Upgrade - 291: The Ugly Potatoes Are Used for Fries

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

Myke has taken possession of a "new" iPad Pro, so he and Jason compare notes and enter the Conspiracy Room to ponder why it exists. While they're there, they also revisit the possibilities of ARM Macs and iPad versions of Apple's pro apps. We also save some praise for iPadOS cursors and Apple's COVID-19 reactions thus far.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 291 today's show is brought to you by door dash linode and kiwi co my name is mike hurley i am joined by the one and only jason snell hello jason snell hello mike hurley it's one of those rare episodes of Upgrade where we're both in our houses, not allowed to do this live from our studio like we usually do. I'm in my pajamas. It's pretty rare that that happens. Hashtag Snell Talk this week comes from Martin.

Martin wants to know, Jason, what should be, or would be, I should say, the first movie saga that comes to your mind that you would happily binge all day uh movie saga interesting i'm gonna say the marvel cinematic universe mostly because there's a lot of movies there and i like those movies and i just i think that they would give me the pleasure they would make me happy they would make me feel uh you know i feel good in these

comforted in these trying times so i would go with the mcu just because of the variety too that it's going to be you know like a it's like a great kind of a mix like a playlist almost like of of different artists and things because it's going to be you're going to get your iron man and your captain america and your thor you got to watch some of those thor movies that aren't very good and then you get the the good movies again and the avengers and you it's a good i would like that rather than watching because i love lord of the rings and the even the extended editions but i don't really want to sit there i don't think i want to sit there for nine hours watching you know beardy and elfie um walking around slowly i i don't i think i would

i like to space those out let your brain shut off a little bit for the marvel movies if you want to a little bit and and i think the variety has something to do with it it's a it's a saga of a sort but there's a lot of variety in the case of like a star wars series you know you've got these trilogies where it's the same characters and sort of the same place and the and the marvel movies are also of different genres there's comedy ones and you know there's there's different kinds of them and so that's that's uh like martin said first that comes to your mind and i immediately thought well i just i'd put on my mcu playlist and just go to town watch those i might have to do that that seems

like an interesting and very long running thing to do rewatch all of them you won't get through them all even if you watch them all day you won't get through them all, even if you watch them all day, you won't get through them. But it is a project that you could undertake. This is a slow binge. It would have to be a slow binge. I want to slow binge those. I do not want to just binge them.

Thank you for using the term slow binge, which I've been trying to popularize for the last few years. The idea that you watch one or two a night or a day and it's still not one a week, but it's also not eight in a day. But it's faster than they were originally released. Exactly. By a lot.

Thank you to Martin for his question. If you would like to send in a Snow Talk question of your own, just send out a tweet with the hashtag Snow Talk and it may be included in a future episode. I think we have inadvertently created a new segment which is not as fun as our usual segments but is what is apple doing in relation to covid19 yeah because there is a lot every week you're gonna have a fun like

chapter art of a no no didn't think so good don't think so there's no fun theme song for this no and i'm not gonna brand it or name either this is just it just is but i think it seems why you're a professional we may as well my feeling on this jason is we may as well catalog what they're doing we may as well so here we are to talk about tech in general and apple in particular. And Apple is doing some things that are interesting in these unusual times. So one of the stories that keeps happening, and I'm not kidding, every single day of the week, there is a different story that refutes the previous day's story. So I will wrap up kind of where we are at the beginning of this week, is to whether the iPhone 12 will be delayed or not. So in a nutshell, there are lots of reports that Apple has internally considered delaying the iPhone by a few months.

This makes sense. You can hear about this and it not necessarily be that there is a problem or that they will delay, but they are having, rightly so, conversations for contingency plans, right? Like, would we be comfortable releasing the iPhone in November? They should be having these conversations, right? You, would we be comfortable releasing the iPhone in November? You know, like they should be having these conversations, right? You would assume that they are. So you can, you know, assume for now that they are doing that there is a possibility. But suppliers are coming back online now. So Foxconn and the factories that they have specifically created to build the new iPhone, that factory is becoming staffed. I read a report

that Foxconn is offering bonuses to people if they will come and work there, like they are trying to build that up again. But production isn't expected to begin until May anyway, so they have the time to tool up that facility, and provided that it is safe and everyone's good there and you know apple's going to be paying attention to that right like they're not gonna they're not gonna let anyone at the moment right would be my assumption work in a facility that wasn't as safe as it could possibly be right right i i do think there's also that larger issue which is like we know about how apple people go back and forth between the US and China all the time to supervise. Like the product needs to be built. A lot of times you end up with a new productino and the factories? What are they doing now? Not going back and forth, for sure. So I'm sure there are ways that they can work around some of that, but that's got to put a real block in the final like again i don't think it's that they're still inventing technology that's

going to go in this fall's iphone there's a whole roadmap there but they still have to get down to the details how it's being made right like especially if they have new components i mean honestly like they just buy a plane and they just send that plane backwards and forwards with no person on it right it's just like this you load the iphone in here i'm sure they could ship it but if you've got people going back and forth to supervise parts of it, then you can't do that. So hopefully you've got people there and people here. And you, I don't know, it's just harder. And that means it's probably slower, which means that it's not just do we have a factory?

It's also do we have a product that we can sign off on and they can start producing over the summer so that there are enough of them in volume for us to ship them in the fall and you know that that's a challenge for apple but these exact problems is exactly why you want operations ceo not product ceo you know when it like i suppose apple is has the right person at the top right now right you would assume you would you would assume tim is the best person to lead the ship during a situation like this uh but anyway so as it stands right now it does seem somewhat plausible that we could see the iphone in september or at least by the end of the year that you know one of the things as to why people are saying like oh it's going to be late it's because like you have factory C, which supplies some item, some component, right?

They aren't open. But that doesn't mean Apple couldn't source some things from elsewhere, right? But the main thing, the most important part, is the factory that actually assembles the phones

does seem to be getting to a point where it could be made. Now, again, we talk about stuff. Is it important if apple like for the whole world hits the iphone in september of course it's not based on everything that's going on right now but like normalcy is nice right if september rolls around and we have an iphone keynote and then the iphone comes out and then by the end of september we've all got our iphones that feels like we're in some level of normality in our lives and

so it would be great everybody while getting through this we have lots of time to think about what comes next what the different possibilities are and all of those things too and yes if you're being employed by a business if you are old contingency plan cook the ceo of apple the contingency executive officer tim contingency oh i like contingency cook better but either way i just wanted my own shot at it okay uh if you're him that guy uh who by the way posted a video last week and immediately and the first thing he said said was hi it's tim cook isn't that the best i have a question about this video by the way which we'll get you are anyway so he you know it's his job and the job of his operation staff and all of that and and like that and they're at home right this is all they have to do is to talk about what are our

plans and how do we do this and that this because it's their job that's they because they want apple to continue functioning as as well as it can during this and also be planned to function at the fastest level it can once they can kind of crank it back up after this is because it's it's not over reduced the the iphone is not just a product to apple it is an it is an economic industry of its own right like it is it is it changes other people's lives if apple can't get an iphone out at the rate that they were expected because you talk about the world economy this is a this is a many many many many many billions dollar part of the economy yep and so it's it's important for developers it's important for software companies in general right like it's it is a a thing which matters and so it is important to them but important to many more people for them to get it

out so yeah uh the the video that you referenced where tim is recording himself, presumably, is when he was talking about having masks available. So Apple has sourced and is donating 10 million masks to healthcare professionals in the US, whilst also sourcing millions more for the hardest hit places in Europe. This was just like a little video that he did and he published it. But I have a little question about the video. You've seen the video, Jason? Yes. So right at the end of the video, you watched him reach out to stop recording. And he puts his arm down and then the video ends.

And I'm really confused as to what actually happened here. This is completely unimportant. But it's just funny to me. It's like, was he actually not using an iPhone but wanted to make it look like he was using an iPhone? It's very strange. Maybe he tried to hit the button and didn't and then hit it and then cut it and trimmed it.

I think he trimmed it wrong. But it's also kind of like hilarious to me and like someone surely should be watching these things before he posts them oh i'm sure somebody is right and they just missed it i guess like it's not important but it's just like a weird little thing that happened in this video i just find it kind of funny i was watching all of his sports memorabilia he has he has a visibly placed in auburn thing and a duke thing because that's where he went to college and like apple store like shelves like you know i watched a video once to hear what he had to say and then twice to just look like

spot all the things that i thought might be interesting well the most important message is hey it's tim cook in case you didn't know like who is this man and why did he post a video oh oh tim cook right but yeah so tim is tim's got masks for everyone thanks tim for doing it it is nice right but it is also strange like there's this weird thing about i have a question why why apple i mean it's great but's like, why are those masks not already available to healthcare professionals? Why did Apple, and maybe

it's just that they are or that they were priced something or they decided to fund it and then donate it so that the healthcare system doesn't have to, but it did seem weird that like, why is a big private company doing this? And are they like outbidding other people for it and then donating them to i i don't know i don't know quite it's very strange

my expectation is they are they are buying them from factories in china so that could be uh because i know that there are factories in china that are selling them using their supply chain and so back yeah so either companies that are making them or companies that have them and then apple is in a position to be able to to buy them um so i think that might be kind of what's going on here but it is it does ask the question though which is just weird of like, why can't governments just buy them? Why is Tim Cook doing it? Why is Apple doing this? It's just one of those strange questions of our time.

And it's the same. Facebook did it and Amazon are doing it. Why aren't the governments doing it? Maybe they have now it could be that these companies have emergency reserves there are a couple people in our chat room listening live who are saying that they it may be that they they bought a bunch speculatively for the wildfires for either for use for themselves facebook definitely did that they said that was the case and uh and then you know they were going to keep them in reserve but now they're just going

to donate them because that's the other thing actually Actually, it's one of the things in the Bay Area, actually, where I live, does not have the kind of shortage of masks that other places have. I mean, I don't know. There may be places that have shortages, but we have more masks than you would think. And the reason is that we've had wildfires sort of two out of the last three years that have put a lot of smoke into the Bay Area. sort of two out of the last three years that have put a lot of smoke into the Bay Area. And people who were asked to go outside during that were told to wear one of these filter masks. And so a lot of people bought, including organizations, bought those masks either during those fires or speculatively figuring we'll have more of them. It's going to happen again.

Because it happened a bunch of times, right? So you would just be like, we don't want to be rushing next time. Exactly. But that means that a lot of those masks got stored up. And so not only are there donation points and stuff like that, but it just means there are more circulating in this region. And it's just a weird quirk of some other terrible thing that happened that has led to that. So, yeah. But it's cool that they're donating them

and i yeah i'll continue to do stuff like this apple's also created a website and an app for us users to screen themselves for covet 19 symptoms and will also provide advice for what actions they should be taking you know like you should go see a healthcare professional you should be social distancing that kind of stuff this is i mean it's a it a simple questionnaire, but it's one of these things that they apparently worked on with the CDC, or at least used the CDC's samples. And this is one of those things like, well, what can we do? And people at Apple are like, well, we could build a web app and an iOS app that does this. And that tells people what they need to do. And it's fairly simple, and we could do it quickly. And they did it. So that's nice. It's just a little they need to do and it's fairly simple and we could do it quickly and they did it so that's nice it's just a a little nice you know thing to do to try and help i i guess to to have people go through that questionnaire and feel comfortable about it so we don't i don't have

access to the app in the uk i i could use the web version and yeah i did the web version um and then and then told the truth and so i got i i said no to everything and then the last thing is basically stay inside you yeah that's kind of what i was just wash your hands and stay inside dummy like all right okay but in the uk apple is displaying information and video messages from the nhs in like the app store apple music is everywhere every storefront apple has in in on the in the on my iphone the UK, I'm seeing messages from the NHS. So that's really cool, too, that they're sharing that. Apple is offering a 90-day free trial of both Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X. So this is something that you can, if you want to go and learn a new skill, right, like many people do, you can download these applications free for 90 days and try them out.

download these applications free for 90 days and try them out. Right. Argument here is that I heard a bunch of people talk about this, that if you're at home and you want to learn Final Cut or your school or your business had Final Cut that you use sometimes, but now you can't, that basically you can just download it and use it and it'll be fine because you've got this grace period, which I think is a cool idea. I think this is happening in some other software companies too, where there are extended periods or extended trials or something like that. And I think it's a good idea just on that level of like, you're at home and here are our tools. And if you want to use them, if you want to learn Logic, if you want to use it because you don't have access to it at some other location, it's a cool idea.

There was also a report of an unreleased feature for Logic Pro finding its way onto Apple's education site. What is it with Apple and leaking information itself accidentally? There was a screenshot of a feature that's not in Logic that was photoshopped into a MacBook screen on an education sales page yep it shows the live loops feature from garage band for ipad appearing in logic so this image has now been replaced which is also funny uh conspiracy theory time ipad feature finding its way to logic 90 day trial 90 day trial ends in june ends at wwdc time live loops maybe there's going to be finally logic debuted for ipad at wwdc that's my conspiracy theory based upon this information i saw a conspiracy theory that's similar which is this 90 day free trial is really

interesting because it gets us through june and it it could be what if they release logic and final cut for the ipad in june um i'm not sure i follow the logic uh entirely there but uh sure why not supposed to have conspiracy theories it is that's you're right you're right i'm sorry i'm taking the yarn down from the board right now because that's it doesn't matter um but the point is i I would love it, you know, right? Because that's been one of our constant criticisms of Apple positioning the iPad Pro as a pro product is that they've got three flagship professional apps, Logic, Final Cut and Xcode, none of which run on their pro iPad. So with the keyboard and the trackpad, like, are we getting to the point where the other piece of this puzzle is going to be full, you know, app support? And then if they do it, there's a whole lot to unravel there. We may have plenty of time to talk about it.

But what is it? Do they do an Adobe style thing where it's not all there, but it's a lot of it and the files are compatible? Because, you know, I could see them doing that and saying, like, we don't have every feature of final cut on the ipad but you can take your final cut library and put it on there or vice versa and it will work and logic that would be great if you could take a logic project and copy it to an ipad and it would it would just open and you could still edit there even if not every feature was there but we'll see and then over time they would add those features or is it that the reason they haven't been around all this time is because apple's not

going to play it that way and they want to be like no it's real logic the whole thing is there which i guess they could do but uh i don't know we'll we'll see we'll we'll see plenty plenty more time to think about this one but uh nice that it's entered the conspiracy room now and as tj says in the chat room this kind of thing can lead to subscription pricing rather than upfront pricing because logic final cut big payments yeah apple has used them to put its money where its mouth is in terms of app store pricing right where they are expensive although they're way cheaper than they used to be yes and what they do is they they make you pay full price. And then they,

for a long time, they do updates. And then they finally do like, like they did with Logic 10, they drop the barrier and say, well, here's a new version and you have to pay for this version. But since they started doing all of this, of course, they now have subscription options for software that they built in and and i think it's worth asking the question like would apple do that with its own pro apps would it say logic is now a free app uh with a trial and then it costs x dollars a year like what adobe does it would you know i wouldn't put it past them i i feel like on one level they might be happy to do it the way they're doing it now because it gives them an advantage because they don't really need the

money from this. So they don't necessarily need to build their whole business on this subscription revenue from their pro apps or anything. But at the same time, the pro app business probably is run like a business with a profit and loss statement. And they may look at this and say, well, we need to do this. It's great that you made us the standard bearer for app pricing, but nobody does that anymore. Please let us do subscription pricing. So I like that idea. I mean, I like that as a possible concept. It'll make everybody angry, but I like it as a possibility. I think it's a strong possibility. possibility. I think it's a strong possibility. This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by KiwiCo. KiwiCo can help get your kid to put down that cell phone or video game and do something different, spend their time in an extra way. Maybe you want to hear this if you have a child or grandchild, niece, nephew, maybe a wonderful little family member who is learning at home right now, because this is a science and art subscription box for kids tested by kids.

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little one of my family and had a absolutely wonderful time. And it was really useful and really easy to be able to put this stuff together. The instructions were detailed in a great way, and it also made it that I didn't have to lead the project, right? Like I didn't feel like I had to, with maybe with some things like this, especially instruction-based stuff, you can feel like you are having to kind of point the answers out, but that wasn't the case with the keyword code crate. And it really encouraged working together, but also letting the smaller one do their thing and i think that's awesome and right now i think it's good to enable a little bit more flexibility and learning um we need that kind of stuff right now also like variety this is definitely something that kiwi co can provide

there are different crates for children of all ages so something for everyone you can get the panda crate for ages zero to two eure Crate for ages 14 to 104. So they have ages for everyone. You got that one in the 104 range? We're somewhere in there. Yeah, if you're 105, get out. Yeah, we know. We can't do it. We don't want you.

But they have everything from ages 0 until as far as you want to go. KiwiCo is redefining play with hands-on projects that build confidence, creativity, and critical thinking skills. There's something for every kid of every age or kid at heart with KiwiCo. Get your first month free on select crates at KiwiCo.com slash upgrade. That's K-I-W-I-C-O.com slash upgrade. Our thanks to KiwiCo for their support of this show and RelayFM. So I want to give a little bit of follow-up uh we were doing an ask upgrade talking about like board games to play both with family members and with people like at home and people outside of home using our ipads and such and robbie wrote in to say that they came across an app store story recently on a great

strategy board games that have been put onto the iPad. So there's like a long list of games there. And I also, in the past few days, because the App Store is doing a fantastic job right now with putting useful and relevant stuff together, came across a just play online with friends list of games, which I'll also include that in the show notes as well.

So if you're looking for stuff right now, like if you're looking for games and looking for apps, take a look at the App Store. Like they're putting together a bunch of really great collections, like working at home, so many meditation and wellness applications I'm seeing right now.

Yeah, it's really good. So I recommend that you go and take a look at that if you haven't yeah for sure and there are a lot of those where you can you know it's a classic board game and you can play it online and you can you can uh board games by the way some are sometimes great on ipad just because the computer you know the program tells does all the rule arbitration so So it counts things and moves things and stuff. So you don't have to do it, which is great because it makes it, you know, you, everybody's just a player instead of people having to manage the game. And, uh, and yeah,

if they've got an online play, that is really cool. Even if there's no component of like voice or whatever, you can just put them on speakerphone or set up a computer on a Zoom call and then you're using your phone or your iPad to do the game. There are ways to make that work. I would suggest to give that a try if you've got some game playing friends that you want to connect to while you're all inside. I have a couple of upstream notes.

I have Disney Plus now. Congratulations! Great. We watched two Toy Story movies this weekend. We're going through Toy Story right now. We watched one watched two toy story movies this weekend we're going through toy story right now um so we watched one and two over the weekend um we're going to lead the mandalorian to build up a bit we have two episodes right now and it is coming weekly so i'm just going to let it build up yeah there's a lot of conversation about the fact that they're uh they're rolling it out weekly because they want uk people to have that same kind of weekly

experience as the u.s did even though we've seen it all now and there's some controversy about that where people like come on what are you doing but it's like but i like i kind of like it because you can let it queue up like you're doing and then and then get it all in a bunch but like it was made to roll out weekly experience though because no you can't because you've been spoiled about it yeah it's it's true because there are there are baby memes and stuff like that but But I think that beyond that character, there is a really nice narrative ride to be told if you watch it week by week. I don't think it means that the UK is going to be delayed

behind the rest of the world in the future. I think season two of The Mandalorian will drop everywhere at the same time. But they just want the rollout to be, for the UK fans to have that same kind of experience, UK viewers. So we'll see how that plays out in the UK. And obviously, this is not a new thought, but it is when you go on the service, it is

wild to see just how much stuff there is, how much stuff Disney owns. It's bananas to look at now. I could watch stuff forever we're just wise already here like they have there is a lot of content like a lot of content even if you just watch the simpsons you'll be set for a long time so uh also apple debuted trailer a trailer for a show defending jacob which is starring chris evans as the title star this this is of course the the show that what i want to say is that it was shot at john syracuse's house that's not true it was shot in the park that's behind john syracuse's house a part of it but uh but as far as i'm concerned basically

watch for john syracuse and his dog they're probably in it probably in it probably also a star in the show i'm expecting yeah it's pretty much chris evans looks down and there's this cute dog and then we just followed the dog after that it's john's dog uh the show is very dramatic it's uh like child gets convicted of murder of another child and they go through that right like how do you do that? Is he actually guilty? Is he not guilty? That's the show, basically. It looks very dramatic, very interesting. I will be watching this one.

It's a limited run short series, I think. April 24th is the date. So I think that's all I've got for Upstream. All right. Escapism. There's so much great stuff out there right now. It's true. Just find it.

There's lots of stuff on YouTube, lots of stuff on all your streaming services. Anywho, let's talk about ARM Macs. We have a new report from Ming-Chi Kuo. I want to read this quote that was translated from the report on Mac Rumors because it sums things up quite nicely. Kuo believes that ARM-based processors

will significantly enhance the competitive advantage of the Mac lineup, allow Apple to refresh its Mac models without relying on Intel's processor roadmap, reduce processor costs by 40 to 60%, and provide Macs with more hardware differentiation from Windows PCs. There's no denying why Apple wants to do it

when you look at things like that, right? Like that sums it up very nicely. Yeah, I think the question we get a lot is, what is, you know, we talk about ARM a lot, but we don't talk about why or what. And the answer, the short version of it is, ARM is a processor style almost, and Apple's A-series processors are ARM processors.

And ARM processors are designed in large part to be powerful but low-power devices, and that's why Apple chose to do it. So Apple uses these ARM processors on the iPhone and the iPad, and the idea is could they run on a Mac? And sure they could. There are some ARM Windows laptops now. Like you can do it. It's just a processor transition because they're not Intel processors. But what do you get? You get battery life that improves and you get potentially speed that improves because we saw that the iPad Pro is faster than the MacBook Air already.

And that's with, as we're going to talk about in a bit, that's with an old processor that's still in it. But here's the other piece of it, which is just like you look at it and you think, of course, I figured. But now seeing it, wow, which is reduced processor costs by 40 to 60 percent. Because Apple's going from buying a product retail or wholesale from Intel who makes it. And Intel's taking its profit off of every one of those to Apple making them, or at least contracting with the factory to make them. They're eliminating the middleman, who is Intel,

from these processors. And that means Apple's margins go up, which means potentially they either make more money on each of these or they lower the prices. So if you could imagine a MacBook driven by an ARM processor, a 12-inch MacBook or a MacBook Air, MacBook Air is $999 now. Well, we're starting to say, could there be a $799 ARM MacBook with 15-hour battery life? Yeah, there could easily be that. you can just see and every time apple wants to have a new processor generation they'll know it and they'll time it and they'll have their products

move hand in hand with the processors like they do on the iphone which they can't do with intel because they are are waiting for intel's next processor generation and then they have to build their products on it you know you're saying about, like, there is a third option of, like, reducing price or making more money. You say keep it the same price, have more money to do other things. Sure. There could be technology

that they would want to put into the laptops that they can't do because it'd be too expensive. Right, that's true, too. They could use the increase in margin on the processor to spend on features somewhere else, whether it's new features or whether it makes it easier for them to put more RAM or more storage or whatever in those devices. Yeah, that's true, too. They could load them up. And they'll make the choice there about, would I rather have a $799 laptop that looks like this or a $999 laptop that looks like that? And that's an interesting and very complicated question. But like, it's, yeah, like, it's hard to see why they wouldn't do this, right? Unless there's a real gotcha that we're not seeing here. It just seems so apparent.

And Ming-Chi Kuo says, yeah says yeah of course that's what they're going to do but this was the preamble to quo's report where he then says that apple will be launching mac desktops with arm processors in 2021 alongside other laptops that will fit into the line so we know we were we've only really been talking about laptops because that seemed like the most obvious. But now, as well as the laptop, which is expected to arrive, we have a Q4 this year, a Q1 2021, other points in 2021,

we're expecting to see Mac desktops running on ARM chips. This timeline feels more aggressive than I had assumed. Is that the same for you? I don't know. I've been guessing that they would roll over their consumer product line into ARM in a wave, right? So I guess if we're saying kind of ARM iMacs in 2021, I'm not too surprised about that. I've been thinking for a while now that their first steps are probably get the consumer product in the in the laptop and then get the consumer product in the desktop and then ponder what your pro level processor is if you can make one and like what what if they really want to change the whole line over you hold the pro stuff for a little bit later

on and you start with the with the consumer level stuff because there i would think more issues with pro products because they haven't done at least that we haven't seen a processor that's at that level from apple doesn't mean they couldn't make one they have to choose to put any resources to design it and then they could make it and then they could ship it they could also write off a high-end pro market and say why should we do this when amd and intel are already building these things we'll keep those around for our high-end users. They're comfortable on Intel. They've got features that they don't get on ARM processors. We'll just let them sit there for a while. So I think that's the bigger question. But a consumer desktop running ARM in 2021, I'm not surprised by that at all, especially if they're going to ship the first one in the fall of 2020. And it starts filling my mind with ideas about something we've talked about over the years, which is maybe the reason the iMac has stayed the same more or less since 2007 is because there is a new iMac design.

And it's the ARM iMac. And it's a redesign of the iMac that may look nothing like the current iMac because they've been holding it off because the thermals change, all the needs of that system change. Or maybe not, or maybe it looks just like an iMac does now and they put no effort into the external, but they totally change the internals. That's also a possibility. But I'm interested by the idea

of what does an ARM iMac do and what does it mean? Because the iMac that currently exists can go up to the high end. The highest end iMac is almost as powerful. I think it's more powerful in some ways than the base model of the iMac Pro. But the base iMacs are workhorse. They're cheaper. They're for desks at hotels and you know to put on desks at companies and like they're not glamorous but there are lots of them because that you know we when we said when

we were we were talking about it when i interviewed um colleen about that uh they're a uh they're they're a billion dollar business for Like, it's a huge business. Well, picking up reduced processor costs for products that are not really pushing the envelope in terms of performance makes total sense to me. ARM iMac, totally. Whether they redesign it or not. I feel like the iMac needs a redesign or at least really is asking for a redesign just because like the bezels are so huge and the chin at the bottom is so high. But I could also see Apple saying,

yeah, it's not worth it. It works for us. And just leaving it the way it is too. So I was wondering, do you think that there could be any new Macs coming out of this like not just not updates to the previous line but like a new mac i think it's possible i don't know whether apple wants to do that or not apple seems to have discovered that putting macs in existing slots

is popular right like the 16 inchinch MacBook Pro is a MacBook Pro. And the MacBook Air, Retina MacBook Air is a MacBook Air. And when they've tried to go outside that a little bit and been like, well, we've got this 13-inch Pro that's not like the other 13-inch Pro, people are like, no, no. And then they did the MacBook even, which I think is an existing product name,

just it's been a while and that has gone away now although maybe it would come back but so i think they've got the opportunity to rethink their product line and i think that's fascinating right like if our product line is at least in part built on um on on intel and what intel offers then when intel is not there anymore we as apple can reconceive a product line. And I think on that, I think that's true. I think Apple could say, we don't need all these products. We want to differentiate more like we do with the iPad. They could totally do that. But the consumer is part of that equation too, right? And that's the part where I think

Apple has seen in the last few years that sometimes they've tried to make changes to their product line and say oh well we've got this 13 inch macbook pro and we've got this 12 inch macbook and it seems like the consumers just rejected it and said we're just going to keep buying the macbook air thanks and now they made a new macbook air and it's their best-selling laptop because people wanted to buy the macbook air and i wonder if they learned that lesson they're like all right we're not going to do a weird laptop. We're going to just do a MacBook Air that runs on an ARM processor, and we're going to call it MacBook Air

because people are comfortable with that name, and we're going to call it iMac or Mac Mini because people are comfortable with that name, even if they could be more aggressive about differentiating what their products are or simplifying their product line or changing their product line. I'd love to see them strike out with a new product and and see what happens

there but um i don't know the the whole affair of the macbook air makes me wonder if their customers aren't interested that makes sense yeah it does make Because it's like, are they set to what they know? Would they be willing to accept something else? And the MacBook Air is the perfect example of that. Of like a computer that was incredibly old. There was new stuff to replace it. But no one would buy anything else. They just wanted a MacBook Air.

It was complicated because they were, you know, those other products were more expensive. And compromised in some ways. There's a lot of complexity there. I still believe there's room in the consumer laptop lineup for a smaller, lighter, thinner consumer laptop. Maybe cheaper. And so that's why I keep coming back to the ARM MacBook thing, right? Yeah, I think we both agree that that will be the product. It would be a great place to start.

Yeah, I think we both agree that that will be the product. It would be a great place to start. Leave the MacBook Air for now and go with this new thing that is designed to be fanless and basically designed to be an ARM laptop with lots of great battery life. And it's kind of like an iPad, which is how they sold it when it came out. This is a laptop designed by the people who made the ipad so bring that out as an arm macbook and start there but at that point i do think that they're probably more likely to infiltrate familiar products than to wipe away the brand recognition of imac or macbook air uh ming chi kuo also reports that usb4 will be supported in max maybe in 2020

2021 i'd never heard of usb4 before uh but apparently usb4 converges usbc and thunderbolt right there's just one everything is usb4 you won't have a port that's like, well, this one's USB, but not Thunderbolt, but this one's Thunderbolt. USB 4 is a merging of USB-C and Thunderbolt. Basically, USB 4 is Thunderbolt 3 point something. I don't know. this is going to do both of those things and there's only one and it will remove some complexity because even though there will still be USB three things out there that are using USB-C and there'll be USB four things out there, there will, instead of it being, well,

it does this, but doesn't do that because it's USB and not Thunderbolt. It'll be a more traditional incompatibility, which is, Oh, you can't use that with this because that's a that's a four and this is a three which is something that's kind of easier to understand than this is a usb c port that does usb3 but not thunderbolt because that's really confusing

because like one of the prime so obviously you should say you'll have problems and stuff that already exists but let's say you wanted to buy a new laptop and you wanted to buy a monitor with it you wanted to buy both new products right something that's just come out in both monitor world and laptop world it is not clear for many products if one will support the other but if you're buying new stuff with usb4 you don't have to worry about like okay it's got a usb c port on it but is that fast enough to give me the monitor that i need and also data like can i also then plug in other like you don't have to worry about any of that anymore because it will support everything and so that will be that's that is what usb c should be now or the thunderbolt port should have been shaped differently but uh this will usb 4

will bring us what we're looking for with this one and that's kind of a fun thing because it's like maybe finally apple created a spec that gets widely adopted and isn't killed right like firewire never took off but thunderbolt has taken off right and of course there's going to still be incompatibilities and dongles and dongle town and all of that although the dongles will be reduced and instead what you's going to still be incompatibilities and dongles and dongle town and all of that. Although the dongles will be reduced. And instead, what you're going to get is, oh, this doesn't work with that because reasons. And this cord doesn't work with this thing because reasons. It's a thing that doesn't distribute this because it does that. That's still going to be there for a while.

But what I like about this is it looks like if everybody gets on board and says, yeah, USB 4. USB 4 is the thing. We're going to just do that now. Then give it a couple of years. 4 usb 4 is the thing we're going to just do that now then give it a couple of years and a lot of this stuff will hopefully wash away where where more and more stuff will just be usb 4 sort of like calling wi-fi you know by a number two it's like oh usb 4 got it like this is a 3 and this is a 4 so maybe we'll i'm not saying it's going to be perfect but it feels like this is a good direction that will resolve some of the problems that we currently have which i would greatly appreciate yeah that'd be nice all right this episode is also brought to

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App Store and use the code UPGRADE. That is UPGRADE for $5 off your first order with DoorDash. Our thanks to DoorDash for their support of this show. So I wanted to talk a little bit more Jason about the iPad Pro. Mine arrived.

I bought one. It's nice to have it in silver the lidar makes the ar faster nobody should buy this ipad unless you don't have one if you have the 2018 you don't need this ipad you don't need it that's right unless you're an ar developer or something you don't need it i have it i'm happy that i have it because it has allowed me to donate my 2018 to adina because she was starting to do more illustration work and uh the this ipad is way better than the 10.5 inch ipad pro she was using before so that was like the ipad pro with the home button she can use apple pencil too now right better apple pencil better screen bigger screen right like Like it was, I was going to buy the next iPad anyway

because we wanted to do this shuffle and it was just a case of waiting. It is just a shame that the iPad that they brought out doesn't really do anything else. But you know, that is a conversation we'll come back to in a minute. No, actually, let's do it now. So there was a little bit of kerfuffle

in some corners of the internet about what the 2020 iPad Pro's system on a chip actually is. So effectively, the A12X and the A12Z are the same chip, but the Z enables a GPU core that the A12X could not take advantage of. So effectively, it's the same chip design, but they're produced slightly better or differently, which enables them to put that GPU core in to every iPad. So this is a process called re-binning,

which I'd never heard of before until this week. And Quinn Nelson, who's one of the hosts of Flashback and RelayFM, had a good Twitter thread that I will put in the show notes about this. Effectively, when a chip maker makes a chip, the manufacturer will build in a margin of error for what the results are going to look like because chip making is very difficult. So you have a plan for how powerful you want your chip to be,

but when it's manufactured, it may not result in exactly what you were hoping for or you plan for a different result. Yeah, in the in the big scheme of things, if you can think of an Intel processor, let's say, and this has been going on for ages, they shoot for this highest performance, and then some chips can't do it, there's a flaw in them, and they don't work as well. But what happens is a lot of them at a lower clock speed, with cores disabled or whatever, they work fine. And so sometimes you'll have like a range of chips that it's like the high end, the middle and the low.

And they're actually all from the same batch. It's just that the ones that can handle the high that pass all the tests are binned as high performance. And the ones that fail but work fine at a lower performance are binned at high performance and the ones that fail but work fine at a lower performance are binned at lower performance and that also if people remember the old days of overclocking it's not an old day jason people do they still do it in pc gaming overclocking is what that is too right which is i know they say that it only goes this speed but it really can go faster and sometimes it can but there may be a reason that it only goes so slow and if you crank it up it may work fine or it may become unreliable and it's all so basically

processors are not the identical items that you think they are they're more like uh almost like a crop that you would harvest and every potato looks a little different but you can still make fries out of them if you so you can chop them up and they still right the ugly potatoes are used for fries or hash browns or something yeah so what's likely happened here is that when producing the a12x they were more frequently resulting in a seven core gpu than an eight core gpu so they put a seven core gpu than an eight core gpu so they put a seven core gpu out because they could really they could reliably get that yield on that chip so but then as the production processes improve because they get better at it over time they were more

able to accurately produce the eight core chip so that's what ships today and they slightly re-change the name but it's effectively the same process yeah how about that but this process is very frequently used in parts manufacturing for all types of computer components like processors gpus in general like like independent gpus all that kind of stuff so the z stands for the snooze of it being the same chip as 18 months ago and it's boring well yes maybe that's what they were going for but the idea of like you know it's boring. Well, yes. Maybe that's what they were going for. But the idea of like, you know, as everyone's trying to find their gotcha headline for Apple, right?

Because it generates views and clicks. So, you know, what people started out was like, oh, Apple's ripping you off. It's the same CPU. And it's like, well, yes, it is the same CPU, but they weren't throttling it before any more than any other company would. Probably any

more than Apple typically does, right? Like I'm sure this is not the first time Apple's ever done this with their own chips. In fact, my understanding for some of the chips that Apple makes, or not that they make, that they buy and they put in their product, I think it's widely known in the industry that a lot of times what happens with not just the chips but some of the other components too is apple pays more to get first pick and apple picks the one that meets their standards and then other companies take what's left that's another thing that happens sometimes with apple stuff so that there's a lot of this that goes on where it's like why why is it that my third party monitor has weird image retention and the apple one in the imac doesn't and the answer is i mean if it doesn't maybe it does but like that that often can be the answer is it's

because apple got all those panels and ran its tests on them and gave back the ones that didn't have this with phone screens a while ago i think it was like apple and google were both using lg and they were using effectively the same panel but But on the Google Pixel, if I'm remembering this correctly, it was something like this. The Google Pixel had very bad viewing angles, but the iPhone didn't. And the theory was that they were using the binned displays that Apple rejected. Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating. So again, I guess your screen, all of your computer parts are like potatoes is what I'm saying yeah they're all potatoes they're grown of some kind maybe screens are like sweet potatoes

and processors of regular potatoes potato theory yep hashtag potato theory so we come back to the question of why does this ipad exist and you wrote uh an article on macworld kind of going into that a little bit more and i think think it's the things that we've been talking about, right? Like, why does this exist? Like LiDAR, right? The idea that, again, would you do a whole product? But maybe you would if you're Apple to get the LiDAR stuff out there now so that they can roll out a whole bunch of stuff about it for developers in June without pre announcing the features of the new iPhone, even though the new iPhone is by all accounts going to have this LIDAR sensor on it too. It gets it out now. It lets people play with it now. So by the time that iPhone ships, there should be lots of stuff out

there that can support it because it's not a surprise and they want it to be super cool for the iPhone. So, and, and, you know, I could get the argument too of like, well, we're going to, for the iPhone. So, and, and, you know, I could get the argument too, of like, well, we're going to, um, the related to that is the complexity of the accessory product line. Like Apple knows that they're going to this different camera bump with this different sensor everywhere. And if they come out with this big, uh, smart keyboard for iPad now using the old cutout, that they're going to have to change it. And all of those will then be incompatible with what comes next. So you change the camera bump now, it's backward compatible, but it's also forward compatible. So if people buy that, that, that keyboard in May, and there's a new iPad in the fall or in the spring that has a whole bunch of new stuff in it,

it'll still be compatible with it. So that's a part of it too. It's just like, and my gut is that some combination of these things went on at Apple where it's a little bit like if you've ever had anything where you're like, well, I want to do this, like a home thing. Like if you need to change something in your kitchen,

you're like, yeah, but if we do that, then we have to do Like if you need to change something in your kitchen, you're like, yeah, but if we do that, then we have to do this. And if we do this, then we have to do this other thing. I think maybe something like that happened where they're like, why don't we just do a quick speed bump or quick modification where we add that in? Then we know that everybody's going to have a compatible accessory and that camera bump's going to be the size it is. And I think those all go together as a real possibility

about why this product exists. It's essentially not any different except for the camera, but they wanted to do it now to get the iPad on this new page and be able to ship this other stuff. I mean, I think like the Magic Key keyboard is a big part of it right right well i mean because they wanted to ship the magic keyboard exactly and what if you know here's the thing what if you know that you've got a 5g maybe super awesome a14x ipad but it's not going to ship until the fall or the or even next spring and it's going to have the new LiDAR sensor on it.

So it's going to have a totally different camera bump. You're like, wow, I want to ship this magic keyboard now, but it's immediately going to break for everybody who just bought one of these. And Apple's not above that, but like I could see them saying, we're going to gear up to make this thing and we're going to make a lot of them. And do we really want to have a forced incompatibility where we're going to then immediately have to turn around and make a whole bunch more of them and the ones that we already made are no longer relevant unless you've got an old model do we really want to do that and have somebody say why don't we just do this why

don't we just put the new sensor on now we've got it it has these other benefits in terms of priming the pump for lidar and it means that our accessory game is locked for the next i don't know few years including this super hot accessory that we're that we're doing right now and you know you could make the counter argument that why wouldn't apple just make everybody buy it again but i would say if that was true why are they making it backward compatible with the previous iPad Pro? I think Apple has decided that the accessory is too important. It's too expensive.

And too expensive. Yeah. Like you can't release a new one of these every time you release a new iPad because you increase the iPad's cost by like 50%, 40%. And it makes it easier for people to buy the new iPad, right? They buy this keyboard and they love it on their old iPad. And then the new iPad comes out this fall or next spring and people are like, oh, I can use my magic keyboard with it. So it's like $350 off or $300 off that product because I don't have to rebuy my accessories. If they've got multiple ones, even more so, right?

accessories um if they've got multiple ones even more so right so i think that might be part of the calculation here is just wanting to lock in these accessories wanting to get the lidar stuff out there and you know and and i think those are the ones that are most likely there is of course conspiracy theories do we have to go in the conspiracy room again for this? Which is, if they're transitioning to ARM, you're going to, ideally, in the past, Apple has released a transitional product just for developers to test as a new computer. Like they did the G5s that had an Intel motherboard just stuck into them. And that was the developer transition hardware. It wasn't a Mac Pro. It was a G5 with a weird Intel motherboard in it. And that's the big conspiracy theory is,

well, gee, this new iPad Pro with that keyboard would be great, and six gigs of RAM in every model and all of that, would be a great developer transition kit for macOS on ARM, right? I mean, the question is, wouldn't the old one be too? And maybe so, although maybe the lower-end configurations that only had four gigs of RAM are a little bit iffy. But maybe that is also part of what's going on here. That's been one of my conspiracies for a while now is the easiest way to provide developers with an ARM Mac to test on would be to just say, yeah, you can install it on an iPad. It'll work.

Yeah, I like that theory i also just you know this was a theory of like they wanted lidar out because it's going to be important for ar development and they're going to ramp up ar stuff right like it could be one or both and i honestly the more we talk about everybody who's doing that just buy just buy the ipad and yeah and because everybody's like we know guys we know that this is coming. Do you want us to do cool stuff? Don't make us wait until September. And Apple's saying, you got it now. You got it right now.

And then we'll do another ARKit update in June in beta. And you'll get that. And you'll have months before that iPhone comes out. Did we say that out loud? No, we didn't. We're secret. We're Apple to do that. And that's actually kind of big.

And it's not that big a deal right they they change the bump it's like i don't know how much work goes into a a new product there certainly is some they have to do pr they have to do all these things but in terms of what's new in this i in this ipad it's almost nothing like it really is it is only the lighter because that that one extra core of graphics will affect nothing really yeah and there are rumors that there was a u1 chip in here but um what i'm hearing now is that's not even true oh it doesn't even have that so yeah okay so six gigs of ram and lidar they're really the only changes like because yeah and if you have a terabyte on the old model you

already had six gigs of ram uh but while we're on the ipad subject uh you had a wonderful uh post where you extracted a created i should say a bunch of gifs of the ipad os cursor and it's playful and you know i was thinking about it you you alluded to it in the in the post as well like i think because everyone's super pumped about this right like people are very excited about this ipad people are happy about it mac people think that it's wonderful too right the cursor that apple have made for ipad os um 13.4 i think people are really happy about this and love it so much because this is a modern example of Apple's whimsiness that we do not see as much anymore because the animations that this cursor is doing are very attractive, very nice to look at.

They're very cute in a way that Apple doesn't really do as much anymore, but used to do a lot more. I think. This is that whimsy thing that, and these are delightful. These, nobody needs the pointer on any computing device to be delightful. Like it's not necessary. It is super not necessary for Apple. The Mac one, if you move it from a text insertion to a something that you have to click on it just goes from the ibeam to the arrow that's all it does

but on the ipad when you do that it morphs like the circle like stretches out there's an animation to make it a vertical line. And if you go over a button, it kind of animates like it's a blob covering the button. And then the button animates with this parallax view that's very much like what's in the Apple TV, where it's almost like the blob is stuck on it. And if you go far enough, it, the blob pulls back off into the circle and that's animated. And then the other nice touch is that it's detecting what's behind it. So if it's on a dark background, it's light.

And if it's on a light background, it's dark and it does a little fade to change lightness as you move it around on the screen. It's just none of that is necessary. Like the Mac pointer, that arrow cursor is a black arrow with a heavy white rule around it. So it works on both and it's visible on both. And they just, they didn't want to do that. So they didn't. They made it a smart little ball cursor thing that fades as necessary so that it's visible. Like, again, unnecessary, but delightful. It's made things feel so much older to me now. Like, I'm looking on my Mac now and it's like, why does the iBeam, like the text selection thing, look like that? Like, it just looks old and weird to me now. Because it's like the way it looks on the iPad old and weird to me now in it because it's like the the way it looks on the ipad makes more sense to me now it's just like a nicer view or like why is the hand a little mickey mouse glove like none of that's needed i you know it's it's just this funny

thing to me now where i look at it and it's like that just looks old. Oh, no. Do you think we're going to have... Do you think Mac OS is going to have new cursors in the fall? And then you're going to have to go to, like, classic cursor support mode with a checkbox somewhere in order to view classic pointers? It wouldn't surprise me, Jason, because people like this one so much. That maybe, probably not, but maybe sometime in the future now i can imagine it changing where if you would have asked me before i would have said well no why would they

change that but now i can see that maybe it's possible you mentioned apple tv or tv os on the latest episode of the talk show john gruber stated that this cursor design he understands had heard that the cursor design that we have on iPad OS was one of the original concepts imagined for tvOS, that there would be a cursor and you would move the cursor around rather than it just snapping from thing to thing like it does with the focus engine.

Can you imagine how terrible that must have been? Using the, moving a cursor around with a tiny trackpad on that Apple TV interface? With the trackpad, yes. I mean, I've used an LG TV where they have a cursor and the remote is like a Wiimote, and that's pretty nice. Sure.

And maybe they were thinking about something like that rather than a touchpad. Oh, like an infrared point at the screen and it moves around kind of thing? Mm-hmm. And I'm seeing more apps having added support for cursor mode. Screens by Adobe is a great example.

It's a VNC application, right? So you can log into your Mac from your iPad and having cursor support in an app like that is really useful. And I like this, actually. We talked about how there was that one like virtual desktop app where you could buy their mouse

and then it would work because it was attaching to oh my god yeah yeah exactly yes but you had to do all of this stuff and now if you've got an external pointing device and you've got screens and you connect to a mac or pc you just use the keyboard and the mouse and you're driving that mac it's amazing it's really good and i used my luna display and they have i don't think they've updated but it does work it doesn't work as well as screens but it does work right because it's not it's not it doesn't know the hover state which means until you click it is the cursor stays where it was but when you click it moves and i hope they update that because it's a really nice

feature to be able to see the cursor move along i've also been there's a couple of apps that i use every day that i'm on the betas for and they're adding cursor support in and it really does make a big difference because there are function there's functionality in data rich applications that you couldn't do you know like when we've seen this like apple's doing it with the iwork updates which i'm now tapping on my watch for like on one of these is like spreadsheet applications like being able to have multiple things you can do with a spreadsheet like being able to expand your selection and also being able to like click and drag down to use automatic formulas you can't really do that stuff very easily or very well with fingers but you can do it way better

when you have a cursor so i can't wait for the i work updates i don't know where they are yeah they should have shipped by now in my mind but yes well you know those people are all at home too yep that's right i wanted to say that but at the same time i do want them and i really hope google get their act together on this um i know it's so painful it's worse and worse now like i and again everybody is going through trying times now but google has been dragging its feet on ios updates for a while and like i wouldn't it be nice to have google sheets and google docs actually support ios uh 13 features wouldn't that be great like i really want the multi-window but i can let that go supporting cursor support properly that is a must now and my hope is that

Google will know that that Google will understand that this is more important they do support things but they support things slowly but I expect them to integrate this one sooner rather than later but I really want to see it everywhere.

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and all of RelayFM. All right, we have some hashtag ask upgrade questions to finish today's episode. Spruce Pine, thank you, asks, I use spreadsheets a great deal and often need precise pointing for presentation creation. Do you believe the addition of this true mouse and trackpad support on iPad will make the iPad a true laptop replacement for tasks like these? Depends on the apps, right? Yeah, but I think that's what it comes down to i think it opens that door more so for me my thinking on this is especially watching lots of reviews from

lots of different outlets press outlets if you couldn't for whatever reason bring yourself to leave your laptop for an ipad before i think the door is open to more people now to do this because you will be able to get more out of it in the sense of you can use your iPad for all the iPad things that you want, but then you'll also be able to sit it down with your trackpad or eventually put it into your Magic Keyboard

and you will have more functionality unlocked to you, which is more traditional in the ways that you work. So I think that it opens the door more. And as you say, as more people integrate these features correctly, and I bet Apple is going to really heavily push people on this, it is going to make it even more of a thing for people. Yeah, I would imagine that numbers probably also because those products also are meant to, I think they share code,

and they're very similar on iPad and Mac already, that Numbers and Keynote will get this. But Microsoft has been very good at making their iOS apps very good. And I cannot imagine that Excel and PowerPoint are also not going to get way better oh yeah in terms of this sort of support right I mean like they they integrate the Apple Pencil for a bunch of stuff right like in Excel spreadsheets are really hard on touch devices

they were really not invented for them nope and I don't use spreadsheets on my ipad but for this i would manual asks do you think the 16 inch macbook pro will get an update before august is it safe to buy a 16 inch now or wait for a processor update i don't know why manual has asked about august i mean i assuming that that to their purchasing. I think it's possible. So if the smaller MacBook Pro would have been updated, I would have said, you're probably good. But because we haven't seen that, that is a big question.

And I wouldn't be surprised if that MacBook Pro would also bring a refresh to the other one. Maybe there's different processors or whatever. I would say you've got to wait now until after June. Don't buy it now

if you don't have to. Would you agree? Interesting. I don't think any changes are going to be so substantial that it's worth waiting. Substantial for sure. If you can wait, then fine. I wouldn't put the chances of before august at very high um since it came out in the fall so i would say you know i don't think it's going to be

a big enough deal to wait i think like yeah i think you're right i think the most they're going to do is processor updates the most but if that and again but the amount of minor benefits you see there will be minor so if you want one or need one now probably go for it but if you don't have to if there's not a rush then then wait but who wants to wait uh amanda asks if someone wants to upgrade their 2018 ipad pro for reasons, I have a 64 gigabyte model right now, does it make sense to get a bigger 2018 with discounts on that model or get the

2020? I would say, if you can find a good price on a 2018, go for that. Right? The terabyte model. Right? Well, any. Well, the difference is the ram right i mean be be aware that the six gigs of ram in the terabyte model from 2018 means that it's essentially identical

to the all the models but i would say you just had to go for that one you know it would be my point it's like yes if you want to try and get something as close to the 2020 as possible, go for that. But if that's still outside of your price range, I think any 2018 iPad Pro you're going to be happy with. I think so. Just be aware that, you know, some stuff will suffer. suffer and i think the future now that they're shipping six in all of the 2020 models the future is going to be less kind to the four gig models yes that don't have the terabyte of storage space so something to watch for but yeah if if you're just looking at it straight up of you know can i just get a bigger 2018 with discounts sure i i think because as we've as we've listed today there's very little that's

different about them ryan asks what's the story behind quibi it feels like a tech startup but seems to have real money and star power behind it should it be taken seriously as a streaming service we haven't spoken much about quibi yet but we we my plan is that we will like it's been on my radar for a while and it's launching next week. So we are probably going to spend some time maybe talking about it next week. But what is Quibi, Jason? Quibi is, you may have seen

there are Super Bowl ads about it. That's when they started their marketing push. It's kind of a tough time to launch a service, a new service because we're all distracted. Then again, we're all at home and this is a- Looking for more content. This is something to watch.

Quibi is short for Quick Bytes, and it's a video streaming service, but the difference is it's meant to be short. It has a lot of entertainment industry money behind it, and they've made a lot of deals and paid a lot of people to create content for it. They have a lot of people. Yeah, so they've have a lot of people. Yeah. So they spent a lot of money

in order to create a new streaming service without any brand backing behind it, which is a bold move. But with Star Power, and they want to create short video things. The idea here is basically this is a streaming service of stuff you watch on your phone.

And if you do a lot of watching a video on your phone or you don don't because you don't want to watch a long netflix show on your phone quibi is supposed to fit the bill there because these are all short short things they have over 50 originals um and they're doing things like they have a movie they break the movie down it's 10 minute chunks for you to watch. Right? Stuff like that. I think one of the funny things about Quibi right now is Quibi was made for a world that we're not in right now. Which is like... Right where you're on the go. Yes. Because that's their whole thing.

Like their marketing page. Watch on the go and offline anytime. This is not a thing that people need right now. People want at the home but they could still go for it right like it's it's you know they still have content um but i wonder if they are not in the right environment for what they want to ship uh but they're doing 90-day free trials so yeah so here's what i would say um should it be taken seriously as a streaming service it should because of the money and the star power and everything that's behind it they're

really serious about this so it should be taken seriously do i no i don't i think it's a ridiculous thing and it's a joke and it's going to fail but i could be wrong and i think you should actually i think you'd if i was working for a streaming service i would not take it seriously at my peril because they are really serious about it but i am really skeptical about it it seems seems to me, it feels just, and again, I may be wrong because I am a Gen Xer. And perhaps millennials and Gen Z people will love this. And it's perfectly tied to them. And although Mike's point is really strong, which is it's meant for a lifestyle that they are not currently leading, but perhaps they can sample this in the 90-day trial at home.

And then they're going to love it and then they're going to want to continue it when they are released to move about the country but all that said my gut feeling as somebody who watches this stuff is this is a very well-funded idea that comes from media industry olds who want to get hip with the kids and that i i just i really doubt that it actually is a product that people are going to want that it's more like an idea of what if we did something different that was not as traditional as netflix but it may be you know it may be a middle-aged person wearing a hairpiece and not an actual young product. So we'll see.

Founded by Jeffrey Kassenberg, who was at Disney. He's a Gen Z-er if there ever was one. Yeah. CEO is Meg Whitman, which is a name that you may remember. She was at eBay and then she ran HP into the ground and then she ran for governor of California and lost. And yeah. An interesting individual inspiring executives no more expiring executives than jeffrey katzenberg and meg whitman to do a new revolutionary

the bite-sized video service for uh for the youngs i don't know about this one i you know what it should be taken seriously but i don't it about this one. You know what it feels like to me? It should be taken seriously, but I don't. It feels like Luminary. In its idea of like, we're going to throw a bunch of money at people, but it probably isn't going to go anywhere. I'm intrigued though, because they have thrown a lot of money at a lot of very talented people.

So maybe they will have some stuff that's interesting, but it doesn't i look forward when all of these clips end up on hulu after uh they go out of business oh jason snell with the fire and finally today rob asks for those of us new to working from home and joining video and audio calls what would you recommend as a headset or an external microphone for the best experience would you recommend either headset or microphone or do you have specific recommendations for that well i um if you're not podcasting you don't need a podcast microphone no but you might want something a bit better right like that i think that's the thinking for a lot of

people is like well the problem problem is you get the microphone and then you've got to get the headphones to attach to it or you can use your existing headphones i'm gonna i'm gonna go against what you think i'm gonna say here mike and i'm gonna say um i think you could get a a good computer headset and if you're on phone calls and stuff and you're not podcasting i'd i'd get a headset i'd get like a sennheiser um my friend steve lutz has the pc 131 which he uses on his computer although that one i think has a has a has a stereo jack but there's there's usb headsets too i would just find a nice maybe look on on wirecutter, find a nice rated headset. Logitech, I think, has some headsets too. I would get a headset if literally all you're doing is you

want something to wear on a Zoom call. Although, to be honest, your iPhone wired, although they won't work if it's a Lightning, then it won't work on a Mac. Do you have an old pair of iPhone ear pods in a box somewhere? Because you can plug those into your Mac and they just work. And it's good enough. It really is good enough. I love the Audio-Technica microphone for podcasting. And it does have a headphone jack. You bring your own headphones.

And then you've got a cool microphone. And it's very high quality. And it's about a hundred bucks. It's not necessary if all you're doing is joining video calls every day. And I would say ergonomically, the headset, if you're all day on audio and video calls, you need a headset because you need to be hands-free. You don't want to have, and you don't want to be hunched over a microphone. And Mike and I have like boom arms and microphones float in the air and stuff, but you're not going to have and you don't want to be hunched over a microphone and mike and i have like boom arms and microphones float in the air and stuff but you're not going to have that so i i'm even though they're

not great for podcasting i think getting a good headset that's comfortable and that has the microphone right on it if you don't and in a pinch just like i said find an old pair of earbuds that's got the microphone on it that plugs into your computer and use that. What is that microphone that you like? The Audio-Technica? Audio-Technica ATR2100X, I think, is the new version. But the 2100 is just the same version with a different port on it. $100. That's my best.

That's my go-to podcasting mic. But again, I think you can probably find a $50 headset, $40 headset, or floating around in an iPhone box that you never pulled out. An old headphone jack version of earpods will do it too. Also, airpods, if you've got those, although they won't last all day, but if you've got a break between meetings, you can just use those and they're fine too. I think the most important thing is don't be in an unnatural position where you're hunched over or you have to hold something. You want to just kind of on your head or in your ears

so you can be free because otherwise you're going to hurt. So I will make one recommendation which is a good old Blue Yeti if you want a microphone. Okay, it's not as good for podcasting. What I like about the Blue Yeti, it does have its own integrated stand where some microphone options wouldn't.

It has a headphone port. It's very usable. It's not the best thing in the world, but I would recommend it if you're looking, if you, for some reason, want something which is external. But I agree with all of the recommendations that jason gave as well of like you probably don't need uh to have an external microphone uh unless you're an aspiring podcaster yeah you can like there is the idea of like look maybe your company has said to you we'll give you a little bit of money for this and you also want to make a podcast you can then have both right and honestly you don't you know if you've got a mac laptop

um your external microphone on it is probably okay it's not it's bad for podcasting they're okay but it's probably okay the key is you gotta wear headphones because you don't want your microphone picking up the audio of everybody else on the call and routing it back. And they do some noise canceling, but it doesn't really work and things get echoey and weird. Or people get cut out. Yes, but at that point, if you can get it so that you've got the headphones you're wearing have a microphone, they're a headset or they've got a little dangly part and that the Mac recognizes that, do that instead because that's better. Mac recognizes that, do that instead because that's better. I will also make a recommendation

if you're doing family calls and stuff, AirPods audio sharing is good because then you can, everybody can have their own headset effectively and then also you're not doing

like, as you say, you're not getting everyone talking over each other. So if you haven't used that feature before, it's really good for this sort of stuff, AirPods audio sharing, because I know a lot of people are doing, and I'm doing more of this too now with friends, right? Like me and Adina are having calls with friends.

It's just as a way to keep up with each other. So it's a good thing for that. But yet there are lots of options out there. But as Jason said, you probably already have something in your home, which is more than possible. But if you're looking for other options, they do exist. All right.

That is it for this week's episode of Upgrade. You can find links and show notes at relay.fm slash upgrade slash 291. You can find Jason online at sixcolors.com, theincomparable.com. And he is at jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at iMike, I-s-n-e-l-l. I am at imike, I-m-y-k-e. Both me and Jason host many other shows here at RelayFM too. You can go to relay.fm slash shows.

If you're only listening to Upgrade or maybe one of them more, go check them out. I bet you can find some cool stuff there that you will enjoy. Thanks so much to our sponsors this week, Linode, DoorDash and KiwiCo. Thank you so much for listening we hope that you're happy healthy staying safe make sure you do all of those things wash your hands

stay away from other people as much as you can if you can we're all going to get through this together thanks so much for listening until next time say goodbye jason snell goodbye mike hurley and goodbye to everybody out there who is working outside of their house because they're essential in some way thank you for doing that thank you

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