Upgrade - 246: You Can't Fight the Magnets

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

With the WWDC draft a week away, Jason and Myke engage in a flight of fancy, discussing all their wishes for iOS and macOS developments that probably won't happen. Also, Jason has to retrieve his iPad.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 246 today's show is brought to you by borrow lunar display and squarespace my name is mike hurley and i have the pleasure as always of being joined by my partner in crime mr jason s Snell. Hello, Mr. Mike Hurley. Hello, Mr. Jason Snell. We have a hashtag Snell Talk question that comes from Nathan this week, and Nathan wants to know, Jason, when you rotate your iPhone to landscape, which side does the notch go? Well, that's an interesting way of putting it. But since we generally the notch starts on top right we don't generally hold our phones upside

down not generally not although sonos makes you do that when you're tuning a speaker which is hilarious they flip the whole ui upside down because they want you to hold the microphone in the air that's clever and it's it just seems wrong so what i'm going to say to nathan is clockwise so the notch goes to the right because I rotate my phone clockwise. Huh. Okay. I thought that everybody

turned it to the left. Au contraire, mon frere. Yeah, most definitely. I always just figured that the home button always goes on the right and that's the holdover, right? Who says the home button

always goes on the right? I don't know why I assume this. Wait, do you do it... Which way do you turn your iPad? Where do the cameras go, left or right? I can't tell anymore, quite frankly. Well, because the Apple Pencil always stays on top, right? Believe it or not, it depends on what case it's in,

because the smart keyboard folio opens a different direction than the smart cover. What? What? No. That's unacceptable. What? What? No. That's unacceptable. Really? I think that's true. I think the smart keyboard folio opens on the other side.

Oh, God. No. That would drive me mad. I think so. I think that's right. Is that correct? I don't know. That seems wild, Jason.

Are you putting it on upside down? I don't have it here. I think it's... Well, no, because there's magnets, Mike. You can't fight the magnets. So, I don't know. I don't... i think it's well no because there's magnets mike you can't fight the magnets so i don't know um i i don't i think it's usually i think the camera is usually to the left but sometimes it's to the right i that's the beauty of that new ipad is that i'm not supposed to have to care about it i think it's usually to the left because uh my power cord comes from the right side so you typically hold hold your iPad and your iPhone

in different... Like, you turn them differently, right? The phone goes to the right and the iPad goes to the left. I think... I think so, but again, you know, I don't know. There's no notch on the iPad, so it's much less noticeable what

direction you're going. Man, the things we learn from Snow Talk questions. Now I'm worried I got this wrong. I'm going to go get my iPad right now. Hold on. less noticeable what you know what direction man the things we learn from snow talk questions i think i now i'm worried i got this wrong i'm gonna go get my ipad right now hold on yep okay i've got an update both of them do attach on the same side. Uh-huh. I think one of them is less comfortable to hold in that orientation because the keyboard one has a fold in the flat back, whereas the other one folds in the front. Okay.

So, yeah. So on the smart cover, camera on the left for the ipad camera on the right for the iphone notch on the right that's wild jason it's a weird world out there mike anything could happen for me all the cameras go on the left because the home button or where the home button would have been always went on the right for me i don't know why that is i don't know if there's like some uh particular reason that that that i've that i am that way but let me also say i it's so rare that i ever rotate my iphone to landscape i watch a lot of video on my iphone like i do that that is the thing that i do like so then i will do it i always have my uh ipad with me basically yeah i don't always i i never use an app in landscape when it you know like unless it's like a game or whatever like i never i never

really take advantage of landscape orientation on the iphone it's always been unsatisfying to me um like i feel like the screen just doesn't it just doesn't lend itself to that. The aspect ratio, it just doesn't work for me. I agree. Nathan, thank you for giving us this gift of this wild opening to this week's show. If you would like to send in a question for hashtag Snell Talk, you just send out a tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk and it may be included for a future episode.

I will remind people, or will inform them for the first time, in case you maybe knew around here. Next week's episode is going to be our WWDC draft. Me and Jason compete before every Apple event. We will make our picks. We make our prediction-based picks, and then we will score them in the episode which comes after the event

because we are so close to WWDC now. Next week's episode is exactly one week until the WWDC keynote, so we'll be doing our draft next week. And I mention this because if you have any draft-related Snell Talk questions, then you should send those in in the intervening time, but we will be going through everything draft related next week all the rules all the way that it works before we make our picks

I am very excited about the draft as I always am yeah I haven't prepared at all too so I realize I've got some work to do well the preparation begins now yeah it's hard too this is a tricky one WBBC because you're trying to gauge what they say on stage

and there's so much that is rumored for us to pick through. We have a lot of picks available to us this time. I'm basically just going to go through that Mark Gurman bulleted list and they will be our picks. So thank you for making that a bulleted list, Mark. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. I have some bridge follow-up. Okay. our picks so thank you for making that a bulleted list mark i really appreciate it yeah uh i have some bridge follow-up okay because the 11 inch version arrived today and i wanted to kind of just i don't have a ton to say about this um it's fantastic uh i really i i like the 11 inch version about as much as i thought i would it it makes my this ipad feel like a really tiny netbook or something like it just feels like a really tiny computer um i have noticed over the last week of using the bridge uh i feel like i i've nearly tweeted this like 20 times but figured it would make people mad but if i say it in a podcast it might not be as bad um yeah the 2018 ipad pro

with the bridge keyboard is my favorite laptop i've ever owned i just think it's perfect i love it the either size either size either size i mean i've only had the 11 for like a half an hour but like just using the using the bridge keyboard with the ipad pro it's i just look at it it's like it's perfect for me i love it i absolutely love it um i know that there is there's a lot of contention about that like i've had many mac laptops but just for me this makes some this just makes so much sense and i love it very much and yeah the 11 is really great the keys are tiny it will get it takes some getting used to but i know I could adapt to it. There are some of them,

like the delete key is the size of a regular letter key, which is a strange thing. It is, I think, even more so than on the larger model, you notice that it is significantly chunkier than the Smart Folio. It's definitely more heft to it,

but it has a substantial feeling and it looks fantastic i think that's why uh that's one of the reasons why i love this form fact and even more now than i did before because bridge did such a fantastic job of making it look like a complete package so yeah i i really i think it's really great. I thoroughly recommend this one in the same way that I would recommend a larger one too. I reckon I will be just switching to the 11-inch on this iPad 2 as well.

I was wondering, will I just use it for traveling or not? And I think, no, I will probably be using it at home too because the bridge is also, it's actually really good for watching video too which is a lot of what I do with this iPad like I'll watch or read in bed but now I actually don't have to hold it up because it holds itself up

right and it because the the additional angle ability of the bridge compared to the smart folio is great because I can you know I even think about like, you know, they have the media mode or whatever. You put the keyboard behind it

or that would work for the way that I use this iPad better than the Smart Folio would because the Smart Folio lost its like flip around and stand up kind of thing that the keyboard, I should say, that the Folio still has. So I'm all in on the 11 inch as well. The bridge, I think it's fantastic. This is one I bought on my own, that the Folio still has. So I'm all in on the 11-inch as well, the Bridge.

I think it's fantastic. This is one I bought on my own, by the way. I bought this one myself. This was the one that I ordered and Bridge sent me the 12-inch. It looks like they are shipping now. I've been seeing a lot of people getting them, right? So I think that they're in full shipping mode now. I think that the 11 is really nice.

I recommend it. And if you do have a technical support issue or something with your bridge keyboard that you just received, contact the company. Don't contact us. We are not the company. I think we've gotten at least two support questions

about bridge keyboards so far. Yeah. Oh, well. We are, I think, advocates for it, though, at this point. We are. It's fine. I just can't help them with their order. Right?

Like, I can't do that. I don't have that power. I would like to give a bit of follow-up, Jason. We have a new show on RelayFM that I think might interest some Upgrade listeners. It's called Adapt. It is a brand-new show focused on iOS productivity. It's hosted by Federico Vittici and Ryan Christoffel of Mac Stories. It has a bit of a twist to it in that every episode,

they set challenges for each other. Like for example, find an iOS custom keyboard that you could actually use to get work done or publish a article to your website directly from Apple Notes. And then they try and find ways to make these things happen. So it's a fun show

that can help teach you more about using iOS, but in a different format than what I've seen elsewhere. So I think this is a really nice mix and we're very, very happy to have it here on RelayFM. So it's iPad by Friday.

This is what I've been thinking, right? Like that's, it's do it by iPad, I think. Yeah, do by iPad. Sure, that works. Challenge do it by ipad i think yeah do by ipad sure that works challenge do by shortcut it's a weekly challenge podcast it's actually fortnightly challenge each other challenge yourselves should we do some upstream news jason snell we've been holding on to a bit anything happened uh yeah we should we should we said it would happen and it happened uh disney has assumed full control of Hulu, basically. Within five years of now,

Comcast will be selling its stake to Disney of Hulu for $5.8 billion. At least, right? There's a minimum amount of money that they'll get. They may get more as Hulu's valuation is adjusted, but they're going to get a big chunk of change from Disney over the next five years. Yeah, it's an interesting thing for me. I'm not really sure if I've known of a deal to go this way before, but it's like, we've agreed it. And at some point

it's going to, it's like, it's very strange. It's, it is a very strange deal. It's the unwinding of a joint venture and that's complicated. So it's one of these things where they're sort of like making these horse, it's horse trading to get to the, to get to the final resolution. They've been in talks. And so there's a, you know, there's a valuation set that is, it can go up, but it can't go down.

And there are agreements about sort of like when content can go off, when content's exclusive and not exclusive, because there's a lot of NBC universal content on Hulu. And obviously eventually they want to make, make their own streaming service supposed to come early next year. And they want to migrate all of their catalog to that over time. So they had to negotiate sort of like, how does it leave Hulu? And then what Disney wants is they want to control where Hulu goes next. And so I thought one of the more interesting parts of this deal is that even though Comcast isn't going to get all that money right now, Comcast is, I believe, giving up control of Hulu right now.

Their seats on the board are going away. And that was, as a founder, because a bunch of people have asked, like, well, they only own a third, so can't Disney do what they want? And the answer is no, because Comcast was one of the founders. was one of the founders, one of the joint venture agreements was that the founders had the ability to veto any substantial change to the business model of Hulu. So Disney had to buy them out. That was a provision that earned Comcast $6 billion. And they're stepping away from the control part of it now. So obviously, they're winding down their control of Hulu.

They're going to get paid, and their content will sort of slowly drain off of hulu but uh they had to make all of those plans and figure out the timing and all of that which is what they did last week yeah so it's 20 until 2024 right sort of five year period um nbc universal will continue to have content but it's not going to be exclusive necessarily anymore yeah yeah so they'll and some of it will probably go and be you know it will be it'll progressively drop off the service and until it's all gone that's that's the goal and that's fine because what disney wants to do and people especially outside the u.s might be saying you know what do i care and the answer is, this is another leg in Disney's worldwide streaming strategy. So

Hulu is in the US and I think maybe in Canada, but Hulu is not a big international streaming service now. But just as Disney is launching Disney Plus in the US, the goal will be to take all of the content they control and put it everywhere in the world. And a bunch of stuff needs to expire, a bunch of different rights agreements with different companies, including Netflix. But that's the ultimate goal. So Hulu, when Disney changes it into a different streaming service, and it's going to be a streaming service for the kind of content that doesn't fit in the Disney Plus brand, because the Disney Plus brand is going to be a bit more of a family-friendly brand. It's got the Disney name on it. Hulu, they do own,

the best example I can give is they own FX and FXX. John Landgraf, who ran those networks, is now basically in charge of a content operation within Disney. They're going to feed Hulu. Like, they'll feed those cable channels for as long as cable channels exist, I suppose. But the strategy there is larger, I think, with Landgraf. And it is to also make a bunch of originals that are in that kind of vein for Hulu. And I imagine there

will be some more adult-skewing Marvel shows in there, like we used to see on Netflix. And who knows what else from the Disney catalog. Disney owns a lot of stuff now. Disney owns, like, there was that talk about doing a reboot or continuation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That's a 20th Century Fox Entertainment property, which means it's now owned by Disney. If they created that, they could put it on Disney Plus or they could put it on Hulu. And, you know, the X-Files. Like, there's all of these catalog stuff, but not just catalog stuff. Also, you know know new content that they can do based on those franchises they own the intellectual property of them as well as exactly

logs of them and that's more important for disney and they and honestly disney is so huge and they own so much stuff that one streaming service or two because they also have espn plus is not enough to fit all the stuff that they've got and it allows them to i think smartly differentiate between a service that's going to feel more like an HBO, more like a service geared toward adults than Disney Plus, which a lot of adults are going to like. But there is an implicit family friendliness there that I think is also what Apple is going for. So yeah, we'll see how it plays out. But that's why Hulu and Disney buying Hulu is more relevant, even if're outside the u.s because this is part of the overall disney strategy and it will be coming to whatever country you're in inevitably some point in the next few years and a surprise to

nobody at&t ceo randall stevenson has said they will be pulling their marquee back catalog shows from other streaming services once they had their own warner media offering they called out friends and er as examples of these shows that will be going back to uh warner media they've also strongly hinted that shows like the office will move away from netflix as well this is not a surprise to anyone uh problem for netflix i think and the i always you always see this i mean we've spoken about this before you know like shows like the office shows like friends because uh friends are the top two shows on netflix and so you know that's going to be a problem for them because that i really think that it is something that keeps a lot of people in these services and and i really wonder what's

what it's going to be like in a few years i think this came up on the tv talk machine podcast last week that i did with tim Goodman from The Hollywood Reporter. And it was a listener question saying, is Netflix in trouble when they lose all the other content from all the other services, all the other studios? And his response was, no. They have so much content and they've made so much original content that they will be fine. I don't entirely agree. I think he's right. I think Netflix is so huge now that it would be very hard to seriously wound Netflix.

I think it's number one. But it will get hurt because people will lose their favorite shows. It will hurt them. It won't kill them. Yeah. will lose their favorite shows it will hurt them it won't kill them yeah if you if you uh get netflix because you want to stream the office endlessly you will not be able to do that at some point and you're going to need to get um a different service you're going to need to get uh the nbc universal service for the office and that's just that's just how it's going to be if

you want to watch friends you're going to need to get warner media service but netflix has known this was coming. Netflix has been planning from the day they started doing original programming. Netflix has been building a catalog, knowing that at some point they're going to lose all the licensees. And that's what they've been working on. Now, I would say that Netflix does still have a problem, which is that it has not created huge franchises. franchises so it's got a big catalog but there is some strength in being able like disney to say we have star wars and marvel and netflix has bought a bunch of uh like comic book publishers and other things they are trying to develop stuff like that

but i don't beyond maybe something like stranger, which is still just a show and not a franchise. Like I think they have not been as successful at that part of it, which is why I keep thinking that they need to be in the mix to buy some other studios. There was, um, there was a report that's not even in our short show notes that I saw the other day that CBS and Viacom,

uh, show notes that I saw the other day that CBS and Viacom, which are brother and sister companies, basically, are considering buying Lionsgate, which is basically Starz. And that's an example of saying, we're little, we need more stuff. But there's going to still be some movement where stuff's going to get bought out. CBS and Viacom might even get bought out. I do think that that's a possible issue for Netflix, but I think they they are supremely confident in their ability to survive but it's going to be a different story and the competition is going to be different they're going to have to compete completely on their originals which they don't have to do now and i think it will hurt them but like you said it won't kill them yeah it is

interesting right that like netflix have created a bunch of great shows they have not yet created anything which you could consider a franchise yet they may but they have not done that yet i mean it's early days yet they've only been creating content for a few years but what they haven't done is create something i you know correct me if i'm wrong but what strikes me is that they've got some licensed content from franchises and marvel is a good example of that but that's all going to be taken back by the mothership i'm not sure there's something that is completely owned by netflix that is uh has a big fan base and that they can generate like multiple tv shows based on it or or movies or whatever that is going to be like if you want this amazing thing the only place you can get it is Netflix.

And Disney can do that for Star Wars and Marvel. Yeah, it's like they have created like House of Cards, great TV show, but like there's never going to be a spinoff, right? Like it's not like that. It's not a world that they've made. And Amazon have picked up the international streaming rights for CBS's Jean-Luc Picard Star Trek show. They have more than 200 territories outside of the US and Canada.

They will have the episodes to air within 24 hours. This is interesting because they have this deal for Star Trek Discovery with Netflix. And my understanding is anything that is considered a spinoff of Star Trek Discovery is under that license, which means Netflix gets it outside of the US and Canada. But Amazon stepped up and presumably bid more than Netflix for the continuation of this character from Star Trek The Next Generation. This is Patrick Stewart's captain from Star Trek The Next Generation, and they're doing a new series.

They're shooting it now for airing later this year and uh so their u.s canada deals the same cbs all access and the space channel and the crave streaming service in canada hi canada i learned what your streaming services are called um but everywhere else will be amazon and not netflix and that to me that that shows you like amazon has lots of international video ambitions too and they kind of don't want to get left out. And at least for now, CBS, who has this franchise, doesn't have ago, basically they got Netflix to fund Star Trek Discovery by paying the license fee. And then that essentially paid for the show or almost paid for the whole first season of the show, which meant that they could just use it to launch their own streaming service on the back of money from Netflix. The downside being that it's only in the US. So we'll see what happens in the long run there.

But this is a big franchise that is willing to sell its content outside of North America. And Netflix and Amazon are both interested. And my understanding is Netflix has done really well with Star Trek Discovery everywhere else in the world. It's a Star Trek show that has probably been seen by way more people outside of North America than in North America, because it's on this niche streaming service here in the U.S. and it's on Netflix everywhere else in the world. So anyway, if you want to see Patrick Stewart, you'll have to be on Amazon Prime Video instead. Which is frustrating, I think, if you're a fan, right?

Well, it's a split franchise, right? I mean, it's a little bit like what Disney is doing or is going to do, where they're going to have Marvel shows on Disney+. If they have Marvel shows on Hulu as well, they're sort of splitting the franchise. Like, you really need both. But this is the case where, yeah, Amazon has decided that they don't want Netflix to be the exclusive worldwide home of Star Trek. And so they stepped in. And I would be, yes, if I was only paying for one service and I was a Star Trek fan I would be frustrated by that I am a Star Trek fan but I'm in the US so I just have CBS all access

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free one-week shipping just by going to burrow.com upgrade. That's B-U-R-R-O-W.com slash upgrade for $75 off your order and free one week shipping. Our thanks to Burrow for their support of Upgrade and all of RelayFM. So we have the draft next week. The draft is where we will pick the things that we think are most likely going to happen, right? So we're going to get our points. That's what we're going for. These are the things that we think of everything available.

What do we think is most likely? But something that we never really do on Upgrade because of the draft is wish lists, talking about the things that me and Jason would really love to see. Whoever does that is punished, right? Because the draft is all about the possible and the probable. And you're playing a game where you want to pick the sort of rumored or likely things that are most likely. Which does mean that the draft is all about kind of like what's going to happen next week when we do it next week. But that doesn't let us, other than when I pick Spinal Tap on stage, which they performed recently together for the first time in years. It's never going to happen. It's available for next week. You know what, actually?

Make sure you pick it. Thank you. The gamesmanship is already beginning. this might be a fun thing to do the week before the draft, which is talk a little bit about the stuff that we really, really would like to see in future versions. If not this year, then, you know,

at some point, uh, what we would make us happy about iOS and Mac OS that are maybe not the things that we're going to be able to pick next week because of our, uh, you know, our commitment to beating one another. Yeah.

Like I have a, I have a small list of things that i think are pretty esoteric like they're just like really important to me so like one of them i think is probably one that we both share is just far far like a more improved audio support on ios yeah for sure just the ability to be able to like use an external audio device and have the audio routed into two places, right? So the idea being that like on the Mac, we could have a Skype call and then use another application to record it. I feel like this is something that gets lost sometimes when we talk about storage stuff.

And we should mention that tomorrow, Tuesday, I think Federico is posting a big story on Mac Stories, which I was doing my thoughts about my wish list before I read that story. Although now I feel like we're doing follow forward, follow future. I don't know what it is where we're sort of like touching some of the same ground that he touches. But when we talk about storage support, a lot of times what's going on there is that it's somebody who's trying to record audio who ends up having to use an external audio recorder because of all the limited iOS support for audio. And I think left there on the floor that we need to talk about is iOS audio support is terrible. And by that, what I mean is, and it's not just if you're a professional podcaster, but like different apps, like you can't have two apps running

using the microphone at one time. That is really annoying and would solve a lot of podcasting problems because you could record your voice on one app while also being on Skype on another app. But it's also stuff like I was working on a story, or no, I was posting a podcast this weekend and I was exporting files out of Ferrite

and Ferrite has a microphone feature. And the other apps do this too. The camera app does this if it's in video mode, right? Where it's going to be recording audio. And if you're working and listening to music, you basically can't when you're using apps that touch the sound system, because the moment it touches the sound system, it pauses your audio and it pauses your music. On my Mac, I can have music playing in a couple of different places and it just, they all play. I can have different audio

in different places. It all plays through. And iOS is not, it does not multitask audio. That's the fundamental thing. So we don't talk about it a lot because we focus on things like, oh, I want to work, use a workaround, which gets me a file on an SD card, which should be read by the files app. Yes, absolutely. But let's not leave out the larger thing here, which is a computing platform this powerful should probably have the ability to route audio better than iOS does. And it's just not been something that Apple has given any attention to anytime recently. So that's high up on my dream list that will almost certainly not come true. Yeah, it's like you look at that and it's like, well, we feel like at some point it probably will

happen. But then we think about all of the other things that really are more important right like which is most of the stuff that we'll talk about next week for sure and those things are going to come first like this can't be i can't imagine this being that high up on anybody's uh feature list because it hasn't changed in so long that it doesn't necessarily feel like there's going to be a pressing reason to change it right but if you've ever like been listening to audio and then switched to the camera app and video was selected and had your audio stopped it's like uh that's why why why does that or garage band or you know it's just that's yeah it's just they need to fix it and so another one for me is whilst i will really i really want

to see some significant work on shortcuts just like in general because i don't i fear for this i will consistently fear for it coming to an end i will feel like it's going to be something i'm always worried about but i would like to see the ability to trigger shortcuts without my intervention so time location you know like some some way to have some hooks into that system which don't aren't necessarily me pressing a button yeah yeah for sure because then i could have little things that happen at certain times of the day right like i could have yeah without me needing because there are shortcuts that i trigger every day around the same kind of time well i don't need to be involved in that process right i mean this is your your morning i mean they could get more intelligent too but like even a morning routine that kicks off at a certain time and uh and starts

a whole bunch of tasks or when you get to a certain location or another version of that would be being able to bind a keyboard shortcut that's available everywhere or in a particular app that kicks off a shortcut. That would be something that I would love to because there are and I have that on my Mac, right? There are keyboard shortcuts that work the same everywhere and kick off something on my Mac. And there are other ones that are for a particular app and you can't have that level of customization on iOS. Give me something else that you would love to see. Well, I'm trying to, this is like a reverse draft. I don't want to pick something that's super obvious. So let's talk about external displays, because I actually think that this is a case where Apple's not going to give me what I want, which is I would like to be able to attach an iPad

to an external display and have it work, not in an app outputting to a second display mode, like a keynote presentation kind of thing, not mirroring, but apps running on an external display. I would most particularly like two things to enable that. One is external pointing device support, which may actually happen. And the other thing is, and this is probably not going to happen that. One is external pointing device support, which may actually happen. And the other thing is, and this is probably not going to happen, but this is what I want, which is I want support for external touchscreen devices.

Okay. So that I can attach my iPad or phone even to a touchscreen of whatever size and put apps on it and have it work this is effectively the model of attaching a mac pro to a monitor and having a keyboard and mouse right like it's that idea of like all you're doing is you want the same experience but you want it on a bigger screen right so like you could have this basically you would be using a very large iPad, but it's kind of being like, it's all just running from the small one, but it's in a docked mode or whatever. And there's lots of issues, right? Because our touchscreens made by third parties, especially, you know, are they good enough? I don't know. Are there external touchscreens that are multi-touch that are going to give you the quality of a touchscreen experience? Probably.

I would guess, right? Since Windows has been able to do touch for a long time, I just don't know because I don't have any experience with running an external touchscreen on Windows, right? Even greater, though. Apple supports this and it makes their own. Well, that's been my big conspiracy theory all along is if Apple adds external touchscreen support to iOS and rolls out new monitors, the new monitors could be touchscreens.

And then maybe they also add touchscreen support to macOS. But even if they don't initially, it wouldn't matter if you can attach an iOS device to those screens. Now they're touchscreens. That's my big kind of touch conspiracy theory is you bring touch to the Mac, you make the external displays touchscreens. They're of a quality of touchscreen that iPads are. And iOS devices can also drive them and put their apps on them. And then you're using that. And then, you know, hopefully they're made in a mode where you can like lower them and have them be in a more ergonomically correct kind of environment. And then separately, you know, from the touch conspiracy is external pointing device support

and external monitor support. So that if I want to sit at my desk with an iPad, I can throw an app up on the screen up there and still actually be able to use it because I can use a keyboard and a mouse for it in that mode. And then I can disconnect and it goes back to being on my main ipad screen and uses touch and that we should be able to do both the idea of advances to ipad multitasking is one that everyone's talking about right like it's we're expecting to see some kind of refinement to that system but a very specific thing that i would like uh is for more keyboard shortcuts to exist for multitasking

you know this is something that oh yeah gray first talked about it yeah this was like when ios 11 came out the idea of like when you do a spotlight search which is a keyboard related thing and you scroll down to the app that you want why should there not be a way to then open that app into like the left view or the right view or into a slide over with a keyboard shortcut on that option? That would be incredible. It makes it's where my hands already are to perform the search that I need to perform. Right. is a different experience anyway, because you can't call Spotlight from the system anywhere except with an external keyboard, right? Like, you have to go to the home screen to bring up

Spotlight, but if you have an external keyboard, you can press Command-Space, and you can bring up that view to do the search, right? So this is already like its own special additional pro user feature but then you still have to make your search and then touch the screen like it seems like it's this weird like let me just complete this whole interaction using the keyboard which is the only way i got here in the first place um So I would love, I would absolutely love to see that. And larger multitasking things that I'm not 100% sure are going to be corrected, but I'll throw it in there since we're talking about it now, which is clearly showing what the focus is, especially because if you're using a keyboard, I cannot tell you how many times

I am in a text editing app and Safari in split view. And I hit command L because I want to load a new URL in Safari. And instead it kicks off whatever command L is in my text editor, which is not what I want. And I have to undo, undo, and then I have to tap over in Safari. And it's like, I want to see at a glance what the, you know, focus pain is or whatever you want to call it. And ideally have a keyboard shortcut to go to the other one. Yep. So that then I can issue the keyboard shortcut in that app. And,

uh, we can't do that right now. So I'll talk it about a keyboard shortcut to go to another app. Please fix whatever you did with the command tab switcher, which after two years, I still don't understand whatever you did with the command tab switcher which after two years i still don't understand like when i hit command tab oh yeah sometimes apps that should be in there are just not in there and i can't apps that are called by other apps don't end up in the command tab switcher yeah i have that happen all the time where i'm like i'm in safari and then i'm

back in a text editor and then and then I go back into command tab to look for Safari and it's not there. And it's because Safari wasn't launched in a way that the command tab app switcher deigns acceptable. So it's like, nope, that didn't happen. I didn't see that app. I don't see that as acceptable.

Like just whatever it is that you need to do, just do it. Like do it. It should be every app. If an app is in my face it should be in the command tab switcher then right it shouldn't there should not ever be an exception to that no like 100 i looks like i know that there is a like like a set kind of rule system as to what goes in there but i can never remember it all i know is in that moment i'm annoyed it's

not there yeah yeah let me um throw out you mentioned shortcuts let me throw out some other shortcuts okay things that i want some of which i think will happen and some of which i think will probably not but i have a whole basket of them so i might as well mention them now um interactive shortcuts that will take an input um from your voice siri shortcut and then we'll take that and translate it and then use it as an input into a shortcut, which you can't do now to say, you know,

set my scene to blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah gets passed to a shortcut for set my scene like that. Right. That's what I want.

I want to be able to put essentially variables in commands using Siri shortcuts. I want shortcuts to run. You listed a bunch of things. I'm not sure if you mentioned these or not, but I want shortcuts to be able to run hidden where I don't see them at all. I want them to run with a, or with a minimal interface where I can see that a shortcut is running. But what I don't want is to keep going back to the shortcuts app and having essentially the code of the shortcut open and then very quickly walk through it. It is a really bad experience as a user. I know why it happens.

It's because of the way that these apps communicate with one another. You have to do it, but this is now an Apple-owned app. It should just be able to run invisibly, essentially, or backgrounded and just give me some minor interface indication that it's running a shortcut. I want folders in the shortcuts app. Everybody wants that who uses

shortcuts because there's it's, we you and I both know people who have hundreds of shortcuts, and there's no organizational principle to them. It's ridiculous. And if they don't want folders, then filter based on color or filter based on tag or something, but there's got to be an organizational principle there somewhere. And the big thing, and this is a thing that, again, I think isn't going to happen, but I want it to happen. And it goes back to some things we've talked about here before. Brent Simmons wrote a post about how great Apple events were. Apple events were invented in System 7 back in like 1990. They're very old. And that's the background app communication standard on the Mac today.

I don't think Apple Events as a thing is ever going to come to iOS because there's probably a new way of doing that technology that takes into account what software is like now instead of in 1990. That said, having a way for apps, both on the Mac and on iOS, to pass information back and forth that doesn't involve embedding them in URL strings, which is the current method used on iOS, is something Apple should prioritize because it gets to some of these things like shortcuts coming to the foreground when it's running, other apps that are being asked to do a task coming to the foreground. It makes it a really ugly experience doing automation on iOS, but it's the only way to do it right now is you call a URL. It's handled by an app.

The URL gets passed to that app. That app launches. It looks at the URL. It does some stuff. Maybe then it launches a different app. There's an X callback URL or whatever, and you end up with this just dance of apps, and it's got to stop. And the way it stops is that there's an official sanctioned way for apps to talk to each other and send each other commands and get data back from them.

And safe, secure, permissions, all of those things should be there in a modern version of this. Apple spent time locking down a lot of AppleScript and other automation stuff on the Mac for security reasons. Great. A modern version of this would take all the security stuff into account but what's there now while powerful is a ridiculous hack built on top of something that was never meant to be used this way and apple needs to fix it one thing that i feel like i will ask for forever but will never

get is better rich tech support like i just if i just want to be able to take a bulleted list from one app, copy it, and paste it into another app, and it remain a bulleted list. Sometimes it works. Most of the time it doesn't. Even amongst Apple's own apps, it's not just a Google Docs thing. There is rich text frameworks on iOS,

but nobody seems to use them for whatever reason. I just want my text formatting to be as reliable on iOS as it is on the Mac. I feel like this shouldn't be a hard thing. I feel like this shouldn't have to be as hard as it is, but it is, and I really wish that it wasn't. I've lost count of the amount of times, and I would hate to know the actual amount of time

I have spent converting bullet lists back to bullet lists in other applications. I really just, please, somebody, someone out there must be able to do something about this. Please help me. That's all I want. How about this one, Mike? You'll like this.

I wrote a little piece about this a while ago. Apple Pencil is input mechanism. I want, and this is another thing I don't think Apple's ever going to do, but Apple Pencil is great. There are cases, I even have cases, Mike. I was editing a podcast in Fairlight using the Apple Pencil this weekend, and I was adding some chapter markers. And I had this moment where I was like, I was holding my pencil in my hand, doing the

edits, and then I would tap on the add chapter marker thing and a little text window came up. Then you know what I did? I set my Apple Pencil down, lifted up my fingers and typed a word. And I thought, this is why we need Apple Pencil as an input mechanism for text in iOS, which is I should be able to write that text.

And then it should be able, this is Newton stuff, people. And it should go where I want it to go. I should be able to write text on the screen or whether it's anywhere on the screen or it's in a kind of quote unquote keyboard, that's actually a text entry area. I should be able to do that and have it go in the text entry box where the little cursor is blinking in iOS. And it's ridiculous that I can't do that because that's a mode shift that I shouldn't have to make. I'm entering text in a text box. I am holding a pencil. We should be able to connect these two things, but I don't have the opportunity to do that. All I have is the opportunity to tap on a software keyboard. So I want Apple to say,

hey, pencil users, yes, you can write words, and they will be translated into text as you write them, just like on a Palm Pilot or a Newton. I think in a similar vein, I feel like I know this limitation. I'm not too bothered about the fact that it exists, but I would love it if they fixed it, which is the fact that the Apple Pen pencil cannot interact with system level controls so you can't use the apple pencil to trigger notification center control center you can't use it to adjust the size of any applications in split view like to move the little tricklet around

right you can't do any of that you've never been able to do it you can't use it to swipe up to bring the dock up i think i would like those things um i i feel like i understand that sometimes it could actually make some collisions and if that's the reason that they don't do it like that you know you you have your partner you're accidentally changing the size of your application then i get it but if that isn't the reason and it's just some kind of like methodology right like oh you should never be able to to use this like no, you should never be able to use this. Like, no, I would like to be able to change the size of an application in split view with the Apple Pencil. Like that would be great.

I would love that. But that's like a real small one for me because it's one that doesn't bother me that much, but I wouldn't mind if it existed. Here's one that I've got, which is, again, it's part of some things that may come true, but I think there's other stuff that is not going to come true. And it's in that list of files stuff needs to be better. You know, we may get USB storage support. Boy, I hope we do. We

may get native server support where you can just put in an SMB server and connect to it instead of having to use a third party app to do that. But there are some other things that are hanging out there. Creating folders in various places is something you can't do. Depending on where you are and what the folder is, there are places where you literally, you can save a document, but you can't make a folder and then save the document in it. It's maddening. It makes me not want to use iCloud Drive. It makes me not want to use the Files app. I hate it. And then the other part of this is the on my device folder, the on my iPad on my iPhone folder, which is a place by the way, where you can't make you can put files. And on the Mac, you can make folders, but you can't do it on iOS.

And this is one of those cases where it's so close, and they just need to push it over the line. But because it doesn't quite work right, people think it doesn't even exist. It's fascinating. There was a conversation in ATP last week, where they all agreed that it would be really good if there was a place for you to save files on your device on iOS that didn't sync them to the cloud. And I'm just beating my head against the wall while I'm listening to this, because there absolutely is. It's on my iPhone or on my iPad. It's right there in the files app listed as a provider. The problem is it doesn't behave right. And it's got a list of apps in it that have decided to make folders there, but you can't make a folder there

or just drop a file in on my device. You have to drop it in a folder in on my device and then remember where you put it for later. And it's just, it's ridiculous. And that's a case where I feel like they're very close and maybe they will do this, but I'm so dispirited. It's so bad now that I'm a little dispirited that they don't understand what they're doing with this one and what people want from it. But when fairly tech savvy people think you literally have no place to save files on an iPad that doesn't sync with iCloud drive,

you have made a mistake somewhere along the line with your local storage stuff. And it's there, it just doesn't work right. Is there anything else you wanted to call out? I have one last thing, which is in the wildest of wild, which is support for multiple faces using Face ID. Instead of alternate appearances, actual multiple faces. So you can say, this is my face.

This is my child's face. This is my wife's face. Whatever it is. These are other faces in the family. Please let them unlock the phone without training their, you know, you can do it now, but you're sort of training a face that's an amalgam of existing faces. And I worry that it leads to complexity and brokenness. Eventually, I want explicit support for multiple faces and more wildly, especially of use on iPads,

explicit support for multiple users with those faces so that I can set up an iPad with a couple of kids or with a kid and an adult and have it work, whether it's a faces or face ID or a touch ID on older iPads. It still kills me that there isn't any way to set up a shared device on iOS. And I don't think this is a priority for Apple. They just want you to buy more devices. But there are so many examples when you throw in screen time and other parental controls. The fact is that there are iOS devices that are shared and Apple makes you pretend that they're not. And it's frustrating.

So if you've heard us give these lists and you're like, why didn't they talk about dark mode or anything like that? That's what we got you next week. This is our like, we don't think these things are going to happen, but we'd love it if they did. That is what this wish list is all about. We should talk about the Mac, but before we do... I suppose.

Let's just... If we have to. Today, let me talk about our second sponsor for this episode, and that is Luna Display. If you have a Mac and an iPad in your life, Luna Display, you want one of these because our friends over at Luna Display save you so much time, effort, money to improve your workflow because you don't need to spend a fortune on extra displays for your Mac because you already have that beautiful iPad display sitting right there that you can use as a

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You can use Luna Display to travel with you on your devices so you could maybe, you know imagine i imagine someone sitting on a train and they have their laptop and they have like a big table in front of them they have their ipad and they can connect their lunar display they could do it over usb so if they can need to connect to any kind of like weird wi-fi that might be on the train you can get all your work done with multiple monitors they have all that screen real estate available to you i use my lunar display all the time and i absolutely love it it's become a real like indispensable part of the way that i get work done on ios especially it's absolutely fantastic it has been you know

all over the press and they've people have spoken so great about it like for example tech crunch described the visual fidelity as frankly stunning which i agree with it looks so good many many times i've used the Luna Display. I kind of forget what I'm doing and just assume that I'm using the Mac, but I'm not. It's all in an iOS app. It's a wonderful thing.

Believe me when I say that you will be super happy with Luna Display. So go to lunadisplay.com, L-U-N-A-D-I-S-P-L-A-Y.com. And once you're there, use the promo code UPGRADE at checkout and you'll get 10% off your order. That's LunarDisplay.com and promo code UPGRADE at checkout for that 10% off. Our thanks to our friends over at Lunar Display for their support of this show and RelayFM. So tell me what you got for macOS. What is your wish list for macOS?

I mean, it's harder to build this. this is a shorter thing because so much of it is like look obviously marzipan is going to happen right marzipan so some of my stuff is um is marzipan related but like one of the things they said last year in i think maybe the state of the union that i keep mentioning and nobody else seems to mention is apple made a big deal about how they're syncing up the low level stuff between iOS and Mac OS because they had drifted apart. And Marzipan is obviously the reason why, because you really need the subsystems. You need the APIs.

You need all that stuff to be pretty consistent across Mac OS and iOS. If you're going to have a unified app platform on top of it. I, I think that has to follow. I think that they're still doing that. And so not, maybe there'll be a draft pick in here, who knows. But like, I want to see overall, I want to see more syncing up of this. There are still things between the Mac and iOS, and this will make some Mac users unhappy, but there's still things between the Mac OS and iOS that are just like, they're different, and I don't know why they're different.

Like, yes, of course, you know, maybe the rumors are parental controls and screen time stuff syncing up and getting new messages out. But what about, like, support for cellular devices? That's not a thing that is in macOS, but it's in iOS. Does the system preferences app finally become a settings app? But I think more broadly, what I want to just say is, I want to see more sync ups that we haven't thought of. I would like somebody at Apple to have gone through macOS and iOS and compiled a list of things that the Mac does one way, and iOS does a completely different way and say, how do we make this that there's one way that our platforms do this? And I think we'll probably see some of that. But I think that needs to keep happening. Because as you unify these

platforms, the worst thing is that you go from platform A to platform B. And suddenly, it's like, well, it just doesn't do that that way. It does it this other way. Well, why? I don't know. Like, if there's a good reason, there's a good reason. Great. Like if you've got a good reason, well, the Mac is different because it's got this keyboard and trackpad already there and it's got a menu bar and therefore it has to be this way. I'm fine with it. But I think a lot of stuff it's going to be, well, this grew from this direction and this grew from that direction and therefore they are different. And I guess what I'd say is I'm kind of over the difference for differences sake. If they do the same thing in the same way, they should be the same on both platforms.

Yeah, I think like that as well, it's important to note, right? Like that they can meet in the middle or go one way or another way, right? Like I know that what you're not trying to say here is that Mac should do everything like iOS, like the iOS, iOS, in theory, could do things that are more like the Mac way of doing them. Right. But it's about like finding a place which makes the most sense if something's going to do if you're going to make it look like it should be the same thing, make it work the same way. Yep. I struggled for really to think of Mac OS stuff that I want that isn't like super obvious stuff, right? Like Marzipan or Screen Time, which are things that I really want.

But the one thing that I did think about, I'm just interested to see how it ends up playing out, is the idea of making the Mac App Store more of an interesting proposition for developers rather than making it an unavoidable thing. I feel like we are moving towards Apple basically increasing the amount of developers that they have on the Mac App Store, because if you're not there, it's going to be a problem for you. Like, for example, Marzipan, right? Like, I really, I mean, I reckon that if you want to bring your iOS app to the Mac, you'll be putting it through the Mac App Store. Like, that is the way you would do this.

And so that makes it for a lot of developers, right? It's like, well, I will have to use the Mac App Store because there's no other way to do it. I would just be keen to see them try and do something, I don't know what, to make it more friendly to that community a little bit more, as a way instead of just being like, well, we've got all these great new features, you should be in the Mac App Store if you want to use them. That's the end of that. Do you know what I mean?

I think this is a path that they're going down, right? The whole message about panic and bare bones that was on stage last year is them saying, you know, we are making changes and they have made changes. I think for you, what you want is for them to say, we're making even more changes to what apps are able to do and still be in the Mac App Store. And I think Apple is doing this two-pronged approach, right, where they are building security things that allow apps to ask for more access. And if they abide by that, they get in the Mac App Store, things that were previously just not allowed.

Now there's a way to ask. And you can ask, and you can be approved by the app store and you ask the user and the user says yes, and then they get to do their thing. And then the other prong is if you're, if you can't be in the app store, they're adding these security features on the outside for, uh, being able to sign apps and notarize apps and things like that. Um, and. And they are doing both. And I think that's good because I think there will probably always be a need for Mac apps that are outside the Mac App Store, at least in the near term.

But the way you get more people in the Mac App Store, in part, is by making it that they don't have to redesign their app in order to get in there. in part is by making it that they don't have to redesign their app in order to get in there. And that means continuing to add ways that Mac apps can act, can ask for permission and have it be granted, which, um, which they seem to be paying attention to now in a way that they weren't for the first few years of the Mac app store, where they really had very limited, uh, permissions you could ask. And then there were a set of rules and you were either in or you were out. What else do you have for the Mac? Well, so more broadly, I guess I would say,

I want, I will kind of roll this together into one thing. I want old Mac apps to be able to act like new Mac apps. And I want new Mac apps to be able to act like old Mac apps. I want them both. I want as much as possible. And this is the wish casting part, because I don't think it's going to be able to happen. It's certainly not in year one. I want as a user to not feel like I am using app style A and app style B. I would like developers of old style Mac apps to be able to do stuff that the new style apps have access to.

I want them Siri shortcuts is a good example. If they're going to be Siri shortcuts on the Mac and they only work in Marzipan, as the rumor is, like, I don't like that. I want I want bare bones to be able to take BB at it and add something to it that gives it access to Siri shortcuts, even if it's through a specific mechanism, or they have to add something, they have to learn how to do stuff that previously only iOS developers have to do, I just want a pathway for them, so that they can, they can have their app, and actually have it have access to the new new features, rather than having it be barred from anything new, because that'll only be if you're on the other side of the fence. from anything new because that'll only be if you're on the other side of the fence and that includes yeah so like not just siri shortcuts but shortcuts in general like i want

if they bring shortcuts the app to the mac i want old mac apps to be able to find a way to support them even if yes it will take more work and maybe they won't be willing but maybe they will maybe they want to be a full-fledged mac citizen, and this is now a part of it. This is the new automation system. It's the automation system of the future on the Mac. Get on board now. We can't rewrite our app to be a Marzipan app, but what we can do is do the work to get this supported. I want to see that. On the other side of the fence, I want these Marzipan apps to have as many tools as possible for them to feel like mac apps and not a weird ios app that's stuck in a window and i know that some of that will happen but the more the better and beyond that i i do i this this automation schism that's out there like

i want a way to control those apps um and that could be a, I don't know what that is. Maybe it's shortcuts and maybe there's a way to control shortcuts from the other side and that can be the bridge. But it's another one of those examples where I don't want the Marzipan app to feel weird. I know it's going to be a little weird, but if I'm going to have a wish here, my wish is going to be that old Mac apps are over here and Marzipan apps are over here. And I want them to be in the middle. I want the old stuff to be able to pick up some of the new, and I want the new stuff to be able to at least bridge the gap with the old somehow.

So that as somebody working on the Mac, I can use them interchangeably and not have it be really weird because all of a sudden this behavior is different because this must be app type B instead of app type A. Because I think that is going to be a very, very bad user experience on the Mac. So the more Apple can do to make apps just feel like apps on the mac the better yeah i don't really think that it helps anybody to make this class of application feel lesser than in any way either class very good point yeah i have a class i mean that's how i feel is that um it's just users fundamentally users should not have to know, oh, this is a marzipan app. I use it like this because they're not gonna know, right? They're not gonna know.

And so, and I, I bring some baggage here from the OS 10 transition, um, and from the carbon and cocoa era of apps where they really did behave differently. Like there was an era in there where like drag and drop wasn't the same. And it was infuriating because you get your muscle memory about how to use your computer and then you do something

and it's like, why didn't that work? And the answer is because of the method by which that application was developed, which is different from the method by which this other application was developed. And as a user, I don't care. I just want it to work. So consistency, I think this is going to be the hardest thing.

I don't think they're going to get it right the first time. I think it's going to take time. I think it's going to take a lot of work on Apple's part. I think it's going to take a lot of work on developers' parts. But we are wishcasting here a little bit. That is my big wishcast, which is you got to get the Mac platform to feel consistent. We can, we can talk about what we would like to see on the Mac.

And, and, and there are people who've been using the Mac a long time. I don't want it to look like iOS or iOS users who are like, yeah, you could, it could look more like iOS. What Apple is a platform owner is going to sort of land on a place of like, here's what we want the Mac to look like in five years or three years or whatever. Apple is going to make some decisions. It's probably going to integrate more iOS concepts than the Mac currently has. But for me, number one is, can we make it consistent?

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Jason, fire the lasers. Thank you very much. And our first question comes from Tim. And we got this from a bunch of people, which is why I'm including it. Now that Apple's built a stage at Apple Park, what is the likelihood that there will be a WWDC event inside the campus? And so Apple built this stage. It seems like it's a permanent thing, but I don't know that because they had basically a combination event, it seemed like,

of an appreciation day for Apple employees, the official opening of the Apple Park campus itself, and also a celebration tribute for steve jobs where they had lady gaga perform last week um which looked like to be like quite an event and the pictures are incredible because they built this six color apple rainbow stage which looked really amazing so do you think that this will be purposed for any wwdc event i don't i think it's a temporary thing and they'll take it down and and then that'll be it that this was for this event and it shows that apple can do an all company you know event

at the center of apple park and that's a nice thing but i i doubt that it's their intent and i also really doubt that they have any desire to get the attendees of wwdc inside the ring. It would be amazing, let me just say. It would be amazing. But logistically and security-wise, they have a venue that they can do in San Jose that they've done the last few years that was fine. My guess is that that's going to be good enough for them. But wouldn't it be? So I would say, this is like a theme of this episode,

is it could happen, and wouldn't that be so i i would say this is this is like a theme of this episode is uh it could happen and wouldn't that be amazing but i can't believe that it would ever happen i can't imagine apple wanting to have to deal with all of those people in their in their campus like i just can't imagine them wanting to have to go through that right where? Where it's just like, now we have all these people that really care and they're all here. We would prefer nobody to ever be here. And now we brought them all here. Like, it just feels like, why? Why would you do it? Right? Like, you can't visit, no one can visit ever. So why would you bring everybody in? No, I can't imagine it happening. I also think that even though that looks like an incredibly well-made and beautifully structured stage that it will be gone soon like oh yeah why would they keep it they could just build it again if they need it

yeah no the goal of that campus is to have a park in the center of it not to have a stage in the center of it wyland asks do you know if subscribing to a channel through the new TV app in iOS 12.3, so this is like the channels feature of the new TV app, will give you access to the same service via the web? For example, if you subscribe to HBO Now

via the TV app, can you then log in online on the Mac where there is yet no TV app, like onto the HBO website and watch the content? Do you know this? It is up in the air here. So I think this is something Apple's rolling out slowly. Pretty sure you can't use it on the Mac right now, right?

Because there's no TV app on the Mac yet. There will be, but it's not here yet. There will be. there's no TV app on the Mac yet. There will be, but it's not here yet. There will be. And I saw something go by where somebody suggested that this is something that HBO is going to connect, but it's really kind of up for everybody

to get their story straight. I will say that I subscribed to CBS All Access this year for Star Trek Discovery through Amazon Prime Channels. And for a while, I could log into the CBS website all access this year from um for strategic discovery through amazon prime channels and for a while i could log into the cbs website or use the cbs app and then i couldn't anymore and it started to act like i wasn't a subscriber anymore and uh i had to only use the amazon app after that and i think i feel like this is where we are right now is it's all kind of fractured. So the way you should be able to do it is if I sign up for HBO Now through Apple, I should be able to also log into HBO Now on an app, on a device, or on the web. I should be able to do that. I think that maybe requires a level of connection that doesn't exist yet.

If it's a policy decision, it's a bad policy decision. But I don't think that's what's going on here. I think it's a technical challenge, and I hope it all gets resolved. Because ultimately, if I buy HBO Now, I should get it wherever I want. And if I buy it through Apple, I should not only be able to play it on limited Apple devices. That's not a good experience for anybody, customers of HBO and customers of Apple. But so basically, I think probably the rule of thumb right now is the only thing that you can expect is that you'll be able to watch any of this type of content wherever you can get to the service you originally purchased it from. Like it is not clear to believe that just because you're a

HBO Now customer somewhere that you can be a HBO Now customer everywhere, even though you should. But you shouldn't assume that because it's not as simple as that. Robbie says, I'm looking to get into the MacBook ecosystem for college in the fall. Should I get the 2018 MacBook Pro 13 inch because of portability?

It's just a thing for Robbie. We have a 1TB SSD, so I can kind of learn everything about the operating system, or shall I wait for the 2019 MacBook releases? So I think what Robbie is saying is, like, I need it for the fall. I want to get it now. I get you, Robbie.

I can tell Robbie wants to buy their first MacBook. Or should they wait to see what might come later this year, kind of around that time period? What do you think? I think you got to wait. I mean, the rumor is that it's a larger laptop that we might see sooner, not the smaller one. But given everything going on with the Apple laptop line and the feeling that it may be about to turn over, I would wait if at all possible. I'm not sure you're going to get what you want by the fall, though, but you might have a better idea of where it's going if you wait. So, you know, I have bought two MacBook Airs in the last six months.

And so I'm not one of those people who feels like you just can't buy an Apple laptop. We have three of those keyboards in this house and we have not had any problems with them yet. Maybe we're just lucky. I don't know. But I know that a lot of people have had problems with them. So it makes me hesitate. But I think if you want a small laptop portability factor, right, by the fall when you start college, it may be a tough one. You may end up with this, you know, existing generation if you do that. But I would wait for now.

I would wait to see not only what is happening at WWDC, but really what happens over the summer and what the rumors are. Put it off if you can. Yeah, put it off if you do yeah but i would wait for now i would wait to see not only what is happening at wwdc but really what happens over the summer and what the rumors are put it off if you can yeah put it off if you can i agree with that completely uh phil asks we hear a lot about tv in the u.s and upgrade and all the new streaming platforms but how does mike feel about tv in the uk we already have a bunch of apps like the bbc iplayer it4, Skygo, NowTV, and many more. I have a complicated set of feelings about TV in the UK. We have had streaming platforms for like 5 to 10 years. iPlayer has been around forever. It feels so normal that it exists that I don't even really think of it in the same

way that i think about something like netflix or amazon prime because it's like well of course i play like i play has been around forever my main thing is that i really want to watch a lot of british television uh i i tend to watch the stuff that everybody's watching on netflix or whatever right like there will be a show every now and then that grabs my attention. Like we've been watching, actually, funnily enough, in the new Apple TV app, it was recommending content to me from Channel 4 via their like all four application. It was kind of funny because I opened up the new tv app and i was complaining about the way that the the layout is i don't like the the tabbed layout where it has like the like

three or four tabs in your libraries right at the very end which frustrates me because that's the content that i've already bought but i have to go through two stores to get to it now right um and i was complaining about this while at the same time they were showing me content from Channel 4 and I saw that there was a new season of Bake Off the Professionals which is British Bake Off but for like professional pastry chefs it's amazing by the way

I don't know if you can get it in America yet but look out for it I'm sure we will it is unbelievable the first season was out last year, and they're on to the second season now. And we just rewatched the first season and we're starting the second season. It's incredible.

But it was kind of funny that I was complaining, but then found a show. So I'm like, all right, maybe it's not as bad as I thought. But the kind of overall, these platforms in the UK, they're all free. So BBC and ITV and Channel 4, they're free.

They come with some drawbacks, like everything is on limited time, right? You only have a limited time to watch everything. And currently in the UK, there kind of isn't a way, I've complained about this before, there isn't a way to then get that content afterwards very easily, because there's no service you can pay for to get old content for a lot of these channels. And except for the BBC, where they're free, they have lots of ads, lots of ads, lots of ad breaks for this stuff.

And I would like to be able to pay for some of that stuff, but it's not as simple as that right now. But it feels like the older networks are now moving into that, right? They've seen now that when they started it, everything was free and ad supported because there was no model.

But now all of the American networks are like, we're going to create these platforms and you're going to pay for them. So now some of the UK networks are moving into that, right? We spoke about BritBox a while ago. We also do subscribe to Now TV. This is basically Skies over the top service. This is how we get HBO content because we can't get hbo now

or hbo go here which is wild and it's because of the deal that sky has with them so like we just watched veep um adina's been watching uh game of thrones and we do that through now tv but now tv's apps oh my god they are the worst i've never seen apps so bad. Like, when? This is an example of this, right? You're watching a TV show. You say you've searched for Veep. You've selected Veep. You play the show. When the show ends, it just goes black, the screen. Nothing happens. You press the menu button, and it takes you back to the actual home screen of the application. It doesn't take you back to the previous view. You then have to research for the show you're watching again,

and it will show you season one. You then have to scroll through every season and then pick the next episode. I've never seen an app, like, on any TVOS app, be this bad for this long. It's like they made it once and never bothered with it but that is i think a general kind of rule of thumb for me with the way a lot of this stuff is in the uk a lot of it feels quite old now because it's been around for a while so uh but as i say i tend to watch not a lot of british television so uh that's why i

don't talk about it too much because i am typically more interested in the stuff that comes from the american companies usa usa indeed and austin asks what i consider to be just a real tale of woe kind of kind of closing out a thread here austin wants to know how do you get blu-tack out of your airpods case hinge oh no that was last week's advice was to use blue tack on your airpods so if anybody knows how to get blue tack out this feels like are you familiar with the story of like the lady who swallowed the fly all the fly yeah so how do you get dirt out use blue tack how do you get blue tack out maybe we'll find out next week maybe you just rub some dirt in there rub some dirt and and then you get more blue tack out but good luck to you austin yeah uh maybe like my answer is don't put it in there yeah i've never i've never used as we learned last week i've never actually used blue

tack on my uh airpods so i don't know neither have i and that's probably because i figured i would probably do something terrible with it and i will will just live with the dirty, gross AirPods case that I own. Perhaps she'll die. Next week is the draft. Get excited, everyone. I'm excited. WWDC draft time. If you want to find show notes for this week,

go to relay.fm.upgrade.246. Thanks to Borrow, Luna Display, and Squarespace for their support of this show. If you want to find Jason online, he's at sixcolors.com. And go to theincomparable.com as well. He's at jsnell on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. We'll be back next time.

Thanks so much for listening. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Two, four, six, eight. Who do we appreciate? Upgradians, Upgradians! Go Upgradians! It was episode 246. I had to do it. Oh, okay. Thank you.