Upgrade - 217: People in Dongletown Want to Dance

Episode Date: October 30, 2018

Apple's New York event is in the books! Two new iPad Pros, a new Mac Mini, and the return from the dead of the MacBook Air! Jason reports in live from Apple's event in the Big Apple with first impress...ions about all the announcements. Plus: The winner of the latest Upgrade Draft is crowned! Will Jason reign supreme or has Myke managed a last-minute tie? All will be revealed.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 from relay fm this is upgrade episode 217 today's show is brought to you by luna display pdf pen from smile and hello fresh today there has been an apple event so we've got all of the news and coverage and analysis of that my name is mike hurley and of course i am joined by man on the ground mr jason snell hello jason snell i'm actually up in the air i'm in a skyscraper in manhattan look at you fancy yeah we've got some fancy stuff going now let me talk about the weather when you're above no no jason nobody cares about that i have a question for you for our hashtag talk this Talk this week. Oh, Upgradian Mike. Oh, excellent. Upgradian Mike wants to know, how does an East Coast time event make Jason feel?
Starting point is 00:00:52 Like, do you feel tired? Do you feel excited? Are you more productive, less productive? What is the feeling of an East Coast event? Because Apple's event was in New York today. First off, if I was in California and not attending this event, it would make me feel sleepy because it would have happened at seven in the morning. But I am in New York City. And so I feel fine, I guess. I mean, it's going to be a long day today because I'm flying home tonight.
Starting point is 00:01:18 That's going to be a very long day. And I got up really early yesterday. So I probably don't have as much sleep. But what I was saying to some of my fellow attendees who came from the New York area is that they're experiencing what I experience when there's an Apple event in the Bay Area, which is you sleep in your own bed, but you have to get out of bed at a weird hour and your family's still asleep and you got to drive or take the train or whatever. And I just, you know, rolled out of bed this morning and walked two blocks to the Apple event. You were in a hotel. Like it doesn't make a difference, right?
Starting point is 00:01:51 Yeah. So, so on that level, I mean, yeah, there's all the extra travel and all that, but actually on the day of the event, it's super convenient. And this is why when they do WWDC down in, in San Jose, I don't even like, I try to stay in a hotel for a couple of nights because it's so much, it's further down there and it's a multiple day thing. So it sort of makes sense. But so that's the advantage of it. The disadvantage is, yeah, I got up at four in the morning and I won't get home until yesterday and I won't get home till after midnight today. And it's a couple
Starting point is 00:02:19 of really long days. It'd be very tiring. But in terms of this morning, I was kind of ready to go because I got a proper night's sleep and then just a short walk to the event location, which is really interesting event location too, which we should talk about at some point. Because this is when, again, Apple is picking a venue anywhere in the world. Apple can pick a venue and stage an event there. And like the Chicago event earlier this year, they picked an interesting place. So we will talk about that. But if you want to send in a question for any episode to get us started, you can always tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk. And that goes into a wonderful document
Starting point is 00:02:58 that we're able to collect and pick from in the future. And I thank Upgradian Mike for his great suggestion for a question to open this week's show jason we must start these events as we all these always do these these event episodes by talking about the draft so on our last episode which was in chicago which was a wonderful episode i'm really pleased that we got to do that it was wonderful to have so many upgradians come out and see the show that was a a really, really great time. Thank you to everyone who came. Thank you to Stephen and Alex again for joining us on the episode. We had a really, really great time.
Starting point is 00:03:30 But we did do a draft, and the draft was foretold that Jason Snell would obliterate Mike Hurley. This is what everyone believes. This is what you believed. It's never true because everybody was convinced that you destroyed me in the previous draft, and that really didn't happen exactly what we have learned is everybody's super confident when they're making their picks it's what happens on the day oh yeah what did happen on the day jason snell who took the win today so my scoring it's either six to five or five to four based on a very particular question
Starting point is 00:03:59 that we should probably solve yeah but either way whether it was 6-5 or 5-4, it's you with one more point than me. Mike Hurley is the winner. You didn't think I could do it, Upgradians, but I did it. I won. I won, Jason. I cannot tell you how excited I was about this because we've now tied. We're tied. We're tied at two each on the events for the
Starting point is 00:04:19 year, which just makes me feel good because I'm happy. The iPad really helped me out right like that was i wasn't really much uh because the way the event was stacked and i had my fingers crossed and it came through so let's run through these real quick right shall we yeah okay definitely um so we'll go on your side first new ipads to have face id check check photoshop for ipad check yep so this is one of the ones of contention. New smart connector on the iPad Pro. There is one, but it wasn't clear.
Starting point is 00:04:48 I don't think it was very clear at all during the presentation. They had images of the thing and where it was, and so there was an implication, but they didn't say we have a new smart connector, just as they didn't say they have no headphone jack. Exactly. Which is one that you picked. So that's the point of contention, which is one that you picked so that's that's
Starting point is 00:05:05 the point of contention which is and i i think it's something for us to revisit because you could make a strong argument that if a product was introduced and shown off and one of the features it had was this that it's i don't know if it's very fun to have a draft where if they don't mention it out loud it doesn't count we've picked that rule for very specific reasons because we've had many problems in the past. I actually believe that the rule should stand as it is because it allows for way less ambiguity when making the picks. Like if they don't show it or it's not on a slide clearly,
Starting point is 00:05:37 I don't think the point should count. I don't know. I think the argument would be if it's in a product, it's a feature of a product that is mentioned and that is introduced on stage, but they don't mention that product. You could maybe make the argument that there's an extension that happens there.
Starting point is 00:05:52 Well, this is why we discuss it though, right? Like I could go either way on these. The danger of going your way is you've got one of those like, okay, now we need to look at the video that they show. Like you can see, do we see the absence of a headphone jack? Well, we do, but can you prove an absence?
Starting point is 00:06:08 Did we see all possible places the headphone jack could be? And likewise with the smart connector, like do we ever see the smart connector? No, but we see the thing attached on the back where the smart connector would be. So again, I think you could parse it either way. Fortunately, we have rarely needed to, I feel like we are really good about resolving our own issues. And in this case, the answer is you can count them or not.
Starting point is 00:06:31 It doesn't – fortunately, it doesn't change the outcome at all because each of us had one of these. So if we want to go by the letter of the law, I would say that makes the score five to four. Yeah. So I would say we keep the rules as they are and we just continue to debate as we have. I mean, because I think that the rules, it's easier this way than just to say like, we'll just see.
Starting point is 00:06:54 So new sub $1,000 laptop introduced. There was a laptop. It wasn't priced there. I'm going to have more to say about this. I am very surprised that Apple has basically, I mean, apparently the old macbook air is still for sale which i think is interesting because the alt the alternative here was for apple to say hey guess what everybody you like that that macbook air so much we made a new one that's
Starting point is 00:07:14 more expensive and the old one's gone but the old one's still there apparently for a while at least uh new airpods no new airpods okay so let's new airpods and new imax i both picked and this is the thing that even as i was picking them on stage even before i picked them on stage i thought to myself this is risky and this is the calculation that i made which is i wanted to please the audience and not be boring by continuing to pick ipad features and mac mini features and even though we didn't have any good intel about these things being in this event, I picked them because I wanted my picks to have some variety
Starting point is 00:07:48 and I didn't want to bore the audience. And I knew I was taking a risk. I knew it. And it's absolutely what happened. Well, that was the trap I fell into for the previous draft. Right? Yeah, you want to be entertaining.
Starting point is 00:08:00 And then what happens, Mike, is that we're going to go back and forth on this because if you win, you're like, okay, I'm a winner. I can be entertaining next time. And then you lose and you're like that we're going to go back and forth on this because if you win, you're like, okay, I'm a winner. I can be entertaining next time. And then you lose and you're like, I am going to be really boring and win this. And that's how you go back and forth.
Starting point is 00:08:12 Maybe that's why we tied. The art was used in a video. It was the opening video. Yeah. And 4K external display support. How about 5K? I know. How about 25K?
Starting point is 00:08:22 There's all the Ks. All the Ks. So that puts you at four points as we can agree on. I got. How about 25k is all the Ks. All the Ks. So that puts you at four points, as we can agree on. I've got new Apple Pencil. There is no headphone jack on the iPad. Again, we will discuss this in detail in a little bit, but we couldn't really see that as clear in the presentation, so it was not scored.
Starting point is 00:08:37 There is a new Mac Mini. The new iPads have USB-C only. The new laptop does not have a USB-A port. Face ID works both horizontally and vertically. In all orientations. All orientations, which I didn't expect. There was, I'll jump ahead one, there was no promotion for the iPhone XR,
Starting point is 00:08:54 which I was surprised about. It got mentioned, but in a very strange context, which is just that its screen is like the iPad Pro's screen, in that it's a liquid retina display. And that wasn't at all what I envisioned. That is not promotion. It was promotion promotion but that's a different thing yeah and the last one is demo of an app another app a big app debut from a major company not a game so there were two things here which were which basically they amount to like half a point each kind of in the way that i'm
Starting point is 00:09:22 thinking so autocad was shown which is a brand new app from autodesk but it wasn't demoed by an individual and then adobe had a new app that they showed off which was turning photoshop files into ar but i don't know how big that is so i don't know about that one so i think i could go either way on it um and luckily i don't have to debate it because i still won with or without it so yeah yeah and I I think that's a very clear no-go because there were only two demos one was a game and one was photoshop which is the another big app debut so I feel like yes unless you the oh and we also have this ar project thing that we added on that we'll take our photoshop file and put it in ar I you know again it doesn't matter but i don't think you i don't think you get that point so we'll score it at five four
Starting point is 00:10:09 five four just came in there so we tie we tie for the year two apiece everybody loves ties it's my favorite way to win i consider this a win for me because i don't think anyone expected this so it's a personal victory because i've lost every other year. So I will take it. So the Apple event is all wrapped up. What was the environment like today? You were in the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Is that correct? Yes, that's right. So it's in like a big opera house, auditorium, theater-like environment. What did you think of it all? How does it differ to some of the other places that you go to? Well, it's a theater. It's a small theater space.
Starting point is 00:10:47 Well, I mean, it's not small, but it's not vast like some of the places that Apple has used in the past. And the seats are tight together and the rows are tight together. So it was super cramped. But beautiful setting. They closed off multiple streets in Brooklyn. This is about a block away from the Brooklyn Apple store which is new which is beautiful it's like a wedge shaped building it looks really great and I think Apple is comfortable in that neighborhood because they know it from the
Starting point is 00:11:17 from the retail store there and so there's the theater they closed off two other streets running past the theater and they closed off the street between the theater and some restaurants that are over on the other side of the street there and actually when we got there they had us go into basically like a mexican restaurant that they had turned into a place where you could you know stay warm and get coffee and a breakfast burrito and whatever before the event was it was it like a business like someone's business yeah and they just took it over for the morning that's so funny and and you know obviously paid them off and all that but they closed all these streets nypd everywhere they closed all the streets what a payday for that restaurant though right some security line stuff um that that is a little unusual because we're out on the streets of a
Starting point is 00:12:05 big city and the level of control they wanted to have was a little bit greater um right across the way was the um was the venue and then the hands-on area was actually built inside a different location that was down the block and it looked like it i think somebody said that's where the brooklyn flea market is and they took that building over and it has a big interior space. And they built like a whole like platform level that was clearly built by Apple for the hands-on area. And that's where the hands-on area was. So it was really interesting in that Apple basically took over a block and several streets in the middle of Brooklyn. block and several streets in the middle of Brooklyn. So why do you think, because this seems like a really big to-do, right? Like getting all of this stuff arranged and hiring out all
Starting point is 00:12:53 these different places and making all these adaptations. Why do you think Apple held this event in New York? I think Apple is currently in a place where they like mixing it up and taking their events to different places. And, you know, one of the downsides of not doing Macworld Expo is that, you know, you can just end up being Apple events on campus and occasionally down the road a little bit. And I think maybe they made a decision that while they were going to be at home at the Steve Jobs Theater, they were going to be open to doing other events in other places rather than having every event be at the Steve Jobs Theater. So we have now this year, as we know from our draft scoring, have had four Apple events, one at the Steve Jobs Theater, one at the McHenry Convention Center for WWDC, and then one in Chicago and one in New York. And I'm wondering if this is just the pattern now is that Apple is going to do some events in other places just because they can and because it's interesting. To be clear, they get a lot of coverage in their home region because there's a lot of people in Silicon Valley. And of course,
Starting point is 00:13:59 New York is a great place to go and Chicago is a great place to go. But who knows? They could do an event somewhere else. They could do an event somewhere else. They could do an event in LA. They could do an event. I mean, there's a number of places they could go and they will get some people to travel and other people won't. But I think they like the variety of it. And honestly, they're so big that they can do this, right? They're so big that they can take over a block in the middle of Brooklyn and do one of these events.
Starting point is 00:14:22 They have the people that organize these things, right? Like I'm sure they have an entire team. Yeah, they do. But presumably those people are all in California, so there's a lot more travel. I mean, there's a lot more that's going to go into something like this, although I will say they did. They staff a lot of it with Apple retail employees,
Starting point is 00:14:40 which is actually a lot of the wild kind of cheering that you heard during the event if you watched it i think was from retail and the reason i say that i say that the retail employees were behind a lot of the a lot of the applause and wooing is because when angela errantz went on stage they got really loud wild that's that's the that's the boss on stage you know because they were literally it was just like oh we, we added this new this new program in the Apple store and people just went nuts. I'm like, really? In fact, there was a moment when Lana Del Rey finished her first song and people applauded. And I thought, well, if she wanted more applause, she should have mentioned Apple retail.
Starting point is 00:15:20 Right. Like, wait a second. World renowned recording artist is on stage. right like wait a second world-renowned recording artist is on stage and i think the the new today at apple thing got a louder ovation because the retail people were so excited was there any kind of overall other overall notes that you you came across from the event like any other overriding overarching feelings about what happened it felt like there was more heavy lifting from tim cook this time than i've okay uh that i've seen in the past, than I expected. He introduced the Mac and he talked a lot about the Mac. And we can get to that. But we all, you know, I was sitting there between Federico and Casey Liss. And we had a moment where I was like, wow, he's just talking about the Mac. Liss and we had a moment where I was like, wow, he's just talking about the Mac. And I'm wondering, we joke about how Tim loves his iPad and he talks about his iPad. And there's this question of like,
Starting point is 00:16:17 does Tim even know about the Mac? He says he's got an iMac on his desk, but he did a whole thing about the Mac and he talked about Mojave. He basically did a little Mojave demo. And it's exactly the sort of thing that you could imagine. He was like, hey, let's get Phil Schiller out here to talk about the Mac so I don't have to. And that didn't happen. He did that. He did that work. So I thought that was interesting. We can talk more about the Mac in a minute. And then the other thing I just wanted to point out is the way that this was handled was definitely, you know, people are handing off to other people that, you know, you kind of burrow down on a product and then you'd have a demo and then you come back out. And so if you think of it like little, you you know levels of the presentation with tim at the top and i noticed that at one point we went five levels down where like tim handed it to john
Starting point is 00:16:53 for the ipad demo and john brought out sean who's developer relations and she brought out jamie who's from adobe and she brought out chantal who is the demo person for photoshop and and while chantal was doing the photoshop demo i was thinking to, we're five layers into this burrito now. Like this is where we're way, we're way, we are in the, we're, we, Tim is the frosting, but we are down at the, at the, I don't know what is the bottom layer, the pie crust, or that wouldn't be cake then. But anyway, it's a really weird cake. Well, it goes at the bottom of the cake is more frosting. That's the problem. It's more frosting. It's be cake then. But anyway, it's a really weird cake. Well, it goes at the bottom of the cake. It's more frosting. That's the problem. It's more frosting.
Starting point is 00:17:26 It's a cake sandwich. So I just had that moment because what happened was then Chantal was like, I'll give it back to Jamie. And Jamie's like, well, okay, let me recap everything we just did. I'll give it back to Sean. And she's like, well, isn't it great that there are apps on the iPad? Let's give it back to John. And he's like, the iPad, it's awesome.
Starting point is 00:17:41 Here's what the price is, Tim. And then we're back at Tim. I like that they have to do that, right? That they go in and go back out again. I said, well, there's no other way. I can't pass to Tim because then Tim's one level down. How does Tim pass back to Tim? We can't do that.
Starting point is 00:17:52 Yeah, what happened to John? If Sean Pruden throws it to Tim, you're like, oh my God, what happened to John? Is he still in some other dimension presenting iPad Pro until we pull him out of there? So you got to close all your parentheses or the entire thing falls apart. It's a house of cards. There were a lot of new presenters at the event. And I think everybody did really well. I thought that they had a selection
Starting point is 00:18:16 of great people. There was the lady who showed off the Mac. I think her name was Laura, the MacBook Air. She was my favorite. She was awesome. She was really, really good. She told a great story. But in general, I think they introduced a bunch of new people on stage today, which was really great. I like to see fresh faces.
Starting point is 00:18:34 Yeah, she was a little nervous in the Craig Federighi original appearance kind of nerves, where you could tell it was her first huge thing, and trained for it and she was not quite as assured but you know that's what what happens when you go on stage i think any of us if we were on stage at an apple event would would get a little nervous and you know you might type it's road trip and anything could happen well i mean look at me last week i get super nervous doing our live shows i can can't even imagine what that would be like. Yeah. So before we get into talking about the Macs and the new iPad Pros, just note that iOS 12.1 has shipped today.
Starting point is 00:19:14 It includes group FaceTime. That is now out and available to everyone. This was delayed from iOS 12. Dual SIM support on the XR and the XS. And 17 new emoji i have not yet downloaded ios 12 it just shipped like because we were getting ready to start but i cannot wait for those new emoji jason very excited yeah it's it's good i i've been i had it on one device and so i've been getting like real new emoji on that device and not on any other device so i'm ready for that fragmentation to end yeah i'm ready for that and you know you're in you're in new york so you can send loads of bagels to everybody for like the last day or
Starting point is 00:19:53 whatever that'd be nice everyone will enjoy that i'm sure sure all right today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at hello fresh the meal kit delivery service that shops, plans, and delivers step-by-step recipes and pre-measured ingredients so you can just cook, eat, and enjoy. There are three plans to choose from, the classic, the veggie, and the family. And you won't need to spend all night in the kitchen because HelloFresh recipes just take around 30 minutes to prepare. Having everything delivered directly to you means that you'll spend less time planning for your meals than having to grocery shop for them every week, and instead just spend your time doing the things that you love instead. It doesn't put me to want to do that.
Starting point is 00:20:31 Everything is delivered right to your door in recyclable, insulated packaging. Even amidst the after-school chaos, HelloFresh's meal kits make it easy to decide what to do for dinner, so you can look forward to your delivery knowing that everything just got easier i've been a happy hello fresh customer for over three years i've been using them for a very very long time and i absolutely love it hello fresh taught me to cook it expanded my palate to new and wonderful recipes and i've been traveling for a couple of weeks i cannot wait to get back home and cook again and have some home-cooked meals because HelloFresh's ingredient quality is so good and it's taught me all these wonderful new recipes. I really, really look forward to getting back to the kitchen when I get home because I am in Canada right now
Starting point is 00:21:15 and that is not where I live. So once I get home, more HelloFresh will be back in my life and I'm very excited. For a total of $60 off, that is $20 off your first three boxes, go to hellofresh.com slash upgrade60 right now and use the promo code upgrade60 at checkout. That is basically six meals for free. Just go to hellofresh.com slash upgrade60 and use the promo code upgrade60. Our thanks to HelloFresh for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. So let's start how it was started by talking about the Mac. You excited, Jason Snell? You know, it is... I love the Mac.
Starting point is 00:21:59 Like Tim does. Tim loves the Mac. Tim loves the Mac. Tim thinks the Mac is great. He's got good numbers to share about people who are new to the Mac, especially in China. He wants to tell us that there are 100 million active Macs in the install base, which is a milestone, he said. And most importantly, Tim is excited about the Mac, and he loves the Mac because it's number one in customer satisfaction. Anything that is number one in customer satisfaction is Tim's favorite product. That's what he wants.
Starting point is 00:22:27 He wants customer sat. He wants it now. And yeah, so it's nice to see Apple spend some time. It's been a little while since we saw Apple spend some time on Macs. They didn't do it at the last event at all. So it was nice to get that and to get Tim talking about it because, again, there is this perception that Tim is not really focused on the Mac. talking about it because again there is this perception that Tim is you know not really focused on the Mac and so getting him to say things about the Mac on stage I think was they were trying to send a good message there so I want to run through some quick stats of the new MacBook
Starting point is 00:22:55 Air and then we can talk about a little bit of what they mean so the new MacBook Air which is just it feels weird to say I mean I will say it feels weird to say like i i don't think i was expecting it to be called the macbook air but here we are anyway um it has a retina display which is 13.3 inches it has a brand new industrial design so it's got rid of the the silver border and it's just a nice border like the macbook it has two thunderbolt 3 ports a t2 chip a third generation butterfly keyboard which is four times more stable right because that's again they're trying to find ways to extol the virtues of it and um i don't remember people saying you know what the problem is with apple's keyboards
Starting point is 00:23:36 the keys are unstable my fingers are always sliding off it's yeah they're my typing is inaccurate and the keys are unstable and it makes like, again, is this a solution in search of a problem? I don't really know why they keep talking about this. They've got to find a reason why it's good. I just I noticed that once again, they're talking about key stability, which it's true. It's just such a strange thing. And I'm not sure anybody really cares about it does third gen mean different to the ones that were just in the macbook pro or is that the macbook pro ones it's
Starting point is 00:24:11 the macbook pro ones the third gen butterfly the first one was the original macbook the second gen was the macbook pro when it went to that keyboard and then this is the third gen butterfly keyboard so new more powerful processors higher ram and ssd options the new macbook air is 17 smaller in volume 10 thinner and a quarter of a pound lighter it is made from 100 recycled aluminium this is really exciting people are really excited about this but there is something that is kind of hilarious to me about this because they go through the presentation talking about this and then the through the presentation talking about this and then the mac mini is made from this the and when they get the ipad they don't say the ipad
Starting point is 00:24:50 is made from the 100 recycled aluminium they say that the the kind of the off cuts i guess or like the the the parts of the manufacturing process that remove the aluminium to create the ipad pros is used in the new macbooks so basically what's happening here is they are using the shavings of iphones and ipads to make max now which is such a great metaphor i think i know right yeah it is and they said it's like as a byproduct of our construction or our uh you know our metal process uh and then i was like wait what and then they keep going where is this coming from are you because it's not what they aren't saying is that their um max are made from like old old aluminum cans right that's not what they're saying max they're not saying that either no no it seems like it's a byproduct of the process that
Starting point is 00:25:41 that they use for stainless or for aluminum in uh other products that use aluminum uh which is something so it's really funny to me like i wonder if like you know at some point by accident you get part of like an iphone 10r like just think oh look this is gonna blow up orange in it uh but it's just it is it is a great process like it does seem like something that is really important but there is is just that beauty of that metaphor. I think the last big thing, which is a big surprise, I would never have expected, Touch ID in the MacBook Air. And it starts at $1,199.
Starting point is 00:26:18 Jason, is this the MacBook Air that we wanted? Well, feature-wise, I would say it is. I love the MacBook Air. we've been talking a lot about how it was great and it needs to be replaced and it's dead yeah this is a fantastic laptop this is apple did the other thing which is having held it like it's a macbook air it feels like a macbook air it's shaped like a macbook air it is undeniably a macbook air it is smaller because they've gotten rid of the huge bezel and all of that and they've made it feel like a modern Apple laptop.
Starting point is 00:26:47 It is more functional than the MacBook. It is very similarly functional to the MacBook Escape, right? But it's a MacBook Air with a retina display and with two USB-C ports and a headphone
Starting point is 00:27:04 jack. And it is, you know, so it's, you know, the old MacBook Air has, what, two USB-A and mini display port and HDMI maybe. I don't know if it has that or not. That's my wife's MacBook Air. I have the 11, which has less stuff on it. I think the regular MacBook Air, I don't think it has HDMI on it. No? Okay. So anyway, it's maybe a little bit less functional, and it's got power.
Starting point is 00:27:31 I guess that's the other key port is it's got a power MagSafe where this only has the two ports and one of them needs to power it. Yeah. But that all said, I'm excited about it because I do love the MacBook Air. I am surprised that Apple decided to revive it in this way i do not believe for a minute that when they announced the macbook a few years ago that they intended to take this path i think this was literally apple looking at people continuing to buy the macbook Air and realizing that they needed to just make a MacBook Air update that they just they need to go back on. I don't believe this
Starting point is 00:28:10 was the plan all along at all. And I think that they would have come up with something sooner if it was. I think that they had to change direction just as they changed direction with the Mac Pro where they were just going to do the iMac Pro and leave it there. So I think this is a change on their part. But I think it's good. It looks really good. The disappointment, and I lost a point in the draft for it, is that they still couldn't get it under $1,000, which, again, it's not Apple's goal to be cheap.
Starting point is 00:28:36 I was reminded at several times during this presentation that Apple is not only not being cheap, Apple is cranking up the price of everything a bit. And people can make arguments like, well, it's about inflation and all that. And that might well be true, but Apple is cranking up the price. They want to increase the average selling price. And this is an example where even now at this $1,199, which is the lowest price point Apple has ever had for a retina laptop, it's still $200 more than the previous generation MacBook Air. Yep.
Starting point is 00:29:09 And that is, if you're somebody who is looking for a laptop and you see anything above $1,000 and you hesitate, that's not going to stop. The people who are buying the MacBook Air because they like the Air could get this one now, but the people who are buying the macbook air because they like the air could get this one now but the people who are buying the macbook air because it was 9.99 then you know they're going to be asked to spend a couple hundred more dollars so i don't love that about it i was really i kind of had bought bought into the concept that apple was going to make it um cheaper and they did make it cheaper it's cheaper than the macbook and the macbook escape um and it's very similar to the macbook escape by than the macbook and the macbook escape um and it's very similar to the macbook escape by the way i wonder if the macbook escape is going to fade
Starting point is 00:29:49 away because i don't know why it needs to exist when this computer exists that's got um most of what it has if not all of what it has plus plus more because it's got a touch id sensor so yeah yeah it is weird it is a weird one that they kept that i'm not i'm not 100 sure why they have it but you know i do want to go back to you were saying that like oh they had to make this because lots of people are still buying the macbook air right well i think my my question on this is were they buying the mac Air, right? Well, I think my question on this is, were they buying the MacBook Air because it was $999? Or were they buying the MacBook Air
Starting point is 00:30:30 because they loved the MacBook Air? Right. I would assume it's the price. And this doesn't change that. I mean, it's an assumption. If that was the reason, I think it's a combination of factors. I think that some of it is that.
Starting point is 00:30:42 Some of it is that people like the MacBook Air. It is a pretty great machine, even though it was lacking the retina display and modern processors. You could make the argument it was the last Apple laptop using the old keyboard. Maybe some people bought it because they didn't like the other keyboards. Well, that's gone by the wayside. So we'll see. Obviously, Apple has made some judgments that people like the MacBook Air. And from the perspective, leaving the price aside and the keyboard aside, it is very much what the MacBook Escape wasn't.
Starting point is 00:31:11 And the MacBook Escape more and more feels like this super strange outlier where they sort of used the same stuff they used in the Air, but more modern, but they called it a pro with other pros and priced it accordingly accordingly and then they cut the price but like now it feels like they're like okay we didn't that didn't happen so we're just going to make one that's pretty much the shape you expect which is the macbook air and and it is i
Starting point is 00:31:39 mean having held one i mean it's great it comes in colors now or at least what apple calls colors which is dark silver dark silver light silver and gold yeah um they're all just the the three metals that we're used to but that's more than it used to and i will tell you as a person who's been using the macbook air since the very beginning it's a macbook air like the bottom it's got the little feet it's got the curve um the the way it opens up it is it is a MacBook Air. It is not like our new take on what a MacBook Air is like. No, it is a MacBook Air. It is. Anybody who's used the Air will be able to pick one of these up and say,
Starting point is 00:32:14 yep, this is it. I mean, in some ways it's less exciting because it's not like the iPads we're going to talk about where it's like, whoa, it's totally different. It's really weird. We're going to have to get used to this. This one, it's just like, yeah, they did it. They did the Retina Air. In fact, in hindsight, you look at it and you go, why didn't you do this two years ago? Why didn't you do this three years ago? But they didn't. They're doing it now.
Starting point is 00:32:35 The sore spot on this, though, is that the old MacBook Air is still around for $999, so you can still buy it which is okay you know and so my thinking on that is like it's kind of strange because now you've just there are three laptops in the lineup which are all kind of jockeying for the same position
Starting point is 00:32:57 and it is interesting to me that you can still get them well maybe four right you've got the old MacBook Air the new MacBook Air the MacBook and the 13 inch macbook pro the base edition those machines are all similar in certain ways they're priced differently it is a when i look at this the pricing of this macbook air i'm reminded of the macbook again because it's like well here's a better machine it's much more desirable it's got everything you want but it's too, well, here's a better machine. It's much more desirable. It's got everything you want, but it's too expensive. Like it's at a higher price point. That's what happened with the MacBook. And then they kept the MacBook Air around.
Starting point is 00:33:31 And now they've introduced a new MacBook Air, which has everything you want and more, but it's still more expensive. And I don't know, I'm keen to see what happens here. I mean, if I was in the market for a laptop, this is the one that I would buy because it's the best kind of state of everything. You know, I'm happy with my MacBook Pro. I use it so infrequently that I'm not in the market. But it does seem like a great machine. It is also a shame that they missed back to school with this.
Starting point is 00:33:55 Like, this would have been the perfect laptop for a lot of students, right? And they've got to be – I can only assume that Apple was frustrated that they couldn't get it out for whatever reason at that point and there's the mystery of the macbook now and not just the macbook escape which i don't know why it exists anymore but the mystery of the macbook like who's it for well and it's still you know this is a cheaper computer that has two ports and they're both thunderbolt 3 yeah like i like the macbook and i think that who is it for is people who want a a lighter a two pound computer instead of a 2.75-pound computer. I get it. I get it.
Starting point is 00:34:29 But the one port, and it's still just USB-C, that's the part where I feel like what's going on there, that that hasn't gotten an update now and still hasn't gotten an update. And what does that mean? Is Apple not sure it wants to stick around with that, or is it just not going to update it right now and it'll do it later? So those are things that we're going to have to watch. They got rid of the rose gold on the MacBook. Oh, interesting. So that's just gold, silver, and space gray. Yeah, Apple seems to be down on rose gold now.
Starting point is 00:34:56 Yeah, it's gone. It's passe. It's passe. I think Touch ID is great. You know what it tells me though? And I look at it and I'm like, because that was a surprise. I think it says that this MacBook Air
Starting point is 00:35:06 is going to be around for a while. Like they're kind of future-proofing it. Eventually all of the Macs are going to get either Face ID or Touch ID and they've maybe put the Touch ID in this machine faster than we would expect because they've kind of made it and now they're going to leave it for a bit.
Starting point is 00:35:22 Well, yeah, that's right. Even if they update the processors in it every so often. It's not as much work as like doing everything. Now we've got to put in, I mean, this is their opportunity to redo this product and put in the T2 and put in the Touch ID sensor. Oh, T2, yeah, of course. I mean, that's a big deal, right?
Starting point is 00:35:37 This is their opportunity. And it makes that computer much more capable in what it's doing. You're seeing the T2, and I think by extension, only, you know, no more spinning hard drives extend to everywhere in the line, and presumably the iMacs will be next, but
Starting point is 00:35:53 this is, like, basically all new Macs, it seems at this point, will have a T2 or similar processor in it, and will have, you know, if it's a laptop, it's going to have Touch ID, unless they go to Face ID at some point, and which they might with imax right because you can't have a touch sensor on the imac really unless they do the keyboard that everybody wants right like they make a keyboard that has a built-in which i just don't think they're going to do i think it's much more likely
Starting point is 00:36:17 that the their their imax will just do face id and and uh and their 5k display will do face id with the mac pro I agree with you. Because Plus as well, Face ID is the future anyway. Like Touch ID is old technology, but it's taken its time to get into the Macs. It's new for the Mac. So do that now on the MacBook Air, and then we'll, and then, you know,
Starting point is 00:36:35 because then it'll go for four years, you know, four or five years, looking exactly like it looks now with some new processor updates every so often. New Mac Mini. They made a bit of fun of this, I think. like it looks now um with some new processor updates every so often new mac mini they they made a bit of fun of this i think there was a you know you could definitely read this as like they were kind of like a wink wink nudge nudge like tim kind of made a light-hearted joke like you know we know that our customers really want this and then they made this like really bold video of it
Starting point is 00:37:00 looking like it's coming from space um but it's here uh it's space gray now which means it's for professionals um it's also powerful uh it starts with a four core i3 but can go up to six core i7 draft they're 60 faster graphics up to 64 gigabytes of ram and two terabyte ssd no spinning disk option and there are images on the website that seem to indicate that the ram is user upgradable which is a big surprise. Yeah, that was the strong implication in the event as well, is like pros care about these things, and so they've got the... Which is, I will say, that is a good sign for the Mac Pro, right?
Starting point is 00:37:39 If the Mac Mini is going to be user upgradable again, that is a very good sign for a modular Mac Pro, whatever that might mean. The Mac Mini gains T2. It has four Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB-A ports, and you can get an Ethernet port which can go up to 10 gigabytes, which is great. That's great.
Starting point is 00:37:58 So it's gigabit internet, but it can do 10 gigabit internet, or Ethernet, if it's like a custom config. Yes say no no i want to buy it that way ultra super fast which is like the imac pro has that built in so it's an option here and all those ports like they said the right things which is we know that pros like ports and we know that this is a computer that is used by a lot of professional people to do all sorts of stuff so we're just going to throw them all on there for thunderbolt 3 to usba go hdmi and a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack yeah just go for it because that's of course that's
Starting point is 00:38:30 the machine that needs anyway we'll get into that later on yeah the mac mini that's the one that needs the headphone jack oh yeah don't don't keep it on the portable products um it's uh space gray made from the old ipads and iPhones. The enclosure is mostly unchanged. $799. So I'll ask you this question again. Is this the Mac Mini update that we've been waiting for? Is this what we wanted? Yeah, I'm surprised that they did not redesign the outside.
Starting point is 00:38:56 I figured that when they were going to bother redoing the Mac Mini, they would do something to make it look different. And instead, they made a video with a UFO and then made it space gray, which I guess that's the pro focus. If we had, if we had done the old, you know, pro focus,
Starting point is 00:39:13 like how do we define whether this has a pro focus or not? The answer is it's space gray in the demo room afterward. It was paired with a space gray keyboard and a space gray track pad. Like, and they said the word professional a bunch. And do you know what they did, which I really appreciated? They showed a bunch of edge cases. They did.
Starting point is 00:39:29 And that's what this machine is all about. They showed Mac Stadium, right? They showed all of these examples, including a slide and a whole spiel about the existence of Mac Stadium. The guy from Mac Stadium was there. Brian. Mac Minicolo guy.
Starting point is 00:39:42 He was in the audience. And apparently they told him, don't tell anybody you're in new york because it gives it away right what else would give it away more than that so they he he kept it quiet but um it is great right like that is i like i thought it was the perfect way to talk about the mac mini which is it's got what doesn't it do it's got lots of uses. It's really flexible. We found that a lot of these uses are, they want more advanced stuff. They care about that
Starting point is 00:40:12 stuff. It is, it fits perfectly in the thing that I've been saying for a long time about the Mini, which is that it is the escape valve for the Mac that like, Apple can be as opinionated as they want to be in other areas, especially like on the iMac.
Starting point is 00:40:27 Right. Um, but then there's like, or just get a Mac mini and it's got all the ports and do whatever. Yeah. Just like shut up and leave us alone. Go buy that thing. It's useful to have that. Cause they can just say, look, just get that, just, just get that. And that's why people have been cranky about the Mac mini.
Starting point is 00:40:42 It's not like the Mac mini is the super important Mac product, but it fills a niche and has not, or like a million tiny niches, and those have not been maintained for the last few years. So it is legitimately the first good upgrade to the Mac Mini in like a decade. Because remember, the last upgrade, which was a long time ago, was a downgrade because you lost the four core processor. And now you can't get it without four cores
Starting point is 00:41:10 and you can upgrade it to six cores. So people should be happy about it. But it also means you can spend a lot of money on a Mac Mini if you really want to. But you'll get, I would argue like the high level Mac Mini, that's the mythical mid-range mini tower that people have been talking about.
Starting point is 00:41:25 It doesn't have the expansion. It doesn't have the expansion. You'll have to do USPC expansion, but you could do that. You can hang an external GPU on it if you want to. Yeah. This is an interesting machine. I don't know what my next computer will be.
Starting point is 00:41:44 Ideally, what I want, and I've mentioned this before, like my next Mac to be something that I can expand and maybe just expanding the RAM will be enough for me. And then maybe I'll go to a Mac mini. Like I'm waiting, right? Like I'm waiting for the Mac Pro, wait to see what it's like next year. And then I'll make my decision there.
Starting point is 00:42:02 And no doubt the Mac Pro and the Mac mini will both work with that 5K Apple display when it does come yep so i'm kind of in a wait and see moment but like that mac mini looks really great like i've been toying with the idea recently of of getting like just building my own little home server for a bunch of reasons i'm going to talk about one of them in a minute actually um but and i think that i will i will pick one of these up at some at some point pretty soon i haven't ordered one immediately because I didn't think it was completely necessary that I needed to order one immediately. But basically all of these products are available for pre-order today and they're shipping next Wednesday, which is a super weird day. But great.
Starting point is 00:42:38 I'm like, please, I want them as soon as possible. I don't want to wait until Friday for the iPad. So, yeah, I'll take them Wednesday. Sure. So, you know, I'm probably going to get one of these as well at some point but you mentioned imax it was one of your picks with no new imax no mac pro teaser i think no new imax even just an update for processors is more surprising it's it's not the first time that they've blown past a year and uh not updated them they they do seem to update them a little bit irregularly. So after I
Starting point is 00:43:08 picked that last week, I was like, maybe not, but it was too late. And yeah, so I think it's fine because I don't think they're going to go a year. I think they'll probably update them next spring. And it may have something to do with what Intel processors they want to put in there. It may be as simple, and I know it's hard to believe, but this is how Apple operates. It may be as simple as they can't ship that many new Mac models all at once because they've got a limited number of people who work on this stuff. And you think, well, they're Apple. They're huge. They are, but they don't have a huge staff.
Starting point is 00:43:39 They've got a lot of people, but it's not like, I mean, there is to how many products that they can they can turn out at one time and it may be that in the mac group like they prioritize the macbook air and the mac mini and like we finally are going to give them some air uh you know some oxygen right we're finally gonna finally you're gonna get it the price of that is that mac that iMac launch that we could have done this fall we're gonna do next spring instead like and that's that's not a bad trade-off i would say because the iMac's the imax okay it's it's only a year old it's fine so i guess we're expecting the mac pro in june right i mean it was a very outside chance that we'd get a teaser today it really does make the most sense that they either tease it or have like release option like release information available at wwdc next year i think we're
Starting point is 00:44:25 i'm still on the late 2019 early 2020 kind of train i if i had to put money down it would be that they will announce it at wwdc and ship it in like december just like they did with the imac pro yeah like there's a precedent for it it makes sense you know i i understand what you're saying about the spring i could also see them updating theMacs at the same time, which would be a long time, but it feels like a possibility to me as well. Yeah, they can't, I mean, if you got them and they're ready to go, then you might as well put them out the door
Starting point is 00:44:52 and move on to the next thing, I guess. But we'll see. All right, today's episode is also brought to you by Luna Display. Have you ever looked at your iPad and wish you could use it as a second display for your Mac? Wouldn't that be wonderful? Wouldn't it be wonderful?
Starting point is 00:45:06 That's what Luna Display lets you do. So instead of now where you can connect an iPad to a TV or whatever, wouldn't it be nicer to do it the other way around? Your iPad is a gorgeous display. They're about to get even more beautiful. Everyone always wants more space. I know I feel it today because I'm sitting here and I just have a laptop in front of me. What about if I connect my iPad and now I have this beautiful two screens in front of me?
Starting point is 00:45:28 Luna Display provides crystal clear image quality, reliable performance, and wireless flexibility. You just put a little piece of hardware into your Mac and you're good to go. It's this tiny little thing. It's just a little connector. You plug it in. You don't even need to have access to a Wi-Fi connection. You can connect to it with USB as well. The Luna Display is wonderful. You can set up your workspace anywhere, so you can be productive at the office,
Starting point is 00:45:50 in the studio, or on the go. It is a wonderful, wonderful app, wonderful service for your Apple life. You get more screen real estate without the expense of buying a new screen. Luna also acts as a complete extension to your Mac. It external keyboards and it supports your Apple Pencil and touch interactions as well so you can interact with your Mac with a swipe of a finger or a tap of that beautiful pencil this is what I was talking about
Starting point is 00:46:14 about getting a Mac Mini this is one of the reasons that I'm thinking about doing it so I can set up a Mac Mini at home and plug in the Luna display because I've been using it I've been playing around with it on my iMac but I turn my iMac off every day because it has a bunch of audio
Starting point is 00:46:26 equipment that I don't want to leave on. So I want to get a Mac Mini, put it somewhere in my home, plug the Luna display in, and then if I ever need to do anything Mac-related, because there are some things where it's like, now I have to go to the office to do this one little thing. I won't have to do that with Luna display. Just open up my iPad,
Starting point is 00:46:41 and I'm ready to go. That is a wonderful future. Listeners of this show can get an amazing exclusive 10% discount on Luna Display. Just go to lunadisplay.com. That is L-U-N-A D-I-S-P-L-A-Y dot com. Enter the promo code
Starting point is 00:46:58 upgrade at checkout. That is lunadisplay.com. A promo code upgrade at checkout to get 10% off. Our thanks to Luna Display for their support of this show and RelayFM. I was a Kickstarter backer of this project and I have tried it and it works really well. And they've got two versions too because they've got a USB-C version and a mini display port version. Yep. So, you know, take your pick.
Starting point is 00:47:18 And it looks great. It works better than any external iPad display thing I've ever tried. And it is nice. Put that 12.9-inch iPad Pro that you might not be using anymore because you bought a new one to use as a second display. What a great idea. I didn't even think of that. Well, I can't use my 12.9 because it's all smashed to pieces.
Starting point is 00:47:38 Not yours. Yours needs to get recycled. But I do have a 10.5, which would need somewhere to go. That's a great idea. Let's talk about new ipads new ipads why are we shouting i'm so excited it is excited you know i was thinking today and this might this is probably a recency thing but who knows i think i'm more excited for these ipads than i was for the iphone 10 oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah totally excited i am very excited you've held
Starting point is 00:48:02 them which i want to hear all about in a minute. But let's do a super quick rundown of what we've got. It's two sizes. They have edge-to-edge displays. They are liquid retina displays. Yeah, so just like the XR, they're liquid retina. So it's an LCD display. It's got LED backlighting. They're cutting around the edges to get the rounded corners
Starting point is 00:48:21 and then doing sub-pixel anti-aliasing, masking, and all sorts of other tricks to do this curved look that they like from OLED that LCD screens just can't do. So they they make them look that way, which is super tricky. So it's basically the same approach that they took in the XR, but on on an iPad. And they've got all the, you know, true tone promotion. They got all the all the same kind of like whizzy display technologies that they had in the previous ones. You mentioned the two sizes. I think they did exactly the right thing with those two iPads, which is what they said on stage was perfect. They said the 10.5 iPad, everybody likes that size. It's basically, you know, it's almost the size of the 9.7. It's a little bit bigger, but everybody likes the size. It's basically, you know, it's almost the size of the 9.7. It's a little bit
Starting point is 00:49:05 bigger, but everybody likes the size. So we're keeping the size and just making the screen bigger. And with 12.9, and you and I can both testify to this, everybody likes that screen, but it's big. It's a big iPad. And so on the 12.9, we're going to keep the screen the same size and make the iPad smaller smaller and that's absolutely the right decisions in both so now we got an 11 inch ipad pro and another 12.9 with the bezels all pulled in and the home button gone there was a delightfully quirky little video as they move as they toss the home button away phil Schiller doing like the most expert narration. It was so good.
Starting point is 00:49:47 They did a good job with it. I've always wanted, I really like the idea that when you're making something smaller, like Apple always does, you have a video where you can use special effects to like have a hand kind of like just shove it in and now it's smaller.
Starting point is 00:49:59 Like I really liked it. It really illustrates that really well that they're doing that. And I think both really like that. It really illustrates that really well that they're doing that. And I think both really great decisions. And of course, that means there's Face ID instead of Touch ID, the home button is gone. And as a 12.9 user, I had been thinking that I might try the smaller iPad just because the 12.9 is a bit of a load. And then I look at this, I'm like, oh, I don't need to. I can just use the 12.9 and it'll be smaller. That's like even better,
Starting point is 00:50:28 because I love that screen. It's so great to have the big screen and run multiple apps. And now the whole thing's just going to be less ungainly than it currently is. So tell me, you've held them. You've been in the demo room. You've seen them both.
Starting point is 00:50:42 I want to know, how different do they feel from each other the two the two models yeah because the screen sizes and the body sizes they're closer together than they've ever been do they feel distinctly different still i think so i think so although i might argue that it's a little bit like the 10s and the 10s max where if you use one for a while and then you use the other one you you go, oh, this is different. But then you get used to the one size. I do think it is a case where the screen of the one is grown and the size of the other
Starting point is 00:51:13 one has shrunk. And as a result, they're more similar than they've ever been. Remembering that originally it was a 9.7 and a 12.9 and then went to 10.5. Now it's 11. Like it's the small iPad pro keeps wanting to be like its big brother. It's like, I want to be like you. And it's like, easy, buddy, easy. You're now only like 1.9 inches away.
Starting point is 00:51:33 You can't get too close or we're the same product. In a couple of years, it will be a 15 inch iPad Pro. It's like, that's the low end one. There you go. It's going to run away. It's going to beat this little guy. Now I'm at 15 inches. Like, oh no.
Starting point is 00:51:44 There's a cartoon to be drawn about this probably by a listener. Anyway, but they're different. I mean, I picked up the 11 and held that for a while. And then I went and sought out a 12.9. And yeah, it's bigger. I mean, it is the thing we all talk about, which is that it's the big brother. You want an 11-inch screen or a 13-inch screen, like with a MacBook Air, let's say,
Starting point is 00:52:12 the classic kind of 11 or 13. And you have to make the decision. But they feel so different, Mike. I mean, that's the big thing for me about it is if I had to describe the difference, and I know it's only at the edges, not the back, the back of the current iPad pro is flat,
Starting point is 00:52:29 but the way I would describe these new IMAX or iPads is flat. Like, and it's because of the edges, because it's got flat edges instead of curved edges. It, it feels so it's more kind of boxy like the original ipad by the way the original ipad had the of course it was yeah it was and so it's got the flat back completely flat and then it goes to the edge and i really like it um it's going to take some getting used to holding you know we
Starting point is 00:52:57 already had to get used to holding an ipad with narrower bezels than before when they redesigned it to have the the one side be narrower And now all the sides are much narrower. And so, you know, there are those moments of like, am I touching the side of the display and messing it up? I know they do all sorts of palm detection and other kind of like rejection of gestures on the side that they think are probably you holding it. But there's going to be some adaptation there.
Starting point is 00:53:25 But it is, Tim Cook said something super weird, which is you're essentially holding a light. It's like, I don't know what that is. Yeah. I don't know. It was like far out, man. And it was like a bit much. But I get the point, which is the whole goal of this product
Starting point is 00:53:42 is that it's just a display and that everything just disappears and what they really hammered home during the app demos is it is the ipad is a screen that you can make be what you want it to be and uh they definitely follow follow through with that face id in every orientation every orientation yeah, when you're speaking of holding the thing, if you try to unlock it and your finger's over the camera, because you may not be paying attention to which direction you're holding it, and the camera is kind of in the middle
Starting point is 00:54:14 of that, one of the narrow sides, it puts up a little thing that says, camera covered. And a little arrow pointing at where the camera is on the screen. There's like a little arrow pointing at your thumb basically and saying that, move it. And then you move it and it looks at your face and it unlocks.
Starting point is 00:54:37 And you can, yeah, they demoed it for us. It was trained to the face of the demo person. So they demoed it for us and they unlocked it upside down where the camera's at the bottom okay so there's kind of a distance and a weird angle up to the face of the guy who was demoing it was fine so we'll see how it is in practice but it looked like it worked great and they figured out a way to make that camera um and those detectors work at various angles um left, right, up, and down. So that is a big surprise, I think. I don't think I was expecting that.
Starting point is 00:55:09 And they said that this was, along with many other things, possible because of the A12X bionic chip. So this is an increase on what's in the current iPhone models. It is, as they refer to it, a super powerful eight-core CPU. So it has the high-efficiency like the power, like the performance cores. Yeah. And it'll run all eight if it needs to. Yeah. Very much like the A12. It is 35% faster on single core processes than the previous iPad, 90% faster on multi-core as a seven core GPU, which is two times faster. And super weirdly, they showed us a slide which has an Xbox
Starting point is 00:55:45 on it, and they said, the graphics are comparable to an Xbox One S. And I was like, okay. Like, it was really strange to see that comparison. But when they brought out the 2K, the NBA 2K people,
Starting point is 00:56:02 those graphics were incredible. Now, that game, I don't know how you play it because it's not controller. You just tap it on stuff. It's a basketball game. I don't know where it works. Irrespective of that, the graphics quality,
Starting point is 00:56:14 it was comparable to consoles. Now, Xbox One S is the lower-powered version of the Xbox. There is an Xbox One X, which is the 4K one. That's the one we have. Nevertheless, these graphics are console like they look like a console's graphics like that is very impressive what they've been
Starting point is 00:56:32 able to do and the A12X brings with it the neural engine which is the first time that this has been available on an iPad. Right. So that's probably what is helping well it's definitely what's helping the Face ID, but I'm sure there'll be many other things
Starting point is 00:56:47 that will be enhanced because of that, which is really exciting. Anything using the machine learning stuff will pick up that neural engine in the A12X. All-day battery life? Yeah, yeah. This is something that they said, again, it's great, right, the concept,
Starting point is 00:57:03 but this is an interesting example where Apple has decided to back away from specifics. And they said multiple it's great right the concept but this is an interesting example where apple has decided to back away from specifics and they said multiple times during the event uh about the mac air about the ipad pro uh it of course it offers all day battery life and this i feel like is apple's code word for like you remember when uh stephen hackett and I were talking about this and I made a chart about like quoted battery life in on the iPad over the over time and how it's always 10 hours and it's varied a little bit. I feel like they've just decided their philosophy is we want you to be able to get through the day of normal a day of normal use with this device. And so we're going to stop saying, well, on this device, we consider 10 hours normal use. And on this device, we consider 10 hours normal use and on this device we consider 6 hours
Starting point is 00:57:46 normal use. They've just backed all the way off to say it lasts all day and that's it. That's all they want to say I'm sure there are specs and at times quoted in you know on a site somewhere in a reviewers guide or something like that but in the presentation they didn't talk about how many hours of battery life because
Starting point is 00:58:02 it gets complicated like what were the tests and all that they just said it has all day battery life. We are confident. And they walk away at that point. There is no headphone jack on this iPad. The headphone jack is gone. There's no included dongle. Apple makes one.
Starting point is 00:58:18 There is a USB-C to 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, a dongle that you can buy. Remember, no lightning anymore. It's got USB-C. And so that means the lightning adapter you've got won't work with it you need a usbc headphone adapter if you want to use wired headphones with the ipad i've already seen a million headlines about this and this is going to be the thing that people talk about and i'll just say it is annoying i didn't want it to happen i mentioned it but i'm gonna get by like i'll if i want to use my 3.5 millimeter headphones i will get a usbc dongle and put it on there and keep it or maybe i and then maybe i'll buy usbc headphones or maybe bluetooth headphones
Starting point is 00:58:55 and probably get some dongle that has two usb ports on it so i can power it like sure sure it's gonna be annoying but i'm not gonna let this thing taint my feelings about what looks to be an incredible product like i'm frustrated to see the mac mini keeps its 3.5 millimeter headphone jack because that feels almost the macbook air and the macbook air and the you know the ipad doesn't but this is not going to be a thing that i'm going to get all bent out of shape about and over a long period of time because i'll get used to it like there there are other options it is a frustration it's a shame but this product looks so incredible in every other way i'm just like okay like that's what that's my trade-off that's what i lose fine yeah i i agree with you that in the end it's not going to diminish my enthusiasm for the product
Starting point is 00:59:40 very much that said it bugs me because it's a pro product. Yes. And one of the pro uses of a pro product is going to be audio. Yeah. And wireless headphones have latency issues. Mm-hmm. And if you're doing something that requires precision audio,
Starting point is 01:00:00 you either will have to get a new set of headphones that are wireless that are using a version of Bluetooth that has completely eliminated latency. Do those exist? Maybe they do. I don't know. Or you will have to buy an adapter and use your wired headphones because like the only time I ever plug in, well, that's not true. Sometimes if I'm on a plane or something, I'll watch a movie and then I'll plug in headphones. But the primary reason I plug in headphones on the iPad Pro is to edit, usually audio. And I can't have latency, right? I can't press play and then wait and it starts to roll and then eventually the audio appears and then I can hear it and I pause it. And there's a delay.
Starting point is 01:00:50 You can't do that. In wired headphones, there's no delay. So it frustrates me because that strikes me as a pro use. They showed all of the DJ software running on it. I guess the DJ will have a dongle to do audio out because they're not going to do like bluetooth to their giant dj system right so there are lots of very popular and successful djs in dongle town you know they're there too you know the djs the djs of dongle town the people in in dongle town want to dance mike they want to dance they do and they should
Starting point is 01:01:20 they should be allowed to they can't let anybody stop them it's look, we're going to talk about it probably just one time. And it's just like we might bring it up later on when we get other frustrations. But like, what are you going to do, right? Like, this is just how it is. And it will be this way. And we'll get used to it. My hope is that adding USB-C will be overall a huge benefit. And they didn't go into tons about what it can do there are a few things
Starting point is 01:01:47 which are interesting right like they show connecting cameras they show connecting it to a display one thing that is super cool is you can charge your iphone from your ipad which is great like it's just like okay great like that is a yeah that's the thing where it's like well now i have a benefit that i didn't have before and that is is one. My iPad always has battery. My iPhone doesn't always, you know, so that's like a great thing that it can do it. The battery is way bigger. And I'm just hoping that the potential future of USB-C is going to be a good one for the iPad that makes all this worth it. I will say that like they didn't really show off a lot that I didn't see anything about external storage i don't know
Starting point is 01:02:25 if it can do it yet we're gonna have to wait and see how that all that sort of stuff works but if it doesn't now i'm confident they will add it in the next version of ios like i believe there was a there was a really good reason that they've done this and it's going to show over time and it will make up for any of the the disadvantages of adding usbc you know like i think it's a overall probably a good thing. You never assume, but it feels like... The popular conspiracy theory is there were originally going to be a lot of iPad features in iOS 12,
Starting point is 01:02:55 and they got kicked out to iOS 13. That was reported. And you build your hardware over a long period of time. So presumably, the move to USB-C on the iPad Pro predated kicking features out of iOS 12. And therefore, the way that this theory goes, there are probably a whole bunch of things that will be in iOS 13, where we'll get the beta in June, that will improve the iPad Pro and perhaps
Starting point is 01:03:27 specifically USB-C. I had to laugh. Again, marketing is you put your best foot forward and you try to make everybody feel like this is the natural right thing to do and isn't it great. And sometimes if you know a lot about a subject, you see marketing and you're like, what are they doing there? And I had that moment where they were extolling the virtues of USB-C by showing somebody like, you could be attached to an external monitor and plug in a digital SLR. And I thought, well, yeah, because that's like all you can do. That's literally all iOS will let you do. They're using like the two use cases there. They might as well also plug in a keyboard. And their phone. You could also plug in a keyboard. And you could charge your phone. You could do all, what can it do? And the answer is everything else also plug in a keyboard. And their phone. You could also plug in a keyboard. And you could charge your phone. You could do all.
Starting point is 01:04:05 What can it do? And the answer is everything else. Plug in a hard drive? No, you can't do that. So we'll see. We'll see what they do and if they change it. Because that's my particular bugaboo about iOS support of USB-C is iOS doesn't support storage. of USB-C is iOS doesn't support, you know, storage that you can't plug in a flash drive or a hard drive and see what's on it in files app, which you should be able to do.
Starting point is 01:04:31 And you can't. And I think it being USB, it's even more of an expectation that USB devices will work with it. And out of the box, it looks like a lot of the USB devices will just not just like they don't really work with the current versions via adapter. Oh well, it is in some cases going to be trading one set of dongles for another
Starting point is 01:04:52 and in other cases you'll have USB-C devices and you'll just be able to plug them or get a cable and then you won't need an adapter for your iPad anymore and that's nice. So these iPads come in 64GB, 256GB, 512 and 1TB. The 1TB is also gigabytes, 512, and 1 terabyte. The 1 terabyte is also enabled by A12X,
Starting point is 01:05:08 and you can do that for the A12X Bionic chip. Not the A1210 Bionic chip. No, it's not that. The 10.5-inch starts at $799. The 12.9-inch starts at $999. They are both more expensive than the previous versions, but that makes sense to me. I know that this stuff can be frustrating for people,
Starting point is 01:05:31 but I can look at these products and feel like, yeah, they do look like more expensive than the other ones. So I think I kind of get it. The 10.5 is sticking around at a cheaper price point. Ordering today, shipping next wednesday who doesn't like a wednesday everyone loves wednesdays now that's not the whole story yes mike you got an apple pencil too and i got about 75 of what i wanted and i can't believe i got that much so it has magnets in it well there's magnets all over the place. There's magnets for the Apple Pencil and the smart keyboard now.
Starting point is 01:06:05 Yeah, yeah. They said there are 102 magnets. That's a lot of magnets. Great. It's good we don't use VCR tapes anymore because they'd all be wiped. Don't put your old floppy disks against the iPad Pro. The new Pencil attaches magnetically to the top of the iPad, which means it has a flat edge.
Starting point is 01:06:26 Oh, my gosh. So happy about that. I did not expect them to do this. But a flat edge means it can stick to the iPad, but also means it won't roll anymore. It has a flat edge to put down. A flat edge, by the way, that you can get engraved if you want to. Federico was ordering his and he was like, I'm going to put TG on it. I was thinking.
Starting point is 01:06:45 So here's the thing. I want to federico was ordering his and he was like i'm gonna put tg on it i was thinking so here's the thing i want to get them engraved but i was thinking does that make the shipping slower i don't know i didn't want to risk it because i really want it all on the same time so uh i didn't do it i did see a tweet earlier on today that marco uh posted it says mike was right on an apple pencil which i'll probably will have to do at some point, right? Like I'm probably going to have to do that. So it's not, so magnet to hold it. So they have a plan of how you're going to hold this thing against your iPad.
Starting point is 01:07:14 It's great. And it was, it's not a, it's a solid hold. It's not a falls off when you shake the iPad kind of hold. It's a solid hold. There's a little strip. You can actually see it. There's a little thing on the side and that's the magnet spot where the uh pencil goes and it's not just a magnet spot it's an induction charging spot that is i did not expect
Starting point is 01:07:36 them to do this this is perfect and incredible and i can't believe they've done it so they said like it will always be with you and it's always charged it's like yeah that's what we want and now there's no little thing to pop off and lose like that's right they have done so like i wanted other things right like i wanted it to be made of a different material but what they have done is they've made it a matte finish so i'm like i'm interested to see how that feels but stuff like wireless induct like wireless induction charging of some kind i don't i don't think it's cheaty i didn't say but it's just it charges in wirelessly somehow yeah that is something that i wouldn't have expected for the second version so that is a real exciting thing um i wanted a button they've given me the apple version of a button it you you double tap on the
Starting point is 01:08:19 pencil on the touch sensitive area that exists to change tools yeah apple doesn't want to give you buttons but apple is happy to give you, I don't know this, and I don't know what it says on the website because again, I'm in that cone of silence, but it looked to me awfully like what it is as an accelerometer where the pencil is just feeling that you're tapping on it because it's not swipe or anything. It's you tap on the thing.
Starting point is 01:08:42 Like the AirPods. Think on the AirPods. That's exactly right. It's just like the AirPodsods so you tap and then there's a system setting you can say like do you want this to be tapped to go or between eraser and not or tap to go to the previous tool or not yeah well it's better to say it is an app setting not a system setting so no there is a system setting although i think it may be for the notes though yeah that's the notes that's notes is saying so you can you can double tap and change tools and and those can be programmed to do different things so i'm interested to see how developers do this when they showed a photoshop the double tap was zooming in and out um i'm excited to see what this could be like what
Starting point is 01:09:19 what i asked for right you should press a button and you can use an eraser this is the apple version of doing that it wasn't that i specifically wanted a button. I wanted what a button provides, which was for you to, without having to tap in the interface, have quick actions to get to another function. I think this is wonderful. Weirdly, there is a two pencil maximum for online ordering. I ordered two Apple pencils. I'll get to why why later on i accidentally put three in the car and it wouldn't let me check out interesting well that's people are hoarding apple pencils yeah i think that might be what it was i by the way i have lots of original apple pencils for cheap now lots why do you have lots uh every time i review an ipad i get an apple pencil and
Starting point is 01:10:03 it's like i don't i have an apple pencil and they an Apple Pencil, and it's like, I have an Apple Pencil. And they're like, no, here's another Apple Pencil. I'm like, I don't. Okay, yeah. It's like, no, no, you don't understand. Here's another one. It's like, I have so many. Come on.
Starting point is 01:10:12 There's so many. Smart Keyboard Folio. Oh, boy. Okay. So we got sort of what we were looking for, but sort of not. So it's not a bridge keyboard where it is a metallic infinitely adjustable laptop thing exactly what we got is a so it is that theory of what was going on in the back there was absolutely right there is a magnetic smart connector that's on the back and and i said
Starting point is 01:10:38 last week the only you know the only way that makes sense for the smart keyboard is if it's going to be with a back cover like the old smart cover was. And that's exactly what it is. It looks absolutely nothing like the rumored images, right? No. It just looks like a smart connector with three prongs instead of five. It's literally just three metallic dots on the back surface. That's all it is.
Starting point is 01:10:59 There's no inset, you know, nothing like that. Nothing. No, just three. It's not even in the same place, right? Like all of the leaked images are having it at the top, but it's just nothing yeah no just it's not even in the same place right like all of the the the leaked images are having at the top but it's at the bottom yeah so it's um so that's interesting it does mean that you're the way they reading between the lines i think what they're saying is um it was a little fiddly to get the smart connector right on the edge of the ipad yeah and uh this way is much less fiddly because you're you're snapping it on the back and i think the magnets are super
Starting point is 01:11:35 strong right 106 magnets there are lots of magnets back there all the great magnets and all the great magnets they align it and hold it steady yeah um so so it's providing some level of rigidity that is necessary stability for this thing because we always complain about how um it's a little bit flimsy and then uh the front when you fold it out um you get these two above it still doesn't have a function row which i know there are no function keys on the ipad but there are uh media playback controls yeah all third-party keyboards have some kind of function thing like you can do it but right so they still they still don't have that which frustrates me because when i'm listening to music on my ipad for example having a keyboard shortcut to make it pause is nice and i don't
Starting point is 01:12:18 they still don't do that so oh well but they do have two. So it used to be the way it worked was your the folding triangle thing happened and that as part of that, you know, you get it set up and that would be the angle. where the keys are that there are two little ridges or little divots um and you can put the ipad in either one so it's essentially giving you two angles which they say is sort of like one is for your lap and one is on a table or whatever but it's two angles and uh you know i got to try on a table but my hope is that it's more um usable in a lap than the smart keyboard is because it's more usable in a lap than the smart keyboard is because it's a flat surface and then the iPad is up. And the iPad is resting on the flat surface instead of like a kickstand.
Starting point is 01:13:18 So that whole rigid flat surface of the keyboard is what goes on your lap. And then held by magnets, the iPad is at an angle resting on it. And so it should be much more stable than the smart cover keyboard. It's called the smart keyboard, the one that was like a cover and this one is like a folio. And so it's different. So I'm excited about that. I like that keyboard. I like the key style of it. It's going to be way better on the 12.9 because the 12.9 dimensions are smaller. And that was the I like the key style of it. It's going to be way better on the 12.9 because the 12.9 dimensions are smaller. And that was the problem with the 12.9 smart keyboard is just,
Starting point is 01:13:49 it was such a load because it had to be the same size as the whole iPad. And so to shave off, you're not just shaving off size from the iPad, you're shaving off size from the keyboard cover, which is really, that's good. So I'm really optimistic about that. I am a little bit down on the fact that the 12.9 of this Folio keyboard thing is going to cost 200 bucks. Whoa. Apple is not, again, never bet on Apple charging you less
Starting point is 01:14:16 when they can charge you more. I'll point out that the bridge keyboard that you and I both have and that Federico has, that only costs 150 bucks. So this is more expensive than the metal external bluetooth keyboard thing um and you know i don't know what bridge is going to do because uh they have little clips that attach to the bezels so i'm really not quite
Starting point is 01:14:37 sure what they're gonna what they're gonna do if they're gonna be able to make a version of their keyboard for these things i guess we can assume it won't fit, right? Especially the 12.9 one. 12.9, I don't see. I mean, short of them maybe making like a little bracket that goes in there that you then rest the iPad in or something like that, but I don't know how they're going to do it. I'm sure there's a way for them to figure it out and they will figure it out. Maybe they'll
Starting point is 01:14:57 even make a version of the keyboard that's got the little you know, yeah, who knows? Magnets. Magnets can fix things, right right the folio looks really great i love the back and front cover i think it's gonna look real nice things gonna feel real nice but here's something that i'm a bit bummed about it doesn't have it doesn't seem to do the the thing where you can flip the keyboard around and stand it up to like watch videos and stuff you've always got to have the keyboard in front of you like you can't it doesn't look like this keyboard this one could be flipped right around again and that's a bummer for me because it's
Starting point is 01:15:29 probably going to mean that i end up buying another thing like the cover because i've got the regular cover and one of those as well which is like another 80 because when i'm on planes and stuff i like to be able to stand it up and you can stand it up and you can still have tons of space on the tray in front of you. So we'll see. I'll see how that goes. I mean, it's a little bit frustrating, but I would expect the benefit of the adjustable angle is going to really be good for me in the long run. So I'm excited. I'm just excited to see some innovation there that Apple's doing some different stuff. I'm also very happy that you can buy the British English version immediately. You don't have to wait for six months like they have done in the
Starting point is 01:16:09 past. So that's great. You get your weird return key and everything. Great return key, all the great return keys. This is just such an amazing looking device. I'm so excited. I'm really excited for this whole thing. This is the one, you know, I, during the Mac segment, I was like, I'm very excited.
Starting point is 01:16:30 I love the Mac. I'm so glad they're giving the Mac some love. And then we got to the iPad Pro and I was like, oh boy.
Starting point is 01:16:37 It was, because this is, because honestly, like I bought my Mac. Also, my Mac thirst is quenched. I bought an iMac Pro last December.
Starting point is 01:16:46 So I've got a really awesome Mac. And I'm also using a first-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro. I'm ready for a new iPad Pro. I'm ready for what this is. So that takes it up a level, too. This is my travel and in-the-house device. I use this when I'm not at my desk. And I'm going to get a new one that looks great.
Starting point is 01:17:07 So have we covered everything? Do you feel good about everything? And that we've gone through all the products that we wanted to talk about? Yeah, I feel like it. I feel like, I mean, I'm sure there's more to pick apart. I'm sure that over the next week, there are going to be details coming out, not only just on the web and interviews with Apple execs that maybe are happening now with people in the press who they'll drop tidbits and presumably at some point they'll be you know
Starting point is 01:17:31 people doing product previews or reviews or youtube clips or who knows what apple's going to do this time for the product rollout but we'll get we'll get more gonna come very quickly would be my expectation because we've got a week so at least maybe not reviews but like what would be my expectation because we've got a week. So at least maybe not reviews, but like what would be the embargoed stuff? I mean, it's probably going to come on Monday or Tuesday of next week. So that'd be fun. So we've not got long to wait for these things. Yeah. So more to talk about, certainly.
Starting point is 01:17:54 But I think for now, I think we've covered a lot of it. I bought all of it, Jason. Yeah. You know, it's the same old story, Mike, which is I have the luxury of getting the review units oftentimes. And when that happens, I get to try them. Like I get an extended trial period before I'm going to buy it. I'm certainly going to buy an iPad Pro. If you had asked me going into this event, I would have said I might try the smaller one depending on how it feels.
Starting point is 01:18:23 Now I feel almost certain that I will buy the 12.9 because it's smaller and still has that beautiful big screen. Oh, I didn't even mention, so the 11-inch, that's a different, because they just kept the same size and made the screen taller, it's a different aspect ratio. It's not 4x3 exactly. And as a result, software, for all these things, because they've got content safe areas and all that,
Starting point is 01:18:48 apps need to be updated. So on one of the iPads, I saw shortcuts, an Apple app launch on the iPad 11, and it had black bars on the sides. And I was like, hmm, aha, interesting. So there will be
Starting point is 01:19:04 a period of adjustment for app developers too yeah but there's a frustrating thing that was pointed out to me by john vorhees because he's been watching some of the developer videos that they've been showing if you have an updated app with 12.1 sdk and a non-updated app running side by side it forces them both into a like site like non-updated mode right so they both go into compatibility mode so they level out so like google's gonna ruin everything for a while yeah yeah yeah so um i will undoubtedly buy uh an ipad pro probably the 12.9 i will certainly buy a mac mini because my mac mini has the spontaneous question mark that happens where I have to turn
Starting point is 01:19:45 it off. I have to turn it off and on because it's like, oh, I forgot what I am. Like your computer, hello, wake up. And then you flip the power off and on. What is a computer, Jason? And it comes, what is a computer? Tim Cook says the iPad is a computer. So I don't even know what's going on there. So I'm going to get those. And MacBook Air, you know, I don't use a Mac laptop very much anymore. I do have an old MacBook Air. My son, who is a freshman in high school, is using a very old MacBook Air of mine. A hand-me-down from many, many, many years before. 11-inch.
Starting point is 01:20:22 And it's a miracle the thing still works and that it runs anything quite honestly so is it possible that i might end up getting him this macbook air at some point um yes it is possible so i may end up buying all of it mike is what i'm saying and that is terrifying but hey uh it happens i haven't bought any of those things in a long time. I've ordered both iPad Pros, two smart keyboards, and two Apple Pencils. Woo! Wow. Yeah, I've been saving for this.
Starting point is 01:20:54 Like, I've been waiting for this since June, right? Like, I've been putting the money aside, and these are my computers. And I don't know if I will keep both. I expect that I will, honestly, because I use them both for the very distinct purposes. Like my 10.5 is with me now. My 12.9 is at home. When I get home, I'll be using the 12.9. And I've been starting to use the 10.5 for reading and looking at stuff in bed and stuff like that.
Starting point is 01:21:16 So I have like real distinct uses for both of these machines. And I am absolutely thrilled to be able to get my hands on them. I love doing in-store pickup and you can't order them for in-store pickup right now. So I had to order them for home, which I hate because then they never delivers
Starting point is 01:21:34 and it's just like a whole big thing. So, you know, fingers crossed, I guess, for me. Yeah, I'm looking forward to trying it out and seeing about the sizes too because that's really, we have our gut feeling feeling here but it is like the one's getting bigger and the one's getting smaller and so how different are they uh in the end i think there will still be some distinct differences but we'll just have to see yeah i'm really really really excited and i'm
Starting point is 01:21:58 bring on november 7th apple pencil boy oh boy i can't wait to get my hands on that thing it looks to be honestly jason this is going to change how i use the apple pencil like significantly i'm going to use it more it being charged all the time you know that would be great you know the best pencil is the one you have with you that's not i mean yeah see mate anyway this episode is brought to you by pdf pen the ultimate tool for editing p PDFs from our friends at Smile talking about using the Apple Pencil. I'm so excited to be able to sign PDFs with my new Apple Pencil on my new iPad because I do this all the time. I use PDF Pen on my iPad pretty much every day, especially right now as we're getting to go into a new year. Lots and lots of contracts going backwards and forwards for me right now with my job.
Starting point is 01:22:44 new year. Lots and lots of contracts going backwards and forwards for me right now with my job. And I use PDF pen to open those contracts, to sign them, to take horrifically formatted word documents and turn them into something which is usable. And I can sign it with my Apple pencil. I use PDF pen for this all the time. With PDF pen, you'll be able to say goodbye to filing and go completely paperless. With scanning and OCR, you can mark up and highlight PDFs. It's so simple. You can even search and redact sensitive information. So if you have some account numbers or whatever, you can get those redacted in PDFs. You can even correct text without having the original documents. It is that clever. With PDF Pen, you can insert, remove, and reorder pages, adjust images, and move them around. You can record and play back audio annotations or even
Starting point is 01:23:30 add watermarks to your PDFs. These are all some wonderful, wonderful features. And if you go for PDF Pen Pro on the Mac as well, you'll be able to create fillable forms, create table of contents, and so much more. And for lovers of dark mode, PDFPen and PDFPen Pro on the Mac version 10.2 includes support for dark mode on Mojave, plus smoother scrolling, faster thumbnail drawing and increased maximum zoom. Basically, if you deal with PDFs at all
Starting point is 01:23:56 you need PDFPen. Learn more about PDFPen and PDFPen Pro today at smilesoftware.com slash podcast. That is smilesoftware.com slash podcast to find out moreoftware.com slash podcast to find out more. Our thanks to Smile and PDFPen for their support of this show
Starting point is 01:24:09 and all of RelayFM. I have an item that we can put in the show notes, which is a tweet from my friend Andy Anotko. If you'd like a picture of me trying out the 12.9, you may see it there. That is literally what I'm doing. And I notice that the the waiting line was right below me and i was like okay i better i better make this happy but yeah i'm i'm getting it the the lady to the left there is like trying
Starting point is 01:24:36 to do an ar demo and i'm literally like yes why don't you let me hold it and look at the ar image because i don't care about your ar demo at all. I care about holding this thing in my hands. Look at that smile. Look at that smile. And look what's on the top of it, Mike. There's a little pencil. There's a little pencil just punched up there. Is that like a Lego set next to you?
Starting point is 01:24:57 Yeah. The Lego was also an AR thing. No one wants to do the AR demo, right? So you just rush in. Well, so we were waiting for a standard 12.9 demo, and I had somebody come up to me and say, an Apple person say, there are 12.9s back here with the AR demos.
Starting point is 01:25:16 You could look at those. And we're like, that was great because there was nobody over there. But at the same time, those people had been trained to do their spiel about AR. And I was like, I really don't care. And I didn't say this. I was like, yeah, could I try it?
Starting point is 01:25:28 And then it was like, yeah, let me. Whoa, look, I'm moving it around while also holding it and feeling what it was like. Like, yep, that's a fun thing. Thank you to Andy for spotting me having fun while he was just waiting in a line. I feel bad about that part. We have some hashtag ask upgrade to get to New York lasers. John asks, am I right in assuming that the new iPads have tapped to raise the way
Starting point is 01:25:55 like you can tap on the screen or pick them up to wake them now that there's no home button. They do. I don't know if you saw this, but I read it in the documents. I didn't do the tap to like raise to wake, but I did the tap. Just I did it completely instinctually because it's an iPhone 10 gesture. And I went tap and it was like, aha, yes, that totally worked.
Starting point is 01:26:17 That was, yeah, absolutely. It is. These are like big, I would say big iPhone 10s, but it's like probably like really giant iphone 10rs kind of right because it's the lcd screen there's no notch but there is like all those kind of ipad all the iphone 10 gestures that we complained were kind of like inconsistent between that and the ipad they're all consistent now that's really great that's that's just gonna make it easier to move between devices i think and and the the tap to wake one is just a really great gesture that I enjoy anyway. So I'm super happy to see that come to the iPad.
Starting point is 01:26:51 Frank asks, Jason, since the new iPad Pro hasn't made the jump to OLED yet, does it look noticeably different than your OLED phone? No, I mean, you could read my iPhone XR review, which just posted yesterday. I'll talk about that next week, by the way, just so people know. The iPhone XR, Jason has one and has reviewed it, and I think that's going to be a real good topic for next week. But yeah, we can talk about it a little now
Starting point is 01:27:14 too. Yeah, it just I wanted to point out that until last year, all the iPhones were just LCD displays, not OLEDs. And it was fine, right? And so no, that's my answer is, will I notice that the blacks aren't as black
Starting point is 01:27:33 as on my iPhone? Yes, but I don't use my iPhone for the same things I use my iPad for. And I don't really notice it that much now when I have the current, you know, the generation ipad and the iphone 10 so i don't think it's a big deal our next question comes from alex and alex wants to know is the new apple pencil and or its new features compatible with older ipad pros or the
Starting point is 01:27:56 current ipad uh the answer is no um on i looked at i looked this up earlier this new apple pencil is just for the third generation ipad pros and apple are still selling the previous version of the apple pencil for the 10.5 inch and the regular ipad so there's two different apple pencils available right now and and they didn't say anything i am assuming that the logitech crayon doesn't work with these either but i don't know yeah because this is the thing they haven't really said how they pair. They just said they pair automatically. Oh, well, they pair when you attach it magnetically. That's how they pair.
Starting point is 01:28:28 That's how it's doing. It's that simple. You literally snap it on, and if it hasn't been paired yet, it slides down a thing that says, oh, here's a new Apple Pencil. Would you like to pair it? And you say yes, and that's it. But what is the underlying technology? Do you know?
Starting point is 01:28:39 I don't know. Is it something more? Because again, it's like, will that automatically switch between iPads? This is stuff we don't know. Is it something more? Because again, it's like, I don't know. Will that automatically switch between iPads? Like, is this stuff we don't know yet? So, you know, so that would be like, oh, well, that's not the Bluetooth anymore. Probably something else. So we'll wait and see on that one.
Starting point is 01:28:53 Christopher wants to know, Jason, what are your thoughts on the squared off edges of the new iPad? Like, is it comfortable for you to hold? Are you excited about balancing on tables? Like, what do you think? I love it. I love the feel of it.
Starting point is 01:29:03 Like I said, the, you know, going from curved to flat, it is, they feel good. I like the flat edges. I like the look of it. I think they look really good. It does hearken back to the original iPad, which had the flat edges.
Starting point is 01:29:16 It hearkens back to the iPhone 5 style design, which is a good design, I think. And yeah, I just, I mean, everybody can have their own opinion about it. It's kind of, uh, purely aesthetic, I guess, unless you, they felt good to hold. Like they, they look good. They felt good. I liked them. I liked that. It's, uh, uh, you know, it's, it's good to, for me, I'm, I'm quite happy with it. Then again, I also only held them for short periods of time. So if there's an issue where it's not as good when you hold it for an hour, then I don't know that part yet. Yeah, we'll wait and see. So I like the design.
Starting point is 01:29:55 I like it. I think it looks really fancy. I like when you have something you use all the time and then it changes ever so slightly, so it feels new, right? Like that's going to make it feel and look really new is these new edges i think it's gonna be really cool uh giles wants to know uh what the macbook air keyboard feels like um i i don't know if you'd had much time with the the third generation one or not i don't remember i i typed on this and i
Starting point is 01:30:20 typed on have i used the third i don't know if I've used the third. I used the second generation, which my understanding is, is pretty similar. And of course the first generation on the original MacBook. And the answer is, you know, that's what it is. It's, do you know these keyboards, these butterfly keyboards? That's what, that's what it is that, you know, love it or hate it. That's what it is. Nick wants to know, how do you feel about the camera bump on the iPad? So the camera, we didn't even mention this, by the way, it's a really good camera. It has like smart HDR. It has everything.
Starting point is 01:30:51 So it's a pretty powerful camera system going into this, but it has introduced an iPhone XR-like bump on the back, right? They look very similar, actually. How do you feel about it? Wasn't there a camera bump on the ipad before there is there is but i think it's a little bit i think it looks a little bit more pronounced if it if it is or it isn't but i just wondered if you had any thoughts about it i have no opinion about it really um i don't think it's a big deal i very rarely am using my ipad flat on a table um
Starting point is 01:31:22 and i usually have it in a case anyway but I very rarely have it flat on the table so I don't really think I care I will tell you sometimes I am sitting somewhere with my iPad and I want to take a photo immediately and I am always disappointed with how bad the iPad camera is so I'm excited that the iPad camera
Starting point is 01:31:40 got such a big update and by the way on the front facing camera since it's got the whole um touch id stuff face id i mean not touch id the whole face id stuff in that in that sensor bar um there's a portrait mode there's a a portrait selfie mode that you can enter in the camera app and it's a little bit different um because it's only on the on the front it's not on the rear i believe um and so yeah if you want to do a portrait selfie on the front. It's not on the rear, I believe. And so, yeah, if you want to do a portrait selfie on the iPad Pro, you can do that too.
Starting point is 01:32:10 And we're assuming it has Memoji. They didn't show it, but I'm assuming it has it. I don't know why it wouldn't, right? Have Animoji and Memoji because it's got all the stuff. Yeah. I mean, unless there's some quirk where it can do Face ID in every orientation, but it can't do Animoji in every orientation or something like that. They definitely didn't mention it, but I can't imagine that it doesn't, given that it's got that sensor.
Starting point is 01:32:42 I saw Matthew Panzarino on Twitter because somebody asked him, and he posted a little video of, like, if you put the iPad flat and use the Apple Pencil, does it rock? And it doesn't. It seems to stay pretty stable. One of the other things is, honestly, I'm going to use it with the Folio on and the Folio cancels out the bump because it goes all the way around the back now. So if you use it like that, which I think is really the primary way to use
Starting point is 01:32:58 the iPad Pros are with the keyboard. I know it's more expensive, but it really does feel like the way the device is designed to be used, you never even notice the bump and lastly today eugene wants to know do we think that there are enough magnets to actually attach and hold an ipad pro to a fridge i don't know i guess it depends whether it's positive or negative right but eugene you buy one and try it yourself and let us know. Yeah. Because we may not experiment with that ourselves. I do wonder if we will see some accessories that are all sort of like trying to take advantage
Starting point is 01:33:35 of that magnet array. My expectation is the new smart connector placement and all these magnets, in theory, will make it easier to make stuff for it. But I guess we will have to just wait and see if anybody bothers again you know yeah um so because we still don't know if like the reason there hasn't been smart connector accessories were a problem with the smart connector or just a lack of interest from manufacturers i think the bottom line is that um in the grand
Starting point is 01:34:00 scheme of things there aren't that many ipad Pros sold. Yeah. And there are two different sizes of them now. They're, you know, even newer sizes of them now. Making it harder. And, you know, yeah. Yeah, like you make an iPhone case and you can sell a million of them. You make an iPad Pro 12.9 case, how many of those can you sell?
Starting point is 01:34:18 So I think that's a big part of the problem. Well, this was an unexpected, in some instances event there were absolutely no concrete information going into it there was no leaks of any parts or anything no leaks we talked to an apple pr person we're like no leaks and they're like yeah that's right that's right yeah like you done right they they they did it they managed to to do it yeah no it's uh surprising and mike if you had made a bet with me earlier this year that Apple would do an event where two of the three featured products on stage
Starting point is 01:34:55 at a special media event where the MacBook Air and the Mac mini. I would have made some money, I think. Oh my goodness. I would have just laughed and said the odds of that happening are zero. So you never know what Apple is going to do. Sometimes Apple really surprises you, as we were surprised by the rumor that Ming-Chi Kuo suggests
Starting point is 01:35:18 that there might be an update to the iPad Mini at some point in the near future. The iPad Mini got multiple shout-outs on stage today. I mean, nothing happened to it, but they referenced its existence. I think that's really telling that they included it in the product lineup and acknowledged that it exists. Because remember... Now the iPad Mini
Starting point is 01:35:36 is a product in the lineup. That's right. Once the Mac Mini was just a product that remained in the lineup, and now there's a new Mac Mini. Now the iPad Mini remains in the lineup. Hmm. So, Jason, thank you so much to calling in from New York City. I want to thank Lex Friedman at Stitcher for setting us up in the high above Midtown Manhattan, the Stitcher and Midroll Studio Complex,
Starting point is 01:36:03 the Lex Friedman empire. So thanks to them for hosting me today uh i needed somewhere to go and there was like will i go back to my hotel room which i've checked out of or like how's it gonna work and this and lex swept in and said i've got a i've got a space for you so thanks to lex and everybody at stitcher for being very nice and letting me sit in one of their studios i'll extend a thanks to myself for staying in Toronto for an extra day. Thanks to Mike for delaying his flight by a day. That was a funny, that was a funny thing to have to go through last week.
Starting point is 01:36:34 So I'm leaving for home tomorrow. Actually recording connected before I check out of my hotel. Federico Vittici is going to fly home and it's going to be super weird. He's going to get home. He'll be there a couple of hours. I'm still in Canada. We're all over the place right now. Apple is disrupting all of our travel plans,
Starting point is 01:36:54 but for a very, very good reason. This is a very, very exciting event. I loved it. And I love the products that were announced. There's a lot of really, really great stuff that I'm very excited to talk about over the next few weeks. We'll be back next week,
Starting point is 01:37:07 and we're excited for that. Probably you can expect some iPhone XR discussion next week, along with, I guess, some more fallout of the event, where we learn more, as we always do, over the next few days. You can find show notes for this episode in your podcast player of choice, or over at relay.fm
Starting point is 01:37:23 slash upgrade slash 217. I want to extend our thanks again to Luna Display, PDF Pen, and HelloFresh for supporting this episode. You can find Jason online at sixcolors.com. I'm sure you can expect lots of great words to be written there, which will supplement the stuff that we've spoken about today. So go check that out.
Starting point is 01:37:41 Jason is also on Twitter. He's at jsnel. I am at i mike i m y k e you can follow me on twitter and on instagram um i would love it if you would and we'll be back next time don't forget hashtag snell talk hashtag ask upgrade to get involved with the show and we'll be back next week until then say goodbye, Jason Snell. Forget about it. He's walking here. Are you talking to me? I think I was, yeah.
Starting point is 01:38:10 That's how it works.

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