Upgrade - 176: Final Cat Pro

Episode Date: January 16, 2018

What are Jason and Myke’s hopes and dreams for iOS, the iPhone, and the iPad in 2018? Also: Apple buys more TV shows, a podcast tip, and the visual-effects industry tests Jason.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 176 today's show is brought to you by squarespace anchor and sanebox my name is mike hurley and i am joined by mr jason snell hello jason snell hello mike hurley you know 175 i don't think we even made a big thing of it. That was a pretty good number last week, but we just blew on past it, I guess, onward to 200. 176 is even nicer because it's one more. Sure. This is the highest number we have ever done. That is quite a thing to remark upon. Our Snell Talk question, our hashtag Snell Talk question this week,

comes from a friend of the show, Mr. Todd Vaziri. And Todd asks, Jason, if you were restricted to only one Star Wars film for the rest of your life, which one would it be? And you can take into account theatrical and or special edition for this. So you have to pick a specific movie. And if there are different versions, you can pick within that version

if you would like to. Well, the good news is this is an easier answer than you would think because I'm a Star Trek fan. No, no. It's Star Wars, Jason. Star Wars.

I grew up in, you know, I was born in 1970. So I grew up in the seventies and it's impossible to be a six, seven, eight year old kid when Star Wars comes out and not be conversant in and a fan of Star Wars. Just it's, it was for those who are younger than me, it was impossible. Like for those who don't remember life without Star Wars being are younger than me, it was impossible. For those who don't remember life without Star Wars being around, trust me, there was that moment when you're a kid and Star Wars happens and that whole generation is just, I mean, Star Wars is written on my generation, essentially. But anyway, I would pick The Empire Strikes Back and I would pick the theatrical edition,

which is of course not available on home video unless the Harmey's despecialized edition falls off the back of a truck. And yeah, that one, the Empire Strikes Back for various reasons that we don't have to get into here. But, you know, short version is i like the original star wars and the empire strikes back kind of equally but there's more to the empire strikes back they you know it it it jumps straight into the story because we don't have to introduce all the characters um it it there's just it's more uh i don't know it's it's it's a more of a movie than the original

star wars is as much as I love the original Star Wars. So I would go with Empire Strikes Back. I don't know if I've ever shared this controversial opinion of mine on a podcast before, but I'm going to. The original Star Wars, A New Hope, I actually find in places to be quite boring compared to the other movies. Like, I watched the original one and I'm like, oh, this is very slow. I hear that. Well, I mean, I think there's truth to that. When I say that the, you know,

it has to establish everything, right? And so you've got a lot of parts that are, it's taking its time. Also, it's not a worldwide phenomenon yet, and there's only so much money they can spend and so you know there's like let's just have the robots walk in the desert for a while yeah and stuff like that and uh yeah so it's a different it's a different thing and i do i do love it for a lot of reasons also the other thing about star wars the original star wars um is that

it's um i mean pro or con is that it's a very mean, pro or con, is that it's a very simple film, if you think about the plot of it, to the point where, I was talking to my wife about this, like she would always have trouble remembering what happened in the original Star Wars. Yeah. Because you get the feeling like, okay, well,

so they meet up and blow up the Death Star, and what else happens in that movie? And the answer is, nope, that's it. That's all that happens in that movie? And the answer is, nope, that's it. That's all that happens in that movie. It ends and you're like, that's it? That's the end? It's like, yeah, that's it. That's all that happens in this one. And that can be seen as a positive or a negative. It's definitely not overstuffed. But despite my love of that one and the nostalgia about that one, Empire Strikes Back made when they no longer had to worry about justifying their budget,

and they could pack a lot more stuff in, and they had more ability to do special effects, and there's just so many reasons why. And I think the script is just really good. I think the dialogue is great. There's a lot in there. The fact that I can watch that now and notice things that I've never noticed before says a lot about that that film so i pick that one and maybe for the

first time ever uh i have a secondary snow talk question related to the first which comes from joe steel because joe asked in reply to todd's question jason how cruel is Todd's question? It's not so bad because I'm not John Syracuse. Or I'm not Dan Morin. Star Wars is not... I like Star Wars a lot, but I would never put Star Wars fandom at the top of my fandom list. And I'm pretty sure it's at the top of Dan's and John's fandom.

And as a result, I could get by watching only one Star wars film ever i would prefer not to but i could get by because there's a bunch of other stuff that i love too so that's that's it's not so bad so thank you so much to todd and joe for their hashtags no talk questions if you have a question visual effects industry for sending us questions if you uh are in the visual effects industry or not it's not important uh you can send in a question to open the show with the hashtag snell talk you've got me there jason snell i've got to get through this hashtag snell talk uh to get your question in for the beginning of the show and we move into follow-up last week we had a ask upgrade question asking why we did final cut pro and logic not offer uh free trials and we made

we had a discussion about it we spoke about the constraints of the app store etc etc we had pointed out to us by many people uh but somebody on Twitter via the name Ecclesiast was the first to point out that Apple does indeed very peculiarly offer a trial for Final Cut Pro, which is a direct download from Apple's website. You have to enter in a bunch of information. 30-day free trial. And you get a 30-day free trial. That's so old school apple like i can't believe i knew that they did this i i just kind of assumed that they didn't do it anymore because it's so unlike what apple's current policies are but obviously somebody's like look

there's no way we're gonna make a go of it with final cut if we can't offer a demo uh so let's let's offer a 30-day trial. So Final Cut has one. Logic doesn't, but Final Cut does. Final Cut does. I like Final Cat. Final Cat. Who is the Final Cat? I don't know, but he's a pro.

Wait, what was the last cat name? What was the last cat name of OS X? That's the Final Cat. That's Final Cat Pro. Is Mountain Lion? Mountain Lion? Yeah, I think that was it. So yeah, you can get it. I'm concerned now

that there are people inside of Apple that don't notice exists and then next week this page mysteriously disappears because we've mentioned it. Oh no. Can you imagine? You saw nothing. We were never here. You you saw nothing I would say instead hey those people who are listening

Logic Pro trial please there was also Matthew pointed out this is a really good piece of follow up as well that you can actually get Logic and Final Cut for $200 of part of Apple's education bundle

which you buy this on Apple's website, and then they send you a bunch of codes that you redeem on the Mac App Store, and it includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Motion 5, Compressor 4, and Main Stage 3. So that's for $200. I'm sure that you're supposed to be in education, but it doesn't look like they have any way

that you need to prove it um but if you know so go go at it two hundred dollars you get all of it um maybe you do have to prove at some point but then if you are in education this is a great are you in education do you have a student in your house have you been educated before would you like to learn something that is related to these applications so yeah you can you can go and you can get that and uh two hundred dollars is a fantastic deal for those applications so if that is a thing that you can do then great you should go for it because that's worth it so uh we have this is one of those follow-up things that we have heard from a bunch this week and thank you to everybody uh who took the time to write in to let us know. You can stop

telling us now. We also spoke about our Snell Talk question last week as I asked you if you used the dark mode in inverted commas on macOS. You said no because there was no dark mode. It's just a menu bar. So

Jordan sent in to us a link to a Medium post from a friend of the show, Gilliam Rambo, who is at underscore inside on Twitter. He's a really excellent person to follow on Twitter. If you don't, you should because they, like Steve Troughton-Smith, find a bunch of just fascinating things from digging inside of code on iOS and macOS. And one of the things that Rambo found was a code and mention and UI elements

for entire dark themes for basically every piece of Apple Chrome inside of macOS. It is also possible to enable this, but I would probably suggest that you don't, but it's possible to do. So I think that this shows that this either is or was being worked on.

Yeah, I think was is probably the case. I think this goes back to like El Capitan, at least. I remember when this came out, the idea was that we thought we were going to get a dark mode. Instead, it was the dark menu bar. It turned out there were bits of dark mode in the system, but it wasn't ever put through and never touched upon later.

So that was the source of some of my grumpiness last week about the fact that there isn't a dark mode is that we know that the work was done, but what we got was a dark doc and menu bar. And like I said, I don't think that's enough. You know, my example was like you open a Safari favorites list and it, you know, for a new page and it's just a white screen and maybe in dark mode,

that would be a black screen with white text, but no, it's not. So yeah, it's, it's, it's there. maybe they'll revisit this sometime although i i feel like not very optimistic about it given the fact that that they went pretty far down that path and then decided not to ship it so uh we now have more media news to talk about so before we do i want to take a slight sidebar um since i have started to want to include this into this show because i think it's important um and i know

that i don't hear this type of discussion on any other apple show that i listen to but i think we both agree that this is clearly an important thing for Apple, so therefore warrants discussion on this show. Since we had decided to start doing this, basically every week or every two weeks, there has been some news or some description. So I think that this now warrants its own segment name, but I can't think of one. So Upgradians, tweet to me and give me suggestions for what we can call this media segment.

And I have a couple of rules here i don't want alliteration so i don't want mike's media something that's that's not like if you look the the typically our segment names uh we're already in the chat room we have alliteration with my name uh mike's media menagerie as kate suggested. So that's the first and last time you're going to hear that. Kate, it's a great suggestion. I just don't want it. Because as you may notice, our segment names, which we do have, they tend to be hashtags or they tend to be just one words. That's kind of what I like for this stuff.

You can see it in the naming of basically every show that I'm on. I like things to be nice and concise. So if you have any suggestions please send them to me i'm at i mike i m y k e on twitter so apple have signed yet more television shows of course of course they have gotta spend that gotta spend that billion dollars and boy are they so we have a few here today. So I'm going to go through these as quick as I can. Apple has signed a straight-to-TV offer for a project by Stephen Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders, and Francis Lawrence,

who is the director of some Hunger Games movies. This project is called CSEE and is described as, this is from Deadline, an epic world-building drama set in the future. This isn't the only future thing they've got, right? We were talking about a science fiction thing. It's not. The Ron Moore Project is a science fiction project, too, yeah. This is also direct-to-series because Apple is not interested in seeing your pilots.

They don't want them. Because they don't have enough time to launch whatever this service is going to be with the pilot development process so they're they're taking the the scripts and the pitch and they're going straight to series eight episodes make the eight episodes you know because that's the other way tv development happens is they approve the script they give you money to shoot a sample episode called a pilot and then they look at the pilot and they maybe test it with audiences or or the you know the executives look at it and then they say yes or no apple's just like here's here's your money eight episodes go just make it good that's all we ask please just make

it good so like you know i think it's it's clear that they are working with people that have creds right which is why they're is why they're picking specifically because they're taking gambles on these. This will likely be eight episodes with a one season order. This is now the fourth scripted show that Apple has ordered. We missed one over the holiday break.

Oh yeah. Okay, so there's Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon's morning show drama. There is Ron Moore's alternate space race story where the space race continued past the 60s and 70s. There's C, the world-building drama set in the future, whatever that means. That's like saying plot-filled story,

world-building drama, but okay. And then what's the fourth? Well, there is the Steven Spielberg thing as well. Oh, there's Amazing Stories. That's also scripted. So that's four. That's like a reboot. I think, I don't know if Deadline is counting that separately.

It's an anthology series. Okay, so what else are we missing? It is called Are You Sleeping? It stars Oscar winner Octavia Spencer and has come from Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine production company. You may remember this because the morning show drama also came from Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine production company,

and she's starring in it. So I thought that was really interesting, that obviously there is a good relationship here, because Apple have ordered two of the shows that her company is working on. Deadline describes Are You Sleeping? as a unique glimpse into america's obsession with true crime true crime podcasts and challenges its viewers to consider the consequences when the pursuit of justice is placed on a public stage and even more

interestingly sarah kernig the creator of serial is consulting on the series yeah it's uh like sort of serial the television series but sort of like the making of a podcast like i like this premise like the idea of like we all seem to like these true crimey type things but what happens when you put justice to the masses that's kind of the way that i'm looking at this and i kind of like this like if you look at what was happening during like season one of serial it seemed to get a little bit wild for some time right uh and yeah so i'm i'm keen i'm kind of keen to see how that plays out i'm definitely more interested in this show than in the sitcom about alex from gimlet starring zach braff yeah that doesn't that just doesn't look good right like i would be interested in it in the same way that i was interested in startup like i liked startup

the original season um but the show just doesn't look like a very high quality comedy show um so they so yeah that they're the ones that we missed oh but then there is also uh a documentary series called home it is a 10 episode documentary series that takes viewers inside the world's most extraordinary homes and unveil unveils the boundary pushing imagination of the visionaries who dared to dream and build them. I don't really have any opinion on that, but it is a documentary series. That doesn't really seem to push my buttons very much, but that stuff exists, you know, like these homie-type shows.

One of the things that they need to explore is other kinds of content, right? That is not scripted. And they've hired people who have history in scripted, but I think they've also hired some people who have a history and unscripted. And they want to, you know, you don't want, if you're Apple, you want to go out with this. You don't want everything to be a sci-fi show. You don't want everything to be the Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston show. You want a kind of a variety so you can appeal to a bunch of different people.

And this is interesting because it's a docu-series. And this is interesting because it's a docu-series. So it's reality in a way, but it's really an unscripted, you know, it's unscripted in that big thing. It's not like a reality competition show or something like that, like Planet of the Apps was. It is a different kind of thing. But they'll probably do more of that, too, because they want to have a pretty broad set of offerings for whatever they launch. And eventually movies as well, right there will be a there will be an offering i i would imagine that that will come next but it would not surprise me so just as i said last year that you will you will see

announcements of names you recognize actors and also creators signing with apple and we tim goodman and i talked about this a lot on the TV Talk Machine podcast every week. You will, at some point at a film festival, you will see Apple make a deal to buy distribution rights for a film. Like Netflix does, like Amazon does. You will see that. That's going to happen. I'm not sure that will happen for a while. It might.

But my guess is that they're going to focus on series development for now. But I mean, movies is part of it and there are prestige reasons for that. And they're also just sort of like filling out the, you know, filling out the content catalog of whatever this service is going to be. So it'll probably happen at some point. So that's the end of our Unnamed media segment for this episode. Please send in your suggestions. I would like to hear them. All right. Today's show is brought to you by a new sponsor, and that is Anchor. Anchor is absolutely the fastest and easiest way for anybody

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and that is to go to my page. It's anchor.fm.com. You'll find out more about what Anchor is and what you can do with it, and follow me as well, because I am doing a persistent audio AMA with you, with the listeners of this show. So sign up for Anchor, go to my page.

You can call into my station and leave me a message. I'll play back the best questions and give my answers. So go to anchor.fm, that's A-N-C-H-O-R.F-M slash Mike Hurley to check it out and leave me an AMA question. Our thanks to Anchor for their support of this show. All right, so it is January and January means wishlist time.

So we are going to do an iOS ecosystem wishlist, including hardware and software. So- It's dream time. Dream time, everybody. It's and software. So... It's dream time. Dream time, everybody. It's dream time. So we're going to break this down into hardware and then into talking about iOS 12. And this was, like many things on the show, so prompted from an article that you wrote

over at Macworld. So let's break this down. Let's start with the iPhone. So what do we want from the iPhone? More iPhones? Is that what we want, Jason? Do we want bigger iPhones? Do we the iPhone. So what do we want from the iPhone? More iPhones? Is that what we want, Jason? Do we want bigger iPhones? Do we want smaller iPhones? What do we want? Well, I, yes. On my list, I put in, I think the next step logically is to do an iPhone 10 plus if they can manage to get a bigger OLED screen because I think people have shown boundless enthusiasm

for larger phones. And even though I've never been one of those people who's like, oh, give me that really big phone. I never really liked the iPhone Plus line. I know people do. And although the 10 is bigger, the 10 is a satisfying size for somebody like me. So logically it would mean that if I'm a small phone person

or at least a not big phone person, and I like the iPhone 10, that probably means there's room for a larger model that other people will like that, perhaps even you. So I feel like on that side, there should probably be. And I want to see the iPhone SE get an update because it's been a couple of years and I think it's time, but those, those are sort of like the edges of iPhone hardware, where I think that we could see some progression. Um, and, and otherwise with the iPhone eight, I think it's a real question of like, will there be an iPhone eight S or maybe just an iPhone nine that sort of like is the last of the classic iPhone? Probably, maybe. Maybe that's the one that's been rumored that's got no OLED screen,

but does have Face ID and doesn't have a button anymore for Touch ID or something like that. I don't know. Or whether it's simply a faster version of the 8 and doesn't add all those fancy sensors and stuff like that. But that's not on my wishlist.

I'm just kind of curious about that. I think an SE revision, because there are people who like the small phone, it is popular and it's great at holding down the kind of lower end of the iPhone price list. It's a good product to have. And it's like the Mac mini, it is one of these things that's like,

it's good to have it around, I think. Even though it's never gonna be everybody's favorite, it's good to have it around, I think, even though it's never going to be everybody's favorite. It's going to have a group of people who like it. It's never going to be your number one seller, but it's good to have it there. But I'm curious, are you intrigued by the idea of an iPhone X Plus? If it has the same features as the iPhone X regular size, yes. Sure. I mean, maybe it'll have like three cameras on the back Mike I

don't know it's good anything can happen with a plus model so a couple of weeks ago on connected we did our like predictions for the year and one of my predictions is that there will be a plus size phone iPhone 10 phone but it won't have an oled and oh interesting that would be a a real kind of sticking point for me like i i don't know how i would feel about that because i really like the oled screen like the oled of the screen is one of my favorite things about the phone because i love all of the apps that i use that use these true dark like true black themes i think it's wonderful and if they had an lcd the reason i think this by the way is that um i think one of one of the the problems for supply and release of the phone was uh oled screens and you know we've

seen uh the troubles that google had right with their oled screens. Yeah, but boy, I just, I have a hard time seeing, I feel like the OLED screen is part of what makes the iPhone X the iPhone X. I guess you could argue retroactively, if you're Apple, you could argue, well, no, it's really the no button and the screen reaches to the edges of the, you know, and all of that. Although my understanding is some of that has to do with the nature of the OLED screen that it can kind of be folded down at the edges so i just have a hard time seeing something they called an iphone 10 plus that didn't have the oled screen yeah and then my my kind of the secondary part of that is me thinking like if it is this hard then there just won't be one this year again i always thought that like from when the phone first came out i was like i do not imagine

them having a plus size one one one year later. Like I was, it'd be two years later. But if, if a plus sized iPhone 10 with an OLED screen came out, I would 100% move to it for the reason that I had a plus phone in the first place. I like the biggest screen that I can have. Like,

I think it would be wonderful. So here's, here's, I actually have something from this weekend where I was, when I say I don't want a larger iPhone, I think it has a lot to do with me. And it's probably some ergonomic things like the size of my hands, the way I hold the phone and all that, and I could probably adapt. But it definitely has a lot to do with how I use my phone.

And I had this... So over the weekend, were in, in Southern California visiting family. And I had, at one point we were at a, uh, we were at like a, uh, food hall with a bar and we're sitting there with the, you know, a bunch of people from the family and some friends and we're drinking beer and talking. And I get a note saying that one of the podcasts that got posted on the incomparable was showing as what 503 which is basically forbidden i don't know why this happened i still don't know why but the permissions were wrong on that file and the only way for me to fix the permissions on that file were me or to ssh into the unix server and go to the directory and do a pseudo chmod, you know, plus R to the file,

like all this Unix-y stuff, right? Oh my God. And the funny thing is you can do that on an iPhone. And I did it. I have prompt, uh, the prompt app from panic, I want to say. um it was i i totally did it and i showed it to lauren and i i said look what i just did she's like oh that's terrifying i said it is terrifying but i did it um that was that moment where i thought you know what if i'm out and about all the time and which i'm not and i'm in situations like that, let me tell you, I'd rather have a bigger phone. Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm saying is I understand the appeal of the bigger phone, because if I found myself in those situations all the time where I'm out somewhere and have to do something that really would benefit from a larger screen, I get it then. I would get it

then. I just don't find myself in that situation very often yeah i mean that was my original reason right is that i was trying to like run a business whilst i had a job and like the reason why i did that was on my iphone um and whilst i don't need to do that anymore like i work at home i then got used to a bigger screen phone right so i love all of the other things that come with that so yes i would love one but i do want to ask from you though what does an iphone se2 look like like what does it have i think it's just the internals of like an iphone 7 or an iphone 8 um looking like the iphone 5 like it still does like the iphone that design um I would, I would imagine it doesn't have wireless charging or anything like that. I would imagine they will upgrade the cameras to a more recent iPhone

standard. Again, maybe the iPhone eight cameras, maybe the iPhone eight processor or the iPhone seven processor, you know, so faster and, you know, maybe more memory and, you know, different storage options. But I think the way I envision it is they're just going to keep it looking the way it does. They're not going to invest in a new industrial design. People like that design. It has been successful as that. And just upgrade the internals

so they can continue to sell it without having to support the old processor for two more years, right? I think that's one of the number one reasons you do it is you bring it up to state of the art-ish because you know people are going to have that phone for three or four years and you're going to want to roll out iOS updates to them.

And the current SE is already two years old and it's really two and a half years old if you look at the processor that's in it. So that's my thought is nothing particularly out of the ordinary, just sort of like use the state-of-the-art parts that they use for the cameras and that they use for the processor

and just continue to sell it as a new iPhone SE at the bottom of the price list. But like if this phone, the SE is considered to be important enough to be in the lineup, is it always going to look like this? to be important enough to be in the lineup. Is it always going to look like this?

You know, maybe not, but I feel like that design is fine. Like, honestly, I feel like it's fine. It doesn't look like other iPhones. I'm not sure it needs to look like other iPhones. It's small. It's the small, chunky, you know, iPhone and, and the people who like it continue to like it. So, um, this goes, this is similar to our conversations about the Mac where I say, uh, I'm not sure, or the Mac mini or the, or the Mac pro

where it's one of those questions of like, how motivated is Apple to invest in this product? Because updating the internals is one level of investment. Redesigning the case is another level of investment. And I'm not sure the SE needs a case redesign and it would cost Apple to do it. So maybe they just stick with this. At some point, it's possible that that design will be impossible to continue to make, but I'm not sure when that is other than for style reasons.

And maybe for style reasons, they're just never concerned about it because it's fine. It is what it is. It looks like that. It is the, you know, the SE iPhone look. So they don't ever have to change it quite honestly. And if they do, that'll be a big moment because they will have to invest in making those decisions. My gut feeling is that we're not anywhere near there now, that somebody at Apple would say, no, no, we need a complete redesign of the SE when we release a new version of it.

Because, I mean, they already released the SE and it's just the iPhone 5 design. So they've already passed on that once i i don't see why they wouldn't just keep doing what they're doing in regards to the iphone 10 um the only hardware improvements that i can think of would maybe be to making face id better um if that would even be hardware you know i would like stuff like the ability to have more than one face i would like that um eventually um i i think it could do a better job of seeing me in the dark i definitely have more trouble uh with it trying to unlock in low light situations um whether that should be the

case or not it's true for me um and i would like it to be able to see me better in all orientations. Sometimes it doesn't. So I like Face ID a lot. I wouldn't want to necessarily... No, I wouldn't want to go back to Touch ID. I like Face ID a lot. But it does really feel sometimes to me like version 1 Touch ID. Like, this is really great, but it can be better.

like this is really great sure but it can be better and i'm hoping that face id 2 um will be to like touch id what touch id 2 was to touch id you know like sure huge jumps uh because it's out in the world and the algorithm the system can get better well and they may be able to do you know things to make now that it's in the real world too they may already presumably they were already working on what the next thing would be for for that that that sensor stack in the front of the the uh the phone and maybe it's wider field of view or you know better able to compensate if you're if you're further away and it's at an angle or that your head is tilted or that the phone is tilted like there are a bunch of things that that i'm sure that the people who are working on that are working on as well as something like having additional faces that are capable of being

detected and things like that. So, um, there's plenty, I mean, it's, it's as, as good as it is and face ID is really good. It's a 1.0, right? So there's no doubt that the people who are working on it are finding all sorts of ways that they can make it better. And when we get to the iPad, it's related there too, right? When we get there. So let's move there. Let's talk about iPad hardware. I think first up,

do you think we're going to see iPad hardware in 2018? I don't know. I don't know. We might not. Like this is the question is how often does Apple update the iPadad uh the ipad pro and what we saw is that the we went so what so we went from the 9 7 to the to the 10 5 in 18 months in 18 months right we went from 12 to 12 in two years in two years yeah effectively it was just under two years right and now they're all synced up right so so we had we had new ipads in the fall was it the fall that we got the new

ipads we got them in june we got them at ww oh we got them in june yeah well so then then it really is a coin flip like i think that they could come this fall or they could come next spring and and the question is just what pace is Apple on for the iPad Pro? Does Apple think that that's a year plus pace, or is that a two-year pace, or a year and a half pace? And it could be anywhere between a year and two years. If I had to guess,

my guess is it's most likely an early 2019 product. My hope is that it's a late 2018 product, because I like the iPad Pro pro and I'd like to see new models and I'd like to see them to be awesome and faster. I think it's more likely that we'll get new iPhones in the fall and then we'll get new iPad pros based on a processor variation of the new iPhones in the spring. Um, so I could, I could go either way with the existing iPad pro hardware. I would like to see some, um see some. Because I do believe that the next iPad Pro is likely to be one that takes its cues from the iPhone X. Not the OLED screen, because that would be bananas.

But one day, though. One day, yes. But I do think trying to reduce the bezels even more. And if they can, going from Touch ID to Face ID. But this goes back to what we were saying about Face ID a minute ago, which is Face ID on the iPad is a lot harder because the iPad needs to be held in different orientations, which means how does that work? Where do they put the sensor? Is the sensor capable of working in both orientations? Do they have to do – I don't think they would do two sensors.

That seems also way they have to do i don't think they would do two sensors that seems also way like way too expensive to do so i think that i think that's a question is um are they embracing the new iphone philosophy in the ipad hardware or not and if they are which i hope they are and i think they would um that even more sounds like a 2019 product than a 2018 as much as i wish wish list i wanted at the end, I wanted this fall. But, you know, is that real, is that realistic? I don't know. Talking about realistic or maybe unrealistic. What about USB-C?

So, I don't know what's going on with... To me, this is one of the biggest questions about what Apple's doing with the iPad, which is, where does the iPad go? And is Apple aggressively driving the iPad into a bunch of different places now that it's sort of gotten some traction with the low-cost iPad and it's gotten some traction with the iPad Pro? Is it going to kind of keep pushing there? traction with the iPad Pro, is it going to kind of keep pushing there or is it going to just sort of stay back and, and we'll see what happens with it. Because like, if you radically change the iPad Pro and do things like reduce the bezels, um, and which might make you, uh, like reduce the size of

the 12 nine version. If you update that one, it could also mean more screen, um, or it makes the 10 five even smaller. There are lots of different ways to go there. Um, do you also say, well, no, it's really a computer like to the point where we're going to put a USB-C on it instead of lightning. So don't even think of lightning for, uh, as the iOS connector anymore. It's really, you know, it's, it's for smaller devices and this thing is more like a computer. So we're going to do USB-C. You won't even need an adapter. Plug in a USB-C Ethernet adapter, and it'll just work. Some of that might require iOS updates if they want to support more USB-C devices, but I hope they get there. This, though, is the larger question about the iPad because it happened again this weekend.

I wrote about it last year. Marco Arment tweeted this weekend about how he was retweeting Federico with his bridge keyboard. He got a bridge keyboard like I have for the iPad 12.9. And he said, maybe Apple needs to make a convertible, which is that iBook that I wrote about on Macworld last year. And again, if this is a wish list and not a predictions list, yeah, I'm going to wish for that. I'm going to wish for another iPad, basically, class device that is something that is more like a PC convertible or like that Google Pixelbook thing that is like a convertible laptop tablet that is primarily a laptop, but you can turn it into something that's

kind of tablet-ish, either by, you know, in some of them it's by disconnecting them, in others of them it's by flipping them around so that the keyboard is on the back of the screen. Would Apple do that? I don't know. Or even a more straightforward sort of iOS laptop. Would Apple do that? I don't know. There are lots of arguments against it. I think it would be a really interesting product.

I think it would say something about where Apple is pushing iOS. It would be malpractice for me to predict it. But I do kind of wish it. And that is a product that absolutely should be a USB-C product, right? So, but in general, on the iPad Pro, I feel like the iPad Pro should go, should just embrace USB-C, that Apple should update iOS

to support more peripherals via USB. It already supports a lot via adapters, but you could toss in, like I keep on saying, like toss in mass storage support. So you could toss in like i keep on saying like toss in max mass storage support so you could theoretically plug in a thumb drive and open files and see what's on the on the on the thumb drive and copy the files and stuff like that things you do on a laptop today and uh you know i don't know i don't think it's i don't think it's likely but i i really kind of want that to happen

i mean i would like to see apple take a step in it by making a keyboard that is like the bridge keyboard. So they make a keyboard that makes your iPad more like a laptop. They have been making iPad keyboards since the very, very first iPad. I don't know why Apple have to just make one keyboard and that keyboard needs to be a smart cover. Maybe branch out a little bit more.

Like what if you made something that was low profile and like even if it had like the current keyboard that you have in the MacBook Pro for all of its faults, like why don't you just make, you know, just let me see what you can do. Like something that is wonderful and smart connected and everything. Right, there's a

design challenge there and it may be that they've they've tried that and they realize what you have to do is make changes on the ipad hardware to do it the way they would want it and then every ipad has that and maybe it makes it a less desirable you know device when it's not attached to the keyboard or something like that i mean there are lots of lots of arguments every ipad has magnets and a smart connector on it whether you use it or not right you know yeah no i i agree i think um i think at the very least i would like to see apple try to make a more even when microsoft came out with the the uh the surface like they had two keyboards right they had the flimsy keyboard and then they had the more rugged keyboard and apple has basically said no we're not interested in that and i get that there are lots of engineering issues there and that the there are things about the bridge keyboard because it's got those clips that

you have to slide things into and all that there's like i don't think apple would make that design but i would like to see apple's take on it because the third party takes are okay but if apple fully committed to that i think it would have to be to a higher standard that may be why apple hasn't committed to it but yeah i i think and that's why i started to think about the laptop thing too or the convertible thing because then you know it's it's apple saying well this isn't just like an accessory for the ipad pro maybe it's like it's another ipad or device of some kind where the keyboard is more integrated, even though it doesn't have to be in the shape of a laptop all the time.

They could do that if they wanted to. And maybe that would be a more Apple-y thing to do. Saying, well, you know, the existing iPad is meant to be primarily a tablet. This thing is going to be primarily sort of like a thing where the keyboard stays attached, but you can flip it over or detach it if you need to. It might be a better product if it's designed like that. But I would love to see them try because, and I've written about this a lot, I've talked about it a lot, but just the short version of it is I want to see Apple experiment with taking iOS places that it isn't right now, which is someplace that isn't the phone and the iPad.

And because I do think that the future of iOS needs to be in other devices too. And whether that's a laptop or a convertible or a desktop, or I don't know what else, I would like to see it push the boundaries a little bit in two areas that will make Mac users maybe uncomfortable because it's like, well, wait a second, isn't that the Mac's domain?

I feel like there's more gray area there for Apple to explore if they can get over the fact that, you know, they would end up selling two things that look like a laptop and they run different operating systems. So, but this is, oh, what about the iPad mini? I would like it to continue i i have some hope you know i don't know how likely it is that they will make a new ipad mini that is that is cheap like the ipad is i don't think it will be a pro anything but i i just in defense of the ipad mini i used one for a long time and loved it and my son still uses one and loves it and i think think it's great for kids. And I think for people who want the smallest iPad possible. And I feel like it's almost like an iPhone SE sort of thing where every two or three years, can they just update the iPad mini and keep it down

there in the price list next to the iPad for people who want a smaller iPad, essentially same specs, but smaller. I, again, would not lay odds on that, but I would kind of like to see it continue. Although if I had to make a trade between the iPad mini existing and some new iOS slash iPad device appear, I would choose the new over the iPad mini, but I'd love to see them maintain the iPad mini.

All right, this is only part of the whole story, right? We need to talk about iOS itself. But before we do, let's take a break and thank SaneBox. I bet that if you're listening to this show, there's probably something that you don't like about email. And you can probably fix that problem with SaneBox. So email, one of its biggest problems is that it all looks exactly the same. You have a mountain of email, and there's no way to really decipher what's what. This is one of the biggest problems with email. At a glance, it can be really difficult to work out exactly what needs your attention. But wouldn't it be nice if your email could be sorted for you before it even hits your inbox,

no matter what app or service you use, no matter what type of email provider you're using, that it's all there and all of the trivial stuff gets moved out of the way for you. Well, that is what SaneBox is all about. They look through your email, they sort it for you, and they make sure that only the messages in your inbox are the ones that you're going to need. And the great thing is that it will work seamlessly with anything that you're currently using. One of the best features, one of my favorite features of SaneBox is called the black hole. All you need to do is move an unwanted email from a sender that you don't want to hear from into that folder, and you will never hear from them ever again.

With SaneBox, you can also set up email reminders, snooze your email, and so much more. I was checking out SaneBox when I signed up a little while ago, and one thing that I was concerned about is part of my job is in sales. So I get emails from people I've never heard from all the time, and they're important emails. I don't want them to be hidden. During the setup process of SaneBox, they ask you this exact question. Like, are you a person who is in sales or

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That is sanebox.com slash upgradefm. That is S-A-N-E-B-O-X dot com slash upgrade and then fm at the end. Our thanks to Sanebox for their support of this week's show and RelayFM. My biggest wish for iOS 12 is a sign of life for the iPad. I don't need tons and tons

of features. I just want to know we're good. Yeah, I, uh, well, I think, I don't know, I'm not so desperate that i'm saying oh show us the there's a sign of life i think we have desperation it's more just like ios 11 was like we forgot the ipad like what i've had right ios 10 was like oh here's some great stuff like oh wow this looks awesome and ios 11 was like here's some stickers for iMessage right

like that was and and like the ipad just got enhancements that the iphone got but not in a great way i feel like you're bargaining here a little bit i i want what i want on my wish list is i want apple to show that there are going to be iPad improvements every year, not every other year, that the iPad is important enough. And that one of the ways that iOS needs to grow is more capabilities for things that are being pushed by the iPad pro, not by the iPhone. And so the iPhone is great. They're going to add features for the iPhone. iPhone is a huge driver of Apple's business. But in terms of moving this platform forward the ipad is sort of the frontier and i want to see them not have that be in every two years thing oh for sure i mean look i'm on that train but like worst comes to worst i'm cool with just like

a new feature of some description and a bunch of really good fixes um because i don't have anything in my mind right now which is like the real big stuff that I want to see. I would like to see some refinements to multitasking. I want to see some fixes for files, and I have some lists of that stuff. But really, you know, just showing me that continued specific work is happening on the iPad

is that's the main thing that I want to see. Because really, it honestly didn't even feel like we got a lot of bug fixes to iPad features in 11 either, like it kind of just stays as it was. So two big features or two big focuses for me, for what I want to see improved on the iPad in iOS 12. I want to see some refinements to iPad multitasking. I think quite a few people have found the new system confusing, and I don't want them to start over because I do believe it is a much better system. I use it to great effect every day, but I think clearing it up a little could be nice. And in your article on Macworld, you mentioned a couple of things that you wanted to see.

and in your article Matt Quote you mentioned a couple of things that you wanted to say yeah so I don't know there's this app buddy system which I like and exists but I kind of would like apps to be able to be paired with more than one buddy

so if you switch you know to be able to set up different pairs and switch between them or a relatively easy way for an app to be able to set up different pairs and switch between them um or a relatively easy way for an app to be able to display two instances of itself side by side like what safari does would also be nice um uh the the mike and cgp gray uh official keyboard shortcuts for multitasking so that you can keep your hands on the keyboard i would like as a part of it too i just i would like them to look at what shipped and how people are using it and make some

refinements because what happened the last time was they shipped it it was apparent from day one that it wasn't um very good but it did the. And then nothing happened for two years. Now, and then they ship something that's a complete rethink. Great. I don't want it to just sit there for two years because they they've seen how people use it. They probably have ideas. I would like that iteration, whatever they choose to do. I would really like to see iOS 12 make the stuff that was introduced in 11 a little bit better with a little more, you know, a little more capability for those who want to use it. Just that I would like to see that I would like to see some progress instead of it being like, look, we gave it to you,

wait two years, and maybe we'll give you something totally different again. I don't think we're in that position now. I just think refinement is a good thing that they could do um i would also like to see clearing up of some inconsistencies with iphone 10 gestures like i i understand why they differ now but um i would like to see that kind of just just cleared up a little bit you know just do some stuff there and and that brings up the uh the whole control center issue yeah um and that and that's on ipad and on iphone 10 like on ipad you swipe up and you get multitasking and control center together on iphone 10 you swipe up and you get multitasking um if you hold and you get the home screen if you don't and i i know why but that's confusing i i still even after all this time

swipe the wrong way on these devices on all of these devices because i just haven't internalized it even now um so i think i would like to see if there's any way to try and get them in the ballpark like and i i have a suggestion and i'm sure they tested it and they didn't like it, but I hate the placement of control center on the iPhone 10 in the upper right corner. I don't use control center almost ever. And when I do, I'm always frustrated because it's like, I swipe down. Oh no, that's notification center. I got to be further over to the right.

Oh, there it is. It's top right. I used to flip up control center from the bottom all the time. And that gesture got repurposed for the home screen. Fair. But the other problem is swiping up on my iPad and holding gets me multitasking plus control center. And that doesn't happen on the iPhone. So I kind of want swiping up and holding on the iPhone 10 to bring up control center and multitasking, even if it would be cramped. I kind of want that because I want to be able to access control center from my thumb at the bottom of the screen. Plus,

it would be nice if those gestures were harmonious because right now they're not, they're kind of all over the place. And I don't think, I mean, swipe down from the top and in some places it's notification center and in other places it's control center is not, it's just not good. It's not, and it has not gotten better for me over time. I'm still frustrated by it. I want to see consistency. I want to see them do something that brings those two things closer together. Like, I would love to see something, again, I don't know what it is and I agree with you.

I'm sure they tested all of these things but whether they liked it or they didn't like it i don't think that the implementation that they went with is the best one on the iphone 10 like i have also yet to in like even though i do remember that it's in the top right i know it's not the right place for me like it doesn't feel right i don't like it um i would like to see them try and find a way to put it all into multitasking because i think that would help a lot of it um of the you know they're going to look different they're going to be different but i think that it works best there or you know as you said from uh the home screen even like something somehow just like some make it better make it just better files um okay i am very happy with the files app and it makes working on ios a lot better for me but i also have a lot of problems with the files

app which i've been exacerbated over time i've been recording some of these uh so here they are frequently i have to restart the device to download files because it gets stuck on a spinner just saying waiting to download and the file never downloads and the only way to fix this is to reboot the entire device which is wild um i would like better ways to navigate where to save things to from the extension. It's basically just tapping and scrolling through huge lists right now. I feel like that that is not the best way of doing things. For some reason, the Files app sometimes just completely forgets what my favorites are that I drag into the Favorites view.

I drag Dropbox folders into there, and sometimes they're not there anymore. I would like to be able to save things locally to an iPad. I don't always need it to be saved to iCloud Drive. Like, just let me save it locally to the iPad. And I mean, saving to iCloud Drive kind of seems to do this anyway. And if that's the case,

then like, why do I even have on my iPad as an option? Like, just hide that from me. Like, I don't need to see it. You know, just a place. Sometimes I just need to save a file to what is effectively the desktop right like a scratch area um and also i'm gonna just say this for jason just let us read files from an sd card like just let us do it yeah you've got a file browser yeah you know i i think sd cards i think usb hard drives and i heard a bunch of people uh when i wrote about this like oh but the security implications oh is apple incapable of dealing

with security implications like yes they are and and and the this is these are devices especially things like the ipad pro where you know you're the one i always give is you're you're somewhere in a remote place and there's no good internet and somebody has a big spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation they need to get to you and you brought your iPad Pro. Well, guess what? You can't have it. You know, they've got here it is on a flash drive. No, we can't sync with the cloud.

How do you get it on there? You can't, right? Like it's, this is just a pro, and I realize it's not for everybody, but for people in those environments, they need something like that. Why not do that? I'd also say, can you imagine a modern computer shipping with the inability to attach to a file server in an office? But iOS, can you connect directly from iOS to an SMB server in an office?

You can't. You can't. That should be built into the Files app. I realize that connecting to a file server on a network is different from connecting to a cloud service, but it's not that different. And you should do it. You should be able to do it. Now that we have the file browser, and I know this is a case of like, oh, we want a file browser. Well, here you go, but it's limited. The next thing we say is going to be, it needs to be less limited. But that's where we are, is if you're going to have a file browser in the operating system, it needs to do these things, all these things better.

It needs to handle the local storage that's not iCloud Drive better. It needs to connect to servers. It needs to be able to read mass storage devices that are plugged into it. And yes, it needs to do that all securely on top of it, just like theoretically like a Mac would do or better. it just like theoretically like a Mac would do or better. But because it doesn't, you know, the Mac has limitations that other operating systems don't have in terms of mounting and unmounting storage too. So I don't know that that is that that's a big one for me. It's like now that files app is there, it needs to do more for the people who are using it because it's frustrating. It's way better than our old method of accessing all this stuff. I can take, I just did this over the weekend when I was doing a podcast. I was, uh, I needed to put the art of the podcast into

Fairwright's little window of MP3 metadata. And the art I have is all in a Dropbox folder on my Mac. This is not a problem, but on the iPad, it becomes this thing where I used to have to save the art to the camera roll in order to add it later, which is stupid. Cause then I've got podcast logos in my camera roll. And with files, I can which is stupid because then I've got podcast logos in my camera roll. And with files, I can drag and drop out of a Dropbox folder. I can drag that file out onto the image drop point in Ferrite and it downloads the file from Dropbox and drops it in. It's beautiful. Great. I'm so happy that we can do that. I want more now. I'm so happy that we can do that.

I want more now. iCloud storage. Yeah, they got to do something. I mean, the free five gigabytes is rapidly becoming a joke. And if they're going to, I am a believer that they need to do something more and they need to give users more because you give them that and use it as a way to show off how

great iCloud is and then they pay you to for even more storage but I think that the way they're doing it now is a mistake like they haven't changed this in a long time I think you want to show off iCloud to people I think it's complex to get people to upgrade and then what you want to do is set the set the bar a little bit higher where they can use it for a little bit and then be like, Oh, now I need to pay for this other storage tier where I'm paying $5 a month or $10 a month or whatever, but it's totally worth it. But right now you hit that wall so quickly and it's still five gigs per Apple ID, which I also think is a mistake. I feel like, you know, maybe with a device purchase, you should get more storage, or you should get storage for a year or two at a certain level. So it's almost

like a trial. There are lots of different options here. I hope somebody at Apple keeps kind of game planning this stuff, but I would like them to see, to approach iCloud storage in a different way, where it's more useful out of the box without paying because you did buy an Apple product. Give the new user something for having paid Apple for this piece of hardware. And then also make it kind of like a good entry point into iCloud where people get to the point where they're like, oh yeah, this is great. I need to buy more storage and use that as the way to sell them. The fact that Apple does a 99 cents a month tier of iCloud storage, it's like, why does that exist? Like that's not good for anyone

because it's the barrier of paying. A lot of people are just going to hit that barrier and bounce right off of it. And surely a $12 a year iCloud Drive subscription is not a major driver of Apple Cloud revenue. That's a good trade-off to make. Don't make them pay at that level. Raise the bar a little bit more. Let people get involved. I think it's been proven time and again that giving people a taste for free and having them become reliable or reliant on it and then wanting more, like this is the whole freemium model. Like I think Apple needs

to recalibrate what they're doing with iCloud storage. They've needed to do it for five years. They still haven't done it. Maybe they never will, but I feel like they are making a mistake that hurts the user experience of people who are getting Apple devices because now they're pushed to sign up for iCloud and they get almost nothing for it. They try to do a backup, things fall apart, and then they get the upsell. And I don't think that's a good user experience. And what about iCloud Photo Library? I'm going to give you your opportunity to thank you complain about this as

you do every year here's my here's my yeah i know every year i do it and they just don't um they just don't they don't want to listen but but here it is which is um i have photos and my wife has photos that we take that we want to share with each other at full quality because we don't need two photo libraries. We need one photo library. Not everybody wants to share all their photos with other members of their family. That's fine, but there should be options. And my wife should be able to say all of these photos or all my photos I take or all the photos with certain faces in them or whatever, just sync over to the other library. I should be able to say all the photos in the library sync to my wife's devices. Because right now, if she wants to make a calendar based on all our pictures we took last year for this year, she has to use my computer to do it. She can't use her Mac to do it. She can't use her

iPad to do it. She can't use her iPhone to do it because she's got her own Apple ID and her photos that she takes are on her own Apple ID, which is fine. Now, there is some family sharing in iCloud because every time I complain, somebody mentions, but there is family sharing in iCloud. It is, you've got to drag the files into a family shared album and they're downrest. They're not full quality. So you can't use it archivally. It's not your family photo library. It's just a place for you to quickly share a file at a lower resolution with your family. It's not good enough. It's not good enough. So it's not a feature for everybody, but I think it's a feature for a lot of people, especially, um, especially married people who, you know, with kids and they take pictures and, and then they're trying to build photo albums

and things like that. And they don't have access to the other person's photos. Um, and I always hear people are like, Oh, well, do you really want to share all your photos? You know, like there can be privacy issues and people, yes, some, if this is a feature, some idiot is going to take terrible photos of something and their spouse is going to see it and it's going to lead to problems in their marriage. Okay. Sure. That is not enough of a reason to keep everybody else from having this feature. So you put some security systems in place, you opt people in, you can limit it by location or time or, or faces or whatever you want, but there's gotta be a better way than me taking my wife's phone every three months or six months

and just plugging it into my mac and importing all her photos into my library because that's where we are right now it's dumb so that is our ios wish list uh for 2018 yeah i'm not i'm not counting on my wish that's being fulfilled but it's good to get it out it's good to get the expectations and the hopes and the dreams out there. You got to. You got to share them. So a while back, we spoke about trying to give some of our knowledge about podcasting on this show in a semi-recurring segment of Podcast Tips. And I want to do one today. And I want to tackle a question that is maybe asked of me more frequently than any other and for a good reason. And this question comes from jay and jay asked how does one market a podcast to grow its audience jay says we've shown up every day for the past year and our numbers do not see any growth all right so without a doubt this is

the question that i get asked the most and i guess one of the one of the problems with this question is that there is no right answer. So I have a story that I want to tell, which is kind of an abridged version of my story and what I learned from it. And then, Jason, I thought that you could maybe tell an abridged version of your story. And then Jason, I thought that you could maybe tell a bridge version of your story. Sure. And then we can, I think there is something to take from it, but it is not the 10 quick steps to podcast success. So I started podcasting over 10 years ago now, which is a horrific fault to me that I've been doing this for 10 years.

And when I started, the landscape is very different to what it is now. Even just in tech podcasting, there were not as many tech shows then as there is now. And I started my first show and it was mostly focused around technology because it was something that I loved. So I started doing it and it wasn't good for a while, but I got the practice in. And then when me and my co-host felt that we were better and knew what we were doing, we started to get guests on our show. And the thinking was then that it would give variety to the show and also help us get promoted as people would share the episode with their followers. And I know that this sounds like a super simple tactic that many shows take now. But honestly, there were not a lot of

people doing this, then that this wasn't like a thing in technology podcasting that people would have wonderful guests like Jason on their show, which I did even on my very first show, Jason was a guest. And it was wonderful. And it was great to have Jason as a guest on my show. And I was very happy that you came on the show. And the reason that this worked for me then is because people like Jason did not have their own technology podcasts that they were on every week at that time. Like it just wasn't a thing. Right. And so now this doesn't work very well because you get to hear these people every week. So like if you have Jason as a guest on your technology show now, it may not be so much of a boon for you because people hear Jason talk about this stuff on his show upgrade

every week, right? So like it is less of a thing now. But then it was more of a thing because everybody didn't have their own show. So this was kind of how I got my break. It is not helpful advice anymore, because I don't think that it is very applicable today. I don't think having guests on a show specifically will help grow your show because it is a tried and true method at this point. This is something that lots and lots and lots of people do as a way to try and get more attention to their podcast is to have guests on. So Jason, before I talk about what I think can be learned from my method, how did you get your breakthrough in podcasting? Well, it helps to have an audience, right? And I had an audience with

Macworld. I was writing my column in Macworld every month and would, you know, that promote my Twitter feed, which I would then say I did this podcast and I did this podcast. And, you know, when I went out on my own, Six Colors, I post items there when we post podcasts, I post items there when we post podcasts. Not all of them, but most of them. And that all helped. Being around people who are podcasting and have audiences, there are a few ways to do that. We actually had, there was a thread, people who are members of The Incom um we have a discussion area for them it's a great user benefit and there was a conversation there about how people

found the incomparable that sprung up and it was fascinating to see that because um a lot of it was i heard jason on the talk show i saw jason on twit um uh some of of it was because I do the show with Tim Goodman. I listen to Tim Goodman's podcast and the new version has Jason and that's where I found The Incomparable. Some of it was from other podcasts I did. There was lots of different ways of leading into it. When The Incomparable went on 5x5, it exposed the 5x five audience to that podcast. And that, that was a, a way that it grew. Um, so I'd say being, you know, being adjacent to people with different audiences than you, like one of the great things about me going on Twit is I feel like the vast majority of the people on the, on Leo Laporte's, uh, audience don't know who the hell I am.

And so every time I go there, I feel like people discover who I am. And that turns them into maybe upgrade listeners or download listeners or incomparable listeners or whatever, right? I think that that's nice. Having guests on can be great. Like one of the things about incomparable being a panel show is that I end up having John Syracuse saying, oh, I was on the incomparable talking about Star Wars or John Gruber saying I was on talking about the Godfather and that all kind of feeds into it. So some of it is just, you know, can you be adjacent to other people? And I'm not saying like you need to be a remora attached to a famous person.

I'm saying find people who are like you and maybe who like you who have audiences that are not your audience. Because the truth is, that's kind of how it happens is you get exposed to a different audience and then some of them follow you back because they like what you have to say. And a lot of, most of them won't because not, they won't necessarily dislike you, but they just, they'll be like,

okay, that was a guest and they move on. But some people might. and so for me, it's been, you know, all of those things rolled together is having an existing audience, being adjacent to people with other audiences and,

and sort of having them discover what I'm doing through their audiences, whether it's me guesting on their place or them guesting on my place. And then the truth is, Mike, and you and I, this may be where you're going with this, is a lot of it is luck. A lot of it is luck. You're in the right place at the right time. i'd say don't get disheartened if your uh audience size is flat because i don't know i mean my experience is most podcasts spend a long time with the same audience i've also seen it that you have a flat audience for a while and then suddenly you enter a growth phase and um I don't know. And again, why did that happen? We don't always know. We often have no idea why, oh, well, somehow the ball started

rolling and suddenly now we're being listened to by more people, but it totally happens. So sometimes a podcast reaches its level and that's just what it is. And that's okay. Other times, other times not and also i'd say be realistic about the numbers i mean you know i do podcasts with um some of the podcasts i do probably only listen to about like 4 000 people which to some people is a huge audience and to to me is like one of my smaller things and that's just that's just how it is like some everything it finds its own level maybe that's all that it's ever going to be and that's just how it is like some everything it finds its own level maybe that's all that it's ever going to be and that's just how it is and you have to be comfortable with that yeah so like

you know like we are kind of coming we're like conflicting a little bit in what we're saying because like i was saying that you know i don't think that guests help as much anymore and and you were saying that they helped you and i and i agree what you're saying. I more mean that like going from having a small show to being where I am now, like my method to starting off was to get guests and to start to meet people. And it definitely helps, but I don't think it helps to the level that it helped me 10 years ago. But it still can. And I do think your biggest help was the fact that you had an existing audience of people, right? There were people there to listen to you. And that is even harder to get, right? Like, are you already the editorial director of a

magazine? Well, you know, that helps. But what we're trying to say with this is, well you know that helps but what we're trying to say with this is the lesson is that you there are many different ways in which you can find success in your creative project and like with all creative projects it is very hard to make it successful like to grow any creative endeavor takes time and hard work and effort one of the key things that i recommend to you is to find the thing that makes your show different and lean into that if you can't find the thing that makes your show different you need to find something that makes it different right because otherwise it's going to be like something that everybody else is already listening to. So, you know, find that thing, lean into that thing. And I think that it might help people start to share the show because they're going to find it exciting and interesting.

Yep. It's no guarantee of success, but I think that should always be do something that is not like everything else if i know easier to say than do but and and be true to yourself and have it be something that you care about and that you're enthusiastic about and and be yourself when you're doing it like all of those things are are part of the secret sauce there but i want everybody to know this is something that we both still struggle with today there are shows that we'll launch and we don't if they're going to work it's a gamble every time and sometimes stuff doesn't work and it doesn't go the way that you want this is a thing that can still happen no matter how long you've been doing this so it is it's hard work but as jason said if you if you do something that you really care about

that will help you get through the times when it's not going anywhere. You know, I spent seven years not getting where I wanted to be. So like, it was a long time, right? Like, and I had a lot of great success over that period of time, but it wasn't what I wanted. Like, what I wanted was to be a full-time podcaster. It took me seven years to get there. So there are, there's a lot of ups and downs. If this is something that you truly want to do and it's something that you think is awesome, then keep working at it and you'll get there eventually. So please send in, just tweet to me.

I get lots of tweets this week, lots of segment ideas and names and questions. Just send me if you want to hear us talk about a question that you have about podcasting. Just send it to me on Twitter or via email or something, and we'll try and include it in a later episode. And thanks again to Jay, and good luck, Jay, with your show. Today's episode is also brought to you by Squarespace.

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That's all you're going to get. Oh, there was more. Okay, delayed reaction on the lasers, everybody. Mask upgrade. One laser. Oh, there was more. Okay, delayed reaction on the lasers, everybody. The lasers had some ice on them. They had to like... Oh, it is cold. Break the ice off, yeah. It is cold in some places. Brayden asks,

any suggestions on a solid iOS email app? I am going to remove the word solid from Brayden's question because there isn't one um in my opinion jason what is your email app of choice right now mail.app yeah you're back everything on all platforms no on the mac i'm using mail plane which is just framing gmail in a uh a more capable kind of keyboard shortcut kind of app window. It's like a single site browser sort of for Gmail. Everywhere else, it's Apple Mail.

Okay. I'm still using AirMail. AirMail is not perfect, but it has a bunch of features that I really, really like from it. I find myself getting frustrated at it from time to time, really really like from it i find myself getting frustrated at it from time to time but it does offer me features that other apps don't and they're features that i really like so it i struggle to move away but that's what we're using right now napali asks or says i love my iphone 10 but it drives me crazy when i grab it and it lights up upside down do you think a dot or a line to indicate orientation with the black screen could be useful so i would say i also do this a lot i pick up my iphone it's in the wrong orientation um i don't think i would want something like always printed on the phone uh what i would like to see uh is apple try and do something which is like always on with the oled screen maybe the

clock and some notification badges could be there so i I'll know because I can see that that might be nice. Yeah, I agree with you. The OLED screen should allow us to have some subtle notifications on the iPhone 10, right? And Apple has chosen not to do that. And I don't really know why. on the iphone 10 right and apple has chosen not to do that and i don't really know why but this is a good this is another good reason why you might want to do that is it would also allow for some clearer orientation in the dark just any time like in pure daylight i pick my phone up the wrong way around right but but like having i tap my screen all the time to see like what the time is yeah yeah when i'm sitting on my desk i mean i even even want to have an apple watch or yeah see it or see if there's something going on that's fine but like

if i had a little like readout that also just said you know maybe it was like really super super subtle maybe it just said the time and like how many notifications were on the screen like you know two and i could tap and i could see the notifications that pop up or something like that they i'm interested in the fact that apple has not done that even though they've got an oled screen here and yeah i i think that uh napoli's suggestion of maybe even just keeping that that really light gray uh uh line at the bottom of the screen that's the home indicator thing. Even something like that that would make it clearer

that you could do that. Or some version of that. I get there's burning issues and stuff too, but they could work around it. I would like to see the line go away in the future. Sure. I kind of don't need it. I know why they have it.

It makes sense to have it for now but like eventually it'd be nice if it just didn't want there anymore uh i agree david just got a new macbook pro from work any recommendations for a good dongle bag jason do you use a dongle bag i do i i have never used the phrase dongle bag before and i don't think i will again i don't have anything like that i recommend that you go to your sandwich uh drawer and pull out a ziploc bag ziploc will do it just stick them in there because that's what i do i recommend uh perusing the accessories page with tom bin uh they have lots and lots and lots of options for dongle bags and dongle holders so they're good.

Jason, this is a good question for you. We're talking about something. When you were describing your rat nest of cables recently, it popped into my head. Wow, that was a fun time for everyone. Tim wrote in to ask, any suggestions for what to do with old unused technology items? Tim has been cleaning out some boxes of old tech and came across some stuff like ipod docks and mice and cables feels wasteful to just throw them out

jason what do you do with this stuff um what i recommend is if you have a local um electronics recycling point and a lot of places have this um i have one that it's open i think it's open five days a week seven days a week even um and it's a place where you can drop off old old computers old hard drives i mean ideally wipe all your information off them first but they take them and my at least my place it seems like they do they they do some diagnosis of like can we refurbish this can we sell this this kit? Do we, do we dismantle this? But if there's somewhere where they have old, where they take old tech and they may talk, call it electronics recycling or something like that, I would say do that. Um, people, you know, people don't want you to come in with a rat's

nets of cables and say, here, I got this for you. Like nobody wants that. But, um, you know, people don't want you to come in with a rat's nets of cables and say, here, I got this for you. Like nobody wants that. But, um, I agree. It feels wasteful to just throw it in the garbage. I would rather give it to somebody who, who at least might look at them all and be like, these, these are good. I can, I can again, reuse them, donate them, sell them or whatever, but you're probably

not going to do that yourself. So, um, that's. So that's my, that's my recommendation. I mean, if you've got a lot of spare time, you could put those things in dongle bags or Ziploc bags or whatever, and go to your local, I don't know where school library or, or some other kind of donation place and say, would you, you know, would you like some USB cables? I've got them in a bag here, but for the most part, I would say I try to find a place where they take old tech. And that's where when I cleaned up my rat's nest of cables, that's where most of them went along with some of the old hardware boxes that I had. Jared asked, if not in Evernote, what do you use to organize and store

long term data like medical documents or tax documents and stuff like that jason um the yeah dropbox pdfs and other stuff yeah files and folders in dropbox is fine because it just seems like the most simple yeah and and portable way of doing it. Like we put all this stuff in Evernote, trying to get everything out of Evernote is a nightmare. And that was the indication to me, like when I started. Yeah.

To store PDFs. I don't, right? The file system does that. And so Lauren and I have a shared Dropbox folder that I put stuff in and she put stuff in and we both can see and that's where that stuff lives and then the other great thing about Dropbox

is when I'm done with all my tax stuff for the year I just send a link to my account right because it's the easiest way to get to this stuff I just package it all up and I just say here you go and it's the easiest way to get to this stuff. I just package it all up, and I just say, here you go, and it's taken care of, and I'm happy with that, right?

Like, it's done, taken care of. Yep. And our last question today comes from Justin. Justin wants to know, what are your AirPod settings? Play, pause, Siri, next track, and do we do the same for the left or right AirPods? Jason, what do you have set up um next track on the right and i think play pause on the left although most of the time i just take the earbud out if i want to pause i do uh play pause on both because i just wouldn't remember

i just i know i won't and i'll be hitting the wrong side of my head every time and just for the record i'll say every time i still hate doing that i hate the tapping i hate when it doesn't work and then you tap your ears six times to get anything to play again uh just still not a fan of the of that it's very straightforward mike you you tap for the next track on your right ear because it's to the right and that means next because in our calls are left to right it's the where the right where the next track button is on the interface is also the right side so it's that ear you see if you want to find our show notes for this week, go to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 176. Thanks again to Squarespace, Anchor, and SaneBox for their support of this show.

You can go to sixcolors.com for Jason's work, incomparable.com, or you can go to relay.fm slash shows, and you can find many shows that Jason hosts and that I host. And maybe there's something new for you there. Go check it out. Maybe go start listening to Download or connected or clockwise or why don't you go and listen to roboism or originality pick something new there are so many things over at relay.fm some would say some would say okay listen to download that apparently is the one some would say we have a portion of all the great shows some would say some would say that uh thanks portion of all the great shows. Some would say that.

Thanks for listening. You can send in hashtag AskUpgrade or hashtag SnellTalkQuestions as always, and we will compile those for a future episode. Jason is at jsnell on Twitter. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Live long and prosper, everybody. That was just a troll for the Star Wars.