0:00:00[Music]
0:00:07From Relay FM this is Connected episode
0:00:10114. Today's show is brought to you by
0:00:13TextExpander
0:00:14from Smile. My name is Myke Hurley and I
0:00:17am joined by Mr Federico Vittucci. Ciao
0:00:19Federico.
0:00:20Oh hey ciao Myke. And Stephen Hackett it
0:00:22is your day.
0:00:23It is your evening. You got the event
0:00:25that you've always dreamed of.
0:00:26How was Stephen Hackett?
0:00:28- That may be going a little far.
0:00:30(laughing)
0:00:31- The Macintosh, everybody.
0:00:33- Yeah, they still make one of 'em.
0:00:35- At least.
0:00:36- So, yeah, so we're gonna skip follow-up this week.
0:00:40As you might imagine, we have a lot to cover,
0:00:42but it will return next week.
0:00:44I wanna talk a little bit about the lead-up to this event,
0:00:49because I think it's interesting to talk about
0:00:51framing in these things.
0:00:53So yesterday, or two days ago,
0:00:57Someone found images in Sierra of what
0:01:01ended up being the MacBook Pro with the touch bar.
0:01:06In what seems to be some sort of Apple Pay framework folders--
0:01:10in my blog post, I actually found where it is
0:01:12and put the path.
0:01:13But it shipped in 10.12.1, which is really unfortunate.
0:01:19Doubling down on secrecy doesn't count
0:01:20if you're a software developer, I guess.
0:01:22I mean, clearly an accident.
0:01:23I feel bad for the person who did this.
0:01:26and then got fired.
0:01:27- You know, I've been thinking about that,
0:01:30and I think that would have happened in old Apple.
0:01:35Today, I'm not so sure.
0:01:37I don't know if they would have been canned or not,
0:01:38but they definitely had a bad day,
0:01:40regardless of what happened,
0:01:41but it leaked and they really took some of the edge
0:01:44out of the surprise, obviously,
0:01:46but kind of painful when it's in Apple's own software.
0:01:49- Yeah, it was less than ideal, I think,
0:01:53especially now, like in hindsight,
0:01:56It was like, this was the main thing,
0:01:58pretty much the only thing that was really big today
0:02:02was this innovation, plus it shows off
0:02:05a lot of the design functionality and features
0:02:09of this product and also set the bad tone
0:02:12of this doesn't have an escape key,
0:02:14which everybody was really upset about for two days.
0:02:17And then it's just like everyone going into this
0:02:21who really cared about the MacBook Pro
0:02:23had a poorer version of it in their mind.
0:02:26So this is the problem with all of this stuff,
0:02:30how the narrative gets twisted.
0:02:32The MacBook, remember the MacBook with the one port?
0:02:36We were all hating on it before it even arrived
0:02:39because we knew it had one port.
0:02:41I mean, even after the story was told,
0:02:43there wasn't really a great reason for it.
0:02:44But there just was nothing that we're able to,
0:02:50we're all just getting our own minds made up about it before we could even see it
0:02:55and that kind of happened here. So I can't imagine they're very happy at least.
0:02:58Yeah but I mean we already knew the touch bar was coming. So I mean yes it was a leak and it's less than intentional
0:03:04especially when it looks like someone just forgot about a bunch of graphic assets in a folder.
0:03:10But I don't think it's a big deal. I mean the press knew it was coming. Normal people don't go on to my
0:03:15go on to my crew and say "oh look they found some images in a folder in the
0:03:20finder they don't even know what it means" so I mean it was mostly a leak for
0:03:24people in the know which is us and I don't think it's a big deal. Honestly
0:03:29sometimes I think Apple doesn't want surprises anymore to the extent of the
0:03:34kind of features they know the press and the tech nerds are gonna obsess about
0:03:38like the headphone jack for example obviously it was no you know real leak
0:03:44when they first, you know, get out to the press. Because I feel like sometimes I
0:03:48just want to get the most, the aspects that they know people are gonna criticize,
0:03:54let that sink in for a few days or for the headphone jack a few months and
0:03:59then do the event as usual and focus on the software, focus on what it means.
0:04:03That's how I view it.
0:04:06To your point, the leaked images lack context, right?
0:04:09That, like the escape key thing, like in the human interface guides that key is
0:04:13is supposed to be there basically almost all the time.
0:04:16But without that, without the full knowledge
0:04:19of what Apple's gonna do, then we all sort of run around
0:04:21with our hair on fire and we're gonna get to
0:04:24like actual responses to the thing, but I just,
0:04:27when I saw that leak and like, yep, sure enough,
0:04:29it's sitting on my SSD and everyone else's,
0:04:31it's a real unfortunate event.
0:04:34- One thing though, like the best kind of way
0:04:38for something like this to break
0:04:40is for it to exist on all of our computers.
0:04:42Right, like it's quite possibly the best way for a product to be leaked accidentally, is
0:04:48we all have the image if we update it to Sierra.
0:04:51Right, it's like the best possible way of something leaking out is it's like it's a
0:04:57Trojan horse.
0:04:58We all have it.
0:04:59We all have the leak.
0:05:00It's just if we found it or not.
0:05:01It's kind of hilarious.
0:05:02Right, it's very efficient.
0:05:04Talking about efficiency, AirPods are not shipping this month and we don't know when
0:05:09they're going to be shipping now.
0:05:11Yeah, that was that was weird, right?
0:05:13I mean because we kind of hoped that there would be an announcement today like they're shipping tomorrow, but nope surprise
0:05:20We got a statement to TechCrunch and a bunch of other people. They're coming soon now if you go to the website
0:05:26There's no more late October just coming soon. And I mean, okay, you know
0:05:31I remember the old Miyamoto quote that a delayed game is eventually good that rushed game is forever bad
0:05:37and if you apply that line of thinking to the AirPods, I mean, you know, it'll be
0:05:43better hopefully to have a good product than a rushed one, which happened many
0:05:47many times with Apple in the past few years, so it's okay if they want to get
0:05:51it right. It's just the messaging of "we want to remove the headphone jack",
0:05:57"we want to embrace wireless audio" and then, you know, the AirPods are
0:06:02not coming. The W1 chip with the Beats rollout has been all kinds of weird like
0:06:08the the Solo 3 launched early, the other two models were not available until
0:06:13earlier this week, you still cannot buy the Beats X whatever is the name, so I
0:06:18feel like they made this big splashy statement about we wanna you know move
0:06:24to a wireless future but then you know now everything is coming soon and there's
0:06:29Because if you want to try the W1 experience, you gotta buy the Beats products.
0:06:33Yeah, it's a shame.
0:06:34I was excited for them.
0:06:37And I was, you know, I'm going on a trip this weekend, and I was going to get those or,
0:06:44you know, because I want Bluetooth headphones now because traveling means I need Bluetooth
0:06:48because it just won't work for me otherwise.
0:06:50So now I might end up with the Solo 3s.
0:06:53I might go make it those, I don't know.
0:06:54I'm gonna see what's available in the airport this weekend.
0:06:58It's a shame. Yeah, I mean and the timing does make sense, right?
0:07:01If they if this event had come and gone with no word and that would be in
0:07:05The news cycle with all these new machines, but having it the night before everyone kind of understands it. We're all bummed
0:07:12I'm like you guys like I'm super interested in this product. I was hoping that I could order today or tomorrow
0:07:16but
0:07:19Getting it out the night before means that it's not
0:07:21Caught up in the MacBook cycle and like it's it's a very short cycle
0:07:25We do it last night and then you know 16 hours later you have an event
0:07:29Then this just gets swept off the front page of every everyone's Apple blog, so mm-hmm it will
0:07:34You know they'll show up eventually. I'm hoping that they get them in plenty of time for the holidays
0:07:40I think this is a sort of thing that like make a great gift for Apple nerds in your life
0:07:44So hopefully they only need a couple more weeks, and they can get these things shipping all right should we move on to the event?
0:07:50What event?
0:07:53I feel like you had that joke, you came up with it like an hour ago.
0:08:01Just natural, it just came out.
0:08:03It's just your natural humour and wit.
0:08:05I guess, yes Myke.
0:08:07Well there was an event about the Mac, did you see it or did you just, you know.
0:08:11About the what?
0:08:17Steven, I would like to apologize on behalf of the continent of Europe for Federico's
0:08:23behavior.
0:08:24Yes.
0:08:25It's, you know, young people and parties and drugs, it's all madness over there.
0:08:29iPads raining from the skies.
0:08:32So the event opened with this, what I thought at least, an excellent section on accessibility.
0:08:42And they showed this video of people interacting with Apple products and then you kind of see
0:08:48the video itself as meta and that the person actually editing the video is in a wheelchair
0:08:55and using lots of accessibility options and techniques to edit the video.
0:09:01And it really reminded me, you guys remember the video a couple of years ago, maybe at
0:09:07WWDC with the...
0:09:09It was the blind man who was in the forest, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. I got the same like warm fuzzy feeling
0:09:17Watching this video as I did a couple years ago with that one. I thought was a great way to start start off the event
0:09:23Yeah, there were a lot of things in there that I didn't know
0:09:26that the products did because I you know, like
0:09:28The most time that I've ever spent with voiceover was when we were getting the app ready with our stickers
0:09:36I was working on all of the voiceover names,
0:09:40which was an interesting experience
0:09:42as I was trying to get the phone to say things
0:09:45the way that they should be heard.
0:09:46Vitici Seal of Quality was a nightmare.
0:09:50To get it to say Vitici, that was very difficult.
0:09:53But using that was like, it was really interesting to me
0:09:56to see like, how the phone feels with that feature enabled.
0:10:01And something that I had no idea that it did
0:10:04was giving some kind of prompts with the camera app,
0:10:08'cause they showed somebody using it
0:10:10and it was like focused on small face
0:10:12and it was like, oh my word, that's amazing.
0:10:15You know, like it can work that out
0:10:17and it can give that information.
0:10:19I thought it was, that was kind of mind blowing.
0:10:21Like there were all these little things
0:10:22that I had no idea these products did
0:10:25because I've never needed them
0:10:27and I've never tried them out.
0:10:28- Yeah, it's really great.
0:10:32And it was sort of an announcement that
0:10:36apple.com/accessibility has been greatly overhauled.
0:10:40This video we're talking about is at the top of the page.
0:10:43There's a page and section about Switch Control,
0:10:46which is what you see in those last shots
0:10:49of the video being edited.
0:10:51And it's a really nice way that they're breaking down
0:10:55what they're doing.
0:10:56And I think a lot of people, including myself,
0:10:58when I think about Apple and accessibility,
0:10:59I think about iOS first.
0:11:01and I think they've made greater strides there.
0:11:04But highlighting that it's on the Mac as well
0:11:06and that they care about it across their ecosystem,
0:11:08like there's even a section in here about HomeKit
0:11:12and Apple TV and what it can do in the accessibility realm.
0:11:16It's painting a broader picture than they have in the past
0:11:18about what they're doing.
0:11:20And just two big thumbs up from me.
0:11:23- Yeah, it was a nice thing to do
0:11:25rather than to wheel out some celebrities instead.
0:11:28To actually make a meaningful video
0:11:31which highlights something about the products,
0:11:33which is important, but not everybody will understand
0:11:35or know anything about.
0:11:37So, thumbs up.
0:11:38- Indeed.
0:11:40So they then went into sort of like state of the union stuff
0:11:45which Apple used to do more of
0:11:46and they haven't done it in recent events.
0:11:48But talking about the iPhone 7 and the Apple Watch,
0:11:51got a couple stats, 60% of the iOS install base
0:11:55is now on iOS 10.
0:11:57And then we had a section of what I've called in my notes
0:11:59of Tim shows us his emails.
0:12:02(laughing)
0:12:03- This is excruciating to watch.
0:12:06Just Tim was like, and our customers have emailed
0:12:09their photos, like this one, and this one,
0:12:13and this, like why did he keep,
0:12:15I don't know why he did it.
0:12:17- Time.
0:12:19- Also like, don't show us the most beautiful photos
0:12:22in the world of like people that look like models.
0:12:26Because I don't believe you.
0:12:28I don't believe that they were your customers.
0:12:30They may have well been, but I can't,
0:12:31I just can't believe it.
0:12:32Show me, like, I don't know.
0:12:34Do you know what I mean?
0:12:35They look exactly like the photos that they show on stage
0:12:38when they're trying to demo the product.
0:12:40- There is a little bit of precedent for this.
0:12:46Back in the day when like iMovie was a big push,
0:12:49Steve Jobs used to show iMovies that customers had made,
0:12:54and like there was a line somewhere of like,
0:12:57I may be such a big hit with customers,
0:12:59it's so easy to use, they just keep sending us
0:13:00their home videos, which is even stranger, right?
0:13:03Like, I could see, like, I took this,
0:13:05I mean, it's weird, right, and I would never do it,
0:13:06like, I would never send Tim Cook a picture that I took.
0:13:09But it's even stranger, like, hey, Tim,
0:13:12here's, or hey, Steve, here is a movie that I made
0:13:14of my four-year-old, you know, running in the park,
0:13:17I really wanted to share it with you,
0:13:18CEO of a giant corporation.
0:13:20- It's like, I am very confident that you wanna see this,
0:13:23so I'm gonna send it to you.
0:13:24- Well I mean if you work in the marketing department
0:13:27and you need to buy your devices,
0:13:29do you count as a customer or as an employee?
0:13:32- Oh. (laughing)
0:13:34- I believe him, I believe him that they were,
0:13:36I mean I take him at his word, but it's--
0:13:38- I mean it would be silly to lie,
0:13:40but like I just mean they should,
0:13:41I don't know, they should look more real.
0:13:43They should, the focus is--
0:13:45- No seriously, who are these people who email Tim Cook
0:13:48about their baby pictures and the dogs and the vacations?
0:13:52Have either of you ever emailed an Apple executive?
0:13:55No.
0:13:56I responded to one, but emailed myself.
0:13:59Oh, ho, ho, ho, look at me.
0:14:01What about you, Myke?
0:14:03That's the truth.
0:14:04I'm sorry I spoke the truth.
0:14:06Yeah, sure, yeah, that was the question that Steven asked.
0:14:09Have any of you emailed an Apple executive after they emailed you first?
0:14:15Insert humblebrag here.
0:14:16Other than me replying to Tim sending me his holiday snaps, no, I've never.
0:14:21(laughter)
0:14:23Oh my gosh.
0:14:25They moved on, talk about Apple Pay
0:14:27and transit and maps in Japan,
0:14:30which is a big move.
0:14:30Remember the iPhone 7 has some specific hardware in Japan
0:14:34to do contactless stuff.
0:14:36So kind of a check in on that.
0:14:37- I think it's called Seleka or something.
0:14:39It's spelt like that.
0:14:40- Something.
0:14:40- I'm not 100% sure of the pronunciation.
0:14:43- Talked about the Apple Watch,
0:14:45recounted some reviews,
0:14:47reminded people that the Nike Plus Apple Watch
0:14:50with its abomination of a watch band
0:14:51is shipping October 28th.
0:14:53But I wanted to take a minute and talk about
0:14:57the Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2,
0:15:00at least when I looked the other day,
0:15:02almost every model is still shipping
0:15:03like two to three weeks out.
0:15:05Like they seem to not be shipping at any great volume,
0:15:08release volume that can keep up with demand.
0:15:10So you still can't really get your hands
0:15:12on most Apple Watch models, like if you want one today.
0:15:16Which they didn't, I mean,
0:15:17they're not gonna say anything about it.
0:15:19That didn't even come up on the quarterly call yesterday,
0:15:21which I thought that it might.
0:15:22You know, some supply and demand thing there.
0:15:25But right now, if you want an Apple Watch Series 2,
0:15:28you can go into a store and they have limited options
0:15:32in the store, but if you just want to order one online,
0:15:34you're gonna be waiting for a couple weeks still.
0:15:36- Good thing? - Still, it's been like
0:15:37a month.
0:15:38- Good thing, maybe?
0:15:39Like for Apple?
0:15:41- Maybe.
0:15:42I mean, who knows, right?
0:15:43If they've only made eight, but they've sold 16,
0:15:47they would still be behind, right?
0:15:49Like you don't know what the numbers are.
0:15:51But it's, that just popped in my head of like,
0:15:54"Oh yeah, those things are still slow to ship."
0:15:56But I don't know, none of us have ordered new watches,
0:15:59so I guess we can't speak to that.
0:16:01- Yeah, I was going to, I'm not going to now.
0:16:06But I don't need it, I'm fine.
0:16:07- Yeah, watchOS 3 makes the original hardware fine.
0:16:10- Yeah.
0:16:11- It's totally usable, my battery life is still great
0:16:13on the bigger of the two, like I've got no complaints.
0:16:17And if I was a swimmer it'd be different, but I'm not.
0:16:19So I'm not worried about the waterproof stuff.
0:16:22- Adina had like two or three weeks
0:16:24where it was dying every day under 38, and that's fine.
0:16:27Which is weird, it's even weirder.
0:16:29It's like inconsistent.
0:16:30- Yeah, I saw some people on Twitter complaining about that.
0:16:33Maybe an update took care of it, I mean, who knows?
0:16:35- Yeah, good point, yeah, yeah, good point.
0:16:37- What is the Apple TV stuff?
0:16:40Federico, can you walk us through that?
0:16:43- Basically they announced this new TV app,
0:16:46which is called just TV.
0:16:48First they started with some numbers,
0:16:50the TV OS app store has like 8,000 apps.
0:16:54Minecraft is coming to TV OS before the end of the year
0:16:57and they show this 1600 content apps,
0:17:02which are basically like video services,
0:17:04you know, entertainment apps.
0:17:06And there was Twitter on stage showing off live video,
0:17:09not Vine, which is being killed off,
0:17:12but Twitter was showing like American football,
0:17:15whatever it is that Americans call that sport.
0:17:18Moving on. - This finally kind of made
0:17:21a little bit of sense to me why Twitter ever made this bid
0:17:24in the first place.
0:17:25Like, there was news about this a while ago
0:17:27that they'd bought the rights to NFL games.
0:17:29Make no sense, like why would they do that?
0:17:32If this is something that they wanna do,
0:17:33this makes a little bit of sense.
0:17:35I think I saw Jason Snow tweet that he would like
0:17:39to do this during something like the Oscars,
0:17:41which I agree with.
0:17:42Like a big event like that where there's kind of like
0:17:45Not a lot that you need to pay attention to
0:17:47Maybe having Twitter up like scrolling through and seeing what's popular and what's trending about the things that are happening might be kind of fun
0:17:55I can't think of anything that I enjoy
0:17:58To watch on the television that I would like this experience for though
0:18:02I don't know if people that enjoy sports would want this. I don't know I
0:18:07Think I think Casey seemed pumped about it on online earlier, but I've never
0:18:14Trying to think I think during the first presidential debate I watched it on Twitter for a little while and it I
0:18:21Just got to a point where was distracting to see
0:18:24Video and then a bunch of tweets from like selected accounts go by and it was kind of like too much stuff coming in on
0:18:29the web or something
0:18:31Yes, okay
0:18:33and
0:18:34You know for me like I mean I like any other
0:18:38young person in air quotes will
0:18:42Often watch TV or movies like with my iPad or iPhone like looking at Twitter looking at slack like that
0:18:46The second screen thing is is something that I do
0:18:49It's probably not good for my attention span, but something that I do
0:18:52And so like for me like do I want to watch a game and then watch other people's tweets or do I want to watch?
0:18:57Like the people I follow tweet about it, right?
0:19:01Like do I want to watch a presidential debate and like follow my political nerds on my Twitter list for politics, you know
0:19:07for me it
0:19:09It only really it doesn't really do what Twitter was designed to do because it doesn't give me interactions with people that I choose to follow
0:19:17Like that's kind of the whole point of Twitter, but I mean they're gonna be out of business in like six weeks
0:19:21so it doesn't really matter but
0:19:23It was strange to me that it got so much attention today during the event
0:19:26No idea. Yeah, no idea. Anyway, um, I'm I will try my best to explain this as someone who doesn't watch video on the Apple TV
0:19:35Apple is making a new app called TV, not TV guide or list or something just TV, which aggregates
0:19:42content from
0:19:45multiple apps in a single place and
0:19:48there's a bunch of sections like your favorites, your library or for you, which in this case means
0:19:55you can resume videos you've started watching and then paused or
0:20:00there's some curated sections from Apple editors picking out stuff for you and all of this content comes from different apps
0:20:08so it's like an aggregator for Apple TV content and when you click on
0:20:13For example, like a thumbnail or Game of Thrones then you're taken to the HBO Now app. So it's like a
0:20:20Forgive me for the use of the term like a launchpad for
0:20:25multiple Apple TV apps and it's meant to be, I guess, a quick way to see what you
0:20:31should be watching without having to navigate the Apple TV interface. I just
0:20:36found it funny that the future of TV is apps and now the future of the future is
0:20:42an app for the apps, kinda? You know? What this felt like to me is Apple Music and
0:20:51Apple News. It's the continuation of that strategy of Apple creating a hub for stuff
0:20:59and I know music is slightly different.
0:21:02My question is, why is this not the main TV OS interface? Why does it need to be a separate
0:21:08app? It just feels like the interaction model of TV OS and to an extent even the Apple Watch
0:21:15is so based on the iPhone that Apple is not even trying to optimize for the different
0:21:22types of devices that they make. So everything is kind of like an iPhone and then on watchOS
0:21:27they did a bunch of updates and now on tvOS they're making an app. It seems to me like
0:21:32this should be the main interface of tvOS because when I turn on my Apple TV, apothetically
0:21:38because I don't, but when I turn on my Apple TV I want to see quickly what should I be
0:21:43watching. It's like when you go to the YouTube homepage. Imagine if the YouTube homepage,
0:21:48instead of being recommendations and a bunch of things collected from multiple places,
0:21:51were just a list of your subscriptions. And then you need to go to a separate YouTube website
0:21:57to see what's hot, what's trending, what you should be watching. It's like Apple is tackling
0:22:01this problem backwards. I don't think it is a stretch to imagine a world in which this was
0:22:08supposed to be that. Like when the Apple TV was a subscription service that you
0:22:15paid for from Apple but they couldn't get that done for whatever reason they
0:22:20couldn't get that done and this kind of feels like what that would have been but
0:22:26it's not that. Like for example the icon, the TV app icon, is the same icon as the
0:22:33TV button on the Siri remote and if I was following correctly when you press
0:22:40that button you go to this app now and then you press it again to go to home
0:22:44what did it do before it just takes you home okay so but it seems like now like
0:22:50it seemed I don't know there seems to be some kind of like bolted on this of all
0:22:55of this it's like okay if Apple wanted to make this app why did they make the
0:23:00iTunes app because the iTunes movie app does the same thing that this does like
0:23:07I think that this was part of the original strategy they can't they shelved
0:23:12it they made a new home screen which had the applications and just gave the
0:23:16applications their their little homes as it would have been and that all the
0:23:21video content all video content was supposed to go through this TV app but
0:23:25it couldn't do it so they made separate apps because nobody will buy into the
0:23:29system like the providers so now they've just found some weird way to kind of do this in
0:23:35the hopes that it will now force the vendors to actually go through it. Like you'll notice
0:23:40Netflix is not part of this and I think that that is telling you a lot of what you want
0:23:46to know or need to know about this product. Super super weird.
0:23:51You are suddenly coming to the iPhone and the iPad as well and not coming this month,
0:23:56next month but in December so again coming soon. I think the coming to iPhone
0:24:01and iPad as well is the other indication of the fact that this was the
0:24:05bones of the subscription service because that would have been on iOS as
0:24:09well. Yeah I agree with you Myke it feels like a half-hearted step and
0:24:15maybe that's because its origins or something a lot greater yeah and this is
0:24:19just sort of like well we have this we're gonna ship it as it is and and
0:24:22and maybe they're hoping it's like a proof of concept, right?
0:24:25This works with the content we have,
0:24:28and if you're in here, you know,
0:24:30we can say that your content viewership goes up
0:24:32after we, you know, feature you or something,
0:24:35and then maybe Netflix will be more willing to play ball.
0:24:38My guess is, and I have no insider information on this,
0:24:41it's just a feeling, is that Netflix doesn't want
0:24:44to be shown with other providers side by side,
0:24:47like on an even playing field.
0:24:50Like Netflix wants you to be just within their universe
0:24:53and for whatever reason they couldn't work it out
0:24:55to be in there.
0:24:57- Yeah, I assume that Netflix believe correctly
0:25:01or incorrectly that they are important enough
0:25:03that you should be in Netflix.
0:25:04Like Netflix's content isn't elsewhere.
0:25:06Like you go to Netflix to watch Netflix.
0:25:09You don't have your content mixed in with other people.
0:25:11Like Netflix is where you get Netflix stuff, right?
0:25:14And I think that that's, as you say,
0:25:16like that's the reason for it.
0:25:18And some of the other places, like, you know,
0:25:20a lot of them, Apple, they're like related to Disney,
0:25:23so Apple can do whatever it does there.
0:25:25And, you know, I think that HBO are kind of coming along
0:25:28because Apple kind of worked with them initially
0:25:31and gave them different cuts and stuff like that.
0:25:33So I think that there's a good relationship there.
0:25:35And HBO probably just doesn't care,
0:25:36they just want you to watch their stuff.
0:25:38And Netflix cares more.
0:25:40- Yeah, and so that's, you know, that's kind of a bummer.
0:25:44Like, it would be nice if this thing became a hub
0:25:46for everything that I want to watch on my Apple TV,
0:25:51but instead, most of what I do on my Apple TV is Netflix,
0:25:57and I think that's gonna be true,
0:25:58I think that's true for most people.
0:25:59- It's YouTube for me, and that will be the same thing.
0:26:01You won't see YouTube in this either.
0:26:02- Right, so this is gonna become just another icon
0:26:05that I hide or I don't visit very often,
0:26:08'cause I don't watch stuff on these other apps,
0:26:11because, partially 'cause I don't have a cable login.
0:26:14Like I don't pay for cable, and so a lot of this stuff
0:26:16is built on the single sign-on stuff,
0:26:19and you have an app based on your cable provider,
0:26:21that is still locked off to me as a cord cutter.
0:26:25And the TV app just changes the way that it's formatted,
0:26:28but it doesn't actually solve any of my problems
0:26:30with watching stuff on the Apple TV.
0:26:32- Like this is, this thing is a brand's fighting
0:26:35against brands to say who's got the biggest brand.
0:26:38Right, this is what it is.
0:26:39Apple want everyone inside of their ecosystem,
0:26:42Netflix want everyone inside of their ecosystem,
0:26:44and then the person who ends up losing is the consumer
0:26:47because everyone's brand's more important than the other.
0:26:50That's my feeling about this.
0:26:51I'm more upset maybe than I should be,
0:26:53but I just find it all a bit stupid.
0:26:55- No, no, this is, it's disappointing to me.
0:26:57I mean, I want them to push this harder
0:27:00and they just haven't been able to make up the ground yet.
0:27:03So for me, it doesn't really change
0:27:04how I'm gonna use my Apple TV.
0:27:05It's not gonna dramatically increase my usage of it.
0:27:08So it's just kind of a different approach
0:27:11that is not gonna, it's not really gonna change my world.
0:27:14- Now I already have the Apple TV the way that it is.
0:27:17I don't need it to be like this.
0:27:19You know, I don't need this.
0:27:20Like you already launched it the way that it is,
0:27:23and it works fine for me.
0:27:24- And it's not gonna make Federico fire his up anymore.
0:27:26- No, no, not really.
0:27:27- His is still, you know, like leveling out a table,
0:27:29I think, in his apartment.
0:27:30Not even plugged in anymore.
0:27:33- No, so I wanted to tell you, I tried to use it last week.
0:27:37Fun experience, I wanted to watch some Brooklyn Nine-Nine
0:27:40on my Apple TV. Love the show. Yeah. And so I opened this video player that I got on iOS
0:27:48and I assume I just need to tap the AirPlay icon. So I tap the AirPlay icon, select Apple
0:27:53TV and what happens next may surprise you because just the audio starts playing on the
0:28:03Apple TV. No video. I was like, you know what? I just, I don't have time for this. I just
0:28:08send it to my Chromecast and it was okay. So yeah.
0:28:14Just while we're just talking about Chromecast, like super super quick follow-up, what about
0:28:18Google's Trojan horse of the home app? Like Chromecast app is now the Google Home app,
0:28:23like buy a Google Home! Such a pretty icon!
0:28:26It was just such a strange thing to do! Yeah I know but the icon is pretty, Myke.
0:28:31Oh well that's alright then. Yeah.
0:28:34Alright should we take a break and then get into the main event?
0:28:38That's good.
0:28:39Okay.
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0:31:34support of this show and Relay FM. So we got a Mac today. Oh like two and a half Macs but yes.
0:31:43One Mac. They... can we just have a minute here? Yeah. Can I just share something with you guys?
0:31:52- Yes.
0:31:53- Okay.
0:31:53- I consider myself some sort of Apple historian, right?
0:31:58I got a studio full of old Macs,
0:32:02write about them, have a YouTube channel.
0:32:04I did not expect Apple to go this route.
0:32:06Apple does not look back.
0:32:08You know, they did the 40 years in 40 seconds thing
0:32:11last year, which was supposed to be the last town hall event
0:32:14but they were again today, I guess,
0:32:16because they didn't expect this event to be in the fall.
0:32:20But they started this event by talking about
0:32:23the first Apple notebook, which was in October 1991,
0:32:27PowerBook 100, 140, and 170 were the three options.
0:32:31They just discount the Macintosh portable.
0:32:33If you haven't ever seen a picture of that,
0:32:35go look it up on Wikipedia.
0:32:36It is crazy.
0:32:37But they kept circling back to this.
0:32:42Like 25 years since the notebook,
0:32:44he, Tim pointed out that it was the first keyboard forward
0:32:48design with a trackball below the keyboard
0:32:50the palm rest. It was very strange. At the end, it was like, you know, one year of compute
0:32:55time on the PowerBook 170 is done in like five seconds on the new MacBook Pro. Very
0:33:00strange couching of all this stuff.
0:33:03Why did they do this, do you think? Was it just because the timing happened to meet up?
0:33:08I guess. Or maybe they wanted... I don't know. Do you compare it with the MacBook Pro that
0:33:15Last updated a year and a half ago, but really like three years ago
0:33:19Like I don't know maybe they don't want to draw the tension that it's been so long. So they just like do something really
0:33:24Really oddball. It was just unusual. I guess is my only point. I don't know why they did it but not a move you see very often
0:33:32Yeah from Apple, did you know this you haven't mentioned this did you know it was 25 years since the first Apple notebook?
0:33:40No, you didn't know
0:33:41We got a steppy game up man
0:33:44They beat this is your beat it is well they did like a totally awesome
0:33:49Reveal video with like Macbooks flying through the air. It's basically if Apple said to you you can direct a video
0:33:57That's the video you would make
0:33:59Right like a hundred percent. That was it. It was just lots of old Macs flying around
0:34:03Just give me the budget and I'll make the old Macs fly around
0:34:08And the keys to your storage and I go there and shoot a video
0:34:12Give me a get me a crew here and I'll make a video like that. I can certainly picture you doing that Steven
0:34:18Cool just saying if you want to change careers at some point, you know, there's a position open obviously
0:34:25I mean you get to work every couple of years, but
0:34:28It's maybe you can make a pretty cool video. I
0:34:31Guess I mean if you know it is cool, but it was just unexpected
0:34:38expected. So real quick, I'm just gonna blast through like the high-level
0:34:44tech stuff and then we can get into what's the most interesting. Two new
0:34:48models MacBook Pro 13 inch and 15 inch they're both as you would expect lighter
0:34:52and thinner they clock in at three pounds and four pounds. They come in
0:34:56silver and space gray none of your beloved rose gold or gold. No glowing
0:35:03logo on the lid so it's like the MacBook with the stainless steel you know iOS
0:35:07like Apple in the back. MacBook style keyboard. Apple promise more travel but
0:35:13from the hands-on that we've seen so far it seems like it kind of feels more like
0:35:17the MacBook keyboard than the external Magic keyboard which I have in front of
0:35:20me now that I really like. 15s are all quad-core i7 you can go up to 2 terabytes
0:35:27SSD which is super fancy and super awesome and super expensive. All of the
0:35:34legacy ports are gone you have four Thunderbolt 3 ports and those ports can
0:35:39be any four of them can be used for power, Thunderbolt 3, USB-C, DisplayPort,
0:35:44VGA, DVI, HDMI or Ethernet and I guess like Thunderbolt 2 and USB 3 so you
0:35:51can adapt almost anything out of these things. The headphone jack is still there
0:35:55screen picked up the P3 wide color gamut, speakers are louder, the 4-step trackpad
0:36:02is bigger, 10 hours of battery life. I mean the things that we expected all came true
0:36:08right there's no I don't think there's any real surprises in the hardware other than
0:36:12the touch bar stuff which we'll get to but like the basic hardware like what this MacBook
0:36:15Pro is I think it's pretty much in line with what we were expecting. I think it's smaller
0:36:20than we thought it was gonna be like I don't really know how much I thought about the fact
0:36:25that this thing was gonna be like 25% smaller.
0:36:29- Yeah. - Which is awesome.
0:36:32- Yeah, it's smaller like width and depth wise,
0:36:34the whole thing is tighter.
0:36:35The 13 inch MacBook Pro is now smaller in like size
0:36:40on your desk than the 13 inch MacBook Air,
0:36:43which we're gonna get to the Air in a little while,
0:36:45but there's lots of like weird overlapping stuff
0:36:48going on now.
0:36:49The I/O is, you know, I wrote this thing last week,
0:36:55kind of complaining about this new world.
0:36:58Every time we do this, it means you have to adapt
0:37:00everything for a while or buy a bunch of new cables.
0:37:03And I tweeted a thing about like $180 of adapters
0:37:05in a shopping cart at Apple.com.
0:37:07Gets you all the stuff you used to have.
0:37:09But it is the cost of progress,
0:37:12and Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C on the same port
0:37:16is really awesome, and it's great that you can use
0:37:18any four of them for power or any of the other things
0:37:22you need, like how often you would put a MacBook Pro down,
0:37:26the power would be like on the wrong side
0:37:28and the cable not being long enough, all that's gone.
0:37:30But it does come at a cost, it comes with a real cost
0:37:33if you need adapters and dongles,
0:37:35but things like MagSafe for now are now gone.
0:37:37And I don't know about the two of you,
0:37:39but MagSafe has totally saved notebooks for me
0:37:42over the last decade.
0:37:44You're having a computer on a table and a kid walks by,
0:37:47or the dog runs by and pulls the cable,
0:37:51and the cable pops off and the MacBook stays in place.
0:37:54That is gone.
0:37:55Like someone trips over your USB-C power cable
0:37:58on a MacBook Pro, it is going to come off the table.
0:38:01And that's something you have to,
0:38:02it's not a big deal, it's not a deal breaker, surely,
0:38:05but it's something that's different.
0:38:06It's something worth noticing if you were like me,
0:38:10I thought MagSafe was brilliant.
0:38:11It was like one of the smartest things they added
0:38:13to the Mac notebook line.
0:38:15And now it's gone.
0:38:17But you get the flexibility.
0:38:18- The thing that worries me most about
0:38:20the loss of magsafe is I don't know how many times it saved me.
0:38:24So like, I know that like basically every Apple laptop that I have ever
0:38:29owned has had magsafe on it.
0:38:31And I wonder how quickly I will destroy a laptop.
0:38:37Right?
0:38:39Like, because I'm, I am 100% used to not caring about the power cable.
0:38:45Like I pick up the laptop while it's charging and walk away with it.
0:38:50Right, these are just the things that I'm used to doing and I wonder how long that's
0:38:55gonna last for me.
0:38:56- How long it takes.
0:38:57It's gonna be bad.
0:38:58- Yeah.
0:38:59- The other thing that's sort of notable about the I/O setup on this is that they are, in
0:39:11a lot of their demo stuff, like kind of giving you examples of what you can do, they're pushing
0:39:16the external flexibility and capability a lot more than they ever have. So when the
0:39:22trash can Mac Pro was announced 28 years ago, they were like, "Hey, you know, there's no
0:39:27expansion cards, right? Like we all complained about it. You can't put new cards into the
0:39:33machine." They said, "Oh, you can do it all externally." And I don't think that ever really
0:39:36took off for the Mac Pro. You can get some like Thunderbolt and PCI chassis and stuff,
0:39:41but I don't think it ever really took off the way Apple wanted. And they're here again
0:39:45being the same drone. Not with PCI cards but they had an example of like hooking up to
0:39:49this nice external display and some RAID arrays and like having all this stuff
0:39:53that you can mount and because these four ports are identical and you can do
0:39:57anything with any of them it is truly probably the most flexible MacBook Pro
0:40:02they've ever shipped from an I/O perspective and the most powerful like
0:40:05Thunderbolt 3 is ridiculous and USB-C is really nice and flexible but it comes
0:40:10with these trade-offs and you have to either buy a bunch of adapters or buy a
0:40:14a bunch of new cables or understand that this is gonna be a transition and you're going
0:40:20to need to maybe change some things in your setup to accommodate this new computer.
0:40:25But I think at the end of the day, once we're through that transition, this is a good direction.
0:40:29The four ports are identical, that you can do anything you want to with any of them.
0:40:33That you have all these options, I think is pretty nice.
0:40:37We just have to get through this transition and pain period of buying a bunch of stuff
0:40:41again that you've already owned.
0:40:43I feel like I'm doing that more and more frequently.
0:40:46Like the frequency at which things are changing over, like the march of progress is getting
0:40:52quicker.
0:40:54Maybe I'm just getting older.
0:40:55So it feels that way.
0:40:56Well, I mean we had, when they added mini-display port, you know, it was just for display stuff
0:41:03and you could adapt VGA DVI out of it.
0:41:06But really since Thunderbolt 1 showed up, which was on that same port like it is now,
0:41:12Things have really been pretty steady now for several years and the MacBook 1/Macbook
0:41:19Adorable ushered in this era but this is even more complicated because the MacBook 1 only
0:41:27has USB-C. So the Thunderbolt 3 stuff doesn't apply to that computer even though the port
0:41:34on the side of the machine looks the same and the plug in your hand is the same.
0:41:38And that's not ideal, and I would love if the MacBook
0:41:42would gain Thunderbolt 3, but the Core M chips
0:41:44that they use doesn't support Thunderbolt.
0:41:46So they're kind of stuck there.
0:41:48But it is like, if you have a MacBook in another machine,
0:41:52you may end up in a situation where you can't do
0:41:54everything you want to do because that MacBook
0:41:55doesn't have Thunderbolt.
0:41:56So it's something, again, you have to think about
0:41:58a little bit more than in the past,
0:41:59when everything was Firewire 800 and USB 2,
0:42:02it's like, yeah, it works or it doesn't.
0:42:03And now there's another layer of complication.
0:42:06Probably worth it, 'cause the speed is so much greater
0:42:08flexibility is so nice but it is something to consider when buying a new machine or changing
0:42:13something in your setup like what does this work with what does it not work with what
0:42:18am I gonna have to change out to make this possible.
0:42:20Can we talk about touch bar?
0:42:23Please.
0:42:24So I think we knew a lot of what the touch bar was going to be but there are you know
0:42:31the devil is in the details with these things and I gotta say I think the details are pretty
0:42:37cool I think this is a good-looking thing we do we know what type of display
0:42:41it is I saw someone saying it's a knowledge display I think they asked in
0:42:46the demo room and I saw someone on Twitter say by the way it's a knowledge
0:42:49display okay that makes a lot of sense to me I think this is the Apple watch
0:42:54and this it's like Apple's march towards an OLED iPhone like this is how they're
0:42:59getting used to what this technology is all about anyhow I think it looks
0:43:04awesome like watching the Final Cut Pro demos and just all the little things
0:43:12that are happening like the emoji, the quick type, answering a call like a
0:43:17FaceTime call, it all looked really cool to me. I think that it's a very exciting
0:43:22thing that I look forward to this type of stuff reaching out across the line a
0:43:27little bit more right like I think that this is a an interesting piece of
0:43:31technology that Apple have made that really starts to bridge the gap between
0:43:37iOS and macOS. Federico before I ape your point that I saw you tweet earlier
0:43:43you should just say it about what this enables.
0:43:47I mean it's a very clever, I think it's very clever way of bringing some iOS
0:43:53features and namely the quick type stuff from iOS 10 to macOS without having to
0:43:59sort of make a hybrid computer where people have to touch the screen, you're
0:44:03effectively making a separate screen for a subset of iOS features such as word
0:44:09suggestions or you know like an enhancement of the shortcut bar that you
0:44:14get on the iPad with these custom buttons that change depending on the active app.
0:44:17Well this is a basically a glorified quick type and shortcut bar rolled into
0:44:23one mixed with some system shortcuts and some of the previous functionality from
0:44:28the function key. I think it's very clever. I think it looks great and I would love to
0:44:33have the touch bar in Apple accessories such as the Magic Keyboard or my dream right now
0:44:40in the Smart Keyboard for the iPad Pro. I don't know if there's enough space. Certainly
0:44:45it could be powered by the iPad Pro I guess but maybe you know it requires too much hardware
0:44:50at this point. I think it's very clever. I think it looks great. I saw pictures of the
0:44:56close-up photos of the touch bar. I think the black levels look fantastic and it
0:45:01seems to have a slightly matte finish which I think looks really really cool.
0:45:05This is part of the joy of OLED. I have no time today to talk about the Pixel
0:45:12but there obviously is an OLED screen and I've been using a Twitter app which
0:45:17has an OLED theme and it's just the purest black. Like it is the darkest dark
0:45:24mode I've ever used. I really love the way that OLED screens look like that. I mean,
0:45:32I definitely miss the wide colour gamut stuff because I think that's beautiful, but those
0:45:37black levels that you can get from OLED, it really is incredible. And it just looks like
0:45:43the screen's off. Like the screen's off, but there's some text on it. It's very interesting.
0:45:48And that's how this looks, right? Like, these look like buttons on a black background because
0:45:53the background is perfectly black.
0:45:55It's really, really good looking.
0:45:57- The only thing I would counter that with,
0:45:59some of the pictures,
0:46:00I put a link to MacRumors in the notes,
0:46:03the Touch ID sensor doesn't look as integrated
0:46:07into the design as I had hoped it would be.
0:46:09Like it's not a seamless cover glass,
0:46:11like the Touch ID is like a cutout next to it.
0:46:13And on the other end,
0:46:15it seems like there's some blank space
0:46:19to kind of make it symmetrical, if you will.
0:46:22So that's something that'll improve with time, I think.
0:46:25Yeah, it doesn't look bad necessarily,
0:46:27but it's like, oh, that's a different thing
0:46:29kind of nestled in there next to it.
0:46:31But they started this by talking about
0:46:35the function key itself, and they made this joke
0:46:37about this console to talk to mainframes
0:46:40back in the '60s and '70s, real Dr. Drang type stuff.
0:46:43And it was very similar to how they justified
0:46:47getting rid of the iPhone headphone jack
0:46:50of like this has been around forever,
0:46:52we don't need it anymore.
0:46:53He did not use the word courage, thank goodness,
0:46:56but it was kind of a similar approach.
0:46:58And the whole thing is powered by
0:47:01what they're calling the T1 chip.
0:47:03So we have the A series, the S series in the watch,
0:47:06the W series in the headphones,
0:47:07and now the T series in the MacBook Pro touch bar.
0:47:11My sort of vague understanding is this is more or less
0:47:15based on the S1 chip that we saw on the watch,
0:47:20that it's a very self-contained system.
0:47:22They're using it to get the secure enclave
0:47:25for Touch ID and Apple Pay into the MacBook Pro.
0:47:28'Cause that stuff is all ARM specific.
0:47:32You know, Intel itself is not building a Skylake processor
0:47:35with a secure enclave that Apple wants to use, right?
0:47:37This is Apple's own thing.
0:47:39So it's kind of a little computer inside your MacBook Pro
0:47:42and it has this little screen that it has.
0:47:44Like, it's a separate system that macOS can talk to.
0:47:48but it executes its own code, best I can tell,
0:47:52and from what I've read, it is a system within your system.
0:47:56And that's pretty interesting.
0:47:58In a world where we don't have ARM Macs,
0:48:03it's kind of the only way to go,
0:48:04because Intel's not gonna build this for them,
0:48:05and this is something that Apple can do
0:48:09with its silicon team that it makes perfect sense
0:48:11for them to do internally, right?
0:48:13We'll take the Intel chipset to power everything,
0:48:16and then we'll build this little sidecar thing
0:48:18for the touch bar, we'll call it the T1,
0:48:20and the two don't have to intermix.
0:48:23So I find that really fascinating
0:48:25from the nerd perspective.
0:48:26- So is the T1 powering the touch bar?
0:48:29I thought it was just powering the touch ID in the Enclave.
0:48:33- My understanding is it, I mean, this is day one,
0:48:37my understanding is that it powers the touch bar as well,
0:48:41that it at least sits in between macOS and the touch bar.
0:48:45and I think we will learn more in the coming days,
0:48:47but my understanding right now is that that's the case.
0:48:50But again, it's day one.
0:48:51They spent a ton of time in this event demoing it,
0:48:55of like how it would work.
0:48:56And it seems like this touch bar has really
0:49:00kind of two main modes, if you will.
0:49:04You have, what it does varies on application.
0:49:09And an application can put buttons on the touch bar,
0:49:13So they showed things like Photoshop and Finder,
0:49:16which they called a power user app,
0:49:17which really just made me really hurt inside.
0:49:20(laughing)
0:49:21- I missed that.
0:49:23- Yeah, they're like, "Let's look at a power application.
0:49:24"Let's start with Finder."
0:49:25It's like, "Oh my God, what are you doing?"
0:49:27And you can put buttons down there
0:49:30and it'll interact with what's on your screen,
0:49:32which is cool.
0:49:33But it also has a mode where a app can put a custom UI there.
0:49:38And so my favorite example is they showed Photoshop
0:49:41and the demo where she had an image up she was working on
0:49:46and she had the color picker on the touch bar
0:49:49and she could scrub her finger over it and pick a color
0:49:53and without having to use like one of the 10 million palettes
0:49:56in Photoshop and it was a custom UI
0:49:58like it just had this band of color
0:50:00and she was picking from.
0:50:01- I like that she was saying that it was possible
0:50:04to edit in full screen without any UI
0:50:10And it's like, yeah, I guess you can, right?
0:50:12Super cool.
0:50:13They showed photos.app with some sliders and some dials.
0:50:18They showed Final Cut Pro, which is getting a big update
0:50:21to support all of this, with basically a mini timeline
0:50:25there.
0:50:27You could scrub over your timeline
0:50:28or you could apply different effects.
0:50:30So this thing can surface bits of the UI that may be hidden.
0:50:33Something like Photoshop, it's got a billion things it can do.
0:50:37It can surface content aware options for you.
0:50:40Pull things out of menus and get them
0:50:42underneath your fingertips.
0:50:43Or an app can display its own UI with whatever it needs to do.
0:50:46Yeah, and third parties are able to.
0:50:48The HIG has updated today to have
0:50:50all of the documentation necessary for how
0:50:54these things should operate.
0:50:56Right.
0:50:57So that all seems to work much better
0:51:01than I kind of feared it might.
0:51:02Now, I still have questions about how
0:51:03distracting it's going to be if you're switching between apps
0:51:05and the stuff's changing the corner of your eye
0:51:07all the time.
0:51:08- I was wondering about this,
0:51:09'cause I've seen a lot of people say this.
0:51:12I guess the majority of the UI will change
0:51:14when you're actually switching applications
0:51:17where there's things moving everywhere, right?
0:51:20Like when you switch an application,
0:51:22what's in front of your eyes has just changed.
0:51:24I don't think it would be that distracting.
0:51:26If the touch bar kept like cycling through things
0:51:29whilst you've got an application open,
0:51:31then it's gonna distract your peripheral vision.
0:51:33But I think if you're switching application,
0:51:36it's not going to distract you because your eyes are
0:51:39seeing lots of stuff move.
0:51:40Yeah, that's a good point.
0:51:42But if you're in Photoshop, things
0:51:43could be changing all the time.
0:51:46You can go back to the standard function keys
0:51:48by pushing the function button on the keyboard.
0:51:50So you get your normal brightness and volume
0:51:53controllers, your mission control stuff.
0:51:55I love that they have sliders for those as well.
0:51:57I do too.
0:51:58Because you don't need buttons.
0:52:00This is something Jason mentioned.
0:52:01When we were in Memphis, we were talking about this
0:52:03because the rumors were just saying, it's like, why don't they just have sliders now?
0:52:06And it makes way more sense, like, rather than these buttons. And I did like what the,
0:52:10you know, a lot of this stuff can be like, you know, we always talk about how does Apple
0:52:14tell the story? And I liked how Phil was saying, it was like, the function buttons have always
0:52:18existed. Nobody needs them anymore. So we've just turned them into other things. And it's
0:52:24like, why, why should the volume be up and down increments from a hardware button? It
0:52:33makes way more sense to have more fine-grain control over a slider like I do on iOS.
0:52:39Sure. I think it's a more natural gesture.
0:52:44It also--there's kind of another mode where--or it's not really the way to say it--
0:52:51in the app mode, where an app is projecting UI onto this thing,
0:52:55there's something that is called the control strip, which there'll be a link in the show notes.
0:52:58that's a very old name, old Mac users will know that name from the classic Mac OS.
0:53:02But the Control Strip takes some of your system functions. So best I can tell it
0:53:08takes your brightness and volume and Siri. I think that's kind of the default
0:53:15four and you can scrub back and forth in there. So it's like system stuff that's
0:53:21always present. So even if you're in photos and you're scrubbing through an
0:53:27album you always have brightness and volume available to you. I think that's
0:53:30when the escape key pops up as well. Yes the escape key is also in this view so
0:53:34that that makes a lot of sense to me the things that we talked about it when
0:53:37these rumors broke that like I kind of want brightness and volume all the time
0:53:41and this is a way to have that and also have this smart stuff so I think they've
0:53:48made the right compromises I want to see how it works in practice of course. But
0:53:51apps can hide them right like you can have them pushed off to the side. Yeah
0:53:56and then I think you can bring them back in if you want them. So there'll be some
0:53:59learning there. I don't know how strictly they're going to force the
0:54:03HIG on this. It may be that some apps do a poor job at it than others, but I think
0:54:08there will be some sort of common use that gels and that good Mac
0:54:12apps will do that. Something that I thought was really cool was the fact
0:54:16that you can customize it. When you're in Finder and stuff you're able
0:54:21to customize the buttons so you can drag and drop new ones onto the bar, depending
0:54:26on the types of things that you need.
0:54:28So you can finally get rid of Apex, per se.
0:54:31(laughing)
0:54:34I just thought that was really cool,
0:54:35'cause it's like, yes, of course you can do that.
0:54:37And yeah, I thought it was really sweet.
0:54:40'Cause it's like, now, in many applications,
0:54:43I can have two toolbars.
0:54:44I can have a toolbar on the screen,
0:54:45I can have a toolbar in the app,
0:54:46and I get like double the functions.
0:54:48Like, thinking about logic,
0:54:50you know, like I have a bunch of buttons in logic
0:54:52which are easy to get to,
0:54:53I can now double the amount of buttons
0:54:55I can have available. Right, which didn't get any stage time today, just Final Cut did.
0:54:59Womp womp. Yeah, it'll get there. So yeah, it seems like from what I saw today,
0:55:05I'm impressed and I think that they have thought through all the problems that I
0:55:13could think of at least and I'm sure they've just a lot of problems that I didn't think of.
0:55:16It seems like it makes sense, it seems like it's gonna be a consistent experience. I do
0:55:21think there'll be a funny thing that happens if people who buy these machines
0:55:24will like do something and then reach up and touch the screen itself like it just
0:55:28seems like a very natural accident it's gonna break your brain yeah something we
0:55:32didn't mention fast user switching via touch ID the Mac gets a feature before
0:55:36iOS does I mean the Mac has had fast user switching for like a decade
0:55:42someone said that on Twitter like oh fast user switching came to the Mac it's
0:55:45like no it's been there a long time I'm not saying that fast use that's user
0:55:48switching is new it's the fact that you can change user with the use of the
0:55:52fingerprint right which is how I would assume they would that would be a smart
0:55:55way to do it on the iPad but right now the fast user switching on like the
0:56:01educational realm iPad stuff is a little a little weird but the thing is though
0:56:06like whilst this is cool the laptops the wrong product for that how many people
0:56:10share laptops I think I mean I think they did it because the Mac already had
0:56:13fast user switching and I'm sure it wasn't a big deal to add you may as well
0:56:17do it because you can but like... Right and it's a sweet demo right like it's a
0:56:23sweet demo and I think people I mean people share iPads people share laptops
0:56:26for schools that you know end up with MacBook Pros that aren't mini they'll
0:56:32appreciate it I think I mean like I have a user on my wife's MacBook and she has
0:56:36a user on my computer there's not a lot of stuff in that user but like sometimes
0:56:40you sit down and you just you know want your synced Safari bookmarks but I think
0:56:44it's cool the demo of that was awesome like he called Phil Schiller up from the
0:56:48crowd like Kirk Federighi was on fire day could we just talk about how he
0:56:51ripped the black fabric off the MacBook Pros like he was a magician was that
0:56:55awesome Federighi is the best in the world yes or everything so he he calls
0:57:01for Schiller and says hey you know we share this Mac and Schiller just walked
0:57:04over and touched it and they logged into Phil's user like it was great great demo
0:57:08so all in all thumbs up from me I think I want to spend some time with it but I
0:57:13I think they sold it really well on stage.
0:57:17I think the demos they drove were a really wide range.
0:57:22So you had Final Cut Pro, you had Photoshop,
0:57:23you had DJ Pro, which I haven't even talked about,
0:57:26like layering and fading music, like sweet, sweet demo.
0:57:31I think they did a good job at showing this
0:57:34in a bunch of different contexts.
0:57:36And so I'm excited to see what developers do with it.
0:57:38It still is only on the MacBook Pro, right?
0:57:41The Magic Keyboard doesn't have it,
0:57:42so you don't have it on the iMac or any other desktop
0:57:45you're foolish enough to buy right now.
0:57:47The MacBook doesn't have it.
0:57:49What's left of the MacBook Air line doesn't have it.
0:57:51It's just the MacBook Pro.
0:57:52I assume it will spread.
0:57:54I have questions about can they do it
0:57:55in a Bluetooth keyboard for an iMac,
0:57:57but assuming they get that worked out,
0:58:00I think that the adoption of this will be good now,
0:58:03but I think as it expands across the Mac line,
0:58:05hopefully the adoption will only go up
0:58:06and this will become part of what using a Mac is about.
0:58:11Like right now it's kind of an add-on for the MacBook Pro.
0:58:13- When they eventually put it out in that keyboard,
0:58:16it's gonna be the heaviest keyboard in the world.
0:58:19'Cause they will have to make the entire thing a battery.
0:58:21Right?
0:58:22Because it's powering a screen.
0:58:23- It is now.
0:58:24- Really?
0:58:25- Yeah, I mean, I think now if you open one up,
0:58:27it's a lot of battery in there.
0:58:28I mean, the Magic Keyboard,
0:58:30I mean, I've got a Magic Keyboard 2, I've got one.
0:58:32The battery lasts for like months.
0:58:34I mean, it is nutty.
0:58:35So I think, I mean, they're not gonna make any taller.
0:58:39I think they're gonna make it shorter.
0:58:41but it's one of those things that hopefully spreads.
0:58:45- So pricing.
0:58:50This is where things start to get weird
0:58:55because at the pricing section of the,
0:58:58I was gonna call it show, we'll call it a show,
0:59:00they introduced another computer.
0:59:02By the way, here is, you know,
0:59:05we've just spent like an hour talking about the touch bar.
0:59:08Here's a MacBook Pro without one because it makes it cheaper.
0:59:11Weird, right?
0:59:12It's weird.
0:59:13- Yeah.
0:59:14So let's start at the bottom and work our way up.
0:59:17And then I wanna talk about what happened
0:59:18worldwide as well.
0:59:20So the 11-inch MacBook Air is gone, dead,
0:59:23no longer for sale.
0:59:25There are two 13-inch MacBook Air models,
0:59:28999 and 1199.
0:59:31Still for sale.
0:59:32It's the MacBook Air you could buy yesterday.
0:59:33It didn't even get a force touch track pad.
0:59:35It's the same MacBook Air that's been for sale
0:59:36for a year and a half or so.
0:59:39No change whatsoever.
0:59:41The 12 inch MacBook is the same as it was,
0:59:451299 and 1599, so still too expensive
0:59:49to completely push out the MacBook Air.
0:59:52I firmly believe the MacBook Airs only exist today
0:59:56to hit a price point.
0:59:58That they can't get the MacBook down to 999,
1:00:01so the Air lives another day.
1:00:05You then move into the MacBook Pros.
1:00:07They are still selling what I have dubbed
1:00:09the classic MacBook Pro,
1:00:10which the Retina MacBook Pro you could buy yesterday.
1:00:13So no touch bar, thicker, you know.
1:00:15- Comes in one color.
1:00:18- One color, the older style keyboard.
1:00:21That is still for sale in the 13 and the 15.
1:00:25So $12.99 and $19.99.
1:00:28And then you get to the machine,
1:00:29Myke, you were talking about for $14.99,
1:00:31you can get a 13 inch MacBook Pro with the new design,
1:00:34The new display, you can get it in space gray.
1:00:37It comes with two Thunderbolt 3 ports, so not four,
1:00:40only two ports and no touch bar and no touch ID.
1:00:43So it has the hardware function keys like before.
1:00:46This is the machine that I don't,
1:00:49I understand why it's there, it's again, it's price.
1:00:52Because now the cheapest MacBook Pro you can get otherwise
1:00:55is $1799, which is more than it used to be.
1:00:58These touch bar machines are more,
1:01:00several hundred dollars more expensive
1:01:02the counterparts they replace. But this machine this 1499 MacBook Pro is a weird
1:01:11weird machine that it's it's has the new design but doesn't have the hallmark
1:01:17feature of the new design. This is a machine that I firmly believe will exist
1:01:22for one generation maybe two I don't think this is a long-term product for Apple I
1:01:26think this is a oh these are too expensive we can't start the MacBook Pro
1:01:30line at $1,800 we need something in the middle and I think people will buy this
1:01:36machine we're gonna get to in a minute I'm considering this machine amongst my
1:01:40many options but it's something that is got to be temporary because it it just
1:01:47strips out all the cool new stuff and it's kind of a crummy machine the two
1:01:52ports the keyboard that some people may not like it's just hanging out of that a
1:01:56a $1500 range, purely for a price.
1:01:59And then you get super expensive in a hurry.
1:02:02$1799, $1999, $2400 gets you the 15 inch.
1:02:07I saw somewhere you can max one out.
1:02:08Like it's well over $3000 in the United States,
1:02:13close to four if not over four.
1:02:14Super expensive machine still.
1:02:16And it's just a lot of price points.
1:02:18You look at these in a graph,
1:02:20there's like a machine every one or $200.
1:02:23And that's something that Tim Cook's Apple is a big fan of.
1:02:26I mean, it's similar to the iPad.
1:02:28- If you max out the 15 inch, you can get to $4,299.
1:02:32- Woo, that's a bunch of money.
1:02:35- That's a lot of money.
1:02:37- So what happened in your neck of the woods
1:02:40with pricing, Myke?
1:02:41- Everything went up.
1:02:42All Macs went up, every single one of them,
1:02:47which is upsetting.
1:02:50For example, the Mac Pro went up by 500 pounds.
1:02:55The Mac Mini went from $399 to $479.
1:03:00The 4K iMac went from $1199 to $1449.
1:03:05The iMac 5K went from $1449 to $1749.
1:03:09And the MacBooks went from, I think it was $1049 to $1249
1:03:14at the base.
1:03:16They just put it all up.
1:03:17And I know why they've done it,
1:03:18currency fluctuations and that kind of stuff.
1:03:21But there is a part of me that thinks
1:03:23putting up the computers that they didn't update now is a little bit unacceptable, especially
1:03:29the Mac Pro. You should have just not done that one or the Mac Mini, right? If you're
1:03:36not making enough on those by now, then you know, you shouldn't have done it. It went
1:03:40up because the exchange rate is different, the economy is very different in Europe now
1:03:44post Brexit. That's why all this has happened. But it's a real shame that you could have,
1:03:50I could have woke up this morning and bought a Mac and then it's multiple hundreds of pounds
1:03:55more expensive a few hours later.
1:03:59It's just an unfortunate thing that's happened.
1:04:01They should have just put all these prices up at the same time whenever they were ever
1:04:04going to do it because the iOS devices this has already happened to.
1:04:08Yeah, I mean clearly they just used the opportunity when they were using the machine just to refresh
1:04:14the entire store.
1:04:15But I agree with you especially on the Mac Pro that's pretty terrible.
1:04:20and the Mac Pro of course didn't get an update.
1:04:24I think the consensus now is the next Xeon's
1:04:27gonna be ready in the spring.
1:04:28Maybe we'll see a Mac Pro in the spring or at WVDC.
1:04:31At this point, if it hasn't passed it already,
1:04:35it's gotta be getting close,
1:04:36in which if you bought AppleCare on your Mac Pro
1:04:40and you bought it early,
1:04:41that AppleCare is like ending pretty soon.
1:04:44And that's, with no update, it's just really pathetic.
1:04:47But the Mac Mini didn't get an update
1:04:49and the iMac didn't get an update either.
1:04:51And I really figured, even if it didn't get press,
1:04:54that those two machines were to at least
1:04:57get Thunderbolt 3 in USB-C.
1:05:00And there was a late breaking room
1:05:02where the iMac wasn't ready for whatever reason, who knows.
1:05:07And the Mac Mini hadn't been updated in so long,
1:05:10it seems like it's really end of life.
1:05:12But it's still for sale, you can still buy it.
1:05:14But the chipset they would put in the Mac Mini is out.
1:05:18Like they could have done it, there's room in it,
1:05:21clearly they're not gonna redesign it.
1:05:24A spec bump there would have been really appreciated,
1:05:26but they continue to sit.
1:05:28This is the first time since they've gone retina
1:05:30that the iMac didn't get a yearly update.
1:05:31They did 2014 and 2015 a year apart,
1:05:34so maybe this will be in the spring or WBC at some point.
1:05:38So that's still okay, but the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro,
1:05:41like, if you're in the market for a desktop Mac,
1:05:44the only one that's remotely okay to buy is the iMac,
1:05:47and even that's probably not a great idea
1:05:49unless you get refurbished because of the price.
1:05:52And today was just about notebooks
1:05:54and really just about one notebook.
1:05:55And I think it left a lot of people feeling,
1:05:58including me, that the desktop line just,
1:06:01like we already had the sense that it wasn't important
1:06:02and it really feels downplayed now.
1:06:04Like if you're in the market for a Mac,
1:06:07unless you wanted to spend a lot of money on a notebook,
1:06:11your options today are basically the same as they were.
1:06:14Like you can get a MacBook Air for the same price,
1:06:16and get a MacBook for the same price,
1:06:18or you can get a desktop that missed another update,
1:06:21that made another event without an update.
1:06:24- I was not expecting us to finish this year
1:06:26without any of those Macs being updated,
1:06:29the Mini, the Pro, or the iMac.
1:06:31- Me neither, and it's, you know,
1:06:34the Mac Buyer's Guide is still mostly red
1:06:37because these machines didn't get an update,
1:06:39and that's a big bummer, and you know,
1:06:42I like the iMac, I like the Mac Mini,
1:06:44and to see them continue to languish.
1:06:47Like, you know, the Mac Minis, particularly interesting
1:06:49that the last update they actually made it a lot worse.
1:06:53They got rid of the quad core option.
1:06:54They remember there's a big run on quad core Mac Minis
1:06:56and still when they pop up, people jump on them.
1:06:59But this current one is dual core.
1:07:01You can't upgrade it inside,
1:07:03even though the chassis is the same.
1:07:05They soldered everything, so you can't update it.
1:07:07And people buy those,
1:07:09and I think Mac Minis have a really long life.
1:07:11I think a lot of people will use them like I do
1:07:12as like a home server or hooked up to your television.
1:07:15- Or to stream podcasts for a podcast network.
1:07:18- Yeah, yeah, we've got one relay,
1:07:20the livestream is on one of those quad core Mac minis
1:07:23that is like, I don't know, like five or six years old now,
1:07:26and we just put a new drive in it,
1:07:29but other than that, it's been rock solid.
1:07:31Like, people are interested in these machines.
1:07:34Just because they're not exciting to Apple,
1:07:36or just because they're not the biggest money maker,
1:07:39doesn't mean that they don't have a fan base
1:07:40and that there aren't people who are buying them
1:07:43and would be better served from newer technology.
1:07:46And it's just a real bummer that it continues to be the case.
1:07:49- I'm really surprised about the iMac.
1:07:53- Yeah.
1:07:54- That's the one that surprises me the most.
1:07:56- Yeah, the rumor about it not being ready,
1:07:58I mean, I guess you can read that as it's due
1:08:00and something happened, but the people
1:08:05who used to buy Mac Pros buy high-end iMacs, right?
1:08:08Like you have one, we're gonna talk about it in a minute,
1:08:10I now have one.
1:08:12We all know developers who have gone
1:08:15from the Mac Pro to the iMac.
1:08:16The iMac is, the high end at least,
1:08:17is a power user machine now.
1:08:20And so to bring Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C
1:08:23to your power user notebook,
1:08:26but to leave your power user desktop behind,
1:08:28is not ideal.
1:08:30Maybe they'll get this worked out,
1:08:31and maybe sometime before the end of the year,
1:08:34an iMac will get like a PR update,
1:08:36and it'll be good to go.
1:08:38But for now it's still dated and that's a real bummer.
1:08:43Real bummer.
1:08:44I know Federico's really torn up about it.
1:08:48- Yeah, yeah, very much.
1:08:49I'm just upset.
1:08:52- I know, you're speechless with--
1:08:54- Yeah, yeah, I don't even wanna talk about it.
1:08:56- So Federico, at one point we spoke about
1:09:05your MacBook Air and it's seen better days.
1:09:09I think at one point we talked about,
1:09:12does a Mac Mini make sense for Federico?
1:09:14That you could put your betas on,
1:09:16I know you don't need to do that anymore,
1:09:17but you could have a Mac for the few Mac things you need,
1:09:19but a Mac Mini would be super cheap.
1:09:22Do you have any interest in doing that at this point?
1:09:24- What's the best Mac that I can buy that runs Skype?
1:09:28Can you tell me?
1:09:30- Probably a MacBook. - The cheapest Mac.
1:09:31Yeah, probably the MacBook. - I guess.
1:09:34Yeah, I mean, this MacBook Air is really reaching the end of its life.
1:09:40It's five years old, it's missing a key, the top rope, sometimes off the keyboard doesn't
1:09:46work.
1:09:47It's slow, when it runs modern apps like Slack for example, you can hear the fans.
1:09:51I mean, it keeps me warm in the winter and it makes me sweaty in the summer, but I guess
1:09:57within the next year it will die for good.
1:10:01You know what, maybe you should just buy a MacBook Air.
1:10:04Is this supposed to be a joke?
1:10:07No, I'm being serious. It's the cheapest.
1:10:10You have regular USB ports in it so you don't need adapters.
1:10:14You still have MagSafe and 12-hour battery life. I think you should probably get another MacBook Air.
1:10:19How much does it cost? Let me find out. Let me go to the
1:10:22Italian website. He's gonna go look.
1:10:25I was gonna ask about the Mac Mini because I think at one point we talked about that.
1:10:29Even now you're choosing between
1:10:33older machines.
1:10:35My point in all of this is that Apple really didn't fix
1:10:39the problem with the Mac line today.
1:10:42They fixed the problem with the MacBook Pro,
1:10:44but the Mac line in general is still
1:10:47about as sad as it was before the Hello Again event.
1:10:54And I was hoping that this would not be the case.
1:10:57I was hoping to come on here today and be talking about
1:10:58six different machines and being super excited
1:11:00about everything.
1:11:01- Yeah.
1:11:02I'm excited about the MacBook Pro, but the rest of it still makes me sad
1:11:05the MacBook Air 13 inch with 128 gigabytes of storage is
1:11:111100 euros
1:11:13That's way too expensive. Yeah, I mean I can buy a MacBook for less
1:11:18I think no the MacBook's more expensive now. This is part of the the price hike
1:11:23You got brexit in yeah, the MacBook now the standard MacBook is 1500 euro
1:11:30Wait what he had the standard MacBook is 1500 euro now. Yeah, they put them up they all went up today
1:11:37Is this because of you people Myke don't you people me?
1:11:42I've been getting a lot of this today a lot of people blaming me for some reason for their computers being more expensive
1:11:55Yeah, you're the only British person they know it's your scapegoat
1:12:00The dagger in the heart, I think though,
1:12:03is the LG Ultrafine 5K display.
1:12:07So we have a couple links in the show notes.
1:12:09According to Phil Schiller, on stage,
1:12:12Apple worked with LG to design this display.
1:12:15So it uses Thunderbolt 3.
1:12:17See if any of this sounds familiar.
1:12:18Close your eyes, unless you're driving.
1:12:20If you're driving, keep your eyes open.
1:12:22And see what display comes into mind.
1:12:25You can hook your MacBook up or your MacBook Pro up to it.
1:12:28It can charge and move data across the single cable.
1:12:32You can plug in all sorts of stuff
1:12:34to the back of the display, almost as if it were like a dock.
1:12:37They reinvented the Thunderbolt display,
1:12:40but it's LG branded and it's not Apple branded.
1:12:45And it looks like a great display.
1:12:46If I was going to buy a new MacBook Pro
1:12:48and a new external display, I would look at this, right?
1:12:50Because Apple doesn't have a solution.
1:12:52But what this says to me is that Apple's,
1:12:55I don't think Apple's gonna make a display at this point.
1:12:57I thought that they may.
1:12:58And you know, when they first shipped the Mac Pro,
1:13:02I think they pointed to LG's, hey, it's 4K.
1:13:04If you want a 4K display, go over here and buy it.
1:13:06But we all thought that they would get around to it.
1:13:08And today would have been the day to do it.
1:13:11When you have your new MacBook Pro,
1:13:12you're talking about Final Cut and Photoshop
1:13:15and all this stuff, pros want a MacBook Pro
1:13:17and a big display, today is the day to announce it.
1:13:20And what do they do?
1:13:20They announce an LG that they partnered with.
1:13:23And I think they're just done.
1:13:25I think they're done with the display business.
1:13:27And that makes me sad because, you know,
1:13:29the Thunderbolt display was really nice
1:13:31for a really long time.
1:13:32And the displays before that were really nice.
1:13:34- Yeah, I don't think we're gonna see a retina display.
1:13:36I think this is it now. - No.
1:13:38This has gotta be it.
1:13:39There's people in the chat
1:13:41who are talking about external GPU monitors.
1:13:42I don't know about any of that.
1:13:43I don't know what this has in it.
1:13:44But the fact that Apple worked with them
1:13:46and it got keynote time,
1:13:48and you can buy it from Apple on their online store,
1:13:51like, this seems like this is the direction
1:13:53Apple's going in.
1:13:53They're gonna point you to other places for a display.
1:13:57Because you know they could have done the LG one today, and they could have said and if you want an apple branded one
1:14:02you know with built-in eyesight camera and built-in speakers and
1:14:07Maybe more IO or something else cool that it does you know we have an option as well
1:14:11And it's $500 and more that have been totally fine
1:14:13You have a cheap LG version or less expensive not cheap less expensive LG option
1:14:18You have like a really nice Apple option, but it's just the one and
1:14:21At this point if they release a new cinema display at some point
1:14:25I will be shocked. This seems like they're going third-party options only.
1:14:29Which again, totes bummer.
1:14:32I don't think they sell enough of the computers that connect to this.
1:14:36Can I ask you guys a question before we move towards the end? But you gotta be honest.
1:14:42Yes.
1:14:43Okay. So, there was a Microsoft event yesterday.
1:14:48Ha, ha. I was gonna bring this up.
1:14:50Apple event today. Now be honest, which event left you more excited?
1:14:55So I didn't watch the Microsoft event but I have spent, I've just like watched a couple of videos
1:15:04about the Surface Studio. I'm more excited about that computer because with the way that I
1:15:14personally work the work that I do on a Mac.
1:15:17I edit audio and I edit video
1:15:20and I do them using a Wacom tablet and a track pad.
1:15:25I imagine a beautiful world in which I would use a pen
1:15:29on a screen and my hands to move everything around.
1:15:33For the work that I do, this is a fantastic machine for me.
1:15:38It just has one big problem in that it doesn't run
1:15:40the operating system that I wanna use.
1:15:43And the thing is, right, I was thinking about today, if I used Adobe's products,
1:15:48if I used Premiere and Audition, I would probably buy one of these computers
1:15:52because my Mac is for a specific purpose now is to do those two things.
1:16:00It's all I do with it.
1:16:01If I used multi-platform applications, that would suffice.
1:16:08If Apple made Final Cut and Logic for Windows and it was good, then I would be able to use
1:16:14a device like this.
1:16:15Just because for the way that I use inputs, the input methods that I use, this computer
1:16:22has been designed around where I am bringing in 50% of it, a third party peripheral to
1:16:29my Mac which is pretty well supported.
1:16:34So I'm more excited about that computer personally.
1:16:37If Apple made it, if Apple brought this out,
1:16:39my iMac would already be in the trash.
1:16:41Like I would buy this computer so fast
1:16:44because it's the type of,
1:16:46it has the input methods that I prefer to use for,
1:16:51I use them for comfort, I use them for RSI,
1:16:54and now I'm faster with them.
1:16:56And I have my kind of,
1:16:57my workflow is built around them on this machine.
1:17:00And for me, it is purely because like my Mac
1:17:03is a production tool.
1:17:04So it can't all of the other software on my Mac does not matter if it's not used to produce audio and it's not produced
1:17:11It's not made to produce video. It doesn't matter like it just doesn't matter. So there you go. I
1:17:16Think I think the surface studio is super interesting and I tweeted the other day that like
1:17:26Apple hasn't really pushed the boundaries of the iMac in a long time
1:17:30that the iMac that we have today is more or less the iMac G5, right?
1:17:35It's an LCD with a foot and the computer on the back of it.
1:17:38It's gotten skinnier and the display's gotten way better.
1:17:40But the form factor hasn't changed.
1:17:42Since really the G4 is the last one that was innovative as far as a
1:17:46form perspective.
1:17:49And I don't know if this machine is going to take off.
1:17:51I think that there are gonna be people who really like it, people who like to work the way Myke does with a pen and
1:17:56with his hands.
1:17:57And I'm not saying Apple should copy it.
1:18:01I'm not saying the iMac should do that.
1:18:05What I am saying is that it would be interesting to see Apple expand some of the technology
1:18:11it already has.
1:18:12It's like, why can't I use an Apple Pencil on the giant trackpad on this new MacBook
1:18:17Pro?
1:18:19why can't I at least have the option
1:18:22of an iPad that's even bigger than 12.9 inches
1:18:28that you could edit on comfortably at your desk
1:18:31and hunch over and use both hands comfortably.
1:18:34I'm not saying those machines are for everybody.
1:18:39I don't want a touch-enabled Mac.
1:18:42A, Mac OS is nowhere near ready for touch
1:18:44as far as a user interface,
1:18:46But there are people who do want to be more in the middle.
1:18:50And having options there is good.
1:18:52And honestly, when they showed that big track pad today,
1:18:56I was like, "Oh, what if you could use a pencil with it?"
1:18:58That would be really, really interesting.
1:19:02You could edit at a MacBook Pro with your pencil mic.
1:19:04Like that would be a big change, potentially,
1:19:08for someone who works like you.
1:19:10But they're not doing it.
1:19:11They are really locked into their form factors.
1:19:13The MacBook Pro we have today,
1:19:16kind of the same design since 1991.
1:19:17And I'm not saying change it for change's sake,
1:19:19I'm not saying the Surface Studio's gonna be a giant hit,
1:19:21I don't think it will be, I think it'll be a niche product.
1:19:24But we don't see Apple take risks
1:19:26with their hardware like that,
1:19:28and I think that it's super interesting
1:19:32that Microsoft is taking a big run
1:19:34at creative professionals on the desktop,
1:19:36and that was Apple's bread and butter for like 20 years.
1:19:41- So I've been thinking about this.
1:19:43This product reminds me of your iMac.
1:19:47And it's interesting to me, like this Surface Studio,
1:19:52when I say your iMac, obviously mean the G3, right? Like I think, right.
1:19:56This product will not sell in large volumes,
1:20:00but Microsoft is targeting the creative professional.
1:20:04This was what Apple did to bring themselves back to the fore, right?
1:20:08Like everybody can agree that the iMac G3 put them on the path
1:20:13that made them the most successful computer company in the world.
1:20:16It's not saying that anybody that follows that could do that, you know, lightning in
1:20:20a bottle and all that, but that was what did it.
1:20:23If I'm Sacha Nadella, maybe this is what I will try as well.
1:20:27Like I want to be seen as the most innovative, dominant computer maker in the world again.
1:20:33So why don't I go back to basics and start over?
1:20:36I will say that like the Surface Book, whilst interesting, is not as exciting to me as the
1:20:41MacBook Pro.
1:20:42Right? Like it's not Windows, it's not Surface, that computer.
1:20:46The Surface Studio is more interesting to me than the MacBook Pro.
1:20:49But Apple's for Apple's sake, right? Like the laptops that they released?
1:20:53I don't want that. I want a MacBook Pro.
1:20:55I don't want the Surface Book, even though I think that is a very cool looking device.
1:20:59It doesn't give me what I'm looking for.
1:21:00The reason I think the Studio is interesting,
1:21:03it's just with the way that I work, the tools that I use, it fits me better.
1:21:07But I'm not going to be moving.
1:21:08Was that the answer you expected Federico?
1:21:10Yes, it's a very good answer. I ask because I have no interest in either Pro Max or the Surface Studio.
1:21:20I just feel like it feels like something new, and I mean the studio, in a maybe deeper way than a Touch Bar.
1:21:33I think the Touch Bar is awesome. I think it makes total sense for the MacBook.
1:21:38it's a very clever way, as I said, of bringing iOS to macOS. But the Surface Studio, just
1:21:44judging only from the video, it feels like something new. And maybe in practice it'll
1:21:49be terrible, maybe there's going to be some seriously bad flaw with the hardware, I don't
1:21:53know. But I saw the Penny Arcade guy with his review, it sounds like a fantastic computer
1:22:03if you're into that line of work, and it looks different. And so that's why I wanted to
1:22:08ask because the touch bar is also different but I feel like the Surface Studio, Microsoft
1:22:13is doing good work in, you know, trying things differently which is kind of weird to say
1:22:20of Microsoft but that's where we've ended up I guess.
1:22:23Yeah, that's kind of where they are as a company right now because they have a visionary CEO
1:22:30I think in the Della. So I was going, I've been talking for weeks about the fact that
1:22:38I was waiting for the next laptops to be released and then I was going to be replacing my MacBook
1:22:42Pro right? That's been the plan for a while because I want a more purpose travel machine.
1:22:49I want something that's thinner, something that's lighter. So I looked at the MacBook
1:22:53Pro, it's thinner, it's lighter, it has the touch bar which I think looks really cool
1:22:57it has all of the power. Now I am not buying a MacBook Pro and there are two reasons. One,
1:23:04price is a reason, right? But I had saved up enough money, I put aside enough money
1:23:09to buy a professional laptop so the increased price from what I thought I would be is not
1:23:17a lot more based on what I'd saved, right? They're expensive but you know it was going
1:23:22be something that's going to last me multiple years. One of the main reasons I've decided
1:23:28to not go for the MacBook Pro is the main advancement will be no benefit to me, the
1:23:34Touch Bar, because I will only use this machine a handful of times a year, where I maybe will
1:23:40use it for a couple of months a year in total. I can't get used to it. I can't allow myself
1:23:49to get used to that because I can't use it for the rest of the year right it's
1:23:55not a good thing for me to have this like split experience like that so
1:24:01that's the main reason so I bought a MacBook I bought a gold MacBook I bought
1:24:08the the one that the higher tier up so the MacBook adorable like the what is it
1:24:16I can't even remember what it is. It's like 1.3 gigahertz or something. It's nothing.
1:24:20But I went on to the Apple website and saw that the prices had gone up and I was unhappy about that
1:24:28because I could have just bought it this morning and it would have been getting the same computer.
1:24:33So I thought to myself, well Apple have put the price up. Apple is not the only place that you can buy a MacBook from.
1:24:41So I bought it from a department store chain here called John Lewis at yesterday's price
1:24:47So I saved I say 300 pounds, which was very happy. I was very proud of myself for doing that
1:24:53I'm now will spend that savings on adapters
1:24:56But this machine this is the machine that I think will be the best for me
1:25:01It's going to be really upset when I want to edit podcasts and video on this
1:25:05but I can live with that because what I will be doing is
1:25:11reducing the space needed in a bag and the weight significantly, which really is the
1:25:18key thing that I need to do when I'm traveling. So there you go. That's what I have. I got
1:25:21a MacBook.
1:25:24So we haven't even talked about it on the show yet, but I, several weeks ago, picked
1:25:28up a refurbished 5K iMac from Apple. You can buy a refurbished machine. They warranted
1:25:33them as new, which is really nice. So I got a pretty loaded iMac for like $600 off. And
1:25:40I figured if they update them today, it'd be a little bit of a bummer, but I already
1:25:44have a ton of like USB Thunderbolt stuff.
1:25:48And you know, my studio setup is pretty stable at this point, so I won't be changing out
1:25:53a lot of stuff.
1:25:54And so, sold the 15-inch MacBook Pro that I've had the last year and a half.
1:25:58And so I too am in the market for something thin and light to travel with.
1:26:02And I do some other stuff in town where I need a laptop, but I don't need a 15-inch
1:26:08MacBook Pro.
1:26:09is now my main machine, the MacBook would be secondary.
1:26:13And so I like you waiting till today's event
1:26:17to see what's gonna happen.
1:26:19And I am really, really on the fence about what to do.
1:26:23The 13 inch with the touch bar of course is enticing
1:26:25to have the new technology.
1:26:27It's still thin and light, it's in the class
1:26:30of the MacBook Air, it's actually a little bit
1:26:32smaller footprint.
1:26:33And it looks nice, but it's $1800 is hard to justify
1:26:38for a secondary computer.
1:26:40I could do it, it's in the budget,
1:26:41but I'm not quite sold on that yet.
1:26:44And again, being a secondary machine,
1:26:47the Touch Bar stuff may only get in the way.
1:26:51It may be that because I don't have it on the iMac
1:26:53where I'm working every day,
1:26:54that I don't really ever get the benefit of it
1:26:56on the notebook, and that maybe it's frustrating
1:26:59to have it one place and not the other.
1:27:02And so then I considered the super strange
1:27:07new MacBook Pro, new design without the touch bar.
1:27:11It's got the function key still, it's cheaper,
1:27:14still thin and light, still pretty powerful,
1:27:17but it'd have a retina display, which would be nice.
1:27:21But still adapting, and for things that I need on the road,
1:27:24having things like an SD card slot and USB-A
1:27:26are still pretty nice, pretty common things I do
1:27:30if I'm on the road doing podcasting or live events
1:27:32or something like that.
1:27:33And so I turned to the MacBook Air.
1:27:36Same as it was yesterday.
1:27:37It's cheap, the display's really crummy,
1:27:40but it has USB ports, it's Thunderbolt port,
1:27:43has an SD card slot, still obviously thin and light,
1:27:46and still works with all the other stuff I have
1:27:49for the iMac.
1:27:50So I'm not talking about, you know,
1:27:51oh, if I take my USB interface with me,
1:27:55I need to remember to take the adapter or a different cable
1:27:58than if I'm at home and I'm using the cable on the desk.
1:28:01And so I haven't made a decision yet.
1:28:05the MacBook Air would be the cheapest
1:28:06and probably the easiest to live with,
1:28:09but I know that I'm a nerd and I know that
1:28:12at some point I will want to try the new stuff.
1:28:16And so the MacBook Pros call to me as well.
1:28:19And since they are more or less the same size and weight,
1:28:24that really only complicates it.
1:28:26'Cause I want something that's light and thin.
1:28:28I don't want the MacBook.
1:28:30I would like more than one port.
1:28:32I would like a more powerful processor.
1:28:35So for me, the Air versus the Pro conversation
1:28:37is really tricky, and I've been without a laptop now
1:28:41for a couple weeks, and it's been okay, I've gotten by,
1:28:45but the new MacBook Pros in the US are shipping
1:28:48two to three weeks out, that was a couple hours ago,
1:28:50it may be longer now, and so can I wait, you know,
1:28:54another couple of weeks, or do I get the MacBook Pro
1:28:58that's cheaper, still light and thin,
1:29:00but has regular function keys?
1:29:02I really don't know, like I don't know what I'm going to do.
1:29:05I'm gonna try to make a decision this weekend,
1:29:07but it's really confusing.
1:29:10Like when we went through the price stuff
1:29:12a couple minutes ago, there's a lot of options now.
1:29:15And if you're looking for a 13-inch laptop,
1:29:18you got a lot of options, more than ever.
1:29:23And if you count the 12 inch being pretty close to size,
1:29:25you got even more.
1:29:26And so I think Apple will end up simplifying the line.
1:29:31I can see a world in which the MacBook Air goes away
1:29:36and I kinda wonder if the MacBook Air was gone,
1:29:40if this non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro
1:29:44may have been called the MacBook Air
1:29:45or may have been called MacBook.
1:29:47The names are all really confusing right now,
1:29:49but I'm really on the fence.
1:29:51So I've gone over pros and cons
1:29:55and we'll see where I end up.
1:29:57But even for somebody like me
1:29:59who knows what they're looking at
1:30:00and kind of knows what they want to a degree,
1:30:02it's still a confusing time.
1:30:04- I think the practical decision is the Air.
1:30:09- Probably.
1:30:10- But knowing you as I do,
1:30:12I know you're never gonna be happy with that.
1:30:14- Probably.
1:30:15- And you'll buy the Air
1:30:16and then just buy the MacBook Pro six months later.
1:30:18- Probably.
1:30:19- Yeah.
1:30:20So I think you should just buy the MacBook Pro
1:30:22and then the bags of dongles you're gonna need.
1:30:25- Yeah, and you know what I may do is,
1:30:28try it without the touch bar and see if that's enough.
1:30:32You know, because not having the touch bar on both machines
1:30:36really feels like it's going to be frustrating that when I edit
1:30:40on the laptop or when I'm working on the laptop that I'm going to get used to it
1:30:44and then I'm going to want it on the iMac or that it really gets in the way
1:30:48on the MacBook because I'm not used to it. And so for me
1:30:52what I may end up doing is the MacBook Pro without it, I can get it much sooner
1:30:56and I'm not in a world where I have it one place
1:30:59and not the other, and then if they ever add to the iMac
1:31:01through external keyboard or something,
1:31:03then look at doing it.
1:31:05It also makes that machine $300 cheaper,
1:31:07and for a secondary machine, that is a factor, right?
1:31:12Especially if I'm wanting to do AppleCare, so.
1:31:15We'll see, I guess I'll follow up with that next week.
1:31:17- Yep.
1:31:19All right, you asked the listeners on some connected QA,
1:31:21do you wanna run through those before we finish?
1:31:23- Sure, so I just pulled out three.
1:31:25There's a lot of overlap.
1:31:26The first one being, "Is anyone worried about accidentally shutting down the Mac when using
1:31:30Touch ID?"
1:31:31So the word on the street is the Touch ID sensor is also the power button.
1:31:35My guess is that it only works as a Touch ID button when Mac OS tells it to, so at login
1:31:44or during Apple Pay.
1:31:49Now maybe with fast view searching it's always listening, but right now if you click the
1:31:54power button on a laptop, you actually have to like hold it down and then then after you
1:32:01hold down for like three seconds the system asks are you sure you want to shut down your
1:32:04computer now and you have options like sleep or restart or cancel or shut down.
1:32:08And so you're not going to accidentally turn the computer off because you're gonna have
1:32:12to like hold and press or maybe you have to hold function and then press it.
1:32:17I don't really know but I'm not worried about accidentally like turning it off.
1:32:20I would like to think that if there is a touch ID purchase needed at least like you know
1:32:26an Apple Pay purchase like that you wouldn't be able to turn it off at that moment.
1:32:31Yeah.
1:32:32You know I don't know.
1:32:33So the second one from Steven FCB talking about the dongles I get how to charge my iPhone
1:32:38on this laptop.
1:32:39Apple does sell a USB to lightning cable it's like 20 bucks or you can get a USB C to USB
1:32:45A adapter which if you're gonna buy any adapters that's probably the one you're gonna buy so
1:32:49you can hook up all your regular USB stuff.
1:32:50So totally doable, it's super weird the iPhone, like the iPhone is a weird product because
1:32:55they can't put USB-C lightning cables in the box because there are only some Apple machines
1:33:00and high-end PCs using USB-C.
1:33:02Like most people, if they plug an iPhone into a computer at all, it's probably a PC where
1:33:08USB-C has not made great inroads yet.
1:33:09So I think it may be a while before you get USB-C in the box, but you can buy a lightning
1:33:13cable.
1:33:14Yeah, I think we all use those, right?
1:33:17we have the fast charger for the iPad.
1:33:20That is the USB-C to Lightning.
1:33:23- Yes.
1:33:23So they're definitely out there,
1:33:26and I think that's,
1:33:27it's just gonna be a little weird if you buy this,
1:33:29you're gonna need to buy a cable.
1:33:31The last one was about the naming,
1:33:33about, you know, talking about the MacBook
1:33:37versus MacBook Pro versus MacBook Air.
1:33:39This is from Brando.
1:33:40Do you think Apple screwed up the naming?
1:33:4412 inch should be Air, 13th function keys MacBook,
1:33:4613 to 15 with Touch Bar Pro.
1:33:48I think the naming would be more clear
1:33:51if they started out this way,
1:33:52but remember the naming is like generations old.
1:33:56And the MacBook Air name comes from 2008
1:33:58when it really was way thinner,
1:34:00way lighter than anything else.
1:34:02And it's just like baggage from the past.
1:34:04And the MacBook Air will go away at some point
1:34:08and it'll be the MacBook and the MacBook Pro.
1:34:11And I think that middle MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar
1:34:13will eventually go away too.
1:34:14So they are on the track to sanity,
1:34:16they're just not quite there yet.
1:34:18- I think the next time that these computers get updated,
1:34:21we'll lose both the Air and that weird MacBook,
1:34:23the Function Key MacBook that will go, as you say.
1:34:26They will both go away and then we'll just,
1:34:28there was a time where it was just MacBook and MacBook Pro
1:34:30and then products have come and gone, right,
1:34:33out of that lineup and they've shuffled the names
1:34:35around over time.
1:34:36I think that we're in a transition period
1:34:39from a branding perspective as well as everything else.
1:34:42Yeah and it is more awkward than it was yesterday no doubt but it's just something that they
1:34:48just have to work through.
1:34:49All right if you want to catch our show notes for this week go to relay.fm/connected/114
1:34:56thank you so much to Smile for sponsoring this week's episode.
1:34:59If you want to find Federico's online Federico's online you can find him on the line.
1:35:05He is uh where are you maxstories.net that's the that's the one right?
1:35:10I think that's where you're right.
1:35:12That's my website, yes.
1:35:13Okay, good.
1:35:14On the line.
1:35:15And Steven is at 512pixels.net.
1:35:18Federico is @Vittucci on Twitter, V-I-T-I-C-C-I.
1:35:21Steven is @ismh and I am @imike.
1:35:26As always, thank you for listening.
1:35:28I am not going to be here next week, it's just the two of you.
1:35:30I am going to be on location at the All Conference in Ireland.
1:35:35Me and Jason will be recording Upgrade from All and we'll get his opinions on all of this
1:35:40stuff because he's actually had his hands on those machines as well in the
1:35:43in the reviewers area so looking forward to talking about that and I will have a
1:35:47MacBook as well by a point. Hooray for me! Thank you so much for listening everyone
1:35:53we'll be back next time until then say goodbye guys.
1:35:55Adios.