Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - From relay FM, this is connected episode 185.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It's brought to you this week by our sponsors,

00:00:14 ◼   ► Squarespace, Anchor, and Ting.

00:00:16 ◼   ► I'm your host, Steven Hackett, and right off the bat,

00:00:19 ◼   ► I need to thank Federico Vittucci.

00:00:21 ◼   ► He's not here today.

00:00:22 ◼   ► He has taken over for me in line in San Jose.

00:00:26 ◼   ► - Oh, that's a good idea.

00:00:27 ◼   ► that you can like go get some pizza and stuff and like just record the show and

00:00:32 ◼   ► then he just takes over. Have I gotta go there next week? Maybe we'll have to

00:00:36 ◼   ► consult the calendar. Okay. You know I didn't think he would want to make the

00:00:40 ◼   ► trip halfway around the globe but he's... Federico is a very giving person.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Well because the lottery is tomorrow right so I guess he'll know if he needs

00:00:50 ◼   ► to join you in the line so I guess that's why he's just made made a jump on

00:00:54 ◼   ► it. Yeah it seemed to make sense. So anyways that's Myke Hurley. Hello Myke,

00:01:00 ◼   ► how are you? Hello. You good? Yeah I'm good how are you Steven? Are you good?

00:01:06 ◼   ► Good. It's been I feel like this has been the theme this year so far. This part of

00:01:11 ◼   ► the year is generally quiet and like this Google Doc today is like bursting

00:01:14 ◼   ► at the seams of stuff to talk about. It's been a very busy March. I was off last

00:01:19 ◼   ► week on some vacation and like just tons of stuff happened every time I picked

00:01:24 ◼   ► my phone, there was something going on. We have a lot to get into, but first we're going

00:01:31 ◼   ► to start with a new section I'm calling "follow print." So we have "follow out" and we have

00:01:39 ◼   ► "follow in" and we have "follow around," but now we have "follow print."

00:01:43 ◼   ► I don't think "follow around" is a--I don't think that was one. What's "follow around"?

00:01:48 ◼   ► Oh, I can't really talk. It just--you know it when you see it.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Okay.

00:01:52 ◼   ► So there's this link we're going to put in the top of the show notes.

00:01:57 ◼   ► Our friend Jason Snell was in the newspaper talking about how the Mill Valley resident

00:02:04 ◼   ► records and hosts numerous podcasts in his garage.

00:02:07 ◼   ► It's a fun article.

00:02:09 ◼   ► It's funny.

00:02:10 ◼   ► I love this idea of like, "Mill Valley podcast?

00:02:14 ◼   ► It sounds like it's a superhero or something."

00:02:18 ◼   ► And there's one comment on this article which really makes me laugh a lot.

00:02:22 ◼   ► I bet it's really his mom's garage, which is just like, I love the idea in this person's

00:02:29 ◼   ► mind that like podcasting is not a business and like Jason can make no money from it.

00:02:35 ◼   ► It's very funny to me.

00:02:36 ◼   ► It's very sad.

00:02:37 ◼   ► He's a grown man.

00:02:38 ◼   ► It's a nice little interview though.

00:02:39 ◼   ► I like it.

00:02:40 ◼   ► It's great.

00:02:41 ◼   ► And it's funny.

00:02:42 ◼   ► It's always funny to be in a place like that doesn't understand what you're doing, right?

00:02:46 ◼   ► Like I feel like the Mill Valley Journal doesn't really understand what Jason's doing, but

00:02:51 ◼   ► they wrote this article about him anyway, and there's something kind of cute about that.

00:02:54 ◼   ► Yeah, that'll be in the show notes.

00:02:56 ◼   ► It is fun.

00:02:59 ◼   ► We have that in real life, right?

00:03:00 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, I'm a podcaster.

00:03:01 ◼   ► What?"

00:03:02 ◼   ► You know, but to see it in print.

00:03:04 ◼   ► Follow print.

00:03:05 ◼   ► New section.

00:03:06 ◼   ► So we have a kind of a section of follow-up that's sort of follow-up and sort of like

00:03:11 ◼   ► a pointer follow out to download which we're going to record tomorrow about

00:03:16 ◼   ► Facebook stuff and like news initiatives like there's a lot going on here there's

00:03:21 ◼   ► an article in the USA today about Apple news and their approach to solving the

00:03:28 ◼   ► fake news issue and basically it's a lot of staff a lot of human editors a lot of

00:03:33 ◼   ► curation going on there is a really interesting article kind of behind the

00:03:37 ◼   ► scenes and how Apple thinks about this and and how they are approaching it and

00:03:42 ◼   ► I think I think for the most part it's a it's a good way to approach it. Then you

00:03:46 ◼   ► have sort of on the other hand you have Google who has launched the news

00:03:51 ◼   ► initiative which is a it's really a series of things like it's not just one

00:03:56 ◼   ► program but they're investing 300 million dollars into journalism and to

00:04:03 ◼   ► journalistic entities who really focus on breaking news and so they can make sure that

00:04:08 ◼   ► what shows up in Google News and in the Google, you know, like the stream on Google Assistant

00:04:13 ◼   ► and that sort of stuff is all accurate and correct.

00:04:17 ◼   ► So a big investment there.

00:04:19 ◼   ► They're creating tools for journalists to be able to use for fact checking and data

00:04:22 ◼   ► collection and they are partnering with news organizations to sort of develop this alongside

00:04:30 ◼   ► them.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Kind of two sides of a coin, I think, of how you sort of handled this.

00:04:35 ◼   ► And I think both Google and Apple are making really good efforts in this push.

00:04:40 ◼   ► And that contrasts really strongly with Facebook's terrible, terrible week, which is still going

00:04:45 ◼   ► terribly for them.

00:04:46 ◼   ► And so anyways, I just kind of want to point people to download tomorrow.

00:04:49 ◼   ► I think that'll be a really interesting conversation.

00:04:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:04:51 ◼   ► I know we were talking last week about this sort of stuff, right?

00:04:54 ◼   ► Me and Federico.

00:04:55 ◼   ► And there is still a feeling that I have, which whilst I believe this is a good thing,

00:05:00 ◼   ► is like a... I just feel a little uncomfortable with hand-picked curation of news. There's

00:05:10 ◼   ► just something about it which I don't know if it will introduce new problems and that's

00:05:17 ◼   ► what these types of things just make me a little bit like "ahh I don't know" which is

00:05:22 ◼   ► like one of the reasons why in my life I tend not to pay attention to too many news outlets

00:05:27 ◼   ► anyway because it's not very helpful for me personally but like I just wonder if

00:05:34 ◼   ► these big tech companies just start curating news are there large large parts

00:05:40 ◼   ► of the world that don't feel like the news is served for them anymore which

00:05:44 ◼   ► creates problems like we have now in many places around the world or do

00:05:49 ◼   ► things just like purposely get left out that should be included I don't know and

00:05:54 ◼   ► And this stuff just makes me like, "Ah, I don't know about it."

00:05:57 ◼   ► Right? Because it's personal biases.

00:05:59 ◼   ► You have two ways to do this.

00:06:00 ◼   ► You either have biases or algorithms that can be gamed.

00:06:05 ◼   ► Like, they're the two ways of doing this.

00:06:07 ◼   ► And in my opinion, neither of them are --

00:06:11 ◼   ► well, they're not perfect. Neither of them are perfect.

00:06:14 ◼   ► And it's just about seeing, like, what are the biases?

00:06:18 ◼   ► How did I end up working out?

00:06:19 ◼   ► So it's something to keep an eye on,

00:06:21 ◼   ► but it feels like there is a problem

00:06:25 ◼   ► and it's trying to be solved,

00:06:27 ◼   ► but there is a potential that it's gonna be solved too hard.

00:06:30 ◼   ► And I'm kinda waiting to see.

00:06:33 ◼   ► I just remain a little bit skeptical

00:06:35 ◼   ► about all of this stuff.

00:06:35 ◼   ► - I think that's totally fair.

00:06:37 ◼   ► And I had a lot of complicated feelings

00:06:40 ◼   ► when I was listening to last week's episode.

00:06:42 ◼   ► I see what you're saying, and I think that is a real,

00:06:46 ◼   ► like there's always danger in that,

00:06:47 ◼   ► but the reality is bias exists well before news shows up

00:06:50 ◼   ► than Apple News or the Google homepage.

00:06:52 ◼   ► Like there's bias in newsrooms and--

00:06:55 ◼   ► - Call service.

00:06:56 ◼   ► - The big difference between these sources

00:06:59 ◼   ► that are artificial and fake and made up

00:07:03 ◼   ► versus actual journalism going on

00:07:05 ◼   ► is that trained journalists and trained editors

00:07:08 ◼   ► are taught to eliminate as much bias as possible,

00:07:12 ◼   ► but that's frankly impossible.

00:07:14 ◼   ► And you see this is exactly where Facebook screwed up

00:07:17 ◼   ► with their newsfeed a couple of years ago

00:07:20 ◼   ► where they had introduced human bias

00:07:23 ◼   ► into the stories that were trending

00:07:25 ◼   ► because they had to go through human curation.

00:07:27 ◼   ► And then they switched to robots doing it

00:07:29 ◼   ► and then Russia took over Facebook.

00:07:31 ◼   ► So it's complicated.

00:07:33 ◼   ► I think your approach is the right one

00:07:35 ◼   ► of always be thinking about that sort of stuff

00:07:38 ◼   ► and being aware that there are always humans behind all of it.

00:07:43 ◼   ► But yeah, I think that at the very least,

00:07:49 ◼   ► good things moving in the right direction. Yeah, I mean, like,

00:07:55 ◼   ► ultimately, this is probably, well, ultimately, this is better

00:07:58 ◼   ► than fake news stories being created, right? It is better than

00:08:01 ◼   ► that. But I say, I think it was right to just remember that

00:08:05 ◼   ► there's always people there. And that, you know, not every story

00:08:09 ◼   ► is the full story, right? Kind of the way. And there is this is,

00:08:12 ◼   ► like, all this stuff is so new, right? Because back in the day,

00:08:16 ◼   ► like when that newspaper that covered Jason, when their company

00:08:18 ◼   ► was relevant, you just buy their newspaper. And like, you had the biases within the newsroom,

00:08:23 ◼   ► but you trusted the system to work those biases out. And by the time a newspaper came out

00:08:26 ◼   ► the other end, it was as factual and as even handed as possible. But what we have now is

00:08:33 ◼   ► that news organizations have been splintered and news has been, has become a commodity.

00:08:41 ◼   ► And so you load up Google News, and you have 18 different sources there. And you lose the

00:08:47 ◼   ► credibility of going to your local paper and knowing that what they stand for and

00:08:52 ◼   ► the work that they do and so these tech companies have been inserted into the

00:08:57 ◼   ► news delivery system and now they have a as much as my note I'm not gonna yell at

00:09:02 ◼   ► Facebook but my number one problem with Facebook is that they don't seem to

00:09:05 ◼   ► understand that they have that responsibility and they do have that

00:09:08 ◼   ► responsibility and they've blown it and I think I don't know if Apple and Google

00:09:12 ◼   ► are gonna get this right I hope they hope they are but at the very least I

00:09:16 ◼   ► I think it's important to talk about it.

00:09:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just like,

00:09:19 ◼   ► why do tech companies even need to do this?

00:09:21 ◼   ► Why do these big technology companies feel like

00:09:23 ◼   ► they have to provide everything?

00:09:25 ◼   ► - It feels like the web portal days of the 90s, right?

00:09:28 ◼   ► Like you go to AOL or Yahoo

00:09:29 ◼   ► and you get your news in your email.

00:09:31 ◼   ► And when I see Google News or I see Apple News,

00:09:33 ◼   ► that's what I'm reminded of.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Like if those web portals had never existed,

00:09:37 ◼   ► would Apple run a news service?

00:09:38 ◼   ► Would Google have news on their homepage?

00:09:40 ◼   ► Like, I don't know.

00:09:41 ◼   ► - It just feels like, just do what you do.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Like you don't have to do everything.

00:09:45 ◼   ► I was like, oh, we're going to give you music and we're going to give you movies and we're

00:09:48 ◼   ► going to give you your news and we're going to give you just everything you need in life.

00:09:52 ◼   ► It's like, all right, just ecosystems, man.

00:09:55 ◼   ► Ecosystems.

00:09:56 ◼   ► So a quick reminder that we will be holding a live show during WWDC in conjunction with

00:10:02 ◼   ► AltConf and ATP.

00:10:03 ◼   ► There's a link in the show notes to get tickets.

00:10:05 ◼   ► Tickets are moving quickly.

00:10:06 ◼   ► I would not wait if you are going to be in San Jose at WWDC or hanging out.

00:10:12 ◼   ► You should totally just come hang out because it's a great town.

00:10:14 ◼   ► There's lots of fun stuff to do and lots of nerdy people

00:10:16 ◼   ► Be sure to get ticket because I think I think they're gonna be sold out here pretty soon

00:10:20 ◼   ► Yeah, we're planning a fun show. We've got some good stuff going on right now. We're really excited about it

00:10:26 ◼   ► And we think that you'll enjoy it if you come you know

00:10:30 ◼   ► You're gonna get to see the three of us like when because Federico's already there waiting for

00:10:34 ◼   ► The event and then we're gonna have some other relay FM hosts on stage with us as well

00:10:39 ◼   ► I'm kind of like similar as what we did in 2016

00:10:42 ◼   ► So we're really excited about it. I'm expecting that a lot of these tickets will move this week after the

00:10:48 ◼   ► The lottery is announced. So if it is on your mind or you're gonna be in town

00:10:54 ◼   ► Do not sit on this like they're five dollars. Just come and get one

00:10:58 ◼   ► So there was a little news this morning, right? So the iPhone SE no is not the iPhone SE 2

00:11:04 ◼   ► It seemed like if that was gonna happen is gonna happen today

00:11:07 ◼   ► And now I don't think there's an iPhone SE 2 coming anytime soon, but well, we'll talk about that later on

00:11:12 ◼   ► New Apple Watch bands, Myke. Your favorite Apple accessory.

00:11:16 ◼   ► I love that. You know what? You're probably right.

00:11:19 ◼   ► I think I am.

00:11:20 ◼   ► I bought the accessories that Apple sells. I think this is my favorite.

00:11:23 ◼   ► I'm really annoyed about this press release, though. This press release is very annoying

00:11:27 ◼   ► because they're talking about things that they're not showing, which really frustrates me.

00:11:32 ◼   ► So there's a bunch of... basically, there are no new bands, but there are new colors and styles of all of the existing bands.

00:11:39 ◼   ► So they have new nylon bands, new sport bands, they have some new Nike sport loops and bands

00:11:46 ◼   ► which are going to be sold separately for the first time and they have some new styles of the

00:11:50 ◼   ► Apple Watch MS. But all of the press stuff, it only shows a limited amount of the total

00:11:59 ◼   ► bands available and there's like one image which probably shows more of them but it doesn't

00:12:05 ◼   ► indicate what's what very well. So I find that very frustrating because I wanted to see them.

00:12:10 ◼   ► It seems really weird to just be like, "Oh, we're doing this thing. It's a very visual thing." And

00:12:15 ◼   ► they're going on sale later this month. And it's like, "Oh, just give me all of them. Show me all

00:12:20 ◼   ► of them." I'm expecting later this month means next Tuesday after they announce whatever it is

00:12:25 ◼   ► they're announcing in a high school. But that's coming soon. But yeah, I like the bands. I love,

00:12:32 ◼   ► I have basically come to the decision that the sport loop is my favorite of all time and I'm really keen to see

00:12:38 ◼   ► What the Nike ones are they called black pure platinum bright crimson and black?

00:12:43 ◼   ► Cargo khaki midnight fog and pearl pink and they show the pearl pink one

00:12:48 ◼   ► I think I can work out the crimson black one from the big image

00:12:50 ◼   ► But I want to see all of them so I can make some purchases. I

00:12:54 ◼   ► Like my Apple watch for the most part

00:12:58 ◼   ► But I really have not gone too crazy with the bands like nine times out of ten. I'm wearing the pure white

00:13:05 ◼   ► Sport band with my stainless steel Apple watch and then I have a black sport band and then I have an orange one

00:13:12 ◼   ► Which they don't sell anymore is one of the first colors

00:13:13 ◼   ► I think and I have the the nylon one. It's not wear sometimes but like I unlike you I really don't care for the

00:13:21 ◼   ► What is it the?

00:13:24 ◼   ► The new one with all the velcro. Oh, no, that's all not I love the sport loop. Yeah, I don't I don't really care for it

00:13:30 ◼   ► I haven't owned one, but I've tried one on the store and I didn't really like it

00:13:34 ◼   ► But uh, so I don't know like another thing here that really jumps out on me. I don't think

00:13:37 ◼   ► Let me try and sell you on the sport loop right there is is I like it

00:13:41 ◼   ► I mean one I do find it comfortable, but the other

00:13:44 ◼   ► You can adjust it to exactly

00:13:47 ◼   ► The like the grip that you want like that the size that you want where all of the others you have to fit within the holes

00:13:53 ◼   ► or whatever this one is like perfectly adjusted so when I'm swimming I tighten

00:13:59 ◼   ► it up a little bit when I'm just when I'm kind of hanging around the house I

00:14:03 ◼   ► loosen it a little bit that's one of the reasons that I really love it because

00:14:06 ◼   ► you can do that with it so hmm yeah I don't know the the regular sport band

00:14:11 ◼   ► the the hole that I wear it like fits like it's really good and it's funny if

00:14:17 ◼   ► you have multiple sport bands you will notice this there the colors are a

00:14:20 ◼   ► little bit different so like the white and the black don't feel the same and

00:14:23 ◼   ► the black is a like a millimeter tighter for some reason but um I could totally

00:14:29 ◼   ► see if I was in between sizes on this band that you know I would want

00:14:33 ◼   ► something more adjustable maybe I'll give it another shot and I always have

00:14:36 ◼   ► been by the way like I've always been in between sizes of all of the bands of the

00:14:40 ◼   ► holes in like I never feel like I get just the right fit that I'm looking for

00:14:44 ◼   ► and that's one of the reasons that I like it plus it makes this sound

00:14:49 ◼   ► Who doesn't like that?

00:14:51 ◼   ► That's a good sound.

00:14:52 ◼   ► That's a good sound.

00:14:53 ◼   ► All right, let's get to this March event, but first you want to tell us about a sponsor?

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00:16:31 ◼   ► your next move, make your next website. So last week sometime towards the end of the

00:16:37 ◼   ► week I think there was a press invite that landed in a bunch of people's inboxes for

00:16:44 ◼   ► an event in Chicago at the Lane Tech College Prep High School. It is 10am Central Time.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Oh, finally! Finally! I needed to point this out. We did an upgrade, we did our draft. If you've

00:16:59 ◼   ► never heard one of the upgrade event drafts before, go listen to episode 185 of Upgrade. We

00:17:05 ◼   ► have a lot of fun with those. It's a novel way to do predictions. I noted, because Jason mentioned

00:17:13 ◼   ► it to me that because the event just says 10 a.m right and i'm so used to it being 10 a.m pacific

00:17:19 ◼   ► but because it's in chicago they're doing it at central so it is 10 a.m central time so just bear

00:17:25 ◼   ► that in mind when you're setting your calendars that is my public service announcement so because

00:17:30 ◼   ► i have done a draft of jason anyone that listens to that show they already know what i expect so

00:17:35 ◼   ► steven i want to talk to you about what your expectations are for this event so it's called

00:17:43 ◼   ► let's take a field trip it's in a school i think it's pretty safe to assume we're looking at

00:17:48 ◼   ► something focused on education in some way um rather than it being like the iphone 11

00:17:55 ◼   ► what if they show up and it's just like uh i don't know like it's all pro hardware and software

00:18:00 ◼   ► they're like one day kids you could be pros too and they just leave that would be this is where

00:18:05 ◼   ► they're going to announce the mac pro oh my gosh don't tease casey i know he's really excited about

00:18:10 ◼   ► And the iPod phone as well like any day now or the yellow submarine iPod like it's all of this stuff is finally gonna come true

00:18:17 ◼   ► That is some real hashtag TBT. Do you remember that rumor? We have talked about this for a second

00:18:22 ◼   ► There was a rumor for a long time a long time long time

00:18:26 ◼   ► That Apple was gonna do a special edition of the iPod remember the u2 iPod. I have like six of them

00:18:31 ◼   ► They're black and red and they're the engraved on the back with the signatures of the band

00:18:36 ◼   ► people really thought that Apple was gonna do a yellow submarine version and

00:18:40 ◼   ► They were like, you know like mock-ups like renders people like took a picture of it like colored it in Photoshop

00:18:45 ◼   ► And it I have an article here from TechCrunch

00:18:48 ◼   ► from July 12,000 and 7 yellow submarine iPod coming soon complete with Google's back catalog

00:18:55 ◼   ► Turns out not so true never happened, but it did make sense at the time

00:19:01 ◼   ► time though right? Because like this was back in the day when you would get these like

00:19:06 ◼   ► complete iTunes store takeovers because one of the last holdouts decided to go

00:19:11 ◼   ► to streaming like when like Led Zeppelin went to streaming and basically

00:19:14 ◼   ► everything on the iTunes homepage was Led Zeppelin for a week. Well not streaming

00:19:18 ◼   ► available to purchase online. That's it, oh my gosh yeah just available to

00:19:23 ◼   ► purchase on iTunes like they weren't digitally available and Beatles was

00:19:27 ◼   ► always coming so they thought well we'll do an iPod but it never happened. Is that when the Apple

00:19:32 ◼   ► homepage said a day you'll never forget? Was that the Beatles launch? Oh yeah yes a day you'll never

00:19:39 ◼   ► forget! We'll also find that put in the show notes. Oh my gosh, yes oh my gosh that was that was one of the biggest marketing

00:19:46 ◼   ► like PR blunders that Apple have ever done. Was it? We never forgot. A day you'll never forget. Wow wow yeah Apple

00:19:54 ◼   ► teases surprise. Tomorrow is a day that you'll never forget.

00:19:58 ◼   ► Oh my gosh.

00:19:59 ◼   ► This is I found out on Business Insider and they've got a screenshot.

00:20:02 ◼   ► They had tomorrow is just another day that you'll never forget.

00:20:05 ◼   ► Check back here tomorrow for an exciting announcement from iTunes.

00:20:08 ◼   ► And they had all the clocks and all the different time zones and everything.

00:20:11 ◼   ► And it turns out it was just the Beatles.

00:20:14 ◼   ► So here's look at this.

00:20:15 ◼   ► What's it referring to?

00:20:16 ◼   ► iTunes in the cloud, free streaming, a Spotify killer.

00:20:18 ◼   ► The Beatles on iTunes, 90 second song previews, iOS 4.2 for the iPad and iPhone.

00:20:23 ◼   ► something awesome from iBooks, something free, something crappy and forgettable, something

00:20:27 ◼   ► else. This is the Business Insider article by Dan Frommer on November 15th 2010.

00:20:33 ◼   ► Wow. That's incredible.

00:20:36 ◼   ► That's that that was and it was just the Beatles. See, you know what? This is kind of funny,

00:20:40 ◼   ► right? So last week when you went on the show, I decided to like tailor the show a little bit just

00:20:45 ◼   ► to... Oh, I heard the last I heard the last section. I heard I heard I heard.

00:20:49 ◼   ► And now it's just me and you. We're talking about like old Apple rumors.

00:20:53 ◼   ► I'm very accommodating to my co-hosts. Whatever they need I will provide them.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Very gentle co-hosts.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Very gentle co-hosts. So let's talk about expectations. What do you expect from the

00:21:07 ◼   ► event on Tuesday? What are your realistic expectations for what we're going to see?

00:21:11 ◼   ► I think we will definitely see some combination of iPad and Mac hardware

00:21:18 ◼   ► either geared towards students in general or specifically called out for

00:21:24 ◼   ► bulk purchasing. So a lot of people aren't super familiar with this. We're

00:21:29 ◼   ► going to talk about how, I just talked about in a blog post that we're going to

00:21:32 ◼   ► talk about after the next ad break, but if you're a school, so Myke you're a

00:21:36 ◼   ► school, congratulations. The Myke Hurley School of Excellence. Yes, I would

00:21:41 ◼   ► attend that. Yeah. So hard. Me too. And you need to, you want to deploy a

00:21:46 ◼   ► a one-to-one so every student in your school has a Mac or an iPad you just

00:21:50 ◼   ► don't like waltz down to the Apple Store and buy you know 150 MacBook Airs you

00:21:55 ◼   ► have access to buy them in bulk so you can buy max and a five-pack and they

00:22:00 ◼   ► come in a big box and there are five of them in there or you can that is wild to

00:22:04 ◼   ► me by the way oh yeah you can buy like a like a pack of max the yeah it's it's a

00:22:11 ◼   ► it's a five-pack you know like you get the Kindle fires but these are not $49

00:22:14 ◼   ► piece. Yeah. Or you can buy a 10-pack of iPads and with the iPads they roll in

00:22:20 ◼   ► AppleCare+ for either two years or three years depending on the SKU you want.

00:22:23 ◼   ► So you're buying in bulk and there are slightly discounted prices for those

00:22:27 ◼   ► purchases. In a former life I spent a lot of time in this field. When I left the

00:22:36 ◼   ► Genius Bar and started consulting, I like my biggest clients were actually Apple

00:22:41 ◼   ► clients and Apple would hire us to go into the schools and deploy Macs or even

00:22:47 ◼   ► for the state of Florida we deployed like 2,500 iPod touches across the state.

00:22:52 ◼   ► This is before the iPad and iPod touches are a terrible one-to-one program. I'm so

00:22:57 ◼   ► sorry children of Florida that you were given iPod touches in your science

00:22:59 ◼   ► classes but you cut up in all these five packs and and they're really well done

00:23:05 ◼   ► like all the serial numbers on the outside of the box you can scan them all

00:23:07 ◼   ► And it's all very well thought out.

00:23:09 ◼   ► The problem is it's all too expensive, especially

00:23:12 ◼   ► in light of Chromebooks.

00:23:13 ◼   ► And Chromebooks can do a lot of great stuff.

00:23:15 ◼   ► And they are taking over a lot of schools,

00:23:19 ◼   ► mainly, I think, for two reasons.

00:23:20 ◼   ► One, Google's cloud services, which

00:23:23 ◼   ► are free if you are a school, are just incredible.

00:23:26 ◼   ► You get all the normal stuff you get in Google Apps.

00:23:29 ◼   ► And you get lots of management tools.

00:23:33 ◼   ► And that stuff is really pretty easy to use.

00:23:35 ◼   ► can integrate your existing LDAP and do all this stuff. But Chromebooks are also

00:23:39 ◼   ► significantly cheaper especially than Education Macs. So if you're a school

00:23:45 ◼   ► mic you can go buy the 13-inch MacBook Air or even as Education you can still

00:23:49 ◼   ► buy the 11.6-inch MacBook Air. It's not for sale to consumers anymore but Apple

00:23:53 ◼   ► still makes it and sells it for schools. I fully expect that that world of Apple

00:23:56 ◼   ► hardware for schools will see some significant changes. That may mean that

00:24:01 ◼   ► the MacBook Air just gets cheaper. It may mean that there is some new low-end Mac

00:24:07 ◼   ► notebook for you know for schools. It may mean that there that $329 iPad which is a

00:24:14 ◼   ► little bit less for education buyers again that that becomes significantly

00:24:18 ◼   ► cheaper or maybe there's a new model which we can talk about in a minute but

00:24:22 ◼   ► I really think there's going to be a focus on addressing the Chromebook

00:24:26 ◼   ► problem more directly because I think up until this point, Apple for a long time has had

00:24:33 ◼   ► a very comfortable position in education.

00:24:36 ◼   ► There's all these stories about when the Apple II came out, like Steve Jobs even go to schools

00:24:42 ◼   ► and deliver them and set them up in classrooms.

00:24:45 ◼   ► Education has always been really important to Apple, just like music has.

00:24:50 ◼   ► For a long time, like in the 90s,

00:24:52 ◼   ► like when I was in elementary school,

00:24:55 ◼   ► and right around the turn of the decade in high school,

00:24:58 ◼   ► a lot of schools just had Macs,

00:25:00 ◼   ► 'cause like schools just bought Macs,

00:25:01 ◼   ► 'cause they lasted a long time,

00:25:03 ◼   ► and they just had that heritage, right?

00:25:06 ◼   ► Once you were a Mac school,

00:25:07 ◼   ► you kind of always a Mac school.

00:25:09 ◼   ► But over the last five or six years,

00:25:12 ◼   ► Apple has really lost ground to Google,

00:25:15 ◼   ► again, 'cause its Chromebooks are cheap,

00:25:18 ◼   ► they're easy to manage.

00:25:20 ◼   ► If you destroy a Chromebook...

00:25:21 ◼   ► It's price, right?

00:25:22 ◼   ► Like, price is the reason.

00:25:24 ◼   ► Price is by far the primary reason.

00:25:27 ◼   ► And I think Apple is going to do something about that.

00:25:31 ◼   ► You know, I don't know if they're going to have a MacBook that's $399, like I just don't

00:25:34 ◼   ► think that's possible, but I think if they can bring that MacBook Air to $600 or $700

00:25:40 ◼   ► or $800...

00:25:41 ◼   ► Well, I mean, like, $399 is possible, they just won't do it.

00:25:45 ◼   ► That's the difference, right?

00:25:46 ◼   ► They could make the plastic MacBook again and probably sell it for that amount of money.

00:25:49 ◼   ► now but they're just not going to do that, which I understand, right?

00:25:53 ◼   ► Because you don't want to completely sell out to it, but it depends on what the focus

00:26:01 ◼   ► is.

00:26:02 ◼   ► So yeah, I think something in there with hardware.

00:26:06 ◼   ► Whether this stuff comes to consumers or not, I don't know, but I think hardware is going

00:26:11 ◼   ► to be a significant amount of time.

00:26:13 ◼   ► Do you think though that they would do an event that is publicly referenced for just

00:26:18 ◼   ► stuff only for schools? I think Apple's so big if they hold an event just for schools

00:26:23 ◼   ► it's going to be public anyways. Yeah, but they don't have to hold an event at all. Right.

00:26:29 ◼   ► And they'd also, to add to your point and take away from mine, they don't have to invite

00:26:33 ◼   ► press to these things, right? Like, Jason's getting on a plane or a canoe or something

00:26:37 ◼   ► and going to Chicago. So, that, you know. Flying garage that he moves around in the

00:26:44 ◼   ► garage. His mom's flying garage. Jason Snell's wonderful magical flying garage.

00:26:48 ◼   ► coming to raw work. So look at their iPads on Macs right which I'm in agreement

00:26:56 ◼   ► with you, cheaper iPads, cheaper Macs potentially but what does that look like

00:27:03 ◼   ► right? If they do, do you think that they're just gonna take what exists

00:27:07 ◼   ► right now and make it cheaper or do you think there's gonna be new stuff that's

00:27:12 ◼   ► cheaper? I think the the easier thing to do is take existing stuff and make it

00:27:16 ◼   ► cheaper. I don't I think the answer to that question is how seriously

00:27:20 ◼   ► does Apple view the Chromebook threat. If they come out swinging with, I don't

00:27:26 ◼   ► think it's gonna happen, but come out with a $399 plastic MacBook or a

00:27:32 ◼   ► 250 9.7 inch iPad or something. Yeah like if that would be awesome and

00:27:38 ◼   ► that I think would definitely be education only. So yeah I don't know I

00:27:43 ◼   ► I would like to see Apple take education more seriously.

00:27:46 ◼   ► I would like to see them make education only hardware again,

00:27:49 ◼   ► but I just don't know if that's in the cards right now.

00:27:52 ◼   ► - Well, let me ask you this then.

00:27:55 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:27:56 ◼   ► - 'Cause this isn't the first time

00:27:56 ◼   ► that Apple's done an event like this, right?

00:27:59 ◼   ► They did an event in New York a number of years ago,

00:28:02 ◼   ► which Phil Schiller presented, if I'm remembering correctly.

00:28:04 ◼   ► - Yes, the iBooks are gonna change textbooks forever,

00:28:07 ◼   ► which it totally, no, that didn't happen.

00:28:09 ◼   ► - Did not.

00:28:10 ◼   ► So what was announced at that event?

00:28:11 ◼   ► Was it just iBooks and iBooks Author?

00:28:13 ◼   ► I believe so, yes.

00:28:15 ◼   ► OK. So I mean, there is a possibility that they just

00:28:18 ◼   ► do a thing and it's not huge.

00:28:22 ◼   ► I mean, I'm definitely thinking that, you know, we're not going to have weeks

00:28:26 ◼   ► worth of things to talk about that come out of next week.

00:28:28 ◼   ► Right. Like, there is a possibility that by the time Connected

00:28:32 ◼   ► is ready, like we have like 20 minutes on it and that's it.

00:28:35 ◼   ► Which is not what, you know, usually like you would have an entire episode

00:28:39 ◼   ► dedicated to any type of Apple event.

00:28:41 ◼   ► But I'm really thinking that there's not going to be a lot for the general public to get

00:28:47 ◼   ► excited about next Tuesday.

00:28:48 ◼   ► Probably not.

00:28:49 ◼   ► It's going to be, I mean I think they've set that expectation that it's going to be smaller.

00:28:52 ◼   ► It's in a school.

00:28:53 ◼   ► I think too though, in addition to the hardware stuff, I do think there's a software component

00:28:57 ◼   ► here and I think only on the iOS side.

00:29:00 ◼   ► Like Mac OS Server is effectively dead and they roll a bunch of stuff into client.

00:29:07 ◼   ► I think the Mac education story is kind of going to be the same forever.

00:29:12 ◼   ► They have some cheap Macs and if you want them, you can get them.

00:29:15 ◼   ► But I think that they're pushing iPads and iOS in education.

00:29:19 ◼   ► And there's lots of talk about Classroom and Classkit in iOS 11.3.

00:29:23 ◼   ► I think we'll see whatever that looks like.

00:29:26 ◼   ► We'll see potentially some third party developers or people in iBooks, whatever, using this

00:29:31 ◼   ► stuff and showing how it can be rolled out.

00:29:35 ◼   ► And hopefully some more management stuff.

00:29:37 ◼   ► They have that classroom app that on an iPad,

00:29:39 ◼   ► if it's hooked up right, you can have multiple users,

00:29:42 ◼   ► and it syncs up to the cloud.

00:29:43 ◼   ► And I think all that stuff needs attention and more features

00:29:48 ◼   ► and some evolution.

00:29:48 ◼   ► So I think if there's a software story,

00:29:51 ◼   ► it's going to be effectively iOS only.

00:29:54 ◼   ► And if the Mac gets anything software-wise,

00:29:56 ◼   ► it's something that comes to the iPad first.

00:29:59 ◼   ► Right.

00:30:00 ◼   ► Or something that already exists on the iPad.

00:30:02 ◼   ► Right.

00:30:02 ◼   ► Totally.

00:30:02 ◼   ► They might do some of these education classroom

00:30:06 ◼   ► apps for the Mac? Because I don't think there is one, right? There is not. And really schools

00:30:11 ◼   ► from like a management perspective have all moved to something, or a lot of them have

00:30:15 ◼   ► moved to something like like Jamf, which is a sponsor of Relay, but they really like are

00:30:21 ◼   ► the place to go when you're talking about like fleet management. So if you have a school

00:30:24 ◼   ► with 1000 MacBook Airs, that's what you're using to manage them, not any first party

00:30:29 ◼   ► tools by Apple anymore. So there's, as with any Apple event, there's a lot of expectation.

00:30:35 ◼   ► what are we not gonna see, do you think?

00:30:39 ◼   ► Out of the possibilities, right?

00:30:40 ◼   ► I mean, like, we're not gonna see the next iPhone X,

00:30:43 ◼   ► but like, there are things that people are expecting could,

00:30:46 ◼   ► and like, in theory, could have a place

00:30:48 ◼   ► at an event like this,

00:30:49 ◼   ► but what do you think is not gonna happen?

00:30:51 ◼   ► - I mean, the iPhone SE is due,

00:30:53 ◼   ► but it's not, an education event is the wrong place for it.

00:30:57 ◼   ► I kinda thought when the Apple Watch PR release

00:31:00 ◼   ► dropped this morning, that the iPhone SE2 press release

00:31:03 ◼   ► was gonna be like five minutes after it,

00:31:04 ◼   ► and I'm still waiting for that, so.

00:31:07 ◼   ► - Yes. - I don't know,

00:31:08 ◼   ► I don't know what's going on there.

00:31:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I thought that if they did it,

00:31:12 ◼   ► they were gonna do like what you said,

00:31:14 ◼   ► but like, I didn't think there would be something beforehand

00:31:16 ◼   ► like I figured that with the press release

00:31:18 ◼   ► of whatever happens on Tuesday,

00:31:20 ◼   ► there's also an iPhone, which could still happen.

00:31:22 ◼   ► - It could. - But I think it's less likely

00:31:25 ◼   ► now they've done the Apple Watch events.

00:31:26 ◼   ► - Unless that they, the only thing I would say to that is,

00:31:30 ◼   ► if this event is gonna be sort of lower in the press cycle,

00:31:34 ◼   ► that if you have an iPhone SE announcement come out at the same time, then maybe you can hope those two things can ride together.

00:31:39 ◼   ► So, maybe, you know, I think if we get past this event and there's no iPhone SE 2, then I don't think it's coming anytime soon.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, you know, it is worth saying stuff like AirPower and stuff like that you would maybe expect to come,

00:31:51 ◼   ► and it's probably not focused on the event, so there is still possibility, you know, especially if the iPhone SE got Qi charging,

00:32:00 ◼   ► which I don't think it will, but it could, and if it did,

00:32:03 ◼   ► it might be interesting to announce them together.

00:32:05 ◼   ► - Kind of go together.

00:32:07 ◼   ► I don't think the iPad Pro was part of this.

00:32:08 ◼   ► A, they just updated them nine months ago in June.

00:32:12 ◼   ► - So let me ask you then, why did they clearly hint

00:32:16 ◼   ► with an Apple pencil-y swoopy line for the logo?

00:32:19 ◼   ► Do you think it means Apple Pencil support

00:32:21 ◼   ► on the cheaper iPads?

00:32:21 ◼   ► - I don't read into the artwork.

00:32:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, but okay, but events do have things

00:32:28 ◼   ► that go with the artwork, right?

00:32:30 ◼   ► Like it does happen like the bokeh effect on the iPhone 7 thing etc etc etc.

00:32:35 ◼   ► That's such a clear sign that I would be surprised if the Apple pencil wasn't

00:32:40 ◼   ► included in some way in the event and if it's gonna be and they don't do an iPad

00:32:43 ◼   ► Pro it could do you reckon we would see that this this iPad this cheaper iPad of

00:32:49 ◼   ► Apple pencil support? I think it's a possibility that they and that

00:32:53 ◼   ► again would help set them apart from what Google is doing that if they have a

00:32:57 ◼   ► tablet with pencil input that that's different. A lot of those Chromebooks don't have touch

00:33:01 ◼   ► screens at that sort of lower price range. So yeah, I think it's a possibility that.

00:33:06 ◼   ► And I think whilst the Apple Pencil has been a thing to differentiate the regular one from

00:33:11 ◼   ► the pros, I think the iPad Pro that comes out this year, if it comes out this year,

00:33:16 ◼   ► will be visually different enough that it doesn't need the Apple Pencil differentiator

00:33:20 ◼   ► anymore. Like it can be differentiated by the fact that the screens are larger and it's

00:33:26 ◼   ► got face ID and all that kind of stuff.

00:33:28 ◼   ► New processors, I expect a cheap iPad to be, you know, it's not going to run the same internal

00:33:33 ◼   ► as the Pro.

00:33:34 ◼   ► So, yeah, I think it's a possibility.

00:33:36 ◼   ► So I could see it now, like a 9.7 with Apple Pencil support.

00:33:39 ◼   ► I think that that is a strong possibility and is really, really, really a product that

00:33:45 ◼   ► Apple should be making now, I think.

00:33:47 ◼   ► I mean, I still think the iPad Mini would be nice for a lot of people, but I don't think

00:33:52 ◼   ► that's going to happen.

00:33:53 ◼   ► But I think a 9.7 inch iPad with the Apple pencil would do really good for a lot of people,

00:33:59 ◼   ► like a lot of people, not even just the education crowd.

00:34:02 ◼   ► So, yeah, I would be surprised if they didn't do that.

00:34:05 ◼   ► What about any other Macintosh news?

00:34:08 ◼   ► Like there is still the possibility, right, of other Mac news.

00:34:12 ◼   ► Do you think that that's going to happen?

00:34:14 ◼   ► I mean, they have had education only skews of desktops in the past.

00:34:19 ◼   ► Right now, best I can tell, they don't.

00:34:21 ◼   ► they just have cheaper iMacs. But you know, it may be that they have something to say

00:34:26 ◼   ► about desktop Macs because desktop Macs do still have a role in education. You know,

00:34:30 ◼   ► the one to one program is where every kid has a device, whether it be a laptop or a

00:34:36 ◼   ► tablet, but in a lot of labs, a lot of libraries, a lot of classrooms, a lot of teachers are

00:34:40 ◼   ► still using desktops, there's still a lot of iMacs in education. And so yeah, if they're

00:34:45 ◼   ► if they're taking the time to talk about the one to one stuff, then there may be an opportunity

00:34:49 ◼   ► say, hey, and also, if you need a library full of iMacs,

00:34:52 ◼   ► we've reduced the price 200 bucks,

00:34:54 ◼   ► or you get more machine for your money or something.

00:34:56 ◼   ► So I wouldn't be shocked if it happens,

00:34:58 ◼   ► but I wouldn't be disappointed if it does not.

00:35:00 ◼   ► It's like this, ah, for all you teachers out there

00:35:03 ◼   ► who've got a lot of hard work to do, here's Mac Pro.

00:35:06 ◼   ► All you teachers out there.

00:35:07 ◼   ► I can hear that sort of voice.

00:35:10 ◼   ► Yep.

00:35:11 ◼   ► Rick Allen in the chat room asked a question

00:35:13 ◼   ► we don't know the answer to, of course, but we can discuss.

00:35:16 ◼   ► Do we think the event will be webcast?

00:35:18 ◼   ► we think there will be a video? I think that there is a possibility more than ever that

00:35:22 ◼   ► there won't be because it's in this weird place. I mean there still could be because

00:35:27 ◼   ► people will expect it, but I think that there might not be and I'm actually quite excited

00:35:33 ◼   ► about the possibility of there not being a video because it'll be back to live blogs

00:35:38 ◼   ► again and there's something nostalgic about that, right? Like I'll have The Verge open

00:35:42 ◼   ► and Six Colors open and TechCrunch and I'll be like scrolling and looking at all the pictures.

00:35:48 ◼   ► I don't know, there's something about that which would be kind of interesting, I think.

00:35:52 ◼   ► It might be in a weird way kind of enjoyable to do it, especially for an event that I'm

00:35:57 ◼   ► not going to be super bummed about most likely if I miss the announcements on a video, right?

00:36:03 ◼   ► Because this is probably going to be a little bit more low-key, that it might be fun to

00:36:08 ◼   ► experience that nostalgia for an afternoon.

00:36:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't think there's going to be a video.

00:36:13 ◼   ► I think it's probably too small.

00:36:14 ◼   ► And again, that helps set the expectation of, this is an industry event, we invited

00:36:18 ◼   ► press because it's going to get a new way, so why don't we control that?

00:36:21 ◼   ► But it's really an industry event.

00:36:23 ◼   ► So that, I would say that that makes it even more important to tune in to Upgrade because

00:36:27 ◼   ► Jason will be there and we'll be recording straight after, so make sure you subscribe

00:36:31 ◼   ► to Upgrade and listen to next week's episode.

00:36:32 ◼   ► It's like a live blog later, but in audio.

00:36:36 ◼   ► In audio form.

00:36:38 ◼   ► Imagine that.

00:36:39 ◼   ► Maybe we could try and convince Jason to live podcast from the event.

00:36:43 ◼   ► the event. Do you think Apple will allow that?

00:36:45 ◼   ► So we're talking about old Apple stuff. Do you remember the FaceTime demo and Steve Jobs

00:36:50 ◼   ► yelled at people for using Wi-Fi hotspots?

00:36:52 ◼   ► Yeah, it was like two weeks after everybody laughed at the fact that Google had the same

00:36:56 ◼   ► problem. Right? Google did an event and nothing was working and it was because of Wi-Fi and

00:37:02 ◼   ► then two weeks later Apple had to do the same thing. And it was because of those, like,

00:37:07 ◼   ► It was those little wireless box thingamajigs, right? Like the mobile hotspots. That was

00:37:14 ◼   ► what the problem was. Journalists used to take like four of those because live blogs

00:37:18 ◼   ► were such a thing, right? And you had to make sure that you 100% had connection. And if

00:37:24 ◼   ► you didn't, then you wouldn't be able to post anything. I'm actually really... I mean, that's

00:37:30 ◼   ► the one... That's the thing I'm most excited about with this event is the possibility that

00:37:33 ◼   ► there won't be a video. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm 30 now, so like I want

00:37:40 ◼   ► things of my youth or something. I don't know.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Wow.

00:37:43 ◼   ► But so now I'm looking forward to just reading some live blogs next week.

00:37:49 ◼   ► It'll be fun.

00:37:51 ◼   ► Today's show is also brought to you by Anchor, the easiest way for anyone to make a podcast.

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00:38:56 ◼   ► - No, it's really good, it's really good.

00:38:57 ◼   ► - Thank you, yeah.

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00:40:00 ◼   ► So you wrote an article titled "E-Pad" which was in reference to everything that was going

00:40:07 ◼   ► on right?

00:40:08 ◼   ► You were kind of making reference to this education event because Apple has historically

00:40:12 ◼   ► had an "E" line of products.

00:40:15 ◼   ► What is the "E" line of products?

00:40:17 ◼   ► It's around the tenet.

00:40:18 ◼   ► It is Apple's former line of education only products.

00:40:24 ◼   ► The EMAC is the most famous example.

00:40:27 ◼   ► It was a G4 powered computer that looked kind of like an iMac G3 but just like bulked up.

00:40:32 ◼   ► A white, right?

00:40:33 ◼   ► Like just a little white.

00:40:34 ◼   ► Yes, all white.

00:40:35 ◼   ► Very heavy.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Very heavy.

00:40:37 ◼   ► While we're talking about old stories today.

00:40:39 ◼   ► God.

00:40:40 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:40:41 ◼   ► Federico's never going to miss an episode again.

00:40:44 ◼   ► History time with Uncle Steven.

00:40:46 ◼   ► When I worked at the Apple Store as a genius, I had a school district about 90 minutes out

00:40:52 ◼   ► out of town who they would bring stuff in.

00:40:54 ◼   ► Like every couple of months they would show up

00:40:56 ◼   ► with like 10 things, right?

00:40:58 ◼   ► And one day they showed up in a white panel van

00:41:02 ◼   ► full of EMACs, Myke, full of like 25 EMACs.

00:41:06 ◼   ► The EMACs, there was one model that had a particular problem

00:41:08 ◼   ► there was a recall or like a repair extension program

00:41:11 ◼   ► so we repaired them for free.

00:41:13 ◼   ► But I accepted them all at once and these parts

00:41:15 ◼   ► were back ordered so our Apple store,

00:41:18 ◼   ► like literally any place behind the scenes

00:41:20 ◼   ► like at the manager's office or the break room,

00:41:22 ◼   ► I had to stash these customers' eMacs

00:41:25 ◼   ► until the parts came in, it took like a month.

00:41:27 ◼   ► I got very good at this one repair.

00:41:29 ◼   ► So anytime I see an eMac, I sort of like

00:41:32 ◼   ► get a little heartburn, thinking about

00:41:33 ◼   ► getting yelled at by my manager

00:41:34 ◼   ► for accepting 25 broken computers at once, but anyways.

00:41:38 ◼   ► eMac was an education machine,

00:41:40 ◼   ► was out at the same time of the iMac G4,

00:41:43 ◼   ► it was started at just $1,000,

00:41:45 ◼   ► which was like $300 less than the entry level iMac.

00:41:49 ◼   ► It was initially sold only to schools,

00:41:52 ◼   ► but it ended up rolling out to consumers everywhere,

00:41:54 ◼   ► 'cause actually it turns out people wanted this machine

00:41:57 ◼   ► 'cause it was cheap.

00:41:58 ◼   ► And it was around for a long time,

00:42:01 ◼   ► like three and a half or four years.

00:42:03 ◼   ► They had several models of it.

00:42:05 ◼   ► It was sort of the flagship for like the E line of computers.

00:42:08 ◼   ► They also had the E-Mate, which was like,

00:42:10 ◼   ► ran the Newton OS and was in a clamshell

00:42:12 ◼   ► and they made it for schools, it didn't do very well.

00:42:14 ◼   ► It was only like nine months.

00:42:15 ◼   ► But, um, the idea was that Apple, like,

00:42:19 ◼   ► did I tell you I have, I used, I used to use an email,

00:42:21 ◼   ► like I broke my wrist when I was a kid and we had them in school. Um,

00:42:25 ◼   ► I broke my left wrist, so I couldn't write anything.

00:42:27 ◼   ► So they gave me an email and I had an email for like six weeks or something.

00:42:31 ◼   ► I have one on my bookcase. Everyone looked at me really, really weirdly,

00:42:34 ◼   ► because I was walking around school with this like super strange computer

00:42:38 ◼   ► keyboard, like typewriter. It's a weird, it's a weird little device.

00:42:41 ◼   ► It's very weird. Very weird.

00:42:43 ◼   ► But the eMac in particular was really the last time

00:42:46 ◼   ► Apple made a true education only computer.

00:42:50 ◼   ► They've had skews, like we talked about in the last segment

00:42:53 ◼   ► of the 11 MacBook Air, the 13 MacBook Air,

00:42:56 ◼   ► that are cheaper, less powerful, or whatever.

00:42:59 ◼   ► The eMac Apple designed and developed and built

00:43:02 ◼   ► for education and they ended up selling them

00:43:04 ◼   ► to consumers as well.

00:43:06 ◼   ► I think there's room for this today, not in the back line,

00:43:10 ◼   ► because I think the future of Apple in education

00:43:11 ◼   ► is the iPad. But I think there is room potentially, if anything, it's a fun experiment, thought

00:43:18 ◼   ► experiment for an education first iPad for an E pad, if you will, a tablet that Apple

00:43:25 ◼   ► designs with the needs of education and schools in mind, and the consumer secondary because

00:43:34 ◼   ► right now what Apple is doing is they're taking the low end of their consumer line and selling

00:43:39 ◼   ► it to schools, right? So that cheap iPad, the MacBook Air, those are consumer products

00:43:45 ◼   ► that Apple is just sort of shoveling into schools at a slightly reduced price. And that

00:43:49 ◼   ► may be one reason they're losing ground to Google because Chromebook manufacturers are

00:43:55 ◼   ► making these machines. Some of them do the same thing with their consumer and education.

00:44:00 ◼   ► But a lot of them are making education specific models or at least models of education in

00:44:05 ◼   ► mind first. And sometimes the needs of the consumer in the school are the same. But a

00:44:10 ◼   ► lot of times, they're different. And the emac met some of those needs that schools had.

00:44:16 ◼   ► And I think the iPad in particular, is a device that I think would be very interesting to

00:44:21 ◼   ► see what it could look like if Apple made an education model that was, you know, primarily

00:44:26 ◼   ► built for schools, and maybe it was a consumer thing, too, but focused on schools, that would

00:44:31 ◼   ► be a very different approach for the iPad. And when I think that's a fun thought experiment

00:44:35 ◼   ► to partake in.

00:44:37 ◼   ► So I've thought of this in two ways, right?

00:44:39 ◼   ► Like if you take a current iPad, there's things you'd have to add to it and things that you'd

00:44:44 ◼   ► have to remove from it probably, right?

00:44:46 ◼   ► To turn an iPad into an iPad.

00:44:48 ◼   ► So I want to break these two things down separately.

00:44:50 ◼   ► So let's first start with what are the things that you would want to add to an iPad to make

00:44:56 ◼   ► it more focused for education?

00:44:58 ◼   ► I think the primary thing is making the product more rugged.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Ruggedability is the main thing that you're looking for.

00:45:10 ◼   ► I look forward to hearing Phil Seeler say that word on stage.

00:45:16 ◼   ► Ruggedability my butt.

00:45:17 ◼   ► That's what he's going to say.

00:45:21 ◼   ► And then they won't update it for four years and everyone will be sad.

00:45:23 ◼   ► I don't know the breakage rate of iPads in education.

00:45:30 ◼   ► So I talked to several people when writing this article and I kind of heard numbers all

00:45:35 ◼   ► over the map so I didn't really include any of them.

00:45:38 ◼   ► But no doubt some percentage of iPads get broken in schools and whatever that number

00:45:42 ◼   ► is schools would like it to be fewer iPads broken in schools.

00:45:46 ◼   ► I mean even if it's like even if you were a school and you'd never had an iPad break

00:45:52 ◼   ► right like never not one but they said this one is more rugged you'd be like gimme it

00:45:57 ◼   ► Right. Because it's it's the thought of what are we going to do if one day like some kid bumps into the cart and pushes them all down the stairs.

00:46:05 ◼   ► Right. Like in Home Alone with the the tour chest, you know, like is this going down the staircase?

00:46:13 ◼   ► So, you know, just the idea of it being more rugged, the idea of increased rugged ability would be a good it's just a good thing to have in an education focused device.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Right, which is why they sell who is it that makes that really weird block rubber case

00:46:31 ◼   ► that is only an education is that Logitech maybe that's like this this weird education

00:46:35 ◼   ► iPad case with a keyboard on it, which is a cool kind of rugged.

00:46:41 ◼   ► I'll find it.

00:46:42 ◼   ► Okay, it'll be in the show notes.

00:46:43 ◼   ► I'm not saying you've got to build that or like, make the thing like an OtterBox but

00:46:48 ◼   ► you could you could swap out the aluminum for something else.

00:46:52 ◼   ► You know, rubbery plastic thing thinking about the iBook G3 like I'm not saying you have

00:46:55 ◼   ► to build something curvy and orange, although if it was orange, more schools would buy it

00:46:58 ◼   ► Apple because people love orange computers.

00:47:01 ◼   ► Something to make it more rugged, you know, I think you have to keep the glass, but having

00:47:05 ◼   ► some sort of lip around it, making it tougher seems like a no brainer for me.

00:47:10 ◼   ► And while you're there, if you add a little battery capacity to get to the school day

00:47:14 ◼   ► easier, that's just a bonus.

00:47:15 ◼   ► I think pencil support would be good.

00:47:17 ◼   ► I view that as less important, but I think it's something that a lot of schools would

00:47:20 ◼   ► be interested in.

00:47:22 ◼   ► And I think a primary thing is some sort of keyboard system.

00:47:28 ◼   ► So I talked to Fraser Spears about this.

00:47:30 ◼   ► In the US, a lot of states for state testing require a hardware keyboard to be used.

00:47:36 ◼   ► I don't really know why that is.

00:47:38 ◼   ► I assume it's to make everyone on the same level playing field or whatever, or some sort

00:47:43 ◼   ► of ancient rule that's just carried on.

00:47:46 ◼   ► But that cheap iPad does not have a smart connector.

00:47:48 ◼   ► And so, if you are buying a bunch of iPad Air 2s

00:47:52 ◼   ► or the fifth generation iPad,

00:47:55 ◼   ► you're also buying a bunch of cases.

00:47:57 ◼   ► And if you buy a thousand iPads

00:47:59 ◼   ► and the cases are 40 bucks a piece,

00:48:01 ◼   ► you spent 40 grand on cases alone.

00:48:04 ◼   ► And then you gotta do the same thing with keyboards.

00:48:05 ◼   ► And so, maybe there's the smart connector

00:48:08 ◼   ► or maybe it's something if we're really going

00:48:10 ◼   ► just deep into this rabbit hole,

00:48:12 ◼   ► like why not have an iPad with a more

00:48:15 ◼   ► permanently attached keyboard

00:48:17 ◼   ► in some sort of clamshell mode?

00:48:18 ◼   ► or something a little more robust than the smart connector.

00:48:21 ◼   ► I think we've all have experienced frustration

00:48:23 ◼   ► with the smart connector in the past.

00:48:25 ◼   ► But having something available to make the keyboard cheaper

00:48:30 ◼   ► and tougher and more reliable seems like a pretty good thing.

00:48:34 ◼   ► - It's the Logitech rugged combo is what I was thinking of.

00:48:40 ◼   ► It is the ugliest case in the world,

00:48:42 ◼   ► but it's made for education.

00:48:46 ◼   ► I put a link in the show notes so you can see it if you want to.

00:48:49 ◼   ► It is horrific.

00:48:51 ◼   ► It takes everything you might like about an iPad,

00:48:53 ◼   ► it makes it uglier, but that's not the point, right?

00:48:56 ◼   ► The point is you make the best, most rugged-y thing

00:48:59 ◼   ► that you can make.

00:49:01 ◼   ► So yeah, in your mind, do you think that the best thing to do

00:49:05 ◼   ► is to change the actual design of the physical product,

00:49:10 ◼   ► or it just comes with this extra case?

00:49:12 ◼   ► What do you think is the best way to get around it?

00:49:14 ◼   ► It may be a change.

00:49:15 ◼   ► I mean, you know, I think if we're saying

00:49:18 ◼   ► Apple should create something for education,

00:49:20 ◼   ► then I think it, I don't think you're bound

00:49:22 ◼   ► by what the current iPad is, so.

00:49:24 ◼   ► - All right, so let's say in this,

00:49:27 ◼   ► in this Steven Hacker product, the E-pad,

00:49:29 ◼   ► would it have pencil support and a smart connector?

00:49:32 ◼   ► - I think it would have pencil support,

00:49:33 ◼   ► and I think it would, if it doesn't have the smart connector,

00:49:36 ◼   ► some sort of like reliable keyboard tech, you know.

00:49:40 ◼   ► I guess smart connector's better than Bluetooth,

00:49:42 ◼   ► so yeah, we'll say smart connector.

00:49:44 ◼   ► And here's something I thought of, right?

00:49:46 ◼   ► Because a lot of these devices are

00:49:47 ◼   ► kept in one of those big carts, which anyone can buy.

00:49:52 ◼   ► If you have 100 iPads at home, it

00:49:55 ◼   ► is possible on Apple's online store

00:49:58 ◼   ► to buy one of those big carts in case you need it,

00:50:00 ◼   ► which is one of the funniest things to me.

00:50:03 ◼   ► I love the idea that they will sell this to anybody.

00:50:06 ◼   ► I'm trying to find it now.

00:50:08 ◼   ► I'll find it and just say how much it costs

00:50:10 ◼   ► to stuff it because it's hilarious.

00:50:11 ◼   ► I think Gray had one before he gave up the iPad.

00:50:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah, he did, he did.

00:50:16 ◼   ► He wheels it around from office to office.

00:50:18 ◼   ► And I was wondering, like, with one of these carts,

00:50:21 ◼   ► like some big solution, would it be, like,

00:50:23 ◼   ► really easy to just have Qi charging

00:50:25 ◼   ► in something like this, so you never have to plug it in?

00:50:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, it could be, it could be Qi charging,

00:50:29 ◼   ► or what a lot of those carts do now

00:50:32 ◼   ► is like the lightning cable is like in the back of the bay,

00:50:36 ◼   ► and then you sort of put the,

00:50:38 ◼   ► slide the iPad in and plug it in.

00:50:41 ◼   ► What the, speaking of the E-Mate,

00:50:45 ◼   ► what the E-Mate did, it has contact points on the bottom.

00:50:48 ◼   ► So you put it in the case or whatever

00:50:51 ◼   ► and it just makes contact with the case and charges.

00:50:54 ◼   ► So it's not wireless,

00:50:55 ◼   ► but you're not plugging something in either.

00:50:57 ◼   ► So I think just some way to charge it more quickly

00:51:00 ◼   ► and in a way that's less fragile,

00:51:02 ◼   ► like we've all broken lightning cables.

00:51:04 ◼   ► Like the one on my desk is like,

00:51:06 ◼   ► all of a sudden, like two days ago,

00:51:07 ◼   ► just started shredding its outer skin like it's a snake.

00:51:10 ◼   ► I don't know why it's doing that.

00:51:12 ◼   ► You don't like that at all.

00:51:17 ◼   ► Something to make charging more easy and more reliable.

00:51:20 ◼   ► Yeah, it's definitely a win.

00:51:21 ◼   ► I think it's an important part of education products for sure.

00:51:25 ◼   ► I actually can't find that cart anymore.

00:51:28 ◼   ► I think they might have taken it off the store, which is really upsetting.

00:51:30 ◼   ► I know it well.

00:51:31 ◼   ► I've put a lot of those together over the years for Max.

00:51:33 ◼   ► So let's talk about the things that you'd have to lose.

00:51:36 ◼   ► Because obviously if it has to get cheaper, right, then you can't make it like an iPad

00:51:43 ◼   ► Pro, right?

00:51:45 ◼   ► You have to take some features away from it to help make it something that can be cheaper.

00:51:50 ◼   ► So what does that look like?

00:51:52 ◼   ► What do you get rid of from the current iPad line to make an education focused iPad?

00:52:00 ◼   ► Just limit the margins.

00:52:02 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:52:04 ◼   ► Alright, but let's work in a world where you can't just...

00:52:08 ◼   ► Well, because as well, you can't just be like,

00:52:11 ◼   ► "Here's an iPad Pro, but now it's $200."

00:52:13 ◼   ► Like, this product has to have some limitations to it, right?

00:52:17 ◼   ► - No, totally. It's all about what compromises you pick.

00:52:20 ◼   ► I think these are pretty obvious, actually.

00:52:22 ◼   ► Like, no LTE option, no True Tone or the...

00:52:28 ◼   ► What is it? 120Hz is called, whatever it's called.

00:52:30 ◼   ► Oh man, what is that called?

00:52:33 ◼   ► Fast scrolling.

00:52:34 ◼   ► They gave it a name, didn't they?

00:52:37 ◼   ► Butter scroll.

00:52:38 ◼   ► Something display?

00:52:39 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:52:40 ◼   ► It makes my brain freak out so I turned it off.

00:52:41 ◼   ► I love it.

00:52:42 ◼   ► I love it.

00:52:43 ◼   ► And you can use older processors in these things.

00:52:47 ◼   ► You don't need...

00:52:48 ◼   ► What's in the iPad Pro now?

00:52:49 ◼   ► The A10?

00:52:50 ◼   ► ProMotion.

00:52:51 ◼   ► ProMotion.

00:52:52 ◼   ► ProMotion.

00:52:53 ◼   ► Do you think I saved people tweeting at us?

00:52:56 ◼   ► No.

00:52:57 ◼   ► Do you think I got it in time?

00:52:58 ◼   ► Nope.

00:52:59 ◼   ► They're tweeting.

00:53:00 ◼   ► And you can use older processors, right?

00:53:02 ◼   ► And less storage, like sort of the standard things.

00:53:05 ◼   ► You can have two speakers instead of the four speakers in the iPad Pro.

00:53:09 ◼   ► But it is a challenge.

00:53:10 ◼   ► We have it.

00:53:11 ◼   ► Rosemary found it.

00:53:12 ◼   ► The Bretford PowerSync cart, $40 for iPad and iPad mini.

00:53:17 ◼   ► Rosemary in the chat found it.

00:53:19 ◼   ► It's $3,000.

00:53:21 ◼   ► But it holds, it can hold 40 and charge 40 devices.

00:53:26 ◼   ► Rosemary saved the day.

00:53:28 ◼   ► There's two in there actually.

00:53:31 ◼   ► There's the Brettford PowerSync 20 and then the Brettford PowerSync 40.

00:53:36 ◼   ► Weirdly the Brettford PowerSync 20 costs two grand and then the 40 costs three grand.

00:53:42 ◼   ► So really you want the 40 you don't want the 20.

00:53:46 ◼   ► The old Mac versions of these carts had timers on them so you would charge the top row of

00:53:50 ◼   ► MacBooks and then it would charge the bottom row of MacBooks because it couldn't charge

00:53:55 ◼   ► them both at once.

00:53:56 ◼   ► And if you screwed it up...

00:53:57 ◼   ► Too much power.

00:53:58 ◼   ► much power. If you screwed it up, the kids like on the bottom road didn't get their computers

00:54:02 ◼   ► didn't get charged in time. They get to adjust the timer. Very exciting. And those things

00:54:06 ◼   ► are built like tanks. I had to replace the timer in one of them once and I thought I

00:54:10 ◼   ► was going to die. Like I was like on my back, like in like the student like teacher lounge

00:54:14 ◼   ► at the school and like my, my arms up above my heads, like trying to change his timer.

00:54:19 ◼   ► And like I dropped a wrench into some terrible words like in elementary school and it was

00:54:22 ◼   ► very exciting. Anyways, what are we talking about? Yes, get rid of all that stuff. But

00:54:28 ◼   ► I do think, I was joking about the margin, but that I think is why, like the most obvious

00:54:35 ◼   ► reason this thing doesn't exist. Apple doesn't think the expense is justifiable, that they

00:54:41 ◼   ► could sell enough of them to make the time and money to develop it and design it worth

00:54:46 ◼   ► it. But two, to sell this at a cheaper price and to put all the things that I want in it

00:54:50 ◼   ► just isn't compatible with what Apple wants to make per product. And I would

00:54:56 ◼   ► imagine that the margin on the EMAC was pretty good because they used a bunch of

00:55:01 ◼   ► old stuff in it and they had to design a case but you know the tech

00:55:06 ◼   ► stuff was all pretty well known. But something like this that's definitely

00:55:12 ◼   ► going to be expensive to develop and to design and to produce and Apple's going

00:55:17 ◼   ► to keep the margin there. And so I think ultimately that's why something like this is not in the cards.

00:55:22 ◼   ► And I got, you know, watch me be wrong about all of this, but I just don't see Apple

00:55:25 ◼   ► developing a new product from scratch and being able to sell it for 300 bucks or 200 bucks.

00:55:30 ◼   ► So why could this product then, you know, in theory, not just be the Jason Snell iOS laptop,

00:55:40 ◼   ► like it would have a keyboard built into it. Um, it still has all the safety and security of iOS,

00:55:47 ◼   ► right, of a Mac OS and whatever it is Apple's trying to do there. And also it'd have a bigger

00:55:52 ◼   ► battery in it most likely if it's in a kind of a laptop form factor you'd maybe have a

00:55:56 ◼   ► bit more space. Like isn't that just what this should be if they're gonna make something

00:56:01 ◼   ► like this?

00:56:02 ◼   ► It definitely could be. I mean I realised that after I wrote my blog post so I was like

00:56:06 ◼   ► "oh well this sort of defeats the whole thought experiment" but...

00:56:08 ◼   ► Shh don't worry about it.

00:56:11 ◼   ► It definitely...

00:56:12 ◼   ► You could still call it the same thing.

00:56:14 ◼   ► called the E-pad. It definitely could be, right? Like, there is a reason the notebook

00:56:19 ◼   ► form factor has done so well for so long. I still think, at least, and others will disagree

00:56:25 ◼   ► with me, that the notebook form factor is superior to an iPad plus a smart keyboard

00:56:30 ◼   ► in a lot of ways. It's not as flexible. That flexibility is not as important in schools,

00:56:35 ◼   ► right, because students are at desks and at tables. They're not like lounging on a couch

00:56:39 ◼   ► doing things on their iPad like the rest of us are.

00:56:41 ◼   ► So yeah, so maybe this is just a cheap notebook

00:56:46 ◼   ► that runs iOS instead of Mac OS.

00:56:48 ◼   ► That'd be a fascinating product.

00:56:50 ◼   ► You know, if that does come true,

00:56:51 ◼   ► I think consumers would want it.

00:56:53 ◼   ► So maybe it jumps into both categories.

00:56:55 ◼   ► But yeah, absolutely.

00:56:56 ◼   ► I think Snell's iBook thing he's talked about for so long

00:57:00 ◼   ► totally answers all the issues I've raised.

00:57:04 ◼   ► - All right, I have one last question for you on this.

00:57:06 ◼   ► And this is about everything, right?

00:57:08 ◼   ► all of this, the E-pad thought experiment stuff,

00:57:10 ◼   ► but also this event in general, right,

00:57:12 ◼   ► that Apple are doing, this education focused event.

00:57:15 ◼   ► Why even do this?

00:57:16 ◼   ► Like, what does Apple actually gain

00:57:19 ◼   ► for spending this much money, time, and effort

00:57:21 ◼   ► on putting their devices in schools?

00:57:23 ◼   ► Like, what is the reason you do this?

00:57:25 ◼   ► - I mean, education is a big market,

00:57:28 ◼   ► and schools do have money to spend,

00:57:30 ◼   ► and they spend a lot of money.

00:57:31 ◼   ► They don't spend it as often as consumers do, right?

00:57:33 ◼   ► Like, Macs and one-to-one deployments in schools,

00:57:37 ◼   ► A, they're often leased, so Apple makes revenue every year, and then every three or four years

00:57:41 ◼   ► they put a bunch of money down and start it over. They spend a lot of money on that hardware, and

00:57:46 ◼   ► I think the more cynical answer, and one that is just as true, is that if a student encounters an

00:57:53 ◼   ► Apple product in a school, they may be more likely to want an Apple product when they're out of

00:57:58 ◼   ► school. And that's icky and weird. It's how you get people in the top of the funnel.

00:58:04 ◼   ► It's how it works. It worked for me, right? Like, you know, I was introduced to the Mac in school

00:58:09 ◼   ► Yeah, and I fell in love with it and it changed my entire me too

00:58:13 ◼   ► Right like seeing an iMac in my school

00:58:16 ◼   ► My school had like three of them and it was my my entire world changed because it was this incredible thing

00:58:23 ◼   ► You know all the computers that I'd used before that were

00:58:26 ◼   ► You know, they were either the green text on the black screen type of thing or they were just junky pcs, right?

00:58:33 ◼   ► And then I saw this iMac and it was like, what is this?

00:58:37 ◼   ► And then it kind of sent me on this path.

00:58:39 ◼   ► So you can still do that, right?

00:58:41 ◼   ► Like you give kids iPads and they're like,

00:58:43 ◼   ► this is brilliant, and then they just want to use iPads

00:58:45 ◼   ► and Apple stuff for the rest of their life.

00:58:47 ◼   ► And the thing is, I don't think that's bad.

00:58:50 ◼   ► I think that's fine.

00:58:51 ◼   ► Like, I think that is a fine thing to do.

00:58:54 ◼   ► Like, it's okay.

00:58:55 ◼   ► Everybody needs technology now, right?

00:58:57 ◼   ► Like it's part of our lives.

00:58:58 ◼   ► So if you're one of these big technology companies,

00:59:01 ◼   ► Focusing to get people while they're young is a good thing. You know, yeah

00:59:04 ◼   ► There is this whole other argument about like the screen time problem that yeah

00:59:09 ◼   ► But believe and feel and right now but that's a conversation with having but I think that schools need technology

00:59:16 ◼   ► And they're not gonna buy from Apple looking about for somebody. So what from Apple's perspective? Why shouldn't it be Apple?

00:59:21 ◼   ► I do my completely unscientific

00:59:25 ◼   ► Like belief on this is that in five years time ten years time?

00:59:30 ◼   ► Maybe twenty we will look back and laugh that this was ever a question

00:59:34 ◼   ► like the biggest screens will just become so much more prevalent in our lives like it is like the idea of

00:59:41 ◼   ► Parents saying to the kids are you don't stop reading, you know, like you're reading books all the time

00:59:46 ◼   ► I believe it to be something like that

00:59:48 ◼   ► Like think of how much we use screens as adults now like it's only gonna continue

00:59:53 ◼   ► So I but anyway, I don't have kids. So, you know

00:59:56 ◼   ► Pinch you can borrow mine anytime you want

00:59:59 ◼   ► Sure, I would love to they're great. Do you think they are great?

01:00:02 ◼   ► I do think that sort of halo effect around education is less than it used to be like in the 90s

01:00:08 ◼   ► when like a

01:00:11 ◼   ► First used the Mac in like fifth grade or something

01:00:13 ◼   ► That was the only place I was gonna see a Mac right like no one owned them

01:00:18 ◼   ► That is a very good point. Like this could be an old way of thinking and I kind of think that I think it's still a

01:00:24 ◼   ► relevant thought but I think it's a less relevant than it used to be because

01:00:27 ◼   ► not that Apple's market share has exploded in Macs, but

01:00:31 ◼   ► With iPhones and iPads like there's not a kid who hasn't used an Apple product at some point, right?

01:00:36 ◼   ► Like it's I'd be hard-pressed to think about

01:00:39 ◼   ► That being true for many

01:00:42 ◼   ► students at least in like relatively well-to-do

01:00:45 ◼   ► areas

01:00:47 ◼   ► And this whole conversation is like bypassing all of that stuff, which we're just not going

01:00:52 ◼   ► to touch.

01:00:53 ◼   ► But students who use technology in some form or fashion have surely seen or used an Apple

01:00:59 ◼   ► product at some point.

01:01:00 ◼   ► So I think it's less important now than it used to be.

01:01:02 ◼   ► But yeah, like in the 90s, the only people buying Macs were schools and publishers.

01:01:06 ◼   ► And like, so unless your parents worked in publishing and bought an old Mac SE home,

01:01:09 ◼   ► you probably weren't going to see one.

01:01:12 ◼   ► At least it was a lot less likely than it is now.

01:01:15 ◼   ► And so I do think that's still an important factor to this, and I think it's something

01:01:19 ◼   ► that Apple thinks about.

01:01:21 ◼   ► And I think that education is just important to the company.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Lastly, I think that they think it's a really important thing in our society, and Apple

01:01:28 ◼   ► truly believes that their products make things better for their users.

01:01:33 ◼   ► And Apple really cares about education, so those two things go really nicely together.

01:01:36 ◼   ► So Apple wants to be there.

01:01:37 ◼   ► They want to serve students and teachers because they believe in what teachers do.

01:01:41 ◼   ► And they make money from it as a business, and they gain lifelong customers.

01:01:44 ◼   ► Like all that's gravy.

01:01:45 ◼   ► So I think it's an important thing for Apple to still pay attention to, even though it

01:01:49 ◼   ► is not as important overall as it used to be.

01:01:52 ◼   ► I mean, education really helped keep Apple afloat for a long time.

01:01:56 ◼   ► That's not true anymore, but I still think they view it as an important part of their

01:02:00 ◼   ► overall strategy.

01:02:01 ◼   ► And I'm hoping that next week shows that that is still true.

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01:03:34 ◼   ► So there was a report from Mark Gurman, which was published sentence by sentence a few days

01:03:42 ◼   ► ago, which was very weird.

01:03:45 ◼   ► In case you don't know what I'm talking about, there was a headline posted, right, on Bloomberg,

01:03:50 ◼   ► and the headline was "Apple is secretly developing its own screens for the first time."

01:03:54 ◼   ► And then there was like an opening paragraph and it said "developing?"

01:03:57 ◼   ► And then over the course of like an hour or something, the whole story got fleshed out.

01:04:01 ◼   ► And I have a theory about this.

01:04:04 ◼   ► If you remember a few weeks ago when Axios published that article about iOS 12 slowing

01:04:11 ◼   ► down, they published it like that.

01:04:14 ◼   ► They published the opening paragraph and then added to it.

01:04:18 ◼   ► Keep getting refresh, get those ad views, son.

01:04:21 ◼   ► Well, I just think more in the case of like, then Goemann's report was old.

01:04:27 ◼   ► So I expect they found this out or were confident enough to publish this and just started to

01:04:31 ◼   ► publish it piece by piece so they in case anybody else had it that's my theory like

01:04:36 ◼   ► they wanted to make sure that they were first and then everybody else could could be late

01:04:41 ◼   ► if they wanted to because I've never seen them publish a story like that before where

01:04:45 ◼   ► it's just like piece by piece and ended up being a large article very strange anyway

01:04:49 ◼   ► not important so the report is that Apple is currently developing and producing their

01:04:54 ◼   ► own micro LED displays this is a new technology it uses different light emitting compounds

01:05:00 ◼   ► to OLED and the reason that it is something that people are interested in is it can reduce

01:05:06 ◼   ► the overall component sizes which of course as Apple would be interested in can make devices

01:05:12 ◼   ► smaller because Apple loves to make devices smaller but it can also reduce power requirements

01:05:18 ◼   ► and the screens can be brighter on micro LED than on OLED. Micro LED is apparently extremely

01:05:26 ◼   ► difficult to manufacture and Apple's been working on it for a few years. It's been apparently

01:05:31 ◼   ► a very up and down situation but they finally got it to a place where they're happy with

01:05:35 ◼   ► it. Apple are not going to make these themselves, like they're not going to build their own

01:05:40 ◼   ► factory. They have their own plant in Santa Clara, California right now. There are about

01:05:44 ◼   ► 300 engineers working on it according to Bloomberg. But they will specify the entire design for

01:05:51 ◼   ► these screens to a third party manufacturer in the same way that they do their processes.

01:05:56 ◼   ► Now the way that Apple currently works with screens, I'm not 100% sure how it works. So

01:06:03 ◼   ► in Mark Gurman's report, he says that Apple uses Samsung designed displays, which they make their

01:06:09 ◼   ► own calibration to afterwards. John Gruber posted an article on during Fireball saying that iPhone

01:06:14 ◼   ► 10 screens are an Apple design, which have been years in the making and that they do this because

01:06:20 ◼   ► Apple, Samsung sorry, is the only company in the world that could produce the displays at scale

01:06:25 ◼   ► and they're not off the shelf, they're an Apple design and that because Samsung and Apple are arch

01:06:30 ◼   ► rivals they want to move away from this. I don't know how these are made like whether it is Apple

01:06:36 ◼   ► just buying a screen from Samsung and calibrating it or they tell Samsung how they want them made

01:06:41 ◼   ► and Samsung makes them but the point is that Apple can fully specify a design with this micro LED

01:06:48 ◼   ► stuff and then have it made in a way that they can't right now. Like Samsung

01:06:52 ◼   ► has to be involved in this in some way. Samsung is the only company that's able

01:06:56 ◼   ► to do it for them and that maybe this isn't the arrangement they want to be in.

01:07:00 ◼   ► Now, and there's nobody else that they can go to, right? As it turns out right

01:07:04 ◼   ► now, as you've seen with other phones like the Pixel 2, other OLEDs are not

01:07:09 ◼   ► as good as what Samsung can make. And that's why Samsung's screens in their

01:07:13 ◼   ► own phones are so good because they are the best right now at making them.

01:07:17 ◼   ► So let me, one of the things that's really interesting about this, so the micro LED stuff,

01:07:26 ◼   ► it requires this process called LED transfer.

01:07:30 ◼   ► That's one of the processes you need and it's something about like having all these, I think

01:07:34 ◼   ► you have like three LEDs, like a red, green and blue in one pixel and it's this really

01:07:39 ◼   ► complicated process to get these to work and it requires this thing called LED transfer.

01:07:44 ◼   ► Apple bought a company called Luxview in 2014 which owns the intellectual property for this

01:07:49 ◼   ► process. So it seems like if this is the only way you can do this that Apple will be the

01:07:55 ◼   ► only company that can make micro LED displays. So that's why they're doing all of this because

01:08:02 ◼   ► OLED they have to go to somebody else for but micro LED will be theirs and if micro

01:08:07 ◼   ► LED turns out to be better than we're in the retina era all over again, right?

01:08:12 ◼   ► Where like Apple can make these screens, however it is that they do it, their way

01:08:16 ◼   ► and nobody else can do it or everyone's super far behind until they can come up

01:08:20 ◼   ► with their own process to make something akin to micro LED.

01:08:22 ◼   ► So that's why they would want to do this, because Apple own the intellectual

01:08:27 ◼   ► property to make these displays and other people can't do it right now.

01:08:31 ◼   ► So then they would maybe go to like LG or Sharp or someone and say like,

01:08:36 ◼   ► this is how you do it, we're going to set up this factory with you, and then you're going to make

01:08:40 ◼   ► these displays for us. Which again, is something they do all over the place. Which is they do this

01:08:45 ◼   ► for like processors, right? All their processors are done this way. They set up a design, help

01:08:49 ◼   ► companies set up factories and do it. They did it with a glass, that glass factory, and then they

01:08:54 ◼   ► ended up not using their glass, the Sapphire one, and that company basically exploded, right? Yeah.

01:08:58 ◼   ► So this is something that Apple do, and it's something that they will do for these. Now,

01:09:03 ◼   ► According to Mark Gurman, these screen technologies are multiple years away.

01:09:08 ◼   ► Like this is multiple years away still. And if and when Apple do this, it will likely start with the

01:09:14 ◼   ► Apple Watch because it's a smaller display and they need less of them. And if it works, it will

01:09:18 ◼   ► move to the iPhone in maybe five or six years time, something like that. What do you think

01:09:22 ◼   ► about all this? I think it makes total sense. Apple is a company that wants to control as much

01:09:28 ◼   ► of its hardware stack as possible. Like they do the processors, they're doing the GPUs now on

01:09:33 ◼   ► iOS devices. They want to control as much as possible. I don't buy personally this like,

01:09:41 ◼   ► oh, it's Samsung. No, I don't either. I think that's baloney because like both Samsung and Apple

01:09:47 ◼   ► are probably like, it's like whatever, right? Like Samsung want to make the screens for Apple

01:09:53 ◼   ► because there's so many of them. Yes. Apple want to buy the screens from Samsung because they're

01:09:56 ◼   ► the best. Everyone just goes along with it. Like, I don't feel that like, oh, we have

01:10:01 ◼   ► to make these so we get away from Samsung. I think it's just Apple want to have something

01:10:05 ◼   ► that's better than everybody else. And if they believe that this technology is best,

01:10:10 ◼   ► then they will do that. Because then if it is that good, and they're the only ones that

01:10:14 ◼   ► can make it, that's another selling point, right?

01:10:16 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, I think the Apple versus Samsung like that exists in the consumer realm. But

01:10:20 ◼   ► we're talking about manufacturing a like with Samsung, at least that's a very different

01:10:25 ◼   ► part of their company. Samsung is enormous and I think they're operating on a different

01:10:31 ◼   ► level at that point. But I do think that there is something to be said for not it being Samsung

01:10:38 ◼   ► and that's icky, but just being beholden to someone else controlling things. If you think

01:10:46 ◼   ► years ago Apple bought up some giant percentage of all the NAND flash in the world for iPods

01:10:53 ◼   ► early iPhones. And they did that to help guarantee that they could get the parts they wanted.

01:11:00 ◼   ► And with the Samsung display, and you know, wherever the truth is between like the two

01:11:05 ◼   ► different ports, clearly at the very least Apple is tinkering with the Samsung display

01:11:10 ◼   ► to get exactly what they want. And I would imagine they would rather control the whole

01:11:15 ◼   ► thing. And again, that doesn't mean they're making their own screens directly. But they're,

01:11:19 ◼   ► you know, they're going in partnership with somebody, they're building a factory, they

01:11:21 ◼   ► They own the factory, they own the output of the factory,

01:11:23 ◼   ► and the company manufactures it.

01:11:24 ◼   ► So this makes tons of sense to me.

01:11:27 ◼   ► It sounds like this technology is better than OLED,

01:11:29 ◼   ► which honestly, you having the iPhone X now for,

01:11:33 ◼   ► what is it, coming up on five or six months?

01:11:35 ◼   ► I've been really happy with the display.

01:11:38 ◼   ► And to a point where I pick up an older iPhone

01:11:42 ◼   ► or another device, I'm like,

01:11:43 ◼   ► I kinda want OLED on everything.

01:11:45 ◼   ► It's really great.

01:11:47 ◼   ► And I think that it's clearly where Apple's gonna go

01:11:52 ◼   ► for the next few years.

01:11:54 ◼   ► But it seems like in this report

01:11:57 ◼   ► and other things I've read about micro LED

01:11:59 ◼   ► that it makes everything good about OLED,

01:12:01 ◼   ► it makes it even better.

01:12:02 ◼   ► And that's awesome.

01:12:04 ◼   ► So I'm excited to see what this looks like.

01:12:05 ◼   ► And I think starting with the Apple Watch

01:12:07 ◼   ► makes a ton of sense.

01:12:08 ◼   ► There was a detail in this report

01:12:09 ◼   ► that Apple, like in this Santa Clara place,

01:12:13 ◼   ► they're making these micro LED displays by hand.

01:12:15 ◼   ► like, like, like, it's like Etsy shop for displays, but they're using them in prototypes,

01:12:21 ◼   ► right? Like, so they are using prototype Apple Watch boards and stuff with these displays.

01:12:27 ◼   ► And like, I had never really thought about that. But it makes a ton of sense that if

01:12:30 ◼   ► if you were doing an R&D project on new hardware, why not use that in your prototypes for devices

01:12:35 ◼   ► because you can control in house right like we don't hear leaks, like hardware manufacturing

01:12:40 ◼   ► leaks the way we have in the past. Maybe this is one reason why because Apple is doing more

01:12:45 ◼   ► this in-house. And I totally believe it's happening. I totally believe that if they

01:12:49 ◼   ► can make this work, Apple would want to do this. Clearly they're spending a lot of money

01:12:54 ◼   ► and effort on this. And I think that they believe it'll pay off. And I agree. I think

01:12:57 ◼   ► it could be something that would set future phones apart from their rivals.

01:13:02 ◼   ► It is wild to think that they would own a potential screen technology. Like that feels

01:13:06 ◼   ► like something that someone, not one company should own, right? Not in a bad way, but like

01:13:10 ◼   ► Like it just feels like screen technology previously has kind of just been this thing

01:13:14 ◼   ► where screens are made in these certain ways.

01:13:17 ◼   ► And then like everyone can try and make the best one that they can, you know, like LCD

01:13:22 ◼   ► and LED and OLED and stuff.

01:13:25 ◼   ► And now Apple will potentially own this process for a while.

01:13:29 ◼   ► Like my expectation is, is like if these end up being that good, someone will just work

01:13:33 ◼   ► out another way to make them.

01:13:34 ◼   ► That like doesn't, isn't this specific process.

01:13:38 ◼   ► Apple have a head start because like this company, they bought this company four years

01:13:42 ◼   ► ago and they were doing it. Like they worked it out. So like that is a head start, right?

01:13:47 ◼   ► They've got a whole big thing. Like, you know, they've got a whole situation set up right

01:13:52 ◼   ► now where they're building these things. I think it's very interesting. It is more of

01:13:58 ◼   ► like a question for me of like, with the amount of money that Apple has, like it's still surprising

01:14:04 ◼   ► to me that they just don't set up their own factories that they own and just run it themselves.

01:14:07 ◼   ► I guess it's just that they don't want to deal with the hassle of doing that.

01:14:11 ◼   ► Right. Like so that they give it to these third party companies.

01:14:13 ◼   ► It is really funny that like they they do all this work.

01:14:16 ◼   ► They create these these prototypes and you build it.

01:14:18 ◼   ► Right. It just seems kind of funny to me.

01:14:20 ◼   ► Yeah. And if they're going to manufacture them in China, which in this climate they

01:14:24 ◼   ► may say they're going to do in the U.S. but say it's in China in particular, that's

01:14:27 ◼   ► just not Apple's strong suit. And there are companies there.

01:14:30 ◼   ► It's like they're this is what they do.

01:14:34 ◼   ► And you're talking about the Apple Watch.

01:14:36 ◼   ► that's one thing, but you know what the iPhone like that needs the scale of China manufacturing

01:14:40 ◼   ► they're not going to be making iPhone screens in California or Texas or somewhere you know they

01:14:44 ◼   ► made the trashcan Mac Pro in Texas and I guess there's still like one dude there making one

01:14:49 ◼   ► every few weeks but um this if it really goes as broadly as they seem to want it to then yeah the

01:14:56 ◼   ► only way forward is to to go to a Foxconn or a Sharp or somebody and say hey this is our you know

01:15:02 ◼   ► patented way of doing this and these are the metrics and you're going to start building

01:15:07 ◼   ► them and then we will buy 100% of the yield. So yeah, it's exciting. You know, I've been

01:15:11 ◼   ► so impressed with OLED and I just, it's exciting to think about what could be next.

01:15:15 ◼   ► Is that the show? That feels like the show, man. We did it.

01:15:18 ◼   ► All right. I don't, I don't have any more old Apple stories, so it seems like it's,

01:15:21 ◼   ► it's time to wind it down. Are you sure? I don't believe that. I don't believe that's the case.

01:15:26 ◼   ► Well, nothing, nothing's coming to mind. Okay.

01:15:29 ◼   ► I've been, I spent like two days making a YouTube video so I can't, it's a lot of

01:15:34 ◼   ► thought process went into this show and now I'm very tired.

01:15:37 ◼   ► youtube.com/512pixels.

01:15:38 ◼   ► That's right.

01:15:39 ◼   ► Smash that subscribe button.

01:15:41 ◼   ► The video will be up about the time the podcast goes up I think.

01:15:44 ◼   ► It's good one, I've seen it already because I'm like that.

01:15:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:47 ◼   ► It's good.

01:15:48 ◼   ► Yeah, because you're a 512 member and you get the newsletter.

01:15:49 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:15:50 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:15:51 ◼   ► So I did upload the other thing that I, okay.

01:15:53 ◼   ► Yeah, I noticed that.

01:15:54 ◼   ► If you want to find show notes for this week, and there are a bunch of show notes you should

01:15:57 ◼   ► look at this week like the Beatles iPod just click that one and buy a WDC ticket

01:16:02 ◼   ► do that first and then look at the Beatles iPod you can find all that stuff

01:16:05 ◼   ► in your podcast app of choice or on the web at relay.fm/connected/185

01:16:12 ◼   ► coming up on 200 man that's bananas you can get in touch with us there as well

01:16:18 ◼   ► there's an email link that comes to me so just send nice things to the email

01:16:21 ◼   ► please if you have something bad to say about the show you can find Federico on

01:16:25 ◼   ► Twitter at V-T-G-V-I-T-I-C-C-I. You can tweet Myke, I-M-Y-K-E, and you can find me there

01:16:34 ◼   ► at @ismh. We have some also sponsors that made this all possible, Squarespace, Anchor,

01:16:39 ◼   ► and Ting, go check them out. And I guess until next time, Myke, say goodbye.

01:16:44 ◼   ► - Cheerio! - Adios.