0:00:00(upbeat music)
0:00:02Hello and welcome to Connected episode 273.
0:00:11It's made possible this week by our sponsors,
0:00:14Squarespace, ExpressVPN and Bombas.
0:00:17My name is Steven Hackett and I am joined
0:00:19by Mr. Myke Hurley.
0:00:21- Did you get it right this time?
0:00:22- I did, thank you.
0:00:23- Good work.
0:00:24- Thank you.
0:00:25How are you?
0:00:26- I am very good, thank you very much.
0:00:28- Good.
0:00:29notes. The end of the year, there's like excitement stuff to talk about. I'm glad
0:00:34we're here together, and I'm glad that we are joined by our friend Mr. Federico
0:00:37Vittucci. Hello, hi, how are you? Hi. We should say also that there is a fourth
0:00:42mostly silent person on the episode this week. He can't hear us, but maybe you can
0:00:49poke him, make him say something. Can you say something? Hey guys, how's it going? We can hear
0:00:55John can't hear us, I assume. Yes. Well, he can hear something through my headphones.
0:01:01Turn him down! He shouldn't be able to hear anything through your headphones. If he can
0:01:04hear through your headphones, your headphones are too loud. The problem is the headphones,
0:01:08not the... the volume is fine, but the construction of these headphones is faulty, I believe.
0:01:14They leak volume. I noise gate you every week to fix it. They leak more than the White House,
0:01:21really. So wow. Oh my god. Yeah. So start strong today. Okay. The problem is not me,
0:01:30the headphones. I think that, I think Jon deserves to be labeled as a guest on this
0:01:34episode. I think we'll do that for him. He was there. Maybe he can be, he can be the
0:01:38one word commenter on the show. Maybe, like seriously, seriously, when we talk about the
0:01:44Mac Pro, maybe we just swapped the two of them out. Oh yeah, let's do that. Oh, that's
0:01:48Because otherwise there will just be nothing, there'll be silence from Italy, so we may
0:01:53as well just swap Federico for John.
0:01:55Yes, yes, this is a great idea, I'll go make some coffee, play with the dogs.
0:02:00Basically you'll do all of the things that you usually do when we talk about new Mac
0:02:04hardware, but this time you'll be owning up to them.
0:02:06Well you don't know about that, well actually one time I did leave without telling you guys.
0:02:12I honestly assume that that's what's happening.
0:02:14And like I did a whole thing around the house and then I came back and Steven was still
0:02:18talking so that happened but that happened once yeah usually i tell you guys if like the ups guys
0:02:26here yeah so we'll have john on john would you agree with this plan john excellent plan perfect
0:02:32okay we're doing this this is going so well let's start with follow-up and i think we can safely say
0:02:40that the year 2020 will be the year of stephen two because you know because the rumor we're not
0:02:47allowing you to Luigi this we have told you so many times. He doesn't get the reference.
0:02:52I don't. Luigi's the one in green right? Yeah. Yes good job dad. Thanks. Yeah he's the one who's
0:03:00like technically a different race to Mario which is like this whole thing. They are the Mario
0:03:04brothers so Mario's name is Mario Mario and Luigi's name is Luigi Mario for some reason.
0:03:09Like I'm not joking. Yes that's it's very upsetting. That is upsetting. Like imagine if your
0:03:14name was Steven Steven or Hackett Hackett, can you imagine that? That would be upsetting.
0:03:19So they're brothers, but they share a last name, but not for the reason you think they would,
0:03:24and their business partner is in a plumbing operation. But they never actually do any
0:03:29plumbing. But they never actually... It's like a cover. And these days Luigi is most famous
0:03:34for being a ghostbuster. Yeah, or a super bad driver in Mario Kart, like super aggressive guy.
0:03:41So anyway, why would 2020 be another, as you say, year of Steven, which is this terminology
0:03:49that we do not officially accept, but we'll let you go with it because you seem happy about it.
0:03:54Because the rumor is that the iPhone SE2 or whatever this like upcoming entry level,
0:04:00air quotes, low cost iPhone would be, could be called the iPhone 9, which is something that I
0:04:07put forth as a theory several months ago here on this very program and I love it as a name. I think
0:04:13it's great. This is a rumor over on MacRumors that the iPhone SE2 will be the iPhone 8 form factor.
0:04:22We've talked about this but be called the iPhone 9 which I think makes a lot of sense. It does make
0:04:27a lot of sense. I still I don't understand like the year of this is something you said
0:04:32right? About the news? Yes. Okay. Well and it could be, I'll do this now, it could be that this is one
0:04:38of my yearly picks. That's coming up in a few episodes. Oh damn. So maybe I'm getting ready
0:04:44for that. But as precedent is set, this obviously wouldn't be Ricky because there has been previous
0:04:49reporting. Not a Ricky, but it could be a regular... You could, if this article wouldn't have been
0:04:54published, that would have been a Ricky. Yeah, who wrote this article? I need to have a word with that.
0:04:57Well it came from Mac Otakara which is a Japanese website with dubious credibility.
0:05:02Yeah but Joe, I know Joe, Joe put it on Macrumus. Come on Joe you're killing me.
0:05:05Because you've not waited two weeks Joe, really. Come on Joe.
0:05:09Anyways, I think this phone seems like a lock that they're going to do this.
0:05:14It's not going to to revitalize the old 4-inch iPhone form factor so those people,
0:05:20if you're still holding on to an iPhone SE now, like I'm really sorry but I think that's,
0:05:25times passed it by. Sad.
0:05:27Federico, I feel like I'm losing my mind a little bit because I am very confident that
0:05:35you said last week that your awards would be this week at MacStories. Am I wrong?
0:05:40No, they were never-
0:05:42Maybe I just assumed this.
0:05:44They were never this week, they were next week.
0:05:46El, is this one of those things where it's not late because we didn't announce the date?
0:05:50That's right.
0:05:51You're like Apple.
0:05:52He just said fall 2019.
0:05:57I just said before the end of the year, and it literally could be the 30th, but not their
0:06:01next week.
0:06:02Yeah, their next week.
0:06:04So we had two surprises planned.
0:06:07One of them that we announced is that we're doing a reader's choice award.
0:06:13And if you're a Clubmax Stories member, you can vote.
0:06:15There's a link in the latest issue of the newsletter.
0:06:17You can vote and you can write anything.
0:06:18And then I guess John and I will sift through the responses and try to count them.
0:06:24I know based on Myke's experience that it's a whole thing.
0:06:27I have a spreadsheet.
0:06:28If you hook up with me later on and I'll give you that spreadsheet, you need it.
0:06:33Trust me, it's very difficult.
0:06:35John, we need to ask Myke for the spreadsheet.
0:06:38Can you create a reminder for that, John?
0:06:44He's laughing.
0:06:46And the second surprise, which we haven't announced yet but it'll be revealed next week,
0:06:51which is gonna be super awesome, they will be out, they will be announced next week,
0:06:58around the, I don't wanna give you a day, because, you know, things can happen.
0:07:02And there's also like, my music bot thing is going also up.
0:07:07That feels like vaporware, you talked about that for months, come on, ship it man.
0:07:10Do it right now.
0:07:11Publish it live on the show.
0:07:12It's funny because you do have music bots.
0:07:14I do have it and it's incredible. It's so good.
0:07:19There's a lot of things in it and in fact, and this is kind of somewhat related to that,
0:07:27so something that I want to do with MusicBot is to have the, well you can call it basic
0:07:33shortcut, it's really made of 800 actions. But yes, that's the basic version that will
0:07:38be available for free on the website for everyone to use. I've been working on this thing since
0:07:43July, really. So it was a lot of work and that will be available for free. Everybody
0:07:49can use it and download it, whatever. It's free. But there will be a MusicBot Pro for
0:07:54Club Maxories members that does even more and that will take advantage of the Apple
0:08:01Music API. And initially I thought, I gotta write my own API actions. And in fact, I did
0:08:11the last couple of issues on MacSource Weekly, I explained how to work with the
0:08:15Apple Music API, but just today something happened that is gonna make MusicBot Pro
0:08:21so much better. Toolbox, the app that we talked about a few episodes ago,
0:08:26the shortcuts utility, got updated today with Apple Music API actions, which
0:08:33means you can search the Apple Music catalog without having to generate your
0:08:39own developer token, which is something that I explained in the newsletter how
0:08:43to do. Everything is taken care of by toolbox, you just need to drag and drop
0:08:48actions in a shortcut and you can search the Apple Music catalog for artists,
0:08:54songs, playlists, anything you want. And, because this is a native app, it takes
0:08:59advantage of MusicKit, which is the developer framework for Apple Music
0:09:03integration, to do things like adding stuff to your library or playing music
0:09:08in the background. So MusicBot Pro will have all of these features built in, and you don't
0:09:15need to set up anything on your end. Initially the plan was to tell people, like, you can
0:09:19use MusicBot Pro, but first you gotta generate your own developer token, and now that limitation
0:09:24is gone. So if you download MusicBot Pro, just make sure that you have Toolbox installed,
0:09:29and you get a whole bunch of extra features for Apple Music, including playing music and
0:09:33adding stuff to your library which is pretty nice I think so yeah that's a
0:09:39it's been a lot of work oh and also there's another music but surprise that
0:09:43you guys have seen yesterday I think so yeah I've been up to a few things lately
0:09:49you're like shortcut Santa over there hmm yeah you can call me that I like that
0:09:54Wow title fishing title fishing as of this morning it's been announced that
0:09:59bridge keyboards which I think all three of us like they make the they make
0:10:03keyboards or other devices but we use the iPad ones they are now available in
0:10:08the Apple Store which in the 10.2 the 10.5 sizes for the iPad and iPad air and
0:10:16they have iPad Pro sizes as well it's a great keyboard if you use your iPad for
0:10:22a lot of writing and typing it's definitely worth checking out and I
0:10:26just I'm happy for them like this is a big deal and you know bridge has been
0:10:30hard at work, I mean updating this thing and having support for new models and I
0:10:35kind of just wanted to give them a thumbs up for for making it into Apple's
0:10:40retail chain that seems like a big deal. I wonder why they're not doing the pro
0:10:44ones like it's just the 10.2 and 10.5. Yeah it may I mean it may be that it's
0:10:50supply thing supply thing maybe they'll add those at some point I don't know but
0:10:56it's it's great and so if you have you know an iPad Air or you know maybe
0:11:00you're giving an iPad as a gift this Christmas and someone's gonna be writing
0:11:04on it, I think this is a better option than the Magic Keyboard if someone's
0:11:08really gonna be a heavy keyboard user. Yeah I agree with that for all iPad
0:11:12versions that the Brydge Keyboard is a superior product. It's great. I'm eagerly
0:11:16awaiting their version with a trackpad. Me too. Maybe that's why the Pro
0:11:22isn't there, maybe they're gonna... I don't know anything. It seems like
0:11:25for everything that's been said about that, remember from that weird
0:11:28lawsuit. It feels like Bridge are going to be selling that as a very specific product
0:11:34because it's not user friendly, right? Like the cursor support is not user friendly.
0:11:41Yeah, that's not great.
0:11:42So you kind of have to already be an already expert user of this keyboard product,
0:11:47so maybe they're going to keep that one a little more chill.
0:11:49A pro iPad Pro user.
0:11:51Exactly.
0:11:52If you will.
0:11:53Like everybody here.
0:11:54I'll have a little bit of follow out and it feels a little self-serving because it's to another thing that I do
0:12:00But let me do it then so on episode
0:12:02514 of the Mac power users podcast
0:12:05David sparks and his partner in crime the Robin to his Batman if you will, which is Steven
0:12:11You don't want to be Robin so we've Robin
0:12:18Cooler but David's been doing Mac power users for longer than you. Yeah, but we're equals
0:12:24Do you want to be like, what's the butler's name?
0:12:28Alfred?
0:12:29That may be worse.
0:12:30You want to be the Alfred to his Batman?
0:12:31That could be worse.
0:12:32Well you decide which one of those you want to be.
0:12:34But there's a great episode with an interview with Thomas Grove Carter who is a video editor
0:12:41and Thomas had early access for a period of time to the Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR.
0:12:50You know like Apple, I mean Thomas in the interviews jokes that like just him and Calvin
0:12:54Harris at it. Apple seeds these things to creative people, I guess for feedback and
0:12:59also I would expect, so they can give these people for interviews with people like Mac
0:13:06Power users. So I think it's really cool because you get to hear of somebody who's been using
0:13:11this product for a significant period of time talk about their experiences and I'm like
0:13:16a third of the way through the episode and it's really really good.
0:13:18Yeah it's really part two to our interview of Doug Brooks who's the product manager for
0:13:22the Mac Pro, we got that at WWDC and we've been working on this for a while.
0:13:26And yeah, I was really happy with it.
0:13:27Thomas was awesome, really fun to talk to and I think we're definitely going to have
0:13:31him back to talk more about Final Cut in particular.
0:13:33Yeah, you got an expert now in the field.
0:13:36Yes, and it was neat to be involved in the launch in our small way and to be a podcast
0:13:42with sort of early access was really, really special.
0:13:45And so we're really thankful we got to do it and let's go check it out.
0:13:48I mean, I'm sure everyone listening to this.
0:13:50I think it's the perfect way to have this podcast involved with the Mac Pro.
0:13:57Because, you know, because it's like all of the podcasters that I know that would
0:14:04buy the Mac Pro are doing it because it's like I would like to own it, where someone
0:14:09like Thomas can get any kind of video producer really can get a lot of use out of
0:14:15that product. So being able to talk to a very heavy video user is great.
0:14:20As much as of course I would love to hear John Siracusa talk about his experiences immediately,
0:14:24I think I can at least understand from Apple's perspective why they might have wanted to go down
0:14:29this route, as opposed to giving you and David a Mac Pro, right? Like they actually put you in touch
0:14:34with someone who could talk about it at like a more professional use case.
0:14:37Yeah, Thomas is really...
0:14:38...other than just like, "This is nice."
0:14:40...is really pushing it, right? I mean, he's doing amazing high-end work, and so he can really speak
0:14:47to what makes it different. And that was kind of the most interesting part of it for me was
0:14:51the thing that the things that he says he can do now that were impossible before. That's what's
0:14:56exciting to me about this computer. We should talk about that computer a little later on today. I
0:15:00feel like I'll be gonna write with john. Yeah, yeah, it's it's in here. But first, I'm gonna
0:15:04tell you about our first sponsor. And then we have some other stuff. And then we'll get to the Mac Pro
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0:17:00It is the week of software updates.
0:17:03I know it's unusual to have a software update for iOS 13,
0:17:06but Apple's finally pushed one.
0:17:08That's exciting.
0:17:09(laughing)
0:17:11There's a lot of stuff here.
0:17:12Federico, what is new in 13.3 for iOS and the iPad?
0:17:17- Yeah, not a lot,
0:17:19but there's a few things that we could call out.
0:17:22If you didn't like the inclusion of Memoji
0:17:25in the emoji keyboard, you can now remove them.
0:17:28- Woo!
0:17:29- I'm conflicted on this.
0:17:30- You are? - I'm conflicted on this.
0:17:32Yeah, let me tell you why. Every now and then I like to use them, but I would forget they
0:17:36existed if I didn't see them.
0:17:39Right.
0:17:40Right?
0:17:41They have been surprisingly frequent in text messages from my friends.
0:17:48I see them a lot too.
0:17:49Even in WhatsApp where like they're not stickers, they're just images, but people use them.
0:17:54I sometimes send them in Slack instead of an emoji. It's just this massive image.
0:17:58Nice. Yeah, so obviously, you know, the kind of audience that reads Mac stories and listens to this show, you know, probably doesn't like them in the emoji keyboard.
0:18:10And I get it, like, they're not emoji technically. Like, nobody asks you for those, Apple, we just want to see them emoji in iMessage.
0:18:18And I get it, so there's now a setting. If you go in Settings, Keyboard, you can now disable Memoji, and the emoji keyboard will go back to just showing you emoji.
0:18:27Communication limits in screen time, which I really haven't played around with because I don't care about screen time anymore.
0:18:36There was a time last year when I was really using screen time to check on my habits and whatnot,
0:18:42but then I realized that most of my problems were Facebook and Twitter,
0:18:47and so what I'm doing now is I don't have Facebook anymore on my phone, and I have the official Twitter app,
0:18:53which has basically kicked my timeline completionist habit.
0:18:58I just, I'm not obsessed with reading every tweet anymore.
0:19:05So I really don't need screen time,
0:19:07but you have now more options for setting up
0:19:09limits for communication apps like messages.
0:19:14That's all I have to say.
0:19:17I really don't know how it works.
0:19:19I really don't wanna go through the process.
0:19:20- One of the things that's also pretty good,
0:19:22I mean, this stuff can be good for family,
0:19:25like parental control stuff,
0:19:27because you can limit who can get through and who can't.
0:19:29But also if you're using it yourself
0:19:31and you're using downtime,
0:19:32you can now say like,
0:19:33"I wanna get messages from this person,"
0:19:35and like, then they can break through,
0:19:37which I think is pretty useful.
0:19:40I think Gray will like it.
0:19:41- Yeah, it seems like a good feature.
0:19:43And I'm just excited that they're doing things
0:19:45with screen time and not waiting until IOS 14.
0:19:48You know, that they're continuing to improve it,
0:19:50because it is a big deal.
0:19:52Like I've got-- my kids have an iPad,
0:19:54and I have the parental stuff set up on it,
0:19:57and the screen time stuff.
0:19:58And it's a little clunky in places.
0:20:00And they don't have an iMessage account or anything yet,
0:20:02so I haven't come across that.
0:20:04But it is exciting that they are getting to improve it,
0:20:09because it's really easy.
0:20:10Well, I mean, these were announced 13 features
0:20:13that got pushed.
0:20:14Oh, wow, we send all that stuff.
0:20:15This isn't new.
0:20:16OK.
0:20:17This was like a thing that was spoken about,
0:20:18and it kept getting pushed.
0:20:20If only somebody wrote a really in-depth iOS 13 review I could have read. I would have
0:20:24known about this.
0:20:25Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, I know. Security keys in Safari. So if you have a physical security
0:20:35key for authentication purposes on websites that support it. And these are the FIDO2 compliant,
0:20:42because nobody trusts FIDO1, so it's all about FIDO2 these days.
0:20:45Yeah. I mean, what, are you a fool?
0:20:47Yeah, right. I mean, if you're using FIDO1, get out of here. Nobody can trust you.
0:20:51That's not a compliant model of security. We all know this.
0:20:55FIDO2 compliant NFC, USB and lightning keys. There is this great introduction to physical
0:21:04security keys by Paul Stamatiu on their blog. Really, really great article. I had no idea
0:21:11that these things...
0:21:12Can you imagine how few people have a Lightning security key?
0:21:17I bet it's like one person on the planet.
0:21:19- So there's this company called Yubico
0:21:21that they make authentication keys
0:21:23and they recently came out with the Lightning version.
0:21:26And I've seen some blog posts about that
0:21:30when I did my research about security keys.
0:21:33But yeah, it's a whole world, right?
0:21:35Of like, this is like an entirely different
0:21:38authentication framework.
0:21:40It's supported by, it's like a web standard.
0:21:43It's supported by Apple, by Google, and it's like--
0:21:45- Does it work within apps as well as websites, do you know?
0:21:48- It works with Safari, so if an app uses Safari view
0:21:53controller, for example, for authentication, it should work.
0:21:55- Right, right.
0:21:56- But I don't think it's like a proper iOS API
0:22:01the developers can implement in their own UIs,
0:22:05if that makes sense.
0:22:06I think it's just Safari for now.
0:22:08And you've got to assume that there's like a Salesforce or an IBM or whatever
0:22:14set to Apple, like we really need you to do this if you want us to continue with the iPad rollout or whatever.
0:22:20If you use Safari and if you use websites that support this different authentication system,
0:22:26you can now plug a USB or lightning key into your device or use an NFC enabled one.
0:22:32And, you know, this system will log you in.
0:22:36But this is like a like I was fascinated by this a few weeks ago and I consider maybe I should try it out just to see what it's like.
0:22:43But then I read about what the what what's required if you just want to, for example, switch your Google account to use a physical security key.
0:22:53Like what happens if you change your mind and you got to like call Google and it's like there's like a one one time decision, really.
0:23:02So like, if you are the type of, but this is the thing,
0:23:05if you're the type of person who,
0:23:07maybe because of your profession,
0:23:09maybe because of other political reasons,
0:23:12if you need this kind of more secure type of authentication,
0:23:16I think it's great news that Safari on iOS and iPadOS
0:23:21supports this.
0:23:22So it's very, very nice to see this feature.
0:23:27I'll never, I'm probably never going to use it,
0:23:29but I think it's pretty cool.
0:23:31And so yeah, that's it.
0:23:34I should mention, I should file an official complaint
0:23:38here on the show about short, yes.
0:23:42So we're gonna talk about shortcuts later
0:23:44on a more positive note because of an anniversary
0:23:48that occurs today.
0:23:50But before we talk about the nice things,
0:23:53I wanna talk about the bad things.
0:23:55Specifically, iOS and iPadOS 13.3 have been,
0:24:01because I've been testing the beta.
0:24:03By far the buggiest and most problematic release
0:24:08of shortcuts for me in a while.
0:24:10I'm running into all kinds of issues,
0:24:15whether it's about a complex shortcut such as MusicBot.
0:24:20Myke literally just sent me a screenshot
0:24:24of an error message that he got.
0:24:27And we should say Myke is the person
0:24:29will always run into issues with my shortcuts for some reason.
0:24:33This is very true.
0:24:34And this is-- I haven't done anything, all right?
0:24:36Everyone's like, oh, Myke's so stupid.
0:24:38He like puts his move on.
0:24:38No, he hasn't done anything.
0:24:39He followed my instructions to the letter.
0:24:42There's an initial setup process for MusicBot.
0:24:47It's the native option called by Apple Import Questions.
0:24:51It's a shortcuts feature.
0:24:53He followed those instructions, and he
0:24:56got this error that says nothing. It says the file "shortcuts" couldn't be opened.
0:25:05Now my shortcut... Yes, the file...
0:25:08I'm in shortcuts while I exceed this error, yeah.
0:25:11He's in shortcuts, he taps on the MusicBot shortcut and he gets this message that says
0:25:16the file "shortcuts" couldn't be opened. Now, my shortcut isn't called shortcuts. There
0:25:25is no file called "shortcuts" required by MusicBot. I have no idea what this error message means.
0:25:33This shortcut was created on 13.3, and Myke is trying to run it on 13.2, so there's a chance
0:25:41that's an issue, but it shouldn't be. But even more than that, I've been running into all kinds
0:25:47of problems on 13.3 with shortcuts. Every time I share a shortcut, I have to recreate all my import
0:25:55questions, because they get reset every time I share a shortcut. So what I've done is I created
0:26:02an Apple note with the text of my import questions, because I'm tired of writing them up from scratch
0:26:08every single time. Sometimes I add a variable to a shortcut, and you know how you can tap on a
0:26:17variable and you can change its type or its property. Like if you have a variable
0:26:22and you tap on it you can say this is a... I want to use this as an image or I want
0:26:26to use this as a text. Sometimes I tap on it and the variable disappears. Like it
0:26:31from the field it just disappears. I have shortcuts that take Apple Music links
0:26:39and run a very simple regular expression on it from the share sheet to
0:26:46extract a portion of the link. Those are not working anymore when I run them inside the
0:26:53share sheet.
0:26:56MusicBot presents a list of options when you share a song or an album from Apple Music
0:27:03to the shortcut. And these options are like five options that say "do you want to save
0:27:08this as a favorite?" or you know, stuff like that. Five options, not a lot.
0:27:1213.3 final stable version that came out yesterday, as soon as the list comes up, the shortcut crashes.
0:27:18And there's all kinds of issues like this, and I basically spent the past two weeks
0:27:25working around all these bugs from Apple, which I have filed, I'll let you know, I have filed,
0:27:33in all the possible ways at my disposal through Apple, you know, feedback reporter, whatever,
0:27:42feedback assistant, and other avenues. I have done my job, but these bugs do not get fixed.
0:27:50And it's like, Apple, you're making it really difficult for me to write about shortcuts and
0:27:55share shortcuts and, you know, maybe push shortcuts to its limits. But the thing is,
0:28:01I'm not doing anything that is too crazy, I'm just using...
0:28:04MusicBot is all Apple-made actions.
0:28:07No third-party dependencies, no crazy base64, nothing.
0:28:12Just plain actions.
0:28:15And I keep running into issues and it's getting worse.
0:28:19Like, I feel like it used to be better in the 13.0 beta this summer,
0:28:24and it's gotten worse through the multiple releases of iOS 13,
0:28:28which is sort of counter to what Apple is doing with these updates, so I don't get it.
0:28:33I don't know what is going on.
0:28:35I have some good news.
0:28:37It's tvOS news.
0:28:39The top shelf option can now be changed, so this means you can now change your... with
0:28:45the Apple TV app, you're now able to... in the Apple TV, you're able to change the method
0:28:50so the up next queue is just a list of things that you can scroll through, like the old
0:28:56style as opposed to the auto playing video. To do this, if you want to do this, I did
0:29:01this, it's great. Go to settings, then apps, then TV, and then you can change the top shelf
0:29:06option. So you can get the old Apple TV look back rather than the previous auto playing
0:29:12video, which I just want to say, I just want to say about this, I do not like creepy or
0:29:19scary things. Like I don't like creepy and scary TV shows or movies. Apple currently
0:29:25has one which is called Servant of End Night Shyamalan. I really don't want to see the
0:29:29trailer. I just don't want to see it. It creeps me out. So just another reason to turn it
0:29:34off. I don't want to see auto-playing video whenever I've got my Apple TV on and now I
0:29:39don't have to.
0:29:41MacOS Catalina, the iTunes column browser has reappeared in the music app.
0:29:46Oh my god, really?
0:29:48Yeah.
0:29:49Okay, okay, let's do this live. What is the column browser? How do I find it in music?
0:29:54tell you that. Don't know. I don't run Catalina. What do I do here? It's a way to view your
0:30:02artists and albums and music and all that kind of stuff. Jason Snow uses it, Marco uses
0:30:06it I think. It's just like a more old school version where I think you get like a bunch
0:30:11of segmented views where you can choose artist and album. It's kind of like the column browser
0:30:17you find in Finder. It's kind of like that. I don't know how you get it but it's in Music
0:30:22now. It's impossible to find. I can't help you. So iOS 13 features that we don't
0:30:28currently have shared iCloud Drive folders, right? So like as far as I'm
0:30:33aware that's the only thing left. I can't think of anything else from 13 that they
0:30:37said they would ship that they haven't shipped except this and I was kind of
0:30:41scrolling through Apple's iOS 13 website today and that seemed to be the case.
0:30:49Yeah, I think that's right. Or at least that's the only major thing left.
0:30:55Well, it's slightly related... well, it's another files feature. The ability to pin
0:31:02files. Yeah, I think it's anything related to what is clearly an
0:31:07underpinning's change of files has not happened. I wonder if it will.
0:31:13Maybe. Who knows. "Saga of Iavist 13 containers." They said in the spring, right?
0:31:18Are they saying next year or in the spring?
0:31:21When I was on the iOS 13 website today it said autumn.
0:31:25Still.
0:31:27So that's by the end of the year I guess.
0:31:29If they're sticking to that.
0:31:32Alright, should we change over our co-host and talk about the micropro?
0:31:35Yes, hold on. Let me do the official passing of the torch.
0:31:40In this case it's not a torch, it's headphones.
0:31:42Bye guys, I'll talk to you in a bit. Bye bye.
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0:33:33It's MacPro Week, gentlemen.
0:33:34- Finally.
0:33:35- We have some links in the show notes to some stuff.
0:33:36We're sort of assuming that a lot of people
0:33:38have seen a lot of stuff.
0:33:40There were three YouTube videos that are worth watching.
0:33:42MKBHD, iJustine, and Jonathan Morrison all unboxed
0:33:47and set up Mac Pros on their channels.
0:33:50I think all three are gonna work on a more in-depth review.
0:33:52But even the packaging of this machine is bananas.
0:33:56The box is enormous.
0:33:57It's held together with Velcro and has its handles.
0:34:00It's cool.
0:34:01It's very cool.
0:34:03- Yeah, that box is really something.
0:34:05It seems like it's made out of a material
0:34:07that's different than some of the other packaging
0:34:09some of the other Macs too from what I could tell in those videos.
0:34:12It should be more premium, that's for sure.
0:34:14I suppose so.
0:34:16Maybe it's more recyclable.
0:34:19Maybe it sounds like it's really smooth, kind of a weird soft texture or something,
0:34:24almost like a plastic is what it sounded like, I don't know.
0:34:27Huh, okay.
0:34:28I wouldn't be surprised if they had to change something because they did, well one, maybe
0:34:33needed it to be stronger and two, because they were doing that Velcro thing.
0:34:37There might have been different rigidity things that you needed to consider.
0:34:40Plus it's a very, very, very heavy computer.
0:34:43Yeah.
0:34:44Yeah, that was definitely obvious from the videos.
0:34:48People struggled to pick those things up and get them out of the boxes.
0:34:52I have a question while we're talking about reviews and stuff like that.
0:34:56Why do you think Apple gave every reviewer two Pro displays?
0:35:02Because it's awesome.
0:35:03So the three reviewers, iJustine, MKBHD, and Jonathan Morrison, they all got two Pro displays.
0:35:07I mean, maybe they got one matte and one smooth, right?
0:35:10So they could see the difference between them.
0:35:11But like that is, how many people are gonna need,
0:35:14are gonna not need, how many people are actually going
0:35:17to have two of these displays?
0:35:19It seems wild.
0:35:20- It's a lot.
0:35:20Thomas had two of them as well.
0:35:22And yeah, I don't know if it's, if one,
0:35:24if the difference or different finishes, I'm not sure.
0:35:28But I mean, you can see like if,
0:35:30I mean, Apple's really pushing that this is a computer
0:35:32designed for video editors.
0:35:34and those people do want like a full size preview
0:35:37and I think it fits with their narrative.
0:35:39I don't think it means that Apple assumes
0:35:41people are gonna buy two of these displays with it,
0:35:44but I'm not sure Apple assumes
0:35:46that you're gonna buy one display with it.
0:35:47- You can correct me if I'm wrong,
0:35:48but I think the demos like in WWDC,
0:35:51a lot of them had two, right, as well, is that right?
0:35:53- Some of them did and others were hooked up to like one
0:35:55and then like a 4K television on the wall.
0:35:58There were several different scenarios,
0:36:01but I think too Apple,
0:36:03I mean, they also sent those three YouTubers the 28 core machine.
0:36:07Thomas had the 16 core, I think, but they were flexing a little bit, you know,
0:36:12cause they want to show off the highest end, uh, you know,
0:36:15configurations where possible.
0:36:17So I think it makes sense with the picture Apple's trying to paint, but you know,
0:36:21I don't know if that has any like real indication of how people will use it.
0:36:25Is the 28 core the maximum core amount?
0:36:28Uh, let's see. I have the page open. Let's find out.
0:36:33I don't like the update to the Apple Store app, by the way.
0:36:36It's a little rough in places.
0:36:38Everything is way more difficult to find.
0:36:40Yeah, I found the same thing.
0:36:42Yes, the 28 core, it's a $7,000 option in the United States.
0:36:47But that's the most cores.
0:36:49Yeah, I mean one of the things they did was they showed, in iJustine's video, she showed
0:36:54off using the two displays where one had all the multi-cam views in one place, and then
0:37:01the second display was used to show the actual footage that she was creating. So that's a
0:37:07use case for it, but you're right. That's an awfully expensive use case.
0:37:11I also wonder if this monitor is so much bigger than monitors people are currently using,
0:37:18so maybe we could just do this with multiple windows. Because what is it, 32 inches?
0:37:2532 inches.
0:37:26Which is bigger than most of the monitors that you would buy for a machine like this
0:37:30currently, right?
0:37:31- Yeah, 27 is sort of the sweet spot,
0:37:34I think, for a lot of people.
0:37:35But I mean, you know, it's, I think,
0:37:37I think it's flex more than anything,
0:37:39but it was fun to watch that and fun to, you know,
0:37:41it's fun to watch people set stuff up and talk about it.
0:37:43And all three of them shared some early benchmarks.
0:37:46Thomas shared some details on MPU,
0:37:49just how much faster it is at certain tasks.
0:37:53And if you're in Final Cut in particular and using ProRes,
0:37:57then it is shockingly faster,
0:37:59like in a way that doesn't really make sense.
0:38:01And--
0:38:02- And that's 'cause of that card, right?
0:38:03You have to burn a card?
0:38:04- Yes, yeah, because the Xeons don't have,
0:38:07so the Core i5, i7, i9 have a component
0:38:13to speed up some video processing, and the Xeons don't.
0:38:16So actually under some, so I edit in ProRes in Final Cut,
0:38:21and under certain circumstances,
0:38:23my MacBook Pro can actually export faster
0:38:28than my iMac Pro because of this difference in the Core i9 and the Xeons, but the afterburner
0:38:34basically blows all that out of the water.
0:38:35And it's just basically, I mean, it's an ASIC is basically just a bunch of gates set up
0:38:43to make particular tasks as fast as possible.
0:38:46And so I think I think I said this last week, it would be interesting to see if Apple applied
0:38:50that to other things like, what would an afterburner for something like logic look like where you
0:38:55could do more and more tracks?
0:38:56What would it look like for other types of jobs?
0:38:59And so some video codec, some things
0:39:04won't be taking advantage of Afterburner.
0:39:07But if you are working in that type of codec,
0:39:10then it just destroys everything else on the planet,
0:39:14it seems like, which is cool.
0:39:17Because there are PCs that are faster than this
0:39:20or as fast as this, and you can run Premiere on them.
0:39:22But the Afterburner is really what sets it apart,
0:39:25at least for now.
0:39:25And I would I would guess that other manufacturers may end up doing similar things to this red actually
0:39:31I'm gonna put it in present tense, but it may be past tense
0:39:34I'm not sure red has some PCI cards that you can use to import and digest some of their
0:39:40Video stuff on the PC side, but I don't know how
0:39:44widespread that is and and maybe this will be a way that
0:39:47People on the PC or using other codecs could benefit from kind of what Apple is doing as well
0:39:54But it seems that even if you're not using progress or XMGB she does not use progress and his
0:39:59He's like export or rendering speeds. He's rendering speeds are just right faster
0:40:04Yeah, 12 minutes on the Mac Pro and four and a half minutes on the yeah
0:40:08Mac Pro the iMac put in a Mac Pro
0:40:10Yeah, I think that's the core count come coming into play and the amount of RAM probably but no doubt it's faster
0:40:16It just under certain circumstances. It's
0:40:18bananas faster
0:40:20There are some accessories that you know the big thing with the Mac Pro is that you can open it you can really customize it to
0:40:27What you want what you need and some of those have popped up in the last day or so
0:40:32The protospecs ER does not have an eyesight camera in it
0:40:36I saw people complaining about this and I actually think that that's for good reason
0:40:40I think if this is a display for people working in high-end production
0:40:46You don't necessarily want those devices to have cameras on them
0:40:49It keeps the bezel thin and all that other other stuff, but Logitech does have a new 4k webcam
0:40:55It sticks with a magnet to the top of the XDR
0:40:57Kind like the iSight camera used to do and it can be driven by both the 16 inch MacBook Pro
0:41:03or the the new Mac Pro
0:41:05So if you have a pro display XDR for some reason and you need a webcam, there's an option
0:41:09from Logitech and I have the Logitech the 1080 camera that a bunch of people have and
0:41:15And if I'm on a video thing, I even use it with my iMac Pro
0:41:19because it looks better than the 1080 webcam built
0:41:22into the computer.
0:41:23So Logitech builds good stuff in this arena,
0:41:24and I'd imagine that camera looks pretty good.
0:41:26There are also a couple of RAID options from Promise.
0:41:29One is a two-disk array that sits
0:41:33at the very top of the Mac Pro.
0:41:35They promised-- oh, god, I can't believe I said that.
0:41:37I really didn't mean it.
0:41:39They said that these were going to be a thing, right?
0:41:42Like Apple said that there would be RAID stuff from Promise?
0:41:44- Yeah, yeah, and it's just, they shipped it,
0:41:46it's for sale now, so.
0:41:47- Yeah.
0:41:48- So there's a two bay and then a four bay
0:41:50that takes one of the MPX slots.
0:41:51They put, they ship with spinning hard drives,
0:41:55three and a half inch drives,
0:41:56but I would hope that you could adapt that
0:41:59to two and a half inch SSDs, but.
0:42:02- Yep.
0:42:02- Spinning hard drives are still way more affordable
0:42:06for RAID scenarios, and in that sort of setup,
0:42:08you just want capacity, so.
0:42:10Those are there, that is something
0:42:13I am potentially excited about because I think a lot of people have big storage needs and to bring that internally is nice
0:42:18You can also
0:42:20order RAM
0:42:22Additional or upgraded GPUs and then the afterburner card in kits something Apple's been talking about
0:42:27The afterburner by the way is two grand
0:42:30I had no idea what to expect that cost to be so like I don't know if 2000 is good or not
0:42:35But that's what it is. So you can
0:42:40upgrade these as we talked about. So it's good. Good stuff.
0:42:44Yeah, it's expensive, but the graphics cards are expensive too. I think it's in line with
0:42:49those at least. If you look at some of those, they're like $2800 for the Radeon Pro Vega.
0:42:56But again, is that expensive in the wider market? We're comparing Apple to Apple in
0:43:02that, right? This is what Apple's charging for this stuff. Whether it ends up being those
0:43:07prices on the wider market is like a different thing.
0:43:10So am I right, like the Radeon Vega stuff is branded, like these are the cards that
0:43:16are used elsewhere but they brand them differently when they work with Apple?
0:43:19Yeah, they're branded differently and the big MPX cards are two GPUs connected with
0:43:24Infinity Link, which again you can do elsewhere.
0:43:27Those are kind of standard AMD things, but they're tweaked a little bit and then the
0:43:32The MPX module is also using Thunderbolt 3 internally for additional power, and it passes
0:43:37through Thunderbolt to the back.
0:43:39So depending on the GPU you have, the numbers change, but you have HDMI, and then you have
0:43:44Thunderbolt 3, additional Thunderbolt 3 ports on the video card that you can use for data
0:43:50or additional video out.
0:43:53So they are using Thunderbolt 3 internally in addition to PCI to power these things and
0:43:59provide more bandwidth.
0:44:00So you can go out and buy a regular video card and slap it in there.
0:44:04There's a header in there for power.
0:44:06But if you do go apples route, you get some a nicer package and something that will take
0:44:11fuller advantage of what the Mac Pro can do.
0:44:14Were you surprised that they didn't have any like additional IO cards or expansions that
0:44:19Apple will make him?
0:44:20I was so the Mac Pro ships with the half length, they're calling the Apple IO card and that
0:44:26has USB A and Thunderbolt three on the back.
0:44:30And that comes just comes with the Mac Pro, I expected that you could just buy one of
0:44:34those outright unless I missed it this morning, you can't.
0:44:38So if you need more USB A, you're going to have to break out somewhere or if you wanted,
0:44:45you know, just more Thunderbolt ports, but don't need another GPU, you're kind of stuck.
0:44:49And so my guess is that someone you know, OWC or somebody will ship a card that just
0:44:55gives you a bunch of ports on the back, right?
0:44:57because PCI can just hand out to a bunch of different ports
0:45:00and you'll be fine.
0:45:01So I was hoping to see that because I think people
0:45:06who just use it sort of without a bunch of GPUs in it
0:45:09may need additional IO and Apple doesn't have
0:45:12a great solution for that currently.
0:45:14There are some sort of what I'm calling weird details,
0:45:18just things that jumped out at me.
0:45:21The first one is that the rack-mounted Mac Pro
0:45:23starts at $500 more and is quote, "coming soon."
0:45:26So it does come in a rack mounted, put it in a server farm
0:45:31if you're, you know, if you're the guys at a Mac stadium,
0:45:36it's a viable option and way better than having
0:45:39a bunch of iMac Pros in a rack like they do now.
0:45:41So we don't know much about that machine.
0:45:44My assumption is that the specs are all basically the same
0:45:47and it's just a form factor difference
0:45:48and you're paying for that, but that's kind of unknown.
0:45:51Apple hasn't given a date of when that might show up. The Mac Pro is a pretty niche thing,
0:45:59but the rack mounted one is going to be extremely specific. I don't know how many
0:46:04those they're going to sell. But if you need it, it's coming soon.
0:46:06Along with other options, the eight terabyte SSD and some of the graphics card options.
0:46:12They're not. They're just coming soon to write no date, right?
0:46:16So the the eight terabyte SSD first showed up on the 16 inch MacBook Pro.
0:46:20Apple had previously said the four terabyte will be the max for the Mac Pro, but they're
0:46:24going to have an eight terabyte option. So again, we don't know when that is, but it is coming. And
0:46:29it's odd to me that they couldn't get at least that going before launch, but who knows? But yeah,
0:46:34additional Radeon Pro, the W5700X will ship soon. If you need that, we should talk about the price,
0:46:42because that's what that's what that's the thing with his machine, many headlines,
0:46:46But I mean, but it's fun. I mean, like it's a big it's a big thing.
0:46:49You know, I don't know about you, but as soon as as soon as I saw
0:46:52that it was available, the first thing that I did was back up one to the maximum.
0:46:55I think everybody did that right.
0:46:57Like that's what everybody used to do with the old Mac Pro, like the cheese
0:47:00grater Mac Pro, like how expensive can you make it go?
0:47:02And you can pass fifty thousand dollars with this.
0:47:07That's amazing.
0:47:08And this isn't the highest price though, right?
0:47:11Because I'm assuming that once the SSD options are available
0:47:16and the other graphics, you might be able to make it even more expensive.
0:47:19They're not going to reduce the current SSD pricing with the 8 terabytes in option, right?
0:47:23It'll just add it to the top. Right.
0:47:25Yeah, it's fun. That's a fun game to play. And if you need a terabyte and a half of RAM,
0:47:30that's basically half the cost, isn't it? That terabyte and a half is really expensive.
0:47:34It's 25. Yeah, it's 25 grand.
0:47:36That's wild. Apple is giving people options, right? And it's, if you're the type of person
0:47:43who needs a terabyte and a half of RAM,
0:47:44now you have a solution that runs Mac OS.
0:47:46- Yeah, I think it's great.
0:47:48Isn't this what everyone wanted, right?
0:47:49I know that it makes it very expensive,
0:47:52but wasn't the whole purpose for this machine existing,
0:47:54so people that have particular needs
0:47:56can now have them fulfilled.
0:47:58If you need 1.5 terabytes of RAM,
0:48:01Apple now give you the ability to have that.
0:48:03You could not do that before yesterday.
0:48:05You were out of luck.
0:48:07If you needed, for some reason,
0:48:081.5 terabytes of RAM in a computer,
0:48:11you could not use Mac OS to do it unless you were gonna go
0:48:14with some horrific Macintosh thing, right?
0:48:17But this is what was asked for,
0:48:20so this is what it is now, right?
0:48:23Like you don't have to spend 22 grand
0:48:26to put 1.5 terabytes of RAM in there.
0:48:28Like, I know there's a lot of question about want and need,
0:48:31but like, I don't know, who even need, who, how, why?
0:48:35- I mean, the RAM specifically, I think,
0:48:39is for people who are doing big data modeling
0:48:43or scientific computation.
0:48:46A lot of that can be handed off to memory in this way faster.
0:48:48It is incredibly niche.
0:48:50And I think it's great that even for these incredibly niche use
0:48:54cases, you can now buy a computer from Apple
0:48:57that you can put this hardware into.
0:48:59This is what the Mac Pro in 2020 should be, I think.
0:49:04I think you're right, Myke.
0:49:05It's absolutely something.
0:49:07It's exactly what we were told we were going to get in June.
0:49:09The thing I think that shocks people still though is that that base model is like buying
0:49:15an iMac Pro, right?
0:49:17I know that when I was trying to guess what the highest price would be, I thought it might
0:49:20be like $25,000, something like that.
0:49:22Yeah, me too.
0:49:23Me too.
0:49:24Right?
0:49:25So we were talking about that in iMessage and yeah, I thought it was going to be half
0:49:27of what it is and so it is kind of shocking but I'm not upset about that in any way because
0:49:33Because I agree there are use cases, they're very, very narrow use cases.
0:49:37But now people have a machine that they can configure to be the most powerful Mac on the
0:49:42planet to do whatever they want.
0:49:44And I think it's great that it exists.
0:49:47Yeah, there's been some hand wringing, as you would imagine, and I think this is the
0:49:52goodest time ever to talk about that.
0:49:54If you look back, and I wrote a piece about this years ago, I will try to dig it up for
0:49:59the show notes about the starting price of the old Mac Pro, the the cheese
0:50:05grater not the 2013, and you could get an entry-level Mac Pro in, you know, not a
0:50:14great, not a great configuration, but one that started, you know, that started less
0:50:22and, you know, $2,500, $3,500, and obviously you can't do that. Oh, this is why I
0:50:28couldn't find it. I didn't write it. Ed Cormany did. It was a guest post. Thank you, Ed.
0:50:35It's an expensive machine and it's a little bit of a bummer that there's not
0:50:39a sort of hobbyist price point entry-level model. I think the specs on
0:50:44the entry-level model show that Apple just couldn't do that, at least with this
0:50:47hardware, because the base Mac Pro is $1,000 more than the base iMac Pro and not as
0:50:52good, right? A quarter of the storage space and a GPU
0:50:58that at least under some circumstances isn't as good and that's and no display
0:51:02and that's a bummer I really was hoping before we knew the price that when this
0:51:07machine was theoretical that there would be an entry-level machine that a
0:51:10hobbyist could buy or someone who just wants a tower and they could build up on
0:51:15their own over time and you can do that with this but the price of entry is
0:51:19really high and that's a bummer okay I I myself am sad about that because I'm
0:51:27I'm interested in this machine and if I want to buy it,
0:51:30then I have to spend a lot of money out of the gate
0:51:32where I would prefer to spend half that money
0:51:34out of the gate and then build it up over time.
0:51:36I just can't do that.
0:51:37However, John, I think your point is well made
0:51:41that this is a machine, yes, well, the price is higher
0:51:44than we expected.
0:51:46It means that it can solve all sorts of problems for people
0:51:48that Apple just couldn't address previously
0:51:52and just couldn't do it.
0:51:53And that's fine, but it does mean that what the Mac Pro is
0:51:58and how people define the Mac Pro
0:52:00is different than it was 10 years ago.
0:52:02And I think the sooner that we all accept that,
0:52:06the better, right?
0:52:07Jason wrote this really interesting thing
0:52:08about want versus need and how if you just want it,
0:52:10that's fine, but most people don't actually need it.
0:52:13And I feel like that article has been used
0:52:16as a weapon on every side.
0:52:18And even Jason and I have argued about it.
0:52:20But I think that understanding this machine
0:52:23is really specific.
0:52:25And if you just need a fast Mac, you can spend a lot less money
0:52:30and get, in some cases, a better computer.
0:52:33That's just where we are, right?
0:52:34It's just different than it used to be.
0:52:36And while that's a bummer, I think
0:52:38it's time to realize that this computer is what it is.
0:52:40And if it's for you, that's great.
0:52:42And if it's not, the iMac Pro or even the high-end 5K iMac
0:52:45is a really good computer.
0:52:47The iMac Pro I'm sitting in front of
0:52:48is the best computer I've ever owned.
0:52:50It should not be overlooked.
0:52:52- Right, I find this to be a really cool computer
0:52:55that I think is really interesting to talk about,
0:52:57but I have no desire to buy it myself.
0:52:58When I was working on the story for Mac Stories about it,
0:53:02I specced it up and put it into the shopping cart,
0:53:06and I've never been so nervous
0:53:07that I might accidentally click buy and spend,
0:53:11I have to then explain to my wife
0:53:12that I just spent $7,000, or God forbid,
0:53:16$50,000 on a computer that I had
0:53:18somehow return. But yeah, it's cool. I enjoy seeing what it's capable of and I'm really
0:53:23looking forward to more in-depth hands-on. We got a little bit of a taste of that from
0:53:27some of the things like MacPowers users with the interview and the videos that came out,
0:53:33but I really want to see what the full capabilities of these different configurations really are.
0:53:38Yeah, and with the third-party stuff, I mean, no two MacPros will be identical, right? Like,
0:53:44Like you can really do, and that is,
0:53:47Stephen John Smith was talking about this earlier,
0:53:49that is the case for a tower,
0:53:50that you can have exactly what you need.
0:53:53The complaint is you have to buy way more than you need
0:53:55to get the flexibility, and that's something
0:53:58that Apple just chose not to address with the system,
0:54:00and they clearly think that if you need power
0:54:04but are on less of a budget, then there's other options.
0:54:07And that's not to say that iMac Pro is cheap,
0:54:09'cause it's not, but they've decided to solve this
0:54:12in this way and because Apple's the only company
0:54:15that makes hardware that supports macOS officially,
0:54:18then we have to make the decisions within that matrix.
0:54:21Whether we agree with the matrix or not,
0:54:23that's kind of how it is and I found the arguments
0:54:28about it sort of exhausting because like,
0:54:29what are you gonna do?
0:54:30Like if you wanna run macOS and you know,
0:54:32people say all the time, like well, you can build this PC,
0:54:34you can have this laptop that cools better.
0:54:36Well, if you want to run macOS and I do,
0:54:39that limits your options and it puts you in a arena
0:54:43that Apple fully controls and for better or for worse,
0:54:46that's how it is.
0:54:47- You know, Steven, you mentioned the wheels
0:54:49and there's another tidbit about the wheels
0:54:51that I thought was really interesting,
0:54:52which is if you order the wheels,
0:54:54it's gonna take an extra month for you to get your computer,
0:54:56which I thought was kind of humorous.
0:54:58Obviously, they didn't have the wheels quite ready yet,
0:55:01I guess, for shipment right away.
0:55:03- That slipped.
0:55:04Initially, it was basically of the same date.
0:55:06So the wheels are $400, they cannot be added later.
0:55:10I had this funny idea of I was just gonna buy the wheels
0:55:13and review them on YouTube, but you can't do that.
0:55:17It seems like the, it seems like the frames--
0:55:20- Put them on a skateboard or something?
0:55:21- Well, I was gonna like build a thing
0:55:23and then like put my cheese grater on it, but--
0:55:25- Oh, that would have been good.
0:55:26- Or the trash can, but the video will never happen.
0:55:30My assumption is that the wheels or the feet
0:55:33are actually different frames, because Apple says,
0:55:36if you need wheels later, you can go to an Apple store and get it done.
0:55:39And I would assume that it's way more than $400 at that point.
0:55:42And they're going to replace the frame, basically build your computer on a new frame.
0:55:45I don't know that I think iFixit will tear it apart and tell us if they're actually removable.
0:55:50But my guess is they're actually two different frames.
0:55:52And that's a, so you got to make the wheel decision at the beginning.
0:55:56And as, as I noted yesterday, if you want wheels now, it's a delayed quite a bit.
0:56:01So yeah, if the way even Apple describes it on the website makes it seem like
0:56:06that it's an entirely different case, right?
0:56:10Because they describe it as like, do you want the case
0:56:13or do you want the case with the wheels?
0:56:14And it's like, it feels like it's a different thing.
0:56:16Yeah, I think that stainless steel space frame or whatever
0:56:19is two different parts.
0:56:22So yeah, you can't add wheels later, which is a bummer.
0:56:25But--
0:56:26I've been thinking about it, and I really
0:56:28don't know why you wouldn't get wheels.
0:56:31If it's going on the floor, if you're
0:56:33somebody buying this computer and it's going on the floor,
0:56:36I feel like wheels are a good idea.
0:56:37If you're putting it on a table or a desk,
0:56:40then don't get wheels, obviously, unless they lock.
0:56:42Look, I've seen this thing.
0:56:43It's enormous.
0:56:44Do not put it on your desk.
0:56:45Put it on the floor.
0:56:46Because I was thinking, right?
0:56:48It's big and heavy.
0:56:50If you had to get behind it, it's
0:56:52not going to be a real thing to get it out there.
0:56:54But if you had the wheels, you can just pull it out.
0:56:56Yep.
0:56:57Yeah.
0:56:58I think it makes a lot of sense to put wheels on it.
0:57:00It's a real question.
0:57:02I think the wheels being backdated is a sign that maybe people really do want them.
0:57:07Or maybe they only made six of them, right?
0:57:10Assuming they made the same number that people who are buying these want them,
0:57:14I think there is a real pent-up demand for this machine.
0:57:16If you look at the ship dates, they are sliding.
0:57:18People who have been holding on to old cheese graters or using the trash can or using the iMac Pro
0:57:24who really need this, I think they're really excited.
0:57:27And I think those people overlap heavily with people who really will use the wheels
0:57:31because they are using these on set or in flexible offices that you know you're
0:57:37gonna go to one editing bay then the other and the wheels make that way
0:57:40easier. Moving on a little bit the base Mac Pro CPU uses slower RAM than the
0:57:46others and the terabyte and a half option is only available on the 24 or 28
0:57:51core CPU so that's those the CPU parts are slightly different from Intel so
0:57:57So something to be aware of the Apple store won't let you make a mistake there.
0:58:01I tried as like, you know, like you have the CPU, so you're limited to this or that.
0:58:06So but if you're upgrading later, of course, make sure that the RAM you buy is the RAM
0:58:11that matches with your CPU.
0:58:15There is a PCI utility that ships with the Mac Pro, the icon of that leaked a while ago.
0:58:22But the About This Mac window has been updated on this machine to show the RAM slots and
0:58:28the PCI slots and it gives you directions for add-ons.
0:58:31These are three channel systems and so you can't just slap RAM in any slot you want because
0:58:39it looks good.
0:58:40You have to put them in specific slots and as you add RAM you have to do it in a specific
0:58:43order and the Mac will help you through all that.
0:58:46So it will show you what to do.
0:58:49Which is good.
0:58:50get it wrong, it will still boot and it will just give you an error when you log
0:58:53in saying that there's a memory configuration issue and it will prompt
0:58:58you to to fix it. So it seems pretty idiot-proof to upgrade these, which is
0:59:03nice because that wasn't always true before. I've got both a G5 and a Mac Pro,
0:59:07you saw them in my video last week or earlier this week, and it was a little
0:59:12confusing. There's markings on the case of where to add the RAM, but you could
0:59:16totally overlook that. And then those systems would just beep at you if you
0:59:19got it wrong and not boot and then you have to figure out what happened which
0:59:22is not a good user experience right you open your computer and then the next
0:59:25time you powered on just beeps and won't come on that's scary so they seem like
0:59:28they're handling it better now lastly the pro display XDR there was a
0:59:34desktop about this yesterday about what computers can drive it the Mac Pro of
0:59:39course can drive it the 15 inch 2018 or later can drive it the 16 inch MacBook
0:59:44Pro can drive it and then the 2019 iMacs can drive it. Or any Mac with a
0:59:51Thunderbolt 3 port using a Blackmagic or Blackmagic Pro eGPU. There is one
0:59:57computer that is suspiciously absent from that list and it's the iMac Pro and
1:00:01best I can tell there are two reasons for this. One, the iMac Pro came out in
1:00:082017 it has Thunderbolt 3 but it uses an older Thunderbolt 3 controller all these
1:00:15other systems use the Titan Ridge Thunderbolt 3 controller and that's
1:00:19stupid that Intel did and Apple didn't change the name but effectively what it
1:00:24means is the iMac Pro doesn't have the bandwidth or the video output to drive
1:00:28this display at 6k and so you could do it with an eGPU but as it stands today
1:00:34the iMac Pro can't drive it. There's also a question about the GPUs. The GPUs
1:00:39and all the other systems end in an X and maybe that's some sort of mark that
1:00:46they're upgraded somehow, but again the iMac Pro is two years old so it's
1:00:51GPU apparently is not supported. This makes me sort of hit start on
1:00:58the countdown to an iMac Pro update because it's a) it's been two years but
1:01:02But it seems like this is a pairing that would be popular.
1:01:07And I was honestly a little surprised because I thought about this before that, oh, the
1:01:11iMac Pro, you know, it's two years old, we'll be able to drive it.
1:01:15I was also surprised we didn't see an iMac Pro update with this.
1:01:19And maybe it's coming soon.
1:01:21And I don't think Intel has parts ready yet.
1:01:23But there are GPUs that will support it.
1:01:27Now I don't know if Apple can continue to ship the same Xeon parts and upgrade the Thunder
1:01:32Bolt 3 controller. I cannot find anything useful about that because Intel's website is a disaster,
1:01:37but I feel like the iMac Pro is now an update watch for me and hopefully it is not a one-off
1:01:43because I still think that's possible. Hopefully it's not, but if you have an iMac Pro and you
1:01:49wanted to produce PlayXDR, you're out of luck. Do you think there were a lot of people that wanted
1:01:53to do that? I mean thinking about like Thomas's work environment where they have a bunch of iMac
1:01:58pros and you want to drop some of these into editing bays you can't do it so I
1:02:03mean not many people but it's the exact people who would be buying this computer
1:02:06so at least you can't do it easily you need to have the GPU in the middle of
1:02:11a was right right and which is like a total other can of worms so we will see
1:02:15if that if that iMac Pro update shows up I hope it does because I think it's a
1:02:19great computer yeah the other computer that's not on here is the iPad Pro I
1:02:22know that we had heard rumblings that maybe that was going to be a thing but
1:02:25Apparently not or at least hope exactly you know
1:02:28Just for funds because it would be hilarious. Yeah, I went to the Apple store and plug one in
1:02:33Yes, yeah the pro display XDR is is a thunderbolt display. It's using DisplayPort over Thunderbolt
1:02:41It's not right USB C and then the chat rooms asking if you plug in a different machine will it run at lower resolution
1:02:48I do not know that I've asked and I've not gotten an answer
1:02:52So maybe that will be known by the time this this goes up or in the next few days
1:02:55But I think if you're buying a produce play XDR
1:02:58The point is to run it at 6k and not to run it at a lower resolution
1:03:03So, I don't know if anyone would want to do that
1:03:06Even if it's possible my guess is that it won't work or that Apple
1:03:10Basically blocks it in software because they want you to run it at 6k
1:03:14But I don't know I find it so funny that the 21 and a half inch iMac can support it, but the iMac Pro can't
1:03:20I know the internals, but like there is just something funny about that. Yeah. Yeah, it's not great
1:03:25You know, I'm sure some people are frustrated by that. But it's um, that's where things are right now
1:03:32I have a question about you see it says like the Mac Pro with the MPX model GPUs
1:03:38Is it possible to have a Mac Pro that doesn't have those?
1:03:41Well, the base model Mac Pro just comes with a regular video card now whether whether they
1:03:48Consider that an MPU module. I don't know so let's go
1:03:51Because then like do you also have to like not every Mac Pro will work?
1:03:57With the pro display XDR like you you have to meet a minimum GPU requirement
1:04:03Which is not the minimum GPU that the Mac I see what you're saying it's with let me see
1:04:08While you're saying that I said there is also an article
1:04:11It's like one of those things it seems like a fun headlines a lot of people write about it
1:04:14But I think it makes perfect sense for the if you get the nano texture one
1:04:18so the one where Apple have done that like that the matte one where they've done the weird like glass laser
1:04:22Texturing you can only clean it with a cloth that Apple give you which is like a specific cloth that they've made
1:04:29I do not I think that that makes perfect sense like
1:04:32You you shouldn't touch that display. You shouldn't do anything to that display
1:04:38It's like an incredibly high-end thing. I would only ever want to clean it with a cleaning cloth that came with it
1:04:44right? Like, I can't imagine spending £7,000 on a thing and then just getting like some
1:04:50kitchen towel and rubbing on it, right? Like, jeez, let me have the cleaning cloth and I'll
1:04:56keep it in a tiny little box next to the computer, right? Like that's, it's like,
1:05:00only clean my glasses with glasses cleaners for the same reason.
1:05:03Sure. My guess is, I wrote this in my link to it, is that the nano texture would like pull
1:05:09off bits of like regular cleaning cloths and then you have fuzz all like embedded in your display,
1:05:13Which would be bad that would yeah, that would be great. That would be bad
1:05:16well winter charm in the chat, which also makes sense to me is like
1:05:19If you use something too rough, it could smooth out the nanotech maybe
1:05:22It's like it's one way or the other but like just don't touch it fuzzy and blurry
1:05:28I have an answer about the the so the base
1:05:32GPU in the mac pro is the AMD Radeon pro 580x. Here's what apple says about it, uh that it can drive six 4k displays
1:05:41two 5K displays or two Pro Display XDRs.
1:05:47So the base Mac Pro can drive two of them.
1:05:51So I think what Apple says with an MPX module,
1:05:53maybe they were just having fine print around.
1:05:56If you put a third party GPU in this--
1:05:58I think that's what it is.
1:06:00It's not going to work.
1:06:00It's not going to work.
1:06:02Because I figure technically that is possible, right?
1:06:05Technically you can do that.
1:06:07Yeah.
1:06:08They call the 580X a half-height MPX module.
1:06:12So maybe it has to do with that Thunderbolt port being used,
1:06:15and if it's not in use in an regular GPU, it won't work.
1:06:17So that's a good question.
1:06:19I'm glad you asked it,
1:06:20because that would have had been a follow-up.
1:06:22- So what is your ideal configuration then?
1:06:24Come on.
1:06:25Well, if you were today,
1:06:26if somebody put the money in your hand and said,
1:06:28"Here you go, you can buy one," what would it look like?
1:06:30- I would buy--
1:06:31- Realistically.
1:06:33- I would only change two things from the base model.
1:06:36would do the 12 core Xeon. I have an 8 core iMac Pro now so part of it is I
1:06:40would want to like have something faster and I have the faster RAM which would be
1:06:45nice and I would go to the either 2 or 4 terabyte SSD. I have the 1 terabyte in my
1:06:54iMac Pro now and I'm forever running out of space and that's with two external
1:07:00SSDs that are also filling up so I would I would probably I mean probably go for
1:07:044 terabyte SSD. 580x is not a great GPU but as far as starting out like I
1:07:12wouldn't upgrade and upgrade at some point in the future if I felt like I needed it but
1:07:16that's where I would go. Yeah the GPU feels like the thing that's probably the
1:07:20easiest thing to upgrade anyway. You can just go get it and yeah that's something down the
1:07:25road. I would definitely do AppleCare which is only $299 on this machine which
1:07:28doesn't seem right it seems like it should be more expensive. But it's $499
1:07:33on the display, which I do understand because I figure the display is probably replacement
1:07:39only in most instances.
1:07:41Yeah, and they're not combined.
1:07:43So in the past you could buy AppleCare for your Mac Pro and it would cover the Apple
1:07:47Display if you bought it at the same time.
1:07:49Not true this time.
1:07:51So that SKU that I would build is $8,548.
1:07:57I'm looking at it in a shopping cart right now.
1:08:00So do you want to know what mine would be?
1:08:01Yes, please.
1:08:02So I would do the same, I would do the 12 core GPU.
1:08:07I would bump up to 48 gigabytes of RAM because it's like 200 pounds more.
1:08:12I'm already in so deep, I might as well double the RAM for not that much more money compared
1:08:17to the overall machine.
1:08:19I would do 2 terabytes of storage, because that's what I have in my iMac Pro, and I would
1:08:23put the wheels on it.
1:08:24Yeah, I thought about the wheels a lot.
1:08:26In my studio, where it would sit, there's like a rug, and it's kind of...
1:08:31I don't know how to describe it. It's slippery like it's not a big like thick carpet
1:08:35It's like it's like a rug you see like in a doorway like coming in and out of a shop or something
1:08:40I have that because my studio is in the backyard and basically it's like leaves and stuff coming here
1:08:45I didn't want something that would get torn up and so it would actually slide really easily on the feet
1:08:50I think I do have a little bit worried about the height and so the wheels make it taller
1:08:55so I would do the feet I think but
1:08:58Yeah, the RAM like and the GPU for my needs I could needs I don't need this computer right the iMac Pro is
1:09:06Enough computer for me. I max out the iMac. Oh, yeah on a regular basis, but it's fine like I don't this is not about need
1:09:15Jason I don't need this computer. I understand that but I would like to have it like it is desire
1:09:23the thing that I would like to have because I really like the Mac and this it would be fun to have the nicest Mac available
1:09:30And I've never had that before until the iMac Pro. So this is one of those situations where the the
1:09:37Exchange rate stuff is so guilty of the value, right? Yes. You're so much money that it's gonna be very difficult. So your
1:09:45configuration, right so it was
1:09:48Twelve twelve core and two terabytes, right? They're the only two things you added
1:09:53that would come out to $9,771.
1:09:57Yeah.
1:09:58Like, because it would be $7,418 for me.
1:10:02So it's like $1,000 more.
1:10:04It is very expensive, and there's, like, it's just, it's hard to talk about money, right?
1:10:07Like, so it's like embarrassing to be considering this.
1:10:11I'm not.
1:10:13I mean, you can if you want to, like, you go ahead and consider it, but like, I'm not
1:10:18even thinking about it.
1:10:20Yeah.
1:10:21like I would want the monitor too.
1:10:24And I'm not gonna do that.
1:10:27- That's something I wanna talk about.
1:10:28So the reasonable choice is the LG 5K, right?
1:10:33The Pro Display XDR is not,
1:10:35it's so overkill for what I need, it's really expensive.
1:10:38I don't want a 32 inch display,
1:10:40so I'm not considering that at all.
1:10:42I will say though, I feel like a lot of people
1:10:45poop all over the LG 4K and 5K displays
1:10:48who don't actually have them.
1:10:49So we have a 4K in our house,
1:10:51my wife uses it with her MacBook Air.
1:10:53And you know what, it's not the most beautiful display
1:10:56on the planet, it's a little clunky.
1:10:58It's ugly and black plastic.
1:11:01The panel is good though.
1:11:02It is not glass covered, so it is shiny,
1:11:07but not covered in glass shiny.
1:11:09So it's a different type of deal.
1:11:12But it's integrated really well with Mac OS,
1:11:14so the volume and brightness buttons all work.
1:11:16It's got some USB-C ports out the back,
1:11:19So I have her time machine and she has an external SSD
1:11:21for her photos library.
1:11:23She has one cable to plug in her MacBook Air.
1:11:25It's not ideal.
1:11:26I wish Apple would basically take the iMac,
1:11:30or take the Pro Display XDR design,
1:11:32even if you don't need all the fans and stuff,
1:11:33make a 5K 27 inch version and put it on sale.
1:11:37And I think people like developers
1:11:40or anyone not a video editor looking at this computer
1:11:42would buy that in a heartbeat.
1:11:44I don't understand why it's not for sale now.
1:11:47I think Apple's clearly aware the Pro Display
1:11:49is not for everybody, and I think they understand
1:11:52that they've left a hole in the market.
1:11:54So maybe it's coming, maybe it's not.
1:11:56But the 5K LG, yeah, it's not awesome.
1:11:59It's not beautifully Apple-crafted aluminum.
1:12:03Johnson & Cuse can't sit in front of it,
1:12:05but it's a good panel, and it's the best thing out there
1:12:09if you wanna use it with Mac OS,
1:12:10'cause it has the integration.
1:12:12And it's something that I could put on my desk,
1:12:14And yeah, if they release something nicer, it'd be tempting, but it doesn't spoil the
1:12:20rest of the system for me.
1:12:21Like some people seem so allergic to it.
1:12:23And I think a lot of people haven't had actual time with it.
1:12:26Like the 4K that my wife has is great.
1:12:28And she wanted the smaller size, I offered her the 27 5K and she wanted where her desk
1:12:33is like she just wanted something a little smaller.
1:12:35It's a totally fine display.
1:12:36So I think that you can do the Mac Pro and put the LG on it and you're not spoiling it
1:12:43somehow.
1:12:44a little bit silly.
1:12:45Yeah, I think like just in this fantasy world where I would spend that kind of money on
1:12:50buying one, my kind of thinking would be like the thing that I purchased that I like and
1:12:56is cool sits under the desk.
1:13:00And then I'm looking at a monitor which isn't as cool.
1:13:03And there is a matching cool monitor.
1:13:06And I think it would bother me too much.
1:13:08That's what it's like super wild, right?
1:13:10And again, I am not justifying that money, right?
1:13:13Because in no world should a monitor cost as much as the computer that I'm pairing it
1:13:19with.
1:13:20That just seems madness.
1:13:23But it's just like I can see how people get into that situation where if you're dead set
1:13:27on buying one and there is this matching screen, it just is like, "Ah, it's desktop set."
1:13:33Yeah, well, the produce specs there are tips Apple's hand that this is a system designed
1:13:38for video editing. Right? Like that is there. And maybe that's the makeup of the pro workflow
1:13:44team. Maybe it's that that's, you know, they have data saying that's a really big audience.
1:13:49You know, Apple does have has said that their biggest pro market is developers. This is
1:13:53not a computer for developers. It's a computer for video editing. And that's, that's its
1:13:59primary purpose. I think that's definitely the very least, that's the narrative Apple's
1:14:03telling you about it. Because everyone who got one is a video editor, they didn't give
1:14:07one of these to someone writing an iOS app. I think that's telling. They didn't give it
1:14:11to photographers. They gave it to people making video.
1:14:14And they don't have an afterburner card for Xcode.
1:14:17Right, right. It's SwiftUI could probably use it because it seems like SwiftUI is very
1:14:21difficult to develop with. So we can have that argument about who the computer's for,
1:14:28who Apple had in mind. And there's no doubt in my mind that the Pro Display XDR is the
1:14:33biggest sign that this is not necessarily a computer for people like me and you, it's
1:14:38not necessarily a computer for developers, it's not even a computer for enthusiasts because
1:14:42it's too expensive for that sort of market.
1:14:45Now was that the right call?
1:14:47I don't know, time will tell.
1:14:48I think if Apple has a 5K display at WWDC that matches this in design but is way less
1:14:55expensive then maybe they've got the message.
1:14:58And so I want to make it clear from my point of view that Apple should have a less expensive
1:15:02display that doesn't have all the knits and all the color stuff, like make a nice display,
1:15:10hollow out an iMac, put a thunderbolt port in the back of it and call it a day.
1:15:14Whether we see it or not is a different story, but that's, you know, who this computer is
1:15:20for, the display says a lot about, I think.
1:15:22This is, sometimes on the show we buy things, that's not happening today.
1:15:26Oh, come on, come on.
1:15:29It's done.
1:15:30I have it in a cart, but I'm walking away.
1:15:33You have it in the cart?
1:15:34What did you put it in the cart for?
1:15:35Because I wanted to see it with tax and everything.
1:15:38So I wanted to...
1:15:40You can check it out with Apple Pay.
1:15:41That's a very expensive Apple Pay purchase.
1:15:44That wouldn't work.
1:15:45No, no, this is a deal where you have to call your bank because they lock your card instantly.
1:15:50But you know, people have asked me what I'm going to do.
1:15:53I'm not doing it right now.
1:15:54I want to see how it goes.
1:15:56And my iMac Pro has a home if I do this, which helps offset the price, obviously.
1:16:03But I feel like I'm in violation of Snell's Law.
1:16:07This is something that I'm not doing out of need, but he'll settle down.
1:16:12Jon Voorhees, any closing words on the Mac Pro from you?
1:16:17Not on the Mac Pro, but I just want to give an update.
1:16:18I think Federico has fallen asleep.
1:16:22You know, he's got to take his power naps.
1:16:24Yeah, I woke him up, I'm sorry.
1:16:26- Well John, thanks for joining us.
1:16:27- Sure, no problem.
1:16:28- You're staying with your Mac Mini setup,
1:16:29it sounds like you're not pulling the trigger.
1:16:32- No, I'm not.
1:16:33Mac Pro is not in my future at all.
1:16:36I mean, I'm really happy with my Mini.
1:16:37It's been really the best Mac I've had in a while.
1:16:40I was not that happy with, like a lot of people,
1:16:42with my MacBook Pro.
1:16:43- Oh, weird. - And I'm still using that.
1:16:45Yeah, I brought it with me to Rome,
1:16:47but, and I'll use it when I'm on the road,
1:16:49but the Mini is my day-to-day Mac and I love it a lot.
1:16:52- Yeah, it's solid, and if you don't need
1:16:55a lot of GPU performance, 'cause it just has
1:16:57integrated Intel graphics, the Mac Mini's awesome.
1:17:00- Right.
1:17:00- I think if you're a developer
1:17:02where you're mostly using CPU,
1:17:04a loaded Mac Mini is a much better choice, budget-wise.
1:17:08- And I figure, too, I can always use an eGPU
1:17:11if I wanted to with that box, with the Mac Mini.
1:17:13I don't really have the need for that right now,
1:17:16but it's good to know that I've got it there if I want it.
1:17:18So I've been keeping my eye on those
1:17:21to see what the options are, but no plans on buying that either right now.
1:17:25Okay, I just wanted to check in.
1:17:27So you're my, I think you're my closest friend running a Mac Mini full-time.
1:17:31Like I've got one, but it's a home server, so it's a little bit different.
1:17:34And Myke has one that is a home server, but you're using it every day.
1:17:37And Federico has one, but he's not my friend.
1:17:39No, and he doesn't use it every single day either.
1:17:42It's just for podcasting.
1:17:43Right.
1:17:44Well, Jon, thank you for joining us.
1:17:47Thanks for having me, guys.
1:17:48If you're not following Jon online, Jon Work people find you real quick before we let you
1:17:51go.
1:17:52They can find me at maxstories.net writing and I'm @JonVoorhees on Twitter and Instagram.
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1:19:54Federico, are you back?
1:19:55- Yes, I'm back.
1:19:56I was following really carefully the entire conversation.
1:20:01I bought a Mac Pro in the meantime.
1:20:04- Wow.
1:20:05- Oh, we influenced you.
1:20:06- Yeah.
1:20:06Do you think that I bought one during that segment?
1:20:09Yeah, I think you did.
1:20:10[Laughter]
1:20:11I did not.
1:20:12He's probably returned it already though.
1:20:13He did not.
1:20:14Yeah, he's probably bought two of them because then he got it figured out.
1:20:17And he's gonna break one of them because that's what he does.
1:20:20Drop it down the stairs.
1:20:21Federico, I have a piece of Mac Pro related content for you specifically.
1:20:26Please do share.
1:20:27I have done a complete flip on the Mac Pro and Cybertruck.
1:20:33You have seen the light?
1:20:35So now that I've seen pictures of the Cybertruck in the real world, I hate it.
1:20:43And now that I'm seeing the Mac Pro in the real world, I've come to like the design.
1:20:48So I have done a complete flip on both of those things.
1:20:51That the staged photos of the Mac Pro, or like in a stage environment, I didn't like
1:20:57it.
1:20:58And in the stage environment, I kind of was interested in the Cybertruck.
1:21:01But now there's those pictures of Elon driving around in a car park and he drove over a traffic
1:21:07cone or whatever.
1:21:08It just looks...
1:21:09In around other cars it is ludicrous.
1:21:13On its own I still think it's got a coolness to it.
1:21:16But in a movie prop kind of way, when you see it in the real world it just doesn't work.
1:21:23But the Mac Pro I think in an office or whatever or in a cool studio, Mac Pro looks awesome.
1:21:29when it was just like on its own on a plinth or in a video I didn't like it.
1:21:33So that's where I am with those. I'm very pleased to hear this. I think the
1:21:37Mac Pro in real life office setups it commands a certain attention that
1:21:43really makes it stand out and you can tell like it's one of those objects that
1:21:47you can tell at a glance oh this is expensive and powerful. Like you can just
1:21:52tell. The Cybertruck you look at it and you and you see well this is the like a
1:21:56combination of all human evil in the form of a car.
1:21:59So I guess the police are taking over, I suppose is what's happening.
1:22:03It's like a futuristic police car.
1:22:05It looks too scary, it's too intimidating.
1:22:07Look, I think the cyber tracking...
1:22:10I really do believe the most acceptable use case will be as a police vehicle.
1:22:15It's perfect for that, it's intimidating, it's big and bulky and it can probably go
1:22:20fast.
1:22:21You can throw a lot of criminals in the back.
1:22:22You can throw a lot of criminals in the back like, "Come on guys, let's go to the station."
1:22:27Yeah, sure.
1:22:29Oh boy.
1:22:31Yeah, it's going to be perfect for that.
1:22:35Now the topic today is not the Cybertruck.
1:22:38Unfortunately, I would love to talk more about that, but it's not.
1:22:42Today, so I created a reminder in the Reminders app for these months ago.
1:22:49I don't remember how I remembered, but it was there today.
1:22:53Today marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of Workflow
1:22:58on the App Store five years ago, December 11, 2014.
1:23:03Workflow.
1:23:04- After like a 12 year beta period.
1:23:07- After a year long beta period.
1:23:09So Ari and Conrad and the rest of the team,
1:23:14Very famously, they had a teaser for Workflow,
1:23:19for the app that would eventually become Workflow.
1:23:22I believe they showed it off at a hackathon or something,
1:23:25and they were like 14 or 15.
1:23:27- That was in 2014, January 2014.
1:23:30- January.
1:23:31And so they show off this app at this hackathon,
1:23:35and a bunch of people on Twitter are sending me this video,
1:23:38and this link, like, "Hey, have you seen this?
1:23:40This is incredible."
1:23:41And John and I were just talking about it actually.
1:23:44When I first saw that demo, I thought it was fake.
1:23:48I thought it was one of--
1:23:48Because the video's super weird.
1:23:50I'm looking at it now, and it's like all warped and stuff.
1:23:53I don't know what it's like.
1:23:54It's like some weird optical image stabilization
1:23:56thing, which makes it look like it's like After Effects.
1:23:59Yeah.
1:24:00It's very strange.
1:24:00It looks very strange, and it looks like one
1:24:02of those jailbreak utilities.
1:24:05Yes.
1:24:05And I remembered getting in touch with those guys
1:24:08and saying, I think it's awesome,
1:24:11but if this is a jailbreak thing, I'm afraid I don't want to use it because I don't jailbreak
1:24:15my phone anymore. And I remember Ari saying, no, no, this is all native Apple APIs. And
1:24:22we're basically taking inspiration from automator for the Mac and we're doing a version for
1:24:27iOS. And I thought that was crazy. And I thought, you know, these kids, maybe they have this
1:24:32idea. Apple is never going to approve them. Let's see what they do and let's see what
1:24:36of course, they go silent and, silly me, I thought, yeah, of course, you know, the idea
1:24:43didn't work out, they're never gonna do workflow. Then at some point in July of 2014, I got
1:24:50an email from Ari saying, so I don't know if you remember, we sent you a demo, a proof
1:24:57of concept of workflow a few months ago, and we're now ready to have a beta. And so I think
1:25:02it was August 2014 that I got the first beta of Workflow, and they, you know, they
1:25:10needed a... they went through a bit of a... bit of a issue with Apple. The rocky...
1:25:16rocky start of the relationship, because the app wasn't getting approved, it was
1:25:20supposed to launch at some point in September or October, but it launched in
1:25:25December. Now, I was looking back through my review of Workflow 1.0, and I think
1:25:33it's really remarkable to see just how much of the foundation of the app
1:25:39that is now called Shortcuts was already right there in Workflow. Because if you
1:25:45look past the UI changes, which, by the way, the app kind of looked better than
1:25:51And all the buttons look like buttons.
1:25:54- I don't think so.
1:25:56- I don't wanna be one of, look,
1:25:58I don't wanna be one of those people.
1:25:59- The Composer looks way better.
1:26:01- The Composer looks way better.
1:26:03It's so much more cleaner.
1:26:04I do like the natural language editor of iOS 13,
1:26:08but man, those variables and the fact that the variables
1:26:12have a blue background and the blue background blends in
1:26:15with another blue background, that's horrible design.
1:26:18Like who came up with that?
1:26:19Anyway, besides the visual aspect, it's really incredible just how much was already right
1:26:25there.
1:26:26So like conditional blocks and repeat blocks.
1:26:29But really, at the core of it, the editor design and the idea of taking system features
1:26:36and exposing them as steps, as actions.
1:26:41And at the very core of Workflow was the content graph engine, which Shortcuts is still using
1:26:47today.
1:26:48So the reason why you can put together a shortcut, and whether you're dealing with a photo or
1:26:55a URL, and if you put an action after that that requires a specific type of file, you
1:27:02don't have to care about that.
1:27:03Shortcuts takes care of the entire conversion for you.
1:27:07That engine is still in shortcuts today, and it's grown more powerful, of course, but it's
1:27:12still right there.
1:27:13the content graph, it's part of the reason, you know, part of the technologies that Apple
1:27:17bought and brought along with Workflow and turned into shortcuts. All of that was already
1:27:23right there in the first version of Workflow. And of course, you know, the app has changed
1:27:28a lot over the years since they became an Apple product. The Siri integration and, you
1:27:36know, automation this year, they've been able to do things that they were probably never
1:27:41going to be able to do if they stayed independent. Maybe they would have gone a different route
1:27:48with Workflow. Maybe if they hadn't been acquired, they would have gone the web service and subscription
1:27:54route. Maybe Workflow would have become like the new Zapier for iOS, entirely web-based
1:28:00and web-based actions. Maybe they would have done what Pushcat is doing today with notifications
1:28:07and subscriptions and all that stuff. But instead, going with Apple allowed them to
1:28:12dig even deeper into the system and come up with these new system hooks, which is why,
1:28:20thinking about it five years on, like, what's next for shortcuts? And I do believe that
1:28:26more than ever we need to see what happens. And in fact, I believe, Myke, you talked about
1:28:31this with Jason maybe two weeks ago on upgrade.
1:28:35The first year of the transition from workflow to shortcuts,
1:28:38we saw the Siri integration and the Siri shortcuts.
1:28:41And that was fine.
1:28:43But then we saw this year the new editor
1:28:46and the new natural language approach
1:28:48to building, putting together actions and automation
1:28:52and some new system integrations.
1:28:55But it feels like this first couple of years
1:28:58was really the shortcuts team getting their affairs
1:29:01in order and building or maybe sort of rebuilding the foundation of the app to make sure that
1:29:06it works better with iOS.
1:29:08But I feel like now it's time to build upon it and to build new stuff.
1:29:14And automation is a first step, but there's so much more that they can do.
1:29:19And we mentioned this before on the show.
1:29:21Every Apple action, every Apple app should have shortcuts actions.
1:29:26If it's an iOS feature, it should also be a shortcuts action.
1:29:30there's still so much more on iOS and iPadOS that is not integrated with shortcuts. And
1:29:36so I just wanted to mention this anniversary on the show while Siri just dictated all that
1:29:44I said on my watch.
1:29:46Perfect.
1:29:47The shortcuts team, they're looking out for you. They want to know what's going on.
1:29:51It is actually a pretty accurate dictation, but at the end it said, "I'm sorry."
1:29:55Oh, it's okay, iPhone.
1:29:59It's all right, you can activate yourself every once in a while. I think it's remarkable
1:30:06what the workflow team was able to do as an independent company. I think it was, well,
1:30:13maybe it's too soon to tell right now, but I think it was a good idea to go with Apple.
1:30:18Because we have the third-party shortcuts utilities today, the web-based, the notification
1:30:25stuff, I think if Workflow stayed independent and went in that direction, I think we were
1:30:34better off with this solution, with shortcuts becoming...
1:30:38They would have been distracted. They would have had to have made it a profitable business
1:30:42in the long run, right? Like that was going to be difficult for them. Not as difficult,
1:30:48that is a difficult thing to maintain, right? Like it takes a lot of work and maybe they
1:30:53are better placed focusing on the product inside of Apple than they would be trying
1:30:58to create a product which is useful to investors or to customers?
1:31:03My big question for the next five years, right, of shortcuts, I guess I want to see what Apple
1:31:10is going to do in terms of like, what's the real direction for the app here? Because it
1:31:16It feels like on one hand, Apple wants to push this idea of shortcuts for the masses,
1:31:23so everybody can use shortcuts, and you see the simplification of the editor and the natural
1:31:29language UI for actions and parameters and automation and this idea that shortcuts is
1:31:35more than features for power users.
1:31:41But on the other hand, I have to wonder just how many so-called "regular" people are actually
1:31:47using shortcuts.
1:31:48And so should maybe Apple double down on the power user aspect of it and say, "Look, we
1:31:54get it.
1:31:55Shortcuts is used by power users, and so we're going to make it a professional app for everybody."
1:31:58Or maybe they can do both at the same time, though.
1:32:01I don't know.
1:32:02It will be interesting to see what happens in terms of, "Is this going to be simplified
1:32:10more and more as time goes on and it becomes this system feature to build automations for
1:32:16HomeKit and for your Apple Watch and for Siri, that kind of stuff.
1:32:21Or is Apple going to get back to saying, "Look, we need to do more power user features like
1:32:30we used to before, like the Workflow team used to before?"
1:32:33Because if you think about it, it's been a while since we got real power user actions
1:32:41and features in shortcuts.
1:32:44All the scripting actions, for example, that we have today in shortcuts, most of them,
1:32:50really, 90% of them, they were built by the workflow team.
1:32:53They weren't built by Apple.
1:32:55They were carried over by Apple, but not built by shortcuts as an Apple product.
1:33:00So I want to see what direction Apple goes with for the next five years.
1:33:05I feel pretty optimistic at the moment, though, you know, things can always change and we've
1:33:11seen Apple try these experiments for a couple of years and then sort of forget about them
1:33:17and be like, "Yeah, we tried, didn't really work out."
1:33:19So the fact that it's a built-in app inspires confidence.
1:33:24The fact that it's so integrated with Siri inspires confidence.
1:33:28I don't think it's going away anytime soon, but I want to see what happens in terms of,
1:33:35you know, now that we've redone the editor, and now that we have serial integration, and
1:33:39now that we have parameters, what's next?
1:33:41So that'll be my question for the next year and beyond.
1:33:46That's sort of the opposite of how I felt in the beginning.
1:33:49I was worried early on that it was like, "Oh, this is doing like weird edge case stuff,
1:33:53and Apple's just going to shut them down."
1:33:54Right?
1:33:55hesitant to trust workflow for a lot of stuff
1:33:59in those early days, like,
1:34:01I don't want to build a whole system in here
1:34:03and then it get killed from on high.
1:34:05'Cause we've seen that over the years
1:34:07and that fear, to your point,
1:34:10has been totally taken away now that it's a system app
1:34:13and now it's all your concerns.
1:34:15Will Apple continue to push it forward?
1:34:18Will they have bug fixes on a regular basis?
1:34:22All those sort of Apple app questions
1:34:24have replaced his early fears for me.
1:34:26- So yeah, I think that's pretty much it.
1:34:28Five years of workflow.
1:34:30Congrats to the team who actually made it happen.
1:34:33And you know, I didn't believe it at the time,
1:34:37and I'm glad I was wrong.
1:34:38And now I guess best of luck for the next five years.
1:34:42I think we're all curious to see what happens.
1:34:47So I'm optimistic, but also you never know with Apple.
1:34:51So we'll see.
1:34:53Well, I think that does it for this week.
1:34:55Uh, if you want to find links to stuff we spoke about, head on over to
1:34:58relay.fm/connected/273 while, while you're there, you can get in touch.
1:35:04There's an email link where you can find us on Twitter.
1:35:07You can find Myke.
1:35:08There is I M Y K E you can find Federico on Twitter, VITG V I T I C C I.
1:35:15And you can follow me there as I S M H special.
1:35:18Thanks to our guest, uh, John Voorhees and to our sponsors,
1:35:22Squarespace, ExpressVPN, and Bombas.
1:35:25Until next time, gentlemen, say goodbye.
1:35:28- Adios. - Adios.
1:35:29- Cheerio. - Adios.