Upgrade - 292: Don't Look Over There!

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

How will COVID-19 change the future of consumer technology? Why is Zoom the videoconferencing tool of the moment, and why has it had so many security and privacy issues? We ask the big questions this week, and also discuss Amazon's ability to sell and rent movies on iOS, the mystifying launch of the Quibi video service, and how moving to a virtual workspace is affecting Apple.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 292 today's show is brought to you by pingdom squarespace linode and ero my name is mike hurley and i am joined by the intrepid jason snell oh intrepid hi mike how are you i are you? I'm fine, my friend. How are you? Just great. You know, again, we are two of the people least affected by what's going on in the world because we stay inside and work inside all the time. But it makes me feel a little bit strange.

And of course, my entire family is in my house now. So, you know, we live in strange times strange times but we're here to keep on keeping on and marcus has a hashtag snell talk question which is jason what's your desktop background and does it serve any purpose other than decoration any so the any purpose thing is what got me about this question well i've seen people that design like desktop backgrounds to have calendars on them and stuff you know yeah that's weird or i mean i shouldn't judge or like motivational messages that kind of stuff i was thinking like a grid with like a little play or a little like little places where you put files in various places yeah like you see that a lot with ios apps

ios like desktops right people draw little app icons where app icons could go and that kind of stuff yeah exactly i think um so i actually just wrote a piece that uh we can link to in the show notes about my uh my messy desktop and how i've actually changed yeah that's not going to too much detail there i have that maybe as a uh oh it's quiet this week we're gonna talk about this about cleaning up my desktop yeah we're gonna see we're gonna be careful here you will see so okay the short version is i can see more of my desktop than i used to and i have a 27 inch iMac pro so it it there's a lot of desktop there but the truth is and you can see it in that screenshot no i it serves no other purpose than decoration. And what I actually use as my desktop background is from an app called Downlink, which you can get at downlinkapp.com.

And it accesses the satellite imagery real time, 15 minute increments or whatever, satellite imagery from various satellites above the earth. And so I have a shot of the West coast of North America out into the Pacific ocean out past Hawaii as my desktop background. And that changes, you know, every so often during the day. So right now, when I look at it, I actually can see the terminator, uh, between here and Hawaii, cause the sun hasn't come up in Hawaii yet. And I can see the clouds over California. And, you know, if it's a clear day, then it'll be clear over California. And it's just, it's pretty. And I can see down through Baja, California and the Sea of Cortez and all of that. And yeah, it's, so that's what I do is I just have the earth from space and my particular corner of the earth.

Very nice. Very nice. If you would like to send in a snell talk question for a future episode just send out a tweet with the hashtag snell talk and it may be included like marcus's was uh we should move on to some follow-up so i work and i movie so the i work apps on ios or ipad os and i movie have all been updated to take use of apple's new trackpad cursor support stuff on ipad os i've been really happy with the changes to numbers specifically um i think it's wonderful uh being able to like see hovers and and to be able to very easily move stuff around and there's a lot of usage of custom cursors that apple have made in these applications. Like, for example, in Keynote,

you can rotate imagery and stuff, and they've made like a custom little rotate, like two little arrows pointing in like curved circles around where the cursor is. So I'm, or like the cursor turns into those is probably a better thing to say. So yeah, I'm really excited to see more of this stuff. But I think what Apple have done to these applications

is really good. It's really good. i think the thing that hit me about the numbers update is it behaves in not all ways but in many ways just like numbers on the mac in that uh and something about that got to me that that if you've got a chart and you use the cursor and you click and you drag over items in the chart, it selects them, which is not groundbreaking at all. But that is not a concept that you really had on the iPad before. Nope. To click and drag and basically lasso up a selection of stuff. Yeah. And you do it because you think oh

well i do this on the mac so i'll do it here and it and it works which is how it should be like even just the text selection you know like i'm really happy they brought out the pages the idea of just like i don't have to do something before i start selecting text it's so different right right right completely normal to on the Mac, but it's like an alien thing on iPadOS, and I'm still getting used to it, but I love it. I also wanted to give a shout-out to Fantastical. They had a fantastic update to support Cursor support as well, being able to now do things like drag

and extend an event over multiple days. They've just put some really good stuff into it, like hovers and stuff like that i'm really happy with that's just like an app that i've seen that's really taken good advantage of it so i want to keep calling these out as i see them because i think it's important to encourage this and also you know people might not be checking these applications very much you know like if you're just used to using touch but did we mention last week's screens from adobe i think so to using touch but did we mention last week screens from adobea i think so but it's actually gotten better since last week so yeah so they made it they made

a new update that hides the ipad cursor when you're using it so you're driving a remote computer you see you move your trackpad or mouse or whatever on the ipad and it moves that cursor and there's no double they their first release there was sort of like a double cursor, and then they used the new APIs to hide the cursor in that scenario. And now it's a, I think Federico wrote a piece last week where he referred to it as, you know, it's Mac as an app. That really is when you're in that scenario, which is great, especially if you're somebody, like, I don't, if I'm somewhere else in my house or elsewhere, really,

and I'm using an iPad and I need to do something that is specifically on a Mac, I have my Mac mini server. It's always on and I can just open it up and do that thing. And now it feels completely natural if I'm using a trackpad and keyboard. Super nice. It turns out the 2020 iPad does have a feature we didn't know about that makes it different to the 2018 iPad. I'm going to read you something from an apple support page uh our security page ipad models beginning in 2020 also feature the hardware microphone disconnect when an mfi compliant case made for iphone compliant case including those sold by apple is attached to the ipad and closed the microphone is disconnected in hardware preventing microphone audio data being made available to any

software even with root or kernel privileges in ipad os or in or in case the firmware is compromised so this is a feature that is in some t2 enabled max where you the microphone could just be shut off in basically in hardware right so there's no way that someone can actually turn it on when you haven't given it permission to be on. The microphone hardware disconnects when the lid is closed. And here the microphone is disconnecting when I'm assuming a magnet hits a particular part on the case and then it's popping, it's pulling the connection away. But it means that it's physically impossible.

It can't be hacked. The way you would have to hack it is you would also have to replace their case right with one that doesn't have a magnet there or something because the normal set of magnets um will presumably one of them will pop that and then uh there's no there's no microphone connection then so again this is not a reason to buy the 2020 ipad pro but it's an interesting change because what it shows is that Apple was thinking more and more about how to make these devices more uh privacy

conscious I like the way that they've done this you know with the case idea because that is presuming you then are not using the iPad so you're good right you've closed exactly um so I think that they've done a really good job with that and references to uh well a reference to the phrase air tags are shown up in an apple support video for find my this is a recurring theme for us right which is what apple what what are you doing let's let me say what this is i'm going to come back to that so the feature uh is being shown off in a support page called Enable Offline Finding. So this will enable a device or paired AirTags to be found when not connected to Wi-Fi or cellular. And this is taking advantage of the Ultra Wideband and or Bluetooth to basically locate a device or an AirTag via other people's iPhones and Macs.

or an AirTag via other people's iPhones and Macs, which is... I think this is the Bluetooth LE beacon, which basically sends an ID and other devices see it and send it back to Apple and say, I saw this device at this place at this time. And you could argue that that's a privacy issue. So you can turn it on or you can turn it off as you see fit. So this is going to be the like must buy reason for air tags right that you could put them in your bag you could put them on your pet's collar or whatever depending on how big they are and you will be able to find this stuff by the use of the billions of apple devices that exist in the world right it's going to absolutely destroy this market if you're an iPhone user.

Or even if you're not, honestly, right? You just have an iPad, you pair it to something, you're great, you still take use of it. Now, I think the reason this has happened is Apple have clearly delayed AirTags, it would seem. And all of this stuff, all of these assets are created and they're put into systems, and then these systems release the assets, right? So these support videos were to be published for a device that exists. I think AirTags, we're not going to see them this year.

No. You don't want to know why, Jason? Tell me why. Because people aren't going outside, are they? How do you sell a product, which is in case you lose something, if you're not leaving which is for in case you lose something if you're not leaving the home like how do you lose like i mean yes you can lose things in your house but i don't think that that is what this product will will be like mainly positioned for so i would be surprised

to see this product launch in the current climate that we're in because the the main selling feature is kind of nullified and it would be really weird to market this product yeah um we'll talk about quibi later um speaking of products that maybe shouldn't be launching right now but i i agree with you though i think one of the reasons that this airtag stuff and the u1 chip um are happening is because this is a product that apple thought would be ready at various times and then turns out isn't and so they're they're proceeding under the assumption that it's in there and then they have to take it out and they didn't take it out of every every bit of documentation and therefore you end up leaking it. It seems like they intended it to ship in the fall and it wasn't ready probably. And now it seems like maybe it is ready. And I think

you're right. It may be that they just don't want to ship it. And why not launch it later? I mean, you could argue why not launch it now, but they're not going to sell them now. And will people have forgotten about them by the time that they're moving around and traveling around and potentially losing things it's a it's an interesting question but this clearly this product exists right this isn't just oh well i heard a rumor that like it's in support videos it's in it may be that they are going to put them on sale sooner or later but they need to redo the marketing of them right certainly like you know you would assume that the ads showed people traveling and forgetting their bag and an airport yeah right yeah like you can't make an ad like that now because it's so tone deaf so yeah we'll see we'll see uh we're going to be doing a mic

of the movies next week um we want i have said to jason hey jason i want to watch a happy movie what do you recommend and what did you recommend uh we are gonna watch star trek 4 mike hasn't seen star trek movies you see i've only seen two so i we're going from two to four yeah i'll tell you what happens in star trek 3 star trek 3 is the search for spock so spock dies in star trek 2 star trek 3 is called the search for spock yeah uh here's my summary for you here's what you need to know they They find Spock. Oh, no. I mean, yay. Yeah, they find him. My understanding is that every other Star Trek movie is good. Is that correct?

That's why I've heard that before. For the first run of them, the even ones are the really good ones. Two, four, and six. Okay. Yeah. All right, so Star Trek IV, Star Trek IV.

The Voyage Home. The Voyage Home. voyage home yeah 1986 directed by leonard nimoy um who direct also directs star trek 3 and uh it is i think depending on how you calculate it's basically the most financially successful of all of the original star trek movies it was a hit in 1986 and that's because it's a feel-good comedy uh yes it's a sci-fi movie it's a star trek movie but it is also a funny movie and if you haven't seen it or you haven't seen it recently i think it's a good movie to watch because it's nice and we live in dark times right now so watch a nice fun movie about a bunch of space people who go back to the 80s. It's funny. So, yeah. Should we...

Let's talk about Apple and their coronavirus response, their update for this week. So, lots of news as always, and I will do my best to summarize them. So, according to Bloomberg, Apple employees are struggling still to adjust to work-from-home life

while maintaining product secrecy. We've heard this before, but there's been continued reports of this being difficult for Apple employees. This is Mark Gurman calling all the people he knows who work at Apple and go like, hey, how's it going? I'm here. I'm in my house. You're in your house. What's going on? And they're like, oh, man, let me tell you. And then he's like, yes, yes, tell me more. And then there's a story. That's how journalism works today. I mean, it's like what else is going to happen it's people in their homes so but it is interesting that that german has good sources and he calls

around and says what's this like and i try to think about like software developers i keep thinking like that's something i get i totally get software developers um and how they might work in a distributed environment because that happens and i think about like building hardware and stuff. And I think, how does that work? Like, how do you keep that rolling? If you're, I know that the designers aren't exactly like sitting around soldering things all day and bending wires and stuff,

but still it feels much more hands-on. It feels like that would be a greater leap in order to keep the ball rolling on, you know, you're designing the next iphone or ipad or mac or whatever um and to do that when everybody's in their own home seems uh seems harder to me it is according to german harder in in fact um and really the biggest issue though is is that they're finding is the secrecy stuff. So especially with the hardware, this is difficult. It is also apparently difficult with software because Apple is only able to,

or is only allowing certain people to be able to use this stuff at home. You've got to assume that they're worried about network security. They're worried about, there's a call, like, sneaker net security, right? Take the source code out of Cupertino. I totally see why you wouldn't want to do that, right? Like, you're secrecy focused and you've got a bunch of stuff that you're working on. And then suddenly you change your policy and now it's, like, at somebody's house on their laptop. It's like, I get it. But at the same time, what are you going to do?

Stop working? Exactly. laptop it's like i i get it but at the same time what are you going to do stop working exactly so um apparently though there are still a selection of products that are being worked on including a new home pod uh which is interesting a new apple tv a new macbook pro the lower price ipads so not the ipad pros the regular ipads apple watch im, and of course the iPhone. These are all things that Apple is still working on. Well, I mean, they never stop, right? No. They may be working. Gruber always points out that this year's iPhone is already designed and specced and probably being built.

That's true, but next year's iPhone isn't, right? Next year's iPhone is being designed now. And then they're also working on the year after's iPhone. And like, it never stops. So we may end up in a situation a little like movies and TV, actually, where new stuff is rolling out now. Like there are movies that were, I mean, other than movies and theaters, which is another problem, but like TV shows, there are TV shows that have been made and are going to come

out in the next few months but what's going to happen and you used to see this with um whenever there's a writer's strike for example you would see this um then there's a gap but it comes later where it's like oh now we've run out and that now the shows are back and there's a gap. And that's, I think the challenge here for Apple is not necessarily this year, but like, does this slow down, you know, is there a gap in Apple's product offerings at some point because they just had to slow down because of this and for good reason, but like where I don't know where that hole is, but there's going to be a hole in Apple's like product schedule. That is where we may, depending on how long they have to rectify it, we may see the hit that they're taking because they all had to leave the building. You know, you mentioned TV there for a second. I wanted to say like I wanted to like just reference because we were talking about uh a lot of like late night shows and stuff like that people recording on their iphones they're using airpods john oliver i don't know why hbo have done they did the right thing it looks like the john oliver

show he's recording at home he has a white background he has a proper camera a teleprompter a good microphone like yeah because you can put those things in the mail and send them to people they they placed a really nice order from bnh yeah um and you know he got a paper like background to clip up and a couple of lights and a camera or you know it might be a it might be an iphone camera honestly you couldn't tell if it was a phone camera because phone cameras are so good now yeah they are broadcast quality essentially if they're lit properly. They will work. Yeah, well, all of them, it's a tangent that I'm fascinated by it because they are all trying to figure this stuff out.

And all of them have all kind of come back at a certain level. Like Stephen Colbert is the same way. He's got an iPhone and then he's got, it looks like a laptop on the floor with a Zoom conference with his producers who are like saying, no, do that again kind of stuff.

But like, they're all figuring it out because the consumer tech at this point and readily available tech is so good that you can, you know, you're going to have to take, there'll be a lot of FaceTime calls saying, no, push this button. No, no, no no not that button this button kind of stuff to get them up and running them and their kids and their and

their spouses but you can do it like you get some led light panels you get this microphone you get the computer here and the phone here and the tripod and all that and uh it can end up looking pretty good yeah john oliver's show is basically john oliver's show now except with no studio audience and it took them a little longer to make yeah and trevor noah's show looks really great he's in front of like his own furniture instead of in a white void like like i imagine that that john oliver didn't have a really good background so he has a white background instead but like trevor noah doing the daily show uh it looks great it it really does they've they figured it out and Colbert's figuring it out, and Jimmy Fallon is figuring it out.

They're all figuring it out now, which is fun to see. And the tech is there. Your high-priced comedian talent, you've got to walk them through how to set it all up, but they can do that usually, and that's been interesting to see. It was refreshing to me to see that at least some television production companies can understand that it is possible to make this stuff look good with home stuff because all the other things i've

seen just look terrible no the john oliver one i think is a great example although trevor noah i would say is at that level and and colbert is getting there where you can see that it's almost oliver especially it's almost like the show was like other than the fact that the background is different it ends up being about the content again and i'm sure the other side of this because we keep talking about production like writing this and all of those and and post-production they got to get those files they got to transfer that hd video over the internet to an editor to put right like all of that is super complicated like the writers rooms have to run with are they doing like google docs and zoom meetings and stuff like that like it's there's a bunch of stuff beneath the waterline that we don't even see. But it is really amazing to watch as these shows start to turn into the same show as it was before, except now it's all kind of DIY.

But they've managed to figure it out. And I'm not surprised that that happened, but some of them are happening faster than I thought, because this is literally show two for john oliver in his house and um it's just his show now all right so going back to what we were talking about which is apple coronavirus uh foxconn executives to tell their investors on a private conference call that leaked out that the 5g iphone is still on track for 2020 like we said it's all right listen listen to gruber you've heard this before it's already done like it's already done it's already designed they have to make it yeah and so it's great to hear foxconn say yeah yeah we'll do that but like that that's that's one of these products that seems to be already down the line it doesn't seem to be um it's it's like a tv show that they already

shot and are in the process of editing and they may be editing it in their houses now there was a great uh I think Instagram shot of somebody who's editing the new season of Star Trek Discovery and it's just like a trash can Mac Pro and a big monitor and some speakers on a card table next to their stairs in their house and it's like all right but that like they they can put that show out they can they can make that happen and I feel like the the 2020 iPhones are probably like that where it's like yeah we can we can make that happen and i feel like the the 2020 iphones are probably like that where it's like yeah we can we can make this work this is not where the the gap is going to be uh apple has communicated internally that they're expecting their stores to be closed until at least early may so they keep kind of pushing that forward that's just going to keep getting pushed

forward uh and tim cook appeared again on Twitter via video to announce that Apple has now sourced over 20 million masks to be distributed worldwide. Last week, it was half of that. And Apple has also designed, developed, and manufactured a face shield for medical workers. They have delivered the first batch of these to some hospitals in the US, and they're going to start shipping 1 million of them a week starting in America but looking to expand beyond. So it's pretty cool. Yeah, Tim. Somebody got to Tim and said, Tim, it's your Twitter account.

You don't need to introduce yourself every time. We know who you are. And also told him how to stop the video. Did a good job this time. He did. So Tim Cook, like John Oliver and Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah, Tim Cook improving his skills. I can't wait for him to do an interview and a monologue in the future.

Any day now. One of the things he said in that video that I thought was really nice is he said, we're just trying to find things where Apple can add something. Like we're not, if there's a skill that we have so we think we can contribute something, that's what we're looking for.

And I think that's the right attitude to have is not like, what can we do to be seen as much as like are there things we have in our manufacturing and design capabilities that we think we could we could actually make a difference and let's try to do that and they seem to be like the face shield seems to be a good example of that and the and the mask distribution for health care workers definitely all right today's show is brought to you by Eero. Eero is the wifi that your home deserves because your home deserves fast, reliable wifi wherever and whenever you need it.

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it became suddenly possible without, again, like a lot of fanfare to be able to purchase movies and TV shows in the Amazon Prime app. So this had previously not been possible because of Apple's in-app purchase rules related to digital goods. So if you sell a digital product, you have to put it through apple's in-app purchase system

and movies and tv shows inside of the amazon prime video app would count as that so it was like this way you'd have to do it previously is like you couldn't sign up for prime in it you couldn't buy anything in it and amazon couldn't link you anywhere so you either were a customer or you weren't and you kind of had to work it out on your own i think you could sign up for prime or prime for prime video using apple's method i think you could do that i think that was the one they again they don't want you to do that but i think like netflix used to be before they dropped out of that right okay i think so i think you could make a difference slight difference there thank you for that clarification but now if you are a prime customer with amazon you can buy video

content with your existing login so this is stuff that's on top of your prime now yeah so i'm a i'm i'm a prime member and i have the prime video app and i was able to all of a sudden they put up a little screen that goes you can now do this but like i was able to find a movie and tap rent. I think a Jojo Rabbit is the one that I did. And I was just like, Oh, rent this movie. And it's like, All right, we're gonna rent this movie and charge your credit card that we have on file at Amazon. And then I got and then I got an Amazon receipt that said, you just rented a movie. And so for me, my experience had nothing to do no connection with Apple at all. I was doing that all inside the Amazon app using Amazon's payment services. So it's not just that it's a lot of debate about Apple taking 30% and if they might change it so Apple's taking less

through their in-app purchase system. This is not Apple's in-app purchase system. This is just Amazon. This is how it works on Android, by the way, but this is not how it works on iOS, except now it does if you're a Prime member. So if you're not a Prime member, it will switch to Apple's in-app purchase system. So Apple will take its cut for the purchase of that movie or television show. And you can also sign up now for Prime via Apple's subscription method too.

Before, I think it was just you'd still have to go through it through Amazon. But now if you're not a Prime Video member and you want to become one and you're in the iOS app for Prime Video,

which is a funny way that you'd find yourself in that situation, I think, you can subscribe via Apple's subscription method. So Apple, after this got published in a few places, and I'm sure that a lot of journalists reached out to their press contacts at Apple for a statement on this, Apple did release a statement, but it's basically a selection of nothing. Yes. There really isn't much in this statement except

for saying that there is a special deal available to premium video services and they reference two services in europe i believe canal plus canal plus and there was one other that i'd never heard of like canal plus i've heard of before because they're the company that provides Apple TV boxes for their cable subscriptions and they reference one other company Altice One Altice One okay I don't know that one at all so but these are two companies that Apple is doing this this deal with right where they will allow for purchases inside of the app using an existing, like an external payment processing. But to do this, to get access to this deal, is a bit give and take.

So Apple say that you have to support everything they want you to. So all the APIs that they want, you have to have your content in a TV app, you have to support AirPlay 2, all that kind of stuff. Amazon is the first worldwide distributor to take advantage of this program. Clearly some deal has been struck. I think that if you've been paying attention,

it's easier to see that Apple and Amazon have been doing a lot of stuff together over the last year. You've got Apple Music on the Echo, the TV app on Fire products, app on fire products um apple products back on amazon for sale uh you know there there was a deal done which includes a lot of things whether we've seen all that all of that yet i don't know but there has clearly been a lot of like give and take with apple and amazon and this is just another piece of that puzzle i i'm not sure i i don't want to over give an apple statement i don't want to over emphasize what this might mean because i think maybe this this arrangement couldn't have happened if apple and amazon hadn't buried the hatchet but apple saying very specifically this is an existing program this is not even the first or the second company to do

this and we haven't mentioned it but like apple tv and the tv app is a big part of what this is right because i get the impression that apple basically has said we will give you a premium subscription video provider we will give you the freedom to charge your customers for extra stuff. It's like if you wanted to build your cable company app and still charge people for on-demand or something through it. Like they're your existing customer. They're paying you a subscription fee. If you want to charge them and not do an app purchase, it's fine. If you want to charge them and not do an app purchase, it's fine. But here's what you have to do to get this, to get us to approve it.

And I suspect it is things like fully integrating into the Apple TV app and the API so that I can link to you and you tell me what they're watching and I can show it in the TV app. You need to be in our video ecosystem to get this feature, which Netflix doesn't have. Right. And Netflix doesn't, Netflix doesn't do all a cart. So this is not a carrot for Netflix. Right. Because they don't do all a cart. They only do a subscription fee. So, but Amazon sells and sells stuff.

It doesn't just do a subscription fee. It sells stuff. So it's unique in that way. a subscription fee it sells stuff so it's unique in that way so um i i when this initially broke i thought oh maybe this is exactly what you said which is the another offshoot of that bearing the hatchet between apple and amazon and that it would be followed up by kindle and comiXology and then apple released this statement and i thought oh maybe maybe not then like because it is very tv focused so i initially thought well wouldn't it be nice but it's what apple says is well it's about video and it's about a subscription video product and then when you're

a member of that subscription video service then you get this extra ability to buy things inside it yeah and that you know short of like the video takes out uh kindle and uh comiXology they do offer subscription services within both of those products um and but it's not video but i could see that so i think it's an open question like it would be really great if this continued and Kindle and Comixology got purchase inside of it. But, like, I don't know. It seems like a bit far afield from this because this is a very specific instance where you have to, A, it's got to be video. B, you have to have an existing subscription relationship with Amazon. And then, C, you have the ability to pay

more money to buy or rent things inside it and like even if they brought that to something like kindle or comiXology where there's there's like kindle unlimited and and the comiXology unlimited subscription services and yes they also sell products inside those stores. Even if you got over the video hump, that's still a weird experience, right? Where regular Kindle users would not be able to so while I was really excited about the ability to buy potentially books and comics inside Amazon's apps as a next step here, reading Apple's statement, I think it's not going to happen. And that this is really just specifically about Amazon ticking all the boxes in terms of being in Apple's TV ecosystem. So their deal made this possible, but it doesn't follow that there's more to come. This whole thing has made me re-realize

how unfair I think this rule is. Like there is no reason that Apple should be involved in the purchase of a Kindle book. There's just no reason. They're not serving the files. They're not going to provide the payment system because Amazon don't even want that. It is rent-seeking behavior.

It is Apple saying, it's our platform. And so any money that changes hands for digital goods, you got to cut us in for 30% because we control it. We don't provide anything to you here. We just are going to take money from you. But it's so easy for Amazon to very, I think, rightly fire back and be like, no, no. Kindle is our platform, right? Like you have nothing to do with this.

Like we're equals here, right? Like people aren't, it's just, you know, yeah, it's very, find it very frustrating again to to be reminded of it i understand like so the argument from apple side is that it's not it's not rent seeking behavior it's protecting the platform because they don't want apps and you know apps from unscrupulous vendors to suddenly start charging you and you don't know anything about their infrastructure whether they're unscrupulous or just uh not paying attention like you may be compromising your credit card and are they going to be charging you for more than they say and all these things it's like well you don't have to worry about it because apple is going to protect you from that yeah and i see that but then you look at a company like amazon and you think come on like amazon is so huge and they've got an

existing relationship with these customers and that's always been my argument that kindle and comiXology on ios is appreciably worse for users yes than on android yeah because of apple's policy because it means that if you want to buy a book you have to go to amazon's website and do it whereas apple and it's even, because it means that if you want to buy a book, you have to go to Amazon's website and do it. Whereas Apple, and it's even worse because Apple has a book app and you don't have to do it with Apple's book app because Apple is the landlord. And so they get to set those rules and they don't have to, they don't apply to Apple because Apple, there's no middleman. Apple is the man and Apple takes all the money. So it's, it's no middleman. Apple is the man. And Apple takes all the money. So it's ridiculous and unfair.

And I hope that they find a way to define the rules in a way where shady apps don't try to charge your credit card. But giant companies with existing financial relationships can. Because I would really like to buy kindle books on ios without going to the web page and comiXology especially that for me that that's where it really hits me is i read a lot of comics on my ipad and every time i want to buy new comics i have to go to safari i have to log in again because their their login only sticks for seven days on the web and then uh and then i have to go through and find the comics and then i have to log in again because their login only sticks for seven days on the web. And then I have to go through and find the comics.

And then I have to switch back to the app. And then I have to refresh. And then I have... It's just... It's awful. It's like, I get that idea of like, oh, we want to protect our customers. But there is an app on iOS called Safari that will allow me to put my card information into literally any website i want

right yeah so like sure the app store is is like yeah there's this beautiful payment paradise but the web isn't and yeah and well my argument would be um there will still be a motivator if they drop this uh drop this demand there would still be a motivator for people to use the in-app purchase system because it is clean and easy and uh and you don't have to re-enter your credit card information and it's backed by apple and like there's still plenty of reasons for apps to use the in-app purchase system yeah to reduce friction but the same way that people use things like cloud kit there are other syncing solutions for data but people use's because it has these benefits for them as a developer. And forgive me because I'm only half remembering this, that Audible, you have a subscription and it gives you credits. And I think that changed recently as a part of this detente between Apple and Amazon where Audible, you now have a little more freedom to spend your credits inside the Audible app. That might have been part of the books thing.

Yeah, where before you got kicked out to the web web for audible as well but um it's it's ridiculous that's the bottom line is it's ridiculous so i hope it continues um because i think this is one of the worst policies that apple has and it benefits nobody except apple i know that people talk about this a lot right but i i think we are getting to a point where Apple needs to kind of re-justify its cut again. What are you getting as a developer, as a platform partner? I don't disagree with Apple doing these kinds of deals. That's business for you. Amazon is a big enough company.

They're bigger than the movie company me and Jason start. We're not going to get the same deal that Amazon get. And I have no problem with that because Amazon have been successful enough that they get to sit at a table with Apple and talk it through and explain it and come to a deal. But I do think in general, Apple need to maybe re-evaluate things a little bit more in the same way that they did the 30 to 15% on subscription thing, right?

That was great, made a lot of people happy, made a lot of people more money, incentivized the reason to have subscriptions over one-time purchasing, helped people change their business models so they could have a free app that could have a subscription, like great. That was was a great move i think we need to see a little bit more of that again um just to continue justifying why apple deserves the cut that it

takes because the original pitch you know of like we have the storefront people are going to find your app like that's great, we're going to help. All of that stuff means less now than it used to, I think. And so I think that with the app store being the age that it is, it might be time to, not just for larger players,

but to re-evaluate some of this stuff again. All right, this episode is also brought to you by Pingdom. Today's internet users, like me, like you, expect a fast web experience. No matter how good your content or how effective your marketing is, people are going to leave if your website isn't loading fast or isn't loading at all. And with real-time user monitoring from Pingdom, you can discover how website performance is affecting your visitors

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So let's continue with some upstream news. There is a new WarnerMedia CEO, Jason Keillor, who was Hulu's first CEO. Yeah, it's a little story, but it made me laugh because he was the founding CEO of Hulu, which meant he was being pulled in various different directions by the various media companies that owned Hulu. And he's had a different job for the last few years,

but he's going to be the CEO of WarnerMedia reporting up to the AT&T bosses. And I just think it's an interesting thing and says something about maybe his skill set as a manager who was a manager of a streaming service in its early days that that was who they wanted in charge of all of warner media so just yeah little thing interesting quibi launches today to mixed reviews um apparently the app itself is pretty good nicely designed there's some interesting ideas in there like the content can change depending on the orientation of your device if you're holding it in landscape or portrait you might

see different things that's cool but it feels like a gimmick to me. I don't know if I want to be moving my phone up and down, up and down to be able to watch a TV show and see different things. Apparently there's like a Steven Spielberg production upcoming, which will also use like your GPS and the clock of your phone to show the content differently. I don't know if I want these experiences. Maybe I could be proven wrong, but i just don't feel like i i want that uh something that's kind of funny out some of the reporting today that the quibi app blocks screenshots so it's using copy protection so if you screenshot the content it just is a black so there'll be no nothing will go viral from quibi no great job quibi great job yeah that's

exactly what you want to be able to do. The reports on the content is that ultimately it feels pretty cheap feeling or that it's stuff that feels like it's YouTube focused. Yeah, that's the one that I saw. It feels like you're now paying for more YouTube videos that you can get for free. Yeah. And YouTube content is fantastic, right? But YouTube content is considered a free thing right yes for people you just go watch it um and this is a shame because of the pricing now this wouldn't be a

problem if they had a free of ads tier like great you know that's youtube but to get their ads tier you pay $4.99 a month so that's kind of a bit complicated and also they have a $7.99 a month without ads tier outside of the u.s you can only get the $7.99 a month without ads tier outside of the u.s you can only get the $7.99 a month option because they didn't sell ads outside of america of course they didn't so this was the wrong time to launch this product we made reference to it earlier we spoke about it before also i gotta say i question the entire premise of quibi sure because people watch video i mean in the before time people watch video anyway on the go like it's not like somebody is somewhere and thinks oh man i wish i could watch netflix or youtube or something on my phone

but i can't do that so i guess i'll just sit here and stare out the window. Instagram stories or any other type of social media video. Or literally anything else. Yeah. Right. Right. But no, the problem is I just need a 10-minute long Quibi video. That's what I really wish I had right now. So, you know, they did an interesting thing in signing up a lot of big stars and all that kind of stuff.

But I just, I'm not interested in, right? Like, I wanted to maybe check this out. I was thinking about it. But I'm like in right like i wanted to maybe check this out i was thinking about it but i don't want to pay for this like i don't want to pay more than disney plus for this yeah right which which i would be paying two pounds a month more than i pay for disney plus for this service like i'm not and i know they have a 90-day free trial but honestly like i'm not even i don't even want to check it out like i don't think i'm gonna get anything out of this content like i will wait to hear of the tv show the quibi show the quibbit quiblet i don't know what they call it i'm sure they've got something that's a must-have that is a must-have but like right now i'm not i'm not interested in this the only thing that i wanted to maybe see

was chrissy chrissy's court which is chrissy tegan doing like a judge judy type thing but it's not i don't want to see it enough that i want to pay seven pound 99 a month for it which again is how much i pay for netflix right where i can watch tiger king which is incredible have you watched tiger king yes i watched the first three episodes, I think. So good, right? I don't think I would say so good. It's fascinating to watch. It's hard to believe that people like that exist,

and yet they do. And I talked about this on TV Talk Machine last week, but I'm encouraged by the fact that people will watch documentaries if they're about super outlandish subjects. And in fact, people will watch like an eight hour long documentary if you break it up into episodes

and have cliffhangers at the end of each episode. So fair play. But you break them up into hour chunks. You don't break them up into 10 minute chunks. Well, that's true. There's a tiger. Stay tuned next week for more tigers on Quibi. Tiger.

Like, okay. All right. Oh, hey, there's this guy who works with the tigers. All right. Come back next week yeah thanks quibi this hasn't launched in the world that it should have and i feel like i don't know what they would have done you know like in their position i probably also would have just launched it anyway because you put so much money into it at this point but i i think the target market for quibi was small and that small market is working at home right now and they don't need your

bite-sized chunk videos we'll see though i'd like to prove them wrong an apple debuted a trailer for an apple tv plus show called trying which is a british comedy show starring rave spall it is focusing on relationships and parenthood and conception complications. It's coming May 1st. It looks really good. I love the trailer. It is the dry, realistic British humor that I enjoy and that Rafe Spall

is especially good at. I'm looking forward to checking this one out. It looks good. It looks different because it's a British comedy. So it's different to the other type of content that is on Apple TV Plus right now so I'm excited about it and this is Apple's worldwide content initiative right

like everybody gets to see this British show that is on Apple TV Plus yep this is a very like Channel 4 or BBC content like also it's like shot in it looks like Camden which is an area that I love like yeah I'm super cool super into it Jason should we talk about Zoom that I love. Like, yeah, I'm super cool. Super into it. Jason, should we talk about Zoom?

I think we should probably, yeah. I mean, this is being covered in a lot of places. I don't know if we need to go into the exact details, but you know, if you're working from home right now, or you have kids homeschooling right now, especially, you've probably heard about Zoom. Zoom is the web conferencing, video conferencing application of kids homeschooling right now, especially, you've probably heard about Zoom. Zoom is the web conferencing, video conferencing application that has risen to prominence during lockdowns around the world. It's funny. They seem to have been perfectly positioned somehow for this.

And I think not entirely intentionally, but everybody seems to have leapt to Zoom and people are using Zoom. And I was thinking about it. I was trying to explain to somebody like why Zoom in particular? And I think maybe the reason is that they worked really hard on this kind of frictionless interface

where unless you're the host of the meeting, you can just send somebody a link and it just opens. And they're in a meeting, right? So you don't have to so like skype is a good example where the way skype works is everybody sign up for skype send me your skype account now they have like a join link and stuff but it's like it was always the case with skype that was like you need to register you need to set up your microsoft account and now you can be in a skype call whereas with zoom you just show up and there's a teleconference and i i think that that led plus the fact that they had a free tier that gave you 40 minutes uh a 40 minute long conversation they were also you know successful pretty successful

in enterprise so as people were starting to move to working from home they were having to use the software that their company was telling them to use which in a lot of places was zoom so then they were like well zoom's easy and we need to have this call with the five family members let's just do it over zoom because zoom is on every device it's not facetime i just did a zoom call last night with um all the members of my wife's family. And we were like, you could use FaceTime. And they're like, nah, we'll use Zoom. But you literally all have Apple devices.

You could just use. They're like, no, we're going to use Zoom. OK, fine. We'll use Zoom. It's fine. So it turned out to be perfectly positioned for this. And what's come out is, in our show notes, you say it honestly feels like there are too many reports about security issues in zoom to even mention so we'll link to glenn fleishman's article on tidbits where he went through every single one of them thanks glenn this is like this really interesting thing

that happens in technology media reporting and i am not criticizing this like do not get me wrong but it's just like an interesting thing to observe where like website a publishes a thing that they found out about a security issue or an issue with a piece of software and then there are lots more as every other tech focused news outlet is trying to find this stuff or they're getting other tips so like it becomes this like feed like a beast that is being fed like we saw it with um the the like the the the enterprise certificate stuff do you remember that sure it's the steady steady drip drip drip where somebody points something out and then everybody else starts investigating it and they find things and and zoom honestly it's also a little bit like uh zoom is is

very casually walking down a hallway minding its own business and then a giant spotlight is placed on it. And it's like, uh, and it freezes. It's like, uh. So here's my, I mean, look, Zoom has issues. There's no doubt about it. Definitely. I don't have a lot of time for people who want to say that Zoom is evil like Facebook, because I don't think they are.

I think they're just, and I wouldn't say incompetent, but I would say that they are a startup who was really focused on adding features so that they could serve customers and close deals and get more money and get more customers and continue growing because they're a startup and was a lot less focused on all the things that involve security and limits to their system

because they're like, yeah, but who's going to do that? It's not a big deal. This is enterprise software. People aren't going to be like Zoom bombing the idea that people can just kind of like come up with codes and appear in random video conferences. And it's really bad. And they've actually had to change their security.

Like now, by default, you have to, as the starter of a meeting, you have to look at a list and admit people to a meeting. Or Glenn's suggestion is you look through the list, kick out the people you don't know, and then do an admit all to everybody. But in the early days, they were just not focused on it. They were moving as fast as they could. And it led to a lot of bad practices. There's no doubt about it. And I'm not really defending them. I'm just trying to understand it. Why did the Zoom installer on the Mac install all the things in the pre-flight? And then when you click the install

button, nothing happens because it's already installed itself. Well, you know what? I don't think that's them being evil. I think that that is a developer who made a mistake and either nobody noticed or nobody cared. And I think a lot of it is nobody cared because, and I would imagine there are developers at Zoom, given the speed at which they've implemented some of these fixes, I think there are developers and maybe even product managers at Zoom who knew all about these flaws. And we're like, can we, because I've been there, folks, I've been there. Can we fix these flaws? Can we get development resources to fix these flaws?

And then somebody up the chain says, no, build the new feature that's going to get us this $4 million contract. Do that instead. And they just sit there. And then the spotlight gets switched on. And Zoom's like, uh, uh? Don't look over there. That is what basically has happened, I think, here. And I think that their response really is about as good as a response can be in the situation that they found themselves in

where took him a few tries but they did get there yep you know po body's no effect uh yeah yeah they got there the entire expertise of this company is not to be in that big a spotlight right like none of them are good at it none of them were were got to where they were because they were good at it and the final response was yeah we you're right we we like like the the ad tagging like the ad tagging on their website where it's like their privacy policy is like a marketing privacy policy and it's like we can sell all your information and somebody who's a privacy person calls them on it and says why do you why are you reselling your customer information? You're a subscription-based company. You're not even an advertising company. And their response was something like, oh, yeah.

And you really get the sense that whoever put up the privacy policy ripped a privacy policy from somewhere and posted it because they knew they needed to have one. And is that dumb? Yes, it is. Do I understand how that would happen in an organization that is moving quickly and has priorities that are not the priorities of tightening every screw down because they're a startup? Yes, I do.

Because that privacy policy has been in place for four years and not one user or person at Zoom has read it until someone wanted to read it to find something. And again, not excusing bad practices, but this is how this stuff happens you are focusing on pushing forward always building your company forward forward forward and you just let things go and honestly if you're the kind of person who says you know we need to really uh we need to sweep up behind us and we need to tighten all the screws on these things and we need to go back and fix these little bugs i mean look at apple? How many stories do we have about bugs that get introduced in a version of macOS or iOS

and they never get fixed? All the new features keep coming in, but they never go back and fix a lot of these little bugs. It's because that company is not providing developers and product managers incentive to fix little bugs. Their incentives are all about making new features. And this is a problem. So Zoom's privacy policy, like is Zoom really planning on being a gross company that resells

all of its customer data when you come to their website? No, they're just dumb and they used a dumb privacy policy. And you can see it because the moment it gets pointed out, they're like, oh God, no, let's change it. So again, is Zoom a badly run company kind of but in a in a really boring way that most i would say companies especially startups are badly run which is they prioritized growth and didn't realize what like the rest of us exactly what was around the corner which was this level of scrutiny and i will also say they it has taken them a while to do the right thing, but they've generally come around to realizing that that it is the right thing in a way that is refreshing because it's not something that Facebook ever. Yes, you have to like I get that these things can be criticized when you find out about them. You can criticize the way that they respond.

when you find out about them. You can criticize the way that they respond. But if a company ultimately comes around to doing what is recommended or what people suggest, that needs to be like, not necessarily applauded, but recognized. Because these days,

technology companies, big technology companies, and Zoom went from 10 million daily users to 200 million daily users. They are a massive tech company now. Too often, these companies just dig their heels in and they don't do what you want them to do. Zoom is in the crucible right now. They are in the crucible. And two things can happen.

They can either come out of it better for it, or they can burn up. Those are the sort of two things that can happen. And I think they're going to come out of it better for it. I think that they've had to focus on them. And that has given a little more cred to the people inside, presumably, who can say, we need to do this the right way. You saw what happened when we did it the wrong way. Let's do it the right way now. And I think there'll be a better product and service and company when all is said and done. Because they don't need new users.

They got those. They learned it. I mean, they had to learn it the hard way. But honestly, I think a lot of times, that's exactly what happens to companies is they go along, and then they get called on it. And then you find out what they're made of when they get called on it. And a lot of times you get, honestly, Zoom's response is not that different from the responses of all sorts of people to the COVID-19 crisis, where you start

by kind of bargaining and you're like, well, all right, maybe we'll change a little bit and maybe we'll do this little minor thing. And then you have that moment where you go, oh no, no, no, this is huge. I need to just stop right now. And that's, I think, what Zoom has basically done is they're like, well, there's a little thing. And then they finally seem to have had that moment where they're like, no, you're right. This is not gonna i mean the fact that it's such a big deal in the text of like we're gonna stop implementing new features and we're gonna focus on fixing all of our security and privacy problems it's like well you guys you guys were still working on new features like don't do that don't don't do that capacity stability and fixing all your really bad privacy and security bugs.

Let's do that now. Like right now, let's focus on that. And they got there. It took them a while, but they got there, again, in a way that some of these tech companies don't get there because it turns out that they do actually intend. They either intended to be evil all along or they found out how profitable being evil was. And they're like, oh, I really just want to do that now. And I don't think Zoom is at that point. So I think, you know, are there – and here's the other thing.

Are there alternatives to Zoom? Yes, there are. Google Hangouts, FaceTime, Skype. Yeah, they're all going to have different tradeoffs, but there are advantages to them. You don't have to use Zoom. advantages to them. You don't have to use Zoom. I would argue that just like getting mad at an airline or a cable company or a cell phone company, you're really probably just trading one set of issues for another. But the beauty of the way Zoom is built is I believe you can just use a web browser and not even install their app and still get into their conferences if you're

not the host. So I've been using Zoom for a while now because it has a very particular feature that is extremely helpful to me as a podcast host and editor. But it is so esoteric that, you know, my need for it is not the need that anybody else who's not a podcast host and editor has a need for. What is your need? Just, yeah, because people ask about this. Zoom will let you do a recording of your call. Well, most places will do that.

But Zoom will let you choose to record it locally and not up in the cloud. And one of the options is record everybody's voices on separate tracks. And what that means is I walk away from a Zoom call with a track for every single person who was on the podcast, separate from all the other voices. Now, I have them all record their voice on their own computer, but sometimes, and that's the highest quality possible, sometimes the recordings fail. And it used to be, when I used Skype, that if that recording failed, I had to take my recording of like everybody talking at once and like cut out the parts where they made noise and put that in and cut out all the other people's voices from where they're talking because they're talking on their microphone and on that track. It was a lot of work. It's a lot of work.

And now I just sub in the Zoom version of their voice and I got it. And that work goes away. So of their voice and I got it. And that work goes away. So that's the reason I use it. But that's 0.0001% of Zooms. And we keep adding zeros as this crisis continues. So, you know, there are alternatives out there. I just want to say, like, switching to some other thing is no guarantee that they do not also have privacy security and ease of use problems because zoom very clearly prioritized ease of use over security and it's biting them

now but it's also the reason that they're being used by so many people is it's fairly easy to to hop on a zoom call i'm really enjoying uh ben thompson's uh discussion on this in the daily update um i recently subscribed to the Daily Update podcast, and it's very good. So this is like Ben's Daily Update, which you've probably heard of for a while, the email newsletter, and now there's a podcast version,

which is great for someone like me who doesn't like to read very much. And what Ben ended up recommending was that Zoom take like 90 days to focus on privacy. It's exactly what Zoom is doing now, which is, I don't know if they took his advice or if they just came to the same kind of uh result but that's what zoom is up to now they are just pausing all feature development focusing on a security overhaul but so that's zoom yeah

can't get away from it i had a zoom call today i have two tomorrow everyone wants to use zoom now it's kind of funny to me jason like i used to do just video like just just calls just phone calls but now i'm having video calls the same people so we didn't we didn't video call before why do we do video call now it's fine we can we can do this now yeah i i mean i still get hangouts requests because google hangouts still, even though they keep trying to kill it. And Skype, definitely. But Zoom, I think there's also the truth that once it's a tool in your arsenal, you want to apply it to everything. And some of this might fall away as being like, yeah, I don't need to do that.

Or it may just be like, oh, I got it. Let's just use it. Also, everybody's inside and seeing another face is kind of nice, right? I think that's part of it too. I think there's an interesting question about FaceTime. Like group FaceTime should be, like I said, my wife's family and i should have used facetime last night but we didn't and i think it's because the perception is it's complicated people don't know how to use it and it's got the weird like bubbles and stuff that float around

whereas zoom is just a grid and like the bubbles are whimsical but i think they're bad so saying about that i have i have been pondering this idea, something I want to talk to you about, which we will do after this break, where we talk about our friends over at Linode and thank them for supporting the show. Whether you're working on a personal project or managing your enterprise's infrastructure,

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Our thanks to Linode for their continued support of this show and RelayFM. So I've been rolling this idea around in my head, which I'm kind of referring to as like a big question, which is how will COVID-19 change consumer technology?

And I've been thinking about this just in general that like i would like to maybe try and do this stuff more if people like it unless something that is focused on like what happened this week which is typically what we talk about on this show but more kind of like bigger questions about technology so right the reason i've been thinking of this is like the way that people are working right now is different to how they've worked before and at large scale, right? People have been working from home,

working from home in technology for years, decades maybe even. But the idea of, no, everyone is different, right? And it's going to unearth a few different types of ideas in the way that people are used to working. Therefore, the way that technology enables us in our lives. And when all the big technology companies are forced to face these issues,

they may see things that other people have been seeing for a while. So there is that whole stream. But the first stream that was interesting to me was how covid19 may change the way that we interact with our devices on a daily basis and one that i've been thinking about is how good is face id if we're all wearing face masks so this is a thing that's come up in asia for a long time and was apparently a contributing factor to lower sales of the iPhone X line, was that if you live in a society where people's faces are obscured when they're outside of the home,

Face ID is so much worse than Touch ID, because you can't unlock your phone. Now, depending on where you live in the world right now, people are being told to wear face masks or not, but it seems like the general consensus is moving to, if you go outside, cover your face somehow, right? Leave the medical grade face masks to people in the medical profession, but maybe wear something, right? So does that mean that if now the Western world may be moving into using face masks more? Because if we're living with this in some form

for a couple of years, which is possible, will we get used to wearing face masks? Like, will that just become a thing in Europe and in America like it has in some places in Asia? And if that's the case, do we want Face ID or do we want Touch ID again? Yeah, I wonder about this, although I have heard from people who talk about like the problem. There are issues with Touch ID, too, right? Like if you're wearing gloves, including if you're wearing gloves to protect yourself from stuff that you would touch, right?

Like whether it's cold or medical reasons, you can't do Touch ID. these biometric things but i think you're right that if face id becomes even great an even greater liability in more places for more people and your apple you have to start to think uh like what some of the android phone makers have done which is to say i want face unlock and i want touch unlock i've also heard a bunch of people who've said they've made their password simpler on their iPhone because they now have to enter it. And that's like I've got a alphanumeric passcode on my iPhone. And if I'm out and about wearing a mask all the time, that's going to change. Like I'm not going to have to do that every time I unlock. I also wonder if Apple's thought of some other sort of like biometric things like Apple Watch unlock for your iPhone or something like that. Like once you unlock your Apple Watch and your iPhone and it stays on your wrist, then maybe your iPhone can unlock more easily.

But clearly this is new data being input that is going to change the equation. Of course, as we've talked about, it takes years for Apple to change the philosophy on some of this stuff. But it would be, I think it's worth thinking about, that if this, we'll see what happens culturally, but it's hard to believe that there won't be at least more mask wearing than there used to be. So then as well, I'm wondering about cameras in devices because we're all using cameras off our front-facing cameras more for video calling right whether we're on our mac for to to do a work call

on an ipad to speak to your friends or your family your iphone to speak to your parents your grandparents so we're doing more video. So should front-facing cameras be better? Will we see that? I think we will. At the moment, I have on my iMac Pro a Logitech external camera because the camera in my iMac Pro is really, really bad. And I have this Logitech camera. I've had it for a while when I was doing streaming for,

well, whenever I do game streaming stuff, I want to have my camera on it. And this 1080p webcam from Logitech is much better looking than the one in my iMac Pro, so I've just plugged that one in now. And I think probably quite a lot of people are doing stuff like that because the cameras, especially in Macs, they suck.

And I wonder if we're going to see that start to change now. Yeah, the Mac cameras could be better. Although I think the iMac Pro camera is 1080. Whether it is or it isn't, this Logitech one is much better, right? Like it might be 1080, but like the lens is bigger, right? Like it's a dedicated product. My five-year-old whatever USB Logitech camera is still better than what is in my mac pro i think you're right i think that i think that prior if if everybody's doing video stuff prioritizing um

video cameras especially like on computers it's certainly been the case it feels like that you know some devices have really nice cameras and others don't but like if you're doing a long conference call you're probably not holding your phone and doing that or or even holding an ipad you're probably doing it at a on a on a laptop or something like that i think for a lot of this stuff and apple's laptop uh webcams are bad they're just they're they're they're not very good that has not been a priority for them so i do wonder about that i also wonder about in general um having upgrading that technology to have more kind of machine intelligence. You know, there are those webcams that are out there where they will do face tracking and stuff like that. So if you move

around a little bit, it'll adjust the frame based on where you are. Like you get a wide angle shot and then it will kind of intelligently frame and move and things like that. And Apple could do more stuff like that too, if it wanted to, but it hasn't been a priority. And I do think that that may be something that changes. And let's talk about like we talked, the 16 inch MacBook Pro and the new iPad Pros, they've got their, you know,

six, whatever it is, microphone array. And 16 inch MacBook Pro is the studio quality microphones and all that. Like Apple was already on that but I think that's a real win for them because having your existing microphone device be better and sound better is you know something that they're already headed toward and it's important like you don't want to sound like you're at the bottom of a well if you're in a zoom meeting

or whatever or a slack meeting on audio you know you don't want you don't want to sound bad you don't want to not be able to hear someone right like if you're doing over speakers like all of that stuff is important and i think that we're going to see like a continued push on this stuff because people are having to use these devices more frequently like as i say there are a lot of people that are doing this every day but not necessarily the people that make the computers are doing this or have been doing this. Yeah. Well, yeah. This is that famous story that I love about how Apple Mail was really, really bad on slow connections. And I discovered that when I was on a cruise ship like 10 years ago, that like Apple Mail wants to sync all your mailboxes and it just uses huge

amounts of data. And then they started doing Wi-Fi on airplanes. That became a very popular thing. And that was a slow connection. And the next release of macOS was much better in terms of mail using the connection. And it was very clear what happened, which is all the people who wrote the software and the executives who used it all of a sudden found themselves on a low latency, slow internet connection and realized that Apple Mail was completely inappropriate for that. And so they fixed it. Like, that just happens. Like, if you don't live it, we could talk about maps, right? Like, the maps, Apple Maps is really great in the Bay Area, but it's not necessarily very good in lots of other places and you get a

skewed perception of it. So I think you're right that this is one of those things that we're going to see. This is a good example, but there are others like we're going to see collaboration, communication apps, and also hardware that's used in them get better in the next few years because the people who make that stuff are currently dealing with whatever today's state of the art is and probably having some ideas about where this stuff could be better.

Yeah, when it comes to apps and services, the thing that's interesting to me is like the hardware is coming from your existing hardware makers, but apps and services can come from anywhere you know so like you know something like slack is born out of wasn't slack it was there was the company behind slack was building a video game and then they built a communication tool to talk about the game that they were making the game didn't end up going anywhere but they realized that they had stumbled into a better communication tool i think that's slack's origin story so these types of software solutions can come out of weird places and i would

expect that we see a lot of startups over the next couple of years coming in to try and save over the next couple of years coming in to try and save or fix x right like i think the company behind uh base camp uh is building an email replacement tool which i think is on hold at the moment it's 37 signals right i believe it's them yeah it's doing this but this is that you know that will come at a time when people have realized they've been using email too much or using Slack too much to communicate. And they're like, oh, I'm frustrated with this tool. I wished it was better. Slack is kind of funny now that Slack has now become the establishment.

So people want to build Slack replacements when Slack was to replace email. But what we've all realized is slack is great for team communication it did not replace email right i think it doesn't email continues so now people are still trying to build better tools for that but this is like a big area like communication and collaboration i think we're going to see a lot of new companies pop up with these things in mind also users you know the users who have built, these products have been built around users who are traveling or organizations that have multiple centers of work or people who work from home. But now there's this whole new set of users because now it's like whole businesses

that are moving remote. And even the existing companies are going to learn things about the needs of these organizations because i do think there will be more virtual organizations in the future because i do think some companies are going to look at this and go why are we paying for yes expensive real estate and there are going to be other people we don't need to have an office because we still continued to work right right right that i mean and again there are good and bad things about that but i do think that will happen i also think new companies there'll be more virtual organizations that are founded now because people are more comfortable with it as a concept because you know i i worked with lots of people who i mean there was there were ceos that i worked

with who um you know they wanted they didn't want people working from home because they wanted to be able to walk through the office once a day and see a busy office. It had no basis in reality of how we worked, but they wanted to see it. I think that people are going to have their attitudes changed a little bit. Also, though, I think users, because there are these different users of these services than were there before, the users are going to try things and the services are going to see them trying things. And that's going to change the game, too. So an example would be like we take for granted things like Slack and Dropbox. Right. And Google Docs.

They've been around a long time, but I know not in our listenership necessarily but like i know other people who are not tech savvy and let me tell you there are a lot of people who are using dropbox to exchange files for the first time there are a lot of people using google docs to collaborate on documents for the first time there are lots of people using slack to talk to their colleagues for the first time and that's going to not only colleagues for the first time. And that's going to not only, yes, drive usage of those tools, but it's going to change how they get built and change how people work because they're more aware of them. But also I think that things are going to come up and they're going to be like, why does Dropbox do this? And I think Dropbox will learn

things and Slack will learn things and that will feed into it too. So I would imagine that there were enough people out there that communication collaboration systems were already a big business. But so we primed the pump. But now here's everybody else. And everybody else is going to have different issues. And it's going to build a you know a bigger business for those companies but a different business too and i think that will that will push them in different ways because like i think google docs and dropbox both seem so basic to us but like thank goodness they're there there's a piece that uh john gruber linked to on daring

fireball from joshua topolsky that was basically thank God for the internet. It's like, I was thinking about that too. Like, I know we're all isolated, but we have the internet to connect us. And, and for business, it's such a great example. Like businesses can still run, not all of them, but a lot of businesses can still operate entirely because of the internet and because of these collaboration tools. So that part, I'm fascinated by, you know, what the end result of that will be. But at the very least, you've got people using collaboration tools who never thought of them before. Which is kind of awesome, isn't it?

I think so. I mean, as a user of those collaboration tools, I, you know, this is one of those things where the rest of the world is seeing things that you and I have been working with for a while now. And I think that's, I think that's cool. And there will be good and bad about it. Like I talked to somebody who is related to, I'm going to be very vague. It was related to somebody I know who it is. You know, you end up being, I'm a computer guy. People ask me tech questions.

And it was a question about slack and they were joining slack and it was like should what shouldn't go in slack and i said well if you're if you've got things that you want to say to your colleagues that you don't want the boss to see don't put them in slack like do that as a send send an i message or something like people are gonna have to learn stuff like that too that like this belongs and the archives belong to the company uh so don't any point this is that one thing was like you will be told so everyone is told if the if the archive is, but the archive can be accessed. Yeah. So it's stuff like that that people are going to learn too.

On a paid account. I think it's great. this stuff is becoming more and more used is going to reveal faults, whether they're usability issues or blind spots in the product where they never realized that that was a thing people would want to do until now, or pure security failings, like what Zoom has dealt with. Like so much of that is going to come out. And I do believe because i am an optimist i do believe that these products will be better for it in the long run because they will have been put through the ringer but in the short run people are going to you know bash their heads against parts of these products and be like why does it do it this way and the answer is going to be

something that's not uncommon when you talk about products from big tech companies which is uh we didn't didn't ever think of that it's like oh yeah well you got new users now and you're gonna have to deal i think that's great so that was our first big question big question i would like to know if people want to hear more of this type of stuff and if you do what do you want us to talk about it's just something i'm playing around with because again it's like we've spoken about this before it's like how will covid19 change your technology podcasts well at some point the news might stop and we want to continue to entertain you so this is one way that i hope we can do it couple of pieces of news before we do hashtag ask upgrade it is apple acquisition season jason

so boy uh you know you can still buy You sure can. Apple acquired the weather app and service Dark Sky and is slowly going to be shutting down the application and some platforms on Android and the API is being shut down as well. You are a weather person. You like the weather. Nobody wants to talk about that. What is your take on this news?

I like that Apple is looking at a third-party app and service and saying, why don't we have that? They have their own weather source that they buy for their weather app. Dark Sky goes way beyond what is available or being used by Apple. So I could see from that perspective. I can also see from the perspective of potentially letting other weather apps on their platforms have access to the API exclusively. So it makes weather better on Apple platforms. I mean, they're shutting it off for Android. So, you know, I think it's just one of those cases where, like, Apple could choose to build a better weather app, but they're going to have to go through all the trouble of building a better app and making deals with a bunch of data sources and building out this whole back-end infrastructure. Or they could just buy Dark Sky, who already did it.

And it makes sense to me. And it stinks if you're somebody who relies on their data and are on Android. But I think it makes sense and is smart from Apple's perspective. Apple have bought an AI app called Voices to boost natural language processing for Siri. The company focuses on voice technology to help narrow down searches for shopping items. So there was an example given in the bloomberg article it was reporting on this saying that you would for example say i need a new led tv and my budget is one thousand dollars and the assistant would be able to provide a result for that so it's doing a lot of like language processing to help narrow search queries um

apparently the the you know the the tech that this company has built can be squeezed down to 25 megabytes and put on a device. So it seems to be pretty powerful natural language processing that can be shrunk down and put onto devices. This is the thing that Google talks about and tries to do a lot, that they want to shrink down the assistant and put it on phones and they do that on Pixel phones so that the processing is faster uh so that's one um do you have anything extra on that it's interesting i'm pleased to see that they're trying to do more to make series comprehension better that's what i was going to say is i i

think we can all agree that spending money to get technology to make siri work better is good yeah we all want to see that, right? You love to see it. And they're also rumored to be buying a company called NextVR. NextVR provides VR experiences for live events. So they're most popular for filming sporting events so you can watch them at home on your VR headset. Sounds super weird, right? Why would Apple want this company?

I'm familiar with them like um they do this with like wrestling events and stuff they'll put like cameras on the the posts the ring posts and you can watch it's like what you know it's very strange but it's the thing turns out next vr holds a large series of patents around virtual reality streaming so their patent portfolio could potentially be of interest for any company that wants to be involved in virtual reality. So maybe that's more than Apple wants to do VR streaming of basketball games. That would be peculiar. But if they hold patents for streaming of virtual reality, that might be a thing that you you might want to own going into

the future i hear that tim is bullish on ar but uh maybe vr2 who knows yeah i mean it's it's not wild to imagine um that any any kind of virtual reality stuff could also be ar based like these things can go together. But I think Apple have made some moves into VR. We've seen it. Remember when they had that demo at WWDC with the Darth Vader thing? Yeah. A few years ago.

They want to do it and every company is looking at it at least in case it is that next frontier. Let's finish up the show as we always do with some hashtag ask upgrade questions. But before we do that, let me thank our final sponsor today, Squarespace. You can make your next move with Squarespace. They will let you easily create that website that you've been thinking about for your next idea or project. With Squarespace, you can super easily register a unique domain name,

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Thank you. Hashtag ask upgrade. First question comes from Greg, and Greg wants to know, is it possible in Mac OS to have a folder in the dock with apps in it like you can on iPad OS? Sure. Although I generally don't recommend that you take apps

out of the applications folder. That's the problem isn't it? So you make a folder and you make aliases of those apps in that folder and put that folder in the doc and then you got it you could do the launchpad thing right but that's not i don't think that's what you want to do right because that's every app then yeah you don't want to live in the doc you don't want to do that but like in your documents folder or something make a um make a folder for your stuff and and then you do it's command option drag i think uh we'll make

an alias just drag command option drag the apps into that folder and then you drag that i'm doing it right now in fact and then you drag that folder into your doc and look you got a bunch of apps that pop up and you can have it be one of those little stacks or however you want to view it and and then you click on them and they launch so that's the way to do it i would say is aliases keep it clean i like this uh question because from greg because i like the idea of a mac feature that went to the ipad and now wanting to replicate an ipad function on the mac feature which is the dock back on mac os i just like that back to the mac nature of it all casper says mike what about using a mac mini as a recording mac it's not as portable as a laptop but you're adding a monitor and keyboard

anyway so just a bit of context in case you're familiar with this when i'm allowed to go back to my studio i wanted to have separate computers so when i'm able to go back to my studio, I wanted to have separate computers. So I'm able to get that set up. So I would be having my iMac Pro to do all my editing and heavy work on. And then I want to record on a separate desk, which is more sound isolated, and use a different computer for that.

And I planned on using a laptop for it. Now, I understand the idea of a Mac Mini because I'm going to have a keyboard, mouse and monitor anyway. So why not use a Mac mini? So it'd be a permanent system and it can maybe have a bit more power in it. But one of the reasons I want to use a laptop for this is so then when I travel, I take the same machine that I'm recording on all the time that is set up for recording. I take that machine with me. That is my thinking. Who knows how this will play out, if it ever plays out. But that's kind of the route that I'm going with,

is wanting to replace to a laptop. And I am thinking now, Jason, still that MacBook Air is probably the right move for me. I think just like price power wise, I think that's what I'm going to be looking at. But not anytime soon. Seth asks, my family is on a shared account. In settings and Bluetooth, all of my kids' AirPods and Beats headphones and mine are in there. I don't want them in

there. But when I click remove, it says it will remove all of the devices on a shared iCloud account. Any advice? Seth, you need to move to an iCloud family. Yep, that's it. I know you don't want to hear it, but Apple is very strict on this now. They don't, they're not interested in building features

that make it easy or convenient for you to put every device in your entire family on one Apple ID. They want you to have different Apple IDs for the different people and have them be in a family. And if that doesn't work for you, then you're just going to have to deal with having all those devices in your Bluetooth menu. But what Apple wants you to do is create, you know, for your kids, you create kids Apple IDs and tie them into the family and then you can authorize them and set them up however you want.

But that's for the last like three or four years, that has been Apple's whole standard. So you just, that's the answer. And I switched to a 9K family plan a couple of months ago. And I would say it's fantastic. I have no, it was easy to do. And I have no personal downsides. Maybe if you like do Apple music,

you would need to pay a little bit more for it. That's one I will include in the show notes, a link to Mac power users episode 522, where Stephen and David talk about iCloud family sharing in case you want to get a refresher on this Seth or other listeners out there if you're thinking of doing this. But the problem is, it is all tied to one iCloud account, which I'll say is great great it's a great feature of AirPods right that like I pair one device and it's on all my devices but if you're sharing a a whole like if you're sharing one account with a lot of different people well everyone's going to connect to everybody else's devices like that's just the way it is.

Ben says, with a lot of fake news being spread regarding 5G, like the ridiculous conspiracy theories that it's causing coronavirus, resulting in people setting 5G masks on fire in the UK, do you think that this will affect Apple's adoption of the technology? I got this, Mike. Okay, go on.

No. I only included this question in the show because I wanted to talk about this real quick. Just in case there is anybody out there who believes this or knows someone. This is rolling right over my no, but yeah, okay, yeah, let's talk about it. Let's break it down.

It's just purely like this idea is absolutely crazy. Like it's crazy. like this idea is absolutely crazy like it's crazy it's baseless and it's it's madness like this i like people oh my god people want to have feel like they have control of their lives and that they can understand what's going on and under stress and under pressure they will make irrational they'll believe irrational things and do irrational things and there was already this undercurrent of kind of not even remotely supported by any information in fact where people were convinced that 5g was causing health problems so it was very easy to port that over and blame a virus on cell phone towers um those it's it's it's bad and wrong and those people are to be i mean i'm

frustrated with those people but i think they're also to be kind of pitied and maybe helped if they can be because they believe a a ridiculous thing um and they're wrong and they think that it's going to make a difference in their lives and it's not going to and it may put them in harm and other people in harm's way. So it's a real shame and it's not real and 5G is not going to be affected. 5G rollout is not going to be affected by weird people who believe weird things that have no basis in reality. people who believe weird things that is not that that have no basis in reality yeah i can't can't help but feel sorry for people in these situations right because they're like they're desperate i get it right like they're desperate so they'll believe something because it might mean that this can go away quickly like if we turn off 5g it's going to get rid of this but like that's it's

not true and it's it's upsetting but also i just wanted to bring it up as like a just in case anyone was kind of thinking it out there or like you've heard someone mention it. Please, like this is a this is a wild thing. And these types of these types of distractions are not helpful for people in times like this. Right. Like it's not going to help us get through this because that's not the solution to this problem. The solution is stay at home. Just stay at home. Stay at home. If you stay at home, we're going to be good.

For the record, you know what causes COVID-19 is there was a virus that was in a bat and or maybe a pangolin and there was a market and it transmitted to people and it turns out that people could transmit it to one another and that they're asymptomatic. They don't show any symptoms, but can still spread it for the first few days of having it or perhaps longer. And then it went from person to person. That's how it happened because that's how viruses emerge and they will continue to do so. And this one is particularly because it is novel. It is not something we have any immunity to. And so the solution, since we don't know who has it necessarily, because unless you've got an advanced testing regime, which most countries don't have, is to stay inside and wash your hands. And if you go out, stay six feet away from

everybody and wear a mask if you can, especially if you're in close quarters, but you should still try to keep your distance from other people. That's it. That's it. I know everybody wants there to be more and bigger picture and stuff like that, but that's it. That's literally it. There is no secret cabal. There is no secret technology. There is no conspiracy. technology there is no conspiracy it's you know this is a tale as old as time i mean literally it is a plague it they happen they are terrible we'll get through it do what you can just just just follow the rules right like not necessarily the rules of your government like the rules of the world health organization but 5g phones are going to be fine is what i'm saying 5g phones Not necessarily the rules of your government, like the rules of the World Health Organization, CDC.

But 5G phones are going to be fine, is what I'm saying. 5G phones. There's one thing we've learned from this. 5G phones are going to be fine. And finally today, Johan asks, do you speed up podcasts? When I'm recording them? If I need tea, then possibly. Sometimes I have to slow them down um uh i listen to most podcasts that i listen to at slightly faster very slightly like one tick up on

overcast with smart speed turned on um so slightly faster there are occasionally podcasts that i will speed up if i'm way behind on podcasts like i of am now, I will sometimes speed it up another tick. Although I find that that makes some podcasts ludicrously fast and I will set those to still play at a slower speed. The podcast that I truly cherish, I actually play at 1x with smart speed because I don't want it to end and I'm willing to take it slow. Like the Flophouse, I usually listen to at 1x with smart speed because i don't want it to end and i'm willing to take it slow like the flop house i usually listen to at 1x but um but there are other podcasts where it's like yeah the 1.1 or 1.2 or whatever it is that's mine that's mine so i do i do um but not a lot i know there are people out there who listen to 2x and all this. I feel like in that point,

bless you, because you're listening to a lot of podcasts, but at the same time, I feel like I'm starting to miss, even above 1.1, I'm starting to miss the timing of everything. And if all you're really doing is getting information, then that's great.

But you start to miss the timing of the conversation and I don't like that. So I keep it slight. Yeah. I am 1X with smart speed or silent skipping uh just because that's just how i've always been i used to be like a speed purist right like i would say do not listen like please don't listen to my show as fast as i'm 1.5 or whatever but i've kind of i've i've grown up and i've i've grown out of that because honestly like people use silent skipping like in and that even could be a like it can be a

frustration to me because there are shows where like i'm editing them really particularly and i am putting the spaces in yeah and the spaces are just just taken out like it's like if you're listening to this in smart speed at at 1.5x that thing where I said no, that killed at 1.0 with no smart speed. That was the funniest thing in this whole episode. But you kind of missed it. Oh, okay. We just blew on past it because that was all about timing and stuff like that. I agree with you.

What I always have said, and I believe this is, my podcasts are made for 1x. And you can do what you want with them. But the supported speed is 1x. I make it to sound right at 1x. And then you can do what you like with it. And people listen really fast. And that's fine. That's fine.

But what I don't do is think, oh, now, how's this going to work in smart speed? And what's it going to sound like at 1.2? I'm just, I'm not going to do that. That I'm not going to do. Take it into your own hands and make your own judgments. Also, we never, ever, ever, ever need to hear again when we're live in person or if that ever happens again or on a live stream. I never need to hear it again that we sound talk so slowly at 1x no i don't no i don't this is how i actually speed you listen so

quickly oh i have to remember that i have to try no no you listen too fast that's that's what it is if you'd like to send any a question for a future episode, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskUpgrade. We'd love to get some more of these. I'm kind of running a little low right now. So ask anything you want, especially stuff about working at home. Me and Jason have been doing it for five years at least.

So we have tips we have to share, I will say, but about anything technology-related. Whatever you want, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskUpgrade and they collect it up into a document. So please send some of those in. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks to our sponsors this week, Squarespace, Linode, Pingdom, and Eero.

If you want to find Jason's work online, he is at jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L, and you can find his work writing over at sixcolors.com. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you, thank you, as always, so much for listening to this show. We genuinely, genuinely appreciate it. If you want to support the show,

you can become a RelayFM member. You go to relay.fm membership, but there's also a link in your show notes of this episode to support Upgrade. If you feel like you would like to do that, we would appreciate it. If not, totally cool don't forget, stay inside

wash your hands, all that fun stuff we're going to get through this together as long as we keep listening to podcasts, am I right Jason? yep thanks so much for listening, until then, say goodbye Jason Snell goodbye everybody