Upgrade - 125: A Bear Did it For Me

Episode Date: January 23, 2017

This week Jason makes the case for a new size of iPad Pro and an external Touch Bar and Touch ID sensor. We also discuss Samsung's explanation for the exploding Galaxy Note 7 and Apple's updates to Logic and GarageBand.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 125 today's show is brought to you by encapsular smile and square space my name is mike hurley i am joined by mr jason snell good morning mr hurley good morning jason snell how are you today hello to everybody out there in podcast land where it may be night, morning, daytime. The dead of night, I don't know. Could be anything. I'm doing well. For us, it's Monday. And for me, it's Monday morning.

For me, it's Monday evening. But for you, it could be anything. This is how we start our week. So we have some pretty huge follow-out to start off this week's show. We do. huge follow-out to start off this week's show we do i uh people don't realize uh if you were not listening to live that we actually did about a two plus hour show last week and we we decided it was too long and so we cut the uh ask upgrade segment last week but there was a debate about whether we should cut that segment or our discussion of Chris Lattner leaving Apple. Yep.

And we decided to keep Chris Lattner's segment because we thought that that was worth talking about and it was very timely and we could replay some of those Ask Upgrade questions later. And in it, we really referred to strongly that people should listen to ATP episode 204, where they talked in detail about Chris Lattner and LLVM and Swift and what this all, you know, what it all means from a developer perspective. So we were like, yes, it's very nice of us to refer to ATP. And then like

the next day, they dropped their next episode, which includes a complete show wall-to-wall interview with Chris Lattner. Yeah, as Seth pointed out, they used the weight of their 3P Upgrade-y win to pull in a star like Chris. They're an award-winning podcast. Every time. Yeah. So yeah, it's a really great episode.

If you for any reason have not listened to it, you should. I will give a disclaimer that it is very very developer heavy um like the show starts off and they were like trying to dumb things down and explain it to everyone but that didn't last for very long um and then they got super in the weeds but i don't understand what they were talking about but i really enjoyed listening to it is it was you know. It's the idea that they're speaking very passionately about things, and every now and then I can kind of grok what they're talking about. But yeah, I really recommend it. It was a fun episode.

As you can imagine, there isn't a lot of behind-the-curtain stuff. But I think you can kind of get an idea from listening to Chris, kind of his motivations for wanting to move on. He clearly sounds like someone who needs to have new challenges and this just sounded like a big new challenge but it also is that you know he was yes he was at apple but he's also at um working on open source projects right so i i kept thinking about well you know wow he's going into a lot of detail here but as. But as he pointed out himself, a lot of what Apple does on those projects is wide open, right? I mean, those are open source projects. So they're not the super secret part of Apple that Chris Lattner was working on.

And he did, yes, he did very carefully steer around a couple of, I think, levels of detail that would have been inappropriate. Also, taking full advantage of the fact that he currently has no employer. It's like the perfect time to do something like this. Sort of he's decloaked. He's about to recloak again, but here he is. And again, though, the cloak isn't the same because it's open source stuff. So that's the beauty of these open source projects is that they are done out in the open

and you can communicate about them. And a lot of conversation goes on about these. I mean, John Syracuse has been on that Swift mailing list since the beginning. And so he was able to say, you know, people argue about this and what do you think about that and all that because that conversation's happening out in the open.

Yeah. Latner was in like a weird position like a unique position at apple anyway right um but yeah it was a surprise to hear him on the show because even then it's like oh wow he's like in between these two jobs and they probably both don't want him talking about too much but like up he pops it's a great episode you go check it out episode 205 the accent podcast um and i have some follow-up suggested by listening michael which uh is is related to atp and their three-time upgradey win michael suggests that atp become the lifetime achievement award winner of the tech podcast for the upgradies as it goes forward because they've had three wins now they could potentially continue

winning the award forever so to let other people maybe try and claim it i think that atp could become the lifetime achievement award and you know if they if they want to you know they could maybe present the award to the the later winning tech podcast what do you think of that what do you think of michael's suggestion yeah i think this is exactly right i had been thinking this myself so i appreciate michael suggesting it and i think we'll put uh atp in the in the upgrade hall of fame the first entrant into the upgrade hall of fame yes and we'll retire it and uh let somebody else have a chance at winning next year or this year end of this year 2017 2017 fourth annual this year yeah yeah wow that's quite that's crazy to think about a bit of follow-up regarding netflix and apple tv we spoke about this last week you know i was

kind of complaining when we talk about the apple tv that it seems like apple couldn't even get a deal done with netflix to enable their content in the tv app it seems like a half deal has been done um sorry this article on apple insider um now if you search for a movie or show inside the TV app on the Apple TV or iOS, it gives Netflix results now, and it will play these results in the TV app as opposed to jumping you out. I think it maybe gave the results before, but you click them and it will take you to the Netflix app. Now it will play that content within the TV app,

so you don't leave it and you're not jumping around from application to application however netflix titles will not appear in the recommended shows list and you cannot queue up netflix program programming either so what this says to me is that like netflix do not want to be having their recommendation system like kind of usurped by Apple's. Yeah. They believe in their system and they want their system to remain. But I do wonder how they think this is going to help them

if people were leaving their application because then people are not going to see the recommended content. So this is kind of confusing. They're getting the data and I think they're feeling like if you want to get more you'll go it's an interesting decision i think they must feel like the upside of having this key app that is apple's trying to place at the center of the apple tv experience that making their offerings there so if you know so if you're looking for Luke Cage or something, you're going to find it and

not be frustrated that it's not in the main TV interface. So I think that's okay. But yeah, from their perspective, what they don't want is people to never use the Netflix app and never see, because Netflix recommendations are entirely geared toward watching things on Netflix and promoting their own material, their own originals and all of that. And the TV app, the way Apple has designed it is to be, you know, promoting material across all of the things you subscribe to. And so that gives you the opportunity to see something on HBO Go or Hulu instead of, just as examples, instead of Netflix. And if that's the case, then, you know, this is the trade-off for all of these companies

is they want complete control. And this is the case where Apple, ironically, is in the state of being, trying to be the place where everything comes together and synthesizes all the different catalogs, but everybody else really would rather live in a universe where they're the only competitor. There is no competitor, right? Once you're in the Netflix app, they have you and everything you see is on Netflix. And hey, that's a great place to be if you can get them there. I think that the great place to be if you can get them there. I think that the challenge here for any provider like Netflix seems to me to be that if there's enough critical mass, enough momentum behind the TV app, if it becomes useful enough that iOS users and Apple TV users really start to see it as the

place where they find their content and watch their tv then it becomes a problem for netflix because then netflix is trying to uh you know it is not being considered it's not being shown and then their promotion is uh is non-existent and that's bad for them but is that really going to happen with the tv app i'm kind of I mean, they're going to need enough providers who are willing to take the chance at competing in kind of an open market. And that's the shame of this really is that I mean, frankly, first off, I have this on my TiVo now. My TiVo does this. My TiVo integrates Netflix content. TiVo now. My TiVo does this. My TiVo integrates Netflix content and I can add Netflix shows to my season pass and they show up and it keeps track of what I've watched and what I haven't.

And when I choose an episode, it goes to the Netflix app. Now, what doesn't happen is if I play the next episode, I think it doesn't keep track of that because it's in the Netflix app and not the TiVo app anymore. So there's still some complexity here. But I will tell you, it's great. But yeah, if you're Netflix and you think you're number one and everybody should just live in the Netflix universe, I could see why you don't want to have to compete with whatever is on HBO and Hulu and Amazon Video. But so it's like I see both sides of this. I think for consumers, clearly, it's better if's like i see both sides of this i think for consumers clearly it's better if

everybody's in the tv app even if we can complain a little bit about what the tv app's premise is and how it works and all of that the idea that all of all of the internet video that you pay for is in one place and you can manage it in one place is a good one for for users but i see why netflix would not like the idea. And then, of course, Amazon's not there on the Apple TV at all. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. At this point, do you think that we're going to see Amazon video?

Like, I've given up hope. I don't, well, I can't make a prediction because I don't see why it hasn't happened, right? There is an iOS app. There is literally no reason why they couldn't do it. They have the wherewithal to do it. I know it's not as simple as saying, well, let's turn this into an Apple TV app, but they have the will to put it on iOS. So clearly, Amazon Video wants to be present on iOS because there are so many iPhones out there, especially, right? That's, I think, their number one reason for doing it. I get it.

And there aren't that many Apple TVs out there. And they make a device that is much better suited to consuming Amazon Video than the Apple TV, which is the Fire TV, right? Which is theirs. And it's totally built around that, even though Amazon, you know, Netflix is on there, right? It's just iTunes that isn't on there. So technically, there's no reason for them not to be there. And in fact, you can airplay to an Apple TV, it's just less convenient. But so at this point, I don't really know, because it's all about politics. Because I'm on the record on this show is saying I thought that

they would be there last year sometime. I thought they would finally do it because in the end, what matter, what should matter most to Amazon is, is having as many people as possible have access to their content and not, uh, selling fire TV sticks. Right. And in the end, but, but I think you could, you could argue that this is the same thing we were just talking about, which is Amazon would much rather you have a Fire TV stick where they control all the recommendations in the UI and can show you their stuff than an Apple TV where you have to go through Apple's recommendation engine and go away from it to the Amazon app and then see it. They would much rather you be there.

I get that, but at the same time, I don't know if that's enough reason not to have it on an Apple TV too, just to get more of your customers watching your stuff. Yeah, it really feels like you're putting the money into the content. Just give it to people wherever they want it. I feel like Netflix is the company that really understands that you know like there is you know the netflix app is built into everything yeah yeah exactly netflix well netflix knows netflix doesn't have a box although i was talking to somebody about this the other week that

roku when it started was kind of the netflix box that was its first iteration was it played netflix and it was the and it was kind of the official netflix player box which is kind of did they have a button or this was it something else that they had on the roku remotes they had a button for a service that maybe went away or something yeah oh yeah the the current ones do that they have they have services that are that are dead that are on their on their remote controls that of new ones that they're still selling but the original netflix original roku which i guess they would call a roku one right now was actually called the roku netflix netflix player that's what it was called it was um so but netflix basically doesn't have hardware they don't care they're not trying to sell you

hardware they just want to be everywhere because they think Netflix is where you want to be, right? That's what they believe. And they're willing to share space with competitors on the app level, but not like integrate their recommendations and stuff into, and data into somebody's shared area. And Amazon has taken a different approach, right? Because Amazon's making its own hardware. It's funny. I mean, mean apple is the same way sort of in the sense that apple is limiting its services to its own hardware which amazon's not doing but that's what apple's doing apple doesn't want you to be able to watch itunes movies from uh any device but the apple tv and that's just been you know that's that's that's just the way they they've chosen to do it And that's just the way they've chosen to do it.

Kevin asked why you were so down on Bluetooth in cars that you didn't bother to use it in Hawaii. Yeah, this is a good question. I'm not down on Bluetooth in cars. I mean, I don't love Bluetooth in cars. I have a Bluetooth radio in my car that I use to listen to music and podcasts when I'm driving my car. And it's finicky, but it works. Sometimes I have to wait like 20 seconds for it to finally kind of lock on and start playing the audio. But it does work. And that's what I use. On a rental car. Two reasons. One is, you know, it's weird because you don't know where that car has been. Right.

It's like who has paired to that car. I don't know of any stories of things other than the short of people like having like a dress book syncing and things like that. But the idea that your phone is now connecting to this device, that makes me feel kind of weird. But honestly, the reason I don't even consider pairing to Bluetooth in rental cars is that I find the car setup experience so strange in different cars. And it's just hard to figure out. It's different in different cars. And then you end up with this kind of finicky Bluetooth situation anyway. So I should probably consider doing that. But when I've done that in the past, I've gotten frustrated.

Some cars also, you start going to your destination and then like my wife's driving and I'm there setting up the technology and all of that for us to get, I'm navigating and I'm plugging things in and getting chargers in and all of that. And then I try to pair the Bluetooth and it says, oh, no, you can only pair Bluetooth when a car is stopped. That's a frequent one. Because they don't want drivers pairing their Bluetooth while they're driving. Which is fine, although, I mean, I would question that scenario, but people are dumb and they do dumb things like pair Bluetooth when they're driving.

But at that point, you're out of luck. That's happened to me too. So, I don't know. That's happened to me too. So I don't know. It's probably a good reminder that I should at least consider that as an option. And I might have if my phone was completely out of battery and I wanted to still listen to music, I would have obviously had to use the lightning port

to charge my iPhone. And then I might have considered, well, I could go through Bluetooth. But the aux port to charge my iPhone. And then I might have considered, well, I could go through Bluetooth. But, you know, the aux port is way easier, right? You plug it in and it works. And so that's usually my number one choice. Okay. I mean, yeah, it's the analog way of doing things and sometimes a little bit nicer. And Stephen wrote in to say that on his iPhone, A little bit nicer. And Stephen wrote in to say that on his iPhone,

using, I assume, Mail and the Calendar app, concert tickets and flights, et cetera, are on his calendar. He doesn't need to use Google Calendar, which is something you mentioned last week about how Google services put sort of stuff in automatically for you. So I guess we should have expanded it a little bit more that, yes, iCloud can do this. This was introduced in iOS 9 9 i believe where there's some some uh ai smarts happening there where um mail slash calendar can recognize um some booking

receipts and things like that and suggest these things to go in your calendar it also suggests like names and addresses and phone numbers for like contacts sometimes you'll get a call from someone and it will say hey this could be this person because they've recognized it from your email which is good stuff right but in my experience it doesn't recognize a lot of these like so there are some companies that it works with and some that it doesn't that i've found like british airways um booking information always works but virgin atlantic stuff isn't recognized. I found Expedia bookings. Sometimes, like if it's flights, it will get booked in, but if it's hotels, it doesn't. But then some third party, like some like direct hotel bookings, like when I booked my San Francisco hotel,

it recognizes that. Like basically, I found that it works, but not 100% reliably. And at least from what I've heard from people like you and from Federico with Google stuff, it seems to always work. Yeah, one of the challenges here, and this is what we were trying to talk about, is that Google has access to more data because more data is unencrypted and able to be processed by Google servers,

and Apple doesn't do that. So I think one of the questions here is that i have is i i think this is working in mail where mail is seeing these events in your mailbox yeah and then it then it's when you when you have the email open it recommends it at the top like above the subject and it's like hey you could add this to a calendar or if you go to the calendar app and you have those emails in your inbox still it recognizes them in like. Or if you go to the calendar app and you have those emails in your inbox still, it recognizes them in like a little thing that's called the calendar inbox,

which is nice and confusing, but there you go. What I don't know is if Apple's doing any processing on mail that's on the iCloud, you know, iCloud mail, you know, mac.com, me.com, iCloud.com email addresses. There's a doc, we'll put in the show notes that Apple has that says what's encrypted on Apple servers and what's not.

And your mail is not because it's IMAP basically. And that means that Apple could actually be reading your mail and doing what Google does, which is read the mail, identify it as a flight reservation and pop it on your iCloud calendar. And maybe they're even doing that. I do believe this is happening on device.

Yeah, my guess is that it's doing what everything Apple does is doing, which is on the device, you know, Apple Mail knows that it's there and creates an invitation essentially on your calendar, which is what Google does. But what Google does is on the server, it does it. And that does have the advantage of happening whether you're checking your mail or not so one thing that i've found of trying to do this because i like it because otherwise i'm entering this stuff manually because i use apple services for these right now like i use a icloud email and i can't calendar currently for a lot of this stuff um and i plan to continue using my icloud email um for the foreseeable future because it's been the email address that I've used for these things

for close to 15 years. But whenever I've done these things, like using a third-party mail client or whatever, it doesn't recognize it in Apple's calendar. I have to have it downloaded in the inbox of Apple's mail app for these things to be recognized, if they're going to be recognized at all. So if you're all in on Apple's services and work in their way, it can work. But I think really, for a lot of stuff, having it all happen server-side,

like Google, can provide a little bit more magic in the whole process, honestly. It's just happening without you doing anything explicit. And our goal is not to sort of say that, boy, Apple is dumb and Google is great. I think the point, the larger point here is one of the issues that happens with these two strategies is they have to build their stuff differently. And with Google, because, and everybody can say, well, this is why Google has liabilities, right? Google, because Google knows its servers know what's on my calendar.

They can look at that and they can look at what's in my email because I am on Gmail and I have a Google calendar. But what it gives them is the ability to scan messages as they pop in my inbox, even if my devices are all off and i am in the woods somewhere right it will go oh that is a although how i made the reservation in the woods is a question for later but system did it the bear did it for me the the um the the calendar will just get that as a as a i think they do it as a meeting invitation. So you can say no or yes or whatever, but it will pop it in there and say, you know, this is Southwest airlines reservations and we'll pop it in there. Apple doesn't, although Apple does have access, if you're using, um,

iCloud mail to your mail, I don't think it's actually doing anything with it, but it does at least has access. It doesn't have access to your calendar data, um, because it's all encrypted because that's Apple's whole thing, right? And so everything Apple tries to do is device side and it's just different. And there are challenges with that. You just choose what your comfort level is really, I think. Yeah, but I do, it is great.

And it's great that Apple does have some of that in there now and it should keep working on that because that is, when we're talking about intelligent assistance, I mean, this is one of those areas that is such a natural that you know your device or cloud service depending on how you've set it up should be smart enough to start doing things like looking at your mail and i know people will be like i don't want anybody looking at my mail it's like well yeah but if it's your device and it's doing the work for you um that's, to me, an easy trade-off because that's not even Google

things in the cloud looking at my stuff. That is my iPhone on my iPhone looking at the stuff that's on my iPhone. But to have it be able to see what's coming in mail and realize that I bought movie tickets or a plane reservation or whatever and knows what to do and puts it on my calendar so that when I go to my calendar to put it in there, it's already there. That's pretty great. That's pretty great. That you could theoretically buy a ticket to a movie, let's say, and not ever look at the email. Maybe the email doesn't even... Well, it gets filed or something, but it comes to you, but you don't look at it and you forget about it. And then on the day you look at your calendar and it says, you've got movie tickets tonight. It should be able to do that.

And that's cool. So Apple just has to do all that stuff, sort of processing on the devices. And there are challenges there because you've got multiple devices. So which device does the processing? Do they all work the same? Do they all check the calendar to see that an event has already been created, right? There's way more challenges to the way Apple does it, but this is the choice Apple has made to make it encrypted so that only your devices know about it.

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to give it for my accountant later on in the year. Really, like, just these tools, I use them so much, and they are so awesome. To find out more about PDFPen and the PDFPen family of applications, go to smilesoftware.com slash upgrade. Thank you so much to Smile for their support of this show and RelayFM. So yesterday evening, as we record this, so yesterday evening as we record this um samsung held a press conference to finally unveil uh and to expose i guess the reasons for their exploding galaxy note 7s um so i'll put a link in the show notes to uh recode recode has a big explanation along with some diagrams that samsung published

but i'll give you kind of the cliff notes of it. Samsung had 700 of their own team members testing 200,000 phones and an additional 30,000 batteries on top of that. They also brought in three outside companies to conduct tests and investigate along with them, and Samsung is saying that these findings were validated by these investigators. As we record, no journalists have been able

to get these investigators to give quotes. That's just a fact. I'm not trying to weight that, but that is a thing. Samsung is saying that there were two separate faults that occurred with the batteries. The first fault in the first batch of phones was caused by a design flaw in the battery that made electrons prone to bend, which in some cases led to a short circuit. I have condensed that. There is like a lot more of a scientific reason as to why that happened. But if you want to go and read the reocode article,

if you want to get that. But basically, these batteries weren't designed very well. There was an issue with one of the corners of them and they made them, in some instances, short circuit and catch fire. These were the batteries that were involved in the first recall, right? So when Samsung said, stop using these, we're bringing them back. Then there was a second fault. So then the ones that happened after that, like that one that happened on the plane, you know, three or four more that happened after they did the recall.

These were caused by a welding defect that also led to short-circuiting, and this was from a second battery supplier. Samsung believes that this issue was caused because of the tight timelines that they put on the battery manufacturer due to them needing to replace the record devices quickly. Samsung also said that if they wouldn't have put these tight timelines on,

they believed that these batteries would have been fine, and that they would have still been able to continue selling this device. But that kind of seems like a moot point, really. I mean, they put the timelines on. Samsung stresses that the design for the Note 7 that they created was not the issue, but it was due to the batteries that they sourced. Samsung now has an eight-step battery testing process that had been beefed up in the wake of this. I saw a tweet from somebody.

It was retweeted a couple of times by some journalists that I follow, by someone by the name of RV Greengart, who kind of summed it up quite nicely. So is Samsung the unluckiest OEM ever, or is there something in its process that pushed multiple suppliers to deliver flawed components? I think this perfectly sums things up. When I read this, I mean, I was seeing some skepticism online about this report. I believe that Samsung are being truthful with their findings. I don't think they're trying to cover anything up at this point. I think that would be

a really stupid idea, right, to have found something out that they're not talking about. But I do feel like there is an underlying cause to these issues that an eight-step battery testing process will solve but at the wrong end yeah yeah that that's the it's great that samsung did all of this disclosure but i think

what has made some people uneasy is the fact that what they said is great news everybody it turns out it's the battery's fault and the first battery there was this mistake that caused it to do this and the second battery there was this mistake that caused it to do this but it was totally the battery's fault and not us which may be true but everybody kind of looks at that and says, well, boy, that's really unlucky, right? That you had this problem both times. Now, I think Samsung admitted that the second one, right, like you said, the second one, the reason that it failed is that they tried to ramp up production dramatically in order to get back get the galaxy note 7 back in action and so it's not so much of a coincidence it's actually it was a result of rushing to try and solve the problem that caused the second problem yeah samsung electronics in america said basically that if they would have had more time you like, if they wouldn't have rushed it, if they would have always gone with battery supplier B, they feel that the Note 7 wouldn't have had this problem.

Right. Well, I mean, it's an easy thing to say because they were still blowing up. But, like, I get the point, which is, like, they believed that these batteries were good and would have been good, but they rushed the production of them. And basically, like like there was just some abnormalities in them some of them didn't have correct insulation tape in them like they were they were really really rushed and there was a welding issue in them which is which is it's weird because i mean i don't think samsung i didn't see the press conference i don't think what samsung's saying here is it's totally not our fault but it is it is somebody's fault right that this would these these batteries after there had been a battery problem new batteries were rushed into manufacturing and they were rushed so quickly that

they all they had manufacturing, multiple kinds of manufacturing defects that caused some percentage of them to fail. What struck me, I think the larger issue here is about trust, right? Because the Galaxy Note 7, it's over, right? It's done. It's done. It's all over,

but the announcements at airports, those continue, but it's done. The problem is what comes next? What happens with the Galaxy Note 8? They say they're going to keep on keeping on. They're not getting rid of the name. They're just going to do Galaxy Note 8. And I was struck by a reaction. There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal by Jeffrey Fowler and Joanna Stern about this. And what they said was, its explanation sometimes left us scratching our heads.

We don't have a clear sense on whether these tests will raise the bar for safety or just catch Samsung up to other smartphone makers. What Samsung is still missing is its Tylenol moment. And that's a reference to the Tylenol cyanide poisoning incident in the 80s. And what happened is Johnson & Johnson changed pill packaging, made sealed pill containers, and basically create, through kind of marketing and product design, some reassurance that this product was going to be safe. What's the equivalent of that

for Samsung? I don't know. But what strikes me about that is that this is Samsung coming clean saying we got it all figured out. And then when two fairly tech savvy people, right? I mean, when Joanna Stern, who is as tech savvy as they come says, I kind of give them a grade of a C on this. It's like like you know what that's about that's about not trusting samsung about looking at their explanations and looking at what led to the decisions that led to both of these failures especially the second one honestly where where they rushed basically like let's make more batteries as fast as we can and not be as concerned about if they fail which caused them to to fail again. And extend that to consumers, right?

I think that is the number one challenge for Samsung right now is how do you communicate to people that you have addressed this? And if all they do is come out with a note eight and say, it's great and don't do a more clear job of communicating what they've done and kind of communicate that we know that the last one was a problem, which is tough, right? To have part of your marketing message for a product be an apology for the previous product. Nobody wants to do that. But if you're so proud that you just don't acknowledge it, I think you risk everything because I think people don't forget something like that. And so that's a challenge.

And let's be honest, Samsung's marketing, at least I can say in the US, you know, Samsung's never been good at nuanced marketing. Their marketing has always been kind of weird. And I don't know whether that's just a cultural thing of precepts of marketing in South Korea, not translating to the US markets market or whether it's just the samsung's weird and they do weird stuff but their marketing in the u.s has always been a little bit strange and sometimes quite tone deaf and this is a case where they really need to do this right or they're going to do you know even well permanent damage has been done but but i do think like they will kill their products if they don't do this right because they this is not

enough and how do you make people feel like they can trust samsung and that it's learned its lesson and that the new phones are safe you you you know there are lots of ways they could try to do that including having a commitment which is i think what the wall street journal wanted a commitment from samsung to being basically the safest smartphone in existence but what the journal came away with is thinking um maybe what they've done is raise their standards to everyone else's which is not not not great so samsung were due to unveil the s8 at mobile world congress in february they did confirm to the wall street journal that they will delay this until after the wall street journal is expecting it to be maybe march, April time. So the test is coming soon. It's a different line.

It's the regular line rather than the big note line, but it's a new Samsung phone. And we will see within the next couple of months how Samsung is going to pitch its marketing because the whole Samsung brand has been damaged here. And I'm interested to see what what the s how the sa is pitched um and it seems like from what they're kind of hinting at that one of the reasons that they're delaying it is to do more safety checks on this this phone so that's good it's it's again especially on an apple centric podcast it's very easy to read all of this discussion

of Samsung bashing, but that's not, I think as we've done for the last year, when we've been talking about this, I think it's more about like, what do they, what do you do? It's an interesting problem to solve

and to see how they're going to approach it because they are one of the giants of the tech industry and they have very successful product line. And when you have something this spectacularly bad happen to you, the question is, how do you get past it? And this is another step along the way. But I think the way that I read the reactions to it is sort of people feeling like they better not think that this is the last step.

Because it's not good enough. Not yet. because it's not good enough. Not yet. Dan Provost, host of Thoroughly Considered on this very network, and one of the guys behind Studio Neat, published an interesting article

which goes along with some of the rumors that we've been seeing and that we've been discussing at length on Connected recently about a 10.5-inch iPad Pro coming in the spring to join the 12.9 in the iPad Pro lineup and potentially bump the 9.7 down a notch.

So we then have two new iPad Pros going from the spring onwards. Now, this has been the rumor, but Dan sat down and did some math. And I'm going to try, Jason, to explain this. You can jump in if I don't do a good job. Okay, all right. When Apple introduced the 12.9-inch iPad Pro,

Phil Schiller pointed out that the width of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is the height of two 9.7-inch iPads stacked side by side. So what was that that time? The iPad Air. If you took two iPad Airs, put them next to each other, that's basically the width of the 12.9 inch iPad Pro. A 12.9 inch iPad Pro can therefore run two full-sized iPad applications side by side in portrait mode. So the screen is basically a two-for-one of the 9.7 inch iPad. So you take two regular iPads, put them side by side in portrait mode, you get a 12.9 inch iPad Pro. So if you

take that leap, imagine them doing the same exercise, but with the iPad mini instead, it's got the same number of pixels as the four size iPad. They're just packed into a smaller display, right? So if you made an iPad pro that could run two iPad apps side by side at the iPad minis resolution, instead of the, instead of the air's resolution, you get 10.5 inches diagonally. So depending on how small the bezels were around the display, a 10.5 inch iPad Pro could have roughly the same physical dimensions as a 9.7, but would have the same number of pixels 2732 by 2048 as the 12.9 inch. you would be taking a 12.9 inch ipad pro and effectively shrinking it down to fit inside of a 10.5 inch screen which is also in the inverse

taking two ipad minis putting them side by side and stretching them up yeah so the idea here is if you think of the ipad air or ipad pro 97 and the Mini, they have the same number of pixels that crammed into a smaller space. So if you did that with the 12.9, the Mini version of the 12.9 would be a 10.5, 10.48 or something like that. And Dan did the math. Bless him for that. Thank you for reading my article, which is much more, I think. I did the math last week. Let's not, right?

Let's not revisit it. We did it. That's what it is. So the idea is it actually kind of works, right? It kind of makes sense. This rumor that we've had for a while that I think it was a 10 to 10.5 inch, like very vague. But with Dan's math, it's a 10.47 or whatever it is it's very close to 10.5 but not quite there um and it's just the the same pixels as the ipad pro 12.9

in a smaller uh smaller uh area and that leads to so i wrote this piece where i was trying to think what else would happen here and like dan says dan cut out it's great he cut out um a piece of paper that's that size and laid it on the existing ipad uh pro 9.7 and it fits with very little bezel and so like they could really shrink the bezels and have it be the same size. I think it's more likely that it would physically be a little bit bigger than the 9.7. But I think it's, I'm intrigued by this for a few reasons. One is, I love my 12.9 inch iPad Pro,

but it is big and heavy. And if I could get, but when I use the 9.7 i just think the screen's not big enough right i just keep thinking to myself i go into split screen mode especially i'm like no no forget it no but a somewhat bigger screen a little bit bigger and all the pixels of the of the big ipad pro might be a really nice combination the screen being a little bit bigger also means that something like the, although the keyboard might not be quite the size of a full size keyboard, the software keyboard would be bigger than on the existing 9.7 inch iPad pro. And then the other thing I thought was accessories.

One of the problems with the 12.9 iPad Pro is that it's hard to do accessories for it because it's so huge. And then you clip on a thing that's the same size as a keyboard or something, and it's huge. And you can do a full-size keyboard that doesn't have to be the length of the iPad Pro 12.9. There's extra space on it. And I started to think, I wonder if you had a 10.5 inch ipad pro that was a little bit longer than the 9.7 if you could make a full-size keyboard that would be sort of exactly the size and and that would be great that would be uh i would buy that

so i just i started to play it all around in my mind, um, based on Dan's math, because that is the best explanation I've heard yet about why there would be a product in between. It's a little bit like astronomy, like finding, like discovering something new because there's something weird in the data. And you're like, why would that be there? And then you start to think about, come up with a hypothesis about why it would be there the 10.5 ipad pro was always kind of like that of like why is this here this is a strange result and then dan comes in and goes here's my here's my hypothesis it's the best hypothesis i've seen so it's interesting to me i mean i really want this device right like i i really want a different version of the 9-7

because I love that. It's my favorite of the iPads, but I really get kind of cramped with the software sometimes. Like I want two full-size apps side by side. I don't want one iPad app, one iPhone app, which happens a lot of the time, right? When you're using the multitasking. I really love that I can have like on the big one,

these two apps side by side. Right, that's the whole idea is it's two full-size iPad apps side by side. That's what unlocks like the real power. Right. And so this would be two full-sized apps on two iPad minis side by side, essentially, right? So it still works, but everything's just smaller. Now, I would really, really like that, but I want it to stay the same physical size and hopefully weight. That's the 9.7.

Yeah, that's the 9.7, but you seem to want it that little bit bigger. Well, so I'm of two thoughts here. One is I think if I'm Apple, well, part of it is if I'm still selling the 9.7, it's a little bit weird to have two iPads of exactly the same size physically but one has a screen that's bigger see i think it sounds weird unless you look at apple's current product line well hold on though because the other thing they could do is do a new 9.7 inch and 12.9 inch model that have much smaller bezels so the the 10.5 could be the size of the current 9.7 but the new 9.7 could be smaller yeah i think oh oh right so that's possible my reasoning and i i cop to it in the piece i cop to it in the piece my reasoning for this is literally if it was a little bit bigger that

smart keyboard the keys could be basically full size and accessories because you can't as we've seen with the existing 9.7 you can't make a keyboard that is quite full-sized on the 9.7 but if you had it just a little bit wider you could do it i don't know if that's enough of a reason to do it i really don't want three ipads like three new iPads in the Pro line. I know, and yet this is where we are. It's possible that the 10.5 is the new model, that the 9.7 goes away or is just sold for cheaper and deprecated. And it's basically like we've taken the same iPad size and put a much larger, more high-resolution display.

Now the iPad Pro has the same resolution on either model. And then the iPad Air or the old 9.7-inch Pro kind of continues along. That would make, yes, I agree with you. Three new iPad Pros does seem kind of redundant and it does make me wonder if another thing that's happening here is these reports of a new version of the 9.7 are wrong because it's really like an ipad air you know revision or something like that where it's getting some of the features of the ipad pro but they're just going to call it the ipad air and because there's a new iPad Pro at that size

and it's got the bigger screen. It's got the 10.5 screen. Yeah, one of the things that makes me hesitant to think that they would make it a bigger iPad is because the iPad's always been this size, right? Like I feel like that there is like this story around it like being the perfect size physically but now they've made the screen bigger.

Right. Right. And also, you know, I think, I keep saying this, but I think the hope is that they show this design off as a way to show that there will be a new iPhone whenever that comes. Oh, sure.

This is the hint that, if this scenario plays out, this is the hint that the, you know, reduced or no bezel iPhone is also coming. Yeah, I think so. That would be the argument here. And the side bezel has already been getting smaller. Mostly, I mean, and they've got some touchscreen rejection stuff that they work on if you do need to grab it by the sides.

Although I think generally the idea is you grab it by the larger bezels that are at the top and the bottom. think generally the idea is you grab it by the larger bezels that are at the top and the bottom which is why i thought that it's possible that it gets no wider but a little bit taller or however you want i mean it depends on how you orient the directions but you get me that the bezels on the sides that are the narrow bezels might get smaller but the bezels that are on the the top and bottom like the where the home button is, might actually get a little bigger. But they could also just keep it exactly the same dimensions as the classic 9.7 if they wanted to. Again, if they can get that technology to work. I don't know how hard. The smaller the bezel is, the harder it is to fit everything in there and fit the screen on there. But I don't know. My

piece last week about this was very much that I'm kind of warming to this as an idea dan dan doing the math made me feel like okay finally something makes sense here about why this would exist yeah but but yeah i i agree the there's a question of what happens to the 97 and and i have a hard time seeing it get updated and remaining exactly the same if there's a 10.5 it's more likely that it either gets updated and smaller that they do the bezel reduction on it too if or that it goes away and there's just sort of a you know a new ipad air that is that size and that's the differentiator between the air and the mini and the pro is this pro resolution that they've got or that 10.5 has to be bigger than the 9.7 i don't think i don't think they can all be true yeah i wonder if the ipad pro goes the way of what ipad was it that was called the new ipad

or remember when they went was it like the ipad 4 that was the ipad 3 3 and then it kind of just like they just kind of got rid of it and it wasn't that wasn't that the ipad 3 and it was the retina ipad that they just said it was the new ipad yeah and then third generation it had didn't at the iPad 3 and it was the Retina iPad, but they just said it was the new iPad. Yeah. Third generation. It had the dock, the 30-pin, and then it got replaced. By the fourth generation. Which was called, I think it was maybe called the Air or something. I don't know. But yeah, there was like that weirdness.

No, that was also the iPad fourth generation. Yeah. I don't think it was even numbered. That was a weird time for the iPad. The new iPad. Yeah. It's the new iPad. Well, that's fine. I mean, they could do that. It was just, yeah, it was even numbered that was a weird time for the ipad the new ipad yeah it's the new ipad well that's fine i mean they could they could do that it was just yeah it was weird uh that was a weird time i remember that because i was in that was when i went to mobile world congress so i remember being in in uh barcelona thinking about the third generation new ipad

that was the retina ipad yeah so i have my fingers crossed for this um i would be very excited about an ipad that looked and acted this way that would make me very very happy yeah well as somebody who i look at the i mean we were talking about this when we were both in memphis and you were showing off your 9.7 inch with the keyboard and all that and it's like it's it's great because it's light and my big ipad pro is is is big and heavy but i have never been convinced to use the 9.7 like i just it's it's not for the reasons that we've cited here it's just not gonna do it like this, I would give very serious consideration as my next iPad. Absolutely. Today's episode is also brought to you by Squarespace. Enter the offer code upgrade at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase. Make your next move with Squarespace.

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to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for this show. Thank you to Squarespace for their continued support of Upgrade and RelayFM. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website. So last week, Apple updated their audio production applications.

More specifically, they updated Logic on the Mac and GarageBand on iOS received some heavy updates as well. So Logic got a new flatter user interface, but I guess more importantly, it gained touch bar support. So there are timeline overviews and customizable shortcut buttons. And what I like the sound of, there are different banks of buttons. So if you hold like the Alt key or the Option key, I should say, who has a Microsoft keyboard? I do. Or the Command key, you'll get different shortcuts.

I use the Microsoft Sculpt ergonomic keyboard. So I looked down at my keyboard and said, Alt. I apologize. used the uh microsoft sculpt ergonomic keyboard so i looked down my keyboard and said alt i apologize yeah so the idea here is it is um this is the thing that i i kind of wanted to see and and i'm glad they did it yeah there's a timeline view where you can see a little mini version of your timeline and where you're zoomed into and you can slide it around and all that on the touch bar but the the shortcut buttons view you can customize all of them. You can say, I want this.

When I don't have a modifier key put down, I want it to look exactly like this. And you can have it be, you can choose what commands go where, what the commands are, what the color of the button is. You can put in text of what you want the button to say. you can put in text of what you want the button to say uh and you can do that for all of the different versions of modifier keys and all that so if you really want to go to town and reprogram it it comes with right with buttons program but you can reprogram everything i tell you man this makes me want one so bad i i did i programmed in so uh to drop a marker um i put that in on a red button with the uh because it's an inside joke with a german flag on the button so i can go boom chapter marker and it uh it just shows up which is great and and and i put i had

something else to strip silence i think and it think. And it had, was that it? It was something where the description, the text that it was using for the button, because some of them come with an icon that you can use and some of them just come with text and they didn't make sense to me. So I just edited it and put in my own text that made more sense because you can fit a few letters on each button. And that was, when I saw the touch bar for the first time, that was my thought was, this would be really great if you can really customize it in a complicated app like Logic or Final Cut. That's what I think people are going to want is to be able to make it their own and take their top features and put them out there. Now, the UI for assigning these commands, like the UI for assigning any keyboard shortcut or menu item in Logic, which it has to its credit is you know it's not my favorite

but it it does the job you know it it does do the job and i i appreciate that so it's a nice example here's a question for you can you with the keyboard shortcuts only set one keyboard shortcut can you set like multiple keyboard shortcuts per button? Per touch bar button? For example, could I put on one button both shortcuts like Command F, Command I or something? Or is it just like

each button is one shortcut? You seeing what I'm saying? No. Let's say I wanted one button to perform two actions, which are usually triggered by two different keyboard shortcuts. I don't think you have the ability to run macros, which is basically what that is from the buttons. I didn't try that,

but I don't think so. And the way it works is, is not, you know, it's not doing it by keyboard shortcut. It's doing it by command in logic. So you actually have to find the name of the command and which it's got a search function,

right? But, but you're, you're you're because because the keyboard shortcuts are are um are also defined in that same interface so yeah i mean i i know the shortcuts of things i don't know what apple calls them you know like a lot of the time that was exactly my thought too and actually i i as cool as it was to see those keyboard shortcuts, I feel like I have learned enough about Logic that I don't need them. Because I already wired Strip Silence to Control X, I think. Or maybe it was even already wired to that.

And I just do that now. And I don't need to put that on a button. I think the value of this stuff is going to be for people who are learning that they're going to be able to provide those um those keys in context but if you're somebody who uses a lot of uh a lot of commands in these apps and you can't remember the keyboard shortcuts for them that's what these buttons are are going to be good at so i disagree to a point um which is from my own experience because i you know i moved to a wacom right and my wacom tablet has six buttons on it that can be programmed and i have programmed those six buttons to perform different actions in logic now i know what the keyboard shortcuts

are for all of those things but it's way quicker for like i have them programmed in such a way that i will very frequently hit button one button button 2, button 3, like in succession and it will do something that I frequently do. So like for example, it might do select tool, cut, select tool forward. So they are three different buttons that I have assigned and I do those actions

when I'm editing very, very frequently. So like having all of those things just like 1, 2, 3 is really nice so even on the touch bar you could set it up so those three keyboard shortcuts the keyboard shortcuts that you trigger in succession very often are right next to each other like again it's like i know what they are but it's way nicer to just go and they're all done i like that and it's worked for me very nicely i can do all these things on the keyboard i do

when i'm on my macbook pro like on my macbook but it's way nicer for me to have them all kind of lined up and ready to go so i'm excited about that i wish i could do it um there are virtual instruments a lot more virtual instruments have been added to logic um so you can this is on the touch bar so the idea is there's a piano on the touch bar that you can have or a drum or a drum kit that you can have on the touch bar so you're crazy in a good way yeah play the play the piano um instead of the keyboard typing feature which which they have had now there's also a touch bar keyboard basically or drum kit garage band for ios has received updates which are interesting um targeted for

like people that use logic but they want to use it on the go yeah this is this is the way they described it to me because i did talk to some people at apple about this is they use the example of the guy from fallout boy who like apparently was taking the tracks that they were recording for their album and then on his like iphone or ipad he was singing the vocals that i believe there are i think what i think what they said is there are some vocals on the fallout boy latest album that are from an ipad or an iphone which is kind of funny but the idea the larger point there is that a lot of musicians yeah they they are moving around they've got you know maybe they're on tour or whatever and they and inspiration strikes and

they want to work on it so they they wanted to as as and garage band is it for apple on ios this is their high-end audio product because there is no logic for ios so they put in pro features um in this release too because apple said the goal of both of these releases they try to sort of theme their releases like what are we going to focus on for this wave and this was sort of high-end audio production so even garage band for ios has sort of high-end audio production features which you know if you're just using it to noodle around it might seem dumb but they they have some compelling stories that they've got professional customers who use garage band for ios all the time So GarageBand for iOS has 12 new mixing effects, a visual equalizer, a professional-grade compressor,

and also has gained something called the Alchemy Synth Synthesizer from Logic, which is this very cool synthesizer. That has been added to iOS too. But the thing that is kind of mind-blowing to me is that you can now mix down a version of a Logic project and sync it via iCloud to become a GarageBand project to use on iOS.

And then anything added to the GarageBand file will then sync back to Logic via iCloud. That is really cool. Yeah, so what you can't do is take your iPhone out with your Logic Project and edit the drum track because that's not what it's doing it is it is doing a bounce down a flattened version of what you've got in logic but what you can do is add to it so that's the example of the singer wants to take the the uh the the track and do vocals on it on the go they can do that and oh and if they want to add

like an instrument track and put something in there uh like i'm going to add i'm going to try a few different things with this bass line to see what i can do with it because there's no bass on the on the recording or whatever they can do that and then that all syncs via icloud so when you go back to that logic project on the mac back at home base those new tracks that you've created are added to the existing project the existing multi-track project really cool so there's some stuff there like i'm happy to see apple continuing to push these applications forward logic since it went to version 10 on the mac has released they said 15 updates um so it you know this here's something we were kind of knocking apple when we were talking

about the report card about people's concerns about the the first party software not the os but like apple's apps and this is an example where they are putting effort into the audio apps and you know garage band is based on the logic code base it's um it's all you know it's all part of one big base so the people who are working on these things are all it's all interrelated which is how they can do stuff like this but um here's an example of a place where apple is still investing in updates to their uh their own professional apps so the big thing about logic right is all of the stuff that you're doing with the touch bar like that. So the big thing about Logic, right, is all of the stuff that they're doing with the touch bar. Like that is like the big marquee feature here.

So it seems that Apple is continuing to invest time and people into working on making the touch bar better, you know, like with their own applications, by making the software better, they make the touch bar better. So how long is it going to be until the touch bar better so how long is it going to be until the touch bar breaks out of the macbook pro like if this is a tool aimed at professionals right it's it debuted with the pro for a reason doesn't it make sense to make a

version that desktop professionals could use as well so you wrote a piece on mac world about this and a quote from you was that i'd argue that for the touch bars if taken seriously as a core part of the mac experience it needs to be on more macs than just the mac book pro yeah i think i think that's the challenge here is the macbook pro is a great product for professionals two-thirds of apples or three-quarters somewhere in there of apples mac sales are laptops but a lot of those are going to be macbook airs and macbooks so you've got the macbook pro that has the touch bar i feel like for for this to in the long run be a feature that people focus on you need to at least give them the option of having it work on the desktop and you saw it

even at the macbook pro with touch bar event you could see it because they like to stage these areas sort of like showing you all the great features of these products and the area that was running final cut on two 5k monitors or maybe three 5K monitors. It was trying to show off those, you know, the ability to do high resolution video out. So they had these big monitors and the MacBook Pro and a video workstation set up, but they still had the MacBook Pro laptop sitting on a table with its lid open.

And the idea was you would use the track pad and the keyboard and the touch bar on the open laptop to drive those huge screens as well as the little laptop screen. And I'm sure people work like that. But I looked at that and thought, huh, that's weird. Like, what you're saying is, we love the touch bar. But the only way you can get the touch bar is when the laptop is open. So even though you can connect your laptop to these enormous screens, you need to leave your laptop open and at the level where your hands are so that you can use the touch bar. I don't know that, that I'm sure, like I said, I'm sure some people do that, but there are a lot of people who have, who, who are working on an iMac or maybe a Mac pro

someday again. And, or they're using a MacBook pro or a MacBook or Pro someday again. Or they're using a MacBook Pro or a MacBook or something like that docked. And ergonomically, I think having the laptop open is not necessarily the best experience for you. So you maybe close the laptop, but if you close the laptop, you lose the touch bar. So in the end, I think the touch bar would be given a bit of a shot in the arm if apple had some solution for people to use the

touch bar who are not sitting in front of a macbook pro that is open again from your piece the most logical product for apple to roll out is a magic keyboard 2 featuring the Barstuff Line Mechanism keyboard design used in the MacBook Pro topped by a touch bar. Yeah, that's the most logical. I had a good Twitter discussion with somebody who was doing the – they were running the math about the battery use on the Apple Watch, which has a processor and an OLED screen. And they're trying to get sort of like how much battery does the touch bar use i think the touch bar screen is bigger than the apple watch display and so i i'm not entirely sure that i want to i want to map those things out but but his argument was that if apple can get uh a day of battery life out of the Apple watch, then, uh, if you put a touch bar in a magic keyboard, you could get a day or two. I would like to believe that they want to shoot for more

than a day's charge on a keyboard, but they might think that that was enough that as we've seen, Apple makes those decisions sometimes, which is, you know, yeah, it's great if your keyboard lasts a week, but really you could plug it in once a day at the end of the day and then it would work fine the next day. So this does seem logical. And with the new keyboard, I'm afraid, even though I love the magic keyboard, it certainly seems that Apple feels that they've nailed it with the MacBook Pro keyboard. And so it would seem most likely to me that that would be what a Magic Keyboard 2 would be. It would be essentially like sawing off that portion of the MacBook Pro, like that keyboard, that touch bar, and then, you know, and the internals necessary to run the touch bar and a battery so that it can run for at least a day

this would make me sad you know as i uh copped to earlier i i use a microsoft keyboard right like i use the sculpt ergonomic keyboard for ergonomic reasons um and it would be sad to me if this product existed attached to a keyboard because i would really like a touch bar but my hope would be you know i would even be happy to have the thing plugged in all the time you know so got the battery but i i struggle to imagine apple doing that you literally want to buy a touch bar that's all i want just a touch bar and you can put it wherever you want anywhere yeah yeah i there are some ergonomic problems with that because the heights of the tops of keyboards

vary widely, right? So there's some issues with like, how tall would they make that thing? And if it's flat, if it's fairly flat, then do you need like a riser behind your keyboard? And there's lots of issues there. But I think you're right. I think the number one reason that that's not a product

is that it just doesn't feel like an apple product to say here's an add-on widget right it's much more likely they'll say we have this totally integrated thing and here it is um i don't know but you you also pose the idea of what if it was integrated into a magic trackpad yeah it's a wacky idea but uh what i keep thinking is i already have a multi-touch surface from apple on my keyboard tray i already have one it's the magic trackpad too right i already have it it's right there and i think it's highly unlikely um that this will happen anytime soon. But I just keep thinking, like, if I'm Apple and I'm thinking about interesting ways to do multi-touch as an input device on the Mac, what if the multi-touch device that they already sell for the Mac externally, wirelessly, you know, what if some of it or all of it was a display or optionally a display or sometimes

had a display that was visible, like on the touch bar, but on the magic trackpad, there are lots of issues because the magic trackpad is way narrower than the magic keyboard. So you or the touch bar, so you couldn't have that long touch bar interface on it so then now all of a sudden if you did something like that do you have two different layouts for the touch bar uh it gets it gets weird how would you design something like that i don't think there's reasonably a product here and yet something in my mind just keeps turning over like yes but it is a multi-touch surface right it is the most logical place i would for something like the touch bar. It would make way more sense for a touch bar to be integrated into the trackpad

because that hand is doing tapping and poking and, you know, that's where I would want it to be. But I agree, it would be hard to put it there. But, you know, I could imagine it being easier that way. I expect more people probably say that i at least it'd be easier i think to get people to to go trackpad than to change their keyboard right i feel like people are maybe more more picky over their keyboard than they are their input mechanism yeah i mean and everybody varies some people are picky about the the the input

device the the the pointer and some people are more picky about the keyboard. But that's just, you know, again, the most standard thing to do with the least overhead is to make a magic keyboard with a touch bar at the top of it. And it fits with the use case where you've got one hand on the trackpad on the MacBook Pro and one hand on the touch bar, which they showed on stage, which is different than like one hand on the keyboard and one hand on the touch bar. Although you could do that too on the MacBook Pro. But I just, you know, my way I use my Mac is I've got my left hand on the keyboard and my right hand is either on the keyboard or it is right next to the keyboard on that trackpad where I've got multi-touch gestures and all of that. You know, the other problem with a lot of this is that the track or the touch bar works in a part because it's not very far from the screen. And in a desktop, the screen and the control surfaces move apart, right?

Your screen goes up, especially if you're following good ergonomics because laptops aren't great with the ergonomics. Surprise. Your screen should go up because it should be at your eye level and your keyboard should go down at a right angle of your elbow, right? At which point they are further apart, which means your eye line is that much split. So when you're looking down at your keys and your touch bar, you're now looking way further down. But at the same time, you know, I think you would argue that if you need to look at your keyboard now, you're still looking down at it and then back up at the screen. So the act of keyboard looking is still there. And if Apple's whole premise with the touch bar is i put a screen on your keyboard then keyboard looking is required so even though it might be a little bit harder and a little bit

further apart i'm not sure it's a i'm not sure it's a deal breaker it might be less good or it might be different but i'd still i still think people would rather have it than not so whether there's a magic keyboard 2 with touch bar and they keep selling the other magic keyboard or whether it's a separate standalone touch bar, I hope they do something so it isn't just the MacBook Pro that gets this, especially since it unlocks everything, all scenarios, all their desktop systems, all their laptop systems that might run on an external monitor. Basically everything can get the touch bar if you buy the external touch bar. But still, all their laptop systems that have a you know that might run on an external monitor basically everything can get the touch bar if you buy the external touch bar but still in the back of my

mind i keep thinking i'm not sure the keyboard is the right place for it cards on the table will we see this in 2017 will the touch bar break outside of the macbook pro i think so i think that some part of the new iMac and maybe other desktops, who knows, will be something like this. Do Apple make other desktops? They did. They might again. We'll see. We'll see. But it's

just, it would, is it a must-have? No, absolutely. If I had to put money on it, yeah, I think maybe I would say more likely than not, only because they put all this effort into the Touch Bar to have it only be on the MacBook Pro. I don't, like, I would be shocked if a new MacBook had a Touch Bar, right? I mean, maybe it would, but that's a lot to pack into that MacBook. I feel like Pros first, so, like, it comes with the next professional machines, you know, like, alongside.

with the next professional machines, you know, like alongside. So whether the next professional machine is a Mac Pro or it's just an iMac, regardless, having it for that seems to make sense to me. I would say my wacky idea about a screen magic trackpad, although that feels like

a very Apple product to me, I feel like that's not going to happen anytime soon, if ever. It's so beautiful, right? Like it would be all black and then that you know maybe the little they would like light up when you oh that would be so good you know but the number one reason i think it won't happen is if they were going to do that wouldn't they have engineered the macbook pro to have the touch bar be in the trackpad

yeah yeah they probably would have and they didn't so this is where we are and that and it would give them it would give them parallelism right it would give them the same thing which is it's part of the keyboard it's in the function row and and you know the thing is though there was that it was easier space wise to have it replace the keys right you know but like with a magic trackpad it can be as big as you want it to be yeah and there are there are there are lots of challenges in getting the the screen you know i i'm not saying just because it's a multi-touch surface it doesn't necessarily mean it's the same kind of engineering that has to go into it versus something like the touch bar but uh

but still it is you know the touch bar has a similar texture to the Magic Trackpad. I mean, they're cousins, right? And so I do wonder about that. I will say, I think I like the idea of a Touch ID sensor on an external device. I think that's far more likely than a touch bar. Yeah, they've done it. You know, like thehone can authenticate things on the mac like they've worked out how to transmit that exactly so i think a touch id sensor maybe

even on a magic trackpad is is the most likely scenario there so i'm with you i think 2017 we see the touch bar breakout somehow i'm just not sure what that implementation is yet. Yeah. All right, we should move into Ask Upgrade. We didn't do any last week, so we must do it this week. And Ask Upgrade this week is brought to you by our friends at Encapsular, the cloud service that makes your website faster and safer. Encapsular have a worldwide network that inspects every packet that comes

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Luke wrote in with a conundrum. It will cost Luke $1,000 Australian dollars, which is about $750 US dollars, to replace the video card in a dead but specked out mid-2011 iMac, 27-inch iMac. Should Luke do this or upgrade to a new iMac? Should Luke do this or upgrade to a new iMac? Now, this is an interesting question, right? This is a machine that he's maybe gotten about five, six years use out of. My feeling on this would be if you can afford it without it causing too much financial trouble, I would go new. This is a machine that has served a good life, but my feeling is it's failed you now.

I would be concerned it would fail again in some other way. That's just my look on these things. I would be concerned that I'd spend $1,000 now, but then in six months, something else goes wrong, and I need to pay again to have it replaced replaced in some way so if you can afford it luke i i would say to to maybe to it's time to upgrade yeah i mean that's the name of the show right i agree that's a lot of money to spend on a on a on a five to six year old imac and and iMac and, and the iMacs, you know, the new iMacs are priced pretty well. I mean, you can get a, if you wanted another 27, that's a, that's going to be a 5k iMac now. Right. And that is, um, it's pretty good. That's pretty good. So I, I guess you, you know, you got it, you got it exactly right. Which is if you can afford to go without for a little while or just replace it now,

I think throwing another $755 at a six-year-old machine is not ideal. I mean, look, you're going to be spending about two grand for a new imac because you want to at least have the fusion drive in it right you really shouldn't get the one that has just the hard drive which continues to be a joke that exists yeah well i mean i i would say you'd be better off spending that money and a little bit more on a, or maybe just that money on a 20, you know, on a,

on a 25th, what? 2014 5k iMac. Yeah. It might be used. Like a refurb. Or, yeah,

I mean, there, there are, or, or, or that somebody is, uh, when the new iMacs come out,

maybe somebody buys a new one and their two year old, two and a half year old one goes for sale or even a, a pre retina, like a 2014. Like I think you'd be better off spending that money on something else if at all possible even if it's a used system that is more recent than that because um it's already pretty old and it's just going to keep aging and it hurts to think of spending 750 and yeah and parts may still keep failing too. So yeah.

Brent asked, as a casual gamer, am I crazy for thinking the Nintendo Switch is the most innovative console I've seen in a long time? So Brent, I will say, whilst they're also good dogs, you're not crazy. Weird joke. I love that meme, the good dogs meme yeah it's fantastic if you don't know what i'm talking about just just google good dogs meme you'll find it um i don't think

you're crazy i think that the switch is very innovative but you have to be open to that type of innovation if you're looking for nintendo to create a playstation 4 competitor this is not that but if you have had the dream like I and Federico have had of same console everywhere like I've had this dream for as long as I've played video games then this is the innovation you're looking for basically the Nintendo Switch is a super powerful handheld console that you can plug into the TV that's what it's not the other I read a great piece on The Guardian about this that I'm going to find and put in the show notes that explains it that way, which I really loved.

It's like people are thinking of it as a home console you can take on the go. It's more the other way around. It is a handheld console. It was a piece written by Kate Gray. It's in the show notes. It is more like a handheld console that you can plug into the TV and continue your experience there like it doesn't have great battery

life it can get anywhere between three to six hours but it's usbc and when it's on the go you can plug in external battery packs any usbc cable will go with it like that is a new nintendo like for years nintendo had their own weird proprietary ones i just bought my son a ds last year and i had to find a ds charging cable doesn't come in the right yeah it's ridiculous yeah but they they did they're really changing some of the ways that they work and you know it's got these controllers that you can snap off and you can have two people play with just the controls that it comes with like it is doing a lot of really innovative stuff but you've got to be open to that like if you want a new xbox one or a playstation 4 but it's made by nintendo this is not that and honestly i don't think they're ever gonna make that i think that's i think that's

right this is never gonna be that in fact you could argue i mean the last two nintendo consoles have been a generation behind their competition as a console. And that will probably continue. The difference is that this is not just a console. They're merging their handheld and console into one. It is no surprise that the people I know who are really, really into console gaming were not impressed by the Switch. And that's fine because, again again it is not a ps4 competitor it's it reminds me a little bit about people complaining about things apple does because

they're not following the rules of of windows pc makers which always happened and now it happens a little bit with smartphones too it's like i can't believe that they're not just being like dell was a classic right and it's like well apple's not even remotely like dell so why would they be that it's a little bit like that where it's like it's nintendo they're not just being like Dell was a classic, right? And it's like, well, Apple's not even remotely like Dell. So why would they be that? It's a little bit like that, where it's like, it's Nintendo. They're going to be Nintendo. And what they're trying to do,

I mean, that Nintendo Switch announcement reminded me of Apple so much in the sense that Nintendo is relentlessly making these decisions that are like, not what the industry decisions are. And some of them will flop and some of them will succeed, but that's, that's what they do. Right.

And the switch is like that. It's a weird, it's a weird product, but I think it's got a lot of potential, especially the idea that you have one system and you can play it around the house. Like my son does this all the time where it's like, he's playing the Xbox one and I want to watch a TV show. i'm like i gotta kick you off sorry right it's like with a with

with this again it's not an xbox one but if he's playing something on the nintendo switch he just picks it up out of the out of the dock and keeps playing it and you can take it to on vacation or to a friend's house or whatever and it's your nintendo that comes with you plus there's the anybody who brought computers over for a LAN party in the olden days will know this, that like, plus now your Nintendo Switch and your friend's Nintendo Switch, and all of a

sudden you've got like multiple controllers and they will network with each other and you can have a bunch of people playing games together. And that is actually a thing that I think will happen with it. So I think there's a lot that's cool about it, as long as you're not, like you said, Mike,

you're not judging it by the PS4 and the Xbox One, because it's not playing that game. And I think, yeah, I think Nintendo is not going to ever play that game. Matt asked, Blue Snowball versus Blue Yeti. So Matt's asking for a microphone recommendation here. Out of the two, I would say Yeti, but I know Jason's going to say do neither

and buy something else. Yeah, that's it, which is the Yeti is by far the better microphone than the Snowball. I don't recommend the Snowball. I started with a Snowball, but don't buy it. I think the best value, if you're in the US especially,

because I know it's harder to get overseas, the best value is the Audio-Technica ATR2100 USB, which sounds really good. It's really cheap. It's a USB microphone by mic stand. I wrote an article on Six Colors about how you can get in a whole podcast studio for less than $100. That's what I recommend. The Yeti is great. The problem with the Yeti is it's big. And that makes it, not only is it heavy and big, but it's less compatible with mic stands and pop filters and things like that. And I used a Yeti for like three years and it's great, but I think it's been surpassed.

Something I've noticed recently, I've been sending the link that you know marco's big microphone mega review to a bunch of people like i'm getting asked these questions a lot like what microphone should i buy what microphone should i buy and i really don't have a good uh recommendation but you know i send marco's review to people because he reviewed a bunch of them and you also get all the sound clips and stuff um it is it's just interesting to me that i'm getting a lot more of those questions it seems like people people want to start podcasts the atr 2100 is the cheapest microphone in marco's top five basically and it's in the top five i mean it's it's i guess it's not it's it's number four

and it's the cheapest in the top four the mic at number five is cheaper but you got to add a hundred dollar xlr interface and the the atr 2100 is a you it does xlr if you want but it is a usb mic so you just plug it in to your computer with a usb cable and um like marco says amazing value for the money so that's the one that i i i am now recommending um and brent also asked uh a couple of questions kind of podcast related one how often do you monitor download statistics and two why do you rarely if ever ask for itunes reviews so i make a note of my statistics or our statistics all of relay fms download numbers monthly because so i have a graph to track our shows and kind of see how they go over the year um so that's one time where i

always do it sometimes an advertiser will ask um and i'll get the numbers that way so i see them or other times like when i'm uploading a show to the to the host like i might just just check how the download numbers are but i'm i used to be like obsessed with checking those numbers, but I'm not so much anymore, honestly. Yeah, I don't look except when I need to. When somebody like when my ad network asks for the stats, I will look the stats up and put them in their little form that says here's how many downloads we had. But I don't look. And I don't look at iTunes reviews either. I mean, I just don't look because I know what know what i want to make i know what i want to do i'm i was like this at idg too they would

people would expect me to like know how many page views did pc world have last month i'm just like i don't know i could look it up for you they're like you don't know yeah you know what i don't obsess about that like we we used um we used some stats like the like some some live stats like chart beat of sort of like what stories were trending and for a news site that was useful and finding out like what people really cared about and what what uh people were reading at a time but like the big you know daily weekly monthly stats i felt like that was much more likely to distract me and confuse me than to inform me, because you can just start chasing flukes and you can start chasing sort of like bad stuff if you do that. And I kind of know what I want to do. And those numbers get magnified, right?

We do an episode that does 10,000 more than any of the episodes around there. And we might be like, oh, what did we talk about in that episode? We should totally do that. But it turns out that, you know, it almost certainly had nothing to do with the content of that episode, especially since the downloads happened before people listen. But it had to do with somebody mentioning us or somebody linking to us, or there was a hiccup in the network. And so people, their clients had to redownload the file. I mean, there's so many reasons and you can get steered so far off course if you look at it that closely.

So, you know, I try to look at it like 10 steps back and with a lot of perspective. And so I don't look very often. And then why don't we ask for iTunes reviews? I think it's mainly because most of the shows that we do, iTunes tends to be one of the smaller traffic sources yeah it can be hard to tell exactly but i would estimate that we have somewhere between 10 to 15 percent of our listeners that listen through itunes um and honestly with the with the kind of the focus

of itunes these days that the shows that they tend to focus on i don't think that reviews are going to help us get the visibility that it used to it on i don't think that reviews are going to help us get the visibility that it used to it used to be like having good reviews in itunes was good for getting features and promotions but the podcasting market and the landscape is very different now um and the types of shows that tend to get featured on itunes tend to be the more mass market shows which is fine honestly it doesn't it doesn't really concern or affect us in a big way because our shows, a lot of our tech-focused shows, people listen in the apps that they like to listen in,

and there isn't a consistent way to rate or review, to make sense in those applications. We could say that Marco has the starring thing. You could star us on Overcast. You could leave a review in iTunes. But really the thing that we would love the most, if you ever want to do anything like this, is tweet about the show, tell friends about the show, recommend the show to people,

something that they might want to listen to. That's probably going to have a bigger effect than any of, like, you know, leaving these reviews in these buckets within different applications. So if you do enjoy the show, tell people about it because that's cool. Yep. And if you want to find our show notes for this week, head on over to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 125.

Jason is online. He is at sixcolors.com and theincomparable.com. And you can find Jason. He is at jsnell on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at imyke, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you so much for listening as always and we'll be back

next time. Thanks again to our sponsors the fine folk over in Capsule Smile and Squarespace. Say goodbye Jason Snell. Bye everybody.