Upgrade - 151: Caulk and Spackle

Episode Date: July 24, 2017

Does the Mac mini have a place in the Mac line-up, or should it fade into the sunset? Which Mac laptop--MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Escape--is the best choice for a new college student? All this, plus lasers _and_ fireworks, on this week’s edition of Upgrade.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 151 today's show is brought to you by text expander pingdom and jet my name is mike hurley i am joined by jason snell hello jason snell hello mike hurley how are you? I'm doing fine. But nobody wants to know because it's hashtag Snell Talk time. And today's Snell Talk question comes from Kathy. Kathy would like to know, Jason, do you prefer lasers or fireworks? Wow.

Now, this is a question for the ages. There are so many ways you could break this down. I feel like this is dangerously close to being an episode of Robot or Not. I get lots of Robot or Not style questions that I don't use for this. Just FYI. So lasers. My experience with lasers is not particularly great. It is the plot of... Lasers figure prominently in the plot of one of my favorite movies, Real Genius.

Lasers are a fun toy to play with my cat, where he chases the laser pointer around. And Lasers are fun in a laser show, although I've only ever been to a couple of laser shows in my life. Whereas I see fireworks all the time. In fact, we just saw fireworks last weekend, not this one that just happened, but the one before when we were in San Diego, because it was fireworks night at the ballpark and we saw some fireworks. So I got to say, I think I prefer fireworks, even though fireworks have loud noises and sometimes loud noises can be bothersome, but they're pretty. And I prefer prefer them i think maybe more because they're more readily available as a pretty uh a spectacle so i think i'm gonna have to go fireworks if i if i really preferred truly preferred lasers i would go to more laser shows and i don't so i

think i have to answer fireworks is it time to retire the ask upgrade lasers in favor of ask upgrade fireworks no i think to every every tool has its proper job and i believe that lasers are oh you know what she probably means i message uh effects doesn't she lasers all the way then there's no there was no uh explanation it was purely do you prefer lasers or fireworks is the question on on i message i prefer lasers of course i do because sent with lasers is the best because you see in reality fireworks are available using this sort of technology and lasers are available using this sort of technology in iMessage all you have to do is say lasers give me some lasers let's be honest if we if you could just conjure up lasers by saying you know lasers yeah

we'd all do that we would all do that you know that's what you want i know right okay so i think that's maybe what kathy meant but instead we gave her the more broad real world definition which is fireworks because you know they're more readily available than lasers it's hard hard to get a laser unless you're an evil supervillain unless you're a supervillain i was gonna say it too and i decided not to say it and you said it anyway so there we go you can always rely on me snail i would love a super villain to try and destroy the world with fireworks the fireworks will dazzle them and while they are distracted i will something like that i don't know shoot them with a laser if you'd like to send in your questions to open the show just use the hashtag Talk. As you've probably learned by now,

it can be about literally anything. Yeah, no submission too stupid. Unless you're asking me to ask Jason a robot or not style question, because I don't do those. If you don't know what robot or not is, I'll put a link in the show notes. Excellent.

You have some follow-up for us. A little bit. So we talked about my cellular ipad adventures last time and how even though i'd extolled the virtues of the flexibility of the cellular ipad it wasn't until i added my own ipad to our family plan that i i felt like completely free i did have one piece of feedback from somebody who said when i said you know i, I could tether, but I just never did because I never wanted to go through that. And I did have one person say, no, it's fine. Like, okay, well, good, good feedback.

It's fine for some, but it wasn't fine for me. I mean, I get it. Like, for some people, that's what they want to do, and it works for them. But, like, I've never found it to work in the way that i want 100 of the time well while the cell does you know yeah it's a little it's a little fiddly um it can be unreliable sometimes it works fine what i can tell you is if i'm sitting in a car as a passenger and we're driving down the freeway and i have the option of checking Twitter and Slack on my phone or on my iPad and I would have

to tether to do it on my iPad, I'm never going to do that. But what I discovered is when I can just pull out the iPad and it works because it's got its own cellular connection. Yeah. Yeah. I actually do that. I pull out the iPad instead because I prefer to use the iPad in that scenario. And that's the difference here. So that was one thing was, yes, I'm not saying that people who tether are bad. I'm just saying that there is a little bit of a barrier there and that was enough for me. does in various carriers in the U S and just suffice it to say that it's a, there are lots of complications there. We heard from people who said that it sounds like Verizon just doesn't support it. Um, if you buy an iPad at an AT&T store, the Apple SIM is locked to AT&T, but not if you buy it in an Apple store, it sounds like there are differences in terms of the software SIM that's in the device, which you can't remove because it's a virtual SIM or the hardware SIM, which is the one that I believe AT&T will lock. If you attach an Apple SIM, a hardware SIM, it basically is like, okay, we own this SIM. Now, if you want another carrier, get a different SIM. But you know,

the point is there are complications here, at least in the U S and it's kind of annoying. But for me, what I ended up doing was having my carrier send me for free a SIM to put in my iPad. And then all I had to do was pop it in. And it was already associated with my account. And it was not a problem. And so that was the easiest thing for me to do. But that also means that the internal Apple SIM in that iPad is still available for roaming or, you know, applying to some other carrier. And so that's good too. And then I got a nice piece of email from listener Erling who wrote

in to say, one important feature of the cellular iPad that we didn't mention is that it also has GPS. And Erling is a private pilot and uses an app to make flight plans and use GPS in the air. It's called AirNav Pro. And the great thing about the iPad Pro with cellular is that it's got GPS and that's true. That is true. It is going to give you a more exact location signal because of that. So thank you to Erling and to everybody else who wrote in about iPads and cellular. Whoa. I mean, as I expected. I mean, I'm assuming this application, Air Navigation Pro, right?

Because what I'm assuming it is just from Googling. Yeah. It's 50 pounds to get in the door. So it's probably around $50. And then there are a bunch of like 25, 26 pound in-app purchases for a bunch of things. I mean, this is, it makes sense, right? Like that's what you would expect for an application like this.

But, you know, I just see stuff like that. And I think it's kind of funny in a way. It even has an Apple Watch app. Yeah, it's got all your charts and stuff in it too. This is like, because I remember, because because my dad my dad was a private pilot my dad actually used to commute i did not know that by yes used to commute by plane um at one point in his career and um the and this uh he had like big stacks i remember when i was a little kid uh stacks of like charts and maps and things like that.

And this is all in a computer or something. That is so cool. Jason, I have some follow-up for you in regards to to-do lists and applications and such. Jack wrote in to say that Things 3 seems to have a feature that Jason might want for his new amazing to-do system. So Things 3... Oh oh my god i'm struggling

with that one uh it things free is what i'm my brain is attempting to say things don't say three it uh lets you set different dates and deadlines for a project so you can be notified about something a few days before it's actually set to be done i think things two does this too i actually have things version 2 because that was one of the to-do lists that I used in a previous attempt to do this. So we did hear from a bunch of people saying, hey, here's an app that does this thing.

I heard from a couple of nice people who said, but OmniFocus will let you do all of those things. And I appreciate everybody being helpful. I will say that the questions about the details of the features of all of the available to-do list apps and which one is best do not really help me with my feelings that this is a bottomless pit of time wasting that is not going to help me do my job better. So I'm trying to keep as light a touch. My point is, it's not you, it's me. I'm trying to keep as light a touch as possible on this and do as little investment into investigation and everything as possible because I don't want to waste my time researching to-do apps and then find that they don't stick because I used things to for a while, it didn't stick. I found it not helpful for my workflow.

And that may also happen with Todoist. And if it does, it's not the app again, as much as it is me. If I find it incredibly useful and I stick with the Todoist lifestyle into the future, then perhaps I will shop around a little bit more to try and address some of the weaknesses that I found in Todoist in terms of how I do things. But I do have things too still on my Mac. It still runs. So I may play with that too at some point down the road. We'll

see. But I'm trying very hard to spend as little time as possible on this. I want the lightest touch possible because the more work i put into it the more i'm going to abandon it basically that's the the short version of my to-do list philosophy is if it requires a lot of effort to maintain my to-do list the to-do list is gone so yeah i think that that is completely fair i think it's a good approach i think it's the best approach so we'll see i want to talk about an update to one of my favorite iOS apps, Jason. Which is Carrot Weather.

Ah, yes. So Carrot Weather had a pretty big update over the last week. And they added a bunch of features that I think could be interesting to people. So you can now use weather underground data in Carrot Weather. It currently has only been using Dark Sky.

They have an in-app subscription model thing. If you're one of the subscribers, you can use weather underground data, which I thought might be of interest to you, Jason, because I know that you're reliant on weather underground data, right, because of your personal, what is it called? Your weather station. That's it. The only thing that I can't, I have to actually ask the carrot people, because I actually,

I bought this this week. Cool. Is I want to be able to specify my weather station as the source. And I don't think it lets me do that. It wants to just say my town. So I'm going to write to them and ask if they can make it so that if i put in like the weather underground code for my weather station instead of my location if it will let just pull the data right from there

for uh current temperatures and stuff because as i've explained on previous shows this isn't like my my temperature is better than their temperature it's the fact that in a lot of cases um the weather data for my town is based on a town near me and i happen to live on a pretty dramatic temperature gradient where there are days when it's 65 degrees here and a weather apple say oh it's 78 it's like no it's not's really not. And that's because they're taking it from the next town up and the next town up is sunny and we have fog. So my weather station tells me what the actual temperature is. I'd like to put that on my watch and on my phone. So I got to check in with them on that, but I did buy it and it's very good. And I used their in-app purchase

to get their super president's premium fancy subscription data thingy because i was excited about that too um you the all of the carrot apps have like um a character in them like an evil ai character uh this is something that a lot of people like and a lot of people don't like and they've added the ability which i think is good because it is a i think i can see how it is a polarizing feature to have this comical cartoonish character that lives inside of the application and gives you crap. You can now turn off the AI character and actually adjust the snarkiness level so you can have it be nicer or more mean to you if you want to,

which I think is a good way to do it. It's a good way to handle it. And they refreshed the UI in general, so it shows significantly more data on the screen and with loads of customization options as well. So you can say like, if you want to know what the like the chance of rain is, or you want to know what the wind is, or you want to know what the feels like temperature is, as well as accurate temperature, you can add all of that in. And you can also customize all of this stuff in their Apple Watch app, which I maintain is, I think, the very best Apple Watch app that I have used. It always loads quickly. The data is presented so well.

I use that Apple Watch app constantly, and they use the complication. But you can also customize the complication as well to have what you want on it. And I've changed it now to feels like temperature, because that's the one that's more important to me when I'm looking for what the temperature is. So yeah, I just wanted to just give a little plug for Carrot Weather because I think it's so awesome. I've been using it for a long time and they've had a great update, which I think is worthwhile to check out.

So I'll put a link in the show notes to the Carrot Weather app on the app store. If you're interested, go check it out. All right, pretty good. Next up today, just a quick mention of something. Apple has a machine learning blog now. Well, they call it a journal.

Sure. I'm not 100% sure what the difference is between a journal and a blog, but Apple made it clear that it is the Apple machine learning journal. This is at machinelearning.apple.com. And it is a place where Apple's engineers are going to publish information about their work and research.

Now, they're also quite clearly in their opening journal entry asking for feedback from researchers, students, engineers, and developers. So I was kind of wondering, what does this tell us? I think it says two different things, Jason. I think, one, Apple is trying to position themselves here as a significant player in this field, in the machine learning field. And from what I understand about technologies like this, to kind of be seen as significant significant you have to publish and share research with the community and from everything that i understand apple's actually been sending people

to conferences about this stuff in recent times as well like this is a thing that you should be doing if this is something you want to be seen as being a part of, right? Yep. It's interesting because it's not research, right? Like, it's not... They're not going to be publishing their research here. This is not what that's for. But it is like... We have talked about this before. This is the battle that Apple faces in some cases

where a lot of these people are in academia, they're PhDs. What they don't want to do is disappear from existence when they go work at Apple. They need to be able to publish. And I think it benefits Apple for them to be able to communicate like all the amazing things. It's basically a kind of PR in a way, which is all the amazing things. Look, we are working on this. Look, we do have experts. We know what we're doing. And that's kind of the message that's being sent here. I also think, you know, as well as another sign of Tim Cook's wonderfully opposing ideals at Apple of more secrecy and more openness. He's done both of these things, and this is another part of the openness, right? They're willing to share.

They're doubling down on product secrecy, right? But this is a little bit different in terms of openness. I'm trying to pick it apart here because how do you justify being secret and open? And I think it's like, they're not going to tell you about particular products. And here's another way to think of it. Apple has always treated or almost always treated

their products as black boxes. That's part of the magic trick. It's like, how does it work? Nobody knows, but it's magic. It's great. And it seems like the way that Apple's defining it a little bit more specifically now is some of the stuff you need to know how it works because you need to feel confident in why it does what it does and that it's not doing something creepy. And so you make some of the Apple product, like how they work stuff more transparent,

you disclose that, but you're not taking away from having surprises, this feature that you didn't expect, this phone has these features, and you didn't know until we announced it. That's the dream for Apple. So it is an interesting way to kind of pick that apart, I think about what what do you disclose? And what do you not because back in the day, if Steve Jobs had his druthers, right, it would be like, literally, here's a phone, you never or any other product. You've never heard of it. You've never seen it before. It does amazing things.

And then we would be like, so how does it do that? And the answer would be, it does it. It's great, isn't it? And then that would be it. Like, we're not going to explain how we do what we do or what's inside. Just it works and that's it. And in some of these categories today, you can't do that, right?

In terms of security and privacy, what's being synced to the cloud, stuff like that, you gotta talk about it. And I think that this kind of is connected to that too. So, you know, I can see why they're doing it, but it is funny because it's Apple. So people will be picking apart every post on the machine learning blog or journal or

whatever it is to uh write inflammatory stories about how this obviously means that apple is coming up with x right that's still gonna happen so you know you can't win hey mike have you seen the um the rock and uh siri video even though this is completely within my wheelhouse because yeah i know you know i have for many years smelled what the rock was cooking uh-huh i haven't actually watched this ad yet because it came out this morning and i have been slammed today and it wasn't in our show document so i assumed that we just weren't going to talk about it so i have not yet watched the rock siri ad mike hasn't seen it this is you know the whole reason that mike of the movies exists is. Mike hasn't seen it. This is, you know, the whole reason that Mike of the Movies exists is because Mike hasn't seen things.

All right. It's cute. It's a three-minute long video about how The Rock has a very busy day where he goes around and gives him information. Okay. I'll give you a little teaser, Mike. At one point, you do get to smell what The Rock is cooking. I would be really upset if they didn't do that. Yeah.

Anyway, it's cute. It's meant to show, like, here are some things that Siri can do. And it shows that. And, yes, people should enjoy it. It's out there. You can check it out at apple's youtube page and i thought it was fun i watched it last night before i went to bed and uh because they posted it late last night and uh yeah i thought it was cute i didn't think it was annoying

at all i think the rock is a i mean obviously dwayne johnson has been um successful because he's a pretty likable character and he manages to be both like a big a big tough strong guy and also be kind of self-deprecating and able to be silly and all of those things that make him kind of a winning performer and uh it all comes out in the ad it's a it's a uh i think it's a funny silly little thing so we don't usually do ad watch here but i thought you know wrestling connection i would ask yeah i'm sorry i i you know we're probably going to talk about it unconnected because oh good well we'll forward promote for another show on the network then yeah you guys can break break it down you can break down all the that'll be good too because

like i imagine like federico um and steven breaking down all the things that siri does in the ad that it doesn't actually do so yeah sure i'll just point out steven will do this probably but i'll point out that there's some space related things in there that are not really scientifically accurate yeah we're pre-recording an episode in a couple of weeks time uh to come out later in august and we've kind of made an allusion to this but like i'm going to be skipping a couple of episodes in August because we're both traveling to different places, but Jason has some exciting guests lined up. We spoke on last week's episode that you're going to be recording an episode from the Command D conference. Right.

But me and you are recording an episode, which is going to be, as in Cortex parlance, an episode out of time. So we're recording it early to be released later in the month. Yes, we're recording it 11 days before it will be released. Yep. So considering that this show mostly focuses around what's happening in the news this week, we can't do that because we will just be out of date by the time the episode is released.

So we wanted to ask you, dear listener, is there anything that you would like to hear us talk about which is a little bit more timeless? Maybe there is a segment or a big topic you want us to dive into, or as Jason said, maybe even another draft. Because why not?

We love drafts on this show. We do. So yeah, whatever you want to hear us talk about, send us some tweets and we can maybe dive into some of that a little later on in the month. So tweet at imike, I-M-Y-K-E, or at jsnl, J-S-N-E-L-L. And we'll be able to put those in for consideration. We appreciate your assistance as always. So Jason, today, after we take a break,

we're going to do something that we don't do as much on this show anymore. We're going to talk all about the Mac. We have two topics today, all about the Mac. Isn't that exciting? Isn't that exciting? We talk about the iPad and iOS a lot on this show, of course, but we don't talk about the Mac as much, and we're all Mac today. Yes, I'm excited about it. Before we do, Jason, we're going to welcome a new sponsor to the show, and that is Jet. Let me tell you about Jet. Jet is a seriously savvy company who partner with retailers to bring you great products at cheaper prices than you'll find elsewhere.

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I needed a very particular kind of address label so that I could do batch mailing of a bunch of stuff for incomparable members, actually. And Jet.com had them, and they had them for by far the best price. So I ordered those there. But just as an example, I also ordered detergent, all clear and free in a big plastic jug that is the detergent of choice for me. And they had it for a great price too.

And I'm actually right now shopping for uh maybe uh some pens some of my uh my beloved pilot g2 uh gel pens and they've got those too they've got a backpack that i'm looking at for my son for going back to school everything they i i am trying to stump jet.com and i I am failing, is what I'm saying. You can start saving on those everyday products today, and we have a great offer for listeners of this show. You can get 20% off your first two orders of over $35 when you go to Jet.com and use the promo code UPGRADE at checkout.

Terms and conditions apply. You can check Jet.com for details. That's J-E-T.com. That's 20% off your first two orders of over $35 when you use the promo code UPGRADE at checkout. Thank you so much to Jet for their support of this show. So last week, I saw this pointed out first by Mac Observer that the Mac Mini has reached and has now surpassed 1,000 days, 1,000 days without an update.

I also saw a bunch of people tweeting about this, yourself included, Jason. And you mentioned that, kind of funnily, the fastest Mac Mini ever made, which was released on October 23, 2012, is now 1,723 days old. So that's quickly approaching 2,000 days. And that's because the most recent, now 1,000 day old version of the Mac Mini actually decreased the amount of cores in the processors, right? Am I explaining that correctly? Yeah, there was a quad core option on the previous Mac Mini.

And when they updated the mac mini a thousand days ago they removed that because the intel chipset that was available at the time that they wanted to use didn't support quad core processors so um i believe it is still the case now that it's basically been whatever 1700 days it's been whatever that is what five years since the fastest mac mini still available was released i'm just going to apple.com slash mac right now yep no no new badge so we're still good on this yeah i want to pose some questions here why should apple invest time and money into the mac mini it's a good question like Do you think, Jason, that it actually brings people into the ecosystem in 2017? I do. Because maybe set the stage a little bit for

why the Mac Mini exists as a product, if you can. Why did they make it in the first place, and how was it received? So when it was initially released, it was the $499 Mac. It was by far the cheapest Mac ever sold. And it was sold as being BYOKMKM. I can't remember. It was basically bring your own keyboard, mouse, and display. Yeah, it was like BYOKMM or BYO. DKM, DKM maybe? Bring your own keyboard display and mouse it was that was the joke that was the tagline right it was like the letters i remember and the idea the idea was going to be um initially the way it was sold maybe this says

something that initially they were sort of like how are we going to sell this thing and it was a switcher mac the idea that you could take your PC if you wanted to switch to the Mac and you could keep your keyboard, your mouse and your monitor. And all you had to do was unplug your PC and plug in this Mac mini. And for $499, you could have a Mac.

BYO DKM was the official. Display, keyboard and mouse. Yeah. So, and then they did an update and they went to Intel and it was $599. I think then at a later date, they brought the base back down to $499. But of course, you can spend more than $1,000 on a Mac mini if you load it up. And that was that option that I talked about. That was the quad core model.

That was a build to order version for a lot more money and you can put an ssd in and there are lots of things that you could do but they they updated um they updated infrequently i mean that that's the bottom line here is that um the reason i mentioned the um the fact that it had been 723 days previously between updates, is the thousand days between updates is kind of par for the course for the Mac Mini. It's at least in the ballpark. It's a little bit longer than the last one, but the last one was a very, very long update

between October 2012 and October 2014. So now it's been three years. It was two years before. This is not a product that gets updated very often because it's not a high priority for Apple. But I do think it has a place in the Mac ecosystem, which is why it's still kicking around.

What is the place? Versatility. That's the bottom line. It's like, if you want... And this is the problem. It's like, what's the Mac Mini for? And the answer is, well, it's kind of for everything that you can't use another Mac

for, but you want to have a Mac around. I talked to people who use these as servers. They use them as servers and racks. They use them as servers at home. They use them as things attached to their TV. They are as second computers in a house where they've got a monitor laying around. I mean, they don't have, they're using education. They're used in all sorts of weird places.

I'm not sure there's a single good use. I think it's more that by having this product exist, the Mac can fit into places that it otherwise couldn't. If Apple said like, sorry, we only sell iMacs and laptops, then the problem there is if there's any use that you need something that is not an iMac or a laptop, you need something small to put somewhere, you can't buy a Mac to do it. And so I think the value in the Mac mini is not so much that it has this incredible market that it needs to dominate where everybody loves it. I think it's more like it takes the pressure off the rest of the line

and lets Apple fill in the gaps. It's like, I don't know, like caulk or spackle or something. It's like it fills in the holes. It allows the Mac to go broader while letting the individual Macs that are the core of the Mac line be focused. So it's a, you know, it's a, it's a utility player and that is boring and it's just never

going to be exciting necessarily, but it's good that it exists because it gives them an answer that they can point to and say, yeah, you can use the Mac mini for that. they can point to and say, yeah, you can use the Mac Mini for that. I've owned two and a half Mac Minis in my life. And the first two were me trying to get a desktop Mac at the cheapest price possible. You know, like having moved between having an iMac and then I kind of moved to the laptop and then wanted desktop Macs and I had a couple of Mac Minis.

Well, I say a half because we own a Mac mini at RelayFM, which is actually how, if you're listening to this show live, you're listening to it because we have a Mac mini at Mac Stadium and they host it there. So we use it as a server and we use it to do all of our live broadcasts. So they're great for that sort of stuff, right? Maybe people that are trying to get into the Mac ecosystem as you said the versatility because they allow you to do these weird and wonderful things I'm just wondering with the entry point position now do people not consider this the laptop

I know if you're looking at a pure price situation the Mac Mini can be good if you already have other elements to plug it into but i don't i just don't know if in 2017 the mac mini is a product that a lot of people want especially to be their maybe first computer or their primary computer i don't know i mean it, I don't think the Mac Mini is going to be the answer to what a lot of people want at all, right? A lot of people want is not the issue with the Mac Mini. It's some people in various places want for various reasons.

I do think if you're somebody who has a spare monitor around and maybe a spare old keyboard, it is a place where you're like, oh, you know, I can stick a Mac mini there and we've got a family computer or my kid can use this computer that it lets you use the parts. Whereas with the iMac, it's very much like, do you have room for an iMac with the big iMac display? And then when you're done with it, you know, you've got a big iMac to take somewhere else or get rid of um it's more versatile in that way but is that a mainstream thing no I don't think it is I think that's the that's the whole point is it is an oddball because what was it that uh

at that round table event because I know that Apple spoke about like the percentage of desktops to... Did it talk about the percentage of desktops in the overall line? Yeah, I mean, they used to actually talk about that, release that in the financial information for the company. And they don't do that anymore. But it has been between two-thirds and three-quarters of all Macs sold have been laptops for quite a while now. The majority of Macs by far are laptops. I'm looking at a transcript of the roundtable event that they did for the Mac Pro over at TechCrunch.

And they were saying, this is for Sheila, that it's 80-20 now. Yeah. They were saying, this is for Sheila, that it's 80-20 now. Yeah. So my reason for bringing that up is I assume it is a very small percentage of these Mac Mini sales, right? I assume less than the Mac Pro even I would expect. I don't know about that. These have a value that the Mac Pro doesn't, and they're cheaper cheaper so i'm sure that they have a higher volume than the mac pro okay

so really you know what i'm thinking is do we not think that there are other devices that maybe fit the needs now like if it's not a laptop, right, that somebody wants, could an iPad not be the simple computer? Could an Apple TV not be the media server? Like, what are the blockers there that means the Mac Mini should stick around? Well, I'll tell you, I have a Mac Mini in my house. I'm not going to use an iPad to attach to a hard drive so that I can watch Plex. I don't have an, I can't attach my iPad to my weather server. I can't have, you know, any of the things that I use this for, I need a Mac or a PC for. That's just bottom line. And I'm not going to buy a PC, right? That's not my goal to run windows in my house. I'd rather not, if I can avoid that. Well, we'll talk about that in a moment.

But there's no other, but there's no other like, so yes, is the existence of something like an Apple TV or a Roku or an Amazon Fire mean that the idea that you'll attach a Mac mini to your TV kind of over? Yes, that used to be a big place for the Mac mini and that has been subsumed by other things. In terms of an iPad, like, yeah, I mean, if you want an iPad, that's great, but again, not, not all of these scenarios fit.

So I, this is, this is my point. See what, what I did at the outset here, Mike is say, I think the Mac minis value is as this thing that just kind of fills in the gaps and that Apple updates every three years or so and uh has it laying around and your argument back to me seems to be but it's not but it's not popular or mainstream which i've already granted you it's not it what it does do is it allows apple to do kind of minimal effort and keep a product floating around that gets everybody off their case about but the mac can't do x by gets everybody off their case about but the mac can't do x by saying well yeah i can't because the mac mini will do that the points that i'm making

are in the guise of will it continue and you know so i see what you're saying i agree with what you're saying but my my questions are in the line of like like, are the reasons the Mac Mini exists getting less and less on a yearly basis? Like, the reasons that this computer would be bought and sold, is that decreasing? And if so, does the Mac Mini have a place anymore? The reasons people buy Macs are also decreasing, by the way. So, sure, maybe they shouldn't make Macs anymore. are also decreasing, by the way. So sure, maybe they shouldn't make Macs anymore. And also about the Mac Mini, I mean, what I'm saying here is that it's useful to keep it around at a minimal level because it just fills in the gaps and it lets them go. I'm not saying,

I'll say on top of that, if they didn't want to make it anymore, they could just not make it, and yet they still make it. And I'm going to make the same argument I made about the Mac Pro, which is at some point they would get rid of it if they're going to stop making it anymore. As long as they keep selling it, I think the idea is going to be that they'll sell it until it seems completely embarrassing that it hasn't been updated. And then they'll do an update and walk away from it for another three or four years. That seems to be their pattern they could kill it but um i'm again i'm skeptical

because i think they could do a single turn on it and then walk away again for another three or four years do you think that that could happen within the next 12 months uh i do i mean i think i feel like they're due i do wonder sometimes about the people who are in charge of making Macs and the fact that they are now scrambling to make a Mac Pro that they didn't think they were going to make after making the iMac Pro. And I don't know enough about Apple's internals to say whether that means that any other Mac design that they were working on got set aside so that they could scramble to get a Mac Pro done for next year or not. I don't know that. But I look at what's available out there and what the state of the art is in terms of these little modular computers. And there's technology out there today that would make a perfectly suitable Mac Mini, which I mentioned in my Macworld story. And I feel like, you know, it's not as if Apple has to reinvent everything in order to do a new Mac mini. I think that they could do it. I don't want to say fairly easily because making a new Mac is never easy.

None of these projects is as easy as they seem. But if you look at the parallels in terms of hardware that's out there, they take taking standard Intel hardware. I think they could get pretty close to having a product fairly quickly if they wanted to do it. And so I think, sure, I think that at some point they're going to be able to turn that product around. The question is, when do they want to bother? Because the fact is the Mac Mini, although it's really old, for whatever reason, because it's a low-end Mac, it doesn't really feel as painful as the

as the mac pro did in still being available even though it's so out of date because that's a cutting-edge product and it's very expensive whereas this is neither of those things so you mentioned that there is technology that could be used here what is that technology well so intel's been pushing this thing called the new the nook which is nuc next unit of computing and it's basically like a mac mini it's a it's an intel pc in a box that is kind of the size of an apple tv um not quite but it's close it's a lot smaller than the mac mini and uh it's uh got you know latest generation intel processors in it and and room for ram and an ssd so it's incredibly small um they're like you can get one for a few hundred dollars that's got i think it's got four usb

ports and a usbc thunderbolt 3 port and a headphone jack and, you know, it's based in an HDMI video out. So it's like, could there be a small Mac that has USB-C Thunderbolt 3 and even legacy USB ports on it in a case way smaller than the current Mac Mini? The answer is yes, because Intel has made something like that. Now, if Apple would have to either take that chipset, do their magic on it, qualify it how they want. I mean, there are things that they would need to do. I'm not guessing that they would just take an Intel product off the shelf and rebrand it. I mean, they would want to make it sort of a special Apple kind of thing.

But clearly, this technology exists today to do this. And if you go and price them, like, how much would it be to get a, an Intel Nook with an SSD, and like a 512 SSD and 16 gigs of RAM, and assemble that yourself, versus buying a a mac mini that's the current model the three-year-old model with those same specs which means that the processor is two generations older and the answer is the uh the nook would be about 700 750 dollars and that same spec Mac mini is over a thousand. So in the end, like could Apple make something like that Intel Nook product and put their margins into it and sell it at a price that was essentially what we would expect a Mac mini to cost? It seems to me like the answer is yes.

So it's just a matter of will. Again, do they have the time and do they care enough about the product to do it? But what makes me intrigued by this Intel Nook idea is just the fact that it would let Apple tell a story about a new Mac mini because I think that Apple likes to do that. So if Apple said now you can hold a Mac in the palm of your hand, it's way smaller than the old Mac mini. Look how amazing this is. That is going to make Apple like more excited about a product than if it's, oh yeah, we changed the processors in the Mac mini, but it's the same old Mac mini. So they could do it. It's right there. Like I can see this product and what it would be and, uh, and what it could be priced. And I think it could be interesting

for Apple to go that route. Will they? I don't know. I mean, I don't know what their priority is and I don't know what else they're working on on the Mac side right now. Mac Pro, presumably. Yeah, Mac Pro, and finishing off the iMac Pro, probably. Sure. You got one of these Intel NUCs, right? I did. I know that it costs $700-some because I bought one, a Core i5, and it's a 512 SSD and 16 gigs of RAM. And yeah, it's tiny.

It's incredibly tiny. And our friend Russell from the Material podcast did this too. And yeah, it's pretty cool. And you can get it and you can install Windows right on it and run Windows. And that's not a problem. And if you want to descend into madness, you can install Mac OS on it. Did you do that? I don't really recommend that to other people. But yeah, I did it.

It worked eventually. You got a Hackintosh. A Hackintosh is back again. A Hackintosh in my hand, Mike. In my hand, in the palm of my hand. Handintosh. It is not. I'll write about it at some point.

You know, yeah. Harrowing is the expression, the word I would use to describe the hackintosh process today. They built some tools to make it easier. But, you know, it's still like ridiculous and you got to bite the right parts or you have to jump through more hoops. And it is not a friendly, I was talking to somebody who's a pretty knowledgeable Mac person about this. And they're like, oh, I didn't realize it was so complicated.

Like, I think there's a perception perception that buying a Hackintosh Mac, setting up a PC to run Mac OS is like you run an installer and you're done. And let me tell you, maybe there are some very specific systems where you can do that. But my experience with this thing, nope. There's weird software you have to run and weird drivers and some hardware doesn't work right. And it's a fun science experiment.

It is not something for regular use. But what it is allowing me to do is kind of explore what would it be like if Apple made something like this, which is sort of why I did it. And is this your new media PC? We'll see. I don't know if it's going to work i still have

some things i have to try out if i if i can if it can drive my um if i can drive my thunderbolt uh server or i guess via usb but i prefer it by thunderbolt if i can get it to drive the server um the the big raid and all of that stuff if can all work, I might use it as a replacement for my Mac mini server, but we'll see. I am not gonna believe that it's actually compatible and reliable because it seems like an untrustworthy device, but maybe it'll earn my trust over time.

And if not, I'll probably sell it at that point. And I've got a Windows installed to put on it so I could just sell it to somebody who wants a PC because it's pretty nifty, I say i would be more inclined to to literally build a gaming pc than try and do it to try and make a hackintosh i think you get more out of it for sure well yeah but i mean just like in the idea that i really don't want to build a gaming pc you know like i just don't want to do that i really don't want to ever look at the hackintosh just because it just seems like a like a nightmare you know i can remember all this there was some stuff going around an amount of

time ago this seems to rear its head every now and then and there's things that you can't you can't send i messages and stuff like it's just like you know the imagination of running this is your only mac seems like a real tough thing when i talked to russell about this that's exactly um what he said is you know it doesn't do this doesn't do that it doesn't do this the thing about my server doesn't need to do those things like it doesn't it it literally does not i don't need to do airdrop i don't need to you know play uh drm movies on itunes like i don't need any of that i don't need wi-fi on it i don't need any of that. I don't need Wi-Fi on it. I don't need Bluetooth on it. I literally don't need any of those things.

So it may end up working for me in that role as a dumb Mac server. It may not. At which point I may end up just surrendering and installing Windows 10 on it. It does sound like the perfect candidate for a Hackintosh because a lot of the things that do tend to go wrong like wi-fi and

bluetooth and all that sort of stuff you don't need so exactly it could work i'm interested to see if this this goes forward for you i think you know my feeling on the mac mini like you know i can pose an argument to you i'm trying to get you to talk i want this thing to exist you know like i've owned them i think it's a nice addition to the line i think it's a nice thing to keep around and i hope apple can find a reason for it i mean in its current state it doesn't really feel like that there is much of a reason other than well we've already made some of them you know i'd love to see them make something like a mac mini the size of an apple tv that would just be cool right right and i think that's part of my argument here is that it would be cool and it would still serve this purpose of letting um letting them uh keep it in the product line

and have that connective tissue have that spackle have that thing that lets them say look the mac could do anything because if none of these other products works just stick a mac mini there and it lets them be cool and feel good about like, we made a cool thing that look how small it is. Now there's a whole Mac in here. You can put this in schools. You can put this here. You can put this there. Like I can, I can totally see that. So it fits with their attitude about this stuff. If they want to go this direction. And, and I mean, this is, I have no information about this. It's literally like, I look at that Intel Nook and I think, wow, that would be a really cool Mac mini and way cooler than the Mac mini that has been sitting on the price list for the last three

years. So will they do it? I don't know. I feel like there's value in keeping it around, but they're busy with lots of stuff. So I don't know. It seems a shame as a Mac fan and as somebody who would buy something like that in a moment, I hope they consider doing something like that at some point in the next year. Today's show is also brought to you by TextExpander from our friends at Smile.

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So how about the low end of Apple's laptop offerings as well? So you wrote an article this week in which I guess it's that time of year, right? When people would be thinking about if they need to buy computers for their kids, what they would be buying. Because you're in the summer, right? You're in the summer in the US now.

Is it break time? Is it summer break? Yep. You're deep within it, I assume. Oh, yes, yes. My children are free for, you know, what, two and a half months, yeah.

So, you know, this is the kind of time that you'd be thinking about some of these purchases. So you wrote an article on Six Colors and you were weighing up the MacBook and the MacBook Pro

as whether it's right to buy for a student. You know, the MacBook, good choice because it's powerful enough for many tasks. It's small and light. But as you pointed out, which I'm just getting increasingly more concerned about with my travel over the next couple of months, it can struggle under intense load. Things like audio production, video production little old macbook can get a little upset about that kind of stuff but the macbook pro is made for tasks like this but it is of course more expensive it's bigger it's heavier and i guess for you you know we overstate

the heaviness of the the 13 inch macbook pro without touch, which is a terrible name for it. We overstate that, right? Because it's basically the same weight as the 13 inch MacBook air. Like it's, it's heavy. It's twice as heavy as the MacBook. Cause it's two pounds instead of one, but it is only fractionally heavier than the 13 inch MacBook air.

So I think we, we are, fractionally heavier than the 13-inch MacBook Air. So I think none of us are served well in just saying the MacBook Pro is big and heavy because by MacBook Air standards, by previous generation Mac laptop standards, it's not. It's only in comparison to the MacBook. I think of it as big and heavy

because I own a MacBook, right? Yes. And I've been carrying a MacBook on trips. That's fair. So for me, it's like, well, you've got to double the weight. And it's like, well, now, right? Yes. And I've been carrying a MacBook on trips. That's fair. So like for me, it's like, well, you've got to double the weight. And it's like, well, now I've... Yes.

You know, now I'm not happy again, right? Because I'm happy with a MacBook because I don't even know it's in my bag when I'm traveling. Like I have no idea, right? Like if I'm putting my iPad on my MacBook, it's like, I don't even know if the MacBook's there. But whenever I used to travel with my old MacBook Pro, oh boy, did I know about it, right? And of course that was much heavier than even the current MacBook Pro, but yeah. Which reminds me of the story where,

where I think it was either David Pogue or Steven Levy when the original MacBook Air came out, that they lost their review unit and the best that they could figure, it got caught up with the Sunday New York Times and they just put it in the recycling and they could figure it got caught up with the sunday new york times and they just put it in the recycling and they didn't realize it what there was a computer in there because it was so light and that was a much heavier computer than the macbook so yeah it's very light it is i mean it's it's literally i mean it's hard to get it's hard to get smaller at these scales and yet the one computer is two pounds and the other one is one pound so it's a lot lighter but right no fan uh and it can struggle under load although the current generation you know you can if you want you can upgrade it to a an i5 and uh that's a pretty powerful processor

but there's still going to be some throttling if it gets too hot. And SSD helps a lot with things like video because so much of video and audio editing is about input output to storage. And it does that really well. But you know, if you're cranking the processor, it can be an issue in way that uh it can't it isn't as much on the on the 13 inch that's got the got a fan and the screen is bigger on the on the bigger uh laptop obviously and that is uh that is a benefit too so you are i think yourself you're kind of leaning for your kids towards a macbook pro as an Because of video? Well, so these are not my kids. These are friends' kids.

This is, I get asked by friends about it. I am not currently planning on buying anything for my kids. They've got stuff and it's fine for now. My daughter might need something and I might have to figure that out. But this is, I've got friends who keep asking me about this because they've got kids going off to college and they've got kids going into high school and things like that.

And they come to me because I'm the computer person they know, right? So I get these and I thought, well, I should probably put this down somewhere because if I'm hearing from people about this, it's probably a wider issue, which it is because I've heard from a lot of people about it. And I want to say that this is an interesting, like, if the premise is I want to buy them a new Mac laptop, what should I buy? This is sort of my thought process. I want to say, you don't always need to buy them a new Mac laptop. The article says this. You could look for a refurbished, because Apple has good deals on refurbished models, current and previous generation models

that could be perfectly fine. Pick up a refurbished MacBook from the previous generation. that could be perfectly fine. Pick up a refurbished MacBook from the previous generation. It might be great depending on the needs of your student. You could get a used laptop. You could do a hand-me-down. A lot of kids get a hand-me-down from a parent or older sibling, and those can be all that's required.

I also heard from people who are like, why don't you recommend an iPad? And my reasoning there is I'm very pro iPad, but I am concerned that in lots of situations in schools, there are going to be scenarios where they need to have a computer. And I don't feel comfortable saying you don't need to have a computer. You should get an iPad. I feel like right now where the iPad is, you need to be as a person using the device, really committed to doing sometimes the extra work required to get yourself over the hump. And so like if a student really wants to go with an iPad, then I would say, yes, they should do that. They need to be committed.

But if you're a parent and you stick your kid off going off to college with an iPad, and it turns out there's some key thing that it's totally incompatible with, going off to college with an iPad and it turns out there's some key thing that it's totally incompatible with, that's bad. So yeah, that was my thought process there. So this was the piece that you laid out and kind of looking at what the pros and cons are of these two devices, but you received a bunch of feedback that you didn't talk about the MacBook Air. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. I didn't. I omitted it for very particular reasons. But so then I followed it up with another piece about it. The short version about my feelings about the MacBook Air is, yes, the MacBook Air is a great deal. It is a great deal.

It is the best deal among new Mac laptops because it's a lot cheaper than other new Mac laptops. And so sure, you should consider it. You could also consider a used or refurbed one of those. My concern about the MacBook Air is that it's not new. It's new, but it's not new. And I have this problem. And I admit that some of this is just sort of being judgmental about old hardware versus new. The MacBook Air is very capable.

I have a, what, three-year-old, four-year-old MacBook Air that I can still use. I have edited so many podcasts on that thing. It does almost anything, right? And that's an older one than what you'd get now. And so, yeah, it's totally capable. capable my hesitation is more about the fact that it's two it's a two generations back processor sold as a new computer because while it's perfectly capable today i'm a little concerned that it's not going to have as much of a useful completely compatible life because in two or three or four or five years there's going to be an Apple OS update that doesn't support it. Or there's going to be a bunch of features that are added to a Mac OS update that is not, that it's not supported. Like, because it's really not a new computer.

It's really a two-year-old computer that they're still selling as new. Whereas these other two models are new. And also today, the MacBook Air is more compatible with everything because it has USB ports, normal USB-A ports. It has MagSafe, which is nice. It has all these things that are nice today. And if you want to live for today, it's got a lot going for it. My hesitation is it's a brand new computer. You're making an investment in this computer. You want it to last a long time and you're starting yourself off on the wrong foot because in three or four years, it may be that you're going to need to buy all the dongles or you're

going to try to look for an accessory that's not compatible because you're using old, you've got Thunderbolt 2 and you've got USB-A. And so again, same thoughts same thoughts it's like this is why it's cheaper at this point is because it's older tech it's less compatible and then there's the the retina issue which is kids have really good eyesight more better eyesight than old people and they're used to watching like hd videos and all that my daughter watches you know netflix hd streams all the time on her laptop which has a retina display. And so that's a question. It's like, do you, are you going to have your kid, if your kid's got another video viewing device, then it doesn't really matter, I suppose. But if you do, you're also giving your kid this, this non-retina display, which not awesome uh for things like watching hd video which it

basically can't do so uh then again it's got the old style keyboard and if the kid prefers those keyboards to the new keyboards that could be a bonus i'm not sure most kids are going to care about that in fact who knows these kids today maybe they like the new keyboard i don't know there are there are many snails running around here i'm sure you know like you know i don't know. There are many snails running around here, I'm sure. I don't know how teenagers deal with low-key travel. We'll have to do some research on that one. So, you know, the MacBook Air, it's still available and is probably a good deal, although I would say maybe look for a used one because it hasn't gotten that much better in the last two years. You might be able to buy one that somebody bought two or three years ago for way cheaper,

and it will be just as good than buying something that's cost $9.99 and is not really any better than the one that they were selling two years ago yeah i think personally i think it would be a mistake to buy a new macbook air not a macbook air in general like if you buy from a friend you buy from somebody you know even if you can find a a good deal on something that's certified refurbished or, you know, in a good condition, then great. But $1,000 on a MacBook Air today, that feels like not a good deal to me. Just because, like as you say, it is a good computer now. It is probably a bad computer in three years time. Because as you say, it is,

it's not even like living now, it's living a couple of years ago, right? Like, the features that it has, they're good for now, because they were introduced years ago. And now technology is surpassing what it was intended to be for. But now, you know, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, they're looking to the future. And so they have some foibles. You have to take trips to Dongleton if you need to do lots of things. Yes.

But soon, those trips to Dongleton won't be needed. And you will... Soon the world will have moved to Dongletown. And you will still be back in old town and you will live and then and then the people with the old computers are going to need to take a ride to dongle town if they're allowed to do it right because some things may just not be compatible that's the risk there is risk i mean we may be overstating it it may be that usbc kind of fizzles and it's really just a port change or usba just lives for another 15 years alongside it right you know ever right apple is

going to be really pushing right usbc stuff though and so all that stuff is not like all of apple's new stuff and new adapters and new devices or whatever like everything is going to become the iphone is going to start at some point shipping with a usbc cable in the box probably probably this year and yeah who knows but um so this is uh it's a i don't know there's no what i'm saying is there's no one right answer here it really depends much more on i can provide information for people about this stuff but it depends more on like what's your budget what is your the need of your student um those matter more than anything else. All things being equal, if you're somebody like some of my friends who are like, they're going to college, we're going to buy them a

computer. This was always the plan. They're going to get a new computer. I have friends who have twins who are both going off to college in the fall. And the deal from the beginning has always been that part of the college fund is going to go to a laptop to take with you to school. They want to do that. And a new laptop. It's like, all right, here are your options. But even then, I can't say buy this one and they want it to be a Mac. It's like, I can't say buy this one laptop.

I have to say there are two, which is I think the most interesting point about where Apple is right now is there are two that I recommend and it really depends on which way you want to go. Do you want to go bigger screen and more power, but two pounds? Or do you want to go with smaller screen and less power, but one pound? And I feel like for most people, unless they are planning on doing like video editing and stuff, people unless they are planning on doing like video editing and stuff that's pretty intense for most people the macbook is fine like the macbook will do almost anything you can throw at and heck it comes in gold yeah and it comes in gold yes yes indeed i have a gold one and it's amazing i love it it's so beautiful that is the thing about that macbook man that is a beautiful

computer like i even i want one mike and i basically stopped using my macbook air but even i am like oh but that macbook it looks so good and it's retina and if i do get my daughter a new laptop it may be just that it may literally be because i love the macbook so much that i want to have one in my house even if it's not mine it's possible you could tell i mean i've done it i've exported final cut videos although when i did the day that i did export the final cut video the battery was draining faster than the macbook could be charged but we don't have to worry about things like that i got it out in the end i mean it was it was an almost two hour video right like it was a cortex episode so you know it was it was really really kind of chunking

on that thing but it did it i mean this is the thing like i'm nervous about assume you know about thinking oh my production in august for all of my shows is going to happen on a macbook but i'm confident it can do it i'm i'm just going to be waiting longer for everything that's what's the the real thing is going to be i i should say um if you're a student and this is something that was brought up in the chat room this weekend last week if you're a student and or if you're a parent of a student that's going off to school somewhere, please check the requirements at your school, right? Because I've had this happen. I talked to somebody who said they were going to get their kid a Chromebook, but their school says it has to be a Mac or a PC, which is a big step from it has to be a PC. There are places that will say um we strongly prefer windows pc i am gonna say those people are

liars because a mac can run windows 2 and in fact maybe you don't want a macbook at that point maybe you want the macbook 13 without touch bar but um don't i don't necessarily believe that i think there are a lot of it managers are like oh no no max they're confusing just buy a dell laptop again if your kid loves if your kid likes the mac don't make them do that um because i don't believe it but you should check right you should check and also yeah you know if you've got a kid going off as a freshman to college and there's a major that says that in their major in two years they're going to require windows or something like that really don't worry about it because max one max run windows and two your kid may very well change

their major several times in the next two years don't sweat it too much and heck they may even break the max so you can get them a windows pc anyway it's entirely possible and like the ipad question again like i i think there are kids for whom taking an iPad to school with an Apple pencil and a smart keyboard or something like that is, uh, perfect, but I feel like they will still be unless, unless their school is like, no, we love iPads. Um, I would be skeptical of that because it's still an effort sometimes to be an iPad user in an environment like that. I mean, you know, and I know there are still times as an iPad user trying to get work done that you're like, oh, okay, I hit a wall here. How do I work around it?

Yeah. I'm doing an iPad thing. Yeah. And if you're in an institution somewhere that's like, here's this thing, then you've hit that wall. It's not that different than a few years ago when you'd be somewhere and somebody would say here's a floppy disk and you'd be like yeah my computer doesn't have those anymore or even cds right cds or cds right yeah yeah exactly so i don't know it's it's all again you got to know your kid and what they like to do and talk to them about it ideally and know where they're going and know how they use their computers and know your budget and all of those things. But yes, I think the MacBook, if you want

to buy a shiny new laptop, the MacBook is probably the highest percentage chance with a sidestep to the MacBook Escape if you want a little bit more power and are willing to trade off the weight. But boy, yeah, in a college backpack to have that one pound MacBook, that's good stuff. Today's show is also brought to you by Pingdom. You can start monitoring your websites

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and the code UPGRADE at checkout to get 30% off your first invoice. Our thanks to Pingdom for the continued support of this show and RelayFM. Jason, it is time for Ask Upgrade. Choose your sound effect. Oh, it is time for Ask Upgrade. Choose your sound effect. Oh, lasers and fireworks. There we go. Lasers and fireworks. The lasers are shooting the fireworks.

Oh, wow. That is quite a show. America. America, right? Yeah. Also, there were jet skis flying through flaming hoops, but you didn't see those because they're silent. Silent jet skis?

Wow. I don't know. They're far off. All the stops today. They have a silencer on them. That's what it is. Jet skis with silencers. John wants to know, I'm looking to buy an Apple Watch.

Do I buy it next week, or do I wait to see if it gets revised this autumn? I think it will be revised, right? I'll just say that. I don't know what that's going to be. But I do think there will be a new Apple Watch this year. Huh. That's a good question.

I was going to say buy it next week because I'm not convinced there will be a new Apple Watch this fall. Sorry, John. There might be. There might be. Yeah, we're going to disagree on this one but there might be you're right if they do it may very well be that there's a series 3 and then the series 2 is also still available and the series 3 costs more which i think is a clever way for apple to keep the entry point into apple watch low while also being able to kind of push on features that make the product more expensive.

I think this is a device that's new enough that they can continue to revise on it and can continue to make incremental improvements like they did from Series 1 to Series 2 in so much that I wouldn't be surprised to see a Series 3 this year. I think you can make small improvements to it, as you say, while still keeping some of the line available and making those prices even more competitive. A product that maybe is picking up steam, so it could be good to continue to push and push and push on it to break through any barriers that there may be.

That's why I think there'll be another one this year. Could be, could be. Yeah, I'm on the fence about that. I'm not sure that they're going to do an every year Apple Watch update, but I hope they do. They should, right? I think they should just because this is a growing category and I know there's more they want to do and how much are you worried about? I mean, if they do a new one, it might have, maybe it'll have cellular. I don't know. Maybe it'll have different sensors. I don't know. I feel like the big next frontier for Apple Watch is cellular connectivity and or enough battery life that they can do sleep tracking and maybe keep the screen on.

But I don't know. Sorry, John. tracking and maybe keep the screen on um but i don't know sorry john so it's it's happened again um that there has been a new version of ios 11 that we've got beta 4 i think is out now everybody update your betas or don't or wait and see if it's terrible one of those i'm looking forward to a beta update because on my small iPad, so my 10.5, it's no longer downloading apps from the App Store. This just happened randomly,

like halfway through this cycle from 3 to 4. It was fine, but now it's just not updating or downloading anything. So I'm happy for a new beta, personally, just so I can get that functionality back. Oplos asked, when you guys do podcasts with guests, how do you usually handle the local recording, maybe for people that are non-podcasters? Bestguide.com, which my friend Anthony Johnston put together, which is all about how to get people to record their own microphone. Because what you want to do is make a local recording if you can, not one that's just sent over the internet with Skype, because that's really compressed

and can sound bad. The local recording sounds great because it's literally like you're right in the room because you are. You're recording it it yourself on your own computer and on the mac i generally have quicktime uh quicktime lets you do an audio recording so i tell people to do that on windows we generally recommend audacity which is free and lets you record your own microphone there are now some um services like uh like cast and zen caster that let you basically have somebody go to a web link in Chrome, although it should work in Safari come fall with Mac OS Sierra and iOS 11.

And the web browser basically records them locally and sends that file along as well as having the conversation happen. So there are a lot of different ways to do it, but that definitely uh for both of us our preferred way of making podcasts is we use something to connect which is generally skype although it doesn't have to be to have the conversation and then everybody records their own microphones and sends the files to whoever's editing it yep and i uh recommend the podcast guest guide to people as well because it's so beautifully put together and i don't have to deal with all the minutiae because uh exactly already done it for us

alex asked i've just got my first ipad with multitasking which i'm in love with welcome alex it's quite amazing isn't it can you recommend a good bluetooth keyboard for me jason well my recommendation is uh if you like especially if you like Mac laptop keyboards of the older variety, the Logitech Easy Switch K811, which I've had for a long time, it feels very much like a MacBook Air keyboard. And it has support for three Bluetooth inputs.

So you can actually have it like, you can switch on the fly from typing on your Mac to typing on your iPad. And it's backlit and the battery lasts a pretty decent amount of time. And I like it. It is the Mac upgrade pick from the Wirecutter as well. Wirecutter's base selection is the Logitech K380, which is a little bit different and has round keys, which strikes me as being very weird. But it's also, uh, half the

price of the, uh, easy switch K eight 11. So that's, that's the one that I would say right now. I'm sure there is a raft of Bluetooth keyboards coming out that, um, are emulating the, the, the feel of the new Apple keyboards, but, uh, I don't have any of those and i'm still the logitech easy switch is the one that i for for ipad use i mean the magic keyboard is great too but it's it's thicker you gotta then you carry that around in in a studio neat canopy oh naturally that would work too yeah that that i've never used that keyboard that you're talking about, but it looks like a good one because it allows you to do the like multiple, like as like a memory, right.

Of keep of Bluetooth. So you can, uh, I think that's really cool. So you're able to just like, say like, Oh, I'm on my iPad now.

I'm on my Mac now. I'm on my iPhone now, like whatever. Um, especially if you live the multi-pad lifestyle, even nicer. Hmm. So that's,

that's a good pick there. So it's the Logitech K811. K811. Easy switch. Easy switch. It's backlit too. Oh, even nicer. Even nicer.

What's the battery life like? If you use the backlighting, it's less, but it's still several days, even if you use it all day. Philip asked, what is the best SIM-only option for a three-week trip to the US? I know that Jason uses a vending machine when he comes

to London at Heathrow, but what does Mike do? So, right now, I just upgraded to one of those plans that lets you use your allowances overseas normally. So, I'm with EE, and I've upgraded to their 4G EE Max plan. So I can use

my data and all that sort of stuff in America. And it just comes out from my regular plan. I don't have to pay any extra. That's great. I'm going to give that a go and see what that's like for the trips that I have coming up. But in the past, when I have bought a SIM card, I always go with T-Mobile because they're easy to buy from. And especially right now, I haven't bought this plan, but I know people that have, so I can recommend it. They have a specific T-Mobile tourist plan that you can buy, which is three weeks of talk, text, and data. And you can choose different amounts. So that's one. But otherwise, T-Mobile have a bunch of plans, a bunch of prepaid plans.

Just go into their store and talk to people. Like I have had one in the past. I actually lost the SIM card when I lost my wallet recently, which is very sad. But I would top up like $80 and I would have completely unlimited data for 30 days, including tethering. So when I was traveling, that was brilliant. It was like 4G data, completely unlimited, and I could tether as much as I wanted as well.

So they have a bunch of different options. You can just go into a T-Mobile store in the US and they're very helpful, I've found. And it's not a problem if you don't live in the US to just get one of their prepaid patterns. It's really easy. That's what I recommend. Evan asked, when Mike uses his iPad without a physical keyboard, does he prefer to type on lap, table, or a split keyboard? Jason, I'll ask you first. I mean, I'm sure you use physical and software keyboards all the time,

so when you're not using a physical keyboard, whether a case or an extra Bluetooth keyboard, how do you type on your iPad? Lap. You put it on your lap. Yeah, I'm the same. I mean, the split keyboard doesn't even exist on a 12.9. I don't know if it exists on the 10.5.

I think it does, actually. I think I tried it a couple of weeks ago. It still boggles my mind why it's not on the 12.9 as well, but it's not. And yeah, I just put it on my lap. That's how I work. I never put it on a table and type, because I'm going to put it on a table and type,

then I'll use my smart keyboard, which is attached. I'm not going to do that. So yeah, sometimes I'll do this if like, I'm just reading stuff, like I'm just, I want to see it all in full screen and I'm just holding the iPad in my hands. I don't want to type something out. So I'll just prop it on my lap

and type something quick and then just carry on. Our last question today comes from Michael. And this one's really confusing because my name's Michael. So I'm like, I don't, whenever I read it, I see Michael, and then it says Jason. I'm getting confused in my brain. Jason, which Comic-Con trailer got you the most excited?

So there was a bunch of trailers, right? Well, there was Justice League. There was Thor Ragnarok, right? What else was there? Oh, I don't even know. There was Thor Ragnarok, right? What else was there? I don't even know. There was a lot. And my answer is probably Star Trek Discovery. Okay.

What is Star Trek Discovery? I don't know what that is. It's a new Star Trek show. It's the TV show. That's the name of the TV show. Okay, cool. I knew there was a TV show, but I didn't know the name of it i wasn't sure if that maybe that was the new movie is there a new star trek movie in the works uh i think they say there is but it's far out and nothing no details have

really been announced so it's unclear if it's going to happen oh and this is a netflix show everywhere but the u.s and canada yes ah so that's why i'm seeing a netflix trailer yes that's funny did you watch the justice league trailer i did i couldn't understand what was happening ah yeah i don't i don't even want to go into it it it what what i amused me about the justice league trailer is that that is a trailer cut knowing that wonder woman is a hit. And so they're like, can we put in, can we put everything in that shows wonder woman off in justice league?

Uh, because I'm skeptical about how much she is actually showed off in that movie, but that movie is a hit. So they're like, no, make justice league seem like it's, uh,

the sequel to wonder woman. Let's do that. But there's some Batman in it and there's some Cyborg in it and there's some Flash in it. I thought the Flash was okay. And there's like a hidden villain and then there's a hidden other thing that is very clearly not

that secret, but I'm not going to mention it here. There's one character who doesn't show up in any of the trailers who is obviously in the movie, but they can go along with that if they want to that requires you to have known what happens in batman versus superman and um i don't want to require that of anyone not even my worst enemies it was interesting to me that they didn't do anything at all to say the names of the heroes like you filled one in for

me cyborg i don't know cyborg um all i know was just a guy who looked like a robot like and the trailer didn't do anything to tell me who he was he's not a robot though mike he's a cyborg he's part human part machine this is not this is not robot or not and his name is cyborg and he was one of the teen titans but suddenly he's in the justice league and i found it really weird that they didn't introduce that cal drogogo from your favorite show, Game of Thrones, is Aquaman. So there's also Aquaman in it. Yeah, I know about him. I know about him.

Yeah. Just before we wrap up today, I want to do some end of the show follow-out, Jason. Because why not? The format can be whatever we want it to be on this show. And I just want to mention a new show on RelayFM called Query. The hosts are Serenity Caldwell and Stephen Hackett. And it is, I guess, at its simplest, of course, the show is more than this. It's like if you enjoy Ask Upgrade,

this is a much more expanded and researched version of that. So you can send in your technology questions to Ren and Stephen and they will answer them for you. That is what Query is all about. It comes out every week and it's only 30 minutes so it's a nice show to add to your rotation. So you should go check it out, relay.fm slash query.

More things to go and check out, go to sixcolors.com go to at jsnl jsnl on Twitter and you can find Jason's work online. You can go to Twitter, find me I'm at imyke, I-M-Y-K-L on Twitter, and you can find Jason's work online. You can go to Twitter, find me. I'm at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. If you want to participate in the show, we mentioned a few ways you can do that.

You can suggest some topics for us for later in the month, which we would really appreciate. If there's something you want to hear us talk about, which would maybe be a little bit of a different episode of Upgrade. And we have some secrets planned for that episode, which we're excited about. But we have some more stuff that we want to do. You can tweet to us and let us know. If you want to be involved in the show every week, you can tweet hashtag AskUpgrade for your questions that you would like us to answer

at the end of the show. And if you have any esoteric, fun, or kind of strange questions, you can use hashtag SnellTalk to open the show with one of those. And we appreciate everybody who submits those every single week. It is amazing that I continue to have more than I need every week.

So thank you so much for continuing to do that. Thanks to our sponsors, Pingdom, Smile, and Jet for supporting the show. We'll be back next time. Most importantly, thank you for listening. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, everybody.