Upgrade - 223: Impressive and Stupid

Episode Date: December 10, 2018

Are Apple's recent aggressive promotional deals for iPhone an indicator that its aggressive pricing strategy isn't working, or is this all part of a larger strategy? Are the old rules giving way to a whole new set of Apple strategies? We also discuss WarnerMedia's strange streaming strategy and Jason's attempt to merge Shortcuts with ancient Web APIs.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 223 today's show is brought to you by fresh books lunar display and hopsy my name is mike hurley i'm joined by jason snell hi mike welcome back thank you jason snell I hope you enjoyed your assignment. It was a very good assignment. One of the best assignments I've had this year, thank you very much. You're welcome. We have a hashtag Snell talk question from Peter and Peter wants to know, Jason, will your holiday lights be smart lights or dumb lights this year? Oh great question and the answer is, well first off, do you mean the the lights that are outside or dumb lights this year? Oh, great question. And the answer is, well, first off, do you mean the lights that are outside

or the lights that are like on my Christmas tree? I will ask for both. Thank you. Okay. Well, the answer is the same, which is that they're both on. What did you do? I thought I would take them in turn.

So on the outside, they're attached to a smart switch. So they're dumb lights, but they're attached to a smart switch. On the inside, however, they're also dumb lights attached to a smart switch. So yes. And then I have them on a schedule. I have them both on a schedule now. Which leads to the thing that delights me the most about this time of year, which is that I come out in the morning to make the tea and make breakfast.

And it's still a little dark out because it's winter and the tree is on. The tree is lit up. Oh, that's interesting. Because I have a schedule in HomeKit set to turn the tree on like 15 minutes or 30 minutes before sunrise. So it's on. it's not on overnight, but it's on when I get up in the morning, which is, which is very nice. And then we do have also the lights on the outside. I put those on a smart switch. Those are on a separate schedule. So they go on in the morning for a little bit, and then they're on in the evening until,

you know, late in the evening when, when we turn them off. And this weekend I had the blower and the inflatable, not inflatable, the tube man version of Santa Claus. One of those guys, the air dancers that flap their arms and stuff. The wacky wailing inflatable arm flailing. Yeah, he was on the roof for a little while. He'll go back up later, but it rained overnight, so I took him down before the rain came. But I invested, Mike, invested in a blower because it was my dream and my daughter's dream that we would one day own our own tube man.

And for Halloween, it was an orange tube man. But then I realized I could buy other tube creatures, including Santa Claus. So I bought a Santa Claus. And now Santa dances on our roof sometimes. So I bought a Santa Claus and now Santa dances on our roof sometimes. I love so much that you and your daughter shared a dream to have a wacky, wailing, inflatable tube man. I think that's so wonderful. I've always liked the inflatable, the tube men, the flapping air dancer tube men.

I've always enjoyed them. And I've always joked about how, oh, you know what? One of these days I'm going to get one of those because that is hilarious and I love it. And that would never come to anything except that, yes, my daughter agrees with me. And she's like, oh, it's so great. And then I showed her and she's like, oh, we got it. She's very excited about it. So she and I are united on this while the other members of our household probably think it's ridiculous. They're not that expensive and they're not that big.

while the other members of our household probably think it's ridiculous. They're not that expensive, and they're not that big. And then you can have... Why not have a tube man in your life, at least if you're me and Jamie? So we do. And now it's Santa for the holidays. So I have my Christmas tree lights hooked up to a Wemo. I don't have a use for a wemo

other than this i bought these when i got my echo and i've never found anything else that i want them for i have like seven of those smart switches now they're doing all sorts of things in my house now i would like to to i would really like to use them more, but there is nothing that I really particularly need to have that kind of control over. So I've got – most of them are acting as timers. They're not, like, super smart. They're, like, just internet interface for timers. So most of mine – like, the lights are like that. My smart switch is like that.

I have – in the winter, I have a dehumidifier that's attached to a smart switch and it's the same thing. It basically goes on after, uh, it's in the bedroom. It goes on after we're out of there during the day in order to get the moisture out of the, that room. Um, you know, uh, had it wired and I might do this again at some point. I actually had it wired. So it was using the data from the weather station console that's in that room to actually like literally turn itself on and off based on the humidity data, but's got its own humidity sensor it i can set that it's fine so

um i'm not doing a lot of like super sophisticated stuff where things are turning on because other things are happening but i do i am using those and in fact for a while when my mac mini was occasionally just uh turning itself off um or locking up I had a smart switch on the Mac mini plug so that I could remotely turn it off and then turn it back on and boot back up. I might, I don't think I've told you this, but I have a Mac mini coming on Wednesday. I listened to Connected.

I know all about it. So I have a Mac mini coming and it's going to be on all the time. We'll get to talking about on all the time computers in a minute, by the way. So I might do that for mine. I might put because i have two wemos and you could run home bridge which will put them on home kit yeah so this was because wemo doesn't do i don't think wemo they may sell a bridge but but out of the box they don't do home kit no because this is this is the

other thing is like i would like a switch that could work with both HomeKit and the Echo, but that doesn't exist in the UK right now. There isn't a company that will do this. There are a couple of companies in the US, I believe, that will do it, but all of the switches on Apple's website, right, so they're like basically all the HomeKit officially ordained ones don't work with the the echo which is a shame but so i i what i did just do just now is because i hadn't thought of this before is to put the

wemo on a schedule so we just have like uh you know you just say to the echo turn turn on christmas because we can't i think i spoke i maybe spoke about this last year but we did have turn on the tree but for some reason just with the with adina's accent uh the echo thinks she says turn on the tree, but for some reason, just with Idina's accent, the Echo thinks she says turn on the three every time. And it just was nothing she could do. It didn't matter how she said it. So it just ended up being turn on Christmas, which I think is hilarious. But it is sad in the evening when you ask to turn off Christmas. Turn off Christmas.

Just a sad sentence. But now we have it on a timer, so we won't need to do it. And I don't know why I hadn't thought of that. It just never really crossed my mind. We have our Hue lights on a timer as well anyway. We'd like that. And I think maybe I just hadn't considered doing it to the Christmas tree. That was a great question from Peter.

Peter, thank you for sending that question in. You can be great like Peter and send in a question to open any episode of Upgrade. Hashtag Snell Talk is what you need. You just send out a tweet and it will be pulled in for a future episode. I would like to extend my thanks to John Syracuse for filling in for me last week. It was very kind of John to step in. I really enjoyed listening to the episode. And Jason, thank you for taking care of Dongletown in my absence. You were like the caretaker of Dongletown over the the past week now i'm back and we can trade off shifts again so thank you for doing that i kept the streets uh swept that's good there's no litter in dongle town that's which

is very important which so i will ask you did you put your mac to sleep or not? Well, as was prophesied on that episode, I said to John, I think the reason that I don't put it to sleep ultimately is that I have one of these switching power strips, which I heard from a couple of people who were like, what? I didn't know these existed,

but they definitely exist. Switching power strips where there is like a master outlet that it monitors for how much power it's drawing. And then some of the outlets on that power switch are automatically turned on or off based on the master outlet, which means that if you've got computer peripherals that are externally powered and don't need to be on when the computer is off, you can plug them into those outlets. And then when the computer goes off, they go off. And I

have that for my iPod Hi-Fi, for example, because it actually, I can hear it making a little like buzzing or hissing noise when the computer's off and it's still on. And so I have it plugged in there. It all comes back to the iPod Hi-Fi in the end, doesn't it? I like there was a moment in the show where I think you said that and John made a comment and you just like blew past it. It's like something about the great engineering of the iPod Hi-Fi mean what can you say about it it's a failed product and all of these things about it but it sounds pretty good on my desk which is why i do it despite all the other ridiculous things um and it turns out that was accurate by the way that that when i tried to put my iMac pro to sleep at the end of the day on monday or yeah last mond Monday after the show came out, um, the, all the stuff

stayed on and I don't know if it eventually would go off if, if the power consumption had dropped to a low enough point or not. But I, I had that moment where I said, oh yeah, here, here we go. This is why I don't do this because I need to, I want to shut that thing off and then everything else shuts off. And then all the stuff that doesn't need to be on in my office is off. And I like that. I like that it just is controlled by the Mac going off. So I will continue my daily shutdown, which John was not as against as he is against people to turn off their iPhone when they put it in their pocket. Or maybe people who use a laptop and turn it off instead of just putting it to sleep.

maybe people who use a laptop and turn it off instead of just putting it to sleep. I listened to everything, but my mind was not changed. And I don't think you mentioned this on the episode. You may have, but I know this is something we've spoken about before. I have all this audio gear attached to my iMac, which is powered by USB. Yes. And is turned on whenever the Mac is on. And there are probably things I could do and I could add in other switches or whatever, but I don't really want to, I just don't really feel the need to do it

because my iMac just doesn't need to be on. Right. And then you're right, like the USB interface, right? Like having no power go to it is ideally the thing. And what I don't want to have to do at the end of the day is put my Mac to sleep and then walk over to the power strip and turn it off and then unplug my USB devices.

And although also would unplugging the USB devices when the Mac is asleep, wake them up, maybe. It's like, I just don't even want to get there. I don't need the computer. And as I said to John, part of this is behavioral, which is I like the idea of signing out at the end of the day. I can no longer, I no longer pick up my bag, leave the office, go down in an elevator, walk to a bus stop and ride a bus home. Like now my home is six steps away from me. So there is something psychological

about shutting down my Mac because then I'm saying, you know, there's a barrier between me and coming back to work in here. And I find that valuable. I'm signing out for the day. It doesn't mean that I won't do work on the iPad in another room,

but in the office, I'm sort of like signing out of the office and saying I'm not coming back and sitting at my chair and bringing up all my documents. I'm not coming back and sitting at my chair and bringing up all my documents. I'm not coming back in here later. And if I do a podcast or something later that night, I leave it on because I'm like, I'm going to be back in here. But if I'm done for the day, done, done, I like the feeling of having shut down the computer.

And it doesn't take very long to start it up anyway. No, we are in complete agreement on this point. I mean, and it's not about the idea of, like, thinking computers shouldn't be on or whatever, right? Because your Mac Mini is on all the time. My Mac Mini will be on all the time. I understand the value of that. My iMac just doesn't need to be because it just doesn't for what I use it for.

All right. So the upgradees, we'll mention it again when we mention it for a couple more weeks. The voting is still open. It will be open until December 24th, which is when the voting will close. As it stands right now, if we continue collecting votes the way we have, this is going to be the biggest Upgradees

of all time, which I'm super excited about. And I'm working on some fun things in the background um we both are actually so there's a lot this i'm really excited for the upgradies i started uh making notes for my personal picks today um the upgrade season is nearly upon us everyone so you'll be looking out for uh for that episode we're doing it at the end of the year right it's if i remember correctly it's going to be or is it going to be our january 1st episode it's going to be our january 1st episode no yeah that's it 31st that's it 31st new year's eve there we go it'll be christmas

eve episode that will be very special upgrade holiday special on christmas eve indeed and then we have a new year's eve yeah so very excited about that. And whilst we're talking about the spirit of the holidays, we're going to be doing a mic at the movies next week and we're going to be watching The Miracle on 34th Street, which is a movie I've never seen and is a classic movie. It is. And it's useful for me because... It's not from the 80s, by the way.

No, no, no. It's from the 40s, right? It is. It's from the 47, The Miracle on 34th Street. Oh, that's going to be difficult for me to keep saying. Miracle on 34th Street. Well, because my brain wants to say 34th Street, and that's not, I don't like that.

That doesn't sound very good. So this is good for me because I was talking to Idina over the weekend and she compiled a list of movies she wanted to watch that she's never seen for the holidays. This was one of them. So we'll be watching it probably this weekend together in preparation for Mike at the Movies next week.

That's great. Let's do a couple of pieces of upstream news. Warner Media has given some more details about their upcoming streaming service. It will be launching in 2019 is the plan. Sometime in 2019.

This report comes from Variety. They're going to have three subscription tiers available. There's going to be an entry-level movies package, a premium service with original programming and blockbuster movies. So I expect the movies package will be not new

movies, but movies. Then there will be new movies on the more expensive one and then the the movies package will be not new movies but movies then there will be new movies on the more expensive one and then the most expensive one will be a bundle of everything so movies and original programming plus access to the warner media and licensed content libraries so they're gonna have a bunch of things going on here uh warner media have also said that they're going to have a bunch of things going on here. WarnerMedia have also said that they're not going to just take all of the content that they make and put it behind this new paywall, this service, because they want to keep doing deals for some overseas rights distributions as well. I hope that doesn't mean that they're going to make this a US-only service entirely, but it sounds like it might be.

I wonder what they're doing here. Also keep in mind they own HBO and they've said that HBO Go and HBO Now are not a part of this product, which is really weird. And I'm not quite sure how Warner Media is going to offer a premium service with original programming and blockbuster movies.

That sounds like HBO to me. Yeah. So are they doing hbo again or or is this it just or are they going to have hbo as a standalone branded thing and also it's going to fold in all the hbo stuff and other stuff to their premium service uh does hbo now turn into this uh because hbo go is just your a cable subscription and you're watching it hbo now is over the top you can just get a la carte you can just buy the hbo streaming service they could turn that into this but i think they've said that they weren't going to which doesn't really make

sense i i wonder what they're doing here um i bet we'll just have to see hbo go will continue being its thing but i bet that the top tier package is everything hbo go has on it it could be it could be that that it's basically a bundle of everything from warner media including hbo stuff and other stuff but it is it is just crazy for them not to be like oh and game of thrones is on this thing like oh no not game of thrones no no no right That would be wild. Yeah, the entry-level movie focus package is also interesting. I wonder what that product is. And maybe there's a place for that.

Maybe there is a place for, especially a company that has an enormous library, to say we're going to build a movie streaming service that's like, you're a fan of movies. We have movies throughout the history of film. We're going to put them all in one place. I guess it would be interesting to see how they market that. I'm not quite sure what they're doing there.

The premium service sounds like they're real kind of like Netflix competitor, although they throw in blockbuster movies, which again gets me back to, then is it kind of just HBO? It's very peculiar. I wonder what their strategy is we're going to learn mike this time next year um this we're going to have a lot more detail about this world i feel like in 2019 going to be a really big year for figuring out the future of streaming video i will one more point on this one immediate thing like the original programming part where is that going to come from because like you know we're tracking apple right like they just announced a couple more like they've they've put a season order for that kevin durant show like they've

tied some more actors into some more productions like if they want to have something ready to go in 2019 of original programming you would expect to see something about that before, right? Yeah, well, that's why I say it's HBO. It's got to be, right? If you look at what they own, they have original content on HBO. They have TBS and TNT. They have Cartoon Network network they have the audience network which has original programming in it they've got the dc comics stuff um but it's like it's funny

because it's like it's almost as if they are trying to like rebrand what they do to fit with the new streaming world right because original content now means like the netflix shows the amazon prime shows but they're like they have all this traditional content which is technically their own original properties right but now yeah well and that and that's i think what they're doing is they're gonna they're gonna take the content that they're building as originals for their channels their cable channels and they're gonna also pour it into this premium service so you can watch it on tbs or you can watch it on the audience network, which nobody gets. Or you can watch it on their over-the-top service that they're providing here.

Yeah, it's a struggle. They have a legacy baggage of all these channels that is a challenge when you're building a streaming service. It's easier if you aren't dealing with cable deals and cable time slots and stuff like that. But they do. They have to deal with that. And then they are new owners picking up old assets and trying to figure out what they want to do with them. And Warner's strategy a year ago is not their strategy today because there's this new Warner Media. So they're trying to figure it out.

Yeah, it really feels to me that Warner is being dragged into this kicking and screaming by at&t that's just kind of the impression i get from like their timing and everything right it's totally would they do this if disney wasn't doing this i don't think so there's gonna be a huge culture clash right because at&t is going to be in there uh and their executives that they've installed and then there's the old warner way of doing i mean when they came out and said oh no mean, when they came out and said, oh, no, no, we first they came out and said, oh, no, HBO is going to be different. And then they also said, oh, actually, what we want to do is really increase HBO's budget and have them do more stuff.

And and like those were weird and contradictory. And I I still, you know, as a an observer from the sidelines, I look at this and say an observer from the sidelines, I look at this and say, HBO, getting HBO to produce more material and really bulk it up as the basis of a streaming service of HBO Now and just continuing to invest in original content on HBO is a good move. That's a good move. My question is, are you making another move that's just like it? Because why would you do that? Why? And maybe the details and who they're targeted for throwing in the DC universe thing, which is like, I, that's a fascinating thing. really weird bundle and i look at that and think this makes no sense right like like why are you i don't i just don't think that dc comics is worth building like like with all the success marvel has had disney is not building a marvel streaming service right they're building uh they've got hulu that they're going to own most of they're building the the Plus streaming service. But Warner built this DC Universe streaming service.

And that's an example of one of those things that, like, if I'm AT&T and I'm like, no, if we're going to do original based on the DC Comics stuff we own, we're going to put it on our big streaming service, not on this niche just for comic book fans streaming service. That doesn't make any sense. So I think, you know, it's a work in progress for Warner. It will be fascinating to watch because it is going to be this push and pull of the kind of Warner culture, Warner Brothers culture that has existed at AT&T saying, we're not going to do it that way. The world has changed. And it's an opportunity for everybody at both companies actually to reset and some people will leave and some people will stay and and figure it out but i'm not quite sure what they're doing now i'm not sure they do

either i want to give a a note about what i think warner's uh commitment is to outside of the u.s markets i've gone to the dc universe website because i didn't i had no idea such a thing even existed um sorry this service is only available in the u.s we'll announce when it's available in your region and there's no there's no like give us your email like no they don't ever plan for it to be available outside i have to say i think in the long run anybody who's hedging about international is going to die in in this world like i think apple and net Netflix and Amazon have it right, which is we need to be everywhere.

And, you know, Apple is going to, by all accounts, roll out everywhere as quickly as possible. And I know that that's Netflix's strategy, and it's also Amazon's strategy now, is to try to be everywhere with as much stuff as they want. And this feels like Warner is hedging, where they're like, well, we'll do streaming, but it's only going to be in the U.S.

And part of the problem is that they've got deals. They've got distribution deals for overseas that limit what they can put out there. Like if they've already sold HBO to Sky TV or something. Sure, but everybody else is winding them up. Yeah, but I mean, this is the challenge is that they are going to have to turn away money from people who want to pay them for their content in order to keep that content and go international. And that is going to be a challenge for them because it's the, but they're paying us money for this TV show. It's like, yeah, but you need to own it.

The new model is original content that you have all the rights to that you roll out everywhere. Your business is no longer a studio where you make entertainment and you have your channels in the US and then you just sell it off to everybody else overseas. I'm skeptical that that's going to work for them in the long run. Because the fact is the buyers, for the most part, unless they're like international broadcasters, the international streaming services, they want to own everything and they'd rather own it worldwide. Like Netflix, I'm sure, is not thrilled with the idea that CBS controls or that they don't control Star Trek in North America. That Star Trek in North America is CBS and a different channel in Canada. Everywhere else it's Netflix.

And that I think is extremely frustrating to them. They'd rather be everywhere. So I'm not quite sure. I think that devalues the product, right? Because it's like, well, it's not really a Netflix original. It's kind of, but kind of not. And that's not great. And it's bad for CBS because CBS wants to expand CBS All Access.

And they don't get Star Trek. They don't get Star Trek Discovery, because they already made a deal with Netflix. So it's bad for everyone, which is why I think that that model is going away. It's why the Marvel shows aren't on Netflix anymore after these last seasons play out, because Netflix wants 100% ownership of everything it does, and Marvel wants, and Disney want,

100% ownership on their stuff. And unless the show's a big hit, does. And Marvel wants, and Disney want a hundred percent ownership on their stuff. And you know, there, unless it shows a big hit so big that it overrides those, uh, those premises, then it's just gonna, it's just gonna go away. So I, I, I think Warner media is going to have that moment too, where they're going to be like, are we worldwide or are we just a sort of a, a boutique US only streaming service? It seems like a bad idea to me. Hey, speaking of which, while we're still on upstream, what do you think? Do you have any thoughts about this whole Apple music running on the Amazon Echo thing?

Because John and I talked about it a little bit, the idea of if this is the beginning of something different. I wrote a piece in Macworld this week where I basically tried to explore the idea that Apple TV, maybe Apple's TV service, their video service, and maybe the TV app might actually show up on Roku and Amazon Fire TV as apps. Because this strikes me as being very much like Apple saying services are important to us and we're willing to have our services on other pieces of hardware because in the end, the service is the most important thing. We want to extend our ecosystem there. What do you think? I think that the possibility of Apple TV showing up elsewhere has increased exponentially now, right? Where I think before it was like, I don't know, will they do this? Like, yeah, Apple Music's on Android, but that's because the Beats app was on Android. Right. So they just turned one into the other. But this is like Apple have decided or allowed for this thing to be created and the deals to be done with Amazon and then now it appears. I always like to assume what happens

in the smoke-filled dark rooms with executives, right? I'm building my own conspiracy theory that Apple wants their TV service to be on Fire TV and Amazon has said, okay, but we'll

take music as well you know like that there is maybe some exchange going on here where because it seems very strange to me for apple to put apple music on the amazon echo like that doesn't make as much sense to me as the apple tv service on the fire tv because apple doesn't really apple hasn't invested significant sums of money into apple music right like they're not putting billions of dollars into original music content right like true apple music having the the audience size that it has is perfectly fine it doesn't need to recoup huge costs right like they will make their money and then some um and i also don't think that like apple music isn't really competitive with spotify right like it doesn't have a thing where people

are like oh i gotta get my apple music but like a tv service with original content will inherently have a like a desire for people that don't hopefully that don't even necessarily own an apple tv to want the content so like it makes more sense for apple to want to put their tv stuff in other places than it does their music stuff so the fact that they now have put their music in other places seems to indicate to me that it is it has become significantly more likely that the apple TV programming will too. Yeah, I guess what I would say about the Amazon Echo thing is it's all a matter of priorities. And the scale, you're right, is very different because the nature of the business is different.

They aren't investing a lot of money in original content for music. All the music services are basically the same. for music all the music services are basically the same what is the case though i think is that apple is saying m or uh apple music services growth revenue growth is more important than keeping it as a home pod semi-exclusive like right like the margins on the HomePod are not as important as the growth of Apple Music. That HomePod is available and uses Siri and can be sold as that. But the kind of false separation of features based on an exclusive deal,

which is what the Apple TV has, right? Like you can't play Apple TV, like iTunes videos and stuff on a TV without an Apple TV. It's not on any other boxes. And legally, I think it's not on like AirPlay isn't, although there are like AirPlay apps that you can run that I've never gotten to work right, but people say they work on other platforms. So it's different, but I think in the end, it's the same in the sense where it's Apple saying, you know, our hardware margins aren't as important as our services growth in products that are not as important to us. And Apple TV and HomePod are not as important to Apple as services growth. Like it would be different if it was the iPhone or the iPad or the Mac, frankly. But these aren't those. These

are kind of like ecosystem extensions that happen. They're extruding these little hardware devices out and they can be Apple's tech and they can have the high margins. And they'll be like, if you want the best experience, you can listen on HomePod, but we'll also let you listen on Amazon Echo. That seems to be where they're going. And yeah, at that point, it really is hard to not see them wanting to have Apple TV on Fire TV and Roku and select partners that will give them exposure to a much larger audience. I mean, also not just for the video service, but I think at that point, maybe for movie rentals and purchases and TV purchases and all of the other stuff that's in iTunes. I am in agreement with you that it's something about a priorities thing, right? Some priority has changed or some priority was this way, but we never saw it.

And it's like that these services growths, these things that we're making, these additional add-ons are more important. This monthly revenue is more important than the sale of a $150 Apple TV and like a now $250, if you look in the right place, dollar HomePod, right? And I just think the fact that they've done this with Apple Music

makes it much more likely that they will do the same with apple's tv service too we'll see it will be it's weird right like it's hard to imagine for me apple like just saying yeah our get our tv app on on roku i it's very or fire tv it seems so different from the way apple has behaved up to now but if i look at the way they describe their business i don't see them not doing it so yeah we'll see what happens next week but so far apple has said absolutely nothing about uh the echo music on an echo it's true i i heard on connected you guys talked about your uh your sort of conspiracy theories there i i don't i don't believe that apple is uh i think apple will do a press release when it's available i think there'll

be an apple newsroom when it's available yeah i think i think that that's what they're saving it for and they'll do it then and they'll say isn't it great apple music is on the amazon echo it's a the amazon echo is popular and everybody loves apple music why would they not and so now you can listen to it there. Oh, and by the way, if you want something that sounds better, here's a link to our HomePod. Yes, Apple Music is also available on other devices, including the HomePod, which is revolutionary, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah. Stereophonic, stereo-widening pairing sound. This episode is, actually, do you know what? Talking about something out of the ordinary that's what we're going to talk about next but before we do that let's thank a new sponsor for upgrade and that is hopsy hopsy was created by three guys who love craft beer jason this sponsor is so for you my friend and they know that the best beer comes straight from the tap but this isn't something that's accessible everywhere especially at home well now you can actually have this your own beer bar at home with something

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So like the sub is a device that you get that Hopsi will send to you. And then they will then send you on the subscription any types of beers that you're interested in now jason i believe that you have received uh some some hopsy shipments yeah i'm trying to think of so the little things are so they're not kegs they're called torps and they're kind of like two liter bottles with a special kind of tech in them so that they stay fresh and uh and have all their bubbles and you load them in the,

uh, the sub, uh, which is like a, it's like a beer refrigerator, but it's shaped for these, these torps to go in there. And I have had,

I've gone through my family and I, but mostly me, but also my wife has, have gone through, um, many, several, I bought more. Uh, so that's how, have gone through many, several. I bought more.

So that's how I'm doing with Hopsi. If you want to know how I'm doing, I have a subscription now. I bought more, yeah. I did. Because they sent us the sub, and they sent us, I think, four torps. And yeah, I got more. I was like, great, more beer. and the thing is so it's you know taps are great like and getting a beer from a tap is nice for a bunch of reasons including that you

don't have to have like you open a bottle you have the bottles worth and if you want more or if you want less it doesn't matter you get it's a single serving so i i found that it's fun you know sometimes i will just for for dinner i'll just have half a glass. If I want a little bit more, I can go back and get more. So that's a lot of fun. It is fun to have this beer on tap in your living room or kitchen or bar or wherever it's in the corner of our kitchen. A lot of fun. And I've thought about, I like beer enough that I've thought about getting like a kickerator or something like that. And the problem is when you get to that point, like, first off, it's a big piece of hardware. It's basically a refrigerator and the it's complicated to set it up. And even if you get like a, like a half a keg,

it's a lot of beer. And if it's just you or just you and your partner drinking the beer, a beer and if it's just you or just you and your partner drinking the beer um it's gonna are you gonna be able to get through it in time and it's one beer the whole time for a very large volume and so it never made sense it's like oh that would be cool but it never made sense and these um these individual containers are small enough that you can go through them uh feeling like, oh no, I've got to rush and I'm only ever going to have this one beer and it's going to take forever. It's a smaller serving size. It's more reasonable. You can fit it on a countertop. And yeah, the beer is fun. I've had stouts. I've had brown ales. We have a Winterbach right now that's loaded in there because we just finished a brown ale

last time. I had Porter. They had our favorite Belgian white beer that we had a couple of. So yeah, it's been a lot of fun to do it and to have it available. And we've both been taking advantage of having it. And yes, I have bought more because they have a subscription service you can set up with your preferences. And it's a little bit like one of these, um, these dining services where they send you food, where you get, uh, you you're saying, send me something every month, but, uh, and here are my preferences and they'll make some choices for you. But my experience was I was able to go in and personalize it too. I was being like, actually, I want this one and this one for this month's shipment. And then those are what I got. So, uh, it's, uh, yeah, it was a lot of fun.

this one for this month's shipment and then those are what i got so uh it's uh yeah it was a lot of fun so you should look you've heard that simple convenient it's great it's why they yeah it's easy to use it's why it's called an espresso for beer which is like a really fun way to think of it go and find out for yourself right now by going to tryhopsy.com upgrade that's t-r-y-h-o-p-s-y.com upgrade and use the promo code upgrade to get yourself the sub home draft machine two mini kegs of beer which is equivalent to two six-packs two hopsy glasses and free membership in their monthly beer club for just 99 dollars terms and conditions apply that's one more time go to tryhopsy.com slash upgrade and the promo code upgrade to get your hands on that wonderful deal. Our thanks to Hopsy for their support of this show and RelayFM. in which he spoke about Apple resorting to, as he quotes,

resorting to promo deals and trade-ins to boost iPhone sales. Now, this sounds like a lot of the kind of thing that's been spoken about over the last year or two about failing iPhone sales, right? Like failing iPhone sales. iPhone sales are going down. right? Like failing iPhone sales, iPhone sales are going down. But there are really interesting promo deals going on right now for the iPhone. So this is part of Apple's Give Back program, which is a thing that's existed for a long time where you can take in a device and Apple will recycle it. And if it's in good condition, you'll get some money for it. But right now they are doing some limited time offers where they're giving you more money. So for example, right now you can get an iPhone XR

for $449 if you trade in like a qualifying phone or $699 for a XS. So these are $300 savings on a brand new iPhone. According to Mark Gurman, people in Apple's marketing teams are moved around in, I think, October, he said, specifically to help create and promote these plans to boost iPhone sales over the holiday period. And this has been something that has ramped up over time. So I've been doing a little bit of tracking as to how these deals have evolved and the kind of promotion of it and the expansion of it. So it started with a small banner on Apple's homepage for the XR. Then the XS showed up.

Now these banners are dominating the entire homepage. It's all that's on the homepage now is these deals. As far as I can see, these are US only. It's not in the UK and I haven't seen it anywhere else. But then there's more. The US App Store had a feature about the XR and everything

that it could do. I've seen people talking about push notifications from the Apple Store app about these deals. And Apple Stores, so the physical store locations in the US, are using screens that are usually for the Genius Bar and like on the ends of tables. And even like, I think I saw one where it was like the screen that the Mac Mini was attached to, to promote these deals as well. Throughout all this whole thing, as well. Throughout all this whole thing, Greg Joswiak of Apple told CNET that the iPhone XR has,

and I quote, been our most popular iPhone each and every day since the day it became available. So this is everything that's happened. What do you think about this, Jason? Well, I think first off that Apple has been doing aggressive marketing in various areas for a long time. Maybe the people who are writing about this haven't been getting those emails. Like, I got on Apple's marketing list, and I've been getting pretty aggressive Apple sales pitches for holiday seasons and all sorts of other things for years now. So it's not, it's not Apple's, oh, apple has to market their products now is uh is silly i think marketing though is different to three hundred dollars off a brand new phone well but but here's the thing it's not three hundred dollars off a brand new phone the the the iphone 10r costs 749 it still costs 749 all they're doing is trying to sell the trade-in program by showing you. And in fact, I find it weird that it says on Apple's website right now, what it says to me is iPhone XR from $449 with an asterisk, iPhone XS from $699. But actually, if you have an iPhone X from last year, you can get that iPhone XR for $249. Why don't they even have the lower number? They've actually shown some

restraint. From $449 is for the iPhone 8. It should say that these prices, the prices that they are, on the website and the small print, they are basing those numbers of trading in an iPhone 7 Plus. I don't know

why they picked that phone so specifically. The 7 plus or the eight will get you a 449 but if you have an eight plus it's 399 because it's a sliding scale based on the the value of your phone like they'll give you a 500 for an iphone 10 but they'll only give you 65 for an iphone se um sorry iphone se they don't value you. And a 6S Plus is worth $250, a 6S is worth $200, etc. So what they're really doing is trying to push the trade-in idea that your existing phone has value. Take it back to the September event when they launched these things, right? September event when they launched these things, right? In that event, they talked a lot about iPhones keeping their value over time and things like that. That was part of the marketing and conversation about that event. And this is part of that effort, I think, which is to say, I know, because here's what they did, is they did, these new phones all have high prices.

So how do you market that? And one way is let's put the trade-in thing up front and center because that lets us communicate that if you're willing to give us your old phone, we can make you a deal. That's not new, but what's new is them really pushing on it. And part of that I think is, yeah, those price tags look really high and they're trying to bring them down. So if there's a promo here, the promo is that they're giving more trade-in value than they might the rest of the year. But they haven't really cut the flat fee on these phones. Although you have also seen there have been reports for iPhones and iPads that there are deals to be had at big box stores and places like that.

I think the way I read this is one, sticker shock is real and they want to market their way out of the sticker shock by saying, do you have a two-year-old phone? You can bring it in. You could save a lot of money. We're not going to make you pay $749. We're not going to make you pay $999 if you turn in your old phone. Now, a lot of people hand down their old phones to other members of their family, which extends the life of the phone in a different way. But if you're just a guy with a phone who wants to turn in and get a new phone, random singleton with a phone, this is an option for you. The other thing I would say is one of the things that I not really thought a lot about when these things got announced is Apple having the prices so high

and presumably the margin so high. One of the strategies here is it's easier to discount. I wonder if maybe part of their strategy is, what if we price the phones high? Because some people will just pay that price, but it gives us more room to deal and offer deals, right? You price it high and then you offer deals. And so I would say there's no doubt that this is different from what it's been in the past. But what I don't think is accurate is to say, oh, Apple's really hurting. They've had to, they've had to do a lot of deals. I think this was premeditated. I think there's always been the plan is we're going to raise the prices, but we're going to do some deals. And some of them are going to be trading deals because then we can take those components and, you know, refurb them and ship them to other countries where, uh, that are more price sensitive than, than the markets like in Europe and the U S uh, I think, I think it's all part of their plan. This is marketing. Isn't just promotion. Marketing is also the price you charge and the way you, uh, you, you talk about it and the way you position the products positioning as part of marketing and marketing something as an expensive phone that

you can get cheaper with a deal is that's all part of the the strategy i think that's been their strategy with these phones from the start that is really interesting i don't know i think i still find that it's weird in its own way i mean mean, I wonder if you risk upsetting your customers, you know, maybe harming loyalty. Because these phones have not been out for very long, especially the XR. And if you bought one early on, it's a big difference.

And I know that there was a trade-in. There was a trade-in. The trade-in program existed. But the trade-in value right now is higher. That's what the limited time is, right? It's higher trade-in value. And if that was the plan, which is an interesting plan of like, well, we'll build in some more money so we can do some deals. I don't know about that.

It seems like a strange – not strange. It seems like a weird thing for Apple to do, like just based upon everything they've ever done before isn't it funny we just said this in upstream exactly this is this is this is apple trying some new stuff out and i think questioning some of their fundamental uh assumptions that they made that probably extend all the way back to the steve jobs era and with surfaces it's one thing but this is another which is you know the other the other side of having these pricey phones is uh is making deals and you know it does this hurt their asp like it depends a little bit on how it's all all marketed but like the trade-ins

ISP, it depends a little bit on how it's all marketed, but the trade-ins, if you can get an iPhone X for $500 and then resell it refurbished for $7 get that hardware back and to push people to upgrades. Because I do think that the upgrade cycle, we've talked about this a lot here on the upgrade program, is that the upgrade cycle for phones is stretching. And so one way you get people to upgrade is to say, well, you don't have to wait three years and hand down your phone and all of that. You can also just after two years or three years just hand it in and get a new phone for cheaper. And that is one way to maybe make the upgrade cycle go faster. Just like the people who are on the replacement program, where they're getting a new phone every year or every two years, they're already locked in. This is more like an a la carte version of that, where it's like, well, you bought it, you weren't paying on installments or anything like that. But if you come in after two years and hand in your phone, we will also give you a deal

on a new phone. This is not, it doesn't feel radically different to me other than the fact that they're pushing it. And that is different. i think interesting but i i i kind of think that that's fallout fundamentally fallout from the pricing i'm not sure that that is based on sales like i said my my guess is that they they were planning this all along as part of this strategy that included having the new phone start at 749 instead of uh like 649 or or you know whatever a lower price than the than the 10s 10r Do you think part of the strategy could be not reporting unit sales anymore? I mean, I think it's all wrapped up together. I don't know how closely those dots are connected, but yeah.

You can certainly do this type of stuff more easily if you're not having to report on that. Then again, if you're driving new sales through deals then you're you know you could be accused of trying to boost your unit sales numbers so i don't know i don't know i think this is you know is apple having sales issues with their new expensive phones maybe um is it a surprise to Apple? Maybe, but I'm not 100% sure on that. I don't think if you're Apple, you go in and say, well, we're going to start at $749 and then go to $999 and $1099 and assume that the market won't blink, right?

I think they were always assuming that they would sell more 8s and 8 pluses and maybe even 7s because some people wouldn't want to upgrade to the highest end model. And they figured they'd do marketing and they'd do some deals and they'd emphasize trade-in. It was probably all one big conversation about how they wanted to change how they were marketing the product line. And this is part of it. If they thought that they could sell the iphone to everyone for a thousand like the eight wouldn't have existed right they would have just put the 10 up i think quite literally what happened is that they looked at the six and the success and the seven and the

eight but especially like the six and the success and said you know if they're buying these phones for these prices why don't why aren't we charging them more? Like, why are we not charging people more? Because a lot of people will be willing to spend more. And so we've seen the last two years, they've cranked it up and said, you know, if you are willing to spend $10.99 on this super high-end phone, we're going to let you, and we're going to let you upgrade it and spend $14.99 on it eventually. Like, they're willing to do that. The challenge is, how do you keep the people who are not willing to spend that money? How do you keep them in your market?

And that, you know, a lot of people we know, a lot of podcasts we listen to have had these same conversations about Apple's pricing. And I do think that Apple is trying to figure out and let and, and let the market tell them like how much they can push this because Apple wants to maximize revenue. That's what Apple wants to do. Apple doesn't want to, um, screw the poor people out of their devices, right? Like Apple doesn't want to become like the luxury band. Their goal is not to say, unless you're a millionaire, you can't buy our products. That is not Apple's goal.

Apple's goal is to maximize revenue. That's what, that's what their goal is. They're a millionaire, you can't buy our products. That is not Apple's goal. Apple's goal is to maximize revenue. That's what their goal is. They're a company. They're a profit-making company. They want to maximize revenue. Yes, they want to change the world and they want to make good products and all those things. But from a really simplified perspective, they want to maximize revenue. If the market says, oh, taking those phones up that high in price, turns out didn't maximize your revenue because you turned off a lot of people and you lost some market share and you lost some unit sales and those increased margins behind

didn't make it up. Well, you know, if that's the case, Apple will recalibrate like that. They will. They'll be like, oh, that was that we pushed it too much. We're going to back off. We're going to come back down market a little bit. What they're trying with last year's model and two years ago's model and all of this stuff, and with the 10R positioned at a fairly premium price point, but positioned as kind of a more affordable option, they're trying to provide this sort of spread of products that allows different parts of the market to buy different places and maximize revenue. But again, in the end, if they stick with this strategy, it's because it's working.

I get frustrated because I don't like the idea that Apple is turning its back on people who are more price sensitive because I don't want to see Apple become a pure luxury brand. Gruber talks a lot about affordable luxury as a concept. And I think that there's some truth in that. And, you know, the danger is

if Apple becomes one of these companies that is purely luxury, that the stuff is so expensive that it's the kind of stuff you only really see on a fancy, in a fancy shopping street or behind security at an international terminal, right? With the duty-free shops, the luxury shops. If that's what Apple's future is,

I'm going to be really disappointed because I think the promise, you know, the for the rest of us promise is an important part of what Apple is. And so it makes me uneasy. I don't actually mind Apple providing products for people who want to spend as much money as they possibly can because they love Apple products. My problem is if they ignore the rest of the market or consider them a place where they can sell a two-year-old phone and that if you want the really coolest stuff, you've got to pay through the nose for it. I feel like there's a spectrum there, but the more they push to the one end, the more uneasy it makes me because, you know, I do think that there, you know, we'll see what the market says, but I think it would be unfortunate if what the market said was,

yeah, forget all those people who don't want to buy a phone for less than a thousand dollars. That would be really unfortunate. I would be unhappy if that happened. I don't know if that's actually going to happen. My guess, if I had to make a guess, is that there is pushback on Apple pricing their products the way that they have this year. Just listening to people talk,

not just in our echo chamber of tech podcasts and all that, but just people in general. People think Apple products have always been too expensive. Right. And now even people that love Apple products think they're too expensive. Exactly. There's no way that Apple isn't aware of this. Right.

So my gut feeling is that they're going to back off on this a bit. Maybe not all the way, but I think they're going to back off a little bit on this. But I could be wrong. Like this could be one of those things where I want to say Apple's never going to put Apple Music on an Amazon Echo. I want to say Apple's never going to put Apple TV video streaming service on an Amazon Fire TV or on a Roku because that's not Apple. super premium brand and everybody who doesn't have the cash to buy in can, you know, just go and use a substandard product. I don't want to say that. I don't want to think that about Apple, but we do live in an era right now where Apple is making lots of changes to challenge the assumptions we make about what their choices are. All right. Today's show is brought to you by Luna Display, All right, today's show is brought to you by Luna Display,

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Our thanks to Luna for their support of this show and RelayFN. Alright, so Jason, you look... I saw a post go up with six colors over the weekend.

You've been doing some really wild stuff with shortcuts. And also, what I liked about the post that you wrote, you included a really nice like annotated image which i thought was super cool can you explain what you've been up to what have i done what have you done um the yeah so i don't know how to annotate shortcuts that's that's one of the problems i have is and i think it's a problem for learning shortcuts and i wonder if there's something that the shortcuts team could do um make that easier. I know that's an esoteric thing,

but like teaching people how to use shortcuts is kind of hard because how do you share a shortcut with notes? So I took a giant screenshot, you know, with one of those stitching tools that let me kind of scroll through five, six pages of shortcut. And then I brought it into Photoshop and I typed text next to it to make an annotated version of it, which is not ideal, but there it is. I was trying to find a way to explain what was going on. I think it's good. Because you can, in a shortcut,

you can leave text comments, but then it's not super easy to get your head around it. But I actually think, honestly, honestly this is in especially in image form this is one of the best ways i've seen it like because you're actually showing me because this is how like i've learned this stuff is by like looking at somebody else's shortcut and like working out what they did and federico will like explain like that this does this thing and then i can get my head around it and use that knowledge to build my own yeah so um anyway i did that because so uh matthew cassinelli who is doing uh podcasts and videos now but used to be on the shortcuts team and he was writing a post last week about trying to get

his podcast episodes posted to his blog. So it was an interesting post where he basically said, and I thought, and I do that for Six Colors, where like upgrade gets linked on Six Colors. So I thought, oh, well, that's interesting because I do a lot of copying and pasting for that. It's kind of annoying and labor intensive. And I like to simplify that. That's a great idea.

And he had a lot of good advice in there about how you use the get RSS, get an item from an RSS feed, because podcasts are just RSS feeds. And you can grab a bunch of information, you can get the title, you can get the link, which is the link to the page of the podcast, it's like show notes page, and the description of it, of the episode, you can get all of that. And then his next step was, and then I use this action, which is from the WordPress app, which is post to WordPress. And I thought, oh, yeah, I don't use WordPress. I use a 15, 20 year old piece of blogging software called movable type. And it's got an API, but it doesn't

have an app. And I had that moment where I thought, okay, I thought about this a long time and never done anything with it. Why don't I do it this time? Which is, why don't I see if I can actually use shortcuts to connect to this web API and post items into my blogging software that was built before the iPad or iPhone were even you know, even real and make it work. And I did it. I did it. That's the short version of the story is I did it. I had some help from Matthew Cassinelli. I had some help from Daniel Jalkut, who writes MarsEdit, the blog editing software on the Mac that uses these APIs. I needed a couple of pieces of advice from Daniel. these APIs. I needed a couple of pieces of advice from Daniel. And I, you know, it was something where I had to find a blog post for this weird setting. I was sitting, I'd finished writing a

story at Starbucks with my iPad. And I was sitting there kind of Googling around seeing if I could figure out part of this problem, because this problem was in my head, right? I needed to get it out. I was like, how do I solve this? How do I get this thing to work? And I ended up finding a page on archive.org from a blog that no longer serves that page. Actually, what I found was I found an article about an esoteric thing that was a side note to what I was trying to do that said, now this, and it had a link and it said, now this thing on this blog is for most people. But then I had this weird thing that I needed, and I had to build this thing. And I looked, and I was like, well, I don't need what this guy's building. I just need the simple thing.

And I clicked, and it took me to a blank page. I was like, oh, boy. So I went to archive.org, and I pasted in the URL. And it was in the Wayback Machine. I was able to look at that blog that was posted in 2004 or something, 2006. I was able to look at that that and it totally solved my problem. And it was changing one line in the configuration file of movable type, which, and it was really funny.

So it's like, I'm looking at a 14, 15 year old blog post, copying text out of it, opening prompt, the SSH app from panic connecting to my web server uh using uh command line you know vi text editor to edit the config file and movable type and add this item in and i'm like how how weird is this that i'm taking this advice from a 15 year old blog post from before the ipad was conceived and sitting here doing this on an ipad connecting to a Unix server, all of this stuff. That's movable type, man. I mean, it's like what a world we live in where old tech and new tech can come together.

So I save it out. I go back. I run it again. Totally worked. Solved it. Like, totally worked. So that was really cool. And in the end, I mean, yeah, it makes my life easier in a couple of ways.

Just I've got a version of this that will take the post I'm working on in my text editor of choice, which is I think the one that I annotated on six colors and press a couple, you know, press a key and tap something. And it basically takes the contents of my file and puts it in the CMS. So I don't have to paste it and click a bunch of boxes. All I really have to do is proof it and press, you know, make this live. And it'll make it live if I want to do that. I can, it actually asked me, do you want me to just post this story live?

So that's all great. And then I did a podcast version of it inspired by Matthew Castanelli. I did learn the limitations of shortcuts, which was hilarious. You know, my, I post a link to the MP3, right? That's one of the things that I do is I push a link and it actually finds out the length of the podcast and all of those things happen. And that's not in the RSS thing. The MP3 attachment is not in the RSS thing in shortcuts. And I asked Matthew Cassinelli about that. And he said, well, here's what you do. And this is shortcuts in a nutshell. Here's what you do is since it

gives you the URL of the show notes page and the show notes page has the MP3 link in it. What you need to do is just go load the show notes page in shortcuts and extract the MP3 URL. Oh my. And then you can use that. And totally works, totally works. Took me like 10 minutes to figure it out, but it totally works.

It's ridiculous, but it totally works. So I made it all work in shortcuts. I know Federico Vatici has done this before and it's the source of a lot of different shortcuts that people use, including, I think, maybe you, that involve hitting a web API. And if I try to back up from the four people who are using movable type, I did send a note to John Gruber and said, look what I did, because he uses movable type. Almost nobody else alive uses movable type, but I'm still using it for reasons. We're not going to get into the reasons, but there are reasons. The bigger picture is the power of shortcuts. And I got to see it

here, which is if something's got a web API, you can control it with shortcuts. That's the brilliance of it is it doesn't need to know about shortcuts. It doesn't need to have been invented when shortcuts or the iPad or the iPhone existed. And you can still do it because the web is the common language there, and it can speak it. And I was very impressed. I was trying to submit the way the API works is you're submitting an XML file that basically is, here's what I want you to do and what the content is and go do this. And I was getting errors from my server saying, you know, you need to send this as text XML and you're sending it as form data or something. And I asked Matthew Cassinelli about that. And he said, oh, well, one of the

things that's in that shortcut block is setting all your headers, all your HTTP headers, which is like super esoteric. But he says, yeah, so just put it that in the header of content type text XML, and then it'll totally work. And it did. So my bigger point here is shortcuts is weird. And it takes a lot, I think, to understand how the way it thinks. And I wish there were better ways to annotate it. And I wish there were better ways to educate people about how to use it. But this instance last week was a great example of me figuring it out and using it to do something

that I didn't really think was possible that super simplifies my life. Because while there is not a web posting client that I can use for my blog, I was able to basically make one out of the apps I use and shortcuts. And that was pretty cool. I remember the first flight that me and Federico took together to WWDC. So this is when shortcuts were still workflow. He showed me his workflow that did this kind of thing for him and this is the first time that i'd really understood like it is

like a like from a like a visual level the the mastery he had over it so like he would have this he would it was like it was it had some slightly different parts for him in that it started with Zapier monitoring an RSS feed. So when a new episode of a show was posted, it added a new task to Todoist with a link to the workflow. So it would pop up in Todoist. It would hit the link in the workflow. It would go out to workflow, do all of the stuff, right? So it could do all this stuff then open like ulysses or something or one writer with it all formatted in the way he wanted which is like that's the part that you have right like it it formats it in you're using one writer as

well right yeah is that right so like or like it will format it or you're doing it on the other end like so it has it in the exact way that you want it written to be posted to the site so it's like it's it's funny to me like that you because he was doing all this stuff with new technologies right he was using ifttt and zapier and wordpress and it's just funny that like you have made this work with movable type i think that is adding that is a monumental achievement i think it's it's i can't believe it it is incredibly simultaneously impressive and stupid, which is what I was going for.

So it was that. But again, the larger issue is if you've got, and most things you use, if you think, oh, I can't do this because it's not on my iPad or whatever, most things you use, if they're web or cloud oriented at all, they probably have an API.

I actually, during the, so I have my weather station, right? During the fires, we were really monitoring the weather quality. And I don't have, my weather station doesn't do air quality. But there is a website that has air quality maps. And I noticed that they have an API. And I was able to write a little thing for that. It was for my weather station page. So I wrote in AppleScript. But it could have been in anything, and it could have been a shortcut that basically queries the weather station API and gets back

the air quality. The air quality API gets back the air quality. And my point here is, again, if you want to grab a piece of information from something that has a web service, they probably have an API. And although the idea of an API to a non-programmer like me is intimidating, a lot of times it's as simple as I pass a URL to them and they give me back a piece of information. And if that piece of information is all you want, you've solved it. So that's the one of the nice things about so many things using the web for their back ends is that you have programmatic access to it. And that's, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. Even if it is

like an ancient piece of technology, like this was some of the earliest days of offering an XML API for blogging software, right? And the world has moved on a lot since then but it's still there it still works and i was able to use it that's pretty cool and i give i give one little plug here like if this is of interest to you this type of stuff one you should be listening to automators and relay fm with david sparks and rosemary orchard the others i actually remember as soon as i said it they did an episode a few weeks ago about zapier web automation where they talk about how they use zapier and shortcuts to post all of the stuff that they need for automators so it's all in there these tools are available to you and i will echo what you said about apis as well because terrifying to me right like i don't understand it but if you

can get your head around a specific thing and a lot of these APIs are, you know, they're nicely documented, right? Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of times you're literally just pushing things into a URL where it's like, hey, here's this URL. And at the end you say, and this is what I want in like, question mark, content equals this. And then it just is like, great. And it gives you back what you want.

It sometimes can be very easy. And so like then you kind of have this power to you right like it's it's it's super interesting and what i love is that for people like me there are more and more resources every day to help make this stuff easier yeah yeah isn't it i want to say like it's it's time tracking was one of the big ones that this came out that there was like a like toggle or something there's a web-based time like where the app even if there was an app like it didn't have a shortcut toggles app sucks right right but you can use their web api to turn time tracking on and off for projects right that that was a big thing for a lot of us right like learning Like learning how to wrangle the toggle API so we could actually build something that was okay to use.

For Federico and for me, that kind of helped push me into understanding what could be done there. I would take his shortcuts and adapt them. And as I was looking at it, I was kind of getting my head around how it all works. And super cool, super cool stuff. Shortcuts is awesome like we had somebody tweet

to us a couple of days ago and they were like oh do you know how i can encode uh videos into hevc right yeah media files and there isn't an encoding task in in ios how do i do this and i saw that and your answer was shortcuts yep yeah because i saw the thing i saw the question and i was like i bet shortcuts can do this because this is how i start now like this is this is a difference i think that you have to kind of get your head around when when trying to use ios more seriously if i ever have a question like that even if i don't know i always go to shortcuts because most of the time there's a way to do it there and like i there's an encode media block i open it up one of the options was hevc media i was

like and i just took a screenshot and i sent it to him i was like here you go and he's like oh great like and i get it because it's like if you're not if you're used to a computer that can just do all this stuff in all the myriad ways a computer can do it, you wouldn't necessarily think to look in shortcuts. But shortcuts, most of the time, at least for me, has an answer for you. And I genuinely hope and believe that there will be more and more answers

provided by this application over time. So super cool. Thank you for sharing that, Jason. Yeah, it was fun. All right, we should get into some hashtag ask upgrade questions. But before we do, let me thank our final sponsor for this week.

And that is our friends over at FreshBooks. FreshBooks simplify tasks like invoicing, tracking expenses and getting paid online. FreshBooks has drastically reduced the time it takes for their over 10 million customers to deal with their paperwork. FreshBooks can save you up to 192 hours. That's a lot of hours just because you will be able to use their super simple cloud accounting software for freelancers, for people that are self-employed, for people that run businesses. We use FreshBooks

extensively here at RelayFM to track our expenses and to send our invoices. I think we've sent nearly 2,000 invoices with FreshBooks now since the creation of our company. And I cannot speak highly enough of this company. They are amazing. I actually, when I was in Toronto, I went and spent some time with FreshBooks, as well as being a great company with great software, also super nice people as well. With FreshBooks, you'll be able to get your invoices set up and sent out super quickly. They have a great tool that will allow you to build your invoice,

and you'll see exactly how your client's gonna see it. Once you've sent the invoice to them through FreshBooks, you'll be able to track it. You can see when they've opened it, you can see when they've printed it, and you can see when it all gets paid. It puts an end to the guessing games because you will know all of that information right there.

And you can even automate late payment email reminders. So you will do less work and spend less time chasing stuff and more time doing whatever it is that you should be doing or whatever it is you want to be doing. If you're listening to this show and not yet using FreshBooks, I want you to give it a go. They are offering a 30-day free trial to listeners of this show with no credit card required. Just go to freshbooks.com slash upgrade and enter upgrade in the how you heard about us section to get your hands on that 30-day free trial. That's freshbooks.com slash upgrade. Our thanks to FreshBooks for their support of this show and RelayFM. So, Mr. Jason Snell, it is time for some hashtag AskUpgrade questions.

And our first question comes from Stephen. Stephen wants to know, Jason, are you still using your Intel NUC Hackintosh? No. So for those who have not heard this story, it was doing something very strange. The Intel NUC that I had set up as a Mac mini replacement for my Mac mini server that was, as I mentioned earlier, occasionally locking itself up. And the problem with the Intel NUC Hackintosh was that occasionally it was sending out some sort of network signal that basically crashed my network, my entire home network. And literally, it would crash, the network would crash, I would unplug the ethernet cable from the back, and the whole network would start working again.

And I thought, this is bad. And I had seen this earlier, and I had done some stuff, and it fixed it. So I was like, okay, well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to update it. I'm going to update it to the latest version of Mac OS, which is a fraught thing with a Hackintosh. And I did the update and the update failed. And I did a whole bunch of stuff following all the instructions to get it to properly update and it never would. And at that point, I unplugged it and put it in a drawer and took the

old Mac mini back out, restored it from the backup that I'd been making and, uh, and put that, uh, that smart switch back on it because it's, you know, in the time that I did it every three or four weeks, there would be a day where it would just die and I'd need to power cycle it. Um, and, uh, then on day one, I bought a Mac mini or I guess I got a Mac mini review unit from Apple and was like, yes, and then immediately bought one for myself and sent that one back because they want it back.

But I now have mine and it works great. So the Hackintosh is no more. The Intel NUC is still here and I'm still kind of like toying with what else I could use it for. But right now it's just sitting in a, in a box. I feel like this is just an eventual thing with every hackintosh. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, if you can get them to work, it's fine. But like, this is why I don't recommend them. I bought it because I was

interesting, interested in exploring what a, what a little Mac mini might be like and what it costs versus what the Mac Mini was doing. And quite frankly, there was four years where nothing happened with the Mac Mini. So we were bored and it was something to talk about. But in the end, it was so much work. And once you get it up and running, like any little thing, and I don't know what was up with the Ethernet thing, but like any little thing and it all can come down in pieces which it did so you know maybe i'll just install windows on it and i don't know what would i do with that i'm not quite sure um or maybe i'll donate it or something we'll see but um right now it is uh just in a box it's a little box because it's a little computer michael has asked what are your thoughts about

the apple watch's halo effect three years in i just spent some time with a pixel 3 and the apple watch was one of the biggest things pulling me back to ios so what do you think do you think the apple watch has like a i don't know if halo effect is the right word but like a lock-in do you think that it is locking people in yes absolutely i do um As somebody who wears an Apple Watch every day and likes my Apple Watch a lot, I occasionally will have an Android phone or something that I want to try out, or even a different iPhone, like when I was reviewing the XR. And it's a little less painful with the cellular model, because if it's nowhere near

its buddy, it still gets some data. But especially before the cellular models came out, like it's, it's when I was trying out various Android phones, like a pixel, um, or before that, the Nexus five, um, yeah, like the, I was like, oh, my watch won't work. Like, I mean, it'll be on my wrist, but in those days it's like there was no cellular, so it would just not work. Now it's a little bit less bad to use something temporarily. But I think, yes, I think it is powerful. If you are really into the Apple Watch, it makes it very hard for you to even try out a phone. And, of course, if you really are considering as a regular phone user replacing your iPhone with an Android phone and you have an Apple Watch, you are replacing you are replacing your watch at that point too, right? Like you have to give them both up. You can't

just give one up. And I think for people who like the Apple Watch, it is a really powerful way to keep people in Apple's ecosystem, no doubt. I will agree that I can see how it is. I mean, I have moved away from the Apple Watch but that doesn't you know when i know that when i was wearing it it was definitely part of what kept me in the ecosystem so happily right like i was less willing to want to try something out because of this reason as well right like i would be less willing to change to try out android for a period of time because this would be one of the very one of the many difficult things right like if i want to wear my watch that's not going to work my phone anymore

i mean the biggest one for me is iMessage like that is the bigger uh lock-in of just trying to untangle the mess as well as it being more of just a general pain to get in touch with people but like trying to untangle my iphone my phone number, I should say, from iMessage. Not an easy thing to do, is my understanding. But I do understand how the Apple Watch is another thing that can keep somebody locked into the system. It makes perfect sense.

Leighton says, now that Apple Music is coming to the Echo and has already been available on Sonos. that apple music is coming to the echo and has already been available on sonos if i buy a sonos one would i then be able to play apple music via alexa or would i still be restricted in the way it is currently so i would say wait and see because we haven't we haven't even seen yet exactly how apple music is going to work on the echo right like now you i think it is assumed that it will work how spotify works or you know so you can just set it up as your default music service that's what it should do that's what everybody wants we don't know that yet and another thing is a data point for you that device device, the Sonos One, did not support Spotify for a while through the official Echo integration. It took some time for, I don't know why, but then it eventually started

working. So even if Apple Music works exactly as you would want to on Echo devices, I would wait to see if it then works on the sonos one in the same way um and again like what is apple music sonos integration then because i know that exists so does it not work with the sonos one i don't understand do you know um so sonos one will sonos plays apple music right but you can't control it via the voice assistant oh okay so the hope would be that if you use apple music via the alexa integration with the sonos that's too many levels yeah i think my my gut feeling is that it won't work. Because what Sonos is doing is they've got Apple Music over here and they've got Alexa over here. And they don't meet. Now, it would be great if they did.

And maybe they will. But I wouldn't bet on it for certain. And given, as you said, what we don't know about the Echo integration and how it's you know even if it does come to sonos one is it going to come right away probably not and if it does when will it come and we just don't know so i i wouldn't make any any bets about it i think we're all going to have to wait and see i was thinking how um and this will also probably not be the case it's like uh echo uh echoes support the um you know multi-room stuff and control of other devices. And that's a place where I'm sure this is not going to cross over at all, right? Because what I'd really like

is for my Echo to be able to see my other devices on my network and be able to play that Apple music on them too, like on HomePods, or on a Sonos. And that's not going to happen because then you start to get into HomeKit versus the Amazon IoT ecosystem and it all kind of comes apart. So I think this being, it's more likely that this is a single thing that may eventually lead to a little bit more around it, but I don't think it's going to be a groundbreaking, like, complete the wall comes down kind of thing at all. So I would wait about the Sonos One

because I bet you it's not going to work the way you want it to. Rajiv asks, do you know of any way to mute Siri's responses when using the Ohai Telephone command? If I'm using it on my HomePod for Home kit stuff i

prefer that siri just performs the command silently without any feedback this is one of those times where i feel like i know the answer to this but i hope that there is a way that nobody knows about except one upgradian that knows and can tell me and help me you know because so on on uh your phone you can say i want no responses or minimal responses for siri um and yes i would love it if there is a command so you could say ahoy home pod don't talk quit your jibber jabber you know but i don't think there is so um and it's not in the settings either because i checked the home pod settings and it's not in the settings either because I checked the HomePod settings and it's not in there. You can't go into the HomePod settings

and say minimal response or whatever. Just, you can't. Yeah, I, again, I know this is the case, but I really want someone to go, oh, if you just do this, that. Yeah, I know. Because I love, I would love to be able to say, ahoy HomePod, turn on the dehumidifier

and have it not go, okay. See, I wish it only just said okay. It's just like, setting your scene now. Your dehumidifier is now on. Did I tell you recently it went to me, voila, like that. Not voila, voila, your scene is set. Viola, everybody.ish accent siri don't give me french words no right like don't we're all good here voila voila

yeah yeah yeah so uh where is this minimal responses thing for siri on the iphone there's settings there's like voice feedback and and there you got a few options there that are like oh yeah always control with ring switch hands-free only yeah so you can tell it basically don't talk to me unless i'm hands-free that's really cool which is not the same as don't ever talk to me but it is better than better than nothing brian asks if you're giving a games console as a gift what is the socially appropriate number of games to give with it if any now i want to get your opinion on this as a parent um i and i this may have been a

originally for a for syracuse a question but well, this is the thing. I know it was, but I took umbrage to that because I like video games. Yeah, I know. I know you do. So for me, I mean, first off, you've got to really like somebody to give them a game console as a gift. So it's going to be a partner or child,

probably, in your life. I would say, for me, I think you should get I think the game console that you give should be playable so if it does not come with a game you should get a game because there is nothing worse than the

empty box under the Christmas tree we got you a thing that doesn't do anything until you buy more things is not what you did if you give no gift you bought somebody an obligation exactly right exactly right now and and what's what blows me away is that a lot of consoles don't come with games now or all consoles don't come with games now they all come with no games that was a standard for for so long

like you bought a wii you got wii sports right? You bought an Atari back when I was a kid and you got like combat. It was dumb. It was a dumb game, but it was a game that played on the box. And now this latest generation of consoles, unless you buy a fancy like special edition, you don't get a game.

And that was my frustration with the Switch, for example, was like, come on, just put something on the memory card that's in there just put something in there that's playable they're like nope you just gotta buy them you can download them and i get it like uh you know they they've got online app stores too so you can just go in there and log in and get your stuff and whatever but so i would say you need to make it playable so when we got julian the switch i bought um mario kart and had it with it so we

could we could have it with mario kart and so out of the box he was able to play a game and then he could get more and i will add to this that like if you're buying a console like an xbox or a playstation like a big heavy console and you're buying a game open it yourself and get it set up before christmas morning so when it is opened it can be played without having to wait for 20 hours for all of the game updates and all of the like so for example if you're buying like a playstation with red dead redemption for someone this christmas even if you're buying like a PlayStation with Red Dead Redemption for someone this Christmas, even if you buy the disc, you have to wait for multiple hours for the game to install onto the PlayStation. So do all of that, get it ready, and then give it as the gift.

That would be my next level for you there, and you'll be very happy. And finally today, Amr asks, does Mike use a Pop pop socket with his smaller ipad or has he considered it so no i use a pop socket my phone and i like it i now use a pop socket on my kindle which gray came up with on the most recent episode of cortex and it's amazing because i got the kindle oasis um to read some books for cortex and it's still like i said this in the episode like it's still it was very light still just a little bit heavier than i would want or like a little bit bigger than i would want right and uh but now a pop socket like it's very it's mess like super super easy to hold with just one hand so love that but no i haven't thought about putting it on my smaller ipad for a bunch of reasons one a pop socket on an ipad feels more

disruptive to me because it's a device that i will more frequently lay on a flat surface i would not like to use the keyboard like to put it on the case because sometimes i flip the keys around and then it wouldn't be flat um and also as well with how i hold my devices a pop socket is less required like i don't ever hold my ipads in one hand like that for like extended periods of time and that's why i do it right like it's so i have a better grip on my iphone the The devices are just held differently. So it's a different equation for me with the iPads than it is with some of my other devices.

But I know people do it, and I can see why you would do it, because I actually see quite a lot of people put two on a bigger device like that, so you can hold them easily with both hands. Perfectly valid. It's just not something that I have tried, and nor do I think I will try either.

But do love popsockets, though. They're really great. Really great. If you would like to get our show notes for this week, relay.fm slash upgrade slash 223 for that. You can also find them in your podcast app of choice. I wanted to just extend a thank you, Jason, to everybody who bought Upgrade March. Oh, oh yeah thank you so much thank you like the response

to the dongle town t-shirt was amazing um thank you to everybody who did do that uh i was i i don't know about you jason but i was blown away by by how many of those we sold. So thank you so much. We don't have anything on sale right now, except for a very, very small amount of the enamel pins left. Yeah, I think so. We have just a few handfuls of those left. So they're going to stay around for a while. And then when they're gone, they're gone.

But if you do want an upgrade enamel pin, there is one there. But thank you to everybody that bought some of our merch. Thank you to FreshBooks, Lunar Display and Hobbsy for their support of this episode, don't forget that we're going to be doing Mike at the Movies

next week of Miracle on 34th Street, so if you want to watch along you can, you can find Jason online, he is on Twitter, he is at jsnl, J-S-N-E-L-L and you can find Jason's work at sixcolors.com, theincomparable.com,

and right here on RelayFM. I host many shows here at RelayFM as well, and you can find me on Instagram. I'm imyke, I-M-Y-K-E. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, John Syracuse.

No, that's... Okay. Wait. Hang on a second. So, every week, are you saying goodbye to last week's Mike or this week's Mike? How does that look? That's a good question. I'm not sure.