Upgrade - 171: Really Weird Chess Game

Episode Date: December 11, 2017

What do Amazon's battles with Google and Apple say about the strategies of the tech giants? Also, Jony Ive returns to the White Room, and a meeting with the hosts of Jason and Myke's favorite podcasts brings some perspective regarding the connection between podcasters and their listeners.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 171 today's show is brought to you by ero squarespace and simple contacts my name is mike hurley i am joined by jason snell hi jason snell hi mike hurley you're not in your usual location, are you? You are somewhere else. I'm in Seattle right now, Jason, and we're going to talk about that in a moment, but we need to start today's episode with our hashtag Snell Talk question. We do. Today's question comes from Dan, and Dan wants to know. So is Dan Morin? No, this is a different, well, it's a secret. Oh, okay. It's Dan, last name we've held. Okay, good. If you had a magic wand and could give the iPhone any feature, what feature would that be? Oh, my God.

This is such a great question. There's like a whole... It's a big one. I could write... Dan, last name withheld. I could write a whole article about this, and I might, because this is such a great premise. Thanks, Dan. This is such a great premise this is such a great premise

um i so just off the top of my head because i did not prepare for snell talk in advance because that would be contrary to the rules of snell talk cheating oh man i'm tempted to say so the things i'm not going to pick because this is how you do this when you do this is you talk about the things you're not going to choose and then you choose so you can talk about more things um i thought about uh foldable so i could just like fold it over and stick in my pocket i thought about um glare free so like literally any angle outside in the sun you can read clearly like a kindle basically yep yep but i'm gonna go with unbreakable that was on my list. Unbreakable was on my list.

I think if there's any single thing that Apple or any other smartphone maker can do to make their phone better, if there was a single thing I could choose, I think I would choose if you drop it, it isn't a tragedy that costs hundreds of dollars to repair or replace. That's what I'd choose. That's what I choose that's what i choose unbreakable what about you well considering dan has given us a magic wand yes i want to break the laws of physics because it's magic right it's not like he said to me if he said oh johnny i've said you could have any feature right right then you know maybe maybe unbreakable they could achieve more easily than what I want, which is a true SLR quality camera. Oh, that's a great one.

That's a great one. It is just, not only is it just the most used camera, it is the very best camera in the world. There are no software features needed for portrait mode because the cameras can just do it and they can zoom incredibly. I may as well just have a 5d exactly like it's just all built in all lenses built in one camera and i i see what you mean about the magic wand because you would probably need if you didn't have a camera bump the size

of a car you would need uh time lord technology where it's bigger on the inside exactly and and i feel like that um there you know there were there were ways to consider unbreakable and i feel like they could get closer and closer to unbreakable over time and i i don't think that they will get as close to slr because it's just like you know you can keep making it better but slr cameras will keep getting better and it will keep like you know it's like kind of holding the iphone away at an arm's length would be my expectation uh yeah that's a great one. I would like to see both of these things.

One of them is more likely than the other. But you can see I'm already altering the premise for the column I write about this, where it'll be dream features that are realistic or something like that. Anyway, thanks to Dan, last name withheld, for presenting me with a column idea. Awesome. If you would like to submit a question to open a future episode and maybe spark a column to be written somewhere

under Jason Snell Media property, you can tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk and it will go into our document and we'll pick you for a later show, hopefully. So that's hashtag Snell Talk, any tweet, and we'll be able to get a question for the beginning of the show. Now, it's very important, Jason. This is very important. Yes, the upgrade is. talk any tweet and we'll be able to get a question for the beginning of the show now

it's very important jason this is very important yes the upgrade is that's the upgrade is fanfare it's of course it goes without saying the voting is closing on december 14th we have just a couple of days when you're listening to this possibly left. You may have already lost out. You may have missed it. We've been telling you for weeks, so you shouldn't miss, but the voting will close on the 14th of December. So my

advice to you would be to get your vote in by the 13th because I will be closing voting on the 14th. We will be using magic formulas and algorithms to determine who has been voted an Upgrady winner by the Upgradians, along with our input, which will be added an episode that will be released

on the most appropriate day,uary the first so you're going to be getting the 2017 upgradies at a point where it can there can be no more upgraded discussion right like it's it's the end 2017 has ended so there have been tons hundreds and hundreds of responses which i am very excited about make sure that you are one of those people and get your opinions in for the upgradies yeah it's very exciting and i'm i think that's going to be a fun it's always a fun one this is the fourth annual upgradies which is amazing because it's way better when that number before annual is higher than one yeah and um as you know i have a i have a thing about that and january 1st, perfect.

It's going to be good if you're traveling, if you're recovering from a hangover, if you're whatever your story, I predict the Upgradies will be the perfect solution for your long car ride, your long flight, or just to soothe that headache. So I introduced a new segment on the show last week uh podcasting tips and hoped that people would uh would want to hear about it and they do so we i got a lot of feedback from people that who were really interested in it um there are a couple that weren't and so what we're going to do is we're going to balance it like this is not going to be a thing that we do every week uh it's going to be something that we probably couple

up with ask upgrade because it fits quite nicely with that segment yeah so you can expect this to return in the near future um we have a couple of questions so my you know really just just send those in um with the with the hashtag ask upgrade it may be better for these ones specifically for the time being that you include me in the tweet um because then I'm more likely to be able to pick it out. So if you could just tweet at me, but use the hashtag AskUpgrade as well so it goes into both places. And I'm going to start collecting some of those up, and we'll answer them every now and then. But they will be, I expect, meatier than a regular AskUpgrade question. Yeah.

Because it's stuff that i really want to be able to pick out and go into detail on and i have some uh i'm also just building some topics of my own that i want to talk about um as opposed to just getting them from questions like things that i think are helpful and that has been incredibly underscored with where and why i'm in seattle right now um so i've been at an event called PodCon, which is the podcast equivalent of VidCon. It's created by one of the VidCon founders, Hank Green. And this event has been amazing.

It is and has been like a real mix of stuff from like a fan event, because it's been a bunch of live shows, to events for creators, which is stuff that I was more involved in. Like I did a panel about podcast networks. I moderated that panel and it was incredible. I had so much fun doing that. Roman Mars and Justin McElroy and Christy and Joseph from uh night veil and gabby dumb were on my panel like

a real mix of fantastic podcasters i did uh create a chat which was awesome where everybody just sat down and we spoke through some stuff and um it was amazing and i will say as well like they haven't asked me to do this uh but i do want to mention it you can actually buy uh for 30 the audio from all of the panels which i really recommend like and that's something that you can still buy it's called their remote attendance and they're going to be putting those out in a couple of weeks um so if if you are interested in this stuff this is something that i would recommend that you you go for because i'm going to be getting it because uh there were some panels i missed and yeah it was it was really awesome and so i've just been very aware uh over the last few days

of how many people want to start podcasting and i think it's amazing and i love seeing all the interest that people have in this stuff it's fantastic that's great i was going to ask you about podcon being is it about people who do podcasts or is it about people who listen to podcasts and your answer is it was it was both which makes sense i mean everyone which is how this is how vidcon is like vidcon is a fan event for like youtubers but also an event for aspiring youtubers to learn and and i really like that model um there's a really interesting crossover there so yeah i think it's i've been i've really enjoyed that um and i think that the mix is very good and i sincerely hope that they can continue to do this this is the first ever podcon and i really hope that it's something that they can do again because

it would become an unmissable event on my calendar yeah i'm i'm really intrigued by it there are reasons that we're about to get to why i didn't go i would have attended otherwise and there was definitely a whole contingent there from the incomparable i i saw a picture was that that was just like a huge number of incomparable people there um there was a photo that i saw that had like six incomparable people plus alex cox and doug beal in it um that was pretty awesome so i that was great i'm sorry that i couldn't be there because it's i love it when all those people i all those people i know were together in one place that's pretty awesome um but let's i wanted to talk for a minute about the flip side of this which is you and i both had experiences this weekend just completely coincidentally that i felt like really gave me a great alternate perspective

about what we do by seeing it from the other side and and i don't mean this in a uh aren't we great kind of way i mean it in a what is it like to be on both ends of a podcast? It was just a good perspective shift. And because I know that you met some podcasters whose work you love for the first time this weekend, right? And so did I. And so we got to both be podcast fans this weekend, which I think was it it certainly changed my perspective a little bit and got me thinking about it how about you did you uh who'd you meet well the the big one for me like there are a bunch of people at this event who i'm aware of through various things and like really respect but i got to meet the mackerel and their dad cl Clint um and of this year I have become a huge fan of their work like

that like from the adventure zone to Mbam Bambam and everything related and so my brother my brother and me for those who have not uh or not in the inside Mbam Bambinos um and I have just i've become a voracious consumer of their output like i've just been diving in and this is this is a very normal thing for people that come across the mackerel rays like they just start consuming at an alarming rate because they make a lot of stuff like the whole family make podcasts like that it is kind of amazing like there's so many properties that come from the mackerel clan yeah um and it has been really amazing for me to meet these people because i haven't had an experience like this in a very long time like my favorite podcasts were always technology podcasts right that's how it's been for so long.

And I have already met all of my favorite podcasters up to this point. So it's been a long time since I've had that experience, like of going to WWDC for the first time, that kind of thing. And so it has been kind of wonderful for me to be able to go through that again. I've enjoyed it a lot to have that experience of like, I love your work kind of thing, which I haven't been able to do for a while. So it was really nice. And that was my, that was my experience too. And that's really what struck me is it is a good reminder of on so many levels.

It's a good reminder of what it's like listening to a podcast and being the audience and being excited about the thing that you're listening to and the people and the connection that you feel with people you haven't met. I think that might be the most powerful thing for me is, you know, the power of this medium in terms of audio and getting to know people's personalities and the ins and outs of their life. And it's not a, you know, it's not a 700 word straight up article that you write every month, like I did at Macworld for years. It's this long conversation over many episodes, just upgrade alone, right? You and I've had this conversation over 171 episodes over three plus years. And you make connections and you know things about

people's lives and their personality quirks and all of these things. And that's the power of the medium. And so for me, I met also Maximum Fun Network podcasters, The Flophouse this weekend, because The Flophouse, which is my favorite podcast uh did their first live show in san francisco and i went i thought about flying to other cities to see them live and then they announced they were coming to san francisco and it was great event uh hung out beforehand uh with uh with uh the jesse friedman who does almanac brewing and we had him on the beer episode of the incomparable which people should if you like beer you should totally listen to it's got marco armand on it and and a bunch of other people um and we drink beer that's what that's what that episode's about and um and so we we visited with him a little bit and then we went over to the venue um it was santa con in san francisco so there were a

lot of drunk people wearing santa costumes on the street it was super weird but we get into the venue and i got to watch the flop house and you know and i'm just sitting there thinking i know these guys i love these guys like it was just this it was an amazing experience because it was not like seeing a musician you love or a uh a play with an actor you love or or watching a film it was it was the it was this kind of out-of-body experience of they you know i've never met these people but i know way more about them and their quirks and their personalities and all of this than anyone else who i don't know personally like they they are they are in this tier between people whose work i respect and people i i know personally they're like i feel like i know them personally because of that connection and i obviously i respect their work i love it um

it just is a weird place to be in and you know i had a great time afterward i had three people come up to me and say are you jason snell from The Incomparable? Which is like, okay, now the shoe is on the other foot a little bit, which is also a little bit strange, but wonderful. Very nice of them. And then I got to, you know, I met, I didn't get a chance to meet Stuart Wellington because he was, he was surrounded by his fans. And I noticed that Elliot Kalin was very, I mean, Dan McCoy, who I also talked to, who I think is great, who's kind of the ringmaster of that, then he has to keep the show going. And I really identify with him as a podcast host, that he has to try to keep things on the rails. So I love talking to him and his brother does a show on the Incomparable Network.

And I saw Elliot kind of edging for the stairs because he was like trying to get out of there very clearly, slowly, so he could talk to people. But also he wanted to eventually leave. And so I didn't get a chance to talk to stewart but i talked to to dan and elliot and it was again a little bit of an out-of-body experience i mean mitigated by twitter like one of the nice things about something like twitter is that i feel like you and i have interactions with the people who listen to our shows all the time on twitter and we get to know them we meet them at some events then and you're like oh it's you from twitter or slack or whatever um and and that was helpful in that when i met them i was like oh it's you from twitter or slack or whatever um and and that was helpful in that when i met them i was like oh uh you know your brother john does a podcast on my

network he's like oh and actually what they said oh i thought that was you like okay so that's that's kind of cool so it's like i i vaguely am aware of you your existence but still talking to these voices that have been in my ears for years now. It was just a great experience. I mean, it was a fun show, but it was also just kind of an amazing experience to process in terms of how much the people I know and love from podcasts, how much more they reside in my head than more kind of abstract people who's like whose work i respect but who are really removed from me in a way that podcasters aren't without a shadow of a doubt like and i guess it's it is worth just saying at this point just for saying it if you feel that way about us um we take that with the the most respect uh and pleasure wonder that you ever possibly could if if somebody feels about us like i feel about the the flop house guys i mean i i i mean

my first reaction would be like wow you shouldn't like us that much that's because i but that's the thing right it's so i have immense respect for it because i am feeling that and and it would be it would be incredibly flattering if somebody had even a fraction of the connection that i feel to those guys with us so yes that that was that was the great thing about the experience for me ultimately was not just that i got to see these guys and uh and meet them in person and all that that was great but it really it was kind of humbling in a way in terms of understanding the power of this medium and how important the connection is with the people who listen to your podcast, if you're a podcaster, and not to take it for granted and to understand how important that relationship is.

Even though it is weirdly asymmetrical it still exists and is a real thing yeah it is uh it's it is amazing and wonderful and great to still be a podcast fan as well as a podcaster i love that feeling like that we we can still be both and that makes me very happy yeah should we take a break yeah i think so all right today's show is brought to you in part by a new sponsor and that that is Simple Contacts. And let me tell you all about Simple Contacts. If you wear contact lenses, this message is direct for you. Simple Contacts is the easy way to renew your contact lens prescription online. You can complete their online self-guided vision test in less than five minutes, and you don't even have to leave the house.

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they're not their goal is not to be your your eye doctor their goal is to let you buy contacts with your existing prescription so i went through that and that checked out they have my brand of contact lens which has gotten a stigmatism correction it's it's fairly it took us like five tries with me and my eye doctor to get to the point where we got the right kind. And this was about 10 years ago where it was like the right exact right one. Cause I had lots of weird things with a particular like aperture size and it's just, I don't want to get into it, but it was a lot. So yeah, that was all, that was all pretty amazing. And I will say, you know,

when they say that this is not a replacement for your doctor, they're serious about that to the point where there are a lot of limitations um if you have uh eye problems and and the goal here is not to let you bypass your doctor you should see your doctor for care it's just to provide another way to to get uh contact lenses more conveniently yeah it's like it is a simple way for you to get something that you need right like it's not super easy otherwise to get hold of these things so that is why simple contacts exist yeah and it's the equivalent of of when we have an ad for a company that sells eyeglasses right it's the same idea that you you can buy this stuff from your doctor but you don't have to um and if you're on the same prescription and you're just renewing over and over again uh

this is a an easy way to get that stuff just delivered right to you as a listener of this show you can get 30 off your contact lenses just go to simplecontacts.com slash ahoy is a h o y and enter the code ahoy at checkout that is simplecontacts.com slash ahoy and ahoy for 30 off i picked that code very specifically ahoy contact lenses we thank simple contacts for their support of this show that was just one of those examples where upgrade could not work uh could not use upgrade with them they needed it for other stuff which is a thing that we run into a bunch so we have ahoy uh jason big companies are fighting again oh boy i will point people to um last week's episode of download which if you haven't heard it is the um the news show that i do here on relay where i get a couple of guests and we talk about

general tech news it's not yeah even the news across the entire industry which is more than we yeah we actually spent a lot of time last week on um the intel uh getting kind of kicked to the curb by microsoft for this new version of windows that's running on qualcomm processors so again outside the apple zone but i think really interesting stuff and we did spend some time talking about this which i think in that episode we we uh one of the guests referred to it as like a like babies fighting it's like they're the giants of the industry but they're they're like babies which is google and amazon it's funny um we'll talk in a little bit about amazon and apple's relationship and how that changed last week but google and amazon are uh at each other's throats and it

started with this idea of the amazon echo show it had had a YouTube app, and then it went away. And then Amazon seems to have brought it back as a web view. And now Google is saying that they're blocking the web view of YouTube videos on the Echo Show. But this last week, it got taken up a whole other level, which is Google basically saying, we're just going to take YouTube off of all of Amazon's devices starting January 1st. And going to the point i thought maybe the they'll say it was customer service but i would say it's also pettiness and trying to get um put pressure on amazon they pushed a notification i believe as far as i can tell i saw it um they pushed a notification to fire tv users saying as of january 1st you won't be able to watch youtube

on this fire tv anymore sorry oh boy jerks and also as well like why it was funny to me is that we get to the for the third time to mention uh that google has poured youtube support from the echo show again so that's gone yeah so that's gone now yeah like that's completely and that baffles me because it's a web view which means that there could be a um uh back and forth here where amazon starts to just pose the browser in the echo show as uh an ipad or something and uh what's google gonna do then um i don't know like there could be a back and forth there because i'm not sure it's illegal to supply your users with a web browser that can access youtube right i mean would would amazon be sued by google over allowing their

web browser to connect to the youtube.com i don't know so that's weird but so google actually released a statement um for this they gave to the verge and i just want to read this out um so this is from a spokesperson over at google given this lack of reciprocity oh my gosh what is wrong with me it's reciprocity it's because you're in america and we're in your brain we're rewriting the way you pronounce things given this lack of reciprocity we are no longer supporting youtube on the echo show on fire tv and they are referring to the fact that Amazon refuses to sell items like the Chromecast and Google Home on their store. So this is the way that Google is reacting to this.

They're upset that their stuff isn't sold on Amazon stores, so they are pulling what they can pull, which is to make all of their connected uh devices worse by pulling youtube from them like so this is this is kind of like a cold war i feel like it kind of has that feel to me where it's like everyone's just doing really random like not random but like really calculated things to try and upset other people but like not necessarily the companies so then like they upset the users so then the users rally against it's like this weird really weird chess game that everybody's playing and the thing is these big companies fight but their customers lose everybody's customers

lose right people will be mad at google and mad at amazon and i don't and it's like it's not you're not just upsetting amazon's customers like the ones that aren't your customers you're also upsetting the people that want to look at your video people who watch youtube are google's customers right yeah so they're they're they're they're spiting this is and this is infuriating right what what this is doing it reminds me of um when uh a cable company and a broadcaster in this happens in the united states every so often they fail to come to an agreement and what happens is their channels go away for a while and usually the cable company puts up a thing that says you should call the broadcaster because they they are bad and didn't

make a deal with us and it's their fault that this isn't there, when that's often not the case. And it's definitely, they're using, it's like two divorcing parents using their children as proxies in their fight and making the children miserable. That's two incredibly profitable businesses that have decided to harm their joint customers because they're not fully engaged in one side or the other. Like those kids, they have a mom and a dad. And seriously, Google is saying, if you're an Amazon customer and a Google customer, we will punish you until amazon relents and that's bad now i can see the argument here where somebody's gonna say but amazon does that too it's like yeah amazon totally does that too i'm not saying one of these companies is better than the other um i'm saying that that this is this is the giants of the tech industry fighting each other for leverage and not caring if their customers get

sideswiped in the fight and i love this kind of um closed-mindedness just like on the inability to see what they're doing that like there is this expectation from google where they're like oh people are going to get real mad at amazon and they're going to understand why this is such a problem like they're going to know why it's so bad that they don't sell chromecasts like no one cares i don't care i don't care if amazon sells chromecasts right like it's not a thing i'm going to get mad about like amazon like that's not a thing that users care about do i think it's crappy that amazon refuses to sell any devices that don't stream amazon's video channels i do i think that's crappy i think

they have the right to do it but i think it's crappy like super mad about it inside with google no and and also i hate the arrogance of it because the arrogance of this is google saying youtube is so important that if that if we remove it from devices we can destroy those devices or force them to come to the bargaining table because without youtube those devices are useless and you know youtube's important can i just say though like they might be kind of right about that but like i i totally get what you're saying they might be right although i'm skeptical youtube is important i'm not sure not having YouTube is going to destroy any individual device, right? It doesn't render them useless, but it makes them way less useful.

Like, they still have other uses, but I know, like, for me, and I think for many people, it's like, well, you've just taken away the biggest source of video for me. If you've got that box because you want to watch youtube then it's absolutely the case and can you imagine that i let's just throw that out there hey i love youtube i also am an amazon prime customer i bought an amazon fire tv yay now i can watch all my things and then up comes the pop-up saying oh yeah you can't anymore that thing you bought for 50 bucks from amazon you can't use it for youtube anymore buy something else love google yep it's not i mean again it is a fundamental disrespect for customers making the customer is a part of this and i get it i get why the

leverage is important i get why google wants a better deal with amazon and is using the popularity of youtube to get the biggest the best deal they I get it. And Amazon does this too. And Apple does this too. I get it. These are big companies. The problem is that it does show their fundamental disrespect for their customers. I can't really work out where this is going to go. Because, I mean, we're going to talk about Amazon and Apple in a moment. I mean, they clearly worked out their differences because you can buy apple tvs on amazon and there's now amazon prime on apple tv like that that's whatever it is that they did together is what google and amazon need to do together they need to come to an

agreement right well and they will right they will it's inevitable they will because google wants access to amazon's customers and amazon wants their customers to have access to youtube and google services. And they'll make a deal. They'll make a deal. It might take a while and it's going to hurt customers in the meantime for both companies,

but they'll find a way to work it out. Because in the end, it is in their both, it is in both companies' best interest to make a deal. This is all about where the line gets drawn and using leverage to determine where the line gets drawn. And this is, you know, we see this all the time. We see this in politics across the world, not just in one country. it's when the people in positions of power fighting over details don't care at the fallout on everyone else about their fight over the details and that's what you're seeing here which is in the end amazon wants youtube on their devices google wants youtube on amazon's devices

because it wants to be everywhere this is all about getting one side to make concessions and where the lines get drawn it's a negotiation being played out in public and again you know i think i get why they're doing it but i think it shows a fundamental disrespect for their customers and that we'd be better off keeping these negotiations in the background and not do you know and not doing this we're pulling our app kind of nonsense because it's it's silly and in that way the amazon apple negotiation is kind of better in that it happened mostly behind the scenes there was not a lot of kind of like pulling you know putting features in and then pulling them back out um which is i think the

biggest problem yeah like the kindle app didn't get removed right right from the app store i mean the the worst thing that happened was the comiXology lost its store but comiXology lost its store when it was bought by amazon that wasn't the case where amazon granted that so i'm willing to give that a pass as like it's a side effect of comiXology being bought by Amazon but yeah comiXology and Kindle app didn't get pulled off of iOS because of this and and of course why because it would have hurt Amazon more than it would have hurt Apple so Amazon Prime is now on the Apple TV we were promised it before the end of the year and the end of the year is getting close

and all of a sudden it just a prime video it's like here it is there it is on amazon prime on the fourth generation apple tv the apple tv 4k and the third generation apple tv the the the thin black hockey puck uh which the one without apps the one without apps just you you it would just show up or you restart and it would just show up it was using their old you know channel for new video services that they that they would just can you know update every now and then uh and boom all of a sudden there's uh something else so that's there are a lot of them out there they were selling them you know are they they're not still are they still selling them if not then they were just selling them until like recently so it's good i think they had it as a cheap option i think yeah it may not be there anymore but it's uh yeah that's until recently it was definitely out there and so that was a surprise to me and i think that's great that it's not just on the the latest one because i just

assumed apple would never bother um putting it back on the previous generation but they did so i expect that this was uh just in time for grand tour yeah i suspect that's a couple of days before and like you know the precedent of this like before grand tour season one um amazon opened like amazon prime video in a bunch of new countries that hadn't had it previously and even in some countries it's like it's just gonna be grand tour for a little bit and then's going to be more stuff coming later. Like they really wanted to make sure that people were seeing this because it is a huge show for them. Yeah.

And they obviously want to be able to put as many eyeballs on it as they can. By the way, the Apple TV third generation was being sold until last year, last fall, a year ago, 14 months ago that they stopped selling it. So it's relatively recently. Yeah, actually made me mad. I just finished watching an Amazon series the day before this happened. So I watched it all on the kind of crappy TV app that is in my 4K TV, which is where I was watching all the Amazon video.

And so we watched all 10 episodes of the marvelous mrs mazel which is a great show i recommend it highly to everybody and uh and then it showed up and i'm like oh man come on come on although one thing i've noticed about this app uh is that it is so in their notes on their website they said it does 5.1 audio and i checked and it doesn't it does 4k video but not 5.1 audio and I checked and it doesn't. It does 4K video, but not 5.1 audio. And they actually changed the notes to say 5.1 audio coming soon. So apparently that didn't make it, but it is going to make it, but it's not there yet.

They do have the infrastructure for it and it's on other devices and something apparently, you know, happened and they didn't get it in there right away. But it looks funny thing about it. There are a lot of criticism about the Amazon app and it on Apple TV, and it's not great. But it is to me, it's sort of in line with what all of these major video providers are doing, which is they want it to look like their service on all devices. they want those that service to look the same so netflix looks the same everywhere basically and including on the on my tv the app that comes on my tv which is you know not much of an app platform it but it's got a netflix button and if you press it you get netflix and it looks just like it looks on the apple tv and likewise amazon prime video i actually think it's better on the apple tv than it is on my tv

set because i'm the interface on my tv set is is really ridiculous like it um and reminds me of the the fire tv interface um but kind of really badly done where you've got like um press you can press the button to the right to go over to tiles that are right to the right of your selection but when you do it doesn't just move the selection over it like redraws the whole screen and now you're in a whole new interface so it's like well wait a second i just wanted to go to that box and uh and the amazon prime video app is like no i've got a sorry that's a to the right it's a whole new screen well what what is that then it's like well those are fake those are just there to show you what sorts of things are over there. But when you click,

you go to someplace else. It's like, I don't like that. And I don't think the Apple TV app quite does that, which is good. It's not great. I don't love the Amazon Prime Video interface in general, but I was a little surprised that people were bringing out the conspiracy theories about like, maybe this is just a web view and it's the worst video app I've ever seen on the Apple TV. And it's like, I don't know about that. Oh, my God. Have you ever actually used Apple's TV shows app? My God, that is the worst.

I've used the NBC Sports app, which has the most spectacular video control features of any apple tv app i've ever seen they threw away the entire like tap to go forward 10 seconds tap to go back instead it's this weird like if you if you swipe you get this strange um video uh the interface you've got to pause it in order to fast forward if it doesn't remember where you paused it it remembers where you dropped into playing again so if you start watching at 10 minutes and you get to 20 minutes and you need to move ahead to 25 minutes um when you press the button it goes to 10 minutes and you have to remember what the time code is you basically have to tap it to see the time code so you can remember that so that when you pause it in order to forward it what i'm saying is that's a really bad interface so if you think that the amazon tv interface on

apple tv is a bad interface you have not seen um the worst of it i think we can all agree that that these apps could do a better job and i think really you should keep to the standard video playback um you know ui conventions of the apple tv if you can but i don't know i've i found it bizarre that people were just uh do people not understand that all of these video services like the hulu app is a disaster but it's not a disaster because it's an app on the apple tv it's a disaster because hulu redesigned its interface and the new hulu interface is a disaster. And that's just because it's Hulu, and Netflix is Netflix, and Amazon is Amazon on all of these boxes, basically.

As close as they can get them on each platform. Of course they are as well, right? In all of these situations, the companies that have the most leverage are the apps. They are the service providers. Apple needs them more than they need the Apple TV right now. Amazon will just keep selling the Fire TV otherwise and keep building it into smart TVs. And also, they have the ability to just go in and make the apps the way that they want

and they have their consistent experience. And the thing is, I understand why people get mad because they want it to conform or whatever but like i was saying about the tv app right like it looks nice but it doesn't work very well like if i'm watching a tv show and i go into it like it doesn't remember where i was last time and i have to scroll like six seasons across to get to the episode that i want like they're all bad really in their own way they just all look different yeah i guess the i guess the future of tv is apps with inconsistent interfaces huh yeah that's what it is right like that turns out turns out that's what they should have said on stage like and i just think that it's like it is ugly but it but the

thing is like the thing of all of these is i don't care because i just need to get it done quick like i'm not scrolling these interfaces for 20 minutes like i would a twitter client like i'm just waiting into like very quickly getting in to watch the content i do that in the netflix app because they keep moving the list around and i can't find the freaking show i was just watching right because they want me to see everything else that's on there and that's one of the things that amazes me about netflix they must have metrics that show that it's functional for them but it's like why is my list and what i've been watching recently not always the first two things i see and the answer is because they want to show you all the other stuff that's on netflix so you can go oh i didn't know

that was on netflix and they're they're deliberately like hiding what you want to see in order to make you go search for it so i spend time in in the Netflix interface. Boy, do I scrolling around like, where is that? Where is that thing? I like literally was watching a show on Netflix. And the next day I came to the Netflix app and couldn't find it. And I was just watching it on Netflix because it didn't want me to find it. I had to scroll up and down and then I had to go side to side through a big list of tiles. Yeah, yeah. But that's the game. Again, look, infractions against customers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. And this too is an example where there are a few different ways to do this. And one way is, what do our customers want? And another one is, what do we want our customers to see and they're different sometimes

and it says a lot about a company how they prioritize column a versus column b like do we want to force them through hoops to find what they want because we need to expose them to all this stuff we spent millions of dollars developing or do you prioritize the viewing experience and say like like netflix that's the reason netflix isn't in the tv app right it's because netflix wants to make you look at their interface and see all the stuff that they've got in there they don't care that you've been watching one show and you want to hop right back into it they they specifically do not want that they don't want that to be uh put over in the tv app they want to force you to launch their app and look through all the stuff that's their strategy and it must

work for them and presumably they're measuring it but it does suggest again that they made a choice to make the lives of their customers more difficult i have a question for you i don't know the answer to this i don't know if you know the answer to this does um does this app have 4k like hdr stuff it has well i don't have an hdr tv but it definitely has 4k um excellent that's so good see because this is the thing right look i'll just suffer the interfaces i just want all of my services on one box and now i finally have it because my tv had a bunch of stuff but it didn't have my itunes content now i have everything and it's like whatever like just i i don't care like i i i just don't i don't care like i don't like the way any tv app apple tv app looks like the fact that this doesn't look like apple's one

like i just like whatever you know like they're all bad the um we should say the tv app just officially dropped in the uk last week right yes it showed up randomly on my devices at different times yes um it's fine i like the you know it's just i can't i've only looked at it on my iphone and my ipad right now i can't work out what it's supposed to be doing for me um because all it seems like it is is just the old videos app uh so good i guess like i haven't worked out yet what this app is supposed to do like what what what is it what is it supposed to be am i supposed to get live tv or something supposed to well that's one of the things that it is apparently capable of doing it's also supposed to aggregate together the shows you're

watching in different apps and this is why netflix not participating is annoying but like hulu works with it and um and amazon works with it now so theoretically if i go to the tv app i should see like um there's a new episode of runaways on hulu that you want to watch and you know you can pick up red oaks where you left off on amazon and you also have this show that you're watching on apple tv and that the idea is like an aggregate yeah the idea is it's supposed to bring all the shows from all the apps and all the providers together in one place so that you can just watch tv and pick and you can see again why netflix doesn't want that because netflix wants to control everything and show you

everything that they've got so they're not participating in that which is interesting that amazon is yeah and it's got stuff i mean i'm looking at it now and it's kind of interesting like it has shows on apps that i don't have right so like it recommends other shows to me from other tv providers and there are some uh uk terrestrial tv providers in these lists so yeah i have bbc itv and channel five like they're being shown to me so yeah i guess there's stuff right like i guess there's stuff oh they've got amazon's prime right there they're like advertising the grand tour right on the front page of it right i don't know what that what the difference between watch now and store is but they seem to be very similar is watch now supposed to be learning from

me it doesn't seem like it is i'll give it time it's supposed to be okay okay yeah i mean because it's recommending to me shows that i've never watched before and and children's tv we never watch children's tv because spoiler alert i don't have children um but i'm sure uh core ml will uh will make that better over time right isn't that what's supposed to happen yeah something like sure so i'm pleased to look at the end of the day i'm happy to have amazon prime on my apple tv now i'm pleased that they did it um i want to have that one box to rule them all and apple is now the closest for me well that's that's the thing about the Apple TV is assuming Apple TV remains with all of Apple stuff and all of these different service providers, including now Amazon and Netflix and Hulu and YouTube, right? You throw that in there and Apple has, because Apple only does its own stuff on its own box, Apple TV has more than anyone, than anyone which was never the case before um you know but that's only if you care about like itunes stuff until apple

comes out with its service maybe that changes things but um yeah it's it's i was i no longer have to resort to using the weird um amazon button on my tv and going through a like totally different uh process i have to change things on my on my receiver and change the inputs on my tv and all of this stuff in order to get the uh get it to pipe through from the app that's running on my 4k tv now i have a 4k box attached that will do netflix and amazon in 4k um and that's great the next stop by the way i just as an aside and this is an article that i already had the idea for it didn't need to come from a snell talk question which is i think one of the interesting questions out there is at what point do providers so the whole tv infrastructure is not designed for anything more

than hd at what point do content providers who have streaming services and are traditional TV providers like HBO, but also we could say like the BBC, I would assume that they're going to start making or are already making everything in 4K. At what point would you as HBO, let's say, make a 4K version of Game of Thrones available, even though you can never show it on traditional tv in 4k i think it's an interesting question like will somebody do that and say because netflix and amazon are already there so will will somebody say hell yeah the next season of game of thrones is going to come out in 4k hdr on hbo go and if you get it on cable you're just going to see 1080. That's all we have for you. But we're making it in 4K.

And that would be, we are perilously close to a scenario where even if you've got the linear TV channels for these things, you won't want them because the whole process, the whole procedure to get those channels to you was just rebuilt around 1080 and 720. And they're probably not going to rebuild it again for a while and so i don't know suddenly even hbo the we could be perilously close to the best way to watch hbo being hbo go if it isn't already like in terms of quality that's fascinating to me so i don't know i think we are extremely close to that point yeah so like for example uh blue planet it's a big documentary series um i think yesterday bbc added the 4k hdr version to

to iplayer the iplayer does bbc have the capability to broadcast in 4k hdr no right like traditional broadcast has not made any attempt to imagine it happening right i would be very surprised to see that happen without data connections being involved like it seems like it is an incredible amount of bandwidth like i think we're quite a long way away from that and honestly that any spectrum changes would probably be prioritized to mobile networks over tv networks now so i i don't see a world in which we have 4k for a very very long time especially when it's on the boxes and we're more likely to move to a television over internet service than we are over the airwaves i feel like that that's the future anyway so i see a likelihood where 4k over the air works is incredibly unlikely right and and the same if you're going through something like cable or satellite where they've got to completely direct tv here in the u.s try to 4k over the air works is incredibly unlikely right and and the same if you're going through

something like cable or satellite where they've got to completely direct tv here in the u.s try to 4k uh channel or two in and it didn't really go over they did espn i think in 4k they did a 3d version there is i think they do have a 4k channel but it's like super early because, again, you have to get like with the HD transition, you have to get every possible link in the chain to support the new formats. And I will say my local cable company still has SD channels and then duplicates them with HD channels starting with a thousand. So if I want to watch channel two, I have to watch channel a thousand and two. And this is how long since the hd transition was happening and yet it's still like it's still like a mess and we're we still are in the transition phase from hd to sd so yeah it seems unlikely to me that everybody's going to turn over to 4k and all the channels are going to

have 4k versions and all of that but there's going to be 4k content there's already 4k content so what happens and i think it's really interesting that you might end up with broadcasters um making their best quality stuff only available via streaming that'll be fun it sure will today's show is brought to you by aero never think about wi-fi again aero have created the dream wi-Fi setup, a fast, reliable connection throughout your house, even all the way to the backyard. And now is the best time to get on board of Eero as they've just released their new super slick second generation devices. Eero's tri-band second gen model, along with their Eero beacon, allow you to build a Wi-Fi system perfectly tailored to your home. The second-gen Eero includes that third 5 GHz radio, making it twice as fast as before. You can do more than ever, no matter

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when you go to Eero.com and use the promo code UPGRADE. That's E-E-R-O.com. Promo code UPGRADE for free overnight shipping. We thank Eero for their continued support of this show and RelayFM. Jason, Johnny Ives back. Did he ever leave? I guess he did. He kind of did. He got in his Bentley and drove off never to

be seen again but now he's back now he's back he was released from the white room he was wait a second was he or was he released back into the white room yeah he was kept out of the white room they were moving the white room that was the problem i see it was it was broken down and moved right so you may remember cast your mind back a couple of years, I think it was now, Johnny Ive got kind of promoted. Do you remember that? They created Chief Design Officer,

which is a brand new title at Apple. And they kind of promoted Alan Dye and Richard Howarth to run the design teams and they would report back into Johnny Ive they would be running the day-to-day I think there was split across software and hardware and that was how it was going to run and this led to many people wondering like what is what is Ives future what is he going to do like why is this happening are they making him feel more

important is he going more hands-off and I think it's clear now that what was happening was Johnny Ive was building a building. So he wanted to go build the building. And if you're building a building, you kind of have a lot of time taken away from you. And this even is, I think, completely confirmed by a report from Bloomberg, where Amy amy beset who is a spokesperson for apple said with the completion of apple park apple's design leaders and teams are again reporting directly to johnny ive who remains focused purely on design uh that is a i think uncharacteristically very clear statement right about what has occurred yeah that he stepped away to build apple park he is now back in control again the problem with apple secrecy is everybody's going to speculate

right they know that everybody knows that if you if you remain silent everybody's going to speculate and there'll be rumblings and there'll be rumors and all of that and i do wonder if this is part of the apple pr uh change that's happened under new leadership which is look let's just disclose exactly what we want to disclose but with details and stop the conspiracy theories and stop the rumors and just like say this is what's going on now we can still speculate about what they said, but like, isn't it better if you're Apple to say, hey, Johnny Ives is now back here. He was doing that.

Now he's doing this. These guys report to him. This is what his job is. And then we're done. Like, it's kind of refreshing. It is actually. I was really surprised to see it. I was like, oh, because I read the report

and I was waiting for like person familiar with the matter. no no it was just a spokesperson i was like oh oh all right then well that makes sense um i am surprised about this jason because i thought that he was going to retire interesting i thought that the campus was his like swan song like this was the last thing and then he was going to be done i don't know maybe he uh maybe he was like no no now i need to go back and get everything back in order it's all i mean okay i don't know johnny ive at all you've you've been in a room with him so that's nice i guess i've i guess technically i've been in a room with him too right sure but i haven't i haven't chatted with him i've been i've been within like you i've been within six feet of him that's our relationship with

johnny ive we know who he is we've seen his videos we know his reputation and we've been within six feet of him at one point um so you it's a wonderful club to be so basically we know everything about him is what i'm saying we we know his likes his loves his dislikes what everything means to him so my point is if you're a person who is incredibly talented and has had great success and has been knighted and has right obviously you're going to it would take a very special person in that in that position with all of that background to say you know my lieutenants have it i don't need to do this anymore i'm just going to go back to to England and have a good time and drive cars. Right. I feel like if you're somebody who's so driven that you've gotten to this point, I would think just

not knowing him, but knowing human nature, I would think it would still be kind of hard to walk away and not rejoin the fray. Right. That, that it's like, yes, he trusts his team. He trusts the guys that he put in charge of design in his absence. But, you know, does he not want, I mean, at some point, all these people, we've talked about this, all these people at Apple who are in senior roles have so much money that they don't need to be there anymore. They don't.

They could go away with their money and their Apple stock and retire. Right off into the sunset. Tim Cook could retire. Phil Schuller could retire. I mean, I don't know their personal finances, but it's like, come on, they've been there so long and Apple has done so well. Johnny Ive could retire.

So what keeps him motivated? And I guess that was what you thought, was maybe he's not motivated. And he went and did Apple Park, and then he would be like, you know, I don't need to do this anymore. But I would, I guess, argue the flip side here, which is obviously doing this motivates him and he wants to keep doing something. And maybe, I wonder actually, just armchair psychology here, maybe his time away made him miss it and realize

that that's what he wants to do with, you with his professional life so um i think it's good in that way because i do think he is he's a brilliant guy i think the statement that he remains focused purely on design is fascinating because it reads to me like they are trying to tamp down accusing everything that happens at apple on johnny i've having too much authority yeah i i also saw it as like trying to make people feel better if they've been unhappy with product direction yeah right well it's a two-headed um approach there too because it's it's both johnny has back everybody feel better it's all we're all we're back we're doing this it's going to be awesome and it's also it's all we're all we're back we're doing this it's going to be awesome and it's also remember he's just going to do design don't don't load all of the other things you're unhappy with on

johnny ive he's not gonna he's not gonna be in charge of that and i think left unsaid is was he he remains focused purely on design i don't know they made some statements earlier on that suggested maybe he was had a little more power than that or at least that was implied and this seems very much like no he is constrained all he does is design do not you know do not think that he is in charge of anything else but design which is i don't know it's interestingly phrased yeah but it i'm pleased to see it because i mean i am ultimately a fan of his work right like ultimately you know i can have problems with certain things etc etc but what i love about apple is their design and the person who's been in charge of product design for the entire time that i've cared is him

for 20 years yeah so you know there are things every now and then that i might not like but that is only because i love it all so much right and i think there are we hear criticism of apple's design stuff and often johnny ive gets blamed for it as being but but here's the thing i don't think people blame johnny ive for having a perspective and being an opinionated designer right i think everybody respects or almost everybody respects johnny ive as a designer and his design philosophy simplify everything right i i we can joke about like everything is monochrome and all those things but design goes through phases and design is uh you know about the time and design uh what's hot and design changes over time and you know colors will come back at some, uh, what's hot and design changes over time. And, you know,

colors will come back at some point that they were here for a while with the iPod. They'll come back again later, but right now everything's white and gray and darker gray. And that's, that's fine. I think the criticism is about Apple handing the keys to Johnny Ive and not having other opinionated people pushing back at him saying this design isn't practical this design doesn't work for our customers um this design hurts the usability of our products and so you know johnny coming back doesn't to me doesn't say it's yeah it's an incredibly talented guy who's going to be more engaged in making apple products i think that's a good thing i think the thing that hovers over all of this that has been hovering over on since they announced that he was taking such a prominent role in the

company including software design way back when is is there anybody at apple with the cred to push back on things johnny ive wants to do and say no we can't design it that way because of this issue. Because at least the conventional wisdom is that when Apple has had a design failure, it has been pushing design aesthetics over usability or over the needs of the customer. And that's not saying the designs aren't pretty. It's saying, you know, as the famous Steve Jobs line says, design is how it works. And I don't know if any of this is actually true inside apple i don't know but that's generally been the criticism from the outside of johnny ive has not been that he's bad at his job but that he hasn't had anybody to call him on things that

maybe he needs to be called on i don't know i would wonder at this point if diane howe will probably have that feeling now because they've run it right they were running't know i would wonder at this point if die and how will probably have that feeling now because they've run it right they were running it so i would expect that they probably have a feeling now that they can challenge him that would be my expectation but i don't know the guys right it's internal it's internal group dynamics and personalities now which is something that we basically can't observe short of knowing somebody inside the design group who says no no this is how this works it's fine or oh yeah you're right he's going to totally run roughshod over everybody else like short of somebody who works with these guys every day and they're not talking um because they've all been working together for

a couple of decades uh or a decade at least i mean there's very little turnover is my understanding in that group and it's a lot of people who have who've been working together for a very long time and of course it's apple and there's a code of silence and all those things but i don't know or it's another executive right i mean maybe there is somebody um who we know or who we don't know who like a phil schiller who with all the criticism of the mac stuff and the fact that they changed direction on the mac pro maybe part of that was that that he or somebody else who made that happen has more cred to push back on some of those decisions and maybe that maybe that's part of it we just don't know you know we can speculate all we like but in the end it's not knowable i think unless you're on the inside there and those people

aren't talking all we can do from the outside to speculate and hope that um but but i i will say i'm choosing to view johnny ive coming back and being fully engaged as a positive because i think he's brilliant and i hope the processes around him are such that his brilliance is in the service of products that are designed brilliantly and wonderfully serve their um the people who are buying them i completely agree with you i see this as good news. This feels like good news to me. Yeah.

All right, it's time for hashtag AskUpgrade. And this week, hashtag AskUpgrade is brought to you by our friends at Squarespace. Use the offer code upgrade at checkout and you will get 10%

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use apps or text messages for two-factor authentication? If you use apps, would you recommend one and describe a typical workflow? Now, I will say for me, Jason, to the horror of everyone in the world, I use text messages still for my two-factor. I know that there are apps that do this. I know that 1Password does it. I know that Authy does it. I like text messages, and I'll tell you why. does it i know that orthi does it i like text messages and i'll tell you why i travel a lot and i feel like i'm always going to receive a text message even if i don't have the ability

to get data the text message will come through so if i for example only have data on one device so let's say it's on my ipad or on a laptop and i need to get an authentication i am confident the text message will arrive so that's one of the reasons that i keep it all right i i i hear you um but i'm gonna counter you which is one um these apps run on all your devices so that's true so they're not limited to one and two the uh the time they're time-based codes so they don't need internet connectivity they just work well i didn't know that but then the other part is this feels like a real pain to switch over everything well that's that's the thing and also some of them don't do it and some of them won't let you even though it's a security

hole to do it by text messages some services will let you uh get an authenticator app but we'll still send you a text message which is kind of infuriating um i okay my answer this question is yes i do use apps i've turned text messages off for everything where i can um i have been using offi i am now using one password for most of it because offi is nice but one password has done a great job of integrating the workflow so like you get prompted at a website to enter your username and password and you go to one password uh through the share extension on ios and you say all right that's the that's the one autofill the username and password if it also also has an authentication code, it puts it on the clipboard. So you tap, it logs you in, and then asks for your code, and you just paste.

And you're done. One app for both. That's pretty great. And of course, it syncs and goes to all my devices. So all my devices have access to those authenticator codes. So that's what i'm uh that's what i'm doing now i still have one thing in offy that i need to move out because it is a pain to move that stuff around but um i think ultimately the app is the way to do it if you can um not all

services allow that and it's mostly mostly because of the um the security issue where if somebody can get access to your um your phone or pretend that they have your phone they can get your codes so i'll say hashtag mike was wrong about about his uh thinking on these things uh i would like to do it um maybe one day i will set it up it's just like i know this is crazy but i want someone to do it for me which is obviously not what should happen you know but like it just seems like such a pain but i'll look at it did this twitter support it yes but i believe twitter will always send you a text message regardless i think that's the one where i where i may have the ability to set up i i i need to check it's twitter still sending me text messages but i i have been planning on trying to set up the barcode authentication thing, too.

And I'm not sure. My cable company is the same way. They will let me do an authenticator code, but they're still going to send me a text message. It's infuriating. I'm going to say Novak asked iPhone 10 and Face ID question. Will Face ID on an iPhone 10 work with a user who is blind in one eye? Does it require two working eyes to do its magic thanks for the show so i'm gonna say yes unless you turn off attention detection right

because the attention detection is waiting for you to look at it if there is a problem with somebody's eye where they may not be able to to do that then you may not be able to use the attention detection so it depends on on your personal situation too because i think if you're if you're blind in one eye but that eye still can be detected as being you know when you point your when you point your face and your eyes at the screen if your blind eye is read as also being pointed at the screen i think it will work um so you could try it um but if not you just turn this varies wildly differently for different people even the same people in different circumstances right like i can imagine this being something that would be pretty tricky

but i i believe that this is one of the reasons that apple added attention detection for people in these situations so like for example if you only had one eye like what are you gonna do i'll say this mike i just unlocked my phone by uh looking at it with one eye closed and one eye open okay so maybe so basically like we don't know the ins and outs enough right because everybody's different yeah but there is an option that will work for you pretty much regardless when it comes to the way that your eyes are detected. Because you can set it up to basically just read what your face looks like. Because from what I can understand, there are two things going on.

It is detecting your face, then detecting your eyes. Like it's doing those two things independently, it would seem. So you just turn off one of them and it still detects your face, which will unlock it. so you just turn off one of them and it still detects your face, which will unlock it. But then you get into the whole situation that you could be sleeping and someone could point your phone. That's whatever. That's the other part of it. But if you're cool with that and if it will work for you, then great, you have an option. We have another Face ID question from Brent.

Does using Face ID on the iPhone and Touch ID on the iPad mess with your brain in any way? Jason? I have moments. I have moments where I try to flip up my iPad and I realize I need to use Touch ID or I'm asked to put my finger on the button in order to get the, you know, one password to unlock or something like that. And I'm like, all right, yeah, this is still like this. I think, honestly, the thing that messes with me most on my iPad

is not face ID, but the gesture to flip up to go to the home screen. That I find myself doing and being like, what just happened? So for me, that's the thing that confuses me the most. Literally the only thing for me is the placement of control center. That's the only one that I ever have any, like, have to sit and think for a second problems because i'm expecting to scroll down from the top we will save my rant about control center for another day but the more i use my iphone 10 the more i despise what they've

done to control center i had to move the camera app back to the bottom of my home screen because i have an unlocked phone and i want to take a picture and i'm like uh what do i do and i used to be able to flip up with my thumb tap the camera button and take a picture now it's like uh i guess i need to uh swipe down from the top what if i'm what if i'm holding something in the other hand it's like i can't i cannot one hand a picture from unlocked i can lock it again and then touch on the camera button. That's stupid. Anyway, I think it's really bad and they need to fix it.

And I'm really frustrated by that. I also wanted to put a shout out to Google Maps, which was updated for the iPhone 10 and is terrible because if you want to go back to the home screen, you have to flip open the info pane at the bottom of the screen and then flip. The first flip from the bottom does nothing. I don't have that problem. I have that problem. Okay.

I think it might just depend on how you flip it. Right? I don't think that's it. My thumb starts below the screen when I do it because I'm having no problem opening and closing it right now. I tried this yesterday and it was just infuriating while while navigating maybe it's just while navigating yeah maybe uh you know what it might be doing oh i know what's happening if you're in the navigation it's probably using the full screen entitlement um yes like it would for videos and games so you may need to flip twice in the same way that when

you're playing a game in the old uh the pre-iphone 10 and you wanted to hit control center you would have to do kind of two swipes up to get control center so they may be using it in full screen like the that's what it is so when you're navigating um you can't flip up from the bottom of the screen nor can you do use the multitasking control you have to you have to do it twice right okay yeah so they're using the full screen i disapprove which might not be the best thing okay no i can see that because that would be really annoying but i i see what you mean now because i was like i'm like i don't know what's happening i'm doing it but like i've just got the regular map view open um so if basically if you can't see the home indicator uh you either have to tap on the

screen to bring it up which doesn't always work or you have to do the double swipe thing yeah it's it's what in this case it's grayed out is what it is so it's it's there yeah but you don't get to use it you have to do the double the double which is frustrating i don't like it um i just want super quick back to the question that brent had um i think one of the reasons that I don't have too many problems with my iPhone and my iPad is I do in my brain treat them as separate devices, like in the same way that when I sit down at my Mac, I'm not trying to find the home button. Like I understand that a lot of people and I get it like a lot of people are struggling to with iOS 11 and the iPhone 10 of like trying to tell their devices apart again

like i've seen this from a lot of people like fraser's going through this cgb gray is going through this like fraser spears and gb gray they seem to be having problems with like ios 11 and the iphone 10 disrupting the way that they think about their ios devices but i don't have that problem and i think it's just because for whatever reason when i sit down with those devices i'm able to more mentally separate them um i don't know what makes me different i don't know brandon asked i was horrified to learn that my wife has 346 open safari tabs on her iphone 7 recipes and research things like that she texts herself links she texts herself links so she can close a tab she won't use use pinboard, but this is clearly impractical. Do you know people who do this? How can I help?

Brandon. I'm going to sit down, Brandon. Imagine, Brandon, that I have stood up and I've turned my chair around, right? And now I'm sitting back like in a Saved by the Bell manner. Brandon, just let your wife use her workflow the way that she wants. You don't have to change this. Like, Adina keeps thousands of emails in her inbox, and this boggles my mind. But this just, it's her system, and they're incredibly hard to break. If your wife, Brandon, wants to have 346 open Safari tabs on

her iPhone 7, it's probably okay. Like, I can't imagine that Safari is going to break. If it does, then she'll know, and she'll have to change change something don't try and teach her how to use pinboard right pinboard is like super particular to people and like even i can't get my head around completely how that app works let her have her system brandon that's that's what i say and now i've turned my chair back around all right i yeah i have nothing to say here too i i um i i agree with you um if i had a really quick like you can download this app and it just automatically bookmarks all the open tabs or something like that um i would tell you but i don't actually know how to do that and uh yeah i don't know i can't help i don't think that there is there is a good there is a better system for your wife than the one that she's probably already using because it

makes the most sense in her brain uh camel asked iCloud photo library or google photos are you paying for the extra cloud storage jason which one do you recommend which one are you using which one do you like the most i am using iCloud photo library i am paying for extra cloud storage um because i can share that storage with my family it means that they also can back up all their devices to that same pile of of cloud storage I like iCloud photo library because I use the photos app on my Mac and because it means that I can keep a copy of everything resident on my on my Mac and it syncs from my devices as they're taking pictures that all said if you don't care about those things so much iCloud photo library has a i mean google

photos has the advantage of being free um you may occasionally need to launch google photos on your iphone in order to get it to sync because of the way background syncing works um but i'm using iCloud photo library, partially because I wrote a book about photos, so I need to know and I need to use it. But it does have some advantages, and it sort of fits with the way that I've been doing photo organization for years,

whereas Google Photos is much more like just kind of like caster photos to the wind, and they're in the cloud now, and that's another way to go and it's super convenient and finally today ian asks a couple of people ask this actually um how do you make the hashtag ask upgrade spreadsheet that we refer to so this is a semi-podcasting tip but you can use this for a bunch of different uses um you can use ifttt or zapier for this, and I will include a link in the show notes to an IFTTT recipe, a recipe that the original hashtag ask upgrade sheet was built on. I'll put that in the show notes.

It's basically just either IFTTT or Zapier. They will watch for a specific hashtag to be used, and then every time they see it, you add the tweet to a spreadsheet. And the Zapier stuff is more powerful. You can pull more things out of it, but it is more complicated. And the IFTTT stuff, you can just enable it. You just say, this is a hashtag I want to look for. This is the spreadsheet I want it to go to. It builds the spreadsheet, puts all the columns in, saves everything in. It's so simple and I love it. it so there you go it's very simple to do there you go very easy if you would like to submit a question for us to answer at the end of the show you can just send a tweet with the hashtag ask upgrade and we will get to as many as we possibly

can and as we said earlier if you have something that you would like to talk for us to talk about the opening of the show that is hashtag snell talk for that one if you want to find jason online he's over at the incomparable.com and sixcolors.com where jason hosts many podcasts and writes many wonderful articles as well as his wonderful many shows here at relay fm we are always honored for jason to to grace us with his podcasting presence and you can catch him on liftoff and download and free agents as well as upgrade did i get them all uh for relay yeah yeah i mean yeah we're going for specific promotion for your relay fm thank you of course i mean what do you want it only makes sense jason is also on twitter he is at j snell jsn e double l i am at i mike i m y k e we'll be back next time please don't forget to get your upgradies votes in

you only have a couple of days left from when this episode goes out, so if you want your vote to matter, you've got to get it in there. If you want to vote for your favorite podcast or your favorite app for the prestigious Upgradee Awards, there's not long left to go. Our show notes this week are at relay.fm. Thanks again to Squarespace, Eero, and Simple Contacts for their support this week. Signing off from

Seattle, Washington, I'm Mike Hurley. Say goodbye, Jason. Have a good flight home, Mike.