Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:09 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 297.

00:00:13 ◼   ► It's made possible this week by our sponsors, Smile, Hello, and Zojo.

00:00:19 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett and I am joined by Mr. Myke Hurley.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Hi, Stephen Hackett.

00:00:24 ◼   ► And there's no Federico this week.

00:00:26 ◼   ► No, he's on vacation.

00:00:27 ◼   ► He is.

00:00:28 ◼   ► They can have those in Italy, so he's having one.

00:00:31 ◼   ► And we hope that he is enjoying it.

00:00:34 ◼   ► I thought, you know, I was like, how would I do a vacation?

00:00:36 ◼   ► I think mine would just be like, let's go hang out in the garage.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, this is the thing.

00:00:41 ◼   ► So like me and Adina were talking about it today.

00:00:43 ◼   ► And she's like, oh, once everything's over in June, right?

00:00:47 ◼   ► WWC's all done, you should do it.

00:00:49 ◼   ► And I'm kind of just like, but I wouldn't, like I would just be at home.

00:00:52 ◼   ► I wouldn't be able to stop doing most of the things that I'm doing anyway.

00:00:57 ◼   ► So it's kind of—there isn't really that much of a benefit to me.

00:01:02 ◼   ► But there you go.

00:01:03 ◼   ► So it is obviously a traumatic time in the world, and we did want to take a moment before

00:01:10 ◼   ► we get in to the show to address this.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Myke and I, Relay FM, we support the protests happening in the U.S. and elsewhere.

00:01:20 ◼   ► There is no world in which the evil of racism should be tolerated.

00:01:26 ◼   ► not change is long overdue in this country and others. There's no differing opinions

00:01:32 ◼   ► here when it comes to racism and police brutality. There's only really one side to this argument,

00:01:38 ◼   ► right? It's an evil.

00:01:40 ◼   ► With most all our political things, right? You can say, well, I don't believe this, but

00:01:44 ◼   ► I know other people do and people are entitled to their own opinion. But this isn't one of

00:01:49 ◼   ► those situations, right? Like, there is no other opinion when it comes to racism. You

00:01:55 ◼   ► either think that is a terrible thing that shouldn't exist or that's it. Like, there

00:02:00 ◼   ► is no counter-argument to this point, right?

00:02:04 ◼   ► Agreed. And look, you may be upset that we're talking about this, and we would urge you

00:02:10 ◼   ► to try to understand why that's upsetting to you, because it's something that we all

00:02:14 ◼   ► need to address and to work together to make better. It takes all of us. So we have a resource

00:02:23 ◼   ► in the show notes. Myke, do you want to talk about this real quick?

00:02:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I've seen this. There's a lot of resources, right, that we've all seen

00:02:30 ◼   ► going around. But I've seen this one website going around called

00:02:34 ◼   ► blacklivematters.com. And what I like about this resource is it's lots of

00:02:40 ◼   ► resources collected into one. So whether you want to donate, whether you want to

00:02:45 ◼   ► sign petitions, whether you want to get resources to educate yourself or, you

00:02:51 ◼   ► whatever it is you're looking for, including resources for other countries now that are

00:02:58 ◼   ► getting involved in these protests in more significant ways.

00:03:02 ◼   ► This one I found to be very useful for me.

00:03:04 ◼   ► Like initially I was struggling to find somewhere I could donate because a lot of donation funds

00:03:12 ◼   ► don't allow non-US participants to donate to them.

00:03:17 ◼   ► But through this website I was able to not only find a place but also find like a workaround

00:03:22 ◼   ► to be able to actually make a donation to a cause that I believed in.

00:03:26 ◼   ► So this is a good place to start if you don't know where to start.

00:03:31 ◼   ► So I would recommend checking this one out and it'll be in our show notes.

00:03:35 ◼   ► Depending on where you are, there may also be local organizations working.

00:03:38 ◼   ► That's one way my wife and I have gotten involved is with some local folks.

00:03:43 ◼   ► So anyways, we wanted to address that, we did not want this to go by without doing that.

00:03:50 ◼   ► With coronavirus, we're all in it.

00:03:52 ◼   ► We're all experienced in it, right?

00:03:54 ◼   ► And there is no second viewpoint on it, right?

00:03:58 ◼   ► No one's arguing it.

00:03:59 ◼   ► No one's arguing, well, I was going to say no one's arguing it that it exists, but I

00:04:03 ◼   ► think there are people now.

00:04:05 ◼   ► So you can kind of ignore that.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Coronavirus is happening and it's horrible and we need our world leaders to make the

00:04:12 ◼   ► right decisions and Black Lives Matter is a real thing and it does matter and I hope

00:04:19 ◼   ► that everyone pays more and more attention to this now and like educate yourself, surround

00:04:25 ◼   ► yourself by people. I've been paying more attention to following more black people online.

00:04:31 ◼   ► I realised that I was not following enough black people so I am looking to fix that.

00:04:37 ◼   ► One of the great things is I follow a lot of people that retweet people with lists.

00:04:41 ◼   ► It's like, great, I found a bunch of new people

00:04:43 ◼   ► that added to my feed so I can try and understand more.

00:04:46 ◼   ► We all are, but I'm working on some things as well

00:04:50 ◼   ► for myself right now that I want to do

00:04:52 ◼   ► to try and be able to contribute more.

00:04:54 ◼   ► So I'll be talking about stuff as we all will

00:04:56 ◼   ► over the weeks to come.

00:04:58 ◼   ► - Well, should we do some follow up?

00:04:59 ◼   ► - Oh, please.

00:05:01 ◼   ► - We spoke last time about Federico leaving Apple Arcade.

00:05:05 ◼   ► Now he has left the show just for a week.

00:05:10 ◼   ► He saw that I'm gonna talk about the Mac later,

00:05:12 ◼   ► and he said he wasn't coming, so.

00:05:13 ◼   ► - Uh-huh.

00:05:14 ◼   ► - Take that as you would you will.

00:05:16 ◼   ► So anyways, we were curious what would happen

00:05:18 ◼   ► if your Apple Arcade subscription lapses,

00:05:21 ◼   ► and you still have those applications on your device.

00:05:24 ◼   ► So Joe sent us what happens on the phone.

00:05:27 ◼   ► The apps are still on your home screen,

00:05:29 ◼   ► and you tap them, and basically you get a pop-up

00:05:31 ◼   ► that says, "Hey, this is Apple Arcade.

00:05:33 ◼   ► "You can play a bunch of games.

00:05:34 ◼   ► "Here's how you sign up."

00:05:35 ◼   ► So pretty, I think pretty well done.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Doesn't kick you to the App Store or anything.

00:05:39 ◼   ► Nor does it delete them.

00:05:40 ◼   ► Like, I actually think this is the kind of the best case scenario.

00:05:44 ◼   ► So like, the apps icon stay on your phone in case you didn't know,

00:05:49 ◼   ► like maybe your credit card expired or something.

00:05:51 ◼   ► Or like you cancelled it by accident, you weren't sure what you were paying for.

00:05:55 ◼   ► So I actually kind of like, I like that this is the response where it just pops up and it's like,

00:06:02 ◼   ► look, if you want to play this, you can pay.

00:06:04 ◼   ► And I would assume it saves your progress as well, would be my assumption.

00:06:07 ◼   ► I would hope so.

00:06:08 ◼   ► That would be great.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:10 ◼   ► And then Logan sent in what happens on the Mac, which is far less pretty.

00:06:17 ◼   ► So basically, you open the app and it instead launches the Mac App Store and then basically

00:06:25 ◼   ► that same view comes in the App Store saying, "Hey, you're not signed up.

00:06:30 ◼   ► Here's how you do it."

00:06:31 ◼   ► So.

00:06:32 ◼   ► That's interesting, right?

00:06:36 ◼   ► weird hole being poked in there.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Clearly it can't work without the App Store, but on the iPhone the App Store is clearly

00:06:46 ◼   ► more integrated.

00:06:47 ◼   ► Right.

00:06:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:49 ◼   ► That's funny.

00:06:50 ◼   ► That's really funny.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Which is fine by me.

00:06:52 ◼   ► I don't want it more integrated on the Mac than it is.

00:06:53 ◼   ► So yeah, it seems like it sort of degrades pretty gracefully if you give up your subscription.

00:06:59 ◼   ► I have some bad news.

00:07:00 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:07:01 ◼   ► Good, that's what I want.

00:07:03 ◼   ► I've misplaced my Apple Pencil.

00:07:05 ◼   ► Okay.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Like, in a way that I think it's gone.

00:07:09 ◼   ► I don't know quite what happened.

00:07:11 ◼   ► I did this video of like, what's in my bag, and so I'd taken everything basically all

00:07:16 ◼   ► apart and I think it disappeared about that time, but I'm kind of like, I mean, I'm bummed

00:07:23 ◼   ► because it was expensive, right?

00:07:25 ◼   ► And that I don't know where it is, but I haven't really missed it in terms of use.

00:07:30 ◼   ► But it's gotta be somewhere in your home or studio.

00:07:33 ◼   ► Right.

00:07:34 ◼   ► anywhere else but I don't know. Is it hidden in your back somewhere? I don't know maybe

00:07:38 ◼   ► it's in like a deep pocket that I haven't found yet. Anyways, but it did make me think

00:07:43 ◼   ► about my sort of Apple pencil usage and I realized that basically it's zero. Like I

00:07:50 ◼   ► will use it to navigate things sometimes but with the Magic Keyboard the trackpad has just

00:07:54 ◼   ► taken over for all that and I'm not an artist in the sense that I draw or you know sketch

00:08:00 ◼   ► or anything on the iPad. I don't like handwriting on the iPad. Give yourself some credit, you

00:08:04 ◼   ► know? You could be an artist if you want to be. I did spend two years in art school and

00:08:09 ◼   ► then I changed my major so I feel like I know more than most that it's not for me. What

00:08:13 ◼   ► were you doing in art school? I knew you then, right? No, this would have been in 2004, 2005,

00:08:21 ◼   ► 2006 before we met. Journalism school is what I remember you doing. Yes, I was in art school

00:08:28 ◼   ► and then I took a drawing class and it was terrible.

00:08:31 ◼   ► I was studying graphic design,

00:08:33 ◼   ► but I had to take traditional art classes

00:08:35 ◼   ► and I was really bad at them.

00:08:36 ◼   ► So I changed my major two years in,

00:08:38 ◼   ► which is now what you should do.

00:08:39 ◼   ► If you're getting ready to go to college,

00:08:41 ◼   ► or you're thinking about going to college,

00:08:43 ◼   ► maybe just don't declare your major until you're super sure

00:08:45 ◼   ► because you basically restart the clock

00:08:47 ◼   ► on a bunch of classes you need.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Anyways, it wasn't for me.

00:08:50 ◼   ► But I did wanna talk a little bit about the Apple Pencil

00:08:54 ◼   ► and the Magic Keyboard because I kind of hate them together.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Like when you close it, it's like you have your iPad and you have like two tubes down the side one is the USB-C

00:09:03 ◼   ► pass-through and you have the Apple pencil on the other side and like flops out, you know

00:09:06 ◼   ► Just you can lose it. Apparently you can lose it really easily. I just I really was hoping the Magic Keyboard would integrate some sort of

00:09:13 ◼   ► Apple pencil storage solution.

00:09:16 ◼   ► I saw a

00:09:18 ◼   ► patent, you know, everyone loves patents, right?

00:09:21 ◼   ► Patents. What is it? How do you call them patents? Patents. Patents. I say it with a D because I'm

00:09:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I saw a patent filing for the Magic Keyboard, I'll put it in the show notes,

00:09:34 ◼   ► that shows an Apple Pencil storage solution in the little tube thing.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Yeah, it's just right there, put them together.

00:09:42 ◼   ► My thinking on that is they went ahead and made the best storage solution for

00:09:49 ◼   ► the Apple Pencil, which is just to attach it to the iPad itself. I feel like

00:09:54 ◼   ► this feels like a regression to me to then store it inside of the Magic Keyboard.

00:09:59 ◼   ► It'd be nice to have the option so like if if it's in a bag you don't knock it

00:10:04 ◼   ► off and misplace it. Like yeah it's great on the top because you can take it on

00:10:09 ◼   ► off and it charges and everything but it'd be nice if there was like a

00:10:12 ◼   ► discreet way to have some sort of secondary place so it's like more tucked

00:10:19 ◼   ► away more safely. That's all.

00:10:21 ◼   ► I feel like if it's in a bag the place you

00:10:24 ◼   ► you've misplaced it is in the bag. It's just in the bag. True. Maybe. Right?

00:10:29 ◼   ► It doesn't... Beats me. I don't know where my Apple Pencil is.

00:10:32 ◼   ► I definitely use my Apple Pencil less since the trackpad support.

00:10:37 ◼   ► Interesting. I was going to ask you. Yeah, because, you know, I always have my

00:10:41 ◼   ► iPad pretty much always in the keyboard, right? So if I'm not using it with the

00:10:45 ◼   ► external trackpad, like on my stand, if I'm using my iPad on the couch, I

00:10:50 ◼   ► I typically would have used an Apple Pencil to do some navigation stuff but now I use

00:10:55 ◼   ► the trackpad a lot.

00:10:57 ◼   ► I still use the Apple Pencil for signing stuff and for some, when I'm marking up documents,

00:11:03 ◼   ► like the traditional uses of it.

00:11:05 ◼   ► But I don't do any drawing of any kind so I don't use it for that.

00:11:10 ◼   ► So I have basically, I still use the Apple Pencil but it has been relegated from its

00:11:17 ◼   ► role as a pointing device for my iPad.

00:11:21 ◼   ► Yeah, that makes sense.

00:11:23 ◼   ► I think for a lot of people the trackpad is way better for a lot of things.

00:11:28 ◼   ► I wanted to follow up on the iPad mini with you.

00:11:30 ◼   ► Oh yeah, did you get one?

00:11:32 ◼   ► No.

00:11:33 ◼   ► We spoke about it last time that Federico got one and everyone was super excited about

00:11:37 ◼   ► it.

00:11:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:39 ◼   ► And you mentioned in iMessage a couple of days ago that you were loving your iPad mini

00:11:41 ◼   ► more and more and I was just wondering why like what what is it about this

00:11:47 ◼   ► device that's making you so excited at the moment yeah I think what I said was

00:11:50 ◼   ► oh no my 11 inch iPad Pro feels enormous yeah okay that's that's probably that is

00:11:56 ◼   ► definitely a better because I was using my 11 inch out of the keyboard the other

00:12:00 ◼   ► night mm-hmm because I'm trying to buy a ceiling fan anyways that's a whole

00:12:04 ◼   ► complicated situation that I'm in wait I don't understand how those two things go

00:12:08 ◼   ► to cuz I was looking for ceiling I was doing ceiling fan research on my you're

00:12:11 ◼   ► just like I was using my iPad outside of the keyboard case because I was looking for a

00:12:14 ◼   ► ceiling fan.

00:12:15 ◼   ► How everybody does it, yeah.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Everyone, everyone, hashtag relatable.

00:12:19 ◼   ► That's right.

00:12:20 ◼   ► Well I was laying on the couch with just the iPad because I need a ceiling fan and it was

00:12:24 ◼   ► too hot to get a laptop so you know I was draped across the couch looking for a ceiling

00:12:27 ◼   ► fan on my 11 inch I was like oh this iPad is enormous.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Right.

00:12:31 ◼   ► I was like oh no I have normalized the size of the iPad mini.

00:12:36 ◼   ► I don't know I'm enjoying it for reading like Federico said and I've got a Kindle but I'm

00:12:40 ◼   ► actually I just started this new book and am reading it on the in the Kindle app on the iPad

00:12:46 ◼   ► just to see if I like that experience. But for kind of like around the house stuff. It's better

00:12:54 ◼   ► than my phone in a lot of ways because like if I'm just around the house, it doesn't like it doesn't

00:12:57 ◼   ► have to fit in my pocket necessarily. And spoiler alert, I've just been around my house for a while

00:13:02 ◼   ► now. And there's something about the size is nice. You know, if you want to read in bed or like catch

00:13:06 ◼   ► up on Instapaper. It's just it's a really nice size and as someone who does not use their iPad

00:13:11 ◼   ► for much work it's uh it's kind of nice as like that you know kind of social media web type thing

00:13:17 ◼   ► and uh I've just been I've been kind of smitten with it. I've been thinking that I should probably

00:13:23 ◼   ► break out my 11 and use that more at home um but it's kind of for me at the moment it's just

00:13:30 ◼   ► that's just been sitting in my travel bag, wamp wamp, as it always usually does,

00:13:35 ◼   ► and I've been either using my large iPad most of the time at my desk, and then just my iPhone

00:13:43 ◼   ► when I'm not at my desk, but maybe I could use the smaller iPad around the house a little bit too.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Yeah, or you could get a mini.

00:13:49 ◼   ► It's just sitting there completely unused.

00:13:51 ◼   ► Get a mini.

00:13:52 ◼   ► However, I am considering maybe to not touch it because probably in like two weeks it's

00:13:59 ◼   ► it's going to become the sacrificial iPad. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it'll be beta season.

00:14:04 ◼   ► And I've been thinking about that with my with my MacBook Pro, what I'm going to do

00:14:07 ◼   ► for a reason that is not important for now, there's going to be a time this fall where

00:14:12 ◼   ► I'll be working on just my laptop for probably quite a while. And that precludes me from

00:14:17 ◼   ► putting the beta on the laptop, probably because I'm gonna need to do like production work

00:14:21 ◼   ► from somewhere else for a while. So anyways, I have I'm really questioning how I'm gonna

00:14:26 ◼   ► do my setup this year for Mac OS beta.

00:14:28 ◼   ► - Wait, what are you gonna need your laptop for?

00:14:31 ◼   ► - I'm gonna, fine.

00:14:32 ◼   ► So I am going to have to have foot surgery

00:14:35 ◼   ► at some point in the fall.

00:14:36 ◼   ► - Ah, yes.

00:14:37 ◼   ► - I won't be able to come out to my office

00:14:39 ◼   ► 'cause I'm gonna like not be able to walk for a bit.

00:14:42 ◼   ► So that'll be fun.

00:14:44 ◼   ► So my plan is to like set up a little desk

00:14:47 ◼   ► somewhere inside the house where I could record and edit.

00:14:50 ◼   ► You know, once I'm recovered enough to work

00:14:52 ◼   ► but not come out here.

00:14:53 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:14:54 ◼   ► - 'Cause I'm not supposed to put any weight on it and stuff.

00:14:55 ◼   ► So those episodes are gonna be fun because like you're gonna have like big bad energy

00:15:00 ◼   ► It's like just gonna be like super chill or we could do a return of you on pain medication

00:15:08 ◼   ► That's happened a few times in our recording career where you've been kind of like a little has it happened after had elbow surgery?

00:15:13 ◼   ► And I was super stoned. Yeah, it was amazing

00:15:16 ◼   ► So I would like I would like both of those things as long as you edit the episode

00:15:21 ◼   ► I would totally tell very happy with it. That'd be great

00:15:24 ◼   ► So anyway, so my laptop will be my only Mac for a while

00:15:27 ◼   ► Maybe like six weeks or something

00:15:29 ◼   ► So I won't be able to come out here and it's gonna that's gonna hamper how I deal with the Mac OS beta this year

00:15:36 ◼   ► I think so. Mmm. Yeah, probably we'll see but that's not till the fall. So I got some time to worry about it

00:15:41 ◼   ► I'll be fine. So anyways get an iPad mini become a

00:15:46 ◼   ► Three iPad guy. No, I don't want one. Try pad lifestyle do it. It's it's very good name

00:15:53 ◼   ► I will grant you it's almost worth it for that name

00:15:56 ◼   ► But I'm already only using one of my two iPads. I don't need a third one

00:16:02 ◼   ► Right, like I think I'll probably good. Let me take a break

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00:17:55 ◼   ► All right, Myke, I saw a screenshot of something on your Mac and I have questions.

00:18:00 ◼   ► All right.

00:18:01 ◼   ► So your username or your short username, your home folder name on your iMac Pro is relay

00:18:07 ◼   ► FM.

00:18:08 ◼   ► Wait a second.

00:18:09 ◼   ► Is it okay to tell people that? I feel like that's not okay.

00:18:13 ◼   ► Yeah. You think I don't know your password?

00:18:15 ◼   ► Well, I don't know. Like, I always see people, like, blocking out that kind of stuff.

00:18:20 ◼   ► Nah, it's just me and you today.

00:18:22 ◼   ► Seriously, like, I honestly don't know.

00:18:27 ◼   ► Am I gonna get, like, hacked now or something?

00:18:29 ◼   ► No.

00:18:30 ◼   ► Okay.

00:18:31 ◼   ► My home folder's name is Steven with a capital S.

00:18:33 ◼   ► I'm not worried about it.

00:18:34 ◼   ► Okay.

00:18:34 ◼   ► This started a conversation in my mind about why is that true.

00:18:39 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:18:40 ◼   ► - Why not just use your name?

00:18:42 ◼   ► - Oh, when you said a conversation in your mind,

00:18:44 ◼   ► I thought you were about to give me like the both,

00:18:47 ◼   ► like the actual conversation that unfolded in your brain.

00:18:49 ◼   ► - Well then you would know how I think you sound in my head

00:18:52 ◼   ► and that's embarrassing, so.

00:18:54 ◼   ► - Okay, well--

00:18:55 ◼   ► - You're very jolly in my mind though.

00:18:56 ◼   ► It's a lot of like sync song talking.

00:18:59 ◼   ► - Previous, my previous computer to this one was a Mac Pro

00:19:03 ◼   ► that technically Relay FM bought for me.

00:19:07 ◼   ► - Yes, yes we did.

00:19:08 ◼   ► And so I just named that account relay FM because it was relay FM's Mac and it wasn't I didn't really

00:19:16 ◼   ► properly use it as my own Mac and

00:19:18 ◼   ► Then eventually I sold it we took care of that but I

00:19:22 ◼   ► Bought an iMac Pro instead and just did oh no, I bought an iMac

00:19:30 ◼   ► I should say I bought an iMac read the retina iMac and I just did migration assistant

00:19:35 ◼   ► So now that machine was called relay FM and then I did migration assistant again.

00:19:39 ◼   ► So now this machine's called relay FM.

00:19:41 ◼   ► So they're all just called that.

00:19:43 ◼   ► So it is possible to change this up.

00:19:45 ◼   ► There's a support link in the show notes and it is terrifying.

00:19:50 ◼   ► I mean, I did actually I never asked for this.

00:19:53 ◼   ► Like I didn't want to.

00:19:54 ◼   ► Oh, I've done this.

00:19:56 ◼   ► Well, I've done this.

00:19:57 ◼   ► I did this when I did migration assistant.

00:20:00 ◼   ► Do you remember this?

00:20:03 ◼   ► Migration Assistant to my iMac Pro failed like two or three times.

00:20:06 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I do remember that.

00:20:08 ◼   ► And I had to rename everything and I followed a very specific set of instructions and I think

00:20:14 ◼   ► it was this that I followed because it was my account was called like relay FM 2 or something

00:20:21 ◼   ► and that was just completely unacceptable because I remember I had like really bad issues with

00:20:27 ◼   ► Migration Assistant which is just like one of those things that should never go wrong.

00:20:31 ◼   ► It's true.

00:20:31 ◼   ► but it was going wrong for me quite badly.

00:20:34 ◼   ► See, I had to do this, it was horrifying.

00:20:36 ◼   ► - It is horrifying.

00:20:38 ◼   ► I once did this, I changed the user home folder, short name,

00:20:42 ◼   ► it's all kind of the same thing,

00:20:44 ◼   ► on a laptop in like 2002, 2003, running Mac OS 10.2,

00:20:49 ◼   ► which early versions of OS 10

00:20:52 ◼   ► really didn't let you do this.

00:20:54 ◼   ► There were like some kind of, I mean,

00:20:56 ◼   ► as hacky as it is now,

00:20:57 ◼   ► some really hacky ways to do it in the past,

00:21:00 ◼   ► But I didn't know any of those.

00:21:02 ◼   ► And so I was like, oh, let me just change

00:21:04 ◼   ► the name of this folder.

00:21:05 ◼   ► And then I logged out and then didn't

00:21:07 ◼   ► have a user folder anymore.

00:21:09 ◼   ► Wait, so you just-- you didn't bother to look at anything.

00:21:13 ◼   ► You were just like, I don't want this folder

00:21:16 ◼   ► to be called that anymore.

00:21:17 ◼   ► I'll just change it.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I didn't know very much.

00:21:21 ◼   ► I'd only been using the Mac for a year, so I thought, hey,

00:21:25 ◼   ► I'll just do this.

00:21:27 ◼   ► And it was real bad.

00:21:29 ◼   ► I lost some files.

00:21:30 ◼   ► It was a work laptop.

00:21:31 ◼   ► I was on a deadline for that job, of course.

00:21:34 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:21:34 ◼   ► - And lost some files that were not on an external drive.

00:21:37 ◼   ► Remember this is before Time Machine, right?

00:21:39 ◼   ► Time Machine wasn't until 10.5.

00:21:41 ◼   ► And so I always tell people now, if I get asked this,

00:21:44 ◼   ► even though there's a way, I'm like, no, don't do it.

00:21:46 ◼   ► It's just, in my mind, it's such a stigma attached to it.

00:21:49 ◼   ► It's like, it will destroy your life.

00:21:51 ◼   ► - Sounds like fun.

00:21:53 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:21:54 ◼   ► You learn the hard way, you know?

00:21:56 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:21:56 ◼   ► I don't think I've ever done anything this catastrophic in my modern Mac life,

00:22:06 ◼   ► but I had a Mac laptop of some description that was running a version of pre-OS 10 Mac OS.

00:22:14 ◼   ► I don't know which one it was, right?

00:22:16 ◼   ► This was when I was a kid.

00:22:19 ◼   ► It was like my uncle's laptop.

00:22:21 ◼   ► It was, you know, one of the Mac laptops that had a track wall in it, right?

00:22:26 ◼   ► like that's kind of what we're talking about. What could that have been do you think roughly?

00:22:29 ◼   ► It's like a black one, had a trackball on it. Yeah, some really ancient power book.

00:22:33 ◼   ► Yeah, so and he gave me that to kind of just like tinker around with or whatever and all I remember

00:22:42 ◼   ► is I did something to it that made the like sad Mac face, you know? And also the floppy disk with

00:22:48 ◼   ► the question mark. Yeah. So I don't know what I could have done to it but it wasn't good.

00:22:53 ◼   ► That's no good. Rest in peace. We've all made mistakes is what we're saying. Can't do it now

00:22:59 ◼   ► on the iPad really. It's all locked away. But the Mac still has its rough edges.

00:23:03 ◼   ► There was a story a few weeks ago about Apple News Plus potentially getting audio versions

00:23:12 ◼   ► of stories. Apple was going to pay for the production of them and publishers just had

00:23:18 ◼   ► had to opt in and it could end up being good for publishers who opt in because it means

00:23:23 ◼   ► people will be more likely to spend more time with their content, right? Which is how Apple

00:23:28 ◼   ► News+ publishers are paid on that very generous 50/50 split that Apple make with them.

00:23:34 ◼   ► And there was a post on MacRumors where some iconography has been found that seems to suggest

00:23:41 ◼   ► that this is in the 13.5 beta. So it's Apple News+ audio and then there's also a secondary

00:23:47 ◼   ► icon with a headphone logo and audio, suggesting that they're doing something to get ready

00:23:52 ◼   ► to introduce this initiative.

00:23:55 ◼   ► I think this is funny in the sense of it's in 13.5.

00:24:01 ◼   ► Maybe that's going to happen sooner than expected.

00:24:03 ◼   ► I wasn't expecting this to be a thing that occurred before iOS 14, but maybe this is

00:24:08 ◼   ► a case of, "Well, Apple News+ really isn't doing what we want, so we're adding this feature."

00:24:14 ◼   ► For me personally, I still don't imagine myself becoming a NewsPlus subscriber, but this is

00:24:20 ◼   ► the type of feature where I would maybe give it a bit more consideration than I had previously.

00:24:25 ◼   ► If all of my favorite news companies were in this thing, I may be more inclined to pay

00:24:32 ◼   ► for it if I could get audio versions of the articles that I want to read.

00:24:38 ◼   ► You know me, right?

00:24:39 ◼   ► I don't really enjoy reading.

00:24:42 ◼   ► So there are times where there are these really long articles that I would like to read and

00:24:45 ◼   ► I can only get a quarter of the way through and I just bail out.

00:24:49 ◼   ► But if it was audio focused then I could just listen to it and I'd be happy, I'd be on my

00:24:55 ◼   ► way.

00:24:56 ◼   ► Especially because what I like about what it seems Apple is doing is that they are going

00:25:00 ◼   ► to have human beings read the audio.

00:25:05 ◼   ► There is scores of thought for either using virtual voices or humans for this stuff.

00:25:11 ◼   ► I personally lean towards human for obvious reasons.

00:25:14 ◼   ► I just prefer the sound.

00:25:17 ◼   ► And so they're going to be doing that, and Apple, that's what they want to do, but it

00:25:21 ◼   ► seems like it's going to be in 13.5 maybe.

00:25:24 ◼   ► One, what do you think about this just as an overall initiative?

00:25:30 ◼   ► And two, about it coming seemingly sooner rather than later?

00:25:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's a good addition to News Plus.

00:25:37 ◼   ► it hasn't landed with a lot of people.

00:25:41 ◼   ► And I think there are a lot of people like you,

00:25:43 ◼   ► and also like me, who would prefer to listen to news.

00:25:47 ◼   ► I mean, one of the things I do on the HomePod a lot is,

00:25:50 ◼   ► "Hey, tell me the news," right?

00:25:53 ◼   ► And I think a lot of people like that sort of

00:25:57 ◼   ► way of consuming those things.

00:25:59 ◼   ► And if they can do it in a way that is high quality

00:26:02 ◼   ► and easy to use, like maybe you're on an article

00:26:05 ◼   ► and the ones that have audio,

00:26:06 ◼   ► there's just a button you can tap and it reads to you. I think that's fantastic. As far as

00:26:11 ◼   ► the timing, you know, I could see this being an iOS 14 thing. But at the same time, that's

00:26:17 ◼   ► not till September or October. And my guess is that they want to try to move the needle

00:26:21 ◼   ► and news plus as much as they can. So whenever this is ready, I think they would do it.

00:26:26 ◼   ► And like it doesn't need iOS 14. In theory, like you don't have to wait, it's not going

00:26:31 ◼   ► to be like, "Oh, can't wait for iOS 14."

00:26:34 ◼   ► Right, like it's not going to be that kind of feature, I don't feel like.

00:26:39 ◼   ► I mean these rumors say that it's just news plus.

00:26:42 ◼   ► I don't think this would be something that Apple News itself would get.

00:26:46 ◼   ► Like this is a premium feature, but maybe eventually it could end up as part of Apple

00:26:52 ◼   ► News proper, at least for some stuff.

00:26:53 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:26:54 ◼   ► There's a cost associated.

00:26:56 ◼   ► I can only imagine they would do that if they wanted to try and sell you on upgrading to

00:27:01 ◼   ► News Plus. Like, oh, you like this feature, huh? Maybe you want to give us some money

00:27:04 ◼   ► and get all your news this way.

00:27:07 ◼   ► Maybe you get like three audio stories a month or something and after that, hey, you really

00:27:11 ◼   ► ought to pay up.

00:27:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:13 ◼   ► Cool. Yeah, I like it.

00:27:15 ◼   ► I would like more stuff like this. Like I listen to Chatecary, the Chatecary Daily Update.

00:27:21 ◼   ► I listen to it every single day and like that very much. Like to the point where I wished

00:27:26 ◼   ► more people that did email newsletters offered podcast options. I've even thought about asking

00:27:33 ◼   ► some people but don't. And I don't mean like something like the Max Stories newsletter

00:27:43 ◼   ► called Max Stories doesn't make sense for me in that way because it's more like chunked

00:27:48 ◼   ► up. I'm talking like the...

00:27:51 ◼   ► Like HotPod could do it.

00:27:52 ◼   ► Yeah, HotPog could do it. I would like Casey Newton to do it. I think Casey's is called

00:27:58 ◼   ► Interface, I think is the name of his email newsletter. Like more, I would like stuff

00:28:04 ◼   ► like that where it's frequent almost daily and they are long articles. Like it's just

00:28:08 ◼   ► one article basically. I would like that a lot. But it's a lot of work and especially,

00:28:16 ◼   ► I mean, especially in Casey Newton's thing, I don't...

00:28:18 ◼   ► It's not a pay for newsletter, although I would personally pay to get that feature.

00:28:24 ◼   ► But I would like it because these types of podcasts are so good,

00:28:27 ◼   ► like, that it's just a 10 minute thing.

00:28:29 ◼   ► Like, you can just fit that in anywhere, right?

00:28:33 ◼   ► Like washing dishes, listen to an episode of Chatechary, like great.

00:28:36 ◼   ► And I listen every day and I feel like I am more informed because of it.

00:28:40 ◼   ► So I like being informed.

00:28:42 ◼   ► Like, I like to have been informed, but I don't...

00:28:46 ◼   ► I just don't have the... I don't even know what the right word would be to actually read these things.

00:28:54 ◼   ► I especially don't like it as email, right? Like I don't like extra email because I get lots of email.

00:29:01 ◼   ► So I have to like move all these things around to different folders or whatever and then I never read them.

00:29:07 ◼   ► So I would like this stuff to be popping up more in my podcast app of choice.

00:29:13 ◼   ► Maybe you could print your email newsletters and then read them out loud to yourself.

00:29:19 ◼   ► Mmm.

00:29:20 ◼   ► Think about that.

00:29:22 ◼   ► I mean, that's not helpful.

00:29:26 ◼   ► Well.

00:29:27 ◼   ► Really?

00:29:28 ◼   ► Please consider the environment before reading this newsletter.

00:29:31 ◼   ► That's what they all say at the bottom.

00:29:37 ◼   ► You have another story in here about Apple Music and Podcasts and Zane Lowe.

00:29:41 ◼   ► What's going on here?

00:29:42 ◼   ► I just wanted to make sure that you were aware that I think your pick about original podcasts

00:29:49 ◼   ► has come to fruition.

00:29:51 ◼   ► I don't want to call it done yet from this one, but I think we can put this in for consideration

00:29:56 ◼   ► of the argument later on in the year.

00:29:59 ◼   ► So the Beats 1 show that Zane Lowe does, which is interviews with musicians, has been put

00:30:08 ◼   ► into Apple podcasts now. So the interviews also exist as a podcast. I believe they also

00:30:15 ◼   ► stood existing on Apple News beat no on Beats 1, Apple Beats 1, Apple Music Beats 1. So

00:30:24 ◼   ► the pick being that you suggested I think was original content.

00:30:29 ◼   ► So the pick as written says Apple launches its own podcast content beyond Oprah.

00:30:35 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean this would probably be it, right? I feel like this will probably get you what

00:30:40 ◼   ► you were looking for, for a point. So you finally got on a scoreboard, congratulations.

00:30:45 ◼   ► That's not my Ricky pic.

00:30:46 ◼   ► Yeah, your Ricky pic's not happening. Your Ricky pic's not happening. The Ricky, by the

00:30:51 ◼   ► way, is the Apple launch, a podcast app on Android. It's just not happening, in my opinion.

00:30:56 ◼   ► But good luck to you, my friend. I'm just going to clean up.

00:31:02 ◼   ► This is your year to lose.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Yeah, it really is at this point. All right. Yeah, I mean, I think it's cool

00:31:09 ◼   ► I think having

00:31:10 ◼   ► Content that is behind the Apple music paywall having that come out a little bit is neat and content like this is the perfect

00:31:17 ◼   ► Like the perfect thing to do right like these interviews

00:31:21 ◼   ► Standalone as podcast episodes. I think it makes a ton of sense to move that content to that format

00:31:26 ◼   ► Yeah

00:31:27 ◼   ► I mean in other beats one shows probably wouldn't move as easily because they feature a lot of music and that's not gonna work

00:31:33 ◼   ► work. We can't really put that in a podcast because it's music. There's a

00:31:38 ◼   ► bunch of rights around that but the interview stuff makes a lot of sense to

00:31:42 ◼   ► do it. I think it's clever. Mm-hmm. All right, ready for our second break? Yeah.

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00:33:50 ◼   ► I saw an article a week or two ago on Mac rumors suggesting a rumor, as you would assume

00:33:58 ◼   ► from Mac rumors, but not about the Mac, about the iPhone, about a portless iPhone.

00:34:04 ◼   ► So the way it goes is this, that the iPhone 12 will have a lightning port as we would

00:34:11 ◼   ► expect but maybe not want, I would prefer USB-C, but that the iPhone 13 will have no

00:34:19 ◼   ► port it will have no lightning port on the iPhone no USB C port on the iPhone it will

00:34:26 ◼   ► feature Qi for charging and a smart connector for data so if you needed to plug it into

00:34:31 ◼   ► your computer or whatever.

00:34:33 ◼   ► I have a lot of questions about this I think my first one is kind of like why like why

00:34:40 ◼   ► Why would you want a portless iPhone?

00:34:45 ◼   ► I can't really work it out.

00:34:48 ◼   ► It feels, I guess, like a design thing.

00:34:52 ◼   ► You would do it for design reasons.

00:34:54 ◼   ► Like "Oh look how beautiful this design is."

00:34:56 ◼   ► But that feels honestly kind of stupid to me.

00:35:03 ◼   ► That feels like honestly the worst of Apple design.

00:35:09 ◼   ► So again, this is presuming this is true, right?

00:35:11 ◼   ► So just for the sake of this conversation,

00:35:13 ◼   ► let's presume this is true, right?

00:35:15 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:35:16 ◼   ► - And that this will happen.

00:35:17 ◼   ► It's just easier that way.

00:35:18 ◼   ► Like it feels like if they were to do this,

00:35:22 ◼   ► that it's everything that people hate about Apple design.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Right?

00:35:27 ◼   ► Like, because again, I will still state this

00:35:31 ◼   ► as I have for many years,

00:35:33 ◼   ► the removal of the headphone jack,

00:35:35 ◼   ► there was never any good reason for it, right?

00:35:38 ◼   ► They removed it from the iPhone 7?

00:35:41 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:35:42 ◼   ► - Because they needed to get rid of it

00:35:44 ◼   ► the year before the iPhone 10 came out.

00:35:46 ◼   ► Because they didn't want the iPhone 10 to have it

00:35:48 ◼   ► or the iPhone 10 couldn't have it

00:35:50 ◼   ► because of what they were building, right?

00:35:52 ◼   ► With their curved screen.

00:35:53 ◼   ► So they removed it from the 7

00:35:55 ◼   ► so that that wouldn't be the story of the iPhone 10.

00:35:58 ◼   ► No one will ever convince me otherwise.

00:36:00 ◼   ► Like that I 100% believe that that is the case.

00:36:03 ◼   ► And I've never seen an argument that was convincing to me.

00:36:07 ◼   ► Like, because people were like, "Oh, they put this chamber in it."

00:36:10 ◼   ► But like, the chamber was empty. Like, there's nothing behind it.

00:36:13 ◼   ► It wasn't actually connected to anything like speaker wise.

00:36:15 ◼   ► It wasn't, it isn't a waterproofing thing because waterproofing exists on

00:36:20 ◼   ► phones today that are like, like the IP68 rating exists on phones today that have

00:36:26 ◼   ► a headphone jack. So I believe that they either wanted to or needed to do it for

00:36:30 ◼   ► the 10s, so they did it from the 7s.

00:36:32 ◼   ► so they sacrificed to set the bad press because you don't want the bad press on the iPhone

00:36:37 ◼   ► X.

00:36:38 ◼   ► So removing a charging port, it feels even worse to me because Bluetooth is better. I

00:36:50 ◼   ► don't think Qi is better. I just don't see... I know people prefer it. And we'll get to

00:36:57 ◼   ► some of the problems that you can have when you start extrapolating this out to your life,

00:37:02 ◼   ► But I just don't think that an overall experience of Qi charging is better.

00:37:05 ◼   ► I really cannot, and I've been thinking about this for like two weeks, I've wanted to talk

00:37:10 ◼   ► about this story.

00:37:11 ◼   ► I can't find a positive reason that you would do this.

00:37:17 ◼   ► Logically.

00:37:18 ◼   ► I agree with you.

00:37:20 ◼   ► I think, A, I think you're totally right about the iPhone 7.

00:37:23 ◼   ► But I think you're right about this too.

00:37:27 ◼   ► And it is just one of those things that, you're right.

00:37:31 ◼   ► is everything that people like to beat up on Apple for. Right? This would be the epitome

00:37:36 ◼   ► of that, and on their most popular product, right? When it's on something other than the

00:37:42 ◼   ► iPhone, people may be a little more forgiving, but the iPhone's the most important thing

00:37:47 ◼   ► that the company makes. And to change it in any dramatic way is always a gamble. Think

00:37:53 ◼   ► about when they went from 30 pin to lightning, people were furious for years. And I think

00:37:58 ◼   ► why we haven't seen USB-C yet because they don't want to go through a port

00:38:01 ◼   ► transition again but this seems like going well beyond a port transition

00:38:06 ◼   ► taking it off completely I don't I don't see it being a good idea.

00:38:11 ◼   ► The lightning transition right was frustrating you could see logic to it the

00:38:16 ◼   ► lightning port had more functionality way smaller it was bi-directional or

00:38:21 ◼   ► omnidirectional however you say it you didn't have to do the pin thing remember

00:38:25 ◼   ► like we had to like I don't I think they ended up changing that but initially

00:38:29 ◼   ► like the the the 30 pin connector had those little attached release tabs the

00:38:35 ◼   ► release things on the side I think they ended up getting rid of that for the

00:38:38 ◼   ► iPhone right? I think so. Eventually I think you could just pop it in and out of there but it

00:38:43 ◼   ► wasn't omnidirectional right the 30 pin it only went in one way? It was not it was not

00:38:48 ◼   ► reversible so it had it up and it down just like USB A did. The lightning is

00:38:53 ◼   ► better in every way for that, right? It's smaller so you can do more things from a design perspective.

00:38:59 ◼   ► If they even had a smart connector on this device, that's still arguing the fact that you can't

00:39:06 ◼   ► go completely like connectorless, right? But that smart connector would be not for charging,

00:39:14 ◼   ► it would seem. Or maybe it would charge slowly, I don't know. But the rumor suggests that it will

00:39:19 ◼   ► only be for data. So if you had diagnostic issues or if you wanted to

00:39:24 ◼   ► sync over a cable or whatever you could use a smart connector for that. So like

00:39:29 ◼   ► yeah it just doesn't feel like that there is a benefit that I can see. Like

00:39:33 ◼   ► it's you know if this was the introduction of wireless charging maybe

00:39:38 ◼   ► you could sell people on it but it's not even that right? Like Qi charging has

00:39:42 ◼   ► existed and it continues to exist. I think I think this being the beginning

00:39:46 ◼   ► of wireless charging would actually be harder because at least now people have

00:39:49 ◼   ► these things. Good point. And they're in a lot of cars too, a lot of new cars have wireless

00:39:54 ◼   ► charging pads. I see it in some restaurants and stuff too, like I had seen it in like

00:39:58 ◼   ► coffee shops, stuff like that, or airports, like places where you would want to charge,

00:40:03 ◼   ► I was starting to see more Qi charging, because like Qi is good as a universal standard because

00:40:11 ◼   ► all phones of all manufacturers have it, right? Now arguably USB-C is going this way too though,

00:40:18 ◼   ► which is basically really it's the iPhone is the holdout of new devices.

00:40:23 ◼   ► But at least we can all agree on Qi.

00:40:27 ◼   ► That's quite funny, I'm pretty proud of that.

00:40:29 ◼   ► But everyone is like, both iPhone and Android, amongst all manufacturers, everyone's using

00:40:35 ◼   ► Qi charging.

00:40:36 ◼   ► So it's like universal standard, so it can be used and it can be available in places.

00:40:42 ◼   ► I always think about, because it will happen again one day, traveling, right?

00:40:49 ◼   ► Like I remember this when the headphone jack was taken away, it became more frustrating

00:40:57 ◼   ► if you used wired headphones because you couldn't charge and listen to music at the same time.

00:41:05 ◼   ► How would you charge your phone on a bus or on a plane?

00:41:10 ◼   ► How would you do that?

00:41:11 ◼   ► Yeah, or in a backpack in between, right?

00:41:13 ◼   ► Like running through the airport,

00:41:14 ◼   ► you can plug your phone into your battery bank

00:41:16 ◼   ► in your pocket.

00:41:17 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:41:18 ◼   ► How would any of that work in a Qi charging world?

00:41:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

00:41:22 ◼   ► I honestly don't.

00:41:23 ◼   ► Like, are they gonna sell something that has a battery

00:41:26 ◼   ► and has a internal wireless coil,

00:41:28 ◼   ► and then you can, like, I don't know.

00:41:30 ◼   ► It is way less flexible than plugging in with a cable.

00:41:35 ◼   ► - Like, as Justin is saying in the Real

00:41:35 ◼   ► Like as Justin is saying in the Real

00:41:42 ◼   ► Fm Discord, you could have a battery

00:41:44 ◼   ► case with an internal Qi charger and that's fine but then I also have to buy an external battery case.

00:41:48 ◼   ► Many planes, many coaches, many

00:41:52 ◼   ► trains have USB ports on them or power

00:41:54 ◼   ► ports and all I need is a cable and I

00:41:58 ◼   ► can plug my phone in, right? And that

00:42:00 ◼   ► means I don't have to spend an extra

00:42:00 ◼   ► $100 on a battery case if I don't want to, right? So like it really limits things a lot, right? Or

00:42:10 ◼   ► like even if it was fine when I was traveling somewhere, I would then be taking a Qi charger

00:42:16 ◼   ► in my backpack for when I got to a hotel. Like I assume not many people do that. Like people,

00:42:21 ◼   ► you know, they may Qi charge at home but they travel, when they're on the road they will use

00:42:26 ◼   ► a cable because Qi chargers are big right when you traveled as a Qi charging person

00:42:34 ◼   ► you would you wouldn't take a Qi charger would you?

00:42:37 ◼   ► No for a bunch of reasons one it's way bulkier than a cable and two it doesn't fast charge

00:42:42 ◼   ► and on trips yeah especially trips like rest in peace WWDC where you're out until the middle

00:42:49 ◼   ► of the night or something like you may be home like in your hotel or Airbnb or whatever

00:42:54 ◼   ► for like an hour, I want to fast charge during that hour to get as much power back into my

00:42:58 ◼   ► phone as possible. And she charging just isn't very fast.

00:43:03 ◼   ► And so like, I just can't work out where like, I can't again, it's like more for me in the

00:43:10 ◼   ► cons column. Like, and look, I am sure there are people who do take charges with them on

00:43:17 ◼   ► trips and find some way to charge on a plane by like having a little disk and putting their

00:43:23 ◼   ► phone on it but that just seems kind of ridiculous to me I'm sorry like more power to you if

00:43:28 ◼   ► that is your way of doing things but like that just that that doesn't work for me that

00:43:34 ◼   ► seems wild the only thing that could like I don't know you know what also I feel like

00:43:41 ◼   ► a flight attendant would be like what are you doing right like I feel like that people

00:43:47 ◼   ► wouldn't like that to see you do that. Unless there is some kind of massive battery breakthrough

00:43:55 ◼   ► in which your phone could operate for two to three days without a charge, right? If

00:44:01 ◼   ► they were to somehow couple those things together, I could maybe get this a bit more, right?

00:44:06 ◼   ► That the idea of charging changes, that like Qi, they've worked out a fast charging spec,

00:44:11 ◼   ► which other companies are doing, right? Like OnePlus have one that they've expanded the

00:44:16 ◼   ► the Qi spec to also allow them to do fast charging with a compatible charger. So maybe

00:44:23 ◼   ► that's one part and two, your battery lasts for three days or whatever, then I could see

00:44:28 ◼   ► it. But that kind of technology doesn't seem like it's in the near future. We've all heard

00:44:35 ◼   ► about this new battery tech forever. What is it called? Carbon or something? You know

00:44:40 ◼   ► what I'm talking about. There's this whole new battery technology that's going to change

00:44:44 ◼   ► But I feel like I've been hearing about it for 10 years. Graphene. Is that it? Graphene batteries?

00:44:50 ◼   ► Like I think this is thing I've been hearing about forever that like if it actually works

00:44:56 ◼   ► It's gonna be wild and it's gonna change everything

00:45:00 ◼   ► But I feel like I've been hearing about it for probably like 10 years

00:45:04 ◼   ► but if that kind of thing comes to pass then great, but like it doesn't seem like that there's any

00:45:09 ◼   ► Anything to suggest that that's happening in the near future

00:45:13 ◼   ► The future is always just a couple years away though. So, you know, they'll be here soon. That's true

00:45:20 ◼   ► I guess throw out this whole argument Stevens torpedoed it. It's always it's always right on the corner

00:45:25 ◼   ► the thing about the smart connector - it makes me think about the

00:45:30 ◼   ► Surface connector on Microsoft Surface products that charges and you can hook up to a dock

00:45:38 ◼   ► Right, and they took grief from users for a really long time not having USB C on their

00:45:44 ◼   ► Devices like well, why can't just charge every USB C or do this? Why do I have to have this?

00:45:49 ◼   ► Weird proprietary thing right and they've relented on some of that. They've got USB C on some of their stuff now

00:45:56 ◼   ► But people complained that it was like a thing that only worked for this one device and if you think about lightning

00:46:03 ◼   ► that's

00:46:05 ◼   ► kind of true now, but lightning is

00:46:08 ◼   ► like I've had just so ubiquitous lightning is basically everywhere and

00:46:12 ◼   ► Apple uses lightning for air pods and almost all the iPads and a bunch of other stuff, too

00:46:18 ◼   ► And so in a way even though lightning is proprietary to Apple

00:46:22 ◼   ► It doesn't feel as proprietary as something like the surface connector

00:46:26 ◼   ► Which is like a thing that service people have to deal with and other people don't

00:46:30 ◼   ► Right, but Surface users have options now because you can also charge by USB-C now if

00:46:37 ◼   ► you use the Surface.

00:46:38 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:46:39 ◼   ► For a lot of them.

00:46:40 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's a very recent change.

00:46:42 ◼   ► And so in that way, Lightning feels like a standard that it's really not, but moving

00:46:48 ◼   ► to something that is even more proprietary, that if they use the smart connector, they've

00:46:55 ◼   ► got to move over a bunch of other stuff too.

00:46:59 ◼   ► you already have like the Apple Watch doing its own thing. And you already have the iPad

00:47:03 ◼   ► line split, like it could be where you're an Apple user, and you got to have four different

00:47:07 ◼   ► cables to charge your devices that are in your pocket or on your body. And that is something

00:47:12 ◼   ► that's frustrating, but lightning kind of puts it all underneath one umbrella for most

00:47:17 ◼   ► of those things. And so I just don't know, if they do this, like they've really got to

00:47:22 ◼   ► sell the benefits of a smart connector for charging and or data. And I just don't know

00:47:29 ◼   ► of anyone would be convinced that it's better than Lightning, let alone better than USB-C,

00:47:34 ◼   ► which is what a lot of people want to see.

00:47:35 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, as you're right, even if they do say that, "Oh, you can also charge via

00:47:40 ◼   ► a smart connector, but primarily you should be using Qi," it's still like, "No, I would

00:47:46 ◼   ► just prefer USB-C, thank you," because that would be really great because then my iPad,

00:47:51 ◼   ► my MacBook, my Nintendo Switch, and my iPhone can all be charged by the same cable because

00:47:56 ◼   ► that's actually what I want.

00:47:58 ◼   ► I saw a rumor from our friends at MacRumors, but this time about the iPad, that the next

00:48:05 ◼   ► iPad Air is reportedly going to get a USB-C port.

00:48:10 ◼   ► Which I think that makes sense that the iPad line could all move to USB-C, right?

00:48:15 ◼   ► Because again, USB-C is a better connector for charging stuff because more and more products

00:48:21 ◼   ► are being charged by the same thing.

00:48:23 ◼   ► But it makes the iPhone even stand out more.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:48:28 ◼   ► then it's like well now I really want my iPhone to be USB-C because I've just now removed

00:48:35 ◼   ► like now it's in a smaller camp because maybe my iPad and my iPhone were charging via lightning

00:48:40 ◼   ► well now my iPad is by USB-C and my now like the iPhone is the odd one out that I'm bringing

00:48:47 ◼   ► a cable for right and like that would just be I would really not like that it would be

00:48:53 ◼   ► really frustrating. And also again, suggested in the chat is that currently the phone is

00:48:59 ◼   ► too thin for type C. Again, I will bring up my favourite fact, right? That the iPad Pro

00:49:07 ◼   ► is the thinnest iOS device ever made. Not just the thinnest iPad, thinnest iOS device

00:49:12 ◼   ► ever made. So they fit it on that, right? They could fit it on an iPhone. They definitely

00:49:18 ◼   ► could do it. Maybe they would need to flatten the sides, but that seems like going to be

00:49:22 ◼   ► the fun cool thing anyway to do and again it would be super disappointing to

00:49:27 ◼   ► me if they took the design cues from the iPad Pro but kept the lightning port on

00:49:31 ◼   ► it and it'd be really even more confusing than then then the connector

00:49:36 ◼   ► situation is now on the iPads yeah I really hope that we are surprised and

00:49:40 ◼   ► the next iPhone has a USB C on it we do but I can live with it I will not be

00:49:46 ◼   ► happy at all if they take away all the ports in the future like I just I just

00:49:51 ◼   ► can't see that as like a thing that can that I can reconcile in my brain. It'd be

00:49:57 ◼   ► a real bummer. Real bummer man. Yeah. Yeah so who knows I think like I said the

00:50:01 ◼   ► second you start talking about what this means in real life like as you travel or

00:50:06 ◼   ► as you do whatever it just it falls apart really quickly. So mm-hmm.

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00:51:34 ◼   ► So I think this is probably going to be the penultimate anticipating WWDC segment that

00:51:39 ◼   ► we do on the show because next week is a regular episode.

00:51:43 ◼   ► week after that I assume we'll be doing our Ricky pics for WWDC so we'll see.

00:51:50 ◼   ► So we're gonna do, I think we promised this last week, Mac OS.

00:51:54 ◼   ► This is probably why Federico took a vacation, because we're gonna talk about Mac OS now.

00:51:59 ◼   ► And I figure we should just turn this over to you because I think of the two of us, or

00:52:04 ◼   ► the three of us, you're definitely the person most in tune with the Mac.

00:52:08 ◼   ► So why don't you take it away for what you would both think and like to see.

00:52:13 ◼   ► Okay, I'm gonna rope you into this because I think that you also are a Mac power user.

00:52:19 ◼   ► You know, you you do a lot of work on on your Mac.

00:52:22 ◼   ► So I want to hear what you have to say to.

00:52:24 ◼   ► So I kind of want to tell a couple of stories about some things that I've happened have

00:52:29 ◼   ► had happened in just the last few weeks.

00:52:31 ◼   ► So I have a MacBook Pro and I have a Mac Pro.

00:52:34 ◼   ► And these are some things that have happened to me in Mac OS.

00:52:36 ◼   ► My MacBook Pro has woken up and complained that it needed a Bluetooth keyboard attached.

00:52:41 ◼   ► It was not aware that it had an internal keyboard.

00:52:43 ◼   ► I ended up putting it back to sleep and waking it up again and was like, "Oh, I have a keyboard!"

00:52:47 ◼   ► So not super confident and stilling.

00:52:50 ◼   ► I cannot fathom how that occurred, but that's fun I guess.

00:52:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:55 ◼   ► And some people on Twitter were like, "Oh yeah, I've seen that too."

00:52:57 ◼   ► So the Mac Pro continues to struggle sleeping and waking from sleep.

00:53:03 ◼   ► This was better and now it's worse again in 10.15.5, the current version of Catalina.

00:53:09 ◼   ► I've talked to a couple other Mac Pro users and this seems to be pretty universal across

00:53:14 ◼   ► the different setups like I use the LG 5k.

00:53:18 ◼   ► Other people use the pro display.

00:53:21 ◼   ► Sometimes USB can cause weird sleep wake issues.

00:53:24 ◼   ► There doesn't seem to be a big consensus on it's hey, is this one thing?

00:53:28 ◼   ► Sometimes, including this morning, I came to my office, I hit the spacebar to wake the

00:53:34 ◼   ► the Mac up, it logged me in with my Apple watch, and I had no visible cursor. So I could

00:53:40 ◼   ► move the mouse, and if I moved it to the right edge, the dock would move a little bit, and

00:53:45 ◼   ► I could take it to the top left, and it's like the Apple menu, but no visible cursor.

00:53:49 ◼   ► So I took my invisible mouse, went down to where I thought the restart menu was, and

00:53:54 ◼   ► hit restart, and my cursor came back. Cursor supports have only been part of Mac OS since,

00:53:59 ◼   ► I don't know, 1984? What's going on?

00:54:01 ◼   ► Like it's the beginning of my OS.

00:54:04 ◼   ► Yeah, the very beginning.

00:54:06 ◼   ► I shared this last week, but I've had delete finder preferences to end finder crashes.

00:54:11 ◼   ► And I had to replace a time machine drive recently, and I had to reboot a machine to

00:54:15 ◼   ► get time machine running again.

00:54:17 ◼   ► You're supposed to be able to just remove the old drive, point at the new drive and

00:54:21 ◼   ► start, and system preferences would just spin until I rebooted.

00:54:25 ◼   ► That's actually not on either one of my machines.

00:54:27 ◼   ► It's someone else's computer.

00:54:29 ◼   ► I bring these up, not to just hit Mac OS over the head with a frying pan, even though I

00:54:36 ◼   ► want to sometimes.

00:54:38 ◼   ► But it's that there's a lot of things, a lot of little things that people deal with every

00:54:43 ◼   ► day like keyboards and cursors that just seem a little bit broken at times.

00:54:51 ◼   ► None of these issues are ongoing for me, except for the Mac Pro sleeping/awaking, which sort

00:54:56 ◼   ► of comes and goes.

00:54:58 ◼   ► But it's these little edges like why is this a thing that I have to worry about?

00:55:03 ◼   ► Why do I have to worry about my cursor disappearing?

00:55:05 ◼   ► I was thinking through this lesson and said, "Oh, well, it's just time to ask for a snow

00:55:09 ◼   ► leopard release."

00:55:10 ◼   ► And then I thought that it is really sad that every few years we have to ask for one of

00:55:16 ◼   ► those.

00:55:17 ◼   ► Right?

00:55:18 ◼   ► So if people aren't familiar, snow leopard was, oh gosh, I don't know, like 11 or 12

00:55:21 ◼   ► years ago or something, 2009, and it was touted as zero new features.

00:55:27 ◼   ► not really true it has some new stuff but the big push was on stability and

00:55:31 ◼   ► Didn't that feature Grand Central Dispatch? Yeah, yeah. A massive thing, right? Yeah.

00:55:36 ◼   ► Your 64-bit support head to toe is like a lot of stuff. Dropped PowerPC support.

00:55:42 ◼   ► I love that feature name by the way, Grand Central Dispatch. It's so beautiful as a name.

00:55:48 ◼   ► Like it just sounds so good. Yeah, very nice. Do you know what it does?

00:55:56 ◼   ► Boost trains around? I don't know. I know it's some underpinning thing. I was going to say,

00:56:02 ◼   ► I guess it's something about using the multiple processor cores that are now in every Macintosh

00:56:07 ◼   ► for more efficient performance due to the technical difficulties traditionally involved

00:56:11 ◼   ► in making applications optimized for multi-core CPUs. That sounds like a Wikipedia article.

00:56:15 ◼   ► Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. I would assume it shifts thread handling to focus to itself rather

00:56:21 ◼   ► than leaving it to specific applications to distribute jobs evenly across cores and clears

00:56:26 ◼   ► up unused memory created by inactive or old threads to achieve maximum performance.

00:56:31 ◼   ► I guess.

00:56:32 ◼   ► If you just had to off the top of your head.

00:56:34 ◼   ► If I had to just assume.

00:56:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:38 ◼   ► And so that has become sort of a rallying cry for Mac users.

00:56:40 ◼   ► And in High Sierra, Apple's like, "Hey, it's like Sierra, but it's better."

00:56:44 ◼   ► Also, there's a new file system.

00:56:46 ◼   ► But it was sort of a year off for Mac features, even though it really wasn't.

00:56:51 ◼   ► and trying to make it more stable and calm things down a little bit.

00:56:58 ◼   ► And I'm tired of every three or four years asking for this.

00:57:01 ◼   ► I mean, I've said it on this show probably more than one year that it's time for a sort

00:57:06 ◼   ► of a snow leopard release.

00:57:07 ◼   ► We talked about that in terms of iOS 12.

00:57:09 ◼   ► Right?

00:57:10 ◼   ► iOS 11 was kind of a hot mess and 12 was, after its launch, pretty good.

00:57:17 ◼   ► And then 13 was a disaster, right?

00:57:19 ◼   ► And now it's like, oh, maybe they'll do like a snow leopard year for the iPad.

00:57:23 ◼   ► This is something that Apple users who pay attention and just keep coming back to.

00:57:28 ◼   ► And I blame it on one thing, I blame it on the annual release cycle.

00:57:33 ◼   ► The Mac didn't have that in the beginning, it was every two to three years or so.

00:57:38 ◼   ► And then starting with Lion or so it became annual.

00:57:44 ◼   ► And the reason they did that is there were a lot of features that came out on the Mac

00:57:49 ◼   ► and iOS at the same time are very close to each other.

00:57:52 ◼   ► So like iOS eight and Yosemite, you had handoff, right?

00:57:55 ◼   ► You want that across your platforms.

00:57:58 ◼   ► But while the iPhone and particularly the iPad still need annual releases, the Mac doesn't.

00:58:06 ◼   ► I think that there could be a world where we stay on Catalina or whatever, for a couple

00:58:11 ◼   ► of years.

00:58:12 ◼   ► And you know what, take a take a look at what Microsoft's doing, right?

00:58:17 ◼   ► It's Windows 10.

00:58:18 ◼   ► They have a big update every eight months or so that adds new features.

00:58:21 ◼   ► But the core OS is the same.

00:58:24 ◼   ► Why is it that, you know, when you updated to High Sierra or Mojave or something that

00:58:30 ◼   ► all of your USB audio broke?

00:58:31 ◼   ► Like, why is that being messed with?

00:58:33 ◼   ► Well, if you say we're not going to go into the core, we're going to add features.

00:58:37 ◼   ► it works with iCloud or whatever, the Mac would benefit from that slower pace.

00:58:43 ◼   ► And you know, you asked me to come up with like a feature list for 1016.

00:58:48 ◼   ► I don't know, like, maybe I'm not like smart enough or have a good imagination, but the

00:58:54 ◼   ► Mac feels pretty dang feature complete to me.

00:58:56 ◼   ► But the features that are there, a lot of them are breaking down.

00:58:59 ◼   ► And I really would implore Apple to slow down on the Mac OS release cycle.

00:59:06 ◼   ► And it's one thing for me to complain about it as an end user and like yes, like I'm a power user

00:59:09 ◼   ► I run like, you know my half of our production company on it

00:59:13 ◼   ► But in the enterprise and education the annual cycle doesn't exist right a lot of education customers

00:59:21 ◼   ► And especially a lot of enterprise customers stay on

00:59:25 ◼   ► You know the n minus one release so they're all running

00:59:29 ◼   ► Mojave right now or maybe even before that maybe they're still in High Sierra and

00:59:35 ◼   ► they will upgrade when they have to maybe their security update stop or they have a security application that requires the new thing or

00:59:43 ◼   ► They get a bunch of 16-inch MacBook Pros that can only run Catalina so they have to

00:59:48 ◼   ► Support it for a lot of people the annual cycle is a major headache a lot of important Mac customers

00:59:55 ◼   ► It's a major headache

00:59:56 ◼   ► And so I think you know in talking with my friends and people I know in the internet

01:00:01 ◼   ► Who are in that world of supporting Macs at scale?

01:00:04 ◼   ► None of them are a fan of this annual release cycle, and I think it'd be really nice if Apple would break from it

01:00:12 ◼   ► Well, what if it was like still came out every year, but it was really tick-tock in nature

01:00:19 ◼   ► It would really be up to Apple to make it really clear. That's what they're doing

01:00:23 ◼   ► Right, like it would be easy to assume that okay, they were Sierra and hi Sierra

01:00:27 ◼   ► We had Mojave maybe Catalina will be sort of a quieter year and Catalina in a lot of ways was the biggest

01:00:34 ◼   ► changed to MacOS there's been in seven or eight years and it's it's like well

01:00:39 ◼   ► Apple if they're going to do that they need to like lay it out in advance and

01:00:42 ◼   ► say hey so just hypothetically hey Catalina was a big change 1016

01:00:47 ◼   ► we're calling it I don't know something related to Catalina I don't know I'm not

01:00:51 ◼   ► very familiar with California hi Catalina snow Catalina no it's it's an

01:00:55 ◼   ► island right so like soggy Catalina okay it is uh Catalina that you know

01:01:01 ◼   ► but we've changed these five or six things.

01:01:04 ◼   ► We didn't touch anything else.

01:01:05 ◼   ► If they were really clear about that

01:01:07 ◼   ► and they stuck with it long enough

01:01:09 ◼   ► that people would trust it, I think that would be fine.

01:01:11 ◼   ► But I feel like they're running a race

01:01:14 ◼   ► that doesn't need to be run

01:01:15 ◼   ► and they are only hurting the product in the meantime.

01:01:20 ◼   ► - I am on Mojave and I have no complaints like you do.

01:01:27 ◼   ► I feel like maybe, you know, like, you know, there are always bugs,

01:01:32 ◼   ► of course, but it feels like catalyst has been for,

01:01:36 ◼   ► for whatever reason, a little trickier for some users. Right. Yeah.

01:01:41 ◼   ► And so maybe like another version could still have new features in

01:01:46 ◼   ► it,

01:01:46 ◼   ► but would be more stable after the typical first or second point release,

01:01:51 ◼   ► because like, I'm sure there were complaints about Mojave,

01:01:55 ◼   ► But whatever those complaints were, like they're not affecting me anymore or they're not a problem for me.

01:02:02 ◼   ► So, you know, like I think maybe people have a bad opinion of Catalyst because it does include a bunch of stuff which isn't,

01:02:11 ◼   ► which does degrade the experience kind of like by design.

01:02:16 ◼   ► Catalina, you mean you said Catalyst, but it's a confusion.

01:02:19 ◼   ► Yeah, but that too, I guess.

01:02:22 ◼   ► But like that actually leads me on to a point of like when you're saying about

01:02:25 ◼   ► like what features could be added, like stuff like that, like making Mac

01:02:29 ◼   ► Catalyst better could be something right, which people would want.

01:02:33 ◼   ► Oh, yeah. And I've got a handful.

01:02:35 ◼   ► Yeah. As far as like big features, it's pretty good.

01:02:38 ◼   ► But yeah, I don't know.

01:02:39 ◼   ► I just feel like the maximum treadmill working way harder than it has to.

01:02:42 ◼   ► That's my analogy for the day.

01:02:45 ◼   ► Well, what do you what would you want to see then?

01:02:47 ◼   ► What kind of features would be realistic for you?

01:02:50 ◼   ► So there are there are a couple one is this is going to be nerdy for a second. But Apple

01:02:58 ◼   ► with Catalina rolled out this thing called system extensions and driver kit. So like right now,

01:03:03 ◼   ► if you install VMware fusion, right, you want to virtualize Windows, that application will install

01:03:12 ◼   ► a kernel extension. So it has like deep roots in the OS. And it's how it allocates its memory and

01:03:18 ◼   ► does all this stuff. And those are sort of inherently insecure. Apple's done a lot to

01:03:25 ◼   ► harden the kernel against kernel extension intrusion, but kernel extensions by their

01:03:29 ◼   ► nature have access to a lot of things. And Apple has said, Hey, we're going to transition away from

01:03:35 ◼   ► these. In fact, they are deprecated at this point in Catalina in favor of system extensions and

01:03:42 ◼   ► driver kit, which are two tools that sort of take on what kernel extensions used to do, but they

01:03:47 ◼   ► elevate them into the user space. So it's it's more secure. So I think that that could

01:03:52 ◼   ► be going away, either this year or next year, I don't think it's any longer than 2021. That

01:03:58 ◼   ► means that if you have apps that run kernel extensions, like I've got a couple, those

01:04:04 ◼   ► applications will need to be updated, or they will break. And it's you know, virtualization

01:04:08 ◼   ► software, it's some enterprise security software, like McAfee, and some others may use kernel

01:04:14 ◼   ► And so that's going to be, at least for probably enterprise or power users, that could be a

01:04:20 ◼   ► pain in the butt.

01:04:21 ◼   ► Not as big as a deal as the 32-bit app, you know, Death Curtain that Catalina draped over

01:04:27 ◼   ► the landscape, but could be a rough thing for some types of users.

01:04:31 ◼   ► Let me ask you a question on that, right?

01:04:33 ◼   ► Because the 32 to 64 thing, my expectation was the apps that died were just the apps

01:04:40 ◼   ► that weren't updated.

01:04:42 ◼   ► I can't imagine there were that many applications that couldn't be updated for 64-bit.

01:04:48 ◼   ► Yeah I think it was mostly like, "Oh I've used this app for 15 years and I quit getting

01:04:52 ◼   ► support five years ago."

01:04:55 ◼   ► But are there applications that couldn't run because of this new kernel extension thing?

01:05:03 ◼   ► Like I'm asking you, is that a thing?

01:05:05 ◼   ► Are there applications that because of this would not be able to work?

01:05:10 ◼   ► but again it's up to those developers to...

01:05:14 ◼   ► Right, so it's a similar thing that like this replicates but changes the functionality.

01:05:20 ◼   ► If someone puts in the work they can create a driver kit kernel extension rather than

01:05:26 ◼   ► the typical kernel extension.

01:05:27 ◼   ► Okay, that's fine then.

01:05:29 ◼   ► I was just wondering if like...

01:05:30 ◼   ► Because, yeah, I don't know, I hear something like that without knowing too much about it

01:05:34 ◼   ► and it kind of reminds me of like locking the system down.

01:05:38 ◼   ► So I wondered if they'd removed any functionality.

01:05:41 ◼   ► It should be relatively OK once people get on board with it.

01:05:45 ◼   ► And again, they've had warning.

01:05:47 ◼   ► They announced it last year.

01:05:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:49 ◼   ► Well, yeah.

01:05:50 ◼   ► But that's-- still a lot of apps died in the 32 to 64.

01:05:54 ◼   ► It's a similar thing.

01:05:55 ◼   ► There will just be applications that

01:05:56 ◼   ► are using kernel extensions, which just won't be updated.

01:06:01 ◼   ► And look, I can kind of get-- personally, it's like, OK.

01:06:07 ◼   ► It would be a shame if there was an app that I lost that I couldn't replace, but things

01:06:11 ◼   ► have to move on eventually.

01:06:13 ◼   ► I don't really personally have a lot of problem with the 32 to 64 thing.

01:06:19 ◼   ► I didn't like the way that the upgrade path was for Catalyst, because I don't think it

01:06:25 ◼   ► was made clear enough to users early enough.

01:06:28 ◼   ► But from the sense of the developer, from the development angle, or just in the abstract,

01:06:36 ◼   ► It's like I do agree that things have to move forward, but I don't feel like users were

01:06:41 ◼   ► told early enough in the upgrade process that there are applications that were just not

01:06:45 ◼   ► going to work anymore for them.

01:06:47 ◼   ► There are rumors that Messages will become a Catalyst app.

01:06:51 ◼   ► It seems like a lot of the Messages stuff is actually already there, but not sort of

01:06:55 ◼   ► put into an application.

01:06:56 ◼   ► I think Steve Troutsmith and others found some of that.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Yeah, and Shortcuts as well, Steve found...

01:07:00 ◼   ► Yeah, Shortcuts is basically just all there with no UI.

01:07:04 ◼   ► So I think some of those things will continue to take shape.

01:07:09 ◼   ► Catalyst was new.

01:07:11 ◼   ► And I wrote at the time that it really felt like Catalyst was done in secret, and most

01:07:19 ◼   ► of Apple didn't know about it.

01:07:20 ◼   ► And there was also SwiftUI at the same time, and most of Apple didn't know about it.

01:07:25 ◼   ► And there SwiftUI and Catalyst are sort of on a collision course in a way.

01:07:28 ◼   ► I think Catalyst is the short term bridge and SwiftUI is the long term future.

01:07:33 ◼   ► But we haven't really seen much of either on Mac OS, right?

01:07:37 ◼   ► There are a handful of apps, some from the year before that are terrible, like home and

01:07:42 ◼   ► stocks.

01:07:45 ◼   ► And you know, those in those original ones, home, I think being the worst by far.

01:07:52 ◼   ► And then there's the newer ones, right?

01:07:53 ◼   ► So like the podcast app on the Mac OS, it's actually pretty good.

01:07:56 ◼   ► Like it feels like a Mac app for the most part, it works like a Mac app for the most

01:08:00 ◼   ► part.

01:08:01 ◼   ► It's running on catalyst unlike TV and music which are still basically the old iTunes guts, but just sort of refreshed

01:08:08 ◼   ► So I think we will see more catalyst apps over time from Apple. I think messages is ripe for it

01:08:16 ◼   ► You know, it's living in like the cave where it found the bones of my chat

01:08:19 ◼   ► so and I would like to see personally just from a statement perspective a

01:08:24 ◼   ► core to the system application like messages become catalyst like

01:08:31 ◼   ► Podcasts is nice, but like it was new

01:08:33 ◼   ► and and also like look obviously I love podcasts but not I

01:08:39 ◼   ► Can imagine not a lot of use on the Mac and nor is it like fundamental to the platform?

01:08:44 ◼   ► No, right, but messages, you know, like oh, all right, like here we go

01:08:49 ◼   ► Now I have a question for you though, right? This is all fine to say

01:08:53 ◼   ► Like oh, I don't want to see too much happen to the Mac or like Oh Apple probably won't do that much

01:09:00 ◼   ► What about an arm transition though? Like if this is the year isn't that going to be like a massive undertaking for Mac OS?

01:09:07 ◼   ► Absolutely, you know I was thinking about the the Intel switch and

01:09:12 ◼   ► how in one way

01:09:15 ◼   ► To the user it was basically invisible

01:09:19 ◼   ► Like you lost classic mode, but if you were so any classic mode in tiger you had it coming anyways, probably

01:09:26 ◼   ► But for most people you just bought a MacBook Pro or like your you know, white Intel iMac that you had

01:09:32 ◼   ► and it was just really fast and

01:09:35 ◼   ► it was a

01:09:37 ◼   ► pretty good smooth transition now that was only possible because Apple did a

01:09:42 ◼   ► ton of work

01:09:45 ◼   ► behind the scenes so they had Intel versions of OS the OS running on a

01:09:51 ◼   ► You know sort of secret

01:09:54 ◼   ► Secret lab bench somewhere they had it all ready to go. They had Rosetta which allowed power PC

01:10:01 ◼   ► Apps to run on Intel Macs under emulation most of them there were a couple of apps that couldn't do it

01:10:07 ◼   ► But for the most part most what they could

01:10:09 ◼   ► but

01:10:11 ◼   ► So Apple can go to those resources again, right? They can they can have emulation

01:10:16 ◼   ► They can keep the interface the same. It's just that your MacBook Air now instead of 10 hours about your life gets 20 and

01:10:24 ◼   ► that's the only change like that's the ideal solution I think for an end user

01:10:29 ◼   ► right you just your next laptop gets twice the battery life of your old one

01:10:32 ◼   ► that's what people want out of an ARM transition right who that's what people

01:10:36 ◼   ► want not knowing there's an ARM transition coming but it's like this is

01:10:39 ◼   ► what consumers want when they buy MacBook Air so in terms of developers

01:10:44 ◼   ► though it's a huge deal because they've got to have their apps up and running on

01:10:49 ◼   ► ARM but in talking with a bunch of developer friends that's going to be

01:10:54 ◼   ► way easier than it was power PC to Intel, because there's so much arm stuff going on already. And

01:11:01 ◼   ► if you have code base shared between your Mac app and your iOS app, it's already written in a way

01:11:10 ◼   ► that is going to be really easy just to flip that switch or check that box and Xcode not that it's

01:11:16 ◼   ► going to be one click and you're done, there's going to be some fine tuning. But it seems like

01:11:21 ◼   ► it may be less work for developers making apps in modern ways than the Intel switch was all those

01:11:28 ◼   ► years ago. So it is a big upheaval but I think it honestly I think it could be less of an upheaval

01:11:33 ◼   ► than it was when we went to Intel. That make sense? Yeah but what about like the platform itself

01:11:41 ◼   ► though? Like would it be... my assumption would be that there's a lot of stuff currently in MacOS

01:11:47 ◼   ► which has been kicking around for a long time. Right? Like, not as a developer, like, who's

01:11:53 ◼   ► taken advantage of the APIs, but like, just the stuff that's been in the Mac for, been dragging

01:11:58 ◼   ► along for years and years since the Intel transition. And my assumption would just be

01:12:03 ◼   ► that it would be a lot of work from Apple internally to get it to a point where it would,

01:12:07 ◼   ► it would function. And maybe they would have to have the entire thing functioning, right?

01:12:14 ◼   ► you can't stage the devote like the release of the operating system. Sure. Right. And so what I've

01:12:20 ◼   ► heard from people that in the years before the Intel transition, you know, Steve Jobs is like,

01:12:27 ◼   ► we've had it running for five years, all of our projects are cross compiled. Like that was true,

01:12:32 ◼   ► but it wasn't super true. Like, yes, maybe mail ran on the Intel version of Jaguar, but it was

01:12:37 ◼   ► kind of busted. And they had a lot of work to do. If the old tradition is coming, that work is if

01:12:44 ◼   ► if their transition is coming in three weeks,

01:12:46 ◼   ► that works all done by this point.

01:12:48 ◼   ► And if you remember, at a previous WWDC,

01:12:51 ◼   ► Apple took the time to say,

01:12:53 ◼   ► even though iPhone OS was born of Mac OS,

01:12:58 ◼   ► all these years ago,

01:12:59 ◼   ► over time the subsystems have wandered apart from each other

01:13:03 ◼   ► and we have been working over the last several years

01:13:06 ◼   ► to reunify them.

01:13:07 ◼   ► So now, let's just say Core Audio is,

01:13:12 ◼   ► I don't know if Core Audio specifically,

01:13:13 ◼   ► but as an example, Core Audio now is way closer

01:13:17 ◼   ► on macOS and iOS or whatever subsystem you pick.

01:13:21 ◼   ► And so it may be that Apple's been doing this for years,

01:13:23 ◼   ► moving macOS and iOS closer together

01:13:27 ◼   ► so when they do make this transition,

01:13:29 ◼   ► all their ducks are already in a row.

01:13:32 ◼   ► And no doubt the first developer version of our macOS

01:13:37 ◼   ► is probably gonna be buggy.

01:13:39 ◼   ► I mean, that was true of the developer preview

01:13:42 ◼   ► have tiger for Intel, but by the time tiger for Intel shipped, you know, if you

01:13:47 ◼   ► set a power book down next to a MacBook Pro, the only difference was the MacBook

01:13:51 ◼   ► Pro was way faster. And that's what the end goal should be.

01:13:54 ◼   ► I hope so.

01:13:55 ◼   ► Oh yeah. You know, there's always the question of well what does the developer transition

01:13:59 ◼   ► look like? You know, I've wrote about this a couple years ago on Federico's site

01:14:04 ◼   ► about the Intel development kit and go read the article if you haven't seen it

01:14:08 ◼   ► in the show notes, where they had like a power Mac g5 case, but with like a Pentium four

01:14:13 ◼   ► in it is very strange. I'd love to get my hands on one, someone's got one floating around

01:14:18 ◼   ► get in touch. But it is this like standalone product. And now I mean, Jason says like,

01:14:24 ◼   ► Oh, maybe that the current iPad Pro could be the transition kit, you know, they got

01:14:28 ◼   ► the trackpad and the keyboard, I don't know what they're gonna do, they'll do something,

01:14:32 ◼   ► But they may also not actually have to do anything because of where the development

01:14:40 ◼   ► tools are now compared to they were then.

01:14:42 ◼   ► Maybe they can just ship an ARM MacBook Air in the fall, tell everybody now, and it basically

01:14:49 ◼   ► be okay at launch.

01:14:51 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:14:53 ◼   ► It's going to be exciting.

01:14:54 ◼   ► And you know, maybe this is the year.

01:14:56 ◼   ► It feels like it's getting closer and closer.

01:14:58 ◼   ► So yeah, I hope it's true.

01:15:01 ◼   ► I think I think our max would be really exciting.

01:15:03 ◼   ► Can you imagine any kind of situation where it would happen this year,

01:15:08 ◼   ► but not be shown at WWDC? No, this is the time.

01:15:12 ◼   ► It would have to be that, right? Like you do it now,

01:15:16 ◼   ► like you do it with WWDC or you wait another year, right?

01:15:20 ◼   ► Like this isn't immediately a

01:15:25 ◼   ► customer story. Right.

01:15:27 ◼   ► and making it a customer story before a developer story

01:15:31 ◼   ► would make the customer story worse.

01:15:34 ◼   ► - Agreed.

01:15:34 ◼   ► - So, yeah.

01:15:36 ◼   ► - Again, if you look at what they did with Intel,

01:15:38 ◼   ► obviously they're a different company now,

01:15:40 ◼   ► but they said, "Hey, developers, we're telling you today,

01:15:43 ◼   ► "you can get a copy of this.

01:15:44 ◼   ► "You can order one of these bananas, Pentium PowerMax,

01:15:49 ◼   ► "and we're gonna start shipping them soon."

01:15:52 ◼   ► And that did probably have a little Osborne effect

01:15:56 ◼   ► on those PowerPC Macs, but Apple had to tell developers

01:16:00 ◼   ► so they were ready.

01:16:01 ◼   ► 'Cause to your point, you don't want to buy a computer

01:16:03 ◼   ► you can't run any software on.

01:16:04 ◼   ► And then they shipped the first Intel Macs that January,

01:16:10 ◼   ► so you know, five, six months later,

01:16:13 ◼   ► and then they were done by the next WWDC.

01:16:15 ◼   ► They did it all in a year,

01:16:16 ◼   ► which was faster than they said it would be.

01:16:18 ◼   ► Now, we're sidestepping for today,

01:16:20 ◼   ► what do they do with the iMac Pro and my beloved Mac Pro?

01:16:24 ◼   ► You know, those Intel machines

01:16:25 ◼   ► that maybe they can't meet the specs of yet.

01:16:27 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:16:29 ◼   ► But I do think they've got to tell developers ahead of time

01:16:32 ◼   ► and just understand that,

01:16:34 ◼   ► yeah, it may hurt ourselves in the meantime,

01:16:35 ◼   ► but honestly, I don't even know if it will

01:16:37 ◼   ► because the MacBook Air is really good

01:16:38 ◼   ► and people are just gonna go out and buy a MacBook Air,

01:16:41 ◼   ► they pay attention to this stuff.

01:16:44 ◼   ► I don't think they do.

01:16:45 ◼   ► And even if they do, they may not understand it.

01:16:48 ◼   ► - Well, they were still selling them

01:16:50 ◼   ► when the keyboard was bad.

01:16:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, a bunch of them, right?

01:16:53 ◼   ► And, you know, honestly, like it would keep me from buying a new laptop.

01:16:58 ◼   ► I mean, I just bought one, so I bought one not that long ago, so I don't need one.

01:17:02 ◼   ► But it would hold me off, but there's not many people in the world that buy Apple products

01:17:09 ◼   ► that are as tuned in as us and our audience are.

01:17:13 ◼   ► And also, I could imagine a lot of people wouldn't want the new one, right, as well.

01:17:20 ◼   ► Like I can imagine people saying like, no, I would prefer to stick to what I know.

01:17:24 ◼   ► Not a lot, but I can imagine there also being people in that camp.

01:17:28 ◼   ► Or give it a little while.

01:17:29 ◼   ► You know, like, oh, let's give it six months.

01:17:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:33 ◼   ► I mean, and it's possible too that depending on the emulation story, there may be people

01:17:36 ◼   ► who prefer an Intel Mac for a while.

01:17:39 ◼   ► I think I've told this story before, but I had a customer at the Apple store, had a PowerMac

01:17:42 ◼   ► G5 into the Mac Pro Air and it died and he had to have PowerPC hardware.

01:17:47 ◼   ► It was like really high-end audio stuff that wasn't on Intel yet, and I found him like a refurbished

01:17:53 ◼   ► Power Mac g5 and talked to Apple and to sending it to him as a replacement because we were gonna replace his computer

01:17:59 ◼   ► But I could only replace it with a Mac Pro

01:18:00 ◼   ► And I you know begged and pulled a bunch of favors to get this guy g5 because it's what he needed

01:18:05 ◼   ► There's always gonna be people at the edge cases

01:18:07 ◼   ► But I think for most consumers and honestly probably most power users unless you're like developing or doing something really weird in the OS

01:18:16 ◼   ► it's gonna be pretty invisible, hopefully,

01:18:19 ◼   ► if Apple does their job well.

01:18:21 ◼   ► - I would love to know if any of our listeners

01:18:26 ◼   ► are still using PowerPC hardware that they cannot update.

01:18:31 ◼   ► I'd just love to know that.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Now you said that, it's like, you know,

01:18:34 ◼   ► like how we had the people still using Aperture?

01:18:36 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:18:37 ◼   ► - Right, like if for whatever reason,

01:18:39 ◼   ► like that is a thing I would really love to know.

01:18:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, let us know on Twitter.

01:18:44 ◼   ► The show is that_connectedfm.

01:18:47 ◼   ► Well, Simon, you use your iMac Pro a whole bunch.

01:18:51 ◼   ► Is there anything that comes to mind for you?

01:18:53 ◼   ► - No.

01:18:54 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:18:56 ◼   ► Right, but like, I don't, no matter what they put in,

01:19:00 ◼   ► I don't wanna upgrade to it, right?

01:19:02 ◼   ► Like this is, you know, like I'll say this forever,

01:19:05 ◼   ► but my Mac is a tool for production.

01:19:10 ◼   ► Like I don't want the newest version of the tool.

01:19:13 ◼   ► Like if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

01:19:14 ◼   ► There is nothing wrong with my Mac Pro running Mojave.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Do not want to touch it.

01:19:20 ◼   ► Like I'm not going to upgrade to Catalina either.

01:19:23 ◼   ► Like I'm just going to leave this thing on Mojave until I am forced to move.

01:19:27 ◼   ► Like I had to update, you know, like in the past,

01:19:31 ◼   ► I've been forced to update because software that I need will only like they cut off.

01:19:35 ◼   ► Right. Right. I'll do it for that.

01:19:38 ◼   ► Like if I needed to buy a new machine, right.

01:19:40 ◼   ► I'm only on Mojave because it was all I could get on the iMac Pro, right? Like it wasn't running

01:19:45 ◼   ► High Sierra, which is what I was on previously on my Retina iMac. So I just make sure I have

01:19:51 ◼   ► the security updates which they release and that's another thing. Like if Apple are going to cut me

01:19:56 ◼   ► off security update wise then I'll move to something, right? Like I'll move to the oldest

01:20:02 ◼   ► version of an operating system that I can get but I just like to stay on the Mac where I am.

01:20:09 ◼   ► like there isn't anything in that is exciting in these new versions of the operating systems

01:20:15 ◼   ► typically that brings me over it's very rare that there'll be a feature on ios that doesn't work on

01:20:21 ◼   ► the mac right or at least with some compatibility i will hand it to apple that they're pretty good

01:20:27 ◼   ► with that right like it's very rare that something is like completely broken uh so yeah i i have no

01:20:33 ◼   ► desire to move so there's nothing that I want I don't have that feeling about the

01:20:40 ◼   ► Mac there are like concepts and like ideas I think it would be nice for the

01:20:45 ◼   ► Mac platform for them to implement like I said like I would like to see Apple

01:20:50 ◼   ► produce more of their own capitalist apps but like yeah I don't care because I

01:20:56 ◼   ► can't run any of the countless daps just the four that came in your system that

01:21:02 ◼   ► are all bad. Yeah but like all that they're like the first ones or will that

01:21:05 ◼   ► but like you know like I don't have the podcasts app yeah right I still have

01:21:10 ◼   ► iTunes on this thing and will for the foreseeable future so like I would like

01:21:16 ◼   ► to see it I personally would really like to see an arm transition happen just

01:21:21 ◼   ► because I am really intrigued as to what that could do for the Mac but you know

01:21:27 ◼   ► it's not like I have a laundry list of features that I want to see like I would

01:21:31 ◼   ► for example iOS and iPadOS. Sure, which are your primary drivers? So yeah, that's where I care about

01:21:37 ◼   ► things moving and changing and becoming more exciting because as well also there is more to do

01:21:41 ◼   ► especially on iPadOS. There are actual things to be done, you know, like I don't know if many people

01:21:47 ◼   ► are asking for the windowing paradigm to be rethought on the Mac, you know, like people are

01:21:54 ◼   ► asking for there to be refinements to the multitasking system. Mm-hmm. So all right, well I think that

01:22:00 ◼   ► that does it. Yep. Feel good? Yeah. Alright, if you want to find links to the stories

01:22:06 ◼   ► we spoke about head on over to the website relay.fm/connected/297

01:22:13 ◼   ► While you're there you can become a member to support this show directly.

01:22:17 ◼   ► Thank you so much to our connected members out there. When you join you get

01:22:21 ◼   ► a bunch of cool stuff including access to the Relay FM members discord that we

01:22:25 ◼   ► mentioned a couple of times during the show. You can also send us an email with

01:22:29 ◼   ► feedback or follow-up. You can find us on Twitter of course Myke is there as

01:22:34 ◼   ► @imyke. Myke is the host of a bunch of other shows here on Relay FM. Federico

01:22:40 ◼   ► is off this week but you can find him on Twitter at @vittici. He's the

01:22:45 ◼   ► editor-in-chief of MacStories.net and he should be back with us next week I

01:22:50 ◼   ► think. And the Japes will resume. Oh boy. You can find me on Twitter as @ismh and

01:22:57 ◼   ► and my work at 512pixels.net,

01:23:00 ◼   ► as well as a bunch of shows here, both places.

01:23:03 ◼   ► Multifaceted media experience for me, if you want it.

01:23:06 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week,

01:23:08 ◼   ► Smile, Hello, and ZOJO.

01:23:11 ◼   ► Until next week, Myke, say goodbye.

01:23:13 ◼   ► - Cheerio.