Upgrade - 198: The Mac Is Dead, Long Live the Mac

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

Apple has said that it’s not merging iOS and macOS, but that sneak peek of iOS apps coming to macOS opens up a lot of questions about just what the Mac might look like in five years. Jason’s optimistic, but Mac users may be in for the biggest changes to the platform since the introduction of Mac OS X nearly two decades ago. Also, what’s up with no new Mac hardware announcements? And just when you thought you had a handle on Apple’s unannounced video service, here comes Oprah!

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 198 today's show is brought to you by squarespace pingdom and skillshare my name is mike hurley i am joined by mr jason snell hi jason snell hello mr mike hurley how are you i am very well, sir. And I have a hashtag Snell talk question for you that comes from Daniel this week. And Daniel wants to know, Jason, are you going to watch much or any of the World Cup? Mike, do you know what the World Cup is? It's the World Cup of football. It's happening right now. Yes.

Yes. There are people playing what you call football. The logical name for that sport. It is. Unfortunately, we use that word for something else in the United States. So we have to call it soccer. Soccer, which is short for association football. So it's in there.

It's in there. Daniel, yes, of course. In fact, I have already watched the World Cup. the Russia time zone thing makes it harder on Americans than the Brazil time zone did. There are matches starting at 2 a.m.

I'm not watching those, but there are a bunch of matches that are at 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. I've been watching those. I watch those all weekend. I'm looking forward to watching those this week um and then i'm going on a trip then i'm going on a vacation and um ironically enough the americans who didn't make it to the world cup will be going to the netherlands which didn't make it to the world cup but we are um going to england as england is playing its final group match so i hope to get to drink in a little bit of the excitement of being in being with people

who are cheering on their country in the world cup during a match at that moment and then and then yeah there's there's a couple uh While we're traveling, there are a few rounds of the World Cup going on, but we'll be home for the last couple of rounds. So I'm excited about that. I really enjoy... I enjoy sports that happen in the morning, which European sports are great for people on the West Coast of the United States because it's really cool to wake up and turn on the TV and there's sport going on and it's fun. And I do like soccer. I follow the English Premier League a little bit and international soccer is a lot of fun. Men's and Women's World Cups, the Euro tournament, the CONCACAF tournament is fun here in North America too. So yeah, so the answer is yes.

I think the World Cup is a lot of fun. And my mother was visiting this weekend, and I had the soccer on. And I know that every time I turn the soccer on, weekend and i had the soccer on and i i know that every time i turn the soccer on um she will be perplexed because she doesn't understand this strange um weird strange foreign sport sport foreign sport yeah really she doesn't get it she doesn't get why anybody would get it but i enjoy it you're getting it in 2026 aren't you i think i saw a new story about that the other day yeah north america is getting it it's primarily the U.S., but Mexico is going to host. They're going to have three host cities. And Canada, too, I think.

And Canada is going to have three host cities. And then there are going to be 10, I think, in the U.S. And I think we're hoping that they do the 49ers Stadium in Santa Clara as one of the venues because then we would be able to go to a World Cup match here, which would be a lot of fun. They'll be in L.A. They'll be in New York, of course, but there are a bunch of other cities that they're going to put in that list

and they haven't decided yet. So that would be fun. That would be a great time to see a random pool match between two random countries. It would still be a lot of fun. So thank you so much to Daniel for his his question this week if you would like to submit a snell talk question for a future episode just send out the hashtag snell talk and it may be entered into a future episode i would like to give a follow-out to some merch which i don't think we've

ever done before we're going into new and wonderful worlds here last week's special guest james thompson currently has a range of merchandise on sale. It's all Peacock-related merchandise, wonderful t-shirts and pins. And also the profits of some select versions of these t-shirts and pins will be going to support LGBTQ plus charities in the US and the UK, because James is awesome like that. And I bought myself a Peacock t-shirt, and I'm very excited for it because i do love that me that logo so go check those out i'll put links in the show notes if you're a fan of calculators if you're a fan of the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy it's a 42 um and so people will like that

and i will give you the shortest of plugs which is there are a couple incomparable shirts the robot and the full logo on sale for the next you and a half at theincomparable.com slash shirt. It's a cotton bureau, but that's a nice shortcut way of getting to those shirts. All right, Jason, I have a lot of upstream news this week. This was a mind-blowing week in terms of advances in digital media deals and stuff like that.

Yeah, for sure. All right, so first up, I want to do a piece of upstream follow-up. Today, just before we started recording, YouTube Premium has launched in some countries outside the US, including the UK. I immediately opened the iOS app and signed up. I may have made a mistake here because apparently it is cheaper if you sign up on the website than if you sign up in the iOS app. YouTube are adding an Apple tax onto that, which, again, is one of those things where that is quite clearly against app review guidelines. But what can Apple do? Right.

It's YouTube. What are you going to do? There is a I'm currently on a three month free trial, which seems very aggressive as a trial period. Three months. very aggressive as a trial period three months but hey ho that gives me enough time i guess to switch over to paying just youtube directly at some point because maybe i've made a mistake using uh signing up via the uh app store and youtube really does seem to be pretty aggressive about the free trials because we got that with um uh with julian julian got um got a youtube red subscription last summer when we were going to be traveling we got him one we should let him you know download a bunch of videos for

when we were not having internet and that was also i believe a three-month trial i'm like wow that is really generous but they they just want to hook you that's what they want and youtube music has come with it i've want and youtube music has come with it i've downloaded the youtube music app but i haven't haven't played around with it at all yet but i'm just really excited because there are some original shows that i want to watch but more than anything the ability to download uh youtube videos locally to watch when i'm on the plane and stuff is going to be awesome yeah and for the for the kids for the kids uh the other thing that julian really liked was um and it's ridiculous that this is a feature of premium feature but the background audio thing

where you can play if you're just listening to something on youtube you can um you can start playing and then it can run in the background which is it's a silly feature but there it is yeah it's weird but it makes sense for their business model right because if you're not getting ads anymore they don't care about autoplay anymore right like the autoplaying stuff just loads more ads through but you obviously can't do autoplay in background would be my expectation so they probably don't care i would like honestly youtube premium feature to give me picture in picture right because it's the same idea like why can't to give me picture-in-picture. Right? Because it's the same idea. Like, why can't they give me picture-in-picture too? Because I really want that.

And I know why they don't do it free, because picture-in-picture I don't think can load the autoplaying or probably even load their ad videos, right, with the way that they insert them and the technology that they use. So if I can get background, why can't I also get picture-in-picture on iPad? So that's what I would really like, because I would love that very much.

And now I'm a happy paying youtube subscriber honestly like that however much i end up paying with a 10 or 15 pounds a month or whatever so i think to myself oh that seems like 50 like if i stuck with a 15 pounds or whatever just because i'm just going to keep it through the app store just just say i do that so that's a lot of money that's as much as i pay for netflix then i realized i watch youtube videos more than I watch Netflix. Like I would say by and large, YouTube right now is my single largest source of content that I consume more than podcasts, more than any TV. Um, I, because I am a home worker, I watch a lot of YouTube videos, right? Because if I'm sitting down for lunch, I'll just watch a YouTube video or I might watch

something in a day or something in the evening. And I obviously still consume a lot of podcasts. But YouTube is at least where I'm going to more frequently because I guess my podcast consumption is like, you know, you listen to one in an hour or whatever, two hours where I could probably watch like 10 YouTube videos or something. Sure. So I consume a ton of content for YouTube. So I'm very happy to pay for it if it helps support the creators and then i don't have to watch ads anymore which is wonderful i guess because youtube ads not very good for me huge news um in apple's you know worst kept secret they're adding more more people more creators to their original programming lineup. Oprah Winfrey has signed a unique multi-year content partnership with Apple.

There are no details on what this is going to be. It may be more than just TV shows. It's not said, right? But it will include content for Apple's TV show programming. We don't know how or if Oprah is going going to be involved but we do know is this content will be exclusive to apple and for people who are like oh who cares about oprah winfrey i'll just say she's huge the world everyone in the world she's huge in fact this is massive this is absolutely massive and it really again you know we've questioned a lot like that that budget that

billion dollar budget or whatever it was i can't even what was the amount that was it a billion dollars was i think originally the the report was that they were going to go spend a billion dollars and we were questioning whether that was enough we know now that they're spending more there's no way they could have signed everything they've signed and oprah for a billion dollars like there's just there is there's no way in heck they've done all that and oprah too yeah oprah is gonna apparently own the shows which i think is interesting and that's a that's a question like what's what's apple's business model and is apple gonna own most of these shows like when netflix started doing originals like house of cards netflix

doesn't own house of cards i didn't know that um yeah yeah somebody else media rights capital or something owns them somebody owns them yeah that's a production company and you know netflix has changed the terms of of its deals because it really does want to control everything yeah it's your position of strength changes right and apple's position of strength right now is not versus oprah because they don't even have a service and yeah and it's it's oprah they're only the biggest uh most valuable company in the world they're not oprah so yeah like you know it's like yes that you know like that i don't i mean you know you can i would assume you'd agree but like just because there's you know they may be the biggest company in the world that doesn't translate to the tv stuff right where it's

exactly need people right and oprah doesn't need Apple. Oprah can go anywhere. I also thought it was interesting when I passed this note on, what I said was, this is a deal that seems kind of similar to the Obama's deal. And I feel like the Obama's deal with Netflix, I got a real Oprah vibe from it. Like, we want to be kind of, you know, we're going to do all sorts of different content and we're gonna you know improve people's lives and in a show interest it just had that kind of feel to it um and then i see this deal and i'm like oh interesting okay game on obama's here comes oprah uh yeah because i i i and maybe they'll be very different but i just given given the uh the context of the first deal i looked at this deal and I was like, oh, interesting.

It seems to me to be sort of a similar thing of like, basically Apple's like, we want to be in the Oprah business. So let's make that happen, just like Netflix wanted to be in the Obama business. So we'll see. Another interesting little bit from Apple. Another interesting little bit from Apple. I saw an article this weekend that I popped into the show notes here, which is that Apple is also, according to Bloomberg, interesting that it's Bloomberg and Mark Gurman's got a co-buy line on this story. Apple is near a deal to buy an animated feature from a company called Cartoon Saloon. So this is another example of Apple extending beyond just buying TV shows,

but also buying movies for their service. So this is Cartoon Saloon did Secret of Kells, which was an award-winning short or award-winning film. I think it was Best Animated Feature nominee for the Academy Awards too, and a bunch of other stuff. And they've done TV shows too. But this report is that they're going to buy the rights to an animated movie from this studio.

So another one on the pile. And yet one more. Apple has ordered a mystery series based on the life of is it hildy lysiak is that how you say the name i don't know something like that it's a 10 episode series based on true events lysiak was a young investigative reporter who was the first to expose a murder in her hometown of sellings grove pa pennsylvania breaking the news in her self-started newspaper the orange street news that is kind of the the the description of the show is created and produced by dana fox and dara resnick so yet another show but this is a drama based on true

events so it's like they're continuing to add more and more stuff more and more stuff which is spreading out the overall portfolio. They're going to have, I mean, who knows when they're going to launch or what they're going to launch with. But we know that Apple have a multi-year strategy at this point, which is fascinating. And again, I mentioned it a minute ago, the worst kept secret. One of the reasons this is so interesting to me and you is as people who follow apple so closely this is all in reverse we're finding out all of the details about the content before apple has said a word about it but there's nothing they can do because this they are in an industry that they cannot

control so by and large they seem to be conforming with the way that industry moves where the trade publications get the information and they're just giving that out there, even though if you went and asked Apple today, if you were able to get an interview with Phil Scheller and asked him, are you doing a TV service? He would just, you know, he'd be like, I don't know what you're talking about, right? It would be this kind of weird thing. It's like, we have nothing to say about that. But even though it's very clear that they're doing it. But yeah, it's really, it continues to be very, very interesting. And I'm assuming September that we find out details about this.

I feel like they can't let it keep going on past the end of this year. I think they can. I think this September would be a perfectly fine time to do it. But I think they could do it next summer summer too i guess i guess it all depends on how long it takes to put stuff together right yeah when we started talking about this i think what i said was fall 2018 and we might hear about it but um it we'll see i don't know how far along all of these things are but um because i would imagine here's the thing i would imagine that they won't announce this until it's ready to go like with content yeah this will be a thing that will appear

basically immediately will be my expectation as well yeah and there'll be shows and you know they'll drop with a first collection of shows um and a free trial probably and that'll be that'll be how they go out the door. Um, and you know, I think the nuances of how they roll it out are kind of fascinating. Do you put out the first seasons of a bunch of these shows? Do you choose specific shows? Do you do just a, a half season or something like that?

So you really kind of hook people and then, and then make them want to keep paying. There's a lot of, a lot of questions about how they roll this out. And of course that's the part that is still shrouded in mystery we hear from people all the time by the way who say oh it's just rumors i i had this every time i uh i talk about tv and apple um on twitter especially people are like oh it's just rumors and carpool karaoke's dumb this isn't rumors and yes carpool

karaoke was dumb but that's not the same thing. Because in the entertainment business, the leaks happen from a different supply chain, I guess. And, you know, these are reputable sources. I mean, this was Bloomberg, and it was kind of a weird report. These don't even feel like leaks. Like, ignore that Bloomberg thing. But if our links are coming from the Hollywood Reporter and Variety, they're done. Like, the deals are done. Yeah, they're done deals.

Done deals. This isn't like 9to5Mac and MacRumors saying, rumors saying like oh we think the iphone's gonna have this or this like this this is a very different industry right because here's the thing if you think that there's such a thing as a movie or a tv show that can suddenly be released with a surprise like an apple product um no it's not possible it can't happen even when we talked about the cloverfield paradox and the super bowl like everybody knew that that movie was being made the the fact that it got that title and was released the the same day on the super bowl day that was a surprise well like that that even got reported on 24 hours before like that it wasn't a complete surprise right but my point is

that the the existence of that film not a surprise that that film had been kicking around for a while and everybody knew what it was and what the deals were and who was making it and who was in it and that that is not a secret so um i mean or think of something like star wars or marvel where they will keep some secrets there's some secrets they can keep but like the existence existence of another Avengers movie next year is not a secret. The title is a secret. The existence of another Star Wars movie next year,

not a secret. The title is a secret. Plot details are a secret. You know, maybe some of the casting is a secret. Most of the casting isn't. This is Hollywood. So anyway, Apple's playing that game now. So instead, Apple's controlling what it can control,

which is what is the service? What does it cost? How do they market it? How are they going to roll it out? All of that is still to play for and is fascinating, but we're not there yet. They're still making the deals. In a quick update on what is happening with Fox,

Comcast have made their deal public. It is a $65 billion all cash deal. Disney's was $52.4 billion. In stock. In stock, yes, not even in cash. And it's arguable, right, which is more valuable. There are arguments on both sides. We'll now wait for that investor meeting in July

to hopefully get some answers to what's going to happen to Fox. Yeah, Fox is going to have a shareholder meeting and try to decide what they're going to do. The board thinks the Disney deal is better because it's a better fit for the product and Disney is a good company to be in business with. And so getting Disney stock is a good deal for the shareholders. That said, Disney's probably going to have to sweeten their offer because because a $13 billion gap in offer is not nothing. But it is interesting, like how will the shareholders react to that?

And how will Disney, will Disney sweeten its offer? Will Comcast step up further? We'll see next month. That's a stay tuned one there. I'm looking forward to that one. Amazon have secured the rights to 20 UK Premier League matches

for three years starting in 2019. This is what you were talking about the other day about Amazon trying to get into the live sports in the UK. Yeah, and we spoke about the rumor of this a long time ago. It was like BT were trying to get it too. 10 of these games will be over public holiday periods like boxing day is going to be one of them this is a huge deal so amazon have got a small amount of the games but they are picking very particular games so like the boxing day football game is like an institution in this country right that is a

thing it's kind of like um the football game on in this country, right? That is a thing. It's kind of like the football game on Thanksgiving or whatever, right? Like it is a big thing. And I think that having that game is really smart because people will buy Fire TV sticks as Christmas gifts so they can watch the game together. Like Amazon, I mean, again, though, I will note that football fans in the UK are furious about this. Oh, yeah.

Because it is a third service that they need to subscribe to if they want to get all the football. Yeah, if you have to pay for it, yeah. Yeah, well, that's what always bothers me about these exclusive media deals is that they just want you to buy. Oh, do you want to watch this show? You've got to subscribe to this. Then you want to watch this, you have to subscribe to this. And after a while, you do get kind of fatigued. And we've had that in the U.S. actually.

Major League Baseball made a deal with Facebook. So there are certain baseball games that are only available on Facebook. I'm not kidding. You have to watch them on Facebook. But I guess they're free though, right? They're free, but you have to sign up for Facebook. And a lot of people are kind of angry about that. And then watch them on your computer or on an app or whatever but and people are grumpy about that because fans sports fans

are going to be grumpy about anything that is deviating from the norm but um but it is a point of leverage for these companies to get new users and new uh new subscribers and all of that um and and so how does it work on boxing day everybody does everybody have their own box that they sit in or is there like a large box that a family gets in and then watches the football yeah it's it's it's a it's a really big box with a tv inside and we all just get in and close the lid and then we come out when the game's over it's really good tv's inside the box does the tv come in the box yeah it's a big box i thought you peek over the edge i thought everybody is like lined up on the edge of the box.

No, you've got to close the lid. You've got to close the lid. At the telly. Okay. And more soccer news, football news, and we're talking about the World Cup, so we can title this back around. The World Cup is being broadcast in 4K HDR and many broadcasters worldwide. This is the first big test of this.

Like, for example, in the UK, bbc they have like limited amounts of people that can watch it so you have to like get there quick right and then it fills up because obviously this is a pretty difficult thing to do from a technological perspective especially because with the bbc it's all being it's all being streamed it's not being like traditionally broadcast so it's a test for all of them but a big sporting event like this is the perfect kind of event to show off this type of technology you've got a lot of eyes and you've got a lot of interesting color and stuff going on um but yeah it's it's happening all over the world now this is the first i think real big showing of ultra hd as it's being branded in most places yeah um it's um we talked about the challenges with 4k distribution and like the bbc

stream is an example of that it's exciting it reminds me i bought i bought an hd tv really early i think like i think we had in 2004 um it was really early and what was funny about that era is that there was an extremely limited number of channels or ways to get HD content. And I had a satellite provider and they had a few channels. There was literally a channel called HDNet, which is now called something else. But it was like, this is a channel that's in high definition. Sky had Sky HD, which is just the one channel they showed all their HD content on. HD, which is just the one channel they showed all their HD content on.

And my favorite thing about HDNet was that they had a show that literally was on the morning and it would show you a sunrise. Yep. Yep. Right? And it would just go for like half an hour and you could literally just watch the sunrise in HD. Amazing.

And this 4K HDR era seems similar. So Tom Warren wrote a story at The Verge about this. He was very excited about it. In the U.S., it's fascinating. The World Cup made a deal with Hisense, which is a TV manufacturer, to embed the Fox Sports, because it's on Fox here in the U.S., Fox Sports World Cup app on their 4K HDR TVs. So if you have one of their TVs, you get access to it. And then there are a few other ways to do it.

The satellite provider, DirecTV, is making it available on most of the games available on one of their channels. I have Comcast Cable, and their response to this is hilarious. They are making some games available on demand the day after they're played. Incredible. That's what you want. If you've, if, and only if you've got their X one DVR, which is their 4k DVR,

you can't like stream them or it's just, yeah, but we'll get there, right? Like in four years, I would imagine we will have advanced to the point where you can get a 4k HDR stream or channel or something of everything that you can get to. Like every service that you can get to will offer that in some way or other.

But this time, it's like, and actually that happened in the Olympics in 2004 when we had that HDTV. There was an HD Olympic channel, which was awesome. It was events from the world feed, not from the local, from NBC in the US. And it was a day delayed. So, but I'll tell you, I watched that. Yeah, yeah. Because that was that moment where you watched the moment when swimming, Olympic swimming was in HD for the first time.

I still remember it because I remember thinking, I can see them under the water. It's like, whoa, because standard deaf swimming was just like, there's splashes and whatever. But you could see them under the water. It was amazing. So the 4K HDR, it's exciting. Tom Warren's piece, he mentions how interesting it is to see a live sporting event in HDR, leaving the 4K aside. Like the dynamic range makes it feel kind of different. And that's kind of interesting too.

So I'm looking, and I think it's 60 frames per second, which is also interesting. So a higher frame rate. I'm looking forward to seeing it, but I don't get to see it this time because I don't have the Comcast DVR. So, oh well. All right, this episode of Upgrade

is brought to you by Skillshare, an online learning community So, as well. That's one of the great things about Skillshare. You can learn new things. So you can go out and get a new career that you're looking for. Maybe you want to understand how to take great photos. They have a Fundamentals of DSLR Photography course. It's an introductory course. It's a smart, inspiring way to get up to speed quickly, learning key photography skills, and help you become a master with the functions of what a DSLR camera can do. Or maybe you want to be more productive. They have a course called Productivity Today, which will show you how to manage your attention in a digital age and make more of your time. It's something I care about quite deeply,

and I'm sure many of our listeners do too, so Skillshare can help you get even better. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for Upgrade listeners. You can get two months of Skillshare for just 99 cents. That is two months of Skillshare premium for just 99 cents. Just go to skillshare.com slash upgrade and you'll get unlimited access to over 20,000 classes for just 99 cents for two months. Head there now and start learning today. Our thanks to Skillshare for their support of this show and RelayFM. So Jason, in our post-WWDC episode, I think I remember saying that Project Sneak Peek was exciting to me

because I felt like it could finally end the contention of the iPad versus the Mac and whether the Mac was going to die and all that kind of stuff i was like finally we're all good we can move away from this this seems like a great thing that apple's doing and then a couple of days later you wrote an article much to my surprise uh title what will the mac be like in 2020 where you had basically gone through i think a bit of a roller coaster of emotions over a couple of days. And then by the end of this article,

pronounced the Mac to be dead again, which I'm kind of surprised about. Not quite. Not quite. But I think it's fair to say. So I actually am really positive about this. I know people are going to be upset about it, but I'm actually really positive about this.

I do think the story of how to get from here to there is fascinating. And I think when we get there, what I would say, I can't wait to hear John Syracuse talk about this on ATP sometime. But I think it is fair to say that the Mac is about to undergo the greatest amount of change that it has experienced since OS X was introduced. I think that's what we're going to see. So I think the question is, is the Mac dead in five years? No, I don't think so. Is the Mac as we know it completely changed in five years? I think maybe yes.

I think maybe that is the thing, is that we're entering a period that potentially is going to have dramatic change for the Mac. Maybe for iOS, too, because I think that's an untold part of this, especially the iPad. Because when you look at the sneak peek stuff or marzipan or whatever you want to call it this ability to run ios stuff on the mac um the what what's going to happen and and like steve troughton smith bless his heart is already taking the stuff apart he's doing and building incredible work right now he's using the stuff that's in the first developer beta to take stock, it's simulator builds, of other iOS apps and turn them into Mac apps. Like, just to see what happens. And keep in mind, this is the first beta of a thing that is not actually going to be available to developers for a year in beta.

And a year and three months, probably, in final. And so he's looking at the earliest days of this, which means if stuff doesn't work, it's like, this is beta and it's not for you. And we got a year until the developer beta. So he's just trying to figure out what's there and how it works. And he's doing some amazing work. I also want to reference, we'll put it in the show notes, a nice piece by Becky Hansmeyer. It's technical, but it's really good about what is going on with iOS as well. And the idea that perhaps we're in next time, iOS 13 and the next version of macOS, we may be in for kind of a visual refresh. That would bring dark mode there would be some other things that would be potentially shared between the two operating systems in terms of design functionality i think she makes some very good points it's

um it's a good piece and i look at these pieces and i start to think okay well this is this is what may be going on here is that we're going to enter a period where um we're going to get an influx of apps for the mac but more than that there's going to get an influx of apps for the Mac. But more than that, there's going to be an influx of apps on the Mac, and they're going to be modified like Apple has done so that they also look different on the iPad. There's a possibility that as a part of this process, like how do you do multi-window support for these apps? Because the apps that Apple chose for this round don't really do that. They're all sort of single window but um there are some thoughts i think steve has had these thoughts and and i think becky's piece touches on it too of the idea that what may be coming

is kind of an overhaul that is like let's ios apps on the the iPad have multiple windows that are probably tabs and not floating windows. So there'll be tabs on iOS, but there'll be windows on the Mac. Right. They'd be able to instantiate that differently. They could be tabbed or windowed on the Mac, and they'd be tabbed on iOS. Like how Finder is, you know? Like you can tab Finder. Or Safari is a great example

safari i think is a good example on ios as well and then on the iphone they wouldn't be that way they'd be in a stack probably because that's how safari on the iphone does it and so that's this is a case that you and i've talked about where um although you know we're talking about the future of the mac it's like the ipad kind of comes along for the ride because like if you've got this ios uh originated software but you want to make it good on the mac we you and i both think like there's a real opportunity here to also kind of extend that work and have it make good ipad apps and apple is the first example here where they've taken apps that weren't even they didn't even bother putting on the ipad

and now they can put them there and if you extend that to having kind of the concept of windowing or tabbing then it gets even more kind of rich and interesting so um so i think that we are headed down a path where a lot of software is going to be coming to the mac using this approach and the richer that approach gets i because i i have a hard time seeing Apple doing this and having it be rudimentary, right? Like, well, you can bring these apps to the Mac, but they're not very good and they don't look like Mac apps. That's a possible scenario, but I don't believe that Apple would choose to do it that way. I believe Apple wants this to be really good. And that's where my story took a turn a little bit, I will admit, where I'm like,

well, if they're really good, then why make, if you're an iOS developer, that's all the Mac apps you make will be like that. And it becomes sort of like essentially two ways of building a Mac app. You can build it this way, which is the unified UI kit way, or you can build a Mac-only app using AppKit.

And over time, there will, I think, always be, or for a very long time, apps that are legacy apps that use AppKit, or potentially apps that can only be done using AppKit, but there's going to be a whole lot of stuff that just uses UIKit and can run potentially on iOS as well as the Mac. And that changes the scenario of what the Mac is to be this kind of hybrid of... It reminds me a lot of the early days of OS X where there was Cocoa and Carbon. And Cocoa was not any more native on OS X than Carbon, technically. People always would say, oh, it feels like a native app.

It's like Carbon was native too. Carbon technically, people always would say, oh, it feels like a native app. It's like Carbon was native too. But like Carbon was older, you know, designed to be compatible for things that had a bunch of older code from the Mac, from the classic Mac era. And then gradually over time, the Carbon stuff just got deprecated. And I don't know whether AppKit would get deprecated over time compared to UI kit, but it's not hard to imagine that happening. And this is why I feel positive about a lot of this. I think Apple's ultimate goal is to make things that are good on the platform, to make software developers be empowered to build good software for their platforms, including the Mac. I don't think Apple's goal is to make the Mac crappy and feel like a secondhand iOS device. That's not

their goal. And if they continue to advance this technology, at some point, a lot of the stuff that we consider only doable on the Mac may not be anymore. At which point it's sort of like, is it a Mac anymore? Kind of, it's like iOS plus. Um, but my feeling about that is as scary as that sounds from the perspective of today, I think by the time we got there, like if that device does everything you want it to do and need it to do, we call it what you want, but it won't matter if it's not a Mac anymore. If it literally does everything that you can do on your Mac today in the same kind of way. And I think that would be the ultimate end goal for Apple. So that's a long way of saying that I think I'm pretty positive about it, but I do think

things are going to change an awful lot. And the more that people like Steve Trout and Smith dig into this stuff, I think the clearer the ramifications are of where Apple's going, even at this early stage. So when a monarch dies in this country, I assume it's the same in other places too, but they say like, oh, the king is dead, long live the king, right? This is kind of how I think about this,

where it's like the Mac is dead, long live the Mac. Like what we knew is going to go away, but there's going to be something else, which is learned from the previous one, and it's a continuation of the line. And that's kind of how I'm looking at this. I liked something that Steve Troughton-Smith said a couple of days ago on Twitter,

where he said the Mac is going to become another iOS target in a different form factor. It will keep everything that makes it a Mac, but Apple's successful ecosystem is iOS and UIi kit and it will dominate on the desktop is that a pronouncement you would agree with yeah i think that is i think that's a very likely scenario and um and it goes back to me saying i have a hard time imagining apple saying we're going to go this far, but no further with a UI kit on the Mac. Like beyond here, we're just not going to go there. We're going to, we're going to leave it here.

I have a hard time Apple looking at some of its new and important technologies and saying, well, we're going to, we're going to limit it because we don't want to make the old stuff uncomfortable. Like, and they've. And they've actually, I would argue they've crossed that line already, right? Like by doing this at all, the gate is open. And again, I think you could look at this very positively.

Like this is Apple saying that it's gonna take its most important stuff from its strongest platform, from its biggest community of developers and give them a whole bunch of tools because they really want them to be able to extend their software to the Mac. And it's easy to look at it now and be like, oh, the Mac App Store is really sleepy. Is anybody really going to even want to make Mac apps? It's like, okay, that's a fair question. But in the

long run, it's sort of like, hey, iOS developers, you already target the iPhone and probably the iPad. What if your software also goes to the laptops or desktops? And you have even more audience for it. In the long run, think more about reaching people on Apple's platforms instead of thinking about iOS versus Mac. iOS versus Mac. So, you make reference to this, Steve made reference to this in the quote that I just mentioned, and I think this is even something that Apple was talking about, like, what makes a Mac a Mac, and kind of keeping that intact. So if it's not the apps then, right, like if we assume that the apps can change and things

will be mostly okay, what is it that makes a Mac a Mac? Yeah, this is the big question. And I think it's going to depend on, it's what we've been talking about for a few years now, which is what does Apple see as the future of the Mac? What does Apple want the Mac to be in five years? And there are a bunch of options there. There's dead. And I don't think Apple wants that. There's a legacy platform for people who've been buying computers for a long time who are aging, but they've got work to do, and they've got money, and they've got software that they count on that's been around for a decade or two decades. And it's a flat to declining product in a declining market. Although I will say, I think that it's a mistake to think that

future workforces are just going to use smartphones or smartphones and tablets. Like, I think the death of the laptop is overstated. And I see it with my own kids. Like, they like laptops. I've got two teenagers. They like laptops. They do. They like other devices, too.

But they also like laptops. So I don't think the laptop as a concept is going to go away. So I think it would be a mistake for Apple to say, well, we do have a laptop, but it's really for old people. Like, I think that's just a huge mistake. And I don't think they believe that. So their other option is to say, what we want this to be in five years is a platform that has all the stuff that existing Mac users do count on, but an infusion of capability from iOS that gives new energy to this platform, gives new software to it, it that makes it feel more like what a um what that other audience that's not the legacy mac

audience wants to get out of a device that's in the shape of a laptop or a desktop and to me that's when some of their statements about not doing a touch screen break down because the the the new generation of device users are touch screen natives i think that i i don't think it needs to be only touch screen because that's ridiculous my you know both my kids use laptops that means they use trackpads and keyboards and it it's great but i do start to think that is a place where potentially um the mac becomes something that's more like, well, it's a Mac, but it's also an iOS device, kind of. And you can choose your interaction method.

Now, that's one of the places that it's really an open question because Apple right now says, no, no, no. Touchscreens, why would we need to do them? But they don't have them on the Mac. So they're not going to say that they're going to do them until they do them. It's Apple. They never talk about that stuff in advance for new hardware. It's always nothing until it's something.

But I'd like to believe that that is what Apple's committed to in terms of the Mac, is how does Apple get from here, where they've got this one platform that's new and thriving and growing and incredibly popular, and then they've got this other platform that's new and thriving and growing and incredibly popular. And then they've got this other platform that is good and has been around a long time, but but to create this single unified Windows with all of this stuff. Apple has this trickier challenge. It's a good problem to have, to have iOS, but it's a trickier challenge of how do they get these things to kind of become more cohesive? Because in the end, if I'm Apple, what i don't want is in 10 years time for the macbook to be a computer for old people why though i mean like what if it just goes that way well people die michael people die you well no here's the thing though if you believe that the laptop that people

like laptops that young people like laptops the laptop is a shape that we're not going to go into an office in 15 years and behind every desk is just a person, if there are even desks. Offices don't even have desks anymore in this scenario. They're just people in chairs drifting around an office building somewhere. And they all just have smartphones. And that's the workplace. It's like I kind of don't believe that that's the case. I think it'll be different.

I think that we make assumptions about work that will change and we will be surprised in the next 10 or 15 years 20 years all you know they're always going to be surprises but what i don't believe is that um all of a sudden everybody's going to say laptops are pointless um we're just going to use tablets in the workplace from now on it's like you know people do i i just i don't think it could happen it could happen that everybody goes to AR glasses or VR or something like that but um and Apple's making different bets there but as long as we're in the context of sort of traditional computing I feel like you know the laptop is a viable form I guess you could argue the other way to go is that why why not just continue to make old Macs for old people and make iOS laptops for young people and And they could do that, but it seems

like maybe they're not going to do that. I think this direction suggests that they're going to try to infuse iOS into the Mac instead of having to be separate. And some of the statements made at WWDC about how like, what is the Mac? Like the Mac is on a laptop. It's like, all right, well, if iOS is not on a laptop, then how do you make a laptop that gets all the goodness of iOS, but it's still not, it's still a Mac. And that seems to be the direction they're heading. But I think ultimately, like what you don't want it at app, if you're Apple is to end up with this huge class of computing devices that you used to be really the, you know, one of the best or the best at that you've basically written off, even though they still exist and people use them. If you believe they're going to die, then you can just write them off. But I don't think Apple believes that use of traditional computer shapes is going to die out

completely. I think it's always going to be a part of the mix. And if you're Apple, you want to be in there. You want to be part of the mix. you're if they're still making and using laptops if people are still buying laptops apple will want to be there and i can't see it being in apple's dna to be the provider of old thuddy-duddy legacy computing devices right can do they that would be such a blow to their self-image to be like sears or or jc penny or something like that, where it's like, well, for people who are not comfortable with modern things, we provide this old stuff for you. I just don't think Apple would do that. So do you think that the Mac, so like the MacBook, the iMac, is just going to become the name of a form factor, like the iPad is the name of a form factor for iOS? Maybe.

I mean, these are the great mysteries. It's like, how does Apple steer this? And how do they market it? Because the thing is, none of these companies get to stop selling products. Let's just say, there's a long period of time here, right? There's so many things that have to happen. Like, a far future you know even the element of like how do you build apps right because you can need the apps well you can't build apps on ios right now so

our assumption is that all of these things have happened right like because that seems like the logical flow and they have to stay in business right so that's the idea that um it's it you can build the bridge a lot faster and a lot cheaper if you can just shut it down and tear it down and then build a new bridge. But there's traffic every day and the traffic has to go through. So you can't do that. So it costs a lot more money and takes a lot more time because you need to keep the traffic going. And that's the same thing here, is that they need to still sell MacBooks. Apple may have known for years and still knows where they're going with the Mac and that it's going to be a very different product in five years than it is today. But the fact is they need to sell your laptops today and tomorrow and next year.

Right. They need to keep doing that. And so they're not going to they can't just shut it all down and then bring in a new thing and figure it out. They kind of have to build a transition in it. And it's harder. So we're talking about hardware right this is this is a conversation we're having right now and i think a lot of the current issues that that mac fans have are based around the fact that we seem to be slowing down on hardware again like it seemed like things have gotten better maybe but they're slowing down again. So my question is, where has all the hardware gone? And we can talk about that after we take

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But I liked it. I thought it was funny. So that's what I'm going to ask you, because there has been quite a bit of renewed angst about Mac hardware over the last couple of weeks. So I feel like after WWDC, for the days after WWDC, I wasn't hearing anybody really talk about this, the fact that they didn't do anything with the Mac. Nobody that I was talking to seemed concerned about it. Obviously, we knew it didn't happen, right? There was no bumps of any kind. No one was expecting to get Mac Pro stuff, the iMac Pro as good as it is. But I think a lot of people, it was a draft pick of ours, was expecting at

least some chip changes in the MacBook Pro, but nothing happened and it seemed like it was quiet and then kind of last week a lot of this started to surface again and i think it started with a post from quentin carnicelli um on the roger meber blog titled on the sad state of macintosh hardware um where quentin goes through a bunch of things. I got a quote that I wanted to read. I want to see if you feel the way, the same way. Quentin says, it's very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of Macs to customers. And that's deeply worrisome to us

as a Mac-based software company. Do you feel the same way that right now it is difficult to recommend Macs to people? Let me tell you, I am being bombarded by parents asking me about laptops for their kids for school in the fall, especially since we had a bunch of graduations and people sometimes will do that. They'll buy a computer for their kid on their way when they graduate and it's to take to college or whatever. And it's been tough because my answer has basically been,

we don't know when the next Apple laptops have come out. These are a year old. You know, you might want to wait if you can. And that's a tough, it's a tough situation to be in. And of course, we also have these other issues like the Mac mini being out there and being kind of untouched. And there's these questions that a lot of us who follow this stuff closely have about like, are they going to make adjustments to the keyboard? Are they going to make adjustments to the touch bar? There was that rumor about a revision to the MacBook Air after all this time, but none of it happened.

And so like, if you want to buy a laptop now, it's this really weird position or all sorts of different Apple products of sort of where are they? Where are they? And it brings to mind something that you and I talked about last year when Apple did update the laptops because they did the MacBook Pro update like nine months, ten months after they had released them initially. And at the time, you know, what we were talking about is what is Apple's commitment to its users on the Mac, especially pro users to keep Macs refreshed at a decent pace with the Intel processor advances. And we talked about that. They had that big gap that felt like maybe they got stuck between Intel chip versions.

They decided not to do a speed bump based on an Intel chip revision and wait for the next one. And they made the wrong decision. And they made the wrong decision. So what we talked about last year was Apple is in, they've committed, they've said they're committed and that they love Mac users and they care about their pro users. But they need to walk the walk. They need to actually show that. And they did that one update pretty fast in less than a year. And now it's been a year. So I'm not surprised by this kind of response because we are now in one of those little moments where it's unclear whether there's an update just around the corner and that Apple is reaffirming its commitment to update these things basically every year or whether there's not an update around the corner.

And the problem is we have these products that just never get updated that are out there. And people know the history so it's made people um a little gun shy a little uh they're they're looking for apple to let them down again because apple let them down in the past and continues to let them down in certain areas so i'm not surprised because this is the time where we're in that like that that middle period where we don't know. Apple could release something next week or in a month, and it'll be fine in terms of the laptops. But who knows? Will it be the fall? Will it be the winter?

Will it not happen this year? I saw somebody wrote something about, I don't know a lot about the ins and outs of Intel chip releases and all of that. But I have seen some people suggest that Intel does, there are some processors that Apple is probably targeting for new MacBook Pros that aren't out yet. And that that may be, it may be in conjunction with those. But if that's true, again, you could say, well, maybe they should have picked up the last generation and turned the product around a little bit faster just to show it. But they didn't, and now it's been a year. Yeah, because I've seen some stuff like that too.

It's mostly been like tweets that I've seen flying by where people were like, oh, Intel's late again or whatever. But the thing is, if that's the case, Apple let that happen again then, didn't they? Right. If it's a delay that's causing this because they skipped a set of chips to wait for the next one,

it's like waiting for a bus and the bus comes and it's really packed. And you're like, I'll wait for the next one. And then there is no next one. You're like, oh, I should have squeezed on that bus. So there's my bus metaphor for the day, Mike. But I think it's still out there, right? But this all plays into this overall narrative of people not really trusting Apple's commitment to updating Mac hardware on a timely basis.

And they can prove it, as we said last year, they can prove it by shipping new products. And they didn't do it at the time when they did it last year. It's now been a year when it was only nine or ten months the last time. So, of course, people should be asking, well, when are those happening? Are they happening? And we don't know. And so, you know, in the, in the end, I feel like a lot of this could get resolved in the next two, two, three months if Apple ships new laptops. But we, if we go on track record, everybody gets a little concerned because apple has not had a great record and there are a lot of stale computers in the mac product line right now so there was there was another thing um i was i

wanted to to ask you about from from quentin's article uh quentin says apple's transparency in 2017 regarding their miscalculation with the Mac Pro seemed encouraging. But over a year later, the company has utterly failed to produce anything tangible. I wanted to just ask you about this, see what you think. I mean, the iMac Pro though, right? Yeah, also shipping those new MacBook Pros nine or ten months after they shipped the previous one, that was tangible. That was, look, we updated these right away we i know we just released these but we just put new chips in them and updated them now so look at us we're

paying attention that was tangible but one is not enough like i know that there's a lot there's a lot like you look at that mac rumors thing and you know you got the numbers that range from 182 with the iMac pro was the last time it was you know it was when it was released 182 days all the way up to Mac Mini with 1,300 and odd days right like it's a large amount right and you can see why I think people don't focus on what has happened they focus on what's not happened because there is a lot more that has not happened than happened right like the iMac Pro coming out was great but there's also a lot more old stuff that's just not been touched right in it at all and it's you know the Mac Mini still a product in the lineup

kind of thing I get why people get hung up on it, because the Mac Mini is like a symbol, right? Like, 1,400 days coming up to, you know, it's sat untouched. And the Mac Mini, I think, is often trotted out in this argument as symbolic of the overall issues of the Mac line, right? This aging, dying product. You can even argue the trashcan Mac Pro, right? Which they still sell, right? Like, it is this, especially the Mac Mini,

it's this aging, like dying product, basically, because it hasn't been touched. The last one that they released was less powerful than the one before. And I wanted to ask you a question about the Mac Mini, because people bring it up a lot. Is it that important to most of the people that are arguing the point?

No, no, it's not. And that's why I say, if Apple updates the laptops in the next few months i think it'll be fine and then the imac again the imac hasn't been updated in a year as well but that's in less need i think but yeah if but if the imac gets updated this fall it's fine like the mac mini is a pain point for some people who like the mac mini like me and would like to buy a new mac mini and i'm not going to because there isn't one but that is a that is a and like the mac pro which we know there's a new one coming like it's a weird thing

to use as the monitoring of the health of the Mac. The Mac Mini has always kind of been poorly treated by Apple because it's a low priority product. And it seems like the iMac Pro and the new Mac Pro have kind of like diverted, the rumors are, you know, diverted people who are working on a new Mac Mini that there is a new Mac Mini, but it's a low priority and they keep on having other things that are a higher priority and let's be honest probably every other mac is a higher priority than the mac mini i'd like to see the mac mini shipped but but they're every other mac is and so yes yes every other mac is a great thing to point to if you want to be angry the mac mini is probably the single lowest product on apple's

top of like things in active development like the apple tv is more important than the mac mini yeah i was gonna say i was gonna say ipod touch but is it even being actively developed no that's why i use that right because they've got stuff right they've got dongles but like um it's a question for you you mentioned the if the the laptops get updated everything's fine is it though how much of an update needs to be done for everything to be fine? Because if they leave it to September, say they leave it to September, let's just say, because that's when we expect the next products will come out, right?

We know there's going to be products in September, and by and large, right now, it looks like potentially that could be everything. If they leave it until September, and the product line remains basically unchanged except for new intel chips and you know maybe some new other internal configurations is that going to be fine um in the grand scheme of things i think it's fine i think for people who are upset with the design of apple's laptops it won't be fine if all they do is a speed bump there like there's also this other part of it which is like well you definitely didn't have to wait until september just to put new chips in like could

you not have done that at any point and then there's like this other question i mean the argument will be the argument will be that the chips that they wanted to put in weren't ready in volume from Intel until then. And it was just magically lined up with the September iPhone event. Well, yeah. I mean, would they release it in September? I guess they could. In the past, we've seen them release new Macs in October

as kind of the echo after that. We've also seen new iPads at the October event. Could happen again um could happen this summer there's nothing stopping them from and they don't need an event like that's the thing is they really don't they really don't anything honestly like even if they do redesign it they don't need an event for it like it's nice but like if they make some changes like i think this is a product that you could put out with some really nice press coverage. You get a bunch of people together in a room like you did with the round table

and be like, here's the new MacBook Pro. And that would work fine. I don't know if they would do that, but it would work fine. Yeah, they could also do a little event. They own their event space. They could do a little event. Although my guess is that they would do it after the iPhone event and not this summer.

Yeah, it only because before now like only because the iphone event is the most important thing for them and so having another event distracting them between now and then but they've they have all sorts of new pr strategies where they roll things out in all sorts of strange and weird ways and it's entirely possible that they could just seed new laptops to a bunch of people and um under an embargo and have a new laptop announcement that drops with you know 10 or 15 different stories and videos and stuff about using the new laptop for a week they do that now and they could totally do that yeah they could they could totally do that but there's another thing whilst all this is going on apple Apple unveiled a new Mac-focused ad campaign.

So outside of the company, people feel that there's no love for the Mac, but the marketing team doesn't feel that way because they've created a brand new brand strategy, which is focusing on people that do creative work with the Mac and showing them how and why they do it. And currently there are three campaigns. There's one with a photographer, Bruce Hall, who's legally blind. It's a really good video.

Peter Kariuki, who is a developer, and Grimes, who's a musician. And they're showing the different ways that they use the Mac. And there will be 12 total portraits, they're calling them, that will appear on Apple's website. I don't know if, it is unknown right now

if and where they're going to appear anywhere else. Maybe they're just going to be web campaigns but there's you know this is this type of thing this like i am creative on apple's platforms feels like something that they've typically done with the ipad in recent times and this mac campaign feels a little bit more old school like it reminds me of some of like the switching campaigns and stuff right where they take like one person and they focus on them so you know i you know companies do what companies do and they're always going to sell their products but a brand new campaign about the mac that must mean something right yeah i mean it could be as simple as wanting to counter Microsoft's campaigns, which have been very much targeted at traditionally the people who buy Macs.

And so I think that there's some of that going on here. But yeah, it's messaging. It's saying that don't forget about the Mac one of their challenges is the Mac losing relevance especially if in the long run you think that the Mac is

viable and is going to grow market share and all those things like it's been doing in the shrinking PC market it's been growing market share you don't want to rest on that. You want to keep it in your product vision. And if they do want to make changes to it and really kind of expand its appeal even further in the next few years, you don't want to sort of go radio silent on it. So it's an interesting idea. It definitely feels old school. The idea that it's an interesting idea um it definitely feels old school the idea that it's sort of like using the mac for creative stuff it seems like one part of apple's current apple current mac

strategy is um is professional and creative professional and they talked about it with mojave and they talked about it with the imac pro and that they're doing the mac pro and they it definitely seems like that is part of this story that they're telling about the Mac is it's this tool to get the serious work done. And look at all these creative people who are using it that way. It's a challenge for them though, right? Because they've got other products that they also kind of sell in similar ways, like the iPad you know those messages don't always align because they kind of can't right now it's similar to when apple stands on the stage and says putting a keyboard on a touch screen touching a screen in a in a keyboard orientation is uh is no good when they

make a keyboard for the ipad right Like Josue said that during the talk show and there was a part of me that just wanted to jump on the stage and like show him my iPad. Like I don't understand why they're still touting that line of like, that's really bad and nobody wants to do that. You sell a product that is made that way.

I think the fact is that they are telling two different stories that aren't aligned right now. And that's the right now and that's the challenge and um and that's the challenge with marketing marketing the mac and i would say it goes back to what they may be doing with the mac which is bringing it into alignment like this is something that in a few years they're going to be able to tell a more kind of clean story about what you can do across all of its platforms but right now they've got two very different platforms and they kind of have to figure out again they can't just shut

it all down and come back in five years they've got to figure out a way to navigate between there and here so i mean overall it feels like that you're positive about where the Mac is going. I mean, I am. I think that this is only good. But I am not as tied to a lot of the stuff that people say makes the Mac a Mac, right? Like, I don't care about terminal. I don't care about, you know, like, it's just not stuff that I use. So what I'm excited about with Marzipan is a consistency in the applications that i'm using like we were talking about the idea of you

know your beloved uh ferrite podcast studio app right that you use to edit on ios if they if would you just bring that to the mac i will then be tempted to to dive in because then i will finally have a consistent editing experience across all platforms. Like that is like a killer thing for me. And that's what I'm excited about because I don't care about a lot of the stuff

that people say makes a Mac a Mac. Like I don't want them to get rid of it because I know it would make people unhappy. But for me personally, they're moving away from stuff like that and making all of their devices closer to ios and then making ios more powerful it's like a dream a stream scenario for me i think i think

i i agree with you as somebody who has been for a very long time team both which is why it's always funny when people are like oh well you know they they mentioned me um as one of those one of those ipad people and it's true i did i did stop stop using my laptop, and I just use my iPad. But I also sit in front of an iMac Pro every day. This $5,000 computer that I bought in December. And I have all sorts of things. I do use the terminal. I do run shell scripts.

I do all sorts of things that are computery things. And I miss it on the iPad. Some of that stuff, I have to, I do have to do things that are weird and different in order to accomplish things that are fairly easy on the Mac, which is by the way, part of my thought process about why it's inevitable that iOS becomes more powerful because I don't see a scenario where Apple is like, yeah, we could make iOS more powerful, but we're not going to bother. I feel like that inevitably they will.

It'll take time, but inevitably they will. But as a Mac user, I am excited about this. I think the fear, there's always fear of change. Everybody has fear of change. It's a natural human thing.

I could get how somebody who doesn't particularly love ios and just wants to use their mac to get their work done and has been using the mac for a long time to do their work done to get their work done um i get how there's this trepidation of like it's change scary changing my mac and this happened when the os 10 transition happened it's like you changed my mac i don't like it can Can I do the same stuff? Some stuff that I do is going to go away. There better be a replacement.

And even then, even if there's a replacement that turns out being just as good, it's different. And that's a struggle. So there's a lot of stuff that could happen here that could frustrate Mac users. But I would say I'm encouraged. It's all, we're all just reading tea leaves here, right? Like, cause Apple is so close to the best about this stuff. I'm encouraged by the fact that they're talking about pro uses. I'm encouraged by the fact that they built new features into Mojave and talked about them on stage and mentioned basically finder service plugins and automator and shell scripts, because that's stuff that iOS doesn't do at all

that the Mac does. And can actually, it makes the Mac so much more flexible and powerful. And if Apple is mentioning that stuff and building features that kind of build on top of that stuff in the Mac, in Mac OS. It encourages me that the way they're thinking about the Mac is that it is going to bring along all that stuff that they currently can't do on iOS and maybe won't do on iOS. Some of that may just be as simple as there's never going to be a command line on ios because we have to lock it down because cause security i'd like to believe that in the long run if they could do a secure command line on ios that they would just they would do it but maybe maybe not and maybe some of this other stuff they're never going to be the ability the argument is they just replace all the requirements for it you know as

opposed to yeah what that is it's hard to imagine that like i want to do a shell script and they're like sure i mean you don't do shell scripts anymore it's something else right like right but that so that's the that's the challenge but but um stick with me here what i'm what i'm trying to say is um whatever it is that maybe there's something that they're like yeah okay i think the best example being, we're never going to let you just download an app from somewhere on the internet and run it on iOS. But the Mac can do that. If you really want to, you might have to turn off a bunch of security features, but we'll, maybe we'll let you do that. So there's always going to be, I feel like Apple's mindset is the Mac is going to provide some extra stuff as JASWIAC, I think said,

plugging in a bunch of hard drives and, uh, sticking on a bunch of monitors. Like, you know, the Mac, the Mac can do that. Like there's always going to be stuff like, okay, that's going to be there, but everything else that we can possibly do to make it get the benefits of all the iOS stuff, we're also going to do. And so there's change, and that's scary. But I'm optimistic now that what Apple's not going to do is just sort of steamroll the Mac until it's just iOS. I don't think that's what they're doing. And that's why when they say in 50-foot-high letters, no, we're not merging iOS and Mac. I think that's what they mean. I think what they mean is they're going to make the Mac a lot more like iOS and have software

sourced from iOS, but they want to preserve this extra layer of stuff that iOS is not engineered to do. And by the way, and I think we mentioned this in one of the last two shows, one of the really interesting things that they said at WWDC is the idea that the underpinnings of both operating systems, which were shared like, you know, in 2007, when they split the iOS, the iPhone software off from Mac OS 10, they took a bunch of stuff with them. They based it on OS 10, but then they kind of like over time it's drift, they've drifted. So even though we often draw this idea of like, they're the same under the hood, they're actually not so much the same under the hood. And one of the things that Apple is doing this year and next year as a part of this

marzipan thing is getting the under the hood stuff realigned where it's the same on Mac and iOS. And that's part of this story too, right? The idea that they want the two platforms to share as much as possible. But I think the way they're talking, their intent is not to share so much as possible but i think the way they're talking their intent is not to share so much with the mac that it's just ios and there's no mac left um it seems like their strategy is the mac will remain with its layer of mackeyness on it but it's going to feel a lot more like other apple products don't even think about it as ios it's going to feel a lot more like other Apple products. Don't even think about it as iOS. It's going to feel more like other Apple products in many, many, many, many ways. And although that's scary and it may turn some people off and long-time Mac users may not like the change,

and it remains to be seen how well Apple pulls this off, I'd like to believe that the end goal is not to just squish the Mac out of existence. Unless Apple gets to the point with iOS that it feels like literally everything that the Mac is providing that iOS isn't has been checked off as now being available on iOS. And I kind of think that Apple maybe likes the idea of having this release valve of stuff that they just don't have to do on iOS. Like that's a Mac thing. Just do, get a Mac. If you want to do that, we don't want to, we don't want to do a terminal. We don't want to build in shell scripting into the base level and give that level of access. We want to keep this stuff secure. The Mac is going to be more secure than it is now, but it's going to be a little less secure than iOS and we're okay with that, go get a Mac for that

I think maybe they're comfortable with that idea that that not only differentiates the Mac from iOS but it also gives them that outlet of we do offer computers that do that they're over there This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Squarespace make your next move with Squarespace

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sent in by the upgradians out there. And the first one comes from Rye. Rye has said, I've been getting a lot of spam phone calls to my cell phone recently. They often use caller ID spoofing to look like numbers in my area. Can you recommend any apps to help deal with this?

No, I don't know if i can one of the challenges is there are anti-spam services that you can get but they have a hard time the reason that they now spoof the caller id to make it look like it's coming from your prefix is specifically to make it hard for you, for the blockers to block that stuff. Because they're basically, they could be posing as real people near you. And that makes it hard. I haven't looked at the spam blocking software for phone calls on iOS in a while now. I used BugmeNot for a while. Was it BugmeNot? I forget what it was called. What was it called, Mike?

Do you remember? I don't know, man. I use something called something called true caller but i'm mostly unhappy with it so i'm i'm open to taking recommendations um but yeah that's that's one that i use but i've been seeing an increase here as well no more no more robo no more robo is the one that i used but again i think this is the challenge is that the those spammers are wily and so i don't have a surefire recommendation for rye um i i think it might be worth investigating those blocker apps um i've just taken a blocking those numbers anyway even though they might be local people i don't care i just want them to go away but the problem is they randomize it and they come back.

Yeah, I have a liberal use of the block contact feature or block caller feature in iOS, but that's like a whack-a-mole situation, right? You're only going to get rid of that one number, but they'll just use another number or it'll be a different one. So I'm open to taking any recommendations as well, but I have used Truecaller.

It's okay, but I don't really like it very much um steve has asked i heard jason reference electron last week and i've heard a few other podcasts do the same what is electron and what does it do um electron is a framework that lets uh you write desktop apps using web technologies. So basically you're using something called Node, which is a JavaScript runtime for the backend of the software. And you're using Chromium, which is basically the Chrome browser engine for the front end. So there are lots of different apps that are written in this. So basically you're writing apps in web technologies instead of desktop app technologies. And the knock on Electron is that it uses a lot of memory and they're slow and they don't feel entirely native because they're really just kind of web pages

running in a browser or in an app window. And other people say they're fine, right? I mean, that like, there's, there, there, definitely, if you talk to a Mac app developer, they will probably say all the things that are bad about, about electron apps on the Mac. But that's a debate I don't want to get into right now, other than to say that it is a way to use web technologies to build something and then deploy it across platforms, too, because the web that's a a debate i don't want to get into right now other than to say that it is a way to use web technologies to build something and then deploy it across platforms too because the web technologies are cross-platform so you build that electron app and you can put it out on windows put it out on mac and probably put it out on uh on chrome os too because it's just web technologies my feeling on

it is it might not be the best but at least it means that the app can be on the platform because otherwise it might not be. Right. Exactly. I think a lot of the Electron apps that you use wouldn't exist on the platform that you use it on if they couldn't make the Electron app. And so my hope, like many, is that a lot of these companies will move to the UIKit versions of their apps because they're probably going to run better than the Electron apps because UIKit will be native to the Mac as well. So that's kind of why Electron keeps being brought up because people don't like it

and hopefully there is this UIKit future. Well, we know it's there, but hopefully companies like Slack, for example, use their iPad app instead of an Electron Mac app when by and large, they look pretty much the same anyway. Like the iPad app and the Mac app, they may as well be the same app. So I

would like to see them move that stuff, because why not? The Slack iOS app's not that great anyway, but what do you expect? I mean, this is what happens when companies get so big, their apps get bad. This is what happens. Jimmy wants to know,

do you think screen time will come to macOS? Hmm. I don't, because no one's talking about laptop addiction. This product exists because smartphone addiction is considered a problem, and iPad gets it because it's iOS. I don't imagine this feature coming to the Mac honestly because I just think it's a different considered mostly to be a different use case and I don't think that that people are concerned about how much they're spending time on Instagram

and a web browser I don't think that that is what the focus is on yeah Luke has asked considering jumping into the Apple Watch is there any particular model or band that you recommend? What do you think, Mike? I don't want to talk about this right now. I'm going to leave it to you to recommend. I think if you're buying right now, get a Series 3.

You probably don't need the cellular unless you do. You'll know if you have that desire, if you want to just go completely phone-free and have access to your phone and stuff, then get the cellular model. I think if you have that desire if you want to just go completely phone free and have access to your phone and stuff then get the cellular model i think if you've never owned an apple watch before you don't need the cellular version yeah probably not but you never know i mean depends on it on on what you want but the series 3 and you can get it now there will be almost certainly a new apple watch this fall so if you can wait you could do that and then you'll have the latest and greatest but the series 3 is pretty good so you could get that now i think band is absolutely well it'll come with a band so you'll have one band to try

when you buy it and uh it's a personal feeling like i know people who swear by the um the the what is it the nylon sport band i love the sport loop sport loop is my favorite band i like the sport a lot and i don't And I don't really like it. I don't like it. It feels kind of cheap and lousy to me. And that's just a personal preference. I really like the Sport Bands. I'll point out that the Nike versions of the Apple Watch

are just the Apple Watch with a Nike band. There's no other kind of functional difference between them. Do they even have the face anymore i think they do okay but it doesn't it doesn't matter so what what i would say is um if you like the look of the nike sport bands which have the little holes and stuff in them you could get one of those too but i think the sport bands are good yeah they they still have exclusive nike watch faces yeah so if they speak whatever fine yeah but i think it's more about for me it's more about the band i think the band looks uh looks fun um i i like the sport bands i think they're actually much to my shock they they feel really

good um i do have a leather band it's fine um but i i would start with the one that comes with your watch which will probably be the sport band and um if you're thinking about a more expensive band maybe start maybe buy the sport band with your watch and then consider if you like it or if you want to maybe go buy a more expensive band after that yep sport loops do also come with the watches too i recommend the sport you know what i actually think you should do as this goes for anyone apple still do the try-ons in store just go to the store and try on the bands like i really think the apple watch is a product that is best bought in an apple store because you can go in and you can talk to someone and they'll bring out the thing and you can try on all the different band

types and see the colors of the watch and that kind of stuff even the size because you might think you want the 42 but the 38 might be better on you right so i recommend still going in that was a that was a really good experience when they were doing them before you could buy them remember like when it first came out you could go in and try them on and then you could go in order and i'm really pleased that i did that because i had some very different opinions than what I expected I would feel like I really liked the sport band and I thought I wouldn't um so I would recommend still going in and taking advantage of the try on if that's possible for you to do if not get the cheapest one you can or band that you think look cool and see if you like it and if you don't you

probably understand what you do and don't like and can look at their other bands and and make some decisions I don't necessarily recommend going down a really expensive routes like the leathers and stuff because the cheaper ones they have lots of great options like the sport band the sport loop and the nylon band they're all really good in different ways and i bet you'd find one of those three that you'd be really happy with yeah and it is a very much a personal preference thing because mike's gonna like the band that i don't like and uh that's just that's fine because everybody's got a different feel and you will know like for me the sport loop i put it on i was like oh no like i just i just knew i didn't like it turns out i did

want to talk about it right now but i knew what you were angling towards and i wasn't gonna answer that question you waited in there jrn523 asks our final question today i have an aging 2012 15 inch macbook pro that still works, but is becoming increasingly slower. It often freezes and stuff like that. Buying a new computer is not in my budget right now. So I'm wondering,

do you have any suggestions on ways that I can improve its performance? Oh boy. The first thing that comes to mind, well, first off, make sure that you, if you can put more RAM in it, that might not hurt. Um, but the first thing that comes to mind is replacing the hard drive. Yep.

With an SSD, right? Is what you're saying. And ideally, yeah, with an SSD and, and that's some money, but less money than a new computer. And it's less money than it used to be they're not as expensive anymore it's not it's not crazy crazy but um the biggest uh pain on a lot of these computers is that the spinning hard drive is slow and and as somebody who i i did put an ssd in an old macbook Pro, and it made a huge difference. So I think that's the thing you should look at is do,

you know, what is required to get into that computer and replace it. And either you get, either do it yourself or get a local Mac kind of technician to do that and install an SSD in there, because I think that would help a lot. Yeah, I agree. I mean, also, you know,

try some things about making sure you have a lot, you have enough disk space, that kind of stuff. Like it might help a little bit, but really hardware is going to be your biggest, your biggest jump. And you can make some decent changes and make that thing feel like new.

Like if you have a spinning disk in there, like upgrading to an SSD, you're going to put a lot of life back in that computer. Like it's going to feel real good. It's going to feel real good. All right. If you have any questions you would like us to an SSD, you're going to put a lot of life back in that computer. Like it's going to feel real good. It's going to feel real good. All right. If you have any questions you would like us to answer at the end of the show,

just send out a tweet with the hashtag askupgrade and you'll be picked for a later episode. Thank you to all of our upgradians who have done that. And we would love some more questions. So please send those in. If you want to find our show notes for this week, relay.fm slash upgrade slash 198 is the best place to do that.

You can find Jason's, or actually the best is in the app that you're currently listening to but another place to do that is on the web um you can find jason's work over at sixcolors.com and jason is at jsnl on twitter jsnll i am at imyke i-m-y-k-e thanks again to squarespace pingdom and skillshare for their support of this show. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, everybody.