Upgrade - 237: New iMacs, iPads, and the 2019 March Event Draft

Episode Date: March 19, 2019

After nearly two years, Apple has released new iMacs, and Jason has an exclusive interview with Apple’s iMac product manager, Colleen Novielli. We also discuss the surprising new iPad Air and iPad mini announcements, and then it’s time for another Upgrade draft, as we make our choices for what will be on stage at Apple’s services event next Monday!

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 237 today's show is brought to you by lunar display squarespace and green chef and oh boy do we have a big super special episode for you today my name is mike hurley and i am joined by mr jason snell hello jason snell hey mike hurley um i think apple has woken from its um post christmas slumber it's out of the apple is out of hibernation uh jason we have a huge show today so my hashtag snell talk question comes from me and it's to you. What is happening on today's episode? Lots of things are happening on today's episode, Mike. There's a draft that'll happen later.

Because we have an event next week. Next week, Monday, I will be there. Steve Jobs Theater Services. We're doing a draft. And because it's a different kind of event we have planned a different kind of draft haven't we it's going to be the experimental upgrade draft but what do we have before that well i'm glad you asked before that we have something fun we have an interview we do which is not the first time we've done interviews here on the show we did i did those interviews um

a while ago uh from the masters of automation event and we've had a few guests and all that this is this one's a little different i got a chance to sit down with colleen novielli who you may not have heard of but you probably will again in the future she is the imac product manager and we have new imacs to talk about because after a little bit less than two years, the iMacs have gotten refreshed. And I got a chance to sit down with Colleen, who basically her job is to live, breathe, eat, drink iMac. And talk a little bit about her and her background coming to Apple and how that informs what she's doing with these new iMacs. And we have some processor specs and stuff in there too. A good conversation with somebody,

a new voice, honestly, a new voice from Apple. And I love that Apple is doing these podcast interviews now and bringing some of their people out to be seen and heard. I think it's good. I think it's good for everybody to have some perspective about Apple as a company that's made up of lots of people who work really hard on these products. And we can criticize them, and we do. But I think it is also really great to hear from the people who this is their career, is caring about these products that get released. And Colleen definitely is one of those people. Yeah, this is really exciting for us, of course.

And yeah, we think that you're going to love it too. And of course, that is also noting something you may not know, dear Upgradian, that there not only was iPads yesterday, there's new iMacs today because we have released this kind of on an embargo from Apple. So Jason has details and we're going to talk about those. Right. So news breaking is, yes, there are new iMacs. If you haven't heard that already, let us break that news.

New iMacs after a little less than two years with new processors. And there's even some ninth generation Intel processors in there, which is kind of interesting. And yeah, so the Apple's refreshing a lot of product lines, Mike. This week, even, just a lot of refreshing going on. But I can't even believe this is a follow-up item that we're just like breezing past. But it is WWDC announced June 3rd to 7th in San Jose. It is happening. I guess we all knew it was going to happen, but that is pretty much all we have to say about it today,

because we have many, many more things to cover. And so I guess we should probably just jump straight into the interview, Jason. Do you think that sounds good? Yeah, that sounds great. Here then, dear listeners, is that interview. Okay, I'm here with Colleen Novielli, who is the iMac product manager. You have new iMacs. Congratulations. We do. And thank you very much. We're very excited. Thank you for coming on the show. I wanted to ask, so I don't know if we've met before, and I don't know if people know you, but you are the iMac product manager, which is a pretty big responsibility. Do you have a Mac story? How long have you been using Macs? I do.

My Mac story starts in, I'll say, about 2006 or 2007. I was working in Philadelphia, and I was forced into using a PC as part of my business. And I had always heard about iMacs, Macs in particular, MacBooks, and I wanted something portable. So I decided that I was going to buy myself, save my money, buy myself one of the white polycarbonate MacBooks. I thought it was super exciting and beautiful. I actually bought it on Craigslist. It was one of my first Craigslist purchases ever. I think Craigslist is a pretty new phenomenon at the time. And so I met someone in a coffee shop. That's a classic Craigslist maneuver. Exactly. And we exchanged some cash and I found myself with one of the most beautiful

purchases I had ever made in my life. And that was my first MacBook. That's awesome. I, you know, when I bought my iMac Pro, I sold my 5k iMac on Craigslist. And yes, indeed, we went to a Starbucks. Did you? I was going to kid about that. You brought the iMac to a Starbucks with cash. That's awesome. Nope, it happens. It happens. And so your, you know, your background, you've been at Apple at five years. Almost five years. How did you come to Apple?

I came to Apple because in my previous career, I have worked in product development, research and development, and a lot of product development functions. And I decided I wanted to go back and get my MBA. So I got a master's in marketing, specializing in topics like product development. And I decided that I wanted to work for the company that I thought had the best product development in the world. I saw Apple as the ultimate focusing on the customer and customer experience and then turning that into the best products that exist. best products that exist, beautiful in form, and also absolutely wonderfully designed Mac OS and Mac hardware and function. And so I set my sights on Apple, and I was lucky enough to get an internship with the Mac team. All right. Let's hear it for that. I started as an intern, too.

Yes, that's here for interns. It's a great way in. Work really hard, treat it as an interview, and hopefully you get lucky. That's right. And then hopefully they remember you and they're like, I like that intern. That's right. And then hopefully they remember you. Is right. Yes. Have lunch with as many people as possible so that they remember your name. I didn't know we were going to have intern advice, but that's fine.

We may pivot here to advice for interns. That's right. All right. So you come to Apple. Yes. And I don't know if you know this, but the technology industry has a reputation of being kind of a boys club. Not like it used to be. I've never heard that.

There are a lot of men on stage at events. And there's a perception of that. And certainly 20 years ago when I started doing this, that was definitely the perception. And here you are, the iMac product manager, and not a member of the boys club. That's true. This is, I mean, I don't want to make this something that is a, like a defining issue or something like that. But clearly, it's something that you've had to think about, about being a woman in a increasingly visible role at a technology company that's very visible

itself. Yes, that's true. So first of all, Apple is a company that prides itself on having a lot of diversity. And there are women at Apple who are great, strong leaders. And coming to Apple, I was able to pretty immediately find some awesome women role models for me at Apple. I think that a lot of times when you talk about women in tech, you talk about women needing to help other women come along in tech, and so then there'd be more women. To me, being a woman in tech is all about finding role models and then being a role model. I think when you're younger and you're trying to figure out, you know, what can I be? You look for people who are like

you. So a really good example, I think, is that now that a woman has run for president of the United States, I think more women or more girls, if you were to walk into a classroom tomorrow, would raise their hand and say, you know, if you said, do you think you can be president? They would say, yeah, I think I could be. And eventually, when a woman does become president, I think every girl would raise their hand and say, you know, I think I can be. Because when you see someone doing something who's like you, then you're more apt to say, oh, well, I could do that. And so I think for me, I've always looked for women, you know, oh, I can be like that woman. Not that I couldn't be like a man too, but I think there's something to

finding someone who's just like you in a lot of ways. And then I strive to be that for other women, other girls, who I want to give them a role model to say, I could do that. I could be a product manager at Apple. And then more women come into the tech industry that way. I think that with my own kids, I've definitely seen that, that you don't say anything. They are so observant.

And I do think that there's, at least in some kids, that reluctance where they're like, am I allowed to do this? Am I in this space? And as adults, you might think, well, of course. But if a kid doesn't feel like they are represented, then they may just internalize, it's not for me. I'm not allowed to do that. I 100% agree with you. Yes. So iMac, obviously your life now, your job now is all about the iMac. It is. Now, so this is before your time a little bit, but I get to do that now.

Having done this for this long, I get to do this. The iMac when it came out was, it was a big deal, but it was also a, it was a consumer product. It was a low end product. It was a product that was very possible, very popular with the masses, but there were always those snooty Power Mac users who were like, you know, it's fine for some uses. And over the years, the iMac has really evolved and changed in a lot of different ways. It became, I think, the default Mac. I was one of those people who was like, well, I just buy a Power Mac. I was like,

I buy iMacs. I switched to the iMac a long time ago. Now we live in an era where we have probably more than three quarters of the Macs Apple sells are laptops. We all have iPhones. We all have iPads. So obviously, and you and I were talking before we started, we both were going to talk about this, which is the role of the iMac. Because the role of the iMac, I guess, is always shifting, but it keeps shifting. So what are the ecological niches that the iMac fills today? What's the role of an iMac in 2019? I think that that is a great question. One that I have spent a lot of time thinking about, myself and the teams at Apple. You mentioned I wasn't at Apple when the iMac was born. Lucky enough, and this is a little known fact, but my boss, Tom Boger, was actually the original iMac product manager.

And so it's amazing that I get to learn from him some of the things that were important from the original iMac and the iMac throughout its life. from the original iMac and the iMac throughout its life. The iMac has evolved quite drastically since its inception as this approachable computer to get everyone onto the internet. Throughout its life, there were several notable points that I'll point to. One thing that happened was the 16 by 9 aspect ratio. When it took on this aspect ratio, it now became the source of content, both creation and consumption for a lot of pros. And then I think along the way, it also took on the Retina 4K and 5K Retina displays, which are incredible. They're incredible for consumers, but they're

also incredible for pros who are relying on the 4K, 5K resolution, 218 pixels per inch, what we call retina quality, to really do their work, to see that color and to see that detail. That was 2014. That was a big step forward for the iMac with the retina versions of it. And so in this evolution, I think it has evolved into a product that really spans the widest breadth of consumer to pro in the Mac lineup. You have very, very entry-level consumers. You have people who are very new to Mac. And then at the other end of the spectrum, you have some serious pros using this every day as their lifeblood. And this is what they rely on day in and day out to get their work done.

Right. That base model, which hasn't changed, we should say. Yes, that's correct. That base model still is the one that was there before. But that is, that model exists to point to people who are, who don't need a lot in terms of, of the highest of high tech, but they want to have that computer that they can afford to have that

computer. That's got it all in one. They don't have to hook up a monitor or something like that. It's just that. And then it goes up from there to almost now with these new models, almost at iMac Pro territory. So it's covering a lot of ground. It is covering a lot of ground, yes. It's a product that really spans many, many customer use cases. And the way within both of those product categories, so consumer and pro,

the customers are using the product has also evolved quite significantly. As when the first iMac was introduced, it was really your central computing unit, your central desktop unit. Now, a lot of people, as you mentioned, are doing their compute in a mobile space, right? They have iPhones and they have iPads. Sometimes they have both. They have MacBooks that they want to take with them in a portable fashion. And then they have iMac, books that they want to take with them in a portable fashion. And then they have iMac, which has become in a lot of ways to some people a complimentary or ecosystem product that they're using alongside of those other devices. So the tables have turned a little bit where it used to be sort of like the home computer was the center. And I think the digital hub, Steve Jobs unveiled was part of that. And then there was that moment where it said, oh, it's actually everywhere.

The iMac is kind of like that too, where when you're talking about in a home, now what we think of is this is the device that we park somewhere in the home and that everybody can use when they need a bigger screen or more power or just a different context. It's not the only place to go. Now it's a place for everyone to go when they need it. Yes, that is absolutely correct. And I'll talk just a little bit about the different ways that people are using it in the home. So I think that everyone is familiar with the home office setup where you have your

iMac and you're using your iMac either to run your business from your home or really that kind of central productivity device for your family. You're probably doing safari. You're looking for news. You're looking device for your family. You're probably doing safari. You're looking for news. You're looking and checking your email. At the same time, you're looking at your family calendar, and you're multitasking between a lot of consumer productivity applications. And then it has evolved in this way that I think is really beautiful for the family,

and that is as a shared desktop space. And sometimes that space is outside of a home office, for example, in more of a family room where it can be more of a communal kind of more fluid type of product using conjunction with your other devices. You sit your kid down at the computer, do their homework. But then in another context, the parents are using it for something. And then in a different context, maybe you're playing a movie on the big screen, especially on the 27-inch model. And it's a, like you said, ecosystem earlier. I think that's really interesting that it's part of your larger story instead of being just the story. It's just

part of a bigger story. That's absolutely right. One thing that's really benefiting these types of customer scenarios is continuity. And so continuity is an amazingly seamless way to move whatever you're doing from your iOS device to your Mac and vice versa. And so I'll just give you a couple examples of how that would be used in the home as a shared desktop. So picture your family and you're all sitting around in your living room and one or more family members may be on their iOS device. So they have their iPhone or they have their iPad. And maybe someone gets a text message from a friend and it has a link to a website.

And so they pull it up on their phone. And it's great to use websites on the big, beautiful phones of our iPhones and iPads. But sometimes it would be nice to walk up to a 27-inch iMac and use Continuity to pull up that same website and look at it full screen. Look, I love my iPad Pro, but I definitely have those moments where I say, I'm just going to go to the iMac now. Absolutely. I just, it's right, because it's the right context. And if I want to use Continuity stuff, it will actually, my dock will pop up and say, here. Exactly. That's what you were looking for.

Right. And so in that sense, it's really a bigger, it's very beautiful display that you're using. And you're able to continue all of the things that you're doing on your other devices. But it also has the processing power of a desktop computer. And so you're able to do basic things like pull up Safari and messages. But then also when you do want to do productivity or even pro tasks, you can use that shared desktop in that space as well. All right. So we talked about kind of a consumer and family concept. And then you mentioned pro there. That is the other part of the story with these iMacs. It's been the story and now it's even more so that at the top end, there's this. so that at the top end, there's this, I cannot tell you how many people I know personally who have said, I can't decide between the high-end iMac or the iMac Pro because there's a gap there

and there's sort of this question of like, do I want the spec'd up iMac or the base model iMac Pro? And I feel like with the changes that you're making with these 2019 versions of the iMac, that it may be a little bit clearer because some of that gap can go away. And so you can, it's maybe a little bit more easier to pick your spot in the iMac line now. Yeah, I think that the way that you're thinking about it is exactly right. We do think of iMac as a family, both iMac and iMac Pro. And we think that it suits an entire range of customers from your base level consumers, like I said before, all the way up to your serious pro with an iMac. And then iMac Pro takes it to a new level for workstation class performance.

With the new updates, now you're able to go all the way up to an eight core processor with iMac, 27 inch iMac. And you're also able to configure all the way up to a Radian Pro Vega graphics option with 48 compute units. And we do think that that will serve the needs of many Pro customers who want to use the 27-inch iMac and want to configure up to an 8-core processor and up to Radian Pro graphics, Vega graphics. But we then have iMac Pro, and iMac Pro starts with a ZN processor at eight cores. It starts with 32 gigs of memory. It starts with a one terabyte SSD. You have your four Thunderbolt ports, and you have 10 gigabit ethernet. And so we think that

there's a distinction there for the customers who want to kind of start at that level, configure a workstation class, workhorse performance iMac and configure up from there. Right. So it makes sense that there are people who might have chosen the base model iMac Pro. And, you know, I think people go through this, have gone through this in the last year, but now there's a little more space for them to pick their spot and not necessarily need to go to the iMac Pro if they don't need to, because there's a lot of fundamental power

that can get built into those higher-end configure-to-order versions of the 27-inch, the 5K iMac. Yes, I think that there's an iMac now that will fit that whole spectrum of pro needs. Well, we should talk about computer things. Yes. I suppose. We shall. Since we're talking about this. Sure. The previous iMacs were from 2017, I believe. Yes, that's right. June of 2017. All right. So it's been not quite two years. Yep. And one of the things that struck me about the new specs in these models is that those were sixth generation Intel. Is that right?

Those were seventh generation. Those were seventh generation. Yes. The new ones are eighth and in some cases ninth generation. That is correct. Depending on what you buy, you may actually leapfrog a generation. That's true. In these systems.

So tell me about the ninth generation Intel. You've got these cores. I'm getting very excited about cores here. We should step back. Yes, okay. Every 5K iMac has at least six cores. That's correct. So that's very exciting.

That's a good start. Across the line. It's a great start. And then if you say, well, that's not enough, you have an eight core i9 option. That's absolutely correct. And that's the ninth generation yes as well yes so um i'll clarify a bit so on the 27 inch imac we are going to have um across the three base configurations that are available and will be available um today we have two eighth generation

six core parts on two of the configurations and then on the highest standard configuration we move to ninth generation. Ninth generation is also our eight core CTO or configure to order part as well. And that's the i9 part. And Intel just recently in the fall announced their ninth generation of processors. And so we are using the two processor parts that were available and were a right fit

for the iMac family at the time. And then the remaining configurations have the latest eighth generation processors. Right, which is still an improvement. Awesome upgrade, six cores across the line for the 27-inch iMac. Awesome performance. Over the iMacs that were current as of yesterday. Correct. But you did take these two. So it's in the good, better, best of the 5K. The best is going to be that ninth generation processor. Yes, ninth generation six core.

And then you can configure that i9 if you want the bestest of the best above that. That's absolutely correct. That's pretty cool. Now on the 4K version, what are you doing there? On the 4K version, so again, we have the 1099 configuration that is not being updated tomorrow. The updates are today. The updates will be for the 1299 configuration and above, so our Retina 4K models. The 1299 has a quad-core processor today. It will continue to have a quad-core 8th generation processor. And then the 1499 base configuration will have a six core eighth generation processor. And the configure to order option is also an eighth generation six core i7. So now with hyper threading processor. So I like this because one of the things that always struck

me, because I do work at an iMac every day, is that is a big screen in my face. And I've come to like it. I've come to use it. But sometimes I think, do I need 27 inches? And the answer is, well, no, maybe I don't. But I need the power. And in the end, I bought an iMac Pro. So of course, that was my decision. But one of the things that I like in seeing

what happened to the 21.5 inch is it's got more power. It's got more capability. It is not, you know, you can configure it up to something that is pretty dramatic, including a Vega GPU. That's right. Yes. So we don't like to say that the 21.5 inch is for consumers and the 27 inch is for pros.

Surely many pros use the 27 inch configurations because they want the biggest, most beautiful, largest profile to work and do all of their professional editing. But the 21.5 inch iMac also has a lot of pro customers. If you think about it, there are many situations where there are space constraints, both here in the US, but also internationally. A lot of times you don't have both here in the US, but also internationally. A lot of times you don't have space constraints in the home or in the business. And so we want to provide those customers the opportunity to take advantage of the new processing power and graphics power too.

I want to talk storage with you. Okay. And this is so, okay. So the iMac Pro got this redesign where it's SSD only. got this redesign where it's SSD only. And the Mac mini got a redesign where it's SSD only, just the flash storage. It's using that space in both models actually for ventilation.

That's right. That hasn't happened on the iMac, at least yet. So you still have sort of the spinning disc option and the fusion drive option. And then the SSD option. Is that philosophy about making sure you can balance price with performance? Because spinning discs, they're not great. They're slow. They're not reliable. SSDs are so great. But I look at the prices of these iMacs and I think, well, if you kick out spinning disks,

they're all going to get way more expensive. Is that really the story here about why the iMac needs to have that, cover that spectrum? Yeah, I think, you know, I'll think about it just a little bit differently, similar to what you were just saying. When you think about where you really need all flash storage, you really need it in a notebook, right? You want to keep your notebooks as thin and light as possible. Spinning drive technology is probably not something in 2019 that you want to be carting around with you from a mobile perspective. And, you know, from an iMac Pro perspective,

here we're talking about serious pros who are running through terabytes of data in their daily workflow. And for them, having all flash storage is super important. When you think about the iMac line, we want to provide a range of storage for customers at all different kinds of price points that are affordable to customers. And you can pick based on what your workflow is and what you need. So the great thing about our Fusion Drive technology is it partners Superfast SSD, which for most customers will keep all the applications and things they do on a regular basis there and have that be super snappy performance for them. And it also gives them the capacity of a hard drive, which for some SSD technologies is not necessarily the most affordable option. And so Fusion Drive is giving you the best of both worlds. It's giving you the SSD and it's also allowing you across

the iMac line to have a terabyte or more of storage. And up on the 27-inch line, we actually give a two terabyte Fusion Drive as a standard configuration for some of those pros. So yeah, I'm definitely not trying to get you to say well yes this is uh this is our decision i just think it's it's obvious this is the way apple's going with all the other products and the imac can't quite get there yet i i would imagine that related to that is the fact that you've updated all these models and they all keep their price points they're not they're they didn't get a price increase or anything like that the slots the old slots for the prices of good better and best are the same that's right they are so that's i i guess that's part of the story

too is that ultimately we would all like to spend money on a terabyte flash drive but that i i know what those costs are it's going to make it a much more expensive product and and so that's why we have fusion drive i suppose um i love that we were able to provide processors with six cores and give really awesome performance updates at the same price points across the line. And then from a storage perspective, we really love the fact that we're able to give such a variety of storage for the really, really broad range of customers we talked about at the beginning, and then they can choose which right for them. So what is the most interesting thing about these new iMacs that we haven't talked about? What have we not? We've talked about chips a lot. We've talked about where

they live in the family. Is there something else that you think people should know about these that we haven't talked about? Yes. I think one of the most interesting things is the way that iMacs are a critical part of the design of homes, but also businesses large and small throughout the world. And the anecdote I'll say there is I like to travel a lot. I travel a lot for work and also like to travel in my free time as a hobby. And it's probably because I'm the iMac product manager, but I notice iMacs everywhere. And so within the last year or two, I have been to Vietnam and Singapore and Hong Kong. I've been to New Zealand. I've been to many places in Europe.

And wherever I go, there are iMacs in storefronts in businesses everywhere. They're in salons, and they're in real estate agencies, and they're in fitness studios. They're in hotels. I saw a few in an airport a few months ago. And it really speaks to the way that customers are proud of putting iMac in their space. If you think about a small business owner who has spent months designing their new space, they've designed the flooring and they've designed the wallpaper or paint and the artwork and the furniture. And then it gets down to picking a desktop that they want at their check-in. A big plastic box, a lot of cables, that'll look great. No, that doesn't fit in with the whole design aesthetic, right? And so they want something that can be really proud of and also helps to elevate that

design. And you are seeing that everywhere. So it's not just in the home, it's for businesses of all sizes. And I just, I really love the fact that all customers that use iMac love them and are so proud of them to display them like that. So how do you find interesting ways that people use iMacs? Because you've obviously talked about it here a lot. Different places, we said it's not, you know, it's always changing what it's for and it's got these niches that it's in now. Where do you get your,

other than traveling and seeing them everywhere, do you, are you on like social media looking at people who were saying, check out my iMac and things like that? I am. I am. I absolutely am. I think someone fed you that question because everyone I work with at Apple knows me as going out to social media all the time and looking at my product and seeing what it's doing and then coming back and- Well, those are the real uses of your product, right? That's absolutely right. So I think historically, research of a product has been clearly going into

the store and trying to see what customers are asking for. There's quantitative and qualitative research that research companies do trying to ask customers how they're using it. I think today, a really real way to get feedback right away is just to go to social media. So I do this all the time for iMac. I go to Instagram or Twitter, I go to Facebook, and I type in hashtag iMac. And I usually only pull posts from the last 48 hours between when I'm looking, 48 hours since. And at any given time, posts come up from all over the world. So Instagram, for example, there was one day where I pulled posts. This was about six months ago before I was doing an internal presentation on the IMAC. And I pulled posts down from New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Moscow, two places in

Europe, and the United States. That was all within 48 hours. And I took the text that was said on the Instagram post, and I translated it because I don't speak all of those languages. And they were all saying the same thing in a sense. They were saying, hey, look at my newly designed office. Hey, look at my newly designed family room. Look, I just bought an iMac. Hey, friends, look at me in the store making this purchase of an iMac that I'm so proud of. There were a couple of parents with their kids next to the iMac, you know, hugging the iMac box. And I'm so proud to get my iMac. And to me, it's a really special thing. I think if you think in generalities,

how many people are posting about a desktop, and how proud that makes them and how it elevates their space. I think the iMac is very unique in that sense. And it makes me very proud about how much customers love them. Do you pass that on? Is that actionable intel in terms of where you go next with the iMac, seeing how people are using your product? Is that the most important thing to keep in mind, that customer? Definitely. I think that being in touch with the customer and their needs and what they're doing is one of the most important things.

I think product development goes beyond that. And I think Steve certainly had this vision. You don't ask customers what they want. You listen to their intrinsic needs. What are they saying that they want, but what are they not saying that they want? What is it they really want to do? Maybe things that they don't know that they want to do yet, but you kind of undercover that intrinsic need that they have, and then base your product development off of those types of things. So I guess, totally understand that, that it's the faster horse thing, right? Like,

people didn't say they wanted a car, they said they wanted a faster horse. And so you have to see what their needs are. Surely, you see some of these things, and you're surprised, like, wow, that is not like, I would imagine, because people because people are very clever and they you make a product and say, well, here is our product and we think it'll be used this way. Yeah. And I would imagine every now and then you say to yourself, oh, I had no idea that people were using that product that way. Yeah.

Like when you see a woman picture of a woman using one on a train, that's a couple in coffee shops. Those are the ones that are technically it's an all in one kind of portable. Yes. The 27 inch, please. But that's that's right. To me, I think one of the more interesting uses now that is popping up is with kids. So we all know that students are learning to use iPads and Macs at a very young age.

They're using them in school. They're using them as part of their classroom assignments, and then they're using them for their homework assignments. And so a lot of kids are coming home, and they want to continue to use iOS and macOS devices because it's what they're used to from school. And so they're using iMacs to do homework. And in a shared family space, the mom and dad can review their homework, monitor their homework. It's very easy for them to use. And then further to that, kids are starting to use pro applications today. They're starting to code and to use applications that go along with coding like Xcode. They're learning the Swift language and they're using

for that everyone can code curriculum. So you got your Swift playgrounds on your iPad and then you come home and you're like, hmm, maybe I can build an app now. It is. I mean, that's absolutely right. Kids are coding and they're using Xcode on the Mac. And for iMac in particular, it's a big, beautiful screen that they can use to do not only their keynote

and pages homework that they have to complete, but then they can use Xcode and they can build an app. And I think that's awesome. So I'm not going to ask you the question that everybody wants me to ask you, which is, which is, you know, about the future, because the future is known to nobody, especially Apple, people speaking publicly. But I hope that, that there, you know, will be more iMac and iMac Pro news in the future. But this has been a lot of fun.

I know that a lot of people out there have been anxiously awaiting. You know how it works. Everybody's excited. The new iMac comes out and then time passes on. And then everybody's like, where's the new iMac again? Yes, and here it is. And here it is. So I'm glad that it's finally here.

Yes. And it looks great. And I want to thank you for being on the podcast too, because I know this. And it looks great. And I want to thank you for being on the podcast, too, because I know this is a new thing for you. I want to thank you for having me. This has been wonderful. It's been great to talk about this stuff. And I'm just going to say it again. Colleen Novielli is the iMac product manager. Thank you so much for being here. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Jason. This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Green Chef. Green Chef is a meal delivery service that includes everything that you're going to need to cook delicious gourmet meals that you

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had actually a variation on something that we we make ourselves which is a sweet potato enchilada which is really nice that we do a sweet potato quesadilla and sweet potato as a uh filling in mexican stuff is actually pretty great and that had uh you know corn and um monterey jack cheese and that was really good too so yeah it's all good stuff i want to make that so i'm gonna be stealing those recipes for 50 off your first box of green chef, go to green chef.us slash upgrade. That is green chef.us slash upgrade for $50 off your first box of green chef. Our thanks to green chef for their support of this show and relay FM.

Well, Mike, there is our, uh, there was our first, surely the first of many, um, interviews with,

uh, with, uh, somebody who works at Apple on the products that we talk about all the time. Yeah, I'm really excited about this. I think, you know, there must be so many wonderful people at Apple, like Colleen, who know what they're talking about and have things to say. And I really do hope that this is the start of them doing more and more of this. Like, we have people that want

to know about this stuff yeah i think it benefits them because it's so easy apple's so huge it's so easy to think of them as this model monolithic entity and in fact you know it is it's just people who care about their jobs and care about the products they make and use the products i the truth is i have never met more committed, rabid fans of the Mac than people I know at Apple. Oh, I bet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody cares more about the Mac than the people that work on it, right? Like that just makes sense. Yeah. And that's the funny thing is that the world tends to focus on the iPhone and thead and maybe the apple watch and all of that but the fact is um the imac is a big deal i like it's it's easy to lose uh kind of like lose the plot

about like the scale of apple it's so it's such a huge company but you know even with desktop only being a fraction of the mac market the The iMac is, you know, it's probably like billions of dollars of business for Apple to do the iMac. It is, again, it's like in those analyst calls where they say, this is the size of a Fortune 200 company. This is the size of a,

it's like they say that because we've all lost complete scale about how Apple operates. And the iMac, like we think of it as like, oh, it's a Mac, it's a desktop Mac. It's like, no, it's super important. As Colleen was saying, it fills all of these different ecological niches, which I think is, if you think about the history of the iMac, it has changed so much from version to version, not just physically, but like who uses it, the definition of what it is,

it continues to shift, but it's undeniably an important product and it is very nice that um at least uh for occasionally it gets its moment in the sun to shine a little bit well all right let me i want to ask you actually i want to see what you think about this who is the iMac for today i've been trying to kind of think about like looking at the current mac lineup you've got the imac pro right at the very top end which is not even going to be at the very top end by the end of this year right because the mac pro is going to fill that space so then that's going to bring the imac you know whatever they do with the imac pro we assume it will stay around i mean i reckon it will stay around because that was the product Apple actually wanted to make, right? And they were kind of persuaded into or forced,

depending on how you look at it, into making the Mac Pro. So the iMac Pro, I reckon, is going to stick around. And maybe they will adjust the pricing on it. We'll see. And then you have all of the laptop line, which is the most popular of the Mac line in general anyway. That's what most people buy. Then you have the Mac Mini, which is the most popular of the Mac line in general anyway, that's what most people buy. Then you have the Mac Mini, which is kind of, really, I feel like between the Mac Mini

and the iMac Pro, that space has been squeezed. And I'm not sure who the iMac is for today. So what do you think? Well, I mean, Colleen delineated in our interview and also outside the interview, there were So what do you think? you want to do is put a an ugly computer in the middle of your newly redesigned office so you you put an iMac there because it's pretty so it's got it's got that and it's got the the shared home Mac she talked about and kids using it and I think that's a scenario that they see obviously she is scouring social media looking for uh uses of the iMac uh including odd oddball uses of the iMac when it's riding on a train somewhere.

And then the other thing we talked about, and it's funny because I was going to ask her and she brought it up too, which is the gap, the iMac Pro gap, and how these new models at the high end, it actually, in a strange way, I think it maybe is freeing for the iMac Pro because it's a lot, if what you want is a certain level of performance, you can get there without going to the iMac Pro because it's a lot, if what you want is a certain level of performance, you can get there

without going to the iMac Pro with some of the details of these new processors. Now, you don't get the cooling system of the iMac Pro, but you can build a pretty dramatically powerful Pro product now on the 27-inch iMac. And the fact that the 21.5-inch iMac now has a six-core build-to-order, like, this is good. They are, I think the way I would put it is it's the flexibility Mac in some ways now. It comes with a monitor. Like, the Mac Mini is super flexible, but the iMac is kind of in a similar boat. The role of a desktop system these days is to be versatile and fill a lot of little niches because we don't live in an era where everybody has to have their own desktop computer. That's a different thing. And I think it's really telling what she said. She used the word ecosystem. And if you didn't catch that, that's a person who's in charge of the iMac saying the iMac fills a role in a larger ecosystem.

It used to be like the computer, but now it's part of a larger picture. It's a device you use in certain contexts. And I think that's really interesting. Are you surprised they didn't do anything to the iMac Pro along with these iMac bumps? Like, you know, considering how close now in processor and in graphics, the iMac at the top end is getting to the iMac Pro. To be fair, to the bottom end of the iMac Pro, right? Yeah, to the bottom.

I think that's part of the thing here is that when I say it frees the iMac Pro, it's like because the iMac Pro starts at $5,000, but it goes, you know, way higher than that. I feel like they, you know, Apple has shown in the last few years that they don't want to turn over every product every time, right? Like all at once,

like the Macs get turned over in, in, in pieces. And I would imagine there will be a Mac, an iMac pro update at some point. Maybe it will even come along with a Mac pro. Maybe not. It probably has

something to do with whatever uh intel xeon processor generation they're waiting for but um i do think they will do it because like you said it's kind of the original vision of the future of the mac and as an iMac pro user and i know steven feels this way too like it has some very specific advantages the cooling thing is a huge thing touch on that a little bit more actually because that's important when you're thinking about especially some of the power you can put inside of the regular imac now like why is like the fan and why that's important yeah because if you're a pro user and you are um you've built to order the most awesome imac ever um know, it's going to heat up and those fans are going to blow. And it's got the iMac ventilation system, which is kind of loud. And in some jobs,

it doesn't matter if you're a podcaster like us, if you're doing audio or something like that, it can be really annoying to have the loud fans and the iMac Pro doesn't do that. And, you know, that is, it's designed to, for a a thermal envelope that's like way up above where the base model and even the first couple of models will will touch on it and so like steven's example is he bought a regular imac and the fans blew too much and um so he he got rid of it and replaced it with an imac pro because it's got that newer cooling system. And I still suspect that the iMac is going to that approach. But as Colleen pointed out, you know, we were talking about it, I said good, better and best for iMacs. And they, you know, they don't like, Apple doesn't like to

talk about good, better, best, but because they're all good, they're all best. But there is this truth in that, that these are computers that are flexible, but at the high end, you're going to be pushing it to their limits. And that's just part of it. It depends on what you want to do with it. It's great that it's so powerful, but there's still a role, I guess I would say, for the iMac Pro even now. Because it has characteristics that go beyond what the iMac can have but it's still great like not everybody needs that and and that's that's uh what she pointed out like not everybody really needs an iMac pro it's a five thousand dollar computer it's a workstation

it it it's not there are a lot of people who are doing pro level tasks and the iMac has plenty of power uh to provide now that it's been updated. So like this iMac today has thrown a wrinkle in my personal plans because I never felt the requirement for an iMac Pro. It's way more than I need from a machine. But I was thinking that, you know, maybe I would get one if the Mac Pro isn't what I wanted. So like I'm thinking that, you know, um, maybe I would get one, uh, if the Mac pro

isn't what I wanted. So like, I'm thinking about like my next computer, I'm running a 2015 5k iMac still, um, for my main production machine. And I was thinking, you know, I'm due an update probably within the next year or two, um, just to try and keep, keep things relatively cutting edge, you know? And I was thinking, oh, I'll wait for the Mac Pro and see what that's all about because I do like the idea of maybe buying this Mac Pro

and then just making component updates to it over the next 10 or 15 years, right? Like going the real Syracuse approach, assuming that that is a possibility, right? We still don't have any real idea what modular means for Apple when it comes to the Mac Pro. approach, assuming that that is a possibility, right? We still don't have any real idea what modular means for Apple when it comes to the Mac Pro. But I thought if the Mac Pro was too expensive or not what I wanted, then my next machine would be an iMac Pro. But now looking at the specs in

these machines, I don't think I need to go to that level. I think I could make a relatively, like spec out a relatively top of the line iMac and get way more than I need, considering I don't feel like I'm pushing my 2015 iMac. Right. So, yeah, I think I think there's some validity there. And I think that is part of what Apple is trying to do is is, you know, the iMac has a tough job. It really does. The fact that they haven't touched that bottom of the line model, I mean, it's there so that they can have

a cheap non-retina iMac. It's the same reason the MacBook Air is still there, is that there's a price point that they want to hit and they want to have a Mac available there. And this is what it's going to be. But the fact that it goes from there all the way up, you've got all those six core processors, then you can build to order above that. And with the Vega graphics, it will take you almost as far as you want to go.

And then you need to get an iMac Pro. So it depends on the deal. Depending on how you push it, it may blow those fans and you may not like that. But I don't know the characteristics of these Intel processors. They may also be better thermally because they're a newer generation or they may run hotter because they are that much faster. And it's all down to kind of the thermal regulation that Apple builds in. And I didn't get a chance to, you know, to walk away with a 27 inchinch iMac. That didn't happen. I realize now I probably have a bit of a soft spot for the iMac as I have been using one for 13 years.

Yeah, see? Yeah, this goes back to the fact that it is kind of the unsung hero, that it's a Mac, which is a tiny part of Apple's overall product line and not one of the ones that is generally spotlighted. And then even within that, it's a Mac, which is a tiny part of Apple's overall product line and not one of the ones that is generally spotlighted. And then even within that, it's a desktop Mac. So that's even less interesting. And yet, it is super important. And a lot of us, I mean, I am also an iMac user.

That is what I sit in front of every day for all my talk about the iPad Pro lifestyle. And we do have iPads to talk about too, but the computing device I use the most is probably still my iMac because I am sitting in front of it every day. In terms of time, that's the same for me too on a daily basis because the most time-intensive things that I do

are recording and editing podcasts, and every time I'm recording and editing, I'm sitting in front of my 2015 5k retina imac exactly and and have been since i bought it in 2015 late 2015 or whenever it was but before that the machine that i was sitting in front of was a previous imac so i mean i've been using these for like you for since pretty much since i started uh podcasting in general um there was a gap where i was using a mac mini but you know i've been using imax with just like a couple of year gap for that since the first uh intel imac which was my first mac so yep so yeah well i'm pleased

we spent some time looking at the iMac today but that wasn't all there was, that's all we want to talk about so I want to also just extend a thanks to Colleen and Apple for giving us that time today that's really really wonderful of them to do so thanks for that

but I want to talk about two new iPads kind of we have a new iPad Air. iPad Air brings its reintroduction back into the product line. There wasn't an iPad Air before yesterday. In the category of Apple products named Air that we didn't think we'd ever see again. Yeah, it took me about half an hour to realize the name. Yeah, right.

After it was announced. It didn't sink in to me for a while like there wasn't an ipad air and or that this thing was even called the ipad air um and it's important that distinction is important we'll get to in a minute but it's also a new ipad mini so there's i think the big big news for me is that Apple Pencil support is on both of these products. I'm super, super surprised to see that the Apple Pencil is now supported on the Mini, but I'm also really pleased to see that too. It's supported on all iPads now. It's the first generation.

And Apple Pencil is supported on all iPads now the the first generation and apple pencil is supported on on all ipads now right for so first generation apple pencil is on the ipad mini the sixth generation ipad and the ipad air and then the uh two ipad pros have the second generation pencil yep also um yeah very interesting that uh apple is bringing the you know logitech crayon into the fold too because yeah they'll all work with that too which is excellent um yeah this ipad air so the new ipad air has a 10.5 inch screen and is replacing the pro in the lineup so the 10.5 inch ipad pro is gone but that was actually more expensive right yeah it was a weird outlier and it was more expensive so they've got it in a in a cheaper price this is the classic sort of like 499 it's a it's a classic uh size but a

little bit uh a little bit larger it's going to be larger than the standard iPad and more expensive with a better processor. It's got the... A12 Bionic. Yeah, so it's the A12, which is in the iPhone XS. So it doesn't have the fancier iPad Pro one, but it's a modern processor. So you can get an iPad Mini and an iPad Air with a modern Apple processor.

And the screen, it's that nice screen. Yeah. It doesn't do ProMotion, but that's about, I think, the only thing that's really knocking it back down off of the... Because remember that 10.5 iPad Pro was the previous generation. It wasn't the styling of the new ones. It was just a holdover. Basically, a holdover until they had the iPad Air ready to go.

Yeah. The other thing is they had the ipad air ready to go yeah the the other thing uh is a but they bumped the maximum storage down so this this tops out at 256 the previous ipad pro uh went up to 512 right because again not not pro cut the price and yes of course there's the issue where there's the base price and then there's a you can you can load it up with cellular because it's got the modern fast cellular in it too and storage and then with with a gigantic um price if you want it but jason i priced up uh an ipad mini today just wanted to see so if i was going to get one i would probably want to go with cellular the maximum storage which is which is 256, with, let's just imagine, and I

would get a pencil, and then a smart cover, and it was 900 pounds. I was like, you can go there, you really can go there if you want to, but we'll come back to the iPad mini in a minute, but I just found that funny. It's like, oh you can still get an ipad mini up to nearly a thousand if you really want to go for it um i mentioned that i was super surprised to see that the ipad mini had apple pencil support i was way more surprised to see that the ipad air has a smart keyboard yeah so they um seem to have not changed the dimensions of either model, which means they have maintained compatibility. So the iPad Mini 5th generation now can use iPad Mini 4 stuff, and the 10.5 iPad Pro stuff should work fine, because they're literally using the iPad Pro smart keyboard for the 10.5 iPad Pro stuff should work fine because they're literally using the iPad Pro smart keyboard for the 10.5

on the iPad Air. It is the exact same. It's the older smart connector thing. It will use those keyboards. I had a thought of like, guys, we made a lot of these keyboards. We need to... Well, you say that. No one's happier than Bridge. Remember when you and I were like, why is Bridge making a 10.5 iPad keyboard?

And that looks like a better decision now because I think it'll work just fine with the iPad Air. Because I believe they are literally the same size and shape because um all the accessories are compatible with both so that's that's good i say thumbs up to apple for that because the how many times have we had a product be slightly different and break compatibility with everything but it seems based on the tech specs and everything like these are not going to be that no which is i mean that's brilliant right um i want to read a quote from the press release because I just find it to be interesting. This lineup is offering the best, most innovative iPad lineup ever.

Whether customers prioritize portability, screen size, power, or price, there's an iPad for everyone. I mean, that is definitely what you can see happening but i find it interesting at the same time that apple is now kind of at this point willingly introducing more points into the ipad lineup where i think previously it's felt like oh the ipad lineup has just gotten messy but now it's like well what what they've done now is they've clarified the pro stuff a little bit more by removing the 10.5 which was clearly around just to to kind of to fill out a price point for a while and reintroduce the old product line they've

actually made it mirror the laptops more than they did uh. So it's back to kind of mirroring the laptops again. You've got iPad, MacBook, iPad Air, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iPad Pro. Like it's fully mirroring that lineup again. And I am wondering if this is for a reason. Like iOS 13 is just around the corner. We're all hoping for significant ipad changes i'm wondering if one the power that they're putting into all of this line and also the variation of price point and entry level in the line is gonna is saying another signal to what ios is going to look like

in the fall yeah it's possible i i think we we have talked on this show about how parts of apple's product line are a little bit more in disarray they seem to be headed somewhere but it's still kind of a mess and when the macbook air was announced we thought that would bring clarity and then we got it and it did not bring clarity and then contrast that to the ipad which really they have gotten their entire product line together, where they've got five relatively new products at these different price points. They all offer something different so that you can choose. They've got the iPad Mini. I think it's interesting to view it this way. ipad mini is no longer um a product for

it used to be a product that was the cheapest product and the smallest product and there was always that argument of like well what's it for and the ipad is the cheapest ipad now like the ipad is for cheap the ipad mini is for small and it costs a little bit more than the ipad and i think that's good too because it's saying like if you want this and clearly people do that, you know, then you can get it. So, um, I love it because it is Apple. Um, I think maybe saying something about the maturity of the iPad as a product line, and also the fact that they need to be more flexible in what they offer. And now they've got five different spots you can land in terms of screen size and features and price for the iPad. And it is such a dramatic change from a few years ago

when the iPad was also kind of a mess. They really like differentiating from pro and not was their big step because it allowed them to sell a cheaper iPad and also the cutting edge iPad. And now they've got even beyond that where they're like below the pro we've even got options for you. And, you know, I think this is, I think this is a reaction to what we talked about because it takes a long time for them to turn this stuff. We talked about a few years ago when the, when the iPad sales were going down of like,

and the iPad sales were going down of like you know what is what can Apple do to make the iPad rebound and more affordable iPad was one they brought the pencil down to all of these and now they've got more options out there and it took a little time but they did get their house in order they're gonna straight up sell a lot of those minis to people that were waiting they are and and there are good ecological niches for the mini too including kids but not limited to kids there's a whole bunch of places that people want small ipads and it'll fill that which is great thinking about it for myself like i actually want to go and try it out i want to see what it's like to use an ipad mini with an apple pencil because i think that that could be a really interesting device even for someone like me.

Yeah, sketches and notes. This is the thing we talked about about imagining the XS Max with a pencil. This is sort of the flip side of that, which is, well, no, iPhone with a pencil, maybe not, but an iPad mini with a pencil.

Now you've got a notepad sketchbook thingy. I also want to see how they look next to each other, because the pencil and the iPad mini, because pencil. Now you've got a notepad sketchbook thingy. I also want to see how they look next to each other. Because the pencil on the iPad mini, because I think that could look kind of funny. Like I'll just put the pencil next to a mini. It's a very large pencil. Yeah, I feel like they could have maybe shrunk down a bit.

So I think the last thing I wanted to talk about on this is the idea of the previous thinking and the current thinking around the differentiation between iPad Pro and non-Pro iPad. And it's interesting to me to see the keyboard and the pencil come down because it's like, all right, we've kind of established, I mean, we'd established already, you know, the iPad 6th generation had a pencil,

but now there's a keyboard, a smart keyboard in the non-Pro lineup. And it reminds me again of the laptops where, you know, had a pencil but now there's a keyboard a smart keyboard in the in the non-pro lineup and it reminds me again of the laptops where you know the macbook pros get all the new whiz bang fancy features but eventually like the unibody aluminium design will find its way down and the keyboard will find its way down for for its sins and uh and all that kind of stuff. So it's interesting to me to see where we are with the Pro now and the non-Pro iPads. And you see, right, okay, design is clearly one of them. Thinness and lightness and thickness is another stuff.

The inductive charging of the pencil is another part of it. The four speakers is another part of it. These are ProMotion displays displays which is the uh 120 refresh rate display um so like the super speedy snappy display is another one face id is now another one exactly so like okay so now looking at where we are with the ipad pro all right we'll imagine in a few years some of those features are going to start finding their way down the product line face id will probably be the big first one because apple i'm sure would love to move that out as fast as they possibly can well basically the the ipad pro you could also compare it i know you compare it to the macbook pro you could also compare it to

the iphone 10 right it's the product line for cutting edge tech and that doesn't necessarily mean it will always be defined by these things because the ipad pro is originally defined as smart keyboard and pencil and that's neither of those things are true anymore but ipad pro still has things that differentiate it they've just changed yeah and but i i agree with that but i think that like those the iphone and the ipad pro are inherently positioned for different types of users. The most fancy iPhone is for everyone, but the iPad Pro, in theory, or at least is positioned as, all right, so you want a work device, huh? Yeah, sure.

That's where it starts. In that, it's like the MacBook Pro. You're right. I just think that it's interesting that what Apple is doing in Face ID is a great example. It's like cutting-edge tech goes in the most expensive product. Yes. And like Apple proudly announced this week on Monday, they proudly announced two new iPads with a home button and bigger bezels. Very true.

And it's okay because, you know, that's okay. It is a cheaper product. You're not paying for that stuff maybe you don't like it but you don't you don't have to pay for it if you want a an ipad like this you can get one and you don't have to pay eight or nine hundred dollars to get it all right i want to bridge between where these topics are and the draft by asking you about this what do you think it says about Apple's focus on their services narrative for next week? That they are just a week away from a press event, but they're releasing new products.

It is the report with Mark Gurman. That's like no hardware at the event, right? Like this is the point. I think that was Paxowski who said that first. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, it's good. It's like no hardware at the event it's like apple doesn't want first off as i think um given the depths of

complicated complicated things we've added to the draft process this year that will be revealed shortly um i think there's a lot already on the table for this services event. And services, I mean, it's a little bit like what I said about the iMac. It's like, this is designed to spotlight services. It's not designed to spotlight whizzy new hardware. First off, this is not the, you know, this is a refresh to these models. It's not like a completely new thing you've never seen before. But more than that, it's like Apple doesn't need an event to launch new hardware. They've proven that this week again.

And they want it off the table because they know that some people are going to focus on the new hardware and not pay attention to the services narrative, which is really what they want to sell is they want to tell their services story. And this is off topic for that. And it would be a little bit weird if like NBC came out to unveil their new fall lineup. And they said, but first, let me tell you about this great new cable box that Comcast is going to offer. Like, no, probably not the right way to approach it.

So I think, you know, they're clearing the decks. They've done this in the past too. It's always fascinating when you get those announcements a week before an event, because that is the, we're throwing these things off stage or maybe they were never going to be on stage in this case i think that's probably true but um yeah yeah it's uh there's too much they've got a full program of what they want to reveal next monday and um a new ipad mini and faster imax was not on the list for next Monday. And that's nothing saying nothing bad about them. It's just not what they're trying to do next week.

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I'm wearing my Dongletown t-shirt right now, and it makes me think of my lovely red Luna Display dongle. You can connect over Wi-Fi or USB, and without any hassle, more screen real estate is available to you. So if you're at home and using Wi-Fi, if you're traveling and using USB, maybe you don't have a Wi-Fi connection, you can still have multiple screens just by being able to link your two devices together. You don't have to spend the money on an extra screen, and then you have something that's maybe even a little bit more flexible. You know, you can move

it around more easily if you want it in front of you, to the side of you, you can put on a little stand or something, which is super awesome. I use my Luna display all of the time, but I use it to use my Mac mini. My Mac mini is headless and I use my Luna display to be able to access it. And very, very frequently I'm finding myself, if I have a frustration on iOS, I just open Luna display because Luna display exists an app on a Mac app for me right basically I have an app which has a Mac inside it which lives on my iPad

which honestly feels like the future dream that I've wished for for a while and Luna Display lets me do that believe me when I say you're going to be happy with a Luna display. So go to lunadisplay.com and use the promo code UPGRADE at checkout for 10% off. That is L-U-N-A-D-I-S-P-L-A-Y.com and promo code UPGRADE at checkout. It's really awesome. I think you're going to love this thing. It's smart and handy, and it's going to save you money on extra screens

and give you that flexibility you've been looking for. Our thanks to Luna Display for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. So Jason Snell, there has been much excitement today, but there is still much more excitement to come. And it starts with, as all events do,

the upgrade draft. Welcome to the draft, everybody. So this is, because we've got a kind of a peculiar event coming up next week, we're going to be doing some experiments with today's draft uh and so we're going to be doing a bunch of different types of rounds so we have four regular rounds which you're used to so make a bunch of picks about what we think is going to

happen but we're actually going to start with two pick'em naming rounds you'll see what i mean in a minute we're going to have two special rounds for this draft with three picks each which is a celebrity appearance round and a trailer round and we're also going to finish off with a tiebreaker question which is something we've been talking about for a while that we would try and do and considering we're in a new year we're going to be implementing some changes to the upgrade draft to help us out in some certain situations and it will include the tiebreaker question so mike now mike i got some scoring questions for you here are the individual picks in the special rounds each worth one point or is the special round as a whole worth one point based on who uh picks the most interesting i was thinking just each one each pick is still worth i was thinking

they're not degraded in that way yeah i think I think we still go with each answer is worth a point, especially because we're having less regular picks this time because we are assuming that it will be a pretty focused event, right? And I reckon probably, and we'll get to this, difficult to try and guess. This is maybe a little bit more difficult than normal to try and guess what Apple maybe a little bit more difficult than normal to try and guess what apple's going to be doing um all right so so for this event next uh next monday we're going to do

um 12 basically it's 12 total points available plus the tiebreaker which only counts if we get tied so the regular draft rules do still apply though the winner of the previous draft gets first pick and that was me uh for an item to count it must be either clearly announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation um we no longer need adjudication because of a tie breaker but if we do feel in theory but if there is still some requirement for adjudication if we disagree on a scoring decision if you and i can't we have a gentleman's agreement we have been very good about giving each other points but it should something come down to a crucial moment about who wins um we will stephen hackett we will pass

no half points awarded four points only no points awarded for anything previously announced and the points awarded on the episode are final right so we can't pick for example we can't pick anything we already talked about in this episode because that was already announced exactly so none of that will count yes shall we move into our first rounds yeah let's do it let's do it and this is the um i introduced this as we were planning this episode i introduced this concept because i realized sometimes um on our our drafts, we are essentially picking two sides of the same coin. And I thought it might be better in certain circumstances to just have, rather than have a sort of like combine that with an obvious this or that with other draft strategy about what goes first and what goes second we just break them out and so we have two pick them rounds for this draft um the first of which is what's it

going to be called so if i want to make sure that i'm following here so i'm giving the rules for the gradients what i pick you can't say it too right yeah? Yeah, it's true. You get to go first, which seems really unfair that you get to go first for each of these. I think, hmm, that's quite an advantage. Them's the rules. That's what you win for winning a draft. On the Pick'Em round, you...

It's fine. We're not going to do a snake draft. It's not going to happen. Go ahead. Well, I would say, so the two Pick'Ems that we have is what is the video streaming service going to be called and what are the services bundle going going to be called if there's going

to be one for both of them um i don't think it is as clear cut as you might assume for us for either of these to be honest i mean the services bundles a bit more tricky but i really went back and forth on what i would think about for the name of the video streaming service, because there are, I think, two obvious answers, which are TV and video. So Apple TV, Apple video. And so I really went back and forth on this because Apple TV makes sense because they have a product and it kind of helps bundle it all up into one. the more i started thinking about this because of the fact that apple is working with so many other companies and we reckon we'll work with more and that may come up during the pics today i'm starting to think they won't call it apple tv because the apple tv still exists so i'm gonna go with following Apple Music, Apple Video.

All right. I think you have definitely talked about some of the ways that Apple TV is a bad idea. We have talked on the show about how Apple has made deals with movie distributors. They've bought movies at Sundance. So they're going to be like with Netflix. There's going to be movies on this service. Yeah, it's not just TV. It's not just TV, although it will be on, and it's not just on your TV device. It's on devices, although there is a TV app, which I think there's a case for and a case against.

Apple TV is the name. You know, Netflix kind of implies movies, even though it's primarily a TV service now, the Flix, you know, Netflix kind of implies movies, even though it's primarily a TV service now, the flicks, you know, kind of idea. Uh, so I, I have been talking up the name Apple TV as the service because it's the simplest and yes, it's already a product, but it's also that app. And I think that app is going to be the cornerstone of it. And I see no reason to stop now.

So I will pick Apple TV, even though I think you're right. There are lots of reasons why it wouldn't be the name. And I think it's not, I think it would require some kind of vision and maybe not courage, but boldness on their part to just say, no, we're going to, we don't care about the confusion and the fact that our hardware is also called that. That's the right name. Everything is Apple TV and we'll go from there. So Apple TV for me. And we get, one of us will get a point unless they name it something else, in which case we will both be sad. The field gets a point at that point.

Yes. Stephen Hackett gets a point then. So what will the services bundle be called? Now, this one is just wide open, right? It is. If the service bundles even exists yep and if it even has a name i tried to think about this jason i'm like all right what what could they call it it could be like i was thinking like premium but that sounds too close to prime so i was going through

i was like okay so what is it what is a bundle right a bundle is is a single payment it's a single thing i'm gonna go with apple one well uh you said it was wide open and yet that is you totally sniped what i was gonna say maybe just call it apple two i don't know we're all like apple two plus i would give you apple roman numeral one oh my that's not i don't want it you can't give it to me i don't want it i don't want to just close the apple i which would just be like beautiful is it one is it i i don't even know right maybe it's just the roman numeral one and then the apple logo that's what they do oh my god yeah you're gonna bind now huh i i am that was the best one i i i have come

up with because i don't really know a name for this either. That's why I called it Apple Prime a lot just because it was like Amazon Prime, but I didn't think that they were actually going to call it that. I mean, it depends kind of what they're going for. If you want it to be a bit playful, you could do something like All Access or something like that, right? But I don't know.

I feel like that their branding is more likely to be just a two-word dealio, and then that's that. So you've got to pick something. Yeah. Apple, you've got to pick something. So have you, Jason. Yeah. Boy.

And I don't want it to reflect some other... Although there is a One service out there too, isn't it? I'm sure that there are, because it's not like an incredibly clever name but the i think the point is that they're just not going to be going after like amazon right like that's just the one that they can't bar up against i think everybody else is probably fair game for them uh okay i am going to choose the AllApplePass. Okay. Which is a terrible name, but I don't want to say AllAccess because that's CBS. Ah, yes.

AllApplePass. AllApplePass. And I'll take Pass. If it's ApplePass, I'll take that too, but it won't be because it's going to be AppleOne. Yeah, okay. If it is called ApplePass, you can have the point. Thank you. Because that will be close enough, I think.

Yep, but it won't be. So congratulations on winning the draft, Mike. I will say I'm feeling pretty good about my first two. I know that Apple TV sort of makes sense to you. You know what I was thinking, Jason, when you were talking about Apple TV? you you know i was thinking jason when you were talking about apple tv like do you do you can you see a possibility of a separate app for the video service that ties into tv well i think that's one of the items on our list for drafting purposes okay uh i think it's an interesting question i think where these things that we made lots of assumptions but not all those assumptions will

probably be accurate, right? Like Apple has this habit of surprising you. And so I think we have to re-examine all of those things. Like I feel very strongly that the TV app is the logical place. They have been trying to make the TV app happen for several years now. And I think this is part of that. This is feeding into that strategy, but could they totally throw it away and be like, nah, it's not the TV app. It's its own app. They could.

They could. So that's all to play for and all to be drafted. Yes, it's quite literally all to play for as we go into pick number one. Now, as we always say, we put together a list of things that we can pick from for our draft. And then I take that list and I kind of rank it.

And I'm even struggling. I'm really struggling. I really struggled with this event to try and think what is the most likely stuff to occur. I think this first pick for me seems seems pretty obvious considering what we just spoke about but like I'm gonna pick the existence of a services bundle so there being a services bundle unveiled there is a likelihood that Apple will be a strong likelihood that Apple would be talking about at least two maybe three services that will all be paid for at this event i would be really surprised if they didn't offer some way of paying for all of it including apple music and

maybe some other stuff to in one payment because it's just a bad user experience to have like four or five multiple charges and it's also uh fiscally irresponsible for apple to to kind of like be making multiple charges to somebody right like you want to make one charge because then your credit card fees are less and all that kind of stuff um a services bundle which bundles up the new services or some old services maybe sprinkle some other things in, I think will be part of what Apple talks about next week. I think that is smart. I agree with you. Assuming that this event is going to launch a video service and that new service and potentially a video game service, that's a lot of services, right? To go with the ones they've already got which is why we put the services bundle in the pick them round because although there's been no i think definitive

reporting on that one it's hard to imagine that apple is going to say this will be i mean they may present it as this will be 9.99 and this will be 4.99 and this will be $4.99 and this will be $6.99 and then have that slide at the end that's like, aha, but now how much would you pay? But now we're going to make it available for the low, low price of whatever. And it's called AllApplePass, which is not what it's called.

And I genuinely think that they will be selling them all individually if you want to. Like, if you don't want it and, you know, it'll be maybe a little bit cheaper for you if you just want video and you don't want news and gaming and blah blah blah and blah blah blah um but being able to bundle it all together will also mean that more people are more likely to use all of the services you want people to be using right if you're just like well you want video and you want music well now you can also get news as well like that's free now for you right so that that's kind of the incentive um

so yeah services bundle yeah i think that's good i'm gonna go uh with one of the other services we talked about and just say um not just that the new service the news thing is going to happen because i think we kind of assume that it will but a little more specifically i want to say that there's going to be that that ios update that they've been beta testing that it will launch with and that they will promise that it will launch soon um i'm i'm not sure i want to say like this week or next or this month because we're almost at the uh end of the month by the time this event happens. But I want to say that soon in the next few weeks with that iOS update, the new subscription service will launch as a part of that

and put my stake in the ground for that one. So I want to make some clarifications here because next few weeks is a bit, that's difficult for like the draft. Well, I want them to say a date. I want to say that it will, a soonish date for it, that they're not going to say it launches this summer, that there's an, we know there's an iOS update update ready to go very soon it's in beta right now um and i'm kind of tying it to that that there's going to be a a the next ios

software update is going to get released and it's going to enable this feature and it's going to come soon and that they'll promise a soonish date that basically if this is the new service is coming in ios 13 this fall i lose it should we say by the end of april uh sure like the date that basically if this is the new service is coming in ios 13 this fall i lose it should we say by the end of april uh sure like the date that they announce is but yeah they may not say the words by the end of april but something in that time frame yeah yeah so like if they save in the next couple of weeks that's the end of april if they give a date right like that so just so just so we have a stake in the ground right they may say it launches in april in fact and that might that might be the way to do it depends on how confident they're feeling about their service and about ios

12.2 i mean i don't think we spoke about this but like they even updated the apple news app with a new logo yeah 12.2 so like it's definitely going to be in 12.2 and 12.2 has been in beta for a while unless they've had a hang up with their deals and they feel like it's not ready in which case they cannot even announce it if they wanted to so i feel like it's cool enough of a question but it's still my first pick so maybe i guess we should say like there was a mark german report about a bunch of stuff and it even seems like reminiscent of like apple music they're still struggling to get some deals done like they're going up to the last minute i think they've got the texture deals in place right i think that that that is so they're going to have magazine content and all that but i think they are trying to close deals with you know news sources because they want the

news stuff too but with video too though right like they would they would this the report was saying that they were like at the wire with getting some of the video stuff needed that they need um but i also kind of expect, though, Jason, that at this level, at this high level, it's probably always like this, right? Probably. That you're going right up to the very, very end before you end up getting something completely nailed down.

That would make sense to me that it kind of is always that way. And that's why I won't launch on the day either. And part of the carrot for Apple is making these deals and saying, we'll put you on the slide. We'll talk about you in our event. That kind of thing is part of the inducement to the deals is we're doing this event. Do you want to be on stage? We'll put your logo on stage or we'll put a screenshot on stage or something like that.

Or they're like, we want an executive on stage. And it's like, well, we're not going to let you do that. And they have to just keep going backwards and forwards until they get to the end point, which I expect happens very frequently. That's how I assume most of this stuff tends to go. All right, so pick number two. Kind of leading from that point,

I'm going to say that Apple will have content that they did not make available for subscribers to this new service. Oh, interesting. So here's my thinking on this they're having the event now and their tv shows i can't imagine many if any already i think they're going to have something you will get this is the catalog you think there's going to be catalog content i've changed my mind on this one like at first i i thought no no they're not going to do that but i think they're going to have some stuff and it may even be like oh we're going to offer like a limited selection

from hbo and if you want more sign up for hbo in apple video right like and then they do that kind of amazon prime channels model which is again i'm not picking that right now we maybe pick that right but like that's a good example where there is some older hbo content on amazon prime exactly video yeah so like you can buy this stuff and if you like this stuff you can get more of it but i think that they will have a very thin service when they launch and i also think that this is the video stuff is probable the service i reckon will launch before a lot of apple's content is ready and what are you going to pay for like what are you paying for so i've come around to thinking that there will be there will be some additional content that apple is going to be licensing and this isn't the idea of like oh we're paying sony to buy this tv show and it's

made for us this is like stuff you already know about stuff that's existed in the world before the apple will have available to subscribers of apple video i um that's it's risky i think i i see again this is the beauty of draft picks i see your argument i think it's possible it's not it's it's there's this weird middle ground where i don't think they're going to be a big catalog service where the the i don't think it's going to be big but i think you've got it you know if you get like hey we've got sopranos and we've got game of thrones and we've got something else you know obviously not those shows right but like you get my point like they'll get some stuff so they have something

yeah so they have something something that is not and and just to be clear here we're not talking about the um the channels idea where they're going to offer subscriptions to other video services within the new app like amazon's prime channels we're talking about that they will make stuff available for free if you're a video person of apple video subscriber or an all apple pass subscriber apple pass yeah it is the idea of the potential that they may uh do kind of prime channel stuff which is why it makes me think they might have some free stuff right it's like a lead it could be and that could in fact be part of their deal right is is hey showtime we're gonna resell showtime inside here but we want to make um some of your older

content available or hey cbs all access um can you give us the first season of star trek discovery and the good fight and and we'll put those on our service and maybe cut you in a little bit but we'll also we'll be selling hard your service on top of that like if they could cut some deals with that that that will give you season one of star trek but there is more and if you want that the way you get that is doing this right and season one of star trek discovery is a good example of something that is not available in the u.s on any other streaming service. Outside of the US is a different story, but inside the US, something like that would be a coup. So there's

some possibilities there. I like it. It's an interesting pick. I'm going to take the flip side of it, which is I'm going to pick the Prime Channels thing. I think that they're going to have something that they could probably actually make happen immediately or almost immediately in the TV app, regardless of whether they've got the service up and running, which is this, you know, it's been reported. So it sounds like it's going to happen, but who knows, which is having a cornerstone of this TV strategy also be bringing other services in that you pay for and all appear in the app. Now, this is a subtle distinction because those services have apps, right? But the idea here is to integrate it in the TV app more directly. That this is, you're in the TV app and you can just go Showtime and it'll say, buy Showtime and boom,

you have added Showtime via an Apple subscription and it appears in the TV app and it's unified with that interface and that they're going to roll out a bunch of deals with that part of it too. So again, I think that has been reported, but it could not happen at this event. And it is a weird thing where it's, you know, again, it's kind of just a making progress over where they are now, which is having those things be apps that can show up in the TV app. But, you know, by all accounts, it sounds like they want everything to live in the TV app. But by all accounts, it sounds like they want everything to live in the TV app. Like they really want you to just find Showtime or CBS All Access or whatever in the TV app

and say, yes, please now. And then it's just in there and you don't think about it, which is what Prime Channels does. And it's great. I do CBS All Access through Prime Channels and it's super easy because it means all of their shows

are just mixed in with all the Amazon Prime shows. They're all available. One app, very convenient. There is another part of this though, where it's super easy because it means all of their shows are just mixed in with all the amazon prime shows they're all available one app very convenient there is another part of this though it's like yeah of course apple would want that but i wonder if the world has started to change around them a little bit you know where a lot of these companies are now starting to really understand the importance of having their own service you know yeah i i think amazon views itself as a platform for other services and netflix doesn't and amazon has seen that as an advantage and i think it is and i think if you're one of these smaller services if you're cbs all access or acorn you know or brit box being inside the the loving arms of amazon or apple is a good thing. Because now like you are, Apple is promoting,

like, because if you go on the Amazon Prime Video app, like they're pushing those services. Like Amazon is advertising other people's streaming services. And that's pretty good, right? Like, and if you search for a show, you search for Star Trek Discovery on Amazon, it says, yes, we have it. And when you click, it says, you have to subscribe to CBS All Access to get it in Prime Channels, and then you

can have it. And that is powerful. So I think that if Apple did that same thing where they're like, you know, we're basically promoting your services inside our service. If you're in Netflix, you're not interested. But if you are one of these smaller services, I think it's kind of a big deal. And I think you want to be there. services, I think it's kind of a big deal. And I think you want to be there. Maybe this is why Brookbox is launching in the UK. Could be. Could be.

That could be one reason. Again, to sell that through Amazon and Apple, for example, that's pretty great. And again, Netflix does not seem interested, right? Netflix just wants to be the only service you get and all you need now i think netflix either like you to think it's original right like it is original they like you to think it is right like i think netflix's model is trying to make them hbo as opposed to generic service serving up content that i think that's their overall goal right they and they and they want to have everything you want right like net Netflix's goal really is that you don't ever need to leave the Netflix app. Other shows are not relevant.

Just we give you enough content. You never need to have anything but Netflix. That's their strategy. And right now they're the only ones doing that. Nobody else is keeping up with them there. I think we've talked about it. Other companies may have aspirations, but nobody else is Netflix right now. All right, we're halfway through the draft, which feels like a perfect time to take our final break of this show and thank Squarespace for their support of this show. You can make your next move with Squarespace and easily create a website for your next idea or project. With the ability to grab a unique domain name, take advantage of and customize award-winning templates, and not have to worry about anything to install or patch or upgrade. They are the perfect place for your home online. There's nothing that you have to worry about with Squarespace. They take care of it all for you,

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So moving to pick number three. Okay, this one's a little bit boring, but it feels pretty inevitable for me the initial launch will be US only of the video service? yeah of the video service sorry I should have made that clearer but the video service I believe

will be US only in its initial launch that just feels like the way it's going to go most of Apple's services like this have been sometimes there's not too much of a gap, but I'm thinking specifically because of any deals they may need to make with other partners that they will just be making sure

they've got all of that stuff taken care of. Because I don't believe any of their own content will be on the service initially, they can wait a little bit longer before they need to roll it out to other territories yeah i think i think you're probably right just because that seems to be their default i think the um you know what reports suggest is that they are planning to rapidly follow with other countries but um that you know that that's not the same as launching in

like what if they said we're launching in all English-speaking countries or something like that? But wouldn't that be nice? And they're going to own all their own content, right? So they could do that. But you do get the sense that not only is the U.S. their biggest market, but that it does provide a testbed and makes it easier then to roll it out elsewhere rather than rolling it out in all these different regions and then having problems and having to fix them in all the regions. And there are local regulations about TV and stuff that that can come into play um so i think that's a it's definitely a boring pick but also probably a pretty good one yeah i will apologize for the boringness of that pick but sometimes sometimes you've just got to go with it in the draft that's draft rules we have other stuff we'll talk about like kind of like the ones we haven't picked uh once we've once we've finished

with the with the overall picks so but that that is one that i think will happen just because as well like this happens with everything everything is us only first this is just how it is yeah this is it's a meme amongst people that don't live in the u.s., U.S. only. I cannot tell you how much laughter I got out of, was it Apple News finally launched in Canada? Yes. And I just, I laughed. And again, I'm not laughing at Canadians. I'm laughing ruefully at the fact that Canada,

which is so close to the U.S. in so many ways, it has to wait so long for health services. Shares a literal land mass. Yeah, it's geographically close to the United States. But they have to wait. I think part of the issue there was that they wanted to,

they needed to make it so that it was bilingual so that they had French sources as well as English. But I just feel bad. And that goes, I have watched that very carefully because you would think Canada it would

be easy to bring services to Canada and yet everybody seems to do it very slowly which is why my only article I ever wrote for the crazy Apple rumor site was specifically about how iTunes was never ever ever coming to Canada because that seems like the lot that the Canadians have.

Do you know in Ireland you still can't buy any TV shows in iTunes? Oh, boy. Isn't that wild? Wow. That is weird. They just never bothered. No. No.

Well, anyway, when this video service launches in the US, it will be rapidly followed by launches in the UK. And let's say Australia and Canada will just get really mad. This is what happened for Apple Music. That was kind of the rollout. I think it was UK and then US and Australia. Next. Okay, I'm going to go with the...

Darn it, you picked my pick. So you put it in the doc. The video game. I just pasted it into the doc a little early, people, and that's how he read my mind. I'm going to pick the video game service that has only been reported, as far as i can tell with one report which was in cheddar uh that said in january that apple was working on a service that would basically it's unclear exactly how it works they described it as a netflix for games i'm unclear how it's gonna work

but i think that there will be something that they're gonna unveil um presumably with a game demo i'm not gonna pick game demo. I'm not going to pick game demo on stage, but I feel like I could pick it every time. There's always a game demo on stage, but I feel like the only reason there'd be a game demo on stage is because they unveiled this service. I'm not sure exactly

what form it's going to take, whether it's going to be that apps are going to have in-app purchase stuff that gets completely unlocked, if you're a member if there are certain games that have a price but if you're a member it's free if you know some combination of those whether you get like you unlock everything that's in the in-app purchase or if you get like credits every month so that they say you know you pay five dollars for this service or ten dollars for this service,

but you get $20 in IAP credits every month or something like that. There are different ways they could do it. I'm not saying whether it'll be successful or not, but I think that this is in the water that Apple is trying to do something that basically makes the game experience on iOS better. And this is an interesting example of a service that's basically leveraging their power in the app store. I think their feeling is that games on iOS are kind of scummy because everything is free to play with purchases

and that this is their next attempt to class it up a little, which is basically to create a hierarchy where if you're a paying games fancy person, you get all the junk gets disappeared and you get a more pristine experience. But whatever the details are, I'm fascinated to see what they try to do here. But I'm going to put a chip down

on that they will do a game service that is basically giving you free game stuff on iOS. So let me tell you why I wanted to pick this, Jason. It has only been reported once that Shadow Report is the only time it's ever been rumored.

Yep. But in the same idea, John Paxowski's report didn't even talk about the video service, right? So I feel like this event has been pretty well kept under wraps and also game developers are pretty used to and the companies that they will probably be going to for this to begin with are used to keeping their mouth shut

because they're always on stage right so like there is there is an idea of keeping it under wraps but i have heard from some third parties, and I don't know what to make of it yet, but I have heard of games that are currently in development being delayed for this. Like I've heard two separate cases of this, of games being delayed. Now it could be that they don't launch it here

and they launch it at WWDC or something like that. This would seem like a great place to do it. But it's possible that the timing is not right and this is actually going to be not announced at all although again if I was doing a bundle I would mention we're doing this video game thing and it's going to be great and this is going to roll out in June or whatever however they want to do it and I have wild speculation I know that we love wild speculation on this show and I have some wild speculation Nintendo are working on a mobile game of Mario Kart it's called Mario Kart

World Tour I think is the name and they mentioned this a long time ago it was supposed to come out by now, it was supposed to be out basically now, in March that was the original thing Nintendo's previous earnings call they said it was delayed no reason reason no time frame but it's delayed i think nintendo will be putting the

mario kart game as part of the streaming service right we might see nintendo on stage in fact on on monday nintendo have been on stage before right so there is precedent for it uh shigera miyamoto came on stage to announce a super mario run yeah i always think go but that's pokemon uh the other reason i think this where the time of super mario goes super mario go if you remember was a one-time in-app purchase to unlock the rest of the levels you got some for free nintendo were unhappy with the amount of money that they made from that transaction from super mario run yeah they were unhappy with how much how much money they made from super mario run they actually made a lot of money but it wasn't where they consider their games to use they make a lot more money from their games typically right right then there

was a report a couple of weeks ago that nintendo are becoming increasingly more difficult to work with because they they kind of work in partnership with with a couple of different uh app development companies there's a company called Dina who are their biggest partner and they've worked with some other partners for some other games. I think the Fire Emblem game was made by a different studio. The idea is that Nintendo are being hesitant, they're very hesitant to be bleeding money from their customers. So some of the games that they've released have been quite heavy on in-app purchase since the original one, and it seems like they are changing

course on wanting to include that. And that is making the game developers that they're working with unhappy because they can't make as much money. So all of this leads to me thinking Nintendo would love the opportunity to be in a subscription service model with some more guaranteed revenue that apple will provide them because apple will really want that game in this service if it exists right because mario kart will make people sign up nobody knows what this game looks like by the way like is it a racing game is it like one of those ones where you're just flicking from left to right nobody knows what this game looks like because Nintendo have given no details other than the name

and that it will probably tie into a future Mario Kart game or the current one so I think that they would jump at the chance for the option to get more money and I expect Apple will like to do a lot of this stuff like a lot of companies do be like okay you'll make

whatever amount of money it will be but we'll also guarantee it will be at least this much if you don't make that we'll give you it right as a way to kind of sweeten the pot it's a possibility so yeah that is my whole spiel that i was about to give for pick four about why i think the video game service will be unveiled even though there's been nothing on it but i think it's coming and i think and i'm not predicting that nintendo are going to do this i just think there are a lot of things that line up in the stars which suggest it could be possible i love that you talked for three times as long as i did about my pick thank you if it's video games man i'm all about the video games i know pick four

i've got another really boring one um because i don't really understand it but it seems like it's going to happen an apple credit card so this is something that's been rumored that apple is partnering with goldman sachs and they're going to create a credit card and you will and they're also going to make a bunch of enhancements to apple pay to make this a better experience. But I quite frankly cannot fathom what the benefit is to a customer to have this card.

I can't work it out, but it's been rumored. And also there were people from, like, there's a website called The Points Guy, which is a credit card reward points website, who have been invited to this Apple event. So, I don't get it. I don't get it, but there's credit card reward points website who have been invited to this Apple event. That's a good sign.

I don't get it, but there's been a bunch of rumors about it. And again, it's also referenced in Mark Gurman's report that Goldman Sachs are working on it. It's called Project Cookie, which is hilarious. But I don't know what the... I can't fathom why someone would want this, because I don't know what the benefits are yet.

So there'll be, presumably, part of of it because this is how all these point credit cards work is purchases at apple or on the apple store or using apple pay will get you more points than regular purchases yeah and that presumably you can use your points you can redeem or dollars or however they want to do it. You can redeem that for a percentage discount of, you know, so if you've got a hundred dollars, you can redeem it for $150 in Apple credit or something like that, right? Where they will, Apple will compensate you more highly for stuff that is from Apple. So you use your money, you use the card to buy Apple stuff, and then you use the rewards from that to buy more Apple stuff. That's the, that's probably how it will work.

And then of course there's that rumor that they're going to tie this in with software on the devices that will provide sort of like a higher level of data sync, uh, in terms of you monitoring your purchases and stuff that this will be a, like a preferred, uh, card that will do more in your, um, wallet app basically i bet there's gonna be some privacy stuff right they're gonna be like you know and uh we're gonna do x i mean like you we're not gonna sell that you know yeah yeah but like what do you use the points on like app store credit like where's what are the points get you i don't know buy a new iphones whatever you know buy a new apple stuff yeah i guess so but yeah this also just feels like

company gets to the size like like apples and they're basically you know we spoke about this before like apples moved slowly become a bank um yeah this part of it when you have so much money you start you need to start to be able to control money and this is where apple was in their company's life cycle so making starting to make a credit card you know like an understanding what that looks like it reminds me of like working with motorola to create the rocker right like let's just start and we have a company and we see what this looks like and we understand a little bit more about this business and then maybe down the line we do something more right super weird one but it

feels like a possibility it may not be earth-shattering i mean like everybody's got a everybody's got a credit card a branded credit card yeah everybody so you can get your marvel comics card you can get your major league baseball card you can get your airline card they're all out there um okay so i the last pick by the way it is. I'm going to go down pricing with my last pick. And I was thinking about this because I've been talking for a while now about this service and thinking about how they could price it. And thinking out of the gate, they're not going to have a lot. They've got a smaller collection of originals.

And I think that the debate has really been sort of at that $10 break point. Is this a $9.99 service or is this more than $9.99? $9.99, sure, $7.99, $5.99 a month, whatever it is. And then I was thinking about it. Netflix now costs the base, the base, right? Where you don't get 4K and you don't get multiple users at once. And it's just a base model is $10. think maybe 1199 but it's they just raised it hbo go is like 15 a month um and i will point you back to my law of pricing which is that

whatever price you think apple's going to price something at, add money to it and then add a percentage to that. And that's the actual price of the product. And that's why, even though I've been thinking this entire time we've been talking about this, that this service would launch at a low price, I don't think it is. I think it's going to be more than $10 a month. I will also point out the higher you make the standalone price, the better the bundle looks. So I think that's part of it too, is why not set the price standalone price high? Because what you really want, and it's not high compared to like, again, compared to Netflix, even if you match Netflix, they're not going to have content on the Netflix level. But if you look at some of the other streaming services, they're all kind of pushing upward

from five or $6 and Apple wants to be viewed as a premium product. So they're going to, they're going to charge more because charge more means you're worth more. And that's certainly what HBO is thinking. So, um, that's, that's, I mean, who knows what will happen to HBO in the long run because of Warner media, but I think Apple will price the standalone video service at more than $10 a month for these reasons. They want to be seen as premium and it gives them that much more of a savings when you bundle it with music or you bundle it with the, or, or, or the big bundle or whatever they want to call it. So I, again, I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent or even, um, sort of 70% confident in this, but, um, I was going to pick less than ten dollars and i

thought about it and i was like there's no way i can pick that never bet against apple being cheap a wonderful rule to live by just live i mean and you'll never be disappointed is the second part of that right because it's sometimes you might be pleasantly surprised that they're cheaper than you thought but um it does save you from a lot of heartache when when you think, oh, that MacBook Air is going to be $9.99. And then it's not. And you're like, oh, yeah, well, you know, it's Apple. All right. So they are the four main draft picks. We'll go through a couple of extra ones as we finish off today. But we're going to go into our super weird celebrity round because of everything that's happening. we're assuming Apple's going to have some stuff to say about their own original content.

The assumption that we have going into this event is there will be some celebrities on stage coming out to talk about the stuff that they're making. So what we're going to do is just give the name of the people, maybe a little bit of explanation why, but it probably isn't required. But I'm going to go with my number one pick who feels like the most obvious person to be there for me, which reese witherspoon the reason i pick reese witherspoon

not only is she in uh the morning drama tv show thing which has a lot of celebrities a lot of big a-listers in it uh reese witherspoon's production company hello sunshine has sold multiple shows to apple at this point yeah she is probably three yes she is probably their single most important creator on the service in a weird interesting way because not it doesn't matter about her a-list status she is a big power player in hollywood now and uh is exerting herself in that way so i think she'll be there plus plus she is in this show with jennifer aniston and steve carell yeah so she is wearing the two hats exactly which i think that's why i think that she is like so important to the service like she is behind

the scenes and in front of the camera this was going to be my clever first pick after you took the obvious pick but you took it instead which is very clever of you um i will just go ahead and say who's the only person who apple has talked about who they're excited to be in business with and that's yes oprah winfrey was a high on my list too they are gonna be wheeling out oprah for this one you would think i i think oprah can walk out she's fine she could just walk and give a wave and just walk straight off again and we're all i like her being brought out in like a sedan chair or something like that like here she is she is. It's Oprah. Say no more.

But yeah. Yeah. I don't know who's going to be on stage. Is anybody going to be on stage? But I like the idea that this is Apple's opportunity to cart out celebrities. So we might as well pick them and see what happens. I'm imagining. Do you remember when Marvel brought all of their heroes out for the first Avengers movie? You know, and they all did that like big lineup.

Like, good, good. All our superstars.ars like that's what this feels like to me that it's where they might not get that exact shot it is this is the beginning of the apple cinematic universe um sure got it so my next pick is jj abrams for a similar reason for reese with a spoon jj that's the best you've mentioned before big apple fan but also involved in two projects at apple um right now so i think jj will be happy to come on stage yeah yeah he is a giant apple fan from way back mac fan um did the opening titles and music for the show alias which was his second tv show uh himself on his mac i did not know that yeah Yeah. Oh, yeah. The music and the titles. They had him in that, like, photo montage,

didn't they, a while ago, of people using Macintoshes? And he's spoken at WWDC. He is producing a show for Apple. I think it's a good one. Yeah, he's producing two. There's two shows.

Two shows. See, there you go. It's tough. I'm going to go with Steven Spielberg next good pick uh he he is uh he made a deal with apple for uh amazing stories he was one of the first people to make a deal with apple um i think everybody knows who steven spielberg is that is that is helpful he is a legend in hollywood and the thing that put it over the edge to me for me is that he has

spoken out uh in negative ways about netflix and film um and even though apple has some film plans of its own i kind of like the idea that steven spielberg would take would would go to an apple event as a dig on netflix so i'm gonna pick steven spielberg beef he's going for the beef so here's the thing. I really struggle with my last one. Our last picks for this. Because Apple have at their disposal here, maybe not at their disposal,

but on their roster. I mean, I was looking at this and putting this together. The star power that they have for this service is astronomical to me. Like Brie Larson, Captain Marvel, is going to be doing a show jason momoa who's aquaman is doing a show you've got captain america captain america chris evans is doing a

show my understanding is that chris evans has been shooting uh it was shooting scenes in in a in in the park behind john syracuse's house so oh wow i can report that exclusively here i think chris evans was in john's backyard and syracuse is in the show maybe john exclusively here i think chris evans was in john's backyard and syracuse is in the show maybe john's dog ran past chris evans and he patted it who knows but they have a lot of uh stars but i think that they will want to show a bit of breadth in their service offering so i think they will have a representative from sesame workshop come on stage are you saying that there will be a puppet i don't know if there'll be a puppet there might be a puppet but an individual from the sesame workshop

will come on stage to talk about some of the content that their workers like oprah they have a a like a big big contract it's not a like here's this one show it is a you're gonna make a suite of products for us they also have have this with Peanuts, like Charlie Brown and stuff. But I think Sesame Workshop feels good. That would probably be a good kind of like, hey, we're not just all about adult shows and dramas and stuff like that.

We've got something for everyone. So I think Sesame Workshop will be on stage at the event. And I have so many to pick here. I feel like Jason Momoa, who is the star of of that show c which by all accounts is one of the most expensive tv shows made maybe maybe outside of game of thrones um is i i would not be surprised if he's there he is also aquaman um but uh i'm gonna go in a different direction which is i'm gonna jump off jump off of your J.J. Abrams pick and say, especially since Apple enjoys music as well, whether it's a musical performance or whether it's just a joint performance with J.J.

I'm going to say Sara Bareilles because she is working with J.J. Abrams on a show called Little Voice, and she is composing the music for the show so I think that's really interesting like it is it is that yeah that I like that connection it just feels very Apple-y that she's working with JJ Abrams and she's working doing music stuff and that makes Apple happy. I think that's a good pick, because if they do J.J., he's probably going to come out when he's collaborating. They're working together on a show, so it makes sense for them to come out together and talk about the show that they're working on.

Now, I want to see Ron Moore, who was a Star Trek producer in Battlestar Galactica and does Outlander now. I want to see him on stage, i don't think ron moore again i think you either need to be a big name producer or you need to be somebody who is a well-known entertainer so again just to clarify the celebrity round these are the actual human beings walking on the stage yes not appearing in a trailer yes because we have a trailer round around so these are we're assuming that apple will show some trailers for their content or some scenes

or something to show like, we do actually have stuff. Look how good it is. I think it could even be a still. I think they could even be, if you show a still image of something.

If we see something from a TV production on a screen, that counts for this round. Yeah, I suppose if they do one of those things where they have like, a video that shows

like a billion cuts of all the different shows that they're doing in, in a minute that, uh, all of these might score. Uh, but, uh, and we'll have to do some little,

uh, trailer, like frame by frame trailer analysis in order to get that out. But we'll do that. We'll do that. So my first one I'm going to go with, cause I think that this is going to be their crown jewel. The Reese Witherspoon,

Jennifer Aniston, and Steve Corral morning show drama. Um, I think that this is going to be their crown jewel the reese witherspoon jennifer anderson and steve corell morning show drama um i think that for me the sheer star power that they have attached to this show is going to make it an important show for them um i think that you know it was it was incredible when they brought on witherspoon and anderson to be in a show together especially because jennifer anderson's not been in tv shows for such a long time this is her return to tv but then when they added steve carell and later on it was like oh okay like they they wanted to go big right for for their like for the final casting of all of this like not they have pumped a lot of star power into this one show um so i think that this is going to be a big one for them and i think you

know some kind of some kind of imagery for that will look good if they're all on screen at the same time you know like look at this look at all these amazing stars they're in one of our tv shows we have three hollywood actors in one tv show it's also um an early order and i think that that's there's some power in that too it It was ordered a long time ago. Yeah. And it also seems like this isn't a science fiction show. This one is probably faster to make, right? You would assume.

Right. And I think it'll be one of the first ones that they launch. We didn't draft a sort of launch strategy, but I would not be surprised if they made pilots available to everyone or to some people. I think that's sensible in the same way that, you know, I think they'll have some other content and you can buy, right.

You buy the subscription. I think it would be similar. They'll have some kind of, uh, Hey, watch this one episode, but that might exist after a free trial period, which I think we have.

We have lots of things that we didn't get into in this, in this draft that I think are really open questions. Maybe we'll talk about it briefly at the end with the bring out your dead round. I'm going to go, you said, you know, it's not science fiction. I'm going to say they need some science fiction because they want some explosions. And if Jason Momoa isn't on stage, they could at least put Aquaman himself in a clip from Sea,

which again, if they're spending a lot of money on it, that money is going to be on the screen i think they will want something that's got you know dazzling visuals explosions and the like so i'm gonna i'm gonna say we'll see something of c um i i agree it was on my list uh i'm gonna go back to oprah there's gonna be some oprah content uh in in this thing i think do we all get a car look under your seats you will get an apple tv okay i'm looking i'm looking forward to that apple tv is for everybody yeah i think there's just something and i have no idea what it will

be but as again as we mentioned they've made a big song and dance about this one so oh uh i am gonna i'm gonna play uh favorites a little bit and I'm gonna say in addition to see I think we're gonna uh one of the early orders was Ronald D Moore's sci-fi series and although Ron Moore may not be a household name to be put on stage I hope he is but I I didn't pick him um that is an interesting show because it's about the space race uh but the space race continued after the Apollo program and continues to this day so it's an advanced sort of human exploration in space, also possibly Cold War kind of show. And, you know, we're headed up to the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. I think it would be, I think thematically it would be good with all these sci-fi series is a question of do they have clips that have effects or can they do some effects for the clips i'm sure they could if they wanted to that happens for trailers

for movies they do effects just for the trailers um because it's so much earlier than the rest of the movie so i'm going to put a chip down on that one on on ron moore's sci-fi series about space the space race because i think it will have some spectacular visuals that people will like. My final pick for trailers is going to be Little America, which is being created by husband and wife team, Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon. They worked on The Big Sick together. The Big Sick, yeah. Great movie.

And they're working with some of the producers and writers of Masters of None, Aziz Ansari's show. And it's basically looking at true stories of immigrants in America and like telling their kind of, and it's described as the funny, romantic, heartfelt, inspiring and unexpected lives of immigrants in America at a time where their stories are more relevant than ever. I think Apple's again going to want to show some breadth

to their kind of offering. But also, you know, the big sick performed so well at award shows uh i think that that it might also you know and also that movie was very successful as an indie hit even so i think that's gonna gonna play pretty well for them lots of great choices still on the board because they've they've ordered so many shows oh my god so many shows i'm gonna go i'm gonna go like you chose Sesame Workshop in the celebrity round. I'm going to go with another one of their deals that shows the well-roundedness of this. So you've got the Oprah content.

We've shown a mainstream drama. We've got some sci-fi. We've got this almost kind of indie feeling and Netflix feeling show with Little America. Very Netflix feeling show. I'm going to round it out with kids content. And in this case, rather than going back to Sesame Workshop, I'm going to pick Peanuts Charlie Brown that we'll get a glimpse of, even if it's literally just a glimpse of Snoopy and Charlie Brown. I think Apple wants to send a message of like, yeah, we got Peanuts because they made a deal with Charles Schultz's company to do Charlie Brown Peanuts content as

well as their deal with Sesame workshop to do new stuff so charlie brown and snoopy are recognizable i think worldwide and uh so they'll they'll appear somehow on stage as a part of this because you gotta brag you gotta you gotta brag about having uh snoopy locked up i think as well it's like who would you bring out on stage right so like that will make sense to show Charlie Brown, everybody! So I think that would make sense to show visually as opposed to like, hey, bring out this person, because there kind of isn't really anybody

to bring out. Alright, so finally our tiebreaker. So our tiebreaker round is a madcap question in the essence of just giving this one out. Supplied by Jason Snell. And the question is, what is the color of Tim's shoes? I should have done some research into this should have beforehand but i'm gonna say dark gray dark gray okay we're

gonna have a real debate if it's a mid-tone gray oh it's gonna be wild um i am going to say, see, I looked at pictures and he has done white. He's done black. There's a lot of Kremlinology that should not go on about this. So I'm going to say white. All right. So before we finish out today, we've got a whole draft.

As always, you can find the scorecard in the show notes. So you can pick along at home. But things that we didn't talk about. I said a couple of things I wanted to mention. I think that Apple will talk about other partners that they're going to be working with to bring AirPlay to, like Roku, maybe Fire TV as well.

Just like these are some other companies that we're going to work with. They'll talk about their deal with Samsung. They'll talk about the home apps, like the advancements with home and what they're going about the home apps on like you know the advancements with home and what they're going to be doing with airplay on other devices but i think they'll also have some other options to show off which will be roku fire tv as the low price entry point and then they're still going to have the apple tv as the higher point and then working with other tv

manufacturers and integrating home kit and stuff like that i will throw in one that i didn't pick which is uh which i really like which is uh tim apple i think somebody will make a tim apple reference yeah i don't think it will be i don't think it will be tim cook but perhaps one of those crazy actors will say thanks tim apple oh yeah i hadn't thought of it that way that was good yeah because i i thought when i put it in it just happened and i was like ah they'll make it now it feels a bit old the joke but yeah it definitely feels like something someone would say to get a quick a cheap laugh yes i want to ask you because you put in a couple of things and this is probably what you would go to next but what is going to happen with the mac and this content yeah so i think one of the most fascinating things here, I think it'll be in the TV app everywhere else.

One of the most fascinating things about this whole thing is what happens on the Mac. And I think it's a real question. I almost made this a pick-em as well because it really is like, what do they do? So I think they got some options, right? They can say, we put it in iTunes. Yay, nobody is excited about that.

They could say, it's gonna be on the TV. Nobody is excited about that. They could say, it's going to be on the TV app, which is coming to the Mac this fall. They could do that, right? Like Marzipan, and it'll be on the TV app this fall, and you'll need to upgrade your Mac in order to watch the service. They could say, what we're also doing is you can log into your account and watch it on the web. And that means that if you're on a Mac or a PC or any other platform, Chromebooks, whatever, you can watch it on the web as well. And that's like, I mean, every other video service, right? The fallback is the web. If they don't have an app, it's fine. It's on the web. I think that might be the easiest thing for them to do. And then they don't need to worry about updating any Mac app to support it. And maybe the TV app comes later.

And it is possible that they will just literally say, this will be on the Mac in the fall when that app comes out. And otherwise you have no other way to watch it on the Mac. But I don't know which one they're going to choose. If I had a guess, I would say it will be available on the web. And then maybe the TV app will come to the Mac this fall. Mazapan. Marzipan. Yeah, right.

I think that would be the scenario there. But I would really like them to see them do a web version only because it gets them on all other platforms without them actually having to support them particularly, as long as they can get the web. It answers a million questions. Exactly. It's just, oh, if you want it, it's just on the web. Go watch it get the web it answers a million questions exactly you know it's just oh it's if you want it it's just on the web go watch it on the web yeah log into your

apple id and there it'll be so that is the draft the draft is taken care of you can find links to scorecard and links to everything else we discussed about in this episode i hope that you have enjoyed this extra special wonderful bonus bumper yes episode of upgrade this has been a really big episode for us yes thanks thanks to uh thanks to our special guest as well it was a big big moment for us to have a special apple guest on i know for the first time very very very happy about that and again we'll actually give a little shout follow out you should go listen to atp with phil schiller it's incredible it's a wonderful wonderful episode totally puts all these Apple people

on podcast now. I know, isn't it great? But we're feeling very we feel really pleased that we're able to do this today and I hope that you enjoyed the episode as much as we have enjoyed putting it together. You can find links to everything that we've spoken about today over at relay.fm slash upgrade slash 237

but you can also find those links in your podcast app of choice. If you want to find Jason online, you can go to sixcolors.com, the incomparable.com. And he is at Jay Snell on social networks like Twitter and Instagram

and stuff like that. And I am at I'm like I am YKE. Thanks to Squarespace and Lunar Display and Green Chef for the support of this show. But most of all, as always, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time when we're reporting live after an event. Yes, that's right.

It'll be a later release than usual because I will be in Cupertino for the event. But it's going to be the regular day. Usually it's like a wild day of the week, but it's going to be on Monday. Jason's going to be there. So we will be reporting as soon as he is done and back in uh the snail zone yes i will tell you what oprah is really like oprah okay so thank you so much for tuning in we'll be back next week with even more until then say goodbye jason snell oh i'm tired goodbye everybody Thank you.