Upgrade - 169: Discontinue All Other Products

Episode Date: November 27, 2017

Myke returns from his trip to catch up on everything Jason and John did on last week’s show: summoning Siri, selling merchandise, and proposing entirely new classes of Apple product. We discuss Myke’s travels with the iPhone X, a possible update to the iPhone SE, and whether or not Apple should one day make a laptop that runs iOS.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 169 today's show is brought to you by balance open text expander from smile and encapsular my name is mike hurley i am joined by mr jason snell hello mr mike hurley how are you? Hi, Mr. Jason Snell. I'm very well. I'm very well. How is your Cyber Monday going? Because, you know, it's Cyber Monday. And people, the history, there's a long history of Cyber Monday.

Jason, Jason, Jason, nobody, everybody cares about Black Friday. Nobody cares about Cyber Monday. And it is time for a return for me asking you questions in Hashtag Snell Talk. Yeah, you know, we did it last week. We did it last week without you. It was weird because I had to ask John a question. It was strange. It was good, though. Fun episode. Thank you to Mr. Syracuse for filling in for me. But Rob asked a question of you, Jason. What privacy settings do you use, Jason? When apple asks you to help improve their products and services by sending them data do you say yes it depends entirely on the mood that i'm in oh really okay

i generally say yes sometimes i'm uh setting up a device and it's meant to not live very long and it's just for referencing or testing or something like that and i'll sometimes i'll say no and just be spiteful but generally i say yes because i think it's helpful for referencing or testing or something like that. And sometimes I'll say no and just be spiteful. But generally I say yes, because I think it's helpful to Apple and app developers to get that crash reports and stuff like that, especially. I think that's maybe useful. And so I don't have a problem with it.

I'm not talking to you now from underneath my tinfoil hat. So I would say, I say yes. Interesting. What about the third-party developers? Do you do the same? Yeah. Yeah, I always say just yes. Like, I mean, what's the harm, really?

Like, what's the harm? I just say yes. If a credible report came out that that information was being used for evil rather than good, or was a potential, you know, major security hole or something, et cetera, et cetera,

I would consider not. But I have not seen anything that suggests that. And we know those third-party developers, right? We know a lot of those people. I definitely want to share that information with them so that they can, if it's useful. And I don't think it's harmful to share it, and it might be useful. So, yeah. Thank you, Rob, for your question. If you would like to ask us a question to open the show,

just send a tweet with the hashtag SnellTalk. It will go into a document for me to pull out later on, and then you can help us introduce a future episode in fun and exciting fashion. Talking about fun and exciting. Ah. It is that time of year. We are reaching the end of the year,

and on this show... Winter of fun! No, it's not the winter of year. We are reaching the end of the year, and on this show... Winter of fun! No, it's not the winter of fun. Oh, okay. No, it's something much more prestigious than that. Oh, thank goodness. I was worried that we were going to be slumming it with the... Immediately ripping off the summer of fun with the winter of fun.

We don't need to worry about that. We're going to be doing the fourth annual Upgradees Awards. So that's coming. the fourth annual Upgradees Awards. Do-do-do! So that's coming. We're actually going to be releasing the episode on January the 1st, so you have a treat to look forward to on New Year's Day. Yeah, we have the fortunate, as a Monday-releasing podcast,

we are releasing episodes on Christmas Day and on New Year's Day. But what better... We debated this this we talked about this for for a while what better way to cap off the year and start the new year than with the upgradies there's no better way it's like it makes it it allows us to wrap up uh 17 and move into 18 it's perfect time if you are new to the show um the upgradies awards uh we have done this every year for this will be our fourth year and we basically sit down and we talk about some of our favorite things of the year some

of our favorite things of all time and we hand out awards um if you are familiar with uh the eddie awards from macworld i think we took some some like uh some inspiration from there and we should we should we should carry on and improve and make a much better tradition and we did with the upgradies which is the most prestigious award that anybody can win uh within a year if you've never heard an upgradies award episode i will include a link in the show notes to the 2016 upgradies but we are of course talking about the 2017 upgradies and because like all traditions, they should be changed over time. We are going to be slightly improving, I believe, the way that we're going to be doing the Upgradees.

So last year. That's the way to say it, by the way. Like all great traditions, it's improved over time. Because then who can change is terrible. But oh, improved. I like it. It's improved every time including the upgrades so last year we did something different so in the first two years

me and jason decided all of the nominees and then we decided all of the winners last year we looked to our upgradians for some assistance and we put out a google form for people to uh to vote to help us like we still provided all the nominees and ask people to cast their votes to help us pick a winner. We've decided to do something, I think, a little bit more ambitious this year. We're not going to be picking nominees this time. Me and Jason will be coming to the awards with our own thoughts about who we think should win.

But we want your help more than ever. So we're going to be including in the show notes a link to a Google voting form. So a Google form where you can go in and you can cast your vote for anything in any of the categories. You just tell us. So if you have a favorite podcast, instead of choosing it from a list or hoping that we may have shortlisted your favorite podcast, this time you just type it in and send it off. You can fill in all of the questions. You can fill in a subset of the questions. It's completely up to you. Go in, tell You can fill in all of the questions. You can fill in a subset of the questions. It's completely up to you.

Go in, tell us your favorites. All of the questions are there from all of our previous categories. We're keeping all the categories and so we can keep things going. But we have two Lifetime Achievement Awards that we're going to be giving out this year. So both ATP and The Flophouse

have won in their categories which is best tech podcast and best overall like kind of best non-tech podcast they have won those three years in a row so they will not be able to win that award this year so don't vote for them it will be a wasted vote for you we will be giving them as part of the proceedings their lifetime achievement awards because otherwise they may continue to win the Upgrady forever. And we don't think that that's fair, right, Jason? I feel like you've got to retire it. Three in a row, you've got to retire it.

They will be put into the Hall of Fame. Yeah, that's it. That's right. They're all-time winners in the Hall of Fame. So go in, take a look, cast your votes. The voting is only open until the 14th of December because we're going to be pre-recording the episode

so we can make it all nice for you. So you have until December the 14th to cast your votes. Please go and take a look in our show notes. If you don't see them in your podcast app of choice, you'll find them at

relay.fm slash upgrade slash 169 where you can find the google form go and fill it out and you can help us uh award your favorite things of the year whilst you're over looking in our show notes we have merchandise available this is a this is a real like a real real kick today through the beginning of the show uh we have merch available the merchandise is available only until the end of this week, until December the 3rd. Jason spoke about it last week. I just wanted to mention

once more what we have, because it's amazing stuff. We have our hoodie, which has the awesome upgrade patch and the Upgradian secret seal printed on the inside. These hoodies are amazing. I wear mine all the time. There's also the Upgrade logo t-shirt, which we put on sale last year.

If you do not have the black on black from Cotton Bureau, you should get it. It is a black t-shirt with a black foil Upgrade logo on the front. I love it. It's maybe one of my favorite t-shirts that I own. I've actually bought just another one this year because i just want to make sure i have another one the reason i'm mentioning all of this from cotton bureau is their shipping right now is cheaper than it's ever been so if you live outside of the u.s you'll be able to get this for much cheaper because those two products they are exclusive to cotton bureau because we've had to do some funny stuff and they're willing to work with us

on that to make these two things available so So the links will be in the show notes. Go to the Cotton Bureau site. See how much the shipping is to you. I looked for me, and it was exactly within the realm of what I want to pay. It's a $6 shipping on the t-shirt, which I was totally fine with. That's kind of what I'm willing to pay. But it was previously quite high before. If it is still difficult for you, we do have a Teespring t-shirt available

I think it's just red and grey we'll put links to that in the show notes as well in case the Cotton Bureau shipping is still not to your liking but it is way better so if you've missed it in the past or skipped it in the past because of high shipping costs go and take a look and you can get either the hoodie

or the logo t-shirt from Cotton Bureau they are both incredible all of the Cotton Bureau t-shirts have a foil logo rather than just a screen print they look really amazing um sales are open only until december 3rd so if you think you might want one of these go and order now because the ending this week this is your last warning i love i love that t-shirt love that t-shirt i'm wearing it now mike i'm wearing it right now. On brand to start my week. On brand. Great.

It is good. It is good. We didn't do the brain ball this time, but maybe the brain ball will return at some point in the future. It's a less popular shirt. I think it's something me and you would like that. Well, we've made our order number and you don't have to sell a lot of them. So we may bring it back at some point. I love it.

But yeah, it may just be you and me. But I wear those all the time. So when mine get worn out, we'll make some more for you and me and anyone else who wants a Brain Ball shirt. Yep. I wear mine a lot, and I love it, but I don't, I think, large. Oh, I actually, when I was going to the U.S., I just came back from a trip,

I was talking to the very friendly person at Customs in the U.S., and he was asking me some questions and he said to me, what's brain ball? What's brain ball? I hope you told him the good news about brain ball. So I said, oh, it's a joke t-shirt. It's about, you know, for people that don't like sports and it's kind of like a joke and he's like I don't like sports very much anymore my betting book hasn't been going too well and I was like

I didn't really know where to go with any of this Jason that's right there's no betting in Brain Ball no there's no betting in Brain Ball the commissioner doesn't allow it it's not allowed hey I had some follow-up people may have noticed you may have noticed as a listener you you were an upgrade listener i was an upgrade in last week it was lovely how was that it was

great i love being an upgradian it's fun um it's a little different so uh we so john syracuse very very nice to have john syracuse on uh he went on a little bit of a rant as he does which is why we love him about uh voice interfaces and it was only after he had said the key phrase like 10 times that he realized he had said it a bunch of times and said i'm probably setting off everybody's devices right now. And I thought to myself, yeah, you probably are. What am I going to do now? I thought I could leave it because Apple has said, oh, well,

now they, you go through this coaching and, you know, you tell some key phrases to the voice assistant and then it's supposed to be more locked in on your voice. And I have found in my house that that is generally true. Although I will point out that at least one time, one of those things that I bleeped out was an Amazon Echo active word, not an iPhone active word.

So I bleeped them all. I decided to bleep them all. And I thought I could beep it out. But what we usually do and what we've we've established on this show is that we say ahoy telephone ahoy telephone and i thought it would be fun if i could find you who was not on the episode saying ahoy telephone somewhere and so what i did is i went back to the archive to i believe episode five wow wow really and i found i found the first time you ever said ahoy telephone and that's the bleep with a little echo i put a little reverb in there and all that that's the

sound that i used as the beep now i i heard from a few people who thought it was really weird um and then i heard heard from a bunch of people who probably thought it was really weird, but enjoyed it. So, yeah. So, Mike clipped out of episode five, used in. And the reason I did it, in the end, I decided to do it because I thought, well, it'll be funny. And also, I don't want to set off people's devices. well you know apple says that you don't have a problem with ahoy telephone anymore um i was sitting here editing and when i edit i mean we do the show and i'm wearing headphones but when i edit i just have it going through my my speakers my ipod hi-fi actually um and i had my iphone 10 sitting here and i was editing that part and i swear john's voice set off my phone like five times at least yeah i kept i'm editing that segment and my phone keeps going off and and siri is beginning to transcribe the words john is saying and i'm like stop stop stop so maybe it's the timber of his voice and my voice are close enough that it wasn't able to differentiate or

whatever but what i'm saying is this is why i bleeped it out is because i saw it in action it was absolutely happening and i feel like it's still kind of good manners to avoid it because it can be a really disruptive experience, especially if it triggers the device that you're listening to your podcast on. So for all of these reasons, the original, you got to flash back to episode five and Mike's original. That's actually when you picked which one it was going to be because I listened back to episode five and mike's original that's actually when you picked which one it was going to be because i i listened back to episode five and we had two we had hello computer which is like what scotty says in star trek 4 when he picks up the mouse and tries to talk to the macintosh hello

computer and we had a hoy telephone and you said you know the one i like is a hoy telephone and that's what i used so there you go because upgrade history if we're going to pull back the curtain a little bit jason sent me a message on slack and he's like can i get a recording of you saying oh hi telephone and to which i replied no all i can do is record it through my iphone and he was like that will not do and then jason went mining through the episodes i i thought about asking you to just use a voice recorder on on your iphone and send it to me and i thought you know what he's he said this in a million different episodes i'm sure i can dig it up and of course

i need to pick my mother up at the airport because she was coming in for thanksgiving and i had expected to have a lot of time in between doing upgrade and having to leave to pick her up at the airport. And as it was, I got to the airport like two minutes before she landed or before she was ready to be picked up. And I had no time because I spent extra time editing the episode, which I have to do anyway. But then I also spent time dipping into the archives to find Ahoy Telephone and dropping it in all the places, plus in that the music cue which those who listened to the edited episode and didn't listen live uh literally what happens is i say

this line that's basically an eric clapton line from a song and he says oh you should put in the music from that song there and i didn't even know the song i was like okay and then i went back later and i was like oh i see what john's doing and i put it in because i do whatever john says there's an episode of the incomparable where there are all these clips that it's literally John saying, oh, you should put a clip in there. And I'm like, all right, John, I'll do whatever John Syracuse tells me to do.

It's how I live my life. I did have a funny thing where you did some really fun things in the episode with the audio. Stephen did some really fun things in Connected. And like, I missed them both because I was on vacation. But I still had people tweeting to me to say like how good a job i did like and there was something

that i quite liked about the thought of that i'm not on the episode people are referring to the fact that i'm away but they still think that i'm editing it anyway um that put a smile on my face it's like nope nope i don't do that like that's that you guys take care of that for me too when i'm away um yeah yeah no it's which is which is i mean that's yeah that's the the truth of it is we don't we don't have credits it's not like um like uh like an npr kind of podcast where it's this episode the upgrade program was edited by mike hurley right we don't we don't we both did the exact same thing maybe we'll start doing that like as the as the credits where we can do a longer roll out of the upgrade theme and they'll say

upgrade i mean i trim it down week by mike hurley and jason let it run you know executive producers mike hurley and jason still this episode edited by mike hurley but you usually do edit upgrade um i usually edit download um and but sometimes that doesn't happen and somebody else edits them that's just how it goes so it's fun i was stepping in your shoes there where i had to i had to read the ads i had to do the show notes i had to do all the things that you do so it gives me an appreciation for you fellow host and as as usual jason set off the i have edited the episode signal which he sets off at the start of every upgrade episode that he edits yeah which is that i draw i started at a different time of the theme song than you do and everybody who is right and you use a completely different version of the song

too i didn't this time i think i used the i think i used the proper version this time but i as a because i don't know i was feeling nice but i didn't i didn't exactly match it and i realized i listened back to when you put in the, the, where you start the theme song. And I realized, um, I,

I like it better where I started. So I just did it that way. But if I wanted to totally disguise the fact that I edited the episode, I would just ape exactly what you did, which I almost tried to do, but I didn't where I stopped. I know. Like,

I know we had this conversation set. We we're, we're so far off the rails now, but I had this conversation with Dan about clockwise because dan still doesn't put it in the right place and clockwise and it turns out i told him where he should put it where the show should start and he was like oh that would save me two seconds which on clockwise is kind of a big deal so maybe he'll do that in the future yeah so i uh on on this show i have a very specific place that i start on the pen addict i have a very specific place i'm thoroughly considered a very specific place but on connected i change it every single

week i just drop it in i just move it around i just wherever i want i just all right it's not like i'm trying to change it but i don't have in that show like a moment because the music isn't as like that there aren't beats in it that you would specifically change because it's like this classical piece of music that we got. I can't even remember who it is. I think it's Bach. And I just kind of put it in and move it around to wherever it feels good, and that's where it is that week. Yep.

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Check it out right now and find out more about what Encapsular can do for you and claim that free month of service. Give them a go. You're not going to regret it. Thank you so much to Encapsular for their continued support of this show and RelayFM. So you will remember, Jason, many weeks ago, I was talking about getting some bumpers for my iPhone and was looking at what bumper cases would I maybe want to get

for my iPhone X and I ordered one called the in case frame it arrived with me a few days ago I put it on my phone it lasted about 25 seconds and it's now

Adina is selling it ebay you just snapped it right snapped it right into pieces and right on right off not no not good i had a few people tell me this i had a few people tell me this um but mine was already on the way it's not good so the problem that i had uh i did really the problem with this case, I can tell is that it was designed before anybody actually used the iPhone X. They never actually had one. If they did, then I don't know why they made this case. One of the problems is, so it's a bumper case, right?

So it has just the rail that goes around the outside and nothing on the front and back. The case on the left and right-hand side ever so slightly covers the screen. Like, it's not where it should be. It's not complete. It's like it's not flush. There's just like maybe a millimeter or two. Like, it overlaps, but you can see it, right?

Like, I don't feel like that should be right. But the other problem is it's way too tricky to operate the home gesture because the case has a lip at the bottom. So, like, it's almost impossible tricky to operate the home gesture because the case has a lip at the bottom. So it's almost impossible to get to the home gesture because you can't swipe up from the bottom of the phone. That's not good. No, it didn't last for me.

I had some people say to me that they hated it because of the buttons. It actually doesn't have buttons. It just has areas that you squeeze. I had no problems with this. It worked fine. Whatever, it worked fine. But I just didn't like the fact that you couldn't operate the gestures. It kind of covered the screen up.

I kind of immediately took it off and sent it back. So not for me. I actually now think that no bumper will do what I want because I reckon now that probably all of them will suffer the same fate of not being able to very easily operate the uh the home gesture there's a reason why apple's cases all have cutouts at the bottom right yep well i mean that they always have but it there's a reason they didn't add it right so like you know they've always all the silicon cases and leather cases they've always had that cut out at the bottom well yeah you don't want to cover up the you don't want to cover up the port and you don't want to cover up the uh the speaker and the microphone and all that because it just adds more trouble but it it makes their cases even better yeah speaking of which i i um i bought

an apple leather case um i i don't think i'm going to use it all the time but i'm going to use it sometimes and maybe if i like it i'll use it all the time i don't want I'm going to use it all the time, but I'm going to use it sometimes. And maybe if I like it, I'll use it all the time. I don't want to break the phone. I've seen people's horror stories about it, you know, sliding off their nightstand and cracking the back and all of that. It's just terrifying.

And, um, and I, I've got the silicone case now and in a, in a color I don't like, and I don't like how, um, it,

it like makes it hard to take it hard to take it out of my pocket and put it in my pocket. But I do like operating it with the case is fine. And I like that it basically it eliminates the camera bump, which is also kind of nice. That makes it back to perfectly flat when I lay it down. And so I decided in the end, I was going to spend the money and get the Apple leather case, which I used on the iPhone 6 for ages and really liked. So we'll give it a go. Cool. Yeah, I'm a silicon case all the time now. Because I just didn't feel comfortable enough with it.

It's a shame, though, because that phone is beautiful without any case on it. It really is. I know. Maybe I'll try it again one day, but I was having problems with my hands anyway, which I feel like maybe wasn't the phone in the end, but my grip is vastly better with the silicon case. It feels more natural to me um so it's just going to be tucked away inside of there underneath the the ultraviolet silicon case

which shows still loves in the chat room it's the one that i have um it is a wonderful color um so i'm happy with that at least so you may remember many many weeks ago we were talking about uh you you have an amazon show which is the the echo that has the uh the screen on it the amazon echo show i should say their youtube had been pulled off of the device which rendered it almost useless because uh the main source of video on the internet could no longer be watched on a device almost useless for playing video it's got other uses i mean we i don't play a lot of video on it anyway i use it for other things but i would like i would like more access to video

youtube included uh that right now it's like amazon prime video is on there and that's about it well it's back they don't have their own app anymore it looks like it's the web view which i think lends completely to the argument that, um, what YouTube wanted, which was for all of their features like autoplay and all that kind of stuff to be working. Um, and Amazon seemed to build an application that didn't observe any of their requirements in their API. Um, so Google pulled their access and it looks like basically what happened was Google said, or YouTube said, uh, you got to do all of this or you're just not going to get it. And eventually Amazon backed down.

I want to read a quote from The Verge just to kind of give you an example of how this thing is working. So it says, based on a tweet from The Verge editor Dan Seaford, it seems that the new YouTube integration only half-heartedly supports voice controls at all, with the new device loading the interface slowly and even then loading a windowed version of the video the echo show still does support full screen youtube videos but users will need a separate you have to wait say echo zoom in ahoy ahoy lady in the canister zoom in and once you just once you give that command it will display videos zoomed in. Like, this sounds just really half-baked, like, just not good, which is a shame.

Amazon have also announced that Vimeo and Dailymotion support will be coming to the Echo Show 2, or at least it's available now. So that's good. More video options, a weird YouTube implementation, but at least it's there, right that's good more video options um a weird youtube implementation but at least it's there right like if you have this device you want to be able to get videos on it um and you can i think for this device to be uh i i have one i use it every day for this device to be successful as a video playing device amazon needs to just fully embrace that they need every possible video provider on here and do whatever they can. The funny thing is they have relationships

because of the Fire TV. And I hate to say it, but I kind of want to say it. I think the Echo Show should be a Fire TV, a self-contained Fire TV set. I think that should be one of the things that it does. And that means, and I don't know if it's capable of that or not, although it's running Android just like the Fire TV. So maybe it could do a subset of it. I don't know if it would need special versions of apps or whatever. But what I'm getting at here is, if I can install an app that plays video on a Fire TV, I should be able to do it on the Echo Show. And that means, TV, I should be able to do it on the Echo Show.

And that means, yeah, I should be able to watch Netflix on the Echo Show. And I know they want me to watch Prime Video because everybody who's got an Echo is going to have – an Echo Show is going to have Prime, right? But sometimes I want to watch Netflix. And, like, I'm still an Amazon customer and their product is still helping me. But sometimes I want to watch Netflix. Watching live TV is another thing. They should be endeavoring to make it as easy as possible for you to say,

hey lady, I want to watch name of a TV news channel, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, whatever, and pop to the live stream of that. And if you have to put in your credentials to log into your cable provider, whatever, fine. But like, this would be a really, really more interesting product if it was also a television. As silly as it is to say that, it really would be. Well, it makes more sense for this to be the kitchen television, right?

Yeah, right. Rather than with the Echo Smarts in it. Yeah, and Major League Baseball is another example. I've got lots of examples, but live would be good and access to all of my other programming because yeah that's what i that's what i want sometimes i would be happy to just say can you put on this channel and have it just pop in a stream that would be pretty great and i feel like it's within their technical capabilities to do that so maybe they'll get there maybe that they getting daily motion and uh and youtube and other you know other sites like that on here is part of the story but they need to they need to keep

going with it and they need to leverage their fire tv deals to get people's tv channels and content on this thing so we in our hashtag ask upgrade segment that we have at the end of the show we've been asked quite a few times recently about the iPhone SE and if there will be a new iPhone SE. Well, there's been another round of rumors about the device. These all come from a website called TechZ24, which, I mean, I don't really know what this website is. It is an Indian-based technology website, but I don't know its credentials.

I've never really paid any attention to it other than the last time that they had a rumor about the iPhone SE. But I will say that a tech site based in India makes sense considering that's where the iPhone SE is made. That's why I'm giving any kind of credence to this because that logic kind of checks out to me. The new rumor is saying that it is expected to ship within Q1, so by March.

And to piggyback on the last one, they gave some specs of an A10 Fusion chip, 2GB of RAM, 32 or 128GB storage, 12MP rear camera, 5MP front camera, and a slightly larger battery at 1,700mAh. camera, 5 megapixel front camera, and a slightly larger battery at 1,700 milliamp hours. I would say, like, you know, I don't know whether to say, like, oh, yeah, this is obviously spot on, but all of that makes sense to me. Like, all of that makes sense that they would, I think that there will be one, those specs check out, and launching it in Q1, that makes sense because I reckon, you know, that's probably when the HomePod's coming out. There might be a few things to just release at the same time there. That makes sense to me. And it's an iPhone 7 in the SE case.

We had people ask about the SE, like, will it look different and all of that. I think the... I think... I know this is wacky, but I think we need to stop thinking of that case design as the iPhone five case design. And I think we need to start thinking of it as the classic small iPhone design because, you know, card designs go on a long time. I think this is like that. I think this is just Apple saying, um, we're gonna, I think this is like that. I think this is just Apple saying, we're going to make phones that look like this for a while. And they'll always be available, but they'll be kind of current. The one thing that I'm a little surprised by is if it still has a headphone jack, because Apple has moved away from that in so many places. But if it's already engineered, I mean, part of the premise here is to change as little as possible in this device and make it a low-cost device. But it's not surprising other than we've been waiting for a signal that it might really be happening.

And that's what this report at least might give us is that first signal. Because I think it makes sense. It's a part of a much larger product line. It's just one little piece. But it's a good piece. And there's an audience for this product in terms of size. I know a bunch of people who have the iPhone SE because they don't want a bigger phone. And I've had people who I've shown the 6 or the 7 or the 8 to,

and they've got a 5S or something like that. And they're like, oh, I don't want that. And I just say, get an SE, right? It makes sense for it to be there. I don't think that design language necessarily ever has to evolve or has to evolve anytime soon. It's like the Porsche 911. That's what the iPhone SE design is like.

It's a classic design. It's not going anywhere. It's a good design for that size phone. And by not getting any thinner and lighter, it allows them to just kind of keep iterating the technology. And it's, the rumor is an A10. So, you know, we're talking about an iPhone 7 level there and not an iPhone 8 level, which is, you know, I don't know. I'm a little surprised by that, but not, not spectacularly surprised by that. It's, you know and upgraded cameras and yeah that's that's what we would expect is every couple of years apple will boost the specs of the se so that it's current ish yeah so i mentioned i've just been on a trip right and i wanted to give some some thoughts some observations about traveling with the iphone 10 so it's just a couple of things that I noticed about the phone that I haven't really noticed too much in my usage before that.

One is battery life. I was happy with the battery life. I was kind of paying attention to it. I haven't got any scientific tests here. But I didn't feel like my battery was dying on me, where these are the times when i will be putting the phone for its paces the most when i'm traveling right like spending more extended periods of time away from charges and doing more with the phone in regards to taking photos and stuff like that

and looking up maps and you know i'm uh jumping between hot like different networks because i'm roaming more and all that kind of stuff and And I would say that the iPhone 10 feels really comparable to the Plus to me. Like it would last the day when I needed it to. And I wasn't finding myself having to be stressed out about my battery. So I would say it's very comparable to the Plus in my usage on this trip. And also, I, for the first time, really noticed how good the new cameras are. Like, I think the pairing of the camera and the OLED screen and True Tone and all of that amazing stuff. I was taking pictures on this trip and was just like taken aback at how good I thought that they looked. Like I kept like me and Nadina would take a picture of the same thing and I'll be like, let's compare the pictures.

And like we'd look at them. Right. right but i got look how much better mine is uh she has a an iphone 6s and i was really like there was just a lot of times like you know i was in las vegas so there's a lot of color everywhere right and there were just things that i was taking pictures of like neon signs and stuff like that and just the color reproduction was just so wonderful um i was really really really happy and impressed with how good that combo is, the camera and the screen. They work so well together. We had a family group here for Thanksgiving, as we often do. It's one of our American things that we do.

And we, on the last day before people were leaving, we went out in the front yard and took a picture. Um, and I, you know, I got out a glyph and a tripod and put the timer on and I use the iPhone 10. And,

um, I had that experience that plus users have had for a while now, but that I had this time, which is I didn't have to get the camera ridiculously close. Cause I just put it in the two X camera. Um, and it looked great it looks it looked so good it is such a good picture and it's just one of those little little moments of

like I think this is I think this is way better than the picture I would have taken you know three weeks ago so that's cool how was Thanksgiving did you have a Thanksgiving by the way so we actually were coming home on American Thanksgiving so we we left on the Wednesday arriving home on american thanksgiving so we we left on the wednesday arriving home on the thursday and we actually had booked in london a thanksgiving dinner we've done this a couple of times now we love thanksgiving dinners i know we were just we were going to hopefully fight for our jet lag and go to one in london but the buffet and the hotel changed over their menu on like tuesday to a Thanksgiving menu. Like, they were going to have Thanksgiving food at the buffet.

So we just did that one evening, and it was incredible. The food was so good. The best part was sweet potatoes with vanilla marshmallow. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I've had it with marshmallow before, but the addition of vanilla was everything. We were very happy. Vanilla makes everything better. They didn't have any pumpkin pie, though, but the addition of vanilla was everything. We were very happy. Vanilla makes everything better.

He didn't have any pumpkin pie, though, which I was super bummed about. But there's a Whole Foods near where Adina works, and she said that she's going to get me a pumpkin pie at some point, if they still have them. They probably do. They probably do. I made a sweet potato pie, and it was very good. How was your Thanksgiving? It was good. It was very good. How was your Thanksgiving? It was good. It was very good.

Did it here, so I did the, I roast the turkey, did the brine and roasting the turkey thing, which worked great, as it usually does. And we had mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts roasted, which are, people hate Brussels sprouts, but they're really good when they're roasted. That kills all the badness, I think. What else did we have? I don't know. Mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts,

rolls, some roasted vegetables. It was good. Cranberry sauce, gravy. It was Thanksgiving. How many people did we have? Seven? We stuck all the little extra things in the dinner table so that it can seat seven. And, yeah, I think everybody had a good time. And it was sunny, which was nice, too, because it was supposed to rain that whole time, but it didn't. So it was beautiful. The cranberry sauce that they had was real cranberry sauce.

Like, yeah, it had cranberries in it you know like it wasn't like the the the stuff that comes in the can which maintains the shape of the can you know what i mean you know what i'm talking about right like it was it was cranberry sauce that had cranberries in it um i prefer the stuff that's basically just like a jelly now did you know though cranberries because of the contents of the cranberries, they naturally make that jelly themselves. I didn't know that. It seems like it's a totally artificial thing, and perhaps the ones in the can are artificial, but you can make a cranberry sauce that's basically a jelly, and it's all because of the contents of the cranberries. They do that. They do it that way.

Yeah, you see, I don't like the cranberries. I just want just the pure sauce i don't want cranberries all up in it like i do i otherwise i'll eat some cranberries you know like i'm looking for just a sauce here that that's my feeling on these things yeah i hear you just a handful of cranberries yeah it was good it was all good we we ate it all there was none left for the leftovers i had leftover turkey but i did not have any leftover cranberry sauce. Sadly. Not bad. That's right. And then we had some barbecue on Friday, so that was good too. From that barbecue place?

Yeah, sure. From the old standby barbecue place. It's absolutely true. I've eaten from that barbecue place, and it was very good. Whilst in the snail zone one time. Today's show is also brought to you by Text Expander from our friends at Smile.

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published an article to macworld um with the title of why apple's next laptop should run ios just bold claim this is uh emerged from upgrade last week this was this was john and i kind of walked into it when we were talking about iOS and Apple trying different things. And something like Microsoft Surface Studio, which is a desktop iOS device. Could Apple do that? A desktop iOS device with a big old touchscreen. And it sort of came up about like, or a laptop, like let's, let's have them do that. Like I think, and the idea was the spirit of trying that, trying, uh, you know, trying

some new things with iOS and Apple and its laptops and, uh, maybe increasing the diversity of its product line a little bit by creating some more products that are different and have different uses and, and learning, uh, what those uses are. of its product line a little bit by creating some more products that are different and have different uses and and learning uh what those uses are so that that's sort of where it came from anyway so the premise i guess if we can maybe kind of set the premise in from the article a little bit more there are a couple of interesting things that i think you dive into so kind of looking at the products that we have now and looking at kind of where they're moving towards, there is an interesting thing in the form factors and kind of like why do iOS devices not have keyboards and why do macOS devices not have touchscreens? Like, why is it this way? Right?

Because this is kind of, I guess, the thing that is stopping them converging. Maybe these two things, right? No fixed keyboards, no touchscreens on one and the other. And the iPad Pro, it's like it's inching its way towards becoming a laptop,

but it isn't one. Right? Like, it's still a tablet. And I guess that's kind of where you're coming from with this, right? It's like the ipad pro is pushing you towards this thinking it's like there is a keyboard but you have to attach it and it's not a laptop keyboard i yeah exactly right so i have i use the bridge keyboard which

has the clips so you slide it in and then it behaves basically like a laptop and it's it's a great experience like it it's that said, it is not a laptop. It is a tablet in a little laptop case. And it's not what most people are using. They're using the smart keyboard. And the smart keyboard, like the Microsoft Surface keyboard cover before it, is a thing that makes a tablet something that's got a keyboard. But it's not a laptop. You really need to put it on a hard

surface, on a desk or a table. If you try to put it on your lap, it's tippy and it's not a great experience. And you can't really adjust the angle. It's sort of the angle that it gives you. And which is not to say that it isn't nice, but it is not the full-on laptop experience. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And yeah yeah this comes up a lot about ios devices don't have keyboards and mac os devices don't have touchscreens like you said um and i heard that a lot like we know from apple like they've said well we don't think the touchscreen is a great place but then they make the touch bar because it's down in the

plane with the keyboard instead but it's not in your visual plane that argument's gone out the window now like the touch bar and the ipad pro ruined that argument for them because like the you know the old kind of like zombie arms argument like that's gone out the window that that's right that well i hear that one i still hear that one which is oh apple's never going to do that because apple's philosophy is that no you don't want to type on a keyboard and then reach up to touch the screen so how are they going to change that i I got that a lot. Explain that, Mr. Wizard. Explain that one away for me.

And the answer is, Apple makes the smart keyboard for the iPad. So this is a little bit like when people, when I talk about maybe adding external pointing device support on iOS. People are like, well, that's insane. Once you can move a cursor around the screen on iOS, the jig is up.

They're never going to allow that. And I have to say, there's already a cursor. The text insertion cursor is movable on both the iPhone and the iPad. There's already a cursor. It's done. Like the genie is out of the bottle already. And the same is true for the zombie arms argument,

which is Apple makes a keyboard for use with an iPad. What is the, what is, how do you do that? The answer is you type, and then you reach up and touch on the screen. There are no, you know, there's arrow keys, but there's no track pad on the smart keyboard. So, so you can't even do say, oh, well, but you use a pointing device when you're in the keyboard mode. It's like, no, you don't, you reach up and touch the screen. And that is in the, Apple has designated that as an acceptable use case for the iPad Pro. So, you know, I would argue it's an acceptable use case anyway, because of third-party utilities. But once Apple's got their own keyboard, then you can't argue that it's like, well, third parties will

do crazy stuff. But Apple doesn't believe in having a keyboard and also a touchscreen because it's already got it. It's already got it there. So my question there is, why not? And I don't want this to be an argument about making Mac OS devices with touchscreens, because I think that's a different argument. And it has to do with how much do you want to change Mac OS to support touch? Because I think it would require changes. And I fundamentally don't believe

apple wants to change the mac that much no i don't like this is the idea of a laptop form factor running ios is a way easier thing to achieve than making mac os touchable oh by far because all the pieces are already there i mean literally you all you need to do is make a piece of hardware so they've got a phone they've got a tablet make make a laptop or a convertible or something that is just on the other side of that divide and and the way i think of it is uh and if you think about like the surface uh and and the surface product line that microsoft has got like this is what microsoft's trying to do which is they have a tablet that can kind of pose as a laptop they've got a laptop and then they've got a thing that's kind of a laptop with

a detachable tablet part which is which is that middle product that they've got. But I view that the same way that iPad is a tablet that can pretend to be a laptop, but it's primarily a tablet. Apple could create a laptop that might be able to pretend to be a tablet. We can talk about that, but it's primarily a laptop and runs iOS. And, you know, I heard also heard from a lot of people who say, oh, but it can't be a real computer. It can't be a, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't compile software. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't do this or that. And it's like, well, again, again, I have very little patience for people who say that because it doesn't do one thing, it can't be exist, right?

Because the whole idea here is you have a variety of products for different users. And just because you wouldn't use it does not mean that there aren't uses for it. Because I had to answer a bunch of people on Twitter who were like, oh, but you can't do all of these things. Like, yeah, I don't do those things. And I know a lot of people who don't do those things. My daughter used a Chromebook for several years. It does nothing. And actually, the sports writer Joe Piznanski just wrote a piece last week about how he was simplifying his life. And one of the things he did was he sold his Mac and his PC and he bought a Chromebook, a Google Pixelbook.

And he said, you know, yeah, I know it doesn't do all of these things. I don't do any of those things. It does all the things I need. And so, therefore, it's perfectly relevant. And that's exactly how I was thinking about an iOS laptop or just using an iPad Pro. Both of those things is, no, they don't do everything all computers can do. But I didn't say let's ban all other computers because I don't feel that way. Yeah.

But I do think that there's a little slot here for something interesting. And one of the things that the Pixelbook does, for people who don't know, is it's got a hinge. It's a laptop, but it's got a 360 degree hinge, which means that you can fold the keyboard back and treat it like a tablet. And again, is a laptop folded backwards so the keyboard is behind the screen, is that as good as a real tablet? No, it's not. Just like attaching a little magnetic keyboard dealie to a tablet is not as good as a laptop, right? There is still a divide there, but you can get some use cases that kind of go over the edge because that's what i'm saying is what is your primary use case do you want to get a primarily a tablet that you can occasionally stick a keyboard on ipad pro is that if you want but

what about if you want primarily a laptop but what sometimes want to you know fold it back and do tablety things apple doesn't have that right now, but they could. Maybe they should. So this is called the convertible form factor, the one that you're talking about. There are a lot of convertible PCs out there too. Yeah, yeah. Like the Lenovo Yoga Book, which I think is something that we've spoken about before,

is one of them. And basically to be convertible, it has three modes. It has laptop mode. It has tablet mode, where you fold the tablet all the way around to the back. Then it also has like a, many companies give this different names, but like a presentation

mode or whatever, where you basically have it like a tent, right? Or you can like fold it back and lean it up just the way basically to stand up the screen in front of you, right? So you can have like a tent or you can fold it back around and kind of like have the screen angling back but then no keyboard in front the keyboard's at the back you know some way to presentation mode kind of the thing where you're just looking at the screen maybe watching a video or whatever like you know with the smart keyboard you wrap the smart keyboard around to the back and stand it up it's basically a way to do that and that's what the convertible is the product does all three that's kind of the the

feeling like yeah the pixel book is is is why it was one of the prompts for me to write this too because i i see that as being it's a premium product that google made it's not a 200 thing it's a thousand dollar thing um and so it's it is a product that legitimately apple could build and i think it serves a purpose i I think that it's not for everybody, but it fills an interesting niche of, uh, people like Joe Pesnanski as an example, who's a sports writer.

Um, it, it, it's, it does enough for a certain group who is more likely to like a laptop than an iPad. They need a little more of the shape. And this is one of the challenges I think a lot of people have when you talk about this. I knew this would happen

when I wrote this story, is I heard from a lot of people who said laptops aren't for iPads, essentially. Laptops are for computers. And my answer to that is pretty simple, which is that that's totally wrong. Shapes and operating systems are different. Doesn't mean they're not related, but they're different. And as somebody who's used an iPad in a laptop configuration a lot, I can tell you it works. Like it works. Do not tell me that it doesn't work because i know it works because i use it in that configuration with my weird third party bluetooth connected you know if you're lucky you

get one that works and if not you have to send it back slide it in with those funny little clips in order to get into laptop mode it doesn't really open from clamshell as easily you got to kind of like find purchase and open it up. Lots of issues with it, but when it is working as a laptop, my iPad pro is kind of great for what it is, right? It's not, I'm not compiling software on it for my use though. It's great. So to say a laptop shape should never have an, uh, a touch interface like iOS on it, I guess you can believe what you want, but I have lived it. And I think it is a completely valid shape for this kind of thing. And the Chromebook or the Pixelbook is another example of that, of Google coming up from the

other side. Also, the Pixelbook does the Chrome OS thing where it can run android apps so uh that makes you know that makes it a more kind of similar comparison to something like this i think so in the article you call out a potential name for a product which i had the little uh brain exploding emoji when i read this that the ibook name is available which i absolutely loved because it is right this this is essentially the ibook it is a laptop with the eye in front of it it's perfect for that um but like i kind of wanted to know from you from your thinking uh would they seriously use this name would this be a third product or is it an ipad like what is this product well i mean if this product even exists who knows i mean the naming comes we talk about names of products that are actually going to exist

and not purely theoretical i did have that moment about the ibook again because again i names are kind of not what people want but ios products have i names and i don't think they're going away so i would love for it to be called the iBook. Oh, by the way, that was actually an argument that I heard from a bunch of people was, Apple can't make a laptop that runs iOS because then it will have laptops that run iOS and macOS and people will be confused. And I thought, okay, is there a customer confusion challenge? Do you have to message these products in a very particular way to make it clear that

this is not a Mac and this is a Mac? Yes, that is a challenge. However, do I think the existence of that challenge is enough to make you run away and say, well, we can't make this product. People might be confused if we didn't make an effort to make them not confused. No, no. If there's a reason enough to make the product, you make the product and then you find a way to communicate it so that people aren't confused. And some people are going to be confused regardless. They're going to be confused about the difference between a MacBook and a MacBook Pro as it is. So, you know, the,

again, there are a lot of arguments that are, but there's this one possible problem. So therefore we should stop having this conversation about this product. It's like, no, I don't, I don't, I don't think so. I think, I think it could be communicated and something like iBook versus Mac. It's like, it's not a Mac. You know how you can tell? It doesn't have the word Mac in it. That is like the clincher. It has an I in it because it runs iOS. This is an iBook, which is probably what I would call it. Although they might also call it like iPad book or, and again, I'm not saying that this product exists, but I think it's an interesting product that maybe would be fun if it existed and maybe Apple should do it. But again, I don't want to be one of those pundits like Apple must do this or apple but uh i think it would be a really cool product and so i would

like to see it exist why why are you turning your back on the mac why are you doing that yeah why why do you want the mac to die i don't understand uh why uh i i got this a lot from people who said, it was funny, there were a couple versions of this. One is, yeah, why do you hate the Mac? And the other one is, no, no, no, this product needs to not exist because if Apple does this, it's the final death blow for the Mac. Because once they start making iOS laptops,

the Mac is not going to be around in 10 years. Which I think is a really interesting argument laptops the mac is not going to be around in 10 years which i think is a really interesting argument because i think that that is um that is getting the sequence backward i can see how you get to there i i can see how you get there oh yeah yeah but it's putting the sequence backwards like if if it's the it's like maybe a nail in the coffin like if apple does this the jig is up that may be true that may be true it may not be but it may be but it's not the thing that causes the jig to be up it's not the it's not the thing that caused a coffin to be constructed it's just the latest symptom of the fact that apple might be uh finding a way to move past the Mac. Also, a discussion for another time, but you know,

there's also this question of, will, just because Apple has the Mac and iOS, one possible future is iOS becomes more and more capable, and the Mac sort of becomes this legacy product that stays on the side, which is sort of what's been happening the last few years. Another possibility is that, like Google is doing with Project Fuchsia, Apple is actually building something. And Steve Trott and Smith and I were having a little back and forth on this with some other people on Twitter this weekend about it. Maybe there's a new OS that Apple is working on

that drops a lot of the initial assumptions of iOS and a lot of the baggage of the Mac and creates a new thing that's more flexible and fits into all of these shapes and allows them to do a touchscreen interface on traditional computer shapes that is not just kind of laying that on top of the old Mac interface, but is something new and allows iOS apps and maybe modern Mac apps to kind of go there. Maybe that will happen in a few years. That's a possibility too. So it may not be the Mac being replaced by iOS at all. But in the meantime, yeah, I like the Mac. I use a Mac. I'm not one of these iOS only people. I have an iMac

5K and I love it. But in all my other away from my desk context at this point, I am using iOS and I love it too. Um, I would have a hard time doing my job if I could never use a Mac at this point. Um, which is why I don't try, but, uh, some people won't and other people, you know, we'll find like I do that the Mac the Mac is good over here and iOS is good over there. And, you know, I feel that that's, I mean, that's where I am right now. So I don't hate the Mac. I love the Mac. And if the Mac stays around forever, that's great.

If the Mac went away tomorrow, I would be extremely sad because there's so much of what I do does require a Mac. I would manage. I don't think I would have to go to Windows, although you never know for limited desktop use. I would try to manage without, but nobody's going to make us do that. It's going to be a long time. I do think it's interesting because I also heard from a bunch of people about Apple's laptops, you know, the MacBook Pro, especially, and like all this consternation about Apple's

laptops. The last thing Apple needs to do is build a different laptop um that isn't a mac because they're they'd be distracted and again i'm going to just say i don't believe it like i think that this is a thing apple should also work on and if you're mad about the macbook pro that's fine maybe you should be i get it i get those arguments um i'm mad about the MacBook Pro is not a reason why an iOS laptop couldn't be a good product. I also heard from somebody, and I don't know what their level of knowledge and authority is within in terms of Apple sources, who said that originally the MacBook ran iOS. And that was part of the idea originally. And then in the end, it ran Mac OS.

I'm not sure that's true or not, but you could definitely see a MacBook-like thing running iOS if it was a touchscreen. I do feel like having it be convertible, having a convertible shape that is more like one of these Windows or Chromebook convertibles might be a better way to do it.

But I love the Mac. I just think that one of the challenges with the Mac is that it doesn't provide some things, that they would have to totally change how the Mac works to add touch on it. And I do fundamentally believe that if Apple really expected the Mac to transform over the next five or 10 years into a touchscreen interface, it would have started a long time ago. And I don't think it's going there. So I think the reason the Mac doesn't have touch is not because Apple doesn't believe that you can mix touch and keyboards. I think it's because Apple doesn't believe the Mac can mix touch and keyboards.

So I was thinking, Jason, if I would want this device, would I want a laptop that runs iOS, I want a laptop that runs iOS, an iOS laptop? My answer is a resounding yes, because my 12.9 inch iPad Pro is a laptop. I never take the keyboard off. It's always in landscape orientation. Or if the keyboard is not in front of it, then it's wrapped around the back, right? Like I am one of these, I run it like in this convertible mode sometimes. We may watch video on it when we're maybe at the dining table or something. But most of the time, like 90% of the time, my iPad has the keyboard in front of it and is always in landscape orientation.

I never use my 12.9-inch in tablet mode. I just don't do that. I don't sit and read Twitter on my iPad Pro with it in portrait on my lap. If I read Twitter on my iPad Pro, I do it with the keyboard in front and I press the spacebar to scroll through TweetBot. Like I use my 12.9 inch iPad Pro like a laptop all the time. Why do I do it? So then I know people are going to be asking the questions that they always ask, which is why do I do this?

Don't I know how much better all of this would be if I just use the Mac? And purely because I prefer using iOS to macOS. It's what I like. I like that the system has like a forced focus to it, like I can use a couple of apps at a time, and that works really great for me. The app ecosystem is vastly more exciting for me than the one that exists on the Mac. And I personally believe that iOS is closer to the, I mean, I said this a million times and I'll say it a million times more, is closer to what the future of computing will be than the Mac. I just do. It's where I think computing is right now. Like if there is a starting point for the next 10 years, it's probably iOS rather than Mac OS and wherever,

whatever might be next, I think it is closer to what iOS does. And the Mac is amazing at what it does. It's why I use one every day. It's why I'm talking to people like right now via my Mac as well. I edit this podcast on my Mac. It is the device that has all of the power to do the really heavy lifting that I need to do with my production. But absolutely everything else is done on an iPad. So like I use my 10.5 inch as a more traditional iPad. Like I will have that one in a tablet mode with the keyboard wrapped around the back of it and just like read Twitter on it and stuff like that.

Like that's what I use that one for. But my big iPad Pro, it's like a laptop. And that's just the way that I like to use it. So I would love to have an iPad in this function, like in this form. It'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thought about you when I was thinking about this, that you use that 12.9 iPad as

a laptop, essentially. And I don't keep my iPad in that laptop case all the time. But when I travel, I kind of do. And I like, I like taking the laptop out. I don't know whether I would use this product or not. I'm not telling Apple, you should design this product for me because I may prefer the tablet, but I would be interested in it because I think it would be a great writing machine because I love writing on my iPad as it is. Um, but I But I just, I feel this is probably a good time to wrap this up and kind of call back to last week and the conversation I had with John, which to boil it down was not let's invent future products that Apple might never do. It was this, which is iOS is a fun,

was this, which is iOS is a fun, interesting, and young platform in ways that the Mac is not. The Mac is powerful, flexible, but it is not what iOS is, which is Apple's kind of new platform. Apple also has far more customers and far more market success on iOS than it does on macOS, just bottom line, right? Because of iPhone predominantly. But as we've talked about, iPad sales, which are turning around now, which is also a good indicator for this. But iPad units, there are more iPads out there in use than Macs, right? That's the fact.

It doesn't make as much money, but because they have a lower average selling price, there are more iPads out there than Macs. Right now, iOS, so interesting platform. It's only on iPad or iPhone. Why not go other places? That's sort of what John and I were riffing on last week. Eventually, John said, it needs to go those places. Like eventually, it's hard to imagine that there wouldn't be a Surface Studio-like product from Apple. It's very hard to imagine that. And is that going to be a Mac? Probably not, right? For all the reasons that we've indicated and that Apple has indicated, like a touchscreen Mac is probably not something unless they make some huge changes in their strategy, probably not

going to happen. But that's a really interesting shape for especially creative users. But you know, in general, a big desktop touchscreen device sounds good. Okay, well, that's probably going to run iOS unless they have a future OS that comes out that's the best of both worlds, which maybe they will, maybe they won't. And if you're going to do that shape, I mean, a laptop shape,

it's incredibly popular. Three quarters of all Macs sold are laptops. People like laptop shapes. And iOS is Apple's hot platform that's got the most app momentum and it's got the most sales already and people are really used to it. Why not have an iOS laptop? People like that. Apple makes all of this conversation about Fortune 500 companies and Fortune 100 companies and how they have really gotten into iOS. And this is a great source of success for them in enterprises is iPads.

And I think, you know what enterprise people like? They like laptops. So I'll throw that in there too. Some of them like laptops. And saying, well, you can get this iPad with a keyboard. Maybe let them get a laptop if they want. And they still get to use the whole iOS infrastructure that their company has built in. And then momentum. I mentioned sales seem to be gaining some momentum on the iPad side and are still going great on the iPhone side, of course. The OS development feels like it's got momentum. iOS 11 has added a whole lot, which gives me more confidence. I would not have made this argument maybe a few years ago before the multitasking stuff in iOS 9, and iOS 11 has made it so much better. So put all that together. And basically what I'm saying is let's go. I feel like

this is where they're going in the future. So let's go there. Let's do it. I'd love to see it. And maybe it won't happen, or maybe it won't happen for years. But as a thought exercise, it's like, I think that would be a great product. And I think a lot of people would like it. And it wouldn't be for everyone. And I don't think Apple would discontinue all other products and force everybody to use an iOS laptop. But I think it could be a great product that a lot of people would really like. Yeah, I completely agree with you.

And we'll see. We'll see.'ll see maybe one day i mean honestly when i read it it didn't feel like it was a really wild thing to me i feel like it's definitely a possibility i can see it i knew this would be the kind of thing that that some percentage of people i don't know if it's half and half some percentage of people would look and be like sure of course which is sort of how john took it when he and i were talking about it last week it's like yeah it seems inevitable doesn't it and that another group would be like this is absolutely bonkers and that's i think that's interesting about how we how we see the world but um yeah i i think it's just one of those things that i started thinking about and i thought yeah actually

it makes a lot of sense i i and i would to see it. What would that be like? What would a brand new iOS device in a new category where Apple could completely throw away a lot of the baggage of what must be in a Mac laptop? What would that look like? I'll tell you this also, the people who use that product would not be complaining about, you know, all the things. I mean, they might complain about the keyboard. We would see, but they,

they, they wouldn't be complaining about the ports. I'll tell you that. Yeah. Cause we only need one of them, right? We only have the one. Yeah.

I'd like, I didn't mention my story, but I would like to see USB-C on that laptop too, but you know, we'll see. We'll see if it ever happens, what it, what it has on it, but it would like to see USB-C on that laptop too. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see if it ever happens, what it has on it. But it would make sense. I think the iPad Pro should probably have USB-C on it,

but it doesn't, not yet. All right, it's time for some hashtag AskUpgrade, which is making a triumph from return as it was missed last week. Hashtag AskUpgrade this week is brought to you by Balance Open, a free open source Mac app for checking Coinbase. Coinbase is a popular marketplace for

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Find out more and try out Balance Open. Our thanks to Balance for their support of this show. Okay, Jason, Benjamin wants to know, where do you go to find cool wallpapers? I do a lot of space wallpapers. wallpapers i do a lot of space wallpapers so astronomy picture of the day and various nasa websites all of those pictures are generally publicly available at full resolution because they're coming from public agencies and uh i will save those out to a little folder on on my mac or i will drag them into photos and sync them so that I can have them on my iOS devices.

That's usually where I go. It's usually space stuff. I'm currently on my iPad using one of the stock Apple backgrounds with the six rainbow colors and an orange background, which is pretty great. But usually it's – and actually, I will put in a plug. Usually it's, and actually I will put in a plug. I'm using as my home screen background now, I'm using the Cortex Grid iPhone 10 wallpaper by Frank. And I like that too.

So I guess RelayFM membership is another way to get some, but the space stuff is generally from the astronomy picture of the day and various NASA websites. Yeah, I use either RelayFM membership wallpaper. If you're a member, there's a bunch of options available to you for desktop and mobile wallpapers. So if you're a RelayFM member, check links to emails. With emails we sent you, it has all the links in there

where you can go and grab these. If you're a new member, you get them when you sign up, a link to download them all. You can go and check those out. They're amazing. I use those. But for my lock screen, I use photos. I have a picture of me and it's near there now, like on my iPhone. On my iPads, I actually use the old Mac wallpapers that Stephen and Frank put together, which are hilarious and i love it like i i love using these old mac wallpapers like from tiger and uh i think i use tiger and snow leopard i think um because tiger tiger was my first like my first mac was running tiger so that means something to

me and i love the space ones that they used and and Snow Leopard's my favorite. So my iPads use those because I think that's kind of funny. But for my iPhones, I use either the RelayFM member stuff and personal pictures. Chris asks, I'm thinking of buying an Apple Watch as a gift for a non-techie family member. So Chris's instinct would be to get the Series 3, but but he says i'm not sure that they would care about it the family member so with cellular and gps aside what other gains do you get with the series three that are not in the series one um it's speed waterproofing swimming related and um speak siri um speaking out loud so there's a whole bunch of things now it was a little bit different when it was between series one and series two where it was really just the swimming stuff the waterproof stuff but with series three um it is

the uh it is also it's a lot faster i think i think they have the same screen but it also a lot faster. I think they have the same screen, but it's a lot faster, and Siri is able to speak out loud, which is nice. Yeah. I think that the swimming is great, and the speed is great. That's what I would underscore those features.

If that person's a swimmer, it's perfect for them, because it's the only one that like is officially supported uh to swim in and it has like swimming sensors in it for when you exercise which is fantastic and i think the overall speed the overall speed turned the apple watch into really a watch computer for me like a wrist computer like it has gotten so much better and it continues to get better and better so they would be the reasons um if they're a non-techie family member they probably might not even care about the speed i don't know and i don't know if they care about series so it might be worth getting a series one

but if that seems like either of those features speak to that person then great and or if you want a red uh want to read the watchdog if you want lt i don't know but yeah that's you end up going to pretty expensive at that point. Yeah. Todd asked, Jason, what blog creation software do you use? Do you use something like Bloggo or MarsEdit or some kind of built-in CMS editor? The short version is I generally write in a text editor and then use the browser to post things to Six Colors or actually for my mac world column for the mac world cms i don't write and never write in the cms first off i think most people know that never write in the cms i have used mars edit in the past and i've just been trying it out

again recently um one of my challenges with mars edit is that we have a whole bunch of custom things in the six color CMS that it sort of works and sort of doesn't. But the last time I used it, it actually worked pretty well. So I think maybe some, that Daniel Jalkut who does MarsEdit fixed those things. MarsEdit fixed those things. And so I'm using it more. Dan Morin, I think, uses MarsEdit for all of his six-color stuff that he writes for our CMS. So yeah, but mostly I just write in a text editor.

And then I will take- Which is BBEdit for you, right, mostly? BBEdit, and it's editorial now for the most part on iOS, although it goes back and forth. Yeah, and if I can paste in Markdown, cause I write in Markdown, I do that for Mac world. I converted to HTML using the Markdown script and then paste that in. But I write in Markdown in the text editor generally, and then just paste in the CMS. So our next question comes from Ian and Ian says, I recently bought my wife an iPad pro for her birthday. What apps do you recommend for serious research-based writing?

She is working on her doctoral thesis. I don't have a lot of experience with this, although this was a Twitter thread that happened. And so I think Ian has gotten some answers on Twitter. What I told Ian, and I think has been backed up, is the two long form iOS apps that I've heard people using a lot are Scrivener and Ulysses. So I recommend them. There may be others,

but I think it's worth looking at Scrivener and Ulysses because I've heard of people who've done doctoral dissertations on both of those apps. So they've got lots of extra stuff for research purposes. So it's worth checking them both out. Yeah, if you're doing the writing and the researching in one place, I believe that they're the best from like people that I know that do similar types of stuff. Federico, basically. And Justin asked, on my watch,

when I finish in the pool or the shower and press the eject water, does the tone that plays do anything or is it just for show? So it is doing something. So yeah, what happens is the Apple Watch is like perfectly sealed except for the speaker.

And there's a little chamber that sits inside of the speaker, which can fill up with water. And what that tone is doing is spitting the sits inside of the speaker which can fill up with water and what that tone is doing is spitting the water out of the speaker chamber so therefore keeping things nice and dry inside of your watch and i've seen it yeah a tone is vibration right a tone is a vibration of the membrane of the speaker and in this case the tone is vibrating the speaker so that the water gets shot out.

So we almost did this last week. And the way John Syracuse put it is something like, yeah, that's what it does. It does what it does. The tone is the ejection of the water. They go together. That's where it goes, just like that. That's exactly. Well done.

If you're interested in knowing the sound, I hear it a lot. So that's what it goes just like that that's exactly well done you know and the sound uh i hear it a lot so that's what it does um and i think it's funny and it's it's funny to see the water spitting out of it which doesn't happen every time but every now and then you'll see it so watch for it and you'll see it happen um there you go so that is ask upgrade hashtag ask upgrade if you want any questions for us to answer at the end of the show, you just tweet them out with the hashtag AskUpgrade, and they will go into our list. There is lots of very important information in the show notes today. You can find them in your app of choice or relay.fm slash upgrade slash 169.

That includes the fourth annual Upgrade is Voting form and links to our merchandise, which is available until the end of this week. I will be reminding you about the Upgradies voting form next week, so don't worry. But you should go fill it out because you don't have a ton of time, just a couple of weeks to get that sorted and get your entries in for the Upgradies. I want to thank our sponsors for this week's episode, Balance Open, TextExplaner from Smile, and Encapsular for supporting the show. And and of course thank you for listening as always you can find jason online at sixcolors.com and he is on twitter at jay snell i am at i mike i m y k

e and we'll be back next time until then say goodbye jason snell the upgrade program was presented by jason snell and mike hurley executive producers for real afm were mike hurley and steven hackett our artwork was created by frank forgotten towel our theme music is by christopher breen Thank you.