, wait, because there will always be something good,
0:31:09something better coming later, but at some point you just need to buy something
0:31:12and so you should buy it when you need to buy it.
0:31:15Ugh. 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.
0:31:41Yeah, I think that might be good. If she's willing to wait, I think it's probably worth waiting.
0:31:47It's just that really tough time of the year for these kinds of decisions.
0:31:51Because it's like we're weeks away, but yet we have literally no idea what's gonna happen.
0:31:57Yeah, we don't.
0:31:59Like at this family barbecue, somebody, one of my family members asked me,
0:32:05"What's the new iPhone gonna have?" And I'm like, "I don't know."
0:32:09People expect me to know? I don't know, like I can guess, but nobody knows.
0:32:16But people think that I'm messing around when I say that. They expect that I know exactly what's going to happen.
0:32:23You must get this constantly.
0:32:25Yeah, people think that I know everything about what's coming and it's like, nope.
0:32:29They don't talk to me about stuff like that. No.
0:32:33Where we are right now, we really don't have a sense for what's happening.
0:32:38- I know, isn't that funny?
0:32:39Isn't that funny that there's nothing,
0:32:40well, I mean, Mark Gurman just got back from vacation.
0:32:43So, let's see what happens tomorrow.
0:32:46He's gonna check in with all his sources
0:32:48and we're gonna get all the details the next week
0:32:51'cause he's been on vacation.
0:32:52He's powering up for the next round.
0:32:54But we've heard a lot of talk about haptic stuff.
0:32:57So, force touch and haptics built in, I think, makes sense.
0:33:02Better camera makes, always makes sense,
0:33:05always better camera. - Foster.
0:33:08blah, blah, blah.
0:33:09- Yeah, you know, yeah, faster.
0:33:10Maybe it'll have more RAM like the iPad Air 2 has.
0:33:14You know, stuff like that.
0:33:17It's the 6S, right?
0:33:19It's not the 7.
0:33:22And so it's the talk in the TikTok metaphor, maybe?
0:33:27- Who knows?
0:33:2850/50 chance of getting that.
0:33:30- Let's just say, sure, yeah.
0:33:32So that's the, you know, if we define the Tik
0:33:35as advancing to a whole new model with a different look and the talk as
0:33:39meaning
0:33:40the incremental update within the specs and size of the old model
0:33:45that's the, you know, it's the S is what I'm saying so it's not going to be
0:33:49as
0:33:50big a jump
0:33:51because the big jump happens every couple years
0:33:53because the buying cycle right now is every couple years
0:33:57so after we spoke last week uh...
0:33:59about iPods you went and threw an SSD into a iPod Classic
0:34:04or just as an iPod as it was called at the time.
0:34:07- Yeah, well, it's the fifth generation iPod.
0:34:08So I refer to it as the iPod Classic
0:34:10and I had somebody say, well, actually,
0:34:12that's the fifth generation iPod video
0:34:14that you're referring to there,
0:34:16which is I have, you know, fair point,
0:34:18except I think we have to refer to those
0:34:21as all as the iPod Classic at this point,
0:34:23because Apple, and I pointed that person to the Wikipedia,
0:34:27the Wikipedia page for iPod Classic,
0:34:30which includes all of the classic iPod models
0:34:32back to the original.
0:34:33It's the thing we think of as the classic iPod,
0:34:36which in its last generation was called the iPod classic.
0:34:39Anyway, it's the big one with the spinning hard drive in it.
0:34:43And I saw that Otherworld Computing
0:34:46was offering this product that was a flash drive upgrade
0:34:50for the fifth generation iPod
0:34:53and sixth generation iPod classic.
0:34:55And so I said, I'd like to check that out.
0:34:58Can you send me one?
0:34:59And they sent me one and I installed it myself,
0:35:02which was a little scary.
0:35:03I have never cracked an iPod open before
0:35:05to do something like that.
0:35:07And I was using a how-to article from the web
0:35:11and it did me pretty well until the point
0:35:12where I need to install their adapter
0:35:15and then I didn't know which way to put it.
0:35:17Fortunately, this was like one of the first ones
0:35:19that they were selling and they've now
0:35:21posted their how-to video,
0:35:22which shows very clearly the one mistake that I made.
0:35:25So I basically had to take it all apart a second time
0:35:27and flip the thing around.
0:35:28I had the cable in backward.
0:35:30And to my surprise, it worked fine.
0:35:33I closed it back up and now I've got this thing
0:35:35that is much lighter because there's no spinning,
0:35:38big metal spinning hard drive in it.
0:35:40Instead, there's just a little compact flash memory adapter
0:35:43with a, or what, SD adapter.
0:35:45It's a little flash memory adapter with an SD card in it,
0:35:49with like 128 gig SD card in it.
0:35:52So I went from 60 of spinning disk
0:35:55to 128 of not spinning and lighter and not gonna crash.
0:36:00crash, and the way the iPods work, you just plug it into iTunes and it installs its own
0:36:06software on the device and puts your music on it, and now I have my entire purchase music
0:36:11library, because like all these products, it's not compatible with Apple Music, but
0:36:15my entire purchase music library now is on there. It doesn't take any time to spin up
0:36:19because there's nothing to spin. It's not going to crash. That's a 10-year-old iPod,
0:36:24so that drive was going to die at some point. It lives in my car's glove compartment attached
0:36:29to the car stereo.
0:36:31And yeah, so it was pretty cool.
0:36:33And so if you're somebody who has a classic iPod
0:36:37of the fifth or sixth generation,
0:36:38which like I said, is basically made in the last 10 years
0:36:41of the big one and the hard drive has died
0:36:45or you want more space,
0:36:46I think it's actually a pretty cool option.
0:36:47So, you know, it's funny that we were just talking
0:36:49about old iPods and then I was working on this story.
0:36:54So those both happened the same week.
0:36:56So anyway, the link to the six colors post
0:36:58will be in the show notes,
0:36:59But yeah, I was pretty impressed.
0:37:01It's not, you gotta be comfortable cracking open an iPod,
0:37:06but if you are capable of doing that sort of thing,
0:37:11of installing, you gotta work with some little things.
0:37:16You gotta have good eyesight or good glasses.
0:37:20But I got it to work.
0:37:22It took me like half an hour once I figured out
0:37:24what I was doing wrong because I didn't have the access
0:37:27to the video that they posted now.
0:37:28Yeah, big iPod now, in the car.
0:37:31- Nice.
0:37:34- Yeah.
0:37:35- It's weird to me that you plug it in
0:37:36and it installs the software itself.
0:37:37Like how does it know that it's an iPod?
0:37:39- Well, no, I think so.
0:37:41I think the, well, it looks at the drive and says,
0:37:45my software isn't on this drive, right?
0:37:47If you put in a new disc,
0:37:49whether it's a spinning disc or this adapter,
0:37:50it goes, oh, I don't know what this is.
0:37:52But these things are designed to connect to iTunes, right?
0:37:55So you connect it to iTunes, just to USB to your Mac, running iTunes.
0:38:00And you do a software restore.
0:38:03And it puts the software on.
0:38:04I think it downloads the latest version from Apple.
0:38:07Puts the iPod software on, lets you sync your music, and you're up and running.
0:38:11That's how they're made to work, basically, is when there's a blank drive, they just want
0:38:14to phone home to the Mac and to iTunes, and then they restore.
0:38:18That's interesting.
0:38:20That's very interesting to me.
0:38:22one of those things that maybe my fundamental level of understanding of computing is failing
0:38:27me, but it's like I just, if the drive's empty, I'm just a little bit like, "How does it know?"
0:38:31It's computer magic, kids. That's how it knows.
0:38:34Yeah, it's magic. There's an elf that lives inside the iPod.
0:38:37Last piece of follow-up today.
0:38:38Oh my God.
0:38:39Well, I mean, you know.
0:38:40Mini, we're doing, these are like mini topics almost at this point.
0:38:44We took a break in the middle of the follow-up.
0:38:46We did. For some topics.
0:38:47Put a topic and a sponsor in there. You know, it was very, very, very broken up today. We
0:38:51spoke about Touch ID over wireless and listener Shep wrote in with some
0:38:58indication that this may be possible. Shep says "Apple have already implemented
0:39:02HomeKit encryption standards that require that accessories use
0:39:07bleeding-edge 3072 bit keys and curve 25519" whatever that is "which is an
0:39:15elliptical curve for signatures and key exchange which should be definitely be
0:39:18sufficient for transferring and confirming touch ID information so
0:39:22maybe is possible in a wireless device. Basically, whilst me and Jason don't have
0:39:26any clue what that means, it sounds like that there is some kind of encryption
0:39:31standard being used with HomeKit to identify that you are the person that
0:39:36you say you are with the device that you have, right? So it's I assume what's
0:39:40happening is the HomeKit devices are authenticating via your iPhone which is
0:39:44unlocked by you to do these things. So if that's the case and if this stuff works
0:39:50that way it's not too far a stretch to imagine that a touch ID sensor could
0:39:59send a "yes this is the person" notification over to a device. There's an
0:40:06elf that lives inside. Yeah and he shouts over "hey hey!" This one's okay let this
0:40:11one through! I like this guy! He's got a friendly face!
0:40:15Anyway, I appreciated this note and I put it in the show notes because basically what
0:40:19Shep's saying is look, Apple's already pushing on a lot of encryption stuff for HomeKit and
0:40:25perhaps that means that you could even do something like Touch ID for opening, you know,
0:40:32for unlocking your computer or whatever or even kicking off an Apple Pay session if Apple
0:40:36pay was baked into a version of OS X via a future Magic Trackpad that had touch ID or
0:40:44something in that.
0:40:46Maybe that's possible even though we were skeptical about it.
0:40:48Maybe it is or maybe it's just going to be something that's going to be limited to wired
0:40:53like trackpads on laptops.
0:40:55And that, I mean, really laptops are Apple's focus.
0:40:58Two-thirds at least of the Mac sold are laptops.
0:41:02It's maybe verging up to three quarters at this point.
0:41:04So this may not be an issue, even though I'm using an iMac, you know, most of Apple's users
0:41:09are using laptops, and so putting a Touch ID sensor on the laptop wouldn't require wireless
0:41:15anything.
0:41:16So maybe that's where they're going with it if they go that direction.
0:41:18>> I was looking at my Magic Trackpad today and looked at the little battery compartment,
0:41:24you know, the little circular battery compartment, and thought, "A Touch ID sensor would fit
0:41:28really nicely on there."
0:41:30That was what I saw when I was using my Magic Trackpad today to edit.
0:41:34podcast as I do two-handed one magic trackpad and one mouse because I am a
0:41:38magician. That's how I work. Yes, one of the two. Apple Watch sales. So we're into another
0:41:46mini topic now. So I know that you had had some annoyance over the way that some of
0:41:54the Apple Watch stuff was being spoken about in the last couple of weeks about
0:42:00there was like a New York Times piece where somebody was basically trying to
0:42:04say that because Facebook don't have an app it means that Apple watches aren't
0:42:08selling and then there's been reports backwards and forwards about how Apple
0:42:13watches have been sold and then we had the earnings report. Now the earnings
0:42:17report which came out last week, Apple's Q3 results, didn't break down watch sales
0:42:24but did give an indication that watches are selling effectively and you wrote a
0:42:30great piece for Macworld talking about some of the big key learnings from the
0:42:35Q3 earnings. So what do you think about Apple Watch sales now past an earnings
0:42:40report? Yeah so lots to unpack here I did complain about this New York Times
0:42:50story that was in advance of the Apple Watch sales and basically was saying you
0:42:57know it's hard for me not to look at this and read it as that the editor at
0:43:02the New York Times in charge of tech said Apple financials are coming we need
0:43:06a story that previews them find an angle and the angle was oh developers are
0:43:13unsure about how they're gonna develop Apple watches and that means that people
0:43:17are waiting to buy Apple watches until the developers of their favorite apps
0:43:20support it which I think is a ridiculous premise that people are not buying Apple
0:43:24watch because they're not sure whether Facebook will be on it I think that's
0:43:27It's just, I think that is not, no, I don't believe that at all.
0:43:31People are not buying them for a reason, you know, if they're not buying them.
0:43:34But I also don't buy that that is in the buying decision.
0:43:39Lack of apps seems unlikely to be a reason.
0:43:41I mean, maybe lack of a very specific thing, like, I need an Apple Watch, but I needed
0:43:45to do this, but I don't think it's sort of like, why isn't there a Facebook app?
0:43:48And somebody pointed out, you know, Facebook didn't do an iPod, iPad version of Facebook
0:43:54for years.
0:43:56very careful with what they do, and quite rightly so. I linked to Marco Arment's piece
0:44:01about ripping up the first version of Overcast on the watch and doing it again, and now there's
0:44:06going to be WatchOS 2. I mean, there are lots of reasons why developers might want to wait
0:44:10and see and figure out the best uses. I think a Facebook app full stop on the Apple Watch
0:44:15is a terrible idea, because there's too much in Facebook, and that they'd be better. Yes,
0:44:20a Facebook Messenger app, maybe? That makes sense. And maybe there's a very focused Facebook
0:44:25that does this, but it doesn't do all these other things. But this idea that like, oh,
0:44:29well, it should be pretty simple. They should just drop all Facebook on an Apple Watch app.
0:44:32It's like, that would be terrible. That would be a terrible thing. So don't do that. And
0:44:37they haven't. So good for them. But so I think it was a kind of a ridiculous story. And I,
0:44:44you know, Brian Chen used to work for me and I like him. And I am not one of those people
0:44:48who thinks that there are a lot of people who are very critical of a lot of the things
0:44:51that he writes, and I actually think that that's overly harsh, but in this case, I think
0:44:57this is a story that makes this link to Apple Watch sales and app developers, and it's lazy,
0:45:05and it's a bad story. The bigger issue now is how many Apple Watches did Apple really
0:45:11sell? As far as we can tell, it looks like they are the most successful smartwatch ever.
0:45:17not a big surprise. But when it comes to details, basically what Apple says is, "Trust us, it's
0:45:23doing well."
0:45:24What do you think about this?
0:45:26That's all I say. It's, well, you know, so Tim, what Tim Cook says is, "It's not a matter
0:45:34of not being transparent, it's a matter of not giving our competition insight on a product
0:45:39that we worked hard on." Okay.
0:45:41That seems, I mean, hmm, okay, okay.
0:45:45I've been thinking about this, Jason.
0:45:47(laughing)
0:45:48And I have an opinion which is probably
0:45:51gonna be a little bit unpopular,
0:45:53but I've been thinking about it and I'm annoyed about this.
0:45:55I think that this is a real kinda
0:46:00big city answer, like it's a...
0:46:03(laughing)
0:46:04I don't, I think that they were just concerned
0:46:08about potential failings and that because Tim
0:46:13basically staked his legacy on this product,
0:46:16I think that he and everybody else around him
0:46:19decided that they didn't want it to look like a failure
0:46:23if it was a failure and that they would take,
0:46:26because you can, they can later start reporting it, right?
0:46:30But after they start reporting it, they then can't hide it.
0:46:33But before they report it for the first time,
0:46:36they can hide it, right?
0:46:37If it doesn't sell well and then they're like,
0:46:40we're gonna start reporting this in other now,
0:46:42then it looks worse than if they do it
0:46:44the other way around.
0:46:45- There is a middle ground here,
0:46:48which is the, we are gonna report it on our own terms.
0:46:52And this is what they do with things like app sales
0:46:54and even things like iOS device overall numbers.
0:46:59There are numbers that aren't in the balance sheet
0:47:02that they do know.
0:47:03And then what they do is they release a press release
0:47:05saying Apple celebrates sale of 2 millionth Apple Watch.
0:47:10And you're like, okay.
0:47:11And that's not a lie.
0:47:14When they do that, it'll be the real number,
0:47:16but it will be this timed release.
0:47:18And then everybody else is like, okay, now what?
0:47:21And then you wait to hear how long is it until they say,
0:47:24do they say it at 3 million or 4 million or 5 million?
0:47:28And everybody waits.
0:47:28So that's the middle ground where they do things
0:47:31to disclose, but they do it on a time schedule
0:47:34that isn't quarterly and that makes it,
0:47:36that casts the product in their own,
0:47:40the best light possible.
0:47:41And I think that is an option for them.
0:47:43I think it's interesting
0:47:45that they haven't shared the numbers
0:47:47and it may be that they feel like it's lower than they'd
0:47:53like, although they say it exceeded their expectations,
0:47:56but we don't know what their expectations are.
0:47:57And that's a funny game where you can also
0:47:59have really conservative expectations
0:48:02while you secretly think it's gonna be three times that
0:48:04And then it turns out to be one and a half times that.
0:48:06And you say, well, it exceeded my expectations,
0:48:08but didn't really,
0:48:09'cause you didn't really think it was gonna be that low.
0:48:11That's possible.
0:48:12It's also possible that the production problems
0:48:14that they had have complicated this so much
0:48:17that they kinda don't wanna talk about it right now.
0:48:19And they, like he said,
0:48:23he said it was untrue that there was a peak of sales
0:48:26and then it went down,
0:48:27which is that one report that we got from that company
0:48:29that like mines people's emails
0:48:31and which is an insane business model.
0:48:35And what they said is they were higher in June
0:48:40that they had gone up, but that too is unclear.
0:48:47- Nobody knows what that means.
0:48:48- Because it could mean that the sales went up
0:48:51because they were unable to charge people
0:48:52for watches that hadn't shipped yet.
0:48:55And they very slowly started to ramp.
0:48:57And so what we're seeing in those sales numbers going up
0:49:00is not demand going up, but it's the ramp going up.
0:49:03At the same time, it's also disingenuous to say that,
0:49:06oh well, it had a lot of initial sales
0:49:08and then it dropped off, I guess it's a flop,
0:49:10because brand new product, brand new category
0:49:12preannounced by six months,
0:49:14of course there's going to be a huge peak
0:49:17of people buying at the moment it goes on sale,
0:49:19and then it's gonna have to settle down
0:49:20to an actual reasonable number.
0:49:22So both of the numbers are suspect.
0:49:23So we really don't know, other than Apple saying,
0:49:26again, it's better than we thought,
0:49:29we're very excited about the holiday.
0:49:30I think, I thought the most intriguing thing they said was,
0:49:33by looking at the customer experience
0:49:36and what people are saying,
0:49:37that we're really excited about the holidays.
0:49:42Like I think what he said was,
0:49:43we've learned a lot about the Apple Watch buying experience
0:49:47and we're convinced that the watch is going to be
0:49:48one of the top gifts of the holiday season.
0:49:50So what that says to me,
0:49:52is maybe that in their research about who's buying this,
0:49:55they feel bullish on the fact
0:49:57that it's going to break through past the like super excited
0:50:00tech buyers to a broader audience in the holidays,
0:50:03which I think is a reasonable premise,
0:50:06but it doesn't really get us any closer to knowing
0:50:08other than that the other category went up
0:50:11by a little less than a billion dollars
0:50:13and both Luca, the CFO and Tim Cook said,
0:50:18Apple watch sales were way beyond that.
0:50:21So we've got a few metrics of like how much greater it is,
0:50:25But in the end, I made a chart last week of this,
0:50:28of total Apple Watch sales.
0:50:29And it's like, it's a bar with no number and no,
0:50:34it's what we call a Bezos chart,
0:50:36the Jeff Bezos charts from Amazon that there's,
0:50:39look, the bars look great,
0:50:41but we won't tell you what they mean.
0:50:42It's a little like that.
0:50:43We're in this really hazy situation
0:50:45where Apple kind of doesn't wanna talk about it,
0:50:47which is a little bit suspicious to me.
0:50:49I feel like Apple is really good at blowing its own horn
0:50:52and it sort of didn't do that here.
0:50:54But at the same time, it is this new category
0:50:58and they are undoubtedly by far
0:51:02the most successful smartwatch ever already.
0:51:05But what does that mean for the future?
0:51:08And does it mean anything?
0:51:11It's just a whole lot of hazy stuff
0:51:13and not a lot of tangible information
0:51:16about the watch right now.
0:51:18- Yeah, I think just as I've been talking about it
0:51:20and thinking about it,
0:51:21I think I'm finding myself as frustrated with this
0:51:23as I get with Jeff Bezos.
0:51:25And the Kindle graphs that mean nothing.
0:51:28Where it's like, yeah, no, there definitely was money.
0:51:31So they're like, oh, there was loads of money.
0:51:33But it's more money than you think there is money.
0:51:36Like that's kind of the answer, right?
0:51:37Where it's like, oh, the money went up,
0:51:39but other things in that category went down.
0:51:42So it's even more than you think.
0:51:43We're just not gonna tell you.
0:51:44Like it's like, either do it or don't do it.
0:51:47And I just, I do feel like that just the reason for this
0:51:51was they were just a little bit like,
0:51:53we're not sure how this is gonna go,
0:51:55so why don't we just play our cards
0:51:58to our chest for a while?
0:51:59- Yeah, and it did lead to a very funny moment
0:52:04for me anyway, where in order to pump up
0:52:08how well the watch was doing,
0:52:10they said, well, that other category,
0:52:12but you know that includes iPods, and those suck.
0:52:14Those are falling through the floor.
0:52:16So, you know, don't just assume that it's just even there,
0:52:20'cause I assure you some of those other categories,
0:52:22like iPods and accessories, man, those were down,
0:52:26those stunk.
0:52:26So it's like they're throwing other stuff,
0:52:29you know, out into the street because they wanna be like,
0:52:33yeah, but the watch was doing great.
0:52:35So yeah, they were shifty.
0:52:36I think that's the bottom line here is they were shifty.
0:52:38They're not ready to talk about it yet.
0:52:40And how much of that is that they're not ready to,
0:52:44they don't feel proud enough of the information now,
0:52:48how much of that is strategic.
0:52:50I don't know, but it is interesting that they're being kind of shifty about it and they don't
0:52:56want to disclose and they don't have to because, I mean, the fact is, if Apple could, they
0:53:00wouldn't do quarterly reports and tell you about how many phones they're selling either,
0:53:04but they have to because they're a public company.
0:53:06So it's like this is our chance to see facts about Apple's business that Apple would rather
0:53:12not share.
0:53:13Why do they have to tell us how many phones they sold and they don't have to tell us how
0:53:16many watches they sold?
0:53:18- Well, they make decisions about their main,
0:53:20I think it would be very difficult for a public company
0:53:22to have its most popular product
0:53:24not be broken out in their financial lines.
0:53:27But they have some latitude there.
0:53:29For a brand new product category like this,
0:53:31they've just put it,
0:53:32it's just like the iPods have been sort of sucked back
0:53:35into other now because it's just not relevant
0:53:36and they did that.
0:53:37But it's hard, they've got to recalculate
0:53:39all of their finances when they put in a new category.
0:53:43But they did it for the iPad, right?
0:53:44And they haven't done it for the watch yet.
0:53:46and they might, they might do a restated earnings
0:53:51and put it in with, put a watch category on its own
0:53:54next year, they might do that, they might not.
0:53:57It is sort of an iPhone accessory,
0:53:59so maybe they prefer to just to keep it that way.
0:54:02But so they have some latitude,
0:54:04but they do need to report about the structure
0:54:06of their business to their investors.
0:54:09And, you know, I do believe that if they had their druthers,
0:54:13they wouldn't, you know, that's Apple.
0:54:16but they have to say, they have to tell us some things, but they don't have to tell us everything.
0:54:19I'm upset about something else. Oh, yes? But we can talk about that after this break.
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0:57:24Okay Jason so this is something that I've been toying about discussing but it's got
0:57:31to the point now where I want to talk about it, which is ad blockers and Safari content
0:57:35blockers.
0:57:36So...
0:57:37And this is a little bit of follow-out in a way, isn't it?
0:57:39Yeah, because you and Mr. Gruber had a great discussion about this on the talk show last
0:57:44week.
0:57:45Really fantastic episode talking about, like, the business that goes into these companies,
0:57:50you know, and kind of web advertising, how horrible it's become, and why some of that
0:57:55worked.
0:57:56And you gave some of the great insight of working at a company like IDG, which I always
0:57:59love whenever you're on a talk show there are always these great discussions
0:58:03I just find them so fascinating where you and John talk about this with both
0:58:07of your experience having worked in the web for so long. A lot of people are
0:58:11upset about this for varying different reasons and a lot of it seems to be
0:58:16focused towards the verge because I mean it previously it was focused on iMore
0:58:22right that was where this conversation started then it became a bit of a hot
0:58:27button issue. Neil I Patel wrote an article which definitely holds some
0:58:33merit about why the mobile web sucks and this basically crossed the bar that like
0:58:39the barrier between complaining about websites and ads and also complaining
0:58:44about this Safari is the new IE thing. So Neil I was was you know in the post he
0:58:49says about how the verge is part of a problem and ad networks are a bit of an
0:58:54issue and he talks about more though about how different platforms supporting
0:58:59different things and phones and tablets are worse off than the desktop in this
0:59:04scenario. What this did was make a bunch of people lash out against the Verge for
0:59:11their position on this and there are lots of studies done and lots of
0:59:15statistics done. Some correct, some otherwise about how long it takes the
0:59:21Verge's articles to load. I saw again a great post linked by Nilay in retort to
0:59:30this. So basically the Verge, people saying how long it takes like it takes
0:59:3330 seconds for the Verge to load, 263 HTTP requests, it fetched over 9.5 megabytes
0:59:39of data for that was for that article that Nilay was using to
0:59:43complain about the mobile web, right? So saying you're saying this but look how
0:59:47terrible your website is. Then in retort to this I'm basically giving the whole
0:59:50story here. Then in retort to this, uh,
0:59:53Neil I tweeted a link to a forum post from one of Vox media's people where they
0:59:58said, where they said, well, you were not on a mobile,
1:00:02and if you were loading it on mobile, it would have only been like six megabytes,
1:00:06which was still a ridiculously large amount.
1:00:09And they, they, he admits to the fact that it is still bad. It's not as bad,
1:00:13but it's still bad. And you know,
1:00:15that seems to be the biggest, the basis of their argument here is yes, we know,
1:00:18we know we suck but we don't suck as bad as you think we suck yeah and then saying
1:00:22that saying that they're getting better and they've had other focuses the
1:00:30different websites launch stuff like that they're a company and they're
1:00:33saying they have different priorities this is now becoming a priority so we
1:00:40at the moment there's a lot of talk about this and now there is a lot of
1:00:47discussion about people installing ad blockers. And I saw Marco was tweeting
1:00:55about this and wrote in a link post that he is installing an ad blocker and I'm
1:00:59seeing many other people that I follow on Twitter do this and people saying that
1:01:02they're looking forward to the Safari content blocker things so they can
1:01:06finally fix the issues that they're seeing on mobile. So what I wanted to
1:01:12talk about is how I feel about this situation.
1:01:16Relay your feels, Myke.
1:01:18I'm going to.
1:01:19This makes me very uncomfortable
1:01:22because I feel bad for the people that work at these sites
1:01:26because where we are now is basically a lot of people
1:01:34crying foul against these websites and saying that,
1:01:38you know, it's time for this to die.
1:01:41seeing a lot of this kind of thing. And that advertising on the web needs to be
1:01:45burned down to the ground and restarted and that kind of thing. And I understand
1:01:51this and I mean I get as frustrated as many people do about web ads. They do suck
1:01:57in a lot of ways but I'm just there's just something that I'm not comfortable
1:02:00in that people saying that it needs to change completely because for things to
1:02:05change I don't like the idea of the collateral damage of this being the
1:02:09livelihoods of people that have no say in how the advertising is served because
1:02:13fundamentally that's what it is and you know because basically by saying you
1:02:17want this to go away and to die it's gonna kill off a bunch of websites a
1:02:21bunch of websites that are reputable or it's going to cut the profits of a bunch
1:02:24of websites which ultimately means people will lose their jobs and the
1:02:28thing is it's like it's not their fault it's not even the company's like the
1:02:32website company I don't even think it's like the verge and I am or it's not
1:02:35their fault, this is just the market that they're in. And I admit that my current
1:02:40form of employment is the reason that it's swaying my opinion this way because
1:02:45we work on advertising here. I think the feeling about podcast advertising is
1:02:49very different. I mean people get annoyed at it because it's advertising in and of
1:02:54itself and some people just hate advertising. But I don't think it's
1:02:57hated as much as web advertising because it's less intrusive, you can skip it if
1:03:01you want to, and we try and do our best to pick advertisers. It's one of the
1:03:06reasons that now at Relay FM we do all of our own advertising because we can
1:03:10choose who we want, right? So there are ad networks but we don't use them.
1:03:17So that's how I feel about this, and there is just this feeling to
1:03:25me which makes me uncomfortable of the idea that this means people's livelihoods
1:03:29go away and that makes me feel uncomfortable.
1:03:33So that's how I feel, Jason.
1:03:34- I get it.
1:03:36A couple things that I wanted to mention
1:03:39based on what you were saying there.
1:03:41One is I get the feeling that you feel bad
1:03:46for people who are going to be affected by this.
1:03:48And I share that, I mean, I lived this, right?
1:03:52I lived this.
1:03:53Everybody who worked at Macworld,
1:03:54and I think still, but I can't speak to that
1:03:56because I'm not on the inside anymore.
1:03:59everybody who worked at Macworld and IDG in general,
1:04:01you know, the Macworld staff really,
1:04:05they hated the increasingly crappy ads
1:04:09and pre-roll videos and intercept ads and popover ads
1:04:14and all of these things that kept getting added.
1:04:16And so you feel bad for them.
1:04:17And yet, you know, at the same time, the ad blocker thing,
1:04:21you're losing all those ad impressions.
1:04:24And those are ultimately the way
1:04:25that their salaries get paid.
1:04:28So you can feel bad for them.
1:04:29At the same time, there are lots of professions
1:04:34and industries that change because technology changes
1:04:39and because people's habits change.
1:04:40And this is like, I feel bad for the steel workers.
1:04:45I feel bad for the people who used, for the milkmen,
1:04:52but we don't have milkmen anymore.
1:04:55You can feel bad for them, but also say,
1:04:58I feel bad for the milkman, but I bought a refrigerator and my life is better because
1:05:02I brought a refrigerator."
1:05:04And you can feel bad for them without saying, "I'm going to hope that everybody forgoes
1:05:09this inevitable progress, this inevitable change, because otherwise it'll hurt people
1:05:15we like and we'll feel bad."
1:05:16That just sort of, I think you can't fight it and you can still feel bad about it, but
1:05:22that's not enough.
1:05:23think that one of the parts of the story here is that this is an example of the web, not
1:05:29-- it's not any one person's fault, but this is the problem of web advertising, that the
1:05:35web was built as this thing that you had to give away for free, everything was free, and
1:05:40that it became very difficult to make businesses out of it, especially as the web became successful
1:05:46and the other traditional, older kind of businesses that funded a lot of this stuff went away
1:05:51because the web finally kind of ate their lunch
1:05:53and took all their ad revenue away.
1:05:55And the world of advertising on the web,
1:05:58it's been this vicious cycle where there's,
1:06:02people stop paying attention to the ads
1:06:04so they add more junk.
1:06:05And then people stop paying attention to the ads
1:06:07so they add more junk and there's more junk.
1:06:08And then people stop wanting to read the sites
1:06:10because there's too much junk
1:06:11or people download an ad blocker.
1:06:13And so I think there's an inevitability here too
1:06:16of this the current world of web ads falling apart
1:06:20for all but the biggest publishers,
1:06:23because the prices go down and the junk goes up
1:06:29and people are, and the technology gets more savvy
1:06:32to block that stuff.
1:06:33And I think it may not be something that we can say,
1:06:38I wouldn't choose this.
1:06:39I feel like it's just going to happen,
1:06:41that the way that advertising on the web works right now
1:06:45is just broken.
1:06:50and I'm not sure how it gets fixed or if it gets fixed.
1:06:54The shame of it is--
1:06:55- I don't agree with you there.
1:06:56I have to-- - Okay, go ahead.
1:06:58- In the idea of we don't choose this,
1:07:00people are choosing.
1:07:01Ad blockers are not an organic thing, right?
1:07:05It's not a thing that happens to your computer.
1:07:08People are now making the choice
1:07:10that they want these websites to make this money.
1:07:13- What I'm saying is the websites are complicit
1:07:17because the websites are filling their pages with junk
1:07:19and making them hard to load.
1:07:20And if you load a webpage on mobile,
1:07:22sometimes you've got like multiple things
1:07:24overlaying the content that you have to try and tap
1:07:26and then you tap them.
1:07:27And it takes you away from that page
1:07:29to the thing that's being advertised instead.
1:07:31And you get really frustrated and you go back.
1:07:32All that is happening.
1:07:34- I also do hate this stuff.
1:07:35- That's what you can't control.
1:07:36That's what you can't control is that that's where the web,
1:07:39the world of web advertising is pushing.
1:07:41How do we make money off of people on mobile?
1:07:43There are way more people on mobile than on desktops,
1:07:45but we can't make money there.
1:07:46How do we do that?
1:07:47And they keep pushing and pushing
1:07:49and degrading the experience on desktop and on mobile, which I think does drive people
1:07:54to get frustrated and drives the development of content blockers and ad blockers, and that's
1:07:59part of what's going on here. So I do think that's part of it. And, you know, the web
1:08:05brought this on itself because of the way that it's been built all along, you know,
1:08:10and the fact that the reaction to this stuff is, "Let's put more junk on the pages."
1:08:14That this is sort of—we've reached this point that it's very difficult. There's
1:08:17There's a huge competition. I mean, I always cite Ben Thompson here from Stratechery and
1:08:22his writing about the smiling curve in publishing, where you either go for volume or you go for
1:08:27a very small but dedicated audience. And all the publishers that are caught in the middle,
1:08:32you know, they've got lower and lower ad rates. They keep trying to add more ways to
1:08:36make money to scrape by. And it feels like something that just can't be solved, that
1:08:41it will just keep going down until a point where you, you know, you're, you can't have
1:08:46a business anymore, unless you're on one end of the curve or the other. And that's the
1:08:51scary part is the people we like who make good content who are in the middle, who are
1:08:56not writing for BuzzFeed, right, but they're also not daring Fireball, what happens if
1:09:01the web, the way that the web works is not sustainable, whether or not there are content
1:09:05blockers? Because I would actually say the content blockers are a reaction to this race,
1:09:09But this is happening anyway, because everybody wants to pour more junk onto pages because
1:09:14the CPMs keep going down, which is the ad rates, basically, cost per thousand to display
1:09:21an ad. Those just keep going down. So it's tough. It's a—I'm not sure where this goes
1:09:27other than that I do think there will be a crack-up at some point. And you already, when
1:09:32you talk to people—and I've seen it, people we know are talking about, "What do you do
1:09:38to do, you know, to do a membership or something like that, that support. Maybe it's not a
1:09:44Patreon, maybe it is, maybe it's some other kind of membership, but those things, people
1:09:48are floating those things around. And one of the reasons is because, you know, what's
1:09:53going to happen with advertising? Is advertising enough on its own? And yeah, podcast advertising
1:09:58is a little bit different. I feel it's sort of a shame. Back in the day, like the early
1:10:02days of computer magazines, the ads were great. Like people were excited to look at the ads
1:10:06because it brought them information. And the web, I think, has trained a whole generation
1:10:09to just despise everything advertising, because the web ads are generally so bad. And I think
1:10:14podcast advertising is a lot better. But some people don't even want that, because, like
1:10:20I said, I think that some people are just allergic to advertising in general. But I
1:10:24think that's one of the things that the pod-- they haven't figured out how to screw up podcast
1:10:28advertising and make them awful yet. And some of that is just because technically it's very
1:10:31hard to do that because, you know, podcasts, you know, are, are, are, the way they're delivered
1:10:37and, and processed is so different from the web that, um, it's a lot harder to mess it
1:10:42up, which is, I'm sure there's some startup out there right now that's trying to ruin
1:10:45podcast advertising too and make it awful.
1:10:47>>Oh, there are many, I hear from them.
1:10:50>>I'm sure you do. Um, but, uh, there's, uh, you know, their, their powers are, are less
1:10:56than they are on the web. On the web, their powers are great. Those, those people to ruin,
1:11:00everybody's experience with more advertising.
1:11:03I think a lot of this comes from my general nature of why can't we all be nice to each
1:11:08other?
1:11:09Oh, I agree.
1:11:10You know, that's my general nature is like, why do we, you know, why do we have to hurt
1:11:15people, you know, like that kind of feeling.
1:11:16And I always get a little bit upset about this kind of stuff.
1:11:19But this is, this was always the case with Macworld, where Serenity would be like, you
1:11:24know, Serenity often got the brunt of this because she was sort of manning the letters
1:11:27account at Macworld and she would say, you know, she would get these people who are just
1:11:33brutally angry about the stuff that was going on on the site and, you know, she would agree
1:11:39with that too. That's the challenge here is the people who are doing the content often
1:11:43agree, but at the same time this is the stuff that pays the bills and unless their business
1:11:47finds another way forward, it's just, yeah, it's a difficult situation. I have never run
1:11:52an ad blocker for the same reason, which is I feel like then I'm I feel like I
1:11:57want to support the sites that I like and I want to support their
1:12:02sponsors because I want them to have a business that works. At the same time, I
1:12:05do think that you could argue that a lot of these businesses have really
1:12:11abused that connection that we've got with the people who make the
1:12:16content in order to do lots of things, not just annoy you, but track you in
1:12:22order to keep the lights on. And again, yay, keep the lights on, but at
1:12:26some point do you have to say, "This is unacceptable." And if you say, "This
1:12:31is unacceptable," do you stop patronizing the site versus running an ad blocker?
1:12:34Which is what I've always said, is like, "Look, if you don't like it, maybe you should
1:12:38just not look at their site, not look at it with an ad blocker." But that's a hard
1:12:41argument to make. It's just, you know, it's just funny to me that it's like, the
1:12:46start of the show we were talking about what happened at Magworld and like how
1:12:50sad it was but it's like if we keep going down this road there's gonna be
1:12:55many more days like that? Yes. Oh, undoubtedly. It makes me uncomfortable. It
1:13:01makes me really uncomfortable because I like the websites. I go to websites that
1:13:07I like, you know, that's where I go. Yeah I know. And I don't want to go away. And
1:13:13And the other problem is if every website you like
1:13:17in the Mac space said, "We can't make it with advertising,
1:13:22"but we're gonna do a membership thing,
1:13:24"and we were asking you for $50 a year,"
1:13:27that's great, except how many people are going,
1:13:30how many, even if you're really deep into this
1:13:33and you really love this, how many of those can you have?
1:13:35How much are you going to pay?
1:13:37Are you gonna pay $500 a year to 10 websites
1:13:42order to support them. I think there's a limit to that too, and that's my
1:13:48fear in all of this, is that the fact is the web has created this broad
1:13:54canvas for anybody to reach an audience, and so a lot of people have, and that
1:13:59we're about to enter a phase where it turns out that we have too many
1:14:05people doing this. Not that they aren't good at their job and not that people
1:14:08don't want to read them, but that there's no way we can get a big enough audience
1:14:12to either make money on ads or generate enough support direct from readers/listeners in order
1:14:20for them all to keep doing what they're doing as their livelihood. And that's scary because
1:14:25that is, I mean, in journalism, since I've been doing journalism, it's been very clear
1:14:30that it is a troubled industry, right? And we always joke about like, this is like sending
1:14:35somebody to journalism school is a little bit like telling somebody to enter a valuable
1:14:40career being a steel worker, right? It's like, well, wait, that is not an industry you necessarily
1:14:44want to go into because it's kind of fading away and that would be a bad bit of career
1:14:48advice. But sometimes this is one of those cases where I start to think about that even
1:14:52more and think, you know, it's possible. And things could change dramatically and a lot
1:14:58of people are going to make it through, but it is possible that in this population of
1:15:03people we like who write stuff we like or do podcasts that we like, that in five years,
1:15:10half of them are not doing it anymore because they can't make it work. And that's scary,
1:15:15but that may be financially, economically, that may happen. And sometimes when I see
1:15:21my colleagues in the computer journalism industry, the tech journalism industry going to work
1:15:27in PR or going to work behind the scenes for a company, you know, those are examples of
1:15:34that. We don't read things by Chris Breen anymore because he's working at Apple. We
1:15:40We may read things by him, but we wouldn't know it because his name isn't on it.
1:15:46We don't know, my friend John Seth, who's the executive editor of Macworld for many
1:15:51years, he's working at Apple now, and so he's not working on this stuff day to day.
1:15:57And the list goes on.
1:16:00Somebody like Brad Mullen, who wrote about mobile for ages at a whole bunch of different
1:16:03sites is doing PR now.
1:16:07That always happened, but I do wonder if there is a reckoning coming where we're going to
1:16:14do this.
1:16:15And I don't think ad blockers—ad blockers are not going to be—I don't think we're
1:16:18going to look back and say, "Oh, content blockers killed the web and everybody lost
1:16:22their jobs."
1:16:23It's just part of this much bigger issue, I think.
1:16:25But I think you're right to be concerned about it, because it's a big deal, and it's
1:16:29going to be—it's going to get worse before it gets better, I think.
1:16:32It just makes me sad.
1:16:35I agree.
1:16:36I hope, you know, we're all trying to find ways, you know, including us, right? I mean,
1:16:40I'm certainly trying to find a way to make it without being in the position that Macworld
1:16:47is in, where they've got, you know, pre-roll ads and lots of tiles everywhere and things that slide
1:16:53in over your page and stuff like that. I would-- that Six Colors has, like, a text ad and a post
1:17:00a week and a little tiny deck ad and that's it. It's like incredibly lightweight because
1:17:06as a reaction to all of that. But you know I'm also not at the point now where I think if I can't
1:17:12make more money at six colors I'm gonna have to go you know start applying for jobs at tech
1:17:19companies. I'm not at that point so it's easy for me to do that but what if I was at that point?
1:17:24What are my options then? That's scary.
1:17:26- Yep. I want to get a job, Jason.
1:17:29- Yeah, I hear ya.
1:17:31- Yeah. I'm gonna get too sad. How about we, uh,
1:17:34whilst advertising is still good in this game, how about we stop and take one and then do some Ask Upgrade?
1:17:39- Yeah, you know, podcast advertising is, uh, is really nice, and one of the, one of the things is you can have a,
1:17:44it's a little more personal and hopefully it's different every time.
1:17:47Um, so this, this Ask Upgrade is about our friends at Stamps.com who are back.
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1:19:24But I've used Stamps.com quite a bit
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1:19:30I work in my garage, I don't get out as much as I used to.
1:19:35When I do get out of the house though,
1:19:36you know what I don't wanna do?
1:19:38I don't wanna go to the post office
1:19:39and Stamps.com means I don't have to go there.
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1:19:53to just swerve past the post office
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1:19:57Stamps.com.
1:19:59- Stamps.com, thank you Stamps.com.
1:20:02Listen to Alan Rotin.
1:20:03Listen to Alan has an iMac with a Fusion Drive in it.
1:20:09And he finds that it grinds, pulses,
1:20:11or simply feels like he's running on a stupid old slow spinning disk from 2003.
1:20:16So, let's say that Alan could upgrade to a new iMac and he has $4,000 to spend on the
1:20:26new 5K iMac.
1:20:27So he's running an older iMac version where I think the Fusion Drive was just introduced
1:20:31in the previous model and he's running that one.
1:20:34So let's say in this scenario that Alan has come across this money, he's still stuck with
1:20:39the decision of either a 1 terabyte SSD or a 3 terabyte Fusion Drive. What does he do?
1:20:49What does he do? I am a believer in SSD. I know it's not as much storage space but I
1:20:57feel like for your boot drive I think the best. Fusion Drive I've heard mixed things,
1:21:02some people like it, some people hate it. I would go all SSD and if you need storage,
1:21:08If you need like lots of external storage, I would say get a NAS, you know, network attached
1:21:13storage device, or get a big external drive of some kind and offload your projects to
1:21:21that when you're done.
1:21:22So I've got a Mac mini server with the Drobo attached to it, actually about four feet away
1:21:27from me, and an SSD on my iMac.
1:21:30So I just use the SSD on my iMac and I store all my files on the big drive when I'm done.
1:21:36I think that's the best combination and you have to look and see whether that fits in your budget,
1:21:41but personally I want my storage that's on my Mac to be SSD at this point. It's just
1:21:49that is the number one thing whenever I use a computer that still has the spinning disk in it,
1:21:54even if it's a fusion drive, it is painful compared to the pure SSD. So that's my recommendation is
1:22:01I think people should buy SSDs for their internal storage,
1:22:06and then if they really need a lot of external storage to get a network-attached drive
1:22:11and just put it on their network and they can do it that way,
1:22:13or get an external drive you can attach when you need it,
1:22:16or leave it attached all the time,
1:22:18but know that that's the slower storage that just is just for kind of offloading when you're not using it.
1:22:24Does that work for you, Myke?
1:22:25Yeah I have a 512 SSD in my Mac Pro and it isn't a problem but I'm finding myself every
1:22:33now and then going in and needing to delete stuff you know. So I've been thinking about
1:22:37getting a Drobo for a while and it's on my long term shopping list you know maybe maybe
1:22:41around tax season get rid of some of that money and so I think I'm going to do that.
1:22:48Just to store stuff long term like audio files can get quite big
1:22:52depending on what you're working with. And at the moment I'm like deleting
1:22:56all the project files and I probably don't need them for that long but it
1:23:00would just be nice I think to have something where I could just store stuff
1:23:04long term. The great thing is like we have, Steven has a bunch of storage space
1:23:10and we have some storage space with Mac Mini Cola and we have everything just
1:23:15automatically download there for storage so it's not like a pressing issue. Like
1:23:19Like all our shows are archived, you know, on our stuff that we have elsewhere.
1:23:24But I wouldn't mind having something here.
1:23:26It's just not pressing so I haven't gotten around to it yet.
1:23:30But in all honesty, like for the machine that I work on, 512 gigabytes is fine, really.
1:23:37I'm not putting movies on this, I'm not putting music on this.
1:23:40Like it's just work files and it does a good enough job.
1:23:44But I agree with you.
1:23:46I did once have to go from SSD back to a spinning hard drive and it's one of the most horrible
1:23:51things that I've ever done and I had to work on that Mac Mini for years.
1:23:57And now I just, you couldn't, you could not make me do it.
1:24:01I have the 512 gigabyte SSD in my iMac and it is plenty of space given that I am not
1:24:10storing all the stuff that when I'm done with a project I move it.
1:24:14The nice thing about having all that external storage space
1:24:17is that I, yeah, I listened to you talk about,
1:24:19I don't need my logic projects, I can just get rid of them.
1:24:21And it's like, well, a lot of the relay stuff is so timely.
1:24:25It's most valuable now.
1:24:29And I mean, yeah, people might go back
1:24:30and listen to some episodes from the past,
1:24:32but it's mostly about the present.
1:24:33Whereas incomparable stuff, I occasionally will go back
1:24:36and I'll do a best of, or I'll do a special edit
1:24:39of something and all of that.
1:24:40And so I now keep all of those,
1:24:42I'm actually keeping all of my logic files right now,
1:24:45but those are the ones that are more timeless
1:24:48that I wanna save it because I've actually had it come up
1:24:50where somebody said, you know, what about this thing?
1:24:53Or, you know, it's a best of the year thing.
1:24:55And somebody's talking over somebody else,
1:24:57but I can like isolate their track.
1:24:58And I do that because I've got this, you know,
1:25:01big raid with a giant amount of hard drive space.
1:25:05And it's great.
1:25:06And yet my Mac with the 512 SSD is super fast.
1:25:11and it's a great combination if you can make it work
1:25:14in your budget to have external storage.
1:25:17That's the way to go.
1:25:19- Yep, I'd go completely.
1:25:21Right, Andrew asked, "With Apple Music
1:25:26that is added to your library,
1:25:27can you burn it to a CD to get around DRM
1:25:29and have a permanent copy?"
1:25:31I don't know the answer to this,
1:25:32but I'm just gonna say no, you can't do that.
1:25:35That's my feeling, I don't even feel like I need to check.
1:25:40Yeah, it seems unlikely, doesn't it? I don't actually know. This was the old way you got around DRM, right?
1:25:50Mm-hmm.
1:25:50Was you burned--you went to a playlist and then burned it as a CD.
1:25:56Do you remember that era, Myke? Do you remember that?
1:25:58Oh, 100%, Jason. I did that all the time.
1:26:00Yeah, you'd want to get your friend the new album that you were listening to that you'd bought on iTunes,
1:26:07So you'd burn them a CD on a CD-RW so they could give it back to you.
1:26:13And then there would be no DRM for them, you wouldn't need to authorise their computer,
1:26:18and they'd be good to go.
1:26:19Yeah, so my guess is no.
1:26:21But I don't know.
1:26:23Yeah, I did some quick searching.
1:26:25I haven't burned a CD in so long that, yeah.
1:26:28I haven't got a computer that could.
1:26:31Although I have an external drive that I use.
1:26:33I do have one of those and I can't remember why I bought it but I bought it
1:26:38relative... oh I remember I remember I had to make a CD for a funeral and it was
1:26:44like yeah it was like well we needed the music and there was no other way to get
1:26:48it and the the funeral home would only take a CD so I had to spend 80 pounds to
1:26:53get a CD drive to make one CD man future so yeah that's the reason that I have
1:27:01one and it's but I always forget that I have it because I never need it for
1:27:05anything. Who uses CDs today man? Crazy. Crazy town.
1:27:09Yeah.
1:27:09John would like to know and I would love to know this and now that John has
1:27:15pointed it out Jason I really hope you can help.
1:27:16I have an answer.
1:27:17I hoped that you would. Why do OS X keyboard shortcuts highlight their menu bar in blue like the
1:27:24specific item where they live in the menu bar when it's pressed? So for
1:27:28example if you are in Tweetbot and you press ctrl+N it will open the new the
1:27:35box for the new tweet which is also underneath under the tweet menu in the
1:27:40Tweetbot menu bar. Alright so it highlights it in blue the word tweet in
1:27:44the menu bar as if to show you "hey it came from here" why does that happen?
1:27:49Well I mean the answer is it is the idea is if you know a keyboard shortcut but
1:27:55you don't know where its corresponding menu item is,
1:28:00it's telling you.
1:28:01That's really the answer.
1:28:03The idea is to tie the keyboard to the menu bar,
1:28:06which sometimes is useful if you're like,
1:28:08well, I know what the shortcut is to make text bold,
1:28:11but I don't know what it is to make it an underline
1:28:13or a strikethrough.
1:28:14If you press the text bold,
1:28:16you'll see that it's in the style menu or whatever.
1:28:19And you'll say, oh, well, that must be where it is.
1:28:22And then you can go up and you can look for it.
1:28:24But that is the reason why it does that,
1:28:26is it's trying to make the connection
1:28:29that the keys that you type are actually menu commands.
1:28:33And then the counterpart is that the command
1:28:36shows you the key you can type in the menu.
1:28:38So it's a convention from the beginning of the Mac,
1:28:43and so it remains, and sometimes it can be useful,
1:28:46but it's also there just to tie those two things together.
1:28:49- Okay.
1:28:50I mean, it kind of makes sense.
1:28:51That kind of makes sense.
1:28:53but it's, there is a part of me that feels like
1:28:57that is a remnant from a bygone era.
1:29:01- Also, I'd say what it does is it's indicating to you that,
1:29:06it's indicating to you that your key was heard, right?
1:29:14Because you might not always see
1:29:17in the interface something changes.
1:29:19Like if I'm sitting at a cursor
1:29:22and I choose Command + B to start typing in bold text.
1:29:26There's no bold text yet.
1:29:28So how does it know, did my key get read?
1:29:30Did it hear me?
1:29:32And by flashing in the menu bar,
1:29:34you've got a visual indicator
1:29:36that your keyboard shortcut was heard.
1:29:38So that's the other reason.
1:29:39- Funny thing is I don't see the menu bar
1:29:41very often anymore.
1:29:42'Cause I run a lot of my apps in full screen.
1:29:45- Yeah.
1:29:47- You know? - Same on you.
1:29:48- Hey. - That's fine.
1:29:49Didn't you write a piece about full screen?
1:29:52Like on why it's good or was that Dan?
1:29:55- No, no, no.
1:29:57No, it's funny, I wrote a thing about how I think
1:30:01split view makes full screen more useful.
1:30:05- Yeah, that's what I was going for.
1:30:07I'm kind of, I'm twisting your words there a bit.
1:30:09- Well, and Macworld did too,
1:30:11'cause my piece was very much like,
1:30:13hey, split views got a lot of problems
1:30:14that Apple needs to fix
1:30:15'cause the metaphor is kind of broken.
1:30:17And the headline is like,
1:30:19I split for you will make things great.
1:30:20I'm like, well, that's not what I said.
1:30:22- I haven't read that piece yet.
1:30:24That's why I thought you said it.
1:30:25- Oh, the headline is much more positive
1:30:27than the actual article is.
1:30:29- By the way, I only noticed like yesterday
1:30:32that your article is called "More Color"
1:30:34and that's fantastic.
1:30:35Your series is called "More Color" your column.
1:30:38- That was Susie Oakes's idea and it's great
1:30:40'cause it not only references six colors,
1:30:42but I couldn't stop laughing on the analyst call
1:30:44because they're always asking Tim Cook
1:30:47for more color about this or more color about that
1:30:49in the results.
1:30:51And Tim Cook at one point actually said,
1:30:53in terms of more color on this other thing,
1:30:55and it just made me laugh.
1:30:57- So that's a really great name for the column.
1:30:59- Yeah, it is.
1:31:00Yeah, Susie, great suggestion by Susie.
1:31:03- And finally, a question from Will,
1:31:04going back to something we were talking about
1:31:05a little bit earlier.
1:31:07Will asks, "With US carriers dropping the subsidy model,
1:31:10"should Apple rethink iPhone price points
1:31:12"to offset sticker shock this fall?"
1:31:14So my supplementary question to you, Jason,
1:31:16is I didn't notice this happening, is this happening?
1:31:19- It's starting to happen.
1:31:21Really what's happening is that carriers are changing
1:31:23from the subsidy model to what they're calling financing.
1:31:27I think essentially the difference is that with financing,
1:31:32you pay the extra money for two years,
1:31:35you pay the 199 or whatever the price is with financing.
1:31:39And after two years, your bill goes down.
1:31:43Instead of what has been happening,
1:31:45which is completely insane.
1:31:46And I do think drives phone sales,
1:31:49which is your subsidy is baked into your bill.
1:31:54And if you use an iPhone for four years, instead of two,
1:31:59your bill doesn't go down.
1:32:01So you really are motivated to upgrade
1:32:03as soon as you're out of your subsidy,
1:32:06because you're essentially paying your subsidy,
1:32:08whether you use it or not.
1:32:09So you might as well use it
1:32:11and pay the 199 or whatever,
1:32:13and get a new phone because your bill's not gonna go down.
1:32:16With this approach, your bill goes down.
1:32:18So you pay an extra whatever, $20 a month
1:32:21until two years is over and then your bill goes down.
1:32:25- Yeah. - Which is great.
1:32:27So I think it's interesting.
1:32:28I think it's unlikely at this point
1:32:31that Apple will rethink its price points
1:32:34because it is by far the most important product
1:32:38in Apple's product line
1:32:39and it's doing really well and growing.
1:32:41And I'm not sure Apple feels like it needs to,
1:32:44it needs to change the prices.
1:32:47But it is true, if we got to the point where people were,
1:32:51I think what it's gonna take is I think it's gonna,
1:32:54the more we abandon subsidies,
1:32:57the more people are going to see the full price.
1:33:02And that is going to lengthen the upgrade cycle.
1:33:08It's gonna make people reluctant to pay
1:33:11for that phone every two years.
1:33:12- Even if they will pay less money overall,
1:33:16which is probably accurate.
1:33:18- Yeah, absolutely. - Seeing that number
1:33:20is the problem.
1:33:21- Seeing having to pay $600 for your phone,
1:33:27even though in the end, over the course of two years,
1:33:30your bill is less because you're not paying the subsidy,
1:33:33it's still just buying psychology,
1:33:36it is harder to say, yay, I'm gonna go pay $550
1:33:41for the new iPhone.
1:33:42Also, it takes it off of the calendar.
1:33:45Then it's just, when do I wanna buy a new iPhone?
1:33:48And it's no longer your phone company saying,
1:33:52look, you're basically paying for it anyway,
1:33:54you might as well get it, it's 199.
1:33:56Now it's more, hey, you can get one whenever you want,
1:34:00it's 599.
1:34:02And so, yeah, well, I think when there's a feeling
1:34:07that sales are going to start lagging because of the price,
1:34:13because people are now seeing the full price,
1:34:15that would be when it would happen.
1:34:17But I think everybody involved in this transaction,
1:34:21actually, well, even the consumers,
1:34:23even though it doesn't make sense financially,
1:34:25it makes sense emotionally for consumers.
1:34:27I think everybody benefits by having it say 199.
1:34:31So I think, you know, the change will be the finance model,
1:34:36like I said, and the idea that after you've got your phone
1:34:39for two years, your bill just goes down
1:34:41until you get a new phone, and then your bill goes back up
1:34:44for the two year period that you're paying it off.
1:34:47That may remain.
1:34:49I think it's there for a reason,
1:34:53and although it's not necessarily the best deal,
1:34:55the best deal would be to just buy your phone.
1:34:57And the more they make it easy for you to just walk in,
1:35:00I would rather do that.
1:35:01I would just rather walk in and pay the full price
1:35:02and walk out and have my bill be less
1:35:04because I know in the end, that's a better deal.
1:35:06But I think most people don't react that way.
1:35:10And that's why it is the way it is.
1:35:11And I think that'll probably continue.
1:35:13But if it does tail off,
1:35:14if we do start seeing a whole lot more people
1:35:17just paying full price for the phone,
1:35:19and if it has an impact on the upgrade cycle,
1:35:22that's when I think you might start seeing
1:35:24Apple feel some pressure to make the sticker price less.
1:35:28So we have actually had this model in the UK for a year or two, but I didn't fully understand
1:35:34it from the way that the question was asked.
1:35:36And it's led to a couple of different things.
1:35:38So the way that it's pitched here is maybe slightly different.
1:35:43The idea being that you pay one amount of money, but it pays for two different things.
1:35:48You pay for your contract and you pay for your phone, your handset.
1:35:54And once you finish paying for your handset, you can upgrade to another one.
1:35:58So you can do a free upgrade or if you want to keep on the contract period or extend the
1:36:02contract or you can pay again for another one and then we put it back into your contract
1:36:08again.
1:36:09So you take out another handset payment and you're keeping the bill.
1:36:13And one of the things this is doing is it's benefiting customers in one way which also
1:36:17benefits the phone companies.
1:36:20So people may take two, three year, four year agreements, so they're keeping their price
1:36:25pan low but they can still upgrade sooner because they pay their handsets off over a
1:36:32year.
1:36:33Does that make sense?
1:36:34So people are still changing their phones every year but they're locked into longer
1:36:38term contracts which benefits the company but also keeps people's price plans cheaper
1:36:44because the longer you take it out the cheaper it is.
1:36:45So there is this weird thing where it's like a kind of a benefit for both sides.
1:36:51Like if you're happy enough with the price and the service that you get from your phone
1:36:55company, you end up being able to upgrade on a more frequent ratio, like more
1:37:02frequent time period, so. Right, right, I think we'll see more of that. I
1:37:06think the US market, this is what's happening now, is they're
1:37:10realizing they need to try some different approaches here. That's the
1:37:14advantage too of having a lot of competition in wireless, is that wireless
1:37:19companies are willing to make you a deal and give you a better deal if you'll stay
1:37:23with them and that's good. That's one of those cases where the
1:37:28consumer has an advantage is they're afraid that you're gonna switch to the
1:37:31other guys and that gives you know that motivates them to make a better deal.
1:37:36Yep. All right so I think that brings us to the end of this week. I think so.
1:37:42If you want to find our show notes for today's episode head on over to relay.fm/upgrade/47
1:37:49That's where you also find a link to Steven and Jason's little little space conversation
1:37:54Which I think you should go and listen to if you haven't already
1:37:56Thanks again to our sponsors this week stamps calm igloo and go to meeting if you want to support this show
1:38:03Go support our sponsors. It's a great way go check them out
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1:38:18to
1:38:32Jason L. J-S-N-E-L-L and he writes over at SixColors.com. Go and check out Jason's site
1:38:39and click all of his ads as well. Why don't you do that if my sadness has reached you
1:38:45today. And thank you so much for listening, thank you Jason for joining me as always and
1:38:50we'll be back next time. To an end. Say goodbye Mr Snell.
1:38:53Goodbye everybody.
1:38:53[MUSIC]