Upgrade - 295: Leave the Podcast at the Beep

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

Myke and Jason are the target audience for Apple's new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro, and they're here with their full reviews. (And Myke trolls the Internet with five space bars.) They also ponder the balance of power between governments and tech giants over COVID-19 Bluetooth tracking.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 295 today's show is brought to you by pingdom linode and fully my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by mr jason snell hi jason snell i'm mike hurley how are you i'm'm very well, Jason. I just realized, just realized something here. It's very exciting to me. We're five weeks away from episode 300. And that's June 1st. So come on, Apple.

The day for the keynote needs to be Monday, June 1st, because then it can be episode 300 of Upgrade. Don't give us it on June 8th when it's 301 because that would be super upsetting. It would just redirect. So come on. Episodeth when it's 3.01 because that would be super upsetting. It would just redirect. So, come on. Episode 300.

June 1st, WWDC. Wouldn't that be great? Or, I mean, honestly, I would take a draft. Episode 300 would be in a draft so they could do it the week after. So the first two weeks, that's when it's going to be. All right. No one cares about that. Hashtag Snow Talk question.

Arthur asks, Jason, what do you use use your voicemail greeting i laughed at this because i i can't remember what my voicemail greeting even says but my my i i have recorded something that says that it's you've reached my phone and uh leave a message that i think that's it it's very generic in my voice that you've reached me. That it is you. And, you know, I really love voicemail greetings that go into great detail about how you leave a voicemail message. Or sometimes the automated system explains that now that you've heard this message, here's what we're going to do. You're going to hear a tone.

And then after the tone, we're not going to say anything because you need to say something then and then when you're done you can either just hang up or press the pound key because it's like an email you have to send i don't know anyway uh go ahead and do that now i like the idea of telling people they need to hang up they just wait maybe they'll pick up you know if you just hang around for a while they invented answering machines in like the late 70s why are we still explaining how you use them plus at this point anybody who's leaving a voicemail is old enough to remember the late 70s so well my feeling is no one should call me they especially should not leave me a voicemail i yeah i did at one point when i was at macworld i think i actually had a thing that said um oh this is on my phone on my landline phone in my office at macworld i I literally said, I don't check this voicemail.

Send me an email because I'm not going to hear you. And seriously, I never checked that thing. I would check it every once in a while and there'd be like 18 messages on it from three months before. And I'd be like, well, I hope there's nothing important here. And that's why I put the message on there. It was more like, you can leave a message if you want and i'll probably listen to it eventually but if you really want to reach me send me an email please don't just don't do you remember

the trend of like hey oh wait i can't hear you you know like oh sure reverse robocall those have happened so many times it's um it's true. Leave the message at the beep because that's how we've done it for 50 years. Jason, we leave our podcast at the beep. We do. That's how every episode begins. Every episode, it can be revealed now in episode 295. Every episode of Upgrade is just a long voicemail message.

Very, very, very long voicemail call. If you would like to send in a question to help us begin an episode of Upgrade, just send out a tweet with the hashtag Snelltalk, and it may be considered for the future. Thank you to Arthur for sending that in. Jason. Yes.

I want to talk to you about Apple and Google's partnership for COVID-19. And I'm not calling it contact tracing because that's not what it's called anymore. No. So Apple and Google have released some more information about their joint effort. It is now called exposure notification, which I think is a better, it sounds nicer to me. I think it's more descriptive and less 1984 sounding.

And it's, it's more accurate in the sense that it's a tool to be used as a part of a larger contact tracing effort. Yes. Which is a way to look at, I was reading an interview with Bill Gates this morning. And he was talking about how they asked him, I think it was Ezra Klein at Vox. effort yes which is a way to look at i was reading an interview with bill gates this morning um and he was talking about how he they asked him i think it was ezra klein at vox asked him uh what about

like bluetooth things and he said it's better to think about that almost as like a a tool to remember where you were and who you might have been with he was really kind of poo-pooing it i think maybe a little too much but but it he was making the broader point that it's a tool to be used by the public health workers who are trying to do contact tracing it's a it's a source of information that's what it's for i think it is a is a good idea in a way to have it like downplay it a little because it's not a magic bullet this thing like it's going to help some stuff but it's not going to fix anything right like as you say especially in its first iteration which we'll get to a little bit more but there's more stuff that

they've announced so the keys so like the identifying keys will now be generated randomly rather than being derived from a temporary tracing key. So it's more privacy, basically, more random generation. Bluetooth metadata will be encrypted. The exposure time, so the time of people talking, will be recorded in five-minute intervals capped at 30 minutes because I guess that would kind of be like you're not living with this person, right, if it just kept triggering forever.

The API that we have made available to healthcare agencies around the world will allow developers to specify the strength of a Bluetooth connection, allowing them to understand how close people are to each other. And it also allows them to filter out some events for accuracy and to also better calculate the distances at which people were to each other when talking right because bluetooth le can have a decent range and you're gonna you're gonna get a trace of somebody who is 15 feet away from you and that's less important so they're trying to like look at the the signal strength and the amount of time and

make a guess because again there are sudden you know it doesn't it doesn't measure quick interactions it doesn't measure um stuff that might be left on a surface although it's unclear if there's a lot of surface transmission going on but if you touch something that was sneezed on by somebody who was there 10 minutes ago um there's no way to measure that no and it can over measure if you're 20 feet from somebody or 15 feet from somebody. So they're trying to build in more of this kind of reduction of false results, of misleading results. The efficiency of the encryption has also been improved to help with efficiency,

like battery life and processing and stuff. And the number of days since an exposure event will be able to be calculated. So you'll be able to say, oh, it's been this amount of days since an exposure event will be able to be calculated. So you'll be able to say, oh, it's been this amount of time since an event. So Apple and Google are expecting to release their first seed of this next week. So then healthcare companies will be able to start, or agencies, I should say, will be able to start implementing this into their applications. I would say from reading about this online, seeing a lot of people talking about it, it feels like there's still a lot of confusion about how these APIs are going to be implemented. Like I've seen lots of reports of governments and

developers saying the apps need to be running, your phone needs to be unlocked, that kind of stuff. I can explain what's going on here. And this actually segues pretty well into the other part of this that we need to talk about, which is what's been going on with some governments that initially made these announcements that they were going to be doing like these apps that were going to do all the tracking and that they were kind of in opposition. It's funny, European countries that have been part of the EU and very forward in privacy issues, right? And then they say, well, we're going to do this thing where you send us all your data. And Apple and Google end up being on the other side of it, which is funny because they often get hit by EU things about them not protecting people's privacy. And this is them sort of

giving their own medicine back to the EU and saying, we are building a system that does not have a centralized location for data that is opt-in, all these things that we've been talking about. And what happens if you don't do that and you just build an app yourself and put it out there, and I think Australia did this and there's some countries that have done this and others were planning on doing it, is on iOS, you can't do that. On iOS, you can't just have an app that is monitoring all Bluetooth stuff and is running all the time because eventually the system will shut it down and say you're working in the background. So you have to keep it in the foreground and you have to keep your app open

or your phone open and unlocked and running that app, which nobody's, it's not going to work. Nobody's going to do that. But because Apple doesn't support this, this kind of behavior in an app to do all of this in the background and run forever. They're trying to work around it and complain to Apple and say, oh, Apple is bad. They should just let us do whatever we want here, which is against all of Apple's rules for good

reasons that exist there. But what seems to be happening is that was the first wave of like, we're going to write an app that does this. And then Apple and Google came out with their thing, which said, hold on now, Why don't we do this thing? You'll get an API and then later it'll be in the system and it'll protect everybody's privacy. And you get cases like in Germany, where Germany, and I think France too, said, we're going to do it the first way.

We're going to build this centralized thing and we're going to build an app and you're going to have to run it. And Apple needs to play ball with us and let us run our app all the time and all of that and then they look and everybody was like look at the white paper that google and apple are working on now that's the way to do this yeah and in something that i will say is pretty impressive for government and leaders of a government to to see new information and change their minds and not

double down on their old dumb thing, they say, oh, yeah, you're right. Let's do that instead. And so I think it's the right thing to do. It is kind of breathtaking and a little bit scary to consider that the government of Germany, for example, was like, we want to do it this way. And then two tech companies from the Bay Area say, Germany, no, do it our way instead. And Germany is like, oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir. You're right. We'll do it your way. We no do it our way instead and germany's like oh yes sir yes sir you're right we'll do it your way we'll do it your way there is but for me though i prefer that personally well i will say this the technical expertise at apple and google about building a system like this

and having it work right and having it preserve people's privacy far exceeds the technical expertise available in a government. That's my feeling, right? Like if the government told me they wanted to look after this data, I would not trust them. I would trust Apple and Google. Exactly. And that's the thing is, is Germany using this as a secret method to get all their information about their people. No, but once a government has that information, you don't know what the government's going to do with it. You don't know what aspects of the government are going to do. You don't know what the next

government's going to be. And as a lot of people learned after 9-11, once rules about information and security and other things change, it's often very hard to get them to revert back to what they were before the event so um to their credit saying i just think it's funny that it's like the tech companies step up and go don't no no no countries don't do it that way yeah and the countries are like oh no we won't do it that way you're right you're right winter charm saying in the chat like i believe that a lot of these governments they had the best intention right like in their current form but they don't have they cannot have the technical expertise and ability to make this work correctly as google and apple building who's building these apps who's building the australia

monitoring app and the german monitoring app it's some third party who probably doesn't know a lot about these issues and hasn't thought about them a lot and is doing the most straightforward. Well, we're looking for Bluetooth and then we log it to a server and we run in the foreground and we're done. Whereas Apple and Google are the OS vendors and they have come together and they are building something that's based. I wrote a piece in Macworld a few weeks ago that basically is like, it's really good that Apple's in the conversation here.

Because Apple has spent so much time trying to figure out ways to do this that keep people's information private while having it be usable. Because it's been Apple's game to do it this way. It's been their brand promise to do it this way. They've done the research. to do it this way. It's been their brand promise to do it this way. They've done the research. And that's really helpful in this moment when everybody's looking for a solution that Apple can go to Google and they can both step forward and say, we have all the smartphones on the planet and we're going to build it this way. Please build it with us this way. Because that leadership is going to end up with people in all sorts of countries not having a centralized database of all their location information in the name of contact tracing.

That is then a centralized government database, which again, might not be misused, but this is a better approach. This is a better approach. So I'm glad that Apple's kind of, you know, differentiator as a company and the work they do into that has ended up being something that I think is going to make the world a better place. Not intentionally. They didn't do it this way, but like because they had it and they've thought about it this way. And then this happened. I think we're going to get a system that doesn't have governments tracking everybody's movements. And that's better along for a long time on this show if you've been listening for long enough i've had this kind of like feeling this thing that i've been trying to get across of like i believe that tim cook is the most powerful person on the planet like that is my opinion

like he is at world leader level and everyone will listen to him. And I think that this is another example of this because it's known now that Tim Cook and the president is prime minister of France. I can't remember his president or prime minister. I apologize. But the leader, the premier of France, they had a conversation because there was this weird photo of like Tim on a screen. You've seen this picture right and the the premier talking and it's like then you know they're like oh we've spoken to apple and it's all good now we're gonna go with the apple google solution but and i think that like that was the pr-y thing but i genuinely feel like like at a level tim is is just going to be like, this is how we are going to do it.

And we strongly advise that you do it our way, right? Because the scale that he is at, and definitely to some level, Sundar Pichai as well, like they are at world leader level. And at a time, thank you, Kate,

for telling me that Macron is president. I went with president, prime minister, and premier. I thought I would hit it off somewhere. And thank you for the reminder. But I think this is showing. And I am unsure how I feel about this. It's good and bad to me. That's it.

Who's got the power here? Who do I want to have it? to me of like that's it who's got the power here who do i want to have it well that when i when i joke about germany and france saying oh yes apple and google yes sir yes sir we'll do what you want i i don't mean i mean that's what i'm getting at is it is a little disturbing to see nations um decide realize that the giant corporations are uh on this and that they need to follow their lead because that's not that's sort of not how it's supposed to work and it makes me worry about the power of these huge tech companies i think i think this is a good thing in the short term but i think after we're done with this a lot of people are going to point to moments like this and say why do they

have so much power? That said, having not it just be in the government, but having it be under other places too, might not be the worst thing, but it is unsettling to think about it. The vast amount of power that these private, I mean, they're publicly held, but these corporations have over everything in the world. I think that this is where this is going to be one of the big things in history from this pandemic that we're in is the change in power. Like, this is a defining moment, I think. Like, I don't I'm not trying to overplay this, but we need to look at what is happening here, right? And if this system continues to go forward and the tech companies continue to push it and they continue to do different things to massage the way that governments work,

like everyone's learned a lesson here, right? Like Cook and Pichai have realized, oh, we can bend the world to our will if we need to and that is a weird thing right because you mentioned like how a lot of things changed after 9-11 right and like the powers of the government in America became much... A lot of freedoms changed. And freedom of movement changed. Traveling across the globe changed because of that one event. And the way that tourists are treated when they come to America is like you are guilty until proven innocent.

That is how you are treated when you enter an american customs situation right anybody i feel like anyone i think even some americans have this problem but like if you arrive into america as a tourist with all of the visas and stuff you are still treated like you need to prove to me that you are not coming here to cause trouble which is a very weird thing but those are the things that changed and this could be the stuff that changes which is like the power balance moves and because it's one of those things that like if you look you can see it right like again look at the mac pro thing right that we spoke about with with cook and trump right that was something where it's like oh this is like a weird global political situation but now it's like they're not even coming at this to be like oh we'll give you something you give us something back it's very much like this is the system you cannot interact

with your apps in any better way than this we will not allow it go for it right because there's a report from reuters which says that like basically that's effectively what happened in the german government they were like well the only way we can make this work properly is if it will work in the background and the only way we're going to do that is if we go with apple's system it's just it's class that yeah and this is also an example of extreme. And this is where it may backfire on the tech companies. This is an extreme moment. And so right now they need to get this out as quickly as possible.

And Apple and Google have teed it up. They're like, may we're going to have the API. And later on in the summer, we're going to have it built into every phone that is on a current version of our operating system or whatever. It's going to happen. And if you're the government and you say, well, no, what we want you to do is modify your operating system to run our app in the foreground all the time, Apple's going to be like, no, we can't do that. In the long run, though, the governments are going to look at this situation and say, wow, we need to be able to tell them what to do. I really believe that's going to be the outcome of this in a year or two. It's just going to be like, wow, they really had us over a barrel there.

They had us where they wanted us. We couldn't tell them, make our app run in the foreground. I know that that's a little bit like saying to encryption experts, just invent a magic golden key that decrypts things. It doesn't work that way, but governments want to be able to order corporations to do what they want if they need them to do it, whether it's give up information. Governments want to pass laws and say, you have to do it this way. This is why we operate as a government representing the people, And you don't represent the people and we need you to behave in a certain way. That's how it works. So I think they're

going to look at this and be like, you know, we did it now. And it is a superior approach, but I think a lot of people in governments are going to look at it and say, wow, Google and Apple had us all. They had us under their thumbs because they have all the smartphones and i would not be surprised if the eu especially is much more aggressive at some point down the line because of stuff like this even though apple and google i think are in the right here and they're trying to get all these governments that were doing these kind of fast uh reactions to build smartphone tracking in, they're doing the right thing and sort of saying, don't do that.

It still shows their power and I think will make a lot of people in government uncomfortable. And again, I would just say, I agree, right? Governments might say, well, we need to have a better control over this but then apple and google might say they can't control us yeah and so we are entering into these very strange times because of stuff like this however i think my feeling on this right now is

still i think this is a good thing for right now i i agree with that i agree with that i think the long run is the is the question um and the balance of power um it's i could take the optimistic side here too and that the european countries will look at this and say oh these guys aren't as bad as we thought that like they stepped up and built a privacy-based system without anybody asking them to. And it was better than ours. And maybe these people, we shouldn't be quite as troubled by their behavior. That could happen. I'm skeptical. Anyway, we should put a bookmark in that and say, like, let's check back in a few years

and see what the ramifications of Google and Apple basically saying nope to global governments and having them fall in line. But it's fascinating to watch. And hopefully, again, the point of this is hopefully these will roll out quickly in all sorts of places and that this technology will be helpful. This technology that's not called contact tracing, it's called exposure notification, will be helpful in a larger program of finding out where the virus is and who has been in contact with somebody who might have been contagious so that we can stop this virus from re-emerging as people re-emerge from their homes. This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Fully. Fully's workplace furniture is designed for health,

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Upstream, Jason Snell, we have some upstream headlines. There's been a lot going on. HBO Max is set to launch on May 27th in the US for $14.99 a month, which seems expensive now in the overall landscape. But you do get hashtag all your favorites, friends. Big Bang Theory, South Park, Studio Ghibli, tons of movies, tons of originals. All the HBO originals, some other originals.

I want to point out, by the way, that one of the ads for this that came out from HBO social media promoting this was a picture of Tony Soprano, a picture of Chandler Bing from Friends, and a picture of, I don't know, Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. And it said, Bada Bing Bang. And I thought, this isn't going to devalue the HBO brand at all.

So here's two things about that. One, that went viral because it was so bad but that but it doesn't matter because it means most people saw it and i did see a lot of people being like the people at old hbo this was their number one fear yeah it's true about a bing bazinga right like what do you want yeah about a bazinga i think i think from okay let me put on my warn Media corporate hat I think HBO is the best brand they had I think HBO Max is probably the right decision I also appreciate the fact that it basically you know is going to redefine what HBO means in a way that is maybe not great but I think

this is what they had to do I just think this is what they had to do and they can still make quality originals and uh they've got a bunch of catalog content i don't think hbo max is going to probably be making you know cbs style sitcoms as their originals going forward it seems less likely that they would do that. My guess is that they may be broader than HBO proper, but that they will still be in terms of their originals stuff that they can be more or less proud of. But yeah, this is what they had to do because they needed to create this product. I'm as an HBO subscriber via cable, so I get HBO Go. It's unclear to me even now exactly what that means when this launches. And if I have to pay more to get this or if I can't get it or what, but they've got a big catalog. And HBO's stuff is good on its own because I pay for that. So

this is a superet of that. You're right. $15 a month does seem like a lot, but they have this challenge, as we've talked about here, with the fact that they've got HBO, which people pay for via their cable companies and cable companies pay for. And then you're adding all this other stuff on top of it. You kind of need to charge, like you can't charge less for everything than you do for just HBO. That would have the effect of literally you'd be paying not to watch Friends. you kind of need to charge like you can't charge less for everything than you do for just hbo that

that would have the effect of literally you'd be paying not to watch friends the friends reunion episode is delayed right because they wanted to get them all in the same room i think a zoom call would not give you what you wanted uh so that's there's some stuff that they're doing i want this service uh there are no international plans and this is because a lot of the content is spread all over the place still so i would expect that hbo will wait for a while before they can rein some of it in yeah yeah they've got years of deals with other places for a lot of their content internationally and so they've got to start somewhere so like they want friends right there's a massive point they're selling that must have like part of their service that they

will try to sell you uh but it's on netflix so i guess they're gonna wait but there's stuff here that i want like i can't get hbo content right because i did i don't know if you know this i've probably mentioned before there is no hbo for me to purchase yeah right i mean they don't sky have sky there yeah so we we are a now tv customer so we can get because like we i like to watch john oliver and stuff like that right but the now tv apps i've said a million times all their apps are absolute garbage they are garbage they are so bad the design of them is front rows design that is the design on apple tv it's front row right it is absolute garbage so bad but it's the only way to get that content anyway peacock has also kind of launched as of april 15th this is nbc's service

comcast x1 and flex customers i don't know what that means uh they are getting an ad supported version of peacock what is comcast x1 and flex okay comcast x1 is comcast dvr it's their latest generation dvr i don't have one even though i have comcast because i have a tivo instead but it's their fake tivo it's their faux tivo tifo and the flex is their fake apple tv or right fake streaming box streaming stick which is weird but that that's a thing they've got where like no no no no i know you want to cut the cord we'll just sell you the internet and then you can get your tv from us on this thing it's totally cutting the cord right so it's there it's there like streaming box so if you've got their hardware that they control right now you can get it it's unclear whether as so i'm a comcast subscriber

am i going to get a version of this between now and and july 15th probably but it's unclear exactly when that'll happen right now they're basically beta testing it on people who are their subscribers with comcast controlled hardware because that is the big thing right now which is kind of i think it's very funny so it's ad supported this is their testing and they are launching they're still planning to launch on july 15th that date was set because of the olympics and the olympics aren't happening so there's been a lot of questions of like well why don't you just launch it now then because you already can people want it why not do it and and nbc have been asked that question a bunch and they're kind of saying like oh know, we're trying to see what we can do.

Our team is distributed right now. Like, understandably, right? Like, it's difficult. But this is the time right now to launch this project. And July will still be fine, but now is the right time. Anyway, so that's where Peacock is. Again, just US only for now, but it's starting to trickle out. Moving on, Samsung and Apple are continuing their partnership.

Apple Music is now streaming on Samsung Smart TVs. This is the first smart TV to get Apple Music. And I just thought it was interesting because it's expanding Apple Music further than just Amazon. I know Sonos has it, but that, I mean, I love you, Sonos, but let's not really consider that a big strategic partnership, but it was the Amazon Echo products could do it. Now Apple Music is an app on Samsung smart TVs, which is peculiar. Like I can't imagine there is a huge

desire for that, but it was interesting to me nonetheless of Apple continuing to expand their services out to other places. Yeah. And you might know a bit more about this than me. I had to do a lot of Wikipedia reading this morning to try and understand this story. Apple is one of the many streaming companies currently discussing the rights to collegiate sporting events. They're talking to the Pac-12 conference,

which I'm going to need you to explain. I'm actually the expert on this because I'm a lifelong Cal fan, and that's the Pac-12 conference, formerly the Pac-10 conference. It goes back beyond that. But anyway, they're based in San Francisco. There were several reports that Apple and Pac-12 officials had been talking. This is a few years before all of the college media rights come up for grabs. There's a long story here about the Pac-12 deciding not to partner with ESPN or Fox and give over ownership of their media properties.

They instead own them themselves. This was a play that was intended to allow them to cash in with media rights. It hasn't really worked out that way for them. They've actually had a hard time getting carried on direct TV and other places like that. There's been a lot of, it's very controversial actually in athletic and media analysis circles, especially on the West Coast. So this report basically says Apple's talking to them, except when you really look into it, it's all unofficial because they have an official negotiation period with the existing right holders before it's. So they're basically like allowed to officially talk to only their partners until a date at which point they can talk to everybody.

So they can talk generally with Apple, but they can't like negotiate anything. There's nothing being negotiated. What is interesting about this is that it's Apple investigating sports and live sports as a part of their system. Now, is that Apple TV Plus? Is that a different Apple service that's for live sports that competes with ESPN and Disney? Is this, you know, talking about it, but really kind of keeping an eye toward it being more like a channel on Apple TV that would be for Pac-12, where you could get where you could get it now the the sports business daily report that seems to be the originator of this says that apple is not as interested or at least indicated because these are just conversations i don't know how you have conversations with somebody during an exclusive negotiating window with someone else i don't understand quite what the rules are there

but obviously each other in the virtual hall that's all it is yeah well they're in san francisco so they're just taking their yeah they're taking. Well, they're not allowed to do that. Wait a second. They're just shouting at each other from 50 feet away. They live near each other and are walking their dogs. Yeah. But what the Sports Business Daily report suggests is that Apple is not

interested in talking to them about a digital tier. So the idea that they would sell this many football games and basketball games to ESPN and this many to Fox, and then they do some streaming stuff with Apple. Apple's talking to them about everything, about the whole package. Like we want all of it and we're going to show all of it. And maybe Apple would be open to something like, you know, this game, you know, this is a high profile game, and they'll be on ESPN or something like that. But maybe not,

maybe it's all just on Apple. And you think, if you're a sports conference, do you want to have your sports be an Apple TV exclusive, like you're risking losing a lot of viewers, even if you get a lot of money out of it. So there's that. It also is a question of the scope of Apple's interest, because we talked about a while ago, there's another rumor that after a couple of years, the NFL Sunday ticket package, which lets you stream all of the NFL games, no matter where you live in the US, that Apple's been talking about, that's currently a direct TV thing, that Apple's interested in that too. So it does seem to me like Apple is doing some due diligence about sports because live sports is a huge draw.

And it's not something that can be time-shifted. Although, I mean, you can have sports content that can be time-shifted, but like it also is going to draw people live. And people have these allegiances. It is a major portion of why I still have Comcast, and I know this sounds ridiculous, is because of my sports allegiances. And particularly, Pac-12 network is on Comcast, and it's not on most of the streaming channels. And the ones that it is on don't have NFL network or MLB network. And sports is a powerful tool

to get people to use your service over someone else's. So Apple's clearly interested here. I'm unclear what form that would take or whether anything would come out of it, but something's going on here. Apple have ordered another Wondery podcast to be turned into a TV show.

This one is called The Shrink Next Door. It's going to star Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd. It's like a dark comedy based loosely on true events of the relationship between a celebrity psychiatrist and a patient. I like these two. I think that they are very good together and I am excited

to see a comedy show featuring Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd again. I also find it interesting that Apple keeps buying the rights to podcasts and turning them into tv shows yeah hey apple call yeah i don't know what we would do but i i yeah we could do it it would be great just give us a call sure and just to round this out there's a bunch of new content on apple tv plus which are just highlight fraggle rock defending jacob beastie boys story and trying are all shows that are deb shows that have debuted last week or by the end of this week. Defending Jacob with Chris Evans has gotten pretty good reviews.

And of course, as we've detailed here before, a lot of scenes shot in the park behind John Syracuse's house. That's the one of those. I'm going to watch that and I want to watch Trying too. I have a Syracuse Park update, which is this. John has confirmed now that there are numerous locations in Def jacob where uh where john's dog has pooped so excellent i'm so pleased to know that also i watched home before dark which is an apple tv original and i'm not going to spend too much time on it but i did not like it yep and i and i watched sent me a message and said avoid so yes i i was uh and some i've heard from people like oh but I like it

well I watched episode one and I didn't particularly like it but I thought well I'll give episode two a try and by the end of episode two I was convinced that I did not like it so alas that's the first Apple TV show that I've really disliked but you know hey if you like it great I

I couldn't take it say something I like. Bloomberg Reports. Oh, yeah? You like Mark Gurman? Yeah, I love him. Love a good report, me. Love a good Gurman.

This one comes from Mark Gurman, Debbie Wu, and Ian King. This is unusual. It took three people to report this story. It's the third person, and I don't recall Ian King. Debbie Wu is very frequently named in these reports. Wu, I think, is based in Taiwan, so I think probably has quite a lot of supply chain sources, which is probably why Debbie Wu is mentioned so much with Garmin.

I expect that they work together. Anyway, are Macs to be on sale next year, according to this report from Bloomberg? They are preparing now to release one in 2021 with others to follow later, maybe in 2021, maybe later. Because I get one more year of predicting that next year will be the year of ARM Macs

as I've done the last like five years. So great. Apple are currently working on three ARM processors for the Mac that are all based on the A14 design. To quote the report, the first of these will be much faster than the processors in the iPhone and iPad, the people said.

The first Mac processors will have eight high-performance cores, codenamed Firestorm, which is amazing, and at least four energy-efficient cores known internally as IceStorm. Apple is exploring Mac processors with more than 12 cores for the for the for or further in the future the people said apple's designs will double or quadruple the number of cores

that intel provides them so is the gpu spider-man i'm referring of course to the cartoon spider-man and his amazing friends where he had a flame buddy and an Ice Buddy, and then there was Spider-Man. So maybe the GPU is Spider-Man. Spider-Storm, which I don't want. Spider-Storm. No, no, that's terrible. That's one of the biblical plagues, I think. So the A14, just as a point of order, is the chip that is expected in the next generation of iPhones that comes this fall. So the idea here is that Apple's doing a new processor that is their processor for fall of 2020 or as we you know i don't know and then for the spring of 2020 uh part two numerals or 2021 is what it used to be known um and i think this really makes sense right this is there we're

going into production i think this story said that they were doing a uh a test a prototype based on the a12x that they used in some mac prototype designs yeah but this is the one where they're like okay now we're just going to full-on there's going to be an a14 family essentially whether they're called that or not and it's going to power presumably iphone's ipads and our macs and they're going to have to build their own gpu um for this and like they do essentially for the iPhone stuff. And it's, I don't know, this sounds real. This sounds like it's a done deal.

This is what Apple is doing next. This is why, you know, in my opinion, the Bloomberg reports are important. Like we've been talking about this forever. They've been talking about this forever. But a Gurman report, a Mark Goerman report, is usually an indication that something is happening, right? Yeah.

He has the track record. So when you see this stuff, it's like, we've been talking about this for a while, we've seen rumors about this for a while, but here is some pinpoint details which are important, right? Like the idea that they were doing this in 2018 as a test, that is an important thing to know the fact that they're like the a14 design is going to become a platform essentially which

the iphone will get then the ipad will get and then a mac will get and there's also a detail in the report that i like that in parallel a process has already begun to make mac versions of the 2021 a series of chips which which I guess suggests that it's possible that there will be yearly chip revisions to every laptop and every Apple computer that is produced from the iPhones all the way up to whatever in the future

with the idea being and it's referenced in this report, we spoke about it forever Apple is fed up of being tied to other people and relying on them and their schedules right yeah so this is this is the we already see the iphone and the ipad more or less marching in lockstep um the current ipad pro is a little bit weird where they're using that older version but i think with variations like that happening from time to time i think this is the idea right is apple is going to do a new chip family design every year and then they'll use those chips in all of their

products or at least gives them the opportunity to because like you said they don't do it with the ipad right they do like every 18 months or two years they'll do it once this is rolling what you get is you get the a12 or the a14 based stuff and it rolls out to some computers and then you do the a15 based stuff and it rolls out to some computers but maybe there are also some low price computers that are using the a14 at that point that are max like once you once you start rolling out and you've got a chip family every year it does allow them to dip back and say we're going to actually make this with a slower chip from a past year that we built. But they control the cadence. They control the cycle.

They know that this stuff, just like their OS releases, this is going to go into this year, and we're going to push that off to next year. And they start building them, and this is important, they start building them with a computer in mind. I don't think you can just take an A12X and stick it in an ARM Mac prototype, right? They made a chip based on the A12X.

So you need to go into the design of the chips, knowing where it's going, right? Knowing what your target systems are. So I think this is the reason that this seems like the most definitive report yet is it sounds like Mark Ehrman's sources and maybe Debbie Wu's sources and Ian King's sources. We don't know. Mark is the one who's famous for having these sources but Bloomberg sources suggest very strongly that this is happening now they've done the work or are doing the work in building these A14 based chips and they've done it with all of those in mind with the Mac in mind as well so all of these chips apparently going to be made at Taiwan Semiconductor in a 5-nanometer process. Just showing off now.

Yeah, I understand that that's a good thing. I know from the people that I know, like, listen to ATP and talking with Austin, like Austin Evans, my co-host on Test Drivers, like the smaller the number, the better the chip. You want to keep making that nanometer process smaller and smaller. And you mentioned about GPUs. Mark Gurman followed up in a tweet. It's always important to read his tweets. Sometimes there's stuff in the tweets that's not in the articles.

Apple is working on its own GPUs for this, of course, because I think what you mentioned, they kind of have to probably. Otherwise, you're kind of in the same situation, right? Right. I'm sure they could use an external gpu from somebody but first off they stopped doing that on the iphone and the ipad a long time ago and uh and second you're then beholden to some other chip maker for something that you probably don't want to be and i'm sure they're pretty proud of their gpu performance and it's already integrated into their system on a chip. So why would they change from that?

So next week on this show, we're going to be joined by Mark Gurman. Yeah, let's just get Gurman on. We'll talk to him. Why not? Let's do it. So Mark's going to join us for a segment on the show next week where I think I want to cover a couple of things with him.

I want to talk a little bit about meta stuff, about the articles that he produces. But I also want to see, like, this is a good time to talk to Mark, I think, and see what he thinks is going to be important for Apple over the next six months. Because we are building to the time, right? Like, we are a month away, probably, maybe nearly,

from WWDC. Stuff's starting to ramp up now. So we thought we'd have him on the show next week and we can talk about it in a little more detail with the man that knows the stuff yeah i think so and it's a it's a good conversation i've i've uh enjoyed talking to mark um all at at like apple events and stuff so it'll be fun to have him on the show so you know what about our max i'm starting to get like excited about this in the sense of having the products as opposed to just thinking about it as a thing right like the idea of the potential power and efficiencies and the new things that could happen because of this is exciting to me and i'm starting to feel the actual like it's getting

close kind of excitement we could know this is going to happen in about six to seven weeks time it's you know we may know then like oh we're doing this and i am excited for that right like i think that's going to be a lot of fun to dig into what's going to be like a new frontier. I'm excited about that very much. All right. This episode is also brought to you by our friends over at Pingdom from SolarWinds. Today's internet users expect a fast and reliable web experience. But no matter how good your content is or how effective your marketing may be, if your website loads too slowly or not at all, people aren't going to check it out.

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all right the main event of today's episode magic keyboard for ipad pro it's not deja vu we talked about it last week but we didn't have them and we've had them for the best part of a week we've both been using our magic keyboards we both We both have the 12.9, right? You don't have an 11. I don't have an 11. Right. And I think that may make a difference. It definitely seems that people with the 11 have reported, you know, it doesn't tilt as high.

The keyboard's a little more cramped. It's a different experience. And we can't talk about that because neither of us has that. I have an 11 ipad pro but i don't have this keyboard in the 11 inch i have an 11 inch ipad pro but it's the ipad i use when i travel so i'm not using it right now so i didn't get the keyboard maybe at some point in the future i will get that keyboard but it's not in my immediate future because i'm not using the ipad um so you wrote a great review uh youiler alert, we both really love this product.

Because, again, I don't think that it is a surprise to people that have listened to this show that me and Jason would really love a two-in-one convertible iPad. We are the target audience for this in a way. So much so, in fact, that we the uh people who sought out alternatives to this in advance right the bridge keyboard being a great example that is uh that is a product for people who even though apple doesn't didn't want you to use your ipad fully like a laptop that you could do it if you bought the bridge keyboard it suddenly became the shape of a laptop felt like a laptop

and uh so we were already there so this is i think this is one of the things that i've noticed in a lot of the coverage of this is this is and i said in my review this is a part of apple's product line for ipad pro it's one of the accessories uh they also still make and i think we'll still keep making the smart keyboard folio because that has it. Because this is too expensive. Otherwise, you can't have this as the only option. Too expensive, too heavy. And a lot of people just don't need this product. Now, you and I look at this and we're like, this is perfect for us.

But I also see people who really like the smart keyboard or don't really use the keyboard a lot. But the smart keyboard folio, it's around if they need it. And it's convenient enough that they're not going to just go down to the folio it's like it's around if they need it and it's it's convenient enough that they're not gonna just go down to the the folio case they're gonna they're gonna they want to have that keyboard around if you're used to that and you have and especially if it's sort of like barely useful for you already this product is irrelevant for you because you know you aren't even convinced about the smart keyboard or you like the smart keyboard, just find that fits. This is, it's on like a spectrum of you're down with like the folio case, and then you move on to kind of the smart keyboard folio, and then you move up to the magic keyboard.

And, uh, it's not for everybody, but, uh, for you and me, Mike, it is absolutely, we were already chasing this with third-party stuff that, um, that didn't do quite the job that this does, because again, this is a first-party product. um that didn't do quite the job that this does because again this is a first-party product like apple gets the advantage of designing all the hardware and software around their concept like one of the things that we both gravitated toward the bridge keyboard for was the fact that it enabled flexibility in the angle, right? Like a laptop hinge. Yes.

The smart keyboard folio had two fixed positions, which was less adaptable. The bridge keyboard has more adaptability than the magic keyboard because you could basically open it up flat, right? Like a laptop. What do you think about the available angles that you have with the magic keyboard right i will say apple hasn't made a laptop you could lay flat in a long time i think maybe the titanium powerbook was the last one to do that close but you can open it you can open it pretty wide, and this one you can't. And my gut feeling is that in most scenarios, especially when I'm writing and I'm using it in my lap,

that I open it fully, and that's the right angle. And I could use a little bit more, actually, that it won't give me. But given the feeling, you can actually feel the weight distribution on your lap when you're using it roll toward the back. It doesn't tip over backward, but it rolls toward the back a little bit. And to me, that says any further back and it's going to tip over. It's outside the realm of safety so when i when i adjust it all the way out i would like to make it a little bit more and it's disappointing but i get why it's not because as with so many things this keyboard is engineered exactly like you can tell

all of these decisions were made in order to get it to be what it was and that if they pushed it a little more it would all unravel because it's very very carefully yeah it was very carefully done so i have rarely found a use for lower angles than that i generally just open it up in one go all the way to the full angle there was one occasion where i was kind of like laying down on the bed and i was watching a video and i i didn't take it out of the case, which I probably should have done. But I just sort of tilted it down and I did it that way. And it's great that that flexibility is there. You can actually tilt it all the way back so it's facing toward the keyboard. Like, so you can't see it at all.

You could do that if you really want to. But yeah, it works for me. I wish it was a little bit more. But again, I can't speak to the 11, my understanding doesn't um quite open as much so i feel pretty much the same i would love it to be a little more just because i always want more but i am really pleased about the fact that i have completely flexible adjustability within the angles that it provides. So I can move it a little bit if I want to. And I have found that like if I'm sitting on the couch, I will have it at a different angle than if I'm sitting at my desk.

Like I do move it. And I like that I have the freedom of moving it to exactly what I want rather than just within two areas. But I would like more. I would love to see in the future right like revisions on the design that allow for more flexibility than what we currently have just because why not that's what i would want in a version two of this product but i am happy with what i've got but again i would love more do you you've used it in a lot of instances i've used it on the couch if he's in

the lap he's on the desk do you feel like it remains balanced like a laptop? Yeah, I do more or less. I mean, like I said, I think I feel like there's a little bit of a rolling toward the back. Again, it doesn't ever leave my lap, but I can tell that the weight on the flat surface,

the perpendicular typing surface, is a little bit toward the back which it is but it seems very stable to me i don't it it seemed quite pleasant it's different feeling than like the bridge or like a laptop but that's mostly due to the fact that they've got this double hinge thing where it's for the screen which is the ipad is closer to you um than a laptop screen would be because a normal laptop hinges all the way at the back and that's where the tilt is closer to you than a laptop screen would be because a normal laptop hinges all the way at the back and that's where the tilt is and then so the screen is all the way at the back and this one it pops up and then it angles in and so you end up being a little bit closer to it

yeah and so like I feel like when I'm using it on softer surfaces, say, right? Like, if I'm sitting down on a couch, sitting down on a chair, on the bed or whatever, it's somewhere in between the smart keyboard folio and a laptop in, like, how balanced it feels, right? Like, it's not exactly the same as a laptop because it is weighted differently, right? There's weight in the top rather than all in the bottom. Right. I'd say it's top heavy. And I mean, even the bridge doesn't quite feel like a laptop because the screen part

is so much heavier than a laptop screen is. But I feel like this Magic Keyboard is much closer, right? Because it is so heavy. I find it kind of like one of those marvel of engineering things. It's so thin, but it's so heavy. It's very peculiar to me. Like I can't, the denseness of it,

I'm really struggling to get my head around. I've been waiting for and haven't seen a teardown. I want someone to tear this down because I want to see what it looks like inside. Yeah, for sure. It's an interesting product. It is engineered differently to do the same thing, if that makes any sense.

Like, it really is. I mentioned this in the review. It really is a laptop. Like, you put the iPad on this thing, it's just a laptop. We talk a lot about the two hinges. But in practice, when I use it, I open it up and I open, I move through both hinges. It just moves smoothly open. And then it

looks like a laptop when you're typing on it, even though it's floating over the keyboard a little bit from your position, looking down at it, it just looks like a laptop. It, it, it, it does everything like a laptop does. And then when you're done done you can grab it on the back and fold it down and it closes again yes there are two hinges there but it just closes like a laptop and then you carry it around like a laptop so they've done a lot of very weird things in order to get it to be that way but the end result is it doesn't feel like whoa i'm using a strange thing that's kind of like a laptop but not there for me at least it's not in the uncanny valley where it doesn't seem like a laptop or an ipad anymore it's in between i think they kind of nailed the

laptop feel of it it is an ios laptop when you're using an ipad os laptop part of the laptopness of it and it's funny like most of the conversations that i hear about most conversations i have just barely talk about the actual keys on the keyboard i know right because there's so much other stuff going on and we've had we've had keys we've had keyboards for the ipad forever we've had third-party keyboards for the ipad including the bridge keyboard it's less novel to have those keys right the keys although on an apple product it's new um it's not that novel and they're they're keys they're good they're they're they're good and i think that's part of it right so much of the keyboard discussion in our community over the last few years has been

around how bad a keyboard is but this keyboard is perfectly good like it's it's great like in as as good as a keyboard you know as as good as a keyboard you know in as good as a keyboard can be so i think that's why i haven't been focusing on it so much but it feels really nice it's i prefer it to the smart keyboard i prefer it to the laptop keyboards i've used recently like it's close to the 16 in the way that it feels and i like that keyboard in the same way that it was like this is a keyboard rather than i don't know how i feel about this with the other macbook pros right i feel like it just fades away it is reminiscent of the of the 16 and the and the new macbook air keyboard it is reminiscent of the old like my beloved old 11 inch macbook air keyboard i

actually took the 11 inch macbook Air out and held it up right next to this thing. And the two things I noted, this is the 11-inch Air, by the way, remember that, the old 11-inch Air. The old favorite. Yes, the old favorite. The Air is wider than this thing is. It's not as tall, but it's wider. The keyboard is exactly the same size. It is a full-size keyboard, which is a little bit scrunched on the 11 inch model, but here it's the full size thing. And it weighs three pounds, so it weighs more. If weight and size are an issue, look at the 11. Although I'm interested in the fact that I've heard a lot of people who are the 11 users who seem, again, it's just anecdotes. I don't know what the long-term

story is going to be, and I haven't seen it, but the 11-inch users seem a little less charmed by it than the 12.9 users, and I wonder if it's just not quite as nice because it's smaller, but it's certainly lighter. But anyway, my point is, I look at that 11 Air, and I look at this keyboard, and they're very close. They're not quite the same, but they're very close and they're not quite the same,

but they're very close. And that's nice. Um, except they're lacking the, this lacks the function row, uh, which on the air is these little tiny, like quarter height, third height keys, but they're there for you to adjust brightness and volume and stuff. And I know I can see why they didn't put them on this because you, um, you reach that high up and your fingers are going to start to hit the iPad that's hanging over because the iPad's basically hanging over the number row. So there isn't any room. It is balanced on the head of a pin. Again, like I said, everything here has a reason for being what it is.

But I am frustrated that Apple did not do a tweak in software to allow us to assign some sort of keyboard adjustment for those common things like backlighting and screen light and media controls. Like all they would have had to do was add a function key to the like options that you could remap those various keys to. So I could take the globe key and turn it into a function key and then use that with the number row to control stuff. They could have done something like that. Maybe they will in iPadOS 14. I hope they do.

I feel like that is a feature to come. Yeah, it does. It feels like that it just didn't make it this time. But that's the missing piece here. They don't need to do a function row they really don't but i would like the ability to change my screen brightness and my and my backlighting on my keyboard from the keyboard i would like that yeah the keyboard backlighting thing is like an unfortunate situation like this is one of those things that didn't make it like the fact that you can only adjust it in settings i mean it should be in control center like for some reason it just

didn't make it into control center but it surely will because it's a really silly thing that you have to dig so deep to get it right like it just seems funny to me uh something you mentioned in your review which is something that i am totally doing, is still touching the screen sometimes and using the screen as well as the trackpad. Yep. And that is the benefit and one of the features of a touchscreen laptop. You hear it all the time from Windows users, PC users that have touchscreen laptops. It's nice to have the option because sometimes you just scroll an article with your thumb yeah why not yeah that that that's it is um i get why it kind of breaks apart on the mac because the touch targets aren't there but having used a chromebook for a while

that had a touchscreen i didn't manipulate the interface on that thing with my with my hands i use the trackpad but there are times where you're like i'm just gonna scroll and you reach out and you scroll and it's perfectly natural and your hands are not down on the keyboard when they're down on the keyboard the trackpad makes more sense but when you're not actively using the keyboard right at that moment and you see something and you just kind of flip it up with your finger like that that's that's great. In fact, I found this thing. I don't know if you've done this where I immediately started just, um, not even thinking about it. I'm grabbing the bottom right corner of the iPad, which that bottom part of it doesn't have anything on it. It's not

the case isn't on that. It's come away from that part with the double hinge and putting my sort of fingers behind the ipad and then my thumb on the front of the ipad so i'm i'm kind of pinching it i'm kind of grabbing the ipad and then i'm i'm flicking with my thumb to scroll a document i do that all the time now since i started using this thing it's a very natural kind of gesture i'm holding the ipad a little bit and i'm and i'm just kind of scrolling a document and i'm not down of scrolling a document. And I'm not down on the keys at that point, so that's fine. Whereas in another context, when I'm writing and my hands are down on the keyboard, and then I'll move with two fingers and I'll do a little bit of a scroll to move the document. And that also is natural. So you use both. Yeah, I am using all of it, right? I find it really nice to use the Apple Pencil still

to do some scrolling and stuff like that. It all works really, really nicely. And I like that I have options. This is my favorite thing about this. Options. I want options. I'll talk a little bit more about the options that are available to me in a bit.

But everyone's talking about the weight, right? That's the thing. That is the gotcha headline right oh it's just as heavy as a laptop yes point it's the point it's a laptop it's a laptop it weighs it weighs like a laptop because it's a laptop yeah and if you and and you want to use an ipad os device like a laptop and you get this and then it's the weight of a laptop this is for those of us who use things like the bridge keyboard this is not surprising this is how it works like if you're going to have something like this that has to counterbalance the weight of the

iPad and has to have a have you know full keys and a trackpad and all of that like it's going to weigh like a laptop weighs that's just how it's going to be and it so it like it weighs about what the laptop weighs. That's just how it's going to be. And so it weighs about what the 13-inch MacBook Pro weighs. And that is, of course it does. I think behind some of that criticism is this chauvinism about the Mac that implied in the criticism is basically, look, the only reason you use an iPad is because it's lighter than a Mac. If they're the same weight, you would just use a Mac, right? Like why the iPad is obviously inferior to the Mac. The only reason you could possibly use it is that it offers something that the Mac lacks.

But if you put that back so that they're the same, it's pointless. If it's an A-B comparison where they weigh the same and they're right in front of you why would you ever pick an ipad that is what is implicit in that criticism and the answer is twofold which is it's one but i like the ipad and i want to use the ipad even in that scenario i find value in the ip. And two is also, I can immediately just lift it off and walk away with a touch tablet. And I can't do that with a Mac. And that's one of the things that makes it so great, right? Like, yeah. And, and it is funny that there is the idea that like, but you, why would you would never, right? Like you would never use a mac if it had you know

you only ever would use an ipad if it has these specific advantages you would never use it over a mac because you wanted to it's like well no that's not how it works now that's that's the that's the sign that somebody doesn't doesn't get it is they have decided that the iPad is a lesser beast that is compromised and that you only use it because it offers something that is not available elsewhere. And that's their worldview. And then you challenge them with this and they just don't get it. And then there are two ways to respond. And one way to respond is to say, wow, that's really interesting. Why do you prefer the iPad? And the other way to respond is just use a Mac.

Those people are jerks. I, you know, five years ago, they weren't jerks. Three years ago, they weren't jerks. At this point, if you're still asking that that question leading a life that's that unexamined and not being curious about somebody's choice to do something different from you but just think that it doesn't make any sense i have lost patience with those people now talk about being different should we talk about my my setup right now mike Mike, we really... Is this the thing you tweeted? Because we really need to talk about it. Yeah.

Listeners of this show know that I have been using a stand at my desk, the Clear Look stand for a long time. You use the what is it called? I always think Verizon. That's not it, is it? What is the name of your stand? The little adjustable one?

The Viazon stand, yes. So I was using this stand for a while, and then when I got the Magic Keyboard, I was thinking to myself, I don't want to keep taking it out of the Magic Keyboard and putting it in the stand. It's frustrating to me. So then I thought, well, actually, this is just a laptop, right?

So why not use a laptop stand? Because they exist, stands for laptops and so then i never need to take it out of the magic keyboard case and i have a stand that's easier to use i'm going to clamp it in every time i just sit it down right just allow me please allow me to go through this okay because when i'm sitting at my desk to work i want to use my ipad pro and i want to use a keyboard and an external mouse because it's more comfortable for me for me just because i i don't my body doesn't survive very well using laptops on desks sure right like i need to be able to expand it out a bit screen at eye height

sitting up straight keyboard in front of me like most bodies your body does not hold up some people don't have these problems right like that they can they find their way to do it even though again really just think about your ergonomics if you're at home we spoke we have a sponsor fully they're really good for this but even if you don't use something like that please be mindful of this so i was talking about this uh listener uh thomas sent me a link to something called the Roost which is like a collapsible laptop stand which is good

but not perfect. It gives me the height that I want but not the angle I want because this thing kind of like forces an angle and I want to have it go back a bit further because the iPad screen won't go back further enough so I've kind of elevated the front feet. So if you look at that image, you'll see that the front feet of the roost stand

that I'm using is sitting on top of another keyboard, which is just the situation that I'm in. And so I've tried that out. And then another listener linked to me a product called the Nulix C-Stand, which looks bananas amazing, very adjustable. So I'm getting one of these. It's on the way, so I'm trying different stands. Oh, wow. It is worth just prefacing all of this, including the setup that you're seeing. This is all temporary.

I was supposed to be in a studio that has VESA arms with laptop stands on, but I can't be there. So I'm having to set up like a, this is like my, I don't know, my temporary workspace. Your temporary, yeah. I want to point out the key thing that you've said so far.

Key thing is you seem to always want your iPad Pro in the case. I just don't want to keep taking out and putting in something else now because I don't need to. Like before I had to, there wasn't a stand that could hold it and also hold the smart keyboard.

Like nothing would work for that. I'm just differentiating it because like I, and I think this is a real difference in how people use their ipad even like we just said we are the same we really want this product we are the same this is a way where we're very different i have my ipad in a keyboard case historically and it probably will go up because of this product but like five percent of the time two% of the time, not when I'm traveling, which I'm not doing any of right now, as we all aren't,

and when I'm writing, I put it in the case. But the rest of the time, it's either no case or it's the folio. So it's nothing. You seem to view this iPad's default state as having a keyboard attached. Yes. So that's a difference.

But that's just kind of how I've been over time. And I very frequently will take my iPad out, but most of the time it's always connected to a keyboard of some kind. That's just my default for iPad. And with the Magic Keyboard, I prefer it to the Bridge Keyboard or the Smart Keyboard. So I'm finding myself using it like that more um the bridge keyboard i could have done this with i guess but never had the thought of putting in a laptop stand i would just take it out um it's a good

point i could have done this for a long time ago but didn't think about it uh but this this i like it more i just like this whole setup more. I will mention, because people will ask, the keyboard I'm using is called the Digma Raise. It is a split keyboard. It has RGB, and it's amazing. I frigging love this keyboard so much. That's just me. I'm also using a Logitech trackball,

an ergonomic trackball, and a Magic Trackpad 2, all connected. This is what I love about the ipad right like federico talks about this about like modular i i just love that all the all the input methods i can do everything with this now and it makes me very happy um i like now that i have the pass-through charging because my keyboard is it needs a usb uh unfortunately I need to use a dongle for this, which is hilarious. At some point, I'm going to get a USB-C dock to help me with some of this stuff. But now I can charge at the same time, which I really, really like a lot.

I got the brown key switches. People are asking me the key switches that I got. So I am aware that posting a picture like this, I'm doing two things. I want to show people how I'm using it, but I am also kind of doing this to annoy people that find this stuff ridiculous. But at the same time, I get a lot of people who are in on this too.

This is what they want their computing life to be. The options that I feel that this is what they want their computing life to be these like the options that i feel that this device can give and i want to share the way that i am using this device because i know i'm out in the edge cases now but i think it's amazing that my ipad can do all of this and i can use it the way that i want to uh i think it's freaking awesome and i can't wait to to keep pushing it i love it it's so awesome i love it yeah so i wanted to mention the fact that you use it in the case all the time because i get that you want to keep it in the case all the time and not remove it and then put it in a stand and then take it back out and put it back on this,

even though that's very easy to do. That said, that was my initial reaction to this is, Mike, just take it out and put it in a stand. It's going to be better. You don't have to have like a laptop stand. You're not going to type on the laptop stand. You're just going to let it sit there. So why not just remove the iPad and put it on a stand?

I think it would look less ridiculous i don't care about how it looks yeah i know i'm just i think it would look less ridiculous and it would probably be better suited to the task you could get the screen a little bit closer to your face um but you know you do you and i do understand well it's the thing i am restricted by screen distance by my keyboard that's true but this is gonna this restricts it even further right this puts the screen even further away from you yeah but i think when i'm using it in a stand it doesn't feel like it's far away all right i i just for me i look at this and i think i so if we talk about flexibility for

me the beauty of the ipad is that mostly it's just on its own and then i'll add it to the keyboard or i'll add it to a dock when i want to work in that configuration but i see where you're coming from here which is as far as you're concerned the default configuration of your ipad is in this case and so why take it out if you don't have to and i get that that's just not how i use it right like it may be that in a few months time, it's like, you know, I want to just put it in there when I want. But like right now, I'm like, no, this is what I want. I want the default to be in,

it's like, this is like a laptop now. That is the default. And then move from there and see what that's like. Okay. I've been very happy with it so far because I found myself even sometimes just like, I will just use the trackpad on the laptop. I don't know why.

It's just what I want to do in the same way of like you've got it in the case or on the screen. So like I am enjoying this experience so far. I'll keep pushing it and see where I go. I think not enough is being made of the fact that you, in addition to an Apple Pencil and a touchscreen and a trackpad, have two other pointing devices on your table. I think that's an important point. Oh, it's so good. And you know what? If you could put your Wacom tablet and attach it and that would work,

you'd do that too. I would. Yeah, but you would do that too. You'd have all of the input devices. Because on my iMac right now, I have a Wacom, a Magic Trackpad, and a Logitech vertical mouse. Yeah, see? Because that...

So it's you. It's me. it's it's you it's you you like like you said you like choices like the tweet says i if there's one thing i love with my computers it is choices i get to make choices like even just using the ipad the way that i do for as much as i use it for is just a choice that i make that i enjoy. Right now, I have a Logitech webcam attached to my iMac because I like the choice that that one's better than the one built into my iMac. I kind of have in me the thing that makes people want to build PCs.

I have that in me. That is that choice mentality which doesn't always fly with being a fan of Apple products. But I feel like as a devoted iPad Pro user, I get to make more weird choices at the moment than a Mac user would. Like I get to be super weird with my device and do like strange things like what I'm doing right now. But it brings me joy to do that.

Like I have a very weird computer setup. I have a split keyboard made out of aluminum that is RGB, right? That plugged in via a USB-C split cable to a dongle that's regular USB to go into my iPad. And that's how I type, right? It's like, and I'm using a trackball, right? Everyone else is using either the MX Master or a trackpad. And I'm like, no, no, I'm going to use a trackball.

I love it. And then I grab my Apple Pencil, I'm scrolling with the Apple Pencil. I'm just, no, no, I'm going to use a trackball. I love it. And then I grab my Apple Pencil and I'm scrolling with the Apple Pencil. I'm just, this makes me happy. The only thing you're missing here is the full vatici of having it be an external screen that's mirrored that you're driving. Well, there's a screen behind it.

I thought about it. As soon as, I want it to be more than what it currently is. Like the external display support. I want a to be more than what it currently is, like the external display support. I want a second screen. I agree. And when they do that, you can bet your bottom dollar that's what I'll be doing. Magic Keyboard is amazing.

You're beta testing all of this stuff for when you get back in your studio too, right? You all have had this chance to experiment. This is all very experimental. This is an excellent job trolling on Twitter. Just good job. Good job. It's like I'm trolling people with my actual real life choices, which makes it

even more fun, right? But anyway, let's wrap this Magic Keyboard discussion up. Effectively, why should you buy it? You should already, my feeling, I just want to say that you should already know you want this product before you buy it you should already my feeling i just want to say that you should already know you want this product before you buy it don't buy this 300 keyboard on a lock because it's not what it's for i mean you could return it if you don't like it and you could do

that you could try it if you're curious it's a shame that there aren't stores open so you could go in and try it at the store but you know you really yeah you should have some inkling that using an ipad as a laptop is a thing that you you should you you actually might want to do yeah like you probably know you are this type of person right like that would want this product there are other options the smart keyboard is still a good keyboard the og bridge keyboard is still a great option get a trackpad and mouse and you'll be happy yeah there are lots i mean i've i've talked to a few people where i've said if your primary use case is at a table or a desk and you don't anticipate using this as a laptop don't get this this is a laptop shape the world you've got one, the world is full of accessories that try to make laptops more ergonomic for a desktop. The beauty of the iPad is it's not a laptop. It can become a laptop.

It can also be put in a stand with an external keyboard and trackpad and be a much more ergonomic match for a desk. So only get this if you're planning on using it like a laptop. If you're planning on using it as a desktop, don't spend the money on this. Get a stand and a keyboard that you probably already own and a trackpad you may already own and do it that way instead.

I want to wrap this up with a quote from the end of your review, which I like a lot. Apple now sells two more laptops, an 11-inch model that starts at 1098 dollars and a 12.9 inch model that starts at 1348 dollars those are pro laptop prices but guess what the ipad pro is a pro laptop now if and when you want it to be beautiful jason i love it that really sums it up for me so nice that out in the backyard sitting under my redwood tree with the uh using

the ipad pro as a laptop yeah it is this comes my redwood tree using the iPad Pro as a laptop. Yeah, it is. This comes back to the thing about it weighing like a laptop. Like, judge this as a laptop. I mean, there's mitigating circumstance, which is if you've got a 2018 iPad Pro, you don't actually have to buy the iPad again. You just have to buy the keyboard. So that's good. But in reality, like, judge this as a laptop.

Do you want an iPad that can also be a laptop? You will pay laptop prices. It will weigh like a laptop does because you're making your iPad into a laptop. It doesn't have to stay there. You can, you can take the iPad out. That's great. And if this is overkill for you, guess what? Apple makes another keyboard that's lighter and thinner. It if this is overkill for you, guess what? Apple makes another keyboard that's lighter and thinner. It's not as nice, but it's still nice. There are third parties. That's the beauty of this is when Apple makes a laptop, like we know from the butterfly keyboard thing, you're kind of stuck, right? You get what they give you. And if you don't like it, too bad. That's not entirely true with the iPad because Apple is giving you more choices.

Imagine if Apple made two different keyboards for the MacBook line, right? We could choose a magic keyboard or a butterfly keyboard. Like, well, they don't do that, but they do that for the iPad. You can choose or no keyboard. Bring your own keyboard. B-Y-O-K-A-M? Was that it? Sure. Bring your own keyboard. B-Y-O-K-A-M? Was that it? Sure.

Bring your own keyboard and mouse? Display keyboard and mouse. But you can bring your own display to the iPad too, I guess. It's just weird and mirrored. Not as good yet. Should we do some hashtag ask up great questions to finish off today's show? It's a great idea. Great idea.

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and relay fm and we now will do some hashtag ask upgrade questions let me start with jared choose only one do you choose your current iphone no airpods or an iphone se with airpods my answer should come as no surprise i'll choose the iphone se with airpods because i really like airpods and i don't use my phone that much and it would be fine i would miss airpods the most i think i'm gonna say airpods pro i've been getting real good use out of noise cancelling recently me too me too um and i would miss those desperately which i think says something interesting that i can't yet put my finger on like why i feel that way like i think part of it is like i really do feel like i it it would frustrate me in a bunch of ways but i could live with the iphone sc especially now this

new one the older one might have been a bit more difficult um but i i really really love my airpods pro but if you were on uh public transit every day back in the old times i That's the thing. Right now we're also not out and about very much. I'm still using it a lot because things are going on in my house that I don't want to have to listen to. Sure. I'm not going to ask more about that. There's conversations

and it's like I want to focus. I'm using them too. I'm just saying that our phones are not necessarily the most important product at the moment compared to some other scenario. But I would still have a phone, and I'm not as attached to my iPhone as I am to many of my other computing devices. And I really love the AirPods Pro, so I would keep them regardless. I would keep them regardless. Eric says, I currently travel with just, I don't know where Eric's traveling,

but this was a recent question. I currently travel with just an 11-inch iPad Pro and a smart folio and carry a magic keyboard. I want to add a pointing device to my setup. Is a magic mouse enough or should I spring for a magic trackpad or Bluetooth mouse? I think if you want to stick with this device, if for some reason you don't want to stick with this device if for some

reason you don't want to move to a magic keyboard and you do sound like a magic keyboard person but if you don't want to i would recommend the magic trackpad i think it's the best experience out of all three options that you proposed the magic mouse i hate that mouse. It is uncomfortable, and I don't know why anybody uses it. A regular Bluetooth mouse, you can get work for you in certain ways, but the Magic Trackpad, I think is the best for using trackpad support in iOS. Yeah, I don't use mice at all,

so I can't really help you there. The Magic Trackpad support is great, and I agree. It's worth considering if you want to travel with the magic keyboard for iPad pro, but failing that, and you already have a magic keyboard and you already have a smart folio. Um,

I would, I would see if a magic trackpad two would work for you because that might be the nicest thing. You gotta have enough room for it, right? You gotta put it it next to that keyboard but i think that's going to be a pretty nice experience benjamin asks i just got a kindle oasis and i cannot find a grip that i like the ridge isn't sharp but it's not smooth my fingers constantly feel it but pulling them back to just the thicker side doesn't feel stable for me jason, how do you hold your Kindle Oasis? You know, I hold it between my thumb and my other finger, sort of like I was describing for the iPad Pro on the Magic Keyboard. And I actually keep my fingers resting on the next page button.

And I just keep clicking it as I read. And it doesn't bother me at all. And then I'll flip it to the other hand and read with that hand sometimes and then move it back. And it's just not that big a deal. So I don't know if I've got any great advice here. You could try a case. You lose some of the thinness that way. I do have a case that I travel with. Or you could try a pop socket. I have a pop socket on my Kindle Oasis, which I've used very sporadically.

But I find that a very comfortable way to hold that device. It's a PopSocket on my Kindle Oasis, which I've used very sporadically, but I find that a very comfortable way to hold that device. It's a perfect PopSocket device. Sidharth says, I was reading an article about how advertising has been affected significantly by COVID-19, and it got me worried about independent podcasting, which is so heavily ad-supported. Do you

have any thoughts on how this affects the ecosystem as a whole? This is a very interesting subject obviously to me and to jason there's a couple of things here which are interesting to me so the trends will tell you that podcasting is down right uh but a lot of trend data that i've seen is that there are certain areas where it isn't and technology podcasting has remained incredibly stable people are still listening to these types of shows, shows that are listed in the technology category. So thank you for continuing to listen. I mean, I would say, I don't know about you, Jason, with The Incomparable,

but I haven't seen any significant downturn in the listenership, right? No, not really. No. It seems to be unchanged. The advertising stuff is difficult. There are going to be changes, I think, as time goes on. Budgets are being frozen. They're being reassessed. So I would suggest if you enjoy independent podcasting, now would be a really good time to look

into membership programs that you could support. For example, if you look in our show notes, you will find a link to support Upgrade or you can go to relay.fm.com and you become a relay.fm member there's lots of wonderful benefits for that and if you support upgrades support this show you can support any show but that's kind of where i think we are like it is going to affect it i don't know how much it's going to affect it time will tell i just wanted to point to marco's about Overcast. Basically, Marco Arment looked at this and said that the weekday peaks are down, weekend listening is largely unchanged, and he's got a nerdier audience than the mainstream podcast audience. And I think that that matches the anecdotes that I've heard where I've heard from people who have lost all their podcast time because they're not commuting anymore.

And I've heard from other people who are desperate for more podcasts now because they have so much podcasting time because they're stuck at home. And it depends on your kind of lifestyle and how you consume podcasts. So at least for our kind of category, it seems like listenership is down a little, but not enormously. It strikes me that the big issue is not going to be, hey, people aren't listening to podcasts, therefore podcasts are going to be hurting. It's more likely, hey, the economy is in bad shape right now. It basically stopped. And that's going to make it bad for advertising. And I think that's the, again, with technology, so many of our advertisers are cloud-based and they're tech-based and they're more like they're still operational even now that this is all going on.

But, you know, this is such a huge economic issue going on right now around the world where the economy has basically stopped in large sectors that those are going to have lots of knock-on effects. And so it's impossible to imagine that it won't affect us at some point in some way, even though we're insulated by it in other ways. So we'll see. Marketing budgets are always the first thing to go. It's true. And I will say it, right?

I'll be honest. We are seeing significant reductions in marketing spend coming towards us we're working it through as best we can but if you do want to support our shows via the membership programs please do and we're working on

some stuff there that we'll be announcing over the coming weeks like extra things it's a good time to sign up. And Majd asks, what Mac app not made by Apple would you most like to see come to the iPad? My answer is BBEdit. Because I use BBEdit to write most of the things on the Mac. And while I have text editors on iOS that I use,

BBEdit has so many features that I use that I just have not been able to replicate. And I don't think it ever will. I think Rich Siegel has decided that he has no interest in doing that, which is a shame. But it's been so long now that I assume it's never going to happen. But that's the one not made by apple that i would want the most on my ipad because then i would have my text editor on both platforms and i wouldn't have to worry about it and all the features would be there audio hijack because if i had audio hijack it would mean i could i would be in a position to be able to record podcasts that's that's my answer

assuming that apple so i answered in a realistically it could be there. Mine was not realistic by any stretch of the imagination. Yours would be my answer in the unrealistic category of I would like that, but that requires, of course, Apple to completely change its operating system in order to allow access to the audio. But yes, because same reason, because I could do podcasts 100% on iPad if I wanted to with that feature. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade. Thank you to our sponsors, Fully, Pingdom, and Linode for their support of this show.

If you want to find Jason online, go to sixcolors.com, and he is at jsnell on Twitter. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. If you want to submit questions for us to answer on the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskUpgrade. Thank you to everybody who does that. We have lots of great questions in the hopper at the moment, which I'm excited about. So we've got a really exciting episode next week. So we're really excited about that.

We've got some cool stuff planned. We've already done some of it. Again, if you want to support the show, there's links in the show notes, and you can go to relay.fm membership to learn more about that. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, Mike Hurley.