Upgrade - 207: Max Rebate

Episode Date: August 20, 2018

Is it finally time for the iPhone to support an Apple Pencil? Myke and Jason discuss the possibilities. And then the Summer of Fun rolls on with a mega-sized #askupgrade!

From RelayFM, this is Upgrade, episode 207. The summer of fun continues, and today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Pingdom, and Inboard Technology. I am beach-loving, surfing-turfing Mike Hurley, and I'm joined by the master of vibes, Jason Snell. Hey, dude. California freewheeling, Jason Snell. When I was a kid and I was on like bulletin board computer stuff with people from all over the country, I had people, there were these guys in North Dakota who I knew and they're in Fargo, North Dakota. And they're like, oh, how often do you go to the beach?

And I'm like, I got bad news for you. I'm like more than a hundred miles from the ocean. They were really sad because as far as they were concerned, every single person in California was, hey dude. And I'm like, radical. Yeah, but anyway, that's totally what we are. This is live from a beach.

We're standing under a palm tree. Fun fact, when the Beach Boys formed, they didn't know how to surf. None of them knew. This week's hashtag Snell talk question comes from Will. That is a fun fact. Will wants to know, Will says, I should say,

I was listening to the Flophouse, and a smart audience member asked them, what is the movie that you would like to see a sequel from that there has never been a sequel to Jason what is your answer this is a great question by whoever asked this in that episode of the Flophouse

that was released this weekend and my answer I think I'm going to go with the most obvious answer possible which is Real Genius one of my very favorite movies and I would going to go with the most obvious answer possible, which is Real Genius, one of my very favorite movies. And I would love to have seen the further hijinks of the Real Genius people in the 80s. I don't think I want to see a sequel now. Although there was rumors that there was going to be a sequel with Val Kilmer as a professor mentoring a new group of young nerds.

Maybe. But that's one of my favorite movies and it was uh it was never made into a sequel because almost everything now is a sequel or a franchise or all that but there are lots of classic movies that we love that we might wish there had been a sequel and there never were i think that was the premise of the person whose last name was withheld on the flop house this weekend it's a very good question oh i don't know i don't really think i have a good answer for this i think maybe not so much of a sequel but in another movie to help flesh out the story would be scott pilgrim um i love edgar wright scott pilgrim in fact really fm members are going to hear me and Casey talk about it on an upcoming

membership episode, bonus episode, in a couple of weeks. But there was so much more to that story that had to be removed, and I would love to see it continue or be fleshed out. I think Edgar Wright did an incredible job with that movie and the source material,

but I feel like it wasn't complete. It didn't have everything it could have had, even though it's a good, chunky two-hour movie. But it doesn't have everything I wanted, so that's probably where I'd go with. Less exciting than Real Genius, I think. Maybe they should have done a Say Anything sequel where they're in Europe.

Oh, man. What a great movie. I need to watch that again. I feel like it's been long enough now since we did Say Anything. I really want to see that movie again. I loved it so much. I want to see if it stands up to me on a second viewing. That was very good. That was very good.

I'm incarcerated, Lloyd. I'm going to put in the show notes. I'll put the incomparable cut of the Say Anything. Yeah, the mic of the movies. Yep. Yep. That will be in the show notes. I'll put the incomparable cut. Yeah, the Mike of the Movies. Yep. That will be in our show notes. So if you would like to ask a question for a future episode, just send in a tweet with the hashtag SnellTalk,

and that will help us when it comes to asking something nice and random to begin our show every week as we do. And we would like to continue with today's episode by moving into some follow up. This was from a couple of weeks ago, but I thought it was an interesting question. It came from Josh. While you were discussing how Apple could spend its money in episode 205, neither of you mentioned a company with smart home products like cameras and light switches and smart plugs. Do you think that this should be an area that Apple is in, even though it's a separate brand, something like Beats? What do you think?

I think it's not a surprise and not a mistake that we didn't mention it. I could see Apple doing it, but it feels like this is so... What could Apple do to really differentiate this category? I feel like Apple enters categories like this because they see kind of a huge opportunity for them to take over. Now, Beats is an interesting example, but maybe an outlier. Like, I think sometimes Apple enters markets because they feel like the stuff out there isn't good enough. And although the smart home stuff kind of isn't good enough in a lot of cases, I feel like it's getting better. And I think that it does, what can Apple contribute to this? And Apple may actually look at the whole smart home market as a bag of hurt a little bit and like trying to just focus on working with partners. I like that about Apple

that with this, they're like, no, no, no, we're going to work with partners. We're going to set out our rules for HomeKit and security and stuff. And some of those went and some of those they had to kind of back off of a little bit in terms of software versus hardware. So I don't know. They could, but I'm kind of okay that they didn't. And I didn't even think of it because I don't feel like, you know, Apple needs to be, you know, Belkin or something like that.

I don't think, which got bought by somebody, but that kind of thing. I don't see how that's a must for them, nor do I see that it's necessarily a gigantic market. I could sort of see maybe something like Ecobee or something like that, where there's like a specific company that's very kind of Apple-like and does a product that's good that is in a particular category. But I don't know. Maybe Google is the lesson here. Google bought Nest and that does not seem to have gone really well.

I think that was problems at Nest. You know, like I think Nest would just seem to be a problematic company. It's true. I think that there is definitely merit to Josh's suggestion. Because I think HomeKit would be much more successful, I think, if Apple were leading the way and showing the products they wanted to make, and there would be more HomeKit products available. So it would be kind of interesting in the way that they bought Beats, right? The way now they have a wider selection. But it does feel like a distraction more than Beats does.

It does feel like a distraction more than Beats does. I think Apple doesn't want to be broadly, and I know there are exceptions to this, but I don't think Apple wants to broadly be in the accessory business. I think if they are exiting Wi-Fi, right, they're exiting the airport. This feels like products that are even less substantial than that. this feels like products that are even less substantial than that a smart light switch a home video camera that like how many of these products are they going to need to make now the argument the counter argument would be that this is why you buy a company and you take their you know you integrate them and you create a new kind of home product division and there's a way to make money there but if i'm apple i think maybe it's better to have a whole bunch of different companies competing with each other to make good stuff that integrates with Apple stuff.

And if we assume that Apple's looking at everything as through the lens of how does this kind of accumulate to our ecosystem and grow our services revenue and grow our device revenue. Does having an Apple owned one of these really do that? Like if Apple was losing, if Apple had no compatibility with most smart home things, it would be a different story. But today everybody is going to fall over themselves to make sure that they work on the iPhone, not just on Android.

So the market's kind of working for Apple right now. So that's why, and that's why I think they got out of the Wi-Fi business too, is the same thing. Like, they don't need to be there. It isn't contributing enough to the huge picture of Apple now? Because it's not like in the old days where literally, yeah, could Apple buy any company and make a product that makes a little bit of profit and have it accrue to Apple's profits? Yes, but Apple is so huge now and the game it's playing is so large that some of these small products, is it worth their attention at all? Is it worth their marketing time at all? Or are they better off just letting smaller companies out there fight amongst themselves to make better products, and they're all trying to make them

compatible with the iPhone? I think in a market like this, that's probably the right approach. Thank you to everyone who has become a RelayFM member. We have had a really wonderful outpouring of support, both in new members supporting this show and just in what people have been saying about how much they enjoyed our special episode space station where we play a text adventure with cgb gray with uh jason snell as the computer the snellatron there is um a this is something that wasn't available when we spoke about the show last week it went up when the episode went up on friday there is a trailer that gray have made which is incredible which gives you a taste for what space station is all about um i put a link in the show notes

so you can go and watch that on youtube if you still haven't become a member and you're interested in kind of getting a flavor for what our text adventure episodes are like um you can still sign up and get this along with all of the other bonus content and special perks that we have for RelayFM members. Memberships start off at $5 a month. There is a link in the show notes for this show, which you can find on our website.

And you can also find in your podcast app of choice. You can tap that and just support the show very easily. It's just a couple of clicks and you can sign up. Or you can go to relay.fm membership and learn more. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Huge. Just thank you so much to everyone that has become a RelayFM member. And I really, really hope that all of the bonus content that you get is what makes it worth it for you because we try very hard to do that. So I hope that it makes it worth it. I was some membership content uh just the other day some special the special there's a special reconcilable differences that's great very good we have a

download uh clockwise combo that is super wacky about apple products that either should be killed or were killed oh my god that is coming out this week that is also uh pretty amazing with me and steven and micah and dan um i also had this i got an email from jared sorensen who is the author of the text adventure that we played and his comment is to me he says you are way too forgiving interesting for you and for you and gray i should have been much meaner to you and also it's hilarious they keep referring to the spaceship when the game is called space station oh whatever you know yeah well that sums it up whatever i will say that that the uh the book is wonderful i have the pdf that that yeah yeah i backed the kickstarter campaign it's really really good uh so i'll put a link in the show notes to that if you if you want to go and see it it's really these are great

like party games like if you've got a group of people these text adventures you buy jared's book and there's like 10 different games in there and you can play them where you know you get everybody in an order and they all kind of shout commands at the parser. And it's actually really hilarious. It's great for large groups and small groups, obviously, all the way down to just the two people. So people should definitely check it out. I own the book and I think I'm getting...

I bought the physical book too, but I can never look in them. No, you can't. You can look at the art. You can look at Space Station now and see the art and see where you went and all of those things. And you can look at Spooky Manor. Having seen the art you can look at space station now and see the art and see where you went and all of those things and you know you can look at spooky man having seen the instructions you had i am in

even more awe of your ability to navigate us through that than ever it's kind of wonderful because that i don't know how you make it work the way you do but you do so yeah thank you if you can remember please uh i hope you enjoy it that's awesome let's do some follow-out um there is a podcast created by the midroll which is the kind of advertising podcast advertising giant and i think they they own stitcher and they they've produced some content and stuff like that yeah the earwolf podcast network yeah stitcher and then they do stitcher premium and they also sell ads as The Midroll. They have a show about the business of podcasting,

which we've both been on before. It's called The Wolf Den, and it's mostly hosted by a friend of the show, Lex Friedman. He just did an episode with Marco Arment, creator of Overcast and host of Accident Attack Podcast, etc., etc., and they spoke a lot about the real intricacies, some of the challenges and ways that the podcast industry is changing right now

as quite interestingly, a corporate ad company and a hesitant to corporations, but app developer, right? Who has a pretty large market share with overcast so it was really interesting to hear them debate a lot of these really intricate things about the industry it just tickles your fancy i think it is a very interesting listen i also just wanted to mention because it was very nice marco picked upgrade for the question of the podcast he is jealous of and i thought that was really cool so thank you marco yes that was i i was listening to

that podcast because i wanted to hear those guys who have such different takes on it uh talking about it i thought it was pretty good i thought it was a really reasonable conversation i thought there was a lot of um actually self-reflection on marco's part about sort of like yeah that really made me angry but like looking at it in the long view it's probably not that big a deal i like that he said like people grow and i i like burst out laughing it's like yeah i guess they do that was yeah it's a good conversation if you care about the nitty-gritty of like how podcasting works um and that's something we talk about here and we've gotten positive feedback about from some people so if you're one of those people check out that episode because it's great and i love those guys and it was fun to hear them kind of joust back and forth a little bit.

It was. And they refer to each other as like frenemies at the end. And it's very funny and good stuff and very kind. I kind of was not expecting Upgrade to be Marco's choice of podcast he was jealous of. And that was an extra delightful thing. Yeah, I learned some stuff. Should we do some quick upstream let's have some headlines mostly a little bit uh facebook have bought more football soccer they've signed a three-year deal to show every la liga game in india la liga is the spanish football league um so that's just another deal

that facebook have done they're going to be exclusive in india they seem to be doing this right now it really feels like a test right they're buying live sports stuff and showing them to markets that are large but probably aren't the main market right so the biggest market for la liga is in spain right and they're not you know they're not going for that or the biggest market for the premier league is in the uk but they're showing it in in some other like far-flung countries so uh it's just interesting to see them going down this road yeah and disney uh on espn plus their streaming service just signed up siri ah the italian soccer league and uh similar kind of thing where it's just like let's experiment with live sports and see on streaming and buying the rights there.

A lot of times the rights that get bought, like you said, are not the, like the super expensive rights. They are often the, you know, kind of, there's an interesting middle ground where it's not the super expensive

because it's popular. And there's also the super expensive for consumers because it's not at all popular it's a becomes a niche the example i can give you is like cricket in the u.s like if you want to watch cricket in the u.s you have to pay a lot of money and that's because almost nobody is going to watch cricket in the u.s they know the people who are going to watch are people who are desperate for cricket and so they can charge them pay-per-view prices basically it's very expensive but in the middle you get something like this which is you know there's a growing market for who are desperate for cricket. And so they can charge them pay-per-view prices, basically. It's very expensive. But in the middle,

you get something like this, which is, you know, there's a growing market for soccer in the US. There's a growing appetite for it. Fox has the Bundesliga, I think, the German league. NBC has the Premier League. And so Disney has signed up

for the Italian league and put it on their streaming service. And so just more of this experimentation. NBC, I mentioned a few months back that they used to show all the games on their channels or streaming. And now they've moved all of the Premiership games that they're not showing on standard channels to their premium streaming service. standard channels to their premium streaming service. So it's another example of like, can we get people to pay for our streaming service in order to get this live sports? So we talk a lot about scripted here, but sports is another example where all of these media giants are experimenting to see what the appetite for this stuff is and how solid the market is and

what they should be spending for the rights and all of those things. It's definitely happening. YouTube's upcoming movie Viper Club is going to be getting a theatrical release. Google clearly thinks, and I guess wants their Susan Sarandon star movie to pick up some awards. I guess this is maybe their most serious production. So they want to get it to be considered in, you know, the golden globes the academy awards that kind of thing yeah for the academy awards you got to run like a week in new york and a week in la or something like that in a theater there are these very specific rules that are to be a legitimate awards contender so it's going to be getting a limited run in theaters in the u.s as

well as being available on youtube premium at the same time it's made it's a it's made for youtube premium you know what used to be called YouTube Red, but they want to get some awards. They want to pick up the awards like Amazon and Netflix have been doing. Mostly Amazon, right? Amazon seems to be winning more awards. Amazon has a straightforward policy

where they're releasing the movies in theaters as a real theatrical release, and then they send it to Prime Video later. So Manchester by the Sea was an example of that, and that was an oscar nominated film you uh netflix is uh not sure they ever ever want to do that right but they i'm sure they want to win academy awards if they could but they seem to be pretty committed to just premiering their movies on their service and not yeah they're taking the route of fighting publicly

with the academy i suppose and the con film festival publicly with the Academy, I suppose. And the Cannes Film Festival and all of the rest, yeah. And finally, Apple have joined the Alliance for Open Media. This is a group of technology companies currently working on a compression format known as AV1, which is a codec that can compress files to be 25-35% smaller video files than h.265 or google's vp9 other companies in this alliance include amazon facebook hulu vlc and google so maybe this is how sometime in the future apple would plan to support 4k from more providers because they're joining this this open standard alliance thank you to dayton for sending this in. Yeah, this is really interesting. I was glad Dayton sent this in.

This is maybe how you diffuse the VP9 versus HEVC impasse of Google and Apple, which is come up, agree on a next generation codec that everybody supports and use that instead. And then Google can say, well, we're moving on from VP9 to AV1. then google can say well we're moving on from vp9 to av1 and apple can say we just added support for av1 which is awesome and it's over at that point and maybe that's the best way forward is just to to get everybody on the same page it's

annoying in the meantime but um it's a good it's a good sign for the long term for for customers for regular people who just want to watch a pretty pretty 4k video on their computers and tvs and all the rest it is fun to note uh that the alliance of open media have since removed apple from the page um i'm expecting that because it hit the news apple were like uh-uh take us off um but i am i am of the belief that they are a part of this i believe that they are because i think it just makes a lot of sense because literally every other provider is a part of this alliance so yeah so it is a little mysterious but it may be that they haven't signed it or maybe they will join but they don't want to be discussed um they can be a silent partner. Apple does that a lot more than you would think, where Apple joins things,

and sometimes it's just to be present and to steer it behind the scenes a little bit and to know what's going on. And I would not be surprised if that's what's going on here. But it does open the possibility that everybody will get together and agree on a standard that Apple will support too. All right, let's take our first break and thank our friends over at Pingdom that everybody will get together and agree on a standard that Apple will support too. All right, let's take our first break and thank our friends over at Pingdom for their support of this week's episode.

Pingdom are brilliant because they will help you monitor your websites and keep them online. And they also do this for a lot of the sites that you love as well. Pingdom monitor your sites so you don't have to. They will give you real-time feedback so you know exactly what's going on at all times. The internet is amazing. It is an awesome place, but stuff breaks all the time. Pingdom detects around 13 million outages every single month. That is more than 400,000 outages a day. It doesn't matter if you're a startup or a Fortune 500 company. You need alerts about any critical website issues because if you've got something online, you want people to see it. If they can't see it, you want to know. Pingdom will let you customize how you're

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and see why it's right for you. Then when you sign up, use the code UPGRADE at checkout and you'll get a huge 30% of your first invoice. That's pingdom.com slash RelayFM and then the code UPGRA upgrade for 30% off our thanks to pingdom for their support of this show and relay fm yeah so the chinese news outlet by the name of the economic daily news is reporting hey it's translated come on it's reporting wall street

journal is a ludicrous name too wall street which is it who's writing in a journal the economist right like they're all funny he must be very old now the economist he's been around a long time like the new york times it doesn't write up just about new york right when you when you start to like take these names out of context they don't make any sense but anyway anyway, the Economic Daily News is reporting that the OLED phones debuting this year will adopt Apple Pencil support. They are stating that the Taiwanese chip supplier Elan has been apparently tasked with the project. They currently produce chips for Wacom styluses. stylei this also echoes an analyst report from earlier in the week a report from a company called trend force that states that this is one of the ways apple will look to increase asp on the iphone line as well as having three storage tiers available 64 gigabytes 256 and 512 i will say that like i saw the analyst report and i wasn't going to include it because analyst reports are conjecture they're not proof of anything, right?

It's just like sometimes there's whispers, but most of the times, like this is what we believe will happen for these reasons. And the reasons can make sense, but a lot of the time, it's just people saying stuff to be right. It was when that was followed up by this kind of supply chain thing that I thought we would talk about it today. Yeah, I think I wrote a piece- You did. A week ago, maybe, from Tom's Guide.

It was one of my Tom's Guide every other week iPhone stories. They wanted me to kind of jump off of the Galaxy Note 9. And one of the things that, and essentially what I talked about is the iPhone 10 Plus, this thing that we've been talking about, like that larger iPhone and what it is and what it could do and how it compares to what Samsung just announced and all of that. And one of the big

parts of that, I think, is Samsung for a long time now has had the S Pen with the Galaxy Note. They've got the little thing. You can slide it in and pop it out and all of that. And what I said in the article is, and I really believe this, I don't just write these things and not believe them. I believe them. If there was going to be a time when Apple added pencil support to the iPhone, don't you think that iPhone 10 plus would be like the right time? It's a big, beautiful, huge top of the line, you know, and then at that point, like the OS already has pencil stuff built into it right it's already got the

thing where if you tap on the locked screen it brings up a note and lets you let's you write on it on the ipad right it's already got that it's already got all this stuff there was an article that i read at an outlet i will not name um that was like oh apple apple needs to uh really make the uh you know follow the Samsung example. And one of the examples was writing with a pencil and stuff like that. And I was like, yeah, they have it all. They have all the pieces. And they could add a few more that might be phone-centric.

I feel like the question is, what would the hardware support be? Will you be expected to carry it around in your pocket or something? Because the current Apple Pencil is so long that it's not really a pocketable device it's a folio kind of thing for ipads so like that's the part that stumps me a little bit is like you kind of need to create a new like apple mini pencil or iphone pencil or something like that but otherwise i think it would be great i think they've laid all the foundation to do pencil support on an iphone and that this big rumored big iphone 10 plus is the perfect place to do it i know you love the pencil what do you think about about and you love big phones like is this the perfect mike sweet spot

or what so i've been predict like we know in predictions shows i've been predicting this for like two years now right that like That like the Apple Pencils were bought on the iPhone because it feels like a logical next step, especially when, as you say, they have all the technology there and Apple's biggest competitor is doing it and people like it, right? Like the stylus, the S Pen, I think was a joke at first where a lot of people were like, oh, look, it's a stylus because we were in that world of like, you're the stylus you blew it, right? But then that all went away when the Apple Pencil came out because

because, after the meme died away but now like, people buy the Note because of the stylus because the Galaxy S9 or whatever, the S9 Plus is basically the same size, they're very close in size, but then the

Note has this whole other suite of things that it can do. We spoke about it on last week's episode. I was excited about the fact that it has Bluetooth now, so you can program the buttons and stuff like that. So I think that, yes, the iPhone, the big iPhone, should have Apple Pencil support. I believe that... I'm interested about if this report is true, that it will be on both of the OLED phones, because as we spoke about in the past, right, the LCD phone is actually bigger than the smallest OLED phone. So there's, like, this weird stuff here

about kind of, like, what does size mean, but I am sure we will get into that a lot in September, right, about, like, the lineup and what size means and how it gets spread. Yeah. But do I think Apple's going to do it this time around? I don't know. I know I want it and it feels logical. Right.

But there are a lot of things that make me question it. Yeah, even if this is the most likely scenario we've ever seen it doesn't mean it's likely right i feel like this is like a 33 chance 40 chance something like that it's still not i think more i think it's more likely that they don't do it than that they do but it does feel like this is an opportunity for them to do it if they choose. This seems like a good time where they've got a lot of the pieces in place to do it. Because the thing is, this is the thing. Okay.

They have to create a new Apple Pencil. You can't use the current Apple Pencil on a phone because that is ludicrous that is absolutely ludicrous so it has to be smaller in size if it is will it be stored in the phone that is the most logical thing but it goes against literally everything apple seems to believe about how they built their phones right having this big hole in the phone yeah i have a hard time seeing them use internal iphone space on a pop-out pencil kind of thing. I'll throw another piece in the mix here, which is that when the iPad, the no-name iPad was announced in Chicago, right? It came with this new Logitech crayon support, which they worked with Apple on, and it uses wireless tech that is not the bluetooth

tech that is in the apple pencil and you don't have to like pair it you just it's proximity based and it writes on it and that's really interesting because that that makes you at least ask is that a new technology that apple is intending to spread to other devices like they did exactly they put new wireless capabilities in this ipad just for logitech just for schools like they went through all this work like it seems like an awful lot of work to do for a very niche use like if they were selling the logitech crayon to everyone i would understand it more but it really does feel like oh we've been used we've been developing this technology for Apple Pencil support on the iPhone so we'll put it into this iPad as well or like right we've been going down this route and we're not going to use this exact thing but we developed it so

maybe we should put it here because I agree it seems like they really went through a lot right to to make this particular link with this product when in theory logitech could have just created something that worked the same way the apple pencil does they didn't need to create a whole new way of connecting the devices there is the one the one reason that it happened and that they made it happen is i think there was a concern for schools. One, that they wanted a lower cost stylus, which is I think why they made the crayon with Logitech. But two, this idea of having to pair the devices. And in a classroom, you might be writing on different people's iPads and stuff. And the idea with this thing is unlike the Apple Pencil, which this does not work.

You can't take your Apple Pencil that's paired with your iPad and then just sort of turn to the person on your right who has an iPad Pro and write on their screen too. It doesn't work. But with the Crayon, it does, right? So there is a little bit there, but I agree with you. It seems like a long way to go just for that and not to feel like there's something else going on.

We've talked about this for the last couple of years. A lot of times you look at the things that Apple's doing and they're like little things. But then you look at the bigger picture and you're like, I think they're headed in a direction like with removing the home screen or the home button. Introducing gestural stuff. That was all leading somewhere and changing how multitasking works. It was all leading somewhere. This feels like it's leading somewhere. Now, maybe that's wishful thinking, but it does feel like it. And that's why I wanted to ask you, you seem to be potentially the prime audience for this sort of thing. Is that what you're thinking is like you

would really love to have a new apple pencil and a giant iphone to scribble things down on or you know or is your enthusiasm tempered i'm just kind of curious because this is a much more uh product development for you than it is for me yeah let's park to the side the apple pencil as it currently is because you know i said a bunch of times like I want the one on the iPad to be different. I want more advancements to it. But just looking at the phone, I 100% want this for many reasons. The same ergonomic reasons that I have for the iPad

to find it more comfortable to use something in a pen form factor instead of tapping and using my hands all the time. It's just more comfortable for me. And I would get a lot of utility out of being able to scribble things down quickly right like and the idea of being able to have that as a support in my iphone seems really interesting but there are so many details about this which seem kind of unclear and i'm interested about right like will it have any

technology in it really maybe not right maybe it's just as simple as the current apple pencil is you know like it's not buttons or whatever or that crayon right like maybe it's that simple or the crayon yeah which you know is interesting right and then like how do you charge it and all that kind of stuff but the biggest thing is how big is it what's the form factor and where does it go my expectation is it will go in like some kind of folio case but i don't want to use a folio case right so there's like they have to if that's how it's going to be presented to us then there has to be some really compelling things for why you would want to use the pencil on the iphone and i would expect like all the ipad stuff is great but there should be more right like there's some really cool stuff that you can do with the note and i would love to see

apple try and maybe find their own things you know like what i really love with the note is when you're scribbling something down i really like the way that you just do it on the black screen because they're all lit phones right like it doesn't actually open a note in their notes app. You just write something on the screen and it's like the, you know, it's just that I find that quite a delightful interaction. So, you know, I don't really know what it would be, but I feel like if it's not going to be in the phone, which I don't believe that they will do that, I really don't think they will do it. I think it will be external. They have to give people some really good use cases for why they would want to buy it

because Apple will 100% sell it to you. They won't include it. And I want to see like a really good use case for why they think that it is the right time to add something like this to the phone. I think your Folio case idea, which they've announced the first Apple phone Folio case last year, I think your folio case idea, which they've announced the first Apple phone folio case last year, I think. And I wonder there if that maybe is also a strange sign of things to come where they might offer a folio case with a pen holder for something like this.

And it's interesting. You're right. And it's interesting. You're right. A lot of people will be like, yeah, but then you're buying the case, which costs $120 and the pencil or pen or whatever they call it. Yeah, exactly right. But that's Apple, right? And then there will be third-party opportunities where there will be a thing you stick on that's like a little loop or there's like a little magnet adapter or whatever. I agree.

adapter or you whatever um i agree it's one of the problems that i think prevents apple from doing this is not the hardware of the iphone and it's not the software because they've done that on the ipad pro it's the um ergonomics of a pen with a phone because i think you're right i i don't see them making a pop-out stylus like the note um and so then what right then it gets all fiddly and maybe their argument's gonna be this is why you get the notebook case which is a folio with a pen holder and it automatically wakes and sleeps the device and all those things and now you're carrying around a little notebook that's also your phone because here's the thing right at that level who needs an ipad mini anymore oh certainly it's a huge screen this phone is an ipad mini at that point it's like an inch in difference it has the smart cover right like it becomes an infinitely

more compelling device to certain people like it's an ipad nano at that point and that is a very interesting product and when you you know you're saying about like you got to buy the case and you got to buy the pencil you kind of go out looking back at what the trendforce uh folk was saying they're doing this to increase the asp because that helps them in their earnings and stuff now and of course like you're turning a $1,000 phone into a $1,500 phone close to right by the time you've got the size you want then all of the accessories this is one of the ways that they ended up turning the ASP up on the iPad was by creating these expensive accessories that are really good right you got the smart keyboard and the apple pencil and it pushed up the asp on the

ipad line and this is a great way to push up the iphone on the top end in the pro level is by having a bunch of really good technically like savvy accessories yeah and that means not only is the asp of the iphone line going up but the asp of you know of total revenue from a customer goes up because now they're buying a pencil now they're buying a case now they're doing all those things not everybody will buy the case you know everybody we know the usual suspects will come out with other ways of holding or attaching such a thing but apple will have their official story way of doing it and i don't know i mean i i feel like again we're back to it. I feel like this is something they absolutely could do. And I think it would be good. Again, not a part of the product. I think

that's actually leaving the space inside the iPhone that's filled with battery aside, making it part of the product makes it mandatory in a way that I think Apple doesn't want to make, leaving aside that they can get another $100 out of you, plus maybe a case that I think Apple doesn't want to make, leaving aside that they can get another $100 out of you, plus maybe a case. I think Apple doesn't want to say, this is the iPhone that needs a pencil. It doesn't want to do that. So it's not going to be, I think, a part of it for all of these reasons. But I think about people who carry little notebooks, little field notes, notebooks and pens around with them right all the time and i think now you don't you know now the pitch is you don't need to do that anymore you can carry around one of these little apple pens or pencils and your

iphone and your iphone is your notebook and if you want to jot something down you literally can just pick it up and start writing and jot it down and it works and like that is pretty cool and the dream of the newton is finally realized only took 25 years 30 years something like that yeah something like that all right today's show is also brought to you by our friends over inboard technology the geniuses behind the motorized m1 skateboard inboards flagship m1 eboard is set apart from the pack by its innovative industry-leading features and its sleek yet rugged design. The Inboard Vision mobile app controls every aspect of the board and even allows your mobile device to be used as an additional controller. It provides regular firmware updates to your M1 for the highest

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of fun jason oh no ask what do we do i feel like we have not oh yeah we've been skipping some ask upgrades recently we've not been doing as oh yeah we've been skipping some ask upgrades recently we've not been doing as many because we've been running out of time so today we're going to do an ask upgrade double feature double the ask upgrade double the fun double the fun because what is more fun mike than answering questions from listeners nothing nothing nothing there is nothing more fun and we start with david david says jason do you use plaques if so why not just rip your 4k blu-ray discs and play it there david is talking about when we were talking about your 4k issues and having to use like voodoo and all that kind of stuff and then

buying an xbox so that i can play those hdr 4k discs and all of that um xbox is going great by the way my son really is loving it we're playing uh he's playing no man's sky which has been updated for 4k as well and uh it's really great and his and his best friend who moved away um also has it on xbox so they can actually adventure together and play together now that's awesome what a great game for them to try out like you know to have that kind of experience and it's it's already a beautiful game but it's like on that 4k tv it's even more beautiful to answer david's question so first off 4k blu-rays aren't blu-rays they're they're like next generation blu-rays which means that existing blu-ray hardware won't play them including my blu-ray disc that i've got the usb drive that i've got

so i would need to buy a new 4k blu-ray drive compatible thing and the other thing is uh ripping discs is it requires uh breaking drm and as you might expect the 4k uhd discs have new a new drm scheme that after they are slowly figuring out how to break it but you have to break it not that you whatever you know this is just like in theory no no no i mean i am in favor if you if you bought the disc if you bought the disc and want to copy the bits off of it for your own personal use of you but you know i should be able to do that give you the option to jump out of that if you if you want no no i am entirely in favor of people breaking drm in order for their own personal use because I think DRM is evil.

Yeah. I mean, if I bought your disc, I'm not pirating stuff. I'm buying your disc. But if I want to buy your Blu-ray disc and put it on my Plex server for my own use, then, and with the bit rates of HD stuff, it's seriously only for my own use in my house because I'm a idiot person who would try to stream it. So if I do all that and I get it working, well, then there's the next case, which is I also have to rely on my home network and the device I'm streaming to being strong enough. And then honestly, the size of these files is enormous. The size of the regular HD movies is enormous, let alone the 4K, which is why I tend to use Don Melton scripts to re-encode them. So I'm not like John Syracuse and leaving

them at the original bit rate because the files are too large. And those are just the 1080 versions. The UHD versions are going to be massive. And at that point I decided, you know what? This is so many different barriers when I can just get a movie that I really want to see in 4K and I can get the disc and I can leave it around and I can stick it in if I want. We watched Black Panther over the weekend. It's beautiful. Looked so good. And that's fine. That's fine.

Maybe I'll feel different if I have hundreds of them. But at that point, maybe my hard drive will be so huge that I can fit that stuff on there. But for now, the point of these things is max bitrate. I can fit that stuff on there. But for now, the point of these things is max bitrate. And a max bitrate file on my, even on my Drobo server, it's going to just eat a hard drive with one thing. And at that point, I might as well just keep the little optical disk around. So I'm going to, these are my reasons. There are many. But in the end, any one of them would be enough to stop me. Is max bitrate Max Headroom's friend? would be enough to stop me.

Is Max Bitrate Max Headroom's friend? Max Bitrate will be a supporting player on my reboot of Max Headroom, which I'm ready to do as soon as somebody from Hollywood comes to me. Just call me. Yeah, call me. Call me, the Max Headroom. I would do that in a heartbeat.

Andreas in the chat room has recommended the Media Station 16x Desktop BDXL Blu-ray Writer by Buffalo as a potential option for you jason so i'll put that huge is it huge i don't know if it's i can't tell i mean we need a banana for scale it's huge compared to the little one that i have now but it's that's nice i one day maybe but i i'm skeptical that i will ever go down there because again the file sizes are just enormous and at this point i don't think i can barely justify putting Blu-rays on there for convenience sake. I definitely can't do it with 4K Blu-rays.

Joshua's written them. With the iPad's home button rumored to be going away, where will Siri be mapped? Pressing and holding on the side buttons makes sense on the iPhone, but using the iPad's top button might feel weird. Could we see a software button to launch Siri in the future? What do you think? I think it's all, um, there will probably be a hardware button match, including it probably will be that on off button, but I think Apple's going to really lean into, um, just using your voice to trigger it. Yep. Apple's going to really lean into just using your voice to trigger it. Yep.

Like always on triggering and that'll be the preferred method. I think that that would be their argument today is that pressing a physical button to trigger Siri is silly. You should just be able to save words and have it happen. Yeah, there will be there. I believe it will be mapped to a probably larger button, right? Like they will put a bigger button on it like they have on the iPhone 10.

But they will be like, oh, you should use a whole telephone instead, right? Like that should be the way that you interact with this thing. And I think that that's probably the way that they're going to end up doing it. Andreas has put another Blu-ray writer which is smaller in the chat room for you. I appreciate this. Nobody else needs to send me any Blu-ray writer, which is smaller in the chat room for you. I appreciate this. Nobody else needs to send me any Blu-ray suggestions. Obviously, there are some smaller ones out there that I could use if I want to completely

eat up all my disk space, which I don't. But thank you. So yeah, I think software button, no. They will just say you should just use the voice command or you could use the physical button for accessibility reasons. Dave has asked, do you think that disney will bundle their marvel unlimited comic subscription service into their upcoming streaming offering like dc is planning with theirs so news to me that dc was working on something didn't know that yeah yeah their their video streaming service is

actually encompasses some other stuff including the first time they've added subscription access to certain DC comics. Do you think that this, one, makes sense for Disney, and two, that Disney would do it? The way I understand how Marvel is structured, Marvel Comics is a separate division. Marvel is structured. Marvel Comics is a separate division. Only recently did they allow Marvel Studios to go off and report directly to a high-ranking Disney executive. Marvel TV and the comics all go through the guy who basically bought Marvel and brought it back from bankruptcy and then sold it off. And that's Ike Perlmutter, who is kind of infamous. He sounds like an unpleasant person to work with, and he's cheap. And he's strangely not integrated into the rest of Disney in the way that DC is. DC is just part of Warner Media Group, basically, at this point.

They are completely integrated. Marvel Comics is not. I suspect that has something to do with Ike Perlmutter's contract or something about the conditions of him selling Marvel to Disney. So I think not just because of that, like the fact that Marvel TV

is currently under his auspices, under his command, instead of like somebody else at ABC or some other part of Disney Entertainment or of Kevin Feige at Marvel Studios suggests that it's hard to get these groups to coordinate inside of Disney. So my guess is no. once it's revenue from marvel unlimited and that uh the streaming service is going to be over in some other part of the company and they're not going to interact it's possible but if i had to bet i bet no okay um they may offer some sort of mega marvel subscription which they're already kind of doing where you get some stuff so there may be like a mega subscription super fan subscription that gets you both but i'm skeptical that they would essentially just say if you sign up for our streaming service you get marvel unlimited for free like there could be a bundle but it won't be bundled for everyone it won't be thousands and thousands of comics that

you can get by paying marvel 70 a year or whatever it is yeah but you could maybe like if you bought both of them you might get it 50 right like the yeah yeah and they do have like i said marvel has this sort of super fan subscription that i don't subscribe to because you get like a figurine and i mean it's just like i'm not interested in any of that but i could see that where there's a super fan that bundle that gets you both but um and they may also yeah they may bundle a small collection of comics with the streaming service but it you know this is a disney streaming service not a marvel streaming service so i think it's most likely that they won't because it will just confuse the product and same vein uh similar vein nate has asked all the talks of the upcoming streaming service from Disney,

where do you see it being announced? Maybe an Apple keynote at their own media event? What do you think? So I read an interview with, I think, Bob Iger from Disney, but it was a story about this where, oh, no, he was doing their results. And one of the things he said is that they would be announcing more details of it in the near future. where that is i don't know it would be great if they announced details on stage at an apple keynote there would certainly be a great uh great uh audience for that they my

guess is that they will do their own event uh that they like they do for some of their kind of other things they do they have like disney events where fans come and stuff like that. It may be it's something like that. It's a Disney event, Star Wars event. I don't know. But I do think that we're getting close to them offering more details, probably including the name

and a sense of their run-up to it. They've said late 2019 is when they're launching. So they've got a year to prepare for this. But I do think we're going to get more details about this streaming service soon. I should mention if somebody's a Stratechery member, Ben Thompson wrote a nice piece today, August 20th, for members that is about Disney

and where their business is going, both in terms of live sports like ESPN stuff and in terms of the streaming service. And it's a very interesting read about how Disney, you know, they're really trying to find a way through this thicket of people dropping cable. But some of them picking up over-the-top TV services like YouTube TV and Hulu. And then also trying to build their own streaming services out and it's a tough job because they're trying to like keep the company running while transitioning from one media world to a very different one and it's a good piece by ben thompson as they almost all are there's a there's a very

good quote um from bob eiger and that i really liked i liked the kind of uh the way he sees the company he's like with where we are right now when we're planning to launch which is sometime in 2019 we know everyone's going to pass us by right like we're being left behind by everybody but our content is content everybody wants so it doesn't matter right like it doesn't matter that we're late to this game because if you want star wars and marvel and he didn't say it but you know all the other stuff they're buying uh pixar pixar yeah pixar and then you know all the other stuff from from fox like if you want that this is going to be the only place you're going to get it so they don't care that they're going to be late

it seems like what i actually quite like is they're waiting until they have this right before they launch it because they know that their stuff is desirable so it doesn't matter and i really like that that kind of view on the position from the ceo and that he's not really sugarcoating it so i like it's a very disney view of their content which is disney was always confident to do things like withhold their products from the market in order to build up demand with their on home video for example of disney movies and things like that so they're definitely going there he said you know that they're going to play a quality game and not a volume game which he said i don't mean to say that netflix isn't playing a quality game but they're also playing a volume game and he's

basically saying we're not going to make a new show or two and a movie every week that's not going to happen but they are going to make sure that they have good stuff and they've got a good catalog and they do own all of this content now, especially with the purchase. I mean, Disney streaming service is being built with an eye toward Disney products. Now they're going to start when the Fox deal closes,

like there's going to be a whole second way where they start taking all the Fox properties and seeing what could they do with some of those. And might think well a lot of the fox stuff is more adult and won't fit on a disney streaming service some of that might be true but i think some of that stuff that fox has in their library will also have value to disney whether it's something like firefly the x files there's a bunch of stuff in there that is part of the Fox collection that they're going to be able to use. And so watch for that too.

There's a lot of sort of like second wave from the Disney streaming service that got way more interesting now because they're going to have that extra stuff. This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move for Squarespace because they will let you easily create a website for your next idea or project.

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and the code UPGRADE to get 10% off your first purchase. We thank Squarespace for the continued support of this show, Squarespace. Make your next move, make your next website. So the hashtag AskUpgradeTrain rolls on. So question from... Choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo. Whoa.

AskUpgradeTrain has lasers. That was very impressive. Francois asks, I found myself being annoyed lately at some iOS release notes updates. Companies seem to try to be too cute now as like a backlash from just being boring. For example, a recent YouTube update said

bug fixes, stability improvements, and repairs to the space-time continuum. Jason, what is your view on this? I don't love bug fixes and stability improvements. I also don't love it when they try to cutesy it up and say, we love our users so much that we are always making improvements and fixing bugs, and thank you so much. Like, I think there is a discontinuity here where you know apple sort of views this i think

as a way to let developers detail what's changed and uh but a lot of people a lot of companies view it as kind of a marketing opportunity and there is a real question like, who is using this and why are they using this? I would prefer it if companies said, big picture, here's what we did. And then here are the details. I think it's against some company's culture to admit that they are fixing specific bugs. And I guess there are arguments pro and con. I always prefer to get a big juicy list that says we fixed even, it doesn't have to be detailed.

It doesn't have to list every single bug fix, but to say we fixed a problem where the iPad with, with, you know, loading in portrait, just portrait mode on an iPad pro just to make up an example, right? Like, that's like, Oh, yeah, okay, great. But I know that a lot of companies view it as like a litany of failure to like, all these things that were broken, but now are fixed. And it's very negative.

So they just stay positive. But you know, I would prefer that and, and improvements are also like, tell me about your improvements. um i don't know i guess it's every developer's decision to about what they want to disclose and a lot of developers just don't want to do it but i would um cuteness like i don't love it um because that feels like not a place to do that and that's just trying to be kind of like meta about the fact that everything is bug fixes and stability improvements. But you know, I don't know, I don't, I don't need any more whimsy in my app release notes, I guess I would say, but I don't like the lack of disclosure anyway, in those app release notes. I don't like it when they just say bug fixes and stability improvements, because the point is that you should be able to say something about what's changed

and um i wish they would be a little more uh open with their disclosure i feel like some i mean so i would say the bug fixes and performance improvements thing doesn't really annoy me that much purely because like it doesn't work for companies to list everything all the time because sometimes there isn't anything particular right like it's right they might be um because this happens a lot right an update comes out to an app and there's a new feature that's hidden and they they announce it a couple of days later and it rolls out right because it is unrealistic to to sometimes to announce an update to your application if people haven't updated yet like you i'm sure developers know like how long does it take people to update to to to a new version or whatever so they want to hold it there's a lot right and

there's there could be security issues that you don't want to disclose and that's absolutely true and a lot of stuff is really esoteric like we had this issue that affected you know 10 people and caused this crash and we fixed it it's like does anybody care so as well i get i don't think that there's a lot a lot of big companies like Google and Facebook and stuff, it seems like they are on a release cadence, right? That they will have a release for their apps every two weeks. And I would expect sometimes there's just stuff that's not done yet,

but it's there, right? Like, cause they're just pushing out whatever the code is at a stable point and they keep, you know, that they just commit it and then they upload it to the app store and then that will continue to be worked on so i guess there is kind of probably isn't always stuff that's worth calling out so i understand why it annoys people but at the same time i feel like i understand the practicalities of these these big corporations to the point where like sometimes it's just not

worth it for whatever reason to disclose literally every change i think for francois's purpose here like they're trying to do something when they can't do anything else so they're trying to distract you or make it amusing and it's very meta and i get how that would be annoying too because i find it kind of annoying but the larger issue is that they don't have anything to say they literally have nothing to say other than we fix some bugs yeah so they just say something fun which i mostly don't like it feels unprofessional to me in most instances. Philip has written in, my wife recently dropped her Series 2 Apple Watch. It's being repaired, but might need replacing.

If it needs to be replaced, it will cost us £290. Does it make sense to get a new Series 3 right now, or is a Series 4 likely to be out in the autumn? Don't. Don autumn? Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't buy it, because there will be a new Apple Watch.

I mean, just today, there was a report about some regulatory approvals for six new Apple Watch models. Don't do it. I broke my iPad, right? And I'm just forging ahead with my broken screen. It's still going strong, though. Cracks are getting worse, but that thing's still going strong

because I'm not going to pay £490 when I'm probably going to be paying £1,000 in four weeks or five weeks or something. So if you can get by, don't do it. It would be my advice right now because it's just far too soon right now. It's far, far too soon. now it's far far too soon and you may not want the series four but it means you'll get a series three for cheaper so hopefully

yeah don't don't do it i was i have a cracked screen story which is i was at a restaurant on friday in san jose i was in san jose visiting some friends because there was a convention there uh it was fun it was like uh celebrating the two-month anniversary of WWDC, which is a little bit weird. But way fewer people, by the way. Apple Developer Conference, between the conference and then all of the people who were there not going to the conference, we really kind of shut down and ruined downtown San Jose. It was fascinating to see. It's a little like going to Comic-Con, going to San Diego outside of Comic-Con after having been to Comic-Con. You're like, where are the giant crowds and the long lines? It's like they were gone. That was really nice. Anyway, we went to a brewery that's just around the corner from the convention center, which was really great. I'm going to definitely try to go back there next time I'm in San Jose. There's a brewery around the corner from the convention center? Yeah.

Why did nobody know about this? Well, I don't know. I don't know the story behind it. You've got the keys to everybody to know that there's something interesting to go to. Yeah, there's a nice little brewery. It's kind of like a block away from the theater. It's the Uproar Brewing Company.

Interesting. It's on San Salvador and First. Anyway, they have, it's all an iPad checkout system. So they've got an iPad kiosk and then they also have for the dinner rush, which we were there, you know, five to eight or whatever, drinking beer. And then people came and then we had dinner and it was busy. They have another iPad that they bring out. it was busy they have another ipad that they that they bring out and i can see why they only bring this one out for the dinner rush because it has a cracked screen which you know i get it you don't want to pay to fix your ipad whatever but it's one of those things where you know they run your card

and then you need to sign on the screen and i'm signing on the screen over the cracked glass and I can feel the cracked glass as I'm signing. And I think to myself, I don't like this. This is not, you should not be having your customers run their fingers over cracked glass that may throw a shard into their finger at any moment. Seems like a mistake. So that's my cracked screen story, which is like, you want to do it yourself that's

fine but to inflict on your customers moving your finger over that's i don't want to do that i don't want to move my finger over that crack there because it could could uh you know put glass in my finger and i use my finger because i have to type things some cracks are fine you know you sometimes your ipad screen if it's your own ipad If it's your own iPad, you choose to take the risk if you want. I agree. For a point-of-sale iPad that you should replace that. Seems like a bad idea. It seems like a bad idea.

Mihir asks, will you be upgrading to, presuming they're announced, the new iPad Pro, the new iPhones, and the Apple Watch Series 4? Just two or three? What is your plan right now, sight unseen? Okay, the problem with this is that in reality, we are people who write about this stuff and talk about this stuff. And therefore, I would be, I need to try all the stuff.

Hopefully I can get review units of all the stuff. I will, but that said, the stuff that I buy, I buy because I want it to be mine and I want to use it for a long time. Like I'm still using the iPad Pro first generation 12.9 because I bought that one. And I got the second generation review unit.

I had that, but that's not what I use the one i use is what i bought so with that disclaimer that i hope to have all four of these at least at some point the one that i will certainly buy is the ipad pro certainly 100 i absolutely will buy a new ipad pro yeah because you're you're a couple of versions behind at that point right so you're going to get a nice big, big jump. Yeah, yeah. And the new, you know, if it's bezel-less and all of that, like, I'm very excited about what a new iPad, probably use my iPad so much. The other ones, you know, I love my iPhone X.

I'm okay with it. Like, I'm okay with it. Like I'm okay with it. So I would not choose for myself to buy a revised iPhone 10 if there is one. That one is probably not on my agenda. Apple Watch, I have the Series 3 with cellular and I'm very happy with it. So I probably would not buy a new one of that. And yeah, so for me, that's it, is that I'm really targeted on the iPad Pro. What about you? I will 100% be buying both iPad Pros

because I love them and I want the newness of all of them. They're very important to me. Bigger iPhone, 100%. Of course, right? I're very important to me. Bigger iPhone, 100%. Of course, right? I'm going down that road. Bigger iPhone, definitely. Apple Watch?

I don't want one because I don't wear it anymore. I don't wear the Apple Watch. I haven't worn my Apple Watch since May. If you are interested in hearing about that because it's too much to get into right now, I direct you to episode 71 of cortex where i explain in detail kind of why i have given up on the apple watch and why i'm not interested in what i do what i'm doing instead there is a world in which they could create an interesting enough product that i would want to buy it for the review purposes or whatever

right so i can talk about it but if it is just a jump like they've been doing, probably not, right? Like I'm not going to need it. Other people having it will suffice, but I'm not really interested in wearing an Apple Watch anymore, at least for the time being. There has to be some big changes to the Apple Watch. I don't even know what they would be for me to want to go back to it

because I am now in the mechanical watch camp so I like my dumb beautiful watch you got reasons I wore a mechanical watch for a long time but I don't know I like my Apple Watch

I'm enjoying this is big for me. I closed all three rings very early on, on, was it Saturday? Sometime last week. I was like, oh boy, this is big. But then you get in that moment where like, I put on my watch late in the day,

like 11 o'clock one morning. And I was like, oh man, I'm never going to do it now. And I did have a moment where I like stood up and wandered around because I was trying to get credit. Pro Apple watch tip, by the way, get up at about 55 after the hour and walk around for 10 minutes and you get credit for two hours of standing. So I think that's a, anyway, I enjoyed my Apple watch, uh, watching my wife who's using a series zero Apple watch. She'll definitely be getting a new Apple watch this fall. And I see somebody on Twitter was saying this too, how much faster the current Apple Watch is than the original. There are a lot of people who like

tried the original Apple Watch and they're like, this is so frustrating. And my wife is frustrated with it. And now I'm just sort of like, just hold on. New one's way better. You know, it's just all these pauses that you're like, why can't I tap on this thing now she was trying to get an offy code and just like tap tap tap tap tap tap and it couldn't get it to come up and i'm like oh yeah that works fine on the modern watches so we'll see one thing that i might do if i'm like moderately interested but don't want one for myself i'll buy it for a dna she's still using series zero zero, like the original, original. Um, and she wears it and uses it every day and has absolutely no complaints or problems with it.

She would be really happy with a new one, but I don't think she uses it very, very much. Like she, for her, it's just like, it's my watch and it tells me the time. Do you know what I mean?

Like, and it gives me notifications. She's not really like digging into it very deeply, but that would, I've just thought that will be a pretty nice way for me to get to see the new one. And she would get a benefit from it because she wears it every day. All right.

That's, I think we're going to wrap it up there. Thank you so much to everyone who has sent in some questions. We still have a lot more, but I always want more ask upgrade questions. So you can always tweet to us with the hashtag ask upgrade to, for us to answer a question from you at the end of the show thanks to everyone that's done that so if you haven't heard us answer your question i have lots

we're going through a big big backlog so maybe we'll uh dip in and out of trying to do some more over the next few weeks i always think it's really interesting to see what people want to hear us talk about there's always some interesting insights that come out of hashtag ask upgrade which is why you've heard this technology uh in use in some of your favorite technology podcasts around right this is why this is uh permeated across the ecosphere because it's a it's a great way to get feedback and to understand what people want you to talk about so that's why we love doing it and why it has been a mainstay on this show for years we are actually fast approaching our fourth anniversary on the show in September, which I'm very excited

about. So thank you to everybody who has tuned in, especially those of you who have been around for a very long time, and especially, especially to those of you who became RelayFM members over the last week or two, or if you've been for a long time, thank you so much. Relay.fm membership to find out

more about that, or you can become a supporting member of Up upgrade by clicking the link in the show notes you can find jason over at twitter he is at jay snell i am at i'm ike i m y k e go to six colors.com and the incomparable.com for more of jason's work outside of relay fm but he like i host many shows at relay fm go to relay.fm shows and i'm sure you'll be able to pick up something new for your podcast listening pleasure. Thank you so much to Pingdom, Inboard Technology

and Squarespace for their support of this week's episode and we'll be back next time. Until then, Jason, you're going to ride off, surf off into the sunset. Say goodbye. See you later, dude.