Upgrade - 131: It's Fine, Dude

Episode Date: March 6, 2017

We parse through the rumors about what kind of connector the new iPhone might offer—Lightning or USB-C?--and whether Apple and its customers are ready for another transition. Also, will YouTube’s new cord-cutting TV service be a splash hit?

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 131 today's show is brought to you by encapsular squarespace and casper my name is mike hurley i am joined by jason snell hi mike how are you i'm very well jason snell how How are you? Just fine, just fine. Waking up, starting my week, doing it right, which is upgrade. Upgrade is the way that I start my week. Couldn't be better. There is no better way to start a week than to follow up upon the previous week. That's right. So we would like to do that by conducting follow-up. Old business, you clear the decks, get the old stuff out, and then move on with your week. Exactly right.

Or your show, in the case of this show. A selection of listeners of Upgradians wrote in to recommend an iPhone 6-7 bumper. This was in Ask Upgrade last week. We were talking about cases, and I mentioned that Adina was looking for a bumper case when she originally got her iPhone 6S. And this one that has been recommended is by... It's called the RhinoShield bumper. 11 feet drop-tested, no bulk shock spread technology,

thin lightweight protection, slim rugged cover black. I was going to say, it sounds like something you'd a coating you'd put on your truck. Rhino shield. Rhino shield protecting you from the heaviest developments. It's not made of actual rhino is it? I don't think so.

Okay good. That's good because they're endangered. I'm going to assume it would be more expensive than $24.99 if it was made from real rhino. I'm going to assume it would be more expensive than $24.99 if it was made from real rhino. I'm just going to go out on them and say that. Nobody should own a real rhino case for their fun.

It's completely unnecessary and just bad. Anywho, this case does exist though and I assume it's made of some kind of plastic. Yeah. You can get it in a bunch of colors. It exists out there in the world if you're looking for it. I showed it to Adina,

and she said that she was happy with her silicone case now because she likes the color of it. She's got one of the muted purple ones that they made a while back, so she's happy with that. I'm still very eager to replace mine as the crack, which has happened in the side of my case um has now exposed some kind of thread which is very peculiar um i assume that there

is some kind of thread that goes through these cases to kind of hold it all into place or i don't know what it is inside these silicon cases um so i am eagerly awaiting new cases which i assume will be dropping in march if there's an event in march to go along with new watch bands that'll be this month it's march now hooray um talking about what could or could not appear in march mac rumors had an article go up up where they got some quotes from people that were sitting in a room during a Q&A session at Apple's shareholder meeting that

they held last Tuesday. And basically there were just a couple of quotes that came from Tim Cook during this which are interesting because they signify something. So Cook said a couple of things. You will see us do more in the pro area, he said.

The pro area is very important to us. The creative area is very important to us in particular. Don't think that something we've done or something that we're doing that isn't visible yet is a signal that our priorities are elsewhere. So this is somebody asked Tim Cook a question about like Apple's commitment to the pro market, which has been a beaten drum recently. And this was their comment that they're working on something, right?

Pro Mac hardware of some description, updates to existing pro Mac hardware. We don't know what it is, but it is at least, you know, you're always looking for that thing where they say that there's something because something means that it's not nothing. Yeah, this is very much like that thing where we have the Tim Cook quote in the Apple-wide Q&A message board internal discussion thingy. And it's sort of then everybody goes and does their Kremlinology on it and say, but what did he mean when he says pro area? Why, when he said area, does that signify a particular, you know, and it goes,

and it goes, and everybody turns about it. And I think the result of this is exactly the same result as of the last one, which is the people who believe that he's sending a signal saying, literally, we do care and we're working on stuff we'll believe it and the people who believe that when apple says they're committed to pros and the creative area they don't mean the way that uh those people want to define it and that everything is awful and this is just more proof that apple is uh doing terrible things and what's so you know again short of short of tim cook saying yeah we know the Mac Pro has been out there for too long and we're working on something to replace it and it will be a Mac Pro and we will announce that sometime soon. But you're going to have to wait short of him saying that, which he's not going to say.

Maybe I mean, if they really wanted to send that signal, they would have like Phil Schiller do an interview somewhere and he would drop that somewhere, but they don't want to do it. So they're not going to do it. And Tim Cook is certainly not going to do it. And so we're left with this sort of like, everybody's like, what is happening? And Apple's like, no, it's good. It's good. It's fine, dude. It's good. We're working on it. It's all good. And then you can either respond without saying, no, it's not all good, dude. Or you can say, cool, man. Cool. All right. Cool. I'll wait. And that's what's happening right now. Like my reading of this when I see stuff like this is that on the face of it, it's true. I believe that Apple have more professional focused hardware for

the Mac in the future. I don't think it necessarily means a Mac Pro, but yep, because there might not ever be another Mac Pro. But because there's no Mac Pro doesn't mean there's no professionally focused Macs. I think those two things are mutually exclusive. Sure. And I mean, the analysis of the existence of the Mac Pro and the product line even now, my shorthand version of something we talked about on a previous show is, the reason that system is there, even though it's very, very, very old, is there's some other product that's coming that Apple thinks is going to speak to the kinds of customers who buy that product. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a new Mac Pro that they're working on. It could mean that it's some other product. People have speculated

about like a high-end iMac or something like that where they can sell that as their pro system and people might scoff at that. But that will be Apple's official take on what they're doing here. We just don't – again, we don't have us not doing things, don't worry about it. Like, all right. It's a very confusing quote to read. I will read it again. Don't think something we've done or something that we're doing that isn't visible yet is a signal that our priorities are elsewhere. Yep.

It's quite a humbling of that one. Things we've done in the past or things that we're now doing but you can't see. Both of those things don't mean anything. All right. Okay. Okay. Fine. Look over there.

He could have said a butterfly and then ran off the stage. Cook also asked the questions about a possible convergence of the Mac and iPad lines. He said, expect us to do more and more where people will view the iPad as a laptop replacement, but not a Mac replacement. The Mac does so much more. To merge these worlds, you would lose the simplicity of one and the power of the other. the simplicity of one and the power of the other. This is, so this doesn't say anything new at all, but what it indicates is that at least publicly, Apple is not backing off at all on its stated repeatedly philosophy that the

Mac is going to be the Mac and iOS is going to be iOS and they're not creating, as famously was said, a toaster fridge. That they don't believe that you merge the Mac and iOS, you put the Mac on a path and iOS on a different path and they are their own things. And they've said that for a while. I remember when I interviewed Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi about the 30th anniversary of the Mac, we talked about that and they were very clear, like the Mac keeps on going and it's going to be its own thing.

And honestly, pretty much Apple's behavior since then has all been everything we've seen, I would argue, fits that narrative, fits that philosophy that they've had. Even something like the touch bar, right? Instead of making a touchscreen, they put this new thing on the Mac that's like a keyboard extension. That is them thinking, we're not going to just take iPad features and put them on the Mac. The danger here, as we've discussed before as well, is that the future of computing actually is a merged kind of thing. And it's not as extreme as Apple's two devices. But I think Apple's feeling quite understandably is they've got their next generation platform, it's iOS, That one will continue to evolve. And then the Mac will continue to be this existing platform that they don't want to, you know,

they don't want to transform into something it's not. But so, so this isn't news other than that, that it doesn't indicate any change publicly, you know, they could say this now and then in six months be like, aha aha but now we've completely changed but they've been consistent on this point for a while and this is cook reinforcing the the existing talking point so if you're trying to read the tea leaves about apple changing its mac philosophy um there there's no tea to read here and the coded message when uh tim says laptop he means pc right he says like we see it as we're going to keep doing things to view it as a laptop

replacement, but not a Mac replacement. He doesn't mean laptop Macs, he means laptop PCs, like Windows PCs, I think. I guess, you know, who knows what he means here, because he could who knows, he could be referring to

users who don't require the complexity and power of a of a mac because they aren't using them for those purposes he could that could be part of what he's saying here uh i yeah i don't know it's it's there is a narrative here that apple pushes very much which is like we're talking about swamping Windows PCs, not the Mac. But the Mac is part of it too. So we mentioned the Twitterific Kickstarter a few weeks ago.

They've got about nine days left to go on the campaign, and they're just under $4,000 shy of hitting their $75,000 goal. So it's looking very likely that the project will fund now. Yes. Please go support it, by the way, if you haven't.

That would be great if you could support it, because I would like to use a new Twitterific for Mac. But most Kickstarters that get to this point do fund. And in fact, the last few days of a Kickstarter are really weird. Sometimes the funding, it goes way up because there's a psychology of once something is funded, you're putting money into something that you know is going to happen. And some people actually really like to jump on board on something that's almost funded or has funded. So it'll be interesting to see because they have that big stretch goal where they wanted to get to 100,000. So they could guarantee

this extra extra set of features, instead of having it be kind of a wait and see. You know, that's that's a long ways off, right? Because that's an extra 25,000. Then again, Kickstarter psychology is weird. And it may very well be that they have a chance at that still. Because once you get close to your goal, things really get strange on Kickstarter and can be very dynamic. And you have that Girl Scouts game project from San Diego. I thought that was not going to fund at all. And it blew out its funding in the end, in the last week. So I don't know how Kickstarter works,

but they've got a very good chance to at least meet their goal. And then we'll see about their stretch goal. Yeah, I think they're definitely going to meet the goal. I think that that's pretty good at this point. But I am not so certain that they're going to hit the $100,000 range. I think that just percentage-wise and just how much money that is, I think that that seems unlikely, personally. Yeah, I don't know.

Like I said, I'm not as pessimistic because I have seen lots of Kickstarters do pretty dramatic things in the last handful of days. So it's definitely not a sure thing at all, but I think that they've still got a shot at it because, like I said, not everybody just kind of hears about it, pledges on day two, and then lets it fly. A lot of people are doing stuff at the last minute or after it's funded.

We'll see. In a couple of weeks are doing stuff at the last minute or after it's funded. We'll see. In a couple of weeks, we'll see. We'll know, because we won't know this time next week. Well, we might know, I think. If they're at like $77,000 this week, we're like, no, that seems really unlikely. Today's show is brought to you by InCapsula, the multifunction content delivery network that

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All right, so last week, the Wall Street Journal reported the following in an article about the next iPhone and I will quote from the Wall Street Journal The iPhone will use USB-C port for the power cord and other peripheral devices instead of the company's original

lightning connector So this put many people to wonder what is going on Are Apple going to be ditching the lightning port in favor of USB-C with the next iPhone, at least with this potential third iPhone, which is being rumored to debut sometime in September. Later in the week, Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities stated that he believes all three new iPhones launching in 2017 will support fast charging by the adoption of Type-C power delivery technology

while still retaining the lightning port. So as great as a form of fast charging will be for the iPhone, which is awesome because fast charging is brilliant, that is not what the Wall Street Journal seemed to report. So what's going on here, Jason Snell? Who do you think has gotten this correct? Are we going to see a USB-C port on the iPhone or are we just going to see a lightning port with usbc charging speeds like there is on the 12.9 inch ipad well the problem is that we don't is the way that that wall street journal article is written is really strange and if you take it at its face and parse it carefully, it seems like USB-C is going to be used for the power cord and other peripheral devices instead of the lightning connector.

Instead of the lightning connector. Now, the way that's phrased, you could say, did they really mean that it's going to be for the power cord that connects to the lightning connector, but that's not what the article says. And then Ming-Chi Kuo's story says, well, it's going to be lightning port, but they're going to use, presumably they're going to use USB-C technology, the faster charging stuff. And maybe that also means that the USB-C, it'll be a USB-C cord and adapter in the box. cord and adapter in the box. That's possible. But we've got dueling reports here. I did an article

on Macworld about this where I basically thought and it was like the afternoon that this came out that I sat down and I was like, alright, let's make a list. Case for, case against. Lightning. Because that seemed like a good place to start of like

what are the reasons to keep it and do they feel good enough and what are the reasons to get rid of it and how does that feel how do those feel that doesn't necessarily mean who's right right that's just more like the exercise that anybody inside apple would be would be making about should we make a change or should we stay with what we've got. So let's come to that article in a moment. Okay. But before we do, I want to kind of lay our thinking on the table here. Having seen Ming-Chi Kuo's response, where do you think this is going to fall?

Do you think that it's a new port or just new technology within the port? With the Wall Street Journal report, I viewed it as 50-50. With Ming-Chi Kuo, I think it's less likely to happen because Ming-Chi Kuo's response suggests that the weird feeling we all got about the Wall Street Journal report being worded strangely may have had a basis in fact that perhaps the journal report was mistaken or badly written or their information was unclear. And then Ming-Chi Kuo is diving in and saying, well, no, no, actually, here are the details of how this works. And it really does lead you to believe that the weird wording of the Wall Street Journal was because of a misunderstanding on the part of the source or on the part of the writer to mention the power cord and peripheral devices that perhaps they were thinking of it in a different way and that Ming-Chi Kuo is specific. So, I don't know, Ming-Chi Kuo's track record is pretty good. So, that makes me feel a lot like this is a lot less likely because it plays into our worries about how the journal reported it.

I don't really understand how that quote got into the report from the journal. Because whether it's ambiguous or correct or not is one thing, but it barely doesn't make any sense. Yeah. If you know anything about the iPhone, the way that's all worded is just so strange. USB-C port for the power cord and other peripheral devices instead of the company's original lightning

connector like it's just really strange like port for the power cord like it's why would you say for the power cord like well port for the for the power cord and other peripheral devices it's something where you're trying to explain to a lay audience about what the what what the cable is and what what that what a phone plug is used for which is charging and peripherals and so the way that the writer phrases it is port for the power cord and other peripheral devices i understand why they phrased it this way it's trying to i feel like it's trying to take something that we all know and then explain it in a weird way that does it does kind of make sense right i mean what is what is a port on a for? It's like for you to plug in the power cord or plug in some other peripheral device.

That's what it's for. I get it. Instead of lightning, like it's, it's weird, but can be read as being perfectly clear. It's the weirdness that makes you go, is that what they really meant to say? And of course, we're all a little skeptical of the idea that Apple would dump lightning after it seems like it was just yesterday. It was five years ago, but it seems like it was just yesterday that they introduced lightning. Somebody pointed out, by the way, that the iPhone had the dock connector for five years and lightning. It's had lightning for coming up five years. And that was scary. But the reality is, of course, the dock connector predates the iPhone by quite a lot. And the ecosystem was already pretty strong. So I think it was like 12 years of the original dock connector and only five years of lightning.

So I am kind of tracking with you on this one that like no matter what it was, you know, when it came out, I thought this makes sense to me and we're going to talk about that. And I still think that it actually does make a bit of sense to move to the USB-C on the iPhone. I think that the way that this has been reported, as we said, definitely seems to indicate that there was just a misunderstanding. Because what KGI is saying makes a ton of sense, which is that there will be fast charging via the Type-C power delivery technology. That actually makes a lot of sense the 12.9 pro ipad pro already had that um but you had to go get a usbc cable and a usbc charger to do it but it it was already there so it's it's that's that's technology that already

exists in the product line that would make sense to spread everywhere and then if you read it or like if you then kind of take that thought and read it back with the Wall Street Journal, then what it probably means is that we're going to get USB-C and lightning right on the cables rather than USB-A and lightning. Because I think the USB,

the power delivery technology is dependent on a USB connection, USB-C connection, I should say. So I think that that's what that meant right is that the cord is actually what's going to be different and that might be how it was misunderstood because as far as i'm aware the power delivery stuff is you it's part of the usbc standard so this this strikes me i've got a question about where this wall street journal comes from this report comes from right like famously it is generally thought that wall street journal information is often procured like it is

provided by apple that like apple leaks to certain uh respected sites you know new york times wall street journal uh leaks to them information that they want out there like the headphone jack a lot of people thought might have been a tactical leak but we don't really know if apple leaks tactically or when they leak tactically and how they do that um but this doesn't make sense as a tactical leak um because it's so weird and you'd think they would have gotten it right unless this is exactly what they're what they're saying but but it does kind of make sense if you think about it if this is a a shaky leak right if the wall street journal journal wall street journal is cultivating its own sources and it got somebody who knows a little and and in a game of telephone has gotten it wrong and that

that is uh i think the best explanation for what the journal reported, if Ming-Chi Kuo is right, is that it was either a source inside Apple who is not an official leaker and got it wrong, or was so circuitous that the journal reporter misunderstood, which is bad reporting, right? If you misunderstand it and go with it anyway, or if you fill in the details of the thing you don't understand, that's not good. That's not good at all. Or it's a different source outside of Apple, somewhere in the supply chain, and they got it wrong,

or they got it vague enough that it was misunderstood. It's weird. It's always been my thought that the controlled leaks are coming from a part of Apple where they're supposed to, right? Yeah, right. That's exactly right. Let's just leak this and and and lay the groundwork out there for for people to understand we're going to remove the headphone jack and they can all get it out of their systems before we uh do it so my assumption on how

something like that would work would be that apple would see it before it was published i would think so or at least there would be one of those read it back to me yeah kind of things, right? Can everyone just get on the same page about this, please? Can you just confirm this to me? Let's all get on a call, and you can just read this all over the phone to me. It does feel like that's how it would go, right? Because you're quite privy at that point to this interesting information. So, you know, this obviously did put about a lot of think pieces,

including yours, about what the pros and cons are of this. So why don't we just have that discussion anyway, because I still think that it is interesting. So, irrespective of what is happening, should Apple adopt a USB-C port for the iPhone or should they keep Lightning? So here are a couple of things that I pulled out of your article

that I thought were interesting. So Apple would lose the exclusivity afforded by the MFI program if they were to do this, right? So they could still have a program, you know, like the only way you can be sold on the Apple store or in the retail stores by going through the program. And there may be some other, you know like the only way you can be sold on the apple store or in the

retail stores by going through the program and there may be some other you know additional benefits that they could get you could get the little uh made for iphone thing on the box right no matter what but they wouldn't be able to say that everything had to go through the program which is i think technically how it should be right now. Of course, there will always be people that try and reverse engineer the Lightning port, but you shouldn't, right? And I think that Apple could have some legal recourse for that because they have this program

in place. So if they were to lose the MFI program, like so by bringing in USB-C, they would lose the MFI program as a thing that all Lightning-connected accessories have to go through. They would then lose full ecosystem control, which they currently have, and also licensing royalties. They're kind of the two key things that they would lose.

What do you think is more important to Apple in this? I don't – well, okay. So I don't think the licensing royalties are a big deal to them i think it's control yeah i do too i think i think that the the reason that they that they like it i mean lightning was created in part because apple wanted that small reversible thing to replace the big dock connector. And USB-C wasn't going to happen soon, right? USB-C was predated by lightning by several years in terms of being out in the market. They could do it. They could make it happen. And they

got to decide what lightning was and how it worked. And everybody had to follow that because it was only for their devices. It was built for Apple's needs. And then Apple has a licensing program, which lets them control it. It is the, it is the playbook. It's the dock connector playbook.

It's like, we control this, we control everything about it. So I think that's, I think that's the reason not, Oh, you know, imagine the royalties that we won't get.

I would actually say that I, that the whole thing, but especially the royalty part, it feels like a Steve jobs thing. I mean, I've talked about it many times. I've seen it. I saw it happen. Steve Jobs really did believe that everybody who was making third-party accessories for the iPod and then the iPhone was kind of a parasite and that they were building businesses on Apple's greatness. And so they wanted to control them and take money from them. That was Jobs was obsessed with that.

I think he just really believed that. And I think today's Apple kind of maybe doesn't care so much about any of that, like doesn't have that. I think that was a Jobs quirk that reflected itself in Apple's policies. And I don't, I just don't think it's as big a deal now. And I don't, I just don't think it's as big a deal now. And my part of my evidence for that is, you know, if Apple didn't like USB-C, it wouldn't have been, you know, it's already embraced USB-C on the Mac. Thunderbolt is inside USB-C now. USB-C ports are all that are on the MacBook Pros and on the MacBook.

So it's very clear that they like this technology. It just wasn't ready yet. So I don't know. I don't think this is a very strong argument. And in fact, I might argue that it comes under a larger argument, which is the strongest argument for keeping lightning, which is that it's already there and you can just let it ride. And that's a powerful argument.

Inertia is a powerful argument. Just keep it like it is and don't put in any extra effort. Just let it be what it already is. You don't have to make a transition. You don't have to pay the cost to make a transition. And this falls into that,

which is the program exists. It's already there. It's something we understand. Let's just keep doing it. So if Apple were to adopt USB usbc they would also lose the flexibility to enhance or restrict the connector as they see fit right because usbc is an open standard so they would they would lose some of that which i guess yeah they're losing now with thunderbolt falling into the usbc realm rather than the other way around well i mean

thunderbolt was intel right but apple work with them on it and and but usbc you know apple's in the usbc consortium too i don't think this is a big deal because i think lightning's not going to change i feel like apple can do what it wants with lightning but i i if you ask me is apple why if somebody wrote in and said why aren't you guys talking about just doing lightning too it's like they're not going to do lightning too they've got lightning it does what it does usbc does some other things and it's different but if they're going to make a change they're absolutely going to go to usbc 100 right but the question is are they going to make a change i don't think one change would be adding fast charging though right like i mean it's not a big change because they already have it but they'd be changing it for the whole line but that

was a thing that they added to lightning afterwards that's a change to it not like a change to the port but an adaptation to it things get added to the specs all the time and that has to do with the individual implementation on the devices though and that's not you know apple still controls that because apple controls what the iphone does and can say this is how this works and that doesn't change if they go to usbc so i don't think this is an issue do you think transition costs would stop Apple from doing this? You know, like the transition that we had from the 30-pin to the Lightning, would Apple want to do that again?

Like, I say so soon, but you know what I'm getting at. Well, I think what I would say is, I don't think, I'm not sure Apple cares. If Apple has, I think if I would say is, I don't think, I don't, I'm not sure Apple cares. If Apple has, I think if Apple has other good reasons to make a change, Apple's just going to make the change. I think we saw that with the headphone jack thing. It's like, if Apple wants to do it, they don't really care if people scream about, oh, but my thing, my thing is incompatible because as far as Apple's concerned, in the end, it's

about making the best iPhone possible and keeping things around that, keeping old accessories around, but in return, your iPhone isn't as good as it could be. And I'm just saying, this is the Apple approach here. It's like not, not an option. The best, making the best iPhone is the most important thing, not avoiding rocking the boat of other things, keeping in mind also that they would be going to not another Apple designed proprietary accessory, but to a accessory that is going to increase in acceptance and is already out there in a lot of devices and will lead to a world where presumably everything is plug compatible

in that hotel room accessory kind of world. So I don't think it's going to be a pain to make a transition, and people are going to complain whatever stop Apple. So Apple are adopting USB-C on their other products now, even as the only means of power, right? So the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, like it wasn't just so much that they added this

as a new version of the USB, like the new version of USB, right? They didn't replace just like A with C and then MagSafe. They're like, nope, we're going all in. Like this is the power cable now too. Nobody, everybody talks about the headphone jack.

Nobody talks about the other, other cable transition that happened last year, which is Apple killed MagSafe. MagSafe was owned by Apple, created by Apple, defined by Apple. They redefined the spec at one point to make it thinner and lighter and they just killed it. They're like, nope, it's gone. We're just going to use USB-C now. That was a, that was an Apple design spec that, that, that was made unnecessary by this standard that they embraced. And it would be pretty great, right, to have just one charger needed for all of your Apple accessories, like all of your Apple products, your phone, maybe your iPad, right?

Because that's another one in this argument. Would they move on the iPad? I think that there's still a possibility for that before the iPhone anyway. I think me and you have spoken about that a bunch on this show, about the possibility of Apple either adding a USBbc port or replacing on the ipad line right because if the ipad pro is truly a computer level device why doesn't have usb on it right because then it could take advantage of all those things i think this is high on my list of reasons why apple would kill lightning if not now then soon then you know at some point here why it might be inevitable is is how envision an apple

product line not just a mac or ios product line but an apple product line where you know in this year or next year or whatever whenever this happened every port is the same like every port is the same and some of them are faster some of them have thunderbolt 3 and some of them don't and that varies device by device but imagine if like you had one power plug for for any laptop or ios device you know you had one you buy one adapter a video adapter and it works on your ipad and your iphone and your mac imagine that. Like, USB-C can make that happen. That's pretty great, right? But to get there, you've got to dump USB-A and Thunderbolt and MagSafe and Lightning.

But the end result would be good. It would be great. The end result would be nice. I would love to just have just the one charger, right? Like, it could be for anything. Yeah. So you would just never have to worry about it you've always got this one i just did that i i was at a i did a an event this weekend where i was uh i was

presenting um and i had to have a mac and an ipad to present with and i had one charger with two cables but i had i brought the usbc charger and it was a macbook with touch bar and an ipad pro and i just changed the cables and i was like oh this is great like i only need one charger i need two cables still but i only need the one charger because it's the usbc works on either but even better would be just popping one one cable that would be even nicer right one cable it would so that i think that's i think that's a big uh a big case for apple going to usbc so what would you prefer Apple to do? Like the choice is yours, right? They come to you and they're like,

Jason, we just cannot weigh this up. The only person who can answer this for us is you. And we will do whatever you say. What would you tell Apple to do? I think Apple should do it. Honestly, I think they should do it honestly i think they should do it because when i talk about writing that article the afternoon that this came out i i thought the article would be i was going to do case for case against i thought at the end i

would come out and say hmm see don't do this apple it makes much more sense to stay and instead i got to the end i'm like oh it makes much more sense to go to usbc like the i find the arguments because i tried to make both arguments i find the arguments far more persuasive to go to usbc than to stay with lightning far more persuasive so maybe they won't do it now maybe they'll do it later maybe they'll never do it but like once their product line is in motion once the the Mac is moving to USB-C, it kind of makes sense for their iOS devices to do it. Certainly makes sense on the iPad Pro. And there's just a lot of benefits.

So I tell them to do it. And I know, you know, again, nobody likes being yelled at. Nobody says, I've got all these lightning adapters that I'm going to have to throw away. I get it. It stinks, right? But we move through it. And if you step back further and say, what would Apple do? It's like, did Apple care? I mean, Apple didn't care about the headphone jack, right? And we all survived. But also,

let's just take it to that point where Apple didn't care. Apple just eliminated the headphone jack from the iPhone. They just did it. And that sounds like a company that would do something like this. No problem. I don't think they would even hesitate to do it if they felt that it was the right time to do it. And I'm actually a little surprised that by Ming-Chi Kuo's report, because it suggests that Apple doesn't think it's the right time to do it. But I don't know a lot about Apple's hardware design time horizons. It's possible that even if Apple decided last fall that usbc was the future and they should just make the move that might not mean the 2017 fall iphone has has time to be made as a usbc device yeah i bet they could make that decision on the macbook pro later than they could on the iphone yeah and and they might

have initially gone down that path with a mac but then i i just it takes them a long time to design those iphones and they have to do them in in volume and they're in a very small space. And so I don't, I don't know, but it makes sense. And so if I were at Apple and making the call here, I would say, yes, absolutely. If not in 2017, then what, what is our master plan to get to a point where USB-C is what we use everywhere, because we should get there. And if, you know, you can make an argument like, oh, they just took out the headphone jack, they just got rid of MagSafe. It's like, yeah, I mean, if you want to wait, you could wait. But at some point, you can stand on the edge of the pool forever. At some point, you just have to jump. And I feel like that's basically where Apple is with USB-C. So I would say, you know,

I don't know when they would be capable of making the change, but I think it's probably the right change to make. I would like it to. And if Apple asked me, because you were busy that day, I would tell them to do the same thing. And I know that, again, as you exactly said, like, it's frustrating to replace stuff. But I feel like replacing cables this time would be better than when we did it last time because all we did was replace lightning cables for our iPhones

and then later on our keyboard and mice would charge with these things too and for our iPads, right? But this time you'd be making the change for all future devices of all manufacturers. Think of how many things in your life are charged by a form of USB. They will all go to this. Every Android phone is going to have USB-C. Eventually, I think every laptop and PC will have it.

Everybody's going to this, right? And I think there's something to be said for the fact that, I know Apple likes having the power a little bit of like, oh, well, hotels have lightning plugs in them. Isn't that great? But if every phone is on USB-C, it makes stuff like what accessories people buy for libraries and community centers and phones a lot easier, too. That's not a business decision for Apple, although it does help, I think, because it gets a lot of the weird adapter problems out of the way and you know what hotels have in jason hotels have 30 pin dock connectors is what they have they do it's so true they they bought those they all bought those i home clock radios like the year before the dock connector was killed and i would

like it if they just jumped this weekend i found in my drawer uh a bunch of dock connector adapters i'm like oh man i gotta put you know i've spent money on those i gotta put those away somewhere where i don't keep picking them up and being like whoop i can't use that but i'm you know it it happens i had to actually run to the apple store on friday night and buy a usbc to vga adapter because i realized that i was going to do this presentation on the touch bar macbook pro and i didn't have an adapter for it so with all of this talk about this usbc thing that as just just to to wrap up we'd both like it but don't think it's happening this year um i think it's probably the the bow to put on that right now, right?

I'd say it's more like I went from 50-50 to thinking it's like 75-25 in favor of it not happening because Ming-Chi Kuo's sources tend to be pretty good and this seemed like a very specific bat down of that report. And so I don't know. And the reporting was shaky at best. The writing certainly was. Yeah, that's about the way I put it. But there has been amongst all of this,

the Wall Street Journal thing, and many rumors that we've seen recently, and we haven't addressed it on this show, this third iPhone. So the rumor is that there will be the 7S and the 7S Plus as normal, and it may be in a different color. And now I guess they're going to have faster charging.

But there may also be a third model of phone that sits on the very top from a price perspective and from a kind of build quality perspective, that it will be an iPhone with an edge-to-edge display. It will be about the size of the iPhone 6, but the OLED screen that it will have will be about as large as the Plus, with no physical home button, but what's being referred to as a function row at the bottom, which I guess will probably be something like a cross between Android's on-screen buttons and the touch bar. What do you think about this iPhone iphone which i am going to

continue to call the iphone pro for the time being uh okay um it's an interesting idea we've heard buzzing about the idea that there would be this new model that's a super fancy oled edge to edge uh packing a lot of pixels into a fairly small space the right isn't it the idea that it's it's like the size of an iphone 7 but uh but with the pixels of an iphone 7 plus yeah and and yes it's about those pixels like it would be the 3x right it's the idea would be the 3x but like the screen will be mostly as large as a plus but the bottom is kind of cut off to be reserved for a function row right i don't know it's it's it's interesting it sounds like something apple would do there's a lot of talk about it um i think it's inevitable that apple will try uh it's kind of funny when you see apple's priorities like you are seeing other

phone makers push really hard at getting as much bezel out of the equation as possible. And Apple has done some of that, but has not pushed it necessarily as far as some of its competitors. And I'm sure they had their reasons in terms of product design and usability. But it does seem inevitable, right? Just as it's inevitable that Apple wants phones to be thinner, that Apple also would want to maximize screen space. We know that they've, I mean, they've been thinking about it for years. We've seen them file patents about,

could we put sensors and cameras underneath a display? How would that work, right? Just because why would you do that? The answer is, well, if you get rid of the touch ID sensor and you get rid of the front facing camera or hide them under the display, you can make the display bigger.

So it seems like this is a direction that they've wanted to go. It's an inevitable direction for the iPhone for them to go in that go there. The question is just where's the tech? Is the tech far enough along now that Apple feels confident that they can do it at iPhone volumes for a price that they feel like they can sell the iPhone for, even if it's a thousand dollars or whatever, because that is, that is actually not that much more than an iPhone seven plus is today. It's just another step up, right? So it's not, it's, it seems perfectly reasonable to me. And then the question to me just becomes, is, is Apple, is Apple capable of making that device yet? And i don't have any way

to judge that and these reports suggest that they do or at least they're trying to and that would be a cool product it would be it would be my thinking about it when i heard i was listening to atp talk about it last week and i've read a bunch of stuff that people have written about it i keep coming back to the idea that one of Apple's great value propositions is you're buying the future today. Like we've got it before other people do. This is cooler. This, everybody's going to have this in two years, but it's right now we've got it and it's cooler than any phone you've used before and you'll love it and you'll pay to get it, but it's going to be great. And I think that this phone is that perfectly written, right? That this is that device, which is, yeah, it's more expensive than even the 7 Plus, but it's this

amazing, awesome new thing. So that feels very Apple in a way, if they can pull it off. I think that's the real question is how do you pull it off? Where do you put the Touch ID sensor? Where do you put the speaker? Where do you put the front facing camera? How do you get all of those in a bezel-less device? And does that hurt the perceived quality of the phone to the point where it's not worth it? If you're like, oh, well, we don't have Touch ID anymore or Touch ID is hiding on the back. But if you mount this in your car, you can't reach the Touch ID sensor anymore or whatever the tradeoffs are. Today's episode is also brought to you by Casper. Now, wait one moment. If you are from the United Kingdom, from my fair shores, and you are thinking to yourself, this ad doesn't apply to me. Casper is only in the US and Canada. Well, let me tell you, dear listener from the United Kingdom,

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go and get one. Casper.com slash upgrade and use the code upgrade for 50 off 50 50 pounds thank you so much to casper for their support of this show so mike i have to ask you yes would you want this iphone that is the size of a seven but but with the pixels of a 7 Plus? Or would you turn your back on it because it is not big enough? I would be upset that it wouldn't be big enough, honestly.

Straight up, like, it would... I've been thinking about it, right? Like, it will be a smaller screen than what I'm used to, and that would frustrate me, but I would want the best iPhone, and that would be the best iphone like i have thought that and i believe honestly that the plus is the better of the two iphones like it is the better one for me and this one will be it will be better looking it will have more technology in it and it

will be close enough from a screen size perspective to give me what i want it will be a downgrade but it won't be as far a downgrade as it would be for me to go to the regular size model. Or like an SE or something. It would be a shame. I would lose screen space, but I think that it would be a net win overall. Oh man, I'm trying to imagine you using

an iPhone SE now. It just makes me smile. It would be... You'd be like a giant holding a little tiny iPhone in your hand, is what I'm kind of picturing I would type all of the keys at once when I use the keyboard Here is some news that I found interesting and I'm a little bit sad that it's probably going to be US only probably forever

YouTube TV Coming soon, YouTube will be offering a new package. You'll be able to stream a bundle of approximately 40 channels including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, FX, Disney Channel, National Geographic, and obviously many more. It also includes YouTube-read content. Some

that are missing, some channels that are missing, HBO, CNN, TBS, Comedy Central, MTV, and Discovery are some of the bigger missing packages. There's an infinite cloud DVR. You can just choose anything to be recorded. And you get six user accounts for one price. It's $35 a month.

Cancel any time. Initially, YouTube TV will be supported over Chromecast with the YouTube app and smart TVs to follow. What do you think of this? It is the, I'm a little surprised that Apple hasn't done a deal like this yet. And I suspect they will at some point. It is another one of these. I think Apple haven't been able to, not that Apple haven't wanted to, right?

Well, I don't know. I think that, I think Apple probably has a particular level of service that it wants and a bundle that it wants to get that maybe it can't get. And it's decided to, it wouldn't surprise me if they have like been able to do a bundle, but they thought it was dumb, like a bad product. And so they just didn't put it out. It is also possible that everybody's afraid of Apple and now they'll make a deal with Google and then Apple will be like, okay, give us the same deal you gave to Google because you've already done this, and we might as well get going.

But it's a skinny bundle. It's like Sling and DirecTV Now, or whatever it's called, DirecTV something or other. Skinny bundle means it's just not all the channels, right? Yeah, that's the idea, is it's still a bundle, because cord cutters, a lot of times, the vision is like, I only want to buy the shows I want,

or the channels that I want, and that's not not what you get because what happens is one of these big entertainment companies owns 15 different cable channels and the reason that espn and disney channel you know are on there and abc is because that is the deal that disney has made which owns all of those things right and the reason that uh that comedy central and mtv aren't on there is that viacom has not made that deal with them and those are theirs their channels and the a lot of times they make money because what they do is instead of selling you espn for a price they sell you these or or like tbs and tnt and c for a price, they sell you 10 channels for a price. And they want you to take all 10 and pay for all 10.

And if you don't get all 10, you don't get any of them. And that's a way for them to bundle those things together and make money. And that's just sort of how the TV world works, at least right now. So it's a challenge to assemble something that has all the channels people want that doesn't cost what your cable costs. And that's what's going on here. Now, what's interesting about YouTube TV is that they've got the major broadcast networks on board, and they've got this cloud DVR thing, which basically means that even though you don't have a DVR at all, it's a streaming service, you have what behaves like a DVR, which I think some of the other streaming services with the skinny bundles don't have, which is like, if you miss

the show, you can just back it up. You can pause it. You can play it back. Like it works like a DVR where you, you have kind of infinite playback of anything. And that's a cool feature, um, for people in Chicago, San Francisco, and one other market, maybe Philadelphia. Chicago, San Francisco, and one other market, maybe Philadelphia. One of the big stories about this is that it includes the local regional sports channels, which in this case, it's owned by Comcast actually, but Comcast has signed onto this plan. So potential cord cutters in the Bay Area who wouldn't cut the cord because they didn't want to miss like baseball games or football games you could actually do it this is this is a kind of a big deal that this gives you access to the Giants games without having a traditional cable TV package and is this the

first one that's done that is this the first time that that's been able to be done I believe this is the first time that any of these has offered the local regional cable channels i might be wrong but it's it's a big for me like in the bay area i believe it's the first streaming service to do that for here and that means that anybody who's like well i still have cable because i want to watch the giants games like well now you don't youtube tv will actually supply you with all of the giants baseball games and that's a big that's a big deal now you're getting you know you're getting their commercials and all that. And your fee is going in part to Comcast for that channel. So they're getting their money one way or the other. So it'll be interesting to see what Apple does

with this. It's an, it's an intriguing service, but it's missing a lot of channels as all of these services are. And it goes back to that same thing that I've said time and again, which is they, they want their money. They're going to get their money one way or another. So if you want all the channels that you love, that you pay for cable for, to get them streaming, you will have to pay probably pretty much the same thing. And it feels like ultimately this is where this is going. Ultimately, everything is going to go into TVs. You're not going to need a traditional cable box to watch all the same channels. You'll just need to pay for the channels. But the dream of being a cable cutter and saving a lot of money while keeping all the

channels you want to watch, I think that was always just a fantasy. Yeah, it's like the cable cutting thing is just, do you want to have your DVR be software? Because that's basically going to be the only difference right yeah i mean pretty much like i've got i've got that that comcast uh xfinity app on my ipad that gives me other than the dvr which it doesn't currently give me but it gives me access to every single channel and on demand that i have from so i don't even you know at that point do i need a tv even um except that that i have to have their tv service in order to get that so it's it's close i really do hate the idea of cloud dvr

like it really annoys me why does that even need to be a thing why can't i just choose anything of anything always like why do i have to like implicitly say record this i i don't think you do i i i'm i'm not sure that that's actually the case i think that this infinite cloud dvr may mean that if you missed that show that was on cbs last night you can just go watch it see that would be my back the clock and watch it i think that's what this means which is that that and that and that's what some of the other services don't have which means they're recording everything of course as they stream it and then they're giving you access to it, which is big, right? Because then if you hear, oh, well, there was that show on Fox yesterday, you'll be like, okay, and you just wind it back, and then you got it.

That's the Google model, right? They wouldn't be recording things for people individually. They record it once and then deliver to everybody else, right? This is like Google Reader. Like, that's what it did, right? people individually they record it once and then deliver to everybody else right this is this is like google reader like that's what it did yeah right you don't record the same video stream 9 000 times right you record it once and then you make it available to 9 000 people and that's that's the idea here so i think you know it looks like a pretty good service i mean it's 35 a month so it's not again you're not you're not getting away with something in a lot of ways but it's $35 a month. So it's not, again, you're not getting away with something in a lot of ways,

but it's got a pretty good package. And I'm telling you, for sports fans in the Bay Area, this is a big deal because that would allow them to cut the cord if they wanted to and still have their baseball games or football games. And more than that, if they already are a cord cutter and are lamenting the fact that they can't get those sporting events, here they are. And the sports stuff being locked away has been one of the real defenses that the traditional cable TV industry has had against streaming. And those walls are starting to come down. It's not all the way down yet, but those walls are starting to come down with Like, uh, it's not all the way down yet, but those walls are starting to come down with, with this realization that there's a large audience that wants to stream

them and we'll pay you for them. And at some point you just, as a business, I think they just have to give in and say, okay, if you want to stream it and you'll pay us, we'll let you do that too. But the problem is that a lot of sports rights fees especially are – they exist as a defense against cable cutting. And so the people who spent a lot of money for those rights are not going to open up streaming because they paid the money so that you have to keep giving them cash for their cable company. So it's in flux. It's going to take it's going to take probably a decade at least to sort all this out maybe more so you are a sports fan in the bay area yeah is youtube tv in your future no absolutely not because we watch tv we have we have a d i have

a tivo i i have a dvr um i don't i i'm not interested in cutting the cord because the cost of putting back everything that I want to see would be not much different and not as an inferior environment to that, to what I've got now, where I've got it all on my TiVo. So no, I'm not interested. So the idea of this cloud DVR, it's not necessary for you. You're just used to setting it. I have a DVR, right?

And it's got all the channels. You have to set it, right? But you're cool with that? Yeah, I'm cool with that. And also I'm cool with the channels that they don't show that I get, right? Because that's the other part of this deal is they don't have deals with everybody. And so there's a whole bunch of stuff missing. because that's the other part of this deal is they don't have deals with everybody.

And so there's a whole bunch of stuff missing. So, so yeah, for me, it's, it's, I've got, you know, I've got all the channels that I want to get and I've got, I'm going through a DVR and yeah, the cloud DVR is great. It's a great idea. I, I, um, I'm a little surprised that, that Comcast hasn't just offered that yet. And it may be that on Comcast DVR, you might even get something like that. I know that dish network did that for their dvr the idea that it's just it just records primetime tv and doesn't tell you and you don't know it's there but if you go back and it's got like the last few days and if you go back and say oh i missed that show the the that dvr will be like oh yeah i actually have that here is. And you can watch it. I'm a little surprised that more, I'm surprised TiVo doesn't do that too. If I've got free space, if it doesn't just secretly record primetime TV and make it available to me later, if I am sad

that I missed something, but I think that's all coming, right? I mean, cause why would you not? Again, this is where it's all going, right if you pay you should get access to the show you paid for and and we're getting there right it's just not all all the pieces aren't there yet it's funny to me like with the way that people describe tivo that they couldn't just record it and then just like you just download it from them like like you know if you want it you could just go in and download it from TiVo as opposed to recording it if you missed it. Yeah, that would be the infrastructure, though. If you've got free space, the best thing to do is just record it.

And their rights, at that point, they don't have streaming rights. They have the rights to record your TV. Because streaming rights are different, right? So the easiest way to do it is just record it and leave it there, which is what the Dish Network DVR does. So there's a lot of different moving parts here, and everybody's needs are going to be different.

I know that if I was somebody who was in a place where I desperately wanted to cut the cable and I couldn't do it because I'm a Giants fan and I want to watch their baseball games, I would look at YouTube TV and say, there it is. That's the solution. Now I can do it. But I'm not that person.

This does feel like Google's strongest play in TV so far, I think. It's a good start, right? Google services are such a mess and the YouTube services are such a mess. I don't really know. With the music and YouTube Red and all of that, I hope that they will become more coherent over time. But this is an interesting option. It looks more impressive at a glance than something like Sling or the DirecTV offering, but who knows? It's all in the details and how they implement it. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace. Enter the offer code UPGRADE at checkout and you will get 10% off your first purchase.

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does Mike prefer gaming on a TV with a dedicated console or on an iPad and why? So for me, I tend to be more interested in physical controllers than TVs as the thing that makes a game console preferable. So I'm more interested in having buttons, real buttons to press, because for most of the games that I like to play, buttons are better, right? Like, I've never really enjoyed a traditional platformer on iOS that has digital analog sticks, right? Like, these sticks that you drag around on the screen, or these buttons that are in fixed places on the screen that you can't press, but you have to kind of know where they are at all times and must make sure that you're hitting them,

even though you're not looking at them. I don't like that. Plus, as well, console games tend to be bigger and richer than the average iOS game. I have a place in my gaming life for both, like the more casual or strange or experimental touchscreen iOS games, and also for big console games as well. And it's not about necessarily which of those experiences are better

because I have a place for them at different times, but just like in all, I prefer to have physical controls for my games. And I have one of those Bluetooth controllers for iOS, and there have been some iOS games that I've only played on iOS because I had that controller. But I still prefer the controllers that come with consoles because they also tend to be designed better and better supported. There are a lot of games that are designed for physical controls and game genres that are designed for physical controls. And the touch interface doesn't work. Something like Stagehand, which is a great game, is designed for physical controls and the touch interface doesn't work like something like stagehand which is a great game is designed for touch it it echoes the classic console games

or arcade games but it's designed for touch it has touch movements in mind that's what it's made for and it wouldn't work with physical buttons you couldn't use a controller with that game exactly right but there are so many games that just when i I use them on the iPad, I think this is not the right experience for this game. This is not. I was just playing, because I enjoy playing inside so much. I was playing Limbo, but I was playing it on my iPad. And it's a good game, but it doesn't feel right. Like, the controls are kind of a mess

because it's all swiping and stuff. And it's just like, I think this is not the way that I should play this game. And so, yeah, I hear you. My son has been playing Breath of the Wild all weekend, by the way. All weekend. It's so good. I didn't know.

Did you get it for Wii U? Yeah. It's so good. Oh, it's... I haven't put enough time into it to definitively say it, but I can see how this is one of the best games of all time. A lot of people are saying that, and I can see how, because it is stupendous.

And that game needs controllers. It needs it. A.W. Stern asked, would non-developers or non-industry people have fun at or around tech conferences? As a tech fan and podcast fan, would it be fun? I say yes, because I started attending these conferences, you know, conferences like UL and conferences like WWDC, before I really knew a lot of people. I maybe had a couple of friends. I went on my own to UL for the first time. I think that there is a lot of things there for you to enjoy

if you just have an interest. I don't think you have to be in any industry just like if you're a fan then yeah you you will get a lot out of these things yeah i would say there are a few different kinds of conferences if you go to a conference that is meant to be very technical and it's not something you want to learn, then those conferences are probably not for you. But a lot of the conferences we go to are about big ideas and personal stories and about going out on your own or about being more productive.

And then there's a lot of the social aspect of them, of you're meeting people and talking to people and all of that. So I think it can be fun, but you've also got to put yourself out there a little bit. You've got to talk to people, say talking to people and all of that. So I think it can be fun, but you've also got to put yourself out there a little bit. You've got to talk to people, say hello to people, because I think it would not be as good a time if you were not meeting people and if you were just kind of sitting on the side on your own. And I find the people at these conferences very welcoming

and friendly. So yeah i i agree with you mike zach asked is there anywhere that you would buy a refurbished macbook pro that's not direct from apple's refurbished store jason i don't know i have never i bought refurbished from the apple store i don't think i've ever bought refurbished anywhere else neither have i and i mean that's used right that's not refurbished from the Apple store I don't think I've ever bought refurbished anywhere else neither have I that's used right that's not refurbished really it's used at that point which you could do I mean

I've sold a refurbished MacBook Pro but I have not bought one I haven't I've only ever from Apple too and everybody that I know as well that I know that buys refurbished machines or used machines has bought them there um if you're buying a used machine that's a different thing right you go buy them

on ebay or whatever right but like if you're looking for something that is taken back to a a good level of repair and can be certified as such apple's your bet like that's where you want to buy it from because they put a new warranty on the thing when they sell it to you. That's what you want. You should go with the Apple refurb store. I know that they tend to be a bit more expensive. That's why. Because they put a new warranty on the thing and they make sure that it's all

working fine before they send it out to you. You want that if you're going to buy refurb. You don't get as much of a discount but you still get a discount but you also get peace of mind. Lexi has asked I need a cheap small word processing laptop that doesn't need to be online all the time to be useful what should i look at so i think that what lexi's saying here is that they're looking for something that isn't a chromebook but i actually think a chromebook is

fine because my understanding is that you can use Chromebooks offline now. Like you can use Docs offline. It's built into it. So because you're looking for a cheap, small word processing laptop, you should get a Chromebook. Like I don't think there's anything else. Yeah, I think so.

I have not used a Chromebook offline recently, but I believe that's all meant to do that. That stuff gets stored locally and you can still work on all of that stuff offline. Um, cause there is storage on the device and they do cash the, you know, the web apps and all of that. So I would say look into that, but that might be, there are also some cheap, you know, there are some cheap, uh, Windows laptops out there too, but if you want a cheap, if cheap is what you're going also some cheap, you know, there are some cheap Windows laptops out there too. But if you want a cheap, if cheap is what you're going for and small, I feel like, yeah, a Chromebook is a great option. And then there are some cheap, small, like HP makes a cheap, small Windows laptop.

There are a few of those out there that are designed with, you know, again, word processing is not the most labor or processor intensive task. So, um, but Chromebooks, I mean, yeah, as long as they can work offline, they're cheap and the Google suite is fine. I did just check, uh, Google's technical support documents and we were right, right? You can use docs and you can use spreadsheets and stuff like that offline you can do it offline now hashtag we were right there you go and finally today brent asked will apple refresh the airpods anytime soon and what kind of feature changes would you expect to see so i think that we may see a version 2 in September. I don't know about that yet.

I definitely don't think we'd see one any time before the thing is a year old. It's being announced, so maybe they would ship again for the holidays. I only expect to see that if they find a way to add more gestures to the thing, really, as what they would be adding. The ability to control volume volume skip forward and back and i think it would take new hardware to do that reliably so if apple are able to make a product within a year that will do this then i think we'll see it otherwise i don't think we will other than maybe maybe a black version even then i think you'd still wait for a year before you unveil that

i think the only thing we'll get is possibly color variation otherwise i think it'll be a 2018 thing yeah that's i mean i i don't necessarily think that they would have the ability to put this the new gestures in but they're the only thing that I can imagine you would improve upon the original design with, is the ability to have more complex gestures. That would work. Well, you know, more, I don't know, better battery life, whatever. I'm sure there's a whole list of things

that they want to do and better connectivity and all those things. I just, I am doubtful that that's a product that turns around in a year. Me too. Me too. Me too. Yeah. All right.

If you want to find our show notes for this week, head on over to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 131. If you want to find Jason online, he's over at sixcolors.com, and he's at jsnell on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thanks again to Squarespace, Casper and Encapsular for supporting the show but most of all thank you for listening

we'll be back next week, until then say goodbye Jason Snell goodbye everybody